Lacking Authority

The Authority #1

What's this? Two reviews of new comics in one week? Surely not.

I haven't read any Authority in a long time. I loved the original Warren Ellis Authority, but by the time the second series started I could barely recognise the characters. When I saw Grant Morrison was having a bash, I thought I'd give it another try, but since they don't appear in the comic, it's hard to make a comparison.

I'm not sure what is so hard to understand, but I'll try to spell it out for any comic writers who are too clever for their own good: When I read issue #1 of Spider-Girl I expect to see Spider-Girl. When I read issue #1 of The Authority I expect to see The Authority. When I buy a superhero comic I expect to see a superhero doing superhero stuff. If I want a soap opera or a crime thriller I would not be reading a superhero comic*. I don't care if it's a big buildup to a story that is six issues long and will work great in the trade; if I buy a comic I expect more than a preview of the trade. And that goes x 10 for the first issue. Your first issue is your best chance to establish a readership. Producing a bad first issue is the fastest way to turn an ongoing into a miniseries. And having a first issue in which the title character(s) appear nowhere but the cover doesn't make for a spectacular start.

I'm sure a lot of people are going to say The Authority #1 is a great Grant Morrison comic, but personally I had been hoping for an Authority comic.

*Okay, you can do all kinds of genre stuff with superheroes in it. I just reckon that when there aren't any superheroes in it then it doesn't qualify as a superhero comic.

Showcase fails to present...

Showcase Presents has been going a while now, and I'm delighted to see that in January it moves up to giving us two chunky collections a month of silver age goodness. The schedule so far seems to bounce between the obvious DC standards - Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Justice League, Teen Titans, Aquaman, etc - and material so obscure you have to wonder what motivated them to dust it off and send it to the head of the queue - Haunted Tank, Unknown Soldier, House of Mystery, etc.

But even though I've been enjoying a lot of the stuff that's appeared in this line it feels like they are missing something somewhere. Perhaps it's just that from the lineup so far you might be forgiven for assuming that DC didn't publish any comics with female stars at all between 1950 and 1980.

Amazing?

Amazing Spider-Girl #1

Since fan pressure contributed to the survival of Spider-Girl and this new relaunch, it's not so unsurprising to see this comic open with some fan in-jokes and subtext. Amazing Spider-Girl is concrete proof that fan support makes a difference, and you don't have to look far in the online community to find the source for the opening scene which makes fun of the stereotype portrayl of comic superheroines.

But it couldn't possibly be anything to do with the ongoing feminist comics debate, could it? Because people keep trying to tell me how that has zero effect on the industry.

In fact the scene isn't nearly as funny as it could have been. The supposedly absurd version of Spider-Girl made up by Mayday's friends wouldn't stand out in an average Marvel comic, let alone be seen as extreme enough to be a joke. Her breasts are smaller than her head, her pose is stiff but not back-breaking, and she's not even wearing heels. The text defines her as "policewoman/supermodel Jennifer Justice". Now this may have been a poke at quantum physicist/supermodel Stormy Knight, but either way it falls flat because the non-parody version is funnier.

Costume-wise, the only difference is the smaller mask and long hair that makes her look a bit like Spider-Woman, but possibly the biggest reason it falls flat is that there's no image of the real Spider-Girl anywhere in the story to contrast it with. Maybe Tom De Falco just doesn't write humour very well.

Once we get into the story it moves along apace. I haven't read the previous 100 issues, so I was pleased to find that characters were introduced in a way that did not assume prior knowledge. I'm not sure how well it reads to someone who knows all the backstory, though. The story set up takes what is to be honest a fairly dull plot for a superhero story and makes it work by making the characters engaging so that you are interested in what is happening to them. Mayday gets to jump about a lot but still hasn't got into costume by the end of the issue.

Is there enough in this first issue to get new readers to come back for more? I'm not sure. If it was me I'd have gone for something a bit more flashy than a riff on The Maltese Falcon. Have they purposely gone for a non-superhero style to this story? Nobody uses super powers (apart from May doing an urban Tarzan), nobody wears a costume - and no, I don't count the guy in a suit and tie wearing a hobgoblin mask; that's only a costume in 1940's movie serial terms. Putting Spider-Girl on the cover is as misleading as any Emma Frost cheesecake art.

I kind of liked it, and I'll be back to see what happens next issue, but it's going to have to move up a gear or two to get me coming back for issue #3.

It's not plagarism, it's art

After poking fun at Greg Land so thoroughly I could hardly pass up the opportunity to comment on the god of swipemasters, Roy Lichtenstein. In fact the comparison is enough to make poor Greg cry (if he didn't have enough problems now he's not allowed to swipe from porn mags anymore). Lichtenstein not only sells individual swipes for upwards of a million dollars, but they are not even good copies.

In the Boston Globe article on the subject, the executive director of the Lichtenstein Foundation, Jack Cowart claims that Lichtenstein's works are not copies because they were "changed in scale, color, treatment, and in their implications". I had been planning to set up a Cafepress store selling swipes of Lichenstein's works with a little Photoshopping to fulfil these requirements but looking at the side by side comparisons of Lichenstein's versions and the originals, I noticed what bad copies they are and it put me off.

Rethinking "Rethinking Feminism"

Occaisonal Superheroine's article Rethinking Feminism in Comix has had me thinking a lot this week. It is thought provoking for all the wrong reasons and effectively demolished by Karen Healey in her response. In fact it's so bad that you tend to skim over a lot of the minor points because the major ones are so wrong-headed and stupid, but I feel like addressing them anyway.

Specifically, at one point in her argument she gives us what she calls her "Cassie Code"; a list of rules that could be imposed comics code style on all published comics. She's not seriously advocating this code of course, it's deliberately over the top and ludicrous in its demands to illustrate how stupid it would be to try and institute such a thing. Not that anyone has. But if the evil feministas tried to then wouldn't they look bad?

Anyway, here it is:

The Proposed Cassie Code
1. All women's breasts must be properly covered and realistically drawn and shall not exceed a C cup.
2. No thongs.
3. No high heels for superheroines.

See, when you look at it in detail you find that mixed in with the absurd crap there is the occasional bit of semi-sense that almost makes it look believable. Of course it would be absurd to limit the body shapes allowed to be portrayed - hell, this is just a gross exageration and inversion of the current situation where some have complained about the lack of range in body types currently seen in comics. We want greater diversity, not just a different set of limits.

As for the clothing, my personal opinion (and I am not suggesting it's anyone else's) is that female characters should be drawn in whatever costume the writers and artists wish, providing that clothing is treated realistically. Points 2 and 3 become irrelevent once half a dozen heroines have broken ankles and chafing.

4. All superheroines must die heroic deaths in battle in a manner deemed non-misogynistic by the Cassie Code Council.
5. Only two female characters are allowed to be killed from each comic company per year.

I don't see how killing off all superheroines would help the cause, however heroically they went... Oh wait, that's not what you meant, was it? Again, it's absurdity by isolation. There's no sense of equality, it's all "women must be treated in a special way", which is about as far from feminism as you can get.

6. No rape scenes.
7. Superheroines must not have rape or sexual abuse anywhere in their origin story.

I agree with 6. Not as the absolute presented here, of course, but I have been saying for months now that I would like to see a moratorium on sexual abuse used in comics in any form for a while as the current overuse has turned it into a nasty cliche. You can only repeat the same thing over and over so many times before it loses all meaning.

Superheroines having sexual abuse in their origin story? So how many male superheroes have sexual abuse in their origin story? How about we say no more abusive origins for females until the men have caught up? I could live with that.

8. Strong women cannot be depicted as villains.

This has to be one of the funniest. Most feminists I know would love to see more strong women as villains. There aren't nearly enough.

9. No women shall be depicted in chains, bound in rope, mentally enslaved by a devious psychic villain, suspended in a cage over a pit of steaming lava, or otherwise shown in any way that would make them seem vulnerable to men.

