In Review of: Johnny Hart's B.C.

Someone, a long time ago, made a point of putting a time limit on the comic strip: i.e. any single strip that hit 35 years needed to be retired. Even the great Peanuts was tired at 35 years of age, and finished up its run dimming the memory of just how good it was in its decade long prime.

B.C., which obviously will end with Johnny Hart's death, will end, but it will be remembered more for the its controversy than for its earlier highlights. As a child, I read the paperback collections that were published in the 60's and 70's and didn't always get the sardonic tone that Hart had in the strip, not did I get some of his more obscure puns, but there were others that were so simple and direct that they were the equivalent of a visual knock-out punch.

What, unfortunately, will be remembered, is Hart's overt religious stance in the last 16 years of his life, and the effect that it had on his strip. The Washington Post's Obit on Hart has two paragraphs on two of the most directly offensive strips from the last 16 years of B.C.:

One Easter "B.C." strip showed a menorah's candles being extinguished as the candelabra morphs into a cross; the final frame included the words, "It is finished." To his critics, this symbolized a triumph of Christianity over Judaism, but Mr. Hart said it was meant to "pay tribute to both" religions.

Muslims were enraged by another "B.C." strip that ran during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It featured an outhouse with multiple crescents -- a symbol associated with Islam -- and showed a cave man saying from inside the makeshift bathroom, "Is it just me, or does it stink in here?"

Wow, that's really subtle. Hart also has this quote from 1999:

"I don't know if it's the liberalization of this country or whatever [that] has taken prayer out of schools and pulled the Ten Commandments off the walls of courts, and we've become a nation of heathens. The Christians are still out there, but they're hiding," he said. "They're afraid because every time somebody tries to make a move, somebody steps on them and pushes them back or locks them out. So they think that I'm a hero, and I'm not. . . . That's probably the most pathetic thing of all, that they admire me and think that I'm courageous and brave to mention God's name."

Guess what, last I heard, there was separation of church and state in this country. And, by the way, calling the rest of the country "heathens" if they don't believe what you believe is a good way to get people to hate you, even people like me, who strongly believe in the right for you to say whatever you wish with your art. Even if it gets you into trouble.

No one gets a free pass with their death, and, personally, I dislike Hart's overtly religious cartoons, no matter who they're directed at, even while I appreciate the talent in the early years. Unlike the Anti-terrorist cartoons that landed the dutch in trouble (since they were labeled as anti-muslim), his cartoon have no specific statement, other than: "My religion is better than yours." If you want to go after my work when I'm dead, don't pull your punches, 'cause my feelings won't be hurt, I promise you.

Especially using a caveman to write a poem lamenting Jesus' death. Sorry, the title of your terrible screed is "B.C." as in "Before Christ". This is the only bit of continuity cop I'll bother to play: duh, Johnny, Jesus hadn't been born yet.

I won't miss having to watch more trees destroyed for B.C. or the miserable Wizard of ID. Both strips are better off six feet under.

Edited to add this terrible news:

Daily strips already done by Hart will run through April 28, and Sundays through May 20.

In tribute to Hart, his family will select six weeks of their favorite “B.C.” strips to run daily between April 30 and June 9, and Sunday between May 27 and July 1.

After that, “B.C.” will resume its regular schedule. As previously reported, Hart’s children and grandchildren will continue the comic.

MIA

Sorry to have been missing but real life has been calling. I'll be back soon with new reviews and comments on:

• the seven soldiers of confusion... er... victory
• a concentrated dose of Y: the last man
• a new Pistoleras cover
• more good stuff!
  

Marshall Rogers: A Remembrance

I just received the word that Marshall Rogers had died and I still don't want to believe it. Marshall, who I've written about before, was, in my opinion, the greatest Batman artist of all time. What he lacked in technical ability at anatomy at the time that he burst on to the scene in 1977 was far overcome by his natural gifts in storytelling, and his unique vision.

The scans are from my originals of Detective #478, Eclipse Magazine #8 and an unpublished page from a Goodwin/Rogers/Austin that was abandoned when Archie died. The Panel from Detectives Inc. is scanned from the book.

Why should we remember Marshall? I only met him once in person, as a teenage fan, and I was looking forward to seeing him at the Super-Con on June 2nd and getting the chance to chat with him. But not knowing him moves his work in to a totally different realm for me: I don't have the chance to know that man behind the curtain, and now I never will. His Batman will remain enigmatic to me, a creation of Englehart's brain and Marshall's and Terry late hours at the drawing board.

DC, has, by a loose count, reprinted the seminal Batman tales that the three did in Detectives #471-476 more than 6 times in the last 30 years, which must be some kind of record. For all that people say that O'Neill and Adams reinvigorated The Batman, I believe that it was the Rogers/Austin Batman that set the template for the many more years to come, until others decided to subsume Miller's future Dark Knight persona in to the modern day.

Oddly enough, I always believed that those issues were the pinnacle to the three teaming up to produce such a rare and perfectly balanced masterpiece of a story, and yet that was hardly the truth at all. Steve wrote all six issues and delivered them to DC and went off the write his first novel, the underrated Point Man. The pacing of the books was modified by Marshall in places, as was some of the dialog, to fit the story on the board. That's incredible. Marshall was just channeling this new version of The Batman from his head and filling pages with it. The movement of the cape alone was so... different... than those that had come before it, that I still can't quite figure out how he decided to put so much air under the thing.

I fully intend to do a long look at the O'Neill Rogers Batman text story someday. And I'm not even biting into the Mister Miracle issues, which had their own mix of Rogers and Kirby pastiche. I don't think that they were as successful as The Batman work, but they should have been.

Leaving DC, Marshall was on the vanguard of alternative publishing, with Don McGregor on the inaugural Detective's Inc: A Remembrance of Threatening Green. Filled with beautiful odd moments, Marshall pulls out all the stops, including using a whole art store's worth of zipatone on the opening night sequence alone, and the panel here, with its reverse sihlouettes on the trees.

I Am Coyote, my personal favorite, was serialized in the B&W Eclipse Magazine, and was a stunner of a story. Off on the deep end of magik ans science with Englehart again, Rogers took the art to town and went big (the originals are much larger that regular art, and seem to have a much more epic feel to them, just as Kirby and Ditko did on the twice up art) and went weird. Coyote and the Void were scary and funny at the same time, and you got the uneasy feeling that you had stumbled onto some bizarre part of Steve Englehart's brain that wanted to put one hell of a fresh twist on the usual shadow cabinet rules the world story.

While Coyote would continue as a character on Marvel's Epic line, it would never have Roger's unique vision on the art again.

Scorpio Rose, the Strange Apparitions portfolio. The Madame Xanadu one shot. Oddities that crept out of Roger's studio, but that never scratched the itch that the prior work had given us. Marshall was a visionary, but his vision let us to the Foozle and that wasn't what we wanted at the time. Mainstream comics were not at the right spot for Marshall.

I wish that we had had more issues like those of his '70's work. I wish that Levitz hadn't gone to the Dollar
Comics and simply left his and Giordano and Wein on the regular book for a year. Just so that we could have see where it all would have, could have gone without the interruptions. Most comic fans don't need the history lesson, but I want to go down memory lane, when Marshall was an innovator whose work floored me, and I wanted for people to see some of exquisite work in all its original black and white glory.

I wish that i had had time to go to dinner and bullshit with him for a while. But I can't, and it violates my cardinal rule: find the people whose work you love and tell them that. Buy them dinner and beer. Give them their props. I just ran out of time. Damn.

A nice quote from Steve in the LA Times Obituary:

"He drew a total fantasy world, but he wanted it to be a very real fantasy world," Englehart said Tuesday. "It was very striking, it jumped off the page … another artist could have worked on pages every month for 30 years and not made the impact Marshall did."

