Question: Is the guy who does Word Balloon a bit of an ass?
His most recent one is with Jeph Loeb, which of course brings out people commenting why he isn't a good writer, yet the WB guy posted a comment (since deleted, Matt seems to delete stuff a lot more these days to save face) about how everyone's just haters and that they're only 1% of the comics fans and how he's gotten thousands of downloads now and e-mails saying how great it is, really stroking his own ego.
I've listened to quite a few of the Word Balloon podcasts (good distraction while jogging), and he seems alright. His "Bendis Tapes" interviews were pretty entertaining.
But let's be honest here; comic news sites are fucked up. Comics are such a small and insular industry that you have to maintain good relationships with people, or quickly find yourself without the exclusive content that your magazine or website needs to survive. Most often, this means kissing some serious ass, and censoring yourself to avoid offending anyone.
However, I am inclined to point out that the Word Balloon guy is a comic fan and, let's face it, most comic fans are fucking dumb. Standing at the counter of my LCS a few weeks ago I was forced to listen to a group of ten people rag on We3, and then talk about all the horrible books they're buying. One guy mentioned he was buying JLA because the artist draws Wonder Woman like, so hot.
So maybe the dude really just loves Jeph Loeb's stuff.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited June 2009
What you said makes me wonder about how well Bleeding Cool will be in the future, as this is Rich's chance to really be a BS detector without interference from CBR (and Avatar really aren't big enough to get into these things and mess up what they have going with Rich). And more importantly, can he succeed doing so? If so, that's a good thing for comics "news"
And I agree, a fair portion of comic readers are completely inept. Picking up comics on Wednesday there was this guy who was standing right in front of the new releases reading a comic, while people had to move around him until I had to say "excuse me buddy, could you move for a second?" and he just moved to the side dumbfounded.
any websites with decent res images searchable by character? looking for resources for that wedding comic, and i'm finding google image search to be a bitch.
preferably with multiple images per character, as I'm having to decide exactly which costume designs to use for each character.
any websites with decent res images searchable by character? looking for resources for that wedding comic, and i'm finding google image search to be a bitch.
preferably with multiple images per character, as I'm having to decide exactly which costume designs to use for each character.
99% sure that's Gurihiru, who's collaborated with Marc Sumerak on all the recent Power Pack mini-series. If you haven't read any of them yet, you're definitely missing out.
Really, pretty much everything that's come out of Marvel Adventures has been terrific. Tony Bedard wrote a few middling MA: Avengers issues, and some stuff has had spotty art, but on the whole, the line's pretty great.
Question: Is the guy who does Word Balloon a bit of an ass?
His most recent one is with Jeph Loeb, which of course brings out people commenting why he isn't a good writer, yet the WB guy posted a comment (since deleted, Matt seems to delete stuff a lot more these days to save face) about how everyone's just haters and that they're only 1% of the comics fans and how he's gotten thousands of downloads now and e-mails saying how great it is, really stroking his own ego.
I've listened to quite a few of the Word Balloon podcasts (good distraction while jogging), and he seems alright. His "Bendis Tapes" interviews were pretty entertaining.
But let's be honest here; comic news sites are fucked up. Comics are such a small and insular industry that you have to maintain good relationships with people, or quickly find yourself without the exclusive content that your magazine or website needs to survive. Most often, this means kissing some serious ass, and censoring yourself to avoid offending anyone.
However, I am inclined to point out that the Word Balloon guy is a comic fan and, let's face it, most comic fans are fucking dumb. Standing at the counter of my LCS a few weeks ago I was forced to listen to a group of ten people rag on We3, and then talk about all the horrible books they're buying. One guy mentioned he was buying JLA because the artist draws Wonder Woman like, so hot.
So maybe the dude really just loves Jeph Loeb's stuff.
Yup- when you realize that most comic fans are fucking retards, it stops being such a mystery that crap like Ultimatum manages to top the charts whenever Marvel gets around to actually putting an issue out.
99% sure that's Gurihiru, who's collaborated with Marc Sumerak on all the recent Power Pack mini-series. If you haven't read any of them yet, you're definitely missing out.
Really, pretty much everything that's come out of Marvel Adventures has been terrific. Tony Bedard wrote a few middling MA: Avengers issues, and some stuff has had spotty art, but on the whole, the line's pretty great.
I can't believe how great the art is on all these books. There have been very few books and artists that have really truly caught my eye since I've gotten back into comics, but damn near every piece of art I see from these books and the similarly styled 616 books (Example: Jeff Parker's current exiles) are just brilliantly done, wonderfully penciled and always incredibly vivid colors. They're all very unique, too. Even the simpler stuff is just great.
