Okay, first things first — for those of you (assuming there are any) who have been wondering wondering just where the hell I’ve been hiding the last couple of months, rest assured, I’ve been writing as much as ever — maybe even moreso. Just not about movies. And just not here. Which may come as a relief, I’ll bet, to some. But for those among you who just have to have an explanation —
I’m currently in the midst of two comics-related series over at http://www.geekyuniverse.com, which I’ve been — ahem! — “re-presenting” over on my own “main” site — http://trashfilmguru.wordpress.com — as well. One, entitled “Just Pay Ditko!” is an exploration of the questionable (at best) ethics of the current comic reprint craze that’s seeing the works of some of the industry’s greatest talents packaged in high-quality, expensive hardcovers — with no compensation being directed toward the artists and writers whose work is contained in these hefty tomes. As you might gather from the title, I’m paying special attention to this unfolding dilemma as it relates to Spider-Man and Doctor Strange’s real creator, visionary artist Steve Ditko, but the scope of the articles has expanded somewhat to include other creators, as well as other creator’s-rights-related issues. I can’t imagine the average Through The Shattered Lens reader would find all this terribly interesting, but for those of you who want a glimpse into comics’ sorry ethical and legal practices, you may want to hop on over to GU and take a look — right now I’m up to part 12 in the series and will probably be looking to wrap it up somewhere around part 15 or 16 in the next few weeks.
The other ongoing “concern” I’m immersed in, however, might be of at least slightly more concern to you good folks here, though, and that is my continuing evisceration of DC’s uniformly sorry and uninspired/uninspiring “Villains Month” books. For those (blissfully, I might add) not in the know about this, throughout the month of September the House That Superman (or, more accurately, Siegel and Shuster) Built is turning all their regular monthly titles over to the bad guys, and throwing flashy 3-D holographic covers on each of the issues (at an extra buck a pop) , to boot. Quite clearly this is nothing but a cheap publicity stunt to gin up sales in the short term, but then so is everything that DC and Marvel does these days. As you’d expect, this being the current “New 52” take on these characters, the results are pretty dire. But given that I’ve droned on about these books for a few weeks already over at GU and that’s I’m an equal-opportunity kind of guy who wishes to spread the miser— err, wealth — around a bit, I thought I’d save my last few entries in this series for the readers here at TTSL and give you all a little taste of what you’ve been missing if you’ve wisely chosen to ignore these comics.
And so, without any further ado, let’s take a look at Joker #1 — or, as it’s officially numbered, Batman #23.1 — shall we?
In short, despite having better art, courtesy of Andy Clarke, than most of those other “Villains Month” quick-cash-grabs, this book still pretty well sucks, and that’s entirely down to the lame script by Andy Kubert, who’s turning out to be nowhere near the writer-artist his legendary father, Joe, was.
Kubert starts off with some possible flashbacks to the Joker’s origins — never a good idea for anyone to tackle unless their name is Alan Moore — then segues into, I guess, the present day, wherein the Clown Prince Of Crime decides to expand his inner circle by liberating a gorilla from the Gotham City Zoo, naming the hapless creature Jackanapes, and raising it as his own, well, child, I guess.
Oh, sure, it’ll all end in tears, but the limp nods Kubert makes toward Grant Morrison-era Doom Patrol-style surrealism are so ham-fisted and ill-considered that it makes for a downright excruciating read even if Clarke’s pencils and inks are generally pretty pleasing to the eye. For a “special” issue, the whole thing has the feel of a good, old-fashioned “inventory” story that’s been sitting on the shelf, unpublished (for good reason) for a couple of years. It’s all over as quickly as it is predictably, which is probably its’ one saving grace (at least only five minutes of your life will be wasted on it), but at the end of the day all you really are for your $3.99 investment is, well, a little bit more broke. You already knew the Joker was crazy, you already knew that he has a habit of making irrational decisions, and you already knew he was capable of acting utterly without conscience. Giving him a pet ape doesn’t change any of that, nor does it do much to “shed new light” on his character, motivations, you name it.
