April 5, 2009:

THE BLUEWATER COOLER: Publisher Darren G. Davis rants and raves about the comic industry: ISSUE 12

Most of the time I have a thick skin with things. Over the years I have had to defend myself for the stupidest things. When I was at Image Comics I was called into TOP COW to talk about the lightning bolt over the 10th Muse's face. It was because their character Velocity had one as well and I it was copyright infringement. They dropped it after I mentioned the similarities between their character RipClaw and Wolverine.

I am a comic publisher who does more than one genre. Some people thing that because we are doing the FEMALE FORCE comics that we can't do horror comics or when they see 10th Muse, they think that is a T&A book. The women characters we produce have always been about female empowerment. They are all strong women who are fully independent. You can't judge these comics by the covers. It would be like judging Wonder Women, who was on the cover of MS Magazine as the icon for female empowerment. For Bluewater to produce comics like "Female Force" it really was organic for us because we have been producing comics that promotes female empowerment.

I would always make sure that ads for Warlock would never be in a Female Force comic. Also I would make sure we would never put a Vincent Price ad in Violet Rose (which is our kids comic). I remember being outraged when I saw an ad in DC Comics Robin for "Natural Born Killers." Robin was supposed to be an all ages comic and to see that film in their surprised me. That is why we always make sure to fill the extra pages responsibility.

My background is in advertising and believe it or not, we do not except every ad that comes into Bluewater. Some are just not a fit. I treat these pages in the books just as I would as a comic page. Sorry I digress...

Being in comics, you must have a thick skin. We have gotten reviews of the 10th Muse that said it was the worst piece of crap, and then we have gotten reviews saying how excellent the book was. I take it all with a grain of salt. Then there are those that try say stuff about me, that is just not true. So I really try to stay away from message boards and reviews. We use reviews for the back of the graphic novels. They are all pretty much subjective. I do tell all the people I work with the same thing. We got a review once about the artwork in the 10th Muse was like a 6th grader did it. He also went on to say how he could do better, when I google searched for him, I found some of his artwork, and it did not look any better. The character he did, which I think was Spiderman had huge hands, no forearm...it was just weird. He got mad because I called him to the carpet. So the judders do not like to be judged.

There are some people's reviews I respect because they really think about it rather than saying - "It looks like crap." I am all for constructive criticism.
We are a publisher that has diversity. We do everything from action, Kids comics to horror, sci-fi. We do a lot with the libraries and I would never give a kid a comic that has anything inappropriate. I did this once when I did a week comic camp at the Boys and Girls Club. I gave them the Image Introduces: Legend of Isis. What I did not know is in the back of the book - Image put a 5 page back-up story that had the f-word in it. I had no clue that is was in there. There were some complaints from the Boys and Girls Club parents. I felt really bad about this. So if I go someplace and there is a borderline ad, I will rip it out and give them something else. I went to a school last week and gave them Jason and the Argonauts and there was a Legend of Isis ad in there, I tore it out. I also made sure the teachers got a copy of it before I gave it out.

I do like doing different genres. It makes things less boring here....we do have our limits.

It is a really nice day here in the Vancouver/ Portland area - so I am going to get off the computer and enjoy it.

Until next time!

Darren