First off, how dare you say that my favourite subject is myself. My favourite subject is whether or not variant covers are destroying the industry and you KNOW that.
Secondly! This is more for the original questioner, but I will never again sign an exclusive contract. It made sense back when I did it with Marvel as it was the only way I was able to experience the fabled "Marvel Summits" (where Tom yells at all of us for ruining his beloved characters), but even so I only ever did so with one-year contracts because I hate that feeling of contractual obligation!
Nowadays I'm far too content having the freedom to work with specific editors that I like (ugh Tom included) and on projects across companies.
And this has been another edition of "Chip's Corner of Brevoort's Bulletin"!!!
I’ll agree with Chip’s comment here above mine, thanks for including those Moon Knight pages! It’s helpful to see the behind the scenes editor works.
The photos from the exhibit are also interesting, and hopefully I can see the new one sometime. A few years ago I went to a small exhibit dedicated to Alex Ross for promotion of his Marvelocity book, it was fun!
Entering in the realm of questions, and I believe you’ve touched on it before, do you ever concern yourself with the notion that newer generations could be too “cynical” for superheroes? It has been noted by writers that hope can be harder to pull off and get people to buy into.
For me the most illustrative example would be Batman and Joker’s conflict. Sadly due to recent events some of the Joker’s actions can no longer be seen has highly imaginative escapsim-ish type danger but instead are events that too regularly occur with lasting real life consequence. This, coupled with Joker’s tendency (in my opinion) to be presented not so much as insane but just plain evil, makes it hard to feel as though Batman saves the day when he sends the Joker to be broken out of Arkham again. Some days Batman’s taking of the high road seems harder and harder to digest. While I’m not advocating for Batman to execute Joker or anything, part of my wonders if the cylindrical nature of Batman and Joker will grow old to readers as outside pressures crack some of the escapism of stories.
Most online gossip I've read about the Gruenwald-Stern parting has always made Gruenwald the bad guy. Thanks for adding the other side and making it clear there were no bad guys involved. Still disappointed though that when we got that those X-Books where Claremont and Simonson continued their stories from their last issue there was no Stern Avengers one as well.
I don’t know if this is the type of feedback on your ongoing comics that you’re looking for, but League of Comic Geeks has a pretty robust number of readers leaving reviews and comments on new releases each week. It’s not in-depth commentary though.
Another great newsletter Tom! I am loving the Jason Aaron avengers run (the Avengers BC special looks damn cool) - I had a question in regards to a quote from your blog - how you state (paraphrasing) that "Thor can be in Asgard but needs to come to Earth once in a while to fight the Absorbing man".
Do you take that into account as an editor when a new writer comes onboard? In regards to the general direction of a series? After the Multiversal antics of the Aaron Avengers do you want the next writer to give us the 5th ave mansion and the team fighting the Masters of Evil? or is it solely based on the best pitch?
Tom, your regret on the passing of comics news sites brought a memory back to me-- Wizard and Toyfare magazines. I'm told that Wizard's information was uh, sometimes inaccurate, but Toyfare, though nominally about action figures, gave a lot of background info on the heroes the toys were based on, as well as some "news" (well, as "new" as a monthly magazine could get) about the comics. Both died in the 90's (I still have my Toyfare collection -- love Twisted Toyfare Theater still-- and were supposed to go online, but alas, never did. RIP my youth.
RE: Comics websites: I feel that https://www.comicsbeat.com/ fits a lot of the holes left by Newsarama and CBR being what they are now. Heidi's team brings a lot to the table. I'm curious to see where Popverse (https://www.thepopverse.com/) goes. They have some talent there, but I'm not crazy about the paywall for some features. (I get it, but I wonder if the audience is large enough for that.)
I also feel like some of these sites don't do in-depth stuff as much because they're afraid of losing access to the professionals in the industry. You end up getting smaller, indie sites or bloggers doing the more investigative articles. The sports industry has similar issues. I think of MLB firing Ken Rosenthal for not repeating the company line during the lockout in his work outside of the MLB engine. I also suspect there's little to no money in this little niche arena.
Thanks once again for the post and for answering my questions. Great answers, and I also enjoyed the timing of mentioning Dark Ages later! 😂
"And sure, DC could offer Chip an exclusive contract tomorrow, but that was true even before he started working on BATMAN." that sentence makes a lot of sense. A simple truth that I didn't realize was there.
I mostly share your views on current websites and I think I'll also take a look at the new sites people link in the comments here.
