Not I, that’s who.

But then Hawkman not only bonks a tyrannosaurus rex on the head with his mace, he taunts the poor thing because it can’t touch its own nose.

And then is soundly beaten.  Still, that was a glorious page of newsprint, my friends.  That was comics at its finest.  Hawkman was a better strip than Supergirl this week, and that’s saying something.

All is forgiven Hawks, all is forgiven.

I’ve been looking at the various trailers for motion comics at amazon.com, trying to come up with a consistent opinion on them, and failing completely.

Some, like The Astonishing X-men, look just atrocious.  The figures move like bobble-heads, the zooming of the camera doesn’t let you appreciate the art and the voice acting is flat and unpleasant.

Others have better production values but seem misguided.  Batgirl: Year One, though a great story, doesn’t lend itself to motion comics.  The many flashbacks were difficult to assimilate in the book and just look confused when there’s visual differentiation between present and past, no time to linger, and the camera won’t stop moving.  Also, the voices are way off, with Babs sounding sixteen and James Gordon coming off as angry and repressive, instead of good-natured but over-protective.

Comics like Mad Love and Watchmen, no matter how well done, are just redundant.  Mad Love was already both an episode of the TV show and a comic.  Obviously it’s a popular story, but it’s a story that has been told frame-for-frame in two different kinds of media.  Motion comics split the difference without adding anything.  If you want to see the art, pick up the comic.  If you want to see the story, buy the actual episode of the show.  Same with Watchmen.  We have a movie and a comic.  A motion comic is overkill.

That being said?  I want those Batman: Black and Whiteepisodes.  I want them baaaaad.

Ahhh, there is nothing like a press pass and a big pile of business cards to make a socially awkward nerd feel bold.  This year at San Diego I stalked creators like a panther, if a panther were near-sighted, walked on two legs, and kept nervously grabbing at its own chest to make sure its press badge hadn’t been stolen.

Despite all of this, many creators seemed happy to speak with me.  One such kind soul is Mark Chiarello, who I spoke to briefly and who agreed to an email interview about Wednesday Comics.

Find out about the future of Wednesday Comics and the possibilities for Wednesday webcomics below the cut.

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Cut for spoilers.  Oh, such terrible spoilers.

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When talking about books in the past, I’ve been confronted with a lot of readers talking about why they choose not to buy a particular book.  I keep wondering whether that kind of feedback is a marketer’s dream or nightmare.  So much of the reasons I’ve seen contradict each other.

I’ve started a list under the cut.  Feel free to add on to it.

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Cut for spoilers for the last issue of Batman and Robin.

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I have said that I don’t warm up to new characters easily, and it’s true.  If anything, I find myself hostile to new characters.  Here’s a new person, taking up panels that could easily be devoted to characters that I already like.

Lately I’ve been examining what exactly causes a new character I hate to become someone I like.  It helps when they’re shown to be someone I can understand, but I understand plenty of people I don’t like.

What it comes down to are ‘click’ moments, moment when the character is so fantastic that I’m lifted out of my knee-jerk misanthropy and become a fan.  I haven’t found any particular common thread to these moments, but I’d like to share some with you.

Sasha Bordeaux:  She becomes Batman’s sidekick for a little while.  While sidekicking she meets up with Huntress during a crisis.  Huntress saves her, and snarkily says, “You can thank me later.”  Sasha replies, “Why wait?  Thanks!”  That’s when I began to like her, to cheer her on, and to follow her.  She’s a decent person.  Not a weak person.  Not a soft person.  A strong person with a level enough head not to answer rudeness with rudeness.  She exemplified the strategy of turning the other cheek.  In Gotham.  That takes some doing.

Cheshire:  In the Villains United miniseries, Mockingbird threatens to kill her child in order to keep her on the team.  Her strategy?  Immediately betray the team.  Oh, and sleep with a man to get pregnant so she can ‘replace’ her child.  When the other members rightly point out that his is sociopathic on a level never seen before, she says something like, ‘We were caught and only I managed to cut myself free.  Because I dared.’  Damn.  Just damn.  It’s horrible and it’s fantastic.

Booster Gold:  When he tried to save Ted Kord despite knowing the world would suck because of it.  That’s just self-explanatory.  What?  I’m not made of stone! 

Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown:  These two entirely won me over when they spar until both of them vomit and then decide to do it again the next day.  Their friendship is literally my lead-in to both characters.  It features everything I like, people being kind to each other, being loyal, helping each other out, and a broken jaw every now and then.  Really, it’s a chick flick waiting to happen.

Share your own ‘click’ moments, if you have them, below.

Yes, hair color.

Is it me or is comics over-loaded with redheads, blonds, and . . . there’s no noun for black-haired people?

The detective on Batgirl, Nick Gage (or as I christened him Hunter B.B.Q. Picklejaropener), has black hair and the standard superhero body (tall, football-player shoulders, large muscles, and a jaw so square that you could pack a dozen of them evenly in a cardboard box).

He also has black hair, in a town that, now that Tim Drake has grown out of his skinny-kid phase, is overloaded with square-jawed, muscled, tall, broad-shouldered, black -haired men. 

Of course you could argue that any one of those characteristics is overdone in comics.  But I have to wonder about the hair.  It’s a pretty common hair color.  Why do comics artists almost never make characters brunettes?

Before I open this comic and spoil it for anyone reading this review, let me begin with the prayer of the comics fan:

Oh Lord, who doth give a shit about comics,

Probably more so than most people realize,

Yeah, I’m looking at you, Schumacher,

But as I was saying,

Oh Master of Divine Sequential Art,

Give us this day a non-sucky comic,

And forgive me my continuity cherry-picking,

As I have forgiven – never mind that part.

Lead my very favorite character in the DCU not into comics ignominy,

But deliver her from cancellation.

And seriously, if she could have fun, kick some ass, and be a character I can sympathize with?

I would appreciate it for ever and ever.

Amen.

All right.  Let’s do this thing.

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There is a theory that female characters aren’t as popular as male characters in comics (and almost every other medium) because while women identify with a male heroic protagonist, men don’t identify with female heroes.

Woah there, don’t tense up just yet.

No one is in control of who they do or do not see as role models.  No one has an obligation to enjoy or identify with one character or another.  On top of that, often there are traits that almost all female characters are created with that can bar men (and women) from identifying with them, looking up to them, or otherwise thinking they’re awesome.

I would like to know:  Have you ever intensely identified with or hero-worshiped someone of the opposite gender in comics.  If so, who and why?  If not, why do you think that is?

Finally, do you find that race, sexuality, age, or some other characteristic commonly pruned out by marketing people affects your ability to connect with a character?