That's the way (a-huh a-huh) I like it!

During a typical wait time for the wife, I checked out the local Barnes & Noble for new reading fare. I ended up with quite a list to give the wife to get through her inter-library loan and picked up a couple of other items. Only one of which was comic related. I was actually disappointed with B&N's comic selection. Plenty of manga, to be sure, but no SHOWCASE or ESSENTIAL volumes. There were a couple of other things that looked interesting but the one I eventually chose was ROBIN: YEAR ONE.

This is a compilation of the four issue limited series that came out EIGHT years ago! Ye gads! Where has the time gone? Anyway, like the title says, it is Robin's adventures during his first year as Batman's sidekick but immediately AFTER Robin's origin. It's written by Chuck Dixon and Scotty Beatty with artwork by Jadier Palido and Robert Campanella. I confess that I was not then, or even now, very familiar with the artists but knew the writers' names very well. I recalled enjoying this series quite a lot when it first came out and, by flipping through the pages, knew that I'd like to read it once again.

Now, THIS is what superhero comics SHOULD be today. It's exciting, thrilling, filled with great characters and evil villains, touches all the right notes of nostalgia and is a joy from cover to cover. Dixon and Beatty have a great handle on Robin's personality and it shines through in his scenes. The plucky, happy-go-lucky Robin has never made as much sense or seemed so real as he does here. Alfred is his dedicated self, playing the roles as confidant, friend and ally to the young lad and Gordon has one of his best roles in years. We see him uncomfortable with the idea of Batman taking a young boy as a partner and the fragile trust he gives Batman.

The art itself is wonderful and expressive, alternately showing Robin's joy at his superhero escapades and then the dark dangers that befall him. In some ways, the art is reminiscent of Tim Sale's work on other Bat-epics like THE LONG HALLOWEEN, but it remains uniquely its own. It harkens back to both the Silver and the Golden Age with some of the designs so much that one is never particularly sure when the story is taking place. Is it 1940's Gotham or today-15 years? It's hard to tell and, what's more, you don't care! A good story is a good story no matter where or WHEN it's set.

But, more than anything else, this story excels in it's portrayal of Batman. A supporting character, he commands every scene he is in both physically and emotionally. Here is the classic Batman. He is smart, capable, well trained and dedicated. The one thing he is NOT is fricking NUTS! I am so tired of today's writers portraying Batman as one step removed from Arkham himself. This Batman is the one who has set his life upon a path from which there can be no deviation. He is not insane and knows full well the risks that he faces himself and to which he exposes the boy. In short, this Batman is a hero. Perhaps he should be introduced to today's version so he can have a LONG talk with his wayward descendent.

This book is a wonderful example of how a superhero comic can be both modern and nostalgic. It incorporates the best of both worlds without denying either. It is concrete, absolute PROOF that you CAN produce a superhero comic that is exciting, fun AND dangerous without resorting to 'dark' and gore. It should be required reading for anyone who writes a Batman comic from now on.

"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a comic today!"

Comic books are expensive.

We all know this but sometimes we tend to forget it or just get used to paying $2.50 or $2.95 for a colorful pamphlet. I was reminded of this when an overseas friend in Malaysia told me how much she has to pay for an American comic. It translates into $12.60 for a $2.50 comic. A trade paperback or GN can go for $120. No wonder comics don't sell as well overseas.

Luckily, we don't have to pay that much for the comics over here but, if we did, I think that a lot of people would think long and hard about shelling out that much money for the latest crossover garbage. Even still, a lot of people in this economy find themselves having to really examine their holding lists. A comic that you only marginally enjoy becomes far less important when you have to choose between it and a gallon of gas for your car. This is why comics sell so much less than they used to do.

It's a constant litany and one that everyone knows: comics cost too much and they don't last very long. Most comics can be read in a matter of minutes. I read several original GNs this weekend that took me less than a couple of hours and one of those was over 700 pages long! So we reach a concept known as "perceived value". Which basically means, "is the value I get from this comic worth the cost?" A lot of times today, it simply isn't.

But, of course, I'm spoiled. The first comics I bought were 15 cents each. I was shocked when they jumped to an astonishing 20 cents and incensed when they leaped up to 50 cents each! You should have heard the expletives when DC started doing $1 comics! Where they mad? Where did they think kids were going to get that kind of money? It's the end of comics as we know it! Lava was going to rain down from the sky at any minute!

So why were comics so cheap back then? The simple answer is that everything was cheaper. Cost of labor was a lot cheaper, the printing was cheaper, the paper used in the printing was cheaper, distribution costs were cheaper, etc. etc. etc. Old comics were printed pretty cheaply. That paper was barely a step above what your daily newspaper came out on! Comics weren't printed on fancy, slick paper because no one every believed for a minute that these stupid things were going to be worth anything! They were a dispensable, disposable form of entertainment that (like pulp and dime novels) weren't supposed to amount to anything. They were the bastard children of publishing and were just supposed to make money for their parents and not cause any trouble. The goal was to shove them out the door! No one sat there and thought, "I'm making art here! One day, they'll have exhibitions of these pages!" Most of the time they were too concerned with making their deadline or getting the pages in on time so that they could make their next mortgage payment.

