Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #35 (Spoilers)

It really is just a force of habit and something in humnan nature to answer a ringing telephone. Besides, it could have been Ed McMahon's decendant telling him he had won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstake.

Yes, both Kinetix and Quislet had Life Lass' power.

Poor Gas Girl has had to suffer from numerous fart jokes. Which I think keeps writers from wanting to use her.

I always thought Beast Boy's costume looked more like Timber Wolf's than his Doom Patrol namesake.





This is only a partial image Silver Age Legion for more pictures.

Dennis,

I'm one of the readers who has enjoyed your art. I've also enjoyed the arc storyline.

It's sad that some people are stuck in their little boxes and only want to see comics drawn one way, with certain coloring. Even sadder, these people who feel the need to whine about it have infinitely more time to do so than the people who are satisfied. But then again, that's probably true of most any businesses. Your detractors will always be louder than your content customers.

Good luck with the X-men project. I'll try and check it out if I see it at the store.

Being someone who has enjoyed Colero's art on Legion, my opinion is that there's absolutely, emphatically no reason to hesitate to profer a contrary opinion on the art, whether that opinion be "learned" or not. It's opinion. This is an opinion board.

"Little boxes" and "stuck" are not so well defined. I could equally see someone "stuck" in a rut of change for change's sake as being in a box. Creativity is done when boundaries exist, not in removing boundaries, which takes nil creativity.

Starbucks, Blockade boy, dont fight over lil' ol' me!


"Creativity is done when boundaries exist, not in removing boundaries, which takes nil creativity."

Well, Blockade I see what you're trying to say and I do angree that change for change's sake is not a goal in and of itself.

But your statement on creativity is pretty confounding.

Starbucks, I appreciate the vote of confidence. There have been genuine and well considered criticisms of my art (there's always room for improvement) and I've tried to listen to them.

But I have to say the vast majority of negative criticsm on the net, not just of my work, but pretty much everybody else, is pretty useless naysaying.

Again, that's not to say that thoughtful and honest criticsm of my work isn't possible. It's just it's not on the net. What you'll most often see on most boards (this one excepted) is knee jerk reactions by "fans" who really just want something that makes them feel the way they did when they were 12. A little nostalgia every once in a while is ok, but adults in their 30's and up should be looking forward, not backwards.

I'll always think of people I know who spent the early part of their 20's learning how to "ink hair" which really meant learning how to do it the way it was being done. Most of those guys are out of work and out of comics now because they never invested time in discovering how THEY should ink hair,or draw a tree etc.

Walt Simonson once, with humor, pointed out a net poster who said he had been in his thirties when Walt's seminal Thor run and admitted "he never got it", that he thought it lookedto "weird and strange" and that he was overrated. And I opined that of course the guy was probably alreayd past what i call the "age of reception."

So Blockade, if I may play peacemaker, I don't think Starbucks is trying to refut the possiblity of well considered and honest dislike of my work, he's just responding to the fact that there's generally very little on the net thats either considered or honest.

A little of both. Certainly there was *some* creativity involved in the decision to make Projectra a snake, but there was, IMO, *more* creativity required to make her a deep and nuanced character *without* making her a snake.

Drawing inside the lines, and still creating art, takes more from an artist than just plotzing down whatever fanciful image comes to mind and then naming it after someone else's character.

This is probably the only reason why I'm not jumping up and down fuming about Shooter's stated intention to continue the current 'boot' rather than 'unboot' it back to the Crisis-era team. It will take vastly more talent on his part to make this amoral squabbling bunch of jerks into *the Legion of Super-Heroes* than it would for him to just yank us back to the old favorites and erase yet another failed continuity set in yet another dystopia emo bleakfest.

I may be apprehensive about how this will turn out, but I admire the man's determination not to continue the failed trend of shouting 'do-over!' and pretending that everything that has came before sucks and must be discarded, instead of trying to actually *work with it* and make it *not suck.*

Also, let me mention something else as grist for conversation:

I have an idea that internet reviewers somehow apply the rule of celebrity to comic artists and writers.

The fact is that we're very hard on celebrities in terms of general chatter and gossip. Listen to the average discussion about a movie or tv actor, and often you'll hear pretty nasty and vitriolic diatribes about real flesh and blood people in tones you wouldn't use about your worst enemy.

The reality is this has becom acceptable partially because most of the celebrities we discuss are wealthy.

