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Daredevil Message Board
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blacktyphoid
Playing to the Camera
Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 137
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 Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Mandrill wrote: | | Breakthrough? Hardly. Comix had been around for at least 10 years before that horrid period of Daredevil and they did far more to break down any sexual revolution stereotypes than DD ever had an opportunity to do. Not only that, but this era of DD was a POOR representation of the sexual revolution. "I'm my own woman! But I'll chase you back to NY and hope we can stay together. But I want to be in the forefront! But I'll stay here if you tell me to." Blah. |
You're absolutely right about Comix. However, if you carefully read my piece, you will have noted that I clearly stated that I wasn't talking about (so called underground) comix, like Gilbert Shelton or Denis Kitchen or even Warren; I was talking about the mainstream stuff, such as Marvel or DC. For mainstream comics, unless you can show me otherwise, it was truly unique to have a leading unmarried character living in a sexually charged relationship.
I agree with you that much of Gerry Conway's text was extremely chauvanistic. No doubt about it. Again, if you carefully read my piece, you would have noticed that I stated that fact - so there's really no point in you re-stating my point as an argument against my point.
Like you, I can't stand his dialogue - it makes me cringe, especially in the context of a 21st century mentality. But I love the ups and downs of the DD/BW relationship which was amazingly displayed by Gene Colan. I think Colan's great art transcended Conway's awful dialogue. And it's a shame that you cannot recognize Colan's contributions to the character and to the book.
I give Conway credit for retooling Daredevil so that the core of the book was the DD/BW relationship and how it played out. Geez, Conway was the guy who brought Black Widow into Daredevil's life, and she has turned out to be one of the most significant and endearing legacies of that early period, which you completely and broadly dismiss.
| Mandrill wrote: | | The reason I proclaim it to be a non-DD version of DD is because you could easily paste a picture of Spider-Man over Daredevil and change any mention of "Daredevil" to "Spider-Man" and be none the wiser that it was NOT a Spider-Man issue. |
You're absolutely right. However, once again, you have to consider the context of the times. If you were collecting Daredevil back in the 1960s and 1970s like me, that would not have been a surprise to you. The Stan Lee/Roy Thomas written Daredevil was intentionally cut from the same cloth as Spider-Man. They were in the same spectrum, however Spidey was perhaps on the "sublime" end whereas DD gravitated a bit more towards the "ridiculous" end. Yet, DD was geared to be a Spidey-esqe character. Whether you like it or not, that was the reality of the times, my friend.
| Mandrill wrote: | | Beyond that, it is a period in which some of the most ridiculous storylines appear (though a bit before the amazing Voodoo carp) and in which most of the incongruities of DD's abilities appear. Unless you find it feasible that he could fly an airplane, even if Tony Stark designed it. |
Agreed. But then again, as this board has often discussed, there have been all kinds of blatant incongruities about DD's abilities and blindness over his forty year history. So there's really no point in singling out one specific four year run of comics as the sole reference for your criticism.
| Mandrill wrote: | I will give that his revelation to Karen Page about being DD occurs in this run, but it is sullied by the fact that the storyline it occurred in was *horrible*.
But this is all my opinion and you are certainly entitled to yours. I still would like you to point out a more irrelevant and craptacular period for DD. |
As previously discussed (to death), perhaps the worst bit of Daredevil storytelling to ever appear was the Kruel storyline. Why, oh why, did they kill Glorianna O'Breen for no good reason?
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Mandrill
Flying Blind
Joined: 21 Aug 2008
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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I concede that the plots were quite amazing, but the follow through is what makes this era get my vote for most terrible. In fact, I take my username from one of the sets from this era. I was just waiting for someone to point that out 
I have stated with my chat room buddies that I think a lot of the stuff from this period could have been great if the writing hadn't been so hard to swallow.
But I still challenge you to give me a worse run. |
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blacktyphoid
Playing to the Camera
Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 137
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:00 am Post subject: |
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| Mandrill wrote: | In fact, I take my username from one of the sets from this era. I was just waiting for someone to point that out
I have stated with my chat room buddies that I think a lot of the stuff from this period could have been great if the writing hadn't been so hard to swallow.
But I still challenge you to give me a worse run. |
This isn't hard. The worst run for me was the period that immediately followed. That would be around #96 to about 120.
By this time someone at Marvel decided to make DD the training ground for neophyte writers. So Conway was replaced by Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella and Len Wein. For the most part, these guys produced a series of terrible, science fiction stories (like the man who wants to be King of San Francisco or DD saving the White House), created dumb villains like the Mandrill and the Screamer. Gerber downplays the DD/BW relationship and therefore loses the stablilizing storyline element that made the Conway run so intriguing. And DD comes back to New York.
To make matters worse, by this time, Gene The Dean with Tom Palmer as his inker leave the book. They were followed by a revolving door of pencillers and inkers (Don Heck, Rich Buckler, Sid Shores, Jim Starlin, Sam Kweskin, Bob Brown, Ernie Chan, John Tartaglione with occasional Colan fill-ins) often producing rushed, sub-par work that fails to anchor the book. At its best the art was conventional and uneven.
