Saturday, March 27, 2010

Things Never Quite Work Out As I'd Like

I can't think of anything in particular to post about. This is what happens when it's been four weeks since I've received comics. Right now, they're sitting at the post office, but since they arrived on Saturday, it was naturally closed long before the note telling me I had a package even reached the mailbox.

I wonder sometimes how the honchos at Marvel and DC decide who is assigned to a particular project. If nobody stumps for it, or pitched it themselves, how do they decide who to give it to? I'm looking at the solicit for the Thanos Imperative mini-series, and Abnett and Lanning are writing it, that's fine, works for me, but the artist is Miguel Sepulveda, whose work on last December's issue of Thunderbolts I was not particularly fond of. Some of that was the coloring, which was muddy and dark, and while that's fitting for a nighttime battle in a swamp, I don't think it did the art any favors. Things still felt flat, and the battles felt posed, rather than giving off any strong sense of motion. Going off that, I wonder if Sepulveda's the right artist for a big cosmic hootenanny.

Why not Andrea DiVito? She drew Annihilation and did a fine job. She's been working on Nova over the last year, but hasn't drawn an issue of that since January. Or Wellinton Alves, who drew Nova the year prior to DiVito's coming on the book? The last thing I know for sure he drew was War of Kings: Ascension, which was last summer. I know they can't use Paul Pelletier because he was gobbled up by the Hulk books (damn those Hulk books, they don't deserve good artists!), but it feels as though Marvel's cosmic titles have had a certain circle of artists they use, some more often than others, but with all the ones they might choose from, why go with someone else. Are all the others occupied on projects that haven't been solicited yet?

Oh well, Sepulveda drawing Thanos Imperative is like Winick taking over writing Power Girl: I really hope it works out well. I want to open the book and say 'Damn, Sepulveda/Winick's knocking it out of the park on this!', but it dampens my enthusiasm, at least a little.

2 comments:

Seangreyson said...

The cosmic marvel in general has kind of been its own little clubhouse in terms of writers and artists, so adding new blood to the mix might not be bad.

On the other hand, the art in the cosmic books needs to be a little better than the usual because it is the only place you're seeing the characters.

A bad artist on an X-men book can be shrugged off over the short term, because you'll see the characters in 3 or 4 other places.

On one of the cosmic books it's kind of all or nothing.

CalvinPitt said...

seangreyson: I agree, bringing in someone new's not a bad idea necessarily. Cosmic Marvel's been my intro to several artists whose work I've enjoyed (Kyle Hotz, Timothy Green II, Alves, Wesley Craig).

I wonder if Sepulveda's the right new person to bring in. I might have suggested Kano, maybe that Sanders fellow who drew SWORD, or, in my fever dreams, Marcos Martin or Alan Davis. Yeah, I know, getting one of those two on what will probably not be a high-seller isn't happening.

Maybe being on a Cosmic book raises an artist's game? I can hope, so I will.