Flashbackville continues! Bloggers talking about bloggers! Read part two and come back here to read part 3! Words!

DB: Oh, I did feel that pressure. It was shortly after I got attention for blogging about race, I think, when I felt like I absolutely had to comment on everything. Very much a “If nobody else is gonna do it, then I will!” It was “with great power comes great responsibility,” but arrogant and stupid, because I absolutely did not have to say something about everything. It felt like an obligation, but in reality, it was just me being foolish.

Before I learned to say “Whatever,” I was over-extending myself trying to keep up with what was going on in blacks and comics. I still do feel that pressure, but I’m smarter now, and more discerning. I understand that comprehensive coverage isn’t necessarily the best thing, choosing instead to focus on a few worthy subjects. Sometimes I hear about something that I could write about, but it’s just a joke to me at this point. “Oh, Brian Bendis wrote a comic where Luke Cage was felled by a heart attack? What, all the black characters got high blood pressure?”

I like your point about Graphicontent being “Two English lit guys talking comics.” I don’t think bloggers need anything more than two eyes and a brain, but I’m kinda in the same boat as you guys. I started really studying lit in high school, thanks to a teacher who would crack the whip if you didn’t slacked off, and kept that up through college. In fact, if you go back and look at my transcript, I’m willing to bet that they were the only classes with consistent grades, because I actually cared about reading and dissecting what I read. For me, it’s very much about using skills that were nurtured in school. “After Apple-picking” isn’t so different from Seaguy or DKSA, I don’t think, you know? They all use references and metaphor to illustrate a point, and sometimes that point is open to interpretation. I think I’m pretty good at that critical analysis thing, taking one specific aspect of a book and talking about what works about it. It’s a little different from annotations, which are David Uzumeri’s trade, or the way that Jog puts everything he talks about into their exact historical and artistic context, but no less valuable.

Approaching comics like real books with meaningful content and all gives me a kick. I feel like you and I have similar approaches, though you’re better at reviews than I am. Your Splash Pages with Tim Callahan feel a lot like what I’m talking about, two guys dismantling things to see how they work. Does that sound right to you? How’d you end up hooking up with Tim? Was it a case of like minds seeking each other out?

CN: I found about Tim through his book on Morrison’s early work. That got a lot of buzz when it came out, including an interview on CBR, I believe, so I ordered and read it (aside from the Doom Patrol chapter since I hadn’t read that run completely at the time). Around that time, I decided to write a big post on Morrison’s first year on Batman and wound up referencing him and Geoff Klock a little bit. He somehow came across the post and left a comment about how it was good or something and I geeked out a little since here was this guy who wrote a book about Morrison and he liked what I wrote about Morrison. After that, I read his blog, he read my blog, we left favourable comments back and forth, and in early 2008, he asked if I wanted to do the Splash Page with him for Sequart’s website. It began with us just picking a book each week and discussing it, and people apparently like it, and it’s gone through a variety of formats since Sequart had site problems, including a lovely stay at CBR. I’ve never quite understood why it works since Tim and I are pretty similar in our tastes and approach to comics that you wouldn’t necessarily think it would be interesting to read. Usually, when you have two people talking about anything, the appeal is that they approach things from different perspectives like you and Esther in the Fourcast, but Tim and I… I don’t know how that works, but it seems to be the work people like best from both of us — which is gratifying and a little frustrating since I’m sure we’d both rather be liked for our own work more than the discussions we dash off in spare five minutes here and there.

The thing I actually like best about the Splash Page is just having a chance to discuss comics with someone. I gave up message boards years ago for a variety of reasons and the blogosphere has filled that gap a bit, but talking with Tim is also good for getting that need to discuss things out of my system. (Though, twitter is filling that gap pretty well, too.) Is that why you began the Fourcast with Esther? And why podcasting instead of something like the Splash Page that’s text-based? How do you find discussing comics for a podcast compared to writing about them? One of the things I worry about when it comes to doing a podcast is that I’ll sound a lot worse than I present myself since, with words, you can delete and rewrite until it says what you want it to say. Going from that much control to just hoping you don’t say stupid things is a little scary.

Part four is up!

