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ColoristChris Sotomayor has just begun a new series of interviews on his website, where he asks subjects a series of pointed questions regarding the state of the industry. First up, writer Kurt Busiek, whom you may remember from such hits as MARVELS, SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY, ASTRO CITY, and that post here at the Beat where he made a really great point.

The whole thing comprises only a dozen questions but covers Busiek’s break into comics, followed by a swift break out of comics, and years working at Burger King to break in again, and also one of the double-edged swords that we all live with:

4- Because of technology, both fans and creators now have an amazing amount of access to each other with an incredible level of immediacy. How do you think the attitudes of both fans and creators have changed because of that?


I think the chance to communicate, from fan to pro and vice versa, has been great — it’s like a never-ending comicon. At the same time, though, the immediacy of focus on the creators, editors, upcoming twists and more has put the spotlight on what goes on backstage, rather than what happens in the comics that are hitting the stores now, and I think too often it makes “how the comics are made” a bigger story than “what’s happening on the page,” often to the detriment of the reading experience.


As with anything, it has its good points and its bad, and it’s up to us to navigate the rapids, getting the most we can from it while minimizing the negative effects.

1 COMMENT

  1. Not years working at Burger King — a couple of months, maybe, while I looked for another job in publishing somewhere. It was literary avenging I did for several years, before winding up back at Marvel.

    I’m looking forward to whoever’s next in the series!

  2. “In the great and timeless city of _______ exists a place unknown to all but those of an order long thought vanished from the world. At the heart of that organization is a man whose sole purpose is to monitor the world’s literature, and when a great injustice is discovered, he dons the mantle of The Literary Avenger”!

    I’m sure that anyone else could do better, but it seems like an idea with promise.

  3. Extraordinary crimes against the prose and the poetry must to be avenged by agents extraordinary. Two such people are Kurt Busiek, top professional, and Emma Peel, talented amateur… otherwise known as the Literary Avengers