But that's no fun. Now I'd prefer it if when a heroine found herself in such a situation she were to get out of it herself, rather than being rescued by some guy. Especially if he then rushed after the villain to have a big fight, completely forgetting the heroine and leaving her to bleed to death on the floor. I'd also like to see equality with male characters. When was the last time Batman was tied up to a big penis substitute?

Rape of the Month - Tangential

Heroes is not a comic, it's a TV show. But it is a show about people with strange powers and has been deliberately associated with superhero comics. It also has a co-executive producer who is not only a popular comics writer but is associated with another TV show with superhero comic connections. He also wrote the third episode. The one in which one of the two super-powered female characters is sexually assaulted. The only reason she is not raped is because she suffers a fatal wound to the head during the struggle. The irony of being saved from rape by having her skull penetrated is not lost on me, but the grotesque things that happen to this girl are not negated because the physical scars heal up, however light her mutilation is treated.

And the only other female character with powers? She got her sexual abuse in the previous episode. You think they'd leave something for the rest of the series. Now they are either going to have to introduce more super powered women or start in on the non-super supporting cast females.

I ♥ Wonderella

Best Wonder Woman parody ever ever.

oh no, not again

You know what it's like when you see this same guy wherever you look? When you first saw him you thought he looked kind of interesting, but then you find that he is shallow and unoriginal, and it's only that he's hanging with the cool kids that makes him look good, but everyone seems to be taken in by his hackneyed stories.

So you just try and avoid him but he has his hooks into someone you like and you can't give up on her simply because she's fallen in with the wrong crowd, so you're patient and you stick by her until the guy gets bored and moves onto his next victim, and when you finally think you've seen the last of him and you can breathe easy, you're just relaxing watching some cool TV show and there he is again.

And it's like you can't switch on the TV anymore without him showing up to haunt you and dragging every show you like down into the suck and I'm beginning to think I need to get a restraining order on Jeph Loeb.

No Nano

I wanted to do NaNoWriMo again this year but I don't think it's possible. I'm way busier than this time last year and it was hard enough then. I had this plan to do a big fantasy quest thing written like totally in, y'know, valleyspeak or whatever? But I guess it will have to wait until I have more free time.

But I would recommend it to anyone who has any desire to write. It's an incredible experience.

The wig room

Back in the early days when things weren't so frenetic, the Fantastic Four would have time to relax and unwind a bit between cosmic threats and internal strife in the superhero community. Mister Fantastic would tinker around with complicated machinery to refract tides, the Thing would read newspapers and smoke cigars while weightlifting double decker busses, Johnny would be throwing darts made of fire at a dartboard with a picture of Spider-Man on it, and Sue? Sue would be in the Wig Room.

Because a girl is a girl, even when she's a full-fledged partner of the Fantastic Four. And don't all girls while away the hours trying on different coloured wigs?

Buckets of Blüd

Infinite Crisis Aftermath: The Battle for Blüdhaven

It's easy to spot examples of something when you are particularly sensitive to it, so I try not to overreact when I encounter what seems to be misogyny in comics without checking the context. Like Battle for Blüdhaven has a high bodycount, so it's inevitable that there will be female deaths as well as male deaths, so is it overreacting to see a big bias here?

I expect someone's annotated the whole thing on some corner of the web, but I can't be bothered to hunt it up. Lady Liberty is the only person to die in issue #1 depending on whether you count Silent Majority, who has multiple bodies. Is the Silent Majority who appears in #3 the same person or a different one? Unlike with Lady Liberty, it's impossible to tell.

The six Atomic Knights who appear at the end of #1 include one female member (as far as I can tell). She is the first to die. Only one other knight is defeated (I think). S.H.A.D.E. is introduced and of the eight members only two are female, including a new Lady Liberty. She will die later, in a way that echoes the death of the previous Phantom Lady in Infinite Crisis.

In issue #3 a bunch of Knights are blown up. One is saved for later torture. Guess what, it's the one female member of the group. The only other person tortured by the evil Face is Firebrand, who somehow escapes without a scratch. The female knight is battered and bleeding before the torturer starts on her. She is never seen again. In fact the Knights have a disturbing disregard for the lives of their comrades, but it is particularly noticeable here. Nobody is going to come rescue this damsel in distress.

It's true, male characters are killed. Major Force kills Major Victory on a whim. Many people of indeterminate sex are beaten up or exploded. But taken over all, given the starting ratio of males to females (about 6:1) it seems kind of odd that more women should be seen dying than men. I'm not even going to get into Black Baron's suicide love slaves.

Okay, on the odd occasion that Phantom Lady managed to get a line she did come across as the most sane person in the entire story, and I did enjoy the general chaotic lunacy, but Battle for Bludhaven has a real misogynistic streak, and underneath all the fireworks there is barely half a story.

How to draw comics the Greg Land way

Huntress

Oracle

She Hulk

Power Girl

Supergirl

Another brick

At Ragnell's suggestion I've been reading Battle for Bludhaven, which was not, as I expected, dull. I'm not sure I could exactly recommend it though, since it makes less sense than a barrel full of Morrisons. But one thing I noticed early on, before it went completely chaotic, is that the set up involves Chemo being dropped on Bludhaven, which makes the whole place toxic.

Can you guess what the government's response to this disaster is?

A) send in hazardous waste disposal teams to neutralize the toxic chemicals.

B) use the city as a military base to conduct highly illegal experiments on the surviving citizens.

C) Build a big wall around the city.

If you answered A) then you are obviously a Marvel fan, or you haven't been paying attention.

What is it with the US government in the DCU that their first response to a disaster is to wall the place off and hope it goes away? In No Man's Land Gotham was hit by an earthquake (and possibly an epidemic, I wasn't really following it) so the government had a big wall built around the city and shot anyone who tried to leave. In fact I think they declared it no longer part of the USA so they wouldn't have to go clean it up. In Green Arrow there was a bunch of explosions and possibly a riot so a large part of the city got walled off. And now this.

It just seems like an entirely unrealistic response to a disaster that makes no sense in real world terms and even less in one full of super powered people, and I am a little boggled that they keep doing it.

Putting thoughts in her head

Okay, it was a real temptation just to leave it at that.

I've seen this image knocking around the web but I have never read the comic (or comics - Greg Land isn't too proud to reuse an image he's photoshopped) it's from, so I have no idea of the context. And I was trying to work out what could possibly be going through the mind of Sue Richards to occasion such an expression.

Here's a few of my attempts to define her mood.








Try it yourself. It's fun.

Heroine addiction

Oh dear, I can feel it coming on again. My obsession for lame female characters has struck again, and in the most unexpected place.

I winced along with everyone else when the first promo pics appeared showing her broken-backed T&A stance. I laughed along at her shiny, shiny plastic skin. I didn't even bother reading Battle for Bludhaven, but I may have to now. I'm sure I can pick it out of a bargain bin at the next comic fair. It was only when I leafed through Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #2 that my interest was sparked.

Who am I talking about? Well the art in Uncle Sam may be a little heavily over-airbrushed with shadows, but there's only one female character in it, and she has a degree in quantum physics.

It's Stormy Knight, physicist and supermodel. And I'm aching to see her written in a way that would make me believe she really is the science nerd she claims to be. Even if it means designing gedanken in a thong.

Biting the hand

You'd think it was the absolute first lesson in marketing: be nice to your customer. And yet somehow this basic message seems to have escaped the comics industry (genre TV has the same issue), which often seems to go out of its way to insult its core audience.

They seem to have forgotten that comics are no longer picked up by casual readers and the main support of the industry are the hardcore fans. Oh, they might show up at conventions, set up message boards to communicate with the fans, and respond to their questions as though they really cared what we think, and they'd be delighted to flog us any kind of merchandise they can think of, but how are comics fans actually portrayed in the comics themselves?

At best they are the socially inept comic relief or the geeky tech who can fix the hero's computer. At worst they are the sad, annoying, obsessive losers who have no life and no girlfriend. Because they are almost always male, too.

Is this any way to treat the people who pay your bills?

