Saturday, January 31, 2015 

A manga about pensions

The Japan Times wrote about a manga strip the Japanese government's publishing about pensions, which, in their opinion, is a display of old values.

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2:12 PM | |

Friday, January 30, 2015 

Dan Jurgens on Hollywood's hypocrisy with American Sniper

Jurgens comments on the leftist reactions to the recent box office success, American Sniper:

I agree. It's ridiculous how haters of the movie on the left are lambasting it if they have no qualms about violence elsewhere. Yet few of the negative reactions are as weird as Gerry Conway's, who won't even thank the author of the book it's based on nor the filmmakers for their loyalty to his creation, The Punisher.

The movie's doing pretty well overseas, which is not going to please the left, not even those already working in comicdom.

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3:35 AM | |

Thursday, January 29, 2015 

Vox sugarcoats the 90s again

While writing about why they think people can't resist Image offerings today, Vox has once again taken the easy route writing about mainstream comics of the 1990s, and independents. First, here's what they say about Image themselves:
The company began in 1992, when a band of very popular Marvel artists like Jim Lee (now the publisher at DC) and Todd MacFarlane dreamed it up. Image was founded on the idea that creators owned their work and consisted of six studios (led by each of the founders). Image rode the popularity of titles like Spawn and Savage Dragon to nearly 15 percent of the market share in 1993.

"With the departure of Jim Lee's Wildstorm studio, purchased by DC in the late 1990s, its market share retreated to the single digits," Miller explained, bringing into context what Stephenson referred to as "not a great period for the company."
How come they don't note the effect of the speculator market, which brought down values and sales? Image was no exception, and they did variant covers and other stunts not unlike the Big Two's, so how is it not possible that had a long term effect of failure on them? Then, when they talk about how the audience changed, they say:
...things are changing slowly. Comics are as accessible as ever. Trips to the comic book shop, like trips to the record store, are no longer needed. Comic shop gatekeepers are an endangered species as downloading comic books every Wednesday is no more complicated or intimidating than online shopping. And digital comic book sales at companies like Comixology have grown exponentially year after year.
Except they don't specify which titles are being downloaded, and whether they're independent or mainstream. In fact, they don't tell whether they're older or newer products being bought.
With each wildly popular Avengers movie, Groot toy, or Batman debate, the stigma of comic books being for the nerdy is slowly fading away. Comic books are mainstream. And you can see that in the heroes readers are consuming.

Back in the '90s, the X-Men comic books were the top-selling books month after month, year after year. The X-Men were portrayed as outsiders and outcasts. For the last decade or so, Batman has become the go-to comic book. Of course, Batman/Bruce Wayne is depicted as a very rich, powerful, handsome, and ideal man (despite George Clooney's best efforts).
I'm sorry, but the stigma hasn't disappeared so easily. Movie adaptations and merchandise are mainstream. Comics are not, and the dearth of sales in major bookstores does nothing to dispel it. It's true some independent comics like Walking Dead have been rising up the ranks, but even their sales aren't spectacular.

They don't even acknowledge how X-Men sales diminished during the 90s, and after Grant Morrison came aboard, that's when they began to dip below 100,000 sales units. Nor do they note how X-Men was one of various franchises that wound up being marketed based on popularity rank and iconism, not story value, which Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza provided little or none of. Even X-Men became a victim of the speculator market, when stacks of premiere issues for the sans-adjective spinoff from 1991 gathered dust at many stores long after going to press. Their take on how artists and writers function is no better:
And on Twitter, writers and artists have followers in tens of thousands range. Their fans will follow them everywhere. Accordingly, companies like Marvel and DC ink many of these talents to exclusive contracts, meaning no writing for the competition.

But Marvel and DC primarily care about each other. And that means writers are allowed to create and write their own comics.

This is how Image thrives.
Image, maybe, but Marvel and DC? What a joke. They've long become gated communities where "creativity" is reserved only for overrated embarrassments like Brian Bendis. And the problems with followings for some of the creators is that a lot of these fans don't seem to take an objective view of the creators they're following, meaning that they'll read their stuff while predisposed to liking it, and continuing to buy a sour story even when they don't. That was the case with Morrison in years past, ditto J. Michael Strazcynski.

So Vox is still deep in a box, unable to take a meatier view of the medium. They say the insanity in some of Image's products are why people can't put them down. But what if they can? I'm sure some could put down the 9-11 Truther comic they once published, if they even buy it at all. Besides, Image's sales today are no better than what they had in the 90s, and probably sell worse.

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9:46 AM | |

 

Green Lantern 154 Vol.3's story was based on a distorted case LGBT activists debunked themselves

Judd Winick references the case of Matthew Shepard, whose death was originally blamed on homophobia:

Hmm, I guess he's still going by the mainstream press narrative of the yesteryear, much like some others of his ilk still cling to the PC narrative from Ferguson. I wonder how he feels now after a gay book writer researched the true history, and discovered it wasn't what Winick thought:
...award-winning gay author and journalist Stephen Jimenez spent years reviewing previously sealed case documents and interviewing some 100 people for his tome, “The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard,” which is officially being released Tuesday.

The book contends that Shepard’s murder was more likely a crime sparked by a drug deal gone wrong: Shepard was a known meth dealer and was supposed to have taken in a drug shipment worth $10,000 that night. He and McKinney, a 22-year-old bisexual hustler, were both meth users and had sex with each other on previous occasions, and McKinney was desperate to get the drugs or the money, or both.

In short, Shepard’s homosexuality likely played little, if any, role in the crime.

“Have We Got Matthew Shepard All Wrong?” asked a recent article in the Advocate, a popular magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) readers.
Not only was a gay author willing to recognize facts, even some press sources aimed at LGBT members were willing to admit (and certainly ask if) this was apparently all a big PC falsehood narrative, turning a crook into a sainted martyr for the sake of forcing their visions down everyone's throats. I wonder if Winick's sore that his source of "inspiration" for the GL story he wrote wasn't supported by LGBT members in the end, and that his whole one-sided view won't hold up in the future? He's probably never even condemned Muslim homphobia in Islamic regimes, where the real dangers take place, and if he hasn't, that's another reason why he's unqualified for commenting on all these issues.

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6:23 AM | |

Wednesday, January 28, 2015 

13th Dimension's 3-part interview with Len Wein

13th Dimension interviewed Wein about his time as a Batman writer in the Bronze Age, with part one and part two published last month, and part three published just this week.

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9:32 AM | |

 

Daniel Kalban allegedly condemns Islamic jihad against Jews

The comics and film writer Kalban wrote a few tweets condemning last week's attack on a bus in Tel Aviv:



But does he really mean it? I'd like to think so, but this is the same man who went right back on his condemnations of the Charlie Hebdo murders and complained about people using it as an excuse to condemn Islamofascism. And just a few days afterwards, he retweeted these items:
So after allegedly condemning an assault influenced by the Koran and the Hadith, he goes right along and carries water for a taqqiya vehicle, and worse, implies he supports vandalism of a pro-Israel activist's property? I don't see the logic here. Some of those ads her group published were in support of Israel. What next, if Caroline Glick and Sarah Honig put out advertisements, he'll signal support for defacing their property too?

Kalban's retweets alone suggest he followed a common example among the weak: condemn barbarism one day, do a 360 the next. He sure isn't being a very inspiring writer with that MO.

