When I was a kid, Adam West and Burt Ward were the first super-heroes I remember following on TV. Less wooden than the Super-Friends, beset by better villains than Marvel’s 1970s live-action TV offerings, and a few years ahead of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, syndicated reruns of the 1966-1968 Batman TV show were a staple of my afternoon viewing.
I can always tell when the Greatest Spectacle in Entertainment News is revving its engines and approaching the starting line — the Facebook statuses for all my West Coast online cohorts begin chiming their location and awe in unison, letting those of us off in the distance know It Has Begun.
The unwieldy official name is Comic-Con International: San Diego. It’s been called the San Diego Comic Con since I was a kid, probably even longer than that. For as long as I’ve known comic book conventions were a thing, I’ve been aware that San Diego is America’s biggest and boldest, a four-day Shangri-La of heroes, creators, fans, dealers, publishers, cosplay, community, news, announcements, panels, and more. A four-day smorgasbord of four-color sensory overload unlike any other experience in the entirety of the hobby. And that was before Hollywood co-opted it years ago and raised the media’s attention level to new heights.
Seven years ago after moving into a new home, our family was joined by a dog named Lucky. Last year when the Avenger known as Hawkeye moved into his own solo series, he was joined by a dog named Lucky. I like to pretend this means something significant in the grand scheme. What are the odds of our dogs having the same name? Sure, it could be wild coincidence, and probably is.
Our Lucky’s previous owners were relatives who found that raising three kids was all the daily stress test they could handle. Due to a combination of the newborn’s safety issues and the oldest child’s apathy onset, Lucky had been spending most of his days caged and ignored, with nothing to occupy his time except storing energy so that every time he was released, he became a furry little whirling dervish. My wife’s previous dog had passed away several months before, leaving a dog-shaped hole in our hearts. We proposed a win-win exchange: we would accept Lucky into our home, and they would be free to replace him with a pocket-sized rodent more in line with the oldest child’s pet preferences. We decided not to change his name since he was already used to it.
At first glance, Lucky’s feisty demeanor seemed harmless.
Hawkeye’s Lucky was owned by tracksuit-wearing gangsters from eastern Europe who had called him Arrow for reasons unknown, possibly because they were fans of American weapons terminology. Lucky was abused, surely taken for granted, and probably fed the nastiest, mealiest dog food around. Something with bits of vermin added for flavor, I’d bet. During a fracas between Hawkeye and the dogs, “Arrow” ended up on the losing side of a car collision. After sending the goons packing, Hawkeye rushed the dog in for emergency treatment, effectively took custody, and eventually renamed him Lucky. He’s sometimes referred to by the affectionate nickname “Pizza Dog” because the cast keeps giving him people food.
At first sight, Lucky’s grievous bodily harm appeared alarming.
When exclamation points were king! Art by Scott McCloud! From his giant-sized book DESTROY!!! Which was loosely adapted into a film called Man of Steel!
My current excited state isn’t just about getting away from it all! I’ve spent the last hour thinking entirely in exclamations! This is not normally a problem for me! I blame another website! As a longtime comic book fan, I like keeping up on comics sales figures! A comics news site called The Beat provides monthly updates that can be either entertaining or dry, depending on the writer! For DC Comics’ April 2013 writeup, the drier writer decided to try something different! Every sentence was a shout at the heart of the world! Every comment was a drill sergeant’s command! Suddenly the stats and comparisons were all about action! And danger! And thrills! And now I can’t stop using them myself! I’ll get him for this!
Comics! Anime! Video Games! T-shirt vendors! Whovians! Uglydoll! This never-before-shared file photo from C2E2 2011 has it all! (Unlike Indianapolis. For now.)
Several theoretical names have floated fancily through my head over the decades, ever since the erstwhile Comics Buyer’s Guide taught me about the magical world of comic book conventions when I subscribed to them in 1986. I’ve always wondered if Indianapolis would ever be respectable enough to merit a large-scale comic-con of its own. We had little comic book shows on the east side a few time a year that occasionally drew one or two special guests. Circa 1989 or 1990 someone threw a shindig in Indy called HoosierCon 1, but I had to work the entire weekend and missed it. I never heard a peep about it after the fact, sequels never manifested, and Google tells me no one in world history has ever rhapsodized about it online. I presume plans went awry.
