Joe Simon's pro-Israel publication in the 1960s

The Canadian Jewish News wrote about the history of a comics-style project the late artist Joe Simon of Capt. America fame worked on following the 6-Day War in 1967 that was favorable to Israel:

After the 1967 Six Day War, the originator of the comic book hero Captain America produced a spoof on the war and its political aftermath. A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to Tel Aviv was a 66-page satirical magazine created and edited by Joe Simon that sold for 50 cents.

Its pages contain photographs of Egyptian and Jordanian leaders with comic-style word balloons and corny jokes. For example: “The height of Israeli gall: while waiting for negotiations at the UN to begin, one of them opened a kosher restaurant in Damascus.” The magazine reflected the swagger across the Jewish world following Israel’s miraculous military victory.

Simon was no stranger to controversial humour. He edited Sick magazine throughout the 1960s which in its first issue described itself as “a grim collection of revolting humour.” It contained tasteless, politically incorrect humour much like the standup routines of controversial comics such as Lenny Bruce, who apparently purchased 100 copies of each issue that included excerpts from his routines. [...]

Simon used his pen and his sense of humour to stand up for the Jewish people. In his Funny Thing magazine, he includes this legal disclaimer:

“The captions in this publication are entirely fictitious. As for the characters, they should live and be well. Except, maybe, for one or two…”

Now that's amazing. The application of word balloons to live action photography is something the satirists at MAD magazine did too at times. Let's also recall Simon was a conservative in his time, and after September 11, 2001, he'd drawn an illustration similar to the cover of the premiere issue of Captain America Comics where, much like Simon and Kirby drew Steve Rogers punching Hitler, Simon drew Cap punching Osama bin Laden. The question now is whether that illustration was ever made public, or if we'll ever see it on display today? If his estate or anybody else responsible for retaining his artwork is withholding that Simon item, that's wrong.

For now, this is a pretty interesting bit of history of what Cap's co-creator did in the years afterwards, and from what I know, Simon did work in comics and other similar forms of entertainment at least until the mid-70s. His support for Israel, along with supporting the USA, is something important to appreciate.

Howard the Duck's history

A writer at Cleveland Magazine tells about the history of the late Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck, Marvel's contribution to the anthropomorphic animal genre, which employed a Cleveland-based setting, and interviewed artist Val Mayerik, who was the first to illustrate the anthropomorphic cartoon bird during the Bronze Age. First though:

Working with Marvel comic book writer Steve Gerber, Val Mayerik was the first illustrator to depict the Cleveland-based character when he appeared in a series featuring The Man-Thing in the 1970s. Later, the cigar-smoking, beer-drinking cartoon duck got his own comic book series, which was even developed into a George Lucas-produced film.

That film, most unfortunately, was a failure, and not a good start for Marvel's attempts to enter the live action movie scene. It took until 1998's Blade to get a serious major adaptation produced, and that was more successful. Now, on the subject of how Howard's drawn:

Val Mayerik: "The writer, Steve Gerber; most of the credit goes to Steve. I mean, that character was Steve's alter ego, and Steve passed away quite a while ago. I was the first one to draw Howard, so that that's my pedigree there. Since then, a lot of people have drawn him. The look of the duck has changed a lot, but whenever people request sketches of Howard at conventions, or they want a private commission, I draw Howard in the original way that I had drawn him back in the ‘70s.

I'd say he's right to do it that way. Considering how Marvel was ruined horrifically since the turn of the century in particular, that's why it can do a lot of good to remind people how it all originally began in the Bronze Age, when the feathered fellow was created to serve as a comical adventure, surely the most significant of Marvel's own efforts to experiment with anthropomorphic animals.

Cleveland Magazine: That must have been pretty interesting for you, being from Northeast Ohio, having spent a lot of time in Cleveland — to now be illustrating a duck superhero who is in Cleveland.

VM: "Well, first of all, Howard has no superpowers; he's not really a superhero. Howard is kind of like the Greek chorus for humanity. He's the one who's making the commentary, and he feels he has the right to make the commentary because he's not a human being, so he has a distance which we don't have. It was fun. At the time when the character first appeared, it wasn't really clear that it was going to be that popular, and that it was going to catch on the way it did. I only drew a few early issues of Howard when Marvel decided to give Howard his own title; I was working on other projects that I was really having fun with, and so they gave it to another artist who was a very good artist, and I don't think I was back on the book for quite a few years."

That's an interesting part of Howard's creation: he may have been an anthropomorphic animal, but not one with serious science-fantasy powers. Then again, it's not like every story out there starring anthropomorphic animals does that either, but what matters with Howard the Duck is that he was meant to serve as a satirical adventure, and it's too bad awful scribes and editors like Joe Quesada led to the ruin of such characters with potential. Something I wish veterans like Mayerik would have the courage to discuss. Failure to do so is precisely why such classic creations have suffered so badly.

French cartoon film adapted from Legendaires broadcast on Canal Plus

Sortir a Paris announced an animated film based on a comic called The Legends is airing on Canal Plus:

The Legends, the animated film adapted from Patrick Sobral’s comic, is airing on Canal+ on Friday, July 31, 2026 at 9:06 PM. Directed by Guillaume Ivernel, the feature marks the first time the adventures of Danaël, Jadina, Gryf, Shimy and Razzia leap from page to the big screen in the magical world of Alysia.

Released in French cinemas on January 28, 2026, the film draws on the Delcourt-published saga, a touchstone of contemporary French children's comics. Now airing on television, it invites families to experience this adventure — a blend of magic, humor, and action — designed for viewers aged 6 and up.

The Légendaires used to be the planet’s greatest protectors. But a curse left them trapped in the bodies of ten-year-olds, just like everyone on Alysia. Stripped of their adult forms, Danaël, Jadina, Gryf, Shimy and Razzia must join forces to confront the sorcerer Darkhell and free their world from this eternal childhood.

The story keeps the core ingredients that made the comic a hit: a team of heroes with very different personalities, an accessible fantasy world, spectacular battles, and humor born from tensions within the group. The characters’ transformation into children also fuels a narrative about trust, friendship, and the need to cooperate despite their disagreements.

That certainly sounds a lot more faithful to its source material than some mainstream USA comics adaptations can be. And it's hopefully a lot more respectable to what's in good taste for children than what comes out of Hollywood these days too. Maybe best of all though, is that it's not airing on a bad network like Netflix happens to be. Broadcasting it there would only be bad news. It's better than the cartoon remain on French channels like Canal.

Indian cartoonist's work nominated for Eisners and Harveys

Scroll wrote about Charbak Dipta, an Indian cartoonist whose self-published comic was nominated for Eisner and Harvey awards:

West Bengal-based Charbak Dipta was nominated for the Best Digital Comic category in the 2026 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards for The World of Lublu (published in Bengali by Book Farm as Lublur Prithibi). Named for the pioneering comics creator and graphic novelist Will Eisner, the Eisner Awards are considered the “Oscars” of the comic book industry. The winners were announced on July 24 at the San Diego Comic Con International.

“Charbak Dipta is not the first Indian to be nominated,” scholar and cover designer Pinaki De remarked about the Eisner Award nomination, “but the fact that his work is done entirely in India, originally published in Bengali for a regional market, makes it so special. To think that anyone here can also make it without extensive ‘foreign’ connections augurs well for the future of Indian comics. In that sense, he is a trailblazer.”

The World of Lublu has also been nominated for this year’s Harvey Awards for Digital Book of the Year. This prize is named after pioneering American cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman, and no book-length, creator-owned work from the subcontinent has been nominated for either before, let alone both. Dipta hails from Bongaon – a town near the Indo-Bangladesh border, two hours from Kolkata. [...]

He started out as a cartoonist at The Times of India in Kolkata. He has, since then, worked as a commercial illustrator for tabloids, magazines, and publishers like Scholastic – book covers, cartoons, children’s picture books, and work-for-hire gigs ranging from Nordic mythology to Malgudi Days-esque tales to gangster narratives, while also committing to rigorous online outreach for each of his works, public appearances, and curated exhibits.

This is the daily bread of the commercial illustrator: a figure with a long and under-recognised history in India who has always worked across formats, languages, and markets with a versatility that does not easily lead to publishing boutique graphic novels. Dipta grew up on Indrajal Comics, Chacha Chaudhary, and the Bengali stalwarts, Narayan Debnath and Mayukh Chowdhury. The former designed cosmetic labels before becoming a one-man comics industry, while the latter moved fluidly between illustration and adventure serials. The tradition continues into the present in figures like Debashish Deb, Onkarnath Bhattacharya, and Uday Deb – commercial artists who straddle children’s illustration, political cartooning, graphic novels, merchandising, and branded work with the same promiscuous dexterity their predecessors mastered.

His later western influences and encounters with the Bengal School of Art and folk traditions aside, Dipta understands that survival in this ecology means taking on every role simultaneously. The mass market that could move hundreds of thousands of a single issue per month has fragmented considerably. What remains is a precarious ecosystem in which the aspiring cartoonist must also be the illustrator-for-hire, colourist, letterer, cover designer, and even publisher and translator of their own work in order to move across national boundaries.

