First off, it pains me to say that after forty-plus issues, Venom is cancelled. I’m bummed, not just for the obvious, but because I wanted to see if it could have outlasted the 90’s solo series, which went a full 60 issues. I can’t say I’m too surprised. The whole demon subplot (which is still a dangling thread) really hurt the momentum and the symbiote’s been tossed to the sidelines as a character, always being drugged up and being a mental non-factor. It’s a weapon rather than being a creature.

They did just give him a teenage girl sidekick and that had potential. Ah well. Chances are he’s going to be killed in the big upcoming Spider-Man crossover when Doc Ock Spider-Man goes too far or something. You know, regular Spider-Man never did blow a gasket over Venom being a government agent and member of the Avengers. You’d think he would have had a passionate opinion about that, but all he ever did was make a joke about the Punisher and tell Venom to please not kill Carnage.

Whether Venom’s set to die or not, he currently has another series to call home in Thunderbolts. Recently, Thunderbolts was pretty bad, mainly because it was written by Daniel Way, who wrote 11 issues of… I’m not really sure. It was a bunch of twists and turns and I found myself not caring for a lot of it. Frank Castle strapping a landmine to his chest and jumping onto a guy was pretty sweet, though. That and it gave me one of my favorite Deadpool quotes with, “You may kill me first, but I fucking guarantee I’ll kill you last.”

Charles Soule took over as of issue #12 and already it’s felt like a breath of fresh air. #12 was a Punisher-centric story that turned his “banging on the side” relationship with Elektra into something more dramatic as she’s given him reason to kill her down the line. Then #13 was kind of average because it was an attempt to clean up Way’s mess by explaining who the hell Mercy is and why she’s on the team when she’s yet to do anything of note or interact with anyone other than Red Leader. For any of you who haven’t been paying attention, Leader has been resurrected and he’s red. He’s currently the intelligence of the team, although he’s given limited intellect to work with to keep him from remembering who he was. Right now he’s just a timid follower of General Ross, retaining his personality from before he became an insane supervillain.

The big problem with the series has been that it hasn’t delivered a hook. Sure, I get that it’s taken the Thunderbolts name because of General Ross’ nickname and how they’re a bunch of dark heroes with blood on their hands, but why are they together? The first issue had Ross recruit everyone and it gave the idea that they were going to be a non-mutant version of X-Force. Even though it took fourteen issues, this week’s issue FINALLY gives us an idea of what the series is really all about.

And it’s a pretty awesome idea.

Right there! Why couldn’t they make this clear from the very first issue? Hell, the second issue or even sixth? Why did we have to wait that long to get this great hook for a series about a group of heroic killers working together? I mean, you’re the fucking Thunderbolts! You know what the original Thunderbolts were known for? Telling us why we should be reading it from the end of the first issue! Imagine if Citizen V unmasked in the middle of the 14th issue.

“The Selfish Avengers.” All members of the team (outside of Red Leader and Mercy) get a chance to lead the team into a mission of their choosing. If Deadpool wants them to kill Sabretooth, they will all go off together to kill Sabretooth, go back home and ask Elektra who she wants iced. It kind of has a low-rent Illuminati feel to it.

So far the first choice has gone to Castle, leading to this exchange.

I hate it when comics get so obsessed with decompression that by the time they get to the point, people have stopped reading and it dies. That’s what happened with Chaykin’s Squadron Supreme and I have a feeling it’s going to happen here. I don’t have too much experience reading Soule’s stuff, but so far he’s turned Red Lanterns around and he’s been doing good work on Swamp Thing.

All that I’m saying is to give Thunderbolts a chance. Which is really the opposite of giving peace of a chance.

On August 15, the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 are bringing back Rifftrax Live to do a live poking-fun-at of Starship Troopers. In other words, you can go to the movie theater to go see a an old futuristic war movie about killing bugs as an allegory for being Nazis and hear Mike Nelson and friends riff on it at the same time.

Originally, the event was supposed to be for Twilight. The Rifftrax guys put together a very successful Kickstarter to raise funds to hopefully get the studio that owns Twilight to let them use it for Rifftrax Live. Makes sense, considering it’s been one of the site’s bestselling movies in forever. Unfortunately, the studio didn’t like the idea of selling out to have their bread and butter made fun of on a national level and said no. Rifftrax shopped around for a replacement and settled on Starship Troopers.

Other than that roadblock, Rifftrax has been doing pretty well lately. In the last two years, they’ve been killing it by going in a new direction. It used to be that they’d focus on blockbuster releases (made legal by only having you download their comedic commentary), ten minute short films you can download with the commentary imbedded and full-length public domain movies you can download with the full commentary. The latter choice is great for convenience in that you don’t have to sync it up with a DVD, but a lot of those movies are public domain for a reason and really aren’t even all that interesting to sit through, even when being railed on.