It's kind of strange, because I'm not particularly fond of many of the bigshot "Superstar" artists floating around with delays on major titles. I could give maybe 5 or 6 examples of artists on flagship books that I really enjoy, and all of them (to my knowledge) are consistent monthly guys, with the exception of the guy doing Thor.
We are freelance Comic artists/illustrators. Sasaki in charge of pencil and ink. Kawano is colorist. "Gurihiru"is team name. We have working for Marvel comics"POWER PACK". Sasaki take charge of this Blog.
Man, I adore GuriHiru's work. Their Power Pack work has been phenomenal. It's so expressive and just fun to look at, which matches very well with Sumerak's writing.
I've listened to quite a few of the Word Balloon podcasts (good distraction while jogging), and he seems alright. His "Bendis Tapes" interviews were pretty entertaining.
Same here. He kisses everyone's ass when they do his show. That's just the nature of how these things are done, and definitely there is something about the comics news industry that is averse to criticizing anyone. So it's not like he did a special for Loeb, THOUGH he does seem to like to talk to Loeb more than most people. And Loeb is willing to do these multi-part interviews that only Bendis also does regularly because I'm sure he sees the benefit in selling his work. But that goes back to my comment a few days ago in the Comic News thread about how the news is part of the companies' entertainment experience they sell to the hardcore like us who listen to fucking comic book podcasts.
From the Nrama summary
The end of Ultimatum will fundamentally change the Ultimate universe to make it different then the (616 U) in a fundamental way
... Wow. Jeph Loeb is quite the wordsmith.
Also, I wonder if he even realizes how his Ultimates was more 616 than anything else in the Ultimate U.
You mean the part where Thor randomly started speaking in "thous" and "verilys", the part where Logan started exactly like his 616 counterpart, the part where Dr. Strange mysteriously got aged to sync up with 616 strange after Bendis pretty clearly showed him to be young, the part where Pym became Yellowjacket for no apparent reason, the part where Blob went from a semi-interesting character to a pure caricature, where Nightcrawler and Dazzler are suddenly okay with each other to the point that they go to concerts together even though he kidnapped her, or what?
The end of Ultimatum will fundamentally change the Ultimate universe to make it different then the (616 U) in a fundamental way
... Wow. Jeph Loeb is quite the wordsmith.
Also, I wonder if he even realizes how his Ultimates was more 616 than anything else in the Ultimate U.
Well, to be fair, he has such a fundemental lack of understanding about the characters that the glaring similarities are probably completely oblivious to him. Or, he doesn't understand subtlety at all. Which is probably closer to the truth.
Loeb: See, in 616, the Wanda/Pietro incest is implied. But in the Ultimate Universe, it's blatant. See, they're fundamentally different! Fundamentally.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited June 2009
Apparently people listened to the podcast and Loeb also rags on Nightwing being a weak character (based on sales, which is a fucking stupid way to think that) and Bendis and Brubaker's DD run compared to his Hulk run.
While Bru's DD had weak spots, Loeb can't hold a candle to it and is nowhere close to matching Bendis' DD work.
Have Loeb and Liefeld ever worked together? Because they seem to share a contempt for comics.
The sheer awesomeness of every single pouch exploding at once simply can't be contained on the page.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Just pulled this truly frightening quote off of Liefeld's wikipedia:
As further financial reversals followed, Liefeld moved all of his publishing ventures into a new company, Awesome Comics. This new enterprise, announced in April 1997 as a partnership between Liefeld and Malibu Comics founder Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, concentrated its efforts on newer properties.
[edit]Awesome Comics
At Awesome, Liefeld and Loeb attempted to resurrect their unused Captain America plots for a new character, Agent America. This character was nearly identical in appearance and background to Captain America. Under legal pressure from Marvel, Liefeld scrapped Agent America and acquired the rights to Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's Fighting American, updating the design. Liefeld was allowed to publish the book, but legally this new character could not throw his shield, one of Captain America's trademarks.
Also
He is, however, not without supporters in the industry. Writer Jeph Loeb, with whom Liefeld collaborated, and writer Mark Millar are reported to be admirers of his work.[17]
Ok, I have a question. Might have asked it before, but I dont think I received an answer.
There is a gap in my Hellblazer knowledge, where i stopped buying the title for a few years. Now it seems that some artists draw Constantine with a scar on his cheek. Is that just bad rendering on artist's part, or is there story behind that??
Ok, I have a question. Might have asked it before, but I dont think I received an answer.
