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Post by riptide on Apr 14, 2004 22:06:50 GMT -5
I'm a 42 year old banker, that just got back into comics after a 5-7 year hiatus (due to a divorce). Anyway, I pretty much know the story concerning Shooter & Valiant. But what happened with Defiant??? And please take this a little further, what happened to Broadway??? Everything that I have gone back and picked up and read is basically a quality product with great storytelling and art. Since I'm a Shooter fan from his LSH days at DC, I feel that Shooter and Co. seemed to be really rolling, particularly in Dark Dominion and later in Powers That Be/Star Seed. I cannot believe that it was due to the lack of sales, but I may be wrong. Please someone (Defiant1), tell me what REALLY happened.
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Post by Defiant1 on Apr 15, 2004 1:45:50 GMT -5
I'm a 42 year old banker, that just got back into comics after a 5-7 year hiatus (due to a divorce). Anyway, I pretty much know the story concerning Shooter & Valiant. But what happened with Defiant??? And please take this a little further, what happened to Broadway??? Everything that I have gone back and picked up and read is basically a quality product with great storytelling and art. Since I'm a Shooter fan from his LSH days at DC, I feel that Shooter and Co. seemed to be really rolling, particularly in Dark Dominion and later in Powers That Be/Star Seed. I cannot believe that it was due to the lack of sales, but I may be wrong. Please someone (Defiant1), tell me what REALLY happened. Whew... the dynamics of what happened (in my opinion) are uncanny. I can only give my opinion, but I'm basing it on facts that could be gathered elsewhere. When Shooter and Co. were ousted from Valiant, it had created it's own undeniable inertia. The Wizard Price Guide and speculators were all over anything related to Valiant and Jim Shooter was riding that wave. When his wave crashed and there was an influx of new readers, all they knew was that Valiant had been a safe bet on investing and it was some of the best comics available. Little did they know that the driving force that held it all together was gone. Immediately you have two groups of people. 1) the people who felt Jim Shooter's name was gold and anything that he touched would turn to gold, and 2) the people who had no idea who Jim was or why his contribution was critical. Comics were big, so finding investors did not take long. The River Group stepped up to finance and like any business venture, they wanted payoff. They knew it was a big investment, but the numbers and sales at Valiant made it look like a very good investment for them. Besides the investors having confidence in Jim Shooter, his competitors had an equal amount of uneasy confidence that he could really stab into their market share... the biggest thorn for Defiant was Marvel. Marvel had the most to lose. Valiant may not have cared about Defiant too deeply, there is no way to know, but one thing is obvious... they steered virtually every plotline in a new direction and that direction deviated from everything that Jim Shooter had created. What does that leave you? 1) It leaves thousands upon thousands of new readers who couldn't afford Jim Shooter's pre-unity work buying comics that they associated with his name. Jim Shooter's name was like a brand name for Valiant. His name had been in all the articles, the early editorials etc. Fans bought the non-Shooter comics and many associated his name with the poor quality issues that came out after he was ousted. Asa result, many naive collectors began to have no confidence in his name. It is still common to see ebay ads with Jim Shooter's name tied to Valiant comics that had nothing to do with him. 2) It left Marvel with a bunch of worries. Marvel used it's financial resources to do whatever it could to stop Jim Shooter from being the thorn in their side and winning their customers from them. The Defiant lawsuit was not a new grudge between Shooter and Marvel, but it occurred at a VERY bad time. 3) It left the River Group doing whatever they could to get as many sales as possible using whatever questionable or unwise marketing tactic they could devise. In a memo I posted recently, The River Group blames their inability "to control the creative process". There were clearly adversarial differences. Okay... that's just Part of the setup, some necessary background. I'll try to dig now into the play by play. Some of the things I say may be out of order. First, the River Group releases Plasm #0. Defiant could not have had any accurate idea of how many they would sell. Jim & Co had struggled through some tough times at Valiant and that was probably what they expected as far as sales go for their new company. They probably solicited the Plasm #0 binder as a limited item thinking their announced numbers were close to what orders would be. Limiting the production of a product is used as an incentive to charge more for the product or to stimulate sales by prodding the emotions into believing "I'd better buy now or I'll miss out". The orders were so high on the binders that distributors sold out instantly. The price was through the roof the day it came out and some people got only 30% of their orders or none. I saw one distributor selling the binders for triple the suggested retail price at a convention when his retail customers were shorted entirely... they got none from him. Defiant immediately alienated and made angry about 65% of the customers that would have stuck withe Defiant through thick and thin. Some stayed, some didn't. On top of that, the level 2 chase cards were so difficult to find and so expensive that some collectors abandoned the idea of owning a complete set of the cards. As time went by, they released more cards than the binder would hold... so there was never a set way the binder was to look. For comic collectors that pride themselves on completeness, reaching that was impossible. On another front, The River Group released Jim Shooter's resume as part of their press releases. Jim Shooter had a lot of disgruntled former employees from his Marvel days. It is impossible to explain all the dynamics of a person's career in a one page resume. Many details are ommitted and they should be omitted. The creative community and the trade magazines immediately attacked each and every credential Jim Shooter had in his resume and they did it publicly. The critics ignored the fact that a supervisor is ultimately responsible for the successes and failures of the employees he directs. Shooter was not wrong for hyping his role in creator rights or Graphic novels... because he ultimately made the decisons which made them possible. His critics disputed that and basically some well respected people in the industry resorted to name calling and insults. This alienated another group of potential readers. Warriors of Plasm #1 came out. Speculator frenzy was at it's highest and so was retailer competition. The day Plasm #1 came out, the supply was so high and the competition was so fierce that I bought 10 copies at 55% off cover price. The retailer had paid 52% off cover price. He sold them to me for a loss just to keep a customer base and get some of his money back. He had a competitor that constantly sold her comics at 45% off and he could not pay rent on his store and compete with convention dealers who had no overhead. Retailers felt betrayed and alienated. Many retailers were so frustrated with their overstock that ANY new company was just another place for them to lose money. As you see from above, the quality of the story at this point has nothing to do with why the customers and retailers were annoyed. This is where Marvel hurt them. The Jim Shooter fans had been reading perhaps the best work of Jim's entire career when they read his work at Valiant. The talent involved, the experience, the arguments unseen by the fans... they had one undeniable affect on Valiant... high quality. Defiant had to reach a bar and it had to reach it fast. Fast is not how Jim Shooter's stories win the reader. Jim's stories evolve. They gain a life of their own. You can't rush it. They unfold. His stories need to incubate until the reader can grasp the larger scope. Nobody wanted that at the time. They all wanted comics to make them money fast. It wasn't going to happen fast and it didn't happen. The stories were still unhatched, still waitiing to blossom. Jim Shooter was the one who orchestrated the details which led to quality, but you can't do that from a courtroom. The Marvel lawsuit occupied his thoughts and time when his creative input was needed the most. Defiant was left with some very capable creators trying to do what they thought Jim would do if he were there. Unfortunately, the early books that came out (except Plasm) were plagued with quality problems. Key plot threads were not played up and uninspiring plot ideas were played up. Defiant's comics did not hit a stride until the lawsuit was over. By that time, sales had dropped drastically. More to come....