Luckily, they’ve started going further by doing video-on-demand releases of movies that aren’t public domain, but the rights are pretty inexpensive. That leads to some obscure gems that are entertainingly bad in their own right, sometimes having an extra oomph by including random famous people. We’ve had such hits as Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe, which stars Jesse Ventura as a Terminator ripoff in a story that blatantly steals from Jack Kirby’s DC Comics work. There’s McBain, an early 90’s action movie starring Christopher Walken as the world’s most casual action hero. Viva Kneivel! has Evil Knievel playing himself and taking on a crime boss played by Leslie Nielson. And while there’s no famous people in it, Guy From Harlem is the world’s most inexplicable blaxploitation film and is a must-see for everyone.

Recently, I got to watch the wondrous Cool as Ice, a vanity project released in the early 90’s starring rapper extraordinaire, Vanilla Ice. He was the flavor of the month (pun not intended) and got this movie out of his popularity high. The movie is a complete wreck and at times barely holds together as something you can even call a movie. Regardless, when watching this rapping drifter’s exploits, I couldn’t help but feel some familiarity. The Rifftrax guys made a quick joke about it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Cool as Ice is the premake of Twilight!

I’ve never read any of the Twilight books and I’ve only seen the first movie thanks to Rifftrax. That said, it took me three sittings to get through it. I don’t have too much against the series. I worked at a Barnes and Noble for over seven years and those books helped get me and my coworkers hours. Enjoying Twilight isn’t really all that different from me dedicating endless hours of watching a zombie biker fake-fight his demonic, pyromaniac brother in the middle of a wrestling ring. Just because it’s not high art doesn’t mean you can’t be a fan. Acceptance aside, it’s still a half hour of story told in a two hour movie and there was only ten minutes towards the end where I felt it was genuinely entertaining.

Despite raking in billions of dollars, I now think that Stephanie Meyer’s #1 success came from her being a true VIP back in the day. Let’s look at how these two movies compare.

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There’s a conversation going on in comics right now that I think is very interesting. It’s about the role, responsibilities, and perception of the artist—mostly pencillers/inkers, but colorists and letterers as well—in the comics industry. It’s wide-ranging, and I thought it would be beneficial to gather most of the posts to date in one place, both for any journalists who are thinking about writing about it and other people who are curious, but don’t know where to start. A lot of these posts are responses to or build off other conversations.

I don’t have everything. Twitter’s a big part of the conversation, as is tumblr, but it’s impossible to stay on top of everything, especially as more voices start talking. This is just the beginning. If you see a link I haven’t posted, drop a comment below.

–Declan Shalvey, comics artist, answers a tumblr question about comics reviews before talking a bit about how reviewers talk about art.

–Andy Khouri, writer about comics, explored Brian Stelfreeze’s work on Day Men, and what that may mean for comics artists in general. He talks about how we credit artists, how we credit writers, and how basic logistics often forces artists into complicated situations.

–Dennis Culver, artist, rounded up a few tweets he made on the subject of critics, artists, and comics. It spins from how critics do their job to why artists should be considered co-authors/storytellers, and why talking about art is vital.

–I wrote about Andy and Dennis’s posts, quoting Dennis’s in its entirety, and added my own thoughts on how we appreciate artists in comics from the perspective of a fan and critic.

–Amy Reeder, artist, responds to and builds on my post and talks about what drives her to buy comics, and talks about the greater trend of undervaluing artists.

–Amy Reeder & Brandon Montclare, collaborators, discuss their experience at San Diego Comic-con 2013 and also the role of the artist in production.

–Sarah Horrocks, artist, talks about her frustrations with certain aspects of the comics industry, springboarding off this Steven Grant essay at CBR.

–Nolan T Jones, writer, takes issue with a few of Horrocks’s points and speaks from the perspective of a writer on the subject.

–Sloane Leong, artist, talks about comics industry logistics by way of a Pacific Rim graphic novel, and talks about why the assembly line method of making comics actually hurts the artform.

–Amy Reeder & Brandon Montclare, collaborators, talk specifically about the role of artists in comics, with plenty of frank talk from writer Montclare and artist Reeder on their expectations and frustrations.

–Podcaster Pat Loika gathers artists Gabriel Hardman, Reilly Brown, Declan Shalvey, and Nick Pitarra to talk about the subject du jour in a conversation that’s as pointed as it is funny.

–Dennis Culver, artist, gathers more tweets, this time discussing the economics of being a comics artist and the relationship between writers and artists.

–Costa Koutsoutis, writer, replies to Dennis Culver’s recent post about economics and discusses the effort writers put forth in creating scripts.

