Movies are full of great lines and memorable quotes. Some are even wise and insightful, but some are just filled with stupid wisdom. I have in mind John Wayne’s line in John Ford’s 1949 western classic She Wore A Yellow Ribbon: “Never apologize and never explain – it’s a sign of weakness.”

It sounds great and even may make sense within the context of the story; Wayne’s character is a military commander and the troops need to obey the commanding officer without question so apologies and explanations could interfere with that. Unfortunately, some people take it out of context and take it literally and try to apply it to everyday life.

I have in mind the GOP and Mitt Romney over the past few weeks. The candidate shoots from the lip about the death of our ambassador in Libya in order to score political points. He gets his facts wrong. Then a surreptitiously filmed video made at a $50,000 a plate fundraiser for Romney held in Boca Raton emerges. In it, among other things, he dismisses 47% of the electorate as lazy and dependent on the government and says they will never vote for him. If you missed it, you can see it here.

The best “explanation” Romney made on the latter was that he phrased it “inelegantly.” Someone in the GOP camp has taken John Wayne’s movie wisdom very much to heart: never apologize, never explain. It’s a sign of weakness. The title to Romney’s 2010 book is “No Apology.” It’s also part of what appears to be the GOP strategy: attack, attack, attack. They’ve also taken to heart a line from the movie Patton: ‘We’re gonna keep fighting. Is that clear? We’re gonna attack all night, we’re gonna attack tomorrow morning. If we are not victorious, let no man come back alive!”

To my mind, that’s the problem. Your opponent is not just a political opponent; they have become the enemy who must be vanquished at all costs. These political operatives engage in a political equivalent of a scorched earth policy. Anything that might be of use to the opponent must be destroyed by any means possible.

Last week, the Veterans Jobs Corp Act of 2012 failed to pass in the Senate. The GOP justification for it was that they didn’t feel it was properly funded; the war that put these soldiers in harm’s way and that the GOP okayed was also not properly funded but that was all right. The GOP also kept up their filibuster that prevented Obama’s $447 billion dollar jobs program from even reaching a vote.

The basic reason for both failures is that the GOP doesn’t want anything that might reflect well on President Obama this close to the election. Never mind that veterans might benefit, never mind that ordinary middle class citizens might benefit, the key was to make sure that the President didn’t benefit. The GOP announced four years ago that they intended to do everything they could to make Barack Obama a one term president and they have worked hard at it. They will never apologize for that because, to them, that would be a sign of weakness, as would compromise.

Except – apologies are not a weakness. No person and no nation is 100% correct 100% of the time. When you have done or said something wrong, the brave thing, the strong thing, is to apologize for what you’ve done wrong. Ali McGraw’s character in Love Story famously said, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Anyone who has been in love, who has been in a relationship, knows this is another bit of stupid wisdom. If you’re stubborn, if you have to be always right, then good luck to you and that relationship. The political equivalent seems to be “Politics means never having to say you’re sorry.” That’s also boneheaded.

Look, I’m not naïve. I was raised in Chicago and I know how rough and tumble a game politics can be. I understand that, if you don’t get elected, you can’t institute any of the changes or programs that you think would be good for the citizens of this country. However, if your only goal is to get elected, to beat the opponent by any means necessary, then you have no program, you have no vision, for this country other than winning. All you’re going to have is the next election and you’ve provided the next opponent with the game plan and blueprint for how to conduct it – win by any means necessary. All you can then do is keep fighting and governing falls by the wayside.

Everyone makes mistakes. I have my own thoughts and beliefs that I try to put into practice but I never assume they were written on tablets of stone and handed down to me by a deity. I do the best I can and, when I’m wrong and see that I’m wrong, I try to apologize. I’m not as good at it as I should be. I do, however, approach things with the possibility that I could be wrong and a philosophy of never apologizing, never explaining, attack attack attack, does not allow for that possibility. And that’s why, in my opinion, it’s stupid wisdom.

