Thank you Crossgen

jedifish · 12-23-2004, 08:33 AM

for going under.

That way I get to see all those wonderful writers and artists from Crossgen work for DC and Marvel on MY favorite characters. 2004 was good and 2005 looks to be even better.

tralfaz · 12-23-2004, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jedifish
for going under.

That way I get to see all those wonderful writers and artists from Crossgen work for DC and Marvel on MY favorite characters. 2004 was good and 2005 looks to be even better.

thats crap dude. It's always bad when a company falls because there's less competition and when there's less competition there is less creativity.
Sojourn, Way of the Rat, The Path were the best damn books to come out in a long fuckin time... and no superhero tights!

Moonbeam · 12-23-2004, 08:51 AM

Yeah, it's kind of cool seeing all the CrossGen names taking over some big name comics.

But I honestly would rather have CrossGen be viable. The comics industry could use some fresh new characters and stories. These guys are bringing their ideas and talents to established characters, which is great for us fans, but I can't help thinking there was potential there at CrossGen for something exciting to attract new fans.

Either way, I'll take them! There has truly been some great stuff created by them, and as you have pointed out -- more to come in 2005!

Tinnitus Tim · 12-23-2004, 11:34 AM

I agree.

At one point, I was buying a lot of Crossgen material and was enjoying it. I miss some of those titles.

Blind Assassin · 12-23-2004, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tinnitus Tim
I agree.

At one point, I was buying a lot of Crossgen material and was enjoying it. I miss some of those titles.

Yeah, I agree with that. We still have people coming into the shop asking about when Crossgen is coming back/etc.

I explain to them about them going under, the auction of properties, etc.

While I agree that it is good that these artists/writers/creators are finally doing work in which they will be paid, etc.

I think it must have been very rough on them for quite some time, and I would not wish that on anyone.

mauer · 12-23-2004, 11:51 AM

Yeah...what they said!

I miss Negation.

It's like this open wound...I NEED SOME CLOSURE!!!!

TTROY · 12-23-2004, 12:01 PM

Cross gen was a great attempt at some really great comics... and they succeed for the better part of 3 years..that final year is the harsh one... but for those first 3 years Cross Gen was an amazing company that signed amazing creators and did some spectacular work.

Nice job being snotty though....

I am MODOK · 12-23-2004, 12:47 PM

When a lot of my faves like Chuck Dixon and Mark Waid went to Crossgen, I started picking up some of those books. Negation was fantastic, Way of the Rat, Brath, Sigil, all good books. I will admit I'm happy to see the creators return to books I would have bought anyway.

Now I'm not sure about keeping all those unfinished or poorly finished Crossgen titles. I donated all my Ruse comics to GIs in Iraq through work, I think I may donate The Path and some other stuff next. I have 65 longboxes, and I have to start cutting something, so I think Crossgens are the losers!

csGuy · 12-23-2004, 01:00 PM

A terribly shortsighted thread this is.

jedifish · 12-23-2004, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by csGuy
A terribly shortsighted thread this is.

I suppose so, but since I never once picked up a CrossGen title and have little to no interest in independent titles, then for me, this has been great because these creators are on books I enjoy.

Honestly, I didn't even realize most of these creators were gone from Marvel and DC, which is because I follow characters, not creators. Only over the last year have I made the effort to be more cognizant of what creators are on what books, so I have gone back and picked up Astro City and Powers after it went to Marvel. Also, I read every Vertigo title written until 1996, when I finally decided that I just wasn't enjoying non-superhero titles, so it's not like I haven't given those types of stories a chance.

By the way, I'm not happy that there are a lot of creators that didn't get paid. That sucks and I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

TTROY · 12-23-2004, 01:58 PM

I is funny how some of the people that were so resistant to Cross Gen and felt "slighted" when those creators went to them cited that they cared more about the characters than the creators at the companies they left...yet there is an inherant prejudice because they were wanting the creators in the first place......

the teaming of these creators with some new characters shouldn't have mattered one bit......

It is the sheer testament of the fact that even a company like cross gen with those characters and creators should have been able to make more headway in the comics market and sell better yet failed to do so... because the stuborn, bullheaded, status quo that the average comics fan wants to keep while all the while screaming for change.

By staying at one of the bigger companies all would would have ended up seeing is more of the same and some bloat...

what we did see is some top notch creators working on some new properties that told some decent stories.

AND some went in as B list creators(in the eyes of many) and came out STARS

How many people were really paying attention to Greg Land when he was on Nightwing? Butch Guice while he was on Birds of Prey? Pelletier on Titans?Epting on Aquaman? Bart Sears on Spider-woman?

sure they were know but they weren't BIG names
We all know who Middleton is now right? Divono? without cross gen we would have been waiting a long time to see this talent emerge the way Dc and marvel were set up.

whatever bad feeling that you have about this company they you have to admit the they did many creators good by giving them a higher profile than they were getting before they signed to Crossgen...plus they made marvel sit up and take notice......and in turn DC...

While the end wasn't pretty......the beginning and middle were a proving ground for the stars of today and tomorrow in much the same mold that First,Eclipse and Comico did in the 80's ...but the bile and resentment spewed at creators because they went out and tried something different while leaving what had been around 40-60 years and would probably be around long after seems pretty selfish of some fans and really shows the maturity level of some of them that can't adapt to change.....or something new.

I am MODOK · 12-23-2004, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TTROY
I is funny how some of the people that were so resistant to Cross Gen and felt "slighted" when those creators went to them cited that they cared more about the characters than the creators at the companies they left...yet there is an inherant prejudice because they were wanting the creators in the first place......

the teaming of these creators with some new characters shouldn't have mattered one bit......

It is the sheer testament of the fact that even a company like cross gen with those characters and creators should have been able to make more headway in the comics market and sell better yet failed to do so... because the stuborn, bullheaded, status quo that the average comics fan wants to keep while all the while screaming for change.

By staying at one of the bigger companies all would would have ended up seeing is more of the same and some bloat...

what we did see is some top notch creators working on some new properties that told some decent stories.

AND some went in as B list creators(in the eyes of many) and came out STARS

How many people were really paying attention to Greg Land when he was on Nightwing? Butch Guice while he was on Birds of Prey? Pelletier on Titans?Epting on Aquaman? Bart Sears on Spider-woman?

sure they were know but they weren't BIG names
We all know who Middleton is now right? Divono? without cross gen we would have been waiting a long time to see this talent emerge the way Dc and marvel were set up.

whatever bad feeling that you have about this company they you have to admit the they did many creators good by giving them a higher profile than they were getting before they signed to Crossgen...plus they made marvel sit up and take notice......and in turn DC...

While the end wasn't pretty......the beginning and middle were a proving ground for the stars of today and tomorrow in much the same mold that First,Eclipse and Comico did in the 80's ...but the bile and resentment spewed at creators because they went out and tried something different while leaving what had been around 40-60 years and would probably be around long after seems pretty selfish of some fans and really shows the maturity level of some of them that can't adapt to change.....or something new.

While I would hope that most people didn't mean any of their comments in a mean way, it is true that Crossgen did some great things for the industry, and for many creators' profiles. And there are some GREAT books out there for people to dig up at cons now.

toolverine · 12-23-2004, 02:17 PM

Crossgen helped develop some solid writers and artists who can actually turn in a script/ pages on time. That is something to be thankful for. Scion was awesomem BTW!

GUTB · 12-23-2004, 04:14 PM

Look. There is no such a thing as a new publisher anymore. That's because we are living in the twilight of the comic book industry, where the fans are all only interesting in re-living their Silver Age youth and simply have no patience or passion for new characters, stories, concepts, etc. How many of you have actually browsed a comic rack in the last few years as opposed to downloading pirate issues? Comics of today are wildly overpriced, tissue-thin pamphlets -- you can't call them books anymore. That is because no one is buying anymore. This industry is simply going on inertia right now, and when it gets closer to hitting the wall, THEN the creators will try something new, but it'll be far too late by then. The last gasp was during the 90s boom, and we got Image. Now that's over and it's never comming back. It doesn't matter how good or famous the talent is. It doesn't matter how fresh the concepts are. It doesn't matter how many movies you make -- new comic fans are dwindling, and it's not for a lack of compelling new characters and stories. it's not even about the cost of comic books. Simply put -- no one cares about comics anymore.

Godfather · 12-23-2004, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GUTB
Look. There is no such a thing as a new publisher anymore. That's because we are living in the twilight of the comic book industry, where the fans are all only interesting in re-living their Silver Age youth and simply have no patience or passion for new characters, stories, concepts, etc. How many of you have actually browsed a comic rack in the last few years as opposed to downloading pirate issues? Comics of today are wildly overpriced, tissue-thin pamphlets -- you can't call them books anymore. That is because no one is buying anymore. This industry is simply going on inertia right now, and when it gets closer to hitting the wall, THEN the creators will try something new, but it'll be far too late by then. The last gasp was during the 90s boom, and we got Image. Now that's over and it's never comming back. It doesn't matter how good or famous the talent is. It doesn't matter how fresh the concepts are. It doesn't matter how many movies you make -- new comic fans are dwindling, and it's not for a lack of compelling new characters and stories. it's not even about the cost of comic books. Simply put -- no one cares about comics anymore.

