Archive for June, 2007
Ok, we’re back to sequential pages. This is from a series I’d like to go back and re-read. Have at it:
(click image to Blamerize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007)
I’ve been enjoying the Open Source interviews on the Pulse by Jane Irwin. So far they’re three interviews into the series. The series focuses on today’s self-publishing ‘models’: the mini, Print on Demand, web to graphic novel, the ‘floppy’ to trade, and straight to graphic novel. Doing a 160 pg. graphic novel still seems viable with the Xeric grant (max amount is $5k). Interesting.
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Over at the Engine, neat thread started by Brubaker. Writers talk about what their typical work day is.
Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter recently did an in-depth interview with comics scribe Joe Casey. After 10 years in comics, and having worked at both Marvel and DC, Joe’s got an interesting take on the biz and his place in it.
“I’d rather be tenth in line for twenty years than first in line for one.”“The thing is… artists can exploit the entertainment business right back. When I write for a mainstream publisher, am I exploiting them and their considerable presence in the Direct Market to get my name out there more? Sure I am. Are they exploiting me by paying me less than I’m worth for a product they’ll get a lot more in return for? Absolutely. I think it’s only depressing when you have a different view of what the entertainment business should be. Particularly one that somehow owes you something. I don’t have that view, and to do the work I enjoy doing, I need to master the system that’s there, evolve when it evolves, bob and weave when it throws another punch. I’m not depressed about it at all, really. You can yearn to change the system, but you have to realize going in that the system doesn’t want to be changed.”
Worth a read.
The Onion’s AV Club has a list of “10 Wonderfully Weird Moments from Fantastic Four Comics”
Indie Spinner Rack‘s podcast from S.P.A.C.E. went up today. Interviews with me, Paul Hornschemier, Mike Dawson, and other Day Prize nominees. Odd timing as I guess this weekend marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Gene Day, Dave Sim’s mentor. Dave Day accepting his late brother Gene’s Hall of Fame award from Sim this weekend in Toronto.
Continuing my series of June posts honoring the ubiquitous Sal Buscema:
I especially dig a comic that reflects the times in which it was created, or has a comment about the outside world. From the cold war origins of most of Marvel’s flagship characters to the overt political satire of Howard the Duck, that sort of real world relevance raises the subject matter above simple escapism and does more to capture a mature readership than mere violence and titillation. In my mind the king of these relevant comics is the hastily rewritten climax of the coolest Captain America story ever made: Captain America and The Falcon #175.
A funny thing happened along the way to making this story. According to a couple editorials spread across the letters pages as the issues progressed, writer Steve Englehart had pitched a story in which Cap uncovers a grand conspiracy whose villainous mastermind is revealed to be none other than a certain highly placed elected official within our own government. The editors asked the idea be changed a bit, since the notion of high officeholders engaging in super villain activity was a bit hard to swallow. Englehart conceded, changing the villains into corporate interests bent on global domination. Halfway through the storyline, however, a couple of reporters out in the real world caused a ruckus with their story about a burglary at the Watergate building. Some of the characters in Englehart’s story were thinly veiled caricatures of figures involved in that conspiracy, so he got his original wish to reveal the true nature of the criminal masterminds; but at this point the plot wasn’t terribly unique or provocative, so he cut it short with this issue.
Even though the story is steeped in post-Watergate disillusionment, a tpb release would not seem dated today. An Orwellian political operative named Quentin Hardarman (operating through his front organization, the Committee to Restore America’s Principles) has spearheaded a campaign of slander to tarnish Cap’s image and ruin his reputation. When Cap and the falcon become fugitives, Hardarman introduces a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing called Moonstone to take Cap’s place as “America’s hero.”
Hardarman works for the mysterious Number One, leader of the Secret Empire, who launches an invasion of Washington, D.C. In the country’s darkest hour, Moonstone steps up to defend the White House—only to be apparently humiliated by Number One’s main goon. Not realizing Moonstone is actually a collaborator, the dispirited country prepares to surrender until Cap and his allies come riding to the rescue. Cap chases Number one down to the Oval Office itself, where the true villain is unmasked and takes his own life. Following the events of this issue, a disillusioned Steve Rogers loses his faith in the American people and their leaders. He gives up the identity of Captain America, adopting for a time the role of Nomad, “the man without a country.”
Englehart was writing about Nixon, but the plot could be about Karl Rove, swift boat vets, and the crass manipulation of post-9/11 hysteria. If only Marvel had the stones to be so topical in the present day.
A couple more points of interest: The X-Men make an appearance in the story. It’s 1974, but their book is still in reprint so they show up wearing their pre-Neal Adams gear. One of the letters pages in this series mentions that a relaunch of the X-Men comic has been delayed but will be coming soon, and asks mutant fans for patience. Also, after writing the coolest Cap stories ever published, Steve Englehart must have used up all his good karma; he later subjected his readers to the ordeal known as the West Coast Avengers.
You have one week left to see FFN In Space a sci-fi themed improv show at Madlab.
