This Comic Is Good - The Portent #2

After posting about Portent #1 here, writer/artist Peter Bergting responded on the issue of how it seemed as though #1 was fitting into the paradigm of the first issue that spent its time setting up the plot, rather than delivering plot. Bergting explained that The Portent was designed to be a graphic novel initially, but (as is the case for most artists) the financial aspect of the whole "drawing a comic but not getting any money for it" doing a graphic novel thing led him to instead release The Portent as a bi-monthly series. Well, while #1 might have given off the impression of being the first few chapters of a book, #2 has none of the same problems, and effectively works as an individual issue in a series, including a very nice end twist. Along with the extremely nice Bergting artwork, The Portent #2 was a good comic book.

The basic concept of the series is that Milo is presumed to be a "Chosen One" who is there to save the day from the big bad. However, there is something a bit...off about Milo.

Meanwhile, there is something seriously wrong with one third of their little party (a young witch, Milo and an aged guardian of the coven of witches).

Here are some samples of Bergting's excellent, Mignola-esque artwork (courtesy of theportent.com).







Nice stuff, no?

I think, if #1 and #2 were released as a prestige format comic, it would have really rocked people's socks off, but on its own, #2 works quite well.

And it looks like #3 will be filled with more fantasy-inspired coolness.

I can't wait.

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This Artist Is Good (and has a fancy award to prove it!) - Danica Novgorodoff

Congratulations to Danica Novgorodoff upon winning the 2006 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics!

Ms. Novgorodoff won for her mini-comic, A Late Freeze, about the relationship between a bear and a robot - it is as elegant as it sounds bizarre. Her art is expressive in telling her story (and it better be, as it really IS her art that HAS to tell the story, as dialogue is not a real element of A Late Freeze) while still having a wonderful design quality to it (which makes sense, as Ms. Novgorodoff has done design work as well, not to mention paintings, drawings, photographs - a veritable cornucopia of artistic talents). Here are some samples, courtest of her ginchy site here.

First off, here is a page from her earlier mini-comic work, Neck of the Moon.



Notice her ability to mix media? It is impressive, as is her storytelling ability (okay, I'll admit, it isn't THAT present in this particular drawing).

The rest of the drawings are all from A Late Freze...

Here is the cover. Remember what I said about the designer impact? Totally present here on the cover for the comic.



Here is a particularly brutal scene with the Bear at a factory...



It is funny how something as silly as a Bear and a Robot getting together can still be so brutal/heart rendering.

Here is a piece that goes to the elegance I spoke of earlier...



And here is Novgorodoff, showing her storytelling abilities...



A very talented artist, and one that well deserves her award.

Congratulations! Always good to see good artists.

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Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #46!

This is the forty-sixth in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous forty-five.

Let's begin!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Dave Cockrum's resignation letter from Marvel was placed into an issue of Iron Man as a prank.

STATUS: True



In Iron Man #127, David Michelinie and Bob Layton really began the push for their "Tony Stark is an alocholic" storyline, which would famously come to a head the next issue with the popular "Demon in a Bottle" story.



In the issue, a visibly drunk Tony Stark cruelly berates his longtime butler, Edwin Jarvis.

The next day, a sober Tony is surprised to learn that Jarvis is resigning from his position.



The text of Jarvis' resignation letter reads as follows:

To: Anthony Stark

This is to notify you that I am tendering my resignation from my position. This resignation is to take effect immediately.

I am leaving because this is no longer the team-spirited "one big happy family" I once loved working for. Over the past year or so I have watched Avengers' morale disintegrate to the point that, rather than being a team or a family, it is now a large collection of unhappy individuals simmering in their own personal stew of repressed anger, resentment and frustration. I have seen a lot of my friends silently enduring unfair, malicious or vindictive treatment.

My personal grievances are relatively slight by comparison to some, but I don't intend to silently endure. I've watched the Avengers be disbanded, uprooted and shuffled around. I've become firmly convinced that this was done with the idea of 'showing the hired help who's Boss.'

I don't intend to wait around to see what's next.

Sincerely,

(Jarvis)

cc: The Avengers

Well, soon after the issue was released, in the letter pages of Iron Man #130, David Michelinie explained that the wrong letter was placed into #127.



Well, as it turns out, the letter that was statted in was none other than the resignation letter that Dave Cockrum gave to Marvel upon his resignation of his staff position that year (1979). Someone just changed the "Marvel" references to "Avengers" references.

I asked Bob Layton about it, and he confirmed that that was the case. According to Bob,

The particular issue was Iron Man #127, although I can't remember who the culprit was. But, it did cause a big stink in the offices at the time. It was a totally bonehead move.

Agreed. That is a pretty crummy prank to pull.

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Orson Welles once teamed up with Superman.

STATUS: True

One big advantage that the panelists on What's My Line? had for the mystery guest is that they knew who had a new movie coming out, because, generally, if you want to plug your movie, you would show up on What's My line?

The producers of 1949's Black Magic took this one step further, by having their star, Orson Welles wrangle an appearance in an issue of Superman!



Black Magic starred Orson Welles as Cagliostro, hypnotist who wreaked havoc in King Louis XV's court. Nancy Guild played Marie Antoinette, and Raymond Burr even made an appearance as Alexandre Dumas, who would write the story that the film was based on.



The team-up appeared in late 1949, in a Wayne Boring-illustrated tale in Superman #62.



Notice the movie plug worked into the cover of the comic!

The plot involves Welles, while working on Black Magic, accidentally being trapped in a ship headed for Mars, where he learns of the Martians plans for invasion of Earth (their leader, Martler, was a huge Hitler admirer).

