Creatives that became blah.

[Guest HellSpawn]

OK, I want to know your opinion on this...

 

I recently saw Campbell's Britney/Eminem art on Wizard, and suddenly something jump on me, this guys bores me in sooo many levels, I think he not only didnt grew up, I think he took several steps down.

 

I got Gen 13 #1 and is way much better and exciting that his new art, right now (and for several years) is like blah. Another one is McGuiness, OK, maybe this guy is not my taste, but I dunno if he improve his skills or just draw on authomatic, Thundercats is definetly not a Sure Buy for me and believe me, I could try for a book with nice art.

Joe Kelly, I like him on Deadpool, Superman, X-Men, but right now, I just dropped my order on JLA, is not that damn good.

The guy who draws Spawn now, is a pale shadow of Greg Capullo, Damn, his last Spawn it was AWFUL, I mean, several people on the board of Spawn cant even understand what the hell happen on several panels.

 

Sassquatch had talk mostly the same about Mark Millar, and how about Frank Miller? just looks at the topic about DKSB.

 

In the other side of the coin, look at Jim Lee, at least for now, his new Batman is good, even when Croc now looks like a Daemonite , another one I can say it got better was McFarlane, if you look at his first Spideys, well they were good, but every single issue becomes better, and the same happened on Spawn, I know he no longer draws but I recently saw one Hipopotamus he draw, (is that character from one of the letterers) and it looks really good.

 

Tom Raney, Kevin Smith, Risso on 100 Bullets is better ever issue.

 

Oh well, I hope you got my point.

[Guest starvenger]

I think that this is typical of anyone in the entertainment industry - there are just times where you'll run on autopilot. A current example of this in movies is Sir Anthony Hopkins in Red Dragon.

 

In terms of comic art, a lot of artists tend to find a style and never change.

 

For some artists, like John Romita Jr, Mark Bagley and Darrick Robertson (to name but a few), their styles endure because they are able to blend dynamic art with good storytelling.

 

In the cases of artists like Jeff Cambpell and Rob Liefeld, they're more focused on the dynamic art and making every page a pinup, at the expense of logical storytelling. As a result, everything they've done since they started getting work published looks pretty much the same - cookie cutterish - because they really don't know how to properly progress something outside of the big pose.

 

As for writers... well I'd attribute it mostly to burnout. I"m all for them making a couple of extra bucks, but sometimes you take on too much which can hurt you more in the long run. Joe Kelly is pretty much an example of this, and Kevin Smith is well on his way there as well. Spider-Man/Black Cat #3 was rather lacklustre, and probably directly attributable to the fact that he's also directing a movie. If he's not 100% focused on comics (and I'm not expecting him to be) then his Spidey comic is gonna suffer. And given the amount of stuff that he'll be putting out through 2003, Geoff Johns is YOUR next candidate for burnout and resulting crappy stories.

[Guest Sassquatch]

Starvenger pretty much nailed everything that I was going to say.

 

Mark Millar has already been discussed. Frank has been covered as well. Claremont has also been discussed in regards to the topic at hand more than anyone else has in this forum.

 

Unfortunately, Claremont is the best example of a writer that has outlived his usefulness to the industry and is now a joke amongst fans and creators alike.

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Bendis as a possible victim of burnout. Bendis is currently working on Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Alias, and Powers. Jones is currently working on the Avengers, JSA, Hawkman, and the Flash.

 

As long as they both stick to only working on four books at the maximum, I think they will do fine since they seem to be comfortable with their current schedule.

 

Rucka told fans earlier last year that a writer can easily burn out in today's market and I can't say that I disagree with him. However, as long as the writer knows his own limits and what he is capable of doing then they should be fine. Rucka knew his run with Detective Comics was drawing to an end and instead of staying on with the book and churning out crap, he respectively stepped down as the head writer of Detective Comics.

 

Just another reason why I think Rucka will be someone who will maintain a certain excellence to his work. Nothing less.

[Guest raptor]

I think Bendis will be fine as long as he doesn't take on anymore titles. He got close recentley, though. I remember hating a lot of his stuff around the Daredevil issue w/ Spider-Man in it.

 

However, I think he writes such variety of genres that he can maintain tis output for a good while.

[Guest starvenger]

I mentioned Johns because he'll be taking on the (note the caps) new Teen Titans book as well, which is due next year and (along with Outsiders) replaces Young Justice and Titans.

[Guest Sassquatch]

I can see Johns dropping a book if he becomes too burned out over writing duties. Hawkman is slowly being put out and I feel that this might be the book that will be on the chopping block if Johns decides to cut a title from his resume.