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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 24, 2024 20:37:24 GMT -5
That's the thing, I have found, with people in the public eye, especially performers, which includes many notable authors. there is the public image and the real person and many in the arts craft a public persona to deal with the public, in whatever fashion, while the real person remains private, known only to close friends and family. people who knew Robin Williams talked of him "always being on," if ther were more than one or two people; but, when you got to see the real Robin, he was a very shy, sweet person. Steve Martin appeared at one of the B&N manager conferences (they had publisher reps, authors and guest speakers, in preparation for the holidays and major book releases), and my boss sat at a table with him and he was very lively on stage; but, among them, he was very quiet and reserved. I once worked at an off-site signing, at the local library, for Tamora Pierce, and she spoke to two audiences of young fans (almost entirely girls and their mothers) and she adopted different personas, as a gimmick, for each one, at the stat, to put them at ease. In the first, she spoke very haltingly, coughing and stammering, like she was painfully shy; but, then grew more and more confident with each statement, until she became herself and everyone realized she had pranked them and laughed. During the break, we complimented her on her performance and she said she did another version, where she is flamboyant and eccentric and she then did that version, for the second group. It was a hoot. She did some amateur radio theatrics with a group, recreating old radio plays or new pieces, in that style. In pro wrestling, the heels were usually the nicest people, when not in character, while the babyfaces were often jerks to people. I think what comic fandom sees of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, and others, is a public persona they have developed, either to appear more or to maintain some sense of privacy, or to market their work. Not everyone. Some are pretty much "what you see is what you get." Some you build this image, in your head, based on their work, then you meet them and are floored that they are nothing like that. You expect Mike Grell to be this big bruiser, festooned with guns and swords, tossing back beer and whiskey and fighting off criminals and killers with one hand and sketching with the other. Then you meet him and he is this small man (I'm 5 ft 6 and he is no bigger), with an impish twinkle and a great sense of humor, who just happens to love classic adventure and mystery fiction and excels at creating it. He does own a few firearms and has fenced and shot arrows, which just makes the legends that much more colorful, like the story of him setting a pistol on the table, at First Comics, during contract negotiations. As he tells it, it was just after Christmas, his brother gave him a .45 cal automatic pistol and he had it in his briefcase and someone saw it and wanted to take a look at it and he pulled it out, made sure it was safe and handed it to them. That morphed into a tale of tough negotiating tactics. I mean, come on, would this guy pull out a gun, as a power play? Pretty good singing voice, there! Funny, I've always thought of Grell looking like the spitting image of Travis Morgan or Oliver Queen Well, he used to have the beard....and more hair........ (On the right, sitting next to Neal Adams) Only wrestling fans will get this, but, with that shirt, he reminds me of wrestling manager Sir Oliver Humperdink!
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Post by impulse on Jul 24, 2024 20:51:17 GMT -5
I'm a bit late and it's not the main point, but to chime in, I generally don't like most of what I've read by Morrison. I heard he had a reputation that he can't do endings, and I largely agree. Also a lot of it seems like weird for the sake of weird.
That said, I really liked his X-MEN run, and that is partially because of when it came out in context of the X-Books and where I was in life at that time.
As briefly as possible, I got into comics by way of X-MEN in like 1990-91. Marvel and the X-Books started a decline right into the shitter. I eventually dropped comics and moved on. Started getting back into comics around 2000 ish in college and around the first X-Men movie, and MAN was it exciting.
I thought Morrison's X-MEN was the perfect amount of familiar things and putting his stamp on it and modernizing it. I felt the homage to a lot of the classic Claremont stories I read while also being sucked into the fresh new direction. I thought the way he setup the world was brilliant, expanding mutants into mainstream, setting up mutant town and there being a mutant sub-culture. Expanding reach internationally with the corporation thing. I thought he set up a really interesting new status quo to shake off the cobwebs and make it fresh again.
...and then the second he left Marvel tossed out everything of substance he did, kept some of the superficial crap, and reverted back to mutant scarcity so hard it shook the reality walls Superman was punching in the 80s. Morrison's X-MEN was the catalyst that got me back into comics, and what they did to cancel it out with interest after was the catalyst for me eventually dropping them again, though years later.
Much as I loved it, it had some major flaws. The massive delays were brutal, the wildly uneven art and jarring tone of rotating artists, and true to his reputation, the ending was a bit weak. I get what he was trying to do with Magneto, but it was really heavy-handed.
Love it or hate it, it was interesting!
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 25, 2024 7:53:57 GMT -5
My biggest complaint about Morrison (and this was especially true of his DC work) Is when he references some obscure Silver Age story or character without explaining anything to the reader, and expects us to have complete knowledge of it.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jul 25, 2024 12:14:32 GMT -5
My biggest complaint about Morrison (and this was especially true of his DC work) Is when he references some obscure Silver Age story or character without explaining anything to the reader, and expects us to have complete knowledge of it. That's something I got a big kick out of sometimes, especially when knowing it didn't impact the story for those not in the know. For instance, in Seven Soldiers, Vigilante had lycanthropy. How? Morrison didn't tell, it's just something that happened on one of his many adventures, but I knew immediately when it must have happened to him...
