>I remember somebody coming up to me in the DC offices showing me Spider-Man #1, which Todd drew and which people thought was very funny because the writing demonstrated that the person writing it had never written anything before.
What do you think, was it really that bad?
Spawn>Sandman. Simple as.
How can you be so moronic? Spawn is lack of creativity in a concept.
I mean when todd acts moronic it's like watching a deformed dog piss himself, you can't really get mad at him
as opposed to gayman who is probably only mad he can't afford to do sex tourism in thailand this year
Spawn is crap, but saying it "lacks creativity" while claiming that Sandman is anything other than goth cliches is moronic.
Nope. Neat concept and plenty of fun issues throughout the series run. Also starts off pretty good. Gaiman is a pretentious pseud and Sandman doesn't hold up
Both are really good
Eh I disagree. I'm not some troll looking to wile up Gaiman fans. I genuinely think Sandman is overrated and pretentious while Spawn knows and loves exactly what it is.
Spawn is literally unreadable
He wasnt a great writer, but he was a good artist.
Damn was he a good artist though?
He can't draw accurate anatomy or even basic shit like perspective or even be consistent with proportions to save his life.
And? I'd rather read something with an exciting page layout and poses over something boring with perfect anatomy and perspective.
>? I'd rather read something with an exciting page layout and poses
Then don't read McFarlane.
Good one. That's literally all he has going for him
You could have mentioned great 90s artist guys like Chris Bachalo or Sean Phillips or Norm Breyfogle, yet you settle for McFarlane.
>exciting page layout
His layouts don't even make sense and he does even deny it.
>poses
All the Image founders did was have the characters pose in every panel. That created a total disconnect between what you were reading and what you were seeing. Nothing really HAPPENS in their comics. Just a bunch of talking heads with no feet.
The sandman art is dogshit, Colleen Doran draws pinups and your shit is all fricked up and gay niqqa
>and he does even deny it
DOESN'T even deny it
Again, say what you want, but he actually permanently changed the visual style of spider-man.
If you showed most people mcfarlane’s Spider-Man and then a comic gaiman had drawn (he can’t) they’d think the latter was mentally moronic and the former writes and draws decent children’s comics.
Gaiman being a pretentious homosexual doesn’t make him correct, this is just the sneering contempt most of the faux intellectuals infecting comics snicker at and cling to in order to sleep at night because they aren’t the west’s next great novelists
Dude, don't defend that 90s shit. Fricking stop.
heck yeah bro, I heckin love Linkara!
Name hunt favorite modern artists.
90s comics were far better than what we have now. It was honestly a great time to be into comics.
based
There were good comics 90s… but Todd and his pals weren’t making them.
that's your problem, I got my fix
Look I get you guys are swallowing garbage for the sake of owning duh libs, but never forget that the absolute state of comics today are because of the same jokers who hired Todd and pals.
>for the sake of owning duh libs
Delusional, I'm a "lib" myself
no I just like 90s comics more
p.s. hiring good artists is good for business and this reflected in the sales
>no I just like 90s comics more
Same, but I read good 90s comics like JLI or Hellblazer or Animal Man instead of Image trash.
>p.s. hiring good artists is good for business and this reflected in the sales
Don’t forget the countless cover gimmick, #1’s, and the speculator market who think their Bloodstrike #1 wins gojng to put their kids through college.
*was going to put their kids through college.
Wait, wasn't it the Image guys that fricked the comics market?
Speculators fricked the market, but Image had way too many delays with their books which made a lot of people lose interest.
They also fricked over indie comics by pushing them out because they had the money to do so.
In what way? They supported a lot of indie creators
I'm not watching that. Hart D Fisher is an instigator so I would take anything he published with a grain of salt
>never forget that the absolute state of comics today are because of the same jokers who hired Todd and pals.
Because the Image boys fricked them by leaving so they started pushing writers instead of artists.
I'd still rather read those than most modern comics.
They sold them, though. The Image guys were a rising tide, they brought people into the stores and into the hobby. Todd sold more issues of Love & Rockets and Eightball than Gary Groth ever did, and helped create the ecosystem than nurtured an indy golden age.
