Internet
Hi Tom !

Just wanted to say I really enjoyed the Iron Movie ! Also enjoying the comic, as well as Skrull Invasion and Thor !

Have a good day !

Monday Morning Lunatic !

Posted by Mon Morn Lunatic on 2008-05-19 20:14:17
Well...
It's like Joe Quesada mentioned on one of his blogs; the internet is a place where you can anonymously say, "You SUCK!"

Anyways... Looking forward to the next blog.

Posted by Aziroth on 2008-05-19 20:14:28
Also..
I too am enjoying the Secret Invasion, and the Cable series, and would like to convey my appreciation to you guys for taking the time to produce such wonderful stories.

Posted by Aziroth on 2008-05-19 20:15:40
Hoping someone is reading this
I don't know if the board glitch is back or what, but I cannot post on Marvel's message boards at all. It won't let me check my PM's either as it keeps throwing me to the Index. I know I have not been banned because the FAQ says a message would display if you were banned, and I have not been getting that message.

Can anyone help me?

And if I cannot log in with in the next day or so, would someone please pm a Feral Female, and let her know that I cannot log in to vote in the writing contest due to a technical error?

Thanks.

Posted by Aziroth on 2008-05-20 08:56:35
c'mon ,
that's not such a big deal...
turn the page on

Posted by bulgarianyogurt on 2008-05-20 11:20:47
the internet
It's true not just on the net but in any environment that people who are content tend to be silent as they have what they want and
feel no need, for the most part to speak up.

It is generally the unhappy people who have something to say. In politics, often a vocal minority has more power than a silent majority. Of course 1 person with a lot of money has more power than anyone. If Ari Arad is happy, than screw the internet.

Posted by izzatrix on 2008-05-20 12:19:42
Just read the second paragraph and thought i should let you know; We like you too, Tom.

Posted by dugdale24 on 2008-05-21 03:52:47
is it why you launched the new mini called 'True Believers' ?
will we find some characters based upon such charismatics figures like bigdaddyhub2, dugdale, izzatrix, dusty, drock, aziroth, notapotatoe ,....?

Posted by notapotatoe on 2008-05-21 07:36:04
LOL!
Good one notapotatoe, and thanks!

Also, I am no longer experiencing the problem I posted above... contacted a mod to have them notify the admins about it.

Posted by Aziroth on 2008-05-21 08:36:25
One additional factor...
...might be the fact that with text-only communication, it's awfully easy to misread the tone, unless you cram your posts full of annoying emoticons. Half the time it's hard to tell if a post is considered tongue-in-cheek or not. And that leads to people feeling insulted and striking back.

Posted by Michael Heide on 2008-05-21 11:44:41
We appreciate your blogs Tom..
I for one especially appreciate the many blogs you put up in a single month, along with the Danger Room Video Game blog [whatever happened to that by the way? It's been nearly a month since the last blog was posted.:( ]. Though many in the Spider-Man boards believe Marvel (frequently and perjuratively called the "Mighty Marvel Minions of Mephisto") doesn't care about the voice of the fans, and so forth, I tend to disagree.

I like what you guys are doing with Secret Invasion and the Avengers in general. Also like the Cable and Ultimate Spider-Man series. Thanks Marvel. :)

Posted by Aziroth on 2008-05-21 14:19:19
Cap
Am I the only person who thinks paul walker would be a great cap

Posted by cbigger on 2008-05-22 00:41:27
Thanks for answering my question
That's what I like about your blogs, Tom. They're candid and honest. Thanks again.

I guess I was miffed before. I try to be honest myself, and at the same time not to hostile or overly opinionated. I try to keep my opinions to statements that I would say to the the person in their face. I don't just want to be another bit of white noise, or some guy saying 'you suck'. If I think someone is bad, I'd like to at least express why in a logical, reasoned way.

I totally get where you're coming from. The internet has so much noise that I wonder whether or not I'm no better than the random guy that just screams 'you suck'. I can see why you'd rather not put so much stock in it. That anonymity makes people vicious. Kinda strange really. I never understood it. I too come from a generation that's saw the Internet as a new novelty, and knowing from experience that you're not as anonymous as you think on the internet (especially now with social networking where people give WAY too personal of details about their lives) makes me wonder why people can still be so nasty. And that in turn makes it harder for the rest of us to get heard constructively.

But remember, there's still some rational thinkers somewhere out in that white noise of the Internet that can give you some honest input. I'd like to think that if I don't give guys like you some honest input that I at least try.

Posted by DRock1 on 2008-05-22 01:08:47
It seems that the opinions of the people are important, or they just want to scream to someone.

Posted by NaviVL on 2008-05-23 12:53:33
One thing that on internet forums that makes this problem of "virtual sociopathy" disapper is to force everyone to register with and post under their real names. On fourms that I have visited that do this, it's not a problem.

Vin

Posted by vdestro on 2008-05-24 07:16:59
Too True
I believe its the fact that people can hide behind whatever mask they want on the internet and get away with saying a lot that they couldn't say in real life. Take everything said on the internet with a pinch of salt. People are going to spam and say things that, to the most part, they don't mean. It just seems to come with the package that is the internet.