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 25, 2024 12:29:44 GMT -5
My biggest complaint about Morrison (and this was especially true of his DC work) Is when he references some obscure Silver Age story or character without explaining anything to the reader, and expects us to have complete knowledge of it. That's something I got a big kick out of sometimes, especially when knowing it didn't impact the story for those not in the know. For instance, in Seven Soldiers, Vigilante had lycanthropy. How? Morrison didn't tell, it's just something that happened on one of his many adventures, but I knew immediately when it must have happened to him... But sometimes it had a direct impact and not knowing the minutia of DC history made it harder to follow.
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Post by rberman on Jul 25, 2024 13:55:43 GMT -5
My personal rule with Morrison is to avoid the Marvel/DC stuff for the most part* but try to read the independent work with an open mind, i.e. don't go into it already half-convinced that he's just a con artist doing weird crap for shock value or whatever. That doesn't mean you have to like everything or agree with his ideas or worldview but I think there are some genuine ideas underlying his best work and a sincere effort to deal with them in an entertaining and thoughtful manner. I also think he's one of the most skillful comics writers out there in terms of his ability to write dialogue, to produce different voices for different characters, to change his narrative style to create varied effects, etc. * the exception for me would be Seven Soldiers, which I thought was excellent. There may be others that I'm not aware of, because I've mostly stayed clear of his DC/Marvel things. I might probably try Doom Patrol one of these days. While most of what I've read by Morrison has been sparse, I've enjoyed what I've read by him with the exception of The Invisibles. Doom Patrol felt like Superheroes mixed with an unhealthy dose of LSD, same with Marvel Boy. The Multiversity also seemed really unique for the time, kind of like a mesh of Crisis and Watchmen I generally appreciate the way Morrison works outside of the usual superhero cliches. X-Men desperately needed some new ideas, which he gave. The same happened with Hickman more recently. Remember that many creators of the last twenty years won't even take their original ideas to Marvel or DC; they self-publish so they can own them in perpetuity. Even when Morrison returns to the same ideas in different books, it seems more like one grand project viewed from different angles, rather than just repeating himself. Hickman is like this as well. Would I let him babysit my kids? Never. Would I read his funny books? Sure, why not?
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2024 17:46:51 GMT -5
After all these years I have a confession to make, I love Bob Browns artwork and can't recall him ever drawing a bad book.
There I said it.
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 2, 2024 18:18:41 GMT -5
After all these years I have a confession to make, I love Bob Browns artwork and can't recall him ever drawing a bad book. There I said it. ^
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Post by Cei-U! on Aug 2, 2024 18:27:36 GMT -5
After all these years I have a confession to make, I love Bob Browns artwork and can't recall him ever drawing a bad book. There I said it. I can't say I love it exactly--I have issues with his faces--but it's never kept me from enjoying any comic he drew. His Batman work is particularly groovy.
Cei-U! I summon the Bob Brown lowdown!
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 2, 2024 20:44:48 GMT -5
Brown was one of the first comic book artists I was exposed to: he was drawing SUPERBOY, he did a fill-in on BRAVE & BOLD, he was doing AVENGERS when I started sampling it, so I'm fond of his work as well. Vince Colletta always seemed to bring his best efforts when he was assigned a Brown story, so I find their pairings effective.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 2, 2024 21:03:17 GMT -5
I liked his stuff on Daredevil and never understood the hate I saw for his work, later.
Then again, I defend Frank Robbins to the death!
Liefeld's on his own, though.
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Post by Rob Allen on Aug 3, 2024 17:13:18 GMT -5
When I was buying new comics (1972-78), I used to divide artists into two categories in my mind -
- those working in the standard, mainstream superhero/adventure art style (which evolved over time)
- those with distinctive, personal styles; even if they tried to do mainstream superhero work, they transcended it.
Bob Brown was among the best in the first category. So was Sal Buscema.
The second category was artists like Kirby, Adams, Colan, John Buscema, Smith, Ploog, Brunner, Robbins, and Starlin.
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Post by commond on Aug 3, 2024 17:42:08 GMT -5
Frank Robbins' Batman art is brilliant. I bet they appreciate him in France.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 3, 2024 18:15:30 GMT -5
Frank Robbins' Batman art is brilliant. I bet they appreciate him in France. We like John-nee 'azard much more zan le Batman, n'est pas? No eef only he had drawn zee Jerry Lewis bande desinee, it would 'ave been magnifique!
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Post by Batflunkie on Aug 4, 2024 9:12:54 GMT -5
Frank Robbins' Batman art is brilliant. I bet they appreciate him in France. We like John-nee 'azard much more zan le Batman, n'est pas? No eef only he had drawn zee Jerry Lewis bande desinee, it would 'ave been magnifique! You serving up some "hawt franks" there Fifi? (confidentially speaking, I'd be curious to see what a Frank Robbins drawn Howard The Duck would have looked like)
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