My Daughter, The Blogger -- For the moment, I am typing her hand-written material for her, but my daughter is officially blogging. Are there any other second-generation comics bloggers? Visit Kira.X.Manga.

Labels: linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:14 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Previews -- Just made my way through the newest edition of Previews, and I don't think I'm pre-ordering anything this time around. Maybe Mark Millar and Anthony Williams's Unfunnies #3-4, because I am curious how that story ends. I'd love to get the new Adrian Tomine hardcover Shortcomings, but I have the single issues it collects and am kind of broke at the moment. The real ache this month comes from the new hardcover Walt and Skeezix Sundays collection, which looks to be out-of-this-world gorgeous. But at $95.00, that definitely is not in the budget at the moment.

It's funny, when I see Previews is arriving in a given week's Diamond shipment, I get a little excited to see what it holds in the good section, the one past the Marvel/DC/Image/Dark Horse whatever section -- not that there aren't occasionally books worth reading in that part as well -- but every month, when I actually grab a pen and a piece of paper and start slogging through it, man, it's a relief when it's over. And that's even with ignoring the crap like t-shirts, toys and whatever else is past the section with the good funnybooks in.

I am curious about Dwayne McDuffie's run on JLA, which starts with the issue solicited in this month's Previews, and may take a look if the word of mouth is good, once it's collected under one cover. But the taint of Brad Meltzer on the title and the fact that they have frigging Ian Churchill drawing the multiple covers of McDuffie's first issue? That's a lot of negative factors that just won't let me give the nod to my retailer to set one aside for me.

And wow, those Spider-Man "One More Day" covers are godawful hideous. At the shop last night, my son surprised me by asking if I would buy him the newest issue of Spider-Man Adventures, and I did, and I'm glad there's at least one Spider-Man title that appeals to an 11-year-old boy, even if it is the ghettoized "Kiddie" version. Which is to say nothing at all against the Marvel Adventures line -- most of the titles seem well-crafted and appeal to the target audience -- I just don't understand why you can't apply those factors to the main Marvel Universe titles. Are they so afraid the superhero convenience shop junkies won't support comics that aim to entertain rather than arouse?*

* By "arouse," I don't mean sexually, I am referring to Marvel and DC's ongoing use of "events" and "deaths" to arouse interest in SCSJ** instead of quality comic book storytelling that would attract a far wider audience.

** SCSJ=Superhero Convenience Shop Junkies.

Labels: corporate comics, pre-ordering

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 8:15 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Last Chance to Read Inanna's Tears Online -- Writer Rob Vollmar wants you to know Inanna's Tears will be coming down from the Modern Tales website sometime in the next 24 hours, so if you would like one last chance to read the graphic novel online before it's published in print, click here to read Inanna's Tears. Go forth and clickify!

Labels: linkblogging, recommendations

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:14 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Viewer Mail -- My most recent review has garnered a couple of comments...like this one from Jim:

"Sigh. And me being a Green Lantern fan boy/continuity porn junkie who hasn't been too happy with Hal's regular series lately, I thought Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps was outstanding. Powerful, intense, full of big bombastic scenes of congregating evil and high octane unleashed drama (I thought the sniper sequence was 'cool' in an action-packed way), I loved the entire issue, and it felt good to be twelve-years-old again, if only for a few minutes. Oh, well. I did enjoy your thoughts on the book!"

See? You don't have to agree with me to be civil -- cheerful, even! More simpatico with my take on the book, Is uspect, was Andre, who had this to say:

"Hey Alan!

This…

'Johns's writing always reminds me of an 8-year-old playing in the tub, making up stories with his action figures as he neglects to wash his ass.'

...is probably the funniest line I’ve read on the Internet this year. Well done, sir."

Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!

Labels: corporate comics, meta

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:07 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1 -- You won't find a slicker, more vapid superpeople comic on the stands this month than this one. It's created by Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, and -- this gives me pause -- Dave Gibbons, who I would have hoped could find better things to do with his gifts than this. Johns and Van Sciver, I expect this sort of thing from. And in fairness to Van Sciver, his style here -- aping George Perez more than his previous style of aping Brian Bolland -- seems to find him more comfortable. The work reads as more of a natural outflowing of his talent. It's just too bad it's all in service of such garbage.

Oh, dear. Where to begin? Oh, that's right, I remember -- Johns said it all for me, right on page one:

"We live in a place rotting with hedonism and chaos. A place untamed and morally devoid. A place of darkness."

Johns's writing always reminds me of an 8-year-old playing in the tub, making up stories with his action figures as he neglects to wash his ass. Here, Geoff brings his entire collection of abused DC trademarks -- action figures, from the Anti-Monitor and the Reverse Flash to -- of course -- Superboy Prime. Yes, kids, if Infinite Crisis wasn't a big enough waste of time, money and mis-allocated creative effort, here's pretty much the direct sequel. This death-obsessed continuity porn is all that's left of the goddamned DC Universe proper, isn't it?

Ach, the plot.

Sinestro wants revenge, or something; a bunch of power rings are flying through the universe, which always seems a small -- tiny place, in the hands of unimaginative writers like Johns; the "secret of the 52" is invoked, and I discover my goosebumps-generator must be on the fritz, 'cause I got nothin'. What else? Hank Henshaw The Evil Cyborg Superman Fooled Ya Folks is back, in the custody of The Guardians of Oa, who were all far better off dead. All the GLs we all love so much get together for a family picnic. Here's Hal, John, Kyle and Guy, all hanging out and even giving each other noogies. I bet you think I'm making that up, don't you? One supposes Johns writes such scenes and thinks he's developing character.

Anyway, during the big picnic all of a sudden "We got a sniper!" and it's the grassy knoll all over again for the Green Lantern Corps. All your favourite Lanterns get a moment in the "spotlight" and then "OH SHIT EVIL SUPERBOY PRIME HAS ESCAPE THE TUB -- I MEAN, HIS 'SCIENCELL!'" What will happen next?!?

Well, as you may recall from the abominable Green Lantern: Rebirth, YELLOW IS THE COLOUR OF EVIL and also PEE. And bananas, this shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. Now Kyle Raynor is all Parallaxed (FANGASM!!!111!) up, and then Dave Gibbons draws a Johns-written back-up story that is far more readable than it has any right to be, based solely on the power of Gibbons' artwork and the goodwill far better stories than this have earned his work.

Just to compare two spectacular corporate superhero events taking place this summer, World War Hulk went a ways toward mending my loathing for the current state of the Marvel Universe by telling a tight, logical story that intrigued me enough to want to read the rest of it. Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1, on the other hand, is a ham-handed, undercooked bunch of baloney that obviously took a great deal of misplaced effort to create. If I had one wish for corporate superhero comics, it would be that Geoff Johns's mother had never let him take his action figures into the tub.

Labels: corporate comics, reviews

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:47 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Priceless Candy Bar -- I really enjoy The Simple Dollar, a daily blog about how to live more frugally. I've reduced or eliminated a lot of my bills over the past three years or so, but I'm not obsessed with frugality, so a lot of the penny-pinching blogs don't hold my interest. The Simple Dollar's philosophical approach and excellent writing have kept my attention since the first time I found it.

Today's post on a three-dollar candy bar is a great example of where the blog's thoughtfulness about spending meets the intangible value that can be found in something that seems too expensive. It's a wonderful post on its own, but it also reminded me of one of the most intelligent things anyone has ever written about the value of comics. Tom Spurgeon:

"I usually don't criticize anything for simply costing a lot. The only comics that are too expensive are shitty comics."