This is certainly interesting background history, and what's additionally impressive is that Dipta helped develop the translation for one of the most famous GNs produced by the guy who founded one of the aforementioned award ceremonies:

The most satisfying loop in this story is his recent translation of Will Eisner’s A Contract with God (1978) into Bengali, completed almost simultaneously with his own nomination for an award bearing Eisner’s name. Dipta pursued the Eisner Estate himself, driven by what he saw as a structural parallel between Eisner’s Dropsie Avenue and his own Kolkata.

“The raw pain, resilience, and daily struggles of the Jewish immigrants in Eisner’s work resonate perfectly with the lived experiences of East Bengal refugees settling into the colonies of West Bengal post-Partition,” Dipta explains. “The damp, congested tenement living on Dropsie Avenue mirrors the narrow alleys, centuries-old decaying mansions, chaotic street noise, and tightly knit human relationships of North Kolkata.”

Translating Eisner also meant contending with Eisner’s lettering, blocky type that weighs on the images in very idiosyncratic ways. For a cartoonist of speed such as Dipta, who also letters his own work, one imagines this to have been both a technical challenge and a philosophical one. How does one carry the visual texture of a voice from one script to another without losing its grain? The artist always precedes the critic. Let’s leave it there.

We must also give the guy a lot of appreciation for recognizing the value of Eisner's most notable GN from the late 70s, at a time when he'd resumed comics development after working in the army and businesses more often during the 50s and 60s. Of course, it's a shame the Eisners have been abused as an award event in past years, recalling they nominated DC's offensive Identity Crisis from 2004 for awards 2 decades ago. I can't recall if it actually won any, but if it did, that was wrong, plain and simple, and explains perfectly what's gone wrong with even award shows nowadays. We have to hope their board of directors has moved away from associating with such atrocities, but that doesn't mean they aren't still heaping awards on other bad mainstream and conglomerate-owned comics that don't deserve them. It's good if they're now providing appreciation for indies that're hopefully in better taste, and Dipta's work looks like just what those seeking better taste could be looking for.

So congratulations to him for finding wider recognition for his art career, and good luck to Dipta in the future on comics illustrating.

Marvel turns out the latest modern swimsuit special

Following up on the revived swimsuit special of the past year, Marvel's now publishing one for 2026, and Flickering Myth's got preview pages, but again, there's signs this'll be anything but a celebration. For one thing, as AIPT notes:

Kicking things off is Daniel Kibblesmith and Alessandro Miracolo for “Beach Bashed,” featuring a beach party hosted by Namor. A great opening page shows off a ton of heroes enjoying a pool, including the Watcher. Kibblesmith gets plenty of nods to Marvel events and character relationships throughout the story, with a main focus on Namor’s attempt to find Sue Storm. It’s a light tale for sure, but one that ends in a way only Namor could pull off.

If memory serves, Kibblesmith's one of the SJWs they employed earlier, and while it may seem like he's now willing to abandon that kind of stance, there's still signs the artwork is uninspired and otherwise sexless, and they still rely on the panel format used in the 2 earlier specials. It reminds me that, while some of the artwork in the Winter Break Special was marginally better, that special was still undermined by how they kept interrupting the artwork pages with a "story" that took up at least 15 pages, leaving the overall special with barely 16 or 17 pages of winter-based illustrations of various Marvel cast members, considerably less than the original swimsuit specials had over 3 decades ago. And the drawing of Elektra in the Winter Break special was particularly dull.

So again, I'm not sure why they're keeping on with this now, as they fail, beyond contributions from artists like J. Scott Campbell for variant covers, to offer anything that's seriously impressive. It underscores how poor the art world's becoming these days, at least according to how the mainstream hires them. And what do they mean by Namor being the "only one who can pull it off"? Isn't that provided the writer actually does a good job? Something that's been terrible lacking for over 2 decades now.

Classic cars painted to resemble comic book sketches

Top Gear wrote about an exhibit of cars made to look like comics illustrations:

An artist called Joshua Vides is presenting his latest art highlighting automotive culture at LA’s Petersen Automotive Museum in a new exhibition entitled ‘Flat Out: The Art of Joshua Vides”. Tin, what it says, pretty much, on, etc.

Only this isn’t what it says on the tin, because Vides’ art isn't really going flat out. Instead, it's been made to look like a giant, real-life comic book sketch, and you’ll spend a considerable portion of your day just gawping trying to figure out how he’s done it.

According to the Petersen, Vides “painstakingly hand-paints crisp black lines onto all-white surfaces to create monochromatic graphic artwork that resembles flat comic book sketches”. So, that’ll do it.

Wow, that's pretty fancy alright. Congratulations to the guy for his marvelous nod to comicdom with this vehicular form of artwork.

The style of Barry Windsor-Smith

Cartoonist Jim Rugg wrote a review on Literary Hub of artist Barry Windsor-Smith's work on Wolverine's Weapon X story from the 1988-95 Marvel Comics Presents anthology:

Barry Windsor-Smith was one of the most popular creators at Marvel Comics. Part of his popularity was due to his style. His comics did not look like or read like other comic books. It is important to clarify that Windsor-Smith’s style was not defined exclusively by his artwork. Windsor-Smith approached storytelling very differently than the standard Marvel house style approach.

The average age of comic book readers in the 1960s was seven. The storytelling style of Marvel as well as many other comic book publishers was “show and tell.” Captions often described the drawing in the panel. This redundancy made sense for young, inexperienced readers. But by 1991, readers were older and hopefully better readers.

The 1980s saw the rise of creators who felt that comics were an art form and were not inherently limited to young readers. These creators challenged misconceptions about comics being for kids with complex, sophisticated works like Maus, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and Love and Rockets. The growth of storytelling in the art form meant that creators like Barry Windsor-Smith could use different techniques to engage and challenge their readers.

One of the more obvious storytelling choices in Weapon X is the lack of narrative captions. Without literal explanations, readers must pay close attention to Smith’s artwork in each panel to follow Weapon X’s story. This one choice dramatically changes the reading experience. It places much more value on the artwork. One cannot understand the story only by reading the words. The art in each panel provides critical information. In order to understand what is happening, the reader must interpret the images and the character’s dialogue. This was a radical departure from most Marvel comics of 1991. This kind of reading requires time, attention, and thought in order to process what we see and how it fits with other panels. It also creates an experience where the reader’s knowledge is similar to Logan’s—limited. We do not always know what is happening. We often piece together the story from a subjective, fragmented vantage point. At times, this effect makes Logan’s character more relatable.

Well that was then, and this is now, and while sophisticated writing/art may have been common at the time, it most unfortunately has turned into a lost art as of today, if we take Brian Bendis' writing as an example. And while Rugg may be right about how Windsor-Smith approached the writing/art in Weapon X, I'm going to have to disagree with Dark Knight Returns, if only because Frank Miller sowed the seeds that brought down the Masked Manhunter in the mainstream DCU proper over time though DKR.

And if Rugg believes what came about in the early 90s makes good art, what does he think of modern "art"? Seriously, I think anybody who can't apply an objective view to modern storytelling as much as older stuff is not providing enough to challenge the readers either. Rugg's review of Windsor-Smith's Wolverine tale from MCP is impressive, but it still doesn't substitute for explaining why modern mainstream comics aren't delivering. In fact, there's a valid argument to make that if narrative captions were thrown away by later writers, that's honestly not good, because they do still have use even in modern times, though what's really bad is when thought balloons suffer the same fate. Without those, how can you know what's on the superhero's mind? If Superman and Spider-Man were written without thought balloons, they'd be getting nowhere in past decades as a storytelling vehicle. That's why, while I don't doubt Windsor-Smith's talent in the past, narrative captions and thought balloons still shouldn't be thrown away as storytelling tools.

Ohio Maltz Museum's exhibition for Jewish comics contributions

NPR-WOSU covers an exhibition of Jewish comics contributions at the Maltz Museum in Ohio. It was also organized by a historian who was involved in getting a NYC street named after Jack Kirby:

“Icons in Ink, The Jewish Comics Experience,” on view at the Maltz Museum in Beachwood through Aug. 23, is a revelation and a celebration, albeit with some limitations and questionable aspects.

The show’s core material is conveyed through colorful, large-scale graphic layouts resembling magazine pages that reach from the height of one’s knee to above one’s head. The layouts are filled with text and reproductions of pages from comic books. It’s an eye-grabbing approach that produces visual overload at times. Also, transitions from one section of the show to another occasionally lack continuity and flow.

But when it comes to the core goal of highlighting Jewish contributions to comic book history, the show delivers fascinating and sometimes surprising insights.

Organized by Roy Schwartz, a New York-based pop culture historian, the exhibition opened in 2023 at the Center for Jewish History in New York and is now in the middle of a five-year national tour.

It brims with Schwartz’s zeal to highlight the Jewish roots of what he described in an interview as “a unique American art form,’’ and “the bastard child of literature and art.’’ His expertise includes having written the 2021 book, “Is Superman Circumcised?: The Complete Jewish History of the World's Greatest Hero.’’

For Cleveland, Schwartz and the Maltz expanded the show to highlight the city’s role in the evolution of comic books, in collaboration with Samantha Baskind, the Cleveland State University professor of art history known for her extensive scholarship on Jewish contributions to the visual arts.

