A 2015 comic about 2005 about...

With the recent news about casting for next year’s Fantastic Four film, I realized I had never posted this here. I did this in 2015 after the last Fantastic Four film started being promoted and people I knew were crapping on it simply because they don’t like the FF… in retrospect, the film was a bomb for other reasons, and the person I knew who was so vocal about how he hated the FF ended up being very staunchly opposed to every political opinion I ever voiced, so fuck him anyway, lol.

Anyway, it got me remembering seeing the Tim Story FF film from 2005 with my friends and our immediate reaction to it, and then reflecting on why the FF had always been my favorite comic.

Now, after seeing that 2015 movie, and catching up on all the FF comics since I stopped reading my freshman year of college, I have a less intense attachment to them… there’s been a lot of uncaring work with the characters, a lot of mediocre to bad comics and media. There’s been some good, too, but the sheen is a little bit less.

I actually don’t dislike the Story movies. They aren’t great, but they’re enjoyable. And the Animated series from those years is pretty good. And there’s been some good runs in the comics, between some bland as fuck ones.

But don’t get me started on the lost period, where Marvel canceled the book, their longest running superhero title… to spite Fox who were holding onto their film rights to the characters.

I find now I really enjoy the mutant metaphor, which I always did… but it makes the X-men feel more politically relevant. I still love the FF though and look forward to the MCU version, with trepidation. The last time I let myself get excited for a Marvel film I got burned big time. And the FF doesn’t have a good track record with film adaptation.

It’s surprising to me how little I have drawn these characters since the 80s, I used to draw them all the time. I had, before college, drawn them and sent a couple of pages of Ben and Johnny fighting the Wizard and the Trapster at an art opening for Alicia, as a tryout (I make visual reference to it HERE). I got a very polite and encouraging rejection letter to start my collection of polite yet encouraging rejection letters, lol.

Perhaps I will have to change that? I mean how long it’s been since drawing them. Not the rejection letter collection.