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The Tuesday Testimonial is about sore subjects, subjects so touchy that only a fool would even mention them. Luckily, I’m that fool. Last week we got a little outside of the box and for that I’m not at all sorry, but this week we’ll stay within the comic book frame work, or at least I think we will. First, a baseball analogy.
No use arguing balls and strikes…
One of the most perplexing things in all of sports is the fact that Major League Baseball managers run out on to the field and argue balls and strikes. They know they’re not supposed to, and they know that it won’t change much, but they do it anyway. The whole process is quite entertaining and a hoot to watch mostly because it is an exercise in futility.
In a somewhat similar fashion comic book readers read a book, get really pissed and pick up a pen or hit the keyboard. They’ve had it and now some intern at DC Comics is going to get an earful! Isn’t this also an exercise in futility? The sad fact is probably not, the real question is actually whether or not it’s right, which it isn’t.
You can’t pause at the theater!
What I’m getting at is the idea that most creative mediums don’t have to succumb to scrutiny unless it puts itself out there to be scrutinized. But comics are a different beast, where the customer is more than always right, more often than not they’re the ones driving the bus!
What I mean by that is simple, readers of comic books often seem to dictate the trends we see in the medium. Be it through sales (which is understandable) or through direct interaction (I.E. messages boards, letters pages, assholes like me) comics often fall sway to public appeal. Series are cut short, events are immediately retconned, and other format shifts occur based on reader reaction. This is where my theory that the creators live in fear of their customers comes from.
It seems to me the line between doing your own thing, and playing to your constituents has become blurred. It’s time for our creators to toughen up, and tell guys like me to go screw (I’m serious.) because you never know, something brilliant might happen.
For the love of God, shut up and listen…
There used to be a time when the storyteller was revered. When you would shut the hell up and let the storyteller go about the business of telling stories without any commentary from the listener. Nowadays everybody seems to have an opinion, and not only do they have an opinion, they’ll be damned if you don’t go along with it. Everyone and their mom has an opinion on Brian Michael Bendis’ run on The Avengers, why should he have to listen to any of them?
I’m not accusing BMB of catering to the masses directly, but something tells me that he feels the pressure and that’s a shame.
Howard Mackie and his run on Spider-Man is a better example of readers having a drastic effect on the outcome of a story. I was one of the ones that complained about Mackie’s work on Spidey, though I never wrote a single letter, and after his run ran its course, Marvel discreetly erased most of what he had done and brought the character full circle, which has become the standard for comic book storytelling on the main stage.
People went on and on about how bad the Clone Saga was, but no one gives Mackie credit for bringing back Norman Osborn. Would we have Dark Reign without Norman? Probably not. The fact is that if comics are allowed to perform uninhibited they can go in amazing directions and do amazing things. But we never let them do that because we have an almost dogmatic devotion to some imagined status quo in comics that doesn’t truly exist.
