The Four Color Media Monitor

Greg Rucka, surprisingly enough, has written about the problems with grim violence and bleakness in comic books today, though there is one problem with his post: he can't seem to resist taking a shot at Texas governor Rick Perry, and it sounds like his post is more about Hollywood's adaptations:

When I was working on 52, I half-jokingly asked Geoff Johns what it was with him and decapitations. If you’ve read his work, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Black Adam, in particular, had a penchant for removing the top, so to speak. His response was that he’d grown up playing Mortal Kombat. Fatalities were common, as he put it; a decapitation was de rigueur. Me, I was in college when Narc came out. Late formative years, and I still remember being taken aback the first time I watched the animated pitbulls tearing me apart on the screen.[...]

Here’s the thing: I am sick and tired of super-heroes who aren’t super and aren’t heroes, but more, I’m sick and tired of Hollywood blaming us for their failures. I am sick and tired of hearing various Hollywood studio execs who are as disconnected from the reality of middle-American taste as Rick Perry is from Christianity excusing the poor performance of their ill-executed product by tacitly blaming you, me, and everyone else of us who didn’t pay to see their garbage. Catwoman fails? Instead of, perhaps, just perhaps, acknowledging that the movie is a piece of excrement unworthy of use as fertilizer, they conclude instead that a female lead can’t open a movie unless her name is Jolie. So now we’re not only guilty of not being willing to pay for 90 minutes of intellectual abuse, we’re all apparently sexist jerks, as well. The problem with Green Lantern’s performance at the box office is that it’s not “gritty” enough? I don’t think so.

Art – and even if that art is commercial art, produced for entertainment – feeds and is fed by the society that consumes it. So I ask you, right now, looking around you, what flavor of escapism will go down best with you? In an era of terror alerts and bipartisan dysfunction, of rising hate and blossoming intolerance, of bank failure and wide-spread, global unemployment and recession, is gritty really what we need?

Look, I like gritty. I write gritty. There is a time and a place for gritty. I’ll take my Batman gritty, thank you, and I will acknowledge that such a portrayal means that my 11 year old has to wait before he sees The Dark Knight. But if Hollywood turns out a Superman movie that I can’t take him to? They’ve done something wrong. Superman is many, many things. Gritty he is not, something that Richard Donner certainly understood.

(Pet peeve time: for the contingent out there who sneer at heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman and Captain America, those icons who still, at their core, represent selfless sacrifice for the greater good, and who justify their contempt by saying, oh, it’s so unrealistic, no one would ever be so noble… grow up. Seriously. Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters.)

This is not an argument of era or audience sophistication. Sophistication does not negate sincerity, nor does it even deny it, as the Captain America movie proves. Sophistication demands better storytelling, clearer motivation, purer intention. “Gritty” is an apologist word in this sense, used in the place of “realism.” We don’t go to the movies for “realism.” This is why documentaries aren’t the major product in the theaters. Sophistication does not demand realism; it demands smart.

It's pretty amazing that only now, several years after he co-wrote Countdown to Infinite Crisis along with 2 other terrible writers, Geoff Johns and Judd Winick, he'd be willing to speak out about this. However, I think it'd work a lot better if he were to officially address the problems in the comic book medium as well as the movies, and to be fair, if he showed the guts to cite the problem Geoff Johns had by playing too much Mortal Kombat, he did. He could've also avoided the needless potshot at Rick Perry.

Of course it's very sad if Hollywood really does blame the very industry they were still willing to adapt to screen for their own failures. But that still doesn't excuse the grievious errors made by the very contributors of today's comic book medium. And if Rucka isn't confronting them sufficiently, then he hasn't made enough impact.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, violence

AM New York wrote its own article about the overhyped DC reboot, and not only is it predictably superficial, Dan DiDio also won't tell much of anything:

At his Manhattan office, DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio said that the new “Justice League” series will be key in introducing the new DC comic universe.

“What’s great about these two on the book is, not only do we have two of the top talents in the industry launching our premier superhero team book, but it really does set a style and tone that people should be expecting throughout the line as we get into the new 52,” DiDio said.

More clearly, a politically correct tone, as the earlier news has already told. Not to mention that this is otherwise being marketed according to who's writing it (Geoff Johns) and not how good the writing is or how talented Johns himself actually is, which is really zero.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda

Now, here's the Nashua Telegraph's own puff piece fawning over DC's reboot for sake of publicity, which begins by insinuating that fans are fools and sensationalizing the case at hand:

Comics fans and the mainstream media have been talking about this for months. By necessity, when DC released its September solicitations to comics-shop retailers two months ago, the Catwoman was out of the bag. (And, yes, there is a new “Catwoman” No. 1 in September, thanks for asking.)

Predictably, the Internet broke in half. Many comics fans, like many ordinary people, fear change. There was much hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing and exploding of heads. After all, nobody believed DC’s official explanation for the relaunch, which was some sort of corporate-speak boilerplate that I don’t even remember.

“What awful future,” some fans wondered, “does this massive relaunch portend?”

To quote the Sage of Highland: “Settle down, Beavis.” Seriously, it isn’t the end of the world, nor even a serious omen. Titles get canceled and relaunched all the time.

For example, Marvel recently canceled the old Hulk title to publish “Incredible Hulk” No. 1 in October, the third or fourth comic book to bear that name and number. Ditto for “Daredevil” No. 1, “Moon Knight” No. 1 and “Punisher” No. 1, all launched at Marvel in the last several months to replace previous versions.

What’s unusual here is that DC is renumbering 52 new titles simultaneously, just to get people talking. Which is obviously working.

Just so we'll talk? See, that's the problem, they're not interested in entertaining us so much as they are in annoying everyone. If they really wanted to entertain us, people would certainly be chatting about their output for the right reasons. But as it so happens, the problem anyone could have with relaunching is that that's about as far as things go, and doesn't guaruntee good storytelling.

Also, DC emphasizes this isn’t a re-boot, but a re-launch. That means titles that are already working well – read: the Batman and Green Lantern franchises – will continue as if nothing happened, just with new numbering. But DC will take the opportunity to fix a few things it thinks are broken.

Yes, what they think is broken, not us. And it's definitely not Identity Crisis, which, if the prior info is correct, will still remain as their PC-canon, showing what an unhealthy obsession they've got.

One other change has some fans fuming: When DC says it’s rebooting all of its superhero titles, that includes the two oldest in America.

“Action Comics,” which just reached issue No. 904, is now reverting to No. 1. And “Detective Comics,” the 1937 title that gave DC its name, is also resetting the odometer.

And what's the problem with that? They seem intent on trying to encourage people to buy premiere issues as collectors items more than for story value; they're obviously counting on collectors to eat them up in hopes they'll become valuble someday. But even that's been growing old today, after the market collapsed in the mid-90s when just about everyone started wrapping the books in plastic. No premiere issue published since the 1990s is ever likely to gain serious monetary value, and besides, that's not what people should be going into comic books for.

