PeterDavid.net

PAD, I don't know if you read toyfare from month to month but in the tabloid style section of ish 100 they ran a tounge in cheek article about this type of complaining. "New study: Comic fans hate comic books." The caption under the picture with the article read, "Comic fans travel hundreds of miles. pay $20 to attend conventions, complaine about comics." So your not the only one to feel that way. ;)

JAC

You're gonna do a FNSM crossover with XFactor? That sux. That means I'm gonna have to buy XFactor too. Oh, wait, I was already going to do that. Scratch that.

Sorry, but this kind of thinking you don´t get because of the crossovers but because of Marvels (or every other comic-publishers) hype-machine. Which has gotten beyond ridiculous.
And off-putting. To say the least.

If you tell your consumers over and over again that this or that crossover will change the universe (really, this time, honest, blah, blah,blah), no wonder that some will ask how this will affect a character participating in the same crossover.

I agree that once upon a time the writer´s had it easier in many aspects. It must be frustrating to build a story with an nice or even great surprise at the end just to have it more or less spoiled because of the next Preview. Or some website or another. This was sure easier in the age of letter-columns and no instant advertising on the net.

Besides, we live in the age of spoilers, regrettably. And if you don´t want to play the game you have to live with the repercussions. For instance the remake of The Fog last week hadn´t critics screening beforehand. So the tenor was "This must be so bad they had fear of rightfully negative reviews". I read this in quite a few reviews. (This is just an example, personally I read those reviews just for enyoment, I would never ever pay money for a pointless remake of a horror-movie.) But if this is official widespread notion - if we don´t know everything beforehand it can only be bad - no wonder people have this reaction.

An artist I know is very fond of saying that, by and large, the fans have no idea what they want until it's given to them.

For instance the remake of The Fog last week hadn´t critics screening beforehand. So the tenor was "This must be so bad they had fear of rightfully negative reviews". I read this in quite a few reviews. (This is just an example, personally I read those reviews just for enyoment, I would never ever pay money for a pointless remake of a horror-movie.)

Sadly, I do. And they were right. Awful movie. Actual footage of fog would have been scarier.

PAD you tease. I'd love to see Maddrox and Peter team-up on a case.

I'm not sure of the significance of your point, Bill. There were two amendmendments put forth by Coburn. One that would have killed about $1.5 million worth of pork projects (including a sweet $500K to Seattle for a goddam sculpture garden downtown), and one that would have killed the ridiculously expensive bridge in AK. Yes, your trumpeting Russ Feingold as the lone Dem who voted against the massive $1.5 million savings is correct. And he also qualifies as the only Dem who voted against both. But the issue, in my mind, was the bridge itself.

Knuckles,
Boy, you just REALLY confused a few of the casual readers of this blog!

I can't speak for everyone, but when I read that The Other and House of M aren't tightly related, my frustration is not that there isn't enough crossover, but that the promise of House of M to change everybody everywhere forever and ever was a false one.

I guess I'm just tired of companies with Characters That Must Never Really Change Because They Must Appear on Toothbrushes trying to sell us on the concept of lasting change. On the one hand, you can't seriously believe them, and on the other hand, if you do, you're bound to be disappointed.

That's why I have avoided all of this Identity/Infinite Crisis crap. It seems like a big deal about nothing, when all I really want is a decent storyline without a million guest stars--which, by the way, is what The Other looks like it's going to be. (But then, I avoid all of the spoiler stuff and just read the comics themselves, so I could be dead wrong.)

Elayne:

>An artist I know is very fond of saying that, by and large, the fans have no idea what they want until it's given to them.

Very good point, though I have a very easy time pointing out what I don't like when it is given to me as well. :)

I am one of those who is happy simply with a good story. Throw out everything else (Artwork factoer, continuity, epic event, etc) and it comes down to that for me.

I always enjoy seeing you post here, btw. I've had the opportunitiy to speak with you and Robin at a few cons. Always a pleasure.