Things really changed once the publishers woke up and realized that they had a captive market that would pretty much pay anything for their weekly comic fix. Comics left the newsstands and hit the direct market and suddenly comics were regularly more than a dollar... then more than two dollars. You'd think that the price would come down once the publishers eliminated most of their risk by catering to a dedicated buying public. Instead the costs continued to climb because now the comics had to be published on better paper with brighter colors and stronger covers.

As for me, I'd rather have the days when I could buy a week's worth of comics for $5 instead of needing a personal loan. Which is why I strongly believe that the future of comics rests in the small publishers who look for ways to bring their costs down. It's the comics themselves that are important, not how bright the blood on Wolverine's claws looks.

Is it a Wonder or a Marvel Dog?

The blogosphere went wacky over the Wonderdog controversy. What? You don't know what I mean? C'mon! Sure you do! It's been everywhere!

For those who were lucky enough to escape it until now, here's what it's all about. Not so long ago, the DC comic Teen Titans introduced their version of the old SUPERFRIENDS cartoon characters, Wendy and Marvin. This was met with virtually universal disinterest. Anyway, W & M soon found their 'Wonderdog' and, in issue #62 (still on the stands, folks! Get yours now!), Wonderdog kills and eats them.

Here's the infamous pic:

This brought a lotta bad words from lots o'bloggers. The gist of the complaints primarily being centered around the fact that the killer-dog scene appeared in what was considered an 'all-ages' book. Well, at least there was no warning label on the cover saying, "BEWARE! ONCE BELOVED CARTOON DOG KILLS OWNERS INSIDE!"

That doesn't really bother me all that much.

Because, after all, comics haven't been for kids since about the mid-80's. Once DC showed Robin and Starfire naked in bed in a Direct Market only issue of Teen Titans (Hey! There's that name again!), the cat was out of the bag. Some of you may remember the brouhaha that little panel created. DC's response was that it was ONE panel in a comic that could only be purchased through a comic store and wasn't out on the newstand, ready to pervert little minds. That was a stupid argument, of course, as any kid could walk into a comic store and buy that issue (or today's #62, still on the stands, folks!) with nary a curious eye from the shopkeeper.

But I wander.

The point is that many, many comics today aren't fit for kids to read. At least, not the kind of kids we used to be. Ah, those bright, halycon days of youth! When our fresh-faced, angelic minds weren't at risk from those nasty comic books. But for today's youth? Hell, they could probably make up worse stories on their own.

Now, of course I don't mean that the little ones should be seeing cadaver eating dogs in their comics. But, as has been stated in other places (Val D's excellent Occasional Superheroine for one), there's no middle ground between comics for little kids and adult comics. Once you tire of the Archie's and the pap that Marvel and DC try to pass off as kid's comics, you graduate right into the arena of such lovely family fare as Identity Crisis where Dr. Light rapes Elongated Man's wife in a flashback that occurs a few pages before she has a brain seizure and is burned to death.

So there's no transition period where young teens can read about superheroes who go around fighting crime and protecting innocents. So, I wonder, why is that? Is it because such comics don't sell in today's market? If that's true, why not? Have we really come to the level where the typical teenage reader WANTS to read about hungry Wonderdogs and crispy rape victims? Has the audience for comics become so de-sensitized to violence and inhumanity from the media and video games that they cannot believe that anything else could exist?

For me, I wanna know who the hell thought that the hungry Wonderdog was a good idea? I mean, c'mon! The people who would be the most put off by this are the fans of the original cartoon! If you put W & M in there to appeal to them, then why the hell do you kill them off like that? Is it just a giant F-U to those readers? Does DC picture readers sitting there and jumping out of their seat as they read that page with their fists pumping in the air yelling, "YEAH! Go, Wonderdog! Eat those jerks!"??? Is it meant to shock and stun the reader?? "OMG, if they could do that to Wendy & Marvin, than NO-ONE is safe!" What? What is the freaking logic here?? Someone please explain this to me!

I was never a big M & W fan. Even as a kid I thought that they were incredibly lame and cringed every time they came on the cartoon. But some people, I'm sure, must have liked them. And they, I am damned sure, are just waiting for the Wonder Twins to get theirs too!

It's 10 pm, do you know where your comics are?

Yesterday's post about the lack of serious news reporting in the comic field brought some very welcome comments. Sadly, it seems that pretty much all of us agree that it is a goal that will never be achieved. The simple act of being removed from retribution would appear to be the hardest factor to overcome.

Glenn Walker chided me (and rightly so) for not mentioning Rich Johnston's "Lying in the Gutters" column which appears regularly on COMIC BOOK RESOURCES. I read Mr. Johnston's column the second it appears on my viewscope and always find it to be both informative and entertaining. However, I would argue the point that Johnston's column is more akin to the old Rona Barrett type of reporting in that a great deal of his items could be classified as 'gossip'. Still, Johnston hits with those rumors far more often than he misses and both he and CBR are to be commended for reporting what news items that are often very unwelcomed by comic companies. I know of several cases where items that Johnston reported ended up causing his sources some grief but, so far as I am aware, they were not sorry for providing the information in the first place.

Kudos again to CBR for posting an article today about the Wowio implosion which can be found here. The article neatly summarizes Wowio's rise and collapse and brings in information from several sources. It is a nice piece of reporting despite the fact that it says virtually nothing new that would not have been read in any of the other comics news sites or blogs. And throwing stones at Wowio and Platinum at this late date is about as dangerous as saying something bad about Charles Manson. Still, good to have it all in one place.

