Tagged: DC Comics

Michael Davis: Haters Gotta Hate!

davis-art-131119-150x133-5073950From the very second we announced Milestone in 1992 to today, there have been those who simply hate us.

Chief among our haters are a small but vocal group of black comic book creators. Back in the good old days we were just called house niggers and we were hated because DC Comics owned us.

The fact that Milestone was never, not 20 years ago and not today, owned by DC Comics is irrelevant. It’s simply ignored by those who want to say we have somehow sold out the black race by any association with any white company.

I never got that.

Most successful black entertainment companies have some association with or are flat out owned by white companies. If the product is a good one and is focused on the African-American consumer I don’t see the problem.

Now, white backed black companies that market to poor urban black consumers products such as spinning rims, $200.00 sneakers and 40oz beers, promoting these and other items as lifestyle must haves to young black kids… now that I can see black people having a issue with.

I can see calling a white owned black company a bunch of house niggers if they were producing products that underscore a thug lifestyle as desirable.

But if a white owned black company was producing worthwhile products for the black community why would anyone call them house niggers? Why would any black person call them house niggers?

Milestone isn’t owned by a white company.

We produce positive comics and television animation featuring African-Americans role models not seen enough in pop culture. They are good stories well told and considered among some of the best comics ever produced by some.

Yet some just consider us house niggers because they think (wrongly) a white company owns us.

Forget the stories we are telling. Forget the excellence in the work. We are house niggers because a white company owns us.

Except we aren’t owned by a white company, but even if were why call the work we do the labor of house niggers?

I just don’t get that.

We’re an independent black owned company that has produced work that 20 years after our debut and 16 years after we ceased monthly publishing is still held in the highest of regard.

Our television show Static Shock has been on the air somewhere non-stop since 2000. Milestone has a worldwide audience and a dedicated fan base like no other.

The biggest pop culture event in the world just honored us with a celebration and bestowed on us one of the most significant awards in comics.

But to some black comic book creators we will always be house niggers.

OK. I get that. Haters got to hate. Hate us, hate whitey, and hate anything and everything they are not or can be.

In the 20 years since Milestone came to be we have never, and I’ll say it again, never attacked any black creator or company. But for all of our two decades we were and still are the target of countless attacks and outright lies.

I just don’t get it.

We never attacked anyone we rarely responded and when we did our response was; ‘there’s room for everybody.’ That was not just Milestone’s company line we believed it then we believe it now.

Recently a black creator of some renown wrote that he believed Milestone may have been given his companies’ business plan and used that to create the plan for Milestone.

That did not happen. It couldn’t have happened. It was impossible.

Milestone was already in the stores months before the date he assumed we stole his plan.

He has since acknowledged he was wrong in that regard. His creation and talent and are both still considered brilliant not just by me but every surviving member of Milestone. Our partner who did not survive loved his work as much if not more than the rest of us.

I’m not mentioning the work or creator because that sad chapter between his camp and Milestone is closed and I don’t want to give the impression they are the reason I’m writing this.

They are not.

Some other black creators are now saying Milestone not only stole the business plan but Milestone itself was “inspired” by and only came to be because of the idea and hard work of another black publisher.

So Denys Cowan’s idea wasn’t his idea and our business plan wasn’t our plan.

So now we are house niggers, lairs and thieves.

OK. I’ll be your house nigger if that’s how you define house niggers in your world. In your world I’ll be that. Since I don’t live in said world, what the do I care?

However, in no one’s world will Milestone be anyone’s lairs or thieves.

So, haters, think what you will. Say what you will. Believe what you will.

That’s on you.

I’ve no idea why you hate us the way you do but have at it. Continue to voice your hate in your forums, your on-line chats, your next hate Milestone meeting, any and all public and private social media.

But listen to this very carefully. Whatever you say, just be prepared to prove it. I’ll say that again, whatever you say, be prepared to prove it.

Be prepared to prove we are lairs. Be prepared to prove we are thieves.

Because sure as shit you continue to slander us you will be asked to prove it. Stick with calling us house niggers that you won’t have to prove. It’s laughable to us anyhow so feel free.

