Paul O'Brien dissects comics' inferiority complex

Overall, a great read. Ninth Art's Paul O'Brien analyzes the comic book industry's need to almost desperately hype mid-level literary talents for taking a stab at comics, in the process undermining the challenges and quality inherent in the comic book genre itself. Thanks to The Beat for the initial link.

So, for example, Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith and J Michael Straczynski have been successfully marketed as big name authors in the context of the comics market. Viewed from a mainstream perspective, they're really creators with cult followings, but the mere fact of being writers who had achieved some degree of success elsewhere seems to lend instant credibility.

IDENTITY CRISIS was promoted largely around the idea that Brad Meltzer was a bestselling author. He'd already written an arc on GREEN ARROW, one of DC's better selling books, but that didn't stop DC hammering the best-selling novelist angle. This may have stemmed in part from DC's apparent delusion that IDENTITY CRISIS was in some way marketable to anyone other than superhero fans, but it also lent instant credibility to the book.