DEATHMATCH #1-12 (Paul Jenkins / Carlos Magno)

Ci-dessous les premières pages de Deathmatch #6 réalisées par le scénariste Paul Jenkins et le dessinateur Carlos Magno.
Deathmatch reprend dans les grandes lignes le point de départ de « La Guerre Secrète » de Marvel Comics. Plusieurs héros sont envoyés sur une planète lointaine pour y combattre à mort.

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[quote]Deathmatch #6
Story by Paul Jenkins
Art by Carlos Magno
Colors by Michael Garland
Letters by Ed Dukeshire
Cover by Whilce Portacio, Blond, Reilly Brown
Publisher Boom! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date Wed, May 29th, 2013
The arena isn’t the only thing to be afraid of anymore… After last month’s harrowing deathmatch, the heroes fear for their lives every waking moment as the secret combatant sealed up in the prison’s high security wing is unleashed…[/quote]

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Lien
Le site de l’éditeur: boom-studios.com

Le scénariste Paul Jenkins s’exprime publiquement, dans une lettre ouverte, sur sa décision de ne plus travailler pour Marvel et DC (« dans un futur immédiat »).
Il explique que ce choix est motivé par l’absence de soutient de la part des deux éditeurs qui privilégient la pérennité de leurs marques/héros plutôt que la créativité des auteurs.

[quote=« Paul Jenkins »]Have you ever fretted for days over an email that you really wanted to send?

It can be excruciating sometimes; I have plenty of drafts stewing in my Outbox that cover numerous difficult topics but I know as well as anyone that it is better to think for a day or so before pulling the trigger. My unsent letters are usually work-related, and most are intended to right a perceived wrong, or solve some logistical problem or other. Well, this is the one I have been thinking of sending for a couple of years now. I don’t think there is an easy or right way to do this, so here goes:

I’m going to remove myself from working for the foreseeable future with Marvel or DC, and I’ll be working exclusively from now on with BOOM! Studios. I’m finally going to make myself happy again in the process.

The first and most understandable question may well be, "Why make it a public affair? Why not simply go quietly and work wherever you like without feeling the need to shout it out to the whole world?" Well, the answer is that I have something to say, and I feel the subject is important enough to initiate some debate. I hope those reading this will agree the discussion will be worth their time. I feel that we are once again moving in the wrong direction, creatively. I’ve been down this road before, and it’s a road we can and should avoid. I don’t need to tell you what Greg Rucka and numerous other respected creators have already told you – that the Big Two have removed their focus away from the creators and towards the maintenance of the characters. I don’t blame Disney or Warner Brothers. After all, Avengers made a lot of money, didn’t it?

But me, I love to write comics. I have always been captivated by the potential of the medium. Comic book creators enjoy a tremendous advantage in the way we can tell a story, with our wonderfully collaborative interaction between artist and writer. Over the course of my career in this industry I have had the opportunity to work on all of the major characters at Marvel and DC, and for much of that time it has been a lot of fun. But honestly, the entire medium deserves more than we are currently giving it. So do the fans, the people who currently shell out four dollars for each comic that they buy. We have taken away the consequences of the stories we present to them, and I feel the mainstream product is becoming a homogenized puddle of « meh. » I have no desire to appeal to a reader’s indifference, nor be involved in a final product that I do not fully support.

