One Expanding Comicsmith in DC's Reboot, Many More in Other Avenues

Is a filmmaker better if he plays several roles in the creation of his film, like a writer/director or writer/actor? Is a film better for having a single authorial voice or better understood for being watched expecting a single voice? This guy thought so:

Francois Truffaut first advanced the position that the director of a film was its primary creator in France in the 1950s
Auteur theory (auteur is merely the French word for author) is a term for the theory or concept that states: the director takes control of a film, therefore he/she is responsible for it. It seems to me, the term could apply to any of the other principle craftsmen on a film, and I prefer the less-pretentious filmmaker. Film + maker.

Firstly, as I understand it from studying the industry, the closest parallel to the director in comics is the editor. The editor coordinates and guides the writer, artist(s), colorist, letterer, etc. to make a single cohesive work of art. The Japanese already have a word for a one-man-comics-machine as their comics industry is primarily made up of writer/artists leading teams of assistants. They call creators manga-ka. Manga = comics + ka = person. This is as similar as we will get to auteur in comics. As a parallel and as a hopefully more down-to-earth option, I have been referring since sometime in college to someone who undertakes several roles in the creation of a comic as a comicsmith. Comics + smith, a synonym for maker.

-Language lesson OVER.-

Storytelling in comics is a unique game. It requires visual/space thinking but also narrative/time thinking to do both sides properly. Doing both well is a rare thing.

MajorSpoilers.com has posted a simple list of the new series debuting from DC's re-boot in August/September you can read here. Out of the 53 titles they list, one of them will be written and drawn by the same person:

"Detective Comics" will be scripted and penciled by Tony Daniel. [The cover of the new #1 by Daniel is at left.] After illustrating Grant Morrison's scripts for a few years, Daniel held-up both ends of the creative exchange on "Batman" from issues #692 to #699 and then from #704 to the most recent issue, #711.

CBR interviewed him about his work at the keyboard and the drafting table twice. Once when his first run was about half over and again recently when his part in the relaunch was announced.

My opinion?

Sadly, Tony Daniel's issues of "Batman" were some of the most boring superhero comics I can remember reading. Very nice art. Nothing in the writing made me want to continue reading it. And sometimes I felt that things in the art seemed rushed and I suspect that it looked as good as it did thanks to inker Sandu Florea.

I thought of Daniel's first stint as a comicsmith as an exciting experiment for contemporary American mainstream comics and expressed that I would be curious to see how it was way back when we were posting weekly looking-forward-to posts here on The Long and Shortbox Of It. But as an experiment, I was sadly dissatisfied with it. DC doesn't seem to think along the same lines. According to Daniel's second interview linked-to above, he was approached by the company to do the writing for a second series as part of the upcoming relaunch. He is now also writing "The Savage Hawkman", to be drawn by Philip Tan (@philipsytan) according to Daniel's scripts, as well as swapping Batman titles with Scott Snyder (@SSnyder1835) and Francesco Francavilla (@f_francavilla), who were the team on "Detective Comics" previously and will now work on "Batman" instead. And Daniel is actually just one of several comics-artists being given a crack at writing scripts for another artist to illustrate. They might all turn out to be excellent writers, but it seems like a dangerous chance to take at such a crossroads for the company and the whole industry.

(Before I move on I have to say: "Batman" #702 written by Morrison, drawn by Daniel, and inked by Florea made it to my Best of the Year post. So I've got nothing against Tony Daniel. Truly and wholeheartedly, I wish him luck writing two series and drawing one of them. A challenge for anyone.)

Why is it the Japanese mainstream makes the comicsmith position the norm, and the American mainstream makes it the exception? I suspect a great deal of it lies in the aforementioned art teams the Japanese creators regularly employ. Here, artists do often ask the help of their fellow artists to complete their work, but only in a time-crunch, and always under the radar. Americans have this silly concept of the individual against the world, fully self-reliant. Which brings me back, of course, to the main question: Why so few creators who do it all themselves?

Mind you, that's entirely untrue outside of the American mainstream, these are all American comicsmiths:

Jason Lutes
Jason Little (@beecomix)
Chester Brown
Jeffrey Brown
Peter Bagge
Gary Panter
Gabrielle Bell (@luckygab)
Brendan Leach (@iknowashortcut)
Julia Wertz (@Julia_Wertz)
Dennis Pacheco (@dpacheco)
...