Hidden meanings of Superman

Naturally, Superman, the brainchild of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish high school students in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood who invented the “Man of Steel’’ in the 1930s, is a major focus.

Superman’s birth on the doomed planet Krypton and his parents’ effort to save him by launching him to Earth is a familiar tale. It may not be widely appreciated, however, that the story echoes that of the finding of Moses, and that Superman’s name at birth, Kal-El, is a Hebrew phrase often interpreted as “voice of God’’ or “vessel of God.”

Superman’s powers evoke the myth of the Golem, a massive, Samson-like humanoid purportedly molded in clay by a 16th-century rabbi Prague to defend Jews from pogroms.

As the show points out, Jewish fans have certainly understood such signals.

Somehow, I'm not so sure they do, seeing how some of those who stick with leftism are so hostile to Israel, their country of origin, that it's hard to believe at this point they care about any "signals". Speaking of which, this exhibit features at least 2 comic creators who decidedly aren't worth seeing there:

Also featured in the Cleveland section of the show are printed works and original drawings from Harvey Pekar’s ironic and self-deprecating “American Splendor” series, Peter Kuper’s hilarious “Spy vs. Spy” episodes in Mad Magazine and Terri Libenson’s Jewish-centered narratives in series, including “The Pajama Diaries.”

Cleveland Heights native Brian Michael Bendis is represented by outstanding works including a spectacular 2006 ink drawing for an Avengers episode depicting an explosion on a crowded street in what could be Downtown Cleveland.

When somebody as awful as Bendis is included, despite how overrated and atrocious his writings were on - but not limited to - series like the Avengers, something is terribly wrong. What's so "outstanding" about his cheap approach to science fiction? It's also troubling that somebody like the late Pekar was included, despite his negativity to Israel that he practically wove into a GN titled "Not the Israel my Parents promised me". These are the kind of "creators" whose works we need to see? Nope.

Conspiracists and paranoiacs might see the show as piling on more evidence for the hate-filled fantasy that Jews supposedly control everything from Wall Street to Hollywood.

On this, it's bizarre said conspiracists would want anything to do with Jewish creations, if that's how they feel, and have no interest in producing their own entertainment products that hopefully aren't laced with prejudicial visions. And then, in a very sad hint at where this NPR affiliate really stands, they say it needs an "update":

It’s also striking, given its attention to the social and political context of comic books in prior decades that “Icons in Ink’’ doesn't bring its story fully into the present.

The show’s generally triumphal tone feels oddly off-key amid the recent uptick in anti-Semitism on the left and right, and the post Oct. 7 backlash against Israel.

Debate over Israel’s military conduct in Iran, Gaza and Lebanon, or settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, has inspired authors and pundits of all political persuasions.

“Icons in Ink’’ hasn’t been updated to reflect the turmoil. It could be said that because the show was organized in 2023, there hasn’t been enough time for a significant response to current events from Jewish creators of comic books or graphic novels to warrant attention.

But it seems to be a missed opportunity that the show doesn't mention the conflicted feelings about Israel that Pekar explored in “Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me,’’ published in 2012 as one of his last books.

There’s also no mention of the three-page spread criticizing Israel’s conduct in Gaza published in The New York Review of Books in February 2025 by Joe Sacco and Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the Holocaust-related graphic novel “Maus,’’ whose work is otherwise lauded in the show at Maltz.

Such publications and others like them represent an intriguing opportunity to revise “Icons in Ink’’ as it continues to travel. The exhibition argues successfully that the Jewish experience in comics needs to be understood more deeply.

Given that goal, some freshening could make the show even more relevant and up-to-the-minute. After all, as the exhibition demonstrates, Jewish comic book creators and graphic novelists have been pulling no punches for decades in messages both overt and subtly coded.

When they insist Sacco's a recommendation, and no right-wing creators like the late Joe Simon are mentioned at all, or even Will Eisner, that speaks volumes as to where they really stand on this. It's actually amazing Pekar's screed didn't turn up at the exhibit, but even so, he's hardly somebody I'd consider a perfect choice any more than Spiegelman. Also note how the news site omits issues like Jews being murdered by the Religion of Peace, and all they care about is making Jews look like the sole ones responsible for anything bad happening post-October 7, 2023, while obscuring the more serious issues caused by said religion.

I'll give Schwartz and company this: they may have deliberately avoided some of these issues because they realized Pekar's POV was divisive, and it wouldn't do any good post-10.7.2023 to bring something like that into the mix. Even so, if they didn't bring in something that could provide a more positive viewpoint on Israeli issues like a Japanese mangaka's publication, then it's otherwise a defeat, though not in the way NPR wants to frame it. What they say about the exhibit in that context is shameful, and if that's their position, why'd they even bother to cover the project?

Marjane Satrapi, artist of Persepolis, passes away at 56

The UK Guardian reported that Iranian-born artist Marjane Satrapi, who created the GN Persepolis, died at just 56:

Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian artist, film-maker and graphic novelist whose acclaimed memoir Persepolis helped reshape international perceptions of Iran, has died at the age of 56.

In a statement provided to French news agency AFP, relatives said she had “died of sadness” after the death of her husband, the Swedish producer Mattias Ripa.

Ripa died on 8 April last year. Later that month, a series of messages posted on Satrapi’s Instagram account revealed the phrase: “For I lost the love of my life.”

Tributes have been paid to Satrapi from across French politics and culture following news of her death. President Emmanuel Macron said Satrapi was “a great artist who turned her Iranian childhood into a universal tale,” adding: “With her childlike perspective, her irony, her tenderness, her inner demons, the author created a moving world with which readers identified.”

Writing on X, Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the French National Assembly, said: “Marjane Satrapi had turned her work into an act of freedom. With Persepolis, she had given a face and a voice to the Iranian revolution, proudly carrying the fight for women’s freedom and dignity. France loses an immense artist. To her family, to her loved ones, I offer my most sincere thoughts.”

Born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran, near the Caspian Sea, Satrapi was raised in Tehran by her father, an engineer, and her mother, a dress designer. As a teenager, she left Iran after her parents sent her to Europe to continue her education, hoping to spare her from the restrictions imposed under the Islamic Republic. She eventually settled in France, arriving in 1994 and later becoming a French citizen in 2006.

Throughout her life, Satrapi was a vocal opponent of Iran’s clerical establishment.

In 2000 she published Persepolis, a comic book memoir that became an international publishing phenomenon. It told the story of a rebellious and outspoken young girl navigating the upheaval in Iran after the shah is overthrown in 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. The story follows the protagonist’s attempts to understand the country’s violence and ideological control before she is sent alone to Europe at the age of 14.

Satrapi told the Guardian in 2024 that Persepolis was about making western readers reflect on the humanity of Iranian people, that, “Oh, they’re actually human beings like us”.

The memoir sold millions of copies, established Satrapi as one of the most widely read Iranian authors in the world, and its success challenged many western assumptions about Iranian society and culture.

She was clearly one of the few who showed the courage to speak out against an Islamofascist regime like what Iran's been for 47 years, and it's rather hypocritical for somebody like Macron to suddenly offer her praise for her GN, considering he didn't do enough to oppose Islamofascism himself, and wouldn't help in the recent war against Iran.

It's sad she's died too young, because here, the Islamic regime and terrorist machine in Iran is hopefully falling apart, and will ensure future generations of women who don't want to be forced to follow sharia dictations like having to wear niqabs won't have to. That's what makes Persepolis so valuable as a comics biography, and it remains to be seen how many more around the world who actually believe in civilized values will agree on that. Including the Guardian themselves, considering their leftist stance doesn't exactly speak the positions of Satrapi.

LA's Skirball Center exhibition explores how comics shaped America

The Los Angeles Daily News wrote about the Skirball Center's current exhibition on comicdom's history as part of the USA as a whole:

A year ago, the Skirball debuted its first comic-themed exhibition in years, “Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity,” a celebration of the life and work of Kirby, who helped create such comic book icons, such as Captain America, the X-Men, Black Panther and the Avengers.

Now, with “Inventing America,” the center has widened its gaze to include the story of comic books from the early decades of the 20th century to the present, examining creators such as Kirby, yes, but linking the art and adventures to the story of the United States over the past century.

“We greenlit both of them at the same time, knowing they would build on each other,” says Michele Urton, the Skirball’s museum deputy director and co-curator of “Inventing America” with comics expert Patrick A. Reed.

“The overview, because it’s an American history exhibition, we really wanted to time that to America 250,” she continues. “And for practical reasons, we needed a bit more time to do a larger survey.”

I do wonder if it'll cover stuff leading up to say, 2020, by which time quality long plummeted, and if they'll take an objective look at history? Sad logic suggests they won't.

In many ways, “Inventing America,” which runs through February 2027, tells a parallel story of the rise of youth culture in America.

“Comic books were really that first flowering of youth culture,” Reed says. “The first time that there was an entertainment form targeting kids, not only as the audience but as the direct consumer. Publishers recognized that all of a sudden, they can be selling things for nickels and dimes and targeting the kids directly.

“That’s sort of Ground Zero for everything that follows,” he says. “Today in America, youth culture is the driving force of pop culture. That all emerged following the comic book, the 45 RPM record and Saturday morning cartoons.