Slandering me and my Milestone partners as lairs and thieves, that’s no laughing matter to me. We are neither and continuing to say we are you will be asked to prove it. That question will come in a targeted legitimate onslaught. So unforgiving will the correspondence asking for your proof be, I shudder to think about it.

Shut up, put up, or pay up.

I’m fed up.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

 

Mindy Newell: Go West, Young Man

newell-art-131104-150x103-5740621“Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country”

Horace Greely

Editor, New York Tribune

July 13, 1865 Editorial

The New York Tribune, established in 1841, was the most progressive and influential newspaper of its day. Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the paper, was a notable social reformer and political activist and through his leadership, the Tribune advocated for abolition, the legal protection of unions, protectionism (known today as anti-globalization or anti-free trade), and against nativism, the political position of demanding a favored status for certain established inhabitants of a nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. (In modern America Greely would be considered a leftist liberal Democrat, though in the antebellum, Civil War, and eras those beliefs belonged to the Republican nee Whig Party.)

Today a statue of Greeley sits at 33rd Street and Broadway in Greely Square, directly across the street and south of Herald Square, home to Macy’s and the end point of the Thanksgiving Day parade where the Rockettes do their famous line kick dance every fourth Thursday of November.

I know that statue well, for Greely Square is also across the street (and above) from the 33rd PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) terminus. And the PATH train was the way I commuted into New York City whenever I needed be at DC Comics, back when the company “lived” at 666 Fifth Avenue.

Last week – Tuesday, Tuesday, October 22, to be exact – Diane Nelson, President of DC Entertainment, sent a memo to DC employees. You might have seen it already, but here it is:

Dear DCE Team,

As I hope you know, I and the entire DCE exec team work hard to offer transparency about as much of our business plans and results as we possibly and responsibly can. In an effort to continue to do that where possible and to ensure you are hearing news from us, rather than a third party, I am proactively reaching out to you this afternoon to share news about our business.

I can confirm that plans are in the works to centralize DCE’s operations in 2015. Next week, the Exec Team will be in New York for a series of meetings to walk everyone through the plans to relocate the New York operations to Burbank. The move is not imminent and we will have more than a year to work with the entire company on a smooth transition for all of us, personally and professionally.

Everyone on the New York staff will be offered an opportunity to join their Burbank colleagues and those details will be shared with you individually, comprehensively and thoughtfully next week. Meeting notifications will be sent tomorrow to ensure the roll out* of this information and how it affects the company and you personally.

We know this will be a big change for people and we will work diligently to make this as smooth and seamless a transition as possible.

Best,

Diane

My first reaction when I saw it was “Oh, maaaaaan.” My second reaction was “knew it was going to happen.”

My third reaction was sadness, and, surprisingly, since it’s been thirty (!) years since I first stepped onto the PATH train in Jersey City (New Jersey) and took it to 33rd Street and Greely Square to walk up the Avenue of the Americas and west on 53rd Street to 666 Fifth Avenue and the offices of DC Comics, a feeling of dislocation. I felt cast adrift, even though 99% of my friends and co-workers no longer work at DC, and, in fact, the office itself has long since moved to 1700 Broadway, across from the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home of the David Letterman Show.

Many people on various websites have commented on the move. The news media picked it up, including a rather stupid, no, correct that, very stupid piece on WPIX Channel 11 (CW-NYC) while on break at work on Wednesday. I suppose the segment producers thought they were being clever, because they tied the news into some guy who wants to start a “superhero” school in the city, although actually it looked more like self-defense classes for kids. As far as the DC thing, they showed animated Superman and Batman, etc. on the screen, and then the reporter signed off and “flew off.”

But no one thought of the history behind the thousands of four-color pages produced by DC. No one thought of interviewing Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel that chronicles the rise of the comics industry in New York City though thinly veiled characters based on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and dozens of other early comics professionals. No one thought to interview those writers and artists who made their name at DC.

And no one thought of the history behind the hundreds of thousands of four-color adventures that started out as a way for those writers and artists to earn a living during the Depression and became the mythology of the 20th century, a doorway into imagination for generations, for hundreds of thousands of dreamers who grew up to become artists and writers and police officers and f, refighters and astronauts and astrophysicists because of those four-color pages, those adventures of Superman and Batman and the Flash and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter and so many, many more, inspired them.