Posted by Stephen A on 2008-05-25 11:37:11
reader hostility
Tom, this is an admittedly long post, but I hope you read it.
I post a lot on Alvaro's Comicboards, and I get into alot of debates. A lot of time I am berated for being negative toward other posters, but usually it is when I am defending (therefore being positive about) the creative talent.

Well, here is a post I have put on there more than once. Enjoy.

ROD, TOD, AND HOMER THEORY OF FANDOM
or, a plea that you do better.

Some of you may remember a couple of scenes from THE SIMPSONS. In one, Lisa is babysitting the neighbors’ children, Rod and Tod. The younger boy asks her for a bedtime story, and before she can think of one, he continues, “…about TWO ROBOTS! Named ROD AND TOD!!!” So, Lisa begins to tell this story, making it up as she tells it. “Once upon a time there were two robots,” and the boy is pleased, “Named Rod and Tod…” and the boy smiles, “And one of the robots was just a little bit older than the other one…” and the boy shudders and hides under his covers, wailing, “I don’t like this story!”

In the second, Homer is at a fair where Lynrd Skynrd is playing. They announce that they’d like to play some new material that they’re happy with, but Homer is in the audience bellowing, “PLAY FREEBIRD!!!!” Since he won’t stop, they sigh and start playing the song. Still not happy, Homer yells, “NO! PLAY THAT PART THAT GOES ‘DEERN-DRRUN-DRRINNNN’!!!”, leaving the unhappy musicians forced to play three notes over and over again, at which point a satisfied Homer pulls out his lighter and begins swaying happily.

Both of the above illustrate a perceptual flaw in comics fandom and how they set their expectations; the demand that comics companies produce the exact stories the readers already expect. Any deviation from what the reader wants is treated as an atrocity from the start.

By “fandom”, I mean a great many of you; you readers that post on message boards and blogs, who write letters to the companies, who stand around and often work at comics shops and talk about what’s going on, or who go on at great length to anyone who will listen. I have heard it in every forum. So many of these “readers” don’t understand what comics are.

Comics are a form of literature, and a very special form at that, because unlike most mediums, these are stories can continue and develop for generations. The stories about a given hero can be looked at in different eras and enjoyed on many levels, for the stories themselves, for the different styles of art, the varying qualities of production, of dialogue, or how the stories reflect, or deny, the times in which they are produced. All of this is fascinating, and what it means is that comics have more potential than most other storytelling mediums.

Really. As derided and overlooked as comics are, they actually have the potential to bring stories to more vivid life then movies can, or than most novelists can, or than TV can.
This is because comics have all the time in the world to tell their stories, and because they are a collaborative effort, which invite input from many creative minds.

Literature is an art. It is the dramatization of vital themes, and reflections on the nature of life. There may be those who feel that comics shouldn’t be taken as seriously as other forms of lit, but I throw that right back in your faces. Comics that are not literate are not worth a fraction of the paper they are printed on.

So, onto fans, and the issue I take with them. Comics draw a wide and varied base of fans. It is the nature of comics fans to imagine that they become experts on the subject pretty quickly, but many of these fans do not have more than basic reading skills, and no ability to recognize the presence or absence of literary themes or even devices. Even so, they blare their angry criticisms and denunciations at full volume. Most fans have no idea what is involved in writing, or editing, or drawing a comics story, but are more than eager to mouth off that a given writer or artist “sucks”, or that a story “sucked”, or that a whole company is no good, or that an editor-in-chief doesn’t know his job.

The reality is, no, that writer does not “suck”, and that artist does not “suck”. You, the griping fan, may not have been turned on or titillated in the exact way you wanted to be by their story or art, but that is a matter of taste, and more often than not, it is matter of what expectations you had to begin with, expectations which may or may not have grasped a story’s actual possibilities, and which the writer had no way of knowing in advance…

…which is a good thing, because if stories are written to meet an audience’s expectations, they are pointless. That kind of readership may as well just read whatever past chapters they liked over and over again, like Homer and his favorite three notes, instead of demanding that they be repeated in the place of new product. They may as well stop reading new things, and just close their eyes, and imagine their own Rod and Tod Robot stories. Or write their own, which if they do will just be repetitions of other writers’ work.

You might be this kind of fan, because it’s not a rare breed. Here on the Comicboards, you can go to any page and find reams and reams of this kind of correspondence, these kinds of obnoxious, insulting diatribes. I have read posts that say that Brian Michael Bendis is a bad writer, or that Mark Millar is a bad writer, or J. M. Straczynski, or Chuck Austen, or that Joe Quesada is a bad editor-in-chief (that one is hilarious; what do ANY of these goofballs know about being an editor-in-chief??). I have read posts that claim that Alan Moore writes “unimaginative crap”, and posts that claim that this is the worst era ever for Marvel comics, or for comics in general. Obviously, NONE of these people know what they are talking about. They aren’t well versed in even very recent comics history. They do not know what is involved in writing a story, or about visual storytelling, or writing dialogue. All they know is that if their immediate expectations are not met exactly, then the writer must be bad, the artist must be bad, the editor must be an idiot, the book must “suck”, and so on.

And below, here we have another genius, Halo82, with “A post CW Marvel and the SHRA is still a flaming pile of crap and Tony is an idiot.” Well, no, “Tony” is not an idiot, he is a character. More importantly, within the context of Civil War, he is a literary comment on the nature of commitment. Do you commit to something for only as long as all your friends agree with you? Do you stick it out even to the point of doing things you don’t want to do, because you believe that your goal is necessary? How close does this come to “the ends justify the means”?

This is good, thought provoking stuff. All the fanboy hatred for the Iron Man character over the past year, and I haven’t read more than one or two posts that acknowledge this, and that this is the major (not the only) point of the whole story. These are readers who do not recognize what they read.

The truth is, these are very exciting days for comics. I have been reading regularly since 1984, and I have seen many eras and styles come and go. What we are seeing in mainstream comics today is a whole new level of development. We saw something like this in the late 80’s at DC pre and post Crisis, and before that you have to go all the way back to Marvel’s Silver Age for this kind of innovation. Well trained and educated, high quality writers are being given a lot of freedom to work, and the result is that comics stories are being pushed into new directions. This is all for the better.

So, my call to fandom is this: be a little self-aware. A very good friend of mine told me that the recent issue of BRAVE AND BOLD “pissed him off” because it was too wordy. This same guy hated the DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (the art “sucked”, he prefers Michael Turner) and Frank Miller’s work on Daredevil for being “too wordy” and he couldn’t get through WATCHMEN. See what he missed out on? If something is “too wordy’ it’s not because Frank Miller “sucks”. You need to step up your reading game.

Set aside your weird hatreds and jealousies, set aside your pre-conceived notions and unreasonable expectations. You are not professional writers, or artists, or editors, and should not be judging and denouncing those who are as if you could do what they do. Drop the words “suck” and “crap” from your vocabulary. True, a story may not be exactly what you want it to be. I tell you this: If you look at a story for WHAT IT IS, rather than for what it is NOT, you will find a lot more enjoyment and surprise in what you read. You will stop missing out on good work.

Part 2, after I got some replies:

To clarify, you should not have received an impression that I think that ALL comics are good, or that ALL comics creators are good at what they do. There are many comics that I myself find to be dismal, and many writers and artists as well. My hall of shame list, however, would be beside the point.

My issue here is that so many fans are judging various comics and creators as bad on an uninformed or poorly considered basis. The afore-mentioned good friend of mine will bray and almost scream with rage at the thought of Judd Winick, but cannot describe what it was specifically he didn't like about Winick's run on GREEN LANTERN. But guess what? He CAN say that it "sucked"!

Certainly there are terrible efforts on the stands; always have been, always will be. the question is, what makes a comic a bad read? Is it bad because it is poorly written, or drawn, or without substance? That is valid criticism. On the other hand, is it bad because the reader doesn't like the general direction of the book as they perceive it, regardless of how well the story or art may be executed, to which they will not pay enough attention to consider?

I am sad to say that in most of what I read or hear from fans, their complaints follow the latter train, and are as well poorly articulated, and full of false assumptions about the creators. Their dislike is rooted merely in a comparison of what the story WAS, as opposed to their Rod Flanders notion of what it should have been. John Byrne once admonished fans not to criticize his stories for no reason other than that they were not the stories the fans would have written themselves. He was right; no writer can turn out good stories under such restrictive guidelines. There would be no creative process involved.

A comic may be terrible. A reader may post a gripe about it. Still, if that reader's gripe consists of nothing more than some complaints and insults leveled at the writer and the editor in chief, and end in a glum and silly declaration that they've ruined the books' protagonist... in that case, they've said and proved nothing at all. Without considering the story's elements, without considering the plot, or it's underlying themes, valid criticism cannot be given. And in most of these gripes, it is not.

A very new reader who christens himself an expert, as the fans so often do, cannot see a story in the context of the many stories that have gone before. They might think a new story should have portrayed a character in a certain way, because they do not (or even though they DO) know that there are countless stories that portray that character that same way, and that it has been run into the ground. The new story they don't like may be a fresh and much needed new perspective on that character.

Consider the Grey Hulk, or the Merged Hulk. How many new readers casually familiar with the Savage Hulk may have bellowed, "The Hulk should only be the Savage Hulk!!!" This reader, of whom there were countless, has the problem of being entirely unaware that there were 30 years of savage Hulk stories already, and that the creators were ready for a change, and that at least some longtime readers were bored with that, and very excited at these new possibilities.

It may seem that I am saying, "until you now what you're talking about, shut the hell up." I am, but I'm saying a little more than that. Hostility toward comics creators, which abounds, right here on these boards and all over fandom, is so wrongheaded and small minded. I am tired of hearing it. I am tired of seeing these boards, which should be such interesting places, reduced to mindless attacks and hateful screeds against Joe Quesada, or Brian Michael Bendis, or Mark Millar, leveled by sub-par intellects who are just excited to have a voice. These people barely grasp the creator's intentions, let alone the realities of the creative process.


Posted by orion34 on 2008-06-04 22:42:10