Is Bendis a Hypocrite? Thanks J1ml33 for sending me this link.
Back to the point. Bendis says one thing about "Better critic and better journalism", but his best selling comics are not something you can always praise. So does he really want to hear the good stuff and the better journalism? To make money in comics you have to sell out. These guys hit it out of the park with Scarlet. Does it sell Avengers numbers? No. To make money you have to water down the product.
The Comic Industry is hurting as an Art form. As an Entertainment it is healthy, but most fans don't want to know how comics work. I am grateful to Mat 'Inferiorego' Elfring for mentioning my Blog and my Batwoman review in his Around the Vine: Community Wrap-Up 10/15/10, but does users on the Vine care for these suggestions? The Artist blog has not really had any activity, which is likely because most people don't care for "better journalism" and higher criticism. I am not saying it is brilliant, because it is not, but it was researched. My most passionate work and at times my best is written "FREE", so Bendis is right that writers write best when its free. When you are making money, you have to write to the masses because you have to sacrifice something to make it more appealing. When you write to the masses you have to write more shallow and avoid any depth, the more complicated the work, the more likely the fans won't like it. I like to think of Grant Morrison and his X-Men. I enjoyed it, but it is light years a head of any X-Men before it, so a lot of the masses didn't accept it.
I listed Bendis as the number 1 most overrated writer because of his confusing stance on creating comics. When he writes for himself, I have nothing bad to say. When he writes to the masses I rather use the comics as kindle. In retrospective, maybe that was hash, but its true. Most of the writers I listed there were better writers before they catered to the masses. If Bendis means what he says, then I would love to see him raise the bar in his superhero writing. It is very easy to say it when you have the money. I don't make a cent with the what I write on the Vine, but when I get the one or two readers it is all worth while. Writing for me is about the substance, something I feel is lost in comics today. This rant of a blog is not to single out anyone on the Vine, it is about Bendis. He is on to something? If so does that make him a hypocrite?
Does the industry need a change?
Cheers
- Silkcuts
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