Tom Brevoort is talking, interestingly enough, about the Marvel comics that made him not want to be a Marvel reader (part one, part two):
The seventies weren’t the best time for comics overall. The number of venues carrying the books was dropping, the printing was often, at best, lousy, and the page counts were dropping (at the low point, a new comic only contained 17 pages of story). At certain points, cost-cutting measures were employed, such as having the artists draw a page sideways on the board, and then printing it as a double-page spread (with oversized lettering compared to the rest of the book and thick inking that was intended for greater reduction, looking as though it had been done with a stick.)
Even in the best of times, THOR can be a difficult sell. And 1975 wasn’t really the best of times. Attempting to cash in on the barbarian fad in comics started by CONAN, THOR often vascilated between trying to look like a sword-and-sorcery comic and a super hero comic–largely to the indifference of both readerships.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Yeah, cuz present-day Marvel is obviously bursting with enthusiasm over the Thor character…so much so they named a clone-robot assassin after him.
Tell ya what, Tom….prove you and the current Marvel regime have what it takes to tell entertaining Thor stories, and I’ll actually give your opinion a molecule of weight.
Oh, and while you’re at it, how about some books that come out on time, smart guy?
January 24th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Yeah, Tom! How DARE you reminisce about the things that got you into this business! The thousands of enjoyable comics you have had a hand in over the years are MEANINGLESS as long as you have Clone-Robot-Assassins running around!!
January 24th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I think Mark has a point – isn’t a bit hypocritical for Brevoort to comment on the quality of Thor comics when he and the rest of today’s Marvel cancelled the excellent Dan Jurgens take to do next to nothing with the character other then the whole Clor mess?
January 24th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
It isn’t hypocritical at all, seeing as it involves a matter of personal taste.
Saying that the take-out I ordered one night was awful when my Thanksgiving dinner was an abomination isn’t hypocritical.
And honestly, Oeming’s brief run on Thor and Beta Ray Bill are some of the finest Thor stories ever, so good on them.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Oeming’s Thor has been excellent.
Morrison: Well, if you like Jurgens’ Thor, you’ll love JMS’, which seems to be the EXACT SAME PREMISE, only in Oklahoma.