Welles remarks, "When I fooled the world with my Martian invasion broadcast, I never dreamed I would invade Mars myself!"

Who would, Orson?

Who would?

Luckily, Orson notifies Superman of the plan, and the duo quickly mop up the Martians, and leave Martler on an uninhabited asteroid.

Thank you, Orson Welles!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Michael Fleisher's Spectre issues had so many problems with script continuity that they needed a separate writer to keep the continuity straight.

STATUS: False

For years, people wondered exactly what the deal was with Russell Carley's "script continuity" credit in Michael Fleisher's Spectre stories (beautifully drawn by Jim Aparo) in Adventure Comics #431-440.



What does a "script continuity" man DO, exactly?

Did Fleisher have a problem keeping everything that was happening in the comic straight?



In the 1988 collection of these stories, Wrath of Spectre (issue #2, to be precise), Peter Sanderson (Click here for the latest in Sanderson's excellent series, Comics in Context, over at IGN) wrote an article explaining exactly what it was that Carley did:

Michael Fleisher explains that, 'When I first started writing comics, my friend Russell Carley, who's a fine artist, and I used to work on them together. We would get together on a Saturday afternoon and we plotted the story together. Then Russell would take the plot and break it down into panels, and I would write the script.' When Fleisher started writing comics, he only had experience writing prose. 'I had never written any kind of script in my life.'

He believed that Carley had a stronger visual sense than he did, and therefore would be better at determining how the story should be expressed through comics panels. 'We wanted to come up with some kind of title that expressed what he did as opposed to what I did.' But Fleisher believes that the credits they came up with for Carley failed to make his actual contribution clear. 'All we succeeded in doing was confusing everybody,' Fleisher concludes, adding that whenever he is asked about the SPECTRE series, he is invariably asked just what Russell Carley did.



'A lot of the ideas for the Spectre, like the giant scissors cutting a man in half, were Russell's ideas,' Fleisher reveals. (Jim Aparo singled this scene out as one his own favorites in the series.) 'We had a lot of fun,' Fleisher continues. 'But then he lost interest. I think we only did this for a year. He wasn’t really interested in comics, and I was. So he dropped out. We're still good friends, but professionally we went our separate ways.'

Fleisher took over the work of breaking the story down into panels once Carley left the series.

So there you go! Thanks to John Wells for the heads up AND the transcription!

Well, that's it for this week, thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to drop off any urban legends you'd like to see featured!!

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Name That Iron Man Artist! Game Answers Are Up!

Check them out here, and see how well you did!

What I bought - 12 April 2006

Oh dear. Not a lot of books this week, but one made me want to take something long and sharp and drive it straight into my eye and out the back of my head. Guess which one!

Desolation Jones #6 by Warren Ellis and J.H. Williams III
$2.99, DC/Wildstorm

My God. Oh my God. Exactly how horrible was this issue, and by extension, the first six issues of this ballyhooed title? Let us count the ways!

First, the laziness of Ellis or the editor. In issue #2, Angela very clearly calls the youngest Nigh daughter "Judy." For the rest of the book, she's "Jessica." Yes, it's just a slip. But Warren Ellis created these characters from scratch - he should bloody well know what their names are! And if he just slipped up (I suppose I can forgive that, but I expect a lot more from someone who acts like the smartest person in comics), then shouldn't the editors (Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier) catch it? Isn't that what an editor is paid to do?

Okay, that's minor. Minor minor minor. I have spoken about my disappointment with issue #3, the "porn issue." Looking back after re-reading the whole thing, that's freakin' Shakespeare compared to what we now have as a complete story. In the nihilistic and thoroughly awful issue #6, Jones figures everything out. Yay, Jones! He kills five people (after killing one in issue #1 and another in issue #5), all of whom deserved to die - I suppose. But, you know, who fucking cares? There's nothing redeemable about the Nigh clan, there's nothing redeemable about the three ex-Army guys who stole from Colonel Nigh - fuck 'em. There's absolutely nothing redeemable about Jones, either - sure, he's the only one who is nice to Emily, but that's not really by choice, is it? It's because physiologically he's the only one who can stand to be around her. So his manner with her isn't because he wants to be nice, it's because he's the only one who can be nice. I know Ellis writes him as a complete bastard, but once again, why the fuck should we care about him?

The only redeemable character in the book is Robina. What happens to her? She gets shot in the head after the case is over, just so Filthy Sanchez (and Ellis) can make a point. Well, guess what point you just made, Warren? The world sucks, and so does this comic. Thanks for wasting my time.

I have nothing against nihilism. I think Seven is an utterly brilliant movie, and that's a lot more depressing than this. However, that movie was put together with great care, and we were as destroyed by what happened as Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman were. We don't care about how Jones will react to Robina's death, because we hate him so much. Hate hate hate. He's a horrible person, so why should we care how Robina's death will affect him?

This title has a great deal of potential. The idea of Los Angeles being a safe zone for ex-intelligence agents is a great one, and the idea of Jones working as a private investigator and having to deal with the trauma of the Desolation test is another good one. The execution of the book, however, is absolutely horrible. Ellis gives us ultra-violence with no point, something he seems to be falling into far too often these days. It started, I guess, with Down, which was written some years ago, and now has continued with Jack Cross and Desolation Jones. And part of the disgusting thing about it is Williams' part in all of this - don't think he's getting off lightly! Williams' art is magnificent throughout the book. However, look at pages 14 and 15, when Jones kills Angela and "Jessica." It's almost pornographic how lovingly the killings are rendered. The same thing with pages 20 and 21, when Robina gets a bullet through the brain. It's beautiful. If we're supposed to recoil from the idea of Hitler porn, if we're supposed to get the heebie-jeebies from the way Jones sees the porn actress in issue #3 while she describes in great detail all the degradation they suffer, then we damned well better be disgusted by the way this bloody death is drawn. It's beautiful, and that's another reason why this is so horrible. I very much doubt if Ellis wants us comparing his book to porn, but that's what it is - snuff comics.

