Congrats to ADDTF for one solid year of reading comics naked.

Also, welcome back ADD and In Sequence.

Did I miss anyone?

 
Hoax Factor

it's funny how long it took for the new New X-Men writer story to "break", and where and when many people considered this "scoop" to occur. On numerous message boards and blogs, including Barbelith, it had been assumed for weeks that Joss Whedon would become Grant Morrison's replacement. When the story finally saw the light of day much, much later, it was considered legitimate despite the fact that there wasn't any more hard evidence then what had already been presented on the apparently less-reputable message board and blogging communities.

Before the big reveal, at the aforementioned link, former New X-Men artist Ethan Van Sciver revealed that the entire Whedon rumour was a hoax hat he had begun. Whether this was simply a disinformation tactic or dumb luck, I don't know. Ethan then took the hoax to another level, dropping hints to various message boards that while Whedon would be plotting the title, David Mamet was set to script. Within hours, this item was presented as actual news by X-Fan, who later edited their initial post.
posted by Steven at 10:21 AM

 
New New

"FUCK YOU, that's my name! You know why? Cause you flapped here on stupid-looking chicken wings to get here today and I fucking levitated myself. THAT'S my name. You see this jar with a brain in it? This brain in a jar cost more than your whole body. My star/head was worth $970,000,000 dollars last year on the black market - how much were you worth? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy? I dont give a shit. Good father? Fuck you. Go out to the shed and play with your weird buglike offspring. You wanna stay here-- get a real power."
-David Mamet on New X-Men. Pure speculation by The Colour Out Of Dizfactor.

Back in the day, Rich johnston of Lying in the Gutters hinted that he knew what was admittedly the Worst Kept Secret In Comics.

My interest began when I ran across this thread on the Lying In The Gutters message board. Speculation was running rampant, with the hint that Rich's exclamation of "Gah!" signifying the reinvention of Dave Sim, who would be ending his 300-issue epic Cerebus just in time, as the new scribe for the New X-Men. Man, did I dig this day.

Another potential canidate, guessed at in the same thread, sent me into a frenzy not seen since someone joked that Jack Kirby had drawn an unpublished David Bowie project. Even more unlikely, even more impossible, the name of Danielle Steel sent waves of excitement crashing down on me. The only way this could get any better was if the original V.C. Andrews was still alive to take the job.

I want you to sit there and really, really think about what a glorious superhero comic this would have been.
posted by Steven at 1:13 AM

 
Happy Birthday, J!

I'm off to Montreal for the weekend to catch the Stomp All-Stars in action at Le Swimming with the sweetest of girls dancing by my side. The posts will be infrequent to non-existent until Monday, which is too bad seeing as I had a good run going there. If anyone from the area makes it to the dancefloor, I'll be the guy kicking it Peter Parker-style with my blue suit and regular boy haircut. In the meantime...

Free Comic Thursday - These Changing Times



Every Thursday, beginning today, I will be posting a link to a full comic story. Today's selection is, of course, an Archie comic.

It occured to me that people reading my Archie reviews may come to the conclusion that I enjoy them only for their kitsch value and I review them only to mock them. This isn't actually entirely true. Granted, there is a lot of hokum in Archie comics, but no more then the average genre comic from past or present eras. My primary reason for talking about Archie comics is to dispell the notion that they're tied so closely to a formula that they're boring and predictable. If my reviews have shown anything, it's that some really bizarre stories have come from the Archie titles over the years.

One aspect of Archie comics that to my shame I haven't touched on is that they really are great works of craftmanship, if not art. As someone studying the graphic arts in anticipation of a future profession, I can admire the thought that goes into composition and clear acting in even the dullest of Archie stories. The techniques the best Archie artists use don't affect the viewer consciously, but are nearly invisible and add to the story without notice, and are therefore disregarded out of turn by those not looking for them.