On this, one can only wonder if youth culture still holds the same influence it once did, seeing how in the past decade, there was less of it in films and TV. And based on how younger generations have been indoctrinated in schools to be uncreative and unproductive, can anyone be surprised if that's another reason why comics have fared no better than other entertainment forms in providing youth culture with what to enjoy when they're uninterested? If sales today are poor, that tells something, and prices long went up far beyond nickels and dimes.

Many of the early comic book creators we still remember today – Superman’s Joe Shuster and Jerry Seigel, Batman’s Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Captain America’s Jack Kirby and Joe Simon – were the children of European Jews who immigrated to the United States.

“A lot of that’s because the industry was founded in New York City, which was a major center of immigration,” Reed says. “The comics companies that were sort of low-end publishing coming out of pulp and broadsheets were an industry founded largely by immigrants, by Jewish Americans.

“And if you were a young Jewish American in New York City, and you had artistic aspirations as Jack Kirby did, if you wanted to work in the arts, the comic book was there.

“The kids in the Lower East Side [where Kirby was born] weren’t necessarily attending fine art programs or going to art schools,” Reed says. “They weren’t necessarily able to jump straight to commercial illustration. So to work in comic books was a way to express your creativity and also provide for your family.”

And the comic book industry has remained, to varying degrees, a world of art and storytelling with its doors open wide.

“As comic books move from the Marvel-DC model and expand in the 1960s, you get the whole underground movement,” Urton says. “People began self-publishing. They’re coming at it from a different angle.

“I think that because the comic book is a format that continues to change and evolve, and that can be created really inexpensively and self-produced, you continue to see entry into this field for a wider and wider range of folks,” she says. “As Patrick likes to say, anyone with a pencil and a piece of paper can become a comic book artist.”

To Reed, that openness creates an energy and vibrancy in comics that’s not always present in the mainstream creative arts.

That can certainly be what it's like today, when the mainstream have long been taken over by conglomerates who disrespect everything the original comics were built on, and practically threw out anybody who didn't adhere to their PC mindsets, including, but not limited to, conservatives, recalling even a liberal like Larry Hama was blacklisted, and that still seems to be in effect. Even Jews aren't respected, and all they're doing is making clear how ungrateful they are to the very community that worked so hard to develop those comics in the first place. In that context, it's not a place where doors are open wide, and we must consider some of the embarrassments that occurred in the past decade and even more recently. So I wish they wouldn't sugarcoat the present, because that's what they're doing.

I'm sure an exhibit like this has its values, but all this failure to examine everything more objectively is harming the industry in the long run, and it doesn't bode well for creativity or even productivity. And whatever one thinks of independent creations, Marvel/DC cannot continue to remain in the hands of conglomerates who don't respect the creators and their creations.

2 old interviews regarding the JSA

I found 2 interviews, one with the overrated David Goyer and the other with the late Len Strazewski, from an old Geocities JSA fansite that's now archived. First, here's the interview with Goyer:

Q2. How did you choose what storyline to start the new series with? Was it always intended to deal with the death of Sandman, and the rebirth of Dr Fate, or were there other ideas?

We always intended to begin the new book with the death of Wesley Dodds, but originally, this was going to be tied into a story involving the old Paul Kirk Manhunter clones. We shelved that (we'll be bringing it back later on) and decided to go for something much more epic -- the birth of a new Dr. Fate.

And that new Dr. Fate was Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl's son Hector Hall, aka the Silver Scarab, who about 5 years later, was put back in the grave along with Lyta Hall/Fury, by none other than Geoff Johns himself when he took up the writing chores almost entirely solo. So what was the whole point of bringing them back into the fold? And what's so wrong with Kent Nelson and Inza Nelson that they wouldn't reverse their atrocious fate in Zero Hour?

That aside, while it may be one thing to write up a demise for Dodds, the way he was depicted committing suicide to prevent a hefty villain from possibly assaulting him to get more information out of him was disgraceful and forced, as were the other deaths depicted early in the series' run. The problem with how they did it is that they seem to think these other characters were some sort of a burden with no storytelling value to build around, and in the end, instead of just quietly letting them be dropped into limbo, they can only think of putting them to death through murder. Even suicide's very appalling. Yet they resort almost exclusively to such fates instead of death by natural causes and auto accidents, just to show how uncreative they actually are.

Q5. How has the reaction to the new JSA comic been in the DC offices? Positive?

Generally, DC has been very happy with the book. Sales are quite good and they like the way the fans have been responding. They've given us fairly free rein to do what we want.

Q6. What did you think of the 1992 JSA series by Len Strazewski and the late Mike Parobeck?

I enjoyed the short-lived '92 JSA series, but I thought it lingered a bit too much in the past, recycling the same (quite small) JSA rogues gallery, etc.

That was one of the reasons we introduced Mordru and (in issue #6) Black Adam. Later on, we will see a new Injustice Society. We wanted to expand the JSA's rogues gallery.

Oh, so here he's stealthily putting down Strazewski's work, which was cut short by editor Mike Carlin, yet when somebody like Goyer comes along, suddenly there's no complaints. Funny Goyer says Strazewski's work lingered in the past too much, when Goyer/Johns/Robinson's JSA wasn't all that different, despite what they say. And a big problem was how it didn't built legitimately or organically, based on how it stuck with the status quo set by Zero Hout, and there were at least 3-4 series at the time introducing new characters to replace the older ones, including how Oliver Queen was replaced as Green Arrow by a newly created son. In retrospect, none of the replacements aged well.

Q8. Why did you decide to explore the return of a new Dr Fate, and not the return of another JSAer, for e.g, a new Hawkman, new Spectre or new Sandman?

We decided to bring Dr. Fate back because the Spectre issue was already being dealt with in Day of Judgement.

Hawkman was a larger issue which is being worked out as we speak -- but at the time we were pitching the series, DC still wasn't ready to give us the green light on a Hawkman resurrection.

As for Sandman -- well, Sandy needed to be in the book from the beginning for obvious reasons. And we were prohibited from actually naming a new character Sandman by Gaiman and the Vertigo folks. In the DCU, that name is exclusively Morpheus' now.

Well at least this tells something. To think that a so-called called auteur who was since accused of serious sexual abuse would have that kind of "creative control" at the expense of the flagship DCU would even have veto power over what characters could retain the Sandman codename. Of course, one can reasonably wonder how Goyer and company feel now that a guy they possibly looked up to as a genius was discovered to be quite the opposite? Do they still consider what he did with Lyta Hall throughly acceptable? I don't know, but the next part of the interview certainly makes clear what kind of woke advocate Goyer really is:

Q15. Some fans have claimed that Dr Midnite (Charles McNider) was possibly gay. What is your opinion on this situation?

It is my personal belief that McNider may very well have been gay. If we have the opportunity, we may address it one day in a story.

It's definitely eyebrow raising when somebody blurs the differences between fiction and reality that blatantly. The Golden Age Dr. Mid-Nite is a non-existant person, and like various other characters of the times, was written as a cypher, so how and why do phonies like Goyer jump to these conclusions? And who are these fans they speak of? Not me. Talk about putting words in the fanbase's mouth! Some could say the way McNider was written might make him look gay, but since he's a fictional character, there's nothing to prove, period, except for that some overrated modern writers are some of the most shameless people around. And Goyer did go pretty woke in later years to boot. And what he said about She-Hulk and did with Superman was inexcusable.

Now, here's the 2nd with Len Strazewski, and some of what he tells is far more impressive what Goyer had to say, and tells quite a bit about what went wrong at the time when the editors decided they didn't want to sell according to merit in the early 90s. This is about both the 1991 miniseries and the regular series the followed the next year:

Q4. Was this series received well by fans, and DC alike?

Fans liked the 1991 series and most DC editors ignored it.

Q5. And what about the 1992 series? What's the story behind that?

(After the 1991 series,) Brian and I proposed the 1992 continuing series set in the present. Mike Parobeck worked with me on THE FLY and also on the mini-series, and the 1992 series was created with him in mind. He designed the look of all the characters for the series.

Q6. And was the 1992 series well-received?

Fans universally loved the 1992 series and DC editors hated it because they (as a group) had convinced themselves that no one was interested in older heroic characters. History has proved them wrong, of course.

What's additonally ironic is that at least a few of the older characters who weren't slaughtered during Zero Hour were put to use in JSA, and when that occurred, no complaints were made, and the editors didn't balk at Goyer/Robinson/Johns making use of them. One could validly wonder if Strazewski wasn't PC enough for their tastes that Carlin for one had to be so petty. There is one part here that's unfortunate, however:

Q9. Regarding the lineup of the 1992 series, why were characters such as Dr Fate, Power Girl or the Star-Spangled Kid not included? Were there plans to have them appear in the future?

No special reason not to include them. Dr Fate would have shown up eventually. Power Girl and Star-Spangled Kid never interested me much.

