Mortlake on the Schuylkill

Quien Es Macho? Carol Danvers Es Macho!

2008-10-25T09:57:00.000-04:00

In fact, anyone making their way through Ms. Marvel #32 would have to accept that Carol Danvers es muchisima macho.

Two years ago I wrote a post about X-Factor #5, in which the character Siryn is held captive, beaten, and nearly tortured.

I concluded then that:

While it's clear that Peter A. David wants to subvert the sexist trope of the woman who needs a man to deliver her from a dangerous situation, does he succeed?

My answer: yes, just barely. (And I'd have major reservations if this storyline were dragged out into another issue.) Here's my thinking:

I understand that this is a comic book, and that a title gets boring fast if the heroine is constantly kicking people's asses, and never can get her own ass kicked by anyone. I also get that X-Factor is giving off a noirish vibe. Bogart, Robert Mitchum, and Alan Ladd were constantly getting their asses handed to them by minor gunsels and cretinous henchmen in the middle reels of their respective noir movies. And, although the "message" of noir is that the hero can never destroy the interconnected webs of corruption in which he's ensnared, the viewer is at the very least assured that by the final reel the hero will have administered compensatory beat-downs to any of the players who were stupid enough to have laid a hand on him. The comic works then, and doesn't offend, if we accept that Siryn is a noirish or Bogart-ian heroine. Final confirmation of this line of interpretation will come if David actually shows us how Siryn finds and "re-pays" her original assailant in future issues.

Rather than a weak-damsel story, Peter David wants us to read X-Factor #5 as if it were an episode in the comic-book version of the Saturday Night Live gameshow Quien Es Mas Macho? (Who is More Macho?) And I'm pleased to report that, in the match-up of Siryn vs. Dr. Leery, Siryn es mas macho. She proves herself to be, indeed, muy muy macho.

Ms. Marvel #32, is a flashback story, and pits a non-superpowered Carol Danvers, shot down over Afghanistan, against a sadist named Ghazi Rashid.

However, it presents the reader with an entirely different case, for two reasons. One is small, and the other is more crucial:

(1) Rather than a noir vibe, this comic deploys the “captured/tortured soldier/spy” trope that was recently played out in the first Daniel Craig Bond film, Syriana, Ridley Scott’s G.I. Jane (1997), and countless other movies. And given the season, a serious McCain-Hanoi-Hilton vibe is clearly in play.

(2) More importantly, the creative team chose to actually depict the torture of Carol Danvers -- and it’s bad.

Nothing is left to the imagination, here. It’s either depicted, or described. Ghazi is shown preparing to pull out several of Carol’s fingernails, and we learn a few panels later that he has indeed done so; he applies electric shocks; and beats and tries to dehumanize her -- in all of the most difficult scenes, Carol is clothed only in her bra and panties.

And there is this: Carol’s ultimate means of escape is provided due to Ghazi’s ineptitude in wielding the massive sledgehammer which he deploys to shatter her (shackled) fore-arm.

(Since I continue to get referrals to my X-Factor post from people directed to it by their Google-image searches for “captured superheroines,” I’ve decided that this post will be text-only.)

At the end of the issue, Carol uses the damaged manacle on her shattered arm to kick Ghazi’s ass and escape -- she’s got a long journey home.

One more distinction between this comic and X-Factor #5: a prior issue of Ms. Marvel (rather inexplicably) showed Carol beginning to re-kick Ghazi’s ass. So we now see that in addition to the escape beat-down she administered to the bastard, there’s more retributive violence in store. (In this regard, Brian Reed, the book’s writer, does for Carol what Peter David has not, to my knowledge, done for Siryn in X-Factor.)

So where does all this leave me?

I’m disgruntled. Although I know that people are being mis-treated in ‘the real world’ as I type this, I don’t read comics to see how it’s being done.

My considered opinion is this:

If you are a writer and you have made the creative decision to subject a character in your story to torture, I would urge you to err on the side of discretion. Suggest things to me. Let my imagination provide details.

Although extended depictions of righteous ass-kicking and retributive, justified violence are OK with me, the same is just not true for torture.

I’ll close by noting that I wouldn’t want to actually read a comic book in which a thoroughly loathsome character -- someone like the rapist Dr. Light -- were treated in the way that Carol Danvers is treated by her captor in Ms. Marvel #32.

Compare + Contrast

2008-10-22T07:18:00.000-04:00

Here again is Alex Ross’ wonderful cover for Batman #685:

Is this young woman, photographed at the San Diego Comic-Con, Ross’ model for Selina Kyle?

I think so, and I wonder if others agree with me.

You Gotta Have Heart ...

2008-10-21T22:17:00.001-04:00

Lame, reference, I know, but I couldn’t resist!

It looks like Selina Kyle’s heart is restored to her -- or she gets someone else’s heart, instead, or something ...

From the January solicits:

BATMAN #685
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs
Cover by Alex Ross
A “Faces of Evil” issue starring Catwoman! Continuing from this month’s DETECTIVE COMICS #852, Selina Kyle’s path of vengeance against Hush knows no bounds! After confronting the man responsible for nearly destroying her life, Selina’s wrath propels her into a downward spiral. With Tommy Elliot almost certain to suffer dire consequences, could Catwoman’s humanity be next to perish?
And be sure to check out part one of this story on page 77!
On sale January 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Though I know that I’m jinxing things by saying so, I am very glad that Catwoman survives!

Legions!

2008-10-16T12:10:00.001-04:00

I have a satisfied smile on my face after reading Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #2.

Geoff Johns nicely brings together plot-lines from across the DCU -- factoids that I rather desultorily absorbed during the JSA/JLA “Lightning Saga” cross-over now seem relevant to me. Superboy-Prime is still annoying, but the fact that he’s channeled his petulance in order to gather and deploy a formidable anti-Legion of baddies makes him a much more credible menace.

I can’t profess to being a fan of the Legion -- I didn’t grow up reading the books, and my experience with the recent iteration of the team is limited to the plot-line involving Supergirl’s travel to the 31st century (following the One Year Later stunt). However, what I am most emphatically a fan of is the cosmic-level visual story-telling that George Peréz seems to produce instinctively now. I liked his work with Mark Waid on the Brave and the Bold, and I like what he’s doing here very much.

Reading this comic brought to mind experiences I’ve had while listening to music: the sheer pleasure of appreciating the work of a fine artist in their maturity. While you can see how they might be hewing to some formulaic parameters, there’s joy in seeing someone master the form -- even the elements that might seem a bit shop-worn.

Bad News

2008-10-13T18:30:00.001-04:00

Tom DeFalco has made public that the final issue of Spider-Girl will be #30.

(Newsarama picked up a posting made by DeFalco at the SG page at the Comic Boards on Sunday.)

DeFalco reports that the character will regularly appear in the Amazing Spider-Man Family book.

I can’t say that this was an unexpected announcement: the title’s numbers have been at the same problematically low level since the re-launch.

I’ve enjoyed this book over the years, and will be sorry to see it come to an end.

Supergirl #34

2008-10-11T18:06:00.001-04:00

After several years of aimless meandering -- a problematic period marred by epically bad story-telling, idiotic plot developments, and some truly terrible characterization and art, this title appears to have righted itself.

Jamal Igle, an artist whose work I have followed since taking note of his assured penceling on Firestorm, is in fine form. Dynamic, well-wrought art makes a big difference -- there seems to be something always going on in Igle’s panels.

And Sterling Gates turns in a good story -- it’s not a take on earth-shattering, philosophic questions, or the crazy follow-up to Supergirl’s (stupid) promise to keep a young boy from dying. What’s on offer is just a competent, straight-ahead comic book story, delivered in three acts:

In the first, after Cat Grant writes an attack article on Supergirl in the Daily Planet, the public turns on the young Kryptonian. She’s seen as an irresponsible teen-ager unworthy of Superman’s legacy, and Kara takes the public’s disapproval to heart. Superman suggests that perhaps part of her problem is that she’s Supergirl 24 hours a day -- maybe a secret identity would help things? (This was the same advice that Supes offered to Wonder Woman at the end of 52 -- is this all he’s got?)

In the second act, Kara seeks advice on secret identities, visiting with the Teen Titans and Wonder Woman. Robin offers Conner Kent’s glasses to her -- a nice touch, and though a heavy-handed writer might have ruined the scene, it’s not over-played here.

Kara talks to Wonder Woman while they’re subduing a giant eagle that shoots flames out of it’s beak in a scene that acknowledges the inherent weirdness of the DC universe. (And deploys Diana’s invisible plane to good effect.) I appreciated that the writer didn’t see the need to stop and congratulate himself about how he had managed to bring together the strange and the mundane.

Finally, while licking her wounds in Smallville, Kara figures out what she’s going to do. Martha Kent engineers a meeting between Kara and Lana Lang -- it turns out the two young women are dealing with the same problem. They have given in to the tendency to hide from a world that seems to have rejected and wounded them. In the finest tradition -- one often on display in movies and comic books -- a single, meaningful conversation is enough to get both Lana and Kara to see the light. It’s on to Metropolis for these two!

Although it sounds like I’m being cynical, I’m not. I appreciated that this comic took aim at a single story and deployed Igle’s impressive artwork to very good effect. All of the parts of an enjoyable comic are here, and I don’t ask for all that much: a nice opening splash page, several decent fights, character development and motivation, all followed by a final splash image that delivers the hook for the next issue.

Astro City Character Special: Beautie

2008-06-02T12:06:00.001-04:00

I was killing time in the comic store on graduation afternoon, and picked up this comic, several months after it initially went on sale.

Although I have never read any of the Astro City series, I really enjoyed this.

Beautie, a life-sized cyborg with super-strength, invulnerability, and the ability to fly, is a protector of humankind. (Thank goodness.) Although she is a fighting member of the Honor Guard, and is valued and highly-regarded by her team-mates, she unable to interact or connect with them in a way that’s satisfying to anyone involved.

Kurt Busiek creates a compelling story for the character in this single-issue comic book. It’s a well-executed quest narrative: like Frankenstein, Data, Pinocchio, and the doomed clones at the center of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, Beautie is a near-human whose earnest search for her identity is actually a sign that she is already in possession of the humanity she craves.

Beautie poses a sequence of fundamental questions, asking: where did I come from? who made me? and why was I made?

In a final Memento-like touch, we learn that this is a quest that Beautie has actually initiated and completed more than once -- her creator’s programming actively frustrates her attempts to acquire and retain the answers that she is able to attain.

Although it’s not clear how many previous iterations of the search there have been, at the close of the story we’re offered hope that Beautie’s cycle might soon come to an end.

Attention, Fans of (Miss) Fury!

2008-02-26T08:24:00.008-05:00

The Comics Journal #288 includes 30+ color pages by Tarpé Mills, presented by Trina Robbins. The overwhelming majority of the comics reprinted are wonderful Miss Fury strips.

The color pages are a revelation, adding depth to Mills' characterizations. I was rationing my reading of the George Herriman cartoons reprinted in the previous issue of the Journal, and plan to do the same with these.

My fervent hope is that Trina Robbins is working on a complete reprint of Miss Fury (+ color), or, better yet, a biography of Tarpe Mills.

I would stand in line during a 12-hour thunder storm to buy either of those items.

(Image swiped from lambiek.net)

Thanks, Gail Simone!

2007-11-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

Although there's too much on my plate today to allow for a review of Gail Simone's nice first issue as writer on Wonder Woman, I wanted to comment on a particular panel from the book that made my day.

There's a lot going on in the comic, including the (re)introduction of a key character, but for my money, I found Diana's saying I know exactly who I am immensely satisfying.

Gail Simone made reference to this in her recent interview at Newsarama:

I can organically take the next step, a move I think is crucial to how she will be portrayed under my watch — my Diana knows who she is. She’s confident and at ease with herself. That’s not to say that she won’t misstep, but it won’t be out of doubt as to her self-worth or importance.

Simone has certainly delivered on that promise, and this important shift in Diana's characterization contributes to the sense that the book has been positively transformed.

Let's Focus on the Positive

2007-11-03T17:06:00.000-04:00

Several comics related surprises this week:

(1) El Cazador, the adventure series about an early modern female pirate that I have rhapsodized about in the past, came out in a nicely produced trade paperback that I picked up at my comic store on Wednesday. Even though I have all of the individual issues in my possession, I bought the book anyway: the good ones that I like I buy in multiple formats.

I was totally unaware that the TPB of this series was even coming out, so talk about pleasant surprises! Best part of it all: the final page of the TPB contains a "To Be Continued" ribbon on it. I am hoping very much that the rest of this story, which was left unpublished due to the bankruptcy of CrossGen, will finally make it into print.

(2) I have been looking for issue #12 of Charles Burns' Black Hole for quite some time, and I finally acquired it.

Yes, I do own the hardcover book published by Pantheon, but I have been collecting the individual issues, too.

(3) Having heard good things about it, I purchased Nick Abadzis' book Laika (First Second Books), which is a graphic novelization of the life of the dog that the Soviets shot into earth orbit as a follow-up to their launch of Sputnik. Man, it is indeed a very fine book that I recommend to one and all.

(4) The best for last: JSA #10 has the Kingdom Come Superman informing our heroes that he has fought side by side with other versions of them.

It's a very nice touch to have Wildcat be the one to say: "Power Woman?"

Three Reactions

2007-10-18T10:30:00.001-04:00

Spoilers follow in abundance.

—Catwoman #72
To paraphrase Gabriel Garcia Marquez: never was the sundering of a mother-child bond more foretold.

Now that the character has been put through a soul-crushing, much-expected psychological trauma, can we all move on, now?

I'm going to pretend the whole "One Year Later" story-line never happened, and am using this as the image with which I move forward with the character:

—The Brave and the Bold #7
A satisfying story teaming Wonder Woman and Power Girl, who join forces to save a Superman-in-distress. Like Starsky and Hutch, Martin and Lewis, and Abbot and Costello: two great characters that go great together.

My favorite line in the entire comic is Power Girl's "No" answer to Wonder Woman's exasperated question.

—The Death of the New Gods #1
Upon discovering the body of his beloved, Mr. Miracle (understandably) begins to make use of the Anti-Life Equation, and then stops himself because, he realizes, Barda would not have wanted him to.

Scott, although you've pretty much been an exemplary husband up 'til now, you must realize that you can't really know what what Barda would have wanted unless you specifically asked.

I'm hoping, of course, that the impending changes to the DC universe fix this ... someway, somehow ... when the dust clears.

Cooke's Power Girl

2007-09-09T11:15:00.001-04:00

Dirk Deppey originally posted this cover to the upcoming Comics Journal #285 at his ¡Journalista! blog several weeks ago, and although Darwyn Cooke's magnificent drawing has been widely disseminated 'round the web, I wanted to post and briefly comment upon it here.

Although Cooke references the Power Girl's breasts, I think it's wonderful that he does so without actually depicting her characteristic "cleavage window." In fact, her mirror pretty much obscures her chest, something which enables the artist to make her eyes a focal point of the image.

Cooke's deployment of a mirror brought to mind two paintings by Velasquez. In "Venus at her Mirror" (1649-51), the painter reveals Venus' face through its reflection in a mirror; we're not able to see the godess' features directly "from life." Similarly, in Cooke's drawing the mirror obscures one of the subject's features, rather than reflect or reveal it to the viewer.

However, I think the trick that Velasquez pulls in "Las Meninas" (1656-7) is closer to the spirit of what Cooke does in his drawing.

Like PG's hand-held, the mirror on the wall at the center of the painting reflects an image back at the viewer. In Velasquez's case, we can actually see what's in the mirror: it's the king and queen of Spain.

In a metaphorical sense, though, the mirror actually depicts whoever stands to take a look at the tableau in the painting: if we entered that room, we would be reflected in the mirror. "Las Meninas" is about lines of perspective, points of view, and our ability and desire to look.

Cooke's drawing reveals him to be interested in the same things.

The Summer of Supergirl, II

2007-09-08T22:05:00.001-04:00

The creative team of Tony Bedard and Renato Guedes have pulled off a feat nothing short of miraculous, setting Supergirl on a firm footing after a year or more of meandering, confusing, or just plain bad comics.

More to their credit, the two have done so while dealing with the restrictions imposed upon them by two lumbering company-wide crossovers, Amazon Attack! and Countdown.

In Supergirl #20, we're presented with a character who is young and flawed, but also a whole lot more: she's brave, and willing to take risks to make up for her mistakes. But more than anything, Guedes' fabulous art gets across the important fact that Supergirl is strong.

In contrast to recent depictions of her, Guedes draws a Supergirl whose best feature is not that she's a blond, or that she's a babe, or that she possesses a slim waist or impossibly spindly legs. Through care in pencilling the character, Guedes brings home the wonderful fact that what's crucial about her is that Supergirl is incredibly, self-confidently, unapologetically strong.

Supergirl #20 deals with the aftermath of the character's monumentally stupid decision to team up with Wonder Girl, capture the President on Air Force One, and deliver him to the Amazon Queen so that the two might then negotiate an end to the war.

Talk about a straightjacket of a plot element! The comic's cover says it all.

Supergirl's tears immediately brought to mind the fateful cover to Birds of Prey #42, the issue in which Power Girl, already in the midst of a spiral of physical de-powerment, was emotionally crippled as well.

As I've said, I needn't have worried. The writer takes the elements carrying over from Amazons Attack! and turns them into nice opportunities to develop the character. Supergirl #20 provides a Kara-centered narrative growing out of the aftermath of the downing of Air Force One. Bedard introduces a character, the husband of a woman who served with the President on Air Force One, to foreground the human ramifications of Kara's blunder. Rather than whine, act like the victim, or try to pass the buck, Supergirl gets it.

In Supergirl #21, Bedard continues the reclamation project, bringing home Kara's connections to the Kents as surrogate grand-parents to whom she turns for support following her bad decision.

And although I was both uninterested in and horrified by Supergirl's early appearances in the first arc of the Waid/Perez Brave and the Bold, things did improve, and by its close Kara actually makes the central contribution to the heroes' efforts to foil the evil scheme set into motion by the Lords of Luck.

With a new creative team poised to take over on Supergirl, I recognize that things could go south again pretty quickly. However, taking account of all of the recent developments, one could reasonably argue that the summer of 2007 was a good one for fans of Kara Zor-El.

Miss Fury!

2007-09-08T14:37:00.000-04:00

This TPB (Pure Imagination Publishing, 2007) is one of my most prized possessions.

Tarpe Mills is my hero.

Thanks, Trina Robbins!

One Can Hope ...

2007-08-01T08:29:00.000-04:00

From Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters:

Power Girl is to star in her own series, spinning out of "Countdown To Final Crisis."

Gail Simone at the Con

2007-07-30T09:35:00.000-04:00

Gail Simone fielded questions about Wonder Woman during various panels at the San Diego Comic Convention; my anticipation for her run on the title has been heightened even further.

I've reproduced my favorite responses, here:

— During the Big Guns panel, "Gail Simone was asked about her upcoming Wonder Woman run, and replied that she'll establish that the lasso is one of the [most] dangerous weapons in the DC Universe and that they'll make it clear 'who Wonder Woman is.'"