So there are efforts to bring strong journalism practices to the comic industry. I fear that it can only go so far, however, while the workers keep quiet for fear of losing assignments now or in the future. Strange, sounds like just the type of thing unions are made to fight, doesn't it? I wonder what Neal Adams is up to these days?

Where's the beef?

If you watched television at all in the mid 1980's, you heard the phrase, "Where's the beef?" That was the catchphrase for Wendy's TV commercials which starred Clara Peller as a little old lady who couldn't find beef in the other fast food burgers. It was meant as a dig against those other places who advertised big, beefy burgers but delivered flat, tasteless patties. It went on to become a phenomenon and you could hear "Where's the beef?" pretty much everywhere. Heck, even Walter Mondale used it in his 1984 campaign against Gary Hart. I'm sure that Donna Rice could have told Mondale 'where the beef' was.

Anyway, it's become known as a way of questioning a statement that, for the most part, is just full of hot air. Statements could be from politicians, government agencies, entertainers, newscasters and, especially, those numb nuts on cable TV who want everyone to think they way they do.

My question this morning, to comics reporting, is "where's the beef?"

Where is the 'tell it like it is', 'balls to the wall', consumer reports type of comics reporting? Where's the investigative journalism, laying bare the backroom deals and dirty secrets of the comics industry past and present? Why, when I log into comic news sites, am I flooded with nothing but press releases and advertising all gussied up to look like news? Here's a newsflash: advertisements are not NEWS, they are ads! No matter how you dress up the pig, in the end, it's still just a pig in a dress.

Look at the two biggest and most well known comics news website: NEWSARAMA and COMIC BOOK RESOURCES. This morning, NEWSARAMA's big headlines are about Barak Obama's appearance in an upcoming SAVAGE DRAGON comic; Cartoon Network announcing the date CLONE WARS will premiere on TV; and an announcement about novelist Brad Meltzer's campaign to restore the original house of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel. That's pretty much just three press releases right there. I'm surprised that they actually put by-lines on these.

And what does CBR have this morning? The crack team at CBR offer; the same news about Siegel's house; updates on comic to film projects; and a fluff piece on Meltzer's new book which has comic book connections. Wow, CBR, way to bring me info I can't get in any of a HUNDRED OTHER BLOGS OR NEWS SITES!

Print is no better with the only two regular comic magazines still being published being WIZARD and COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE. I'm not even going to consider COMIC FOUNDRY as that is about as hard hitting in the news department as the latest issue of MAXIM. CBG has seen its core purpose vanish over the years as most people buy their old comics online at either store sites or through that big virtual yard sale, eBay. Still, CBG does have it's uses in the columns they include as well as some usually interesting articles about older comics. Most of those articles are about as hard hitting as the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man in the Sahara desert but at least they remember that there were comics before 1980. As for WIZARD... well, I'd best describe them as a word that rhymes with "bore" and leave it at that. In fact, I blame WIZARD for the trend of empty comics news. Their initial success led others to just go with flashy press releases and previews of 'hot comics.

So I'm asking you, dear reader, "Where's the beef?" Where is a source for good, hard-hitting comics news? A place that doesn't cater or kow tow to the big companies and is used as a ventriloquist's dummy to sprout the latest company rhetoric about how STUPENDOUS the next SUPER SECRET CRISIS is going to be. One that says that the Emperor has no clothes and points how out how stupid the Emperor was to think we wouldn't notice that in the first place! A place that isn't dependent upon advertising revenue from the big companies and isn't afraid to ask the tough questions in the interviews. And don't say COMICS JOURNAL because, as better as their reporting often is, their bias against mainstream comics and shilling for their own publications cancels that out.

What this industry needs is a good gadfly. It's too bad that Harlan Ellison isn't available.

Wicked Dreams

I'm in a bad mood today.

It's just been one of those days were everything has been off kilter and piling on new levels of crankiness. Being at work just adds a whole new dimension to it. For those of you who don't know, I'm an accountant at a small private school which, when all is said and done, is a job that should only be held by those cranky goblins from the Harry Potter movies.

Which reminds me that this is not the job I'd like to be doing and certainly not the job I thought I'd be doing 20 years ago. All of which leads me to think about dreams and how they can really screw you up.

A few days ago, Valerie D'Orazio posted a message in her always excellent blog, Occasional Superheroine, which was basically a response to some messages artist Colleen Doran posted in her blog about a particularly odious fellow who'd been stalking her and her family for quite a few years. Val's post didn't excuse the guy's bad behavior but gave some more details about who he was and what his life was like. Apparently he's a guy who's been hanging on the fringe of the comic business for a lotta years, hoping for his big break and dreaming of making it in comics.

And that made me think.

I certainly don't condone his stalking and consider it inexcusable but there was something in Val's description that hit a bell with me. So I started to wonder. How many people are out there, yearning for a career in comics and making that basically the entire focus of their lives? These are people who forgo opportunities in life because they might interfere with that possible comic career. They hang onto the outskirts of the industry, trying desperately to break in but forever hopeful because comics is their "first, best destiny". Such people pass up chances for life, love and happiness because that's not what they were born to do. They were put on this earth to make comics, if only someone would give them the chance to do so.

