The Reprint of the Best One-Panel Monster Ever

Via Jim Roeg, note that DC Universe Special: Justice League of America, which is out now-ish, reprints JLA #111, featuring the one and only appearance of the fearsome octosaur.

Curmudgeons Con on Saturday

We had a bit of a delay in confirming that we'd have a quorum for Saturday's Curmudgeons Con, but all our red tape has been cut and our registration forms have been filled out, so we're good to go. If you don't know the drill, you can find out here, here, here, or in any of more than a dozen other posts going back a year or more. And you may not believe us, because we have to keep up a certain curmudgeonly demeanor to justify the title of this page, but anybody within the greater Chicagoland area on Saturday is welcome to join us. (Actually, you're welcome to join us even if you're not in Chicago and its environs on Saturday, but it'll be more of a hassle for you to get here.) Come one, come all.

CSBG's Got the Runs

Via a commenter over at Making Light, the results of Comics Should Be Good!'s Top Comic Book Runs survey.

Any commentary I'd make on the list is sufficiently obvious that I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader.

I will merely say that anything on this list that is not currently in print should be. There are at best a handful of titles which aren't evergreen here.

Welcome to the World

The Curmudgeons are pleased to welcome Henry Ian Nevins (6 lb 12, 20 in) to our Jess's family--

...Hope you survive the experience!

Hey. He said it first.

Congratulations to Jess and his no-doubt exhausted and radiant wife!

Sunday Song Lyric

Due to circumstances I won't bore you with, this week's lyric is being posted a day late. "Comics I Read This Week" is also forthcoming, although I may just combine last week's haul with this week's and do a two-week round up on Friday.

In any event, earlier this week, I mentioned the fact that as a young comics reader, I missed the boat on some real classics. As I noted, I was unimpressed with the Simonson issue of Thor I picked up, and wound up not reading the series until about a decade after it was published. Likewise with Frank Miller's Daredevil. Bottom line, I had questionable taste as a kid (still do, but that's a whole 'nother story).

Spider-Man 3

I watched Spider-Man 3 last night, and it wasn't nearly as bad as people said. Sure, the ending was a mess, and I am now completely over any illusion that Kirsten Dunst is either cute or charismatic, and Marko got completely shoehorned into the Uncle Ben story, but both the premise and the structure were really quite solid. A bit on the nose in places, perhaps, e.g. Harry's remarks in the hospital, but I am also on the other side of several decades' worth of internalizing how stories work and so I may be sensitive to that sort of thing.

Thomas Hayden Church was superbly cast as Flint Marko. Nailed the look, and had the chops to carry the emotional weight.

Let me amplify that: The movie series has, in fact, nailed the look of the source material better than any other movie series. And, in fact, watching the movie made me realize that the movies have solved a problem that the comics have always had: How does Spidey swing around? In particular, where's the necessary altitude coming from?

The answer: The webs are sproingy. Spidey nails the top of a building and the webline pulls him up to a point he can start swinging from. (This works even better if we make the assumption that the webs are sproingy for only a second or two while they're drying and shrink to a fixed length thereafter.)

I will also note that movie Spidey is amazingly more resistant to damage than comics Spidey. Comics Spidey would be smashed into pulpy bits if he took a dozen sledgehammer blows from a giant Sandman while strapped to a steel girder.

The degree to which New Yorkers cheer for their heroes feels real, and seems to be a major change in the city since September 11. Before then, we'd never have seen the idealistic and hopeful NYC crowd scenes we saw in SM 2 and 3; New Yorkers were at least perceived as cynical and hostile, especially to those held up for admiration.

Iron Man Opens Big

According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, Iron Man gets $104M domestic, $97M foreign, which blows away studio projections and makes it the second biggest non-sequel 3-day opening (after Spider-Man).

Marvel self-financed. Paramount is just picking up a cut for distribution.

Meanwhile, the JLA movie is dead at Warner Bros. That's the peril of being co-owned with a studio; you can't shop a project around. DC's movie future may depend on The Dark Knight, because if it doesn't score, say, an $80M first weekend, Warner may simply decide not to make any more superhero comic movies.