First off, how dare you say that my favourite subject is myself. My favourite subject is whether or not variant covers are destroying the industry and you KNOW that.
Secondly! This is more for the original questioner, but I will never again sign an exclusive contract. It made sense back when I did it with Marvel as it was the only way I was able to experience the fabled "Marvel Summits" (where Tom yells at all of us for ruining his beloved characters), but even so I only ever did so with one-year contracts because I hate that feeling of contractual obligation!
Nowadays I'm far too content having the freedom to work with specific editors that I like (ugh Tom included) and on projects across companies.
And this has been another edition of "Chip's Corner of Brevoort's Bulletin"!!!
I’ll agree with Chip’s comment here above mine, thanks for including those Moon Knight pages! It’s helpful to see the behind the scenes editor works.
The photos from the exhibit are also interesting, and hopefully I can see the new one sometime. A few years ago I went to a small exhibit dedicated to Alex Ross for promotion of his Marvelocity book, it was fun!
Entering in the realm of questions, and I believe you’ve touched on it before, do you ever concern yourself with the notion that newer generations could be too “cynical” for superheroes? It has been noted by writers that hope can be harder to pull off and get people to buy into.
For me the most illustrative example would be Batman and Joker’s conflict. Sadly due to recent events some of the Joker’s actions can no longer be seen has highly imaginative escapsim-ish type danger but instead are events that too regularly occur with lasting real life consequence. This, coupled with Joker’s tendency (in my opinion) to be presented not so much as insane but just plain evil, makes it hard to feel as though Batman saves the day when he sends the Joker to be broken out of Arkham again. Some days Batman’s taking of the high road seems harder and harder to digest. While I’m not advocating for Batman to execute Joker or anything, part of my wonders if the cylindrical nature of Batman and Joker will grow old to readers as outside pressures crack some of the escapism of stories.
Most online gossip I've read about the Gruenwald-Stern parting has always made Gruenwald the bad guy. Thanks for adding the other side and making it clear there were no bad guys involved. Still disappointed though that when we got that those X-Books where Claremont and Simonson continued their stories from their last issue there was no Stern Avengers one as well.
I don’t know if this is the type of feedback on your ongoing comics that you’re looking for, but League of Comic Geeks has a pretty robust number of readers leaving reviews and comments on new releases each week. It’s not in-depth commentary though.
Another great newsletter Tom! I am loving the Jason Aaron avengers run (the Avengers BC special looks damn cool) - I had a question in regards to a quote from your blog - how you state (paraphrasing) that "Thor can be in Asgard but needs to come to Earth once in a while to fight the Absorbing man".
Do you take that into account as an editor when a new writer comes onboard? In regards to the general direction of a series? After the Multiversal antics of the Aaron Avengers do you want the next writer to give us the 5th ave mansion and the team fighting the Masters of Evil? or is it solely based on the best pitch?
Tom, your regret on the passing of comics news sites brought a memory back to me-- Wizard and Toyfare magazines. I'm told that Wizard's information was uh, sometimes inaccurate, but Toyfare, though nominally about action figures, gave a lot of background info on the heroes the toys were based on, as well as some "news" (well, as "new" as a monthly magazine could get) about the comics. Both died in the 90's (I still have my Toyfare collection -- love Twisted Toyfare Theater still-- and were supposed to go online, but alas, never did. RIP my youth.
RE: Comics websites: I feel that https://www.comicsbeat.com/ fits a lot of the holes left by Newsarama and CBR being what they are now. Heidi's team brings a lot to the table. I'm curious to see where Popverse (https://www.thepopverse.com/) goes. They have some talent there, but I'm not crazy about the paywall for some features. (I get it, but I wonder if the audience is large enough for that.)
I also feel like some of these sites don't do in-depth stuff as much because they're afraid of losing access to the professionals in the industry. You end up getting smaller, indie sites or bloggers doing the more investigative articles. The sports industry has similar issues. I think of MLB firing Ken Rosenthal for not repeating the company line during the lockout in his work outside of the MLB engine. I also suspect there's little to no money in this little niche arena.
Thanks once again for the post and for answering my questions. Great answers, and I also enjoyed the timing of mentioning Dark Ages later! 😂
"And sure, DC could offer Chip an exclusive contract tomorrow, but that was true even before he started working on BATMAN." that sentence makes a lot of sense. A simple truth that I didn't realize was there.
I mostly share your views on current websites and I think I'll also take a look at the new sites people link in the comments here.