In that two year run, the book lost its focus. We saw new, inexperienced writers trying out a bunch of silly ideas backstopped by bad art. That was a recipe for disaster.
From my standpoint, one of my all-time favourite periods of Daredevil (vo.l, #81-95) was replaced by one of the absolutely worst periods of the book (#96-120ish). It's funny how quickly something can go from great to horrible.
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Pete
Fall From Grace
Joined: 29 Jul 2004
Posts: 417
Location: Liverpool, UK
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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Great exchange of opinions guys. What makes this board great (now and again) is a frank exchange of views between people with differing, yet equally valid opinions.
IMO, (Blacktyphoid and I have already exchanged views on Conway) both of you make valid points. I personally don't hate Conway as much as I previously did, and have a new appreciation of this period of DD. Yet I can't help feeling that the main plus points of this period remain the stellar art of Colan/ Palmer and occured despite Conways sometimes awkward scripts.
I do have to disagree with Blacktyphoids (brief) summary of the Gerber era, however. Any sci-fi sillyness that crept into the book in this period was only a continuation of themes introduced by his predecesor anyway. Gerber had many faults, and arguably didn't find a true 'voice' during the whole of his run, yet storylines such as the Gladiator/Intro of Deathstalker/Man Thing issues equal anything that was produced pre- Miller. A great comic book writer who never found any consistency during his run on DD.
A bit like Conway, then. |
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Mandrill
Flying Blind
Joined: 21 Aug 2008
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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Great points Pete.
I think a lot of the difference in our opinions is in fact steeped in our perception of how important art is to the success and validity of a story.
The art of 50-100 was quite amazing. The two-page scene still blows me away.
But for me it is all about writing. Great art and bad writing just means pretty pictures and not much else.
Give me mediocre art and jaw-dropping writing any day.
But of course, I'd rather the one-two shot of great art and writing. |
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blacktyphoid
Playing to the Camera
Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 137
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| Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Pete wrote: | Great exchange of opinions guys. What makes this board great (now and again) is a frank exchange of views between people with differing, yet equally valid opinions.
IMO, (Blacktyphoid and I have already exchanged views on Conway) both of you make valid points. I personally don't hate Conway as much as I previously did, and have a new appreciation of this period of DD. Yet I can't help feeling that the main plus points of this period remain the stellar art of Colan/ Palmer and occured despite Conways sometimes awkward scripts.
I do have to disagree with Blacktyphoids (brief) summary of the Gerber era, however. Any sci-fi sillyness that crept into the book in this period was only a continuation of themes introduced by his predecesor anyway. Gerber had many faults, and arguably didn't find a true 'voice' during the whole of his run, yet storylines such as the Gladiator/Intro of Deathstalker/Man Thing issues equal anything that was produced pre- Miller. A great comic book writer who never found any consistency during his run on DD.
A bit like Conway, then. |
Welcome back to this discussion, Mr. SHIELD Director.
Your point about Gerber not finding his voice is well said, Pete. I think the same can be said of every writer who followed Gerber up to (but not including) Roger Mackenzie. In particular, the period between issues 96 and 125 was a constant revolving door of writers, pencillers and inkers, all doing sub-par work. It was an excrutiating time to collect Daredevil.
At least Conway had two distinct concepts: i) make the DD/BW sexually charged relationship front and centre and have all the storylines flow through it; and ii) ground the adventures in a new and exciting city. And then let the abilities of Colan and Palmer portray the stories.
| Mandrill wrote: | Great points Pete.
I think a lot of the difference in our opinions is in fact steeped in our perception of how important art is to the success and validity of a story.
The art of 50-100 was quite amazing. The two-page scene still blows me away.
But for me it is all about writing. Great art and bad writing just means pretty pictures and not much else.
Give me mediocre art and jaw-dropping writing any day.
But of course, I'd rather the one-two shot of great art and writing. |
You bring up a point which could be an interesting debate and topic among our bloggers. What's more important to a comic - its writing or its art?
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Gloria
Redemption
Joined: 28 Apr 2007
Posts: 711
Location: Suburbia around Barcelona
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| Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Mandrill wrote: | | Give me mediocre art and jaw-dropping writing any day. |
In the long term, good writing is more satisfying than pretty pictures: I still re-read with pleasure the comics by Alan Moore I have at home, even if I am not a great fan of the artists... but the story, as far as it is well narrated, works fine.
As an afterword, I must say that, in the first I still get attractad to many books when the art looks good (I'm afraid gorgeous art is an unescapable bait)
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Gloria
Devuélveme el rosario de mi madre y quédate con todo lo demás
"Para la cuesta arriba quiero mi burro, que la cuesta abajo yo me la subo"
Last edited by Gloria on Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Blind Alley
Tree of Knowledge
Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 292
Location: Lyon, France
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| Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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Writing or art ?
Both are important.
And the way they combine determines whether the book is good or not.
Let's take Steve Dillon. The pics he draws aren't really beautiful but to tell the tale of Preacher, it worked perfectly.
Imagine Preacher penciled by Adi Granov or Alex Ross... Yet, those are not BAD artists. They'd just be unsuited to the book.