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6:50 AM | |

Tuesday, January 27, 2015 

So-called pop culture & comics sites condone vandalizing Pamela Geller's ads

Anti-jihad blogger Pamela Geller's advertisements against Islamofascism in San Francisco were defaced by a leftist group called Street Cred, whose tactics included using the Muslim Ms. Marvel to paste over Geller's paid for ads on buses. But what's really disturbing are any and all of the alleged entertainment sites that're openly condoning vandalism of somebody else's property. For example, Polygon, Bleeding Cool, IO9 and The Mary Sue. Even ComicBook may have gone that route. What makes this dreadful is how badly it reflects on pop culturalists, let alone comic book readers: it gives the impression they support criminal actions and disrespect for other people's property. I wonder what they'd say if those ads were published by 9-11 Families for a Safe America?

Maybe it isn't all that surprising some of these sites could go overboard and suggest vandalism is perfectly okay, instead of buying their own ad space. I've looked every now and then at The Mary Sue, and they're not a very impressive site. When they once interviewed animator Christy Marx, they wouldn't mention the near-gang rape seen in the premiering issue of the Amethyst remake. The same person who conducted the interview even gave a glowing review to one of Brad Meltzer's books, and another contributor to the site wrote at least one other gushy take on his writings. That's basically a "media enablers" MO, and if that's how they're going to go about, I don't think they speak for pop culture fans, female or otherwise.

As galling as this is, the silver lining is that a few of sites like Bleeding Cool were willing to either present an official of the exact ad being defaced, while CBR's Robot 6, which wisely refrained from actually condoning vandalism, explained what's seen on it:
According to SFGate, these banners — only the latest purchased by blogger Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative — went up on buses on Jan. 9, and feature an image of Adolf Hitler and Palestinian Muslim leader Haj Amin al-Husseini, who opposed Zionism. With the headline, “Islamic Jew-Hatred: It’s In The Quran,” the ads encouraged an end to aid to all Islamic countries.
As some commentors to CBR tell them, al-Husseini's anti-Zionism doesn't even begin to describe his evil. For example:
It was a bit more than that. Al-Husseini was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and a staunch Nazi ally, recruiting Muslms for the Waffen-SS and spending quite a bit of time in Germany, meeting repeatedly with Hitler. In 1943, he issued a proclamation:

“It is the duty of Muhammadans in general and Arabs in particular to … drive all Jews from Arab and Muhammadan countries….Germany is also struggling against the common foe who oppressed Arabs and Muhammadans in their different countries. It has very clearly recognized the Jews for what they are and resolved to find a definitive solution [endgültige Lösung] for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that Jews represent in the world…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini#Ties_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II

So to say that he was “anti-Zionist” is to considerably understate the facts of the matter.
Exactly. This creature was a modern day savage.

Pamela is already aware of the vandalism, which included at least two other defacing paste-overs, and depending how many ads were defaced, intends to sue for damages. She's also brought to light one of the people who may be involved. Anyone who wants to help out can contact the sources she lists.

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9:40 AM | |

 

Gerry Conway dislikes American Sniper

Conway's given strong hints he doesn't like the new American Sniper movie, even though there's some tributes to his famous vigilante creation, The Punisher, in the movie:


Man, now we really have to wonder if he regrets creating Frank Castle. We may have to wonder someday if he even regrets creating Power Girl, and Ms. Marvel with Carol Danvers. (Note that he didn't create Danvers, since she'd originally debuted in 1967 as a creation of Roy Thomas. Conway just helped lay the groundswork for turning an existing character into a superheroine.)

While we're on the subject, NY's Vulture section wrote about the movie's homages to the Punisher, but even they can't avoid slipping some kind of bias into the mix:
Thematically, there's not much of import in the dialogue (well, other than the fact that Biggles is totally wrong — a short individual issue of an ongoing comics series is a "comic"; a self-contained story published as a longer volume is a "graphic novel"). But the choice of comic is interesting, revealing, and upsetting.

The comic is never named, but if you look closely, you can see that it's issue No. 1 of the sixth volume of Punisher, released in January of 2004 (making it very believable as something Biggles could be reading during the platoon's 2004 deployment). The titular Punisher debuted in 1974's The Amazing Spider-Man No. 129, but he went on to have many series of his own. His core concept is simple: He hates criminals and he murders them with guns. His name is Frank Castle, he became a skilled and haunted soldier in Vietnam. He came back; his family was killed in the crossfire of a mob shooting; and he subsequently dedicated himself to killing the mobsters — and anyone else who he thought deserved to die for his or her actions. His only distinctive trademark is the giant skull logo he wears on his chest.

Although Punisher has often been popular (especially during the late '80s and early '90s, when the comics industry thrived on grim and gritty antihero action), he's never been an admirable role model. However, his black-and-white view of who deserves to live and who needs to die fits right in with the moral universe of American Sniper. Kyle's platoon goes on to call themselves the Punishers and spray-paint the skull logo on their gear, carrying it during their missions to find and execute insurgents. We never get much in the way of explanation about what the Punisher means to the soldiers, but Kyle's real-life autobiography has a long passage about why he admired the lethal vigilante. [...]
Maybe the Punisher's not such an admirable role model, but what sabotages their review is their insistence on calling Frank a "murderer", yet when they get around to talking about how his family was wiped out by mob enforcers, they don't call them that, nor their savage actions against his wife, children, and the man they were in the process of executing in the park. This is very telling of what's wrong with any detractors of the Punisher's premise, ditto American Sniper's. One irony - and possible flaw - in the movie's scenes with the star reading a Punisher issue is that it comes from Garth Ennis's time writing the MAX series, which was a study in left-wing mishmash:
This is, to put it lightly, a very problematic reading of the character. To get a sense of the Punisher's upsetting worldview, we can turn to the issue that Biggles is reading in the movie. It was written by Northern Irishman Garth Ennis, who is inarguably one of the greatest Punisher writers of all time — and someone with deep ambivalence about the character's morality and popularity. He's tended to write Castle as a man who was mentally destroyed during his service in Vietnam (not unlike the version of Chris Kyle we see in American Sniper), and who has become a dangerous psychopath. A stoic psychopath with something resembling a moral compass, but a psychopath nonetheless. He's way past pursuing justice for what was done to his family — now he just kills people and tells himself he's doing it for a good reason.

The story in Punisher volume 6, No. 1 is characteristically ultraviolent. Frank makes his way to a mansion where a bunch of mobsters are about to have a party, and on the way, he muses on the warped state of his personal war on evil. He recalls that his family was killed while on a picnic, and that they weren't even the intended targets — it was some old mobster. "The old man from the park is long since dead; so are his soldiers, so's the shooter," Frank thinks to himself. "So are the people who called in the hit, and hundreds, maybe thousands more. But the war goes on." The overall "why" question doesn't occur to him.
It's certainly odd that the movie's take on Kyle reads a corruption of the original visions for Frank, turning him into more of a flat-out lunatic than a man whose goals may be questionable but does maintain a sense of honor in his one-man-army career against crime. Yet they call Ennis the greatest writer for Frank, otherwise approving his anti-war themes in the process.

But that does not appear to be Conway's reason for detesting the film. Nope, for him, it stems far more from his ultra-leftist viewpoint, and gives another hint he may not be proud of his past career in comics writing.

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8:44 AM | |

Sunday, January 25, 2015 

Todd McFarlane won't work for Big Two freelance, but will as part of a crossover?

