Category: Columns

Mindy Newell: Much Ado About Nothing

saturn-girl-3582808I really hate it when I’ve got nothing. Writing the column becomes a war between the empty page and my keyboard, with my brain as no-man’s land. It’s been like this since Friday.

At times like this, when I’m feeling unengaged and disinherited from the comics industry and generally just plain discombobulated, I just want to give it up and throw in the towel, like that weather woman from Alaska who said, “Fuck it, I quit” in the middle of her segment.

Ha. Weather Woman. Here’s how I imagine her open audition for the Legion of Super-Heroes would go:

She walks on stage. She can’t really see into the seats because of the bright lights shining on her, but she knows her judges are out there.

“Hi, I’m Weather Woman. I have control over the –

A voice comes out of the abyss in front of her.

“Woman? How old are you?”

“What business of that is yours?”

“Sorry, club rules specifically state that members must be in their teens.”

“You look on the far side of 25 to me.” That’s a literal stab in the dark. She can’t see a thing. Damn lights.

“Excuse us for a moment.”

“I’ll wait.”

She hears whispers.

“I apologize. I should have said members must be in their teens when they join.”

“There was nothing in the ad that specified age.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’m, but – “

“Ma’m ! I’m not your grandmother.”

“At any rate we’ve already got a Lightning Lad and Lightning Lass. A Sun Boy. A Polar Boy.

Another voice. “We had a Nightwind, but she died.”

First voice. “She doesn’t need to know that.”

Weather Woman’s not going down without a fight. “But you don’t have any one member who can control all the vagaries of weather, the entire climate. Let me demonstrate.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Listen, your ad specifically stated that you are an equal employment opportunity employer.”

“We are.”

“But I’m not being given an equal opportunity.”

“We’ll get back to you.”

“My lawyer will get back to you.”

Boy, that’s weak. This is what happens when you’ve got nothing.

Did you read Mike’s column about the Joker, a Jewess, Jihadists and a “just joking” Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda video? Did you watch it? Let’s all nominate it for an Oscar.

In related news…

Do you know that the State Department has created its own video as an anti-propaganda propaganda tool to discourage Muslims from joining ISIL? It’s called “Welcome to ISIL-LAND.” It’s a “parody” recruitment video. I’m not making this up. Go watch it. You won’t believe it. I’ll wait.

Okay, you saw it. Does that seem like a parody recruitment video to you? As John Oliver of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” put it, “What the fuck are you doing?”

Which is what you all might be saying right now as you read this.

Well, I told you I got nothing this week.

 

 

John Ostrander and The Rock of Gibraltar

Ye Ed Babbles…

Our pal John is, as they say, under the weather. He’s been in the hospital for a couple of days and is scheduled to be unleashed mid-week. He’s in for complications resulting from, ahhhh, “passing the Rock of Gibraltar” and if you don’t understand that, ask an aging Baby Boomer.

Mary Mitchell has been keeping us informed and he’s doing a lot better now. I spoke with him yesterday afternoon, and he sounded strong and relieved, with his sense of humor intact. John will stalk the interwebs again soon; not soon enough for any of us, but we, his friends, are sympathetic. 

Personally, we blame all this on George Lucas for selling out to Disney.

Get well, Brother John.

Marc Alan Fishman: The New Breed of Con Goer

This past week, you’ve likely seen it: Denise Dorman, wife of “Famed Comic Book/Sci-Fi/Fantasy illustrator Dave Dorman,” decided to write an op-ed concerning the decline of sales she and her husband have been privy to over the last years. She has since posted a second response to make her points more clear.

Denise’s original piece began: “Privately, famed comic book industry personalities everywhere are discussing with each other whether to stop exhibiting at comic book conventions. There’s a fine line between being accessible to and pleasing the fans vs. losing money at these conventions.”

Unshaven Comics has been independently producing comic books and attending comic conventions regularly for only seven years or so. In no way, shape, or form do we come close to the level of fame and success her husband has enjoyed. But in the time that we have been active, I have never heard a single peep (and we in the Artist Alley tend to be a gossipy bunch to begin with) about this discussion. In fact, at the Cincinnati Comic Expo I attended this past weekend, with Mark Bagely, Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Neal Adams, and Bob Layton I saw only smiling faces – even when lines weren’t incredibly overcrowded. And while I did hear from some folks around us that the show wasn’t bringing them tons of business, only our neighbors decided to cut ties early. And for those playing at home, Unshaven Comics beat our desired sales goal by over 25%.