— "Another question for Simone is what she was planning on doing to establish Wonder Woman at an equal 'big gun' level to Batman and Superman.

'We are going to establish that she is the greatest warrior on Earth,' Simone answered."

There were several jokingly-posed questions about who might be killed off in the impending final crisis, which then prompted the following query (and Simone's priceless answer).

— At the New Worlds Order panel a fan asked the panel who they didn't want to kill. Here's what Gail Simone said in reply:

"I would protect every female character in the DCU."

Birds of Prey #108

2007-07-19T06:14:00.001-04:00

Gail Simone's final issue of Birds of Prey crept up on me; I found this comic as satisfying as the recent Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1, or Simone's own Villains United Infinite Crisis Special #1, and I look forward very much to her work on Wonder Woman.

I won't spoil the issue, but Simone clearly understands that certain kinds of stories have to end with the heroine and her antagonist squaring off against one another, mano a mano.

Here's a few of the many things Simone achieved in her run on on Birds of Prey:

— She successfully integrated the One Year Later concept into her book
— Never let us forget that Oracle is the Silver Age Batgirl
— Placed Black Canary at the top tier of martial artists and heroes
— Rejected the Huntress' midriff-baring uniform
— Originated Black Alice
— Integrated Zinda Blake (the Lady Blackhawk) and Big Barda into the team
— Re-wrote Ice's death
— Provided the only memorial (that I know of) to Ted Kord (Blue Beetle)
— Produced a humane, character driven, action-packed comic on schedule

Independence Day, 2007

2007-07-04T00:03:00.000-04:00

Alice B. Sheldon published science fiction under the name of James Tiptree, Jr., and I've been enjoying learning about her remarkable life through the recent biography written by Julie Phillips.

Sheldon served in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps during WWII, and two quotes from the journal she kept at Fort Des Moines in the early 40s seem particularly appropriate today:

What an awakening seeing for the first time in my life a world of women — women glimpsed through doors of canteens offices barracks kitchens guard posts — women plowing through the black mud into the pools of light — women in uniform, looking as though they owned the place — and owning it! Women seen for the first time at ease, unselfconscious, swaggering or thoughtful, sizing everything up openly, businesslike, all personalities all unbeding and unafraid.

***

... [T]he long green lines of women, for the first time in America, in the rain, under the flag, the sound of the band, far off, close, then away again; the immortal fanny of our guide, leading on the right, moved and moving to the music — the flag again — first time I ever felt free enough to be proud of it; the band, our band, playing reveille that morning, with me on KP since 0430 hours, coming to the mess-hall porch to see it pass in the cold streets, under that flaming middle-western dawn; KP itself, and the conviction that one is going to die; the wild ducks flying over that day going to PT after a fifteen-mile drill, and me so moved I saluted them.

(The quotes are from J. Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, [St. Martins, 2007], pp. 109 and 110.)

Amazons Adrift!

2007-07-02T14:10:00.000-04:00

I find myself in agreement with Heidi Meeley on the Amazons Attack! cross-over: the pointlessness of the storyline has pretty much drained any possible fun out of this series for me. The utter implausibility of it all is ruining the enterprise, and I'm not nit-picking about and fantastical elements like resurrections, thoughtless mass murders, or improbable giant bees, either. I'm hung up on the cross-over's problems with important story-telling elements like character motivations, pacing, and the absense of a clear narrative structure.

Even though we're only at the third issue, the story seems drawn out and stretched thin. The heroes have spent an inordinate amount of time simply standing around, making jokes, or, worst of all, crashing into one another: Black Canary's sole function seems to be to serve as a target upon which Wonder Woman periodically drops Nemesis when some jollity is required.

Getting Cassie and Kara involved in Teen Titans #48 was a good move. The government's decision to detain women who have associated with the Amazons certainly adds some dramatic tension. But I couldn't help thinking as I read the issue: shouldn't a team-up of Wonder Girl and Supergirl be able to free Cassie's mom (and everyone in the place) if they had a mind and the will to do so?

Diana has been searching for herself for the past year, and I think it's a major structural problem that part of the plot seems to hinge on the fact that Wonder Woman is unsure of herself, her abilities, and her sense of identity. This is a fairly stilted device through which to drum up dramatic tension, and a bit of a clumsy and empty one, because a hero as experienced as Diana is shouldn't be acting like a teenage girl. Batman and Superman got themselves sorted out in the year that they took off from the DCU, and there's no reason why Wonder Woman couldn't get the job done in 52 weeks, too. I cringed when I read the bit of internal monologue in Wonder Woman #10 in which Diana asks herself if she is good only because her mother taught her to be good.

On a positive note, Wonder Woman #10 closes with the confrontation we've all paid to see: Diana vs. the resurrected, mad Hippolyta. Surely Diana will sort this mess out! However, a major part of the scene's dramatic punch was stolen away by several previous (inconsequential) encounters between mother and daughter.

It's a shame that Wonder Woman and the Amazons have been placed at the center of a cross-over that feels so utterly inconsequential to the workings of the wider DC world. This aspect of things was driven home by a coincidental scheduling quirk: the third issue of the mini-series suffered the indignity of being released on the same day as the Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special, whose final page clearly linked the Green Lantern Corps to the continued existence of the DCU.

In comparison, the story-line I'm following in Amazons Attack! feels like especially small change.

minx 2.0

2007-06-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

How Jen Dik Seong Got Her Ki Back

Mike Carey's Re-Gifters, penciled by Sonny Liew, is an enjoyable read. Although the book is structured around formulaic plot elements and standard character accoutrements, these pieces come together in the service of a storyline that generates empathy for the characters and suspense regarding the final outcome.

Plot elements:
— Jen Dik Seong (Dixie) is a Hopkido black belt whom we meet in the lead-up to her prep for the national championships. Dixie is really good at Hopkido.

— Dixie is in unrequitedly in love with Brad, a white dude in her sparring group who is all wrong for her.

— Dixie's dad, who lost his business during the LA riots, is struggling to get back on his financial feet.

— Dixie learns that the neighborhood bad boy, Dillinger, is actually a really nice cool boy named Tomas.

— Dixie throws away the entrance money for the big competition on a birthday gift for Brad. (Brad turns around and gives the gift, a statue of a warrior, to the girl he pines after ...)

Character elements:
— Dixie is small, loud, and the school firebrand, known for her temper and feistiness. (Her teacher refers to her in-class eruptions as "visitations from Planet Dickson.")

— Dixie seeks to reclaim the inner serenity (ki) snatched from her by her intense feelings for Brad.

— Dixie's family is nuclear, supportive, and her parents are socially strict in the manner practiced, it seems, only by immigrant families.

— Dixie has one friend, Avril, who truly understands her.

Early in the book, Dixie gets into a scrape when she walks through the wrong part of town; the city's fractious racial geography emerges as a crucial plot element:

Dillinger is introduced in this scene; he talks down his buddies and defuses the situation. As the sensible alpha male of the neighborhood's Latino street toughs, he provides a stark contrast to the blandly white and weasle-like Brad.

As the plot progresses, Dixie earns the respect of the honorable boys, even those who earlier displayed racial animosity towards her, by decisively vanquishing each of them on the field of battle.

At a later competition, Dillinger himself goes from her street protector to the victim of her greater Hopkido mojo:

Before she does, the reader recognizes that Dillinger is Dixie's perfect match because he is man enough to accept that she can defeat him.

Re-Gifters cleverly combines the warrior's quest, the immigrant story, and a young love triangle. Comparing the first two Minx titles, I'd have to say that Re-Gifters is the better plotted and paced of the two, and proves that the building blocks don't need to be particularly original for a narrative to be satisfying.

As Pauline Kael used to say: it's corn, but it's good corn.

In Good Hands

2007-06-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

Marvel has announced that Terry Moore will take up writing duties on Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane.

This is great news! Although I had actually resigned myself to dropping the book because of the loss of both Sean McKeever and Takeshi Miyazawa, I'm more than happy to keep reading a Moore-authored book (whoever the artist might be).

Supergirl #18

2007-06-08T17:10:00.000-04:00

When I try to sort out how all the plot elements are supposed to fit together, things get impossibly confusing.

So let me just say that Supergirl has been put to the test, and she passed.

So spoke the Monitor: she is indeed the one true Supergirl.

The Summer of Supergirl?

2007-06-02T21:16:00.000-04:00

The online comic press brought some hopeful news regarding the direction of the Supergirl comic book, which has been going through some considerable growing pains over the past year.

Two very heartening quotes from Tony Bedard, who will soon take up duties as the writer of Supergirl, are contained in his interview with the Pulse:

I'm just sticking to the basics: Kara is from Krypton, she's insanely powerful, but she wants to be good. I also happen to think she needs to eat a sandwich and cover up a bit, but then I'm a father.

I have basic expectations about what's appropriate for a character with the "S" on her chest. I don't think that's a limitation -- it points the way toward the proper area in which to search for fresh material. She's not a dark avenger or Goth punk. She's a strange visitor from another planet who should embody all that's best in humanity and in America. That's right, America. The land of immigrants who make good.

The article is accompanied by a series of drawings by Renato Guedes, who will pencil for Bedard. As evidence of how he plans to depict the character, they point to a very nice change of direction for how Supergirl will look in her own book.

Filled with encouragement over this welcome sharpening of the character's focus, I was further heartened by this week's Action Comics #850, written by Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns, and Fabien Nicieza, and penciled by none other than Renato Guedes.

The story, titled "Superman: Past, Present ... and Future!" provides a well-written overview of Superman's career. What gives the story added punch, for me, is that the selected portions of Superman's past are witnessed by Supergirl and some of the Legion of Superheroes.

Brainiac5 builds a chronal machine that will allow Kara to look back a thousand years into her past. However, rather than look at her own life, which seems like a daunting prospect to the teen-ager, Kara decides to take a look at her cousin's life. Although everyone else thinks Superman is a selfless hero, Supergirl informs her comrades that she actually feels he's something of a superpowered, domineering jerk.

The issue works to show the reader that Supergirl finally comes to understand why Superman has been such an over-protective, bossy, and smothering elder cousin.

In particular, I was pleased to see this panel:

Although Kara's been through moments of enlightenment like this in the past, it's very satisfying to hear her say I get it with conviction, and in a context that leads me to believe that perhaps, after all this time, she might actually be on her way towards acting like a hero who understands who she is and how she might constructively interact with those who love her.

This development can only make her a more appealing, effective superhero, and I can say, at last, that I am looking forward to future Kara-related developments.

AH! Digs Deeper

2007-05-23T08:21:00.000-04:00

There were several things that I found discordant in Adam Hughes' defense of his Mary Jane statue over at newsarama.com.

Hughes' argument that our society's presumed over-sensitivity to race/racism is an analogue to the unfounded charges of sexism leveled against him is unfortunate. The interviewer tries to draw him back from this stance, but Hughes proceeds to wade in further and deeper on his own.

Hughes believes that he is in the clear because MJ is not doing Spidey's laundry: she's actually finding his costume in the laundry pile! She's discovering that he's Spider-Man for the first time. Get it now? Clearly, Hughes argues, this makes the statuette non-sexist or, even, anti-sexist.

Primarily, though, I am dismayed by Hughes' I-am-the-victim tone and his some-women-like-my-art defenses.

For now, I wanted to single out just one item from the exchanges for comment:

AH: Well, that’s how I end up looking at this – is it really a sexist or misogynistic act if it wasn’t intended that way on the part of the people doing it? If you perceive something that way, but it wasn’t meant to be that way, and it’s not sending people back to the stone age, is it really a sexist or misogynistic thing that’s going on, or are you seeing something that’s either not there, or that the artist never intended to be there?

My response to Hughes' assertion is simple:

Yes, it is indeed sexism no matter what you intended. What you intended isn't the issue.

Where I live, you still get the traffic ticket even if you tell the cop you didn't intend to run the red light.

What Hughes doesn't understand is that telling women who are already offended by his work that their judgment is ill-founded is not the solution.

The artist problematically presumes that those aggrieved would support rather than condemn him if only they knew more, knew what he knows, or simply knew better. This isn't a valid defense.

It is actually an additional offense.

The Chairwoman of the JSA

2007-05-20T20:00:00.000-04:00

In Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come, an alternate future universe that is partially being folded into the present-day DCU, Kara Zor-L was called Power Woman by her comrades-in-arms.

This is Alex Ross' impressive cover to JSA #8, posted at newsarama.com.

Now, more than ever, calling her Power Girl seems just wrong, doesn't it?

minx 1.0

2007-05-18T22:00:00.000-04:00

I just finished The Plain Janes, and I liked it. Main Jane, the character at the center of the story, is a sympathetic young girl recovering from a trauma that still has got her mother in its grip.

Main Jane embraces and propagates art as her route to normalcy and self-identity, and what struck me is that the writer, Cecil Castellucci, shows her journey as a meandering one. There's no straight road to recovery in the book; Main Jane has her good days and her bad ones, a nice bit of realism.

Main Jane's parents are hair-dressers, proto-typical city folk, and they have decided to flee the city after their daughter is nearly killed in a terror attack. The government's fear-based responses to the ongoing terror threats produce ripple effects that reach even the small town to which Jane's family has relocated.

The state's pervasive fear-reaction exerts pressure on the Janes' school: the way it's monitored and run changes for the worse. Any teen book worth its salt has got to get across that schools can both serve as arenas of adolescent self-discovery and stultifying penal servitude. The Plain Janes definitely nails this.

Main Jane and the other People Loving Art In Neighborhoods (P.L.A.I.N.) girls, Brain Jane, Theater Jane, and Sporty Jane, start out as the lunch-room outcasts, band together as neighborhood art pranksters, and end up as bona fide threats to the public order of the school and town. By the close of the book they're seen as role models and inspiring heroes.

The story-telling is easy-going, with Castellucci nicely deploying epistolary narration throughout the book. On the minus side of the ledger, the characterization of the supporting players was a bit on the thin side, and I was peeved that Main Jane's boy-interest got to pull the MacGuyver that brought to fruition the team's culminating, Kramer-esque work of very public art. Having said that, though, my reaction to the novel was overwhelmingly positive.

A single panel justified the price of the book, for me. Sporty Jane is consistently drawn with a low-key, though noticeable, Frida Kahlo-style uni-brow. The team's plan for their culminating act of public art requires them to operate under deep cover as normal teens enjoying a vapid New Year's Eve party.

During the prep for the big night, Main Jane does Sporty's hair, which leads to this priceless exchange:

MJ MC2

2007-05-18T10:45:00.000-04:00

Amazing Spider-Girl #8
Mary Jane provides the narration for this effective Mother's Day issue, which is one of the few from the re-launched series that I've read more than once. What made this a good comic was the way that the writer, Tom DeFalco, handled the plot-device of the Watson-Parker sense of responsibility.

Mary Jane gets that May's sense of responsibility is what drives her daughter to wear the costume and fight crime. What's even better is that she also realizes that her own responsibility to May goes beyond clothing, feeding, housing, educating, and protecting her: she's also got to accept her daughter for who she is, and allow her to act in the world as that person. (The title of the story is "The Closet!")

Given the image of the idiotic statuette that appears to have broken the Internet in half, it's the MC2 universe's Mary Jane that I prefer to reproduce here at Mortlake:

Local #9
Megan is informed of her mother's death in the early pages, and reflects upon an uneasy relationship. Her recollections are organized around the various stages at which she ran away from home.

Her mother allowed her the freedom to make decisions on her own, and Megan realizes that she wasn't ready to have the kind of autonomy at the time it was given to her.

The issue avoids easy sentimentality, and conveys an essential truth: children estranged from a parent can actually have a clear and empathetic understanding of how and why the parent thinks, feels, and acts the way that they do.

JLA #9
I've realized that I prefer my comics to follow the Law and Order formula: the central characters can certainly have personal lives and engage in profound, transitory, or sordid relationships with wives, boyfriends, and casual acquaintances, but I don't need to see that stuff for the stories of their battles against injustice to work.

Meltzer's devoting a single panel to the Power Girl/Hawkman kiss, and a series of four panels to the entire relationship, felt right to me.

Countdown
I am not connecting with Countdown at all so far, and have even found myself skipping the "villain sections" of the issues. Like the Joker, I do find myself hoping that Duela Dent is not actually dead. A DCU with a teen version of the Joker running around in it is an interesting place.

Spider-Woman III, Redeemed

2007-05-15T12:15:00.000-04:00

The last time I caught sight of Mattie Franklin was in the pages of Brian Michael Bendis's Alias. In issue #10 the Marvel Universe's only active Spider-Woman broke into Jessica Jones' apartment expecting to find Jessica Drew. (Maybe her Rolodex was organized by first names.)

Mattie Franklin was in poor shape. (And what's worse, she was served up as the story-line's damsel in distress.) She had fallen in with the wrong crowd, staggered around in a drug-induced haze, and suffered the serial indignity of having her body gruesomely harvested by a smarmy, pimp-like, drug-dealing boyfriend to produce Mutant Growth Hormone. (A process which was depicted at one point on-panel.)

At the close of the story arc, Mattie was rescued by the Bendis dream-team of Jessica Jones and Jessica Drew, and restored to her guardians, J. Jonah Jameson and his wife. And though she was little more than a plot device, she served the plot fairly well in that capacity. She evoked the reader's sympathy, and elicited fierce maternal and protective responses from Jessica Jones.

However, Mattie was almost entirely passive throughout the story. She suffered an ordeal, and was delivered from it through the actions of other characters.

Given this bit of fictional ignominy lurking in her recent back-story, I've been gratified to see Mattie Franklin cast as one of the central figures in C.B. Cebulski's Runaways spin-off called The Loners.

She's tracked the bastards who exploited her to L.A.; attends a support group for retired teen super-heroes solely in order to recruit some assistance; takes little crap from anyone; and, most importantly, is actively setting her life in order by punishing those who screwed with it in the past.

Contrary to her characterization in Alias, Mattie comes across as a different kind of compelling figure in this book, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

Amazons Attack! + Wonder Woman #8.

2007-05-08T08:10:00.000-04:00

Here's what I liked about the issues:

1) Dodson's art in Wonder Woman #8; Woods' art in Amazons Attack!

2) That Hippolyta's first post-resurrection thoughts and words are about Diana.

3) Diana taking care of the guards, and then creating a tunnel with her fists. The Silver Age Superman used to do this all the time, and for some reason I think it's cool.

4) If the comic world is ruled by cross-over "events," it's somewhat nice that Wonder Woman is at the center of one of them.

What I disliked:

1) I know I sound like some kind of an extremist, or purist, here, but it bugged me that Nemesis rescued Diana.

2) The "light-hearted" banter between Diana and Nemesis bothered me, too.

3) Nemesis' characterization as a Wonder Woman fanboy who has his wet-dream fulfilled by his interactions with the real Wonder Woman just irks me.

4) The "I've fallen on top of you by accident but like it here" panel was lame.

