Why I pretty much write off Marvel when they're making cartoons

[yendi]

We watched about ten minutes of the pilot of the new X-Men cartoon a few weeks back. The show gives Warren Ellis a story credit, but I'm pretty sure the conversation went something like this:

Story editor calling from California: Hey, Warren, can you give us a story idea for our new cartoon?

Ellis, a hemisphere away: Sure! Let me just take one last puff on my cigarette.

(Ellis inhales, smoke goes down the wrong way, and he enters a massive smoking fit.)

Ellis: *coughcoughcoughcough* *ack* *gasp* *bleargh*

Story editor: That's great! We can run with it from there. Thanks! *click*

Ellis: Hello? I'm ready to give you my idea now!

Seriously, there was fifteen minutes of nigh incomprehensible action, written by someone who has to be Rob Liefeld in disguise. The anime-style art was meh, and certainly did the story no favorites.

The point being, this cartoon was so bad I couldn't be arsed to watch the final ten minutes. It joins Two Broke Girls and Body of Proof as the only shows in recent years that made me give up before the end of one episode. In an era in which every show from Pound Puppies to Young Justice has solid writing and acting, producing a show that is actually of lesser quality than a typical '80s Saturday morning cartoon (and don't get me started on the misguided nostalgia for the ongoing era of crap that was '80s 'toons) takes work.

The fact that the occasional Super Hero Squad Show makes it to the air is a bloody miracle, in light of the rest of Marvel's animation output.

Comments

[silme.livejournal.com]

See, and I gave up on Body of Proof simply because it's supposed to be set in Philadelphia -- and that clearly wasn't Philadelphia we were seeing, says this native of that city. (I checked. They filmed the first season in Providence, Rhode Island, and subsequent seasons are being filmed in Los Angeles. Really -- we're supposed to think that Providence is Philly? Why didn't they just set it in Rhode Island then?)

[rowancat.livejournal.com]

At the other extreme (in every way) of cartoon quality, i used both links in your
Black Friday Amazon post to buy Vol 1 and Vol 2 of the restored uncut
Looney Tunes Golden Collection dvd sets on the 25th.. will get them tomorrow :)

[yendi]

I'm generally willing to give shows a pass on that front -- the cost of filming in Philly is likely high, and it's not like I haven't spent years seeing Vancouver passed off as everything from New York to Hong Kong. That said, I need good writing to stop me from paying attention to other details.

[yendi]

Glad to hear it! :-)