God, this is shit. I know some people thought this was one of the best new titles of last year. Please defend it now. I beg you - give me any reason why this isn't just as bad as raping and killing Sue Dibny or blowing Blue Beetle's head off or any of the other awful, awful things that we've seen in comics recently. And you can't use "it's suggested for mature readers." Mature readers don't want shitty comics. Do they?

Fables #48 by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha
$2.75, DC/Vertigo

This is also suggested for mature readers, but Willingham doesn't feel the need to have a scene in it where Mowgli skull-fucks the dead wolf leader, does he?

Sorry, that was a cheap shot (and a nasty image, to boot). Mowgli is looking for Bigby, and we see what he's been up to. Meanwhile, the wolf-kids on the farm are practicing staying in human form so they can re-enter regular society. Doesn't sound like much, does it?

Well, to be truthful, it's not. The centerpiece of the book, however, is Mowgli's battle with the wolves, as he needs to learn from them about Bigby, and the only way he can is to defeat their leader in single combat. It's a beautifully staged fight, brutal and messy yet sublime, and Willingham indulges himself a bit by critiquing human society while he shows us lupine society. Yes, we get it, Bill - humans suck. We're sorry.

There's not a lot of action, but it's interesting to contrast the starkness and honesty of the wolves in Russia with the attempts by Bigby's kids to be more duplicitous. I assume (and hope) that the children trying to suppress their wolvish behavior will be a major plot point next issue, as this brief arc comes to a close. We'll see. An interesting book, as usual.

Noble Causes #19 by Jay Faerber and Jon Bosco
$3.50, Image

I'm not too sure I like the new artist on Noble Causes, but it's not horrible, so I'll let it grow on me (it's kind of low-rent Jim Califiore, in case you're wondering). The story continues to intrigue, as the Blackthornes make their move to win the hearts and minds of the public by acting the heroes while the Nobles struggle to stay on the public's good side. Ah, the public - so very fickle! The interesting part of the issue comes from the fact that Race hasn't gotten his powers back after the Widowmaker's assault last issue. Everyone assumes he'll get them back eventually, because when he lost his powers before, he regained them. However, he tells Liz that he never lost his power before - he faked it to get out of a mission. This is a very neat idea, because we're so used to our heroes having failings other than cowardice, but that's what Race admits to here. Liz is having trouble wondering what the big deal is - she tells him she'll still love him no matter what, blah blah blah - and Faerber does a nice job not only setting up a conflict between the super-powered family and its non-powered in-law, but also the fact that Liz might start to question whether Race is worthy of her. Very neat.

Such a good book. Read to cleanse your mind of Desolation Jones!

MINI-SERIES I BOUGHT BUT DID NOT READ.
Ultimate Extinction #4 (of 6) by Ellis and Brandon Peterson
$2.99, Marvel

I'm scared to read this now. Does Misty Knight do some felching? Is Captain America castrated and made to eat his own genitals under a nice cream sauce? What horrors does Ellis have in store for us????

Sorry for the rage. I think this makes me even angrier because it's Ellis, and I know he's capable of great work. What the fuck is wrong with him these days?

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Comic Blogs Should Be Good

And there are plenty of them out there. To be honest, there are so many, that I cannot keep up. Just check out the sidebar. I only update it occasionally, and I TRY to link to all the folks out there with cool blogs about comic books, but I freely admit that I can't keep up with everyone. Heck, when I met RAB the other month, I didn't even know he HAD a blog! And I think RAB is the ginchiest. So, folks, here is where you can help me out, and tell me about what cool comic book blogs are out there that I DON'T currently have on the sidebar. Thanks!

Watching the River Flow for the 4/5 Comic Week

What's the matter with me,
I don't have much to say,
Daylight sneakin' through the window
And I'm still in this all-night cafe.
Walkin' to and fro beneath the moon
Out to where the trucks are rollin' slow,
To sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow.

This is for all the various rambling comic thoughts that I have during the comic week about comics that I do not think deserve their own full entry to discuss. Enjoy!

*Teen Titans #34 was...

It was...

It was guh...

It was guh-oo...

It was guh-oo-d.

I can't believe I'm actually saying that, but Teen Titans #34 was actually good. Geoff Johns has NEVER shown a sense of humor in his comics (or at least never a good one), and has rarely shown a sense of FUN, but yet, this comic was both fun AND funny. Who would-a thunk it?

Kid Devil actually made a lot of funny jokes, the "Cyborg coming in and out of consciousness during the year" bit was handled well, and the creepy ending was even done well. Right up there with Robin as the best One Year Later title.

*Adam Beechen did such a great job on Justice League Unlimited, any writer following him would have a tough task, so the fact that Paul D. Storrie did such an impressive job with his story is quite impressive. Rich Burchett's art was excellent, but, come on, it's Rich Burchett, how is it NOT going to be excellent?

While fitting in a nice passion play about how each person brings their own perspective to a situation, and you should feel good about just being yourself and not worrying that you aren't as good as someone else, because you probably have some talent and/or characteristic that the other person doesn't have.

