Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 245
Ultimately, What Are We Talking About?
LIMINAL SPACE?
Hello, all. Hope the week treated you well. I’m about to be hit by an ice storm. Weather is bullshit. But comics are not. It’s been a fun week for me as I’ve had a (somewhat) clear schedule to devote to scripts. And, man, what a joy writing is when you’re hitting the beats as your brain intends. Sometimes when you’re struggling against page counts or other limitations, you’ve gotta make the challenge the joy. But on the rare occasions everything comes easy, wowza, what a thrill.
WELL-INTENDED WARNING THAT WILL BE TAKEN WRONG
I mean this in the most openhearted way, but I imagine it will be taken by some in any other possible way. So it goes…
We’re in a moment of low morale broadly and diminished faith in comic book institutions specifically. Publishers are looked at with suspicion. Not because anyone thinks they’re ripping creators off, rather because creators doubt there’s any money to steal.
Many established creators are on the fence about working with publishers moving forward. People with real bodies of work and real hits. Creators, independent and corporate, are exploring every other option possible.
Please believe there's nothing snide about this next bit:
Editors' social media is the tipping point for some. They are pushing creators away.
This week I saw a tweet from an editor. It was snide, anti-art, preening in its own gross fashion, and alienating. And I thought, “ok, forget this publisher until the next internal shakeup.” That easy. Image and Black Mask are good partners to me and I do not need you.
If you’re an editor reading this, maybe you can comfort yourself in the idea that I’m not a celeb and you don’t need me. Cool. But, I’m not the only one. There’s guys out there who would make you money, guys who would make you look good to your bosses, and these guys just do not fuck with you anymore.
Unspoken problem in comics: Publishers operate on the idea there will always be another creator and another pitch. And maybe it’s been that way. But moving forward we're very likely to see major talents move to crowdfunding or direct-to-consumer. The overall quality of work in the DM will go down. And so will sales. And all the “tweets don’t represent the views of my employer” statements in editor bios will not save it.
Great creators are not over the barrel anymore. You need to understand this to understand the future. Talent needs incentives. Not hoops to jump through. Please take it under advisement.
WE’LL ALL FIND OUT TOGETHER
A lotta chatter about DC’s ‘Ultimate Universe’ this week. In quotation because it certainly won’t share a name with the branded Ultimate line at Marvel, but will serve the same purpose.
A purpose that I don’t think publishers realize is self-defeating.
Yes, the sales will be good. Completely independent of quality, it will sell right out the gate. And if the quality is good it will continue to sell. So how is it self-defeating? Well, because it highlights the legacy-buying / hopelessly-addicted readership of the mainline continuity. Any parallel line of books has to justify its own existence, and if the value proposition is “this is manifestly better than the existing line of comics” than what hell is the purpose of that existing line of comics? Why can’t we just have the good thing be the main thing?
DC ‘Ultimate Universe’ quality will come down to how many favors Scott Snyder is doing. That’s it. DC has five writers you’d ever willfully hire. There’s another five current writers outside DC worth hiring. Let’s say half are tied up or not interested. How many books need staffing here?
Snyder can go to retirees, up-and-comers, or… the bench. And people fucking hate the bench right now. I know Snyder is observant enough to know that and I know every reader of this newsletter knows it, so maybe this is just for the editors this will doubtlessly be forwarded to:
Readers hate the current bench. They can’t stand the guys you’re tryna put over. All of those creators would be best served to change their names and do creator-owned books to get actual fans. Wedging them onto corporate books does nothing for sales and -this is the important part to me- does nothing for them. It makes readers associate them with low-quality and ultimately breeds resentment.
Seeing some talk about how the names being batted around for this ‘Ultimate Universe’ are middle-aged white guys. Uh oh. Culture War minefield.
Alright, let’s have the conversation. God help us.
There was a phenomenon observed on Big Two launches the past few years, which is that lists of credentialed names would always have two less-credentialed names tacked at the end. This equally applied to new publisher announcements. Nothing weird about that. Gotta foster young talent. But what struck people was that the less-credentialed names seemed in some way perfunctory or, as it’s often said, “box checking” in nature.
Now, as we’ve discussed here before, I’m open to the idea that some type of unspoken corporate affirmative action (for lack of a better phrase) is a wholesale good. I could be convinced of that and I’m sure the majority of readers here feel the same.
But you can’t go around denying it’s happening. It’s pointless and makes you look less trustworthy. So when a line is announced, the internet condemns it for lack of creator diversity, and then there’s a follow-up announcement with exactly the type of creators the internet was demanding, you aren’t fooling anyone. Maybe it looks good to some. Maybe it looks bad to others. But there’s no hiding what you’re doing.
Broadening the topic, corporate comics have done a number of creators (‘diverse’ and otherwise) a major disservice by forcing them on the readers. It very rarely works. But such is the nature of a ‘but he’s a good guy” patronage system where the only considerations are favors and avoidance of online criticism.
