Morrison Beyond Supergods

October 23, 2011 by

The Invisibles‘ Sir Miles makes for a convincing Number 2.

Seems that half the pleasure of my recent reading has been the unplanned parallels between consecutive books, a side effect of getting most of them from the library, where I have limited control over the order in which they become available. This is currently manifesting in the shared theme of memory loss between the novel I’ve just finished, Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind, and the one I’m about to begin, Nicole Krauss’s Man Walks Into Room. Right before that it was the similar perspectives of Grant Morrison in Supergods and Simon Pegg in Nerd Do Well, each writing about the influence of primarily American popular culture on their own work and their entry in turn into the American cultural consciousness from the UK.

Thinking about both books and their different scopes—Morrison’s is focused, laser-like, on superhero comics, mainly American, and by the time he reaches the 2000s, mainly Marvel and DC, while Pegg’s broadly surveys “geek” culture generally—around the same time I finished watching the 1960s British TV show The Prisoner made me realize how odd Morrison’s emphasis on superhero books is.

True, superheroes have few, if any, more ardent or more articulate defenders than Morrison, so it’s no surprise that he would write a book seriously engaging the genre. However, the more I think about it, the stranger it seems that Morrison, arguably the superhero writer of his popularity level who most reaches outside of the superhero genre for inspiration, would write a book that so thoroughly wraps up his own autobiography with the history of superheroes. Finishing The Prisoner contributed to this sense, as I began to recognize references to it in so much of the other fiction I’ve enjoyed, including several places in Morrison’s work.

Among the many odd contortions that Supergods makes in order to present Morrison’s own history while limiting the fiction discussed almost exclusively to superhero comics is its inclusion of Morrison’s The Invisibles into the superhero tradition without addressing many of the other cultural influences that shaped it. Entire books have been written on the connections between The Invisibles and other works of fiction, but what’s fresh in my mind is The Prisoner, which can be seen throughout the series’ tone, themes, and even specific visuals.

Another place that visuals from The Prisoner are explicitly referenced is in Morrison’s wonderful Seaguy, where the first two minor characters we encounter are dressed as members of the Village.


Is Seaguy set in the Disney version of the Village?

Of course, the visual of playing chess with Death simultaneously recalls one of the most enduring images of age-old struggle between man and the universe/gods, famously the central motif of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Here, Death’s ineptitude at the game and his complaint that the rules seem so “arbitrary” tip us off that a reversal of the natural order is at play here. In the funhouse world Seaguy lives in, everything is artificial and the natural world is out of place. Death has no meaning or power in the realm of Mickey Eye (nor in comics or other corporately owned fictions, in which characters and ideas are never truly allowed to die). That he is dressed as an extra from The Prisoner places the locale in the tradition of the Village, but we quickly learn that its modern iteration is a mindless theme park rather than a quiet resort.

This panoply of diverse influences is common in Morrison’s writing, and I discovered recently that this diversity can be felt even when a reader doesn’t catch the specific references. For a long time I was perplexed by my enjoyment of Morrison’s run on the series of Batman titles he shepherded up until DC’s recent relaunch. After all, it seemed so insular, really only concerning Batman himself in its resurrection of old continuity, its efforts to reconcile the character’s entire publishing history, and yet another plot involving a new enemy using that history against Batman. On the surface, it’s exactly the kind of comics-about-comics that I usually have no patience for. And yet, I found myself continually thrilled by Morrison’s take.

I can’t say for certain that I’ve solved the mystery, but a big clue fell into my lap when I got the hardcover edition of Batman & Robin vol. 3: Batman & Robin Must Die!, which includes a section of notes on the genesis of many of the new villains introduced in Batman & Robin (for all the dot connecting Morrison has done with old stories, his Batman run was also deeply generous with character creation). The section references the behavioral science experiments of Drs. Harry Harlow and John B. Calhoun, the classical demons of the Goetia of the Lemegeton, and even the history of the banana peel pratfall. The point being that even where I didn’t recognize the specific references, they still introduced a different flavor than would have come from so many superhero comics that are primarily influenced by other superhero comics, which have an inbred, stale quality to them. Morrison’s promiscuous use of cultural and sociological touchstones bring a freshness to his work, even when the story itself concerns a possible ancestor of Bruce Wayne posing as Wayne’s father and using knowledge of his history against him.

So while it comes as no surprise that Morrison wrote a book about superheroes, this is more because the genre is currently his preferred subject, not that it is his sole influence. If Morrison’s been bitten by the nonfiction bug, here’s hoping his next book has more to do with comics’ interaction with other media and the world, coupled with a more thorough look at his outside interests. He’s a great defender of superheroes, but his own work can’t be understood solely through that lens.

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Simon Pegg writes about spinning childhood obsessions into nerd gold

October 17, 2011 by
Nerd Do Well: A Small Boy’s Journey to
Becoming a Big Kid
Gotham Books – hardcover, $27.50
By Simon Pegg

This was an interesting read immediately after Grant Morrison’s Supergods, as both examine largely American popular culture from a UK point of view and delve into its influence beyond American shores and on the authors specifically. Of course, whereas Morrison limits his discussion to superhero comic books, Pegg’s interest is in popular culture broadly, though with a focus on those types of films, television, books, and even comics (a little) that engender in a certain type of viewer/reader a desire to obsessively re-watch or endlessly discuss nuances with others of the faithful. In other words, the popular culture that appeals to nerds. The importance of these works to Pegg’s biography is hard to overstate, as his career as actor and writer from the television show Spaced to movies like Hot Fuzz and Paul is built on extended riffs on such material.

Nerd Do Well is, on one level, Pegg’s memoir of growing up and developing his comic voice, spanning his childhood and young adulthood, up through the filming and release of Shaun of the Dead, the film that brought him to semi-prominence to American audiences. However, with the exception of a few passages describing the formulation of early jokes and an acknowledgment of his creative debt to writing partners Jessica Hynes and Edgar Wright, Pegg delves very little into the process of writing or shooting the television and movies that he’s been involved in. Indeed, while the book is a work of autobiography, Pegg repeatedly expresses reservations about discussing his life, and outside of a few comic anecdotes, he plays the book’s biographical elements close to the vest.