In addition, Storrie manages to TOTALLY geek out in a few spots, but never does so to the detriment of the story. To wit, this comic stars Mary Marvel, and in the beginning, he has her show up at a fight between a bad guy and the following JLU members - Elongated Man, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Fire and Booster Gold. In other words, along with Mary Marvel, the exact cast of Giffen and DeMatteis' Formerly Known as the Justice League.

Later, Storrie explains how she got the name Mary Marvel, and even draws a parallel (that I guarantee you that 81% of DC's writer would not know exist) between the moment and how Booster Gold got his name back in Booster Gold #1.

One small quibble - Storrie has a point in the comic where Supergirl explains how Martian Manhunter chose a particular team, but only explains 3/4 of the team!!! Why was Black Canary on the team, Paul, WHY?!?!?!?!

*Someone on Comic Book Resources' messageboard pointed this out - in Infinite Crisis #6, Superboy Prime cuts Conner Kent's hand off, leaving yet one more body part for Geoff Johns to use for the Composite Teen Titan that has to show up some time soon!

*Infinite Crisis OMAC Project Special #1 was ALSO GOOD!! First Teen Titans, now OMAC Project??!? What is going on?!?!? My world is crumbling beneath me!!! Rucka even corrected the silly "Sasha-bot" plot!!! I really have to wonder, though, if it was a case of "Finishing up as planned" or "Oh god, that Sasha-bot idea was sooo shitty, what was I drinking that night? Let me fix that ASAP."

*I don't mind Editor's Notes, and even think they could be helpful. Same with back stories. It still creeped me out, though, to see how the latest Detective Comics seemed to treat the appearance of both as, like, a special event or something.

*The idea of Hulkling being Half-Kree/Half-Skrull is cool, but why Marr-vell's son? Why go that far? Seems too much.

*Also, someone explain to me how the Scarlet Witch twins things works.

*I want JMS to just write an issue of Books of Lost Souls in complete gibberish, just to see if Marvel would still publish it. They can't actually be reading these issues before they go to print, can they? And poor Doran, such great art put to waste.

*MORE shocking than either Teen Titans or OMAC Project was possibly the most surprising good comic of the past year or so - and it was a freaking BACK-UP story in DOC SAMSON!! Who ever would have DREAMT that?!?! Yet Zeb Wells writes a pretty funny story, but the key is that it is drawn by Frank "Rocketo" Espinoza, who is just sooo amazing. The lead story is not very good, but the back-up is pretty darn good.

*Underworld #3 introduced us to a secret bar where supervillains go to be among other supervillains, and just hang out.

Yes, you read that right.

Underworld #3 introduced us to a secret bar where supervillains go to be among other supervillains, and just hang out.

I really have to wonder, did Mr. Tieri honestly think he was even among the first FIVE writers to introduce this idea? It was so freakish. It'd be like having in your comic a teenager get bit by a radioactive spider, and act like it was a new idea.

I guess the Underworld plots are read by the same person who reads the Book of Lost Souls plots.

*How badass is this current Punisher storyline? Top-notch work by both Ennis and Sean Phillips.

*This week's Jughead was really quite good. I know most of you folks won't believe me, but take a look for yourself, you untrusting bastards!!! It was just a well-written comic. The lead story is that Jughead's friends are out of town and he is bored, so he figures he'll just ask a girl out on a date. The reaction from the denizens of Riverdale to Jughead suddenly wanting to go out on a date? Quite humorous. The other three stories are not quite as good, but all three are solid tales.

*When will DC just come right out and call their "Greatest Stories Ever Told" collections what they really are? "A bunch of stories we found and slapped together....Volume 1"

That's all I got for now.

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Dark Horse HAS Been Good For Twenty Years

I've been meaning to do a bit on this for awhile (since, well, January...hehe), but now is as good a time as any, so let me just say Happy Twentieth Anniversary, Dark Horse Comics!

For twenty years now, Dark Horse has been a great alternative to Marvel and DC for some amazing creators to put out some amazing comics.

In a quest to find good comic books (and they all SHOULD be good), Dark Horse Comics has been quite up to the task for twenty years now.

Congrats, Dark Horse, and thanks!

Sardine in Outer Space - Out of This Wo-Roald

One of things that I most admire about Roald Dahl's children's fiction is his ability to treat his young readers as people, not as delicate flowers. As he described his work, he was "conspiring with children against adults." I love that aspect of his work, and it's that same aspect that comes through in the excellent collection of short comic book stories by Emmanuel Guibert (story) and Joann Sfar (art), Sardine in Outer Space, collected (and translated from the original French) by First Second Books. It is not hard to imagine "Matilda in Outer Space" being all that different than this collection.



The setup is as follows - Sardine is a litle girl pirate who travels the galaxy with her uncle Yellow Shoulder, who is a pirate captain. They raom around space rescuing rebellious children who are forced to obey evil Supermuscleman, the chief executive dictator of the universe (who has an evil Mad Scientist sidekick named Doc Krok). Supermuscleman and Doc Krok spend most of the comic trying to capture them/kill them.

And look what Supermuscleman WEARS for most of the stories (twelve short stories in total)!!!



Yes, he's wearing Captain Marvel tights, basically!! You don't GET much cooler than that, my friends!

Sfar's art also harkens back to Dahl's stories, as Sfar's style is one I would describe as "crude realism," and Dahl, speaking about his work, described his style as "I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel. If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly. That, I think, is fun and makes an impact." That is what goes on in Sardine, and not just the art, but the stories as well. For instance, there is a twisted story where Supermuscleman and Doc Krok disguise themselves as Ice Cream shop workers, to make a disgusting confection for Sardine and her best friend (and fellow young pirate) Little Louie. In the story, the amount of gross toppings they use is waaaaaaay over the top. Dahl would approve.

