The Four Color Media Monitor

The Penn. Express-Times continues to fawn laughably over Brian Bendis' work in New Avengers, which is tied into the latest crossover, Dark Reign:

Clint Barton is especially ticked off that former assassin and "Daredevil" villain Bullseye has taken over his old costume and name of Hawkeye.

Barton really becomes the voice of the team in this issue. He makes it the team's mission to expose the villains to the world.

I personally doubt Clint is being handled respectably, considering that he certainly wasn't a few years ago. And the whole idea of Bullseye taking over his costume sounds silly.

When the New Avengers try to lure Osborn's team into a trap, things go wrong.

Instead of taking on Osborn, the Avengers find themselves ambushed by an army of villains led by the Hood.

Oh, the tedious villain who beat up Tigra in a forced storyline a year ago? Nothing to see here then.

This book is full of a lot of great character moments, which is what writer Brian Michael Bendis is known for.

Bendis gives each of the cast a little moment in the story to shine.

Most of the "character moments" here since he took over the book have been so contrived, I don't think it's telling much to say he's "known" for that kind of stuff.

"New Avengers" is Marvel's bestselling book and No. 50 is a good example of why.

And that part is really obscuring the bigger picture.

Labels: Avengers, crossoverloading, dreadful writers, marvel comics, msm propaganda

FOX News has a small article about a very rare original copy of Action Comics #1 that's being put up for auction, at a very expensive price. (And in this age of economic recession, only the really wealthy could afford to buy it.)

Labels: dc comics

In one of the latest Q&As he's been providing for Newsarama, this exchange comes up (via Titans Tower Monitor):

NRAMA: It seems like an uphill battle – for this generation of DC readers, or for the under 30 segment of DC readers, Wally has been The Flash for them. Barry coming back will appeal to a certain group of older fans who knew Barry as the Flash, and a group that you want to convince that Barry is “the” Flash for the DC Universe.

DD: There was a point in time where we convinced a group of fans that Wally West was the Flash after Barry’s death. There was a point in time when we convinced fans that Bart Allen could be the Flash. And you can argue that there was a time before Barry even appeared who believed that Jay Garrick was the only Flash. What we’re doing is we’re looking at all the new Flashes, and building new story on Barry. There are many things that make this character great and unique, and more importantly, we’re hoping that this will appeal to people who are fans of the Flash franchise.

Oops, that's where he slips - they didn't succeed in convincing readers that Bart Allen could be the Flash, thanks mainly to poor writing. And they only made things worse by killing him off at the end of the short-lived 3rd volume they'd launched with Bart as the star.

You say I’m talking to fans who’ve never known Barry as the Flash, but the truth is, Wally has seen him and interacted with him. We have told stories from Brave and Bold to Flash itself where Barry was front and center. We’ve told stories with the Justice League where we’ve referred back to Barry. Quite honestly, Barry Allen has never been gone from the DC fans’ psyche for an extended period of time. It’s the same argument that I’ve made with Hal Jordan. When Hal Jordan was “dead,” he was in books just as much as when he was alive, both as The Spectre and in flashback appearances.

Here too is a part where his logic collapses. If, as he says, there's fans out there who don't know Barry Allen, why then doesn't he just point them in the direction of their archives of past storytelling, where there's plenty of Barry as the Flash? It's all just a laughable cover for their weakness in current writing.

When Barry Allen debuted in 1956, that's what started the Silver Age and a resurgence in popularity for comics, but bringing him back so arbitrarily could be what helps to end it all. With a drastically reduced, divided fanbase and little interest from the wider public, this is not likely to go over so well.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, Flash

An article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about Oishinbo, the manga book about food and cooking that's been running since 1983.

Labels: manga and anime

This article in the Nashua Telegraph talks about an extra feature DC is putting into some of their comics called "Origins and Omens", and has the following by Dan DiDio:

All of which raises even more questions, which Didio was happy to answer.

For example, would the "origins" part update or change what we know about various DC characters?

"Not at all," Didio said. "As a matter of fact, it's the opposite of what you're saying. What we're really doing is going back to the streamlined, classic interpretations of the origins, the ones that people most recognize, and moving ahead on from there.

