So, say if we wanted to start a 4l! podcast. What would you folks like to hear us talk about? Any segments you’d love to hear? Want to hear us read viewer mail? Want to send us viewer mail?
Let us know. Email me if you’re shy!
We all know the story. Fan meets comic. Fan loves comic. Fan loses comic.
Not through cancellation!
As Emerson said, “Of all the ways to lose a comic, cancellation is the kindest.”
Or something like that.
No. Sometimes you lose a comic because the artist changes, or the writer changes, or there is some editorial futzing with it.
Sometimes though, one just falls out of love. Sometimes a character that seemed fun or cool or exciting gets unbearable when the same flaws are brought to light again and again.
Sometimes I start out singing the praises of a certain writer, and then something happens. I have to say that they’re having a bad story arc. Or some evil editor forced them to write a certain thing. Then I say the book isn’t a good match. Sometimes I love a certain storyline, but then come to realize that that storyline, that ‘fresh, new take’, that idea, is all they are capable of. In the end, I have to admit that I’ve fallen out of love with the writing.
Or the artist. Oh boy, how many times have seen some new artist’s work and loved it, only to look at the issue six months later and scream, “WHY are you drawing a line there? There is no part of human anatomy that would make that line go there! You’re just doing it to be ‘artistic.'”
I think it’s this gradual disenchantment that makes for the bitterest of comics fans. If you think some idea is stupid, or have low expectations at the beginning, you develop a healthy detachment. But when you start out loving something and have high hopes for it, only to see it mutate into something you’re embarrassed to read – that’ll make you post some angry rants on message boards.
So. Post your tales of love and loss below. Come on. Get it all out. Just . . . clean up, after.
(Gavok note: This is an article I wrote for PopCultureShock a while back. Because I’m distracted by my inability to defeat Title Defense Piston Hondo at the moment, I figured now would be a good time to start posting some of these where they belong: at 4th Letter. I snipped the first few paragraphs, since it was more of an introduction and you already know me. Which reminds me, we need to hang like old times. Let’s hit the roller rink this Sunday. They have a Wrestlefest arcade machine there. It’ll be fun.)
Allow me to introduce you to what may be the first comic I’ve ever owned. I’m not certain if I owned this before or after I was given a copy of that Luke Cage anti-smoking comic in health class. In fact, I’m really not certain why or how I had this in the first place. All I recall is one day owning a copy of The Adventures of JELL-O Man and Wobbly.
Nobody else seems to remember JELL-O Man, I’m afraid. He was a brief JELL-O mascot during the introduction of their Jigglers. As you can see from that cover, JELL-O Man’s dog Wobbly was created by the J, as JELL-O Man himself was the E, L, L and O mixed together to create some kind of horrid demon freak never meant to walk God’s green Earth. I also notice that they each have a dash for a nose. Where’d that extra dash come from?! It’s questions like this that answer why there was never a second issue. Brevoort would’ve been all over that shit.
Other than a kid’s cookbook, JELL-O Man and Wobbly were featured in a couple animated commercials that I seem to recall as being pretty sweet. I can’t know for sure until somebody puts them on YouTube.
This comic has three stories, a rather huge insert that I’ll get to in a bit, a couple pages of games and seven different JELL-O advertisements. Our first story, The Outrageous Origin of JELL-O Man and Wobbly is written by Michael J. Pellowski, a regular on Archie Comics and its spin-offs. Richard Howell does all the art here, except for Ken Steacy, who does the cover and advertisements.
All right, I was the very last person in the world to read Blackest Night, but as I was going through the explanation of all the different Lantern Guilds at the end of the book I stumbled across this:
The blue ring charges a green ring and de-charges a yellow.
Is it just me, or does anyone else hear a pair of dice rolling when they read a phrase like that?
I think that the various Lantern Guilds at war with each other would make fantastic role-playing games.
I read Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, Volume 1
I’m not exactly familiar with Astro Boy. I know the basics, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a movie or tv series, or even read the originals. So, for me, Pluto is an introduction to both Astro Boy/Atom and Tezuka himself. Bear with me if this is something you’ve heard before.
While reading Pluto v2, I realized that Atom is what happens when Pinocchio gets to be a real boy, while Gesicht, the inspector and star of the book, has only gone partway down that path. It was a gut feeling that struck me when Atom scanned Gesicht’s memory chip. Rather than discussing what he saw that bothered him, he came up with an excuse to go to the bathroom, where he began bawling his eyes out. That scene quickly became one of my favorite scenes in comics. I’ve had comics that are purely emotionally manipulative, but this scene was honest and extremely sad.