McFarlane says he won't work for the Big Two again, partly because of his prominent job as one of Image's company managers, but he's willing to leave the door open for these possibilities:
However, McFarlane left the door open to some more co-publishing efforts with the Big Two. “Does that mean there will never be a Spawn/Spiderman cross-over? No. That could happen as a joint collaboration. The same would be true with a cross-over with DC Comics. But it would just be a one month ‘event’ thing that would be beneficial to both sides,” he said.
I don't think such an idea would benefit either. I do think - depending on the situation - that McFarlane's foolishly abandoned them for the sake of working on Spawn, one of a couple Image-sponsored products that was no big deal, at a time when his art could mean something. Some of his character designs from the early period in his career for DC and Marvel could be an acquired taste, but they were competent, and certainly meant much more than the awful output of his fellow Image founder Rob Liefeld, the one who really undermined their early business.

Then again, maybe it was for the best McFarlane left the Big Two, because their writing quality was going down the drain, so his artwork would've been wasted on bad scripting. But that's why he shouldn't return for the sake of a crossover either, not even one involving his own creations. He'd only be saddled with the bad quality they've heaped upon their own properties, and it wouldn't be any better than his own products.

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11:59 AM | |

Saturday, January 24, 2015 

Donna Troy corrupted

As if it weren't enough the Finches blew their debut on Wonder Woman, now comes word that Donna Troy has been distorted into an enemy for Diana:
Wonder Woman No. 38 — the third issue, out Wednesday, for Finch and her artist husband, David — reintroduces Donna Troy, a character who hasn't been seen since DC's line-wide relaunch in 2011.

However, she's not going to be the heroine of Teen Titans comics of yore — this take on the character, formed from clay by the sorceress Hecate, is a blank slate and also an antagonist for Wonder Woman going forward. "It puts a lot of power in the hands of the Amazons who created her to mold her," says Meredith Finch.

Before revealing her true history as a daughter of Zeus, previous writer Brian Azzarello had set Diana up as an outcast within the Amazons on Themyscira because of her origin of being made of clay.

"They mocked her for that fact, which is what makes Donna so ironic — that they're going to accept her," Meredith Finch says. Now that she's queen, it's been an adjustment for everybody: "They need to know their leader is a warrior and the strongest warrior of them, and she's got something to prove to them."
I'm sure we could've seen this coming for nearly 4 years already, and that only makes it worse. Donna was an Everywoman in the TT franchise, written as a woman to admire and inspire, and here they're taking all that and throwing it away.
David Finch admits that he's still getting a feel for how Wonder Woman looks, including making sure she has the size of someone who's as physically powerful as she should be.

His wife, though, has focused on the character's emotional strength. In scenes like one she has with Superman in issue 37, where she flips out on him a little bit because she's feeling so overwhelmed, Meredith Finch is aiming to show that it's OK to have a moment where you lose it, even for Wonder Woman.

"Your strength is how you pick yourself back up or how you address that moment and move forward from it," the writer says. "Exploring that aspect of who she is doesn't take away from her being a superhero. In fact, it makes her more relatable and more human.
I'm sorry, but if all she can do is hold a teddy bear, and not do something like offer affection to needy children, then it's not very realistic at all. And as powerful as Swamp Thing is, he's still no match for WW's formidable strength. Predictably, USA Today doesn't bring up the previous storyline or ask any critical questions about it. All they're doing is taking the role of "media enablers", and letting otherwise incompetent writers get away with sloppy scripting.

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10:48 AM | |

 

Marz actually cares about James Hudnall

The artist Norm Breyfogle, who drew Batman for several years in past decades, recently fell ill and needed medical aid. Marz was willing to ask people to help him out. Besides Breyfogle, Hudnall, who wrote a few comics like Alpha Flight in the 1980s and also supports conservative politics, has also had to get an operation, and wouldn't you know it, Marz is willing to put aside his disagreements and ask people to help him too, though he admits he doesn't like Hudnall's politics:


How about that, this is a not very common instance where Marz is willing to support a right-winger. I once spoke to Hudnall briefly by email a decade ago, and he's a fine fellow, so I guess we should be glad Marz was able to use some common sense here. I'm very sorry to learn Hudnall had to experience such a terrible loss because of an infection, and wish him a safe recovery.

As for Marz, while his respect for Hudnall at a time of need is admirable, I still wonder why he can't offer the same for rank-and-file righties to boot, or even some politicians/commentators. He continues his show of contempt with the following:


Yeah, that's all we need, some kind of moral equivalence, I guess. Obama's disappointments in his SOTU address include an announcement he'd be willing to veto sanctions against Iran, and raising taxes again, in another harkening back to his "wealth redistribution" proposal. We could all do without those kind of weak policies.

Umm, periods don't always have to go inside quotations. If you're just quoting a simple line without an official endpoint, then it could be done that way.

So there's another one of Marz's ridiculous jabs at right-wing politicians we could all do without.

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8:39 AM | |

Friday, January 23, 2015 

Denys Cowan has the right argument about how to diversify

Milestone Comics, the line co-founded by artist Cowan with Dwayne McDuffie in the early 90s, is being revived, and the Washington Post spoke with Cowan about his new plans, and it looks like they're no longer affiliated with DC:
Milestone originally had a partnership with DC Comics, and in the early ’90s, DC and Milestone collaborated on a crossover, called “Worlds Collide,” that introduced heroes from the DC universe to heroes from the Milestone universe.

The triumvirate behind the new Milestone Media says that there are many things to sort out on the company’s business side, including potential partnerships. The L.A.-based Milestone Media “will be working with a wide array of companies — both different publishers as well as other media companies,” Hudlin tells The Post.
Yes, it sounds like they acquired the rights back to their creations, and after the way Dan DiDio mistreated McDuffie, they're doing the right thing to take their business elsewhere. Now, here's where Cowan stresses how diversity should be handled:
In recent years, major comics publishers have aimed to make real strides in character diversity. Marvel, for example, has introduced a half-black/half-Puerto Rican Spider-Man (Miles Morales); a black Captain America (formerly the Falcon/Sam Wilson); and a female Thor. DC Comics has made similar advances with such existing characters as Green Lantern John Stewart, and by introducing Batwing (a black member of Batman’s team of crimefighters) during the debut of the New 52, and announcing that there will be a black Power Girl (Tanya Spears).

Yet Cowan says that putting a character of color in a well-known, previously white mantle doesn’t hold the same impact as creating a new wave of heroes for an ever-diverse readership and new generations of fans.

“There are all kinds of challenges that are facing people of color — that part hasn’t changed,” Cowan tells The Post’s Comic Riffs. “What has changed is, there are a lot more characters of color in comics. What we feel is now, Milestone is necessary because of the types of characters that we do, and the viewpoint that we come from.”

“We’ve never just done black characters just to do black characters,” he continues. “It’s always come from a specific point of view, which is what made our books work. What we also didn’t do, which is the trend now, is [to] have characters that are, not blackface, but they’re the black versions of the already established white characters — as if it gives legitimacy to these black characters in some kind of way — [that] these characters are legitimate because now there’s a black Captain America.

“Having been a creator of these characters and a consumer, I always looked at it like, ‘Well, geez, couldn’t you give me an original character?’ ” Cowan adds. “Black Panther worked because he was original. Static Shock worked because it was an original concept. It’s a good time to come back and reintroduce original characters, as well as some new ones.”
Cowan's nailed it. If diversity is so important, then it should be developed using superheroes with their own original codenames. Even more important, IMHO, is creating new co-stars and recurring cast members. Why must every single racial group member in superhero comics be introduced as a costume-clad protagonist? Can't they also serve well as co-stars? They might even work better that way. And if you can introduce a character of color, surely it's also possible to create one of specific ethnicity and nationality, like a native of Ghana, Portugal, Chad and Croatia?

And it's the characters audiences should be asked to care about, not the costumes. So if Cowan and company base their approach along all those crucial ideas, they'll be getting right what DC and Marvel are getting wrong.

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12:52 AM | |

 

Dan Buckley defends pointless changes to reflect Marvel's movies

Before the announcement of Marvel's planned reboot, ICV2 interviewed Marvel publisher Buckley, who wouldn't admit too many changes are being made to Marvel continuity designated to make the comics reflect the movies. First, there's these paragraphs:
We wanted to talk about a topic that ICv2 has been exploring (including at its conference), the "new comics customer," the growing gender diversity and other changes to the audience (see "Retailers Talk New Comics Customers"). What are you seeing in measurable changes in the gender mix of your products and particularly on something like Ms. Marvel that has a strong female starring character?

We’ll be very frank. This industry has not been known for doing a lot of consumer research. You probably have most of it. As Tom DeFalco said to me 20 years ago [doing a Tom DeFalco voice], "You know, Danny, the best research you could do is you print the book, the people buy them, then that’s the book they want to buy." We’re in an industry where the cost of investment to create a product is relatively low. In many ways it’s cheaper just to produce a book and see if it sells than to do a lot of consumer research. That’s where our medium is very different from television, movies and animation.
Interesting he admits their research on audience has been poor, and it's probably much worse than we think. Maybe more important is the fact that research hasn't even interested them, to know just what the audience thinks on any pertinent subject. The other article they link back to gives an interesting note about the female consumers:
The female TFAW customers were younger than the males, and were more likely to be new customers. They liked indies more than typical customers, and liked Marvel and DC’s less. Around 55% agreed with the statement “I like comics starring strong female protagonists. Often don’t like how women are portrayed in comics.” That was a lot higher than the typical customers, which had around a 25% agreement with that statement.
If this is accurate, it confirms what I've been estimating about where a lot of the current audience, old and new, stand on mainstream superhero comics. For 2 decades, there's long been a perception that female casts are treated like tissue paper in superhero comics, more likely to be subject to jarring physical/sexual violence than male protagonists, and it's very likely the female consumers find the politics seeping into mainstream comics far more alienating than what you see in most indie products too. In fact, judging from how poorly "Ms. Muslim" - if that's who ICV2's interviewer is referencing - is selling now, despite Buckley's attempts to claim otherwise, chances are a significant number of women find that alienating too, proving that there's a lot more realists out there than Buckley and company want to think. Also, while the main article in focus may not mention it, some lady consumers are surely offended by the mistreatment of Mary Jane Watson. Now, here's a bit more from Buckley:
We’ve been aggressive in trying a lot of diverse product over the last two years. I would give huge kudos to Axel Alonzo on that. He’s been very aggressive in making sure that we have more female lead characters, that we have a more diverse palette of ethnicity in the books, and the thing that’s exciting to see is that the books are selling.
They may have more female cast members (yet only emphasize superheroines), but they don't have better writers, and their idea of diversity has only been to supplant established heroes with brand new ones in the same costume. But in the end, the "diversity" has been superficial only, and sales have been nothing spectacular for female-led solos either.
In the past, we could hold onto books that were critical darlings [but not top sellers] and move them along. Runaways was a great example of that. We’re not holding on to critical darlings right now. Ms. Marvel is a legitimate top-selling title for us in all channels. And the Lady Thor book (for lack of a better term, I’ll use the moniker) is a top-selling book for us. Part of it is Thor fans checking it out, but a lot of women came in to check it out, and say, "What is this story? I want to take part in it."
How is a book selling so low on the charts "legit"? And what if it turns out not so many women tried the Lady Thor book, and any who read Original Sin's setup for this replacement started giggling at how silly it is for Nick Fury to determine everything?
Miles [Morales] has been a legitimate hit for us with Ultimate Spider-Man. Success begets more versions of these things that will beget more success and we’re very excited about it, because the more we can broaden our base, the better it is for this form of storytelling and our business as a whole.
Not sales-wise it hasn't. If the rest of the Ultimate line hasn't worked, it should be no surprise Ultimate Spidey didn't either. Now, onto the part about movies:
We’d like to talk about the transmedia aspect of Marvel’s business. There’s a perception that Marvel is changing its print continuity to align with the Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity. Does that happen?

I think people like to jump to conclusions. I’m going to be very clear. Let’s go back to 12 years ago. We all remember picking up our X-Men books in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The Professor would go in to put Cerebro on and he’d wear a helmet in a room, and whatever room that was and whatever it looked like was up to the artist du jour. But that room now, after the X-Men movie when he rolled into that big open area with the metallic globe that he is sitting inside of with the ramp, and then he puts the helmet on, you go into a Marvel comic now and that’s what that room looks like. The movie defined the mass market perception of what Cerebro looks like. The comics guys are looking at it and thinking, "That’s pretty cool, I think I’ll do that!" So, to say that one medium does not influence the other a great deal would be lying.
Nobody is jumping to conclusions, and it's not as though they "like" to, unless we're talking about the obsessives who vehemently refuse to stop buying when quality plummets. For a couple years now, they've been increasingly writing stories with elements meant to evoke the movies, as if that alone will guarantee moviegoers are interested. But these are superficial changes only (like Hawkeye not wearing a mask), and do not equal characterization. The writers are also insulting the intellect of moviegoers by acting as though none of them can guess liberties are taken with comics as they are with some novel adaptations.
The fact is the comics universe continuity is driven by editorial and the creative people within that area: the writers and artists involved with the editorial staff, and business management people in the publishing group. All of those people are well aware of what we’re looking to do with our television shows, movies and animation, me being one of those people. We allow the publishing people to tell the stories that they’re telling, but when a movie comes out and does something with a character that we find to be cool and also is very defining of the character, that will probably start influencing what the comic continuity will start looking like because the creators we have writing those products are influenced by that movie.
Whatever they've done to mimic the movies hasn't been cool. This brings to mind Sean Howe's point that when you publish a comic book meant to resemble a movie cooler than the finished comic product turns out to be, you're only losing.

And a lot of their new output's been heavily influenced by editorial mandate, unless the writers are part of a favored group. Those working for them now are pretty uncreative types.
I’ll give an example for Thor. When Kirby kicked off Thor, it was sci-fi. If you look back at that material he drew with Thor, it was from his imagination. The outfits looked very sci-fi, for lack of a better term. Through the years, through a variety of different artists’ influences, and from their own imaginations, I’d say it felt more like Norse mythology or The Lord of the Rings. But now the movie’s come back. The feeling of what Asgard looks like (where Thor is from) feels more sci-fi again because we leaned into that with the movie.
This is ridiculous. From the beginning, Thor and other Asgardian deities wore outfits that honed closer to what ancient Scandanavians used to wear, whether Vikings or other tribes who inhabited northern Europe. They sure didn't look very futuristic, so Buckley's defense is laughable, and disrespects Kirby's memory. And while there was always plenty of sci-fi involved, fantasy elements played a big part of Thor's corner in the MCU too, which Buckley fails to explain clearly.
So there’s no way that these movies, which are seen by millions of people, are not influencing what we’re doing in the books, but we’re not looking to align continuity between the two storytelling worlds because, frankly, that would be a venture into madness.
Sorry, but the movies are, by ways of the editors, who're stuck in a quixotic mind thinking gazillions of moviegoers will flock to their products despite the fact they've had so little coming in. Millions of film watchers, but only hundreds of comic book readers; that's the situation for many years now. They recently withdrew from a few book chains, and unless they intend to resume sales there, I can't see how anybody could find their products at ease. Even today, there aren't that many comics stores around easy to reach.
One is not overriding the other, it would be way too hard. But they do influence each other and that’s a lot of fun.
Not everyone agrees. It all depends on the writing in the finished product, which has been awful since the turn of the century. If characterization isn't good, then all these visual changes mean nothing. The same goes for DC, who went out of their way to change Superman's red tights for a dull blue pair, and that was no substitute for good character interaction either.

