Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Ambush Bug: Year None #2, about which I write the following sentences: "So I winced a bit every few pages, and I'm sure that's the point. But I think Ambush Bug, as a character and as a concept, works best when he's goofing on DC's ridiculous continuity, or lack thereof. And some of those bits are quite amusing, like when Ambush Bug proudly adopts the mantle of Rick Starr, Space Ranger. Or when he confronts the maniacal Go-Go Chex. Or when he asks Ted Kord for an autograph at an inopportune time (hmm, he seems to be having some kind of argument with Maxwell Lord, I wonder what -- oh my god, NOOOOOOO!!!). Luckily the 'Comics Code Authority' sticker jumps into the panel to protect us from the gore, yelling 'not in front of the children.' That stuff, I like. Maybe you'll find the gay jokes funnier. There's something to offend everyone, really."
With issue #82, Catwoman has reached its final issue, and I would go so far as to say that it was the best Batman-related book on the stands for much of its run. Sure, Morrison is hitting some high points now, but for a long time, Batman and Detective and all the other Batman comics were trapped in the realm of the mediocre, while Catwoman launched with some excellent work by Darwyn Cooke, Cameron Stewart, and Javier Pulido. It was an awesome first twenty issues or so.
It hit a few slumps in the middle of its run, most notably the issues drawn by Paul Gulacy, but it rebounded with Will Pfeifer and the work of David and Alvaro Lopez.
And the final issue is the perfect capstone on the series, ending with one of Catwoman's best thefts ever.
Pfeifer says he has nothing lined up at DC right now, but he's hopeful. I am too, because he clearly wasn't to blame for the travesty of Amazons Attack! and his other work has been very, very good. If you find back issues of Catwoman in any discount bins, grab 'em -- especially the from the early part of the run or from the last three years or so. You won't be disappointed.
The covers for Superman Beyond #1 are really quite ugly, I think, and you know what's not ugly? That's right: The Inferior Five. Don't you love that logo? It's brilliant.
This is one of the few IF issues I don't own, so if you have an extra copy lying around, and you want to send me one, I will totally appreciate it. I'll even add your name to the Geniusboy Firemelon blog hall of fame. Forever.
Speaking of Superman Beyond #1, Chad Nevett and I talk about it this week. We were going to run a different conversation, probably something about how much we love/don't love puppies and/or luncheon meat, but instead, we decided to tackle the comic that is completely setting the world aflame this week: Final Crisis: Superman Beyond. I'm pretty sure CNN would cover it, if it weren't for that dang DNC and that lady veep thing that's going on.
So join Chad and I as we discuss the most baffling Final Crisis-related issue yet over at the internet's best smarty-pants discussion center: The Splash Page.
I am not a Brad Meltzer-hater. I liked some of the things he did with his JLA, although not all of it. I liked Identity Crisis for the first few issues, although I didn't like the last issue's ridiculous ending and the "solution" to the mystery. I liked his Green Arrow run a lot.
And I like to try to stay positive on this blog, and talk about comics I like. Even my CBR reviews, even the ones with only a star or two, tend to focus on why things didn't work rather than just mocking the failures.
But the award for WORST COMIC OF THE WEEK goes to Brad Meltzer and Adam Kubert's DC Universe: Last Will and Testament.
The comic isn't even worth a review, so instead I will just list TEN RELENTLESSLY STUPID THINGS about the issue:
1. Geo-Force holds his hand over the flame on page one, and shows that not only doesn't it hurt him, but even "the scorch mark wipes away." Thing is, he's wearing gloves. So what's the point? His gloves are scorch proof? And that's supposed to symbolize how he's becoming insensitive? Stupid.
2. It's not even labelled as a Final Crisis book, even though the conceit of the issue is that the heroes are preparing for their final battle, supposedly from Final Crisis. If not, what's the point of this comic? Yet it doesn't even make sense as an FC tie-in, because Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are all still around, and in FC, they've been taken out of the action. Why does this comic exist, again? To show some theoretical time when the heroes might face some big challenge and feel sad about it? Stupid.
3. Girls are romantic saps. The final actions of Wonder Girl and Starfire: pining for Terry Long and Dick Grayson, respectively. Oh, if only them big strong mens was around to give you a hug. Life is so hard for a lady on her own. Stupid.
4. Joe Kubert inks a handful of pages, and they look awesome (well, the Starfire page looks odd, but the others: fantastic). John Dell inks the rest. Putting Joe Kubert's inks in the same book as John Dell's accomplishes one thing: it makes John Dell look like a hack, and makes the comic look like a mess. Stupid.
5. Rocky, of the Challengers of the Unknown, is all-of-a-sudden, a priest. Why? Just 'cause Meltzer needed someone to be a priest for this story. Stupid.
6. Explicit use of Judeo-Christian rituals and customs in DC superhero comics in general is ridiculous. These characters meet angels and devils all the time. What does faith matter in a universe in which some of these beliefs can be proven as fact? If you want to play with religion in the DCU, it should bear no resemblance to any of our religions. Meltzer doesn't seem to understand that, with his confessing characters and his lack of imagination about how religion might exist in the DCU. Stupid.
7. Captain Cold leaves a note for the cops that reads, and I quote: "From your friendly $@#&'n Captain Cold." That's right, he goes to the trouble of leaving a note, and instead of actually swearing in his note, which is clearly his intent, he writes all of the comics code censored version of a swear. I would see it as a joke on Cold's part, but he doesn't strike me as a guy who would bother to mock the conventions of the comic book medium. Stupid.
8. Pa Kent is depicted as some 1950s parody of a hayseed, with a straw of wheat in his mouth as he dispenses corn-pone wisdom. It's a silly, cliche moment, from a completely different version of Superman than we've seen for the past 30 years. Stupid.
9. Geo-Force slices his own throat as a way to "defeat" Deathstroke. Stupid.
10. He does defeat Deathstroke, even as he's dying from the blood squirting out of his neck. And then Geo-Force survives. (And, since nobody seems upset that he killed Deathstroke, apparently Deathstroke survives as well.) So all his dramatic self-mutilation and whining and crying didn't even accomplish anything, but yet Black Lightning somehow thinks he's a "hero." Stupid.
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Immortal Iron Fist #18, about which I write the following sentences: "I'm sure people are going to have problems with the art in this comic. I know they are, because I've read the complaints about the last issue. But I love what Travel Foreman's doing here. His new style, which I termed last month as a kind of Lenil-Yu-meets-early-Jae Lee mash-up, is vibrant and expressive and makes this comic look like nothing else on the shelf right now. While David Aja's work on earlier issues added grace and beauty to the kung-fu follies, Foreman turns this book into a stylish midnite movie full of exaggerated kicks and craggy figures. It's a perfect match for Duane Swierczynski's script, which traffics in mysticism and destiny but largely concerns itself with gritty, personal violence. This story may be about a magical creature that kills Iron Fists, but it feels like a brutal knife fight in the back alleys."
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: New Avengers #44, about which I write the following sentences: "Remember all the fuss when Bendis took over 'Avengers,' blew everything up, and then launched this title with a new, very un-Avengers grouping? That seems like such ancient history, doesn't it, now that we've seen what Bendis has been planning all along? That team of Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, and the Sentry seems like a quaint little gang of heroes after everything that's happened in the past few years. If only they knew what they were in for! But those who complained that the 'New Avengers' wasn't the REAL Avengers will have even more to complain about with this issue, because 'New Avengers' #44 isn't about the Avengers at all -- new or old."
"It's about Reed Richards, of the Fantastic Four."
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Wolverine #68, about which I write the following sentences: "So the charm of this series has to do with embracing the absurdity of the scenario -- not that most superhero comics are less absurd, it's just that most other ones seem so familiar from page to page. Once you allow for a blind Hawkeye driving a Spidey-Mobile, planning to bust his superhero daughter out of the Kingpin's holding tank -- well, you can probably enjoy anything. But you can definitely enjoy this, because McNiven adds so much texture (literally and figuratively) to the future Marvel Universe, and Millar knows precisely how to hit all the right beats. Beats that don't treat superheroes as objects of worship and adoration."
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1, about which I write the following sentences: "It's an ambitious, heady exploration into the history of the DC Universe and Superman's place within it, but for a comic that's about the power of stories, there's probably not enough of a comprehensible story here for anyone who isn't a regular reader of Morrison's other work. It's a densely-packed meta-text, and I enjoy it on that level, but I think a lot of readers will be baffled. And, once again, the 3-D doesn't help to make this comic any easier to read."