That’s fine, as the real purpose and value of Nerd Do Well is as a book-length answer to the question, “What are your influences?” Where the story of Pegg’s early childhood is amusing but largely unremarkable and disjointed (another quality the book shares with Supergods is a tendency to reveal details out of order, following a narrative thread across a few years, moving onto a new topic, and then finally returning to where he left off a few chapters later), he brings enormous passion to the discovery and discussion of the films and television that formed his artistic sensibility.

Here Pegg is generous and eloquent, and the book comes to life when he describes the experience of seeing Star Wars for the first time. Having studied film in college, Pegg is fluent in critical theory and expounds at entertaining length on his theories as to the resonance of popular franchises with audiences. Star Wars, he speculates, came out at a moment when America was ready to guiltily reevaluate its position as global empire, and he notes similarities between the United States and the Galactic Empire, which peaks when the Empire is defeated in a jungle environment by a vastly outgunned militia of local inhabitants in Return of the Jedi. Of course, he never loses sight of the surface elements that attract young viewers and is an equally astute observer of the less macro emotional levels that these films work on, mentioning on more than one occasion that E.T. brought him to tears as a child.

Later, Pegg turns the same critical lens on his own work, bringing a refreshing self-awareness to a description of the Oedipal issues at play in Shaun of the Dead, an analysis of the consequences of two possible interpretations of the film’s ending and the male wish-fulfillment aspect of the female lead implied by one of them. The feeling is not unlike that of watching a film with audio commentary more concerned with emotional honesty than on-set hijinx.

The tone will be familiar and welcome to many readers in its down-to-earth perspective and genuine humbled excitement at the accomplishments and opportunities Pegg has had. The book’s structuring element is the ESTB—electro-static time ball—which Pegg imagines using to visit a younger self who has just fallen in love with a particular film or television show to announce that his grown-up self has just gotten to contribute to the genre in question or work with the director in question. It’s a disarming technique, although it becomes overused toward the end, when the book devolves into a a series of encounters with famous actors and directors and the ESTB metaphor seems to get pulled out on every page. The enthusiasm for meeting these people feels genuine—it doesn’t seem like namedropping in the sense of trying to impress the reader—but Pegg’s pleasure at meeting yet another beloved filmmaker becomes tryingly repetitive.

One more device that overstays its welcome is the fictional story that opens each chapter, depicting a superheroic version of Pegg on a mission to save the world. Early on it plays a counterpoint to Pegg’s discomfort with sharing the details of his life by giving him something else to write about, and the beginning is amusing, particularly in how the over-the-top description of Pegg’s prowess, both crime-fighting and sexual, makes Pegg himself the butt of the joke without resorting to self-depricatoin. But as the main narrative becomes more pleasurable, the superhero story becomes an unwelcome interruption, though individual installments remain brief. It’s a minor issue, but the inclusion of this element feels distracting.

Nerd Do Well is not the greatest work of pop culture critical analysis you’ll read this year, but it is a clear-eyed and enjoyabe look at how a nerd-culture figure like Pegg has transformed the fictions of is childhood and young adulthood into nostalgic yet fresh-feeling stories today. He includes a wide range of influences from Raiders of the Lost Ark to 2000AD and presents a clear path from experiencing the work to absorbing it to synthesizing it with his comedic style and a few autobiographical touches (though very few of those are explored, the primary one being the influence of a recent breakup with a pseudonymed woman on Spaced. Channeling his heartbreak over the terribleness of The Phantom Menace falls into a weird middle ground) to create his comedy and film writing. Though a flawed and incomplete portrait of Pegg’s creative process, for most of its pages Nerd Do Well is a fun and genial tour through the pop culture of the 1980s through the 2000s and how much they mean to one of their more eloquent admirers, like a long, funny chat over drinks with one of your smarter, nerdier friends.

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APE 2011

October 9, 2011 by

I’ve been told for years that I need to do the Alternative Press Expo, but it’s never worked out in previous years. However, between exhaustion with the goings on of the major publishers, a simple need to get out of town for a few days, and some leftover vacation days I had to use before they rolled over, this year turned out to be the ideal time to go. Dark Horse also has no institutional presence at the show (as far as I know I was the only person from DH there), so it was my first opportunity since interning at Top Shelf four years ago to spend a weekend steeped in comics without it being job related. I made a few connections and exchanged a few business cards, but most of the time I was just another fan.

The thing everyone told me about APE is that it’s like Portland’s Stumptown Comics Fest, which is both true and not. The energy is similar, with enthusiastic, friendly exhibitors and a strong DIY ethic. The mix of publishers, artists and academic exhibitors is a lot like Stumptown, though APE hasn’t gone in the “curation” direction that Stumptown has, so there’s a broader, more democratic range of people behind the tables.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Don’t Worry, Dude. I’m Not Boycotting You.

October 8, 2011 by

A colleague from work, Jemiah Jefferson, turned to me at a party on Thursday and said, “A friend of mine has a beef with you.” That was a new experience, as I’ve been fairly lucky that, despite having strong feelings about comics and being foolish enough to share them on the Internet, I don’t think I’ve ever had a negative interaction with anyone because of anything I’ve posted to the blog.

I like to think that, for the most part, I get along with everyone I know in comics, regardless of our differing opinions or my feelings about their work. It’s a small business, and one simply can’t afford to be a jerk. I nearly shut down the blog entirely when I started at Dark Horse, since I wasn’t sure how much of a conflict of interest it was to write about the work of people I might encounter through my new job. It wasn’t long before I was assigned to projects with people whose work I had reviewed. I got a few thanks from people whose work I wrote up positively, but thankfully I never received any hard feelings from people whose work I had reviewed negatively. Either they were unaware of the blog (the most likely answer), or they didn’t mind a little criticism backed up with reason and directed solely at a book and not at them personally (also possible, as they were all nice people).

Over time I got more comfortable, redirected my focus to broader comics topics, event reporting and interviews, with only occasional reviews mixed in. My bosses were also very helpful in pointing out which topics and people were completely off limits, and with only one exception never objected to anything I alerted them that I planned to post.

So, the party. I’ve been relatively vocal about my support for the Stephen Bissette–instigated Marvel boycott (“relatively” meaning that I’ve used my microphone as best I can, but it’s not a very loud one) over the company’s continued refusal of proper credit or compensation to Jack Kirby’s family. I skipped this summer’s Marvel movies, all three of which were based on Kirby cocreations, vowed to no longer buy any Marvel comics that featured Kirby-derived characters, wrote a lengthy post in this space about the boycott, and for a couple months made “Boycott Marvel” my Facebook icon. I gather that what happened is I commented on something on Jemiah’s page, where my icon was seen by her friend, a penciler at Marvel, who clicked through and found the blog post, taking it personally. So let me tell him, and the Internet, what I told Jemiah:

I am boycotting Marvel. I am not boycotting you. I do not begrudge you your work for the publisher. Because a) making a living penciling comic books was my dream when I was a kid, and you are awesome for accomplishing that, and b) you’re not exactly getting rich off of Jack Kirby. Like everything else in America, there is a class issue at play here, and I don’t have a right to tell you that you should ignore the fact that you gotta eat. You probably make about as much as I do, and I don’t need anyone to tell me how hard it is to get by on what I make.

It’s the people who have gotten rich from Kirby’s work while denying his contribution that I am angry at. The people who through ignorance or dishonestly initially put a title card crediting Stan Lee, rather than Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with Captain America’s creation in the first Captain America film. The people who put Stan Lee but not Joe Simon in the new Captain America film. Who could afford to pay royalties to Kirby’s family for reprints of his work or the use of characters he created or cocreated in Marvel’s films but choose not to. The, as Tom Spurgeon put it, “random lawyer sitting on Marvel’s board in 2000s [who] probably made more in bonuses over a two-year period off of Kirby’s creations than Kirby made in his lifetime.” Those are the people this boycott is aimed at.

It’s a tough thing in any kind of action against a corporation: how do you get its attention and hopefully affect it financially without hurting the people who work for it? I confess that I’ve been able to sidestep this a bit, because I don’t actually buy many single-issue comics anymore, so for better or worse I’m not affecting the royalties of writers and artists currently working for Marvel. Where my money goes to Marvel is the movies and collections like the Essential and Omnibus editions, often of Jack Kirby’s actual work. The last one I bought, which until things change is the last one I will buy, was the $75 Captain America by Jack Kirby hardcover (what can I say; you can afford stuff like that when you save by skipping monthly comics). In retrospect, a book like that is among the biggest offenders, as it not only stars a Kirby-cocreated character, but was actually written and drawn by the King himself, sold in large part on the basis of his name and rereleased in an expensive edition in time to coincide with a blockbuster film, all without any royalties going to his family. I confess that Marvel is not losing my business on a weekly basis, but they have lost a reliable customer of several of these $75–$125 books a year.

However, were I a regular buyer of Marvel’s monthly comics, I would stop that as well (as I have done with DC’s Superman comics as a result of that company’s shabby treatment of the Siegels and Shusters, despite my love of Grant Morrison’s writing). Then I possibly would affect royalties, and all I can say to that is that I wouldn’t feel good about buying the comics, but I do not begrudge the people making a living by writing and drawing them. You, Marvel penciler, and all the working-class people like you who are trying to make a name in this business, are not the people who have done this moral wrong. And it’s not my place to tell you that you shouldn’t work for Marvel. If you didn’t work for Marvel, someone else would, and the people listed two paragraphs back wouldn’t notice. So why would I attack you? I’m not upset at the people who need the penciling paycheck to live, I’m upset at the people who can’t live without reading the next issue of Invincible Iron Man.

I do wish the people with louder voices than either yours or mine would use them. Imagine if Brian Bendis, Matt Fraction, Jeph Loeb or another writer or artist of their stature at Marvel spoke out. That’s what got much of Kirby’s artwork returned to him when Marvel was holding it hostage in the 1980s. The top people in the business, including those who had made their names at Marvel, publicly stood with him because it was right and because them doing so was impossible to ignore. Where are the 2011 equivalents of those creators, with their much better compensation and treatment that is the direct result of the kind of agitation that was more common in the ’80s? Why are they silent on this issue at the same time as they praise the filmmakers they work with for capturing the feel of Kirby’s work?

I’m usually the last guy to complain about the fragmentation of media, but I wonder if the small field of comics, which took to the Internet so early and so completely, simply no longer has an outlet with the kind of audience or authority to draw the attention this issue deserves. During the fight over Kirby’s artwork The Comics Journal was a central institution, reporting on each development, providing a soapbox for the writers and artists who backed Kirby, and publishing the names of those who had signed the petition. Who can do that today?

The answer, as best as I can tell, is that we all have to do what we think is right and what we can do. Ultimately I realize that I am doing very little, but I wouldn’t feel good about myself spending my money that way and so I choose not to. People I work with and respect feel differently, but that doesn’t make them bad people, and I engage with them about this but don’t vilify their choice. Other people need that paycheck from Marvel and if they want to make it in this business then the boycott is not feasible for them. I’m okay with that. Some people directly and hugely benefit from the ill treatment of Kirby’s heirs, and I don’t know what their motives are, but I hope that by many people continuing to talk about this, those who benefit come to decide that it might not be worth it.

And ultimately that’s all we’re talking about. Sorry to anyone I offended last time out. I’m on your side.

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Bonus Bay Area Photo: Popeye

October 4, 2011 by

The proper APE post is coming soon(ish, depending on how lazy I am), but in the meantime, enjoy this photo I took of Kristen Morgin’s 2006 sculpture of Popeye at SFMOMA while playing hooky from the first half of APE day 2 (click for full-size image):

(And if you’re hungry for more Bay Area comicsness, don’t miss my visits to the two new stores that are seeking to fill the void left by Comics Relief.)

