"The editor's at marvel who were running the x-men, were looking for a new writer to take over for a guy who was writing for awhile and was planning on leaving the book and they took a chance on me."
That's Chuck Austen writer of Uncanny X-Men and US War Machine and former artist on Elektra, on the X-Men United Origin of Nightcrawler featurette on the X2 DVD.
Let me tell you up front, there are two people that I loathe the work of in the comic industry. Two people that I don't think that I could attend a convention that they were guests at, due to the fact that am afraid I would verbally and perhaps physically assault (or be totally charmed and enamored by them, which would be much worse).
Those two men are Tom DeFalco and Chuck Austen.
DeFalco is the former Editor-in-chief at Marvel, and the man responsible for some of the worst written stories on some of my favorite books. He's the one who decided to take Thor from the direction that Warren Ellis put him on in the World Engine story and make him into Red Norville. He's the one who wrote that. He's the one who wrote the final issue of Silver Surfer which completely ignored every bit of the wonderful story by JM Demattais that had been built before it. Suddenly in the middle of a long term storyline about the Surfer's gradual awakening of emotion and humanity we get a story where Firelord gets pissed off about all those nuclear power plants on Earth and decides to destroy them. Surfer flies in and stops him. Then the book was cancelled.
I hate Tom DeFalco, he panders to the audience and comes off sounding like a 50-year-old hack when he tries to write teenage dialogue. ("Let's mention the internet, the kids love the internet!")
I really hate Defalco's writing. He's made it a habit of taking well written, under-performing books and driving them right into the ground.
The person who has superceded in recent times as my most hated man in comics, though, is King Hack himself, Chuck Austen.
Austen once bragged to Wizard magazine that he could draw and ink 10 pages a day with the computer program that he uses. I was even fooled into buying the first six issues of US War Machine when Wizard touted it as an Manga style story. The issues were black and white and would come out weekly for only $1.50.
I ordered the first six issues from my comic store (since the catalog is two months ahead of production) and didn't realize my error until I was obligated to buy all six.
What a waste of time and paper. The story is a mess of violence for violence's sake, racist and sexist stereotypes and drawn badly to boot.
There is a reason that Chuck doesn't "draw" comics anymore.
I bought some of the run of Elektra that he worked on because Bendis was writing it, but that was also a waste of time. I think that book was the first badly done Bendis book, and it may have been in part due to the atrocious artwork.
Chuck then went on to take over Uncanny X-Men after the departure of real writer Joe Casey. Joe either quit or was fired from the book when he ran into the same corporate BS that every writer since Claeremont has complained of. The editors tell you what to write on the book and think nothing of changing something they don't like. You also have to put up with the periodic tie-in multi-book storylines (and crap like the 'Nuff Said month).
Joe wrote a nice little story called Poptopia about a Britney Spears-like popstar who is a mutant and starts dating the X-Man Chamber. Then did such things as turning former X-Man Banshee into a psuedo-villan and...well, he wrote some good stories that were drawn by the super-talented Ron Garney.
What does Marvel do? Runs that troublesome Joe Casey off and hires on yes-man Chuck Austen.
(Somehow through all this Grant Morrison got to keep on writing his incredibly well done New X-Men series without much interference that I've heard of)
Austen proceeded then to say "well, I don't much care for all this nonsense about Nightcrawler being a priest and whatnot, lets just get rid of all that and make him the child of the devil."
I promptly stopped buying after the clunky transition issue.
I'm all for each new team having their own direction and continuity be damned, but the writer should at least be able to write convincing dialogue and characters. If you want to change the book, fine, but make it convincing. Don't just up pull a Dallas on us.
What does Marvel do to reward Austen for "bringing up the sales" of Uncanny? They give him New X-Men to write after Morrison leaves. That sure sounds like a good idea!
Not content to just follow up on Kelly's run on Uncanny and drive the book into the ground creatively, He'd also like to take over Superman and work his 'magic' with that character as well.
In an interview printed at CBR he said:
Nothing against Joe Kelly. I love the guy and think he's a great writer. But that's the Superman he was given, and not the one I'd write...
...I wrote that story as a 'How would I handle the character' which is now going to set Superman fandom aflame (laughs). 'If that's what he's going to do, then I'm out! I'll only buy two and burn one but keep the other in mint condition just in case. And complain online! A lot!'
I decided on buying none, and saving none, then going online and complaining, a lot.
He goes on to have this to say about the online bruhaha over his run on Uncanny:
"Oh, it's not really that much controversy. It's the same twelve trolls all over the net. Most of the X-Fans are nice people, who are enjoying what I'm doing on 'Uncanny,' and mostly keep quiet so the twelve angry trolls don't molest them.
"But, honestly, it'll be worse than the X-Fans. Superman's older, and has more long term fans. I did one story in line with the direction I'll be taking, and the Internet exploded with rage and hatred. But honestly, it doesn't worry me. Some X-Fans complain loudly, but they are few. Sales are waaaaay up since I took over. If people were hating my work as much as those trolls claimed, sales would be tanking. These are just jealous people who want my job and think they're smarter than me. I can't be good, because they have different ideas. BZZZZT! Wrong answer. Thanks for playing our game. Here's your consolation prize.