THAT list goes on far too long to name them all.

So could it be that being a good comicsmith, making quality comics all on your lonesome, simply takes time? Time not available to the maker of the monthly 22-page corporate comic-book? Seems possible. Could it be that the simple exchange required with an editor, inker, colorist, production man, etc. makes it far too messy? Seems equally possible. (As someone who makes comics without any collaborators himself and does it very, very slowly... I can tell you those ones make sense.)

There's a new comic-book called "All Nighter" I'm looking forward to reading, available in comics shops across the country from Image Comics, written and drawn by one man: David Hahn (@david_hahn). Looks good. Look for a review of that book from me in the coming months with a bit more commentary on this subject.

~ @JonGorga

P.S. ~ This gent over at CBR has some excellent and clear things to say about both DC's reboot and the digital release news in general.

I've written three articles that at least touch on the DC re-boot now. I think I'm done talking about that whole mess for now. Until the books are actually on the shelves, at least. Josh looks like he has a bit more to say on it. You'll get your fix from him hopefully.

Weekly Process Roundup 6/24/11

The weekly process roundup is a collection of sketches, pencils, inks, thumbnails, everything other than finished product, from The Long and Shortbox of It's favorite artists and illustrators, hitting every Friday.

Sorry for the lack of process roundups, guys: I've been in Greece, and its been hard to keep up while I'm away. Expect more regular updates next week, when I'm back in the States: for now, here's some cool stuff I've missed while being away.

• Jeffrey Brown shares some "stages" from "It's A Cute Cat World!"
• Craig Thompson gives a tantalizing taste of three summer projects! (above)
• Moon shares some colored sketches and some cryptic messages!
• Pasqual Ferry is working on something that looks fun!

Do The Swamp Thing

[second in a series of posts about September's DC relaunch]

SWAMP THING #1

Written by SCOTT SNYDER

Art and cover by YANICK PAQUETTE

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

One of the world’s most iconic characters has returned to the heart of the DC Universe, and every step he takes will shake the foundations of the Earth!

Alec Holland has his life back…but the Green has plans for it. A monstrous evil is rising in the desert, and it’ll take a monster of another kind to defend life as we know it!

Alright, look: am I happy about the reversal of those fantastic Alan Moore Swamp Thing comics from the Eighties? No, of course I'm not: have you ever read those comics?! Alan Moore wasn't yet then the dark wizard he is today, and he was brand new to American readers, but that stuff is brilliant and terrifying and brave. The Swamp Thing's realization that he wasn't actually Alec Holland? The portrayal of the Justice League as gods looking down on the earth from high above? Thinking about it gives me chills.

Now, of course, all that is undone. The Swamp Thing is indeed Alec Holland, and he has his life back! Hurrah! How utterly boring, oft-tread upon ground is this? Rich Johnston has suggested that one of the major effects of the relaunch will be to de-AlanMooreify the DC Universe and, if that's the case, then it is a sad era indeed, for the legacy of one of the great writers of all time is being erased. Still, if we have to swallow this load of crap, at least it's being written by the unimpeachable Scott Snyder, who has a knack for writing the scary and supernatural that apparently shows through in American Vampire (as, unfortunately, I still haven't gotten around to reading it, I'm relaying the opinion of people that I trust) and whose work on Detective Comics for the last few months has been fantastic.

Snyder, though, is not why I'm excited for it. This is:

That's right: every few issues, Long and Shortbox favorite Francesco Francavilla (who was working part time with Snyder on 'TEC too) will be handling art duties. That, plus the regular Yanick Paquette pencils, are enough for me to lay down my $2.99, particularly because one of my favorite characters is involved. It's going to be a tricky book, though, because of the miserable premise, so Snyder is going to have to walk a fine line. Still, you've got to have faith, and I've got faith in the Swamp Thing.

I Know I'm A Little Late To This Party, Forgive Me As I Am In Greece

[the first in a series of posts about what I'm looking forward to about DC's relaunch]

I think this business about rebooting the whole DC Universe is exceedingly silly. For that matter, I think canceling Uncanny and putting Steve back into the flag are silly too, but those are things we'll get to later: for now, rebooting the whole DC Universe is silly. Not that I mind; I've never followed DC's events, as I prefer to borrow them later from friends.

