So yesterday, Millar posts about this OHMYGOD IT'SPUREGENIUS theory he has THAT'SSOOBVIOUS, right? But he can't tell anyone about it. Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. Well, some people take Millar and his bag of hot air to task at his own site in the very thread where Millar is hyping . . . a whole bunch of nothin', actually:

I shouldn't get to worried Mark, your predictions arn't always true...

I'm trying to think of one that DID turn out to be true. And I can't. This is either hype for his article so he'll get more readers or he's trying to bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy concerning the "creators will be rich" thing. Either way, look at how long the funnies have been running in newspapers. For that matter, look at newspapers themselves? Maybe it's only a matter of time before both of those things (and comic books as well) eventually die out, but there's no way that'll be in 5 or 8 years...

You're blowing smoke, Mark, as usual. Go back to flogging McNiven...

Doubters. Dare they question the visionary that is Mark Millar, COMICS FUTURIST?!?!? Millar said:

Some great, great years coming. i think the first comcis billionaire will be here just after the end of the decade.

Which, of course, is going to catch Millar some flack. I mean, come on, Millar. What'd ya expect, man?

Sorry, but with Marvel's annual revenue at just over $370M, I don't see any one creator becoming a billionaire anytime soon (if ever).

[Millar responds:]Rob [Liefeld] personally made over 20 million fifteen years ago in a single YEAR.

And he'd have to do that for FIFTY YEARS STRAIGHT to make one billion dollars. Gimme a break.

[Millar again:]Nathan, you are wise to keep snides to a minimum or you'll get the banning Michael McD is heading for if he doesn't curb his rude asshole tendencies. Pick apart the argument when you read it. It'll be available online as well as in the comic. Don't be rude beforehand or after you've read it or you're out the door.

Math is hard. But I have a feeling the Scotsman is going to regret inviting people to tear his argument apart after having read it. The grand vision?

Something that just hit me a couple of days ago and that was that the very thing that helped us in recent years. The huge boost of money and interest injected into the comic-market is exactly what might prove our demise a little less than a decade from now.

And that, my friends, is Hollywood.

Seriously. This is the grand insight that he's been teasing people with. Supposedly, a bunch of the most talented comics creators will get lured away from comics and go Hollywood, leaving the sweaty, smelly fanboys in their dust, sucking their thumbs in the corner while silently weeping, clutching a copy of The Ultimates 2.0 #13 in their hands. [Insert your own joke about Bryan Hitch's slow work pace here.] And, of course, no one, but NO ONE, will ever be as good as Millar as his boys, so COMICS IS DOOMED!!! DOOMED, WE SAY!!!!!!!!

And every freakin' comics creator EVAR is going to be like, George FREAKIN' Lucas!!!! AWESOME!!!! Cha-ching!!!!

Of course, this much sheer . . . ridiculosity (had to make up a word; IT WAS JUST THAT BAD) demands snark in return, and no one does snark better than YMB:

Millar just had his Tom Cruise moment.

But it's much better when it's being posted directly at the man's own forum:

That's it?

Why did you say no one had guessed your argument when plenty of people had?

Plus there's an amazing whiff of egomania in the idea that once you and your chums have buggered off to Hollywood there won't be anyone with any real talent coming along to replace you.

[Millar:]But anyone really good will just get snapped up. Even QUITE good will be enough. That's the problem and why I think the market will be virtually extinct in ten years.

Man, Millar's absolutely right. I mean, only the hackiest of comic creators wouldn't be able to make MILLIONS in Hollywood, right? Like that James Robinson joker. Feh. Who's he? The Golden Age? That was a POS.

But there will always be doubters, unbelievers of myopic vision and who are just really, really mean:

If the industry is heading for a bust, the only people to blame are the people working 'inside' the industry.

And that means YOU!

Yes, that's right. You and your crop of lazy, prissy, egomanical, selfish-selfcentered artists who cannot, for the life of them, get a 22 page comic book out every 30 days. This from a generation of creators, who, are taking 60 days and more to retell, redraw, stories already told by people who told them well the first time, in 30 days and less.

Yes, Mr. Millar, we've all seen the pictures in the media of you and your oh so cool crop of artists getting silly after cons, heard the drunk and stupid stories of you and the boys at the bars, parties and more -- could that be one of the reasons WHY this generation cannot get their comics out on time? The artists who created the industry, well, they didn't have the time to PAR-TAY like you and your GRAND MASTERS OF ACHIEVEMENT, maybe, because they were slaving at the drawing boards, working hard to create the library of characters you and your crop profit from.

. . . .

Yes, Hollywood is making some movies out of comics. We should be really thankful for that. And all the millions of people who go to see them...

Who just aren't coming into comics stores to buy the comics these movies are based on.

. . . .

If anything, all you are doing is holding on to a dwindling audience, an audience dwindling because they are tired of the legions of excuses as to why you people can't deliver, when generations of creators did it for decades before you, doing it by creating new stories and new characters MONTHLY. You have to deliver TIMELY to keep the momentum -- it's the basic law of physics.

So Mr. Millar, if a bust is coming, you really can't blame the 'whiney' fans. We have nothing to do with the creating or delivery. The only 'whiners' you can blame, are the ones looking right back at you creators, in the mirror.

There's much, much more at the link, above.