At first, Bleeding Cool would have you believe that she blamed the Cosplayers. This is not true. In her second blog on the matter, Denise points blame to the “new breed of attendees who are there because someone said its cool to be there.”

To that point: Comic Conventions weren’t founded with the expressed concern of making creators money, they were ways to bring a community of fans together for the opportunity to commiserate, a way to trade and purchase issues to build budding collections, and meet those would-be creators who were the reason the conventions were created. These conventions were small – starting out in gymnasiums, VFW halls, and hotel ballrooms. This new breed (and those who specifically come to the new larger shows), per Denise, are hangers-on to the fad; those who come because they think it’s en vogue. Those who show up not being card-carrying comic book fans.

Her column went on to note as sales were simply non-existent at ole’ Wally World:

“…You know, you start to get paranoid. You start to think, ‘Is it only us? Is Dave no longer relevant?’ So I began covertly asking around. Asking artists equally in demand, equally famous. No one I interviewed made money at that show.” Ultimately Denise falls back on her assertion that it’s these quasi-fans that are most likely the culprit to her husband’s decline in sales specifically at conventions. Mrs. Dorman continued “I have slowly come to realize that in this selfie-obsessed, Instagram Era, cosplay is the new focus of these conventions – seeing and being seen, like some giant masquerade party. Conventions are no longer shows about commerce, product launches, and celebrating the people who created this genre in the first place.” She’s absolutely right. And may Rao bless that fact from here to the next Crisis.

Comic book conventions have become less and less about comic books. On this, I don’t disagree. In addition to comic books, they now encapsulate science fiction (like Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Star Trek), fantasy (like Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter), and gaming (like Magic: the Gathering, and Warhammer). A cursory glance back at Mr. Dorman’s Wikipedia page celebrates that he has created artwork for Batman, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Star Wars… and Magic: the Gathering. Curious then that he’s not connecting to the larger audiences coming to these shows. But I digress.

The point made was that the flux of cosplayers and their subsequent fans are now taking away from the open commerce, Marvel and DC press release parties, and the creator-gushing of yesteryear. You might say that the conventions are becoming more about a gathering of a like-minded community coming together to celebrate their loves and less about dropping ducats on merchandise from people who now can be accessed via a personal website, or any number of social medias.

What troubles me is this: My table of artists (including me) who aren’t in demand or famous saw an increase in book sales upwards of 10% at the show (over last year) Mrs. Dorman most recently attended. This included a day where we set a single day record for total books sold – 225 of them to be exact. How would it be then, that a table of peons would somehow out-earn those who are known in the industry? Did our nefarious plan of installing a toll booth actually work? Someone better go back and get a shit load of dimes!

Denise went on to ask: “At what point do you start to wonder if – other than your faithful, loyal regulars who are like family and who find you every time – the general fandom population even gives a shit about the creators more than they care about their Instagram profiles?”

Allow me to answer in kind. The general population – those Instagram-obsessed fans – gives more than just a shit for those creators who take the time to reach out and communicate. I say this admitting freely I’ve never seen Dave Dorman. And we’ve exhibited at the same shows more than once. I don’t know how specifically Dave exhibits. But if he is like others I’ve seen over the last seven years… he may sit, smiling, awaiting those loyal regulars to come with cash in hand. In short, it’s not enough anymore. It hasn’t been that way in a long time.

For those new fans Dave needs to continue to be the celebrated creator he is, I ask how he chooses to engage them? Having not been a specific fan of his work (and yes, he is actually an astounding talent), if I were to walk past him, would he attempt to stop me and chat? I’m not selfie-obsessed, but I’m also not apt to make it a chore to check with every exhibitor at a convention. Especially if there’s a cool cosplay I need to post a picture of. It’s no longer enough to rest on the laurels of a resume, or even the strength of a displayed portfolio. The market has evened out. All who exhibit are slowly becoming equals amongst the growing legions of fans flocking to the shows. And it’s clear to me, as it should be to all creators: If you’re not making money… it’s not the fault of the fans, or the rising ticket prices, or food costs. The blame doesn’t get to be shuffled anywhere else but on those who make no effort to change with the rolling tide.

