The Mix : What are people talking about today?
Martha Thomases Loves Mark Millar
Kick-Ass 2 opened and I’m very psyched. Loved the comics. Loved the first movie. Even liked the Wanted movie, although it isn’t as sharp and funny as the book.
You see, I’m a big fan of Mark Millar. I’ve followed him ever since he wrote Swamp Thing with Grant Morrison, and, as DC’s Publicity Manager, I had to explain to people who he was. And while I haven’t read absolutely everything he’s written, nor have I loved absolutely everything I’ve read, he always engages me with his characters, entertains me and, in places, makes me laugh.
So it surprised me when I read this.
To be sure, I’m not surprised that there is a backlash against someone who is commercially successful in a popular art form. There are always those people, desperate to be cool, who affect disdain for anything popular. There is a subset of this group, who claim to have liked the person/band/actor/director’s work before, when they were unknown. I, myself, am capable of rambling on pretentiously about the first time I saw Talking Heads, when they were a trio.
That’s not what I’m talking about here. Instead, a (reasonably) well-respected magazine, The New Republic, did an overview of Mark’s work and didn’t like what they saw. They spoke with some people who defended Millar, and with some who criticized him. Mostly, the article focused on sex, violence and rape.
Of which there is a lot in Millar’s work. To quote from the article:
“Laura Hudson, the former editor-in-chief of the popular blog Comics Alliance and a senior editor at Wired, thought that scene was deplorable, but typical of Millar. ‘There’s one and only one reason that happens, and it’s to piss off the male character,” she said. “It’s using a trauma you don’t understand in a way whose implications you can’t understand, and then talking about it as though you’re doing the same thing as having someone’s head explode. You’re not. Those two things are not equivalent, and if you don’t understand, you shouldn’t be writing rape scenes.’”
Laura Hudson is someone I admire and respect. When I say I disagree with her, it is not my intention to dismiss her point of view (and I’m aware it can sound like that in print, when you can’t hear my tone of voice or see my evocative hand gestures). Having said that, I suspect we’re having a similar problem when we read the stories. I don’t pick up a tone in the work that celebrates actual violence or rape. I see those actions being used to define characters. Unlike Laura, I don’t think women in the stories are raped solely to motivate men. I think rape is used to show how awful the person is who commits it.
Is this a comic book problem? John Irving writes books that are full of raped characters and the men who love them. Most contemporary critics consider him to be a feminist, or at least an ally to feminists.
(And this will probably be the only time anyone ever discusses Mark Millar and John Irving in the same article.)
Writing about something – even illustrating something – is not the same as endorsing it. I’ve been involved in the non-violent movement for social justice for more than 45 years, yet I enjoyed these comics a lot. I’m tickled by the cartoon violence, in no small part because I know that no actual humans are involved. This may be because of the tone I infer from the stories, or because, as Scott McCloud describes, we each supply our own interpretation of what happens between the panels.
We bring our lives to comics in a way that’s different from other popular art forms. Maybe this is why we can differ so profoundly in our reactions to what we read. In my version, Mark Millar is sort of kind of related to Chuck Jones by way of Francis Ford Coppola.
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman
SUNDAY: John Ostrander
Fight Card Books Premiere’s Barefoot Bones
Fight Fiction Publisher, Fight Card Books has released Fight Card: Barefoot Bones. Fight Card: Barefoot Bones is a written by pulpmeister Bobby Nash, the 2013 Pulp Ark Award winner for Best Author, writing under the Fight Card house name of Jack Tunney. Under a cover by David Foster and edits by Fight Card co-creator Paul Bishop, Barefoot Bones is a knockout!
PRESS RELEASE:
Korea, 1951
Mentored in the hollows of hardscrabble Georgia by mysterious loner Old Man Winter, then in a Chicago orphanage by ex-fighter Father Tim Brophy, James ‘Barefoot Bones’ Mason has relied on his fists to make his way. But it’s a long way from St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys to the battlefields of Korea where Bones’ fists may not be enough.
Entered in an inter-camp boxing tournament by his commanding officer, Bones finds himself in a war within a war. When a tenuous cease fire is explosively shattered, Bone’s is fighting against the highest odds of all – staying alive.
