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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #2
15 June 1997
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
First, an update: Warren Ellis responded over in the excellent
CompuServe Comics and Animation forum that JKMoore is gone from
TRANSMETROPOLITAN after only one issue. He left for religious reasons. Just
recently, I found out that Vic "FREAK FORCE" Bridges left comics altogether
for religious reasons. Is there anyone else anybody can think of?
I've left a few books in the past few months in an attempt to cut back
on this comics habit of mine. X-O MANOWAR and JACK KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD were
two of them. Well, guess what? Last week, X-O published a letter of mine.
This week, JKFW published a letter of mine. So I had to buy each. Sheesh
And in the arena of being forced to cut back, Jim Lee announced recently
that SAVANT GARDE is dead. This is a shame. The fourth issue just came out
this week and it's a fun and adventurous book, without any of the
melodramatic or deep and serious undercurrents of the rest of Wildstorm's
output in the Image Universe. Issue 4 is not really a good jumping-on point,
but it has been a fun series and I think a TPB wouldn't be a bad idea when
it's done, to collect this story. Ryan Odagawa does some nifty art in here,
without bowing to the Bad Girl altar.
Arrowette isn't a Bad Girl by any stretch of the imagination. Although
her skirt is short and her midriff bare, she's more abused than anything else
in IMPULSE #11. Think Olympic gymnastics done in a super-hero setting. I
liked the issue, though I think it felt short in a couple of areas. And this
has nothing to do with sour grapes over a similar story I was working on not
too many months ago. =)
I've written a lot of stories. I haven't written even more. And I've
half-written twice the number of the aforementioned put together.
A good and handy tool for writing comic book scripts is Steve Gerber's
FScript template for Word for Windows. There's a link to it from my
Fan-Fiction page at
http://www.nic.com/~augie/fanfic.htm
Changing gears completely (I can find no decent segue here), Marvel's
new pricing scheme complete with "Your New Guide to the Marvel Universe"
is now out. For a mere four extra pennies, you get a gate-fold cover
which has all the background info for the story you're about to read. Not a
bad idea. What *is* a bad idea, though, is the larger caliphon in the
upper-left corner. The Marvel Comics logo is huge, the figure standing in
the box is big. I think the larger issue number isn't a bad idea, though.
Speaking of which, I'm buying more Marvel books now than I have in a
number of years: The Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, Deadpool, the Heroes Reborn
Titles, Thunderbolts, Ka-Zar, Marvel Vision, Untold Tales of Spider-Man,
Essential titles, and probably one or two more I'm forgetting.
I am thinking of dropping a couple of Heroes Reborn titles. Captain
America is just not exciting me right now. And I haven't read Fantastic Four
now in about four months, despite buying them all. Maybe my subconscious is
dropping me hints?
When VR.5 premiered, a show dedicated to exploring the subconscious,
there were immediate rumors about comic book companies vying for the rights
to publish the accompanying comic book. Ditto for Millenium. And Star Trek,
Star Wars, Babylon 5, X-Files all have comic books right now. (OK, so B5's
won't be out for a little while longer yet.) So where's the Buffy the
Vampire Slayer comic book? I nominate Tony Isabella to write it (after his
wonderful piece in the Comics Buyer's Guide about it) and Rob David to draw
it. And I humbly accept the job of permanent fill-in and/or back-up
story writer.
Speaking of short-stories, whatever happened to anthology comics? (Yes,
THIS old tired question is rearing its head again.) Negative Burn will be
leaving this mortal coil soon. Dark Horse Presents has to reinvent itself
every year or two, it seems. Walt Disney's Comics and Stories is now up to
issue 600-and-something, but at a price tag out of the reach of the common
reader. Wildstorm has tried a few variations on it without success. Marvel
Comics Presents was a fun title until, in a desperate bid for better sales,
it sacrificed half of itself for Ghost Rider and Wolverine stories, and then
became bastardized to do promotions for Marvel 2099. MCP was a great spot to
break in new writers and artists. Scott Lobdell did several Captain Ultra
stories, as well as various and sundry other stories. Joe Madureira broke in
there, inbetween classes at junior high, presumably. ;-) Sam Kieth gained
wider recognition than ever before with his 8-part Wolverine story written by
PAD. Jae Lee, Rob Liefeld, Erik Larsen, Ron Lim all did work relatively
early in their careers there. As did John Byrne, Bill Mumy, FabNic, Todd
McFarlane (only a cover, really), and more I can't think of off the top of my
head. Where is the comparable showcase for new talent today?
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