There is a gap in my Hellblazer knowledge, where i stopped buying the title for a few years. Now it seems that some artists draw Constantine with a scar on his cheek. Is that just bad rendering on artist's part, or is there story behind that??
do you maybe have any more details? like when you weren't reading it or what artists you're noticing that with? nothing is jumping immediately to mind, but it might help to narrow down the timeframe a bit.
I always thought Deathlok was cool. I guess there are a few different versions. I'm most... aware of the zombie cyborg version, classic Deathlok I guess. Has appeared in anything lately? I can't believe he hasn't appeared in any of the Marvel Zombies series. I figure I would have heard about that somehow.
I think I remember seeing something about Deathlok having a series or something in late 2009. There was a huge picture of it on some official Marvel blog thing somewhere back around Christmas I think. Any news on that?
I always thought Deathlok was cool. I guess there are a few different versions. I'm most... aware of the zombie cyborg version, classic Deathlok I guess. Has appeared in anything lately?
He showed up in Beyond! which I was pretty fond of, and then later he was basically a prop in an arc of New Avengers.
I do think Deathlok's due for a revival, but his design is pretty dated. I'm a little surprised they haven't given him a MAX series yet, but I guess Terror Inc. fulfills that line's quota for zombie ass-kickers.
There are all these anecdotal stories that revenues for post-apocalyptic and dark media works drop during recessions because no one wants to be depressed.
With things like Batman RIP, Final Crisis, Ultimatum, and then the entire Dark Reign currently permeating every book at Marvel, does anyone know if sales have shown any level of above-average drop since those started (mostly focused on DR, since it's bigger and further-reaching).
Alternatively, have sales for the lighter-toned Marvel Adventure and comparable DC books improved at all?
The estimated total sales for the 300 comics was 5,630,084 comics, which is down by 1,101,965 units from April and down by 1,429,293 units from May 2008.
That's a 20% drop from last year. I can't wait for Dark Reign to end soon enough and have contributed in small part to that drop because of it.
Anyway, as for Marvel's kids line:
Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers 1
Sales Rank: #115
Est. Sales: 17,638
For comparison sake with the other Marvel Adventures titles MA Spider-Man was #250 (4,557), Avengers was #255 (4,238), and Super-Heroes was #270 (3,474).
Compare this with last May's estimates:
233 MAR Marvel Adventures Spider Man 39 6,387
240 Marvel Adventures Avengers 24 5,884
256 Marvel Adventures Iron Man 13 5,391
260 Marvel Adventures Hulk 11 5,145
272 Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four 36 4,452
MA Spider-Man and Avengers took a Hell of a hit from last year at -29, -28% respectively.
Posts
Afraid of the ocean callin' you wet, there, lake?
I've listened to quite a few of the Word Balloon podcasts (good distraction while jogging), and he seems alright. His "Bendis Tapes" interviews were pretty entertaining.
But let's be honest here; comic news sites are fucked up. Comics are such a small and insular industry that you have to maintain good relationships with people, or quickly find yourself without the exclusive content that your magazine or website needs to survive. Most often, this means kissing some serious ass, and censoring yourself to avoid offending anyone.
However, I am inclined to point out that the Word Balloon guy is a comic fan and, let's face it, most comic fans are fucking dumb. Standing at the counter of my LCS a few weeks ago I was forced to listen to a group of ten people rag on We3, and then talk about all the horrible books they're buying. One guy mentioned he was buying JLA because the artist draws Wonder Woman like, so hot.
So maybe the dude really just loves Jeph Loeb's stuff.
Tumblr Twitter
And I agree, a fair portion of comic readers are completely inept. Picking up comics on Wednesday there was this guy who was standing right in front of the new releases reading a comic, while people had to move around him until I had to say "excuse me buddy, could you move for a second?" and he just moved to the side dumbfounded.
preferably with multiple images per character, as I'm having to decide exactly which costume designs to use for each character.
http://www.comicartcommunity.com/gallery/index.php
Organized by artist, but you can search for characters.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
any others?
Tumblr Twitter
EDIT: anyone know who this artist is? Is it from Power Pack maybe? I'm really digging it.
Really, pretty much everything that's come out of Marvel Adventures has been terrific. Tony Bedard wrote a few middling MA: Avengers issues, and some stuff has had spotty art, but on the whole, the line's pretty great.
Tumblr Twitter
Yup- when you realize that most comic fans are fucking retards, it stops being such a mystery that crap like Ultimatum manages to top the charts whenever Marvel gets around to actually putting an issue out.
