The Four Color Media Monitor

The Comics Journal wrote an atrociously biased take on the pretentious James Robinson's Starman series from 1994-2001, in two parts so far, and it contains some troubling lines suggesting this was written from quite a leftist perspective. For example:

Starman is a story about the United States. Not the one we learned about in civics class. Not the golly-gee willikers, apple-pie-and-baseball bullshit that Ivy League-educated, far-right populists talk about while deifying “the founders” and pretending that history is only what you learned it was in first grade and anyone who tries to teach anything more complicated than that is desecrating those buried in Arlington. No, this is “The Old, Weird America” as Greil Marcus titled one of his books.

Well, what's this? A lecture in the vein of claiming patriotism is bad? Well that's what it sounds like. And why is the writer making it sound like Ivy League universities are inherently right-wing? If you took a look at the sorry state of modern colleges, that can refute what they're lecturing everyone with here. In any event, whatever form of "America" was being emphasized in Robinson's Starman series does not appeal to me, and definitely not today.

It’s easier to place all that weirdness “over there” in its own space so the rest of us can pretend that it doesn’t exist. Those weird stories with strange artwork and designs can exist ... somewhere else. That way the DCU can function in a vaguely “realistic” manner drawn in a vaguely realistic fashion. Comics are serious, after all. Far too serious for romance or humor or wackiness or surrealism.

I don't think the above was meant as a joke. It's just irritating in how it's implied "realism" is the only way, ditto "seriousness". Does this also mean Marvel's Excalibur from 1988-98, which I consider one of the most surreal adventures they ever published back in the day, was just a bad idea all over? This is insulting to the intellect, and belittles the work of past writers who emphasized merit and entertainment value first and foremost. Without that, how could even "realistic" work well? And then, as if it couldn't possibly get worse:

Art emerges from a cultural space. I believe that culture shapes behavior, or as Heraclitus argued more than two thousand years ago, geography is destiny. In the 21st century, something like Starman wasn’t of interest. A loving couple like Ralph and Sue Dibny solving crimes wasn’t of interest. Raping and murdering them, though? DC’s Identity Crisis and Marvel’s Civil War were made while the United States was a nation at war. Stories about superheroes behaving like horrible villains in the name of righteousness. Comics about “good” people doing monstrous things. That’s not a coincidence. Art is not created in a vacuum.

And here's another, and by far one of the most repellent moments in this essay, because the writer brings up those past crossovers/events and what occurred in their pages in such a casual manner, as though sexual violence were a trivial issue, along with the divisive politics both IC and CW contained. It does confirm though, that both miniseries were meant to be political metaphors. In one of the accompanying footnotes, the writer tops it off with, "The fact that the nation’s leaders were intent on acting as though we were not a nation at war meant that like repressed emotions, it comes out in other ways." So let's see if I can understand what's going on here. Because certain leftists disliked the policies that came up at the time from a Republican-led government, that literally justifies shoehorning established characters into terrible roles and situations? Also insulting to the intellect is how it's implied crime-solving couples is literally worthless as a storytelling concept.

Before we go further, since it's been a few years since the series ended, a recap for those who forgot what the comic was about (or haven't read it yet). Starman was about Jack Knight, but it also tied together the stories of every superhero ever named Starman. One of whom was Jack's father Ted, an inventor turned Golden Age superhero who is now retired. Another was Jack's brother David, who was killed in issue #1.

Assisting Jack in his super heroic efforts of truth, justice, and well, stuff: The Shade, a former Flash villain who Robinson writes as a complicated antihero whose life and mysterious past becomes central to the series. There's Sadie, with whom Jack falls in love, and in the final issue, retires to be with her and their child. The O'Dare family, who are all cops. Charity, a fortune teller. Plus the ghost of a pirate, a superpowered ex-con, and various other figures who appear over the course of the 80+ issues.

On the other side of the ledger was The Mist, a Golden Age supervillain now an aged man with a failing memory, who with the help of his two children, Kyle and Nash, stage a series of attacks in the opening story arc. A destruction-filled crime spree that included the murder of David Knight, aka Starman. Then Jack killed Kyle. Nash becomes the new Mist, swearing vengeance by planning to — well, we'll get to all that.

And I don't see what the big deal is here about turning the David Knight character into a sacrificial lamb. That only precipitated a very bad trend/obsession/habit that cost the original Supergirl, and the way writers continued over the years to do so, as though it were inherently wrong to have created these characters in the first place, was nothing short of repulsive. In hindsight, what stories I read from Robinson's Starman series were so empty and pointless.

Here's the 2nd part of this shoddy essay (and I won't be surprised if a 3rd is in preparation), and something decidedly eyebrow raising about artists is brought up:

Rereading the comic, it was a great showcase for artists. It was never defined by the artists, not even Harris, who co-created Jack and drew roughly half the run. The fill-in issues worked because they were very much written to the artists, and stood out from the regular run. I mentioned earlier that one of Robinson’s great skills was the way he took so many tones and styles and managed to make them part of this larger thing. This is one of the things I meant.

Today the writer is considered the author of the comic and treated like that by companies. Rarely are artists filling in and written to and allowed to go crazy in the way that Robinson let them. It may have been in service to the writer’s vision, to the series’ structure and plan, but it was a vision that allowed for many approaches and a significant level of collaboration.

Perhaps that's another problem with some overrated comics of their times, like the disgraced Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, recalling there were several notable artists who drew stories for that too - it seemed to serve more as a showcase for artists to draw what amounted to nothing, all for the sake of promoting artists who could be as overrated as the writers.

Reading through the first few years of Starman, I am reminded how much comics have changed in the years since. There are story arcs, single issue stories, two or three issues stories, issues that are designed to transition between story arcs and catch up with multiple characters. A time before comics would “write for the trades”. That shift — and I say this as one who since the 1990s would wait for the trade — has not been a good thing.