The show is put on by Full Frontal Nudity, a local improv troupe. It’s long-form improv, which is where they make up an original narrative on the spot. It’s different from the short-form “game”-style improv you see on shows like “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”
The night we went, they did a straight-up Star Trek parody, complete with a red-shirted ensign. I am embarrassed to say I was the first one to laugh at the red shirt. Also, it’s got the woman from that one Byers commercial.
They also solicit suggestions from the audience on characters, character motivations, and locations. Here’s a hint: Don’t suggest “Uranus.” Apparently they’re tired of that one.
FFN In Space plays 8 p.m. this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 14-16.
Another pinup for you. Guess away…
(click image to Kabukisize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007)
“There are a lot of first editions in there,” the guy said. “A lot of hot artists, a lot of new comics from Canada.”
The speaker was a fat guy with a scruffy beard sitting in a ratty lawn chair in a flea market in Syracuse, NY. He was pointing to a cardboard box with about a dozen comics in it. As I recall, the box had Shadowhawk No. 1, Shadowhawk II No. 1, two copies of WildC.A.T.S. No. 1, and two copies of a Lady Death Swimsuit edition.
He wanted one Yankee dollar apiece for them.
Another row down, I found three consecutive Spider-Man comics from the 1960s, also each for $1. I’ll tell you more about that later.
The crowning find, however, was the Sense of Right Alliance. That’s right — the Sense of Right Alliance! The senses-shattering team too big for any single corporation to contain! If there’s a Sense of Wrong in the universe — and the copyright laws are loose enough — that’s a job for the Sense of Right Alliance!
I’m making an effort not to repeat myself too much by revisiting certain titles or artists when I pick out a comic for review, but I’m having a bit of difficulty with one specific artist. Some of the books I’ve written up were in my collection when I was a kid, others I’ve picked up in recent trips to a comic store with an amazing collection of cheap bronze age books; in both cases, picking out five books at random usually yields about two issues drawn by Sal Buscema. Sal’s stretch at Marvel covered four decades and he drew just about every title on their roster at one time or another, and while he never reinvented the wheel with his technique or generated a rabid following, his brand of simple cartooning is the kind I like to see in a superhero book. Since I’m having so much trouble avoiding him, I’ve decided to get a bunch of his books out of the way by declaring June to be Sal Buscema month here in the Way Back Machine.
Big John’s little brother first illustrated a Spider-Man story at the tail end of the Romita Sr. era, and he came back to Marvel’s flagship character often over the next few decades; he’s right up there with Romita and Andru for having defined the character for my generation of readers. He was illustrating Spectacular Spider-Man while Todd MacFarlane was enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame over on Amazing, and some nitwit editor mandated that every Spider-artist draw the character like this:
I hope there is a special circle of Hell reserved for the editor who disrespected Sal in this fashion.
One of the earliest comics graced by Sal’s line work that I ever saw is also my favorite superhero slugfest, a “classic misunderstanding battle” (to paraphrase Richard Jones) with the White Tiger, in Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #10.
The White Tiger was part of Marvel’s mid-1970’s attempt to broaden their audience by bringing some diversity to their pantheon of characters. If memory serves, Hispanic martial artist Hector Ayala himself came to a bad end (and I haven’t bothered to see what the premise of the new White Tiger books is), Bill Foster is dead, and Carol Danvers has grown several bra sizes on recent Ms. Marvel covers, so I’m not sure the experiment has carried over to the present day.
The fight rages from (George Perez) cover to cover, but there’s still a lot of story jammed into the panels thanks to writer Bill Mantlo. As seen in the previous issue, protesters on the Empire State University campus are on the verge of a riot over the closing of a night school that serves primarily minority students, and the university president has called out the guys with rubber bullets to stop them. A professor has framed the White Tiger for the theft of a valuable manuscript he hopes to fence in order to gain the funds to help keep the school open. As the real White Tiger confronts the professor, Spider-Man stumbles in, leaps to the wrong conclusion, and page one of this concluding chapter begins with the tussle that runs nearly to the end of the book.
Sal demonstrates in these pages something I find lacking in new books; a well drawn superhero fight scene. A modern book, with it’s emphasis on portraying mood and atmosphere instead of advancing any action (called “decompression”), either stretches a single action over a ridiculous number of panels (I consulted a recent Kubert Batman in which an entire page is devoted to a spear being thrown at a Man-Bat), or we’re treated to a series of disjointed images of figures slugging it out, gritting their teeth in pin-up poses with no cause-and-effect moving from panel to panel—no sense of choreography. Check out these pages instead, where the action in one panel initiates the action in the next, showing us a series of totally different events whose final panel is dependent on the first in the chain.
Beautiful stuff. If anyone’s drawing a superhero fight scene like this today, please let me know and I’ll become a fan.
This is sort of an unusual one. Let’s see how you do…
(click image to X-Menize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007)
So Tom and I are planning on silkscreening a bunch of Brainbot, Jr. t-shirts. Here’s the design:
3 color silkscreen on a light ash 100% cotton t-shirt, for $10.
So here are my questions: is this something you’d be interested in buying? And if so, what size would you get?
(You answer is not a commitment to buy one, I’m just trying to get a rough idea of how many of each size to order.)