He feels betrayed and wounded because Marvel has Barack Obama encountering Spider-Man, asserting that plot elements were swiped from Savage Dragon. He states on Comicon.com:
I hear that they’re even doing a story similar to the one I did four years back, where an image-altering villain disguises himself as the President (in my story the Impostor replaced President Bush and took his place for a speech–in theirs the Chameleon, the shape-shifting villain, is going to spoil a speech being given by President-Elect Obama). The whole mess just feels really underhanded. I feel betrayed and, frankly, ripped off and in the real world–the one outside our funnybook bubble–Marvel will spin themselves as these great innovators who came up with this terrific publicity stunt–instead of the thieves they are.
I can totally sympathize. I remember some years back when I had a storyline in which the Hulk had to face the dilemma of giving a friend a blood transfusion in the hopes that it would cure him of AIDS. Imagine my chagrin when, a year or so later, The Savage Dragon had to face the dilemma of giving a friend a blood transfusion in the hopes that it would cure him of AIDS.
Boy, was I pìššëd øff.
PAD
• 
Don’t think so. It just occurred to me. But it was a horrifying thought that the AIDS virus could have mutated to something even worse if was gamma boosted….
Even just a gamma irradiated common cold could be a problem. Why are the victim’s organs turning into mush? Because they’re being beaten up from the inside.
Or maybe the virus isn’t dangerous in itself, but it’s making a weakened version of gamma effects spread communicably. Like an epidemic of gamma infections.
“Jennifer Walters turned out all right…”
Yeah, eventually.
Peter David: I honestly don’t care what his motivation was, Luigi. The bottom line is that I had a storyline that had never been done before and he lifted it wholesale. Deliberately. Intentionally. In the meantime he’s convinced that Marvel ripped off a story concept that was, to put it mildly, not original.
Luigi Novi: Of course it was intentional. That was the point of my observation. If the purpose of his doing this was to comment on your story, as is frequently done in parody/satire, then isn’t that the method by which he’d do so? If the intent in doing this is for people to get the message that he’s talking about that prior story, then how is it “ripping off”? Is it “ripping off” when South Park or MAD magazine presents a story in order to lampoon it?
Rene: Whether the Hulk was right or wrong in not giving Jim Wilson his blood is besides the point. It is a decision the character made. It isn’t necessarily what PAD would’ve done, or what PAD thinks would be the optimum decision.
Luigi Novi: Agreed. If (and I stress “if”) it was indeed a slam at Peter, it would seem that Larsen was calling Peter an áššhølë, which is stupid, and just another example of Larsen’s inability to make a point with anything resembles intelligence, cleverness or maturity.
And even if it was intended as an observation of the Hulk’s decision, I’d ask if Larsen’s story explored the legitimate reasons the Hulk voiced in the original story against the transfusion, instead of just saying, “áššhølë”, and eschew all possible discussion or nuance on the matter.
Luigi Novi: Of course it was intentional. That was the point of my observation. If the purpose of his doing this was to comment on your story, as is frequently done in parody/satire, then isn’t that the method by which he’d do so? If the intent in doing this is for people to get the message that he’s talking about that prior story, then how is it “ripping off”? Is it “ripping off” when South Park or MAD magazine presents a story in order to lampoon it?
Luigi, I think the problem with that argument when dealing with Erik is that he has a history of being a twit and he uses his work to crap on other peoples work in sometimes significant ways. One of his favorite targets, whether you feel it’s rightly or wrongly, has been PAD due to his first CBG column about Image.
PAD does something, Erik makes snide comments about it and then Erik does a comic where he undoes or craps on it. Erik whined in the fan press about PAD giving a name like Charybdis to a character because (despite Erik’s praise of all things Kirby that had even stranger names) no comic book fan would know how to pronounce it and that it wasn’t simple and descriptive enough. In his bit he stated that this dumb Charybdis name should have been something like Parana Guy. One of his first acts when he got Aquaman was to change the character’s look and rechristen him Parana.
Erik made snide remarks about the Hulk story. So he then very soon rewrites the story to make it “right” in Dragon. That’s not parody or satire. That’s Erik being a dìçk as usual.
