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Bob, good on you for acknowledging the Leinil Yu thing. I usually agree with you but this time, I felt it was necessary to clarify that your views, as valid as they may be, weren't in line with the majority. Art is subjective. I LOVE Yu's stuff, but there are guys that are generally loved who I can't stand either...Mike Allred, Frank Quitely to name two.

As to the reviews. Yikes...a rough bunch. I stopped reading Birds of Prey when Simone left, but this definitely struck me as one of those times when a good book suffered from a bad issue. I hope people listening took what you guys had to say to heart about this being an unusual issue in terms of quality.

As to Cap, while I get your point about the language translation, I thought the issue was, overall, terrific. Not the best of Bru's efforts clearly, but still better than most of the stuff being published each week.

I have not been agreeing with Bob lately especially when it comes to DC but I will say that Yu's art is terrible for me. It is so scratchy and nasty looking especially for a main stream superhero event like Secret Invasion. I could see his art maybe in a horror book but not in mainstream superhero book. Most of the time I pick up books he does not for the art but for the story. Except in the case of Secret Invasion (main series) because there is no story. All of the surrounding titles of Secret Invasion are really good.

I am pretty far behind in my reading Birds of Prey so I can't comment. The same goes for Cap. I read the Cyblade one shot and it was one of my least favorite pilot season books so I decided to skip on the ongoing.

I think it is time for a poll of Comic Book Page listeners on Yu's art because I don't think we are in the minority.

Looks like you guys might not have another chance to review a better issue of Birds of Prey:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/110804- ... tions.html

Birds of Prey, Nightwing and Robin all canceled.

Wood wrote:Looks like you guys might not have another chance to review a better issue of Birds of Prey:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/110804- ... tions.html

Birds of Prey, Nightwing and Robin all canceled.

That sucks. I think it is a bad move for DC to cancel such long running titles. Hopefully this is just the first part of a change in line up for the Batman family of titles and there is a plan in place here.

johnmayo wrote:

Wood wrote:Looks like you guys might not have another chance to review a better issue of Birds of Prey:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/110804- ... tions.html

Birds of Prey, Nightwing and Robin all canceled.

That sucks. I think it is a bad move for DC to cancel such long running titles. Hopefully this is just the first part of a change in line up for the Batman family of titles and there is a plan in place here.

John, I'm 100% sure this is editorial. I, for one, am excited at the prospect. If they do this right, it could reinvigorate the bat universe. Clearly this lends credence to the notion that Batman R.I.P. and the resulting Battle for the Cowl will have lasting impact on the Gothamverse, as well.

Wood wrote:

johnmayo wrote:

Wood wrote:Looks like you guys might not have another chance to review a better issue of Birds of Prey:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/110804- ... tions.html

Birds of Prey, Nightwing and Robin all canceled.

That sucks. I think it is a bad move for DC to cancel such long running titles. Hopefully this is just the first part of a change in line up for the Batman family of titles and there is a plan in place here.

John, I'm 100% sure this is editorial. I, for one, am excited at the prospect. If they do this right, it could reinvigorate the bat universe. Clearly this lends credence to the notion that Batman R.I.P. and the resulting Battle for the Cowl will have lasting impact on the Gothamverse, as well.

Fair enough. But there are so few titles around these days that have lasted for almost a decade that I hate to see any of them end.

johnmayo wrote:

Wood wrote:

johnmayo wrote: That sucks. I think it is a bad move for DC to cancel such long running titles. Hopefully this is just the first part of a change in line up for the Batman family of titles and there is a plan in place here.

John, I'm 100% sure this is editorial. I, for one, am excited at the prospect. If they do this right, it could reinvigorate the bat universe. Clearly this lends credence to the notion that Batman R.I.P. and the resulting Battle for the Cowl will have lasting impact on the Gothamverse, as well.

Fair enough. But there are so few titles around these days that have lasted for almost a decade that I hate to see any of them end.

They can always re-renumber. Thor is back to #600 in this month's previews, anything is possible.

Wood wrote:

johnmayo wrote:

Wood wrote: John, I'm 100% sure this is editorial. I, for one, am excited at the prospect. If they do this right, it could reinvigorate the bat universe. Clearly this lends credence to the notion that Batman R.I.P. and the resulting Battle for the Cowl will have lasting impact on the Gothamverse, as well.

Fair enough. But there are so few titles around these days that have lasted for almost a decade that I hate to see any of them end.

They can always re-renumber. Thor is back to #600 in this month's previews, anything is possible.

Yes but two wrongs don't make a right. I'm not a fan of the renumbering practices over at Marvel.

johnmayo wrote:

Wood wrote:

johnmayo wrote: Fair enough. But there are so few titles around these days that have lasted for almost a decade that I hate to see any of them end.

They can always re-renumber. Thor is back to #600 in this month's previews, anything is possible.

Yes but two wrongs don't make a right. I'm not a fan of the renumbering practices over at Marvel.

Just having a little fun at the Big 2's expense, was meant to be funny.

Wood wrote:

johnmayo wrote:

Wood wrote: They can always re-renumber. Thor is back to #600 in this month's previews, anything is possible.