This week the Indianapolis Star reported that someone out there wants to make my pipe dream a reality. A young Florida-based company called Action3 Events and Promotions has scheduled a comics convention for March 14-16, 2014, in our very own Indiana Convention Center. It’s as yet unnamed and not yet listed on their official site, but official enough that they’re proclaiming its proposed existence in public interviews. That much alone is a positive sign.
Atomic Robo: an essential part of every Free Comic Book Day.
As previously recounted, my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2013 two weeks ago. Readers flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and many of the indies.
How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?
And now the conclusion, focusing on smaller publishers that demand and/or deserve equal attention:
Marble Season (Drawn & Quarterly) — Celebrated Love and Rockets co-creator Gilbert Hernandez, sallies forth into all-ages territory with slice-of-life vignettes of a ’60s childhood in which marbles were a game option before “gaming” was a common verb, kids routinely spoke in benign non sequitur, secret clubs didn’t involve violent hazing, and super-hero role-playing required neither rulebooks nor electricity. Each scene free-flows into the next without need for an overall “story arc” driving the narrative — it’s just the life of kids bouncing each off each other and drifting from one activity to the next. If Peanuts had been less punchline-driven and maybe a tad edgier (we sure never saw Linus and Lucy trying to understand a celebrity suicide) but with the same skewed innocence and underlying heart, the result would’ve looked a lot like this. One of the year’s best FCBD offerings.
The painted dragons of Aphrodite IX. Art by Stjepan Sejic.
As previously recounted, my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2013 two weeks ago. Readers flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and many of the indies.
How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?
More of those finished products:
Infinity (Marvel) — Fans already entrenched in current Marvel Universe continuity may enjoy this prologue to the upcoming major summer crossover event, in which an alien race that once rebuilt itself from the ground up after world-shattering decimation now finds itself entertaining a second visit from its conqueror. From a science fiction standpoint, it’s an intriguing short story even though Thanos only speaks a grand total of two words. Any first-time comic-shop visitors who know Marvel only from their movies might be disappointed that their first Marvel experience is filled with complete strangers and has virtually no Marvel heroes in it at all, save a three-panel montage at the end.
From “The Assasination of Darth Vader” by Brian Wood and Ryan Odagawa.
How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?
My reading results were as follows:
My wife and I are pleased to report that Free Comic Book Day 2013 was certainly a success at Downtown Comics on Indianapolis’ northside location. Not only were the costumed heroes out in full force as shown above — not to mention villains such as Harley and Ivy, and sometimes Catwoman –but in all of FCBD’s twelve years of existence and outreach, this was the first time I’ve had to wait in line for over half an hour to enter the shop.
I would be remiss in my comics fandom if I didn’t take a moment to plug the heck out of the twelfth annual Free Comic Book Day. And no one likes being remiss. No one.
Each year since 2002, American comic book shops participate in the hobby’s largest outreach effort, to alert the world that comic books are still being published, aren’t all terrible, and would be even better if more people bought them so that they could afford to make even more comics, or at least afford to make their current comics even better and prevent their writers and artists from being lured away by other, better-paying media. To that end, comic shops nationwide hand out free comics to any and all visitors — not all their comics, mind you, or else they all go bankrupt and Free Comic Book Day defeats itself. Rather, all the major comic book publishers, an impressive number of semi-major publishers, and a crowd of eager indie startups each publish their own FCBD specials for the occasion — usually all-new stories available nowhere else, except for a couple of Scrooge-like companies who serve lukewarm reprints, under the impression that newcomers will be none the wiser.
Continuing our coverage of last weekend’s fourth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2”), this episode covers the sci-fi actors and comic book creators we met this year. With one exception, all of these were folks we’d never met before. My wife wanted to meet a few veterans of the Star Wars saga; I wanted to meet writers and artists responsible for great works.