Honestly, PAD, I’m surprised and a bit disappointed in you. You’re an intelligent man: you know dámņ well that Erik Larsen was satirizing your story and that not even the dimmest of his readers thought that the idea was his. The letter section even talked about you and the original plot you wrote.
You and Larsen don’t like each other and you are using this opportunity to try and get back at him.
You even minced his argument: it wasn’t just the story concept he is claiming that was stolen. It was the entire package. He featured an alternate cover (printed in limited quantities) featuring the Dragon and Obama. The 2nd printing featured a different colored background, same picture (just like Spidey’s reprint is featuring). Yes, it would have been stupid for Marvel to not do an Obama issue. However they could have found a more original way to do it.
Luigi, even if you want to give Larsen enough leeway to say that his work was just parody, then it still doesn’t work. The Spidey story that Larsen is complaining about has even more differences than the Hulk/SD comparison. So if Larsen’s AIDS story deserves that much leeway, then he’s a jerk for not giving anyone else that much leeway.
correction:
I should have said “…it looks like you are using this opportunity to try and get back at him.”
I have no idea what your actual intentions are.
Doesn’t Ðìçk Cheney pretty much own the patent for impersonating the president?
Parody is a legally-tolerated form of rip-off. It isn’t like the tagline for MAD is “The Usual Gang of Elizabethans” or anything like that.
Alex A Sanchez: “You even minced his argument: it wasn’t just the story concept he is claiming that was stolen. It was the entire package. He featured an alternate cover (printed in limited quantities) featuring the Dragon and Obama.”
Yeah, because Marvel never did alternate covers in limited quantities before Erik’s Savage Dragon cover.
Alex A Sanchez: “The 2nd printing featured a different colored background, same picture (just like Spidey’s reprint is featuring).”
Yeah, because Marvel never did alternate 2nd printing covers with different colored backgrounds before Erik’s Savage Dragon cover.
Alex A Sanchez: “Yes, it would have been stupid for Marvel to not do an Obama issue. However they could have found a more original way to do it.”
So Marvel should have been more original when it did things that it’d been doing for years upon years into decades so as not to rip off Erik’s original concept from last year?
Was your post meant to be satire?
I sense a new meme: Erik Larsen, creator of Barack Obama.
Jerry Chandler: Luigi, I think the problem with that argument when dealing with Erik is that he has a history of being a twit and he uses his work to crap on other peoples work in sometimes significant ways. One of his favorite targets, whether you feel it’s rightly or wrongly, has been PAD due to his first CBG column about Image.
Luigi Novi: Agreed. But what does this have to do with my post? My point was that this is not “ripping off” because the reference to Peter’s story is deliberate, not whether Erik is an jerk, which of course he is.
As for whether it’s parody or satire, well, whether one is a dìçk about it doesn’t have anything to do with it. It might be really bad, inept, obvious, unsubtle satire, it might be satire created by a dìçk, but I don’t see how that makes it “ripping off”. The quality of the satire or parody, or even the dickishness of the author shouldn’t affect the work’s intent, which was to comment on the prior story. If you don’t want to use the words “satire” or “parody” or whatever, it doesn’t matter. The central point I was trying to make was that Larsen was openly commenting on Peter’s Hulk story. Deliberately commenting on that story by creating a distorted version of it in which characters’ dialogue does this does not seem to be “ripping off” to me. “Ripping off” and “plagiarism” are when you try to pass off another’s work as your own. From the descriptions of Larsen’s AIDS story, this is not what he did.
Jason M. Bryant: Luigi, even if you want to give Larsen enough leeway to say that his work was just parody, then it still doesn’t work. The Spidey story that Larsen is complaining about has even more differences than the Hulk/SD comparison.
Luigi Novi: We’re not talking about the Spidey story, because I didn’t mention the Spidey story in my last two posts. I was only talking about the Hulk story of Peter’s that Erik referenced.
If you want to know my feelings on the Spidey story, then just scroll to my very first post on this board. You might be surprised by how your position dovetails with mine. 🙂
Luigi, yes, we are talking about the Spidey story. *You* may not have mentioned it specifically in your post, but I am, since that’s the part of the greater context of this conversation.
I mentioned the Spidey story because that was the context of PAD saying that Larsen “swiped” the Hulk story. He’s just applying Larsen’s own definition to his actions.
Luigi Novi said:
“God, what a whiny little crybaby xxxxx”
C’mon, Luigi, there’s no need to stoop to that level.
“Agreed. But what does this have to do with my post?”
Everything. If I feel like taking a whiz on your breakfast because I don’t like you and want to be a jáçkášš; I did it because I don’t like you and want to be a jáçkášš. If I get called out for it and then claim that my intent was satire… Well, that would be a lie.
Erik has more than once done crappy things for what seems to be nothing more or less than spite and being a jáçkášš. When he does yet another of these things targeted at someone he dislikes I’m going to see it as what it likely is.
If you wrote a story that you were proud of and I didn’t like you, I had said bad things about you before, I wrote about your story and ripped it to shreds, I had written stories taking digs at you before, I then wrote a story just like it where I “fixed” it and I even made a point of making snide references in the story towards yours to insult it and you… That’s not doing parody or satire. That’s being an ášš.
But if he or anyone else wants to claim that it was “satire” or “parody” on his part; he should just shut up then about Marvel doing such great satire with their parody of his super well known Savage Dragon/Obama crossover.
“It might be really bad, inept, obvious, unsubtle satire, it might be satire created by a dìçk, but I don’t see how that makes it “ripping off”.”
You might want to go back and look at the context of this entire thing and read some of PAD’s posts in the thread a little more closely.
“Deliberately commenting on that story by creating a distorted version of it in which characters’ dialogue does this does not seem to be “ripping off” to me. “Ripping off” and “plagiarism” are when you try to pass off another’s work as your own. From the descriptions of Larsen’s AIDS story, this is not what he did.”
Plagiarism and ripping someone off do not involve the same mechanics, Luigi. While I would agree that something along these lines could not be called plagiarism, I’m not sure that you can say that it might not be ripping someone off. Certainly Erik didn’t just copy a story word for word and turn it in with his name on it. That’s plagiarism and that’s not what was either seriously or jokingly asserted here. But, yeah, you certainly can rip someone off with a distorted version of their story.
Oh, and, Luigi, I’m not arguing for the notion that Erik was “ripping off” PAD. I’m simply saying that he was being a dìçk and that was his original intent rather than parody or satire. I seriously doubt that PAD really feels all that seriously that Erik was ripping him off either. While no one had done gamma irradiated blood/AIDS before; the notion of someone’s blood being a cure all for whatever ails you isn’t exactly new under the storyteller’s sun. I could be wrong here, but I didn’t read PAD’s opening remarks about the Hulk and Dragon stories pìššìņg him off over being ripped off as 100% serious.
As I’ve said before, Larsen was wrong to steal PAD’s original idea and trumpet it as his own – but his coming up with a different outcome and a rationale for treating the transfusion differently does nothing to make the offense worse. Apparently Mr. Larsen had insufficient imagination to come up with a setup of his own (which is not a good thing in a professional writer), but everyone has the right to disagree with someone else’s reasoning. I don’t know how I would act in the situation of saving someone’s life at the risk of unleashing a gamma monster, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with someone weighing the risks differently from PAD. One wouldn’t have to look very far in PAD’s writings to find him very happily thinking for himself and disagreeing with others’ opinions. He’d be rather boring if he avoided troublesome things like personal opinions. Now (or then – whatever) Erik Larsen has dared to think differently from PAD. Gosh. Slam him for being a thief – not a heretic.
The Hulk’s decision was justified.
The Incredible Hulk #151. May 1972.
From: http://www.leaderslair.com/
“Senator Clegstead was slime. He started the Hulkbuster base because he was hoping to use the Hulk to help him cure his fatal cancer, but when he injected himself with the Hulk’s blood the results are less than optimal. He becomes the Crawling Unknown. Had it not been storming during the fight the outcome might have been completely different. The Hulk seemed unable to hurt the Unknown. In fact it burns Hulk to touch the Unknown. Hulk throws a metal pole into the Unknown. Lightning hits the pole and kills the Unknown.”
What it comes down to, Luigi, is this: There are ALWAYS reasons, justifications, etc. The thing is that in the Erikverse, the reason is always the same: People are out to rip him off and diss him.
Marvel develops a storyline and marketing plan with a resemblance to something Erik’s done. He declares that it must be because they read Savage Dragon and have been perusing Diamond Previews to see what he’s been up to. It can’t be because the storyline features standard tropes. It can’t be because Marvel’s been doing multiple covers for years. It can’t be that Obama’s statement that he collects Spider-Man prompted a marketing move. It has to be directed at him and stolen from him. He doesn’t come across as the EIC of a comic book company so much as the kid in the back of the car shouting that his older brother is making faces at him or put his hand on his side of the seat.
You want to say that Larsen’s SD storyline lifted from my AIDS story isn’t, in fact, a rip-off. It’s a satirical comment. Fine. Let’s go with that.
But when I have the Hulk say he’s flipping someone the finger, Erik cries rip-off because he already used that Noel Cowardesque line. Erik writes a SD storyline that snipes at my Hulk story. That’s satire. I have a short sequence in an issue of Hulk in which the Hulk whomps on Doctor Octopus because I felt that Doc Ock beating him in Spider-Man was flat-out wrong. Erik declares that I’m being mean and that it was personal. Actually, it wasn’t. I would have done the same thing had anyone written that sequence. Case in point: I had the Hulk dismiss the events in an issue of Spider-Man as being a bad dream he had the other night because it made absolutely no sense. The issue was written by David Michelinie. Didn’t see Dave having a hissy fit about it. Me, I still intensely dislike the whole “Professor” concept that Paul Jenkins came up with that basically undermined fifty issues of my Hulk run, but I don’t take it personally.
But in the Erikverse, everything is personal, and that’s probably because when he does it, it IS personal, and so he figures everyone thinks like him.
I think what Erik needs to do is an entire issue of Savage Dragon filled with every standard plot, every trope, every cliche he can think of, and stick TM after every one. “Savage Dragon–it’s your evil twin!(TM)” “My God,but…you were dead! You’ve come back from the dead! (TM)” Then he can claim rip-off as much as he wants and have it accorded the seriousness it deserves.
PAD
Part of Larsen’s dilemma seems to be that when people casually review Savage Dragon, they think Hulk with a fin on his head. From Stan Lee’s own account, the Hulk isn’t wholly original, but taken from characters known from other media, like Mr Hyde and maybe the Frankenstein Monster. Anyone might be as punchy as Larsen if he settled on a character so easily associated with another in the same medium. Larsen may have even accepted this association knowingly at first, but in Lady-MacBeth-like fashion, he couldn’t reconcile his plan and the actual experience of implementing it.
I think what Erik needs to do is an entire issue of Savage Dragon filled with every standard plot, every trope, every cliche he can think of, and stick TM after every one. “Savage Dragon–it’s your evil twin!(TM)” “My God,but…you were dead! You’ve come back from the dead! (TM)” Then he can claim rip-off as much as he wants and have it accorded the seriousness it deserves.
That’s genius. I’d even buy that issue.
Though it might take someone with a better knowledge of the history of comics to do the idea justice.
Disregarding any merits of the argument on both sides (between Marvel and Erik), I am amazed at the level of immaturity in written posts by Wacker, Waid and Larsen.
Watching professionals act this way, I no longer have any doubt as to why we, as fans, feel the right to speak to everyone else on these boards with such disrespect.
(And Peter, that has nothing to do with you, as you do carry yourself in a much more professional way.)
Jason M. Bryant: Luigi, yes, we are talking about the Spidey story. *You* may not have mentioned it specifically in your post, but I am, since that’s the part of the greater context of this conversation.
Luigi Novi: Wrong on all counts.
First, I did indeed mention the Hulk story specifically in my post, and in a context completely separate from the Spidey one, because Peter’s statement implied that it was Erik who ripped him off when Erik wrote his own version of it. It was that story I was referencing, not the Spidey story or Erik’s own Obama story. You yourself responded to this when you said, “Luigi, even if you want to give Larsen enough leeway to say that his work was just parody, then it still doesn’t work.” The “parody” context referred to the earlier Hulk matter, not the Spidey matter, since in the Hulk matter, Erik referenced a story that was written first by someone else. This was not the case with the two Obama stories, and thus, my reaction to Larsen’s whining about that one was unrelated to my reaction to Peter’s statement about Larsen’s AIDS story.
In short, I think Larsen’s a jerk in general, and in particular with regards to the Obama stories. But I do not think his AIDS story was plagiarism or “ripping off” since there was no intent to pass off Peter’s work as his own. The fact that I have an opinion about Larsen in a general context—one which agrees with the one most of the others here have—does not preclude me from disagreeing with others about his act in a particular one.
To Jerry, same response. I’m not arguing that Larsen’s an ášš. Of course he is. From his self-righteous digs at Byrne and Marvel Comics in general in Savage Dragon, to his dumb Name Withheld letter, to the incoherent arguments he made in response to Peter in his letter column years ago, to his offensive and irrational statements about creators who only do work-for-hire work a couple of years back, his status as an ášš is not in question to me. I only question the notion that his AIDS story constitutes “ripping off” or “plagiarism”, even if he was being a dìçk about the way he commented on Peter’s story, and even if you want to dispense with the words “parody” or “satire”. Parker and Stone aren’t exactly polite when they parody something that pìššëš them off. I’ve read the entire thread, thank you, and nothing in Peter’s responses establishes otherwise, in my view.
Peter, as far as your pointing out Larsen takes things more personally and childishly than others do, again, I’m in full agreement. That’s not a point I’ve disagreed with anywhere on this thread. 🙂
I honestly don’t know anyone who reads Savage Dragon, and with this behavior, I doubt I’ll meet any new fans, either.
Luigi Novi: Wrong on all counts.
First, I did indeed mention the Hulk story specifically in my post,
I stopped reading your post right there. You fail basic reading comprehension, Luigi, so it wasn’t worth reading the rest. I didn’t say that you didn’t mention the Hulk story, I said you didn’t mention the Spidey story.
I’ll say it again: I *know* that you don’t want to talk about the Spidey story. I *know* you want to talk about the other story in isolation. That action is what every is disagreeing with you. Talking about the Hulk story in isolation is pointless because this entire thread is about the comparison between the two stories. PAD said it himself, he wasn’t really pìššëd about the Hulk story and wouldn’t have mentioned it without Larsen’s current comments about the Spidey story.
If you want to talk about whether the Hulk story is technically a parody, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean I can’t compare the two to make a point of my own.
Luigi, everyone agrees that Larsen is an ášš. The fact that people are still arguing with you should tip you off to the fact that you’ve made this harder than it has to be.
Watching professionals act this way, I no longer have any doubt as to why we, as fans, feel the right to speak to everyone else on these boards with such disrespect.
Comics fans don’t act disrespectfully online (or elsewhere) because comic-book pros are setting a poor example. If that was the case, such incivility would be limited to comics-related forums, which it’s not. You can’t find an unmoderated Internet board where this kind of crap doesn’t go on all the time. Check out the discussion threads in the online version of any major metropolitan newspaper or national news magazine; the rudeness and outright hostility is at least equal to anything I’ve ever seen on any online comic-book forum.
Check out the discussion threads in the online version of any major metropolitan newspaper or national news magazine; the rudeness and outright hostility is at least equal to anything I’ve ever seen on any online comic-book forum.
And thus we point once again to Penny Arcade:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/internetdickwad.jpg
🙂
Jason M. Bryant: That action is what every is disagreeing with you. Talking about the Hulk story in isolation is pointless because this entire thread is about the comparison between the two stories.
Luigi Novi: Not when you responded to my statement about parody. One more time: when you said, “Luigi, even if you want to give Larsen enough leeway to say that his work was just parody…”, you are referring to a statement I made. That statement that I made did not pertain to the Spidey matter. By saying that I am giving Larsen leeway to say that his work was just parody, what are you referring to? It can’t be the Spidey story, because never said his Obama story was parody, since that story came before Marvel’s, so he can’t exactly comment on a story that hadn’t been published yet.
