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Emily S. Whitten: About Letting Go

There are times in life when people must know when not to let goEmily-S.-Whitten. Balloons are designed to teach small children this. – Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett was, in the above as in everything, a wise, wise man. The most valuable things in the world are often ones we should hold onto lest we lose them; and not only hold onto, but treasure.

I certainly treasure the experiences I’ve had while writing my weekly column for ComicMix. Chief amongst these is the valuable experience of actually having to sit down and write something out of my own head for publication on a deadline week after week (despite it having been, hrm, occasionally a somewhat negotiable deadline (thank you, Mike and Glenn, for your patience!). And through the weekly column I’ve had the opportunity not only to develop my discipline as a writer, but also to trot out and work on polishing up several different styles of writing; to continually improve my abilities as an interviewer; to sporadically embark on flights of whimsy and ridiculousness that have nevertheless been surprisingly well received; and to determine just what my opinion was on a variety of relevant comics and genre entertainment subjects, and then how to share it in the way that most reflected my true feelings and yet seemed least likely to result in reams of angry comments.

Of course I also enjoy traveling to different conventions with or as a representative of the ComicMix family; interviewing creators and recapping events, and making new friends through my writing, my travels, my interviews, and my work with other ComicMixers. Writing (almost) every week for ComicMix since May 1, 2012 has opened my horizons, allowed me to have amazing experiences, and certainly changed me for the better.

However, occasionally you have to let go of the things you treasure, even if just for a time. And unfortunately, I find myself at one of those times, due to a convergence of factors; and am thus going to be taking a hiatus from my weekly column here at ComicMix. The main factor is actually one that I’ve been dealing with for over seven months. In short, last July I had a bad fall, and I’ve been living with the repercussions ever since. And while I am generally on the mend, regular doctor visits, medical tests, and twice-weekly physical therapy have sucked a lot of my time away; not to mention that, goshdarn it, this “healing” thing kind of hurts and takes a lot out of you, physically. And, well, then there’s the possibility that I may have to have surgery to fix my thumb because of this (side note: did you know that one of the side effects of getting an MRI on your thumb is to have your entire arm fall asleep? Ooooh, it feels so weird). The sum total of this is that one morning I had to look in the mirror and remind myself that I am not actually a superhero (although if I was I would be awesome) and that sometimes, it’s okay not to be able to do all the things at once, and that if you find yourself, e.g., being very tired and having trouble making your deadline week to week, perhaps you need to take a break from having said deadline.

You might wonder why it took me approximately seven months to realize this. However, as always, Sir Terry has a quote that is particularly apropos:

The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.

And then suddenly, all the clues come together, and you’ve solved the mystery of life!

Just kidding.

What really happens, maybe, if you’re lucky, is that you eventually figure out one step you might need to take to improve a current situation. Of course even then there’s no guarantee that it’s the right step. And if you take it, and you let go of that balloon you’ve been treasuring, the fear is that it will be lost forever up in the vast unknowable sky, never to return. All of the work that went into those weekly columns; the vast readership, so painstakingly built (hello, all several of you!); friendships formed in part from my identity as a genre entertainment columnist – gone! Just gone! It’s enough to make me want to hold on tightly to the balloon’s bright ribbon and never let go. But fortunately, columns and readers and friendships aren’t actually balloons that will disappear forever if you let go for a bit; and change can be good, and it can be necessary, and it can lead to new adventures and, after all, sometimes, you must make the hard choice to leap fearlessly off a cliff (or at least move your life onto a slightly different path) because:

If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story.

And nobody wants that.

Not that my story is actually going to be too different around here. Because despite taking a hiatus from the weekly columns, I am not leaving you entirely, dear readers! I fully intend to remain as Your Faithful Convention Correspondent for all of the conventions I attend (which this year looks to include Awesome Con, San Diego Comic Con, Dragon Con, and New York Comic Con).

Also, depending on circumstances, I hope to return to the weekly posts at some as-yet undetermined time. So actually, it’s less like I’m letting go of my balloon, and more like it’s just been tied onto an extremely long ribbon which I can still hold onto, and we’ll still be connected by that ribbon, and really, that’s not so scary after all.

That said, I will miss my weekly interactions here, and wish that I had infinite time and energy to do the infinite numbers of things I constantly want to be doing. But as a wise man (I bet you can guess who!) once said:

So much universe, and so little time.

So until that time in the distant future when I’m back each week: Vigilate!

