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arbre_rieur (arbre_rieur) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-30 22:11:00

Entry tags:

char: spawn/al simmons, creator: alan moore, creator: tony daniel, series: when alan moore was crap

When Alan Moore was crap
The 90s has a rep as a bad time for mainstream comics, and rightfully so. It was some terrible black hole of awfulness, sucking even normally decent writers into its depths. It was almost as if anything produced in the 90s (yeah, yeah, there were a couple of exceptions) would automatically suck, simply because it was 90s, and if a comic was made in the 90s, it was going to be terrible. Because it was the 90s.

Even Alan Moore managed to be complete crap in the 90s (though he recovered towards the tail end of that decade). Some of his work during this period is really appallingly bad. As evidence, I present to you the two-lane pile-up in mini-series form that is Spawn: Blood Feud.

So, something is going around viciously slaughtering people in New York. Meanwhile, Spawn is having strange dreams.

Sadly, half of the series is sequences like the above: page after page of hilariously purple prose about how much Spawn's costume loves to hunt and kill. Gah. Actually, it's probably less than half, but it feels like that much, what with how tedious it is.

Spawn is feeling frustrated about how he has absolutely no idea what his costume really is.

Meanwhile, the police hire a specialist to deal with the murders. This guy's a Moore creation, a celebrity paranormal investigator, yet he somehow still manages to be utterly uninteresting as a character.

Some of what the warning flyers say, per a later page: "Advise citizens to stay indoors after sunset... warn that although folk talismans such as crucifixes or garlic may prove effective, they are not to be relied upon..."

The thing killing people is off killing people again. For these sequences, Moore's been pulling an old trick from his playbook and showing it all from the killer's perspective.

Spawn awakens from another of his costume dreams to discover...

The first issue also contains a curiosity in the form of thumbnail sketches that Moore that submitted with his script.

Do you guys want to see pages from the remaining issues of this mini-series, or are you wailing, "No! No more!" Please let me know. If it's the former, I'll post more, but if it's the latter, I'll just skip straight ahead to the project where Moore reached the nightmarish peak of his early-to-mid-90s awfulness: the Spawn/WildC.A.T.s mini.

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psychop_rex
2009-08-01 08:26 am UTC (link)

Well, nobody's perfect. Personally, I don't actually think this is all THAT bad; it's certainly not great, but it's adequate. (Anyway, Spawn is not exactly a literate character; methinks he's dragging Moore down.) And if you ask me, I'd say the real problem-era for comics was the mid-to-late '80's grim-'n-gritty era, the era of big guns, fierce scowls, a high body count, and Rob Liefeld.

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	thebat_man 2009-08-02 03:08 am UTC (link)
	Alan Moore was dragging himself down. No one was forcing Alan Moore to write Spawn. Did Alan Moore rebel against the trend? No, he conformed to it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-08-02 03:14 am UTC (link)
	Well, the guy's gotta eat - and from what I've heard, he was going through some pretty tough times around then. It's not surprising he wasn't exactly at the top of his game. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	thebat_man 2009-08-02 03:30 am UTC (link)
	He could have returned to DC if he could put his ego in check. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-08-02 04:11 am UTC (link)
	From what I've heard, there was some fairly bad blood between them, and DC does have a reputation of being arrogant sumbitches when it comes to their creative pool - if I were as good a writer as he was, I wouldn't lower myself to their standards, either. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

thebat_man
2009-08-03 10:07 pm UTC (link)

Neal Adams and Len Wein in particular have praised DC for DC's treatment of creative talent - which is why legendary pro's such as Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Neal Adams, Denny O'Neil, Len Wein, etc. are still willing to work for DC, but not for Marvel. Len Wein said, "the difference between the two companies; DC and Marvel, is I see money off of all of my characters at DC in any incarnation. If they do paperback books, if they do movies… I also created Lucius Fox, the character Morgan Freeman plays in the current run of Batman films, and I do absurdly well off of him being in those films, financially. Because Paul Levitz made sure I signed creator equity contracts whenever I create a character. Even on something potentially so unimportant…as I said to Paul when I argued with him about signing a Lucius contract, 'It's a middle-aged guy in a suit.' He said, 'Sign a contract. You never know.' He was right."
http://www.wtv-zone.com/silverager/interviews/wein.shtml

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psychop_rex
2009-08-03 10:19 pm UTC (link)

OK, OK, maybe I was wrong. But when you get right down to it, Alan Moore IS a brilliant writer, and if he felt that DC wasn't treating him right - and from what I've read, they weren't; maybe they've improved their standards since then, I wouldn't know - he had the perfect right to go elsewhere. And I HAVE heard some horror stories about DC, like the guy who wrote Superman for about ten years or so (his name escapes me, but he's fairly well-known) and was suddenly fired without the slightest bit of notice. Like, he walks into the office one day, and they're all like 'you're off the book, you don't work here any more, clear out your desk'. That doesn't sound like 'treating your writers well' to me.

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thebat_man
2009-08-04 10:39 am UTC (link)

In 1946, when Jerry Siegel sued DC for the ownership of Superman because he was only being payed flat employee fees, DC fired him. DC let Jerry Siegel return to write Superman in 1959. When he sued DC over the ownership of Superman again in 1967 for only being payed flat employee fees, DC fired him again. Jack Liebowitz was the president and co-publisher of DC with Harry Donenfeld in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Carmine Infantino was the president and publisher of DC from 1971 to 1976, and they didn't treat creative talent well. That all changed when Jenette Kahn became the president and publisher of DC in 1976 and Paul Levitz became the editorial coordinator, later the executive vice president, president and publisher. Jenette Kahn and Paul Levitz broke ground by championing and implementing extensive rights for creators. In 1976 they awarded Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster $20,000 a year each for the rest of their lives for Superman, along with full pension benefits, and guaranteed that all Superman comics, Superman TV series, Superman films, and video games would be required to credit "Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster." Unlike Len Wein, Jerry Siegel, etc., Alan Moore is not unsatisfied with receiving money for all of his characters at DC when they do paperback books, and do movies. Alan Moore is upset about DC's ownership and control of he's creations and decided to never work for DC again. Alan Moore made the decision to go uncredited on the V for Vendetta film and the Watchmen film, and decided to have his shares of the income given to Dave Gibbons.

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psychop_rex
2009-08-04 08:08 pm UTC (link)

No, no, I don't mean Siegel and Shuster - this was much more recent, like within the last ten years or so. For the life of me, I can't remember the man's name, but I think his last name begins with a D, and some of his stuff has been posted on here recently.
And I'm not denying that Alan Moore can be a bit of a prima donna about some things, but creative ownership is a tricky issue, and he had a perfect right to leave DC if he wanted to. The man may be a perfectionist, but everyone has their own standards, y'know?

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