Sure, there are extreme elements in fandom, the same as in any other social grouping, but somehow it's always these types that turn up in comics. Never the regular people with rounded lives for whom an interest in comics is one of a variety of activities. And conversely we rarely get to see people with any other kind of obsession (not counting the villains whose whole purpose for existance seems to be making trouble for the hero)

Don't you feel insulted?

They've worked it out in Japan. For years now they have presented images of the geek as hero, the nerd as object of desire. There's everything from Read or Die where women with great psychic power are also obsessive book collectors, Oh My Goddess where the socially inept guy is surrounded by beautiful goddesses, to the non-fantasy Genshiken, which follows the lives of a group of anime/manga fans. In each of these some fun is made of the obsessive fannish nature, but in a sympathetic, kindly way that is balanced by the depth of the characterisation. Plus of course these are the heroes of the stories, rather than the comedy sidekick.

Isn't it about time American publishers learned this lesson?

Rape of the month: September

You know, I thought we were actually going to get a month rape free for a moment, there. And then I read Secret Six #4.

Now I love Gail Simone's writing, and this storyline shows every sign of being well written, but it's still the same ghastly cliche that everyone else in comics feels the need to write ad nauseum as though they were the first to think of it.

And honestly, there are few enough women in the DC universe unmolested. Was it really necessary to reduce that figure by one more?

Twenty one years

DC comics dated March 1985 contained the following guest editorial Meanwhile column.

Dear Mr. Giordano, Here’s two attempts to get printed.
Look at it this way: it’s better than another one of my annoying letters to you. Anyway, I love to make speeches and I need the money. Okay, let’s go. (Sound of throat clearing)

Dear Whoever-Reads-These-Things, I’d like to speak to you about a subject that has been ignored for years, an American tragedy, a shameful blot on the comics industry. I’d like to discuss heroine abuse and neglect.

Women in comics are treated terribly by both DC and Marvel, mostly by Marvel, but Jim Shooter doesn’t do guest columns. They are downplayed, put-upon, wasted, ignored, and stereotyped into six categories. I like to call these categories the Six Do’s.

The first Do is Dependence. The heroine is somehow linked to a hero, either by costume (like Batgirl), by relation (like Huntress), by romance (like Black Canary), or by joining a teem (like Wonder Girl). Thus, the heroine has a bloody hard time standing alone and independent. Eventually, she becomes either a sidekick (“Green Arrow’s Girlfriend, The Black Canary”) or a bookend (Hawkman and Hawkwoznan).

The next Do is Deemphasis.
Everyone ignores the heroine and hopes she’ll go away. DC has an
enormous wealth of interesting, exciting, and enjoyable heroines, most of whom haven’t appeared in years. Demoralize often goes under the guise of “characterization.” The heroine is given a quirk in her personality or a mental aberration that cripples her. A good example is The Thorn’s split personality, which makes it impossible for her to fight in the daytime. The most common personality modes are The Bubblehead (”Oh, dear, this fight to the death with Vrot the Remarkably Unpleasant will simply ruin my manicure”), the Battlehappy Battler (“I will tear Vrot the Remarkably Unpleasant into little pieces”), and the Weak and Helpless Type (“I would fight Vrot the Remarkably Unpleasant, but I’m so afraid of snakes and I’m a pacifist anyway”).

Deglamorize is ridiculous but effective. The heroine is given an ugly costume, which effectively weakens her popularity without too badly weakening her ability in combat. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the beautiful weather-goddess who was phenomenally popular and was just about to branch out into solo guest-appearances and maybe even her own mini-series until the writer suddenly decided to have her go punk, complete with mohawk. This set her upon the road to ruin as she progressed to the next stage...

Depower! Of course, the aforementioned character was exposed to the fullest and most literal example of Depowering. She was stripped of her superhuman qualities and rendered utterly normal ... a fate worse than death. There is a more subtle form of Depowering, where the heroine’s talents are downplayed and presented as trivial. That way, she needs a hero around to keep her from getting killed. Thus, deadly destruct­bolts become stun-stings, extrasensory perception becomes “I sense en evil presence somewhere in this room,” and even telepathic mind-control becomes a parlor trick.

The most drastic step is Death. It means exactly what you think it means. The heroine is quickly and not-very-neatly disposed of. Ever since Phoenix left this mortal coil, hundreds of heroines are sacrificed daily in a vain attempt to produce a classic comparable to her story. The only one that even comes close is “The Judas Contract,” which featured the death of Terra—a death that, let’s face it, we knew was going to happen. Too many heroines have been sacrificed to the great volcano god Fan-Dom. It’s about time the writers found a new cliche to overuse.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the comics creators are engaging in a sinister conspiracy. It’s doubtful that Mr. Giordano has even realized the problem. But it is 8incerely wished that someone would realize what’s going on and take steps to correct the problem. Why is it that when a character must go insane, sacrifice her life to save humanity, or get blasted by the neural-vac power-remover, it’s always a woman?

I represent W.A.S.P., the Women Anti-Stereotyping Patrol. We have been attempting to correct this injustice (by the way, if any W.A.S.P.ers are reading this .. for Heaven’s sakes, write! I’m good, but I can’t do it all alone!), but we require some help. If a favorite heroine of yours has been suffering from one of the six symptoms, write to the comic of your choice (don’t bother Mr. Giordano . .. that’s my job) and complain, politely but firmly. If any submitters are reading this, consider revamping an old heroine or creating a new one as your project. It might be fun. I know I had fun when I did it (I didn’t have fun when DC rejected it, but that’s not important). And if any professional comics writers are reading this ... for gosh sakes, lay off the heroines, willya?

I thank you for your time. Now let’s see if I can get this thing printed.
Michael Pickens
Greentree Apartments
784 Blacksnake Rd.
D-4
Utica, OH 43080
I hope this doesn’t fall under “defamatory.” I tried to present the facts as I see them and to give DC a fair shake. If you do decide to print it, I believe you’ll have room for a rebuttal.

Now personally I disagree with his comments about ugly costumes (I liked Storm's punk look, and the ghastly costume designs of the Justice League of the late '80s were distributed equally between the sexes. More recent female costume designs may be problematic but looking ugly was never the intention), but a lot of the rest echoes what is being said right now.

So next time anyone tells you that they recognise the problem but things can't be changed overnight, feel free to point out that after twenty one years you are fed up of waiting.

Scott Kurtz brings new meaning to the phrase "gag strip"

I'm not sure what I find more disturbing, someone who considers it funny to do a comic strip about people vomiting on a dead dog (which was beaten to death in the previous strip) or the audience that laugh like drains at such antics.

Having it both ways

You may or may not be aware of the term Editorial Swimwear. This is where some time after the art for a comic is created someone decides that the cheesecake they ordered is a bit rich and they have some hack come in and scribble bikinis on women in the shower scenes, airbrush very opaque wisps of smoke over the wisps of smoke that were already present, or just generally scribble over the completed artwork until the only people it would offend were those who don't like seeing artwork disfigured.

The question I've always wanted to ask those responsible is why the hell they agreed to a scene that involved nudity if they were not prepared to have any in the comic? Rarely is a shower scene integral to the plot, so why not have it changed at the scripting stage? Or when the pencils are delivered, if the art has come out a little more racy than the script indicated? Why wait until the inks are completed and it's too late to have the original artist alter it tastefully?

Why? Because they want the cheesecake shots. They are happy to have scenes in which giant naked women are running around the landscape. Just so long as you can't see any of the nudity.

There's a similar thing happening with the extremes of violence lately. This took me by surprise after the excessive graphic violence on show in Infinite Crisis, but maybe the reaction to that was what caused the change in policy. So when Blockbuster rips the head off a heroine in 52, instead of graphic images of it bouncing away down the street the art is composed in such a way as to leave it unclear what has actually happened to her, and with no text to explain it, the only place you'll find mention of decapitation is on the official website.

There is evidence to speculate that this too was down to late editorial interference, though the extra shadowing applied to obscure what was going on is more subtlely applied. Unfortunately it leaves the sequence of pictures reading so ambiguously that without any text to explain it, you're not sure what's going on at all. When you know she's being decapitated it does read better, but dead is dead, so why have her head removed at all if you aren't going to show it or mention it in the story? I thought he'd broken her neck and the panel structure was just a bit clumsy and random until I read about it on the net.

