From Dark Reign Elektra #1:

and Deadpool #10:

C’mon, guys. I can appreciate wanting Gavin to die. I’ve been on that path since like 2001. But why’d you have to turn me white and try to have Elektra kill me? 🙁

Esther should probably watch her back. I’m sure she’ll show up in Batman: Battle for the Cowl annnnny minute now.

I had a post all set to go for today.  You’ll see it tomorrow.  Today I would like to take a moment to discuss a very serious illness that I was recently diagnosed with.

It’s called Tie Up The Goddamn Villain Syndrome, and eighty percent of Americans experience it at one time or another.  Sadly, mine is an extreme case.

For example, when people around me discuss Pan’s Labyrinth, and how it’s such a breathtaking visual achievement paired with a dark, fairytale-like story, all I can think about is how I wished the murderous bastard of a captain had won, because when that idiot maid incapacitated him temporarily she didn’t Tie Up The Goddamn Villain.  For that alone, he deserved to win, and I don’t even care that he knocked a guy’s teeth out with a whiskey bottle.

I have to bite my fist to keep from shouting at screen in every Die Hard movie except the first, because John McClane won’t just Tie Up The Goddamn Villain.

And Dollhouse?  The series I started watching out of loyalty to Joss Whedon, and continued watching because it got pretty good, and then got excited about because it got really, really good, just completely tanked in my eyes, because oh my good god, just when the heroine knocked out the villain, and all was won, she wandered off to take care of something else and then acted shocked, shocked!, when it turned out that unconsciousness was a temporary state.  And so, I leave you with my final reaction to the series. Read the rest of this entry �

Cheryl Lynn and I play this game on twitter. I’ll post a link to something I find interesting/funny/horrible, and she’ll click it and end up thirsting for vengeance and retaliate a few days later. I’m pretty sure that being linked to this essay on scans_daily is the latest volley in our cold war 2.0, and probably payback for the time that I called Brother Voodoo the Cam’ron of comics.

I’d actually slotted the post away to write about today, because it’s so wholly horrible. Setting aside the word “Thorm,” I could take issue with

Because as a starting point for hooking up 2 characters go, “storm deities living in New York” makes a heck of a lot more sense than “two black Africans who have met maybe twice”.

or

I always liked that aspect about how Storm’s features were the distilation of the best of the various human racial groups, something that pretty much seems to have been tossed by the wayside.

or

Who drew it? (i can’t read the signature) Storm’s features are so unique and diverse.

I mean, the last one bugs me on a grammar level (you can’t be “so” unique like lights can’t be “so” off) and a race level. I would’ve had this short-ish essay springboarding from the topic of Storm being some ridiculous mesh of all races into my absolute loathing of use of the terms urban/ethnic/exotic/diverse when all you really want to say is “black” or “not white.”

I think it would’ve been pretty good, honestly. I haven’t really dug into race&comics since black history month, and I rarely see other people doing it regularly. I was starting to feel that itch again. But, Cheryl beat me to it with this jawn, her long-awaited essay on the female half of Black Trinity. I wrote last year about Luke Cage as the Black Reality, Shilo Norman as the Black Fantasy, and Black Panther as the Black Ideal. Three aspects of one people: pure wish fulfillment, reality, and then the best we can hope to be.

Cheryl’s first entry is on Storm as the Black Fantasy. In her own words:

Today we are going to talk about the Black Fantasy from the female perspective. And the Black Fantasy is Storm. Storm is what black women want, or are constantly informed by the media that they should want, but are also told that they never will achieve. To be loved and to be beautiful. To be free. To be special.

Basically, you need to read it, and after you read it, you need to digg it. Link it around if you can. I noticed that it’s on Comics Blips, which is kind of like a baby digg. Get it out there.

The Battle for the Cowl so far is comprised of three main books, numerous associated mini-series, and a few scattered one-shot tie-ins.  I’m not strongly affected either way by most of these, but this week two of those one-shots loom large in my mind.

The first is an example of the perfect tie-in.  It shows us something we never would have seen if we were following a conventional narrative, and offers us something truly different from the norm while still maintaining the tone of the world for which it was created.  That one was Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum.  Written by David Hine, it takes us on a tour of Arkham Asylum, and for once focuses on the less gruesome aspects of the institution.  Jeremiah Arkham narrates the story, not in the usual hard-boiled tone taken by the Gotham crowd, but with sincere sadness that he hasn’t been able to help the inmates. 