With all due respect, it's ludicrous to say they "never interested" you much when it all depends what talent you can bring to the table and what stories you can build around them. Although, the reason why Power Girl wasn't in those 10 issues was because the disgraced Gerard Jones was holding her hostage to his repellent stories in JLA. As for Star-Spangled Kid, a creation of Jerry Siegel, the only problem there was that Roy Thomas had already put Sylvester Pemberton to death towards the end of Infinity Inc, though if anybody talented enough wanted to, there were zillions of decent ways to resurrect the guy from the grave (and Thomas himself may have once said he'd regretted what he did with Pemberton). Instead, DC editors allowed Johns to exploit the role for his female counterpart creation, Courtney Whitmore, and for some reason, if there was any character in the past decade whom editors didn't demand be given a PC costume design unlike what Starfire sadly got, it was Johns' creation, who wore a tank top outfit, begging the question, why does he get a pass while other writers/artists don't on such issues? Now, here's what Strazewski addressed in regards to the late Mike Parobeck's art:

Q12. Some fans have stated that Mike's JSA work was "too cartoony". Personally, I thought it fit perfectly, but do you have an opinion?

As noted above. He was brilliant and his style is now the most copied style in comics. Among others, DC Executive Editor Mike Carlin said Mike's work was not appropriate for super-heroes and that was one reason why the JSA series was cancelled. Carlin also said he didn't like my writing. He was mistaken.

Again, Carlin was clearly a bad omen for comicdom as an editor, if anything, and some of the later projects he worked on certainly played quite a part in draining all that made DC/Marvel work in the first place. And as I may have noted before, if older characters like Dr. Strange and Mr. Fantastic could be loved by so many readers back in the day, then it's false to say nobody liked reading about older heroes.

Q13. Have you read the current JSA series, by David Goyer and Geoff Johns? If so, what is your opinion?

I haven't read it and probably will not. It would be unfair, I think, to do so. If it is really good, I'd be jealous. If it is really bad, I'd be angry. If it was mediocre, I'd be sad. I've met the creators and they seem like bright, creative, young guys. I am sure they are doing as well as their editors allow them.

Hopefully, he didn't read it and years afterwards, I myself reevaluated whatever I did read from Goyer/Johns/Robinson and realized it was grossly overrated to begin with, and otherwise insulting to the intellect. And Johns later willingly took part in the time-altering crossover Flashpoint, which led to the New52, and in the process, erased his stories from continuity for the sake of a new one that led nowhere fast, and was eventually reversed along with at least a few other horrible mistakes like Identity Crisis. But by then, it was long too late, and the damage Johns in particular engineered on his part was truly reprehensible.

As far as I know, Carlin's never apologized for being such a hypocrite, and of course, neither have Goyer/Robinson/Johns. If Strazewski got alienated from comicdom because of all that, it's understandable. Some PC advocates for decades have really brought things down to insufferable levels, and repairing all that will take an epoch. For now, I hope Strazewski's JSA stories will be reprinted in the DC Finest archives, and as for the later JSA, that's best avoided and forgotten.

Jack Kirby gets a street named after him

Much like Stan Lee received a street named in his memory a few years ago, JNS reports the late Jack Kirby has now received a street named after him, part of a project the law firm agent Roy Schwartz and the American Jewish Historical Society worked on getting approval for:

It is no small thing to get a street in Manhattan named after you, but the creator of such timeless superheroes as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, the Hulk and Iron Man received that honor on Monday, when the Lower East Side block where he was born was named “Jack Kirby Way.” [...]

“Widely recognized as the most prolific and arguably most important creator in the history of the comic book medium, Jack Kirby is also one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century,” according to a new exhibit on his life and work at Manhattan’s American Jewish Historical Society.

The exhibition, “The Jack Kirby Way: How a boy from the Lower East Side became the King of Comics,” is co-produced by the American Jewish Historical Society and the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. It will be on view through Nov. 30.

One of the artifacts on display in the show is the original “Captain America” comic books, issues 1 through 10. Joe Simon, who co-created the character and many more with Kirby, owned the issues on display.

The iconic first issue of “Captain America,” published in March 1941, shows the superhero punching Hitler in the face, before the United States entered the war. Many Americans had not yet come to support the idea that the Nazis needed to be vanquished.

Based on this report from Breitbart from last year, some could reasonably argue the same sadly holds true for today when it comes to the Islamic Iranian regime, in example. If Kirby and Joe Simon were alive today and created Cap in modern times, the sad but possible reality is that the Star Spangled Avenger wouldn't get the same kind of positive regard seen in the Golden Age any more than any other Marvel/DC heroes created since.

Its publication led to death threats to both men by the German-American Bund, Roy Schwartz, a board member of AJHS and the person who drove the effort to get the street co-named in Kirby’s honor, told JNS.

The police, when contacted by Kirby and Simon, refused to do anything to help, according to Schwartz.

Then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia contacted the comic book artists and promised them personally that they would be kept safe. LaGuardia’s mother, Irene Luzzatto-Coen, was a Sephardic Jew.

And on this, it's vital to note that even today, that's not always the case in NYC, where this stuff has become a particularly sad staple ever since Zohran Mamdani was elected the 1st Muslim mayor in the Big Apple, and what he's been doing now would be hurtful to Kirby. Do the organizers of the campaign to have Jack Kirby's birthplace named after him realize that, if they don't have any concerns over what came about even before October 7, 2023 and Mamdani's election, then this whole campaign's otherwise meaningless?

As a little boy growing up in Tel Aviv, Schwartz was obsessed with comics, including Kirby’s, he told JNS.

American relatives would mail him new releases, and he learned English by reading them.

Now employed by day as “a mild-mannered chief marketing agency for a large law firm,” as he told JNS, he is the author of “Was Superman Circumcised?” and other books and essays exploring Jewish aspects of comic book history.

Schwartz was the driving force behind the labyrinthine bureaucratic process by which city agencies approved a co-named New York City street.

“There was enough red tape to circle Galactus several times,” Schwartz told JNS.

Captain America was and remains his favorite superhero, Schwartz told JNS, a few feet away from the newly-renamed street sign.

But predictably, they won't get into how, less than a decade after Kirby's passing, Marvel under Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas spared no expense taking apart much of what made Cap work in the first place, lacing the series published under the Knights imprint with anti-American propaganda, something that's continued until even recently. Equally bad is how they repeatedly tried to "replace" Steve Rogers with PC tokens. So what good does it do for Schwartz to just make the statement without bringing up how sad it is that Cap, along with tons of other Marvel/DC properties, major and minor, were effectively destroyed for the sake of woke leftist propaganda? Why, what if Mamdani had anything to do with the red tape encountered? In that case, Schwartz would be wallowing in the exact cowardice that all but victimized Kirby in his time by not showing the courage to discuss anything.

Golin, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, is a long-time, major Kirby fan.

“I love all of his work. It continues to blow me away, and he was so prolific,” he told JNS. “He is so Jewish, so if you take pride in the accomplishment of fellow Jews, then he’s someone you should know about.”

But does this guy appreciate where Marvel/DC went with Kirby's creations post-2000, including the New Gods? I seem to recall Jim Starlin wrote a miniseries called The Death of the New Gods 2 decades ago, and that wasn't exactly what Kirby got into the business to do. Such a story was a slap in the face to his legacy, just as much as what became of Cap, because if memory serves, Big Barda was meant as a tribute to Kirby's wife. I recently bought an archive of Kirby's work on the New Gods from the early 70s, and that's the kind of work that counts. I will not waste time and money on the post-2000 stories that did a terrible disservice to Kirby's efforts. Also, look who turned up as guests at the event:

Less elaborately dressed but honored with seats on the dais were Schwartz, Tom Brevoort, executive editor and senior vice president of publishing at Marvel Comics; Marvel artist and writer Jim Steranko; and former DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz.

While Steranko's a decent visitor, that a leftist like Brevoort, who actively defended Marvel's deconstruction of Kirby and Lee's work, would attend is disgraceful and embarrassing. Even Levitz, who fulfilled quite a bit of the same when he was a leading executive at DC (and was an apologist for Planned Parenthood), isn't exactly somebody I'd consider welcome there. Yes, I do recall he was willing to sign a petition in defense of victims of October 7, 2023, but there's still no telling if he's fully reevaluated his past mistakes, and so far, he's never publicly said so. Worse, both Marvel and DC continue to employ people throughly unsuited for the jobs, and that certainly doesn't reflect well on Brevoort, considering he still works for Marvel.

Kirby certainly is worthy of a street named after him. But not all the people involved are worthy of backing his legacy.

Kevin Eastman doesn't think Ninja Turtles could be produced today

Creative Bloq says Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman doesn't think it would be possible to get it created today. Some of the parts in discussion include:

Kevin says that when he meets fans at events like MCM Comic Con, he likes to ask them who their favourite Turtle is – “you can tell a lot about someone's personality,” he says.

That's part of what's made the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles such an enduring success. The tone of the franchise has varied: the family-friendly animated series feels a world away from the edgy black-and-white comics that Kevin and Peter Laird began with ("there's a lot less murder and vengeance kind of stuff”), but the core concept remains: the team.

I guess that's the rather odd thing not everyone brings up - the comics were more adult, in contrast to the animated adaptations, and perhaps the live action movies too. But even if the more recent comics from IDW follow the playbook of the original comics, that still doesn't excuse how woke the new ones are.

