The Mix : What are people talking about today?

FORTIER TAKES ON ‘THE LONE RANGER-VENDETTA!’

  • Uncategorized
  • June 5, 2012

ALL PULP REVIEWS- Reviews by Ron Fortier
THE LONE RANGER
VENDETTA
By Howard Hopkins
Moonstone Books
124 pages
It is somehow appropriate that the very first title in Moonstone Book’s new line of small paperback novellas would be the late Howard Hopkins, “The Lone Ranger – Vendetta.” Howard, who passed away unexpectedly last winter at the age of 49, though a versatile writer in all genres, was primarily known for his western novels under the penname of Lance Howard. Thus when Moonstone acquired the rights to produce new prose adventures of the famous Masked Man and his Indian companion Tonto, it would be to Hopkins they would turn first.
“The Lone Ranger – Vendetta,” is Howard at his finest, at ease narrating a fictional adventure of the old west that is still deeply rooted in the authentic aspects of that setting. Hopkins knew western lore, culture and lingo.  His delving into the Native American spiritualism that motivates the Ranger’s companion is brilliant and adds as yet another layer to a character many of us have known most of our lives. Hopkins also has no difficulty accepting this hero’s old fashion moral code about never taking a life, of always wanting to serve justice and never capitulating to his own personal desires for vengeance which is the theme of this short novella.
From out of the Ranger’s tortured past comes as yet another monster in human form seeking to wreak pain and suffering on our hero and all those he holds dear.  This time the villain is none other than the widow of Butch Cavendish, the outlaw who ambushed the six Texas Rangers in Brian’s Gap and in the process created one of the most iconic legends ever to come out of the old west.  Unbeknown to the Ranger and Tonto, Cavendish had been married and now this female murderer launches an insidious plan to find, capture and kill the Lone Ranger. But before she does so, she and her gang of cutthroats invade the town of Coopersville and proceed to butcher its citizenry.
All too quickly the Lone Ranger discovers for himself that female species is often deadlier than the male. But to stop her will he have to sacrifice his life and at long last fill the empty grave that await him in Brian’s Gap? “The Lone Ranger – Vendetta,” is a fast paced, thought provoking action western that looks beneath the man named John Reid and his history, revealing a heart big as the west and just as noble.  That it would mark the final chapter in a gifted writer’s stellar career is truly fitting, as Howard Hopkins the man was as large a talent as the hero he loved so much.
This is a book to own and treasure for all western fans; young and old.  Thanks Howard, and until we meet again, happy trails.

CONTEST: Win a copy of Blood Work, U.S Marshals, or A Perfect World

In time for Father’s Day, Warner Home Video is releasing Blu-ray editions of three overlooked films by some of our favorite performers – Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee, Jones, and Robert Downey, Jr. To celebrate these films, being released on Tuesday, we have one (1) Blu-ray copy of each of the following movies: Blood Work, U.S Marshals, and A Perfect World to give away.

Here’s how you can enter the contest: tell us what, in 300 words or less, Father’s Day means to you. You can write from any perspective you wish, without profanity please, and post your entry no later than 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, June 13, 2012.

Three winners will be selected but you must live in the United States and P.O. Box addresses will not be accepted. The judgment of ComicMix‘s panel of experts will be final.

To refresh your memory, here are synopses of the three movies: (more…)

superman-whatever-happened-to-the-man-of-tomorrow-by-alan-moore-and-various-artists-4198685

Review: “Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” by Alan Moore and various artists

superman-whatever-happened-to-the-man-of-tomorrow-by-alan-moore-and-various-artists-4198685If you know this story at all, you know the quote: “This is an imaginary story…aren’t they all?” That would be true but trite if it weren’t for the fanatical identification of the superhero reader with his favorite characters — and, even more so, with the continuity of their stories. When “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” first appeared, in the then-last issues of Action Comics and Superman in the fall of 1986, as the decks were being cleared for what still looked then like a fresh start for DC Comics’s characters in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, continuity was still something in large part built by the fans, a collective work of imagination linking the most interesting and resonant parts of a thousand stories told over five decades.

