The New Frontier and Camelot

This is part 3 of my week-long look at The New Frontier and The Golden Age. If you're interested in getting up to speed, part one is here and part two is here.

While The Golden Age used the historical subtext to evoke currents of paranoia and doom in a super-hero story, The New Frontier approaches history with a different agenda. As Ultimate Matt pointed out in response to yesterday's post, The Golden Age is labelled an "Elseworlds" title, which not only grants it an exemption from DC continuity, but it allows more freedom for the creators to take the characters and setting in a fresh direction.

The New Frontier, however, is not labelled as an "Elseworlds." And yet, it strays far more from the currently accepted version of continuity than The Golden Age does. The key word there is "accepted." Darwyn Cooke, in his annotations, states that he approached The New Frontier with a set of rules:

1. The timeline is real and covers 1945 to 1960. Silver Age characters appear at the time DC started publishing them.

2. Retcons haven't happened yet.

3. No New Frontier retcons could contradict original continuity--they had to complement existing continuity or show a fresh point of view.

4. When the story ended, everything had to be as it was when the JLA debutes in Brave and the Bold #28.

5. Snapper Carr does not exist.

In other words, you should be able to pull out your original comics from that era (or the Archive editions) and read them concurrently with The New Frontier and nothing Cooke does should contradict what happens in those old comics.

The problem with the continuity is that the comics from that era didn't have any continuity. It was never explained how a character could be on the moon in one issue of his own comic, and under the ocean in the same month in his Justice League adventure. All Golden and Silver Age DC continuity is a retcon. So what Cooke did was create his own continuity--he made his own sense out of the various adventures as they were originally published, although the bulk of the book deals with the time between major events. Just like The Golden Age, The New Frontier is about filling in the gaps.

While James Robinson filled the pre-Silver Age gap with an almost allegorical tale of Cold War paranoia and corruption, Darwyn Cooke fills the gap with a sense of wonder and idealism, and he uses his attitude toward history to solidify that tone.

Cooke's approach takes three strands: (1) The Right Stuff-inspired history of that era, embodied by the test pilots and early astronauts, (2) The early promise of the Kennedy administration, and (3) The strange DC comics history as seen in the stories published during that time. Cooke uses the first two strands to illuminate the latter. He puts the Silver Age ascention into perspective as part of a generation of hope and achievement. He shows that the formation of the Justice League was not a random incident, but part of a larger historical movement which led (in our reality) to things like the Peace Corps and Apollo 11.

Cooke ties together such disparate elements as The War that Time Forgot, The Challengers of the Unknown, Dr. Seuss, and all of the characters who would join the initial incarnation of the JLA into a single narrative. And although it takes quite a while before the villain emerges and the heroes band together, the narrative is structured around the real historical forces that would have shaped the creation of these characters. John Broome doesn't wax poetically about the symbolism of Hal Jordan's career as a test pilot in the original Green Lantern run from the Silver Age, but Cooke takes the fact that he was a test pilot and places him in the actual context of such a man. He even includes a scene where the young Jordan meets Chuck Yeager.

That's quite a different approach to history than we saw in The Golden Age, which covers a very similar time frame.

Although Cooke didn't intend (according to his "rules") to change any of the original stories, his interpretation of "fresh point of view," allows him to add things which would have been more historically true even if they weren't addressed in the comics of the time. For example, he not only changes Wonder Woman into an almost plump, hawkish, zestful character (to signify her Greek origins and Amazon heritage), but he creates an entirely new character to illuminate the civil rights struggle of the time. Since he had no black DC characters to draw upon, he created a Silver Age analogue to Steel, the black Superman ally. The Silver Age Steel, unlike his modern equivalent, isn't a technological marvel. Instead, this earlier incarnation of John Henry suffers at the hands of the KKK before taking vengeance, and ultimately dying when he's betrayed by an uncaring white America (symbolized by a blonde little girl, who points out his location to his pursuers). John Henry never meets the Justice League or teams up with any heroes. His death doesn't affect them at all, really, since they didn't know him. But Cooke includes a scene where Edward R. Murrow mourns the fallen hero and laments the state of the country, bringing an actual historical personage into the DC story.

The civil rights subplot, although powerful, is overwhelmed by the exceeding optimism of the other plot threads. Cooke's America, as full of conflict as it might have been, is one of scientific progress and movement toward a brighter future. His villain, ultimately revealed to be Dinosaur Island itself--a sentient being who has unleashed monster after monster, is even more absurd than the Hitler-brain-transplant nemesis in The Golden Age, but because Cooke accentuates the fun and spectacle of the super-heroes (and, to be clear, his emphasis is on the men and women in the costumes, and the risks they take for their heroism), the absudity of the villain doesn't detract from the story.

Both The Golden Age and The New Frontier end with similar images (the first appearance of the Justice League banded together) and similar sentiments (hope for the future), but where James Robinson built that hope out of the wreckage of the 1940s, Darwyn Cooke builds it out of the dreams of the men and women who sacrificed for the promise of tomorrow.

Both books end with optimism for comic books and optimism for our country, but they took starkly different approaches to get there.

Come back tomorrow for my look at the portrayal of the characters in both works.

James Robinson's use of History in The Golden Age

This is part 2 of my week-long look at The New Frontier and The Golden Age, part one of which can be read here.

One of the things that strikes me about both The New Frontier and The Golden Age is the way the creators weave American history into their stories. On the surface, such a technique might not be surprising, especially considering that both tales take place in the past. And while it may be true that a so-called "historical novel" or "period film" would be amiss to neglect the details of history which fit its setting, the same isn't always true for comics.

In comics, stories set in the past tend to take place in some vague memory of the past, without any apparent intent in locking the stories into a particular date or era. Take the typical origin stories, or "Year One" stories which DC Comics' creators have retold again and again. In such a story, whether it be Miller and Mazzuchelli's take on Batman, or Waid, Augustyn, and Kitson's take on the Justice League, the setting lacks a distinct time stamp. The characters are younger, true, but the setting lacks specific period detail. The reason for this isn't at all surprising, because locking the characters' past into a specific date would require some major explanations about their ages in the present. Had Miller time-stamped the date on Batman: Year One, and included captions saying "May 3rd, 1980," or whatever, then that might have worked for a few years, but even if we assume that Batman was only 23 when he took inspiration from that window-smashing flying rodent, according to that temporal continuity, he'd be 50 years old in the current stories. And he's clearly not.

So we expect stories set in the past to avoid any kind of specific references to contemporary history, at least in comics. A recent jarring exception to that can be found in Diggle and Jock's newly released Green Arrow: Year One, in which a yound Oliver Queen references the "Kevin Costner" Robin Hood. That means Queen must have become Green Arrow sometime in the mid-1990s, which might explain his age today (if he was 22 in 1992, he'd be 37 today, which might be right), but it also implies that his son Connor must only be a teenager today, and he's clearly older than that. Perhaps the reference will work better 10 years from now when the Kevin Costner reference will become part of the vague historical past, but right now it seems too current to make sense.

Anyway, the other MAJOR exception to the rule of not using historical references in comics is the case of stories set during World War II. Even comic books written at the time of WWII regularly included time-stamp references in a way that later comics tended to avoid. Yes, since then, Superman has met Kennedy, and you might see analogues of Bill Clinton or George W. in a story or two, but in the 1940s heroes came face to face with major historical figures (contemporaries to them) on an almost daily basis. Here's FDR! Here's Superman grabbing Hitler on a cover! Here's Tojo! Here's Hawkman enlisting in the army to fight overseas! Etc. Such close ties between "comic book reality" and real-life events never matched the heights of the WWII comics.

And that's why later writers, Roy Thomas MOST prominently among them--he practically invented the whole idea of historical nostalgia super-hero comics, felt compelled to weave actual historical events into the retelling of stories from the WWII era. Thomas's Invaders for Marvel and his All-Star Squadron for DC playfully fit the timeline of actual U.S. history into the fictional timeline of the past super-heroes. In his letter columns, Thomas would often explain (or justify, for the more contentious fans) how the chronology worked.

But, other than WWII era-stories, most comic book stories that take place in the past (unless they are time travel stories, which have their own rules) DO NOT USE SPECIFIC HISTORICAL REFERENCES. It's weird to imagine novels or films avoiding such references--they would surely be criticized for it--but in comics, it's commonplace.