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Post by nighthawk on Apr 17, 2004 15:01:52 GMT -5
There were a LOT of creative folks out there who were really hating on Jim Shooter at the time. Much of it was in print also, which didn't help Defiant at all. I would definitely say that the company did not fail because of lack of company/product promotion. Marvel was the biggest hit. From my understanding, Marvel didn't exactly "win" the lawsuit they filed against Defiant, but they achieved what they actually set out to do, which was to severely hurt them financially. Some creative juggling within the company didn't help, either, but I don't believe that was a huge factor. When Valiant pulled away from the "Shooter-type" of stories, I think that actually would have helped Defiant some. Shooter also refused to do enhanced covers, which was kind of the "cool thing" at the time, but only for those who could afford the books. I don't know if that was a good thing, or a bad one. There was a published rumor (in an article in CVM, July 1994 I believe) accusing Shooter of being very "anti-female" in terms of creativity. That was quickly disputed in a letter to CVM by Janet Jackson. A woman named Kathyrn Bollinger claimed she had to slide her inking submissions past Jim Shooter (at Valiant), and make them look like "outside submissions" because having a female's name on a book would hurt sales. Janet Jackson denied that it ever occurred, then affirmed that Jim Shooter is not anti-female at all. This article, the follow-up letter by Janet Jackson, and another (very nasty) article that was published in the Sept. issue of the Comics Journal seemed to be the finishing touches to the already struggling company. The Journal even promoted the article on one of the two-sided covers of that particular issue, referring to Shooter as "Our Little Nixon". These three articles/letters were published during the last few months of Defiant's run of books, but I don't know how large of an impact they actually had on the company by that time.
I attended the Chicago ComiCon (now WizardCon), and spoke with Shooter briefly in the summer of '94. At the time I was trying to find either promo cards for the Good Guys series, or information about an actual set (I didn't know until Defiant1 clued me in to how the get them recently). His response was that he didn't know anything about them, and that he knew absolutely nothing about how, when, and what the River Group had released, or was releasing still. I appreciated his honesty, and at the same time found it odd that the River Group was pretty much doing what they wanted to with little or no input from him. I think people were, at the very least disconcerted by the way the card products were being released. I think at least one of the card sets were promoted without promo cards, when it actually had promo cards, etc. As far as Broadway Comics, I'm not really sure. I bought some of them, but not as religously as I did the Defiant titles. I was hoping that the Defiant characters would be featured in the Broadway titles, but that was impossible because of copyright issues (Defiant characters were owned by someone else).
I think many factors played into the end of Defiant, and probably Broadway Comics. Marvel, enemies of Jim Shooter with vendettas, the River Group, creative juggling, and probably even Shooter's bitterness toward Valiant. I don't know, it sounds like he was justified in being bitter. Anyway, that's my lengthy two cents.
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Post by Todd Luck on Apr 26, 2004 19:53:59 GMT -5
I know I'm a little slow here but I'm just now reading this thread. Both these posts were very informative. Defiant1 put in a very good nutshell. But you have to remember almost EVERY comic company other than Image and Valiant that started up in the 90's crashed within it's first few years and the rest like Valiant died shortly there after. Even big companies that were trying to start up new lines of characters (DC, Marvel, Dark Horse) found ALL their efforts going down in flames. Of the hundreds of characters introduced in the boom during the 90's only Static, Spawn, Hellboy, and maybe the 90's Ghost Rider are still being used any form that I know of. There was lots of bad stuff put out then but their was a lot of good stuff like Defiant that got dragged down with it. It was a rough time.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had copies of the articles discussed in this thead or knows were they can be found. I'm especially curious to see the Shooter resume I have heard so much about.
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Post by Defiant1 on Apr 26, 2004 21:40:36 GMT -5
I know I'm a little slow here but I'm just now reading this thread. Both these posts were very informative. Defiant1 put in a very good nutshell. But you have to remember almost EVERY comic company other than Image and Valiant that started up in the 90's crashed within it's first few years and the rest like Valiant died shortly there after. Even big companies that were trying to start up new lines of characters (DC, Marvel, Dark Horse) found ALL their efforts going down in flames. Of the hundreds of characters introduced in the boom during the 90's only Static, Spawn, Hellboy, and maybe the 90's Ghost Rider are still being used any form that I know of. There was lots of bad stuff put out then but their was a lot of good stuff like Defiant that got dragged down with it. It was a rough time. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had copies of the articles discussed in this thead or knows were they can be found. I'm especially curious to see the Shooter resume I have heard so much about. The "resume" was dispersed by means of press releases and ads from the River Group. I have not yet uncovered examples of this, but in time I expect to locate some examples. The best places to read about the aftermath of this was the Comic Buyers Guide(CBG) or their sister publication Comics Retailer. Perhaps I should be unbiased about industry publications, but these two I particularly abhor due to their slanted journalism and their tendency to harbor a clique of creators that stroke their own egos and pat themselves on the back. When Defiant was starting out, those two publications loved to milk their letter pages for any controversial letters they could get. Jim Shooter does have enemies. He does have critics. People were vocal about it. Despite that, he has extracted some of the best abilities out of his creators and he nurtured along some of the best creators in the business today. Here is a newsgroup thread that predates what I remember... Google LinkThe CBG took joy at slamming Defiant and reaping the rewards of higher sales for doing so. Defiant1
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Post by Defiant1 on Apr 26, 2004 22:15:40 GMT -5
I'd like to add that most of what his critics in the CGB were complaining about boils down to semantics, not the facts.