Fred

John Ham:

>I can't speak for everyone, but when I read that The Other and House of M aren't tightly related, my frustration is not that there isn't enough crossover, but that the promise of House of M to change everybody everywhere forever and ever was a false one.

I don't factor this into my decision much at all. Buying into the hype is no different in my mind than truly belieiving that a particular car, soda, or exercise equipment is going to change your life. It comes down to promotional hype that companies do to sell their product. I don't blame them for that, but it oftemntimes seemed unoriginal and uninspired.

>I guess I'm just tired of companies with Characters That Must Never Really Change Because They Must Appear on Toothbrushes trying to sell us on the concept of lasting change. On the one hand, you can't seriously believe them, and on the other hand, if you do, you're bound to be disappointed.

The "change the ___ Universe forever is not necessarily untrue. Every step, mistep and crossover story tweaks the company's take on their characters and their natural evolution on where they are heading, in my opinion.

>That's why I have avoided all of this Identity/Infinite Crisis crap. It seems like a big deal about nothing, when all I really want is a decent storyline without a million guest stars--which, by the way, is what The Other looks like it's going to be. (But then, I avoid all of the spoiler stuff and just read the comics themselves, so I could be dead wrong.)

Wow.... that is honestly too bad, because I've found Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis to be some of the very best stuff that DC has put out in years. No real need to pick up all of the crossover series and issues either. The Other has a great deal of promise too. PAD's Spidey is the best interpretation of the character and his cast that I have seen in a very long time. Do ya think it is possible that, by taking this black and white view of events, you've cut off your noew to spite your face?

Fred

typically, i try to stay away from the "event" crossovers. i am reading infinite crisis, but i stayed away from every other miniseries before it because, honestly, i hate these things.

i do not mind a crossover across all the titles in a line, though. some of my favorite superman stories were from the pre and post death days when the titles were all interlocked. i thought it was so amazing to have a new issue in the ongoing story every week.

this crossover does that for me, and with kraven mentioned in the first issue, it reminded me that kraven's last hunt, a high water mark in comics (in my opinion) came from just such a crossover.

so far i am enjoying everything (except having to buy a pat lee book. BOO HISS!).

I don't think the mandate "tell good stories" is as clear and incontrovertible a mandate as "tell stories with a high degree of craftsmanship." I don't think I have a particular right to demand that there never be any multi-title crossovers, or "event" stories, or that a book never gets a reboot. In the end, I don't really care.

But nonetheless, each of these things have caused me to drop certain titles in 2005. It wasn't because "fans don't like reboots" (or crossovers, or...); it was because in each of the titles I dropped, it seemed pretty clear that things were happening because of the whims of the writers and the marketing goals of the publisher. It really didn't seem like a natural, character-motivated flow of events, you know?

When I drop a book, it isn't because they killed off a certain character, or a team broke apart, or there's a new character in the book. It's because finally, my personal "No way" flag tripped from Yellow to Red.

I've been following "House of M." My prejudice (and it costs me nothing to label it as such) was that this series would be another example where when all's said and done, all that's happened is that the world is now easier for the editors to manage and for the publisher to market, both as a bunch of comics and as a library of licensable properties.

I suppose now we've got a couple of months to find out whether that snap-judgement was on the mark or not...

"I've been following "House of M." My prejudice (and it costs me nothing to label it as such) was that this series would be another example where when all's said and done, all that's happened is that the world is now easier for the editors to manage and for the publisher to market, both as a bunch of comics and as a library of licensable properties."

Good points, Andy. Maybe they should have just said to the writers, "Do not use these characters any more."

As to all the hype from publishers saying, "This will be hot! This will be great!", etc., I just don't read the hype in Previews any more. I look through Previews to see who is writing what for the big publishers, and pour over the entries for the smaller publishers, looking for a few good comics. Then I look through the toys and collectibles for the occasional goodies and I'm done in less than an hour. I read no Marvel, DC, et al, hype, so I have no false expectations.

