Tagged: ComicMix

Sarah Palin: Storytelling, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • September 6, 2008

John McCain, in what is assumed to be an attempt to woo feminist Hillary Clinton supporters, nominated an inexperienced first-term governor of Alaska as his running mate. In state-wide office less than two years, Sarah Palin includes in her resume a term as mayor of a small town, and a stint on her local PTA.

But wait, he says. When you hear her story, you’ll love her!

As an aspiring novelist and a voracious reader, I love stories. I love well-developed, idiosyncratic characters, and I enjoy imagining their lives. My favorite comics have great characters whose human foibles make their adventures more exciting.

The Creeper? A great character. Rorschach? A great character. Peter Parker? A great character. I’m not prepared to vote for any of them. Aside from being fictional, they do not display the qualities I look for in elected officials.

Hillary Clinton’s story is very much like my own. Not that I’ve done as much as she has, nor have I been as successful, but we are close in age. We were the women who were the “firsts” – the first to wear pants to a restaurant, the first to juggle family and career, the first to demand to be considered as our own selves, not as adjuncts to our husbands. I admire her career, but I didn’t vote for her. We did not agree on the issues most important to me.

John McCain, who once joked that the reason Chelsea Clinton was so ugly was that Janet Reno was her father, would have us believe that his nomination of Sarah Palin is a testament to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Hillary Clinton has spent 35 years in public life. She has championed the Children’s Defense League. She has worked for universal health care. She has run for the Senate in one of the largest states, and been elected twice. She has an excellent reputation in the Senate among her peers, and has worked on several projects with her colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Although she was not my candidate, I respect her, and would have voted for her if she was the Democratic nominee. (more…)

attackofthepumas-8308565

Getting Catty, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • September 3, 2008

attackofthepumas-8308565Humans have been fascinated by felines both big and small since the beginnings of recorded history. At times we’ve both worshipped them (as did the ancient Egyptians) and reviled them (as did medieval Europeans, thus opening themselves up to the spread of the Black Plague when the witchcraft-associated kitties weren’t around in sufficient numbers to keep the rats at bay). And they’ve probably always been a big part of our mythology and folklore, including making multiple appearances in comics, from superheroes like Catman and Kitten to adult stuff like Fritz the Cat to funny animal and anthropomorphic fare.

But lately two big-cat names have infiltrated our culture to the extent that we’re all probably sick of them by now. I’m secretly hoping for Matt Groening to include them in his Forbidden Words list for 2009 so we never have to deal with them again, because they — like a number of other catty terms (such as, um, “catty”) — are used to impart negative attitudes towards women. And being one of those women-types, I tend not to like negative things directed at me simply because of my internal plumbing.

(more…)

Review: ‘Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!’

 

american-flagg-1794127Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!
By Howard Chaykin
Dynamic Forces, July 2008, $49.99

Science Fiction has never been quite as successful in comics form as it seemed it should have been. Oh, sure, there have been plenty of vaguely SFnal ideas and premises – from [[[Superman]]] to [[[Kamandi]]] to the [[[X-Men]]] to the [[[Ex-Mutants]]] – but they were rarely anything deeper than an end to the sentence “There’s this guy, see? and he’s….” One of the few counterexamples was Howard Chaykin’s [[[American Flagg!]]], starting in 1983 – that series had many of the usual flaws and unlikelihoods of near-future dystopias, but it also had a depth and texture to its world that was rare in comics SF (and never to be expected in even purely prose works, either).

American Flagg! suffered from Chaykin’s waning attention for a while, and then crashed and burned almost immediately after he finally left the series, with a cringe-making overly “sexy” storyline utterly overwritten by Alan Moore. American Flagg! limped from muddled storyline to confused characterization for a couple of years afterward – but the beginning, when Chaykin was fully energized by his new creation and the stories he was telling, is one of the best SF stories in American comics.

The series has never been collected well, though a few slim album-sized reprints were once available, and may be findable through used-book channels. This Dynamic Forces edition, reprinting the first fourteen issues of the series, is quite pricey. (Especially for a book with no page numbers, and one in which the pages are precisely the size of the original comics – not oversized, as those previous album reprints had been.) This book has a strong, thoughtful introduction by Michael Chabon – which has already appeared in his [[[Maps and Legends]]] collection, presumably due to the delay in the American Flagg! book – a gushing afterword by Jim Lee, and a new short story written and drawn by Chaykin.

(more…)

Getting Screwed, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

We’re all familiar with the story of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They created Superman but nobody would buy it so it sat in a drawer for a few years until an editor remembered seeing the submission and thought it would fill out the first issue of a new title that was lacking a lead story. Siegel and Shuster signed away their rights for something slightly in excess of a hundred bucks, although over the next decade they earned hundreds of thousands off of the property. The trouble is, the publisher was making millions.

Siegel and Shuster were getting screwed. They raised a stink about it and found themselves out of jobs. Later, after several publishing failures Siegel limped back to the offending publisher to work-for-hire for page-rate; Shuster was blind and couldn’t work for anybody.

Batman co-creator Bob Kane saw what was going on and offered to negotiate a contract that would: a) cover himself financially, b) somehow guarantee him sole creator credit, and c) screw the people who made Batman truly unique, people like co-creator Bill Finger and artists such as Jerry Robinson and Dick Sprang. This scenario was repeated by a number of creators who became publishers or intellectual property owners years and years later.

So the moral standard is rather flexible. That’s business. That’s human nature – most businessmen aren’t all that different from Al Capone, who, in fact, was generally more appreciative of his end-users than he was of his competitors. Now, everybody cooperates benignly, being careful to operate out of a sense of mutual self-interest instead of an actual conspiracy that might constitute anti-trust. We’ve just endured eight years of a government that was totally dedicated to this concept. (more…)

Shipping Late, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • August 30, 2008

This column is unusual in that I’m starting to write it in the doctor’s office. There’s no emergency – it’s just time for my annual mammogram and breast sonogram, and the doctors are running late.

My appointment was for 11 this morning. I arrived at 10:30 because I walked faster than I expected, and because I wanted to get the paperwork out of the way. Also, I’m compulsively early. My mother raised me to believe that if I’m not at least five minutes early, I’m inconveniencing everybody else. My grandmother took this a step further, waiting at the airport in New York before our plane had even taken off from Ohio.

I’ve been here for two hours.

The world is made up of people who are on time and people who are late. I imagine that we each drive the other bonkers. I know that, when I’m waiting for someone to arrive who is more than 15 minutes late (which is the window I allow because, hey, the subway could be screwed up), I’m furious that I might be missing something just because the person I’m waiting for doesn’t have the consideration to think my time is valuable.

I don’t know what people who are late are thinking, but I imagine they are thinking that life is so complicated, and there are so many things that demand their attention, and nothing ever comes out as they plan. Perhaps they also think that meeting times are just an estimate, and it’s no big deal if they are late. Perhaps they think I have nothing better to do than wait for them, and that it’s privilege enough to bask in their glory.

Ahem.

Oddly, I am not bothered when my comics are late. I know that retailers are annoyed – and worse, since it’s their money on the line – but I’m not. When I walk into the comic book store for my weekly fix, I don’t particularly care which books are available. I like enough different kinds of stories that I’ll be able to find something I’ll enjoy reading. Even if it’s a skip week, there will be something I haven’t read, or a new magazine. (more…)

Manga Friday: As Different As Possible

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

nightmares-for-sale-1-1505342

I’ve generally tried to organize the weekly columns around some sort of theme, but sometimes themes just serve to hide the variety and depth of the comics world (whatever country it might be from). So, this week, I picked three books with nothing at all in common (except a Japanese origin), just because:

Nightmares for Sale, Vol. 1
By Kaoru Ohashi
Aurora, November 2007, $10.95

Nightmares for Sale is an old-fashioned kind of horror story, with two enigmatic characters – they appear to be a grown man (Shadow) and a young girl (Maria), but she’s older than he is – who run a store that’s usually a pawnshop. Nothing at all good can happen when they enter your life, though they usually don’t seem to be directly responsible.

Each story in this volume has a different set of characters – usually teenage girls, or the kind of adults that teenage girls want to become – who meet the pawnshop owners, and then come to nasty ends. A bullied girl triggers a curse on the friendship rings her tormentors made her buy for all of them, and nastiness follows. A model wants to appear beautiful in photographs, and gets exactly what she asked for…but no more and no less. A young woman meets an abused boy in the street, and learns that their connection is much deeper than she imagined. A young boy tries to pawn his baby sister. And so on.

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If You’re Not There, You Just Won’t Get It – Conclusion, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

This is the last segment in this month long saga. If you are anything like me, you are sick of this. I mean four weeks of me reliving history is a bit much even for a guy who LOVES history. To that point, all I watch on TV is All My Children (the greatest show ever!), news, and The History Channel. I don’t even watch the shows I write or have created. I’m not kidding. I have never watched an episode of any show that I have been involved in.

I love history and I thought when I started writing this it would fill me with a wonderful sense of nostalgia.

Wrong. Now I’m just pissed.

Don’t get me wrong, Milestone is and will always be a BIG part of my life and career and I’m very happy to clear up some misconceptions about Milestone… particularly my involvement. Take a look at the previous installments to read about some of those misconceptions surrounding Milestone, Christopher Priest and DC’s “ownership” to name but a few.

Here’s my BIGGEST problem and the misconception that burns me to this day. There have been many, MANY articles and or books that have featured Milestone. A lot of them have said that I left Milestone quick, fast and in a hurry.

That, like the promise that Bush would be a good president, was a compete and utter lie. There’s more truth in the belief that the world is flat and women in L.A. don’t care about what you drive.

I was there the moment Milestone was created. I did not leave until two and an half YEARS after that. The writer Les Daniels (who’s books I enjoy, by the way) wrote in his book, DC Comics Sixty Years Of The World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes (1995) “A fourth partner, Michael Davis, quickly left to run Motown Animation.” (more…)

Interview: Elizabeth Genco of ‘Comic Book Tattoo’ and ‘Blue’

  • News
  • August 25, 2008

cbt_coverjasonlevesque-3160861The past few months have brought a swell of attention to indie comics writer Elizabeth Genco, who scored a coup by having a story included in the Tori Amos Comic Book Tattoo collection from Image Comics, and then her graphic novel Blue — a modernization of the Bluebeard legend — sold well in part thanks to a plug from Brian Wood.

