Mystery Hoard

Marvel Boycott Diary: Please Sign the Jack Kirby Petition

2012-01-31T23:14:00.004-06:00

Hey,

I just signed the petition "Marvel Entertainment: Give credit and royalties to Jack Kirby and his family." and wanted to see if you could help by adding your name.

Our goal is to reach 100 signatures and we need more support. You can read more and sign the petition here:

http://www.change.org/petitions/marvel-entertainment-give-credit-and-royalties-to-jack-kirby-and-his-familhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gify

Thanks!

Bryan

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here's the petition:

Give credit and royalties to Jack Kirby and his family.

Jack Kirby is one of the most important and influential artists in the history of U.S. comic books and popular culture. Along with writers Joe Simon, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby created the characters and stories on which Marvel Comics has built a very successful business over the past 60 years. Kirby created or co-created Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and many more. For his efforts, Kirby was paid a few dollars a page and never shared in the billions of dollars in profits his characters have made in various media, including print, film, and video games.

We strongly urge Marvel Entertainment and is owner Disney to acknowledge Jack Kirby's authorship and primary role in the creation of these characters. As well, we urge Marvel to pay Kirby's family royalties for the use of these characters and stories.

Until such a time as Marvel can make things right with Kirby's legacy and Kirby's family and heirs, we will refuse to purchase any Marvel product, including comic books, movies, toys, or games. We ask Marvel, Disney, and its shareholders to act ethically and morally in this situation, just as their characters would.

Marvel Boycott Diary: SOPA de Gran Pena

2012-01-08T09:18:00.001-06:00

It's been a heady few weeks in Marvel Boycott land, ever since information about the supporters behind the U.S. online piracy bill were revealed. The Stop Online Piracy bill or the HR 3261 bill (also known as SOPA) is intended to give sweeping powers to law enforcement and copyright holders to curtail the illegal use of copyrighted material online. Opponents of the proposed law say in infringes on freedom of speech and the ideal of the internet as a boundless source of information and critical thought (as Eddie Campbell explains here, the threat of the bill is already having a chilling effect). One of the initial corporations to back the bill, domain name registrar Go Daddy, pulled its support after a user backlash and threatened boycott. Now that Marvel Entertainment and parent company Disney, as well as DC Comics owner Warner Bros, have been revealed as supporters, many people have been calling for similar boycotts of these companies, with Marvel coming in for special scrutiny.

I might remark at this point that while it is heartening to see such support for First Amendment rights, fair use, and a free and democratic web, it is a source of continuous heartbreak that the same forces of independent thought and moral righteousness have not been arrayed against Marvel/Disney on the issue of doing right by way of Jack Kirby's legacy in terms of giving credit, copyright, and royalties for his creations to the family of Jack Kirby, but to do so would be to confuse two different issues. Why quibble? I support both Marvel Boycotts. Down with SOPA! Justice for Jack Kirby!

If you don't agree with SOPA, and as of this writing, many, many people, including internet trendsetter Al Gore and Google's Sergey Brin, do not, you could do worse than write a "Dear Marvel" letter at this site.

Follow SOPA news on twitter.

(image: detail from "Ecce Homo" by Gilbert Hernandez)

Marvel Boycott Diary: Gary Friedrich Loses Claim to Ghost Rider Coyright

2011-12-29T14:40:00.002-06:00

Sad news in New York City today as the creator of Ghost Rider Gary Friedrich lost his latest bid to reclaim the rights to the character from Marvel.

Friedrich created a character named Hell-Rider for Skywald in 1971 before taking the Ghost Rider idea to Marvel in 1972 with an assist from Roy Thomas and Mike Ploog. When the Nic Cage GR movie came out in 2007 crediting "Marvel" as the creator (how can an inhuman corporate entity "create" anything? Ask U.S. copyright law.), Friedrich sued for rights and compensation.

Friedrich is in a similar situation as the Kirby legacy since the matter revolves around a judge's interpretation of the work-for-hire law under which Friedrich was paid for the stories he wrote for Marvel comics. There is another Ghost Rider coming out in 2012 from Marvel Entertainment and it will be subject to the Marvel Boycott just like the upcoming Avengers film.

from the Associated Press story:

Comic book publisher Marvel Entertainment owns the rights to the Ghost Rider character in the fiery form that originated in the early 1970s, a federal judge ruled Wednesday as she rejected the claims of a former Marvel writer seeking to cash in on lucrative movie rights.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest tossed out 4-year-old claims brought by Gary Friedrich, who said he created the motorcycle-driving Ghost Rider with the skeletal head that sometimes had fire blazing from it. A Ghost Rider of the 1950s and '60s was a Western character who rode a horse.

The judge said Friedrich gave up all ownership rights when he signed checks containing language relinquishing all rights to the predecessor companies of Marvel Entertainment LLC.

"The law is clear that when an individual endorses a check subject to a condition, he accepts that condition," the judge wrote.

Forrest said her finding made it unnecessary to "travel down the rabbit hole" to decide whether the character was created separate and apart from Marvel, whether the company hired Friedrich to create the character and whether he had thoughts about what rights he wanted to retain from the outset.

She said he also signed an agreement with Marvel in 1978 relinquishing rights in exchange for the possibility of additional future freelance work. He had worked for Marvel prior to that year as both an employee and as a freelance writer.

Marvel Boycott Diary: Fantagraphics to Publish Secret History

2011-12-22T11:02:00.003-06:00

Kind of a Hanukkah gift. Fantagraphics is publishing The Secret History of the Marvel Universe: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman's Empire in 2012. The book is written by Canada's own Blake Bell and Golden Age Marvel scholar Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. Here is the blurb from Amazon:

The untold story of the House of Ideas.

Marvel Comics is home to such legendary super-heroes as Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man, all of whom have spun box office gold in the 21st century. But Marvel Comics has a secret history hidden in the shadows of these well-known franchises.

