Being bored lately, I decided to try and read some of the original Image books again. I started with WildCATS and it was hit or miss for me, but never really great. Except for the occasional nice panel of art. Too convoluting with too much fanboy writing, writing too geeky as to be incomprehensible. The characters had potential and I still think Travis Charest was an amazing artist on it, but what could have been an ew X-Men type book, failed.

The one that is surprisingly readable is Gen13. Looking on Wikipedia to refresh my memory, it was huge hit but plummeted, never to recover, when the original creative team left. In some ways, it was the anti-WildCATS. Super easy to follow and more fun. This could have been another Teen Titans but the creative choices to replace the founders was badly done. Like Frank Robbins replacing Sal Buscema on Cap, way to drastic and alienating.

I might re-read Savage Dragon which I remember enjoying at one time, but never picked up again due it the politics he insists on inserting (and he wonders why his sales struggle). Not being a magic or horror guy, I doubt I will revisit Spawn

Their ego would have never allowed it but man did they need someone like Shooter at the reign.

Thoughts?

It wasn't really a mistake, they didn't have any choice -- the main sales point for the book was the art by J. Scott Campbell. The guy did a five issue mini-series and nearly 20 issues of the regular series, he was ready to go out and do his own thing (which was Danger Girl). They got the guy who was doing fill-ins, Al Rio, to draw some more issues and that made sense as he had a similar style, but he just didn't have that magic touch that Campbell did. They then got some pretty strong artists like Gary Frank and Ed Benes, but it just didn't have the same appeal for these particular characters. They also did some spin-offs and got great artists like Adam Hughes, Alab Davis, Adam Warren, etc. to do stories and I think those did well, but I think some things just have a certain amount if shelf-life.

It's like when Perez left New Teen Titans -- Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Tom Grummett are fantastic and they still had Marv Wolfman, but a lot of the magic left when George did.

I also think some of the appeal of Gen13 (outside of the art) was that it was really focused on the 90s teen experience and the characters fit those archetypes we associate with youth culture of the time. Once the 90s were over and youth culture changed substantially in the 00s, they felt pretty anachronistic.



He's basically said he doesn't need to make comics to earn any sort of living anymore -- he has enough of a nest egg that he could have retired years ago. He only continues to make comics the way he wants to make them and seems comfortable not being at the top of the charts. (And I think his style was never commercial enough to get there and stay there, personally.)

T
That's true about the Titans. Never as good. Makes me believe George's plotting had more to do with it than we think




It's not which is why pissing off half your potential audience is dumb, business-wise. But good for him.