Why We Need Dev-Em

The DC Universe is better off with Dev-Em than without him.

First off, let us dispose of the Last Son of Krypton nonsense. That ship sailed, and sailed forever, with Supergirl and Kandor. Superman's putative alienation, rootlessness, and ethnic isolation were never important issues, even after the Byrne reboot.* Without themes very much like those, LSoK has no literary force. (And, of course, with those themes, Superman's stories are whiny little downers, which is why they haven't been important.)

Furthermore, while valiant attempts to service the Supergirl trademark have been made without recourse to her being Superman's cousin, the notion that she is Superman's cousin is too firmly rooted in everyone's notion of the character for it to be permanently excised. (In addition, of course, her being his cousin means that you nicely avoid any question of them hooking up.)

Having acknowledged that there are, and will continue to be, Kryptonian survivors, we can move on to Dev-Em himself. Dev-Em's precise Kryptonian origin as a juvenile delinquent who builds his own rocketship after being inspired to escape Krypton by Jor-El is an unusually contrived piece of Weisinger-era Supermania, and it is perhaps best ignored, if only for the way in which it unselfconsciously makes Jor-El look bad.** (Jor-El is doomed to failure, yes, but his failure is because he's right, not because he's less competent at rocketry than the j.d. next door.)

Let us look instead at what Dev-Em became: A spy. One of the single most individually powerful beings in the universe, and he's a covert agent. Even moreso, he's counterintelligence. He could win entire wars single-handedly, but he prefers games within games and wheels within wheels of hidden motivation, unclear loyalty, trickery, subterfuge, and deception.

He contrasts with Superman in a way that no other character does. He rejects the flashy costume, the adulation, the lionization and applause. He's a Big Picture man, not a first respondent. He doesn't fight the Never-Ending Battle; he stops wars from starting.

He can look at the Man of Steel and think that he's shallow and silly and superficial.

Don't you see? Dev-Em is the Warren Ellis of the Superman mythos. Every time Dev-Em and Superman meet, you can tell the story of why Superman isn't shallow and silly and superficial.

And when Dev-Em's on his own, you can get your Fleming and Le Carré on and tell spy stories with a guy who's indistinguishable from Superman.

If Dev-Em didn't exist, it would almost be necessary to create him.

*Which itself diluted LSoK within a year, with the pocket universe Kryptonians, and within three years, with the Eradicator.

**Another reason it's best ignored is that Dev-Em also managed to save his parents, putting him two up on Kal-El, and it means that there's a potentially breeding family of Kryptonians out there. OK, there's Kandor/Rokyn, but still.

N.b.: This post inspired by this comment.

Sunday Song Lyric

One of the bloggers at another (non-comics) blog I frequent includes, every Sunday, an entry entitled "Sunday Song Lyrics," in which he shares the lyrics to a song he likes. Well, I thought this was a great idea, so I have decided to shamelessly steal it. I'll try to tie my lyrics into comics somehow, and try to give us something to discuss beyond "Wow, you have awesome taste in music, Jason! How can I be more like you?"

This week, I'm kicking things off with some Ramones. Here are the lyrics. Inside the jump, I'll explain why the Ramones are the most comic-book band ever.

My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down
(Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)

You've got to pick up the pieces
C'mon, sort your trash
You better pull yourself back together
Maybe you've got too much cash
Better call, call the law
When you gonna turn yourself in? Yeah
You're a politician
Don't become one of Hitler's children

Bonzo goes to bitburg then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on TV somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town for an extended foreign policy
Pick up the pieces

My brain is hanging upside down
I need something to slow me down

Shouldn't wish you happiness, wish her the very best
Fifty thousand dollar dress
Shaking hands with your highness
See through you like cellophane
You watch the world complain, but you do it anyway
Who am I, am I to say

Bonzo goes to bitburg then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on TV somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town for an extended foreign policy
Pick up the pieces

My brain is hanging upside down
I need something to slow me down

If there's one thing that makes me sick
It's when someone tries to hide behind politics
I wish that time could go by fast
Somehow they manage to make it last

My brain is hanging upside down
I need something to slow me down

So the Ramones all had secret identities (Jeffry Hyman is ... Joey Ramone), costumes (ever see Johnny Ramone without his trademark leather jacket and haircut?), and even had their own comic (Weird Tales of the Ramones, featured in the compilation boxed set of the same name). But none of those are what makes the Ramones the most comic-book band ever.

Here's what makes the Ramones the most comic book band ever.

Around 1980, Johnny Ramone started cheating on his girlfriend with Joey Ramone's on-again/off-again girlfriend, Linda. Johnny (a political conservative and the authoritarian leader of the band) eventually wound up marrying Linda. Joey (a political liberal) was so angry about what had happened that he wrote a song called "The KKK Took My Baby Away" about the incident. From that point on until Joey died twenty years later, Johnny and Joey never got along. But here's the thing -- both of them were so dedicated to the idea of the Ramones that the thought of breaking up the band never occurred to either one of them!

That, to me, is comic book soap opera in the real world, plain and simple. I can easily imagine an Avengers storyline in which Iron Man, playing the role of Johnny, woos Sharon Carter, much to Captain America's consternation. Thor could be Dee Dee Ramone, drunk on mead the whole time. Quite honestly, if you want to have Iron Man and Cap fight each other, you could do a lot worse than taking a page from the Ramones' biography. (Marvel did, in fact, do a lot worse in Civil War, but that's another post).

This week's lyrics are from another Joey Ramone song. This one was written when President Reagan made a trip to Germany that included a visit to Bitburg Cemetary in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of V-E Day. Bitburg was reseting place to 49 members of the Waffen-SS, and that -- coupled with the fact that President Reagan had declined to visit a concentration camp because he didn't want to "reawaken the passions of the time" -- stirred controversy. "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down" was Joey's response. The thing was, though, that President Reagan was Johnny Ramone's hero. But did this break up the band? Did Johnny refuse to play on Joey's anti-Reagan song? No. He simply requested that Joey not title it "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg," which was Joey's initial title. Joey complied. Problem solved.

Because the Ramones were, first and foremost, Ramones. They might fight each other. They might hate each other. But so what? When the time came to be a Ramone, they were Ramones. And that, my friends, is in the fine tradition of the Marvel superhero, and that is why I say the Ramones are the most comic-book band ever (take that, KISS!).

Who do you think is the most comic-book band ever?

He Was Turned to Steel

A first look at the drug addict as our favorite wino, Tony Stark.

Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing

A tribute to the Sledge Hammer comic book. (The old cop parody show, not the Peter Gabriel song.

I Don't Know What This Has To Do With Comics...

But I thought I'd mention it anyway: Bobby Pickett of "Monster Mash" fame has died. The song was played on at least one episode of The Simpsons and Sabrina, Teenaged Witch.

Quick Review of this Week's New Release List (4-25-7)

You know what you want? New comics. But which new comics are coming out this week? That's what I'm here to tell ya.

And that, in a nutshell, is the point of the NCRL Quick Reviews (that and the "incisive" commentary and occasional heaping of praise).

Now then... get your backs up off the wall. Dance. Come on.

(And am I the only person who thinks Baron Davis' beard looks like a bad Photoshop job?)

AC Comics is bringing us some more Golden Age reprint fun:

• Men of Mystery Fawcett Fighting Favorites Sp #1, which I like the sound of because "Fawcett means fun."

• Men of Mystery Golden Age Grand Slam Vol 1 TPB. It's $25, but since it's a TPB I'm assuming you're getting a lot more story than with the similarly-priced hardbacks.

Other non Marvel/DC/Image/Dark Horse stuff coming out this week:

• Amaze Ink (which is like a division of Slave Labor Graphics or something, I guess), brings us Nightmares and Fairy Tales #19. No clue what this is, but it sounds cool.

• BTW, although I never mention it, Archie Comics Publishing releases lots and lots of Archie comics every week (and, oddly, lots of Sonic the Hedgehog -- hey how awesome would it be to have a team-up of Archie and the real Hedgehog, Ron Jeremy? Invite Betty and Veronica over and, uh, see what happens...).

• Along the same lines (minus Ron Jeremy -- although... ), as always, Avatar Press brings you mountains of Lady Death. Mountains. (In fact, I think it's safe to assume that "mountains" of something figure prominently in whatever appeal she has.)

• Bongo Comics tastefully releases a few Simpsons comics every week, and this week is no exception.

Dark Horse rides into town to bring us:

• A new issue of Usagi Yojimbo, about which I cannot say enough good things (Stan Sakai is teh r0xx0r).

• We're also getting something called Rex Mundi DH Ed #5. Rex Mundi, you will recall, is a tale of murder, sin, and redemption in a world where magic is real and the Catholic Church never lost its grip on power. Okay, I totally swiped that from Wikipedia --I couldn't remember what Rex Mundi was but knew that some of you had recommended it on multiple occasions (it's on my "I really need to check this out at some point" list, and I'll get to it eventually). I, or rather Wikipedia, can also tell you that "Rex Mundi is a quest for the Holy Grail told as a murder mystery. It's set in 1933 in an alternate history Europe where magic is real and the Protestant Reformation never happened." That whole old school magic and Catholicism in a modern setting vibe. We've seen it before, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun here.

DC Comics is going to make you take it and like it, starting with:

• 52 #51. Okay, wait, I can do this, seriously, wait for it... one more issue left after this one! Math is so my bitch now. Anyway, I'm assuming we're still on for the return of the Multiverse and the death of Blue Devil. BTW, between this persistent rumor (the return of the Multiverse -- the Blue Devil thing is just my wishful thinking) and the appearance of pre-v.4 Legion characters (with old school Karate Kid no less!) in the new JLA and JSA series, can my long hoped-for pre-v.4 relaunch be far behind? (I don't care if it's wrong, Marc -- the heart wants what the heart wants.)

• Action Comics #848. This isn't the Busiek one, this is the... I have no idea.

• Amazons Attack #1 (Of 6). This sounds suspiciously like something someone thinks is retro-clever but probably won't be.

• Astro City: The Dark Age Book Two #3. All of my problems with Book One are pretty much still true in Book Two. Is it time to ponder if AC has jumped the shark? You know, we need our own comic book version of "jumping the shark." How about "resurrecting Jean Grey?" - as in, "Astro City has totally resurrected Jean Grey." "Yeah, it's lame now."

• Firestorm The Nuclear Man #35. The end for this series is nigh, but Dwayne McDuffie is writing it, I'm told, so I may check it out (even if Ronnie's still not around).

• Justice Society Of America #5. Brad Meltzer got him a relaunch, and by God, Geoff Johns wanted one too -- and he got it. Apparently this issue will have pre-v.4 Legionnaires in it, as well as a crossover with Meltzer's JLA.

• Ninja Scroll #8. Haven't had a chance to check this out yet, but I'm sure it's ninjariffic.

• Outsiders Annual #1. Annual? Do the Outsiders have a comic?

• Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes #29. I think the Legion is going to attack the Dominator homeworld in this one. If they find Giffen and the Bierbaums hanging out there, I hope there's a reckoning. A very painful reckoning.

• Teen Titans Go #42. I'm told the in-continuity Teen Titans comic has improved to the point where Teen Titans Go is now only 200-times more entertaining. *rim shot!* Meanwhile, Teen Titans Go continues to make me mad at WB Animation or Cartoon Network or somebody for canceling the animated series.

• Wonder Woman #8. So apparently Wonder Woman really is bi-weekly now. (That's bi-weekly, you sick little monkeys.) Anyway, if you like to read Wonder Woman every couple of weeks, this is your golden age.

Elsewhere in New Brunswick:

• Dynamite Entertainment has no Battlestar Galactica for you this week (and no Dynamite Magazine archives, dammit!), but they've got a new license: Painkiller Jane. Which sounds suspiciously like Dark Angel to me. I'm sure it's really completely different, though.

• And a whole buncha other publishers are releasing mountains of manga. Mountains, and mountains, and mountains of manga.

Meanwhile, Marvel is going to make you take it and like it even more than DC:

• A couple more Civil War TPBs. Hold me back.