Genco took the time out of her busy schedule to chat with ComicMix about her music-infused projects and what it was like to work with an idol in Amos.

ComicMix: Let’s talk about the Tori Amos project first, since it’s the book of the moment. How did you get connected to that gig? Were you a fan of Amos previously?

Elizabeth Genco: I’ve been a fan of Tori’s for almost 15 years. Both she and her music have been hugely influential, especially in my creative life. Tori is very smart about how to create a creative career while staying true to your vision, and I learn from her. Of course, like many of her fans, her music has helped me through some dark times.

As for how I got involved, a few years ago, editor Rantz Hoseley and I got acquainted via Warren Ellis’ old board, The Enginge; he and I have been pals ever since. When he extended the invitation, I jumped onboard immediately.

CMix: How did you approach the assignment? Comics is such a visual medium, it’s not that common to hear creators be inspired by sound.

EG: I want to say that I’m not inspired by sound so much as I am by words — that is, lyrics. But the interesting thing about lyrics, of course, is that they take on a completely different meaning when you add the music. I would even go as far to say that 99 percent of the time, song lyrics are incomplete without the music. (Music is a huge influence on me, and I’ve aspired to be professional musician at several points in my life, especially when I was very young. So I’ve thought about this a lot, actually.)

Music inspires my writing quite often, and the process is usually the same. A line will capture my attention, and I’ll start noodling — following the thread, seeing where it goes. In this case, I decidedon the song and then went looking for that line.

As for the song itself ("Here. In My Head"), well, I spent all this time going through Tori’s catalog trying to find the right one before going, "Duh!" It’s been my favorite Tori song for years, so it wasthe obvious choice.

(more…)

Let’s Go Raise Us Some Dumb Kids, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • August 25, 2008

Lately, my wife Linda and I have been watching the Maverick reruns on one of the many Starz channels IDW’s owners foists upon our cable system. Maverick was one of the very few live-action teevee shows I enjoyed as a kid, and I’m amazed to discover that it is actually even better than I remembered it. The writing, in particular, was amazing – a standard rarely reached by broadcast television today.

Then Linda noticed something. The show was rated TV-14.

The television ratings system was proposed by Congress 12 years ago, caving in to a bunch of professional busybodies who firmly believe that we, unlike our parents and their parents, are too stupid to raise our own children without their blue-nosed “guidance.” I don’t know if it preceded the V-chip or not and I do not care to look it up: the V-chip allows parents to completely avoid the bother of being involved in their children’s television experience by having a slide of silicon do their thinking for them.

The idea behind the TV-14 rating was not that parents shouldn’t let their kids watch these shows. According to the guidelines, “Programs issued the TV-14 rating are usually unsuitable for children under the age of 14 without the guidance of a parent or guardian.” Please note that last phrase: “without the guidance of a parent or guardian.” Since it has been proven that today’s parents are too lazy or too stupid or too “busy” to provide such guidance, they can fire up their V-chip and let the teevee do all the heavy lifting, thereby denying their children such fine writing and acting on shows from 1957 such as Maverick. (more…)

Review: ‘The Dead Boy Detectives’ by Bryan Talbot and Ed Brubaker

deadboy-3368922By my count, there are four good reasons to buy [[[The Sandman Presents: The Dead Boy Detectives]]], now out from Vertigo.

First, it’s cheap, at a slight $12.99 for some 100 pages of comics.

Second, it’s a heckuva good mystery yarn with plenty of occult elements.

Third, it’s part of The Sandman world, and there are plenty of readers who snap up anything associated with Neil Gaiman’s creation.

But the last — and, for me, best — reason to pick up the book is that it further illustrates Ed Brubaker’s dexterity as a writer. I’ve long said that the thing that makes him so talented is that if his name wasn’t on the cover of his comics, you wouldn’t be able to recognize him as the author (also, his books are all quite good).

Unlike a Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis or Brian Michael Bendis, Brubaker writes comics without stamping his voice all over them. And, in [[[The Dead Boy Detectives]]], he shows off a wholly new voice, slipping seamlessly into the world of the ghostly boy sleuths and their London setting.

Like all great P.I. stories, this one begins with a girl, then gets all weird with shriveled dead bodies, witches and immortal creeps. It’s not quite unpredictable yet manages to be surprising.

But, mostly, the great characterization of ghosts Charles and Edwin and their childish interplay is what makes this one a winner. Well, that and the other reasons listed above.

Van Jensen is a former crime reporter turned comic book journalist. Every Wednesday, he braves Atlanta traffic to visit Oxford Comics, where he reads a whole mess of books for his weekly Reviews. Van’s blog can be found at graphicfiction.wordpress.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Van Jensen directly at van (dot) jensen (at) comicmix (dot) com.

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