The Secret History of Marvel Comics digs back to the 1930s when Marvel Comics wasn't just a comic-book producing company. Marvel Comics owner Martin Goodman had tentacles into a publishing world that might have made that era’s conservative American parents lynch him on his front porch. Marvel was but a small part of Goodman’s publishing empire, which had begun years before he published his first comic book. Goodman mostly published lurid and sensationalistic story books (known as “pulps”) and magazines, featuring sexually-charged detective and romance short fiction, and celebrity gossip scandal sheets. And artists like Jack Kirby, who was producing Captain America for eight-year-olds, were simultaneously dipping their toes in both ponds.

The Secret History of Marvel Comics tells this parallel story of 1930s/40s Marvel Comics sharing offices with those Goodman publications not quite fit for children. The book also features a comprehensive display of the artwork produced for Goodman’s other enterprises by Marvel Comics artists such as Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, Alex Schomburg, Bill Everett, Al Jaffee, and Dan DeCarlo, plus the very best pulp artists in the field, including Norman Saunders, John Walter Scott, Hans Wesso, L.F. Bjorklund, and Marvel Comics #1 cover artist Frank R. Paul. Goodman’s magazines also featured cover stories on celebrities such as Jackie Gleason, Elizabeth Taylor, Liberace, and Sophia Loren, as well as contributions from famous literary and social figures such as Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon, and L. Ron Hubbard.

These rare pieces of comic art, pulp and magazine history will open the door to Marvel Comics’ unseen history.

This is your seasonal reminder to Boycott Marvel! Happy Holidays everyone!

RIP Joe Simon, 1913-2011

2011-12-15T17:31:00.004-06:00

Joe Simon, co-creator of Captain America with Jack Kirby, has died.

Simon was one of the last "Golden Age" U.S. comics creators still living.

Very few of these men nand women are still with us.

A very short list:

Joe Kubert
Carmine Infantino
Stan Lee
Marc Swayze (co-created Mary Marvel)
Steve Ditko
Al Plastino
Fred Kida
Bob Fujitani
Leonard Starr
Ramona Fradon
Shelly Moldoff
Murphy Anderson
Irwin Hasen
John Severin
Jack Davis
Al Feldstein
Jules Feiffer
Allen Bellman (Timely/Capt. America artist)
and Canada's Gerald Lazare

Marvel Boycott Diary: Making a List, Checking it Twice

2011-11-26T10:21:00.004-06:00

Door Crasher Special:

Please remember, when compiling your Christmas shopping list, Boycott Marvel!

Canadian Comics Fan Project: AGHEEEE!

2011-11-13T11:31:00.002-06:00

Canadian Comics Fan Project

Today's example is excerpted from Conan the King (formerly King Conan) #45, March 1988.

The letter is written by Ted Huang of Weston Ontario. Ted asks the immortal question, "Why in Ymir's name does the victim of an attack always scream "Agheeee"?

Invoking the Frost Giant's name, Ted (Teddy? Theodore?) aka Ted "The Nuke" Huang, makes a good point, based on a close reading of previous Conan issues. The funny thing is, in the very same issue, we have the slightly-modified version of the same victim squeal:

And of course, as usual, the editors got it wrong. The correct response is:

Boycott Marvel! Occupy Conan!

Marvel Boycott Diary #21: Halloween Edition

2011-10-30T21:51:00.005-05:00

It's always scary when we delve into the world of the Marvel Boycott. Just remember, in many ways, every day was Halloween for Jack Kirby!

Item! Ever since the lay-off of several Marvel employees two weeks ago, fans around the web have been calling for a separate boycott of the company. Of course, I feel this is a perfectly valid response. And despite the laid-off folks like artist Damien Lucchese declining to encourage a boycott, I will continue to encourage one, with the reminder that a boycott is not directed at the employees of a company but at its shareholders, board of directors and CEO. Furthermore, we shouldn't think of the comic book industry, comic creators, and least of all Marvel Comics as some sort of charity case that we must support no matter what, despite bad comics and bad behaviour, because someone may or may not lose a dream job working at The House That Jack Built. Also, Marvel has a toilet problem.

Elena Brooklyn has this to say about that:

Comics Beat reports that Marvel has only 1 bathroom for men and 1 for women. For the ENTIRE staff.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires at least 2 bathrooms per gender for a staff that size. Or one bathroom with 5 stalls if it’s unisex. And with NYC’s stronger worker protections and building codes maybe even more.

Maybe Make Mine Marvel should be Make Mine Urinary Track Infection since Comics Beat reports staff having to schedule their lunch shifts to accommodate the limited toilet access. That’s some sweatshop stuff people. Completely unacceptable.

Marvel CEO Perlmutter is the 1% as we say down at Liberty Square. The writers, editors, artists, colorists, admin workers, janitors and distro staff who make Marvel run and create value for the company are part of the 99%. Time for us to stand up for Yancy street against Wall Street.

Item! Nat Gertler has come up with a unique compromise for those who may not support Marvel's position on the Jack Kirby lawsuit but don't want to participate in a boycott or just can't bring themselves to stop buying Marvel comics featuring characters tht Jack Kirby created or co-created. Gertler suggests that every time you spend money on a Kirby-related Marvel movie, send a dollar to the Jack Kirby Museum. Gertler has set up a simple website, abuckforjack.com to help direct donations and explain his position. It's worth checking out. The Kirby Museum is a very good cause and they can use all of the donations you care to send them. And it would be nice if Gertler expanded his project to include all other Kirby-derived Marvel product (ie, buy a Thor Halloween costume? Why not send some money to the Kirby Museum?). However, it is no more than a band-aid solution that, at best, indirectly helps out the pro-Kirby lawsuit forces by supporting the Museum's educational mission. It's a nice way for those who feel guilty about supporting Marvel/Disney through movie and dvd sales to soothe their consciences, but little more. Remember, the money from those films in part goes towards fighting the Kirby heirs in court. Really, should you support both sides?

Item! Speaking of lack of support, Marvel recently cancelled Alpha Flight, the comic about Canadian superheroes. Is it because, as The Beguiling's Chris Butcher suggests, Marvel has something against specific Canadians?

Item! The newest blogger to join the boycott is Matt Springer. You can read Springer's blog here.

Item! Elsewhere in Kirby-land, the scholar Charles Hatfield has announced the upcoming release of his academic study of Jack Kirby, Hand of Fire, which promises to be a fascinating look at why Jack continues to matter today.