John Ham wrote: "I can't speak for everyone, but when I read that The Other and House of M aren't tightly related, my frustration is not that there isn't enough crossover, but that the promise of House of M to change everybody everywhere forever and ever was a false one."

I'm only happy about that, especially in the case of Spider-Man since the HoM Spider-Man story was given to a writer (Mark Waid) who has no respect for Spider-Man such as he is today, grown up, married and so forth. The less said about his horrible, disrespectful mini the better.

House of M all in all feels like a big cheat to me, using a quick fix to turn the clock back 40 years. Really pathetic, imo.

Andy and John Ham nailed it.

No, it's not that I want to have to buy one of every title published in order to follow a storyline.

It's that I want to know that the money I spend and the time I invest in reading is going to be worthwhile.

Let me just state very clearly that I'm not a "marvel vs DC" kind of guy. I generally follow the creators that I enjoy (regardless of who's publishing them).

But right now, the things I'm reading from DC scream "our entire universe is going to change"...and it feels permanent.

When I read House of M, I get the feeling that in the last issue, Wanda's just gonna go, "oh damn...this is not cool..." and hex everything back to normal.

Now...does that mean the 8 issues themselves won't be an enjoyable read? No. not at all. They might be a hoot.

But it -is- harder to invest emotion into a story when one has the distinct feeling that it's all going to be undone very quickly.

I could be wrong on the outcome here. Maybe the Marvel Universe will change forever and the ramifications will be felt for years to come throughout a slew of titles.

But for right now...it's just that much harder for me to care about what's happening in the story when I'm sitting here waiting for Wanda to just hex everything back to normal.

And -that- is why people are pissy about hearing that House of M will have no impact on "The Other" storyline. Because it serves to fuel the concern that our investment in this series is going to be completely and utterly lost.

Yes, I do realize that I could be mistaken. It's happened before. But I hope this gives you some insight from a different perspective (that of the reader rather than the writer) as to why you're seeing the reactions that you are.

Who cares! All I want is good stories.

I don't care much for empty promises, thought. In the past when they say they are going to shake things up, they nullify it in 3 issues time. Infinite Crisis feels huge and long lasting, and the stories are fantastic for the most part. I'm not even a regular DC fan and I'm eating it all up after I read Countdown. House of M, just like an easily reversible "What if...?"

House of M Hulk was verra cool, BTW!

Samuel posted I'm only happy about that, especially in the case of Spider-Man since the HoM Spider-Man story was given to a writer (Mark Waid) who has no respect for Spider-Man such as he is today, grown up, married and so forth. The less said about his horrible, disrespectful mini the better.

While it's hard for me to comment on any specifics regarding the HoM Spider-Man mini-series as I didn't read it--I haven't read anything connected with HoM other than the titles I regularly get--but my understanding of the mini-series is that in the "House of M" universe, Peter Parker is (was?) not the same person that we knew prior to the "event". If that's the case, then how can anyone make such an absurd claim about Waid's treatment? Hell, going solely by what I have read through the HoM-linked titles, NONE of the characters were as they are "today"--not the Hulk, not the Thunderbolts, not the X-Men, not the New Mutants/New X-Men.

Wow, I usually find PAD sympathetic to complaints from fandom, but I have no idea what he thought he heard when he wrote this post.

It's as if Joe Quesada said "People will be pissed if we have lots of ads, and they'll be pissed if we raise the cover price. We can't win." No, just move the ads to the back of the issue!

Stop looking for paradoxes when there are really simple solutions.

"This stories happens before the events (or after the events) depicted in issue whatever of whoever's book." Now you say that and it's not good enough.

My problem is that they don't say this nearly enough and when they do it's usually on the internet not in the comic. The whole 'captions are bad' in comics in recent years has been a mistake in my opinion.

I'm not a fan of huge crossovers because they often appear to be the kind of things which look and feel like cash-cows for a company (rather than being cash-cows for the company that actually feel like legitimate 'bigger' stories creatively, wherein everybody comes out ahead).