The fact is that the newest generation of fans that frequent comic conventions are coming first and foremost to celebrate their love of the media. That love need not be via purchases in the digital era. A comic on my table is considerably less than a commission a known artist offers at their table. When one faces a sea of new faces (heh), the easy money is on the short sale – be that a celebrated or loathed fact. Never once in my time behind the table have I heard from legit fans (including those in every conceivable generation) that the cost of a ticket, a hot dog, or an autograph prevented them from purchasing a comic or print from my table. Cons are costly, I’m not denying that. But at the end of the day, the fans are coming on their own terms, not by the financial needs of those of us behind the table.

Mrs. Dorman’s original post ended “…at what point would YOU cut bait and stop attending these shows? How do we satisfy the fans in a way that makes sound financial $ense ? ? ?”

To be blunt, here are my answers: I won’t cut bait, ever. We earn our fans one at a time. I assess the marketplace. I exhibit within my means. I analyze my sales data. I adapt to a changing market. I work my ass off. And I don’t wait for fans to come discover me. I make them discover me. I don’t want to be an instigator, or one to throw a punch at an undeserving target. The truth of the matter is that the conventions of old are dwindling, if not dead. If Wizard and their ilk don’t offer comped tables to creators who are there to turn profit, then those creators must accept that the shows are now not there the fans’ need to connect to creators. For good or bad… They’re there to connect with each other. If you want that to change… It’s not about cutting ties or holding conventioneers responsible. It’s about getting your hands dirty and figuring out how to make the change yourself.

 

The Law Is A Ass

BOB INGERSOLL: THE LAW IS A ASS #306: AMERICA’S GOT POWERS CORRUPTS

americas-got-powers-taps-into-tv-zeitgeist-4919ii99-x-large-4665674Let’s just say… I was disappointed.

I have a name for my disappointment and it’s America’s Got Powers #1, the first issue – hey, with the screwy numbering system American Comics use nowadays, one can’t be sure # 1 is actually the first issue – of the new mini-series from Image. Disappointing because it was such a cynical and negative portrayal of America. So let’s proceed that I might give voice to my disappointment.

In the not too distant future, to borrow a line from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme – because “borrow” sounds so much nicer than steal – something happened. Which, makes America’s Got Powers better than most mainstream comic books, where super heroes can take four pages just to get their mail – and you only think I’m making that up – so as to stretch out some skimpy story out for the six issues suitable for framing or collecting into a trade paperback.

What happened? A big blue crystal fell from outer space and landed in the middle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Then, in a real break from mainstream comic books, something else happened. Yes two things happened in the same issue. Every pregnant woman within a five mile radius of the crystal went into labor. (Good thing that crystal didn’t land in Arizona where the new abortion law says pregnancy starts on the first day of a woman’s menstrual cycle. Under that definition, girls who’d never had sex would still be pregnant and might have given spontaneous, virgin births. The theological implications are staggering.)

Now you might think that’s enough for the first issue of a comic book. “But wait!” I say in my best Ron Popeil imitation, “There’s more!” Every one of those babies was born with a super power. And that’s where the fun began.

After all those super babies were born, the country endured the Power Riots, whatever those were, which “destabilized the entire country.” In order to calm the public, the US government rounded up the children who got super powers from a crystal, or “Stoners” as they were called, then put them in camps and a training school. The government conducted research on the interred Stoners and trained them how to use their powers, all, ostensibly, in an effort to “re-integrate them” into society. The government funded this facility with the TV series America’s Got Powers.

What’s America’s Got Powers? It was the country’s newest mega-hit reality TV show. The show’s premise was simple. Imagine a reality show which took the best parts of American Idol and American Gladiators, tossed them out, and presented a mash-up of the rest. In other words, in America’s Got Powers, Stoners fought both mechanical adversaries and each other in televised combat all in an effort to be the last one standing. America’s Got Powers was kind of like The Hunger Games but with less food. The winners got to join the world’s only super-hero team,“Power Generation,” while the losers who survived went “back to the camps.”

As the story opened, America’s Got Powers was about to start its seventeenth season. Each of the shows’s first sixteen seasons had become increasingly brutal. With its seventeenth season, the producers decided to reduce all the safety protocols in the combat arena to the minimum settings and to handicap the Stoners with secret treatments or devices that slowed them down. The result was the Stoners couldn’t fight their robotic opponents effectively and were pounded on until they looked like Wile E. Coyote on a particularly bad day.