"And one of the things that I noticed about the strip, for instance, I know certain things about the strips that run now. They all run four columns, and I would have thought, ordinarily, that if you simplified your drawing - that is, did larger shapes - that somehow or other, when it's reduced, it would be clearer. But it doesn't work out that way. The way it works out best, for clarity, is when people like Roy Crane or Hank Schlensker or Dick Moores, when they draw, they draw very small figures with lots of air around them. They do whole scenes, with deep-space perspectives and so on. And you never get a feeling of being crowded or congested. I would have thought that it would have worked out the other way, that larger shapes would have made the reading and the looking at the strips easier."
-Gil Kane interviewing Noel Sickles, The Comics Journal #242

My favourite Archie artist is Harry Lucey, responsible for today's selection. It may come as a shock that I don't rank Dan Decarlo in this position, considering his reknown as the greatest of the Archie bullpen, but not only do I prefer Lucey, but I also favour Bob Montana and Samm Scwartz over Decarlo. The posing in this story is fantastic, Lucey's hand gestures especially. He uses alot of great negative space and sense of depth, and, like Noel Sickles, he isn't afraid to make the figures really small because they already read so well, similar to what Gil Kane is getting at in the quote above. Also, that big, thick line his inker uses to give the cast a slick, chunky look makes him my favourite of the bunch.

The classic artists on Archie comics were among the best at their craft, yet almost no information can be found on the internet about them. Despite my best efforts, all I could find on Harry Lucey was his birthdate, where he attended school and a few scattered tidbits of information. These artists should be remembered. If anyone has any information on any of the Archie artists that they would like to pass along, please do. I'll do my best to honour their work in future entries.

Fun Archie Fact #5 - Rumour has it that the character of Betty was named after Harry Lucey's girlfriend of the time. Speaking of girlfriends.... Happy Birthday! You know that Pepper can't hold a candle to you, baby. Thanks for reintroducing me to the wonders of Archie comics. Mwah!

Addendum

s - Boobronica.
j - Heehee. Boobronica. "That song, its so groovy, its totally Boobronica".
s - "He cradled her in his burly arms, planting rough factory worker kisses on her dainty forehead, soothing her with the sweet words she craved. "Baby, you're hot like a Harry Lucey Veronica. Boobronica, even."
j - BWAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! Oh dear, is this gonna be like "Take the Dare"?
posted by Steven at 12:10 AM

 
Mug's Game

This is in response to All Too Flat's post concerning the state of interviews pertaining to comics. He has also already addressed many of the responses to his piece. For the record, I have very little idea who Tim Russert is, or any of the other American interviewers referred to by the other respondents, so I'm coming from a place of partial ignorance. Consider yourself warned.

Taking the worst interview tactics of an industry and comparing them to the best of another gets us nowhere. While I agree that even more examples of a higher level of comics interviews and journalism would be a pleasant thing to witness, I believe that we have such things already, at least at a level that is comparable to other fields of entertainment and business. Collins assertion that the Comics Journal interviews, while of excellent quality, is compromised by a supposed bias on the part of its parent company is negligible. Why should the misguided perception of a few determine whether an interview or piece of journalism is valid or not? To take Collins' example of Tim Russert, do other inferior programs on MSNBC affect the quality of Meet The Press? If Russert was on the same program, but moved to another less-reputable network, would it matter? And what about the potential bias said networks may have due to their controlling corporations which may affect what topics are or are not covered? For many people, any of these points may justify tarnishing Tim Russert's interviews, while the others might may give it the same amount of thought and see little or no reason to let this bother them.

While I understand that Collins' wasn't necessarily saying that he himself felt this way towards the Journal and rather seemed to be advocating a news organ without bias, I doubt we will ever see such a creature in our lifetime. My bookshelf is filled with Comics Journal back issues. I'd say at least 2/3rds of them do not have a Fantagraphics artist as an interviewee. I've made my decision as to how much, if any, of Fantagraphics' bias may show through into the Comics Journal and I'm a better informed comic reader because of that decision.

Collins admits that the chief criticism against his piece, that there are far too many variables against his very specific idea of interviewer coming into being, is a vaild complaint and one he points out in both his posts. Not that it's impossible, just that the solution isn't a straightforward one, and that it will only come about when and if other faults in the comic industry are hammered out. I agree completely, as does most everyone involved.

However, as others have written, comparing interviews within the comic industry to ones conducted in the political sphere isn't something that's necessarily valid. I understand and appreciate that what Collins is asking for is a better kind of interview, but to ask comics to provide a standard similar to politics when other forms of entertainment almost never aspire to this level themselves is asking too much.

During Collins' posts and the responses he's received, the line gets blurred between political, entertainment and business interviews, all of which are completely different beasts. From what little I've seen in other fields of entertainment, it's not often that a business interview with a CEO or similar management head deals in anything more than fluff. When the hard questions are asked, more often then not a press release, prepared statement or PR flak does the dirty work, not dissimilar to the majority of comics interviews. Case in point, the recent trouble at Disney. I've been following it pretty closely, and with the exception of an open letter to the stockholders, Eisner just hasn't let it get near him at all. He's been dealing with this internally, soothing the shareholders and management without having to take it public any more then it already is. The damage outside the studio from this conflict hasn't prevented Eisner from raking in the dough, to which Disney studios is beholden, so there is no point in saying anything beyond "no comment" or giving a pat answer.

Collins uses an imagined interview with New Line studios on its gamble with the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a good example of a higher level of interview, but fails to link to just such an example, specifically one conducted before the success of the movies and where the studio heads, as opposed to PR flaks, give straightforward answers to hard-hitting questions. In fact, any good examples of tough, non-televised, non-political interviewers would be helpful. Or is the possibility of knocking the interviewee for a loop only attainable live and on camera, where escape can be more damning then facing the music?

That's where journalism, as opposed to interviews, comes into play, a line which Collins and others have also blurred. A businessperson can refuse to comment, evade the questions or end an interview without fear because, unlike a politician, they don't have to run the risk of incriminating themselves in public. If they don't slip up and reveal a hidden agenda, or don't address the public at all, the journalist can always take the choice out of the hands of the subject being investigated and piece the story together from somewhere other then the source.

Dealing directly with the press is not madatory on the part of entertainment or business. Comic companies of forty years ago ran their businesses quite successfully without the need for speaking in public. The need for a company to directly address peoples' concerns only goes so far as their legal responsibilities, and even then not usually in public, and not until someone else has made a fuss about it which may affect sales. Discussions about the survival of the medium, expansion of the Direct Market, exploration of other genres or many other similar topics that are a concern for the discerning comic reader aren't necessarily for comic companies, even if we believe they should be.
posted by Steven at 2:31 PM

 
Hint, Hint



For me, the biggest publishing news of 2003 was the impending release of The Complete Peanuts. Peanuts is by far my favourite comic work, and I've managed to accumulate nearly a hundred Schulz books, earning me the nicknames "Peanuts Guy" and "Old Man Wintle." Many of those volumes will be donated to the local hospital upon my purchasing The Complete Peanuts over the next 13 years.

There's been a new development in Schulz reprints, one that is the best news to come out of 2004 so far. The Charles Schulz Museum is publishing Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings, containing all 132 weekly panel cartoons from Schulz' Peanuts-prototype, Lil' Folks, including annotations by Schulz historian Derrick Bangs.

But wait, there's more. From a lengthier press release.

"The 300-page book also includes the two Just Keep Laughing cartoon panels that Schulz produced for the Catholic comic book Topix; the two Sparky's Li'l Folks panels that ran in the Minneapolis Tribune (and anticipated his series in the St. Paul Pioneer Press); and examples of single-panel cartoons that were published in The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s."

"One of the treasures in the Museum's archives is a fragile scrapbook that contains more than two years' worth of Li'l Folks cartoons clipped from the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Assembled by a young Charles Schulz more than 50 years ago, each page contains a cartoon panel neatly affixed with strips of clear tape. Prior to the publication of Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings, this scrapbook was the most complete collection of Schulz's first major body of work."

"Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings will be available through the Museum's Store and Web site (www.SchulzMuseum.org). For further information, call (707) 579-4452."

Maybe I've just missed it, but I've seen very little talk about this. Thank heaven for Progressive Ruin for bringing it to my attention.

If anyone is having trouble thinking of a decent birthday gift for me, look no further.

Addendum

This is funny. I wrote this entry up earlier Monday and planned on posting it early Tuesday. In the meantime, I condensed what I had written and posted it on Barbelith, thinking no one would pick up on it. So, someone at the TCJ message board found my Barbelith post and started a thread on the topic, which spread elsewhere, thereby making it seem as if I ripped this other guy, who is actually me, off. Smooth.
posted by Steven at 12:05 AM

 
Slowest Gazelle in the Herd

A lot happened in the "comics blogosphere" while I had my head up Popeye's ass. Here's a quick rundown of links you've already seen.

I like to think that even the most hardcore art-comix reader has a tiny piece of their heart reserved for those minor superhero characters that were never given the chance to truly shine, but given the chance (ie. given to the fan for a full revamp) could be used to their true potential. I probably believe this to help me justify my own freakish fantasies. Regardless, on my top ten list you would find the Golden Age Red Tornado, aka Ma Hunkel. I first saw her in reprints in the Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Comics, an absolutely fantastic book that anyone reading this should seek out. Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog (via Journalista) reminded me of my adoration for Ma Hunkel in its appreciation of the character from first appearance to the present. For plenty more on the premiere female/crossdressing comic book superhero, check out this Red Tornado page.

Mark Evanier (him again?!?) has the scoop on the Official Pogo website, which he had a hand in designing. If you aren't familiar with Pogo, well, anything I have to say to that would be too insulting to post.

I've always felt a kinship with In Sequence and I could never figure out why. It could be our mutual admiration for animated cartoons, but I think it may be because the both of us typically do not get involved in any of the larger multi-blog arguments, discussions or flamewars. When Teresa does, as with these thoughts on the monthly pamphlet, it's made with a certain sense of well-considered detachment. Short but sweet.

Lastly, the Beat presents it's usual entertaining batch of comic tidbits, with the added bonus of a photo of Egon's Billy K. Scroll down. This has been a presentation of The Comics Blogosphere Hunk-Of-The-Month.
posted by Steven at 2:36 AM

 
I Gums It Up Some And Let's Me Insides Do The Rest



It wouldn't be much of a theme week if I didn't manage seven successive days worth of Popeye material, would it? Here's all the odds and ends that didn't quite make it.

At least a few fellow bloggers toasted the sailor man's anniversary. Mark Evanier offers up some thoughts on Popeye's perfect casting for the cartoons among other things. Four Color Hell rambles on about Popeye and Olive's dysfunctional relationship. Progressive Ruin and Fumetti chime in with their own posts. Sorry if I missed anyone.

I didn't really talk much about the cartoons, mainly because that knowledge is particularly well-known and accessible. If you'd like to know more, Animation World Network has a concise history, while Pastor Steve's Popeye Page has a huge amount of obsessively catalogued essays on Popeye's various animated adventures. The Big Cartoon Database has complete filmographies with synopses and production notes for the Fleischer and Famous Popeye cartoons. Animation historian Jerry Beck celebrates Popeye's 75th, and if you scroll down you can read a Daily Variety article on King Feature's future plans for the character. Mr. Beck also has a secret page with the never-produced, never-before-revealed redesign by UPA. Hehe.

My favourite Fleischer Popeye anecdote can be found in Leonard Maltin's Of Mice And Magic. Mae Questal, the voice for Olive Oyl, says "Believe it or not, during the war when Jack Mercer was overseas, we tried to get a guy to do Poepeye. We got somebody, but he suffered from mike fright, and I did about six or seven cartoons as Popeye. I can still do the voice."

A few years back I had recurring nightmares in which I lost all my teeth. Normally I don't have nightmares, and when I do they usually don't bother me. They kept returning, and it was starting to affect me while I was awake, as I obsessively checked and cleaned my teeth. I received Volume Six of Fantagraphics Complete Popeye series, and read the scene where Popeye is sent to the Horshpittle after having been shot full of twenty bullets. There, the nurse tries to give him soup, and he demands beef, despite not having teeth to chew it with. Hell, he could even eat nuts. My nightmares stopped immediately. If it was good enough for Popeye...

I quite enjoyed writing a theme week. Expect to see this happen again in the future.
posted by Steven at 2:14 PM