Joe Corallo: Just Say What?

defenders of the earth

As many of you know, Nancy Reagan recently passed away at the age of 94. Her legacy, as well as her husband’s, invoke incredibly powerful emotions from both ends of the political spectrum. We’ve been reminded of that this past Friday. Some of you reading this may not be aware of Nancy Reagan’s connection to comics. It’s a very loose connection, don’t get me wrong, but it’s there. I’ll try not to embellish this connection to avoid having the townspeople show up at my doorstep with pitchforks and torches in hand.

Anyone aware of the Reagan’s and life in America in the 80s knows of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, which, ironically is my stance on the Republican Party today. What you might not be aware of is back in September of 1986, Nancy Reagan was greeted by members of the Defenders of the Earth including Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Lothar and Mandrake the Magician. No, not the “real” Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Lothar and Mandrake the Magician. They were merely actors portraying the characters on a five-day coast-to-coast tour to help kids say no to drugs. I imagine the real Defenders of the Earth were too busy saving us all from Ming the Merciless to tour the country themselves.

The ReagansAt the time, Defenders of the Earth was a cartoon produced by Marvel Productions in association with King Features Entertainment. King Features owned the above mentioned comics properties used in the cartoon. They added a bunch of kids to the mix to make it more relatable to them (I guess) and in turn we got a cartoon that was good enough for one season. In that one season we got the episode titled “The Deadliest Battle”. The deadliest battle, of course, was against drugs.

Yes, drugs. In this episode, Rick Gordon (Flash Gordon’s son) is being pressured not only by school to make good grades, but by his father to be a better hero. Randomly, a suspicious juvenile at Rick Gordon’s school offers Rick drugs unsolicited and for free in the middle of the school’s busy hallway. I can’t quite tell if that was a lack of understanding on how these things happen or a cynical assumption that kids would actually be that stupid. Anyway, we then have a scene in a classroom with a teacher going over D.A.R.E. which stands for drug abuse resistance education. We even get a nice shout out to Nancy Reagan with the teachers saying, “Just say no.”

Rick takes the drugs anyway which do in fact make him feel a whole lot better, but it comes at a high price. The drugs also make Rick absent minded, causing him to forget to finish setting up their new defense system. This allows Ming the Merciless to come right in to take out the Defenders of the Earth once and for all.

After Flash Gordon uses some excessively harsh words with his son, one of the other kids on the team is able to help save the day and teach Rick a valuable lesson about responsibility and how it’s never okay to take anything that will get your mind off of how the walls of your life are closing in on you.

Flash Gordon does at least acknowledge that he’s been too harsh with his son Rick, which was a nice touch. I was expecting something that put the entire weight of the drug problem on Rick and the dealer.

If it wasn’t for Nancy Reagan, we might have never been able to experience this animated gem. If you want to experience it for yourself again or for the first time, you can check it out <a href=”

. Many other cartoons also tackled drug prevention at the time including Thundercats, He-Man, Jem and the Holograms, and many others. And the drug war legacy still plagues us to this very day. However, Nancy Reagan didn’t meet with the Thundercats, or He-Man, or Jem and the Holograms. When she got a chance to meet the heroes to help kids say no, she chose comics heroes. Or her scheduler did. Either way, when she wanted help getting her message to kids she met with classic comics heroes that have stood the test of time to this very day. To some of us at least.

Did Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign help people? Maybe a few. Did it give people a false sense of security and a cramp in their arms from patting themselves on the back too much for doing something about an issue that over time ended up destroying countless more lives than it ever saved while also wasting an unbelievably large amount of our taxpayer dollars?

You bet! Maybe she should have asked the Defenders of the Earth to help end the Cold War instead.

REVIEW: Sisters

SistersHumans appear to be hardwired to resist and even reject change. With that as a starting point, the amiable but not terribly original Sisters, starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Their alchemical bond makes this a slightly above average film and watchable but the without them, the film is familiar and flabby.

The film, coming to home video Tuesday from Universal Home Entertainment, kicks off when parents Dianne Wiest and James Brolin) tell Tina and Amy that they are selling the home where the girls grew up. While volatile Kate (Fey) was expected to take the news badly, it’s somewhat of a surprise that responsible Maura (Poehler) is equally bothered by the change to the status quo.

In an incredulous moment, the girls arrive in Orlando to clean their rooms one final time, just hours before the contract is about to be signed. In our world, the process takes weeks so this feels unconvincing.

In another bizarre version of reality, they decide there’s time for one final blow out of a party and the old gang is invited, allowing the girls to become teens once again, especially as old flames Dave (John Leguizamo) and Alex (Bobby Moynihan) turn up. When Brinda (Maya Rudolph) is not invited, she decides to ruin the nostalgia fest and so goes the rest of the film.

