Near as I can tell, the Wednesday crowd at the comic shop is driven there by a few things.

1. New comics come out on Wednesdays.
2. People like to sit around and talk about comics.
3. Continuity-focused tales push you to “keep up” with the stories.

Is that fair? I think that covers most of the reasons, right? Generalization, caveat emptor, etc etc. There are other factors–the Direct Market has encouraged a specific kind of culture, the Big Two push continuity over quality fairly often and emphasize reading it now now now, the way you can build a social circle out of your comic shop’s patrons–but those three are the biggest, I think?

New books, movies, and video games come out on Tuesdays, but you don’t really see people hanging out in Borders to discuss the latest Tom Clancy knock-off or in Best Buy to talk about how crap the packaging on most Blu-rays is. The culture is different.

My question is–how will digital comics affect that culture? That Wednesday ritual? Digital comics saps some of the emphasis on buying comics immediately, doesn’t it? You don’t have to rush to your shop to make sure you get your copy of whatever because it will always be available digitally. Trade waiting will change. Filling up a hard drive with comics is easier, cheaper, and more aesthetically pleasing, than having a stack of floppies on your coffee table. Some of the bonuses of waiting for a trade (complete story, cheaper price, easier to store, durability/longevity of format) will be decreased, leaving really just getting a complete story in one shot as the main bonus. I know that I switched to mainly trades because having a lot of “part 3 of 8” floppies stinking up the place is frustrating.

What I like about the oncoming digital future is that everything is on a level playing ground, barring name recognition. There is no real difference between Brightest Day and Comic Book Comics. Comic shops no longer serve as the first line of defense/tastemaking. In comic shops, you might see New Avengers with sixty rack copies and King City with just six. Online, they’re both just covers and titles on a list. That in and of itself is revolutionary, isn’t it? I don’t think Marvel and DC will ever stop being the “Big Two,” but I could see their stranglehold on the comics side of things being lessened once the playing ground evens out.

A lot of series are making money off inertia and nostalgia, too. When you introduce a new factor into that equation, a buyer who is ignorant of the past and has no nostalgia for the series, those series don’t have a chance. Comics companies can barely sell Ms. Marvel or War Machine to comics fans, and they’ve been around for thirty or forty years. When you put Ms. Marvel on a level playing field with Empowered or Battlefields, well, what would make you pick Ms. Marvel over either of those, other than personal interest? If digital comics do what they’re supposed to do, which is bring in new readers, then there will be a whole lot of people who don’t care about “checking up on” all these dusty old characters we’ve invested years in. If we’re being perfectly honest, a lot of current comics readers don’t care about checking in, either, so why would newbies?

This is how the nostalgia trap is defused. Comics would have to live or die according to their own merits, not according to how intricately they’re tied into the past of whatever universe they live in.

The more I think about it, the more I think that digital comics is something that could move comics culture from an inclusive subculture to a general part of culture, like books or movies. The general focus of comics would widen, since there’s suddenly a lot less risk in making your action dramedy about wacky romantic hijinx in a slaughterhouse and a lot less money in bowing down to the past. Or, to put it pithier, we’d have more Scott Pilgrims and less Cry For Justices.

Or am I totally insane here?

So Commissioner Gordon is getting a back-up in Detective Comics.  I think the art, by Francesco Francovilla, looks great.  And I’m excited to see the finished book.

One minor quibble with the picture, I really doubt that Gordon would have anything that reminds him of the Joker on the wall of his bedroom.  We’re talking about the guy who tortured his daughter and killed his wife.

Commissioner Gordon is one of the characters I’ve always wanted to see more of.  The trouble is, I don’t really know what that ‘more’ should consist of.  Jim’s position involves management of a lot of intersecting cases, but at the same time he shouldn’t get involved in any of them.  And it would be hard for his character to do stuff that didn’t involve getting sucked into some past traumatic memory.  I think this would have been cooler if he were still a retiree and went around solving cases like Matlock.

Still, this is something that I think will really set Detective Comics apart from the . . . eleventy hundred (?) other Batman books out there.  (Not that I’m opposed to that.  I’m a Batperson.  If anything there should be more books.)  Any ideas for what kind of stories would work for Jim?

From DC’s The Source blog:

New York, NY, September 27—Robert Harras has been named Editor-in-Chief, VP, DC Comics, it was announced today by DC Comics Co-Publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio. Harras will oversee editorial for DC Comics, DC Universe, MAD Magazine and Vertigo and will be based in New York City, reporting directly to the Co-Publishers. Harras becomes the company’s first Editor-in-Chief in nearly 10 years since the position was held by Jenette Kahn from 1981 to 2002.