To quote Dennis Miller back when he was more sane, “I could be wrong. . . but I doubt it.”

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

As far back as when Tom Baker announced he was leaving the title role of Doctor Who, and at every period of transference since, tabloids would float the “rumor” (a word which here means “collection of words concocted out of thin air”) that the new Doctor might be a woman.  And with it would come the requisite shaking of heads and rending of garments, not to mention the follow-up news articles with headlines that all circled around “Nurse Who?” and the like.  People associated with the show, if ever actually asked, would rarely deny such stories, because as soon as you do that, the publicity train stops, and who wants that?  So we get an infuriating round of winks and “You never know”s and another cycle of articles from people on both sides explaining why either it could or should never happen, or that not only should it happen, but the time is right.

It’s a question that couldn’t be rationally asked about almost any other fictional character.  You can swap stars and characters out of a show – the longer a show goes, the easier it becomes.  M*A*S*H, CSI, the list goes on. You can even re-cast main characters; James Bond has gone through a half-dozen changes already. But to suddenly turn a well-known male character for a female (or vice-versa) would normally be ridiculous.  But in the world of science-fiction, anything can happen.

One of the sublime wonders of The Doctor is his ability to regenerate – to completely change his form, his personality, and most importantly, the actor playing him.  It’s what’s allowed the show to continue for going on fifty years, changing tone and direction with each change of main actor.  And with each change, a growing part of the audience asks the question that Chris Claremont used to ask so often when creating comic characters; “Is there any reason this character can’t be a woman?”

The simple answer is no.  When Matt Smith took the role, as the Doctor did a quick anatomical inventory, he felt his long hair and thought for a moment he’d regenerated into a female.  A couple years later, Neil Gaiman set the concept in stone – he created The Corsair, another renegade Time Lord whom The Doctor knew very well.  He described him as a “A good man… a couple of times a good woman”. So there it is, a Time Lord can change their gender during regeneration. You gonna argue with Neil Gaiman, cause I’m not.

The current Doctor, Matt Smith, while assuring us that’s he’s not going anywhere anytime soon (and quite right too, IMHO) has gone on record that he thinks there’s any number of actresses who would make a fine Doctor.  In an interview with The Mary Sue, he named Charlize Theron specifically.  Late last year, Helen Mirren famously announced that she’d love to play the role as well.

Some people forget that showrunner and Twitter-bailer Steven Moffat has ALREADY brought us a female Doctor.  In his Comic Relief story The Curse of Fatal Death, after burning through a staggering number of regenerations, The Doctor finally stands as Joanna Lumley, co-star of Absolutely Fabulous (and for those of us who care to show their age, Sapphire and Steel and The New Avengers). Yes, it was a comedy adventure, and out of continuity (I assume), but the moon did not fall from the sky when it happened.

So we’ve got the “can” out of the way.  We now advance to the more complicated question…should he? The show has been amazingly good about representing same-sex relationships.  From the beginning of the new series we’ve seen numerous characters in various “non-traditional” pairings, all portrayed as being spectacularly unimportant to the plot.  The underlying message, if one had to spell it out is “There are a lot of the people in the universe, and some of the like men, and some of them like women, and it doesn’t make them any more good or bad as people.”  So surely making the main character a woman would make that message even more powerful – it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, you can still make an amazing difference in the world.

Of the people who argue against such a change, the arguments tend to circle around a small number of talking points.

YOU’RE JUST TRYING TO MAKE A STATEMENT Sadly, no matter how good an actress they would find, no matter how good the stories, there would absolutely be a part of the audience who would insist that the only reason the change was done for some socially-motivated reason, likely involving the phrase “Political Correctness.”  It’s the same argument made in comics when a character is brought back as a new gender, ethnicity, lifestyle, etc.  The argument seems to rule out the idea that the new/changed character could possibly be good, based on that ulterior motive.  Any storyline or even dramatic moment that involves something unique about being that type of person is quickly pointed at as “proof” that the character exists solely to further the various agandae of that group, and any other group they can associate them to.