• Daredevil #96. Is Daredevil even capable of making it through an entire issue without whining about something at this point?

• Exiles #93. In another HC thread we established that the Exiles were in fact actually exiled at one point, but now they're not. In case you were wondering.

• Fantastic Four #545. I am all kinds of excited about this title and this issue in particular -- this is the issue where we'll see if Dwayne can give us some solid cosmic punchemup action to cap off what has been a very promising beginning to his FF run. If he does, my enthusiasm for, and happiness with, this title will be very high and you'll be hearing about it, believe you me.

• Heroes for Hire #9. I just found out that Shang Chi is part of HfH now. Given the proclivity of modern DC and Marvel superhero writers for shipping, surely Shang Chi has tapped one or more of his hottie teammates by now, right?

• New Avengers Illuminati Secret History. Which, we may assume, includes more continuity backloading by Bendis to somehow legitimize or explain the crappy Marvel writing here in the present. Excelsior.

And this weeks' Random Comic Spotlight (a new feature here at the NCRL Quick Review):

Dokebi Bride Vol 5 graphic novel by Netcomics!

Sounds mangatastic -- but is it? Let's go to Wikipedia for more info (twice in one NCRL Quick Review -- you guys are getting my A Game today!): Ah, apparently it's not manga, it's manhwa, which is Korean for comics or cartoons. Get ready for some blockquotage:

The term manhwa is a cognate with Japanese manga and Chinese manhua. There are many common characteristics shared, but each has been taking different paths in theme, visual and narrative approach in accordance with their own cultural and historical contexts. [...] Manhwa can be roughly distinguished from manga because:

• the style of character designs - manhwa aimed at teenage girls (which make up the majority of English-translated series) have a distinctively angular style of abstraction which contrasts with the more "cute" and rounded style of their Japanese, Chinese and western equivalents. This is the most obvious difference at a glance, but does not necessarily apply to manhwa aimed at boys or adults.

• the left->to->right direction of the book (still quite obvious, but not very reliable, as some manga and manhua are 'flipped' around to the western way)

• the Korean name of the author/artist - usually double-barrelled and with syllables that do not exist in Japanese (usually the most reliable method, the only exceptions being when a culturally-neutral pseudonym is used, or when the artist is of Korean ethnicity but but resides in another country such as the USA)

• the untranslated sound effects (not always present) are in hangeul, not kana or hanzi.

Well, now we're learning, and that's exciting! So what about Dokebi Bride in particular? Netcomics, the North American publisher, says:

Korea's most talked-about series in recent years! Born into a shaman family, Sunbi has inherited the power to see and communicate with spirits just like her grandmother, a notable shaman and savior of their little fishing village in the South Sea. Early on, she sees things like an imposter shaman being thrashed by a dragon of the deep, and doesn't understand that none of her schoolmates can see such things. Her powers make her the amorous target of hedonistic demons even as a child. Long shielded from the reality of her power, she finally learns the secret of her mother's death, and why her grandmother was never able to leave their village. Enter Sunbi's world in this mind-boggling psychological chiller!

I have to admit that I zoned out after the second sentence of that block of text, but apparently the girl has powers and one or more shaman or dragons may be involved. That sounds promising.

Okay, so, a bit more reading there at the end than we anticipated, but that'll do it for this week's NCRL Quick Review. As always, keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the comics that don't suck.

Review: One Last Song

Shawn Richter dropped me an email after seeing my weekly NCRL Quick Reviews (and no doubt being awed by the awesome contribution to comic book criticism and analysis that they are). Shawn is the artist for One Last Song, a miniseries that he seems to be self-publishing along with writer CJ Hurtt (at least, I could find no publisher info). This was a couple weeks ago -- sorry, my work schedule has been brutal -- but Shawn asked me to take a look, which I am pleased to do (not the least of which because it gives me the opportunity to check out and draw attention to a non-Marvel/DC/Image/Dark Horse, non-superhero work -- and one that isn't manga!). I encourage you all to check it out, before or after you read my scintillating review.

Incidentally, if anyone wants something reviewed I'm happy to do it, as most of the Curmudgeons would be, I'm sure. Although, in my case at least, the more lead time the better. So let's get to it.

First of all, let me acknowledge that CJ and Shawn have indeed created an actual comic book -- I'm not being snide here, that's no mean feat. Many (I would guess most) of the people writing for this site or reading it have, at one time or another and to varying degrees, held aspirations of becoming a comics creator of some sort, and most of us have never done it. It's hard work. Working on a comic book and actually finishing it, let alone publishing it, deserves high praise. In all seriousness and with much respect, I salute you. This is a real comic book.

One Last Song, alas, is not very good. It's not jaw-droppingly awful by any stretch, but it is somewhat amateurish and not as engaging as it could be. I don't want to be Mean Critic Guy, but I gotta call 'em like I see 'em. It's a C-minus.

One Last Song is set in a dystopic near-future where the Department of Homeland Security is in full-on Big Brother mode, spying on Americans, murdering independent-minded journalists, and so forth. Our hero is Amanda, a singer-guitarist who has connections to at least one counter-media person, a fellow named Brian (who apparently spends his time monitoring number station broadcasts -- I don't really get what's going on here, but I like number stations, so that's cool). A DHS agent named Warnick (um, the antithesis of "peacenik," I guess?) stalks Amanda at the beginning of the issue, although Amanda is able to give him the slip -- either she has leet ninja skillz or Warnick is not the swiftest agent on the block.

Amanda hooks up with Brian and asks him if he has any song ideas, and he tells her about tax dollars being funneled to the South American coffers of a dictator named Juarez (no doubt named after the awesome Better Than Ezra song). We shortly see Amanda sitting at a desk somewhere reading over a file folder of handwritten notes about the situation. It's not clear if Amanda is "just" a protest singer or if she's some sort of trained agent of dissent or what. For that matter, I had a hard time reading the cursive writing of the notes she was given, so I don't really know what they say.

Meanwhile, the lurking-in-a-dark-conference-room government bad guys, presumably all DHS although this is not clear, discuss something called "Operation Teardrop." More dissenter, counter-media types are tortured, targeted, and killed. I'm not sure if that's all there is to Operation Teardrop (kind of disappointing if that's all it is), but the impression given is that it's something more -- although that's assumption at this point. Finally, we see a newspaper headline declaring, "Terrorist Attack on U.S. by Enemies Imminent -- Say Experts." Proximity suggests that Operation Teardrop has something to do with this, although you have to wonder why this would be a big headline -- even in our reality warnings of possible terror threats have become de rigueur. Without context, without showing us why this threat would be taken more seriously, it seems off to me.

Overall it is indeed a narrative comic book, but one whose storytelling feels inexperienced. Fake government "rat out your neighbor" ads provide some context, but Photoshop versions of such PSAs (some of them very clever and very nicely done) have been circulating online for years now so there's nothing interesting or really entertaining about them here. Nothing else provides context or a means for getting into the narrative flow of the story. There's no exposition via dialogue, thought balloon, or text caption (there's a little bit of the "Writer has forgotten he's writing a comic book and not a movie or TV show" Syndrome here). The heroine doesn't really do anything the whole story (except for ditching a not-very-slick agent).

The issue moves quickly, but it's a series of fragments with no flow and little narrative pull to draw you through them. Here's Amanda. Here are some vague government bad guys. Here are people panicking and buying survival supplies at a Wal-Mart-type store, although why they're worked up now is never explained. Names are used in a haphazard fashion (we don't learn Amanda's name until page seven). Too many snippets, not enough cohesion, especially with the use of the bad guys.

A lot of stuff happens but it's a not a true story. Every issue should be a story, even if it's part of a larger story arc. There should be a status quo established at the beginning of the issue -- this is the current situation, and here's the problem with it. The beginning should also raise some expectations for how the issue will play out, how the problem will be impacted if not solved, by the end of the issue. The bulk of the issue should be the middle, in which the hero or heroes (protagonist or protagonists if you have a problem with the term "hero") are tested and challenged in some fashion. Events in the middle should spin the action toward the climax of the issue, and the spin should alter (slightly or greatly) our expectations from the beginning -- in other words, how the issue ends up playing out should be different from our expectations as set up by the beginning. We should be surprised in some fashion -- and if we're not fully surprised, we should at least be pleasantly entertained by the specifics of how things turn out. And then of course the issue needs a climax that irrevocably alters the situation, the status quo, from where the issue began, a little bit or a lot. If the issue is part of a larger arc, then it sets up the situation for the beginning of the next issue. A climax is action or revelation, or, best of all, a combination of both.

The first issue of One Last Song does not do this. Characters are introduced, mostly in a fragmentary, non-memorable fashion. Other than the general paranoid anti-government dystopia, there's no specific wrongness for the hero to deal with (nor is it clear how the hero can be expected to deal with any wrogness anyway -- after all, even Bob Dylan didn't bring down Nixon), only a hint that a specific wrongness may be coming in the form of Operation Teardrop. The villains aren't menacing or credible (of course government conspiracy agents can kill normal citizens -- so what?). The hero isn't challenged or tested in any fashion in the middle (the bad guys just kill some characters we don't know enough about to really care), and there's no climax -- no action or revelation at the end, and no indication that the status quo is different at the end of the issue than it was at the beginning -- given the way they're portrayed, the only logical assumption is that the government captures and unconstitutionally holds or murders dissidents all the time (indeed, Amanda and Brian pretty much confirm this).

A couple of final notes on the writing. First, one of the not-very-memorable-or-distinct villains makes a reference to Heart of Darkness, and then has the character making the reference explain the reference. Please don't do that. Dropping references is fine, but don't explain them or point them out (unless there is a damn good narrative reason to do so, and there's not here). It just feels like the writer trying to point out how clever he is, and that always costs you Goodwill Points with the audience.

Second, if you're going to write a story about a guitar-playing-singer, you have to show the character actually, well, singing, and that means you're going to have to write some songs and not just a lyrical snippet or two. Personally, I wouldn't want to do this because songwriting is freaking hard, but if you're going to write a singer character who runs around with a guitar all the time, you're gonna have to deliver the goods (and not open the comic with the singer hero saying "Thank you very much" and ending her set -- that is nine worlds of weak). By the way, you'll notice that I haven't referred to the character as a "folk singer" (although that's the implication) because we're never given any indication of what kind of singer or songwriter she is (other than the fact that she doesn't like the DHS and the government and fears her performances will bring them down on her, so we may conclude she's some sort of protest singer). But she might actually be a blues singer, or a country singer, or do an acoustic guitar hip-hop thing for all we know. We don't know because the sorts of details about the hero (and the villains, for that matter) that would create greater verisimilitude and draw us into the story aren't delivered.

Finally, some notes on the artwork. Overall not bad -- Shawn's got the basics down and can draw -- but still amateurish. There are some problems with proportion and, especially volume (I would highly, highly, highly recommend Shawn get a copy of Glenn Vilppu's Vilppu Drawing Manual and work through all the exercises therein). There are also a few perspective miscues here and there, but nothing egregious and experience will take care of those in time. Shawn does a good job with conveying the moods and emotions called for throughout the work, which is nice to see.

My biggest complaint would be that the art is generally very stiff and feels "pinched." It's too tight, and would be much better if it were looser and a little sloppier. Draw with the whole arm and not the wrist, as my instructors used to say. Toward that end, the pencils would be much better served by brush inking and less pen. Okay, learning to use the brush is hard and takes time, but even sloppy brushwork here would give the art some energy and dynamism it is currently sorely lacking. If brushwork isn't an option for whatever reason, then you could go the Howard Chaykin route and use markers of varying thickness and use them in a loose, sketchier fashion. Aside from the energy problem, which this would help with, there simply isn't enough variation in line thickness here, which causes the artwork to blend together and makes it difficult to visually scan.

There's also a tendency to frame panels too often at a medium "distance" when nothing dramatic or visually interesting enough is happening to warrant these full-body and three-quarter-body shots. Shawn does use a variety of distances in his panels (and a variety of angles and perspectives, which is nice to see), but there's little logic to their use in terms of trying to draw in the reader or lead them through the narrative (at least to me). I would suggest studying the work of the young Frank Miller, who was both really loose and very dynamic (and was inked that way), and did some of the same things I think Shawn is trying to do here with his panel framing and angles.