But most comics professionals aren't. Yes, there are some of us doing VERY well and we're all very lucky to be able to make a living doing something fun that we love.

But even Jim Lee doesn't make Tom Cruise money and Jim does better than 99.9% of comics pros.

So when I see the vitriol a title can sometimes generate, I think to myself, "gee that artist may not be making much more that 35 or 40K a year. How about stepping off and relaxing the attitude?"

Do you guys think that the perception of comics pros as "celebrities" makes fans treat them a certain way in the "press?"

"Drawing inside the lines, and still creating art, takes more from an artist than just plotzing down whatever fanciful image comes to mind and then naming it after someone else's character.
"

Well, as with all all-encompassing statements, I think the answer is "sometimes".

Comics are serial in nature and certainly its unfair to the reader to srot of "restart" everything every couple of years. You invest incharacters who have to retain some level of consistancy.

But then again Alan Moore completely reinvented Swamp Thing, and despite the hemming and hawing of certain bearded writer/artists about that, the fact is that the character had been wavering in ot just popularity, but in any sort of relevance as a character. People didn't give a Sh*T about swamp thing. Along comes Moore and fundementally changes the character in away that I happent o think was brilliant and made him allt he more pogniant.

But again, thats not what Starbucks is talking about.

Do you guys think that the perception of comics pros as "celebrities" makes fans treat them a certain way in the "press?"

Absolutely, but I don't think the phenomenon is limited to celebrities in artistic pursuits. I think the environment in America is to deconstruct or destroy any public figure -- media, sports, politics. There are too many people seeking their 15 minutes of fame in a Jerry Springer moment -- and too many opportunities achieve it -- and too few people willing to invest in meaningful, thoughtful, courteous discourse.

I shudder to think what the Constitution of the United States would look like if were were asserting out independence from England today.

Oh, by the way, if you ever stop posting on Legion World, Dennis, there will be an explosion of activity on the "Dennis Calero is a girlie man who couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler" forum -- currently only your mother and an ex-girlfriend are posting there.

Well, civility and common decency don't have anything to do with how much money anybody makes. I think people say stuff like that because a) they don't know the person they're talking about, b) there are no consequences, and c) they don't realize how it reflects on themselves.

"Oh, by the way, if you ever stop posting on Legion World, Dennis, there will be an explosion of activity on the "Dennis Calero is a girlie man who couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler" forum -- currently only your mother and an ex-girlfriend are posting there. "

Oh that im used to.

"Well, civility and common decency don't have anything to do with how much money anybody makes. I think people say stuff like that because a) they don't know the person they're talking about, b) there are no consequences, and c) they don't realize how it reflects on themselves.

"

Matt, I think youre right but I think by discoutning the money issue, you're missing something.

People really do feel MORE justified in talking trash about people they don know if those people are in a perceived position of power or privilege. It's just human nature.

I think combining the liberating qualities of the Internet, the general trend in our society to trash talk just about anyone anywhere, and the devotion and passion people have for their favorite comics makes most of us more unmeasured than we should be in the way we express our opinions. I don't think their is anything wrong with saying "I didn't like the art on this issue." It is, after all, art. The way one says that is a separate matter, touching on civility and courtesy. I think your perspective on comic artists is really interesting, Dennis, that to us hardcore fans, you ARE celebrities, but on the economic spectrum of American celebrity, you're not exactly living large. I think that's always important to keep in mind. From a fan's perspective, I think comics have gotten REALLY expensive in the last 10-15 years (as a finance guy, I should actually calculate their price relative to inflation in the overall economy), so I think the price of art you don't like has gone way up for the average fan, too. All that said, creators like you are a real treat--not only do you stick your neck out with your art, but you interract with fans in a very honest, open, frequent way. That's really special.

I appreciate that double. and i think...

"so I think the price of art you don't like has gone way up for the average fan, too. '

is a great point i hadnt thought of.

Yeah, most people don't talk trash about Gertrude Jackson of Unadilla Nebraska.

I heard an aphorism once that if you put one crab in a bucket, it will clamber out. If you put *two* crabs in a bucket, the one on the bottom will always end up pulling the one furthest up back down, trying to pull itself up, and neither will ever be free of the bucket.

It sounds appropriate here.

Celebrity or not, makes no difference from what I see. Go to any message board for any MMO or shooter game and the fans are just as vitriolic to *each other* as they are to the games developers / producers. Not just 'real people,' but screen-IDs like 'leetd00dz' will get ripped six ways from Sunday for posting an innocent question.

