Jimmy Olsen’s Blues

Once upon a time, DC could have announced Kevin Smith writing a new Batman miniseries and then a monthly series to follow and I would have eaten that shit right up.  I liked his Green Arrow fine and really enjoyed his Daredevil, and of course I really liked his movies up through the mid-2000’s or so.

But then Smith blew most of his comic-writing cred with me by writing a couple of series he never bothered finishing for Marvel.  (Or Marvel never bothered asking him to finish them, maybe.)  Further, I didn’t much care for the issues that did come out.  And then he did a recent Batman miniseries which turned the Joker — in theory one of the scariest, most bat-shit (so to speak) insane villains DC has — into a Clerks-style innuendo-filled fop.  And on top of that, he had one of his cronies (Walt Flanagan, previously best know as the owner of the small priapic dog who bedeviled Jay and Silent Bob in Smith’s comics of the mid-90’s) do the artwork, which just feels a little more obviously nepostistic to me than I might care for.

So, yeah, totally not excited by this announcement (nor, particularly, the Green Hornet book he’s going to write based on his aborted film).  Even with the gaps built into the schedule to allow him to complete this thing, I have no confidence it’ll actually get done on any reliable schedule, or at all.  Note that I’m not necessarily speculating as to the quality of these books, mind you — they could be perfectly entertaining.

As long as he leaves the Joker out of it.

Today’s Question:

I once killed a girl with her own knife, but she was later resurrected by some Ninjas. Could I be tried for that crime now? Doesn’t there have to be a dead body or something? -Never Miss in Millersville Funny you should ask! Not that I need a reason of any kind to bring this up, but two of my girlfriends were murdered by the same guy. And while one of them managed to come back from the dead, unfortunately, she’s not the one who did porn. (Don’t judge me. When you work two jobs like I do, there’s usually no time for lovin’, so in that aspect of the relationship, efficiency is key.)

Oh, and you’re totally in the clear on that “kinda-sorta” murder, under that “no body” reasoning. (I like your instincts! Have you ever considered a job in law? Shoot me an email! I’ll read it with my fingertips!)

Matt Murdock is a licensed attorney who’s only been disbarred once. Email your legal queries to imnotdaredevil.really.imnot@marvellaw.com or in care of Jimmy Olsen’s Blues.

The Source has the full-color version of Frank Quitely’s cover for Batman and Robin #2. As much as I love Quitely’s stuff in general, am I the only one a little put off by the scratchiness/sketchiness of they style he’s using for B&R? I mean, don’t get me wrong — it’s still gorgeous stuff, but the sketchiness makes it look rushed to me, and “rushed” is never a word I think of when I think of Frank Quitely. Opinions?

1. Mark Waid’s blog and his ongoing series of podcasts

Boom Studios E-i-C and esteemed comics writer Waid once said, “Reading 8,000 comics doesn’t qualify you to write even one.”; I’d extend his aphorism to include “writing a blog” as well. Unsurprisingly, Waid’s decades of experience in most phases of comic production (not to mention his years of sometimes caustic candor) serve him well in the execution and regular updates to his newish blog.  But, no matter the cv, being a huge comics fan doesn’t always guarantee an interesting or even readable ‘net presence. So far, though, Waid’s proven to be a pretty safe bet, his updates mixing tradecraft mini-lectures and plain ol’ Comics Appreciation, down to single panels or covers.

Even more recently, he’s jumped (or been pushed) into podcasting. 15 Minutes With Waid, it’s called, and that seems to be a pretty ideal length–while I enjoy reading Mark Waid wax articulate about most topics at length in print, I’ve got to think that 30 minutes or more of him talking might start to push the limits of my admiration. The brevity, combined with “co-host” Dafna Pleban’s well-timed but offhand interjections (which seem to steer Waid down avenues he hadn’t planned on) make this an easy series of ‘casts to catch up with on the fly. 15 Minutes isn’t as in-depth as Word Balloon (almost a different species), but it’s nearly as enjoyable for its loose feel and broad discussion. Very welcoming, and welcome.

2. Tabbloid

As a guy physically incapable of eating a meal without something to read (or in this case, something to write), I am totally in love with Tabbloid, a free on-demand PDF blog publishing service pointed out by (probably six-brained) Warren Ellis. Just sign up, tell ‘em which blog updates you want to slap into your weekly e-zine, and Tabbloid does the rest, emailing you a PDF with the week’s posts arranged for you to read (onscreen or my preferred format–in print). I’m not sure if you can change the default chronology, though, which would help because sometimes, updates are meant to be read from oldest to newest, not vice-versa. This is altogether minor, and (especially if you’re reading onscreen) easily overcome by starting at the “bottom”.