Umm, even when comics aren't written for the trades, that doesn't mean they can't be awful. And the half-hearted way at least a few of the characters were handled in Starman was atrocious. And there were bad storylines 3 decades ago that weren't written for trades per se, like Emerald Twilight, something overrated writers like Robinson never seemed to complain about. Interestingly enough, the article actually admits there's something wrong with the Starman series in more ways than meets the eye:

One of the sources of superhero comics are old boys adventure tales. I keep thinking about this strange lineage of stories that stretch back to Daniel Defoe in the 18th century and Alexander Dumas in the 19th. That leads to Jack London to Joseph Conrad to John Buchan to Graham Greene to John Le Carre to Robert Stone to Viet Thanh Nguyễn.

One reason they were boys adventures was because there were no girls allowed. Which brings me to Starman’s great failure. There are plenty of things that, in reading the entirety of the series over a short time many years later, may not hold up as well as one would hope. That read differently in chunks than monthly. That didn’t age well. Some plotting that didn’t work as well as they thought. All of this is to be expected. The big failure and disappointment of the series is the female characters.

I wrote earlier that the book is the story of Jack and Ted Knight, of fathers and sons. It does get into Jack and David’s relationship and the complex nature of brothers over the course of its run. That complex relationship of loving someone even though you may not like them. The series’ main problems is that none of the female characters have the depth or complexity of the male characters.

Nash, who after the first story arc becomes the new Mist, is the biggest disappointment. When we meet her in the first story arc she is the stuttering daughter helping her father and her brother. Her brother Kyle is the light of her father’s eye. The one who will become The Mist, the second generation supervillain who will take on his father’s mantle. Later in the series we see The Mist’s misogyny when he speaks of his daughter in a way that makes clear why she might have grown up stuttering and seeking a certain invisibility, even as she was desperate to gain her father’s approval. While she might say that she is taking on her father's mantle, it’s the death of her brother that inspires her and drives her.

Nash goes about being a villain in a familiar way, as though following a script. She stages heists. She kills a few superheroes. I think most characters in superhero comics tend to be one note, flat characters. Is the flatness of her character deliberate? For years I’ve heard about this need to make villains complicated. Yes, people who disagree with me have as deep and rich inner lives as I do. I’ve lived through decades of pop culture that was entranced by Hannibal Lecter and has regurgitated a million serial killers who are interesting and complicated. The truth is that they’re not. Political and business leaders literally laugh like cartoon characters when presented with evidence that they’re hurting and killing people. They may be sentient, but it’s hard to think of them as well-rounded human beings with complicated feelings and inner lives.

Is Nash the product of her environment? Incapable of being a full, complete person and playacting out relationships, imitating her father and other villains? Was she an intentionally flat, boring shell of a human being who lacks an inner life?

The most notable thing about her is that she rapes an unconscious Jack. She does for the purpose of becoming pregnant. Something we would see in the pages of Tom Strong from Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse a few years later. It remains uncomfortable thirty years later. Some of that is simply because it is rape. She does it to a man, which makes it about power as much as sex, which, yes, is always the case. Her plan, to get knocked up by Jack and then to raise their son to be a villain who will kill his father, is one of those plots that I guess makes sense?

No it does not. If anything, what's described here is sick. It's the kind of "product of its time" that gives management of female cast members a bad name. It could also explain why a character like Doris Lee was never made use of, and was apparently established as having been retroactively murdered in the story. For now, what they say about the Nash character is certainly repellent. Note the part about her killing at least a few superheroes, and even raping the star of the show, and something is definitely wrong. I hesitate to think, what if she'd been written as a lesbian, and wound up invoking offensive stereotypes about lesbians while homosexual men were let off the hook by contrast? The part about her resorting to rape of a man, whether conscious or not, is another irritating problem with this pseudo-Starman series - while such things are obviously possible in real life, here it amounts to shock value and cheap sensationalism that can obscure the even more pressing problem of men violating women, based on how contrived and forced it was. And that Nash would be written obliterating any superhero characters who could be minor is another signal what's wrong with the tale: it's all an excuse to rid DC of any characters they consider "useless". All by people who don't have the courage to admit their "talent" in writing and art is completely lacking.

The Mist and Starman. Two elder figures, shaped by the First and Second World Wars, respectively, still alive at century’s end. Both heralded for their actions, but one emboldened by what he did during the war, the other weakened by it. The two men cast shadows over the decades, and over their children, each losing their firstborn son, who sought to take their father’s place. Each then replaced by their second-born.

In that framing, Nash’s plan to have a baby with Jack who will then kill Jack, makes a certain sense. The way that opera and myth have a logic to them.

In the end, The Mist returns. While Ted Knight gave up his role and let Jack find his own way, we see The Mist driven by hatred towards not just his old foe, but his own daughter and grandson. And that hate literally consumes him, as he intends to destroy the city and everyone in it.

The city is saved by Ted, who sacrifices himself, after holding his grandson in his arms for the first and last time. Before encouraging his son to find his own path forward. In Ted’s final act of bravery, he uses a device to lift the Mist and the building with a bomb in it above the atmosphere where it can safely explode. In his last moments, Ted Knight becomes a star.

Considering that the final issue of the comic was released in 2001, at the turn of the millennium, that’s not a meaningless fable.

It is meaningless. And both Starman and Mist are "heralded"? What does that mean, that the villain is admired for his criminal activities? Sorry, that's just further compounding all that's wrong with it. Not to mention that what Nash had planned for Jack gives motherhood a bad name. And that Ted would be turned into a sacrificial lamb for the sake of a bizarre series like this is disrespectful to original creators Gardner Fox and Jack Burnley. So the hero can't die from natural causes and auto accidents; it can only be as some kind of pyhrric victory where a villain is made to look like he's in some kind of "fun" rivalry with a villain. It reeks of moral equivalence.

Perhaps the comic’s biggest failure is Sadie, or rather, the failure of Sadie as a character. She’s the character who Jack falls in love with. He goes into space for her in search of her brother who everyone else thinks is dead. He gives up being Starman and moves away for her. Not just for her, but she’s one reason he moves and realizes it’s time to give up being a hero. A character like that should jump off the page. Their relationship should burn.

I call her the comic’s big failure because she comes off fairly flat.

