HeroesCon

It looks like i'll be going to HeroesCon after all. I might go to the DC panel, but what i'm really interested in is finding some cool stuff on the indie tables, and raiding some quarter boxes. It would be cool to start a sketch book, but a sketch costs like, several comics' worth of money. :)

The Kaiju Gets Quized!

This is part of the "5 Questions Interview" meme going around some comics blogs right now. Ami asked me these questions. If you would like to participate, just leave a comment saying "interview me".

1. If you had to be a professional colleague of a Superhero's sekrit identity who would it be? (and they have to have a civilian identity, you can't choose Supergirl and be a professional bar hopper XD)

I reckon Clark Kent, b/c the Daily Planet is always hopping, and there are plenty of smart, interesting folks there.

2. If you could change one thing about your comics store what would it be (including moving it closer to your house, etc). :D

It's pretty close to my house already, but could be closer. I've thought about walking over there on a Saturday, but honestly that would be as much about testing my walking endurance as buying comics. It's a good shop, but if i could change something, i'd turn some of the Marvel fans into DC or indie fans, b/c then i could shoot the shit with more of them.

3. Steel or Ironman? :O

Steel, no contest. Ironman was always a secondary hero in my world anyway, but after Civil War i can't stand him. Steel has a lot of strong hero qualities, plus he's an inventor, and has the extra cool factor of being related to an American folk tale that Johnny Cash sang about.

4. Shaquille O'Neal or Robert Downey Jr.? XD

I'm not a fan of either, but once in a while i'll hear some crazy, ridiculous metaphor from Shaq that makes me laugh. It's like he wants to say stuff the way Muhammad Ali used to, but he doesn't quite make it.

5. What do you think is the most attractive thing about you? :D

Aside from my rugged good looks? ;) I think i'm a good listener. When i worked in a small retail store, people would come in just to talk. I don't often have constructive advice, but if you need to just get something off your chest, you could do worse.

Scott Pilgrim Volume Four

September 19th.

Comics On Screen

This site (comicsonscreen.com) features a cool way of reading comics online. The comic is displayed on the screen, and you drag the mouse over to the corner of the page and "turn" the page. It looks really cool. You can move it back and forth and it looks real. You can also call up a sort of pop-up window that acts like a magnifying glass.

They're currently building the content of the site. I'm not sure how much is on there yet, but suffice to say you can spend many hours reading what's there already. A lot of it is from Heroic Publishing, who do some nifty superhero books. (There's some historic link with the HERO/Champions RPG.)

There are free samples on the right hand side of the page. A subscription to the site is 5.99 per month, which seems fair.

The Lone Ranger #6

Brett Matthews, writer; Sergio Cariello, artist; Dean White, colorist
This issue wraps up the origin story/first adventure of the Lone Ranger. He finally confronts the hired gun who killed his father, brother, and the other Texas Rangers. Over the last six issues, we've seen the traditional bits of the Lone Ranger's identity come together: Tonto, the mask, the silver bullets, Silver the horse, and in this issue, the signature six-shooters, "Hi-yo Silver!" and "kemosabe".

The aforementioned hired gun is known as Black Bart. That's a cliched name for an Old West bad guy, and writer Matthews is using it with a wink. This Black Bart is actually black, as in African-American. He is a remorseless, resourcefull, and ready killer. Since taking out the Rangers in issue one, he's been touring the West taking out their families, too. He's one of those talky, self-aware villains, like you'll find in Whedon's stuff. That can easily go too far, but Matthews pulls it off here. Bart's discursiveness also balances well with our heroes' terseness.

The Lone Ranger is very young in this incarnation. This is a departure from the old TV show i grew up watching in re-runs, but it works well. This is, afterall, the beginning of his career as a vigilante lawman. Over the course of this story, his character has been building from grief to rage, and finally in this issue, to an understanding of the larger role he can play in the Old West. Until now it wasn't plain whether this would be a "modern", "gritty" take on the Ranger, or something more traditional. I'm happy to say that the best aspects of the traditional version remain. Though the world he's adventuring in is far harsher than the one his TV self raced through, the Ranger himself is still a character of hope and good.

Tonto is interesting. His character wasn't developed much, IIRC, on TV, but he was always cool. You always knew, just from his demeanor, that he was a bigger bad ass than he let on. You get the same sense here, though he's more fleshed-out. Though we've yet to learn his history, it's clear that he's lived a very hard life. Black Bart recognizes him as a killer. He has a lot of skills he doesn't let on about. He definitely has that strong, silently, and slightly scary vibe going on. It will be cool to learn more about him as the series continues.