Another key to the Turtles' legacy is that Kevin and Peter kept creative control. They self-published the comics, and they were personally involved in the first three movies and the first 300 cartoon episodes. That was intentional after learning from the artists who came before them.

“Pete and I were specifically influenced by Jack [Kirby] and his work at Marvel. He was doing work for hire, so he didn't get to participate in creative input or profit participation. We self-published Turtles with the full knowledge of what had happened to those giants that we stood on the shoulders of”.

In that case, why did they sell off the rights years later to companies like Viacom almost 2 decades ago? Seriously, do they really, all of a sudden, no longer care about their creations and what poor changes resulted? Come to think of it, why don't they try to buy them back? Now, about what Eastman thinks of the time when they originally created the Ninja Turtles 42 years ago:

The comics industry has changed massively since Turtles Issue 1, which was placed in comic stores via small number of sub distributors on a non-returnable basis. At that time, trade magazines like the Comic Buyer's Guide were the place to get word out, but it then depended on word of mouth.

Even the first issue did better than Peter and Kevin had hoped for, with its run of 3,000 copies allowing them to return the $1,200 loan they took from Kevin's uncle and also to pay rent for a couple of months. Would they have had such an instant success today?

“I think the Turtles would not at all have had the success it had then. The landscape has changed too much. It would be a completely different set of challenges.

“We were coming off a time in 1984 where you had the mainstream comics like Marvel and DC, the emergence of new publishers like Pacific Comics and Capital Comics, and this whole other foundation that started in the late 60s of underground comics – stuff you found mostly in head shops and intended for adults. It was a perfect storm of opportunity that gave us that foot in the door to find an audience.”

Today, there are more platforms, and Kevin welcomes the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo to allow self publishing both digitally and physically. But there's also more competition from other mediums.

That said, Kevin's very hopeful about the industry in general. The Last Ronin tapped into a shift towards prestige comics with mature legacy stories, and it drew a new audience not only to the Turtles but other comics too.

But what about the woke ingredients in the past number of years? What about the woke change to Splinter in a more recent film? That the old/new comics are more adult themselves is no excuse. If they're going to let the conglomerates who acquired the copyrights get away with this, and make no effort to buy back their creations, they've really let down the fandom they've had. And then Eastman actually cites Kirby as an inspiration, when here, the former, along with Peter Laird, later sold off much of the franchise? I'm sorry, it's just no use. By the way, does Eastman know Capital Comics only lasted a few years, and some of the comics they initially published, like Mike Baron's Nexus and Badger, were later transferred to First Comics for continuation?

Eastman is right there's far more competition today, and no telling if Ninja Turtles would be noticed as easily by Hollywood as it was in the late 80s. But he and Laird still made a big mistake selling off their properties to conglomeracy, and if Kirby made the same mistake with any creator-owned properties he had, that wouldn't reflect well on him either. If Eastman/Laird won't address any misuse of Ninja Turtles in the years since they sold it off, what's the point of these observations? And while it's great they got as far as they did back in the day, do they realize 3000 copies is still a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of units published in other mediums? Ninja Turtles is a great creation. But let's not delude ourselves by thinking a mere few thousand copies for a debut pamphlet is something to celebrate compared to millions for other mediums' output.

Professional artists continue to take issue with AI

Creative Bloq reports on what real life artists have to say about AI at a convention in Lake Como. Trouble is, some of those quoted are some of the most pretentious, or worked on projects that do no favors for their reputations:

The spectre of AI is creeping into every aspect of our lives, and it has felt for some time as if artists and creatives in general are on the front line. We’ve heard how comic artists such as Stanley 'Artgerm' Lau have even told us, “In the future, there will be fewer artists like me – real artists”. [...]

David Mack, artist on Daredevil and creator of his own Kabuki series, who’s been a regular at Como for many years now, had this to say about AI and how it could affect both this show and in a wider context his own work and career: “I'm just focused on my work, making my work the way I like to make it, so I don't really have an interest in using it [AI], and I just like making stuff by hand. We're not machines, we're people.”

He adds, “We can't do everything precisely. Probably because of [AI], people who make handmade art will be more in demand. That'll be a more precious commodity because not everyone can replicate it. Talking about the tactile nature of things and a real 3D material object that exists in the physical world. People like that, and that'll probably be even more treasured, in the future, if more and more people lean towards prompting things on AI to magically just make something.”

I think when somebody who worked with Brian Michael Bendis on several issues of Daredevil and Avengers is one of the interviewees, it's hard to understand why we're supposed to care, since such work is basically meaningless. Certainly it would be great if what he tells will be so in the future. But that depends on whether they're talented or just overrated. And Mack is the kind of artist who decidedly belongs in the latter category.

As for Artgerm, he may have more talent in his own way, but he's also, most unfortunately, lent said talents to covers that were stapled onto poltical propaganda. That has the effect of dampening the impact.

British artist Gary Frank, whose career has included drawing Hulk for Marvel but who has now won plaudits as artist on Image’s Hyde Street, part of Image’s Ghost Machine imprint, had his own take on AI: “I think AI is possibly something which has its uses. I don't think that any of those uses include making art, because art is a human thing. The worry I've got is not so much that AI is going to replace people like me, because I'm known and people know I'm a real person.”

He explains it's the next generation of artists who could suffer more, saying: “My worry is the next generation coming through. So we're going to have to compete with dishonest actors who are using AI to fake stuff. We've already seen a little bit of this in the comic industry with people using AI to fake covers. So it's more whether it ends up making it difficult or impossible or damaging the prospects of young people coming through.”

Oh, and isn't Ghost Machine the insufferable Geoff Johns' project? Frank may be a talented artist too, but if this is what he's turning to lately, that also sours the milk. I just don't understand why artists like these are the ones the journalists are turning to for information on the topic...or maybe I do? Is it because their politics skew left?

Now that I think of it, what newer generations of artists could have to worry about is if AI is seen as a perfect substitute for real life talent based on politics. In other words, if a right-wing artist is looking for work, and the company is left-wing managed, they'd pass over him/her and resort to AI instead if that's what it took to avoid hiring somebody whose political platforms they hated. Not that you could expect artists like the above to comment on that issue, unfortunately. But no doubt, it's a valid subject, and some people are going to have to start asking whether it could happen.

William Bernhardt's history of the legal wars on Superman

Crime Reads interviewed author William Bernhardt, who's published a history book titled The Superman Wars, which is about the legal issues surrounding the history of Superman's publication:

The story of Siegel and Shuster has been told before—most notably in Brad Ricca’s 2013 book Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—the Creators of Superman. Bernhardt has updated the long-running legal battles the two men and their heirs endured over the rights to the character. The subtitle of his book is A Battle for Truth, Justice, and an American Icon. [...]

L. Wayne Hicks: What are people going to learn from your book that wasn’t in Brad Ricca’s book?

William Bernhardt: There are several things. And don’t think I’m putting down Brad’s book, because I like his book, and I like him. I thought he was a really generous guy when I interviewed him. The first thing I said was, “Are you thinking about doing a second edition or an update or anything?” He said no. I said, “Okay, I don’t want to step on your toes.”

But for one thing, his book’s about fifteen years old now, and we’ve discovered a lot since then. I’ve discovered some things since then, and others have as well. He couldn’t tell the end of the lawsuit, because that hadn’t happened yet. That didn’t happen until 2016, that it was all over. The Siegel family did not talk to him, at least not on the record, because there was pending litigation.

I did eventually get them to talk to me, which was a real treat. I dug up the bankruptcy papers and figured out what really went down, and so I’m able to explain that, and I think the other lawsuits as well, in a way that will make it more comprehensible. And at the same time, I tried to write those things so that you don’t have to go to law school to understand it. It’s going to be understandable to anybody.

I'm sure there's always room for another take on the history of the legal wars, which Siegel/Shuster's families sadly lost in the end. But I get the feeling Bernhardt won't take an objective view of later executives at Time Warner, who enabled some of the worst abuse of the Superman franchise since the turn of the century. And that's a problem, if not a new one.

LWH: Which was the bigger problem: the boys being naive, or the publishing executives being crooked?

WB: I’m going to go with the latter. Because, you know, the Major (Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson), the guy who founded the company, was perhaps not the world’s greatest businessman, but he was a writer. He understood that creatives deserve to be paid, and sometimes he was late, he didn’t pay that much, but his idea was that someday we’re going to have a breakthrough, and then I’m going to share it with everybody.

That’s what he says at the bankruptcy courts. He says, if you let this go through, these guys aren’t going to treat the creatives the way I did. And boy, was he right about that. This was such an unexpected windfall to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz. This is what they did. They acquired other people’s companies by basically creating debt or finding people in debt, or both, and using it to take over their companies. They had no idea that just weeks, if not days, after they fully controlled the company, Superman would come out and be an immediate sensation.

Harry Donenfeld is a millionaire less than a year later. Jack is not far behind him. And they had no intention of letting go of anything. They didn’t have to. Jack’s attitude was always, “Anybody can write this stuff. If you don’t cooperate, we’ll get somebody else to do it.” To be fair, Jerry and Joe did make some real money, especially given that the Depression was going on and a lot of people weren’t making any money. They made good money in the early days. But it doesn’t last.