Sculpture © Kristen Morgin

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APE -1: Two new Bay Area Stores

October 2, 2011 by

I am once again in the Bay Area (readers who know where I live: please do not rob my house, thanks), this time half-and-half for comics and vacation. The ostensible reason for the trip is to finally attend the Alternative Press Expo, which I have been told for years that I need to do, though I’ve also spent a few days relaxing and spending time with family.

My initial plan said that APE would be enough comics-related activity for the week and that it might be nice when on vacation to spend some time away from the thing that I do for a living, but as is so often the case with the addict, I can’t really stay away. In addition to perusing the comics at the usual bookstore haunts—Moe’s, Pegasus, etc.—I unintentionally stumbled into Fantastic Comics, a new store in the old location of Comic Relief in downtown Berkeley. I didn’t realize a new store had taken over the space after Comic Relief closed, so curiosity pulled me in.

Fantastic Comics’ atmosphere is at once similar to and distinct from Comic Relief’s, with the same attention to cleanliness and brightness that made the previous store inviting, but with a clearly different stocking philosophy. Whereas Comic Relief’s focus was on functioning more like a bookstore than a Wednesday store, to the point that its comprehensive selection could be overwhelming, Fantastic Comics is organized more sparsely. The floor is spacious, making moving around easy and comfortable, and a few well-placed islands draw attention to a points of interest, such as new release books and selected small-press titles.

The space does still feel a bit like a work in progress, with a large portion of the floor closed off by tables and not visibly being used , but the part of the floor that is in use is done well. The various sections of the store are divided by format, so there’s a wall of bookshelf comics, a wall of recent stapled comics, and a wall of manga, with the islands filling in more specific niches. It’s a very simple principle, but one that makes browsing simple. The shelves had a good mix of large and small titles, with plenty of the new DC titles sitting alongside indie books.

Fantastic’s website promises “a friendly, knowledgable staff,” and while I didn’t test the “knowledgable” part, not looking for anything in particular, I can confirm the “friendly” part, as I had been walking around no more than a minute before I was asked cheerfully if I needed any help finding anything. And I wish the sign at the front counter letting customers know that staff can order books for them were a more common sight in other stores.

The most pleasant surprise of the entire visit was the in-store signing that was going on, taking advantage of the influx of artists for APE. At tables near the new-release stapled comics, with what I presume to be their convention banners behind them, were the great Richard Starkings of ComiCraft and Shane and Chris Houghton, creators of one of my favorite new comics, Reed Gunther. I’m not sure how planned-out the signing was (the store’s website doesn’t seem to mention it), but it had a jolly, informal feel, with Starkings and Chris Houghton sketching and all three happily chatting with fans and each other.

Overall, that genial informality feels like Fantastic Comics’ strength. The store seems focused more on a casual readership than the hardcore impulse that powered Comic Relief and felt like it’s probably a great Wednesday store, leading me to pick up this week’s Rachel Rising #2, one of my Wednesday comics that I otherwise would have waited until I returned home to pick up.

I seem to end up in the Bay Area every two years or so, so I look forward to seeing how the store’s grown next time around. The website also has a podcast, so I’m curious to try that out. The website generally could use a little work to keep it up to date and make it easier to navigate, but those are minor complaints when the store itself is so nice.

Doing a little research, I discovered another store that had recently opened in the area, Escapist Comics on Claremont Ave. in Oakland, not far from where I’m staying. Escapist’s website is very slick, with lots of information about the inventory and lots of events. It also reveals that the store in a way makes up the other half of the departed Comic Relief. Where Fantastic Comics has the old store’s location, Escapist Comics is made up in part of its inventory. Unable to resist a theme, I hopped the BART to see what had become of that half of Comic Relief.

One of the first things visible when coming up to the store is a spinner rack of dollar comics out on the sidewalk, which is both welcoming in the way that outdoor merchandise can be and a great mechanism to make passersby curious. Once inside there’s an instant familiarity, since so much of what Comic Relief was was its impressive stock and the near-obsessive subsectioning with which it was presented, both of which have made the move intact. It’s that detail that lends Escapist the same “comic bookstore” vibe that was Comic Relief’s calling card, though the vastly different physical space makes the actual feel more mom-and-pop.

Escapist’s storefront is actually very small, and the floor plan juts back into the building in a narrow corridor with a few nooks shooting off from it. If poorly lit the space would be claustrophobic, but the staff, who also largely come from Comic Relief (as do the store cats) know to keep everything bright, so the effect is instead of coziness. I was left to my own devices to browse, but my chat with the two guys at the register on my way out made it clear that, had I had any questions, they’d have been happily answered.

The placement of the stapled comics, including this week’s new ones, in the very back of the store underlines the focus on bookshelf comics, orienting the store more toward lengthy browsing sessions than Wednesday pop-ins. It’s the kind of place with a Kyle Baker section and a section of just comics reference books larger than many bookstores’ entire comics sections, the kind of store I’d go to if I needed a place that would almost certainly have some hard-to-find title I’d been looking for for some time. That makes it, like Comic Relief, more than accommodating to casual browsers but of true value to the hardcore. As it is, I left with a copy of Michael DeForge’s Lose #3.

Both stores carry out the general vision of Comic Relief by being the kind of place that non–comics readers can feel comfortable in and through a bright, friendly atmosphere that enjoys having customers in and doesn’t treat visitors as potential shoplifters (in neither store was I required to leave my bag at the desk). At the same time, it’s fascinating how the division of that mission statement into the physical locale of the old store and its people and merchandise results in two complimentary approaches. I think I’d be quite likely to visit both stores again on future trips to the area.

Classic Brendan: I took pictures in both stores, but didn’t bring the cable that connects my camera to my computer, so I’ll have to update with photos when I get home. UPDATED 10/4: Photos!