Each of the stories revolves around the basic concept of Supermuscleman and Doc Krok coming up with some plan to capture/kill them, and Sardine and her uncle must somehow thwart it, usually by some clever trick, but often, just by a sheer unwillingness to play fair, as pirates are prone to do. There are very few morals in these stories (although, in a particularly nice twist, Captain Yellow Shoulder seems to have as many rules as you can imagine, so the disobedient children run off to join a pirate...who's quite STRICT!), as they exist just to entertain kids, and Guibert and Sfar do a fine job of it.



There are also a number of clever in-jokes that I presume the target audience (which is kids from 6 years old to about 11 years old) would be unlikely to catch, like a VERY clever one involving a group of clouds who embody the Three Musketeers. Or when Sardine and Louie get wrapped up in a scary video game (the video game is of a typical schoolday for a kid, which, of course, is bizarre to these space pirate children - its title? No-Child-Left-Behind-School-II). Those are just the jokes that go over kid's heads. Most of the jokes are clear, obvious - and most important, funny.

So, if a fun, gag-filled story with interesting art that conspires with kids rather than talks down to them sounds like a good book to you, then I would recommend Sardines in Outer Space, from First Second Books (who were so kind as to provide this review copy).

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My first comics!

I have a lot on my mind, in case you haven't noticed. I've also been brainwashed by 2 Guys Buying Comics (even though there are three of them) into linking to them a lot. Like Chris's post from last week, in which he gets far too verbose about Batman's duds. He challenges anyone reading the post to write about their first comic, which was something I had been thinking about anyway, so I am going to take him up on his challenge! Won't this be groovy?

I have mentioned before that I didn't buy my first true-blue comic book until I was 17. I may have purchased some Archie digests prior to that - my sister was big into Archie, and I enjoyed them to a certain extent, so we probably bought them in the early 1980s. However, it wasn't until September 1988 that I bought my first floppy pamphlet - and a gold star goes to whoever remembers what it is!

Okay, only hardcore and possibly stalker readers ought to remember that it was Batman #426 - the opening chapter of the event that changed Batman's life forever: the death of Jason Todd!!!! The story of my purchase goes something like this:

My best friend Ken (who reads this blog occasionally - hi Ken!) and I were strolling through Willow Grove Park Mall one fine autumn afternoon in 1988 (it may have been Montgomery Mall, but I'm almost positive it was Willow Grove). We stopped outside a Walden Bookstore and were looking at the spinner racks of comics. Ken had been a comic collector for years (something he had picked up from his brother - ah, the chain of pushing becomes clear!) and he was just flipping through some of the titles that were on the rack. I gravitated toward Batman #426. I'm not sure why - the art didn't really do it for me, because I didn't realize that Mignola is freakin' excellent, and it's not like it's all that bold and dynamic a cover design even if I had realized that Mignola is freakin' excellent. I didn't have a lot of exposure to Batman, but I always liked him. Maybe it was just the character and the synergy of looking at a comic book while my evil Faustian friend happened to be there to tell me all about it.

Now, I wasn't the kind of person whose only experience with Batman was the television show or even that show and the Superfriends. I knew all about his "dark" roots in the 1930s and early '40s, and thanks to my local library, I had read his origin and the first Joker story in the early 1980s. My library didn't have comic books, but it did have a section devoted to graphic art, and in that section was a hardcover book with all the origins of the Golden Age DC heroes - so I knew all about Green Lantern and Flash and Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman, even though I didn't collect comics. Libraries are cool. Patronize one today!

So when I flipped through Batman #426, I wasn't shocked to see how "dark" it was. Sure, I remembered the TV show with fondness (who doesn't?) but it didn't bother me that this comic was significantly different in tone than it was. I was wondering whether I should buy it, but then Ken uttered those magic words about them killing Robin. I was totally hooked. I bought those four issues, did not vote either for or against killing Jason, and they became my gateway drug into the glorious world of comic books.

I'm not sure why, though. I mean, they're not that good, are they? Starlin's story is kind of crappy, and the hook of having the bloodthirsty fans kill off Jason didn't really sit well with me. I know Aparo is God among some, but he's never been my favorite, so the art didn't blow me away. It was perfectly adequate (which is how I describe all of Aparo's art, frankly - it gets the job done), but nothing that made me shiver. I really can't say what it was that hooked me. Maybe the fact that the Ayatollah Khomeini was in it - what a weird decision on Starlin's part! Maybe the fact that the Joker was just so evil. Maybe because Batman can't touch his nemesis because of his diplomatic immunity. Looking back on it, it's just not that good a story, but for some reason, I was hooked.

I quickly moved on to other titles. First, Ken introduced me to the real star of the Batman universe at that time: Detective Comics. Alan Grant, John Wagner, and Norm Breyfogle were right at that moment in the middle of a mind-blowing run on the title, and Ken let me read a few (I'm not sure why he bought them, because he's not a big fan of Breyfogle's art - yes, he is a Commie - but it might have had something to do with the fact that comics were 75 cents and you could afford to buy things you didn't absolutely love - I know he liked the stories, so maybe he liked the art enough to continue with it). I'm not sure which one was the first I saw, but it was either issue #590, 591, or 592. Three better covers you'd be hard-pressed to find, and the stories (well, not the first one, which is a simplistic morality tale about evil Muslims and the evil American government) are unbelievably good. That last one features the first appearance of Cornelius Stirk, and I'm pretty sure it was the first issue of Detective I bought. What a freakin' masterpiece. It was my first exposure to what comics with a good story and great art could do, and how the medium could be used to tell gripping tales. Breyfogle's fluid style and wonderful depiction of Batman has stayed with me, and for some unknown reason, when most people talk about the greatest Batman artists, they omit Breyfogle. It's a damned shame.

