Sequart

I’m now contributing to the site Sequart.org  It is devoted to promoting comic books (aka SEQUential ART) as a storytelling and visual art form. While the focus is on comics, many of the articles also focus on movies and geek culture. This isn’t necessarily a news site or a ‘what’s cool now’ site. Sequart tries to get below the surface and analyze comics from a multitude of angles. They also produce documentaries about comics and the people who make them. I highly recommend The Image Revolution documentary.

My article dealt with the much maligned film Green Lantern and how I felt its greatest flaw was a pair of weak villains. Check it out at the link below and leave comments.

http://sequart.org/magazine/43821/green-lantern-how-not-to-write-a-comic-book-movie-supervillain/

The Image Revolution

This week I watched a documentary -something I rarely do- about the impact, ups, and downs of Image Comics. All I can say is…wow.

I got into comics shortly before Image started. I read mostly Superman and Batman, and I wasn’t a big Marvel fan at the time. I had read about the seven founders leaving Marvel en masse, but I didn’t realize what a historical event was happening.

After Image formed, most of my comic were from them, especially the stuff coming from Wildstorm. WildC.A.T.S, Gen 13, Battlechasers were some of my favorites. It was the first time I really sat up and took notice of art styles. I eagerly waited issues drawn by Jim Lee and Brett Booth. I wanted to be a comic artist.

The documentary highlights the lightning-fast rise and then decline of Image, focusing on the seven founders. It isn’t quite a detailed or informative as I thought it would be, there are quite a few issues and behind-thescenes- information I think the makers assume viewers already know.

But as an independent author, watching a documentary about seven guys saying goodbye to the traditional way of doing things and striking out on their own, really resonated with me. Image had seven different studios under its banner and you saw seven different approaches to being your own boss. Rob Liefeld is a cautionary tale, but the guy has an unbridled passion for the industry. It’s infectious. I now understand and appreciate the risk these guys took 20 years ago to change the way comics were made and the lasting impact they have had today.

Here is the official page for the documentary. I highly recommend it. Thanks for reading.