Esther Inglis-Arkell is on the ground with io9.com with an article about unexplored rapes in comics. You should go give it a read and then digg it in when you’re done, I think!
Pull quote link-blogging! I read some good things this past week, and I am here, sharing them, because I love you.
Here’s how it works. Sarting on the 16th, there will be a form field on this site where you can enter your name, address and age. Choose what general type of manga you want (shojo, shonen, seinen, yaoi, etc.), submit the form, and you’ll be entered for a random drawing. Each day, one person will receive 5 graphic novels. A winner is only allowed to win once… BUT! Post a photo of yourself with your manga, and send me the link at “jason@sonic.net”, and we will cross-post it on this blog and send you 5 more graphic novels.
Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide
Gonzo’s “There’s not a word yet, for old friends who just met” is an absolutely gnostic maxim. You are old friends because the spark of god comes from the same ancient source, but you have not yet met in the fallen world.
Geoff Klock examines gnosticism and The Muppets? I was skeptical when I saw the title, but dang if he doesn’t convince me over the course of the essay. It’s a fun read, and a nice way to look at a classic.
Third, there is no such thing as a “universal” canon. This is what I call the “Gershwin” rule. From the perspective of an American historian, George Gershwin is a canonic composer, profoundly influencing the development of American music with his distinctive marriage of black vernacular styles to European art forms. But from a Russian or Italian perspective, Gershwin is a local anomaly, a decent American composer who enjoys a far greater reputation among his fellow countrymen than in the international community. (Translation: he ain’t no Stravinsky or Verdi.)
Kate Dacey takes on the question of what belongs in the manga canon, to great effect. She approaches it from an angle I never would’ve expected, in depth, and wow– it’s totally worth the read. Also, she’s in it for the long haul down in her comments. Good golly. One of my favorite reads from last week.
The women on vintage and even contemporary mystery covers are, more often than not, busty blondes that generally fall into one or another simple category: Victim or Vixen. You’d think you’d be able to tell the V-Blondes apart by how scanitly dressed they are, but another pattern is that both types are often pretty disheveled in the clothing department. (Who knew ghosts and murderers loved fabric so much!) The true way to tell if they are a Victim or a Vixen is by their gaze. If they are looking directly at the reader they are a Vixen and are not to be trusted.
Colleen AF Venable at First Second goes in on one of my favorite things: book design. She discusses a few tropes of old school book covers, approaching the design for a new book, and has generally written a piece that’s absolutely worth reading if you care about things like “how books look.”
I’m just glad to find out that I’m not the only person who will spend an hour or two poring over old book covers.
The simple answer is that it is often necessary to emphasize immediate sales in an industry with tight profit margins, and that’s understandable. But if you have the financial backing to shift your priorities slightly — which is the question Quesada was asked — why wouldn’t you? If you could afford to invest in the best creators up front and give them the creative freedom that original graphic novels offer, or allow yourself gauge the success of more monthly comics as longer-term investments, why wouldn’t you?
Laura Hudson, czar of AOL’s Comics Alliance blog, digs right into Joe Quesada’s position on why Marvel doesn’t do OGNs. Another great read, and when I say “digs right into” what I really mean is that she “obliterates his wishy-washy answer.” C’mon Marvel, you got to do better.
It just makes it another crappy Big Two super-hero comic. It will sit on the shelf for awhile, eventually go out of print, and someday exist as little more than a reminder that yes, this is what they thought we’d want. A repellent, juvenile product–lazy in design, ignorant in preparation, and blind to the response it would create.
Tucker Stone looks at the online reaction to a certain comic book, and the comic book itself, and comes to a few conclusions. Which comic? JLA: Cry for Justice #3. He puts a few things into perspective, and wraps it up very well. Some whiny jerk shows up in the comments, too, having clearly missed the point of the editorial, but hey kids! Comics writing!
I dig O’Neil in general, is pretty great, but his look at Ann Nocenti’s story in Daredevil #500 was superlative.
But Nocenti is, well, better than that. Just in these pages she gives us a lot: a Daredevil / Bullseye fight, yeah, but that’s not really the main event. The main event is the two spectators who watch the fight and then, with a wounded Daredevil, explicate the preceding action. So not only do you see the fight, but every action in the fight is interpreted after the fact. The fight isn’t what’s important – in fact, you don’t even know why they’re fighting, or even what year the fight occurs. It could have happened in 1982 or 2006. I’ve read dozens of Daredevil / Bullseye fights over the years, but I haven’t read one that actually felt this visceral in years and years – you see every punch, but you also see the moment after the punch lands. No wonder one of the spectator characters is a boxer – boxing is another symbolically freighted activity, and Daredevil’s history with boxing makes for a nice overlap of symbolic metatext. Daredevil isn’t the invincible ninja master anymore, he’s a broken fighter with a concussion – possibly hallucinating.
Every word is true.
Abhay also goes in over on SavCrit, and he nails it, too. Gotcha good.
Found this via Cheryl Lynn–
Jim Steranko did a story called “Block” way back in the day. You can read it here. It’s pretty good, overall, and the Nick Fury shoutout was pretty cool.
-Over at the Factual, I make jokes about interracial dating and Nina Stone delivers the best review of Batgirl #1 thus far. Nina’s POV is great, and she wrote up a pretty funny review, too.
-IDW Publishing is releasing Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Parker: The Hunter on iTunes. Five chapters, first hit’s free. Haven’t seen this news anywhere? You should watch more iFanboy. Ron Richards interviews him and he drops the bomb like it was nothing. Here’s the embed, as the interview is hilarious and full of true facts.
They’ve got a good (but quick) interview with Adam Warren, too.
-If you don’t think digital comics are the future… well, have fun with your phonograms, horse & carriages, and that dying from tuberculosis thing. Print will undoubtedly stick around, but all the smart money is on digital comics that aren’t based around tights and fights. I like superheroes as much as the next man, but it’s time for some diversification, and I’m not talking about putting some chocolate sprinkles on your vanilla ice cream or a wise latina on the Supreme Court. I’m talking about comics about vampires, nurses, fast food, slice of life, lies, World War II, science fiction, detectives, and everything else that’s not, or poorly, represented by the Direct Market-focused comics industry.
I really like how Amy Martin draws comics. Not owning any kind of makes me a jerk, but I stay on her website!. I met her once, at a mutual friend’s poker party (I was there with my friend Jose Cuervo), and she was pretty nice to a total stranger, so there’s that.
She’s got a new book on sale, called Yo Ho Hos It’s Bachelor Girl. It’s two bucks, forty pages, and the excerpt makes it look pretty good. Her art is very cool and very cartoony. It’s funny to look at, which is pretty much number one on my preferred ingredients for funny funny books. The poses, the faces, all of it is something you can smile at before reading word one. She’s got a few comics up on her site, too, with this one being a personal favorite. Poke around on her site, she’s got more.
Go and check it out. It’s two bucks for the new Bachelor Girl, three dollars shipped. She’s got 20 copies on her Etsy store right now. Clean those on out. Do it… for the Gipper. Or because it’s funny. Do it for both, really.
The staff at Tucker Stone’s The Factual Opinion went on vacation last week, so he called in a few favors for his Comics of the Weak column. Who showed up? Let’s see…
How’s Joe McCulloch, Tim O’Neil, Timothy Callahan, Sean Witzke, Noah Berlatsky, Matthew Brady, Chris Mautner, and yours truly sound?
If this volume of Comics of the Weak was a rap song, it’d be Triumph and I’d be Raekwon. “Ayo, that’s amazing, gun in your mouth talk…”
G. Kendall made it through all of the ’90s X-Men books. NBX has been one of my favorite comics blogs since I first found it. I’ve loved looking back at all these dusty old stories and reading about ones I missed after I quit comics. It was a great idea for a blog, I think.
His long assessment of the quality of ’90s X-Men is probably true, too. Well worth a read.
You know what’s weird? At some point over the past few months, probably after I finished Monster and started Pluto and 20th Century Boys, Viz Media became my favorite comics publisher. If they had Yotsuba&, I’m pretty sure I could just read Viz’s books and be happy for the rest of my life.
The NEW PEOPLE shopping complex/cultureplex opens up today, and it has a heavy Viz presence. There are four stories, including the Mezzanine. The bottom floor is a 143-seat underground theater called Viz Cinema, which is showing a Bleach movie, the first of the 20th Century Boys trilogy, and Death Note currently. Above that is the first floor, which features food and Blue Bottle Coffee. The Mezzanine features New People the store, sounds kinda gift shop-y, with merch geared specifically around the New People complex and fancy Japanese tech goods.
The second floor is all retail, with a mix of stores that feature gothic fashion, lolita fashion, or both, and some fancy looking kicks. Take a look here. The third floor is the SUPERFROG gallery, which is described as “providing a direct link to emerging artists that draw their inspiration from Japanese popular culture.” It looks pretty interesting, and will probably be one of my first stops. Currently, it’s displaying some work by Yoshitaka Amano.
I’m definitely going to be making my way over there in the next week, if not tomorrow. I want to check out the first 20th Century Boys, since it covers up to the books I’ve read so far, and check out the SUPERFROG gallery. It’s in the heart of Japantown, so I can hit up Kinokuniya, too.
…but I like it.
Will Emmons looks at Thunderbolt, a largely forgotten Luke Cage villain.
Next there is Thunderbolt’s ideology and modus operandi as a superhero (see above). While Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Black Lightning all avenged a crime in the process of becoming a superhero this is true of many superheroes in general. Like Spider-Man, the crimes at the center of their origins didn’t leave them with a mad on for hurting people. On the other hand, Thunderbolt responds to his brother’s death more like the white seventies vigilante crowd (e.g., Punisher, Wolverine, etc.). You’ll note that he disfigures criminals he apprehends with little Harry Potter scars so he can know to kill them if he ever sees them again.