Now, you might have noticed that I used the word “ostensibly” when I said the purpose of the government’s program was to re-integrate the Stoners into normal society. We’re dealing with an agency of the United States government in a comic book. In today’s comic books, any government agency that doesn’t have a secret agenda is underachieving. America’s Got Powers’ evil secret agenda was confirmed by the producers of the show; an Army general, a United States Senator, and a corporate CEO. We’re not quite sure what the secret agenda was, but we’re pretty sure it was up to no good. After all, what fun is a secret government agenda that’s up to good?

(One point about this trio of producers: Creators, when you set up a government agency with an evil secret agenda, you risk both having your political motivations questioned and having subtlety points deducted from your score by drawing the politician to be a dead ringer for Sarah Palin.)

“But, Bob,” you ask in one of those marvelous imaginary conversations between reader and columnist which I pretend can happen as a way of making a transition, “why fret about the subtlety of political caricatures when this story postulated that the US government was rounding up differently-abled minors, putting them into camps and training them to become involuntary soldiers or some such? We have the Emancipation Proclamation and the 14th Amendment. And child endangerment laws. And child labor laws. Those sorts of things can’t happen, can they?”

Of course not. Those things can’t happen. That’s why colleges and high schools all over this country televise football games. Games in which young men get injured, seriously injured, catastrophically injured, and even fatally injured. And that’s just college and high school. Imagine if a government with a secret agenda got involved. Because that sort of thing can’t happen.

Of course not. Those things can’t happen. That’s why this country never had a Selective Service Commission or a draft and it never conscripted minors who couldn’t even vote yet into the armed forces to fight wars in North America, Europe, Africa, western Asia, southeast Asia., central Asia, and anywhere else where those conscripted minors ended up in the path of enemy bullets and fragmentation grenades. Because that sort of thing can’t happen.

Of course not. Those things can’t happen. That’s why the PATRIOT Act doesn’t exist and has never been used to abolish the Writ of habeas corpus or to justify rounding up people and confining them in Guantanamo Bay indefinitely without trial. Because that sort of thing… Oh you get the idea.

And before you argue that Gitmo is used to house – or warehouse – foreign nationals and such confinement can’t happen to United States citizens, I remind you of the Japanese Internment Camps of World War II. You know, the program where thousands of people who happened to have Japanese ancestry but who were born in this country and were unquestionably United States citizens, were removed from their homes, deprived of their property, and placed in indefinite confinement in internment camps without ever having been charged with a crime. Without, in fact, ever even having committed a crime.

And I guess that’s why I was so disappointed with America’s Got Powers and its cynical and negative portrayal of America. Given what we know about what truly happens in this country, I don’t think America’s Got Powers was anywhere near cynical or negative enough.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: From time to time I have been running columns I wrote years ago which, for one reason or another, have not been widely published. This is another one of them. This is, in fact, the last such column I have in my files. So I guess I’d better get busy writing the next new column, because I don’t have any more old ones with which to buy myself some time.

Martha Thomases: It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s A TV Show!

supergirl-1781767Supergirl is one of my favorite characters, so I was delighted to read that there is a Supergirl television show in development.

Supergirl is one of my favorite characters, so I was terrified to read that there is a Supergirl television show in development.

There are several reasons for my conflicted feelings. When I was a girl, Kara Zor-El was my ideal. Not only was she blonde and cute (two adjectives not customarily applied to me), but she had powers, she was unsure of herself, and she was always trying to prove herself, not only to her cousin Superman, but to prospective parents who shopped at her orphanage. I wanted to have a robot double in a tree. I wanted to have a flying horse and a super-powered cat. Sometimes I wanted different parents.

I don’t think there is anything innately “feminine” about wanting super-powers, robots or flying pets. I still want them (and ain’t I a woman?). The difference between the me who liked these things in the first place and the me who likes them now is that I’ve gone through puberty.

And feminism.

This isn’t going to be one of those stereotypical PC rants (which I’ve never actually read, but then, I don’t seek them out) about how women are misrepresented in comics. They are, but I’m not arguing that in terms of politics, but in terms of realistic character development.