–Leia Weathington, writer, talks about her position when it comes to working with artists and honor. Weathington’s response was sparked by a tweet conversation that I believe begins here before fracturing all over the place. This was packaged into Storify from Weathington’s tweets by Erika Moen, an artist.

–Declan Shalvey, comics artist, discusses working as an artist in the comics industry.

Additions:
–Michael May, writer about comics, builds off a statement from Declan Shalvey and talks about why reviewers need to talk more about art.

–Sloane Leong, artist, discusses the differences in responsibility between writers and artists and looks at the various options creators have for deals.

–Paul Allor, writer, talks about writers and artists from the POV of a working & aspiring writer, in addition to talking about the ways writers view working with and paying artists.

–Paul Allor, writer, talks about the unique aspects of comics collaboration and explores ideas about the way credit is divvied up or displayed.

–Bryan Hitch, artist, talks to Kiel Phegley at CBR about working on corporate comics and feeling underappreciated, despite his history with the company and position in the industry.

–Pat Barrett, artist, talks about the New Yorker improperly crediting a drawing of Iron Man and (briefly) their history with comics.

–Shea Hennum, writer about comics, looks at the idea of visual consistency, particularly in terms of Prophet, a comic with a fistful of artists on regular duty.

–Val Staples, colorist, speaks to Steve Morris at The Beat about life as a colorist, including details on how long books take and vacations when freelance.

–Brigid Alverson at Robot 6 takes a close look at writer Jeremy Holt’s comments on Twitter about pay & artists, and the large comments section discusses journalistic standards, paying in comics, and personal experiences.

–The Beat (no specific byline) talks about writers paying artists and the varying responsibilities of each creator in the comics-creating process.

–Antony Johnston, writer, talks about the debate in general terms and the specifics of making comics, including advice for how to do better as a reader and creator.

–Amy Reeder, artist, on what artists actually do with a writer’s script, and the varying difficulties both sides have in getting work.

–David Fairbanks, writer about comics, on the idea of cheapening your art by working for free, and collaborative partnerships.

I liked Tite Kubo’s Bleach a whole lot until I suddenly didn’t. Y’all know how that goes. You get into it, you give it a lot of rope to hang itself, then you get comfortable, then you let it coast a little bit, and then you realize you’ve just read 38 volumes of a comic and haven’t liked anything about these stupid Arrancars but every one of the last ten or so volumes have had exactly one REALLY GOOD chapter or scene near the end, just good enough to convince you to pick up the next volume and—enough. And then I ended up with a Weekly Shonen Jump subscription and now I get it for basically free. Life! I recommend it, though. If you like this kinda story, Bleach is the real deal for a good while.

Two things I never stopped enjoying about Bleach, though, are Kubo’s way of rendering fashionable clothes and the chapter pages. The fashion’s got obvious appeal, but it’s a bit harder to explain the appeal of the chapter pages. That sounds a little stupid to even type, mainly because the short version is “Kubo has a great sense of fashion, design, wonder, and that shows on his chapter pages, especially as the series goes on and he becomes more daring and creative with the layouts and art.” That makes sense, and I imagine you’d agree if you saw a few of them. Luckily, I happen own a lot of Bleach and I picked twelve of them that I like from the first few volumes of the series, plus the first three so you can see how soon Kubo started doing interesting things.

“Violate the Dead” is surely the result of some kind of confusion. Bleach isn’t really that type of series…

But you can see the appeal of these, I think, particularly if you’re into this kind of story. These early chapter pages are cool, but par for the course for series like this. There are cool costumes, interesting What Ifs, some good humor (I especially like numbers seven and twenty-six), and they’re honestly just very strong images. They work.

Part of the reason why they work is Kubo’s choice of titles. There’s some musical-sounding phrases like “Binda Blinda,” which is cool, and straightforward titles like “The Gate of the End,” which is also cool. Kubo does most of his chapter titles in English, and I’m always pleasantly surprised by both the poetry and quality of the titles. I love Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece and Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond more than most comics, but they don’t have memorable chapter titles. Bleach does.

Once chapter nine hits, Kubo gets a lot more inventive, playful, and melancholy with the titles. The titles for 1-8 aren’t bad, but they aren’t full of potential like “Wasted but Wanted” or “6/17 op. 2 Doesn’t Smile Much Anymore” or “Paradise is Nowhere”/”Paradise is Now Here.” There’s a playfulness or sense of foreboding in some of these, and that carries through to the stories, too. A good title is legendary. “Valley Forge, Valley Forge.” “This Man… This Monster!” “Lonely Place of Dying.” “Tommy’s Heroes.” “First Shot, Last Call.” “Days of Future Past.” “How to Murder the Earth.” “A Game of You.” “Rake at the Gates of Hell.” “The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin.” “The Great Cow Race.” “Anything Done for the First Time Creates a Demon.” (I asked friends for some memorable names so this list wasn’t just my own, and now we are off at the races naming great titles, even the ones with so-so stories. Could do a post on those alone, easy. Comics!)

