DC Comics’ next big event (because they never fucking stop) is Flashpoint.

Kicking off in May, it features the Flash (duh) as he tries to undo damage to the timestream from a mysterious assailant (hint: it’s the Reverse Flash). Aside from a core Flashpoint miniseries, the story will also spill across multiple miniseries and cross over into regular series like The Flash (again, duh) and Booster Gold.

This structure is nothing new. However, Flashpoint has reached new levels of “fucking ridiculous” with the staggering amount of material being published. Flashpoint itself is five issues. Fair enough. The miniseries are three issues each…but there’s at least fifteen of them. So we’ve already got forty-five issues right off the bat. Add in the “Road to Flashpoint” story currently running through The Flash, plus as-yet-unannounced crossovers and one-shots, and you’re looking at a gigantic tale that will span over seventy issues of comics. That’s batshit insane, people.

Now, before you get all indignant on me and claim that “you don’t need to read every Flashpoint-branded book in order to get the whole story,” let me explain a few things to you. That’s how crossovers used to work. Let’s look at Crisis on Infinite Earths, for example. The main story played out in the eponymous Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series. Crisis on Infinite Earths branding appeared on regular series, and in those issues, you’d find how the events of the main series affected them.

Nowadays, it’s the reverse. For example, take Blackest Night. The main series was nine issues, but if you only read that, you were missing a majority of the story. In fact, much of story would not make sense if you only stuck with the core Blackest Night series. Critical plot points played out in Blackest Night-branded issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, the seven Blackest Night miniseries, and eight one-shots. In fact, a very major plot point appeared in Blackest Night: Titans; not only was it crucial to Blackest Night, but also its followup, Brightest Day.

Speaking of which, Brightest Day is a notable exception to the new event storytelling rule. This story is currently being told in a year-long biweekly main series, with some regular series receiving Brightest Day branding during this time. Brightest Day is being told very specifically in the “old style” that I mentioned above; the core series tells the complete story, and the branded titles merely explain how the overall story is affecting other characters. The only other title necessary to read in order to understand the story is Green Lantern, as Brightest Day like Blackest Night before it is an outgrowth of that series. The series’ creators have admitted exactly that this was their specific plan, and it was a refreshing change of pace that I welcomed wholeheartedly. I had hoped that this would turn things around from the new way events are told, but clearly I was wrong.

You see where I’m going with this. In order to fully understand Flashpoint, you need all seventy-plus issues. At cover price, we’re looking at well over $200. If you’re spending that much money on a goddamned comic book story, your friends are legally obligated to beat you with tire irons.

I actually find this whole thing rather insulting. I was very much looking forward to the story when it was announced, but DC has managed to sour me on Flashpoint before a single issue has even been released. I was thinking of just getting the core Flashpoint series and the few miniseries that interested me the most, but I’ve decided to take a more hardline stance: I’m not going to buy any Flashpoint issues at all. I’ll borrow other folks’ copies to read them, and if I do enjoy them, I’ll purchase the series in trade paperback format further down the road. Those won’t be released for about two years, but I can wait; plus, I’d certainly buy them heavily discounted from Amazon or similar retailers.

I realize that comic book publishers pull shit like this to maximize profits from rabid fanboys who will buy everything they publish without question, but they also need to realize that it pisses a lot of fans off. In my case, DC can kiss my ass, and they’re not getting a dime. I can only hope that other equally steamed readers will join me in voicing our displeasure to DC in the only language the company will understand: by putting away our wallets.

I want to gripe about comic book publishers milking the living shit out of their franchises. While this has happened plenty of times over the past few decades, the media tie-ins that cause this phenomenon more recently are certainly a new development. As such, the blitzing is ten times worse. I’m going to focus on my two favorite characters today, Iron Man and Green Lantern.

Iron Man has always been a popular Marvel Comics character since his introduction in 1963′s Tales of Suspense #39. Iron Man got his own series shortly thereafter, and while it was relaunched with new #1 issues a few times over the past decade or so, it’s been relatively self-contained. (Iron Man himself made plenty of appearances in other books, most notably The Avengers.)