Secret Warriors#1 © Marvel 2009

3. Jonathan Hickman and Marvel’s Secret Warrriors

Not only is the series getting better with each issue, each issue gets better the more you re-read it (not to mention that I have been re-reading it–hardly ever do that anymore). And even Brian Bendis will tell you that the story as it’s being laid out is far more Hickman’s than his as pitched. Issue 1’s twist (so simple, but further proof that just because YOU could’ve thought of it doesn’t mean YOU could write comics) will drive you to read every single previous appearance of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD to see if this has been the plan since the Steranko administration. Stefano Caselli’s artwork is fluid and there’s a murky quality to the coloring that doesn’t sound awesome, but sure looks it.

4. Twitter!

Since this blog last throbbed with activity, Twitter fucking exploded (and this post’s 488 links to different Twitters are proof). People who just aren’t interesting enough to hold you your attention with a blah-blah-blog (e.g., me) have no trouble spitting out 20-25 words two or three times a day, and believe me that you’re all luckier for it. Just about any creator you like is 140-ing it up, from Brian Bendis and Scott Pilgrim’s Bryan Lee O’Malley, to this husband-wife-child team, Warren Ellis and Action Age Comics wunderkind/Anita Blake arsonist Chris Sims. Which leads us to, strangely enough…

5. Chris Sims.

You open the dictionary (or the Necronomicon, or Lemmy’s autobiography) to the section on Inextinguishable Flame of Comics, Robocop, and Face-Kicking, it either just says “Chris Sims‘ Invincible Super Blog” or “Sims, Chris; see also: Action Age Comics“. His annotations on the Anita Blake comic adaptations are more meticulously and lovingly presented than those scribblings by people who actually like Anita Blake comic adaptations. And if you don’t plan to see Watchmen: The Movie, this Hard Man of the Carolinas feels your apathy and gives you the next best thing (well, the second next best thing; the first would probably be giving you the damn comics to read). All for free.

Charlie Huston's The Shotgun Rule

6. Charlie Huston

I realize I’m going about my discoverin’ business backwards, I do. I read Noted Crime Novelist Charlie Huston’s Moon Knight comics before ever reading any of his Noted Crime Novels, but hey, 20 years from now this will probably be a chicken/egg thing. The Shotgun Rule may have come out in 2007, but this tale of 4 boys growing up too fast in the summer of ‘83 is going to be under more than one of my friends’ Christmas trees in 2009. (Added bonus: He’s putting out a story one Twitter update at a time. It’s part horror, part sci-fi, and yes, an early installment name drops the Ultimate Nullifier.)

7. Stuff Geeks Love

Sadly, this scalpel-fine dose of tough love is on a much slower schedule now, but what’s been posted already is nearly enough.

8. Lollyphile

I’ll have the new bourbon flavored lollipops, please. No wait, I’m feeling a little frisky, so let’s grab some absinthe ones instead, and some maple-bacon pops, too! (They offer wasabi-ginger as well, but that’s not my cup of, uh, wasabi and ginger.) Not comic-related at all, but as Stuff Geeks Love teaches us, it can’t be all comics, all the time.

9. Jason Aaron’s “Ghost Rider”

Jason Aaron's Ghost Rider

I’ve been buying comics for at least 30 years, and I’d never once bought an issue of a Ghost Rider ongoing. (By way of comparison, I bought an issue of Marvel Chillers featuring Tigra once.) Happily, my ignorance of the title in its many volumes doesn’t detract from the experience of this Flaming Skeleton Biker badassery, primarily because Aaron is wholly unafraid to embrace the lunacy of the character or the situations a Ghost Rider would find himself in. (So: no War of Kings tie-in, probably.)

10. Diesel Sweeties

While it’s true that I’ve praised R. Stevens’ one-man-amazing-corps before, I don’t think I sufficiently expressed our fevered admiration for the actual strip itself, and might have given the impression that one awesome t-shirt trumped the daily work. Consistently hilarious, provocative and equally enjoyable for both sides of the robots vs. humans conflict. And just in time for Mother’s Day, you can purchase a sweet collection of strips selected by Mr. Stevens himself in cutting-edge paper form (he’ll even trick it out for you for a few bucks more).

The Chronicles of Solomon Stone #1

Those wizards of wonder at Action Age Comics launch the long-awaited series The Chronicles of Solomon Stone — so long-awaited that your grandfather got sick of waiting for it and went off to fight the Nazis instead! This, friends, is comics the way it oughta be: free.

Go. Read. Love.

Hey, look, it’s a new post! Sorry we’ve been away for so long, but at least we’ve been Twittering, and that’s not nothin’, right?

sigh Sorry. We’ll try not to let it happen again.

We were brought out of semi-retirement by this “Scott and Jean” meme started by Alert Nerd which has been making the rounds the last couple of days. The point, for those of you might not have seen it or don’t feel like clicking the link, is that we comics readers each have those things which we feel so strongly about we can’t even rationally discuss the topic. I don’t think I’m so far gone about my choice that I can’t even talk about it like an adult, but I did feel passionately about the issue, even though I knew at the time that passion was going to prove fruitless. Anyways, here’s mine:

X-Men #3 (1991)

I firmly believe Magneto should have been capital-D permanently never-ever-comin’-back Dead at the end of Adjectiveless X-Men #3 (1991).

Chris Claremont brought Magneto through an absolutely fabulous character arc in the X-Men titles throughout the back half of the ’80s and the beginning of the ’90s. He added nobility to the character and a sense of depth rarely seen in comic-book bad guys before that point. Under Claremont’s direction, Mangeto went from regular full-on supervillain, to a man trying to fight his own nature and be a force for good, to a man crumbling under the weight of expectations he couldn’t bear and returning to what he knew — even as he knew he was disappointing those who had put their trust in him.

At the end of X-Men #3, Magneto died (in the sense that there’s any such thing as “death” within the ever-continuing genre of mainstream superhero comics, of course). He went out almost literally crushed beneath those expectations, and it was a perfect ending for the character — and for Claremont’s run on the X-Men, as that issue was the close of his almost-two-decade run on the title. Claremont was the one who added such dimension to the character, and I thought Marvel should have left the character dead.

Magneto by Jim Lee

I knew it wasn’t going to happen, of course. That’s just not the way comics work. They did leave Magneto alone for a couple of years, but he’s been back and re-killed and re-brought-back a couple of times over the eighteen years(!) since Claremont ended his story. Even if subsequent writers hadn’t had their own ideas for what to do with the character, the X-Men movies and Magneto’s prominent place in them would surely have convinced Marvel to bring him back then. Don’t mean I think it’s right, but I accept that that’s the way it is.

And funnily enough: now Marvel’s given Claremont his own book, X-Men Forever, which continues the story exactly from the end of this issue, letting Claremont explore what he might have done with the characters had he not gotten shitcanned from the books. I wonder how long it’ll take before Claremont brings Magneto back himself in that book?

(This post’s title sort of brought to you by the great and powerful Paul Westerberg and his Replacements, who this weekend released a CD’s worth of material for 49 American pennies.)

As usual, New Comics Day doesn’t bring too cumbersome a bag o’ funnybooks my way, but I do like to glance at all the covers, just to see if they still make ‘em like they used to.

(C)2008 DC Comics

Sometimes they do.

(c) DC 2008

Somtimes they do, but don’t do it until 3 weeks later. (I’m sorry, if I wasn’t buying Batman already, the Alex Ross version of this cover wouldn’t have gotten my attention at all.)

Sometimes they really do, but only for an extra seven bucks, and only if your store got the comic.

Sometimes, they really, really do, and for a good cause. Do what I’m doing this week–ordering half the usual meatball sub and putting those leftover calorie-dollars to better  use.

From TulsaWorld.com:

OKLAHOMA CITY — Some Oklahoma County voters can expect to receive comic books in the mail soon, but the subject matter will have a serious tone.

The 16-page publication prepared by Commissioner Brent Rinehart’s re-election campaign lampoons gays and criticizes Rinehart’s political opponents. It also features an angel who supports the embattled commissioner and Satan, who supports his critics. Toga-wearing gays, political figures, trench coat-clad henchmen, concerned residents and Rinehart make up the rest of the comic’s characters.

I really hope some 10 year old plucks this beauty out of the mailbox, asks his “liberal, good ol’ boy” (cannot get enough of that phrase!) dad what “anal sodomy” is, and gets this taxpayer-fleecing goon arrested for peddling “filth” to minors, just like poor Gordon Lee (well, except for the fact that Lee didn’t do anything wrong).  And this time, let’s hope the CBLDF is a little too busy to help out.

Today’s 10 was supposed to be the Top 10 S… oh, to hell with it; it was going to be lame, we caught it early^[1] and excised it, and I won’t bore you anymore with the Untold Tale.

We brainstormed anew. Actually, it was really just me throwing out even more tired ideas and Allen logically and methodically shooting them down. Finally, after dozens of minutes, I blurted, “What about 10 Webcomics? We can’t just read and write about Big 2 stuff forever.”

Allen, obviously bereft of any better ideas and tiring of the struggle, agreed (or at least didn’t shoot it down). He didn’t bother asking if I had read or even knew of 10 different webcomics. (The answer to those questions: Nope and nope^[2].) But I liked the idea of trying new things, and the more I thought about this post, the more of a purist bent I developed. I would leave the discovery of these selected ten in the hands of fate. Fate, and search engines.

My first Googling (“webcomics”) produced thewebcomicslist.com, but that would’ve been way too easy, plus I wanted my selections to be totally random, and not pulled from a list of titles conveniently grouped together by genre. Back to the drawing board. Via random word generator, I tacked on a single extra word to the “webcomics+” search string (if you’re curious, I’m listing those words as well). Ten searches later, it’s Webcomics… and adventure!

These are presented in chonological order only. They do represent the first ten titles I was able to click through to from my search results. They do not represent webcomics that I necessarily enjoyed. Adventure!

1. Insisting: Good-Evil.net’s Funny Webcomic.

The site itself (enormously staffed and videogame-centric) was more interesting than this Photoshoppy cut and paste job they irregularly feature. Its afterthought nature isn’t what I imagine when I think “webcomic”.

2. Excess:The Smashing Adventures of the Bottomleys , by whoever Lowroad 75 is. On the other hand, this is what I imagine. Once you get used to the scrolling and the navigation, you can focus on the comic, which isn’t bad at all from what I read. A gently funny and slickly drawn tale of an absent-minded genius scientist and his family. There’s a multiverse in this one, so my Final Crisis digging ass has to appreciate it a little.

3. Little: Little Dee, by Chris Baldwin. Cute talking animals and not unfunny. Very newspaper comic-y and a well organized site, to boot.

4. Exhaustive: Roswell, Texas from Big Head Press, L. Neil Smith and Scott Bieser. Not cartoonish at all, and easily the closest to an actual comic book presented on the web I’ve seen so far, and the page viewing is really ideal here. Again with the alternate universes, wheee!! So far the only one I’d read in printed form.

5. Resolved: Forest Dew, by Florentina Heldrad. Hard to believe it took me this long to come across some manga. Pretty and spacious, by an obviously talented 19 year old girl.

6. Potentially: Sexy Losers (Extremely NSFW!!), Okay, got the manga, now where’s the porn? Oh it’s here, in spades. NSFW, and of course it is, I was pointed to it by a site called LOPOW-List of Potentially Offensive Webcomics. I didn’t find it offensive, but other than the Cuckolded Husband series, I didn’t find it entertaining either.

7. Rarely: Questionable Content, by Jeph Jacques. This one took awhile to find, as the early search results pointed mostly to review sites without working links. Probably worth it, as QC’s been around for awhile, it appears. Professional and smartly funny, in a “better sitcom” kind of way. With talking iPods and computers. I may actually go back and read all of these.

8. Quick: Quick Stabbing Motion by Brandon Southgate and Keegan Mullin. I’m no snob, but… eh. Juvenile, trying waaaay too hard to be anti-social, and the kind of stuff that’d get them on an FBI watch list if they weren’t Canadians.

9. Syndicate: Player Vs. Player- I know. It’s popular. Doesn’t mean I’ve ever read it. But I might start reading it more now that I’ve seen this (scroll about halfway down–under “Cre-Haters”). Scott Kurtz really takes his work seriously.

10. Simulating: Irregular Webcomic – I’m sort of a sucker for any use of action figures, Fisher-Price toys, whatever, in storyboard form. This was a hoot. I’ll be back to this one.

(C)2008 David Morgan Mar

So there, internet. Our first post without a single mention of Batman, Superman, Wolverine, or capes. This has been Webcomics…and Adventure!

[1]But not early enough–we pounded away at it for almost an hour, so there’s probably no way you won’t see it sooner or later. We hold out much hope for “later”.

[2]I do in fact read four regularly: R. Stevens’ DieselSweeties; Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo; Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s Freakangels as mentioned a few times here; and The Rack by Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie. All are recommended.

Presenting the Greatest T-Shirt In The Habitated World:

From R. Stevens, mastermind/provacateur at Diesel Sweeties. (Note that the link doesn’t take you directly to the shirts. That’s the plan–don’t go straight to the shirts, read the comics, which are mighty fine.)

Getting this in the mail today drained nearly all the heat from the burning glare I’ve sported since I was told, “We sold out of Astonishing X-Men #25 in 20 minutes.”

UPDATE! Totally forgot he threw this in for free, in convenient sticker form: