Tagged: Green Arrow

MARTHA THOMASES: Hot Fun in the Summertime

  • News
  • August 11, 2007

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.  Fish are jumpin, and the cotton is high.  Or so I’m told.  Living in a major metropolitan area in the twenty-first century, I have to take such things on faith.

This summer, the fun times for someone like me are largely political.  The presidential election is over a year away.  The first primaries are six months away.  Nothing is going to be decided any time soon, so I can pretend it will all turn out for the best. 

I spent the summer I was 15 going “clean for Gene,” campaigning for Eugene McCarthy, who was running against Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic nomination on an anti-war platform.  Four years later, I ran as an alternate delegate for George McGovern. Four years ago, I nearly got arrested outside the Republican convention up the street from here.  Presidential campaigns are fun!

Which is not to say they couldn’t be much more fun.  The problem is that presidential candidates tend to be politicians.  They spend all their time hustling campaign funds, writing policy, and meeting the public.  They go on the Sunday morning news shows and show how serious they are.  They go on Oprah or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to show they’re regular folks who can take a joke.

They don’t save the world from alien invasions.  They don’t even fight crime.

Presidential campaigns would be a lot more fun if, instead of Republicans versus Democrats, it was Marvel versus DC.   For example debates between:

 

Captain America and Superman on immigration reform.

Luke Cage and John (Green Lantern) Stewart on affirmative action.

Thor and Wonder Woman about the separation of Church and State.

Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne on the inheritance tax.

Storm and Aquaman on global warming.

The Punisher and Batman on prison reform.

Professor X and Green Arrow on family values.

The Avengers and the Justice League on national security.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: You’ll never work in this town again

  • News
  • August 10, 2007
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What you see posted above instead of my picture is an actual Walt Disney Company rejection letter from 1938. When I found this on line I freaked the heck out. I mean look at it! It says, in affect, “Look here, bitch you can’t work here because you’re a girl!”

Before you start marching on Disney, remember this was a vastly different time in America. It’s fair to say that me writing that I dated white women would have been just cause for me to fear for my life in 1938 in some parts of America. We have sure come a long way!

Or… (Place ominous music here) have we?

There are still people in this country who think that women and other minorities are not equal.

It’s the year 2007 and the ERA has not been pasted. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, is still not part of the U.S. Constitution.

What is up with that?

It’s the year 2007 and there are only 35 states that say that women are equal. So how far have we come?  I know from experience that there still exists racism in this country. Statistics prove that sexism still exists. The “glass ceiling” is a frequent topic for documentaries and ‘special reports’ on news programs.

This Disney letter got me wondering if sexism and racism are real factors in the entertainment world. I have been on hundreds of TV pitches and never felt it was a factor. I, like a lot of black people have a sort of radar sense when it comes to discrimination.

No, I am not the sort of person (but I do know black people like this) who blame everything on being black. Have you heard any of these? They did not hire me because I’m Black. They won’t rent to me because I’m Black. They think I’m darker than them because I’m Black.

Now replace “black” with “woman” and tell me have you heard these? They did not hire me because I’m a woman. They won’t promote me because I’m a woman. They think I’m female because I’m a woman.

I used to think that some deals of mine were killed because I was black. I realized that it was not because I was black, it was because some people in positions of power did not like me.

 

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DENNIS O’NEIL: One Upon A Time

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  • August 7, 2007

dennyoneil10017-7473629Once upon a time, way back, I was just a tiny bit afraid that the stepchild of American publishing wherein I labored, comics, would not be properly documented – that the right people weren’t being interviewed, the right information preserved. I needn’t have worried. Thanks largely to an army of scholars-without-portfolios – we called them fans – I think comics are likely to be the best documented art form in history. These people, and more recently the academics that involve themselves with popular culture, must have found sources of information completely unknown to me, and I applaud them for it.