[Note: I gave some serious thought to providing annotations for this issue, but I'm going to pass you over to David Uzumeri instead. You're in good hands.]
Here's how my brain works. I've been staring at the collection of Taboo volumes on my shelf, thinking, "boy, that cover for Volume One always freaked me out. I remember meeting Steve Bissette right before the Taboo launch, and I was an impressionable teenager and he told me about all the crazy horror stuff he was putting in there. And yeah, that cover gave me nightmares when I first picked it up. I should write about Taboo and the other great anthologies of the late 1980s."
So, for this week's WHEN WORDS COLLIDE, I wrote about three brand new anthologies instead, and never even got around to mentioning Taboo at all.
But that's because I had so much to say about Comic Book Tattoo, MySpace Dark Horse Presents, and Mome. You should totally read my column: Anthology Daze.
Also (super also), I have a CBR Forum now! That's right, you can post on the WHEN WORDS COLLIDE forum and tell me everything I got wrong, try to get me kicked out of the writer's guild, and generally taunt and/or amuse others. You can also say smart stuff that I will totally refute or maybe agree with. Join me, won't you: WWC Forum!
Last week I posted Parts 1 and 2 of Andre Perkowski's collage of what a 1920s silent Batman film might have been like, and here's Parts 3 and 4, a two-part narrative heavily inspired by Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum graphic novel. I conducted a lengthy Q&A with Perkowski and posted the results below.
First Part of Arkham After Midnight
Second Part of Arkham After Midnight
Tim Callahan: What's your process? How do you make these shorts?
Andre Perkowski: Digital dowsing. A random, chance-based flicking around on the timeline of the source material. If anything catches the eye, I cut it out for possible use later. Flicking around like this, you can get a frame from the first 5 minutes, a second from the middle of the film, and a bit of the ending jumbled up together very quickly. This can turn up interesting connections between the apparently divergent shots... our brains want these cuts to make sense, and they are trained by a lifetime of television to absorb images and weave a narrative around them. If you're willing to suspend your disbelief a bit and go with the oozing mood of it, it all seems to flow together as part of a whole... the oozing mood is a big part, the magic of sound welded to image is what really makes it pop and flow together. They may have been silent films, but they did have some old biddy wailing away on the organ.
I usually have a list of kinds of shots or actions I'm looking for, and haphazardly go through many films in a row just clicking around randomly until I get more than enough. Then I'm left with a big pile of seemingly disparate clips, I organize them by character and location... or sometimes they organize me, as some things just stick out and edit themselves.
TC: How much did you add to the found footage, besides the title cards? Did you add any special effects (and how did you get that Bat-Signal)?
AP: The bat-signal is untouched from 1926's The Bat. A flashlight and a moth cutout of some sort used as a calling card for the title character, but still fairly similar and you can see that image nestling in the early Batman comics crew's mind, burrowing into their brain and being regurgitated back later subconsciously. Or maybe they just plain swiped and re-appropriated it for a totally different purpose like I did.
I considered adding some creepy b&w 16mm and Super-8 stuff I shot initially, but then reconsidered and thought it would be more entertaining and less clumsy to stay roughly in the right time period. There was tracking stacking at the bottom of the 49 serial footage so I added some vignetting to mask it, trimmed frames here and there to compress scenes and give it a choppy print effect. "Cut-up, slow down, speed up, run backwards," as William S. Burroughs summed it up. I tried not to use too many jarring digital effects as the CG title cards were bad enough.
TC: Why did you make these Batman films?
AP: Pure experimentation and summer holiday pleasure, as a break from working on my supposed "real" films that take years and drag on forever. This one was just an idea had walking back from seeing The Dark Knight, how would I have shot it? Being a retro freak, black and white for starters. 1939. Pulpy. Shadowy. Uncomfortable, itchy, and filled with throbbing industrial noises and wind. A bit of Lynch, a dash of Welles, a clove of Guy Maddin. Not having much money, it'd have to be non-sync sound film. Now we're getting a bit too excited so the real world kicks in: its DC's baby, the thought of making a "fan film" seems vaguely disreputable despite my own total lack of a reputation, and I have my own malnourished film toddlers to take care of! So I filed it away in the "hmmm" section. Until a few days later when I remembered The Bat and Conrad Veidt's proto-Joker. Insert light bulb and exclamation mark over head, dissolve to one long weekend of crazy editing/collaging/cobbling... there it is. I had such a huge amount of fun making the first short, turned up lots of great unused material, and seemed to entertain a decent amount of people in a short time as opposed to my usual er, peculiar stuff. So why not make a serial with what's left and put my disorienting 3 A.M. mark on the character before moving on? Cheaper than processing 16mm film, anyway. I agonize over that enough.