What Did You Get?

Hey, it's Free Comic Book Day! Who's been out to their comic book store? (I haven't yet, because, obviously, I'm still online posting.) Which free titles are worth picking up?

Iron Man No Pun No Allusion Article Title

Iron Man is a very well done, very entertaining superhero film.

My discussion doesn't really reveal anything I'd call a spoiler, but probably it's better if you've seen the movie.

Sid & Ernie

Via Mark Evanier, an article about Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón's renascent career.

I've been a Colón fan for quite a while; my favorite work of his was certainly Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. Jacobson, I'm not so familiar with; I'm not a Marvel guy, and it's been a long, long time since I read any Richie Rich.

But I'm still amused and very pleased that these two distinguished gentlemen have found and are enjoying their twilight careers.

And the market can only benefit from having more non-fiction comics.

Comic Book Memories

Although I've read comics for as long as I can remember, I was actually fairly late to being a comics buyer. It wasn't until I was 11 years old that I started actively saving my allowance and making regular trips to someplace that sold the things -- first the Waldenbooks in Lakeforest Mall, then later Collector's World in Quince Orchard Plaza. The malls are still there, though those two stores are long gone.

The Monsters of Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis

In the original Swamp Thing, which I am enjoyedly re-reading in the Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis collection, Len Wein, in some combination with his editor Joe Orlando and his artist Berni Wrightson, came up with a pretty excellent conceit for the series. Wein leads Swamp Thing through a tour of the classic horror/SF elements. Moore would revisit this to a certain extent in "American Gothic".

More From the Fantastic: A Problem of Genre(s)

What follows after the break is an exploration of genre concerns related to the Fantasy and Superhero fiction genres, which I feel are similar in many ways and face similar issues in the marketplace. I will also talk briefly about Peter Coogan's Superhero: Secret Origin of a Genre, quote an anarchist, examine Marvel's Civil War, and profess my undying affection for Grand Funk Railroad. I hope you will enjoy it...

Beanworld Returns!

Oh, kick ass! Beanworld finds a publisher in Dark Horse!

Larry Marder speaks.

Via Jonathan Miller.

Let me just say this: Not one book in my entire history of reading comics was more effective at attracting non-comics readers than Larry Marder's Tales of the Beanworld. It is brilliantly effective, all-ages, ecological myth-fantasy. Highest recommendation.

Doom's Little Pony

In case you haven't been keeping up, Christopher Bird's been schooling us all about Dr. Doom dialog.

The thing is, yes, it's hilarious that Doom would be obsessed with "My Little Pony" (cf. Mordru's vaudeville career). But this is actually good Doctor Doom dialog; you can tell that this is what Doom would sound like if Doom were deeply perturbed over the loss of his Burger King commemorative tumblers.

In reading about how television writing rooms work on blogs like Ken Levine's and Lee Goldberg's and John Rogers', and reading non-television work by TV writers, I have learned that there is an identifiable skill here, the ability to immediately recognize and synthesize a consistent character voice that someone else created. It's an indispensable skill for TV writers.

And, obviously, for any writer working in a shared universe.

Like most superhero comics.

It's a skill that Brian Michael Bendis appears to lack.

Sunday Song Lyric

I'm sure you all read Jim's report on last week's Curmudgeon Con, but there's something Jim didn't tell you.

After we finnished lunch at Manny's, we asjourned to a bar across the street, as is our habit. And when we got there, we found thata our usual table had been coopted by a musician. Armed with an acoustic guitar and a microphone, he was playing exactly what you'd expect from a guy with an accoustic guitar and a microphone -- John Mayeresque covers of various pop songs of the last 3 or 4 decades. We got some fun out of discussing what songs we should request -- that is, coming up with songs that absolutely positively should not be John Mayerfied. My favorite suggestion was Anarchy in the U.K.

Anyway, when we first showed up at the bar, he was playing one particular song that has since been stuck in my head all @#!&#$! week, and now you get to have it stuck in your head. At least you get the original and not the mellow accoustic version.