People who buys piles -- literally piles of mediocre superhero comics every week because they are "keeping up their collection" and "don't want to miss an issue" are usually the ones that complain about a comic costing "too much."

I remember when IDW began publishing their line of comics at a base price of $3.99, and some people felt that was "too expensive." But if it's too expensive, don't buy it. Nobody holds a gun to anyone's head and forces them to buy funnybooks.

What I think they really mean when they say that is, "I want to add this to my giant mindless pile of crap comics every week, but it costs a buck more than most of the other crap." I remember when IDW hit the ground running with quality titles like 30 Days of Night (I speak of the excellent, original mini-series here, I can't say anything about the sequels as I haven't read most of them), that featured not only outstanding storytelling but top-notch production values as well. Another title I've sampled from IDW that met that standard was Supermarket. I liked the first issue enough that I decided to wait until it was collected as a graphic novel, and if I recall correctly that compiled three issues for something close to twenty dollars -- more than the cost of the individual $3.99 issues, but the added benefit of being a sturdy book I can put on my shelves made the price worthwhile for me.

No comic can be objectively "priced right" or "overpriced." I've picked up Free Comic Book Day releases that were a ripoff for free, factoring in the time and effort to find and read (or attempt to read) them. Multiple publishers have tried 9 cent, 10 cent and 25 cent stunt releases. Some, like the 25 cent zero issue of Conan by Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord, convinced me to continue on with the monthly title, which would have been a bargain at four bucks, or even five, because it featured quality storytelling and adventures that stand up to multiple re-reads years later. The vast majority of current series set in Marvel and DC's universes aren't even worth reading for free, as that recent V survey of comics downloaders definitively demonstrated.

Obviously if you're struggling with money, if times are tight and every penny counts, you should not be dropping 75 or 100 bucks on a Marvel Omnibus or an Absolute Edition from DC. In fact, if money's really tight, you hopefully eschew wasting money on entertainment until you can right your faltering financial ship, to brutalize a metaphor.

But if you've got a good job and a portion of your income can comfortably be devoted to pursuing an artform you love, then hopefully you're buying comics you truly enjoy. Comics that engage your mind and thrill your senses and will amortize their own expense by providing you with years and years of repeat enjoyment. I never get tired of re-reading Watchmen, or Love and Rockets, or The Authority, or Eightball, just to name four titles that I have bought in single issues, trade paperbacks and expensive hardcover collector's editions. "The only comics that are too expensive are shitty comics," Spurgeon said, and by now he's probably sick to death of me bringing up the quote whenever the opportunity strikes. But it's true, and it speaks to far more than just comic books. The money you make is the direct product of time from your life that you've given up and will never get back.

Whether it's a gourmet candy bar shared with your family in a moment of mad glee, or a comic book good enough to totally immerse yourself in, its wonders to behold -- think about your spending, and whether its rewards will be returned to you in the future. Memories like that candy bar, or a great story, will provide a lifetime of joy. Is that what you are spending your money on? If not, why not?

Total coincidence, Zen Habits also writes about materialism and spending habits today.

Labels: corporate comics, FCBD, linkblogging, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:22 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Thursday Afternoon Excuses -- Ach, an entire day got away from me. Sorry for the lack of updates today, but when I was not at work I was working on a brochure design for a friend of mine who just opened a new business. She was quite grateful at the way it turned out, but I was grateful she asked so I could learn a new skill. It's funny how those lending a hand can benefit everybody involved.

Comics-wise, still working on the Fletcher Hanks anthology Fantagraphics recently released; I managed to read one or two more stories last night. Hanks's mind must have been a bizarre and fascinating landscape.

Looking forward to next week; with the Independence Day holiday falling on Wednesday, I'm taking Thursday and Friday off from work, as I'd imagine a lot of people with accumulated vacation days will be doing. I also found a nifty Independence Day post of mine from a couple years back that I want to expand on and re-post.

Labels: meta, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:53 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
New Comic Weblog Updates -- No one at the new comics weblog updates page will answer my e-mails, but I sure would like to have The ADD Blog listed on there. Am I wrong in thinking there's a place for li'l ol' Doaney on there? If you like what you read here and think I should be listed, would you do me a favour and e-mail the site with your feelings?

Labels: meta

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:30 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Fan-Fiction Age of Superhero Comics -- Over at Dick Hates Your Blog, Mr. Hyacinth observes the schism between fans of Brad Meltzer's lousy superhero comics versus Brian Michael Bendis's. Meltzer takes the baton as the leader in the race to create the worst superhero comics available today, but Bendis makes a strong second-place showing. The fact of the matter is, both are guilty of being master planners in the current, awful Fan-Fiction Age of superhero comics. From Straczynski's Spider-Man to Millar's Civil War, from Johns's Infinite Crisis to Bendis and Meltzer's narrative ass-rape of Marvel and DC's two top team titles (or TTTT as I like to call 'em), any informed observer of the current state of Marvel and DC's "universes" can see that the past few years are populated almost solely by events and storylines that just cry out to be retconned out of existence by creators who are actually committed to telling good stories with every drop of their creative gifts they can muster.

Unfortunately, the days when top creators were willing to give their all to corporations servicing superhero trademarks seem long past. I remember vividly when Frank Miller came along and reinvigorated Daredevil; when Walt Simonson showed us why Thor was so goddamned cool; when Claremont and Byrne were humble enough to exercise their talent before their egos and create probably the best X-Men comics ever created; when Alan Moore took Swamp Thing from industry joke (sorry, Mike!) to the most compelling comic book being published.

Creators today -- the smart ones -- take their best work to companies that will allow them to own their own work. So it's hard to imagine who the next Frank Miller or Alan Moore or whoever will be. Not that we need anyone to rehash those creator's visions or steal their best ideas -- that kind of bullshit is what has gotten us where we are now in corporate superhero comics. No, what is needed is, to paraphrase Alan Moore, someone to come along and twist the knobs to a setting no one ever thought of before. A new paradigm that makes corporate superhero comics not only readable, but fun and entertaining again.

Marvel and DC will probably have to shift some paradigms of their own, first, though. It wasn't that long ago, but can you imagine Marvel giving Grant Morrison a free hand to do what he did with New X-Men in today's market? Sure, DC let Darwyn Cooke create New Frontier, but why not allow someone that gifted and committed to the genre to just take over one of the main titles? Why ghettoize the quality stories while dosing fanboy junkies with the sort of continuity porn found in Meltzer/Bendis/et al's "hot" titles?

Another observation Moore once made was that he tried to give readers what they needed, not what they wanted. It may be a subtle distinction, but it's at the heart of what is wrong with corporate superhero comics at the moment, and why the direct market is locked in the death-grip of The Fan-Fiction Age of Superhero Comics.

Labels: corporate comics, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:14 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Wednesday Briefing -- There are a lot of interesting tidbits on the top-shelf comics blogs this morning.

* Beaucoup Kevin investigates and concludes that Gary Esposito has been using a fake name to troll his comments section. Esposito apparently denies it, and I wish it weren't true because he's been a loyal reader of The ADD Blog. But it seems like Kevin has done his homework, and I really hate fuckwit comment trolls, so the whole thing is very disappointing. If it's not Gary, I hope he can prove it, but the evidence seems pretty damning.

* Dirk Deppey leads off today's Journalista with as succinct a description of the blinkered Direct Market mindset as you're likely to find. It's a short quote from Kyle Baker, so click over and read it, right at the top. Baker may be a bit blinkered himself, in that he seems unaware of great comic shops like The Beguiling in Toronto or Modern Myths in Northampton, to name two which don't meet Baker's "Barnes and Noble/Filthy Superhero Convenience Store" divide. In fact, great shops like those are the solution to the problem, which I believe I wrote a little bit about here not that long ago.

