Apr 21
Housekeeping
Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2012 by Paul in Uncategorized
No reviews this week. Haven’t received the books yet and I’m terribly busy anyway. Probably a chart post at the start of the week, and we’ll be back with comics with a podcast and X-Axis post next weekend.
Sorry if this has been asked already, but did you archive your old X-Axis X-Men silver age reviews? They were a fun read years ago and I’d like to browse them again if they’re still available somewhere.
I’ve actually been reading some of the old X-Axis review recently. If you have a yahoo account, join the group that used to send the reviews to you
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/x-axis-reviews/
There’s no search engine, but its fine.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100209045958/http://www.thexaxis.com/
Ive spent (wasted) two hours at work reading pauls old 60s reviews.
I’m one of the long suffering index readers he mentions at the start. So many golden reviews came on that site. Astonishing issue 3 being my utter favourite. “oh fuck off” gets me every time.
There was one review Paul did in which he responds to an email about him being too cynical, and comes up with ways to make the particular issue in question better, rather than saying why it sucks.
It may or may not also be the review he finished with “if you like this issue, then you are fundamentally wrong, and I can prove it with graphs.” (which is a line that has made it into my everyday vocabulary.)
The X-Axis mailbag:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090403225801/http://www.thexaxis.com/uncannyxmen/uncannyxmen440.htm
Also check out this winner, in which he reviews Chuck Austen’s Shakespeare pastiche in iambic pentametre:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090403230152/http://www.thexaxis.com/uncannyxmen/uncannyxmen439.htm
“Utterly dreadful. If you like this comic, you are objectively wrong. I can prove it with graphs.”
I’ve always liked that line too. Chuck Austen reviews are the best.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090403225742/http://www.thexaxis.com/uncannyxmen/uncannyxmen433.htm
The “balcony scene” one was a bit of a classic.
His review of Wolverine 177 is pretty hilarious.
I remember the Draco reviews being particularly funny, especially the bit with Azazel using his portal to go to Earth so he could mate with women to increase his power so that he could eventually open a portal to Earth.
Austen sure sucked but I think it really brought out the best in the X-Axis, weather Paul knew it at the time or not.
Oh, and don’t forget the exploding communion wafers. I hate Austen.
Not exploding so much as “initiate a fake rapture by sublimating people to expose the mutant demon pope” communion wafers. Everyone hates Austen’s X-Men work. Everyone.
How the hell did Austen stick around for as long as he did? And get that much work? That’s one creator I don’t think anyone misses.
@Chief
At the time I assumed that Austen just worked quickly and cheaply. For a couple of years he was absolutely all over Marvel’s product. It was approaching Bendis levels (although he wasn’t as talented or influential to the company as Bendis and I don’t even like Bendis). Then one day he was just gone. Remember how pissed he got at the fan criticism? Dumbass went completely off the deep end, lol. Oh well.
Oh, he got canned. I guess Joe Q finally woke up and got rid of him.
Igor Kordey was dismissed in pretty much the same fashion- they gave him tons of last-minute work over an extended period, then fired him abruptly because they realized nobody was liking it.
To be honest, I didn’t enjoy either creator at all, but I felt a little bad for Kordey. It’s not his fault he produced terrible work when they constantly had him hop on as a last-minute fill-in.
@David
Kordey was slightly more tolerable because he is a genuinely nice fellow and didn’t act like a baby like Austen did. His work was pretty rough, though. I don’t think anyone expected Quietly to be on time during Morrison’s run, but I still can’t believe they put Kordey on the book with artwork like that. Morrison’s X-Men was a big deal at the time and I can’t help but wonder if sales to casual fans didn’t suffer a bit from some of that art. He wasn’t given much time to work with but man, some rough stuff. He improved quite a bit by the time he got to X-Treme X-Men and beyond, but his is a style I’ve still never really warmed up to. But yeah, the fact that they essentially relied so much on Kordey (because their good artists couldn’t be bothered to finish their work on time) only to kick him to the curb when they were done with him was pretty shitty on Marvel’s part. That’s business, I guess. Anyone know what he’s doing now?
