There Can Only Be One...

For the most part, I'm going to let our resident Spider-Fan handle this one, but I wanted to put in my own two cents about the following quote from Spider-Editor Stephen Wacker (via Robot 6, who pulled it out of a longer interview with Wacker from last week):

"For the couple of months coming out of "One Moment in Time," we're going to be bringing a lot of threads of Peter's life that we've been developing since we started working on the book into one big story, 'Origin of the Species.' It sort of gives Pete a moment to assess all the stuff that's happened to him for the last 100 or so issues. Beyond that, we've already started talking about the fact that it might be time for a new, or at least better, Spider-Man. I feel like we've done as much as we can do in terms of Peter Parker's time as Spider-Man."

The only thing I've got to add is the following: haven't we been down this road before? And how did that turn out?

Holy Comic Strips, Cap!

I love Captain America.

Long time readers know this to be true, but it bears repeating- there's no character in comics I like as much as I like Captain America, Steve or Bucky. Imagine my joy, then, in finding out that there was not one new Captain America comic this week, but indeed two! And that second one, far from being a poorly written one-shot or needless mini-series was something... well, a little different.

Karl Kesel's Captain America: The 1940's Newspaper Strip#1 is certainly fun (it's a collection of a faux in-period daily strips that Kesel did for Marvel Digital Comics unlimited) and it's pretty funny, too. Kesel's artwork is expressive and cartoon-y and, even if his writing sometimes falls flat, his characterization is pretty good. All the characters sound and feel appropriately cheesy and there were just enough interesting twists and turns to keep me engaged.

Mostly, I'm interested in two things, here- can this concept (which is serviceable, if not precisely mind blowing) sustain itself without getting obnoxious, first of all, and, secondly, how can comics fans use this book to their advantage?

That's sort of an odd question, I know, but consider this- Peanuts and Captain America are, essentially, the same medium- they're in different formats and run in different mediums, for sure, but they work on the same principles, much like the difference between a novel and a prose serial. Tell someone you like COMICS, though, and I imagine they're more likely to think of the latter rather than the former, as if the two are completely different. I don't know why this is, although I certainly have my suspicions, but books like this are important (even if they're just fun comics, rather than good comics) because they have the opportunity to bridge that gap and, in so doing, close the difference between a comics fan's understanding of the medium and everybody else's.

That Kesel is using the "strip" here is fascinating and, although sometimes it works better than others, I hope to see more like it, or even an anthology of strips like this that comes out once a month, just for something a little different. There's a lot of potential for fun comics here, and there's no need for something like this to be high art: it's great just the way it is.

Jeph Loeb Has New Job as Marvel's Head of Television

"Executive Vice-President, Head of Marvel Television" to be exact!


Huh...

This is a subtle ramification of Disney's purchasing of Marvel last year. In this video, Loeb talks about "hour-long dramatic television series" (presumably he means live-action series) soon to be in development with "ABC and ABC Family", both Disney owned channels if you didn't know. It's exciting because although there has been a 'Marvel Animation' or a 'Marvel Studios', there has never been an over-all TELEVISION division at Marvel. That is why there have been so few Marvel properties in live-action television adaptations, and why they have generally been very cheesy when done. It is also why there has never been a push toward television advertising for Marvel's comics.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" 1977 live-action series:

is a prime example of Marvel on TV gone bad.

The 70s "Incredible Hulk" live-action series is the exception to this... although it's not exactly perfect either.

What will this mean moving forward? Well, I imagine that if nothing else it means we will have one centralized force working to get Marvel's characters back on television and hopefully in high quality narrative productions, but possibly limited to channels owned by Disney.

Regardless of the quality of the comics he has been producing of late, Jeph Loeb is a damn smart man who has had a varied career in varied media for decades: film, television, and comics. This isn't Marvel putting a comics writer with no experience in moving image media in charge of their Television division. This is a shrewd move on the part of Marvel/Disney and I'm sure we'll see some nice productions come out of it but...

I hope this leads to some avenues for direct comics advertising on channels owned by Disney. Because this blog is about comics, Disney bought Marvel and Marvel is in the business of making comics goddamnit. I know, 'Again he's harping on this?' but I really do believe that good adaptations may lead people back to the comics and bad ones may steer them away from the medium, but advertising for the comics themselves can only be good for the industry. No matter how bad an advertisement for a specific pizza brand is, it gets you thinking about pizza. This is even more important for comics in the US because we are in a country where thousands or even millions of people don't even know that comics HAVEN'T died out yet.

If this new "Marvel Television" diverts even more capital away from the sequential art division and isn't also going to incorporate some advertising for the comics or at least some planned financial kickback into the comics, I'm going to be pissed. The potential here, as always, is great. Whether Marvel remembers to keep the focus on their roots remains to be seen.

~ @JonGorga