The dymanic between Tonto is an inversion of the usual hero/sidekick trope. Tonto, the nominal sidekick, is actually more experienced, older, physically more intimidating, and more worldly than the hero. He also fills the mentor role. In a reversal of the Batman and Robin relationship, here it seems that the younger, more hopeful hero will bring some light and calm to the damaged, relentless sidekick.

Before closing this review, i have to talk about the art. Sergio Cariello's skills are quite formidable. He has an expressive, sketchy (which is not to say illdefined) style that compares favorably to Joe Kubert, or Nick Cardy's work on Western comics. You might call it "European" (which, demographically, Cariello is) except that it is in the tradition of American comics about the Old West. His action scenes are fluid and dynamic. His faces convey emotion and thought, and are admirably varied. His website, which includes a gallery, is linked above.

The colors by Dean White are stunning. A lot of the backgrounds, especially lands and skies, are as much his work as Cariello's. Many of the full-page and two-page images wouldn't have worked as well without White's colors. To whit: i might have been put off by two pages of a 22-page comic being spent on a picturesque image of the Lone Ranger and Silver racing across a barren Western landscape, sans narration or plot-moving action, if not for the stunning colors.

John Cassaday is credited with "Art Direction". I'm not sure what that means, but the page layouts are similar to Cassaday's. He also does the covers.

Available at your local comic shop, or through the publisher's site. I'm not sure if a collection of these six issues has been solicited yet, but no doubt it will be. Note: If you pick these issues up at the shop, be aware that Dynamite produced multiple covers for each issue, so don't do what i did and accidentally buy two copies of the same issue.

Hilarious Cover

I swiped this from Cover-By-Cover. Go over there and see a bunch of covers, some great, some simply entertaining. They're grouped by theme, like "to the bone", "behind bars", and obviously, "weddings".

Cheap Post

...just to have a new post, basically. It's a "meme" about comics.

01) Batman or Detective Comics is the first comic book I really got into.
02) Shadowpact is one of the comics I currently collect.
03) Batman is one of my all-time favourite superheroes.
04) Scott Pilgrim is my favourite non-superhero comic.
05) Lobo is a very overrated character
06) -------- is, in my opinion, a very overrated comic artist.
07) Gail Simone is one of my favourite comic book writers.
08) Buying comics from a spinner rack is a happy comic book memory for me.
09) Darwyn Cooke is awesome at drawing female characters.
10) Mike Alred is one of my all-time favourite comic artists.
11) Rags Morales is an artist I’d love to see drawing a monthly series.
12) Wasteland is a comic I’ve meant to read, but haven’t done so yet.
13) Green Lantern Corps is a welcome ’80s comeback.
14) Cable/Deadpool is a comic I’ve never read or paid much attention to.
15) Ghost Rider is a popular character I’ve never really paid attention to.
16) Scott Pilgrim is a title I would recommend to my friends.
17) Darkseid is one of my favourite comic villains.
18) Batman is a comic I’m glad they made into a movie/movie franchise.
19) Catwoman is a comic they totally ruined by making it into a movie.
20) ------- is someone I would really love to meet at a comic convention.
21) ------- is a character I can see myself being for Halloween.
22) Catwoman is a comic I used to love, but now I’m not so hot about.
23) Chyna Cluggston is someone I would love to work on a comic book with.
24) $2.99 is the most I’ll spend on a 22-page (average sized) comic.
25) Crossgen is something/someone they should bring back.

Caveman Robot

He's a caveman, and a robot. If you don't get what's fun about that, we're probably not going to get along. Look at a free, legal sample story here.

Video Paper!

You know that video-paper stuff they have on Firefly? Well, it's been invented in real life! Check the link: video paper. Very cool.

Classic Cover

Here's one of my all-time favorite covers. I fondly remember picking this one up from the magazine rack at the Snak Pak, a convenience store down the road from our house. (They had also had some good baked potatoes there, and that weird Pleiades video game.) The great Walt Simonson drew this one. It blew my elementary-school mind because the logo was incorporated into the scene, and it wasn't even at the top of the page! Notice how Bats' and the Joker's figures, and the logo, make a roughly circular form that always draws your eye to the characters in conflict. And the carved face that's partly covered by Batman's foot has it's mouth open, like it's yelling, "git yer foot outta my eye!"

