My weekly rants here do not seem to be attracting the same numbers as my colleagues. This hurts my feelings. I suppose I could pick a fight with Michael Davis, but I’m not very good at feuds. I could start some kind of poll of web comics, but you don’t read columns to find out what you already think. You read columns to get a specific perspective on something. Just, apparently, not my opinion on the stuff in pop culture that has attracted my attention lately.

So let’s talk about sex.

Specifically, sex in comics. Alien sex.

Perhaps I don’t read as widely as I should, but very few stories about aliens and sex show much imagination. Most of the time, only two beings are involved. Sex organs and other pleasure centers seem to be located at the same places they are in humans. The exchange of bodily fluids is necessary for reproduction, unless the species is advanced enough to use science instead.

Biology, it seems, is destiny.

As I wrote here, there seems to be a need to put breasts on any females, whether they are mammals or not.

Even worse, rotting female zombies are often nothing more than flesh, bone, and gigantic mammary glands. If you don’t believe me, look at any random issue of DC’s Blackest Night. I suppose that it’s possible that every woman in the DC Universe had silicone breast implants which wouldn’t decompose at the same rate as their human parts, but if that were true, wouldn’t there have been a story somewhere in The Daily Planet? Wouldn’t Dr. Midnider have mentioned it?

Comics are graphic stories. That means they have art. It wouldn’t be too difficult to create characters who aren’t human, who require three or more individuals to reproduce, and whose reproductive organs are in places other than their crotches. Maybe they have to sit in a circle and hold hands, so the story could include graphic sex scenes that are G-rated.

Or there could be a society where sex is an involuntary (and not entirely pleasurable) physical reaction, like sneezing. Kleenex would be as provocative (and necessary) as condoms, and sold behind the check-out at drugstores.

Or maybe they could sneeze out of their gigantic breasts, which would sell a zillion copies of that particular comic. And also, drive up my screen views.

(Editor’s Note: Kleenex is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark.)

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman and Why Most DC Movies Suck

So, ladies. Finally, we get what we’ve been waiting for all of our comic-book-loving lives… a comic wherein the female heroine is based on a makeup product.

Thanks to Marvel Custom Solutions and San Francisco-based Benefit Cosmetics, we now have SpyGal, which is available at Benefit makeup counters, and stars a “wise-cracking, pore-zapping persona… modeled after the POREfessional pore minimizing primer.”

To this, I feel I must say… ”Really? In the name of Odin, why??” (Or, in the always effective language of Internet memes, “what is this I can’t even.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for comics geared towards women and for reaching a wider female audience, but I’m pretty sure this is the wrong way to go about it.

Now, I’ve only seen teaser images, and no story text, so I’m willing to withhold at least a sliver of judgment until I’ve seen more, especially since SpyGal is being touted as a “witty” story with a “dynamic, nuanced hero” and “humor and intelligence.”  SpyGal’s job seems to be “helping powerful women spread their influence around the world,” which could be cool, and at one point it looks like she saves her date, and he’s all, “My heroine!!” which is kind of fun. And I am a sucker for a good, witty story (I love good art, but if the story can’t hack it the art never saves it for me), so it’s possible the text could make up for a bit of what I’m seeing. But from the images, it appears the main character… fights bad guys with weapons disguised as makeup? While zipping through the air in completely impractical-for-grappling-hook-use skirts and short coats? As Rorschach would say, “Hrm.”

While I loved the little gadgets in Alias – many of which were built into purses or lipsticks or jewelry – to have this be the main point of a comic (along with, apparently, a romance angle) rubs me the wrong way. I do realize this is meant to be advertising for the cosmetic company, and can’t fault them for wanting to team up with Marvel. And I get the concept of Marvel teaming up with other companies, because money is money, hooray. But I confess to feeling disappointed that this is what Marvel chooses to do for its female demographic. And even with the choice made, I have further skepticism about the execution.

Although the blurb talks about the hero(ine) being faced with “life’s modern problems,” the art and fashion are done with a “vintage female action figure” feel that to me (even with a flying car) reminds me of the ‘50s and an accompanying cultural attitude towards women that I do not need in a modern female-oriented comic. I hope Marvel doesn’t think this is really what female comics fans are looking for. And although I realize that the point of the comic is to sell makeup, what self-respecting crime fighter would use a grappling hook with a grip as tiny as a mascara tube?

Further, not to disparage either the artist or writer on the book, both of whom are talented, but couldn’t Marvel have gotten at least one female creator on this project? Don’t get me wrong; I don’t advocate giving someone the job just because they’re female (that’s just as bad as the opposite) but I know there are talented female artists and writers out there. Why not get one of them to work on a book pitched solely towards women and which deals with turning beauty products used by women into practical super-heroine gear? (Unless none of them wanted to work on it?) Maybe then at the very least Our Heroine would have better bangs.