These are the types of people (generally male) who end up alone in apartments full of their collections that are often fire hazards but which they cannot part with. In many cases, these people are getting older now and that comic career hasn't happened and probably will NEVER happen. How many people break into comics when they're middle-aged? It's a youth market, now more than ever. To be older than 30 in comics is to have that black crystal from LOGAN'S RUN blinking in your palm. But they hold onto the dream. Partly because they've invested too much in it already to back off but also because they're afraid of what it would mean to abandon that dream.

For the most part, these will be people who will end up being unemployable except in the most limited sense because they didn't get the skills or training or a diploma to do anything other than working in comics. They have little to no savings. Health insurance will be virtually nonexistent.

We have, in effect, created a new sociological group: The Forgotten Comicists. It's one that never existed before but their numbers have been growing since about the mid 1970's. Before that time, we didn't have the hundreds of people who grew up wanting only to make comics and, if they couldn't do that then they wouldn't do anything. Back in the 1950's and 60's, if you wanted to do that and couldn't (for whatever reason), you went and did something else because you still had to feed and clothe yourself. Not today. We are now seeing an alarming amount of people who refuse to do anything else because this is their dream and who are we to tell them that they can't live their dream? Soon, I expect the American Psychiatric Association to declare this a legitimate mental disorder.

Funny thing is that this isn't all that unusual for creative people and their obsessions. How many times do we hear of actors and actresses who keep trying to land that elusive part that will make their career while they're waiting tables or parking cars? Or that painter who does his 'real' work at night in his studio waiting for that downtown gallery to realize he's a genius and give him that one-man show he deserves? Or the writer chipping away at that Great American Novel because that's his purpose in life even though no one wants to read it?

Truth is that it's not as easy to be a creative person in this world anymore and JUST be creative. There are no more patrons and grants are drying up faster than an ice cold Pepsi in the Sahara. And here's the really hard, painful truth for all of us... there isn't much need for so many creative people. There will always be really successful creative people at the top end. Those actors/writers/painters who make lots of money and live the life. But most of us are going to end up in that middle ground. The one filled with people who might be really good, but just aren't good enough. The place where no matter how hard you work or how many networking connections you make, that role, that gallery show, that book tour, that big time comic assignment, isn't going to happen.

Maturity, I think, lies in the ability to reach that point of understanding. To objectively look at your work and determine if it should remain the sole focus of your life. No one is saying you should abandon it completely; just the dream of that being your livelihood.

Americans love to say, "Never give up on your dreams." Funny, it's always the ones who succeed that say that. It's not the ones who have failed for the umpteenth time and they don't have the money for rent and the car needs repairs and there's no food in the house. The universe only needs and creates so many Walt Disneys or Henry Fords or even Stan Lees. Most of us will end up being Vince Colletta or, even worse, Ed Wood Jr.

We come to comics or acting or dance or music or writing or art because we love it, because it inspires us to be creative. But, in the end, only so many will go to the show. The rest of us will play out our days in the farm teams of A, AA or (if we're very good) AAA ball. And we'll be let go to try and make our ways the best we can because there's a shiny new crop of youngsters coming off the bus all the time, endlessly feeding the machine.

"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, The Fool."
"Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." T.S. Eliot

Sorry I wasn't more entertaining today. I'll try better tomorrow.

Inter-Fan Convention

Here's the latest flyer for a great convention that I wish I could go to! Run by great people with fun guests. What MORE could you ask for?

Teflon Dan Strikes Again!

Dan Didio truly amazes me.

How he can say and do the things he does and still keep his job is an acrobatic act truly worthy of the Flying Wallandas.

Last weekend, at the Fan Expo in Canada, Didio talked about several interesting things including the fact that the reboots of old characters (like Blue Beetle) hadn't really caught on. No surprise there that readers didn't embrace unimaginative rehashes of old concepts.

What caught my eye was a report where Didio talked about the return of Barry Allen to the DCU. In a talk with Comic Book Resources, Didio says how he "loves that Barry Allen is back" and that he "...was a big Barry Allen fan from Day One.”

That's interesting to me because, for years now, Didio has always been the one to say that Barry wasn't coming back, no way, no how. As recently as September 2007 at Baltimore Comic-Con, Didio said, "No Barry Allen plans, he's not coming back. It's the first time I can say that without screwing it up."

So either there were no plans at that time or Didio was simply b.s.ing. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that there were no plans for Barry's return then... but, in the words of my hero, Lewis Black, "I have doubts."

In a 6/9/08 interview with Newsarama, Grant Morrison had this to say about his blockbuster DC series, FINAL CRISIS:

"GM: Well, the way it worked out was that I started writing Final Crisis #1 in early 2006, around the same time as the 52 series was starting to come out, so Final Crisis was more a continuation of plot threads from Seven Soldiers and 52 than anything else. Final Crisis was partly-written and broken down into rough issue-by-issue plots before Countdown was even conceived, let alone written. And J.G. was already working on designs and early layouts by the time Countdown started. There wasn’t really much opportunity, or desire, to modify our content at that stage."