>Todd sold more issues of Love & Rockets and Eightball than Gary Groth ever did
don't tell that to groth kek
90s had good comics same way we have good comics today
Yeah, of course we have great comics still being made today, but overall comics were in a better state. The business was stronger and the comics were more enjoyable on average (at least for superhero stuff).
>but overall comics were in a better state.
We had to wait until 2004 to get a good GL run because the editors were Batgays who didn’t know what they frick they were doing.
Uhum, say the good comics being made today.
North's Fantastic Four, Waid's World's Finest, Jurgens' Lord of the Jungle, Void Rivals, and Starfinder
Yuck.
jezzus mate it's all IP slop that's nothing to write home about
Wow, they are shit
True but the early-mid 2000s was the sweet spot and better than both.
Marvel had:
Bendis + Brubaker run on Daredevil
Ultimate Spider-Man was still good
JMS Spider-Man (pre-OMD obviously) and the early BND era up to about The Gauntlet/Grim Hunt was good.
Parts of civil war were cool I guess.
DC had:
Dini on Detective Comics and Morrison on Batman (but especially Batman and Robin)
52
The Spirit relaunch with Darwyn Cooke
lots of other cool shit I'm forgetting.
Bendis devil was ass
not at all
That's fair, early-mid 2000s was nice too. I wasn't a fan of what they were doing with X-Men at the time, but lots of good stuff came out.
The only good thing you posted was The Spirit.
have a nice day, bendisgay.
>Bendis
>JMS
>Millar
>52
>good
Shit taste.
>It was honestly a great time to be into comics.
you were 12 at the time, your argument is invalid.
>you were the age that comics were being made for, your argument is invalid
I don't see many 12 year olds obsessing over comics nowadays. A lot of them did in the 90s.
technology has changed and kids have games now. your argument is still invalid.
Technology is one reason comics are less relevant, but that doesn't change that they're less relevant. We had games back then too btw, the big technological difference is that everybody has high speed internet access whenever they want now. But for some reason kids aren't using that power to download comics. Not as much as they're downloading manga at least.
Comics are made interesting to kids now than the 70/80s were
Aren't*
>Technology is one reason comics are less relevant
>one
technology is the number 1 driver of societal changes.
and if ytou wanna bring manga up, to a 12 years old there's no real difference between the east and west. they are just comics.
Well technology isn't stopping people from reading manga.
>and if ytou wanna bring manga up, to a 12 years old there's no real difference between the east and west. they are just comics.
I think you've forgotten what it's like to be 12. I definitely knew the difference and I'm sure they do too. They're reading more manga than comics, and I don't think technology is the best explanation for the discrepancy.
The 90s to Cinemaphile as to what Pokemania is Genwunners
So objectively better than what we have now
Lmao no, Gen 1 is obsolete as frick thanks to Gen 4/5.
Pokemon Red and Blue > Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Gen 4/5 isn't now (sadly).
>in order to sleep at night
on top of a pile of money etc etc
I think it's weird with these and cable monopolies where behind the scenes there's only like 5 artists having a major cultural impact with a dozen interns and literally thousands of managers and supply roles.
Like one comic page is bad because of one artist and it has a cultural impact on millions of people and could potentially affect thousands of jobs depending on how well it sells.
This is the one thing I can still appreciate about comics honestly.
Spider-Man #1 is fricking dreadful but the Lizard panels were incredibly drawn, as was pete in motion. But also, FRICK GAYMAN.
McFarlane's art is trash, although it might've been a lot better if someone else did the layouts, preferably a real artist.
Reminder:
He just comes off as an ass, like all the time.
I dont even know which language the woman is saying
This "reminder" actually makes me want to root for him, >she(male) just sounds moronic
PSST
Anon.
Here is a secret that will help you
when you watch 2 morons fight, you don't have to pick a side! I KNOW! It's funny to hear right? You can't take a side? It's this new thing called "remaining neutral" or "not caring about either side" and just watching two idiots scream and shout at each other publically! It's totally free to do!
Yes, it was awful. A lot of 90s writers dunked on Todd because he and the other Image writers had arrogantly proclaimed that they didn't need writers and then preceded to release comics showing why writing is a skill in and of itself.
How many 90s comics writers provided a net benefit to the artists they were assigned to?
