Tagged: comics

JOHN OSTRANDER: Perverse Pleasures

  • News
  • April 19, 2007

c86650lf4qn-8422755We all know what a “guilty pleasure” is – some movie, book, song, whatever that we are ashamed to say we actually like – nay, sometimes love. While we may be embarrassed by our affection we should, at the very least, be able to claim, “Well, anyway, I like it.” Even if nobody else does. I have my list of those and I suspect you do as well.

This is not the same as the strange, little known things that you love that are, in fact, pretty good. I have my list of those things also and it might be useful to talk about these odd delights at some other time.

Neither of the above are the same as what I call my “perverse pleasures.” I’m not talking about sexual kinks and peccadilloes. I’m talking about music, books, movies and so on that I know, in fact, are awful and that I don’t like but feel a weird compulsion to own them anyway.

On to confession.

The first item is Pat Boone’s 1997 CD In a Metal Mood; No More Mr. Nice Guy wherein the King of White Bread Music decides to do his covers of Heavy Metal songs. We’re talking songs such as Stairway to Heaven, Smoke on the Water, Love Hurts, Enter Sandman and plenty of others. Oh, my ears! He doesn’t do them as Heavy Metal, of course; his arrangements turns them into Big Band tunes. When Mr. Boone sings, he’s usually off the rhythm, flat, or just speaks the lyrics. I have yet to get through a complete cut.

This is completed with a cover shot of the aging Mr. Boone in leather pants, leather vest, and no shirt, fixing the buyer with a steely stare that defies said buyer not to purchase the CD. I, of course, succumbed.

To top it all off, I was doing a guest shot on my friend Bill Nutt’s radio show, The Nutt House, on WNTI. I decided to play a cut of the CD on his show. Hey, they’re not my ratings. My better half, the lovely and talented Mary Mitchell, was listening in. I should explain that Mary is a heavy metal fan. Most people wouldn’t suspect it to look at her but she’s pretty knowledgeable and has her criterion: a good heavy metal band should look and sound like trolls. Pat Boone comes nowhere near that ideal.

Mary asked me what was on my mind to play that track. I explained that none of us at the radio station actually listened to it; we turned off the monitors about thirty seconds into the song so we didn’t have to listen to it. I think that’s where I lost Mary as a regular listener to my radio hijinks. She did listen to the track all the way through.

This is one of my definitions of love – despite having trick-bagged her into listening to something that I couldn’t, she still cares about me.

If Mary hasn’t found the CD, I probably still have it around somewhere.

Wandering over to the DVD section, I find my copy of Barb Wire. I knew the Dark Horse comic on which the movie was based and stumbled on the movie starring Pamela Lee Anderson while channel surfing late one night. I, like millions of Americans, ignored it in its theatrical release but I thought it was worth pausing long enough to see if Pam popped out of whatever she was wearing. It was late night and my standards of viewing are pretty low after midnight. (more…)

DENNIS O’NEIL: Who knows what evil lurks…? Part 2

  • News
  • April 17, 2007

Suddenly, the air was full of bats!

The “air” here is metaphorical and if you’d allow me to fully ripen the trope, possibly to the point where it emits a faint odor, it might read, The air of popular culture in the 30s and 40s was full of bats.

Let’s see.  There was a Mary Roberts Rheinhart novel and an early talkie adapted from it, both called The Bat, and there was a pulp hero also called The Bat and, a bit later, another pulp do-gooder who labeled himself The Black Bat.  Am I forgetting anyone…?  Oh yeah.  A comic book character that was introduced in Detective Comics #27, dated May 1939, as Batman.  Like an estimated eighty percent of your fellow earthlings, you may have heard of him.

And, again metaphorically, standing behind the Batman and maybe some of the others was one of the greatest pulp heroes, The Shadow.  The writer of the early Batman stories, Bill Finger, made no secret of his admiration for the Shadow novels.  He went so far as to admit that the Shadow’s influence on his batwork was extremely direct when he told historian (and author and artist and publisher) Jim Steranko, “I patterned my style of writing Batman after the Shadow.”  And: “My first script was a take-off on a Shadow story.”

Which brings us to Anthony Tollin.  Remember him?  I introduced the two of you a couple of weeks ago in this very feature. I told you that a company Anthony owns has been issuing reprints of the Shadow books. Recently, he sent me an early copy of one of those books, titled Partners of Peril, and suggested that I might want to compare it to the first Batman adventure, The Case of the Chemical Syndicate. 