Given the quality of the people involved, including Rachel Dratch, Samantha Bee, Kate McKinnon, Jon Glaser, and Chris Parnell, in addition to the often funny Poehler, Fey, and Rudolph, this should have been more than a house party gone awry. Fey and Poehler have varying producer credits so they should have sharpened the derivative script from Paula Pell, who has done better work on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock.

The film was handed to Jason Moore who made a mark in features with the brilliant Pitch Perfect so this is a huge disappointment from him and his cast.

The high definition transfer is perfectly fine for mindless viewing, matched well with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack.

The Combo Pack comes with the Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD package. On the Blu-ray you can find a full range of extras starting with a slightly longer and no better unrated version of the film. There are nine deleted scenes and another nine extended scenes plus a Gag Reel (3:17). As one would expect, there was a lot of adlibbing during production and the best takes were compiled for The Improvorama (8:40) while How to Throw a Party (1:36) offers up advice. More interesting is the Grown-Up Parties Suck (5:18) featurette that is exactly as it sounds. Bobby Moynihan gets the spotlight in outtakes called The Alex Chronicles (2:51) and The Kate and Pazuzu Chronicles (2:05) focuses on flubs from Fey and WWE star John Cena. You can learn the Behind the Scenes story during the interesting but short A Teen Movie…For Adults (10:26). The Original Sister (6:40) allows writer Pell to reveal how much of the film was taken from her relationship with her sister Patti. Finally, Pool Collapse VFX (0:50) looks briefly at the set piece.

There is also Audio Commentary from Moore, Fey, Poehler, and Pell that makes the film sound far more ambitious and interesting than what was actually screened for audiences.

Mindy Newell: The Whole World Is Watching

It Can’t Happen Here Sinclair LewisThis is one of those times when I’ve got nothing. Maybe it’s because I spent the last week sick as a dog, as the saying goes. I wonder what the origin of that axiom is – why not “sick as a cat?” Or a horse, or an elephant? Anyway, I’m still feeling kind of tired and worn out, and I’ve had a headache all day, and I’ve sat down to write the column and gotten up and walked away about a million times, or I’ve started and deleted about a hundred paragraphs.

I keep dwelling on Donald Trump’s campaign. It reads like a political satire, doesn’t it? Or worse, a political dystopian warning, something on the order of It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, or The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. I know just what the book jacket copy would say:

A businessman who has stamped his name on many diverse monuments to American capitalism, from gleaming monolithic skyscrapers to verdantly lush golf courses to resorts for the very rich and powerful. He has written books that have topped the best-seller lists, and has hosted a successful reality show. Now he has decided that it is up to him to save his nation from the pathetic fools who sit in his beloved country’s seats of power, and for years have refused to take him seriously, though they have gladly reached out their hands and opened their pockets for his money. In a staged rally complete with hired actors, he announces his candidacy for the President of the United States.

Media pundits shake their collective heads and laugh at him on-and-off-camera, but their bosses tell them to give him plenty of airtime, because it makes for a good story. And the public is responding. Every time they feature the guy the ratings zoom through the roof.

But pretty soon nobody is laughing.

No doubt it would be optioned for a movie before the final manuscript went off to the printing press.

But this ain’t a movie, folks.

Even though we may all just end up paying for the price of admission.

Ed Catto: What Makes the Best Comic Shops?

Deweys Comic City

In his weekly New York Time column last week, the New York Times’ wine expert Eric Asimov wrote about how to pick a wine store. He stressed that if a person cared about wine and wanted to drink better and more confidently, the best thing one can do is to find a good wine store and then cultivate a good relationship with the staff.

There’s an enormous amount of choices for wine and good stores help consumers select and choose more wisely. They might do this with the way they arrange the wines, or with a friendly and knowledgeable staff or even through handwritten recommendations placed near the wine.

As I reach this wine column, I was drawing the inevitable parallels between wine stores and comics shops. Geek culture also offers such a diverse tapestry of choices. It can be difficult for fans and consumers to navigate through it all without a little curated help. So I reached out to a few smart geek friends to learn hear about their favorite comics shops. Here’s what they had to say:

First up is Dan Greenfield, the editor of the 13th Dimension. As a suburban guy who commutes into New York City, he had some interesting thoughts:

MidtownComicsByLuigiNovi“The best stores are the ones that are clean and make you feel welcome. It’s a simple business approach, really: ‘Be a good store’,” said Dan. “Nobody wants to go into a creepy, grimy hovel, and nobody wants to be ridiculed for their choices. I really look forward to going to Midtown Comics’ Grand Central location on Wednesdays. There’s a real “Cheers” vibe. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and really helpful. The place is brightly lit, too, which really does make a difference. I know a lot of the staff by name and they greet me when I come in. It’s great.”