Scott Pilgrim vs the World trailer here.

I didn’t see an embeddable, but if I come across one, I’ll post it!

I am like 99.9% sure that the KO sound comes from Capcom’s Street Fighter Alpha 3. Watch this video and fast-forward to 1:40:

BAM EXCLUSIVE COMICS JOURNALISM RIGHT THERE BABY!

Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver, two very talented creators, are the creative team on Marvel’s new book SHIELD, which is easiest describe as historical fiction in the Marvel Universe. Here’s the pitch:

Leonardo Da Vinci was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. So was Issac Newton. So were Imhotep and Zhang Heng and Galileo and many other geniuses throughout time. They were the first heroes to defeat Galactus and the Brood and turn Celestials back. They saved the world long before Captain America or Iron Man were ever born, but what does this mean to our heroes of today? What does this mean to Nick Fury? Do not miss this Marvel Comics masterpiece that fans will be talking about for decades to come. All the insanity is courtesy of JONATHAN HICKMAN (FANTASTIC FOUR, SECRET WARRIORS, Nightly News) and DUSTIN WEAVER (X-MEN).

It’s a neat idea, the sort of thing What Ifs are made of, and while I’m not super excited about it, I’m a little interested. Sort of thing you skim to see if you want it, or maybe just cop the hardcover a ways down the line. CBR recently posted an exclusive unlettered preview of the first issue, with nine story pages and one cover. We get a look at (and these are educated guesses going by the text above the issue) Zhang Heng staring down a Celestial (maybe Gammenon the Gatherer?), Da Vinci strapping on a flight harness, and Galileo getting ready to face Galactus and his herald. That leaves one guy facing down the Brood. He’s dressed in Egyptian garb, which makes him Imhotep. Here’s what he looks like:

Here is the problem with that image: he looks like a generic white guy. Imhotep, to my understanding, was worshiped in Greece in the form of a brown-skinned man. Much of the art I’ve seen, or books I’ve read (granted, this was years ago), supports that idea. I don’t know whether he was black or not, but I think it’s fair to say that he wasn’t white, either.

The subject of the race of ancient Egyptians is an intensely frustrating one, and one likely to not see any closure ever. I’m reasonably sure that everything I have read says that the Egyptians were not white, but they weren’t black (as we know the term), either. They were somewhere in-between, some flavor of brown.

The thing about the race of the ancient Egyptians is that the water is severely muddied by past racism. Egypt was essentially claimed by white scholars and separated from the rest of Africa, which served to further the idea that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites.

(Another similar instance of this is the story of Ham, Shem, and Japheth, the three sons of Noah. The three sons theoretically represent three races: African, Semitic, and European. As Ham was cursed in the story, and blacks were descended from him, they were also cursed. This is taught in black churches and is the worst kind of self-loathing there is. If you believe this, please, wake up. Don’t be ignorant of your own history.)

Later, Imhotep as a black man was fully embraced by afrocentrists, people desperate to rebuild a culture that had been stolen from them. Having the father of medicine and architecture be a black man is a huge boon to the self-esteem of an oppressed people.

You can see how this can get very complicated, and very touchy, very quickly.

I’m not here to say that Imhotep was blacker than the nighttime sky of Bed-Stuy in July. I don’t know, I can’t say, I’m not qualified for that. I do feel confident in saying that he was probably brown. He was definitely African. He was an amazingly smart man.

But, he wasn’t white. And the rest of the Egyptians on that page– they wouldn’t have been white, either.

I’d like to enjoy SHIELD. But honestly, stuff like this makes me a lot less likely to pick it up. Maybe that’s just me.

edit: I emailed Dustin Weaver to ask, and he said that the coloring is a mistake, something that just slipped through the cracks. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in the trade. Either way, Weaver is a cool dude, so I’m trying the first issue at the very least.

Chad Nevett had the good idea to do some kind of team-up for our fifth blogging anniversaries. We ended up doing an informal chat, going over our respective histories, approaches, and various things related to blogging. I think we both like to talk, because it ended up being pretty huge. Hopefully it’s interesting, too, in that “two guys talking about each other and themselves” sort of way. I liked doing it, hopefully you like reading it.