David Michelinie lifted McFarlane and Larsen, Louise Simonson and Fabian Nicieza lifted Rob Liefeld, Chris Claremont lifted Jim Lee
I feel like Larsen and Michelinie were just good for each other all the way around.
McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee were already rising stars before they respectively worked with Michelinie, Simonson and Claremont, and Nicieza wasn't the writer of Liefeld's X-Force, he was the scripter, he didn't have any real control over the plots.
Claremont was already repeating himself by the time he left, it had been time for him to leave years earlier. The last 20 years of awful X-books have nothing at all to do with Lee, Harras or Claremont, and everything to do with the movies, with updating the concept of mutants to the modern era of identity politics, and with the last 20 years of awful X-boobs being what the most vocal elements of the fanbase actually want.
>McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee were already rising stars before they respectively worked with Michelinie, Simonson and Claremont, and Nicieza wasn't the writer of Liefeld's X-Force, he was the scripter, he didn't have any real control over the plots.
I mean compare the comics that they wrote and drew themselves to the comics they drew and other people wrote. Michelinie's Spider-Man with McFarlane was far better than the Spider-Man comics Todd wrote himself, New Mutants/X-Force was better than Youngblood, X-Men was better than WildCATS. Nicieza may have only provided dialogue, but good dialogue was enough to make it a decent comic.
Frank Miller's first writing assignment was Daredevil. The difference between a decently-read person and a dimwit like McFarlane.
>The difference between a decently-read person and a dimwit like McFarlane
Again, is meant to be some kind of gotcha? Todd readily admits he isn’t a naturally gifted writer, all he cares about is creating a story good enough to entertain his readership. Just because it isn’t the greatest writing in the medium doesn’t make him necessarily bad or a dimwit. Hell, I’d much rather read Capullo/McFarlane-era Spawn again than the vast majority of what Marvel and DC put out nowadays. We’ve reached the point where even a very average writer like McFarlane runs rings around the likes of Zeb Wells and Tom King.
>Again, is meant to be some kind of gotcha?
This is the whole issue here. Professional comic writers like Gaiman and Peter David kept reeeing about YOUR WRITING SUCKS TODD but he was producing art-driven action-heavy superhero books for kids that sold better than anything they were doing. It literally didn't matter that he wasn't a "good writer", his audience liked what he was doing.
Also let's keep in mind that at the time Todd was writing comics, 90% of Marvel's writing talent pool were just editors and former-editors being hired by each other to also write comics. Some of them ended up being well-regarded by fans, but all Marvel really cared about was them being "good enough", not "being good". And if we're honest with ourselves, a lot of the professional writers Marvel and DC have employed over the last 20 years are even worse than the writer-editors of the 70s to 90s and Image-era writer-artists of the 90s.
>IT SOLD WELL
And now people think of those comics as a joke not worth the ink they were printed on, while Gaiman and PAD’s books meanwhile are considered classics
Why should anyone care what grown men think of comic books that were aimed at kids and teens? The target audience for those books liked Todd's books better. That's what counts. Marvel and DC shifting their focus to an adult audience who want more "mature" cape books was always a mistake.
Bronze age comics aimed at kids and teens still hold up, the Image Revolution aged like milk. Image books were "Mature" but without the maturity, the comic book equivalent of slasher movies.
>Bronze age comics aimed at kids and teens still hold
Lmao 80% of Marvel's 70s output is garbage plotwise, either regurgitating Kirby's plots time and time again or swamping the art with boring-ass unreadable copy from writers obsessed with the smell of their own farts and how they were doing "important work" even as sales plummeted because no kid would pay attention to it.
I'd unironically take Lee and McFarlane's bullshit everytime, at least for capeshit (I draw the line at Liefeld tho, even from New Mutants his art is flat and uninteresting compared with his contemporaries)
Marvel had a lot of editorial problems in the 70s, but they still made plenty of great comics. Conan, Tomb of Dracula, Man-Thin1g, Howard the Duck, Englehart's Avengers and Dr. Strange, Conway's Spider-Man, Claremont's X-Men McGregor's Black Panther in Jungle Action. Lot of good stuff from DC as well, a great decade for Batman comics in particular.
It's ironic that Spawn didn't actually become a decent comic until Todd stopped doing writer/artist duties himself and turned it into another writer/artist comic, just with someone else as the artist.
Thirty one years of mediocre X-Men comics can be traced back to Jim Lee and his boyfriend Bob Harras chasing out Chris Claremont.
Claremont came back in 2000 and it was awful.
Claremont is responsible for at least two years of shit X-Men comics.
It was time for him to go.
>TWITTER OPINION THREAD
Should be punishable by death
I love how petty Todd can be, but Gaimen being such an butthole to him never made much sense to me. You’d think that image is a company he would’ve supported
Todd owed him royalties and a court of law agreed that he needed to live up to the contract he signed.
Didn’t gaimen only do that as attempted leverage to get the miracle man rights? And didn’t that end with him just giving the character he won to marvel, who used her for a year before burying her? Also didn’t Todd pay him a million dollars, which is far more than what those residuals would’ve been in the first place?
There was no contract. Gaiman screwed up.
If that was the case, he would have lost.
I think he won the case by using the companies credo against them.
Gaiman won through being very charismatic. The justice system is 30% facts and 70% arguing a case very well.
That's a logical fallacy.
I’d rather read an artist’s comic than a writer’s comic.
Writers can just write books. Writer/artists who devalue the importance of writing lose to both writer/artists who care about writing and writer/artist teams.
Post-divorce Gaiman is a different person.
I dunno how gaiman can talk about bad writing, i've read sandman and it's fine but it's not good, i've read american gods and that's utter shit. man has no room to speak.
Gaiman is popular because his books are easy to read but that doesn't really make him good. He's basically just a YA author.
I don't care about awards and I don't really like Gaiman, but you don't get nominated for THAT many awards for being "not good".
If he was only winning Eisners, I'd dismiss it completely, but you've got all these different ones over the course of decades.
>you dont gain that many awards for being "not good"
Uhh..
>because his books are easy
Are you using this as a gotcha while defending 90s capeslop? Gaiman is easy to read but not your average cape boy? Is Mcfarlane really complex?
I've only read his Neverwhere novel and is the perfect example of cool ideia, shit execution.
I dislike Kneel Gayman, but Todd McFarlane is one of those c**ts. Plus, none of his shit is worth reading.
Well no fricking shit, Gaiman, it was literally his first writing assignment. Was this supposed to be some kind of gotcha from yet another failed artist who had to resort to writing to work in comics? I love watching the wordwagies seethe over the primacy of artists in a visual medium.
Torment may not be a particularly well-written comic but it’s still a lot better than many other first efforts of artists transitioning to writing their own material, and the linework is still for the most part fantastic.
>Well no fricking shit, Gaiman, it was literally his first writing assignment. Was this supposed to be some kind of gotcha
Before you get your first paid writing assignment you're supposed to have practiced by writing literally millions of pages of shit that you threw in the trash. That's how actual writers do it.
Oh no McFarlane didn’t pay his penance by acting like a tortured teenage dipshit writing volumes of fanfiction before diving into professional writing, how terrible.
That's why his writing was made fun of you moron. That's why it was bad writing. It's not "penance", it's practice. You literally cannot be good enough to be published when you start writing, and he wasn't.
Nothing better than practicing on the job to improve a skill fast. Not that writers know what the meanings of the words “job” and “work” are.
He honestly never improved. His writing is trash the art isn't great but it is dynamic and eye catching. He's a much better publisher than he ever was an artist or writer. He knows how to market himself like liefield did.
>he never improved
That’s demonstrably false. Is he a great writer? No. Did he develop to the point where he could tell decently-crafted stories featuring some interesting ideas and occasionally-compelling characters on a regular basis? Yes.
>That's how actual writers do it.
>He actually thinks the world of professional writing operates on "Get good, then you get work"
It's about connections, about who you are and who you know. Of course the star artists get given a shot at writing comics over some Literally Who? who's "good at writing", the same way the comics industry falls over itself to offer writing work to celebrities and anyone who works in Hollywood.
Wow, Todd fanboys are platinum mad today.
Yeah but gaiman is pro-piracy so I have to defend his opinion even when he's wrong about other stuff. Sorry.
Writers are homosexuals that huff their own farts. Nothing new.
