Comics

An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Outrage, Humor, Context

Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn

David Brothers was one of the smartest comics bloggers on the scene a few years back when I was at my peak of following the industry, and he’s remained one of the few whom I still follow despite my current pull list being a shadow of its former self.

[Side note: Have to get to Midtown soon before they cancel my bare-minimum pull list again. Particularly looking forward to Joshua Dysart’s Unknown Soldier.]

He has a great post up at his site, 4thLetter, called SuperHHero KKKomics 200Hate: A Year In Review, an exponentially more substantiative response to the knee-jerk (but cleverly illustrated) 2008: The Year of Misogyny, that starts as a typical rant about the poor treatment of blacks in comics, but quickly becomes something much, much better.

Some of my favorite highlights of 200Hate include:

Barack Obama– leader of Dark Reign, gullible enough to trust Norman Osborn
Crispus Allen– killed his own son, has to have some old white lady re-ignite his faith in God after he tries to kill his best friend for being a lesbian, probably Pro Prop 8, forced to wear goatee as racial identifier, likely never-nude
Falcon– lost his best friend, hasn’t appeared in Captain America lately, was set on fire once
Manhattan Guardian– tossed aside the second a WHITE Guardian shows up
Martian Manhunter– murdered with a spear (martians count as black, see also Lil Wayne “We are not the same, I am a martian”)
Spawn– blows own head off in own comic, promoting the suicide of strong and proud black men
Spawn (Michael Jai White)– Killed by the Joker in The Dark Knight, movie goes on to make a billion dollars
Storm– taken from high profile X-Men appearances to be a supporting character in some lower-selling book, forced into arranged marriage, needs Emma Frost (who once enslaved her) to call her names just so she can feel like she belongs somewhere
Tyler Perry– still not invited to write a Black Panther story where T’Challa remembers how his big grandma was the one that scared him into following the path of the warrior, leaving untold the story of Bg’mama, the true power of wakanda

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Continue ReadingOutrage, Humor, Context
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk

I skipped The Incredible Hulk in theaters because I was fully expecting to be disappointed, but my son really wanted to see it and Iron Man was unexpectedly good, so we picked up the DVD and I was pleasantly surprised.

Ed Norton isn’t as dynamic an actor as Robert Downey, Jr., unlikely to carry a blockbuster superhero movie on his own shoulders, but he brings the right level of intensity to the Hulk’s conflicted alter ego, Bruce Banner, that combined with some precision casting — and, according to several rumors seemingly backed up by many of the DVD’s bonus features*, exerting influence far beyond his own character — makes for a movie that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Tim Roth and William Hurt shine in their roles, and Liv Tyler manages to escape the confines of the cliché “female interest” as she and writer Zak Penn (who takes an impressive step forward from Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand) make her character work as the emotional centerpiece of the story.

It’s a well-paced action movie with just the right dash of drama — many of the deleted scenes featuring psychiatrist Dr. Samson are deservedly so — and the CGI Hulk and Abomination are even more impressive than last year’s Transformers triumph, especially their final battle which is arguably the best balls-to-the-wall fight scene put to film in recent years.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Apology Unnecessary

The K Chronicles: Tales From the Campaign Trail
The K Chronicles: Stories From the Campaign Trail

There’s a bit of a tempest in a teapot happening over at Montclair State University thanks to a “controversial” episode of the Keith Knight comic strip, The K Chronicles, that was published last week in the student newspaper, the Montclarion, and included the word “nigger”.

Twice!

Well, kind of…

Seemingly lost on most of those in a tizzy over the strip (reading some of the comments is just one more reason to not take anything for granted before the election results are in and officially certified) is the fact that Knight was simply repeating a story told by a canvasser in Western Pennsylvania, where conventional wisdom has it that people are simply too racist to support Obama, as evidenced partly by Hillary Clinton’s thumping him out there during the primary.

