The Reduction of Deep Political Philosophy to the Discussion of Comics

[Wood]

The proposition:

"Without a system of formal constraints, there is no creativity; there is only change." - Noam Chomsky.

The evidence to support the proposition:

Pat Mills on Ro-Busters, The Cursed Earth, Sky Chariots, The ABC Warriors Mars Story vs. Pat Mills on that Crap French Vampire Story or every Slaine story since the Horned God;

and

Grant Morrison on Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Zenith, early JLA vs. Grant Morrison on The Filth.

Now discuss, culture vultures.

[almighty mat]

You maniac!!

Don't you know how early it is?!

Good grief.

[GordonR]

Erm.......


Bring back Shako!

[Art]

Oi! Don't mess with The Filth!

[Marbles]

Gotta go with the Woodster here.

Prime example being Mr Frank Miller.

Look at the brilliant work he had when constrained by the monthly schedule and backstory on 'Daredevil' and even 'Batman'.

Then he's given his head & apart from some good early 'Sin City' stuff he consistently churns out bilge from then on.

This man was a God to me for a long time but know he's rubbish. All because he hasn't got a decent editor slapping him around, telling him to do better & try harder. He can literally do whatever he wants, and that's usually fatal.

If someone (me) put a powerful magnum handgun to his head and made him write say 'Dredd' to a weekly schedule for 6 months he'd probably create sometiming miles better than the twaddle he's produced in the last few years.

Rant over.

nb Mill's french 'Requiem' isn't half bad btw, if you like kewl-looking undead uber-nazi's (always the best kind I find).

[JamieB]

Then-JLA editor Dan Raspler *rewrote* GM on some of the early JLA issues, I'm informed, which rather stands against the "make the editing tighter" argument.

Also, there's a cogent argument that in both cases, you're discussing much earlier periods of awesome, breakout creativity as opposed to more recent work; what writer is consistently brilliant throughout their career? Gaiman's had off days; Moore's done some pretty gruesome work for Image; and surely even the most hardened fanboy would baulk at suggesting that EVERY SINGLE JD strip Wagner's done shows the same level of quality.

Without a system of formal constraints, nobody would ever get anything published, comic artists would produce one *AWESOME* page per year, etc., sure.

But over-constraining writers and artists, especially in the realm of mainstream comics, can be disastrous. Look at the recent trouble Marvel's had with creators and editors not gelling, which led to the end of Gail Simone's IMHO great run on Agent X, or Darko Macan leaving Soldier X for similar reasons. Look at pretty much every major 1990s superhero comic, rewritten to fit either a horrible concept of "continuity" (or the Spider-Man Clone debacle in the 80s), or to fit into those godawful company-wide crossovers...

I dunno, man. Just a few thoughts. I think the balance is pretty much OK now, generally speaking. If Moore, Morrison and Gaiman had been under a really tight rein, Watchmen would have been a straight-up DCU tie-in, The Invisibles wouldn't have even GOT to Volume 2, and Sandman would have been about a guy with a gas mask who fights crime. Not nice thoughts.

J-Bo-1

[Art]

SICK BOY: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.
RENTON: What do you mean?
SICK BOY: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone for ever. All walks of life: Pat Mills, for example, had it and lost it, or Frank Miller, or Warren Ellis -
RENTON: Some of his creator owned stuffs not bad.
SICK BOY: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either, is it? And in your heart you kind of know that although It's all right, it's actually just shite.
RENTON: So who else?
SICK BOY:  Mike McMahon, Peter David, Alan Moore, Peter Milligan. -
RENTON: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?
SICK BOY: All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The New X-Men is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
RENTON: What about The Invisibles?
SICK BOY: I don't rate that at all.
RENTON: Despite the Eisner award?
SICK BOY: That means fuck all. It's a sympathy vote.
RENTON: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it any more. Is that it?
SICK BOY: Yeah.
RENTON: That's your theory?
SICK BOY: Yeah, Beautifully fucking illustrated.

[ukdane]

Ha! HA! HA! HA!

[Marbles]

Yeh loved that one Art!

[ukdane]

I wonder how many people are going to go home this afternoon, and um and er, as to whether or not to watch Trainspotting this weekend now?

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

I am still trying to work out the question. How long do we have for this exam?

[Proudhuff]

He's right old Noam, but its all semantics anyway...

Middenpus

[Devons Daddy]

now i want to know why such threads as this dont bring the cultural elite who lurk here to the fore.

but after some long consideration. i do believe this to be true.if we take into account the many faces of tharg.via the TPO we see many examples of just this fact.

under the giudance fo mr diggle it was bloody great.under others it was not,due to reasons beyond there control i accept.
further to this  take the script the corps. i was teen age tax consultant.two prime examples.
and lets just forget the robohunter return.junker and so on in so many cases,
rogue during the period after the traitor general.
plenty of materail but much of it dross.the control was not there, and as such a regime of change but not creativity was in essense the control.

[Trout]

I like Grant Morrison because he tells a damn good tale. I wasn't aware of it seeming samey, but I'll have an open-minded think about that.

However, I agree with that on Pat Mills. I reckon he's just tippexing and adding bits on old scripts all the time.

If it wasn't for the first and last eps of Moloch, I wouldn't have liked any Slaine for year and years and years.

This is all too high-brow for me. I think I'll just shut up.

- Trout

[Smiley]

The moral here is too much fan worship. Don't do it, kids. They're scum.