An example:
In so many words Jim Shooter took credit for the success of the Graphic Novel. Week long debates raged in the CBG about what the first graphic novel was and people were outraged that Jim Shooter would say he had anything to do with the first graphic novel.
Common sense on the other hand should rule. What was the largest publisher at the time? Marvel. Clearly what Marvel did influenced all comic buyers. Jim Shooter's critics were trying to give credit to some really obscure publications from some small publishers that had NO impact on the market. What Jim Shooter did do is put the clout of the largest publisher behind the graphic novel and legitimize it as a valid art form for expression. Again, this is semantics.
How is Jim Shooter supposed to defend his short resume without writing an essay on each point? He can't... and he should not have to. If anything he was too humble about the criticism. He had been in a position of authority and great influence at Marvel and in my opinion he should have responded from the same point of view.
Another thing...I'd say that series of letters in the CBG is what caused Frank Milller to have a problem with Jim Shooter. Jim basically described how he helped Frank Miller get his start and Frank Miller was so shamed by the aparent facts being made public that there have never been kind words since.
As far as I'm concerned, Frank Miller would be nobody without Jim Shooter's help. His shot working for Marvel made him. Frank Miller has a keen eye for some exceptional layouts, but only the inking of Klaus Janson ever gave his work any clout.
Defiant1
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Post by Todd Luck on Apr 27, 2004 8:09:57 GMT -5
Yeah I remember someone in Next Men letter column asking Byrne if he was going to do anything for Defiant, since they seemed like a company putting out good product that deserved help. Byrne said the reader must not have seen the last issue of CBG. It might as well have been the "th resume heard around the industry" for poor Defiant. Releasing anyone's resume is just plan stupid and River Group's PR people should have known better. The venom that Miller spewed towards Shooter was about Shooter helping out on creator rights and Miller made a joke calling Shooter "Dou Damsel". Miller printed the whole speech in the back of a Sin City comic (the last issue of either Dame to Kill For or Big Fat Kill, pretty sure it's the former). It's so odd because in all his interviews about starting Defiant, Shooter would typically used Miller as a positive example about the comic industry (Lapham reminds me of Miller, comics are an interactive media because fans can just write Miller about Sin City, ect) and of course did the Unity covers back at Valiant, Shooter actually took space in his monthly editoral to address the speech. Shooter actually spent AT LEAST four monthes of editorals answering rumors about his personal misconduct and rumors that his company no longer is publishing. I swear to God, starting with the second month of publishing, there was a new rumor Defiant was going down every month. My comic shop owner (who didn't like Shooter) actually helped spread those rumors to his customers even though he ordered all the Defiant comics. Does anyone know who that creator was that applied for a job at Defiant, got turned down or walked away, and then wrote an editoral bashing them a month or so later?. Shooter mentioned it in one of his editorals and, in true Shooter style, had enough class not to call him out by name.
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Post by Defiant1 on Apr 27, 2004 21:53:48 GMT -5
Yeah I remember someone in Next Men letter column asking Byrne if he was going to do anything for Defiant, since they seemed like a company putting out good product that deserved help. Byrne said the reader must not have seen the last issue of CBG. It might as well have been the "th resume heard around the industry" for poor Defiant. Releasing anyone's resume is just plan stupid and River Group's PR people should have known better. The venom that Miller spewed towards Shooter was about Shooter helping out on creator rights and Miller made a joke calling Shooter "Dou Damsel". Miller printed the whole speech in the back of a Sin City comic (the last issue of either Dame to Kill For or Big Fat Kill, pretty sure it's the former). It's so odd because in all his interviews about starting Defiant, Shooter would typically used Miller as a positive example about the comic industry (Lapham reminds me of Miller, comics are an interactive media because fans can just write Miller about Sin City, ect) and of course did the Unity covers back at Valiant, Shooter actually took space in his monthly editoral to address the speech. Shooter actually spent AT LEAST four monthes of editorals answering rumors about his personal misconduct and rumors that his company no longer is publishing. I swear to God, starting with the second month of publishing, there was a new rumor Defiant was going down every month. My comic shop owner (who didn't like Shooter) actually helped spread those rumors to his customers even though he ordered all the Defiant comics. Does anyone know who that creator was that applied for a job at Defiant, got turned down or walked away, and then wrote an editoral bashing them a month or so later?. Shooter mentioned it in one of his editorals and, in true Shooter style, had enough class not to call him out by name. That faintly rings a bell, but I never gave it a second thought. One thing that becomes quite clear is that the comics industry is very small. You don't have 6 degrees of seperation, it's more like 3 or less. Everyone knows everyone else. The only loyalty in comics seems to be loyalty to a paycheck. Is it inconceivable that a creator would look for a project that he could call the shots and know that a steady income would be there? No. Is it inconceivable that an artist might feel great shame if his talents were rejected? Of course not. I posed a question similar to this to a former Valiant employee.... How do you know your last freelancer wasn't a spy taking your company's ideas and reworking them for the competition. The answer was "What can you do?" Compiling this site, and talking to people, I've heard both good and bad things about Jim Shooter. I've literally heard both sides of the spectrum. Some praise him, some really criticize him horribly. Some just shrug their shoulders and couldn't figure out why he was so stubborn about certain creative guidelines. They can even laugh about it in retrospect, but they probably weren't laughing when he was rejecting their work. One thing I've learned in life is that when you have two very strong and differing opinions, the truth is rarely at the extremes. It's usually somewhere in the middle. Here are some comments that have been said about Jim Shooter. I won't name any names. One person said "If you work for Jim Shooter, you do it his way, and you need to know that up front. " In about 85% of the occupations one chooses in life, that is ALWAYS the case. You are paid to do what the boss asks you to do. If you aren't doing what the boss asks you to do, you better be darn clever and know how he thinks well enough to come up with an even better idea that will make him happy. One person had me laughing and said Jim Shooter would look at an 8 panel art grid and say "Let's not do that". Why was that funny to us? A very large criticism about Jim is his belief in the 9 panel art grid. I'd heard this criticism from local comic fans 10 years ago so this complaint against Jim has been around for years. I don't think any amount of justification for a 9 panel grid will ever please an artist and I don't think it will please art collectors either. A nine panel grid is conducive to telling a story, not expressing one's self with art. Artists like big splash pages that show off the intricacies of their work and they like to draw pages that will have a high resale value to art collectors. I probably own over a hundred pages of art from Defiant and Broadway and I can honestly say, each and every one of them is tough to sell as a single page. I bought them in bulk because their value is in the series of events, not the illustrations themselves. Each page is so inextricably linked to the story, that if you aren't familiar with the story, the pages have little meaning. Some of the best artist in the industry apologize for the art that they did for Jim. As one artist said "Usually my work is more dynamic". If you work off the assumption that Jim will be at odds with MOST established artists, then who is right? Probably neither. Jim Shooter and Neal Adam evidently have such an opposite take on making comics that we may never see their work combined on a project. On the other hand, I will buy ANY Neal Adam comic for the art and I'll buy just about any comic from a creator worthy enough to have worked for Neal Adams at Continuity. Texiera, Bennett, the list of top notch artist that worked for Adams or were inspired by Adams is endless... I think Jim Shooter's reluctance to compromise on a 9 panel grid can deprive comic fans of a work that transcends even the top notch work great artists in the past. By the same token, I think some darn good artists need to learn a great deal more about storytelling from Jim. One Defiant inker online criticized Jim's management style saying Jim would rather have someone redo art and turn in a rushed piece rather than let someone deviate from his format. As an outsider, I suspect that isn't true. I think Jim would rather have an employee do what he was asked rather than undermine plot mechanisms that were built into the script. Gossip seems to imply that preunity Valiant was a creative war zone. Some very experienced creators were all pitted against each other. Each had their own vision, but each had to compromise aspects of their own vision in order to get along. Each internal battle they waged did make the product better. After the dust settled though, and Jim Shooter was gone, it became wevident that Jim's contribution was one of the most critical elements. He brought extremely tight continuity and and well structured stories that evolved and had a life of their own. In some cases....like when Jim had to rewrite the continuity between X-O and Shadowman .... his rewrites took the continuity to new levels and he probably would not have included that much depth to the story on his own. Jim's inconvenience became the reader's delight. We only saw the intricacies added to they story... the continuity, not the hours spent redoing and "fixing". In closing, I'll change the subject for a moment. Nylon is a fascinating plastic. When drawn into thread it can make fabrics used in a lot of diverse applications. I saw a teacher make Nylon in one of my classes when I was real young. The teacher poured one liquid into a glass. Then the teacher took another liquid and poured it on top of the first liquid. The heavier liquid stayed on the bottom, the lighter liquid floated and stayed on top. It looked like nothing was happening. At least I thought nothing was happening. The teacher then stuck a pencil or some kind of stick into the glass. When the teacher pulled it out there was a stringy goo sticking to the wood. The teacher explained that where the one liquid sat on top of the other, they were reacting. They were making this wonderfully useful substance called Nylon. He pulled the strngy goo out and twisted the stick. It kept coming out as he twisted the stick and rolled it up. The chemicals kept reacting. Onece they started, it was just a matter of drawing it out I think Jim Shooter is that way with other talented creators. Their styles don't have to mix, but if you put him with someone talented, you get a product that is greater and more useful that what either do on their own. I'd like to see Jim work with Neal Adams. Not because either would agree with how to make comics. I'd like to see them work together because they wouldn't agree. I think they'd make something better than either could do on their own. Defiant1
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Post by nighthawk on Apr 27, 2004 23:38:47 GMT -5
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had copies of the articles discussed in this thead or knows were they can be found. I'm especially curious to see the Shooter resume I have heard so much about. I don't have, nor have I ever seen the Shooter resume. I have quite a few CBG's from around that time, but if I have it I'm not aware of it (and don't remember ever seeing it). I do have the issues of CVM (Comic Values Monthly) and the Sept. '94 issue of the Comics Journal with the extremely long, and not very complimentary article about Jim Shooter. I think the particular issue of CVM with the letter is dated July '94. The Comics Journal article seemed to just be "after fodder" since it wasn't released until Defiant was pretty much finished. The issue may have been released before Defiant's last solicitations (in the distribution catalogs), but I don't think it had been out very long before Defiant shut down. It may not have had a large impact itself, but it was not a nice article. I agree with Defiant1. I believe it was really numerous factors that affected Defiant, I don't believe it was just one thing. I wonder myself how much the dark cloud of Valiant even affected the company. I'm sure it didn't help. I tend to believe the overwhelming controversy (from other people who didn't like Shooter for various reasons), Valiant's continued existence (fan's attachments to Valiant titles even after Shooter was gone), and Marvel's pathetic lawsuit did the most damage. None of the other numerous incidents helped, either. This is just a hypothetical thought, but if I were a huge Harbinger fan (I don't know how Shooter affected that particular book, but say he did), and I knew Shooter started a different company, would I give up the book I loved so much and immediately switch to another book with another company? Probably not. If I had liked a Valiant book so avidly, I wouldn't dump it right off the bat. I liked the Defiant titles myself, and when Defiant shut down, then Broadway came along, the main reason I bought Broadway (in the beginning) was because I thought I might see Defiant characters show up in those books. I'm sure many fans were apprehensive to buy Defiant books if they had attachments to Valiant books. Shooter talked a lot in interviews (in magazines at the time) about what happened at Valiant when he was there, but I don't think that was enough to get fans to switch. I'm not referring to all fans, just fans who would feel the need to either stay on one ship, or jump to another. And I think that would be quite a few fans. I don't know. It's just another theory.
