Me me!
I tried to resist. Honestly, I did.
All due credit to Dorian for starting this. And I bet he didn't even mean to.
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January 24, 2006
January 18, 2006
Forbidden
So, this week's comics, which were available today and not tomorrow like I previously thought.
Infinite Crisis #4
I want a shock. A surprise. I know, I'm probably looking in the wrong place. Though I get a chuckle out of the whole Crispus becomes the Spectre scene. Mostly because I saw it coming like three issues ago of GOTHAM CENTRAL. But then there was the whole "And if there is a God -- What'd we do to piss him off so damn much?" line.
Hey fictional characters! Good news! There is a god! He's called the author. I'm sure there's good reasons that he's all pissed off and in your grill, but as fictional characters, you don't get to know that.
At least, I think there's a good reason...
But let's talk about something more pleasant. I bet you know what I've got in mind. A little ALL STAR SUPERMAN #2. Oh yes.
If you're a hater, just skip the rest of this entry. That's okay, I won't hold it against you. Nor will I think any less of you.
What I really love about this series, besides the non-tortured Superman driven by angst and anguish (as oppsed to what we're getting a heaping helping of in the same as it ever was DCU--and if you think INFINITE CRISIS will change it, you've got another thing coming), besides the sense of scale and drama that Quitely puts on the page, besides the sharply, minimally-written characters, is the feeling of the casual impossible. That's something that's been totally lost in superhero comics (for the most part) of the last, I don't know, twenty years. And that was the thing that got me reading superhero comics in the first place.
The Fortress of Solitude encapsulates that better than even the trip to the sun in the first issue. The trophy room is home to both tragic icons (Kandor and the Titanic), but monuments to catastrophes averted (The space shuttle Columbia), as well as favorite comicbook icons. It's an impressive blend of symbols, and it's just out there. Morrison lets Quitely's art draw attention to these things, but there's no breathless prose explaining the significance of these objects. He doesn't need to, at least not by my reckoning.
And did I mention that the key to the Fortress fits in your hand, but weighs a billion pounds? Sure, it'd fall to the center of the earth and create its own gravitational pull with that kind of weight, but that's never a concern. Casual impossible. Like feeding a creature in the super-menagerie hand crafted miniature suns, or the time telescope which causes more problems than it solves. And is that Qward sitting in a storeroom?
Of course, the real casual impossibility is the destruction of Superman's secret identity as Clark Kent, as well as Lois' inability to believe it. Superman's hoisted on his own petard: his legendary honesty works against him and is undone when it's revealed that he's been lying for years and years. But even his honesty has limits, as he refuses to share with Lois the motivation for his words and actions--his impending mortality. Honesty and perception are the dramatic axis on which the story, yes, the story, revolves around. Sadly, there's a moment where that axis gets thrown with the revelation that Lois' increasingly paranoid actions is caused by exposure to some unknown chemical compound. Yes, that's right in fitting with the silver age Superman stories that Morrison acknowledges and references, but it does weaken the story he's telling right now.
However, the germ of that reaction, deceit in the face of Superman's supposed peerless honesty, still informs the story. And really, wasn't that what most of those silver age stories were all about? Superman finding a way to trick Lois and everyone else into believing he wasn't Clark Kent?
People complain that Superman is unbeatable, that there's no way to defeat him and that makes him boring, but Morrison's found a way around that. Even when he's ostensibly revealing all of his secrets and flinging himself wide open, he still can't let go completely. He can't publically acknowledge (or even privately to Lois) his own mortality. Nor can he let her enter his "forbidden room" (sort of a physical manifestation of the grim secret he's keeping. And that single secret makes even his innocuous birthday gift to Lois take on a sinister tone. That's where the conflict comes from. Sure, you may not be able to beat Superman physically, but he can trap up himself with doubt.
I said doubt, not angst. Just 'cause this version of Superman has doubts doesn't mean he's a neurosis-ridden mess. Thank goodness for that.
Mimetic
tags me with a particularly virulent meme. Could be trouble...
ONE (1) earliest film-related memory:
Seeing the Disney version of ROBIN HOOD at a drive-in theatre in Orange, CA. Probably the last time I've been to a drive-in, too.
TWO (2) favourite lines from movies:
Lines are so easy. Putting together a whole movie is what impresses me now. I could say that just about everything out of Claude Rains' mouth in CASABLANCA is golden. "I'm shocked! Shocked and apalled!" Hilarious. Gets me every time. "You're the top man now, dog!" from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is a perpetual favorite, despite it being worn to death now by the eponymous website.
THREE (3) jobs you’d do if you could not work in the “biz”:
Like Sean, I'll assume the biz is comics. This is easy. I'd go back into animation. In a minute. If it weren't for having to live in LA and everything that goes with that. I wouldn't mind teaching, though I suspect my inner fascist and California mellow natures would go to war with one another and destroy myself and everything within a five block radius. Failing that, perhaps a librarian. I like books and I like to be left alone. Seems like a match made in heaven.
FOUR (4) jobs you actually have held outside of the industry:
Teacher, both technical and academic fields (animation and running various social science seminars at the college level). Arcade attendant, with all the rights and responsibilities pertinent. Archivist at the National Archives in Laguna Niguel, CA (not as much fun as you'd think.) Pizza shop monkey. All the pepperoni I could stand.
THREE (3) book authors you like:
Raymond Chandler, William Gibson, HP Lovecraft.
TWO (2) movies you’d like to remake or properties you’d like to adapt:
Remaking movies is a mug's game. I'd love to see a film adaptation of NEUROMANCER, though it'd be tough to pull off without it seeming hopelessly dated. Oh and I dunno... Geez... A filmed version of Morrison's DOOM PATROL would be pretty keen. Again, quite likely impossible, but I like a challenge.
ONE (1) screenwriter you think is underrated:
I don't pay enough attention to that sort of thing anymore to give this a fair answer. That Alan Smithee guy might get it, but he's horribly inconsistent.
THREE (3) people I’m tagging to answer this meme next:
Jeff Parker, Ed Cunard and/or John Jakala, and Jog (though I think he has too much sense for something like this.)
January 17, 2006
Adventures in the Negative Zone
There are days during which it's difficult if not impossible to operate with a positive mental attitude.
This is one of those days. I won't miss it when it's gone. Not one bit.
The Hegemony Will NOT be Televised
Globetechnology: Wired up, plugged in, zoned out
Courtesy The Beat comes the above story. I'll comment on some of it below (picking and choosing my battles carefully, much in reflection of the piece's thesis.)
Hey, that last part rhymes!
Anyways. Here's the main thesis, if you don't want to run through the whole thing. "Welcome to the new tribalism: Demarcations of faith and geography seem to be giving way to those of technology and taste."