Can a skinny kid from the north Georgia mountains survive the hell of Korea and still have the guts to climb back into the ring one more time? The one constant in Bones’ life has been fighting – Lucky for him… he’s good at it.
You can purchase Fight Card: Barefoot Bones here.
Learn more about Fight Card: Barefoot Bones here.
Learn more about Fight Card Books here.
Read Author Bobby Nash’s thoughts on crafting Fight Card: Barefoot Bones and see what it was like strapping on Jack Tunney’s gloves here.
Fight Card: Barefoot Bones – Coming Soon in Paperback.
Coming up next week, we have the debut of the first Fight Card Romance novel, Ladies Night, by Carol Malone (writing as Jill Tunney). Carol has pulled off a wonderful romance/fight pulp genre mash up in Fight Card Romance: Ladies Night.
Next month will see the publication of Anthony Venutolo’s noirish wonder, Fight Card: Front Page Palooka (previously Union Of The Snakes).
The Book Cave Episode 243: Rants and Ramblings
The Book Cave‘s host, Ric Croxton goes on a short rant. Afterward, Ric and co-host, Art Sippo, talk about books and everything else that’s on their minds. You would think it would be a short episode with those two talking about what is on their minds, wouldn’t you?
Well, you might be wrong.
Listen to The Book Cave Episode 243: Rants and Ramblings here for the full story.
Bobby Nash Interviewed by Barrow County News
New Pulp Author Bobby Nash was interviewed for his local county newspaper, The Barrow County News, back on July 10th. Click on the image above for a larger, readable view.
Martin Pasko: City On The Edge of Forgetaboutit
If you follow this column regularly (in which case I apologize for the feelings of loneliness and alienation), you might remember me mentioning that I now reside in Los Angeles, which is the perfect city to move to if you’re really desperate to live in a comic book. It’s so colorful and exciting and full of funny-looking noises. Like when the valet at Jerry’s Deli on Ventura slides that new car you haven’t even started making the payments on yet into a parking space narrower than its wheel base – at 120 mph – because he thinks he’s Batman.
So I am thrilled to report I’m serene, I tell you, serene as I continue to sit around, keyboarding like this. Only now I do it for fun because the keyboard I’m using is the digital one on my smartphone, and it’s now in my lap as I write this, with the vibration intensity on the haptic feedback set to “Maximum.”
Sorry.
I am, however, finding it somewhat more lonely here than I’d anticipated.
Many of my old friends – the kind who keep insisting I refer to them on social media as “not-old-that-way” – don’t get out much. They glide about their palatial homes in motorized tricycles which have to be loaded into their very tiny cars when a group of us goes out to lunch. Whereupon the one who still has enough use of his legs to actually drive a car keeps asking the voice on the GPS to speak louder, so he can hear her replies to his inappropriate comments about how hot she sounds and what time she gets off work.
Meanwhile, the other three beg me to push their motorized tricycles out into freeway traffic while they are still in them, because their fingers are too arthritic to use a trackpad and none of them has mastered SEO well enough to Google for the guy who inherited Jack Kevorkian’s equipment.
Thus I find myself in the rather odd position of actually looking forward to inviting to lunch Stan The Man, who, as you know, lives in Beverly Hills. And is not too busy to see me because there are no animation studios or comic book companies left out here with whom he can jointly announce a project that will be completed after you and I are dead.
(“Just came back from The Mansion and I’m way stoked, ‘cause Hef an’ I are This Close to launchin’ that whole Spider-Bunny thing.”)
I’ll have to find a way to break it gently to Mr. Man that Mr. Hefner no longer sits around all day in his pajamas and bathrobe because he needs to be ready at a moment’s notice to fuck a smokin’-hot babe, but because sitting around all day in your pajamas and bathrobe is just what you do when you’re 187 years old.
But, of course, as Bill Maher knows how to say with much better fake sincerity than I, I kid Mr. Man. I have every confidence that he really will be with us many years hence. That’s because, as he has helpfully informed us, he has a pacemaker but no need whatsoever for a motorized tricycle. I am, however, inviting Mr. Man to lunch in my home, where absolutely no effort will be made to point out that he’s standing too close to the microwave.
And, in what passes here in Hollywood for truth, Mr. Man has announced a strategic relationship with Archie Comics, for whom he will be writing Just Imagine Stan The Man Asking You To Believe He Actually Wrote This Comic Book Himself About What It Would’ve Been Like If He’d Created That Really Swell, Groovy Homo Kid We Came Up With That’s Putting Us Out Of Business Because It’s Pissing Off All Those Loudmouthed Jesus People Who For Some Reason Are Still Under The Impression That They Can Buy “Age-appropriate” Comic Books At Wal*Mart.
I, for one, am looking forward to chatting Mr. Man up about that book. I may be totally off-base on this, because I haven’t actually seen Mr. Man in the 20 years since the announcement, but I think Archie is a perfectly natural “fit” for him because, at least at that time, the back of Mr. Man’s head was orange, too.
Now, as we come to the conclusion of what I know all you reverential fanboys, with your keenly developed senses of humor, will have understood was meant as Just Jokes rather than the gratuitous and mean-spirited rant you, you hero-worshiping little cretins, you, mistook it for … I leave you with just these humble thoughts:
Apparently, here in The City On The Edge of Forgetaboutit, the way you fight ageism is by making fun of people who are even older than you are. If you can find any.
And so it is that I whistle past Forest Lawn and rage, rage against the dying of the light from my smartphone.
OK, so I’m a little cranky, too.
Some asshole just totaled my motorized tricycle, trying to park it at 120 mph because he thinks he’s Batman.
FRIDAY: Martha Thomases
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman
Dennis O’Neil: Graphic Storytelling… and Excess
A big black hole –
The galaxy’s bowl?
Captain Power’s goal?
Enough poesy. What we’re dissertating on today is not verse, which I’m pretty sure I don’t quite understand, but goals.
But first, a brief look at what are widely considered the seven basic plots. I’ll be courteous enough to add, under each one, an example of what it is. This I will do in italics.
Here we go:
Overcoming the Monster – Gilgamesh
Rags to Riches – Cinderella
The Quest – Lord of the Rings
Voyage and Return – Wizard of Oz
Comedy – Modern Times
Tragedy – Oedipus Rex
Rebirth – Christmas Carol
Most of what I’ve just tossed at you are narrative germs that involve somebody trying to get or accomplish something – somebody with goals to achieve. (Tragedy and Rebirth are hereby excused. And Comedy can take a nap, if it wants.)
That’s mostly the stuff we see at the monsterplex and it is a sturdy beast that’s been transfixing audiences for…I don’t know – fifteen centuries?
But, I shall now claim, to be as effective as they can be, goalish-stories must have clarity: the goal itself must be clear and the obstacles between the hero and his goal must also be clear. In order to pull us to the edge of our seats, the storyteller has to let us see and know exactly what the hero has to overcome and in so doing, generate and the suspense and thrills and chills that we’ve paid for.
And here comes the kvetch: Some of our storytellers are failing, just a bit, by giving us too much. You’ve probably seen it: Good guy has to rescue good girl and to accomplish this he must get past the head villain’s henchman. Okay, fine. But – we don’t know who these henchmen are, how many there are, what they’re capable of. So good guy stalks through someplace that’s badly lit and has a lot of corners, and maybe a lot of door and-what the hey? let’s throw in a balcony or two, and a skylight would be nice. Now, the big action: out pops a bad guy and bangbangbang. Out pops a bad guy and bangbangbang. Out pops a bad guy and bangbangbang. Out pops a bad guy and bangbangbang. Out pops a bad guy and bangbangbang. And bang bang bang…We don’t know how many of these faceless nasties the hero has to vanquish so we can’t tell exactly what he’s overcoming, nor what progress he may be making. And he does pretty much the same couple of things to achieve his victories: a trio of shots from his Glock, with the occasional lethal martial arts move for lagniappe. Finally, he confronts the chief stinker and do we doubt that, after the hero’s dispatched legions, he’ll be stymied by this loser?
Are you bored yet?
Two words, Mr. Filmmaker: rising action. It’s part of your medium’s basic vocabulary and it is still as potent an audience-transfixer as when, way back, Laurel and Hardy used it to get laughs.
The same act of mayhem repeated and repeated does not constitute rising action.
And who the hell is Captain Power, anyway?
THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Martin Pasko
FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases
Grind Pulp Podcast Ep06 – The Epic Conan of Cimmeria Episode!
BY CROM!!!
In the latest episode of the Grind Pulp Podcast, the team discuss three Conan stories and three Conan movies. Things start slow but soon escalate as we get deeper into the stories and dive headlong into the Conan films. The Howard stories have become public domain and are available for free. This episode includes a special appearance of a Warlock and is the most epic Conan podcast ever!
Stories:
1. “The People of the Black Circle” (1934) by Robert E. Howard
2. “Legions of the Dead” (1978) by Lin Carter and Sprague de Camp
3. “The Tower of the Elephant” (1933) by Robert E. Howard
Movies:
1. “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) – directed by John Milus. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, and Max Von Sydow.
2. “Conan the Destroyer” (1984) – directed by Richard Fleischer. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones, and Wilt Chamberlain.
3. “Conan the Barbarian” (2011) – directed by Marcus Nispel. Starring Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, and Rose McGowan
This Epic Conan Episode clocks in at an hour-and-a-half, and we didn’t even scratch the surface. That adventure will be up to you.
You can listen to Grind Pulp Podcast Episode 06: Conan of Cimmeria aka The Epic Conan Episode here or via itunes.
Fight Card: Barefoot Bones Cover Revealed!
Fight Fiction Publisher, Fight Card Books has released the cover to Fight Card: Barefoot Bones. Fight Card: Barefoot Bones is a novella by Pulp Ark Award-Winning Author Bobby Nash writing under the Fight Card house name of Jack Tunney. The cover was designed by David Foster and the book was edited by Paul Bishop, co-creator of Fight Card.
Learn more about Fight Card: Barefoot Bones here.
Read Author Bobby Nash’s thoughts on crafting Fight Card: Barefoot Bones and see what it was like strapping on Jack Tunney’s gloves here.
Fight Card: Barefoot Bones will be available for purchase next week.
Review: “Kick-Ass 2”
Well. This might be the easiest review I’ve written.
If you liked the first Kick-Ass movie, you’ll like this one. If you would have liked the first film if it didn’t have Nicolas Cage in it, you’ll be even happier.
If you are a fan of the Mark Millar/John Romita Jr. comic book series, you’ll like this movie. It’s a fairly faithful adaptation of Kick-Ass 2 and the Hit-Girl prequel series, hitting most of the points and only making cosmetic changes (no final battle in Times Square, for example.)
If you are a fan of Chloe Grace Moritz, you’ll love this film. Even more fun this time around, yet still growing up. Between this and the upcoming Carrie remake, we have learned one very important lesson: Do. Not. Mess. With. Her.
If you think that the story is a decent examination and a snappy satirical commentary about trying to be a superhero in the real world, you are completely right. If you happen to think that the first film and/or the comic book is overwrought and overviolent and expect the sequel to be the same, you are completely right too.
If you think this is a way for comic book movies to keep things simple and get decent returns on their original investments by controlling costs instead of making R.I.P.D., you’re correct. If you think this is a cynical attempt to cash in on an easily extendable franchise, you’re right as well.
If you’re looking for surprises– well, there we have a problem. There really aren’t any if you’ve seen the first film, and especially if you’ve already read the source material. There are only two real areas for surprise here: will they keep all the levels of violence from the comics in the films, even the hyper-brutal and the completely ludicrous, and is it still going to be fun to watch knowing what’s coming next? The answer to both questions, BTW, is “yes”.
So go. Have fun, if this is the sort of thing you like. You know pretty much exactly what you’re going to get, and it’s going to be well-executed executions. It doesn’t quite live up to its title, it doesn’t quite kick ass too. But it’s not a bad way to spend an evening.