Yes, Marvel Comics is still here. (But for how long?) Yes, many of those who created those adventures never lived in New York City or its surroundings, originally mailing in their work, then faxing in it, then e-mailing their pages over the internet. Yes, Marvel Comics is still here. (But for how long?) And, yes, New York City will always be the city of dreams for the millions who come here to start or restart their lives.

But the citizens of the great metropolis will never again look up in the sky and cry, “Look! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”

No, it was DC Comics, home to the supermen and superwomen who lived here, if only in the imaginations of those who loved them.

*By the way, Diane, there’s a typo in the memo. It’s “rollout,” not “roll out.”)

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

REVIEW: The Adventures of Superboy Season Three

superboy-season-three-e1379635970613-5714856When last we visited Clark Kent and Lana Lang, they were at college, leaving Smallville behind and as Season Three of the syndicated series arrived, it came with changes. The first was that Superboy became The Adventures of Superboy and then the focus moved the characters from the well-named Shuster University to a quasi-internship at The Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters in Capitol City, Florida. Clearly, the actors were aging and the premise of them being in college stopped making sense, plus menace of the week stories was becoming tougher to make plausible on the static campus. The more plausible setting worked for super-heroes but certainly took something away from the civilian side of life, a similar issue plaguing Smallville in its latter seasons.

The third season, out now on DVD from Warner Archive, also brought the welcome removal of the annoying Andy McCalister, character, with actor Ilan Mitchell-Smith taking a curtain call in this season’s “Special Effects”. He was replaced in the cast with coworker Matt Ritter (Peter Jay Fernandez) and the Bureau chief C. Dennis Jackson (Robert Levine).

While there are certainly foreshadowing elements to the far more successful Smallville, the tone this season actually evokes memories of Robert Maxwell’s film nourish first season of The Adventures of Superman, which ran some thirty years earlier. Credit for this positive change, reflecting the adult reality the leads now found themselves, goes to producers Julia Pistor and Gerard Christopher, with DC Comics’ support and approval. Christopher, who inherited the cape the previous season, seems comfortable in the uniform and while no great actor, certainly was stalwart.

The thirty minute format remain inhibiting so character development was almost nil except when it played a role in the story such as “Rebirth” where Clark thought he took a life and hung up his cape. Every series has to explore alternate futures and this series honored that trope with both “Roads Not Taken” and “The Road to Hell”, the latter a fine two-parter with former Tarzan Ron Ely as an aging Man of Steel from a possible future.

On the other hand, several stories seemed mired in the past such as “Wish for Armageddon”, which felt like an antiquated Cold War story in the aftermath of the Berlin Wall’s collapse.

Luthor, Bizarro, and Metallo make return appearances as opponents while first timers included The Golem in a strong neo-Nazi story. Pa Kent (Stuart Whitman) turned up for an appearance, a reminder of when Clark’s life was simpler and dad was always there to guide the way.

Overall, it’s a stronger season than the preceding one, but also one that less resembled the comics fans wanted and appeared somewhat alien to the general audience, neither resembling the comics or the film series.

The transfers are fine overall and the made-to-order 26 episode, three-disc set comes without any bonus features.

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Martin Pasko: You’ve Got Mail! We Just Don’t Know Where It Is…

pasko-art-130912-150x186-1980249Please believe me, as I conclude last week’s well-reasoned and temperate dissertation on why comics fans should care – maybe – about the future of the US Postal Service, when I say I’m trying hard to wrap up this little opus before the USPS goes out of business.

But I’m not working as fast nor concentrating as well as I’d like because I’ve just been distracted by another “gotcha” courtesy of my BMK – Bad Mail Karma. It illustrates one of the more interesting by-products of the USPS’s ongoing effort to modernize, simplify and streamline its products and services even as Congress calls for a postal austerity program:

When a customer confused by the ever-changing policies (that would be moi) makes a minor mistake, the USPS’s systems will helpfully turn it into an exhausting, nerve-wracking Major Hassle by preventing it from being corrected.

In my recent move back to Southern California, I managed to outsmart myself by sending ahead of me a USPS Priority Mail box of important items that I’d need before the moving van arrived with my everyday stuff. It has yet to arrive, some eight weeks later. It seems I used Priority Mail packaging that was not a flat rate box, but to which I incorrectly affixed flat rate postage generated online. OK, my bad.

That does not explain, however, why it took the P.O. four weeks to determine that that was the problem; why its online tracking system kept giving me information that contradicted the tracking data in the main USPS computer; nor why the package has now crossed the country four times, having been shipped back and forth between my old address and the new, each time being flagged in the system as undeliverable” or sent to “no such address.”

The helpful people I’ve dealt with at my local P.O. – six of them now, because the same people don’t seem to work there for more than five days in a row – can’t seem to figure it out, either. One “Letter Carrier Supervisor” told me, “I’ve been working here 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Of course, that may be because she apparently takes 147 coffee breaks a day.

This might also explain why she can’t get her direct reports to do what the three other supervisors have told me they will: When the package ricochets back here to Pasadena, they’ll call me so I can come pay the extra postage and pick it up. When last heard from, the package was at some “claims resolution” facility in Atlanta, but was supposed to be on its way back here. That was two weeks ago.

Now, imagine that this box had been, say, a shipment of comics from a private eBay seller for which you were waiting breathlessly. (Yes, small, private sellers often make honest mistakes. I hasten to add, though, that as someone who sells on eBay, I’ve been lucky – so far – not to make this kind of mistake with a customer’s package. And you can be sure I’m doubly careful now.)

This is a microcosmic example of the kind of thing comics fans will probably be saying good-bye to soon, mournfully or otherwise, having been left to the tender mercies of those even bigger screw-ups, UPS and DHL. The macrocosmic version is what I described last week: A stamp-related custom comic project that was extraordinarily successful for DC Comics (the aggregate print run for the nine CTC books I discussed added up to over 10 million) turned out to be a dismal failure for the USPS. This, only because the agency couldn’t secure the content approval from its licensors – the owners of several of the stamp subjects’ IT – in time to get the books out, to serve as collectors’ albums for the CTC series, at the same time as the stamps themselves.

And it’s too bad, really, this suicidal ineptitude, since comics fans once had a friend in the postal service. It was tangentially responsible for the creation of letters columns which, in the earliest days of comics fanzines and well before web sites and comment forums, became the principal means by which comics fans exchanged opinions about talent and continuity developments and, from the addresses printed, gained the means to interact and organize. These “LOC” pages came about because postal regulations required comics to have at least a page of text to qualify for their mailing rate. When the previous practice of hiring writers to create original prose fillers became prohibitively expensive, the “lettercols” were born.

Soon, those who self-identified as serious fans and collectors became the only readers who were so hell-bent on getting their monthly “fix” that they’d be willing to subscribe. But they were dissuaded from doing so because they didn’t want their mint-condition comics given a permanent vertical crease by being folded lengthwise to fit into a narrow wrapper, which was the only cost-effective way to send comics through the mail. So you can thank USPS, then, for killing this in favor of what took another decade to develop, with the growth of specialty retail shops: the pull-and-hold service.

Today, the Postal Service searches for new services it can provide http://www.informationweek.com/government/security/postal-service-pilots-next-gen-authentic/240145559, to replace the ones it has screwed up so badly that they’ve become obsolete. One of its ideas is to get itself into the “identity management business.” The fact that the average citizen can’t figure out what, in fact, “identity management” is should in no way deter the USPS from this worthy goal. It might keep them occupied so that other companies will have to deliver all the packages, and our paychecks will all be issued by Direct Deposit and have no trouble finding their way into our bank accounts.

Of course, thereafter we’ll be unable to access our funds, because our identity will have “managed” to change – to that of someone we’ve never heard of in a zip code that hasn’t been invented yet. (Remind me not to tell you about how my previous address in Pennsylvania, a rural route which was given a normal house-number in “The Monroe County Readdressing Project”  … with the result that my online change-of-address form couldn’t be processed properly because the old address wasn’t in the USPS database.)

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to stop oiling my old spinner-rack and instead donate it to a nursing home. I’m going to shop for comics via ComiXology exclusively, and work on figuring out how to get my new tech for promoting pacifism and conservation of labor, to make plastic staples. Once everyone on eBay is shipping via UPS, and we have the technology to totally recreate “floppies” in our own homes, the world’s Geeks – comic book division – won’t have anything to fear from the P.O. anymore, whatsoever.

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis (honest)

 

Full Metal Shadow

The Shadow Fan returns for Episode 44! This week, Barry Reese reviews two tales that are sure to stir up strong emotions from fans. First up: Reign of Terror, one of Bruce Elliott’s Shadow novels (1948). In Elliott’s final stab at the character, we finally get to see how the author would have handled the “traditional” version of the hero. Our second review: the final issue of Andrew Helfer’s controversial run on the DC Comic puts The Shadow’s head on top of a robot body! The Shadow # 19 (1988) can either be seen as one of the most unique moments in the character’s long history — or, perhaps, its absolute darkest.

If you love The Shadow, then this is the podcast for you!

Listen to The Shadow Fan Podcast Episode 44 now at
http://theshadowfan.libsyn.com/full-metal-shadow

Michael Davis: The Coming of the Fan Boy

davis-art-130709-2290947Word on the street is Warner Bros has announced a new venture, DC Nasty.

“DC Nasty is an adult film company created because Warner Bros sees an opportunity to fill a gap, plug a hole and make a big splash in a vastly underserved audience, grown fan boys who rent or buy porn almost 600 times more than video games or comics.”

This, from the Warner Bros Press release.

A recent ComicMix poll showed 92% of grown fan boys do not have wives or girlfriends, 80% make 5-6 figure incomes and in what was alarming to this reporter, 70-100% go blind by the time they are 50.

Rumors are flying as to who will head up the new venture. A high level unnamed source at DC thinks that a former DC executive who recently returned to the freelance ranks will run the new company.

An announcement is anticipated to be made at this years’ San Diego Comic Con. Expected to be among the first wave of projects are Sgt. Rock, Deathstoke, Elongated Man, Man of Steel and Swamp Thing.

It seems that the industry has realized that Warner may be on to something.

There are reports that Marvel is also thinking about getting their hands into porn by creating a division called Marvel Masturbation. Projects include the Hulk, Mr. Fantastic, the Thing and the Black Avengers.

An unnamed source from Marvel said they wanted to create as much tie-in with the comics as possible. With that in mind, Make Mine Masturbation is being considered as the slogan of the new venture.

Fan boys are certainly already doing that. The question is will they pay DC and Marvel to supply them with their reason for doing so?

Will this new venture let DC, Marvel and their fans share a happy ending?

That’s a sticky question.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

 

The Point Radio: What’s Ahead For GRIMM

PT050613

We’ve got more with David Giuntoli, star of NBC’s GRIMM, on what is the big reveal for season two and what we can expect in Season 3, plus Free Comic Book Day fun & profits, Image’s big sales and comics in general with another good month in the shops, except for DC.

Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

REVIEW – The Movement #1

npqzcq-2557989Gail Simone is at once challenging, provocative and blisteringly funny in her writing. One moment she’s introducing new transgendered characters to the mainstream DCU, and the next she’s announcing on the electric-type Twitter that her next project will feature an all-quokka cast.

As well as her triumphant (and briefly interrupted) run on Batgirl, Gail has introduced a new Superhero…perhaps “team” isn’t the right term.  The title describes it best; The Movement.  Too easily waved off as a play on the Occupy folks, The Movement is also equal parts urban watchdog group, police oversight committee and street gang, with a bit of Anonymous and Teen Titans thrown in.

It’s set in new fictional DC town Coral City, a town high in crime and police corruption.  As a pair of dirty cops offer to let a pair of young people go if the female offers them a free show, they are quickly surrounded by members of The Movement, clad in masks (which had BETTER be getting handed out at cons this summer, thank you very much) and cell phones, recording and disseminating the cops’ indecent proposal.

