Comic Book Resources

And he’s right. Superhero comics are very simple, plot-wise.

Usually they are, although when you break it down, just about ANY form of fiction is pretty simple, plot-wise. Look at tv and film, you can usually break most of them down into a few simple beats.

Yep, that’s true. The difference is that those mediums are not largely dominated by one genre of fiction, which makes it even easier to plot mainstream comics.

Well, it depends. Could a ten year old plot Marvel Adventures Fin Fang Foom #13? Sure. It’d probably be great, actually.

Could a ten year old plot Final Crisis #3 (Or even Millenium #2 or Starman #11 or Bone #16 or New Teen Titans #44 or whatever)? I don’t know.

How about we say: A 10-year old could probably plot a self-contained issue in the traditional Marvel style?

That I can get behind.

Really, if a plot can’t be broken down to a sentence, it’s probably not going to do too well financially.

A friend of mine once fixed me up with an artist friend of hers. I’m a writer, she’s an artist, as two creative people our mutual friend thought it would work out well.

Shortly after our first date, but before we’d set a time and place for the second we had talked about having, we had something similiar to this conversation:

C: I’m taking a Creative Writing class this semester
T: That’s great. I’d love to read some of your stuff.
C: I took it because I figured that since I’m an artist, I’m already more creative than any writer. After all, artists make new things. Writers just take existing stories and change them around.
T: …
C: There are no new stories. Just the same 5 or 6 plots dressed up differently and presented as if “new.”
T: I guess. Just like there are no new paintings. Just the same three primary colours mixed and remixed and called “new”.
C: …

Zircher’s premise sounds really close to C’s insulting claim that writers aren’t creative.

Theno

Heh. My brother (who’s a senior at an art college) and I (who graduated with an English and Creative Writing degree) have friendly arguments along the lines of the story Thenodrin shared fairly regularly. It’s an age-old battle with no real answers, I suppose.

To Zircher’s credit, he does seem to specify the single issue as opposed to an arc or storyline. And really, especially for a 22 page story, one should be able to sum up the PLOT in about a sentence. Now, themes, character beats, things like that should certainly be more complex, but generally speaking, plot should usually be fairly straightforward.

Anyone can plot a story. Doesn’t matter which title you pick.

BUT…

Can they plot it WELL?

And going beyond that, can they flesh out the bones and actually WRITE the story well?

If a ten-year-old wrote a comic half-decently, critics and nine-year-olds would love it. It’s a phenomenon called Christopher Paolini Syndrome.

Ha! Christopher Paolini syndrome! Love it! Though I have read some deserved critical drubbings where they basically called it like it is: bad Lord of the Rings fanfic.

Uh, comics…right. Blackjak has a good point: there’s definitely a difference between “plotted” and “plotted well.”

The original comment about ten-year-olds being capable of coming up with the plots rang a bell. Some years ago I was looking back through Steven Grant’s old columns on CBR, and I ran across something which he said was his memory of what he heard straight from the lips of Denny O’Neil way back when. A quick search through Google led me to this column, which begins with these words:

In 1971, when I was 17 and in Manhattan for the first time, somehow I ended up in the Terminal Bar, across from Grand Central Station, sharing beers with several professionals. (Back then, I looked older than I was, and 18 year olds could legally drink beer; no one, including the bartender, thought to ask my age.) In the group was Denny O’Neil, then the premier writer in comics, and though I wasn’t in the business yet and wouldn’t be for several years, he told me: “If you ever need to have a story in by tomorrow morning, and you can’t think of anything, do two fight scenes, a chase and a weird villain, and you will almost always sell the story.”

Ten years later, Denny didn’t recall the encounter when I mentioned it but he didn’t disavow the advice. We both knew it’s true. It’s the dirty little secret of superhero comics, and it’s time everyone knew it.

There’s this White Whale, and this guy is obsessed with hunting it until things get crazy, and then he’s killed by the whale, the end.

Let’s get real. That might describe the plot of Moby Dick, but it in no way captures the essence of the novel. A ten year old might describe the plot that way, but that doesn’t mean he or she could write it. It’s meant as an insult.

The thing is, Zircher’s saying that given:

There’s this White Whale, and this guy is obsessed with hunting it until things get crazy, and then he’s killed by the whale..

That any artist could come up with something like Moby Dick on their own. (Or, a seminal LSH story)

It’s more than a fair comment, i think that mr. Zircher is actually right. Artists are not as respected as writers, in fact, i think that the American market is pretty much writer-driven. Just check the Top 100 Runs, almost every single one is eminently a writer’s run.

In Argentina and Europe, however, is not uncommon to put the artist BEFORE the writer in the credits (like Muñoz-Sampayo). I think this is correct in some cases: The artist should be the one responsible of putting the “comic” in “comic books”

Thenodrin:
Ouch.

Like I said in the piece, though, while this COULD be seen as an insult, as obviously Thenodrin’s experience shows (and yeah, Theno, ouch – that was rough), I don’t think the comment itself IS an insult. I think it is a compliment of artists, saying that they don’t get enough credit for the storytelling they do in the comic. Zircher seems to feel that writers are getting more than their fair share of the credit for the storytelling in the comics, and he thinks that is unfair to artists.

That is not a shot at writers – it is just trying to give artists more credit.

That said, there certainly are some folks who may actually see it as “Artists rule, Writers drool!,” which WOULD be unfortunate.

Artists can’t write. That’s why they put their stories in picture form.

Thenodrin’s comment makes me laugh.
But as someone that used to be a graphic design major that switched to creative writing I definitely feel both the writer and artist are equally important. I think the reason artists aren’t given as much credit as writers though is because it’s easier to say “This art is great!” or “The art sucks!” and be done with it. Look at the average comic review and notice how much is dedicated to critique on the story and how much is critique on the art. The story is almost always twice as long as the art and the word “writer” is associated with “story” more than “artist” is.

Exactly, Joe, and that is what Zircher’s comment is taking issue with, rather than taking shots at writers.

Now, like I said before, I wasn’t following the argument on the other board, perhaps Zircher is over there taking shots at writers, whatever, I dunno.

Joe:

I’m not sure if I’m agreeing or disagreeing with you, but I think the reason the “average comic reveiw” is mostly devoted to the story (associated, as you say, with the writer) is because it’s hard to write about the art. Story is a series of events that can be described verbally, and often uses verbal devices (dialogue) that the reviewer can redescribe verbally. (Hence those awful, awful “reviews” on some sites that consist 99% of recapping the story of a comic – and usually take almost as much time to read as the comic itself, so why not just read the comic?) The techniques of art – the things that make it work more or less successfully – are more abstract and (obviously) nonverbal, and therefore harder to put into words. It takes greater insight into the craft of art to say anything at all worth saying about art. It’s the same reason why so many pop/rock music reviews focus on lyrics rather than music.

That’s not to say it’s easy to say anything insightful about writing – just that it’s easier to say something at all.

All of that said, there’s been a flip in the relative importance of writers and artists at least since the early 1970s, when I started the hobby. Back then, there were more superstar artists (like Neal Adams or Bernie Wrightson) whose presence alone made you buy the book. Nowadays, for reasons that are a little unclear (though I think they have something to do with Alan Moore), it’s the writers who seem to attract readers, and I’m hard pressed to think of any true superstar artists.

@”O” the Humantee

Clearly it’s the writers who attract readers. I mean, if it wasn’t for Jeph Loeb why would you pick-up Batman:Hush, HULK, and The Ultimates 3.0? Certainly not for the work of such obscure artists.

I think it’s pretty insulting to writers, hehe. And I think it should be. We readers have been, I think, extremely tolerant of writers who can’t do a spot of plotting. I could come up with ELABORATE examples, and will if anyone asks.

“O” the Humanatee:
Yeah, you’re agreeing with me. You basically elaborated on what I was trying to say.

I don’t know, Brian, what if he said “a ten year old could come up with ideas for this blog”? Would you say “Well he’s obviously giving more credit to the web-designers for making it look nice?”

I’m not honestly sure how you could take his comment as anything BUT an insult. And as a 17 year old who’s close to getting published I’ve gotta give a big wet fart to his “only an adult can script a modern comic” comment.

Well,since no one has mentioned it on this I have two words:

Jim Shooter

Bill Reed IS ten years old.

Seriously, though, I don’t think “a ten year old could come up with an idea for this blog” is offensive at all.

If a ten year old came up with a blog idea and told me about it and I wrote it up, I doubt anyone would notice. Which is the equivalent to what Zircher said.

Brian, I think you’re being a bit disingenuous (although you do cop to it). When you read Zircher’s comments in full context, it’s pretty clear that he’s taking a shot at writers, or at least at writers of mainstream superhero comics.