Now, I'm not a math professor or anything. I'm just some dumb nerd that reads comics but, unless I'm mistaken, 2006 was BEFORE 2007! That means that FINAL CRISIS was well under way when Didio said there were no plans to bring Barry back. But bringing Barry back is a MAJOR factor of the plot of FC. So, did no one TELL Didio? Was he left out of the loop so he could have plausible deniability in 2007? Did Morrison have WMD and, if so, when did Didio find out and how much did he know when he found out? What did he know and did he know what he knew when he knew it?

No wonder I have a headache.

Didio is quickly becoming the George W. Bush of comics which means you can't trust a word he says. Unless he "crosses his heart and swears to die" first. Or pinky-swears. That might work.

THAT'S how you do it!

The mark of a really good writer is when they take something that you've known for a long time and add a new twist to it that makes you go, "yeah, that makes perfect sense."

That's the kind of writer Geoff Johns is with the newest Final Crisis tie in, LEGION OF 3 WORLDS.

Current DC Comics overused villain Superboy-Prime is brought into the future by the Legion of Super-Heroes old nemesis, the Time Trapper. Once there, he goes on a rampage of destruction in the Superman museum and, once he learns that the Legion of Super-Villains is being held on the prison planet Takron-Galtos, rushes there to commit a planetary prison break.

When he liberates the key trio of the Legion of Super-VILLAINS (Saturn Queen, Lighting Lord and Cosmic King) they reveal that, just as the Legion of Super-Heroes were inspired by Superboy, the bad guys were inspired by Superboy-PRIME.

It's a great "of course" moment of retconning that works amazingly well.

And that's why Geoff Johns is my favorite comic writer today and why this particular Final Crisis tie-in just might not suck after all.

The stupidity of executives

My brain hurts.

Unless you've been living under a rock, or trying to access the internet from Beijing, you know that BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT is making all kinds of crazy money for Warner Brothers and breaking records. Quite the contrast from the nearly universal indifference which greeted SUPERMAN RETURNS, isn't it?

That difference hasn't gone unnoticed by WB. They announced late last week in an article in the WALL ST. JOURNAL that Superman would be rebooted. The last film would be considered "out of continuity", which pretty much means, "it'd didn't make us a ton of money so forget that it ever existed."

What the brain trust at WB has decided to do with Superman is to try and copy B:TDK. President of Warner Brothers Picture Group puts it this way:

" 'Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," Robinov said of Singer's movie, which made just $215 million domestically. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned," he continued. "Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009, but now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman. We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the character allows it."

They're going to try and dark up Superman. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard since, oh... I don't know, someone said, "Hey! Let's get Joel Schumacher to direct the next Batman movie! He REALLY understands those characters!"

You can't 'dark up' Superman. You just can't because it DOESN'T WORK! The most you can do is maybe darken up the villains but, even then, you're working against type because Superman's villains aren't NEARLY as dark as Batman's. Superman is about hope. He stands for truth, justice and the ever-changing 'American Way'. He's not about 'taking the fight to the streets'. He's about doing the right thing no matter how painful it might be or what it costs you personally.

It's a shame that the President of Warner Brothers Picture Group doesn't understand that about a character his company OWNS. I guess he didn't have the time to read any of the several THOUSAND Superman comics that his company published. I'm sure he has assistants working on that right now and they'll write up a one paragraph synopsis of the character for him to read while he's enjoying 'quiet time' on the toilet.

And even if he doesn't have time to read all of that paragraph, I'm sure Schumacher is available.

Movie Comics!

My mind works in mysterious ways.

I had a dentist appointment this morning which, naturally, made me think of the classic 1996 horror film, THE DENTIST, starring Corbin Bernsen. This wonderful piece of cinema was a story basically about Corbin finding out his wife was cheating on him and then going out and killing a bunch of people. Said killings had a dental theme, natch.

Not that I thought my dentist was going to kill me as I laid in the chair (although there were a few moments that it seemed possible), but it made me think of comic book adaptations. So far as I know, no company made a comic version of THE DENTIST which led me to wonder, “What happened to the movie comics?”

You know the ones I’m talking about. Not the comics that took a movie as inspiration like the TERMINATOR comics but ones that pretty much just plopped down on paper what had been up on the screen. Used to be that pretty much every movie would get the comic book treatment and, if it was a kid’s movie or from Disney, that was pretty much guaranteed.

Dell and Gold Key were big publishers of these comics when I was growing up and I can remember buying adaptations of my favorite movies. Most were fair but some really captured the flavor or magic of their movie.

Then, suddenly, no one made them anymore. Oh, sure, Marvel or DC might do a one shot adaptation of a really big movie (particularly if it was based on their characters) but you didn’t see a TOP GUN comic or a BREAKFAST CLUB comic or even an UNCLE BUCK comic. Why was that? What had happened to wipe out the movie adaptation comic virtually overnight? Was it a dinosaur-killing comet? No, my friends, it was video tape killed the movie comic.

I’m sure that the primary reason was money. After all, if a BLUES BROTHERS comic sold millions of copies, publishers would be fools to ignore that opportunity. They stopped making them because people and kids stopped buying them. But why?

The answer to that lies in the reason that they used to be bought in the first place!

When you bought a comic adaptation of a movie, it was usually because you had liked the movie when you saw it in the theater. You had liked it so much that you wanted to relive that fun or excitement or that great line of dialogue. But, back in those far olden days, you had no WAY to relive it. There were no DVD players. There weren’t even VCRs back then. Cable basically didn’t exist and certainly not the way it does today. You didn’t get 100+ channels on your TV. You were lucky if you got 5 or 6 channels and a couple of those were crappy UHF channels that you could only see if you contorted your antenna to look like some Egyptian hieroglyphics.