So, in the case of both The New Frontier and The Golden Age, you have two rather significant violations of that standard "rule." And both of which seem deeply indebted to the type of approach Roy Thomas favored so much.

Let's take The Golden Age first, since it was published a decade before Cooke's work. The Golden Age seems like a logical off-shoot of Thomas's All-Star Squadron. It features many of the same characters, and Johnny Quick, a relatively obscure DC character from the past, would certainly not have been a suitable narrator for the story without the characterization Thomas provided in years of All-Star Squadron stories. James Robinson is clearly building on the foundation Thomas created. So, it's not surprising that he would, like Thomas, blend U.S. history into his story. Yet Robinson's approach differs in two distinct ways: (1) He doesn't seem interested in the exact historical details and how they fit into his timeline--he seems more interested in the general sense of historical forces of the time, and (2) Unlike Thomas, who was writing out of a Golden and Silver Age optimism and a belief in the American Dream, Robinson was writing from a post-Watchmen perspective, as a foreign-born writer, who could play with the cynical expecations of the time.

Thus, Robinson gives us coke-sniffing "super-heroes," corruption, brutality, and sex in a tale which features the "pure" heroes of the DC Golden Age of comics. Robinson's approach is not to use specific elements of McCarthyism or the Red Scare, (even though those ideas are referenced at least once), but to use the general sense of paranoia and panic, the cynical manipulation of the public for personal gain, and the looming threat of the bomb.

Ultimately, however, Robinson uses all of this as a backdrop for a traditional super-hero romp. The coke-sniffing "super-hero" turns out to be Hitler in disguise!!! (Well, actually the brain of Hitler in the body of a former kid sidekick--talk about a symbol of corruption!) And the hero-turned-power-hungry-politician in the form of the patriotic Mr. America turns out to be old JSA villain the Ultra-Humanite, who knows a thing or two about brain transplants. So, in the end, it's just a classic Golden Age story about punching Hitler and defeating an evil genius.

But it's Robinson's historical subtext which makes the story resonate. It's his use of those undercurrents of paranoia and despair which make this formerly perfect heroes of the past seem flawed and human. His story start dark and becomes darker, but by the end, Robinson's veil of cynicism falls away, and he reveals himself to be a humanist if not an optimist. His reverence for these Golden Age characters would not let them be truly corrupted--it had to be evil masterminds and Hitler all along.

And that, perhaps, is one of the failures of The Golden Age. The shock of the initial chapters is just a ruse, and as low as these characters seem to sink, everything can be explained by pseudo-science and comic book logic.

It's just another Justice Society of America story, ultimately, but it's a good one. And Robinson's use of the undercurrents from that era of history make it work, even if it never transcends its roots.

Come back tomorrow for my look at how Darwyn Cooke uses a different approach to history to shape The New Frontier.

The Tale of Two Texts: The New Frontier and The Golden Age

I'm going to do something a bit different and take a close, week-long look at two major works from the DC Universe: Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier, and James Robinson and Paul Smith's The Golden Age. If you're playing along at home, the texts I'm using are The Absolute New Frontier from 2006 and The Golden Age trade paperback from 1995.

First a bit of personal context: I didn't enjoy The New Frontier when it first came out, serialized in six quite expensive installments. I loved Cooke's art, I loved the use of some of the more obscure DC war characters, and I loved the characterization of the Martian Manhunter, but the narrative didn't work for me when read in small monthly doses back in 2004. I had read all of the full-length work Cooke had done up until 2004, and none of it had disappointed me at all. But The New Frontier seemed to read more like a tour through the 1950s and 1960s than an actual story. It wasn't until the final issue that I really understood what Cooke was leading up to, but then it was over, and I didn't have the time or the inclination to dig out the back issues and read the whole thing in one sitting. Even when I got the two-volume trade paperback collection a couple of years ago (in an ebay lot of trade paperbacks I bought off of none other than comic book scholar George Khoury), I still didn't bother to read it. To paraphrase Hemingway's Frederic Henry, we don't do the things we want to do.

So I never actually read the entire text of The New Frontier until this past winter, when I was able to sit down with the luxurious Absolute edition and dive into Cooke's illustrated world. I enjoyed it immensely, enough that I wanted to reread it again this summer, which is what I have just done, and now I want to talk about it. But I don't want to talk about it in isolation, and I'm interested in the connection between texts, so I'll also talk about its logical precursor: The Golden Age.

Like The New Frontier, Robinson and Smith's The Golden Age deals with the era between the 1940s and the 1960s. The era in which the comic book Golden Age grew into the comic book Silver Age. The era in which America was undergoing its own transformation, moving from threats abroad to suspicion at home. And just as I had difficulty enjoying The New Frontier as a serialized comic, I couldn't appreciate The Golden Age in that manner either. I only bought the first two issues, actually, back in the early 1990s, and then I lost interest, vaguely thinking that I might buy it as a collected edition some day (even though collections were not guaranteed the way they are today). I did buy it when the trade paperback was released, and because I had never finished it originally, I read the collection immediately. And I liked it. But I thought it was deeply flawed.

I reread The Golden Age yesterday, after thinking about it in regards to The New Frontier. It's not a surprising connection, after all. Cooke himself claims The Golden Age as an inspiration for his own work. But my memory of The Golden Age was a bit hazy, and I recalled it being a much more cynical view of the territory than what Cooke achieved in The New Frontier. My recall was pretty accurate--Robinson and Smith present a quite cynical view of the late Golden Age America.

Now that I've read both works back-to-back, I'm interested in exploring what each says about super-heroes, what each says about America, and how each achieves its (very different) effects. These are the kinds of things I'll be looking at over the next few days.

Come back tomorrow for a close look at how the creators of both works blur historical reality with comic book history to create a new super-hero context.

(On an unrelated note, both books also make me think about how stupid I am to buy these things when they're serialized. I enjoy them so much more as collections, and even though I might plan on reading all of the issues as a whole, I never get around to pulling them all out of the boxes. The trade paperbacks and hardcovers are just so much nicer to have. So why do I keep falling for the monthlies? I'm looking at you, Jeff Smith's Shazam!)

Looking Forward to Star-Lord #1

One of the great things about listening to the Panelologists podcast is that those two guys have such an infectious enthusiasm for comics that it helps to remind all of us why we read these things in the first place. Another great thing about listening to those guys (especially if you do what I did and listen to a years worth of podcasts over two consecutive days) is that you get to hear the typical pattern of excitement-anticipation-disappointment-rejection-excitement that all regular comic readers go through. It works like this: You hear news about an upcoming comic featuring your favorite character(s) or creator(s)--Excitement. You eagerly await that new comic and learn more about it as the release date approaches--Anticipation. Then you buy the thing, and it's not nearly as good as you'd hoped--Disappointment. You give it a half-dozen issues or so before you cancel your subscription, but you know that you should have given up on it much sooner, and you probably say stuff like "I'm not going to get suckered like that again"--Rejection. But that's okay, because a new comic has been announced--Excitement--that starts the whole cycle, and for every comic that turns out to be great, there's 5 comics that have suckered you back.

We all know that cycle well, and we can't seem to escape it.

So I'm just going to embrace it. And the newest title I'm excited about is Star-Lord, the new mini-series launching from within the Annihilation space saga. I've read all of the Annihilation stuff so far, and it has been quite fun. The first multi-part series featured Nova and company vs. Annihilus and Thanos, and it was truly an epic story. This new Annihilation series follows the first, and even though it's still a large-scale intergalactic saga, it seems much more personal as the evil Phalanx have infected the Kree and surrounding territories. Whatever. The plot is just a backdrop for cool character moments and some fight scenes. And I love it.

Star-Lord, in particular, looks to be a particularly cool entry into the Annihilation saga. It features a character I know nothing about (other than he was a miltary leader in the first Annihilation series and he used to be some kind of super-hero but he's kind of pissed off whenever anyone brings it up). It's written by Keith Giffen, whom I love, and illustrated by Timothy Green II, whom I know nothing about, except the preview pages look cool.