In conclusion, CH and Shawn should not be embarrassed by this effort (which I am assuming is their first or close to it). They've gotten into the game, which is more than half the battle. But I hope they'll pay attention to whatever criticism they receive and not be demoralized by it, instead learning what they can from it as they continue to grow and improve their craft. They've got a lot of room for improvement, but I think they both have the skill and potential to produce professional quality work in the future.

As for One Last Song, I hope the story gets bolder and digs into the action instead of tip-toeing around, and I hope the characters, particularly the main villain (whoever that ends up being) and Amanda become more assertive, active, and compelling.

Good luck, guys, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to review your work (sorry I didn't get to it sooner).

I Really Want to Visit That Theme Park

A strange little story about how the CIA used Jack Kirby and Roger Zelazny to help rescue some of the Iranian hostages.

Jimmy Rollins is Leading the National league in Home Runs

So, I got thinking, because this is a good leadoff hitting shortstop, but he's not Cal Ripkin or A-Rod, and he's on the same team as Ryan Howard, which comic book heroes are more effective than you might they'd be just based on their powers?

Star Boy, from the Levitz LSH, always seemed to have a good grasp of the most effective way to maximize gravity powers.

Spidey always seems to accomplish more than I might expect from a guy who sticks to things and has superstrength.

Anyone else?

Oddly, Their Reviewers Don't Like Civil War Either

I don't have a blog of my own, so you're stuck with me posting the news of a habitable planet outside our solar system here.

Yes, I Really Am That Lazy

I was e-mailing some links to a friend and realized that two of them were of interest to this blog, and one of the others addresses a Curmudgeons Con question. The rest, well, I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn...

Geek Wedding Cakes

The Spider-Man movie apparently went a teensy bit over budget

Star Wars stuff

No Gray Hulk! Hulk Smash Avi Arad!

What songs are really about

I had my money on Stilt-Man.

Clothing that will shock a potential attacker. Those of you who took The Shocker in the "First Supervillain Costume To Become A Reality" can now collect your winnings.

A New Cache of Kryptonite

Although this may somehow be a new disinformation campaign from Lex Luthor, geologists claim to have discovered kryptonite in Serbia. Dr Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London's Natural History Museum, discovered the mystery mineral's identity by googling it. Reportedly, it's not green kryptonite but is instead "a white, powdery substance." Let's hope to God that they're keeping it away from plants. There's no mention of the lead-lined box they'd better be keeping it in.

Conventional Wisdom Watch

Pursuant to Mike's link here, I just want to say something about conventional wisdom.

Virtually every commentary and news leak I've seen written about the new Hulk movie has taken as its starting point the assumption that the Ang Lee Hulk movie was, to varying degrees, not very good to wretchedly awful. It's a script that the writers follow, like how you have to mention that Al Gore lost the election in 2000 because he said he invented the internet. Journalists, it seems, are particularly susceptible to narrative force.

This is probably due to the same phenomenon that has killed story editing and art correction in comics; that is, the time compression of the production cycle. Journalists have less time to be reflective and end up relying on conventional story frames.

But that's ancillary to my point, which is this: Do not forget that the Ang Lee Hulk film was actually very good. It delivered the four classic Hulk fights (rampage, monsters, army, super-villain). It had good FX. It had good acting (especially the Elliot/Connelly scenes). It successfully, and fascinatingly, adapted panel-based storytelling to film editing. If it tanked the ending, and it did, it's hardly alone in that. It's just following in the footsteps of the first modern superhero film.

For godsakes, the Hulk picks up a tank by the barrel, whirls it around, and throws it a mile away. What more could you possibly want?

A new Hulk film has a lot of potential. But running in the opposite direction from the Ang Lee film will not get you anywhere closer to living up to that potential.

Now *That's* Comic Book Mythology!

Reason #117 why we miss having Marc Singer on this site: Of Korvac, Jim Shooter, and bionic dreidel body replacement.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Some news about the new Hulk movie.

Comics Logic

I was watching "Lost" and saw Hurley and Charlie arguing about whether Superman or the Flash was faster, and I got to thinking...

I have often wondered what would happen if we applied the logic of comics arguments to other arguments? I was trying to think of an example, but then I decided to ask you guys:

What's the worst job of scat singing? I have three candidates:

"Coo coo ca choo" from Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkle

"Shadoobie" from Shattered by the Rolling Stones.

and "Doobie Doobie Doo" from Stangers in the Night by Frank Sinatra.

If You Judged the Eisners (And Some of You Probably Do)

The nominees for this year's Eisner Awards were announced this week, and if the Eisner committee does say so itself, they "overwhelm with variety." I'll admit that I didn't go back to look at previous ballots, but my first reaction is that this list does venture outside the lines of "traditional mainstream" comics more than the Eisners have in the past. The full list is after the jump. What's deserving? What's not? What did the judges overlook? Any predictions?

Best Short Story
"The Black Knight Glorps Again," by Don Rosa, in Uncle Scrooge #354 (Gemstone)
"Felix," by Gabrielle Bell, in Drawn & Quarterly Showcase 4 (Drawn & Quarterly)
"A Frog's Eye View," by Bill Willingham and James Jean, in Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (Vertigo/DC)
"Old Oak Trees," by Tony Cliff, in Flight 3 (Ballantine)
"Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man," by Stan Lee, Oliver Coipel, and Mark Morales, in Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man (Marvel)
"Willie: Portrait of a Groundskeeper," by Eric Powell, in Bart Simpsons's Treehouse of Horror #12 (Bongo)

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
Batman/The Spirit #1: "Crime Convention," by Jeph Loeb and Darwyn Cooke (DC)
A Late Freeze, by Danica Novgorodoff (Danica Novgorodoff)
The Preposterous Adventures of Ironhide Tom, by Joel Priddy (AdHouse)
Skyscrapers of the Midwest #3, by Joshua Cotter (AdHouse)
They Found the Car, by Gipi (Fantagraphics)

Best Continuing Series
All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
Captain America, by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting (Marvel)
Daredevil, by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, and Stefano Gaudiano (Marvel)
Naoki Urasawa's Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard (Image)
Young Avengers, by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, and various inkers (Marvel)

Best Limited Series
Batman: Year 100, by Paul Pope (DC)
The Looking Glass Wars: Hatter M, by Frank Beddor, Liz Cavalier, and Ben Templesmith (Desperado/Image)
The Other Side, by Jason Aaron and Cameron Stewart (Vertigo/DC)
Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli (Dark Horse)
Sock Monkey: The Inches Incident, by Tony Millionaire (Dark Horse)

Best New Series
Criminal, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Marvel Icon)
East Coast Rising, by Becky Cloonan (Tokyopop)
Gumby, by Bob Burden and Rick Geary (Wildcard)
Jack of Fables, by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, and Andrew Pepoy (Vertigo/DC)
The Lone Ranger, by Brett Matthews and Sergio Cariello (Dynamite)

Best Publication for a Younger Audience
Chickenhare, by Chris Grine (Dark Horse)
Drawing Comics Is Easy (Except When It's Hard), by Alexa Kitchen (Denis Kitchen Publishing)
Gumby, by Bob Burden and Rick Geary (Wildcard)
Moomin, by Tove Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel, by Sienna Cherson and Mark Siegel (Simon & Schuster)

Best Humor Publication
Flaming Carrot Comics, by Bob Burden (Desperado/Image)
Onionhead Monster Attacks, by Paul Friedrich (Hellcar)
Schizo #4, by Ivan Brunetti (Fantagraphics)
Tales Designed to Thrizzle, by Michael Kupperman (Fantagraphics)
Truth Serum, by Jon Adams (City Cyclops)

Best Anthology
Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, by Bill Willingham and various (Vertigo/DC)
Hotwire Comix and Capers #1, edited by Glenn Head (Fantagraphics)
Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, edited by Frédéric Boilet (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
Kramers Ergot 6, edited by Sammy Harkham (Buenaventura Press)
Project: Romantic, edited by Chris Pitzer (AdHouse)

Best Digital Comic
Bee, in "Motel Art Improvement Service," by Jason Little, beecomix.com
Girl Genius, by Phil and Kaja Foglio, www.girlgeniusonline.com
Minus, by Ryan Armand, www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus1.html
Phables, by Brad Guigar, www.phables.com
Sam and Max, by Steve Purcell, telltalegames.com/community/comics/samandmax/issue-3
Shooting War, by Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman, www.shootingwar.com

Best Reality-Based Work
Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)
I Love Led Zeppelin, by Ellen Forney (Fantagraphics)
Mom's Cancer, by Brian Fies (Abrams)
Project X Challengers: Cup Noodle, by Tadashi Katoh (Digital Manga)
Stagger Lee, by Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix (Image)

Best Graphic Album--New
American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang (First Second)
Billy Hazelnuts, by Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics)
Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)
Ninja, by Brian Chippendale (Gingko Press)
Scrublands, by Joe Daly (Fantagraphics)
The Ticking, by Renée French (Top Shelf)

Best Graphic Album--Reprint
Absolute DC: The New Frontier, by Darwyn Cooke (DC)
Castle Waiting, by Linda Medley (Fantagraphics)
Mom's Cancer, by Brian Fies(Abrams)
Shadowland, by Kim Deitch (Fantagraphics)
Truth Serum, by Jon Adams (City Cyclops)

Best Archival Collection/Project--Strips
The Complete Peanuts, 1959-1960, 1961-1962, by Charles Schulz (Fantagraphics)
Mary Perkins On Stage, by Leonard Starr (Classic Comics Press)
Moomin, by Tove Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
Popeye: I Yam What I Yam, by E. C. Segar (Fantagraphics)
Walt & Skeezix, vol. 2, by Frank King (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Archival Collection/Project--Comic Books
Abandon the Old In Tokyo, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
Absolute Sandman, vol. 1, by Neil Gaiman and various (Vertigo/DC)
Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries, 1900-1969, by Dan Nadel (Abrams)
The Eternals, by Jack Kirby (Marvel)
Ode to Kirihito, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material
A.L.I.E.E.E.N., by Lewis Trondheim (First Second)
De:TALES, by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)
Hwy 115, by Matthias Lehmann (Fantagraphics)
The Left Bank Gang, by Jason (Fantagraphics)
Pizzeria Kamikaze, by Etgar Keret and Asaf Hanuka (Alternative)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material--Japan
After School Nightmare, by Setona Mizushiro (Go! Comi)
Antique Bakery, by Fumi Yoshinaga (Digital Manga)
Naoki Urasawa's Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
Old Boy, by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi (Dark Horse Manga)
Walking Man, by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Best Writer
Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Daredevil (Marvel); Criminal (Marvel Icon)
Bob Burden, Gumby (Wildcard)
Ian Edginton, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game (Dark Horse)
Grant Morrison, All Star Superman, Batman, 52, Seven Soldiers (DC)
Bill Willingham, Fables, Jack of Fables, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (Vertigo/DC)

Best Writer/Artist
Allison Bechdel, Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin)
Renée French, The Ticking (Top Shelf)
Gilbert Hernandez, Love and Rockets, New Tales of Old Palomar (Fantagraphics); Sloth (Vertigo/DC)
Paul Pope, Batman: Year 100 (DC)
Joann Sfar, Klezmer, Vampire Loves (First Second)

Best Writer/Artist--Humor
Ivan Brunetti, Schizo (Fantagraphics)
Lilli Carré, Tales of Woodsman Pete (Top Shelf)
Michael Kupperman, Tales Designed to Thrizzle (Fantagraphics)
Tony Millionaire, Billy Hazelnuts (Fantagraphics); Sock Monkey: The Inches Incident (Dark Horse)
Lewis Trondheim, A.L.I.E.E.E.N. (First Second); Mr. I (NBM)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
Mark Buckingham/Steve Leialoha, Fables (Vertigo/DC)
Tony Harris/Tom Feister, Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC)
Niko Henrichon, Pride of Baghdad (Vertigo/DC)
Michael Lark/Stefano Gaudiano, Daredevil (Marvel)
Sonny Liew, Wonderland (SLG)
Steven McNiven/Dexter Vines, Civil War (Marvel)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
Nicolas De Crecy, Glacial Period (NBM)
Melinda Gebbie, Lost Girls (Top Shelf)
Ben Templesmith, Fell (Image); The Looking Glass Wars: Hatter M (Desperado/Image); Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (IDW)
Jill Thompson, "A Dog and His Boy" in The Dark Horse Book of Monsters; "Love Triangle" in Sexy Chix (Dark Horse);"Fair Division," in Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (Vertigo/DC)
Brett Weldele, Southland Tales: Prequel Saga (Graphitti); Silent Ghost (Markosia)

Best Cover Artist
John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); The Escapists (Dark Horse); The Lone Ranger (Dynamite)
Tony Harris, Conan (Dark Horse); Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC)
James Jean, Fables, Jack of Fables, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (Vertigo/DC)
Dave Johnson, 100 Bullets (Vertigo/DC); Zombie Tales, Cthulu Tales, Black Plague (Boom!)
J. G. Jones, 52 (DC)

Best Coloring
Kristian Donaldson, Supermarket (IDW)
Hubert, The Left Bank Gang (Fantagraphics)
Lark Pien, American Born Chinese (First Second)
Dave Stewart, BPRD, Conan, The Escapists, Hellboy (Dark Horse); Action Comics, Batman/The Spirit, Superman (DC)
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #17 (ACME Novelty)

Best Lettering
Ivan Brunetti, Schizo (Fantagraphics)
Todd Klein, Fables, Jack of Fables, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, Pride of Baghdad, Testament (Vertigo/DC); Fantastic Four: 1602, Eternals (Marvel); Lost Girls (Top Shelf)
Clem Robins, BPRD, The Dark Horse Book of Monsters, Hellboy (Dark Horse); Loveless, 100 Bullets, Y: The Last Man (Vertigo/DC)
Richard Sala, The Grave Robber's Daughter, Delphine (Fantagraphics)
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #17 (ACME Novelty)

Special Recognition
Ross Campbell, Abandoned (Tokyopop); Wet Moon 2 (Oni)
Svetlana Chmakova, Dramacon (Tokyopop)
Hope Larson, Gray Horses (Oni)
Dash Shaw, The Mother's Mouth (Alternative)
Kasimir Strzepek, Mourning Star (Bodega)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism
Alter Ego, edited by Roy Thomas (TwoMorrows)
Comic Art 8, edited by Todd Hignite (Buenaventura Press)
The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Dirk Deppey, Michael Dean, and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)
The Comics Reporter, produced by Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael (www.Comicsreporter.com)
¡Journalista!, produced by Dirk Deppey (Fantagraphics, www.tcj.com/journalista/)

Best Comics-Related Book
The Art of Brian Bolland, edited by Joe Pruett (Desperado/Image)
Cartoon America: Comic Art in the Library of Congress, edited by Harry Katz (Abrams)
Dear John: The Alex Toth Doodle Book, by John Hitchcock (Octopus Press)
In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists, by Todd Hignite (Yale University Press)
Wally's World, by Steve Sarger and J. David Spurlock (Vanguard)

Best Publication Design
Absolute DC: The New Frontier, designed by Darwyn Cooke (DC)
Castle Waiting graphic novel, designed by Adam Grano (Fantagraphics)
Lost Girls, designed by Matt Kindt and Brett Warnock (Top Shelf)
Popeye: I Yam What I Yam, designed by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics)
The Ticking, designed by Jordan Crane (Top Shelf)

Hall of Fame

Judges' Choices: Robert Kanigher and Ogden Whitney

Voters will choose four from among:
Ross Andru & Mike Esposito
Dick Ayers
Bernard Baily
Matt Baker
Wayne Boring
Creig Flessel
Harold Gray
Irwin Hasen
Graham Ingels
Joe Orlando
Lily Renée (Peters) Phillips
Bob Powell
Gilbert Shelton
Cliff Sterrett

Didacus of Alcala Died in 1463

Donald E. Stephens the long time mayor of Rosemont has died. If you are wondering why I think this is important for a comics blog, the next time you attend Wizard World Chicago, check out the name of the building.

Quick Review of this Week's New Release List (4-18-7)

Slim pickings this week, so we'll just get right to it and skip the usual preliminary snark.

• AIT/PLANETLAR is releasing the Last Sane Cowboy & Other Stories graphic novel. I have a lot of respect for AIT/PlanetLar on principle. I did not realize, however, that cowboys were known for mental instability. Although I suppose it does explain some things.

• Dark Horse isn't bringing us any Boba-riffic releases this week, but they are bringing us a new issue of Conan.

I have visions of a movie about the DC Comics offices starring the cast of the long-overlooked 80's classic, DC Cab (wearing those same costumes, too). It would be a screwball comedy, and the scary thing is that the writers and editors in my movie would come off way more competent than the ones in real life! *rim shot!* Kidding, I'm just kidding...

(Well, more or less...)

Anyway, let's see what Mr. T and the Barbarian Brothers have for us this week:

• 52 #50: Only two more issues left after this! So are you guys right and the Multiverse is indeed coming back? Hey, DC has spent the last two decades (oh my God, typing those words was painful) screwing up one universe -- why not spread it around?

• Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #51: Has he fought Thulsa Doom yet? 'Cause if he hasn't, I think he needs to give up the "Sword of" thing. (Anyone actually reading this?)

• Batman and The Mad Monk TPB: This is probably fanboy heresy, but I haven't really liked any of Matt Wagner's Batman stories. I dig what he's going for, but my reaction after reading them (including this one) is always "Enh." They have a few clever bits, but feature poor pacing and are anticlimactic, at least to me.

• Flash The Fastest Man Alive #11: So now what happened to Wally? For that matter, what happened to Linda, his One True Love?

• Justice League of America #8: "Okay, guys, let's go see what kind of self-absorbed, decompressed, anticlimactic hijinks we can get into next!"

• Legion Of Super Heroes In The 31st Century #1: Say what? They're not rebooting again already, are they? Who's in charge down there?

• Nightwing Annual #2: A hundred-and-whatever issues and this is only his second annual? Actually, now that I think about it, I haven't really liked many DC or Marvel annuals in a long, long time. I liked the original early-80's annuals at DC because they were big in-normal-sequence stories, although later annuals in this style, when the stories weren't outstanding, just came off as overly-expensive regular issues. Then you have things like the theme annuals of the 90's, which were very hit or miss. I'm also not a big fan of reprints-in-the-back annuals. I don't know, maybe the whole annual shtick should just be put to rest?

• Shadowpact #12: Is Blue Devil dead again yet? You know it's coming (hey, two more issues of 52 left after this week's -- it's not too late!).

• Showcase Presents Superman Vol 3 TPB: This reminds me -- I'd like for them to do a Showcase collection of the Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Guy series from the 70's. I've never read any of those issues and have a deep, burning hatred (okay, it's really more of a shallow, simmering animosity) toward Richard Dragon and Lady Shiva (Bronze Tiger is still cool though, as long as he doesn't wear that goofy-ass mask). Anyway, I'd like to read those issues for myself to see if they change my opinion of these characters -- Richard and Shiva have always felt very shoehorned-into-greatness to me, even though I liked Richard's appearances in Denny's Question series well enough.

• Superman Batman #34: I suppose it's safe to assume that this hasn't been thirty-four issues of slash fic.

• Wonder Woman The Greatest Stories Ever Told TPB: I mention this only for the what-appears-to-be Alex Ross painting shown on the Comics List site. No idea if this is the actual cover or not, but it makes Our Favorite Amazon look like one of the hookers one sees in the background at the precinct house on Law & Order. Suffering Sappho, indeed.

Elsewhere in the comics world...

• DK Publishing is bringing us "Shrek Essential Guide Revised Ed HC." For those of you who have a hard time following the deep, intricate mythology of the Shrekverse (and I love these totally non-comics-related things that always show up on the NCRL because their publishers have paid Diamond to distribute them, I guess in the hopes of generating increased geek sales).

• Fantagraphics will release Love & Rockets Vol 2 #19. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have never actually read an issue of Love & Rockets. L&R was definitely on the Comics Intelligentsia's Required Reading List in the 80's, but you don't hear that much about it now (other than general praise for Los Bros Hernandez).

Image has a whole mess of generic-sounding stuff coming out:

• Drain #3. So generic I can't even think of something smarmy or glib to say here.

• Girls #24. Greg told me something about this book, but I'm totally drawing a blank now. I will say that the cover art for it looks like one of those male body spray TV commercials).

• Strange Girl #16, who may or may not be one of the girls from Girls.

• Invincible #40: BTW, I find this comic infinitely more readable in TPB than in individual issues. The individual issues frustrate me with how little actually happens, but reading it in trade I am happily entertained. I've probably mentioned this only like five or six times on this site by now.

• Hero By Night #2 (Of 4): "Hero by night...gigolo by day!" "Hero by night...coke fiend by day!" "Hero by night...senator by day!" "Hero by night...impotent loser by day!" "Hero by night...comic book writer by day!" Try it, it's fun!

• Rocketo Vol 2 TPB Journey To The Hidden Sea: I always assumed this was some sort of manga or manga-esque thing, but the image on the NCRL page seems to contradict this view. Can anyone tell us about Rocketo, because I love the name.

And over at the Mighty Marvel Mediocrity Society...

• Lots of Civil War TPBs. Oh goody.

• Cable Deadpool #39: What other annoying 90's artifacts could we throw in this book? Shatterstar? Domino? Maybe we could rename it "The Lame-Ass Leifield All-Stars." (And I don't want to hear from you Deadpool lovers -- you guys will eat up any smart-ass character with a gun and a couple of mildly-clever one liners.)

• Marvel Adventures Avengers #12: I recall someone here recommending this series at one point. Isn't this like an old school "Spidey Super Stories" approach to the Avengers or something?

• Mighty Avengers #2: I think they should've called this one the "All-New, All-Different, Uncanny Avengers." Why not? I also think they should be required to change the title of "New Avengers" to "Old New Avengers."

• Moon Knight #9: In spite of my inexplicable fondness for this character (I mean, he doesn't even have kung fu slippers), I did not pick up this series when it launched because the artwork made it look like the part of Moon Knight was being played by Crazy Marv from Sin City. Nevertheless, I occasionally wonder if this series is any good.

• Squadron Supreme Hyperion vs. Nighthawk #4: Remember how awesome the Mark G. miniseries was in the 80's? And how jaw-droppingly awful the graphic novel was? Anyway, I have no idea what this miniseries is about.

• And some X-Books, but who cares (and if you do, you should really read about them over at the estimable X-Axis).

Let's see, anything else worth talking about out there...?

• Pantheon Books is releasing an Alias Cat graphic novel. So here's the deal: we'll all been to superdickery.com so you're not clever. Next. (Yes I'm just talking about the cover. I know nothing about the actual contents, which should surely come as no surprise.)

And that's it for this week, unless I missed anything worth mentioning (and I usually do).

Gaming in the Ruins

This is pretty cool. Soldiers in Iraq are organizing their own tabletop RPG convention, Ziggurat Con (some of you have probably heard about this via Penny Arcade).

My rationale for mentioning it here is that when many of us were growing up or coming of age in the 80's, comic books and tabletop roleplaying games were the dual badges of True Geekdom. Also, I know that some of you have connections to various comic book retailers, and the Ziggurat Con guys are in need of prize support. If you're interested, please check out the link above -- SPC David Amberson's contact information is on that page.

I am not a supporter of the war in Iraq, certainly not as long as it has drug on, but I have nothing but respect for the men and women serving over there (my dad and many of my extended family have served). Plus, I'll always be in favor of supporting gamers (or comics geeks) in tough circumstances.

2007 Pulitzers

The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on Monday. For our purposes, the prize for Editorial Cartooning went to Newsday's Walt Handelsman. And apropos of a comment on the second "So It Goes" thread, Ray Bradbury was awarded with a Special Citation in honor of his full career.

Shwiki

Via Lore Sjöberg (more-or-less), the TV Tropes Wiki's comic book superhero subsite.

RIP -- Brant Parker

In an odd bit of synchronicity, Brant Parker, the original artist of The Wizard of Id died yesterday. Parker co-created the strip with Johnny Hart, who died a week and a day earlier.

Parker also co-created Crock and Out of Bounds with Don Wilder and Bill Rechin.

Condolences to Mr. Parker's family, friends, and fans.

Talking Animals, or Be Careful With Those Balloon Pointers

The heads-up on this one originates with Tony Isabella's message board, so some of you may have already seen this, but I first encountered it today via Deadspin.

In Montana (or wherever), the trout like to gaily frolic and help solve insurance fraud, bears sometimes hunt their hunters, and squirrels analyze the essential dilemmas facing modern law enforcement. Fun!

If Cap had watched this online, he'd still be America's greatest hero

Holy Cow. (Work safe YouTube clip.)

Either they're faking this somehow, or this guy is our reality's version of Bullseye.

Which makes me wonder... pre-registration stupidity at least, in the Marvel Universe could you go on YouTube and watch adolescents and other knuckleheads with minor super powers doing various stunts (some like this, some Jackass (the TV show)-like)? If you were a normal human in the MU, how would you know whether they were real or faked?

I seem to recall one or two stories in the 70's or early 80's where the fact that 90% of the superhero action on planet Earth in the MU happened in and around New York City was jibed a little bit by showing normal citizens in the South or Midwest who didn't really believe all that stuff on TV actually happened (the Southwest, on the other hand, was being routinely destroyed by the Hulk, so I guess they had an easier time buying it).

I don't know why, but I actually preferred that state of affairs, or something like it, to this idea that "Well, there must be all sorts of superheroes and supervillains running around Iowa, because why would you try to rob a bank in Manhattan when you could rob one in Des Moines?"

An Embrassment of Riches

This news is a week old already, but it hasn't been posted here, so ... word is that Universal is releasing a Woody Woodpecker DVD set. It will contain the first 45 Woody Woodpecker cartoons, the first 5 Chilly Willy cartoons, and 5 Andy Panda cartoons.

For those of you keeping score, that means that in the coming months, we'll be getting a Droopy set, a Popeye set, and a Woody Woodpecker set. It's a good time to be alive.

She's More Than a Little Bit Sexy

Back in the late-1980's/early-1990's Paula Zahn was the news reader for Good Morning America. She subbed for Joan Lunden one week while I was in college. As far as I know, it was her first time hosting a morning show. The very next week CBS hired her to host their morning show. The CBS president of the time said that when they saw her, they just knew she was a remarkable talent and weren't going to waste any time waiting around to sign her.

I thought about that the first issue of Priest's Black Panther. He had done some Batman before, but with the first story arc on Black Panther, DC should have immediately hired him to write Batman. It was obvious that he would do a great job. When Dwayne McDuffie did the issue of Static with the legion of super-Heroes takeoff, DC should have gotten him to do the actual LSH.

Are there any other obvious choices of creative team that are just being missed?

I Wonder How She Looks in a Cheerleading Outfit

SciFi premieres Painkiller Jane this coming Sunday.

I Think He Could Have Taken Ben Affleck

Roscoe Lee Browne who played the Kingpin on the animated Spiderman series from the mid-1990's has died. (He was also in about eight zillion other things includng Logan's Run, and was a brilliant actor, but I have to justify this post somehow, or Greg will send the flying monkeys after me.)

And So It Goes again

The New York Times Book section has an obit on the greatest living American author as of yesterday. (Hmm, who has the torch now? I would say Philip Roth, Thomas Pychon or Toni Morrison. )

Due Process: The 14th Is Your Friend

In post-Civil War comics, have we seen any procedural safeguards of any kind?

I'm thinking particularly of the register/don't register concept, and the Initiative. Are there people who registered who were not drafted? Are there people who have contested their need to register? Are they still using the Negative Zone prison, and on what basis? What's the status of minors under SHRA?

But is it art?

Go here to read about a fascinating sociological experiment recently done by the Washington Post. To briefly summarize, they took one of the greatest violinists in the world (who plays on one of the greatest musical instruments ever created), and put him in a Washington D.C. Metro station as a busker. The question was this: without the context in which we normally expect to find virtuoso musicians (in this case, Joshua Bell), would passers-by recognize his talent? I spoil the result inside the jump.

The result was that the overwhelming majority of people completely ignored Bell. A few people realized that they were in the presence of an enormous talent, but most people just kept walking without acknowledging what was going on. One of the conclusions the article draws is that when you take a piece of great art and remove it from the contextual clues that tell us that it is great art (in this case the symphony hall, the high-priced concert tickets, and the name "Joshua Bell" and its accompanying reputation), we are less likely to recognize it as great art.

It's a fascinating article, but I post it here because it made me wonder: is this simply a different way of demonstrating something that we already learned from Roy Lichtenstein?

Online Fan Interaction: Friend or Foe?

This is something I've been wondering about since the first pros starting showing up on Usenet. I'm not really sure that interacting with fans online is a good thing for pro creators. Or at least, it seems like a very double-edged sword.

It's easy to point to guys like Mark Waid who often come off poorly whenever they interact with a fan who criticizes their work or disagrees with them on some point, turning such interactions into angry, vitriolic arguments. But I've even seen well-known nice guys like Kurt Busiek get testy and come off poorly in discussions where they feel a fan has crossed some line or simply refuses to come around to the pro's point of view. Then you have someone like Peter David, who, IMHO, often comes across as poorly as Waid does, but he isn't taken to task for it to anywhere near the same extent Waid is (and it seems to me that this has largely been because David is simply more popular with the body politic in question).

It's well-documented that online interaction lists to anger and insults more often and far quicker than face-to-face interaction for a variety of reasons (and lord knows we've seen it here, too). My gut reaction is to say that if I were a pro I'd hit as many cons and comic shop signings as I could manage, but I would generally avoid online forums because they're more grief than they're worth (plus, I know that I don't have the self-discipline to ignore someone who ticked me off for whatever reason, and I too would come off as an ass in the ensuing digital catfight).

But would that be a mistake? Do you think that pros win over new fans through interacting with fans online? Do they make existing fans more loyal, more apt to try any new book the creator works on? More than they lose by coming off jerky in the inevitable online arguments?

So It Goes...

Kurt Vonnegut, America's greatest living author (and I'll take you all on to prove it), has died. I don't know that he influenced anyone in comics, though certainly, "Siren of Titan" would be a great name for a Saturn Girl story, and Harrison Bergeron could have given Batman a fight.

My favorite novel of his is _Mother Night_.

Elizabeth Mitchell is Naked in "Gia"

Hot girl on girl action with Angelina Jolie, too. I was wondering where I had seen her while watching "Lost," and then it hit me, she was in "Gia" and on "E.R." Then I got to thinking, "Lost" is essentially a dramatic version of "GHilligan's Island." They've done this before, too. "Land of the Giants," "Space: 1999," "Quantum Leap," and "Star Trek: Voyager" have all managed to get some milage out the "stuck people trying to get home" plot.

Has this been done in comics, and how well? The two example which came to mind for me were when the Legion was split up a couple times at the beginning of the Baxter series and again a little bit after zero hour. Also, the West Coast Avengers were stranded in time for a while, but to be honest, I found those storylines annoying, and I like Lost. So, has this ever worked in comics?

I Liked "Tenspeed and Brown Shoe"

The new NBC mystery show Raines is actually pretty good. Better than it has much right to be, honestly. It revolves around a LAPD detective who has had a psychotic break. I'd explain more or write a review, but the episodes are online for free, and if you're reading this, you have access. (More on my philosphy of reviews after the break.) Anyway, last Friday's episode revolved around comics and collecting, and it was pretty good, so watch it!

Back when I used to review books for a living, there were two types of books I would never review. I would never review a Stephen King or a Tony Hillerman novel, because everybody who cares already knows whether they like it or not, so what's the point. I also wouldn't review bad books that nobody would hear about unless they read my review, so what's the point?
(Of course, these rules went out the window if my editor said something li,k "Mike, I need nine inches on this by Tuesday.")

So, as a corollary of that, if you can just watch the thing for free online, why should I review it. Just go watch.

Quick Review of this Week's New Release List (4-11-7)

Probably the best thing about Easter (aside from the whole Christ dying for your sins thing if you're a Christian) is that it's one of the few holidays that doesn't result in the new comics shipment being a day late (admit it, you think so too).

So let's dive right in and see what the bunny brung us (besides big, steaming piles of fresh manga)...

• Antarctic Press is brining you Pirates vs. Ninjas #4. You think the Real Ultimate Power guy (not work safe) gets a cut of this action? Anyway, I actually flipped through the first issue but it was the typical AnPr Amerimanga jazz, which just doesn't float my boat (also, I didn't see enough flipping out or wailing on guitars).

• Cinebook brings you a graphic novel called Thorgal -- Child of the Stars. As usual, I have no idea what this is -- new material? collection of a recent series? collection of something from the 60's? -- but I am pretty much down with anything called Thorgal -- Child of the Stars, at least until I actually see it.

• This week Dark Horse brings you some Star Wars, some Hellboy, and some Blade of the Immortal manga. How is Blade of the Immortal? Dark Horse should publish some Essential-style cheap phone book editions (unless they already do, which may be the case for all I know).

Meanwhile, over on the original Mother Ship...

• 52 #49 -- okay, now there are just three issues left, Mr. Smart Guy. And I still don't care -- unless they bring Blue Devil back. He's back? Okay, then I don't care unless they kill him off again. Nyah!

• All-Star Superman #7: Man, how does Morrison get these things out so fast? I see a $20 HC is out this week as well. Does it collect issues 1 through 6, and when is the TPB coming out, dammit?

• Batman Strikes #32: I had no idea this was even a series, but I like the idea of Batman organizing labor and sticking it to the Man -- that's right, Republican bitches, not every state has caved in to your "right to work" b.s.! With Batman as our shop steward you'll pry our picket signs from our cold, dead hands! Kicking bad guy ass and fighting to make sure the lowly worker on the assembly line has better health care and retirement -- that is why Batman is my favorite hero (when he's not acting like a big giant ass toward the rest of the Justice League, anyway).

• Fables #60: Guess I need to start reading the TPBs at some point.

• Gen 13 #7: Only #7? This must be like, what, their seventh series? Anyway, I'll take Gen 13 seriously when all the characters fight in thongs.

• Teen Titans #45: According to Wikipedia, Raven and Gar hooked up at some point in the recent past. Reason #67 why Geoff Johns shouldn't be allowed to write DC comics (this sort of shipping is just fanfic, and I can get fanfic for free on the Interweb).

• Trials of Shazam #6: Has Billy become the Spectre yet?

• Wonder Woman #7: Didn't #6 come out like two weeks ago? Do people really need their Wonder Woman this fast? Keep a little something in the tank, fellas.

Elsewhere...

• Dynamite Entertainment has the Battlestar Galactica license, and they're not afraid to use it. Incidentally, I think they should publish archive collections of Dynamite Magazine from the 70's. I'd be all over that -- that mag was out of sight, or my name ain't Kid *clap!* DY-NO-MITE!

• Fantagraphics brings us Complete Peanuts Vol 7 1963-1964. Holy Needles, Schulz drew a lot of strips!

• Image gives us After the Cape #2. No idea what this is, but it sounds like your typical post-post-modern deconstructionist superhero bullshisby. I vote "no" on principle.

• Dynamo 5 #2: I still haven't read #1. I started to flip through it in the shop, but it began with the kids already teamed up and fighting some bad guys, which made me feel like I had missed a Wizard preview or something so I put it down (even though I'm sure Jay was going to go Tarantino and flash back after the fight scene -- but this ain't Pulp Fiction and sometimes you can take en media res too far).

Meanwhile, over on the Wire Mother Ship...

