The Four Color Media Monitor

USA Today spoke to Marvel's writer Jason Aaron about the way he's rendering the Hulk, in which he hints that Bruce Banner will become more monster than man, rather than his alter ego. But another thing that annoys me here is how he describes Bruce's career as a scientist:

One of Banner's major hang-ups is that Hulk is the only significant thing he has ever accomplished in his life — and even that was by accident. "All he ever did was build a gamma bomb and then happen to get caught in the explosion," Aaron says. "He becomes obsessed with continuing his work and takes that to extreme lengths and becomes a Marvel Universe version of Dr. Moreau."

Say what? He didn't make it through college, or even write up any good resumes on the art of nuclear science, for instance? If Bruce Banner didn't make any achievements, it was only after he became the Hulk and subsequently a fugitive, so he wouldn't have much time to research anything. Especially if a transformation followed by Hulk-smash mayhem was constantly around the corner, mostly caused by the arrival of some supervillain who was out to give him a hard time. Why belittle Stan Lee's classic creation by making him sound like a bummer even on that level? I don't think that's a good way to do things.

Another annoyance for him: Practically everyone Banner has ever known is now a Hulk except for him. His cousin Jennifer has long been She-Hulk after a blood transfusion from Banner to save her life. But also, his longtime nemesis Thunderbolt Ross is Red Hulk (the star of writer Jeff Parker's current Hulk series), Banner's ex-wife Betty Ross is Red She-Hulk (who shows up briefly in Aaron's second issue) and former sidekick Rick Jones— whom Banner saved back in the day during the accident that turned him green in the first place — is now the gamma-powered A-Bomb.

I think that if there was ever a case of overflow to the point of idiocy, this would be it. Jennifer Walters was enough; the whole gamma-powered concept has really been taken too far this time, and it's getting pointless.

Labels: marvel comics, msm propaganda

IO9 is running an interview with Peter Milligan about his work on the gross spinoff from Green Lantern Corps called Red Lanterns, which begins with the sensationalized headline of:

Read an exclusive preview of Red Lanterns, starring the Green Lanterns’ blood-vomiting rivals!

If the Green Lanterns are too goody two-shoe for your tastes, then their blood-spewing (and blood-spilling) nemeses the Red Lanterns may be more your speed.

Never. Certainly not with the way they're promoting this kind of dreck. This is practically what's dumbing down comics and leading to the ever declining sales receipts. Any article stooping to that kind of a sensationalized headline has a serious problem.

Then, when they begin asking Milligan a question, he stumbles into confusion:

How was it penning Atrocitus — a character who's usually regarded as a supervillain — as a sympathetic lead?

I don't think that vomiting blood necessarily means that it's impossible to be sympathetic. I've done enough things in my time and I'm a sympathetic character! Atrocitus is a fantastic character, but it would be really boring if every single episode you had these raging monsters dishing out summary executions. What was interesting was making Atrocitus more sympathetic, without losing touch of what he does, which is inhumane and unsympathetic.

Aside from the wobbly premise that the audience should be even remotely sympathizing with a supervillain as wretched as Atrocitus, I fail to see the logic he's presenting here.

What weird cosmic vestiges of the DC Universe will Red Lanterns explore?

We're going to explore these really strange, weird characters on this strange planet filled with violent and fucked-up characters called Earth. Earth will take up some of our time, but yes, the great thing about Atrocitus is you get to use Ysmault quite a lot. After that, we're going to explore the far vestiges of the universe, but only to explore fully the moral ramifications thrown up by the idea of being judge and jury and dishing out divine retribution. It's a very ancient idea of dishing out justice.

On one hand, Red Lanterns is lots of fun — with vomiting cats and strange monsters — but it also deals with gripping subjects. If you summarily execute someone, does the guilt and shame that you're trying to expunge, is that passed on to you? There are a lot of interesting subjects that these monsters flying around in the far corners of the universe can explore.

But with a writer like him in charge, who seems intent on making the belching beasts the highlight of the series, I don't think any of those far corners of the galaxy will be worth exploring. With any luck, this'll be the first of the "new 52" series to be cancelled.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Green Lantern, violence

In this Newsarama interview with artist Phillip Tan, it's revealed that Superman isn't the only getting an absurd armor-like suit foisted upon him. Even the relaunched Hawkman is:

revealed to have a new organic-type armor, as well as a mysterious origin.