In Praise Of Mentors: Alan Weiss

The Wardancer panels are scanned from my original pages.

Like many comic artists, I was essentially self trained in the specifics of comic art. Like most I nicked a nose from Adams, a hand from Gulacy, a layout from Perez and tried to synthesize them as my own. As I worked more on my inking I studied different approaches, from the thick line approach of Dick Ayers and Jack Abel, to the studied contrast in Klaus Janson and Pablo Marcos' work, to the precision in Terry Austin's.

How cohesive is this really? I recall seeing the swiped Chaykin figures in Jim Lee's early work. How do we develop a style and a language that will allow us to actually critique our work and make it better?

Arriving in New York for my first comic book work back in the early '90's, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work on the book Wardancer with Alan Weiss. Alan had been through the trenches of '70's Marvel with all the people that were my idols, creators of my favorite comics: Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Barry Smith, et al, and had a million and one stories to tell.

And he could draw. Oh yes he could.

It would end up being the best situation that I could have imagined. My ink work looked terrible on the pencillers who came up with outlines and no substance. (Take a look at the first half of Good Guys #4, or better yet don't) Alan's work was a substance and form, all muscle and sinew, light playing over the figures as they moved and breathed in a 3 dimensional space. It was both a joy to work on and pulling out my own fingernails tough.

After I did each batch of pages Alan and I would meet at a diner to have a bite, talk some life and go over the work. He had asked me to do less feathering and use more texture to round the figures. I ended using a combination of grease pencil and dry brush work to add the grain he was looking for. It made for absolutely beautiful originals; they had depth and clarity and fullness to them that is lacking on more graphic work. Given the color process at Defiant, it also led to horrible, horrible printed work. It was a shame.

Alan gave me the terms and verbage to adequately discuss the art of comics, the art of lighting a figure and how to, if need be, fix said art. I did as much fixing as I could along the way. I learned how to sculpt the figure with the brush, much you might sculpt stone in three dimensions. I also found that few editors have the knowledge and language to adequately convey what they want from artists, which is a huge issue when it comes to review artists work at con, or being able to actually discuss the work in the office. It may be one of the great failings of the comic biz, that there are very few Archie Goodwins nuturing new talent or tweaking existing talent to being better.

It was an amazing education in a short concentrated period of time, punctuated by lessons on the politic of comic books, as well as the brutal reality of the comic market circa 1993/94, which was not a great time for comics. I know that in talks with Alan, I saw an extremely creative individual with a number of fun, interesting ideas, many of which were simply too far afield to have worked in the "grim and gritty superheroes or bust" world of the 1980 and 1990's. In a world of Rocketo and Milk and Cheese, Steel Grip Starkey would certainly have had a better chance of finding the sales it needed.

While those days of living in New York are more than a few years in the past, I still remember so much of those afternoon sessions poring of the artwork with Alan, figureing out ways to make things better. I still look at my own work with that eye: does it have form? Does it have substance? Does it take life on the page?

Viva La '70's: Part Two

An interesting debate rages over the blogosphere over the quality of the '70's comic, with some popular players weighing in. Here are a few bits to catch you up:

Over at Dick Hates Your Blog is a rehash of the 1970's era books, and, lets face it, he doesn't think very much of the them. In particular is his comment that nothing very good came along during the decade.

Marvel and DC were likewise rehashing the previous decade until Claremont and Cockrum (with much help from Len Wein) reinvigorated the superhero team comic. But again, the new X-Men are often lumped in with the comics of the 80s, perhaps because it was so influential on the comics of that decade.

and Heidi MacDonald retorts, quite correctly:

Come on now! Is Dick trying to be silly? As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the current comics biz is mostly run by post-boomers who all came of age reading 70s comics... Marvel in particular, had a great run that is still being strip-mined to death.

and Journalista at the Comics Journal, the vanguard of comics criticism, weighs in with this deep thought:

But let’s face it: 1970s superhero comics sucked pig balls.

To which many pigs, said "Yeah!" But the rest of us who were picking up the rapidly escalating 20 cent comics of the decade probably have a more informed take on the work. Our friends over at Journalista have their view, now here is mine.

The '70's, which have been labeled by Dick to be a decade without an identity had their high and low moments, but that was all against the backdrop of a huge shift in business and distribution that certainly had an effect upon the content in the books. The traditional newsstand distribution that existed, and thus a particular audience was starting to shift in the '70's, and you would soon see books that were selling on a fraction of the numbers that prior decades had seen.
Marvel, which has a ton of low points, although many of them not as low as DC's in the same decade, also had some very interesting high points. Want to look at Jim Starlin's Captain Marvel and Warlock? The prototype for the giant universe ending crossover. Don McGregor's Killraven and Black Panther were almost of a lyrical bent, with metaphysical leanings, and certainly were the most literary comics prior to Alan Moore's arrival. Steve Gerber's acerbic wit lent Howard the Duck and Man-Thing a bite that would be hard to imagine in today's corporate driven properties. Moench and Gulacy's Master Of Kung Fu was an artistic delight to read (Doug's final story arc of multiple first person narratives in MOKF from #40 - 50 was certainly something that Marvel in the '60's would never have tried). Heidi had it right: Marvel is still mining the second generation of artistic talent that came in after Kirby, Ditko and Steranko.

Do I even need to mention the All New, All Different X-Men? I doubt that we would have comics today without them. As I mentioned in an older post on Dave Cockrum's death, we should be kissing the feet of Claremont, Byrne, Austin, Wein, and Cockrum that we have an industry to blog about.

That was Marvel in the '70's. It didn't need to establish one single identity to have some great high points.

DC? Put this in your pig testicles: Kirby's Third World is modern mythological foundation for the DC universe, started in the '70's. Do we have the Batman of today without Rogers and Adams' versions? Nope.

Your turn!

The Dark Phoenix Always Rings Twice

Odd Jack has some nice thoughts on making Mary Marvel evil, but besides being snarky about it, as I was on the Turner JLA cover, he starts to go into the odd thinking that happens when "Good Girls" turn to the Darkseid... er... Side.

Its amazing to see how often the new "Bad Girl" decides to use sex as her weapon of choice, or at the writer will use sex to show how uninhibited the new "Bad Girl" is, as if women with repressed sexuality are still a horrible norm in our society. Perhaps they are, but then why don't we see men expressing the same bad tendencies? Because men are already allowed to screw all the women that they want anyway and called "studs" while women who follow the same path are "sluts"?

If we try to go and rip away the odd victorian morality that we still see in some comics, it becomes obvious how "blah" the usual "Bad Girl" is. She puts on a darker costume (Dark Phoenix), uses her powers more creatively (Sue Storm), starts to use her vagina a little more, throw in a little lesbian kink and, PRESTO! You've got the "Bad Girl".

Perhaps if we didn't have such a stultified view of sexuality we would have far darker "Bad Girls". (Oddly enough, since so many of the comic founders were Jewish, their heroes and heroines were terribly whitebread. There is none of the deep sexual guilt in Judaism that we see associated with many other religions.) When I hear about mothers who lock their kids in the car and push the car in a lake, that is a far darker version of a "mother" than most comics will ever tolerate.

In order to make our characters "dark" we have to first identify with who they really are, not just men and women, but how they interact, what their fears are, and then we start to turn the screws on them and the reader. Repressed sexuality may be a part of the character, and, perhaps for Sue Storm, it makes sense, but I'm far more worried about a writer twisting our usual preceptions of women in interesting ways. Morrison's Zatanna from 7 Soldiers was a far more interesting version of her than we've been allowed to see. but Morrison's a great writer.

At least Dark Phoenix didn't have to die for having premarital sex with Scott. She just shouldn't have killed the damn Broccoli people. Perhaps Lis over at Kid Sis will haul out her thoughts on evil Scarlet Witch. Vacation on Wundargore Mountain anyone?