Another change is more diversity in the DC lineup of heroes, most of whom were created as interchangeable Generic Square-Jawed White Guys in days of yore.

Cyborg, an African-American, will now be a founding member of the JLA. Other characters of color, such as Batwing (African), Blue Beetle (Hispanic) and the new Atom (Asian-American) abound.

Nor is the LGBT community ignored; “Batwoman” features one of DC’s many lesbian crimefighters, while Apollo and Midnighter, stars of “Stormwatch,” are a gay couple.

Diversity alone does not good stories make, and certainly not when they become so obsessed with pandering, they'll even shoehorn the Wildstorm creations into the mess.

And the last big change is that DC will release digital issues of its comics “day and date” – that is to say, at the same time the print versions hit the comic shops. I’ve heard differing views from various retailers about how good/bad this is, but for now it seems irrelevant, since the digital copies cost the same as print, and therefore shouldn’t cannibalize sales.

Actually, it could: those titles that are nearly 4 dollars could discourage people from trying them online as well. Indeed, why would anyone with common sense want to spend so much money even on digital programs they might be more comfortable reading in paper format, had it not been so costly?

But it will position DC for the future, when digital is expected to become more important. And if there’s any lesson here, that’s it: The future is coming, and there’s no use fighting it.

Let’s embrace the new DC as we did the old one, and see what the tomorrow’s Man of Tomorrow brings.

No, let's not. Because it's becoming clearer than ever that it'll only be more of the same PC-mess run amok that's been plaguing their output for more than a decade now, and from the same people who've been running the store in all that time. The future they're coughing out should be fought, and can be done by having the strength to resist buying what they're currently selling, even digitally.

Labels: dc comics, Justice League of America, marvel comics, msm propaganda

Over on the Bendis board (via Newsarama's blog), the artist has been voicing his support for the idea to imitate DC's own reboot. And sadly, they probably will. Both majors have lost themselves to obsession with outdoing one another

While coming across this subject, I also stumbled across a comment on the Newsarama blog giving one more reason why DC's reboot should be avoided:

With our luck, we’d get a line-wide relaunch that’s exactly as bad as DC’s — the exact same people responsible for ruining the line to the point that it NEEDED to be relaunched would be put in charge of it, and the relaunch would keep all the things that drove me away from the line in the first place.

DC insists that Identity Crisis is still in continuity, even in the new rebooted reality. WHY? It’s one of the most offensively wrong-headed superhero comics ever created. It’d be like Marvel rebooting continuity but still keeping Civil War and Avengers Disassembled.

And that's one more reason why to stay away from their reboot. It'll also be reason aplenty to avoid a Marvel reboot, if they go ahead with such a move, because yes, there's every chance Civil War, Avengers Disassembled and several other awful crossovers will remain, and not only that, Mary Jane Watson will probably be obliterated altogether.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, marvel comics, misogyny and racism

The New York Daily News has written its coverage of DC's current publicity stunt - and boy is it ever, no matter what Dan DiDio tries to say - and Superman, for example, is being reinvented for sake of angst:

The Man of Steel that fans will be seeing in Wednesday's issue of Justice League #1 bears some resemblance to the superhero who has been leaping tall buildings in a single bound since he first appeared in 1938.

But gone are his trademark red trunks, and in is a sleek modern cape.

His adoptive parents, Ma and Pa Kent, are both dead and his long-running romance and marriage to Lois Lane has been dissolved as part of DC Comics' unprecedented reboot of its entire line of comics.

"By having [Superman] not being married and both his parents being deceased, what you have is a little more sense of isolation for him," says DC co-publisher Dan DiDio.

"He doesn't have that human tether.

"Because he's still an alien among men, he feels separate from everyone else … which gives him much more dramatic moments and much more questionable choices and therefore more story opportunities."

I'm sure they will be quite questionable choices he'll be making, but simultaneously less opportunities. And the dramatic moments? I suspect they'll be more like angst, just what the X-Men became too full of.

Many fans are wondering if the publisher's big move — known in the industry as "the new 52" after the number of comic book series starting at issue number one in the next month — isn't itself a questionable choice.

Because of the disruption to the time stream in the recent company-wide story line caused by the Flash's arch-nemesis, DC got the opportunity to hit the reset button on all its heroes in a way that's reminiscent of J.J. Abrams' recent "Star Trek" restart.

DiDio says it's a great chance to unburden writers and artists from the shackles of decades of dense continuity to tell fresh stories — and gives new readers a chance to jump aboard.

Very funny. As it so happens, they don't have to acknowledge each and every aspect of past stories. The goal is to write new ones that can stand on their own.

And as they revealed, not everything is being rebooted - just what they think they can get away with, while Green Lantern and Batman, for example, are remaining the same, but if Sinestro is replacing Hal Jordan as star of the GL book, I don't see how that's supposed to be a jumping on point for newcomers.

Judging by some of the reaction on the Internet when the publisher's initiative was announced in June, however, some view the move as kryptonite to longtime readers who saw no reason to change the status quo.

"There are three sides," says Matthew Acevedo, 28, a manager at Galaxy Comics in Park Slope. ‘There are people who say they'll drop it entirely, there are others who are excited and there are some people who say they'll wait and see the first issues before deciding. But you have to take it with a grain of salt, because fans' initial reaction to any change is anger."

And by now, that anger isn't likely to fade as easily as it could in the past. Why, I don't think they ever recovered from the Zero Hour fiasco, one of the leading reasons why they sank to such low sales by the turn of the century.

Plus, if the reaction to Marvel's erasing the Spider-Marriage is any sign, the same result could come in here. Especially if the Justice Society is being wiped out so blatantly.

But comic book publishers have long struggled with the paradox that its superheroes can't age at the same rate that the world around them does. If Batman, who first appeared in 1939, aged at a normal rate, he'd be in his 90s now, battling the Joker only on Bingo nights at a Gotham City assisted-living facility.

Oh, isn't that cute. They have been able in the past to tell plenty of stories without aging the characters much, if at all, and I don't think anybody ever expected them to.

There's also been a struggle to attract new readers — a frustration that if even a fraction of the mainstream audience that paid money to propel "The Dark Knight" to $533 million at the U.S. box office bought a comic book, the industry would be in much better shape.

But it hasn't worked out that way, has it? There are some moviegoers who have, but ultimately didn't become addicted, mainly because they've kept using a bait-and-switch approach that's backfired on them.

"We knew we were making big changes, we knew there would be fan outcry, but the thing that really guided us was the cool, great possibilities that could come out of something like this," says co-publisher Jim Lee.