As for Austen, did his public outbursts play any part in his getting fired? He was such a polarizing figure that I can’t imagine it not playing a role. It would have been one thing if his work was stellar, but yeah. I hope the guy got some kind of therapy, he clearly needed it.
don’t forget the old reviews of Mutant X and the always golden comments on Marvel’s lateness and scheduling.
“I felt a little bad for Kordey. It’s not his fault he produced terrible work when they constantly had him hop on as a last-minute fill-in.”
Sure it’s his fault. As a relatively unknown artist, it wasn’t wise for Kordey to accept high-profile rush jobs, but he did. Nobody pointed a gun to his head.
@DanLichtenberg – New X-Men had some slow artists on it, but Morrison’s books have always had a problem with deadlines, even with normally reliable artists. I’ve read that Morrison was turning his X-Men scripts in extremely last-minute so the editors couldn’t alter them. I suspect he does that a lot.
This week’s books have again left me asking what’s happened to some artists who used to be among my favorites. Romita’s Avengers Vs. X-Men #2 was, if anything even worse than #1, and even Simonson’s work on Avengers was hit and miss. Really disappointing.
Also, how much longer until Bendis is off Avengers? Seems like he’s writing 10 books a month at this point, and his stilted dialog is really wearing out its welcome for me (and up until the last year or so, I didn’t really mind it so much).
@Brian
Oh come on. As a relatively unknown artist, he would probably have been a fool to turn down an opportunity like that (even if it didn’t turn out very well for him). I can’t imagine there would be too many starving unknown artists out there who would pass on what was probably Marvel’s highest profile book at the time. Seriously.
@Jeff F.
I think he’s more or less gloated about that practice, and since he’s Grant Morrison, he probably got away with it. I wonder what role that played in his handling of Magneto (the fact that it was undone immediately following makes me wonder).
@Jerry Ray
I’ve never cared for Romita. And yes, that AvX work is pretty bad. As a whole, though, I wouldn’t call his artwork awful, it’s just kind of goofy and not something I’d want to see regularly on a favorite book. Never understood why everyone loves him. Kind of like Ramos who was all over Spiderman for years; it wasn’t terrible and it was unique, but still kind of an eyesore and probably suited for a different kind of book (like a kiddy book lol).
@Dan
I’ve made career missteps before. Accepting positions simply because they were tremendous opportunities. In some cases I just wasn’t ready for these positions, and in other cases I was, but the circumstances just weren’t ideal. In hindsight, I should have given more consideration to these decisions. I didn’t, and I accept them as my own mistakes.
Kordey’s a grown man. He took on high-profile rush jobs knowing he wouldn’t be able to produce the best work he was capable of and it bit him in the ass.
Yeah, Marvel handled Kordey’s termination rather poorly (if you take Kordey’s account of what happened completely at face value), but Kordey was hardly a “starving artist” at the time. At one point Marvel lowered his page rate because they told him he was too expensive an artist.
I usually side with creators in these disputes against publishers, but I got the feeling from Kordey’s public airing of what happened that the guy has zero sense of personal accountability.
And just to add, being removed from a book and not given any immediate replacement work doesn’t necessarily amount to “You’ll never work for us again.” But how did Kordey react? He loses his cool and airs it out publicly with the sort of self-indulgent whining I’ve only ever seen from the likes of John Byrne and Chuck Austen. Complaining of having a wife and three kids to support while simultaneously burning a major bridge behind him. How’s that putting family first?
Personally, I think he’s an idiot.
I can agree that JRJR’s work has changed quite a bit over the past few years and not for the better. I find it interesting that someone else mentioned Walt Simonson’s recent work in the same breath, I’ve been excited to see quite a few artists coming back to do work for some Marvel projects over the past few years, then I look inside and wonder what happened to them.