There’s an inherent issue with this argument, in that it suggests an attempt to diversify the types of characters out there must by definition be based on “cramming them down our throats” and not simply an attempt to show that there are more types of people out there, some bumpier than others. It can be tempting to make those characters ciphers for getting a writer’s pet viewpoints across, yes, and when proselytizing takes precedence over entertainment, the show can suffer. But considering how well the show has already brought alternate partnerships in with no massive shift in tone, I suspect this issue would not be a problem.

THAT’S NOT WHO HE IS The character has been a man for almost five decades – he sees himself as male, his friends, the universe in general see him as such.  For him to become female is too large and fundamental change to the character, one that the characters in the narrative world, and certain the ones in the real world, could not accept.  This is more an argument based on tradition than anything else, a general sense of what the character “is”, and an attempt to change that is more than they wish to stand.

It’s rather like “New Coke Syndrome” – when the soda chose to change its recipe, they experienced a pushback from the public far more than they’d expected.  It wasn’t a problem with the taste – indeed the new formula tested better than the original.  It was a basic resistance to a change to something people knew, and simply expected to be there.  People who hadn’t drunk Coke in years were coming out against it.  They realized it wasn’t the soda people were coming out for, but the memory of it, the way it affected their lives.

The people who make this point would likely be as against the idea of making The Doctor an American, or if they chose to change the look of the TARDIS.  It’s BEEN that particular thing for so long, that to suggest it be changed is simply unthinkable.

IT’D CHANGE TOO MUCH Smith very cogently pointed out in the aforementioned interview that a female Doctor would result in a dynamic change in how he (she) interacts with the world.  “It would change the role,” he explains, “because she would be a woman so when you put her in a room full of men, it’s a different scenario than if you put a man in a room full of men, because she’s a different sex.”  This is not, I believe, necessarily a bad thing.  It could very definitely challenge the writers to find ways to combat that mindset with the people she meets, or result in creating a character so strong and forceful that she just takes control of a room so quickly, the question of “who the heck are you?” tends to get forgotten. Indeed, that’s exactly how the character works now.

BOYS DON’T WATCH SHOWS WITH GIRLS IN It’s an old chestnut, but it’s been stated as gospel since time immemorial, and no matter how many examples disprove it (where my bronies at?) it’s seen as an inarguable fact by marketing and programming executives alike. The idea is that young boys (the primary audience of the series) will “only” watch a show with a male lead, in the same way girls “only” watch shows with a girl lead, preferably wearing a tutu, and with a talking lhasa apso as a sidekick.  Of course the problem is, Doctor Who is a show with very strong female characters, sometimes stronger than the male ones, and it doesn’t seem to have affected the audience much at all.

From a narrative and social point of view, there’s very little that seems to be stopping such a move.  Sadly, the real reason we likely won’t see such a change is based simply in money.  Change is risky, and the larger the change, the greater the risk.  Switching to a female lead would be quite risky indeed.  No matter how questionably valid each of the above arguments are, they are all held by some people, and likely Auntie Beeb have a better idea of how many than anyone outside of Television centre ever could.  And they likely have good estimates on what sort of an effect such a change could have on the audience, and until their research shows it’ll have almost no negative effect at al, we’ll not see such a dramatic move made.

Odds are it’ll happen someday, if the show stays on long enough.  And odds are there will be a hue and cry, and everyone will tune in, just to see what happens.  And in a perfect world, they’ll be so impressed that they’ll be back the next week.  And who knows, someday we might be reading articles on whether or not it’ll make sense to to switch back to a male character.

