Tom Spurgeon's Web site of comics news, reviews, interviews and commentary











November 21, 2012


CR Presents: The Ten Least Powerful People In Comics

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10. Comic Shop Owners
After outlasting all of the previous two decades' preferred places to sell comics, their shops are somehow still the last place many folks prefer to sell comics. Turned a not-exactly-sure-thing creative relaunch put together at a panicked pace into a sustained sales bonanza yet failed to secure 1/10 the credit afforded management personnel, licensed properties and I believe the weather. TV role models have expanded from not-exactly flattering fictional characters to a combination of not-exactly flattering fictional characters and not-exactly flattering reality-show characters.

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9. Tom Spurgeon
Same job since Fall 2004. Feckless twitter campaigns against Before Watchmen and Avengers movie saw the former slip into the Direct Market top 10 and the latter roar into the annals of movie box office history, while costing him all future jobs at the only companies likely to have comics-related jobs 10 years from now. Somehow failed to turn 230-pound weight loss, tan and series of halfway decent sportscoats into a single post-San Diego Con date. Still can't get his site to offer a working RSS feed. Put himself on own list.

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8. The Fake Geek Guy
No one's defending you, impossibly hot guy faking his geek credentials to impress... okay, I still don't get the original thing this entry is supposed to make fun of.

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7. Scott Dunbier
Scheme for massive tax write-off mechanism revolving around ridiculously priced hardcovers Xeroxed "in color from black and whites" -- something Dunbier made up in an editorial meeting after being shaken awake by Ted Adams -- fails miserably by selling tens of thousands of copies. Similar plots against Berke Breathed and IDW's Eisner Awards profile also backfire.

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6. Lower-Rung Marvel Publishing Employees
Movies tank? You're fired. Movies make billions? You're fired. Mostly you're fired. And don't count on there being a bathroom to cry in.

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5. Tony Wizard, Jr.
People may know the conventions and a few might remember the magazine, but no one remembers the company founder and namesake less than a decade after his sudden rise to multiple-platform media fame.

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4. Hardcore Comics Fans
Congratulations. You remade all of show business in your image. Your prize? Near-daily lectures as to why your opinions are not important.

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3. Gary Groth
Twenty years after a solemn vow in a driving Seattle rainstorm that he'd publish porn, Peanuts, Disney comics, whatever to make his dream come true, still no return of Monster Comics.

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2. All Women In The Comics Industry Ever
Sorry, dozens of amazing artists, writers, publishers, retailers, journalists, teachers, administrators, institution heads, syndicate editors, and that person running maybe the biggest single-artist-based media empire in comics: there are multiple dudes editing new versions of old superhero books out here.

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1. Alan Moore
Thanks for the 35 years of awesome comics, Alan. We hate you now.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

 
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