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12:45 AM | |

Thursday, January 22, 2015 

Tom Fowler comment on Charlie Hebdo massacre

Here's a tweet by cartoonist Fowler about the murders at Charlie Hebdo's offices:

I'd say he's putting it across better than Erik Larsen did. This is the only comment I could find that he posted about the case, and he's absolutely right that murder is far worse than satirical cartoons.

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6:43 AM | |

 

Erik Larsen on the Charlie Hebdo cartoon murders

Larsen was another comics writer/artist who commented on the case of the jihadists who murdered several Charlie Hebdo staff and 4 people in a kosher supermarket a few weeks ago in France, and he sure doesn't seem to grasp the situation well. Here's his list of tweets:



Here's where he makes his first mistake - comparing the tragedy of humans who murder to animals who can only walk on four legs and have no vocality, and thus aren't held to the same standards as humans are expected. Does he also think Denmark's cartoonists for Jyllands-Posten are scapegoats?

That's right, so why can't he unambiguously condemn the terrorists for their act of savagery, whose victims also included 4 Jewish men in a supermarket that very week by a man who attacked them just for being part of a race/ethnicity, which he doesn't seem to mention?



But he seems to suggest the cartoonists are the ones who have to bear the burden of responsibility, not the jihadists who committed the violent crime. Don't criminals also have to be held to any standards of accountability? It makes no difference whether they listen or not, they have to be told their barbarism is wrong, plain and simple.





No, we get the point, and it's a very unchallenging one. Even if cartoonist Crumb grasps the situation better than Larsen, the latter is still making very weak arguments.




Okay, this is going too far. If Simon, Kirby, Stan Lee and other writers during the Golden Age were attacked by nazi sympathisers during WW2, would he say responsibility is entirely on their shoulders, and not a single bit on those of the enemy? This comes very close to the kind of blame-the-victim tactics used to say a rape victim brought it on by wearing skimpy clothes and/or because she's beautiful. Some Muslim rapists have even defended their obscene acts by saying the victim wasn't wearing a headscarf, even though there's been Muslim women wearing burkas/niqabs who've also been attacked, both physically and sexually.

Oh, now he tells us? But then, how come he hadn't said it before about Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists? Or do just American artists like Simon & Kirby count? Interestingly, Larsen drew a Savage Dragon cover where he portrayed Osama as the filth he was:

But what are the odds he'll ever be willing to draw Mohammed? I guess they're close to zip.

Why should we be bothered? Zoroastrians certainly wouldn't - it reflects their take on life, that there's God and a Devil.

Even if conservatives were offended, the majority know better than to take things to extremes. Besides, Bush was no saint, and he did things that turned off some conservatives too.


The analogy with cars is poor too. Drivers come in many forms, and usually, if somebody gets hit by a car while wading into traffic, it's accidental on the driver's part. A hit-and-run attack, on the other hand, can be very deliberate, and this one definitely was. Seeley's right. And suppose Will Eisner got attacked over his last GN from 2004, The Plot, which was critical of Muslim anti-Semitism? Would he be the scapegoat, and not the jihadists?

And neither should the jihad at the kosher supermarket. But if Larsen doesn't think these tragedies should've taken place, why doesn't he say a word about how abominable the ideologies are that the jihadists are following? Why doesn't he say that a religion that supports murder, slavery, underaged marriage and other sex offenses is something no sane person should associate themselves with? His approach is super-cheap, and epically fails to tackle more challenging issues and facts.

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6:16 AM | |

Wednesday, January 21, 2015 

Marvel universe is being rebooted/retconned, and all we can do is yawn

They sent telling hints of this earlier. Now, it's official:
The Marvel Universe is about to start afresh. At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Marvel Entertainment ended months of speculation by confirming that it will reboot its comic book universe during this summer’s much-hyped Secret Wars event.

The first issue of the series will feature the end of the current Marvel Universe, with the patchwork “Battleworld” advertised in earlier promotional images for the event being described as the “melting world from which the new Marvel Universe will be fermented,” according to executive editor Tom Brevoort. “It’s difficult to imagine something that would be larger in scope and scale than Secret Wars,” he said, jokingly adding, “What we’re going to do to top it is hopefully going to be someone else’s problem.”
Why should we want such a lethargic plot to be topped? These crossovers have already resulted in more than enough fatigue. And if the Beyonder turns up in this new take on the tale from 1984, he's likely going to play the part taken by the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which as some people have argued, was overrated and confusing in its time.
“This is putting an end cap on decades of stories,” editor-in-chief Axel Alonso said of the eight-part series launching in May. “This is a place where we’ll be putting new pieces on the board and taking old pieces off.”

“We’re working with a lot of licensees for this,” Marvel’s Chris D’Lando added, naming Hasbro, Upper Deck, Mattel’s Hot Wheels line and Funko as partners already signed to produce new product for the event. Additionally, Marvel’s games team is “working on developing interactive content” related to Secret Wars that will be revealed in the future.
I don't see what's so great about playing with merchandise based on an "event" that spells the end of a universe we once loved, before these awful people came along and destroyed it as they became more and more obsessed with movie adaptations instead.
“You’ll be shocked at the chances we’re willing to take,” Alonso said about the future of the Marvel Universe. Brevoort added, “The Marvel Universe as you know it is done.”
It ended a long time ago. It began to seriously unravel with the Clone Saga in 1995. Actually, it may have begun even earlier in the Silver Age, slowly wrecked by merchandise and people who wanted to exploit it all for building adaptations that would make more money than the comics publishers were trying to. People who don't see the value of storytelling, and prefer these products more as something like video games, which don't require the kind of serious scripting a comic book does.

Graeme McMillan's willing to admit it's bound to leave everybody underwhelmed:
The news that Marvel Entertainment is "ending" the Marvel Universe as we know it in this summer's Secret Wars is intended to be a big deal for those following the company's comic book continuity. (In promoting Tuesday's press conference, Marvel referred to the news as "the announcement to end all announcements," somewhat hyperbolically.) In that it's the first full-scale reboot for the universe since its 1961 inception, it is something to take note of — but in the wider scheme of things, it's difficult to get too fired up about the news just yet.
It's hard to be excited at all. Even Crisis on Infinite Earths wasn't all that necessary. It certainly wasn't necessary to have all those tie-ins appearing in issues from ongoing series. If they had to reboot anything, they could've done it without giving the vibe they were trying to fleece the readers of too much money.
Part of the problem is that, while this is the first universe-wide reboot for Marvel's comic book continuity, the concept is very familiar to comic fans, thanks to the many reboots offered in the last three decades by Marvel's biggest competitor, DC. In a lot of ways, much of today's Marvel announcement called back to the first — and arguably, the best — of DC's multiple universal reboot stories: 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths. Not only does Alex Ross' cover for the first issue of Secret Wars mirror George Perez's cover for Crisis on Infinite Earths No. 1, but the DC series also featured refugees from a number of parallel Earths emigrating to "New Earth," the one, final Earth that remained at the end of the series — something that appears to be the core of Marvel's "Battleworld" concept for Secret Wars.

(DC also rebooted their universe in 1994's Zero Hour, 2004's Infinite Crisis and 2011's Flashpoint, the last of which also saw the publisher relaunch all of its titles with a new first issue, another cue that Marvel might take from DC, given that the former has already teased something called "All New Marvel" in September.)
But they already pulled issue relaunch stunts like those. The earliest was probably Heroes Reborn from 1996. This wouldn't be particularly new either.

The news reports tell that this new take on Secret Wars will see the merging of a number of characters from the failed Ultimate universe into the mainstay (I'd say 616, but I've got a feeling that'll no longer be valid), like the new mixed-race Spider-Man, Miles Morales. It raises a lot of good questions what their vision is for a NuMarvel universe. Will they supplant Peter Parker entirely with a new, politically correct version of what they think Spidey should be? And will similar steps be taken with various other Marvel cast members?
Another hurdle to great enthusiasm is the fact that the idea of Marvel rebooting has been floating around for decades; Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story [5] describes such plans as far back as the mid-1980s, and similar reboots have been teased almost every decade since. While it might be exciting that Marvel is actually going to do it this time, the idea, at this point, is far from a new one.
I'd heard years ago that Jim Shooter wanted to replace a lot of established Marvel heroes with new characters, but Stan Lee made sure that wouldn't happen, and I don't see what Shooter thought would be so great about it. It's not hard to guess why Quesada and his awful staff are doing it now with Lee no longer able to object - they want to make everything perfect as a mirror for the movies.
There's also the fact that, for a lot of fans, the very idea of a Marvel reboot is something to be afraid of, and not excited by. One of Marvel's core strengths, traditionally, has been that "everything counts" in terms of previously published material. While that's not technically true — something I'll get to in a moment — the fact that Marvel's mythology doesn't have to deal with the difficult-to-explain concept of "Post-Crisis," "Post-Zero Hour," or "Post-Flashpoint" eras has been something of a point of pride for Marvel. As recently as 2012 [6], Marvel's chief creative officer Joe Quesada was promoting new publishing initiatives by boasting, "We love our hardcore constituency. We're not rebooting, we're not saying, 'Hey, all that stuff you read doesn't matter anymore.'" Surely rebooting in 2015 doesn't send an accidental message that Marvel doesn't love its hardcore constituency anymore — but you'll have to ask that very constituency how they feel about that.
I think the emigrants from their readership over the years - casual or otherwise - have answered the question. It's not something they're afraid of, but it certainly is something that insults and alienates them. No longer are most readers surprised - this is an editorial board that long eschewed plausible character drama for cheap stunts. They've proven they'll do anything they think gets them headlines they don't deserve, under the confidence the mainstream press by and large won't ask them any hard questions or hold them to any standards.

And the message they're sending out is no accident. Their terrible mistreatment of Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson has long proven that. This reboot, if that's what it'll be, is nothing more than disrespect for both old and new readers, and with the exact same people in charge, that's why nobody should think this'll yield better storytelling than before.

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7:18 AM | |

Monday, January 19, 2015 

If Arrow's producers don't have a problem with resurrection, why do comics publishers have one?

That's what I'm wondering after reading this Collider interview (via ComicBook) with the Arrow producer Greg Berlanti, where he says he's not against resurrections:
You guys haven’t been shy about killing off major characters on Arrow.

BERLANTI: Yeah.

Can we expect some major deaths on The Flash this season?

BERLANTI: I think we also haven’t been shy about bringing back dead people. We may have one of those shows where no one’s ever really dead, but that’s OK. I think that’s always where a lot of the stakes lie in these shows, so it could happen.

Sarah’s death had a real air of finality.

BERLANTI: Right.

It was pretty vicious. Was that your guys’ way of closing the book on that?

BERLANTI: I don’t close the book on anything ever, because there’s flashbacks and we’ve had Tommy come back a bunch. That’s been really fortunate. I think – Alan can answer this better than me – but it’s like the comic books where the characters come back. They die and that ends a story point, and a lot of times they’re revived. I think it’s like the books that way, to me at least.
This sure stands in stark contrast to the minds of mainstream comics editors and publishers, certainly at DC, who've been adamant about keeping some of the worst character deaths in place no matter how high the protest by fans, and counting on nobody to object when a minor character is killed off (and in Sue Dibny and Jean Loring's case, raped in flashback and turned into a savage villainess), no matter how terribly it was scripted. Or, using a miniseries to pull the vicious deed, because they think nobody could possibly try to find ways to boycott the company.

Berlanti's hardly keeping up with past DC history since Crisis on Infinite Earths, which saw a lot of cases both good and bad involving character deaths. In the bad category, there was the death of Katma Tui in 1988 at the hands of Carol Ferris, then under heavy influence of the Zamorans as Star Sapphire. It was later reversed...but not for long. Zero Hour sent her back to the grave yet again, accompanied by thousands of GLC members. There was the villification of Hank Hall in Armageddon. There were also the deaths of Yolanda Montez and Beth Chapel, the female Wildcat and Dr. Mid-Nite, respectively, during 1993. And, there was the death of Hal Jordan in Zero Hour, subsequently followed by Hank in 2000's JSA tale. Besides the horrific mistreatment of Sue and Jean in Identity Crisis, there was also the death of Tim Drake's father Jack, and that's another hideous error that's remained unrepaired till this day.

The biggest irritant, however, is the inability of many people to distinguish between a good and a bad death, the severity of the mistake, to ask if it can be turned around, and to avoid complaining if there's a chance to reverse a bad decision. As a result, little or no reaction came following the deaths or worse of minor cast members, or, as in the Hal Jordan debacle, they were appallingly divided, with one half thinking we should just let it go despite all the embarrassment that hangs over what's to follow, not understanding that some bad decisions don't just wash away. And nobody seemed to ask if a time warp effect could be performed if that's a good way to reverse a bad step. And here Crisis and Zero Hour were built on time warps! And they both changed some of history, whether big or small portions. How could some people not think to stress that if those past crossovers could serve that function, they couldn't serve the goal of fixing mistakes, if it's of any avail?

I'd like to think maybe these TV shows will persuade the comics publishers to turn things around. But I've got a feeling that's not going to happen so easily. For now, it sure is weird seeing somebody talk about resurrection dead characters in an era where some comics editors and writers are so callous, they won't reverse the worst steps and act like it'll literally make them look silly, while the TV producers clearly have no problem with revivals at all. Resurrection is integral with science-fantasy in every way, yet DC's publishers can't grasp that fact. They probably can't even comprehend character redemptions.

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8:17 AM | |

Sunday, January 18, 2015 

Japan building manga statues

The Asahi Shimbun talks about statues being built now in Japan based on various figures from notable anime and manga books.

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11:18 AM | |

Saturday, January 17, 2015 

Marz dismissive of Ohio terror case

Here's some tweets our old lefty friend Marz wrote about a jihadist who was arrested in Ohio:

So he's trying to downplay what could've been a serious danger? Sigh. What if the wolf in sheep's clothing had gone on a rampage? According to the Heritage Foundation, the monster was an ISIS supporter:
On January 14, the FBI arrested Christopher Cornell for plotting to bomb the U.S. Capitol and then fire upon those who fled from the buildings. According to the complaint filed against him, Cornell, who was using the alias Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, supported the Islamic State and sought to wage jihad against the U.S. This is the 63rd successful or foiled Islamist terrorist plot against the United States since 9/11 and continues the trend of homegrown terrorism.

In light of this plot and the recent Islamist terrorist attack in Paris, it is clear that the U.S. cannot simply wish away the threat of terrorism at home and abroad. Despite rhetoric about the defeat of al-Qaeda, the insignificance of ISIS, and the end of the war on terror, the reality is that the threat of terrorism remains. The U.S. cannot merely be content with its existing counterterrorism efforts, but must look to improve and build on these efforts to keep the U.S. safe.

The Plot
The criminal complaint filed by the FBI against Cornell states that he created Twitter accounts in the summer of 2014 and began posting statements and videos supportive of ISIS as well as voicing support for violent jihad and acts of terrorism around the world.[1] The FBI used a confidential informant to reach out to Cornell and investigate his intentions. In August, Cornell wrote an instant message to the informant in which he stated, “I believe we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything.… [W]e already got a thumbs up from the Brothers over there and Anwar al Awlaki before his martyrdom and many others.”[2]

These messages led to an in-person meeting between Cornell and the informant in October in which Cornell described his need for weapons and his desire to attack but without specific details. In a second meeting in November, Cornell identified the Members of Congress as enemies and specified that he sought to build and plant pipe bombs near the U.S. Capitol and then shoot those fleeing the scene. Cornell showed the informant research on government buildings, the construction of pipe bombs, and the acquisition of firearms. After saving money, Cornell put his plan into motion on January 14, purchasing two semi-automatic rifles and around 600 rounds of ammunition from a store in southern Ohio. He was then arrested before the public was put in danger.
How is this not serious news? My parents have some old friends living in northern Ohio who're glad this news was reported and that the FBI arrested the monster. His parents have also hinted they're responsible for his modern mentality:
In addition to his exposure to radical Islam online, Cornell appears to have gotten a dose of anti-government rhetoric at home. His father, John Cornell, espoused conspiracy theories in an interview with The Enquirer, opining about the influence of the Illuminati and claiming the Catholic Church is involved in drug trafficking. He said he doesn't believe his son will get a fair shake from the FBI or the federal courts.

"He isn't going to get any justice," John Cornell said. "I have no faith in this country." [...]

He said his son spent the past few years trying to find himself, experimenting with politics, religion and life-style changes. He tried becoming a vegetarian, embraced conspiracies about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and later called himself an "anarchist." Eventually, according to the FBI, he developed a strong interest in radical Islam.

In 2013, police say, Cornell showed up at a Green Township memorial service for victims of 9/11. He stood silently and carried a sign that read, "9/11 was an inside job."
I suppose Marz thinks this kind of upbringing isn't disturbing either? He goes on to complain about his ability to buy firearms:

So says the same man who ignores the black market. But why doesn't he complain that the store manager failed to do a background check or speak with the FBI about him before selling guns? The UK Independent says he took Cornell's "calm" attitude at face value, which only says the manager is not fit for his job. Marz then tries to downplay the seriousness further with the following:


Oh for pete's sake. He goes on attack Ted Cruz:

They'd have to be a lot better than Marz, because his sense of humor does not work here.

The sad irony is that in a manner of speaking, the MSM probably won't cover the Cornell case as seriously as they should, which is probably what Marz prefers. If so, that's shameful of him, but nothing new.

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9:06 AM | |

Friday, January 16, 2015 

The claim Elongated Man and Sue Dearbon's marriage was wholly happy was exaggerated

I found a topic on Comics Should Be Good about some of the first Elongated Man slapstick adventures from the Silver Age that give pretty good signs the marriage Ralph Dibny and Sue Dearbon had wasn't all hunky-dory as supporters of Identity Crisis may have claimed. In Detective Comics 328 (The Case of the Barn-door Bandit), Ralph's trying to locate a farm robber, and avoids the fancier places Sue would like to visit, which annoys her. Now is that honestly representative of a picture-perfect marriage? If they really did have one, there wouldn't be nary a minor scrap between them.

There was even a story the following decade where Sue was fuming about no longer being a number one debutante since the time they married, and that doesn't exactly imply she was happy at all times either. So that proves they were not a 100 percent happy couple as the Identity Crisis supporters must want to believe, and think because of that, they just had to subject the Dibnys to the grisly darkness nobody asked for.

But this does give me an idea why they thought Sue made the greatest sacrificial lamb: I have no doubt there's some low-intellect troglodytes out there who viewed her the same way they do Mary Jane Watson and Stephanie Brown/Spoiler: that because she was written expressing an emotion of anger, that literally makes her "annoying". No wonder they thought she was perfect for taking a fall. But all those grotto-grovelers did was prove why they have no business reading any adventure fare if they're such ingrates.

The Elongated Man solo backup stories that came after his and Sue's first appearances in the Flash were published between 1964-81, the majority in Detective Comics, with a miniseries coming later in 1992, and they made for pretty good escapist fare. Under Gardner Fox, that's where they really began to hit a stride. Fox characterized Ralph as a guy who was smarter than one might think, and they had a good idea to differentiate him from Plastic Man in the sense that he wasn't as overtly goofy as Eel O'Brian, and could talk as intelligently as he could be humorous. And Sue was also characterized well as a woman who liked adventure. Another reason why these stories worked well was because, just like in the Atom's stories, while the villains could use sci-fi devices, not all of them wore costumes, and were more of the plainclothes variety. That's just the kind of emphasis superhero comics today are sorely lacking, as they rely far too much on the villains in costume for adversaries, and not at all on skillful action and adventure writing.

And if there's any past contributors whom I think are the biggest victims of modern PC, it's Fox, a writer who never got the thanks he deserved for all his hard work turning out these decent escapist tales of the Silver Age.

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3:06 AM | |

Thursday, January 15, 2015 

No mention of Hank Pym's technically abusive behavior from 1981 in this Bellingham Herald piece

The Bellingham Herald published a piece about upcoming comics movies, including Ant-Man, but whatever they have to say about Hank Pym and Janet VanDyne does not include the story from 1981 where Hank lost his rationale and smacked Jan to the floor when his career in the Avengers proper was on the rocks:
"Ant-Man," premiering July 17, is something of a mystery. The narrative Marvel Films established for the Avengers movies negates much of the Marvel Comics character's background, so how they'll play the Master of Many Sizes will be a surprise even to those who know a lot about him.

In the comics, Ant-Man premiered in the early 1960s, Marvel's breakout era, alongside Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. Debuting in 1962, Ant-Man was Dr. Henry Pym (the name was a nod to an Edgar Allan Poe story), a multi-tasking sort of scientist who invented not only a shrinking serum but a way to talk to ants. After launching a career as the superhero Ant-Man, Pym recruited his girlfriend, socialite and heiress Janet van Dyne, as The Wasp, giving her the power to shrink and grow tiny wings, plus a compressed-air, wrist-mounted weapon called "The Wasp's Sting." Shortly thereafter, in 1963, the two of them helped found the Avengers, along with Hulk, Iron Man and Thor.

"What's that?" you say. You don't remember Hank and Jan from the "Avengers" movie? Maybe they were too small to see ....

Actually, they were completely left out. Which means that all of the things that happened to Henry Pym as an Avenger in the comics haven't happened in the movies. Including the Ant-Man powers being used by two successors, Scott Lang and Eric O'Grady. Including the invention of a growth serum, resulting in characters (some of them Pym) named Giant-Man and Goliath. Including Hank's evil turn (and later good one) as the character Yellowjacket. Or Pym's invention of Ultron, the evil artificial intelligence, and his subsequent invention, the synthezoid (and future Avenger) The Vision.