What the heck?

How am I even being the slightest bit disingenuous?!

I’m taking a quote and saying the quote by itself is not offensive.

Which people are ARGUING about, so why the need to go past the quote? People think the quote without context IS offensive, which is why this is an interesting conversation to me, not “Hey, let’s talk about what people are saying on some message board.”

Brian Bendis: ” What’s a plot? “

Theno–

You probably know this, but there have been a couple art movements that have taken art down to its basic building blocks, both in terms of shape and color. Some very interesting stuff has been produced in exactly that way. Of course, the same thing can be said about fiction; oddly enough, that might be the work a 10 year old is least capable of plotting.

@A. Nomamos

Brian Bendis: “Uh… yeah… hi. The question I have: the one which I’m going to ask is like… an inquiry. Yeah, an inquiry about a plot.

Bendis 2.0: A plot?

BB: Yes.

B 2.0: What?

BB: Huh?

*a giant octopus crashes through the wall*

Giant Octopus: RRRRAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

To Be Continued! (Not the next issue, but the issue after that, promise)

Wow, I’ve really contributed nothing to this thread except snark. In all seriousness, Zircher’s right. Although it could also be said that a ten-year-old could draw a comic. I’ve always thought that the art is what compels readers to pick up an issue, but it’s the writing that makes them want to pick up the next.

Average superhero comic? No doubt about it.

Hey, Joe Rice showed up to say something derogatory about superhero comics! Whoa! Stop the presses! This is going on page one!

Why does everything have to A vs B?

The quote is absolutely correct, and on it’s own, it’s not an insult to anybody at all. It’s a statement of fact.

Artists are getting less credit right now than writers, but fifteen years ago it was the other way around- and fifteen years from now, maybe the pendulum will have swung back again.

But to say that one is really, truly better or more important than the other is moronic. You need both, and you need them both to be good, to make a good comic. If the writing is good and the art is bad, or vice versa, you might have something okay to read or look at, but comics is- pretty much by definition – the combination of the two.

(I dunno, maybe it’s because I write AND draw my comics, but I just don’t see the logic in this ridiculous need some people have to try place one above the other.)

Oh, and Alan, telling a story in pictures still means you need to be able to write.

When I was six years old, I was playing on the jungle gym by myself during recess (because no one else would play with me, boo hoo. Actually, it was probably because I didn’t want to play with them. I was anti-social. Anyway…) and I decided I would try to write my own comic book in my head. I chose Thor. (Note, I’d never actually read a Thor comic, I’d just seen him in the Avengers and thought he looked cool.) Here’s the story:

1. Thor wants to defeat the leopard-men. (basically humans with leopard skin and leopard heads)
2. Their headquarters is a hollowed-out mesa.
3. They fly around in these cool looking jets and land in the mesa through a hatch that opens up in the side.
4. Thor sneaks in while a jet is landing and the hatch is open.
5. Thor sneaks around in the air vents and plants bombs.
6. Thor steals a jet and flies away.
7. The mesa blows up. The end.

Is this a complete story? Yup. Even though I was only six, I wrote a story with a beginning, middle and end, which is pretty cool. Would Don Heck begrudgingly flesh this out into a 15-page story if he’d gotten these seven plot points over the phone? Yes, he would. Would it be any good? No, it wouldn’t.

There’s an undercurrent to the comments above, which is “well, not our modern masterpieces of course, but maybe a ten year old could write those one of those dreaded Marvel stand alone issues of the 1960s.”

Of course, the punchline here is that Marvel stand alone issues of the 1960s, aka the work of Stan, Jack, and Steve (Don Heck was the exception to the rule) happen to be THE GREATEST COMICS EVER WRITTEN. So, there’s a disconnect here.

The problem is that the BEST stories are SIMPLE stories, but writing a simple story WELL is the HARDEST THING IN THE WORLD TO DO.

Every artist faces this dilemma: if you do complex work with a lot of fireworks going off, then everyone will go ooh and aah over all the work you put into it, whether it’s any good or not. If you do something simple, people who don’t like it will think it’s moronic and people who do like it will think “It’s great, but my kid could do that, too.” Oh, how wrong they are.

Stan Lee was one of the great artists of the 20th century, even when he was literally “phoning it in”. Telling a simple story well is some of the hardest work in the world. Occasionally, artists decide that they could do just as well if they were just making the stories up themselves. Sometimes they’re right, and it turns out that they’re great writers, too. But more often, they’re not. If you don’t believe me, go read “Youngblood”, “WildC.A.T.s”, and “CyberForce”.