The image up top comes from Jordan T Neves, a reader who shot that over to me on Twitter a couple weeks ago. Thanks Jordan! Check out his site (with sketchaday) or his twitter.

On with the bloggers talking about blogging! There are going to be several parts spread between 4l! and Chad’s site over the next few days, each in relatively easy to manage chunks. I’ll update this with links as we go along. Chad’s piece should be up later today.

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Chad Nevett: I guess we should begin at the beginning… February and March 2005. Where were you at the time, what were you doing, and why did you begin a blog?

David Brothers: I’d have to push back to January 2005, when I started Guerilla Grodd. Or actually, a few months prior is the true secret origin of 4thletter!. I’d spent the past couple years making side money reviewing video games for a fistful of websites while sleeping my way through state school. I noticed that a comics site had an open call for reviewers. I figured, hey- I can do this for video games, why not comics? I picked JLA Classified #1 (a Grant Morrison and Ed McGuinness piece), wrote a review, and mailed it off. I never heard back, or maybe I didn’t wait to hear back, and posted it on a brand new Livejournal account.

Basically, I began a blog just because I could. Why not, right? After a couple months and 54 posts doing brief reviews, a couple of analytical pieces on the first two Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart’s Seaguy (which remain unfinished, but are still online), and some pretty basic and personality-less linkblogging, I bought a domain, moved the site over to Blogspot, and christened it 4thletter! because I’m an unbelievable narcissist. I drafted Gavin “Gavok” Jasper and Thomas “Wanderer” Wilde, old e-friends of mine, to help out and we took off running.

Kinda. We made 50-some posts between March and late September, mostly courtesy of me and Gav, before petering out. But, it was enough to build a small fanbase as a foundation and kind of get our legs under us, comics blogging-wise. I put down some money on a server in November and launched all over again.

What about you? I feel like I was a Millarworld poster/reader/lurker (now reformed) back when Graphicontent first launched. I know that I was aware of it back when I started writing about comics. Did I imagine the Millarworld connection?

CN: Nope, I am a Millarworld alum… if you can call it that. GraphiContent began with myself and another Millarworld poster, vacuumboy aka Steve Higgins. We, in our naive way, were bemoaning the lack of intelligent blogs about comics and decided to start our own. If you read the GraphiContent missions statement that I wrote for the blog’s launch, you can cringe with me. Some big goals and high ideals brought about by not knowing what else was out there (though, there was a lot less then, I believe). At the time, I was in my third year of my undergrad at the University of Western Ontario, earning a combined honors BA in English and political science, and, oddly, looking for anything to do outside of school. I was also writing for the school paper and felt pretty confident that I had something to say. Which I did for a couple of posts on Marvel Boy and Codeflesh with the odd ‘snippet’ thrown in. Sometime near the beginning, Steve and I recruited a few others to join, but that didn’t really increase our output and the blog remained pretty unused for a couple of years as my life got a little busier with school and being an editor at the school paper.

Things didn’t really pick up again until the fall of 2006 when I moved out of my parents’ house and a couple of hours away to Windsor to get my master’s. Being in a strange city resulted in me needing to fill time a bit more, so I began writing about the trades and random issues I got at the school’s bookstore, which slowly became writing about all of the comics I bought and my opinions on various developments in the industry. And slowly building back a readership after so much time giving them no reason to visit us. Around this time, I officially made the blog just Steve and myself with me doing the bulk of the posts. I don’t know how, but people slowly noticed that I was alive and I began making nice with others like Tim Callahan… the rest, as they say, is history.

I find it funny that both of us went the groupblog route and maintain that mentality now. Why did you get others to join you? Why not just go it alone? And when did Esther join?

Continued over at Chad’s spot!

For today’s Tales of Wrestlemania profile, let’s go with Andre the Giant.

Wrestlemania 1: Andre battles and defeats Big John Studd with Andre’s very career on the line. In Studd’s corner is Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.

Wrestlemania 2: Andre continues to show his dominance by winning the big battle royal. Later, in the main event, Heenan’s acquisition King Kong Bundy fails to defeat Hogan for the title.

Wrestlemania 3: Andre and Heenan have joined forces to get the title off Hogan. Andre loses the match. Once again, Heenan has failed.