I mean, that's basically it. The balkanization of culture, the defeat of hegemony. Seriously, it's why we'll never have another Beatles or Elvis or Stephen King or Star Wars. It used to be that distribution of cultural output was pretty tightly limited to those who had the resources to pull it off (ie, the big labels, the big TV networks, the big studios, the big publishers.) The number of cultural outletes was pretty tightly controlled (two radio bands, 13 VHF channels, a couple major newspapers per city, book publishers that sold into a handful of outlets.)
It's simply not the case any more, is it? We've got a million publishers, a million bands, a million independent movies going to DVD, a million podcasters plus a bunch of channels on Sirius and XM. All of these things compete for our attention and dollars. And you know what?
We're going to go after the stuff that we like (as a mess of individuals) and ignore the stuff that we don't. I know, it's shocking really. Cultural hegemony doesn't die with a whimper or a bang, but with the sound of a million million consumers (assuming they have the means to) ignoring the radio and turning on their iPods. Or they're not going to movie theatres and instead picking carefully from NetFlix selections. Maybe they're reading fiction published exclusively on the web.
At last, we're seeing democratization (or anarchy if you like) in action on a mass cultural level. Gee, I wonder who it's most upsetting to? Could it be that the cultural monoliths of our age, the Sonys and Foxes and Paramounts and RCAs are the ones most worried? Could it be the cultural gatekeepers and critics who have the most to lose?
Yeah, I thought so. I was wondering where the alarmist tone in the article was coming from. Took me a moment or two to suss it out. Right about here, where the author comes at the "enlightened individual" with the most severe threat they can muster: "Mr. Bugeja argues that through tribalism, we are actually sculpting ourselves into perfectly shaped and willing receptacles for marketers." It's like the joke about a million goths (or subculture of your choice) wanting to be individual in the least individual way.
By choosing, you open yourself up to being targeted by marketers who want to use your desire to culturally consume what you wish against you. Oh, teh phear!
You know what, if by listening to Neko Case albums, she makes money and wishes to record more albums that I may like, that's FINE by me. If more story-driven comics come about as a result of my favoring story-driven comics, then that's worthy of celebration.
I'll admit, there's the danger of being closed to new experiences once you put yourself in that cozy coccoon of whatever it is you like to the exclusion of all other things. But you know what, closemindedness is a danger even in the middle of mainstream culture. Choice isn't the enemy. Closemindedness is.
And funny, but I remember all these arguments being put forth when Walkmen were introduced. When rented videos were introduced. When chatrooms were big. When the World Wide Web made its debut. When Napster was running at full power. When blogs first appeared. Old argument, folks. Its the thesis meeting the antithesis in anticipation of the synthesis. Same 'ol, same 'ol.
Zero sum game
This was the last of my "Hard Knocks" columns written up for the Isotope Lounge before it got obliterated by hackers or whatever actually happened to it. I've got most of them backed up, but this one stood out for some reason. Obviously it was written before I pulled the plug on the Speakeasy deal, and actually, this was back when the November launch date was a possibility, yeah even a fact...
---
It’s easy to get lost in all this sometimes. I’ve been working on Strangeways so long, it seems, that it’s stopped being about this little horror/western book and something else entirely. I mean, this thing was lettered at just after the beginning of this year so that I could have preview ashcans made up for Wondercon. And it was written far before that. Since then, it’s been mass-mailing, hand-selling, page layout, interviewing (well, one interview anyways, but it’s a big one), and arranging for a surprise event. The work’s been everything but about what I set out to do, which was to write.
It’s a strange, strange business, that’s for sure. Yes, I’m a genius with a talent for observation. Got it, thanks. Seriously, though, if you stop to look at the way things are in comics, it’s downright bizarre. Largely, our work is defined by selling serial chunks of a story at a time. Now, as a storyteller, that doesn’t sit really well with me, but there’s a variety of reasons for it being like this (namely the regular revenue stream for publishers and retailers, and the belief that it’s easier to get someone to take a risk on a three dollar pamphlet than it is to sell them a twelve-dollar or more graphic novel.) My whole deal is about getting folks to the end of a story and giving them some satisfaction when they close the book. Sure, there’s the thrill of the cliffhanger, of the story turning before you and you demanding to know “WHAT HAPPENS? I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT ISSUE! ARRGH!”
But running a whole business like that seems…counterintuitive to me. If you’re selling someone a book, then you should get to something like a conclusion and not just an end to the page count. Right now, the market is geared towards selling magazines, and yes, there’s a few folks trying to drag it in another direction, all kicking and screaming. But this is the sort of thing that takes years. If it takes at all. There’s plenty of people who’d be happy if the market were frozen in time right now and stuck in the mode of serving up serial bits of a story with the occasional collection. And frankly, I’d have to argue the success of this model. You say “but it’s been this way for YEARS!” And I’ll say: “Wrong.”
See, not too long ago, most, if not all of the comics sold on stands to vastly larger groups of people dealt primarily in standalone issues that all worked together to form a vast patchwork story. And not long before that, it was simply single issues with the same characters suspended in a kind of sit-com like amber. The situation never really changed, so it was familiar to someone who’d been out of the game for years and had occasion to get back into it. “Continuity” was referenced, but never in such a restrictive manner that it got in the way of the storytelling. Even when comics started moving towards multi-episode epic stories (which really happened in the late sixties), where what you ended up getting was a chapter of a larger text on a monthly basis.
Now this was a good thing, because you could get more in-depth stories and a chance to explore character arcs and get the feeling of a heft of work that went beyond the monthly episode. Of course, this also allowed for the worst of storytelling excesses on the parts of writers primarily where pages were filled simply because they could be. Granted, the means and terms of production back then were pretty radically different from what they are now. Creators didn’t have a stake in their creations, and were often working hard to come up with 22 pages a month that were interesting and going to keep the readers on for another cycle.
People coming back for more on a regular basis kept the sellers happy, too. I’d even suggest that the expectation of longer-form stories and keeping readers coming back habitually allowed for the creation of the Direct Market in the first place, but that’s a digression for another time. Buyers in the direct market, by and large, know what they want (usually the adventures of a particular character, sometimes the work of a particular set of creators independent of character). They’ve developed habits, and those habits are more or less predictable (sometimes – read Brian Hibbs’ book for some of those trials and tribulations). Predictable is nice.
Until predictable doesn’t serve you anymore. Or until predictable shrinks to a pool that demands the market as a whole hold steady or shrink (or implode).
See, the biggest problem here isn’t the fact that superhero tropes dominate the form. The problem isn’t that creators are “forced” to work on someone else’s creation to support their own (oftentimes superior) work. The problem isn’t artcomics versus fanboys. The problem is that there aren’t enough comics readers out there. And really, that’s just a subset of there’s not really enough readers out there. Comics as a whole offer up unique experiences in every conceivable genre/aesthetic, if you look. The problem is connecting those books to their readers, whether they already read comics (or more likely, if they don’t already read comics.)
