WonderCon: The Ruckaning

[Mystirious]

I feel that's unfair. Picoult's story was not the worst Diana has ever suffered. Let us not forget, John Byrne once wrote for Wonder Woman.

Actually no. Let us all try very hard to forget that.

But Picoult's run suffered from the writer not doing the research. And the editors not having the sense to point out "Diana has been in Patriarch's World for at least ten years, even by comic book time. She will have worked out how to pump gas by now"

Like Heinberg, it wasn't that the story was bad. If it had been about entirely original characters I'm sure I would have greatly enjoyed it. It was simply that it was completely at odds with what had come before.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Hence why I said, she didn't even know what the **** she was doing? I think Picoult could have delivered a good story if she did some research and wasn't tied down to the abysmal garbage that was Amazon's Attack.

And with your point on Heinberg you have to take into account that this was set over a year after the catastrophic event that was Infinite Crisis. Things can change a lot within a year especially after Infinite Crisis where Wonder Woman had to deal with a lot of crap.

 

[Mystirious]

Oh lordy, please don't bring up Infinite Crisis. I just ate.

The series not only gave us Super****-Prime but it destroyed the Wonder Woman character and her mythos. All so they could do their ridiculous "Diana Prince" nonsense that Johns loves so dearly.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Infinite Crisis destroyed Wonder Woman? She seemed pretty much the same after IC as she did before, except for the Diana Prince cover.

 

[Mystirious]

She lost her entire supporting cast, the excellent set up that Rucka had created was tossed aside and the secret identity makes no sense. Wonder Woman having a secret identity is so utterly wrong for the character I do not know where to start.

And having her regret what she did to Maxwell Lord was just completely out of character. I am glad that Rucka and Simone ignored that when they wrote the character

 

[Assassin]

I can't wait for simone to write birds of prey again. I can go back to telling her what male characters she ****ed up on.

 

[Mystirious]

You don't feel she writes male characters well then? I think she's done a good job with Bane, Deadshot and Catman in Secret Six.

Fortunately the only major male character in BOP is Hawk. And I hate that pr*ck more than words can say so I won't really care how she wrtes him. So long as he gets smacked around a great deal I'll be happy.

 

[Mystirious]

Double post

 

[fifthfiend]

Full Rucka transcript is up

Oh yeah so I meant to say something about this

GR: [laughs] Stop buying event books. Event books keep happening because you guys keep buying them. They do. You guys are eating your own tail. You don't get to then say, "I hate events" and then buy them. And there's this war now of escalating events now between Marvel and DC... and there's a part of me that kind of longs for the day when you could have a run of 12 issues of "The Flash" and have it just be 12 issues of "The Flash."

And I know that'll go out on the internet and somebody'll think, "He's attacking Geoff [Johns]!" I am not. What Geoff does, he does so well. And I cannot in a million years write that way. I'm not that writer. What Geoff Johns does which I am quite jealous of is that Geoff has never lost the 8-year-old comic book reader in him. He's never lost it... And he appeals to that in all of us. There's just a part of me that remembers when you could have six issues in a row, and the world wasn't always ending. That you could spend time with the characters, in a way. But that said, some of these events have been really good.

So what would I change about it? I don't know. I'd make [comics] cheaper. And actually, no -- you know what the real answer is? I'd get them out of specialty stores. I'd put comics back in the spinner racks and 7-Elevens and grocery stores and Walmart. That's what's killing us. I was talking to Dan DiDio today -- the best-selling Marvel or DC book today is going to sell a quarter of a million. That's nothing, guys. That's nothing. If a TV show has a quarter of a million people watching it, it would not make it through the second episode. It might not even make it through it's first broadcast. I'm serious. I'm not joking.

