* I really enjoyed the Inkstuds best of 2010 critics’ roundtable with Robin McConnell, Chris Butcher, Bill Kartalopoulos, and Tucker Stone, and I explain why over at Robot 6.
* Heidi MacDonald interviews new Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso. He seems to draw a pretty bright line through the (STC-mooted) idea of a revival of the Nu-Marvel hands-off editorial style, since the Big Two are very much beneficiaries and/or prisoners of what he calls the “it has to count” mentality, i.e. Event Tie-In or GTFO. Via Tom Spurgeon, who has further thoughts on the role of personal preferences in Marvel’s top editorial job.
* Tom Neely reflects on 10 years of self-publishing comics and art, culminating in the year where his Rollins/Danzig slashfic made him a household name. That’s a weird year alright.
* Critical polymath Douglas Wolk lists 15 Excellent Things Happening in Comics Right Now, while my Robot 6 colleague Chris Mautner lists six potentially great 2011 comics you haven’t heard of. The Olivier Schrauwen and Yuichi Yokoyama books ought to be really somethin’.
* The fuckin’ Spider-Man musical, man. I would say that Sony’s exchange of the TV/animation rights to the character with Marvel for an extension on the musical was an all-time great stupid deal, but who knows, maybe a comeback narrative will soon be established and it’ll open to rapturous reviews and no one more actors will be maimed.
Tags: Carnival of souls, comics, links
Ah, the “It has to count” line of thought. The one that prevents us from ever really deviating from a standard norm for our heroes for too long. Yes, we had Dark Reign, where the world was turned upside-down. However, didn’t things reset to just how they were in the 2000s after this 9-years-or-so line of time where the Avengers ended, heroes fought, aliens invaded, and Osborn ruled the U.S.? We are pretty much back to exactly how we were at the start. It’s okay, it just means that even when risks are taken with characters the odds are good they will just end up back as they originally were. Hell, they got rid of Spider-Man’s multiple-decade long marriage to Mary Jane just to make him more like the young fellow he was at the start of his adventures.
Maybe this is why I sometimes prefer the out-of-continuity stories, because I know people can take more risks, and anything truly can happen because the story doesn’t “count” and things that would never happen in the “normal” universe can occur. Alonso mentions the Punisher VS. The Marvel Universe comic as one of their excursions into “out-of-continuity” tales, and I especially liked that story. Here’s hoping we actually have more tales that don’t have to “count” to be enjoyed.