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Underground > Comic Books >

Creation versus redesign

23:15 / 01.03.05

Anyone know much about this proposed Albion series? Last I heard of it, very tangentially, was around that time that AOL/Warner had bought the IPC properties. Now I read that it's going to be Leah M. following a plot outline set down by Alan M.

So my question is, for the nonce: what's leah's work like? Did anyone read Wild Girl or whatever it was called?

I don't know what it is that appeals to me about the whole repurposing of old superheroes kind of story, but I always get a little buzz when i hear of this kind of thing. I know it's been going for a while now (hell, it goes back to the silver age, doesn't it? at least...), and I think there's some merit in that kind of postmodern writing, but I wonder what lithers thoughts are on the "reinvent" versus "invent" paradigm in superheroes. Thinking of Grant creating Aztek from scratch, or Seaguy, or Flex Mentallo... others have done it too, of course, but am I right in thinking that the reponse from comic readers is usually bigger when it's a revamp of an existing character as opposed to a totally new one? is that a nostalgia thing? in terms of artists' choices, is it just that there's such a huge pool of pre-existing characters out there and the temptation is huge?

Makes me feel guilty about my vague desires to do a revampy kind of thing on a bunch of terminally obscure Australian superheroes from the 1940s.

I have no idea where I'm going with this one...

m.

23:35 / 01.03.05

I'm not sure there is a significant difference between the two -

Nothing comes out of a void, even redesigns require some element of creation...

to put it another way, are the haracters featured in 'Watchmen' original or not? They were written to be the Charlton Comics haracters, but their names and appearences were changed...

To cut a long a story short - revamp the 1940s Australian character if you think you can do something interesting with it...

23:57 / 01.03.05

If you think about it, the great majority of superhero concepts are essentially revamps. You have a dozen or so archetypes, like The Patriotic Defender, The Misunderstood Brute, or the Vengeful Vigilante (among others)

What makes a superhero creation good or bad is not his conceptual origins, but how the concepts are implemented.

00:02 / 02.03.05

I love revamps and original creations equally. I'm looking forward to Grant revamping the DC characters for Seven Soldiers. Sometimes it's the only way to meet the potential for an already-created character.

01:29 / 02.03.05

Sleaze & Mario - point taken, but I think there is a quantitative difference between playing with archetypes (even superhero ones) and taking an existing character and redoing them somehow. The difference between Milligan's Shade, the Changing Man or the new OMAC and Seaguy or Aztek is quite distinct.

I'm not so much worried about one versus the other, just wondering what people thought of the issue. Maybe it's a postmodernism vs. whatever you call things that aren't overtly postmodern thing I'm driving at, but then again maybe not.

and yes, point taken, these considerations are irrelevant if the writing's good... or are they...?

m.

11:54 / 02.03.05

I think the problems many fans have with revamps are in direct proportion to the emotional attachments they have to the original.

So, for example, if you revamp Batman or Spider-Man, you can expect a lot of resistance. OTOH, if you revamp Adam Strange or Cloak & Dagger, you're a genius. =)

And I do believe, personally, that the writing can (and probably should) be good enough to overcome these obstacles. Miracleman is a perfect example.

13:24 / 02.03.05

I'd argue thqat the difference between Milligan's Shade and Morrison's Aztek is not as relevant as the difference between Ditko's Shade and Milligan's Shade - Between Wein/Infantino's Human Target and Milligan's Human Target.

In both those exampes someone else created the comics but arguably the most interesting, engaging and best remembered tales are associated with the the more recent rejuvenations.

I'd definitely recommend listening to the Alan Moore Chain reaction interview (available as an MP3 on some reaches of the internet) on this point with relation to Swamp Thing. It's almost impossible to think of Swamp Thing without also thinking of Moore's reworking of the character...

14:05 / 02.03.05

Leah Moore's two short little Tom Strong stories were quite good, but I didn't read Wild Girl, just skimmed it. The concept seemed boring to me, and aside from the brief sections of J.H. Williams III's art, I wasn't in the least bit interested. Even the logo sucked (crappy Comicraft font from the 90s).

