Now that Tom Brevoort has given his take of the Civil War delay story, it’s time for the internet to grade his performance… Millarworld, in particular, treats it like Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest:
“So, basically he blames it on the writer and artist, thinks retailers are short-sighted, and it is the fans’ fault for being more demanding than they were in the 1970s. Marvel would have been better off just letting the creative talent talk about it. Whatever else you want to say, at least Millar and McNiven said they were sorry. The closest Mr. Breevoort gets is saying that the delay in the 45 anniversary of the Fantastic Four is an ‘unfortunate casualty’. Sigh. Missed an opportunity.”
“seem to be quite a few weasel words in there - his take on the retailer situation seem to be to compare apples with oranges.”
“Have to say that the reason given for not holding CW back a few months was that it would strait-jacket the tie-in creators pacing (if that’s not a mixed metaphor) seems a bit of a non-starter. Wasn’t Peter David only saying recently that he had to rework some of his ideas (ie: Flash Thompson etc) because of the lack of real notice he had. I’m thinking two or three months more lead time would actually have allowed most tie-in titles to get thier houses in order and set more stuff up. So far, impressed by the tone of Mark and Steve’s heartfelt responses. Less so by that of Marvel itself.”
The Bendis Board, though… They’re on Brevoort’s side:
“I am glad to see him say “fill-ins suck”! He finally is coming around to what others have said while he’s played rotating artists for years. That sounds like he agrees with me that the mismanagement of Thor’s last title artistically was the reason he had to be cancelled… Seriously, after this, how on Earth will they be able to justify putting a book out that’s drawn by a fill-in artist and expecting anybody to pay 3 dollars for ‘inferior’ product?”
“He’s right about fill-in artists. Once a company gets behind an 8-ball like this, they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. At least by keeping the same creative team, the memory of this debacle can fade; fill-in art is a permanent reminder of it.”
August 17th, 2006 at 11:28 am
“fill-in art is a permanent reminder of it”
Yeah, who does that company think they are, having George Perez and Jerry Ordway do fill in art? Like they should have anything to do with a sequel to Crisis. And, hundreds of thousands of people were so greatly disappointed by having those unknowns do fill-in art that they didn’t buy any comics or any of those followup comics that came afterwards.
I hate numerous artists on a book. Why to this day, I’m haunted by the numerous artists that drew in Justice League of America #200. I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat about Brian Bolland’s Green Arrow and Black Canary.
Sure, that other company is fixing certain problems with their big crossover and were able to allow almost all there followup comics to come out on time.
But, that doesn’t matter. No, who cares if 1 - 3 million comics combined of 52, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League of America were delayed. Retailers are made of money. That wouldn’t cause the industry any problems.
BTW, I’m very suprised that someone at the Bendis board is defending Marvel Comics on something. You just never see Bendis or any of his sycophants doing that.