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Open Source Heroes – Part III

Part I briefly lays out the premise that the world of comic books could use another superhero comic book universe. In Part II I explain to Bob and Jerry Comicreator why the two most likely paths to creating a universe from whole clothe wouldn’t likely work for them, setting the stage for Part III…

Bob, Jerry, I know you’re asking what this mysterious Third Way is. Or maybe after reading the title of this little series you’ve sort of figured it out. The idea is simply to create a new superhero universe using well-established Open Source methodology.

The Open Source culture finds its roots in the software industry, not unlike myself. A lot of people get credit for helping the movement reach its current lofty status, but for my money the guy you have to give the lifetime achievement award to is Linus Torvalds, the driving force behind the Linux operating system, arguably the most prominent and successful Open Source project to date. 

Don’t nod off here boys, I promise not to lapse into a droning discourse on the relative merits of various operating systems. Just know that in the mid ‘90’s as Linux was picking up steam very few people on the corporate side of the OS aisle gave it much heed and certainly no chance for ever finding foothold with paying customers. The damn thing was written by a bunch of hobbyists, who in their right mind was going to trust mission critical applications to that? Lo and behold, by 1999 Linux had scooted past Novell to become number two in server OS share behind this little mom and pop operation out of Redmond, Washington. While it hasn’t necessarily gone on to world domination (don't tell them that), it’s still in wide use across companies of all shapes and sizes. And it’s still largely free. Unless you need competent help maintaining it, but that’s another story.

How might this translate to the world of comic books? First, let’s define the goal: You want to create a whole new universe of superheroes; superheroes that interact, form teams, share a common world history and most importantly, tell fun and interesting stories. You want this universe to take on a life of its own where other creators can easily step in and add to the lore. You want to be able to take advantage of all the familiar archetypes but check the baggage on a one-way flight to Latveria. And you’d preferably like to do all this without putting your lawyer’s kids through college. You don’t even want to know if your lawyer has kids. Truly, you don’t really want to know a lawyer period.

Now the two of you could probably create this universe all by yourselves between shifts at Costco, but then it would be the Bob and Jerry Show, with your limited influences and biases smelling up the joint. And that’s probably okay to start but if you want this thing to take off you’ll need more people involved and quickly. Now here comes the tricky part, this new universe needs to be foundationally strong, yet flexible, it needs to be tightly coupled, but loosely bound. It needs to be attractive to creators of all influence yet structured in a way that stories emanating from it are recognizable as such. A tall order, to be sure, too tall to adequately elaborate on here.

Okay, that’s the 10,000 foot view. That’s the pie-in-the-sky discussion you have after plowing another $40 into Marvel and DC’s respective continuity bandwagons. Sure that stuff is okay, but wouldn’t it be cool if… For a moment, let’s come back down to Earth, let’s sort out some particulars. I’m not much of a details guy, but let’s see what we can do with this. First, you need to decide how you’re going to “publish”. Remember, we’re talking about a universe of titles here not a four issue Gadgetguy miniseries so let’s be honest, floppies are pretty much out of the question at this stage. I shouldn’t have to explain the slippery slope of direct market distribution and marketing but if you need a primer head over to this archive of Brian Hibbs’ Tilting at Windmills columns. The short story is that if you were actually able to produce say six or seven monthly comics there is little chance you’d be able to get them in front of the your best initial demographic. You might have better luck with the graphic novel format but those take time to produce. It could take years to cobble together the few books which will big bang your universe. May I suggest the web?

There are certainly sites which could host your webcomics for free or at least on the very cheap, but it might be to your advantage to carve out your own domain and host everything related to your universe in one, focused location. You can simultaneously build universe specific secondary services (advertising, forums, licensed underwear sales) and content (backstories, forums, a universe bible) around the comics themselves while creating a little separation from the plethora of existing webcomics. If you were going to create a single ongoing title I wouldn’t recommend this, but we’re talking a universe here, right? Of course you also divorce yourself from built-in traffic an existing webcomics hosts might provide, but that’s okay because you are going to overcome that with aggressive, tireless self-promotion. (Hey, did I mention I own a software and application hosting company? Under the right circumstances I might even be persuaded to provide some free bandwidth and tools to facilitate this effort.) This will also give you the opportunity to get your print act together as you build your audience.   

Next up you are going to need some talent beyond the two of you. Your best shot at pulling this off is to engender support from a group of like-minded creators. Likely you’re all going to be starting out -- don’t count on Kurt Busiek or Bryan Hitch showing up at the first meeting -- and that’s okay. If you set your web platform up correctly you can draw from widely dispersed talent, maybe even use the site to connect artists and writers. It might take a bit of time, but since nearly everyone who reads comics thinks they’re a writer or an artist, maybe not. If the initial infrastructure is solid, from both a technical and creative standpoint, you’ll probably be surprised at the response. But dig your well first and line up four or five creative teams to get things going. And let’s hope there’s an editor somewhere in the bunch.

One final note on trademarks, copyrights and the like. Open Source doesn’t necessarily mean free. Sure you’d love for other creators to expand on the Gadgetguy mythology, maybe add a clever sidekick, Wrench, or his secret lair, the GadgetGarage, but the fact that you open up Gadgetguy to other creators doesn’t necessarily mean some schmuck can run off and publish Gadgetguy, The Dark Tool, without your permission. To this end I encourage you to become familiar with Creative Commons, particularly the licenses page. Done right, you can have your cake and share it too.   