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Post by Defiant1 on Apr 28, 2004 3:39:14 GMT -5
I'm sure many fans were apprehensive to buy Defiant books if they had attachments to Valiant books. Shooter talked a lot in interviews (in magazines at the time) about what happened at Valiant when he was there, but I don't think that was enough to get fans to switch. I'm not referring to all fans, just fans who would feel the need to either stay on one ship, or jump to another. And I think that would be quite a few fans. I don't know. It's just another theory. It's not so much that people wouldn't switch, it's just that public opinion is was what ruled. In 1994, buying comics was like investing in stock. If the advisors all said "this is hot", people bought it. If they said "don't trust these guys", people didn't. The advisors who crirticized the books the most never even took the time to read them. Even I bought Harbinger up until issue 26. When I saw the change in #26, that was when I dropped it, even though nothing exciting happened after Shooter left. DF!
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Post by Todd Luck on Apr 28, 2004 15:57:54 GMT -5
Yes their were investors but I didn't really know any. the people I know who ordered boxes worth of multiple copies of "hot" comics were comic shop owners. there's one in my area that still gives away a Valiant comic with every purchase just to get rid of his overstock.
But investors were only one factor in the crash of the 90's. Remember that there were more than enough readers to keep the whole industry going. I know tons of people in my high school who started reading comics in the 90's. Image, Superman, and Batman had gotten a lot of press that was drawing in tons of people that hadn't touched a comic in awhile. Most of these people either left or drastically reduced how many comics they got (ah, I remember a time when I could afford more than 5 comics a month...). Part of it was greatly increased cover prices, a market saturated with too much stuff (drowning out a lot of good comics), creators and titles people liked either being canceled or revamped out of existance, and just plain bad product from a lot of companies. Defiant was a victim of all the above.
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Post by Defiant1 on Apr 28, 2004 19:02:47 GMT -5
Yes their were investors but I didn't really know any. the people I know who ordered boxes worth of multiple copies of "hot" comics were comic shop owners. there's one in my area that still gives away a Valiant comic with every purchase just to get rid of his overstock. But investors were only one factor in the crash of the 90's. Remember that there were more than enough readers to keep the whole industry going. I know tons of people in my high school who started reading comics in the 90's. Image, Superman, and Batman had gotten a lot of press that was drawing in tons of people that hadn't touched a comic in awhile. Most of these people either left or drastically reduced how many comics they got (ah, I remember a time when I could afford more than 5 comics a month...). Part of it was greatly increased cover prices, a market saturated with too much stuff (drowning out a lot of good comics), creators and titles people liked either being canceled or revamped out of existance, and just plain bad product from a lot of companies. Defiant was a victim of all the above. Well, some of this rambling I posted on Comicon.com. Like the stock market, everyone is an investor to some degree. One purchase is like buying 1 share of stock. Creators like to envision that the numbers sold equal the number read. That is not the case and it never will be the case. I'd be willing to bet that Pareto's Principle is a far better representation of what happens. I'd be willing to bet that a mere 20% of the people buying comics are the readers that shape the market trends for the remaining 80%. Before I get off track with what you said.... you don't believe there were investors. There were. The week Turok #1 came out, a retailer friend said "Our Comic order is huge this week, you have a truck, would you mind helping to haul it from the diamond warehouse." I'd done that favor for several other stores in the past and I always thought it was fun seeing the new comics on the dock at the local warehouse. That day I helped load 6,000 copies of Turok #1 onto my truck and That was just one title that week and it was going to one store. That store had I'd bet over 5500 presold. To who? Speculators, Investors, Sports Card Dealers, Small book stores, Toy dealers, Convention dealers (which I call weekend warriors).... you name it. The stores could subdistribute bulk quantities to people who wouldn't buy enough on a regular basis to justify getting their own wholesale account, but they would order enough to knock a store into a higher discount bracket with Diamond. Why settle for a 45% discount when you can sell to a few sports card dealers at 35% off and bump your regular discount with Diamond up to 52.5%? There was no risk for the stores. They made a quick turnaround on their iinvestment just by picking up comics every week. All those 2nd tier retailers were investors. They gambled that a sport card collector would buy comics. The convention dealers gambled that they could sell comics out of the back seat of their car to the neighbor's kids. All the investors were salesmen and they were the best salesmen that a publisher could ever get. But investors were only one factor in the crash of the 90's. Remember that there were more than enough readers to keep the whole industry going. I won't disagree with that, but Take 20% of the number you are thinking of and that is the number of readers that I believe had any impact on the market. The structure was a healthy structure for publishers. There were two distributors that could not afford to sell out and lose a wholesale accounts to their competitor. That means they both had to over-order. Thousand of extra copies of every title were over-ordered by distributors just so they could stay competitive. Capital City had a lot of retailers that had defaulted on Diamond, when they shut down... staying with Diamond wasn't an option. A large number of Capital City's customers were lost for good. I know tons of people in my high school who started reading comics in the 90's. Image, Superman, and Batman had gotten a lot of press that was drawing in tons of people that hadn't touched a comic in awhile. Convention dealers gave me a huge push back into comics back then. As I said, they were salesmen. They were sitting behind the counter whining all day about their customers.They were in people faces talking about how cool Spiderman and Batman are. They had a vested interest in hyping comics. It was their 2nd job.... their own business... their extra cash to invest in their hobby. Most of these people either left or drastically reduced how many comics they got (ah, I remember a time when I could afford more than 5 comics a month...). Part of it was greatly increased cover prices, a market saturated with too much stuff (drowning out a lot of good comics), creators and titles people liked either being canceled or revamped out of existance, and just plain bad product from a lot of companies. Yes they did leave, and if you ever strike a conversation with these people who left, they all think they were the only one. They were disillusioned. That sports card dealer told them Solar #21 would be an investment.... but it dropped in price the day after they bought it. Hmmm? They wasted money.... if they'd waited a day, they could buy their comics below the cost to publish them. My rule #1 about selling: if your customer has no problem waiting, they probably have no problem with the idea of not buying at all. Defiant was a victim of all the above. Defiant played the victim, because that is what they were told they would be. Defiant was going to lose some more money before the stories won over the fans. I have no doubt about that and I had no doubt that Defiant and Broadway were both going to turn around. The slump that Valiant had was the compressing of the spring that catapulted them into the history books. The investors never had enough confidence in Defiant and Broadway.... that is why they failed. Valiant did have other marketing concepts going for it. Magnus was familiar to a much older generation. The potential customer base started wide. The more people that recognize a charater, the better the odds of selling it. Defiant1
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Post by Todd Luck on Apr 29, 2004 8:11:59 GMT -5
I said that there were investors, a lot of them. There was also comic shops ordering for investors as you described, but the many of the ones in my area, and across the country, weren't as fortunate or wise as yours and didn't have all the speculators they had hoped for or were hoping it would be an investment for themselves when they ordered their thousands of copies of whatever was hot. Ofcourse these poor bastads tended to go out of business.