Yea ok...

Jason Seaver · 12-23-2004, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TTROY
AND some went in as B list creators(in the eyes of many) and came out STARS

Word. I was going through my collection a couple months ago, bundling up and labeling storylines, and it was amazing to see how many artists made a leap while at CrossGen. I remember in early interviews, Alessi and others talked about how having everyone working nine to five in the studio was resulting in them picking up pointers from each other and the like, but since I wasn't really aware of CrossGen's artists before, I didn't immediately see it, but it's obviously there.

Quote:

Originally posted by jedifish
I never once picked up a CrossGen title and have little to no interest in independent titles, then for me, this has been great because these creators are on books I enjoy.

Why does the label on the front matter? Why wouldn't Ruse or Negation or Way of the Rat be "books you enjoy" if you just got over yoru silly prejudice?

And, for what it's worth, I'm sort of on the other side. Seeing Paul Pelletier on She-Hulk is fun, but he and Tony Bedard (figuratively) owned Negation. It all came from them, and they were creators instead of caretakers there.

And I can't bring myself to even pick up/flip through Steve Epting on Captain America. Anyone can draw Cap, but Epting was put on this earth to draw El Cazador.

captainamerica4 · 12-23-2004, 05:31 PM

Epting was great on his Avengers run but I agree, his El Cazador work was excellent. I only picked up the Path and El Caz. Crossgen brought unique stories to a superhero flooded market (not that I am complaining) but it was nice to read the adventures of pirates and troubled "Japanese" monks.

tralfaz · 12-23-2004, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GUTB
Look. There is no such a thing as a new publisher anymore. That's because we are living in the twilight of the comic book industry, where the fans are all only interesting in re-living their Silver Age youth and simply have no patience or passion for new characters, stories, concepts, etc. How many of you have actually browsed a comic rack in the last few years as opposed to downloading pirate issues? Comics of today are wildly overpriced, tissue-thin pamphlets -- you can't call them books anymore. That is because no one is buying anymore. This industry is simply going on inertia right now, and when it gets closer to hitting the wall, THEN the creators will try something new, but it'll be far too late by then. The last gasp was during the 90s boom, and we got Image. Now that's over and it's never comming back. It doesn't matter how good or famous the talent is. It doesn't matter how fresh the concepts are. It doesn't matter how many movies you make -- new comic fans are dwindling, and it's not for a lack of compelling new characters and stories. it's not even about the cost of comic books. Simply put -- no one cares about comics anymore.

then why are you rambling on with your longwinded statements?

jedifish · 12-23-2004, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jason Seaver
Word. I was going through my collection a couple months ago, bundling up and labeling storylines, and it was amazing to see how many artists made a leap while at CrossGen. I remember in early interviews, Alessi and others talked about how having everyone working nine to five in the studio was resulting in them picking up pointers from each other and the like, but since I wasn't really aware of CrossGen's artists before, I didn't immediately see it, but it's obviously there.

Why does the label on the front matter? Why wouldn't Ruse or Negation or Way of the Rat be "books you enjoy" if you just got over yoru silly prejudice?

And, for what it's worth, I'm sort of on the other side. Seeing Paul Pelletier on She-Hulk is fun, but he and Tony Bedard (figuratively) owned Negation. It all came from them, and they were creators instead of caretakers there.

And I can't bring myself to even pick up/flip through Steve Epting on Captain America. Anyone can draw Cap, but Epting was put on this earth to draw El Cazador.

Okay, from what I've read about Crossgen, they didn't do super-hero books, right? So since I only enjoy super-hero comics, why would I read Crossgen?

And before you all get your panties in a bunch about trying other things, consider this:

I've been reading comics for 30 years. In this time I've read war stories, horror stories, funny comics (Plop), fantasy adventure (Conan - including the new Dark Horse series for 5 issues, Red Sonja, etc), Epic Illustrated for 8 issues (of which I just reread the Dreadstar issues and thumbed through the other stories. They still don't interest me 20 years later, but there were some fantastic creators attached like Neal Adams, Jim Starlin, Chaykin), read all the Vertigo titles from the beginning until 1996, checked out Image at the beginning, read sci-fi like Time Warp, and Mystery in Space, checked out Elfquest when Marvel reprinted them under Epic. The bottom line is that they didn't interest me. I've tried.