Equally sometimes a story can feel half-told if squeezed into too few pages.

So I'm in two minds about my reaction to your comments about House of M/The Other. I guess it will come down to what the effects of the HoM seem to be when the dust settles and how big The Other turns out to be. I'm just a little wary of a big crossover event almost co-inciding with another big crossover event release-wise but not plot wise.

This month we have House of M, House of M: Spider-man and Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-man that actually feel totally disconnected to each other, except we've been told they are defining moments. One shows a Spider-man who's found out he's married to his alternative time-line dead girlfriend (then, despite those implications, the focus moves to other heroes. Are Gwen, Ben and little Richie whom we've become invested in now snuffed out again with nary a mention? We'll see with #8 I guess?), one - set in that same alternative world - shows him being exposed as a human but clearly taking place before the main HoM events (just when as the 'human' thing is a genie that's well out of the bottle in that time-line?)and the other (no pun intended)seems to be being trailered as a major milestone for the character before the other BIG event has finished but which has no direct connection.

HoM - arguably a literal Holocaust-sized event for the Marvel Universe (surely on a par with say 85% of black people being erased or turned 'white' if we're taking the usual metaphor to its natural conclusion) - doesn't have to be mentioned or referended, but I'd expect thematic aftershocks (for several months)in tone for such a milestone. Except you cna't, because the HoM story isn't dinished when The Other begins.

Let's face it,Peter Parker's head must be spinning!

Without detracting from any one of the talented people bringing their respective visions of the character in... I just think that's problematic scheduling. Far from encouraging growth it makes a potential reader more likely to pick one title and stick to it. Commercially and creatively it can't be anything less than frustrating for a writer or fan to have to say 'This is excellent, but don't read it for another month because it'll confuse you until you've read that other series that hasn't finished yet'.

Comics and thier chronology don't have to be a rigourous stright-line, but if they look like spaghetti, then there's a fundemental problem.

Strikes me if someone had delayed The Other until early next year, gave Joss Whedon the heads up so he could tweak Astonishing dialogue and maybe added just a touch more guide to when things happened, there'd be less readers scraching their heads.

Though I take some of your points above, I'm not sure your Katrina metaphor works because you'd have to put Peter IN New Orleans during Katrina to be comparable.

Still looking forward to seeing how HoM and The Other play out.

John

Will Mutant Town even exist after Decimation / Wanda's "three little words"?

I just saw it as another nail in the coffin of Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, i.e., reversing everything he introduced, which included Mutant Town. If it's still around, that's great, it's just hard to imagine it existing if there's only 200 mutants left, most of which are superheroes/villains of some variety.

I guess this is a "read and found out" kind of question.

"It's as if Joe Quesada said "People will be pissed if we have lots of ads, and they'll be pissed if we raise the cover price. We can't win." No, just move the ads to the back of the issue!

Stop looking for paradoxes when there are really simple solutions."

But then people will skip over the ads and advertisers won't be happy. Not such a simple solution, really.

So does this take place before House of M?

Bill: Oh, so THAT'S where that freaking post went. Damn...

"But then people will skip over the ads and advertisers won't be happy. Not such a simple solution, really."

Then how come smaller publishers can get away with it just fine?

Then how come smaller publishers can get away with it just fine?

How much ad revenue do they get? And you DO know that you get more ad revenue depending on its placement on the book?

Personally, I'm glad that "House of M" and "The Other" don't have any direct relation to each other. Frankly, our Mr. Parker seems to have enough to worry about with his mys-TEEEEER-ious (*waggles fingers ominously*) "medical condition" to get his red-and-blues in a bunch over "The-Wife-And-Kid-Who-Weren't" from HoM.

I'm really rather okay with "The Other" being a more localized "Epic Event" and stick to my original plan of loving parts 1-3, hoping that parts 4-6 aren't as appallingly mediocre as the issue of 'Black Panther' I read a few weeks ago, cross my fingers that parts 7-9 are written by the JMS who wrote the beginning of his "Amazing" run rather than the one that took his place during the early 500s, enjoy two-thirds of the "epilogue" and then merrily go back to reading two Spidey books a month instead of three.

