My Self, My Complex

Go to: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton

I'm not covered

Go to: Gabby's Playhouse by Gabby Schulz and Ken Dahl

In the Shadow of No Towers

In the Shadow of No Towers was always going to be a somewhat disappointing comic book. For many Americans, 9-11 was an event that defied comprehension. And for those reasons, Art Spiegelman was percieved by some as the go-to guy to write about it, due to his reputation as the creator of Maus. He's even a native New Yorker who was around during the attacks. So when "No Towers" proved to be a far less notable achievement than Maus, it only added fuel to critics who already believed that Spiegelman was a one-trick pony who had no compelling narratives to tell, beyond recounting his father's suffering during the Holocaust. In contrast, Spiegelman's own experiences during 2001 were never going to be as overpowering.

The format probably didn't help either. "No Towers" is a series of ten Sunday-style comic strips, designed to fit a broadsheet. They were initially published from 2002-2003 in the German newspaper Die Zeit, then collected into a hardcover in 2004. The presentation in itself is an object worthy of attention. The cover design is beautifully minimal. Each page is printed on thick, glossy, cardboard stock. Spiegelman's strips only comprise half the book. The rest is devoted to supplementary material, including reprints of the cartoons Spiegelman mined for reference and inspiration. At the time, I thought everything about the book felt padded in order to justify the printing of such a slim series.

And looking at the content of the strips themselves, there's not a lot going on. The first three deal directly with the events of 9-11 from Spiegelman's perspective. The remaining material chronicles his descent into paranoia and depression. To anyone looking for greater insight into the events that day, Spiegelman has none. He develops a Cassandra Complex early on, but doesn't present any research to back up his opinions. His complaints becoming increasingly shrill over time. He often resorts to visual and verbal cliches (“waiting for the other shoe to drop”, “sticking your head in the sand”, children wearing gas masks) to get his point across. This gets tiresome after awhile. Spiegelman becomes enamored with the imagery of the glowing steel skeleton of the World Trade Center as it collapses. It forms the backdrop for all his strips. But whatever poetry he finds in it doesn't translate onto the printed page. Why is that? Is it due to Spiegelman's own limitations as an artist? The whole thing ends up looking like a giant, glowing, neon sign.

But the truly distinctive part of "No Towers" is Spiegelman's use of cartoon imagery. I've already mentioned his implementation of the broadsheet format, which he divides into roughly three separate tiers, each reinforcing one another. In addition to autobiographical bits, Spiegelman often repurposes classic comic strips. For example: the Katzenjammer Kids are drawn as the burning twin towers of the WTC. They run around helplessly until "Uncle Screwloose" intercedes by poring a drum of oil on them. Or Spiegelman visualizes himself as Little Nemo falling out of bed, after dreaming of John Ashcroft shoving him out the window. It's far from subtle, and often not very funny. Certainly not funny enough to counter the gloomy atmosphere pervading the book. Spiegelman makes the remarkable claim "The only cultural artifacts that could get past my defenses to flood my eyes and brain with something other than images of burning towers were old comic strips; vital, unpretentious ephemera from the optimistic dawn of the 20th century... they were just right for an end-of-the-world moment." Putting aside my own doubts (or personal ignorance) about the spiritual power of these strips, I don't feel that Spiegelman effectively makes the case for them. I suppose an argument can be made for their broad humor about the foibles of Americans, and its relevance to understanding the behavior of Americans during 9-11. But Spiegelman's use of them is too heavy handed, and he doesn't demonstrate that he possesses the necessary chops to capture the stylings of these strips.

In the end, "No Towers" lacks the universal appeal of Maus. Rather than trying to express something about the human condition, Spiegelman is content to let loose his own anger and pessimism about the post 9-11 political landscape. The comic is strongly tied to a very specific context. And for those who do not share the assumptions that Spiegelman makes, they will have a harder time getting through this book.

Having said that, I have become more appreciative of the urgency of the comic's message after all these years. Re-reading it for this review helped me recall that as a foreign resident at the time, I was developing a milder form of paranoia, and feelings of helplessness, from listening to all the post 9-11 rhetoric. I kept my head down, became sensitive to anything vaguely xenophobic hurled in my general direction, hoped that Ashcroft would never notice me, and secretly cringed at all the speeches calculated to make everyone conform to some collective filled with sorrow and unreflective resolve. The superhero comics of the day only served to deepen my disconnect:

Even the supervillains must join in the collective breast beating.
From Amazing Spider-Man #36, written by J. Michael Straczynski.
Art by John Romita Jr. and Scott Hanna

So yeah, I've become far less disgruntled over the slightness of "No Towers", more forgiving of its obvious self-indulgence, and far more sympathetic to the sentiments that buttress it, including the impertinence needed to express them to the largely hostile audience of the period.