I'm not saying it was anywhere close to there being one reader per copy sold. Let's say that only 20% of the copies sold were to readers(though it's proably more). Turok #1 (a Valiant comic for God's sake!) sold a million copies, that's atleast 200,000 readers. If you ran the numbers I bet you would find enough readers to have sustained most of the top 100 maybe even 200 titles at the time even without multiple copies. Today, the highest selling comic of the year sold just over 200,000 copies. The industry would kill to have that 20% of the sales they drove off.
Everyone I know who stopped or cut back was disillisoned by the comics not their values. Not saying their weren't a lot people who weren't disillisioned by the falling values, there were. I'm just saying when you find every title you like canceled or revamped or every title you try with sucky art and story, eventually you're going to give up. If the industry had been able to engage the readers then we wouldn't have historically low comic sales right now. The industry had the public's attention in the 90's and it squandered it. The people backing Jim's companies weren't any different than the one's backing every company that started up at that time. They either got out when they found they weren't money as quickly as they hoped (most of them) or their company was making a profit and sold it before they could start losing money (Malibu and Valiant). It was a lot like the dot com boom and bust of the time. The internet's just now get over that God awful mess.
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Post by Defiant1 on Apr 29, 2004 13:20:04 GMT -5
I said that there were investors, a lot of them. I was trying to illustrate that the new retailers were the investors. The comic retailing business is run by people who think (or at one time thought) it is a cool hobby. It needs to be run by people who like the hobby. Fans want someone they can communicate with. The only problem is that too many retailers do not understand the basic of business management. There was also comic shops ordering for investors as you described, but the many of the ones in my area, and across the country, weren't as fortunate or wise as yours and didn't have all the speculators they had hoped for or were hoping it would be an investment for themselves when they ordered their thousands of copies of whatever was hot. Of course these poor bastards tended to go out of business. Comic fans will always roam. In order to buy pre-Unity Valiant, I had to roam to about 30 different stores. I've never been to one store that had everything I want. Each store has it's own flavor and that flavor is shaped around what the mangement likes. I used to roam about 20 miles from my home to buy Valiant at one store that would take the effort to restock. Most in the beginning wouldn't. I never had any intent on getting my new comic orders there. Retailers were stuck behind the counter and they didn't know why they saw some customers over and over. They just knew that new customers were walking in their doors. They saw each new face as an opportunity to increase their business. This is where the price wars started. At one time, because of my connections, I could get 45% off on new comics from about 6 different stores. Each store considered it a good thing to have me as a customer. The problem is that when customers roam, they don't know who is going to buy new books from them or not. One day they maight be the only one with Rai#0 and I'd buy 5. The next week I might have picked up 10 Turoks from someone else. If they'd anticipated...or just hoped to sell them to me, then they were stuck. Start multiplying people like me times 100 and you might get 8 or more stores crossing their fingers and hoping for a ten copy order. Only one store was going to get it. 8x10x100=8000. 8000x$2.25=$18,000. When your community starts making $18,000 worth of mistakes on one title... just by being optimistic or assertive.... or aggressive.... problems are going to happen. The problem was not that retailers didn't have the customer base or track record to justify the orders...they did. The problem was that everyone started trying to order for the same customers. Everyone's discounts were increasing as they ordered more, so they all thought they could get the customer the books cheaper and use that as leverage to win customers. Greed killed the industry. Greed at all levels. I'm not saying it was anywhere close to there being one reader per copy sold. Let's say that only 20% of the copies sold were to readers(though it's proably more). Turok #1 (a Valiant comic for God's sake!) sold a million copies, that's atleast 200,000 readers. If you ran the numbers I bet you would find enough readers to have sustained most of the top 100 maybe even 200 titles at the time even without multiple copies. Today, the highest selling comic of the year sold just over 200,000 copies. The industry would kill to have that 20% of the sales they drove off. Of course. I have always said that I'd love to have speculators back just so that some of the obscure comics I like could sell enough to exist. Everyone I know who stopped or cut back was disillisoned by the comics not their values. Too many collectors fall to peer pressure. Their opinion of comics is forever tied to what others think. If everyone was mocked for liking Superman, people would eventually quit buying it... even if you put the best writers on it. I created my site because I got tired of people who never read the comics telling the world what they are about. Not saying their weren't a lot people who weren't disillisioned by the falling values, there were. I'm just saying when you find every title you like canceled or revamped or every title you try with sucky art and story, eventually you're going to give up. I agree. The same hype permeated every title that was struggling to exist. The word "revamp" never had positive connotations to me. I found it to mean..."we didn't have any good ideas, so we are going to try new ways to screw it up even further" If the industry had been able to engage the readers then we wouldn't have historically low comic sales right now. The industry had the public's attention in the 90's and it squandered it. I agree, but that is because they seek the shallow customer. Good stories grow and evolve. They were too impatient for that. They wanted some magical stories that just sell well immediately yet have no depth or thought put into them. The people backing Jim's companies weren't any different than the one's backing every company that started up at that time. Probably not. One thing I've gathered through reading Jim's comments and also watching what happened to my friend who started an ISP. Venture capitalist only give you enough money to hang yourself. They get you to do all the work for them and then withold anymore cash. Just when you finally come close to fruition and sustained profit, that's when they pull the plug and say "you owe us too much, we want it back now". By that time you are so far indebted to them all you can do is bow out and relenquish your share of the company. I think the key to success would be if you could subcontract your own small company to whatever company you have financed with venture capital. That way you'd be paying yourself with their money and your upstart cash would be paving your road for you as much as them. That is probably extremely difficult to do. I'd assume they scrutinize every detail. They either got out when they found they weren't money as quickly as they hoped (most of them) or their company was making a profit and sold it before they could start losing money (Malibu and Valiant). It was a lot like the dot com boom and bust of the time. The internet's just now get over that God awful mess. The dot.com's did the same thing. Venture Capital playing it's hand. The successful services today loved to post losses in the beginning, but if you don't think some individuals got rich as the other companies went bust... you'd be deceiving yourself. Defiant1
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Post by GregBoone on May 20, 2004 23:18:29 GMT -5
Jeez, finally able to post something.