Charles Hatfield’s Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby is a book about what Kirby did and why it matters. In particular, it focuses on Kirby’s artistic peak in the 1960s and ’70s. A critical exploration of cartooning, of superheroes, science fiction, and the technological sublime, Hand of Fire is the first academic monograph in English about Kirby’s work. In essence, it’s a book about why Kirby blew off the top of so many readers’ heads, and why he still does.

Hand of Fire is part of the University Press of Mississippi’s “Great Comics Artists” series. Look for it in January 2012.

Happy Halloween and don't forget to Boycott Marvel!

Marvel Boycott Diary #20: Occupy Yancy Street!

2011-10-23T22:47:00.002-05:00

Here's my contribution to the Occupy Yancy Street movement/meme.

Make your own!

Nerd notes: Yancy Street was the home neighborhood of Ben Grimm aka The Thing of Fantastic Four fame. It was also home to Ben's old working-class pals, The Yancy St. Gang, who constantly tormented him with practical jokes and poison-pen letters. Yancy Street was apparently based on Delancey Street, the original stomping grounds of Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby!

Marvel Boycott Diary #19: Vermont Event Features Steve Bissette on Kirby Legal Issues

2011-10-20T10:51:00.003-05:00

The Center for Cartoon Studies and Vermont Law School present:

Marvel vs. Jack Kirby: Legal Rights and Ethical Might

Friday, October 21, 2:30, Nina Simon Classroom, CCS, White River Junction, VT

Jack Kirby was a defining cartoonist of his generation. From the 1940s through the 1960s, Kirby created or co-created the foundation that is the Marvel Universe: Captain America, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Thor, and the Avengers.

A billion dollar media empire is built on these superheroes.

Marvel, now owned by Disney, contends that Kirby worked under a work-for-hire agreement and his heirs have no right to the revenue his creations continue to generate for the company. A recent court ruling agreed with Marvel but appeals will surely follow.

Join The Center for Cartoon Studies’ Steve Bissette and Vermont Law School’s Oliver Goodenough as they discuss the legal, ethical, and moral issues of the Kirby decision for Marvel/Disney, the consumers of superhero stories, and the talent that creates them.

Marvel Boycott Diary #18: Happy Birthday Joe Simon!

2011-10-11T11:22:00.006-05:00

Happy 98th Birthday Joe Simon!

Along with Jack Kirby, Joe Simon created Captain America.

To date, Marvel Comics and Disney do not acknowledge or credit Simon and Kirby for their creation. They receive no credit in comic book issues of Captain America and related titles (The Avengers, etc) and do not receive any royalties for the character or for reprints of their original stories from the 1940s. They receive no money from the Captain America movie which has grossed $362,584,292 worldwide.

About Joe Simon:

Joseph Simon was born October 11, 1913, in Rochester, New York. He worked as a newspaper artist and cartoonist before turning to the early world of comic books. In the late 1930s he met artist Jack Kirby and began collaborating with him. The pair created Captain America in 1941 and wrote and drew the first 10 issues of the Captain America comic book for Timely Comics (later Marvel).

They later moved to National/DC and created Sandman, the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, and Manhunter. Together they also invented romance comics and ran their own publishing companies (Crestwood, Mainline). In the 1960s, Simon moved into advertising, returning to comics briefly in the late-60s and reteaming with Kirby for a short period in the 1970s. As an artist and writer, and creator of several long-running characters and genres, Simon's contribution to American comic books and popular culture is immeasurable.

Please consider boycotting Marvel Comics until Joe Simon and the Jack Kirby heirs are given due credit for their work!

Marvel Boycott Diary #17: Please Support the Jack Kirby "Pop-Up" Museum

2011-10-03T10:00:00.002-05:00

One of the ways that we can show our support for the Marvel Boycott to strengthen Jack Kirby's legacy is to provide financial backing to projects that put the genius of Kirby front and center. So, instead of buying Marvel reprints of his comics that don't pay royalties to the Kirby family, or Marvel comics that use characters Jack created without credit, maybe consider buying comics that pay royalties and give credit, like the DC Omnibus editions of Kirby classics, the Titan Books Simon and Kirby Library, or the new Kirby Genesis series of comics based on his creations.

And now there is a new way to keep the Kirby legacy alive: Rand Hoppe, one of the principles behind the registered not-for-profit Jack Kirby Museum, recently announced plans to open a temporary Kirby museum in Jack's old New York City neighborhood. The Kirby Museum has only been a virtual, online organization so far, with scattered archives and volunteers. Hoppe wants to open a physical storefront museum on New York's Lower East Side starting next month and he is asking for donations of $20 or more to get the project realized.

An actual Kirby museum would give fans of the King a place to see his original art and learn about his life, and would be an invaluable tool for presenting Kirby to the world and educating people about his central role in the creation of Marvel and its many characters.

Our intention is to set up a temporary, or “pop-up,” brick-and-mortar location for the Jack Kirby Museum during this November, December and January. The ideal size for this purpose is between 800-1,200-square-feet, and would feature original artwork, artifacts from Jack’s life, prominent guest speakers, educational programs and installation pieces inspired by and celebrating the unique work and life of Jack Kirby.

A space like this dedicated entirely to the life and work of Jack Kirby would be equally appealing to seasoned art patrons, pop-art connoisseurs, casual fans, tourists, and families. Successful implementation of this pop-up museum will allow us to pursue the ultimate goal of a PERMANENT space for the Museum in the near future.

Again, nothing like this has ever been attempted. And, in order to make this happen, we need funding.

Fast.

[...] We understand that trying to raise significant funds in such a short amount of time is ambitious. Our current estimate is that we'd need more than $30,000 to fund the real estate end of the project (rent, legal, security, insurance, etc.) for ten to twelve weeks. While this sounds like an awful lot of money (and... it is!), it's really just a question of finding 1,000 Jack Kirby fans willing to donate more than $30 each! Simplistic? Perhaps. We prefer "optimistic", though. We don't underestimate Kirby fans....