I suppose I can live with the cold-blooded, murderous, rampaging "Amazons" in the first issue, so long as Diana comes through and makes all of this right in the end. (Unfortunately, I don't see how the resurrected Hippolyta has a long future in the new DCU.)

Reading Habits

2007-05-07T07:16:00.000-04:00

I've been enthralled by two sketchbooks:

James Jean, Process Recess: The Art of James Jean, (Adhouse Books, 2005).
Gary Panter, Satiro-Plastic: The Sketchbook of Gary Panter, (Drawn & Quarterly, 2005).

These magazines devoted to sketches and drawings have provided hours of pleasure:

Uovo: Drawing 2004-5, three (fat) volumes.
Esopus #6: Process (2006)
Graphic #10: Diaries, Notebooks, and Sketchbooks (2006)

And I've been reading these books:

Tara McPherson, Lonely Heart: The Art of Tara McPherson, (Dark Horse, 2006).

Marina Abramovic, The House with the Ocean View, (Charta, 2004); and Seven Easy Pieces, (Charta, 2007).

Cindy Sherman, The Complete Untitled Film Stills, (Museum of Modern Art, 2003); and A Play of Selves, (Hatje Cantz, 2007).

Book Love

2007-04-21T15:59:00.000-04:00

JLA # 8 delivered this nice set up the upcoming JLA/JSA crossover:

Other stuff happened, but the high point for me was the exchange between Batman and Power Girl on the splash-page:

Why did this exchange lead me to geek out?

(1) It's two superheroes discussing a book.
(2) They're discussing a seventeenth-century book!
(3) Power Girl collects early modern books on siege warfare.

She's not cramming on siege warfare, mind you, she's just improving her collection.

Serious Talk in She Hulk #17

2007-04-13T10:47:00.000-04:00

During the pillow-talk following her sexual encounter with Tony Stark, the She Hulk poses a crucial question:

Those are powerful lines to read in a comic book: When I do it, they call me a skank. Isn't that a double-standard?

Unfortunately, the creative team seems to think that posing the question is enough, because the following panel kind of undermines what is an important exchange between Stark and the She Hulk.

I mean, did the artist really have to follow Jennifer's question with a crotch shot?

(What's more, although the reader gets to see her crotch, her face is obscured by her leg.)

For my money, I would have loved Tony Stark to have responded with these lines of dialogue: Jennifer, did you read Civil War? This bed has only got one skank in it, and that'd be me.

Since you asked

2007-04-04T09:56:00.000-04:00

Luke Handley poses a series of questions in his review of JSA #4 at Silver Bullet Comics. Several other reviewers have echoed the same theme.

Here's what he said:

All in all, I like the look of this new Society and do have hopes for the future. Except for one thing. Could someone please explain to me how the hell Power Girl is a good choice for the new Chairman? Chairwoman. Or is the PC version Chairperson nowadays? Never mind. The point is, why? As I said, I’m far from a DC historian, but is there anything in this character’s history that suggests she can coordinate and lead the largest and arguably most powerful assemblage of heroes in the world? Maybe Johns thought it was time to have a female leader, and in that context I guess there’s not much choice. Having said that, Stargirl almost seems a more logical choice for the role.

To his specific question: is there anything in this character’s history that suggests she can coordinate and lead the largest and arguably most powerful assemblage of heroes in the world?

My short answer: Hell yes.

(When time allows, a longer reply will follow.)

Update (4.5.07): I suppose that Mr. Handley now plans to cut and paste a version of this paragraph into his review of JLA #7, replacing the words Power Girl with Black Canary.

Eisner 2.0

2007-03-24T16:17:00.000-04:00

I have been greatly enjoying Darwyn Cooke's new Spirit series; issue #4 came out this week, (re)introducing the hard-as-nails Silk Satin. It just so happens that I picked up one of the Kitchen Sink Spirit color reprints last week (for 25 cents!), which included one of the Satin stories from 1946.

Here are the wonderful panels in which she makes her entrance:

The Kitchen Sink reprint, published in 1983, sports a new cover by the master himself. Given the time difference, this artwork could be considered Eisner v. 1.5:

Although it's an effective cover, it's clearly a take on a manly-man saves the busty babe with torn dress archetype.

Finally, here's Cooke's cover, which leaves no doubt that this is Eisner v. 2.0:

In this take on the same archetype, Satin carries the Spirit.

The issue is narrated by her, as well.

Double Dosage

2007-03-23T07:14:00.000-04:00

Supergirl #15 was out Wednesday, and to multiply the fun, Kara also appeared in The Brave and the Bold #2.

The Pretty Much Good:
In her own title the Maid of Might finally gets down to the urgent business of making out with Power Boy. However, the mood changes when she cuts things short after hearing Boomer call for her from his hospital bed. (He was tortured to within an inch of his life in the previous issue.) Power Boy, who has a special shrine to Kara's awesomeness in his room, goes ballistic and adds physical abuse to his stalker-tendencies. He lays down a beating on Kara the likes of which hasn't been seen in the book since Lex Luthor showed up just before Infinite Crisis.

I suppose the writer believed that the readers needed to see Kara's 'boyfriend' fully deploy his superpowers to beat upon Supergirl in order for us to derive the full satisfaction from her retributive smack-down. (Let's see how good a mimbo you are from here on out with those missing teeth, Apokalips-boy!) I go back and forth on this one, but I'm willing to grant the benefit of the doubt here because Kara does, in the end, utterly pound the crap out of the abusive bastard.

But, having said that, there is an important moment in the flow of things in which the artist chooses to flash Supergirl's panties, which I've got to say almost undermined the whole thing for me.

Marionette had a post a while back titled "Kara's Incredible Super-Skirt" in which she explored the strange fact that even though Kara's skirt was so short, her underoos never came into view; it looks like her clothing now conforms with the laws of physics.

The Thursday Morning Quarterback guys at Wizard noticed this, too. (I swiped the image from them.)

The Ugly:
I was cringing so vigorously as I read The Brave and the Bold #2 that I honestly can't exactly recall the incremental ways the over-arching plot was moved forward. For panels on end, Hal Jordan reminds himself that Kara is 17 years old. For panels on end, Supergirl bats her 17-year-old Kryptonian eye-lashes at him.

I had basically worked out how I was going to comment on this, but Justin, one of the Thursday Morning team at Wizard says it all, here:

JUSTIN: “Wow, this issue is creepy. It isn’t enough that Supergirl continually throws herself at Hal Jordan, who has to keep reminding himself, ‘No bad thoughts. She’s 17.’ No, after GL tells her off and gives her some bizarrely unsolicited romantic advice (‘Maybe you want to find someone, we all do…’) Supergirl decides to fight in an arena match and disguise herself to look non-threatening. So she comes up with…this.”

And, yes, in case you were wondering, this title affords the reader a glimpse of Kara's underwear, too.

The Pause That Refreshes

2007-03-22T13:52:00.001-04:00

Birds of Prey #104 provided me with just about everything I want in a comic:

— Nice writing, pacing, and plotting.

— Storytelling through characterization, with art complementing this.

— Headliners acting totally badass.

— A surprise guest star who grabs the spotlight, and then just as easily gives it back.

— Over-the-top, totally justifiable violence, with attendant excessive property damage.

— A ball scene, with men and women appearing in formal wear.

— Grudges put into place, with long-term enmities set into motion.

And for good measure, the writer threw in a final splash page that made me want to paraphrase Patton: Simone, I found myself muttering, you magnificent bastard ...!

I'm Still Here

2007-03-01T15:34:00.000-05:00

In my senior year of high school Mr. C., one of the long-time mathematics teachers, suffered a psychotic break or Tourette syndrome-type eruption over some kid drinking a Coke in his class. He grabbed the can from him, hurled it across the room, all the while rhythmically shouting this phrase: Even though you really want to, you're not going to get me, boys! (I went to an all-male Jesuit outfit.) Mr. C. just couldn't get himself to stop repeating this at the top of his voice.

And I can remember thinking: the guy's a teacher, for goodness' sake! It's not like he's a brain surgeon or anything! Get it together, you embarrassing old person!

However, this academic year has been so crammed with teaching, grading, advising, and professional responsibilities, that I find myself in deep sympathy with Mr. C. I can honestly say that I totally understand where he was coming from.

Things I've been reading:
Paul Budnitz, I Am Plastic: The Designer Toy Explosion, (Abrams, 2006).
Willaim Steig, Till Death Do Us Part, (Duell, Sloane, and Pearce, 1947).
Marina Abramovic, The House With the Ocean View, (Charta, 2003).
Joann Sfar, Vampire Loves, (First Second, 2006).
Blain, Sfar, and Trondheim, Dungeon vol. 1: The Night Shirt, (NBM, 2001/5).
Robert Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country, (Abrams, 2006).

Comics I've enjoyed:
(1) Those 2 issues of Ms. Marvel (#9 & #10) in which she meets the alternate version of herself that's been killing all of the alternate Rogues she can find. The second installment of this story came out just when the mailman delivered the 2 disc set of one of my favorite movies, Kristof Kieslowski's Double Life of Veronique, which is also about dual realities and people existing in alternate versions.

(2) Marvel Adventures Avengers #9 had this sublime moment in which the M.O.D.Avengers ridicule an adversary:

SPIDOC: He can barely compute the value of Pi with that tiny brain.
The Leader: I'm really smart ...
SPIDOC: Hah! You'll never rule the world, simpleton. Perhaps go into teaching.
HULKDOC: Fah. He would barely make tenure with that wee skull.

(3-7) Ross and Braithwaite's Justice, Darwyn Cooke's Spirit, All Star Superman #6, Runaways, and Jeff Smith's Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil.

And though I was indeed deflated by the ending of Civil War, it seems to fit Marvel's SOP to deploy a half-conclusion which also serves as the starting point for the next cross-over. I'm a crazy optimist, I know, but I just can't believe that the folks over at Marvel have (unknowingly) crafted a neo-fascist system to serve as the legitimate status quo for their universe. I'm thinking that Iron Man's new world order has got to be the seed for their Next Big Thing.

High point of CW #7: Hercules smashing the bejeeduff out of the Thor clone. (Man, that was satisfying! Though Herc's dialogue while doing the smashing was lame.) Absolute low point: Reed's letter to Sue.

In Case You Were Wondering ...

2007-02-01T05:30:00.000-05:00

Occasional Superheroine provides an insider's view on how DC made a fateful decision to redirect the Supergirl brand:

Of course, the whole crap with the current Supergirl started when Leonard Kirk was pulled off the book about 5 years ago and replaced with Ed Benes. Kirk's rendering of Supergirl, assisted by the very capable Robin Riggs, was one of the most realistic and yet attractive illustrations of a teenage girl I've ever seen in comics. There was never a sense of "exploitation" in his pencils -- just a sense of humanity and fun.

In contrast, Ed Benes's version of Supergirl was pure sex.

At the time, the book was going to be cancelled and frantic brainstorming went on as to how to revitalize the character's image. It was thought that Kirk's rendering was "too boring" and could not compete in an industry full of Witchblades, Fathoms, Lara Crofts, and the sexy Mutant-of-the-Week. The word was -- we need a hot new artist.

So this one idiot came up with a brilliant idea:

"Hey, you know that guy from 'Gen 13?' His stuff is really good, nice and sexy. Look at the body on Fairchild. Wow. Maybe we can use him?"

Based on this suggestion, Benes was put on the cancelled "Supergirl" as an experiment.

Sales went through the roof.

Supergirl was now one hot piece of ass. As were all the female characters in the book. Including the granny.

"Supergirl" was still cancelled, but based on the sales, a new path for the character was set.

And you know who came up with the idea of putting Ed Benes on "Supergirl?"

...

I did.

I was directed to this post by Shelly.

Though I haven't posted recently, I've been following the various entries about Supergirl with interest. The Occasional Superheroine's post is definitely worth reading in its entirety, (as is Shelly's reaction to it).

While this doesn't surprise me in any way, seeing my suspicions about this matter confirmed has been a definite downer.

Taking Stock, II

2007-01-01T08:51:00.000-05:00

These were my favorite non-superhero comics of 2006:

I. Graphic novels:

Jessica Abel, La Perdida, (Pantheon).

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragi-Comic, (Houghton Mifflin).

Renée French, The Ticking, (Top Shelf).

Miriam Katin, We Are On Our Own, (Drawn & Quarterly).

II. Story Collections:

Gabrielle Bell, Lucky, (Drawn & Quarterly).

Dupuy & Berberian, Get A Life, (Drawn & Quarterly).

Jaime Hernandez, Ghost of Hoppers, (Fantagraphics).

Megan Kelso, The Squirrel Mother, (Fantagraphics).

Lauren Weinstein, Girl Stories, (Henry Holt).

III. Strip Collections:

Roz Chast, Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons, 1978-2006, (Bloomsbury USA)

IV. Single Issue/Story:

Gabrielle Bell, My Affliction, a mini-comic.

Ivan Brunetti, Schizo #4, (Fantagraphics).

Gilbert Hernandez, New Tales of Old Palomar #1, (Fantagraphics).

V. Anthology:

MOME, (Fantagraphics; quarterly).

Taking Stock

2006-12-30T22:14:00.000-05:00

To begin, here's my list of the year's pleasures and pleasant surprises.

I. Ongoing titles whose appearance I eagerly await each month:

(1) Peter David's X-Factor (Marvel).

(2) Brian Reed's Ms. Marvel (Marvel).

(3) Brian K. Vaughn's Runaways (Marvel). Even despite Gert's death; Alphona's art is a crucial component.

(4) Gail Simone's Birds of Prey (DC). Without doubt, Simone made one of the most fruitful and effective uses of the One Year Later concept.

(5) Dan Slott's The She-Hulk (Marvel).

(6) Sean McKeever's Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (Marvel). Takeshi Miyazawa's wonderful artwork is as important as McKeever's writing.

II. Satisfying individual issues:

(1) Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #2, art by Ryan Sook. There is so much going on here visually that I still re-read this comic with pleasure.

(2) Jeph Loeb's Supergirl #5. Bruce, Diana, Clark, and Kara confront the evil Supergirl and answer the question: who is this new Kara?

(3) Warren Ellis' Desolation Jones #2. I entirely agree with Mr. Fossen.

Three New Avengers (written by Bendis):

(4) Luke Cage and Jessica Jones get married in Annual #1;

(5) Luke Cage's Civil War tie-in issue (#22); and

(6) Jessica Drew's Civil War issue (#23).

(7) Ed Brubaker's Captain America #22. Sharon Carter's interactions with the outlawed Captain America.

(8) Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #5. Gwen Stacy arrives in town, just when MJ decides...

(9) Marc Andreyko's Manhunter #26. Wonder Woman meets Kate Spencer.

(10) Gail Simone's Villains United Infinite Crisis Special. Setting the stage for the defense of Metropolis.

III. Enjoyable limited series, and nice runs within titles:

(1) Ted Naifeh's Polly and the Pirates (Oni Press).

(2) Krueger/Braithwaite/Ross Justice (DC).

(3) Mark Millar's Civil War (Marvel). What can I say? I'm enjoying it.

(4) Chris Claremont's issues of New Excalibur (Marvel).

(5) Stuart Moore's writing and Jamal Iggle's art made Firestorm: The Nuclear Man (DC) a pleasure to read. Another excellent One Year Later transition.

And now, 5 things that I found unsatisfying:

(1) I was disappointed in the ending of Infinite Crisis. For me, the resolution just didn't match the story's set-up. (Though I'll admit that it read better as a collected volume.) Call me bloodthirsty, but I can't help thinking that it would have been more compelling if Nightwing had died and if the Amazons had launched an attack in defense of Diana in the run-up to the series. After the second issue, I felt that the plot was structured around a series of "moments," eschewing character development and realization, things that fully engage me in a story.

(2) Speaking of Diana, I'm not pleased that the Wonder Woman re-launch has been stuttering and limping along, while Batman and Superman have landed on their feet after the One Year Later stunt. It seems to me that the marvelous character who appeared in Manhunter #26 should also be present in her own (reguarly appearing) title. Although the news that an Amazons Attack mini-series is in the works shows some sign that the editorial team recognizes that this corner of the DCU requires some attention, I don't think it will be sufficient.

(3) Wizard magazine informed us that this was going to be Spider Woman's year, and it just hasn't happened. Unfortunately, I thought the Spider-Woman: Origin series was just OK; I was expecting more. (Although this too went down better in a single sitting than it did in month-to-month readings.) And I enjoyed the New Avengers issues that focused on Jessica Drew's re-powering, her intrigues with HYDRA and Nick Fury, and her decision to choose a side in Civil War. What's really disappointed me is the absence of the promised stand-alone ongoing title which might have better established the character as an independent force in the Marvel Universe.

(4) I've been let-down by the Supergirl title. And it's not the characterization of Kara as a supremely powerful "little girl lost" whose brain has been pretty much fried by an evil parent; I thought this theme worked very well in Carrie, and there's no reason that it can't work here, too. It's just that the title's pacing is screwed up. Let me give you one example: why was the incredibly nicely drawn and entertaining Amanda Conner issue (#12) inserted between numbers 11 and 13, which clearly should have been published and read one after the other? Also, Joe Kelly's writing makes me feel like the book should have footnotes: who were the villains in #13? I mean, I don't have to know exactly who they are to get the story, but ...

(5) The resolution of the "who the daddy" question introduced into the Catwoman title let me down this year. You know, I don't have a problem with Selina Kyle being a mother. What I did find problematic was the non-resolution of the "paternity question" month after laborious month. There was no tension; it was clear that Selina was going to be a single mom; and by the time I was told the full story in issue #62, I had stopped caring who the father of the child actually was.

Self-Identification

2006-12-29T15:13:00.000-05:00

Upon reading Steve Bennett's latest "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy" column at ICv2, it's hit me that I'm a (40+ year-old) tween.

Here's how Bennett defines what we want:

Although today's kids are increasingly exposed to more adult material, they still have a need to feel safe, making them seek out material innocuous and reassuring, explaining the success of such inoffensive fare as the Suite Life of Zack and Cody and That's So Raven. They certainly seem to be hungry for stories about (relatively) ordinary kids in situations that reflect upon their hopes and fears - and doesn't that sound more than a little like what Archie Comics has been doing for decades? With a little tweaking the company is uniquely situated to provide kids with the sort of innocent romance (in, not surprisingly, close to a manga format) that tweens now crave.

In assessing whether DC or Marvel is meeting the demands of us tweens, Bennett concludes that they're just not:

DC has a sixteen year old Supergirl reconfigured by Joe Kelly (a talented writer whose work I intellectually appreciate but can't say I often actually enjoy) as a Satanic Teenage Time Bomb. And Marvel fifteen year old X-23, a teen girl Wolverine clone who up until recently was an assassin and part time prostitute who wears black leather bondage gear. I can understand why both publishers haven't tried to appeal to an audience that isn't there (yet); but can't help feeling uncomfortable seeing underage female characters being treated in such demeaning, sexualized ways. Sometimes it really does seem like both publishers are doing their best to appeal to perverts and get the lead spot on tonight's edition of the 700 Club.