Now continuity is just another commodity: carefully spooned out, measured by drops and pints and liters, controlled almost day-by-day by the two big comics companies, as they alternate shocking reveals with the inevitable returns to the fan-preferred status quo ante. Continuity, these days, is just the name of another dead comics company — Marvel and DC tell you what the past is today, and they’ll tell you differently tomorrow, and if you don’t like it, well, where else can you get your stories of Superman and Spider-Man?

Alan Moore isn’t part of our new world, of course — even if everything else had been different, and DC hadn’t screwed him over at every possible turn over the last two decades, his sensibility couldn’t fit into the current soup of cynicism — and his superhero comics come from the ’80s and ’90s rather than now. His few actually cutting-edge works — primarily Watchmen and Miracleman/Marvelman — worked to undermine retro nostalgia, and to show what costumed heroes might be like, psychologically and physically, in something more like a real world. But most of his comics that deal with superheroes take them as icons, as the true representation of what a young Moore must have seen in them in the ’50s — from these stories to Supreme to the superheroes scurrying around the margins of Swamp Thing, trying valiantly but completely out of their depth in more complicated works of fiction.

Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? is a 2009 hardcover collecting three Alan Moore-written stories from 1985 and 1986, illustrated by different artists. The longest piece — that swan song for the Silver Age Superman — is given pride of place, first in the book with title and cover features, and it has suitably iconic art by classic Superman artists Curt Swan (inked too fussily by George Perez in the first part and more straightforwardly by equally classic Kurt Schaffenberger for the climax). Moore takes all of the pieces of Silver Age Superman’s furniture — the silly villains, the big cast with their complicated relationships, the thousand toys and wonders — and systematically breaks them all down and takes them apart, in pursuit of his big ending. It’s impressive in the context of comics of the time, though the ending, seen twenty-plus years later, is too facile and the pieces that should be tragic are just swept under the rug. But it is a Silver Age Superman story, so those are features rather than bugs: those stories can’t be any deeper than they are, or they would be something else.

The other two stories collected in this book are something else, and see Moore using Superman to tell deeper, more resonant stories: first is “The Jungle Line,” from the minor team-up book DC Comics Presents, in which Superman is infected with a deadly Kryptonian disease, and heads off to the least superhero-infested part of the USA — the Louisiana swamps — expecting to die. Instead, he runs into Swamp Thing — star of the monthly comic Moore was also doing excellent work in at the time — and finds a way not to die of his affliction. It’s strengths lie equally in Moore’s incisive captions — particularly as he examines Superman’s failing powers and growing sense of mortality — and in the art of Rick Veitch and Al Williamson, which is much more like the Swamp Thing look, lush and full and organic, than the Superman comics of the time. It’s a minor team-up story, of course — entirely about something that doesn’t happen — but it’s a small gem of its time.

The last story here, though, is something stronger than that: “For the Man Who Has Everything,” which was the Superman annual in 1985 and has Dave Gibbons’s inimitable art support: precise and utterly superheroic in every line, but modern and detailed and dramatic in ways that Swan and his cohort weren’t. It’s a story of Superman’s birthday, and of the best and worst possible present. It’s the only Superman story that has ever made me tear up, and possibly the only one that ever could: it gives Kal-El (Moore, again, is most at home with the Silver Age version of Superman that he grew up with) what he always wanted, and makes him tear himself away from it. It’s completely renormative, of course, in the style of the Silver Age, but it points directly at Watchmen, which Moore and Gibbons would start work on within a year, and it implies Moore’s growing uneasiness at always having to put all of the pieces back neatly in the same box at the end of the story.

So this book reprints three very good ’80s superhero stories by excellent creators — but readers do need to realize that these, if not actually Silver Age stories, have a Silver Age sensibility and feel to them. In particular, Moore’s DC work was very heavily captioned, which has gone entirely out of style these days. If you can’t stand a Superman who’s a big blue Boy Scout, who has a dog named Krypto and a fortress in the Arctic with a gigantic gold key, and who would never ever kill anyone under any circumstances, this is not the book for you.

Emily S. Whitten: Comics – We’re In This Together!

