Marvels Ultimate line
Has just reached the landmark 5 year anniversary, this is a major achievement for an "alternate-reality" Universe that many people condemned to an untimely demise. Many internet activists and comic experts predicted six months until the project failure:
Rob Liefeld – "I will tell you that for me this line holds very little interest. I was approached about doing some work on these titles but I resisted because of the fact that they were alternate continuity concepts.
"I believe that these titles are a great opportunity to expand Marvels awareness and I believe they will be met with a modicum of success. But for my time and effort, I enjoy the real deal."
I really can't believe Marvel would approach Mr. Liefeld for this project, after the bad press surrounding the "Heroes Reborn" debacle, but I could be wrong. Either way, doesn't look like Liefeld was right with this opinion. Which leads nicely into my next piece.
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ERIK LARSEN RULES
I don't have the exact quote, but in the last few months Rob Liefeld (the very same) went on record as saying (something along the lines of): I hope Todd McFarlane wakes up and takes control of Image back from Erik Larsen, so something can be done with the failing company.
Wrong again bucko.
Sure, when McFarlane left Amazing Spider-man, Erik Larsen took over but never recieved quite as much accolade as Todd and his amazing balls. History repeated itself a few years later when Toddy quit Spider-man only to be superseded by Mr. Larsen. And when Image Central opened its doors, it was Todd's creation which became an overnight multi-million, multi-media franchise success, not Savage Dragon.
But when it comes to comic publishing, Larsen is the genius, look at some of the great stuff we've had from the Larsen era of Image:
Walking Dead
Invincible
Girls
Sea of Red
Mage Tpbs Back in Print
The Complete Hellshock Tpbs
Flight OGNs
And from TMP:
Spawn
Hellspawn
Curse of Spawn
Spawn WildCATS
Sam and Twitch (from the pages of Spawn)
Spawn The Undead
Spawn the Impaler
Erik Larsen is great, his columns on CBR are well worth cheking out.
Yet I have never been a fan of his art or writing, but publishing seems to be his true calling.
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SPIDER-BABY?
Quoted by a Marvel employee / freelancer; I forget whom, on the subject of Spider-man about 5 years ago:
"He is currently homeless and unemployed. His baby daughter, that he believes was stillborn, was kidnapped and is in the hands of an unknown enemy. His supermodel wife is missing and is believed to have been killed in an airplane crash, but since her body was never found, you can bet your web she's alive somewhere.
Will they ever follow this storyline up, not just in the pages of Spider-girl? It grew out of the clone saga which many people read and enjoyed (myself included), a series that needs to be republished as a TPB of some description.
Its the stuff of legend, even the comic readers who never read the clone saga know of it, it really has become infamous in the pantheons of comicdom.
Now the last two or three times I have whinged about a GN or TPB being out of print, its been announced a few months later, so fingers crossed.
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Death's Head Wins!
From Marvel.com: You, the users of Marvel.com, have overwhelmingly voted to give the cybernetic assasin a massive Marvel makeover. Look for the newest version of Death's Head in Amazing Fantasy #16, in stores in December!
Will they destroy this once classic Marvel UK character? Will Simon Furman pen the character again? Are they fast tracking the story for early release?
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And finally...
Dogwitch wraps up very soon with #18, meaning the 3rd and final Tpb is available first quarter 2006.
I recomend this series to anyone who likes good stories, lovely artwork, cute women, quirky comedies like Army of Darkness, and definately to all the people who say comics are too inbred and samey.
I recently had the pleasure of talking to Dan Schaffer, he's a nice British chap who seems genuinely willing to help the small independant comic store. C'mon people, check out his stuff.
If your retailer doesn't stock it, then give them the following Diamond ordering codes:
DEC032630 DOGWITCH VOL 1 DIRECT TO VIDEO TP (MR) RT £9.99
JUL043117 DOGWITCH VOL 2 TWISTED TP (MR) RT £9.99
And be sure to check out Indigo Vertigo, his collaboration with Queen Adreena vocalist Katie-Jane Garside, coming soon from Image (nice one Larsen - see, its all connected).
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8 comments:
Guess you did do some updating then, you said post a comment and I would post something witty and original but i really can't think of anything. But hey you and this pete guy seem to know a lot, you know if i squint his pic looks a bit like billy corgan. Anyway if i ever think of something relevent to comment with i will.
Groovy Ryan, thanks for the post, and I see what you mean about Pete looking like Mr. Corgan.
Groovy? just dont. Thats like a rule, oh and i did have a think so the question I put to you sid, what with your love of ellis and all, if he asked you to blow him, would you oblige?
I just can't get past your use of groovy,what are you, the forgotten character of drop city?
Don't mock my groovy baby, I recently unleashed a triple groovy (in a situation where a double groovy would have probably sufficed), thats how much groove I can get on.
Just do me one favour, when you hear groovy, don't think of austin Powers. I am trying to take the word back from that evil man. Mike Myers is to groovy as Hitler was to swastika.
Fight the man, fight the power.
Would I blow Ellis, no fucking chance - you think he'll come anywhere near me? The dude is afraid. Even with all that Red Bull, he couldn't hobble away from me fast enough with that gammy leg of his.
Triple groovy? you have got a lot of that built into your system ay. Let it all out, I dont want to encounter anymore disco pimps, ive had my fill of 'em, as it were.
Anyway i was just taking a look through some of your earlyer blogs and I came across the bit about your writing, any chance of you posting a piece to have a read? or are you a bit protective about what you write?
Should I post somethignI have written? Hmm, I am always a bit wary of posting work on the internet, I think the quality is good enough, but most of ti is written full script for comic books and without the art it isn't much fun to read through. Watch this space, you never know.
The quality of the writing is definitely good enough (speaking as one who has had the privilege of reading some of it - and privilege really is the right word to use). It's original and engaging, and you can tell just by reading it, even without any artwork to back it up, that it was created by someone with a very genuine love of the industry and of writing in general.
I greatly look forward to seeing Beckett titles on shelves. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get my hands on a signed copy too.
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