Hee. Comic Book Resources made me laugh today with the simultaneous publication of two pieces.
First, there’s Joe Casey and Matt Fraction’s Basement Tapes column where they wonder why super-hero comics are such bummers lately. From Casey:
“Are any superhero comics fun anymore? And I mean fun in a truly — to use your word — sincere way? In an unqualified way? Or has the worm turned too far, and neither the creators nor the readers are capable of either a) creating it or b) recognizing and supporting it? Is the innocence finally gone?” (1.)
At the same time, they posted an interview with Judd Winnick on the upcoming Countdown:
“We find it to be important and it’s a way to send a shot across the bow to tell
people that this is something of importance, we want you all to get it.” (2.)
At the end of the Tapes column, Casey detects a shift in the force:
“I think I’m more in line with your implication that we are, in fact, about to experience some new pendulum shift… that we’re about to enter some new phase of how we perceive the mainstream comicbook idiom. That the response to whatever antipathy or bad vibes — the wife rapings, the event killings, the New Coke mentalities — that might exist right now will be strong enough to shake the foundations to such a degree that gives us all some newfound hope about what we do.”
This is similar to but a bit less cynical than a theory that Graeme has posited at Fanboy Rampage:
“I’m convinced that Identity Crisis/Countdown/Crisis 2-or-whatever-it’s-called is another Knightfall. By which I don’t mean that everyone will start wearing ugly Joe Quesada-designed costumes, but that it’s a long, drawn out story where everything gets grim-and-gritty purely to make the readers say uncle, and give DC an excuse to make everything lighter/more optimistic/less Marvel-esque again.”
1. Try She-Hulk.
2. “Important” has replaced “edgy” as my least favorite comics marketing buzz word.