Mcfarlane is a confirmed nazi chud, sweaty
Let's get the fact behind there feud straight and cut the crap. Todd offered Neil $1,000,000 to write one Spawn comic where he could do anything he wanted. Neil just did that single comic and collected his $1,000,000. In said issue he wrote 3 new characters(generic old man who knows more than you'd expect, Metal Spawn, and Angel Spawn Girl) and Todd drew them and used his designs and his toy company to make toys of the characters. This made Neil fly into a israeli RAGE cause Todd dared to make money off his own drawings.
So Todd drew the issue that Neil wrote? So he’s partial owner of Angela? God it makes me hate the arrogant prick more now
It's completely fricked that the courts gave the design TODD DREW to Gaiman outright.
So Gaimen is just a Stan Lee without the creativity, personality or legacy?
>Gaiman sued McFarlane in federal court in 2002, and a jury granted him joint ownership of two issues of Spawn, the Angela spin-off miniseries, and the disputed characters. Much of the last decade's worth of legal wrangling has involved trying to determine how much money was made off of those creations, and whether Gaiman also deserves ownership of analogue characters Dark Ages Spawn, Tiffany and Domina (In 2010, a judge said he did).
He only got joint ownership, which he deserved. Todd chose to just give him the character to wash his hands of the whole mess and pay him less money, since Neil was able to make bank by selling the character to Marvel.
>since Neil was able to make bank by selling the character to Marvel.
he sold her for a dollar
Well the biggest perk of giving Angela to Marvel was the chance to finally do his Miracleman story.
A lot of people liked Ron Marz's and Judd Winick's Kyle runs. Halgays forever seething over the rushed and disrespectful way they handled the transition.
>A lot of people liked Ron Marz's and Judd Winick's Kyle runs.
Not enough to draw some dimes. Kyle wouldn’t get a good run until Geoff came along.
Wrong!
You can check comichron, Ron Marz's years-long run consistently hovered around 50,000. Winick's was stable around 35,000. Things slid downward with Raab, then they brought Marz back to wrap things up so Johns could be a Jordan fanboy. Johns made Hal a top ten book sure, but DC has never been able to keep up that momentum after his run ended. Even Morrison's run was only able to do Marz and then Winick numbers.
>Things slid downward with Raab, then they brought Marz back to wrap things up so Johns could be a Jordan fanboy.
Johns isn’t even a Halfanboy, he’s a Flashgay.
>Well the biggest perk of giving Angela to Marvel was the chance to finally do his Miracleman story.
And then spend the next 11 years not writing it.
The issue with Angela is that Marvel never did anything interesting with her. At least in Spawn she had some function.
That’s Marvel’s problem
moral of the story: if you hire someone to write for you, sign a fricking work for hire contract.
Gailman is a bloody israelite and had no moral right to the characters. it wasn't a partnership, mcfarlane literally paid him to work.
Image was founded on creators' rights and they had a gentleman's agreement. Todd even did a "muh poor downtrodden creators who had to sell out to corporations!!" issue with Dave Sim.
Flash came back because of Ethan Van Sciver and Didio. Hal Jordan's return was something he was passionate about.
>and they had a gentleman's agreement
that wasn't about creators' rights because gaiman had to be paid a massive fricking premium to work on something he wouldn't have touched with a 40 foot pole.
unlike gaiman, someone who isn't a giant butthole would have recognized this and humble stepped back instead of crying like a b***h the second he realized he was the lesser party in the profit equation
the community and artist network was more important than petty money, one would think.
But well, they didn't and now we have shit like OP's pic as karmic justice.
>McFarlane acting like an butthole is karmic justice
??????
>like an butthole
how? again: gailman didn't want in on spawn. he was paid to work.
How is Todd the butthole? He paid Neil a million dollars to write one book. If that's Todd being an butthole then he's the nicest shitter on the planet.
Isn’t it true that more agreed to make a few image comics for a literal fraction of what he paid gaimen? I’m not saying Todd’s the best dude, but Gaimens total hatred for him is unjustified honestly
>Isn’t it true that more agreed to make a few image comics for a literal fraction of what he paid gaimen?