It seems like they want it both ways. nude scenes that don't show any skin, and extreme violence without the gore.

Okay, I never liked the gore, but I'd rather have nastiness depicted as being nasty and with actual lasting consequences than have it sanitised away. How about just having less violence? Nudity I have no problem with, I just can't get my head around the whole "nudity good, nipples bad" thing anymore than I can make sense of putting flying characters in tiny skirts that barely cover their ass but absolutely never show a flash of panties. Make up your damn minds, you can't have it both ways. Either dress them more sensibly or accept that panties are part of the uniform and since everyone behind her when she's flying is going to get to see them, it's no big deal if the reader does too. She'll still be more modestly dressed than Emma Frost.

Rape of the month: October

I didn't get around to doing a Rape of the month last month because, to be honest, I couldn't face looking at another issue of Walking Dead to see whether the serial rape of the previous two issues was going to continue into a third. Maybe someone can tell me how that worked out, but please without any detail. I just want to know whether I can consider September rape-free or not.

I had been looking forward to having a little graphic that went like "Months with no rapes in comics:" and then a number to show how well things were going. One week into October and already I find I won't be needing it this month after the publication of How To Make Money Like A Porn Star! written by Neil Strauss, with art by Bernard Chang. Kphoebe reviewed it, for which I am sincerely appreciative as it's saved me having to touch the ghastly thing with a ten foot pole.

On the other hand, maybe I should keep a stack of the things. Then I could send a copy out to any writer who thought they were being daring and edgy to have one of their characters sexually abused.

Maybe not. It's bad enough them doing it to show how socially aware they are. The last thing we need is more people writing rape for the comedy value.

One of several things

Anyone who's followed my ramblings for any length of time will know I have a fondness for obscure DC heroines who didn't get the chance to fulfil their potential.

Today was a good day, and one of several things that made me happy was to see the latest issue of Action Comics cameo The Crimson Avenger. She appeared to have been caught by the Spectre during Day of Vengeance, and although we never saw her actually killed, being an obscure heroine is often enough to qualify you as cannonfodder to big up the villain for the big crossover.

I don't have any hopes of seeing the mini-series that so needs to be written, but I am content to know that she is still out there.

House of ummmm...

Does it make me a bad comic fan that I always get these two guys confused?

Sitch that, Jimmy!

Back in the land of long ago I once saw a neat science lecture that was full of cool stuff about perception. One thing that particularly stayed with me was an experiment that was done live, where a member of the audience was hooked up to a headset and fed a speech through the earphones. They had to repeat what they were hearing into the microphone without pause as it progressed.

Now you'd imagine that repeating at that speed would not give you time to process the information, but when the original speech and the repeated version were played back it got very interesting. Because the original speech was full of slight mistakes, and the repeated version had corrected them. Clearly the mind is a clever and wonderful machine. Clearly also, people don't listen very hard to what they are hearing, and fill in any gaps with what they think fits the context best.

But what's this got to do with Disney cartoons?



Kim Possible is my favourite Disney TV cartoon, second only to Darkwing Duck (1). If you've ever seen Kim Possible you will know that her catchphrase is "What's the sitch?"(2). This may not be a patch on "Let's get dangerous!"(3) but it does allow for a time travel movie (4) of the series to be called A Sitch in Time. Which would be neat and clever if anywhere that carried the DVD spelled it right (5).

Notes
1. She's got this weird thing going with her upper lip that makes it look like she's got a chocolate milk moustache the whole time.
2.Sitch - short for "situation" in fashionable young persons' talk.
3. Catchphrase of Darkwing Duck.
4. If you can really call something 66 minutes long a movie.
5. A brief random sampling of internet sites found roughly half the people selling or commenting on the DVD had failed to successfully copy the title of the box in front of them and "corrected" Sitch to Stitch. How dumb does it look to repeatedly quote the title incorrectly in an article when you have the cover art prominently displayed next to it with the correct spelling?

Light at the end of the tunnel?

In which I make a few logical deductions about what we can look forward to.


For the first time since Kimiyo Hoshi was depowered and left for dead in Green Arrow #55 we have a sighting of Dr Light II that cannot be put down to a flashback or awkward resheduling of timelines. Unless Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are all so out of touch with the current superhero situation that they are unaware of what happened to her, then it's safe to say that Kimiyo is alive and well, and back in action.

In fact the dialogue here suggests not only that they are aware of what became of her, but that subsequent events have occured that we haven't been been shown yet.

Consider; Superman doesn't want her in the Justice League because she is too scary. Retired heroine, single mother, doctor (or business executive according to some), last seen powereless and symbolically raped is too scary for Superman to invite to the Justice League.

You think he maybe knows something we don't?

Extrapolation: Kimiyo has done something scary. Kimiyo has her powers back.

Deduction: Kimiyo done something scary to evil rapist bastard Arthur Light, resolving the plot lines left dangling for the last year and establishing her as someone not to mess with.

Extrapolation 2: since this important plot development has not yet been seen or previously referred to in a One Year Later title it seems reasonable to look for it in 52.

Okay, it would be nice to see a Doctor Light miniseries, but if we are going to get anything that does this story justice then I'll be happy.

Conclusion: Yay!

Nana nana nana nana Batman

Showcase Presents: Batman vol. 1

I'm a big fan of wacky silver age goodness, so I was disappointed to find that this volume dates from 1964 instead of 1957 like the Superman & Superman Family volumes. The back cover blurb refers to the TV show, and I have to wonder if tying it in to a forty year old TV show is enough to make up for this bunch of lacklustre adventures.

I believe this collects stories from the period where Julius Schwartz took control as editor. The accepted wisdom is that he saved Batman from cancellation by throwing out all the weird and colourful elements and bringing it back to Batman the detective, but what we find here are stories that are dull to look at, feature a succession of drab, forgetable villains, and the "detective" elements are either so supremely obvious it hardly counts as detection to spot them or so ridiculously convoluted that it's hard to believe anyone would have either got them or set them up in the first place.

There's the kidnapped scientist whose kidnappers allow him to do a spot of shopping at the chemical supply store, so he buys a series of items which, when you take the chemical names of each form letters that spell out a clue to his location. There's the zappy thing that a villain uses to electrocute Batman, and when our hero wonders why he should have used this particular item it occurs to him that it might also be a remote control to open a trap door. That's not deduction, it's wild speculation that happens to be correct because it fits the script.

And for a series that is focussing on more down-to-earth detective and police related adventures, you'd think there might be some effort to get the police aspects of it vaguely believable. Or perhaps it is just the regulations local to Gotham City that enable a graduating police cadet to be promoted straight to detective level without any experience, and for her to then be partnered with her own father. Or maybe it's just nepotism and he pulled some strings. Certainly she is competent when she's not crushing on Bruce Wayne; she spots clues about villains clothing "because she's a woman" that Batman misses, and gets to their hideout before he does. Of course she then has to be rescued, but you can't have anyone upstaging the star, now can you?

Another Schwartz element that seems to be present here is where he would commission covers and then have the writer produce a story based on that cover. It's an interesting exercise, but he doesn't seem to have cared how the resulting story incorporates that element. Often the featured scene has little to do with the plot and just seems incongrous in context.

Possibly the most interesting thing to a modern reader is how much influence the editor had over the style of a comic at this time. Nowadays you are often left wondering whether the editor even reads the comics they are in charge of - they certainly aren't checking continuity or ensuring that characters behave and look the same as they do in other titles. They hardly even seem to be up to ensuring their titles are delivered on time. In this volume every story has the mark of Julius Schwartz all over it.

In fact, now I think about it I have to wonder how much of this dull change of direction saved Batman, and how much it was the TV show that revitalised sales of the comics. Although the show was created during this period, it features all the wacky stuff that Schwartz had removed, and even forced him to resurrect Alfred, who he had killed off. I don't intend to knock Schwartz as an editor, as I like a lot of the stuff he oversaw on other titles, but I fear his reputation on this title is misplaced.

Judd Winick is still not a misogynist

When I saw Brave New World I couldn't help but notice Winick's treatment of Mary Marvel parallel what he did to Doctor Light II - take her powers away and then drop her from a great height. Thanks to Scans Daily I now find that the parallel continues, and the only female member of the Marvel family is going to spend at least the first two issues of the new series in a coma, with severe physical damage.

Of course it's entirely possible that he hits his male characters with extreme physical trauma and leaves them for dead on a regular basis. It's not like I read enough of his work to make a comparison. It may be pure coincidence that whenever I pick up one of his comics it happens to feature a female character being severely traumatised and removed from the action, leaving only male characters to continue the story.

Let's just say if the next time I see only the female character(s) in a story put out of action (even if they aren't depowered and/or dropped from a great height) and it turns out Winick had anything to do with it, I'll begin to suspect he has some unresolved issues.

...and then all her clothes fell off

Nude villains of the DC Universe

I'd been thinking of doing a post about all the things that are wrong with Detective #823, but it doesn't seem to have happened, but I do have to wonder what it is with female clothing in the DC universe this month.

On the cover of Detective #823 Poison Ivy isn't so much wearing a costume as garnish. On the first page we find her tucked up in her cozy cell in Arkham wearing an orange prison uniform several sizes too small for her and apparently made of tissue paper. This is confirmed a few pages later as a fight with a monster reduces it to a few shreds (don't they let girls wear underwear in Arkham?). Batman later has a fight with the same monster and yet his outfit remains remarkably intact.

Meanwhile, over at the new Atom #3, which is generally pretty cool, the wonderful Giganta pops up and pops out. It seems she forgot to bring her costume, so when she gets big her clothes explode. She tries hard to do the manic villain thing, but it's difficult to posture like Doctor Doom when she keeps having to hide her scary bits.

I've nothing against cheesecake, but if you aren't going to make any effort to have it make sense in the story, then stop pretending otherwise and just do pinups.

Unscrewing the Inscrutable

In which I make a liar of myself by underestimating my own perspicacity

Over at the Absorbascon, Scipio has been throwing a few digs at feminst comic bloggers lately. After a recent comment where he says:

bloggers who shall remain nameless have made DC self-conscious about the use of prostitution, rape, and similar sexual story elements

I responded, doubting the influence that a few bloggers would have on the editorial policy of a major comic publisher, but it seems I underestimated my own powers.

In an interview at Avengers Forever, Molly Lazer says:

After my column in the Marvel Heroes Hotspot was published, an internet blogger pointed out that, of the characters I listed as examples of strong female heroes, the majority of them had been sexually assaulted at some point. I thought about it for about two minutes before I realized that, of my list of four characters, three of them had been assaulted in one way or another. We can point to the damage inflicted on male heroes, as a counterexample, but I can't think of many male super heroes who have been raped or attacked in the way that female heroes so often are. Storylines like that happen less often these days, possibly because more people are aware of the women in refrigerators phenomenon, but they haven't completely disappeared. Comics reflect the world in which we live, and when you consider the amount of violence towards women that has gone on in the medium's history, that's a scary thought. Still, I think we're on the right path towards remedying this situation and making the comics medium one that treats males and females equally.

That was me.

I did that.

I made someone at Marvel think.



But only for two minutes.

Skrull Culture

It's possible that the Skrulls might have conquered the entire galaxy by now, if only they had a little imagination. Luckily we are spared enslavement at the hands of shapechanging green guys with bumpy chins due to their lack of creative insight.

The story of the Skrulls was not exactly planned out by Marvel. It's entirely possible that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby never intended to use them again after their first appearance back in FF #2, but they stuck around and have popped up all over the Marvel universe in succeeding decades.

But I don't think anyone has ever really put all the pieces together and considered how Skrull culture actually works. Now I don't pretend to know all the details; I certainly haven't read every Skrull related story, and it's been years since I last read some, so set me straight if I'm missing something.

When the Skrulls first appeared in FF#2 (I'm discounting their retconned previous appearance in Marvel: The Lost Generation as the whole series seems to have been written out of continuity now) they pretend to be the Fantastic Four. They can shape-change, but do so only to copy the FF. In fact it is apparent that they have total control over their body shape, but they only use this to stretch when pretending to be Reed Richards.

Ultimately, and I'm sorry if I'm spoiling this for anyone, they are defeated by transparent lies and fooled into thinking that comic book art is a photographic representation of reality. CGI would be wasted on the Skrulls - they are completely taken in by line art and a four colour dot screen.

Looking at this now it seems absurd that they could possibly be fooled. The explanation given is that their eyesight is poor. I don't believe it. There is no way they could possibly have duplicated the physical forms of the FF so accurately if they are myopic enough to be unable to distinguish between comic art and photos. So what's the real reason?

Quite simply, the Skrulls have no concept of fiction. They are entirely devoid of creativity. If there is a picture of something it must be real because they cannot comprehend the concept of making a picture of something that does not exist. This is their one blind spot and the thing that cripples them. They have the ability to be anything they can think of, but they do not have the imagination to do anything other than copy the things around them. Sure, they have an empire. But I suspect if you looked into Skrull history you'd find they were just copying the imperialist activities of the Kree.

Look at how Skrulls are presented when we get occasional glimpses into their society. In our world if everyone could shapechange, it would all be about fashion - everyone would look like the latest celebrity, fads in physical shapes would sweep through the world. Society would fall apart because nobody would be able to keep track of who everyone else was as they changed shape at whim. But the Skrulls keep their own shapes unless they have a reason to change. And they use tools when they could reshape their own bodies to be tools. In fact it is their lack of imagination that allows their society to function.

Robot sin disguised

I've never really "got" the whole Transformers thing. When I first encountered them I was already watching anime and they just seemed like an american take on Mecha, only where instead of being machines for Our Heroes to pilot, the machines themselves were anthromorphised into having personalities like Thomas the Tank Engine. That was strike one.

Strike two was the whole rationale of having a whole bunch of robots living on a robot planet who all turned into like cars and planes and VCRs and shit. I could never understand why they should be designed to do this, since the robot planet didn't seem to have any people in it anyway. Or why they should pretend to be consumer products from Our Planet anyway. I'm sure it's all rationalised somewhere in Transformers lore, but I was never that interested to find out. And how is it that untransformed they are all pretty much the same size, but transformed, one can be a fighter plane or a truck while another will turn into a CD player or a gun? How does that work?

So the appeal of Transformers passed me by and the only one I ever owned was the one that's basically a Macross Valkyrie, because some guys I used to hang with didn't believe it really existed, so when I saw it in a thrift store I bought it.

And now I just heard about Transformers Kiss. It's so utterly bizarre and fucked up I almost like Transformers now.

The failure of 52

Warning: contains spoilers for 52 #15

I'm enjoying 52.

It's an interesting approach to the anthology - turning it into an ensemble piece where different characters are off doing their own thing, but having it all occur in the same comic without any discrete separation, so the various storylines thread together and build up a rich background that informs all the characters' separate adventures.

Where it falls down is that the different stories are not integrated enough. So when the main character in one thread appears to die I am entirely unconvinced because there is nobody to continue his storyline. A storyline that is full of unanswered questions that is so clearly not over. It's a shame, because the format is ideal for a situation where the plot from one segment runs into the plot from another, but they just don't overlap that much. This is a comic where events in one storyline should affect the others, but other than in a general background way, it's not happening, and there is nobody in place to take over this particular plot. And 52 has been far too well organised so far to have this come grinding to a halt with so much unresolved, or for some new figure to come in and take over the story.

He's not dead, Jim.

Pigs fly

Geoff Johns has confirmed that he will be working with Kimiyo Hoshi, Doctor Light 2.

Which just leaves the mystery of why she was ever depowered in the first place, since it seems to have had no relevence to anything in the last year, and caused a big continuity screwup to no apparent purpose.

For a character who was created in the original Crisis the timing seems very odd that she should be depowered just before (in real time) the big sequel. Did some editor want her removed beforehand so she couldn't take part, or was Judd Winick the lone gunman who didn't bother to check whether she was scheduled to appear in the biggest companywaide crossover for twenty years that was about to occur? How is it then that she appears at all? Why is it that she subsequently appears in more comics than she had done in the previous five years, to the confusion of all the readers who assumed that she must have been repowered in a comic they'd missed? And will we now get a resolution to the storyline that's been left hanging for a year, or will one of Plotdeviceboy Prime's continuity punches have erased the whole thing?

After all, it wouldn't make much difference to any characters other than Kimiyo. Bad Dr. Light would still be a scumbucket, Green Arrow seemed to have forgotten her before the story was over, and Kimiyo's appearance was so lacking in continuity in the first place that it didn't make much sense anyway. We'd all just be left with a sour taste of a story that was bad, but which we'd still like to have seen the end of.

Losing the Green

I have continued reading the sequence following the Green Lantern comics I reviewed a few days ago, but nothing stood out enough to move me to writing about it specifically. There was some stuff about Sinestro escaping imprisonment yet again (1) and teaming up with a sentient galaxy, and everyone except Hal Jordon going off to fight them.

Meanwhile Hal is working on his secret identity and getting lots of subplot set up for the big Millenium crossover. Everyone else turns up in time for the main event (2). By this point Englehart seems to be running out of steam on the title, or perhaps he doesn't like where it's going. Either way, his writing is lacklustre and missing any subtext. Characterisation is practically at the level of everyone reciting their catchphrases at least once an issue.

I can see where Englehart might be fed up. It's clear that the entire storyline post-Millenium is a set up to destroy the team he's been building for the previous two years. This culminates in the trial of Sinestro where the Green Lantern Corps decides that since Sinestro always escapes from prison and goes on to commit genocide, the only option left is to execute him (3).

So they all zap him with their rings and he drops dead and the main power battery explodes. It seems that the guardians had programmed in a failsafe to stop them ever killing a male of Sinestro's race. Killing of any other race or sex is apparently fine, but they didn't like the males so they fixed it so they wouldn't be tempted to kill them (4). And just to make sure they were serious about it, not only would this make the main power battery implode, but it would turn OA into a black hole that would engulf the universe.

Seems like a touch of overkill, there.

And you know what? They totally forgot to mention this to anyone before they left. Isn't it always the same? You go away and there's always something. If it's not forgetting to cancel the papers, it's leaving a bomb that could destroy the universe on a hair trigger and not bothering to mention it to anyone.

Anyway, Hal Jordon saves the day, of course, because it's always about Hal Jordon, and all but a handful of Green Lanterns are depowered. What was an ensemble cast of equals is now Hal Jordon and his cheerleaders. And the comic is canceled so that Green Lantern can move into the experimental weekly anthology version of Action Comics that nobody liked much because it wasn't very good.

It's a contrived and sucky end to a good period in Green Lantern, where the focus was on the corps rather than a single ring weilder. Why DC felt the need to dismantle it, I don't know. My only guess is that sales were poor. It's not the only reason for canceling a comic or radically changing its direction, but it is the main one.

Notes

1. *yawn*

2. which I didn't have available, so had to do without. Thankfully

3. Which seems a bit harsh. I mean ok, Sinestro has warranted execution for some time, but they have changed their policy at this point not because he has done anything especially nasty but because their security isn't doing its job effectively.

4. which shows a lack of imagination on their part, if you ask me.

Curiously Bob

If there is one type of comic that is a prime target for ridicule, it's the DC comics from the seventies with a political message. I haven't actually read the Green Lantern/Green Arrow road trip sequence, though I know it has enjoyed a better reputation than most. But that may be due more to the Neil Adams artwork than the quality of the writing.

Other efforts have not fared so well, particularly the "women's lib" issue of Wonder Woman (#203) and Lois Lane's venture into racial awareness in "I am Curious (Black)" (LL#106).

I don't believe the criticism of this comic is entirely fair. I thought it was an honest effort to address the issue from a time when comics were expected to be light entertainment and political stories were virtually unknown. Not to mention that it was written by Bob Kanigher, an old white guy who was more used to doing stuff about haunted tanks and nonsensical superhero fantasies.

To complain about the clumsy politics in a comic from 1970 is like sneering at the poor quality of the computers in the Apollo space rockets of that period. Sure, today's digital watches have more computing power than the spaceships that went to the Moon, but they were the best available at the time, and they still got there. And look at the clumsiness of the social message in original Star Trek - having men who are half black and half white being prejudist against men who are half white and half black is at least as painful as Lois blacking up for a day, and yet it is hailed for its insight.

Rather than denigrate them for their faults, I think we should honour stories like "I am Curious (Black)" as the pioneers that opened the way for the more sophisticated comics we have today.

Nobody stays dead

On one comics messageboard I used to hang out at someone had a sig that went "Nobody stays dead except Bucky and Uncle Ben".

It's now got to the stage where you would be very hard put to find any character you could be reasonably sure would be pushing up daisies on a permanent basis. Hell, I would have considered Cir-El a safe bet and then she got a cameo in one of Jeph Loeb's guest star fests, which means that she's still alive somewhere.

I can't honestly think of any character too iconically dead or generally disliked that there isn't a real possibility they won't pop up again. I'm expecting Alex DeWitt to climb out of that refrigerator any time now.

Random comic review: Green Lantern (Corps) #212-213

Okay, so I should probably be doing something more retrospective to mark not only the first post of my second year at this, but also my 200th post, but I couldn't work up the enthusiasm, so you are getting a review of an old comic (okay, two old comics. It's only the one story) instead.

In this story Star Sapphire and Hector Hammond team up to make slaves of Hal Jordon and Arisa. Well, they initially try to kill Hal, but then when that doesn't work they mind control him.

It's a mixture of stuff I liked a lot and stuff I disliked a lot. Steve Englehart clearly had some issues he needed to work through, but I don't see this as the place to do it. The whole male vs female/mind vs body debate that he has going between the villains is not entirely out of place, but it sits heavily in the comic, repeatedly bringing the action grinding to a halt while the two vie for superiority.

The scene where Star Sapphire strips naked to prove she can even make the immobile intellectual Hammond sweat is particularly tangental, and I'm not convinced that she even scores a point there unless you take it as read that any woman can control any man simply by taking her clothes off. Affect them, sure. But control? I don't think so.

And where did all that hair come from? Star Sapphire's hair varies from waist length to below her knees, and in this scene there's so much of it that she can wrap herself in it like a beach towel.

The whole slave segment where Arisa and later Hal (at least it's equal opportunity) are degraded by their captors under mind control kind of fits the story, and it pretty mild compared with what I'd expect in a similar scene today, but there's some unpleasant subtext going on that I can't quite put my finger on.

This debate/contest is never really resolved. Ultimately they are stalemated until Star Sapphire gets Arisa to help her. Perhaps this is a comment on the duplicity of women, but it could also be read as their being more resourceful.

Anyhow, aside from Englehart's issues this is a well written story with clever twists and turns, and a great cliffhanger at the end of the first part where we see Hal Jordon burst. The first part revolves around Arisa being mind controlled to lure Hal into a trap, and it is explained that she is vulnerable because of her recent transformation, so there's no suggestion that it was because she was the girl. I particularly liked that at the end of the story she gets a good solid cathartic resolution. It is Arisa who rescues Hal, Arisa who beats the trap that caught her companion, and Arisa who punches Star Sapphire's lights out.

If they could do that in 1987 why is it such a problem now?

Rape of the month: July

Months without a rape in comics: 0

This is an ugly little regular feature that I am running monthly to highlight just how often sexual abuse appears in comics and to make it clear that it is neither clever nor original to address this issue. In fact so many comic writers have addressed it so often and so badly that it has become a ghastly cliche. It doesn't matter how thought provoking or moving your rape story may be, just don't. There are few enough unmolested women left in comics as it is.

