A blog with rants about stuff.

Right now it almost feels like we’re on the cusp of a new wave of creator-owned properties, of new comics that aren’t necessarily super-hero, or coming out of the big two, or some character that’s been bumping around since whenever. It’s interesting, and somewhat inspiring, and occasionally annoying. It just depends on the situation.

I know Eric Powell has made his statement. Robert Kirkman made his years ago, and yet it seems like everyone thought he was kind of crazy at the time. Joe Casey talks about it most any time he’s interviewed. Steve Niles has spoken as well, and so has Ron Marz. I think I liked Marz’s best, and it made me want to search out his story he mentioned, Samurai: Heaven & Earth. I haven’t yet, but it is on my list.

It makes me think though, of what a huge influence the larger comics have had on the comics industry, and on me in particular. My initial forays into comics were an oversized reprinting of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams Batman comics, the Archie Adventures series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Iron Man, which when I started reading it was when the main feature was War Machine. These were all series that were way down the line from their original creators. This, of course, says nothing about the quality of comic they were.

I took a look not too long ago, when the discussion first got brewing hotly, at the top 300 sales for December 2010. I wanted to see what books were creator-owned that were being published, and where they stood. It was a bit difficult figuring this out, what with properties like Witchblade or Spawn falling into fuzzy territory. Mark Millar is way up top with Nemesis and Superior, and then the next one is…Lady Mechanika. The Boys, American Vampire, these are the books up top when you remove all the others. It’s kind of crazy to think about, because at number 10 is Lady Death.

Look at some of the big properties. If their original creative teams (and being a bit loose with it for the sake of the argument) worked on these properties and retained the rights afterwards, and left with their property when they were done, the landscape would be a lot different. Take the Hal Jordan take on Green Lantern (we’ll imagine through a loophole that they were able to create a new character with the same name), which was done by John Broome and Gil Kane. Gil Kane stayed on the book all the way up until issue 70 (1970, incidentally). That would have been it. The Barry Allen Flash? Carmine Infantino ran with it all the way til 350 in 1985. And then that’s it. Superman ended back in June 1945. Batman had a good run, up until 1975.

Some of these have incredibly short runs when taking this into account. The X-Men ran 19 issues. Green Arrow ran as a feature in More Fun Comics from issues 73-84, ending in October of 1942. Captain America ran 10 issues. It’s silly but at the same time, can you imagine the impact? Sure, comics were different then. Each age seems to have had its own way of introducing new characters or new books. In the Golden Age, most of these stories started in an anthology, and if popular enough, would get a secondary bi-monthly feature. In the Silver Age books had try-outs leading up to a new series. The Bronze Age pretty much just seemed to drop a new book out of midair and hope it stuck, whereas in the beginnings of the modern age, we’d give a new unproven title 5 variants (one foil) and a guest appearance from Wolverine to attract attention. There are all types of methods going on now.

What I’m trying to say, and what I think to a certain extent some of these creators are saying too, is that we love the superhero comics. They inspire much of what goes on in the creator owned stuff. But I think, to a certain extent, we are exhausted. Every week, the companies roll out another string of new comics, and you know what? I want to check them out. I want to read about all these heroes, even though a couple of years ago I couldn’t care about Thor or Captain America, now these are the best books out there. But it’s too much. I can’t do it. It’s far too time consuming. When I look at my bookshelf at my comics, the books I reread and look over again are Bone, and Scott Pilgrim, and Mushishi, and Usagi Yojimbo. There are some gems in the superhero world too, cause I love picking up Incredible Hercules: Against the World again, and again laugh and giggle as Ares cracks Wonder Man over the head, and steals a pink convertible from some random woman. I love comics. But I’d like to see a balance.