* Christopher Butcher gets to the bottom of the problem with MOME. Now, I have followed the series since it began and I continue to look forward to every new volume, but Butcher hits the nail right on the head. It's a hard series to explain, and his suggested tweaks would go a good deal toward making it work better in the long term and find more of an audience. I hope the powers that be are listening.

Labels: good comic shops, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:43 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Boys #8 -- Nuance isn't a word that immediately comes to mind when pondering The Boys, and yet this issue has plenty. A seemingly minor character bit about Hughie's distaste for Butcher's use of anti-gay terminology pays off later in the issue with a sequence that tells us a great deal about the two characters (and the series in general). The Boys is wicked fun, yes, but it's also Ennis and Robertson thoughtfully exploring the characters they've populated the title with.

Even the Tek Knight seems sympathetic to a degree here; he made his debut last issue with a disgusting and outrageously funny personal problem that was getting in the way of his superheroing; in this second part of that story, we see the mystery of his distress deepen, even as we witness the funniest "Superhero's Butler Gives His Notice" scene that you will ever see. You've never, ever look at Jarvis or Alfred in quite the same way.

It's gratifying that Ennis and Robertson are able bring so many emotions to the story -- it's clever and witty and dirty as hell, yes, but the superhero avatars resonate strongly and breathe all on their own. They're satire, but they ring true as characters, and that makes the world of The Boys a deeper and richer reading experience than I had expected when the series first debuted. The storytelling is confident and bold, and the more I get to know these people, the more effective the overall narrative becomes. The Boys, published by Dynamite Entertainment, is probably the best team superhero book being published at the moment. A moment in which, perhaps not coincidentally, Marvel and DC have mostly abandoned readers looking for quality in their superhero comics.

Labels: reviews

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:08 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Kicking Shit While It's Down -- I'd guess Tom Spurgeon got his copy of the final issue of the most recent, failed attempt at a Flash series the same way I did -- a review copy mailed by DC Comics. Spurgeon has posted a lengthy review of The Flash #13, and while I agree with pretty much everything he says, even I am shocked at the extent of his negativity.

"It was sort of like being dragged behind a boat for ten seconds after falling off your waterskis. There's no permanent damage, but it's unpleasant as all hell while it's happening."

Tom Spurgeon is more or less the best writer about comics who is currently blogging on a regular basis, and in this review he seems to me to be a bit more blunt than usual in his assessment of The Flash #13, which to my way of thinking pretty much defines the current state of corporate superhero comics: Utterly bereft of quality or entertainment value, marketable only to those who cherish trademarks over storytelling, and in fact may be incapable of even recognizing a story well told ("I don't know if it sucks or not, but I recognize that lightnng bolt on his chest!").

I know I aggravate blinkered superhero junkies who see my desire for better superhero comics as anti-superhero rhetoric. But the fact of the matter is that I don't hate superhero comics as a genre, at all. If you check out my pull list in the sidebar, you'll find a lot of superhero titles. I would love to have more good superhero comics to read, just as I would love to have more good crime comics to read, and more good autobiographical comics to read. I'll freely admit to hating bad superhero comics, though, and Flash #13 certainly falls squarely in that category.

DC sends me an occasional book for review -- not a lot, but they publish a lot of comics, and I appreciate whatever efforts they make to keep me and other critics current on what they think their best efforts are. Unlike Tom, I didn't see much reason to review Flash #13, because, well, what's the point? Not to disparage Tom's choice to review it -- he has a lot of things to say about the book and what it represents, and I'm glad he wrote about it -- but to me Marvel and DC's mainline of superhero comics taking place within their established "universes" are so universally poor that it's personally exhausting for me to spend much time reviewing them. Or even reading them, honestly.

Now, a few days ago I did review a new DC/Wildstorm comic, and my review was almost uniformly negative. But in this case, it was a first issue, and it was set outside the DC universe, so going into it I had hoped it would be entertaining. But it proved such a ham-handed pastiche of previous, better Wildstorm efforts that I found nothing much in it to recommend. Interesting that folks who mostly review superhero comics seemed to like Highwaymen #1, which says something about their critical faculties, or at the very least about the comparative value to be found in the average, say, X-Men comic vs. Highwaymen #1. The latter might be crap, but at least it's not X-Crap.

By the way, I was delighted that the writer of Highwaymen #1 didn't take my review personally, because it wasn't meant personally.

I wonder, though, how the Flash creative team will take Spurgeon's review? Did they honestly believe they were doing their best? I suppose anyone who has only read corporate superhero comics for the past 15 years or so could honestly believe something like Flash #13 represents quality storytelling. People who refuse to look outside superhero comics to all the vast riches the artform offers may think the current boatloads of shit offered up by Marvel and DC are actually the best "comics" has to offer. They could not be more wrong.

Maybe it's the editors at the corporate superhero companies, unable or unwilling to scout actual talent anymore. Maybe truly gifted creators just eschew the "Big Two" because they know they won't own their work or ever see even a fraction of what it earns for the companies, should it become popular and enduring. Maybe it's just that Marvel and DC are mostly staffed by a generation raised to think Image circa 1993 was radically good superhero comics. Whatever the reason, Flash #13 was shit. And while it's somewhat atypical for Tom Spurgeon to kick shit while it's down, I'm glad to see someone else speaking the truth about the sorry state of corporate superhero comics circa 2007.

Labels: corporate comics, essays, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:27 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Monday, Briefly -- Not much time this morning, as I have to shower and run to the doctor's office for blood work this morning before I go to work. It was a busy weekend of blogging, though, so I hope you'll scroll down and see what I was yammering about if you are one of those folks that takes the weekend off from reading the internets.

Labels: monday briefing, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:35 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Big Who Season Finale -- Watched the two-part finale of the third season of the new Doctor Who with the kids at lunch today, after having missed the entire season due to lack of intense interest and other things going on. I guess with the internets, you know you can probably always catch up down the line later on, right?

Right?

Possible SPOILERS and definite NERDITRY beyond this point...

Except I don't think the season we missed could match the energy and inventiveness of this two-part trip from the end of time back to present-day Great Britain. I mostly decided to check out the season finale because of the rumoured reappearance of one of the Doctor's greatest enemies, a character I'd kind of expected to see back in Season One, with all its "The Doctor's gone dark" stuff. See, I was guessing after it was announced that Season One Doc Christopher Eccleston was only sticking around for the first go-round that he in fact was not the Doctor, but this other gentlemen in question, suffering from amnesia after the end of the Time War. I thought that would have made a great season finale, the real Doctor arriving to reclaim his TARDIS from Eccleston, who would have been able to play the very dark results of finding out his true identity quite well before making room for the sunshiny David Tennant in Season Two. And the audience would have been both outraged and amazed to learn they'd been rooting for you-may-know-who all season long. Oh, the angst!

Turns out The Powers That Be kind of thought like I did -- some of that stuff kind of played out in these final two episodes of Season Two, after all. The Master (I warned you up there with the SPOILERS and all!) has been suffering from amnesia in the wake of the Time War, and he certainly was a lovable old Time Lord type in the first part -- so much so, with the affected name ("The Professor") and the Companion, that I thought maybe he was the ultimate, final version of the Doctor, and that we were in for another iteration of Doc Meets Doc. I'd guess that we were supposed to think that, given the available evidence, and it's really too bad the BBC leaked the actual identity of the bad guy, because I probably would have stuck to my theory that Professor Yana was The Doctor until the real reveal came along.