One I'm sure we won't need to concern ourselves with either. And the armor looks so silly, like it were turned into a male variation on Witchblade's armor. In fact, as Tan proceeds to tell:

As people have seen, the armor is more organic. It's alive. It's building on the character like a canvas. It's appearing out of his skin. It's not like he has to physically put pieces of it onto his body.

And this armor manifests whatever weapon he needs or armor for whatever part of the body needs to be shielded.

This will all be important as you keep reading the book.

Oh, I'll bet. This sounds more like a way to make things too easy for the protagonist, and makes him less vulnerable - and thus his battles less challenging - if he's going to wear armor that's generated with but a thought and can produce weapons to boot. Whether this take is based on the Thanagarian version of the Winged Warrior, it's still sci-fi trendiness run amok.

Also, it doesn't sound like Hawkgirl is going to be a part of Hawkman's world this time:

Nrama: So it's an adjustment for him to go from having Hawkgirl around to working with these other people?

Tan: You know what? I would not comment on Hawkgirl right now.

But to answer the other part of your question... yes, it's a big adjustment period for him right now.

Nrama: So I can't ask you if you have gotten to draw Hawkgirl?

Tan: You can't.

If Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman's not in this take, it might actually be fortunate, because she too could be subject to some grave political correctness just as much as her male counterpart.

Nrama: There are changes to Hawkman, but it's obvious you guys understand the character's past. Did you look at any of the old comics for your design ideas?

Tan: I've been reading a ton of old comics, but not for the design really. Jim designed the new one, so we've been working from that. The new design is what DC wanted, and I actually love the new one.

Ah, so in other words, that's an admittal that this was more the result of an editorial mandate, and we can't really expect even an artist to criticize their positions. And if anything, it certainly isn't a very appealing design.

Labels: dc comics

Here's an article in The Globe and Mail about the manga called The Drops of God, the manga book about wine-producing, which is now available in English language formats.

Labels: manga and anime

Crave Online wrote about the rumors that DC will publish some prequels to Alan Moore's Watchmen. Honestly, I don't think, after what the company has become today, that this could work out well and they should just leave Moore's original work alone. But what's really galling is the mention that J. Michael Stracynski could be involved.

I'm hardly at all a fan of the Watchmen, but I can say that if the writer is going to be someone along the lines Stracynski's fallen over the past decade, it's less likely to be worth bothering about.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers

Here's a short article in the Barrington Patch about a comics and literacy conference they're going to hold in their main library on October 25.

Labels: libraries

In a sign that they're far from doing well in sales, Marvel's let go of 15-16 staff members, in efforts to cut costs. They've also canceled at least 3 series.

It remains to be seen just how much longer it'll be before they may be shut down. I'm wishing that this'll lead to the publishing arm being bought out by a better ownership. But that's obviously a pipe dream that may never come to pass.

Labels: marvel comics

Newsarama interviewed Scott Lobdell about his new work on Red Hood and the Outlaws, including his terrible stunt depicting princess Koriand'r as a heartless quasi-amnesiac who engages in aimless sex. But he seems intent on laying the blame more at the feet of the readership than acknowledging he's a terrible writer who's laid waste to one of the New Teen Titans' most famous members:

Nrama: Scott, I'm sure you've heard about the negative reaction some fans had to the portrayal of Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws #1. Did it surprise you?


Lobdell: It didn't surprise me that there were some people who didn't like it.



What surprised me was that it almost caused the Internet to melt.

 Mostly, what has surprised me has been the very vulgar way that people believe they are coming to the defense of Kori: they hurl words like "slut" and "whore" and expressions too disgusting to repeat here that are only used to demean women. 



Lets consider an imaginary woman who has more than one or two lovers. Is it fair to label her with dismissive and derogatory language? Because we disagree with the choices she makes, to do what she wants with her own body? Are we still at a place in society where we're going to call a woman — any woman — names that reinforce gender inequality?



The good thing is that the story has gotten people to talk about issues they are passionate about — and that can only ever lead to a better understanding on everyone's part.

Except Lobdell's, that is. While there are sadly some would-be readers who're still willing to criticize the characters instead of how they're written, and plagued with bizarre favoratism where they won't judge by story instead of cast and characters, I don't think Lobdell is addressing that kind of a problem at all. No, I think he's just trying to divert the blame onto the audience because he finds it so much more convenient than to admit he's human and can make mistakes. He's really scraped bottom this time.

It's bad enough if there's still some fools out there who're more than willing to criticize the characters instead of the real life writer's efforts and make no attempt to correct that approach. But it's equally bad - if not more so - if the writers themselves are going to insult everyone's intellect by not taking responsibility for a poor writing job, not to mention their clear enjoyment of how they stirred the controversy cauldron instead of getting people to chat for the right reasons. Everyone who was galled at Lobdell's dumb move will hopefully turn to the New Teen Titans: Games graphic novel instead, which has a far more respectable writer at the helm, Marv Wolfman, Starfire's very own co-creator.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, misogyny and racism, Titans, women of dc

Among the awards Marvel's legend Stan Lee is now gaining, there's the Visual Effects Society's award, which will be given to him at their 10th annual gathering in Beverly Hills.

Labels: good writers

As expected, there is no good news about the Teen Titans, as the report from the NYCC panel tells that much of the previous Titans continuity was erased, and not only that, it's clearer than ever that Wally West has been obscured:

One fan asked if Tim Drake was still an orphan, Chase said she wouldn’t answer, but said he was still part of the Bat-family, something that would be reflected upon soon. When asked about Wally West, Chase responded, “who?”

Not only is it clear that the next generation Flash is being tossed under the bus, it's almost a foregone conclusion that Jack Drake, Tim's father, is still on the sacrifice list. I certainly don't see any reason to waste time on this rebooted rendition. On the other hand, I wonder if there is a possibility that Teen Titans: Games might do far better than what they have planned for their current output, since that's set in what many could consider a better continuity and time, circa 1988, and written by a far better writer (Marv Wolfman) than the current bunch of hacks.

Labels: bad editors, Batman, conventions, dc comics, Flash, Titans

The Ottawa Citizen reports that Bluewater and Simon & Shuster are teaming together to publish another graphic novel about the US military's trackdown of Osama bin Laden, this one titled "Killing Geronimo: The Hunt for Osama bin Laden", which will be the second non-fiction graphic novel focused on the subject following IDW's Codeword Geronimo a few months earlier.

Labels: indie publishers, islam and jihad, politics, terrorism

Publisher's Weekly writes about the new iPad app Kodansha USA and Random House developed for manga and introduced at the NYCC.

Labels: conventions, manga and anime, technology

The Comics Reporter ran an interview with Mark Sable, the writer of comics like Grounded, and among the subjects brought up was Rick Veitch's 9-11 truther screed The Big Lie, which, amazingly for someone whose own politics seem to skew to the left, he found disturbing:

SPURGEON: In other interviews you mentioned you have a special sensitivity to 9/11 and issues of terrorism and violence of that sort. Do you think comics has changed because of 9/11? Has comics and comics culture changed because of that event?

SABLE: It's an interesting question. The answer is yes and no. I think it's the same for the country. The biggest issue I have with 9/11 is that I know there have been negative changes that have had an impact on people around the world, but I still feel it's something that people forget.

Maybe that's a bias of having been in New York when it happened. I remember within a few days in New York... Manhattan is like 12 miles long. I go to visit an ex-girlfriend on the Upper West Side, and it was maybe 24 hours later, and people are out drinking, and the bars are open uptown. If you had come back in a time machine or whatever, you would have no idea from just looking at it that 3000 people had just died downtown. And I was like, "Wow, if that's what's happening in New York, than in the rest of this country this feeling of everyone being nice to each other is going to pass." Maybe I'm not being fair to the people who were out that night. Maybe they needed to drink more than everybody else in retrospect. But it really left an indelible mark.

There were clearly comics that were 9/11 influenced. Obviously you had those tribute books and some really maudlin reactions that really pissed me off in the beginning from superhero-type things. But then you had Ultimates and Civil War that were clearly influenced by it. It's interesting, because I just read -- and this is where I'll get into trouble, because I try not to say anything bad about other creators or their work, mostly because who am I to say something? -- that new Truth book just came out from Image. The Big Truth or The Big Lie?

SPURGEON: The Big Lie.

SABLE: I bought it, and I'm mad at myself for buying it, because I knew it was going to get me mad. I applaud Image for publishing it, because who else has the balls to do that? And they're both creators I admire: Rick Veitch and Gary Erskine. That said, it was just horrifying to me.