Highest priority on my own list: British music journalist turned comics writer Kieron Gillen. His two-year run on Journey into Mystery turned Kid Loki into one of the funniest, most heartbreaking characters in the Marvel Universe. His creator-owned Phonogram (two miniseries and counting) is a sharp fantasy mixing music, magic, and the people who live for both. Current gigs include Iron Man and Young Avengers, which both tend to rise to the top of my weekly reading pile.
Also: my favorite photo of the weekend. If you haven’t read at least one of his books, you’re what’s wrong with comics.
Top to bottom: Ashes (art by Richard Pace); Jamal Igle’s Molly Danger; Neil DeGrasse Tyson, interviewee from Fight for Space; and Great Pacific (art by Martin Morazzo).
I loved the idea of artists, writer, musicians, inventors, designers, and other makers of stuff bypassing the corporate processes that normally rule their respective fields and obtaining the necessary funding to self-publish, self-release, or otherwise bring their works to life through the magic of crowdfunding, which in most cases works a lot like pre-ordering an item except you’re also adding a generous tip.
At the end of 2012 I drew a line because I realized I’d gone overboard. I have disposable income set aside each month for doing fun things such as comics and movies, but Kickstarter was devouring more than its fair share and compromising my hobbies. With my son preparing to start college this coming fall, the time has come to batten down the hatches, tighten the belts, and find ways to slash our budget, unless some wealthy benefactor wants to start donating enormous sums in care of this humble blog.
Consequently, one of the first extravagances on the chopping block was my Kickstarter patronage. I like philanthropy. I like helping creators create. I like watching success stories in action. But other priorities have come a-callin’. My last pledge was in December 2012 (a Bob Mould tribute concert film); I can’t swear it’ll be my final use of the site, but any future contributions will have to be severely limited, judiciously selected, frugally committed, and wildly recompensed with endless freebies.
Thus I bid farewell-for-now to my active Kickstarter status with a look back at our history together thus far. The following are past campaigns about which I’ve posted here previously, with updates about their subsequent progress:
* Rich Burlew’s phenomenal Order of the Stick reprint drive. A year after the fact, Burlew is still working hard to fulfill the remaining supporter perks that were delayed due to a severe hand injury. I’ve already received everything I was expecting and then some. (The OotS notepad used for a previous MCC entry was made possible by Kickstarter.)
* The Fight for Space documentary, about mankind’s retreat from the stars. Project mastermind Paul Hildebrandt wisely set a distant but realistic delivery date of December 2013; as of January 2013 his team was still conducting interviews with relevant parties in Washington D.C., making the most of their surplus funding.
* Jamal Igle’s Molly Danger graphic novel. Counting down to the release date later this year, Igle has provided backers with frequent updates and exclusive preview materials, including a heads-up that an eleven-page preview that will appear in Action Lab’s Free Comic Book Day 2013 sampler.
One of the commonest ice-breaker questions between comic book fans getting to know each other or merely shooting the breeze between major-event discussions is, “What was your first comic book?” I have faint memories of having a handful of comics before first grade, but none of them survived the innocent ravages that come with being owned by a child, even one who learned to read at preschool age.
My official answer to that question, barring those ancient entrants disqualified due to loss of existence, is the oldest surviving comic from that era remaining in my collection to this day. Pictured at left is my personal copy of Scooby-Doo #9, dated February 1979, purchased for me when I was six years old. I found a mint-condition copy posted online, CGC-rated 9.6, if you want to view the original cover in all its undamaged glory for art appreciation purposes, but the image posted here (click to enlarge!) has one unbeatable advantage: this one is mine.
Vaughan. Martin. The Private Eye.
Two major names in the comic book business have teamed up for an experiment with this same shopping paradigm. North American writer Brian K. Vaughan (creator of Y: the Last Man, Ex Machina, and Saga) and South American artist Marcos Martin (whose exhilarant work graced the pages of Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil) launched their new joint project today called The Private Eye. If all goes according to plan, the webcomic maxiseries will be released in ten monthly installments via their own new site, Panel Syndicate. If actual money is exchanged in sufficient quantities, the duo may see fit to launch other creator-owned ventures through the site, potentially other creators’ as well as their own. On the other hand, if everyone downloads it for free, I’m sure the work-for-hire galleys would welcome them back with open arms and diluted contract terms.