Gee, if the ladies in Starman are that poorly written, why doesn't the essayist think this comic is a failure? Even the father-son-brother relationships in this tale were dreary and went nowhere in what I read. The main problem is that otherwise insulted the whole superhero theme, right down to the cosmic rod originally used by Ted in the Golden Age tales; also note how Jack takes to using a large pole-style device as the series continues. Perhaps that's another problem: the series has a condescending view of superheroic themes, including the costume worn by Ted.

What would it have meant for Robinson to center Sadie and her romance with Jack in the comic? My gut says that the comic would have been cancelled. This is me being cynical, but I don't think that I’m wrong.

There are two stereotypes to acknowledge about romance stories. One is that the romance genre is largely written and read by women. The other is that it is a largely unserious genre that has led to women having unrealistic views of romance and men. Romance is a genre with tropes and expectations. Unlike other genres like mystery, crime, westerns, thrillers, etc., romance, which remains largely written by and about women, as a genre is not considered art and remains looked down upon.

I will admit to reading very few romance novels in my life. Like all genres, good writers are able to use tropes and expectations but can write thoughtfully about people. Great romantic comedies and dramas work because they understand their characters and while they contain tropes, they are telling the stories of people. Genre contains tropes and myths that are important to cultures. That's why they continue and continue to be passed on.

If romance books give girls and women unrealistic expectations, that implies that men have “realistic” expectations. Or takes as a given that whatever men think/believe is "the norm.” What are those expectations? How do we get those expectations? Supposedly women believe in a prince charming who will come along and save them. I won’t lie, some people think that, or want that.18 A romance is all about fighting over expectations versus reality, and the demands people place on each other, and how to live in the world. That’s not subtext, it is literally the text of everything from Nora Ephron to Jilly Cooper to Jane Austen. The bad books and movies may feature poorly drawn characters uttering bad dialogue, but it is the subject.

Romance in men’s stories, and boys stories, are often side stories. If they appear at all, the romance is secondary. The object of the romance is secondary as well. The relationship is secondary to the plot. Secondary to the character's passion. Secondary to the character’s destiny. What the main character does is the most important thing. The romance must fit into the man’s life and purpose that already exists. Men look for someone who believes in them, their passion, their purpose. Who will support them in their quest. The romance is not about negotiation and conversation, but about passion and choosing.

Is this an argument that romance and relationships should be a minor aspect of our lives for everyone? Or that men should see romance and relationships as a minor aspect of our lives? Because whatever one’s thoughts on monogamy and compulsive heterosexuality, those are very different things.

I don't know about the romance genre, but drama is something that's been marketed to men as much as women, and has succeeded more or less with adults in the west, including incorporation of romance. Of course, if drama is what Starman is supposed to be, it fails. I think it's quite a stretch to say romance has never appeared in men/boys stories, because what about Superman and Lois Lane, Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson? Romance has appeared in stories for men/boys, more or less, and has been appreciated by many of the same, though today, it's certainly been ruined beyond belief by wokeness. Which is decidedly what the Starman series from Robinson represented too. And if the columnist didn't read much romance, how can he be certain women have "unrealistic" expectations, or that even have "realistic" ones? Interesting he speaks of poorly drawn characters with bad dialogue, because that decidedly describes Robinson's shoddy Starman series too.

I wonder sometimes what it means to love superhero comics as an adult? Heroic stories that lack a third act, a resolution, where one faces the consequences of all that has come before. Is this love for comics, which often translates into — if not paralleled by — a love of serialized and procedural stories. Adventure and crime stories featuring the same characters. Who may or may not age, for whom time may or may not continue, but one episode to the next, they continue having new adventures and solving new problems.

Much has been written for decades about the embrace of superheroes in the United States in the post-WWII era and what it means and represents. The embrace of superheroes in popularity writ large in the culture in the 21st Century is often seen in relation to a decline of American power. It remains to be seen what happens next. As the United States declines in economic and cultural power, will they continue to be embraced or will the genre decline?

That's for the moviegoing public though, which is different from people who visit comic book shops. Does our embrace and interest in superheroes represent an arrested development? There is a term I learned years ago, Peter Pans, for adult men who aren’t playboys or fuckboys. They aren’t against marriage. They might want kids. Maybe? Maybe not? They’re in no rush. It’s a bemused term tinged with sadness used to describe some men. I wonder if a love of procedural stories and superheroes, full of ongoing stories and last minute saves, is either a sign of such arrested development, or a contribution to it. Swimming in stories without a third act, without resolution and consequences, do we see that, even unconsciously, as a model in our lives? Does it prevent us from what we should be and need to be doing?

If you're going to write up stories like Robinson's at the expense of what themes made them work in the first place, you don't love superhero comics as an adult. And unfortunately, there's a certain segment of society today, moviegoing or otherwise, who are anti-marriage, even anti-child-bearing. Another reason why this pretentious piece falls flat is because it then veers into a more noticeably political diatribe, and even brings up one such item from Warren Ellis, an Iron Man miniseries he wrote, along with the IM movie from 2008:

Ted was a fragile figure. I don’t mean that mockingly. He had a mental breakdown. One tied to the murder of Doris Lee, his first love, but also to his work on the Manhattan Project. Here’s where I think that Robinson’s Britishness come into play. I was reminded of the Warren Ellis and Adi Granov miniseries Iron Man: Extremis and the series’ take on the military-industrial complex. The idea that Tony Stark and his father were pushed into developing and building weapons from an early age. That this system doesn’t want the best and brightest to design new cities and energy sources, and bring about a Star Trek-like future. Instead it’s focused on weapons, and to a lesser degree, consumer goods. I would argue that this critique — even if just a few pages buried in six issues that consists largely of lengthy fights, an obvious reveal, ending with Stark having new fancy powers — makes this the fourth most subversive comic Marvel has published.

Compare that to the Iron Man film, where the elder Stark’s role in the Manhattan Project is a part of why he’s so great. Rather than question the systems around Stark and militarism, instead we have movies that were used to help promote the military and American militarism and privatized war.

