Well, here’s something I never knew about.

Santa Inoue’s Tokyo Tribes is in the same kind of lane as Samurai Champloo, though it’s a rap and Japanese culture mash-up that takes place in the modern day, rather than a hazy past. I picked up the first volume years ago and liked it well enough, but didn’t pick up the rest, for some reason. Lots of references to Anthony Hamilton in that book, too, which I dug. Inoue’s not hopping on a cheap bandwagon.

Anyway, DJ Muro produced the entirely too expensive import soundtrack CD, and this song here, which I’ve had on a Ghostface Killah compilation for a couple years but never listened to, is on that soundtrack. It was weird to hear Ghostface shouting out “Musashi no kuni” and Trife talking about Tokyo Tribes. But, you know, hip-hop is worldwide.

July was 4thletter!’s best month, hits-wise, in the history of months. I’m honestly really happy about it, because we didn’t cover any of the San Diego Comic-con news cycle, we didn’t have any of those snarky posts that get a lot of hits (“This popular book you like sucks and you’re stupid for liking it!”), we didn’t ride any waves of outrage-based blogging… I don’t think I even called anything racist or any other bloggers stupid and y’all know how much I love to do that.

No, we had our best month by just writing about stuff we like, regardless of when it came out, and you folks dug it. That’s pretty awesome.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned.

Hey, let’s talk about Rise of Arsenal some more!

Psyche.

Let’s do some math instead. According to my hyper-literate, arithmetically-impaired brain, comics are, at first glance, 50% writing and 50% art. In reality, the scales are probably tilted a little more toward 25% vs 75%, since you can look at a comic and see the art but not even notice the words, but ride with me here. I have a point and I’ll not let numbers stand in my way.

1. Good Writing + Good Art = Good Comic
2. Good Writing + Bad Art = Bad Comic
3. Bad Writing + Good Art = Bad Comic

This is a boiled down version of how I judge comics. Both halves of a comic have to work in concert to tell the story. If one half isn’t pulling its weight, then the other half suffers. A comic with bad art or bad writing is like watching a wonderfully cast movie with excellent dialogue, but with sound editing done by a three year old. It doesn’t work, it’s clashing and ugly, and there’s no reason to put up with it.

Bad writing can be any number of things. Same-y dialogue, lackluster plotting, crap pacing, or simply being boring all count as bad. Bad art is similarly varied. Unrealistic proportions are not bad by default–Chris Bachalo and Eiichiro Oda being two examples of people who twist and contort figures and it all looks fantastic–but when used poorly (read: looks like crap), it’s crap. Poorly designed layouts are another thing that can kill art, as well as being blatantly photo-referenced.

Good is easier. If you look at it and go, “I like this!” Congrats! You have found good writing and/or art! Embrace it and watch your enjoyment of comics increase!

Grant Morrison and Mark Millar are the all-time champions of this sort of thing. Morrison’s had his Batman scripts drawn by Philip Tan, Tony Daniel, and one particularly bad issue by Ryan Benjamin. The middle third of his run on New X-Men is frustratingly ugly, with Igor Kordey and Ethan Van Sciver turning in some subpar work. Millar’s the opposite. He’s worked with John Romita Jr, Steve McNiven, Leinil Francis Yu, Frank Quitely, and several other artists who deserved better stories.

Jeph Loeb sits in this strange middle ground between the two. He’s a solidly average writer, but his extreme lows (Ultimatum, Ultimates 3) were paired with artists like Joe Madureira or David Finch. When working with Tim Sale or Ed McGuinness, or really anyone who’s worked on Hulk with him, he delivers scripts that usually don’t get in the way of the art. You could make a case for the constant narration boxes being distracting, but Loeb does simple, crowd-pleasing books. If I had to pick between Loeb working with Ed McGuinness and Millar working with him, I’d choose Loeb every time.

I decided a while back that I’d stop settling when reading comics. No more paying money for things that make me go, “I like it, but.” No more suffering through sub-par art to get a Grant Morrison story. No more forcing myself to read a Mark Millar script just so I can see what John Romita Jr is drawing this month.

I’m a picky comics reader by choice. I could sit through Greg Land or Salvador Larroca just to keep up with what’s going on, but I don’t think that’s worth it. These are just stories. They aren’t so important that I have to know, and if I’m reading comics for fun, I’d have to be stupid to willingly put myself through something that detracts from that. I like comics more since I started reading fewer of them. Funny how that works out.

It’s looks smurfing smurfy! Too bad it’s due in August 2011. I’ll just have to make do with The Smurfs #1: The Purple Smurf this August. Thanks to Tim O’Neil for the heads-up.

(Like I wasn’t gonna be a Smurfs fan. I’m an ’80s baby, c’mon son.)

(if the video doesn’t show up, blame Yahoo. I’ll replace it when I can.)

Today’s Tupac Shakur‘s birthday. I was, and remain, a huge fan of him and his music. He definitely had an effect on me growing up, both in musical content, personal philosophy, and even just how he carried himself.

He was killed in Las Vegas on 09/13/96. From 1998 to 2006, I made it a point to skip school on that day. I’m a little older now, though, and I think I’d rather celebrate his life than his death. RIP.

This is already better than any Mortal Kombat game that exists.

A serious topic came up about how characters who are minorities who happened to be legacy characters like Ryan Choi are killed off so their caucasian counterparts can return and how they feel like they are being cheated or sidelined out of their roles. Sattler took a more serious tone. “It’s so hard for me to be on the other side because it’s not our intention. There is a reason behind it all. We don’t see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters. We have the Great Ten out there and I have counter statistics, but I won’t get into that. It’s not how we perceived it. We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.”

–Ian Sattler, DC Nation @ Heroescon

You walked into this one, man.

And honestly, if you think blue characters count toward “a diverse DCU,” you’ve got some issues… problems you need to iron out.

I wrote up this short piece on how JT Krul and Geraldo Borges’s Rise of Arsenal got the way heroin works wrong. While proofing before posting, I realized that I didn’t care enough to post it. Rise of Arsenal got everything you can get about heroin wrong, including how to freebase and the effects of the drug. It’s lazy and stupid and pointless. My post was going to be called “Rise of Arsenal: Wynken, Blynken, and On the Nod” which is some kind of perfect storm of stupid and amazing, but no–not worth it. Rise of Arsenal is lazy and stupid and doesn’t even have a villain. There’s no conflict beyond “Will Roy Harper shoot up?” I can’t even get mad about it.

Instead, here’s something I posted three years ago. I think it still applies.

Read good comics instead of getting mad about bad ones.

Just an experiment, maybe an ongoing thing if you like it.

What’d you buy and read today? Any books we should be looking out for? Any surprises? Let’s talk about this week’s books, or even books you’ve read recently that aren’t from this week. The comment box is yours. Have at it.

Sean did it because Wolkin asked him to. I’m doing it because I can. I’m picking movies for a personal film festival. These aren’t my favorite (that would be Out of the Past), but I love all of them. No explanations, though the titles of each day should give you an idea what I’m going for. Feel free to chime in. If you’re really puzzled, I’ll explain in the comments.

Three movies a day. I could probably come up with a food menu for these, too, for the full David Brothers Experience.

Friday: Nothing Succeeds Like Excess
Ninja Scroll, directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (dub) (possibly on second generation VHS)
Scarface, directed by Brian De Palma
Bad Boys II, directed by Michael Bay

Saturday: Building Blocks
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, directed by Steve Barron
Akira, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo (original dub)
Malcolm X, directed by Spike Lee

Sunday: A History of Violence
Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa (sub)
The Killer, directed by John Woo (dub)
Blade, directed by Stephen Norrington