What really happened at Defiant is several things. Not just the venture capital but conflicts across the board. Yet the past is past.
Let it be a lesson to all by studying as you guys have.
As for 'venture capitalists' taking you for a ride, you have to understand that there is a standard procedure that venture capitalists have to follow so they can't pull out leaving you hanging. They can end up in big trouble if that occurs. If you're stupid enough to not follow procedure and you end up with flakey investors you deserve what you get.
Yet in the real world sometimes beggars can't be choosers so the trick is never to be 'the beggar'.
The key to a successful company is to choose the co-workers whose intention is to do the best job they can and have the mental stability to carry it through. No interfering with others, no ego-tripping.
Defiant had a great crew. Pollina, Lapham, myself all ended up with movie deals from what I gather from the press.
That's not bad for a small company to have 3 of it's headliners move on to better things. That's like either half or 1/3 of the main pencillers and I'm sure if I dug around I'd find that the other guys snagged some deals too.
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Post by pupoconflict on May 21, 2004 13:10:32 GMT -5
Defiant had a great crew. Pollina, Lapham, myself all ended up with movie deals from what I gather from the press. I believe Art Holcomb is co-owner/part of a studio, as well. Shooter could always pick talent. Boone--what's up with MONSTER POSSE? Pup
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Post by Todd Luck on May 21, 2004 19:01:34 GMT -5
Hey Mr Boone, you and David Lapham where my favorite Defiant artists! Was Defiant your first comic gig? What did you work on after Defiant?
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Post by pupoconflict on May 21, 2004 20:46:26 GMT -5
Hey Mr Boone, you and David Lapham where my favorite Defiant artists! Was Defiant your first comic gig? What did you work on after Defiant? Boone did 3 issues for Valiant/Acclaim (pencils on Timewalker #14, Bloodshot #46 and Bloodshot #49. He also wrote Bloodshot #49 and it's an amazing tale). He has published Monster Posse, which he also wrote and drew, Evol Baby and Miss Ma'am's Intergalactic Fried Chicken and Super Hero Club. Those are the ones that I know of... Pup
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Post by Defiant1 on May 21, 2004 21:23:47 GMT -5
Boone (snip) has published Monster Posse, which he also wrote and drew, Evol Baby and Miss Ma'am's Intergalactic Fried Chicken and Super Hero Club. Those are the ones that I know of... Pup Okay.... companies... credits... I need more details!! I overlooked adding Greg's previous works in my credits section. The section that I ~started~ on the 16th..... I know, I know...I'm running a Defiant site and I still haven't even compiled all the DEFIANT credits! Here's what I think is right so far, based on what you wrote... www.angelfire.com/comics/defiant/Creators/GBoone_Credits.htmlDefiant1
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Post by pupoconflict on May 21, 2004 22:01:34 GMT -5
Okay.... companies... credits... I need more details!! I overlooked adding Greg's previous works in my credits section. The section that I ~started~ on the 16th..... I know, I know...I'm running a Defiant site and I still haven't even compiled all the DEFIANT credits! Here's what I think is right so far, based on what you wrote... www.angelfire.com/comics/defiant/Creators/GBoone_Credits.htmlDefiant1 "Ma'am" is Boone's first published work and is self-published, as a result. Evol Baby is mentioned in your exclusive interview with Boone, as is his work on Tekno Comic's Neil Gaimen's Lady Justice and some of his upcomong projects. But far be it from me to cause you to develop an inferiority complex! Pup
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Post by nighthawk on May 22, 2004 22:45:16 GMT -5
Congrats to your successes, and a personal thanks for the time and great artwork you put into Good Guys. Out of all the Defiant titles, that was my favorite. It's too bad Defiant didn't make it further. I miss those books a great deal. The stories had a great flow to them, and the characters had such a real essence. The Defiant titles were the only few comics I read religiously. I still enjoy re-reading them. I should also add that out of all the comic companies that attend comic conventions, the Defiant staff (all of them) were the friendliest folks out of ALL of them. I've met some friendly creators the past couple of years, but most of them are..., well, you know . At any rate, the various factors that contributed to Defiant's shutting down still didn't prevent us from enjoying over a years worth of great books, and for that I'll always be glad. Maybe someday we will all see these characters again (I'll keep hoping so anyway).
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Post by Defiant1 on May 22, 2004 23:52:11 GMT -5
"Ma'am" is Boone's first published work and is self-published, as a result. Evol Baby is mentioned in your exclusive interview with Boone, as is his work on Tekno Comic's Neil Gaimen's Lady Justice and some of his upcomong projects. But far be it from me to cause you to develop an inferiority complex! Pup I feel so vulnerable now.... What I'm trying to do is stick to my format. I don't want to credit Greg for inking if he let someone else do it. I have read what you mention in Greg's interview but it doesn't give me the full range of what I need... just pointers. I appreciate everything you posted, but it's just up to me to invest time into getting more details. My site has a lot already, but I wanted to have the core and essential content knocked out by now. ... like story summaries and creator credits. Just today I found out that a book about Dick Giordano features a page of unpublished Broadway art that I don't remember seeing before. The little details I want here eat up the time I have to spend of the easy stuff. I still consider my site just a template that needs more content and easier navigation.
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Post by pupoconflict on May 23, 2004 5:56:01 GMT -5
"Vulnerable"? I am NOT holding you.
This is Dubya's America. Unimportant things like compassion for others and getting the facts straight have no place here in the Republic. Follow the example set by your Silver Spoon Overlord!