I hated the first Iron Man movie. That put me in a distinct minority among people I knew. The Afghanistan in the film had nothing to do with the actual country, but was instead Dick Cheney’s wet dream. The same cartoonish fantasy used to sell the Afghan and Iraq wars. A lawless place where Muslims of many languages and cultures came together to be evil terrorists whose ultimate goal is …something. Something evil, obviously, even if makes no sense. In Iron Man it involved obtaining weapons, attacking Americans, and rounding up villagers. They’re terrorists. We don’t need to think about who they are or what they want. They don’t make any sense. We just need to kill them. And we need bigger and better weapons to do it.

The second Iron Man film included an Elon Musk cameo and featured Tony Stark declaring “I've successfully privatized world peace.” How did we go from a Republican President pushing through tax cuts for the rich and planning destabilizing wars to today when we have … a Republican President pushing through tax cuts for the rich and planning destabilizing wars? Where people who once supported those wars now think they were a horrible mistake, and that the country’s real enemies are the people who protested that war believing it would be a horrible mistake.

Well, this certainly is another clue what's wrong with this whole pointless commentary about the Starman series. I knew the Comics Journal was a leftist periodical that had to be taken with a grain of salt, and this isn't improving things one bit. In hindsight, while the movie may have established that the terrorists in the 2008 film were being employed by figures like Obadiah Stane, it is rather surprising they would allude to serious issues like Islamic jihadism, because today, it's become far less likely, if at all. Nor would they invite Musk for a cameo in their films, let alone Donald Trump. But no matter the standings of the Comics Journal, what they're writing here is a complete slap in the face to advocates of freedom, including victims of Islam, and that also includes victims of 911. The essayist completely blurs what's wrong with the Religion of Peace, disregards victims of the same, right down to victims of honor murders, and even shoehorns in anti-conservative propaganda to boot. He even refuses to consider that there were people at the time of 911 who thought Iran was a more pressing concern than Iraq, and that was dealt with earlier this year. So Starman, along with the Ellis-penned IM miniseries, is what he considers fabulous? Absolutely shameful.

I was eager to read Batman: Face the Face, the first comic of Robinson's in a while, and was just unimpressed. Anyone could have written that. This is part of what was behind Airboy. The comic got attention for the nasty transmisogyny, which I will not defend, and honestly sits uncomfortably in the story. I think it’s worth noting just how angry and nasty the book is in general. I won’t say it’s Robinson lashing out at the comics industry and himself, but it kind of is. It might open with a sad and almost over-the-top tone, but I think that obscures the sadness at the heart. This feeling that his career has come to an end, his marriage has come to an end, he hates himself, and feels like a failure.

As someone with career and money troubles, who lives alone and has been known to wallow, who has had depression and suicidal ideation for most of my life, I can relate.

Well I can't. Because it does nothing to encourage and inspire, or give somebody a reason for happiness. Interesting they bring up the alleged "transphobia" topic involving the Airboy comic Robinson wrote, because that was tasteless regardless. But while Robinson's an artistic failure, the problem is that in a way, he's the kind who's been failing upwards. Why else would he have gotten the jobs he did?

I’m guessing that Robinson didn’t invent that above dialogue out of thin air, but quoted it directly from someone. How sad is it that this was what so many editors took away from that? How pathetic that people who make comics had only the most surface level understanding of the book. After Starman wrapped up, Robinson stepped away from comics briefly and it’s hard to blame him if this was how the industry responded. I don’t think he meant for comics to be a stepping stone to something else, something “better,” but he wrote a great comic series and got to conclude it on his own terms. Why should he turn around and try to do that again? He tried to do something else. If editors didn’t understand what he had accomplished, why work with people who don’t appreciate you?

When he returned to comicdom later on, he was given the keys to retconning Alan Scott into a gay man in Earth 2, a series that didn't last long. With that kind of obsessive PC direction he took, exploiting other people's creations for his petty politics instead of at least creating new ones, how could anybody consider him an "auteur"? Robinson's not the only one, of course, who's done stuff like this, taking advantage of other people's creations to convey questionable beliefs and directions. But he only made bad situations worse, and simultaneously, the editors/publishers have to shoulder blame for enabling these situations and doing nothing to reverse them.

Anyway, this is one of the grimiest, stupidest essays I've ever read from the Comics Journal, and only makes me glad I don't own stories like Robinson's today. He was like a precursor to Geoff Johns, and did work with the latter on JSA and Hawkman in the early 2000s, which were also overrated, and made clear why I'd rather stick with the older stories than read their modern slop. So I guess it's ironic if Robinson's career sputtered in the end, seeing how he hasn't written much in the past decade. Unfortunately, seeing as he's a SJW in his own way, he's probably not disappointed, because such people are more interested in bringing down the quality of past creations than in building up better storytelling. As for the Comics Journal writer, he certainly knew how to exploit the subjects for conveying his own awful politics, and makes clear why the magazine is such an embarrassment.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, history, Iron Man, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, violence, women of dc

The Edwardsville Intelligencer wrote about the history of the first official Peanuts cartoon special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, 60 years after it was produced, and how it's reportedly still admired as a product of the times, one that boldly quoted from the Gospel's Luke 8:14:

On Dec. 9, 1965, a half-hour animated Christmas special, based on the beloved Peanuts cartoon characters created by Charles Schulz, aired for the first time on CBS. Executives anxiously awaited the viewing results since this presentation was a grand departure from previous holiday specials. Unknown to them at the time, it would become a popular staple of holiday television fare for the next 57 years and often rank in the top three of viewers' favorite Christmas presentations.

Although this was Schulz's first animated special, many more would follow, undoubtedly due to the success of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Many were holiday specific — “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” “It’s the Easter Beagle,” etc. Many more — some holiday themed, some not — would follow. Fifty-one Peanuts specials would air over the years, including some created after Schulz’s death in 2000. But the most popular by far was his first TV offering — “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” [...]

Until the Charlie Brown Christmas special, adult voice actors (and sometimes well-known actors and singers) did most of the dialogue in holiday cartoons, with bit parts done by children. Since no adults were ever seen or featured in the actual Peanuts cartoon strips, Schulz, Mendelson and Melendez decided to use only children’s voices in the production. Most of the children came from Mendelson’s neighborhood in California and read for the parts just as adult actors would for an assignment. [...]

