Tagged: comics

Because I Said So, by Michael Davis

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  • October 26, 2007

My mother is almost 60 years old. She has been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for almost 40 years. I don’t smoke. In fact I think it’s a stupid habit and I’m glad she told me not to do it.

She told me not to smoke. I listened. I’ll get back to that in a sec.

As I write this there is a raging debate over who can adopt and raise DOGS in this country. The talk show host Ellen DeGeneres gave a dog away she adopted. The agency said (and it was in the contract Ellen signed) you couldn’t give away an adopted dog so they went and took the dog away from the little girl Ellen had given the dog to. So Ellen goes on her talk show crying like a girl and tells the world of the injustice that has been done to this little girl. So what happened? Well the dog agency owners start to get death threats and Ellen’s legal team threatens “legal action” against the dog adoption agency.

What do I think? I could care less about Ellen, the dog agency, or the dog.

I am a wee bit concerned about this: why there is so much of an uproar about who raises a dog and virtually none about who raises kids? (more…)

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography review

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  • October 25, 2007

Charles Schulz‘s life is already turning into a legend, in large part because he did the one thing a man can rarely control: he died perfectly, at the precise right time and place. Late in the night before his final Peanuts strip would appear in newspapers, on February 12, 2000, Schulz slipped into immortality.
 
On the other hand, he was close to immortal already; Peanuts was one of the biggest comic strips in this history of the medium, one of the largest licensing empires in the world, and one of the most beloved set of characters in the USA. And, since Schulz famously wrote every word and drew every line of the 17,897 strips from 1950 through 2000, it was purely his own achievement. Snoopy sheets would never have been big business if kids hadn’t already loved Snoopy, and they never would have loved Snoopy without Schulz. It’s difficult to overestimate what Schulz meant to cartooning over the past fifty years: he reshaped the newspaper strip in his image, brought a new tone and style to public discourse, and was hugely influential far beyond the bounds of the newspaper page.
 
And now, seven years after Schulz died, comes the first full-scale biography of the man who changed the face of newspaper comics forever. (more…)

Whose Story Is It, Anyway? by John Ostrander

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  • October 25, 2007

In any given story, one of the primary questions that must be answered by the writer is – whose story is it? For example – in any Batman/Joker story, we assume that the story is going to be about Batman. He is the title character, after all. However, the story can be about the Joker – taken from his perspective, with the Joker as the protagonist and the Batman as his antagonist. A protagonist, after all, is not always a hero.

Sometimes, when I’m having problems with a story, I’ll go back to that simple, basic question – whose story is it? The answer sometimes surprises me. When I was writing my historical western for DC, The Kents, I assumed for a long time that the story was about Nate Kent, who was the direct ancestor of Pa Kent, Clark’s adoptive father. It was only when I was deep into the story that it occurred to me that the story was actually about Nate’s younger brother Jeb, who takes a wrong road, shoots his brother in the back at one point, becomes an outlaw, and eventually has to make things right.

The story may not always be about a person. When I wrote Gotham Nights, the focus of the story was the city itself, and the city was comprised not only of its buildings and roadways but, more importantly, the people who lived there, of whom I tried to give a cross-sampling. Batman was a part of all that because he is a part of Gotham City but the miniseries didn’t focus on him. It was Gotham City’s story. (more…)

More Artistic Vocabulary, by Elayne Riggs

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  • October 24, 2007

elayne100-5274740Well, I said I’d be back and, since there were a number of terms I didn’t recall until after last week’s column went live, I figured I’d take note of them this week while I still remember what more I wanted to say.

For instance, I can’t believe I neglected to talk about surface form versus underlying construction. I consider it one of the most important criteria for judging good comic book art. The more I learn about how visual storytelling is done, the pickier I find myself becoming when it comes to appreciating crafting level. Art doesn’t need to look polished to be of professional level (although my particular taste does lean more towards smooth and streamlined rather than blocky and rough). It just needs to show that the artist understands the rules about how things are logically built. It’s like any other creative endeavor — if you’re going to break the rules, you first need to prove you know what they are and are able to follow them.

I have to admit, not being an artist, that I’m not so sure about construction rules myself, certainly not enough to be able to articulate them for you the way my husband does for me. But I do know that one of the biggest mistakes many comic book readers make is confusing style with substance. When they judge a comic they’re usually looking at the final polish given to the work rather than judging what lies beneath that polish. And that’s understandable; if you don’t know how a piece of furniture is supposed to function in its environment, or even whether it’ll hold what it’s supposed to hold, you’re pretty much going to base your opinion of that furniture by how pretty it looks in the catalog or showroom.

