I was just reading Jr Jr's Modern Masters volume and he talks about that Iron Man run - basically he did it work with JB and made it very clear JB was the one who wanted the artist's name listed first.
Portraying sound: I'm having flashbacks of Rick Jones on stage surrounded by song lyrics in big red letters. I'm not sure that really worked, especially not if the lyrics seemed corny, but can't think of anything better other than maybe The Archies with floating musical notes flying out of them. Dazzler had okay powers, a bit like Klaw-lite, and was interesting enough to me that I bought the solo comic for quite awhile (but then female leads were disappearing every few months in the early '80s it seemed like).
I've said before that Claremont and Steve Leialoha's Spider-Woman was a favorite of mine... I think it might've been healthier for him to have left X-Men and gone on to something different from it, but he would've had a toe in still doing The New Mutants, which I kept up with even when I'd finally dropped the X-Men title(s). A bit like how John Nathan-Turner ought to have gone on from Doctor Who as producer before he was, it became like a rock group with these handful of hits they have to perform over and over because they didn't break-up when it was creatively stake or didn't have any other new ideas. The great bands and music artists have very long careers and eras still creating new stuff into their senior years (even if sometimes the voice is quite different).
Love JR jr. on Iron Man at all times, Spider-Man, and Thor... I don't know why his X-Men didn't usually work so well for me though... the early Annual and the cover of #130 certainly did however.
Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 01 April 2022 at 1:51pm
I liked that MODERN MASTERS. Though the interviewer did seem to try to goad JRjr into talking smack about JB, he wasn't falling for it. He even noted JB and Miller as his 2 favorite writers to work with. Pretty high praise!
Edited by Vinny Valenti on 01 April 2022 at 1:58pm
I went ahead and got all four parts of the 1990 annuals 'Days Of Future Present' sequel after all, after re-reading #141-142. I'm only halfway through it now and aside from being a big mess behind the scenes resulting in diverse hands of quickness and variable quality (on top of some coloring mistakes)... it's not too bad a story so far by Mr. and Mrs. Simonson about a future Franklin appearing in 1990s Marvel New York and altering things to suit his memories from different points from his life in his future, some with Rachel (he died in front of her in the 1980 X-Men's future that ought to have not happened and this must be his spirit/ghost after that death). I cannot imagine what some new reader would've made of these annuals though... I know little enough about the X titles in this period anyway (Cyclops has a child that looks about the same age as 1990 Franklin?); this is continuity as far up it's own rear-end as probably ever has happened and the final part will be by thee Mr. Claremont to make it 'official'. Having seen just enough later Liefeld New Mutants and X-Force I have already abandoned all hope anyway, so with expectations at near bottom maybe the only direction would be up comparatively. I actually find Liefeld not bad at all going by New Mutants #86 but obviously something really goes horribly awry shortly onward and I will not be looking past a Cable last page splash and the annual for this story, which are two steps further than I wanted to go as it is. That 'era' of straining at stool faces and bonkers musculature up to late '97 shall 'eer be dead to me (and I'll be trying to get the sights of Herb Trimpe's art on Guardians #28 and Fantastic Four Unlimited #1-3 out of my brain as long as I live I think).
I think JRjr liked working with me because I gave him so much freedom. For one long fight scene, for instance, my instructions to him was a single word: FIGHT!
Peter David dismissed this as “typing, not writing.”
It works, too. Many’s the time I’ve encountered civilians who were more impressed that I write than that I draw. [...] But once I’m “partnered” with a writer I’m “demoted” and my contribution is seen as somehow less significant.
****************
For me, there's one thing i'ld like to be clear: I read comics for the story, but in comics the story is the writing + the art.
A drawing without a good story in it is empty. At best it can make a decent pin-up. In comics we sometime have seen what good, or at least spectacular art without a decent story can make. I can't say that's something that interests me much.
And a story without a good artist, particularly without one that is a good storyteller, is something of a ghost. One that sometime gets incarnated in a body where he can't express himself correctly.
I am not an art collector, but i appreciate and like good art; and i consider it essential.
Paintings that i like present a story, even a portrait has a story. While i am not a big fan of abstract art, when i like it, it is because i find something in the interraction of the shapes and the colors, when it brings to me an emotion and makes me dream.
Edited by Stéphane Garrelie on 15 April 2022 at 9:48am
Good art can save bad stories. The reverse is not true.
And many has been the time when I’ve seen hot writers teamed with mediocre artists, and suddenly their writing seems not so good. Can’t think of a single instance of the happening to a good artist.
That's true in collaborative projects, though I think it doesn't apply to the works of auteurs, particularly those outside the mainstream. A case in point would be Persepolis, where the art is stylish but basic. But the story that Satrapi has to tell makes it a classic.
Like a great script but poor actors, or contrary-wise, a simple story but with excellent acting (directing, editing, etc,).
I finished the X-Men annual end to the sequel, and it is elevated by Art Adams art where other parts were damaged by diverse hands pitching in to make (or actually blow on one issue) a deadline. Everything seems to come back to where things started, Franklin returns to being dead, Rachel to being in the wrong time and place with Jean and Scott not knowing her, the odd man out with big gun revealed to be a version of the evil future mutant-hater baddie with a big harpoon... my advice would be if you want FF Annual for the Byrne cover to stop at that, but if you find it at a sane price the X-Men annual part by Claremont/Art Adams is decent enough. This is not much of a sequel, but looking the worse for the original being a concise two-parter; this is mostly a big runaround with a ton of back-continuity and characters from various realities shoe-horned in. Why tell in two issues what can be stretched out to four higher priced books? A similar annuals 'event' of the time I read, a sequel to the so-called Korvac saga, also comes across as at best dotting and i or crossing a t left over from the original, which unlike Future Past I only ever found confusing and fuzzy over way too many issues plus those diverse hands called to save a schedule to be called a classic.
So all the alternate futures stuff, milked two or three times too many, probably alienating to newer readers, seems to point back to two regular issues of X-Men? The road to hell? Sealed with a kiss? It's always been imperfect and somewhat ad hoc due to publishing, as with broadcasting schedules, though, and like old Doctor Who... maybe it's the space to breathe that made it work, you brought your own ability to explain away or fill in the gaps/shaky sets? And sometimes you would see something that did mostly work really well like X-Men #141 & 142; it stimulated reader imagination, it added depth to character, time and place. Watchmen was a good story as well, it's only the imitators tangled up in excess continuity wanting to fool around officially with what doesn't need fooling around with, maybe can't stand much fooling around with ultimately, beyond them. Instead of being inspired to a similar outstanding contribution some were more inspired to ride coat-tails, even if their own. So I feel again that Chris Claremont should have left (kind of like John Nathan-Turner rather than Colin Baker should have left '80s Doctor Who).
Thanks for this space to write at length hoping there are others who read and reflect. What a concept, reading the comics! :^)
I can recall many a time where I was excited about an artist I admired taking the reigns and trying hand at writing their own projects, to muddled results: basically the issues wound up being a series of gorgeous pages that were hard to follow, and I wound up not keeping up with their subsequent short-lived efforts.
Having said that, as far as the "demotion" goes, I never understood it. Do we have any examples of the Byrne/Simonson/Miller/Chaykin dynamic in reverse, where Claremont, Morrison, Ennis or Azzarrello decided to start drawing their next project in addition to writing it? NOW who's job is harder or deserves more respect?
I guess Jim Shooter used to draw-write his early Legion Of Super-Heroes stories, not knowing any better, though he kept doing it. I don't know, did he ever do that on the Avengers? Can't think of any writer first artist second examples otherwise.
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