“I might be spoiled by being in New York but there are more good stores than bad ones around here. There are plenty of choices. But I do know some of those old school, stereotypical stores are still out there. And I’m not knocking old-school stores per se. I love the classic, overstuffed comics shop but if the person behind the counter is gross, I’m never coming back. If they’re friendly, cool, helpful and well stocked, then I’m happy.”

Andrew Walsh is a life-long reader/collector and a regular at New York Comic Con – both as a fan and a professional. He’s often talked about his local comic shop, Comic Zone, and I asked him to elaborate on what makes this store in North Syracuse, N.Y. so popular.

comic-zone-7291142“Why do I love Comix Zone? First: the people,” said Andrew. “Greg the owner (for 25 years) is the coolest! Answers any email, any dumb question, orders all the wacky stuff I read (and that no one else reads). Always smiling, always chatty. Bend over backwards to find something for you, old or new.”

“The three dudes running the register have all been there for years and years. Each Wednesday, I feel very much like Norm, from Cheers. Everybody knows my name. They see me coming and have my weekly pulls already on the counter.”

“I’m always walking into the funnest ‘geek’ conversations. Employee vs. employee, or vs. customers. As you know, us geeks are opinionated, and like to share our opinions. These are conversations you can only have at a comic book store! The PTA meetings aren’t discussing pros and cons of the different Batman actors, and who was the best! (Ahem – Adam West, by the way.) The neighbors at our block party aren’t bashing 90’s Image comics (horrible). Only there, on Wednesday, is where all things nerd are passionately discussed!”

“Comix Zone is awesome at customer appreciation. Several times a year there is “The Big Sale!!” Any back issue priced at 6 bucks or less is 99 cents! And, anything over that is 1/2 off. Wow!! In today’s pricey comic book scene ($6 bucks for a copy of Dark Knight #3), you have to be choosey. I make a mental note of something that looks good, and then when “Big Sale” time comes around, I get there early and swoop them up. I’ve gotten some really good arcs on the cheap! And an even bigger Wow!! for holiday time. Black Friday is almost the same as “The BIG Sale”, except that everything under $6 is 49 cents!“

Rochester _Andrew_Rita_CAjpg“Finally, for one more bout of customer appreciation, the “Weekend Before Christmas BIG Sale” rules. The first 100 people in line get grab bags of 30 bucks plus comics and posters. And ten of those sweet bags contain $100.00 gift certificates. I’ve been lucky to get one twice in the last three years. Boy do I feel appreciated!”

“The store is well lit, always clean, super organized. It has a great sound system, and big TV’s on the wall. I’ve walked in on Ghostbusters probably every three weeks. Raiders of the Lost Ark was on this week, “said Andrew. “Nothing inspires comic book commerce better than a John Williams soundtrack!”

Art Cloos is an educator with a passionate fan streak that runs a mile wide. He writes frequently about comics for Gemstone. Art is always a friendly and familiar face at the many tri-state area comic conventions.

“My standard by which I compare all other comic shops was the first comic book store I ever went to, Little Nemo’s in Forest Hills Queens NY (followed closely by the great Mike’s Comic Hut on Northern Blvd in Queens NY and which deserves a story all its own),” said Art.

“I remember it being near the corner of Ascan Avenue and Austin Street and later discovered Mike Carbonaro had a store right around the corner. This was probably in the mid 1970s when my dad drove me over there after he got home from work one day during the week (we lived in Flushing/Bayside at the time) after a lot of begging on my part.”

“I discovered it thru ads in Marvel Comics and not yet knowing about the Little Nemo comic strip thought the name was rather odd. I later learned that it was one of the earliest comic shops in the country but at that time I did not know that. For me it was the idea that there was a store devoted to just comics that really got the juices going for me and I had to get there and see it ‘live’.”

“In that tiny place I discovered more vintage comics, posters, and original art from the Golden, Silver and the at the time very new Bronze Age on the walls then I ever thought I would see in my entire life.

“It was as over whelming to me as going to my first Phil Seuling Comic Art Convention was in 1974. Of course it smelled like a comic shop with that great paper smell that vintage collectors love. Being a young kid I had no real money to spend but I remember buying something (I suspect a Detective Comics) and I remember the owner whose name I did not know then, Joe Parente, put away a Batman Annual for me on a shelf making the point (quite loudly too) that it would be there when next I could convince my dad to bring me back with money to spend.