Among my current sprinkling of projects is writing introductions for a collection of essays concerning what I guess we can unblushingly call the Batman mythos. More documentation and, I’d like to believe, welcome. The next intro I’ll do will be for a piece by Paul Lytle on Arkham Asylum. That name – Arkham Asylum – is familiar to Batman devotees and maybe to some folk not quite so devoted because it played a prominent part in the last mega-budget Batman movie. It is, for you who are not devotees and those who weren’t paying attention while you watched Batman Begins, the place where the criminally insane of Batman’s rollicking home town, Gotham City, are sent for incarceration and rehabilitation though, judging from results, the staff of the institution aren’t very good at either task.

But – here comes our big reveal, and I’m mostly addressing devotees, though the rest of you can stay – have you ever wondered where that distinctive name came from? Oh sure, the better read among you will recognize the word “Arkham” from H.P. Lovecraft’s tales – Arkham was the spooky burg where Lovecraft’s things went bump in the night. But who had the inspiration to associate it with the residence of Gotham’s host of loonies? I was pretty sure I knew, but, as you may remember, a couple of columns ago I trusted my memory and erred. So I sent an email. Here, in part, is the reply:

Our original conversation regarding where criminals such as the Joker and Two-Face should be incarcerated took place in March of 1974, when you and Len Wein were guest speakers at Jim Dever’s and my comics history course at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). The first mention of Arkham was in your Two-Face story that appeared in Batman #258, which was cover dated September, 1974.

 

 – JCH

 

The JCH that signs the letter stands for Jack C. Harris, a veteran writer, editor, historian and, for the past decade, give or take, a comics writing teacher at the School of Visual Arts in lower Manhattan. Credit where it’s due – where it’s long overdue.

If Jack were here, I’d ask him to take a bow.

RECOMMENDED READING: Awareness, by Anthony de Mello. Those of you who look at this blather every week may have guessed that I’m not a huge fan of organized religion these days, largely because of the misuses to which it’s currently being put, and the book recommended above is by a Jesuit. Well, if the Jebbies who presided over my university years were like de Mello, I might lay some bucks on the alumni fund once in a while.

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.

MICHAEL DAVIS: I’m a Believer

  • News
  • August 3, 2007

michael-davis100-1596076Last week at the San Diego Comic-Con I was hosting a forum called “The Black Panel.” The panel was filled with heavy hitters from comics, film, television and animation. At one point during the Q&A a young man asked that more creators recognize and do stories about black atheists. I made a joke that the characters battle cry would be, ‘I don’t believe!’

It got a laugh and I went on to the next person with a question. I happened to look into the young man’s face who asked the atheist question and realized he was not kidding; he was very serious.

I hope that he reads this, or that someone he knows reads this and tells him that I am truly sorry for making light of his belief. I thought he was kidding but the look on his face said otherwise, so in all seriousness I apologize.

That young man has every right to believe what he wants. This brings up an interesting question: Do creators who have a voice in the industry have an obligation to recognize fan beliefs and/or pay attention to them?

My answer with all due respect to the young atheist is no.

I can only speak for myself, but what anyone else believes is not my concern. That said, I do believe that you respect people’s belief.

I’ll say that again so there is no misunderstanding and so I don’t get any nutty comments: I believe that you respect people’s belief.

My former wife had a religious belief that frankly freaked me out. She never tried to convert me and I never tried to talk her out of it. We were two people who met, fell in love and got married. We broke up not because of her beliefs but because I was stupid.

I frankly couldn’t care less what you believe or practice. It’s your right in a free society to do what you want. As long as you do not harm other people or animals you can live in the woods and eat bark for breakfast for all I care. If you want to believe that Richie Rich is the one and only true God then have at it, buddy. What you do with your life is really nobody’s business but yours. How you live, what you think and why you think it is all you, my friend.