I first started watching Doctor Who when it was airing on PBS stations here in the U.S. back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Because I saw the transition from mega-popular fourth Doctor Tom Baker to fifth Doctor Peter Davison almost at the same time the British did, I always had an affection for Davison in the role over Baker, although I like 'em both. Certainly they're my two favourites, having seen little to nothing of Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy, as Who-fever seemed to dry up on American public television stations after Davison left the series.

I was one of the few who watched and liked the Fox TV movie with Paul McGann inheriting the mantle from Sylvester McCoy, and really, really dug Eccleston's work in his one and only season. Tennant has had some great moments in the episodes he's done that I have seen, especially his forced goodbye to Rose, and it was nice to see him given some really meaty stuff in this season finale, from explaining a few things to Captain Jack (who seems much less irritating now) to trying to build bridges with his last surviving fellow Time Lord.

Speaking of whom, John Simm was a bit of a revelation as The Master. The amusing but mostly two-dimensional mustache-twirling of Anthony Ainley in the Baker/Davison era and the dark mischief of Eric Roberts in the Fox movie were nothing at all like the trickster/master planner Simm introduced in these episodes. The whimsy and the perfidy were delivered in equal doses, and the political commentary toward the end was both welcome and well-done. Which came first, Warren Ellis's Black Summer #0 or the script for part two of this season finale? More likely, it's just the zeitgeist at work, The Master's actions on the SHIELD HELICARRIER -- UNIT aircraft carrier Valiant representing a violent fantasy that satisfies the desire of pretty much everyone in the world for the U.S.'s own evil government takeover to end.

SPOILERS END HERE

So, this two-parter had it all -- copious reference to Who history, actual, unexpected plot developments, and very good performances from actors obviously having a blast in their roles, especially Tennant and Simm. I may or may not catch up on previous episodes from this season, but there's no question I'll be watching with the kids when the fourth season gets underway. We all want to know how they're going to get out of this one.

Labels: tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:55 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A Cappella -- Texas cartoonist Christine Pointeau has created two issues of A Cappella, which aims to explore the self through the intersection of whimsy, surreality, and mythology.

There's an irksome pomposity to the proceedings, an earnest and obvious belief that this is important stuff. And while such aphorisms as "open your heart to people," "thoughts create form," and "never apologize for love," might seem profound, they can also seem trite; and here, out of the mouth of a talking turtle lecturing Pointeau's cartoon avatar on her areas in need of improvement, they seem most of all like leftovers from Yoda's Book of Do, Things You Should.

Each page of both A Cappella: When Are You Coming Home and A Cappella: Open Heart is a full-page image, so the cumulative effect is more storybook than comics. There are arresting techniques here and there, but overall there's a wearying sameness to the depictions of our wandering heroine in her various ethereal environments. And to paraphrase Huxley vis a vis God and beetles, Pointeau seems to have an inordinate affection for drawing feet. Which, at least, puts her ahead of Rob Liefeld.

In the end I didn't much care for these efforts, although a reader with more appetite for whimsical fantasy elements than I might find value in them. If you crave the comics of Jennifer Daydreamer or those found in the Flight anthologies, A Cappella might work for you.

Labels: reviews

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:42 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Ten Years of Top Shelf -- Congratulations to Chris Staros and Brett Warnock on this weekend's tenth anniversary of Top Shelf Productions. Almost as long as I have been writing about comics, I have been writing about the comics they publish. And even before that, when Chris Staros was publishing The Staros Report (a great 'zine that probably would have been a blog if launched today), I was writing about them -- a letter from me appears in the second or third issue (circa 1996-97), alongside letters from James Kochalka and Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics Books, both of whom also went on to change the way I see comics as an artform.

Top Shelf has been home to some of the best and most inventive comics creators in the history of the artform, including Renee French, Alan Moore, James Kochalka, Eddie Campbell and many others.

To mark this milestone weekend, Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon today posts a long and extremely informative and entertaining interview with Brett Warnock, Top Shelf's co-publisher and art director. Please click on over and read about Brett's life in comics.

Top Shelf's story is an important one in the overall emergence of comics as a mainstream artform over the past decade, and I hope you'll join me in congratulating Chris and Brett on ten great years. I'm looking forward to the next ten even more.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:11 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Highwaymen #1 -- Perhaps sensing what a creative loss it is for the excellent series Planetary to be mostly over (writer Warren Ellis says the final issue is written, but it's allegedly a PS to the already-concluded main story), Wildstorm inflicts this shoddy effort upon the world.

Conspiracies abound and a droll old guy in a white suit leads an effort to uncover the hidden BS that will be far less interesting than anything Ellis cooks up for the final issue of his far superior series. Highwayman guy in white suit, I knew Elijah Snow; you, sir, are no Elijah Snow.

An image here or there echoes Frank Quitely -- the lumpy visage of President Bill Clinton looks swiped straight from Quitely's first issue of The Authority, but for the most part the art here is rubbery and unimpressive and as dull as the story. Check out the fourth page from the end's final panel for the most blatant Planetary nod.

I found nothing to like about this first issue at all, from the generic cover art to the painfully forced "banter" between Elijah -- I mean, the white-suited Highwayman, and his reluctant partner. It all takes place in the future, at the request of long-dead President Bubba via video file, and it all has been done far better before. Save yourself the three bucks and re-read any random issue of Planetary, or even Planet Terry. You'll thank me.

Labels: corporate comics, reviews

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:50 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The End of the World is Nigh -- I haven't written much about it here, but it's something I am keenly interested in and tend to think is happening soon: The end of the world.

I don't think we'll be wiped out by space aliens, overtaken by zombies or even destroyed in an all-out nuclear war. Also, when I say "the end of the world," I mean it more in the REM sense: It's the end of the world as we know it. I don't, however, feel fine.

For over 100 years now, the human race has transformed the way it exists on this planet through the availability of cheap oil. The detrimental effects of the "happy motoring era," as James Howard Kunstler calls it, were predicted at least as far back as Orson Welles's never-properly-completed film The Magnificent Ambersons, which noted that the onset of motor vehicles had displaced the sense of community that had been a binding force in American culture prior to that. Welles's film was about much more than just that, of course, but that certainly was one of the key points.

I started to become aware of the destructive impact of the automobile after reading Kunstler's two magnificent books The Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere, both of which make powerful cases for a return to a more sane and sustainable lifestyle, with people living in human-scaled communities which they can mostly navigate on foot. The obvious benefits of walking to and from work, home, school and local businesses almost go without saying, but at this late date most people have become so fully invested in the idea of their car as their main mode of transportation that it never occurs to them what the rates of heart disease, obesity and other illnesses might look like if we had all spent the past century walking everywhere.

I don't walk everywhere, but living half a block from a shopping center that includes a supermarket, video store, pizza shop, Chinese restaurant and more, I walk as much as possible. The accident that destroyed my last car opened my eyes a bit, and I decided the day that happened that I would not buy another car. For the six years previous to that accident, I had paid over $600.00 a month for my wife and I to each have our own car, but I was also commuting 100 miles a day to work in Albany. These days my wife and I both live less than five miles from our jobs, and while my not having a car of my own is occasionally an inconvenience, the cash savings are substantial. I also like knowing I am no longer contributing to the environmental problems and other issues associated with owning and operating a motor vehicle.

In addition to the environmental impact of the automobile era, Kunstler's most recent (and I think most important) book, The Long Emergency, also introduces a much more pressing issue into the mix, that of the peak oil phenomenon. Maybe you've heard about peak oil, and the fact that we're very likely running out of the fossil fuels that have so changed the planet in the past century. Optimists like to posit a future in which mankind has come up with an alternative fuel that will allow everyone to keep scooting around in their cars all day long, all week long, all year long, all their lives.

