Singer-actor Tyrese invents comic book superhero – CNN.com

“There was an experience that I felt was pretty limiting as far as the comic book experience itself on paper” says Gibson, who stresses that he did not grow up reading comic books and is not a comic book veteran. “[So] I set up this technology with my team and this is the first-ever digital comic book [on iTunes] in the history of comic books.”

“We don’t believe you, you need more people.”

Hey, it’s cool that you didn’t read comics growing up. My mom didn’t, either, and I’m about to ship her a big box full of books that she reads or has expressed an interest in. It’s nice you like comics now! It’s not nice that you are making things up to make Mayhem, your completely and thoroughly awful comic book, seem like something record-breaking and cool!

I don’t remember the first digital comic I got for my iPod Touch. Maybe it was some weird Japanese thing I couldn’t get to play. I do know, however, that I bought Bone: Out from Boneville, just about a year ago. Shoot, Comixology and IDW have been pumping out digital comics over the past year, Comixology in particular.

So- first ever digital comic book on iTunes: untrue. There are no amount of semantic acrobatics you can go through to make it true. It’s not the first comic book designed specifically for the iPhone/iPod Touch format. It’s not the first digital comic on iTunes. It’s not the first comic to add page turns and voiceovers. We call those “motion comics” now and both Marvel and DC have been doing them for months. It’s not even the first print comic to be transplanted to iTunes. That makes Gibson either a liar or ignorant, and if he’s ignorant, he definitely shouldn’t be making bold proclamations.

Gibson: Me and my partner Mike Lee and Will Wilson all got together, we started brainstorming about different concepts and different directions we could send this character in and we came up with something pretty unique. It’s an ongoing series and so as soon as you think you’ve got it figured out, there’s a cliffhanger that makes you want to read the second issue and the third issue.

Mayhem is a three issue series, and it’s not unique. It’s a gritty guy with a gun shooting people and grimacing. People who don’t even read comics are tired of that.

Gibson: In everything you do, there’s gonna be cynics and those folks questioning what your motivation is behind getting into anything. I dealt with it when I went from one career move to the next: “Man, stick to singing; stick to acting.”

I dealt with a lot of that from certain folks in the comic book world. … They wrote these long e-mails and [started] on a smear campaign.

That’s what we call “dry snitching,” talking about someone or something in an indirect manner so that you can seem like you didn’t talk about anyone specific at all. It’s also passive-aggressive and something children do. Gibson is talking about San Francisco comic retailer Brian Hibbs, owner of Comix Experience, one of the more respected comic book shops in the country. Hibbs wrote a post expressing reasonable skepticism about the marketing and probable value of the comic itself. And, hey, he’s a retailer, and he’s got twenty years experience in the game. I figure he knows what he’s talking about. However, his thoughts got him branded a “hater” by Gibson and his youtube sockpuppet.

It was hardly a smear campaign, by the way. It was a retailer expressing doubt, and considering that his livelihood depends on being able to sell comics, he has every right to do so.

Gibson proclaims his newfound love for comics throughout the piece, but it’s always tilted toward “I want people to buy my comic.” He never mentions comics that he enjoys. He only mentions other creators when they are related, tangentially or no, to his book. He speaks of Mayhem going to other media, like movies, after building a comic book fanbase. He positions himself as an innovator, rather than someone who helped create a retrograde and ugly comic book of the sort we’d left back in 1996.

Gibson’s own marketing director, Percy “MF Grimm” Carey, quit the project while citing their “snake oil selling marketing tactics.” Carey’s dissent is important, as his book Sentences, featuring art by Ron Wimberly, was released from a very well-regarded imprint from one of the two biggest comic publishers around. It was critically and commercially well-received, and gained Carey a measure of respect in the comic book world, mainly because he gets it. You have to show and prove before people buy into your hype. You can’t do it in reverse. You can’t hype and expect people to let you spoon feed them baby food.

When you factor in Carey’s reasons for quitting, the Mayhem situation suddenly becomes very clear. It’s a cash-in, a quick attempt to trade Tyrese’s fame for sales of an amateurish comic book about a walking, talking cliche in a cliche of a story fighting cliche villains. You’ve read Mayhem several times before, and it was undoubtedly better every other time.

Mayhem is the dictionary definition of a soft batch: undercooked, underplanned, and falls to pieces if you look at it hard. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Here’s five pages from the first issue and the solicit for issue #1.

Los Angeles, the City of Fallen Angels, is a city swept up by a brutal crime wave led by a kingpin known only as Big X. The body count builds as only one man can stop the flow of drugs and violence, only one man can stop Big X. He is the embodiment of vengeance and raw justice, the faceless arm of those who cannot defend themselves. He is known as Mayhem, and along with his sexy but deadly partner Malice, their goal is to dismantle the kingpin’s organization, unravel the dark secret that mysteriously links them to Big X, and save the city they grew up in.

This popped up on Twitter this morning via Laura Hudson’s ComicsAlliance, and wow! It’s a huge surprise. In short, MF Grimm was Marketing Director for Tyrese’s Mayhem. The full info is on ComicsAlliance, but here’s an excerpt:

I would like to take this time to inform you all that I have officially stepped down as marketing director of Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM!

Although I handled the marketing up until San Diego Comic Con 2009, I did not agree with the direction the owner(s) and the creators were headed. Therefore, I submitted my resignation shortly after our return.

On several occasions over the past few months, the creators decided to forget about their responsibilities (writing a good comic book) and on a whim, turned their focus to the marketing of Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM!; it was during these times they found multiple ways to insult well-respected people within the comic book industry.
[snip]
It’s easy for people to take credit for things (like strategic marketing) when they are going well, but no one will step forward when unethical methods are implemented, methods that are clearly not “strategic”. Because I am credited in Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM! as Marketing Director, I’m obligated to come forward and absorb the blame for these (unauthorized) snake oil selling marketing tactics which I found to be unnecessary and insensitive to comic book retailers. (I do not want to be associated with the comic book retail problem that has arisen because of this project , especially in this frail economy.

At one point, I put in a personal request to Arch-Enemy Entertainment (the parent company of Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM!) To have the members of Team MAYHEM! Who insulted Mr. Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience (and several other comic book retailers, many of whom are close friends of mine) by using snake oil selling marketing tactics to send a apology in the same forum(s) where the insult(s) took place; my request for the apology went ignored by the creators. I must therefore take it upon myself to do what should have been done quite some time ago.

And you know, good on him. Other than writing one of my most favorite stories (Sentences), I appreciate that he saw that the gang he was working with was headed down the wrong road, tried to correct it, and when he was rebuffed, made a tough decision and quit. Genuine apologies seem to be pretty rare, and judging by the text of his letter, he means it.

What’s important, and what Carey touches on here, is that if you’re coming into an area, respect is a rule, not a choice. When you’re trying to put out a floppy, you need to take into account how the market works and play along with the retailers. You aren’t going to be able to create overnight change, no matter how hard you try. It sucks, yeah, but them’s the breaks.

As far as Tyrese Gibson’s Mayhem and whether or not it was a good comic… “I read your book, now I break weed up on it.”