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Post by vikingspawn on Jan 3, 2014 13:40:08 GMT -5
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 3, 2014 18:54:52 GMT -5
This was inevitable. I noticed awhile back that Dark Horse had a vampire theme going across various titles. Sometime after that Joss Whedon was signed to a contract by Marvel. I looked at the recent sales chart you linked to and did not see Buffy on the list or anything related to Whedon. I think Marvel is digging the grave for Dark Horse. By my estimation, Star Wars was the only thing making Dark Horse any profit. My suggestions would be to: 1) Acquire the rights to publish Cameron's Avatar if possible. We know two movies are in simultaneous development and Cameron's goal has been to have a licensing empire along the lines of what George Lucas had. Now would be the time to get a jump start. 2) Acquire the license to Broadway & Defiant on a test drive basis and appoint Jim Shooter to manage the line. Offer Jim a base salary with a lucrative deal if he can make the line profitable. 3) Acquire the rights to publish comics based upon Forbidden Planet and hire Strazynski to write it. The planet has a backstory wich could be explored. The alien race could still be alive on other planets, etc. 4) Bladerunner! 5) Work with Mike Judge to develop some new original concepts. Defiant1 |
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Post by vikingspawn on Jan 3, 2014 23:14:34 GMT -5
This was inevitable. I noticed awhile back that Dark Horse had a vampire theme going across various titles. Sometime after that Joss Whedon was signed to a contract by Marvel. I looked at the recent sales chart you linked to and did not see Buffy on the list or anything related to Whedon. I think Marvel is digging the grave for Dark Horse. By my estimation, Star Wars was the only thing making Dark Horse any profit. My suggestions would be to:
1) Acquire the rights to publish Cameron's Avatar if possible. We know two movies are in simultaneous development and Cameron's goal has been to have a licensing empire along the lines of what George Lucas had. Now would be the time to get a jump start.
2) Acquire the license to Broadway & Defiant on a test drive basis and appoint Jim Shooter to manage the line. Offer Jim a base salary with a lucrative deal if he can make the line profitable.
3) Acquire the rights to publish comics based upon Forbidden Planet and hire Strazynski to write it. The planet has a backstory wich could be explored. The alien race could still be alive on other planets, etc.
4) Bladerunner!
5) Work with Mike Judge to develop some new original concepts.
Defiant1I bolded your quote in case the folks at Dark Horse read it: 1) Re: Avatar - Avatar comics would be epic under the DH brand. Maybe JMS's current work on their Terminator series this year would help bridge some communications with Cameron and DH on some comic developements. Cameron's name would be a bigger draw than Whedon's Buffy/Serenity titles in comics. I still want to see what Cameron had in mind for Terminator 3 and his Aliens 5 script too. 2) Defiant & Broadway characters <---- yes please this. Mike, please get on the phone with Shooter and let him oversee an imprint of these properties as an editor and not just as a head writer like last time. He will inject some excitement to the industry again like no other company has been able to do. Let Shooter build it and they will come. 3) A Forbidden Planet series would be fun to see. And that script treatment by Cameron and JMS that hasn't come out yet as a movie. I'd buy it. 4) They've said they have some communications with Ridley Scott's office regarding the Prometheus comics storylines coming out this year. I read Scott is a big fan of the Heavy Metal comics. He seems to be warming up to Dark Horse more lately lately. Bladerunner comics would be such an incredible property for comics. Especially to the leadup for the sequel. If you saw the Prometheus movie yet, there was alot (pretty much all) taken from one of the old Aliens comics from Dark Horse in 1999....almost scene by scene from the art panels too: www.darkhorse.com/Books/48-196/Aliens-Apocalypse---The-Destroying-Angels-TPB5) I wondered if Mike Judge was a comic fan. I would be all over comics from him too.  |
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 4, 2014 0:19:54 GMT -5
This was inevitable. I noticed awhile back that Dark Horse had a vampire theme going across various titles. Sometime after that Joss Whedon was signed to a contract by Marvel. I looked at the recent sales chart you linked to and did not see Buffy on the list or anything related to Whedon. I think Marvel is digging the grave for Dark Horse. By my estimation, Star Wars was the only thing making Dark Horse any profit. My suggestions would be to:
1) Acquire the rights to publish Cameron's Avatar if possible. We know two movies are in simultaneous development and Cameron's goal has been to have a licensing empire along the lines of what George Lucas had. Now would be the time to get a jump start.
2) Acquire the license to Broadway & Defiant on a test drive basis and appoint Jim Shooter to manage the line. Offer Jim a base salary with a lucrative deal if he can make the line profitable.
3) Acquire the rights to publish comics based upon Forbidden Planet and hire Strazynski to write it. The planet has a backstory wich could be explored. The alien race could still be alive on other planets, etc.
4) Bladerunner!