"By making these kind of changes, we would restore a lot of the things that we wanted to have in the characters and also set the stage for really cool stories that we couldn't do before.

"And that we could achieve by rolling back the experience on the characters, so they're not in the prime of their careers, they haven't battled their arch-nemeses a million times, saved the world countless times. We felt that was a richer, more fertile ground to mine for all the characters."

Simply hilarious. Most of what they clearly have in mind for "cool possibilities" are so PC-laden, I'm not sure many today would be very excited.

The industry has never seen anything like this on a company-wide scale.

And while some fans may see the New 52 as an insidious plot worthy of Lex Luthor, Lee believes many more will get the chance to fall in love with characters like Superman all over again — even if he's a little angrier and rougher around the edges than he used to be.

"In my mind, if you can look at the character and you can't tell who it is, then we have a problem," says Lee.

"But if you look at [the new Superman], you can tell he's Superman. Yeah, he doesn't have the red trunks, but to me the red trunks don't define Superman."

I've looked at the character, and even if his facial features haven't changed, based on the "personality" they seem bent on giving him, I think I can't tell who he is. Never mind the red trunks; it's the characterization they hint at, strongly skewing towards the darkness, that's the problem.

With the reboot, the Justice League is getting an upgrade.

The team features all of the long-time A-listers - including Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash -- but includes a new member, Cyborg, aka Vic Stone.

The character had been a fan favorite in the previous DC continuity as part of the sidekick team, the Teen Titans.

"Cyborg is the 21st Century superhero," says writer Geoff Johns. "By telling Cyborg's origin story as part of the origin of the Justice League, we put a spotlight on one of DC’s greatest characters.

More likely they'll just make him into something less special than Vic was when he was a member of the New Teen Titans. Why, what Johns is suggesting is that they'll put less effective emphasis on him from a human perspective, and be far too trendy.

And isn't that interesting how, even after Bob Harras supposedly became EIC, DiDio still hogs the spotlight and Harras seems to have no role as a spokesperson.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, dreadful writers, msm propaganda, Superman

The LA Times Hero Complex section has written about DC staff's hope that they can bring back readers, but with the way they're going now, still no guaruntee it'll work:

DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio was at a comic-book store in New Jersey when he noticed something alarming. Over the course of an hour, only two customers came in. And, this was a Saturday — the busiest day of the week for most retailers.

“The walk-in, casual fans have gotten away from us,” DiDio observed. “We are down to just the die-hard buyers.”

But he won't acknowledge he has any blame to shoulder on his part, will he? His presence alone at that store would be enough to discourage me from going in. If he was there to sign autographs, I certainly wouldn't want one from someone as disrespectful as him.

Comic-book stores have become increasingly barren, with sales dropping consistently over the last three years and down an additional 7% so far in 2011.

Some stores are even shuttering. For example, the Atomic Comics chain in Arizona has closed down, and the owner sees the downturn in economy as part of the problem.

Theories abound as to why. Some blame convoluted story lines, while others point to cynical publicity stunts like killing key characters only to bring them back a few months later. But the main culprit more likely lies beyond the page: Today’s youth is far more interested in spending its leisure hours in the digital worlds of YouTube, Xbox and Twitter.

While they do have some accountability for loss of readers, they'll have to consider that both bad writing and the publicity stunts are just as much a culprit in the loss. In fact, what if they were the exact reason why some of today's youth aren't interested in their products, and turning instead to the digital world as an alternative?

I think it's quite possible.

The generational shift is not lost on DiDio and his associates at DC. For the first time, the comic-book company will now make each of its issues available on digital devices such as iPads the same day it arrives in stores — a jarring departure for many retailers that only have to look at the fate of record stores to see the dangers that digital downloads present to brick-and-mortar merchants.

As part of a two-pronged strategy to try to revive its moribund business and draw newer, younger readers, the nation’s oldest and best-known comic-book publisher has also decided to start over from scratch. Beginning Aug. 31, DC launches its “New 52,” with well-known titles such as “Wonder Woman” and “Batman” as well as more obscure ones including “Static Shock” and “Blue Beetle” starting at No. 1 and featuring a mix of new costumes, new origins and simplified story lines.

But what if you have to pay to see the whole issues, and it's just as costly to buy a printed pamphlet? And even if it doesn't cost that much, they've already made clear they're only going for more trendy, politically correct nonsense that doesn't make a good substitute for good writing and plausible character drama, something their predecessors mastered in the 80s but was scuttled in the 90s.

The strategy is a calculated risk by the Warner Bros.-owned company to keep superheroes alive in comics as they become more important than ever on the big screen and in other media.

“Publishing is the engine that creates and incubates ideas for the other divisions of Warner Bros.,” said DC co-publisher Jim Lee. “We need to streamline our comics so new fans can come in and know exactly what’s going on.”

It’s crucial to Warner that the gambit succeeds, but not because the tiny publishing business makes a big difference to the bottom line of Hollywood’s biggest studio or its corporate parent, Time Warner Inc.

Well in that case, I fail to see their logic here. If the top brass see the movies as important but not the comics, then it's not too difficult to see them shutting down the publishing arm in the near future, because they could always make movies based on the source material without much need to rely on newly published items. This is because any screenwriter could conjure something up, from the simplest adventure to the most complicated sci-fi backgrounds, technically based on the original material from comics, but could still be their own current ideas, and with the way things are going today, not many are likely to care if they're publishing comic books or not.

One more reason why maybe they should sell off the publishing arm, since it's clear they don't have what it takes to make it run, and the people currently in charge are alienating many customers with their presence alone, DiDio included. A different owner like Simon & Shuster could probably know better what to do with them.

Warner needs DC’s comics to stay culturally relevant and generate new ideas. At the same time, the millions of movie fans are seen as potential comic-book buyers.

But the problem is that for a company claiming to be cuturally relevant, they've only succeeded in being politically correct and pandering to the same. And I don't see how they really need the comics to generate new ideas, when any two-bit screenwriter could come up with a fabulous storyboard without having to base his entire screenplay on the DC output.

“There is a generational opportunity to get new readers,” said artist Rob Liefeld, who is drawing DC’s new “Hawk and Dove” series. “The industry has been stagnant, and it’s the right time to hit the reset button.”

Uh oh, did they ever choose the wrong artist to interview. With Liefeld and his awful art around, not many new readers are going to be enchanted with Hawk & Dove, that's for sure. Which only shows how expendable they consider those two crimefighters.

Some of the biggest changes are being made to DC’s 73-year-old icon Superman, and they go beyond replacing the red Speedo part of his costume with jeans. The hero will be “aged back” to his 20s, and Clark Kent’s marriage to Lois Lane, which happened 15 years ago in the comic books, has been erased.

“We want to return to that classic love triangle of Lois, Clark and Superman that people know so well,” Lee said.