While we sense that he is somewhat unhinged himself, he’s an eccentric and an idealist, not the usual film-noir lunatic.  He finds picks a few inmates who pose no threat, and leads them out of the ruined structure.  In the end, before the final, worrying sting, he expresses the hope that he can rebuild the asylum so that it lives up to its name – so that it can be a true asylum for those who are unable to survive in the conventional world.  It’s refreshing, it’s sobering, and it’s creative.

Sadly, I only really got to thinking about how excellent it was while reading Battle for the Cowl: The Network.  Well, now I know something about myself, at least.  Pissiness is a bigger motivator than honest admiration.

So let’s get to it! 

Well, first thing’s first.  Huntress’s costume has been changed back to a glorified bikini.  And why?  Because the promotional poster for the event, drawn by Tony Daniel, has her back in her Jim Lee costume.  I don’t see why this would necessitate a costume change in the actual book any more than the ‘The Real Power In The DCU’ poster would necessitate putting every woman in the DCU in a white evening dress, but I guess that’s how they’re going to play it.

Honestly?  I didn’t even notice the costume change.  A girl fighting crime in a bikini doesn’t catch my eye anymore.  What made me notice was the characters in the story can’t stop picking at the new outfit.  Batgirl, still with a perfect command of the English language, mentions it once.  Oracle mentions it later.  Both talk about how impractical it is.

I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s a jab by writer at a mandated costume change.  Maybe he’s was trying to have his cake and eat it, too, by putting Huntress in a two-piece bathing suit and still snarking about it.  I’m not sure who made the decisions to regress Huntress sartorially. 

I just know that the decision was also made to regress her personally.  When the villain announces that he will start murdering two hostages if the heroes don’t murder one, Huntress pulls her crossbow and is about to take a hostage out when Batgirl knocks her aside.  This is the deal-breaker for me.  Cass is back on the moral high ground, but she had to knock Helena off it to get there.  Never mind that in continuity we haven’t seen Huntress kill in years.  Never mind that we’ve never seen her kill that casually.  In the end, the plot of this book involves the worst mistake a team book can make: cutting off one character at the knees to make another character look good.  That’s never the way to go.

In short: Buy Battle for the Cowl:Arkham Asylum.  Leave Battle for the Cowl: The Network on the shelf.  And stop making women fight in swimwear.

Cheryl Lynn threw a link to Wide Awake Online up on Twitter yesterday, with a comment about how she liked the art. I figured I’d give it a look since she’s an Adam Warren fan, like all right-minded people.

What I found was pretty interesting. The artist, Mirco Pierfederici (some slight NSFW down the page), is an Italian cat who’s only done a few works in English, near as I can tell. I read Wide Awake, though, and was pretty impressed. His style has shades of Adam Hughes, Daniel Acuña, and Ryan Sook. I’m fairly certain that he does his own colors, as well, which is very neat. It’s an attractive style, and one that’s good enough for me to keep reading.

It’s a short look at the series, but pretty neat. Interesting, Greg Rucka’s buddy Eric Trautmann and Brandon Jerwa are writing it. Two decently established comics pros doing a free webcomic seems like it should be a bigger deal than it is. The only other guy I can think of who’s doing that off the top of my head is Warren Ellis, and maybe some of the Zuda crew.

The dreams of Amanda Carter, the main character, come to life every time she sleeps. It’s clear that there’s something else behind it, and finding out what that’s going to be is going to be pretty cool, I hope. Trautmann wrote a post about the series here with some background info. It updates weekly.

Johanna Draper-Carlson wrote a post about another new webcomic. 2D Goggles is a comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, Grandparents of modern computing. It’s a fun little ditty about equations, numbers, and science, but manages to be amazingly entertaining despite all of the gross science involved.

It’s a pretty clever strip, with lots of fun bits for careful readers. The Twitter joke is probably my favorite, but Ada thinking “Ponies + Numbers = :D” is also very funny to me. It’s totally a “Girls like ponies” joke, but it works. If you like historical fiction and comedy, or either of them, click on through.

The other day I was in a comics forum and saw a certain creator roasted in absentia.  Par for the course, so far.  We’re comics geeks.  We eat our own.  Most of the people in the forum joined in the, how shall I put this, unholy orgy of hate.  Again, that’s pretty normal for the internet, and I have, in the past, not been above joining a group that took pleasure in tearing into an innocent human being who has done nothing more than write a comic in a way I don’t approve of. 

This time, however, it surprised me.  A single apoplectic comics fan can happen anywhere.  And, of course, there are pockets of fan-worship and deep hatred depending on which section of the internet you stumble into.  On one site Frank Miller is a misunderstood genius.  On another he’s Satan incarnate.  But this creator would have been popular anywhere a couple of years ago.