Look at manga -- it has millions of readers. Europeans comics, in the millions. What the hell is going on in this country with our comics that we can't break out? I mean, "Stumptown" is considered a success because 10,000 people bought it. I'm proud that 10,000 people picked it up, and I'm proud that it went to a second printing. But 10,000? That's awful! How the hell do we get more people to read? And a part of me hopes that the iPad is the panacea. Marvel was right there. Marvel announced their reader -- I actually think that may be how we do it. The ability to digitally get a comic may be the thing that saves our baby.

It was kind of suprising to see someone going from repeating the standard THEY SELL excuse to admitting that they actually don't sell for **** within a couple of paragraphs.

Arguments for current publishing practices based on sales are absurd because they're talking about what sells to the tiny sliver of a hardcore audience that's left after the people who were going to stop buying, did. You can make excuses about how it's all Wal-Mart's fault or all the comic store's fault or all the economy's fault but you can't do that and at the same time defend event books BECAUSE THEY SELLIN' SO GOOOOOD.

 

[Mystirious]

Geoff has never lost the 8-year-old comic book reader in him.

On this I agree. I often think his stories read like they were written by an 8 year old.

 

[CantThinkOfAName]

Goddayum!

 

[BrianWilly]

Oh yeah so I meant to say something about this



It was kind of suprising to see someone going from repeating the standard THEY SELL excuse to admitting that they actually don't sell for **** within a couple of paragraphs.

Arguments for current publishing practices based on sales are absurd because they're talking about what sells to the tiny sliver of a hardcore audience that's left after the people who were going to stop buying, did. You can make excuses about how it's all Wal-Mart's fault or all the comic store's fault or all the economy's fault but you can't do that and at the same time defend event books BECAUSE THEY SELLIN' SO GOOOOOD.

Event books are selling in a decent range, okay, but then what about the rest of the hundreds of books that western companies put out per month? I think he's just sperging about the fact that Marvel and DC basically have to put out event books now if they want to sell anything worth bragging about. And so they're trapped in the cycle as much as we are.

Can a company sustain itself this way? I dunno. I do know we've got hella people here on these forums -- even this single thread -- swearing that they thought Blackest Night sucked so badly, and yet what has consistently been DC's best-selling book this past year? Blackest Night.

 

[Mystirious]

Twilight sells well too and I doubt anyone would argue that it is utter dreck.

Sales have never meant quality. Though sadly the reverse is also often the case, as high quality doesn't always guarantee sales.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

As both publishers are all too happy to remind us, though, we're not representative of the larger comic-buying audience. We're the bitter fanboys and fangirls who hate everything mainstream because we're snobs and/or overly reverential of the characters. The normal people who like comics but wouldn't dream of being nerdy enough to post on a website (let alone as much as--ahem--some of us do) could be more than happy to follow events and might've loved Blackest Night from start to finish. Hell, even a few of us enjoyed Blackest Night completely.

 

[TheComicbookKid]

Honestly, I suspect that many writers, Rucka included, know deep down that comics don't sell cause people don't enjoy that form of entertainment like that anymore.

People keep saying Manga yet how much does a manga have to sell to beat an American comic? Not much.

 

[Tron Bonne]

People keep saying Manga yet how much does a manga have to sell to beat an American comic? Not much.

I don't get what you're saying here

 

[TheComicbookKid]

I don't get what you're saying here

I'm saying that manga sales are still a drop in a bucket. Whatever American comics loss in relevance as a medium after the Golden Age isn't what manga audiences have tapped into exactly, imo.

 

[fifthfiend]

Event books are selling in a decent range

mainstream

Pretty much what I'm saying is neither of these are true. Event books only look like decent sellers within the shriveled market for Marvel/DC/small publisher comics. "Mainstream" is like, Naruto, Furūtsu Basuketto and Twilight: The Graphic Novel; the Siege / Blackest Night audience is 150-200k diehard dweebs who are willing to buy event comics and every other comic's audience is worse than that because they're fighting over slivers of that sliver of an audience, because the options for DC/Marvel comics readers who don't want to read event comics is 1. read event comics, 2. don't read comics.