Now, who fixes this? Well, really, the big two are okay with the way things are. Sure, they’d like more readers, but they don’t know how to do it, so they work on consolidating their holds over their respective readership sectors via crossovers or death events or whatever plot-hammered scenarios they can cook up that will whip up the readers into a frenzy. Sometimes they’re even good (such as SEVEN SOLDIERS.) Oftentimes, they just sell a lot of books and are ground up into continuity chow for someone else to revise later. But I’m not expecting a lot of initiative on the publisher’s side. Sure, DC puts out a more diverse line as a whole, but they’re not getting much action in the “draw in new readers” campaign. If they knew how to, I’m sure they would in a heartbeat.
So, the publishers who are most able to do something about this are worried more about keeping their numbers up and not increasing the size of the pool so that everyone can be brought up by a rising tide. The smaller publishers at the front of Previews do what they can, but don’t seem to have a unified plan. I love Image as much as the next guy, and they put out some good books, but they don’t have much of an identity. People pick and choose the titles they like and that’s pretty much it. Granted, they offer a diverse lineup and have a lot of quality, so those are all marks in their favor. But I don’t see them being able to rope in new readers. Same goes for Dark Horse (though they have several gateway drugs in the wings, such as the STAR WARS franchise, et al.) Same goes for Speakeasy, Alias, Viper, etc. They put out books to the established marketplace, but I don’t see them being able to expand it in a significant fashion.
And I would love to be proven wrong on that last point.
How about the retailers? Well, it seems for the most part that a lot of them are worried about keeping their businesses going. This is not an inconsiderable concern, nor is it invalid. If their business isn’t doing well, they don’t eat. Simple as that. I’m sure that if they knew what magic button to push to get more traffic into their stores, they would in a heartbeat. My local guy, Robert Scott at Comickaze, does all kinds of outreach to libraries and local organizations. He hosts events at his store that feature local artists and out of town talent from a broad array of genres.
Okay. Well, what about Diamond? I mean, surely it behooves them most of all to expand the base of comics readership in the US and abroad? I mean, they’re the ones who are working directly off of volume, and bigger volume for them means bigger bucks, right? Of course, some might argue that Diamond is big enough, thanks. But that aside, surely they could do something to get comics in the hands of more people? You’d think they had a direct incentive to.
Obviously the creators and future creators have a huge stake in this as well. A bigger business means that there’s more possibilities for genre expansion, more readers, greater potential returns on their investments (both emotional and financial) in their work. Those are all positives, right? Of course, most creators I know are busy working on creating their works and only have so much time for creating audiences for their works. Even artists with a large degree of success have spent a lot of energy outside of content creation in order to do so. Yes, there’s some who seem to do it effortlessly, but I can’t think of too many people who got into the business five or so years ago who aren’t spending large amounts of time and energy in getting an audience base together.
So, this is something that clearly everyone can benefit from. But it’s also a huge, long-term project. We’re talking life’s work levels of involvement here. We’re talking about rehabilitating (for lack of a better word) an entire medium, of reintroducing it to a public, and one that doesn’t by and large read for pleasure. Not only is it an uphill battle, but it’s one that needs to be fought on two fronts.
Sure, we could build a thousand more comic stores and place them strategically, but would that even be a start? How do you get people inside those stores? How do you get them to browse the racks? How do you make sure that there’s a wide variety of material for them to choose from? And how about hooking up the right reader to the right book? Now, how about making it so that books can be produced cheaply enough that the price point isn’t a barrier? Okay, now do that and be able to pay the creators decently for their time and effort.
One thing’s for sure. The comics market isn’t a zero-sum game. A reader consuming Marvel comics isn’t taking dollars away from Fantagraphics. You could argue that a retailer has to spend more feeding his Marvel fans and that takes away from their ability to buy the latest Fantagraphics offering, I suppose. There might even be merit in it. Of course, the big two act like it is, and maybe from where they stand, that’s the way things are.
And even if it turns out that I’m wrong, and it * is * a zero-sum game, then we even more desperately need that bigger pool to work from, don’t we?
Doing the solicit thing - DC
I haven't done this in awhile, so why the heck not? Now, I'm not going to be going through title by title. No way. I'll pick on things worthy of note from my own little corner of the peanut gallery. Shall we?
I love how ALL STAR BATMAN is the first book solicited, as if to remind everyone "Oh yeah, Miller and Lee inna house at DC! Raise tha roof y'alls!" I make no apologies for this book. It's SIN CITY Batman with color art, with all that implies: hilarious and grim, unapologetic and exploitative.
MAN-BAT might be interesting, though. However, the Simone Bianci by way of Alex Ross covers for some of the other batbooks are throwing me off. I liked Bianci's art just fine on SHINING KNIGHT, but these covers aren't doing it for me.
Of course I'll be there for BATMAN YEAR ONE HUNDRED by Paul Pope. It's about the only batbook I'm actively looking forward to.
Why is Superman not appearing in costume on any of the covers of his books? I'm sure there's a Very Good Reason that we'll have to read all the One Year Later books to find out. I'm curious, but nowhere near that curious.
I'm really curious how Chuchill and Rucka will go together on the new SUPERGIRL book. No, I'm not interested in reading it all, but curious how the nipples through the t-shirt on anorexia victim artist and heavily character-driven (particularly with women) writer will get along. Doesn't seem like a match made in heaven, really.
Hey look, an affordable paperback for a premiere Superman storyline with Jim Lee art that came out over a year ago. You'd think that DC doesn't want to sell cheap paperbacks...
And the Simone/Byrne ACTION run gets its trade collection finally. I realize that this is largely a heretical opinion, but I liked Byrne's MAN OF STEEL revamp. Sure, there were missteps and decisions that I didn't agree with (or particularly care about at the time), but his portrayal of Superman was one of the best of modern times. It was nice to see him on the title again with intelligent and sparkling writing behind it. That said, I have the floppies and know where to read 'em again, but the trade is worth looking into for folks who want a fun Superman book (even when it was being boxed into a larger ongoing crossover).
Hey look! INFINITE CRISIS comes to an end! And bad things happen to Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman! Oh noes!
Hmm. VILLAINS UNITED gets a one shot. Liked the series, but did I like it *that* much?
CHECKMATE gets the longest solicit blurb of any book, and I'm still not interested. The human toll on the valiant agents of Checkmate just doesn't compel. GOTHAM CENTRAL made that into its meat and bread, but I'm not feeling it with this offering.
We'll see how HAWKGIRL pans out. On paper, it sounds like it can't lose. Hopefully they'll keep the team of Simonson/Chaykin together long enough to get some real momentum behind the book.
HARD TIME will be on my pull list as always. The second issue of this run stepped up things nicely after a first issue that was largely flashbacks and getting new readers up to speed.
A HAUNTED TANK showcase volume? Yeep.
JONAH HEX #6 - Nuns with guns! I think I'm signed up just on the basis of this tagline.
SOLO #10 - Damion Scott? Should I know that name? Can't see picking this up.
SEVEN SOLDIERS #1. Yes.
SGT. ROCK: THE PROPHECY. Yes, please.
THUNDERBOLT JAXON from Wildstorm. What the heck is this? Have I missed talk of fantastic heroes facing off against Elder Gods? Was I asleep?
AMERICAN VIRGIN #2. We'll see how #1 goes down. Becky Cloonan is hard to beat.
DMZ #6 depends on how the second story arc plays out. #3 was solid, but I suppose I could get hit by a cosmic ray and decide that I need to save that three bucks a month and go trades instead or something.
EXTERMINATORS #4 is kinda in the same boat. I like Tony Moore's art a great deal, and the dialogue is authentic enough, but the last couple pages of #1 give me pause.
LOVELESS gets one of the fastest trade collections I've ever seen from DC (only the Infinite Crisis leadins were faster.) I guess they're looking for a big response in the bookstore market. It might be a smart move. The single issues are just not moving the story along fast enough, engaging as it is. Besides, this is a book that could have much broader appeal, with the right format. Most people don't want just a chapter at a time. They really don't.
New SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE collection makes me happy.
New SWAMP THING makes me happy, too.
TESTAMENT is in the same boat as the other new Vertigo books. Good, but I'm not getting blown away like I'd like to be. Perhaps my standards are too high. I'll finish out the story arc and see how it comes together, though. I reserve the right to be pleasantly surprised.
A good couple of Heck Yeah's! in there, so that's nice. Better than a usual month, it seems...
January 13, 2006
Conversions are our specialty
Ken asks how we might magically change non-comics readers into comics readers in one fell swoop. Okay, he didn't really ask that, but he talked about some books that he's had some success with.
Some of the titles he comes up with:
Transmetropolitan
The Authority (first two vols)
The Filth
Y: The Last Man
Sin City
Sleeper
Fables
Human Target
100 Bullets
I'll add some potentials to that list, but let's take a look at why those might be good candiates to warm people up to the Grand Comics Experience.
You'll notice that there's only two superhero titles on the list. And really, they about as far from traditional superheroes as you can get without a prescription. This is worth noting, but I don't think it automatically disqualifies superhero books. I think, however that the less continuity you have to know to enjoy the book, the more likely you'll be able to pass it to a new reader and not lose them entirely.
I know. Duh.
How about genre content, then? I touched on it above, or rather a distinct lack of a particular set of tropes. The works that aren't superhero books are firmly set in the crime/suspense genre, with some science fiction as well as some fantasy. Though the above are not traditional representatives of these genres, for sure. There's no spaceships and rayguns and evil empires or wizards in pointy hats. To some degree, these works defy expectations of the genres that they work in. Not entirely, mind you, but enough to make them stand out.
Another observation. They're all self-contained stories. Granted, some of them are still ongoing affairs, but we can assume that there are endings for books like 100 Bullets, Fables and Y. These things have (or will have) a beginning, a middle (or a lot of it) and an end. It won't be an interminable soap opera of indeterminate length or just a string of standalone stories that are linked only by common characters, not pointing to a greater whole.
This is important, doncha think? The above are whole stories (or on their way to being told). I think that matters far more than their genre content or art style or anything else (not that all of the above aren't outstanding artwise; I'm arguing nothing of the sort.) There has to be more than a simple resolution of plot to get people drawn in. And the above books provide that. This is why they succeed to turn on readers (in the small test group, at least.)
I'll note one more thing. I doubt Ken gave any of the above to readers as anything other than a trade collection. I could be wrong, but I bet I'm not. You're never going to hook a wide swath of new readers on 22 pages at a time. Maybe if the books magically appeared in their mailbox or something, or if they were so powerfully sucked into the worlds contained within, then maybe you'd see people heading down to the comics emporium every Wednesday. But as it stands, the episodic nature of montly comics is a hinderance to everyone but regular comics readers.
Ultimately, I don't think genre matters so long as you get a complete story, and all the information needed to enjoy it as it's presented. I'm not saying that you couldn't hook a non-comics reader with a superhero story, I can think of a couple that could work well. Batman: Year One for instance. Dark Knight Returns not so much so. A lot of its punch depended on it being the first of its kind for superhero books.
So, let me offer up a couple of possibilities that could work towards a universal harmony of comics readership. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. It's untested in the field, and I take no responsibility for careless application of these hypotheses.
Hellboy - some superhero tropes, but no extensive backstory to digest. Character progression is slow and not immediately rewarding on the surface.
Grendel: Devil's Legacy - I'm trying to remember how many of the Grendel stories worked on their own. I know they all interlock into a larger opus, but some chunks, such as this one, work quite well solo.
Sandman - The perennial favorite. Sounds good in theory. Not sure how it works out in practice, but DC keeps printing them, so there must be something to it.
V for Vendetta - A natural, as the movie is coming along shortly. Again, though, self-contained, limited reliance on other tropes and a darn good story to boot.
Kill Your Boyfriend - though I've not read it personally, it always comes up in conversations such as this. Any commenters wish to speak up on behalf of this one?
Elektra: Assassin - Hell, if Ken can convert folks with The Filth, then this gentle primer should work like a charm. You could not know a thing about her career in Daredevil and get along just fine, if you can wrap your head around the art.
We3 - Certainly belongs on this list as not only a good story but a wonderful example of the power of the comics form.
AiT - There's a host of AiT material that I'm not going to break down completely by title which should do this job well. Only a few things in their catalog stand out as tougher sells to newbies. Self-contained stories are where it's at.
Age of Bronze - Bet you could rope in a bunch of non-readers with this. Though I'll caution that it's all an epic work which won't be completed for years. That said, the first two volumes stand alone fairly well (okay, you really need the first one to read the second).
The Interman - a personal favorite of mine. Action and thrills and exotic locales and a fun little story.
100% - A little risky. Paul Pope's art isn't for everyone, but this is certainly his strongest story. Science fiction romance drama and a unique visual style.
Frank - Okay, just seeing if you're awake here. Though I suspect that this would hook a couple as well, but I'm not sure what else you'd throw their way after finishing this oneric masterpiece.
Hmm. The more I think of this, the more I think it's turning into another Lieber's Eleven (where he asked folks for recommendations of 11 books that you'd offer to libraries.) Damn, everything really has been done before...
January 12, 2006
Aqua Leung!
Image Comics :: View topic - Aqua Leung Is Coming!
Aqua Leung is an upcoming project from Mark Andrew Smith, of AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS fame. He's posted some preview images and script pages up at the AJB forum on the Image boards. Do go check them out. They look great in B/W. Should be interesting to see how this develops.
Fully Bled
The moment that you've all been waiting for, I'm sure. The Full Bleed archives are now back, hosted on this here blog. I'm only going to post this page once (though I'll keep a link to it on my sidebar) so that you can spin all those golden oldies one more time and laugh at how little my tastes have changed in the intervening time.
Now if only I could find a way to convince Graeme to do the same thing...
San Diego Con report, 2003
Fill in on Grim Tidings
Full Bleed Intro
Ed Brubaker Interview
League of Exraordinary Gentlemen (Absolute edition) review
Clear Cut - Marvel's Dilemma
Interview with Epic's Teresa Focarile
The Transmigration of Flex Mentallo
Spirit of '86
Joe Quesada interview dissection
Why I Love Marvel Comics
Dollar Discoveries - Night Force
Goon Love
All Killer, No Filler
Ssh. Strangeways announced
That ain't no Catwoman I know
Marvel Cover Follies
Interview with retailer Robert Scott of Comickaze
Ultimate Marvel - the post-Jemas-era begins
Home Cooking
Epic aftermath
Why I hate monthlies
A Small Confession
Random reviews
2003 in Review
2004 Resolutions
The problem of words in comics
Jimmy Olsen Adventures review
Surviving NuNu Marvel - Quesada/Buckley interview dissection
Quesada/Buckley interview disssection continues
Continuity: A Mug's Game
New Frontier 1&2 reviewed
Elektra: Assassin reviewed
The Last Marvel Comic I'll Ever Buy (I'm Lying)
Wizard World LA 2004 travelogue
Thwack! Cancellations and you
Walking Dead reviewed
Wondercon 2004 travelogue
The Interman and Age of Bronze reviewed
26 potentially rhetorical questions Some mechanics of writing comics
On the possibility of a Gran Morrison Superman book
Why I have a column and you don't
Why most comics covers suck
Gyo/Uzumaki and vol. 1 of Nausicaa Reviewed
More random reviews
The Good Old Days and why they weren't
San Diego Comic Con Survival Tips
SDCC 2004 travelogue
Oh Seaguy, My Seaguy!
Slouching towards a canon
Captain America: Madbomb reviewed
Coevolution I
Coevolution II
January 11, 2006
Further Chronometric Adventures!
The magic of time travel brings you the resurrected Full Bleed, my column for Broken Frontier that ran from 2003-2004. It ended right about the time I started up Highway 62 over at Blogspot, so things dovetail together nicely. Some sorta interesting stuff, a lot of dated stuff, and a lot where you just swap out the names and it all works just fine today. Search for the tag "Full Bleed" on this here blog to see any of the old ones. I may index it and hardlink that sometime, too, but it's enough to just get these old things back on the net for now.
When Chips Attack
Chip Zdarsky gets himself a huge audience (1.6 million plus whoever reads it on the net) for his magical realist (okay, it just sounds good) ComicsTrip. It's an engaging read, and best of all, it's a comic that only really works as a comic. Couldn't be film. Couldn't be a novel. Has to be a comic. Simple on the surface, but there's a lot going on in there in terms of manipulating the various styles of visual language in comic strips. I'm looking forward to more of this.
Time Travel
You may or may not have noticed, but suddenly, blog posts on this here blog are now starting before the new site was officially launched. Thanks to the magic of chronal reversal through careful manipulations of the Tachyon Stream that makes up the flow of time itself, I can change past events and publish articles in the distant path! It's really amazing.
So, a handful of the better posts from the old blogspot blog are now available for your perusal, if you want to fire up the old wayback machine. Some are funny in retrospect. Others much less so.
Melrose speaks!
The Great Curve: At Sixes & Sevens: 6 great comic-book robots
Kevin Melrose returns (sorta) to high-profile weblogging, over that The Great Curve. It's not his usual thing, though. A little more fun, a little lighter. Go give it a read.
More like falling
Ian asks, in the above link, a question of all the lapsed comics readers who came back to the fold. "What brought you back?"
Well, that's easy in my case. Grant Morrison. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'd read comics pretty steadily for about 14 years, from 1980 to about 1994. And really, it was a good time to be getting into comics. You had a selection of cheap back issues from prime 70s Marvel insanity, books like X-MEN and DAREDEVIL were firing on all cylinders, there was a steady stream of smaller publishers offering interesting alternatives to the market. And oh yeah, this guy named Alan Moore started making waves over in the US by about 1985, with everything that followed (both good and bad.) By the end of the eighties, there was crazy batshit experimentalism in the mainstream (Bill Sienkiewicz on ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN, Miller's page layouts on DKR, oldschool formalism so crystalline and perfect it became radical with WATCHMEN, Bissete, Veitch and Totleben rewriting the rules of grid layouts in SWAMP THING, Kent Williams and John Muth and Dave McKean all hitting hard by the end of the decade.)
So yeah, a great time to be reading comics. Until about 1994 or so, when I just sorta gave up. I continued on reading SANDMAN, which I'd been reading since the first issue and occasionally picked up the odd interesting book at SDCC, like Paul Pope's THB, for instance. By that time, I was busy teaching myself guitar, meddling in online music fandom, still writing novels and finally taking up a career in animation, which pretty much destroyed any free time I had. Comics fell by the wayside, and I hadn't found too much by 1999 other than HELLBOY to generate enough interest on my part to take time out and drag myself to a comic store.
In 2000, I found myself back at SDCC and I remember wandering the aisles, more out of habit than anything else, and then I stopped at the RED STAR's booth, intrigued by their Soviet-inspired designs and fusion of 3D and 2D artwork. I was unemployed at the time and looking for work in my field (though not extensively, as I had a baby on the way and knew that my time would not be my own in short order.) I talked with the crew about possible openings for modellers and Goss seemed interested in my 3D portfolio, but it never extended past that. I picked up the collections of THE RED STAR anyways and enjoyed them a great deal. About that time, I grabbed the collection of FROM HELL as well. I remembered reading the first couple chapters as they had come out and wanted to know how things turned out.
Over the following year or so, I picked up a few odd collections of old stuff and single issues here and there, but wasn't a regular at a comic store. There was still an awful lot of dreck on the shelves that just screamed "run away!" at me.
I'd also started writing again at the time, but sort of aimlessly, having accepted the fact that getting back into animation wasn't going to be possible with me wanting to raise my own children at the same time. Not gonna happen. Not enough hours in the day.
And then in 2002 or so, I was stopped in my tracks at the local comic store by a comic cover that seemed as if it had precisely zero business being on the shelf of a comic store. That was THE FILTH #1. Its sterile, industrial design was so unornamented and bold that it demanded attention. Of course, I wasn't expecting what lay in wait on those pages.
The clerk there said "Yeah, that guy's writing NEW X-MEN now."
This guy is writing X-MEN, I thought to myself? I gotta read this. I hadn't put together that he'd also written ARKHAM ASYLUM (which I'd read for the art) and the odd issues of DOOM PATROL that I'd read (and mostly forgotten.)
So I picked up his first NEW X-MEN collection as well. And well was my mind truly blown. I'd given up on the X-Men ages ago, and had only read them as long as I had out of inertia. They'd become caricatures (and maybe they always were, but at least they were compelling caricatures for a time) of themselves and had nothing for me.
Then I jumped back in with both feet, snapping up new stuff like SLEEPER and older collections of THE NEW GODS and LUTHER ARKWRIGHT and some of the ESSENTIALS volumes (that first Dr. Strange and the Howard the Duck volumes are outstanding and you're missing out if you haven't grabbed 'em.) DC was coming out of a longish slumber (HUSH was just coming out, and while it's not a good story, it marks a turning point for them) and Marvel was throwing things at the wall to see what would stick.
Then I got back into online fandom, having skipped out on USEnet discussion of comics since about 1994. It was refreshing to talk intellgently about comics instead of just ducking my head and paying the clerk at the comic store while the regulars talked about...well the stuff they liked to talk about.
From there it was a hop, skip and a jump (thanks to Graeme) to writing a regular column about comics at Broken Frontier. Yeah, I became a fan again by becoming a critic, to some degree. But then that was a step along the way to becoming a creator. Though the two things are utterly different, and just because you're good at one doesn't mean you'll be good at the other. Of course, I was a lousy critic...
More than you wanted to know, I'm sure.
January 09, 2006
The greatest arcade in the world
Forgotten Worlds = HARDCORE.
But here I am, with a program that will perfectly emulate all of those old 8-bit and smaller microprocessors working their little silicon guts out, moving sprites around on the screen. It's like the ghost of every arcade game I've ever played.
Like a ghost, however, it's not quite the real thing. There's no feel in the keyboard, like there was in the old joysticks (particularly the old 4-way sticks, back when you couldn't even move your characters diagonally and were limited to the four cardinal directions). The flicker of the CRTs isn't there, nor is the ionized smell and the click of quarters is nowhere to be heard. It used to be that you could put your muscle behind your moves and the whole cabinet would rock as you worked the zone.
Gone.
But I've got all these cool old ghosts I can summon up when the mood strikes me. Need a ten-minute diversion? Set the wayback machine to 1987 and play a level or two of BAD DUDES. Feeling oldschool? Then SPACE INVADERS is the tonic for what ails ya.
Arcades, however, are a thing of the past. Sure, there's still some left, but it ain't the same, is it? Used to be that arcades were as plentiful as, oh say, Jamba Juice franchises. There wasn't a self-respecting mall (whether enclosed or a strip-mall) that didn't have one. Of course, that was back in the days when a home computer couldn't do much more than play some kind of Pong variant. Maybe you were lucky and had an Atari (I was an Intellivision kid myself), but if you looked at the arcade version of anything as compared to the Atari version, well, there wasn't any comparison. Real gamers lived in the arcades.
Or worked in them, as I did for a summer. Never got sick of the place, either. Sadly, it wasn't about all the games I could play. I mean, I actually had to vacuum and hand out change and retrieve stuck quarters and shoo hooligans out of the place. Never ceased to amaze me, though, how many quarters I'd fish out of coin chutes in machines that were plainly marked OUT OF ORDER. I considered them tips. It's not like they were marked with the names of whoever had dropped 'em in.
But man, otherwise, that was a lousy job.
In my time as a true arcade maven, I'd been to a hundred different kinds of game joints. Everything from the three machines in the corner of the 7-11 to the kinda sad little arcades in pizza restaurants, to Starcade at Disneyworld which was awesome yet sterile and devoid of any real character, to the franchise operations run by slick operators, to the comforting neighborhood game parlor.
None of them, I repeat none of them, came close to the glory and splendor that was The Arcade Metál.
Not that it was really called that. I don't remember it being called much of anything, actually. And for the longest time, my friends and I called it the Metal Arcade, 'cause this was the late '80s and Metal was in the air. Granted, it wasn't actually Metal, more like hair farmer rock. Def Leppard (no, HYSTERIA was not a Metal album), Poison, Billy Idol, Whitesnake, Crüe. That sort of thing.
See, the Arcade Metál had a few things that really set it apart. One of them was that it had a jukebox that was cheap (3 tracks for a quarter). Yeah, a lot of it was pretty terrible, but you got lucky once in a while. It also had, the only operating example of a video jukebox I'd seen. Though those were expensive and it hardly got fired up unless the guys behind the counter were bored.
The other thing that made this place stick out was the snack bar. Maybe this was a west coast thing, but most arcades and drinks mixed like water and peanut butter. IE, they didn't. Drinks stayed out so as to keep the high-fructose and circuit board combinations to a minimum. In fact, I can't recall a decent arcade that allowed drinks anywhere near the front door. Sure, in pizza places, you had all kinds of videogame/comestible combinations and it never worked out well. Buttons stick, controls become jammed or too slippery to work. You get the picture.
Yet here was a place that treated its (primarily) adult patrons like adults and let 'em guzzle carbonated libations like they were going out of style, all within arm's reach of the array of videogames, all while taking in "Cherry Pie" for the hundred thousandth time. Okay, sure, the music could have stood for some improvement, but when your focus is narrowed down to blazing a trail past the King of Gods or mowing down purple-skinned zombies with automatic weapons, well, that just didn't matter all that much. Only when the spell was broken, when your final death had been suffered, when you were left slick and faintly shaky from concentration, only then did you realize that you always hated that goddamn song.
My housemates and I spent hours there at a time instead of doing useful things like, oh, studying or dishes or any of that boring life maintenance stuff. I mean, this was gaming. And you could only get it in one place. This was the place where you tested your brains and your reflexes, your wrists and eyes. Nothing else came close. It wasn't like you could fire up an X-Box and have something this vivid in your living room. This was the Source. Right there.
All at the Arcade Metál. Down there on the corner of MacArthur and Beach Boulevard. They're open 'til midnight and we had nothing more important to do.
Strangeways News
I've pulled Strangeways from production and have worked out a release from my contract with Speakeasy. That means I currently don't have a publisher. I don't expect this situation to remain such for too particularly long, but as always I'll post news here first.
My gratitude to Adam Fortier for understanding where I was coming from in having to make this tough choice. The primary motivation was nothing more than making what I thought was the best choice for the project in light of continued troubles on the part of the publisher.
I wish them only the best of luck in navigating this rough patch. They put out one of my favorite books currently (that being Elk's Run, which everyone should read, but nobody is), as well as the next couple issues of Rocketo, which I'm a great fan of.