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JLA #1 vs. Justice League #1: What Jim Lee gets wrong about introducing characters

September 6, 2011 by

I didn’t read the new Justice League #1, largely because I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a Geoff Johns comic, so I am not qualified to review it. So I’m not going to do that. But I can respond to Jim Lee’s statement from Heidi MacDonald’s interview on salon.com:

The first issue spotlights only Batman and Green Lantern. Some people have asked, “Where’s the rest of the Justice League?”

I guarantee you if we did a story that had every single member in it, people would say, “This is not for new readers! It’s too complicated!”

The thing that helps me debunk this claim is a Justice League first issue that I have read, Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s JLA #1 from 1996. I bought this comic off the stands when I was in middle school(! Man, I am getting old) because I was a loyal reader of DC’s various Batman comics, but I had bought only a small handful of Superman comics and no comics at all starring Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Aquaman, or the Martian Manhunter. Some of those characters were only names to me at that point, but I had no problem understanding the issue, as each character is introduced economically, and the story that builds across the first issue brings them in organically. JLA #1, by the way, contains 22 story pages to Justice League #1’s 24.

I don’t necessarily challenge the wisdom of leading off with the most recognizable characters in the first issue (though I imagine that making Green Lantern a focal point made more sense back before the failure of the movie gave him loser stink), but a new reader could be forgiven for expecting the characters prominently featured on the cover to put in an appearance for their $4, and the claim that it just can’t be done is simply wrongheaded. Here’s how Morrison and Porter did it:

PAGE 1: We know something serious is going on, because the President of the United States is upset about it.

PAGE 2: Oh, he’s upset because a giant spaceship is floating over the White House. He’s seen Independence Day, so he knows that can’t be good. Who are our heroes? The president will tell us: “Will somebody call the Justice League?”

PAGE 3: Intro some people I’ve never seen before. They look kind of lame. Apparently they are kind of lame, since they’re talking about how they missed a giant spaceship appearing over the White House, but we learn these are not the main characters, since the one called Rex is talking about “clearing out our stuff so the A-Team can move in.” In the last panel, we get a big shot of Superman with the caption “The big guy’s on the case.” We all already know who Superman is, but even if we didn’t, this page sets him up as a big deal. We also see him first—because he’s Superman.

PAGE 4: Superman is briefed.

PAGE 5: Intro the aliens from the ship. They’re smiling, they look like superheroes and they say they’re here to “save the world.” Hmm.

PAGE 6: News report: more on the aliens, who call themselves the Hyperclan. Intro the Flash, watching on TV. A caption tells us who he is and where he lives. In two panels, his wife reminds him that he’s forgotten to get the dry cleaning and he picks it up, seemingly only missing a few words in the broadcast. From two panels, we know his powers, his domestic situation (married, not great at his chores) and that the aliens are relevant to him.

PAGE 7: The broadcast continues. We’re introduced, in a series of three panels, to Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter, and we learn a little about each of them. In panel one, we learn where Wonder Woman lives, that she appears to work in either a museum or antique shop and that her first name is Diana, and her face tells us she doesn’t trust the Hyperclan. In panel 2, we learn where Green Lantern lives and that his dayjob involves working at a drafting table, and his face tells us he is dumbfounded by what the TV tells him. Panel 3 introduces us to the Martian Manhunter, tells us where he lives and that he seemingly has no dayjob or secret identity, watching the news in the same outfit he is wearing on the cover. He has a stack of VHS videos about aliens and alien autopsies, and his face betrays nothing; clearly an alien himself, he is taking this in thoughtfully.

We’ve now met five of the seven characters on the cover, and we don’t know everything about them, but considering it’s only seven pages in, we’ve been told a lot. Even learning where they live is significant, as no two live in the same city. They must be able to travel quickly, either by their own powers or other means, to act as a team.

PAGES 8–9: The Hyperclan appears to be telling the truth.

PAGE 10: But now they’re killing some Marvel characters. (An in-joke, but it doesn’t matter if a reader doesn’t get it. It’s only important that they are executing people without trial). What?!

PAGE 11: The dialogue between Green Lantern and Rex, whose superhero name we now learn is Metamorpho, “the element man,” tells us both that GL is cocky and also that he is fairly new to the superhero game. Also, some guys in space suits are approaching the satellite that GL, Wonder Woman and Metamorpho are on.

PAGE 12: Attack! We learn, through relatively natural dialogue, what Metamorpho’s powers are.

PAGE 13: One of the other minor heroes from page three voices his suspicion that the Hyperclan are behind the attack. Despite being introduced as being lame, the minor heroes get to be heroic. Green Lantern starts to use his powers, and we learn that he is filling the shoes of a previous GL and that his style in using his powers is different from the last guy.

PAGE 14: Green Lantern admits to a lapse in confidence. Wonder Woman uses her real name and tells him they’re in the same league. She is more experienced and something of a mentor, a nurturer. Captions begin to explain GL’s powers, and he creates a field around himself to leave the satellite safely. Wonder Woman, we see, can survive the vacuum of space with just a rebreather.

PAGE 15: Inside, the stakes raise for the minor heroes, but in keeping with how we’ve learned Metamorpho’s powers work, he concocts a plan, though the others aren’t sure if he can pull it off.

PAGES 16–17: Captions explain more of how Green Lantern’s powers work, including that will power is involved. It’s all fairly conversational, as when it says that “working the ring is like giving up cigarettes,” a better image of what it means to wield a will-powered ring than I’ve heard elsewhere. Wonder Woman is almost powerful enough to hold a space station together, but not quite. When she prays, it is to a Greek goddess.

PAGE 18: The Hyperclan have been to Earth before. They resurrect something old, something that humans probably don’t know about.

PAGE 19: The minor heroes crash to Earth. Metamorpho has taken precautions that everyone else will be safe. He is clearly injured in the crash, though it’s not clear how the others have fared. Throughout their appearances in this issue, Rex is so far the only one of the minor heroes to get a name (except one called Fire, though she (she is identified as a she) is not present and is mentioned only to note that her powers aren’t working), which is clearly deliberate, as he is the one who takes it upon himself to protect the others and appears to sacrifice himself, at least to the point of serious injury.