Anyway w/ev, this isn't anything I haven't said before, it just struck me as unusually incredible that someone can talk about what people "keep buying" in the same breath as they wonder at how outside this ridiculous incestuous cottage industry people buy comics in the millions.

 

[Mystirious]

The problem both companies have is simple. Terrible decisions. Marvel puttng Loeb on the Ultimates line. DC handing Cassandra Cain over to Adam Beechen. Final Crisis ever seeing the light of day.

 

[hippie_hunter]

The problem both companies have is simple. Terrible decisions. Marvel puttng Loeb on the Ultimates line. DC handing Cassandra Cain over to Adam Beechen. Final Crisis ever seeing the light of day.

Final Crisis would have been much better if there were some better editorial decisions. Like having a better writing team on Countdown, not allowing J.G. Jones on art, making the damn thing longer so you can understand what's going on, etc.

 

[Mystirious]

I agree with you that the editors were definitely drunk at the wheel. Paul Dini was a fine choice on Countdown but the co-writers were terrible and the plotting was simply dreadful.

Though we can't absolve Morrison of all the blame. Final Crisis was just a bad story. Or rather it was a good story idea that had a terrible execution.

 

[Tron Bonne]

The only problem I had with FC was it had some much important information scattered. With Superman Beyond Mandrake came out of ****ing nowhere, without the two Batman issues that whole deal felt incomplete, and issue four was basically cut in half with the Resist one-shot. I guess I understand why since putting all those together would probably would result in a 15 issue maxi that we'd still be waiting on, but that was rather flubbed.

Besides that, though, I liked it. Though the ending was rather weak.

 

[Kurosawa]

She lost her entire supporting cast, the excellent set up that Rucka had created was tossed aside and the secret identity makes no sense. Wonder Woman having a secret identity is so utterly wrong for the character I do not know where to start.

And having her regret what she did to Maxwell Lord was just completely out of character. I am glad that Rucka and Simone ignored that when they wrote the character

It made sense to William Moulton Marston who only CREATED WW.

Oh yeah so I meant to say something about this



It was kind of suprising to see someone going from repeating the standard THEY SELL excuse to admitting that they actually don't sell for **** within a couple of paragraphs.

Arguments for current publishing practices based on sales are absurd because they're talking about what sells to the tiny sliver of a hardcore audience that's left after the people who were going to stop buying, did. You can make excuses about how it's all Wal-Mart's fault or all the comic store's fault or all the economy's fault but you can't do that and at the same time defend event books BECAUSE THEY SELLIN' SO GOOOOOD.

Comics do not sell because they are written for an insanely narrow audience and are too violent. No responsible parent would ever let their child read a mainstream Marvel or DC superhero comic circa 2010. The 8 year old in me has no desire to see women raped, eyes gouged out, testicles ripped off and characters torn in half. Print media (and that includes comics) can still sell and be huge with the public, as the Harry Potter series proved. The main issue with comics is they have been stuck in a rut since the mid 80's, as every writer tries to do their own Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. Somebody needs to do something new and fresh with superheroes, and it's just not happening.

I bought one issue of BN myself-the last one, just to see the Hawks, Aquaman and J'onn come back. I flipped through the rest in the local shop and didn't bother. I think events suck for the most part. And I'm not a big fan of padded tpb style writing either. I'd love to see 12 issues of Flash (for example) with 4 or so one issue stories, a few subplots, maybe a 2 or 3 parter...just regular comics stuff. Epics don't seem so epic when every story arc tries to be one.

That said, I don't think comics should go back to a Bronze Age style, but they should go forward and do something new...what, I don't know, and if I did I'd be out there writing it...but they are horribly stagnant and the tpb > crossover event > DKR/Watchmen swipes rut is really REALLY old and lame. I doubt Johns could write a big storyline without killing characters. There's no way he could write something like the Kree-Skrull War or a classic Crisis. No way in hell.