5) Work with Mike Judge to develop some new original concepts.
Defiant1I bolded your quote in case the folks at Dark Horse read it: 1) Re: Avatar - Avatar comics would be epic under the DH brand. Maybe JMS's current work on their Terminator series this year would help bridge some communications with Cameron and DH on some comic developements. Cameron's name would be a bigger draw than Whedon's Buffy/Serenity titles in comics. I still want to see what Cameron had in mind for Terminator 3 and his Aliens 5 script too. 2) Defiant & Broadway characters <---- yes please this. Mike, please get on the phone with Shooter and let him oversee an imprint of these properties as an editor and not just as a head writer like last time. He will inject some excitement to the industry again like no other company has been able to do. Let Shooter build it and they will come. 3) A Forbidden Planet series would be fun to see. And that script treatment by Cameron and JMS that hasn't come out yet as a movie. I'd buy it. 4) They've said they have some communications with Ridley Scott's office regarding the Prometheus comics storylines coming out this year. I read Scott is a big fan of the Heavy Metal comics. He seems to be warming up to Dark Horse more lately lately. Bladerunner comics would be such an incredible property for comics. Especially to the leadup for the sequel. If you saw the Prometheus movie yet, there was alot (pretty much all) taken from one of the old Aliens comics from Dark Horse in 1999....almost scene by scene from the art panels too: www.darkhorse.com/Books/48-196/Aliens-Apocalypse---The-Destroying-Angels-TPB5) I wondered if Mike Judge was a comic fan. I would be all over comics from him too. Dark Horse needs to bury the miniseries format and variants. They need to start creating a title with longevity. They need to have a more serious attitude about the quality of the art. Mignola's work sucks. Defiant1 |
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Post by vikingspawn on Jan 4, 2014 13:27:51 GMT -5
I still remember the exagerrated bad inking of those books. I thought they were getting their act together with the Solar #0 pages but it was already too late and they puled the plug on the line. That bad inking was something that existed even with the 2009 Aliens/Predator round of books the previous year. Which then bled over to the Shooter line the following year. It's frustrating to see as a fan because that was never in the Star Wars books they've produced. Now they have to scramble now with yesterday's news.
They have about year left to go with the Star Wars line to plan on replacements for 2015. I don't think Buffy and Serenity is enough for them. They seriously should call in Jim Shooter to head up a new imprint.
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 4, 2014 16:16:05 GMT -5
I still remember the exagerrated bad inking of those books. I thought they were getting their act together with the Solar #0 pages but it was already too late and they puled the plug on the line. That bad inking was something that existed even with the 2009 Aliens/Predator round of books the previous year. Which then bled over to the Shooter line the following year. It's frustrating to see as a fan because that was never in the Star Wars books they've produced. Now they have to scramble now with yesterday's news. They have about year left to go with the Star Wars line to plan on replacements for 2015. I don't think Buffy and Serenity is enough for them. They seriously should call in Jim Shooter to head up a new imprint. I took a quick glimpse of X#1 and another book of theirs. Both looked like crap. Didn't waste time reading any dialogue. Defiant1 |
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Post by vikingspawn on Jan 4, 2014 16:16:38 GMT -5
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 4, 2014 19:27:35 GMT -5
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Post by gowaltrip on Jan 6, 2014 0:41:21 GMT -5
This was inevitable. I noticed awhile back that Dark Horse had a vampire theme going across various titles. Sometime after that Joss Whedon was signed to a contract by Marvel. I looked at the recent sales chart you linked to and did not see Buffy on the list or anything related to Whedon. I think Marvel is digging the grave for Dark Horse. By my estimation, Star Wars was the only thing making Dark Horse any profit. My suggestions would be to: 1) Acquire the rights to publish Cameron's Avatar if possible. We know two movies are in simultaneous development and Cameron's goal has been to have a licensing empire along the lines of what George Lucas had. Now would be the time to get a jump start. 2) Acquire the license to Broadway & Defiant on a test drive basis and appoint Jim Shooter to manage the line. Offer Jim a base salary with a lucrative deal if he can make the line profitable. 3) Acquire the rights to publish comics based upon Forbidden Planet and hire Strazynski to write it. The planet has a backstory wich could be explored. The alien race could still be alive on other planets, etc. 4) Bladerunner! 5) Work with Mike Judge to develop some new original concepts. Defiant1 Random thought. Do people actually still READ and/or think about Buffy??? For reals??? |
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 6, 2014 6:08:49 GMT -5
Random thought. Do people actually still READ and/or think about Buffy??? For reals??? Yes. Joss Whedon has a very loyal fan base. It's not the character Buffy as much as it is Joss Whedon's writing. Joss Whedon writes stories with confident and empowered women. This appeals to women more so than men. Many men still like his writing also. Defiant1 |
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Post by gowaltrip on Jan 7, 2014 0:35:06 GMT -5