My point being that you couldn’t just pop something into a machine every time you had a hankering to watch DIE HARD I, II and/or III. You had to WAIT until it came on TV and, back then, not only could that take a long time but you never knew WHEN it would show up. It could be at 3am on channel 64 and if you missed it, you missed it. No VCRs, remember?

So, if you wanted to relive that great movie, you had to buy the comic (or the novelization which is another dying trend). But once those VCRs starting popping up all over the place and now you could get that great movie on tape and watch it ANY TIME YOU WANTED, there was little need for a plain adaptation. Why READ when you can just sit on the couch and watch the REAL thing?

Before you knew it, movie comics were gone the way of Romance and Western comics, never to return. Which is a shame because some of those comics were quite good.

So let’s all take a minute today and remember our fallen comrade, the movie comic. Let’s say thank you to Dell and Gold Key and even DC and Marvel (Marvel, remember, did the first comic adaptation of STAR WARS) for remembering and reminding us what it was like to be a little kid in a big movie house and how magical it all seemed.

Where?

Where are the Olympics comics?

It seems strange to me that no one has cashed in on this market. Imagine a comic all about Michael Phelps or the woman's beach volleyball teams! It would make a ton o' money?

Then again, maybe not. Marvel's comic about the Pope didn't sell very well, IIRC.

A Comic Summer

Well, coming as no surprise to most comic fans, this summer has been one comic book movie blockbuster after another. Starting with IRON MAN and then HULK and lastly, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT, comics have ruled the cinemas.

So why don't I feel happier about that?

B:TDK will most likely become the biggest grossing movie of all time or give that celluoid disaster TITANIC a run for the title. And yet I, a self-professed Batman fan have only seen the movie once.

I saw IRON MAN three times.

But BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT? Just once.

I think it's because B:TDK may be many things but it's not fun. It's action packed, dramatic and full of tragedy and sacrifice.

But it's not fun.

In the end, when the credits came up, I simply felt bad. I felt bad for all the characters, bad for the city of Gotham, bad for the future, just bad all around. I felt as if I'd gone through the ringer and came out wet, depressed and flat.

IRON MAN, however, was exhilarating and just flat out superhero fun.

Strange that a company identified with putting their characters through emotional turmoil should produce a movie that was entertaining and uplifting. While the other company, which for many years did optimistic stories until they proved to not sell as well as angst, would make a movie that was so down-beat.

Economic Idiots!

I generally tend to take most things from Newsarama or CBR with a grain of salt. I know that this is not the place to go for hard-hitting comics reporting. No, you go to Newsarama for the same reason you read Wizard magazine: PR puff pieces masquerading as news.

Most of the time I let it go. After all, I know it's all PR so what else do you expect? But, every once in a while, they put up something that just defies explanation.

This article, The Economics of Publishing, is such a thing.

In this article, 6 publishers talk about how the RECESSION will affect their companies. (I put RECESSION in big letters in case anyone is still denying that we're in one.) First off, Marvel and DC aren't part of the round table discussion. Second, only two are publishers with any sort of lasting power (Dark Horse and TokyoPop) but at least I recognize Top Cow and BOOM! whereas I've never heard of the other two.

Anyway, this brain trust goes on to say that, basically, everything is just hunky-dory with them. Couldn't be better. The roads are just PAVED with gold. I'm being sarcastic, of course, but this is the kind of spin action I usually only see connected with presidential elections. The point being that they don't think that the RECESSION (oh dear, he said that word again!) will affect their sales. One publisher even recalls the halcyon days of his own youth when he gladly foregoed eating in order to buy his favorite comic.

Lemme spell it out to you, sunshine, your comics aren't worth skipping food for! Sure, back in the 70's I used to hold off on that bottle of pop to buy the newest Neal Adams BATMAN comic. But those were helluva great comics and, here's the thing they all seem to forget, they only cost a freakin' quarter!!!!

It's a lot different when the comic cost $3 bucks! Unfortunately, that $3 comic doesn't even pay for a gallon of gas anymore. So acting like "of course, people will sacrifice to read our comics" is just plain dumb. If people are going to sacrifice for comics, it's not likely to be comics from this bunch. Maybe TokyoPop and DH but I can't see someone going without food for the latest issue of CTHULHU TALES or whatever the hell it is that Top Cow publishes. No, for most comic readers, the sacrifices will be made to buy more Marvel and DC comics. A fact that should put these publishers into a cold flop sweat. Not here though. "Life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in the white coats..."

But I should know better. This is Newsarama after all and hardly anything that shows up on Newsarama can be considered to be NEWS.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

I am please to announce that I will be providing some reviews, articles and hopefully the DC FOCUS column for Sequart.com! This is a website devoted to the study of sequential art and I am please to be able to contribute.

My first review is already on the site. It's on COUNTDOWN #1 and I encourage everyone to go read it. Check it out here.

I hope to have more stuff appearing there soon. They actually had a table at the last NYCC and were selling proofs of a soon to be released volume of essays about... THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES! Sorry I missed that one. Hopefully the final, edited version will be published soon.