PAGE 20: Now we learn the names of the other three minor heroes, though only their hero names (again, Metamorpho alone gets a proper name, to make his sacrifice more tragic), and we find that they are injured, though Metamorpho is said, portentously, to be “inert,” which doesn’t sound good considering we’ve learned he has chemical powers. This page also tells us that Flash can run on water, that he has a problem with Green Lantern, that he and Superman can reach similar speeds and that the League will be meeting in a cave, as the satellite was destroyed.

PAGE 21: The five Leaguers we’ve met join together. Superman tells the group that he knows the Hyperclan is lying about their involvement in the attack on the satellite. We learn that Aquaman and Batman haven’t responded to the League’s call and that this doesn’t surprise anyone. Except, intro Batman, who is hiding in the rafters.

PAGE 22: Batman is very clever and doesn’t entirely trust the others. We know because he’s built a device that hides the sound of his heartbeat from Superman, who apparently can hear heartbeats. This is perhaps how Superman knew the leader of the Hyperclan was lying when he met with him. At Batman’s direction, Superman listens for microwave frequencies, and the group discovers that the Hyperclan is broadcasting at a frequency used for mind control. They are up to no good. Batman declares, “This is war.”

In issue #1 of JLA, we get six out of seven of the characters on the cover. Aquaman will be introduced in similarly economical fashion in issue #2. The issue cleverly ratchets up the tension throughout, gives us quick first glimpses of each character, followed by longer scenes that tell us more about them, and ends with a revelation that raises the stakes dramatically. For a cast of this size it tells a reader as much as they need to know to understand what is happening and drops in details that entices them back for the next issue.

Most importantly, JLA #1 is not written in a way that assumes character can only be learned through long scenes and expository dialogue. Some characters are introduced in a single panel, but not one panel is wasted in filling in who they are. Quick bits of dialogue, setting, and props in the corners of panels are all used to convey character. The name of the game is economy, and Jim Lee’s statement that more than two or three characters can’t be introduced in the course of a first issue discounts economic storytelling altogether. It is a failure of imagination that says that only dialogue can reveal character.

It is also a mistake to think that readers need to know everything about every character in the first issue (some information, like the real names of most of the minor heroes, is even withheld, making the information we do learn, such as Metamorpho’s real name, more significant). If they are written compellingly enough, the questions that remain will be reasons to keep reading, not reasons to disbelieve. Every element of every page should be used to further the story, and character is something that should be shown, not told. JLA #1 is an excellent course in how this is done, while judging from reviews and Lee’s own comments, Justice League #1 is decidedly not. Neither Johns nor Lee are really to my taste, but I recognize that they are craftsmen, so it’s a bit sad to see in Lee’s statement an abdication of craft.

Images of the Justice League © DC Entertainment.

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Posted in Grant Morrison, Justice League | 4 Comments »

Forget it, Jake. It’s Comics.

August 15, 2011 by

It’s been a depressing time to care about comics. Between Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment fighting long and ugly to deny the heirs of Superman co-creator and writer Jerry Siegel money they are legally entitled to, Disney and Marvel Entertainment (boy, not as many companies with “Comics” in their name as there used to be) fighting long and dishonest to deny the heirs of Marvel universe co-creator Jack Kirby the money and credit they are morally (and perhaps legally) entitled to, Marvel’s hypocrisy in the wake of Gene Colan’s death, and surely even more things I’m forgetting, I can’t remember a time it’s been this hard to feel enthusiasm for this field that I’ve loved since I was 11 and which I later chose as my profession.

I’ve often referred to the treatment of Siegel and artist Joe Shuster over their creation of Superman as comics’ original sin, and it fits the bill, in that it’s not just a terrible injustice, but one that has loomed over the field ever since and still, over 70 years later, occasionally rears its head to bring us all back to that time. This has been on my mind since the release of Action Comics #900, when I noticed a caption thanking me for my “support” of the series. While I’ve no doubt that this copy was thoughtlessly inserted by an editor or assistant editor to mark the anniversary, not a call for me to support DC and Warner Bros., Superman’s current owners, in their fight against his creators, it nonetheless got me thinking, coming as it did during the increasing acrimony in that fight, about what I was supporting, and that’s what matters. Because I can’t do it anymore.

Back when I wrote about that, I said that I didn’t think I could read Superman comics anymore, but I wasn’t sure if I was really the type to call a boycott. Fortunately, someone with greater moral conviction than myself has done just that on a related matter. Following the recent summary judgement for Marvel against the Kirby estate, Steve Bissette put out a call to boycott all Marvel products derived from the massive portion of its holdings derived from creations or co-creations of Jack Kirby.

Why now? DC has been denying the Siegels and Shusters their due for years, and Marvel has systematically diminished Jack Kirby’s role in the creation of its empire while refusing his family any royalties for nearly as long. What is different today? Nothing, really, but we’ve had a wake up call. These legal cases have been fought at the same time, with the latest decisions in each (allowing Warner to use stolen documents in its case against the Siegels’ lawyer, the summary judgement against the Kirby Estate) so close together, during the same summer that three movies based on Kirby characters have been so successful. We should have been angry all along, and many were, but this summer has been a perfect storm, so it should come as no surprise, really.

I’ve been deeply heartened to see Bissette receive a good deal of attention, at least within the comics world, for his call to arms. In an environment where fans denounce the creators of their favorite characters as greedy leeches for asking for a fraction of their due, and when even major comics websites ridicule Alan Moore for his legitimate distrust of DC (most recently when he rejected the publisher’s offer to return him his rights to Watchmen so long as he agreed to make those rights worthless by ceding his authority over whether sequels should be made to DC), I admit I was far from confident that Bissette would receive any better treatment. The boycott is far from being a movement, but it has picked up more momentum than this sort of thing usually does.

At the same time, I’ve been saddened by the intelligent, thoughtful, moral people I know who don’t seem particularly troubled. The people, not much older than me, who tell me that creative fields always work this way, that the talent always gets screwed, that this is the way of the world and not worth missing an issue of Iron Man over. They think it’s a damn shame, but what can anyone do about it? Essentially: “Forget it, Brendan. It’s comics.”

I’m 27. I feel it when I talk to people. I’m on that precipice, around 30, when half the people who don’t feel like I do insist that I’ll grow up and become jaded and get that this is just how it is, while the other half wonder why I haven’t already, how I can still be so naive as to think it can be any other way. Hopefully I’ll continue to disappoint them.

I’ve been thankful the last few weeks for the knowledgeable people who have helped me understand what the actual cases are about. I got that in the case of the Siegels and Shusters the law changed in the 1970s and this was why they could try to reclaim Superman now, but I didn’t really know what the nature of the change was. Here’s my understanding now: When the Copyright Act of 1909 was passed the term of copyright was 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. The reason it wasn’t simply a single term of 56 years was to allow, in the case of copyright transference, for the original owner to renegotiate the deal when it was time to renew. This was a protection for the original owner if the creation they sold turned out to be worth much more than either party realized. However, buyers of copyrights began to include an automatic right of copyright renewal without renegotiation into contracts, defeating the purpose of the renewal. The Copyright Act of 1976 sought to correct this by making explicit the right to renegotiate or take back the copyright during the renewal period. That is what the Siegels filed for and won in court a few years ago. Warner Brothers and DC have spent the years since attempting to get around the fact that they no longer have any legal right to the Siegels’ half of the copyright to the original Superman stories and will soon lose the Shusters’ half as well. Their behavior has been disgraceful.

The Siegels won their initial case because Superman was not created as a work for hire. The original story was completed by Siegel and Shuster and then offered to several publishers. Eventually DC bought it for $10 a page and the copyright was transferred to the publisher. I get upset when people arguing DC’s side take the position that, “Well, some people are bad businessmen. That’s how it goes.” I confess that I don’t know much about Siegel and Shuster’s business acumen, but I don’t think that it matters very much, since that doesn’t come into play when all the power in a deal rests on one side. When the people sitting on one side of a desk have bills to pay and children to feed and the people sitting on the other side have access to the printing press, the deals tend to come out one-sided.

Unlike Siegel and Shuster, Jack Kirby co-created the majority of the Marvel characters that still dominate its publishing line without a contract, just a page rate and a series of verbal promises. He had no doubt seen what had happened to people like Siegel and Shuster, and he asked repeatedly for better credit and better compensation. The recent Kirby Estate lawsuit attempted to follow the Siegel strategy of filing for termination of copyright because there actually is a case to be made that he did not initially do the work in what we would recognize as a formal work-for-hire situation. None of the extra money or credit he was promised ever materialized, and when the Marvel lawyers realized in the 1970s that the characters weren’t protected by contract, they made signing retroactive work-for-hire contracts a condition of getting paid for work that had already been done. In Kirby’s case, the longstanding fight to reclaim his original artwork became a factor as well. He believed he was owed his artwork and he had a family to feed, and so he signed. It’s far from an open-and-shut case, and the verdict in Marvel’s favor probably didn’t surprise anyone, but Tom Spurgeon has put it best when he’s lamented the fact that it had to come to a lawsuit at all. Kirby and his family should have been properly compensated in the first place. Even if Marvel ultimately doesn’t have a legal obligation to do it, it is the right thing.

I get it. Capitalism is about profit, not the right thing. But companies are run by people, people in this case whom I hope care about comics and understand the debt that they owe to Jack Kirby, without whom they would not be in the position that they are. The company compensates Stan Lee with an honorific title and a sizable stipend (he’s surely due more, but it’s enough to provide the kind of comfort that makes fighting for more less appealing than simply enjoying being Stan Lee). True, he had to fight for that in court, but with that precedent in place, it would cause the company no pain to extend the same to the Kirby Estate.

And that’s why we’re where we are today. Because if DC made right by the Siegels and Shusters and Marvel made right by the Kirby Estate, they wouldn’t be quite as profitable as they possibly could, but it would be by such a relatively small degree for, let’s not forget, subsidiaries of the first and second largest media companies in the world, that their continued refusal to make good adds considerable insult to injury.

But that isn’t their instinct. Just as the artists with no power weren’t necessarily bad businessmen, the publishers with all the power weren’t necessarily good businessmen. When he bought the rights to Superman, Harry Donenfeld had no more idea than Jerry Siegel or Joe Shuster that the character would go on to earn billions. He just had the instinct that many businessmen have of own everything, keep everything. Disney/Marvel isn’t denying Kirby credit and compensation because it would ruin their quarterly reports, Warner Bros./DC isn’t holding up justice for the Siegels because it would go out business. In both cases it’s that the corporate instinct to own everything, keep everything dies hard. They have to have another reason to change.

Which is the other reason we’re here. These companies will never do the right thing on their own. It will only happen if they suffer the right combination of bad press and the threat of a loss of profit large enough to make them blink. And that’s hard to accomplish, especially with a fandom that can’t imagine not buying the next issue of The Avengers or Superman, has never not bought the next issue, but it’s not impossible. It doesn’t have to be enormous. A movie doesn’t have to fail. It just needs to be the difference between a #1 weekend opening and a #2 weekend opening. What do we have to lose?

I don’t kid myself that there’s any bravery in not buying a comic book or not going to a movie. But something doesn’t have to be brave to matter. It just requires clear vision and a goal. If we want publishers to stop denying talent what they are owed, we need to make it clear that they have more to lose by doing the wrong thing than by doing the right thing. At any other time, I would be ecstatic that my favorite superhero writer, Grant Morrison, will be relaunching Superman, the character that he has spoken of having a vision for for years, and which he wrote in the greatest superhero comic of the last decade, All Star Superman. But with the current treatment of the Siegels and Shusters and after the bad taste left in my mouth by Action Comics #900 thanking me for my support, I would feel terrible if I bought that. I was looking forward to catching Captain America: The First Avenger and next year’s Avengers in the theater, but now I will be skipping both. I wouldn’t be able to look at myself if I went.

(I’m disappointed in Grant Morrison. He’s clearly an ethical writer and an ethical person, but I think he’s badly off the mark in his reaction to the current situation. I don’t know (who outside of DC can?) if part of the impetus behind the DC relaunch really is to diminish the Siegels and Shusters’ share of Superman by claiming the new iteration is a new, derivative character, but this is still an even more dubious time than usual to take over the property. When asked about the legal case over Superman, Morrison punted, getting into his theory that the character is older than most of us, and will probably outlive all of us, and so is bigger than a dispute between its creators and owners. I take Morrison at his word that he believes the character transcends and is not simply compromising himself for the chance to take his dream writing job. But his answer is wrongheaded enough and surprisingly callous enough that it’s another reason for me to have nothing to do with his take on the character. It will be the first series written by Morrison I’m skipping in over a decade.)

Will it make a difference? Probably not. I hope so. But I’m with Caleb Mozzocco. That’s not the only reason we do this. We hope others will join, and we hope it’s enough, but we have to live with ourselves, and we have to do what we believe is right. I’m in this for real now—I am done with Marvel superhero comics and movies, and despite DC’s much better track record with giving credit and compensation generally, their unconscionable treatment of the Siegels and Shusters means I am done with Superman as well. And despite my earlier hesitancy to do so, I am now joining the hopefully growing chorus to ask others to do the same. I don’t know if it will make a difference, but I can tell you that not buying a comic book, not going to a movie is such a small sacrifice, so why not do it? More than any attempt to change the behavior of media companies, I am doing it because I wouldn’t like what it said about me if I didn’t do it. I hope that if you consider these issues you’ll come to the same conclusion.

As Steve Bissette suggests in the post that started this all, go to your comic book store and let them know what you are not buying and why, and buy something else instead. If they’ve ordered something for you and will lose money if you don’t buy it, go ahead—maybe you need a last goodbye issue—but after that choose something else and tell your retailer that you are buying it instead of a Marvel Kirby comic or a Superman comic, and that’s what you plan to do until things change. I’ve been picking up Kirby Genesis to get my superhero fix and am trying new creator-owned series like Terry Moore’s Rachel Rising instead of the comics that make me feel gross.

Will missing the next issue of X-Men really hurt that much?

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Posted in DC, Essay, Jack Kirby, Marvel | 3 Comments »

What’s This? Comics and Designer Fashion?

May 23, 2011 by

I’ve noticed this as I’ve walked around downtown the last couple weeks, but yesterday I finally thought to bring a camera. The setting: the ground floor of the Fox Tower in Portland’s shopping district, an upscale building that includes the Ringside steakhouse, a Regal Cinemas specializing in foreign and independent films, a Banana Republic, a fancy delicatessen, and Mario’s, a designer clothing store with two locations in Portland and one in Seattle. The deal: the two sides of the building with Mario’s display windows are suddenly filled with DC Comics, specifically pages from Paul Levitz’s 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking.

As you might imagine, the first time I saw it, it stopped me in my tracks. Designer fashion and superhero comics, or any comics for that matter, is not a pairing that I can recall ever being confronted with. It’s sort of a weird mix, one I’m not sure I know what to make of exactly. On the one hand, I suppose it casts comics as a generic pop-culture backdrop, a colorful splash of nostalgia against which gray suits can stand out, your mileage may vary. On the other hand, it does posit this $200 book as an upscale item for sophisticated people who drop lots of money on clothes. In any event, it makes a pretty bold and eye-catching display which surprised me on more than one encounter. See for yourself:

As I was taking photos, a store employee named Michael came out and asked me if I’d like a better view of the setup. Showing me into the display case, he explained that Mario’s always aims for unusual window displays, utilizing unexpected elements to offset the clothing. Having the book available, the store decided to run with 75 Years of DC Comics and build a display around it.

It wasn’t clear to me if Mario’s was actually selling the book, though there were several copies throughout the store. However, Michael showed me a box of postcards with vintage DC art on them, which was for sale.

All in all, it was a weird experience walking past aisles of clothes I can’t afford and glimpsing images of DC Comics of yore. I still haven’t decided if Mario’s is using comics as ironic kitsch or cool bits of culture, but either way it was fun to see them outside of their usual context and imagine people walking down the street wondering what Mister Miracle or Doom Patrol are.

Posted in View From Portland | 3 Comments »

All You Need to Know: Batman: The Abduction

May 22, 2011 by

Deep into a comics (and other things) purge, I’ve hit the longbox with all the Batman comics I bought in the ’90s. Back then, DC published a lot of those squarebound Prestige Format comics at $5 and $6 a pop, and judging from what I found in the box, teenaged me must have bought all of them that said “Batman” on the cover. A handful still look interesting, most forgettable, and a few cringeworthy, but it’s safe to say I’ve outgrown virtually all of them. Fortunately, Powell’s is happy to take these, as they cost them virtually nothing, take up barely any space and are probably appealing impulse buys at the used price.

So most of them are gone now, a few held back to go to specific people or be bundled in “Batman crossover”-style auctions, and just a few are sticking with me long enough to give them a curious reread before they ultimately end up in one of the above locations. One such is Batman: The Abduction, likely produced to cash in on the X-Files movie which came out the same year, 1998, and today an irresistible post-Rapture flip-though. It’s a weird comic, to be sure, and clearly a product of its time. Also, interesting to note, despite the subject matter and same timeframe as The Invisibles, it was not written by Grant Morrison, but it does appear to have him in it.

This has probably been done before, but not by me, so here’s a new feature that I may do again someday: the image-only review. You’ll get a sense of what I thought of the comic from the following selected panels. In any case, it’s all you need to know about Batman: The Abduction, coming soon to a Powell’s used section near you. All images © DC Comics, naturally.

Batman: The Abduction
DC Comics – paperback, $5.95
By Alan Grant, Norm Breyfogle & James A. Hodgkins



Posted in All You Need to Know, Batman | Leave a Comment »

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