Here’s a few more chapter pages, but from volumes 34-38, and then later still in the series, from middle/late 2012 through middle 2013 Weekly Shonen Jump.

The first thing to notice is that the covers in a pin-up style have gotten better. Kubo’s a pretty talented artist, and it’s cool to see the leaps in quality that he made over the years. The characters feel rounder, his storytelling choices are more confident, and there’s a sense that Kubo wants to push the limit of the chapter page.

It’s not obvious here, because these chapter pages are stripped almost entirely of context, outside of a loose chronological progression (the negative numbers are flashback chapters). You don’t know where the pages fall in the chapter, what the story’s about, or anything like that. But what makes so many of these chapter pages so great is that Kubo treats them as a cold open rather than anything dedicated to purely saying “This is chapter three hundred and eight-six of Bleach, a comic series by Tite Kubo.”

The chapter pages hit at the end of scenes, on the last page of the chapter, two pages before the chapter, and pretty much anywhere, including occasionally the first page. Instead of using them like American comics use recap/credit pages, Kubo uses them as just another storytelling device. It’s like watching a tense scene in Breaking Bad and feeling yourself surprised by the fact that you unconsciously exhaled as soon as that music twanged up, or feeling that split-second of dead air before Justified‘s theme kicks in.

It’s a mood-building breather, and it’s something that is rare in my comics-reading experience. Story titles are often included in comics often as a matter of fact, something to sit atop the credits and define the arc. It’s cool when they’re worked into the art, but they never actually feel like part of the story. They’re just an accessory, if that metaphor makes sense. But when the chapter pages, and titles, are used like this, it really, really adds to the story.

I can see how people would think it’s wasteful, since comics only get a few pages. But Kubo is spending one or two pages telling several pages worth of mood. It helps. It’s an enhancement.

I read a lot of comic books. Part of what keeps me coming back to the comic book as a format, be it stapled or glued or digital-only, is seeing fresh things like this, things no other medium could really do properly. I like to be surprised and entertained, and even when Bleach is busy disappointing me, I know that Kubo’s got something up his sleeve that makes checking in on Bleach worth it, almost every single time. Weekly Shonen Jump makes that easy, of course, but even when I was binging and not particularly enjoying it, this held true.

You can get Bleach and Weekly Shonen Jump on your tablet or computer monitor of your choice. Five bucks a volume makes it easy to dive in, and honestly, the early stuff is really good, and there’s flashes of great moments throughout. But when the quality of the writing declines, the art stays strong and gets stronger. The chapter pages are just one manifestation of that.

Despite petering off due to a bevy of different reasons (including the possibility of an animated series), Achewood has been a major staple in the internet for well over a decade. The webcomic about some cats, an otter, a couple bears, a tiger, a squirrel and some robots has entertained many with its weird adventures and memorable dialogue. Every now and then, I’ve found myself editing certain comic books to fit the scene and essentially recreate key Achewood strips.

So here comes a special batch of Achewood/other comics mashups.

One thing I feel really strongly about is the position of artists in comics. I talked about it last year and I’m sure I’ve tweeted about it a lot. Artists are, thanks to a wide variety of factors both intentional and incidental, often devalued in comics, especially when we’re talking mainstream fare, corporate or otherwise. I honestly, earnestly believe that the best comics happen when the writer, artist, and the rest of the creative team are on the same page and into the work and each other.

If you swap out everyone on a creative team but the writer like aftermarket car parts, then the only stable figure in the equation is the writer, then the writer will be viewed as the prime mover, the “creator” of the story. The truth is that a comic isn’t a comic until an artists puts pen to pad, and the relationship between writer and artist isn’t as simple as “This guy tells this lady what to do and she does it.”

But that’s the perception. I’ve talked about it again and again, but let me reiterate: the most common formula for a comics review is a bunch of paragraphs about what happens, followed by one paragraph about the art, followed by a conclusion. I know why it happens–cape comics in particular are about “what happens” as opposed to “how it happens” in marketing and reviewing–but I hate it. It’s aesthetically ugly, intellectually lazy, and it serves to devalue the artist. They’re always an afterthought, an “Oh by the way,” if that, and that contributes to our perception of artists.

Jack Kirby didn’t draw Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four. They created it together. The same is true of the dumbest movie tie-in comic and the greatest pop comics single issue. Collaboration is key.

I put a lot of thought into this last year in particular. I made the conscious decision to swap how I credited comics, both in headlines and normal conversation. The normal way of doing things is writer/artist, like Stan Lee/Jack Kirby. (I didn’t realize it until just now, but even the term “writer/artist” is tilted in favor of writing, not drawing.) Instead, I force myself to think for a second and type “Kirby/Lee.”

I don’t do it to suggest that the writer is less important than the artist. It’s a mental device that keeps me in mind of the facts: comics are collaborative, and each link in the chain is vital. You can’t talk about comics without talking about art. You can’t make comics without art. Going from writer/artist to artist/writer forces me to reconsider how I talk about comics and who I credit for what.

I used to empathize with reviewers who did the one short paragraph-about-art thing. It’s hard to talk about art if you aren’t an artist, the story’s really what interests you, you lack the confidence to speak as authoritatively on art as you would on story. Nowadays, though, I think they’re scared, or maybe just too soft to do the legwork required to talk about comics intelligently.

I’m a dummy. I dropped out of college, turned away from art school in high school, and I couldn’t tell you the difference an inker using a brush and a pen if I tried. (I would hazard a guess, though.) But I can look at art, figure out what it means to me or what it brings to mind, and express that in a critical manner.

If you aren’t doing that, you ain’t doing your job. And if you don’t know, figure it out. Ask someone, think about it really hard (I like this one), or just mull it over until it coalesces in your head. You can do it. I talk about my dumb emotions until I’m comfortable enough to talk about the art itself, as opposed to my reaction to it, though those are often tend to merge into the same thing once you start talking about them.

Darryl Ayo‘s review of Sam Alden’s Backyard (print) reignited these thoughts for me. It’s a review-via-numbered list, a technique I’ve enjoyed and used myself, but I haven’t seen it in a while. Darryl snaps from observations about the atmosphere, tone, characterization, art, and back again because he understands a fundamental truth of comics: the art is the story.

I enjoyed this piece from Andy Khouri on valuing and devaluing artists in comics, too. He lays out a lot of plain truths I agree with 2013%. I like this especially: “Story is art. Style is substance. A comic is not a comic until it is drawn.”

Gospel truth.

Dennis Culver, artist and co-creator of Edison Rex (print, digital) with writer Chris Roberson, is a friend of mine. We talk a lot about comics, mainly because he makes them, I read them, and we both have strong opinions on the subject. I’m coming from the perspective of a critic, someone who takes forever to read good comics and wants comics to be better. He’s coming from the perspective of an artist, someone who wants and deserves to feel valued in the comics conversation and puts in a massive amount of work to get a comic done.

We agree on a lot of things, but often in different ways. He collected a bunch of his tweets on the subject and reposted them on tumblr. I asked if I could repost them here and he said sure, so here we are:

You’re not writing about comics if you’re not talking/thinking about the art.

I think the trap a lot of critics fall into is giving sole credit for the story visuals to the writer.

And if any credit is given to the artist it’s usually for style. Ie Cartoony, realistic etc.

But if you give 6 different artists a panel description you will get 6 different images.

And each of those images can make you feel different things. Things the writer may not have initially intended.

That synergy is the magic of comics and it’s why artists are really co-writers.

The production line method of making comics is just an imperfect emulation of a single cartoonist.

Every part of the comics production line requires choices that affect the storytelling.

While the comics production line is great for speed, it’s created a lot of false boundaries that when strictly adhered to make bad comics

If you’re not directly communicating with your collaborators then you’re not collaborating. You’re playing telephone.

Don’t have time to read many comics but 2 books I look forward to the most are Daredevil by Waid and Samnee and Hawkeye by Fraction and Aja

Neither book singles out credit for writing or art and in the case of Daredevil, Waid and Samnee are just credited as “Storytellers.”

Both go beyond the normal production line collaboration and I think that is why the books are of such high quality.

I want to see more of this! I think it makes for better comics. And it shows that both writers value their artists as storytellers.

Because frankly when you’re an artist it’s easy to feel undervalued as a storyteller in this industry.

When a review only focuses on and gives all story credit to the writer while only mentioning the artist in passing if at all. I feel undervalued as a storyteller.

When a publisher puts out a press release that only talks about the writer, I feel undervalued as a storyteller.

When a publisher holds a story conference and only invites their writers, i feel undervalued as a storyteller.

It’s certainly not the writer’s fault but hey if you’re doing an interview about a book and the art is not being talked about. Bring it up.

The only way reviewers and the comics press can figure out how to talk about art is by talking about art.

When a writer refers to “his artists” I feel undervalued as a storyteller.

In comics I do think drawing is co-writing but I will also add in the best instances writers are co-directing the art with the artist

I have an excellent collaboration with @chris_roberson on Edison Rex and if you could see out process, I think you’d be hard pressed to say where the writing ends and the art begins. Ask Chris, I am OPINIONATED about the story but Chris is the same about page layout and design. And I think that makes for a better comic.

It’s frustrating to read a review or tweet or whatever that glosses over my role as a storyteller.