Obviously, my addiction had flared into full-fledged obsession, and it wasn't long before I began to branch out into other titles. For a long while I stayed with the classics - Batman and, from Marvel, Spider-Man. Soon after I started buying both Batman titles, I saw the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #312 and fell in love with everyone's favorite whipping boy, Todd McFarlane.

I must beg your forgiveness for that. You see, I didn't realize McFarlane sucked and was responsible for all the evil in the history of comic books. I just thought his Spider-Man looked cool - very arachnid-like and almost creepy, and his Mary Jane was hot! Okay, she had too much hair, but I remembered Mary Jane from the early-1970s cartoon, and she was a plain Jane. I also remember her from the newspaper strips and reprints of ASM I had glanced at over the years, and no one ever made her look like McFarlane. Yowza! I had no idea what was going on in the comic, having no idea who the Hobgoblin was and why he was fighting the Green Goblin, but Michelinie's story was intriguing enough, and soon I was collecting Amazing Spider-Man, something I stuck with for well over 100 issues, even after they really started to suck. I also found and bought all the issues back to #238, the first appearance of the Hobgoblin. Issues #238-289 form one of the epic stories in comic book history, even though later writers dropped the ball with the Hobgoblin.

It wasn't long before I became entangled in Marvel's mutant books. I suppose anyone who has ever bought comics gets entangled in Marvel's mutant mess at one point or another. Ken let me read the Dark Phoenix saga and most of the issues since, but for a while I felt no need to go out and start buying them myself. In the summer of 1989 we got Uncanny X-Men #251, with that iconic cover of Wolverine nailed to the cross. I love that cover, and bought the issue. This time I knew what was going on, having read the previous issues even though I didn't own them, and that issue, with Logan's fever dream and his epiphany concerning the fate of the X-Men and Pierce nailing him to the cross and Jubilee eventually rescuing him made me an X-Men fanatic. Many people (Our Lord and Master included) have indicated their scorn of the post-Paul Smith X-Men (from #176 on), but despite a slight drop in quality, the hundred issues post-Smith are very good and very interesting reading. These issues in the 250s are really good, too - Wolverine trying to escape the Outback and the Reavers slaughtering the mutants on Muir Island, and of course, the Jim Lee Psylocke issues. Of course I was hooked, and Psylocke and Dazzler (who starred in issue #260) quickly became my favorite X-Men.

It's interesting looking back on the patterns I established with my purchases back in late 1988 and through 1989. Comics were cheaper, so I was much more able to be a "completist" - I'm glad I was with the X-Men, but I rarely re-read the Amazing Spider-Mans I own after sometime in the #330s, because their quality is just not that good. I also didn't necessarily need to buy Batman and Detective all the time, but I did. I dug through the back issue boxes of the local comic stores - there was one across the street from Willow Grove and one near the mall in Montgomeryville - to find the answers to questions I had about the characters - there was no recourse to the Internet, obviously, and I don't even think Wizard existed. Ken was my resource - he let me read some of his back issues, and if I liked them, I went and found them myself. He also let me read a lot of comics that I don't own, some - the Gruenwald Captain Americas - that I wish I did, and some - the Jim Lee Punishers - that I don't really care that I don't. But I gradually branched out into more underground stuff, and gradually discovered that comics could do a lot more than tell superhero stories. I always have a soft spot in my heart, though, for Batman and Spider-Man. They were the first.

This is the reason why I don't worship Kirby and Ditko as much as some people. By the time I got into comics their day had passed, and I never went back and got all the back issues that they created. This is why I don't have fond memories of the Crisis on Infinite Earths - I certainly own it, but it didn't have any world-altering effect on me because I wasn't reading comics at the time. I don't care about 1970s comics as much as others because, although I was prime comic-book reading impressionable age in the '70s (I was born in 1971), I simply didn't buy them. Therefore, a lot of my knowledge about pre-1988 comics comes second-hand, through the eyes and mind of a teenager or adult. It's strange reading about some in the comics blogaxy waxing poetic about Ditko's Shade, the Changing Man or Gerber's Howard the Duck, because I've never read them and I have no childhood nostalgia factor working for me with regard to them. I'm trapped in a late 1980s universe, which also means by the time Image rolled around, I was a little more able to resist its charms. Comics certainly weren't perfect in the late 1980s, but it was still a good time to get into them.

I hope others let us all know about their first comics, either in the comments or on their own blogs. It's kind of cool to read about the first experiences of people who are now hopelessly addicted. Can't we all share?

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Who remembers Scorpio?

My brand-spankin' new Comics You Should Own column features The Defenders #46-50 from 1977, the fantabulous Scorpio storyline. Go check it out and find out why these issues are glorious comic book goodness cranked up to eleven!

Snark Free "Name That Iron Man Artist!" Game!!

As you folks probably know by now, when I fall behind on Snark Free Waters, I often catch up by having one big explosion of posts at once. This time, the catchup is a neat game called "Name That Iron Man Artist!" Between Steve Ditko (who did some Tales of Suspense issues following Kirby, the original artist on Iron Man) and the first post-David Michelinie issue (of his first run) (Iron Man #158, drawn by Paul Smith), there have been twenty pencillers on Iron Man, most of whom just did an issue or two. I put them in random order, then posted one panel featuring Iron Man from each artist. The goal of the game? Name the artist who drew each Iron Man panel!! The links to the panels follow...

Day One!

Day Two!

Day Three!

Day Four!

Day Five!

Day Six!

Day Seven!

Day Eight!

Day Nine!

Day Ten!

Day Eleven!

Day Twelve!

Day Thirteen!

Day Fourteen!

Day Fifteen!

Day Sixteen!

Day Seventeen!

Day Eighteen!

Final Day (Two Artists This Day!

Take a look, and guess away!

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You bought House of M ... You bought Infinite Crisis ...

... But I'm begging you: Please don't buy Civil War!

We hear at Comics Should Be Good are not only dedicated to letting you know what current comics are good, but thanks to the magic of our top-secret time machine, the Croninometer 3000©®, we can travel into the future and tell you what comics will suck! Exhibit A: Marvel's Civil War crossover!

Now, we already know how the writers' meeting to discuss the crossover went. And I'm sure everyone picked up their free! "Opening Shot sketchbook" at fine comic shoppes everywhere this past Wednesday. It's that piece of propaganda - I mean advertising, sorry - that I want to discuss with you fine discriminating comics folk today.

The blurb starts thusly: "Though it seems impossible to believe, the Avengers were merely the first team to be disassembled." I'm really starting to hate that word, "disassembled." Anyway, the major "teams" of the Marvel U. are the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. The FF and the X-Men aren't real teams, so what is Jim McCann (the writer of this pamphlet - should I call him Goebbels?) talking about? Are the New Warriors about to be disassembled? The Defenders? Dear God, not the Champions????

Moving on: "Since the early dawn of the marvels, there has been a secret gathering, a collection of the brightest, most powerful leaders of their community. They have not always seen eye-to-eye. A recent decision has torn them apart. Where they once stood united, they now face one another, mistrust brewing." Raise your hand if you're sick of ultra-secret groups manipulating the world from behind the scenes. It was old when Marvel did it in the late 1990s - did you think we'd forget Abnett and Kordey's weird two-issue Conspiracy? Did you???? How many other comics writers have used this? - Brubaker just did it in Sleeper, which didn't end that long ago. I'm just tired of this crap. And shocking - they don't get along!

"Heroes live among us. They walk and fly in our midst. They fight for us, protect us, and keep us safe. Heroes may be mutants, or aliens, or even gods. But like the rest of us, they are only human after all." [Emphasis mine.] Way to contradict yourself in consecutive sentences, Mr. McCann! Are they aliens and gods, or humans? Make up your mind!

"It's easy to forget that these flying, swinging, powerful protectors aren't always perfect. They can fail. All it takes is one mistake. One failure, and a catastrophe occurs that the world will remember for all time." Ummm, a catastrophe caused by Nitro? Really? That's what sparks this shit? Maybe if you didn't send freakin' Speedball after people these kinds of things wouldn't occur. Okay, so Nitro blowing up and taking out a city block, even destroying Stamford, Connecticut, has a greater impact than the absolute destruction of Genosha? Magneto obliterating Manhattan? Atlantic Attacks? Ultron killing all those people in that cool Avengers story by Busiek and Perez? The Hulk doing any rampaging at all over the past forty years? Any of the other world-destroying events that Marvel throws at its Earth every two years or so? Really? Nitro and Speedball? Really?????

"These heroes have lived among us for years in an age of wonder, an age of safety, and an age of innocence. When that innocence is lost in the wake of the tragedy, someone must be there to pick up the pieces." What I always liked about the Marvel U. was that it wasn't "an age of innocence." There have always been real-life consequences to their action, down to a freakin' series starring the people who clean up the mess! So what the hell is this event that it destroys their innocence? Their innocence was lost a long time ago.

"Some feel all who wear a mask and carry out their own brand of justice should answer to someone. They should be trained, organized, registered." I'm not the first person to point out that Marvel has been doing this with mutants for years.

"Split by a choice between personal safety and liberties versus national security and law, friends must now pick a side, hunting down those they once fought beside. Those that stood together against threats as teammates now face each other on a battlefield, and not all will walk away unscathed. This is war. Callous actions will tear families and friendships apart. Loved ones will be put at risk. True villains will go unchecked." This paragraph almost makes my head explode. There's really nothing more fun in a comic book than when heroes fight each other. Why, it's not like writers make jokes about it because it's such a cliché or something! And putting loved ones at risk - I know I'll be reading when May Parker is sodomized and killed, because that's "real." Nice to see Marvel following the worst decision DC has made over the past two years or so. Because the fans LOVE that Sue Dibny was raped and killed and that Jean Loring is insane and that Leslie Tompkins let someone die to teach Batman a lesson. Yes, sir, that's what we like! And the villains running amok - that's drama! I hope Iron Man and Captain America beat the shit out of each other while Doctor Doom takes over the world, because that's "real."

"Despite the media, despite the legislation, despite the evidence, Wolverine knows there is one man responsible for setting off the chain of events that have led to this Civil War." Please, let it be Paste-Pot Pete. Or Moses Magnum. Or Longshot. Any of those would be awesome.

Then we get to the "Civil War checklist." I realize these are for the completely obsessive geek only and some may have only a tangential connection to the main title (which, like Infinite Crisis, is seven issues - seven is the new six, apparently), but there are 79 (!) titles on the checklist - and presumably Marvel wants us to believe they are all "must-haves!" I'm sure nobody is going to buy all 79 titles, but the arrogance of Marvel is rather breathtaking. "You will buy all these titles or you will never know what's going on in the Civil War!!!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!!!"

I'm begging you, good comic folk. Boycott this whole mess. Aren't you tired of heroes fighting amongst themselves? When did that become so interesting? I didn't even like it back in the day when I was a neophyte comic book reader and Spider-Man would stumble across Johnny Storm and make some lame hot-headed joke and they would duke it for a page or two. It was stupid then, and it's even dumber now. I will also be very interested to see if "both sides of the story" get told with equal vigor and fairness - I'm betting those who want to register superheroes will be portrayed as the villains automatically, because this is so obviously a commentary on Bush's America (which is why a Scotsman is eminently qualified to write it, of course) that I expect each issue to begin with Thor smashing Mjolnir wrapped in the Patriot Act over the head of a reader. How tiresome - registering superheroes is bad! Freedom is good! Thanks, Joey Q and Mark Millar, for the insight.

I thought House of M was a bad idea. I thought Infinite Crisis was a bad idea. But they both sold boatloads, even though I have found very few people in real life or on the Internet who actually liked them. Sure, people have commented here about how one or two of the issues are decent, and people seemed to enjoy the return of geriatric Superman (why, I'll never know, since he exists, apparently, to be mocked), but generally, people don't like them. DC and Marvel don't care, of course - as long as you're buying, they'll keep throwing this shit at us. That's why I'm begging you to boycott this miserable and unheroic crossover. Please show Marvel (and DC, to a lesser extent) that we want solid stories about good guys and bad guys, and if we want a big crossover, can't we just have the bad guys get together and try to take over or something? And then the good guys could get together and do some ass-kicking. Doctor Doom needs a good ass-kicking, after all.

The only cool thing that could happen in this book is if they throw in a scene where some loser villain (insert your favorite here!) tries to commit some crime while the heroes square off. All the heroes look at each other, look at Z-list villain, and then proceed to join up and beat him to a bloody pulp. Then, of course, they go back to squabbling with each other like nothing happened. That would be a fun scene. But because I'm sure Millar thinks he's creating "art," he wouldn't do that.

And by the way, I'm aware that I'm beginning to sound like T. Do you see what Marvel and DC are doing to me???? They're turning me into T.!!!! Noooooooo!!!!!! That is their worst crime.

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Point Guardian - Paging Patty Smyth and Don Henley

Ben Carver loves superheroes. It is evident, even if he did not tell us in the introduction to the graphic novel of Point Guardian, which collects the plots of the first few issues of Carver's web comic into print for the first time, with Carver re-drawing the stories he initially debuted online back in March of 2004. However, as Ms. Smyth and Mr. Henley* told us awhile back, sometimes love just ain't enough.

A little background on how Point Guardian is produced. Carver has a new page out every weekday (and he was redrawing the original pages at the same time that he was drawing NEW pages), so that explains a lot of the sketchiness that comes with his work, as he is writing, pencilling, inking and lettering a page every weekday, which is no easy feat, so it comes as no surprise that the work lacks in the finished quality one would get from work with more time spent on it. At the same time, Carver is also clearly learning as he goes along. If one were to look at the ORIGINAL pages from Point Guardian from March 2004, well, to call them amateurish is to be extremely kind. It is more like something you'd see doodled on a napkin, then put onto the web as a page of an actual comic book - not good stuff. That is not the case for his more recent material that makes up the Point Guardian graphic novel. While still sketchy, it has definition and shape that Carver could not have dreamt of two years ago, so that's certainly a good sign.

To wit, here is his original art...



and here is a sample of his current style, which is the same style he uses for the Graphic Novel...



The improvement is marked. Still, though, there is plenty of room for improvement, particularly when it comes to things like body structure, backgrounds, pacing, perception, use of space - however, I think, while each panel works okay on its own, it doesn't work well together. However, he DOES have some basic sequential skill sets, which is nice to see, in that he does tell a clear story. He just needs to make it flow better, and ease off on the sketchiness - it does distract from the story.

And it is the story, I think, that is the biggest attraction to Point Guardian. The story opens with a teenager who is struck by lightning, giving him basic "superman" powers. He is helped by a doctor and her young daughter, who see him struck by the lightning. The book flashes ten years into the future, where we see the man now known as Ultra, the guardian of Point City, California. The daughter of the doctor is now his assistant (think Penny in Inspector Gadget).

The story contains many ideas very recognizable by fans of superheroes, but none of them are rip-offs, just cut from the same cloth as many of the best superhero stories. As I have said before, Carver is clearly nuts about the superhero genre, and a fan of superheroes could certainly find a lot in common with Carver's ideas about superheroes.

The dialogue could use some work, and part three of the Graphic Novel introduces some clumsy Marvel stand-ins (Spider-Man, Wolverine and Colossue analogues, calling themselves the Marvelous Three - although there IS some humor to be found with how Wolverine talks with an Australian accent, just like the original cartoon Wolverine).

In any event, the relatively clumsy story of the beginning of Point Guardian apparently goes away as the series goes on, and other characters are introduced, and relationships become more important, so don't put all your judgment on just this volume. Carver self-published this (and was so kind as to send me a copy), which is a bold move by ANY web-comic maker. And that, in and of itself, is admirable.

Check out his website, collecting the entire run of Point Guardian for free - here - http://www.pointguardian.com/


*Yes, I am referencing an early 90's Adult Contemporary song! So sue me!

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