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Monday, February 27, 2006
You gotta nip it in the bud, Andy!
If you ever wanted to know that unique feeling of bewilderment, horror and (much needed) humor that is reporting on a comic book convention read Chris Butcher's take on NYCC. I loved his attitude throughout the whole thing. His reporting on the "State of the Industry" panel brought back all those memories of seeing some glorified comic book fan who was in the right place at the right time and got a job in the comic book industry (a perfectly valid way to describe myself I should say) is called upon for all his wisdom, as if he knows any more than the fans sitting in the back row. I remember seeing the PR guy for a relatively large comic book company speak by himself on where he though the world of comics was and where it was going. As he went through every conventional wisdom talking point he could ("that digest format is pretty neat, huh?") I kept thinking "at least don't mention Wertham in 2006, at least don't mention Wertham in 2006." Alas, even that was too much to hope for.
I can certainly see why people would feel exasperated seeing stuff like this, but I love comics too much to get upset. Hell in my own weird way, I love comic because of things like the State of the Industry panel. Don't expect an explanation on why, though.
As for comics people who are genuinely worth hearing from, my mind is still going over seeing Grant Morrison speak at WodnerCom. The second time I've seen him, I learned why his superhero comic books read so much better than everything else in the genre (besides, y'know, being well written). When going over his plots for Seaguy and The Atom he'll start explaining everything with this manic energy, doing voices and laughing as if he can't believe he's saying such crazy things. He captivates everyone in the room, his energy is so contagious. It's not just that he comes up with a good idea, anyone writing enough monthly superhero books will have at least one, but it’s that he follows that idea as far as he can take it. There's no self-consciousness about being a grown man writing about a guy whose superpower is becoming the size of your thumb nor is there any attempt to try and make all this believable to "the real world" or "new readers." Morrison is going for an unapologetic pop-culture sensation. I don't think that's how he approaches all his work, such as The Mystery Play or Arkham Asylum, but that certainly seems to be his take on the bright and shiny superhero books like All-Star Superman.
Imagine if, instead of reading about a forthcoming book in Previews, the writers of every book had to personally explain to you why you should buy their book. Most writers would talk about some "cool new things" that are going to happen, all while conversing with you as if you were co-workers talking about how you're weekends were. You'd hear their pitches and think "yeah, that sounds alright...I guess." Morrison would be talking to you in manner between an 8-year-old who just saw Star Wars for the first time and a Nobel Prize winning scientist on the verge of making a discovery that will change mankind. You'd think "yeah! I want to read that comic! Now get out of my house, Grant Morrison!"
I don't want to end on a sad note but I must say I will miss Don Knotts (although I suppose going from Grant Morrison to Don Knotts would be fun, if just not under these circumstances). I have fond memories of watching The Incredible Mr. Limpet on TV as a kid. Barney Fife was truly one of the most kick-ass nerds on TV. For more on Knotts, see this post from the King of TV as well as the Google Video further down.
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Monday, February 20, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Extra! Extra! Brainy liberal full of worries!
"No matter what he does, it's interesting. Even if it's a train wreck, people will check it out."
-Joe Field of Flying Colors Comics in The San Francisco Chronicle's article on Holy Terror, Batman!
I was at the Frank Miller panel at WonderCon and when I heard him talk about the book I had conflicted feelings, which is how I usually feel about Miller's work these days. I'm excited to see him do a new Batman project all by himself, especially since he says this is the best artwork he's done of his career. I like the passion that he displayed about this book.
But I just can't hang with the mentality behind the book. This is probably my San Francisco/college student liberalism taking a hold on me but Miller equating the War on Terrorism to World War II is just ridiculous. It reminds me too much of the "rah-rah" sentiment we had right after 9/11 when so many people were duped in Bush's "good guy/bad guy" dichotomy. That's a view on the world that seems to inspire Miller but I think it leads to ignorance in people.