Of course, I agree that artists don’t get enough credit for the storytelling they pour into comics. It’s interesting that the writer/artist dynamic is not that different from the screenwriter/director dynamic, yet comics critics give the “possesory” credit (a comic book by Alan Moore) to the writer, while film critics give “possesory” credit (an Alfred Hitchcock film) to the director. Neither critic is correct, and both devalue the amount of collaboration involved, but, if anything, it should be the other way around. The comic book artist has to do the work of the film director, AND cinematographer, and, MOST importantly, all of the ACTING.

I’ve always been interested by writers like Steve Englehart who tell great stories when they’re paired with great artists, and terrible stories when they’re paired with terrible artists. Are the great artists pulling his fat out of the fire, or are the bad ones killing his ability to tell a story?

Wow, this is a long comment.

“1. Thor wants to defeat the leopard-men. (basically humans with leopard skin and leopard heads)
2. Their headquarters is a hollowed-out mesa.
3. They fly around in these cool looking jets and land in the mesa through a hatch that opens up in the side.
4. Thor sneaks in while a jet is landing and the hatch is open.
5. Thor sneaks around in the air vents and plants bombs.
6. Thor steals a jet and flies away.
7. The mesa blows up. The end.”

Get Javier Pulido to draw it, add some pulp spy novel dialogoue, and I’d totally buy it.

It’s not derogatory, log. I love superhero comics. But the average one isn’t exactly an exercise in amazing, mind-blowing plotting; nor, really, does it need to be. Hell, it probably shouldn’t be.

@Lawrence

I was thinking of Paul Grist, and swapping Thor for Nick Fury. I’d buy THAT.

I think what most people are forgetting is that nowadays artists are generally given a FULL script, as opposed to a Marvel style plot outline that they need to flesh out. Full scripts generally have very specific descriptions of what goes where on a page, so if you give five professional artists the same script for Ultimate Spider-Man 106, you’ll get almost exactly the same comic.

Zircher’s just jealous that he’s not still getting the same Image/Artist driven ego-riffic fellatio that his counterparts were getting when they all broke into the business 18 years ago.

Actually, Brian, where the poster thinks you’re being disingenuous is that you say stuff like “What Zircher seems to be doing here is pointing out that artists often do a lot of “writing” with how they lay out a comic book” and other things that go beyond taking the quote out of context by itself and calling something akin to a neutral statement. You make several claims basically regarding the frame of mind of the quoted subject…which calls context back into play.

I don’t think you’re being disingenuous. You might have just shifted the angle you were writing about and forgot to take out statements that put the context back into play. Similar “oops, I left that line in” moments have happened to me.

Yeah, sure, that sounds about right, thanks! I want the quote context-less. I think it a really interesting topic for discussion, context-less.

Although I would be interested in hearing from Patrick Zircher on the topic in the future, separately.

I think Mike Z brings up a very important point. Most writers do a full script from the get-go, so the scenario he’s trying to describe barely exists these days. Even if we did go back to that scenario, many talented artists have proven through the nineties that comics more or less plotted by a 10 year old don’t really sell anymore. The market demands complex writing that you just don’t get when you ask a writer to figure out some words for pages drawn off of simple plot.

Darwyn Cooke said something similar in the foreword to one of the 100 Bullets paperbacks I think, a bit more nuanced though. The gist of it was that in movies the script is completely done before a director even touches it, still a movie is primarily seen as the product of it’s director, not it’s scriptwriter. In comics it’s basically the other way around, which he thought was incorrect.

Now comics aren’t the same medium as film obviously and being that it’s read and viewed as opposed to just viewed it’s logical that there’s more emphasis on the writer’s input than in movies. But to the point that it’s overshadowing the contribution of the artist to the storytelling is just plain silly. So I tend to agree on this one. What’s a well-written comic without good artwork? It’s like a good song sung by an incompetent singer.

Brian: Anytime, sir.

J to the AAP: People bought Brian Michael Bendis books when he was drawing them. Even lauded them. (he can draw better than I can, so I’m not trying to knock him…but he’s given up the ghost on pencilling for a reason)

Depending on how strict the comic book script is, the writer basically IS the director. The artist is more like the cast, set and costume designer, and director of photography (had to look that up to make sure I got it right). Except that, sometimes, all the sets and costumes have already been designed (WFH).