I got some exposure to those Truther people when I did Unthinkable. The idea of Unthinkable -- in case the readers don't know what it is, and maybe this means I fall into the horrible 9/11 exploiter category even though I hope I don't -- but the idea of that came from real life, where after 9/11 people were saying "Oh my God, this is something like out of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie or a Tom Clancy novel." The Department of Homeland Security took that really seriously, and formed a think tank made up of a screenwriters and novelists. Basically the idea was to come up with worst-case terrorist scenario, with the idea if that we come up with them before the terrorists do, then maybe we can do something about it before the terrorists implemented these plans.

My idea is what if a writer joined that think tank and then years later the ideas he came up with started to come true. For me it felt far enough away from it. In that universe I felt that 9/11 happened in the way it happened in this one. I had some things to say about -- whatever, this sounds terrible -- about geopolitics and terrorists. It allowed me to do the kind of espionage book I wanted to do. Looking back -- it's a couple of years now -- I wish I had executed it better.

This is what always pops up in Google, and I hate it, but something happened when I was in the middle of that series. The first issue was out and I have the script for the second issue. I had a very unusual flight path, because I was going to, of all things, a bachelor's party in Amsterdam. I was flying from LA to New York, then to Amsterdam, then to some other European cities, then to Vegas. It was definitely something that should have raised suspicions, and it did. They pulled me aside.

They saw the cover of Unthinkable #1, which has like jihadists with AK-47s on it. Then they started reading the script. This was shocking to me. Every other word in #1 was "9/11" or "terror." So they detained me. They pulled me off to the side and questioned me about it. It's funny, looking back now, because I was trying to explain to them that a) comics could be about things other than superheroes, that was hard enough, and b) that people actually wrote comics [laughter], that the characters didn't make up the words themselves. That was quite a battle there.

I tweeted about it. That got me some press. There was some interest from Truthers in terms of doing this radio interview. That scared me. Right before I went on the air I started to look up the host and there was some really racist stuff there -- Obama with bones through his nose, and Zionist-occupied government stuff. I felt trapped into doing this interview, and it was really nerve-wracking. The point of all this being is that I'm familiar with the arguments the Truthers make, but they don't hold up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny. You can watch five minutes of Loose Change and you have enough to pick apart all their arguments.

So it bothered me that this Big Lie book came out and they're propagating this argument that's pretty demonstrably false the same way the birther argument was false. I don't think you have to be liberal to feel that way. I think most thinking people agree about that.

Beyond that, if you look in the back of the book it has the wall of 9/11 with all the names on it. There are names of people I know. That felt horribly exploitative. If you actually read the book, they keep hinting that Steven Spielberg is involved. I'm sure it's not what the creators intended, but somehow all these conspiracies come back to the Jews: that the Jews were warned not to be in the World Trade Center that day. I'm sure that's not what they mean, but just talking about a filmmaker named Steven, that's a signal they may not have intended but that's how I'm reading it. It gets me really mad.

I guess comics has changed to the point where I don't think that book would have been published at the same time as those 9/11 tribute books. Maybe that's a good thing in a certain way, that it's maybe now a little bit less sensitive of a topic. I don't know. I think this stuff just washes over society in general. The book that I thought handled 9/11 the best was Human Target, a run called something like "The Tattered Man," an arc that had to do with somebody they thought had died in 9/11. I thought it was tasteful and kind of provocative, and that's a hard line to walk.

It's pretty surprising that someone who's produced an indie comic, "Graveyard of Empires", whose premise still strikes me as very ludicrous, morally equivalent and potentially insulting to the US army, and even wrote an item for DC that ties in with Identity Crisis, which is very likely a metaphor drawing from the same sick notions as 9-11 trutherism, would have the courage to admit that Veitch's screed is a bad lot and even reveal a few more disturbing details about the story structure. Who knew it would be that tasteless, and exploit real life people even by name.

Regarding his argument that you don't have to be liberal to feel as mad he does, I thought that was the other way around - you don't have to be conservative to feel as furious as he does, and recognize that the conspiracy theories truthers make are phony. Maybe it's high time he started communicating with conservatives (except for any who identify with the awful Ron Paul, the bad apple in the GOP who accepts and indulges those kind of horrific conspiracy theories), if he hasn't done so yet.

We can certainly thank Sable for having the guts to tell just how badly Veitch and company have stumbled. At the same time, it won't make any questionable storyline he's written any better, and sadly, even if he didn't contribute to 9-11 trutherism per se, he might still have contributed to some pretty grimy moonbat mindsets. If Sable doesn't want to end up on that level, that's why he'd better start reviewing his whole approach and figure out if he's engaging in the same kind of ideas the truthers would embrace.

Labels: indie publishers, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, politics, terrorism

Cinema Spy reports that this is the week of Captain America co-creator Joe Simon's 98th birthday. He's definitely lucky to have come such a long way.

Labels: good artists

It looks like DC, whether deservedly or not, has caused itself some unnecessary problems with booksellers over their exclusive deal with Kindle Fire and Amazon for digital samples. First, Barnes & Noble pulled 100 of their books from the shelves (via Publishers Weekly). Now, Books-A-Million is following B&N and doing the same.

Whether they deserve this or not, DC seem to have caused themselves quite a bit of trouble here.

Labels: dc comics, sales

The New York Post has told that the changes being made in Wonder Woman are even worse than what the previous article suggested. First, we're told that Zeus is being retconned into Diana's father (!):

The iconic character is getting something she's never had in her almost 70-year-old history -- a father.

"She's going to learn she's not who she was told she was," "Wonder Woman" writer Brian Azzarello told The Post.

A storyline in the amazing Amazon's newly relaunched comic will reveal she's actually the daughter of Zeus, the thunderbolt throwing father of the Olympian gods. [...]

In the original comics, Wonder Woman's mother, Amazon queen Hippolyta, fashioned her baby Diana out of clay, and the clay was given life and superpowers by Greek goddesses.

When they relaunched their entire line of comics last month, DC Comics figured it was a good time to break the mold.

"In this case, making her a god actually makes her more human, more relatable," DC co-publisher Jim Lee said.

Excuse me? Since when wasn't she a deity? Implying that a girl who was created from enchanted clay wasn't ever a deity is absurd. And telling that this retcon is what'll make her more human and relatable alone doesn't mean they'll actually follow through on it with the kind of track record they've already displayed.

Aside from how they're diminishing the creativity of the original concepts, another thing that's apalling here, and only becoming clearer in this article, is how the Olympians are being retconned into a mafia-like clan:

"There are going to be some family issues," Azzarello said, referring to the Olympians as "the original crime family."

He said he's based his take on the Olympians from the original myths.
"They're pretty nasty people," but "they can also do a lot of good. They're like a mirror of human beings, turned up to 11."

And that should bolster Wonder Woman's iconic standing alongside her fellow DC legends Batman and Superman.

I don't think so. At best, it makes the Olympians less impressive and less inspiring.

There's one other part in this sugary item that's certainly a lie:

Wonder Woman has been one of the big winners of the DC relaunch, as the first issue of her critically acclaimed title sold more than 100,000 copies -- her best sales in years.

I wish that were so, but the sales charts don't support their claim. Only 76,214 copies were published. In fact, stateside, nothing sold above 200,000 units (last month's Justice League #1 sales certainly didn't cross that threshold), so just what exactly is it they're celebrating here? Yes, the sales for some of their books may have risen, but it's not the extravaganza they want us to think. This simply exposes the desperation of their ploy which the MSM could only be too happy to back them up on as they try to foist stultifying depictions of their universe down everyone's throats. It even suggests that these premiere issues are only likely to draw the speculator crowd that collects these in hopes they'll become valuble someday, but has become very unlikely for many years now since that market collapsed in the early 90s.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda, sales, Wonder Woman

The Nashua Telegraph fawned over Brian Azzarello's relaunch of Wonder Woman, with the writer and editor claiming it's not a horror story, yet there's plenty to indicate it's not exactly something a wide audience could warm to either:

Early buzz labeled the new “Wonder Woman” as a horror book, but Azzarello disagreed with that assessment.

“You need the good to define the bad,” he said. “And that’s where she comes in.”

DC Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras also rejected the label in a recent interview, saying the presence of horror elements just means “there’s more at stake.”

And there’s no question that the first issue is a shocker.

We see Diana – that’s what she asks to be called – in a bloody battle with a mythological twist. Meanwhile, a Greco-Roman god is impaled on a spear. Another uses human sacrifice to achieve his aims.

Even when George Perez, Greg Potter and Len Wein rebooted WW in 1987, they didn't resort to that kind of gross bloodletting. Yes, there were darker elements involved, but they still didn't go out of their way to write it all for shock's sake.

We learn very little about Diana in the first issue. Azzarello did warn that Wonder Woman’s usual romantic interest, Steve Trevor, won’t play any role in his version. There will be a Paradise Island, he said, but hinted darkly, “It’s paradise only in name. … It’s not a happy place.”

And it very likely won't be an enjoyable book to read. They also got something inaccurate by today's standards: Steve Trevor hasn't been WW's official boyfriend since Crisis on Infinite Earths and the reboot of the Amazon princess' series in 1987. Rather, he became more of a father/uncle figure for her, and Etta Candy, reinvented as a USAF officer, became Steve's ladyfriend and later wife. If neither he nor any of the other established cast of characters for WW's supporting cast are present - not even Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis - then what's the point of this relaunch? Supporting and recurring characters like them are what make for human drama, something DC supposedly wants to do, and without Steve or even the rest of the cast, I'm not sure they'll have that potential. And focusing the series on gore galore doesn't make for a wide audience draw either.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda, violence, Wonder Woman

The dismal leftist Death & Taxes site is continuing their ridiculous exploitation/hijack of the Man of Steel for attacking GOP candidate Rick Perry. They begin by asking if Perry and Superman have the same "swagger", and go on to say:

Traced back to Shakespeare’s 1590 play Midsummer Night’s Dream, “swagger,” derived from a word meaning “to swing,” once meant “to move heavily or unsteadily.” Now the term’s more closely aligned with a masculine cockiness, an arrogance almost distinctly American, which is precisely why comic book writer Grant Morrison used “swagger” to describe DC Comics’ latest incarnation of Perry’s favorite hero, Superman.

“That swagger is part of what the rest of the world believes about America,” says Morrison in an interview in the latest issue of the recently relaunched ‘Action Comics.’ “I wanted to put that back into Superman, that attitude of ‘I know what I’m doing, I’m the biggest guy on the block…” That’s precisely the same approach Perry embraces.

Arrogance?!? Wow, they certainly do reveal their very own here, indicating they don't have much respect for being American. And it looks like Morrison is no better. In his mind, apparently, Supes is nothing more than a hotheaded know-it-all? Simply galling, as is the following tripe towards the end of the article:

The real question, though, is whether Perry will use that swagger to fight for truth, justice and the American way, like Superman, or whether he’ll use it to exert undue American force around the world.

We’ll soon find out, because the Republican presidential candidates are now unrolling their foreign policy stances, and Perry will have an opportunity to expand on his worldview, which thus far seems bafflingly muddled, and potentially dangerous. The Texas governor, for example, suggested we send U.S. troops into Mexico to crack down on drug cartels. That is not the type of swagger of which Superman would approve.

1]Superman's fictional, so whatever he approves of is irrelevant; it's what the writers helming the book do that's bothersome. 2]It's atrocious how they imply that it's wrong to crack down on drug cartels in Mexico, even after they increasingly stooped down a very dark, horrifying path to decapitations, and by doing so, 3]the lefty site suggests they despise what Siegel and Shuster created Superman for in the first place, which was to help innocent people worldwide, and that includes Mexicans whose lives have been destroyed by those drug cartel tyrants. I guess that means that if, under decent situations, circumstances and respectable editorial staff, a Superman story where he saves an innocent senorita who's been menaced by the cartels and helps rescue her hometown from the terror they're causing was submitted for publication, that would be wrong? If that's the twisted mindset they're going by, that altruism and responsibility are wrong, then those leftists at Death & Taxes are a pure disgrace.

And on top of all that, it's a shame how simple science-fantasy creations are being hijacked and turned inside out by people with no respect for what they originally stood for. It's also a shame how some moonbats don't even have the ability to appreciate when a conservative politician grew up a comics fan. In fact, I find it hard to believe these fools in the MSM are actually comics fans themselves if all they can do is exploit the famous creations for the sake of being contemptuous of the right.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda, politics, Superman

Digital Spy reports that Frank Miller's graphic novel Holy Terror has made it to the top of the GN charts. How about that, despite the efforts of many leftists to deride it, the GN still succeeded in making the highest rank for the month. That's excellent.

Labels: good artists, good writers, indie publishers, islam and jihad, politics, sales, terrorism

Bluewater is publishing a comic book biography of the life of the late Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computers and brains behind a whole bundle of technological wonders.

Labels: technology

IGN's comics section is asking if Marvel needs to do a reboot/relaunch just like DC's been doing with much of their line. In the article they've published, the things they tell include:

Marvel faces various problems when it comes to attracting new readers. There's an increasing perception that their books are hard to get into. With so many X-Men and Avengers titles on the stands, where is a newbie supposed to start? Books are becoming increasingly interconnected again through events and crossovers. Marvel's revelations that events like Schism, Fear Itself, and Avengers: The Children's Crusade are all building towards a larger storyline next year may sound enticing to some readers, but just as many might be put off by the notion that everything is tied together and nothing is allowed to stand on its own.