Yes. Alan actually loved Image, and Liefeld was the complete picture of a good intentioned moron which apparently endears him to Moore, he also specifically approached him to write his superman spoof Supreme so he could do all the things he couldn't do with supes at DC
Fun thing tho, Liefeld specifically paid a lot to his W4Hs and collaborators. I'm talking nearly twice a much as the other Image studios and twice as much as Marvel and DC. Moore and crew definitely didn't lack for money there. Makes Gaiman look like even more of a c**t.
here's an interview with liefeld swooning over what happened
>Makes Gaiman look like even more of a c**t.
It doesn’t
go home comics pseud.
It does. A pittance to Gaiman was amazing money for everyone else. He's the spoiled kid who goes to work at a restaurant for a semester and complains that they get paid in tips and their salary is low, and fricks it over for everyone else.
Okay, Todd
Why didn't Moore continue working with them then?
Don't know, probably because he didn't intend to.
A few years after 96 Moore starts publishing the league of extraordinary gentlemen, arguably his pet book, and the Liefeld Vs. Image scandal happens.
i don't worship todd, everyone knows Jim Lee was the only guy in image that wasn't a complete idiot. Shame he can't save the burning ship that is DC
I'd place todd 2nd or 3rd in the 90s Image hierarchy.
Jim was the idiot who bungled his company so hard he has to sell it, though. Todd and Silvestri are the smart ones
>Jim was the idiot who bungled his company so hard he has to sell it
He didn't let that bring him down now, and now he's objectively in the best position of any of the original 7
He’s the most soulless one of them all.
> objectively
Todd and Mark are their own bosses. Jim has a sweet do nothing gig, but he’s still beholden to WB.
Jim has done nothing to save DC. He could have saved Jon and Tim from becoming homosexuals but he sat back and watched it happen.
>A few years after 96 Moore starts publishing the league of extraordinary gentlemen, arguably his pet book, and the Liefeld Vs. Image scandal happens.
You got that completely fricking wrong
The timeline was like this:
1996:
>Moore started writing Supreme
>Liefeld vs Image happens, Liefeld spins off Maximum as its own company since he's no longer part of Image
1997
>Maximum becomes Awesome Entertainment
>Moore is still writing Supreme and also wrote Judgment Day to set up the Awesome Universe
1998
>Awesome Entertainment shuts down
>With that and the declining comics industry in mind, Moore decided he and his collaborators need more work just in case, so America's Best Comics was conceived and pitched to Jim Lee
>Moore chooses to sell the ABC line to Wildstorm to get more money for his collaborators up front (remember, comic industry was freefalling at this time)
>However Moore is approached by Don Murphy for the movie rights to LOEG. As a result the leads into that LXG movie and Moore and O'Neill retaining the rights to the LOEG comic
>Lee sold Wildstorm to DC in late 1998, without telling Moore
1999
>DC started publishing Wildstorm in 1999
>ABC titles launch
IIRC Liefeld started Maximum while he was still at Image, and was slowly moving more of his books there. It was one of the various issues between him and the rest of Image at the time.
They began to drag him too much into the business side of things, so Moore got all Mad Monk and fricked off.
Neil GAYman
Pretty impressive that Image is still in business despite never having a mainstream success after Spawn.
?? kirkbride has both invincible and walking dead as part of image main.
I understand the Gayman hate, but I really don't understand the McFarlane worship.
I respect any writer-artist more than any comics writer who can’t draw
Really? Even a writer-artist that can't write or draw?
Todd is just emblematic of the 90s, and I like that.
An earnest failed effort is more respectable than none at all. I’d rather watch or read an amateurish passion project next than something that is artistically and intellectually counterfeit
>I’d rather watch or read an amateurish passion project next than something that is artistically and intellectually counterfeit
based webcomic appreciator
Unironically yes. I appreciate the spartan, independent mentality.
And in the end it’s not much better than some basic young adult novels
>And in the end it’s not much better than some basic young adult novels
I'm not accepting your assessment, but I thought you appreciated effort despite failure.
Sandman most likely had a lot more work put into it than Spawn. Spawn was just made to make money.
Todd was never great, but trashing him all those years later is pretty cheap. Especially considering everything bad about him has been pointed out by multiple people over the years. I still think Gaiman is a good writer, but he should have avoided saying this shit.