Just for the record, in Supergirl #13 Kelly may have pulled the character out of her Satanic Time Bomb spiral. Whether it's enough, though, is still up in the air.

Bennett next goes on to address what he'd like to see in the future, and I found myself in perfect agreement:

So, what do I want? In the ... Wall Street piece [that discussed the Archie re-vamp] there's a quote from Archie chairman Michael I. Silberkleit about the various ways their characters are drawn that I'd like to share with you:

"Why are there seven different Chevrolets? There's one that people like this way and one that people like that way."

Meaning, this isn't an either or situation, you can have classic and post-modern versions of characters existing side by side with each other. DC is already selectively practicing this. To appeal to the mainstream super-hero reader there's the Trial of Shazam Captain Marvel and for everyone else there's Jeff Smith's upcoming rendition of the classic incarnation. It'll probably come as no surprise that I prefer the utter wish fulfillment of the original, but until a lot more kids start coming into Dark Star [his comic shop] I can't ignore the way copies of Trial of Shazam has been flying off our shelves.

If you want to do a dark Supergirl, fine, just so long as somewhere there's one who, you know, might actually appeal to girls. Say a Supergirl with a manga style story that focuses more on Linda Lee Danvers and her cat than super-heroics, or a version of X-23 where she's the strange new Goth girl at school with the terrible secret who slowly learns to reach out past her pain (anyone who says girls could never enjoy the fantasy of a character who "cuts loose" the way boys do hasn't an inkling just how mean and vindictive your average teen-age girl can be).

A Heaping Helping of Regret

2006-12-17T07:02:00.000-05:00

Dan DiDio, in last month's Wizard magazine (#183), describing how 52 was massaged into the form we are presently reading:

"The team we ended up with was not the team we started with. I always had Donna Troy as part of the story from the beginning. She was on every one of my charts, every one of my lists. I walked into a meeting one day and everybody was looking at me," he laughs. "They said 'We can't find a way to work Donna Troy into this,' and I said to go with what made the most sense." (p. 57)

So let me get this straight: Lobo's inclusion made more sense to them.

(Full disclosure: although I wasn't collecting Teen Titans as a boy, I knew about the book, and the fact that Donna Troy was drawn in such a way that she resembled my Latina schoolmates always endeared her to me.)

Jodi Picoult, who will be writing Wonder Woman after issue #5, is interviewed in this month's magazine, and says:

"The Dept. of Metahuman Affairs people want to bring in Wonder Woman for questioning about her role in killing a federal agent, Max Lord, which of course already happened [in Manhunter #26]. But what I'm doing is taking it one step further, because that's going to precipitate a war with the Amazons [in March's Amazons Attack miniseries -- see sidebar]."

We're told in the sidebar that Will Pfeifer (who's writing Catwoman) will be writing the mini-series, and here's the juicy bit :

"[T]he April debuting mini-series, which sees Wonder Woman's warrior race return to the DCU, had its roots in 2005's ramp-up to Infinite Crisis. Originally slated to be the fifth prequel mini-series to the reality-altering event ..., Amazons Attack was dropped during last minute meetings to aid in story planning." (p. 87)

Those pesky DC editorial teams are batting 0 for 2, so far. It seems they had two occasions to better integrate Wonder Woman's corner of the DCU into their "event" story-arcs, and decided against doing so both times.

Wonder Woman was certainly present in Infinite Crisis, though I found that she wasn't nearly enough at the center of things to keep me entirely interested.

It's not like I'm bitter or anything ... though I am keeping score.

No Respect

2006-12-04T10:37:00.000-05:00

Rogue, I appreciate that the laws of bad-assery require you to face overwhelming threats with light-hearted banter, but, being a true son of the City of Caesar, I've got to say that this one hurts.

A Moment of Clarity

2006-11-20T08:31:00.000-05:00

I read Gregory Cwiklik's "What's Wrong With Comics Today: A Completely Personal Overview," from The Comics Journal Winter Special Edition (2002) earlier in the fall, and it had a rather sobering effect upon me.

Who am I kidding? When I read these lines I felt as if I had been slapped in the face:

To sum up bluntly, what's wrong with mainstream comics is that — with few exceptions — they too-perfectly reflect the limited worldview of a juvenile audience whose tastes and sensibilities have been shaped and circumscribed by a moronic popular culture. That many of these juveniles are in their 20s or older is no matter. They are the core constituency; the only group that can be counted upon to buy comic books on a regular basis. One can't help but conclude that the worldview and aesthetic concerns of mainstream comic-book creators are likewise limited. If mainstream creators stay in the superhero/fantasy box, it's because they like it there. They are usually fans of genre material; receiving pay to work in the field is a dream come true. With few exceptions, individuals with a more sophisticated view modify their work to fit within genre parameters. (p. 43)

While I won't go so far as to agree with his statement that our popular culture is moronic, I couldn't dispute anything else that he said.

I came away from the article with many questions:

Is there any hope for mainstream superhero comics?

Can they be read against the grain?

Might they be enjoyed by a non-moron in anything like a sophisticated manner?

I've been stuck on these thoughts for the past several months, kind of going back and forth between answering yes to all three, and then no.

However, this morning this thoughtful LJ post pointed me to the memoir that's up at Occasional Superheroine ("Goodbye to Comics," in several parts) and I've got to say that the tide has pretty much shifted to the no camp.

The writer describes her experiences as an assistant editor at DC during the planning and implementation of Identity Crisis, with the rationale behind the specific decision to have a woman character raped (and later) murdered bluntly described.

If Cwiklik's article was a slap in the face, this woman's memoir is a solid shot to the midsection.

In response, Johanna Draper Carlson echoes Cwiklik's formulation about creators in the industry over at her blog Comics Worth Reading:

You put a bunch of immature men, many of whom were very sick as children or had absent fathers or both, and all of whom escaped into over-muscled power fantasies as a result, in charge of a publishing subgroup with no prestige and little money. Several of them have never worked anywhere else, or if they have, it was at one of the few similar companies in the same industry that behave the same way. They’re still geeks, mentally, with low self-esteem and no success with women, few of whom they actually know in person, but they’re power brokers within their little world, and there are thousands like them who desperately want to be them… and you wonder why it all ends up so twisted?

As I head off to class this morning, this all precipitates my doubts into a final question:

Can I continue to buy and read the artistic products generated by this industry?

Breaking Through

2006-11-16T06:22:00.000-05:00

Two panels from Birds of Prey #100 made their way through the miasma of grading, event planning, student conferences, and committee meetings that presently has a grip on my brain.

Man, I enjoyed seeing these two panels to such an extent that they pretty much washed away the bad taste left in my mouth from reading Supergirl #11.

First, there's Big Barda introducing herself to Kate Spencer:

And, most pleasurable of all, this month's Birds of Prey provides a modern updating of an iconic WWII-era image:

The Truth

2006-10-29T13:15:00.000-05:00

It turns out that what we've always suspected is actually true. Grant Morrison owns up in his interview in Wizard #182 ("Son of a Bat!"; p. 38).

Wizard: Batman and Talia's baby from Son of the Demon has been pretty much ignored by DC continuity for all these years. Did that make it tougher for you to tackle, or more tempting?

Morrison: For a long time, [DC] said [Son of the Demon] was out of continuity. Now it's just kind of out of continuity. I didn't actually read it before I started writing this. I messed up a lot of details, like Batman wasn't drugged when he was having sex with Talia and it didn't take place in the desert. I was relying on shaky memories. But now we have this new "Superboy punch" continuity [after Superboy Prime attacked the fabric of the universe during Infinite Crisis]. People still don't realize how important that single punch was to cover everyone's ass.

This has left me speechless, though I do admire GM's honesty.

Mirror, Mirror

2006-10-19T11:30:00.000-04:00

I was hoping that Carol Danvers wouldn't get so tightly woven into the patchwork fabric of Marvel's Civil War that she'd have trouble re-emerging from the experience, but in Ms. Marvel #8 the writer has the character cross the Rubicon.

Not only does Carol track down and capture Julia Carpenter (Arachne; formerly Spider Woman II), but she assures that Julia's separation from her young daughter will be as traumatic as possible.

Calvin Pitt, at Reporting on Marvels and Legends, puts things really well:

I haven't hated the main character of a book I bought this much since Tim Drake at the end of Robin's first One Year Later arc (the little bastard). So congrats Ms. Marvel, you've joined rare company! No, there are no gifts or snacks.

What's intrigued me about Ms. Marvel is the gendered mirroring that's been on display in the book; the last several issues have featured several female analogues to the male figures at the center of Civil War.

— As the pro-Registration powerhouse, Carol Danvers has taken on characteristics of both Reed Richards and Tony Stark, the most prominent being a retreat to legalism and an unabashed embrace of asshole-ishness.

— Julia Carpenter has served as the sympathetic, defiant, relentlessly-hunted Captain America figure.

— Anya (Aña Sofia Corazon; Araña) is the younger, inexperienced member of the Spider-family who has come to believe she may be on the wrong side.

I suppose this kind of mirroring is to be expected, since the cross-over format requires each character heading a title to play out a "local" scenario linked to the "global" event. Since Carol is a woman, perhaps it's natural for her book to provide a woman's own version of Civil War.

However, if Ms. Danvers is going to be hell on wheels in the next cross-over, it'd definitely be more satisfying to see her as the head honcho calling the shots at center stage in the pages of the core title, rather than serve as someone else's second-in-command.

A Little of Both

2006-10-19T09:28:00.000-04:00

I originally selected this panel from Birds of Prey #99 as beefcake to be appreciated, but now that I think about it, there's something for everyone, here.

It must be said, however, that since it depicts a female fantasy, the panel definitely leans towards beef.

Francine

2006-10-19T09:08:00.000-04:00

A cheesecake contribution to Cheesecake/Beefcake Appreciation Week:

From Strangers in Paradise #5, 1995. Drawn by Terry Moore.

A Necessary Point

2006-10-17T07:58:00.000-04:00

From Koben Kelly's "Best Shots" review of Gen13 at Newsarama:

With the majority of the team being female, I am satisfied with Wildstorm choosing the industry's top female writer to helm the book. It seems only logical. I look forward to her insights unavailable to the title's previous scribes.

Although this comment doesn't anger me so much as Kelly's earlier Simone-related commentary ("GS ... proves herself as the leading female in the industry ..."), it irked me nonetheless.

Man, it's very simple: good writers are good writers. They can write anything and anyone.

Gail Simone is to DC as Ed Brubaker is to Marvel.

She should eventually be writing the company's elite titles, whether they've got any women in them or not.

High Anxiety

2006-10-15T08:04:00.000-04:00

I'm really enjoying Ed Brubaker's "Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire" in Uncanny X-Men. Chapter five (UX-M #479) in the twelve-part storyarc went on sale on Wednesday, and it features a powerless, chastened, and somewhat discredited Charles Xavier leading a subset of the X-Men into the heart of the Shi'ar empire in order to confront the extremely powerful and extraordinarily pissed off Vulcan (the long-missing third Summers brother).

The team is comprised of Rachel Grey, Warpath, Havoc, Polaris, and Darwin (the new guy, from Brubaker's mini-series Deadly Genesis). Rachel Grey has got a pretty big bone to pick with the Shi'ar, since she recently survived an attack from a Shi'ar deathsquad which branded her with the mark of the Phoenix and brutally exterminated her relatives.

Given the recent contentious discussion of decapitation and symbolic castration in superhero comics, I was struck by the fact that the bad guy who emerges as the threat in the issue provides an illustrative case study in castration anxiety, and serves as an example of how it might be deployed as both a character motivator and an effective plot theme. The core of the castration complex is anxiety, a fear of sexualized punishment and loss of power, and Brubaker deploys the theme of male anxiety really well.

The Shi'ar have released the bad guy, Korvus, from a captivity of torture and mistreatment. He's the remaining descendant of Rook'shir (the last wielder the Phoenix force), and, as we've seen, the Shi'ar have never taken kindly to individuals and families overly friendly to the Phoenix.

However, Korvus's warders have set him loose, and placed his ancestor's weapon in his hands, for two reasons: (1) only someone of Rook'shir's line can actually wield the massive sword, and (2) only this particular sword can destroy Rachel Grey.

So we've got a very strong man, on a mission to annihilate a single woman, bearing (what must be) the universe's largest sword, the Blade of the Phoenix.

Warpath, the team's hyper-masculine bruiser, carries a pair of vibranium knives as his armament (and he knows how to use them). Here's his reaction upon first setting his eyes upon Korvus:

Korvus deals with Warpath and the others fairly easily, and turns his attention to Rachel. After deploying her telepathy to parry his initial attack, she informs him:

"I don't have to touch you to hurt you. I don't have to get anywhere near that big honking sword."

However, Korvus wields the weapon quite expertly, and ultimately gets the drop on Rachel. Readying himself for a final blow, he arches the blade over his head as an executioner might. But as he swings it down, Rachel grabs a hold of it, initiating a cosmic mind meld.

Warpath's reaction to seeing the weapon is the first outward expression of male anxiety in the issue. ("Wow...") Korvus has the second when, after he jars the blade out of Rachel's hands, he notes that something just isn't right, anymore.

Korvus's confused and plaintive you took some line is revelatory. This single panel effectively defines and illustrates the concept of male anxiety in the face of a powerful woman.

At the start of the issue, he believes himself to be the only man in the universe who can wield this blade; at the close, he learns that the sword exerts no power over it's sole intended (female) victim. What's more, a portion of the Phoenix power within the weapon willingly migrates into Rachel Grey, making her even stronger.

The Well-Dressed Villainess

2006-10-14T17:42:00.000-04:00

Gail Simone's inaugural issue of Gen13 was a nice set-up issue for the team, and introduced readers to Megan, the evil Dr. Cross's able assistant.

Megan wore an interesting outfit in her debut:

While I won't comment upon her problematic decision to wear briefs which don't match the style or color of her top, I did have a question about her shirt.

Is it now essential for a villain's assistant to wear one of these Blackhawk inspired numbers? (Two non-villains, Zinda Blake [the Lady Blackhawk] and Action Girl sport them, too.)

Lex Luthor's right hand woman in 52 was wearing something similar in several issues.

Can anyone actually name this style of jacket/shirt?

As a visual reference, here's the Silver Age Zinda Blake's uniform (from Blackhawk #133, 1959):

Why might a woman with villainy on her mind decide to put one of these on?

Professor Chaos

2006-10-09T19:45:00.000-04:00

During a brief break in the incessant paper grading that presently fills my days, I purchased this handsome set of South Park coasters at my local 5 Below store.

I am presently investigating how I might aquire a set of Professor Chaos kitchenware and matching embossed stationery.

Catching Up

2006-09-29T00:29:00.000-04:00

— Enjoying Birds Of Prey
Like all of life's essential pleasures, Birds of Prey #98 left me with a satisfied smile on my face. It's all in there: the damn Batgirl (and her "Dark vengeance!" warcry); Josh in his doofus-y splendor; the delightfully murderous Yasemin; and Rhosyn (Rose!) Forrest.

These panels made me laugh out loud:

— Supergirl Gets Better
The creative team working on Supergirl seems to have produced a minor miracle, righting what was until the last two issues a crazily listing ship. The comic is delivering stories of interest, interspersing those narratives with troubling and interesting flashbacks from Carrie ... uh, I mean Kara's Kryptonian past.

Though juxtaposing the Silver Age Kara's sweetness with the modern Supergirl's violent and abusive backstory is a fairly pedestrian move, I'm finding it compelling nonetheless. Having said that, though, I'm hoping that it was her evil father who actually pulled the trigger on the weapon that dealt out the payback to her teasing schoolmates:

— Civil War
Call me a knucklehead, but I'm actually liking Civil War.

Yeah, I know there's no precedent for Reed acting like an Evil Scientist, and Iron Man is so out of control there's no explaining it, now. Their actions and motivations are so clearly out of character, it's not even funny. I'm wagering that this isn't the result of authorial incompetence, and am interested in finding out exactly why they're acting as they are. Having read Wolverine #46, Amazing Spider-Man #535, Captain America #22, and Civil War: Frontline #6, it's clear that there's some kind of prime mover at work behind the scenes. I have no doubt that Reed and Tony's motivations will be explained — though, of course, I'm open to the possibility that what we're told might be, in the end, idiotically lame.

The component of Civil War that has totally drawn me in is that it's basically about personal autonomy and choices, and that a hero making the wrong choice (not registering) is facing a loss of freedom and a forced vacation in the Negative Zone.

With the torture/treatment of detainees, men held indefinitely without charge or trial, (unfortunately) a real issue that has recently been debated in Congress, I'm not bothered by having to face an analogue of it in the series, nor does it strike me as a cheap or simplistic ploy to make the comic relevant.

And, it has to be said, I found Sue Storm's intervention during the battle in CW #4 to be both more dramatic and satisfying than almost anything Wonder Woman was given to do in all of Infinite Crisis.

— Dr. Light
Again, a single panel in JLA justifies the cost of the comic, for me. Marionette's post covers all of the angles on the interesting interaction between Clark, Diana, and Bruce when they discussed Dr. Light's possible membership in JLA #2.

Man, Bruce actually says: "It'll send a message, Clark ... It'll scare them."

Reading this brought a smile to my face, and my thinking mirrorred Marionette's: scare who, exactly, and why?

— A Weird Convergence
Thanks to Pip the Troll's appearance in She Hulk #12,

and Ragdoll's channelling of Paradaemon in Secret Six #4,

we got two up-the-skirt jokes in a single week!

Action Girl Comics

2006-09-25T08:20:00.000-04:00

Gems continue to emerge from my comic store's 25 cent bin.

Finding Action Girl Comics #1 (1994) in the slushpile actually led me to ask the clerk if the comic had been misfiled.

(I wanted to shout: Don't you realize this comic should be kept in a climate-controlled room!)

Action Girl Comics was edited and compiled by Sarah Dyer. (She also contributes several strips.)

Dyer's editorial manifesto is still worth reading, twelve years later. (You can click on the image for a legible version of the page.)

A Catwoman Conundrum

2006-09-22T00:50:00.000-04:00

(The most recent issue of Catwoman is spoiled in the post which follows.)

Catwoman #59 reveals both the father of Selina's child, and the situation surrounding Helena's conception.

In order to be at peace with the comic's revelations, one needs to accept the following three things:

(1) Selina Kyle's pregnancy was the result of a specific moment in which Selina quick-stepped a nascent attraction to Slam Bradley's son, Sam, to it's culminating point.

Sam has not before been a major figure in the book, or in Selina's life. While I know that Catwoman isn't a romance comic, it still would have been nice to see something actually romantic going on between the two characters.

(2) Selina, confronting Black Mask's organization with Sam, thinks that both of their deaths are a likely outcome, leading her to suggest that it might be best for them to act upon their mutual attraction and take what pleasure they can in the midst of a bleak situation.

(3) Having convinced Sam to see the sense of her position, Selina engages in sexual intercourse without using contraception.

I suppose I could convince myself to make peace with the first two. However, the last one is really, really difficult to swallow.