I really wish The Great One a.k.a. Alan Moore scripted this Albion thing. Alan Moore plotting and someone other than Alan Moore scripting is usually pretty weak stuff...esp. by comparison. You know you could be getting Alan Moore and anything feels pales by comparison, no offense to his quite capable but not nearly as brilliant as he is offspring.

21:33 / 02.03.05

I'd argue thqat the difference between Milligan's Shade and Morrison's Aztek is not as relevant as the difference between Ditko's Shade and Milligan's Shade - Between Wein/Infantino's Human Target and Milligan's Human Target.

relevant to what? or do you mean "more interesting"? I don't deny that it's an interesting idea, but what I'm getting at is more a question of the kind of attention that brand new ideas get as opposed to the brand new interpretations? how well does a new superhero survive these days?

I suppose that Image superhero-title thingy with Invincible and the orange dragon teenager guy is an example of contemporary invention.

I think personally I'm heaps more excited by discovering something new like Street Angel (just for an example) than I am GM and FQ's Superman. That's not to say I don't LIKE the ideas behind the Allstar Superman, it's just that I'm more jazzed by Street Angel, or Aztek, or Seaguy, or Frank Ironwine for that matter.

m.

22:11 / 02.03.05

My point was that a comparison between Ditko's Shade and Milligan's Shade was more relevant to a discussion about the merits of newly created characters versus renovated characters because although Ditko created Shade it was Milligan's reinvention that made Shade worth reading... this might just be opinion tho...

00:38 / 03.03.05

that's a good point - didn't pick up on that nuance.

but what about characters that are newly created that DO work in terms of audience response (ie, they get readers), like say Kirby's fourth world, or even Spiderman back in 1967 or whenever it was? do you think there's room for that kind of thing these days? And if so, where's it happening?

What about from a creator's point of view? what are the relative merits of new idea vs. new twist for them?

m.

08:05 / 03.03.05

I still think it's all a matter of perspective... is there anything really all that new under the sun?

Is posy Simmond's Gemma Bovery an original GN when it draws heavily on Flaubert's novel... Isn't Flex Mentallo just a revamp of an old 1950 advert?

As far as 'creators' are concerned the main draw of new ideas or at least things that are sold as new ideas is their ownership.

How many new comics with ostensibly new characters were published last year where the authors didn't have some kind of interest (ownership or a stake) in the character...?

From a reader point of view, it's an easier sale if the reader has some kind of handle on what a book,/comic/character/whatever are about than if it is an unfamiliar concept...

09:33 / 03.03.05

yeah, i think the point of this has kind of disappeared under scrutiny. So how about this one: what is it that appeals to you (the general you) about these things like albion and seven soldiers? is it a nostalgia thingy or what?

m.

10:15 / 03.03.05

Well, I think nostalgia mas been a bit of a hook for getting Moore involved with the project - which is pretty much the reason for the projects existence - to get more comics that can be associated with the Moore out there.

Having said which while I am aware of the old IPC comics, (which it seems almost every british comic creator has revived at some point in some slightly altered form as a means of exploring Britain's indigenous 'superheroes' [although I'd argue that they were never superheroes]), I have never actually read the original strips.

I hadn't even heard of the seven soldiers before the morrison series was mooted.

What will induce me to pick up these comics, as with any comics, will be the involvement of talented creators exploring intriguing ideas and an engaging way...

For me, these comics are going to stand or fall on their own merits, although I think it undeniable that the heritage of the characters involved won't bring in some kind of legacy readership - but hey - isn't that a bonus, adding numbers to the sales that wouldn't be therre otherwise?

12:58 / 03.03.05

Well, in the case of Seven Soldiers, I'm not buying the minis because I have any fondness for the characters being revamped...I'm buying them because I'm intrigued by the premise[s], and by Grant's ideas about storytelling structure, where each issue works on two or three levels (standalone, part of the mini, and part of the overall storyline).

So they might as well be new characters.