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Mark Millar Hits Two Publishers With One Stone At Glasgow Comic Con

Published Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:00:35 -0500

Last updated Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:09:57 -0500

I was talking with a Marvel employee the other day about Mark's decision to leave Marvel – but not actually leave Marvel, as he has at least four creator owned series coming out from the company. ANd, to parapharse, "That Mark, always something new everyday – it's very entertaining."

Well, this was certainly that. At the Glasgow Comic Con over the weekend, Mark did a long signing session and a panel with Emma Beeby, Gordon Rennie, Mark Millar and Jim Alexander. And he was on form.

When asked about the current publishing operations of Marvel and DC, transcribed by Comic Book Grrrl, he replied;

But I understand how it works, because quarterly they're accountable to their bosses and they look at what worked in the last quarter – "that big crossover with everyone in it? Let's do another one next quarter", you know? And eventually it is so reductive. The event isn't an event if it's happening all the time.

It's great for guys like us, because I left Marvel two weeks ago, after ten years, to focus entirely on creator owned. All the higher profile creators are heading off now doing their own thing. The smaller personalities are hanging around a little bit. For a few years this will probably be the case, writing and drawing things and then editorial are shaping the stories because they have a financial quarterly, they need to hit a certain number.

It's just the cycle of comics. The same thing happened twenty years ago and twenty years before that. That will wear out and then everything will change again. But unfortunately for Marvel and DC, they're in that kind of boring period just now.

And at DC it seems that there's a massive desperation, they're relaunching their entire line right now in September, all in one month. And I said, why didn't you guys just roll it out over a year so that everybody gets a chance to buy, you know, try out the first issues? And they said, we're actually more accountable to Warner Brothers now than we've ever been before – we need to show some serious profit.

It's a shame that art is coming in second really at the moment. But not in the creator owned scene. In the creator owned scene all the exciting stuff is happening. All my favourite books right now are probably independent books. That wasn't the case five years ago, when the big two were great.

He also talked about female characters in comics and films, a lack of desire to work on Superman anymore, and on the DC Relaunch;

when I saw the new Justice League that's coming out in September, all slightly redesigned, it just felt like when you see Sylvester Stallone's mum with botox?! It just looks weird. How many times can Batman kick the shit out of the Joker? How many times can the Penguin cause grief? If Galactus hasn't destroyed the Earth the last forty times, chances are things are going to be fine! The culture atrophies if we just keep recycling the same thing.

Also at the show, the inaugural Glasgow Comic Con awards were awarded as follows;

The Pete Root Award for Outstanding Contribution to Scottish Comics – Alan Grant
Best Writer – Martin Conaghan
Best Artist – Alex Ronald
Best Graphic Novel – Burke & Hare by Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering

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