Random thought. Do people actually still READ and/or think about Buffy??? For reals??? Yes. Joss Whedon has a very loyal fan base. It's not the character Buffy as much as it is Joss Whedon's writing. Joss Whedon writes stories with confident and empowered women. This appeals to women more so than men. Many men still like his writing also. Defiant1 Obviously I have to claim ignorance on both subjects which at this point is a bit embarrassing, but I'm almost totally out of the loop with anything new comics. Not 100% because I was buying quite a few new comics 2-5 years ago. But since then, hardly an issue. I don't think I ever picked up an issue of Buffy. I think I might have 1 or 2 by accident, but it's almost like someone else had it and I ended up with their comics somehow. I'm certainly familiar with the name Joss Whedon but I never followed him. And I knew losing Star Wars is a big blow to Dark Horse. They seem to be clinging to life lately. I was just taken back when hearing Buffy was STILL one of their best sellers. I always knew previously that they were. But I was rather surprised to see, what has it been 15 years now since the tv show came out? that it is still one of Dark Horse's best selling titles. Quite impressive when you think about it. I have to agree with what you said earlier about them needing to get out of the mini series game and stuff like that. It's hard to see Dark Horse and think of much of anything as a go to anymore, and it's not like they ever seemed to have a really strong presence. It just seems like that little bit they did have has been really drying up lately and now Dark Horse truly has become a Dark Horse. |
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 7, 2014 3:30:05 GMT -5
Yes. Joss Whedon has a very loyal fan base. It's not the character Buffy as much as it is Joss Whedon's writing. Joss Whedon writes stories with confident and empowered women. This appeals to women more so than men. Many men still like his writing also. Defiant1 Obviously I have to claim ignorance on both subjects which at this point is a bit embarrassing, but I'm almost totally out of the loop with anything new comics. Not 100% because I was buying quite a few new comics 2-5 years ago. But since then, hardly an issue. I don't think I ever picked up an issue of Buffy. I think I might have 1 or 2 by accident, but it's almost like someone else had it and I ended up with their comics somehow. I'm certainly familiar with the name Joss Whedon but I never followed him. And I knew losing Star Wars is a big blow to Dark Horse. They seem to be clinging to life lately. I was just taken back when hearing Buffy was STILL one of their best sellers. I always knew previously that they were. But I was rather surprised to see, what has it been 15 years now since the tv show came out? that it is still one of Dark Horse's best selling titles. Quite impressive when you think about it. I have to agree with what you said earlier about them needing to get out of the mini series game and stuff like that. It's hard to see Dark Horse and think of much of anything as a go to anymore, and it's not like they ever seemed to have a really strong presence. It just seems like that little bit they did have has been really drying up lately and now Dark Horse truly has become a Dark Horse. The Ever Underwhelming Dark Horse! For a company that has been around as long as them, they are quite forgettable. Defiant1 |
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Post by gowaltrip on Jan 7, 2014 12:00:06 GMT -5
That sums up Dark Horse perfectly.
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 7, 2014 20:50:17 GMT -5
Mike Fichardson REALLY looked depressed in that news footage. I think sometimes people lack the ability to step back and look at what they are doing objectively.. I think Dark Horse is so in the middle of the logistics, that they can't see the shortcomings of what they are releasing. I saw their X #1 at the comic book store this last weekend and the art was horrible. It looked like they were taking rough pencils, darkening them with photoshop and going with that instead of paying an inker. G, YOU are a better artist than what they publish.
Defiant1
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Post by gowaltrip on Jan 8, 2014 21:02:06 GMT -5
Wow! They must REALLY suck! LOL!
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 8, 2014 22:27:56 GMT -5
Wow! They must REALLY suck! LOL! You were improving at an incredible rate. Defiant1 |
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Post by vikingspawn on Jan 9, 2014 16:32:33 GMT -5
It's frustrating to see the smudgy inking job they do to some of those books. It's not even present in much of the other books which I don't understand since they're such seasoned creators who have been in the game for so long...why pass that as comic art in their books? It would be better if they just printed them as black and white sketches instead. Maybe they're influenced by the Mignola art style. That blotchy computer inking effect has got to go. That plagued the gold key line and the Aliens 2009 relaunch a year before that. I just saw a pretty good documentary about Drew Struzan. Movie studios now prefer photoshopped computer poster art over painted art: |
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 9, 2014 19:56:28 GMT -5
It's frustrating to see the smudgy inking job they do to some of those books. It's not even present in much of the other books which I don't understand since they're such seasoned creators who have been in the game for so long...why pass that as comic art in their books? It would be better if they just printed them as black and white sketches instead. Maybe they're influenced by the Mignola art style. That blotchy computer inking effect has got to go. That plagued the gold key line and the Aliens 2009 relaunch a year before that. I just saw a pretty good documentary about Drew Struzan. Movie studios now prefer photoshopped computer poster art over painted art: I think they are just desperate to reduce costs on the poorer selling properties. Below a certain volume, the titles just aren't going to make money. Computers are powerful enough now to get better resolution than an an old Kodak photograph. My problem with computer art is the digital processing makes it all inorganic. It starts looking alike because the same math and digital filters are processing everything. Defiant1 |
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Post by gowaltrip on Jan 14, 2014 21:53:45 GMT -5
Thats a great way to describe digital coloring. A lot of it does look the same and gives an almost plastic feel to it. Its rare I open a comic and feel like they did a good job and often when i do, they muted the colors. All too often digital colors are too bright and blinding sometimes to the point of being annoying. It feels like digital coloring needs a upgrade or overhaul to incorporate a more human element to coloring so we can make the truly greats into stars and know who they are because right now it feels like 2 or 3 people are coloring all of comics.
