Chuck Dixon....what the hell happened???

[DerekPowers]

i use to think dixon was a great writer, i mean, he wrote many of the whole "knightfall" story arc back in the early 90s. after that i dont really know what he wrote cause i kind of fell out of the comics loop, but his latest "last laugh" sucked big time and robin and birds of prey arent all that either. what happened??

also, anyone know of any other storys he wrote that were actually good? did he write robin: year one? if so, how was that?

well, what the heck happened to chuck dixon? thoughts, comments, feel free to disagree.....

[The Guard]

He's got Sigils dancing in his head.

[pencilsharp]

Poor Chuck. One word, kids: burnout.
Now, let's see what could have been done to avoid this.

1. Never let your editor talk you into doing a hundred issues of anything. (see also Dave Sim)
2. Don't even stick around the same group of characters (like Robin and Nightwing)
3. Do take sabbaticals. (see also Gary Larson, Bill Watterson, and Berkley Breathed) and
4. Don't believe letter columns. Lettercol writers are not exactly representative of your audience, because people who hate your stories do not usually write letters. They stop buying your book.

I think Chuck needs about six months off to recharge himself a bit. He has the ability to be a good writer, but not when he's worn out.

Oh, and happy 100th post to me!

[kid_flash]

Chuck Dixon is an amazingly talented writer, I have no doubt about that. But for the past few months, everything of his (with the exception of NIGHTWING, which is just awesome) really sucks.

Heck, some of my favorite single issues or two- to three-part stories were written by Dixon. Every one of his NIGHTWING issues is awesome. The early BIRDS OF PREY stuff is really cool. A lotta his ROBIN stuff is cool, same goes for his work on the Bat-titles. But lately, the guy's just lost it. Looking forward to the new teams (and a new artist on NIGHTWING!).

[SilentBobWooHoo]

I agree...I just don't get it. Like Azrael, I went back and bought EVERY issue of Robin, which has been great until last year. I think it started to get worse after the Man-Bat story...

[Karkull]

Originally posted by pencilsharp
2. Don't even stick around the same group of characters (like Robin and Nightwing).

It only really works if you had created the character in question (Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon, Frank Miller's Sin City).