I guess Green was the artist on Rush City, but I didn't read that because it looked like a car advertisement, and I think it was. But his preview pages on this new book display a very different style from typical Marvel books (and a very different style from the other Annihilation books). He seems to draw heavily upon a European influence, and doesn't rely on the How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way Kirby by way of Buscema dynamic angles and gesticulation.

I'm excited about this comic, and I'm anticipating its arrival.

Plus, it's got Rocket Raccoon, so I'm not likely to be disappointed, am I?

Stuff You'll Like: Panelologists

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts all of a sudden, and the one I'm going to recommend most highly isn't one I'm affiliated with in any way. I haven't promoted my book on their show, or done an interview, or anything. But I did spend hour after hour listening to their back catologue today after listening to their "best of" feed on the CGS site. Unlike many comic book podcasts, these two guys, Matt and Jon (based in the U. K.), don't list a bunch of new releases, revel in obscure trivia, or even spend any time reviewing comics. Instead, they discuss the greatness of Rob Liefeld and his ability to draw lots of pouches, enthuse over anything Feedback-related, champion the return of the Green Lantern squirrel Ch'p, and look for hidden ninjas on every page of every comic book. If you like fun, and you hate not fun, check out their podcasts and listen along with me: Quiet! Panelologists at Work

EDITED TO ADD: Okay, I finally listened to ALL of their episodes, and it turns out that they do, in fact, promote my book in episode 22. They do a fake interview with "Timothy Callahan" that is quite brilliant.

Dr. Fate: Golden Age Greatness or the Most Amazing Comic Book Series Ever?

In my CCL interview, I talked to Chris about my preference for Silver Age stories over the Golden Age stories, which I characterized as "a lot of punching gangsters in the face." Well, this week, I received recently-published The Golden Age Doctor Fate Archives Volume 1 and I'm going to have to revise that opinion. When I read the All-Star Archives, I was always drawn to the strange Dr. Fate stories and their distinctive James Sherman artwork. Well this Doctor Fate Archives book is almost 400 pages of Gardner Fox and James Sherman stories, featuing ALL of Dr. Fate's solo stories from the Golden Age, all of which were published in the brilliantly named More Fun Comics.

Unfortunately, after the first year and a half of odd, supernatural, Lovecraftian Dr. Fate stories, the character becomes a much more generic super-hero who spends the majority of his time punching gangsters. But those first 20 stories or so are slices of unique genius. Here's a list of some of the highlights which might make the early Dr. Fate stories some of the greatest comics in the history of the universe ever (assuming you can appreciate severely odd brilliance):

1) Dr. Fate shoots lightning from his fingers. The lightning can basically do anything, although Dr. Strange describes himself as having "atomic power."

2) Dr. Fate flies around fighting supernatural evil and aliens with his girlfriend, Inza, under his arm. And for the first half dozen stories, she doesn't even know who he is because she's never seen him without his shiny helmet on.

3) Dr. Fate stops an alien invasion, leaving the aliens dead on the beach, and says stuff like, "Atomic power can be used for any purpose!" Click on the image for a closer look at the James Sherman art and funky scalloped caption boxes.

4) A flaming cloud-covered globe threatens to "break the orbital gravity of the Sun and Earth," so Dr. Fate flies back to his tower to retrieve an "atom shatterer" (a handy-to-have raygun which he says he found on "distant Uranus"--a reference to an adventure that must have happened off-panel!). He uses that gun to destroy the dangerous globe, then he traces the origin of the threat to an alien race, which he destroys by PUSHING THEIR PLANET INTO THE SUN, and THEN he finds out a scientist on Earth drew the alien menace to our planet, so he kills the scientist (between panels--all it says is, "the scientist dies for his world crime" and we see the scientist lying face down on the floor in front of Dr. Fate and Inza. This might be the greatest 6-page super-hero anti-alien vigilante story ever.

5) Dr. Fate battles the fish-men of "Nyarl-Amen" in Gardner Fox's homage to the Cthulhu stories of H. P. Lovecraft. Except, the supposedly hideous and monstrous fish-men are just dudes with carp heads, pink scales, and tridents. Either James Sherman was incapable of imagining the multi-tentacled Lovecraftian beasts or the DC editors thought they would frighten children, but the finished product is absurdly brilliant. It's great.

Notice the lack of gangster-punching!

The Golden Age Dr. Fate may be the most amazing comic book series ever or at least the greatest series published in the early 1940s. Avoid it at your peril!

Pretty Great Week for Super-Hero Comics

This is quite a bountiful week for good Marvel and DC comics. I haven't had a chance to devour everything I bought yesterday, but here are some of my thoughts so far, along with some rhetorical questions:

Super-Villain Team-Up: Modok's 11 #1 is an excellent way to begin a mini-series. Multiple characters are established effectively and and the heist plot is firmly in place by the end of the issue. Plus, it not only has freakin' Modok, but it features Armadillo, Puma, Living Laser, Rocket Racer, and Mentallo (among many others). And it's written by Action Philosophers own Fred Van Lente. Question: Will Van Lente be able to overcome the kitsch factor of this concept to produce something mind-blowingly transcendent?

Brave and the Bold #5 was the first thing I read off the stack this week, and that's because it features the first interaction between the "Threeboot" Legion of Super-Heroes and the DC Universe proper. As Michael points out over at the Legion Omnicom, the Batman-related continuity doesn't make a bit of sense, but I say it's a great issue anyway because we finally get to see this incarnation of the Legion loosen up a bit and get involved in some old-school superheroic action. It's about time. In their own series, they've been shouldering the weight of the universe since issue #1, so it's nice to see them involved in some silly time-travel-hero-vs.-hero-battle goodness. Question: Why didn't Mark Waid approach the Legion this playfully when he wrote their own title?

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #4 featured the shocking revelation of Mr. Mind's true appearance (now with a Britney Spears headset instead of an AM radio voice box) and a scene where a giant Captain Marvel punches bad stuff in the midst of a garden of skyscrapers. Now that it's complete, I'm curious to see what my wife thinks about the story. She's a big Jeff Smith fan, but hasn't wanted to read this yet because she can't stand waiting to find out how it's going to end. But I'm wondering if she'll like this or not. I'm wondering if it works well within the confines of the comic book readership who appreciates the context of a return-to-lighthearted-wonder, but if it perhaps doesn't matter to anyone else. We'll see. Question: Since this series has been selling the same number of copies per month as the Winick series, and it costs twice as much per issue, and it presumably will have a much longer shelf life in hardcover or trade form, can we all just erase the Winick series from our memories now, or do we have to wait another year?

The Order #1 is the best thing I've read so far this week, and I really liked all three comics I listed above. Fraction knows how to balance character and action, and he provides a few twists in the mix as well. A substantial amount of content for a Marvel comic circa 2007 and it starts the series with style. Just as Waid seemed to loosen up when he stepped away from the Legion, Barry Kitson has exploded with energy and dynamism on this series now that he's done with the Legion as well. "The Champions" would have been a MUCH more appropriate title for this book, but we're stuck with "The Order" because of legal reasons and I won't hold that against the series. It's a great start and another winner for Matt Fraction. Question: How long before Fraction replaces Bendis as Marvel's go-to guy?

Countdown #41 is yet another issue of Countdown. What more can I say? Unlike many of you, I haven't given up on this series yet, but this issue was literally a series of very brief "check ins" with each of the main plot threads, and each check in just provided a bit of exposition. "Yup, we're looking for Ray Palmer." "Yup, Mary Marvel doesn't know how to cope with her new powers." "Yup, Amazons are attacking." The Calero artwork is quite nice in this issue at least. Question: When will Paul Dini and company begin to realize that it's not effective to juggle a dozen plot threads and highlight each of them in every issue?

And that's just the metaphorical tip of the metaphorical iceberg this week. As jaded as I can be, I'm still looking forward to reading things like All-Flash #1, Justice League of America #11, Captain America #28, The Spirit #8, Catwoman #69, Annihilation: Conquest: Quasar #1, Ultimate Spider-Man #111, Checkmate #16, Army@Love #5, The Programme #1, Godland #19, and Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #4 to name a few (but not all) of the comics still left in the pile o' goodness.

Question: Which will be the best of that bunch?

Question: Have "mainstream" comics ever been consistently better than they are now?

