Over on CBR, Titan publishing have announced that CLiNT magazine – the one established by Mark Millar, which was to promote and expand his ‘Millarworld’ brand – will end with issue 2.8 this month.

clint dies

Initially intended to be a counterpoint to other British magazines like 2000AD, the main selling point was Millar’s presence as a creator, with the magazine running previews of his Millarworld titles like Kick-Ass and Supercrooks. There were also strips from celebrities like comedians Frankie Boyle and Jonathan Ross.

This was one of a few attempts at running a long-running comics magazine in the UK – Bleeding Cool are still running their ongoing magazine, albeit on a slightly erratic schedule, whilst Comic Heroes seem to be going strong.

Despite a lot of fanfare (perhaps mainly from Millar himself) CLiNT seemed to visibly flame out with the relaunch. Online copetitions to find new creators for CLiNT ended with stories being bought, but never published by the magazine. Many comic stores didn’t stock the magazine, whilst it lost distribution in supermarkets shortly before relaunching as CLiNT 2.0.

And most notably, the last issue was released in May. In recent months the shipping schedule had became increasingly out of sync, and new issues were few and far between.

The magazine was published by Titan, and several of the more popular strips (such as Death Sentence) have now been moved to Titan Comics, and will be published in a more traditional American format later this year. Also of note – this follows the news that the Kapow Comic-Con, held in 2012 and heavily linked to both Millar and CLiNT, was cancelled for 2013.

For all the hype and promotion, that makes two prominent Millarworld projects which have flamed out in 2013.

22 COMMENTS

  1. Although the schedule was frustratingly erratic, I preferred to read the Millarworld stories in CLiNT; the price was great for the content, and I liked the format size. I enjoyed the interviews with comics creators. And I thought that CLiNT’s DEATH SENTENCE and REX ROYD strips were unique, interesting creator-owned comics. I’m glad that DEATH SENTENCE has found a new home.

  2. What? A magazine built primarily on the idea that a magazine too-cutely-by-half designed in a manner that would lead folks to it was actually titled “the C-word” couldn’t find a broader audience?!?!? SAY IT ISN’T SO!!!

  3. Millar, Snyder, Johns, Bendis etc….
    These guys are like fungus on the comics medium, the acid-wash jeans of writing. Hopefully, more of a refresh comes soon.

  4. Anybody know how many issues in total got published? Did it surpass the usual killzone for British comics, issue 23?

  5. It’s so rare for any kind of a project highly touted by Millar to flop. I mean, it’s not like has any kind of a history of hyperbole.

  6. I don’t want to get into Millar bashing. I have met Millar at a con or two and found him quite personable, but I don’t know him personally. I gave the original run of Clint a go when it came out and found that I didn’t enjoy. It seemed to be pitching for a lads mag type audience with ill conceived feature articles. Some of the comics were great but others were very, very patchy (i.e. Rex Royd) and I couldn’t have been any reason for them being published other than that the writer was a celebrity name. I also found that the repackaging of American comics in an anthology was a little weird, as the comics are paced for 22 pages per issue, and in Clint the breaks were a little more arbitrary than that (for whatever reason)

    I have loved some of Millar’s stuff but he does have weaknesses as a writer. I find that a lot of his writing is dependent on a high concept and then piling on one outrageous occurance after another.

    Basically I gave up on Clint because I didn’t feel comfortable reading it in front of my wife. That may mean that I was too old for it.

    I subsequently checked out the stories that I had been enjoying in tpb (Who is Jake Ellis and Turf) and thoroughly enjoyed reading them in one chunk rather than in the enforced chapter breaks.

    On the upside, dropping Clint did encourage me to start reading 2000ad. If you want to support British comics, it is a good place to start.

  7. I, for one, welcome the Millar bashing at every opportunity. I can’t think of a single other comics creator currently active in the business more worthy of disdain and the target of schadenfreude than Millar. The hell with that rape-obsessed, self-aggrandizing DB.

  8. ICV2 says “CLiNT #2.8 ships to newsstands in the U.K. this week and to U.S. comic shops on September 10th,” but I’m curious if the last issue will make it into U.S. stores. Diamond cancelled the original solicitation weeks ago due to lateness; is Titan resoliciting it through a special retailers-only Previews Update or anything?

  9. Judging by that last cover, perhaps one reason for its demise is that it never had anything to match the success of Kick-Ass and flogged its one winner to death.