TC: But why Batman, exactly?
AP: So it all comes full circle. Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson took a certain amount from some of these films to create their good old-fashioned enduring icon and his adversaries. The Bat is pretty obvious: sure, the character is a burglar in it. But he also travels around buildings with ropes, has a Batsignal, and dresses up like a giant bat to scare people. Hmm. Does that ring many bells? The Joker's look in the early comics looks pretty much like Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs, and they have cited the film as well. Combined, shuffled, and rewritten, it seemed to work quite well and made this man laugh, anyway. Besides, Superman didn't have many pubic domain film influences. Metropolis doesn't count, alas it isn't PD. The German Expressionist mood lends itself really well to Mr. Wayne and his personal problems.
TC: How did you develop new stories out of bits and pieces from unrelated films?
AP: For the first one I knew I had to tell the origin story, so I'm riffing off of the Kane/Finger version and adding my own idiosyncratic spin and made-up vintage dialogue and syntax that never quite existed... being limited to 4 or 5 minutes in The Bat where he actually exists made it pretty easy to work around it.
Marv Wolfman enjoyed it, then it looks like his writer side kicked in with: "Boy it would be interesting if a story was possible, but as you said, copyright and all that." Yeah, I thought. Ah well. Then the next day took it as a challenge and thought, well - why not give it a try. Could be fun to make a little story arc with cliffhangers... of course, I was almost legally mandated to have them since I had already used up all the footage in The Bat and didn't want to bore people by repeating it. So its off to sampling the Batman and Robin 1949 serial, cropping and carefully cutting it right to the very frame JUST before Robin appears. Its a shame to lose the 20s look and attempts at aging and vignetting digitally always look fairly corny, but at least now there's a huge pool of material of the hero to use... now what does he do? For the followup, I knew I wanted to stuff it with all sorts of freaks, monsters, and villains since there are so many interesting creations in these early films. So there's my location sorted out, as there's that one lax security place in Gotham that seems to have a nice population of freaks, monsters, and villains. Also makes it easier to link prison, asylum, or just hallways from many different films to somewhat create the illusion that it's one place. These are the kinds of meaningless tasks I set for myself in the summer to stay out of the humidity and avoid thinking about actual work. I just confined myself to one month to do them all and then move on before the barrel gets scraped a bit too much.
TC: As a Batman fan, what particular incarnations of the character have you enjoyed?
AP: Almost all of them at different points in my life. I grew up with daily showings of the '66 series, hit the comics, was vaguely disappointed (and then so repulsed I opted out entirely) by the movies, stopped following most comics from 1993-2008 or so. Lately I've been digging out old boxes, cackling at the serials, and have really enjoying the quirkiness of those '39 to mid '40s Bob Kane/Bill Finger stories. Cook them all up together and there's the result ready to be scraped off your monitor.
TC:What do you think about Morrison's current Batman run?
AP: I loved Arkham Asylum, the influence dribbles all over the serials and I wish I could make such gorgeous collage paintings. Morrison's fun references were like taking a pen and checklist to my bookshelves at the time, so what's not to love. I think it holds up a lot better than a lot of Miller's hilarious patchwork right wing drool-covered rants, so when I heard about this fabled current run a few weeks ago over something inexplicably called a "German Breakfast," I ordered some after being befuddled in a nice way by the recent bits. Clearly there's an intricate lysergic backstory that needs absorbing.
TC:You said The Dark Knight movie started you thinking about manufacturing these silent versions of yours, but what are your feelings about that film?