• The Civil War TPB. Not a moment too soon.

• Iron Man #16: Does Tony realize he's an evil shit now and eat his repulsor? Or at least start drinking? Please?

• Legion Of Monsters Man-Thing #1: I'm down with pretty much anything with "Legion" or "Monsters" in the title, so I say this one is worth checking out!

• Loners #1 (Of 6): But if they team up then they're not -- oh, nevermind.

• New Avengers #29: I'm not an anal month-to-month continuity wank, but it is pretty funny that right now Wolverine is in Canada fighting Wendigo with She-Hulk, is on something called the Battle Planet or whatever in Astonishing X-Men, and in Japan with the New Avengers. Are we sure he's not really the Beyonder or something?

• She-Hulk 2 #17: I'm still liking She-Hulk, although Civil War seems to have somewhat disrupted the narrative flow of the series (surprise, surprise).

• Spider-Man Back In Black Handbook: Um, a handbook? Is that really necessary?

• Thunderbolts #113: In which Warren Ellis shocks comics fandom by writing superpowered characters as miserable bastards. The man's range is simply amazing!

• White Tiger #5 (Of 6): All I want to know is this: Five issues in, someone in this book has yelled "Madre de Dios!" right? At least once?

  Wolverine Origins #13: I thought they'd already established that he was a girly little English boy? (Hey, that Beyonder thing is looking better by the minute, isn't it?)

Elsewhere, people trying to be more creative are bringing you...

• Putnam Publishing is giving us Secret History Of Vampires, which, frankly, I think I already covered here (scroll down a little ways and you'll see).

• Titan Publishing is releasing Classic Dan Dare The Man From Nowhere HC, $22.95. Hmm...the price isn't too bad, depending on how much is collected, and pretty much every British creator who came up in the 70's and 80's raves about Dan Dare. Might be worth checking out (there's another strip with a similar name that they also rave about, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment).

• And, of course, TokyoPop and Viz bring you MANGA, MANGA, MANGA! (Including Chibi Vampires -- they're vampires! With tiny bodies and big heads! Isn't that precious!)

Good thing Stan didn't name her "Angel Dust Watson"

Kisten Dunst, who plays Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man movies, has come out in favor of marijuana. Headline writers have, from what I have seen, been remarkably restrained.

Interestingly, she also outs Carl Sagan as a pot smoker.

Questionary

Some random questions:

1. Who's the most recently-created great supervillain?
2. Are the Challengers of the Unknown superheroes? If not, is their title a superhero comic book anyway?
3. I ask, because The Venture Bros. is the best supervillain show on television, and yet the protagonists are clearly not superheroes (though some of their supporting cast are). Is The Venture Bros. a superhero show, and how do you characterize a story that partakes of all the elements of the superhero genre except actual superhero protagonists?
4. How about Wanted?
5. What's this I hear about the Question being dead?
6. Will I ever understand the DC universe status quo again? Should I care?
7. What's the lifespan of a Coluan in the current DC universe?

'Mazing DeStefano

Stephen DeStefano, who many of us will remember as the artist of the much-missed, and desperately-in-need-of-reprinting, 'Mazing Man, has a successful career as an animation storyboard guy; he's headling the storyboard and character design team for Venture Brothers season three right now.

That link under his name up there is a blog with a lot of cool illustrations.

Ain't That a Kick in the Side

Let's talk about kid sidekicks.

Pete Coogan, in his book (and let me emphasize again the mandatory nature of this book to anyone who wants to understand the superhero genre), notes that the superhero genre appeared essentially fully-formed[1]. The first unambiguous superhero, Superman, in the first unambiguous superhero genre story, Action Comics #1, is not tentative or incomplete; it is a true example of the superhero genre. All of the superhero precursors are defective in some clear way[2], but they prepped and made ready the genre attributes so that when they crystallized, the genre was basically complete from the starting line.

[1]Coogan is taking much of his genre analysis from a book on film genre, and I gather than film genres take much longer to coalesce, which is probably a consequence of the medium.

[2]With the possible exception of Spring-Heeled Jack, whose only defect is that he didn't spawn an industry of imitators. Coogan also spends some time attacking the Phantom's qualifications. I think that, had the Phantom been a prose creation, we'd never have to worry about him, but his reification in illustration makes him a genuine candidate for first in the superhero genre, though I agree with Coogan that under the weight of evidence he's not.

As a point to support the immediate coalescence of the genre, Coogan notes that parodies of the genre--which depend on the audience having already internalized the rules and conventions--appeared within only a couple of years of Action #1, Red Tornado in the Scribbly strip, and Supersnipe.

I want to illustrate the same point in a narrower subject. Specifically, the kid sidekick. Robin appeared less than a year after Batman, in April 1940. As with Superman and the superhero, the first appearance of the kid sidekick was essentially complete in genre terms.

In the next couple of years, like Superman before him, he had lots of imitators--Toro in Human Torch Comics #2, Fall 1940, Bucky in Captain America Comics #1, March 1941, Speedy in More Fun Comics #73, November 1941, Pinky in Wow Comics #4, Winter 1941-2. Pinky and Speedy were, of course, exact and deliberate copies of Robin, but Bucky and, to a much greater extent, Toro were analogies rather than copies and hence better demonstrate the existence of a true sub-genre.

But let's look at Star-Spangled Comics #1, October 1941, first appearance of the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy.[3] Leaving aside the interesting lexical features of "Stripesy"[4] for the moment, we are forced to realize something unique: This is an Iron Age strip. It takes established, familiar genre conventions and mutates and inverts them, by putting the kid in charge and placing the adult in the subordinant position. This primary/subordinant relationship is enforced everywhere, in the name of the strip, in the name of the characters, in Stripesy's role as SSK's servant, and in the Kid's role as director, planner, and motivator.

[3] A couple of different sources cite an ad for SSC in Action Comics #40, the previous month, as the first appearance. This is clearly bogus and I'll waste no more time on it.

[4] It's a weird name, since it carries a syntactic affix (plural -s) inside a morphological affix (dimunitive/familiarizer -y); that's not permitted in standard English, which requires syntactic affixes to be applied last. It's done, of course, to preserve the "stripes" counterpart to SSK's "stars" (compare Stripies, which is the permitted order). Note that because the morphological affix blocks the syntactic affix from having any effect, you have to re-apply the plural affix if you were to refer to two or more Stripesies, or to apply the (phonetically equivalent) genitive affix to refer to Stripesy's garage. Note that the diminutive/familiarizer affix serves to reinforce Stripesy's inferiority and sidekick status.

That's pretty amazing--in just a year and a half, the kid sidekick sub-genre had gone from non-existent to mature enough to support a re-evaluation equivalent in genre terms to Miracleman.

When the superhero appeared, he appeared fast. The genre became so fixed so fast that, in all likelihood, no real selection (in the evolutionary sense) could have occurred. It took us 40 years to be able to start prying apart the genre in order to find out what actually works and what's just a historical artifact left over from the genre's founding.

Manny's of Chicago

Saturday is the second Saturday of the month, so once again some Chicago Curmudgeons will be meeting up to eat lunch and possibly play trivia. Manny's Deli downtown, at 1 p.m.

You Know, the Shazam Guy

Via Comicmix, John August talks about being the current screenwriter for the Captain Marvel project.

From a Captain Marvel movie, I should get three things:

While watching the movie, I should laugh.

While watching the movie, I should be thrilled by amazing stunts and incredible conflicts.

After leaving the movie, I should be buoyed up, enthusiastic, and willing to believe that the world can be made better.

Im Drawin Ur Doodz

Via zee Webmistress, Wizard's How to Draw Heroic Anatomy, inverted. "Kaylee" Maguire, "Jen" Balent, and others tell us how to draw men and women effectively.

Brother from Another Entertainment Industry

Sixty years ago less a week, Jackie Robinson changed America. I assume all Americans know the story and that no non-Americans care, but to be brief... Blacks weren't allowed to play major league baseball from the late 1800's until Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey broke the color barrier in 1947. Anyway, there's enough on the web for you to educate yourself if you don't know the story. (My one regret is that Bill Veeck didn't get to sign Satchel, Josh, Monte, and the others like he planned to.)

Now, this past week American lost another pioneering sports Robinson as the immortal Grambling coach Eddie Robinson passed away. Coach Rob did more for black college athletics than any human being alive, and possibly more for black education as well. An awful lot of lawyers, doctors, business exceutives and others passed through the Grambling campus since Eddie Robinson became coach in 1941. Now, why am I talking about this on a comics site?

Because the record of the maintstream comics industry on a racial level in this country is somewhat puzzling. We now have Dwayne McDuffie writing the FF. We had Priest editing Spider-Man. But has an African American ever been the regular writer or artist on Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman? We had a black Green Lantern. We had a black Iron Man. We kind of had a black Captain America. But when Sinbad hosted SNL, who did he portray in the death of Superman sketch? Black Lightning.

So, where are comics these days?

RIP Johnny Hart,1931-2007

According to his hometown newspaper, Johnny Hart, the creator of B.C. and co-creator of The Wizard of ID, died on Satuday, 7 April.

When I was very young--say, in the late 1960s and early 1970s--B.C. was one of the funniest things on the newspaper comics page, and probably my first favorite strip. It was absurdist, metatfictive, inventive, and endlessly varied. The decline of the strip as Hart's religious sensibilities overwhelmed his comedic (from the late 1970s on) should not be allowed to obscure the brilliance of that early work, and I mourn now the man who brought us that.

...Coming Down the Rabbit Trail

Well, today is the most holy day of the Christian year, so we, of course, worship a rabbit and eat eggs and candy. Huh? So, I got to thinking: what comics characters have rabbit themes? The granddaddy is Bugs Bunny, but we also have Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, Cptain Carrot and even Marvel Comics The White Rabbit, who was kind of a babe and should have been another love interst for Spidey. They even did one Spidey comic wherein he met a guy who had been bitten by a radioactive rabbit.

Hello, Real Cosmic!

In my previous post Dwayne McDuffie's just-begun run on Fantastic Four [1] I said I hoped that he would immediately take the action in a cosmic direction worthy of the legacy of the FF. This week I picked up last week's new issue (544), the third in McDuffie's run and the first "proper" issue of his run -- that is, after the Civil War wrap-up and the 45th Anniversary thing that introduced us to the two characters taking Reed and Sue's place on the team -- and I am pleased to report that Dwayne is gonna deliver the cosmic.

More details and a short report with minor (very minor) spoilers after the jump...

[1] If you google "Howling McDuffie" you get my post. In a completely juvenile way, this makes me really happy. :-)

The plot is triggered by events involving characters whom I've never heard of (apparently artifacts from the late-90's/early-0's), but whatever the deal is ends up meaning that the FF have to spring into action, take one of Reed's hyperjump-capable ships to the moon, where T'Challa busts out the Ultimate Nullifier on Uatu the Watcher (nothin' says "I'm serious" quite like bustin' out the Ultimate Nullifier). The group then heads off for deep, cosmic space where they come face-to-face with some sort of Ego the Living Planet type thing I don't recognize, as the Silver Surfer shows up, and he seems a might testy.

The Good: A trip to the Watcher's house, the Ultimate Nullifier, an Ego Living Planet type thing, and the Silver Surfer -- that pretty much says "cosmic" and "Fantastic Four" to me. Dwayne's characterization of T'Challa, Ben, and Johnny is entertaining and spot-on.

The Bad: Well, there's nothing really bad here as far as I'm concerned, so instead let's call it:

The Minor Nits: Storm participates but I don't really know who she is here at this point. There's a little bit of the "Leader's Wife" syndrome here that has so often plagued Sue -- all the chemistry is Ben-Johnny-T'Challa while Ororo is just kinda there being calm, reasonable, and regal. That said, it's the first issue of their run together and there's only so much space in a single issue of a comic -- I have confidence Dwayne will make Ororo work here.

