Chatterbox- Comic Books

There has recently been controversy over the Eisners, the comics awards given out at San Diego Comic-Con. Specifically, Thomas Woodruff's Francis Rothbart! The Tale of a Fastidious Feral]] was nominated for Best Graphic Album- New, Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art), Best Lettering and Best Publication Design. People have criticized it for relying on exoticized and eroticized depictions of a brown "feral" child, in addition to Woodruff being at an asshole and a racist during his time at SVA, a prestigious illustration school. Comics Beat has a pretty good primer on the subject. Here's a review that also goes into some of the content of the book itself, although I have to give an NSFW warning on that one.

So, I was wondering: were there any comic book series that got cancelled from one publisher and when they went to another publisher, they were able to finish the stories that were left behind from the last publisher? Like for example, if say the IDW Sonic comics were cancelled by IDW, can the writers and the artists finish the stories they had left over from IDW, to the new publisher, like say Marvel?

Edited by Rabbitearsblog on May 24th 2023 at 9:04:12 AM

Off the top of my head, I think The Boys counts because that started off being published in WildStorm (an imprint for DC) for the first six issues, but that got canceled, and the comic got picked up by Dynamite, who started at #7 and kept going until the end at #72.

I guess the Marvel Transformers G1 comic might count too? Because the original G1 comic concluded at #80, but IDW published Regeneration One, which picks up from #80 and starts at #81 and ends at #100.

Interesting...it's rare that you have comic books continue their stories in other comic books after they get cancelled.

Hayy ibn Yaqdhan inspires Robinson Crusoe, The Jungle Book and Tarzan the Ape Man.

The Jungle Book and Tarzan inspire Francis Rothbart.

There's been a devolution here.

If anyone wants to, there is both a petition to rescind Woodruff's work from the Eisners as well as open letter asking the Eisners to work on their transparency and diversity requirements for their judge panels that you can sign.

Update: The Eisners have withdrawn the nominations from Woodruff.

GOOD.

More accurately, Woodruff himself requested his nominations be withdrawn. It's not like the Eisners listened to the feedback, reconsidered Woodruff's illustrated poem, and realized they made a mistake. The Eisner committee has still said fuck-all about the whole thing.

I still think these judges need to be held accountable for deciding that a racist illustrated poem by an abusive, comic-hating asshole deserved four nominations. It's not even a frigging comic book! Woodruff hates comics, which is why he didn't make a comic! It's a poem with pictures attached.

So yeah, I don't think any of these judges should get to be on the nominating committee again.

I agree. At the very least there need to be more Po C and comics professionals on the panels

Devolution on what?

Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayy_ibn_Yaqdhan ) is a medieval Andalusian novel that makes political and religious points through metaphor and speculative situations. It inspired both a lot of Western castaway fiction and the "child raised by animals" trope. The British and American novels that borrowed from it could be said to be inferior to it. They also have political points to make, but whereas Hayy was written to argue that philosophy and Islam are compatible, Crusoe and Tarzan have racist/colonialist themes, so this could be called a case of the imitative work of fiction being inferior to the original (what I meant by a "devolution"). (The Jungle Book is often accused of racism as well, although this is more debatable).

And then there's Francis Rothbart. Say what you will about the various Jungle Book and Tarzan adaptations (which are obviously what inspired Francis Rothbart, let's not kid ourselves; Woodruff is on the record that he was influenced by the 1942 Jungle Book film) at least they (to my knowledge) don't sexualize a child. Woodruff watched those movies and thought "this needs [the NSFW content Aleistar mentioned]." I was referring to that as another "devolution." It's occurred to me that my wording was imperfect because the word "devolution" has biological/eugenicist connotations, which is not what I was going for. I don't think Thomas Woodruff is a new kind of human or anything like that. I'm not trying to say a quasi-pornographic Tarzan/Jungle Book knockoff couldn't have been made in earlier eras either.

So, how's the comic book industry doing right now? Are they doing better in sales now or are they worse off now?

Depends on what you mean by "comic books industry." If you mean monthly issues of ongoing American magazines from bigger publishers like the Big Two or Image to the direct market, it's kind of hard to tell considering how complicated gathering sales data is after the big two changed publishers and the changes to the industry since the pandemic. That article also talks about the general lack of sales success in the direct market, especially compared to the book market for things like trade paperbacks and graphic novels, where series like Dav's Pilkey's Dog Man or manga like Tatsuki Fujimoto's Chainsaw Man regularly outsell Batman and Spider-Man. the current New York Times Bestseller list for graphic novels and manga also suggests as much (no big two to be seen in the top 15).

Related, yesterday #ComicsBrokeMe began to trend on Twitter, where comics professionals, former and current, talk about their struggles to survive in the industry. The initial impetus was a tweet from Shivana Sookdeo, an Eisner winner and a senior designer with Scholastic, about her pitiful compensation for her work:

I encourage people to read through the hashtag if they have Twitter — it shows how much blood and sweat the industry demands from its talents and how little it gives back.

EDIT: Here's on article on Comics Broke Me if you don't have Twitter.

EDIT 2: Another big catalyst for the hashtag was the death of cartoonist Ian McGinty at 38. While the cause of death isn't public Mc Ginty had frequently posted about horrible hours and exhaustion, so many are drawing a link between the comics industry's unreasonable and exploitative practices and his death.

Edited by Aleistar on Jun 11th 2023 at 9:48:29 AM

Here's another article about it that talks about Ian McGinty and others.

McGinty worked on various BOOM! Studios titles, including Adventure Time, Bee and Puppycat, and Bravest Warriors, and previously solely produced Welcome to Showside, so it's not just a DC and Marvel problem either.

EDIT: This one talks about it and a call for better working conditions, and hopes it isn't just a weekend of tweeting and that actions happen.

"Several publishers came in for some open criticism, including Iron Circus (late payments), Boom (perpetually underpaying creators) and Oni Lion Forge, and…well, really, just about everyone else. A couple of people told anecdotes about how creators at Marvel and DC were getting huge page rates which, in a movement aimed at getting people paid more seems kind of ironic, but the point was that huge rates for some meant a barely living wage for others."

It's an industry-wide problem and has been since comics began, and it's not just the comics industry either—it's basically...every creative industry, especially of late.

this is really depressing :(

Edited by lalalei2001 on Jun 12th 2023 at 6:43:36 AM

It makes me wish that the industry tried to treat creators much better. I don't know why the entertainment industry hasn't been treating its employees that well for decades.

You see the huge crowds at San Diego Comic-Con, and then you listen to independent creators talk about how making comics is a labor of love because they can't make any money at it.

And that last is, from what I understand, largely true. Anyone can get their work out there these days, with all of the online tools and venues available, but the figures indicate that hardly anyone has managed to actually make a living at it.

From what I understand, the Japanese and Franco-Belgian comics industries treat their creators largely the way features syndicates have traditionally treated comic-strip creators, with more control of the property in the hands of the creator. DC and Marvel have historically wanted to have complete control over whatever properties they publish, and that's going to be even more the case now that both are owned by big entertainment conglomerates.

Mad Cave have acquired the licences not just for Flash Gordon, but also Miraculous, Winx Club, and, randomly, the forgotten 1990s cartoon Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders

Edited by Zarius on Jul 16th 2023 at 7:24:21 AM

So if any of you are hungry for Disney Afternoon comics beyond just Darkwing Duck and Gargoyles, Fantagraphics has been producing collections of the older stuff for a while, even a One Saturday Morning HC.

And there is a 4th Disney Afternoon Adventures Collection due next year with a Gummi Bears focus: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Gummi-Bears-Beginning-Afternoon/dp/1683969200/

I just read an interview that I think deserves some attention because it spotlights some of the developments in the comics industry since the start of the pandemic.

David Harper of SKTCHD interviewed Brian Garside, the head of Manage Comics, a subscription management software for comics. SKTCHD itself is paywalled and the interview is too long to copy and past here, so these are the highlights:

Thanks for sharing this!

Oh really? So if this pulls through, we'll be able to deduce if anyone is actually buying, let's say, Zeb Wells' run of Amazing Spider-Man?

Because I have been seeing clashing reports claiming Wells' ASM run is selling well while seeing tweets showing pics of ASM shelf-warming (which is a term used to refer to products that aren't selling well or are over-produced) in local comic stores, so a firm confirmation of ASM's performance would be nice to know about.

Yeah, ideally sales through charts would paint a much clearer picture, not just for the big titles like ASM but lower-rung Big Two books and indies, among others.

Harper also came out with something of a companion article, this time asking a bunch of comics shops the one thing they would change about the comics industry if they could. It's a non-paywalled article so I'd recommend reading through it. The retailers cover some of the same issues as the previous interview, but there are some other issues worth considering like DC coming out on Tuesdays or the returns practices for new #1s.

Edited by Aleistar on Sep 14th 2023 at 2:57:45 PM

I'm glad to see imprints like Boom exist, as I think it's good to have more light-hearted fare.

Personally I'd like to see something story-driven that takes itself seriously enough without being grimdark. I see that all the time in animation, like Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, but I don't seem to find it much in comics.

Dynamite's Darkwing Duck and Gargoyles stuff is something I would recommend.