As for everyone who's reviewed the book, I can only say that I'm sorry I felt this step necessary. Your work and support of the book are particularly appreciated, and I can only hope that goodwill continues on and supports the next incarnation of Strangeways. I will try my best to work out something for the retailers who stuck their necks and dollars out and ordered the book essentially blind. Again, I can only hope that they'll order it once again when it's resolicited.
I've got mixed feelings about this. Frankly, I was hoping that this wouldn't have to happen, but what's done now is done. Time to move forward.
Updates will be posted here as events warrant. Take care, all.
January 08, 2006
And now for something completely different
I give you: The Best UFO Pictures Ever Taken. I used to be quite the UFO buff when I was a kid (it was all over the place in the '70s before STAR WARS mania swept the nation. Most of these, I recognize instantly, many as fakes, some as lenticular clouds, others as reflected light. Mostly they make me feel nostalgic for UFOlogy before it got mainstreamed by X-FILES and the like.
January 06, 2006
Amazing Joy Puffed?
I can't link direct to the story, but you gotta check this out. Dave Crossland (of PUFFED infamy) draws the Amazing Joy Buzzards crew for issue #4 (I think.)
Hope they don't mind me being a bandwidth hog and linking direct to it. Sadly, you can't do directly to the item on the Image blog, seems to be borked somehow. But just click the above link and scroll down to the entry for 12/28. Looks like a lot of fun.
So does ONE MAN GANG, artwise, anyways. No idea how the story will hold up.
Gunned Down
Ah, so Gunned Down by Terra Major is finally getting picked up by Diamond. According to Fabio (sorry, can't get the accent up) and Gabriel's blog, it's on page 316 of this month's catalog.
If you haven't gotten it yet (I got mine direct from the publisher at SDCC this year), and you're a fan of Western comics at all, then you owe it to yourself to check out the book. There's a lot of beautiful art, great stories and a chance to see some artists who are destined to be big draws. Check out the link above to grok the artwork. You won't regret it.
Further Sony Reader details
A little further digging reveals the following: More technical details on the Sony Reader.
Basically, the important thing is that the screen is 800x600 SVGA, though monochrome only. I doubt it handles animation at all at this point, or if so, certainly not enough to support your average game experience (maybe chess or something that doesn't require smooth animation). The resolution will be better than a computer screen, unless you've got a BIG screen and can step back from it to read. Though you should be able to read the Sony Reader from any angle (but you will need ambient light for it.)
The resolution isn't has high as I'd hoped, but that also keeps the page sizes managable.
I really want to see one of these things in action. And then I want to find the developer's kit.
And why the heck aren't more people talking about this? I'm not saying that this is the iPod, but it sure beats the hell out of reading comics on the iPod. Or the PSP.
January 05, 2006
Now, perhaps, we may be talking
MILE HIGH COMICS presents THE BEAT at COMICON.com: The Sony Reader - manga friendly
LInked from The Beat, obviously. And here we may indeed have a big step forward. I was able to get the main page for the Reader to load up, and I'm using Safari. Maybe Sony's site just doesn't like Firefox, I dunno.
I'm guessing this is the first generation of devices to use the new electronic paper technology developed by Siemens, which was talked up at ABE last year. It's strictly monochrome (ie black or white), but looks like it can deal with grayscales pretty well.
It makes no mention of the active resolution. That may or may not prove to be a big deal. Typical comics are printed at 300 lines per inch, higher for black and white art. You can read text at 72 lpi (screen resolution), but it's sure not pretty. I'm guessing this tech is in the neighborhood of 200 or more. I can't remember off the top of my head what sorts of resolution the e-paper tech was generating.
Anyways, it looks ideal for printing up, say, manga, though you won't be getting any double-page spreads in your reading experience. It certainly seems like a far better platform for reading than the PSP. The fact that it's not a backlit LCD screen means a lot in terms of battery life. Though I was interested to see that the device isn't capable of real animation as it renders each page "statically". Perhaps it is capable of animation, but not super-smooth 24 frames per second and up like we're all used to.
Maybe this will TOTALLY KILL animated comics (which to my mind combine the worst features of cheap animation and comics--or at least the ones I've seen lately do, and I've been watching this stuff since they did Video Comics back on Nickelodeon in the mid-80s.)
Am I interested in this? You bet your bippy I am. What sorts of twisted electronic distribution routes will spring up? Will there be syndicates that companies ally themselves with? Will artists embrace the technology and design for it, instead of sticking to comics formatted pages and trying to shoehorn things in?
And yes, you can listen to your MP3s on it at the same time (though since I'm an iPod guy, my .AAC files are hosed unless someone writes a plugin for it.)
Looks like Tokyopop is wasting no time making books available for it. Wonder how they're translating their files to the Reader's format? Is it just a plugin in their page layout application or what?
Oh yes, very interesting indeed.
EDIT to add that Marc-Oliver of POPPD has some additional analysis.
January 04, 2006
An Imperfect Prescription
See, I never called them "mixtapes." We started out calling them "random tapes", my friends and I, all based on the tape that started it all on a roadtrip to Rice, California in 1986. That tape was called (uninterestingly) "Random I & II," and featured all manner of gems served up without embellishment to be blasted full power from the dashboard of a friend's '73 Pontiac Grand Prix as we ripped up the asphalt on Highway 62 with great abandon, burning in the daylight sun, killing time so we could see Halley's comet spraying against the desert night.
Then it got to be something of a habit, making tapes, filling 90 minutes with at first music, and then music and bits of sound, radio static, children's records, television (tricky in the days before RCA plugs were grafted onto every audiovisual appliance) and whatever the hell else we could find. Mind you, this was also in the days before digital recording (an innovation that only came in about five years after we started doing this), before dual turntables became more common than dirt, back when all you had to do transitions were volume sliders, possibly the bank switcher on your tuner (if you had one) and the pause button. It was a live art, recorded, at its best. Oftentimes the mistakes were more interesting than the intent (but not always; a bad transition or a cut a second too soon or too late would haunt you forever).
Of course, nobody listens to cassettes much anymore, right? Sure, there were the countless hours screaming over sunbleached asphalt and vistas wide and alien and sparkling as anything you'd seen. Sure, there were hours of subdued cruising when all you could see were the stars and the glow of the dash lights on the Coke cans and half-emptied bags of Fritos; when the world outside was shrunk down to what the headlights washed over. And those hours were lasting forever, the freedom of motion was eternal and liberation.
And then they weren't anymore. Real life intrudes, priorities change, children are born, drift sets in.
But you still have those moments, don't you? They're still there, locked away on those millions of metal particles spooled on mylar thread like the Norns once wove, that chunk of life is still in there. This one in particular is from January, 1994, entitled An Imperfect Prescription, and my undying admiration to the first commenter who gets the reference. Given the bands that show up in the list below, it should be pretty easy.
Side 1 - Pale Sun (remember, only 45 minutes to a side. No cheating!)