AP: Great big gobs of summer movie fun and an enjoyable air conditioned escape from your friendly local urban hellhole. Nice to see Chicago, city of my windy nightmares twisted just so into Gotham. Must've been meticulously exhilarating to make. Properly pitched acting except the inexplicable moments of pro-wrestler outbursts from Bats. Sounded like those taunts they'd do between matches in front of a brick wall... "I'm gonnnaaa get youuuu Jokeeeer and I'm gonna shooow you that Hacksaw Jim Duggan is gonna ta-" Etc etc. When he rants about good in that voice I'm vaguely uncomfortable. Maybe some sort of pitchshifted/fx-ed Radio Shack cowl-based whisper would've worked better.
TC: What projects are you working on for the future?
AP: There are screenings and associated strangeness for my double feature of Ed Wood Jr. adaptations this year, Devil Girls and The Vampire's Tomb. Two early features finally forced out into an uncaring world. Trailers can be had at YouTube: Terminal Pictures and there are no men with huge furry ears in them that I know of, and I've checked. In theory there might even be DVDs for them along with my real epic that'll have grad students eyes a-straining to footnote about one day, "I Was a Teenage Beatnik and/or Monster for the Literal Underground!" I'll have info on that page about dates/cities as well as a site that'll pop up about 'em.
There's a ridiculous Super-8 feature length semi-surrealist ode to bad 80s kung fu being wrapped up in the editing department entitled A Belly Full of Anger that is just...beyond words. I know what you're probably thinking, but the truth is: even stranger. With voiceover cameos by Phil Proctor of the Firesign Theatre and Trace Beaulieu of Cinematic Titanic/Mystery Science Theater 3000. So we have the theatres and the theaters covered. I just need another pile of film transferred for that and it can be pretty expensive to do it right. Hence the frustrating delay leading me to playing with title cards! There's a trailer for that as well on the youtube page along with 124 other videos or so. I don't sleep much.
Then I have to edit yet another backlog feature, a grimy industrial noir entitled The Man Who Couldn't Lose shot in B&W 16mm/Super-8... how do I describe that one? The mood at 2am around that stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike heading out of NYC when it suddenly gets all Blade Runner-y on you... smoke, stink, grease, and discolored quasi-darkness lit by blinking lights cutting through toxic fumes.
As if that's not enough, there are piles of sketches, faux trailers, and shorts to edit, plus an endless documentary on fringe filmmaking with all the folks I've stumbled into or admired. So until this editing work is done I'm not taking on anything new until next year, probably. Unless I suddenly decide walking back from the new Woody Allen movie that I have to retell Annie Hall using a magic lantern.
Being a no-budget underground filmmaker mostly working with hideously expensive (for me, anyway) filmstocks due to a profound loathing of digital video, I work in spurts and like a painter. A very disorganized, very eccentric painter. Picking up one canvas, tossing another aside, trying to rescue one months later. If its my money, my debt, my pain, why not? I figure if I ever get sucked into more commercial work full-time instead of occasional dabbles and quick retreats, I'll cherish these years of futzing around with whatever I wanted to with no limitations but money, actors aging, and sanity. On second thought, please assist me in selling out right now and I'll helm a Solomon Grundy direct to video movie.
Everyone's armchair quarterbacking the reasons for the demise of Virgin Comics. It's still unclear how much of a demise it really is, with the company closing up shop in New York and regrouping in L.A., probably trying to figure out what to do with all the intellectual properties they still control.
On the Standard Attrition board, I posted some thoughts about why Virgin Comics might have failed:
I was talking to Ron Marz earlier in the summer, and he's been doing some writing and editing for Virgin. He was really enthusiastic about the company, but when I said, "I don't know if the comics are any good, because I never see them in shops, or read many reviews of them anywhere," he said that the distribution was one of the biggest problems. He also hooked me up with review copies to help promote the line, and I really liked the revamped Ramayan book.
But he also said that they were targeting the vast market in India, but they needed to find some way to deliver the comics more cheaply. A three or four dollar comic wasn't going to reach the masses.
So I guess they never did figure out how to deliver their content.
It didn't help that the line was weakened by a weirdly mixed message--e.g. "Our books are cool sci-fi retellings of ancient myths, plus random Hollywood concepts with actor's names plastered on the front, and, oh yeah, Dan Dare!" Not really a strong identity for a publisher trying to get attention.
I do think distribution problems (or market penetration problems) and lack of a clearly defined identity really hurt Virgin's chances. Because, from what I saw, their content was mostly very good. I'm sure they had some weaker titles, but they were professionally produced and slick-looking, and some of the stuff, like Ramayan3392 (which I reviewed) and Dan Dare (which I reviewed) was excellent work.
