Cleaning Out the Gutters - Discussing LITG V. 2 #171 [UPDATE]
It’s that time of the week when I direct everyone over to see the latest issue of Rich Johnston’s Lying in the Gutters.
Now, this is Rich’s column, so I won’t repeat everything here, I will however talk about a couple of things I found interesting.
As Rich himself said on Twitter: “do you have a comics blog? Run out of material? Never fear, LITG is here”
- Hopefully he is not just referring to me What can I say Rich, you do get the best Gossip! You should be proud that your writing inspires others so.
DC Title Cancellations
I had noticed this myself recently too. It seems that DC keep canceling the titles which I enjoy. Or, as in the case of Checkmate, removing the high profile writer attached, and replacing him with a no-talent hack! Leading to the slow death of the title.
When I first got back into comics a few years ago, I was mostly attracted to DC titles, having been a bit of a Marvel Zombie in my late teens. I can definitely say that in the last 3 years I have seen an obvious decline in the quality of DC titles, as they weed out the low-selling, but critically acclaimed, titles, and put all their energies into moderate selling broad base titles.
If they cancel Simon Dark and Blue Beetle I will be incredibly angry. These are two of the best books they publish. JLA is one of their highest selling titles, and it is pitifully bad. We currently have an arc featuring Amazo in Red Tornado’s body, which is exactly how Brad Meltzer opened the new series last year. I guess if it works once, it’ll work twice right.
As for me, I have recently canceled the following DC titles off my pull-list: Trinity, Wonder-Woman, Superman, Nightwing, Green Lantern Corps, Raan-Thanagar: Holy War, and Tangent Superman’s Reign. I am also considering dropping JLA, The Flash, and Detective Comics.
Well folks, that is all I am going to discuss today, head over to LITG and discuss stuff on Rich’s board if you like.
[UPDATE]
BTW, the feuding former writing team is clearly Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, not DnA, or Grant/Wagner as others are guessing
Related posts:
- Cleaning Out the Gutters - Discussing LITG V. 2 #168
- Cleaning Out the Gutters - Discussing LITG V. 2 #170
- Cleaning Out the Gutters - Discussing LITG V. 2 #165
- Cleaning Out the Gutters - Discussing LITG V. 2 #167
- Cleaning Out the Gutters - Discussing LITG V. 2 #169
All those things you dropped from your pull list were more than worth dropping, IMHO. DC and Marvel are pretty much unreadable across the board as far as I can see — it’s just one or two stand-out titles that are keeping the flame alive.
To be honest, I am looking forward to the potential mass exodus of creators away from the Big Two and toward indie publishers like Image — a rennaisance in creator-owned books is loooong overdue, and the big boys need a wake-up call.
I see you have been watching Robert Kirkman’s mission statement.
I had mixed feelings over that. I really love my creator owned titles, and would love to see an increase in the number of them, but I really don’t think his video has helped much.
Perhaps a well thought out written statement would have been a better approach. He just comes over a little arrogant with statements like how he is going to save the comic book industry. Then he suggests all the comic book publishers get together on a boat, d’oh!
Something I did like to see was how enthusiastic he is about comic books. Clearly he loves his work, and his chosen medium, and wants to prolong the attention and success it is currently receiving.
I could see what he was trying to say, but I can see how others might misinterpret it, and how it will get the big two a bit annoyed.
Actually, I think we are going to have to start calling them the big one and the medium one, because Marvel are just crushing DC right now. It is a little sad really.
- Ed
You know, I thought Trinity picked up once they introduced the CSA…and I've really liked Tomasi's work on Nightwing. If I was a bigger fan of the property, I know I'd dig his work on GLC, too. But I can best understand Superman, Tangent, Detective, JLA, Holy War & The Flash (the latter because they changed direction so many damn times and Barry's on the way).