Rhetorical Question: Do Turner's Women Have Intrernal Organs?

Of course not. We all know that. Its just been proven once again by the sneak peak cover of JLA #10 the Meltzer has posted on his My Space page, that I've stolen and posted here.

OK, I'll be up front about this: I like breasts as much as the next heterosexual man, probably even more so. But this Power Girl is just out of bounds. Really. If they are going to be that big, than I want a body behind them that can at least look like it might hold them up and instead we literally have a chest cavity smaller that the mammary gland on top of it.

Obviously I'm wrong and the market place is correct because Turner keeps getting work, and I've never met Michael so I'm not picking on him personally, but this just doesn't work for me.

I'm clearly not a true fan boy anymore. I've lost my credentials.

Sneak Peek: Pistoleras Page 6

Another sneak peak at Pistoleras artwork with the tones added in.

Comments? Questions?

Oh That Pesky Generational Gap: Marvel Essentials

Over at Continuity Error is a post on the Essential series by marvel, which adds a wish list of new essentials.

This paragraph caught my eye:

Pretty much anything by Stan Lee is unreadable (sorry, Stan, you're a great creator but those old issues were baaaad), who the hell is Killraven and I don't think I'll ever want to read 500 pages of Ant-Man

as did this is at the top of the Essentials list most wanted:

Secret Wars: You can go two ways with this. There can be a single volume version with both Secret Wars and Secret Wars II along with some essential tie-ins, or it could be a two-volume set, one for the original and one for the sequel and each with plenty of tie-ins. I think it this would be a cool Essential mostly because I'd like to see the series feature important and classic storylines, not just reprint old stuff in order.

I respect Continuity Error greatly, first because I love the title of the blog and wish that I'd thought of it, and secondly because he featured the Godzilla vs. Barkley comic that a good friend of mine was the inker on, but that first paragraph just got to me. After all, I understand that you can't immerse yourself in that much Hank Pym at any one time without going so mad that you might find yourself turning into Yellowjacket.

However, I would make the case that McGregor and Russell's Killraven (i.e. The War of the Worlds) was an astonishing read in its day. Without having the issues in front of me, we had an interracial romance (which was not the sole focus of the sub-plot thank you), a father-daughter horror story as one of the band of adventurers has to care for her father who has had his mind taken away, and a whole host of emotionally wrenching episodes as they journeyed across the Martian devastated USA.

While starting out in a fairly generic Marvel style, P. Craig Russell moved forward at lightening speed (as did a number of his Marvel contemporaries most notably Starlin and Gulacy) both in terms of layout and illlustrative style. The rotating series of inkers on the book may have had the effect of making sure that some of the artistic growth was being buried under diverse hands, but for those who were looking it was apparent that Russell was something special. The series finale Mourning Prey was a monster step forward with P. Craig Russell's style, one that would signal his shift artistically to where he has gone to today.

And when it comes to the Secret Wars essential: Jeez, I can hardly believe that anyone would want read that again, much less have it in a squarebound edition, but hey, someone bought the thing in the first place, so there must be a level of nostalgia around it. I think that I would love this essential: Marvel's Essential Failures. Comprised of Omega the Unknown, Black Goliath, the odd Marvel Premier (Legion of Monsters, Seeker 3000, and Paladin), and The Champions (with unpublished material). Lets hear it for '70's Marvel goofiness!

We're Watching the Watchmen: Moore and the Movies

Buried on the Wired Blog I found this lovely still, which should wet the imagination of just about every comics fan out there, while igniting the same level of dread at equal proportion.

Why dread? Shouldn't we be overjoyed to have one of the signature works of the comics medium finally transferred and adapted to the big screen with a great big budget?

Having suffered through more than enough adapted Alan Moore movies, I can say that the dread has long since overtaken the excitement portion of my brain. Why should we expect that this adaption will be any better than From Hell or V for Vendetta? I would love to say that "Hollywood doesn't get it." but I don't think that that is actually the case. I think the makers of V did get that elusive "it" but were unable to fully translate the material to the screen. I'm not so sure about From Hell, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt a little bit.

The problem lies in a couple different areas: one, primarily, being that Moore's work tends to work on a number of different levels all at the same time, layers of subtext upon subtext. From Hell builds upon itself and the degree of drama is inherent in that, since we all know the general story of the Ripper. The standard screenwriter's "A" story, "B" story and "C" story seems to not be able to convey the material in a fashion that allows it to be adapted without being disemboweled.

The second, and this is key, being the episodic nature, never more so than in Watchmen. Squeezing all 12 issues will require so much material being taken out that I doubt that the murder mystery part of the material will get its proper due, much less the underlying motivations of the different costume wearers, the history of the alternate earth, the relationship of heroes to the community during different time periods, etc. Look at Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Rowling's most successful long form book in the Potter series: at 3 hours it plays like the short version of the book, with all the most important plot points, for the Harry Potter fan. Those wishing the real deal will work their way though the book. The same need to condense the material will most likely happen to Watchmen, and it will lead those non comic fans to say,"What's the big deal?"

A modest proposal: Watchmen as an HBO miniseries, like 24 or Carnivale, that would require the viewer to come back again and again as the clock moves closer and closer to midnight. I would allow the material time to breathe and the view digestion time to appreciate the subtextual material better. It makes the payoff at the end all that much better.

A Boom Tube Full of Comics: Jack Kirby Omnibus

Now, this is the RIGHT way to do this.

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus vol. 1 will be released in May, marking the first salvo in DC’s plan to reprint the entire Fourth World saga in order of publication. Readers today will be able to read the stories in the order that readers in the early 70s were able to read them. Vol. 1 collects stories from Jimmy Olsen #133-139 and the first three issues each of Forever People, Mister Miracle and New Gods.

The important part of this, really, is the ordering. Kirby was, without any question, a real stream of consciounce writer, one whom ideas and concepts would cascade into the forefront of his mind and spill out onto the page.

Mark Evanier has certainly written about how Kirby created the Black Racer and agreed that maybe he would hold off on using him so that the readers could get used to the lay of the land with Lightray, Orion and Darkseid, and then the very next issue #3 of New Gods had, you guessed it, the Black Racer!

This will be a great pickup, and an entertaining read for those who have never read the original source material that DC has been using and sometimes abusing for over 30 years. Even for us old timers, I know that I have gaps int he original issues that I read, thus missing some of the narrative thread, and that this will give a fresh approach to the material. I'll be very curious to see others make a fresh evaluation of the material. My guess: the ordering of the comics will point out that the series was even better than people remember, but that its flaws, because its certainly not perfect, will also be magnified by the printing here. Just my guess. Soon we'll see

The Cynic: Jennifer de Guzman and More Wonder Con

De Guzman has a post about WonderCon that she label's "I'm so cynical", and after prowling the aisles myself, I can certainly see the side of things that are doing such a good job of bringing her down. Here is her most positive paragraph:

I think what depressed me is the separation I feel from comics and graphic novels as storytelling and art when I'm in convention crowds. Sometimes it is not like that. Sometimes I'm gratified that we're getting these comics into people's hands. And there are those moments, when more girls pick up Wonderland or GloomCookie, or I say, "Oh, no, they can look at it all they want! We don't believe in putting comics in plastic bags around here!" when a father warns his kids not to touch copies of The Super-Scary Monster Show too much, and the kids open the book and grin at the art, and one declares, "I want to be a cartoonist when grow up!"

But lets be realistic. There will always be chicks in tight skirts and cleavage to draw attention to people's booths. I've been going to comic shows longer than she's been alive, and while I deplore the emergence of porn as a viable sales vehicle in the comics/collectibles biz, this is no different than the shift that has happened in the outside world. So after all these years of Cons, here's what I think: things are miles better than they were just 10 years ago in the long off age of 1997.
Yes, there is a disconnect between the folks that desperately want to be having a picture taken with the Adam West Batman (although the kitschy part of me thinks thats OK) and the Eddie Campbell, Gene Yang, Evan Dorkin fans, but that's OK. Hell, Evan might even go pose for a laugh.