Since I never get tired of Austen-bashing, has anybody ever seen the DVD extras for the X-Men 2 Movie? Chuck Austen’s all over them. He mentions something along the lines of Nightcrawler having two front toes, then says “a little something only I know, he also has two of another body part.” Then smiles and laughs to himself. The man has serious issues.
My ABSOLUTE favourite is Captain America 6 from 2008 http://web.archive.org/web/20081117122417/http://www.thexaxis.com/misc/captainamerica6.htm
@The original Matt: “I’m one of the long suffering index readers he mentions at the start. So many golden reviews came on that site. Astonishing issue 3 being my utter favourite. “oh fuck off” gets me every time.”
Can’t find the mention at the start or ““oh fuck off””. Where should I be looking?
@Brian
Fair enough, I guess. I’m still not faulting him for taking the job, I would probably have done the same thing. But yes, being as public about it as he was probably wasn’t the most professional thing to do, nor was it very smart. I guess that’s all part of the online / blogified world we live in now, but there’s something to be said for keeping personal matters personal.
@Chief
I remember him being on there. Even at the time I thought it was an odd choice. What an asshole. Does anyone know how he was able to get his stories though the gate? I’m not even talking about the stupid sexual / women stuff. I mean, the guy did, or attempted to do, some continuity damage to longtime characters. Azazel was the worst one, of course, but let’s not forget some of the smaller things… he came up with the notion that Warren’s father was killed by Maximus Lobo (never followed up), decided that Polaris was Magneto’s daughter (still no explanation), etc. These not only contradicted past continuity but absolutely none of them (including Azazel) were necessary or requested AT ALL. And if there were so minor and inconsequential, why bother with them at all? Why did Marvel let so many of these things slip through? I can’t think of another writer who tried to make so many origin changes to 40 year old characters in such a narrow span of time. What was he thinking?
@DanL
My recollection of my opinion of Romita’s stuff is that he was fine when he first started (on Spider-Man, IIRC), and pretty good when he was on X-Men. I think he also had a run on Daredevil where things got a little odd. His Thor run was OK, but definitely in a new style. But his most recent stuff that I’ve seen, on Avengers and now on AVX, really is bordering on amateurish. When he’s not drawing people, it’s fine, but his people really are pretty bad. It’s all very scratchy and awkwardly posed, and a lot of characters just have these weird, doll-like, concave faces. And god only knows what happened to Wolverine’s head in that panel where he charges Hope toward the end of the issue.
Astonishing x-men vol 2 issue 3 review.
@Tom Clarke
I posted by accident on that last one… oops..
http://web.archive.org/web/20081115150516/http://www.thexaxis.com/reviews/031099.html
^ The link to the “of fuck off” review.
I think the “Oh fuck off” when I finished One More Day could be heard from space.
I never actually read, looked at, picked up, touched or glanced in the general direction of a single issue of One More Day. Was it really THAT bad?
A Chuck Austen hate-fest? Didn’t realize it was Retro Week here in the comments section. Can’t wait to read everyone’s rants about these newfangled ‘chromium’ covers…
And those damned trading cards! I keep losing the stupid things….
Chris Claremont sure likes mind control stories, eh?
Gambit has to be the third Summers brother. Also I think Rogue will be the X-Traitor.
I’d forgotten that Paul’s review of UXM #439 was utterly wonderful…
I’m trying to get 2 or more copies of X-Men #25. Apparently the X-Men in final battle with Magneto. WILL BE HOT!!!!
Here’s another gem, the final word on Chuck Austen’s run: http://web.archive.org/web/20100118103827/http://www.thexaxis.com/xmen/xmen164.htm
“Yes, that’s right – the Chuck Austen run ends by collapsing in on itself thanks to the sheer incredible degree of sucking. Really. It’s such a gift to critics that I can only imagine it was included as a bet to see if anyone would take the bait. Well, whatever. It might be obvious, but it’s true.”