Sites like Aintitcoolnews and EQ2Flames make it a *badge of honor* to say the most outrageous offensive lowbrow thing possible. To say the thing that makes other readers go, 'oh no he din't say that!'

Public figures like Rush 'blacks should go back to mumba-jumba land' Limbaugh and Pat 'God sent 9/11 to punish us for tolerating gays' Robertson only fuel that sort of faux outrage speech in the real-world, again, securely cowering behind walls and armed guards, safely hidden away from any *real* black or gay people.

It's the anonymity and the utter fearlessness engendered by being a bazillion miles away from the faceless person you are verbally smack-talking.

I've fallen into it myself, although I've tried to stick to stating what *I* like and what *I* dislike, and not make blanket statements like, 'Waid is a poopyhead' or 'Calero's art sucks.' (Obviously, I haven't always succeeded in this goal, and a cursory search of this very forum will probably turn up a few things I'd be embarrassed to have said that this moment...)

I didn't care for where Waid took the Legion, but that's *my* preference, not some stone cold law of nature. I'm not a fan of your particular art style, nor of the many other artists whose styles are in that mold, such as Jae Lee, but, again, that doesn't mean anything more than that *I* don't like it.

I can't stand Alex Ross' art either, but he's obviously doing something right by lots of other people who thinks he's the hottest thing since solar fusion.

The massive popularity of Bendis and Millar's writing also remains one of life's most elusive mysteries to me, since *I* see them as utterly destroying anything heroic, noble or true about the various super-'heroes' they end up working on.

Perhaps, as you suggest, I am simply an arrested-development 12 year old stuck in nostalgia for a Legion (and a Captain America) that died a long time ago. It's a sobering thought, that nobody really writes comics about heroes anymore, and that perhaps it's time I stopped being 12 and started reading grown-up books.

"It's a sobering thought, that nobody really writes comics about heroes anymore, and that perhaps it's time I stopped being 12 and started reading grown-up books. "

I think marvel adventures does. but I mean, as a comics CREATOR, i feel like we're in the unenviable postion of neither being able to actually do stories for kids, nor do stories for adults, but to do these sort of inbetween things that are neither here or there.

It's awkward on the consumer end of the market, too. My nine-year old reads Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st Century and JLU, but I don't think she'd find Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes, Justice League of America, or Justice Society of America to be to her liking.

So we wind up having this strange shared interest in the DC super hero teams with very little substance in common.

It's hard to imagine that there will be many more generations of comic book readers.

But I think that's true with lots of media -- the target audience for most entertainment content seems to be getting narrower and narrower.

When I don't like an artist I just don't like them for the most part. I usually don't criticize their technique or style or whatever.

Scot Kolins? I hate his "superhero" work. Nothing against the guy but it just doesn't suit me. Not my cup of tea. Then he did a Thor mini I loved. I would like to see more of his non-superhero work.

Who was that artist that was on Morrison's X-Men? I'm sure the guy is a good artist but his work was rushed or something. It was probably the most distracting (b/c i hated it) I've seen.

Igor Kordey was his name. I actually felt bad for him but his New X-Men work? blah!

And sorry for taking this OT but Kolins did a recent Countdown issue. I liked it. Ofcourse Giffen did layouts.

Maybe if Giffen does layouts and Kesel inks I would love Kolins.

As it's going, Hollywood can't afford to let it die. I really don't think it's "comic book readers" alone spending the couple hundred million on a Spiderman movie and I don't see Hollywood ever taking the risk of developing original comic book type properties on anything but an anecdotal scale.

The form of the comic might change. "Fables" gets great reviews in the standard press for the graphic novels.

I agree with BB.

Changes are happening; manga and on-line comics make the "mainstream" superhero market look like small potatoes, and I do not see this trend reversing.

Dennis-
I've been on other discussion boards where people get nasty because they can; the anonymous forum allows the luxury of spewing vile without repercussions. I myself am happy that Legion World does not tolerate that behavior, and flamers/abusers are handled promptly but fairly.

Rather than a Hollywood-celebrity/wealth factor, I see it as one of visibility; as a former small-town reporter I was often under a lot of scutinty myself, especially from people who made a heck of a lot more than me. I think anyone whose work attracts any measure of public attention becomes a target, unfortunately. I hope your experience here on LW has been one of the more positive ones.