As time went on, though, Marvel started releasing Iron Man miniseries that were either alternate universe stories or tales set in Iron Man’s past. Since around 2004, there’s been a constant glut of miniseries released on after another! Due to the success of the Iron Man films in recent years, Marvel launched a second ongoing series — Iron Man Legacy — in 2010. This book features tales set in Iron Man’s past. If that sounds familiar, it’s because I copied and pasted it from the beginning of this paragraph. Seriously, though, Legacy is the exact same thing Marvel was already doing with the various miniseries. Sounds like a money grab, and it only goes downhill from here.

A War Machine series ran in the early 1990s, and there were a few limited series released under the MAX imprint a decade later. Another War Machine series came out at the tail end of the last Iron Man ongoing series, but it was godawful, and bombed within a year. Obviously, War Machine doesn’t sell his own books all that well. That won’t stop Marvel from trying again, but this time, they’re calling it Iron Man 2.0. Aside from the factual inaccuracy of the title — others had worn the armor before Jim Rhodes, and even the original War Machine armor was what, the sixteenth incarnation of Iron Man? — I find it insulting. Does Marvel really think comic fans are so stupid that they won’t notice that it’s still a War Machine title, albeit with a different name? War Machine is a great character, don’t get me wrong, but if he can’t hold his own title…then just give him back his supporting role in the regular Iron Man book, where he works best.

Moving on to DC Comics, things get worse by a few orders of magnitude when you look at Green Lantern. The comic series relaunched in 2004 to rave reviews, and thus added a second monthly title, Green Lantern Corps, shortly thereafter. I guess that’s fair enough, since there’s many heroes within the Corps that deserve some face time. But last year, Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors came out. And this summer, Red Lanterns begins. And later this year will see the release of a Green Lantern comic based on the upcoming animated series. And this doesn’t even begin to count the various spinoffs and tie-ins from crossovers like Blackest Night and Brightest Day, all of which were heavily Green Lantern-focused! Finally, unlike Iron Man, you need to read all of these Green Lantern series in order to understand the complete story. That’s just fucking insane. (Don’t even get me started on that Flashpoint bullshit that DC’s pulling this summer.)

Yes, yes, I realize that all of this is just a business decision. Marvel and DC are counting on the fact that many fanboys are completists who will always buy every single book with their favorite characters, no matter what. They’re mostly correct in this assumption, but given that the comics industry is slowly circling the drain anyway, it’s only a matter of time before they shoot themselves in the foot with this shit. There’s nothing wrong with giving a super-popular character one book a month, and just making that one the best it can be. An overload of books just spreads the character too thin and dilutes the mythology.

Personally, I think the boatload of Iron Man and Green Lantern titles should just be folded into a single series, and…

…oh.

I’ve enjoyed the Garfield comic strip since I was a little kid. The Garfield and Friends cartoon was great, I had a Garfield plush toy stuck to my bedroom window, and I even got into Garfield versus Heathcliff debates with fellow scholars of the funny pages at school. (In a nutshell: I like them both, for different reasons.) I’m sure part of it is because I like cats, but also because Garfield has consistently amused me over the course of my life.

But here’s the strange thing I’ve noticed over the past few years: a lot of people bitching and moaning about Garfield, and in many cases angrily calling for the strip to end. I’ve been trying to understand this strange uptick in anti-Garfield behavior, but I’m at a loss. It’s not like creator Jim Davis pissed on their grandmothers’ graves! I’ve only been able to whip up a few crackpot theories as to the root of this disdain.

Perhaps the rise of webcomics as an alternative to the daily newspaper strip format is to blame. Internet message boards are admittedly where I’ve seen a majority of the hate, and most of the posters decrying Garfield and other newspaper comics are big webcomics fans. That may just be a coincidence, but I guess it’s worth mentioning. (Note: One popular webcomic is actually based on Garfield, the hilariously clever Garfield Minus Garfield. Even Garfield creator Jim Davis loves that one!) Still, that doesn’t seem like enough, so maybe Garfield is just another example of something that’s cool to hate due to its long-running popularity.

Whatever the reason, it goes beyond simple dislike of the Garfield comic strip. There’s always going to be detractors of a product, and that’s perfectly fine. But the amount of disgust being leveled at Garfield boggles the mind. If people hate Garfield so much, then the solution is simple: don’t read it. There’s plenty of comic strips that I do not enjoy, and I just pass over them when reading the comic section of the paper. It’s as simple as that. I’m not going to go on some vehement tirade about my dislike of Pearls Before Swine, as that accomplishes nothing!

Even I, a lifelong fan, don’t gobble up every aspect of the Garfield franchise. For example, I didn’t see any of the feature films. Those are clearly intended for kids rather than adult fans of the comic strip, so I just wasn’t interested. But even there, I’m not going to throw a fit over the entire franchise as a result and call for its termination. People just need to relax. At the end of the day, it’s just a comic strip.

What is it with the production errors in comics lately?

I’ve been collecting comics for over twenty years, and I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had to return an issue due to defects…up until the past year or so. In the past eight months alone, I’ve had to exchange the following books for new copies at my local comic shop due to various production-related errors:

• The Indomitable Iron Man (misprinted and bound incorrectly)

• Blackest Night #8 (interior pages heavily creased and damaged)
• The Invincible Iron Man Annual (long scratches on the cover)
• Iron Man: Titanium* (ink smearing on interior pages)

These are not the rare art or lettering errors that we’ve seen since the beginning of the medium. This current crop of problems is strictly due to the production process and shipment of the physical copy. As such, none of the creative teams behind these books are to blame, but something along the production line certainly is.

Either I’m the unluckiest motherfucker on the planet, or errors like this are starting to become more commonplace. With comics growing more expensive and more popular lately, there’s no reason why some improved quality control shouldn’t follow suit. I know there’s always going to be a few rare problems here and there; no system is perfect. This increase in production errors needs to be nipped in the bud before it gets worse.

* – No, I don’t think the problem is endemic to Iron Man. That’s just a really weird coincidence.

Continuing my occasional series of posts dealing with my life’s many regrets, today I’m going to talk about creativity. More accurately, my failure to put said creativity to good, published use. Before we begin, let me make one thing very clear: this is not a monetary concern. I don’t feel the need to create only as a means to make money; in fact, I find that business model rather disgusting.

Now let’s get started. First order of business? Comics. In college, I was working on many projects related to the comic book industry. It was only natural that I eventually wanted to publish my own comics work; I wasn’t a good artist, but I had written up quite a few stories: a scifi/action series (Ground Zero), a scifi/horror series (Decon Squad), and a superhero series (Resurgence). I even produced an animated trailer for that last one!

I tried to get other artistically inclined folks on board. My efforts flopped, and in some cases, talented artists made no bones about telling me how awful my story ideas were. I ended up going the webcomic route a few years later, but real-world concerns shuttered that after three years (along with the fact that my art was crap).

From here, we can naturally segue into my piss-poor attempts at creative writing. I’ve had various science fiction and fantasy stories whirling about my head for over twenty years, but every time I’ve tried to commit them to text, I can never properly translate my ideas. Sure, I write blog entries here and there, and contribute to Musician Photo Journal, but that’s not the same. It’s also nonfiction, which I find considerably easier to write (as evidenced by what you’re reading right now).

Then there’s music. One of my biggest regrets was my failure to keep up on my guitar playing over the past decade. I lay the blame for this squarely at my own feet: I was lazy and easily distracted, and that’s all there is to it. I got my own guitar as a birthday present in the fall of 2000, which was my final semester in college. I played a hell of a lot in my dorm room, and my skills noticeably improved. (I’m also self-taught, so my definition of “improved” may vary compared to others.) Once I got out of school, I still played, but it fell by the wayside a bit once I got a full time job, moved out, et cetera. Even at my slow, self-taught pace, if I had kept at it over the past ten years, I’d be a hell of a lot better by now. I’ve been kicking myself a lot over this lately, and I deserve the self-flagellation. If I had stayed on target, I could’ve at least recorded an EP or something by now. (I don’t know any other musicians with similar tastes in extreme metal, but that’s what drum machines and GarageBand are for.)

Perhaps someday the creative impulses misfiring within my cranium might coalesce into something viable. But until that day comes, you’ll just have to suffer along with me as I write nothing but meandering blog entries.