A selection of some of the funniest, most interesting and strangest quotes from the past week:
“When it comes to movies, the dead certainties never happen and the things you think are dead come back to life. I have no predictions and absolutely no theories. I watch everything that goes on in Hollywood with amusement and occasional trepidation … but mostly amusement.”
“Any minute now, Galactus will just show up and interrupt the hearing.”
– Glenn Hauman of ComicMix.com, on the delays in the Gordon Lee trial
“Artists should make whatever comics they feel compelled to make, and they shouldn’t be cowed by half-assed, poorly argued essays that fail to bring the goods.”
– Tom Spurgeon, on a recent essay by A. David Lewis complaining about autobiographical comics
“As soon as you hear ‘creator-owned’ graphic novels, you think here comes his life story. Um, nah, I don’t think so. I like to think of myself as an entertainer and a storyteller. I’m not like (popular autobiographical cartoonist) Adrian Tomine. I really don’t have that kind of story in me about the unbearable lightness of being and how horrible my childhood was.
“We all have bad things happen to us, and I don’t dwell on them. I’m really trying to frame what I’m doing here as graphic novels aimed for a mass audience.”
– Darwyn Cooke on his upcoming graphic novels
“In fact, the exile of mere ‘illustrators’ to this limbo of no screen credit is sadly emblematic of the ‘creator rights’ era of comics publishing, save for those key works that were wholly creator-owned and comics-creator originated (e.g., Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Crow, Fish Police, The Tick, etc.). Things are better than they were pre-1980, but the illusion that the creator rights battles have been fought and won is a pervasive and destructive one.”
– Steve Bissette, talking about why it’s important both Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess received screen credits on Stardust
“Why should people notice me? I died and came back! That’s how everyone gets a jump on things today, right? Superman. Hal Jordan. Oliver Queen. And if you think Steve Rogers isn’t waiting it out in some ice cube somewhere with a smile on his face, thinking about his big ‘comeback,’ I’ve got a Time Sphere to sell you.”
August 18th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Tomine’s stuff is more of remixes of himself, friends, and things he’s experienced, or stories his heard, through his storytelling filter, not necassarily autobiographic). I may have misread the comment, but I don’t think Tomine was the best example, as he has presented a variety of stories about a variety of people, and themes (though within a real-world context).
But yeah, I THINK I appreciate what Cooke was trying to say about the “creator owned material label” people automatically assume about creator owned comics(like confusing Indy Rock with the vintage rock song many unsigned artists use).
August 18th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Apologize for the awkward typings (I don’t think I can edit these).
August 19th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I think we need Gaiman to re-tell the Fantastic Four coming of Galactus. In a mini or something like the origin re-telling in 06.