quote:
Originally posted by I'm Not Mister Mxypltk:
So writers aren't allowed to be writers if they're using an alredy existing character and getting published? They suddenly become machines that don't care about anything but moving continuity forward? That's not a writer. If a writer follows a strict continuity, like Geoff Johns in JSA and Mark Waid in Flash, it's because they choose to do so. You talk about "ego" in the negative sense of the word, but what you suggest implies leaving the possitive side of the writer's ego behind as well, that is, what makes him do unique stories and not lame every day crap that gets sold simply because it's cover includes the name of a famous character or a couple of enormous tits (male or female).
I'm talking about ego in the sense that a writer who for example may think that certain characters who are related to each other may want to fuck each other and actually makes plans to writ that...

This kind of writer has to understand that he's working on a book that's going to be read by an audience made up of both new and old readers who know the characters in question better than the writer himself.

In fan fic the writer would be able to do whatever the hell he wanted to do because the fan fic is for him and him alone and if anyone else wants to read it then they can, and if they want to have an opinion on it they can too, but that opinion won't affect the writer in any way since it's fan fic, which is his story and no one elses.

In comics a writer has to pick his battles.

He can choose to write the above example/metaphor and maybe even get away with it thanks to popularity and being friends with the editor but, since this is something aimed at an audience, the audience's reaction may end up costing the writer his job.

Using a less extreme example:

Say a writer wants to do a story that teams up two characters that are supposed to be dead and one writer that, for some reason or another, would never be seen alongside these characters.

The story may be awesome, the story may be great. It could be the best rendition of either of the three characters that has ever been put down on paper... if the audience doesn't like it and their reaction is extremely negative then that would end up costing the writer his job, regardless of how good he may be.

It happens all the time.

It happened to Larry Hama on Batman, to J.M. DeMatties on Adventures of Superman, to Chris Claremont on both X-Men titles and it's probably happened to many others.

Some people think the above three writers suck but to others they are good writers... the problem is that, clearly, those that think they are good writers are in the minority which is why those three writers were taken off their books and replaced with more popular (but not necessarily) better writers.