Another edition of "Cleaning out the Notebook" Article by aviewaskewed, 02:35 AM 20th Feb Disclaimer: The following column is entirely the opinions of the author (even at that we aren‘t sure), any similarity to the opinions of any other staff or affiliate of theendlesscrew.com is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Unless specifically noted otherwise, all creator comments have been gleaned from other sources and no creators have actually endorsed any aspect of this column. Just couldn’t get one out last week, I cannot for the life of me remember why, just too busy I think is what it came down to, not having a topic either probably. No real topic this week either, so I’ll just hit on a bunch of things I’ve read this week, and we’ll see if anything approaching interesting commentary somehow falls out of it. On we go, with another edition of “Cleaning out the notebook”: Morrison on Batman: Was thinking of actually doing a whole column on this one, then the inner cynic took over. Much as I love Grant Morrison’s writing, much as I fully expect he’ll be taking Batman in an at least slightly new direction (away from all that hyper-Miller crazy man darkness shit that has just gotten out of hand the last few years), the fact is that this is yet another writer on the book, and since it’s someone with some “celebrity” I really don’t much think the change will stick. Not to mention while I don’t think Morrison will phone it in, I’m not sure he necessarily chomped at the bit for this assignment either. Personally, I want to see a more stable Batman, and Morrison has the balls and the talent enough to give us one, but will that Batman be sticking around after Morrison takes off? Only time will tell. Might try giving the book a look again, I was trying for awhile, then Winnick’s first arc and War Games scared me off, and the whole “Jason Todd back from the dead!” and “Aftermath” stuff just didn’t do anything to make me want to try picking it up again. Rich Johnston talks about the industry: Yes, he was drunk, but Johnston usually knows his stuff. A lot of what he laid out about DC is pretty distressing I think for them. A new multiple earth system? Unless they are going to be very rigid on number, and distinction (which even if they are in the beginning, it’ll be very easy for that to get out of hand when there’s another regime shift, if not sooner), we’re just going to be going right back to where Crisis on Infinite Earths put us. Not to mention the news saying almost all of the books would become more insular, and connected. I’ve said in the past that the shared universe concept can be fun, but I personally would rather read something like Exiles, where the connection is pretty miniscule, and I can go out and enjoy that book with basically zero worry that I’m going to have to buy any other books I may or may not want anything to do with just to get the whole story. Marvel is supposedly doing a bait and switch with Civil War, making people think they’re going the “fan service” route, and then switching it up and actually pushing forward. Excuse me, but shouldn’t true fan service be moving forward? Shouldn’t that kind of a term be synonymous with pushing towards better work, better reads, and not just giving us the same old crap? That it shouldn’t be synonymous with kissing ass to an old school fan base that will dwindle and can only support product so far? It should be, but it’s NOT. I cannot believe that anybody at any company these days can seriously be considering a program of insulation and shutting doors in the face of potential new readers is a good business model. It’s the same thinking that burst the bubble back in the ‘90’s when everybody catered to the speculators. Granted, these people will stick longer, but the problem here is that these people will only stick as long as they’re interested, or as long as they have the income to spend, meanwhile you have pissed off, and cost yourself potential new dollars, that for all you know could have been dollars guaranteed for the life of that customer. I wish I had some crazy great plan to make everything better, but I don’t, not enough information. But it seems even an outsider looking in should be able to very aptly point out that catering to your current customer base with a business plan that has been described as “take ‘em for all they got, and the hell with advancement or new business” is just vaguely insane. Peter David points out the flaws in exclusive agreements: Yeah, yeah, I’m coat-tailing off Steven Grant with this comment, but I think it bears repeating to people who don’t make his excellent “Permanent Damage” column at CBR a destination read every Wednesday (and if you don’t, well, start doing it, I’m positive I’ve plugged it here before, because I figure if I’m doing nothing else right with this gig, I can at least point you to people who are), that Peter David’s exclusive, which allows him to work on all of his non-Marvel projects at smaller publishers is just another shot at the idea of the “exclusive” agreement. But really, I’m not sure who exactly is benefiting there, I think it’s the creator’s more then anybody. The old freelance system of jumping between the major two publishers is still strong, but it’s just that these days creators can jump, and get them to kick in for medical for years between jumps. Good for them! Whether the way most exclusives are structured and dealt is a move of altruism (not bloody likely) or a move of greed (ding! Ding! We have a winner!) on the publisher’s part is pretty irrelevant to me, least talented folks are doing what they love and are good at, and getting their families taken care of in the process. Still though, if the publishers want more bang for their bucks, perhaps they should look into what Vince McMahon does with his contracts, and put some sort of “no-compete” or “right of first negotiation” in for when the contract ends so they can actually try to hang onto these people for longer then whatever the amount of years they had written into their contract is. Marvel takes control: So as we all know, Ultimate Avengers hits this week, and I was getting into a bit of a debate with Stafff this week over whether or not this means that we could see other publishers take their properties more in house in terms of media development. In a word? No. There’s two things you need to do what Marvel do: Means, and Opportunity. The only other publisher who really has means at this point to my knowledge, is DC, and they will NEVER get the opportunity because they’re means are tied into AOL/Time Warner, who will never let DC properties get outside their sphere of influence really (just look at Death, which the Warner studio rejected, but satellite company New Line Cinema picked up). There are publishers making deals to get their comics out there into movies and TV, and good for them, I strongly believe the more positive exposure the medium gets, the easier it will be for people to respect it, and speak of it in the same way they speak of film and prose. But no one is going to be able to do what Marvel has done anytime soon, I hope they will one day, but it’s ridiculous to get your hopes up for it any time soon. I also think this is a positive as we should be hearing a lot less about how Avi Arad killed a pitch, or re-directed a book because “doing it more edgy could hurt the film rights!” yeah…I know the film rights make a lot of money, but you know what? If I put down my ever increasing single issue dollars, I want the best book that creator was capable of giving me, not the best book he was capable of giving me based on keeping this palatable to some Hollywood suit. Yes, I’m a dreamer, but the only way dreams come true is if we keep dreaming them. No change ever happened unless somebody fought for it. Exiles is good, go read it!: Continuing to plug books I think are good and deserving of attention, check out Exiles. I just finished the 8th and 9th trade today and like JSA, this is just a book that seems to do no wrong in my eyes. With it’s reality spanning cast, it’s not loaded with huge amounts of baggage like most super teams, either in continuity, or in upholding the ideas of the past…these people are forging ahead and making the rules as they go along, compelled to fix the broken chain of reality after reality, lest the entire Marvel multi-verse collapse. Not to mention they get into some missions that are dire (like the Earth gaining freaking sentience!) or downright silly (to save the world…they must buy a cheese danish). Give this book a one to two trade commitment, and if you can honestly tell me you aren’t hooked, I will…um…something. Seriously, this is a lot of great sci-fi elements here, and if you were a fan of the show Quantum Leap, you are really gonna love this book. Well, that’s all for this week I think. I hope you enjoyed reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it. Also, challenge time again, but I’m going to expand it since to me, reading in general is important. So go out this week, and read a new comic, or a prose book, hell, read a magazine even. Just read SOMETHING, and make it something you’ve never read before. Reading is so very, very satisfying, everybody should do it. With that public service out of the way, tune in next week, when I talk about…something. Don’t really have a topic yet, but I’ll try to go back to the unified topic theme of this column. It’s just harder with my comic shop having moved, and my access to new and good material so cut off. Excelsior!! Back to Rants