SPURGEON: You didn’t have the reluctance problem, did you? Did you think anyone chose not to talk to you, or changed the way they talked to you, out of careerist or similar concerns?
HOWE: Oh, sure. Tons of people. Tons of people. It’s no secret that this book really accelerates in the last ten years, and it has a very sudden ending. There are multiple reasons for that, but one of them is that no-one in the comics industry now is really interested in talking about the comics industry.
SPURGEON: Right. Not like that, anyway. Or at least not on the record.
HOWE: Not to someone who is writing a book.
There is a lot to be interested in in Tom Spurgeon’s conversation with Marvel Comics: The Untold Story author Sean Howe, but this was the exchange that jumped out at me. There are, of course, many reasons why today’s comics professionals aren’t interested in “talking about the comics industry,” with the chief one likely being “They don’t want to say anything that could prevent them getting work in the future,” but still: One day, there will be people who are willing to talk, and I can’t wait to see what they have to say…
January 10th, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Shame he never contacted me.
January 11th, 2013 at 6:56 am
and yet if you look back at “the comics journal” from the late 70s and early 80s that’s all anyone did. talk and talk trash at that. which is reflected in the book.