Question: Is everyone else as sick of looking at that Michael Turner Planet Hulk cover as I am?

Authorial Intent vs. Planet Hulk

Over the past week, ever since the "bad reader" controversy, I've been bouncing from message board to message board, carrying on conversations about what it means to be a bad reader, what should someone reasonably expect from a comic, and does it matter what the author intends? Some of the discusions have been fruitful, while others have drifted away from the original topics, but it's been interesting to see how various comic book readers respond to these concerns, and it's given me a chance to clarify some of my thinking as well. I won't summarize all of the threads on all of the boards, but I've come away from it all with a new appreciation of how difficult it is to quantify the quality of a comic book. Even taking bias and subjectivity into account, whenever you try to set up any kind of somewhat objective standard of what a "good comic book" looks like, you end up either coming up with a list that has a giant disclaimer saying "THESE RULES MAY BE BROKEN AT ANY TIME," or you end up listing your favorite comics and trying to figure out what they all have in common, which in the case of someone with wide and varied tastes (like mine) ends up as a gigantically long list that doesn't help clarify any objective standards, ultimately.

So, what does any of this have to do with Planet Hulk?

Well, since none of us seem capable of coming up with clear-cut objective standards of comic book quality, Planet Hulk is going to be my guinea pig, as I approach it from several critical perspectives, none of which as fully-developed as I would like, but let's see what happens when we put this particular text through a limited and relatively shallow critical gauntlet for this trial run. We'll see if a combination of "objective" standards, applied to a text, gives us a more accurate assessment.

First, a note on the text. I'm referring to the Planet Hulk hardcover here, and my only exposure to the story is in this format. I did not read it during its monthly serialization.

By the way, I'm not going to define these approaches here, but their names should give you a pretty good idea about how each approach differs.

The Visual/Aesthetic Approach: This text holds together nicely. The art complements the bombastic drama when necessary and allows for quiet moments as well. Although several artists worked on Planet Hulk, none of the styles clash with one another, and the entire story flows together smoothly.

The "Expectation of Originality" Approach: Because Planet Hulk is a high-concept "Hulk as John Carter from Mars but with Gladiators" story, it suffers when looked at from this critical perspective. It's not even an original idea to place Hulk in such a foreign context anyway, since he has visited the microverse (the one with Jarella) a number of times in previous issues of The Incredible Hulk. It's at least a break from what's been going on with the Hulk in recent Marvel continuity, but it's somewhat of a rehash when looked at within a larger context. Even some of the story beats seem very familiar, because they are largely derived from the John Carter/Spartacus/Gladiator story archetypes.

The "I Want to See Hulk Smash Stuff" Approach: Hulk does indeed smash a lot of stuff. If that's what you're looking for, you'll get it here.

The Narrative Cohesion Approach: The text fares well if looked at with this approach because it reads as if it were composed as a long, single narrative. Nothing gets in the way of the main plot threads, and everything is resolved by the end of the book. Although the end is problematic, it does resolve the plot threads. Even though the entire story could be read as a kind of prologue for "World War Hulk," the fact that the Hulk is racing back to Earth to smash stuff in the epilogue of Planet Hulk is a type of closure. It's not necessary to actually see how he smashes stuff--just the knowledge that he will is enough to resolve all of the threads of the Planet Hulk narrative.

The Characterization Approach: The text fails on this level, ultimately. The Hulk has never been successfully portrayed with any complexity, and this story makes an effort, but there's just not much to work with. And the supporting characters are given "character moments" but they seem more like obligatory moments to make the characters serve specific roles within the plot. After reading the whole thing I didn't feel like I wanted to see more of any of the supporting cast.

The Authorial Intent Approach: This is where things get really sticky for me, and it's where the text meets its biggest failure. As I've said before, I don't care what the author intended if the effect doesn't show up on the page. But it is sometimes interesting to compare what the author intended with what the author actually accomplished to see if any discrepancy arises. In the case of Planet Hulk there is a HUGE discrepancy that points to the major flaw in the text. In his Afterword, writer Greg Pak says a lot of intelligent things about his concept of the Hulk, but one of the things he says about Planet Hulk is this: "...the terrible beauty of the story -- that kernel of truth that great writers from Stan Lee to Bill Mantlo to Peter David have bequeathed us -- is that rage, no matter how justified, always has a price." That sounds great, and that sounds like a story that I would have enjoyed reading, but that's not the story as presented in Planet Hulk. Pak refers to the end of the story as the proof that Hulk pays a price for his rage, but (and I don't want to spoil the story by explaining exactly what happens) the story does NOT end with a logical consequence of Hulk's own actions. It ends, if anything, with a strange deus ex machina--not even a deus ex machina, really, but whatever the opposite of that would be. Instead of a random force appearing at the end to solve the conflict, a random force appears to... well, you'll have to read it to find out. But the ending does not lead out of the Hulk's rage at all. If anything, the story ends up as a fable about the randomness of life and death. Or about the Hulk just having really crappy luck. But it's definitely not, as Greg Pak hoped it would be, anything about the consequences of rage.

So, by this last approach, Planet Hulk is a failure, and it points to the weakness of Act III.

Everything leading up to it was well-executed and logical, even if it wasn't shockingly original in any way. But that resolution so absolutely undermines everything that has gone before, that I can't help but feel that Planet Hulk is a failure. And that's why authorial intent doesn't matter in interpretation. Pak intended to convey a theme, and on the page that theme is not present. The text fails because the ending does not satisfy the thematic expectations established by the first 3/4ths of the story.

Pak doesn't get points for his intentions. He only gets points for the results.

The right age...

I just finished reading the excellent Making of Star Wars gigantic coffee table book thing (that has a font that's way too small for something so large--I must be getting old if I'm complaining about print size), and I think Peter Jackson makes some kind of comments in one of the sidebars about being the "perfect age" for Star Wars because he was a teenager when it came out in New Zealand. (The Making of... book is so great by the way, because it's just chock full of historical documents showing the very early stages of the idea of the movie all the way through completion. It's like being along for the ride, every step of the way, seeing all of the uncertainty and doubt that circled the film.) Anyway, it made me think about how much I was also EXACTLY the right age for Star Wars, yet I was only 5 years old when it premiered. Yet how much of my life is based on the fact that I saw Star Wars at age 5? A lot. There's no doubt that it deeply informed my interests as a human being. Did it shape my personality? Who knows. Probably. But it definitely affected me, and continues to affect me, deeply. Because I saw it when I was 5.

So what else in my life came out at exactly the perfect time.

I think I was exactly the right age for Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, too. I was 14 when it came out, and even though I appreciate Watchmen more now, Dark Knight Returns impacted me more powerfully as a teenager, just getting seriously into comics. More than the story itself, I was astonished by the strong style of Miller's artwork, and it shocked me into an awareness that the creator matters more than the characters. Since then, I've never been able to read comics the same way, and I'm grateful for that.

Had I been a few years older or a few years younger, I wonder if I would have been affected by Miller's work as strongly? I doubt it. If I saw it as a 12 year old, I probably would have found it hideously ugly, and if I came across it later in life, I might have already codified my attitude toward comics. Seeing it at 14 changed the way I look at the possibilities of super-hero comics, and I DEFINITELY haven't been the same since.

I was also the perfect age for Nirvana, who released Nevermind when I was 19. I bought it right away, on the recommendation of a friend who somehow knew about this band even before their second, pivotal, album was released. So, since he kept checking the record store to see if the "new Nirvana" album had come out, I joined him. And I bought it the same time he did. If you weren't the perfect age for Nirvana, as I think I was, you might not realize how important that album was. Consider the musical landscape at the time--dominated by the likes of Vanilla Ice and C+C Music Factory and the death throes of hair metal. It was unbearable. I stuck to my Clash and Sex Pistols, mostly. But Nirvana was something current that sounded like the stuff I liked. And, thankfully, it knocked those crappy dance bands off the musical radar. I still think Nevermind is one of the greatest albums in history, but I'm sure that wouldn't be true if I weren't the perfect age when it came out.