My other minor nit is that we're three issues in and there hasn't been a fight scene. Am I really that shallow? Yeah, pretty much. I want adventure and action -- big, honkin', things blowing up, people getting knocked through walls action -- in my mainstream superhero stories. I am, however, going to use the "this is the first issue proper" defense here again: The first two issues get special dispensation, so this is really issue #1. But there better be a big honkin' fight scene Real Soon Now, or else I'll... I'll whine about it (I'm serious, man, I totally will).

A quick word on the art: Pencils are by a guy named Paul Pelletier with whom I am completely unfamiliar. He seems to be going for an Alan Davis look, which is A-OK with me. Sometimes his stuff looks very, very good, and sometimes it looks a little bit off. If he's a relatively new artist, then I'm cautiously optimistic that this guy could develop into a real talent. If he's been around a while and this is as good as it's gonna get, then I'd rate him a solid C+ (which, given the dearth of decent artists at Marvel and DC these days, at least on their mainstream superhero books, makes him an adjusted B+).

I'm very much looking forward to 545, where I am expecting there to be more cosmic and a big honkin' fight. I'm still recommending this to fans of both the FF and good superhero team comics in general.

Hilary Swank Looks Absolutely Nothing Like Mia Kirshner

So, you know, that plot point in "The Black Dahlia" is just totally ludicrous. Everybody who says they look alike in the movie just appears to be blind. Anyway, I rented "Hollywoodland" from Netflix, and "Black Dahlia" arrived the same say, and I used to to be a movie critic, so I guess the point is, to quote the philosopher Innes, "I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn."

"Hollywoodland" is, in principle, a story of the death of George Reeves, the actor who played Superman in the television series "The Adventures of Superman." Upon watching the movie, however, I find that the performances jump out from the story, such as it is. The story actually goes nowhere. The plot, such as it is, has almost no structure. "Rosencrantz and Guyildenstern are Dead" has a stronger narrative structure. The movie does not so much end, as stop.

Basically, L.A. private detective Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) takes a case for George Reeves' mother: investigate the death of George Reeves. Louis Simo appears, from what we see, to be a competent enough working detective. He's a real person in the sense that he has a kid and an ex-wife. He wants more. He wants his name in the papers. He sleeps with his assistant, an aspiring actress. But he also takes his kid to work and comes over to talk to him when he gets upset about the death of Superman. He's a realistic, three-dimensional character. It's a great performance by a wonderful actor at the peak of his abilities, and it's a real shame that this portrayal does not mesh well with the film noir style Allen Coulter used to actually film the story. (He claims he didn't in the commentary, but no dice. He was religious in his attention to period detail, and if you do that in 1950's L.A., and have one character manipulated by beautiful women, and a private dick get beaten up a few times, well, sorry.)

Simo's plan is not to solve the case, but to get the press to put so much pressure on the police that they have to re-open the case. His investigation of Reeve's death leads to an examination of his life as well. George Reeves (Ben Affleck in make-up) is also a real person. His death is both the driving force behind the movie and the a look at the life of a working actor. Reeves also wanted more from his life. He's basically a kept man, with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane made up to look slightly older) as his mistress. Reeves is remembered today only as Superman, but the movie makes a fair point, he was in "Gone with the Wind" and "From Here to Eternity," and worked steadily for twenty years. That's not a bad career for a working actor. Sure he was typecast after Superman, but he could probably have picked up some directing work, and he was engaged to an attractive young lady with the initials L.L. (Leonore Lemmon played by the lovely Robin Tunney).

Again, the realistic portrayal probably needed a more agressively modern style. The use of period imagery is just too noir, especially since the movie doesn't come to a real end. We are presented with a few potential scenarios of Reeves' death, but nothing definitive. Suicide seems as good a theory as any. The ending, such as it is, tries to suggest that Simo has learned from Reeves' example to be satisfied with his own life, but what we actually see is Simo doing the same stuff we saw him do earlier in the movie, so where's the redemption? He appears to be a reasonably responsible parent before the movie starts, and his other relationships appear to be just as solid as anyone else's.

"The Black Dahlia" is a different thing entirely. It's a real noir, with over the top performances (did Hilary Swank really need to play Katharine Hepburn?) and a dark mood. Like "Hollywoodland" this flick also examines a real death, the famous murder of Elisabeth Short (Mia Kirshner). Unlike "Hollywoodland" this movie is based on a James Ellroy novel and has Hilary Swank naked. ("Hollywoodland" has Diane Lane in a towel which is enough to make you wonder why Reeves was complaining, but still...).The movie has two major problems. A major plot point is that Madeleine Linscott (Swank) looked a lot like Short. Uh, No. At least not in this here movie with Swank and Kirshner, because they really don't look at all alike.

The second problem is just an adaptation issue. The original book had an excellent plot with the two detectives investigating the case and a love triangle and a second murder mystery. They leave just enough of that in this movie to screw it up. Josh Hartnet, Aaron Eckhart and Scarlett Johansson are good in their respective roles, though Ms. Johannson is a bit too young and well-scrubbed to play Kay Lake, the ex-hooker, and Hartnett is not believable as a former pug turned cop (That man has never taken a good shot to the face, though he was supposed to be unbeaten.) Anyway, part of the movie is devoted to the obession Det. Blanchad (Eckhart) has with the Dahlia murders, and the development of the romantic attachment between Lake and Bet. Bucky Bleichert (Hartnett). This story isn't just a second, unconnected b-plot. It winds up being integral to the main plot of who murdered Elisabeth Short. (Being a novel they get to pick a murderer in the movie, unlike the "true" events of "Hollywoodland") There's simply not enough time devoted to that story to make it mesh with the other story at the end. It feels like a cheat.

Brian DePalma does his usual excellent job with the style of the era, of course, Brian DePalma could remake :"The Bad News Bears go to Japan" and turn it into a film noir. If you have Netflix a account, stick 'em in your queue. Otherwise...

Alice in Sunderland

Alice in Sunderland is Bryan Talbot's latest graphic novel, published in the U.S. by Dark Horse and in the U.K. by Jonathan Cape. It may be the best comic I have ever read.

Talbot is perhaps best known for his Adventures of Luther Arkwright, and his work influenced most of the British authors who gained prominence in the 1980s, including Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and others. A few years ago, Talbot moved to Sunderland, a port city in Northeastern England.

His latest work is inspired by this city and its rich heritage. In Alice in Sunderland, Talbot uses a combination of original artwork, photographs, existing drawings, maps, paintings, and just about everything else to examine the history of the area, in particular its cultural history, and especially its connection to Lewis Carroll.

The book is a stream of consciousness ride through art, literature, culture, and history that seamlessly jumps from the Jabberwocky to the Bayeaux Tapestry to British comedian Sid James to the Roman Empire to Coleridge to the Venerable Bede to coal miners and back to Lewis Carroll -- always back to Lewis Carroll.

The book is absolutley fascinating. Each page is deep, and you could spend hours just immersing yourself in the illustrations. But the narrative moves along so compellingly that you don't (at least, not on a first read-through) because you are too anxious to see where Talbot will take you next on your journey through his mind. The book is gorgeous, lush, compelling.

Ultimately, Sunderland is the story of humanity and human creativity. It is filtered through one particular city, but the tale Talbot tells is bigger than the city of Sunderland and it is bigger than Alice in Wonderland. It is about the way we think, the way we create, the way we live. It is a meditation on art and life.

Go out and buy this book now.

Inkbloggling

Via--again--James Nicoll (I swear I'm going to make you all read him for yourselves), the Shakespeare Internet Message Board.

What Fools These Mortals Be, Eh?

I mentioned back in my previous post about Alpha Flight that back when the first series launched under Byrne and we were introduced to Puck and Marina, the two characters "seemed kinda lame." A number of you spoke up in defense of Puck (no one, however, spoke up in defense of Marina :-). In yesterday's post about this week's comics, I mentioned the Alpha Flight TPB coming out that collects the first several issues of the original Byrne series, and in private email folks have once again been expressing their love for the Puck (at least up until he became a normal-sized man who was trapped in a dwarf's body because ate some demonic clams once or whatever).

I now feel obliged to expand upon my own feelings regarding the Diminutive Defender (not in the sense of ever having been a member of the group, the Defenders -- look, this was the best alliteration I could come up with on short notice, no pun intended), in part because I think it will illuminate something about Byrne's work as a creator and comics as they evolved in the 80's in general. Join me after the jump...

So I actually liked Puck from the get-go, conceptually at least. I liked the idea of this little dude who could bounce around, and I dug the way Byrne drew Puck's cartwheel attack. Groovy stuff. What made Puck kinda lame to me was that Puck emerged right at that point where, as I mentioned in my previous AF post, Byrne was really promoting, consciously or not, his preference for "realistic" superheroes.

Let's step back to the 70's for a minute. Generally speaking, prior to the movement toward "realism" in the 80's, all fisticuff-oriented superheroes (and, one could argue, often all superheroes in general) could punch out a bad guy who was not otherwise noted for being particularly tough or having a special defense. It's just what superheroes did.

Here's a specific example: In the All-New, All-Different Uncanny One's first post-Giant Size appearance, they fight the Ani-Men or whatever they're called. One of these guys is a frog dude who is a pretty tough scrapper, as it happens. In roleplaying game mechanic terms, he would be both stronger and tougher than Nightcrawler, who, his appearance and specific powers aside, is just a normal guy, albeit a world-class acrobat. Frog Dude, OTOH, is tougher and stronger than a normal human. And Nightcrawler just decks him at one point. I had then, and have now, no problem with that, because that's what physically-oriented superheroes did, regardless of whether or not, in a super-anal sense, it made logical sense. Heck, Claremont and Cockrum had Nightcrawler strike Firelord at one point and Firelord actually felt it -- whereas, technically, Nightcrawler probably should've just bounced off the guy. But that makes for Not Fun (or Not As Much Fun) superhero comics, in my opinion. Contrast this with later on when Byrne was drawing the X-Men and it seemed like Nightcrawler couldn't deck anyone who wasn't a normal person (I know Byrne is on record as not having been a big Nightcrawler fan, but you can see it in his handling of many other not-expressly-super-strong characters as well).

The difference is often subtle, but I believe it is real and that it makes a difference. Take Northstar and Aurora. Flying around at superspeed they should've been laying out bad guys left and right. Instead, particularly in Byrne's hands after he starts that initial AF series, they're pretty useless, other than flying really fast and having a flash attack. Even though they were bot in great physical shape and had been trained and so forth, by being written as "realistic" normal people, at least in terms of strength and toughness, they were in effect weak by Might Marvel superhero standards.

Going back to the old school way, this is why characters like Batman, Hawkman, Black Canary, and Green Arrow could survive and thrive in the Justice League alongside the likes of Supes, Flash, and Green Lantern -- their gadgets and single-gimmick powers (flight, sonic scream) aside, and even their intelligence, courage, and resourcefulness aside, they could still deck bad guys who weren't expressly Way Too Tough or Way Too Powerful, and that is as it should be.

So if Puck had been used in an Old School style, like Nighcrawler was pre-Byrne, I think he would've been really cool -- bouncing around, doing his cartwheel attack, taking down bad guys. As it was he was presented by Byrne as way underpowered -- in fact, in his spotlight issue in the original AF series he has a way harder time taking down a bunch of scrubs whom he should've been able to smack down in a page and a half, tops. I'm not saying that story wasn't entertaining, just that it was a different type of superhero narrative, one where the superhero is more "realistic" and has to grapple with more "realistic" minutiae and there's less narrative handwaving to get the hero past things like a bunch of non-super drug smugglers and get to the good stuff, like fighting Batroc or whatever.

I'm not laying this all at Byrne's feet; probably Miller's work on Daredevil run is even more influential in this regard. I'm also not saying that this "realistic" approach to superheroes can't be entertaining, just that, for me at least, it has never meshed well with the old school mainstream in which these characters remain anchored, even to this day.

So you had Puck -- neat idea, good visuals, should've been bouncing around, knocking Sabertooth off the walls or whatever, but instead he was done "realistic," in spite of the fact that he was in a group with Snowbird, Sasquatch, Guardian, and Shaman (and you'd be hard pressed to get more old school Mighty Marvel super than those cats), and for me it wasn't a good fit. While I liked Judd's character, he was, to me, kinda lame as a superhero -- largely because he wasn't allowed to be superheroic.

