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elspethdixon Aug. 17th, 2008 01:00 am)
elspethdixon Aug. 17th, 2008 01:00 am)God, I feel almost embarrassed to post this - I sound like I'm telling people to "organize and fight, for the Union makes us strong" or something, when I'm just talking about comic books.
Edit: This essay/rant is very, um... virulent in places. If you just want contact info for Marvel writers without potential wank (or really like Ed Brubaker, current Captain America storylines, Joe Quesada, Brand New Day, etc. and don't want to see them viciously criticized in my post and/or in comments), you might want just the contact info by itself]
[Return of Edit: I'm just going to quote my words from down in the comments. Elipses indicate parts cut for length: This (Steve's death & replacement by Bucky) is a topic that it turns out can still make me upset to the point of tears after a year and a half, and it's turning out to not be something I can debate respectfully or politely... So my apologies for the overly emotional nature of the whole conversation and I think I probably ought to shut up now.... I'm freezing comments on this whole post before I truly lose it and land us all on fandom_wank... because I'm clearly not mature enough or emotionally stable enough for this discussion.]
There are people on my flist, I know, who are pretty zen about current comics canon ("The writers/creators honestly think they're doing the best thing for the title," etc.). There are others of us who are varying degrees of disatisfied/annoyed/tired-of-depressing-shit/one-step-away-from-dropping-a-title-if-the-writer-does-X-one-more-time. There are also some of who think a particular writer/artist/storyline is sheer brilliance, and love every issue of it (for the beauty that is Thor, Straczynski, I will almost forgive you for Brand New Day - especially since I know you were compelled to write it by outside forces in the first place). Others of us like current canon, but with reservations (Bendis, you can do almost no wrong in my eyes after the Confession and your Daredevil run, but if you had retconed Tony into a skrull, I would have, in the immortal words of Bender, lost all respect for you and punched you).
Whatever your opinion is, you aren't necessarily limited to just airing it anonymously in the internet. You can actually do your ranting or squeeing directly to the Marvel creative staff.
Ed Brubaker (Captain America, Daredevil): edbrubaker@gmail.com
Joe Quesada (editor in chief): joe@joequesada.com
Brian Michael Bendis (New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Secret Invasion, pretty much everything Avengers related):
Message board: http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/
Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/brianmichaelbendis
My attempt to dig up email addresses for J.M. Straczynski (former writer of Spider-man, current writer of Thor), Matt Fraction (Invincible Iron Man), and Daniel & Charlie Knauf (the Execute Program and Haunted arcs of volume 4 Iron Man) have so far been unsuccessful, so if anyone can contribute contact info for them, I'd be thrilled. Especially Straczynski & the Knaufs, because I'd actually like to send them squee ("ZOMG, I love Thor. It is my happy place. And if you ever have Girl!Loki and Thor or Girl!Loki and Baldur make out, I will worship you forever!" and "Thank you for your awesome run on Iron Man. I was terribly disappointed to see you leave the title and enjoyed your writing very much," that kind of thing).
General Marvel contacts: http://www.marvel.com/company/index.htm?sub=feedback_current.php
Writers can be lovely people with the best intentions in the world, and still screw up and produce lousy storylines/bad characterization/stupidity (or, conversely, can be complete and utter dicks who nevertheless write brilliantly). After all, the writers responsible for "The Crossing" probably had good intentions, too, and for all I know, Rob Liefeld may honestly think the people he draws look like actual humans. Mark Millar seems to be a relatively decent guy in real life and to honestly be a fan of the Marvel characters he writes, but he managed to produce "Ultimates" anyway. The thing is, they won't know that their brilliant new direction for title X is actually considerably less than brilliant and guaranteed to lose Marvel your $3 a month in sales revenue unless someone tells them.
They also won't know how much you squeed over X particular storyline and are prepared to shell out any manner of money for more of the same unless someone tells them that, too.
In many fandoms, the only recourse for fans dissatisfied with canon is to bitch about it on the intarwebs and seek refuge in fic. Comics are not most fandoms. A successful comic book has a circulation of thousands (as opposed to a successful tv show, which generally numbers its viewership in the millions), and they have hard sales figures every month to gauge reader reactions by (Captain America, for example, has gradually lost over a quarter of its readership in the past year, including a sudden, measurable drop in sales the month Brubaker put Bucky in the costume). Thanks in no small part to this, the comics industry listens to fan input a great deal more than television studios do (and way, way more than individual authors or movie studios are ever going to do). Not everyone thinks this is necessarily a good thing. I'm relatively in favor of it -- after all, it's fans' money that drives the industry, plus, what makes the current writer of Batman, X-Men, Iron Man, etc. necessarily any better an authority on the characters than any other fan? He or she is almost certainly started out as just another fan like the rest of us -- they were just lucky or skilled enough to land the enviable career opportunity to write fanfic for money.
Comics fanboys know this -- it's one of the reasons they're so filled with what livejournal circles would call fannish entitlement. Loud, angry demands from fans were what brought Hal Jordan back from the dead (along with Green Arrow, hopefully Ted Kord, and just possibly Stephanie Brown, unless the new Spoiler storyline is just another exercise in jerking female characters around). An outpouring of enthusiastic fanmail coupled with record sales statistics is the entire reason Amazing Spider-Man exists in the first place.*
People like GirlWonder are the reason Steph is coming back, and if a few less women get shoved into refrigerators in comics in the future, it will be directly because of feminist comics fans speaking up. Fanboys may be more numerous and louder, but fangirls are not powerless, and we're not as outnumbered as you might think. And while some fanboys might be "the enemy" when it comes to never wanting to see a statue of MJ doing laundry again, when it comes to wanting to see Steve Rogers alive again, the fanboys have got our backs.
There are over 200 people on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
cap_ironman. That's almost 3% of Captain America's entire readership.** Whatever your opinion is, if you make it known to Marvel, it may have more influence than you think. Especially right now, when the Marvel creative teams are in the process of scripting what they're going to do after Secret Invasion is over. That three-issue Bucky-fights-commies arc Brubaker's going to be writing this fall after he supposedly wraps up his current storyline? Pure filler. And the not-up-in-solicitations-yet stuff that's going to come after it isn't set in stone yet. It's barely even scripted yet, if that. And the same goes for everyone else's six-to-twelve-months-in-the-future stuff.
Note: If you're writing to express dissatisfaction rather than squee, I have a feeling a carefully laid out list of all the ways in which you/your comics/your editorial decisions/[insert here] are made of fail, with explanations for each one, is probably more convincing (and a worse blow to a writer's ego) than "I hate you, Quesada!" or "Fuck you, Brubaker, you suck!" (I'm betting Brubaker probably gets dozens of those a week from fanboys already). However, if you feel that "Fuck you, Brubaker, you suck, and I'll never buy this title again!" is the phrase that best sums up your feelings, don't let me discourage you; enough of those make an impact, too.*** Or, you know, if all you want to say is "ZOMG, Warren Ellis, I want to bear your children!"****
[Edit: It has been brought to my attentention that cussing writers/editors out is extremely rude, and may not just be less effective than less-confrontational approaches but possibly actually counter-productive. So I guess you ought to weigh the possibiity of the person you're contacting either not taking you seriously or being hurt against the satisfaction you might derive from telling them to go f**k themselves. It may not be worth it.]
I have been boycotting purchasing Captain America ever since issue #34, when Bucky put on the fake!Cap costume. This doesn't mean I'm not still reading it -- I stand there in the comic store and flip through it every month, assuaging my guilt at not paying the store owners with the fact that I am buying at least one issue of something every time I go in there -- but I refuse to actually purchase it, increase its sales by one, and give the idea of anyone other than Steve in that costume my tacit support. I won't pay money for a Captain America that doesn't have Steve Rogers in it, because I don't feel that it's worth my money, and I'm tired of reading depressing storylines that move at the pace of frozen molasses while waiting for him to come back. I've personally emailed Ed Brubaker and told him this (I've also emailed him to express my discomfort over brainwashed, pregnant Sharon and crazy Milla), but I have a feeling that my monthly contribution to the title's drop in sales is at least as valuable a vote of no confidence as the email I sent.*****
* Peter Parker's origin story originally appeared in the final issue of a nearly-defunct comic called "Amazing Tales," because Stan Lee wanted to write it but wasn't sure anyone would want to buy it. The loudly enthusiastic fan responses the issue received were what got Spidey his own title.
** I keep using CA as an example because it's the only one I know the sales stats for -- watching the sales drop steadily over the past year has brought me a vindictive joy, because I am not a nice person.
***Other possibly effective things to mention include Sue Dibney (maybe in reference to "why does Sharon Carter have to be pregnant and brainwashed and Mila Murdock have to be crazy?"), the guy who wrote Capwolf, and veterans. Also, any and all mentions of "I will stop buying this title if you do Y/will not buy it again until you do Y/will keep buying it gleefully every month as long a Z keeps happening," are probably good things to say to any comics industry person in general.
****I do not have Warren Ellis's email, but he's on livejournal, so he shouldn't be too hard to find.
*****Sending off that email gave me a great sense of satisfaction, though -- it almost quelled my rage over the fact that the May issue of CA wherein it had been heavily hinted that Steve might be back (which came outthe day I got my graduate degree and immediately before Memorial Day) turned out to be a cheap bait-and-switch trick.