If the head honchos at the time were corrupt, do they believe the later conglomerate heads were any better? Because look how far the might of the Man of Steel's fallen over the past decades, artistically and financially, no thanks to their neglect/enabling. That doesn't count?

LWH: What does Superman mean to you?

WB: I loved Superman when I was a kid. Part of that was when I started reading comics, the Batman comics were trying to imitate the Adam West series, the comedy series, so they were trying to be funny, not really very successfully. That didn’t appeal to me very much, but Superman stories were more science fiction, and that’s what I liked.

There were two main magazines, Superman and Action Comics. Superman, in my era, usually told the slugfest super villain stories, but Action Comics usually told science fiction stories. He’d go up in space and encounter a world where something’s different and I loved that stuff. In time, I came to realize that over and over again, Superman has been a symbol of hope, which I think is why he continues to be meaningful to people.

As an iconic creation, yes, but the comics themselves in over 2 decades, no. That's all collapsed, courtesy of all the company managers whom I sadly suspect Mr. Bernhardt doesn't say a negative word about, and anybody who won't show the courage to do so remains unconvincing in their alleged support for Siegel and Shuster, let alone any other creators of the times.

As for what he says about Batman comics imitating the West TV show, I think they became more tongue-in-cheek by the 1950s, and it was more a case of the TV show imitating the comics, so this is definitely not the most accurate statement Mr. Bernhardt's made. One more reason I'm not sure now if his new book about Superman history will be the most straightforward take on history available.

The Golden Age Green Lantern's co-creator gets no true respect today

The Vidette recently wrote about the late artist/writer Martin Nodell, who co-created Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott with the late Bill Finger (who also co-created Batman with Bob Kane), and is still a topic at some modern conventions:

Although renowned comic creator Martin Nodell died, his presence is still felt at comic conventions.

The Green Lantern has gone through many iterations in the decades since its inception. The first version, created by Nodell in 1940, was Alan Scott. When he died in 2006 at the age of 91, his son, Spencer Nodell, and great-grandson, Quinn Nodell, took it upon themselves to continue sharing his work.

According to Spencer Nodell, Martin Nodell spent many years renouncing the comic industry due to a lack of stability. By the time Spencer Nodell was born in 1947, he was trying not to associate himself too closely with the Green Lantern character. It was not until the 1980s that Martin Nodell began to embrace his connection to the character.

Although Martin Nodell renounced the Green Lantern legacy in his early years, Spencer Nodell said that the family was friends with Stan Lee, a renowned creator at Marvel Comics. According to Spencer Nodell, Lee offered Martin Nodell an illustrator position at the company that would become Marvel Comics.

Spencer Nodell explained how his father came to accept his place in the comic book community.

"In the 1980s, when Gary Colabuono, who ran the Chicago show and also owned several comic book shops in the Chicago area, said, 'Oh, you gotta come out to the shows. People wanna see you. They think you're dead,’” Spencer Nodell said.

Martin Nodell spent several decades late in his life attending conventions, leaning into his association with the Green Lantern. Spencer Nodell said that as Martin Nodell grew older, it became harder for him to sign items, so he began signing and stockpiling Green Lantern books in advance to sell to fans.

While it's great the senior Nodell re-embraced his connections as a co-creator with what he first conceived in the Golden Age, one can only wonder what he'd think today if he knew that 6 years after his passing, DC would corrupt his hard work by changing Alan Scott into a gay man, something they unshockingly still stick by till this day, much like how the disgraced Gerard Jones did something similar with Roy Thomas' creation of Obsidian from Infinity Inc? And let's not forget Marvel went a similar route with Iceman, undoubtably encouraged by where DC was going with their stable of characters. When they speak of "many iterations", it's sad but unshocking they won't bring up any of the PC pandering that's brought down charaters like Alan Scott any more than the rest of the comics industry.

In fact, do Nodell's children realize what's happened, and does it sit well with them the retcons by James Robinson tarnish the legacy of their dad's creation even more? If they do, yet choose to remain quiet lest they offend the leftist cultural hijackers, they've only failed their dad's legacy in the long run. Come to think of it, even Thomas, who created the 2 children of Scott in the pages of All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc, is failing his own legacy if he never spoke out against the harm Jones led to over 3 decades ago when he forced his woke beliefs upon somebody else's creations, effectively encouraging abuse and exploitation of past veterans' creations for the sake of politicized agendas.

I highly appreciate Nodell for his contributions to comicdom, but it's regrettable nobody's willing to admit the GL comics themselves have been largely destroyed as reading material, due to all the bad storytelling decisions and editorial mandates that came down the lane after mid-1988. And Alan Scott, much like Hal Jordan, was one of the biggest victims of all the abuse. Anybody who continues to make a shambles of past writers' work is not respecting Nodell's memory.

How Frank Miller failed Will Eisner's most notable comic strip

ComicBook wrote about a movie on which Samuel Jackson and Scarlett Johansson worked prior to the Avengers movies, that being Frank Miller's adaptation of the late Will Eisner's 1940-52 Spirit comic strip (which was revived in some form or other in later years):

What many casual viewers have forgotten, however, is that Jackson and Johansson shared a screen in a superhero film before either of them ever set foot in the MCU. In December 2008, the same month The Dark Knight was cementing a new benchmark for the genre, the two actors appeared together in The Spirit, a neo-noir adaptation of Will Eisner’s iconic newspaper comic strip. The film holds the distinction of being the only feature directed solely by Frank Miller, the writer and artist whose previous credits as a co-director on Sin City had led to enormous commercial and critical goodwill. That goodwill, combined with the star power of his assembled cast, gave The Spirit every possible advantage heading into release. Unfortunately, the film used it poorly.

Why No One Talks About The Spirit Nowadays

The Spirit arrived on Christmas Day 2008, a release date that placed it in direct competition with high-profile awards contenders and family films. Unsurprisingly, it opened to $6.4 million over its first four days, landing ninth at the box office. Plus, without a great word-of-mouth to reverse the catastrophic opening, the film’s final domestic gross reached only $19.8 million, with a worldwide cumulative of $38.4 million against a reported production budget of $60 million. Add market costs to that calculation, and The Spirit remains one of the biggest superhero flops ever. The critical consensus was equally severe. The Spirit holds a 14% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 114 reviews, with an average score of 3.6 out of 10, and a Metacritic score of 30 out of 100. Finally, audiences gave it a CinemaScore of C-, one of the more toxic grades a wide release can receive.

The creative failure at the center of The Spirit traces directly to Miller’s decision to apply the visual grammar he developed for Sin City to a property that was never designed to support it. Eisner’s original comic strip thrived on a fundamentally humanist tone, as its protagonist was a street-level everyman whose power derived from his vulnerability and moral clarity. Miller’s version replaced that framework with the stylized nihilism and noir excess of his own comic work, producing a film that felt like a lesser imitation of Sin City rather than an adaptation of a distinct property.

Well, it certainly proved, if nothing else, that Miller was no better a director than he was a screenwriter, recalling he was credited to the Robocop sequel in 1990. And he didn't just fail Eisner with the movie adaptation, he also failed him with his betraying remarks in the recent American Genius documentary. I just don't see what Miller's apologists see in him. If he's got any "style" in his work, the problem is that, in the end, there's no substance.

Incidentally, Miller's Spirit movie wasn't even the first time Eisner's strip was adapted to live action. In 1987, there was a failed TV movie intended as a pilot for a possible series, so Miller was doing little more than attempting it all again theatrically. But if Dennis Colt was now being depicted as a near immortal, courtesy of a chemical injection, all that did was push the creation into too much sci-fi territory. Creative liberties are okay, but when somebody as over-the-top as Miller can be applies it with such heavy-handedness, it's no surprise it fails in the end.

And while the first Sin City movie may have been a success, the sequel several years later tanked. So again, what's all the fuss about regarding Miller anyway? Eisner's family should never have approved of what Miller was doing, and certainly not if Miller was later going to put him down in the aforementioned documentary. As I've said before, there's little from Miller's resume I care about, with Daredevil and some of his work on the flagship Batman books being the few I ever found worthwhile. And if the Spirit movie says something, he's made an otherwise dreadful filmmaker.

Colorist Tatjana Wood passes away at 99

National Today reports the veteran colorist Tatjana Wood, whose notable assignments in comicdom include Swamp Thing, passed away at nearly a century old:

Tatjana Wood, an acclaimed comic book colorist who worked on covers and interior pages for DC Comics in the 1970s and 80s, died on February 27 in Brooklyn at the age of 99. Wood was part of the creative teams behind critically acclaimed series like Swamp Thing, Camelot 3000, and Animal Man, and was known for her innovative and evocative color palettes that brought the comics to life.

Why it matters

Wood was a trailblazer in the comic book industry, helping to elevate the role of the colorist and demonstrating the immense impact color could have on the final artistic product. Her work on iconic DC Comics titles over a decade-long career cemented her legacy as one of the most influential and respected colorists in the medium's history.

She was also an important example of a woman in an early creative role. This reminds me how, in the past decade, there were MSM outlets spewing absurd propaganda that made it sound like women had only recently entered comicdom, which only has the effect of obscuring/erasing those who did in the past like Wood. And that was very disrespectful of women, as a result. Creators like Wood deserved far better.

