I just read The Human Target last night, and it's the same as every other Tom King "prestige" miniseries: a mediocre fanfic made of pretty pictures. Why doesn't he just use his own characters to tell these stories? That he keeps getting Eisners for this pseudo-profound dreck kinda says everything about the state of the industry don't it?
The Eisners? Dude whenever you are BUY BITCOIN
>make OC or legacy character
noooo why not use our classic characterinoooooos!!!!!!!
>tell story with superhero that's anything other than punching within a very strict power scale
nooooo why don't you just make new characters you're destroying my childhooooooood!!
I fricking hate King, I don't think what he does is original or good, and I've been putting off reading Human Target because although the art looks phenomenal, I think King's a dogshit writer and agree with almost every point you have, OP.
I just think you're idea for a solution is moronic and says more about your teenage fanboy mentality than it does about the industry.
I think anyone who uses characters they've not created, especially in a professional capacity, has a responsibility to be a good shepherd to the legacy they've chosen continue. Otherwise, they reveal themselves as soulless parasites who can only pilfer, not create. There's a difference between standing on the shoulders of giants and rummaging through their leftovers. I wouldn't have such a problem if Tom King were more commonly regarded as what he actually is, instead of having every industry heap praise on his work, while his critics are dismissed as having a "teenage fanboy mentality." Tom King would probably still suck if he used his own characters, but maybe more people would actually realize it.
But they aren't beholden to retell the same stories forever. Safeguarding a characters legacy doesn't mean doing the same shit over and over again. Was Gaiman shitting on Kirby's legacy when he made Sandman? Was Moore shitting on Len Wein with Swamp Thing? Len Wein didn't seem to think so.
There's absolutely no reason there shouldn't be a stylish, sexy spy thriller with the JLI. The only responsibility these writers have is to make the story good.
If that's your critique of King, then again, I agree with you. He's not good. He is very likely a parasite, either leveraging government notoriety to get a job or actively planted in an entertainment corporation by the CIA to make this shit instead of the more radical weirdos who are probably trying to get at these characters. I don't think he actually gives a shit about these characters or their legacies.
But the fact that he sucks doesn't mean every writer should have legacy chained around their neck every waking second.
If I don’t like it, it’s shitting in other creators. When I like it it’s okay and improving old things.
I think my main issue with King is how he contorts preexisting characters to fit into his vision, instead of having the characters drive the plot like a good storyteller would.
This. You can shape the plot however you want, but if you're going to use a preexisting character you're obligated to keep them as faithful as possible at least initially. That's not to say they have to be static. You can develop them any which way, but you can't write what amounts to an OC and then slap Superman's face on it. It's just a slap in the face to prior fans of the character.
>why not use our classic characterinoooooos!!!!!!!
Says no one ever. OCs are fine if they stay in their lane and don't infect the rest of the universe.
>Says no one ever
Give me your number so I can call you the next time a legacy character is given prevalence over the straight white man they replaced.
>you're idea
back to elementary school you go
Also- for someone who claims to hate King you surprisingly quick to jump to defend him
>I don’t like it so it’s a fanfic because that’s the best insult I can muster
Lmao
Why do movies about a white man and a black man overcoming racism keep winning Oscars
The people voting on these things want to seem important but they don't want to go too far and seek out a real indie work with strong views or they don't want to just pick the thing they actually probably like the most but had nothing at all to say
So they pick safe people, mostly white with the occasional token, that say the equivalent of "politicians lie" and "war bad"
This, but also King is CIA and is fully aware of the bland crap he's putting out, and indeed is probably collecting a second paycheck for doing so.
he's not CIA and he never was, nobody who tells you they were intelligence actually was
the Eisners are nominated and voted for by industry professionals, including LCS owners
so basically there's a very small pool picking comics that are "worthy" for certain categories from a very small pool of "worthy" comics instead of Big Titty Orange Alien Lady vol 7 #1 or Superman 20000 or whatever
it's a symptom of the fact that the audience for comics is basically nonexistent and very few publishers are doing anything original as a result
OK the Oscars are nominated by Academy members which is similar to the Eisners but not quite, and also the studios run multi-million dollar ad campaigns specifically aimed at Academy members (who are a few thousand people that mostly live in LA and are mostly older filmmakers) which tends to skew toward things that those people have time to see and vote on
but also it seems like the last movie you watched was The Defiant Ones, which is frickin 65 years old my guy
Green Book won in 2019 my guy
Yeah I had this exact thought while reading Mr. terrific admit he didn't want his dead baby born when he found out his wife was pregnant. Pretty sure he even admits to being relieved the accident happened. I'm not usually prudish about pushing these characters out of their comfort zones, but that one seemed aggressively cynical to me. I still think Omega men and that Swamp thing one shot are alright though
>Why doesn't he just use his own characters to tell these stories?