The comics that came out at the time were especially embarrassing. Marvel had Captain America and the X-Men fighting Arab terrorists in storylines that I don't think anyone wants to revisit. And we all remember Civilian Justice? I'm sure Miller's book will be better on a technical level than all of those comics but I'm not convinced the ideas behind it will be any deeper.
I suppose the only way to know is to wait until the book comes out instead of being a whiny sedentary, indoors man, liberal elite Jew-bag (well, half-Jew-bag) who posts on a blog. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go read Howard Chaykin's The Challengers of the Unknown Kick Fox News's Ass because there's nothing I love better than having my own opinions fed back to me. Yummy.
Check out that Chronicle article, though. There are some good quotes from Larry Gonick, he of the Cartoon History of... series.
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Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Infinite reviews
When I interviewed Dan DiDio he noted that one of the goals of the Infinite Crisis programming was to give fans a feeling that they must pick up the latest comics tying into the overarching storyline as soon as they hit. For those fans that did wait out for collected editions now all the main storylines leading up to the Infinite Crisis mini-series are available. Reviewing three of them (as well as one parody I’ll get to at the end) gives a glimpse of what the strengths and weaknesses of modern superhero storytelling are.
The plan to create this vast story for the DC Universe came from DiDio seeing so much potential in Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales’s Identity Crisis. DiDio gathered Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Judd Winick to plan out what will happen to the DC superheroes based on this story. While many of the mini-series and story arcs base plot points on the content on Identity Crisis JLA: Crisis of Conscience is a direct sequel to the original mini-series. Written by Johns and Young Avengers writer Allan Heinberg with art by Chris Batista it’s not only, as the cover states, “the explosive aftermath to” Meltzer’s story, it’s also a significant improvement.
The drowsy narration captions, choppy fight scenes and dour mood are all gone. CoC, perhaps because it was published in a continuing superhero title, is much more comfortable with itself as a superhero story. The plot works off of the “magical lobotomy” moments of Identity Crisis, with characters from that era’s Justice League roster arguing over whether they had gone to far in their actions against supervillains like Dr. Light or not. Johns and Heinberg actually treat Meltzer’s concept better than he did by having the characters act in full-blown superhero soap opera mood. Characters like Green Arrow and Hawkman don’t seem angst-ridden as much over-the-top actors putting on a Greek tragedy. It seems hammy but it might be the only effective way to tell a story where a man dressed like Robin Hood argues with a guy who has wings on his back about what a woman wearing a sexy tuxedo with fishnets should do. Batista draws the heroes with a fine grasp of superhuman anatomy, leading to great poses by the heroes either in emotional battle with each other or physical battle with their enemies. Johns and Heinberg never forget they’re writing a Justice League of America story and make sure to put in plenty of fight scenes. The internal and external fights the superheroes deal with are intertwined, leading to a very exciting ending featuring a classic JLA villain.
It’s not really an ending though, as the last page of the book is sure to tell us. These are books written with continuing monthly books in mind so they read better as one aspect to this much bigger storyline that will take many books to get complete story. When I read Adam Strange I was disappointed that the cliffhanger ending felt tacked on. Here, because it was expected from the writers all along, it’s much more effective at creating anticipation. The bit about Catwoman seems interesting, almost as if the writers are trying to create an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the superhero world.
Villains United and Rann-Thanagar War are part of the same project but are very different. One exemplifies the best of modern superhero comics while the other just gives readers the worst. VU starts with pages of back information. Panels from previous comics tell of the lead up to a bunch of DC supervillains uniting against the threat of mind wiping. It seems hard to get a handle on but writer Gail Simone creates a story that is easy to enjoy. It features a defiant team of villains and all a reader needs to know, including the ending, is self-contained in this mini-series. The book is filled with double- and triple-crossing and the main characters can only be seen as heroes in comparison to the villains they are rebelling against. Simone still manages to make a case for the Secret Six. She is a master of building characterization through only a few pieces of dialogue. Elements like New Gods character Parademon and second-generation villain Ragdoll’s affection for each other aren’t necessary for Simone to get the story from Infinite Crisis Plot Point A to Infinite Crisis Plot Point B. Including that relationship in VU just makes the characters more fun to read. By the end I wanted to read a lot more about Catman (who should change his name to Orange Batman) and Deadshot’s partnership, so I’m glad a Secret Six mini-series with Simone writing is coming soon.