I don't buy Previews. I don't read COmic Buyer's Guide. Heck, comes to that, nine out of the ten comics I read these days are just loaners I mooch off my brother(*) -- being domesticated with a wife and kids and bills makes it hard to keep up with stuff nowadays.

On the other hand, since most of the stuff I read today is "blind" (barring what little teases I get from this site), I find that I'm able to enjoy the stories a lot more. I didn't even think for a moment about what effect "House of M" would have on "The Other" until I read this column, probably because I didn't have any expectations that HoM would be a Marvel-universe-shattering-cataclysm. All I know is that, during PAD's Hulk issues during HoM, something wonky was happening that ended up sending Bruce to commune with the Australian aborigines. Crossover schmossover, the comics were fun, that's all that matters.

Perhaps crossover pre-event hype is like salt -- a little of it can add spice to your favorite titles, but too much of it overwhelms the senses and buries the flavor to the point of nausea. All right, the analogy needs a little work, but it's a start...

--R.J.

(* = Barring the occassional Transformers comic, but that's a different fandom)

"one - set in that same alternative world - shows him being exposed as a human but clearly taking place before the main HoM events"

And that bugs me with HoM...I am reading events that didn't really happen-I am reading an alternate reality caused by a wacky mutant power. All these side HoM books take place before the series they are centered around, and the series is going to end before some of the sidebar series do. AFTER the resolution and taking place before the main story. HoM could have been fantastic, but they botched it it with poor timing of issues and several unnessary spinoffs.

Just to clarify something here as a former marketing manager for a magazine publisher:

Magazine advertising (and comics are magazines) carries with it a lot of rules and restrictions. As one poster mentioned, ads placed on the inside covers cost more than ads on interior pages. Ads closer to the front of the book cost more than ads in the back of the book.

That's the simple part. Now comes the hard stuff. Advertisers come complete with their own sets of restrictions on where their advertising can be placed. Some insist on being in the first 20% of the book. Others are okay with run-of-book (ROB). On top of that, advertisers generally insist on competitive separations (a minimum number of pages) between them and competitors, and they define who those competitors are. Further, they often insist on separations between their ads and ANY other advertising (nobody want to be in the middle of six straight pages of advertising -- being next to editorial -- in this case the comic pages -- is crucial for visibility).

Laying out advertising is a juggling act, and requires a lot of give-and-take and balancing to make it all fit. If you screw it up, you're forced to make-good (in other words, run the ad again for free, or even more). And you may not see any more business from that company.

So yes, the ads in last month's titles were rather overpowering, but frankly, I was glad to see them (particularly the Honda Civic ad -- an ad geared to adults, rather than kids). The more ads comics get, the more viable they'll continue to be as a business.

"So yes, the ads in last month's titles were rather overpowering, but frankly, I was glad to see them"

You mean like FF/Iron Man: Big in Japan, which was allegedly 22 pages of story with 24 pages of ads? If that's the kind of stuff that starts you up, why not skip the comic altogether and go read a Macy's catalogue?

I personally had no problems with The Other not being effected by House of M because I really didn't expect House of M to effect anything. I refused to buy it simply because it was extremely hyped and I figured it would be another red herring. It appears I was right. I did buy Identity Crisis and despite the fact that Ollie was the main focus of the mini (I hate Ollie).. I enjoyed it. Countdown to Crisis was probably the best Blue Beetle issue ever and it really made me want to go buy issues about the character (which I didn't do.. I control impulses hehe). House of M was just a big gimmick to get people to buy Marvel comics temporarily and like most of their massive cross-overs that are going to "change marvel forever" it hasn't done anything or everything it does ultimately do.. will be undone. Do I need to even MENTION so much for Quesada's statement that "dead means dead"? Apparantly it's changed to Dead Means Dead for jean Grey cause we like Cyke and Emma together, but everyone else can come back.