The Thin Man Meets the Rocketeer!
That may prove to be hyperbole, but the initial signs are promising. You’re looking at sign #1 in the panels sampled above. No two ways about it: any comic that features very special guest appearances by unnamed ringers for the dynamite duo of Nick and Nora Charles automatically earns my personal seal of approval.
Much as churches have constituents who only attend twice yearly on Easter and Christmas, thus do comic books have buyers only seen in stores whenever mainstream media headlines alert all of Earth to the death of a major character. Such casual super-hero fans are doubtlessly well aware of this week’s main event, courtesy of DC Comics and Batman Inc. #8.
If you’re somehow not aware of the heavily publicized ending and were hoping to read it for yourself this weekend or during spring break, you may wish to stop reading now, and possibly unplug your Internet this instant. You’ll also need to see if someone can sell you a coverless copy of the issue, because the cover broadcasts the ending with no attempt at subtlety or surprise. I trust this is sufficient spoiler alert for the two comic-collecting hermits out there unaware of the character’s fate in question. Now’s your chance to flee and save yourselves.
Onward, then:
2012 was my worst year for comic book enjoyment in the last fifteen years. I’ve collected them for thirty-four years, ever since the well-stocked spinner racks at Marsh Supermarket caught my eye at age six and opened new worlds of imagination and heroism. For the majority of my life they’ve been my primary hobby among all my hobbies. Once upon a time, friends could count on me to spout the occasional essay about a particular series, event, historical recollection, or rage-filled response to an aesthetic offense. When I launched Midlife Crisis Crossover last April, I thought the topic of comic books would inspire a lot more posts than they have so far.
I have no plans to wave farewell to the medium altogether, but my personal backlash started during the last half of 2011, when DC Comics purged their continuity yet again and rebooted their entire universe with the “New 52” initiative. The first time they rebooted after Crisis on Infinite Earths, I was fourteen and the combined talents of John Byrne, George Perez, Marv Wolfman, Mike Baron, and others were more than enough to convince me that this new direction was right up my alley. Twenty-six years and countless post-Crisis emendations later, DC and I are no longer the same entities under the same conditions. I can handle reboots to a certain extent, but when the new versions are poorly thought out — or worse, prone to twice as many crossovers as they used to be — I exercise my right as a consumer to opt out.
Marvel’s response was to concentrate on crossovers for a while longer, then roll out their own restarts without rebooting. I’ve found their results a little less alienating, but they’re still leaving some of my money on the table. Image stepped up mightily for a while and snatched some of my leftover Big Two bucks, but their titles have varied in quality and performance. I was glad to see other publishers continue earning attention from me as well — Dark Horse, BOOM!, IDW, Red 5, Valiant, and even Aspen. Again, results varied, but I appreciated the alternatives they offered.
Even though I’m increasingly disappointed with the current majority readership’s predilection for overspending on prequels, crossovers, and do-overs, my year had several bright spots in the world of monthly titles. (For purposes of personal categorization, I treat original graphic novels and trade paperback collections as “Books”, which are grouped and ranked separately from “Comic Books” in my head. Those might be fodder for a separate MCC list.)
The following were my favorite comic book series throughout 2012:
* Journey into Mystery — Kieron Gillen, Rich Elson, and other artists delivered one of the very few series that inspired any MCC thoughts at all, and ended their two-year storyline on a note of epic tragedy. After seeing the reincarnated Kid Loki and his best frenemy Leah through so many misadventures (not to mention the only A-plus crossover tie-ins of any crossover by any company in the last two years), I felt helpless and bereaved to see it all coming crashing down ’round his ears. Marvel’s formerly unrepentant trickster god was so close to redeeming himself for his previous lifetime of treachery and lies, albeit by finding clever ways to wield treachery and lies as forces for Good, only to see everything fall apart because of the lies he told himself and us. I wish every series aspired to thematic examinations this complex and riveting. More fire-breathing angry puppies like lethal li’l Thori would also be welcome.