In the case of Supergirl, too often, she is written and drawn by men who don’t know anything about what it feels like to be a young adult woman – either teenaged or in her early twenties, as she will be portrayed in the show. If they do any research at all, it reads as if the watched Clueless and Mean Girls and decided that was enough.

Too many Supergirl stories (and movies, like this one) have her worrying whether boys will like her because she’s so powerful, or what is she going to do with all her power, or how does she fit into a world she never made with all this power. It’s all about being a Female With Power, not about being Kara Zor-El… or, in my fond memories, Linda Lee Danvers.

Her origin story has varied over the years. I believe in the New 52, she used to be a baby-sitter to her cousin Kal (now Superman) but, when Krypton exploded, she was sent into space in suspended animation. She crashes into Earth, not knowing the language and suddenly having super powers.

And since then, mostly, she’s been smashing things. No one understands her and she’s angry about it. So angry that, for a while, she was a Red Lantern.

Isn’t she the least bit curious about Earth? And her cousin? Doesn’t she want to know why she ended up here? I mean, if the baby I used to care for suddenly turned up and he was at least ten years older than me, I would want to know what his life was like.

And wham, she has super powers! Kal-El grew into his, but Kara gets hers all at once. Is that confusing? Is it wonderful? Is it awkward? Is it all of these things and more?

If anything gives me any hope at all for the possible television show, it’s that Greg Berlanti, the producer, has an okay track record in the way he deals with female characters on his shows. I really enjoyed Sigourney Weaver and Ellen Burstyn in Political Animals and Emily Bett Rickards plays a well-rounded, believable Felicity Smoak on Arrow. I’m not sure his shows pass the Bechdel test, but I believe it’s possible that they could, that these female characters have conversations about their jobs and their hobbies and their voting patterns when they are off-camera.

It would be worth everyone’s time and effort to involve more fully realized women characters, not just to be Supergirl, but in general. And I mean this in the most crass, materialistic way. Buffy the Vampire Slayer made a lot of money with a lead character who didn’t worry about whether or not boys would like her. She didn’t fret that being powerful would turn them off. At most, she worried it would kill them.

And she’s not the only one.

 

Tweeks: MLP Spooktacular Pony Tales Ushers in Halloween

chicken_pie_by_keinzantezuken-d4dj64i-7424326Now that it’s officially autumn, we’re ready to jump right into Halloween.  Thankfully, Shout! Factory has just released Spooktacular Pony Tales, a collection of six My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes (along with extras like pumpkin stencils & a sing-a-long!) to help us ease into probably the best holiday ever!  Of course, we’d watch Pinkie Pie in a chicken costume any time of year.

Dennis O’Neil On Alternate Earths

Good news! The angel Fettucini has just delivered a Message From On High: from this moment on, all politicians must be free of greed and egotism and be motivated solely by the desire for good governance and love of heir fellow man.

The, uh, bad news is that the above is true only on Earth 4072, which, of course, exists only in an alternate universe. These things are relative. To the inhabitants of Earth 4072, the news is not bad.

They can be useful, these alternate universes, especially, if you write fantasy or science fiction.

Consider Julius Schwartz, an editor at DC Comics. In 1959, he was given the task of reviving a character who had been dormant for most of the decade, the Flash. Instead of merely redoing the Flash comics readers (okay, older comics readers) were familiar with, Mr. Schwartz and his creative team gave the Flash a comprehensive makeover: new costume, new secret identity that included a new name, new origin story – the whole bag. But Mr. Schwartz had a potential problem: some of his audience – those pesky older readers – might wonder what happened to the original Flash. Mr. Schwartz provided an answer by borrowing a trope from science fiction: alternate worlds. In the Schwartz version, there were two Earths coexisting in different dimensions. The original, Jay Garrick, was on one Earth and the newer model, Barry Allen, was on the other Earth. It was the publishing equivalent of having your cake and eating it, too.

Take a bow, Mr. Schwartz.

The gimmick must have boosted sales because Mr. Schwartz soon applied it to other DC superheroes with similar success. Then other editors and their teams took the alternate Earth idea and ran with it and eventually, there were dozens of versions of Earth, each with its own pantheon of costumed heroes. This may have created story opportunities, but it also probably created confusion and narrative unwieldiness. For whatever reason, in 1985, the guys in the big offices decreed that all Earth be cosmically mashed into one, in a storyline titled Crisis on Infinite Earths that included all of DC’s superhero comics. Later, DC’s editors repeated the stunt three more times.

