Yeah, it’s been a week. My bad. All I can say is that the day job and the writing job are conspiring to kill my free time. I can definitely say that I won’t leave the site alone for a week again, though. That’s just inexcusable.

Now that the mea culpas are out of the way, let me give you another reason to be angry. You get a re-run today. Yeah. Sorry.

Before I had 4l, I had a blog on Livejournal called Guerilla Grodd. I catalogued the comics news of the day and added in a little commentary and original content. I was high off Journalista! and The Beat, so I had to have my own linkblog, too, you know?

I started an examination of Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart’s Seaguy. I got to issue 2 before I stopped, and I’ve been meaning to rewrite these completely. In the interest of not having this freaking site be bare any longer, I’m going to reproduce the first commentary, which covers Seaguy #1, here.

Read it. It’s old, but I think I make some pretty decent points, and I do hope that you’ll tell me if I’m wrong. The clickable links are almost all images, by the way.

Cripes, man. I hate to blog about what I’m going to blog about, but I feel like I owe it to you guys. I want to talk about Marvel Boy and Spider-Man: Reign and Kabuki and black heroes and The Other Side and everything else, I just have to make the time for it.

In the meantime, though, please enjoy this. We’ll be back asap, all right?

You can find the list, plus covers, over at Newsarama.

My commentary on the interesting books lies after the jump, and I’ve included the solicit text for them, too!
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New headers are up! I’m going to direct link them to save some time. If you made one of these, let me know! If you want to make one, just give me a 700×200 jpg of cool art with the word “4thletter!” somewhere on it. Make it cool, funny, whatever, but also pretty much worksafe, okay?

Man. I need to check and see my bandwidth usage just to be sure that I don’t go over.

This is from Big Ass Comics 01. This one is by Elfbot.
This is from a Madman comic, but I dunno which. Also by Elfbot.
Another by Elfbot, this time from Kill Your Boyfriend. Words by Grant Morrison, art by Philip Bond.
The rest of these are by me or Gavok as far as I know. A few of them have the fonts way too small, but oh well. The art is good. Enjoy!
Daughters of the Dragon Part 1
Daughters of the Dragon Part 2
Daughters of the Dragon Part 3
Daughters of the Dragon Part 4 (can you guess what I was reading when I was doing these new headers?)
99% sure that this is from a Justice League Unlimited Comic.
From the Waid/Kitson Legion of Super-Heroes comic.
Spaaaaace Ghooooost
Ultimate Extinction
Loveless, by Azzarello and Frusin, colors by Trish Mulvihill.
From an early issue of 52.
LoSH once again.
Brainy at work.
Ultimate Cap vs Ultimate Moondragon-clone.

This one isn’t new, but I love it anyway. Kara Zor-El laying down the law. More content later, kids!

If I’m posting on this here comics blahblahblog, I try to ensure that we’re working with snark-free waters. Not these Snark Free Waters, but similar in spirit nonetheless. Personally, I feel that comics are too awesome to waste sniping at each other and the creators. If I have a grievance, I’ll air it out professionally, courteously, and in a coherent manner. If I can at all help it, you’ll never hear the words “(author) is a hack” come out of my mouth. 99% of the time that word is thrown around, it’s completely untrue, and there’s really a better way to say “I don’t like this guy’s work.”

So, in the spirit of the idea that comics are freaking awesome and we’re all freaking awesome for reading them, even you in the back with the bad haircut, I’m going to present to you a Cool Comics Love-In. It’s a snapshot of what I like in comics right now, be they single issues, series, or other, and you better like it, too, or else I’ll and hopefully you’ll dig it as well. Let’s see if I can do these three or four at a time, once or twice a week okay?
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“What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he’s just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time.”
–Grant Morrison

I’m not usually one to complain about comics companies “destroying” characters. In fact, I think it’s kind the kind of stupid invective that gives comic fans such a negative fanboy image. “Destroying” is a loaded term, and there’s much, much better ways to express your feelings on the matter. This may be my attempt at that, or my attempt at putting my foot in my mouth. U DECIDE.

I do think, however, that comics companies can make/allow some fairly terrible narrative choices. Turning Xorn into some kind of Jerry Springer-esque twin brother was one. Actually, every time Xorn has been mentioned outside of Morrison’s New X-Men has been a mistake, I think. Identity Crisis left a bad taste in my mouth, despite Rags Morales’s excellent art. I liked the scene where Batman and Robin are trying to get to Tim Drake’s house before his dad dies. That was powerful, but the death of Jack Drake? Bleh. He was a cool dude. Mark Millar turning the New Warriors into patsies? Bah, Doom says.

