It’s been a while, but here’s another bunch of memorable segments from comics past and present altered in the name of comedy and, sometimes, spite. To start, here’s something form the end of What If: Annihilation.

Next up, the Sinestro Corps War ends in a way that legitimately made me kind of sad. What kind of monster am I?

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Well. Yes. There is also that.

Join artist LeSean Thomas ( Co-Director/Supervising Character Designer of Peabody Award Winning “The Boondocks” Animated Series ) as he debuts his art book MIDNIGHT MARAUDER: THE ART OF LESEAN THOMAS VOLUME 2, a second collection of illustrations, conceptual designs and tutorial anecdotes. Featuring visual ranges from American animation and anime-influenced stylings to edgy, urban-driven aesthetics, it’s a visual tour de force of unique and dynamic work from one of today’s top American contemporary character artists.

I got a look at an early copy of the art book and it is super dope. If you’re in LA, here’s the details:
Date: Saturday, September 20, 2008
Time: 5:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: 33THIRD GRAFFITI SUPPLY/VINTAGE VINYL RECORDS STORE.
Street: 5111 West Pico Blvd.

I won’t be able to make it, since I’m stuck in San Francisco getting my work on, but I think this is a pretty cool event. If you’re in town, go to it and grab a copy of the book.

It’s got a great title, too.

I know there must have been a stage when my interest in comics was something between non-existent and monomaniacal, but I don’t remember it. One day my fingers had never touched mylar, and the next I was ordering long boxes and clearing out my bookshelves.

My obsession began in my mid-twenties, in the mid-2000’s, which was a pretty good time to start the habit. I had a job that paid enough to order everything I needed and I could find what I needed easily, since comics culture was thriving on the internet. I could buy trades, and if they weren’t available, look up what issues referenced what storylines and buy full stories online.

Which is why it was a shock to me the first time I picked up a new issue and realized it would be a whole month before I got the next piece of the story. More than a shock. I think, in fact, we should have a clinic, or a hotline, or an online support service to deal with that.

Over the years I’ve gotten used to the feeling, but there are still comics which give me withdrawal pangs. Lately it’s been Secret Six and Blue Beetle. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Anyone else?

The Big Three of DC, Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman, have always had a certain status in the DCU. Part of this comes from popularity, although admittedly Wonder Woman’s popularity has been low of late. Part of it comes from longevity. Everyone has memories of them. Most of it, though, comes from their iconic nature.

Superman is the one last hope of a dying race. He is sent to an unknown place where that hope is brilliantly realized, even if the sense of loss remains. He represents every parent’s wish for their child, and the responsibility that every child feels when it makes its way in the world.

Batman is the personification of solitary, relentless obsession.

The well known phrase used to describe Wonder Woman is ‘beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena’ but it sites entirely the wrong goddesses. Artemis is much more appropriate. The perpetual virgin and goddess of the hunt, Artemis was also the protector of newborn animals. This is what Wonder Woman evokes; purity, strength, ferocity, and the defense of the weak.

These three, and their situations, are archetypes that everyone recognizes and responds to.

Except that Superman is not Krypton’s last hope. Kryptonians hedged their bets by sending his cousin. And his other cousin. Also a dog. And a monkey. And a horse, in case the dog, monkey, and two cousins need a ride somewhere. There may also be a cat. But everyone loves cats, right?

Batman, the solitary night stalker, could be running a daycare center. Yes, the daycare center would get shut down by the state fairly soon, but until it did it would be full. No other hero has collected such a large number of sidekicks.

Wonder Woman has had crushes on various men for decades, and right now she’s aggressively pursuing Tom Tressor, I guess because his name sounds so much like Steve Trevor.

I can’t help but feel wistful for the icons, the perfect, immovable ideals that the originals represented. The Last Son Of Krypton has an emotional and aesthetic wallop that can’t be matched by three cousins and a petting zoo. The Dark Knight, the lone crusader who pits himself against every criminal in a vast, chaotic city is an extraordinarily spare and beautiful picture. That picture has gotten pretty crowded. And Wonder Woman? The virgin huntress? She’s wooing a man with a nectarine pit.

But if you take Supergirl and Powergirl out of the Superman mythos, you lose not only two fantastic characters, but the sweetness and the emphasis on family that is so great about the Superman books. The Batkids bring warmth and enthusiasm to the Batman mythos. And Wonder Woman is such a difficult character to relate to. Romantic love and all the failings and vulnerabilities that it brings out in a person gives readers a toe-hold, a way of understanding an immortal, invulnerable, an infinitely wise character.

There is something thrilling about iconic characters, and plenty of wonderful stories have been told using that aspect of the Big Three. However, a lot of good comes from knocking those characters off the pedestal. Not only does it introduce new and different characters, but it adds richness and texture to characters who would have been only splash pages. There’s something to be said for being a human instead of a god.

This sounds like a pretty good cause.