Wrestlemania 4: Andre has a rematch with Hogan, though this time represented by Ted Dibiase. Andre succeeds in taking Hogan out of the tournament, but when he tries to take out Savage, Hogan appears to strike him down. Also at this show, Jake Roberts has a match with Rick Rude that starts a feud between Jake and the Heenan Family.

Wrestlemania 5: Andre is back with Heenan and is going after Jake Roberts. Big John Studd is the referee. Andre is disqualified and chased off by Jake, giving Studd some face closure in their rivalry.

Wrestlemania 6: Andre and Haku are the tag champs. They lose the belts to Demolition and Heenan has had enough. Ever since turning heel, Andre has yet to get a victory at Wrestlemania. Heenan slaps Andre and sets him off.

Wrestlemania 7: Andre is too broken down to wrestle, but he does show up to help Big Boss Man fight the Heenan Family. After helping clear the area of Mr. Perfect, Haku and the Barbarian, Andre gives some words of encouragement to Boss Man and effectively passes the torch before moving on.

Has kind of an Anakin Skywalker ring to it.

Read the rest of this entry �

March 25th, 2005: I started doing 4thletter! with a Blogger backend. Months later, after getting bored with Blogger, I relaunched with WordPress in a form very close to what 4thletter! is now.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do specifically for the anniversary, but I do have a couple things I’m gonna post today. Most importantly, though, I want to say thanks to Gavin, Esther, Thomas, and Paul for writing. Thanks to you all for reading.

This was a tough one.  Even the second issue of Birds of Prey looks grim.

But there’s still First Wave, and its unabashed pulp to fall back on.  I like The Spirit, though.  I like that it looks like Doc Savage is punching him in the nose.  And I like that the shadow of Batman’s hand looks like a cartoony claw.

It’s funny how David loved the idea of this series and I was luke-warm, and now I’m having much more fun with it than he is.
Of course I’ve only seen the first issue.

It’s Tuesday, meaning NXT is on tonight. If you are a wrestling fan and you aren’t watching NXT then you’re doing it wrong. You should fix that immediately. It’s the best show the WWE’s put on in years.

For the remaining days of this countdown, I’m going to do something called Tales of Wrestlemania. The events of consecutive Wrestlemanias have a way of telling an abridged story of some wrestlers’ careers. Their matches act like stepping stones to greatness and links to a higher profile. Or perhaps they show a decline in one’s career. Let’s start it off with Tito Santana‘s profile.

Wrestlemania 1: Not only does Tito Santana open the show, but he wins the very first Wrestlemania match. Later in the night, he helps out Junkyard Dog by convincing the referee to reverse his decision in the JYD/Valentine match. Valentine keeps the Intercontinental Championship, which will allow Tito to eventually win it from him. Things are looking good.

Wrestlemania 2: Tito and his good friend Junkyard Dog are now working together as a tag team against the Funks. Junkyard Dog gets clobbered by a megaphone to the head and gets pinned. Oh well. At least Tito wasn’t the one pinned.

Wrestlemania 3: Tito finds himself in another tag match. He and the British Bulldogs are up against the Hart Foundation and Danny Davis. Davis? He should be easy pickings. Unfortunately, Hart’s megaphone gets used again, this time on Dynamite Kid. Crap, another loss. Still, Tito didn’t take the fall. There’s still that.

Wrestlemania 4: Tito’s found a better partner in Rick Martel. They’re even the champions! They lose those titles to Demolition because YET AGAIN, Tito’s partner gets hit with the heel manager’s weapon. Goddamn it.

Wrestlemania 5: Okay, Strike Force has been on the shelf for a few months, but things are back to normal. They’re going to beat the Brainbusters and… where is Martel going? Well, great. Not only is Tito alone, but he has to be the one who gets pinned. This tag team stuff is for the birds.

Wrestlemania 6: All right! Singles match! Against the Barbarian, who has also broken away from the tag world to do singles matches. Maybe Tito has a chance– nope. Clothesline off the top rope turns him into an accordion.

Wrestlemania 7: Okay, certainly Tito can defeat the Mountie, right? Nope. Taser to the gut after about a minute in.

Wrestlemania 8: Tito’s back with a revitalized gimmick. Maybe that will help him beat this Shawn Michaels guy. Nope. Not only does he lose, but it’s a stinker of a match. Seven losses in a row at this point.

Wrestlemania 9: Yes! Tito Santana finally gets a win again! It’s against Papa Shango! …Unfortunately, nobody sees this, since it’s delegated to a dark match. Sorry, Tito.

Read the rest of this entry �

One thing that really bugs me when I’m signing comics for folks at a shop or convention is how some of you all refer to yourselves as “fanboys” or “geeks,” calling yourselves all kinds of bad names and making it sound like loving comics means being something less than human. I’ve met a lot of you, thousands of you, over the years. You’re a smart bunch, a literate bunch. You’re fun to talk with. The bad eggs, and the much-mentioned crazies, are few and very far between. I’m lucky to have the readers I have, and I’m grateful for your attention and loyalty.

A self-contempt, even a self-hatred, suffuses our amazing little field, expressed as often by publishers and writers and artists as by readers. The origins of this industry-wide inferiority complex are historical and foolish. Yes. We are a bastard industry, much maligned. Ours is a story form considered by many, even most, as juvenile and unworthy. So was the novel, once. So were the movies. And maybe people in my position, writers and artists, haven’t yet produced enough superior work to make the rest of the world think better of us. But superior works have been done, and more are in the pipe. The field is rich, very rich, in talent. The art form is unique in its capabilities. Our best days are ahead of us. Comics readers are likewise ahead of public perception. You know you love this stuff. Give the rest of them time to catch up, sure, but don’t think you’re a geek because you love good drawing or a good, dramatic story told well.

We must admit our love for our crazy little business of comic books. Screwy as our history is, unjust and splattered with the lifeblood of our best as our history is, we must move forward, unashamed, even a bit proud. Only that history can drag us back, and down. Only old, bad habits. Only that old, stupid self-contempt.

We’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.

-Frank Miller, from the letters pages in the fifth chapter of The Big Fat Kill. (That issue also included this excellent and NSFW Sergio Aragones pinup.)

I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with the way comics fans embrace nerd and geek as descriptions of a subculture. It feels a little self-loathing and a little high school. I don’t know that I can eloquently articulate why I feel this way, just that it rubs me in a weird way. I think Miller hits it closest when he mentions the self-contempt. Maybe that’s my issue.

Anybody have thoughts?

(While we’re talking Miller, The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century, the Miller/Dave Gibbons satirical future epic with one of the best black females in comics, is getting a softcover release in June. 600 pages. 20 bucks. You do the math.)

Wondercon is right around the corner, taking place from April 2nd to April 4th. It’s probably my favorite con, maybe tied with New York Comic-con, but slightly ahead because I can walk to Wondercon if I like. This one’s gonna be super special, as you can see from these descriptions of Saturday’s programming:

12:30-1:30 Comics Podcasting— Celebrating 5 years of podcasting about the comics industry, join the voices behind the iFanboy series of podcasts, Ron Richards and Conor Kilpatrick, along David Brothers and Esther Inglis-Arkell from the Fourcast! from 4thLetter, plus some possible very special guests as they discuss the ins and outs of podcasting about comics, what’s changed over the past 5 years, and what the future holds. You won’t want to miss this frank discussion, which is sure to be filled with often embarrassing stories of comics creators, conventions, and other comics related amusements. Room 220

6:00-7:00 Comics Journalism— Join David Brothers (4thletter!), Kate Dacey (manga critic), Graeme McMillan (io9), JK Parkin (Robot 6), and Ron Richards (iFanboy), for a roundtable discussion of comics journalism from all angles. What should publishers and readers expect out of the varied and often fluctuating landscape of comics criticism online? Is comics print journalism dead? What makes a writer worth reading? Expect answers to these questions and more as the panelists, each practicing a different discipline of comics journalism, talks about the what’s, why’s, and how’s of writing about comics online. Room 232/234

So, you know, if you’re around… come around. We’re up against some stiff competition, but really, who cares about Brightest Day and Toy Story 3, anyway?