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Post by Defiant1 on Jan 15, 2014 4:18:35 GMT -5
Thats a great way to describe digital coloring. A lot of it does look the same and gives an almost plastic feel to it. Its rare I open a comic and feel like they did a good job and often when i do, they muted the colors. All too often digital colors are too bright and blinding sometimes to the point of being annoying. It feels like digital coloring needs a upgrade or overhaul to incorporate a more human element to coloring so we can make the truly greats into stars and know who they are because right now it feels like 2 or 3 people are coloring all of comics. The digital filters apply math to calculate what each pixel should be. We don't have a way to make the math complicated enough to simulate the randomness of real life. They can simulate a brush tool in photoshop having the texture of wood, but it will never simulate painting over real wood, the pitted areas that have to be repainted, etc. It would be like taking every thing you say in a day and having it dubbed with an announcer's voice. The voice doesn't match the face and everyone else has the same voice also. After awhile, you miss the diversity of everyone having their own voice. At least I would. To some degree Charltons all looked alike, EC's looked alike, and Marvel looked alike because they had different production methods and styles. Dell had painted covers while other didn't. In the end, there was variety. Now you can go from one publisher to the next and it all looks alike. Defiant1 |
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Post by verloc on Jan 19, 2014 16:08:41 GMT -5
This was inevitable. I noticed awhile back that Dark Horse had a vampire theme going across various titles. Sometime after that Joss Whedon was signed to a contract by Marvel. I looked at the recent sales chart you linked to and did not see Buffy on the list or anything related to Whedon. I think Marvel is digging the grave for Dark Horse. By my estimation, Star Wars was the only thing making Dark Horse any profit. My suggestions would be to:
1) Acquire the rights to publish Cameron's Avatar if possible. We know two movies are in simultaneous development and Cameron's goal has been to have a licensing empire along the lines of what George Lucas had. Now would be the time to get a jump start.
2) Acquire the license to Broadway & Defiant on a test drive basis and appoint Jim Shooter to manage the line. Offer Jim a base salary with a lucrative deal if he can make the line profitable.
3) Acquire the rights to publish comics based upon Forbidden Planet and hire Strazynski to write it. The planet has a backstory wich could be explored. The alien race could still be alive on other planets, etc.
4) Bladerunner!
5) Work with Mike Judge to develop some new original concepts.
Defiant1I bolded your quote in case the folks at Dark Horse read it: 1) Re: Avatar - Avatar comics would be epic under the DH brand. Maybe JMS's current work on their Terminator series this year would help bridge some communications with Cameron and DH on some comic developements. Cameron's name would be a bigger draw than Whedon's Buffy/Serenity titles in comics. I still want to see what Cameron had in mind for Terminator 3 and his Aliens 5 script too. 2) Defiant & Broadway characters <---- yes please this.
Mike, please get on the phone with Shooter and let him oversee an imprint of these properties as an editor and not just as a head writer like last time. He will inject some excitement to the industry again like no other company has been able to do. Let Shooter build it and they will come. 3) A Forbidden Planet series would be fun to see. And that script treatment by Cameron and JMS that hasn't come out yet as a movie. I'd buy it. 4) They've said they have some communications with Ridley Scott's office regarding the Prometheus comics storylines coming out this year. I read Scott is a big fan of the Heavy Metal comics. He seems to be warming up to Dark Horse more lately lately. Bladerunner comics would be such an incredible property for comics. Especially to the leadup for the sequel. If you saw the Prometheus movie yet, there was alot (pretty much all) taken from one of the old Aliens comics from Dark Horse in 1999....almost scene by scene from the art panels too: www.darkhorse.com/Books/48-196/Aliens-Apocalypse---The-Destroying-Angels-TPB5) I wondered if Mike Judge was a comic fan. I would be all over comics from him too. I like #2. |
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