Not back to that Defiant thread...Sorry, 'mano, but I can't help you with more details yet. I've been trying to track down copies of EVOL BABY and MA'AM off and on for YEARS now. And I didn't even know about the Tekno stuff until I read your excellent interview with him.
But now that I know what kind of assistance you're after, I'll stay quiet until I have it down to the uber-detail. The whole weapons of mass destruction thing has resulted in my just "making stuff up" and insisting that everyone should trust that I know what's best.
Pup
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Post by Defiant1 on May 23, 2004 8:09:26 GMT -5
"Vulnerable"? I am NOT holding you. This is Dubya's America. Unimportant things like compassion for others and getting the facts straight have no place here in the Republic. Follow the example set by your Silver Sthingy Overlord! Not back to that Defiant thread...Sorry, 'mano, but I can't help you with more details yet. I've been trying to track down copies of EVOL BABY and MA'AM off and on for YEARS now. And I didn't even know about the Tekno stuff until I read your excellent interview with him. But now that I know what kind of assistance you're after, I'll stay quiet until I have it down to the uber-detail. The whole weapons of mass destruction thing has resulted in my just "making stuff up" and insisting that everyone should trust that I know what's best. Pup You can ramble however you like. One of Defiant's editors moved to Teckno... so the Teckno link was already estabished... and I can't take the credit for the interview. Mark Davis submitted that. I have an open agreement to interview Georges Jeanty, I just haven't had time to compile any decent questions. I'm open to requests. Defiant1
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Post by Jeff Clem on Jun 10, 2004 12:22:04 GMT -5
I don't know this for a fact, but I believe it might've been Tony Isabella. I used to clip articles of interest out of CBG around that time and I <may> have some material pertaining to this. These article-files are in storage and I hope to dig them out soon.
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Post by Defiant1 on Jun 10, 2004 17:23:49 GMT -5
I don't know this for a fact, but I believe it might've been Tony Isabella. I used to clip articles of interest out of CBG around that time and I may have some material pertaining to this. These article-files are in storage and I hope to dig them out soon. THAT would be VERY ironic. Mr. Isabella has a presence online that I find particularly offensive and distasteful. His shameless and excessive attempts at self-promotion is nothing in my opinion, but online spam. Go to just about ANY well known messageboard and he has pasted links back to his site. Rarely does anything he has written generate comments or replies based on their merits. The only comics I remember him writing back during that period was stuff from Topps based on Jack Kirby concepts. The words "drivel" and "bastardization" comes to mind. He is also one of the few comics writers that ever genuinely suceeded at annoying me with his writing when I was only 9 years old. Only recently has this topic come up again... but I ASSUMED it was Frank Miller that blasted Jim. Frank Miller had done the Valiant covers a couple of years earlier and the two appeared to be pretty good friends until a series of "Oh! So." letters went back and forth in the CBG. I always assumed that Frank Miller was ashamed and angered by Jim publicly painting him as a "starving artist" when he got his job at Marvel. I always assumed that Frank Miller was unwilling to accept that he was given a silver platter by Jim and that Jim could have picked any other artist to promote at the time. I just can't imagine Tony Isabella having enough clout to address a crowd and blast publishers shamelessly. I can see Frank Miller doing it. Frank Miller had established his own independence and clout by that time. Again, I only faintly remember this public "attack from the podium" being mentioned in 1994. I DO remember reading Frank Miller's harsh response to Jim's letter in the CBG. It is not a secret that I have very little regard for the CBG... AND their family of publications. I find their publications to be a tedious and biased read generated by a clique of creators and writers that spend more time self-promoting their own importance to the industry than they do reporting the news or providing it with relevant content. Defiant1
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Post by Defiant1 on Jun 14, 2004 23:27:05 GMT -5
I don't know this for a fact, but I believe it might've been Tony Isabella. I used to clip articles of interest out of CBG around that time and I <may> have some material pertaining to this. These article-files are in storage and I hope to dig them out soon. It has been confirmed by a Defiant creator that Tony Isabella was the person. That's Amazing. Truly amazing. This makes me even more proud to dislike the CBG and it's clique of creators that constantly stroke their own egos. Defiant1
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Post by Todd Luck on Jun 15, 2004 8:47:46 GMT -5
I don't know this for a fact, but I believe it might've been Tony Isabella. I used to clip articles of interest out of CBG around that time and I <may> have some material pertaining to this. These article-files are in storage and I hope to dig them out soon. It has been confirmed by a Defiant creator that Tony Isabella was the person. That's Amazing. Truly amazing. This makes me even more proud to dislike the CBG and it's clique of creators that constantly stroke their own egos. Defiant1 What did Tony write in his CBG article? Is their a copy of it online anywhere?
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Post by Defiant1 on Jun 15, 2004 18:11:52 GMT -5
What did Tony write in his CBG article? Is their a copy of it online anywhere? A quick cursory scan of my CBG backissues reveals that the ones I knew I had....don't go back that far. I actually hated that magazine. I usually sat in the comic shop and read their stuff for free. The store was able to get their credit back on any unsold copies. The store owner didn't care. I guess I could try searching for his article.... but I would not want him to even think he won an audience though controversy. It might inspire him to write more. Hmmm! I'm getting a visual... Black Lightning as a wife beating crackhead... that would be a fun story. Hmmm?! Why do I feel that way... Hmmm! Woe is the life of Tony. Woe. Here is a 1994 post that also says it was Tony... groups.google.com/groups?selm=35ckau%24ohk%40senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU&output=gplainDefiant1
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Post by riptide on Jul 9, 2004 22:27:04 GMT -5
Incredible.....
I've been away for awhile, computer crash, sickness, and summer, but I finally came back to a post I did in April. WOW...did I get informed.
Anyway, thats what I love about this site..Defiant1 take the time to do it right!!!!
ANYWAY...I get the gist of what happened to Defiant, but let's switch gears and talk about Broadway. What happened there??? With the talent on Fatale and Powers That Be/Star Seed, I cannot believe that momentum wasn't being built. Particular with Star Seed...I still want to read a Star Seed #10 in order to finish the cliffhanger from issue #9. Anyway, any info would be greatly appreciated, and oh by the way Defiant1, I'm still looking for a Great Grimmax #0 and Good Guys 1.5. LOL
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