From: [a--er--r] at [athena.mit.edu] (Alvaro E Pereira)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: 1993 Diamond Seminar Impressions (Part One)
Date: 17 Jun 1994 19:14:49 GMT

	The words below represent my biased, selective impressions from
the 1993 Diamond seminar.  It should not be interpreted as a summary of
the events.  There will probably others who will provide this.  I didn't
take notes, so this all off the top of my head.

	-Frank Miller was the keynote speaker and he impressed me with
his candor and intelligence.  He started his speech with an emotional
remembrance of Don Thompson and a very emotional remembrance of Jack
Kirby.  He then went on to criticize the comics-code authority and ripped
up their rulebook or whatever you want to call it.  Next, he complained
about work-for-hire situations and praised creator-owned properties.  He
complained about the negative attitude towards Image, stating that people
should be happy for what Image has done and for the fact that the
best-selling comic in the U.S. is creator-owned.  All-in-all, he was 100% 
pro-Image, which is in obvious disagreement with John Byrne.  He then went
on to single out Jim Shooter for his claim that he stood up for creators' 
rights when he was Editor-in-Chief at Marvel. This criticism, I thought, 
was uncalled for, especially when Miller gave no *specific* complaints 
about Shooter's tenure.  The final thing I can remember is Miller stating 
that he is already working on the third Sin City series and he "loves" 
Sin City and wants to keep doing it for a long time.  Miller did receive a
well-deserved standing ovation.

	-Jim Shooter, two days later during the Defiant presentation, gave
a rebuttal to Miller's accusation by stating that when he came to Marvel,
creators were paid on a flat page-rate basis.  He then listed about 10-15
things he played a role in initiating to help creators, such as providing
insurance, royalties, paid travel, etc.  He stated that he was not the
only one responsible for improving creators' situations but he played a
role.  He also quoted somebody called Kaplan, who was supposedly at Marvel
and in on the creator-rights discussion, who told Shooter that if it
wasn't for him, creators wouldn't have had anything at Marvel.   
He also complained about how some people are treating his padding of his 
resume as a crime.  All in all, he was quite upset.  As a recommendation 
for next year's seminar, I told Steve Geppi to sponsor a Miller/Shooter
debate.

	-The Defiant presentation, overall, was weak, because it was just
Shooter reading the Origin of the Defiant Universe to ugly slides.  I
wasn't impressed and I don't think many retailers were.  Chris Claremont
is clearly a part of Defiant.  He was with the Defiant crew and talked
about how Defiant is feeling a lot like early Marvel (with Len Wein and Dave
Cockrum there) and how he shared Shooter's hope that 20 years from
now Defiant would be the leader, just as Marvel had become 20 years after
Kirby/Ditko/Lee.

	-Chris Claremont should win the ubiquitious award.  He appeared at
the DC presentation, talking about his Sovereign 7 book.  He also appeared
at the Image presentation, along side Marc Silvestri, to discuss his
upcoming work on Silvestri's titles (Cyberforce?).

	-The Dark Horse presentation, on the other hand, was quite good. 
If you want diversity, this is the company.  I was impressed by the amount
of titles that are scheduled to be released.  Some of the Legend guys
spoke about their titles and the theme was basically if people continue
to buy them, we'll continue to publish them.

	-The Image presentation was hilarious, mostly due to Beau Smith. 
Larry Marder also spoke.  How old is Marder?  Mid-40s.  Anyway, he's much
older than the Image folks.  I believe that only Silvestri addressed the
crowd.

	-Big Entertainment had the largest exhibit on the floor with two
virtual reality stations and a huge screen TV.  Neil Gaiman was frequently
seen on the screen talking about his upcoming project for Teckno Comix,
which is the comics-related branch of Big Entertainment.  Gaiman's project
consists of building a comics line for Teckno with the first title about a
"Victorian robot" to be released in October.  Leonard Nimoy and Mickey
Spillane also spoke of their input into the Tekno Universe.  Big
Entertainment means Big Money and Big Technology.  The funniest thought I
had was looking at the retailers for reactions when the speaker for Big
Entertainment stated that their goal is to bring comic-books straight (and
thus bypassing retailers and distributors) from the publisher to the 
consumer through on-line services.  Oddly enough, there was little 
reaction from retailers.

	That's all I can remember right now.  Obviously there was a lot
more including speeches by Scott McCloud and Denis Kitchen, presentations
by Marvel, DC, Valiant, and others, etc.  Maybe I'll right something
later.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
------
Alvaro P.