But although I wasn't paying close attention this summer, there were a few warning signs that Virgin Comics was soon headed for trouble:
1. In late Spring/Early summer, Virgin Comics was aggressively trying to get review copies and pdfs out to reviewers. By early July, those e-mails stopped, and the review copies stopped appearing. (At least, I stopped getting them.)
2. Although they had a booth at San Diego a month ago, the booth had very, very little in the way of comic book presence. I'm not sure a random visitor would have known that they publish an extensive line of comics. It looked like a video game company set-up, with no gaming console on display.
3. Grant Morrison and Stan Lee kicked off Comic-Con with a panel I covered for CBR. Neither of them spoke about ANY specifics regarding their upcoming Virgin work, even though that was the supposed purpose of the panel. (Yes, I know Morrison's work is for online videos, but neither he nor Stan Lee seemed particularly eager to talk about Virgin Comics.)
Those warning signs, coupled with the general fan ignorance of Virgin Products (how many Virgin Comics did you local comic shop carry? How often did you see a review of anything other than Dan Dare?) probably could have been used to predict the death of Virgin Comics.
But who wanted to predict that? I don't think anyone was rooting against the company, were they?
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Trinity #12, about which I write the following sentences: "But the problem is that this series (and this issue is no exception) is so mind-numbingly average. Everything about it is right down the middle of the aesthetic spectrum. Its very existence establishes the baseline for these five-star reviews. It's two-and-one-half stars from top to bottom. Mark Bagley's art might be the main culprit. He's a perfectly competent artist, and he's fast, but even though his style is recognizable, it somehow ends up as the most generic comic book art possible. Almost every 'camera angle' is from slightly above waist level. His figures look like they were chiseled out of other, better, artist's designs. He's consistent. And bland."
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Marvel 1985 #4, about which I write the following sentences: "In many ways, this series is the heir to Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross's 'Marvels.' I don't know if it was conceived that way -- though I suspect it was, because of the original plan to use photographs instead of pencilling. What could out-photo-ref Alex Ross besides, well, actually photos? But, luckily for us, Marvel abandoned the photography experiment and handed the book over to Tommy Lee Edwards, who has always been an interesting artist but is doing some of the best work of his career on this title. And I say it's the heir to 'Marvels' not because of the look of the pages, but because of its perspective. Like 'Marvels,' (and like Millar's own 'Kick-Ass,' but from a different angle), 'Marvel 1985' shows stale old superheroes and villains through the eyes of a civilian. Not in the way that Busiek sort of did it in the early 'Astro City' stories, and not the way that Marvel's various 'Front Line' series try to do it, but in the way 'Marvels' actually did it: with a sense of the wonder and terror of the superhuman race."
Heidi MacDonald's recent linkage to Bob Greenberger's announcement that he'd be joining the ComicMix team reminded me of something: it reminded me that ComicMix exists.
I don't say that to be callous, and I've actually bumped into ComicMix President and EIC Mike Gold twice at two local comic book events, so I have had ComicMix on my mind this year, but whenever I sit down in front of my computer, I always forget to check out ComicMix. The thing to check out of course -- especially now that they're winding down their news coverage -- is their regular stream of original comic book content.
They have Mark Wheatley and Mike Oeming on Hammer of the Gods2.
They have Dick Giordano drawing a kung-fu comic.
They have our old pal Mike Baron writing a high-flying adventure comic.
Plus, they have archived strips featuring John Ostrander and Tim Truman's Grimjack, Mike Grell on Jon Sable, and Bo Hampton doing a Robin Hood horror comic.
It's all-new content, exclusive to the website. It's like First Comics never died, it just moved online.
But even though I love my old First Comics, and even though I love all of those creators, I have absolutely no interest in reading any of those comics on my computer screen. It's good stuff, from what I've sampled, and it's the type of thing I should adore, but I don't want to click and read any of it. I'll probably buy some of it when it's collected--especially if it comes out in a nice hardcover edition--but as webcomics, I just don't care.
So here we are, in 2008, with a wealth of free comics at our fingertips, and guys like me (guys who love the content and the creators) don't have any interest. Something must be wrong with that. Something must be wrong with me.
