A collection of interesting quotes from this week (and maybe some holdovers from last week that I missed when I was out of town):

“I never thought I’d say this about a comic called Super-Villain Team Up: MODOK’s 11, but the latest issue needed more MODOK.”

Kevin Church

“I would always give anything to Terry Gilliam, forever, so if Terry Gilliam ever wants to do Sandman then as far as I’m concerned Terry Gilliam should do Sandman. But Terry’s busy trying to get Good Omens made that Terry Pratchett and I wrote. He needs someone to give him $70m. If you or any of your readers have a spare 70 million dollars you are not doing it with then send it to T Gilliam, care of the London Pipe Organisation.”

Neil Gaiman

“Clearly, Mr. Fisher made a mistake in that it was not an appropriate referral for this ninth grader. But it was not a malicious or lascivious one and should not have led to his suspension and subsequent resignation. In my view, he is a gifted teacher and our students are poorer for his departure. He was Amanda’s favorite teacher.”

Loren Sterman, whose daughter was taught by Nate Fisher, the teacher who gave a student a copy of Eightball #22

“… I want to control more of how my work is seen, and how it’s represented, and how it’s distributed. I want to be more informed about what’s being done with my work, even if it means selling fewer books.”

Mike Hawthorne, on why he’s putting his creator-owned material up on ThinkTankComics.com

“Yes, it definitely is an Intellectual Property factory. No, you don’t get the same royalties you’d get at Image or if you did your own site. For that matter, you don’t have a track record for licensing Zuda properties. But if you’re looking to be paid and get some exposure, it’s a decent deal. If you’re already got enough of a following that $1K/month for 4 strips means you’re taking a loss on your time, this isn’t the deal for you. I’m not expecting to see a John Byrne strip turn up, y’know?”

Comic Book Resources columnist Todd Allen, talking about the Zuda contracts that were posted online

“Now, according to standard media analysis, the pay-for-read paradigm for online newspapers and so forth is dead. In order to compete, places like The New York Times & CNN must offer their news for free on the Internet. I know Scott McCloud has written about ‘micropayments’ in conjunction with webcomics but I really think that the future of comics online is free access. So I might extend that and say that the future of comic books period is largely online and for free.”

Valerie Dorazio, talking about the future of comics

“Radiohead has released its new album for free online, and fans can pay what they want for it. Who will pay and who will take what they can get? The article acts like this is something new, but webcomics creators have been doing this for years. I guess it’s a big deal for famous musicians. Stephen King also tried this 7 years ago with one of his novels, and found that only a fraction of those who read the novel online were willing to pay for it. After a disappointing fan response, King dropped the online ebook experiment in 2000. Maybe things have changed enough between now and then to make it worthwhile for King were he to try this today, but one thing he learned - like it’s some kind of surprise - people will gladly take what they can get for free.”

Colleen Doran

“Back then, you could get away with just reading the individual parts, if that was all you could pick up, and still understand the story. As more and more events came out, that got harder to do. I think the publisher recognized that and they literally stopped doing them. And I think this is the first time since then that you don’t have to read everything.”

Writer Chris Yost, talking about X-crossovers past and future

“My basic philosophy behind publishing is that I think a publisher should publish a wide variety of books. Just like Simon & Shuster publish everything from cookbooks to soft porn, I think that a comic book publisher should do the same — not necessarily cookbooks and soft porn, but a wide gamut of books.”

Jim Valentino

“The way I work, as a cartoonist, I have to see the whole thing, and when I write comics – I can’t just write a script. I feel that the best comics are actually writing with pictures.”

James Sturm, on how he worked with Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow artist Rich Tommaso

“I get asked, quite frequently, what the biggest differences are between writing novels and writing comics. I’ve answered the question so often at this point, it’s almost rote. In a nutshell, it’s the level of collaboration that makes the biggest difference, and working with Steve (Lieber) is a terrific example of that. I can tell him what I’m thinking of doing, the ideas I’m toying with, and simply by the nature of the project, he’ll hear those ideas in a visual way, and in turn, inspire me so that I go back to the keyboard with better ideas, better ways of accomplishing the story we’re trying to tell. That’s just not something I get with the novels; the novels live in a world of one, but the comics, they live, minimum, in a world of two. Sometimes that can go horribly wrong, if you’re not on the same page as the person you’re working with.”

Writer Greg Rucka

“After I’ve done all three chapters, I can say I have drawn stuff I never imagined could be in the same story of the “cute girls in a band with a robot” story, which comes as a lesson to any artist. You should always be prepared to draw everything, and should always be learning how to draw and show new things. The artist should be always curious, asking questions with his or her eyes, learning from what it’s around. Look at those trees, aren’t they big? They’re branches only start all the way up there, twenty feet from the ground. That other tree is fat, and twisted, and has branches from the height of your midget friend up to the top of those other trees you saw first.”

Fabio Moon, artist for Sugarshock

“So, our hero—who’s so indelible I don’t remember his name—is saddled with a partner. A sullen Latina who drinks too much, is muy promiscuous, has a father who won’t talk to her, and might have had something to do with her dead partner. In other words, she’s Renee Montoya from Gotham Central, minus the homosexuality. And, since I think we can all agree that being gay is just one element of one’s psychological makeup—and not even the most important—she’s Renee Montoya.”

Marc Bernardin, talking about NBC’s new show Life

“For me as an armed forces member, I’m pleased with how widespread the story of Captain America’s death reached, how mainstream it became. Regardless of people’s political views today, it shows me people still have an American ideal in their hearts, something we can all look to and agree is a good symbol for the country. For those of us that are comic book readers, we read of the best and worst in all of us through these characters. For those uninitiated to comics, which is most people, their knowledge of comic books is only of the best in us.

“What I mean is, those who don’t read comics have an ideal in their minds when they think of Spider-Man (the little geek who made it big), Superman (the orphaned immigrant who found a home), and Captain America (the symbol of a nation). When I saw the nation’s reaction to Cap’s death, it made me realize that people still do love our country because they were mourning the death of our country’s ideal. Even if many people don’t know what we in the services do over here, I’m reminded that people still love America. And that makes the job worth it.”

Matt Yocum, Air Force major stationed at the Defense Attaché Office at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel … and a new writer for Marvel

“It suddenly occurs to me that, with Howard the Duck #1, Omega: The Unknown #1 and Foolkiller #1, Marvel are bringing back this month not one, not two, but three properties created - or co-created, in the case of Omega - by writer Steve Gerber in the seventies. If you want to stretch things, you can add the Legion of Monsters collection as well, which includes a Man-Thing story. That character isn’t one of Gerber’s creations, but it’s certainly one that’s come to be associated with Gerber above everyone else. And, incidentally, none of those books are written by Gerber himself.”

Marc-Oliver Frisch

“Lily and I were at the San Sebastian festival in San Juan (a Puerto Rican Mardi Gras) and it was one of those nights where things just started clicking mentally. I was looking about the craziness of the fiesta and I was thinking of a way to use this in a future True Story Swear to God story. When I looked out at the El Morro forte in the distance, I thought the type of stone and the color of it resembled Ben Grimm in a way. Click.

“I decided that this is the type of party Puerto Rico would throw if Ben came to visit. Since he looked like their beloved forte, they’d throw this huge event every year in honor of him. And I really think that this is the place Ben would circle on his calendar. Thus I had this idea in my head where Ben secretly comes to the one place on this planet that truly honors him for his appearance, not as a monster to be pitied. That would be huge for him.”

Tom Beland, on the inspiration for his upcoming Fantastic Four: Isla de Muerta one-shot

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Features, Quote Unquote. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.