Some creators take to Twitter when they want to announce a new topic. Ta-Nehisi Coates? He writes about it at The Atlantic.
The new title will have interior art by Leinil Yu and covers by Alex Ross. It symbolically drops on the Fourth of July… assuming your comic shop is open on a national holiday. Otherwise, expect retailers to be a little annoyed if that effectively positions it as de facto digital first release with a one day head start.
How is Coates approaching the title?
I confess to having a conflicted history with this kind of proclamation—which is precisely why I am so excited to take on Captain America. I have my share of strong opinions about the world. But one reason why I chose the practice of opinion journalism—which is to say a mix of reporting and opinion—is because understanding how those opinions fit in with the perspectives of others has always been more interesting to me than repeatedly restating my own. Writing is about questions for me—not answers. And Captain America, the embodiment of a kind of Lincolnesque optimism, poses a direct question for me: Why would anyone believe in The Dream? What is exciting here is not some didactic act of putting my words in Captain America’s head, but attempting to put Captain America’s words in my head. What is exciting is the possibility of exploration, of avoiding the repetition of a voice I’ve tired of.
And if you were wondering what CB Cebulski’s been spending his time on, Coates has some information for you there, too:
C.B. Cebulski, who just helped me refashion the script to the first issue;
So it would appear the project is a priority. And we get The Invaders in the promotional image, which one suspects is the first issue’s cover.
I’m torn here. I want to try and I want to like this series. But I’m also really unhappy that Marvel wants me to pay $5 just to try the series. And it makes me nervous that Coates hasn’t really written any comic except a dense Black Panther series. And the script had to be partially helped along by Cebulski? I’m going to need more intense selling of his concept and plans before I jump in.
I thought Waid and Samnee were working on Captain America, is that a new title or is their run already over?
I’m not particularly fan of his writing on Black Panther so not really looking forward to this.
No thank you. I like the current run and I was bored to tears by Coates’ Black Panther comic for the couple of issues I tried.
I feel you guys, not to diss on Coates, but i feel he has a lot to learn about visual story telling…
I find a lot of books these days have problems establishing continuity…even within issues, (metal, teen titans for example) whether its a editing problem, or a writer artist communication problem, it usually turns me off of a book pretty quickly
I am a little curious how they can follow up the Cap is a nazi storyline, but not that much considering what happened in that storyline and certainly not enough to spend 5.00 an issue. Besides I’m pretty sure they’ll turn him back into a nazi for the next event so why get involved in a character marvel will probably trash again anyway.
As Raphael hints at, I hope that Coates has a strong editor here (something he lacked on BP). While I really liked his ideas and characters in that book, it was very clearly the first comics work of someone who usually writes in a denser format. There’s a trap that comics readers fall into where we internalize the presumed action in the panel gutters (that act to mediate the passage of time between panel beats) and then ‘retell’ the story as if more happened on the page than actually did. As a result, unless a knowledgeable editor steps in, a writer who’s new to writing comics — especially one used to formats where everything has to actually has to go onto the page (like essay writing) — will often overwrite the action and then end up overscripting the page to fill up those extra panels.
Like I said, he’s had good stories for his BP run, but they’re twice as long as they should be and grind to a halt in too many scenes because he’s almost writing them like he would in a purely text format. I think he can develop into a good comics writer, but Marvel needs to get over working with a writing celebrity and give him a drill sergeant of an editor to work on his structural issues before he moves into characters where his knowledge of international geopolitics won’t help cover those flaws.
I’ll wait until my public library gets the trade. No way I’m paying $5 for a pamphlet.
Coates on Cap is the first time since reading the Brubaker run that I’m interested in the character, but nothing about this Fresh Start is changing Marvel’s business decisions I’m not interested at paying 5 or 4 for a normal single issue comic, when I can be patient and just pick up the trade for roughly that price on Comixology/Amazon.
I’m a fan of Coates, but unless that $4.99 gives me more than 24-or-so pages I just can’t do it. I already threw a fit when books went to a standard of $3.99 and another dollar is just that last step I can’t take!
Actually, if eve half of the Ta-Nahesi Coates pull factor transfers over to Cap, then that’s massive tpb sales to an ordinarily non-comics audience. Inyeresting to see how this goes
Comments are closed.