I know it’s easy to criticize, and that this is geared towards a very specific purpose. But tell me truly, don’t you think there could have been at least a few better ways to execute this? Or that it would have been better not to do it at all?

Hrm.

From Marvel’s Ultimate Universe to LOST and now to the farthest corner of space, Damon Lindelof never turns away from a writing challenge. He shares what it’s like to help construct Ridley Scott‘s much anticipated PROMETHEUS and brings along Charlize Theron to preview her role that was literally created for her. Of course, there’s plenty of AVENGERS news and even more joy in the comic stores when it comes to April sales.

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.

“The secret to Nancy’s success,” the classic story goes, “is that it takes as long to read it as it does to decide not to read it.”

When I heard that gag back in the 1970s, it was attributed to the great artist Wallace Wood. Chillingly, it’s possible it predates Woody’s career by decades. What somehow became synonymous with the bland and the banal started off as the offspring of a cheesecake girlie strip, Fritzi Ritz. It turns out Fritzi had this niece named Nancy who came to live with her. Being a gag strip, I do not believe the details of the demise of the spiky-haired girl’s parents were ever revealed, but it would be uncharitable to assume the spunky, independent girl murdered them in their sleep.

Nancy’s best friend was a Dead End Kids wannabe named Sluggo. Had Nancy shaved off her hair, enjoyed a sex-change operation, and donned a striped t-shirt, she would look exactly like her friend. So perhaps it was Sluggo who did the parents in after uncovering the results of a blood test.

Fritzi and Nancy lived in the nice part of town. Sluggo lived in the slums. For quite a time in the 1930s and, less so, thereafter, clearly what separated those neighborhoods was Wackyland. Had those adventures been published in the hippie era, we would have assumed writer/artist Ernie Bushmiller consumed a prolific quantity of LSD.

In fact, I am surprised a Nancy underground comic wasn’t published during those paisley days. Publisher/cartoonist/freedom fighter Denis Kitchen was, and probably still is, quite a fan of the stuff. He even produced a line of Nancy ties; I once wore the subtle power-tie version to a big-deal executive meeting at Warner Brothers, much to the chagrin of DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz.

Nonetheless, I suspect the secret of Nancy’s success was the decision to “dumb it down” for the general audience, a trick that saved Blondie’s ass during the previous decade. Remember, the only reason the even more surreal Krazy Kat endured throughout the ridiculously powerful Hearst chain was the fact that it was William Randolph Hearst’s favorite feature… and he signed the paychecks.

Despite its homogenization, Bushmiller produced a funny and often clever gag strip. The proof of this lies in the strips produced by others after Ernie died: even recycled old jokes looked pale and pathetic compared to the original. At its dullest moments during the later Bushmiller era, Nancy was sufficiently entertaining to maintain its role in the readers’ daily ritual at a time when comic strips gave subscribing newspapers their competitive edge. You know, back when they actually had to compete with other newspapers.

Fantagraphics Books has released a hefty tome reprinting Nancy’s mid-forties run, fronted by an introduction from Daniel Clowes. Given the feature’s undeserved reputation and the plethora of fine newspaper reprint books, I fear their Nancy Is Happy might get lost in the shuffle.

Nancy was good enough to keep our elders laughing through the Great Depression and World War II. Nancy is certainly good enough to keep us laughing through the 2012 elections.

Nancy Is Happy by Ernie Bushmiller • Edited by Kim Thompson • Fantagraphics Books, $24.99

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

I’ve seen a few Internet commenters wondering why anyone would want to smell like a “sweaty robotic suit” or whatever, but really, it’s refreshing to see a comics-related tie-in that’s not a t-shirt or knick-knack made of plastic. I’m an adult, and sometimes it’s fun to buy adult things that are also totally geeky. And I like that this particular product line has at least one female-specific product. So I say hooray to Marvel for partnering up with JADS International, purveyors of geeky scents, to bring us some fun comics-themed colognes and one (and maybe someday more?) perfume based on The Avengers. Also, let’s be honest, I just really, really like things that smell nice. And these scents really do.

Colognes and perfumes are super subjective, of course, and it can be hard to know what something is going to smell like when worn, because it reacts with body chemistry and the scent varies from person to person (like that one time when my best friend had the most amazing perfume and I loved it and she got me a bottle and… it smelled terrible on me. I was so sad). But it does help to know what something smells like in the bottle and on at least one person; and to that end, I am here to help! By not only telling you what each cologne smells like in the bottle, but also what it smells like on my extremely patient friend and fellow Avengers fan, the very talented comic book artist Kevin Stokes. (Round of applause for good sport Kevin, folks. Also check out his fantastic work on things like Stan Lee’s The Guardian Project. Just for fun, before I read the descriptions of the fragrances, I also wrote up what I thought the characters would actually smell like. Let’s see how close JADS International got to my ideas of what superheroes (and one heroine, and one villain) smell like. (more…)