Years ago, Erik Larsen wrote an anonymous and controversial letter to the Comics Buyers Guide in which he extolled the possibilities of comic book artists striking out on their own and writing their own stories to draw. It was a milestone in the movement that gave birth to Image Comics. It caused much debate at the time as to the writer's identity and the impact it would have on the industry.

Twenty years later, it's time to do it again. Bryan Talbot posted on the Quality Comics messageboard, a gathering of British creators and readers spinning off from Dez Skinn and Comics International's early forays online. And he reposted the following letter there, that originally appeared on the private Panel2Panel list from who Bryan describes as "a respected US comic writer"

christ, does most comics art stink these days and while overall I suspect the writing is better technically, the plots are mostly excruciatingly repetitive and dull… or utterly pointless…

From one described as "another member"

I go through the comp comics that Steve gets from DC, Bryan, and in my opinion the superhero comics are pretty awful. There's no plot, bad continuity, and lots of fight scenes and empty calories. I don't know what the editors do, but they certainly don't edit the awful scripting and storytelling. And I won't even mention the giant-breasted, meagerly-clothed superheroines. What I've seen of Marvel (though I don't see as much Marvel because no comps) looks like more of the same. I must say that Vertigo is an exception, with quite a few readable books.

And then he hits the motherlode. Someone he describes as a "HUGE name US comic writer" but that he's "censored a couple of lines where he mentions his own work."

Bryan

I get all the DC books free, like Steve, and don't read most of them.

Part of it's that they're just not aimed at me — there are a lot of

line-wide stunts that seem to affect all the books, which makes it hard to

follow them as individual series, but at the same time there's no apparent

interest in building or maintaining a coherent universe. So whether you're

looking for self-contained series or want to wallow in the peculiar glories

of a shared universe (and I like both), they're presented in a way that

messes up either thrill. At least for me.

Add to that the tone of the books, which seems to be overwhelmingly grim,

cheerless and bleak, and it's a sandbox I don't much want to play in or read

about. But like I said, they're not aimed at me.

At times, it seems to me as if DC's approach to comics art is that they want

functional-but-unimpressive storytellers who draw in a stylized manner that

looks like inadequate draftsmanship skills. Over at Marvel, they want all

the coolest, flashiest-looking artists, and storytelling isn't a strong

criterion. If they can tell a story, great. If they can't, it may not be a

problem.

That may be unfair to Marvel — I don't see many of their books at all. And

there are some terrific storytellers at Marvel (Stuart Immonen and Steve

Epting leap to mind) and for that matter, strong artists at DC. They're just

thin on the ground, I think.

There are writers out there who are supposed to be terrific — Jonathan

Hickman gets raves, but I read his first volume of FANTASTIC FOUR, and it

felt like two issues' worth of story crammed into a six-issue bag, without

much context. And I picked up the first issue of another series he did, and

it confused the hell out of me, until I discovered that it brought together

threads and mysteries from three other series without any explanation,

simply assuming the reader was following other series, at which point I just

stopped caring. I don't want to have to read other series to know what's

going on, and I really don't want to have to do it without a scorecard.

I've heard great things about Paul Cornell, too, but everything he's written

has been tied up in some line-wide thing or other, and now over at DC he's

writing ACTION COMICS without Superman in it, which doesn't interest me. So

the first thing I'm going to read by him is KNIGHT & SQUIRE, a spin-off from

Grant Morrison's Batman run, which looks to be self-contained and has

sprightly, engaging art by Jimmy Broxton.

Other bright spots include the new LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (hi, Paul), which

is self-contained, accessible, and has energetic and clear Eighties-inspired

art from Yldiray Cinar, ZATANNA by Paul Dini and a couple of different

artists whose names I don't recall right now, but who do a fine job,

LEGACIES by Len Wein and artists with names like Kubert and Garcia-Lopez and

Gibbons and Perez, so you pretty well know it's good solid stuff. At Marvel

I've been enjoying CAPTAIN AMERICA by Ed Brubaker and Butch Guice and THOR:

THE MIGHTY AVENGER by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee, who draws

beautifully, and I pick up books drawn by Tonci Zonjic, who's great in a

Toth-y way. Gabriel Hardman's also an excellent artist and storyteller.

But for the most part I just don't keep up with the big superhero universes

— they're not aimed at me and doing (CENSORED) seems to have worked them

out of my system. I'm far more interested in books like FABLES and

HELLBOY/B.P.R.D. and BEASTS OF BURDEN and Darwyn Cooke's PARKER adaptations

and Holly Black and Ted Naifeh's GOOD NEIGHBORS graphic novels and Joe

Hill's LOCKE & KEY and other books that deliver involving, accessible comics

that don't ask me to buy into a sprawling and inconsistent patchwork of

murky, angry, shock-value events.

I still reflexively save anything that comes into the house that's set in

either of the Big Two universes, on the theory that I might need it for

reference someday, but I have over ten bookcases full of graphic novels and

over a hundred longboxes of comics and am itching for the day my

obsessive-compulsive nature finally lets go and says, "You're never going to

need any of this stuff, you're never going to write another continuity-heavy

DC or Marvel series; scrap it all and only save what you'll reread for

pleasure." It's getting closer, but it's not quite there yet. Maybe after my

new urban-fantasy series THE WITCHLANDS is coming out, and my output is

solidly planted outside those universes. Universi?

For all that, though, I have more comics I want to read than time to read

them in, and no shortage of new stuff coming down the pike. I just can't get

interested in sixteen Batman books that feel to me like plate-spinning in

the dark. Even when someone's spinning the plates well.

I hope there was something of value in there.