Ultimately, the writer in comic books has final say on what the shooting script is, unless the studio/editor has major concerns. Artists that adlib too much (rather than negotiate a more collaborative effort) wind up not being long for the industry. See a certain artist who came back, was slow AND screwed up the final pages of a Dark Horse book and, I believe, is fleeing the industry all over again.

But I do think a collaborative effort is always better.

FYI: Quentin Tarantino & Kevin Smith are known more for their scripting than their directing, IMO. True Romance is known more as a Tarantino movie than a Tony Scott one. Hollywood just doesn’t seem to be a place that allows focus to be put on the writers. But respected writers often do get a chance to direct based on the strength of prior scripts.

What a interesting discussion this is! I just have to say that, for anyone who thinks 10 year olds can’t create comics, do visit http://www.toondoo.com and maybe, just maybe, you’ll change your mind!

Meera

P.S. @ Matt Bird, I’d love to buy your comic too!

Since I seem to dislike most of the Star Writers, I’d be willing to give a couple of 10 year olds a shot…

I *think* Zircher is saying that a decent artist and scripter could take any old narrative and turn it into a comic which wouldn’t look out of place by prevailing standards. And he’s right; when you consider some of the generic or plotless stuff that does get published, it’s clearly not beyond the bounds of a ten-year-old to come up with something that Marvel or DC would consider worth putting out if it came with the name of an established writer attached. (What the notional ten-year-old would NOT be able to do is to deploy smoke and mirrors at the scripting stage to disguise the lack of actual content in the story.)

Yep, I believe that’s exactly the meaning of the quote, Paul.

@Kevin H.

I agree on Smith and Tarantino but I’d say those are exceptions to the rule. As for True Romance, I think it’s mostly marketing since Tarantino has become a far bigger name than Tony Scott. There are countless examples to the opposite; Alien is seen as a Ridley Scott movie, not Tony O’Bannon’s. The Usual Suspects as Brian Synger’s, not Christopher McQuarrie’s. Se7en as David Fincher’s, not Andre Kevin Walker’s. You could go on for a while…

Since Darwyn Cooke is both writer and artist I thought his comment was interesting in this regard. The focus on writers over artists might be justified in some instances (as is the focus on artist over writer sometimes) but I think it’s gotten a bit lopsided in comic fandom nowadays. A collaborative effort is better indeed, we can obviously agree on that.

I think the shift back to the artist has already begun in the last 2 years.

I know when I read a comic, the panel choices and angle of the “camera” can make or break a script. A very good artist can take a lackluster script and improve it tremendously.

When it comes to comics, ART is KING.

“I’ve always thought that the art is what compels readers to pick up an issue, but it’s the writing that makes them want to pick up the next.”

This is an elegant thought, and I agree with it. Writing’s more important when it comes to selling your comic month-in, month-out, because writing is what, most of the time, makes people look forward to the next issue.

Not that it’s universally true: Brubaker could have copied and pasted a plot from Betty and Veronica into the start of his Catwoman run, and I’d likely have still bought it for the art. But the reason artists don’t get as much credit really does trace back to the Image era, and the fact that when those writers were given free reign to plot, all it showed was that Frank Miller’s transition on Daredevil was much rarer than most people assumed.

(An interesting counterpoint could be made for people like Dan Jurgens and Bill Willingham, who I tend to think of as “writer first, artist second” – although not really true in Willingham’s case – but I’m not in the mood to think it through right now)

@Matt Bird: that almost exactly describes a Hawkman/Atom teamup issue I bought recently.
Hawkman #32 by Grey/Palmotti/Bennett/Jose. For Thor below read Hawkman, Atom or both:
1. Thor wants to defeat the leopard-men. (basically humans with leopard skin and leopard heads)
Humanoid alien baddies – check!
2. Their headquarters is a hollowed-out mesa.
Hollowed out Ice cavern – check!
3. They fly around in these cool looking jets and land in the mesa through a hatch that opens up in the side.
Check!
4. Thor sneaks in while a jet is landing and the hatch is open.
Check!
5. Thor sneaks around in the air vents and plants bombs.
Check!
6. Thor steals a jet and flies away.
Check!
7. The mesa blows up. The end.
Check!

