My original idea--as is often the case--has changed dramatically
since first conceptualized.
Like the publishing world since 1978, like the rest of the world....
everything transforms once touched by the outside.
I had wanted to recapture--actually mirror--the more innocent and
desirable days of 1978, before senseless fictional murders, rapes, and
continuous recalibrations became the norm. The comics community
seems determined to try and force their relevance and promote
their 'bad-ass' (wannabe) nature by striving for what is considered
'maturity,' 'sophistication,' or at least the vileness that passes for it
with pseudo-realistic comics.
Striving for a sophistication the medium inherently lacks, while
sacrificing all that's great about the medium in the process.
Explain to me how we need relevance and scientific explanation,
real-world violence and despair when we're dealing with a universe
of flying men, aliens, and endless super-powered battles and umpteen
resurrections?
Ah, I'm showing my age. Proudly.
I definitely feel that comics is a medium designed for (or at least
beholding to) shelf lives.
There is a need for closed runs and definitive endings; this stuff can't
go on forever, especially in the same form.
But we seem to avoid that concept.
Instead, everything's become homogenized and rehashed in order
to keep publishing endlessly.
Well, those old days will never be here again. We can homage them,
reprint them, fan fic them, and wax philosophic on them, but they are gone.
And thus, even the desired recapturing I imagined changed.
Which, in the end, is all for the best.
Art exists in the moment. That's the magic of it; an atmosphere, a
conceptualized sensation, brought about by the joining of artist and
audience. Trying to duplicate innate success never ends well. A copy
can't hold a candle to the original.
I received a lifetime of fond memories from the DC Comics of my
childhood; those exact stories, those exact creators, those exact
characters, mixed into my world at that precise moment. It's a
combination that was unique and personal and perfect. You can't
touch perfection without destroying it.
So, what you see now is the end result of a newly streamlined endeavor.
a 'unified' world, but hopefully plenty full of room for every voice to be
heard as distinctly and diversely as they were created to be heard.
A place for every concept to have its own corner to shine, maintaining
the flavor that made them real. Even if half the fun you have here is
picking it apart, have fun. That's the whole point.
You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself.
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