The Georgia Museum of Art is planning an exhibit of famed illustrator for MAD Magazine, comic books, movie posters, record album covers, and more, Atlanta native, and University of Georgia alum, Jack Davis to run from November 3, 2012 until January 6, 2013 in Athens, Georgia.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Michael Lachowski, 706-542-9078, mlachow@uga.edu

Georgia Museum of Art to celebrate illustrator Jack Davis with fall exhibition
Athens, Ga.—The Georgia Museum of Art (GMOA) at the University of Georgia will present the exhibition “Beyond the Bulldog: Jack Davis” from Nov. 3, 2012, to Jan. 6, 2013. Organized by guest curator Patrick Dean, a cartoonist himself, who sits on the board of the Jack Davis Foundation, the exhibition goes deeper into Davis’ career than the sports and caricature work for which he is best known, focusing on his black-and-white drawings in particular. This exhibition is also part of UGA’s Spotlight on the Arts festival, to be held Nov. 3–11.

Perhaps best known in Georgia for his depictions of Southeastern Conference mascots tussling, Jack Burton Davis Jr. (b. 1924) has had a lengthy career in illustration and cartooning, with an immediately recognizable style and an influence that extends far beyond his home state. Having published his first cartoon at the age of 12, Davis studied with the artist Lamar Dodd in the University of Georgia’s art school, which he attended on the G.I. Bill, and honed his skills drawing for the Red and Black (the student newspaper) and Bullsheet, an Athens humor publication. After graduating, he moved to New York, where he attended the Art Students League before landing work with William Gaines at EC Comics.

Famed in particular for his speed and a tendency to create images overflowing with colorful characters, he was one of the founding artists of Mad magazine, supplied covers for Time and TV Guide and designed album art and movie posters aplenty. Davis created his first art for UGA’s athletics program in 1948, when he drew Coach Wally Butts for the front and back of that year’s media guide, and the relationship has lasted ever since.

Dean said, “Davis’ prolific career goes further back than most people realize. Some of this exhibition displays his work from EC Comics, including two complete comic stories for museum visitors to read. These pages show his skill as a sequential artist, with an emphasis on people’s pained and terrified faces and hand gestures. Still, even in these comics, his familiar style hints at his trademark humor and warmth. There’s also something particularly southern in his work of all eras, like his running figures with clumps of red clay stuck to their feet.”

This exhibition attempts to show Davis’ range by bringing together a selection of his original work that demonstrates his breadth of subjects and his skills as an artist focusing on American popular culture.

Dean continued, “The point of the show isn’t to shun his more popular sports drawing, but to bring attention to his work that may not be as well known to the general public. Visitors may recognize some of these images, but I hope they appreciate the level of detail Davis put into his work. Some of that detail gets lost when the images are shrunk down and printed on paper stock of varying quality. Studying Jack Davis’ crosshatching and brushwork will be a real treat to anyone who’s admired this man’s work.”

Dean will speak on Davis’ career Sunday, Nov. 4, at 3 p.m. at the museum, with a reception to follow.

This exhibition is sponsored by the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art.

For high-resolution images, reply to this email or contact Michael Lachowski at 706.542.9078 or mlachow@uga.edu.

##

About the Georgia Museum of Art
Partial support for the exhibitions and programs at the Georgia Museum of Art is provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The council is a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Individuals, foundations and corporations provide additional museum support through their gifts to the University of Georgia Foundation. The Georgia Museum of Art is located in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the East Campus of the University of Georgia. The address is 90 Carlton Street, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602-6719. For more information, including hours, see www.georgiamuseum.org or call 706.542.GMOA (4662).
Mailing address:
Georgia Museum of Art
90 Carlton Street
Athens, GA 30602
706.542.GMOA (4662)
www.georgiamuseum.org

Copyright (C) 2012 Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia All rights reserved.

Mike Gold: So. How did Dredd 3-D compare to the first attempt?

Martha Thomases: So much better! Karl Urban looked the part. The set, while not looking like the comics, had the gritty spirit of the comics. And the violence was terrifically cartoony.

And no Rob Schneider, although I did think he was the best thing about the first one.

Mike: Back in 1995 I went in to the theater with really low expectations, given the Sylvester Stallone / Rob Schneider leads. They managed to live up to those expectations. This new one had enough blood to make Sam Peckinpah gag, but I dug it. It was meaningful blood.

