Mark Millar is explaining where his head is at this year:
I prefer the Millarworld books to just be radical from an idea point of view. Nobody’s ever seen a superhero comic like ‘Kick-Ass’ before, and I want the Quitely project and the Dave Gibbons project to each be very unique and very new. People just want something different. You can see it in the charts. I feel creator-owned is where people’s interests are shifting. The vast majority of what I’m picking up comes from Icon and Image and, as we saw with ‘Nemesis’ or ‘Kick-Ass 2′ or whatever, these things can hit the top ten or top twenty, even in the middle of massive events or company-wide relaunches. we did 125,000 copies of ‘Kick-Ass 2′ #1 over five or six printings. The appetite for something new is enormous.
This seems to be the same feeling for 2012 that Image Comics seems to be tying into with their new ad campaign, the idea that this will be the year where readers look for new ideas and new characters. I really hope that’s the case, but in a year when Marvel are going to be pushing Avengers Vs. X-Men and DC likely has a second wave of New 52 in the wings, I have suspicions that old ideas will end up doing just fine…
January 10th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Wait, how is anything that’s title ends with the number 2 qualify as “something new”?
January 10th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Yes, people want something different. But, despite his self-hype, Millar is not doing things very different. He is a good writer (at times), and he has some interesting ideas, comes up with some interesting characters. However “Real World Superheroes,” “Batman is Evil,” “Crime Heist plot,” “Young boy turns into a superhero,” etc, are things that have been done before. Again, not to diminish the interesting spin Millar puts on them, but these concepts are not completely new. Last thing I can think of that Millar did that was suprisingly fresh was the Ultimates/Civil War stuff.
January 10th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
For me, personally, I wholeheartedly agree. Even though I am still a big fan of the conventional superhero fare, its books like Morning Glories, Casanova, DMZ (even though it just ended) and other non-superhero indie books that have been really getting my attention over the last few years, and earning my dollars. I can’t wait for Johnathan Hickman’s Feel Better Now.
January 10th, 2012 at 7:09 pm
If I want something new and different it will most likely be an indie or image book. Millar? He’ll just recycle something that has been done before and put his spin on it. You’re not original Mr Millar, your a magician that tricks people into thinking your creative and original