For while our little comic get togethers like Wonder Con, San Diego, and (god help us) Wizard Con may be examples in geek excess, indeed almost any gathering of people devoted to one particular subject tends towards that, but in the real world, the aisles of Borders as opposed to Wonder Con, there is a much great relevance of Gene and Eddie's work than there is for the dreaded Spider Sperm saga.

This is a GOOD thing.

We're winning the battle, slowly but surely. And for every well done graphic novel by Slave Labor, Oni, NMB, Fantagraphics or any of the others, we increase the chances that our medium is taken seriously and rejuvenated as a popular media form.

So, jennifer, take a deep breath and relax. Your Monkey "scratch and sniff" shirt is in the mail.

The Art of Storytelling: Should Cinema Rule?

Eddie Campbell, over at his site, has been putting up a number of "rules" of storytelling that he tries to live by, and I was caught by this one, In Thrall To The Cinematic Principle, which uses Bernie Kriegston's powerful EC tale, The Master Race, to discuss how comics are like and not like movies.

Eddie makes a number of good points about highlighting the drama and the action between the figures in the story, and brings a arguement against the modern comic page layout: i.e. one large panel with a splashy figure surrounded by a number of small panels that break time and action down in a series of step whether equal in time or unequal. (Image to be posted later)

I recall someone who was editing a version of the Marvel Universe guide discussing how hard it was to find a shot of Cyclops using his eye beams with the effect of the beams being shown in the same panel. He had to go all the way back to Kirby's layouts in X-Men 13 or so to get the shot.

Its true, we have a tendency to focus our camera on the protagonist of the panel often, and in doing so, we lose all the tension of the proximity of the figures to one another, their body language, their reaction to a word balloon in the same panel (thus compressing time into an immediate reaction shot in that panel). Twice in Pistoleras, I have scenes in the first 10 pages where the girls are stuck in smaller spaces and have to react to each other in a relatively quick series of exchanges, whether verbal or non-verbal. It seems rare to have that many "two-shots" in succession.

Krigstein, in other interviews, rails against the limitations that were laid upon him by Gaines at EC, and there is no question, given "Master Race" and what he would have liked to have done with it, that we would have far more advanced work from him had he been allowed to continue.
What is shocking is how Gaines couldn't see the forest for the trees here, while being so good as to allow Kurtzman the ability to follow his genius, and Woody his muse.

"Master Race" perfectly illustrates what Campbell is talking about, and he reproduces one of the pages at the climax of the story that makes a point to contain both characters of the story in each panel, thus never decreasing the drama as we're always aware of the proximity of each man to the other.

With all apologies to Scott McCloud, it has nothing to do with what is being said or done between the panels here. Each image is chosen to follow into the next, and makes for a powerful read-thru. It is in direct contrast to reading an episode of Love and Rockets, where so much is being set up in panel, and then we have an eighth inch of white space and we have to figure out what happened between Hopey and Maggie from the next 10 panels. Two different approaches. The latter rewards clever writing and patient readers.

I'm personally quite glad to see that Bernie left us at least this work to study, read and enjoy.

More on Eddie's rules later.

In Praise of: The Return of Jack Knight, Starman

This little tidbit came from the DC Comics WonderCon panel:

James Robinson does have a story in mind for more Jack Knight stories, and the door is open, Didio said, now, schedules just need to match up.

Amazing news to me. Starman is the Great American Comic Book from the 1990s, and deserves all the acclaim that it can muster. DC knows this, and has done a wonderful job of keeping the trades in print so that just about anyone can jump on board this wonderful series.

Jack Knight's personal journey, and his comic book journey, have plenty of meaning to me, and so I revisit them, both journeys, reasonably often. Especially the first 50 or so issues. tony Harris made his name and his career on this book, and so its easy to overlook the stylistic oddities of the early issues knowing the marvelous art that is to come.

I respect Jack's decision to move on, and appreciate the end of the series because it has just that: an end. His property, legacy as a character, is not diminshed one iota over the last 10 years. Should James have another story in mind, all I can say is this: pick the artist with care. I had a difficult time with Peter Snejbjerg, and would not want to go there again. Tony, you got room in the schedule to do one more run at this?

Artists and Art: Strange Bedfellows

I will fully admit to thinking about addressing fear of drawing in this post, as I find myself constantly battling the horrible suspicion that everything I do is complete shit and why am i bothering and all that runs through an artist's mind every time that they sit down and try to work.
And work it is. The "art" of Art is, like many things, is in making it look easy. We pick up a comic or graphic novel and find ourselves not thinking about how the artist sweat over the cover so that we would be motivated to pick it up in the first place. The best athletes make it look so easy when they perform.

We artists, lacking the immediate gratification of the audience standing on their feet as we throw the perfect touchdown pass, take our gratification, like our work, in slow motion. We sweat for hours to make the panel work that you, the reader will zip through on page 10. But we take our gratitude with each smile that the book brings, with each person that mentions a particular scene that they found memorable at a con years later.

This is, in one sense, why I've made it a real quest to go up to artists whose work I've enjoyed and tell them that. Some, like Pablo Marcos, said, "that's nice" and went back to their sketch (and not to diss Pablo, who I respect tremendously, but there may have been a language barrier there), but some are like George Tuska, whose work I read for years on Iron Man, and who I think got a real joy about someone coming up to them and talking passionately about pages and scenes drawn over two decades ago.

My hand only shakes when I'm nervous about starting a line somewhere on the page. And its always with a brush or a pen. Nothing like indelible ink to raise the stakes. Never happens with a pencil. To overcome this, I have a select bookcase of CDs to play and a bottle of Anejo Tequila to take a shot of when things are too tense.

Why would I admit my alchoholic tendencies? More to show the rest of the artists out there: nothing comes easy. For anyone who likes my work and thinks that they have it bad, here is the secret: there is none. We all struggle. And if someone had told me that years ago, when I hadn't had to discover it myself, I think that it would have saved me years of grief.

Wonder Con has come and gone...

... and I made about a 3 hour walk through with some friends. Its hard to show up at the conventions and not have a product that you can show to people, when deep down what you really want is to WOW everyone with something new thats been on your board. Ah well, I took the fisrt part of Pistoleras to show Mick Grey, inker on Promethea, and a great guy in his own right. He had some nice comments and very little harsh criticism. Heh, he's no help.

Saw my old college buddy Ron Lim and his phone pics of his kid. Didn't get too much time to chat with some of the other artists, but many of my old bay area buddies have moved to different time zones and I don't get the chance to see them as often. That is what San Diego exists for.

My good friend Steve Wyatt was also promoting his Super-Con in San Jose on June 2nd and 3rd and has a stellar line up of guests, including Marshall Rogers, who is still, in my opinion, the greatest Batman artist of all time. I hope to be able to get away to show up on the 2nd and have some booth time in artist's ghetto. For any bay area blog readers, this would be a great time to actually meet some of you. (I have a counter, and while I don't expect the guy in Korea who regularly reads, or the guy in Magill University of Montreal to show up, I know that there are at least a few of you out there...)

And for those days when your muse is lacking: Dani Draws has this great list of ideas to get free up the right side of your brain and think outside of those drawing blues. Feel free to make use of them what you will.

Couple Different Ways You Could Read This...

... and I suppose that I'm not to be reading this as "Drawing Life from... a train wreck" but I am.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, hmm.