Anyhow, my opinion is thus far even at the opening of Infinite Crisis, DC has done more that will effect the DCU long term than Marvel has done in the entirety of their Crisis of M. Not surprising.

Oh and FYI, whomever was upset that they were getting rid of all of Morrison's run.. Good. There are only 3 interesting things he introduced in his entire run and he destroyed 2 of them. They were the Stepford Cuckoos, Jean with Phoenix powers without actualy having the Phoenix inside her, and the "outing" of the X-Men. He systematically killed the Cuckoos and then killed Jean, so he undid pretty much the only good things he did.

Oh also, what I want.. I want writers who actually care about the characters, who can and will do research, who actually know what they're doing, and can make good solid competent stories. In otherwords, I want more Peter David's, more Gail Simone's and less Chris Claremont's, Joss Whedon's, Alex Ross's, and Grant Morrison's that are 99.9% hype.

My main problems with crossovers:

1. If you are a regular reader of only one or two of the titles, you either have to read many issues that you normally don't so you can follow what is going on, or your regular titles become largely unreadable.

2. Unless you make a serious effort, you will miss a title or two of the crossover (they'll be under ordered and sell out) and then you can't follow the story, and the issues you have bought seem like a waste.

3. The writing in major events tends to be uneven--some of the titles will likely stink, harming the whole story and wasting your cash.

Generally, when a comic I read becomes part of a
big crossover event, I simply drop it. I gave up all of the X-titles due to crossovers, and I gave up Spiderman for the same reason. I dropped Hulk during House of M for the same reason. It was not hard to do decide, as the first issue sold out so I never even saw it.

My theory is that the big crossovers drive sales temporarily as you pick up new people for the event, but most leave after the event, and some of your long time readers leave during the event, so in the end sales are down, causing you to launch another event to bring sales back up, losing more of your long term readers...and you can repeat this cycle forever, steadily losing readers.

Or you can skip the regular comics all together and just keep having constant events, running them all together, like some sort of a never ending, infite crisis....

That's the first time I've seen a car advertisement in a comic book. I thought that was interesting. Are we going to see more "adult" type advertisements (consumer electronics, cars, etc...) in comics now?

The target population that the Civic caters to is young adult. The marketing here, including the extremely annoying placement in the front of the book, is brilliant.

Peter,

Long time and commited fan of your work, but have to say that the three issues thus far of The Other feel like one (maybe one and a half) issues stretched to fill three.

Probably no fault of your own as the speed is dictated through the established chapter set-up, but three issues of 'Uh-oh, Peter's got serious health issues' with everyone but the readers and Aunt May apparently knowing what the big secret is within seconds of being in the same vicinity as Spidey, but leaving *us* with nary a clue, feels more than a tad 'filler-ish'.

It's like watching the second episode of this season of Lost, waiting to see the premiere's pay-off and realising that they're going to leave you at exactly the same moment each time.

I would have thought the reveal would ahve been this issue, but if isn't coming in the next issue, I'm probably giving up on the saga.

John

Maybe I'm just a crotchety bastard, but it seems to me that the whole problem could be solved if fans would just dial their compulsive need to know exactly where every issue across the line "fits" back from 11 to, say, 6 or 7. I mean, I take meds for OCD, so I know how crazy it can get, and this stuff still freaks me out.

I wanted to kiss Dan Slott (in a manly way) for reminding readers of a time when, if the continuity between two issues didn't exactly fit, the readers themselves possessed the creative wherewithal to come up with an explanation that *made* it fit. But then, I also remember a time when the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy was a satirical exaggeration of fans, instead of an accurate representation of the average.

That's the first time I've seen a car advertisement in a comic book. I thought that was interesting. Are we going to see more "adult" type advertisements (consumer electronics, cars, etc...) in comics now?

In a world where Spidey gets a friendly, neighborhood BJ from his wife in an all-ages book, the possibilities for advertising are endless. :)