Snyder is in an unenviable position. Does he cap the number of titles to correspond with the number of good creators he’s able to bring on? Does he do favors for creators people are not excited about, thereby lowering the energy around the line? Does he embrace creator diversity as a value, whether earnestly-held or internet-compelled?
To fully actualize this line of comics, Snyder must be willing to be hated. To have people gossip on him and conspire against him. And this is not something he’s demonstrated a stomach for in the past.
I hope he’s had his cup of concrete and is ready to do whatever’s necessary to create an exciting line of books.
DISCUSSING A TOTAL STRANGER’S CAREER
I saw this and had some feelings about it.
I don’t know Joe Glass personally, but I think many comic pros or fans who have an online presence are at least aware of him. He’s been at the front of a half-dozen Very Online kerfuffles. The shit you’d expect, honestly. Moralizing for the sake of clout. The type of nonsense that defined the past decade. If I had to sum up what he presents to the world, it’s Gay-as-a-political-project meets please-buy-my-book.
Bear with me here, no pun intended. Gay film festivals were, at one time, essential. They showed movies that would otherwise not be seen, for an audience desperate for art made by and for them. The quality varied wildly and the films eventually entered a tired rhythm reliant on community-specific tropes.
Now, gay film festivals are a legacy thing. They don’t ‘matter’ in the same way because how could they? Gay is not an obscure lifestyle and any hidden knowledge within it has been long made public. There’s a nostalgia to gay film festivals and they will always have some kind of audience, but that audience is older and their impact on the larger culture is waning.
So Glass’ effort to sell ‘gay’ in comics likely ran into the same wall. I know some critics paint gay as a fashionable lifestyle that can get you work, but the reality is… only sorta. ‘Queer’ can be an asset in your CV. But ‘gay man’ has been normalized by pop culture to the point that it may be a liability in progressive circles. In comics, ‘gay’ with no modifier means you’re railroaded into only working on gay characters, a creative ghetto that does lasting damage to careers.
But let’s say Glass was grandfathered in before all that. Let’s say he was a vocal gay man when that title still mattered. Why did he never break through?
Well, he’s been aggressively annoying since the advent of social media. And I don’t say that as an attack. I’m aggressively annoying on the internet. But I have at least the sense to understand it comes with a cost.
Remember 1000 words ago when I said editors need to stay off social media? Cost me a job. I promise you someone took a note of it.
There’s no violin playing for me. I did it to myself. But there’s also no harp playing either, because I’m not dead. I’ll continue to do what I enjoy on my own terms and if someone won’t work with me, well, that’s acceptable to both parties. I don’t hold grudges and life is long. I have very limited contact with Glass’ actual work, so I can’t say with confidence its quality. If he does great work, he will eventually find an audience. But within the walls of the publishers he’s sucking up to? His name is mud.
The problem isn’t that he’s a loudmouth or a hectoring moralist, rather it’s that he’s a loudmouth hectoring moralist in the wrong way at the wrong time. There’s plenty of people who have secured a few checks by running the Joe Glass playbook. But they threaded the needle on what’s being discussed now and how it’s being discussed. Shit, there’s a couple straight white guys who’ve played the ‘vibe of the moment’ card to great success. Or, at least, pretty regular work.
I hope nobody thinks I’m punching down with this examination of Glass’ career. He’s been attacked so many times, I’m sure for him and his audience there’s no parsing real criticism from the hate he’s received. But I don’t see myself as any better than Glass. We’re both independent creators in a difficult field where there’s only two brands the average reader recognizes. His hassles are my hassles.
But I think, at least in the tweets above, Glass has lost the plot. The mainstream does not want him. He’s picked that up. But he’s gotta get a handle on the idea that’s only a good thing. If your work isn’t meant for a wide audience, your job a creator in a capitalist system is to find the avenues that get you to your audience. And, yeah, it’s true that what he’s doing creatively isn’t working. He needs to change it up. But he’s GOTTA be better than at least the bottom 20% of working comic creators. So, he’s capable of finding the vein.
I was upset to read Glass’ exit letter, because there is something sad about pouring yourself so fully into something and not seeing the result you hoped for. But maybe the problem is ‘the result you hoped for’ hinges on the whim of a rotating collection of people who just don’t get you.
My advice to any creator coming up or established: take a or fuck’m mindset to the problem. “Wow, I’d really love a gig at Publisher X… or, fuck’m.” You can’t spend your career in a servile position negotiating from a position of weakness. Fuck’m.
ALRIGHT, I GOTTA FINISH SOME SCRIPTS
Yeah, I am not covering a ton of stuff going on but it’s not intentional omission. I just can’t give a full day to newsletters when I’ve got scripts to finish. But thank you for reading. Sincerely. I’ll be back next week, writing from Belfast. Excited as I’ve never been. Have a good one. Do for self.