Check out ComicMix yourself. Maybe you'll like reading free comics more than I do.
With a new school year to prepare for, I'm looking for a bit of help keeping my daily schedule with this blog, so if you're interested in doing a guest post on something comic book or pop-culture related, send me an e-mail (TCallah AT hotmail.com), and we'll see if we can get you on the Geniusboy Firemelon train-to-fame-and-fortune.
Today, I have a guest post from Katherine of Superheroes Space, a virtual community of comic book fans that features forums and a blog. Katherine's a 30-year-old superhero aficionado who's been reading comics since she was a child. Right now, she's really enjoying Secret Invasion but says that she remains loyal to Wonder Woman "if only for the fact that there are almost no female heroes in the comics world that can sustain their own comics." Here's what she has to say about Marvel and what she calls "Closing Universes":
Secret Invasion ends in November and at that time the Marvel Universe will change dramatically. We will be informed who was a Skrull and who wasn’t, and there will probably be empty places in the Marvel Universe that we know and at least partially love.
The new story of Ultimatum starts in the first week of November when the upcoming five-issues run instead of Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four.
Ultimates 3, Ultimate Power, and Ultimate Origins all lead to it so it probably won't build the story from scratch. In a sense, Ultimatum will do to the Ultimate Universe what Secret Invasion does to the Marvel Universe. David Finch said that it would close the Ultimate Universe, meaning some of the titles would cease to exist after the fifth issue of Ultimatum.
I have a very good feeling about the what Marvel is doing, both in Secret Invasion and in the planned Ultimatum issues. In fact I would recommend that DC watch and learn. It is a good opportunity to discuss the branching of the stories and side stories that became such a big part of the comics culture. I like the interaction between the superheroes and the creation of the universes, but, at least for me, it becomes spread too thin.
Too many side stories, too much to read just to follow the superheroes that I really want to follow, and the stories of the universes became too divided in themselves. Maybe others won't agree with me on this one, but I am happy that the branching process is being reversed at least partially. Marvel is in the process of creating more cohesion in their stories and opening space for new developments and creativity.
In a sense it is a risky move as they terminate many stories that work at least partially, but I like the new order that is being created and the opportunities for entirely new stories and directions. I have the feeling that by 2009 we'll have very different Marvel comics than the one we know today, and a change can be a very good thing.
--Katherine
[Note: I don't have any sense that the conclusion of Secret Invasion will have that much impact on the Marvel mainstream -- not nearly as much as Civil War had, but maybe Katherine's right. Maybe Marvel in 2009 will bear little resemblance to the Marvel of the past couple of years. The Ultimate Universe will certainly look a lot different. What say you?]
The Splash Page is a little late this week, but if you're interested in the second, and final, part of our discussion with Justin Dickinson about Watchmen, it's now posted for your reading pleasure.
Chad and I have plenty to say about the book, and Justin brought some insight and a fresh perspective as a new reader. It's good stuff, and it's probably the last you'll ever hear about Watchmen from anyone on the internet. I can't imagine anyone talking about it at all over the next year or so, can you?
So, enjoy it while it lasts -- a rare discussion of an obscure little graphic novel: Watchmen, now available on the internet's hottest arena for smarty-pants chit-chat: The Splash Page.
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Captain America #41, about which I write the following sentences: "This issue is typical Brubaker 'Captain America,' by which I mean it's very good, jumps effectively from scene to scene, balances character moments with action, and works as a mini-masterpiece of serialized storytelling. I can't seem to give this comic more than four stars for a single issue, because each issue relies so much upon the whole of the series, but what a whole this is shaping up to be! I think it's safe to say that this series has been Ed Brubaker's best sustained work. 'Criminal' might be better in small doses, but he's doing something in 'Captain America' that points to what serialized superhero comics ought to be. He's developing subplots slowly, he's rotating characters in and out of the overall drama -- in this case the 1950s Captain America is the bait used to find the bad guys -- and he's pacing each issue to provide forward progress and end on a cliffhanger. It harkens back to the classic Marvel comics of old, when each issue would conclude with a shocking splash page, but Brubaker has the advantages of writing for a modern audience (which means he can take his time to develop things) and working with a consistent set of artists. Even the fill-in artists have maintained the look that was established in issue #1. Frank D'Armata continues to over-render the colors, and use white highlights garishly, but he is largely responsible for maintaining the consistent look here, and I appreciate that."