  • Uncategorized
  • June 5, 2012

whitten-column-art-120605-5578329I’ve been writing for much of my life, whether for school and my career, for my blog and online columns, or creatively. In the creative vein, I’ve written short stories, and poetry, and silly humorous things, and am currently working on-and-off on two novels. But in none of those endeavors did, or do, I have a collaborator – a.k.a. a partner in crime! Writing is generally a lonely business. It can be a joyous experience; but even if you have an idea you know you want to express, it can also be a struggle to formulate it, get it down on paper or in a Word document, edit it, and then show it to another human being. That last bit can be especially hard. Even if you’ve been encouraged in your writing, it can be damned difficult to open yourself up for criticism about something so personal – a thing that’s come out of your head and your (mental) sweat and tears, and that you think you might just love, but fear others may scoff at.

For example: back in high school, I was a winner in a fairly competitive poetry contest for which the prize was $100 (yay!), a book of poetry, an invitation to read your poems at a local event for the judges, some poets, the other winners and their parents, and then an opportunity to read on stage at the Dodge Poetry Festival. I didn’t make the Dodge Poetry Festival, seeing as how I had to be in another state starting college the week before it occurred, but I did go to the local reading. I’m not generally a nervous public speaker when it comes to presentations or debates but on that day I was thoroughly dreading getting up and reading my own creations in front of everyone – and particularly the professional poets and other winners.

What made it worse, of course, was that with my “W” last name, I was one of the last to read. I sat there and listened as winner after winner read these deep, sorrowful poems about dying and winter and illness and frozen birds (really) and all of this very, very angsty stuff, and I started wondering if perhaps the judges had added my name to the winners’ list by accident. You see, the poem I’d chosen to read was sort of a happy thing, about nature and peace and contentment and family; and as I listened to all of this raw, dark emotion pouring out I thought, “You know, I don’t actually think I’m supposed to be here. Can I just go home now, please?” Even after being chosen as a winner, I was still afraid I didn’t really fit in there, and nobody who listened would think my little poem was any good, and I’d be left standing at the podium in embarrassed silence while everyone just sort of stared at me or, worse, golf-clapped.

Fortunately, it all went fine, and one of the poet-judges came up and shook my hand and said he’d really enjoyed my poems. I’d like to say that I’m completely over that sort of negative thinking now – but I’m not. Although I am better at sharing my work these days, I still sometimes feel as if whatever I’ve just written is awful (this column! It stinks! Get the Febreze!); and I’d hazard a guess that many successful writers still deal with that fear as well. However, I’ve found one method of writing that doesn’t come with the side effect of staring dully at your computer at 2 a.m. while moaning, “This is just terrible.” And it is: collaboration!

One of the best things I’ve discovered about writing comics in particular is how much fun it can be to collaborate, with either an artist or another writer; and how, if you’re lucky, you can find someone who not only complements your own ideas but adds to them to make the whole shebang that much better. Comics is an art form that naturally lends itself to collaboration and often actually requires it, and I’ve learned that I love that.

One great thing about having a collaborator is that you’re both in the creative process together, with the goal of producing a good end product; and so you have someone who cares as much as you do to tell you if they think something’s funny or if it works, or to bounce ideas off of, or to brainstorm with. Because you know they care, you can trust that they’ll be honest in their opinions or suggestions on how to improve the work. Having that other person adds a new dimension of fun to the process, gives you ongoing external feedback that you can trust, and, for me at least, strips away a lot of that internal worry about whether one single other person out there will like my work – because I already know that there’s at least one other person out there who likes it enough to work on it with me!

I first learned the fun of collaborating while working with Marc Vuletich, who’s the artist for all of the webcomics I’ve written to date. I “met” Marc (in the internet sense) two years ago after seeing his work on DeviantArt, and particularly this comic (so wrong but so funny). I’d commented on a few of the webcomics he’d done with Liam Bradley, and then later on I got a Deadpool script idea (which turned into this strip). But, alas, I cannot draw (well not very well, anyway). So I contacted Marc and asked him if he was game to draw it for me. Happily, he was, and it turned out he’d actually read Ask Deadpool before, and liked it, which was a pretty good sign for us working together.

Thus begun our collaboration. I could tell from the first comic that he was going to be fun to work with, because not only did he enjoy my scripts, but he made me laugh at my own comic, adding things I hadn’t mentioned but that fit right in with the spirit of the script, or doing such a good job on a character’s expression that it was just like what I’d pictured, only somehow better. Marc’s work improved on my vision, and strange as it may sound, that made me enjoy my own writing more. It also helped me to see where I could improve my writing, as, for instance, when I would get too wordy and then realize there was no way Marc could fit all of that text into one frame. Okay, so I’m still too wordy sometimes (sorry, Marc!) – but at least now I know it!

Writing for an artist also helps a writer better visualize and develop the balance of text versus action that makes a scene work. Seeing the results of your imagination as visualized by someone else provides new ideas for future ways to frame things or order your storyline. And, of course, working with someone else forces better discipline when it comes to responsibly meeting deadlines, as you need to finish writing in time for your artist to draw the comic and send it back for editing and finalization.

One of the great things about collaboration can be when you find someone you work well with, and work with them long enough to establish a good sense of teamwork and synchronicity. I asked Marc to weigh in on what working together is like, to see if his perspective matched mine, and here’s what he said:

“Emily is really great to work with. First, we both share the same passion for the character Deadpool, and second, her writing style totally complements his comedic personality which makes drawing her comics so enjoyable. The scripts are always very descriptive, which gives me a clear picture of what she’s looking for, while at the same time I still have the artistic freedom to add my own little touches to the comic. The only trouble I used to run in to was finding a way to balance the amount of dialogue in each panel with the action happening around it, but now that we’ve been working together for a while I think we’ve reached this cool little groove where we know exactly what each other wants and we make this awesome team because of it.”

Yep, I think we’ve got some synchronicity going.

Along with my collaborations with Marc (and he’s working on a new script right now that may appear here soon), as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I’ve recently started working with another writer to develop a new comic series that will be epic in scope. I don’t know if it was luck or fate, but it just so happens that we started talking at just the right time and under just the right circumstances to come up with this fantastically fun idea and discover that we are the perfect foils for each other’s zany brainstorming. I’ll suggest a scenario, and he’ll add something that’s like the missing puzzle piece as to why that scene would be awesome. Or he’ll say something that I’d never have thought of but that fits perfectly into another idea I haven’t even mentioned to him yet. And the best part of all is that he loves my ideas just as much as I do, and vice-versa. There’s no sitting around worrying about whether anyone but me thinks this would be any good – instead, there’s enthusiasm on both sides and a new horizon of infinite possibilities stemming from our creative partnership.

I can tell you right now that this is probably the most creative fun I’ve had in my whole life. And it’s a writing experience I might never have if it weren’t for the collaborative nature of comics. So hooray for comics, and collaboration, and the way this process helps us overcome our writing inhibitions and become better creators.

And remember, we’re in this together! So until next time, Servo Lectio!

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold Outs Much Ado About Nothing

 

What a Pile of Books Demanding to Be Reviewed Looks Like

  • Uncategorized
  • June 4, 2012

what-a-pile-of-books-demanding-to-be-reviewed-looks-like-3053373My plan to reduce the stack of read but unreviewed books by reviewing one a day has fallen sadly afoul of events — and the particular “event” in this case was the fact that Thing 2 (my younger son, now 11) and I have been playing a lot of Lego Indiana Jones 2 the last week or so.

(It’s not new, but all of the Lego games – except for Harry Potter, which has over-complicated game mechanics — are so much fun that it’s great just to pick them up and run around smashing things and jumping your little man around randomly; they’re the kind of games that make you happy just to look at on the shelf and even more so to pull them back down and play.)

In other, unrelated news, my iPod Touch has been acting up for the past couple of weeks, and finally succumbed to the Ubiquitous White Screen of Death over the last few days. Even the so-called “genius bar” — I’ve been a user of Apple products for a long time now, and I greatly preferred it when they were scrappy underdogs and not arrogant SOBs — was no help, and so I ended up having to get a new one earlier today.

So far, it doesn’t seem all that different — it supposedly has the super neat-o keen-o “retina display” and a faster processor, but it basically seems like the same device to me. Except. This new one has a camera in it, a cheap crappy phone-style camera, so I can now take cheap crappy pictures of random things when I remember to. And so, this afternoon, instead of actually writing a review for one (or more!) of the books in that big stack, I played some more Lego Indiana Jones 2 with my son, took a picture of the stack of books, and wrote the above.

I’m not proud, mind you.

Iron Man 3 Releases First Formal Picture

Marvel Studios sent out a formal press release today announcing the commencement of production on Iron Man 3, despite filming actually beginning May 23, 2012 at EUE/Screen Gems Studios in North Carolina. The film, written by Shane Black and Drew Pearce appears to have been heavily influenced by Warren Ellis Extremis storyline which ran in the Iron Man comic beginning in 2005. Elements of the story were also used in the Iron Man: Armored Adventures episode “Extremis”.

The release did say, “The production schedule will also include locations in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina, Miami, Florida and China.

“Based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series, first published in 1963, Iron Man 3 returns Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Marvel’s The Avengers) as the iconic Super Hero character Tony Stark/Iron Man along with Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) as Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle (Iron Man 2) as James “Rhodey” Rhodes and Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) as Happy Hogan. Set for release in the U.S. on May 3, 2013, Marvel’s Iron Man 3 marks the second feature to be fully owned, marketed and distributed by Disney, which acquired Marvel in 2009.”

The press release did not mention the following cast members although they had been previously confirmed in other reports: Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin, Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian, creator of The Extremis Virus, Andy Lau as “an old friend of Tony’s from China, Rebecca Hall as Dr. Maya Hansen, Ashley Hamilton as Jack Taggert, and James Badge Dale as Eric Savin /Iron Patriot. The latter, an armored figure worn by Norman Osborn in the Civil War comics saga, was a surprise addition.

At present neither Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) or Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) have been confirmed for the film, although one or both are expected considering SHIELD has been the glue to hold the Marvel Movie Universe together.

“Iron Man 3 continues the epic, big-screen adventures of the world’s favorite billionaire inventor/Super Hero, Tony Stark aka Iron Man.  Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige is producing the film.  Executive producers on the project include Jon Favreau, Louis D’Esposito, Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Charles Newirth, Victoria Alonso, Stephen Broussard and Dan Mintz.

“The creative production team on the film includes two-time Oscar®-winning director of photography John Toll, ASC (Braveheart, Legends of the Fall), production designer Bill Brzeski (The Hangover, Due Date), editors Jeffrey Ford, A.C.E. (Marvel’s The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger) and Peter S. Elliot (Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer), and costume designer Louise Frogley (Quantum of Solace, Contagion).

“Marvel Studios most recently produced the critically acclaimed Marvel’s The Avengers, which set the all-time, domestic 3-day weekend box office record at $207.4 million. The film, which is currently in release, continues to shatter box office records and is The Walt Disney Studios’ highest-grossing global and domestic release of all time and marks the studios’ fifth film to gross more than $1 billion worldwide.

“In the summer of 2011, Marvel successfully launched two new franchises with Thor, starring Chris Hemsworth, and Captain America: The First Avenger, starring Chris Evans. Both films opened #1 at the box office and have grossed over $800 million worldwide combined. In 2010 Iron Man 2, starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson and Mickey Rourke, took the #1 spot in its first weekend with a domestic box office gross of $128.1 million.

“In the summer of 2008, Marvel produced the summer blockbuster movies Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Iron Man, in which Robert Downey Jr. originally dons the Super Hero’s powerful armor and stars alongside co-stars Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow, was released May 2, 2008, and was an immediate box office success.  Garnering the number one position for two weeks in a row, the film brought in over $100 million in its opening weekend.  On June 13, 2008, Marvel released The Incredible Hulk, marking its second number one opener of that summer.”

The Point Radio: SyFy’s Spooky Treasures

No matter what you are looking for – love & danger or things that go bump in the night, we’ve got you covered as we continue our talks with Jenny McCarthy from NBC’s LOVE IN THE WILD and the folks from SyFy‘s HAUNTED COLLECTOR. Plus WALKING DEAD goes black and white and yes, that’s a Joss Whedon action figure

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

REVIEW: John Carter

The problem with being a trendsetter is that if you’re successful, you get imitated time and time again. Such was the fate that befell Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp heroes Tarzan and John Carter. The thriller-seeking readers of pulp magazines were enthralled by ERB’s pulse-pounding, straight-forward prose, which was strong in ideas and weak in word craft. A century ago, Burroughs, writing as Norman Bean, serialized his first Martian saga in All-Story between February and July 1912. It found an eager audience and was later collected in book form as A Princess of Mars. Through the years, there came more adventures with and without Carter set on the red planet natives named Barsoom.

I discovered the stories through the compelling Frank Frazetta covers on the Science Fiction Book Club editions and thought the stories were interesting. Clearly I was not alone because time and again, people in comics tried to adapt the stories with varying degrees of success. Similarly, Bob Clampett in the 1930s and then others tried to mount a screen adaptation. While Barsoom proved inspirational to countless writers, artists, and filmmakers, the planet remained elusive. Over the last century, many a story has been set on Mars — from swashbuckler pastiche Gulliver of Mars to Philip K. Dick’s “I Can Remember it for you Wholesale” (a.k.a Total Recall) – meaning our celestial neighbor has been well-mined. (more…)

Review: “The Curse of the Masking-Tape Mummy” by Scott Meyer

the-curse-of-the-masking-tape-mummy-by-scott-meyer-2162889The Platonic ideal of the comic is precisely balanced between art and words, each as exquisite and precise and lovely as the other. And there might actually be one or two comics that come within spitting distance of that, but not much more: it’s an ideal because it really doesn’t happen. Every comic, like every work of art in any medium, has its strengths and weaknesses, and what good cartoonists do is to work to their strengths.

Scott Meyer’s strength is his writing: he’s witty, writes great dialogue, and has a enviable eye for the situations in his own life that can be turned into comics. His art is serviceable but a bit bland: he rotoscopes (or “traces”) over photographs, reusing the same poses (and, one suspects, the same art) repeatedly, and this means his cast is inherently limited and their poses equally limited. (It’s not a coincidence that the primary characters of Myer’s strip, Basic Instructions, are the Meyer stand-in, his wife, and his best friend.)

Meyer clearly knows what he does well: Basic Instructions is a deeply wordy comic, a four-panel newspaper-style strip crammed full of captions, explanations, dialogue and repartee, with just enough art to hold it all together. And the third collection of Basic Instructions, The Curse of the Masking Tape Mummy, has just been published by the wonderfully named Don’t Eat Any Bugs Productions, bringing together 136 comics (just shy of a year’s worth at Meyer’s three-times-a-week posting schedule) between two dark-blue covers.

This year’s worth of strips does see Meyer extending the strip, moving out from his original office and home locations (it’s not coincidental that Basic Instructions got a big boost from a laudatory post from Dilbert‘s Scott Adams; Basic Instructions is one of the heirs of Dilbert in many ways, from that office focus to its snarky tone to the balance of art and writing) into superhero parody, with the introduction of Omnipresent Man, the Knifeketeer, and more to complement the original could-have-been-a-one-off-joke of Rocket Hat. That also gives Meyer a way to extend his cast without getting more models — he reuses himself and his friends (I assume that his models, whatever characters they turn into in the strip, are actually his friends, because otherwise it would be difficult to get them to do multiple poses) as those superheroes as well as “themselves.” (And even the names and powers of two of those heroes — Omnipresent Man and Mr. Everywhere — have a secondary joke in their re-use of the art for “Meyer” and “Rick”.)

Basic Instructions is a mature strip at this point; it has a solid cast with well-defined relationships, and Meyer is free to use that to just make his jokes and commentary — which range from the usual “my office-mates  have idiosyncrasies that horrify and disgust me” and “my spouse is vastly smarter and more in touch with the real world than I am” to the more particular nerdy complaints about Star Wars‘s AT-AT and to explorations of the odd psyche of “Rick.” Humor isn’t as universal as it should be — which is one way of saying that too many people don’t find the right things funny, the way I do and the universe intended — but Basic Instructions is nearly always quite funny, and always at least mildly funny. If you haven’t read it before, you should check it out — unless you’re some kind of un-American type who doesn’t like to laugh.

(My old review for the first collection, Help Is on the Way, is also still floating out there in the Internet ether.)

Original Comic Art and Digital Comics: The Common Bond

  • Uncategorized
  • June 4, 2012

original-comic-art-and-digital-comics-the-common-bond-3897839

A stroll around a comic convention is a lot different today than it used to be when it comes to experiencing original comic art which for me, as a young aspiring comic artist, was the highlight of any show. I would always immediately venture directly towards artist alley where pros and amateurs alike would form a welcoming community of comic art practitioners. To me it seemed less like an opportunity for the creators to market their work and more of a joyous reunion of folks with a common bond: The love of comics and a need to create them.

Maybe it is just a product of comic conventions no longer being the casual events they used to be, held in basement ballrooms of fading city hotels with the most sophisticated displays being a hand lettered card stock sign hung on a pipe and drape background.  Professional comic artists were not viewed as the superstars they are today. They were heroes that we related to more like a favorite uncle who always new how to appeal to our inner child. Their art touched us in a personal way that established a relationship that was respected between them and their fans.

Those were the days when you did not wait in line to meet your favorite creator. At best you gathered around their table and shared as a group, listening to their stories, watching them sketch, and learning from their teachings which, though small casual tidbits of technique, were gems of insight into the magical world of creating comics.

detective_69_the_joker-9527861

Stacked high on their tables would be pages of original art that could be thumbed through and purchased  for prices as low as ten or fifteen bucks! The opportunity to scan through those pages was a chance to stare into a window of a professional comics bullpen. Each page told a production story that was highlighted by the scents of bristol board and india ink often commingling with odors of white-out and rubber cement.

To be able to view those pages and see script notes in a corner, blue lines behind lettering, pen strokes appearing as a texture on the surface and brush strokes laying a deep wash in large shaded areas with a barely visible “x” etched in pencil beneath was a hands-on lesson in every page.

I always got a kick out of seeing revisions. Panels or words would be cut out with an x-acto and replaced with art that was cut to fit perfectly into the hole and secured from behind with a strip of masking tape. Splash pages had photostat logos pasted on leaving a trail of ever yellowing rubber cement beneath.

Every page was art, yet each was also just a mechanical, a production board from which final films would be photographed on large upright “stat” cameras. Each was a path of history, chronicling the creation of the page through the hands of the writer, penciler, letterer, inker, editor and production hand. Void of color, the line art resonated with a power of its own lending a new found appreciation for comics in black and white that would empower the independent comic publishers of the day.

It is still possible to marvel at original art at conventions but the atmosphere is so much more hurried that it is difficult to be absorbed into each piece. Those “uncles” are slowly passing away leaving a void where once was a nurturing wisdom behind the craft of each page. In its place is a new energy that is equally intoxicating, a new brand of comic artist with an entrepreneurial spirit hawking their own works.

It is  thrilling to see the new, unlimited variety of comics, invigorating to see the community widening to include a wave of talented women that was always sadly lacking in that bygone era. What is missing is the original art, replaced by an ernest need to sell small print runs and assorted related merchandise or to direct readers to a growing web-comic. The art exists, but digitally, and can be panned easily on an iPad evoking a sterile creative process free of the sensory stimulators that fueled a personal romance with comic production in my formative years.

As I sit here at my keyboard, I’m suddenly realizing that I am now one of those “uncles” I came to embrace. Not that I could hold a candle to any of them but I have an opportunity to share from my experiences, as they did, only from the venue of this blog instead of a convention table. The new generation of comic creator, who creates digitally, shares too, through all kinds of forums and social networks on the internet.  An aspiring comic creator no longer has to wait, as I did, for an annual comic convention to experience the knowledge of a comic pro, they can watch a tutorial on Youtube or follow a comment thread on Facebook!

Yes, I miss the sensory experience of the creative process of comics. Yes, I wonder if creators are losing an opportunity to cash in by not having physical comic art to sell.  But it is not worth pining over any of my attachment to these relics while I am witnessing the future of comics as it blossoms before my eyes. The community of comic artists is no longer small and relegated to a musty convention hall. It is vast and continues to grow. It exists at our fingertips any time we wish to access it.

Today’s comic artists are creating much more than original art. They are creating the future of the medium. Support them any way you can if you love comics. Go read their web comics. Buy their print on demand books. Order their merchandise. Join them on forums and share ideas. Learn from them and teach others. We are all part of the same comics community that began in those old convention halls. Embrace that past and build the future.

Bill Cucinotta and I, here at CO2 Comics, are committed to both and are excited to be part of this growing comics community of artists with a keen eye on the future. No matter how comics are made we intend to maintain that common bond we always had with those comic creators in artist alley: The love of comics and a need to create them.

Celebrating Thirty Years of Comics History!

Gerry Giovinco


Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks