ALIENS!!!
This volume of SS certainly made Norrin feel like a complete alien. His seeming dismissal of human emotion and comfort totally seemed to fly in the face of earlier volumes. I read this completely through in a few days time and really enjoyed it. Very different from previous volumes, but I agree with you all the way Tom.

Posted by orion100783 on 2007-08-08 17:49:53
That was a new logo?! I somehow thought it was the "classic original". I guess that shows how strong it was.

Posted by Fetsur on 2007-08-08 18:34:11
I really liked the first arc but I felt the book sort of puttered out after that.

Posted by IanZL on 2007-08-08 20:38:01
...men in tighs
didn't pick up these issues, but as a fan of science-fiction, I'd like to thank you for all the ANNIHILATION series, especially the revival of Star-Lord due to the wonderful team that are Keith Giffen and Timothy Green; have also already said that I'd have prefered that "the Planet Hulk " story-arc takes much issues,( the time for Hulk to really live other things ) and retard the "World War Hulk", I really enjoy the actual design of the character and hope it will echoes under other the other heroes, that they will more look at what they are :warriors.

Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-08-09 11:15:52
Feeding the Fans
This is sort of a response to the previous blog, but I actually wanted it read, so with the worry that you (Tom) might not read previous blog comments, I'm mentioning it here:

I've heard a lot of frustration coming from you, and implicit in other writers/editors of Marvel, with the reaction of fans concerning "respect of characters," or "good/bad writing styles," along with the violent backlash in the fan community. And I've thought a lot about this.

But, despite all my thinking, what clicked with me while reading your piece on Hawkeye was something that a webcomic author - whose series I've been reading in preparation for my own upcoming one - said about his own audience. He recognized that certain things he did would tick off one group of people, mainly the vocal part, or be randomly applauded by another, however his main goal when writing his webcomic was always to write to his core audience. The rest didn't matter and he made no apology to them for anything he chose to do.

(Now I'll start paraphrasing him/mixing in my own opinions)

As you know, you can easily spend 99% of your time chasing your own tail as an editor/creative authority trying to satisfy every single fan and every piercing voice out there. But in the end, all you'll end up doing is creating more voices crying out to whine about some other aspect, or about the exact opposite of the previous complaints. But what I think the best avenue is, after reading my webcomic author friend, is to find your core audience and be true to them, period, all the time.

The "Red States of Comics" (I can't remember where I heard the term) has been mentioned before, and I think it's the key to building up a loyal following and not making artistic "mistakes", so to speak. If you find where your code audience lies (or if you're really good, you can PICK an audience you like/is profitable and TAILOR your work to it) then you can continue to satisfy this group of people, over and over, and you will eventually build a solid market that will grow. I think that this is what every artist should aim for, and every company that draws its money from creativity should keep an eye on.

Of course, as a final side note, the internet makes this harder and harder. Because just when you're walking along, smiling to yourself with pride over your firm decisions, you get confused by 10 lone chatroom vampires screaming at you that Hawkeye's costume isn't purple enough, and soon you're tailoring things so much to them, at what becomes a greater and greater list of idiots' whims, that you are soon in danger of losing who your core audience that you should be playing to. This just wastes energy and eventually depresses everyone involved.

In other words. 1. Find desired audience. 2. Play to them. 3. Smile and nod to everyone else.

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-08-09 22:45:14
...by the way
Tom,
may I ask you what you did with my post suggesting that Juggernaut meets Big Bertha, instead suffering about Dazzler, which is a little...
a little...

Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-08-10 17:35:14
how to tell....

Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-08-10 17:35:37
Tom
Tom B you are the man, you even make me want to read these series that wernt popular its nice to see some explanation about the comics from the editors perspective you blog is updated the most.

Look forward to the next one, Brevoort for ed in chief!

Posted by tobys on 2007-08-10 21:52:25
HI!
I'm LoganV!

Posted by LoganV on 2007-09-02 07:29:57