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read more about donating

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Marvel Boycott Diary #16: Notes on Morrison

2011-09-28T10:46:00.003-05:00

Vancouver blogger A Trout in the Milk makes some interesting points and has some advice for people who were baffled or angered about Grant Morrison's recent comments about Siegel and Shuster. It's a longer article but worth reading in full. I think more an more people are coming to realize that our childhood favourites (and current boxoffice champions) are characters who have been unfairly appropriated from their creators. We still love the characters and all those great stories, but don't know what to do about the conflicted feelings we have. Can we still enjoy these comics, films, and videogames when we know the company that produces them is still actively engaged in screwing over the families of the people like Jack Kirby and Jerry Siegel who gave birth to Captain America and Superman? And what about the people who write and draw new stories today. Should their attitude towards Kirby, Siegel and Shuster have any bearing on how we read their current comics?

But here’s the problem: it isn’t right. Not unless we’re prepared to do something about it. I mean: any of it. You know what I mean?
And that doesn’t necessarily mean “boycott”. It doesn’t even necessarily mean “protest”. But it does mean “reaction”. Take me, for example: I’m not engaged in a boycott, and I’m not protesting anything. But I am having a reaction, in that I’ve just stopped buying shit — even good shit — that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. And I’m not saying I’m any better or worse than anyone else because of it, but that’s the reaction that I’m having because I’m having one. Of course there are any number of reactions a person could have to the injustice on display in Marvel’s actions toward the Kirbys, DC’s actions toward the Siegels, if one is not actually predisposed to take the side of the companies. “Not caring” is one of these possible reactions. “Making excuses to oneself for still needing the job/wanting the comics” is another. And personally I’ve got no problem with people in the “making excuses” mode; I make excuses for things I do that don’t sit 100% right with me, just about every day. So I know that it is a reaction, a perfectly valid reaction. And you know it’s a little bit like work, too? It’s a little bit like work…
So you pay for the privilege, of making excuses. And that’s fine. But in my case, I don’t feel I have to pay that way anymore. And, in some way do I have Grant Morrison to thank for it? It was Steve Bissette calling for a boycott on Marvel that made me think of it, but maybe it was Morrison’s comments, and the reaction to Morrison’s comments, that finally made me feel like acting, made me feel like I wasn’t stuck with the situation as it was.

Marvel Boycott Diary #15: Kirby Link Round-Up

2011-09-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

The Marvel Boycott continues.Some more-or-less random links, some only tangentially related to the boycott:

What Kirby Did: Critic and cartoonist Matt Seneca writes about a Jack Kirby action page, noting that "how much sharper Kirby’s sequencing got after his 1979-80 stint as an animation artist for Ruby-Spears. A few years roughing out stories for a medium in which the audience plays the role of passive receptor rather than active participant had subtly changed Kirby’s comics art once he returned. "

Do Boycotts Work? Lots of talk on the internets in reaction to Steve Bissette's call for a boycott of Marvel. Many people say boycotts don't work, or only harm the little guys, like retailers and the current creators of Marvel comics who are working on those Kirby characters. I feel that boycotts and petitions that threaten boycotts can be effective in shaming or scaring companies into action. The latest evidence is the campaign led by colorofchange.org to get advertisers to pull out of Glenn Beck's show on Fox News, which ultimately resulted in Beck's termination. At its peak, the Glenn Beck boycott involved almost 300, 000 people and was costing Fox half a million dollars per week.

Gandhi on boycotts and imperialism 1: "Economics that hurt the moral well-being of an individual or a nation are immoral and therefore sinful. Thus the economics that permit one country to prey upon another are immoral. It is sinful to buy and use articles made by sweated labour. It is sinful to eat American wheat and let my neighbour the grain-dealer starve for want of custom." (Young India, 13-10-1921)

Gandhi on boycotts and imperialism 2: "It is my claim that as soon as we have completed the boycott of foreign cloth we shall have evolved so far that we shall necessarily give up the present absurdities and remodel national life in keeping with the ideal of simplicity and domesticity implanted in the bosom of the masses. We will not then be dragged into an imperialism which is built upon exploitation of the weaker races of the earth, and the acceptance of a giddy materialistic civilization protected by naval and air forces that have made peaceful living almost impossible. On the contrary we shall then refine that imperialism into a commonwealth of nations which will combine, if they do, for the purpose of giving their best to the world and of protecting, not by brute force but by self -suffering, the weaker nations or races of he earth. Non-cooperation aims at nothing less than this revolution in the thought world. " (Young India, 29-6-1921)

Joining the Boycott? The writer James Vance (Kings in Disguise) thinks that calls for a boycott are "naive" and that "reasonable appeals" to the company are probably "forlorn," but still has the gumption to state that, "From a moral standpoint, I agree that Marvel should make some kind of a good-faith financial gesture to Kirby’s heirs."

Credit for Kirby 1: Comic shop retailer Mike Sterling has pointed out that the new DC 52 title OMAC #1, based on a character created by Jack Kirby, does not credit Kirby anywhere in the book, This is an important lapse, since DC has generally been very good with these sorts of credits over the last few years and their willingness to give credit (except when a lawsuit is involved) has been an influence on the boycott. My thinking is, if DC can include a simple "created by..." blurb on the first page of every comic book, why can't Marvel? The OMAC example is also important since the book is being illustrated by Keith Giffen in a Kirby style. (Tony Isabella has some thoughts on this too.)

Credit for Kirby 2: At the Kirby museum, blogger Robert Steibel presents a trio of posts about the auteur theory of comics ( 1 2 3) and Jack Kirby's place in that theory. So, is Kirby an auteur?

"I think the answer is yes. I think that if you look only at the visuals — the style of the art, the dynamics, the compositions, and ignore the text and the quality of the inks and the colors — you are seeing Jack Kirby as the Pure Auteur of his 1960s stories. In your mind, you can travel back to the moment where Kirby stuffed his story into an envelope and mailed it to NYC, and you can glimpse his personal vision — Jack Kirby: Pure Auteur.But, there is no denying the published book is much more of a collaboration. You can’t dismiss Lee and the other personnel’s contributions to the finished product, so in that sense, I suggest you have to think of Jack as what I’ll call the “Principal Auteur” of the published book: Jack wasn’t working from a full script like most comics artists in a traditional writer/artist relationship, in reality, Jack Kirby conceived of and wrote the original story with visuals and liner notes. Jack is the principal storyteller."

Boycott Marvel!

Working-Class Heroes Project Redux

2011-09-14T13:05:00.000-05:00

Blogger Will Shetterly has added a bit to the master-list of working-class superheroes I started a little while back (in 2005! holy smoke!) and the list now includes some more contemporary heroes I was not aware of way back when. Still, the paucity of actual poor or proletarian types who worked overtime in the long-underwear biz kind of proves my original point, that despite their origins in the sweat-shops of New York, superhero comics still had quite a bit of middle- and upper-class ideology embedded in their marrow.

I slightly updated my original list in 2006 and can't really think of any more Golden Age heroes to add besides Simon and Kirby's Vagabond Prince, aka Ned Oaks, a down-at-heels poet and writer of greeting card verses, perhaps modeled after the Gary Cooper character in Frank Capra's 1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

Of course, the real reason that we seem to have a hard time finding working-class heroes is because superhero comic books are all about rich people beating up poor people,* making the true heroes of the comics, from a class perspective, the villains. I wrote about this too, in a post about Solomon Grundy and "The Animated Corpse of the Working Class."

Maybe we could start a list of Working-Class Villains? The Wrecking Crew, Parasite, Sandman, and many of their cohorts were more prole than all the Reed Richards, Bruce Waynes and Tony Starks of the superhero-industrial complex combined.

*The other major themes of superhero comics, besides class anxiety are identity, violence, and sexuality, in case you were interested.

Unknown Canadian Cartoonists: Jay Work

2011-09-14T05:18:00.001-05:00

Just bought a small pile of old Maclean's magazines from the 1930s and 40s, only to discover a new cartoonist I've never heard of and can find no reference to. The single gag panel appears in the February 15, 1949 issue of Maclean's and is entitled "Wilfie" by Jay Work. The name sounds like a pseudonym, but who knows? The strip appears to be a continuing feature, along the lines of James Simpkins' Jasper, an early example of which appears a few pages earlier in the same issue. Simpkins' strip ran every week in the magazine for decades, beginning in the late 1940s, and I can only assume that Wilfie followed the same formula, with the same character appearing in different situations. Wilfie looks like a Caspar Milquetoast or Crockett Johnson's "The Little Man With the Eyes-type character. Work's style is definitely sketchier than Simpkins', whose washes and versatility of line helped propel the fish-out-of-water anthropomorphics of Jasper through several incarnations. The hockey subject-matter of the panel makes me think Canadian, as well. Other highlights of this issue, besides noting that Pierre Berton is listed as copy editor on the masthead, are cartoons by anti-fascist artist Len Norris.

Marvel Boycott Diary #14: Boycott the Thor DVD

2011-09-13T00:05:00.001-05:00

Today Marvel is releasing the Thor movie on dvd and Blu-ray and so I thought I'd post a few notes about Jack Kirby and Thor.

As this post reminds us, although "in 2011 so far (as of September 2011), creations of Jack Kirby have accounted for $766 million dollars at the box-office, and that’s just domestic grosses, not including dvd/blu-ray sales, international sales or merchandising," Jack Kirby remains unknown to the general public. Jack Kirby, were he alive, would see no income from the sales of the Thor discs today, nor will his family. Marvel has systematically fought to have Kirby shut-out of the credit and proceeds of his creations and that is why we are urging the boycott, to right this historic wrong. Please do not buy any Marvel product until this issue is resolved.

Because Kirby's leading role in the creation of Marvel is such a secret, I am cheered whenever I see a review that even mentions Jack Kirby as the creator or co-creator of Thor, since there is so much misinformation out there, most of it the handiwork of Stan Lee, Marvel spokesman and Kirby's editor and co-writer during the 1960s. Kudos to the critic Gabriel Powers for pointing out Stan's credit hogging on the dvd special feature interview in this review and its comments section.

In fact, the historical record is pretty clear on Thor. As with many Marvel projects from the 60s, there seems to have been some sort of discussion between Kirby and Lee about the character, who first appeared in a six-page origin story in the Journey Into Mystery anthology (issue #83, August 1962). Stan's brother Larry Lieber is credited as scriptwriter on the first issue and for the initial run of the stories, with Kirby continuing on the art chores, as well as plotting, etc.

It's interesting to read Lieber's deposition from the most recent lawsuit in regards to the creation of Thor, as a counterpoint to Stan Lee's "I created Thor and his universe" line:

Q: Did you ever work on the comic Thor?
LARRY LIEBER: Yes.
Q: What was your involvement?
LARRY LIEBER: I got the synopsis, the plot from Stan, and I wrote the first script of Thor. That was it.
Q: And when you say “the script,” that’s what we were talking about before that told panel by panel?
LARRY LIEBER: Panel by panel and description of it, yes.
Q: Did you see any artwork on Thor before you wrote the script?
LARRY LIEBER: I don’t recall seeing any. I don’t know.
Q: Do you know who, after you turned in the script, do you know who the artist was that drew Thor?
LARRY LIEBER: I believe it was Jack Kirby.
Q: Did you have any conversations or any interactions with Jack Kirby about the Thor book?
LARRY LIEBER: No, not that I recall.
Q: Did you come up with any of the names in Thor?
LARRY LIEBER: Yes.
Q: What did you come up with?
LARRY LIEBER: The civilian name of Don Blake I made up. And I also came up with his hammer. I made that, which people know about. My Uru hammer, I created that.
Q: And where did you get the name Uru hammer?
LARRY LIEBER: I just made it up, as far as I know. I might have read it. I used to — Stan liked the way I made up names, civilian names, and I used to, from my years of doing these, what do you call it, these fantasy books, monster books, and I used to look at the back of dictionary, Miriam Webster had biographical names and geographical, so I would look in towns and if I liked the town, I might put it. And it was kind of fun and he liked what I did.

Now, I don’t know if I found “Uru” someplace or I just made it up or whatever. I know I made it short because I felt that Thor might be around a while and I was always worrying about the letterer or somebody. I was worrying about somebody else’s feeling, and I figured, well, if I make it U-R-U, there’s not that much to letter. And since nobody knows the name of it, I’ll make it a short name. So that’s why I did that.

And Don Blake I just thought sounded like a doctor and, you know, to fit the personality.

And then of course, there are Kirby's own words, from this famous interview in the Comics Journal:

KIRBY: I came in [to the Marvel offices] and they were moving out the furniture, they were taking desks out — and I needed the work! I had a family and a house and all of a sudden Marvel is coming apart. Stan Lee is sitting on a chair crying. He didn’t know what to do, he’s sitting in a chair crying —he was just still out of his adolescence. I told him to stop crying. I says. “Go in to Martin and tell him to stop moving the furniture out, and I’ll see that the books make money.” And I came up with a raft of new books and all these books began to make money. Somehow they had faith in me. I knew 1 could do it, but I had to come up with fresh characters that nobody had seen before. I came up with The Fantastic Four. I came up with Thor. Whatever it took to sell a book I came up with. Stan Lee has never been editorial minded. It wasn’t possible for a man like Stan Lee to come up with new things — or old things for that matter. Stan Lee wasn’t a guy that read or that told stories. Stan Lee was a guy that knew where the papers were or who was coming to visit that day. Stan Lee is essentially an office worker, OK? I’m essentially something else: I’m a storyteller.
[...]
GROTH: Who came up with the name “Fantastic Four”?

KIRBY: I did. All right? I came up with all those names. I came up with Thor because I’ve always been a history buff. I know all about Thor and Balder and Mjolnir, the hammer. Nobody ever bothered with that stuff except me. I loved it in high school and I loved it in my pre-high school days. It was the thing that kept my mind off the general poverty in the area. When I went to school that’s what kept me in school — it wasn’t mathematics and it wasn’t geography; it was history.

GROTH: Stan says he conceptualized virtually everything in The Fantastic Four — that he came up with all the characters. And then he said that he wrote a detailed synopsis for Jack to follow.

ROZ KIRBY: I’ve never seen anything.

KIRBY: I’ve never seen it, and of course I would say that’s an outright lie.

Regardless of the initial conception, it seems clear that Kirby deserves the credit for the visual design of the Thor universe and much of the stories of Thor's adventures in the comics. The Destroyer character in the movie is totally a Kirby creation, for instance, as are the Warriors Three sidekicks.

---

In other news, Rand Hoppe of the Kirby Museum has also joined the boycott and has some thoughts on Kirby's 94th birthday.

Until next time,

Boycott Marvel!

Marvel Boycott Diary #13: Jack Kirby, Labourer

2011-09-04T06:29:00.004-05:00

This being Labour Day, a few notes from around the web on Jack Kirby, worker, architect, genius, and work for hire.

It seems like there may be a Boycott Marvel Facebook page. Here is its blurb:

The late Jack Kirby's heirs were denied any share of the copyright to his Marvel Comics creations in federal court -- including Thor, the Fantastic Four, and the Hulk, the Avengers and the X-Men. Stephen R. Bissette has called for comics readers and filmgoers to boycott all Marvel Entertainment products based on the 1960s creations of Kirby, the man behind many of that company's most enduring icons.

I came across this 2010 Vice article from Dan Nadel on Kirby. Nadel put together a Kirby exhibit recently and his thoughts on Kirby's art, career arc and creative process are still timely.

A man with this attitude, combined with a strong sense of loyalty and a need to provide for his wife and three kids, was going to have a hard time. A tortured time. Kirby, who grew up poor and Jewish on the Lower East Side, was godlike in his abilities. He was a one-man mythos machine, and he knew it. But he was powerless in all other practical matters. So when the movie deals were announced and the animated cartoons aired and other artists began steering his characters, Kirby was angry. All he could do was leave.

In other news, the Kirby Museum's Simon and Kirby columnist Harry Mendryk writes a great article about the evolution of one of Jolly Jack's great visual devices, "Kirby Krackle."

The Kirby Krackle prototype from “The Negative Man” is very similar to that found previously in “The Man Who Collected Planets”. However while Kirby inked his own pencils in the earlier story some other artist inked “The Negative Man”. I am not positive as to who that inker was but the blunt but fluid brushwork looks very much like the work of Marvin Stein so I questionably attribute it to him. The two stories are similar enough that perhaps Stein used the earlier Kirby inked story as a reference when inking this one. Or perhaps Kirby had already begun to include how a story should be spotted in his pencils. In either case the use of the Kirby Krackle in this story should be credited to Jack Kirby.

And finally, blogger Michael Buntag has joined the boycott. Welcome aboard, Michael!

Canadian Comics Fan Project: Smallsack Mailville

2011-09-03T13:25:00.006-05:00

I haven't done one of these installments in the Canadian Comics Fan Project for awhile but couldn't resist posting these two letters since it's rare to find more than one Canadian letter in an old comic book. Today's examples come from Superboy #137 (April 1967), part of a small non-Mystery Hoard I picked up at the recent Fan Expo in Toronto.

The letters pages in the old DC Comics had corny titles and Superboy was no exception. For some reason, the Superman lettercol was titled "Metropolis Mailbag" whereas the Boy of Steel only merited a "Smallville Mailsack" --perhaps a reflection of the more rural, less modern system of mail delivery endemic to Clark Kent's home town.

Regardless, the first letter featured in this classic issue comes from David Ball of Downsview, Ontario.

Dear Editor:

I have a dog who looks a lot like Krypto. Whenever I read an issue of Superboy, he peeks over my shoulder. When my friends and I play Superboy, I put a red cpe and collar on him and he plays, too. Once I was sitting under a tree and he ran up to me and licked a picture of Krypto on a nearby comic. Do you think you can put him up for honorary membership in the Space Canine Patrol Agency?
----David Ball, Downsview, Ont., Canada
(Sorry --but we don't consider the ability to lick covers as having a super-power.--Ed.)

Well, that counts me out!

Letter #2.