Because he's a capeshitter. Sure, he'll namedrop Moore for clout but his idols are Bendis, Waid, Jurgens. When he was trying to break into comics he had a sit down with Karen Berger and she told him to pitch something and he said that inside he was like "eww Vertigo... I don't read Vertigo...".
>says everything about the state of the industry
No shit. The fandom too, since they keep falling for it.
King has never written a good comic, yet he's a critical darling. In part, it's the industry pushing creators that will convince enough people that comics are still going strong. Tom King puts quotes at the beginning of his 9-panel grid laden maxiseries, he's totally the new Alan Moore!
He has written several good comics, that’s why he is liked. Meanwhile Cinemaphile is obsessed with hating him once he wrote a Batman run they didn’t like
>He has written several good comics
name one.
All of them, anon. Otherwise, why are you always reading his books?
>why are you always reading his books?
I stopped after Mr Miracle. The media slathered all over it, but it was shit, complete with traced photo art from Mitch Gerads, which also won an Eisner. Since then I've only seen pages posted here from Adam Strange and heroes in crisis.
Exactly. I think the CIA agent role has alot to do with it too.
>I stopped after Mr Miracle
Prove it.
Ok. Ask me a question about a tom king comic that came after, I won't be able to answer.
>I think the CIA agent role has alot to do with it too.
It might, but never underestimate how ego factors in on those things. His mother is already a big exec. He wants to be famous. His mother will move all the strings she can. Since he's clearly doing this for clout, he might also be talent on the cheap or something - "oh, it's King, you know how he is. Give him a book or whatever".
Do you think Gunn is now kissing up to him for no reason, as well? It's win/win for all the ones involved from the side of red tape. You get on her good graces, he might be cheap talent, you get better chances of going somewhere in the company.
Feige also constantly kissed JMS' ring during the MCU Spider-Man movie trilogy, down to constantly namedropping him and giving Kamala his Cap speech from civil war on that high profile Enix rpg (that flopped, but neither here nor there). So now he's writing Cap and it's kind of looking like they're going to give him a Spider-Man run sometime soon. In exchange, Feige also gets in the good graces of his JMS' own Hollywood circle.
Humans are social, cliqueish beings. That's just how the game is played.
I liked Batman vs Elmer Fudd and his Superman was decent, but everything else I've read from him rubbed me the wrong way. It's frustrating too, because I think he could actually be a good writer if he could get past his hang-ups, and just try and put on a good show instead of going for award bait every time.
His job with the CIA is to feminize, subvert and emasculate strong male heroes and American cultural institutions like Batman, as seen during his Batman run.
Grayson
Sheriff of Babylon
Batman/Elmer Fudd
Batman: One Bad Day
Omega Men
Mr. Miracle
Human Target
Swamp Thing Winter Special
Gotham City Year One
Penguin
Batman: Brave and the Bold
The Vision
Love is Love
From those, these are the only good ones:
>Grayson
>Batman/Elmer Fudd
>Omega Men
>Swamp Thing Winter Special
>Penguin
>Batman: Brave and the Bold
source: me since 2008.
So that’s several good comics
>Love is Love
>The book was banned in a Texas school due to "extreme homosexuality".
>Mr. Miracle
i can deal with all the other ones called decent on thei artist strenghts but this one
is pure shit and you should feel bad for even mentioning it.
>He has written several good comics
No. Not a single one.
>Meanwhile Cinemaphile is obsessed with hating him once he wrote a Batman run they didn’t like
I won't disagree there. By all means, more of Cinemaphile should still be eating up his trash, but this is a very reactionary board.
He's a CIA Mockingbird glowBlack person propagandist, AND his mom is a big wig former WB film executive. He's basically a made man in mainstream comics. He can release a comic of photographs of his own shit, and the comics media will praise him as a godly genius.
https://spyscape.com/article/action-man-tom-king-the-cia-spy-turned-batman-author
>his mom is a big wig former WB film executive
Yeah well say no more, this right there explains why he's getting pushed all over the place.
The best description of Tom King came from someone here: "he's the kind of writer who seems amazing until he writes your favorite character, and then you realize what's wrong with him".
I can't get past his awful dialogue to even begin considering him amazing.
I really doubt King was from CIA or if he was he wasnt in a real position of intelligence. Likely he was the donut boy.
People in these positions are artistically obsessed with all the little things they learned in it. If he was CIA his comics would be all about garbology or what to do when a gun is drawn on you. All his shit is emasculation and moronic opinions.
Dude he’s literally a CIA asset working in a small industry keeping legitimate voices out.
Did Morrison make himself an Endless?
I like them. Maybe you just hate good writing?
You have shit taste.
It is 100% fine to read and enjoy a comic just because the art is good.
No, the writing should be good too.
Comics are a visual medium. While I would love for a story to be a perfect synergy of art and writing made by people who are writing for the medium and actually enjoy the medium; I do think it acceptable to enjoy a good looking story.