Hank Pym does make it into the movie, as an elderly scientist who may have already have had a very quiet career as Ant-Man (played by Michael Douglas). No character named Janet van Dyne is in the credits, but daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) debuts, and let's hope she gets small and grows wings. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), makes the cut, as does Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll).

How all this fits together is anyone's guess. However, given that Rudd is mostly known for comedies, we have an idea as to tone. Plus, there's the first trailer Marvel released ... which was deliberately too small to see.
Interesting that no mention is made of that frustrating moment in the early 80s, preceding Hank and Jan's divorce, when Hank tried to build a robot with a secret weak point that would attack his fellow Avengers and he'd pretend to save the day, and when Jan found out, she tried to protest, but he just slapped her down, insisted she keep quiet about his idea and stomped out of the laboratory, leaving her lying on the floor. I wonder why the writer doesn't have the courage to bring that up and let everybody form an opinion whether that makes it difficult to appreciate Hank or not? I'd argued before that I don't think the possible mistakes of past writers/editors should keep the screenwriters from making Hank the main star. In fact, the more I've thought about it and looked at some of the past material, the more I wonder if this whole "Hank Pym was a spousal abuser" perception was blown out of proportion. It certainly should be blamed on the past writers, whether it's Jim Shooter or whoever else was involved in the scriptwriting. It wasn't even the first time something like that was seen - in 1971, just prior to the Kree-Skrull War, there was a story by Roy Thomas where Ronan the Accuser hypnotized Hank under his control, and he slugged Jan so she'd stay behind. In the 1981 story (issues 213 and 214), by which time Hank had been set up to look like he was going nuts over aggravation at failures in his research, he hit her again, but from what I can tell, it wasn't set up to make him look like he assaulted her on a fully regular, casual basis, and like many other superheroines in a surreal world, Jan was written as a girl who wasn't afraid of being punched/kicked, even if she did find assault offensive. After all, in a superhero world, that kind of stuff comes with the territory.

Interestingly enough, while Tom Brevoort refused to admit writers/artists are accountable, artist Bob Hall, who drew the 1981 story, was willing to do so, and spoke about it in this Bleeding Cool entry (via Comics Should be Good), telling that, after all these years, he wasn't happy how the story was arranged, and wished he could've done better. Well if that's a fact, then I have to congratulate Hall for owning up to causing a lot of annoyance that's dogged the Hank Pym history for over 3 decades. Though as this guy - who's got pictures from the issues in question - argues, it's not so easy to buy Shooter's defense.

And back to Brevoort: his argument is not only laughable, it's shameful, how he refuses to admit the writing and art staff have to take responsibility, and says readers refuse to forgive Hank for cross-cutting on Jan. *Ahem* I'd feel peculiar blaming an imaginary character for something that wasn't his fault. I guess if the Berenstain Bears had an abusive relationship I should be mad at daddy bear for using his Kodiak claws to assault mommy bear, and just let whomever wrote Jan, Stan and Mike Berenstain's creation off the hook? Or if Snoopy ran over the Peanuts gang with a Volkswagen Amarok, I should damn the Beagle to the pits of hell, all while turning my back to whomever wrote a bad story out of Charles Schultz's creations? Brevoort effectively proved himself one of the dumbest people in the biz, who insults the audience by making all readers out to be mentally impaired across the board. It's this kind of dumbed-down blabber that's letting many writers, both decent and awful, get away with really crappy steps.

And none of Hank Pym's character history turns up in the newspaper article; that's the real mystery. It's appalling as it shows the mainstream has no interest in letting people form an opinion and decide for themselves whether they should go with Hank while skirting around past history, or whether they should go with the casting as chosen. All they're doing is hiding their shame and inability to admit they're capable of erring. Just another superficial, uninformative mainstream take on classic creations.

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7:57 AM | |

Wednesday, January 14, 2015 

Simone makes awful jokes about Fox

Gail Simone's posted a couple tweets that I assume were a reaction to an awkward comment by Steve Emerson, an otherwise pretty talented expert on terrorism, on the Fox channel:



If she ever had a sense of humor before, she's trashed it with these uninformative scrap piles. She can't even name who was on the program she watched? Why not? What's really funny is why she'd even watch Fox if she doesn't like them. But since we're on the subject, Breitbart's explained more clearly what goes on in Britain:
...while many in the mainstream media are forbidden from reporting on such issues, for fear of being labeled an “Islamophobe” or “racist,” Breitbart London has reported extensively on the continuing Islamic radicalization of Birmingham.

Birmingham, where 22 percent of its population follows Islam, represents almost five times higher than the 4.8 percent national average. Additionally, a 2011 census found that Birmingham had more Muslims enrolled in schools than Christians.

[...] A report released in June by the U.K. Education office (Ofsted) found that five state schools in Birmingham had attempted to impose an Islamic, “narrow faith-based ideology.” Ofsted found that Islamic schools countrywide were promoting stoning, lashing, and loving “death more than life.”

[...] While Cameron has been “choking on his porridge,” Birmingham and the entire U.K. has continued its slide towards radicalization. On Cameron’s watch, those who have carried out the barbaric act of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) have never been prosecuted; Islamic radicals are free to stay, while freedom fighters are denied entry; and the proliferation of Sharia courts and push for full Sharia law continues.
This is what ignoramuses like Simone are turning their backs to, and shamefully exploit somebody's sloppy wording for nothing more than shunning their warnings entirely, when what Emerson really meant is that several neighborhoods in Birmingham are enclaves. It's certainly like that in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. She probably doesn't admire the Greek tale of Cassandra either. Someone even had the mendacity to publish this pathetic photoshop in response to her tweets:

It may have been on O'Reilly's program, but that joke sure falls flat. Would she have made the same sarcastic comments if this took place on CNN or NBC?

If that's meant to be an insult to VanSusteren, it flops badly too. Oddly enough, she later said:

And if that's meant to be a show of disapproval for Obama's disastrous run as president, she's making the case several years too late. If he were running again today, she'd vote for him again instantly, because having a liberal president is far more important than the platform he's running on per se. I even found some earlier tweets she wrote, where she said:

Didn't Osama bin Laden make it clear back in 2001? I suppose Simone also thinks a fine fellow like Will Eisner is BS? She also wrote a tweet, possibly reacting to one where Jim Treacher mentioned me, where she must've been enraged he would dare be critical. Combined with a Daniel Kalban tweet:

Man, after reading this, I'd say she really qualifies for the category of seperate-art-from-artist, ditto Kalban.

Simone is another writer whom I haven't seen using the JeSuisCharlie hashtags on Twitter, suggesting any support she has for France at an awful time like this is phony. After this kind of display, I can't feel sorry she lost her job writing Birds of Prey. I do recall she used to post on the Dixonverse forum until a few years ago, and then she left, apparently falling out of favor with other people there. If she doesn't care about women and gays persecuted under Islam, then any claim she makes that she cares about advancing women in comics falls flat. According to this study, women have been losing ground in Hollywood, and even in mainstream comics, they've had little success, because of the closed door mentality now engulfing the staffs. This is partly because of a failure to speak unambiguously about the problems, which include stories with sexist structures. If Simone can't complain clearly, then she has no business gushing to the press that things are looking up, when in fact, they're not.

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2:15 PM | |

About me

  • I'm Avi Green
  • From Jerusalem, Israel
  • I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.
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