Of course there are differences.  After all, the Shadow novel is probably around 50,000 words long and Batman’s debut is six comic book pages.  But there are also similarities.  I won’t even try to describe them all – see Robert Greenberger’s ComicMix article, or Anthony’s text piece in the book itself – but they are manifold.  In a phone conversation a few hours ago, Anthony mentioned the most obvious, among which are:

  • Both are about a – yes! – chemical syndicate.
  • The heroes of both get involved in the proceedings while visiting a law-enforcing friend.
  • Both feature virtually identical death traps, which each hero beats in the same way.
  • Both heroes offer the same whodunit-type explanation at the adventure’s end.
  • Both heroes spend a lot of time on a rooftop after a safe robbery.
  • The denouements of both stories are, again, virtually identical.

Et cetera.

As I wrote in the earlier column, anyone with even the dimmest interest in pop culture or comics history, or who just wants to sample the kind of entertainment that kept pops or granddad reading by flashlight under the covers, or who’s just in the mood for capital-M Melodrama combined with capital-H Heroics, might want to see if the Shadow has anything for them.

For me, the stuff has another aspect, one which is as modern as hip-hop. But that’s for next week.

RECOMMENDED READING: Awww…you know.

Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.

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The Secret is out

I’ve been rooting for Pulp Secret to flourish ever since their executive producer, my old college friend David Levin, first gushed to me about it.  And in the short time they’ve been around the site has branched out from their 5-minute video news segments to a weekly talk and interview show to David making good on his vow to give away items in his prized comic book collection on a regular basis.

But for me, there was still something missing.  And some of it had to do with me not being able to tell the three young white male self-amused hosts apart.  I’m sure they’re nice guys and all, but it was (as the Brits say) much of a muchness.

Now finally, with webcast #18, the video news segments have a female face.

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She’s Ana Hurka-Robles, a director and writer from NYC who’s been behind the camera until now.  Says AHR, “I’m part of a small crew that produces the episodes, so I get a chance to direct, shoot, write, research, and edit. I know that film degree would come in handy some day!”  (I think someone else may have “edited” her name up there.)  You can catch her on-screen debut here, at about 3:45 into the webcast, but she narrates capsule reviews in webisodes 10 and 15 as well.

Thanks, David & co., for expanding PS to include the other half of the population!

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A look at Sunderland

  • News
  • April 16, 2007

sundereview-3215641Forbidden Plant International leads us to another glowing review of Bryan Talbot’s amazing Alice in Sunderland by Steve Flanagan. The catch is that Flanagan’s review is illustrative, done in the style of the book it’s discussing.

Flanagan’s 7-part comic strip review discusses Talbot’s presumed influences for this book, his stylistic choices, perceived structural weakness and subject matter.  Pretty heady stuff, and Flanagan’s not afraid to puncture his own pomposity.

It works better, of course, if you read the book first.  By that time maybe the traffic will have died down from Flanagan being BoingBoing’ed.

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Crime writer to tackle Hellblazer

  • News
  • April 15, 2007

ianrankin-8283970The Scotsman is reporting that Ian Rankin, writer of the extremely popular Inspector Rebus crime fiction series, will be doing a six-issue run on DC’s Hellblazer.

Rankin approaches the venture with appropriate trepidation: "Let’s wait and see if I can do it; maybe it will turn out that I can’t. It is much more like a screenwriter’s skill than a novelist’s skill. You have to use very few words, and a lot of the writing is just instructions to the artist."

A good observation for other famous "mainstream" authors with comic book aspirations to bear in mind!

Sunday reading catch-up

  • News
  • April 15, 2007

You know you’re a geek when you go away-from-keyboard to spend the day with your cousins at a nifty local mall and your first thought upon seeing a Lego keychain display is, "Ooh, Batman and Robin and the Joker, this would make a cute photo for ComicMix!"

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And so it goes (apologies, etc. etc.).  Now for your weekly all-in-one post of our regular columns from this past week:

As for me, I’m going to catch up on Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s latest podcasts:

I’ll also be reading comics.  Have I mentioned today’s a good day to read comics?  Heck, what day isn’t?

GLENN HAUMAN: Arguments should be good

  • News
  • April 15, 2007

CBRJoe Rice disgraces himself and Comic Book Resources with one of the worst cases of paralogia and argumentum ad hominem I’ve seen since the Peter David/Todd MacFarlane Great Debate. His argument can be reductiod to the following absurdum:

  1. I like Fantagraphics products.
  2. Harlan Ellison is suing Fantagraphics for reasons I don’t even pretend to address or understand.
  3. Therefore, Harlan Ellison is a "petty old sci-fi writer" and "a tired old hack" and he’s suing because "in truth, because his widdle feewings were hurt at how they descwibed him".

Yes, Joe, comics should be good– and so should your arguments. I didn’t think there could be a Rice who could make worse arguments than Condoleezza…

Happy birthday, McDonald’s

  • News
  • April 15, 2007

mcdonalds-6459882comicbookguy128-9034416Fifty-two (there’s that number again) years ago today, the first McDonald’s franchise opened up in Des Plaines, IL, just north of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

It’s still there, but now it’s a museum – complete with 1955 cars in the parking lot.

On behalf of what you’ve done for the bodies of millions of comic book fans across America, we’d just like to say: Thanks heaps.

(Comic Book Guy artwork © Fox. All Rights Reserved.)

MARTHA THOMASES: Girls’ Powers

  • News
  • April 14, 2007

Why do we like superheroes?  There are many theories.  The one that makes the most sense to me is that they arise from our frustrations with our own bodies.  As someone who was once the mother of a two-year old (as well as once a two-year old myself), I’ve seen how the rage and frustration of an infant gets transformed with words into imaginative play, with storylines so complicated they would baffle Grant Morrison.

We want to fly and we can barely walk.  We want to lift cars over our heads, yet we struggle to pull up our pants.  We want to leap buildings with a single bound, but the monkey bars at the playground are too scary.  No wonder we are drawn to superheroes.

Since most comic books have been written by men and purchased by boys, we can make fairly educated guesses about what most frustrates the male of our species.  They want to be stronger.  They want to be faster.  They want to be more powerful.  They want to be able to physically and mentally dominate. 

What about women?  Do we want the same things?  Do we want something different?  If women controlled the superhero comic book market, would other kinds of characters be more successful?

May I suggest the following:

Metabolism Lass – The woman you love to hate, she is able to eat anything at all, even cans of frosting, without gaining weight.

Multi-Task Mistress – She can tend to a screaming baby, a demanding boss, a helpless husband, all while explaining to her mother, on the phone, how to use the Tivo.

Invisible Girl – No, not Sue Richards.  This I-Girl is able to walk past a group of construction workers, Wall Street traders or street kids without rousing any whistles.

Couture Queen – Sick and tired of clothes designed for people with no hips or thighs, she has the power to create clothes that actually fit, look good and feel comfortable on adult women.

Manicure Maid – It’s a cliché of modern times that if you want to show a character is spoiled, you make her complain about a broken nail.  Hey, it hurts to break a nail!  Despite the pain it causes, Manicure Maid uses hers as weapons, firing cuticles like bullets at badguys.

Princess IRA – Our heroine can stretch a pension check from here to Pluto, which is a useful power when women live longer than men, but earn less.

Guilt Girl – Doing amazing feats on your own is great, but she completely understands that you don’t have time to help her overcome the monstrous evil she faces.  Really, it’s okay.  She’ll get by.  Don’t trouble yourself.

Have ideas of your own?  Put them in comments!

MICHAEL DAVIS: Art School Confidential

  • News
  • April 13, 2007

michael-davis100-2929148The one thing you can count on in the comics business is people want to get in. By this I mean there are a zillion people who want to make comics their lifework. To some “comic books’ is a silly way to make a buck. Well forget them. Tell them to have a ham sandwich and shut up. I’m talking to all the young creators who want to make this their careers. I know a bit about this and if you allow me I would like to share some of what I know with you.

The first step on the road to comic immortality is education. I want to talk to the young artists out there. I will let my good friend Mike Baron in a guest column talk about becoming a comic book writer (Mike, please write a guest column for me!).

There are a lot of young artists who think it’s smart to simply copy Image Comics from the nineties and that will give them the art background they need. It won’t. By the way, Image does great books and Jim Valentino has a fantastic nose for good content. I’m sure that Jim would agree that the books Image is doing today are vastly different from the ones they were doing when they revolutionized the comics industry in the nineties. There are a great many young artists who think that copying Todd McFarlane or Rob Lefield will give them the tools they need to be the next Todd McFarlane or Rob Lefield – again, it won’t.

There are no sure fire ways to break into the comic industry as an artist. The industry is filled with self-taught artists-some of these self taught creators are superstars. However, most people can’t simply draw themselves into the field. For the majority of you I think a good art school is a great first step, the first step you will need to establish your own way in a very competitive comics business. How do you choose a good art school?

Very carefully.

An art school should not just teach you art, it should equip you to navigate the business. You want a school that will deal with you as an aspiring professional and not just an artist. A lot of schools don’t do that. Some of the best schools have working professionals teaching there. You would think that will be a great place to go right?

NOT necessarily.

Some instructors will share with you every single thing they know. Some won’t. Why won’t they? Because you will be their competition in a very short time. Because they will someday fear you.

Oh. Nobody told you that?

Look, the professional art school is a business. Before I go on let me be clear: I’m not talking about teachers in fine art curricula. Those teachers teach students who want to make art for art’s sake. Those students want to bring their vision to people for no other reason than to make their personal statements. I’m talking about teachers of Illustration, Cartooning, Animation, Graphic Design or any commercial art course. Chances are if your teachers are working professionals they will not share with you all their contacts or their knowledge. Or to put it another way, if you were an rookie on The New York Mets and your position was center field, do you really think the veteran who held that position would tell you all he knew? (more…)

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