Bad writing/good art is far better than good writing/bad art. I like when their was superstar artists before they created image back in the 90s. So terrified are they of this breakway happening again, good artists are never consistently allowed on main books anymore.
What has the age of the superstar writer given us? Honestly? People like Tom King. Whom everyone b***hes about but still gets work and support. Art matters.
Comics are a narrative medium as well.
>Bad writing/good art is far better than good writing/bad art.
Of course I don't accept either option, but I'll take the other way around.
The industry began tanking when the art took a backseat to writing.
It's started going bad when the artists thought they were superstars.
You mean when it was at its most popular heights?
>inb4 comics crash
What almost killed Marvel wasn't its lack of sales but the fact that they were corporate raiders who saddled Marvel with a load of debt from buying a multitude of other companies (trading cards, distributor etc).
The current age of the superstar writer is [insert whichever artist into it and don't let them get comfortable] while allowing whichever anger-selling writer to storm along. That's why comics are bad. Artist driven manga does a lot better too.
>What almost killed Marvel wasn't its lack of sales but the fact that they were corporate raiders who saddled Marvel with a load of debt from buying a multitude of other companies (trading cards, distributor etc).
This information has been out there for years and isn't hard to find, but a lot of fans are very invested in the narrative in their heads about how some artists they hate caused the crash and nearly killed Marvel, or that specific Marvel stories they hated were to blame. You can tell them time and time again that Marvel's bankruptcy had nothing to do with comic sales at all, but they refuse to listen. Pretending it's all the fault of the Image artists or the Clone Saga or whatever justifies their hatred of those things.
The superstar writer era was the 00s through the mid-10s, now we're in the era of cheap nepotism for the most part.
Considering who the thread is about and how much Tom King is pushed, superstar writer and cheap nepotism may as well be synonyms.
King is one of the last hurrahs of the superstar writer. Guy made his DC debut back in 2014. I don't believe there have been any superstar writers from the past five years.
this
Ram V writes 100 times better and has actual working side projects other than capes, and he has like 1/10 of his fame or recognizability, tom king is the king of failing upwards
Now you're going into artist-driven vs writer-driven phases. What happened to bad writing/good art vs good writing/bad art?
>Now you're going into artist-driven vs writer-driven phases. What happened to bad writing/good art vs good writing/bad art?
What do you mean what happened? The points connect majorly.
They have nothing to do with each other. The writer-driven phase is still largely bad writing. The current era is nothing but bad writing.
You're just not connecting with any of my points. Good art/bad writing and vice versa was just a comment on how bad art is really a disconnect for most people when it comes to comics. Even the best writing can't overcome bad art. Most good comic writers would agree. Artist driven periods, even when the writing is bad, drives things onwards and eventually get get a synergy of both. Writer driven phase has led us to this modern quagmire of shit. You seem confused? Because it is plainly obvious I am not defending the current age and expressed how shit it was several times.
No, dude. You lost the plot and you're putting it on me. We were talking internal quality of comics, and you jumped onto sales and popularity. Both artist and writer-driven phases feature exclusively bad writing, so you switched the topic completely.
>Even the best writing can't overcome bad art.
It can. I've read several good comics with less-than-satisfactory art.
The points do connect and it is surprising you're not getting it.
>We were talking internal quality of comics, and you jumped onto sales and popularity.
Things are connected. Quality is bad now, which you agree with.
>Both artist and writer-driven phases feature exclusively bad writing
I mean if you want to say comics were always shit then just do that. The 80s/90s had plenty of good comics. Better than now.
>less-than-satisfactory art.
I said bad. Not less than satisfactory. There is a difference.
>Things are connected.
Not what we're discussing.
>I mean if you want to say comics were always shit then just do that. The 80s/90s had plenty of good comics. Better than now.
That's why it's not connected. The correlation involved doesn't enter in our discussion.
Those good comics from the 80s and 90s mostly had good writing/good art.
The Image guys put out comics with bad writing/bad art, but they were artist-driven.
Current comics tend to have bad writing/bad art.
So where do good writing/bad art and bad writing/good art come in? Even if you were to say the Image guys put out bad writing/good art, where's this good writing/bad art come into play?
>I said bad. Not less than satisfactory. There is a difference.
Less-than-satisfactory is a nice way of saying bad. Comic art should be good. If it's not good, it's bad.
It's because he's a former glowie, I doubt he would win those awards otherwise it's all psyop shit.
Has Morrison said anything about Tom King?
He made fun of him in Green Latnern Black Stars for doing yet another breaking the bat story arc and writing stories about superheroes having to go to therapy for ptsd.
source?
That's some serious ass kissing. Probably being forced, too.
Tom King is considered a good writer? Wow, so that's how far down the sewer we've gone.
Even James Gunn fell for it and made King the headwriter of the DC films going forward