Tell Me When It's Over / The Dream Syndicate
Angels in the Trees / Murray Attaway
Noel, Jonah and Me / The Spinanes
Weed King / Guided by Voices
Cirrus Minor / The Pink Floyd
Year of the Tiger / Look Blue, Go Purple
Waving / The Bevis Frond
Long Way Down / Michael Penn
Crescent Sun / The Cowboy Junkies
Call the Doctor / Spacemen 3
When Tomorrow Hits / Mudhoney
Side 2 - Blow, Wind Blow
Blow, Wind Blow / Tom Waits
Cross Road Blues / Robert Johnson
Top of the Hill / Gutterball
Catapult / REM
Another Day / Galaxie 500
Certain Gift / The Walkabouts
Can't Find My Way Home / Swans
Troubled Times / Screaming Trees
Dark Field / Nick Saloman
Six to Go / The Pogues
May the Circle Be Unbroken / Spacemen 3
Now fire up those peer to peer clients and get 'a burnin!
I tell ya, you kids and your technology. You have no idea how easy you've got it.
Another Review
This one from Jeremy Donelson (aka The Pickytarian) over at Buzzscope. I can't argue with his critique of certain elements, and I'd rather hear the straight dope from someone who reads the book.
Just wish all this advance press was actually supporting a book that was coming out in the next week or so. Rumor has it that mid-February may be when it comes out, but I didn't say that it would. Don't bet the family farm on it...
Avast!
The Daily News, Jacksonville NC: Artifacts could be key to Blackbeard mystery
Big lead on a possible location for Queen Anne's Revenge, that being the ship of one Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard the Pirate. It may or may not have sunk off the coast of the Carolinas, and if they find the thing, I'm on a plane once the graverobbers have finished...er, once the meticulous restoration has been completed and the exhibit is ready.
Why don't you *listen*?
The above is not a permalink. I know, I often link over to Steven Grant's Permanent Damage, but it's generally for a good reason. This is the case today. As the current zeitgeist in the comics air seems to smell markedly of "Holy Crap!"-ness, and people are getting twisted knickers about mainstreaming comics (see today's BEAT for that one, true believers), folks are giving serious thought to exactly where we're sitting.
I mean, take a look at what Brian Hibbs has to say about 2006. Scroll down a bit. It's not cheery. But it shouldn't be cheery. We're working (well, I'm *trying* to, anyways) in an industry that's largely beholden to a single distributor who's primarily interested in servicing its two biggest clients, who usually work with a single printer and said printer has minimum print runs that have to be met, and oh yes, we're selling our wares in a single market that's tough for some people to get to. Maybe you see where I'm going with this. The eggs are in one basket, and we're walking around in early January, when the ground is at its most slippery.
Anyways, Steven has some firm admonitions that folks might want to pay attention to. This series is my current favorite:
Most independent publishers, excluding self-publishers, break down into two groups: those that want to be Marvel or DC, and those that don't want to be Marvel or DC. The former group are the ones who've bought into the myth that market presence=market success, and the way to achieve market presence is to put out a lot of different comics. The latter group are the ones who base their publishing decisions on what Marvel or DC wouldn't do. Virtually no independent publisher projects a viable independent self-image, nor do many demonstrate a coherent game plan with their publishing. Market presence doesn't mean pumping out a lot of books, especially when most of those books are half-assed, derivative or empty. It means projecting an identity that suggests dependability to customers. The right kind of dependability.
I know, because I'm following the business pretty regularly, the sorts of things that Image stands for (most of the time--they still sometimes chuck a curveball my way), but it's difficult for me to actually articulate it. I've a far better idea of what AiT/Planet Lar does: "HBO on paper," comes to mind, and I think that's a quote. What about a company like Claypool? What about Speakeasy? Oni? Even Dark Horse to a degree suffers from this.
I defy you to wave an IDW and a Dark Horse book at a non-comics reader (or even their entire lines) and have them spot a difference (other than the cover price.) Both depend on licensed titles as their backbones to keep a steady stream of cash supporting their other, more diverse works. And I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Quite the opposite: it's eminently sensible, assuming it's actually working.
But aside from the logos and the price points, what's the difference? What does one do that the other doesn't?
Yes, as comics readers, we know that "Image isn't the Big Two" and that's their primary difference to readers. To creators, the differences run *a lot* deeper, that being the difference between owning what you work on and just cashing a steady check. But to the casual comics reader, exactly what's the difference? I mean, other than the colors of spandex being displayed, what's the difference between Marvel and DC? Most folks wouldn't know. Or care.
Anyways, give the column a read. Yes, a lot of the ground has been covered before, but sometimes you have to walk on the bridge a couple of times before you realize exactly how rickety it is, and how much those pilings need to be shored up. Or that you need another bridge.
I am Post-Punk!
You're a Post-Punk. You know 70s punk was cool, but
it was mostly just a stepping stone for the
greater intellectualism of what would come
after. The 80s were amazing. You quite possibly
have huge hair, and may wear lots of black.
Snare drums need reverb. Lots and lots of
reverb.
You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
brought to you by Quizilla
I...guess... None of these things are ever right. I suppose that's the point, eh?
But I don't have big hair. I only wear black when I'm not wearing shorts (which is an awful damn lot of the time). As for the greater intellectualism that followed 70's punk, uh, well, that's a little shortsighted, doncha think? If the music doesn't move you, then it's failed in its mission, smartness or not. But then that applies to nearly all aesthetic enterprises. Intellectualism is only going to take you so far (and misses a great deal of the equation.
That said, snare drums always need reverb. Everything needs more reverb.
January 03, 2006
The trouble is
When you make a clean spot, you have to keep going until the whole damn thing's done.
I'm not there yet, but I've had enough fun for one day.
But I could always have a little more fun. Like, perhaps, by reading FANTASTIC FOUR/IRON MAN: BIG IN JAPAN #3 again. That was a real blast of fun. Hyperdimensional terror has never been so entertaining. Simple linework has never been so disturbing (okay, Jim Woodring does this sort of thing very well, too). Not in recent memory has a Marvel comic been so headscratch inducing as in "How the hell did this thing get past the editors without them having an aneurysm?" It's a totally beguiling comic, yet true to the essential nature of the characters within. The presentation is just totally bonkers. Issue one was sedate enough, with just a few hints of what's to come. Number two began to move it into gear, but this issue just pushed the whole works off a cliff while on fire and the driver's singing Syd Barret lyrics at the top of his lungs.
It put a huge smile on my face. Can't wait for this to wrap up, if the last part is anywhere near as good as the first one.
As for my pigsty of an office, you never know what sort of things you're going to turn up when you actually straighten up. Like for instance, an autographed copy of You Back the Attack, We'll Bomb Who We Want by Micah Wright. Yes, that Micah Wright. Or perhaps a copy of Voyages, volume 1, featuring artwo