"The thing about the complainers, is that they tend to be the 'comfort food' readers, and wanna-be creators. These are people who don't want to be challenged, who don't want anything to change, ever, and whose story ideas tend to be about plugging holes in continuity, not about telling actual 'stories,' if they even know what those are. These people always want the same story with the same characters, who are all good and friendly and loving, and are basically a bunch of Smurfs in New York. There's a book out right now called - I can't remember the name right now - bit it deals with a Jungian analysis of myth and points out how people become comfortable with a myth become very possessive of the telling of that myth, that it has to conform to the way they heard it and enjoyed it most, and they become angry when character and personality and plot are changed from what they love and remember fondly. Like how children get when you tell the bedtime story different the second night, or the third night. They want the way they heard it first.
I agree with him that there is a lot of invalid criticism of the knee-jerk, I-don't-like-this-cause-it's-different variety out there on the infotainment superhighway, but, see there's one thing where he's off base here and let me spell it out for you plainly: Chuck Austen is a really shitty writer.
I'm not going off on his Eternal book, because, at least that's his own thing, where he's pretty much breaking the ground, but to go on and on about how these 'twelve angry trolls' need their comfort stories, well, that's what the spandex comics are providing. The rest of the audience has deserted the market, driving down sales across the board from where they were only a few years ago. I don't think touting sales that are waaaay up, when you're still only really selling 200,000 or so copies of a book is pretty pathetic. It couldn't have been that the sales got a little spike after the release of X2 could it? Nah.
I am all for new stories and new directions, but that's what I want, new. Let's let the tired old characters take a rest for awhile and breathe in some fresh air. At the very least do something different along the same lines as the old books, look at X-Statix, there is a fine book that took the germ of an idea and made something new of it, not just changing characters willy-nilly to make them what you want.
He then went on to almost make a point that I agree with:
But I've also been outspoken about my hatred for continuity. And this is making manga more appealing. Do you know how hard it is to write a story with a world threatening menace when everyone knows Thor is floating over New York with all the other Norse Gods? All these books tied together, all these bits of history and minutiae that fans expect you to know every single piece of? Jeez, what a nightmare. And so pointless. Anyone who disagrees does not understand story.
"I think all the books are more interesting separate from one another, not connected. I think characters should have a defined run, and then end. Someone wants to see more of the character, reprint. Or convince the creator to do another one. But make it great, make it finite. End it with a bang.
But comics don't end, anymore. Not really. If this business were run as a real business, comics would cease to be published at DC, and most of Marvel's books would have been gone long ago. These things are kept alive for different reasons, licensing, primarily, and people are complaining? You and me are so damn lucky we're so catered to. If someone who was seriously worried about money had come along recently, superheroes would have been axed in favor of manga and Sci-Fi European graphic novels last year. Direct distribution would have been seen as the dwindling market that it is, not a growing one. From a purely profit standpoint, black and white manga sold through other channels as well as direct distribution, make a LOT more money than color versions of 'Superman: Metropolis.' Than most versions of Superman right now. It's a financial beast, and as we speak, every major publisher is looking to get into it.
He starts out well then falls apart. Let me translate the Austen-Speak for you: Books and characters should have a beginning and an end with little over-all continuity (except the books that I want to write, like Nightcrawler and X-Men and Superman). You don't like what the companies are putting out? Tough shit. Lap it up cause it's all you get. We could just as easily stop making any books, it's not like your market is big enough to warrant the lavish attention that we give you anyway.
I agree that Manga has something going on with the idea that there are defined runs to stories, not just an unending soap-opera that is just a swirling around of the same elements. I agree that there shouldn't be such an emphasis on minutiae in the comic industry, it would be a bit like demanding that each and every novel published by Tor exist in the same universe and every writer take every word that has ever been published by Tor into account and work it into their narrative.
Here's where I differ and think that Chuck is a pompus douche: Just look at Grant Morrison's runs on New X-Men and JLA. He took the existing characters and some of the general situations and crafted stories that were uniquely his. He used the core of the characters that he liked and wrote stories around that. I don't think that you would have to have read any previous X-books to understand his run, everything is there that you need to continue, and he doesn't just treat the characters as puppets that will say or do anything, he does what a real writer does and let's the characters determine the plot. When you read one of his books you know who is saying the words even without looking to where the bubble is pointing. Each character is clearly defined. That was the problem that I had with Chuck's first X-book, anyone could have said any of the lines and it would have made sense, no one had any definable characteristics that were their own.
I'm getting up near the end now.
I can see Morrison's run on New X-Men as having a beginning middle and end. He has used the characters as a stock company to tell the story, remaining true to what they are and what they have been over time: Cyclops is the pent up goody that just wants to let loose, but doesn't know how: Jean loves Scott, but wants him to be more like Logan, but she wants to be the one to help him to be that way: Emma wants to stir things up and is a cold, cold bitch: Charles is a manipulator of the highest order, but may be deluding himself more than Magneto, and so on. When the last Morrison issue wraps up it will be the finale for his X-Men, Chuck will come in and undo everything he can in the next few issues, but there isn't really a need to. All he should have to do is do the same thing that Morrison did at the beginning of New X-Men, just start fresh. Take the characters he wants to use and let them create a story.
No comments:
Post a Comment