"Just a reminder, I like to think, of who our characters are, what they're about and what they're about to face. Each one's told in its own style, each one has its own pacing. Some of are very much an origin or recounting, some are just touching upon key touchstones of a character in order to remind people of where a character sprang from."

I think they've already changed what we know about various DC protagonists in Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis, and if they haven't done much to fix that damage by now, then we can't expect them to do so for as long as DiDio is the editor.

What's more, his announcement that they're going back to the "classic" interpretations is just another sign of how they're regressing back to a Silver Age-like state without offering anything truly heroic or inspiring. Final Crisis could surely tell that, if they couldn't offer up anything coherent there, then "Origins and Omens" isn't likely to fare much better.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda

The New York Daily News writes that DC and Marvel are writing the recession into the pages of the Caped Crusader and Shellhead's books:

While Batman has yet to have to tighten his utility belt, his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, has disappeared in a recent story line, leaving the board of Wayne Enterprises struggling to keep the company afloat.

And he's just one of several superheroes looking to get up, up and away from their financial problems.

"I don't see how it doesn't work into our storytelling if not only our readers are feeling it, but our creators are feeling it," said Dan DiDio, executive editor at DC Comics.

A really bothersome thing about this part of the article is how it almost makes it sound like the heroes are deliberately running away from their financial problems instead of trying to fix them. Which is hardly at all heroic. And considering how pointless Batman RIP is, that's why readers now may be saving their money so they won't have to feel too much financial strain, if this is how DiDio is going to run things.

The economic downturn has hit some of Marvel Comics' characters hard: Tony Stark, the billionaire behind Iron Man, is on the run with all his assets frozen after being blamed by authorities for failing to stop an alien invasion.

"Tony Stark is having a bad time of it in comic-book land ... he's kind of like Donald Trump after the first bankruptcy," said "The New Avengers" writer Brian Michael Bendis. "But you get the sense, like Trump, he'll recover."

He may recover financially, but what about the writing? I'm sorry to say, but whatever they're planning here, it cannot disguise the pointlessness of Batman RIP or the character destruction heaped on Tony Stark since Civil War went to press. What's more, hasn't Tony been through a couple situations like this before, where he's suffered financially and had to climb back up the hard way?

And if prices are getting higher, and the writing quality lower, then Marvel and DC shouldn't be surprised that they'll be feeling the recession quite a bit in the near future.

Mark D. White, professor of philosophy at the College of Staten Island and a comic fan, said superheroes' greatest power is helping worried readers escape into a fantasy world.

"Comic books are a way for people to get away from the real world," said White. "They don't want to be reminded of wars or tragedies or economic catastrophes."

I think he's right. And they certainly don't want contrived and forced storylines messing things up and preventing them from finding decent escapist entertainment.

Labels: Batman, dc comics, marvel comics, msm propaganda

ICV2 reports that sales of pamphlets are still in down (via The Beat):

DC’s Final Crisis was one of only four titles that picked up circulation in January, and absent ASM #583, it would have finished a close second to Marvel’s Dark Avengers #1, the key book in Marvel’s Dark Reign event in which Norman Osborne takes over the Avengers (aka his Thunderbolts playing Avengers). After the Dark Reign-aided New Avengers #49, sales of subsequent titles dropped off quickly and remained weak down the list (see “Comic Sales Drop in January” for an analysis how the #10, #20, #50, #100, and #300 titles dropped versus similarly positioned comics in January of 2008). How long will it be before someone notices that the top five titles all have a $3.99 cover price, and start blaming the higher cost of the top tier of titles for the drop-off of the downlist books?

Better still, how soon will it be before someone blames the poor quality of the writing, as well as the publicity stunts and company-wide crossovers, for bringing it down to this point and spoiling things for even books that were written better than others?

Sales of graphic novels, on the other hand, did better:

Sales of the top 100 graphic novels were up 4%, an increase that brought the overall decline in sales of both the top 300 comics and top 100 graphic novels down to 7%.

In the future, graphic novels and compilations are where comics are likely headed. The good news there is that Marvel and DC wouldn't be able to force company-wide crossovers on their products as easily.

Labels: sales

Warner Todd Huston at Newsbusters is not looking forward to the upcoming movie based upon Alan Moore's Watchmen from 1987. It may have been crummy and leftist, but with what the past couple years have yielded, one can only wonder if the movie will be worse, because of the likelihood it'll be updated to "reflect" more contemporary times.

Towards the end, Huston says:

Moore has lamented that his work with Watchmen had “started a whole genre of pretentious comics or miserable comics,” but since he insisted on taking that low road, but what could he expect? His politics, if emulated, ends up at this very place.

Yep, he's got a point. If you use that kind of political approach, it's possible that it'll only result in a vision that's - what else? - much too dark. Moore needs to ponder his past approach and determine where he went wrong if he's to make things better.

Still, I suppose Moore could earn points for what he told MTV a few years ago, a short time after the abortive movie based on V for Vendetta came out:

Those words, "fascism" and "anarchy," occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. In my original story there had been a limited nuclear war, which had isolated Britain, caused a lot of chaos and a collapse of government, and a fascist totalitarian dictatorship had sprung up. Now, in the film, you've got a sinister group of right-wing figures — not fascists, but you know that they're bad guys — and what they have done is manufactured a bio-terror weapon in secret, so that they can fake a massive terrorist incident to get everybody on their side, so that they can pursue their right-wing agenda. It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?

[...]Presumably it's not illegal — not yet anyway — to express dissenting opinions in the land of free? So perhaps it would have been better for everybody if the Wachowski brothers had done something set in America...

I have no idea if that tells that he's changed, but it does suggest that he realizes that liberals too can be pretty awful, as the Wachowskis were being at the time.

The possibility that the Watchmen movie will be turned into another impotent liberal fantasy that apes the original isn't the only thing to dread: DC is promoting a couple books by left-wing writers that are meant to cash in on anyone who reads Watchmen first:

Five “AFTER WATCHMEN, WHAT’S NEXT?” Specials featuring a cover price of just $1.00:

SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #21 SPECIAL EDITION
TRANSMETROPOLITAN #1 SPECIAL EDITION
PLANETARY #1 SPECIAL EDITION
PREACHER #1 SPECIAL
IDENTITY CRISIS #1 SPECIAL

3 of the books shown are written by Warren Ellis, a boilerplate leftist. That Identity Crisis would make this list is particularly disturbing, but recalling this article originally published in the Colorado Springs Gazette, which, dishonest as it was, did give a clue to what kind of political standing was behind it, maybe it shouldn't be too surprising that they're promoting it on this ballot of theirs.

I won't be surprised if the Watchmen movie turns out to be very bad, nor if Moore asked for his name to be removed from the credits, as I think he did with V for Vendetta. And based on at least 4 of the 5 books they're promoting in its wake, they apparently intend to promote leftism in the worst way.

Labels: dc comics, moonbat writers, politics, violence

The Dubuque Telegraph Herald has a rather sugary article about the Spidey-Obama comic, that tells that:

Record sell-outs were reported nation-wide of "Amazing Spider-Man" No. 583, and within hours, the issue was selling on eBay for outrageous prices. The Obama cover was selling for well more than $100, and the Peter Parker cover was selling for $20-$30, easy. And this was only hours after the comic book hit stores.

In that case, I guess most of the people buying it are just doing so to make even more of a quick buck off it, by selling it to the next big sucker on eBay, because they know it's not going to be worth its weight in gold in the next few years? I really don't see the point in buying something just to play profiteer with.

Aside from being one of the most foolish stunts to come down the pike in recent years, it also shows how greedy some people can be with get-rich-quick schemes.

Labels: marvel comics, politics

The Beat presents several headlines from mostly tabloid newspapers all fawning over the lesbian Batwoman first introduced 3 years ago, now being featured in Detective Comics (suggesting that they're going to do with that series what they're doing with Action Comics, turning it into an anthology). But all they're doing is showing just how much lack of faith DC has in their would-be masterpiece to sell on its own in a book of its own, so instead, they shoehorn the tired concept into a major book.

These tabloid and multi-culti stunts have long become a joke.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda

Comic Book Resources says that veteran writer/editor Tom DeFalco may be done working at Marvel after Spider-Girl concludes, or after Amazing Spider-Man Family does:

The industry veteran tells CBR News that Marvel editors have stopped calling. In fact, as will be elaborated upon in next week’s REFLECTIONS, DeFalco goes so far as to say his “Amazing Spider-Man Family” gig is “an assignment which could be my last for Marvel.”

Such an admission is shocking news from a man whose career has been so closely linked to Marvel Comics for decades. DeFalco was the publisher’s Editor-in-Chief for seven years, and was partially responsible for bringing the company public. As a writer, DeFalco enjoyed legendary runs on titles including “The Amazing Spider-Man” -- where he participated in the controversial Clone saga – as well as “Thor,” “The Fantastic Four” and “Spider-Girl” and its aforementioned successor, ”The Amazing Spider-Girl.”

DeFalco said there are several reasons why his relationship with Marvel may be ending, chief among them being the simple fact that he’s getting little to no other work from the company. “The bad news about working on the same thing for that many years is that editors start to believe that it is the only thing you can do,” DeFalco told CBR. “So the only way I can get non-Spider-related work is to work for other companies.”

DeFalco continued, "The truth is that editors are a cowardly and superstitious lot. They are constantly looking for the ‘next big thing’ that will magically jump the sales of every comic book. The sad truth is that, with the market we have today, there is no magical ‘next big thing.’"

The Clone Saga is one serious mistake he made in all his career, but other than that, most of career's been pretty successful. I have an issue of Marvel Two-In-One #91 where he wrote an origin for the Sphinx. Now, he's finding himself edged out because of how editors are relying on "talent" that's usually in name only, as they have in Bendis, overrated as he is, but whom they'll most likely dump when they feel his name doesn't carry any dollar signs anymore. And if they do rely on older pros, it's usually just symbolic.

It'll be a shame if he goes, since I'd rather he be editor in chief again than have to make do with someone as awful as Quesada. But the inmates are running the asylum now, making it hard for older, more sensible talent to return to being editors again.

Labels: good writers, marvel comics

If this Lying in the Gutters column tells anything:

Is "Final Crisis" DC's "One Last Day?" Just as a third of Marvel's Spider-Man readers stopped buying Spidey comics after Peter Parker sold his marriage to the devil, so to DC appear to be dealing with a mini-rebellion. While not apparent as much online, retailers have told me about longtime readers so incensed by "Final Crisis" that they have stopped their DCU books. The complaints usually involve an abscence of comprehension, a sense of condescension and a huge lack of cohesion.

If there is a backlash, and I assume it's over the shafting of Bruce Wayne too, it's about time; Marvel shouldn't be the only ones fans should be sending a message to, even DC's readers need to stand strong on many issues.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics

Publisher's Weekly has a small article in which the writer is asking if creativity could save comics. Answer: of course it could, but that all depends on what their definition of creativity is. In my mind, it could practically include letting conservatives join the club and be allowed to express their views without interference.

And creativity can only come around if the liberals dominating the industry allow it to.

At the New York ComiCon, Quesada and company announced that they were ending the current Ultimate line and starting a new one (via The Beat).

Turning to Ultimatum, Quesada showed slides of "Ultimate Requiems." "We're kind of saying goodbye to those books," said McCann. "We're canceling Ultimate Spider-Man," said Quesada to a startled crowd. [...]

"We are introducing Ultimate Comics," said Quesada. Bendis talked about Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, starting with a new #1, with David LaFuente as the new artist. "You can tell it's going to be good because it has the New Avengers lightning bolt on the cover," said Bendis.

Ha ha ha, very funny. I do wonder why they're still keeping on with this weak publicity stunt of cancel/relaunch? By now, I guess the Ultimate line has lost its momentum, though it wasn't much to crow over when it first began, recalling how disturbing Ultimate X-Men was when Mark Millar first wrote it. That title most certainly wasn't entry-level as they claimed it was way back in 2000.

Labels: bad editors, marvel comics

It's bad enough that Bill Ayers, the onetime head of the Weather Underground, who participated in some of the most repulsive terror plots in the US at least 4 decades ago, had to write up a vanity memoir about himself several years ago (which came out, chillingly enough, on the week 9-11 took place). Now, Teachers College Press is going to turn his memoir into a graphic novel:

Teachers College Press, a scholarly, professional and trade publisher focused on the theory and practice of teacher education, has reached agreement on a two-book deal with William Ayers, the University of Illinois at Chicago professor, lauded educational theorist and former leader of the radical 1960s Weather Underground. And, yes, Ayers is indeed the same figure dragooned into the 2008 presidential race in a controversial attempt to use his background in radical politics and a minor acquaintance with Barack Obama to undermine Obama’s presidential run.

In spring 2010, TCP will publish a graphic novel adaptation of To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, a much-praised memoir of Ayers’s life as a teacher, tentatively to be called To Teach: The Graphic Memoir with art by Xeric Award-winner Ryan Alexander-Tanner. More than a simple memoir, To Teach is also a peer-reviewed work of scholarship on Ayers’s teaching precepts as well as a vivid recollection of his adventures in the classroom.

If there's anything else disgusting about Ayers, it's that he managed to get a job in education. But who exactly is it that praised his book? Only the most demented and corrupt of the MSM, to be sure.

This production TCP is going to do puts a giant stain on graphic novels as a whole and gives them a bad name.

Others on the subject include Michelle Malkin, Ace of Spades HQ, Suitably Flip, Northern Thoughts and Reflections.

Labels: moonbat writers, politics, terrorism

Labels: Carnival entries

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Marvel and DC have won honors from the Diamond Gem Awards. Looking at this list on Diamond's website, it's clear that if these awards really have what to do with artistic quality, then they sure haven't made their choices so well. Secret Invasion gets one? Please. And Wizard even gets one? They've gotta be kidding. Those choices, if any, are pretty desperate ones.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, msm propaganda

It's actually a pretty simple and brief article they publish here, but they do make some interesting points about how the major publishers have put stunts and shock tactics above real, quality storytelling:

Ostensibly the first responsibility of comic book publishers is to be the purveyors of great stories, and to set themselves apart from the competition through distinctions of quality.

The biggest publishers, Marvel and DC in particular, are burdened with a second responsibility, to be the curators and caretakers of American icons and essential pieces of our mythos. Increasingly, both companies are failing at the latter task, and in the process, failing at the former as well.

As publishers shrug reverence in favor of shock-and-awe sales tactics, the mean quality of their stories continues to plummet, leaving in their wake a years-long paper trail of lackluster tales like Grant Morrison's "Batman R.I.P."

Morrison has become something of a legend in recent years, and I confess, I've never really understood why. Beyond the fan-boy complaints I have about his handling of characters over the years, I've never seen him as a particularly good craftsman. His stories are often convoluted and confusing, offering little merit in reward for their pretensions of complexity.

It's said one needs to read his stories more than once in order to make any sense out of them, but really, what's the use of reading most of them at all, when some of them involve quite a bit of excess.

There's a tendency in the generation of writers who've come about in the age of independent and creator-owned comics to try and leave their mark on a character — an attitude that takes precedence over telling good stories. While Morrison is far from the most guilt party in this regard, his work is often emblematic of that attitude, and "Batman R.I.P." is no exception.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this story, is that it has all the makings of great superhero comics — identity crisis, exploration of duality, perseverance of will and power of conviction — and yet Morrison fails to fuse those elements in an evocative or meaningful way.

Where juvenile simplicity and a lack of ambiguity were the shortcomings of many bygone-era superhero comics, it seems fans now have to learn to contend with the inverse. Pointless complexity and meaningless breaks from convention are now the dead-weight keeping much of the genre down. There are plenty of explanations for the changing climate of the superhero genre (and I could expound on them at length) but what it all boils down to is a lack of dedication toward that first responsibility, striving to tell great stories.

It's good to see that someone at a mainstream newspaper gets what's wrong with today's writers, editors and publishers!

Labels: Batman, dc comics, dreadful writers

An article in the Korea Times about how comics from Korea are making their way onto the European scene, and the Korea Culture and Content Agency's exhibition this week in Paris, France.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime