RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books LITG: bits and pieces

I hear Garth Ennis is leaving "The Punisher."

I understand after seven years, he feels he's said all he has to say with the character, and he's moving on to other work, including new Marvel projects.

He leaves behind him a quite extraordinary run on the book taking the character through both slapstick black comedy and a serious and compelling study at violence in the criminal world and how it spills over, Garth Ennis has imbued his characters with humanity, emotion, desires and quite a lot of bullets.

From his original 12 issue black comedic run in 2000 with Steve Dillon for Marvel Knights, a second run that began with even more madcap stories, but then matured into stronger more adult themes for three years before the book went into all out MAX territory where it has remained, with a number of miniseries and one shots such as Born, Barracuda, The End, The Cell and The Tyger.

One of the most remarkable reinterprentive runs at Marvel, up there with Grant Morrison's "New X-Men", Brian Bendis' "Ultimate Spider-Man," Frank Miller's "Daredevil," Peter David's "Hulk," Byrne and Claremont's" Uncanny X-Men," Byrne's "Fantastic Four", Garth Ennis' "Punisher" has redefined the character, refreshed it, taken the extraordinary and made it the norm.

Just remember, before Garth came back to the title, Frank Castle was an avenging angel with wings and drawn by Pat Lee. Now he's the most fascinating character being published by Marvel.

It will be a tough act to follow. Luckily Mike Benson, writer of one of my face US TV shows, "Entourage" and the "Punisher MAX Annual" is one name being lined up to take over the book.

So what happened to the rumoured non-Premier reorder fee changes and the emergence of new potential comics distributors at Baltimore?

Well, there's a lot going on and a lot of dots to join. Some may even make a pattern, who's to say?

I hear the current rival distributor plans are at least a year away, and depend on certain publishers' exclusive deals with Diamond coming to an end.

Not DC though, their relationship is assured. Indeed VP Direct Sales Bob Wayne's 20 Years At DC event at Baltimore was very Diamond-heavy, showing the strong ties between the companies and photos of Bob and Diamond staffers through the years. It may have been a last-minute gag, but it did kind of set the scene. Even among the Premier publishers, DC has a kind of Premier-Premier status, with more Previews covers, reportedly a better brokerage deal and the right to buy Diamond under certain circumstances - though DC has no wish to, it stops any other publishers jumping in. And indeed, why bother?

Indeed Bob Wayne and Diamond's VP Purchasing Bill Schanes were seen watching the Marvel industry presentation together like the long-standing fanboy friends they are, Bob taking notes, Bill suggesting which of Marvel's launches to work around, and which to go head on with. One overheard snippet between the two was that the "Sinestro Corps" should have been handled like "World War Hulk."

Cut to Diamond telling retailers that stopping the re-order penalties for smaller publishers would cost Diamond much needed revenue. We'll see if that situation remains the same next year after Hachette play their hand. Certainly right now more and more publishers continue to creep into the lower discounts bands being offered to retailers, while Diamond's profit margin on those books continues to increase. It wasn't that long ago that publishers could expect retailers to order at 55-57% off cover price from Diamond, now some have to accept retailers ordering at 35% off cover, which severally restricts sales with no change to the 60% off cover price Diamond pay the publisher for the product, in an industry that is supposedly growing year on year. There could be plenty of scope for a rival to step up if they could also grab one of the current exclusive-to-Diamond Premier publishers

Cut to Steve Geppi's Museum. A pet project of Diamond President Steve Geppi, housing and displaying many classic comic books, artwork and materials to the public. It contains a good sample of Steve Geppi's own personal collection.

I understand that in August the museum had to auction three of Steve Geppi's Carl Barks paintings away for their employees to get paid and to pay off other debts owed by the museum, as well as other rare and museum-worthy comic items.

Cut to this month Steve Geppi, making a $7,000,000 donation for his name to be placed on a brass plate in the Baltimore Oriole's baseball stadium in Camden Park, a donation to which DC Comics is contributing. He's also fundraising with ex-player BJ Surjoff as guest bartenders to raise money for an autism charity.

Cut to this week DC President Paul Levitz, presenting a humanitarian award in Washington to Steve Geppi.

There are dots to join. Any conclusions however are all yours.

Jason Berek-Lewis, reported last week in LITG to have an outstanding debt of $250 from the Dabel Brothers from October 2005, was suddenly paid in full this week.

LITG works, folks.

Also the Screenwriting Expo Screenplay Contest has had to write to entrants stating that Dabel Bros. Pro will no longer provide the comic book production deal which has been listed as one of the prizes again this year. Entrants may withdraw from the competition and receive their entry fee back if they wish. However, they have signed a deal with Atlantis Studios to to fully produce a print-ready graphic novel from a winning script with colour artwork, lettering and promotion.

As for confidence in future Dabel productions, I understand that Chuck Dixon, who was very badly burnt by Rick Olney, is writing/scripting Dean Kootz's "Frankenstein" for the Dabels.

And the Dabels are also doing their best to get Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy to adapt before "The Golden Compass" movie hits.

Pullman loves comics you know... especially Batman.

BBC4 aired "Searching For Steve Ditko" last night, I reviewed it here and it's repeated on Wednesday night.

Couple of things. Firstly there's the moment after this clip where Stan Lee clarifies that he is happy for Steve Ditko to be credited as co-creator of Spider-Man but asserts that he believes himself to be the sole creator. Quite the bit of television, look for a YouTube serialisation soon, or if you have a UKNova account, the whole thing is up there now. The BBC are generally fairly laissez-faire with both services.

Secondly, my one gripe is that the reason Steve Ditko left Spider-Man is portrayed as a great mystery, and one that he won't speak about. Well not in public perhaps, but he did to friends, colleagues and people who just asked him. Mark Evanier shares that gripe, stating, "He was unhappy because he believed Marvel's then-owner was reneging on certain promises about sharing in the revenues of the characters Ditko co-created, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. He was upset with the way his comics were then produced, feeling that he was doing most of the writing work on the comics he did with Stan Lee, but that Lee - as dialogue writer - was getting too much of the credit and money. (Marvel's two other best artists of the period, Jack Kirby and Wally Wood - both good friends of Ditko's - felt the same way.) There were also personality clashes between Lee and Ditko - they didn't speak for the last eighteen months or so of their 'collaboration' - and Ditko was displeased by many of the creative choices Stan was making, treating Spider-Man as a morally-confused, troubled protagonist. Ditko, as was obvious from his subsequent work, didn't like heroes who didn't rigidly adhere to his own interpretation of good and evil, black and white. But Stan, of course, was the editor and had the last word.

"Ditko told me all that in his studio in 1970, not long after he quit. He's said it to others and I also think it's pretty easy to perceive in his other comics and in the occasional essays he's written for the fan press. He may write things like 'My reasons are my own and I've never divulged them to anyone' but we don't have to believe that…"

First hand source there. Any chance of a sequel documentary that mentions Speedball as well? No? Damn.