posted
hey guys and gals I just wanted to chime in here and hopefully clear up a couple of things. I'll try to choose my words very carefully so it can't be misconstrued into something else entirely. I wished I had been able to say something about the last issue sooner but it's not my place to do so. But I will tell you all that we were not pushed off the book. We chose to leave, both for entirely different reasons. I'm not going to claim to know why Jim left, I'm sure he had his reasons. As for why I left, plain and simple, new opportunities arose for me which demanded my immediate attention. It was not an easy decision for me and I spent hours talking to industry friends even longer days mulling over it. I knew that a lot of people would feel let down by my abrupt departure but sometimes you just gotta pull that band aid off quickly. I came to the decision I did for many reasons both artistically and professionally. I've never felt more happy about the work I'm doing than I am now and these opportunities would not have been possible without the full support of Dan and the rest of the DC editorial staff. I realize that the situation was less than ideal but I hope you guys follow me into my upcoming projects as I think you guys will be very pleasantly surprised. Again thank you all so much for the support you guys and gals have given and hopefully I can count on you guys to continue doing so.
posted
Well, thank space I decided to read the spoilers because I was bored....
I was all ready to avenge you all by declaring that for the first time ever, I was going to intentionally NOT buy an issue of LSH.
But then Blocks' review got me thinking. Is this a case of something being so awful that it is actually good? Is it a case of one man's "Desperate Living" being another man's "Schindler's List", or what?
I'm leaning toward it being a steaming pile I won't buy, but I'm open to other points of view.
quote:Originally posted by fjm: I hope you guys follow me into my upcoming projects
i will!
i really feel like you're getting better and better one page after another, not many pencilers out there have a "grit" like that. i was really amazed by the superman/batman pics i saw at newsarama! keep up the good work!
quote:Originally posted by fjm: I hope you guys follow me into my upcoming projects
i will!
i really feel like you're getting better and better one page after another, not many pencilers out there have a "grit" like that. i was really amazed by the superman/batman pics i saw at newsarama! keep up the good work!
thanks Mr. Kayak! appreciate that! I've been working even longer hours trying to learn new techniques I'm glad that you're enjoying the results!
quote:Originally posted by fjm: hey guys and gals I just wanted to chime in here and hopefully clear up a couple of things. I'll try to choose my words very carefully so it can't be misconstrued into something else entirely. I wished I had been able to say something about the last issue sooner but it's not my place to do so. But I will tell you all that we were not pushed off the book. We chose to leave, both for entirely different reasons. I'm not going to claim to know why Jim left, I'm sure he had his reasons. As for why I left, plain and simple, new opportunities arose for me which demanded my immediate attention. It was not an easy decision for me and I spent hours talking to industry friends even longer days mulling over it. I knew that a lot of people would feel let down by my abrupt departure but sometimes you just gotta pull that band aid off quickly. I came to the decision I did for many reasons both artistically and professionally. I've never felt more happy about the work I'm doing than I am now and these opportunities would not have been possible without the full support of Dan and the rest of the DC editorial staff. I realize that the situation was less than ideal but I hope you guys follow me into my upcoming projects as I think you guys will be very pleasantly surprised. Again thank you all so much for the support you guys and gals have given and hopefully I can count on you guys to continue doing so.
You are a fantastic and very promising artist, and I'm very grateful to you for doing such a great job on this series.
As I think I stated above, it's not you and Jim I'm angry at; it's DC, for doing such a slapdash job with the replacement issue, and for not informing the fans that the issue wasn't going to match the solicitation.
-------------------- Aaron Kashtan/Sir Tim Drake
From: Providence, RI | Registered: Feb 2005
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I probably won't get my issue until Friday, though. sigh
I can imagine LEVITZ actually doing the rewrite, himself. I'm not saying he did, but I remember him doing something similar, changing the way the Legion, or an individual character, was going at the very last moment. Because of that, I can't believe that anything to do with the Legion 'gets by him', either.
And I think I remember when a certain editor decided that Jean couldn't kill Asparagus People without consequences and changed the course of comics, so this isn't the first time in comic history that last minute changes happened.
In the X-Men's case though, everything was written and drawn in such a way that only the last few pages had to be redone.
It sounds like fjm wasn't able to leave a finished book behind for editing.
I feel for everyone. We're all so invested in these characters. Especially we old farts.
But I really don't know how the Projectra storyline could really come to some solution in one comic. She was supposed to have KILLED Tinya! Her only Legion friend. If she could make Tinya remember it as a fall, why couldn't she do something like that BEFORE destroying her face and leaving her to die? Maybe if 4 issues but never in one.
I don't even know if the idea of a bunch of Legionnaires with no souls could end with anything but a superficial 'high' of getting married.
Brainy has done some presumptuous things in the past, but to take Legionnaires into a situation where he KNEW that their souls would be destroyed is just beyond belief.
Even if HE didn't believe in a soul, which is obviously his point of veir in this boot, how could he just ignore what the others might believe? Nura's 'soul' has been living within him for the past year of so. He just ignored that?
If I'd have been the editor, I couldn't let those implication go, unless I just let the whole thing float away in old time Legion shallowness.
Anyway, if nothing else this issue has generated some of the most interesting and wonderful comments I can remember seeing. Thanks.
-------------------- 'In the twinkling of an eye' I'll be dancing in the sky!
Come, join me!
From: Salem, Oregon USA | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Francis, I wish you best of luck as well. Your contributions to the Legion have been nothing but positive.
I think the reasons Jim left were pretty well spelled out in his last interview -- DC denied him the chance to complete the story he envisioned. He couldn't even come close to resolving it as intended on such short notice. I fully respect his decision and don't blame him in the slightest for leaving it unfinished at #49. Those sad, beautiful 22 pages will stick with me for a very long time.
I don't know about anyone else but the one panel that infuriated me most in #50 was the one showing Lightning Lad with his arm around a beaming Saturn Girl, as if to say "Okay, sure, you sexually assaulted a guy in your head and I banged the President of the United Planets in the back of a limo, but that doesn't mean we can't be best pals!!"
From: Reimagined Trom | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
This issue was the most outrageous blow to the Legion lore EVER. Absolute cut and paste rubbish without any redeemable quality whatsoever. Even the Bedard stories or the worst issues of the reboot are better when compared to this one. I just reread the entire Shooter threeboot run (which I liked very much, much more than Waid's) and I refuse to believe he wrote it. It is, as many have said, a slap in the face of DC's customers (and if I'm old, that only means that I've spent more money with their products than it cost them to produce this drivel): Jeckie and Brin's story is left hanging, Tinya is back in action, Brainiac takes a very morally questionable course of action, nothing happens as it was described in the solicit for the issue. I gather that some elements of Jim's story were used to 'close shop' but they were obviously compressed and disrespected.
One thing is true: the idiots responsible for this trash will be long gone and this title will still exist. Long live the Legion, yes. But never mind these bollocks.
[ January 29, 2009, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: Positive Man ]
-------------------- The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears that this is true.
From: Lisbon | Registered: Sep 2007
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Anyone in the business world understands that sometimes things happen to hamstring a person in their career, and that other times things open up to advance it, but there are usually strings attached. No one can honestly fault someone for trying to make themselves into a higher paid professional. I have no doubt that "mum's the word" was the edict. After all, you still wish to work for these people.
Please understand just how shocking it was to buy, to pay for, such a level of deception and low quality work.
I suppose one of the easiest ways to describe Legion Fan loyalty is to use the Nascar example. Some fans will actually stop using advertised products when a driver changes from one team to another, following the brand the driver now represents. Legion fans are the same. We have followed what has been given us in good times and bad.
I thought that you and Jim were doing very good work. You took a reboot that was not very well liked and while hamstrung by it, were telling very good, quality stories.
Delays happen, we the fans understand this. But there is absolutely NO reason that the storyline could not have been wrapped up and run concurrently with Lo3Ws.
Then, to have a product advertised that was in no way comparable to the work the two of you had done was not only blatantly false, but insulting.
We, the fans, do not know the full story at this point. We acknowledge that. And we understand that you cannot afford to burn bridges.
What we don't understand is that there is a wealth of quality talent that could have done something, if not grand, at least not insulting in so short an amount of time.
You are a class act to come here, Sir. Good luck and congrats on your new job.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
quote:Originally posted by fjm: I realize that the situation was less than ideal but I hope you guys follow me into my upcoming projects as I think you guys will be very pleasantly surprised. Again thank you all so much for the support you guys and gals have given and hopefully I can count on you guys to continue doing so.
Thank you for posting, Francis. One of the nicest parts of this latter Legion arc was watching your evolution as an artist. You really added your own distinct "voice" to the Legion, and that's why it was particularly disappointing to not see your work on the finale, such as it was.
Best of luck in all your future endeavors; I think you've got a great career ahead of you.
-------------------- See Here for the latest update on the 2013 Chicago Gathering (now including tentative attendance list)
Registered: Feb 2008
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quote:Originally posted by stephbarton: Dan DiDio DC Comics 1700 Broadway New York, NY 10019
Don't just say it here guys (and gals) write a letter. I know I will (and I don't even have the issue yet, so I will wait until I've read it in my LCS, to decide if I want to buy it or not...)
But the sheer unprofessionalism of this stunt is pretty disgusting. Bad move on DC's part and I will let them know.
I'm going to mail my copy of #50 back to DC. I don't want it. I'll even write and express my disdain- minus the vitriol and insults.
From: Denver, CO | Registered: May 2004
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posted
I don't think this issue falls into the category of being so bad that it is good. It doesn't appear to be the result of anyone trying to deliberately and cleverly make it bad to spite someone. It is the simple result of everyone involved throwing in the towel. Didio declared that the series would end with this issue because "50 is a nice round number" or something to that effect. How else would people react to that kind of logic but to cut and run? Sales were not good. Fan reaction, in general, was not good. I do believe that Shooter and Manapul could have pulled off a satisfying conclusion in the final issue if they had chosen to stick it out. Look at last issue. It was exciting and interesting. Part of the what made #49 good was that the rush to get to a conclusion brought a quicker pace than this series has never had. The series suffered from the slow pace under both Waid and Shooter. They wouldn't have had time to address all of the outstanding plot threads but they could have concluded Projectra's story. It would have been powerful.
Ah well. We got a train wreck of an ending. Let it be. Onward and upward. The Legion will be back sometime in some form. Let's hope that the next stewards can learn something from all this.
For those still debating whether to buy the issue, the deciding factor should be whether you want to pay three bucks to own Manapul's wrap around cover. You've already seen the online images. They always look better, to me, on real live paper.
I got a chuckle out of Atom Girl's line, "They must have virtual nukes right? I would". Other than that nothing much to see unless you just have to satisfy your morbid curiosity.
-------------------- No regrets, Coyote.
From: Missouri | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Tromium: The only thing Didio has accomplished by his latest act of fraud is to confound, enrage and alienate fans more than ever before, and eliminate any chance the Johnsboot mock-original LSH ever had of being accepted as the definitive Legion. By screwing Shooter, he also screwed himself, Geoff Johns and the very future of the franchise.
How do you figure? I mean, I'm in no position to either criticize or defend, not having read the comic yet, but I don't see how LSH v5 #50 reflects on Johns's retroboot at all. What's the connection?
The connection is that since Shooter started his run, Johns' been trampling (true, with Dan Didio's blessing) over whatever the main book was doing. First it was that dreck called The Lightning Saga, one of those typical Johns plots that meander a lot to leave you hanging but it actually goes nowhere, but to another "big event". Then, Legion of 3 Worlds - in which the writer of one of those worlds was again trampled down. I never saw a single acknowledge to Shooter (or Waid) from Johns. In fact, he seems simply not to care.
As for the rip-off and coward-writing of LSH#50, it seems very clear that this was done to allow Johns to retrofit anything he wants from the Threeboot. However, if L3W #1 is to be taken into consideration, this ending does not fit with the team presented on LSH#50, but to the team left behind by Mark Waid. But, hey, this has never stopped Johns before: he killed all JLI and transformed Max Lord into a crazy jackass for nothing but "good storytelling"...
From: Brasil | Registered: May 2008
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posted
When I answered this last post, I had not read fjm message. So a bit of numbering.
1) From fjm's words, it is clear that Shooter has NOTHING to do with this garbage;
2) Since Shooter was out, it seems to me there was no reason for fjm to do it too. I mean, it could be a whole 22-pages of cake recipes, for all I care. That would probably be better written.
2) Justin Thyme is Dan Didio. Whoever read his short stories should find similarities.
3) It's funny to see people complaining about the pace of Shooter and Waid's storytelling and longing for Johns'... It seems they forget who is the king of meandering. I mean, The Lightning Saga, Rogues Revenge (what happened there? Nothing), GL retconning origin (8+ issues just to present some badly named Red Lantern)...
4) I really wish to see the real story from Shooter. Please, whoever meets him at the NY-Con, report us! And ask him to post his true intentions online, even if it is only a braod overview. That will be the true LSH story.
5) I am surprised there was simply NO mentioning of this crap on the main comic book review sites.
6) LSH was hardly selling bad. It was still far from 15k, which seems to be the cap for cancelling books these days.
From: Brasil | Registered: May 2008
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