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the beloved holiday special “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” It will be celebrated with commemorative items sold through Hallmark stores and online. Apple purchased the rights to Peanuts-related shows in 2020 and allowed them to air for two more years on free TV before moving them exclusively to its own platform and Amazon. This ended 57 years of free TV broadcasting. The DVD is still available for purchase on Amazon and eBay; you can stream or record it on Apple TV or rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video. Ironically, in the Christmas movie “Fred Claus,” there is a scene near the beginning where Vince Vaughn’s character is sitting in his apartment watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Here's more on History:

The special broke several cartoon conventions of the era. It hired actual kids as voice actors, featured a spare jazz soundtrack and did not include a laugh track. Most controversial of all, it was a children's Christmas special featuring a lengthy quote from the Bible.

A week before its airdate, CBS held a test screening of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for executives.

“The general reaction was one of disappointment,” said former CBS executive Fred Silverman in the documentary The Making of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (2015). “There were specific negative comments about the music, the piano music, some of the voicing, which sounded kind of amateurish.”

Even the special’s lead producer and co-creator, Lee Mendelson, feared that it would not only bomb, but possibly take down "Peanuts" with it. Instead, more than 15 million American households tuned in for its premiere—half of all TV viewers at the time. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” went on to win awards and become a beloved holiday classic. [...]

True to his comic strip, Schulz also wrote complicated dialogue for the characters. At one point, Lucy calls Christmas “a big commercial racket...run by a big Eastern syndicate.” Although "Peanuts" characters in the comic strip had always wrestled with adult ideas, executives worried viewers would be lost.

The biggest concern for both CBS executives and Mendelson himself was Schulz’s insistence on having the character of Linus recite a passage from the New Testament about the birth of Jesus. At the time, fewer than 10 percent of Christmas-themed TV shows contained a direct reference to religion, explains scholar Stephen J. Lind.

“We looked at each other and said, ‘Well, there goes our careers right down the drain,’” Mendelson recalled. When CBS executives saw the scene, they said, “The Bible thing scares us.”

But Schulz, a religious man who taught Sunday school, believed it was important to address the real meaning of Christmas. “If we don’t do it, who will?” Schulz asked.

As it turned out, everything that made "A Charlie Brown Christmas" so unconventional—its slow pacing, its plain animation, its unsophisticated voice acting and its sentimental message—was what resonated most with both viewers and critics.

That was then, and Schultz's efforts to realize his visions in animation were courageous for their time. And Mendelson would also later produce a few more cartoons based on comic strips, such as the early Garfield cartoons, and what impressed me about his productions is that unlike many Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Mendelson's didn't talk down to the audience, and had more sophistication than what most producers for Saturday morning matinees were willing to offer.

But depending how you view this, the downside is that, based on the very real war on Christmas in Europe and even in the USA, one can reasonably wonder if even A Charlie Brown Christmas still retains the respect and admiration it received decades ago. Would today's network executives be willing to approve such a project today, without acting as though it'd solely represent an "offense" to whomever they'd likely refuse to name, as though third parties literally have the right to "wag the dog"? Who knows? It all depends on whether the USA's situation improves from this point. I hope it does continue to retain popularity and admiration, but realists must be aware that fate can play a very bad role in what becomes of any great pop culture classic, and that includes comic strips like Peanuts.

In another related article, The News-Enterprise wrote about the comic strip's lasting impact:

While American pop culture has undergone dramatic shifts throughout its history, one staple remains relatively unchanged: Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip. The property celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, and the joy it has created for millions across many media.

Robert Pope, a cartoonist with an impressive pedigree who currently works on the “Peanuts” franchise, discussed the enduring and universal appeal of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang.

Putting pencil to paper daily for its licensed characters, Pope closely understands “Peanuts” in his role with Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates out of Santa Rosa, California. He strives to preserve the “magical” quality of Schulz’s creations, who was also known by the nickname “Sparky.”

“Typically, what I do is children’s books, graphic novels, illustrations for development deals, things that go in theme parks like Cedar Fair, which just recently merged with Six Flags,” Pope said. “Instead of trying to build something from the ground up, we’re extrapolating a lot of things that either were created and written while Sparky was alive, or things that were in process later in his life.”

Pope said at the heart of the “Peanuts” franchise are the singular sensibilities of Schulz. Schulz Creative Associates, Sparky’s family and many of his living collaborators ensure the original vision is unaltered.

Conversely, Pope said other longstanding properties he’s worked on, such as Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and Batman, have had “many fathers over many years of development.”

“You’ve had lots of hands on those characters. Those teams allow people to feel very comfortable trying to put their own stamp on those,” Pope said. “It would just be a very foolhardy thing to try to take it upon yourself to elaborate on ‘Peanuts.’”

Pope said the responsibility of maintaining Schulz’s legacy can be “petrifying,” especially considering how renowned Schulz is among other artists.

“Most of the cartooning community has a great deal of reverence and respect for the body of work that this man did for half a century, actually more,” Pope said. “It’s the sort of thing that is approached extremely carefully and thoughtfully.”

Considering there's bound to be cartoonists out there who're much more woke than others, it's definitely amazing there's a segment that does respect Schultz's visions, and makes sure to give Peanuts, however it's published today, the care it needs, although let's not forget that time when the animation studios now overseeing newer cartoon specials went out of their way to correct an alleged mistake made in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving all too obviously, in the Welcome Home Franklin special, and if there was any problem with that, it's that those complaining were likely not Peanuts fans, nor did they have any intention of watching the recent spotlight for Franklin either, no matter how it was put together.

It's good Schultz's family and other experts in his comic strip care about its legacy, but that's why they should be careful about acting as though what turns up on social media is something to panic about, and they shouldn't pander to people who're only interested in lodging empty complaints, and contrary to what they might claim, aren't fans of Charlie Brown. It's food for thought.

Labels: animation, comic strips, good artists, history, politics

WGN9 from Chicago is adding to the tiresome, unobjective discussion of the collector's mentality, following the not-really-newsworthy story of a Superman comic selling $9 million-plus on the speculator market. What's told here, though, is eyebrow raising if it's correct:

You may still remember your first comic book. Do you remember the last time you saw that comic, though?

