CrossGen books were entertaining enough BUT the biggest problem they faced was the fact that they came out during one of the most abyssmal times for sales the industry has ever seen.

In a market like we have now, I would bet that they would have done much better.

(I think the “influnce” of the old Ellis Forum in CG’s downfall is overrated — a lot of the WEF hive-mind actually bought many CG titles, to poor pathetic Ellis’ chagrin)

Alessi would have had a greater impact in comics if he had concentrated on improving the woeful distribution system and the general lack of business competency in much of the comics “industry” at the time.

The entire line had no capes, no tights. They should have started wiht some superhero yarns to draw in the crowd and get a niche in the market before going all Ruse and Branth and piratey on us.

Negation ROCKED. Make it a TV series on Sci-Fi!!!!

They didn’t appeal to comic shop fans because they had no super-heroes, and when they’d sign big talent (like George Perez) it took FOREVER for their books to come out, if at all.

It was a good experiment, and with better business people at the top, I think they could have succeeded.

I read some of Ruse but was unimpressed as Waid didn’t really write a detective book but yet another title about how Men Keeping Secrets= Okay, Women Keeping Secrets= Disasater, a common ailment of his work that he only recently shook off.

Negation is one book I’d like to try a little more of- I thought the first few issues were pretty rank but the issue of CrossGen Chronicles Bedard did with Rudy Nebres about Obregon Kaine was excellent, probably the best CG comic I read. And good Tony Bedard comics are a rarity in this business.

Gotta take issue with this. Ruse, El Cazador, Way of the Rat, Negation – these books most decidedly did not suck. All were excellent representations of much under-exploited genres in the comics world, with great writing and art. I think they just came along at a time when the company was already on its downhill slide and people had already made up their mind about the shared universe thing.

Did you read any of these books? If not, which ones did you read?

And he was their first creative hire. Do the math.

Nearly everything that came out of CG was tired, creaky reworkings of LOTR or Samurai movies or Conan or fantasy flicks. Written by low tier superhero writers.

Plus, it was debuting at the height of Warren Ellis’ influence, and he cockpunched the company (deservedly, given how they treated creative in the end) instead of encouraging his flock (like me) to try the non-cape genres For The Greater Good of The Republic.

But mainly the books failed because they sucked.