The last comic book universe I created was The Guardian Line. A Christian publisher publishes those books and, ironically, we do have a black atheist character. I did not think to mention it at the Black Panel but, yes, we have one. The character is important to a storyline which deals with belief. That storyline makes the point that even if you do not believe in God that you respect each other. I created that character for that story line not because I think black atheists have a right to be represented in The Guardian Line. (more…)

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DENNIS O’NEIL: Saturday Noon

  • News
  • July 31, 2007

dennyoneil100-7400785Saturday noon, and it still hadn’t arrived. Voldemort’s work? Or the machinations of something a bit more prosaic – book ninjas, maybe, or gremlins? But no. We fretted in vain. At about three, the doorbell rang, and there he was – Mr. Delivery Man, bearing our own copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

(I don’t think a spoiler warning is really necessary at this point – is there anyone who doesn‘t know Harry’s fate? – but what the hell, consider yourself warned.)

Soon, Marifran was in bed, reading – yes – the end of the novel. I asked her if Harry survives and she said that he does. Whew. The next evening, daughter Meg phoned from Seattle. She’s already finished it, all 759 pages. Do all bank vice-presidents spend their weekends reading?

What kind of people are these? What sort of mutated family did I marry into?

Me, I plan to wait for the movie. But I’m glad the book’s doing well. Better that gobs of money go to J.K. Rowling, who comports herself with some dignity, than to yet another deluded, sad young woman who calls attention to her desperate self by displaying what, in gentler times, would be seen only by her mate or her gynecologist.

Of course, not everyone is profiting by Ms. Rowling’s success. Independent bookshops, in order to compete with chains and on-line venues, are selling the book at such steep discounts that their profit is slim to none. And news reports tell us that just because a lot of kids are reading the Potter series doesn’t mean that they’ll read anything else. Apparently, Harry’s sui generis and after Deathly Hallows, it’s back to the tube for many.

But surely some kids will try other printed entertainment, once Harry teaches them that what’s printed can, in fact, be entertaining. Or so those of us who worry about the future of these United States can hope. Al Gore’s new and excellent book, The Assault on Reason (which I recommended last week) tells us that “…the parts of the human brain that are central to the reasoning process are continually activated by the very act of reading printed words…the passivity associated with watching television is at the expense of activity in parts of the brain associated with abstract thought, logic, and the reasoning process…An individual who spends four and a half hours a day watching television is likely to have a very different pattern of brain activity from an individual who spends four and a half hours reading.”

So, my understanding of Mr. Gore is, reading is not virtuous because it’s what grandma and grandpa did for fun, but because it stimulates a part of the brain that may be both underused and useful.

Is Harry Potter our new, albeit fictional, messiah? Well, no. We don’t want to take it that far. But given the current crop of wannabe saviors, we could do worse.

RECOMMENDED READING: Understanding McLuhan, by W. Terrence Gordon, illustrations by Susan Willmarth.

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.

MICHAEL DAVIS: In The Ghetto

  • News
  • July 27, 2007

michael-davis100-9494775I hate to see stereotypical images of black people, like the thug with the gold teeth who speaks in horrible English:

I was on the way to the crib, you knows wha I’m sayin? When I gots dare tis ho wanted to hang out, you know what I’m saying? You know what I’m saying? You know what I’m saying?

        

No, I don’t know what you’re saying. Nobody knows what you are saying.

I hate to see large black women with little itty-bitty short skirts and 10 inch nails that hook at the end. I hate to see black men grab their crouches. I hate to see black kids with their pants down to their ankles.

Here’s the thing: these are not stereotypes. I know black people like that. I’m sure you know black people like that, or at least you have seen black people like that.

Hey! Keep your hands away from the “comment” button! I’m about to make a point!

Yes, there are black people who act in the ways I mentioned above. There are also lazy black people, black people who love watermelon, black men who love white women, black men with really large (insert word here) and, yes, there are loud angry black women.

These types of black people do exist. I can’t stand most of that behavior, although I have eaten my share of watermelon and dated my share of white women. I have been lazy; when I was a kid I grabbed my crouch. Lastly, I have said, You know what I’m saying?

You know what I’m saying?

None of the above acts makes up a stereotype. I have seen black people engage in every one of those acts. I myself have engaged in a few.

They become stereotypes when you assume every black person acts in such a manner all the time.

That is just crazy.

To assume that all black people behave like this is simply freakin RIDICULOUS! To think that any race of people behaves in one way as a whole is just madness. 

Every race of people has its share of people who are, let’s say “undesirable.” Black people have “niggers,” white people have “white trash,” Latinos have “spics,” Asians have “chinks.” You name the race I’ll tell the stereotypical name.  (more…)

DENNIS O’NEIL: “No wizard left behind”

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  • July 24, 2007

At the end of last week’s exciting episode, the cute schoolteacher and I were involved in a tense debate about which showing of the new Harry Potter movie we would attend. (Yes, we media people do have lives that throb with excitement.)

We decided, and went.

The schoolteacher, who really does carry Potter devotion to an extreme, at least in one Muggle’s opinion, was enthralled. The Muggle – me – thought it was a pretty good summer flick. I’m a Muggle who can enjoy some good, old-fashioned, British Acting-with-a-capital A, and the Potters are full of A-list thespians. (There may be a pun in there somewhere, but, trust me, it’s not worth the effort needed to find it.) I think British movie acting is still partly influenced by its grandiloquent, stage-bound forebears, and that makes it appropriate to material that is the antithesis of realism, much as Brando’s naturalistic Method acting was appropriate to Tennessee Williams’s realism.

But the Pottery pleasure the teacher and I could share equally began when Dolores Umbridge entered the story. Miss Umbridge, splendidly embodied by a pink-clad Imelda Staunton, is an educational bureaucrat whose saccharine exterior conceals a heart of bile. She’s a stooge for the local politicians whose mission is to insist on a largely useless curriculum and on tests which accomplish nothing except make it impossible for real educators to do their jobs.

“No wizard left behind,” I whispered to the schoolteacher, who nodded vigorously.

I don’t know much about J.K. Rowling, Potter’s creator, but I do know that she must have been writing the novel on which the current movie is based about seven years ago, and that she works and lives in England. Those facts make it unlikely that in conjuring up Miss Umbridge she was commenting on and/or satirizing the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind farce. So maybe art was anticipating life. Whatever the reason, Miss Umbridge could step from fantasy into the real life milieu of those involved in the president’s – ahem – educational efforts and feel right at home.

Spoiler alert!

Miss Umbridge gets hers, though it appears that she survives to be rotten another day, and I rejoiced. I think schadenfreude is a pretty crummy emotion when it’s directed toward people we know, but it’s perfectly acceptable, and maybe even expected – maybe even desirable – when aimed at creatures of the imagination. And despite what the schoolteacher might want to believe, J.K. Rowling does write fiction.

RECOMMENDED READING: The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore.

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.

MICHAEL DAVIS: Do Over

  • News
  • July 20, 2007

michael-davis100-5644230The other day I met a young lady at an airport. She looked around 16 or so. I noticed her looking at the comic book I was reading. When I was done I gave it to her. We started talking. She is a young artist who is struggling with her weight. She is being picked on at school and has one real friend. She wants to be a comic artist and is a big fan of Static Shock. She rarely goes outside and says that she sometimes wishes she were not born. She also has a family, which is a little odd. I told her that her family does not define her and that one day what is happening to her will help her. She wished she could start over. Before I could tell her anything else her father noticed we were talking and told her to “Get the **** over here.’

I never got her name, but I hope she remembers the ComicMix information I gave her so she can read this. This is for her…

When I was in grade school I had a terrible reputation. I was known as a punk kid who could not fight. When I was very young I was raised by my mom, my sister and my grandmother. Being raised by three women you tend to get a lot of advice like this,

“You are better than that.”

“Just walk away.”

“Sticks and stones.”

From time to time, my sister would have a different slant on things. Her advice really depended on how she felt that day. I would get, ‘Who cares what he said?’ Or ‘I can’t believe you did not kick his ass!’ That kind of mixed advice is enough to land any kid in therapy.

Living in the projects the last thing you want to known as is a punk. If you are then you better hook up with a group of friends or a gang who can look after you. Either that or you need a family member who was crazy so people would leave you alone for fear of that crazy relative of yours. I actually have a crazy cousin. He murdered four people in a drug-induced state. He was my favorite cousin until he did that. I have not spoken to him in more than 30 years; that’s how long he’s been in jail. I am not one of those people who think that blood is thicker than water.

Nope. Not me, I’m not that guy.

I don’t care who you are, you murder four innocent people to support your drug habit, then you are out of my life, period. Before I get all kinds of comments saying that I am heartless and that family is everything consider this: you may stick by a family member no matter what and I respect that, but I’m not you. As loud as I can get sometimes I am a real simple guy. My simplicity is almost comical to my family and friends. I only need one thing to make me content, that one thing is piece of mind.

If he ever gets out of jail then do I really want him around me? Do I really want to hear him explain why he did it? Do I really want to share holidays with this stranger? Make no mistake, the moment he killed four people he was no longer my favorite cousin, he was a stranger because the cousin I knew would not have done that. Yes, I have forgiven him, but that’s not even the point because the people he needs to forgive him is the family of those kids (yes, kids) he killed.

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DENNIS O’NEIL: Do You Believe In Magic?

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  • July 17, 2007

Here it is Tuesday evening and we’re still debating. Should we go to the 11:59 showing of the new Harry Potter flick at the local 21-plex or catch one of the early showings in the morning?  Pros and cons on both sides.  But we will see the movie within the next 24 hours; count on it.

Although I’ve enjoyed the previous films, I can’t call myself a Potter fan.  I haven’t read any of J.K. Rowling’s novels, though I love Ms Rowling’s bio: single mom writing in a café becomes hugely successful author, celebrity, and megamillionaire within about a decade, without becoming a robber baroness.  But Marifran’s read the books.  Oh yes indeed.  And so have daughters Meg and Beth.  So I’m pretty up on the Hogwarts scene and when the final volume in the series arrives in a couple of weeks, I expect my conversations with my wife to be conducted in monosyllables until she reaches the last page and learns Harry’s fate.

I’m surprised that these things are so popular, as I was surprised at the resurgence of interest in J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings saga and the huge success of the movies made from Tolkein’s trilogy. The reason is, I thought we were past believing in magic. 

Oh, sure, you don’t have to actually believe in something to enjoy stories about it.  But we do have to be able to accept it on some level. It helps the willing suspension of disbelief your English teacher told you is necessary to the enjoyment of fiction if you can allow that what you’re being told about exists, or could exist, or at least might have existed. Hero stories are about as old as civilization, and the tale-tellers always supply a reason why their protagonists have extraordinary powers.  In classic Greece, for example, and later in Rome, superpowers were explained by their possessors either being gods, or half-gods, or children of gods, or gods’ special pals.  Then plain ol’ magic, origin unknown, was used to rationalize superhuman feats in folk tales like those in A Thousand and One Nights. 

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Comics Links & Reviews

  • News
  • July 14, 2007

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Beaucoup Kevin thinks this (to your right) is the greatest comics panel of all time. (It’s possible…after all, malt does more than Milton can to justify Kirby’s ways to man.)

The Beat reports that Too Much Coffee Man will be debuting in a new form at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con: as an opera.

Todd Allen of Comic Book Resources collates all of the various statements about DC’s big Zudacomics world-domination scheme, and tries to explain what to expect from it.

The Nichei Bei Times asks the loaded question: what is manga?

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