Especially since the two characters aren't exactly overwhelmed by passion in that scene. Given how she's controlling everything else about the situation, it's kind of striking that Selina fails to even bring up the topic of contraception/protection.

And, as far as I can tell, the fact that Selina herself initiated the sexual act is supposed to make this questionable element of her character motivation go down easier.

Basically, I'm being told: even if the character has done something uncharacteristically dumb, at least she exercised agency and autonomy while doing it.

I'm sorry to report that the factors do not quite balance out in my book.

Oh, and on top of everything else, the penultimate panel (the one in which Selina says "Good") has got to be one of the ugliest panels I've ever seen.

Ms. Storm, To You

2006-09-20T22:18:00.000-04:00

Given the events of Civil War #4, these two paragraphs from Jonathan Lethem, "Identifying With Your Parents," in his collection titled The Disappointment Artist: Essays, (Doubleday, 2005), seem especially relevant.

"...[T]he Four were always answerable to the female priorities of Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl, Reed Richards's wife and famously 'the weakest member of the Fantastic Four.' She wanted a home for their boy, Franklin; she wanted Reed to stay out of the Negative Zone; she was willing to quit the Four and quit the marriage to stand up for what she believed."

"I seriously doubt whether any seventies Marvel-loving boy ever spared a dram of sexual fantasizing on Sue Storm. We had Valkyrie, Red Sonja, the Cat, Ms. Marvel, Jean Grey, Mantis, and innumerable others available for that. We (I mean, I) especially liked the Cat. Sue Storm was, to our conscious minds, truly invisible. She was a parent, a mom calling you home from where you played in the street, telling you it was time to brush your teeth. Not that she wasn't a hottie, but Kirby exhalted her beauty in family-album style portraits, showing her nobly pregnant, in a housedress that covered her clavicle. The writers and artists who took over the Fantastic Four after Kirby and, later, Lee departed the series, seemed impatient with the squareness of Sue and Reed's domestic situations. Surely these weren't the hippest of the Kirby-Lee creations. Nevertheless, if you ... accept my ... premise ... that the mid- to late-sixties Fantastic Four were the exemplary specimens, the veritable Rubber Soul and Revolver and White Album of comics, and if you further grant that pulling against the tide of all of Kirby's ... whole army of aliens and gods, was one single character, our squeaky little Sue, then I wonder: Was the Invisible Girl the most important superhero of the Silver Age of Comics?" (p. 67)

A Humane Perspective

2006-09-17T13:50:00.000-04:00

I'm enjoying Alex Ross, Jim Kreuger, and Doug Braithwaite's Justice. Although the creators took their own sweet time in laying the groundwork for the title's multiple plot elements and cast of thousands, all that careful work has now paid off. The story is firing on all cylinders, and the five issues that remain would seem to provide the perfect amount of room for resolving the remaining plot points without needing to rush to the conclusion.

Justice delivers a dose of Silver Age-y goodness in every issue. For example, issue #7 presents a Zatanna who has not yet become a mind-wiping machine; a live Sue Dibny; a Hawk-couple who kick ass and bicker over Carter's communication skills at the same time; a Dr. Niles Caulder who is not a wanker; and, of course, a non-angst-ridden Doom Patrol. (For the name of their team alone, I love the Doom Patrol.)

But it's not just the nostalgia that keeps me reading this title. Krueger has scripted an engaging story which Braithwaite and Ross complement with dynamic and interesting artwork. And what I like most about Justice is that the human element is actually integrated throughout the visual and written elements of the story. You get the sense that the characters care about one another. (What can I say? I am on record as a proud, self-professed fangirl.)

Most importantly, the characters go beyond saying that they care about each other, (something the Teen Titans did continuously during the Wolfman/Perez years), to actually expressing, through actions large and small, that they might be believably "real" characters with recognizable human(oid) emotions and feelings for one another.

There's an extreme situation in issue #7 that gets at this point. Zatanna and the Martian Manhunter have finally learned the location of the missing Aquaman, and head out to a warehouse/lab facility to rescue him. (In issue #2 Aquaman was captured, and Brainiac was headed in his direction with one of those menacing-looking surgical saws.)

Braithwaite and Ross make good use of cinematic angles of perspective to re-inforce Zatanna and J'onn's concern for Aquaman in this sequence of panels:

The center of focus is different in each of those panels, which nicely conveys a sense of movement and disorientation. The deep close-up on J'onn's face actually shows him shedding a tear, while Zatanna is depicted with her hands up to her face in the following panel.

The effect is brought home on the next page when the we get the villain's-eye-view of J'onn and Zatanna as they discover Aquaman's lifeless body:

Aquaman is brought to the Doom Patrol's lab, where he's observed by Dr. Caulder. In this next panel, the Chief is foregrounded as he provides vital information, but the artists also take the care to assure that J'onn's and Zatanna's body language convey information about the characters, even though they're far in the background of the image.

The heroes have confronted separate enemy attacks in the previous issues; most of them are reunited in #7 for the first time since the villains unleashed their assaults. Wonder Woman has gone mano-a-claw with the Cheetah, and her comrades react with a realistic mixture of alarm, concern, and surprise when they first observe Diana's battle scars near the end of the issue.

The panel is nicely done: the Flash delivers the obvious line of dialogue and tactful thought balloon; Plastic Man's frown and wrinkled brow are revelatory, as is Black Canary's steady gaze and outstretched hand. We learn in the following panel that Diana has averted her eyes not because she is ashamed of how the scars have made her look; rather, she's embarrassed to be the center of her friends' attention over a set of wounds which she considers to be superficial.

I really appreciate this title's careful attention to complex and humane visual story-telling.

Marie Severin

2006-09-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

Though I wasn't looking for additional reasons for why comic creator Marie Severin is one of my heroes, I recently came across one:

Dan Johnson's article in Back Issue #17 ("Marvel's Dark Angel," pp. 57-63) reveals that Severin was the (until now uncredited) designer of Spider Woman's killer costume in 1977.

Why the costume works:

— It just looks cool. (Superheroes have got to look cool.)

— It is distinctive: red with yellow accents.

— It draws upon all of the cool visual elements associated with spiders.

— Webs are not referenced.

— It immediately establishes that the character is distinct from Spiderman.

There are two particularly nice Severin quotes from Back Issue.

MS on designing Spider Woman's costume:

When it was that long ago, you don't think you're making history when you're doing these things.

MS interviewed by Dewey Cassell; on pencelling the first two issues of The Cat (a character who eventually morphed into Tigra):

Cassell: I understand they deliberately put a team of women creators on The Cat.

Severin: Absolutely. They were hoping to capture female readers. After all, fifty percent of the population is female.

Cassell: I guess female inkers were hard to come by, though, because Wally Wood inked the origin story.

Severin: Yes, I remember saying, "My God, I drew this woman and Wally inked her like she's wrapped in Saran Wrap." His storytelling always had lovely inking, nice blacks and everything, but I didn't have her that revealing. The boys loved his work, though. She was hot stuff.

The deftness with which Severin compliments Wood, while simultaneously distancing herself from what he's done, is a work of art.

9/11 + 5

2006-09-11T05:30:00.000-04:00

Sonnet XIX
Lady Mary Wroth (née Sidney)
(1587-c.1652)

Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best;
Light, leave thy light, fit for a lightsome soul;
Darkness doth truly suit with me oppressed,
Whom absence' power doth from mirth control:

The very trees with hanging heads condole
Sweet summer's parting, and of leaves distressed
In dying colours make a griefful roll,
So much, alas, to sorrow are they pressed.

Thus of dead leaves her farewell carpets made:
Their fall, their branches, all their mournings prove,
With leafless, naked bodies, whose hues vade
From hopefull green, to whither in their love:

If trees and leaves for absence mourners be,
No marvel that I grieve, who like want see.

Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson, (eds.), Early Modern Women Poets: An Anthology, (Oxford, 2001), p. 149.

Choose Your Poison

2006-09-10T12:00:00.000-04:00

It's seems that the recent Batman stories featuring Poison Ivy always include something, either in the art or the story-line, that makes me cringe. Sometimes it's just one, minor thing.

However, in Detective Comics #823, the artist provides several viable cringe-inducing candidates, and I gave up trying to figure out which was the more egregious offender, the title splash page (reproduced above), or this page:

I don't ask much of my comics. Like everyone else, I read them to be entertained. I'm not expecting to encounter transcendent works of illustrated literature that will withstand the test of time.

However, I do like for them to pass the trolley test: if I'm reading a comic on the trolley and run into someone I know, I don't want the pages I've got open and visible to cause me public embarrassment.

This issue of Detective Comics failed, miserably.

A League of One

2006-09-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

In order to keep myself sane as the maelstrom known as the first week of classes churned around me, I read Christopher Moeller's marvelous JLA: A League of One when time permitted.

The plot of League of One is set into motion by a prophecy which fortells the death of the members of the Justice League should they confront a re-awakened dragon bent on consuming the earth. It's one of those particularly unpleasant prophecies: their deaths are assured, even though they defeat the dragon.

Upon hearing the prophecy, Diana immediately decides that rather than see the entire Justice League perish, she will face the threat on her own: though her own death is assured, none of her friends will have to die with her.

When I first became aware of this graphic novel, I simply was not in the mood to see my superheroes mixing it up with creatures from some bygone age of enchantment. For several reasons, it was foolish of me to think in this way. First of all, Moeller's painted artwork is breathtakingly beautiful. Secondly, rather than a trite plot device, in the right hands dragons are actually good to think with. (To steal a phrase from Clifford Geertz.)

Drakul Karfang, the dragon in Moeller's book, serves as a kind of metaphorical and literal refiner's fire, testing the beings subjected to its flames and feeding upon their inwardly-kept sins and corrptions. It derives strength from frailty; transforming its victims' outward forms so that they resemble their inward states. (Everyone who falls prey to this treatment comes out of it looking pretty much like one of the Orcs in Lord of the Rings — or worse.) As individuals fall under his sway, Drakul's power increases.

Since Diana knows that friendship and honor will compel her team-mates to join her in facing the dragon, she is forced to lie to them and neutralize them one by one. How she does so is handled with considerable inventiveness. For example, her goal is to weaken, rather than pummel Superman into submission, and we're reminded of something we've always known: it's really hard to keep a lie from Batman.

So, a nice paradox drives the narrative: the dragon fattens itself on betrayal and falsehood, and Diana must engage in large, heaping measures of both in order to frustrate the prophecy and save her friends. Like all good fairy tales, Diana's quest in League of One puts both her body and her heart to the ultimate test.

And although the pages in which Diana is subjected to the dragon's fire near the end of the book are finely wrought and quite stirring, I found that a series of panels early in the story carried equal resonance and weight. Before we're told about the prophecy or almost anything else, Moeller takes a few pages to establish Diana's character. Though he makes use of a simple concept, it's finely implemented, and delivers one of the book's dramatic high points.

Here are the panels in which Diana willingly subjects herself to the power of her own lasso.

Unpleasant News

2006-09-06T17:59:00.000-04:00

Comic artist Lea Hernandez's home has been destroyed in a fire, and her friend and collaborator Gail Simone conveys the details at Newsarama.

Ms. Simone also provides information about how donations can be made to Ms. Hernandez and her family.

Update: Additional information is available at Ms. Hernandez's LiveJournal.

Labor Day, 2006

2006-09-04T11:08:00.000-04:00

From The Adventures of Carrie Giver #1 (TR Rose Associates).

Last month Jennifer Contino interviewed Theresa Funiciello and Diane Pagen, the writers of Carrie Giver at The Pulse.

THERESA FUNICIELLO: ... I have cared for my own child as well as a dying parent in my own life and know that both are work, even though the paid market system ignore both as having any economic value. A full comprehension of the role of caregiving in society would change many, many things.

DIANE PAGEN: Carrie Giver is influenced by the thousands of women we have talked to who have felt that society pats them on the head for their caregiving but doesn’t acknowledge its enormous economic value (or make economic policy that rewards it). Because of this insistence that caregiving is a warm fuzzy thing that falls outside the "market", women, especially mothers, are always behind men weathwise. Professional women who step out of market jobs to give care as well as low income women who feel they are the best chance for their kids so choose to stay home are given the shaft in this economy every day. Carrie is therefore a mix of many women. She’s like Wonder Woman in that she definitely is not about to kill anybody, but she is an advocate for large scale policy change that will help millions at once, rather than just saving individuals.

Sex and the Multiple Man

2006-09-03T12:38:00.000-04:00

Jamie Madrox has delivered a Churchillian anti-Registration speech. It's all over the news. He's provided Pietro sanctuary in Mutant Town, and faced down the X-Men when they came calling for him. The newly-decisive multiple man has inspired his teammates. They're proud of him. He's the man of the moment. In celebration, the X-Factor crew justfiably ties one on.

Add a suave, libidinous Madrox duplicate to this combustible mix in X-Factor #10, and you get trouble. The morning following the speech, soon after Madrox has re-integrated the Hefner-esque duplicate back into his body, this is how Siryn bids him a good day:

Peter David and Renato Arlem, the artist, do a good job of setting up the land mines that Madrox's dupe has scattered across his relationships. Here's the tail-end of Monet's interaction with Jamie:

In case you haven't figured it out, Madrox has stumbled into some serious trouble. As he begins to take in the effects of his dupe's actions, he meets up with Layla Miller, the third female living in the X-Factor house:

(Phew! Statutory rape averted!)

What's interesting is that, in a meta-narrative sense, Madrox has landed the male fantasy tri-fecta:

(1) "Madrox" beds all of the (mature) women with whom he works. (And, even better, they will almost certainly fight over him in the future!)

(2) Madrox is (reminded again that he's) destined to marry Layla Miller, the third female in the house.

(3) Since the serial loving was actually performed by a dupe, PAD has provided Madrox with a big old get out of jail free card. We're talking absolutely guiltless hi-jinx with co-workers and friends.

If we work out X-Factor #10's calculus of pleasure, Siryn and Monet are certainly the big winners. The negative results of their unwittingly sharing a night with Madrox's dupe are in the future: there are soap opera-ish developments in store for them both. (X-powered catfight, anyone?) But for now, they're feeling pretty good.

Madrox is the total loser, here. He's experienced absolutely no pleasure, and is set up to catch all of the pain that'll result from the "Hef" dupe's unrestrained amorous activity.

One last thing to add: although the the pursuit-of-pleasure equation works out totally in Siryn's and Monet's favor, the fact that they were, in the final analysis, each seduced by an oleaginous dupe doesn't say a whole lot for their perceptive powers.

Reading this issue set me thinking along counterfactual lines: in what different directions might the plot-lines in this title develop if Siryn (or Monet) were the leader of X-Factor Investigations?

A Big Green Choice

2006-08-31T10:00:00.000-04:00

(Major spoilers to She Hulk #11 follow.)

Dan Slott's She-Hulk is one of the titles that lured me back into comics, and though there have been some bumps in the road (specifically the Starfox flashback), I've really been enjoying his take on the character.

Civil War is tearing up the Marvel Universe and cracking the Internets in half, right? In She Hulk #10, Slott has the She-Hulk (who is pro-Registration) work to convince an unregistered fellow heroine to see the issue from her point of view. She succeeds, even though she has dropped in on the heroine in the midst of a chase.

(And now that I think of it, that crafty Slott depicted the entire Marvel Universe engaging not in a civil war, but in a fun-filled poker tournament in The Thing #8.)

The latest helping of Shulkie-based goodness was served up in issue #11: on the comic's final page Man-Wolf offers Jennifer a choice that gets to the heart of who she is.

Here's the crucial exchange:

Let's be clear: Man-Wolf is exerting emotional coercion in an attempt to force Jennifer to do what he's wanted all along. At every turn he's been pushing her to reject the She-Hulk part of her being, because he'd prefer that she embody the Jennifer Walters portion of her self 24/7. Jameson has always made it obvious that he loves Jennifer, but is less-than-fond of the She-Hulk.

But isn't Jennifer the She-Hulk? Isn't Jameson's discomfort with, and rejection of, the She Hulk also a rejection of Jennifer?

I've always assumed that the She-Hulk + Jennifer formed a single complex identity, and as I've been reading the Jennifer/Jameson story arc, I haven't been certain that Slott would push the character to face the interesting existential ambiguity that's at the heart of her personality.

But he has. And I'm not ashamed to say that I am exhilarated that he's done so.

Recent Reading

2006-08-29T22:44:00.000-04:00

Several of the interviews in the 30th anniversary issue of The Comics Journal (#277) deal with the question of diversity in the comics offered by publishers; two struck me as particularly focussed.

The first was with Diana Schutz, someone who has been working in comics for close to thirty years. She's presently a senior editor at Dark Horse Comics, overseeing primarily creator-owned titles. (She's interviewed by Dirk Deppey.)

DEPPEY: ... I'm wondering if it's possible to build a market at this point that features a wide variety of material ...

SCHUTZ: (Sighs.) This is something that Dark Horse has struggled with, in terms of publishing across the board, from adventure comics to more sophisticated, more literary graphic novels ... I mean, at the end of the day, it comes down to good stories . ...

I mean crunching out comics on a monthly deadline and attempting to create literature under those kinds of commerical constraints — the deck is stacked against you, you know? You have to meet deadlines. A new script has to be written every month. It has to be penciled by one person in one month, inked by another person in another month, and lettered and colored — and certain editors at some companies apparently have a vested interest in keeping those freelance artists from talking to each other! Of course you're not going to produce literature under those circumstances!

...
I'd like to see more focus on story — at the snooty end of comics (laughter), I'd like to see better stories as opposed to "Oh, I'm just going to diddle myself with my art and talk about my bathroom habits for the rest of this book." I'd like to have more entertaining stories. I prefer to read something that's more demanding of me as a reader.

La Perdida, for instance — it's recently come out in book form, so it's very present in my mind. I think La Perdida is exactly where I'd like to see the comics biz move. It's beautifully drawn, it's a solid, involving story, it makes a very well thought-out use of the medium, and it has the potential to open doors to far more readers than the comic-book set. ... Far too much of what I see at that end of the spectrum really doesn't have good story. ...

Superheroes will stifle this marketplace if they continue to dominate, I think, but by the same token, I don't want to see the genre abolished. I loved superhero comics when I was a little girl, now I love work like La Perdida, and a healthy market makes room for both and everything in between.

The second interview was with Dallas Middaugh, the Associate Editor of Del Rey Manga (a division of Random House). Though I don't think I'm comfortable with the stark boys like this, and girls like that formulation he uses at the end of this excerpt, I do think he is onto something when he contrasts American and Japanese comic publisers.

MIDDAUGH: Look, I think superheroes are a perfectly valid genre for comics, but the fact remains that only so many people are going to be interested in reading about them. I mean, let's take a story about someone finding a magic ring. In manga, the story would focus about how the ring changed that person's relationships, how it affected his life, and how his everyday circumstances would be different — and there would be adventures, too, but that necessarily wouldn't be the primary focus of the story. If it were a Marvel or DC comic, the person would find the ring, make a costume and go out to fight supervillains, and that would be the main focus of the story...