“Bob Harras’ personal and creative integrity is respected and renowned throughout the comic book industry,” said Jim Lee, DC Comics Co-Publisher. “As an editor, he provides invaluable insight into storytelling and character.”

“We could not be more excited to make this announcement,” said Dan DiDio, DC Comics Co-Publisher. “Bob is a tremendous evaluator of talent, character and story. He is a proven leader who brings a keen understanding of the marketplace to the position.”

Prior to being named Editor-in-Chief, Harras was the Group Editor, Collected Editions at DC Comics.

Before joining DC Comics, Harras was the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics from 1995 to 2000.

:negativeman:

Courtesy of MTV’s Splash Page:

Not entirely sure how I feel about it–the best parts of All-Star Superman were the parts that could only be done as a comic and would get stripped out of the running time of an 80 (or whatever) minute film. The death of Pa Kent and the tenth issue, which is essentially Flex Mentallo told in 22 pages (superheroes are here to save us, both literally and figuratively, and we created them to do so), seem like they wouldn’t translate very well, or even at all. Regardless, I’ll probably watch it. The people involved are pretty talented, and the trailer’s a-okay.

You can get All-Star Superman in two paperback volumes for about twenty bucks total (volume 1 and volume 2) or pre-order the oversized Absolute All Star Superman for… sixty-eight bucks. Absolutes are nice, but rough to read and reread. Choose wisely.

For the past week, Marvel’s been revealing the upcoming What If stories and creative teams. We have a story about Norman Osborn winning the Siege. We have a backup where Stan Lee tells what would have happened if the Watcher killed Galactus during their original debuts. What would have happened had Spider-Man killed Kraven during the Grim Hunt? Or if Clint Barton assassinated Norman Osborn? Or if Dr. Doom and Tony Stark were roommates and… uh… they switch brains and Tony loses his memory and… oh, who knows.

One of the issues is about Wolverine raising Daken. An interesting comic on its own, but keep reading.

WHAT IF? WOLVERINE: FATHER
Written by ROB WILLIAMS
Penciled by GREG TOCCHINI
Cover by LEINIL FRANCIS YU
Back-Up Story By RICK REMENDER & SHAWN MOLL
If there’s one person who shouldn’t raise a child, it’s a berserker killing machine. In the regular Marvel Universe, Logan wasn’t there for Daken, and his son grew up to become the murderous Dark Wolverine. But what would have happened if Logan had known of Daken’s existence as a child, and had taken him under his wing from his first moments? Can a child with Logan’s blood running through his veins ever turn his back on murder? Can Logan find redemption and be a good father? Raising Daken will be Wolverine’s greatest battle. PLUS, What If: The Venom Symbiote Possessed Deadpool – Part 2!
40 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

So let’s review for a second.

THE GUY WHO WRITES FRANKENCASTLE.

DEADPOOL.

It’s official. I have a secret admirer at Marvel.

Speaking of Frank Castle, alternate realities, Deadpool and I guess Venom, I should probably get around to writing that one review…

I think it’s fair that I speak for both myself and Gavin and say that this is our review of the issue:

I look forward to this being used as a pull quote for the trade.

(More on this later, as I think that the way this book approaches black life in the Marvel U is super interesting, and ties into something else I’ve been meaning to talk about [Aqualad]. I just wanted to put this out there. Get up on it.)

————–

Edit:

Hey, folks. Gavin here, totally horning in on David’s wonderful post. For those of you who are reading Shadowland: Power Man and you need a retro who’s who, check out my two–parter on Luke Cage’s early villains. Also helps if you read the Luke Cage miniseries from a couple months ago and wondered who the hell Lionfang is.

I know there’s some Birds of Prey readers out there who also read this site. (At least, one, maybe, does Esther read this stuff or just her own posts? I bet I could zing her good and she would never notice…) Anyway, BoP fans! Honest question here, because it’s been picking at my brain.

Why do you read it?

BoP is in this weird space for me. Gail Simone isn’t really to my taste, but I can see why people like her. But Ed Benes, whoo boy. Simone said he “does lovely, subtle acting, and tremendous facial expressions and body language. I think he brings a very fiery European influence that is a wonderful remedy to some of the tired vaguely manga and video game-esque influences we’ve seen lately.” And man, let me tell you, I can’t think of a single thing in that sentence that I don’t want to pull apart, throw into a Glad bag, and drown in a river. He sucks, is what I’m saying, and I think he’s filling too many pages with drawings of women vulving like their life depends on it rather than doing things like having faces that emote and bodies that act. (No shots.)

One thing I noticed when poking around on blogs and reviews that praise BoP is that they only ever seem to praise Simone, and highly, at that. It’s her book, and with good reason, and Benes tends to get, at most, a line or two about a kick to the face or a guts pose. It comes across, and this is obviously a generalization, that fans of BoP enjoy Simone’s half of the book and tolerate Benes’s half. The art gets short shrift in a way that it doesn’t for other cape comics.

Is that weird? Am I seeing patterns where there aren’t any? I know that I have a (perfectly rational) dislike of the Benes studio’s work (ask me about it sometime), and others like have a perfectly rational like of their work (maybe). I liked it a lot more back when he was a cartoonier Jim Lee, the Wildstorm and early BoP days.

For the fans, are you reading it for Simone? Is it because there’s slim pickings for ladycomics with superheroes? Are you 100% into the comic, writing and art, and I’m just a jerk? For the non-fans, why aren’t you reading it?

Hellboy: The Storm (Mike Mignola/Duncan Fegredo) wrapped up this past week. It was a lead-in to the upcoming The Fury (get it?) and pretty fantastic. Elves, armies, kings of England, you know how Hellboy stories go.

Anyway, in the letters page was a pretty interesting question.

The scene in question from Mignola and Corben’s Hellboy in Mexico:

It’s not artistic license! Just like Clark Kent is Superman, and Bruce Wayne is Batman, the wrestler is his mask. The mask is sacred, and represents his true nature. When the mask is removed, or lost in a fight, the wrestler loses more than just the match.

So, after being infected by evil, the luchador up there turns into a heinous vampire bat-thing. He’s been corrupted. After Hellboy kills him, his identity, his true nature, is returned to him, and he finds peace.

Where’s my No-Prize?!

(If you haven’t read Hellboy In Mexico, or A Drunken Blur yet, you absolutely should pick up one of my favorite stories of this year.)

Das Racist’s “Who’s That? Brooown!” is a dope song, and this video manages to homage several 8-bit games I grew up on. Well done. Link courtesy of Ron Wimberly.

How to sum up Big Boi and Yelawolf’s “You Ain’t No DJ,” with Andre 3000 on production? Is it Yela’s “Yeah, I’m pale, but I’ll impale you with an Impala” or the bit about taking your couch and stealing your truck to move it with? The track suit girls? The kids dancing? Who cares! It’s dope, get your watch on.

I’m still working out my thoughts on this (off the cuff, minute long, at a convention) interview, but I think he makes some interesting points, the sort of things I’d like to see discussed in a long interview.

A few points:
-I think the comment about 45 year old dudes is pretty apt. The realism that comics companies are producing in pursuit of that audience, and I didn’t put realism in scare quotes but I probably should have, is pretty foul. Superhero books don’t do well when you add realism into the mix unless you have the deftest of touches. Doing Politically Pointed Comics with superheroes tends to be loud, dumb, and garish, if not outright disrespectful. Stories about lynchings and gay bashing and whatever else tend to look absolutely ridiculous once some douchebag in tights shows up to save the day. Suspension of disbelief snaps when you introduce a certain level of injustice into the mix. Bank robberies? Sure, we can live with that. Dragging somebody behind a truck until his eyeballs pop out of his skull? I can’t wait to see what JMS is going to do with that in a later issue of Superman!

-Related: if you’re gonna do a superhero comic about the Holocaust… don’t. If you do it anyway… that comic better be better than the Second Coming.

-I think it’s easy to expand Cooke’s comments into being “All comics should be for kids!” That’s not what he’s saying, though, is it? There’s a difference between “for kids” and “appropriate for kids.” There’s nothing in, say, Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto or like, Jeff Parker’s Atlas that makes it for kids, but I’d argue that those books are appropriate for kids. I think that’s what Cooke is talking about–toning down the gross stuff that no one likes anyway except as a sign of superhero decadence and getting back to telling straight up stories. Agree/disagree?

-I think there’s a place for sex and violence in cape comix. Zodiac was a great read and it was super sleazy. I thought that story in Amazing Spider-Man where the Lizard ate a kid was great. But, isn’t that a little creepy? Maybe Spider-Man is a bad example, since he was a hit with college kids and all, but something like Superman or Batman, something that has a tremendous number of children who count themselves as fans… should the main stuff be the kid appropriate books? The ones that are just a little edgy, just adult enough to be interesting, but not so adult that they get all the roving rape gangs and severed heads? Should the side books, the miniseries and all, be the grown up stuff?

More thoughts later, maybe. I honestly have a lot of contradictory feelings about where comics should go (more war comics! more crime comics! stop making new versions of old characters! more black characters! stop making crap black characters!) and I’m sure some of what I think doesn’t even make sense.