Charitybuzz.com is hosting an online charity auction benefiting Jayni and Chevy Chase’s Center for Environmental Education; a non-profit organization dedicated to “green” k-12 schools across America through initiatives that provide energy efficient facilities, encourage healthy food and lifestyles, and promote civic environmental education. I was wondering if you could publicize a donation from Robert Downey Jr. on your blog:

To raise proceeds and awareness for the organization Robert Downey Jr. has teamed up with charitybuzz to give one lucky bidder the chance to join him for a day on the set of Iron Man 2. Valid for 2 people in Manhattan Beach, CA, spring 2009. Based on availability. Winner(s) will spend time with Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. in his trailer.

Check out more info here. The auction closes on September 23rd, so you’ve got just under a week if you want to bid.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TOP COW ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2008 PILOT SEASON
2008 PILOT SEASON WINNERS

Fans vote for TWILIGHT GUARDIAN and GENIUS to get their own series
LOS ANGELES, Calif., September 18, 2008 – Top Cow Productions, Inc. announced today that the winners of the 2008 Pilot Season campaign are Twilight Guardian by writer Troy Hickman and artist Reza and Genius by writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman and artist Afua Richardson.

For over a month, fans went to the Top Cow website, the Pilot Season website or other sites once per day, every day, to vote for their favorite 2008 Pilot Season one-shots. Pilot Season is an annual initiative Top Cow began in 2007 that borrows its concept from the television industry: Six “pilots” are submitted for consideration to be “picked up for a season,” except instead of TV executives deciding their fates, it’s the fans! 2007’s top two vote getters, Cyblade and Velocity, will debut with new series later this year. 2008’s winners will debut with new series in 2009.

Twilight Guardian and Genius beat out Urban Myths by Jay Faerber and Jorge Molina, The Core by Jonathan Hickman and Kenneth Rocafort, Alibi by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Jeremy Haun and Lady Pendragon by Matt Hawkins and Eru.

Twilight Guardian is about an average woman with a particular kind of OCD that drives her to patrol a nine-block area in her neighborhood every night, and about the other “night people” and situations she encounters because of it. Genius asks the question, “Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, Patton. What if the greatest military mind of OUR generation was a 17-year-old girl who grew up on the tough streets of an urban war zone?” Both books resonated with a majority of the voters and their creators are ecstatic, excited and even surprised.

“Holey crullers! I really don’t know WHAT to say,” said Troy Hickman. “I feel like I did once at a convention years ago when I somehow wound up on an elevator with Mr. Curt Swan, and I remember thinking, ‘Something’s gone terribly wrong. They’ve accidentally let me on the IMPORTANT elevator!’ The creative teams on the other Pilot Season comics are just terrific, some of the most talented people working in this, or any, medium, and I feel so proud to even be included in this competition. And big congrats to Genius for winning the other spot!”

“I’m shocked, really,” said Adam Freeman. “Genius is not a traditional comic and I suppose that is one of its greatest assets as well as its biggest obstacle. We weren’t sure how readers would react but we knew it was a story we were passionate about. Kudos to Top Cow for being the only publisher willing to take that risk with us. Someone wiser than me once said, ‘Never underestimate your audience’ and, truth be told, we did a little on this one. We didn’t think people would ‘get it’ but apparently they did.”

“Hell, I’m just thrilled to have won something,” added Marc Bernardin. “Seriously though, it’s like Adam said: We knew Genius was an uphill battle, but every now and then, those uphill battles get WON.”

“I blew my voice squealing like a happy pig for a half hour and came up with at least five victory dances,” exclaimed Afua Richardson when she found out Genius was one of the winning titles. “I feel like I won one for all the oddballs out there—all the artists left of center, for the chicks who fight stigmas in comics, all of them!”

Now that the winners have been declared, the creative teams will work with Top Cow’s editorial department to start planning out their series, which will debut in 2009.

“Issue #1 of Genius sparked a few pretty heated debates in some circles but that was only the first act to a much larger story,” explained Freeman. “There is a lot more to tell. I am very curious how the future issues will be received because, trust me, this book is not going where you think it is.

“We’re going to dip a bit into Destiny’s back-story and the forces that combined to make her the woman she is today,” teased Bernardin. “And we’re going to show just how bloody revolution can be.”

“I look forward to a) seeing what happens next; b) getting the chance to work with Marc and Adam again; and c) really getting a chance to show my stuff,” asserted Richardson. “I just really want put my best foot forward on this.”

“Well, now comes the fun part: making comic books,” conveyed Hickman. “Let’s see if we can take Twilight Guardian where comics haven’t gone before. I don’t want to give anything away, but I promise you there will be comedy, and drama, and plenty of the unexpected. Maybe she’s a Skrull…”

“Everyone here at Top Cow wants to wish a hearty congratulations to the teams on Twilight Guardian and Genius for a hard-won victory in this year’s Pilot Season,” proclaimed Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik. “It was an incredibly close race across the board and these two teams campaigned hard for the fans’ votes. The fans have spoken and we’ve already got the wheels in motion to give them more of what they want!”

🙂

There has been plenty of criticism of Superman/Batman, most of it deserved. The comic is where kitsch goes to die a long, agonizing death. Its inhabitants often act so baffling out of character that it’s hard to believe that their names aren’t misprints. Many of the issues play fast and loose with continuity.

The most cynical part of this book is right on the cover. Whoever conceived of this book took the two most lucrative characters in the DC universe and stuck them in a book without even a proper title. No ’The Adventures of.’ No, ’Duo.’ No ’League of.’ They just put a forward slash between the names, presumably so no one will think the book’s about a mutant hybrid. As grabs for reader’s money go, that falls somewhere between having the Birds of Prey go undercover as porn stars and just gripping readers by the ankles, holding them upside down and shaking them until their wallets fall out.

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Jack Ryder: And welcome back to You Are Wrong! I’d like to take a second to introduce you to today’s fine guests. First up is Keeper of the Book of Oa and high ranking member of the Green Lantern Corps, Salaak.

Salaak: A pleasure to be here, Mr. Ryder.

Jack: On my right is Lyssa Drak, Keeper of the Book of Parallax and member of the Sinestro Corps.

Lyssa: Charmed.

Jack: Let’s get down to brass tacks. The Oan Presidency is heating up. On one side we have John Stewart, Green Lantern and author of The Audacity of Will, along with his running mate Hal Jordan.

Lyssa: Mass murderer.

Jack: Hey, save it! Stewart is up against war veteran Sinestro, who has recently announced his candidate for Vice President, Karu-Sil. Now, Lyssa, I have to say, this announcement came out of nowhere. We were expecting someone a bit more deserving like Ranx the Sentient City. He is, after all, prophesized to kill Mogo one day. What do you say to the claims that Karu-Sil, who most people haven’t even heard of, was chosen for no reason other than capitalizing on voters angry that Soranik Natu didn’t make it through the primaries?

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Batman’s Comedy of Eros, by Dennis O’Neil – ComicMix news

Comics have come a considerable distance in the few years since I left editing. Hell and damn, once verboten seem okay both in comics and on TV, and a few gamier locutions are beginning to pop up. But I don’t believe the medium – comics – has evolved to the point where authentic street lingo is expected.

This is about the All-Star Batman thingaling. I guess what he’s meaning by “authentic street lingo” is curse words, but I don’t exactly see why comics have not, or would not have, evolved to the point where it is expected.

“Motherloving” is a terrible, terrible word. It was bad in Ennis’s Punisher, it was bad in Priest’s Panther (or was it Deadpool?), and it was bad in last week’s issue of Amazing Spidey. “Butthat” is pretty bad, too. “*@#($&” is annoying, but not as annoying as the fake Legion grife and sprock and frak and whatever.

I saw The Incredible Hulk with Ron from iFanboy and James and Kirsten from Isotope. There is a bit in the movie where the old school Hulk theme plays. We were talking about the movie afterwards, and Kirsten remarked that playing the Hulk theme was a bad move. It was something that pulled you out of the movie and just reminded that you that you were a dumb comics fan who was seeing a dumb movie about a dumb guy who turns into a big dumber guy.

That’s what the fake censoring does. No one is doing it for the “Hee hee it was almost a cuss word” thing. People do it because the other ways look stupid. The other ways just serve to remind you that, HEY, this is a comic book, buddy! They jerk you out of the story. They look stupid.

The black bars are actually pretty elegant. I think the first place I saw them, and really noticed them, was in Adam Warren’s work, though Milestone used a variant of it. It’s reminiscient of the TV beep or music video cut. It takes away the word while still allowing it to remain present for dialogue flow or character purposes. A lot of all-ages titles get this right. They don’t use fake curse words. If they have a situation that needs them, they don’t replace it with “motherlover.”

Some people don’t like to be reminded that they are reading a comic while they’re reading. It isn’t a comics hate or self-hate thing. It’s no different than being pulled out of a movie or novel. It’s distracting. It hurts your enjoyment of the book.

So, yeah. Put me down with the people who expect authentic street lingo out of comics, be it superhero or otherwise. I can’t think of a single reason why not. If it isn’t a book that that is mature readers (and that is an essay to come, as Frank Miller had a really interesting discussion about it in some Sin City lettercols years ago) and you are worried about backlash, bleep the words.

David U from FBB has some more thoughts on the immaturity thing here.

More to come. I’ve been at work all day yesterday, all night last night, and possibly all day today again. I want to talk about this stupid streak of self-loathing comics fans have, or at least loathing toward other comics fans, and more on censorship and labeling.

I guess the long and short of it, though, is that labeling isn’t something I’m down with and self-loathing is for idiots.