More NonSense: Relaunch Edition

 So the DC relaunch took place this week. Some predictions/reactions:

Tom Spurgeon, Steve Sunu, Greg McElhatton, Johanna Draper Carlson, MGK, Mike Sterling, KC Carlson, Alan David Doane, J. Caleb Mozzocco, Matt Seneca, Bart Beaty, Christopher Allen

And there's mine, of course.

Dan Didio and Jim Lee on the relaunch.

Ty Templeton on Superman's red pants. I thought they were shorts.

Dave Uzumeri tries to answer some questions of the new DC universe. It's already this confusing?

Chris Sims on the JLA lineups through the years.

Rob Salkowitz on comic's digital dilemma.

Jim Smith on why reboots don't work.

Johanna Draper Carlson has 12 Horrible Superhero Comic Stories for Women.

Rachel Edidin on the problem of women in tthe comics industry.

Michael Fiffe on superheroes and the mainstream/alt comics divide.

Charlie Jane Anders on the success of the Iron Man film vs.the failure of Green Lantern.

Sean T. Collins on feminism in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice.

Rob Clough lists his top 50 books of 2010.

Ryan Holmberg on the effect the tsunami and earthquake have had on the manga industry.

Caleb Goellner reports that Naruto will have simultaneous print and digital releases.

Nadim Damluji: Survey of Contemporary Arab Comics

Blog: One Thousand Ferzats

Disturbance

Go to: Vice Comics by Jonny Negron

Peace

Go to: The Art of Peace by Susie Cagle at Cartoon Movement

Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1

Flashpoint #5
by Geoff Johns, Andy Khubert, Sandra Hope, Jesse Delperdang, Alex Sinclair, Nick J. Napolitano, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Rob Reis

Justice League #1
by Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair, Patrick Brosseau, David Finch, Richard Friend, Peter Steigerwald

Well, that sucked...

Every time DC gets around to revamping their shared universe, the outcome only underlies the limitations of this course of action. The company tears its universe apart, sifts through the rubble for anything useful, ends up using most of it to rebuild, then stands back and acts surprised when the structure starts to crack under its own weight. As a story, Flashpoint bears the imprint of those past initiatives. There are plenty of nods to Crisis on Infinite Earths. But Flashpoint is easily their worst effort, and a sign that pushing the reset button one too many times only results in diminishing returns.

This enormous undertaking was accomplished by torturing Barry Allen a.k.a. the Flash. This is the guy who died saving the multiverse in 1985, stayed dead for so long that readers were beginning to think it would be permanent, only to come back to life and make life a living hell for everyone else. That's the big reveal of issue 5 - it's all Barry's fault.

throughout Flashpoint, Barry is presented a nightmare vision of a DC Universe that's out of control. It's portrayed in the most gratuitous, joyless, and morbid way imaginable. Everyone dies or becomes a broken shell of themselves: Hal Jordan never becomes Green Lantern and dies, Superman was never raised by the Kents, Bruce Wayne never becomes Batman because he dies in the alley where his parents were supposed to be murdered, Wonder Woman and Aquaman become genocidal world conquerors. And that's just scratching the surface.

Diane Nelson wants her new universe NOW!

All of this is laid at the feet of Barry because he was trying to stop a time-altering murder perpetuated by his greatest foe, Eobard Thawne a.k.a.the Reverse Flash. It's a ludicrous burden to accept. And what's frustrating is that Flashpoint never delivers a believable argument for why Barry should be culpable, or more culpable than Thawne. And even if I were to buy into the idea that Barry is to blame, it offers no good reason for why he couldn't eventually come up with a solution that produces the best possible outcome and returns things to what they were. The only explanation to be found is on the metafictional level - the much hyped DC 52 relaunch. But it's demoralizing that this newly revised superhero universe is being built on the impotence and cynicism found in Flashpoint. I call bullshit on it.

Arriving on the heels of the final issue of Flashpoint is the first issue of Justice League. They meet again, for the first time! Yes it's as by-the-numbers as it sounds. The now familiar cover portrays the team's core members, but the story within only introduces about half the lineup. Most of the issue is devoted to Batman and Green Lantern arguing about their respective crime-fighting methods. Is that just convenient to the story, or is DC pushing them as some kind of heroic team-up? It does quickly establish characterization: Hal is still brash and Bruce is still a jerk. They spend the first half of the issue chasing a super-powered mook. When it reveals that it's working for Darkseid, it just gets used as a setup for a lame joke. Way to inspire a sense of dread in your readers!

As for the character designs of Jim Lee, I can't really say I care for them. They're mostly tweaks to their more traditional looks, filled with a lot of extraneous lines. I'm not the first to think that those neck collars look ridiculous, especially on Superman. But there's also something oddly clumsy about how they're rendered. The way that Lee gives everyone pseudo-shoulder pads and chest plates make his characters look less like people and more like reticulated action figures, or puffed-up gridiron players. And then, there are the sketches at the back of the book which show how truly bad it could have been.

This is why Batman hates reboots

This issue is basically your standard meet n' greet, and on its own terms it's not terrible. But Justice League #1 is the first comic of DC's relaunch. And as an introduction to the new status quo, it doesn't exactly impress either. There isn't anything here that would sway someone still on the fence. Wasn't the whole point of the relaunch to bring in new readers and find a new approach? Or am I misreading the intent? What I find in these pages is not significantly different from what DC has been publishing just before the relaunch, except it's now conveniently reset so that newbies don't have to worry about catching up to the story. But then again, look at who wrote it. And it's this sense that nothing has changed that makes for an underwhelming experience.

A warning from the future

Go to: This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow at the Daily Kos

Peculia Artwork

Go to: Here Lies Richard Sala (via Tom Spurgeon)

Green

Go to: Lucky by Gabrielle  Bell

More Nonsense: Violence Against Creators (and Characters)

Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat was abducted on Thursday by by a group of masked gunmen believed to be working for President Bashar al-Assad. He was beaten, his hands were broken, and then he was abandoned on the side of a road, his attackers saying that this was "just a warning." Ferzat is a critic of the present regime. His latest cartoon compares al-Assad to his Libyan counterpart, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Tom Spurgeon has link roundup. He has his doubts over the authenticity of a self-portrait making the rounds on the Web. Given the severity of Ferzat's injuries, it would have been an impressive act of defiance. Needless to say, the countries that have come out in support of the "Arab Spring", and actively lent support to the rebellion that ousted Gaddafi, have condemned the attack.

Noah Berlatsky interviews Shaenon Garrity, Lillian Diaz-Przybyl, and J.R. Brown about the effect of the Borders liquidation on the manga industry.

Timothy Callahan has read the entirety of Cerebus.

Ah, Grant Morrrison. He plans to bring the sex back to Wonder Woman. I can certainly get behind that if he manages to execute it well. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, he criticizes everything from sexism in superhero comics, rape as an occurring phenomenon in Alan Moore stories, to Chris Ware's supposed "nihilism." While many praised Morrison's candidness, David Brothers isn't having any of it. He points out that Morrrison should look at his own work first, especially when making claims like "I managed to do thirty years in comics without any rape!". And he calls him out on his unwillingness to speak on behalf of creators' rights:

You know what Frank Miller did when he got a platform? He repped, and he repped hard. For Jack Kirby, for Bill Finger, for Steve Ditko, and for other creators who deserved to get their art back or to own their creations. For those who got screwed in the name of profit and cheap labor. Sin City letters pages are littered with shots fired at Marvel over how they treated Jack Kirby. The Big Fat Kill (#5, I think) was where I found out that Marvel screwed Kirby. He built a platform and then he used it for good. Is he perfect? Nah. Bill Finger’s name isn’t on DKSA, though it might have been shouted at as a street name or something. But he tried. He got an acknowledgement to Finger and Jerry Robinson into DKR. He didn’t hide behind mealy-mouthed corporate speak to justify two guys getting screwed so that he could write Action Comics with a clean conscience. Two guys who jumpstarted the genre that he loves so much, at that.

Dan Nadel and J. Caleb Mozzocco also chime in.

Speaking of Kirby, Tom Spurgeon and Paul Gravett celebrate his 94th birthday.

(As my small way of showing support for the Marvel boycott, I've suspended reviewing any new Kirby-related material coming from the company, for now.)

Kevin Melrose asks "Is Flashpoint DC’s deadliest (and bloodiest) event yet?" citing a post by Chris Eckert, which puts the death toll conservatively at 833 million. But it isn't that number that impresses (Crisis on Infinite Earths and The Infinity Gauntlet were statistically far worse), it's the outright sadism towards the characters that accumulate over the course of the event. His list of deaths is quite an eye opener for the variety of ways the characters meet their gruesome ends. This parade of gore and violence is so ludicrous it becomes tedious self-parody.

The Big Two's reliance of universe-wide events to hold on to their shrinking readership is kind of like the movie industry's reliance of expensive tentpole movies to hold on to movie theater patrons. Following the storylines through several ongoing titles is prohibitive and costly, as is the weekend movie goer being made to regularly watch effects-laden mega-blockbusters in 3D. As with the movie studios, there's a general willingness to blame this decline on anything else, rather than admit to the possibility that the audience is shrinking because the final product they release usually sucks. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, co-publisher Dan Didio acknowledges the 52 relaunch is related to falling sales:

"The truth is people are leaving anyway, they’re just doing it quietly, and we have been papering it over with increased prices,” DiDio said. “We didn’t want to wake up one day and find we had a bunch of $20 books that 10,000 people are buying."

 Von Allan's tracks the rise of comic book prices with the minimum wage, and his conclusions don't bare any good news for DC outside of a temporary spike in sales.

Speaking of crossovers, Jess Evins traces their literary and mythological roots.

James Sturm tells us how hard it is to get a cartoon into the New Yorker.

Ah Jim Shooter. According to him, Marvel almost published DC in 1984.

Derik Badman makes a webcomic of the sky with his digital camera.

Johnny Ryan plays Chester Brown in Paying For It

I babble on about the Hooded Utilitarian best of comics poll.

Other News:

Astrophysicists have made the most realistic depiction yet of spiral galaxy formation. Supercomputers are fun!

Linux, Linux, Linux!

Steve Jobs gives and takes way.

Yang on The Promise

Go to:  Gene Luen Yang

The Monkey King is not teaming up with Aang.

Gene continues to boycott The Last Airbender for its preferential casting.

I just got the news

Wozniak and Jobs

This was a long time coming. Thanks Steve, and good luck.

Update: Richard Stevens pays tribute the Jobs. He also has been selling a shirt for would-be Mac hipsters.

Staring intently at the sky

Go to: xkcd by Randall Munroe

"... a new breed of journalist is emerging"

Go to: "An introduction to comics journalism, in the form of comics journalism" by Dan Archer, at Poynter (via The Ephemerist)

Chiropractic Pseudo-Science

Go to: Darryl Cunningham Investigates (via Brigid Alverson)

You're a damn dirty ape!

Go to: Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling

Saw it, but can't bother to write about it.

History of Superman Pt. 1

Go to: Comics, Everybody by Curt Franklin and Chris Haley, at Comics Alliance

Update: Pt 2.

Webcomic: Friends with Boys

Go to: Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks (via JK Parkin)

Video: Nemo

Pitch for Little Nemo in Slumberland produced by Studio Ghibli (via Laura Hudson)

Jason covers Daniel Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

Go to: Cats without Dogs by Jason (via Heidi McDonald)

JLA: A League of One

By Christopher Moeller, with Bill Oakley

I'm currently more broke than usual, hence the lack of reviews lately on the blog. So I'm forced to delve into my own archives and revisit some old reading material. I have to admit that I was first swayed by the packaging of JLA: A League of One to purchase it. The story itself could have been told within the pages of a regular comic book, but is distinguished by Christopher Moeller's painted artwork. The pages are printed on thicker glossy stock, bound as a hardcover, and wrapped in a dust jacket containing an illustration of a lone Wonder Woman confronting an enormous dragon. "How cool was that!" I probably thought at the time. But hey, my decade-old copy's still in great condition.

"A League of One" takes place during Grant Morrison's icon-centric run of the Justice League. Drakul Karfang, the last dragon on earth, has awoken from more than six centuries of hibernation. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman listens to a prophecy made by the Oracle of Delphi that foretells the fall of the JLA after battling Karfang. To prevent the fulfillment of the prophecy, WW incapacitates her teammates, assuming sole claim to the JLA title, then takes on the dragon alone. She stops the dragon and dies bravely, but is bought back to life anyway. Hallelujah!

parapraxis #1

This comic is often bandied about when fans discuss "best of" Wonder Woman stories. Is it as grand as Moeller's cover suggests? Hardly. Inserting WW into a fantasy setting sounds like a great idea in theory. But it falls kind of flat. The problem is that the fantasy tropes being trotted out can't hide the fact that "A League of One" is still a standard superhero adventure. The JLA and WW are a little too invincible to function like traditional fantasy characters. Superman's compared to a god. Batman's prickly genius is indomitable as typically portrayed in other DC books. The story reflects the publisher's policy of hammering the message that their propertied are icons. Moeller lays it out a little too thick when describing how WW's virtually free of self deceit, even as she goes about tricking the JLA. And that's problematic. Most fantasy stories of this type work when the outgunned heroes set out on a quest to uncover the enemy's fatal flaw. But DC's A-list superheroes simply smash the bad guys. For all intents and purposes that's what WW does after she's finished with the League. Boring!

An unfortunate side effect of using this icon-drenched JLA roster is that it only serves to emphasize how anachronistic it is. The original League was basically a boy's club with WW the sole exception. Now the reader is supposed to believe that WW would sacrifice her life for her comrades. And I suppose fans take that for granted. I dunno. As far as this book is concerned it feels like WW's just taking orders from the Martian Manhunter. There's an unspoken sexual tension between her and Superman, but it never goes anywhere. So where's the personal connection that could be used to justify WW's extreme behaviour? Ultimately the whole thing is just another episode of the ongoing adventures of the League, and another excuse to trot out the company's big guns without altering their respective continuities. Fine, but Moeller oversells WW's compassion when she goes out of her way to keep her super-powered colleagues safe. They're not innocent bystanders or part of WW's civilian supporting cast. They're her comrade-in-arms. No reason to deny them that opportunity to fight a monster. Why does she even bother?

parapraxis #2

As a threat, Karfang fizzles out. Moeller hard-sells the dragon as the embodiment of lies just as much as he does with WW as the paragon of truth, producing similarly unconvincing results. Karfang might appear frightening. But as Batman astutely points out "The JLA has taken on Darkseid and won." Is Moeller arguing that Karfang presents an even greater evil than Darkseid? In the end Karfang is just a "monster of the week" threat to WW, rendering the JLA's involvement superfluous. The story begins with the dragon being driven to ground by a Crusader army led by a knight on horseback armed with a lance. A lance folks. That's all it took. When she awakens from her slumber, all she does is conquer the adjacent town. Meanwhile, nearly half the book is spent on WW taking down the JLA. She could have easily told them "By the way, I need to go to Switzerland for a couple of hours and punch a dragon in the face. No need to come along. I got this." And it would be obvious to them that she's technically the most qualified to deal with the situation. But then DC wouldn't have the page count to justify a hardcover.

It's not all bad. "A League of One" is still an attractive work, and Moeller is a fair fantasy artist. The orange and brown palette may look a little dated, but he renders some beautiful scenes. The fantasy elements in general, not just Karfang, are well realized. Some of the superhero art even works. The violent confrontation between WW and Superman is both viscerally powerful, and in a few panels involving vultures amusing to read. Still, this isn't the comic that's going to convince everyone that superheroes look better when painted, as a lot of the time they appear less like living figures and more like mannequins or action figures. Finally, as much as I've grumbled about the gratuitousness of WW's defeat of the JLA, it's not a complete waste when she manages get the last word on Batman. Given how many times Supes and Bats get away with kicking JLA ass, this is a rare reversal. After all, it's not like those beatdowns weren't also contrived forms of fan service.

parapraxis #3

Hello Brandon

Go to: Royal Boiler by Brandon Graham

Quote: We Stopped Dreaming

We Stopped Dreaming

And so when someone says, "We don't have enough money for this space probe," I'm asking, no, it's not that you don't have enough money, it's that the distribution of money that you're spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.

You remember the 60s and 70s. You didn't have to go more than a week before there's an article in Life magazine, "The Home of Tomorrow," "The City of Tomorrow," "Transportation of Tomorrow". All of that ended in the 1970s. After we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended. We stopped dreaming.

And so I worry that the decision that Congress makes doesn't factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow's gone. They're playing for the quarterly report, they're playing for the next election cycle, and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation, and the rest of the world is going to pass us by.

- Neil deGrasse Tyson on recent NASA budjet cuts (via io9)

Good Grief! Don't go into the water

Go to: Snake Oil by Charles Forsman (via Caleb Goellner)

Didn't Snoopy pretend to be a shark in a couple of strips?

Nostalgia means never having to leave the sixties at Marvel

Go to: Your Nice New Outfit by Phil Noto (via Kevin Melrose)

No way would I want to hang out with them. These people are OLD!

I went to China

Go to: Sarah McIntyre’s China travel comic! at David Fickling Books Blog (via Brigid Alverson)

Fifty years ago, the Marvel Age began

...Under the shadow of Cold War thinking. That's what happens when beating the Commies takes precedence over pure science:

Go to: Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun! for more FF goodness.

Eh, screw this. Marvel hasn't bestowed on Jack Kirby the respect he deserves. This puts a damper on celebrations of the whole "Marvel Age" thing. Better yet, let's not forget the true heroes of the Space Race, like cosmic-powered Laika:

Go to: Nick Abadzis and Big Planet Comics (via Andy Khouri)

That's an explorer I can get behind.

Comic-Con Memories

Brian Ralph Went to San Diego Comic Convention 2011: Pt 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

I miss attending Comic-Con. It made me miserable in just the right way.

Don't mess with my beloved icon

Go to: Ty Templeton's Art Land!!

Internet Cyborgs

Go to: A Softer World by Emily Horne and Joey Comeau

Did you know the World Wide Web is twenty years old today?

Red and Blue

Go to: Let's Be Friends Again by Curt Franklin and Chris Haley

Photography: Japan-July by James Jean

Go to: James Jean blog

More NonSense Followup: The Miles Morales Backlash

In Ultimate Fallout #4, it was revealed that the new Spider-Man within the Ultimate universe is a half-black, half-Hispanic teenager named Miles Morales. This may not be the mainline version, but Spider-Man is nonetheless the most recognizable Marvel superhero to undergo such a major revision. Given how difficult it is to establish new characters/ideas within the traditional shared universe, this is a significant attempt to create a viable non-Caucasian superhero who already possesses the cachet of a core property.

Disappointingly, if not surprisingly, the move produced an eruption of fan backlash. Most accused Marvel of being unnecessarily "PC", or having a case of "killing of whitey". Dan Harmon characterized them as a "... previously unknown demographic of racist comic-book readers...” Rich Johnston noted some of the more negative commentary on the Web, including the infamous twitters of Larry Doherty, owner/manager of Larry’s Comics.

Kevin Melrose covers the impact of writer/actor Donald Glover's campaign to be cast as Spider-Man.

David Brothers expresses the most positive outlook on the news, seeing the creative possibilities of finally having a character not saddled with 50 years of Peter Parker's continuity:

I don’t necessarily think Marvel should be patted on the back, but this is a pretty cool move. No other major character–and the major characters these days are Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man, make no mistake–have been replaced by a non-white. In this case, the one, true Spider-Man, or Ultimate Spider-Man, or whatever, is a black guy. What’s more, this’ll pull the Ultimate universe away from pantomiming the past, which is what the last murderfest and reboot was supposed to do. You can’t do a retread of Venom with Miles Morales. They don’t have the history, and there are no expectations.

Heidi McDonald quotes the explanations of writer Brian Michael Bendis and editor-in-chief Alex Alonso, as well as the official Marvel PR on the relaunched Ultimate Spider-Man series.The comments section has the opinions of comics professionals like Kurt Busiek and Andrew Farago.

In another post, Heidi wonders if Marvel and DC are getting left behind by a changing market. She questions the old adage that non-white characters don't sell.

On the topic of minority representaions in superhero comics, J. Caleb Mozzocco points out the dubious portrayal of African-American charcters Cyborg and real-life president Barack Obama in DC's crossover event Flashpoint. Yeah, it's been a hell of a week for DC.

Just in case you forgot who created Captain America

Go to: Ty Templeton's Art Land!!

Bitter Sweet

Go to: Stop Paying Attention by Lucy Knisley

I've moved more times than I care to admit. Don't worry, it gets worse.