Quick Review of this Week's New Release List (4-4-7)

Wherein you'll be shocked to learn that a metric assload of manga will be released this week, seventeen different Lady Death variant products of various sorts (seriously, you guys know you can download pr0n off the net for free, right?), and the one-hundred-and-thirty-first issue of Nightwing (I don't know why, but that just jumped out at me -- I mean, The Uncanny X-Men hadn't reached issue #131 yet when I read my first issue).

So what other deep, insightful, uh, insights do I have on this week's haul? Join me after the jump to find out...

• Something called "Men of Mystery" has reached issue #65. I don't recall ever seeing this on a store shelf ever, but surely it must be there. Maybe it just doesn't have very dynamic covers.

• Vampirella products -- see my Lady Death comment above.

• Very light week for Dark Horse -- A Buffy comic, an Old Boy TPB (whatever that is), Secret #3, and a Skullboy vinyl figure. What, no Star Wars comic featuring one or more bounty hunters? And apparently the "[blank]boy" or "[blank]girl" naming convention is only cool if it's not in the Legion. Maybe only if the [blank] is something cool/dark like skull, hell, or death.

Meanwhile, at DC...

• Only three more issues of 52 after this one. Will they build to some sort of colossal, dramatic point? Um, sure. Why not?

• All New Atom #10: So I read the first three or so issues of this. Some of Byrne's best artwork in years (inked by someone other than Byrne, which I guess should go without saying), but I just couldn't get into it in spite of the reasonably decent premise -- some young guy from Korea, a physics wonk whose been corresponding with Ray Palmer for years, gets a job at the University of Ivy Town, or whatever it's called, and receives an Atom belt in the mail from Ray. Hijinx ensue. I like hijinx, I like science in comics, and I like the Atom, but I didn't like this book. Just couldn't get into the plot, the hero, the bad guys, or any of the supporting characters.

• A "Batman Detective" TPB is supposed to be out today. Is this a collection of Paul Dini's Detective Comics stories or something else?

• Jonah Hex #18: Come to think of it, I would cut that strip of flesh hanging across my mouth too. I'd keep the crazy bug-eye though. BTW, I think they should send Jonah back to Gamma World, because that totally worked. No, really.

• The new Justice League series is up to issue #7 -- are the Big Three still shuffling through pictures, or have their lordships deigned to actually choose a lineup? What the hell is going on in this book anyway? The last thing I saw during a flip-through was a now-human Red Tornado running around in red body paint with a bloody nose.

• Sgt Rock The Prophecy TPB -- this any good? And who'd win in a fight, Rock or Nick Fury? I'm taking Rock -- at least until Rock and Fury team up to beat Tony Stark to a bloody pulp.

• Supergirl And The Legion Of Super Heroes #28: Is Wildfire back yet? Uh, how about the Batch SW6 clones? Throw us a frickin' bone here. (Seriously, aren't they fighting Dominators now? How's that going?)

• Superman #661: This is the Busiek run, right? Is he doing anything interesting with it?

Elsewhere...

• A Bloodrayne comic. I think it would be cooler if it were "Bloodrayon," a comic about an assassin who dresses in non-stainable wash-and-wear synthetics.

• So a lot of the titles from other publishers look like they could be interesting non-superhero comics, but the problem is that they're probably manga. Who has the time to sort through all this noise?

• Fallen Angel IDW #14: This is Peter David's Fallen Angel, right? If so, I'm glad it's still being published for those of you who dig it. I read the first TPB courtesy of Greg, but man, I was bored silly by it. The violence struck me as pro forma "look how badass I am"-ness, the mysteries just weren't interesting to me, and the heroine was completely flat (not physically, obviously). I know there was a period on the net where there was this groundswell of indignation about the book's low sales, but after reading it I did not share your outrage, o blogosphere.

• Dynamo 5 Var Cvr New Ptg #1: I didn't realize the first issue of this was out yet. I like the premise -- the illegitimate children of Superman (basically) are united after his death to be supers, each armed with one of their father's powers. Written by the guy who does Noble Causes, which I like. Hopefully this will be good.

While over at Marvel...

• Alpha Flight Classic Vol 1 TPB: You know my thoughts on Byrne's run on AF, but as many of you disagreed with me, this TPB is for you. Let me know if there are any interesting tidbits or extras included with the stories themselves.

• Annihilation Heralds Of Galactus Silver Surfer Firelord: Boy, if this were 1986 I would be all over this shit. At present, however, I couldn't care less.

• Avengers Initiative #1: Deep Hurting.

• Hulk And Power Pack #2: Boy, if this were 1986...yeah, I still wouldn't give a shit.

• Immortal Iron Fist #4: I haven't read #3 yet, but the first two issues really pissed me off as an Iron Fist fan (and the sad thing is, it's not like the character's ever really been worth being a fan of -- apparently in my youth I just really dug Aryan martial artists with big chest tattoos and ballet slippers wearing the Oakland A's color scheme; no, I don't have any deep-rooted emotional issues, why do you ask?).

• Incredible Hulk #105: All I can say is that unless "World War Hulk" is 20 issues of the Hulk beating the holy living hell out of Tony Stark and every character on his side, I'm not really interested.

• Iron Man Hypervelocity #4: No idea what this is, but I have to wonder why the story just couldn't be done in his regular title (well, besides the obvious "because we can make money off the marks" reason).

• Irredeemable Ant-Man #7: I like Invincible. I haven't liked anything else Kirkman has written, and this is truly dull and pointless. I'm assuming that at some point the "hero" will either develop into a genuine hero, or someone else will kick his ass and take the suit from him to become a hero. Page me when either of those things happens.

• Marvel Origins Hulk Statue: Someone at some point is going to have to explain this whole statue phenomenon to me. I mean, people actually buy these things (and they ain't cheap!) and put them in their apartments or houses? *boggle*

• Omega Flight #1: This is the new Alpha Flight comic basically. I know nothing about it except that the preview I saw looked horrendous.

• Thunderbolts Presents Zemo Born Better #3: Reading Thunderbolts for several years has led me to the point where I truly wish that they'd just kill of his character and leave him dead. I have to give Busiek credit: he grew Zemo into a truly credible, dangerous foe (until then I lumped him in the same pile as stock villains like Kang). And then Fabian just made Zemo relentlessly annoying. Now I don't ever want to see him in any comic I read again.

And finally, elsewhere...

• Homeland: The Illustrated History of the State of Israel by Marv Wolfman, Mario Ruiz, William J. Rubin. This is actually probably really cool, but I can't help but hope that it includes cameos by Moon Knight and Hannibal King.

Balloonless Thoughts

Via the confectionary-delightful Johanna, Comicraft leads a roundtable on thought balloons and other comic book craft topics.

Heh. Am I a man thinking in a balloon, or am I a balloon, thinking it's a man? Or maybe, balloonless ideas letter furiously.

The Road to Naziworld

It is possible to replicate the pun inherent in "Sub-Mariner" in German, viz. "Unterseeman". This makes a Naziworld version of Namor really easy to do. And sooner or later, every superhero RPG campaign goes to Naziworld. But how common is it in the actual source material?

So here's my question: In what stories have we seen parallel worlds with Nazi (or at least eeeeevil) counterparts to primary world superheroes?

Obviously, Earth-3 is first on the list. Did Earth-X have Nazi bad guys who were mappable to superheroes? Did the Invaders ever encounter Nazi versions of themselves?

Ingrid Weiss is a Nazi version of Tom Strong, but I think I'm more interested in parallel world versions. That leaves out Fawcett's Captain Nazi, too. Basically, I'm looking for characters who are, more or less, alternate history versions of regular superheroes--Überman lands in Bavaria instead of Kansas, a Valkyrie comes to Man's world instead of an Amazon, that sort of thing.

Superman: Red Son is exactly what I'm talking about, except not eeeevil.

His Grandson Busted a French Drug Ring

Popeye the Sailor Man is is coming to DVD.

Terra-Man and Joker Would Make Cute Couple

Heath Ledger talks about playing the Joker. For his next roles he'll play a space cowboy, a romantic gangster and a guy named "Maurice."

Writers' Business, the Exclusive Minding Thereof

Jesse Hamm's Why Comic Book Writers Oughta Mind Their Own Business. (Jesse's the creator of Comics to Bore and Confuse You, and appears to have a non-inconsequential list of indy comics credits).

It's fine and good, especially for people who think they'd like to be comic book writers and who haven't thought about how to write for artists ... and then Mark Waid shows up and begins spewing.

Waid really, really doesn't take criticism, even implicit criticism, well. And he really, really doesn't communicate well online.

Via Kynn Bartlett, who got it from frequent commenter Bruce Baugh, who got it from Dirk Deppey at Journalista, who may have actually found it himself, you never know. I think Tom Lehrer may have had linkblogging in mind when he wrote "Lobachevsky".

Everybody Wants to Write the Legion

Christopher Bird, known for many things, including his redialogue job on Civil War, is lobbying to write the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Reese Witherspoon is 5'2"

So, you go to I-Con, and you have your choice of actresses after you bathe and change into a fresh costume. Who do you pick? This website will let you know. I'm 6'6". Guess who my perfect match is...

A Rare Find

So I was in a used bookstore this weekend and I came across something I never even knew existed: The Tourist's Guide to Astro City, copyright 1989.

As you might infer from the title, the book is set up like a tourist's guide to Astro City -- a fiction maintained throughout the book as it describes the different heroes, villains, and neighborhoods, as well as providing brief descriptions of some of their adventures.

The inside front cover notes that it's limited to a print run of 50 copies, so I suspect it was published to secure trademarks.

What's really interesting about it are the differences between what's in the Tourist's Guide and the books we've come to know and love.

For example, Samaritan is describe as coming from another planet decimated by environmental damage, determined to prevent the same from happening to ours. Busiek clearly hadn't created the origin we've come to know and love yet.

The text says Winged Victory is "known for her exclamation 'By Nike's charriot'" -- a mythologically correct reference, but I guess Kurt figured most readers would think she was refering to the sneakers.

The First Family is different, too. Augustus Furst is nowhere to be seen, and instead, Julius Furst has a wife named Jean. Also, Rex is not a dinosaur -- he's a gorilla.

Many of the characters we know and love are not present, presumably because Busiek and company had not yet developed them. There's no sign of the Honor Guard as a unit, or of most of its members (no Black Rapier, no NRG, no Leopardman, no Starwoman). Neither is Jack-in-the-Box present, although Crackerjack is.

What's really interesting are the characters who we haven't seen in the actual books yet (and may never, for all I know). One I particularly like is the Dybbuk, who is described as "an ancient Demon, imprisoned thousands of years ago on Mount Kirby by the forces of Hell for his refusal to torment mankind," the Dybbuk was "accidentally freed by fur trapper Jacob Kurtzburg in the mid-18th century. Moloch [the Dybbuk's demonic name] became bonded to Kurtzburg, granting him immortality. The combined creature has remained on Mount Kirby ever since, watching Astro City grow around him over the following centuries, often intervening to protect its citizens." The Dybbuk is clearly a pastiche of Kirby's Demon. I wonder if we'll see him show up in the books eventually.

Another that I don't think we'll see is Jumping Jack Flash, an agilty character clearly derrived from Ditko's work on Spider-Man and Creeper. The character is pretty unremarkable, and Busiek, Anderson, and Ross clearly scrapped him in favor of the more interesting Jack-in-the-Box.

The Tourist's Guide to Astro City was, of course, written by Kurt Busiek, with character designs, pencils, and inks by Brent Anderson and Alex Ross (funny to think that at that point, Ross was an unknown kid best known for his work on Now Comics' Terminator adapatation!). It's lettered by Robert April and colored by Sergei Durachok. It's 32 pages long.

All in all, this is an interesting historical curiosity and a fascinating look into how the Astro City concept developed. I hope Busiek brings it back into print in an appropriate form some day (maybe as an extra in some collection that is otherwise just a little too thin?).