I remember reading my brother's copy of Film Comment in the months between Pulp Fiction's debut at Cannes and its release in the U. S. and thinking about how it sounded like it was going to be my favorite film ever. I had just graduated from college the year it was released, and I was the perfect age to appreciate its fresh approach to cinema. Now, I show the movie in the cinema class I teach, and the kids love it, of course, but very few of them are shocked by it in any way. When I saw it back in 1994 (or was it not released until the winter of 1995 in our town???), it was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen. The images, the dialogue, the structural tomfoolery, were all thrilling to me. And it was so shocking and disturbing to audiences in the relatively uncrowded theater back then, that people actually got up and walked out. I've read about stuff like that happening, but I witnessed it first hand with the screening of Pulp Fiction. Because I saw it when I was 22, I think I forgive it it's excesses more than I might have otherwise. Nevertheless, it shaped my adult cinematic tastes, and I can't imagine another film affecting me on such an intellectual and emotional level the way Pulp Fiction did.

Add up these four central experiences, and you get a big chunk of who I am. Maybe it explains a lot, maybe it explains nothing, but I was the perfect age for all of these things.

I'm sure many people of my generation have very similar memories of these four cultural artifacts. Especially all of us in the land of Geekville. But if your answers differ, I want to hear them. What were you "exactly the right age" for?

The Monday Shuffle

Even though I label this blog as "comic books and popular culture," let's be honest: I mostly talk about comics. I rarely talk about books, I even more rarely talk about television or movies, and I never seem to talk about music. All of that stuff is extremely important to me, and I have opinions on all of those things, but I don't seem to feel the need to blog about them as often as I blog about comics.

So here's my small attempt to make up for the lack of music blogging by playing that game we all know and love: The iPod Shuffle! Here are the rules, for those of you who don't know. You set your iPod to "shuffle," list the ten songs that pop up (IN ORDER and WITHOUT SELF-CENSORSHIP--that embarassing stuff that pops up is part of the fun), and then you comment. That's it. By the way, I really have nothing intelligent to say about music, but I do have 1018 songs on my iPod for some reason. Here's what popped up:

1. Vetiver, "Be Kind to Me" This is a hipster song from The Believer 25th Issue Compilation. I'm not a big fan of this track, but I am a BIG, BIG fan of The Believer. It's my favorite magazine, definitely. I read it immediately upon receipt each month. Subscribe!

2. Albert Hammond, Jr., "Well...All Right" I like this solo album a lot. This guy is from The Strokes, if you don't know, and his solo tracks, like this one, have a smooth-groove goin' on. If you like teddy bears and polyester shirts, you'll like this song. If you don't like that stuff, you should still listen to this guy's album. It's good.

3. Fiona Apple, "Criminal" The Mark Romanek music video for this song is amazing. He's apparently preparing to direct a Tom Hanks thriller and a Benecio Del Toro-as-a-werewolf movie. I'll see those. Romanek knows what he's doing. But why am I talking about the video? It's supposed to be about the music. Fiona Apple? She's pretty great too, right? Especially her first album.

4. Zero 7, "Left Behind" This is one of those songs that I have no memory of acquiring, yet here it is. I must have downloaded it off Salon.com. That's my guess. It sounds like something they'd have on their site. It's a cool tune. Mellow like teddy bears and polyester, of course.

5. Craig Wedren, "Night is Over" I have no idea where this one came from, either, and it's another teddy bear. This track actually reminds me of something that could have played at the roller rink during "couples skate." Only it's more hipster-tastic. I shouldn't make fun of this song, because it's another good one. 5 for 5 so far, even with that weak start--and "Be Kind to Me" wasn't THAT bad of a song.

6. The White Stripes, "Expecting" Yeah! White Blood Cells-era White Stripes. Finally, some pounding on the drums and guitar action. Not a teddy bear. More like a laser-equipped python. Badass. And, yeah, 6 for 6. No real stinkers, yet. I must have good taste.

7. The Flaming Lips, "Are You a Hypnotist?" Listening to the Flaming Lips always feels like swimming in pineapple Jello. And this track is no exception. I like pineapple Jello a lot, actually. Another winner.

8. Velvet Underground, "I'll Be Your Mirror" This one has Nico on vocals, as far as I know. Where the hell did I get this one from? I don't know, but it's pretty great too. If yesterday was a movie, this song would have fit perfectly over the "putting-the-kids-to-bed" montage.

9. The Clash, "Clampdown" This is the first song on the list that I've owned on vinyl and mp3. It's The Clash! They were the soundtrack of my teenage years more than any other band. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would say that. What a great song this is. I miss my mid-80s army surplus clothes when I listen to this stuff.

10. Beck, "Where It's At" If The Clash was the soundtrack of my teenage years, Beck was the soundtrack of the driving-back-and-forth-to-work-the-year-after-college-graduation period. I listened to this album a lot. And I still do, when the mood (or the iPod shuffle mode) strikes.

That first song was the weakest in the bunch, but this was a pretty incredible sequence of songs. I love Monday Shuffles!

(P.S. The first bad song I hit was at #39, off the Clash tribute album--it was Silverchair's terrible rendition of "London's Burning." Ugh. Silverchair. Bad stuff.)

Guns, Germs, and Giant Kickass Dinosaurs!

When Rob Bowman's 2002 film, Reign of Fire, came out, I remember thinking how fun the central idea was. Dragons vs. attack helicopters. Dragons vs. tanks. Dragons vs. soldiers. If the dragons are done right--as in, not like sissy dragons that talk with the voice of Sean Connery--then it's a concept that could work, or so I thought. Then I saw the movie, and while the dragon stuff was pretty well done, and the film featured a few exciting sequences, the human storyline bogged the movie down into mediocrity. I haven't seen it since 2002, so it's not fresh in my mind, but I remember thinking that the movie almost worked, but not quite. The plot was just an excuse to have soldiers fight dragons, and after a while, even soldiers fighting dragons isn't as cool as you want it to be.

I feel kind of the same way about The War that Time Forgot, written by Robert Kanigher and illustrated (mostly) by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. As you can clearly see by the cover of the Showcase volume, TWTTF has a simple conceit: army vs. dinosaurs. These stories were originally published in DC's Star-Spangled War Stories in the early-to-mid 1960s, and I know the belief in those days was that a reader should be able to pick up any issue of a comic and find a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, but Kanigher takes that assumption to a ridiculous extreme in this series.

Each issue not only features a complete story, but it basically features the same story. Over and over. The story goes like this: In the midst of the "big war," a group of soldiers come across a strange island, an island on which a GIANT DINOSAUR attacks them (and although I use the word "dinosaur," sometimes it was just a dinosaur-looking monster, or even a giant ape, just to break the monotony). The soldiers knock the dinosaur for a loop and escape, barely.

Every issue. For years.

Sure, sometimes there was more than one GIANT DINOSAUR, and the cast of main characters kept changing (which was part of the problem, as I'll get to in a minute), but it was the same plot again and again in each consecutive issue. And not in the way that a Silver Age Flash comic had the same stories again and again, either. At least in those stories, the different villains and conflicts caused some slight variations. For example, a Gorilla Grodd story would have a different feel than a Captain Cold story, because the villains would create problems that were unique to them. In TWTTF, although one dinosaur might have giant teeth while another might have GIANTER teeth, they were all pretty interchangeable. Even if one could fly and one could swim underwater, they were just basically mindless monsters. Issue after issue. For years.

I can understand the philosophy of providing a complete story in every issue, to give the new reader something entertaining without forcing them to track down any of the other issues, but I don't see why you'd want to do that at the expense of the readers you already have. Sure, a new reader might think, "wow! Cool story. I'll pick up another issue of this comic now that I've had such a great experience reading it!" But how many issues would it take for the reader to think, "okay. Not as cool this time, since it's the same story I read last month. I'll give it one more try. Oh. It's the same story again. Um, this is kind of repetitive"?

Kanigher was surely aware of the repetitive nature of the stories, and like he did with Sgt. Rock, he tried to create a recurring cast of characters to keep regular readers from growing bored with the comic. Except, unlike Sgt. Rock, none of the regular characters seemed to stick in TWTTF. You can tell the series started with just the simple idea inherent in its premise. The first appearance of TWTTF has, on its cover, the slogan "Dinosaurs vs. Tanks! Who Will Win!" and it's really as simple as that. I can picture an editor telling Kanigher (although Kanigher may have been the editor on the war books back then, so maybe it was his editorial side talking to his writerly side), while chomping on a cigar, "kids love these dinosaurs. Bring 'em back." So the first handful of issues make almost no logical sense as a group. Each issue features a group of soldiers unwittingly landing on monster island, and then reporting, in disbelief, back to their commanders.