The script’s fine, meh. The art’s quite nice, relatively good level of detail but nothing about the storytelling stands out in any way to recommend it. This is part of the problem with credit for artists in superhero books (imo) – we’re so used to the common storytelling conventions (angles they employ, etc.) that they don’t stand out anymore.

While I’m at it, on the subject of Alan Moore and the cinema comparisons, has anyone here read Moore’s scripts? The start of the Killing Joke is here:
http://fourcolorheroes.home.insightbb.com/killingjokescript.html

There is almost a page of description for the inside cover alone. The writer/director, writer/artist comparison is a often a false one as many of the most high profile comics writers (or Moore at least) will provide a script with a level of detail that would constitute directing in other media (I say this as a theatre director). This changes all the time and depending on the individuals involved. Currently I think a better comparison is
writer/artist to writer & director/cinematographer & actor. Again, it doesn’t apply to everything but it’s a good rule of thumb. I would compare Gibbons on Watchmen to Ledger/Bale/etc. on Dark Knight, not to Nolan.

On a final note – not insomniac, just European.

TWO WORDS, JIM SHOOTER

Point A: Zircher doesn’t, I believe, talk about 10 year olds writing superhero comics, but plotting them. That’s a very different thing. I don’t think most 10 year olds could completely write a comic, Moore/Morrison style. But they could definitely come up with plots just as good as the average superhero book.

Point B: While there certainly are some full-control writers in the (director) mode, I don’t think they’re all that numerous; nor do I think most writers in any field could really pull this off. And the ones that do tend to have an artistic background to begin with. Morrison, Moore . . .artists. There are some writers, though quite good, I wouldn’t trust visualization to . . .they’re word writers not picture writers.

Point C: Dunc why do you hate Europe?

Dunc, Moore’s From Hell script is at least that dense, maybe even more so. Campbell did a couple of blog entries about it, talking about just how much detail Moore put into it.. But, and someone else can correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think that’s the norm.

And to take the artists’ side here for a minute, that’s probably a good thing.

@Dan – absolutely, just thought it was interestin when people were comparing perceived ‘ownership’ and comparing Moore’s reputation to Hitchcock’s.

@Joe Rice – I don’t hate Europe, I’m from Europe. Ireland to be specific. It’s half past four here, not half eight in the morning.

I understand not everyone is this detailed, nor should they be, but a lot of comic scripts I’ve seen cover beats, breakdowns, pace, panel numbers. These are directorial issues. Quite often the artist will do this him/herself.
Keith Giffen’s role in 52 is probably the nearest to a directorial role someone could have, but even then it’s cinematography and arguably editing for consistency of pace.
A ten year old could have plotted the Dark Knight Returns. He couldn’t have written it. A ten year old could also have drawn it. It’d be rubbish, but it’s do-able.
This statement is not a complement towards artists. It is arguably a statement of the current state of affairs, which is depressing and it is provoking debate, which is great, but it’s definitely an insult.

Oh, damn. I totally misread your post Dunc. The joke should have been “Why do you hate insomniacs?”

But now the only hate is that I hold for myself.

I remember reading a similar script for Sandman #1 – Neil Gaiman describes it very much like a film/TV script. what’s in the foreground, background, etc…
Tthough I understand that once he knows how a certain artist works, he adds less or more description accordingly…
For the record, Bill Willingham is a better writer than artist, but there’s nothing really wrong with his artwork. I actually quite like it… By his own admission, however, he is just too slow to do it regularly…

@Dunc–I largely agree about the state of the industry, and don’t read many mainstream comics because of it. But, what I was trying to get across–and admittedly stopped about halfway through–is that in most cases artists can contribute a lot to the story-telling process. Other writers do include story beats, locations, and details–I think John Rogers has some Blue Beetle scripts up that show this–but artists fill in a lot of blanks, and can make things much more interesting. For example, I’d rather read a story drawn by Bryan O’Malley than one drawn by [insert artist here]. Or maybe JRJr is a better example here, since he isn’t a writer as well. Comics don’t succeed or fail on story or art, for me, but on how well the two of them mesh together and make an enjoyable whole.

So, maybe one way for the industry to move forward is for artists and writers to acknowledge the importance of the other and to tell better stories. To be fair, I think the best writers already do this (Moore, Morrison and Ellis have all talked about their relationships with writers, and writing towards an artists style–am sure there are others but these are the ones that I know). Just don’t know as much about the less prominent creative relationships.

The real question is, Who sucks more? the current crop of writers or artists?
Between all the untalented photo tracers like Greg Land and David Mack and thier ilk, and the hack writers like Bendis that think two characters sitting around discussing thier ingrown toenails is a story, its tough to decide. Personally, I think a lot of ten year olds could create much more entertaining and provocative work than the bulk of todays fanboys turned pro.

Grant Morrison’s books are written by 10 year old boy slaves on acid. (Like the old Simon Pegg ‘Big Train’ sketch!)

After thinking more about this, I’ve actually changed my mind. There are so many badly developed stories that I can definately see how the idea that a 10 year old could plot a comic.

I’m currently writing for a role playing game company. And I got an interesting complaint in an email last night. It appears that I have too much plot in my games, and not enough action. Which brought me to mind of comic books.

This player “instructed” me that the “correct” way to plot a role playing game was:

1. PCs meet and find out about the bad guy
2. PCs fight something unrelated to the bad guy, part of the environment
3. PCs find out where the bad guy is / be given his secret weakness
4. PCs fight the bad guy’s minions or face his traps
5. PCs fight the bad guy.

I looked at his list of bulletpoints, and imediately thought, “Sounds like a 90s Image comic.” And, that’s when I realized I was being unfair.

So, yes, a 10 year old COULD plot a comic (or a role playing game). On the one one hand, it would likely be formulaic and predictable; but on the other hand, some readers (or players) want formulaic and predeictable.

Theno

And that’s what led me to believe while driving home from work that Zircher is actually insulting fans , and their ability to discern what’s good and what isn’t, with this statement. I think what drives more artists off of books is not the writer’s lack of ability, but rather their ego saying that they can do better than this. Pros that came from the commercial art world stayed on books as long as an editor would have them, because they didn’t care about the product. Fanboys turned writer/artist too often think the characters they grew up reading aren’t being written as well as they could be, or are looking to be the next hot thing, rather than doing viewing it as a job.

AAAGH

“He’s insulting writers!”

“No! He’s insulting artists!”

“NO! I KNOW! HE’S INSULTING FANS”

…gah. I hate the internet.

Remember, any comment someone makes about which you do not agree is obviously an insult launched to hurt people. It is never just an opinion.

Actually, I’m more inclined to pick up a badly written, but beautifully penciled comic (say, if Alan Davis were the artisit) than vice versa.

I think a lot of it has to do with momentum. Most writers and artists are workign together to make the comic take as little time to read as possible — ie not make the dialogue or expressions or blocking or “camera work” distracting. Telling the story as best they can.

Two people who don’t are Geof Darrow and Frank Quitely. You linger over each page, savor them, since they’re put so much detail in. Ditto, of course, for Perez and Jimenez, and Davis and Hitch, and a whole bunch fo others not on the top of my head. On one level, they’re not serving the story drawing so much background, so many details, such expression and perspectives you just have to hold back the book and marvel at it.

But on the other hand, those are all a-list talents. Just like most all fo the a-list writer talents get name-checked for providing too much detail in their scripts for the artists to have much of a say in things.

Someone, writer or artist, ends up driving the book. Often it’s neither: and thus a bad book. Every once in a while writer and artist mesh so well together the book is a monthyl miracle. But usually peopel need to pick. And usually the tie goes to the writer.

But not always.

wwk5d: I think art first readers are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the overall readership. Again, there were some very pretty, very vapid offerings in the 90s (most of my experience was with Image books like that) that wound up languishing once the speculator crowd disappeared. Now Image seems to put a much heavier focus on writing than ever before, but, also, has a strong eye for new art talent on their WFH books (I’m thinking Top Cow, especially).

Jeff: I don’t know. I don’t think that the writers and artists are trying to make the books quicker reads. I don’t know that the more detailed artist is a hindrance to the writer’s story. Geoff Darrow does help to make Zircher’s argument, though. From reading the first few issues of Shaolin Cowboy, it isn’t a complex, mature read…just an off the wall idea with crazy bits of action and the artwork as the payoff.

Although there’s a couple of years difference, I reckon that Jim Shooter and thousands of LSH fans might have a few words to say about what ‘kids’ can do.

Cheers!

That’s probably true, Kevin. I’m definitely going to check out the Legion Final Crisis mini, as it’s Perez (that and Perez drawing the Legion ), but I do realise I am in the minority. I wouldn’t be shocked if more people were picking it up for Johns’ writing, tho.