Jesus, you guys act like people shouldn't enjoy super-heroes and they shouldn't be happy great creators are working on the books they love.

Godfather · 12-23-2004, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jason Seaver
And I can't bring myself to even pick up/flip through Steve Epting on Captain America. Anyone can draw Cap, but Epting was put on this earth to draw El Cazador.

To quote you. Word.

El Cazador was probably my favorite comic at the time. The art and the story was just fantastic to me. I miss that wench

Godfather · 12-23-2004, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jedifish
Okay, from what I've read about Crossgen, they didn't do super-hero books, right? So since I only enjoy super-hero comics, why would I read Crossgen?

And before you all get your panties in a bunch about trying other things, consider this:

I've been reading comics for 30 years. In this time I've read war stories, horror stories, funny comics (Plop), fantasy adventure (Conan - including the new Dark Horse series for 5 issues, Red Sonja, etc), Epic Illustrated for 8 issues (of which I just reread the Dreadstar issues and thumbed through the other stories. They still don't interest me 20 years later, but there were some fantastic creators attached like Neal Adams, Jim Starlin, Chaykin), read all the Vertigo titles from the beginning until 1996, checked out Image at the beginning, read sci-fi like Time Warp, and Mystery in Space, checked out Elfquest when Marvel reprinted them under Epic. The bottom line is that they didn't interest me. I've tried.

Jesus, you guys act like people shouldn't enjoy super-heroes and they shouldn't be happy great creators are working on the books they love.

You can enjoy whatever you like. I think applauding the fact that the industry lost an important company and the different comics they put out is in bad taste. Congrats to them for hitting it big, but there's no need to shit on Crossgen or indie books because they don't do the supes in tights that you like.

TTROY · 12-23-2004, 07:58 PM

oh well i guess if jedifish had his way there would be no diversity in comics and styles anymore....

You do realise that due to the varrying styles of these indy comics creators invent new and diffent style of comics to put out within the style of comic you like.....

but if there is no alternative...the "spandex hero genre" will grow cold and stagnant and eventually die off or become so limitting that it becomes unreadable....

look at it this way.... some great superheroe comic would never have been tried ,attempted ,or created in the past 20-30 years if not for the fact that a creators had tried something different or had been exposed to a different stle in another type of comic... or a budding creator had seen anothers work and was inspired......

when you just end up doing copies of copies of copies....

uyou end up with Extreme comics, early image(group dynamic cloning)...and creator clones....all those copies of lliefeld,lee,and mcfarlane in the early days of image

and you end up with bad writers bad artist and bad comics...

mpg · 12-23-2004, 08:13 PM

i always felt that crossgen was the xfl of comics

they professed to be better than the other comics. they boasted that more intellectual types read their books.

instead of trying to sit on the shelf next to marvel and dc, they tried to replace them. they also insulted other existing indy companies thru their bragging.

i applaud the effort, diversity is always great, but they were never better than any other comic out there, nor were they really THAT different..

but i will never be able to feel good about them, after what they did at the end...you can always measure the character of people when times are lean. everybody is nice and dandy when things are good, but when things go bad, that is the true test..

they screwed MOTU, and i loved those damn books.

deathlok · 12-23-2004, 08:19 PM

Oh thats an insult!

XFL was much better than crosgen!

Jason Seaver · 12-23-2004, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jedifish
Okay, from what I've read about Crossgen, they didn't do super-hero books, right? So since I only enjoy super-hero comics, why would I read Crossgen?

Of course they did super-hero books, and I don't just mean The Crossovers. How is The Negation not a super-team book, for instance? Colorful heros each with their unique paranormal talents, monstrous villains, etc., etc. They just didn't label them as superhero books.

Quote:

And before you all get your panties in a bunch about trying other things, consider this:

... The bottom line is that they didn't interest me. I've tried.

Jesus, you guys act like people shouldn't enjoy super-heroes and they shouldn't be happy great creators are working on the books they love.

Is it just comics where you have genre myopia, or do you only like superhero movies, superhero TV shows, superhero books, etc?

And, hey, be as happy about creative people continuing to go down well-worn paths as you want. Even if I thought the world was better off with Epting doing Captain America than El Cazador, though, I'd think it was tacky to be cheerful about someone else's lack of success.