I was tired tonight, so i just went to the grocery store then vegged out in front of the tv. So You Think You Can Dance is mildly funny, but probably only when you're tired. The other show about wanting to be a director was interesting. Too bad the girl from NC got kicked off, but she shouldn't have trusted that guy to be the director of photography (why isn't it director of filmography?) -- she should have done it herself. And it's amazing that that one guy did all that special effects work basically overnight.

Oh, i also watched the first episode of The Lost Room, which was cool. It didn't seem quite as grrreat as i'd heard, but it was only the first episode. The key that opens doors to anywhere is one of the best ideas ever. As soon as they showed the guy stepping through a door in a hotel room and out of a door in Tahiti, i wanted from the depths of my soul to have that key. As someone who's only real recurring dream is of escaping from various confining places, that is my dream magic item. The show also proves that urban fantasy can work well on tv.

I wish they'd established a better sense of place. IIRC they never mentioned where this was taking place. It was Anytown, USA or English-Speaking-Canada.

Brainstorming

I had an idea for marketing/branding/structuring DC superhero comics this morning. It consists of three sub-brands. Here they are.

DC Now - The main DCU as it already exists, with all the continuity, crossover, etc. This would be aimed at the specialist/niche market of the more hardcore superhero fan/enthusiast.

DC Timeless - This is where the most iconic versions of the characters would be. Continuity would be light, crossover minimal, and "world changing events" practically non-existant. This would be the Classic version of the DCU, the one "everybody" knows. This line would be for the general audience and the more casual fan. It would be pushed on newstands and bookstores far more than comic shops, and wherever kids are. Personally, i'd place Action Comics and Detective Comics in this line, featuring Supes and Bats, and revive another older title like Adventure Comics or All-Star Comics to feature the iconic Wonder Woman. The page count would be higher, with backups featuring other characters.

DC Boundless - This would be the label for all the non-prime-continuity books. I.e., a new Kamandi book set in its own frame of reference, would go here. Any of the series set on the 52 multiple Earths would go here. Elseworlds, "imaginary stories", whatever, it would go here. This line would probably be mainly a specialty shop thing, but obviously some properties would work well in the general market.

A vigorous, regular trade program--and in some cases, skipping periodical and going straight to long-form/bookshelf--would be a priority. Each sub-brand would have its own, slightly tweaked version of the DC logo and trade dress, so that readers who knew about and cared about the difference could quickly distinquish them.

I imagine ad copy for this set-up going something like this.
DC NOW
DC TIMELESS
DC BOUNDLESS
DC...FOREVER
You could spread that across a one-page ad or multiple pages, and it would work well as a flash-animated ad on websites.

Scott Pilgrim!

Ah, yes, a preview page from Scott Pilgrim volume four, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together has been posted on Bryan Lee O'Malley's flickr page! Feasteth thine eyes!

Carnivale

My survey of HBO shows has now brought me around to Carnivale, a good vs. evil allegory that centers around the people who make up a travelling carnival in 1930s America. Often, good vs. evil allegories turn me off. Allegories in general turn me off. They feel dishonest. If somebody wants to tell me a story, they should just tell a story, and not tell a story that pretends to be about A when it's really about B.

That's isn't an issue here, though. At least not so far. I watched the first two episodes this weekend. For one thing, i like the setting. It's very Americana, and i've enjoyed other stories set in that era. Also, the allegory is both blatant (making it more "honest" per my idiosyncracies) and unclear (making it more interesting). How? Well, it's blatant in that it uses real world beliefs. It's unclear in that we don't know which side the series' two foci--the Farmboy and the Preacher--represent. The Preacher is a preacher, so you'd think he's the good guy (unless you know about irony, then you might think he'd be the bad guy, but if the writers of the show know about iron, and suspect that the viewer does too, then maybe they'd be double-ironic and make the obvious good guy the actual good guy, or...), and the Farmboy is an escaped convict, so you'd think he's the bad guy (again, unless the irony...) . However, the Preacher mostly scares the living crap out of people, and the Farmboy can heal people. The preacher does help people, but apparently feels really bad about scaring the crap out of people. The farmboy can heal people, but his mom takes it as a sign of the devil.

The dialog is great. They use a lot of period slang. I love how the English language can be so indirect and yet so evocative at the same time. There's a character named Samson, who's a little person with some undefined role of authority in the carnival. He talks a lot. In one scene, he's trying to convince Ben (the farmboy) to work for the carnival. When he admits that the job pays nothing to start with, Ben sulks off towards a farmhouse, presumbably to find work there. Samson yells a tirade after him, ending with "when John Law shows up, you ask him what kinda wages he's payin' for breakin' rocks!"

