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December 29, 2004


Feature Articles Feature Little of Worth

imageIt hasn't been the greatest week for feature articles on comics. This Hollywood Reporter piece on the potential financial repurcussions of The Incredibles' success for companies that wish to license their properties for films -- basically suggesting a "Maybe we don't need you" stance -- whips a lot of conjecture around, but fails to make a precise point. The most hilarious part of the article is when the writer intones that no really "iconic" character has been created since Wolverine. How many major filmable characters does a single company need? Isn't the potential $3 billion DC has waiting in big-character film profits enough for now? Does Men In Black and Blade money spend differently than Spider-Man money? I'm sure these companies will be fine, and if the comics to film gravy train ends up wih a few less sleeper cars, boo-fucking-hoo.

imageI still liked the HR piece better than this New York Times article on manga, which somehow manages to give more ink to Marvel Comics reps than Tokyopop's. (No one from Viz is quoted at all.) The article suffers greatly by making several sweeping generalizations -- Trina Robbins is extremely ill-served by the way her quote is used -- and concentrating on the new wave of manga lines in the guise of an article about manga generally. Plus it also tries to be an article about manga's appeal to female readers. In other words, it's an incoherent mess, with misleading emphasis after misleading emphasis, and a total waste of the New York Times' ability to get people to talk on the record.

Finally, four of you pointed out an MSNBC article about Dark Horse I linked to yesterday has them publishing Ghost World.

UPDATE: Mr. Kurt Busiek wrote in a little after noon my time to inform me the MSNBC article also has Dark Horse publishing Road to Perdition!

That's Batman doing the "Nobody Likes Me" walk back to the Batcave in a poster for the forthcoming Batman Begins. The manga art is something related to the DC manga line's Swan.
 
posted 7:11 am PST | Permalink
 

 
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