I have discovered in my forties that I am primarily driven by a desire to tell good stories and shepherd them through the creative process as best I can. I am immensely frustrated by the fact that we have come full circle, back to the days of simply managing characters. I am even more frustrated that my name is attached to a creative product that I did not fully create. Lord knows I am not always perfect as a creator… but as I sit and try to find the right words to say I can tell you one thing with certainty:** I know when it was a lot easier, and that was back in the days of Marvel Knights. In those times, Marvel had been in bankruptcy, and they had little choice but to allow the creators the freedom and trust that so many of us deserve.** I look back on « Inhumans » and « Sentry, » on my Spidey runs with Bucky and Humberto, and on various successes with « Wolverine: Origin » and others, and I know - because I was there - that they succeeded in large part because I was given freedom to create without being handicapped by editorial mandates. It just hasn’t been that way for a while.** In recent years, I have watched, helpless, as editors made pointless and destructive changes to scripts and artwork that they had previously left alone.** It bugs me that the creators were a primary focus when the mainstream publishers needed them, and now that the corporations are driving the boat, creative decisions are being made once again by shareholders. I want to create comics the way we are supposed to. I want characters to die and stay dead, or at the very least make sure that creative decisions in a series lead to something more than an inevitable return to the status quo.

So I am fully committing to working with BOOM! Studios, where I have already enjoyed more creative freedom in the last six or seven months than I can possibly articulate.** Ross Richie has reanimated a beast that I had thought was extinct: namely, he has created an environment of trust between the creator and the editor.** The culture of BOOM! is one that I admire; one that I miss terribly, and I can easily recognize: I told Ross recently that working with BOOM! reminds me of my days at Marvel Knights. I can pay his amazing team, that he’s assembled with Matt Gagnon and Filip Sablik, no higher compliment. I know that I am only ever going to be happy if I am allowed to create by a collaborative publisher who truly wants comics to be worth the cover price.

**I suppose there comes a time in everyone’s life where they think about the good old days and wish they were “home.” Well, I am lucky enough to be home. **I hope readers will see what BOOM! Studios is doing in their cool little corner of the creative world. I believe those fans who want me to write books like « Sentry » and « Inhumans » will once again be able to expect that my name on the front cover of a book reflects a certain standard. I’m going to be building worlds and doing creator-owned stuff, and generally smiling when I wake up instead of fretting that my name is attached to something I do not believe in.[/quote]

Le problème de ce genre d’infos pour moi, c’est que je pige que dalle à l’anglais, dommage…

mais que fait aaron ?

J’espère qu’il va publiquement dénoncer cette prise de position orgueilleuse et annoncer qu’il n’achètera plus jamais de comics signé jenkins.

Non mais.

[quote=« n.nemo »]mais que fait aaron ?

J’espère qu’il va publiquement dénoncer cette prise de position orgueilleuse et annoncer qu’il n’achètera plus jamais de comics signé jenkins.

Non mais.[/quote]

Je suis assez d’accord avec Jenkins sur le fond. La créativité dans les comics n’est plus que minime et seul quelques rares scénaristes qui doivent malgré tout faire avec les diktats commerciaux actuels ont cette opportunité et ce sont souvent des auteurs très en vu comme Johns, Bendis, Morrison (même si ce dernier va quitté DC (après Multiversity) et vertigo), Aaron et Remender. Les autres doivent faire avec ce qui leur sont imposé, c’est pour cela que des auteurs comme Rucka/Brub et bien d’autres ont eu des soucis (c’est particulièrement flagrant chez DC).

C’est particulièrement dommage surtout quand on sait que c’est cyclique et que dans quelques années le pouvoir reviendra aux scénaristes. C’est d’autant plus dommage que pour Jenkins par exemple ce dernier à vécu une période formidable avec Marvel ou la créativité était au top. Il y a pu faire la maxi sur les Inhumains un truc qu’on ne verrait pas de nos jours tout comme Sentry, ses Spidey sont aussi assez couillu.

C’est l’annulation de la mini-série All-Winners Squad: Band Of Heroes au bout du 5ème numéro qui lui reste en travers de la gorge. Surtout que son collaborateur Carmine Di Giandomenico avait terminé le travail sur les trois numéros restants. La faute a été rejeté sur la démission du responsable éditorial Arbona. A croire qu’il n’avait pas d’assistant pour reprendre son travail, comme la plupart des éditeurs.
Après ça, Jenkins s’est contenté de vivoter en réalisant des épisodes de remplacements sur Batman: The Dark Knight et Stormwatch.