So…can we reach a verdict? Alternate Earths: pro or con?

Well…if you can get a good story from this, or any other, concept, yeah, sure. A good story is always its own justification. But you do risk alienating new or merely casual readers who might be confused, and you burden your inner continuity with the need to explain the multiple Earths stuff. Maybe this particular story could be told without multiple Earths elements and if that’s true, maybe it ought to be. Or do you risk compromising the uniqueness of your hero by presenting diverse versions of the character, and do you care?

You might want to mull these matters, especially if you make your living from comic books. Or you might not, but if that’s the case, why don’t you want to mull them?

 

Mike Gold: The Joker’s New Friend

I always wondered how World War II would have turned out if only Joseph Goebbels had a sense of humor. After all, what’s the old adage – you get more with a smile and a bomb than just a bomb alone? Really, the whole concept of Harley Quinn is based upon this philosophy.

You know Harley Quinn. The Joker’s… ah, paramour? Quadramour? Well, hold that thought for a couple paragraphs.

This is the start of the new fall television series, not only in North America, but evidently in Iraq as well. A new program, The Superstitious State, is being promoted up in the land between two rivers. It’s tagged “satire,” but it’s not going to close on Saturday night. Here’s the premise.

There’s this big celebration somewhere in some desert. It’s a wedding, although the focus is on the consummation of this blessed event. Don’t worry, it’s G-Rated, common for a Muslim nation that makes its media available to citizens of all ages. The idea is…

… jeez, I hope you’re sitting down…

(more…)

Box Office Democracy: The Maze Runner

Cover via Amazon

It’s easy to throw The Maze Runnerin with the rest of the Young Adult fiction boom, and it’s probably mostly true, it is a YA book, it does seem to have made in a response to the money being trucked in by Twilight and The Hunger Games but there’s a world of difference here and much of it centers on having a male character be the center. The Maze Runner has a stronger focus on action and gives much less attention to establishing characters. Perhaps this is serving someone in some demographic but it feels too soft to be a real action movie and too hard to contend with the other YA franchises.

There are only three characters in The Maze Runner that I would need to use more than just “The <blank> Guy” to describe. This isn’t unheard of in movies but it’s a serious problem when the female lead falls in to that category (she’s The Girl Guy) along with almost every ally of Thomas, the hero. There are people who stand by him the whole way and seem to be some of his most trusted friends that I’m not even sure got named in the film. It’s hard to get invested in the climactic battles when the kids being thrust in to harms way feel like 80% red shirts. It’s also a bad sign for a franchise when two of the three characters that feel the most complete die in the first film. They’ve left a lot of heavy lifting for the sequels.

(more…)

Mindy Newell Is Jus’ Ramblin’ On

didio-300x181-6001984Just a bunch of random thoughts this week, gang…

As I mentioned two weeks ago, Martha Thomases and I go waaaay back to the days when she was DC’s go-to woman for marketing and promotions and I was a naive, newbie freelance writer for the company who always stuck my head in her doorway (“hey, Martha”) whenever I was in the office. We have always been kindred spirits in political thought and our taste in literature, television, and moves have always coincided more than they have diverged, and now Martha’s latest column extends that coincidence to some critics.

Martha, you have more patience than I do; I couldn’t even finish the piece because I got so annoyed. So, yeah, I’m not an A.O. Scott fan, either, although I do think he writes beautifully. In my not-so-humble opinion, Mr. Scott is a bit of a snob and a critic in the Rex Reed mold – meaning that he seems to actually enjoy tearing down anything that smells of popular culture because in Mr. Scott’s world “popular” is a euphemism for a four-letter word.

Martha’s column made me wonder if Mr. Scott would have decried Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) or Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) and Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both in 1886) or James Fenimore Cooper’s The Leatherstocking Tales (of which The Last of the Mohicans (1826) is the second book in the series) or Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found (1871) as “the death of adult American culture” if he had been employed as a critic in the eras in which these classics of American literature were published.