Did the military have such terrible communication that nobody told the other outfits about this ISLAND FULL OF GIANT MONSTERS??? Even if the military wanted to keep it a secret, and there's no explanation of why they would, wouldn't they at least tell their troops to STAY AWAY FROM THAT ISLAND during the war! Didn't they have Nazis to fight or something?

Anyway, once Kanigher begins to realize that this dinosaur stuff is going to keep going, he starts introducing the potential recurring characters. And they all flop.

He tries characters like "The Flying Franks," trapeeze artists brothers who now fight together and use their high-wire skills to kick dinosaurs! Flop.

He tries the "Joe and the G. I. Robot," which basically consists stories in which Joe talks to himself a lot and then the G. I. Robot accidentally (or maybe not) saves the day. Flop (mainly because Joe is annoying and the robot doesn't have any personality at all).

He tries the "Suicide Squad," which you might think was a success, because it later became pretty famous as a concept in the DC Universe. But in these stories, "Suicide Squad" basically refers to any team which shows up on the island on a desperate mission. The suicide squad "members" don't communicate with eachother, and don't refer to other members we've seen in previous issues. My favorite, however, are the absolutely ridiculous "Morgan and Mace," the Suicide Squad team with the most personality. Morgan walks around with a gun to Mace's back, and literally keeps repeating lines like this, "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Then you could blow this mission! Just like that toboggan run you made that killed my brother--because you panicked! Remember?"

How can he forget, Morgan? You remind him of it on practically EVERY PAGE of every story you two guys are in. Mace, apparently, killed Morgan's brother when they were in the Winter Olympics together. A toboggan run of death! Morgan won't let it go, and Mace doubts himself at every turn: "I'll never get another chance...to make good...for failing Bill Morgan...and Uncle Sam--Never--Never---Never..."

The message of the story, kids, is that if you accidentally kill your bobsled partner in the Winter Olympics, you can make up for it by fighting GIANT DINOSAURS as your commanding officer (who, coincidentally is the brother of the very man you bobsledded to death) sticks his pistol in your spine.

Flop.

Are you surprised?

Sometimes even tanks vs. dinosaurs aren't enough. Turns out, they're not as cool as you want them to be.

A Philosophical Dialogue on New Avengers #32

I recently had the pleasure of debating the issues of "bad readers" and "authorial intent" with comic book scholar Douglas Wolk, author of Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Douglas is, along with Geoff Klock, one of the most important comic book theorists working today. What I love about Douglas (and Geoff) is that they read comics with passionate intensity, yet they write about comics with from an objective point of view, with style, charm, and intelligence. I had hoped to work with both of them on my upcoming Legion project, but Geoff's chapter was sabotaged by the botched finale of "The Lightning Saga," and he was forced to bow out of the project. I still have hopes that Douglas can find time to write his piece on the Giffen-era Legion, but, in the meantime, he and I had a chance to discuss my controversial interview comments from earlier this week. The entire text of our lengthy discussion, which is framed around our reading of New Avengers #32, can be found at Sequart.org, posted under the title "Good vs. Bad".

Check it out!

(By the way, Douglas's Reading Comics book is a MUST-BUY! Read it now, before the other cool kids do.)

Scalped! What do you think?

If I have time this weekend, I'll go into more detail on this later, but I think Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, is the best Vertigo comic in years. I think DMZ and Fables are both solid books, but, based on the first handful of issues Scalped looks to be something quite amazing. It's like David Milch meets Robert Altman if that makes any sense.

Has anyone else been reading Scalped? What do you think about it?

And if you disagree with me, I'd like to see why you think DMZ or Fables are superior to Scalped in any way. Make your case.

Enough with Insults: Bring on the Ninja action!

A few years ago, after a late-night, post-SDCC drunken conversation, my brother and I came up with some ideas that would eventually turn into the Ninja Wolf mini-comic. I actually wrote and drew a total of four issues of that comic, along with some other small projects, like the 24-hour comic I did at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center. But Ninja Wolf has been dormant for a quite a while as I worked on more scholarly writing.

Until now!

My friend, the brilliant artist Todd Casey, has redrawn my fourth Ninja Wolf story in his own inimitable style (and the pages posted here are from his issue--pages 6 and 8 to be precise--click on the images to enlarge). Now titled Ninjawolf our sample comic was handed out at the MoCCA art festival, and we're debating whether or not to do more stories with the Ninjawolf and Squidhunter characters, or to move on to a couple of other projects we have in the works.

For those of you who don't know much about the Ninjawolf and Squidhunter concepts, here's who they are, in a nutshell: Ninjawolf was an orphan raised by ninjas, then subsequently raised by wolves. Squidhunter is a former millionaire playboy who battles undersea robots shaped like aquatic beasts. They're best friends, but Squidhunter is kind of an arrogant, selfish jerk. And by "kind of" I mean "totally."

In the back cover of our preview issue, I include a section labelled "Coming in future issues..." and here's what it says:

• In issue #38, "Holiday Miracle," Squidhunter, betrayed by Ninja Wolf, abandons his Aquadome on a quest for the real meaning of Christmas. He learns the most important lesson of all: Christmas isn't about presents or sledding. It's about kicking people really hard.

• In issue #54, "Showdown 1985," Ninja Wolf learns the true origin of the wolfpack who raised him as a boy, and he begins to question the intentions of those gentle beasts. Also, Squidhunter adopts a koala, then mails it to his cousin when he learns that it can't swim or shoot a grappling gun.

• In special landmark issue #75, "Seaweed Apocalypse," Squidhunter returns from space to discover that all of Earth's aquatic vegetation has been replaced by evil robot duplicates. With Ninja Wolf's help, Squidhunter commandeers Time Capsule Alpha and launches into an uncertain future. A special back-up feature spotlights Koala Boy's adventure in Canada with special guest Hulk Hogan!

So, do you guys want to see more of Ninjawolf and Squidhunter or what?

Name-Calling: All the Cool Kids are Doing It!

I've already updated everyone on the Comic Book Resources interview/Comic Geek Speak controversy, but just to provide a scorecard, the interview response that seemed to piss people off the most was when I said "I always get really frustrated with people who say 'I don't get it' or 'it just doesn't make any sense.' I just think that people who say that are just bad readers. They just don't know how to read. To be a reader, it's not just figuring out the obvious stuff, it's seeing the underlining patterns, seeing beneath the surface, seeing the symbols and themes, even if you don't have the background to analyze all those things." I also say that authorial intent doesn't matter in the interpretation of a text. You might disagree with my statements, with my philosophical belief about what makes a good reader, but here's how some posters at the Comic Geek Speak message board chose to respond, in order of appearance, and directly quoted:


(1) "This guy gives credence to the phrase 'Those who cannot do, teach.'"
(2) "He's a dick"
(3) His opinion is utter crap
(4) His dismissal of the author's intent based on what he reads into subjective work (ie. art) is idiotic
(5) He comes off as pretty didactic and even vain to me
(6) I can't reward that snotty attitude
(7) It looks like some one has been handing out literary degrees at the Troll academy.
(8) You sir, are nothing more than an affronterous coxcomb

I don't take that stuff personally--I find the whole thing ridiculous.

If I weren't talking about comic books in the interview, but I were talking about Shakespeare, or Joyce, or Pynchon, do you think posters at the literary message boards would have flamed me for what I said?

Why do comic book readers have such low self-esteem?

Me vs. the Comic Geek Speak Board! The action-packed beginning...

Remember yesterday, when I said I liked the third part of the CBR interview because I came across like a dick and started offending people by saying if they didn't understand the deeper meaning of comics then they couldn't read?

Well, the guys on the Comic Geek Speak message board agree with me! They think I'm a dick, too!

I registered over there as soon as I saw the response, but I need their approval before I can post, and I want to jump into the fray now, man! This is my honor I'm defending. Plus, I wanna stir things up! I'm a dick! Let's keep that debate going!

So, since I can't post over there, I'll excerpt some of the relevant comments and reply right here, right now. Take that, you 24-hour waiting period, or whatever it is they have that won't let me post yet.

Steve Bryant writes: "I don't care what the author intended." So this guy [meaning me, Timothy Callahan] is the arbiter of what all stories are about, regardless of the intent of the creator. Like I said, I'm just an artist. I draw comics. This guy gives credence to the phrase "Those who cannot do, teach."

My Response: Ouch, Steve. Wait, because I don't care about authorial intent, I must not be able to draw? I'm not sure I see the connection, plus, you must not have seen my freakin' awesome picture of NINJAWOLF FIGHTING ALIENS! Damn, look at that masterpiece. Still think I can't do, Steve? And even if that drawing kind of sucks, so what? Authorial intent has been invalidated since the days of the New Critics 80 years ago. And what the author intends clearly does not matter to reader interpretation at all. Example: What did Shakespeare intend Hamlet to mean? We have no way of knowing, so does that mean that we can't interpret Hamlet or that Hamlet has no meaning? Of course not. We base our interpretation on the EFFECT of the text, not on the INTENT. That's how it works, man.

Choanata writes: I just read that interview there, and from the subtext, I'm able to determine he's a dick. That may not be what he was going for, but all the signs point to it, regardless of his intent. It's funny how someone I've never even heard of can do one interview and make me think his opinion is utter crap.

My Response: Now that's what I'm talking about! See. I didn't intend to be a dick. I knew I sounded like one afterwards, but I didn't start that part of the interview by thinking, now's when I get all dicky! So, his interpretation is based on the effect of the words, rather than the intent. Exactly. (And p.s., is my opinion crap BECAUSE I'm a dick, one wonders? Or for some other reason? Because I think it's possible to be both a dick and have a useful opinion, isn't it? What say the readers?)

Citizen Dave writes: I don't think that's what he means. It's perfectly valid to search for ideas and meanings that the author may never have intended. Literature classes have been based on this for centuries. It's up to the reader to find the meaning in what he/she reads. I understand his frustration. It's one thing to state that you cannot see the secondary, underlying meanings, it's another thing to simply refuse they exist and accuse others of "reading too much into it". And, teachers are an invaluable resource who are underappreciated and underpaid.

My Response: I love you, Citizen Dave. You make the rest of us citizens very proud.

My Pal and Yours, Steve Bryant comes back with: I agree with your statement, Dave. However, his dismissal of the author's intent based on what he reads into subjective work (ie. art) is idiotic. Before stating something inflammatory, he should consider his words more carefully.

My Response: Dismissal of authorial intent is idiotic? Tell that to John Crowe Ransom! (Look it up, it's the internet.) And what did I say that was inflammatory again? That part about authorial intent not mattering in interpretation. It doesn't. It matters in creation--I certainly hope the author has some sort of intent, and it's not all just random words. But not in interpretation. Although, wait. What about William Burroughs's "cut-up" technique? He clearly had no authorial intent (in terms of the meaning of the sentences and paragraphs), but the sentences and paragraphs end up with meaning anyway--a meaning determined by the reader. So, scratch that. Authorial intent doesn't even necessarily matter in creation.

Bryan, the guy I ACTUALLY offended because he's the one I was saying was a bad reader, writes: I certainly won't deny saying all of those things. I'm a pretty firm believer in them. However, I think he should go on to quote Matt Fraction as saying "it's okay if you don't get it, not everyone will." If he's such an expert he should know how to take things in context. That's all I'm saying.

My Response: Oh, Bryan. I really, really want to go on the show and debate this over the magical internet airwaves. Please invite me on. But I don't think Matt's response really helps your case all that much. I mean, it is okay if you don't get it. I don't care if you don't get it. But to say there is no meaning is ridiculous. There's always a meaning. Even a Michael Bay movie has a subtext! (And, Steve, it's probably not the one Michael Bay intends.)

The esteemed PurpleBelly writes: Read what you what, read into it what you want. Comics are great because they can reach different people on different levels, they don't have to reach everyone on every level. Is it just me or die it sound like Grant maybe be a little annoyed his hard work/deep sub-text/meta text isn't appreciated by everyone?

My Response: PurpleBelly, you, my friend, are clearly a bad reader if you thought Grant Morrison was the one answering the questions. Um, it was me. Did you even read the thing you're commenting about?

The magically delicious Fnord Serious writes: I can see where Callahan is coming from, as he is a professional reader, in a way. I think it would have been more politic to say that Bryan is a "non-academic reader" rather than a "bad reader". Bryan is reading for enjoyment. Callahan may be reading for enjoyment, but he is reading with a whole arsenal of tools that enable him to read a book in a different way, and most likely analyzing it out of habit. Neither way of reading is objectively "good" or "bad", just different.

My Response: Yes, but that's not much fun. It's more fun to stir things up and take a stand (to mix a metaphor). But, you know, I do think there are degrees of readers. Some readers are better than others. They either have more training, or have a more natural facility for seeing the meaning of a literary work. Some people can recognize symbols, allusions, rhetorical devices, etc more quickly than others, and that helps to make a more meaningful interpretation. When someone can do something well, we say that they are "good" at it. When they can't, we say they are "bad" at it. Why is reading different. And here's the thing: not because I'm some kind of super-teacher or anything, but I thnk I can teach Bryan how to understand literature (and comics) more deeply. I called him (and his ilk--you know who you are, and I probably pissed you off, didn't I?) a bad reader, true, but I think he can learn how to become a good reader. None of this, by the way, is to imply that every comic book story has some significant depth to it that only a good reader can decipher. Most comics are, basically, simple moral fables with punching (or, in the more recent comics, lots of talking about maybe punching at some point in the future). But a good reader should be able to recognize when a writer or artist is doing something with a bit more depth.

thefreakytiki comes out to add: Might I suggest the Geeks invite Mr Morrison on to the show to elaborate his point. I think when two individuals are there to "defend/explain" their P.O.V. that a greater understanding can be met.

My Response: Bryan, compared to these guys, you are looking like an amazing reader right now. Read the words, people! All of 'em.

Citizen Dave, cue awesome theme music, arrives to set things straight: Just so everybody is aware, it's not Grant Morrison making any statements here, it's Timothy Callahan, author of Grant Morrison: The Early Years.

My Response: Thanks once again, my friend.

Lobo shows up, yes!, to say: And I agree that subtext can exist outside of a creator's intent. Isn't there a whole branch of psychoanalysis that looks for subtext in what someone writes/draws, regardless of the creator's intent?

My Response: See, Steve, even the Czarnians know about the fallacy of authorial intent. And I never pegged Lobo as a college man, but he's clearly got some education hiding beneath all those chains and the Kiss make-up.

Paul joins the fun: The fact is, some people just don't like pesto. They aren't wrong. It's just not their thing. They're not a "bad eater". To say that someone who doesn't see that stuff is a bad reader is ludicrous. Many people don't want or need to read deep meaning. They just want to be entertained. One might make the converse statement that someone who writes something that is all deep meaning, with no surface entertainment value is a bad writer, if their book is being marketed to a mainstream audience. I don't happen to be one who would make that kind of statement, outside of playing devil's advocate, but there is something to be said for someone who can deftly do both. As to authorial intent, well sometimes one writes things a certain way, and these disparate influences from things they've read, seen or experienced come bubbling up to the surface (or perhaps just below the surface). It may not have been what they intended, but it's there nonetheless, due mostly to the allusions that they've made.

The reason that there are so many different kinds of comics out there is because there are so many different kinds of readers, and different things appeal to them. That's not a bad thing. It's what gives us choice.

My Response: Aww, Paul. You are so measured and logical. I can't make fun of anything. Well done, my friend. Although the pesto argument doesn't quite apply, since people do use the term "bad taste" all the time. I see your point though, but I'm not sure my argument has anything to do with convincing Bryan to like a certain type of comic. Just to recognize that there is a meaning beneath the surface, especially with Morrison.

ctowner1 replies to Steve's original post by saying: It's not that he's the arbiter - the point he's making is that his individual interpretation (just like YOUR individual interpretation) is just as valid as the author's interpretation. Once the author has created the work, it stands alone in the owlrd to be interpreted by any who experience it. No one's experience/interpretation is superior to any others. (it's just that some are more illuminating and interesting and more likely to invoke insight and discussion).

My Response: Exactly.

Jose Chung explodes with fists of fury--okay, not really: Kinda ironic that he slams Bryan while implying that everyone's interpretation is valid. Couple that with his reaction to his students and I get the feeling that a strictly textual interpretation is completely invalid with Mr. Callahan. I haven't read the whole article, and I don't really disagree with his points necessarily, but he comes off as pretty didactic and even vain to me: For example, the whole Wizard of Oz/DP parallel (so and so "is totally" this and "is totally" that--setting aside that it's not the most penetrating analysis ever, seeing as how one character is named Dorothy and the Tin Man analogue is, well, a tin man); and how he pats himself on the back (unintentionally, I'm sure) by telling how he pointed out something that Morrison says he wasn't aware of; then there's this quote: "I've just shown you it being there"; And this one: "I don't' care what the author intended". Is that a valid interpretation of the text? I'm just picking. He's probably a nice guy and just got riled up.

The excerpts I've seen have increased my appreciation of Geoff Klock, who I've heard on both the Animal Man and Matt Fraction podcasts and on both occasions came off as, first of all, a nice guy, and very knowledgeable without a whiff of condescension.

My Response: I'm vain because I use the word "totally"? See, Steve, that's an interpretation that has nothing to do with my intent. I thought the Wizard of Oz stuff was obvious too, but I have never seen anyone point it out before. But because it was obvious, I was shocked to see that Grant didn't even consider it. That's why it's a great example of interpretation vs. intent. Also, I am not a nice guy, I am a dick. See previous comments. And don't let Dr. Klockkkhammer lure you into his web of sweet, nice, pleasant, good guy stuff. It's all part of his plan to make you feel good about yourself.

Jer says: I personally love all that subtext jazz. But only a snob is gonna hold it against those who don't. This is leisure reading, for crying out loud. Get off yer high horse.

My Response: That's pretty dismissive of the entire medium. "Lesiure reading?' That's all it is? If it's just that, then why do we all care so much about it anyway? And I don't hold anything against Bryan at all. I'm bad at a lot of things. I'm really bad at baseball, for example. Does anyone hold that against me? If someone watches me play baseball, and says, "you're bad at baseball" after I strike out five times and drop every fly ball, does that make the other person a snob? Why is it different with reading?

And holy Hell, I have spent way too much time on this topic! Thanks for playing, everyone.

And seriously, I would love to go on the podcast. What do you say, guys?

The Finale of the CBR Interview!

The third part of the unbelievably extensive Comic Book Resources interview is now live. I can't believe Andy Khouri gave me a THREE-PART SERIES (!!!), but I certainly appreciate it. I enjoyed our conversation and I hope everyone enjoys reading all the stuff I talk about, especially when I become more of a dick at the end of the interview and start insulting people who don't like Morrison by saying they can't read.

Here's the relevant part, with labels added by me to identify who's talking:

CBR: As popular as Morrison is, there are a lot of comics readers who simply just don't “get it.” As your book details, Morrison's work tends to be deeply layered and in some cases difficult if you're not familiar with the literature or philosophy that he's weaving into his work.

Me: I always get really frustrated with people who say “I don't get it” or “it just doesn't make any sense.” I just think that people who say that are just bad readers. They just don't know how to read. To be a reader, it's not just figuring out the obvious stuff, it's seeing the underlining patterns, seeing beneath the surface, seeing the symbols and themes, even if you don't have the background to analyze all those things. There's no way as a teenager that I knew anything about metafiction or Dadaism or Jungian symbolism, but I understood “Animal Man” and “Arkham Asylum” and “Doom Patrol” at least on some level, and I appreciated them then. As I learned more and received my degree and studied literature, I began to appreciate those things on a deeper level.

It's funny because I was just listening to some comic book podcasts – I'd never listened to any and wanted to see what I might expect when I was going to be interviewed for this book-- and I listened to an interview on Comic Geek Speak with Matt Fraction. It was about how “Casanova” has all this subtext going on but it's also just a really cool spy story, but one of the Comic Geek Speak guys was just talking about how he couldn't read “Casanova;” that he just didn't understand it. He gave it four issues and it was just over his head. And there was this whole debate about whether or not comics have a deeper meaning; whether something like “Casanova” has a deeper meaning, and this guy who hosted the Comic Geek Speak show really believes that there is no deeper meaning. He just says “no.”

CBR: “No” to “Casanova” in particular?

Me: To any comic books. His defense was, “Well, whenever you guys play up the deeper meaning of anything, I just don't think that stuff's there. I think you're reading too much into it.” That's a criticism I hear a lot. “You're reading too much into it. Those meanings aren't there.” As a teacher, I face that with students studying literature as well. First of all, I don't understand that philosophy. But my counter argument is, it is there, because I've just shown you it being there. And then their retort is always, “That's not what the author intended.” I don't' care what the author intended, that's what the effect of the writing is. It doesn't matter if the author intended it if that's what's there.

CBR: It's there whether the author meant it to be or not.

Me: Exactly. In Grant's case, a lot of it is intended. And the same thing with Matt Fraction; a lot of his allusions and fancy comic book geek stuff he's doing in “Casanova” are intended, but it doesn't matter if it's intended or not. A good example is in my book, when I analyze “Doom Patrol” and I talk about how the three main characters are like “Wizard of Oz” characters. Dorothy Spinner comes into the Doom Patrol. Robotman is totally the Tin Man. You have Rebis, who is a hollow character who's totally the Scarecrow. Then you have Crazy Jane, who's afraid of contact with humanity, which is why she created her multiple personalities, and she's the Cowardly Lion. Grant gives you those character archetypes pretty clearly and when I brought that up to Grant he said, “I never thought about that, but it's totally there.” So he agrees that the meaning is there, but he didn't intend it, yet it doesn't make the meaning any less significant.

So, I just don't understand this thing of things being too complicated or not having any deeper meaning. You just have to be willing to do a little bit of work as a reader. It should have meaning. Going back to T.S. Elliot and the whole “Waste Land” thing, T.S. Eliot's belief in poetry was that life is challenging and unpredictable and chaotic and ambiguous, and if poetry is some kind of reflection of life, poetry should be challenging and chaotic and ambiguous, too. I don't think we should necessarily expect anything less from comic books. If we read a comic book and it means something to us, I think it does have meaning, whether or not it's the exactly the meaning that somebody else gets out of it. That's my take on this whole thing.

READ THE ENTIRE THIRD PART OF THE INTERVIEW HERE: Me making fun of people who can't understand comic books and offending everyone who disagrees with me.

I go on to insult John Byrne (a little) and Paul Kupperberg (a lot, but with some sugarcoating). Maybe I should post a link to my piece on the Byrne message board and watch the fur fly.

My Arkham Asylum Analysis Grants Me Fame

It's up for everyone to see folks, the second part of my interview over at Comic Book Resources. This time, it's all about Arkham Asylum and how to read it properly. Interviewer (and man of great taste) Andy Khouri even provides a brief excerpt from my Arkham chapter and it sounds like smart stuff to me. I'm glad I wrote it.

Read part two of my exclusive interview here: Me Answering Questions about Morrison's Batman.

Did I mention I'm Setting the Internet on Fire with all of this publicity. 'Cause I totally am!

From Levitz to Crisis: A Question or Two

I have a lot of smart readers, so I'm going to throw out a comics-related question that I truly don't know the answer to. If you know the answer, or know where to find it, please let me know!

Here's the set-up and then the question. In the final issue of "The Great Darkness Saga," originally published in The Legion of Super-Heroes #294 (December 1982), Paul Levitz includes over 50 (I count 51, but I'm sure I'm missing a few) different characters from the DC Universe (not including all of the unnamed characters in the issue, like the Daxamite army and the floating dead bodies around the galaxy). A few years later (1985) Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 surely had more characters than that. So my question is Was Levitz the previous record holder for most characters in a single issue?

Did any comic book have more than 51 significant characters in any issue before December 1982? If so, what issue of what comic? How many characters appeared?

I want to know these things.