We Warned You: The Death Knell of the Pamphlet

There is a Seismic Change happening around us in the American Comic Book Industry and, oddly, many of the comic blogs and comic news sites are strangely silent on the topic. The comics Journal is reporting it, and that small niche publications that no one pays any attention to, Publisher's Weekly, is running an article. The rest? Scattered reports here and there. but we should be paying attention to it. I've been talking about this for years, and blogging about it for months now.

Trades have taken over. The triumph of a long time, supportable and marketable form over that slim and rather tatty pamphlet. And the numbers will continue to grow for quite a while, since, as the numbers being reported by Milton Griepp show that we are educating a graphically literate audience who will likely be reading comics, in a square bound format, for the rest of their lives.

We should be paying attention, as this is the sound of plate tectonics happening under our feet. And while the pain of changing the economic model will be felt for a while, we are seeing a long term future for comics that didn't exist 15 years ago, let alone 30 years ago.

Journalista sums the oddity of major comic sites on the web ignoring this change:

Industry analyst Milton Griepp’s assertion that the graphic-novel market was now larger than the comics-pamphlet market, news that met with silence from news-sites far more obsessed with writer Steven King’s tenuous connection to a licensed comic book than an epoch-changing event almost certain to determine what the comics industry will look like ten years from now.

How long has this been coming, and how many years have the publishers been avoiding it? I've posted more than once on the format wars, and how it effects both preception of the work as well as the marketing and warehousing and displaying of the books.

I have gotten into discussion with plenty of long time comic fans over the demise of the pamphlet, and for many people it boils down to needing that weekly/monthly fix for the books, for the cliffhanger, but that doesn't acknowledge the economics inherent in creating a long lasting work, both for the publisher and for the artist.

I cracked open Jane Austen the other night, and ask yourself, should I bother reading Sense and Sensibility if I have to track down the 6 issues to find out what Mr. Darcy is really up to? No, its a contained work with a beginning, middle and end. Is there any reason that I shouldn't be reading it because the author is dead? No, the book is a good read, and will always be new to the person that picks it up tomorrow. So will Maus, so will Dark Knight, so will Watchmen. Can you imagine trying to get an adult to read Watchmen if they kept trying to hunt down all 12 issues of a 20 year old mini-series? The publisher should be able to keep good works in print as long as there is demand, which benefits their back catalog and makes a good artist/author something to potentially live on more than the next paycheck for the next 22 page story.

Welcome to the world of adult publishing, comic companies. It may make you less reliant on gimmicks and endless cliffhangers, but you're creating a long term future for the business and for the readers who care about the medium.

You Googled What?

In looking that stats to see where people are coming in from, I will say that I fully expected to see people run searches like "Miracleman #15", Jack Kirby, comic book inking and the like. What I didn't expect to see are a couple like these:

bound superheroine

eat my spit

steve cannon/porn

Especially that last one. I mean, c'mon folks. I'm sure that there is a Power Girl mini-series for the first group, but I'm really worried about the Steve Cannon crowd. Yikes.

Civil War: Thoughts on the Aftermath

Over Amy Reads we have a post that does a great job of analyzing some of the thought behind Marvel's Civil War series.

This argument, that people must be locked up not only for the good of the citizens, but for their own good, as well, has deep roots in Humanity's deepest pits of racism, hatred, xenophobia, anti-specific-religious sentiment, sexism, the list goes on and on.

(Now, mind you, I could easily e accused of an Anti-marvel Bias for some of my prior posts on the series (not that I've posted that many mind you), but the reality is that Marvel, more that DC, was the comic universe of my childhood, and the very best part of that. and that alone makes me pay attention, and increases my outrage when I see characters like the FF and Captain Marvel being misused and abused. So, YES, I care in a sense because I think that I want another generation of kids to have the same fun growing up reading FF that I did.)

But Amy touches on the plot points of WHY we would be upset over the registration act, and that metaphor, while fairly obvious, i hadn't done a whole lot of deep thinking about. It's a good read, and dovetails with what I was going to blog about: Captain America giving up.

As ddeply flawed as any of the character destruction that existed during the series, I'm far more afraid of the symbolism of Cap's giving up the good fight. In a metaphor of modern political forces, the forces that were scared enough to agree with the erosion of civil liberties that has existed in the post 9/11 world vs those that opposed the Patriot Act, believing that trampling the Bill of Rights and the Constitution essentially lets our enemies win anyway, Captain America giving up the fight is tantamount to the letting the terrorists win. Stark and the initiative are a fascist state, which is the strict definition of any government that conscripts its own citizens into a fighting force and imprisons those that don't.

I refuse to give up, and the Captain America I believe in wouldn't. Those that think we should let the government rule without checks and balances haven't looked at the country's financial balance recently: unchecked spending, war on false pretenses, and no oversight of the ruling branch of the government have led us to a point in 2006 when the majority of Americans voted "No." and threw many of the bums out. The fight that, for want of a better term, more "liberal" Americans have been fighting is to keep our civil liberties, to keep our freedoms, freedoms that were won by the blood of our Grandfathers, by my grandfather in the Second World War as a first generation American. They knew, back then, that they were being sent over to fight invasion by fascists. And now the fascists have won, both in the comics, and, for a while, in the real world. Being attacked by terrorists should not, not now, not ever, make us give up the ideals that make this country what it is.

This country is far from perfect, but if Captain America is the ideal of America, the I cannot stand to see that ideal give up. Ever.

And if you're Jewish, don't even get started on the "registration".

Still Kirby After All These Years: Fantastic Four #3

Just a quick post to show you how easy it is for things to slip past even the most hardened comic trivia buff. Case in point, I had no idea that there was a rejected cover to Fantastic Four #3, much less that it was a finished cover with inks and colors. And I'm someone who was not only bothered by the missing 4th Skrull from FF #2, that I eagerly read the Kree/Skrull War for some clever Ret-Con to take care of it!



So without any more ado: the lost cover to Fantastic Four #3. Yay!

Shelly's Comic Shelf: Her Pondering and My Thoughts

Shelly over at, surprise, Shelly's Comic Book Shelf, asks a lot of good questions in her most recent post mostly about personal responsibility in supporting marginal product, etc. , just a line or two of which I'm recycling here:

We support what's there when we buy it, so do we have the right to complain? Do comics publishers owe us anything? I have no answers, just questions right now.

Go over and read the whole post and then come back, I'll be waiting.

Good. Are you back? Then lets go over a few potential answers.

I think that much of this goes back to realizing that we, the consumers, vote with our all-mightly dollar. And we deserve the entertainment that we pay for. this is the reality. Its a business. And I tell you that if everyone that bought X-Men last month went and bought Scooby-Doo this month, Marvel and DC would not collapse, they would scramble to start to produce Scooby-Doo knock-offs. And if they don't come up with a good enough knock-off, then they deserve to go out of business. Period.

History has shown this. Its quite clear. Where the dollar leads the companies will follow. Panting. Most companies are two bit whores, which is a perfect analogy as to why we got all the chromium covers that we could wallpaper the birdcage with in the '90's. And I'm not slamming comic companies with just this brush, it works for car companies, TV networks, magazines. They stay in business giving the customer what they want. We have to show them what we'll support, what we want.

So anytime that we keep pull lists in shops that aren't filled with exactly what we want to read, we're reinforcing bad behavior by the companies in ordering patterns. I'm really stunned by the number of comic book bloggers that talk about having wean themselves off of certain books. Sorry, too many bad '70's marvel comics with Arvell Jones, Rich Howell, and John Tartaglione got me out of that habit.

I do have the quandry with the trades, and I've posted many times on this, and will probably post many more times on it. I'll say it again here: I prefer trades and this is clearly the medium of the future. It allows for a work to stay in print, giving it a longer shelf life, presents a more compelling read: self-contained and, hopefully satisfying a real read, not a 10 minute diversion, and markets well in a book store, not a niche shop. I'm still waiting for the final issue of Ultimates to come out so that they can collect the damn thing. I want to read my books in this form and I'll pay the money to support it. Don't own a single issue of Fables, but I have all the trades on the book shelf in my studio. Someday I hope to have Pistoleras to put next to it.

