To me, it refers to that, perhaps very American idea, that to really care one has to fight, i.e. one doesn’t care about victims of crime unless one wants harsh punishments against criminals, one doesn’t care about victims of terrorism unless one wants to go to war with other countries etc. What The Killers are saying, I believe, is that they CAN care without fighting. I don’t necessarily agree or disagree, but I think its something worth saying.

I realise that you don’t want to put any work in to understanding art, Apodaca, but some of us like lyrics that aren’t quite so immature.

I think it’s because “soul” sounds like the first part of “sol”-dier, you see. It’s like rhyming, but not!

Right now when starting any new Ellis book you have to ask yourself if you’re ever going to get a ending, and even the books he does finish you have to accept are going to come with massive delays of months between issues.

Many of the above books discussed are from self publishers who due to cash flow might have to take delays, but all of Ellis’s books are from Marvel, DC, Image or Avatar so that’s certainly not a problem.

Then there is the fact that the man is constantly announcing new books and taking new assignments while books and assignments that already exist and people love are forgotten? Ignored? Now after all that whining don’t get me wrong I enjoy most of what Ellis does, but his name alone guarantees I won’t be buying it in “monthlies”.

To me, it refers to that, perhaps very American idea, that to really care one has to fight, i.e. one doesn’t care about victims of crime unless one wants harsh punishments against criminals, one doesn’t care about victims of terrorism unless one wants to go to war with other countries etc. What The Killers are saying, I believe, is that they CAN care without fighting. I don’t necessarily agree or disagree, but I think its something worth saying.

I realise that you don’t want to put any work in to understanding art, Apodaca, but some of us like lyrics that aren’t quite so immature.

I think Straczynski left Supreme Power so he could write the movie script for Changeling, something that probably paid him 20 times what Marvel was paying him. When a creator gets a chance to make a big paycheck that sets him up for life, I don’t begrudge him doing so.

Phonogram doesn’t seem to work to me because all the music-related bits go over my head, and the entire thing is a music-related bit. And it doesn’t have a space horse in it.

Dude: Yeah, I’ll probably get Elephantmen in the mail pretty soon. Sorry! I still spend a lot on other books, though!

The book delay thing, even when it involves Ellis, doesn’t bother me too much, although it’s frustrating because I can’t read them. Comics don’t provide much in the way of cash flow, and I can live with that. What frustrates me about a lot of people in the industry is the lack of explanation for certain things. I know I’m not owed one, but I would like to know where Ambush Bug is, for instance. Steve Bryant came on the blog and explained why Athena Voltaire was experiencing delays, and he even got more personal than I would have expected, but I really appreciated it, because it showed a creator recognizing that people cared about his creation and wanted to see more of it. I don’t expect everyone to write up press releases about why they’re not finishing certain comics, but it would be nice if we knew a little more about the process. For all I know, Ellis may have written about why Fell disappeared, and that’s cool. Most of the comics I really, really like these days are ones on the edge of disappearing at any moment, so it frustrates me more, because all of those books I listed up above are ones I really want to read!

Well, that’s settled, then.

There’s an unspoken contract when you write serialized fiction, that suggests you deliver the story in a timely manner, and don’t leave the audience sitting on an unfinished story for months or years at a time

No there isn’t.

What about JMS’ version of Supreme Power, where he left the series or got bored or whatever in mid-fight-storyline? Or The Twelve, where both he and the artist found other things to keep them busy 2/3rds of the way through?

These aren’t the sort of stories where someone else can come in and pick it up like it was a baton relay. No, these projects are so associated with specific creators that when they stall, they stall.

And that’s why I get frustrated when these serialized storylines are left to rot. At least Fell, being composed of single-issue stories, doesn’t give me the same sense of incompletion. Grrr.

This is the downside of comic books as serialized monthly pamphlets; it’s all well and good as long as there’s a schedule and they stick to it, but when they blow it, it disrupts things.

(And what’s up with Ambush Bug #6? Sigh…)

Oh, & add The Twelve to the list of frustratingly long-delayed series (a full half of which would be on my pull list if they were actually appearing — Black Coat, Gutsville, Victorian Horrors of Old Mauch Chunk, The Atheist, The Straw Men & Ambush Bug). One of my favorite titles of the last several years, but I dunno if we’ll ever see #s 9-12.

I read it after hearing the hype, and expected to like it a lot. But the characters just didn’t resonate with me, and the story felt inconsequential. I had to force myself to make it through the whole book.

I’ll admit that I got very few of the references.

Maybe it’s just not the book for me.

No–he’s “Everyone’s” bitch!

And Elephantmen also came out this week, I think. But you’ll probably get that one for free right, Greg?
Goddamn these lucky online reviewers…:-)