But a cursory understanding of peak oil shows that the chances of that happening have long since passed. Perhaps if an intense effort was made across the planet to conserve fossil fuel and create new sources of energy 50 or 75 years ago, there would be hope that mankind could mostly get through the end of the cheap oil era with its lifestyle mostly unchanged. I think it's pretty clear that that window has long since slammed shut, though. Virtually every alternative, from solar power to hybrid automobiles, depends largely on the continuing availability of cheap oil. And most optimistic theorists turn a blind eye to the growing hunger for cheap oil in other nations, especially China. Their increasing reliance on automobiles and the unbelievable mass-production mega-industry in China makes them the nation to watch in the Global Oil Sweepstakes.

And anyone who thinks high technology will rescue us from a lack of oil is probably unaware that everything from cell phones to home computers are made of plastic, which is made of -- you guessed it -- oil.

I used to think that America and the countries that have emulated its example could probably go on another 25 or 50 years before the scarcity of oil had a negative impact on the lives of the average citizen. Now I tend to think we have five to ten years at best before our lives are irrevocably altered by the end of the cheap oil age.

I don't have a lot to offer in the way of analysis or suggestions. For that, I would ask you to read some of the books mentioned above, as well as the one I read this week that got me started thinking about blogging about all this: Deep Economy by Bill McKibben.

The worst estimated end-result of the end of the cheap oil era really does look like the end of the world: Kunstler, I think it was, predicted that only one out of every six people would survive on this planet after we stop extracting oil out of the ground. Not run out of oil, but stop extracting it. Because you need oil to power the machines that suck it up out of the earth. And at some point, it will take more than a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil from the ground. At that point, obviously, there is no profit whatsoever in continuing to drill for oil. The point is somewhere down the slope from the peak of oil extraction, a time many believe has either already passed or very soon will. And that worst-case scenario? Five billion people could be dead within this century. In fact, it seems likely that this planet never could have sustained the numbers it does if not for cheap oil, which has essentially provided most people in affluent nations with the equivalent of thousands of workers, labouring away for them without complaint.

Think for a moment how many people and how much time it would take to get a message across the country if you didn't have internet and cell phone technology. How many people and how long would it take to carry your entire family six states away on vacation? People living in countries with cheap, available oil are the luckiest and wealthiest people on the planet. But as Grant Morrison pointed out in The Filth, the luxuries we enjoy come at a price. The mis-allocation of resources across the planet means that while Americans sip lattes in air-conditioned Starbucks locations, across the globe others live in miserable conditions, with not enough to drink, not enough to eat, and no hope in sight for an equalization of conditions. No hope other than the almost-certainly inevitable end of the cheap oil era, a global market correction that will change the playing field for virtually everyone alive today.

Kunstler is seen by some as too negative and cynical; I find his tone and analysis to be simpatico with my own point of view, but McKibben's new book puts things in a more hopeful perspective, and it is to be profoundly hoped that Kunstler's worst predictions can be avoided (not that much is being done so far to achieve that laudable goal). McKibben looks to communities to weather the coming storm, and believes that by relying on our families and neighbours, by re-connecting with our local environments through social and commercial undertakings, we can better withstand the worst of what is almost certain to be coming in all our lifetimes. McKibben is a good deal more optimistic and hopeful than Kunstler, but I think both of them have very valuable things to say about where we are now, where we're going, and most importantly, where we can be if we take responsibility for ourselves and our communities. I can't recommend enough both The Long Emergency by Kunstler and Deep Economy by McKibben for background and insight on the issues that face us all. If you can't afford to buy them, you should visit your local library and check them out. Given the way most of us have abandoned our own communities, it's probably a good idea to visit your local library anyway. And bring the kids. If we're going to make a better, more sustainable world, introducing your children to one of the most important parts of their local community would be a great place to start.

More: 2005 interview with James Howard Kunstler at The Morning News; 2000 essay and brief interview with Kunstler by ADD.

Labels: essays, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:58 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Pictures from My Camera -- I got some good feedback on the photos I included in my ADD Comics file I posted for download this week, so I thought I would share the original photos for you to see without my writing all over them. Click the images to see the larger version.



This was taken two or three years back on a day trip to Syracuse to visit a comic and gaming store. The store recently changed its name and moved into the Carousel Center Mall and out of the very cool refurbished warehouse/factory building it had been in. This was taken at dusk in the parking lot.



This was taken a few weeks ago an hour or so before sunrise outside our local Hannaford supermarket. My wife and son were leaving for a field trip to the Bronx Zoo, and while I waited in the car outside, I took this shot just outside the entrance. I just like the way the pillar stands out, and the darkness in the background.



This is that same Hannaford, but maybe a year or so earlier. I got up before dawn one Saturday and just wandered around the neighbourhood with the camera. I like the feelings this one suggests to me about going shopping in the middle of the night at a nearly-empty 24-hour supermarket.

Labels: art, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:45 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Dirk and Comics Piracy -- Check out today's Journalista for Dirk Deppey's observations about the nature, availability and scope of online comics piracy via bit torrent sites.

"Virtually every genre-oriented comics pamphlet is scanned and posted online within a day or two of its release in stores. This includes everything released by Marvel and DC, of course, but also most of the material released by smaller publishers as well."

That's merely one of the eleven valuable points Dirk makes about this growing phenomenon. Much, much more in the link -- scroll down to the seventh section, "Digital Comics," for the rest.

I've dabbled a bit in downloading comics from bit torrent sites, and I don't have eleven things to say about it, but here's a couple:

* Many, many times I've downloaded a comic out of curiosity only to enjoy it enough that I have gone on to buy the actual comic. Recent examples would include World War Hulk #1 by Greg Pak and John Romita, Jr., and the entirety of Garth Ennis's Punisher MAX series, which I have liked so much I bought all the trade paperback collections, and then went on and bought those stories again in the oversized hardcover collections. In the latter case, this is an investment of something like $200.00 or so. Lesson? The availability of free, downloadable comics in .cbr or .cbz format can and will lead to large outlays of cash, but there's a catch.

* Many, many --the majority -- of corporate superhero comics I have downloaded are so ham-handedly amateurish and uninteresting that I haven't even bothered to finish them. And those are the ones that I bothered with, because like the vast majority of downloaders responding to this comics piracy poll at The V Forum, (quoting the poll here) "I cherrypick which titles I want to read so I don't waste time downloading crap I don't want." So yes, the availability of free, downloadable comics in .cbr or .cbz format can and will lead to large outlays of cash, but there's a catch.

The comics have to be worth reading.

As Dirk notes, the majority of available comics that you can download are corporate superhero comics. I'd submit to you that "I cherrypick which titles I want to read" would not be doing so well in that (admittedly unscientific) poll, if Marvel and DC would spend more time investing in and nurturing talented creators, encouraging them to do their best work and then rewarding them for it. Instead, they continue, decade after decade, to pander and pile up the crap on the shelves of the direct market -- crap that the V poll clearly suggests is not worth reading even when easily available for free.

There's an obvious business model for Marvel and DC to follow here, if they want to compete outside the direct market with the greater mainstream audience for comic books. Because surely not all the people buying comics on Amazon, at Borders, or Chapters, or their local independent bookstore, want to buy Fruits Basket or Persepolis or the other titles they choose; some of them would probably like to spend their money on quality adventure fiction, some of that even superhero fiction. So what's pretty clearly called for is more emphasis on quality, and less on overwrought continuity porn and bland trademark maintenance. One more time:

To be worth buying, the comics have to be worth reading.

Labels: corporate comics, essays, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:29 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Saga of The Bloody Benders -- The Benders were a family of alleged German immigrants who may or may not have been named "Bender." In fact, they may not have even been family.

What they were has been outlined in delightfully brutal detail by cartoonist Rick Geary, in the latest volume of his superb Treasury of Victorian Murder series of graphic novels for NBM Publishing.

Geary's ongoing library of bloody 19th century mayhem is one of the quiet treasures of modern-day comic-making. Each volume is meticulous in its research, and Geary's sui generis art is a sublimely effective blend of subversive, sardonic observation and rich, organic linework.

Geary varies his subjects from volume to volume, sometimes covering something as historically significant as Jack the Ripper or the Lincoln assassination, but Geary brings as much drama and inventiveness to his coverage of lesser-known horrors.

The Bloody Benders is one of those. I had never heard of this bunch, who seem like a 19th century mashup of Laura Ingalls Wilder's family and The Manson Family.

The scheme was this: The Benders established a small inn/grocery store right on a prominent, much-used trail in a Kansas that was just now being opened up in the wake of the Civil War. Geary doesn't say if he thinks The Benders planned what happened from the very beginning, and we'll never know for sure given how their story ended, but it seems like a brilliant criminal enterprise that was apparently headed up by a beautiful and seductive member of the "family" called Kate. "Ma" would make dinner for travelers stopping by (often with large sums on their person, as they were out on the plains to make their fortunes and begin new lives), while Kate would charm them during their meal, and "Pa," well...Pa had a big mallet and a great hiding place.

In those days, information didn't travel very far, very fast, and crucially, the whole serial killer phenomena was not the topic of bestselling novels and hit movies. So it took a good, long time for the victims' relatives and the local citizenry to put together the pieces of the puzzle, even though behaviour as strange as that displayed by The Benders would certainly send up red flags far earlier in our more "enlightened" age.

Geary's storytelling, as always, is informative, appealing, and addictive. From the quiet but sprawling beauty of the Kansas plains to the ominous depths of the family well, all is presented with a sense of dread and an offbeat tone that makes Geary totally unique in the pantheon of great cartoonists. A Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Saga of The The Bloody Benders is highly recommended, as are all the other volumes of this wildly entertaining series.

Preview The Bloody Benders at NBM's website.

Labels: reviews

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:39 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
ADD Comics #1 and Only -- I've posted my own downloadable comic book, ADD Comics #1 and Only. Download here.

Totally thanking Abhay for the inspiration to put this up, although it is nowhere as interesting or cool as his Left Field. It's mostly just a bunch of drawings and a couple photographs I have taken over the years, padding out the two webcomics I created for online anthologies a million years ago. Also it has one aggravating typo my daughter spotted, but that was after I RARed it up and changed the extension to make it a .cbr, so, plus, as you know, I am old and not a well man. Also courtesy of Abhay, links to understanding .CBR files and CDisplay, a free and easy to use program to read .CBR and .CBZ comics in.

I hope it isn't too aggravating/disappointing/whatever. It's only 22 pages, so at least there's that. Thanks for checking it out, if you do...

Labels: art, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:27 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Not Tired at All -- I am usually asleep by 9:30 in the evening, sadly. It's a remnant, I think, of getting up at 3 in the morning to go to work every day, which I did circa 1997-2004. But here I am at 9:38 PM all awake and everything. Exciting.

My son's Fifth Grade Recognition event went well -- he's off to Middle School next year, and while I think the idea of a 5th Grade "graduation" is a bit silly, I have to admit that the emotional speech by the principal and an entertaining and moving video presentation did get to me after all.

After the ceremony, Mom and I slipped the boy a cash-filled congratulations card, which he was thrilled to get. He was also genuinely grateful that both of us were there -- the above-mentioned hideous work hours kept me from being able to attend a lot of school events for either he or his sister in their elementary years, but now that I am a 9-to-5 kind of guy and also working much closer to home, it's a bit easier to slip out for an hour or so to be there for my kids, which increasingly I am coming to realize is the very best thing you can do for them.

If you poke around in the "contents" section of the sidebar, you'll find I added some older posts from 2002-2003 that hadn't previously been in the archives. I don't know if you care much about old posts one way or the other, but while surfing Comic Book Galaxy's saved pages at Archive.org, I found a goodly amount of stuff that I had thought lost. So I tried to grab as much of it as I could and post it, back-dated, into the ADD Blog archives. Have a look if you're so bored inclined.

I'll be adding older posts as time allows over the next few days. I'm also thinking of integrating the Kochalkaholic and A Criminal Blog stuff I've written into the archives here, just to have it all in one place...

One other thought I had today, you know what is kind of cool? Remember a few years ago when this blog, Dirk Deppey's Journalista and AK's Title Bout were all fairly widely-read internet thingies? It's kind of neat that after our various 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness(es) that we're all back and in b-i-bidness one way or another.

Hey, wait a minute, maybe I am getting tired after all. One look at the cat sleeping comfortably on the rocking chair in our living room, and I can feel the energy drain right out of me. I think I'll read some more Fletcher Hanks and hit the hay. You have a good night and we'll chat again soon.

Labels: meta, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:37 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Tuesday, Briefly -- Not a lot going on this morning. I added a few more Make Mine COMICS! images and links to the gizmo on the top of the sidebar, if you're keeping score. I'm still welcoming your suggestions for images and links, so e-mail me if you like.

My son has his elementary school graduation this afternoon, as he is heading into middle school next year. My daughter, and it gives me pause to write these words, but she is starting high school. I think I must offically be very, very old. Having quit caffeine last week in the wake of my little health crisis, I certainly feel old. Or tired, at least.

I started reading the new Fletcher Hanks collection I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets from Fantagraphics last night, review forthcoming. But I'll say right out of the gate that anyone at all that enjoys comics storytelling or adventure fiction should pick it up, it's absolutely essential reading, in its own, unique way. It's pretty great to live in a time where there's enough of a market for comics that something like this can find a place on a publisher's release schedule, given the obvious amount of editorial and production attention that went into making the volume as beautiful as it is.

Hey, did you download and read Abhay Khosla's Left Field yet? You should.

Labels: real life, recommendations

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:01 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Coming Out of Left Field -- Abhay Khosla is reporting some interesting numbers (scroll down to the eighth message) about the free, online release of his graphic novel Left Field.

I'm sure other comics creators have release works like this in free, downloadable .CBZ format before, but this little experiment of AK's has the ring of a quiet revolution to it. Maybe it's because it's AK, a truly gifted writer; maybe because it's free; maybe because it's a long, rewarding and funny story. Maybe it's all of those.

Maybe others will pay attention and give this a try.

Like I said, it seems like the start of something interesting.

Labels: recommendations

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:13 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Plain Janes Discussion -- I've been having an interesting discussion with Abhay Khosla on the Image message boards about the recently-released Plain Janes, drawn-but-not-written by Street Angel's Jim Rugg.

The discussion began when Abhay said he almost bought The Black Diamond Detective Agency by Eddie Campbell, but then went with Plain Janes instead. That prompted me to say:

Well, the Eddie Campbell isn't his best work, but Plain Janes is REALLY dull and Rugg's art seems especially toothless for the most part. I would have rather had more Street Angel myself. Hopefully he made a lot of money on it, anyway.

As message board posts are wont to do, that made me sound a good bit more dismissive than I meant to be, which Ivan Brandon called me on, especially disliking my use of the word "toothless" and conflating it with "hackwork," which you may or may not realize is not a phrase I tend to use much. My response to that:

I mean it lacks the vitality and spontaneity Rugg evinced in Street Angel. It seems managed, calculated, and not anywhere near as interesting as his earlier work. If someone is interested in Plain Janes based on the excellence of the cartooning in Street Angel, chances are they'll be a bit disappointed. It's good, professional illustration and that's about all it is. I didn't say it's hackwork -- that's not a word I generally throw around much, and I'm sure Jim fulfilled the assignment with as much passion and professionalism as he could. I just personally found a hell of a lot more passion and personality in Street Angel. YMMV.

Once Abhay has read the book, he feels myself and others who didn't enjoy the book very much may be judging it too harshly...But his thoughts aren't uniformly enthusiastic, either, and says "I hope [Rugg] does a 180 from this material in his next thing because... because again, it just doesn't play to how much fun he can bring to... to.. to movement...? It doesn't utilize everything he's capable of."

My final thought on Plain Janes and similar efforts to integrate artcomix creators into the world of corporate comics is summed up like this:

I always wonder if Marvel and DC are deliberate in their habit of hiring great artcomix creators (Rugg and Horrocks come immediately to mind) and then tasking them with jobs that don't reflect their obvious true gifts, but which keep them busy NOT exercising those talents for their own benefit, however much it might pay in the short run. Or, do the "Big Two" just take a cog for a cog and not even think about anything other than forwarding their own "mainstream" agendas...

There's lots more in the link to the discussion above, but I wanted to get my own thoughts on the book and on the issues it raises here on the blog.

Labels: art, corporate comics, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:41 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Monday Briefing -- Father's Day has come and gone, and as I mentioned in a conversation last night with Chris Allen, while I don't think I am as invested in the idea of a perfect Father's Day as my wife is in a correspondingly perfect Mother's Day, it's still nice to be the family belle of the ball for one day. A joke comes to mind, but it's kind of gross and I haven't had breakfast yet.

Roger Green mentions it's Roger Ebert's 65th birthday today. After a few years of very serious health issues, I'd guess he's glad, indeed, to be here to see this day. I'm not much of a celebrity-watcher, but I have to admit I've worried at times about Roger Ebert recently as much as I do my wife or kids when they are sick. He's managed to pull through some extremely serious health problems, and I am profoundly grateful for that. Roger Green mentions Ebert's great gifts as a film critic, and I'll second all that. If you have any interest at all in criticism in general or film criticism in particular, you should really take a look at Ebert's two "Great Movies" essay collections. They are fantastic reading that will send you off on an exploration of some of the best and most compelling movies ever made, even as they allow you to get to know Ebert and his sensibilities in a manner that is direct, engaging and most importantly fun.

Roger Green also points out that it's Paul McCartney's 65th birthday, but, you know, his big landmark birthday was obviously last year. Roger runs down a good list of McCartney post-Fab Four songs worth listening to, but I'll spare you the top ten and say that all of Band on the Run holds up really well, and at least half of Tug of War is really good, too.

Not much to say about comics at the moment -- scroll down through the past few days for plenty on that subject -- but I will say the comic that surprised me the most last week was World War Hulk #1. After browsing it for free at The Favoured Store, I broke down and bought it. It's a good, old-fashioned Marvel Comic in the best sense of the word, and even manages to make Iron Man not seem like a villain. Except to the Hulk, which is kind of the impetus to the whole kerfuffle. Good, fun superhero storytelling, the kind of which you don't much see in either Marvel or DC's main universes anymore.

Labels: corporate comics, linkblogging, monday briefing, recommendations

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:26 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Just a Pilgrim -- As much as anyone, I was a cheerleader for Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim when it debuted through Oni Press back in the summer of 2004.

In my review of Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, the first volume of the series, I said O'Malley had created a new series that "is charming, funny, sexy and packed with creative power and the love of storytelling." Further volumes have confirmed all that even as they have explored O'Malley's fascination with his own self-imposed videogame structure.

As a now 41-year-old guy, I'll 'fess up that I don't much care for most video games. When I bought my most recent PC two years ago, and the one before that eight years ago, both times I had to work mightily to convince the sales person I didn't need a turbo-charged graphics system, eleventy-thousand terabytes of processing power, and no, thank you, I sure as hell don't need a goddamned joystick. I don't like video games, board games, mind games, or any kind of games. Although David Mamet's House of Games is a fun little movie.

My point is, I like Scott Pilgrim quite a bit, even while realizing I am a bit younger than either its creator or its target audience. I've mentioned before that what interests me most in comics, and in pretty much everything, is what's new and what's next, a phrase I first remember being coined by Warren Ellis in the late 20th century. And Scott Pilgrim was ahead of its time when it came out, and it still feels like forward-looking work from a cartoonist who is still developing his chops even while entertaining the hell out of me and a lot of other people.

So Tim O'Neil's curmudgeonly takedown of the Pilgrim series in the new Comics Journal did not strike a chord with me. It struck me as being reactionary and contrarian without providing either a solid argument or even food for thought for those of us that have happily swallowed the Pilgrim Kool-Aid. I use this last metaphor tongue firmly in cheek, because along with Street Angel, Scott Pilgrim seemed to be one of those books a couple of years back that, when you talked about how good they were in a review or message board post or in-person conversation, really aggravated certain folks who hadn't read them because they couldn't see past the corporate superhero racks in their local comic shop.

Upon reflection, I wonder if that irritation might, in part, have stemmed from the fact that both of those independent, creator-owned and black and white titles were full of more life, energy and colour than any 20 corporate superhero comics you could grab off the racks at random? If it isn't that, then certainly it's the fact that both series masterfully utilized superhero and other traditions to put a new spin on action, adventure and comic book storytelling in general.

Anyway, that's my two cents on Scott Pilgrim and Tim O'Neil's unconvincing and badly-constructed review, inspired by reading Chris Allen's thorough dismantling of O'Neil's piece. Chris manages to find some interesting new insights into Scott Pilgrim that truly had not occurred to me before, a feat I wish O'Neil could have pulled off in his review. A bad review of a work I like has value if it makes me look at it in a new light; O'Neil's piece, ultimately, just seems like he read the series in a poorly-lit room.

Labels: linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:24 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
AK Comics -- Abhay Khosla of Title Bout fame (infamy?) has made a comic called Left Field and is distributing it online in easy-to-read .CBZ format. Details and a link to download the comics for free in the link. AK promises a print version soon, as well.

I've downloaded it and am reading it now, but I had to edit this post to say, Left Field is something like The Golem's Mighty Swing by way of Street Angel. DEFINITELY worth downloading and reading. I had no idea AK had it in him. This release is an interesting development well worth keeping an eye on...

Labels: linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 8:18 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Make Mine COMICS! -- Over on the top of the sidebar, you'll see a comics image that links to a related page. The image and the link change every time you stop by here or reload the page.

It's my way of pointing out the diversity that makes the artform of comics such a joy to immerse yourself in. Reload the page and keep your eye on the box at the top of the right sidebar to see what it does.

Think of it as a dynamic version of my 100 Things I Love About Comics.

If you'd like to suggest a creator or image for the Make Mine COMICS! box, or even better, add the script to your own webpage or blog, drop me an e-mail.

Labels: Make Mine COMICS

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 11:22 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
What? -- Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, from a report at Newsarama:

An audience member brought up recent controversies like the Mary Jane statue and the cover of Heroes for Hire #13, and asked that given that most people who work for Marvel are men, they could possibly be seen as sexist. Quesada refuted such complaints and said that he believes Marvel has the strongest female characters in comic book history.

Whatever, dude.

Labels: corporate comics

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:43 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
8,396 -- That's about how many words I wrote on this blog this week.

It's good to be back.

Labels: meta

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:32 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
What Do I Know? -- Over the past week, I've written about my experiences over the past thirty years of shopping for comics in the direct market, where the market is at now, and where I think it needs to go in the future.

Other than having been a broadcast journalist for two-thirds of that thirty years, and exercising my powers of observation and reportage, I can't claim any expertise. What I've talked about, I've seen first-hand, from shops that fail to open on time most of the time, to shops that deliberately alienate anyone who isn't an aging male superhero fan, all the better to not have to deal with the difficult tastes of women, children, or even other men who somehow prefer to read more than just power fantasies about men in tight pants battling in close quarters over and over again for decades on end.

But, as the title says, what do I know?

You know who might have some insight into the current state of the market? Maybe a guy who actually publishes them for a living, and has for the past few years.

Brett Warnock of Top Shelf Productions:

The dismal failure of 90% of the comics shop owner/managers to provide comics to a wider audience is mind-boggling to me. I won't say retailing is easy, by any means, but neither is it a rocket science.

So many times i've visited stores in new cities, with nary an art-comic on their shelves, where the dork behind the counter says, "Well, they don't sell." Duh, dude!! If you don't have them, people can't buy them! I'm not talking about somewhere in the middle of Kansas, i'm talking about super liberal college campuses (like where i went to school in Eugene, OR), where alternative comics would thrive.

One time, i checked back on a store who had purchased some comics from me at our standard wholesale discount, to see if they needed a restock. Sure enough, the comics had sold, but when i asked if he'd like more, he mumbled, "Thank god those are gone," as if he'd finally rid his store of a flea-infested stray dog. He MADE MONEY on my comics, but acted as if i were putting him in a bind. What the fu*k!@?

And what about those who say comic shops should just continue to sell what sells? They'll always be around, right?

It's somewhat hard to believe, but having polled other indy publishers, we've come to the conclusion that "maybe" 250 comics shops in North America represent 90% of our direct market sales. There's possibly 3,500 comics shops (or some weak iteration thereof, in the form of a baseball card store here or a hobby & games store there), and it's difficult not to wonder, and dream "what if?" even half of these shops truly knew the scope of PROFITS to be made in the emerging market for non-spandex comics? What would happen? Are you high?

Much more at the Top Shelf blog. I appreciate Brett taking the time to comment, because Top Shelf has published some of the best graphic novels of the past decade -- books accessible and entertaining to readers far, far outside the average superhero convenience shop.

But hopefully you already know that.

Labels: essays, good comic shops, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:39 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Friday Briefing -- Hello, good day and welcome to -- you know, I just want to say, it really does feel good to be blogging regularly again. Thanks to everyone who has dropped me a line to welcome me back. I really, really appreciate it.

Now then, as to the subject of the week -- no, not Zombie Mary Jane, although I will say I saw Chris Butcher's point crystal-clear once I saw the Zombie poster side-by-side with the original comic, which I vividly remember buying for my daughter a few years ago. I love me some Marvel Zombies as much as anybody, but for me the Suydam covers were never a part of the attraction, and I have to agree that this one goes over the line.

No, the subject hereabouts has been the future of comics retailing. I started off with a revision of an old essay on the subject, which didn't quite hit all the points I wanted to make. So I wrote more on what kind of shops exist now, and what kind of shops will likely survive in a changing marketplace. Basically I think that superhero-centric stores are living in the glorious past of the '80s and '90s, when it kind of made sense to emphasize superhero comics because that's all there were, and all they could sell. But in the 21st century, the world outside the direct market is gobbling up comics in ever-increasing numbers, just, superhero comics are not in the majority of what it is they're buying. Manga and artcomix have both made huge inroads since the century began, albeit in different manners and different numbers, but they're indisputably the comics that sell outside the insular (I always want to say "inbred," but I'm trying to be nice), misinformed (again see that David Beard piece in the new Comics Journal) and ultimately self-destructive world of the direct market.

One criticism angrily lobbed by hardcore superhero convenience store customers at me, one of the many mischaracterizations of what I wrote, is that I don't want superhero comics available at all, anywhere. Well, how would I buy my Marvel Zombies, then? Or Paul Dini's Detective Comics? All-Star Superman?

Engine member David Wynne really latched on to a point I guess I meant but kind of buried in what I wrote, and I'll confess that my distaste for dirty, disorganized comic shops that open late on a regular basis may have caused me not to see I didn't make this point clearly enough. So I'll let Wynne put it in his words. Responding to an Engine reader who implied that comic stores currently must rely on superhero fanatics to stay in business, Wynne gets it exactly right when he says:

"...but those customers are already hooked. As long as a shop continues to stock the crap they come in for, they'll still keep coming in. Which means it doesn't need to be pushed right up in the front window, making any casual passers by think that they won't find anything else inside."

When discussing this obvious fact in casual conversation, I usually say something like "You could stock all the superhero comics in a dumpster behind the store, and you wouldn't lose one superhero-oriented customer. If it's Wednesday, they know what they want, and they'll do whatever it takes to get it."

Have you ever experienced a superhero-heavy comic book store on Wednesday afternoon? It's quite a lot like watching addicts line up for methadone outside the clinic. Damn it, now I've cast another aspersion. It's like I have Aspersions Syndrome. But what I am saying is, all that space -- all that goddamned space -- retailers at superhero convenience shops devote to superhero comics? It's a total waste of their retail space. The vast majority of such shops could easily cut that space in half without dropping a single title, and devote the new space to comics other people would like. People like the wives, girlfriends, children and friends the superhero addict drags along with him to the store. What if those people find something to read? Would it really be so awful, Mr. Diamond-Centric Retailer, to get the money from both your regular superhero guy and his girlfriend?

Believe it or not, the answer in some cases is yes. A lot of retailers are extraordinarily comfortable with the established "Good Ol' Boys" atmosphere of their shop, and they would gladly eschew growing their business if they don't have to deal with women. Or kids. Or, oh my god, women and their kids!

Don't believe it? Then you haven't been in many comic book stores.

Speaking of which, yesterday I also posted about my favourite comic book stores. If you visit one or two or all of them, I think you'll see why my standards are so high for comics retailing. I mean, if your store meets most of my criteria for being a good one, then I have no problem with you. I am, in fact, not even talking about you. But if women and children feel unwelcome in your shop, if you are rude or deceptive to your customers, if you don't open on time and can't for the life of you imagine why anyone would want to read comics that you don't want to read -- or stock -- then yeah, I am talking to you. Well, talking about you.

Because, really, I am talking to people who buy comics. Not "Comics consumers," not "collectors," "fans," or little-z Marvel zombies. I am talking to people who like to read comics, who want to share their passion for the artform with their friends and loved ones, and who want to support stores that have a good chance of surviving the current transition from floppy monthly pamphlet comic booklets to the comics the whole world has said it wants to read: Comics with a spine and a complete story.

If that sounds like you, well, hello. I've been talking to you all week and haven't really said a proper hello. And what I want to say to you during this, The Friday Briefing, is this:

Please vote with your dollars. Please support the shops that work hard to present the best face for the artform we love, and who try damned hard to sell comics to everyone that wants to buy them, whatever country they originated in, and whatever format they are presented in. If your dealer presents a sloppy retail environment, or demonstrates unprofessional business practices, or worse, both, then find a better shop. They're out there. We're not really talking about stores that only exist in my imagination,