I’m not kidding, vote for Genius. Do it once a day from here on out. It’s down to the final stretch for voting, and Genius has a chance to take the top spot.

Voting for Genius means a vote for a book starring a young and intelligent black girl who is not afraid to both take no prisoners and do what has to be done because it has to be done. There are no capes, no powers, no shenanigans– just someone who has been born into a role that shows up time and time again. It’s exciting, it’s interesting, and most of all, it’s new. It isn’t Starship Troopers Meets Jaws (“we’re gonna need a bigger spaceship”) or some other dumb high concept book. It’s new and it’s a comic book.

If I absolutely have to sell it to you through a superheroic lens, consider it “What if the spirit of Oracle from DC Comics, Batman from DC Comics, Malcolm X from X-Men, and Huey P Newton from Fantastic Four had a baby and that baby grew up in South Central?”

or

“What If Hannibal (not from the A-Team) was reincarnated into the body of a young girl from LA in the modern day?” if you’re a history buff

or

“What if this was the best new comic idea in years and it didn’t get any traction because you didn’t vote for it“

For serious, do you know a teen who’s curious about comics? Male, female, whatever? You can slide her this book. It’s got the right mix of “Fight the power” and “Knowledge is power” to both educate and entertain. It’s got all the fixings for a good comic and one that can pull someone in. You know how many comics I can give to my cousins? Not very many.

This is one of them. I asked for this comic over a year and a half ago and these people came through. Let’s support this book.

You can read the full issue here if you’re undecided. It’s the kind of idea that’s so awesome that everyone else is like “Ugh, I had that idea ages ago I just didn’t want to do it because it was too much awesome.”

I feel terrible that I didn’t write about it here more, because it’s exactly what I want out of comics. I got to meet the writing team at San Diego, and they were super excited about the book. I didn’t get a chance to chop it up with them, since they were signing at Larry Young’s table and I’d already spent half the con harassing Larry & co, but they’re good people. The artist is an Ormes member, and that makes her good people, too.

Go, vote.

I read SpeedForce.org, and had hyperborea.org in my RSS reader before it turned into/launched a blog. I’m a big Flash fan, and it is the Flash resource as far as I’m concerned. I don’t use it as a resource (like Wikipedia’s intended use) so much as a place to go and find something interesting to read, and something after that, and something after that (like Wikipedia is actually used).

Anyway, an interview went live on their site today with Tom Peyer, outgoing writer on the Flash. It’s a good interview, and well worth clicking through. Here’s an excerpt, though.

SF: Online fan discussions can get rather brutal. Do you keep an eye on fan message boards or blogs, or do you generally keep away from them?
PEYER: There are nice moments. Writing about one of our issues of Flash, a very nice blogger said that he was moved to read a comic that really understood what it’s like to be a parent. I don’t have children, so I took that as a great compliment. The negative posts don’t bother me anymore. The readers paid their money and have a right to express themselves. That doesn’t mean I’ll agree with them. I don’t voraciously consume the comics internet — when I’m not working, I like to read about other things — but I like it.

Is he talking about my Flashy Dynasty post? I think so! That rules.

You can check out my other posts on Flash here. It’s all the tagged ones, anyway. This one by Gavok is probably the best, though.

Four Color Heroines interviews noted bloggers Cheryl Lynn and Valerie D’Orazio, among others, at New York Comic-con 08. I wish that the interviews went a little more in-depth or were just longer in general, as we don’t get much more than a taste of each interviewee.

Geoff Klock writes “Remarkable: Morrison’s Authority:”

Morrison has re-envisioned how to make this book work like it did in the first few issues of Ellis’s run. Ellis’s Authority are supposed to feel HUGE but after a few issues we are deadened by the constant battles and HUGE begins to feel regular. With this final page, just one character suddenly feels MASSIVE again – you believe he COULD start World War Three on his own. As the Doctor, the team’s Shaman, says in this issue, in this world they cannot but be monsters, trampling on natural laws until they break. Implicit in Ellis’s story was the feeling that his “heroes,” in spite of the fact that they saved the world, were really bad guys – killing indiscriminately, changing the world as they saw fit, and answering to no one. Morrison’s protagonist from the first issue says it explicitly, asking the team, who identify themselves as the good guys, how they KNOW they are good guys. In terms of both physics and ethics, their whole world has been turned up-side-down – or right-side-up.

Myriad Issues talks to Leigh Walton

If you treat your comics as newspapers from a fictional universe, there’s no reason to read them twice. Marvel and DC have essentially told their readers that any given issue is not important—it’s only important as long as it connects to this network of events, or because it contains a certain plot point, they’re creating stories that can be replaced by reading a spoiler on a blog. And when you create that type of story, you have to follow that logic to its natural end, and relish the ephemerality. Make the best piece of disposable entertainment you can! Make it look like the other kinds of disposable entertainment that we understand.

God only knows why Marvel hasn’t had Spider-Man get sucked into a techno-dimension and lead into a summer crossover where part of the story is exclusively on MySpace or Marvel.com, or an alternate reality game that reveals what Dr. Doom is up to, or a chance to get text messages from Captain America if you give us your phone number. Play up the NOWness of it. You missed it? Oh well, you’ll catch up; that’s how these things work.

Comics are junk. Embrace it.

My review of Special Forces #3 is up at PCS. I got a shout on today’s Journalista,, too.

Joëlle Jones took a stab at redesigning a few of the X-Women, with colors by her friend Terry Blas.

Props to Khux for the find.

Rad Nauseam » Blog Archive » Have You Got Yourself an Occupation?

Like all great things, Babysan is extremely racist, heavily sexist and oh-so erotic. Published in 1953 (a year after the American occupation of Japan ended), Babysan is a series of one panel cartoons accompanied by a few paragraphs of explanatory condescension.

These are amazing. Click through and check these out. FBB4l affiliate David Cole also runs Atavism and will design you an awesome website if you give him money.

Other than being one of my favorite recording artists, Erykah Badu gives good interview. Blender interviewed her here, on a piece calledWho Does Erykah Badu Think She Is? What’s it got to do with comics?

Who is your fantasy man?
Batman. He’d let me drive that fast car. We’d go to Whole Foods and hold hands and take a shot of wheatgrass together. We’d go up to the counter, and he’d pay. I’d have an invisible jet, so we’d fly away -leave the car there, let Robin take care of it-and kiss in midair. We wouldn’t care who sees us.

I also laughed at this:

Have you ever doubted your sexual orientation?
Never. I’ve had a boyfriend since I was 5. His name was Benny, and he could make gun noises by crushing a milk carton with his foot. The first person I ever kissed was Huber Miles, in third grade. Then I asked him for money. (laughs) I thought it was appropriate.

What does a kiss cost now?
You have to change gods and wear crochet pants. You haven’t heard about me?

Whattup Andre and Common.

The Savage Critic(s): A History of Punishment for Adults: Jog reaches the last, black page on 8/13

And so, here we are at the spectacularly-titled Valley Forge, Valley Forge: The Slaughter of a U.S. Marine Garrison and the Birth of the Punisher, Vol. 10, the last. Like I mentioned, Frank’s story reached a sort of ‘ending’ in Vol. 9, so this one is a little different. It’s the only one of Ennis’ MAX stories missing the title character’s famous narration; here, he’s observed, puzzled over. We never once climb inside him, for what more needs be said? The action is often interrupted by text and ‘photos’ taken from a book written by the brother of a dead character from Born, and the chapters we read touch on prior themes of the series, though with a special emphasis on warfare waged on questionable grounds.

This is an amazing review, is all. I hope to have a wrap-up on it soon, too.