Can you imagine, though? Paying all that money? Following those stories just for them to come to nothing? I suppose it all depends how you look at it, though. If you're inclined (like I am) to view superhero comics as a certain kind of modern mythology, then a reboot that shakes continuity in order to bring a character back to their essentials well, that can't really be a bad thing. At the same time, I think I'm in the minority: I think most people are in it for the long-term, continuous serial storytelling.

And that's why I think that this reboot thing is silly, because I think it's going to backfire. DC might get a sales spike for the first couple of months, but, although I would be curious to see what comes after that, I am pessimistic about the long-term viability of this as a choice.

The positive upshot of this, though, is that DC really does have a chance here to revitalize some old properties and to try some new things. If they can, by erasing the twenty-five years of storytelling since the last time they did this, make comics simpler to understand and less worried about continuity, they might bring people who are intimated by comics as they stand now into the fold, and after a spike and then another dip, they might see a nice little increase in readership.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that, among the books on tap, there are these:

ACTION COMICS #1

Written by GRANT MORRISON

Art by RAGS MORALES and RICK BRYANT

Cover by RAGS MORALES

Variant cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

The one and only Grant Morrison (ALL-STAR SUPERMAN) returns to Superman, joined by sensational artist Rags Morales (IDENTITY CRISIS), to bring you tales of The Man of Steel unlike any you’ve ever read! This extra-sized debut issue is the cornerstone of the entire DC Universe!

I hate Superman.

But here's the score: if Grant Morrison's writing it, I'm probably going to buy it. And putting Grant Morrison on Superman? That's a stroke of genius, and one that comes with a pretty good guarantee. Grant Morrison gets Superman (in a way that someone like a certain superfan who has the initials JMS doesn't), because Grant Morrison gets archetypes, and that's the sort of writer that Supes needs, a mythographer rather than a fanboy. We know that Morrison is such a writer because the Scot already rebooted the big blue boyscout once, and All-Star Superman is, to my mind, the best Superman comic in decades (and maybe the only decent one in just that long), and it's the best Superman comic in decades because Morrison was playing with expectations and mythology. Grant Morrison is going to write a Superman good enough to wash the taste of Grounded out of our collective mouths-- and that alone is worth the $3.99.

WONDER WOMAN #1

Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO

Art and cover by CLIFF CHIANG

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The Gods walk among us. To them, our lives are playthings. Only one woman would dare to protect humanity from the wrath of such strange and powerful forces. But is she one of us – or one of them?

It's not that I don't like Wonder Woman, exactly, it's just that I've never thought she was very interesting: the WW stories from the past couple of years haven't helped this perception, exactly. Putting Brian Azzerello and Cliff Chiang on the relaunched book, though, that's crazy enough that it just might work.

Actually, let me step back: putting Chiang on WW was a no-brainer, and someone should have done it years ago. No one, no one, in comics today is an iconographer of the quality that Chiang is: look at the way Diana stands out from the background of that cover, like she's made of halo, separating her from her surroundings as if to say "Yeah, this one's different." And Wonder Woman should be different. She should be a hellraising, badass, Amazon warrior stuck between two worlds, prepared to do what it takes to defend those who need it from forces way beyond their control. And Chiang, if the cover is any indication (and I know it is) is the man for the job.

If Chiang was an obvious choice, Azzerello was a stroke of mad brilliance: at first glance, a man known primarily for his killer crime comics is not the man for this job. But there is some precedent for it: the only Superman comics I own besides Morrison's are Azzerello's and they're pretty good (not great, but pretty good), and they're pretty good because Azz took an old kind of story, a classic, almost a cliche (a man wanders away from home briefly, and comes back to find that everything has changed) and he put Supes in a position he had never been in before, a position for which there was no good solution, no tall buildings to leap in a single bound, no flying around the world backwards. If he could pull the same sort of trick with Wonder Woman, if he can strip off the lasso of truth and the invisible jet, then this book will be an instant classic.

Well, This Is What I Get For Not Reading The Solicits While I'm In Greece

Davids Lapham and Aja have a Wolverine book coming out in September and the cover looks like this:YES PLEASE.