Thanks for the kudos, guys.

As far as Marvel goes-- I can't help but feel very betrayed. They duplicated the incentive cover--and preempted my upcoming one--and even used the "terrorist fist jab." Clearly those in the "house of ideas" looked at what I did and found inspiration.

I hear that they're even doing a story similar to the one I did four years back, where an image-altering villain disguises himself as the President (in my story the Impostor replaced President Bush and took his place for a speech--in theirs the Chameleon, the shape-shifting villain, is going to spoil a speech being given by President-Elect Obama). The whole mess just feels really underhanded. I feel betrayed and, frankly, ripped off and in the real world--the one outside our funnybook bubble--Marvel will spin themselves as these great innovators who came up with this terrific publicity stunt--instead of the thieves they are.

And I know what they're saying when they're called on it--"Presidents have appeared in comics before" and "Erik didn't create Barack Obama" and blah, blah, blah.

The thing that Marvel is attempting to do is to frame the argument. To say "we've featured presidents in the past--this is what we do--it's part of a pattern." But that's a false argument. The "stunt" was an alternate cover featuring Obama-- which was something no publisher had done with any president in the past and one that received a lot of press when I did it. If Marvel had done alternate covers with Bush and Clinton or any of the others-- they could legitimately claim that they were following a pattern and doing what they've done in the past-- but that wasn't the case. And theirs is not simply the appearance of a president in a comic book but one on an alternate cover-- and one concocted to try and get some of the same attention that got. I did not create Obama-- I did, however, have a character endorse him, long before he was elected while Marvel played footsie with Stephen Colbert-- a joke candidate.

"House of ideas" my ass.

Thank you!

Now. Will you please look at us the little men and keep your friggin comics cheaper than 4 bucks a pop?!

I'm serious Erik. I like you. Not in a gay way but dammit man I like you. I bought you a Heineken, that's how much I like you. And I want to endorse you and Image comics. I want to know that you all are gonna keep looking out for us, Johnny Comic Book and let us give you our money. We'd rather give you our money than the big 2 at the prices they're about to charge with the crappy multitude content they're about to unleash.

Image = quality comics.

Hunter comes out for Erik!

No, it's not.

However, the analogy doesn't work. A Beatles' cover band is (in theory) perfectly capable of writing a song called "Everywhere Man", and then a song called "Anywhere Man", maybe even introducing "Nowhere Woman", and then a song about someone who does it in the road, blew his mind out in a car, found Gideon's Bible and came in through the bathroom window because they wanted to hold your hand, and occasionally were called "The Walrus".

No, this isn't the Beatles, but in terms of superhero comics, that is what non-creators have been doing. Why would the revelation of the Green Goblin's identity mean anything to anyone if wasn't a good story. Steve Ditko didn't have anything to do with it, so by your logic, it is obviously inferior, right? Then when the Green Goblin came back, Ditko had been replaced yet again by Stan, so it was something about Harry Osbourne in the sky with diamonds (and then going cold turkey). Still no Ditko, but it had some validity as a story.

And then the Goblin comes back again, and kills Gwen Stacy. There's certainly no Steve Ditko, and accounts differ on whether or not Stan Lee even *heard* of the story before it was printed, much less approved it, much less had to deal with all the ramifications. The Hobgoblin had some good stories in him, and they were directly derived from the Green Goblin [and honestly, I read Marvel Tales when I was just little, so Lee-Ditko is indeed *MY* Spider-Man, and I honestly never saw the Goblin as a big deal, until, in hindsight, the revelation of his identity drawn by JRSR, and looking back at the big deal being made about certain Goblin cronies in earlier issues] And realized all the issues that came from those stories.

Fine, Lee-Ditko "Spider-Man" is equivalent to the Beatles. I'm hip. But what does that mean for the Moore-Bissette-Totleben "Swamp Thing"? And if you can explain *that* away, how about Moore being followed on the title by Rick Veitch? This is a cover band that happens to strike brilliance, not once, not twice, but consistently for years (almost as many years as the Beatles existed as recording artists), and then were followed up by another cover band who just happened to match their brilliance.

Moore, Bissette, Totleben and Veitch would probably be horrified to think of themselves that way, but fortunately they're all horror fans and can at least appreciate the horror that realizes they've all done brilliant work, immeasurably influential, while serving time in what amounts to a Beatles cover band. Hell, Wein and Wrightson's "Swamp Thing" doesn't have such cachet. It's an historical artifact. Without Moore's "cover band", the basic concept didn't really have legs, beyond Wein and Wrightson's vague gifts. Wein had shadowy corporations for subplots, and Ben Grimm-type 'let me restore my humanity' plots, and Wrightson's art came across as cartoony. Other than giving, in my opinion, the best looking Batman ever seen to that point, Wein-Wrightson brought very little to the table.