Only one comic this month has include a rape as far as I am aware:

The Walking Dead #29

The serial rape we are promised at the end of last issue is not averted by a last second save, and the character is repeatedly raped during the course of this issue. But apparently the writer does not feel that he has made his point sufficiently, and it looks set to continue into next issue.

If you know of any other comics published in the last month that feature rape or sexual abuse, please leave a comment so I can update this entry.

I really don't like doing this feature so please, writers, stop abusing our heroines, and I won't have to do this anymore.

Happy Birthday blog

One year old today.

I should bake a cake.

Zero interest

Why can't all good things in life come without downsides?

It's like girlfriends without the five year plan

It's like bras without the fumbling

It's like stag parties without the wedding

It's like blind dates without the psychos.

With this kind of attitude you almost expect to see the slogan "Coke Zero: We don't want to sell it to girls".

Apparently Coca Cola were concerned that low calorie drinks were primarily favoured by women, so with the launch of their new product Coke Zero in the UK they have done everything possible to ensure that any woman who has actually seen an advert for the stuff won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Cathryn Sleight, marketing director for Coca-Cola GB, said: “We're launching Coca-Cola Zero to offer people as much choice as possible. The new brand joins the Coca-Cola family, alongside original Coca-Cola and diet Coke.

“With our creative and media strategy, we're confident that we've created a campaign that's not only entertaining and engaging for a young male audience, but one that will excite them and ensure that they can't miss the fact that Coca-Cola Zero has arrived.”

She did not explain why engaging a young male audience relied on alienating the entire female audience, but I'm sure it's some clever marketing strategy.

The advert containing the "psycho" reference has now been removed from adverts in Scotland after complaints from Scottish mental health campaigners, according to The Scotsman. Unfortunately it seems nobody has complained about the entire campaign being misogynist. But I suspect most people who are as irritated as I am by the whole attitude of the campaign will vote with their wallets.

You can see the main TV advert here.

Dooooooom!! Dooooooom!!

I know I can do cynical as well as anyone, and there are specific creators who do set the cynicism pumping through my veins at the mere prospect of them approaching any of the characters I like. Someone asked me yesterday if I was going to read The Ultimates when Jeph Loeb takes over and my initial response was surprise - why would I pick up a comic I hardly read in order to see what a writer I don't like does to it? But then I had a moment of Schadenfreude and thought "yes, I'll be interested to see just how appalling it is, and then I can gloat at the wailing and teeth-gnashing coming from Marvel fandom.

I do not believe that Marvel hired him for his writing skill. I think they hired him because his name on a comic sells a lot of copies. Presumably they were aware of his work at DC and knew he was likely to screw around with continuity and established characterisation, but that was less important than the dollars. They deserve to be taunted for it.

But I do try to keep my cynicism down to those that deserve it. You can't help second guessing upcoming events that have been trailed, but unless I have good reason to fear the worst (like it's written by Jeph Loeb or Frank Miller*) I try to wait until the comic arrives before passing an opinion stronger than "I'm looking forward to it" or "I'm not looking forward to it". The only times I've addressed Batwoman was to comment on the behaviour of the media to the announcement, and I haven't said anything about the news that Jodi Picoult will be writing Wonder Woman because I haven't read any of her previous work and have no idea what kind of job she will do. It's good in theory that a woman should write the title, but what that will mean in practice I have no idea. So I'll just wait and see.

One of the things that got people a bit exercised recently was Joe Kelly saying that the only reason he agreed to write Supergirl was that everyone else turned it down. This has led to a lot of speculation that the horrible mishandling of the big relaunch of the Girl of Steel has turned her from Hot Property into Unwanted in a very short space of time.

I see shadowy figures walking the streets of the internets yelling "Doooooooom!! Dooooom!!" but in fact it's another case of Brainiac's enlargement ray and a hill of moles. I first got suspicious when I saw a post from Gail Simone saying she would have been interested but she hadn't been offered the title. Now I know I'm biased, but if I was DC editor in charge of matters Supergirl, Gail would be high on my shortlist of writers to approach.

So then I looked up the source. The quote is from an interview last month at Wizard. What it actually says is:

With Rucka departing after one issue, Kelly claims he got the gig because of his helpful nature.

"Everybody else said no," Kelly joked.

The "Kelly joked" bit seems to be forgotten. At the very least it suggests that he is exaggerating when he says "everybody". In fact it could just mean that the first couple of choices for writer turned down the gig because they are everyone's first choices to write their comic and they already had a full schedule. The impression given by the interview is that they were in a bit of a rush because Greg Rucka was leaving earlier than expected (for unspecified reasons) and they needed someone at short notice to keep it on schedule. Hence Kelly helping out. There is no suggestion that the comic is any less popular, it was just a joke that got taken way too seriously.

*My response to hearing that Miller will be working on the upcoming Spirit movie was "If he turns Sand Serif into a ninja I will not be responsible for my actions."

I have seen the Light

I just saw the cover to the new JLA issue #1.



Let's look at that a little closer, shall we?



WHOOHOO!!!

Molly sez, Mari respondz

This week's Marvel comics (well the one I read, anyway) contain an editorial from someone called Molly. I have no idea of who Molly is or what position she holds at Marvel, but I was so gobsmacked by her words that I'd like to reproduce them here in full. Responses mine.

MOLLY SEZ

My roommate, who is a teacher, told me that one of her students had asked her if Captain America was real. The girl’s brother had told her that he was pretend, but she badly wanted him to exist When I heard this story, the thing I was most surprised about was that a ten year old girl knew about a comic book character who hasn’t appeared on the big screen. But the times, they are a’ changing.

At Wizard World Philadelphia this past weekend, another friend of mine remarked that she’s been seeing more women at the convention each year. It’s no longer a surprising thing to see fangirls pawing through the stacks of half-priced trade paperbacks with the fanboys. I’ve been a comics fan since I was five years old. Growing up, I didn’t meet any girls who shared my interest. But now the female comics fans seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Groups like Friends of Lulu have formed to unite women who read and work In comics. Many stores have ‘girl friendly” titles on display,

what, like Strangers in Paradise, you mean?

but the employees are just as willing to show female customers traditional super hero books if that’s what they’re looking for. And it’s not just the number of female fans that is growing. The women inside the pages are getting a better rap as well.

Are you sure you didn't miss an "e" there? (okay, that was a cheap shot, but I just saw the latest issue of Walking Dead.)

Today, female comic book characters aren’t just the ‘women in refrigerators” of times past. Girls can admire Ms. Marvel’s strength, Kate Bishop’s bravery, She-Hulk’s Intelligence, and Spider-Girl’s determination.

Because at least one of those listed hasn't been sexually assaulted.

Yes, many of these characters still have gravity-defying proportions that would cause them serious back problems in real life. But we’re taking steps towards getting to a point where female super heroes get as much respect as their male counterparts.

what steps would those be, then? Your boss certainly doesn't seem to consider having any female creators to be one.

We’ve still got a ways to go before the general public sees comics as a medium designed for everyone—men and women, adults and children alike.

Kind of like how it was before the industry totally focused on superhero comics, you mean?

But with every new reader who picks up a comic book and likes what they see Inside, we’re getting closer.

You are? In what way?

So, yes, little girl, Cap can be real, If you want him to be.

But finding a female superhero role model might be a little trickier.

Huh?

While spell checking the last post, I find that Blogger's spell checker does not recognise the word "blog".

Fake out at Byrne Robotics

I was just reading some stuff on John Byrne's message board and I reached a post where he explains why he doesn't allow nicknames - he calls them "fake names" - on his board, and gives his opinion of people who "hide behind them".

I can see his reasoning, but it is simplistic to the level of uselessness to take the attitude that all pseudonyms are bad*, or that message board trollers can be defeated if you deny them the use of nicknames (unless you have some way of verifying the "real" names as being true, which they don't). That will only stop the ones who are stupid enough to buy into the "solution".

Now I have been writing about comics under the name of Marionette for several years, and even this blog is getting close to its first anniversary. I post and comment on a lot of message boards and blogs with this name, and wherever possible link back here. I recently broke one thousand hits in a single day, so I like to think that I have a certain reputation in this little online world of ours. But if I want to express an opinion on John Byrne's board I cannot post with this name by which I am well known because it is an "obvious nickname"**. So I have to post under a name which nobody recognises and which will not be traced back to me. It's not my real name either, but it doesn't look like a nickname, so I pass the registration. Thus I am prevented from using the identity by which everyone knows me and must use a fake name*** to pass the measures in place to prevent people using fake names.

See, that's irony.


*Pen names have been a tradition for writers since the invention of the pen. Magazines are full of "house names". Film stars never seem to keep the names they were born with, and I believe I'm right in thinking that even Stan Lee could technically be refused entry to this board.

**Bear in mind that the only criteria apparently in use is "does it look like a real name or not?" So if your actual name is something unusual like Moon Unit or Rainbow you will be judged fake and your only option, if you still care enough to continue, will be to register as Jimmy Smith or something.

***Actually I've registered several different names from different email addresses at Byrne Robotics. Not because I particularly want to comment there, I just see it as a symbolic act of giving them the finger.

Listen to the wind

Sometime last year one of the writers at DC (can anyone remind me who it was, and point me at the original quote?) suggested that they were going to use the big gear shift of Infinite Crisis to lighten up their comics a bit and move away from the grim & gritty approach that passes for "realistic" in the comics world.

This was later refuted, but somehow the idea took root in the Great Fan Unconsciousness and is still being sited as official DC policy even now. I don't think I've seen any comments from anyone who thought it was a bad idea. In fact the only negative response has been from people who thought this was happening and are now unhappy when they see no sign of it.

This isn't a pressure group demanding a change they would like to see, it's just everybody seeing an idea that seems so obvious and right that they just assumed it was happening. And now they are sad and disappointed.

We don't want a return to silver age silliness (well, we do, but that craving is satisfied by Showcase Presents), what we want is a definition of realism that encompasses the lighter side of real life as well as the darker.

And meanwhile DC is acting like the shopkeeper whose response to a request for an item they don't stock is to say "You must be the fifth person today I've told that we don't get any call for that." DC, you need to shut up for a moment and listen to the wind. It's blowing in a different direction.

Judd Winick is not a misogynist

He just likes taking women's power away and then dropping them from a great height.

In defense of Joey Q

In a recent post I invited readers to respond to Joe Quesada's peculiar comment about why there were no women creators on any of Marvel's major titles by posting to a thread at Newsarama. The support was a bit pathetic, and only two people followed it up.

So I doubt it will get any further, but interestingly I did get a response in the thread.
It's interesting because this is quite specifically not a discussion thread so it is out of order for someone to comment on another person's post. And it almost guarantees that the response will go unopposed, because the original poster would also have to break the rules to respond, and then the whole thing starts to get messy.

It's just as well I have a forum all of my own, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Marionette

from this week's Joe Friday:



So there are no female creators at Marvel because Marvel doesn't have any female creators working for them? That's not exactly my idea of an answer. Perhaps I can rephrase the question; why are there no female writers working on any major Marvel titles? And "because there aren't any" is not an acceptable answer.

It also begs the question of who is ultimately responsible for there not being any female writers working on any major Marvel titles (are there any women writers on Marvel titles at all right now?). Would that perhaps be you, Joe? Could it be that the actual answer to "why are there no female writers working on any major Marvel titles" would be "because I didn't hire any"?

Many, many people would be interested to know.

Beta Ray responds:

Breaking format here sorry... Just wondering, what answer would possibly satisfy you?

Would Joe saying "We asked them but they all did not want to join" be good enough? It's not like there are no females working at Marvel...

What answer would satisfy me?

The head of Marvel saying "You know, maybe there is a bit of an imbalance here, and since our industry is dying for lack of an audience it might be worth trying something totally off the wall and radical just this once and hiring a representative from the other half of the population to do something creative."

If Joe said "We asked them but they all did not want to join" I would like to know what was so different in the terms of employment he offers women from the ones he offers men, since he doesn't seem to have any problem hiring them.

It's not like there are no [minority group] working at [almost anywhere].

Fish, here is your barrel.

Aren't you just embarassed for even writing that?

But remember the circumstances of the original question was the Marvel "summit" where the big dogs plan the direction for their books in the months ahead. No women present = no women have any input into this important creative strategy session. It doesn't matter how many female editors they have, how many women in any positions in the company; they weren't there so they don't get a say. Joe's lame obfuscation is irrelevent and so is yours.

colour blind

I just read something on another blog that kinda bugged me so I feel the need to stand up and make my position clear.

True story: When I was at college I had a friend called Parm. He was the coolest guy I knew. We hung out all the time and solved the world's problems in the way you do when you are 19. He had a lot of asian friends. After about six months it occured to me that he might be asian too.

That's how much the colour of anyone's skin means to me.

The Nutrasweet of the comic world

In an article I found at Blog@Newsarama (Blogarama?) that looks at Paul O'Brien's breakdown of recent Marvel sales figures, Paul is quoted as saying:

Between the Other, the new costume, the Civil War prologue, and Civil War itself, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #525 to #538 will all be boosted to some extent by crossovers and stunts. Arguably, when it goes on for that long, it's no longer an artificial boost but simply a sign that the book is running a string of particularly popular stories. Can you really talk about a fourteen-month artificial boost?

Can you really talk about a fourteen-month artificial boost?

Well aside from the pedantic observation that you are doing so right there, I think that any time a comic includes inorganic elements to bring in readers who would not be there otherwise then it's an artificial boost regardless of how long it is done for.

After all, Superman/Batman is filled to overflowing with guest stars every issue, but that doesn't stop it being a gimmick. Every time you guest a character you will get some buyers who are only there for that character. Doing this every issue inflates the sales figures but it just means that lots of different people are buying different individual issues. The effect of the artificial element only becomes apparent when you stop adding it and you get to see how many comics you can shift without that boost.

Similarly making event comics that tell a single story over several different titles is going to bring in readers who are only there for that story. Running event/crossover comics continuously doesn't stop them being a gimmick unless it is the premise for the title. On a basic level team books like Avengers or JLA are gimmicks, because they will always get readers who are only there because a character they like from another comic is on the team. It's more acceptable than the short lived event comics because the whole premise is based around these characters getting together regularly, rather than being thrown together only for a specific storyline, but if Batman leaves the team, the Batman fan may stop reading the title.

Obviously the theory is that the casual reader brought in because a character they like makes an appearance, or because they wanted to read the whole of Secret Civil Crisis Outside Wars of M Hour will be so taken by the title that they will continue reading it even once the reason for their initially buying it has departed. The problem with these artificial sweeteners is that they often interrupt the flow of the title's own story. The ongoing storylines and characterisations are interrupted and put on hold for several issues to make room for someone else's epic, which may bring in a few new readers, but can be annoying to the readers already there who are not happy to find their story continually being pre-empted and having to wait for the event to go away before they can get back to it. Not to mention that they find themselves paying for comics they have little interest in reading and that won't even make any sense unless they buy a whole bunch of other comics, many of which may not even feature their character.

It's all so introverted, too. It's hard enough for a casual reader to pick up a random comic on impulse and enjoy it, but expecting them to not only by other issues of the same comic to make sense of the story, but to buy a whole lot of different comics, is about as welcoming as writing "fuck off, loser" in large unfriendly letters on the cover. These comics are all about getting the existing dwindling audience to buy more comics when what is desperately needed is to find a way to increase the size of that audience.

Having a guest star or an event can be icing on the cake; a fun change of pace in the ongoing story. But even hyperactive ten year olds get sick of a diet composed entirely of sticky buns eventually. Not everyone wants to read every comic put out by a publisher, and stuffing every comic with characters and storylines from all the other comics puts them off buying the ones they do read. That's why I rarely read Marvel anymore. And why Infinite Crisis and all its spinnoffs pushed me almost to breaking point. They were saved at the last minute by the best gimmick of all: good writing.

Powerpuff Girls Z

What happens when the little cartoon that always wanted to grow up to be an anime grows up?