So go and check out the site and leave me some comments! Who knows? If enough of you do that, they might even invite me to their booth at NEXT year's NYCC! LOL

Thank Darkeid THAT'S over!

Yesterday saw the release of COUNTDOWN #1 which, thankfully, ends that painfully pointless series. I'll be having more to say about that in another post (along with some news about that post) hopefully soon. Suffice it to say that this was an incredibly disappointing series that kept the characters (and the readers) jumping from place to place with no real interest. I wonder how much of it was plotted out beforehand and how much was simply made up as the writers went along. Anyway, it's over and hopefully now all we DC fans can breathe a collective sigh of relief and starting putting back our comic reading lives.

Next week brings DC UNIVERSE #0 which is supposed to lead right into Grant Morrison's magnum opus, FINAL CRISIS. You did know Grant Morrison is writing that, yes? I mean, how could you possibly NOT know he was writing it? Basically every single freaking comic blog and website has been falling all over themselves to tell you about Grant Morrison and FINAL CRISIS and BATMAN R.I.P. So I guess that DC isn't planning on publishing anything else while those titles are on... Now, I love Grant Morrison. I think that he is one of the most imaginative and creative writers in comics today but I am so sick of this PR spin-doctoring that is going on that I'm getting afraid that this series might even be worse than COUNTDOWN (as if that is possible). Not to mention the growing rumors that there is already some problem with the scheduling and grumbles in-house. I long for the days when comic companies just shut the hell up and put out comics. The editors, creators, writers and artists spend so much damn time at conventions and panels and on-line that I wonder when they get any work done? They probably have to schedule their lives around the conventions instead of the other way around. Could this be why DiDio keeps making so many lousy editorial decisions? He's suffering from too much jet lag?

I'm old school. I admit that and you know it by now. My comic book heroes were Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, STERANKO, Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson. If I went to a convention, that's who I went to see. Not some pencil neck editor-in-chief who thinks he's somekind of a comic/rock star. My heroes were the CREATORS. The people who actually WROTE and DREW the comics. They didn't spend all their time going to conventions and giving interviews about how great the comics they have coming out next month (why is it always next month? why not this month? it's like 'new and improved' in marketing which makes you think of your old stuff as 'old and crappy') are going to be. They were making those kick-ass comics!

The best thing I can think of to say to today's comic editors and 'talent' is this: Shut the hell up and show me how great your comic is instead of selling it first.

A NEW FRONTIER arrives!

Yesterday saw the release of one of the most eagerly awaited animatedsuperhero movies in quite some time; JUSTICE LEAGUE, THE NEW FRONTIER.Adapted from the award winning mini-series by Darwyn Cooke, it portrays the beginning of the Justice League of America against thebackdrop of the late 1950's.

Making the series into a brief 75 minute movie was no easy task. Because of this, many parts of Cooke's narrative were excised to barethe plot down to it's pure concept. Something called 'The Centre' is about to wage war on humanity and only the heroes can defeat it. Unfortunately, we lose parts of the story that (although marginal to the pure concept) provided some of the most poignant and emotional scenes. The death of the WWII group The Losers (as well as virtually the entire first volume of the mini-series) is cut as well as the creation of the Challengers of the Unknown and the side story of John Henry (a black man fighting racism in the deep South) is only briefly mentioned in passing.

But the movie is not a celebration of what was excised as much as what was retained. Many of the best scenes were perfectly rendered such as Superman's confrontation with Wonder Woman about the Korean women prisoners and Hal Jordan's ascent into greatness.Overall, Cooke's series was about heroism. Not only what makes a hero but what made THESE characters heroic. This is carried over into the film with such passion and joy that it made this old Silver Age fan misty eyed on more than one occasion. I challenge any true comic fan to not feel a catch in their throat when Flash overcomes his insecurity to save the day or when Jordan's ring flashes a bright green from within the Centre itself. It is scenes like this that made us love comics all those years ago.

The voice casting is nearly flawless and is so good that it is barely noticed. Kyle McLaughlin makes a perfect Superman whose voice drips with self-confidence and belief in what is right. Neil Patrick Harris brings the right amount of boyish enthusiasm to the Flash and David Boreanz is pure Hal Jordan.The art direction takes it's cue from Cooke's own art and is like watching the comic come to life. This production bodes very well for DC's continuing animation line. In fact, with this film, DC's animation has already out paced their live action movies!

Of particular note in the extras was a 40 minute documentary on the history of the Justice League. It is an interesting look at this concept that has survived for nearly 50 years although I would have liked hearing from more of the artists involved. Special kudos to the documentary for not ignoring the infamous 'Detroit period' of the group which has been roundly reviled by many.

In the end, JUSTICE LEAGUE NEW FRONTIER was not only worth the wait but a worthwhile companion to the original graphic series. It not only adapts but enhances the original source material and can one really ask for anything more?

Everybody run, Captain America Has-Got-A-Gun!

That old Julie Brown 80's song is going through my head this afternoon. Why? Because this Wednesday, Captain America returns to Marvel comics and he's packing heat!

As reported in the New York Daily News (that paragon of journalistic integrity), Bucky will take over the cowl of the deceased Star Spangled Avenger. And he's going to have a gun.

The escalation in firepower is explained thusly:

"It's a little jarring for some people to see that," said the book's writer, Ed Brubaker. "[But] people forget that Captain America carried a gun a lot in World War II. Every three covers there was a shot of Captain America with a machine gun or a flamethrower - or an atom bomb."