That moment, when combined with the anti-robot bigotry of a police detective and probing questioning from Gesicht, made me realize why Atom is a “real boy,” despite being wholly artificial. The bigoted detective kept asking Atom questions, trying to prove that robots can’t feel genuine emotion or appreciate beautiful things. Gesicht wasn’t as rude as the other detective, but he also wanted to know about Atom’s feelings.
Both detectives want Atom to quantify these very fleeting feelings as a way of either proving his humanity or his robothood. “Do you really feel that? What is this like? You can’t appreciate this, can you?” Atom can’t articulate what these feelings mean. Either he can’t pin them down or he doesn’t know. Either way, he can’t express how the emotions work or what effect they have on him.
However, humans are the same way. We have dozens, if not hundreds, of ways to say that food tastes good. There are high level ways to say it. Food is delicious, tasty, appetizing, or succulent. There are more specific ways, as well. Food can be spicy, tangy, sour, or sweet. If you asked someone to describe why they liked pepperoni pizza, they’d probably use some of these words. If you asked them to describe why the spicy pepperoni tastes good, what would they say?
Can you turn “I like it” into something quantifiable? What about love? Art? I think that you can approach it, and you can certainly give reasons why, but when it comes down to it, you like things because you like them. They touch something inside of you. You can try to figure out exactly why and explain it to others, but you can’t communicate some things. You can only approach it. Describing “sad” as a bio-chemical reaction in your brain is one thing, but does it actually cover “sad”?
Judging by Urasawa’s other work, this reading is almost definitely intentional. Atom can’t articulate certain things inside him, and he isn’t human, but he is not human in a way that all humans are not human. He can’t reliably articulate the same things we can’t, and that is what makes him human.
Gesicht is the opposite. He’s a robot who wants to know all about how Atom isn’t a robot, and how that relates to Gesicht’s own robothood. He’s picking Atom’s brain to see where he stands.
He’s essentially a Pinocchio who hasn’t realized that he is a real boy. Where Atom knows that he’s a robot and accepted “fake it until you make it” as something he can do, Gesicht isn’t comfortable with faking it, and therefore isn’t comfortable in his own humanity.
Obviously, I’m only two books into a multi-part series, but at the moment, I’m completely fascinated by Atom. Everything about him, from his tousled hair and innocent looks to the contrast between his robotic skills and very human demeanor makes him a character that I just have to see more of.
Jack Johnson was the son of two slaves and one of the greatest boxers who ever lived. He entered a sport that had previously been the province of white males and dominated. It’s probably fair to say that he was one of the first high-profile black athletes. He had endorsement deals, interviews, and was probably even the originator of black athletes marrying white chicks (no oj simpson). He may have been a little more Mike Tyson than Muhammad Ali, but the man’s skills were undeniable. You couldn’t ignore him if you wanted to.
A lot of people probably wanted to ignore him. Jack was loud, brash, and could lean almost anybody who stepped into the ring. He was a demolisher, and he’s the reason why the idea of a “Great White Hope” exists. His wins were seen as a genuine insult to many people of the time, to the point that James Jeffries came out of retirement for the express purpose of putting him down to show that whites were better than blacks. Spoiler: Jeffries lost in the 15th.
Jack Johnson was a monster, and an inspiration to many. The relationship between blacks and sports has often been a contentious one, but it’s also one that’s given many a kid hope for the future. Heroes are heroes, and if you see someone like you doing something amazing, that sticks with you.
Why am I talking about this? A friend pointed me to a Miles Davis album last night, “A Tribute to Jack Johnson.” Two tracks, 50 minutes of music. I figured I’d hop on AmazonMP3 and buy it. Once I got there, I found a surprise. Click this picture.
So order A Tribute To Jack Johnson
Today is a very special day, as one of the all-time best videogames finally gets a modernized update. To celebrate, here is possibly my favorite YouTube video ever.
And while I’m at it…
The world needs more Von Kaiser.
Cheryl Lynn has another entry in her Black Trinity run. This time, it’s on Martha Washington, one of my favorite characters, as the Black Reality.
For the Black Reality is that you have to work twice as hard to get half the recognition. Martha works four times as hard and gets all of it. She saves her country numerous times. She exposes her detractors for the dangerous and deluded beings they are. Not for glory, but because her will and desire for freedom is simply that strong. She is that special.
I’d like to start by thanking everyone for their responses to my post last week about how sexiness is used in the comics industry.
Believe it or not, that post was going to be longer. I was going to add an extraneous bit about how Batman or the Joker would never be shown in the poses that Harley Quinn or Catwoman were in on the covers of those books, and how that was an example of sexism.
Now I can’t decide whether it is or not. Not because I think that Batman would be posed the way that Oracle was on any of the covers of her comic, but because the artists, when drawing female characters one way and male characters another, are simply following the rules of society in general.