(more…)

30 Days of Steve Niles!

30_days_of_night-2124336ComicMix Radio kicks off the week with a visit from 30 Days Of Night creator Steve Niles who fills us in on his reaction to the how his project looked on the big screen as well as his new series at DC… plus updates on:

• Comic creators turning up on Numb3rs

• The TV season posts its first causality, but Bionic Woman and Journeyman get new leases on life,

• And our full rundown of this week’s long box full of new comics and DVDs including a new Batman-based mini series from DC, DVD Special Editions of The Shining and 2001 and no less than three more zombie variants from Marvel.

If that doesn’t make you Press The Button – what will?

Is Manga a Passing Fad?, by Robert Greenberger

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  • October 23, 2007

bobgreenberger100-1138724Well, duh.

That was my first reaction when I read USA Today’s story regarding Manga’s loosening grip on readers in Japan.

After all, we lived through it in America starting some 30 years ago, where three things happened around mid-decade:

  1. Cable television was introduced and began snaking through the country, suddenly captivating television watchers and keeping them watching with extra channels, premium movies and so on.
  2. At much the same time, the first home video games were also capturing peoples’ attention.  I still remember being fascinated playing Pong on the playroom television and then flipping to watch an uncut movie on HBO.
  3. The rise of the direct sales distribution system for comic books, which began an evolution away from readers finding comics at the local stationary shop and towards hole-in-the-wall outlets that sold comics and related stuff.

(more…)

Costumes Revealed, by Dennis O’Neil

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  • October 23, 2007

There may be some practical reasons why the grown-for-television superheroes dress in plain clothes rather than the colorful garb of their comic book and movie counterparts.

(For those of you who came in late: we’re continuing last week’s discussion of superhero costumes.)

I remember visiting the set of one of Joel Schumacher’s Batman flicks and watching costumers take a long, long time – 15 minutes? More? – just to fit Batman’s mask on a stunt man, a process that involved putting plastic wrap on the guy’s head and then trimming it after the mask was in place. And that was just the mask. Imagine what efforts went into getting tights, cape, boots and all to fit properly. Dash into a closet – a phone booth? – for a quick change? Maybe not.

Though I have no firsthand knowledge of this, I understand that there is actually a closetful of batsuits for the actor and his various doubles; which one gets worn in a particular scene depends on the scene’s content. Are we fighting? Running? Driving our spiffy car? Standing dramatically silhouetted against the skyline? We must wear the appropriate outfit!

Subtract all this time, effort and expense from the task of garbing your good guy and you have…what? Well, have a look at either of the Batman movie serials made in the 40s for your answer. The Superman and Captain Marvel suits from that era are better, but they don’t approach the panache of the average Curt Swan or Jack Kirby drawing.

(more…)

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Postcards edited by Jason Rodriguez

Everyone has a story – at least one. Every human life could be told in some way, to illustrate a point, or evoke an emotion, or just entertain an audience. Postcards attempts to tell some of those stories, or to create stories based on tiny pieces of real people’s lives, almost randomly – to invent stories out of the smallest of seeds.

Jason Rodriguez, author of the Harvey-nominated Elk’s Run, gathered up a bunch of vintage postcards, sent them to various artist-writer teams he knew, and asked for comics about the people who sent the postcards. In theory, it’s a great idea. (Of course, everything is wonderful in theory.) In practice, this particular collection of postcard-inspired stories are nearly all sad, depressing tales, and the relentless one-note gloom keeps any of the stories from really standing out. It’s not clear whether Rodriguez’s instructions were responsible for this, of if the choice of creators led to the unremitting bleakness, or if it was just bad luck. Rodriguez’s prefaratory notes to each story do make him seem like a micro-manager, though, with explanations that he gave this postcard to this person expecting X, and that he was sure another artist would be just right for another postcard because of Y.

(more…)

Mothership Connection, by Martha Thomases

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  • October 20, 2007

There’s been a lot of conversation lately in the girls’ section of the comics blogosphere about the way women’s lives are depicted in superhero comics. Even so-called strong, independent female characters are little more than an excuse to show tits’n’ass. Some site evidence that female characters are used as plot points, citing the “women in refrigerators” syndrome. More recently, discussions have centered on the premise that married characters are boring.

A lot of this is a reflection of the larger pop culture, which is at least as male-dominated as comics. The people who can greenlight movies, or put a television show on a network, are most likely Penile-Americans. Book publishing tends to be more diverse because there are more women in positions of authority, and (this is related) book publishing tends to pay less than other mass media.

Most of it, however, is lazy pandering to the perceived target audience. It’s assumed that boys find the single life more glamorous and more exciting than marriage. Up to a point, I agree. The thrill of the chase is, well, a thrill. That said, even the new gets old after a while. Dashiell Hammett used Nick and Nora Charles to show that marriage can be sexy and fun. Why can’t comics? (more…)

On this day: “Take On Me” hits #1

  • News
  • October 19, 2007

22 years ago today, A-ha took over the top spot on the Billboard singles chart with "Take On Me". And don’t pretend you don’t know what that has to do with comics…

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