I haven’t been a comics fan for all that long, but even in a few years, I’ve noticed that there can be a complete reversal of popular opinion about one creator or another.  Sometimes it can be as simple as having a huge build up to a disappointing run.  Sometimes it’s an unpopular decision about what to do with one character or another (although that usually is what gets editors in trouble).  Sometimes it’s an unfortunate public statement.

Sometimes, however, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it at all.  One year, the creator is the best thing happening, and then the tide turns.  Fans go from clamoring for more to screaming about how that’s enough already.

I wonder how comics professionals feel about this.  I suppose anyone in charge of a  comics company has resigned themselves to hatred, but what about those who depend on popularity for a living?  Do they live in dread that one day their name on a website will mean an avalanche of scorn and criticism?  I certainly would.

Fortunately, critics are immune.  Right?

Philip Bond is one of my favorite artists. He absolutely killed on Vimanarama and Kill Your Boyfriend, not to mention his Invisibles work. He’s one of the artists I follow on Flickr, and he’s got all of his art neatly sorted into a group cleverly named “artwork.”

He’s got a very cool set going of female astronauts. Each head shot comes along with a bit of history. Here’s a sample:

Delta Tau Delta sweetheart Judith Resnik became the fourth female astronaut when she flew as mission specialist aboard the maiden voyage of the Shuttle Discovery in 1984. Judith was killed during the launch of her second spaceflight aboard the Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

He’s got a ton of pieces of art, and about half a dozen astronauts. Go give it a look.

A public opinion poll conducted jointly by Gallup and Japan`s Yomiuri Shimbun in November of 2008 revealed that positive feelings toward America were at their lowest ebb in decades with only 32% of Japanese respondents saying that they “trust” America compared to 67% of Americans who express “trust” for Japan.[3] Rather than being channeled constructively, such as through discussion of the nature of the Japanese-American relationship, however, these feelings are instead manifested in examples like Morikawa’s war image and simplistic “vengeance through boxing” narrative.

–Nationalism and Anti-Americanism in Japan – Manga Wars, Aso, Tamogami, and Progressive Alternatives

I found this link via Brigid at MangaBlog this weekend. It’s a long read, but a rewarding one. It doubles as both a sociology and a history lesson.

Hunter.

I’m a huge fan of Darwyn Cooke, which should come as no surprise to anyone who reads 4l!. I’m also a big fan of Payback’s Straight Up Director’s Cut, one of the few Mel Gibson movies I still watch on purpose. I first saw it when I was a kid and enjoyed it, but the new cut makes it more true, in tone at least, to Richard Stark/Donald Westlake‘s The Hunter. This series is about an unrepentant criminal getting into situations that sometimes involve evil actions to get out of, which basically makes it right up my alley as far as story concepts go.

So, what’s all this got to do with Darwyn Cooke? I’m a fan of a lot of things, but rarely do things that I’m a big fan of intersect like they are going to when Darwyn Cooke draws an adaptation of Richard Stark’s The Hunter. That link contains a link to the preview, which is a downloadable PDF.

What I’m trying to say is that you need to read this, or else you’ll hate yourself forever. The release date can’t come fast enough.

In 1997, Frank Miller did this book called Tales to Offend. It was an extra-sized one shot, rather than a graphic novel, and featured three stories. One of the stories was Daddy’s Little Girl, a Sin City tale about a sadistic couple and brutal violence. The other two were about Lance Blastoff, Frank Miller’s take on Buck Rogers.

It isn’t exactly a straight take on the character at all. Lance is brash, loud, and offensive. He’s Buck Rogers after making his way through a crooked mirror, eight or nine packs of smokes, and probably homelessness. The two stories are ’90s-era pop psychology and political correctness versus an unbelievable level of super tough guy machismo. Think of every role Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Clint Eastwood ever did being ground up into bits and reformed as one being, and then that one being being force fed a diet of trashy movies and old EC books.

I don’t think that it’s Miller’s best work, but it is one of the relatively few times he’s done an out and out humor book, so it’s pretty interesting to see. It’s also one of the things he’s done that I can’t seem to find reprinted or collected. Daddy’s Little Girl made it into “Booze, Broads, & Bullets,” a collection of Sin City one shots, but Lance has faded into the ether.

I hadn’t even actually read the story until last week, despite having heard about it off and on for years. I love that Miller’s space ships still look like big body Cadillacs. Also nice is how the story is told in pages of two panels a piece until the last two. The “CHOMP” on the next to last page is a total cartoon bit, and I mean that in the best possible way. Lance Blastoff would fit right in on [adult swim] nowadays, I think.