Greetings readers!

When I was coming up with a blog for this week, I got it into my head that I would do a look at comics that had “jumped the shark”. I was pretty excited about the idea, but as I went digging through my longboxes, looking for the exact point when THE AUTHORITY started to suck, I couldn’t help but be struck by an amazing sense of nostalgia. As you might know if you have read my blogs before, my knowledge of comics doesn’t extend much farther back than the 1980s, but looking through the archives of all the serial adventures I read when I was younger, I couldn’t help but sit back and remember the way things used to be (way back at the turn of the century). So, with that in mind, today let’s take a walk down memory lane together, shall we?

Remember when Wildstorm was the place to be? Not so long ago, from about 1995–2005, Wildstorm was the go-to spot for comic book creators big and small to get their rocks off. Just look at a few of the titles the company was putting out over that span: ASTRO CITY, PLANETARY, THE AUTHORITY, DESOLATION JONES, SLEEPER, GLOBAL FREQUENCY,STRANGERS IN PARADISE, RED, and the entire ABC line by Alan Moore (TOP 10, TOM STRONG, PROMETHEA, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN). Week after week, month after month, If you picked up a Wildstorm book, you would get something different and enjoyable. The company that had started out as Jim Lee’s baby studio saw itself grow into an beautifully diverse creator driven imprint, and the sales reflected it. Sadly, nothing lasts forever. Today, the company has pared down it’s line to properties with established sales records like THE AUTHORITY and WILDCATS, and begun moving towards a line up filled with licensed properties like  WORLD OF WARCRAFT and DANTE’S INFERNO. Creators that used to go to Wildstorm for creative freedom have since moved to smaller studios or publishers (Alan Moore and Warren Ellis for example). The only bright spot in a now severely pared down lineup is Brian K. Vaughn’s EX MACHINA (which will sadly be ending soon). So what happened to the amesomeness that was Wildstorm?  I think the reason the company declined was twofold. First, editorial control increased. Where once, creators could play around in the Wildstorm universe as they saw fit, editors eventually stepped in and tried to bring a level of line-wide quality that was previously unseen. While I appreciate what the company was going for, the big name creators that sought out the WU for freedom, no longer found the imprint quite so appetizing. An example of this would be the Mark Millar/ Editorial fight about content in THE AUTHORITY. The second reason is limiting the company focus to a core set of books. The whole reason books like PLANETARY and EX MACHINA exist is because Wildstorm used to take chances in their publishing schedule, but sadly, those days are gone.

Remember when John Byrne was the baddest motha-f*^%$ on the planet? I touched on this last week, but there was a time when John Byrne was crazy hot. Supernova hot. He was so hot, he could crap in a piece of tinfoil, sell it as earrings, and people would line up to buy it hot. In the early to late-1980s, John Byrne sold books, and with good reason: He made books awesome. Byrne’s pencils helped make X-men into the mega-franchise that it has been for the last 20 years. He gave the Fantastic Four their best run since Stan Lee. His revamp of SUPERMAN took a tired character and made him exciting again. Even Byrne’s smaller work like NEXT MEN was beautifully drawn and written. Heck, he made WEST COAST AVENGERS a must read. So what happened? Well, some would say that Byrne is still awesome sauce, but they would be wrong. Over the last decade, Byrne’s stories have become tame and his artwork has become far too loose. Don’t believe me? Go look at his revamp of SPIDER-MAN. If you can’t find it anywhere, it’s because it blew. Look at Byrnes art on THE ALL NEW ATOM or DOOM PATROL, and you will see line work that is not as crisp as it once was, and storytelling that is bland. I think what happened to Byrne is just a simple matter of age. A great many creators lose their connection to readers over time (Chris Clairmont, Jim Shooter,  Herb Trimpe, Carmine Infantino, and Frank Miller (who doesn’t really count because he just went crazy)), and I think that Byrne might just be reaching the end of a very long and wonderful career.

Remember when X-MEN was the hottest comic in all the land? For a period of almost 20 years, from the early 1980s until almost the end of the millenium, X-men was the comic that all other comics wanted to be. The main title had a spectacular (if not overly verbose) writer in Chris Claremont for over a decade and a host of world-class artists including Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, John Romita Jr., Joe Maduiera, and the Kubert brothers, just to name a few. The book sold in ridiculous amounts every month, and created a new spin-off series seemingly every six months. X-crossover events were not to be missed, even if they were superfluous or just plain silly (yes you, Operation Zero-Tolerance). So what happened? I think the blame here has to go to Chris Claremont leaving the title. With Claremont at the helm, the book had a focus and a unified idea of who each character was and how they fit. While the book continued to have great sales numbers after Claremont left, it clearly lost something without his voice. Even with great writers coming in after Claremont like Scott Lobdell, Joe Kelly, Steven T. Seagle, and Jeph Loeb (greatness currently under review), the book quickly lost it’s narrative thread. By the end of the millennium, the X was not the astounding franchise that it once was. I should note that Grant Morrison did come to the rescue of the X-franchise in 2000 and made X-MEN a must-read again, but his work was quickly undone (dirty, dirty Chuck Austen) and thusly, I can’t include his run as part of the uber-successful X-run of the previous millennium.

Remember when Image comics sucked? These days, Image comics is a great place to find some spectacular indy-style books. WALKING DEAD, CHEW, CASANOVA, THE FRESHMEN, all currently reside at Image. However, not to long ago, Image comics were what you would pick up if you needed to line your bird cage and didn’t want to sully a fine newspaper. From the mid 1990s until the early to mid 2000s, Image was in a bad place. I’m not even talking about the books that Image produced when they started (because I have promised myself a month of not bashing Rob Liefeld), but rather when the company began to deal with the comics bubble bursting. Now, I’m not going to name names, but someone who I promised not to bash this month started the Image downfall by causing their Image co-founders to leave. With Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri gone, the Image output suffered. While SPAWN and SAVAGE DRAGON continued to be big sellers for Image, you couldn’t find a decent Image book past those two. So what happened? Jim Valentino opened up the company to indy creators to publish their work, and while early results where mixed, creators like Robert Kirkman and Brian Michael Bendis were given a place to showcase how great indy work could be.

That’s it for today folks, thanks for stopping by, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, head on over to www.entertheletters.com and play some games. You will like it, I promise. Oh, and if you have any of your own “remember when” moments, please share them in the comments section! Have a great weekend folks!