Now, let me be clear, this is only one possible alternative mechanism for producing an alternative universe, and I haven’t the time or inclination to think about explain all the nitty, gritty details. The basic concept is fairly simple, the execution, not so much. As with any creative effort much depends on your own passion and determination - remember, I’m just the ideas man.   

Thursday is Random Comic Book Blogging Day

I didn't make it to the comic shop until today, so don’t spoil anything for me. Now, allow me to scatter a few thoughts around here. 

Remember when I wrote that the Justice League HAD to have a Flash? No? Okay, well, you’re forgiven, you’ve been busy and that was all the way back in February. A lot of water under the comic bridge since then. But I did write it and low and behold, nothing.

I'm sure this has much to do with DC’s uncertainty as to who exactly the Flash is going to be long-term, but in the interim we got no Scarlet Speedster. That’s just no going to fly. The League has to have somebody -- besides Superman -- who can move at the speed of light. I can’t tell you how critical this is. What to do, what to do…

What if instead of someone moving at the speed of light it was the speed of…well, I’ll let Meltzer tell it:

Lightning. Or Black Lightning in this case. Hmmm…wouldn’t he look great in red? If this really came to pass it would make for some sweet irony considering the bashing I took on several message boards for suggesting in this post that the new Flash might be black. (I don’t really think this will happen, I’m just having some fun. So leaveme alone message boarderers.)

~

Speaking of the Justice League, anyone else read GREEN LANTERN #15 yet? I don’t want to spoil anything, but the last page of that book completely displaces it within the current DC continuity as I comprehend it. My assumption was that what’s taking place in the first issues JLA was the one year later kickoff point. The big three are back and their getting the old band together. But GL, and one little passage from the new JUSTICE SOCIETY book, lead me to think that the current JLA story arc, issues 0 through at least 4, predates the rest of the DCU, meaning current stories are actually one year+. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it. I don’t need my books to maintain perfect geosynchronous orbit around their respective universe, but this just seemed silly and a little impatient. I’m sure it will all wash out in a few months, but what if the JLA is perpetually six months to a year behind the rest of the world? Kind of like Ford Motors?

~

For what it’s worth, I think DAREDEVIL is the best, most tightly written title Marvel’s publishing right now. I dread the moment Brubaker is forced to drag the book into the Civil War fray because it’s taken a toll on CAPTAIN AMERICA.

And did you notice there were no Civil War covers this week from Marvel? We interrupt this event from the Marvel Broadcasting Network to bring you your regularly scheduled comic books.

~

For the comic collector who wants everything I bring you two must have auctions:

148, 963 Comic Books

And

198,660 Comic Books

Auctions close today at roughly 5pm Pacific. No bidders as yet. I was going to snag ‘em but Christmas is coming and this is just the kind of thing the wife would surprise me with.   

42

The scene: All hands meeting in Publisher Dan Buckley’s office at Marvel, some time back. (Author’s note: I realize you could never get all these people in the same room at the same time, but if you could…And while I wouldn’t know Dan Buckley from the man on the moon, in my mind he’s a Perry White sort of figure with suspenders and an ever-present cigar. And not a patriarchal, Frank Langella sort of Perry White. More of a gruff, Jackie Cooper Perry White.)

As everyone sits down Buckley (enraged) hurls copies of the latest Diamond sales report around the room. 

Buckley: Civil War is an editorial mess and 52 is Kicking. Our. Ass. What are we going to do about it? Glares at Quesada. 

Joe Q.: What do you mean? Civil War’s been the number one book every month we’ve published.

Buckley: Yeah? How many did we sell in August? Or October? You know how many issues of 52 were sold in those months? 

(Blank stares around the room.)

Does the number “one million” have a nice ring to it? In August those clowns actually had more books in the top 20 than we did. That hasn’t happened since Christ left Chicago. 

Look, we promised our readers they wouldn’t have to buy every title to follow what’s going on and now every book in the line has a critical plot point. Our readers need an apple and a road map to follow this thing. And in the meantime Spider-Man and FF – our two most iconic titles – have had 8 minutes of plot progression in the last six months. And we’ve got 132 crossover books and every one of them has the same goddamn cover. I don’t know how anyone tells them apart. 

Joe Q.: It’s simple rea…

Buckley: Quesada, if you tell me they’re color-coded one more time…dammit, we’ve got to get our act together on this. Now we’ve got this Black Panther mess. Did anyone actually read the ending of issue 21 before it went to print? Put your hand down Joe.

It’s taken 18 pages and four books to show Sue and Johnny leaving the Baxter building. And Jesus, Negative Zone prisons, cloning Thor and super-villains turned into rent-a-cops? “Whose side are you on?” Which side would anybody be on? We’ve turned this thing from debatable government policy to secret, evil government plot. What’s next, the serpent crown? And does anyone want to tell me how the hell you clone a god anyway? That was rhetorical Warren.

What I really want is for someone to tell me where this is going. I can't believe we're going to wrap this thing up in January. Millar? 

Mark Millar: Well, Civil War is going to change the entire Marvel Universe for the next five or ten... 