Writer Chuck Dixon posted the photo posted above on his Facebook page, courtesy of Iconic Superman’s own FB page. I thought it tied in nicely with Marc Alan Fishman’s column this week about the trials and tribulations of a mother and her Batman-obsessed four year-old. I do agree with Marc that it is not generally the fault of the media but the fault of the parents when children are exposed to things that are “rated M for mature.” Parents should – make that must – be aware of the contents of a book, a television show, or a movie and they must be responsible for the interactions of that child with said media. However, I also feel sad that our comics icons (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) are, for the most part, reflecting the grayness of the adult world, the ugliness that is present in the world.

Yes, I know about the comics and cartoons (excuse me, animation shows) geared towards children, but overall, our four-colored heroes are reflections of us, the adults, and are not the standard bearers of positive ideals they should be – and, yeah, I sound like an old fogey, and not the same person who wrote a column about how she wasn’t bothered by that ass-in-the-air Spider-Woman cover. So am I a hypocrite? After all, as an adult, yes, I love writing and reading stories hewing towards the darker side of heroism and life; hell, one of the best stories I ever wrote was about a young girl who runs away with the “bad boy,” has a baby, and ultimately leaves both the kid and the father because she just can’t stand it any more (“Found and Lost,” New Talent Showcase #13, January 1985).

But as a mother, I once told Alixandra that I didn’t care what she watched or read or listened to, except I didn’t want to hear gangsta rap in the house because I didn’t want to hear songs about how the singer was going to cut up and/or kill his bitch (I also told her that I knew she would listen to it outside the house or at her friends’ houses, but in “this house you are not going to play it.”) And as a grandmother, I once tied an apron around my neck, and ran around “singing” the theme to Superman: The Movie in front of the baby (who just stared at me like I was an idiot – he was probably thinking: “this is a grandmother?”

Outlander (on STARZ) has drawn me into its spell. Much less a “bodice ripper” (see my column from a couple weeks ago) than a really, really excellent time-travel story, I told you before that I originally tuned in because Ronald D. Moore was producing it. I have not been disappointed. The dialogue continues to seem realistic and natural, the history of the period has been well researched, and English actress Caitriona Balfre does a wonderful job portraying the time-displaced heroine, Claire Randall, who, while becoming entwined in the life of the MacKenzie Clan and the Jacobite movement, which aimed to place Bonnie Prince Charles on the throne of England, still aches for her husband and life in 1945.

This past Saturday’s episode, which focused on the wedding night between Claire and Jamie, was not only incredibly sensual and sexy – I mean H-O-T, people! – it also was one of the most mature depictions of two people, basically strangers, thrown into an intimate partnership I have ever seen on the screen, big or little. This coming Saturday is the “mid-season finale” – like many shows on television these days, especially on cable, STARZ has chosen to follow the British style of short seasons – the “leave them wanting more” approach. I get it. And I know that STARZ has already renewed the show for a second season. But just how long am I going to have to wait? (If anybody knows, please leave a comment below.)

Like the rest of us, I sometimes wish there were real superheroes (men and women) so us ordinary people wouldn’t have to worry about things like global climate change and terrorists and war. As if fucking ISIL isn’t scary enough, yesterday I read an article in the New York Times about a Syrian terrorist group, led by a member of Bin Laden’s inner circle who was in on the planning of 9/11, whom the nation’s intelligence agencies deem more of a direct and more imminent threat to the U.S. than ISIL. (By the way, don’t ever use the phrase “protecting the Homeland” around me. There was a political leader in mid-20th century Germany who looked like Charlie Chaplin’s “little tramp” who liked to use that phrase.) And of course with President Obama’s plan to “train and arm rebel groups in Syria” having passed Congress, I’m betting that some our arms and training falls into the hands of these guys.

I have been a big supporter of President Barak Obama, but I gotta tell ya, I don’t know what the fuck President Obama is thinking, getting in bed with groups and nations who either don’t particularly like us or outright hate us. I keep thinking about Franklin Roosevelt and how he knew that we needed to get into the war in Europe to stop the Nazis, but with an isolationist Congress and America the best he could do was the Lend-Lease Act, by which he could supply Britain, the Free French, the Republic of China, and eventually the Soviet Union with arms and other war supplies. Perhaps Obama is trying a 21st century version of Lend-Lease, but the lines aren’t so clear-cut, and the “Allies” aren’t really allies at all.

Yeah, we could use a rollicking cry of Avengers Assemble! right about now.

 

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