For those who don't know, Pilot Season is an annual program by Top Cow Productions to come out with around 6 one-shots each spotlighting a potential new series. After all of the one-shots are released, fans are allowed to vote on what they'd like to see as new books, with the two top vote-getters becoming ongoing series. This year is the third year that Top Cow has held the promotion.
2007 spotlighted pre-existing top cow characters such as Cycblade (of Cyberforce), Velocity (also from Cyberforce), and Aphrodite IX (an aborted mini-series almost a decade old). I never read them so I couldn't tell you if they were any good or worth reading.
2008 showcased all-new properties (with one lone exception). To name a few (in order of my own personal preference) were Urban Myths (a detective story by Jay Faerber with a background in Greek Mythology, my favorite of the bunch), The Core (A science fiction yarn by Jonathan Hickman with some stylistic similarities to the video game Mass Effect), Twilight Guardian (about a young woman with OCD who envisions herself a local vigilante to cope with her rather mundane life), Lady Pendragon (really just the latest issue of a series that hadn't been published in almost a decade), Alibi (about twins who moonlight as assassins, really just awful), and Genius (a young Latina gang leader who is credited as being the greatest tactician of the 21st century).
The 2009/2010 pilot Season is supposed to be the creative ground for popular writer Robert Kirkman, who I enjoy for his work on Invicible and Walking Dead. So far only two of the titles have been released, but they seem to show a lack of creativity. Don't get me wrong, they are nice little stories, but I feel that Robert Kirkman could be doing a better job. I've read most of what he's written, from Marvel Team-Up to Fantastic Four: Foes, so I'm familiar with his writing, but the first two one-shots, Murderer (about an empath who kills those he thinks are evil people while trying to do good) and Demonic (about a cop bound to a demon who kills others so that he doesn't have to harm his children), are a disservice to his usual style.
I have to wonder if Kirkman only gave a little bit of thought to the tales, which i can understand considering he writes two Image ongoing series, so throwing six extra one-shots into the mix is bound to be a little taxing creatively. I wish Kirkman didn't decide to take on the responsibility of writing all six pilot season one-shots. Part of the joy of the 2009 Pilot Season was that there were six different stories being told by six different creative teams that took time to craft a single story. One writer writing six different stories by six different artists feels like the wrong direction. Perhaps the next three one-shots, Stealth, Stellar, and Hardcore, will be better. I really hope they are.
Perhaps my problem with the issues is simply that I know Kirkman could do better. Who am I to question how he writes a story? If they were by a different writer, I'd probably like them a little more, but because they were written by the visionary creator of the Walking Dead, I hold them to a measuring stick that they can't possibly live up to. Therefore, I will reiterate that the stories were decent. If you come across one, then check it out. And once they are all released, if you really liked one of the stories in particular, then vote for it.
Now to the meat and potatoes of this post. I dare to ask the question, is the Pilot Season a scam?
Top Cow claims that the Pilot Season is designed to introduce new potential titles to the comic book market, and the two titles preferred by fans (through online voting) will become ongoing series. To see if this is true, lets look back at past Pilot Season winners.
In 2007, Velocity and Cyblade were the winners. A brief 4-issue Cyblade series eventually came out, but Velocity never saw the light of day. Fortunately, almost like a light at the end of the tunnel for any long-time Cyberforce fans, a new Velocity series by Ron Marz is currently on tap for later this year. I have no emotional attachment to either character, so I'm not too bothered by a lack of publication for the class of 2007.
In 2008, my personal picks were Urban Myths, The Core, and Twilight Guardian. Unfortunately, only one of those won. The other was the mediocore Genius one-shot. So far, neither has been scheduled for publication by Top Cow, and I have yet to hear anything regarding them.
Now the new Pilot Season is upon us. Will the two 'winners' become ongoings or will they fade into obscurity like the past participants? We'll just have to wait and see. I think if Top Cow is going to come up with this sham of a contest, then they at least owe it to the fans to publish something with the winner characters. Otherwise it's a slap in the face to the readers that bought the original books to try them out.
3 comments:
If I can shed a bit of light, I'm working on the Twilight Guardian mini-series at the moment, and Top Cow has said both it and Genius will be released later this year.
Thanks for the mention, by the way!
Thanks for the update. It wasn't until after I read Twilight Guardian that I realized you also wrote Common Grounds. I am a big fan of Astro City, so I naturally liked Common Grounds. Do you have anything else you are working on?
howdy! ( hey Troy lookin forward to twilight's drop!) - Genius will have a issue realease at the SDCC this year. I'd been working my butt off to one up my last issue. hopefully you'll give it another shot! reading ahead at what they've in store i'm excited about this book. Thanks for takin the time to read it!
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