Dear Editor:
These comics like Superboy, with teen-age heroes, really crack me up! They're so ridiculous! After all, how many real teen-agers ever became heroes? None that I can think of!
--Alex Crane, Vancouver, B.C., Can.
(We can think of a good many, but to name two --David Glasgow Farragut was born in 1801, yet served with distinction as a Naval officer in the War of 1812. And Joan of Arc led an army to victory at the age of 17! --Ed.)

And what about Justin Bieber!?!

Marvel Boycott Diary #12: "No Marvel as we know it without Jack Kirby"

2011-08-25T11:11:00.004-05:00

News from the Boycott Marvel frontlines.

A wonderful letter from J.T. Dockery on the Captain America movie and Jack Kirby's legacy:

In all the marketing and advertising and big money deals that have put this film based on comic books on the screen for distraction of the masses and money in the pockets of Marvel/Disney, what has been much less publicized is the recent legal decision that sided with Marvel against the family of Jack Kirby (Kirby is no longer with us on this mortal coil), essentially screwing him again, even in death, out of any revenue generated by characters he had a hand in creating. Legally speaking, he may have been doing his job under a work-for-hire basis but, frankly, I’m not a lawyer and I’m not interested in legalities; I’m interested in fairness.

Elsewhere, in the wonderful land of Twitter, a light-hearted exchange stemming from the recent Grant Morrison Rolling Stone interview took place between Robin McConnell (of Inkstuds podcast fame) and cartoonist Dustin Harbin (who besides his own self-published comics does some lettering for Marvel). The exchange is worth noting because it sums up some of the issues the boycott has been raising recently. I've excerpted part of their comments below, apologies if I mixed up the order of the tweets since I had to do some cut and past stuff to make everything readable:

Inkstuds: Interview with Morrison today is a reminder of how irrelevant mainstream comics have become. if marvel and dc disappeared comics would be better for it.
Harbin: You mean comics would be better if the two biggest employers, Diamond, and most comics shops went out of business?
Inkstuds: The artistic depths of a comic by Chris Ware is beyond anything DC has done in 20 years. On that note of dc, i read Batwoman today. amazing art. story was total shite. They even include the script so you can see how much JH3 improves what he has to work with.
Harbin: I think we agree on a lot of it! But things are too complicated for "Marvel and DC just disappear." For instance, a market that can support an annual Los Bros collection wouldn't exist without "big" comics companies. For good or ill, the furnace of the comics industry runs on big dumb comics Speaking as a former store manager. The big books pay for the ability to carry smaller press books, minis, etc
Inkstuds: not getting into this debate with you kind sir. we have very different POVs on the system. the whole thing is a mess.
Harbin: Boooo Robin. Where are your nuts?
Inkstuds: hhahaha, let me get drunk first! At some place that allows for more constructive debate than can come across 140 characters. A discussion better had with a bunch of bottles and no one listening and retweeting.
The debate is not just sales, but art, treatment of artists, moral and ethical expectations.
Harbin: Sure I guess. Go ask around about page rates at the prestigious small press companies if you're worried about ethics. Sorry dude it's bedtime on the East Coast--now Twitter will only remember your simplistic offense on Chris Ware's behalf!
Inkstuds: Who said offensive?
Harbin: I was replying to you saying simplistic offense.
Inkstuds: I dont think its an offensive comment to remark on a large corporate entity.
Harbin: Oh--I meant your offense in terms of you worrying about mispeaking publicly.
Inkstuds: Ok then, we can just hug it out.
Harbin: Yes and afterwards I'll buy you a beer. I'll have to cash my Marvel Comics check first, since that's my biggest reliable income.

Marvel Boycott Diary #11: "Jack Kirby is going to murder us all in our dreams."

2011-08-22T07:10:00.001-05:00

All the latest news about the Marvel Boycott.

In his latest Comics Journal column, cartoonist Frank Santoro has a few more words about the Marvel Boycott, including the news that he will no longer work for Marvel Comics. It's definitely the recommended read of the week, maybe the whole month. Plus, you get a Michael DeForge comic, Frank's thoughts on popular music, and a discussion of Klaus Janson as a colourist as a bonus. I won't excerpt Frank's comments here because they're fairly short, not to mention wonderfully profane. Go read it!

Also worth reading: Last week Rich Johnson interviewed the publisher of Image Comics, Eric Stephenson, at the Bleeding Cool website. Of course, whatever Stephenson says should be taken with a grain of salt since his company is in direct competition with Marvel and would potentially benefit from a large-scale boycott, but for the record, here is part of their exchange on the subject of Jack Kirby:

"Rich: You’re not publishing Kirby these days, the case doesn’t have an impact on any of Image’s contracts, people seem aware of what they are signing at Marvel and DC these days… are you joining the Steve Bissette boycott? How do you feel about Image creators who work on Kirby characters that pay the Kirby estate nothing?

Eric: Well, we’re not actively publishing Jack’s work, but one of his creator-owned properties, Silver Star, remains in print here at Image, and Image published a project he was involved with, Phantom Force, back in the early ’90s. Jack was an inspiration to every single one of Image’s founders, and with Phantom Force, that was Image’s chance to kind of say thanks, and for all that project’s flaws, it still made an incredible amount of money for Jack and his family.

But I can’t fault Image creators for working on Kirby characters when nothing is being paid to the Kirby Estate, because I’m guilty of that myself. I can’t really say, “Hey, I worked on those characters when I was younger, but I think you’re a bad person for doing that,” now, can I? Above and beyond that, though, it’s not really my place or Image’s place to tell creators what to do or what not to do with their careers. People have enough going on in their lives without some prick browbeating them over the phone and telling them what they can and can’t write or draw for other publishers.

The Bissette thing – I commend what he’s doing, because I think there’s real value in people coming together to make a stand. I’ve read these comments online where people say he’s naive or whatever, but you know, a lot has been achieved throughout the history of the world by people joining together as one and making their voice known. That’s exactly how democracy is supposed to work, and it’s the apathetic majority, cynically folding their arms and castigating everyone else for actually having principles that prevent it from working. As far as venting his anger and frustration over a wrong that should have been righted by now goes, I totally respect what Steve is doing. Why is his position any less valid than all those people who petitioned to save Spider-Girl, or whatever? I personally think demanding some respect for Jack Kirby’s legacy is a far more worthy cause."