I think it’s safe to assume that you get the picture here, but just in case you don’t, I’ll make it real easy — avoid at all costs.
Through the Shattered Lens 
Reblogged this on Trash Film Guru and commented:
“Oh, The Villainy” moves over to Through the Shattered Lens for its last few segments, beginning with “Joker” #1.
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I was wondering if this new wrinkle in DC’s New 52 was worth even a look-see. I know some don’t like Marvel Comics for what they’ve done towards some of the company’s early talents and creators, but man DC’s current run of incompetence towards their current crop of writers and artists just boggles the mind.
One would think that giving some of the brand’s most well-known villains a chance to be in the limelight even if just for a brief moment would be a welcome change, but if what I’ve been reading about how DC has bungled the attempt I may just spend my money and reading time on something else.
Makes one wonder just who exactly is in charge over at DC.
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Who’s in charge at DC? Good question. the public face of the company is the publisher tandem of Dan DiDio and Jim Lee — the entire “New 52” was apparently their brainchild — and they’re getting most of the criticism that’s been directed DC’s way these days. But let’s remember that they have a boss too, and that’s DC President Bob Harras. Who’s Harras? Well, he just so happens to be the guy who was editor-in-chief at Marvel at the time they went bankrupt! How he landed on his feet again given that track record I’ll never know.
DC’s indeed alienating a lot of top talent these days with their heavy-handed editorial approach — the entire creative team on “Batwoman” recently quit en masse, they fired Gial Simon, writer of “Batgirl,” by email, before fan pressure forced them to hire her back, respected writer Andy Diggle quit “Action Comics” after one issue, the first writer they hired for their lame “Constantine” re-launch quit before the first issue even came out, and at least one writer left the company due to ethical qualms about the whole “Before Watchmen” fiasco.So, yeah, things are clearly a mess.
That being said, it speaks to a certain level of incompetence at Marvel that they’re not absolutely crushing DC in sales right now. Most months it’s pretty much an even split, and the last few months DC has even slightly outperformed Marvel by a percentage point or two. Go figure that out!
As for Marvel’s treatment of “past creators,” I’m not so sure that I would count Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko as “past” creators at all, since between the two men they’re responsible for the creation of about 90% of the characters marvel is still milking for cash, and they’re still not being compensated. Yeah, sure, Jack’s long gone, but he barely even got any credit for “The Avengers,” even though he created ’em, and his family isn’t getting a dime of residuals for any of his work.
The truth is, if you’re looking for which of the “Big Two” publishers is “better,” the sad answer is neither. Both are absolutely morally and ethically bankrupt entities — and if they don’t get their publishing houses in order soon, financial bankruptcy will ultimately follow at some point, as well. The super-hero craze won’t last at the box office forever, and neither publisher seems to be geared toward surviving once that inevitable downturn happens.
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I think the downturn in terms of sales has already been happening the last couple years. I think of the Big Two Marvel has a better chance of adapting to a much leaner business model. They’ve gone through and survived a couple bankruptcies so they’ve got experience in that regard.
It helps that Disney owns them now.
I’m not surprised that Marvel’s own sales numbers are not much better than DC’s. I think Marvel makes more money on trades nowadays than singles. I know I buy more of their trades than anything else.
This is why Marvel’s current titles very focused on major story-arcs that can be easily collected and sold. I know DC still hasn’t figured that out.
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I’m not so sure about that. Pretty much every single DC title is collected in six-or-eight-part trades nowadays, and DC and Image have been literally blowing away Marvel’s trade numbers until recent months, when a few of Marvel’s better titles like “Hawkeye” have started to be collected into trades. On the whole, though, they have a long way to catch up in that regard. It seems the simplest solution to declining sales is currently eluding both DC and Marvel, though — namely, just make better comics that people will want to read!
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