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Pete
Fall From Grace
Joined: 29 Jul 2004
Posts: 417
Location: Liverpool, UK
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:32 pm Post subject: |
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| blacktyphoid wrote: |
Welcome back to this discussion, Mr. SHIELD Director. |
 Yeah, well Hydra have been pretty quiet lately...figure I can take my eye off the ball for a minute.
| Quote: | | Your point about Gerber not finding his voice is well said, Pete. I think the same can be said of every writer who followed Gerber up to (but not including) Roger Mackenzie. In particular, the period between issues 96 and 125 was a constant revolving door of writers, pencillers and inkers, all doing sub-par work. It was an excrutiating time to collect Daredevil. |
I agree with the constant revolving door thing. I mean, the words 'Drawn by Don Heck' still fill me with dread. But the lack of a longstanding 'creative team' didn't stand in the way of some great issues, especially from #124 onwards. Wolfman showed some great consistency, with a lot of the stuff drawn by Brown/Janson. I thought he showed some pretty solid moments. #139 (ironically NOT drawn by Brown/Janson, ) was gritty, street level DD years before Miller and when Bendis was still in diapers. I always thought the Torpedo was an interesting character. Copperhead remains one of the great 'lost' bad guys with shedloads of unfulfilled potential. The Jester trilogy saw DD streets ahead of any other Marvel book of the time. He did lose his way after these issues, though. I guess you don't like him for many reasons, one of which was his first splash page shows Matt and Natasha splitting up. 
Brown was an artist who after a few dodgy moments early on, mainly during Gerbers run if truth be told, went on to do some lovely work. IMO.
| Quote: | | You bring up a point which could be an interesting debate and topic among our bloggers. What's more important to a comic - its writing or its art? |
Well, it's the storytelling, which, in a comic book, has to be a combination of both. One of the best pre-Miller runs on the book, IMO, was the very brief Shooter run just prior to McKenzie. Shooter went directly off to become EIC, which some people say was a shame for a variety of reasons , but for me it was a shame solely because he understood the character and would have gone on to do Great Things with the book. He wasn't blessed with a regular artist during the short run he had, but luckily it didn't matter as he did have two of the industry's great talents, both with back up from inker Janson who had hit his stride much earlier with Brown.
In a nutshell, despite the differing personel on the book, the quality in both script and art remained high. If either had dipped, the storytelling would suffer. |
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FatalRose
Flying Blind
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Posts: 41
Location: Alta Loma. CA
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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Well about two years ago was when I got into Dare Devil. Before that I always knew of the character, never had a problem with him, just did not find him interesting until I started to actually read his stuff. Now I can't believe what I was missing my whole comic reading life.
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blacktyphoid
Playing to the Camera
Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 137
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Pete wrote: | I agree with the constant revolving door thing. I mean, the words 'Drawn by Don Heck' still fill me with dread. But the lack of a longstanding 'creative team' didn't stand in the way of some great issues, especially from #124 onwards. Wolfman showed some great consistency, with a lot of the stuff drawn by Brown/Janson. I thought he showed some pretty solid moments. #139 (ironically NOT drawn by Brown/Janson, ) was gritty, street level DD years before Miller and when Bendis was still in diapers. I always thought the Torpedo was an interesting character. Copperhead remains one of the great 'lost' bad guys with shedloads of unfulfilled potential. The Jester trilogy saw DD streets ahead of any other Marvel book of the time. He did lose his way after these issues, though. I guess you don't like him for many reasons, one of which was his first splash page shows Matt and Natasha splitting up.
Brown was an artist who after a few dodgy moments early on, mainly during Gerbers run if truth be told, went on to do some lovely work. IMO.
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I agree with you when you say that the book's quality did pick up considerably once Wolfman, Brown and Janson became the resident creative team. Unfortunately that team did take a while to materialize. Your comment about Don Heck's work is quite amusing. He did such nice work on Iron Man and The Avengers, which gave him a solid knowledge of the Black Widow. Yet his Daredevil work, often with no backgrounds, standard posing, awful composition, was something less than professional.
You're right about Wolfman; he created some great characters, such as those that you mentioned. And of course he was the guy who created Bullseye. Wolfman once mentioned, though, that he lamented his period on Daredevil, feeling disappointed with the quality of his tenure. Yet he was light years better than what preceded him. That just points to the great talent of the guy. Even a mediocre Wolfman run is usually better than, or at least as good as, the quality of many great runs by other writers of that era.
As you note, Brown did a nice job, too. He was, however, very ill when he took over the drawing and this unfortunately led to several sub-par fill-in issues during his tenure on the book. And his run was cut short by his illness. He was quite an interesting guy. For instance, I once read that he was an accomplished jazz musician.
And then there's Klaus Janson. Although associated mostly with the first Miller run, his work as a penciller/inker/colourist has probably graced more issues of Daredevil than any other creator. I feel Janson's work on Daredevil, outside of his collaboration with Miller, is quite underrated (and perhaps that in part because his work with Miller was so dominating). Interesting DD trivia: Janson's the only guy to have inked Frank Miller and Gene Colan on Daredevil (back-to-back, no less).
Great hearing from you, Pete. Now, get back to saving the world!
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