Thursday, June 19, 2008

Final Crisis Management—(Another) Artistic SNAFU


FanBoyWonder has made no secret of our skepticism in dealing with DC Comics’ latest big “event” Final Crisis by big deal “rock star” comics writer Grant Morrison.

Our skepticism comes from both the fact that DC’s other recent event, Infinite Crisis, was a storytelling failure of the worst order and that DC has failed more often than not since Infinite Crisis.

Besides despite a few impressive works, taken as a whole Grant Morrison has been a hit or miss performer with us—more often missing than hitting.

Frankly, we weren’t expecting much going into Final Crisis and having read the first issue, we further lowered our already diminished expectations. We deduced that if the story was going to make any sense at all, it would come together in the later issues so for the time being, the series would have to be carried on the strength of the art by J.G. Jones.

Jones’ art in that first issue was impressive, although it seemed to lose some artistic steam in the middle pages.

So despite our skepticism, we were floored when we read the story in Newsarama.com http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080616-PachecoFC.htmlCarlos Pacheo Joins JG Jones on Final Crisis.”

Some eagle-eyed Newsarama writer picked out this little nugget in the September previews, discovering that Carlos Pacheco will be joining J.G. Jones on the art chores for Final Crisis #4 and will apparently be working together with Jones on art for the remaining issues.

Newsarama quoted DCU Executive Editor Dan DiDio who explained that the move is being made to keep the miniseries on schedule.

Following the break in the schedule and beginning with issue #4, Carlos Pacheco will be joining JG Jones and handling a portion of the art chores on the Final Crisis mini series. We feel that Carlos, whose work on Justice League of America #21 stood out amongst the events leading up to Final Crisis, is an excellent addition to the team and his style will nicely complement the tone and feel JG Jones has set for this series.”

Prior to this, representatives from DC have stated that Jones was maintaining his schedule on the series, according to Newsarama.

If we were feeling charitable, we would see that this was a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation for DC—stick with Jones solo on art and go late or bring in artistic back up and remain on schedule.

But we’re NOT feeling charitable, so WTF??? This series has been in the pipeline for a year and Morrison himself has said that scripts were in the can well into Countdown to Final Crisis. So what’s the deal?

What absolutely killed Infinite Crisis—besides a rambling story no direction and less soul, was that IC primary artists Phil Jimenez and Andy Lanning could never came close to carrying the book themselves and had to rely on a veritable committee of illustrators, including original CRISIS on Infinite Earths artist George Perez.

We should not that back in the day, Perez—with inkers Dick Giordano and later Jerry Ordway—penciled the entire 12-issue CRISIS by himself with each issue on time.

And now word has come down that the Final Crisis artist can’t hack it on schedule—as promised.

Heroes Die. Legends Live Forever” We’ll tell you what else lives forever—the stink of an over-hyped, under-delivered “event.” Final Crisis indeed!

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