Creating the Culture part 2 Article by aviewaskewed, 01:25 AM 04th Oct 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. Some people go out on Saturday nights, I type up a mediocre comic column. Yep, total geek. So last week I covered what the fans have done positively for the industry, this week I cover what they do wrong. It’s occurred to me that the one year anniversary of the main site’s launch passed us, so maybe that’s why I’m going off on this topic, some higher power making me revisit where it all started. Or, you know, maybe the well is just finally running dry and this is to stave off total and utter block. So anyway, let’s get back to the topic at hand, the fans, and how they’re screwing up. The biggest thing the fans have screwed up is continuity. Continuity is a blessing, and a curse in the mainstream. I think just about everybody would agree that it’s nice to have characters with history, hell, one of the reasons I really enjoy the JSA is because they have a rich and vibrant history dating back to WW2, it’s neat, and with the exception of two stories, it all counts. But ah…there’s the rub. Two of those stories don’t count in the “continuity” because the wigs at DC decided that the Earth 2 concept needed to be done away with, so Batman and Superman couldn’t be JSA members, it would mess up the continuity, and those stories can only be read for the entertainment value in them. But that’s not really a fan muck up per se. But it is indicitive of the sort of editorial and creative decisions that have come down over the years because certain individuals in power are fans of one character or a set of characters, and don’t have any use for the others. That’s not to say that EVERY character EVER needs to be used, but too often it becomes a game of “who does nobody care about that we can kill off?” I mean, I don’t think publishers should play those games, or we as fans should be encouraging that, every character is somebody’s favorite, and if they’re going to have a change of personality and/or be killed off (like Max Lord) then it needs to be explained, it needs to make sense, and it needs to lead into better storytelling. But the other things fans outside of that system do, is enslave creative to continuity, hey, I’m all for getting the big events right, and making sure to remember important details (like my retailer and I were talking about the Psycho Pirate remembering the multiple earths which he thought was a glitch, but I pointed out that as Crisis on Infinite Earths ends, he’s left as the only character who remembers that period). I think it’s reprehensible to ignore milestones in a characters life, or try to toy with them unjustly (Gwen Stacy the cheating girlfriend anyone?), but some people are just TOO obsessed. Some people it seems have nothing better to do with their time then get every issue of a series, and nitpick all the minor little things that are wrong with it. If it’s fairly recent, fine, you should be able to keep something with maybe 20 years of consistent publishing straight, but how old are the big icons? The youngest of them, like Spider-Man, is about 40, the oldest, like Batman and Superman are 50 or 60 years old and in the case of the latter two? Nobody thought these stories would continue. I don’t think Stan Lee even saw Spider-Man going on. The rule of thumb in publishing at that point was “the readers turn over every 5 years, and ride a trend till it loses momentum” I mean, the JSA ran for 20 years or so over at DC, and they didn’t even get a send off story when they were cancelled and turned into All-Star Western, they just have yet another story, and bam, next month it’s something new. I think Stan was just figuring he was going to find a way to tap into a burgeoning audience (hey, if he’s doing his job as EIC, he should be looking at the competitions books, and if he was, he was probably reading letters columns that clamored for the return of older characters), but probably didn’t figure the material would sustain itself forever. If he really did? Then I think he would have either quit Marvel and gone off to go create these characters on his own, or he would have gotten himself a better deal on the rights then he really did. What’s the point of this very long tangent? The point is that continuity is nice, but people really need to start realizing that the whole concept is a happy accident, not the result of any real planning or design on the part of publishers, and that sometimes you really just need to enjoy something on the basis of whether or not it’s a good story, and not whether or not it gels with issue #232 from 10 years ago. You’re cheating yourself I think if you do. Another thing that fans have messed up is that they’ve become too welded to creators past. Now, I understand that guys like Frank Miller and Alan Moore raised the bar incredibly high, and we’re all fans of their work I think, but you know what? If you grew up a fan of theirs, and became a creator, and you work on a book they worked on like lets say Daredevil? You don’t simply ape Miller and tread the same ground he did, you say “ok, here’s the bar, how can I raise it? How can I take this book, turn it on it’s head, and blaze my own trail?” Whether you like Brian Bendis or not, you have to agree with me that he’s a creator who has realized that while he may stand on the shoulders of giants, he has an obligation to not just retread what’s gone before, but to blaze a new trail, to bring these characters into the future. That‘s what all you fans turned creators currently working in not just the mainstream, but on your own books have an obligation to do. You’re keeping this business going for the next crop of fans, the next crop of creators. Create the magic you had that made you want to get into this business. But the single worst thing fans do, is they misuse perhaps the greatest thing to happen to comics ever: the internet. What you say? Think about it, what was the whole point of letter columns in comics for years and years? To create community. To link fans who were reading the books from all over the country together by their love of a character, a book, whatever. Now you have the internet, which allows comics fans and creators to connect instantly on a more intimate level then ever before, and what are you doing with it folks? Many of you are wasting this golden opportunity on going off and flameing creators you don’t like, pissing all over publishers in petty bitterness. Hey, I can understand righteous anger, I’m righteously angry most of the days of my life, but there’s a difference between righteous anger, and letting someone know you’re not a fan of what they’re doing, and just going off and being a whiney little prick. Mark Waid and Mike Weiringo got fired off Fantastic Four, and the outpouring of backlash, ranged from people voicing simple displeasure and a desire to drop the book (which is fine, that’s your right, and something I encourage everyone to do when you feel a publisher has taken a book you care about in the wrong direction), to death threats against Marvel hierarchy. Yes, death threats, come on people, I love comics as much as any of you reading this, maybe more. But that is an absolute waste of this wonderful innovation that’s been dropped into our laps. What may be even worse are the fans that allow themselves to become pawns of a creator in one of THEIR pissing matches and feuds on the internet (John Byrne/Wikipedia anyone?), hey, I’m a moderator, I’m a forum admin, I know it’s a problem for some people to form opinions of their own on the net. Seems to me some people are coming on the net because of some crippling emotional problem and need to find a stronger personality to graft themselves to. But hey, let’s try forming a PERSONAL opinion, ok? Fans who don’t, who engage in threatening publishers, throwing tantrums, and punctuating their statements with what seems to be a game of “how many curse words can I throw out in one post?” are not only pathetic in this man’s opinion, but you’re a black eye, a blight on the industry, and you do nothing but make us all look bad by association. Only a couple notes this week, partially because this column is going up so late, sorry about that, I had some personal business crop up last night that simply had to be dealt with. Thank you for understanding, and it’s all taken care of for those of you that worry about that sort of thing: Infinite Crisis is upon us: OMAC is over, and JLA has led us directly in, and I have to say, I am excited, as is my jaded retailer. DC has absolutely done it’s job in building up the anticipation, and making the event “must read” at least for the first issue. Now let’s see if they can keep that momentum going down the line. Congratulations to the Yankees: Wow, what a nail biter they gave us huh? This fan is very much looking forward to the playoff game later on today, sadly we could not put those hated Red Socks away, but maybe the White Sox can help us with that? That’s all for this week. Take care until we meet again. Back to Rants