Naruto is a story about ninjas and fighting, sure, and boys like that, but it's also about the relationships between the characters — who likes who, whether or not they're cooperating with one another, that sort of thing — so there's enough personal interaction to attract girls to the story, too. And Naruto isn't the only kind of story you'll find in the manga shelves; there's lots of different kinds of stories, and what you see coming out of American comics can't match that.

Megan Kelso's Early American Thing

2006-08-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

The Squirrel Mother (Fantagraphics Books, 2006) is an assured collection of thoughtful short pieces, some of which I continued to think about long after I finished Kelso's book for the first time. Her youngsters come across as complicated human beings, and she has a nice knack for conveying the subtle undercurrrents of thought, emotion, and motivation which make human relationships and interactions unpredictable.

The book contains three charming "historical" stories that particularly appealed to me. In "Publius," the schoolgirl heroine identifies so deeply with the passionate young Hamilton that, after nodding off at her typewriter, she vividly conjures up the charged energy between Madison and Hamilton, fine young things that they once were. (The paper she finishes when she awakens is titled "I [heart] Alexander Hamilton.")

Kelso uses the framing device of an older woman's speech before the Daughters of the Federalists in "Aide de Camp." The talk is delivered on August 9, 1974, the day on which Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency. The story deftly explores Hamilton's relationship with George Washington, with the first part nimbly describing the labors he expended on editing and perfecting the first president's farewell address.

"The Duel" is my favorite of the three. While it explores Hamilton's death, it also covers his contest of ideas (and will) with Thomas Jefferson when they both served in Washington's cabinet.

Although the story contains several panels that made me smile and chuckle, these four made me surrender and laugh out loud:

In addition to having the character deliver a killer line in that last panel, Kelso captures the look of intensely committed enthusiasm that every teacher hopes to see in her student's eyes.

Kelso's rewarding collection is filled with deceptively simple gems such as these.

Cheesecake Complex

2006-08-27T23:00:00.000-04:00

Two issues of DC's The Next (written by Tad Williams) have appeared so far, and though I've tried hard not to like the book, I have to admit that I've been won over and plan to keep reading.

The story centers upon four inter-dimensional time travelers who have escaped from their universe's murderous overlords, (an unsavory outfit called the Iron Ring). As they catapult through time, they collide with a disaffected California teen-ager named Monikka Wong, with near-disastrous results. Monikka barely survives the encounter, and when the future-nauts slow down to undo the damage, they introduce a rip into the space-time continuum. The Ring has dispatched a Very Bad Entity called the Sion to retrieve the escapees (so that they can be tortured to death). Although they should be on their way, there's a major problem: if they pack up and leave, Monikka will die.

On the positive side, Superman is working on the torn continuum problem. The travellers inform him that since they're far-future versions of us, he should help them confront Sion. Meanwhile, dinosaurs, buffaloes, and pirates roam the streets.

Dietrich Smith's art on the book is inventive, detailed, and complex; each of the travellers also sports a distinctive design. Able to acquire information about the mores of our space and time, they've selected bodies and clothing that (they think) allow them to blend in with the locals.

— Ben, the intellectual problem-solver, looks like a younger, less toxic version of Desolation Jones. (Goggles included.)

— Cindy Cindy Cindy (call her Cindy Cindy), the group's practical "people person," dresses like a 50s air hostess.

— Tweet, the creative force, looks like a present-day hipster doofus.

— Poetry Slam, the crew's destructive force (a polite term for ass-kicker), appears to have studied a wide selection of 70s blaxploitation movies and fetish porn to derive her look. (She could easily have borrowed her outfit from Emma Frost.) Slam has red skin, white hair, and sports an impressively mountainous 'fro.

On one level, Slam is every fanboy's wet-dream. But there's something else going on here, too. The Next is satirizing superheroes, their costumes, and the readers who follow (or ogle) their exploits. Slam cluelessly believes that what she is wearing is not a costume at all, but rather normal attire for a woman on earth.

And what's interesting is that Slam's enlightened companions never cast a sexualized gaze in her direction. Neither does Superman. In fact, the only character in the book who does so is Jorge (Monikka's mom's loathsome live-in boyfriend), and here's how that encounter played itself out:

There's no denying that Slam is true to her name, and she gives Superman a run for his money when they go toe-to-toe (after he noisily barges into the apartment building where Monikka has set up a a safe-house for her companions).

Until Williams developed the character, Slam's outré costume gave me some pause. However, what's important to the narrative is not (so much) how Slam is dressed, but the way she carries herself and wields her power. Slam is fighting for a just cause; she unthinkingly acts to defend her friends at all times; and she endangers herself to protect the innocent.

And by the end of issue #2, Slam's no-questions-asked bad assery has inspired Monikka to overcome her awe of the Man of Steel and pull on his cape to get his attention during the heat of the battle. (Since Sion looks to be a formidable opponent, Monikka's intervention here is crucial.)

If there is such as thing as cheesecake with a complex purpose, I'd argue that Williams' Poetry Slam certainly fits the bill. Though The Next takes place outside of the mainstream continuity, the introduction of a strong positive female character (who can trade blows with Superman) actually serves to shine a light upon how women characters are written, drawn, and perceived throughout the wider DCU.

Tunnel Vision

2006-08-26T15:55:00.000-04:00

Though I found the Red Tornado's sub-plot of interest, let me be honest and say that a single panel in JLA #1 justified the heftier-than-normal price-tag, for me.

Here it is:

I can't tell you how satisfying it was to see the core players of the DCU finally get it.

(I know Power Girl is supposed to be re-forming the JSA, and that this is probably some kind of a tease. I don't care.)

Oh, and a request to DC's writers: please stop using the Metal Men as cannon fodder.

An 80s Marvel Heroine Chooses Sides!

2006-08-24T18:23:00.000-04:00

(Spoilers to New Avengers #23 follow in abundance.)

In New Avengers #23, Jessica Drew (Spider Woman) makes several momentous choices, one of which involves where she stands in Marvel's Civil War.

There's a nice moment in the book in which we're shown the extent to which Drew has internalized the complexities of being a triple agent. When Nick Fury asks her which side she intends to choose, Spider-Woman doesn't skip a beat and replies: what side do you want me on?

One good thing about Civil War: Jessica Drew is now making her own choices, and how she goes about it made this a satisfying comic for me. There's action; there's intrigue; there are plausible twists and turns. And by the end of the issue, Brian Michael Bendis' transferral of Spider-Woman from the margins of the Marvel universe to its absolute center stands complete.

(Full disclosure: since a persuasive store clerk talked me into buying Spider-Woman #1 decades ago, I've been a fan of the character.)

However, the book has two draw-backs: (1) there's some of that pesky Bendis-style dialogue, and (2) there are the countless gratuitous crotch shots.

Goodness, Olivier Copiel certainly delivers the crotch shots, here. Jessica Drew is depicted in her underclothes when the issue begins, and, during the struggle that ensues with the SHIELD agents dispatched to bring her in, she engages in some serious, scantily-clad ass-kicking, which, as you might imagine, (given the logic of feminine comic book positioning and anatomical rendering), places her in a wide variety of peek-a-boo positions.

Believe me, I'm not exaggerating. I defy any objective reader to derive any other conclusion after reading this comic. Man, there's even a panel taken up entirely by the back of Drew's lower torso (actually it's a close-in shot of her panty-clad backside), and the placement of the word balloon actually makes it look as if Spider-Woman's ass is talking to Nick Fury.

Single question: would the comic have been less effective if Jessica Drew had pulled on a terry-cloth robe before she answered the knock on the door?

Thoughts on Wonder Woman

2006-08-24T17:00:00.000-04:00

(Mild spoilers to Wonder Woman #2 follow.)

Assumptions I've carried about Wonder Woman:

(1) Only a supervillain (wielding mind-control mojo) might keep Diana of Themyscira from doing her job for an entire year.

(2) The character is, simply, Diana of Themyscira.

(3) Except for impromptu missions that might absolutely require it, Diana would not plan to absent herself for an extended period without consulting with Donna Troy and Cassandra Sandsmark.

The planners behind DC's Infinite Crisis and 52 exploded the first assumption, and the re-launched series has done away with the other two.

Who is Wonder Woman? was not a question I had been posing recently. I didn't share the opinion that Diana's background and supporting cast had become overly convoluted and in drastic need of a re-launch.

And even though Themyscira has effectively ceased to exist, it's still where the character came from. Places can be erased; however, the memories, formative experiences, and the human connections tied to the place will persist. Recognition of this fact was handled much more sensitively in Supergirl #9 (believe it or not), with several characters linked to Themyscira actually dealing with it's absence.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the creative team chooses to work itself out of the various corners into which they have backed themselves by contravening these assumptions about the comic's titular character.

My really big question: why would Robin have been kept up-to-date about Diana's whereabouts and plans during the missing year, while Donna and Cassie were kept in the dark? The words thoughtless and insensitive were never ones I would have associated with Diana in the past. If it turns out that she has her reasons, they had certainly better be good ones.

A few additional observations on the first two issues of the new series:

(a) I'm disappointed that Donna Troy is so far serving as a plot device for the writer; she's simply an extended guest star/damsel-in-distress.

(b) Diana's killing of Max Lord has gone away as a legal issue, something rather clumsily revealed through the exposition/info-dump portion of issue #2.

(c) I'm finding it tiresome that each issue has been structured like a magic act, with the big trick saved for the final page.

Though I enjoy magic acts, I prefer to have the big, last page reveals in my comics accompanied by equal measures of character growth and plot development.

Actually, It's Not Interesting

2006-08-18T10:39:00.000-04:00

From Jim Beard's review of 52 #15 at Silver Bullet Comics:

Renee comes too-close-for-comfort to being raped. I truly hate to say that impending sexual assault could be interesting, even if it is fiction, but like all the other moments in this series that have caused me to ponder, this moment was excrutiatingly thought-provoking. Would she have been able to resist? Would she then have been killed outright? Is rape by a male even “worse” (if such horrid acts can be quantified) to a lesbian as it would be to a straight female? How far could DC have pushed this scene if they had chosen too? It’s a tense moment. You know what’s coming, and when the guard grabs her shirt, even before she thinks about rape, you say “oh, hell…,” and you are concerned for a fictional character. Hard to do in a comic but it worked.

My thoughts:

Mr. Beard, why speculate about something that didn't happen? Nothing is gained. It's prurient. It's not constructive. Follow your instincts, man: it can't be quantified. You say so yourself: we shouldn't even try to quantify in this way. You should have stopped there. But you didn't.

Any rape is a grave assault upon the victim's humanity and dignity: this doesn't happen by degrees. No victim's dignity is ever going to be "lightly" assaulted; so how can we speculate that one "type" of rape might be worse than another? If we follow your reasoning, we arrive at the distinctly repulsive conclusion that some rapists are worse, or better, than others. This is so stunningly idiotic that I could barely bring myself to even type it.

My thoughts on this scene:

(1) Montoya's thoroughly kicking the guy's ass barely dispelled my discomfort.
(2) I look forward to Black Adam and Isis instituting sweeping prison reforms, soon.

Hey, I'm no pollyanna. I'm aware that men and women are being forced to endure prison conditions such as those depicted in the comic as I type this. However, I prefer that the heroes in my comics eventually do something to put a stop to it.

And I expect to see it, on panel.

Requiem for the 90s

2006-08-16T12:30:00.000-04:00

I found a copy of Artemis Requiem #2 at my local second-hand bookstore a few days ago. Upon filing it, I realized something:

I seem to be at the mid-point of a deranged quest to acquire all of the title's extant issues, with the goal being to pay no more than 75c for any single one. Presently, issues 2,3, and 4 are in my possession.

Artemis Requiem (scripted by Willaim Messner-Loebs; pencilled by Ed Benes) was published in 1996. In the second issue ("Tribes"), Artemis (just emerged from Hell, with Wonder Woman's assistance) confronts a band of graveyard-lurking white supremacists; meets up with Henrietta (Hank) Sojourner Jessup, her side-kick; joins the Hellenders; and kills a rampaging demon in the final pages.

For your enjoyment, here's the comic's indescribable splash page:

Though it looks like Artemis has just kicked Wonder Woman's ass (and torn up her bodice), that's a trick of the perspective. Artemis is actually protecting Diana, who is really, really tired.

All I can say is: What the hell happened in the 90s?

I've read the issue twice, and I still don't know why it's titled "Tribes." (Given the history between Artemis and Diana, I can figure it out, but there's no reason internal to the story to explain it.)

Offering some useful exposition later in the story, the writer actually has Artemis say this:

Six months ago I was the Wonder Woman. Three days ago I was the mistress of one of the Archdukes of Hell. Today I am a tourist in Pennsylvania. I'm amused by the weaving of the fates, but hardly excited by them anymore. And you, Hank Jessup. How came you by that name?

Now, I was in graduate school during those years, and couldn't spare the time or money to read comics. So really, what's was up with all of this, then?

Earth's Mightiest ... Heroes

2006-08-15T09:35:00.000-04:00

Pairing up with writer Brian Michael Bendis, the mastermind behind 2004's massively successful New Avengers, Cho says he adds one very important ingredient to the legacy of Earth's Mightiest Heroes: "Boobs." — Wizard #179, p. 40.

I write not to criticize Wizard magazine or Frank Cho, that's been done here. I merely wanted to make an observation:

— Justice League of America, pencilled by Ed Benes.

— The Mighty Avengers, pencilled by Frank Cho.

The premier superhero team books published by DC and Marvel will be pencilled by cheesecake masters. (The Mighty Avengers will be the post-Civil War iteration of the team.) Hopefully this arms race will not be operating under the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.

Benes, at least, is on record saying he will be trying to restrain himself. ("I always try to make the superheroines as beautiful as I can, but the cheesecake days are over. This is a whole new game for me — it's the JLA." — Wizard #174, p. 50.)

A Necessary Correction

2006-08-14T12:08:00.000-04:00

From Koben Kelley's pellet review of Gail Simone's Secret Six #3 at Newsarama:

"Gail Simone continues to prove herself as the leading female in the industry ..."

That single sentence fragment raised my blood pressure to dangerous levels this morning. (Thanks, Newsarama!)

Is it so difficult for the reviewer to simply state that Gail Simone is one of the best writers presently working in comics? (Or, the best writer presently working ...?)

The reviewer's choice of words angered me. Because the language suggests that gender is a useful lens through which we can analyse or assess writing skills. (We can't.) It also suggests that the reviewer has a problem stating that Gail Simone (a girl) writes better than some of the boys. (She does. The earth hasn't reacted to this fact by destroying itself.)

Finally, I completely and utterly reject the suggestion that women writers are in a different category (or league) from men, and therefore need to be held to different standards of excellence.

The Book Meme

2006-08-10T11:15:00.000-04:00

Having been tagged by Kalinara, I am powerless to resist.

1. One book that changed your life:

J.H. Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline, (Yale UP, 1986).

This well-researched, elegantly written book helped me decide to become a historian.

2. One book you have read more than once:

G. Cabrera Infante, Three Trapped Tigers, (Harper 1965/1971).

3. One book you would want on a desert island:

James Joyce, Ulysses, (Shakespeare and Co., 1922).

4. One book that made you laugh:

John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces, (LSU Press, 1980).

5. One book that made you cry:

Kashuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, (Knopf, 2005).

6. One book you wish had been written:

Ibuprofen Is Not a Vitamin: Proven Relaxation Techniques for Obssessive Grad Students.

7. One book you wish had never been written:

William Archibald Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic, 1865-1877, (Harper and Bros., 1907).

8. One book you are currently reading:

Paul E. Johnson, Sam Patch: The Famous Jumper, (Hill and Wang, 2003)

9. One book you have been meaning to read:

Samuel Richardson, Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady, (1747-8).

10. Tag five people!

The hardest part of the whole meme business. (Though I do look forward to reading people's responses.)

Nida Z.; Heidi M.; Will P.; Calvin P.; and Shelly.

The Horror ...

2006-08-05T13:35:00.000-04:00

As I plan to head out and see The Descent this afternoon, scary movies have been on my mind.

I recently purchased a used copy of Camille Paglia's nifty little book on Hitchcock's The Birds in the British Film Institute's "Film Classics" series (BFI Publishing, 1998), which effectively lays out the various layers of complexity that suffuse Hitchcock's weird and scary film. The details Paglia offers are instructive in pointing up the mechanisms used to elicit fear and dread in viewers in the pre-feminist era. (Also instructive in thinkng about this is Carol Clover's fascinating Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, [Princeton, 1992].)

There is a girl-meets-boy undercurrent running through The Birds, with viewers wondering not just who will survive, but also who will end up together? In fact, the movie sets up a love quadrangle, with the male lead, Mitch, surrounded by three attractive women who all vie for his love and attention.

One of those women is Mitch's formidable mother Lydia, played by Jessica Tandy. Tippi Hedren plays Melanie in the film; she's a somewhat feckless socialite who meets Mitch by chance and ultimately pursues him to the idyllic coastal community of Bodega Bay. (Which, it just so happens, is ground zero for an impending apocalyptic bird assault upon the human race.) Annie, played by Suzanne Pleshette, has already failed to navigate past Mitch's mother in order to establish a mature relationship with Mitch. Having accepted this defeat, she's moved to the town in which he resides just to be near him, and is the town's beloved schoolteacher. (The image above shows you what happens to her, in case you were wondering.)

With Annie gone, Melanie has a slightly clearer path to navigate to win Mitch's love. It's clearer, but it's by no means one without remaining obstacles. For in addition to Mitch's not inconsequential mother, Melanie also has to face the millions of birds who are out to kill her.

One of Hitchcock's less-savory subtexts in the film is that in order for Melanie to win Mitch and gain his mother's approval, she will need to be tamed just a bit. She's rich, she's beautiful, she's headstrong, and too used to getting her way. (Several of her mildly "wild" exploits have been reported in the press.) Luckily, a quite efficient taming force, in the form of waves of murderous birds, is on hand to do the trick.

At the close of the film, "a catatonic Melanie ... must be half-carried out, where she sinks into the tender arms of an apparently all-forgiving Lydia." (p. 85)

Amor vincit omnia!

Hitchcock clearly intended for the ardors of the actual shooting of the film to reflect, and factor into, his female lead's performance. (Werner Herzog [Fitzcarraldo] and Francis Ford Coppola [Apocalypse Now!] also subjected actors and crews to hardships that mirrored those central to their own films.)

