CBI Archive
Comic Dictionary - Nepotistic Continuity
Saturday, January 15th, 2005 at 9:56 AM EST
Updated: Saturday, January 15th, 2005 at 9:56 AM EST
This is when a writer uses strong continuity in his or her comics, but only when it is in reference to something (a work or a creation) that THAT writer did in the past.
Chuck Dixon was big on this, having minor characters from one of his four Bat-books show up constantly in his other Bat-books.
The funniest point of Dixon’s nepotistic continuity history is when he had the clone of Guy Gardner show up in Birds of Prey.
3 Comments
moose n squirrel
May 28, 2006 at 1:23 pm
It should be said, though, that without Dixon’s nepotistic continuity, Oracle would probably never have caught on. After Ostrander’s Suicide Squad, she would likely have dropped off the radar if Chuck Dixon hadn’t become enamored of the character (and thus used her in every book he wrote). Thus, while John Ostrander may have rehabilitated the post-Killing Joke Barbara Gordon, Chuck Dixon and his nepotistic ways made her a major player in the DCU.
Brian Cronin
May 28, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Nepotistic continuity isn’t necessarily a negative thing!
Sorry if I gave off that impression!
King Cobra
July 26, 2006 at 2:50 pm
In a weird way, nepotistic continuity makes MORE sense if you take the “This is a large world, and weird things happen in a Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon kind of way.”
F’rinstance, why SHOULDN’T Guy Gardner’s clone show up in Birds of Prey? Dinah had extensive (though negative) interactions with Guy, and shares a lot of the same “friends & family”.
Even the best writers tend to return to the same characters (or character archetypes) repeatedly.