Beau Smith lays out a challenge for Marvel and DC in his latest Busted Knuckles column — only publish stand-alone stories for a year:
Continuous events and crossovers can only enhance a story and characters when it is just that: AN EVENT. When they happen every week they are no longer awe-inspiring. They become mundane and boring to regular readers and nothing short of confusing to someone trying to step into mainstream comics.
Currently it’s supposed to be a writer’s stage in comics. Let’s see who can belly up to the bar and do a compelling twenty-two page story with a beginning, middle and end. If they’re a REALLY a good writer they can do it in eight pages. There’s a reason you don’t see anthology books anymore, writers don’t want to work that hard and editors don’t know how it’s done. (Not all, but most. Save your emails telling me different.)
Peter David, meanwhile, asks what Smith is willing to put up:
Of course, the thing is, when you’re issuing a challenge to someone, there should be some reciprocity. Like when a politician, for instance, issues a challenge to others to have campaigns that focus purely on the issues rather than dirt. There’s something at stake for the challenger as well, since he has to abide by the same rules or risk looking like a hypocrite.
What’s Beau putting on the line? Nada. He’s not saying that if Marvel and DC do this, then he will donate ten grand to the CBLDF or climb into a dunk tank or give up his column or something. It’s not like when I threw out the challenge to Marvel to maintain “Captain Marvel” at its then-current cover price and in exchange I would drop my writing fee to $20.99 until sales went up. Beau’s challenge is just, y’know, thrown out there. What’s at stake for Beau? Nothing, really.
So what do you think — should Marvel and DC accept? And what should Smith offer up?
June 16th, 2008 at 9:17 am
If he’s seriously suggesting that EVERYTHING they publish should be a self-contained 22 page story, then that’s absurd. (”Hey, guys, I’ve got this great idea for a book called WATCHMEN.” “Sorry, Alan, we’re spending a year in single-issue purgatory as a bet.”)
June 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I see no reason why either should accept. They ran with that strategy a few years ago. Quesada especially made a big deal about separating the comics and letting them sink or swim on their own when he took over as EiC. DC was less up front about it.
Of course, I’m really enjoying a number of Marvel titles right now, but don’t feel any need to follow the crossovers. I’m reading Secret Invasion because I want to read that, not because I feel that I need to read that. I didn’t read Civil War or WWH, and I didn’t feel like I needed to. I also like the way Marvel has been giving people choices in their crossovers. I didn’t have to read Annihilation (I did, and it was fantastic!). I didn’t have to read Messiah Complex. Of course, I will say that I dropped X-Factor primarily because I was uninterested in the crossovers that were starting up.
DC, on the other hand, seems to want me to drop Justice League of America. Why else would they mire the title in storylines that have to be followed elsewhere? It was a launching point for the Tangent mini. The most recent issue was a launching point for Final Crisis. This should be one of their premiere titles, not an issue #0 for each stupid mini or crossover that comes along.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Is Mr. David suggesting that he has to be…bribed?
June 16th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Okay, I must be getting lazy with old age. I totally skipped the second paragraph where Smith says that they should do only done-in-one comics. Both publishers already have titles that do that, the Johnny DC and Marvel Adventures lines do this. Johnny DC is slowly going the way of the dodo, but Marvel Adventures continues and is awesome! They are examples of good done-in-one stories.
I will say, however, that I think it would be in the best interest of both publishers and the writers and editors that work for them to try to make each issue a standalone issue. They’re missing out on the casual readers if they don’t. I like the idea of there being an overall arc that continues from issue to issue, but give me some meat with each issue. Tell me a story with a beginning, middle and end. Some writers are actually very good at this. Others aren’t. I think we’re seeing the big two move away from the “writing-for-the-trade” mentality that was prevalent when Jemas took over Marvel, though. I think his complaints about crossovers is timely. His complaints about “writing-for-the-trade” and pining for the done-in-one issues are a little behind the times.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
For his end of the bargain - Beau Smith can promise not to make Peter David cry the next time they meet in person. <— joke (for the more literal minded among us)
I don’t see anything wrong with more “done in one” stories. How many times have we seen a book go from 5 parter to 5 parter without a single issue story in the middle? Starman and Hitman (two old favorites) used to do a really good job of breaking up the arcs with the occasional “done in one”
I think writing meaningful single issue stories is much more difficult than writing multi-part epics. For a great example of a one part epic - check out Hitman #34 (the Superman guest shot).
June 17th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Well, obviously, looking at last month’s sales numbers, they should accept. What? Secret Invasion and Final Crisis were the top two? Huh. But, those are the major “event” crossovers that clearly nobody wants, aren’t they? What? The Batman “event” moved it into the top ten for the first time in quite a while? Well, shoot. There’s not a lot of evidence to support this case… um… Look! Kittens! Awww, aren’t they cute?