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"...!"

No comment.

Preach it, James Robinson!

Uh... let's just say the Cancer joke doesn't work and leave it there.

Hey, I'm glad to hear people - even Moore himself!- talking about how his stuff wasn't THAT great, for a change. And Robinson is right. How long has writing for the masses been going on now? Centuries? It's absurd to believe that ANY idea is going to be 100% original or uninfluenced by another one. The point is that reusing old ideas is not wrong, just do it in your own style.

Wow, I knew Blackest Night was bad, but if even MightyGodKing can't parody it...! O_O

Y'know, Bleeding Cool already hosted an energetic handbag-fight over Alan Moore's comments and James Robinson's retort, when they first happened. Like, about a week ago. And, I'm just guessing here, but this non-issue has probably also been fought over at multiple other online forums as well.

Is there any good reason, whatsoever, to rehash the same flamewar here at CSBG at this point?

No, no I thought not.

It's just the start of fall (or the beginning of spring, if you're in the southern hemisphere). Go outside. Or turn on the NFL. Read a book. For heaven's sake, Alan and James are big boys; they don't need any of us wading in to get either of their backs.

And good luck with the roulette, Bill. Here's hoping.

Uh... let's just say the Cancer joke doesn't work and leave it there.

How does the joke not work?

It's a lung smoking. Ergo: cancer.

It might be better if there was a tumor or something involved, but it works perfectly fine on its own.

[...] Show original post here [...]

You know, that lung was kinda cute 'til I saw it was smoking. Total turn-off.

Wraith, I'm going to disagree with you. Since Sunday Brunch is a review of the past week's internet comic activity, it's not "rehashing" it to bring it up now, since bringing it up now is the whole point of this feature. It's nice to have a place where I can find out what I might have missed on other sites over the past week.

Hahaha James Robinson fucking wrote the LXG screenplay? Jesus. Once you've done that you can basically never criticize another writer for anything ever again.

Okay, I seriously have no idea who the hell "Bubbs" is, but aparently firefox autocompleted that as my name when I made the previous post.

Thanks, Scott.

My net casino gain was two whole American dollars. Which is far, far better than I usually do.

I think Robinson misses the point of Moore's quotation completely, as Moore seems to be pointing towards the comic industry's seemingly innate inability to look forward rather than backwards. And the guy who recently wrote "FOR JUSTICE!" probably shouldn't be criticizing anyone else, let alone one of the few living legends of the industry.

Is there any good reason, whatsoever, to rehash the same flamewar here at CSBG at this point?

Yes - because as fas as I can tell there has already been more insightful commentary into it in these comments than in hundreds of posts over at Bleeding Cool. (OK, that's an exaggeration but still)

Stealthwise is right, Robinson (and seemingly almost everyone who commented on it) has missed the point. Moore did NOT just criticise using previous ideas. If we actually read what Moore said:

Pick up those ideas and do something new with them.

Not only does he not say not to use old ideas, he in fact says that you SHOULD pick up old ideas, so long as you do something new with them. I can't believe that Robinson, and so many others, completely missed this point.

Moore's point is a good one. If you take an old idea and add something to it, then someone else can take you're idea as an old idea. If you add NOTHING, then you give nothing to future stories. Ironically, one of the worse offenders with this was Moore's Supreme. The problem is that, as Supreme is a Superman pastiche and nothing more that a Superman pastiche, it leaves nothing for the future. You can't have a pastiche of a pastiche.

Finally, there's this from Ethan Van Sciver:

Ridiculous. At no point during the conversation Geoff and I had in creating Blackest Night did any of us bring up anything Alan Moore ever did. It'd be difficult. I've never read any of it.

Isn't somewhat amazing that the GL artist has not read what is probably the most famous GL story ever? And that he would admit it out loud?

Didn't Frank Quitely admit to not having read dick about Superman? He's one of the greatest Superman artists of all time. I don't see how Van Scriver's "admission" is damning in any way.

Surely, the more the artist has read the better artist they are going to be. And knowing how a character has been drawn will sure lead to ideas about how that character can be drawn in the most interesting way. It might not be strictly necessary, as perhaps in Quitely's case, but I can't see how it can't be beneficial. Perhaps if Quitely had have read more Superman, his art would have been even better. I can't see that it would make it worse.

I don't know what Quitely meant by "not having read dick", or whatever he said. I'm not saying that an artist needs to read everything with that character, but it does not seem to be too much to ask that they read the few most famous stories that character has been in. I'm sure that Quitely had read Superman comics, and quite probably some of the most famous as well.

Kevin O'Neill's art on Tygers is particularly famous for being banned by the CCA. It doesn't seem to be too much to ask that Van Sciver spare the time to read all 12 pages of it, especially considering he could probably read it for free. If I were an artist drawing Sodam Yat or Qull of the Five Inversions, I'd want to look that the first time they appeared, especially considering (if I'm not mistaken) Van Sciver is only the second person to draw them. Van Sciver could probably even learn something.

I would say not reading a story as famous as Tygers is somewhat "damning" for anyone who calls themselves a comics fan, and especially if that person is a professional working on that very character. Perhaps it is not that damning, but I wouldn't be crowing about it like Van Sciver seems to be.

Furthermore, Van Sciver said "I think the idea came first, and Geoff kind of retrofitted it into some classic Green Lantern continuity using some pieces and parts of old stories." If Van Sciver seriously has not read Tygers, then he can't know how much Blackest Night has taken from Tygers. He can hardly go out and talk about how original Blackest Night is when he hasn't even read what Blackest Night is accused to being derivative from.

>>Wraith, I'm going to disagree with you. Since Sunday Brunch is a review of the past week's internet comic activity, it's not "rehashing" it to bring it up now, since bringing it up now is the whole point of this feature. It's nice to have a place where I can find out what I might have missed on other sites over the past week.

Same here., but even more so, since I pretty much actively avoid other comics sites, simply because I spend too damned much time here & at loads of other *choke* comics-unrelated places at is is.

Totally didn't see those as lungs at first.

Me neither. Not for nothing was Biology the only PE-unrelated subject in which I ever made a "C" in college, if memory serves ...

What kind of person brags about their total ignorance of a highly respected and celebrated work in their own field?

A liar or a dunce.

Which do you think Ethan Van Sciver is?

A liar or a dunce.

I hadn't even considered the former. Now, I wonder.

I rarely read comic books these days. When I did read comics, it was when I was a very young teenager, and now I find that it's not at all helpful to allow myself to be too influenced by what others have done and are doing. I've picked up all of my influences already. Byrne, Bolland, Wrightson, many others. They've helped me immensely.

So no, when I took the GL assignment, I read the bare minimum required to understand what I was being asked to draw. The less burdened you are by what came before, the more risks you can feel free to take, the more creatively inclined you may be. Alan Moore's GL work was never among the few Green Lantern books I read. Not to deny their importance, and certainly not to "brag", it's just a fact.

Ethan