Depending on what it is and the condition it’s in, it could be worth something – in fact, maybe a few somethings.

Last month, an issue of “Superman” sold for a record-setting $9.12 million at auction. [...]

Superman was the first superhero to appear in pop culture, and his first-ever comic was a limited print. Of the 500,000 copies ever printed of the first edition, it’s estimated that fewer than 500 remain in existence today, Lon Allen, vice president of comics at Heritage Auctions, told the Associated Press.

Seriously, when the first issue of the Man of Steel's first spinoff series from Action Comics premiered, it only saw less than a million copies printed, no matter how many sold at store level? I'm as big a fan of Supes as the next person, but this, if anything, suggests a lot of Golden Age comics weren't the massive success earlier reports would have us think. So why keep taking such an unobjective position and making it sound like this was all something to celebrate? And then, we're told:

Who is willing to shell out more than what some actors were paid to portray Superman for a comic book?

“People with deep pockets,” according to Griffin.

Among the books sought by those “deep pocket” collectors are the “firsts,” Griffin explained, like Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics (No. 27, published in 1939) and “Marvel Comics No.1.” A version of the former sold for $1.82 million in 2024, while a copy of the latter garnered more than $2.4 million in 2022. A single page from a 1984 comic, “Secret Wars No. 8,” sold for $3.36 million, all thanks to the first-ever appearance of Spider-Man’s black suit. A debut issue of “Captain America Comics” sold for $3.1 million in 2022.

“They’re always going to be expensive and will probably just continue to be as time progresses because there’s going to be less and less of books like this coming out of the woodwork,” Griffin added. It’s scarcity and desirability that can influence the value of the comic, according to Griffin, though they’re not always a guarantee. If “there’s just nothing going on in it,” for example, or it’s a book “from the ‘50s that nobody remembers,” there may not be much desirability for it. Some titles or issues can fluctuate in value, with interest peaking when there are rumors of a movie adaptation or a TV show appearance for a certain character. But, once the appearance happens, Griffin says the “book will get soft again.”

Well see, that's a problem. If they're going to base it all upon recognizability and what movies are in production, then it's not a long-ranging success at all, and if the movie adaptations eventually do wear off, then for all we know, even the Golden/Silver Age back issues may lose some value. Which is certainly what happened when production of issues more for the sake of the collector's mentality came about:

Also like baseball cards, comic books experienced an era of mass production, in the 1980s and ’90s, leading to a collapse in the collector market.

“They just put out so many of them, and there were so many people buying two copies and keeping one pristine,” Griffin explained. “There’s just a lot of nice books out there from the time period and not many of them are worth that much.”

If by that he means monetary - not artistic - value, then again, this whole report is a farce. Of course, it's disturbing to think of how even some Rob Liefeld monstrosities of the times could sell big among certain speculators, because they actually think the terrible examples he drew up in the Heroes Reborn series of Capt. America, for example, are actually worth something based on how poor they are? Sorry, but that only further compounds why the collect-for-profit mentality's ruined pop culture.

The market has rebounded, with newer material like manga comics and Pokémon becoming more popular among collectors. That, Griffin said, is fueled by those who enjoyed them in their youth now having the buying power to collect.

I have a bad feeling even the manga in mention is only being collected for profit, which should serve as a warning there's a whole segment of "fandom" out there that doesn't care about manga as an artistic medium either, just as a source of financial greed. That's bad news too, for anyone who believes Japan can have potential if the cards are played right. Then, towards the end:

If you’re hoping to get into comic book collecting, you may not have the financial wiggle room to vie for a $9.12 million “Superman” comic. Instead, Griffin recommends finding “something that you like and collect that.”

“That way, even if it goes down, you’re still going to be happy that you bought it.”

Note how, oddly enough, the interviewee doesn't say you should actually make an effort to read it. And if not, then what good is it to collect? Why not recommend buying comics in paperback/hardcover format for reading and entertainment value? So again, we have another article where nobody comments on the comics from a merit-based perspective, and they're really insulting the medium's potential with the way they approach the whole topic. And those "deep pockets" should be ashamed of themselves for what they're doing to the products, hoarding them away instead of donating them to a museum.

Labels: dc comics, history, manga and anime, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales, Spider-Man, Superman

The Times of Israel reported 2 documentaries about cartoonist Spiegelman, author of Maus, will be screened at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival, and in the article, some more troubling clues to what's wrong with his mindset turn up:

Spiegelman will not be in Jerusalem for the event; he’s only been in Israel once, for a bar mitzvah trip in 1961, which he described as uncomfortable in an interview with the New York Review of Books in March this year.

“Every young man carried a rifle,” he told the New York Review. “I am very grateful that my parents ended up in America after the war. I’ve always been more comfortable taking my chances in the Diaspora.”

I get the feeling the man who reportedly says he's spent much of his life trying to not think about Israel is an opponent of the 2nd Amendment to boot. I get the strange feeling he sees little difference between armies representing goodness and the National Socialists of Germany from WW2. And that's decidedly troubling.

The New York-based Spiegelman has related to Israel’s war with Hamas sparingly but fiercely over the last two years, collaborating with cartoonist Joe Sacco to create the comic “Never Again!”

In it, he and Sacco draw themselves and their pained reactions to the war sparked by the Hamas terror onslaught in Israel on October 7, 2023. Spiegelman calls Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocidish,” while remarking that he doesn’t ever want “Maus” to be a recruiting poster for the Israeli army.

Still, said Philip Dolin, one of the filmmakers behind “The Hell of Auschwitz: Maus by Art Spiegelman,” the Hamas-led atrocities weren’t part of his film, noting, “you don’t have to talk about everything.”

Perhaps it's better if he didn't, because his collaborations with Sacco tell enough what's disturbing about Spiegelman's MO. That said, something very absurd turns up in the article:

There are no bans on books in Europe, said Horovitz, but caution and concern about antisemitism are present in her life in Paris, a subject that she discusses with her children.