C’est vrai, que récemment Jenkins n’a pas fait dans le lourd chez Marvel et DC alors qu’il y a quelques années il était le scénariste le plus demandé.

Ce n’est pas surprenant de la part de Marvel vu les enjeux financiers. Malheureusement, Marvel devrait se rappeler que les meilleurs « run » ont été souvent conçus au moment où le scénariste avait une paix royale : Thor de W.Simonson, Hulk de P.David, Daredevil de F.Miller…

tout à fait et même plus récemment Grant Morrison sur les X-Men, toutes les séries MK (sauf les deuxpremière mini sur le punisher), Greg Pak sur Planet Hulk, Waid sur les FF, Milligan sur X-Force/X-Static, Winnick sur Exilés, Busiek sur T-bolts…

Deathmatch est une très bonne série que je recommande.

Pour avoir la paix, il faut être soit sur une série dont personne n’attends rien, soit être un architecte (Johns, Snyder, les architectes de Marvel)

Mais certains arrivent à tirer leur épingle du jeu.
La série actuelle Superior Spider-Man est assez couillue (ce qui fait hurler certains fans) et se vend d’ailleurs trois plus que la précédente.
(Je me demande ce que va donner Superior Foes of Spider-Man.)
Duggan et Posehn sur Deadpool, Aaron sur Thor et WATXM font preuve d’imagination.
Robinson a réussi à créer son jardin privé avec Earth 2 (mais il a démissionné quand il appris que DC voulait lancer une 2e série sur cette terre sans lui en parler ni lui confier les rênes)

All-Winners Squad n’était pas très porteur comme concept : des héros inconnus de la seconde guerre mondiale dans une série historique. Et le lancer en huit numéros, c’était peu avisé. Hélas les lecteurs sont peu réceptifs aux nouveautés.
C’est d’ailleurs la raison pour laquelle je me résigne à ce qu’on mette le label Avengers sur des séries qui ne le sont pas dans Marvel Now (New Avengers = Illuminati, Secret Avengers = SHIELD, Avengers Arena = Murderworld, etc)

Cette dernière suit le même thème que Deathmatch et est aussi une réussite critique mais hélas pas populaire.

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[quote]Deathmatch #7
Story by Paul Jenkins
Art by Carlos Magno
Cover by Whilce Portacio, Blond, Reilly Brown
Publisher Boom! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date Wed, July 3rd, 2013
The battles grow fiercer and the bodies continue to pile up as DEATHMATCH hurtles towards the semi-finals! Inside the arena, the fabled detective faces off against her insane nemesis…and will a mortal man have any chance against the power of a mad god? Outside the arena, the Rat struggles to decipher Glyph’s secret messages before it’s too late.[/quote]

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Source: comicbookresources.com

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[quote]Deathmatch #10
Story by Paul Jenkins
Art by Carlos Magno
Colors by Michael Garland
Letters by Ed Dukeshire
Cover by Reilly Brown, Archie Van Buren
Publisher Boom! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date Wed, October 9th, 2013
Only four combatants remain in the deathmatch arena, the rest of their friends (and enemies) slain by their own hands. Will the heroes be able to band together and discover the prison’s secrets before one of them stands “victorious”?[/quote]

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Source: www.comicbookresources.com

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[quote]Deathmatch #12
Story by Paul Jenkins
Art by Carlos Magno
Colors by Michael Garland
Letters by Ed Dukeshire
Cover by Carlos Magno, Archie Van Buren
Publisher Boom! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date Wed, December 11th, 2013
The final battle is here, as the two heroes left standing wage war for the fate of the universe. The conclusion to the vaunted superhero maxiseries from famed creators Paul Jenkins (FAIRY QUEST, INHUMANS) and Carlos Magno (PLANET OF THE APES, TRANSFORMERS).[/quote]

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Source: www.comicbookresources.com