From TwoMorrow's The Flash Companion, edited by Keith Dallas:
KEITH DALLAS: The late 1980s were a particular heyday for you. At the time you started writing Flash in 1987, you were also writing Nexus, Badger, Robotech Masters, and Marvel had you on The Punisher.
MIKE BARON: I was a busy boy.
DALLAS: [chuckles] Can you describe your career at that point? What was it like writing all those titles?
BARON: Well, there was a lot of confusion.
DALLAS: How so?
BARON: [pauses] Keith, at the time I was making a lot of money, and I was doing a lot of cocaine.
DALLAS: Really?
BARON: As a result, my work was not the best that I could have done. I have gone through a lot of changes since then and I look back at that period with mixed feelings.
The cocaine definitely contributed to my "over-writing." I don't think I was taking my writing subjects as seriously as I do now. However, I took Flash very seriously and that's the reason I stopped writing the series [after issue #14] because I just ran out of ideas and I couldn't vamp it.
DALLAS: It was around this time that you were nominated three years in a row for an Eisner Award for your writing on Nexus.
BARON: My work on Nexus has never suffered.
When you do cocaine, you think you can do any damn thing. Often, I just would grab a sheet of paper and start telling a story and make it up as I went along, panel by panel. But you can't do that really. You need a real solid idea and solid characters to build a story around.
For the record Baron's work on that Flash overlapped with Nexus #33-46 and The Punisher #1-9. I think his work on those two runs, and on Flash were actually the BEST work of his career. Maybe because he was "over-writing" instead of "over-thinking." Much of his later work seems to suffer from being worked to death and drained of all improvisation.
Drugs are bad, kids. But am I wrong in thinking that Baron's self-proclaimed cocaine phase was also the time when he did his best work?
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Moon Knight #21, about which I write the following sentences: "'Moon Knight' #21 begins the 'Death of Marc Spector' arc -- the arc you may have seen promoted in the jarringly odd in-house Marvel ads this month. You know, the one with this issue's cover -- the Arthur Suydam painting of Venom pouncing on a sad-looking Moon Knight. The one with the text, 'From "Entourage" Writer Mike Benson.' Nothing says death and violence like a jokey, unimpressive HBO comedy. Of course, if Benson brought a sense of humor to 'Moon Knight,' it would probably be a whole lot better than it is, because this first installment of "The Death of Marc Spector" is relentlessly serious and faux-intense. It's a good thing Texiera and Saltares thrive on drawing guys making angry faces and yelling, because they get to show that side of their talent on half the pages in this issue. It's an endless stream of, 'Where's Moon Knight?!?' and 'I know you know where he is! Tell us!' Because, you see, Moon Knight's on the lam. He's a registered hero who isn't playing by the Initiative rules.
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. #32 about which I write the following sentences: "So the conclusion of the four-issue arc, as heavy-handed (pardon the pun) as it is -- with its imagery of Tony Stark's guilt (as the ghosts of the dead literally hover over him in the final panel) -- just feels like a morality tale from another era. Like Denny O'Neil preaching to us about the evils of racism, or Chris Claremont telling us that blind hatred is destructive. I suppose there's room for such storytelling in 2008. Perhaps the moral lesson is intended for younger readers, but my son has sampled some of this recent arc and come away bored. It's not the Iron Man he knows, with the flippant demeanor and the race car driver enthusiasm. It's a serious Iron Man, heavy with regret."
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Ambush Bug: Year None #2, about which I write the following sentences: "So I winced a bit every few pages, and I'm sure that's the point. But I think Ambush Bug, as a character and as a concept, works best when he's goofing on DC's ridiculous continuity, or lack thereof. And some of those bits are quite amusing, like when Ambush Bug proudly adopts the mantle of Rick Starr, Space Ranger. Or when he confronts the maniacal Go-Go Chex. Or when he asks Ted Kord for an autograph at an inopportune time (hmm, he seems to be having some kind of argument with Maxwell Lord, I wonder what -- oh my god, NOOOOOOO!!!). Luckily the 'Comics Code Authority' sticker jumps into the panel to protect us from the gore, yelling 'not in front of the children.' That stuff, I like. Maybe you'll find the gay jokes funnier. There's something to offend everyone, really."