What kind of naive idiocy is this? Back in the early 90s, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses was banned in some areas (and only recently, un-banned in India) and it could happen to him, it's not impossible for it to happen to Spiegelman's GNs. But if he really sees nothing wrong with Islam, that could make one reasonably wonder if Spiegelman would conclude it's okay for the Religion of Peace to determine whether his work should remain in print or not, in contrast to the sources he complained were censoring Maus in USA schools. A serious flaw in this news is that, while it brings up antisemitism in France, it doesn't clearly mention that Islamic fundamentalism is driving it in modern times.

Somebody said in the comments section:

Maybe Art Spiegelman should have gone back to Israel after his bar mitzvah and got to know it better, become more acquainted with the realities lived there. It might have caused less confusion and taken away the equivalence he seems to give the horrors of the Hamas invasion and Israel's response in Gaza. It's about not only surviving, Art Spiegelman, but ensuring attempted genocide cannot take place again.

Yup. Unfortunately, Spiegelman's somebody who's given clues he's not interested in writing about how victims of horrifying crimes in modernity feel. That double-standard cheapens the impact of Maus, plain and simple. What Spiegelman's told just compounds my disinterest in watching his documentaries.

Labels: censorship issues, comic strips, conventions, Europe and Asia, history, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, msm propaganda, politics, terrorism, violence

Sora News 24 wrote about the dissolving of Gainax, one of the most notable anime studios, and one of their contributors, Hideako Anno, was disappointed it's now gone. But, there's also scandals involved, to the point you have to wonder if it's for the best they closed:

Anno posted about the development on December 11 on the official website of Khara, the studio he established in 2006 after leaving Gainax. According to the statement, as of December 10 Gainax no longer exists as a corporation, having been completely dissolved and liquidated.

It’s a sad, but not shocking, end to Gainax, which was formally founded in Christmas Eve in 1984, meaning it just barely missed making it to its 41st birthday. Over the years, instability was one of the few near-constants for Gainax. Established by college-age amateur artists who produced the fabled Daicon festival opening animation student films, most of the Gainax staff was always clearly more interested in the artistry of making anime than managing the economic realities and responsibilities of operating on a professional scale. Shady accounting and tax evasion, whether to prop up the company’s perennially shaky financial foundation or simply for personal greed, got Gainax’s then-president Yasuhiro Takeda and the company’s tax accountant arrested in 1999, at a time when Evangelion was a huge hit and had revenue pouring into the company.

In 2016, 10 years after Anno had formed Khara, his company sued Gainax over unpaid royalties from Gainax properties Anno had been involved in, resulting in a messy courtroom dispute that ended in Khara’s favor. Three years later, in 2019, Gainax’s then-president Tomohiro Maki, who was 50 years old at the time, was arrested on charges of taking nude photographs of a teenage girl who had entered into a contract with Gainax in hopes of becoming an anime voice actress. This sunk Gainax’s reputation to an even lower level, with a subsequent restructuring including the creation of a new board of directors with the goal of rebuilding the company. Anno, who was a Gainax shareholder, and Khara also lent support, but even these combined efforts have proven to be not enough to save Gainax.

“I am genuinely saddened, but quietly accepting of the situation,” said Anno in his statement regarding Gainax’s final fate. “I wish to express our gratitude and respect to all of the individuals and organizations who have been working without compensation for nearly six years, since the arrest of former representative director and president Tomohiro Maki in 2019.”

It sure sounds like Gainax's reputation was tarnished, and while they may have had some gems to offer in their resume, it's clear they were affected in the long run by the scandals, the latter which is serious, and so, maybe it's best they've now gone out of business. Here's also a report on Automaton Media, which says:

In an official statement posted on Khara’s homepage, Anno expressed gratitude to the individuals and companies who helped with the reconstruction and subsequent liquidation of Gainax, particularly after the arrest of then-president and representative director Tomohiro Maki in 2019 (Maki was charged with sexually assaulting an underage voice actress). Anno thanked all parties for dedicating nearly six years of work without compensation to ensure that the rights of each Gainax project, along with their associated materials and documents, were returned to their rightful owners through proper legal procedures.

If Maki did worse than take lewd photos of the actress, he's just as bad as Harvey Weinstein. Whatever the quality of their anime productions, the studio's reputation was clearly tainted by Maki's crime, so again, it's probably for the best they've folded, though other studios obviously aren't any cleaner of mistakes than Gainax was. We can only hope lessons will be learned from what's been told about Gainax.

Labels: Europe and Asia, history, manga and anime, misogyny and racism, violence

Something I hadn't quite noticed in the past few months is that, apparently realizing all the failures of turning Carol Danvers - whom they'd already forced out of her role as Ms. Marvel for the sake of a Muslim character - into a new Captain Marvel, the modern Marvel management has recently reverted Danvers halfway back...to her role in the mid-80s as Binary, as first appeared in X-Men. And here's what Adventures in Poor Taste said about the first part of a miniseries that might be part of their future-set Age of Revelation event, although, what's dismaying here is that they had to regurgitate another specific storyline from X-Men that should've been put to rest long ago:

The Phoenix Force is one of the most powerful cosmic entities in the Marvel universe and a nexus of psionic energy. It is a force of creation, but also one capable of devastating destruction. Over the years, the Phoenix Force has had many hosts who have bonded with and possessed the power of the Phoenix. The most frequent and by far most famous host of the Phoenix is the mutant telekinetic-telepath Jean Grey; however, some of the Phoenix Force’s other hosts include Rachel and Scott Summers, Illyana and Piotr Rasputin, Emma Frost, Namor, and Quentin Quire. In From the Ashes, Jean Grey was once again Phoenix, but now in Age of Revelation, there is a new Phoenix, someone who has a long established history with the X-Men.