Occasionally publishers, networks, and other entertainment outlets will support a work that the editors stand behind, and we've gotten a lot of good work this way, from TV to comics to movies. But it is in the minority. Everyone has an example of that critically lauded TV show that was cancelled despite everyone who ever saw it liking it. But TV has the imperfect filter known as the nielsens, and comics have a far more direct outlet to prevent this for happening as much. I mean really, does anyone actually remember how idiotic it was for them to cancel Babylon 5? And what numbers that show has done on DVD? That was probably the last such casualty of its type... (until Firefly and Serenity).

If we don't support gratuitious ass shots and poorly written female characters, then we'll likely get a lot less of them. (I love having a spinner rack in the house, and seeing what comics my 6 year old daughter Sophie picks up from the rack. Its not often what I would think, which is why I stock it with a variety of different comics!) Adolescent boys will always be drawn in by T & A, and to that I say a big, "duh". Even the most ardent feminist would be not be so naive as to try to show a logical argument as to why the 14 year old should be steered to a more "relationship oriented" comic. Hormones have power.

But what if a huge variety of non-power fantasy oriented comics were readily available to young girls? If they grow up reading them, they'll likely be readers for life. So we have to support the alternatives to the superheroes, any alternative that we like, so that they have the chance to build up to a critical mass and be self supporting. Welcome to the Manga marketing plan.

Shelly, I think that we have the ultimate ability to get the entertainment we want, if enough of us show that we want it. And I think that it has the chance of happening, especially in this era of internet marketing, where the brilliant little guy can actually get a product in front of a million eyes with the click of a button. We don't have any responsibility to buy the next issue of anything if they screw up our favorite character. I'd rather the sales figure put a quick end to the Clone Saga, to the Spider-sperm saga, to the return of Captain Marvel, to the decimation of the Fantastic Four, to the slow ugly saga of the Supergirl abusive boyfriend than anything else.

Don't worry, when the people lead, the entertainment industry will follow.

Ghost Rider The Movie: Setting us back HOW far?

this just in from this morning's San Francisco Chronicle

The movie also, unfortunately, does a lot to undo the recent goodwill that "Batman Begins," "Sin City," "A History of Violence" and "V for Vendetta" have built toward this underappreciated genre of films. If "300" doesn't kick supreme butt next month, people might ditch "graphic novel" from their lingo and start calling them "comic books" again.

I mean, c'mon people, I just blogged about this a week ago! We gotta keep moving forward here!

Superman vs. Spiderman: Viva La '70's!

Oh Danny Boy down in Australia has a great article up about the story behind the Superman/Spider-Man team up from the 1970's. With interviews via phone and email with Neal Adams, Mike Esposito, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman and Terry Austin, he seems to have teased out all the behind the scenes stuff. Its been gone over once before in Comic Book Artist, I believe, but a nice condensation of the making of the book.

What is interesting to me is how amazed he is about the idea that diverse hands (Adams redrawing Andru's Superman figures for instance) seem to have touched the pages. I doubt that there is a professional out there that would be surprised by the "collaborative" process why which a book like this is made. There are a ton of books that have been made by "Diverse Hands" or "Crusty Bunkers" that would turn up all sorts of interesting names in a panel by panel breakdown.

I personally love the story of the tier in Master of Kung Fu #39 that was inked by Steranko on a book that Dan Adkins get the published credit on. Adkins had received the pencils and but had just started the job when Steranko was visiting. Jim, apparently loved the tier with some asian gangsters gambling and grabbed a brush and started inking it. Given Paul Gulacy's style, it was a perfect fit.

How about The Claws of the Cat #4, with Alan Weiss and Jim Starlin each drawing different characters throughout the entire book (Alan The Cat and Jim the Man-Bull)? That was one weird book. I never figured out the credits until Alan told me the story years later.

Got a favorite Jam story? There are a million of them. Lets not even bring up Secret Wars. Really.

the cartoons that ate Europe: Muslim Cartoons at Cambridge

Continuing the story of the cartoons that have practically destroyed a religion:

MUSLIMS in Cambridge have demanded a public apology from a student who printed anti-Islamic material in a magazine.

The material included a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed which sparked worldwide outrage last year when it was published in Denmark. It is thought this is the first time the cartoon has appeared in a publication in England.

Asim Mumtaz, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, said: "I'm horrified and shocked. In such a seat of learning, I am horrified that things could stoop to this level.

"I'm actually shocked that intelligent people know how offensive this cartoon is and that they have decided to reprint it in such a horrible manner. It's disgusting."

The cartoon was reprinted in Clare College's student magazine in a special edition on religious satire. The 19-year-old student who printed the cartoon has since gone into hiding and the college has called a rare Court of Discipline to decide how the student should be brought to account.

wait, you say, Muslims haven't been destroyed by the cartoons? There are still some in the world? Well you could have fooled me. The way that they act, you would think that the artwork alone have physically killed any number of innocent children. These cartoons must be the real world equivalent of Monty Python's Killer Joke. The joke was so deadly that while being translated into German for use in the second World War, no one person was allowed to see more than a few words of the joke for fear of injury. Same here clearly.

And Cambridge, well, what can we say about this learned institution, this bastion of higher learning? They have the backbone of wet tissue. A student uses something controversial in an appropriate manner in a paper on religious satire and the student has to go into hiding. Way to get her back Cambridge. And worse, considering the student will probably face persecution when they, if they return at all, they will potentially face a Court of Discipline for writing and publishing a paper.

The Cambridge Press, which shows what a poor journalism school they are, has quotes showing only one side of the argument, and nothing that might point out that disparity between religious fanaticism and academic research, and the potential incompatibility of letting easily offended religious extremists set your academic agenda.

For shame Cambridge. For shame.

Entertainment Weekly: Friends of Comics

Lets all thank our lucky stars for the internet, and for the ability to actually get noticed by the real world at large and not just those with complete books of Marvel Value Stamps: Wook Kim has a blog rolling column over at Entertainment Weekly, and gives a nice plug to Devon over at Seven Hells as well as cluing the rest of the entertainment world that real writers write for comics:

Attention EW.com readers! There are a bunch of talented authors — who write real books and everything! — currently working on comic books. Like Jodi Picoult, whose Wonder Woman should be in stores sometime next month, and Tad Williams, who wrote the six-parter The Next, and is now at work on Aquaman: Sword of Atlanti

The very fact that EW has made a point of running a graphic novel bestsellers list and keeping focus on comic related projects (The link on the side of the Blog Roll column mentions Kate Beckinsale starring in "Whiteout"), which to me is just huge. Huge huge huge. This is what has been missing for 20 years: actual coverage of our media.

Lets face it: perception is reality, and if people are continually being told "Comics are for kids" and "Graphic Novels are for adults", then that's what they'll believe. I heard mention on TV the other night, someone talking about a graphic novel, and I turned to my wife and said, "that means we've arrived. When someone on a mainstream TV show can say that without having to explain what a Graphic Novel is, then we''ve actually changed the public's idea of the product."

Spider Man, She Hulk and Abomination = Nasty

Is this true? Can it possibly be true? The Redhead Fangirl reports:

Marvel is really bonkers regarding Spidey these days. In Spider-Man: Reign, Peter finds he has killed Mary Jane with his 'radioactive fluid'. Really? I know Quesada and the editors at Marvel have been wanting to jettison the marriage-- but biohazard spunk? A new low for a beloved character, and Marvel. I think I'd like to add that fluid to the Cup-O-Joe.

and

I see that the She-hulk is up against Hulk villians, like the Abomination, and as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent. Now if there was anyone with a...um... liquid biohazard thing going on, it would be the Abomination (who, by the way, if you look at the original Gil Kane version, has actually grown more handsome over the years).