Well of course they're facing severe problems of their very own making, a process that may have begun when Bob Harras was EIC, and metastasized into mammoth proportions when Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas took over. Specifically, they took to telling stories that were overflowing with political correctness and even overt leftist politics, began padding out their storylines for the sake of trade paperbacks, and increasingly ignored continuity in doing so. And while they seemingly avoided crossovers initially, they soon sprang back to them when it became apparent many of these other steps weren't working. It also didn't help that a lot of the writers they were hiring during the first half of the past decade were recruited based on popularity with certain segments of the readership, not according to how talented they actually were (and Brian Bendis has long been proving he's not).

Also, they may have initially tried to make the stories they were working on stand-alone - supposedly anyway - but it was so editorially mandated and forced, it didn't work out that way either. They soon abandoned it all for the sake of bearhugging line-wide crossovers, proving that they never intended to make a convincing effort to make their books accessible again.

And a reboot isn't what Marvel needs. Definitely not a hardcore reboot. If they do need something, it's to clear away the mess from the past decade that began when Quesada took over; that's when they really started unraveling into mishmash. I think the best place to move Spider-Man back to would be the period just before "The Final Chapter" in 1998. That was where Harras, just 4 years after the auspicuous send-off for May Parker, undid her death and brought back the Green Goblin too. Clearing away those kind of mistakes would help tremendously, as would restoring the Spider-marriage. Similarly, they could move back and continue X-Men just before the terrible death of Colossus in 2000, one of the worst death stories ever written, and something that needs to be omitted from continuity. And for Avengers, it could probably be moved back to the Kang War conclusion in 2002. Those are, as far as I can estimate, the best places to restart and what came afterwards at the time could be stricken from the record.

IGN does say that:

...there's little to be gained by rebooting the Marvel Universe so that Peter Parker is back in college and hanging out at the Coffee Bean and the original Uncanny X-Men cast are back in the Xavier Institute. As long as Marvel makes it clear that new readers are being given a clean, fresh start across all titles, audiences will come.

If they'd follow the blueprint draft I've given here, and even replaced the old editorial that's continued with Axel Alonso - possibly even gaining a new ownership like a book publisher who'd work on a new format - then there's a better chance that audiences will come. Moving away from the kind of editors and writers who brought Marvel and DC down to the level they're at today would help tremendously in giving the 2 universes a fighting chance for the new generation.

Labels: Avengers, bad editors, crossoverloading, marvel comics, Spider-Man, X-Men

The awful head of DC has claimed upon his Facebook page that since Flashpoint, no major events like crossovers have taken place in the DCnU. As though that's going to convince anyone that with people like him still around, they're literally worth buying again.

And I've got a sad feeling that despite what he says, Identity Crisis could still be around there, certainly the crude, dismal direction it set. Speaking of which, the Newsarama blogger asked:

What I really want to know is, does this mean that Ralph and Sue Dibny are still alive now?

I've got a bad feeling the answer is "no", and this may not be their last crossover either. The moment sales flag again, they'll stoop to blatancy in crossovers yet again.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics

The Bookseller reports that the British Museum Press is going to publish a manga title of its own in cooperation with a Japanese manga writer.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

Frank Miller's bold new venture focusing on jihadism has come out, and as expected, there are some on the left who more or less despise him for that. And if there's any leftist review I find that's really biased, it's this one at leftist AOL-owned Comics Alliance, which begins by making the mistake of using the headline, "A Propaganda Comic That Fights Faith Instead of Evil". And it doesn't get any better from there. Next problem:

Partway through the story, Miller realized that he'd "taken Batman as far as he can go," and moved the story outside the DC Comics Universe.

I'm afraid that's distorting. Miller argued with Paul Levitz earlier that he'd taken the Masked Manhunter as far as he could think of working on him, and when Levitz basically put the kibosh on the project, Miller decided to change it to an indie comic.

Holy Terror is tough for me to wrap my head around, because propaganda is a tricky beast. It requires convincing everyone of the righteousness of your country's cause, turning your enemy into something other than you, and simplifying matters to an almost absurd level. In World War II, propaganda was easy. There was a clear enemy, notably the Nazis, who had committed clearly hateful crimes. And even then, the otherizing aspect of propaganda gave rise to a metric ton of racism and bigotry, which was nonetheless seen as justified or even acceptable in the face of the atrocities that had been committed.