In Binary #1, Jean Grey is dead, and Carol Danvers has been chosen to be the new host for the Phoenix Force. From Carol’s narration, we learn that Jean personally selected Carol to be the one to transfer the power of the Phoenix Force after her death. As of this issue, we do not know when or how Jean Grey died, or why she chose Carol to be the new host for the Phoenix Force, but perhaps Stephanie Phillips will fill in that information in subsequent issues of Binary. When asked in our X-Men Monday whether we will find out what happened to Jean Grey, Stephanie Phillips gave a somewhat cryptic response saying, “Yes. But it won’t be what you think… or what Carol thinks…”

In some ways, Carol is a logical choice to replace Jean as host of the Phoenix Force. For one, like Jean, Carol is also brave, heroic, selfless, and compassionate. These qualities make her a worthy and capable host, one who can handle the responsibility that comes with the awesome power of the Phoenix Force. Carol also has experience and proven success when it comes to cosmic abilities. During the events of the Brood Saga, Carol became a cosmic-powered hero named Binary in Uncanny X-Men #164 after absorbing the power of a white hole, which allowed her to generate the power of a star. In Binary #1, Carol says that being Binary was the closest she came to possessing any power comparable to that of the Phoenix; therefore, choosing to adopt the name Binary once again seemed appropriate.

This is real groaner. As though it weren't bad enough that in the past decade, Carol's femininity was defaced horrifically for the sake of a very unfeminine take on feminism, now, she's been shoved into a role of an entity that ended up being portrayed as monumentally lethal and wiped out inhabitants of a foreign galaxy 45 years ago in X-Men. And AIPT's writer sees nothing wrong with that? This is humiliatingly bad, and IIRC, Carol was only written spending time with the X-Men 2-3 years in the early 80s, following the storyline from 1981's Avengers Annual. Also note how the columnist blabbers about how several characters since the turn of the century went on to possess the Phoenix force, as though nothing was wrong with greenlighting such shoddy scripts that regurgitated a storyline that had been reduced to a case of kicking a dead horse. Why do modern writers think only a story about a girl seemingly possessing powers even more deadly than what Annihilus was armed with makes for spectacular storytelling? All the Phoenix Saga led to was a repulsive cliche that should've been put to rest long ago.

As bad as the premise they're going with happens to be, this does seem to suggest Marvel's publishers realize Carol Danvers no longer sells under the Capt. Marvel moniker, and they certainly did run it all into the ground in over a decade, with The Marvels movie quite possibly discouraging them from keeping on with using it. It reminds me of the failure of the Jonah Hex movie 15 years ago - after that, a series DC was publishing starring the 19th century western bounty hunter with a disfigured face was cancelled, and any further stories starring Hex were published under the title All-Star Western, a revival of the Bronze Age series which was where Hex first appeared in 1972. Funny how it can take a whole Hollywood fiasco to persuade some publishers it's not worth keeping on with the kind of farces they are these days. Yet story merit remains missing from the mainstream, and now while Marvel, in a manner of speaking, gave Carol back her 2nd moniker, is not improving the situation when they repeatedly make use of a storyline that was recycled in the worst possible ways in nearly 45 years. Modern writers have got to stop rehashing the Phoenix Saga already.

Labels: history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, women of marvel, X-Men

The Times of Israel interviewed a UC San Diego professor, Thomas Levy, who published a GN autobiography titled The Boomer Archaeologist, about how archaeological and academia studies have evolved over 50 years, and today, it's regrettably collapsing:

When the Yom Kippur War broke out in Israel on October 6, 1973, American citizen Thomas Levy was in Athens studying Greek after working at a dig in a small prehistoric site in the north of the country.

Twenty years old at the time, he made his way to Israel to help out and spent two months milking cows at Kibbutz Eilot in the Arava Valley before flying back to Arizona, where he was attending college.

Today a prominent archaeologist, Levy tells the story in his newly released autobiography, “The Boomer Archaeologist – A Graphic Memoir of Tribes, Identity and the Holy Land,” illustrated by Levy’s niece Lily Almeida. The memoir was designed by Bhaveshkumar Suru and published by British academic publisher Equinox.

The book covers Levy’s life journey from Southern California, where he was born to Jewish parents whose families had fled Europe at the end of the 19th century, to Israel and back. It distills his own version of the American dream, archaeological work on four continents — including some revolutionary discoveries from the time of King David — and how, at the age of 72, he likes to joke that there only two things he knows how to do in life, archaeology and milking cows.

“This book is my story, a personal kind of coming-of-age story, but it’s also a story about how the field of archaeology has changed from the old days of doing surveys with paper maps and a compass, to this amazing world of cyber-archeology today,” Levy recently told The Times of Israel, meeting at a cafe in Jerusalem.

“At the same time, it’s also the story of how the American academia has changed over the years,” he added.

And how exactly? Here's the explanation, which he discussed in his GN:

At the same time, the atmosphere at UC San Diego, as at many other American universities, began to change dramatically.

“I was very privileged to get a job at one of the best research universities in the United States, and I kind of trace the degradation of that sort of elite,” he told The Times of Israel. “It used to be based on merit, and then it changed to a system that focuses on racial identity politics, and it’s really not healthy for research.”

In the book, he recalled that in 2010, he was working with a group of five students to examine artifacts from Jordan. After Levy praised their work as “the best of our meritocracy,” one of the students responded that “meritocracy is racism.”

Levy explained that in recent years it’s become increasingly difficult, to the point of being impossible, to work with students and prepare them for excellence in the field.

“I find that a lot of American graduate students today are not as invested in the adventure and excitement of archaeology,” he said. “The old way of being a graduate student was like a mentor-mentee relationship with the professor. Now, people count the hours; everything is monitored. It’s not fun anymore.”

What's particularly troubling is that the student undoubtably took the ethnic studies professor's claim entirely at face value. But at least Levy's bringing up an issue that's been harming academia for a long time now, and in illustrated format, creatively enough. Ironically, if the student alluded to in the GN buys all the aforementioned ethnic studies professor says, then in a way, it's like a mentor-mentee relation, but in a dark, distorted reflection type of way, as it amounts more to indoctrination. Perhaps academics like Levy might want to draw a whole comic about stuff like that?

And if today's USA students don't care for archaeology, it's a component of a college mentality that doesn't care about history in general, and that too is not a good omen. It's something in serious and vital need of change, and improvement. And we can only hope comics-style books are a good way to tackle the subject.

Labels: censorship issues, Europe and Asia, history, indie publishers, msm propaganda, politics, science