It’s a story that’s been referenced in several places over the past week or so, and Knight’s take on it was simply addressing what has become one of the more fascinating sub-plots of this election as the economy has taken center stage and helped turn John McCain’s ill-conceived selling of his soul campaign into a sputtering hot mess: Racists for Obama.

“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently.

One Obama volunteer told Politico after canvassing the working-class white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are … undecided. They would call him a [racial epithet] and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”

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Continue ReadingApology Unnecessary
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

The Most Fantastic Genre

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZGqSRtDbEw]

PopCultureShock posted this great little clip about the new Blue Beetle — Mexican-American Jaime Reyes — and Junot Diaz’ Oscar Wao, wherein Diaz notes:

“The most fantastic genre can’t keep up, or refuses to keep up, with how much our country has changed. And so people can dream about aliens, and they can dream about all sorts of things and magical rings, but they can’t dream about brown and black people being protagonists, you know?  It’s remarkable.”

Diversity in comics remains a tough slog — Firestorm was cancelled, Blue Beetle doesn’t sell very well and what ever happened to the much-hyped lesbian Batwoman series? — and the DC Universe has historically been much whiter than Marvel’s, but the first two years of Blue Beetle proved that minority superheroes could carry a series — from a quality perspective, at least — as long as the writer and artist focused on telling good, entertaining stories.

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Continue ReadingThe Most Fantastic Genre
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

I’m Not Dead

…but I certainly feel like I’ve been buried alive lately!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdnljEV7MP4]

Speaking, tangentially, of being careful what you wish for*, I’d totally understand if Obama was really close to just saying “screw y’all” and handing the nomination to Clinton. Hunter S. Thompson’s sentiment — paraprashing someone else, I believe — “In a democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve, and they deserve what they get.” has never felt truer than the past month or so. Thanks to the new job, I’ve successfully taken a break from the Democratic primary and avoided last night’s debate, but Andrew Sullivan’s on-the-fly take and IllDoctrine’s parody (above) confirmed that it was even worse than I expected it to be. Say what you want about Clinton’s “right” to continue her campaign, when your only hope is to carpet bomb your opponent and hope he doesn’t survive the assault, I’d say that’s akin to one’s First Amendment rights stopping at yelling “Fire!” in a movie theater.

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Continue ReadingI’m Not Dead
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

On Comics, Pokémon and Storm Hawks

Other than the occasional review at Amazon — or even less frequently, at PopCultureShock — it’s been a while since I’ve written about comics. After 2.5 years of being ankle-deep in the industry, writing reviews, interviews, commentary and the occasional news piece, I really don’t miss it at all. While I’m still reading comics, my weekly trips to Midtown Comics have become monthly trips, at best, and my pull list has shrunk considerably to the point where I barely meet their 10-title minimum. Last time I was there, right before New Year’s Eve, I picked up six weeks worth of comics, including the Satchel Paige graphic novel (review coming soon), and spent less than $25 with my discount, which my wallet definitely appreciated. (My liver, which is bearing the brunt of that redistributed cash flow, not so much.)

One thing I really don’t miss is tracking the 150+ comic book websites and blogs I used to read regularly to stay in the loop. Some of the best/worst highlights were the times when comics “professionals” would get caught up in some ridiculous flame war with a fan or pundit, usually over something incredibly petty and stupid. For instance, the apparently revived and reconceived MurderShow.net, tipped me off to a post at NEWSarama where notoriously thin-skinned Marvel Comics writer Dan Slott reveals he has a bit too much time on his hands.

As these things typically go, it’s a relatively minor dust-up, but it’s the kind of thing that certainly doesn’t win a creator any new fans and could prove off-putting to existing fans who are already frustrated with Marvel for myriad reasons. It’s also not the best approach for a B-list writer like Slott who has a small, rabidly loyal fanbase but is still looking for a breakout run on a top-selling series to push him onto the A-list. The thrice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man will presumably offer him that chance, but as one of four B-list writers who’ll be churning out editorially mandated storylines, partnering with much higher profile artists, that’s not really the best recipe for a breakout performance.

Other random thoughts on comic-related stuff:

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