I can't believe how great the art is on all these books. There have been very few books and artists that have really truly caught my eye since I've gotten back into comics, but damn near every piece of art I see from these books and the similarly styled 616 books (Example: Jeff Parker's current exiles) are just brilliantly done, wonderfully penciled and always incredibly vivid colors. They're all very unique, too. Even the simpler stuff is just great.
It's kind of strange, because I'm not particularly fond of many of the bigshot "Superstar" artists floating around with delays on major titles. I could give maybe 5 or 6 examples of artists on flagship books that I really enjoy, and all of them (to my knowledge) are consistent monthly guys, with the exception of the guy doing Thor.
that's pretty rad, actually.
Same here. He kisses everyone's ass when they do his show. That's just the nature of how these things are done, and definitely there is something about the comics news industry that is averse to criticizing anyone. So it's not like he did a special for Loeb, THOUGH he does seem to like to talk to Loeb more than most people. And Loeb is willing to do these multi-part interviews that only Bendis also does regularly because I'm sure he sees the benefit in selling his work. But that goes back to my comment a few days ago in the Comic News thread about how the news is part of the companies' entertainment experience they sell to the hardcore like us who listen to fucking comic book podcasts.
From the Nrama summary ... Wow. Jeph Loeb is quite the wordsmith.
Also, I wonder if he even realizes how his Ultimates was more 616 than anything else in the Ultimate U.
Well, to be fair, he has such a fundemental lack of understanding about the characters that the glaring similarities are probably completely oblivious to him. Or, he doesn't understand subtlety at all. Which is probably closer to the truth.
Loeb: See, in 616, the Wanda/Pietro incest is implied. But in the Ultimate Universe, it's blatant. See, they're fundamentally different! Fundamentally.
While Bru's DD had weak spots, Loeb can't hold a candle to it and is nowhere close to matching Bendis' DD work.
The sheer awesomeness of every single pouch exploding at once simply can't be contained on the page.
I know at the very least they did Onslaught Reborn. Probably more but that's the only specific thing I know.
My god! Thats like the perfect storm of... of.. awfulness.
Liefeld + Loeb + Onslaught = Ugh
Bad writing? check.
Bad art? check.
Big delays? check.
Complete pointlessness? check.
It hits a bizarro home run.
Also
Loeb would admire Liefeld's work.
Apparently you're unfamiliar with the greatest comic I'm not sure was ever actually released, Smash Unleashed.
Tumblr Twitter
There is a gap in my Hellblazer knowledge, where i stopped buying the title for a few years. Now it seems that some artists draw Constantine with a scar on his cheek. Is that just bad rendering on artist's part, or is there story behind that??
Personally, I can't imagine a more potent combination of awful that Liefield, Loeb, and Onslaught.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
+ Xorn, Cable, and the time displaced roster of the 90s X-Force.
do you maybe have any more details? like when you weren't reading it or what artists you're noticing that with? nothing is jumping immediately to mind, but it might help to narrow down the timeframe a bit.
I think I remember seeing something about Deathlok having a series or something in late 2009. There was a huge picture of it on some official Marvel blog thing somewhere back around Christmas I think. Any news on that?
http://www.collectededitions.com/marvel/mm/deathlok/deathlok_mm01.html
He showed up in Beyond! which I was pretty fond of, and then later he was basically a prop in an arc of New Avengers.
I do think Deathlok's due for a revival, but his design is pretty dated. I'm a little surprised they haven't given him a MAX series yet, but I guess Terror Inc. fulfills that line's quota for zombie ass-kickers.
Tumblr Twitter
Did anyone read Joe Casey's Deathlok? I guess it ditches the zombie part and just has a guy's brain transplanted in a robotic body.
Siege was in MZ3. That kinda counts.
couldn't find it, so here's this.
With things like Batman RIP, Final Crisis, Ultimatum, and then the entire Dark Reign currently permeating every book at Marvel, does anyone know if sales have shown any level of above-average drop since those started (mostly focused on DR, since it's bigger and further-reaching).
Alternatively, have sales for the lighter-toned Marvel Adventure and comparable DC books improved at all?
That's a 20% drop from last year. I can't wait for Dark Reign to end soon enough and have contributed in small part to that drop because of it.
Anyway, as for Marvel's kids line:
Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers 1
Sales Rank: #115
Est. Sales: 17,638
For comparison sake with the other Marvel Adventures titles MA Spider-Man was #250 (4,557), Avengers was #255 (4,238), and Super-Heroes was #270 (3,474).
Compare this with last May's estimates: MA Spider-Man and Avengers took a Hell of a hit from last year at -29, -28% respectively.