RTW barely features any characterization even though with all the different aliens running around it could certainly use it. Dave Gibbons just packs the comic with character shouting at each other and stuff blowing up. Ivan Reis has a great talent for drawing superheroic action and adventure but his work gets bogged down in this drunken vomit of a plot. Almost all of his drawings for the first half of the plot are washed up in too-bright oranges and reds. If you are familiar with the final battle in Adam Strange (Jog’s take on it isn’t far from reality) then imagine that battle strung along for six issues, complete with a similar ending that seemingly wraps everything up until something bad happens coincidentally enough and everybody realizes “oh wait, we have to do this all over again.”
The book is a prime example of what I’m writing about when I write how some books can only be useful to readers who are familiar with decades of continuity and can appreciate when these characters are dealing with a crisis. I realize now that editorial plans aren’t wholly to blame here. Both Gibbons and Simone got instructions of what events their books were meant to depict but Simone still tells a complete story that works on its own while Gibbons’s book only makes sense as a muddled puzzle piece in a long line of other comics. Both CoC and VU created enough sense of drama that someone like me, who had many hesitations about this crossover business, now wants to read more of this story. RTW just makes me weary of Gibbons’s superhero writing.
An odd thing I noticed about these trades is that they aren’t uniform in their presentation. VU has all these excerpts from other comics and then identifies every character in the book in the back pages (and I mean every character, even if they appeared in one panel). RTW could certainly have used that same move but instead we just got one page of text that’s as much of a read as the rest of the comic. You’d think they’d at least use panels from Adam Strange. All three of the books tout their Infinite Crisis association the cover but there’s no mention of it on the spines. That seems like a real missed opportunity.
During the publication of Plastic Man Kyle Baker published books of family comedy and historical drama under his own company. He also illustrated the political satire Birth of a Nation, published by Crown. When he writes about superheroes he sees them from a much wider perspective than many other creators at DC Comics. Baker seems bewildered why so much energy would be put into create stories about superheroes grappling with life-changing issues. The first three pages of Plastic Man #20 are damning attack on the mentality behind Infinite Crisis. Baker feels he is out of step with the current superhero world and his perspective as an outsider is smart as well as being very funny. DiDio and the star creators under him have a clear vision for the types of comic books they want to create. They’ve achieved success in communicating that vision and in the reception it has received, at least in terms of sales. If creators like Johns and Heinberg tried to create the story they did as well as make every issue accessible for ages five to 85 it wouldn’t have been effective. To create the world for DC they wanted they ad to leave behind the kind of superhero comics Baker and others want. DC overall does have a wide variety of genre comics and by publishing Plastic Man they actually refute some of what is asserted in Plastic Man. But this issue is the last of the series. It failed why the Infinite Crisis books go on strong for now. Overwhelming DC fans, creators and editorial alike want high drama and the sense that everything they read matters on a larger scale. It’s just a matter of telling a good story amongst all those expectations.
My thanks to DC Comics for making the reviews of JLA: Crisis of Conscience, Villains United and Rann-Thanagar War possible. My thanks to James Sime for making the review of Plastic Man #20 possible.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Pure brilliance
Come to San Francisco, where you can get your banana suit signed by Grant Morrison. From Douglas Wolk's WonderCon report.
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Random Tuesday Blogging
Working for these nice folks I've been screening educational films of the 1940's and 1950's (and one from the early 1960's). Some from the 1950's are actually of better quality then I thought. "Boy With a Knife" has sort of a Rebel Without a Cause thing going for it, except not as good or as long and with a know-it-all narrator reassuring everybody. I was still interested in the characters, though, and did like the performance of the youth leader. If you had to sit through a film in class while going to school in 1956, this could have been a lot worse.