You learn to do things by doing them. I’d rather see a reviewer clumsily talk about art than not at all.

I use undervalued specifically because this industry is built on undervaluing its creators. Creators that feel valued make better comics!

Here I was talking with a reviewer:
The art IS the story. Even if you don’t care for the style or don’t think it’s dynamic

The presentation by the artist of the images in sequence is how the story is being told. The art IS the story.

If you get rid of the art and are only left with the balloons, you will have no idea what’s going on. Comics IS art

When a reviewer only credits a writer with the story it is inarguably wrong. That’s just not how the process works.

Chris and I are credited for each others ideas in Edison Rex reviews all the time. Often we’re not sure who did what. If we don’t know how can you?

I want to have this conversation. I want to be better. I want reviewers, fans, and companies to listen and consider how they view comics and the role of each creator. The only way I know how to do that is to talk about it whenever I can and pray people pay attention.

One of my favorite comics on the stands these days is IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Headed by Tom Waltz, Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman and a host of others, the two-year-old Ninja Turtles series feels like the perfect balance of what a new take on the series should be. Silly as it is to say, the Turtles are some of the most versatile properties in comics and television on the level of Batman. They could be anywhere from serious Frank Miller knockoffs to goofball comedians. Over the years they’ve shared scenes with the Power Rangers, the Flaming Carrot, the Muppet Babies and even Hitler (and that was in the Archie Comics spinoff of the 80’s cartoon!).

Even with something like Turtles Forever, I saw a little too much divisiveness within takes on the characters. The current series feels more accepting of all walks of the foursome and shows it well. It’s pieces of the Mirage universe, pieces of the 80’s cartoon universe, a little bit of the 4Kids cartoon universe (which doesn’t have too much to take from since the early seasons were mostly retellings of the Mirage stuff) and a lot of new twists and ideas to keep it original when it counts.

The hook of the series compared to all the other takes is this: you know how the cartoon was about the Turtles teaming up against Shredder and Krang, even though those two had little in common outside of being evil? What if it was instead a war between Shredder and Krang and the Turtles are just in the middle? Hell, go further. Add several more evil factions, all working against each other and the Turtles are the only bastion of hope to stop them.

Now, there is one major problem with the series and that’s in its format. As of this writing, there are 23 issues of the main series, 11 micro-series (character spotlights), an 80-page annual (the first Turtles comic written and drawn by Eastman in decades), a two-issue part of the IDW Infestation 2 storyline and a four-issue miniseries about the history of the Foot Clan. Other than Infestation 2, it’s all pretty important and it’s really hard to get the reading order down. I’m lucky because I was reading the Micro-Series issues as they came out, but for someone catching up and getting the trades, it’s a gigantic headache.

So I figured I’d give a bit of a primer for the series. A big who’s who of familiar and not-so-familiar faces.

SPLINTER

Affilliation: TMNT
First Appearance: #1
Micro-Series Issue: During #11

Upon introduction, Splinter was just a lab rat at Stock Gen Research Inc. Due to some experiments, they were able to increase his intelligence, separating his human-like cognition from his animal instincts. Despite being just a rat, Splinter was able to understand the darkness that surrounded the lab, outside of naïve intern April O’Neil. When a couple of Foot ninjas broke into the lab one night, Splinter was able to help save April and then chase the ninjas onto a rooftop. He scratched out one’s eye and caused him to drop his plunder from the lab: four experimented-on turtles and some mutagen. Splinter and the turtles ended up in the sewer, stewing in the mutagen. Splinter grew into a humanoid rat creature and had a greater understanding of the world.

But really, his story began even earlier. In Feudal Japan, Hamato Yoshi was a great ninja warrior and member of the Foot Clan back when it was an honorable group. He was married to Tang Shen, who gave him four sons. Yoshi’s clan-mate Oroku Saki became leader of the Foot and started using it for ruthless, power-hungry reasons. Yoshi left the clan, feeling it was a disgrace. In response, Saki had Tang Shen killed. Yoshi was able to save his children and ran off with them to live in the mountains for years. Unfortunately, they were one day tracked down by the Foot and all beheaded. Yoshi prayed for justice and to be one day reunited with his children. Then, in his last act, he swore revenge on Saki.

Splinter became sought after by both Stock Gen for his blood and by the modern Foot Clan for recruitment. When Shredder saw Splinter’s skills in action, he began to notice the familiarity while Splinter realized that Shredder was Oroku Saki himself in the same exact body as all those years ago. Splinter lost in combat against Shredder, partially due to how he was worn down by having to go through an army of Foot ninjas and Alopex. Splinter was saved at the last minute by his sons, who defeated Shredder and brought him to safety.

Splinter is very strict about his sons not killing, as it is not their way. At the same time, he struggles with his hatred for the Shredder. At the very least, he insists to his sons that it is their duty to kill the Shredder. Not for the revenge factor, but because he’s too evil and dangerous to live.

Recently, Splinter donned a masked identity and attacked his sons, promising to go after Splinter if they didn’t stop him. He was able to get the best of them and revealed himself as a way to drive home the point that while the Turtles are skilled, they’re becoming too predictable. He needs to train them in more martial arts and truly broaden their horizons.

LEONARDO

Affiliation: TMNT
First Appearance: #1
Micro-Series Issue: Between #8 and #9

Leonardo is the reincarnation of Hamato Yoshi’s eldest son. He’s the most loyal of the four and follows all of Splinter’s words like law. More than anyone else, he believes in Splinter’s claims of reincarnation, both because he believes anything Splinter says and because he has vague, dream-like memories of seeing Tang Shen die in front of him.

When Splinter was captured by Stock Gen, Leonardo searched the streets and found himself targeted by the Foot Clan, tangling with them for the first time. While he was able to fight a bunch of them off, the Shredder – wearing less extravagant ninja gear – easily beat him down and deemed him unimpressive. Later, Leonardo led his brothers in saving Splinter from being killed by Shredder. This time, Leonardo pressed the numbers advantage and won out. Leaving for the sake of getting Splinter to safety, Leonardo made sure to throw a shuriken an inch from Shredder’s head and deemed him unimpressive.

Splinter’s claims that they need to kill Shredder do not sit well with Leonardo, who wishes not to kill under any circumstances because life is sacred. This came up soon after when he and his brothers had to fight the insane and unstoppable Slash. Leonardo tried his hardest to reason with the giant turtle, but ended up gravely wounding him by accident while protecting April and Casey. Leonardo didn’t know that Slash survived having a katana shoved handle-deep down his shoulder and became troubled over it, keeping Slash’s black eye-mask as a memento.

After their second skirmish, Shredder grew to respect Leonardo and found potential in him as an apprentice. He staged a trap and kidnapped Leonardo. The witch Kitsune put Leonardo through a ritual very similar to what Frank Miller had the Hand do to resurrect Elektra. Leonardo’s memories were altered into a nightmarish recollection where Splinter had been terrorizing him via all of their adventures while Shredder had been trying to save him from all of it. In these altered memories, Splinter killed the other three Turtles and resurrected them as his evil soldiers. Last seen, Leonardo woke from this ritual, wearing Slash’s black eye-mask.

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While we’re just about to finally get that Lobo DLC for Injustice: Gods Among Us, Netherrealm Studios just released confirmation that the second character on that list will be none other than Batgirl. Because the game needed more Batman characters. Regardless, this only supports a rumored list of downloadable characters that’s been making the rounds. I’ll continue these updates for each official reveal. Even if the rumored fourth named isn’t even a DC comic character.

BATGIRL

Alias: Barbara Gordon, Oracle
First Appearance: Detective Comics #359 (1967)
Powers: Skilled martial artist and acrobat, super intelligent, world’s greatest hacker
Other Media: A lot of Batman cartoons, the 60’s Batman show and also that one movie that killed Alicia Silverstone’s career

The original, original Batgirl was Betty Kane. Back in the early 60’s, writers decided to fight the claim that Batman and Robin were gay by introducing Batwoman and Bat-Girl. Betty and her aunt Kathy had a thing for Batman and Robin, so they started fighting crime for the sake of tapping that Bat-ass. They made a handful of appearances, but faded into obscurity. Betty came back eventually and found a new identity as Flamebird (much like Nightwing, Flamebird is a name of an old Kryptonian superhero). She was recently seen fighting crime along with the current Batwoman, her cousin Kate Kane. The two had a falling out and Flamebird went off to patrol the streets alone. She received a grave injury and was last seen hospitalized.

Barbara Gordon was the adopted daughter of Commissioner Gordon. A librarian during the day, she felt the need to do something to help her father and ultimately do good. Despite Batman trying to shut her down, she refused to give up her persona as Batgirl. She became a huge hit, due to being a more independent female role model and was popular enough to become a major character in the final season of the 60’s Batman show. A season that occurred a year after her debut.

Batgirl mostly teamed up with Robin and Supergirl, having a romantic relationship with the former. In the late-80’s, writer Alan Moore changed the Batgirl game with his Joker-centric story Killing Joke, where the Joker decided to prove a point by screwing up Commissioner Gordon’s life so hard that he’d make him snap. This included Joker shooting Barbara in the stomach, which shattered her spine. He removed Barbara’s clothes and snapped photos in order to torture her father more, though it’s been insisted by the author that Joker didn’t go further with her. The comic ended with a meaningful scene that involved Batman and Joker laughing together as Batman took Joker into custody. Barbara – paralyzed from the gunshot – wasn’t really pleased with that. Guess you just had to be there.

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I made a joke on Twitter the other day that went something like “The trick to getting me to write about comics is to either make me mad, discover great art, or for me to come up with a dumb idea I think is funny.” The third one is why I wrote three thousand words about Quitely & Millar’s Jupiter’s Legacy (“I wonder if I could write about every page of this comic…”) and the first one is pretty much the only reason I write about industry-related things or news, as opposed to the actually interesting part of comics: the comics themselves. The middle one is why I clicked on a random link on Tumblr and saw this:

Drawn by Jamie McKelvie, background inks by Mike Norton, script by Kieron Gillen, colors by Matt Wilson, and letters by Clayton Cowles. McKelvie talks it out here.

It’s good, right? I like this a whole lot. Bleeding Cool has a bigger version, but I think the small is good enough to wow.

Here’s a secret: whenever I write about comics, I’m not trying to show you why something is good so much as figure out how to express why it clicks for me. I don’t draw comics. I don’t write them. I read them. I don’t know from pens and quills, but I do know my taste. And I’m drawn to things that are either immediately understandable — a Frank Miller or Masamune Shirow action scene, some Katsuhiro Otomo rubble, a pretty girl drawn by Inio Asano, an Amanda Conner face — or so striking that it makes me look twice.

Let’s be real: you don’t study every panel in a comic, even in the good ones. I love several dozen panels in Frank Miller & Lynn Varley’s Dark Knight Strikes Again, but I’ve never looked at the panel of the weird mutant orphans escaping from jail and rubbed my chin, you know? It’s not that it’s not important. It’s just that it’s normal. Sometimes you just take things in stride until something appears that forces you to pause.

That pause is one of the reasons why I love comics. I want to be challenged and surprised when I read, and the best way to do that is to throw something at me that I either haven’t seen before (Masamune Shirow cranking up the panel count in Appleseed) or that’s familiar, but perfected or done in a new way (Frank Quitely’s work on We3 is a new spin on the same tactics Shirow was working with).

(I get the same thing out of rap, here and there. I want to hear bars that make me go “unh!” by accident like I was an old black lady in church and the preacher just said something wild profound.)

This McKelvie spread puts me in mind of Bill Keane’s Family Circus more than anything else, and it’s exactly what I want out of comics. There’s also this from McKelvie’s explanation:

Kieron mentions in the AR segment for the book that when you make comics as a team you’re really trying to pretend to be one person making the whole thing. That’s why we believe the best comics come out of close collaboration, and not just a production line.

You can tell when an artist and writer are in sync, I think. Or at least, I’d like to think. Who knows if I’m right, But either way, we need more stuff like this.

Yesterday saw the release of Before Watchmen: Comedian #6, ending this big experiment and going out on a whimper. The whole Before Watchmen concept was announced 15 months ago to a tornado of controversy and online arguments. One of the things that kept it so prominent in the internet news cycle was how many talking points it brought up. Some were mad because DC Comics screwed Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons out of the rights to the series. Some were annoyed because Watchmen was such a self-contained classic that you can’t really add to it. Some felt that even if you did add to it, what’s left to be said? Some noted how desperate for money DC came off as when a 12-issue series was prequelized into 37 issues, plus a backup.

(Sorry, it’s my nature.)

The announcement appeared to be one of the straws that broke the camel’s back for David. David’s since stopped reading any and all new Marvel and DC titles and hasn’t looked back. I’m not so affected by the im-Moore-ality of DC’s actions and I’m more enthralled by the circus of this move than the comics themselves. As a comic blogger, my own philosophy is that I would love for every comic I read to be good, but if it isn’t, I hope to God it’s at least interesting because that can sometimes be even better. Whether you loved or hated the idea of more Watchmen comics, you have to admit that the audacity of it is interesting as all hell, else nobody would be talking about it.

I decided to give it a fair enough shake. I didn’t read every single comic. I didn’t even read every single series. After the fact, they announced a one-shot of Dollar Bill (which I merely flipped through) and a two-part Moloch story. From what I understand, the Moloch one wasn’t bad.

Nite Owl by JMS and Joe Kubert was something I gave up on two issues in. It had its moments, but it just didn’t grab me. I guess it lost me because the origin aspects of the character are pretty good, but then JMS rushes through that so he could get to Nite Owl and Rorschach being a team. If anything, I did like an idea introduced about how Nite Owl and Rorschach don’t see eye-to-eye because of the way they remember their mothers affecting how they see women. I just found the series pretty boring and I was already feeling anti-JMS from his more recent DC work.

I didn’t feel the need to pick up Dr. Manhattan by JMS and Adam Hughes because I just didn’t have any faith in JMS at this point. I’ve heard mixed reviews swaying towards negative, but the art is apparently pretty.

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