Favorite pre-SW Marvel comic and the post-SW comic you are looking forward to the most?
Favorite pre-Secret Wars Marvel comic… of the past 70-odd years? That’s a tough one, but I’m tempted to say Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom’s West Coast Avengers. If you mean immediately prior, then G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona and team’s Ms. Marvel.
The one I’m most looking forward to after Secret Wars? Either New Avengers or Ultimates, because I love Al Ewing’s work. Unsure about either of the art teams on the books, but (a) willing to be proven wrong, and (b) it’s a Marvel book, so chances are the artists on the first issues won’t be there by #7 anyway.
Why haven’t more publishers tried their own version of the Image Expo?
Probably concern that they’d look like copycats. Which is ironic, considering how much Image Expo bites off the Apple event format.
I think we’ll see more moves in this direction, though; Valiant’s Periscope’d #valiantsummit before Comic-Con being the most obvious move in that direction, but even Marvel’s All-New All-Different Marvel Previews book was an attempt to control the message in an Expo-esque manner, to some degree.
“So many swipes….” Indeed. From Garfield– the Laziest Legionnaire –to Drulliet’s Lone Sloane, to the infamous Creation of Adam double-page spread in the Great Darkness Saga, to the Last Supper of super-villains in the ’84 Legion…. It’s hard to keep up. I don’t even know what / if he swiped for Omega Men, or his Dr. Fate stories, or The March Hare, or Video Jack. All I know is his recent stuff gets Kirby’s compositions, dynamism & texture(!!!) like no other King-mimic.
Did Sunshine bug you as much as Interstellar? Or did you secretly love how the big sci-fi film turned into a silly slasher at the end?
In Marvel the genius hero (who’s been acting the fool) rarely gets any kind of comeuppance for said douchebaggery (e.g. current Hank McCoy). Do you think this more a reflection of the past decade of TV or does it go all the way back to Stan & Jack?
I’m not sure it’s even the past decade of TV as such; I think it’s something from a wider cultural perspective that stems from populist fear of intellectualism. It’s not just that geniuses are douchebags who get away with it, but that all geniuses are somehow douchebags, as if being smart somehow automatically negates empathy or emotions.
The lack of comeuppance is debatable; you could say that the geniuses being douchebags of recent years led to the destruction of the multiverse in Avengers, after all. But moral comeuppance? Yeah, they tend to avoid that, in part because there’s currency in creating stories where the game is always rigged against “us.”
What do you think would be the best way to improve the current state of comics journalism?
Either teach the big sites not to be so scared of the big publishers, or somehow start a site that paid writers who were unafraid of being critical without being assholes about it some decent money to actually write critically about the industry, the comic books and the culture surrounding both.
Also, introduce a firewall between personal fanboy feelings and what you write. There are some crazily embarrassing things out there masquerading as “journalism.”
Spider-Man: threat or menace?
What prose books have you read recently that you’ve really enjoyed?
Currently really enjoying Si Spurrier’s Unusual Concentrations, and before that, the Kindle Single Oral History of Gawker, which started well and then drifted off midway through – I think it needed to be a full-length book, really. My Duane Swierzcynski deep dive was endlessly enjoyable, especially the Charlie Hardie series, and I’ve been getting back into the Dortmunder books again, after somehow drifting away earlier…
What’s one thing you’d fix about comics internet (be that journalism or twitter or w/e) and what’s one thing you really enjoy?
If I could kill the tribalism of being A Marvel Fan, A DC Fan, An Image Fan, etc., I’d do that in a fucking heartbeat. Similarly, the idea that you have to like, or know about, something in order to be a true fan. So, I’d want to fix the hivemind mentality, perhaps?
(I’d also want to find a way to open up dialogue about subjects without it quickly devolving into snark – oh, my brave new world, what have I done, etc. – or namecalling and offense-taking, but I suspect that’s connected to the hivemind mentality. Hrm.)
And something I really enjoy is seeing people who have experiences I don’t talk about their points of views and passions in a way that makes me get it, even if I don’t agree. I like to realize how little I understand more and more as I get older, and change my mind. I remember a time when cosplay just seemed silly to me, now I love it because I understand it better. I want more of that.