The ones from the 1940's suck though. Everyone I watched just lectures at the audience at a dirge-like pace. "Know For Sure" fills most of its time with some boring old doctor lecturing at us about syphilis. There is one hilarious bit in the beginning though that makes downloading the film worth it. We get a really broad Italian stereotype waiting for his son, only for events to turn tragic for him and hilarious to us. It's the best gag involving a concertina I've ever seen.
What ever happened to Don Simpson's blog? It was http://comicsaintart.blogspot.com but that link leads to nowhere now.
A lot of bloggers create this personality of a curmudgeon or of being cranky but I think Simpson had everyone beat there. I really liked his essays on the comics form, comparing reading a comic to reading a newspaper, but I also thought his take on comic book culture was a hoot. I don't think I agreed with one iota of it. I just liked reading how the comics fans want can be broken up into two categories: power fantasies where a geeky guy turns into a superhero and de-powered fantasies where the geeky guy stays a geeky guy. I think someone asked where manga fit into that and then Simpson went on to compare that situation to the car manufacturing wars between American and Japanese car companies in the 1980's (the inspiration for this bit of cinematic genius).
I thought that was great, although I hated how Simpson would rationalize himself out of the dichotomy of comic book people by saying he's an artist and pays attention to comics for the artwork. If the comic book world is just a bunch of neurotic men looking for crass escapism then Don Simpson has to be down in the mud with the rest of us.
I believe Alan Moore's best work is "The Bowing Machine" with Mark Beyer. That or A Small Killing with Oscar Zarate, but I prefer Beyer's artwork.
I believe Neil Gaiman's best work is Black Orchid with Dave McKean.
I believe Stan Lee's best work is the two-part Silver Surfer story he did with Moebius.
I believe Geoff Johns's best work is Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. with Lee Moder.
Am I weird like that?
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Sunday, February 12, 2006
My WonderCon finds
Gumby and Pokey in Hell as drawn by Art Adams (and yes, he does the interiors)
Steve Ditko going crazy as drawn by Steve Ditko
The combined cost of these purchases was three dollars.
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One A.M. WonderCon Saturday notes
Uh...can I even remember anything?
Dan DiDio and Bob Wayne are the greatest comedy duo in comics right now. Wayne's a great straight man.
Hearing Grant Morrison telling you of his plans for Seaguy will put you in hysterics. Then the laughter will turn to sorrow (as it always does, alas) because you realize you'll never see it in comics form.
Apparently Mark Waid found Alex Robinson's Tricked to be a big influence on the writing of 52.
It was nice, after searching eBay and comic stores for years, to see the Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson adaptation of Alien. Too bad it had to be this fella who saw it first! Damn!
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Saturday, February 11, 2006
Midnight WonderCon Friday notes
If you ever have the chance to see Gahan Wilson speak take it (he has a few more panels Saturday and Sunday)! The man defines the term "raconteur." Man, just for the Hugh Hefner impression alone.
Is it wrong that when I'm listening to Ramona Fradon, Trina Robbins and Scott Shaw! speak about Brenda Starr all I can think about is the movie with Brooke Shields?
Overheard from a vendor on the floor: "My goal today is to sell a Star Trek picture to at least one Hell's Angel!"
Here's something I find out: when you're in a building named after a former mayor of San Francisco killed in an act of homophobic violence Brokeback Mountain jokes have just that extra sting to them.
Grant Morrison is an incredibly patient and awesome man. I already knew he was a class act but seeing him standing there at the Isotope speaking to fan after fan as they cluster around him proved that he's the classiest act who ever acted classy.
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Monday, February 06, 2006
More San Francisco hotspots (for hot nerds)
In San Francisco there are many fine comic book stores. But while you're in town you might want to check out two bookstores that offer a wide ranging trade selection.
Green Apple Books at 506 Clement Street is the Amoeba Music of books. You will spend a lot of time there and you will spend a lot of money. Lucky for you the books are sold at a discount. In the graphic novel section you'll find a variety of books that puts to shame anything at Borders and Barnes & Nobles. They've got plenty of out-of-print and rare books. When I was there I got two issues of the Penguin RAW. If I had the money to spend I would have gotten the slip-case hardcovers of the EC horror books. Alas, I had to spend money on sundry items like school and food. They also buy books so you can get rid of some old trades and then spend that money getting more comics on the convention floor. Think of it as a Las Vegas casino, but surrounded by Pho restaurants.
