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I remember this guy was the most hated guy on the internet since Ron Marz made Hal go whacko. Kinda feel bad for the guy after reading this interview.
chuck speaks
Some interesting bits.
On his sucky X-Men issues.
A lot of people didn't like "Draco," but we tried. It's really tough, because people say "Y'know, we've been reading the same old thing" so then you give them something different and they say "Oh I hate what you did." That's another time I ran into someone who didn't like my work. So, we're up to three, now. Maybe I got more complaints than I realized [laughs]. He said, "That Draco thing-- it sucked" and I replied, "Ok, so what do you want me to do about that?" to which he replied "I've been collecting X-Men for 16 years and now I've stopped." So I say, "Well, I guess I saved you three dollars a month!"- what am I supposed to say to that? "Draco" got some negative response, but we were trying to do our best and put out something that everyone would like. And we failed. [laughs] No one died.
On claims that he is a misogynist.
When I read my comics about hot women with enormous tits, I want them to be realistically portrayed as strong, independent babes who don't need a man, but still feel good enough about themselves to wear skin-tight clothing and pose provocatively while settling their differences with violence!" I mean, really. Come on. That's a bizarre thing to say: do people even know what misogynist means? It means "hates all women." Really, do you get that out of my writing?
Retailers hated him so much they told Didio they'd never order a book by Austen? Blacklisted.
They were having problems with my scripts and general direction, and sales weren't where they wanted them. They wanted a top ten book, and felt another writer could get them there, when I couldn't. What I was told was that Dan Didio had a conversation with various retailers who said they would never order anything with my name on it because they hated me so much, and that it was creating a ceiling of sales on "Action" that I would never be able to break through. So, I was off Superman. I refused to work under a pseudonym, so DC fired me and blacklisted me from the company. I took that as the opportunity to get out of comics and back into other forms of creativity
The state of the industry and why all the crossovers.
Well, y'know, I haven't really looked back at it much since I left, but from what I hear, you can tell it's gone in the opposite direction. When Joe [Quesada, Marvel EiC] brought me onboard, he was trying to reach out beyond the current market and was trying to find someone who could write outward to new readers. From what I hear, they've completely pulled back from that and they've come to the realization, as I did near the end, that there are no new readers. It's all the long-term fan base that's been there for many years and you have to appeal to them or you don't appeal to anybody. So, everyone's doing more crossovers and big events to spike up sales numbers, so it sounds like they've kind of reverted back to what it was in, what, the early nineties? I have to wonder, and I don't know the sales figures, if sales are still overall generally on a decline, but I don't know what to think about the market. Obviously the direction I was going wasn't working for them, especially if you've got stores that won't carry your book because they don't like you personally, no matter what their customers, fans and readers may think. That's a pretty strong message to a company to go the other way. Appease the fans, or die. |
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