 

[Assassin]

You don't feel she writes male characters well then? I think she's done a good job with Bane, Deadshot and Catman in Secret Six.

Fortunately the only major male character in BOP is Hawk. And I hate that pr*ck more than words can say so I won't really care how she wrtes him. So long as he gets smacked around a great deal I'll be happy.

I just want to get it straight

I liked Villains United, I think she did that well. I even emailed her telling her how much I enjoyed it. I didn't know anything about most of the characters so i don't really know how off they were. The thing I complained about was an issue of BOP where Batman confronted Huntress out of the blue acusing her of wanting to be the new crime boss. She said she wasn't handed him a file, he admitted he was wrong and said oops, my bad and Dinah kissed him.

I told her to please never, ever write batman again because she doesn't get him. She writes him like a ***** and that he would never do something like that. In the same issue or the one after he had his ass handed to him verbally by Barbara Gordan. :wtf:

So all of her fans started to attack me, and she said don't close this or lock it, he has a right to his opinion and she actually defended me. It went on for a while. One time she took a shot at Robert Kirkman because he was doing Antman and she was doing Atom, and every one on her boards were joining in and bashing him. It kinda pissed me off because he wasn't on the boards and Invincible and Walking Dead were my favorite books. I then proceeded to defended him and then all of a sudden she says he doesn't need you to defend him, I was only joking with him he's my friend. She didn't tell everyone else who though she was serios and tell them to stop bad mouthing him.

Later on after Villains United came out I emailed her told her I was sorry, i didn't mean for it to hurt her feelings and that she made me eat my words with VU. She said "okay mr word eater". that's it, not a thank you or nothing.

A few years later I met someone, a very big name who I don't want to name because I guess he's friends with her now. When i told him who I was at ComicBloc he said, ohh, you're the guy Gail Simone hates. I said what? He said yea she tried to have you banned. I remember that, it was hilarious. I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that she took that much offense to that. Anyways I haven't bought another one of her books since her dumb ass Villains United response to me.

 

[Mystirious]

I just want to get it straight

I liked Villains United, I think she did that well. I even emailed her telling her how much I enjoyed it. I didn't know anything about most of the characters so i don't really know how off they were. The thing I complained about was an issue of BOP where Batman confronted Huntress out of the blue acusing her of wanting to be the new crime boss. She said she wasn't handed him a file, he admitted he was wrong and said oops, my bad and Dinah kissed him.

I told her to please never, ever write batman again because she doesn't get him. She writes him like a ***** and that he would never do something like that. In the same issue or the one after he had his ass handed to him verbally by Barbara Gordan. :wtf:

So all of her fans started to attack me, and she said don't close this or lock it, he has a right to his opinion and she actually defended me. It went on for a while. One time she took a shot at Robert Kirkman because he was doing Antman and she was doing Atom, and every one on her boards were joining in and bashing him. It kinda pissed me off because he wasn't on the boards and Invincible and Walking Dead were my favorite books. I then proceeded to defended him and then all of a sudden she says he doesn't need you to defend him, I was only joking with him he's my friend. She didn't tell everyone else who though she was serios and tell them to stop bad mouthing him.

Later on after Villains United came out I emailed her told her I was sorry, i didn't mean for it to hurt her feelings and that she made me eat my words with VU. She said "okay mr word eater". that's it, not a thank you or nothing.

A few years later I met someone, a very big name who I don't want to name because I guess he's friends with her now. When i told him who I was at ComicBloc he said, ohh, you're the guy Gail Simone hates. I said what? He said yea she tried to have you banned. I remember that, it was hilarious. I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that she took that much offense to that. Anyways I haven't bought another one of her books since her dumb ass Villains United response to me.

Wow. Very surprised and dissapointed to hear that. Personally I wouldn't boycott her as someone has to be a really loathsome individual for me to boycott their work based on what their like in person. Rob Liefield or Orson Scott Card for example

But I completely understand why you'd be in a foul mood after an experience like that one.