I admire Urban playing true to the character and never taking the helmet  off. Sly put his money right there on the screen. Sadly.

Martha: Urban kept his face still and his voice growled. I can remember the other characters. The kid who worked the computer for the bad guys has stayed in my mind. Those eyes. Dredd 3-D reminded me of Escape From New York more than Peckinpah.

Mike: Good point. Although Escape From New York reminded me of Grand Central Terminal at evening rush.

Lots of solid special effects with the eyes. It was a signature thing with this movie. I liked how both women leads looked like they had been drawn by Ian Gibson, which was exactly the right thing. The growling was right on target, although I’m afraid some people will think he was imitating Batman.

Martha: I also liked the way the women weren’t played as sexy femme fatales nor damsels in distress. None were there to be love interests, not even Judge Anderson. Although in a society where everything is filthy and no one can get a close shave, I am impressed that they take the time to pluck their eyebrows.

Mike: This one was very faithful to the comics, both in tone and in detail. You’re right about the cityscape, and the blocks looked more realistic (and less ironic) than in the comics.

They really understood their source material… maybe because the 2000AD publisher co-produced it. The dog wagging the tail, as opposed to the Warner Bros. approach.

Martha: I couldn’t tell when it went from real to matte/CGI. The city looked quite believable.

Mike: Like the Tales from the Crypt teevee show, they added nasty language to the dialog. Unlike Tales from the Crypt, no nudity. Which was fine: I, for one, would have to pluck my eyes out after seeing Judge Dredd naked.

Martha: But a naked Dr. McCoy would be a delight!

Mike: Yeah, that’ll be in Star Trek 2.2 for sure! Just to feel Spock’s indifference.

I did flash on how cool it would have been to have Joan Jett as the villain, but Lena Headey was absolutely great.

Martha: I don’t know who should get the credit for Urban’s performance. It was very flat, which is exactly right. Kind of show-offy in a non-show-offy way. I assume the director told him to do that.

Mike: Judge Dredd dominates. Unlike the comics, he can’t be unrealistically one head taller than everybody else so his performance had to make it seem that way. Given how everything was covered up except for his jaw and mouth, all he had to work with was his voice. Which came off great.

Martha: If I have a problem, it’s the McGuffin made no sense. It’s a drug called SloMo, which slows one’s perception of time. If you’ll living a wretched slum, why is that something you would want to do?

Although taking a bath on SloMo sure was pretty.

Mike: I agree with that, although heroin is much the same way – except you also get to distance yourself from your lousy reality. But it worked well for the big finish.

Martha: It worked for the torture threats, too. Made the bad guys seem really, really bad.

Mike: I think the middle of the movie was too drawn out. When Steven Moffatt wrote the Rowin Atkinson Doctor Who, he said the show was about chase scenes through endless corridors. In Dredd 3-D, they seem to think this was a good idea.

Martha: I kept thinking video games. I thought we going to have to go through all 200 levels.

Mike: The outrageousness of the early Dredd stores has since become commonplace in our culture. It lost all its shock value. And as much fun as that was, I think they were smart to avoid that today. It would have turned the movie into a comedy. But without Rob Schneider.

Martha: I eagerly await the Judge Death storyline.

Mike: Yeah, I hope it does well enough for a sequel. Not too sure about that, although the reviews weren’t universally horrible. Two-thirds were at least fairly positive.

What did you think of the Real 3-D?

Martha: It made the SloMo parts really pretty.

Mike: This is the new second move – ever – where I liked the 3-D effects, the first being The Avengers. This was actually better. But those middle scenes lacked ‘em, making them even slower for me.

Martha: Otherwise, it was subtle enough that I focused on the movie.

Mike: Good point. The gimmicks should never outweigh the story or the performances. Just try telling that to George Lucas.

Martha: The sparkle in the SloMo 3D is the only reason I could imagine the drug was any fun.

Mike: So, kids, just say no to drugs unless you’re in a 3-D theater. ComicMix cares.

Martha: 3-D Pixar movies are great in 3-D.

Mike: Yeah, well, personally I’m not a big fan of that animation style. This makes me very lonely. And they’re a waste of Randy Newman’s considerable gifts.

Martha: We will have to agree to disagree about that.

Mike: So I infer you liked Dredd 3-D… a lot?

Martha: A bunch. I would recommend it. I hope it does well so Box Office Democracy covers it. I should warn you that I did not hate the TotalRecall remake, so my opinion might not matter.

Mike: Of course your opinion matters. Consensual reality doesn’t apply to movies. And nice job plugging Box Office Democracy!

I would certainly recommend it to action movie fans and absolutely to comics fan. I think my response is about 90% of yours.

Martha: I would be interested to know how this movie is received by those who don’t know the comic.

Mike: I will be interested to see how it does in the UK as opposed to North America.

What are you looking forward to next?

Martha: I want to see Looker. I still haven’t seen The Master. And Bond. James Bond. The Man with the Iron Fists. Django Unchained. Cloud Atlas – the new Wachowski film. I am a social butterfly!

Mike: The trailer for Iron Fists was great, although you already warned me. It’s made by Michael Davis’s buddy Rza. And, yeah, as always I’m looking forward to the next Bond. Us baby boomers and our James Bond fetish.

That Ben Afflick movie Argo looks interesting. Then again, I’m hoping he’s in Avengers 2 as well. Or Captain America 2. Just to piss the hardcore off.

Martha: I love Ben. I even loved Jersey Girl.

I find that, if there is a theme in my movie preferences of late, it’s that I like to see cute guys in peril.

Mike: Damn. So Daniel Craig is cute? He doesn’t do that much for me. But M…

Martha: Is she in peril in the new one? I think the new Q is adorable.

So, yes, I think all ComicMix readers should go see this… if only to participate in this discussion in the comments.

Mike: Ever vigilant about the page hits! I agree, on both subjects. Thanks, Martha! We’ll see you here next week!

Art by Julian Lopez

New Pulp Author Vito Delsante returns to Trip City’s Steel City Noir for another bite-sized pulp tale. Beauty Hides Her Way begins and ends as so many pulp tales do… with a woman.

(Based on Actual Events)

“I have to know. Why Pittsburgh?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Like, why did I choose Pittsburgh?”

“Yeah. Why here?” I stopped, raising my head off of the pillow slightly to look out of the open window.

There, on the horizon, thousands and thousands of lights that symbolized better futures and presents than the one I was in right now. “You could have gone to New York. LA. But…you’re here, in ‘Nowheresville.’”

“Oh, baby,” she said as her lips curled up into the smile of a killer, “I didn’t choose this city. The city didn’t choose me.” She grabbed the half-smoked cigarette from her bedside ashtray. She lit it again, the renewal of a promise made. She exhaled easy, like the smoke was a part of her and the air was the poison.

“Honey, this is as far as my money took me, and I decided to stop.” She laughed. She didn’t giggle, or snicker. She laughed like the joke was so obvious to everyone but me.

I wanted to hate her for that but it was far too late for any semblance of sentiment now.

Want to read more?
Of course you do.

You can read the rest of Steel City Noir: Beauty Hides Her Way here.

So it came to my attention by way of an amazingly nice lass that some forward thinking teacher-types are slowly coming around the bend. Yup, they are looking toward comic books, those evil things, as potential fodder for their classrooms. Gasp! And, as it would seem, this very nice girl asked me – little old me – to give my two cents on the matter. And because I love killing two birds with one stone, I figured this outta make a great li’l rant to share with you, my adoring public. Of course, I realize now I admitted to the glee I feel when I commit aviaricide. Well, there went my fan-base. Tally ho!

I know back in the olden days, comics were largely seen as kitchy wastes of ink and paper. Kids buried in them were potentially violent sociopaths just waiting to commit crimes of laziness. But by the time I was in school they were starting to be called graphic novels. Thanks in large part to the artsy works of Art Spiegelman, Joe Kuburt, and Will Eisner, the medium as a whole was slowly pulling itself out of the low-bro.

That being said, I was never assigned a graphic novel to read for a class. Nor was I able to select one for independent book reports or the like. Even within the realm of studio art classes I was nixed the ability to cite Alex Ross as a major influence without scoffs. But as Bob Dylan sings, “The times, they are a changin’.”

If I were to suggest opening up a classroom to comics, well, it’s a simple issue – do it. Comics are easily one of the best gateways to literacy I can think of. Truth be told, the first books our parents read us (and I’m reading to my own boy now) are gloriously illustrated. Dr. Seuss, a one-time newspaper comics guy, is just panel borders away from sharing shelf space with Daniel Clowes. In the earliest of classroom settings I’d start with the recognizable. Art Baltazar and Franco’s Tiny Titans is as accessible a comic as I know of. But more than just being kid friendly, the book is funny, bright, and charming. So much so that I was an avid reader of it long before I was even married, let alone a father. And because it uses semi-recognizable super hero sidekicks, it’s easy for kids to relate, and learn to read.

Tiny Titans aside, there’s always Jeff Smith’s tome of toonage, Bone. The long running series blends laughs, mysteries, and adventure. If kids can’t find something to love there? Well, then I’ll eat my hat. Come to think of it, I don’t own hats anymore. Note to self…

Beyond the early readers, the always-tough-to-please nine year olds (perhaps through 13 or 14?) are going to start dividing themselves. Girls have cooties. Boys are messy. The division of the sexes may make many a teacher feel like comic books will degrade into the capes and cowls for the boys and leave nothing for the girls. Nay, I say. Nay! Both the boys and girls can take heed that I myself grew to love comics at this tender age due to the long-running Archie series. And Archie, unlike his more heroic counterparts, seems to have found a way to stay with the times, without diverging into the too-real, too-gritty, or too-angsty. Consider also the Adventures of TinTin. Long before it was a computer-animated movie, it was a comic. A great comic. And don’t we all laugh a bit when we recount the Scrooge McDuck comics of yesteryear? That book was doing Inception long before Chris Nolan was firing up the vomit-comet to film anti-gravity fight scenes.

The real meat and potatoes for me though come right at adolescence. Here, our kids are primed to learn that comics are more than just good fun. The Pulitizer Prize-winning Maus (by the aforementioned Spiegelman), Jew Gangster (by the late and beyond-great Kubert), and A Contract With God (by Will Eisner) all help teach that the medium of comics transcends the super power set. And sure, they all hold quite a bit of Jewish lore to them… so allow me to expand beyond Judaica.

Mike Gold himself turned me on to Stagger Lee by Derek McCulloch and Kings in Disguise by Dan E. Burr. They are both amazing reads. And please, don’t get me wrong – comics at this tender age need not be without a twinge of the supernatural. Watchmen might as well be a high school freshman class in and of itself. Frank Miller’s Sin City and or 300 are far better on page than on screen, and on screen they were both pretty amazing.

And let’s not leave Marvel out of this. Kurt Busiek’s Marvels singlehandedly brought me out of a four year freeze of comic book reading. It’s insightful, and a beautiful take on super heroes from the human perspective. And I’ve little column space left to suggest even more here… Empire by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson, Astro City, Batman: Year One, Runaways and Y: The Last Man all spring to mind. But I digress.

Suffice to say, introducing comics to a literature program shouldn’t be that hard to tackle. The fact is the medium itself makes open discussion far easier to instigate. More work to enjoy than watching a movie, without the scariness of endless pages without something beyond words to look at means less barrier to entry. For those learning to read (or who have trouble with it) comics are a gateway drug to amazing new worlds. For those already well versed in literature, comics offer an endless string of independent authors bringing original takes on the world that combine their plots with art that tends to force us to stop and appreciate. Akin to indie films, comics at any age offer more than the commercial world. Thanks to a bit of knowledge gained at this year’s Harvey Awards (thank you, Ross Ritchie), I leave on this thought:

 “The French codified it well: they call it “The Ninth Art.” The first is architecture, the second sculpture. The third painting, the fourth dance, then there’s music, poetry, cinema, and television. And ninth is comic books.”

Now, the question is: if it is indeed the ninth art of our world, comics should not be considered for the classroom. They should be compulsory.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

Summer’s singing its last karaoke and the flash mobs of Gangnam Style have come and gone for the nonce. But back-to-school, be ye student or mentor, doesn’t have to mean the fun’s over—just shifting gears. So let’s go to Tampa with Gina, BF Bobby, and her vamped-up posse for adventure #3 in Lucienne Diver’s [[[Fangtastic]]] (Flux, trade paperback, $9.95/$11.50 Canada, $3.44 Kindle, ages 12 & up, Jan. 2012). Wassup? A lot. Heat, humidity, steampunk geeks, government spooks gone…well…even more spooky, death, mayhem—and vampires, of course! Pretty much Buffy on X—so Diver maintains her signature style. The first in the series is still my fav, and I’m not feeling that Tampa plays a crucial role in this story (could be any hot city), but those are minor points in what is otherwise another successful outing full of chic twists and turns that keep things entertaining. I may not always agree on a few details of how she gets there, but I like where she’s taking the series. The focus here is the steampunk club scene full of wannabe vamps and the Feds assign Gina and her crew to infiltrate the true vamps who run the clubs behind-the-scenes so she can investigate a string of club kids murders—but who’re the real big bads? Gina’s really beginning to wonder and doesn’t like what she finds out along the way and she does something about it. This is Gina coming more into her vampy own and raising the stakes (pun sort of unintended…wink) and Diver doing some deeper world building with lots of bells-n-whistles, new minions, and the addition of some surprise superpowers—with which I’m not yet entirely on-board, but I’ll roll with it through next book. There is enough grit and wit in this installment to keep adults engaged, as well as plugged-in co-eds. So take a fabulous spin. And stay tuned for book #4, Fangtabulous, come January, just in time for winter break.

When you’re done clubbing with the kids in Tampa, how about a romantic trip to the beach, the spa—the police station with hot Detective Armani!—with a few gods and goddesses in LA? This is where Diver’s adult urban fantasy romance based upon mythical characters comes to life in [[[Bad Blood]]] (Samhain, $14 trade paperback, $7.96 Kindle, June 2012). And her typically sharp and snarky voice is in full evidence here, but darker than in her Vamped series and with a bit more romantic spice, and appropriately so for the mature audience this is aimed at—right between the eyes. Here we’ve got a freakshow family that is, literally, part circus and part PIs, and the newest working gal, since her Uncle Christos’ disappearance, Tori Karacis, is up to her eyeballs in murder, gore, silicon starlets, Circe, Apollo, Hermes, Hephaestus, mermen, perhaps even Zeus and Poseidon, and a whole lotta WTF?! It is Hollyweird, after all. Blood is thicker than muck, so it seems. And, of course, the bad guys cheat!  But I won’t serve up any spoilers save that this all adds up to impending California style DOOM! Let’s just say that the tale contains the typically hot tidbits of the tough gal’s softer side and her having to choose between two impossibly hot men who totally want her, of course (I did say fantasy) and who are competitive with each other, plus wacky grandma Yiayia over the phone—the only family member who actually makes a sort-of appearance besides quirky quotes at the head of each chapter, which is sort of disappointing. And you don’t really see much of Tori’s circus skills—hope that’s remedied in subsequent books in the series. Those complaints aside, it’s an amusing ride with all the romance tropes to keep those genre fans happy, enough who-done-it on the frothy side to keep the mystery fans engaged, and of course there are the supernaturals to hook the fantasy crowd – everyone’s invited to the party and the Tarrantino-level fantabulous ending! The entertainment? It’s all in the blood, natch! Crazy in the Blood ($4.24 Kindle…in print 2013)…next in the series.