Jamie Coville at Collector Times chats with Kurt Busiek on a variety of subjects, everything from Aquaman and Superman to comic book warning labels:
Jamie: Some say kids are naturally drawn to comics and there are some ignorant parents out there that think all comics are for kids. How should publishers let retailers and readers know which comic is for which age group?
Kurt Busiek: I don’t think we should let ignorant parents run the industry. I think the bookstores are full of terrific examples of how to package and present books and magazines so that they appeal to the intended audience, rather than making them all look the same and then trying to warn away the wrong audiences. Just go to a bookstore and look around — look at the kind of design, illustration, typography and more that goes into packaging Lloyd Alexander’s THE BLACK CAULDRON so that it looks like what it is — a young-readers fantasy novel — while the latest John Sandford thriller looks completely different. Books use trade dress, families of imprints, genre labels and more, and have no trouble making the books reach out to the right audiences. They don’t need warning labels, and we don’t either.
He also touched on the similarities between the Dweller in Aquaman and Davy Jones, the villain in Pirates of the Caribbean 2, saying it was a coincidence rather than a swipe by either side. “It’s just the right time for squid-beards, I guess.”
July 9th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
“I do have plans for other stories that would work as companion pieces to SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY, but they’re different stories, different characters.”
Now that news definitely interests me almost as much as the point of this blog item. Thanks for the link.