Wood had some impressive assignments back in the day in the role of colorist, and she'll be missed.

Video game producer donates classic back issues to the Smithsonian

I previously wrote about what I thought was a questionable article by one of the founders of Riot Games, producer of League of Legends. Now, it looks like there is something good he's done that should serve as vital example in this day and age, as the Smithsonian magazine's announced Brandon Beck donated some classic back issues to the museum's archives:

Before Superman and Captain America became global symbols of heroism, joined cinematic universes and inspired Halloween costumes, they were just ink on cheap newsprint—bold, bright and bursting with possibility. Now, the comic book debuts of two of the world’s most iconic superheroes have found a permanent home at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

In an extraordinary acquisition, gifted by Brandon Beck, co-founder of the video game developer Riot Games, the museum has added Action Comics No. 1 and Captain America Comics No. 1 to its collection. These comic books were the public’s introduction to characters whose influence today spans movies, television, toys and the imaginations of several generations.

This is what collectors doing it for the sake of the speculator market should really be doing: donating those brilliant treasures to museums, and thankfully, here we're seeing a far better example set. Predictably, however, this article can't evade certain political biases:

Superman first leapt onto the page in 1938’s Action Comics No. 1, widely considered the beginning of the superhero genre. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, Superman—a caped defender of humanity who came to Earth from the doomed planet Krypton—embodied Depression-era yearnings for justice. Nearly 90 years of storytelling were launched from that first issue.

Captain America arrived in December 1940, with the issue dated March 1941, as global conflict intensified. Created by writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby, the star-spangled super soldier debuted with an unforgettable image: delivering a crushing right hook to Adolf Hitler’s jaw, before the United States officially entered World War II in December 1941. The cover was more than sensational art—it was a bold political statement. When a scrawny Brooklyn volunteer named Steve Rogers was transformed by science into a symbol of national resolve, comic books became a vehicle for wartime morale and democratic ideals.

In an era where such values as democracy and morale are being shredded, that's certainly saying something, isn't it? Interesting how they argue that Cap's Golden Age debut was a political statement, but today, when somebody wants to take on issues like Islamic terrorism, suddenly it's inappropriate, and not bold at all. And should it really be described as a political statement? Maybe that's running the gauntlet of hijacking somebody else's creation for their own propaganda goals, and not considering that issues like totalitarianism is a serious topic that transcends mere politics? As though they couldn't give more suggestions their own claim is political, a more recent form of propaganda comes up:

“We use objects from popular culture to reflect and learn about the past, and the comics provide incredible insight into the era from which they come, including the relationships between the books’ Jewish American creators and the beginning of the World War II era, fascination with technological and scientific advancements, and representations of sacrifice and heroism during challenging times,” says Jentsch.

Taken together, the comics reflect societal anxieties and aspirations alike—whether in Superman’s immigrant origins or in Captain America’s wartime ethos. “The pivotal creators of these comics—Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby—were all first-generation Jewish Americans, anxious to make their marks in a country that had welcomed their parents,” says Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics from 2002 to 2009 and writer of many comics, including Superman, via email. “As someone who had the pleasure of knowing them all, I can confidently say that this recognition of their work in the most significant comic book acquisition in decades, would have been a great affirmation of the groundbreaking genre that they created.”

Another article where they fall back on the angering cliche of describing the Man of Steel as an "immigrant" instead of an otherworldly refugee from a destroyed planet. Based on that, it's hard to believe the Smithsonian's really serious about respecting the goals of the Golden Age creators, let alone their ethnic heritage and backgrounds. Considering how disinterested leftist ideologues like the Smithsonian's are in learning and reflecting on the past, what's the use of their acquiring the classic oldies when they may not do justice for their history? And even now, Levitz may not be fully qualified to speak in their name, considering he sold out to Islamic propagandists nearly 2 decades ago, and even indicated he thought abortion was okay years later. As a result, Levitz for one isn't offering the best affirmation of the acquisition.

The timing is apt. In recent decades, superhero narratives have dominated box office returns and streaming platforms, generating expansive programming and reshaping Hollywood economics. Yet the origins of these billion-dollar franchises remain humble: Stapled pages sold for a dime at neighborhood newsstands. Today some of those rare pages are among the most valuable printed materials in existence. Four years ago, Captain America’s first adventure sold for more than $3 million at auction. Last year, a copy of Superman No. 1 was auctioned for more than $9 million. In January, a copy of Action Comics No. 1 sold privately for $15 million.

And it doesn't bother them that outside the donation of Beck's back issues to their archives, there's speculators out there who've sold these back issues round and round, yet never, not once, donated to museums, let alone bought themselves wall paintings of the same characters? What isn't discussed by extension is whether that suggests the speculators are actually ashamed of the products, their desire to own them notwithstanding.

That 2 of the most famous superheroes' premiere issues have been acquired by a museum is a positive example in itself, and Beck deserves credit for setting a good one. But beyond that, there's no telling if an institution that's been pretty left-leaning will do enough to convince they really support the messages Superman and Cap were built upon back in the day, or that they don't wish to exploit the material for the sake of leftist propaganda, as their description of Superman suggests. Do they even know Simon was conservative? Will they ever even put Simon's illustration of Cap smashing Osama bin Laden on display in their future exhibitions? If not, then this purchase amounts to little, and won't be respecting the visions of the original creators.

The role of Detroit, Michigan in comicdom

NPR-Michigan Public wrote about what role a city like Detroit played in producing comics, and tabletop games:

When people think of Detroit, they might think of the city’s reputation for auto manufacturing or Motown music—but what about comic books? Two recent exhibits at the Detroit Historical Museum showcase the city’s lesser-known influence in comic books and tabletop gaming.

Curated by Billy Wall-Winkel, “Heroes vs. Villains” explores Detroit’s comic book history, showcasing more than 60 comic artists with ties to Michigan. The exhibit features artists like Jerry Bails, known as the “father of comic book fandom,” and Shel Dorf, the founder of San Diego Comic-Con, among others. A companion exhibit, “Worlds of Palladium,” profiles Detroit-based publisher Palladium Books, a pioneer in the tabletop roleplaying game community.

“We had folks here in Detroit that were just absolutely obsessed with science fiction and fantasy,” Wall-Winkel said. “We had folks that wanted just to convince everyone else that comics [were] a legitimate art form.”

Trouble is, anybody who thinks they succeeded in convincing they are a valid art form failed, if we look at this from an artistic perspective, and how the mainstream was devastated by political correctness. The only thing the specialists convinced anybody about was that comics make a great wellspring for extended media potential like movies and TV programs. And for a while, yes, that was a success. But by the turn of the decade, the fortunes of Marvel's movieverse began to recede under the weight of wokeness,

The exhibit also features the work of Detroit comic artists who worked for Marvel and DC, including Jim Starlin, Rich Buckler, Keith Pollard, and many more. Wall-Winkel’s personal favorite is writer Dwayne McDuffie, who pioneered minority representation in superhero comics through Milestone Media.

Be that as it may about McDuffie, something that disappoints me is that he was still quite a leftist, from what I know. But, if it matters, it's admittedly disgusting how Dan DiDio fired McDuffie over an Orwellian Thoughtcrime after the latter indicated he wasn't happy writing Justice League in the mid-2000s, because of horrible editorial mandates forced upon him. The worst part is that DiDio all but got away with doing so, and who in the mainstream holds him accountable for disrespecting a POC today over a petty issue? Let's not forget Frank Miller inexplicably hired him as an editor for a self-titled imprint Miller launched a few years back, and if it was a flop, DiDio's involvement alone is arguably why.

As noted, the article also brings up tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, and how such concepts have overlapped with comicdom:

Palladium Books was founded in 1981 by Detroit artist Kevin Siembieda, a time when tabletop gaming surged in popularity. The publisher is most known for tabletop games like Rifts or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, which was the first licensed product of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons allow players to act out fantasy adventures together, fighting monsters while playing as their own original characters. Dungeons & Dragons, in particular, has been having a mainstream moment after featuring heavily in the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” as well as the success of its own 2023 feature film. According to Wall-Winkel, fans of video games often turn to tabletop gaming as a more expansive way to explore fantasy and science fiction worlds.

Predictably, they won't get into how the franchise also encountered political correctness and was watered down in the past decade for the sake of leftist propaganda like "inclusivity", as though it were never there, and some of the silliest things about this direction are that they acted like the Drows, Orcs and goodness knows what other anthropomorphic villains in the franchise literally had to see positive depictions, as though they weren't there to begin with. D&D, for all we know, will probably be brought down hard in time by all this wokeism.

Without a doubt, Detroit's got plenty of interesting comics contributors abound who could make good subjects for this exhibition. But, if there's one whom I hope they haven't gone out of their way to highlight, it's Geoff Johns, whose writings in mainstream in the past quarter century were so inexcusably crude and insufferable, they'd make a very humiliating addition to the exhibition as a result. From what I can tell, Johns doesn't seem to be on the list, and if he's absent, that's fortunate. No need to sully the exhibition with the work of somebody as blatant as he proved to be in the long run.

That told, it's still a shame there's so much more an article like this could've brought up, and predictably, they wouldn't because it doesn't fit the superficial, PC narrative they follow.