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Underground > Comic Books >

Solo comic writers vs comics scripts by committee

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

16:59 / 15.04.05

So something quite interesting came up in the DC Countdown thread. I attempted to mount a defence of the Infinite Crisis project by compairing it to Grant Morrison's New X-Men. Cult characters slain in place of sacrifical creations (NXM: Darkstar and Risque, Crisis: Sue Dibney and Blue Beetle) and bad or rather "off" characterisation (NXM: X-Force in the guise of X-Corp Dubai as well as radical tweaks to the core cast, Crisis: The JLA's coldness to Blue Beetle).

The response from the two fan groups has been similar: the Blue Beetle fans are simmering as much as the Darkstar or Jean Grey fans, and the Booster Gold fans are as furious as the Beast fans. Both series are tightly plotted, and I suggested the same ammount of slack be given to Crisis as I'd have suggested to a Claremont fan that NXM should be given slack. After all, this is going somewhere.

This didn't go down well. I was told several times that a Comic arc written by three men and plotted with the EiC couldn't be compaired to a red-hot scott being given the keys to Marvel's merry mutants.

Is that really fair, though, and what implications does that have for someone's consistency when the same model is applied to pop music, films or television? There's a clique on Barbelith that will go for the juggular if it's even suggested a song produced by a comittee need be less vaild than the work of a singer/songwriter. Very few films are the work of a singular auteur (although some are, which again makes for an interesting comparison) and TV is similarly analogous.

In summary, who's to say Seven Soldiers is more valid than Infinite Crisis, and why? When applied to other media, is that a supportable viewpoint?

19:13 / 15.04.05

It's about Quality; the quality of the end product will justify or not the actions of the commitee or the auteur. As examples;, I can see Countdown being comparable to 7 Soldiers #0.

Both are single issues designed to have a variety of mini-series spin out of it. Both are based on the Superhero genre. And both are set in the DC universe.
Of the two 7 soldiers is far superior. what this says about music, movies etc... I don't know, but this is a comics board so I figure it's wise to stick with comics here.

00:35 / 16.04.05

Some of my best works have been collaborations. But that's only because we shared a plan for how the story laid out. ONE of the writers/editors has to wave the baton. If it's catch as catch can, then yes, it'll most likely vacuum like a singularity.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:21 / 16.04.05

This didn't go down well. I was told several times that a Comic arc written by three men and plotted with the EiC couldn't be compaired to a red-hot scott being given the keys to Marvel's merry mutants.

You've misunderstood the criticism your position received, I think. A major crossover requires consultation with a large number of writers and editors and, if this is an actual crossover event, it will have to be dealt with in various ways by the writers of many other comics as well. One notable thing about Morrison's X-Men was that the continuity was very quickly healed over - writers of other books at the same time didn't have to address it, and subsequently Magneto was exonerated and returned to life, Cassandra Nova was largely forgotten, the Phoenix stuff is being sorted out now, and so on. Further, of course, I don't think Darkstar or Risque had the same following or the same standing in the X-Universe as Blue Beetle or Booster Gold in the DCU, and I doubt that so much fuss was caused, which means your comparison is a bit off from the start. Beast is probably a better example, but of course Beast had already changed his form a fair few times so, again, was this fan outrage or other?

The way you've framed this thread seems to demand an agreement that the only reason advanced for not being keen on Infinite Crisis and being keen on Seven Soldiers is that one is the product of an editorial committee and the other of a single writer. I'd be surprised if you could find anyone actually saying that.

12:38 / 16.04.05

I'd also add that while the title and summary appears to concern itself with the differences between come creators who both write and draw their work and those who collaborate with others in areas where they are not quite so skilled. However the first post then seems to focus on single writers versus a group of writers (getting a little muddled in the process, as Haus points out).

Comics is not just about writing- the art is pretty important to, otherwise we'd just be talking about scripts.

I think there is an interesting thread to be had on the many subtle differences between the work of writer/artist comic creators and comic creators who work collaboratively.
THere is probably also an interesting thread in the differences between writers working alone and in colaboration on comic scripts.

It would helpful to decide which of the above this thread is aiming to be - we can change the title and summary if necessary...

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:35 / 16.04.05

And comics don't need to be written by committee to be crap, I give you Chuck Austen's X-Men... (I'll return to this thread when it's been decided what it's actually about)

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

21:02 / 16.04.05

Chuck's X-Men run could be considered comics by comittee if you factor in the editorial mandates he recieved. He ballsed it up on his own, but such is life.

Grant's run did have considerable infulence on the other X-books, actually - year one of Xtreme X-Men was re-written from the ground up (after Beast had to be quickly re-shuffled) and the Weapon + and Planet X arcs required substantial changes to be made to the directions of Weapon X and New Mutants. So much so they've had to announce a Weapon X mini to clear up all the plot threads that got forced into that book.