“So when you ask me what makes a good comic shop I think Little Nemo recognizing that the comic shops of today probably cannot replicate the sense of wonder that people felt when they entered Nemo’s for the first time but which the best ones still try their best to emulate in some fashion. “

TV Covention KickoffLast weekend saw a valiant effort in the many of the nation’s comic shops. The In-store Comic Convention was designed to be a comic convention in your local comic shop. Interviews and fun promotions were shown locally in participating stores.

I enjoyed the convention at Dewey’s Comic City, a great store in Madison, NJ. For over 20 years, local entrepreneur Dan Veltre has been making geek culture for fans – and this weekend was no exception. I look forward to more great events like this in the future.

And yes, aside from always-enjoyable wine tastings, I don’t thing wine shops have anything on these retailers.

John Ostrander: Suicide Squad Rogues

suicide_squad_2-9095137

Sorta Spoiler Notes: Today I’m discussing the latest Suicide Squad reprint, Rogues, and I’ll disclose some plot points. The stories were originally published in the late 80s so a spoiler shouldn’t be needed, but just in case you didn’t read them back then and are considering catching up now, you been warned!

One of the nice side-effects of the upcoming Suicide Squad movie is that DC is pushing into TPB print my original run. The latest volume comes out April 12 and is entitled Rogues and it’s maybe my favorite one so far. It reprints issues 17 through 25, including the Annual and a Bronze Tiger solo story by Larry Ganem and Peter Krause.

A quick rundown on the Squad. The Original Suicide Squad was created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru and debuted in 1959 in The Brave and the Bold #25. They were pretty much a version of Challengers of the Unknown and featured three guys and a gal. They appeared for five issues of B&B and then… nothing.

I revived the title in 1987 ands re-invented the group as a cross between the Dirty Dozen and the Secret Society of Super-Villains. Incarcerated bad guys were sent on covert missions for the U.S. and got time shaved off their prison terms – if they survived. Not all did.

In this latest TPB, we were getting into our second year and really hitting our stride. The book was constantly changing (I liked to try and keep things fresh) and one of the big changes was that my wife, Kim Yale, came on as co-writer. Kim had been itching to get into comics and I wanted to spread out my burgeoning workload. She loved the whole idea of the Squad and brought a lot of herself and her energy into the book.

Kim and I usually had different work/sleep schedules. I was a morning person and Kim always felt that there was nothing wrong with the morning that sleeping until noon couldn’t fix. We each had our own Mac but they weren’t connected. In those days, to share you had to put things on a floppy disc and then exchange them. (Millennials, go ask your parents  or Wikipedia what floppy discs were. We’ll wait.) I was the senior writer; I had the most experience and I had guaranteed the quality of writing with our editor, Bob Greenberger. If Kim and I had story or script disagreements (and we did) that we couldn’t resolve, I had final say. Kim didn’t always like that but she agreed.

When scripting, we would divide up the issue, work different scenes, and then exchange them. Kim would do a re-write on mine, I did one on hers, and if we disagreed, we’d work to resolve it. Today I couldn’t tell you which part was Kim’s work and which part was mine and that’s as it should be.

Two key things happened in this group of stories. First, we introduced Oracle who, originally, was just a voice coming from a computer. At this point, Oracle was an outside hacker who got into the Squad’s computers. It would be a while before we revealed who it was to the readers. Spoiler: it turned out to be the former Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, after she had been crippled by the Joker in The Killing Joke. Yeah, they said it wasn’t really in continuity but all the fans thought it was and so did we.

We also introduced the running joke of the pie-in-the-face gag. Starting with Amanda Waller, every so often someone would get pied; the mystery of who was doing it wasn’t revealed for a long time. I can’t believe how long we pushed it. For a book so grim and gritty, we did classic slapstick every now and then. Keep things shaken up.

Also for humor, we added the characters of Punch and Jewelee. Kim and I never did use the Joker and/or Harley Quinn in our version of the Squad. Too many strings attached to really get to play with them as we would have wanted. Punch and Jewelee were fun loving sociopaths in a similar vein to the Joker and Harley. They were married and over-sexed as well as homicidal. “Now I’m going to make you eat this salami!” One of my favorite lines. I continue to deny that Punch and Jewelee were in any way based on Kim and me and our married life. Deny deny deny.

We also added Killer Shrike to the line-up. She had sonic abilities and “accidently” killed people but, as we wrote her, she had “found Jesus” and was working her way to the Lord by serving with the Suicide Squad. That girl just wasn’t quite right in the head but fun to write.

This series also had one of the best twists we ever did. Senator Cray and his political associate, Derec Tolliver, were trying to blackmail Amanda Waller into doing dirty work for them by threatening to publicly reveal the Squad. This is a case of two dopes thinking they are smarter than they are. Waller, of course, found a way to reverse the tables on them but she didn’t bother to tell the Squad’s leader, Rick Flag, who decided to take matters into his own hands and kill the two.

Waller finds out only after (Spoiler) Flag kills Tolliver. She then sends the rest of the Squad out to stop Flag from killing Cray “by any means necessary.” She would have cause to regret those words.

It was Deadshot, Floyd Lawton, who found Flag just as Flag was about to shoot the Senator. Deadshot had just returned to the Squad after the tragic events of his own miniseries and mentally was not very stable. He found a unique way to keep Flag from killing the Senator (Spoiler) – by killing Cray himself.

A lot of stuff happens in this volume – characters come, characters go, characters die. The usual unusual stuff with the Squad. We get a touch of the personal lives as well; we even get to see Waller deal with family and you get very much the sense she’s rather deal with the criminals and sociopaths that make up the Squad.

It’s interesting to me (at least) that, in the beginning, I wasn’t even sure I could write a team book. I found it to be terra incognita. By this point in the run, I felt a lot more secure. The blend of personalities really clicked for me and getting to work with Kim was just an additional pleasure. Most of the time.

DC is going to release another volume of our Squad stories in July, just before the movie comes out in August. That makes sense. Get ‘em out while the interest is there. I’m hoping that they’ll continue to collect the Squad afterwards as well; they’re almost half the way through the run now and it would be nice to have the whole thing gathered.

Now, if I can just get them to collect Wasteland…

Marc Alan Fishman: No Half-Measures Here, Folks!

Better Call Saul

As everyone hopefully saw last week, my wife and I welcomed our new son into the world. Joining his bigger brother Bennett Reed now comes Colton Mikel Fishman. I couldn’t be any more proud of my wife, nor happier for our li’l family. Kathy and I grew up as only children, so with a pair of boys under our roof we’re sailing in uncharted waters. Suffice to say we’re nervous, elated, and perhaps a bit sleep deprived even thinking about it. But we venture forward.

And before I do much the same here in my column, I’d be an ass if I didn’t stop any further blathering before I thank you the readers of ComicMix, as well as my editor and co-columnists for all the well wishes since I missed my deadline last week. Ten points if you were just about to ask when I’d declare: But I digress.

This week, I’m in a Better Call Saul kind of mood. The show is one of the best on television today. Breaking Bad was revolutionary in its murky trek into the abyss of a man’s soul. Saul in contrast is more or less a stumble and fall down the stairs towards nothing more than a manager’s pin at the Omaha Cinnabon. In the season one finale our titular esquire retorted to himself (and I guess to a lesser degree, Mike Ermantraut) that his life would no longer feature half-measures. I find myself at much the same conclusion.

Now Saul – who was still Slippin’ Jimmy McGill of Cicero, Illinois – was in effect declaring to the universe he would no longer look an opportunity in the face and retreat. If the universe dropped a sack of cash in his lap? He wouldn’t look for the owner of it. He’d spend it, and deny it to his grave should it ever be contested. Now I’ve no intention on thievery, or anything uncouth. I, instead, will take to heart the deeper meaning of Mr. McGill’s words. Here, with an infant son, and a toddling young buck at my side, I strive to do more with my life with the lesser free time I’m allowed.

You see, as I’ve detailed often, making comics independently is a beast to bear when you have a full time job and family to take care of. And with a wife who will now be allowed to take two months off of work unpaid, suddenly my inclination to take every freelance gig waving past my face rises exponentially. And what stares at me every night on my cloud-based to-do list from hell, The Samurnauts looms with a grey cloud above it.

Our Kickstarter successfully funded in November of 2015. Our thinking at the time would be we’d (we, being the Unshaven Lads) hunker down and churn the remainder of the material out in time to put books into people’s hands right about now. But that grey cloud has begat a book still 14 pages (give or take) left to pencil and ink… and the entirety of the final issue to color and letter. In short, it’s not even close to done.

And sleeping two floors above me, as innocent as can be, is the most wonderful excuse why I barely give a damn. I should note as well that Unshaven Matt Wright and his amazing wife Amy brought Molly Wright into the world only a few days ago. And to answer you… no, Matt and I didn’t plan it this way.