  10. Millar may be a “personable” guy, but he specializes in comics that depict violence as hip and cool. Everything I’ve read by him was loathsome, and he deserves the bashing.

  11. http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2013/08/17/friday-box-office-lee-daniels-the-butler-soars-kick-ass-2-and-jobs-stumble/?partner=yahootix

    I’m glad to see that “Kick-Ass 2” appears to be a flop. As a writer for Forbes put it:

    “The original Kick-Ass opened in April, 2010 and was (unrealistically) expected to break out of the cult film box. It was an early example of geek culture not translating into mainstream interest. … I don’t want to judge too much based on a single day’s gross, but this seems to be another case of a sequel no one asked for performing well under the first not-terribly popular installment.”

  12. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more (or any) discussion here about Millar’s repulsive interview in the New Republic earlier this month, in which he defended the constant use of rape in his comics.

    There’s not much to say about it. Concepts such as Nemesis are so simple that they define “high concept.” Anybody could have done “Batman as a bad guy”; the question is what he would have to gain from doing it. Anybody could do a Superman analogue as a close-ended story, but again, why? Writing his life story as a tragedy would be depressing for readers; writing it as a happy story would be a feel-good fantasy; rationalizing his powers might turn off readers who wanted classic Superman.

    Comic book superheroes are too simple to use as they appear in the comics. Captain America, for example–parodying him is trivial. Either exaggerate his military mannerisms and morals slightly, or have him act corruptly; parodying him is too easy to be worth doing, except for readers who are easily amused.

    Since comic book heroes and villains in the stories are so simple, ignoring them is preferable to explaining what makes analyzing them worthwhile, in the opinion of many.

    SRS

  13. “Since comic book heroes and villains in the stories are so simple, ignoring them is preferable to explaining what makes analyzing them worthwhile, in the opinion of many.”

    SRS, I have no idea what point you’re trying to make, except that superheroes bore you and you don’t want to talk about them. However, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of websites out there devoted to analyzing superheroes.

    What makes Millar’s work repulsive isn’t the fact that he uses superheroes (sometimes). It’s the fact that he uses sadistic violence and rape as a turn-on for his readers.

  14. What makes Millar’s work repulsive isn’t the fact that he uses superheroes (sometimes). It’s the fact that he uses sadistic violence and rape as a turn-on for his readers.

    So do S&M and B&D stories. There are people who grind out such stories, like pieces of sausage, for people who are turned on by them. Analyzing why some readers are turned on by them might be worth some time, but the stories themselves are crap, not worth talking about.

    SRS

  15. Snysidar said: “Analyzing why some readers are turned on by them might be worth some time, but the stories themselves are crap, not worth talking about.”

    SRS, it’s hard to analyze why stories turn on readers without talking about the stories themselves.

    I agree the stories are crap, and so are the movies based on them. Millar’s work deserves comment for one reason: it sells. A lot of comics fans drool over it, can’t get enough of it. Whether we like it or not, Mark Millar is a major figure in the comics industry.

    It’s notable that the gore and lurid rape scenes (and total lack of morality) in Millar’s comics had to be toned down for the movie versions of “Wanted” and “Kick-Ass” parts one and two. The kind of material loved by many fanboys (but probably not many fangirls) is too extreme for mainstream movie audiences. They would rightly find it warped and repulsive.

    I thought Grant Morrison — who no longer speaks to Millar — nailed “Wanted” as a comics geek’s fantasy of having the power to rape and murder without any consequences. If that’s the ultimate fanboy dream, comics are in worse shape than I thought.

  16. SRS, it’s hard to analyze why stories turn on readers without talking about the stories themselves.

    Read a few. You’ll discover that many, many stories are pure formula fiction. If the writer’s intent is to turn on the reader by a man breaking a woman’s spirit and turning her into a slut, then practically any good-looking young woman will do. The background, name, specifics of her appearance, personality, practically everything that makes her an individual woman, don’t matter. All that matters is the process, which invariably ends with the woman proclaiming that yes, she is now a slut, and she loves it. The End.

    You seem to be assuming that aesthetics play some part in the success of the story. Aesthetics don’t. As long as magical words and scenes are in the story, the targeted reader will react as though he’s programmed. Changing the context in which the magical material appears might make a difference to people who don’t read fetish fiction, but not to the readers who have their programmed reaction.

    SRS

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