So, a propaganda piece about Al-Qaeda, an entity that is fractured and spread all over the world, is a strange and possibly (probably) terrible thing. The conversation about terrorism and Al-Qaeda in the United States has too often drifted into a critique, or worse, of Islam itself. How do you define your villains as being Al-Qaeda first and Muslims second? Their beliefs are an integral part of their motivations and actions, but they don't represent Islam as a whole.

Did it ever occur to them that they happen to be part of the problem today - that is, making an effort to obscure today's enemy, Islam? And what's this about their actions not representing Islam "as a whole"? Challenging question: is this not a hateful crime too, which "prophet" Muhammed committed against the Qurayza Jews in Medina during 627 AD? As told:

In AD 627, Muhammad committed an atrocity against the last remaining major tribe of Jews in Medina: the Qurayza.

He beheaded the men and the pubescent boys and enslaved the women and children. In doing this, he wiped an entire tribe "off the map" to use the language of the President of Iran, recently.

The purpose of this article is full disclosure and straightforward analysis about early Islam. How and why did this atrocity unfold?

Which can be read about at the link. And, what about the "Suras" Muhammed and his army of darkness concocted, which include as many as 164 verses of violence? Including:

...make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them. Sura 8:012

So just what's their little game, saying that their actions don't represent the so-called religion as a whole?

The Comics Alliance writer goes on to use the following to defend his positions:

I personally benefitted greatly from the guidance or teachings of Muslim men and women as I grew up, so I'm always wary of conversations that are framed as "Us versus Them," where "Us" is a nebulous notion of "Americans" and "Them" equates to "Muslims," because that is a false divide.

If he received guidance from Islamists, how come he hasn't provided any info from the Koran itself or the history of its violent founder? Including one of Muhammed's most horrific acts, which was to marry a 6 year old girl, Aisha, whose own parents practically betrayed her to him. He also took other women like Safiyah, Rayhanah and Juwariyah as slaves and concubines. Was the Comics Alliance writer ever provided guidance about history like that?

The constant bashing of Islam as a throwback to the Dark Ages is stupid, ugly, and tiresome. It's also factually incorrect. While Europe was in the midst of the so-called Dark Ages, the Arab world was in the middle of what was essentially a golden age of enlightenment. They made vital discoveries and advances in science, math, medicine, art, architecture, and several other areas that had a profound impact on the rest of human civilization.

And the use of moral relativism is stupid and tiresome. And using a Wikipedia page as his source? I'm sorry, but even I usually ponder that Wikipedia, as a site anyone can edit and is far from the most honest source of info one can find, isn't exactly worth using as a backup. And as Robert Spencer once said, he finds the claim that the Islamic world has any achievements exaggerated at best.

Then, Comics Alliance says that:

Al-Qaeda is treated in the text as something that is representative of Islam, rather than something that is a twisted, rotted off-shoot. Conversely, the Ku Klux Klan are terrorists are nominally Christian, but they're never portrayed as representative of Christianity or whites.

Well duh, that's because in Christianity and Judaism, you don't have the kind of vile verses that examples like I've provided from the Koran above happens to contain. Biggest problem with the Comics Alliance article then is how they can't seem to get it into their heads that there's such a thing as good and bad religions, the latter which could even describe Scientology. Is that not possible for them to consider? I guess not.

Let's also note that Miller made it clear earlier that he was going to be as politically incorrect as possible, and clearly, he was. And I appreciate him for that. Without guts - which the fools now running DC certainly don't have - it wouldn't be possible to make a meat-and-potatoes story, and I'm glad to see Miller's shown some. I hope this'll do well, and I'll certainly be trying to buy a copy. Too bad some on the left just can't appreciate Miller's courage, or recognize that he's got what to go by in addressing the subject.

Also, as this blog notes, the graphic novel is dedicated to Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered for making a film with Ayaan Hirsi Ali about misogyny in the Muslim world. That's another thing to appreciate from Miller: he's let a victim of Islamofascism know he won't be forgotten.

Update: and coming the week that terrorists like Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were taken out by the US military, this could be a very good time for Holy Terror to debut.

Labels: good artists, good writers, indie publishers, islam and jihad, terrorism

The AFP reports that Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo is retiring from drawing the comics at 84 years old, and reportedly has a successor to take over any further writing.

Labels: Europe and Asia