Ok. Yes, Cap carried a gun and other weapons in the 1940s but there's one little difference between then and now... HE WAS FIGHTING A FRICKING WAR!!!!!!!!!! So unless Cap is going to invade Iraq, the new pistol packing Cap doesn't appeal to me.

The page that Marvel had the NYDN (that News bastion that it is) use to illustrate this shows Cap shooting three AIM agents in the leg. Is it just me or is the sight of Cap shooting a gun just WRONG on so many levels??

First the real Cap, then Spider-Man and now this fake Cap. When will Quesada be stopped? Remember that this is the same editor who thought that a gay Rawhide Kid was a good idea. Which, as far as Marvel and Q are concerned, it was because it sold books and made the news.

Too bad as much attention isn't given to just writing good stories and having the characters act the way that 40 years of continuity says that they should.

Be a TRUE Friend to a Comic Fan!

It's not easy being a comic fan these days and it's even harder to be a friend of one. There's so many bad comics out there that it's hard to avoid them. This is where you can help your friend. Keep them from making a mistake and buying a bad comic.

Keep them from buying AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.

Not only will you save your friend from a fate worse than death (reading a comic that doesn't respect them) but you will help send the only message that comic companies understand today: a financial one. It's been said on other blogs that the only thing that comic companies like Marvel and DC care about is $ale$ and, sadly, that is true. They really don't care about fans and what they want. All they care about is moving the most 'product' out the door every week. They know from past events that many comic fans may express outrage over a ret-con or stupid storyline (like Gwen Stacy's twins) but most of those fans will keep on buying the comic and that's the only thing that's important.

So, be a friend to your friend and save them from themselves. Show Joe Quesada and Marvel that, despite the hype and news, you don't like this new direction and refuse to have it shoved down your throat. Show your friend how buying an AMAZING SPIDER-MAN merely justifies the story to Q and Marvel. Explain to them how the only way to exact any lasting change at Marvel or DC is through their profit margins.

Remember, friends don't let friends buy AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.

Comic's TRUE super-villains!

When I stop to consider what is wrong with today's comics (and there are many things wrong), I keep coming back to two reasons: Joe Quesada and Dan Didio.

Now, to be fair, I'm sure that they are both very nice fellows. I'm sure that they love their families, give to charities and always stop to pet stray dogs. I don't know either of them and wouldn't recognize them if we passed on the street (nor would they recognize me either). I'm also sure that neither one of them really cares all that much about anything I say. I can't imagine Joe Q sitting in his office, screaming "damn that Gafford! Everyone would have loved 'One More Day' if it hadn't been for his blog!"

But when I think about what is wrong with comics today, it always ends up with these two men and the concept they represent. Basically, they are the figureheads for the new way of making comics by which I mean 'event over story'. In both cases, events are planned out by them and their editorial teams and they look for the right creators who are willing to tell those stories. Once upon a time, the main goal of comic creators was to tell a good story (not that they always achieved that but they tried). Now the goal is to feed the never-ending 'event' machine that must churn on even over the broken, bloody bodies of those who created it.

We hear about editorial summits or creative meetings where an entire year's worth of comics are plotted out and this is my overwhelming problem with that: editors should not be dictating stories. Editors are there to help make the creators make the best story that they can but, somewhere along the line, the Editors were put in charge of the creating. It's almost like the Editors are ordering their stories the same way they might order Chinese food! "I'll take one from Column 'A' (murders and disfigurements) and one from Column 'B' (useless retcons)..." Somehow, the cart got put in front of the horse and now the horse is just happy to still have a job so can't dare complain that he's got this huge, crappy cart in his face.

Let's face it. There would never have been a "One More Day" without Joe Quesada pushing it through. Likewise, no IDENTITY CRISIS without Didio at the helm. If these men were not in charge of Marvel and DC, we wouldn't have had to suffer through CIVIL WAR or HOUSE OF M or INFINITE CRISIS or COUNTDOWN. Would we have had better comics without them? I can't say for sure but I believe so. In the very least we would have been spared the indignity of Sue Dibny being raped and murdered, Blue Beetle's head being shot off, Wonder Woman snapping Max Lord's neck, Superboy-Prime beating the Golden Age Superman to death, "Avengers Dissembled", Iron Man becoming a fascist, Captain America being assassinated, and Spider-Man telling MJ to f**k off cuz Joe Q says he should be young and single.

Rather than letting the market dictate what the readers want, Q & D are determined to make them want what THEY are willing to sell. We hear a lot of wordplay giving to how Q & D "listen to the readers and care about what they think." If Q had really cared what the fans thought, he would have listened to them at convention after convention when they begged him to leave Peter and MJ alone.

As far as Q is concerned, "One More Day" accomplished exactly what he wanted it to: broke up a plot he didn't care for, got media press and lots of sales. The fact that it was a stupid story has no effect at all. Sounds suspiciously like "Death of Superman", doesn't it?

Q is on the fan hot seat right now but he's not worried. It'll pass over and people will either forget or accept what cannot (i.e. WILL not) be changed. Slowly, the attention will turn to another target. Whether that will be Q again or D depends on who dictates the worst story first.

FINAL CRISIS, anyone?