Remember that time when the world ended on December 21st? And before that on January 1, 2000, at the hands of the Y2K bugaboo? And before that in 1994 as Nostradamus predicted in The Man Who Saw Tomorrow? Neither do I. As the humble survivor of at least three documented ends of the world, I count my blessings and try not to take the failures of those premature endtimes for granted.
In honor of Earth living to rotate another day, I present this cursory clipfest of a few of the most memorable incidents in which someone or something threatened to end or merely ruin life on Earth as we know it. In some cases the day was saved thanks to some meddling kids; in other cases, Earth lost and the survivors pressed on because life had to find a new way. At the bottom are a few provisional inclusions — two stories I haven’t seen through to their conclusions, and two stories I could’ve lived without knowing.
(This list is clearly far from all-inclusive. Beyond what I’m forgetting or dismissing, I’m also setting aside the most famous of all, the one that will end with the Lord’s victory, because of obvious Hall of Fame status. Unfair competition, you see.)
On with the countdown, preferably timed with a red digital readout:
* Falling Skies — If the War of the Worlds Martians had better immune systems, even in victory they’d still have to reckon with the uppity spiritual descendants of America’s founding fathers. As led by the earnest but damaged Noah Wyle and Armageddon survivor Will Patton, the Second Mass is more organized and logical than Revolution, more hope-filled and less defeatist than The Walking Dead, and a lot less canceled than FlashForward.
* 2012 — Not the year itself, but the arguably greatest film of Roland Emmerich’s career has better effects than Godzilla, less jingoism than Independence Day, and higher-quality schmaltz than The Day After Tomorrow. Add in a histrionic John Cusack, a self-parodying Woody Harrelson, and a mandatory impassionate speech at the end delivered by Serenity‘s amazing Chiwetel Ejiofor. With these key components, Emmerich finally nailed the formula he’d striven for years to perfect.
Welcome back to MCCRL, in which I take on reading, viewing, or reviewing suggestions from MCC readers just to see what happens, whether the results are good, bad, or mixed-bag. Today’s suggestion came to me from The Smile Scavenger, optimistic pursuer of that eternal expression that some find elusive and others elude to their own detriment.
Today’s subject: Witchblade, the longest running series from Top Cow Productions, one of the flagship divisions of Image Comics. The most recent issue, #161, was released on Halloween.
Depending on which polling organization you follow because of how reassuring their results are to you, the American minority that remains “undecided” in the 2012 Presidential election may presently represent as much as ten percent of the voting public. I’ve not seen any recent polls that project a double-digit breakaway lead for either of the Big Two candidates, so it’s conceivable that the contemplative 10% could make or break a political career. For the sake of unfair generalization, I’m assuming that 10% won’t eventually flock to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, or to any of the ignominious candidates from the Green, Constitution, or Justice parties. I’d never even heard of Virgil Goode, Jill Stein, or Rocky Anderson before tonight, until some online friends inspired some light reading on my end. Lord knows how many other serious candidates with more than ten supporters are out there.
The undecided have much to ponder this year. In one corner, they have the incumbent President Obama, among whose qualities is the fact that he’s not Mitt Romney. In the other corner, they have the non-incumbent Mitt Romney, whose most attractive feature seems to be that he’s not Barack Obama. For contrarians, there’s always an affable Libertarian candidate at ringside. Some people favor incumbents because they’re a safe, known quantity. Some people vote against incumbents on the principle that anything resembling lack of change is bad. If you intend to vote against someone rather than for someone, you’ll have three or more options: Not-Obama, Not-Romney, Door #3 Who’s Neither, and Messrs. and Mrs. Probably-Not-Appearing-on-Your-State’s-Ballot.
If you’re a fan of Not-Obama in general and Team Republican in particular, I believe I have an idea for you. It involves one of my childhood heroes coming to your rescue.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 