The part of town known as “The Tweens” is under the protection of The Movement, which seems to have both powered and non-powered members.  Incursions by the police, even the precinct’s honest captain, are not welcome, and are met with force.  The Movement has the might to

There’s the hint of a theme first touched on by Mark Waid in his last (and sadly underappreciated) take on Legion of Superheroes, in which the Legion was more of a youth movement than simply a superhero team.  As here, they represent the idea that since they are not being watched over by anyone, they will watch over themselves.  The Movement has organization and the power to make sure their part of town is not threatened from without, and protected from those within.

Freddie Williams’ art has a very loose line, , far better suited for a more character-oriented book like this.  The panel layout is very interesting, often a large splash image hiding under numerous smaller panels – the storytelling is dense, and fast-paced.  It’s a unique look, very well used in this very unique book.

This is far from standard DC fare, and Gail fills it with very interesting characters, about whom you immediately want to know more.  I expect the tale of how these people got their powers, and how they found each other, will all entertain and interest readers for some time.  Being a unusual title, I’m hoping it finds an audience, maybe even one outside of the normal clientele of comic shops.

The Point Radio: Why GRIMM Works For NBC

 

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One of the most enjoyable successful stories on TV this season has been NBC’s GRIMM. Despite a Friday night time slot, the show has grown to the point where the network has rewarded it with another full season in 2013-14. Star David Giuntoli talks about what it feels like to be on top and how it all has worked. Plus what books are flying out of the book stores these days, who will be The Black Panther on the big screen and how Charlie McCarthy is getting a biopic.

Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Dennis O’Neil: Old Bats Never Die

oneil-art-130502-9539867ZAP! BAM! POW!

I’ve written a lot about comics these – holy septuagenarian! – past 47 or so years, but I’ve never before used the faux sound effects lead that appears above. So. okay, why now?

I’ve always assumed and will continue to assume until the universe corrects me, that the aforementioned lead, perpetrated by a legion of journalists ever since comics have come to the attention of the multitudes, was inspired by the Batman television show that was aired on ABC from 1966 to 1968. Clever, y’know. Catchy. The video folk, in turn, got the faux onomatopoeia from old comic books; the stunt was, they superimposed these sound effects, lettered in garish display fonts, over fight scenes. The overarching agenda was to spoof Batman comics, particularly the Batman comics of the previous decade, by juggling contexts and emphasizing the goofy.

Batman as self-satirizing comedian? Okay by me.

But this form of comedy was much of a particular time and place, a brief, shimmering few years when the nation was in an experimental and iconoclastic mood. The mood changed – don’t they always, darn ‘em! – and after three seasons, Batman-the-television-star left the airwaves, and Batman-the-comedian joined the ranks of the unresurrected.

I’ll testify that comedian Batman deserves a place in the Batman pantheon and I’m sure that the show has its partisans, maybe fierce partisans. But is the world clamoring for a return of this odd form of humor? As I suggested a paragraph ago, it was unique to time/place Or so I’ve been believing.

People at DC Comics apparently believe I’m wrong. Our friends at the Comic Book Resources website inform us that “DC Comics will expand its digital-first comics line this summer with the debut of Batman 66, a series based on the classic television series.”

A number of ways this could go. Try to recreate the spoofy sensibility of the original. Do the comic as a period piece. Play Batman as a comedian using contemporary humor. Structure the stories as the old tv episodes were structured, with a cliff hanger half way through the story. Or do self-contained stories, the kind that were a staple of the old comics. Or do open-ended serials. Preserve the cast of the original. Recast with Batman’s current supporting characters. Mix and match all the preceding or – astonish and delight me with something I haven’t thought of.

I can’t help wondering how this project originated. From whence came the idea – editorial department or marketing department? Or some department in California? Not that it makes a lot of difference; there’s no mandated origin site for good stuff. But if there’s a reason to be skeptical, it might be that folk who can get projects going remember the joy that got from some entertainment when they were children and believe that the entertainment was supplying the job and not their own curiosity and innocence and, further, that they can recreate what they liked and, further still, that today’s audience will respond to the same kind of entertainment.

Let’s open our minds and see what happens.

Note: Thanks to Darren Vincenzo for alerting me to this column’s subject.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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