Tom Brevoort defends Civil War’s Harvey Award win:
Whether or not CIVIL WAR #1 deserved to win isn’t for me to say. But it was said by the majority of the people who voted on the awards. And if you agree with their judgment in most of the other categories, more or less, then it’s difficult to complain about this one area with any sort of a response other than an emotional one. How dare a commercial, best-selling mainstream comic book win such an award–that kind of thing. But this is the difficulty in any such award process, which amounts in one way or another to a popularity contest–sometimes, things that you don’t like are going to be popular with the consituency that are granting the award.
I know it’s not popular to believe, especially online, but plenty of people really did like CIVIL WAR–both readers and retailers. And while it certainly had no pretentions towards being “art”, it was very much dedicated to being a crackling good super hero story. And people responded to it, in a way they haven’t to anything else the majors have produced in the past few years. That’s the reality–get over it.
Jeez. Now I feel bad for saying that I would kill all the Harvey Award judges for payback for this aesthetic oversight.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:42 am
The Harveys have lost all relevance.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Somewhere in Hollywood, Marisa Tomei is smiling.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Isn’t “superhero” one word and not two? I would think the editor of the Harvey Award winning comic book CIVIL WAR #1 would know that. Then again, maybe not.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:21 am
“Isn’t “superhero” one word and not two? I would think the editor of the Harvey Award winning comic book CIVIL WAR #1 would know that. Then again, maybe not.”
ignoring the cheap shot you felt you needed to take, it’s been used either as one or two words for years, and even shows up hyphenated.
{insert last sentence from Brevoort’s statement here}
September 20th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Really? Who else writes it as two separate words?
September 20th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Who else writes it as two separate words?
The title of the LSH cartoon show is ‘Legion of Super Heroes’. Whatever; I always have it as one word myself.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:41 am
In fact, “super hero” and “super-hero” have been the standard Marvel terms for decades, going at least as far back as the “Marvel Super-Heroes Annual” of 1966, through the “Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars” covers, and up to, well, anything that uses the “Marvel Super Heroes” logo, such as http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=314898&zoom=4
September 20th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Two words, one word, or hyphenated? WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON??
September 20th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Yet on the pages of CIVIL WAR, it’s continuously one word. Same with the Civil War section on the Marvel website. It is one word. “Superhero regulation and Registration swept through the government and sides were quickly drawn.”
September 20th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Tom Brevoort in Doesn’t-Blog-Using-Marvel-Style shocker!
September 20th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Wow. Welcome to the dumbest argument in the history of the Internet.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Someone needs to come up with a plausible explanation for why Brevoort made it two words. They could win a no-prize.
Mine: Because it doesn’t freaking matter.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:58 am
FYI, the Harvey Awards don’t have “judges.” The winners are selected by comics professionals. Any pro in comics can vote.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
The reason I brought it up was because in my opinion, CIVIL WAR’s biggest problem was one of consistency. In the actual CIVIL WAR book, Sue and Reed split up in a very non-confrontational way. She wrote him a note and left in the middle of the night. In FANTASTIC FOUR, she left after a long drawn out nasty argument.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Personally I’m pro-one word. And the fact that I want to round up all the ’superhero as two worders’ out there and place them in a concentration camp in the negative zone doesn’t make me a fascist, just a modern mainstream superhero whose argument is equally valid as the others. Three cheers for Civil War winning a Harvey. Sieg heil, Marvel Comics. Sieg heil.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
“The reason I brought it up was because in my opinion, CIVIL WAR’s biggest problem was one of consistency.”
Quibbling over the spelling of a word that’s never been consistently spelled really isn’t the best way to support your argument.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
“Quibbling over the spelling of a word that’s never been consistently spelled really isn’t the best way to support your argument.”
Every time the word “superhero” is used in the series he edited, it was expressed as one single word. Not two words. Not hyphenated. It was one word. On his blog, it is two words.
My point is that he isn’t very consistent.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Forest, meet trees.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Hey, Civil War #1 was a good frickin’ comic book and yes, I too think it was worthy of the award it received.
However, I think the problem that everyone is having is that we all have to reconcile that the “pay off” of the Civil War as an “epic Mega-Event” was what made it suck–not the first issue.
Reread it–it really is a great singular comic book.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
“And while it certainly had no pretentions towards being “art”, it was very much dedicated to being a crackling good super hero story.”#
See, that’s why I think Civil War was a steaming pile of Hotspur - it was a really, really BAD superhero story.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I have to say… I’ve been collecting comics for 36 years and Civil War along with DC’s 52 made me stop buying comics cold turkey.
Cross title “events” aren’t about the art or the story, they’re about merchandise and they cut the heart clean out of the comic book industry.
Yes, yes, I know it’s an “industry” and it would be a crying shame if Marvel or DC went out of business tomorrow, but when I was reading the books it became obvious that the people making them were doing so not out of any love for the genre, they were producing a product for a paycheck.
So I went over the list in my head… if I stopped collecting today what titles would I actually miss? Walking Dead and maybe Ex Machina. That’s it.
I realized I was buying comics out of habit, not as a hobby. So I stopped. I think a lot of people are like me but haven’t come to that realization yet. When they do Marvel and D.C. are going to be in a world of hurt.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
FYI, the Harvey Awards don’t have “judges.” The winners are selected by comics professionals. Any pro in comics can vote.
Weren’t the Harveys “rigged” a number of years back when all of the Crossgen staff got together and voted the same which enabled them to push through their books in many categories? For those not in the know on this organized attempt at ballot stuffing back in 2002, google it.
I’m sorry, but something about Civil War winning this award stinks, conspiracy or not. Sure it did great numbers for Marvel but it was also FAR from an all-time great comic book tale. It would be the equivalent of Spider-man 3 winning ‘Picture of the Year’. It was a good popcorn muncher and nothing more.
September 21st, 2007 at 1:30 am
Civil War #1 wasn’t a good comic, it was an illustrated version of solicit text. For $4 I’d liek some writing I couldn’t find for free on the internet
Jordan, how on Earth was the self-contained 52 a crossover event?
Fanboy, Crossgen did try to stuff the ballor box for the Harveys, but IIRC, it didn’t lead to many wins, just a lot of noms, and those were mainly for people who deserved it like Waid and Laura Martin.
September 21st, 2007 at 7:17 am
To expound on the proper use of the word “Superhero” just a little bit further, I totally forgot that DC and Marvel both jointly own the trademark to the word “SUPERHERO”. Not “SUPER HERO”. Not “SUPER-HERO”.
Link
September 24th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
What sort of comics do the naysayers on here normally read?
I read comic books in every genre, and I definitely think most of what Marvel puts out isn’t worth the cover price. I think the same thing about DC.
That being said, I still thought Civil War was a great story. It seems like most people bashing it simply don’t like Marvel in general.
Civil War to me felt as though Millar was given free reign to do whatever he wanted with the characters involved and what he did with them was make a very powerful, awesome story. Whether he gratuitously, or with some self-serving purpose decided to write people out of character, or create circumstances we as fanpeople don’t appreciate, that’s another discussion altogether. But what’s what all writers do, they write people the way they want to write them.