The carnivallians include a card-reader in a coma, a giant (that guy from the movie Big Fish), a pair of siamese twins, a couple of "cooch dancers", an ex-baseball player with a bum leg, and the mysterious, unseen "Management".

There are some very creepy scenes, like whenever Justin, the preacher, performs one of his wonders, some instances of telekinesis, and a few surprises that shouldn't be ruined.

The supernatural and mystery aspects are intriguing, but i think i could be just as into this show without that stuff, based just on the setting, characters, and dialog.

Side note: All of HBO's shows have these really complex intros! It's like they're saying, look how much time and money we spent on the title sequence--you know the show is going to be good! Or maybe it's that they don't have real intros on broadcast TV anymore, so producers go nuts when allowed to use them. (Curb Your Enthusiasm is an exception, and i don't remember Entourage's intro.)

Spider Baby

Why does this creepy gem merit only two stars at Netflix? It would seem that the folks who'd rent it would be likely to appreciate it. I liked it.

Spider Baby (according to IMDB it's subtitled "The Maddest Story Ever"; 1964) is about the Merrye clan, a degenerate family of blithe murderers. The tone is consistent, yet unorthodox. It's a bit funny, a bit horrific, and a bit bitter sweet.

I don't recall the location ever being stated, but the feeling is definitely Southern Gothic. The Merryes live in an delapidated manse not unlike the Radley house, with the occassional deranged shut-in peeping out the front window. Ah, but sadly, there are no scruffily sweet children playing outside to touch the remaining heartstrings of these monsters.

The Merrye clan is: sisters Emily and Virginia, brother Ralph, guardian Bruno, and a couple of aunts and an uncle who are kept in the basement (more a sub-basement, technically; or perhaps simply a pit). They all, except Bruno, who entered the clan as a chauffeur, suffer from an eponymous syndrome which causes their minds to revert to childishness, and on into infanticism and ultimately, inhumanity (marked by cannibalism).

Emily and Virginia are the stars here. They're crazy in a fun way. Virgina is a bit like Wednesday Adams sans self-control. She likes to fancy herself a spider, and unfortunate strangers are her bugs. Emily is highly concerned with good and bad, but you never doubt which way she'll go when the pressure is on. Ralph's condition has progressed to the point that he's essentially a wordless infant in a man's body.

Bruno doesn't have the family's disease, but years of living amongst them has clearly cracked him. He sincerely cares for them, and has a strong (perhaps too strong) loyalty to them. He is played by Lon Chaney, Jr., who gives an affecting performance. One scene in particular stands out. The girls have dispatched with a visitor to the house ("she would have told" afterall), and are afraid that Bruno will be angry with them. "Now you'll hate us," they cry, yet he assures them that no, he will never hate them, never ever. It could have played ridiculous, or arch, or cruelly ironic, but it plays sincere--mad, yes, but heartfelt.

The disc i rented is a Special or Aniversary Edition, and as such, much spiffier than your average b-movie release. The images are crisp, without any obvious (to me, at least) damage to the film. It's even presented in its theatrical aspect ratio. That was a pleasant surprise, since a lot of old movies only exist in the pan-and-scan versions that were made for TV.

It's definitely worth a viewing if you like classic b-movies, horror, or black comedy a la Charles Addams.

Local #9

I just read Local #9, which came out this week. Wow, that was such a strong issue. I've enjoyed all of them, to varying degrees. This one delves into Megan's history with her mother, and really defines a huge part of what motivates her through the whole series. It ended in a quietly stunning panel that wrapped in conflicting emotions. There was doubt, hope, loss, love--all brought together in one panel by the course of word and visual through the issue. It all felt very real to me, too.

Ryan Kelly's art has been a huge draw for me in this series. While reading #9 the quality that the screentones bring to the images. They add a lot of texture. In the past i thought of them (nearly subconciously) as a fast-and-cheap technique. For the first time i'm thinking they're completely legit, like crosshatching or shading.

Oh yeah, it might be helpful to say a bit about what Local is about! It's about Megan, a young woman who has hard time finding her place in life. This manifests itself most obviously in her moving to a new town every year (more or less), often adopting an entirely new identity at the same time. Each issue takes place in a different town in North America. Kelly uses a lot of photo references (many sent in by fans) to make the locations authentic. That's where the "local" comes in.