Buckley: Jeez, save it for Newsarama. What I mean how are we going to bring all our books into alignment? Guys, look, Civil War is selling great, but we’re losing the focus. You all know I think big event comics are where it’s at. Pump up the mini-series volume! But we can't just let monthlies fall where they may. What are we going to do to bring this thing under control?

Ed Brubaker: Well, Stark’s talking about 50 super teams across the US, right? How about we have a book for each locale? Some of them could be gritty crime dramas – SHIELD: New York could have a bunch of wise-guy heroes, SHIELD: DC could be a geo-political thriller and SHIELD: LA could be anti-terrorist heroes and… 

Buckley: Ed. 

Brubaker: ...you could have one where the government is searching for abducted heroes and some shadowy bad guy is… 

Buckley: (louder) Ed. 

Brubaker: Sorry. 

Dan Slott: Hey, can I have SHIELD: Las Vegas – Dancing with the Heroes? 

Buckley: No. Maybe. You know what I want? An answer to 52. Can any of you losers tell me why those schmucks at DC are getting so much mileage out of series with a bunch of C-list characters chasing 18 impenetrable plot threads? 

Joe Q.: Grant Morrison? 

Buckley: (yelling) I don’t want to hear any of those DC guys mentioned in this meeting again. And, no, it’s not because of Grant. Effing. Morrison. It’s because rain or shine that book is on the shelf every Wednesday (glares at Steve McNiven, who's looking away, whistling) and somehow, DC got 100,000 comic book readers to believe a book that’s 52 issues long is a fucking mini-series! We need a counter punch, so what’s the answer? 

Millar: 42. 

Buckley: (Stares at Millar blankly.) Hardy-har-har. I’ve read Douglas Addams too. Any of you other jokers want to contribute? 

Millar: I’m serious. We’re already setting the table for it. The raft had 42 villains escape from it… 

Brian Bendis: Well…we kind of revised it to 46. 

Millar: So what? Just an error in accounting. We can edit it before it hits the trades. 

Joe Q.: Too late. 

Buckley: [groans] 

Millar: And then there’s the Negative Zone prison, Reed Richard’s project. It’s called 42 as well. 

Buckley: Wonderful. I can hear Levitz now, “Well, those boys over at Marvel just can’t count as high as us." 

Warren Ellis: Actually, the number 42 has a great deal of promise. It’s a meandric number, a Catalan number, it’s bracketed by twin primes, it’s the number of lines on each page of the Gutenberg Bible, the Parthenon originally had 42 columns and 42 figures, the ancient Egyptian’s Book of the Dead had a kind of moral code – the ma’at – which contained 42 Declarations of Purity - some consider these a precursor to the 10 Commandments - and in the Book of Revelation, 42 is the number of months the Beast reigned over the Earth. 

Buckley: (Sits down, puffs on his cigar and stares into space.) You know, Wikipedia Ellis here may be on to something. Mark of the Beast, huh? I like it - it’s got a spiritual, supernatural quality. That's big these days. Let’s run with that. 

Slott: Hey, this is just like my Defenders book! I knew that would work its way into continuity. Busiek owes me five bucks. 

Buckley: (growls at Slott) Here's the plan, for the six months immediately following Civil War I want six books a month - in addition to all our regulars - starring six big-time heroes battling six super villains. This will cover 42 months in Marvel universe time. I want outlines on Joe’s desk by Monday. And everyone start thinking about what comes after that.

Joe Q.: But what about the monthly titles? I thought...

Buckley: Ahhh, call Busiek. Let him figure that mess out.  But after 42. Oh, and Bendis, we are NOT going to have a New, New Avengers where Thor, Iron Man and Cap spend the first twelve issues picking the team from a bunch of pictures. So stop asking.       

Return to Returning…

…Or something like that.

I’ve been trying to avoid the seemingly inevitable blogger fate of taking months off then weakly reappearing for three or four posts before disappearing forever into the void. I’ve false started on posts a number of times but resisted publishing because I could just tell I wasn’t going to get much past that one post.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying, but between work and family obligations my time has not really been my time. I’m sure none of you can relate to that. I’m even surer that many of you are wondering what the heck I’m talking about, didn’t I just read a post from this guy last week? What’s that old saying? Something like…In your 20’s you spend a great deal of time worrying about what other people think about you. In your 40’s you stop worrying about what other people think. In your 60’s you realize they aren’t thinking about you at all.

Four Months Worth of Reviews

Not really.

I had the best of intentions but when I counted up how many comics I bought in that period…Holy Discretionary Income, Batman! I don’t want to give out the real number – on rare occasions my wife reads this blog – suffice it to say I got a personal thank you note from Bryan Singer and the Time Warner brass for allowing production on the next Superman movie to proceed.

Let’s see if I can narrow it down to some general catch-up impressions:

52 is doing just enough to keep me buying and now that we’re past the halfway mark it’s pretty much a lock I’ll complete the string. Maybe the thing I’m most happy about is Douglas Wolk’s continued analysis. The series would not be nearly as enjoyable without it.

Civil War’s a mess. But you knew that.

At it’s midpoint (issues 6-8) JUSTICE has hit that point where we all get up and get popcorn or hit the john. At 12 issues this series is overlong although I suspect it will work fin in trade. JUSTICE LEAGUE, on the other hand, is working for me on several levels. Which is a bit surprising because I thought IDENTITY CRISIS stunk up the joint.

Boy that SEVEN SOLDIERS finale felt rushed. Guess I have to reread the whole of it to have it make sense?

I like nearly anything Matt Wagner does but BATMAN AND THE MAD MONK isn’t quite grabbing me like the earlier series did.

Best books you probably aren’t reading? How about THE LONE RANGER from Dynamite Entertainment, DEADMAN via the Vertigo imprint and Ed Brubaker’s CRIMINAL. Okay, you’re probably reading that last one.   

Speaking of Brubaker, Michael Avon Oeming squeezed a cover blurb sorts out of him for the third issue of THE CROSS BRONX. (“Crime comics are back in Full Force.”) Sadly, while pretty, THE CROSS BRONX is narratively challenged.

Speaking of Brubaker again, his work on DAREDEVIL and CAPTAIN AMERICA have made those two titles about the only MARVEL monthlies this side of ASTONISHING X-MEN I look forward to.

Finally, here’s a swell link if you’d like to read Brubaker’s bibliography through late 2004.

More indepth commentary   to come. (Although I make no promises about insight.) I promise.
 

June 30, 2006 - Superman Returns; Fraction's Fiction

Like Guy, I have no burning desire to rush out and see Superman Returns, but I probably will see it as we’re out of town for an all star baseball tournament this weekend and we’ve got a huge gap between games on Saturday. When the idea arose my oldest says to me, “Hey Dad, since we’re going to see Superman and it’s an all star tournament we can call it ‘All Star Superman’ – like the comic.” [sniff] The apple doesn’t fall too far from the longbox.

In truth, I don’t see many movies at the theater anymore. I haven’t seen X3 and will probably wait for the DVD. I can’t actually remember the last movie I saw in a theater although I think it was Fantastic Four, and that was because my son really wanted to see it. I could have easily waited for that one to hit the stores. (Although I did enjoy it.) In fact the last three or four movies I’ve seen we’re with my kids.   

The thing about Superman is that there’s nothing terrifically compelling about the actual execution of the film. I wasn’t a whole lot older than my oldest when the first Superman movie came out. As a comic fan my biggest fear was that it would be dopey and poorly done. There didn’t seem any way they could make a movie believably depicting the last son of Krypton flying or throwing buses around. But they did. And Reeves actually looked like Superman, although played with a little too much wide-eyed farmboy innocence and purity for my taste. But the effects rocked! You know, for 1978.

I lost a lot of interest after that first movie. They showed they could make Superman look real and that was enough for me. It’s another task entirely to tell fascinating Superman stories, as decades of comic writers have proven. And the fact that this one seems once again to focus  on the origin, rather than telling some new story. Hopefully it's more than that.

Casting-wise, Brandon Routh seems to look the part, maybe a bit young. Honestly, I don’t get Kate Bosworth as Lois at all - but Margot Kidder didn’t seem right at first either. It won’t matter too much unless they totally muck up the scenes – which I don’t expect with Singer calling the shots. I’m sure there will be plenty of gee whiz moments and solid, if unremarkable conflict, although I’m skeptical this will translate into $300 million US dollars. But I’ve been wrong before. (Once, I think.)

Now if you were to tell me this movie captured the feel of what Morrison has been doing in ALL STAR SUPERMAN, well, even I might get excited about that.   

~

I think it’s important to talk about CASANOVA and THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE at the same time. Mainly because I’m about to take some shots at CASANOVA so I’ll feel better about myself if I have something nice to say as well.

I was sold on this title months ago when I first saw the advert showing a Bond-like character firing handguns as he fell backwards out of a UFO. I am very much buying this, I thought. Sadly, I found the first issue of CASANOVA just plain painful. (And it’s not even a real UFO – dangit.) I think my problem with the book is my incessant need to understand everything I read. I can get by without knowing the mysteries of the universe or understanding women (like I have choice) but when I read something I damn well want to know what’s going on. And with CASANOVA you never really do.

Fraction seems to have taken every wild idea he’s ever had and compressed them into CASANOVA’s 32 neat little pages. Genome bioreaders, recreational supermechanix helicasino’s, n-state probability caps, aural anomalies, timeline insertions and there’s even a plot of sorts in there somewhere. It all sounds pretty cool but it felt like he was trying a bit too hard to bring across this whole Phil Specter does comics thing. There’s a boatload going on here – too much for my tastes. It needed a bit more harmony and less cacophony. Maybe I’m just getting old. All this is tempered, by-the-by, with some marvelous Gabriel Ba artwork.

Disclaimer: judging from the various reviews I’m about the only one who didn’t love this book, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE is another matter entirely. I’d swear this thing was written specifically for me. Mark Twain, Nikola Tesla and an evil JP Morgan and Thomas Edison? Are you kidding me? Years and years ago there was an entertainer named Jaye P. Morgan who used to make regular appearances on The Gong Show and Match Game. As a kid I found her totally annoying -- not Brett Somers level annoying, but real close -- and from that point on I’ve had an irrational dislike of the original JP Morgan, who is, to the best of my knowledge, no relation. Equally, when I was twelve and going through my I’ve-decided-to-be-an-inventor phase I read a book that detailed the whole Tesla-Marconi ordeal and have been sympathetic towards the reclusive Mr. Tesla ever since. And yes, I’ve read and loved plenty of Twain. So, to say this book pegged the needle for me would be putting it mildly.

The whole concept is fabulous. Smart, funny, well-conceptualized. Fraction manages to take some of the most quoted, documented and written about personas in history, instill his own unique breath in them and then send them careening out in one of the more original turn-of-the-century era stories I’ve ever read. And he's funny.

The personalities, at least of the protagonists, are more accurate than Fraction disclaims. Tesla was absolutely eccentric and a major germophob. And of course a genius on an order rarely seen. And Twain, particularly when he was younger, loved inventions and inventors and was a bit of one himself. The plots of "Life on the Mississippi" and "Pudd’nhead Wilson" hinge on the use of fingerprinting, a fairly revolutionary idea at the time. Twain also lost a great deal of money investing in the inventions of others, leading to a certain amount of bitterness about the whole business. Upon receiving a letter from a writer who had written a book to assist inventors and patent-seekers, the then aged Twain replied:

Dear Sir: I have, as you say, been interested in patents and patentees. If your book tells how to exterminate inventors, send me nine editions. Send them by express.

S.L. Clemens 

It’s not hard to imagine the events in THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE playing a part in Twain’s later acrimony.

Steve Sanders' art is excellent here as well. The panel layouts are standard stuff, which really work towards setting off the very rare full-page spread and the visual  storytelling never distracts from the script. My one quibble is that in a number of places the black background of the panels washes out against the darkness of the panels themselves, but in other places this works fine. I’m not sure there’s a ready solution to this problem and not a major distraction.

A fun book all-in-all, well worth the $13 price of admission.

June 22, 2006 – A Return to Return to Comics

So, it’s been a while. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?

Week 7 already with 52. That sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense outside its comic book context.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Montoya & The Question (sounds like a bad 80’s cover band) are carrying 52 right now, although the TO Morrow and the lost scientists thread is running a close second. The Steel storyline is going somewhere, but it’s moving soooo slow (is Brian Bendis plotting that one?), Booster Gold hasn’t worn me out yet, but I can see it from here and the whole Cassie/Conner Cult thing is so damned goofy and from far left field that it’s almost got me interested. Almost.

This latest issue doesn’t drop all the little plot hints that week 6 did -- the two page spread of Rip Hunter’s time lab is my favorite of the series so far -- but it does manage to move the story(ies) along. I can say now that The History of the DCU is an unquestionable failure. What exactly is the point of this? It's incomprehensable to anyone not vested in the DCU and a waste time to those who are. Despite this, the book has me interested enough to follow for another month or two at least. 

One odd thing that occurs to me with this book: there’s a great deal of hint dropping that time and/or reality is slipping or at least not what it’s supposed to be; the scenes with Booster and Skeets in particular hint at a the wobbliness of the current time-line. And yet this book may be the single most clock and calendar driven title in the history of comics. There will be a certain irony if we reach the end of this series and discover that a full year has not really passed in the DCU after all. 

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Speaking of being away for while, JUSTICE #6 was surprisingly slow for a bi-monthly book. Although it had some nice, silver-agey moments.

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I really like what Mark Millar has been doing in THE ULTIMATES 2. Dollar-for-dollar there have been more F@*% Yeah! moments in the last two issues of this book than any five others combined.

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Joe Quesada has a blog now? I give it three months at the outside. Six if it’s not actually him writing it.

And what’s the deal with Marvel’s “Hot Blogs”? (Check the lower left hand corner.) At Marvel a blog seems to be defined as “Press Releases with comments.” 

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Here’s an interesting article in the Detroit Free Press about the increasing attention the big dogs of advertising are paying to comic books. Or rather they’re paying comics to get people to pay attention to them. Product placement, baby. Learn to love it.

DC’s newest crime stopper, RUSH will apparently spin around town in a Pontiac Solstice when he’s not hosting a conservative, daily radio program. I may not have that last part right.

Check out the article if for no other reason than to see the single worst on-line reproduction of a comic book page in the history of the Internet. 

May 30, 2006

No, I haven’t died and neither has this blog. I’ve just been unbelievably swamped between completing a project for a client (business would be so much easier if I didn’t have to deal with clients – it would also much more closely resemble unemployment), dealing with sick family members and youth baseball. Every time I sit down to write something about comics I wake up 30 minutes later to find drool on the keyboard and an entry that looks like this:

nlhjnknhjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjlkkkkkkkkkkkkkkklllllllllllllllllllllllll    

And I’m completely behind on whatever is the hot comic blog topic de jure. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just recycle an old IDENTITY CRISIS post.

~

Even with my cramped schedule I thought about creating my list of 50 Best DC characters. I love stuff like this even though I’m constitutionally incapable of completing a list that long. My ADD kicks in around number 25 at which point I start rattling off any characters I can think of just to finish the thing. Hmm…Ace, the Bat Hound, uh, Triplicate Girl, Kid Eternity, and, er, Brother Power The Geek…

I will say that I would probably have The Creeper farther up the list than most of you, Composite Superman is on there somewhere and Darkseid doesn’t get a sniff. After that it’s pretty much the usual suspects. I can’t even tell you who my number one is because that changes from moment-to-moment, book-to-book too.

Anyway, what were we talking about?

~

All Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder #4

This title has the weirdest distribution of time I’ve ever seen. Each issue covers what, about an hour? It’s like 24 - without all the action. And I could easily see Kiefer Sutherland as Miller’s Batman – after a few “training” sessions Barry Bond’s chemist anyway.

The six page Batcave pullout was cool in the way these often are. Six pages seems like one-upmanship though. Did the last guy do a five page pullout? The multi-page Batcave spread has become one of those stock Batman images that every artist has to have in his repertoire. Everyone does it pretty well because the concept is so cool, but the basic problem is that everyone does it. (And I can’t imagine this the first one Lee has done - I’m just too lazy to go back and find another.) So to differentiate they add pages. Eventually someone will publish an entire comic that’s just one big foldout of the Batcave. Or has that been done too?

So not much really happens, but Miller does manage to work in a little de-creepifying of the whole Batman as Dick Grayson’s stalker theme. And Bruce Wayne does not eat rats. That’s just wrong. I think to further prove the whole tough guy talk was largely that, my panels would look something like this (click for larger):

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SQUADRON SUPREME kind of fell off the truck in issue #3. This group has always been Marvel’s little bastion of superhero meta-commentary but Straczynski turned the thing into an anti-US screed and kind brought the train to a grinding halt. The writing has been on the wall since the early issues of SUPREME POWER, but honestly, I didn’t expect the whole of the first plot line to be resolved like this. Eh. It seemed like even the Squadroner's themselves were looking around at each other thinking, "What just happened?"  If I want real-world influenced plot lines I’ll read CIVIL WAR. At least there I’ll get Cap surfing a fighter plane.

~

FANTASTIC FOUR: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY would make a perfect FCBD comic. I offer this advice free of charge to the Marvel powers that be.

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Speaking of meta-commentary…

If you’ve read this blog for a while you’ve noted that I’ve a weakness for the super hero genre, particularly ensemble (i.e. super teams, but not always) efforts by smaller publishers. I’ve followed titles like GROUNDED, BATTLEHYMN, INTIMIDATORS, PLANETARY BRIGADE and LIVING IN INFAMY all to varying degrees of satisfaction. Of all the derivations I’ve read so far, John Ridley’s THE AMERICAN WAY has been the best.

There’s a lot going on here, and I’m not completely sure Ridley will pull it all off, but so far he’s hit most of the notes pitch-perfect. I love his choice of eras and he’s very deftly established a large cast of characters by spinning off slight variations on the standard archetypes. This kind of thing can easily fall in to the “me too” category, but Ridley avoids that. The last few pages were a bit grizzly. For a minute I thought I was reading a Geoff Johns’ book and then I realized the violence wasn't gratuitous.

May 19 2006 – 52, DC Stuff and FCBD

I may have to stop using this date-in-the-title format – it’s too easy to tell how infrequently I’m posting these days. I’ll be back to full strength soon, just waiting for the yellow rays to kick in.

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I don’t feel like discussing 52 yet. I will say that I think it’s a fairly good concept and I like DC’s plan not to release any trades until after the thing has run its course. Smart. I would definitely wait for trade on something that could likely put one out every six weeks or so.

I’m not sure I agree with Douglas Wolk’s analysis that the 52 heroes are analoging for the Big Three – idealizing/idolizing, maybe - but I do think there’s a bit of a WATCHMEN homage going on. Either way, his post was a great read and I hope he can keep the fires burning for the full run of the series – or at least until just after I get bored with it.

And I’m somewhat curious to see how the Question in Gotham is rectified against what’s been going on with Two-Face in the pages of Batman. Didn’t Batman leave Harvey in charge? It's a big city I suppose.

Do you think they’ll really bring back Sue Dibny? (I can’t even find where I saw the hint of this…) If so it will confirm my suspicion that the real purpose of INFINITE CRISIS was not to reset the tone of the DCU but simply as a Get Out Of Continuity Free card. 

Guess I did want to discuss 52 – a little.

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So it looks like Bart Allen is not to be the new Flash and clearly Jay Garrick is not going to set his helmet aside and don the red and gold, so who is the new guy going to be? I find it interesting the creative team for the revamped book was part of the production team for the TV series but that gives little hint to any character direction. Now if I had to guess, based on the ads alone, I’d say the new Flash was going to be black – it could simply be the lighting in this pic, but it certainly could go either way.

This would disappoint me. As I’ve said before, awarding super speed to a black character is one of the biggest current cliché’s in comics. I’d love to see more black characters but let’s be a little more imaginative about it.

Having said that, how about some idle speculation: if I were in charge of DC I think I’d have Black Lightning “discover” that his lightning/electrical powers had imbued him with super speed as well. I’ve always liked the BL character and DC has worked him into the IC story prominently – albeit briefly - enough that I think the timing would work.

If I’m completely truthful, part of my fondness for the character is that Jefferson Pierce was supposed to have been an Olympic gold-medal winning decathlete, which was my event in college. I think all decathlete’s make great superheroes.   

UPDATE: If you're coming here from Newsarama, you know by now that the new Flash is very likely not black, based on the covers of the upcoming issues. I'd say those are decidedly more reliable than what I've provided here. (Which is "unretouched" as they say.) But hey, what's more fun than a little idle specualtion?

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The current run settles it, Superman is more interesting when he’s less powerful. But you knew that.

I have to imagine he’s easier to write as well. There’s a big difference between writing about a god-like hero which forces a writer to spend all their time coming up with villains and plot devices that might possibly be worthy, as opposed to coming up with ways for your protagonist to find victory over your plot devices and villains.

Let’s hope Johns and Busiek don’t feel the urge to boost Superman to full, universe-crushing power too quickly (if at all).   

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The last two issues of JONAH HEX have been the best so far. I’m not a big Palmiotti and Gray fan, but they seem to be making strides away from the Western-by-the-numbers storytelling of the first few issues.

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I've given up on Hawkgirl already. Just didn't resonate for me. I'm giving Aquaman a couple more issues.

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Finally got a copy of the Marvel offering from Free Comic Book Day. Gaaack. Talk about mailing it in. They should have just pasted together odd pages from a random selection of books and left it at that. Hey, wait a minute…

For DC FCBD is about the kids, and the first issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED is certainly a solid effort in that direction. My oldest was disappointed that it was the first story from his digest edition, but just as the adult fare wasn’t truly aimed at someone like me, this book isn’t really for kids who already are reading or have access to comics.

After five years FCBD has become something different for every retailer. Anecdotally, it seems like savvy, newer(ish) retailers are leveraging it into a larger promotional effort that builds goodwill, the customer base and generates a decent sales bump on the day itself. For the more established it’s a busy event than may or may not do a lot for long-term or even day-of sales, but still generates a fair amount of buzz and once again, goodwill. My own LCS falls into this category. Others question its worth altogether – I’ve seen it characterized as a “pain in the ass” and as an event that creates neither same day sales nor return customers of any kind. That's unfortunate.   

Outsiders perspective: as a recognizable grass roots campaign I give it a B+. If a retailer is of a PR mind he can probably garner some free media coverage out of it (and believe me, this type of coverage goes farther with the general public than your garden variety business profile piece) but the event itself has settled in to a bit of a comfort zone where the big gun publishers participate in the most painless way they can and the smaller ones target the existing base. From a retailer perspective it’s natural to start wondering if the payoff is truly worth the effort, but I think this is one of those vague marketing things that sees its return not so much in same day sales or near-term customer loyalty but in broader good will and industry awareness.

As a retailer (and I was one for nearly 15 years of what seems like another life now) when you invest in a marketing/advertising campaign you really want to see results NOW. Particularly small to medium sized retailers. Branding, good will, industry awareness - those niceties are for the big boys to spend their sheckles on. And an event like this, which, for some at least, has meant lots of traffic but not lots of dollars, is one that feels great the first time you do it, on the fifth pass through it becomes a chore. I sympathize with that, but suspect this event does actually raise awareness and help even those retailers who participate in a limited fashion to some degree.

To those who have lost faith in FCBD I’d say, stay the course, make the most of it, and remember that if it truly doesn’t work well for you it’s only one day a year. For the rest, thanks for your involvement and here’s hoping FCBD is a permanent fixture.

 

May 10, 2006

Free Comic Book Day. Missed it by that much.

I was pulling in to the parking lot when my wife called to say she’d misread the invitation to a birthday party my oldest was attending and it was actually ending NOW, instead of 30 minutes from now. And from there it was off to yet another makeup baseball game. We had four of those on Saturday, thanks in large part to an April that had Fresno vying for the title, Most Rained on City Not Found in a Rain Forest or Named “Seattle”. I really don’t mind. I love baseball, especially kid’s baseball, although making up rained out t-ball tilts (which accounted for two of the games) makes about as much sense to me as complaining about it on a comic book blog.

So I missed out. I’m not too broken up about it, truth tell. There wasn’t anything offered that really grabbed me and I’ll probably be able to get copies of the kids titles tomorrow and I’m not really the target for this promotion anyway, am I? I feel a little guilty about not showing my LCS some love, but the $40-50 a week I spend there goes a long way towards internally absolving myself of that.

More on the marketing aspect of FCBD another time.

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Douglas Wolk’s Salon article on the recent DC and Marvel Crisis events is excellent. (Hat tip: The Beat.) Wolk provides an excellent sum up of CIVIL WAR:

The figurative significance of "Civil War" is easy to see: It's supposed to address the question of trading privacy and liberty for security. That's not exactly new to mainstream comics, though. The "government makes superheroes unmask/register or quit" plot was used in the '80s in both Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" and James Robinson and Paul Smith's "The Golden Age," and a few years ago in Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's "Powers." Millar's great at writing action scenes and delving into his characters' ideologies, but a few seconds' thought reveals that his metaphor for America's security mania is actually pretty deeply flawed. It's hard to imagine either "army" of familiar characters countenancing any kind of civilian casualties, or voluntarily deciding to get in step with the government -- if superpowers are outlawed, only outlaws will have superpowers, as they say. And despite all of Marvel's "No, really, nothing will ever be the same again, you can't miss this, really" publicity, it's inconceivable that a major change in the status of Spider-Man or Captain America or the X-Men could last more than a few months -- as we've seen in every other crossover, the company's got too much riding on its icons staying pretty much the same forever.

I’m sure this idea struck the Marvel powers that be as wonderfully topical and relevant given the current political climate. Time is the built-in rate-limiter on that sort of thing as the news cycle renders these type of issues rapidly irrelevant, or at least pushes them below the fold and then to page A17. I think Marvel is probably a year or two late with this story, as the fear of lost privacy - largely fueled by the formation of Homeland Security - has receded from the national consciousness.

Which is not to say that the people have stopped worrying about electronic privacy, digital surveillance, etc. - it’s just not the hip topic to be angry about right now.

This doesn’t even address the question of whether or not we readers really want our comics to cut that close to reality, allegorically or not. But when Joe Q makes a comment like this:

I just came back from doing an ABC radio show with a reporter who told me he could wait for Civil War: Frontline. Outside of being a comics’ fan he was also an imbedded reporter and loves the idea behind it. He also mentioned that he would be sending issues of Civil War and Frontline to some pals he has on Capital Hill. As he told me, “this story is that important.” That made me feel great.

I do start to wonder if he remembers who he assigned to this little project.

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On a more comics related note, from the same link as above, Our Man Quesada posits this:

House of M was the opening salvo. The loss of all those mutants got the attention of many people in positions of power. With so many mutants depowered, the whole superhero landscape changed dramatically. It’s like super-power nation suddenly announcing that they’ve lost three quarters of their military and all of their nukes. You could be sure that other countries would be looking over at their borders and thinking thoughts that they may not normally have and there would also be internal upheaval. The power structure in the Marvel Universe has taken a radical shift.

I’m not buying that one. Are you? Weren’t mutants the group the government least trusted and most feared? If anything I’d think House of M would have all the legislators breathing a sigh of relief.

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I thought INFINITE CRISIS #7 was okay until I read Brian Hibbs’ review and realized I didn’t really like it all. I hate when that happens.

For all the build-up and fanfare I have a hard time envisioning this one having the lasting impact on the DC universe that CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS has had. And no matter how they package it I can’t imagine a $100 “Absolute Edition” gaining any traction 20 years from now.

May 5th, 2006 - Indies, Infinite Crisis & Civil War

Picked up the first two books (can’t really call them “issues”, they’re more than that) of SKYSCRAPERS OF THE MIDWEST. I won’t be buying the third whenever it should publish. As well done as these are, I can’t handle the unrelenting pessimism and glumness. The darn things come with their own dark little rain clouds that hover over you as you read them and then follow you around for the rest of the day.

The first book is sort of a “life sucks” montage that serves as a nice primer to Joshua Cotter’s state of mind. Some of the stories were good, some just okay. The second book is more cohesive and nuanced, and perhaps slightly less depressing as you can tweeze out a few upbeat notes if you close your eyes and squint in the right places. Though not my poison of choice, Cotter's work is very affective.

For a bit different perspective read Guy LeCharles Gonzales’ review of book two and the interview with Cotter that follows it.

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Staying on the Indie circuit.

I picked up the first two volumes of Scott Chantler’s NORTHWEST PASSAGE and if you like “pulse-pounding western action” or “two-fisted historical adventure” this is for you. I lean more towards heart-hammering frontier exploits, but I loved these anyway.

The pacing and storytelling are very solid across the two books and Chantler ably balances a large cast without crossing the line into caricature and stereotypes. As a period piece it really holds up well, although Chantler has taken unabashed Hollywood style liberties with certain character and plot points – all to the best in my opinion.

My understanding is the third volume hits in August. I can’t wait.

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Did it feel to anyone else like Perez’s cover for INFINITE CRISIS #7 should have been a wrap-around?

Not  a completely unsatisfying ending but the whole of it could have used much more cohesive pencil work and the Wonder Woman resolution was way too pat. I felt kind of bad that Gail Simone’s wonderful set up from the VILLAINS UNITED special was resolved in about six panels. But that’s the way of these things. And there’s a half dozen or so other threads still dangling so I guess we’re lucky for what we got. My general feeling is one of a rush to the finish. You get the sense DC wanted to just wrap this baby up and move on with 52 and the One Year Later stuff. Whether or not the plot was intentionally loose, allowing the ongoing books and relaunches to address all the unresolved plot points or forcing them to, would make for an interesting debate. Some combination of the two, I suspect. For all the long-range planning and promotion, I think Johns let this get away from him somewhat.

Nice wrap-up for Breach, by the way. Made me think of that line from the penguin skipper in MADAGASCAR, “You didn’t see annnnnything.”

And Hoover Dam! That last two-page spread was intriguing, wasn’t it?

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CIVIL WAR.

This one just doesn’t quite grab me like IC or even HOUSE OF M. The overriding theme isn’t particularly original and maybe a little too grounded for my taste. Superheroes divided over legislation. Whoopee. Of the various Marvel bullpenners I wouldn’t have thought Mark Millar the obvious choice for this type of saga -- Ed Brubaker perhaps -- but maybe that means this will take a turn towards the grand, exploding dénouement, which would be fine by me.

The first issue was solid enough, although the whole Captain America sequence felt extremely compressed and forced. Or maybe I’ve been reading too much Bendis lately.

I’m also skeptical of this event-in-seven-parts having a lasting impact on the Marvel Universe. Which is fine if the event itself is entertaining, but the build-up so far hasn’t been. Time will tell I guess. If this thing boils down to the government deciding maybe they went too far on the superhero registration thing, but to go ahead and register mutants, immediately followed by six new X-books, I may swear off Marvel “events” for good.