For the climatic attic scene, where Melanie falls beneath a killer flock, live gulls, crows, and ravens were used - to the surprise of Tippi Hedren, who learned only when she arrive on the set that day that ... mechanical birds had been rejected as unconvincing. Seven days were needed to shoot this horrifying sequence ... Hedren called it 'the worst week of my life.' A cage built around the set contained the birds, which were literally thrown at her from a distance of eight to ten feet by prop men wearing padded, elbow-length leather gloves. Periodically, shooting would halt while makep artist Howard Smit applied latex strips and stage blood to simulate cuts and scratches on Hedren's face and arms. Her hair was tousled, and her green suit gradually ripped. The gull that she whacks with her torch was a dummy, and the real one that bites her on the hand had a rubber cap fitted over its beak. But the terrorization of Melanie was also the terrorization of Tippi, who recalled of the grueling, day-long operations for the scene's final seconds: 'They had me down on the floor with one of the birds tied loosely to me through the peck-holes in my dress. Well one of the birds clawed my eye and that did it; I just sat and cried. It was an incredible physical ordeal.' ...In a state of total collapse, she was forbidden by her doctor to return to work, and so shooting on the film was halted for a week ... (p. 16)

While Paglia acknowledges that Melanie's character gets beaten into submission by the end of the movie, and that the shoot was pretty hellish for Tippi Hedren, she doesn't leave things there.

In closing the book, Paglia informs us of how Hedren ultimately overcame this difficult and trying experience:

Hedren and her then-husband ... later founded an animal preserve in ... California, forty miles north of Los Angeles. Though it began as a movie set, Shambala became a refuge for ... lions and tigers, whose care and adventures she chronicled in her ... 1985 book, The Cats of Shambala ...

In many interviews ... about Psycho, Janet Leigh has repeatedly expressed her continuing fear of taking showers. Tippi Hedren, in contrast, though traumatised by animal nature in The Birds, seems to have actively confronted Hitchcock's challenges. Once her 'consciousness had been raised' ... she refused to wear the fur coat Hitchcock had given her and eventually 'hocked' it to pay feed and maintenance bills at Shambala. As queen of the lions, she beat Hitchcock at his own game ...[I]n her embattled private dialogue with Hitchcock, Tippi Hedren has had the last word.
(pp. 91-3)

Justice, Civil War Style

2006-08-03T15:34:00.000-04:00

(Spoilers to Fantiastic Four #539 and Wolverine #44 follow.)

Ben Grimm's defining moment in Marvel's Civil War is depicted in Fantastic Four #539, with The Thing finally expressing his opposition to the Registration Act. But, since he just can't bring himself to defy the US government, he decides to leave the country.

The comic-book-irony quotient is especially rich, here, with Ben forced to leave the country for which he has just professed his deep love.

Sure, this is a bit of a cop out. But one of Ben's Yancy Street homies has just been killed in the struggle between the pro- and anti-registration forces, and, given the circumstances, he's entitled to revel in a pox on both your houses moment.

Now, I didn't have a big problem with the way that Ben actually failed to choose sides. (Though, weren't we promised that everyone would have to choose sides?) What did bother me in the issue was that during the time that The Thing is stating his views, everyone just stands around and listens to him. Cap, Iron Man, Daredevil, Ms. Marvel, She Hulk, motionlessly standing and listening.

I mean, I don't believe for a minute that Iron Man would just drop everything and listen to The Thing's tormented speechifying while Captain America, Daredevil, Luke Cage the Cloak and Dagger were all within arm's reach. The framing of this scene struck me as out of place.

These criticisms aside, though, it does seem to me that the nature of Marvel's crossover event is making it easier for writers to integrate it into their individual titles than it was for DC creators to do during Infinite Crisis. I actually get the sense that my reading of individual titles is constructively feeding into my understanding of the main issues of Civil War, which certainly wasn't the case with Infinite Crisis.

In his title, Wolverine continues to extract a pound of flesh from Nitro's genocidal hide, and it's pleasing to see that someone considers the villain, rather than the New Warriors, as responsible for the Stamford tragedy.

And while readers are reminded that who benefits? is always a crucial question to keep in mind, there was an even nicer "reveal" in the issue, one that answered a question that came to my mind when I read Civil War #1.

I was pleased to learn that Namorita's people are indeed interested in bringing the person responsible for her death to justice. Because, even with her bad skin and poor impulse control, Namorita was still member of the Atlantean royal house.

Lois' Life Aquatic

2006-07-31T07:10:00.000-04:00

I've been making my way through the second volume of the Showcase Superman, which contains stories originally published in 1960-1.

There are some pleasingly strange stories to be found here, and my focus in this post is a particularly striking sequence of images from one titled "The Mermaid From Atlantis." (Superman #138 [1960]; written by Jerry Siegel and pencilled by Wayne Boring.)

In this tale Lori Lemaris, the fetching mermaid whom Superman once loved, is trying to trick the man of steel into proposing to Lois Lane. (Lori has moved on and is married to a merman named Ronal. However, she still cares enough about Superman that she wishes him to experience the kind of wedded bliss she now enjoys).

Part of Lori's plan involves using her mind to push incessant telepathic suggestions at Superman: "She's beautiful ... and so ... helpless! Take Lois into your arms, Superman! And kiss her ... Kiss her now!

When that attempt fails, Lori arranges things so that an unsuspecting Superman will be surrounded by a school of bizarre chimeral fish who have Lois Lane's head superimposed upon their otherwise normal bodies.

Needless to say, this stratagem fails, too.

While all of this is adequatley quirky and strange, what I think is really interesting is that the bizarre face-on-fish imagery might be a visual homage of sorts to George Herriman's Krazy Katfish, his surrealistic aquatic doppelganger to Krazy Kat.

Katfish first showed up in Herriman's Krazy Kat in 1916, and made sporadic appearances thereafter. Since Herriman's comic is absolutely suffused with unrequited passion (Krazy for Ignatz Mouse, and Officer Pup for Krazy), it's not too much of a stretch to imagine an artist visually connecting Lois' own frustrated love to Krazy's.

Here's most of the strip from Sunday, January 30, 1938, one of Krazy Katfish's notable appearances (Krazy and Ignatz, 1937-8, [Fantagraphics, 2006] p. 69):

Feast and Famine

2006-07-28T13:25:00.000-04:00

With Birds of Prey #96, Gail Simone delivers another nice issue. Oracle and crew provide a tribute to Ted Kord that was as moving as it was unexpected. And no one writes Black Alice like GS does.

I was especially pleased to see Black Canary honor and re-establish a relationship that had long been missing from her life:

I tried to like Supergirl #8, and I failed. It was just too much work. Poor pacing, an inept conclusion, inconsistent art, and lame exposition all conspired to leave a sour taste in my mouth.

I didn't actually check, but I'm fairly certain that there's no textual reason that can explain the damage to Power Girl's Kandor armor, which creates the familiar peep-hole over her chest. (Man, I'd actually like to read a comic in which Power Girl appears in business attire [or a track suit] for the whole time, I really would.) I know Supergirl blasted an opening into PG's armour several issues ago, but I am sure that PG acquired a new outfit in the interim.

It's been suggested to me that Marvel's crossover is best enjoyed from the sidelines, rather than head on. After reading New Avengers #22, Amazing Spider-Man #534, Civil War: Frontline #4, and Runaways/Young Avengers #1, I whole-heartedly agree.

In his own title, Peter Parker finally shows some welcome thoughtfullness (and respect for Captain America), two things which were missing in his appearance in CW #3.

And in New Avengers, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones mete out a prolonged (and welcome) verbal smackdown to Iron Man and Carol Danvers, making an eloquent case for resisting the registration act. (Jessica has the added advantage of being able to unload her verbal a-bombs while she's cradling her new-born infant.) Later, in conversation with Jessica, Luke utters the crossover's best lines, so far:

I ain't going to have my kid grow up to find out that after all we been through, her daddy buckled to the man. ... The people of this neighborhood know me. I want them to see what they do to me for standing up for what I believe is right.

So far, the She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel, two heroines I bonded with during my first iteration of comic fandom, have been written onto the wrong side of this conflict. I was relieved to see that over in X-Factor, at least Siryn has got her head on straight. I look forward to learning how Spider-Woman declares her allegiances.

Birds of Prey was a high point this week; a pleasure to read from start to finish. However, I have to admit that after slogging through Supergirl, it was the two pages from The Amazing Spider-Girl appearing in Marvel Previews that actually restored my faith in humanity.

Here's the final page, in which Spider-Girl's startling change of physique and hair color are explained:

I laughed for about an hour when I set eyes on the muscle-bound and bunion-headed Spiderman depicted in the top panel.

Catwoman/Squirrel Girl

2006-07-20T15:30:00.000-04:00

(Spoilers to Catwoman #57 and Cable and Deadpool #30 follow.)

Here are a few important questions to which we now have definitive answers:

(1) Will Helena's baby-sitter Miranda, introduced in Catwoman #55, turn out to be a psycho-baby-killer?

— No.

(Though, to quote Ricky Ricardo, Selina clearly will have some serious 'splainin' to do.)

(2) Can Selina Kyle beat the crap out of two menacing men while holding her recently-born child (and fighting most of the time with one of Angle Man's razor sharp triangle-doohickies jammed into her heel)?

— Yes.

(3) Can Squirrel Girl kick Deadpool's ass?

— Yes.

(4) Has Squirrel Girl registered under the Superhero Registration Act?

— Yes.

With reference to number (4), I know that Squirrel Girl's actions might make some of you doubt my contention that Squirrel Girl will prove to be the key player on the anti-registration side of Marvel's Civil War.

Though I can understand why some readers might be dubious, I stand firm in my belief and end with a single comment: the ways of the squirrel are subtle and strange.

Squirrel Girl at War

2006-07-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

Since recently re-reading the "First Kiss" feature in I Heart Marvel: Masked Intentions #1, I've been giving some serious thought to Marvel's Civil War.

And I've concluded that Squirrel Girl is the key to the entire thing. There's no mistaking the fact that she's got independant and deep connections to (not one but) two of the main players at the heart of the event, and I'd bet that, like Kevin Bacon, one we started thinking about it, we'd find even more.

Squirrel Girl carries a major torch for Speedball, the young man whose actions sparked the whole affair. And though her passion for the camera-hungry youth could be discounted as a mere schoolgirl's crush, Squirrel Girl did receive a large measure of reciprocation from Speedball on the final page of "First Kiss."

Call me a starry-eyed fangirl, but I simply cannot imagine that Squirrel Girl is going to allow a de-powered Speedball to rot in some Federal prison on her watch, the punching bag of venal guards and enraged convicts. (And, to add insult to injury, the recipient of relentlessly lame legal advice from Jennifer Walters.) Given these circumstances, inaction on Squirrel Girl's part would be most uncharacteristic. Mark my words, she will act, eager to mete out the necessary payback to those responsible for placing Speedball in his present situation.

In addition, Squirrel Girl has tangled with Iron Man in the past. In introducing herself to Tony Stark as a teen-aged mutant and would-be superhero, she put a small portion of her skills on display.

In that encounter, Stark foolishly spurned her offer to become his partner, though he later accepted her assistance in taking down Dr. Doom.

And though the ways of the squirrel are both subtle and strange, there can be no mistaking that Squirrel Girl gets the job done.

All I can say is: Iron Man, you better be watching your back.

Spider-Girl News!

2006-07-12T19:21:00.000-04:00

A welcome announcement was posted today at Marvel.com:

The little comic that could has been given a second life as Spider-Girl, which ended at the milestone 100th issue, is now being relaunched as the Amazing Spider-Girl. Thanks to the most dedicated and enthusiastic fanbase in all of comics, the adventures of Mayday Parker will continue in Amazing Spider-Girl #1 with Spider-Girl creator Tom DeFalco still at the healm.

Now that's music to my ears.

From the article by Matt Brady on the reprieve and relaunch at Newsarama.com:

As readers of Spider-Girl #100 are learning today, the last issue of the heroine’s series is just that – only the last issue of that particular series.

As has become the familiar refrain - Spider-Girl lives again - and this time, it’s a little more stable than before.

In October, Marvel will launch The Amazing Spider-Girl #1 by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Sal Buscema. And – for fans of the character who’ve felt Marvel may have dropped the ball along the line, or never really worked to promote the series, the publisher is rolling out the marketing wagon. Case(s) in point:

— The Spider-Girl Saga #0 which catches readers old and new – up on the character and her world, will come out two weeks before the new #1 issue.

— Ed McGuiness will provide a variant cover for #1.

— Posters featuring the cover to #1 are being readied for promotion.

— The Amazing Spider-Girl postcards are being prepared.

The reprieve is no act of charity; the book's writer Tom DeFalco makes clear that the title has consistently generated income for Marvel. Interestingly, the lion's share of Spider-Girl's sales come from outside of the direct market.

But going back a couple of months ago, they told us that, bottom line, these books are selling terrific in the mass market. We’re reaching an audience that everybody thought and still tend to think that comic books cannot reach anymore. But we’re doing it, and we’re doing it with numbers that are quite significant. That’s why Marvel continues to move ahead with Spider-Girl. Today, when people look at numbers, they tend to look at the Direct Market numbers, and judge form there, but that’s not the whole market anymore – lucky for us.

A Cold Case Re-opened?

2006-07-10T15:31:00.000-04:00

What follows is the fifth in my collection of previously posted open questions:

In the alternate time-stream depicted in the "Absolute Power" story-line from Superman/Batman, Superman murdered that universe's version of Wonder Woman. Shouldn't he be held accountable for that crime in some way?

Supergirl #7 opens a narrative door that just might allow for the question to be answered yes.

The image on the issue's final splash page makes it reasonable to assume that Kandor's evil Kal-El is actually the "Superman" who perpetrated the act of which I spoke.

The DC webpage informs us that the next issue will include both the marriage of Supergirl and a battle to the death with Power Girl.

So I carry the following questions to the next installment of Supergirl:

— Do Kryptonians believe in divorce?
— Can Power Girl and Supergirl avoid killing each other?
— Will evil Kal-El get what he so justly deserves?

I hope all three will be answered yes.

Vernacular Architecture

2006-07-08T10:49:00.000-04:00

The young people of the Pereira da Silva favela (shantytown) in Rio de Janeiro have built a remarkable miniature favela that they've called Morrinho.

I've always been fascinated by models and simulacra. While at a conference in the Netherlands several years ago, my wife and I made a memorable visit to Madurodam, which we still refer to as that perfect day.

Here's most of the brief text of the article that introduced me to the favela. (Andres Otero, "Rio de Janeiro, Morrinho: Favela Metaforica," Abitare 457 (Jan 2006), pp. 140-145. The photographs were taken in 1997.)

Morrinho reproduces the world [the young people] live in. Their models are the chaotic buildings in the favelas, its dead-end roads and impossibly steep stairways, not the luxury apartment blocks of the 'asphalt' or the sea-front avenues. Pretty soon a whole town takes shape, complete with bus-stops, neighborhood associations, churches, bars, police stations, motobike taxi ranks and drug-traffic stake-outs. A favela within a favela. Everywhere there are small notices: "They betrayed me while I was alive and forgot me when I was in jail; you'll miss me when I'm dead, the saudade"; "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone or fire the first shot. Signed: PCC, CVF, mafia"; "I'm afraid Christ is passing us by and won't come back" ... The kids use the models to play at "cops and traffickers", staging shootouts, high speed reversing and road blocks. "Normal" life, but on a smaller scale. Paradoxically, their minutely detailed rendering of hard reality helps keep them away from real violence and drug trafficking. Some of them win a dregree of fame. The luckier ones manage to get a job in video and concert production, to find a way forward ...

Four of the creators: Nelciran, Rodrigo, José Carlos and Vinicius.

Godard Proven Right

2006-07-07T08:39:00.000-04:00

All you need to make a film [or comic] is a girl and a gun.--Jean-Luc Godard.

It was a pleasure to see how Ted Naifeh manoevered Polly Pringle out of a spot of trouble in issue #6 of his wonderful Polly and the Pirates. Now that I've had the opportunity to re-read all of the issues as a completed series, I can't praise or recommend it highly enough.

Though the issue brings Polly's adventures to a close, I was heartened to read several bits of dialogue here and there that could be interpreted as allusions to possible future activities.

As a satisfied reader, I heartily second Scrimshaw's sentiments:

Independence Day, 2006

2006-07-04T10:09:00.000-04:00

John J. Barralet, Apotheosis of George Washington, 1802.
(Lithograph, the Maine Historical Society.)

Following Washington's death in 1799, many paintings, drawings, and lithographs on the theme of his ascension to paradise were produced. These images are fascinating visual evidence that the revolutionary era was both modern and early modern at the same time.

Rather than take the opportunity to denounce George III and Lord Bute, I'd rather allow a nineteenth-century observer to describe one of the ancillary expressions of independence he discerned in early America.

I was recently re-reading Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835), and was especially struck by chapter 12 of Part III, titled "How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman." (Pages 705-8 in the Library of America edition, edited by Arthur Goldhammer.)

Now, there's no doubt that this chapter was written by a nineteenth-century European man whose aim was to juxtapose American virtue to European vice. However, though idealized, his interpretation is pretty nuanced nonetheless. (For example, he doesn't argue that there is full equality of the sexes in America.)

Here are several excerpts:

American men consistently demonstrate full confidence in the reasoning abilities of their helpmates and deep respect for their freedom. They deem a woman's mind as capable of discovering the naked truth as a man's and her heart as stalwart in adhering to it, and they have never sought to protect her virtue any more than his behind a shelter of prejudice, ignorance, and fear.

In Europe, where men so readily submit to the despotic sway of women, they nevertheless seem to deny them some of the principle attributes of humankind and look upon them as seductive but incomplete beings. What is most surprising is that European women ultimately come to see themsleves in the same light and are not far from considering it a privilege that they are allowed to seem frivolous, weak, and fearful. American women insist on no such rights. (707)

Thus, Americans do not believe that man and woman have the duty and right to do the same things, but they hold both in the same esteem and regard them as beings of equal value but different destinies. Although they do not ascribe the same form or use to a woman's courage as to a man's, they never doubt her courage; and while they hold that a man and his helpmate should not always use their intelligence and their reason in the same way, at least they believe that a woman's reason is as secure as a man's and her intelligence just as clear.

Americans have thus allowed woman's social inferiority to persist but have done all they could to raise her intellectual and moral level to parity with man, and in this respect they seem to have shown an admirable grasp of the true notion of democratic progress.

... [I]f someone were to ask me what I think is primarily responsible for the singular prosperity and growing power of this people, I would answer that it is the superiority of their women. (708)

If read carefully, Tocqueville's chapter on women serves two purposes: it expertly describes the liberating and pernicious effects of the ideology of separate spheres, while also pointing to how equality of education contains the seeds of enhanced liberation for America's women.

Noir Women

2006-07-02T10:30:00.000-04:00

The August issue of Wizard magazine has a nice little sidebar (p. 131) on X-Factor, a recently relaunched title that I'm actually enjoying quite a bit. The piece, titled "The Noir 'Factor'," has been prompted by Marvel's impending release of a hardcover premier edition containing issues 1-6.

The sidebar lists 5 noir factors that make X-Factor worth reading, the first being Femmes Fatales.

Unfortunately, they totally misuse the term.

Here's what they say:

The series packs four of the baddest broads into one title: Wolfsbane's the moral center and bloodthirsty enforcer; Siryn and Monet combine for a one-two punch of sex appeal and attitude; and Layla with her chaos theory powers provides the unknown element of surprise.

Now, there is indeed an enduring archetype derived from film noir that we call the femme fatale. However, the central thing that separates these women from the heroines of X-Factor is that association with noir femmes fatales was often, well, fatal.