Yes, there is a broader context, and there are individual points brought up against it. That doesn’t mean that every statement made in the discussion properly applies to both. My statement was to one of those points, but did not apply to the broader context about Spidey or Larsen’s behavior in general. By referencing my mention on “parody”, you were implying that I made that statement regarding the Obama story.
I didn’t.
The fact that you want to “compare the two” doesn’t change this, nor does the fact that the failure of you and the others to read my posts carefully enough to see what I was referring to means that I’m the one “making this harder than it needs to be”.
Luigi, when Peter conceded satire, you won correcting his plagiarism evaluation.
But Larsen is calling theft by taking credit for something with an earlier point of origin than when he presented it. Whether he acknowledges Peter’s story or not, his parody had an earlier point of origin. To say Larsen hasn’t indulged in a hypocrisy seems unambiguously wrong.
One of my favorite Walt Simonson covers/pin-ups was the cover for the last issue of his Orion series. It was Orion wrestling Mister Miracle. It has MM sort-of slithering/slipping around Orion, sort of like you’d expect the Cobra to be portrayed in a fight, but with the depth flattened, making me think Simonson was taking some influence from Simon Bisley’s artwork. This discussion reminded me how heavily influenced Larsen’s artwork is by Simonson’s line. The possibility Simonson was giving Larsen a lesson on how to rip him (Simonson) off with that Orion cover struck me as funny.
“Comics fans don’t act disrespectfully online (or elsewhere) because comic-book pros are setting a poor example.”
If anything, I think it’s rather the opposite.
I’m coming in late on this, I know, but I think I said somewhere else that, knowingly or not, just about everybody steals from everybody else. Larsen just seems to whine about it more.
Look. Brian De Palma has been lifting stuff from other directors for the bulk of his career. Mission: Impossible’s break-in sequence was lifted from Jules Dassin and Topkapi. The lovely tracking shot in Snake Eyes was done by Welles in Touch of Evil. Should I go on?
Plagiarism isn’t always intentional. We’re all influenced by what we read, what we watch and hear. PAD’s own book, Knight Life, pulls both from Arthurian legend and from Brian Bolland’s Camelot 3000, whether my Evil Twin knew it or not.
Of course, Pete didn’t have a race of aliens trying to subjugate the Earth at the command of Morgan le Fay. No, first he porked her out and stuck her in a New Jersey motel. Then he was really evil to her. He gave her Lancelot as a pulltoy…
Back on the subject of Obama, I thought the Chameleon was back in jail for a bit after what Aunt May did to him. Oatmeal cookies full of Ambien…
Miles
Honestly, you guys have been fighting for 20 years. It reminds me of ‘Grumpy Old Men’. Isn’t it time one of you was the bigger man and just buried the hatchet already?
“Comics fans don’t act disrespectfully online (or elsewhere) because comic-book pros are setting a poor example.”
Yeah, and I never stated that was the case.
My point was that that many people complain about how we, as an internet community are “rabid.” We are full of venom, disrespect, etc.
But then you look at how these professionals act, and it is no different. Unfortunately in this day, I hold no hope for the anonymous, cowardly, weasel like internet user to act like an intelligent adult. However, I do hold these professionals to higher standards. I look at them as people that I know have some form of education, half of them write for a living, and are posting under their real names.
I would expect to see some level of professionalism from them. I may not agree with your argument, but what I expect a “professional” to do is to not leave me any choice but to accept and respect the way in which they present that argument.
That is the reason why I can come onto Peter’s blog. I do not expect to agree with everything he says, but I respect the way in which he presents his views.
The way all three parties are posting (sniping) to each other in this case is just childish to me. They can all communicate their argument much better, but choose not to. My comparison to “fans”, is that since creators often argue about how we all scream and spew venom and therefore do not represent the greater comic book community, it would have been nice to see them argue their view in a way that sets an example, and not appear hypocritical to their regular arguments about us.
Honestly, you guys have been fighting for 20 years. It reminds me of ‘Grumpy Old Men’. Isn’t it time one of you was the bigger man and just buried the hatchet already?
You make it sound like two decades of non-stop belligerence. That’s not the case. Every so often, Erik says something stupid. And I say, “Wow…that’s really stupid.” Which makes me no different from, well, pretty much everybody who’s not a rabid Larsen fan. Other than that, he’s not really on my radar.
PAD
My point was that that many people complain about how we, as an internet community are “rabid.” We are full of venom, disrespect, etc.
But then you look at how these professionals act, and it is no different. Unfortunately in this day, I hold no hope for the anonymous, cowardly, weasel like internet user to act like an intelligent adult. However, I do hold these professionals to higher standards.
I would submit that the fact that professionals sign their names to their opinions does, in fact, meet that higher standard.
You’re acting as if creators sniping at each other is something new, or indicates some sort of downward spiral in interaction amongst the creative community. You could not be more wrong. Writers snarking each other is a grand literary tradition, as old as literature itself. How far back do you want to go? I mean, Aristophanes dismissed Euripides as “a cliche anthologist.” I would point you to a superb collection called “Fighting Words: Writers Lambast Other Writers,” that is nothing BUT writers trashing each other, both their work and personally.
All that’s changed is that such commentary is far more accessible to a wider audience, and people make snide comments about the participants while, as you note, hiding behind fake names.
PAD
Andrew Cutler: Honestly, you guys have been fighting for 20 years. It reminds me of ‘Grumpy Old Men’. Isn’t it time one of you was the bigger man and just buried the hatchet already?
Luigi Novi: You can’t “bury the hatchet” if one of the two people in question is dead-set on viewing reality through self-serving, paranoid glasses, exhibiting hypocrisy, distorting the record of both what he says and what his opponent says, etc. Either Larsen seems genuinely unable to see reality objectively. That’s not the sort of thing that simply changes because one wants to bury the hatchet. It’s pathological.
Michaeljjt: But then you look at how these professionals act, and it is no different.
Luigi Novi: Well at least most professionals do not act this way. People like Larsen, Byrne, etc. seem to be the loud exception.
This whole brouhaha just smells like another instance of Larsen pulling a McFarlane (as in Todd) — i.e., attempting to manufacture a controversy for the sake of generating publicity for himself.
Or maybe he’s just being a prìçk.
– Frank
Comic book writers seem to be a bit more snarky than other kinds of writers, though.
I think it comes from having so many of them working on the same small set of Marvel/DC characters.
Thing about it. It’s a situation rife for rivalry when guys with strong personalities like PAD, Byrne, Shooter, Larsen, etc. have all made their careers working with many of the same characters.
Who has the “right vision” becomes an issue.
All that’s changed is that such commentary is far more accessible to a wider audience, and people make snide comments about the participants while, as you note, hiding behind fake names.
Or “name withheld”…but hey, who’d do that?
Earlier upthread, someone asked if Marvel had ever done a gamma-irradiated virus story. I vaguely remember a Spider-Man story in the mid-90’s involving Doc Samson, the Hulk, and a gamma-irradiated virus. The virus behaved like demonic possession instead of an infection, however. First it possessed Doc Samson, sending hm on a rampage, then it jumped out of Doc Samson and possessed the Hulk, sending him on a rampage.
A month or two later, in the Hulk comics written by Peter David and drawn by Gary Frank, Doc Samson told Rick Jones that he had a dream involving the Hulk and Spider-Man that “you just wouldn’t believe.” ^_^
Earlier upthread, someone asked if Marvel had ever done a gamma-irradiated virus story. I vaguely remember a Spider-Man story in the 90’s involving Doc Samson, the Hulk, and a gamma-irradiated virus. The virus behaved like demonic possession instead of an infection, however. First it possessed Doc Samson, sending him on a rampage, then it jumped out of Doc Samson and possessed the Hulk, sending him on a rampage.
A month or two later, in the Hulk comics written by Peter David and drawn by Gary Frank, Doc Samson told Rick Jones that he had a dream involving the Hulk and Spider-Man that “you just wouldn’t believe.” ^_^
The bit with Hulk beating on Doc Ock is one of my favorites. You can *sorta* see why Erik Larsen would take it personally … Hulk says, “Last time we met, Doctor, I feel I was robbed. Petty LARCENY, as it were.”
Then there’s mockery later of Larsen’s “Holding back” thing from the Image press release (which PAD had already ripped into in a But I Digress column)… Ulysses says, “Doc Ock beat you pretty bad last time, didn’t he?” Hulk answers, “Last time, I was holding back.” Ulysses’s reply: “Sounds like you’re just trying to save your IMAGE.”
That’s one of my favorite bits from PAD’s Hulk run, honestly. I loved it.
See, I KNOW I was reading Hulk at the time and NONE of that registered with me.
(That might make for a good article or blog posting one day, PAD. Are there any of your favorite in-jokes that people just totally missed?)
@Jerry Chandler:
The point of my earlier post is that Erik does a fine job of making himself look stupid. He doesn’t need help doing so.
When PAD (and Mark Waid, for that matter) step in to kick him when he’s down they make themselves look bad as well- if not worse! We expect Larsen to behave this way: he has a history of it. That’s why most of us don’t listen to his rants. But PAD and Mark Waid? I usually want to hear what they have to say.
Regarding your post: nothing in the iPhone is an original technology: it all existed before. However, when you put it all together it makes one hëll of a product. Erik created a virtual “iPhone”: he took a bunch of used concepts and created a cool concept.
I’m not saying Marvel should have put out a press release saying “ERIK DID IT FIRST”, but someone somewhere behind hind the scenes at one of the comic sites (or anywhere) should have mentioned, “hey- that’s like what Larsen did. It should be fun.”
@Jerry Chandler:
The point of my earlier post is that Erik does a fine job of making himself look stupid. He doesn’t need help doing so.
When PAD (and Mark Waid, for that matter) step in to kick him when he’s down they make themselves look bad as well- if not worse! We expect Larsen to behave this way: he has a history of it. That’s why most of us don’t listen to his rants. But PAD and Mark Waid? I usually want to hear what they have to say.
Regarding your post: nothing in the iPhone is an original technology: it all existed before. However, when you put it all together it makes one hëll of a product. Erik created a virtual “iPhone”: he took a bunch of used concepts and created a cool concept.
I’m not saying Marvel should have put out a press release saying “ERIK DID IT FIRST”, but someone somewhere behind hind the scenes at one of the comic sites (or anywhere) should have mentioned, “hey- that’s like what Larsen did. It should be fun.”
Alex A Sanchez: nothing in the iPhone is an original technology: it all existed before. However, when you put it all together it makes one hëll of a product. Erik created a virtual “iPhone”: he took a bunch of used concepts and created a cool concept.
Not even close. Not even *remotely* close.
Not only had everything Larsen did been done before, not only had it been done as a package before, but it was all really obvious stuff to do. A shape changing villain doing something evil with the President? That’s soooooo far from being a unique combination of factors. That’s not like creating the iPhone, that’s like whipping up some mayonnaise and then accusing the next person who makes mayonnaise of ripping you off.
And no, adding in an alternate cover is not enough to make it distinct and new. Alternate covers, even that particular kind of alternate cover, are very common in comics. That’s about as original as adding an extra pinch of salt to the mayonnaise.
Don’t try and claim that Larsen “created a cool concept.” He did something that had been done before, then whined when someone else did it too.
When PAD (and Mark Waid, for that matter) step in to kick him when he’s down they make themselves look bad as well- if not worse!
He’s down? How is he possibly down? He’s going around to various websites complaining about Marvel for no other reason than that they’re more successful at tying into Obama than he is, and he wants a piece of it.
Down would be if Image had to declare bankruptcy and I was making comments, which I would never do. Unless, of course, he was saying stuff like, “I bet Peter David is celebrating right now,” in which case I’d probably have something to say about it.
I mean, let’s face facts: When Image first started, they took pride in the fact that they had no central voice. And I said in my column that I thought that was a monumental mistake; that they needed to appoint someone to be their standard bearer. They took great pleasure in slamming me for that, not to mention every other opinion I had about Image (such as that friends and business is a volatile mix and I hoped they had contracts in order.) And several lawsuits later, Erik Larsen now has the job that I suggested be created and was criticized for–by, as I recall, the guy who has it.
See, Erik thinks it’s all about him. It’s not. It’s all about ME! Bwwaaahahahaha…
PAD