Edit: This essay/rant is very, um... virulent in places. If you just want contact info for Marvel writers without potential wank (or really like Ed Brubaker, current Captain America storylines, Joe Quesada, Brand New Day, etc. and don't want to see them viciously criticized in my post and/or in comments), you might want just the contact info by itself]
[Return of Edit: I'm just going to quote my words from down in the comments. Elipses indicate parts cut for length: This (Steve's death & replacement by Bucky) is a topic that it turns out can still make me upset to the point of tears after a year and a half, and it's turning out to not be something I can debate respectfully or politely... So my apologies for the overly emotional nature of the whole conversation and I think I probably ought to shut up now.... I'm freezing comments on this whole post before I truly lose it and land us all on fandom_wank... because I'm clearly not mature enough or emotionally stable enough for this discussion.]
There are people on my flist, I know, who are pretty zen about current comics canon ("The writers/creators honestly think they're doing the best thing for the title," etc.). There are others of us who are varying degrees of disatisfied/annoyed/tired-of-depressing-shit/one-step-away-from-dropping-a-title-if-the-writer-does-X-one-more-time. There are also some of who think a particular writer/artist/storyline is sheer brilliance, and love every issue of it (for the beauty that is Thor, Straczynski, I will almost forgive you for Brand New Day - especially since I know you were compelled to write it by outside forces in the first place). Others of us like current canon, but with reservations (Bendis, you can do almost no wrong in my eyes after the Confession and your Daredevil run, but if you had retconed Tony into a skrull, I would have, in the immortal words of Bender, lost all respect for you and punched you).
Whatever your opinion is, you aren't necessarily limited to just airing it anonymously in the internet. You can actually do your ranting or squeeing directly to the Marvel creative staff.
Ed Brubaker (Captain America, Daredevil): edbrubaker@gmail.com
Joe Quesada (editor in chief): joe@joequesada.com
Brian Michael Bendis (New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Secret Invasion, pretty much everything Avengers related):
Message board: http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/
Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/brianmichaelbendis
My attempt to dig up email addresses for J.M. Straczynski (former writer of Spider-man, current writer of Thor), Matt Fraction (Invincible Iron Man), and Daniel & Charlie Knauf (the Execute Program and Haunted arcs of volume 4 Iron Man) have so far been unsuccessful, so if anyone can contribute contact info for them, I'd be thrilled. Especially Straczynski & the Knaufs, because I'd actually like to send them squee ("ZOMG, I love Thor. It is my happy place. And if you ever have Girl!Loki and Thor or Girl!Loki and Baldur make out, I will worship you forever!" and "Thank you for your awesome run on Iron Man. I was terribly disappointed to see you leave the title and enjoyed your writing very much," that kind of thing).
General Marvel contacts: http://www.marvel.com/company/index.htm?sub=feedback_current.php
Writers can be lovely people with the best intentions in the world, and still screw up and produce lousy storylines/bad characterization/stupidity (or, conversely, can be complete and utter dicks who nevertheless write brilliantly). After all, the writers responsible for "The Crossing" probably had good intentions, too, and for all I know, Rob Liefeld may honestly think the people he draws look like actual humans. Mark Millar seems to be a relatively decent guy in real life and to honestly be a fan of the Marvel characters he writes, but he managed to produce "Ultimates" anyway. The thing is, they won't know that their brilliant new direction for title X is actually considerably less than brilliant and guaranteed to lose Marvel your $3 a month in sales revenue unless someone tells them.
They also won't know how much you squeed over X particular storyline and are prepared to shell out any manner of money for more of the same unless someone tells them that, too.
In many fandoms, the only recourse for fans dissatisfied with canon is to bitch about it on the intarwebs and seek refuge in fic. Comics are not most fandoms. A successful comic book has a circulation of thousands (as opposed to a successful tv show, which generally numbers its viewership in the millions), and they have hard sales figures every month to gauge reader reactions by (Captain America, for example, has gradually lost over a quarter of its readership in the past year, including a sudden, measurable drop in sales the month Brubaker put Bucky in the costume). Thanks in no small part to this, the comics industry listens to fan input a great deal more than television studios do (and way, way more than individual authors or movie studios are ever going to do). Not everyone thinks this is necessarily a good thing. I'm relatively in favor of it -- after all, it's fans' money that drives the industry, plus, what makes the current writer of Batman, X-Men, Iron Man, etc. necessarily any better an authority on the characters than any other fan? He or she is almost certainly started out as just another fan like the rest of us -- they were just lucky or skilled enough to land the enviable career opportunity to write fanfic for money.
Comics fanboys know this -- it's one of the reasons they're so filled with what livejournal circles would call fannish entitlement. Loud, angry demands from fans were what brought Hal Jordan back from the dead (along with Green Arrow, hopefully Ted Kord, and just possibly Stephanie Brown, unless the new Spoiler storyline is just another exercise in jerking female characters around). An outpouring of enthusiastic fanmail coupled with record sales statistics is the entire reason Amazing Spider-Man exists in the first place.*
People like GirlWonder are the reason Steph is coming back, and if a few less women get shoved into refrigerators in comics in the future, it will be directly because of feminist comics fans speaking up. Fanboys may be more numerous and louder, but fangirls are not powerless, and we're not as outnumbered as you might think. And while some fanboys might be "the enemy" when it comes to never wanting to see a statue of MJ doing laundry again, when it comes to wanting to see Steve Rogers alive again, the fanboys have got our backs.
There are over 200 people on
cap_ironman. That's almost 3% of Captain America's entire readership.** Whatever your opinion is, if you make it known to Marvel, it may have more influence than you think. Especially right now, when the Marvel creative teams are in the process of scripting what they're going to do after Secret Invasion is over. That three-issue Bucky-fights-commies arc Brubaker's going to be writing this fall after he supposedly wraps up his current storyline? Pure filler. And the not-up-in-solicitations-yet stuff that's going to come after it isn't set in stone yet. It's barely even scripted yet, if that. And the same goes for everyone else's six-to-twelve-months-in-the-future stuff. Note: If you're writing to express dissatisfaction rather than squee, I have a feeling a carefully laid out list of all the ways in which you/your comics/your editorial decisions/[insert here] are made of fail, with explanations for each one, is probably more convincing (and a worse blow to a writer's ego) than "I hate you, Quesada!" or "Fuck you, Brubaker, you suck!" (I'm betting Brubaker probably gets dozens of those a week from fanboys already). However, if you feel that "Fuck you, Brubaker, you suck, and I'll never buy this title again!" is the phrase that best sums up your feelings, don't let me discourage you; enough of those make an impact, too.*** Or, you know, if all you want to say is "ZOMG, Warren Ellis, I want to bear your children!"****
[Edit: It has been brought to my attentention that cussing writers/editors out is extremely rude, and may not just be less effective than less-confrontational approaches but possibly actually counter-productive. So I guess you ought to weigh the possibiity of the person you're contacting either not taking you seriously or being hurt against the satisfaction you might derive from telling them to go f**k themselves. It may not be worth it.]
I have been boycotting purchasing Captain America ever since issue #34, when Bucky put on the fake!Cap costume. This doesn't mean I'm not still reading it -- I stand there in the comic store and flip through it every month, assuaging my guilt at not paying the store owners with the fact that I am buying at least one issue of something every time I go in there -- but I refuse to actually purchase it, increase its sales by one, and give the idea of anyone other than Steve in that costume my tacit support. I won't pay money for a Captain America that doesn't have Steve Rogers in it, because I don't feel that it's worth my money, and I'm tired of reading depressing storylines that move at the pace of frozen molasses while waiting for him to come back. I've personally emailed Ed Brubaker and told him this (I've also emailed him to express my discomfort over brainwashed, pregnant Sharon and crazy Milla), but I have a feeling that my monthly contribution to the title's drop in sales is at least as valuable a vote of no confidence as the email I sent.*****
* Peter Parker's origin story originally appeared in the final issue of a nearly-defunct comic called "Amazing Tales," because Stan Lee wanted to write it but wasn't sure anyone would want to buy it. The loudly enthusiastic fan responses the issue received were what got Spidey his own title.
** I keep using CA as an example because it's the only one I know the sales stats for -- watching the sales drop steadily over the past year has brought me a vindictive joy, because I am not a nice person.
***Other possibly effective things to mention include Sue Dibney (maybe in reference to "why does Sharon Carter have to be pregnant and brainwashed and Mila Murdock have to be crazy?"), the guy who wrote Capwolf, and veterans. Also, any and all mentions of "I will stop buying this title if you do Y/will not buy it again until you do Y/will keep buying it gleefully every month as long a Z keeps happening," are probably good things to say to any comics industry person in general.
****I do not have Warren Ellis's email, but he's on livejournal, so he shouldn't be too hard to find.
*****Sending off that email gave me a great sense of satisfaction, though -- it almost quelled my rage over the fact that the May issue of CA wherein it had been heavily hinted that Steve might be back (which came outthe day I got my graduate degree and immediately before Memorial Day) turned out to be a cheap bait-and-switch trick.