And while I grant you that Siryn, Monet, and Wolfsbane are indeed depicted as sexy women, (with each exuding their sex-itude in a different way), here's the key distinction:

While femmes fatales are, by definition, sexy, not every sexy woman in a noir film or publication is a femme fatale. Sexiness is not the key characteristic of the femme fatal; ruthlessness and single-minded murderousness are.

My point, just for clarity: in noir, beautiful women need not be fatal, guys.

In the great noir films of the forties, the femmes fatales were conniving women who sported killer hair nets, proudly balanced jewel-studded turbans atop their heads, and walked over men in their seriously un-sensible shoes. They used their edgy sexual appeal to ensnare unsuspecting (previously "good") men, and enlisted them as cogs, patsies, and enforcers in their convoluted murderous schemes. Most importantly, these "spider women" fully intended to dispose of the fellows who had wandered into their webs once they outlived their usefullness.

To make things crystal clear to viewers, creators of noir films often juxtaposed a wholesome "good girl" to the femme fatale. And just to make things easy, the femme fatale was often dark haired, with "the good girl" being a blonde.

Notable femmes fatales:
— Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, 1944.
— Ann Savage in Detour, 1945.
— Jane Greer in Out of the Past, 1947.

Now, there's a nice moment in X-Factor #8 in which Siryn uses her you-will-love-me voice in order to gather some crucial information from an unsuspecting (Spider)man.

Is Siryn duplicitous, here? Yes.

Is this power likely to produce disastrous after-effects? It already has.

Does Siryn wield this power in the furtherance of a murderous scheme for personal gain, with the intention of ultimately causing the death of the person she's speaking to? Of course not.

Siryn is a superhero, she's not a femme fatale.

Recent Reading

2006-06-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

I am pleased to report that Mortlake still stands, though its environs have certainly been tested by the rains and the Schuylkill river.

During the intermittent moments when flood and storm have rendered me study-bound, I've been reading Alice Quinn's edition of Elizabeth Bishop's juvenilia and uncollected poems, drafts, and notes titled Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke Box, (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2006).

Although the publication of writing that (the famously perfectionist) Bishop preferred not see the light of day has been controversial in some quarters, the book has been a revelation to me.

In his piece on the collection in the April 27th edition of the New York Review of Books, Charles Simic summed it up pretty well:

Unlike just about every other poet whose collected poems are bound to contain embarrassments, [Bishop] never published a bad poem. As she told an interviewer, she was prepared to wait forty years for a poem to get finished since no good poet can afford to be in a rush. Such extraordinary patience is a standard not many of us are able to emulate. The publication of her uncollected poems, drafts, and fragments, which most certainly would have mortified her if she were still alive, solves a few puzzles and deepens others. As far as her reputation as a poet goes, these 106 flawed and at times marvelous poems will only enhance it. This would not be true of most other poets, but Bishop is a special case. Determined as she was that every poem of hers should surprise the reader with something new, she rarely wrote the same kind of poem twice.

On a personal note, the painstaking way that Bishop crafted, edited, and revised her exquisite poems, a process which produced copious documentary evidence, kind of makes her a historian's poet.

This collection includes photo-reproductions of the sixteen extant typed and hand-written drafts Bishop wrote of her marvelous poem "One Art," and of equal artistic, biographical, and documentary interest are her three pages of typed notes for a never-finished "Elegy" about Lota de Macedo Soares.

Alison Bechdel, II

2006-06-22T08:21:00.000-04:00

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) has certainly caused a well-deserved stir. (There are links to recently-appearing reviews available at Bechdel's blog.)

There are several things that make Fun Home notable:

(1) It's being (widely) discussed as a "graphic novel," but like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, David B.'s Epileptic, and Miriam Katin's We Are On Our Own, it's actually a graphic memoir. Widespread discussion of these sometimes confining and problematic categories, and how and why they exist, is a good thing. (For example, the other night I got into a discussion with someone I had just met about why Fun Home and the Katin memoir were being shelved with graphic novels in the Barnes and Noble.)

(2) For a graphic work, Bechdel's book is immensely literary. Allusions to a wide body of written texts are woven into the book, and, consequently, Fun Home provides a multi-layered, engaging, and rich reading experience.

(3) It's marvelously good.

Bechdel provides the reader with a non-linear exploration of the experiences, memories, and retrospective moments of reflection and self-discovery which forged her development into the artist capable of making the text in your hands. (Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist is a touchstone.) And while I suppose all memoirs do this, the sensation of recognizing this was especially acute for me as I read Fun Home.

Here's my favorite page in the book, which brings chapter five to a close. (For various reasons, young Alison is dictating her diary entries to her mother.)

Alison Bechdel will be speaking at 7PM tonight at the Free Public Library this evening in Philadelphia. (1901 Vine Street)

Open Questions

2006-06-19T11:50:00.000-04:00

Here's a list of my current comic book questions; I'd appreciate any thoughts readers might offer to help fuel my random speculations.

(1) Will Selina Kyle again be Catwoman?
—(a) Will Holly Robinson need to die for this to happen?
—(b) Will Helena (Dubrovna) Kyle need to die for this to happen?
—(c) Will Helena's baby-sitter Miranda, introduced in issue #55, turn out to be a psycho-baby-killer?

Although I wish Holly Robinson unmitigated success as she takes up the mantle of Catwoman, it must be said that, whether Selina Kyle is in costume or not, she simply is Catwoman, for me.

The most important question: can a woman be a single mother and a costumed adventurer? (Kate Spencer in Manhunter would seem to provide a relevant precedent to how this could possibly play out.)

(2) Following Brian Michael Bendis' advice, (which I discussed here), DC has engaged in a project to humanize Wonder Woman: will the moves taken to do this strengthen, or irrevocably ruin, the character?

(3) Will Cassandra Cain be a permantent villain, or is the person we're seeing in recent issues of Robin brain-washed, mentally unstable, or an evil twin/clone?

(4) Will Spider-Girl actually end with Spider-Girl's end?

(5) In the alternate time-stream depicted in the "Absolute Power" story-line from Superman/Batman, Superman murdered that universe's version of Wonder Woman. Shouldn't he be held accountable for that crime in some way?

(6) When, how, and in what book will Dr. Light be brought to justice?

Finally, two Reed Richards observations from Civil War #2:

(1) Reed's treatment of his wife Sue actually surpassed the Doom Patrol's Niles Caulder's astounding exchange with Rita Farr in Teen Titans #36 ("You follow my orders ... and maybe one day you won't be a freak anymore ..."), to top my list of the most starkly misogynistic situation set into motion by a non-villain. Now, I know both exchanges were purposefully written this way, but Reed's dickery in CW #2 seems so extreme that pulling the character back from it may not be possible. And, as Heidi Meeley argues here, perhaps that's the whole point.

(2) If Reed is so smart, why doesn't he know that you just can't reduce something as complex as the outcome of unrestricted superhuman activity to a series of formulae? I'm sorry, but no matter how smart you are, no matter how long and complex the formulae might be, this just can't be reliably done — and Mark Millar should know this.

Fathers

2006-06-18T01:25:00.000-04:00

Walking Home
By Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Walking home from school one afternoon,
Slightly abstracted, what were you thinking of?
Turks in Vienna? Luther on Christian love?
Or were you with Van Gogh beneath the moon
With candles in his hatband, painting stars
Like singed hairs spinning in a candle flame?
Or giant maps where men take, lose, reclaim
Whole continents with pins? Or burning cars
And watchtowers and army-censored news
In Chile, in the Philippines, in Greece,
Colonels running the universities,
Assasinations, executions, coups —

You walked, and overhead some pipsqueak bird
Flew by and dropped a lot of something that
Splattered, right on the good professor, splat.
Now, on the ancient Rhine, so Herod heard,
The old Germanic chieftains always read
Such droppings as good luck: opening the door,
You bowed to improve my view of what you wore,
So luckily, there on the center of your head.

Man is not a god, that's what you said
After your heart gave out, to comfort me
Who came to comfort you but sobbed to see
Your heartbeat zigzagging on a TV overhead.
You knew the world was in a mess, and so,
By God, were you; and yet I never knew
A man who loved the world as much as you,
And that love was the last thing to let go.

— In Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-1992, (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2000), p. 9

Bloomsday, 2006

2006-06-16T08:44:00.000-04:00

At Mortlake, June 16th is revered as the day in which the action of James Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) took place.

Ulysses is my must have if-stranded-on-a-desert-island book.

Others, of course, are free to disagree with my personal assessment. (Especially deceased superheroes.)

The image is from X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl #2.

Character Driven

2006-06-13T09:59:00.000-04:00

There's an interesting and wide-ranging interview with Terry Moore, creator of Strangers in Paradise, in The Comics Journal #276. (A small portion of the interview is available online, here.)

Moore sensitively discusses his growth as an artist and writer throughout the interview, and describes a personal "road to Damascus" moment he had while conceptualizing the series.

Dirk Deppey: I noticed that in your last Journal interview, you mentioned that you thought the original four-issue miniseries was sexist, and I'm not sure I got why that was. Do you still think that's the case, and if so, why?

Terry Moore: I think maybe it just felt more sexist to me, because I was writing about women doing things I wanted them to do. When I was plotting the regular series, I knew I wasn't going to write like that anymore. I was going to write about what my characters wanted to do, not what I wanted them to do.

That's a subtle, but important, distinction to make. Here's how Moore completes the thought:

Moore: The entire miniseries was based off of one idea, this scene of a woman taking off her clothes in the park; which I thought was just a charming moment I'd love to see in a movie, you know? But it was for me. To write the rest of the miniseries I just did a detective routine from there — "OK, what would make a regular woman do that, because that's unthinkable, and how did she get to that point?" It was kind of like a writer's challenge, you know, catch a moving train and then figure out how everybody got there and where they're going. That's what I did with the story I just kind of wrote forward and backwards from the park scene.

Later in the interview, Moore nicely clarifies his relationship to his characters.

Deppey: I hear a lot of cartoonists refer to their characters as though they were real people, and I guess that has something to do with the fact that you've just been sitting there and living them for the past 10 years, and working out their motivations.

Moore: I really don't think you can write a story worth reading without thinking of your characters as real people. It was a turning point in my life when I realized that. Before that, I never made anything worth reading when I was just trying to make up characters. When I stopped thinking about it like that, and just started writing about people, that's when my whole life changed. That's when I came up with SiP. So I've kept that approach ever since.

Wonder Woman #1

2006-06-12T02:22:00.000-04:00

When I was a teenager, I loved New Wave movies because they featured crazy camera shots and exciting quick cuts. As I got older, though, my favorite filmakers turned out to be pre-New Wave directors like Jean Renoir, because they really focused on the actors, and what the acting itself communicated to the audience... . — Austin English, in a "Bullets" review of Vanessa Davis' Spaniel Rage, in The Comics Journal #176, pp. 56-7.

(Spoilers follow in abundance.)

Wonder Woman #1 looks marvelous. Terry Dodson's assured pencilling is perfectly complemented by Rachel Dodson's inking and Rob Leigh's masterful coloring. The comic now has a visual depth and complexity that it lacked under previous teams, with individual panels and pages offering multiple points of focus and and perspective.

For example, these two panels, showing nothing more than acting Wonder Woman Donna Troy's entry into the Museum of Natural History, (which has an exhibit on Themyscira, The Lost Civilization of the Amazons), carefully bring together light effects, shading, background detail, and perspective to make things visually interesting.

And the following two panels are quite nicely juxtaposed, especially since the departing Diana serves as a centering focus on the left, while Donna takes that position in the right panel. (And the visual cliché of the windswept leaves works in the first one, since they frame the image and reinforce the vertiginous perspective.)

Though it delivers visually, the issue doesn't quite keep pace with respect to story-telling, since the action primarily serves as a prologue, introducing the current Wonder Woman, her enemies, and the title's supporting players (one of whom, going by the name of Diana Prince, is dramatically revealed on the book's final page).

As I read the issue, I was reminded of the experience of seeing Star Wars when it was re-released in theaters a few years ago; the audience heartily applauded when each character made their first screen appearance, and full-page spreads here serve to elicit a similar response, getting us to cheer (or hiss) when important figures first take the stage.

In short, I was left wanting more when I finished issue #1, and felt that the seeds of an interesting story-line with strong characterization have been planted and await future development.

Surprisingly, it seems possible that we might get a story-arc that's as much about Donna Troy as it is about Diana of Themyscira. For, although Donna's encounter with a cabal of formidable adversaries does not go exactly swimmingly, I can't imagine that Allan Heinberg intends to allow a villain's one-liner to encapsulate his own characterization of Donna Troy. (To Donna's You-- you're not Wonder Woman, the villain replies: With all due respect ... neither are you.)

At this point, I have to admit that I'm actually less interested in who Wonder Woman is, than I am in learning why Diana felt the need to take a 52 week vacation, and how her absence has affected her relationships with Donna Troy, Cassandra Sandsmark, and other individuals in the DCU.

To extend the film metaphor: when it comes to Wonder Woman, I prefer a character-based director's film to a less-nuanced action blockbuster.

Miriam Katin, II

2006-06-08T20:25:00.000-04:00

We Are on Our Own, Miriam Katin's new memoir from Drawn & Quarterly, is a difficult, beautiful, and compelling book. Katin is a humane and talented artist whose layered pencilling style makes her depictions of her extraordinary life experiences accessible to the reader.

In a note at the end of the book she writes:

This book is the story of our escape and hiding during the year of 1944-1945. I could somehow imagine the places and the people my mother told me about, but a real sense of myself as a small child and the reality of the fear and confusion of those times I could understand only by reading the last few letters and postcards my mother had written to my father. They survived the war with him.

While answering questions at the Rittenhouse Square Barnes and Noble yesterday evening, Katin self-deprecatingly described herself as an illustrator rather than as an artist, with her explanation being that this was fitting since she had received no formal artistic education.

Reading her remarkable work, I have to admit that the distinction utterly eludes me.

Miriam Katin

2006-06-07T10:14:00.000-04:00

As part of the First Person Arts Festival, Miriam Katin will be speaking about her graphic memoir We Are on Our Own tonight in Philadelphia. (Barnes and Noble, 1805 Walnut Street at 7PM.)

Here's D&Q's brief description of the memoir:

In this captivating and elegantly written graphic memoir, Miriam Katin retells the story of her and her mother's escape on foot from the Nazi invasion of Budapest. With her father off fighting for the Hungarian army and the German troops quickly approaching, Katin and her mother are forced to flee to the countryside after faking their deaths. Unable to tell anyone of their whereabouts, they disguise themselves as a Russian servant and illegitimate child, while literally staying a few steps ahead of the German soldiers.

Several years ago I read Katin's marvelous short piece "Oh, To Celebrate!" which appeared in Drawn & Quarterly volume 4, (D&Q, 2001). (The image is from that story.)

Based on the strength of that work, I'm looking forward to reading the memoir, and to seeing her presentation this evening.

Alison Bechdel

2006-06-05T16:14:00.000-04:00

Alison Bechdel is a masterful cartoonist who has been producing her award-winning strip Dykes to Watch Out For since 1983. (The image is the cover to the fifth collection of strips, published in 1993 by Firebrand Books.)

Her insightful, well-wrought, and literate graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, (Houghton Mifflin), has just been published, and I can't recommended it highly enough. I just finished reading the book over the weekend, and plan to post more about it once I've spent some more time with it and have given it additional thought.

Margot Harrison's recent article ("Life Drawing") from Seven Days: Vermont's Alternative Webweekly, provides an interesting exploration of Bechdel's creative career, as well as an assessment of the memoir.

The Comics Journal has a 2001 Bechdel interview, conducted by Trina Robbins, available online, and while it provides ample evidence that Bechdel is engaging and funny, (two things readers of her strip already know), we also learn that Fun Home was developing in her mind for quite some time.

Robbins: Let's start by having you tell us what you're working on now.

Bechdel: Well, I'm always working on my comic strip and trying to, you know, keep cranking that out. I've been trying to sort of make that my day job, which has been a huge struggle because...
...

I'm trying to make time in my life to work on a graphic memoir. Although, at the rate I'm going, it'll take forever to finish.
...

[T]here was something else going on for me as a kid, something about my gender identity that I haven't figured out yet. And that's one of the things I'm hoping to dissect and investigate in this memoir project.

But mostly, it's a book about my relationship with my father. Writing this book feels like a completely different activity from writing my comic strip because it's about real life. I feel like I'm using a part of my brain that's been dormant until now.

And here's Bechdel describing work that has inspired her:

Bechdel: I never really read superhero stuff as a kid. I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to comics history. Some Little Nemo, some Krazy Kat, that's it.

Robbins: Oh, wow, yeah. So what's your inspiration then? You couldn't have just sprung from an oyster shell or something.

Bechdel: Mostly it was Mad magazine. And I did read a lot of -- I had a subscription when I was little, but I also had access to some old collections, the little paperbacks of the really good stuff.

Robbins: Yes. Mad. They were the best. I also see Jules Feiffer in your work.

Bechdel: I love Jules Feiffer. I didn't discover him until I was a little older. But I read comic books. I read things like Richie Rich and Little Lulu. I had a big box of classic comics up in the attic that my dad got from an antique show. But I don't feel like the comic books, the Richie Rich and Little Lulu stuff really shaped my work in a substantive way, except to maybe teach me basic visual grammar. The satiric ethos of Mad was a much bigger childhood influence. That and Charles Addams. I discovered his stuff before I could read, and was mesmerized by it. It was so frustrating because I thought I'd be able to understand these cartoons when I learned to read the captions, but they were still a complete mystery. I'd look at them for hours, trying to figure out what the joke was. I think I learned my biggest cartooning lesson from Addams -- how to calibrate that crucial, tantalizing distance between the image and the words. Not too wide, not too narrow - just enough for the reader to complete the circuit.

This is one lesson Bechdel's learned well; the way her writing and drawing complement one another is part of what makes reading her comics such a treat.

Disaster Averted!

2006-06-02T18:09:00.000-04:00

In a piece up at Newsarama, Dan DiDio has announced the un-cancellation of Manhunter. Although the promise of renewed life extends only to a five issue story arc, there's hope for a more permanent revival.

This is very welcome news.

Here's what DiDio said, in the heart of the article:

"We're creating an arc that will run another five issues, and we're hoping that there will be a groundswell of excitement from the fan base that will help drive the sales and push them up, and help this book keep going from there," Didio explained.
...

"We're making the official announcement at the DC Nation panel at WizardWorld this weekend, and here, right now," Didio said when asked how he's going to make sure the word reaches all ears. "I'll also be dedicating one of my weekly DC Nation columns to the return of Manhunter, and one of the things we're all going to do is make sure we take every opportunity we can to get things right. We're looking at the book coming back in October or November, depending on how quickly our plans come together, and we'll make sure we'll have some promotion tied to those five issues when they're coming out."

Now that the gauntlet's been thrown down, I eagerly await a reciprocal announcement from Joe Quesada about Spider-Girl.