Moore, Bissette, Totleben and Veitch, now they brought a great deal. To the Beatles cover band, anyway. Leaving aside the "everything you know is wrong, but it still happened exactly the way you saw it happened" brilliance of "The Anatomy Lesson", and the issues that followed, nothing could prepare an audience member for a Beatles cover band for "Love and Death", where Moore, in a hastily-written script that pushed "The Nukeface Papers" back for a year or so, not only defied the Comics Code, but left its anally-violated corpse lying on the sidewalk with bloody footprints to mark the killer, and decades later, we're still following those footprints. The various creators and editors have had their say, I won't presume to speculate on whose version is right, but the fact is, for a fill-in story, Alan Moore introduced the undead, incest, necrophilia, and a host of other non-Code-approved topics, all in service to bringing back a Wein-Wrightson villain, Anton Arcane. Kinda like when Spider-Man fought drugs.

This was the issue that launched Vertigo. Again, the various contributors have different points-of-view, but DC went ahead and published it without Comics Code approval, and it went fairly well, so they stuck with it. It would go until Rick Veitch (the cover band of the cover band of the Beatles) was developing his own "Nowhere Man travels back in time" storyline that, to defeat Arcane, the Nowhere Man would need to learn from Jesus Christ himself. DC refused to publish it, Veitch quit, it was twenty fucking years ago [and realizing this makes me want to go sign out a 9mm from the Arms Room and shoot myself in the forehead for being so old] and we're *STILL* dealing from the ramifications of his choice. "Preacher", "Fables", they have to make their own great music under the shadow of of the cover band of the Beatles cover band.

So what have you got against the Death of Gwen Stacy anyhow? Whatever your problems with it, the fact that it wasn't done by Lee and Ditko should, somehow, be the least of it. Next you'll be complaining that neither Claremont nor Byrne created Jean Grey. Frank Miller didn't create Daredevil. Peter David didn't create the Hulk. What kind of monster are you?

Fuckin Final Crisis switcheroo!

Like I said...


Or Swampthing.

Spiderman had Stan Lee's vision throughout the original run, but we'll never know if the book would have been better if Ditko's vision had prevailed, and he had stayed with the book as long as Lee.

Erik

Of course, it's entirely possible that they haven't read the Savage Dragon story but then again not many people did.

It's quite an allegation to accuse Marvel of "thievery". Do you know they read your book? Do you have insider info that would sugges they did?

It's also interesting you used a "image-altering villain" previously so I could say, for argument's sake obviously, you "stole" that idea from Marvel as Chameleon is a Marvel character that you would be well aware of. As for Presidents being impersonated, there was a Hulk story with art by Trimpe and Severin that featured Nixon and his gang being replaced by robots/LMDs of some sort (my memory is a bit hazy on the details) so it's hardly an original idea and then there is Heinlein's Double Star which features an actor playing an elected official on Mars (now that was a good book).

Barack Obama is big news and with him being a Spider-Man fan, it's hardly unlikely that Marvel wouldn't use his election to boost their sales and public profile. So they wrote a pretty unoriginal story to celebrate (if that's the word) Barack's election.

No, I don't think Marvel is the House of Stolen Ideas but more like House of Unoriginal Ideas, but originality is an overated virtue in the arts.

What? Nobody's yet brought up Models, Inc. and claimed it's a Glamourpuss rip-off?

Incorrect analogy. The artists following Lee and Kirby on FF are NOT doing "covers" where they rewrite the same story or draw the same pictures. They are building upon Lee and Kirby's work (some for better, some for worse). Therefore, the correct analogy would be to compare them to Oasis, Coldplay, the Smiths, or the hundreds of other bands that have been influenced by the Beatles. They may not be as good as the originals, but they are original in their own way.

In fact, the Beatles themselves stole from many sources (Chuck Berry etc), as did Lee and Kirby.

How is the analogy incorrect?

Millar and Hitch's version of the FF is more than just "influenced by" the Lee/Kirby FF.

Savage Dragon is "influenced by" the Lee/Kirby FF.

Millar and Hitch's version of the FF actually IS the Lee/Kirby FF, as done byMillar and Hitch.

Same songs different band. Maybe remixed a little, and a new twist, maybe they are even better musicians, but they are NOT writing new songs.