Back to the topic at hand. No half-measures. You see, the words have never rang more true. I could dump out my freelance clients and pour myself into finishing our first graphic novel. I bet if I really tried, we could have it done in a month or less. But that’s never been the way we’ve worked. Unshaven Comics, for better or worse, has stuck to the ideology that our passion is best served proudly. And we’ll never publish a book until we’re damned proud to do so. And if that takes more time because our lights need to stay on, and young tuchuses need to be diapered? So be it. The Samurnauts when it is completed (the first graphic novel, I should say), will represent the absolute best work Unshaven Comics could produce together.

So, to you Colton, Bennett, Molly, and Aidan… know that your fathers (and Uncle Kyle!) may take forever and a day to put out their comics. But they waited their whole lives for you to be here with us now. So… what’s a few more weeks really mean?

No half-measures, kiddos. It’s just not worth it.

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll The Law Is A Ass #382

CAPTAIN AMERICA DIDN’T TAKE A CONSERVATIVE APPROACH

Sometimes a banana is just a banana.

It was all over the news. Well, all over Fox News, anyway. Captain America was targeting conservatives.

Which he wasn’t.

What happened – as best I can fathom, as even Quentin Tarantino would have had a difficult time following the nonlinear storytelling in Captain America: Sam Wilson #1 – is this. Some weeks back, super villain the Iron Nail neutralized the Super-Soldier Serum in body of Steve Rogers, the original Captain America. Without its effects, Steve Rogers, who was born in 1920, found his body rapidly aging to that of a 94-year-old man. (Question: did the story explain why Steve’s body rapidly aged to 94? Sure Steve was born on July 4, 1920, or 94 years ago, when he lost the Serum. But he spent all the time from early 1945 until The Avengers #4 in suspended animation. Marvel says Fantastic Four #1 didn’t happen in 1961, it happened 10 years ago. That’s Marvel Time. So in Marvel Time, The Avengers# 4 happened a little bit less than 10 years ago. Meaning from 1945 until a little less than 10 years ago, Cap’s body was in suspended animation and didn’t age. Cap went into the iceberg as 24-year-old and came out still 24 years old. Since then, 10 years have passed, Marvel time. So it doesn’t matter what year Cap was born, physiologically he should have the body of a 34-year-old man, not a 94-year-old man. How, then, did Cap’s body age to an age it had never been? Inquiring minds want to know. And even if they don’t I do.)

Because Steve couldn’t meet the physical demands of being Captain America any more, he turned his mantle and shield over to his partner Sam Wilson, formerly the Falcon and now Captain America. Sam promptly got a bunch of people mad at him by taking public stands on several partisan issues. What stands and what issues the comic never told us, but I think we can safely assume it wasn’t whether the President should be pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys.

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Things got worse for Sam, as his actions caused a strain in his relationship with the super spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D. Suddenly Sam was on his own and without resources. So he set up a national hotline that people could use to tell him about injustices or wrongs that needed to be righted.

One of those hot line calls was from Mariana Torres. Her grandson Joaquin left water, medicine, and food out for people who were walking through the desert to cross the border from Mexico into America. Mariana also told Sam that Joaquin didn’t come back from his last mission. She claimed that he had been kidnapped by the Sons of the Serpent, who were patrolling the border to stop the undocumented from entering. (It should be noted that the Sons of the Serpent is a long-time white-supremacist and racist hate group in the Marvel Universe; basically Marvel’s version of the KKK.)

Sam-tain America promptly went down to Sonoita, Arizona and confronted the Sons of the Serpent, who were about to capture some border crossers. And that’s where we came in.

Came in with Fox News criticizing the new Captain America and his comic for vilifying, “an American who has misgivings about unlimited illegal immigration and the costs associated with it,” Fox’s commentators said that writers should “keep politics out of comic books” or should be telling positive stories about, “the people who are working the border to keep us safe.” Fox News went on to say that the Sons of the Serpent are only stopping people from coming over the border illegally and Captain America wanted to keep them from doing that.

Now I admit the people who were entering the country were doing so illegally and Joaquin was breaking the law by helping them. If all that was happening was that the Sons of the Serpent were apprehending people who were entering the country illegally then turning them over to the Border Patrol and Captain America wanted to prevent them from doing that, Fox would have had a legitimate story. Problem is that Fox’s interpretation of the comic was simplistic.

And inaccurate.

See what Fox News conveniently forgot to do was tell its viewers the real reason the Sons of the Serpent were apprehending border crossers. The Serpents weren’t patrolling the borders and turning undocumented aliens over to the Border Patrol. They were grabbing people and selling them for $5,000 a head to Dr. Karlin Malus, an evil scientist,  so that he could use them in his genetic experimentation. The Sons of the Serpents were kidnapping people.

Kidnapping is a crime. Even Fox News’s Research Department should be able to confirm that fact. Assuming Fox News’s Research Department is capable of doing something more extensive than digging up talking points.

For all the furor Fox fomented, turns out that Captain America wasn’t targeting conservatives. He was going after kidnappers. You know, criminals. And that’s what Captain America is supposed to do, isn’t it? Go after lawbreakers. Because, you know, bananas are bananas and not cumquats.

I admit that Captain America: Sam Wilson # 1 could have done a better job of showing that the Sons of the Serpents were kidnappers. While that information was strongly implied in issue one, it wasn’t until Captain America: Sam Wilson #2 that the comic explicitly told us the Sons were selling the people they grabbed to Dr. Malus.

Might have been nice if that explicit kidnapping information had been in issue 1 so that even a simplistic reading of the comic would have shown Captain America was going after kidnappers not conservatives. Maybe then Fox News would have done a fair and balanced story.

Or not. After all, bananas are still bananas.

Martha Thomases: Well, We Do Need Those Stinkin’ Badges, So…

the-discipline-5377090ReedPOP has done it again. They messed up the Emerald City Comicon. It’s not permanent damage (at least, I hope not), and they’ve taken steps to fix things, but I suspect that they still don’t entirely understand what happened.

I don’t know anyone at ReedPOP, nor do I have a source who clues me in on their inner workings. Everything I say is speculation, nothing more.

Last week saw the release of the first issue of The Discipline from Image Comics by writer Peter Milligan and artist Leandro Fernandez. I have loved Peter Milligan for more than 20 years, and eagerly bought the issue. I’ve read it, don’t entirely understand what’s going on, and look forward to more story.

Image is holding its Expo, formerly a free-standing event, at Emerald City this year. As a result there will be a lot of Image creative talent at the show, and I imagine a fair amount of cross-promotion. One of the elements of this marketing concept is to put Image art on the badges for attendees.

And that’s where the problem began. The Sunday badge sports the cover image from The Discipline #1, a woman in shadow, her blouse being opened by a monster’s hand. If you read the actual comic, you’ll see that this is a complicated situation, unsettling but consensual. On the badge, with no other context, it just looks creepy and rape-y.

Social media blew up, and many women said they found the artwork offensive, even triggering. As a comic book cover, they have the option to walk away and read something else. As a badge to get into a convention they already paid for, the choice is to throw away the admission price or suck it up.

ReedPOP admitted they had a problem and offered a solution. To quote from the link, “We would like to extend the offer to all Fans who are concerned that they may exchange their Badge on Sunday at Will Call for a different Badge that does not feature that art.”

I’m not sure I like this solution. It means that, if I have on the replacement badge, I’ve identified myself as a person who was abused, or a feminist, or some other political position that I might not want to discuss on a day when I just want to look at comic books, meet creators and other fans, and maybe dress up like my favorite super heroine.

Who am I kidding? I’m always delighted to be identified as a feminist. Still, I would like it to be my choice, not ReedPOP’s.

This could be chalked up to a simple misstep if ReedPOP hadn’t made almost the exact same mistake two years ago. And they responded in almost exactly the same way.

It’s not as if ReedPOP isn’t trying. They have an excellent anti-harassment policy that demands respect and consideration for everyone. Even better, that sentiment is echoed in the convention’s general rules. Both of these documents demonstrate an understanding of what fans want and need in their convention experience.

And it’s also interesting to see how far ReedPOP goes to show their customers they get it. This article illustrates how they are bending over backwards to celebrate cosplay and cosplayers on their own terms.

So what can we do about the badge business?

I don’t think they do these things maliciously. To paraphrase Chris Rock, this isn’t Boko Haram sexism, it’s sorority sexism. It’s an attitude that is so entrenched in our society that, unless it affects you directly, you might not notice.

Therefore, the solution, it seems to me, is to collect people who will notice. Form a committee and, before finalizing these kinds of decisions, run it by them. I’m not saying that victims of sexism (and racism and ableism and homophobia and xenophobia and holy crap we have swallowed a lot of hate in our society) should have a veto over creative content. Instead, I’m suggesting that they might notice a message ReedPOP doesn’t intend to send before it is sent. The committee would not act as censors who ban things, but as copy editors who improve clarity.

Yeah, you heard me. I’m saying that Fowler and Strunk & White are important tools for radicals.

And marketing geniuses.

And allies.

The Tweeks At Target: Superhero Girls, Black Widow & Socks

This week we took a little trip to one of our favorite places in the world…

Target to check out the new DC Superhero Girls dolls and the new Black Widow doll (action figure, if you wish) from Marvel.  Maddy also explores the choice of geek socks made for women that somehow forgot to include women.

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