How do they know people want that again? If they don't like Marvel's obliterating the Spider-Marriage, there's every chance they won't approve of erasing the Super-Marriage either. And altering his costume with jeans might only enforce the notion some people have that superhero comics are silly in a different way.

More accessible stories are one part of DC’s game plan. The other is getting comics into readers’ hands.

From what they've had to show for their efforts so far, I don't see how their new output will be "accessible", nor do I see many new readers wanting to get them.

To salve retailers’ concerns, DiDio and Lee have gone on a “road show” around the country touting a plan to let them set up their own digital storefronts and collect 30% of revenue. Gerry Gladston, co-owner of New York-based Midtown Comics, acknowledged that there’s been plenty of angst among his fellow retailers.

“We’re not at all convinced that digital will attract a lot of new readers,” he said, “but we hope that it will drive people to our stores.”

So there's not much optimism amongst the retailers. Marvel's already been offering digital products online, and it's hardly been sending sales through the roof, so DC's efforts to go the same path could be seen as coming a bit late. And if they don't appeal to many new readers, then sadly, there's not much chance the stores will find much luck either.

In the short run, it seems everyone in the comic-book industry will benefit. DC’s flagship title, “Justice League No. 1,” has pre-orders for more than 200,000 print copies, which would make it the bestselling title of 2011. Six other new DC No. 1’s already have more than 100,000 pre-orders.

“Fan interest is huge — much of it positive, some negative, and some very cautious,” Gladston said.

But much-hyped events and reboots have boosted comic-book sales before without much long-term effect. Wolfman wrote one of the earliest in 1985 with “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” which was originally intended to result in every comic book restarting at No. 1, before editors decided against it. Since then, events, crossovers and reboots have become a near annual occurrence for DC and Marvel.

And that's just what's been driving away much of the casual readers. Editorial mandates and favoratism for specific writers like Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns are another cause for this.

“The stunts have run their course,” Liefeld said. “This is the biggest one in the past 25 years, and nothing else can come close.”

While the former statement is certainly something we can agree with from this otherwise awful artist, to say this is the biggest stunt in the past 25 years in the latter is not really so. There have been plenty of "big ones" and most of them are forgettable, and already worthless.

The ending part of the article is really amazing though:

The worst-case scenario for DC’s new strategy is that few new readers stick around and existing ones are alienated by the changes. But the relaunch’s architects said it’s a necessary risk.

“The truth is people are leaving anyway, they’re just doing it quietly, and we have been papering it over with increased prices,” DiDio said. “We didn’t want to wake up one day and find we had a bunch of $20 books that 10,000 people are buying.”

So he's admitting - though not the whole story of why - that people have been abandoning their products for several years, and not just because of the prices but also bad writing and disrespect for the audience, and that includes even newcomers.

And if they're increasing the prices, why is DiDio saying they wouldn't want to wake up to discover they have a mere miniscule audience? As is so happens, they do have books for $20, but those are trade paperbacks, and the irony is that, if it weren't for the bad writing, more people might be inclined to buy them.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful artists, golden calf of death, msm propaganda

The Coventry Telegraph spoke with him at the Wizard World Chicago convention, and in a statement that reeks of shock tactic, he says they're going to turn WW's series into a horror story:

So how will DC's new beginning affect him and how he'll handle Wonder Woman? "I can only speak for myself, were doing a soft reboot, we're not getting rid of her history or anything like that."

He then adds, with a little reassurance and a laugh: "People need to relax, she's not wearing pants. But it's not going to be a superhero book. I can guarantee you that, it's not a superhero book. It's a horror book."

Wonder Woman in a horror book written by Brian Azzarello definitely sounds like a departure from the norm. But one that I agree the character needs and could prove to be one of the 52's most interesting.

On the contrary, I think it'll make it one of the most alienating. It only furthers the overabundance of comics with overly dark viewpoints, and while WW under Perez did have some scary moments, it still wasn't geared full force into the horror genre. An optimistic viewpoint is what made it work, just like for Superman.

She may not be wearing that absurd pair of pants, but they know how to blow it nevertheless.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda, Wonder Woman

Rolling Stone interviewed overrated Grant Morrison, who's brought up several things pertaining mostly to his new self-indulgence, Supergods, and what he says about Identity Crisis is self-nullifying:

You were very kind to Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis in Supergods.
I was trying to be kind because I like Brad Meltzer. He's a nice guy. I have a lot of interesting conversations with him so I tried to focus on what I thought was good about it and there was actually quite a lot when I read it again. The first time I read it I was kind of outraged. I thought this was just… why? What the fuck is this, really? It wasn't even normal. It was outrageous. It was preposterous because of the Elongated Man with his arms wrapped several times around the corpse of his wife. I thought something is broken here. Something has gone so wrong in this image.

Gee, isn't that a bit rich coming from a writer who's already been doing bizarre allusions to drugs, and whose take on X-Men was alienating, particularly when Xorn turns out to be Magneto, who soon after sets about to instigating vicious mayhem once more? And a writer who blatantly kills off Jean Grey as though she were literally worthless?

But it's his announcement that he found quite a lot of stuff he liked on his second read of Meltzer's vulgar little screed that's telling, and indicative that he doesn't have very strong beliefs in common sense if he's going to change his mind the next instant. One can only wonder just what he found so great the second time around. Was it the contrived, atrocious fight with Deathstroke - written as it was like a bad fanfic - that he liked? Was it the weak "mystery" elements he liked? Or did he just not see Elongated Man and Sue Dibny as good enough to care about, and figured they ultimately made for great sacrificial lambs? Who knows? If anything, he sure can't seem to decide where he stands, and if he was going to do a 360 soon after his first read where he was allegedly bothered, he clearly doesn't have much affection for any of the cast.

That plotline faced a lot of criticism, in part because people saw it as misogynistic.
It's hard to tell because most men try to avoid misogyny, really they do, in this world we live in today. It's hard for me to believe that a shy bespectacled college graduate like Brad Meltzer who's a novelist and a father is a really setting out to be weirdly misogynistic. But unfortunately when you're looking at this beloved character who's obviously been ass-raped on the Justice League satellite, even saying it kind of takes you to that dot dot dot where you don't know what else to say.

Why should it be? Or at least, why should it be hard to believe a man like Meltzer could be complicit in an insult to women's/human rights? More problematic is his naive notion that most men really do try to avoid misogyny today, which ignores a lot of common street crimes particularly in his own native UK - or even the horror Lara Logan went through in Egypt. Does he realize how foolish that is to make such a naive assumption about the state of the world?

Furthermore, it's rather obvious he isn't going to go full out against the upper management if he wants to keep his jobs with them, one more reason why he's not the most reliable source to turn to about the state of today's comicdom.

Labels: dc comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda

Penn-Olsen has an article about the new JManga website launched by the Japanese Digital Comic Association, which is currently only available in the USA, just like the Hulu video service.

Labels: manga and anime, technology

The leftist BBC is reporting that Marvel and DC are trying to salvage their sales by turning to the foreign market:

With sales in decline at home, US comic-book giants Marvel and its old rival DC Comics have been looking towards foreign markets to grow their businesses.

"We're pushing to bring new people into stores," says CB Cebulski, senior vice-president and international talent scout at Marvel.

"Sales are down and we've been losing market share to things like video games, social media, to film, to piracy."

Predictably, he won't say that another key reason they're losing out is because the storytelling quality in their current output by and large is just plain, flat out poor.

This also tells that they're attempting something similar to what a lot of the US movie business is trying: to rely on foreign markets for sales. Trouble is, unlike the movies, even overseas comics sales today aren't something to crow over, at least not for American comics.

Meanwhile, the American comic-book companies have been reaching out to new audiences through movie franchises of characters such as Thor, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four.

But even with the help of movies, success is not guaranteed. And Marvel has been burned in the region before.

The company made an aggressive push in Japan and Korea in the 1990s, but by Mr Cebulski's admission, it did not have the formula right. "We tried to 'bully' our way in and then got pushed back, because we were trying to tell the Asian market what we thought they needed," he says.

"We've always found the Asian market a little bit impenetrable."

One of the reasons could be that Asians have long been under-represented in the comic-book world, both on the pages and in creative roles.

At least they're sufficiently honest in telling that the mistake they made was telling the audience in Asia what to think/believe. Or are they? I think that's what they must have done, and most importantly, if they didn't sell them in Asia based upon quality writing, and more upon gimmicks like crossovers and variant covers, then no wonder they didn't make it then, and aren't likely to even now. I don't think it's a case of under-representation so much as it is a case of banal writing that makes it hard to get in there (and in most manga/anime, there are plenty of caucasians, even if their character design isn't so different from those who are Asian). And in the past decade, increasingly disrespectful writing is just one of the problems.

This article also drags in diversity issues decades too late:

In the past there have been accusations that any characters of different ethnicities tend to be two-dimensional caricatures.

"The first 35 or 40 years of American comics basically told stories without race, without religion, without ethnicity," says former DC Comics president, and currently senior adviser Paul Levitz.

"Race, in terms of true diversity, was almost non-existent in those first few decades."

There's at least 2 problems to this argument: first, they tend to be very selective in what they consider "race", for example: blacks, Asians and Latinos have been pretty frequent in that time, but Armenians, Portuguese, Bulgarians, Burmese, Romanians, and even Ainu from Japan are almost non-existent in mainstream comics. And increasingly, we're seeing a lot of protagonists of different races being introduced as replacement superheroes instead of supporting cast members, or even heroes who can stand as their own role, and not be turned into forced replacements for white protagonists.

The problem is that, as things now stand, introduction of characters of different races has become very contrived and forced.

But now both DC Comics and Marvel have revamped their strategies in the region.

"To change these things you need to bring in fresh writers, fresh artists with fresh perspectives," says Mr Levitz.

Marvel's Mr Cebulski agrees that giving more creative control to local artists in Asia is one of the ways into the market.

Mixing styles

Benjamin Ang is one of those artists.

The 27-year-old Singaporean has recently been chosen to draw for Marvel, now the biggest comic book company in the US by market share. [...]

Mr Cebulski says Marvel wants these artists, as well as those from other parts of the world, to bring their influences into the Marvel universe.

Here too, there appears to be a telling flaw: they're being brought in as artists, but not as writers. Nor do any Europeans beyond British seem to be sought out as possible scriptwriters; nobody doing scriptwriting today seems to be from a non-English speaking country. Sure, artists can be a valuble asset, but writers are where the main vision starts. And if Marvel isn't seeking writers from non-English speaking countries - and DC doesn't seem to be either - then they're not doing much to convince. Certainly not if they continue to hold their universes hostage to horrible editorial mandates and deny the writers any creative freedom.

Labels: dc comics, Europe and Asia, manga and anime, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales

Comic Book Resources has been paying lip service to Rick Veitch over his 9-11 Truther propaganda called "The Big Lie", and he says something about Uncle Sam that's very insulting:
Time travel and intense interactions aren't the only comic book hallmarks found in the pages of

"The Big Lie;" Veitch and company also utilize a familiar storytelling device in the form of American icon Uncle Sam.

"He's the narrator," Veitch said. "Our Uncle Creepy if you will. Only he's a good guy. Feisty and not easily duped."

"Uncle Creepy"?!? His description of what he must be portraying the iconic figure as sounds vulgar. And by "not easily duped", I guess he means that Uncle Sam doesn't recognize that the al Qaeda and its hatemongering are what led to the horror of 9-11. Tragically, that's doubtlessly what he's saying.

"Man, there's so much disinformation, much of it highly charged politically, that it's no easy job wading through," Veitch said. "The debate has turned into a decade long troll fest, with polarized and entrenched groups insulting and debunking each other. Fortunately, in the middle of that are guys like Brian [Romanoff], who work diligently to separate fact from fiction."

It obviously doesn't occur to him that he too is adding to the disinformation and politically charged atmosphere along with Romanoff. Nor does he seem to realize that he's one of those keeping up the blur between fact and fiction. His parroting is one of the most ludicrous things about him.

Labels: moonbat writers, politics, terrorism

The next mindless event story Marvel plans to foist upon the world:

Norman Osborn is back, and he's starting a war that will be up there with the biggest fights the Avengers have ever had.

Oh, do tell is about it. I think it'll be, more accurately, down in the cellar with the likes of Civil War, one of the worst crossovers they ever published.

After being incarcerated following the events of Siege, Osborn returns to his supervillain perch in "The H.A.M.M.E.R. War," a story line that begins in Marvel Comics' New Avengers 16.1 next month.

Going into next year, a new team of Dark Avengers will rise, Osborn will team with some of the world's worst bad guys and superheroes will have their hands full in the pages of Avengers and New Avengers, both written by Brian Michael Bendis.

"It sets up a pretty large-scale, mutitiered-front war Avengers have to deal with. It's more than what the Avengers have ever had to handle," Bendis says. "But it's being fought by smart people who have been in the Avengers before and have come together to really let them have it."

And it's being written by truly shameless people like Bendis, and edited by terrible editors like Axel Alonso. Just what will this have that older battles they fought with villains like Ronan the Accuser and Kang the Conqueror don't? There's already been enough to tell there's nothing much to expect from this either.

The villainous organizations Hydra, A.I.M. and The Hand have decided to pull together under the banner of Osborn's H.A.M.M.E.R. organization — run in his absence by Superia — and Osborn finds there's been a plan put together to attack the Avengers, although without his knowledge.

"They see the world in a similar way and they want it taken care of," Bendis says. "He's the leader of something much bigger than he probably imagined."

No, Osborn is merely being stuffed into something contrived, and a role that's more than he was meant to be. He was conceived as a villain in Spider-Man, and wasn't meant to be anything more than an insane, quixotic criminal who dressed in a Goblin outfit. All they've done is prove they're incapable of creating a new villain who could fill the role more plausibly than Osborn could.

Like Wonder Man's new anti-Avengers Revengers team — who appear next month in New Avengers Annual 1 — the Dark Avengers are not villainous in that they rob banks, Bendis says. "They have a very specific worldview like Magneto or Doctor Doom. The Avengers are an abomination to that idea or standing in the way of that idea."

So Simon Williams is being tarnished. And maybe Bendis doesn't realize it, but he's hinted at one of the problems with today's comic book storytelling: there's little or no villains who rob banks and hijack freighters, either for cash to spend, or to finance further criminal activities and crooked scientific experiments, or even just for the sport of it. Once, there were plenty of those, even if they were just side-story elements, now, they're almost scarce.

Bendis drones on with the following description of Norman Osborn:

"He's surrounded by those who don't care about his mental state. They see it as a plus," Bendis adds. "I've met in my life people who were (really) crazy, and it made them very successful because they're too crazy not to be. And that crazy kicked them out the door. It's fascinating to write."

Instead of freaking out and hopping on a Goblin Glider, this focused Osborn with a support system is the perfect Green Goblin, Bendis says. "Not-crazy Norman? The one not flipping out? That's the one you've gotta be scared of."

Osborn leaves prison to find he has many loyalists who consider him a martyr and that his movement has grown, with hordes of people adorned with Green Goblin tattoos. At the same time, America as a whole isn't all "Yay Avengers!" following Fear Itself, according to Bendis.

"Avengers are there when something bloody and destructive happens, and some people are sick of it. The media turns pretty quickly," he says. "We'll see more of how the public views the Avengers. Steve Rogers came in on a white horse — is it really any better now?

Is this signaling that there'll be a whole display of villain worship abound? That's another problem that was probably bound to happen sooner or later. This also suggests they're going to depict the public turning against the Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and reminds me of how their whole "Heroic Age" promotion has been quickly forgotten as they move back to more darkness and depression. Did it ever occur to Bendis that some people are sick of that too?

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

Here's a small article on Articles Base about some of the early precursors to comics, dating back as early as 1827 in Switzerland.

Labels: Europe and Asia

Ralph Macchio, who'd been one of Marvel's leading editors for 35 years, is now stepping down from his position there. He once did work wonders there with memorable runs on Daredevil and Thor, but in the past decade, as Joe Quesada took over, I think they rendered him useless. It's too bad that he became one more editor for the company who succumbed to political correctness.

Labels: marvel comics

An article in the Connecticut Post about artist Don Lomax, who'd contributed to Marvel's The 'Nam series in the early 1990s, who also published a comic of his own about the war called Vietnam Journal.

Labels: politics

An article in the Montreal Gazette about the Quebec province's manga/anime convention that took place this week.

Here's also another related article in the Montreal Mirror.

Labels: conventions, manga and anime

In this Newsarama posting, we discover that DC is really going to ridiculous extremes for the sake of diversity:

These stories introduce a more diverse DC universe, with major characters with diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Cyborg, Static Shock, Blue Beetle, Batwing (aka the Batman of Africa), Firestorm, Mr. Terrific, the Atom and Voodoo, and LGBT characters like Batwoman, Apollo, Midnighter, and Voodoo taking center stage.

Oh no. Not only are they once more tossing out Ray Palmer for the sake of this forced tactic, they're even shoving Wilstorm's Authority players into the mess! I'd heard they may have lost the rights to some onetime Archie-owned heroes they never made much headlines to begin with, so I guess this is their latest desperate resort, by pushing the whole WS line into the DCU proper, all because they don't think it could stand a chance on its own now. Let's be clear, what may have worked once with the Capt. Marvel family is not going to work well this time.

There's also a comment on the topic that makes a good observation:

This isn’t new news. I have nothing against Ryan (and disliked how he was killed off), but I’d much rather see him in his own identity. I mean, what kind of message is this sending out that minority characters can only work if they affirmative action a white legacy heroes identity? I know as a Cuban fan, it doesn’t make me identify with the new guy no matter what race he is, but rather feel sorry for the character that took the hit because he was white. Maybe DC should work on diversifying their writing staff?

And as a Ray Palmer fan it sucks too – first he’s gone, then he’s replaced, then he comes back, and now he’s benched again. I know he’ll be a supporting character in Lemire’s FRANKENSTEIN series, but it’s not the same if he isn’t the Atom. Ray Palmer was a labor of love between Gardner [Fox], Gil [Kane], and Julie [Schwartz] and deserves more respect than this.

Well said. All they're doing is trampling upon the works of yesterday's better writers, without doing anything to genuinely respect their past contributions.

Labels: Atom, dc comics

There are four series they're producing in their DCnU relaunch that signal they're not as serious as they claim to be about holding back at just $2.99. Rather unsurprisingly, it's the books written by their leading overrated writers that carry the 4 dollar price tag (Action Comics by Grant Morrison, Justice League by Geoff Johns, for example).

As for Marvel, they're beginning to follow in DC's footsteps with books that are reduced to 20 pages, and some of these still cost $3.99 too.

But at either price, that's hardly going to encourage new readers to take a look at them any more than their abuse of continuity and characters.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, sales

Lynn Johnston, the cartoonist of For Better or for Worse, has posted the whole foreward she wrote for Fantagraphics' 16th Peanuts compilation volume on her website.

Labels: comic strips

An interview in the Korean JoongAng Daily with Makoto Shinkai, an anime artist and writer who's working to become another Hayao Miyazaki.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

Found through the previews for Fear Itself 5. Remember when the mighty thunder god and the rest of the Asgardian cast spoke in amazing proto-Shakespearean dialogue in past decades? Now, as has been the case for nearly 5 years, Thor's been reduced to juvenile, insipid dialogue like telling the Thing during one of the most unjust fights between superheroes in comics that he's a "pain in the ass". This symbolizes another problem today's writers (here, it's Matt Fraction) have: they don't know how to write in the clever dialects Stan Lee and Roy Thomas mastered so well, nor do they make any effort to study how it's done. And that, coupled with the crossovers and contrived fights between superheroes instead of against supervillains, is just one more reason why mainstream comics aren't fun anymore.

Labels: crossoverloading, marvel comics

Newsarama interviewed Alan Moore, who's largely out of the comics scene today and working more on books, and he's not optimistic about its future:

Nrama: Well, they’re relaunching everything with new number ones in September, and folding the Vertigo “Mature Readers” characters back into the DC Universe proper. Part of this involves Swamp Thing literally being resurrected as Alec Holland and turning into a plant elemental –the opposite of “The Anatomy Lesson,” basically – and John Constantine will be running around the DC Universe, and Barbara Gordon is Batgirl again and out of the wheelchair from The Killing Joke. Some people have made the point that it’s a “Post-Alan-Moore DC Universe.” Have you any commentary on that?

Moore: No, not really. I’m not surprised. From where I am – I have no interest in comics any more. The entire world of comics seems to me, from what I’m reading in the proper newspapers over here, on the point of collapse. It seems that both of the major companies are going through some rather frantic thrashings as they try to retool their kind of flagging cosmoses by pulling the usual tricks, because, really, I don’t expect them to have any new ones.

Some characters will be killed off. But this being comics, that will only be until they generate enough interest in them that they can be revived again. They can take these characters back to some pre-Alan-Moore state, if that is indeed what they’re doing, but I hope they remember what that state was! (laughs)

Like I say, it’s not really a field I think about any more. I think it is probably still in death throes, and they will perhaps continue for a while longer, but I’m kind of somewhere else now, and I don’t have any thoughts about that scene now. I can only say that yes, this doesn’t surprise me. It sounds like the kind of lame reboot that a major comic company might try, but this is fairly endemic across the industry.

I recall coming across a story in the Sunday papers a few months ago where you’ve got the head of Marvel Comics saying that Marvel Comics was gazing into the abyss, without actually coming out and saying that, though it’s been doing that for a while, so I would guess the word he was looking for was “plunging!” And I suppose things aren’t any better at DC.

So I guess we can expect a lot of revisions and overhauls and reboots from the companies that portend to represent the dying gurgles of the industry, and to a degree it’s its own fault. As you know, if what you say about DC is right and they’re doing these regressive moves back to a time when they still sold more comics, presumably, then, you know, it would seem that’s kind of predictable, because it seems to me comics have kind of gotten themselves in a position where they cannot imagine a future, and are endlessly trying to retreat back to a past where they felt more comfortable.

And all the while, they are dealing with a shrinking marketplace, and let’s face it, it’s been a while since that marketplace was composed of enthusiastic nine-to-thirteen-year-olds. The shrinking market is largely one of people between their thirties and their fifties, who clearly have a nostalgic connection to the reading material of their boyhood, and that’s fine. But we’ve gotten to a state where the entire industry is predicated on that.

Whether he's retired from the comics scene, he still seems to have a pretty good idea of what's going wrong with it. And wouldn't you know it, among the stuff they're going to reboot is all the hard work he did on Swamp Thing, turning the walking plant creature into what only they consider suitable whether it works or not.

Maybe DC's biggest problem is that unlike Marvel, they never tried to come up with anthology series like What if...? nor did they ever make a serious attempt at alternate universe lines where they could at least have relegated some of their more gruesome ideas and also the more PC multi-culti stuff, rather than foisting them upon their mainline. And the Vertigo line, of course, is being largely discontinued, and who knows if they'll even keep on with the independent works they've been publishing under it much longer?

Again, I reiterate my idea of how to help salvage mainstream comics is to turn them into separate companies from the movie and toy businesses that have eclipsed them. But for now, sadly, it's still a very distant pipe dream.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics

But according to Movieweb (via Big Hollywood), if another Green Lantern film is approved, it'll be - surprise surprise - dark and edgy. The WB studio head, Jeff Robinov, said:

"To go forward we need to make it a little edgier and darker with more emphasis on action.... And we have to find a way to balance the time the movie spends in space versus on Earth."

Granted, they could have a point that the movie would need more space-based adventure than what this year's disaster boasted. And they should also avoid turning scenes like saving a falling helicopter into jokes by speeding it along a racetrack like a sport car, which could easily have made Tim Robbins' senator feel worse than he did when the aircraft was about to plummet. But darkness and especially edginess have lost their flavor long ago, and if that's how they'll do it, then they're risking taking the problem from bad to worse. Mainly because I wouldn't expect them to keep a decent balance of both optimism and bleakness, what comprised GL's approach years before, but rather, they'd go overboard into depression.

If they do make a sequel, or reboot the story like the Hulk movie was a few years ago, they should at least keep Geoff Johns far away from the project and not allow him to taint the story with his bombastic approach to writing. The main scriptwriters who were responsible should be dropped too, ditto any excessive CGI effects, and the story should be written by just one person. Yet even then, I've seen enough to be pessimistic about WB's ability to make a good movie out of the source material anymore.

Update: Total Film clarifies that a sequel hasn't been decided upon yet, and the CEO of TW admits the current one didn't live up to their expectations.

Labels: dc comics, Green Lantern

It's been revealed now why Marvel decided to kill off their Ultimate take on Peter Parker as Spider-Man: so they could introduce a new protagonist who's half-black, half-Latino:

Revealed in Marvel Comics' Ultimate Fallout Issue 4, out Wednesday, the new Spider-Man in the Ultimate universe is a half-black, half-Hispanic teen named Miles Morales. He takes over the gig held by Peter Parker, who was killed in Ultimate Spider-Man Issue 160 in June.

In his first appearance, he simply breaks up a fight. But readers will learn the true origin of Morales and how he became the new Spider-Man when Ultimate Spider-Man relaunches in September with a new No. 1 issue.

"The theme is the same: With great power comes great responsibility," says writer Brian Michael Bendis. "He's going to learn that. Then he has to figure out what that means."

Sounds awfully confusing to me, suggesting Bendis won't exactly ever develop him, and he might remain nearly as stagnant as Kyle Rayner, the Green Lantern of the 1990s (who's half-Asian, if memory serves), did.

At least they're doing it in the Ultimate universe, and not in the 616 mainline, so we don't have to be concerned. But after all these years, this really isn't very novel.

Morales' journey will be a similar vehicle for today's fans, says Marvel's editor in chief, Axel Alonso.

"What you have is a Spider-Man for the 21st century who's reflective of our culture and diversity. We think that readers will fall in love with Miles Morales the same way they fell in love with Peter Parker."

Really, is their any emphasis on if the new guy's got, say, Ghanian or Columbian heritage? Or is his background going to be superficial at best? If it's the latter, then that's one more reason why I don't see how this is something new to herald.

Italian artist Sara Pichelli, who was integral in designing the new Spider-Man's look, says, "Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal."

Oh just look at that, she's blurring the differences between race and sexual orientation. Let us be clear, when it comes to people of black descent, it's been considered normal for years, and should be. On the other hand, it's sad how these leftists will try to normalize homosexuality, no doubt encouraged further by New York legalization of gay marriages. But the part where Pichelli makes it sound as though black heroes, in and of themselves, aren't considered something normal, is definitely insulting.

The horrid American Prospect says:

New York City's black and Latino residents comprise the majority of the population, and it is, after all, the blurring of those two regional cultures that produced the most important artistic movement in popular culture of the past 30 years. Yet despite the proliferation of New York superheroes, that culture has been largely absent from comics. There's something fitting about the new Spider-Man being the kind of kid who has to worry about hiding his web-shooters from the odd stop-and-frisk search.

Excuse me? There have been plenty of black and Latino protagonists over the years in Marvel and DC's publications alike. Luke Cage, Black Panther, Black Lightning, Firebird, Misty Knight, Robbie Robertson and his family, Cyborg, Vixen, Sunspot, Lucius Fox and Silverclaw. And not only are they of black and Latino descent, those who are superheroes were even introduced plausibly, as their own roles, without destroying the white protagonists in the process, and without making it seem as though we should care more about the costume then who's wearing it. I think though, that what's really lacking, are supporting casts of different races and nationalities. Indeed, it would seem as though the big two are more concerned today with introducing new minority members as superheroes than as supporting cast members. No wonder there's no convincing realism.

Labels: marvel comics, msm propaganda, Spider-Man

Well how about that: 2 decades after DC decided to refrain from featuring real life figures like Reagan or Oprah in the pages of their books, all of a sudden, they're injecting a cameo by Obama into the penultimate issue of Flashpoint:

Even in an alternate universe where iconic superheroes are wrecking the world, pizza, juice boxes and President Obama help ground DC Comics' event series Flashpoint in reality. [...]

And on the first page of the new issue, President Obama calls for everyone to pitch in just as the superheroes don't seem as if they're going to save the day.

With so many characters and events a little different in Flashpoint, [Eddie] Berganza feels that grounding the series a little bit in realism in that way echoes for readers in the midst of everything being so fantastical.

Plus, he says, Obama's appearance points out that the stakes are high and the danger is very real and happening — something that will get pushed as DC prepares to relaunch its superhero line with 52 series come September.

Is that so? I'm not sure what they mean. I doubt they mean how, in real life, there's al Qaeda terrorism that's posing a danger. More likely what they mean is the war waged between Aquaman and Wonder Woman.

And if McCain had been elected president, there's a very strong chance they'd never do the same. This is more likely to be liberal worship, and a later attempt to catch up with Marvel's tribute cover from nearly 3 years before.

On a related note:

Someone readers have spent time with in Flashpoint will die, an old favorite returns and — naturally, for the last chapter before the finale, in stores Aug. 31 — a monumental cliffhanger.

I quite honestly disapprove of the death factor here. If the old favorite they speak of is an effort to repair a past mistake, that's good. But if not, and if the character they're going to put to death is one who wasn't broken in the first place, then that's simply reprehensible.

And I doubt this'll be a classic cliffhanger.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, msm propaganda, politics

I read about this incident at the Comic-Con where a member of the audience brought up the lack of female writers/editors at DC.

I suppose there's some meat to that argument, but I think it could've been just as effective to call on them to get rid of all the effects they've been using since Identity Crisis, and still look very likely to carry on with even now.

Now maybe someone has tried that over the past few years, and it's deliberately been ignored by the mainstream press. But if not, then this was another missed opportunity to demand something much better from them, not to mention the resignation of Dan DiDio altogether.

Labels: conventions, dc comics

I never expected the New York Times to publish a disappointed review of Grant Morrison's new book, Supergods, but that's what they've done now, and the reviewer came away otherwise dismayed with the end result:

In his own work Mr. Morrison has brought a mythological and metaphysical approach to superheroes. His wonderfully imaginative mini-series, “All-Star Superman,” originally released by DC Comics from 2005 to 2008, regarded the Man of Steel as a 21st-century Hercules, performing trials on a cosmic scale for the wonderment of his mortal admirers. His “Final Crisis,” however, was a rambling, baffling attempt to construct a unifying narrative for DC (and to include seemingly every character in that publisher’s pantheon). It created a lot of question marks in the thought bubbles above readers’ heads.

I’m afraid to say that I had a similar reaction to “Supergods,” a sprawling and scattershot book that seems as uncertain of its thesis as it is unclear about its intended audience. Readers who wouldn’t know Plastic Man from Mr. Fantastic are likely to find Mr. Morrison’s overview of comic heroes too impressionistic an introduction to the subject, while die-hard fans will be disappointed by the author’s superficial analysis of the ambitious ideas he conjures so readily in his storytelling.

The following, however, is where the NYT writer's leftist bias unfortunately comes in, yet does tell how Morrison holds a very dismaying view of Boy Scouts:

Mr. Morrison does not show up as a character in his own book until Page 83; this is jarring at first, then increasingly comforting as he reveals himself to be a vulnerable Virgil in the underworld of geek culture. Raised by his parents to follow “nonviolent principles,” Mr. Morrison spurns the Boy Scouts as a “paramilitary organization.” His mother attends astronomy classes with him and takes him to see “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Since when were the Boy Scouts a military movement? Come to think of it, since when were even the Girl Scouts? My own father was a member of the Boy Scouts in his own childhood, and their prime specialty is hiking, swimming and cooking. It was not the same as the army. And by non-violence, I suspect they mean little more than anti-war stances. But, the reviewer does improve when saying that:

...it is disappointing to watch as “Supergods,” which never stays with a particular point for very long, comes increasingly unraveled in its final chapters, forgoing thoughtful examination in favor of shout-outs to Mr. Morrison’s industry colleagues and an unnecessary, 16-page summary of the “Batman” movie franchise.

“Supergods” is most frustrating because it is a missed opportunity. The comics industry is imperiled by stagnant sales and is turning repeatedly to gimmicks — killing off and resurrecting characters or resetting all of its titles at issue No. 1, as DC Comics is about to do — in hopes of renewing readers’ interest. If Mr. Morrison, who will be the writer of DC’s rejuvenated Action Comics series, has any thoughts about this existential crisis on infinite Earths, he has omitted them from this book.

I'm amazed that the NYT would be willing to publish an honest point about the reality of the medium today, how the mainstream especially became hijacked by cheap gimmicks that don't hold the audience's attention span for long. For too long, they didn't seem to ever do that. Now, all of a sudden, they're willing to wake up to that particular problem.

Amazingly enough, even CBR was willing to view this as a disappointment. On the other hand, The Irish Times decided to bias themselves in his favor, but they did note one more disturbing problem, that:

Morrison’s spiritual beliefs are eclectic, and have been shaped by his use of hallucinogenic drugs.

And if he makes it sound as though that were a good thing, then he's not presenting a good role model, nor could he possibly have been inspired by the superheroes he read about.

Labels: dreadful writers, politics