Kirkman's new mission statement

[pmpknface]

Have you guys seen this yet? If not, go here and come back. I'll wait.

VIDEO EDITORIAL: Robert Kirkman (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17705)

So....

What do you guys think about this? I mean, to me it sounds like he's coming from a good place. But I'm not sure his intentions are good enough to warrant:

1) wanting Marvel & DC to solely aim at a younger audience

and 2) call for creators to entirely leave the big 2 for ONLY creator owned work.

I think that's pushing it a bit. There's no way that I was Spidey and FF and Batman (etc) to just be written for 8-16 year olds. Plus, what's wrong with wiriting for more than one publisher?

Am I alone? Did I mis-interpret Kirkman's message here? Thoughts?

[suttercain]

All the chatter going on here....
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=234084

[pmpknface]

Thanks. Yeah I've found that thread since, and this one here:

http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/showthread.php?t=159493&highlight=kirkman

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Robert Kirkman 2008 sounds an awful lot like Todd McFarlane 1992, right down to the "You shouldn't work for Marvel and Image at the same time."

That all said, I think a renewed call to creators to do creator-owned stuff is never a bad idea.

-Augie

[kevhines]

What Augie says is right. More creator owned stuff is always good.

But the idea that every good creator should leave Marvel and DC and make creator owned books will lead to a lot of poor creators.

Kirkman has two hits that grow when other books lose sales every month. But the reason that is notable is because it RARELY happens.

Sure some creators can sell books on their name, and probably should. But I think most of the HOT creators do that from time to time. Ennis, Ellis, Bendis, and Brubaker all have creator owned stuff mixed with their mainstream stuff.

I think Ellis found (and I could be wrong, here but I think I recall reading this) when he started doing some mainstream stuff again (Ultimate FF probably) the sales of his creator owned stuff spiked a bit. It helps to remind folks you are out there.

Maybe the best way for a hot creator to work is to have mostly creator owned stuff and every few years do a year-long run on a Marvel/DC book to keep in the spotlight? Easier said then done. And also it would hurt guys like Bendis who seem to excel with long long runs. If he did a bunch of mini's I don't think it would be as big a seller for him as Ultimate Spider-Man (let alone his Marvel ruling Avengers series-es).

But yes, more creator owned stuff sounds good to me.

[Agent_Torpor]

That all said, I think a renewed call to creators to do creator-owned stuff is never a bad idea.

-Augie

Yeah it is, if most of it's gonna be self-indulgent crap. Creator-owned doesn't necessarily equate to a good quality read.

[Black Vespa]

what he's saying is that the current stable of super-star writers in marvel and dc are not catering to the age group that the big 2 used to get most of there readers from. he's saying that the writers are catering to a reader audience their own age. to the detriment of the target younger age audience...the growth has been stunted so to speak. kids under 12 these days aren't buying comics nearly as much as they did while i was that age. it's sad. i get where he comes from and agree with what he's saying.

[Black Vespa]

Have you guys seen this yet? If not, go here and come back. I'll wait.

VIDEO EDITORIAL: Robert Kirkman (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17705)

So....

What do you guys think about this? I mean, to me it sounds like he's coming from a good place. But I'm not sure his intentions are good enough to warrant:

1) wanting Marvel & DC to solely aim at a younger audience

and 2) call for creators to entirely leave the big 2 for ONLY creator owned work.

I think that's pushing it a bit. There's no way that I was Spidey and FF and Batman (etc) to just be written for 8-16 year olds. Plus, what's wrong with wiriting for more than one publisher?

Am I alone? Did I mis-interpret Kirkman's message here? Thoughts?


back in the day until the mid-90's it practically was written for that target audience.

[pmpknface]

back in the day until the mid-90's it practically was written for that target audience.
Eh, I can't really agree with that. I've seen a ton of interviews with Stan Lee on how they were writing stories they'd want to read, and even though kids under 16 were buying them certain title were popular with college kids. Dr. Strange being one of them. Stan even went on a tour of college campuses in the 70's.

And golden age book are riddled with non-kid friendly material. Sure, books read simpler, but I don't really think they were all necessarily aimed at the under12 market.

Oh, and SURE! More creator owned stuff out there is a great idea. I'm all for it. It's the ONLY creator owned part that I don't see a need for.

[pmpknface]

Here's the Bendis reply...

http://wordballoon.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=370180#

[MartinRedmond]

They could start by having steady monthlies and aiming for kids themselves. No one's forcing them to stuff so much objectionable content into their own creations.

[pmpknface]

Oh yeah. I keep thinking about this and the more i do the more holes I can blow in it. How about this....

If you're supposed to:

- Start out small
- THEN go to the big 2 where they're supposed to make stuff "kid friendly"
- THEN to to the indy world where you do more adult, creator owned stuff...

How is someone supposed to follow you when all they've seen you do is stuff for kids?

Or... If you're supposed to be reading kid stuff at the big 2, what about indy stuff would be interesting? Just that the same creator was on it? I'll tell you, I didn't even look at credits on a comic until I was in high school. I didn't care. It's insane.

Also, I can't get around ONLY doing your own stuff. I just can't. If we're all 25 years old and following "Creator x" who leaves Marvel to go create Cool-Man for Image, in 5 or 10 years how are people who just turned 25 supposed to care about this Creator X? They didn't grow up with him. Why should they try Cool-Man? They would never have HEARD of him outside of Cool-Man.

The Bendis reply is good too. I enjoyed it.

[torippu]

.

The Bendis reply is good too. I enjoyed it.

I'm looking forward to listening to this today. I was up late last night, refreshed my podcasts before going to sleep, noticed the Bendis reply and had to resist the urge to listen to it at that time. Damn you need for sleep and responsibilities of family life! :smile:

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Real quickly: The Bendis Reply almost lost me in the first two minutes. When Bendis starts off by saying, "I didn't listen to it. It doesn't matter. People only read the quotes," he lost me. He's saying that people are willingly misinterpreting things for the sake of argument at that point, and I had to take everything he said after that with a grain of salt.

(Thankfully, John had a nice ending where he pointed this out, in a way.)

People adjust their words for the medium present. The written word is different from the spoken word. The comic book page is different than the movie screen. You need to adapt your medium for the message.

At the very least, you need to hear HOW a person says things to understand what they mean sometimes. Kirkman chose to talk this out. You need to hear that to "get" it. "The Bendis Plan" isn't an indictment of Marvel's promotions policy or Bendis, himself. It's an honest realization on Kirkman's part of his own hubris and misguidance.

Not that there aren't things in there Kirkman said that are very much debatable, but. . .

Wow, that wasn't very quick, was it?

-Augie

[torippu]

It was weird to hear Bendis reply based on what had been quoted to him.