I guess that it can't possibly imagine a Herb Trimpe Hulk getting it on with the Harpy from back in the day, but I bet they did... heh heh.

And just what the heck is up with the Hero Clix? Why are people so ga ga over them? Please explain, someone.

In Praise of: Jungle Action #7 by McGregor and Buckler

Lost is much of furor about the other 1970's books are the accolades, the poetry, the sheer "different-ness" of Don McGregor's work. And while some may prefer his Killraven/War of the Worlds work, I personally find far more to mull over and appreciate in his Black Panther work. And there is no better place to start than at the beginning of Marvel's long lost epic, Panther's Rage.

What, you've never heard of Panther's Rage? Shocking, because this is most likely the least read, most forgotten, most ambitious piece that was attempted back in 1973. Don, in one of the most singular display's of hubris that I can imagine given the constraints of comics creation back then, decided that he could and would actually make the Panther relevant to the 1970s. Not an easy task considering race relations back then, combined with his interest in politics, sex, and trying to make superheroes work in the real world.

Panther’s Rage would pull T’Challa away from the Avengers (where Steve Englehart would be dragging Wanda and the Vision into cross-race allegories and adult jealousy with Mantis) and drop him down into Wakanda in the midst of complete turmoil. To top it all off, T’Challa would bring back a western woman, black, but western. And that doesn’t make anyone happy. If that isn’t enough drama, we have one more introduction.

Enter Erik Killmonger. In the age of badasses, where Frank Castle was just starting to holster his rubber bullets, Eric was the ultimate badass. And he removed the Panther’s one easy out: to physically beat up the villain. T’Challa was about to go through the wringer.

Over the next 6 or 7 issues, Don would push the envelope again and again, making the ugliest villains, Venom, actually have a heart; taking black on black race relations into new areas, and pushing the letterers on the book to find new corners in which to cram text block after text block after text block. All within the context of Marvel 1970’s melodrama. Fun stuff.

I will say that the ending of Panther's Rage was one of the only disappointments that I can recall, as it ends on the fringes of Wakanda, in wastelands that we had never seen before, and far from the social/political center that McGregor was using as a counterpoint to whatever his point was that issue. While compelling, it divorced T'Challa from his Wakandan center, one that Don was just in the middle of finding. I sometimes get the feeling that the story got away from. And while I've met Don a few times over the years, I don't know him well enough to ask whether or not this is true.

There really are two Marvel Comics epics that deserve to be reprinted from the 1870s that haven't been done yet: Moench and Gulacy's Master of Kung Fu series, which will never be collected due to reprint rights with the Sax Rohmer estate, and this, Panther's Rage from the bowels of the forgotten Jungle Action book.

Fantastic Four #102: Lost and Found

Over on the TwoMorrows blog is a great post about the recreation of FF#102, which was Kirby's last issue on the title. Rejected, the artwork was cut up and used, in part to create FF #1o8. Well, it looks like we'll finally get the chance to see it in this form:

Enter Tom Brevoort, who got the inspired idea to have Stan finally dialogue Jack’s pencils, and Joe Sinnott ink them (I’ve seen the new inks, and man, Joe hasn’t skipped a beat in the 37 years since he was inking Jack on the FF). Tom’s also getting a current Marvel writer and inker to do their interpretations, and both finished versions (plus Kirby’s uninked original, and a short article about it by your’s truly) will appear in the one-shot special.

This great news, just the finally get the director's cut of the issue the way that it should have been done. Kinda like getting to sit down and read those old Strange Tales with the Torch and the Thing, and its discovering a whole parallel universe to the regular FF book. Finally Kirby's bow out on the book he helped to create will see the print the way that it should have been done back before his jump to DC.

TwoMorrows while I don't always agree with their editorial position on everything, generally does a great job with their publications, very classy, and I am quite happy to own more than a few issues on the shelves of my studio.

A Few Thoughts: French Trial Over Muhammad Cartoons

Just wanted to bring this to some people's attention. The New York Times has this article, fairly succinct in bringing the rest of us up to date on what the charges are, and how the trial might go.

The Paris Mosque and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France contend that the newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, and its director, Philippe Val, are guilty of slander, an offense that carries a possible six-month sentence and a fine of up to 22,500 euros, or about $29,000.

“If we can no longer laugh at the terrorists, what weapon is left for the citizen?” Mr. Val said at the hearing, according to The Associated Press.

“These drawings are about ideas, not men, about ideas defended by men who commit violent acts.”...

The issue of whether revisions to the 1901 law separating church and state might be needed has become a topic of discussion in the presidential campaign.

In recent decisions, French courts have largely ruled against religious groups that contended that their faiths had been insulted.

Please note the last paragraph in the quote, which is also the last paragraph of the article. It sums up faith, at least to me, that the trial will end with the law of the land in France being upheld: that there is a distinct separation between church and state.

Personally, as a westerner, I think that the arguement boils down to this: modern western thought provides a separation between church and state and a freedom of speech that allows for satirical content of just about anything. In fact, many societies would agree that the very basis of a free society is the ability to satirize just about anything as need be. Keeps a level playing field. In a non-secular society, you have very religious people who feel that respect for God, their God usually, sadly, trumps all, and that forms the basis for their law and customs. And I, personally, don't think that you'll ever bridge the two.

Now, being able to publish cartoons that might offend the deeply religious may not the most prudent thing to do, as the riots about the danish cartoons show, but it is odd how the international religious press went off more against the publishers for a lapse in judgement then against the rioters. Funny, I would have thought that actual physical violence should have garnered a greater backlash from the world's community. But with religion in the mix, its a whole different kettle of fish. You have people who bent over backward to accomodate the rioters on the idea that offensive cartoons are so dangerous as the validate violence, violence that even ended in death. Is that right? My western approach is to say no, the rioters are the guilty, and the Danish publishers broke no laws. But a muslim who feels so strongly about the rules against depicting the prophet regardless of message would very clearly disagree with me and probably feel quite justified in the correctness of his position.

I while he and might agree on a great many things, I doubt that we would ever come to terms on this issue no matter how long we talked. As I doubt that the western courts will reach a decision that will placate or satisfy both sides in France.

Newsarama: KISS Meets the Phantom of the Vishanti

When it comes to stuff like this, I just have to say something. This from a Newsarama article/interview with Simmons and Stanley of KISS about the new comic coming out:

GENE SIMMONS: (When it comes to comics) We can quote psalm and verse. For instance, I can tell you just about every title that Steve Ditko drew and inked, including how he also inked Jack Kirby’s Hulk.

Unholy was our idea about a malevolence that is kind of a next door neighbor to Steve Ditko’s Nightmare from Doctor Strange, maybe he also has a little Baron Mordo and some Eternal Vishantu with some Hoary Hosts of Hogarth.

Yes, thats right. The Hoary Hosts of Hogarth. Not Hoggoth like the Vishanti would like them to be called. But the Hoary Hosts of Burne Hogarth, Tarzan artist extraordinaire.

What is scary is that Simmons and I know the difference, for Dormammu's sake, but Newsarama doesn't.

Up From the Catacombs: Beer and Tavern Monthly #2

When Beer and Tavern Monthly approached me about a cover featuring Ben Franklin, I jumped at the chance, not only because I needed the money, but because here was a subject that actually fit the monthly periodical to a tee.

Really. Ben loved his beer, just like he loved his ladies. And I got to do a woodcut style illustration that was a lot of fun to do.

I loved this one, and held on to the original ever since.

the Angelic Supergirl

Take a breath, and appreciate the beauty of this version of Supergirl by Dean Trippe. I would buy a comic of her that looked like this in about a second. I would buy multiple copies.

Just gorgeous. Thanks Dean.

Supergirl and Paris Hilton: separated at birth?

Or just separated by photo reference?

This little comparison chart over at Live Journal is worth a scroll down, but be warned, it will likely hurt your brain for a day.

Or more.


More and more, with two daughters growing up in this society, I appreciate that my 6 year old is seeing the zoftig Wonder Woman from New Frontier, and the angular one in Justice League Unlimited. I have no desire to have her read the new SuperGirl series.

(Besides, Superman's logo just doesn't work with boobs. That much is clear. No wonder the Marty Pasko version of the 1970's moved it into a small shoulder logo.)

Damn right they're not... er..funnybooks!

Mike over at Progressive Ruin has this little item up a while ago:

So I was doing a little internet searching, and came across several links to a review of Blood and Chocolate (such as this one), which relates this exchange between two of the lead characters:

"Maybe she's impressed by what Aiden does for a living. 'I write graphic novels.' 'You mean comic books.' 'Noooo. Graphic novels.'"

Are people really uptight about this? I've never noticed in among my customers or my circle of comic-reading friends a tendency toward correcting folks who dare to call graphic novels "comic books," but I've seen or heard this sort of thing referenced in the media before. It's like the new shorthand for establishing someone is a geek..."oh, isn't it cute how he refers to his comic books as 'graphic novels,' like they're real books or something."

I don't know...I call 'em "funnybooks," because I'm a bad person.

Yes, you're a bad person. ; - ) While the rest of us are busting our butts to come up with innovative stuff that adults might want to read, we have 80 years of cultural baggage that we're trying to overcome and its not that easy.

On the other hand, the label "Graphic Novel" has finally taken hold as far as I'm concerned. I was watching the TV and some mainstream show had a reference to a "graphic novel" and no one blinked an eye. Clearly in the years since "A Contract With God" and today, we've made the term acceptable.

Yay.

Up From the Catacombs: Beer and Tavern Monthly

Another oddity from the archive box: Beer and Tavern Monthly (does anyone know if Beer and Tavern Monthly is still around?) had me do a number of covers for them back in the 1990's. My favorite of them all is this one.

King Kong, astride the Empire State Building, surrounded by flying beer bottles.

Art Director asking for a low budget remake of King Kong: $100.

Art Director asking for flying beer bottles like "windows toasters from the screen saver" from one of my favorite breweries: Priceless.

Unseen Art: J.G Jones and Yoakum Wildcats

Was digging through the files for something and ran across the "what the heck do I do with these" section that I keep. Plenty of oddities that I've built up here, but a few little gems as well.

Thought that some people might like to see this one, part of a three page WildCATS piece that JG Jones and I did back in the mid-90's. Jones' pencils, my inks and tones. This was the third page, and the only one that I didn't finish as you can see.

Kinda fun. Shows that before he became a big star, JG was already a huge talent. It just took years and years of work for people to catch on so that he could become an overnight success. Funny how that works isn't it?

Also funny to see the twin towers as the focal point on this page. Never thought that those two buildings that I didn't really like would be a such a generational touchpoint, because they always will be for this ex-New Yorker.

This is Just Wrong: The Return of Captain Marvel

Perhaps I can paraphrase our friends over at live journal:

Fuck you Marvel.

There, is that succinct enough? This image comes from a pulled preview that was saved and put up on Live Journal and Photobucket. This is the image that completes the evisceration of the Marvel Universe that began with Civil War screwing up the Fantastic Four.

Not just bringing back Mar-Vell, no, since Thanos has long since been resurrected I suppose that we should have expected this, but the manner of which its being done, the position that Mar-Vell supposedly now holds, which is commendant of the Negative Zone prison, is so, so, SO COMPLETELY not the man that he is that I cannot even think about it straight. It warps my head around like trying to figure out the beginning of an Escher drawing.

There is nothing here that makes any sense. I could be thinking Clone maybe, but I doubt that that will be the case. The most meaningful death in the Marvel Universe (since they long since messed up Jean's sacrifice in X-men #137) has been hedged around: Mar-Vell appearing as an apparition in Silver Surfer years ago, the alternate earth version from Earth X, his "son" Genis, and others that I've not followed completely, but the actual man himself has been left alone.

Tellingly it was a paucity of imagination that led to the death of Mar-Vell. After a fairly interesting run by Doug Moench and Pat Broderick in his own book, Mar-Vell his cancellation and character oblivion. Marvel honchos from that era, perhaps Shooter, (I don't know as I never asked) went to Starlin and said, "We don't know what to do with him." Jim apparently said, "Well, let me kill him." and there you go.

Mar-Vell, the way that Starlin, Englehart, and Moench wrote him, was one of the noblest characters in comics, the universal protector, someone who had made bad decisions in the past but lived with his regrets of being a soldier for the Kree and did the best that he could. His best was very, very good. Defeating Thanos, the Destroyer, standing up to Issac the mad computer and the Watcher, battling Megaton the Nuclear Man (heh heh), he was a hero in the classic Joesph Campbell mold: one that had come by his nobility the honest way: through real trial and error.

That Mar-Vell would never have been involved with the Pro-Registration forces in the Marvel Universe, much less get himself sucked in the Negative Zone ever, ever, EVER again. If you know anything at all about the character, the last place that he would be would be in the Negative Zone.

Perhaps it should be an even bigger deal that the Fantastic Four, lets say this again, THE FANTASTIC FOUR, the moral and physical cornerstone of the Marvel Universe, has been ripped apart with such incorrect characterization of Sue, Reed, and Ben that we shouldn't be shocked by anything anymore, but, yes, I am.

I am shocked.

This. Just. Sucks.

Storytelling Decisions: The moment or the moment before

Away from the scanner, so I'm not going to pepper this with any images, but the verbal will have to suffice.

So there are more than a few thoughts on the art of storytelling that I have as I work my way through the story of Pistoleras. And I recall an article by Jim Steranko many years ago, accompanied his pre-production painting from Raiders, where he made a point that while other artists preferred the moment of the balloon exploding, he prefered the moment just before the balloon exploded, the pregnant pause.

I've thought a lot about this over the years, and nowhere is it more interesting that trying to decide how to use a panel that shows a passage of time, perhaps during a conversation. I think that usually we see a panel isolate a moment in time, where Peter Parker expresses an opinion to Mary Jane, but there are other examples where, in a two shot, the Ben Grimm will ask Reed Richards not to do something, and Reed Richards will press the button opening the negative zone anyway. Fairly straight forward, but the image will be of Reed pressing the button. So we, as a reader, are asked to ignore the right side of the panel with Reed pressing the button and we need to read left to right and only pay attention to Ben gesticulating in the right side of the panel. Kirby was the master of making sure that we could read across properly to "get" the pacing of the story. Eisner was great about that as well, obviously.

So how much do you compress the story, and how much do you expand?. Bendis is considered the king of decompression in these modern times, a storytelling method that I tend to find almost a "tick" and stylistic choice, and one that I enjoy in Powers tremendously. The compression inherent in, say, the early Justice Leagues by Sekowsky and Fox, is so tight, that it almost offends my modern sensibilities. Hey, the original Starro attack on the JLA would at least have been worth two issues of the Avengers as layed out by Kirby and drawn by Heck.

I enjoy the decompression of the Manga that I get in Genshiken (my favorite manga of all time), but it would be foreign to me in, say, Spider Man or Fantastic Four. Pistoleras is as much a story of place to me as much as it is the story of the four girls and feminine empowerment. I want people to feel the heat of the desert of Mexico, and the crash of waves. I want them to get as much as they can in black and white and grey.

There are as many approaches to this as there are stories. Given a little more time and my scanner, I'll post some different examples. Any thoughts?