So basically what I’m saying is, not everything comics companies do is great. Big surprise, huh? I once read a comment Keith Giffen made about the death of Blue Beetle. He said he wasn’t mad about it, and that his only feelings on the matter were “I would’ve done it differently.” I think that’s all any fan can really say. “I would’ve done it differently.” Mark Waid once said something like “Comics is the only industry where 90% of your audience thinks that they can do it better than you.” It’s true.

Long, rambling introductions aside, DC screwed the pooch on the Batbooks when they made the main man overly angry, right? Well, what about the satellite titles? Catwoman went from a must-read book to “Peace out, homey!” all in the space of one issue for me. Batgirl has renounced her title and is pretty much a villain now.

I am okay with one of these things, but I do not like the other. Let us begin, then.
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(This is a rewritten message board post from Something Awful’s Batman’s Shameful Secret. It was good, so I dragged it from the depths and rewrote it.)

“Why I Like All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder”
by little david brothers, age 22

Both All-Star Superman and All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder are takes on classic heroes that feature full creative freedom. It’s a chance for these guys to tell the Bats/Supes story they wanted to tell and how they wanted.

The Miller/Lee Batman is different from the Loeb/Sale, Loeb/Lee, Azzarello/Risso, Brubaker/McDaniel, Dixon/Grummett Batman, but it is still recognizably Batman. It’s Batman spun for self-conscious comedy. It’s a guy in a batsuit who isn’t crazy, I don’t think, but would like for people to think that he’s crazy, so he acts crazy. “I ate rats BY CHOICE SO HE BETTER EAT RATS TOO!” That’s hilarious. He’s trying so hard to be a hardcase that everyone around him, or at least Alfred (who’s known him for years and is probably tired of his self-important crap) to Dick Grayson (who has known him for maybe six hours and sees right through his self-important crap) knows that he’s putting on a show. Grayson mentions the fact that he can tell that Bats is putting on an Eastwood. Batman is a ridiculous concept when you think too hard about it, but it’s also an awesome one that much of America (even the non-comics reading folks) have loved since childhood, and that’s what I get from this book. “Batman is a crazy idea, pure empowerment fantasy… but doesn’t it rock?”

(“how cool is that?”)

Plus, you know, giant robot dinosaurs, and I am certain that Bruce Wayne also has a giant robot saddle when he has to hop on and ride around Gotham. “C’MON, CRIMINALS! SIC SEMPER TYRANNOSAURUS YOU COWARDS!” (Robin only gets a robot velociraptor on a leash.)

All-Star Supes is just as “stupid.” Superman overdoses on solar radiation, so he’s dying, but he’s also gifted with tremendous strength at the same time. Modern day interpretation? It’s about the fear of death and what makes a man human. However, it’s also every stupid Silver Age story in one. it’s got Superman robots, chess pieces shaped like Superman’s friends, the Fortress of Solitude with the intergalactic zoo, Superman making dresses, future Supermen, keys that probably weigh enough to punch right through the Earth and out the other side, technobabble, journeys to the center of the Earth to visit the Dino-czar, Cat grant eyeing up people’s crotches, Lois Lane with powers… it’s the same thing as All-Star Bats. “Here are all these crazy impossible ideas… robo-dinosaurs, journeys to the center of the Earth… aren’t they wonderful?!”

Then again, this may just be me. I read these books and it’s like I’m reading comics back when I was ten years old and Jim Lee was the biggest guy in comics. The All-Star books are big, stupid, and loud. I’ve enjoyed every issue of both All-Star books greatly, not in the least because Miller, Lee, Morrison, and Quitely are four of my most favorite creators. They’re fun titles that I enjoy reading, and would like to see them collected in extremely handsome hardcovers five years from now when they finally put out issue 12 of both series.

I also like Dark Knight Strikes Again. Once I find time (that’s a ha-ha, good buddy) I may do a few entries on some of my favorite Miller work that’s not DKR (DKSA, 300, The Big Fat Kill). It’s all a matter of time.

Here’s another angle by one Geoff Klock, wherein the author uses fancy words like “grotesque.”