Aarvark Books at 227 Chruch St. (right there when you get off at the Church MUNI station) has a glorious comic section. It is glorious because it's obviously kept by people who know nothing of comics. There are about six boxes with the most random assortment of comics I've ever seen. One box had a Love & Rockets sketchbook for $9.50, a bunch of old Love & Rockets and then an issue of Good Housekeeping thrown in for good measure. I got a TIME2 book, some comic on Malcolm X (subtitled "The Angriest Man in America") and the Kyle Baker Birth of a Nation for ten dollars off. This is the place for old school trade paperbacks from DC and Marvel. I saw a bunch of those '80s Marvel graphic novels. One had the brilliant team-up of Power Pack and Cloak & Dagger, written by Bill Mantlo. That's Maximum '80s.
I mentioned the Independent Film Festival in my last post but forgot to tell you of the comics connection. If you're in town early you can check out the live action adaptation of Initial D by the guys who did Internal Affairs on the 7th. The Saturday of the con there's a screening of two episodes of Masters of Horror playing. The one directed by Dario Argento is based on Bruce Jones and Bernie Wrightson's Jenifer. Then you've got one by Don Coscarelli and Joe R. Lansdale, the team behind Bubba Ho-Tep. This is probably your only chance to see these on the big screen. Maybe you'll want to check them out after you go see Eric Powell at the Isotope.
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Friday, February 03, 2006
WonderConnin'
February 10th-12th is WonderCon at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. I'll be there as a writer and a fan. It's one thing to go a huge convention like San Diego but this will be the first time I'll be going to convention that takes place where I live. I must good use of my home-field advantage.
The best I can do is to recommend anyone dropping by to pick up Broke-Ass Stuart's Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco. You can order it from the site or pick it up at the fine retailers listed on Stuart's website (you're going to the Isotope on Friday anyway, right?). After getting to SF, checking in to a hotel and paying the entrance fee to the con you'll want some food and alcohol and you'll want it cheap. Well just turn to the "Market & SOMA" and "Union Square/Financial District" sections of Mr. Stuart’s guide and start living the dream. Stuart knows his stuff and he writes like Kevin. Mr. Sime got me this guide the week I moved here and I've been using it since. It's good and good for you.
SFist is a type of blog for the city that spotlights events, news and trends of interest for those living here. Check it out from time to time to find something cool that will give you break from the world of comic bookery.
The San Francisco Independent Film Festival is happening at the same time as the con so perhaps you'll want to check that out. They've got a documentary on Tommy Chong, a documentary on the word "fuck" (entitled Fuck) and on the 12th the festival will close with the latest film by Visitor Q director Takashi Miike. It's a children's film.
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Thursday, February 02, 2006
Seth Fisher R.I.P.
Yesterday I picked up the final issue of Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan. I was excited to read the final issue of the mini-series because of Seth Fisher's brilliantly wacky art. If only I knew it was the last comic book with Fisher's art produced while he was alive, as I learned from Tom Spurgeon.
Fisher's art was some of the most vital art to come from a comic book publisher. He mixed manga with American superhero comics while also having the sense of video game culture and monster movies. He created comics that packed a full pop-culture wallop that felt completely contemporary.
I'm saddened but I'm also mad, even though I know it is foolish to be mad in the face of life and death. I'm mad because I wanted to see a lot more from Fisher. He was a young artist with worlds of potential. I wanted to see what new projects he would give us, either with Marvel and DC or a creator-owned project. Now I value the work we have from him much more than I ever did.
Green Lantern: Willworld is still in print from DC. Search the back issue bins for Vertigo Pop: Tokyo #1-4 and Legends of the Dark Knight #192-196. Hopefully Big in Japan will get a trade in the next few months.
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