Yes but two wrongs don't make a right. I'm not a fan of the renumbering practices over at Marvel.

Just having a little fun at the Big 2's expense, was meant to be funny.

Understood. I just get think it is bad all the way around the way some of these publishers are playing games with the numbering. I'd rather they try to sell the comics based on the strength of the stories then by using "magic numbers" like #1 and #600 to get a bump in sales. But this is nothing new nor anything that is likely to stop soon.

John -

I have to bring the conversation back to Leinil Yu. Particularly with regards to your comment that was along the lines of his artwork being popular/successful based upon the sales of his recent books. I think that this comment is misleading and I'm surprised Bob didn't call you on it.

Leinil Yu has had the opportunity to work on two recently highly promoted books: 1) Secret Invasion 2) New Avengers. I think we could agree that we could replace the artist with probably any other one and those two books would still sell high. Now, if he drew something like She-Hulk (which hovers in that 20-30K range), and we saw the sales bump to 50,000 per month, then you've got a good case.

In looking back further into Yu's work, we see that most of his stuff have been highly publicized projects: Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine and Superman: Birthright.

If we were to continue with the logic that sales prove he's good or sells books...then you might have to admit that Rob Liefeld (feel free to replace with any terrible artist from Image in the 90s) is by far the best artist out there.

Just felt I had to say something about this.

Thanks and keep up the good entertaining podcasts!

One of the reason he might be on high profile books is that he is dependable. By appearances he gets artwork in on time and doesn't hold up any publishing schedules. Secret Invasion final issue is only going to be 2 weeks later than solicited and that is much better than what Civil War and Final Crisis are dealing with.

Flash77 wrote:John -

I have to bring the conversation back to Leinil Yu. Particularly with regards to your comment that was along the lines of his artwork being popular/successful based upon the sales of his recent books. I think that this comment is misleading and I'm surprised Bob didn't call you on it.

Leinil Yu has had the opportunity to work on two recently highly promoted books: 1) Secret Invasion 2) New Avengers. I think we could agree that we could replace the artist with probably any other one and those two books would still sell high. Now, if he drew something like She-Hulk (which hovers in that 20-30K range), and we saw the sales bump to 50,000 per month, then you've got a good case.

In looking back further into Yu's work, we see that most of his stuff have been highly publicized projects: Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine and Superman: Birthright.

If we were to continue with the logic that sales prove he's good or sells books...then you might have to admit that Rob Liefeld (feel free to replace with any terrible artist from Image in the 90s) is by far the best artist out there.

Just felt I had to say something about this.

Thanks and keep up the good entertaining podcasts!

You are taking my comments out of context.

My initial comment was that while I don't personally care for Yu's art the sales on his recent stuff was very strong. I was putting that out there as a counter point to Bob's mystification of how people could like his work and consider it so great. While I don't think the sales for Secret Invasion or Mighty Avengers is any sort of proof that Yu is a great artist or even a popular one, those sales figures can't be completely ignored either. Particularly when most of the complaints about Secret Invasion seem to center on the slow and thin storyline and not on the art.

I also explicitly pointed out that the perception of quality and how things sell were disconnected. I flat out stated that sales can't be used as an indicator of quality as the overwhelming majority of titles are trending down and from an objective point of view that would imply that most stuff isn't that good, even the titles that have strong buzz and are generally considered to be very good works.

I never once stated that I thought that Yu's recent work (or prior work for that matter) sold based on the strength of his art. Or in spite of it. My entire line of reasoning was that I try very hard to differentiate both what I think of the creative merits of a work and what others think if it from how it sells.

One of the recurring themes I think that run through my comments in the Mayo Report episodes is that perceived quality and sales are disconnected. My comments in this episode not only echo that theme but articulate it as well.

Had I said that Yu's artwork was popular/successful based upon the sales of his recent books then I would agree with you calling me out on this. But the simple fact is that I didn't say that. Perhaps that is why Bob didn't call me out on it...

Skyhawke wrote:One of the reason he might be on high profile books is that he is dependable. By appearances he gets artwork in on time and doesn't hold up any publishing schedules. Secret Invasion final issue is only going to be 2 weeks later than solicited and that is much better than what Civil War and Final Crisis are dealing with.

There is also the possibility that the books are high profile because he is one them.

Obviously that isn't the only reason the title he has been working on were high profile but it is a possibility. After all, I doubt that Mighty Avengers would be the hit it is without Bendis. Who is to say that Yu isn't also a contributor to that success?

The bottom line is that we don't have granular sales data at the reader level to even begin to analyze the data for these sorts of sales trends.

johnmayo wrote: Had I said that Yu's artwork was popular/successful based upon the sales of his recent books then I would agree with you calling me out on this. But the simple fact is that I didn't say that. Perhaps that is why Bob didn't call me out on it...

Correct.

I believe that you could have pretty much any artist drawing Secret Invasion and it would be selling gang-busters. (But that is a totally groundless opinion on my part)

I do think there is a valid argument, though, that if you put him on one of Marvel's low-selling titles if it would have ANY effect at all (positive, negative, or neutral).....