So, each issue is a self-contained story, but read together, they make a bigger tapestry. This issue works by itself. If you only ever read this issue, you'd get a whole, satisfying story. In addition, if you've read other issues, #9 illuminates Megan's life in a deeper way. Neat, huh? ;)

Drive It On

So Fox's new show Drive has been on for a couple of weeks now. I missed last Monday's ep, but (i think) i've seen all the rest. It's cool to see some familiar faces from Angel and Firefly. It's almost fanfic-y to see Nathan Fillion and Amy Acker on screen together. Would Mal and Fred hit it off? No way Fred could compete with Inara. And Serenity already had a resident cute brilliant girl in Kaylee. Hmm...

[Also, there's a guy who talks to Fillion at the beginning of Drive's first episode (maybe he introduces him to the Race, i can't remember) who was played by the guy who played the psychotically stoic bounty hunter in the last episode of Firefly.]

So anyway, it has some players i like, and it has cool stuff like muscle cars, and it has characters from my home state who aren't slack-jawed yokels, and it would be great for producer Tim Minear to get a hit show of his own, but it's not grabbing me enough that i feel the need to watch the show every week. Now, that's maybe because i don't follow any shows on broadcast anymore, so take me with a grain of salt on this point.

Not many of the characters intrigue me. I really didn't like the woman in tonight's episode who was saying that God told her she'd win the race. Or i didn't like that she said that. It's just i would hope God isn't spending precious divine intervention energy on cross-country races (and if He did, of course He'd be fixing things so that the muscle car would win, but then, the muscle car can handle that itself). I've never been able to accept the idea that God rearranges the universe so one person can get one rather meaningless benefit.

But, mysterious ways and all that. And i'm certainly fallible. And maybe i just don't buy it because i don't feel like He's ever rearranged the universe to give me something cool i couldn't get otherwise. Not that i'm saying He should. But you could say that creation itself is sort of like that. Apart from any re-arranging, we wouldn't have anything cool without the original arranging. I guess what really bothers me is that anyone would claim that God rearranged the universe on their behalf, because that's saying that you're more special than everybody else.

To bring this back to TV, one thing i didn't respect about Mal on Firefly was his attitude towards God--or more accurately, why he had that attitude towards God. He was so hurt that nobody came to save the day and make sure that his side won the war. Yet, he had seen people die, he had personally killed many people on the other side, and the fact that those people never got to see their hopes and dreams fulfilled didn't shake his faith. No, it was only when God didn't pull his special ass out of the fire that he started to doubt.

That's not to say i don't like the character, just that i don't respect every aspect of the character. That probably makes them a more realistically-drawn character. So...in conclusion to this ramble, go watch Firefly, and think about how we relate to God, and vice versa--not necessarily in that order, though both at the same time might prove interesting.

We Have Movie Sign!

The guys over at Comic Review Weekly, who are live in or around Greensboro and also make the comic Gravy Boy, have an interview with Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000! That's one of my favorite shows ever. I haven't listened to it yet, but i figured y'all would want to know. Click the link above for their website, or click here to download the mp3.

New Music

I heard a couple of cool songs from a band called the Dollyrots on the Plan Nine Rock Show. There are several clips on YouTube. Some of the live clips have pretty cruddy audio, but the music videos sound good (you know, by YT standards). I've only heard a few songs, but they've made a good impression on me. They have an energetic, 3-chord rock sound, with enough bounce to be fun and enough grit not to be silly (in a bad way). And they're on Joan Jett's Blackheart Records, which speaks well of them, dontcha think?

It's been a long time since i really "followed" music, and now that all the record shops are gone, i'm not sure how to find new stuff. Yeah, there's Amazon, but it ain't the same.

Anyway, listen to their songs called "Because I'm Awesome" and tell me if you think they're as cool as I do.

And check out the Plan Nine Rock Show. It's a (weekly?) podcast out of Michigan that plays a lot of straight-ahead, punk-ish rock n roll. There's some cussin', so it ain't safe for work.

Awesome Silliness

This has been posted all over the place, but maybe you haven't seen it yet. It's called Fist-A-Cuffs. The deal is this: Artists submit drawings of crazy fighters. Said fighters are paired off, and readers vote for the winner via posts. It's one of the funnest uses of a blog i've seen in a long time. The drawings are highly amusing, and often very cool. These guys are getting creative, and a little silly.

Go check out this preview at Newsarama: http://www.newsarama.com/Flight/v4Mar07/preview/Flightgallery.html

It's 50+ pages from the upcoming Flight volume 4, one of the very best comics anthologies out there. I've got volumes 1 & 2, and if you're wondering what to get me for my birthday, volume 3 would be a great idea. :)

Here are a few pages to whet your appetite.