Read the full interview here.

And remember, no matter where you go and what you do today, please consider Boycotting Marvel!

Total Recall Film Shoot in Guelph

2011-08-22T00:29:00.007-05:00

A crew from the upcoming Hollywood remake of Total Recall were in Guelph yesterday shooting a scene for the movie. Most of downtown was closed off while the film crew shot takes of actors walking across a street --pretty exciting, I know, but a fascinating window into the drudgery of big budget movie production. Despite several fierce rainstorms, it seemed like everyone in the city came downtown to check out the action and try to catch a glimpse of one of the stars. Although I heard from a restaurant owner who heard from someone involved that some of the leads were going to be in town (the film stars Colin Farrell, Ethan Hawke, Kate Beckinsdale, and Jessica Biel), apparently none of the mains were actually here. I certainly didn't see any celebs when I ambled down to who check out the goings-on. I did encounter a few crew members and one stunt double in my antique store late in the afternoon. Although none of them bought anything (boohoo!), the stunt double seriously considered a $2 purchase of a Guelph souvenir postcard.

I enjoyed the original Paul Verhoeven-directed Total Recall when I saw it in a theatre in 1990, despite the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger was already starting to irritate my delicate teenage sensibilities. Since then, the movie has attained a sort of cheesy cult status but is still among the best of a generally lacklustre bunch of post-Blade Runner adaptations of Philip K. Dick stories. Total Recall was adapted from Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale".

From the Guelph Mercury:

Total Recall major film shoot shakes up downtown Guelph

GUELPH — Eric Repaci and his son Brandon picked the right day to try a downtown eatery for the first time.

The pair had a front-row seat as film crews moved wrecked cars into place and set up a scene from the Hollywood blockbuster Total Recall.

“It’s a unique experience in Guelph because we don’t see this kind of thing too often,” Repaci said as he and Brandon sipped coffee on the patio at Van Gogh’s Ear. “I’m a driver for Tim Horton’s so I get detoured around these things all the time in Toronto.

“It’s neat to see it close to home.”

Alternating, and at times quite heavy, rain chased away some onlookers throughout the day.

But John Milne of Hamilton stuck it out most of the day, capturing some of the action – or lack thereof – on his cellphone camera.

Milne heard about the shooting and decided to come to Guelph to visit a friend and hang about the set for a while.

“It’s incredible the number of people and the amount of gear they need just to film a few people crossing the street,” he said.

Total Recall, set for release next summer, is an update of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi classic. It stars Colin Farrell as a factory worker who begins to think he’s a spy for competing nations in a post-Apocalyptic world.

To the disappointment of some onlookers, no major stars featured in the scene filmed here Sunday.

The action took place at the intersection of Macdonell and Wyndham streets, which was littered with wrecked and burned vehicles and decorated with street signs suggesting the film is set in Britain. A double-decker bus and several London taxis — painted to look like they were covered in dirt and ash — were among the props used in the filming.

Business owners near the intersection were paid to stay closed for the day, close early or simply keep their lights off.

At the nearby Apollo 11 family restaurant, co-owner Cathy Agelakos said business was down slightly because the street was closed, but added some of the film crew came in to eat in the morning.

“The workers are pretty nice,” Agelakos said. “Maybe this will bring some people downtown who wouldn’t normally come here and they will come back another time.”

Marvel Boycott Diary #10: Join the Boycott Bullpen!

2011-08-18T20:47:00.002-05:00

The funniest and most intellectually rigorous post about the Marvel Boycott this week comes from The Mindless Ones blog. Blogger "The Doubtful Guest" (aka "Joel") has posted a wonderful political-socio essay on the nature of the 1960s-70s Marvel Bullpen, collectivity, capitalism, and something called "Thrill-Power." Guaranteed to please, or at least temporarily entrance, those who may have a more critical or academic appreciation for Judge Dredd, Herb Trimpe, Marie Severin, and Jolly Jack.

"What I mean here is the concept of the Bullpen as something that entered the comics imagination with the 1960s Marvel Age, and continues to leave its historical trace in every comics Universe. The truncated history goes that, emerging from the Eisner & Iger independent sweatshop/studio, the Fordist assembly line and the 50s post-Comics Code audience exodus, the Bullpen formation was a way for publishers to ensure greater homogeneity and editorial control over their comics lines. In terms of Marvel’s history, it seems reasonable to suggest that the invocation of the Bullpen in the comics (through Stan’s columns, and the general tone of captions and narrative) as well as the real-life office was an attempt to keep that Stan & Jack/Stan & Steve Marvel Method Magic flowing beyond its original creative flush, and, of course, beyond the departures of the two artists. In actuality, it was also a way to ensure three things: vastly unequal profit shares (through those work-for-hire contracts Bissette mentions), a usually strict division of labour, and Marvel’s good old white male hegemony."

In other Boycott news, the cartoonist Frank Santoro (Storeyville, Cold Heat) joins the boycott in his Comics Journal column and Journal editor Tim Hodler has a great link from The New York Times about the efforts of famous musicians and pop stars to regain the copyrights of their old songs in the same way that the Kirby heirs are fighting for Kirby's copyrights.

Elsewhere, Kevin de Vlaming of the Fabler Blog relays a great Scott McCloud (Zot!, Understanding Comics) quote about the Kirby case:

"But hardly any artist in that end of the business was treated fairly in those days (much like in the music industry) and Kirby in particular deserved far more compensation — and RESPECT — than he received over the years from a royal procession of lawyers, asshole execs, and two-faced colleagues.

Anyone contesting that Marvel was largely built on Kirby’s ideas just doesn’t know their comics history."

Boycott Marvel!

Marvel Boycott Diary #9: Kirby Heirs File Appeal

2011-08-16T10:21:00.006-05:00

Big News and New Supporters

The big news today is that the Jack Kirby family filed their appeal in the case against Marvel for the copyrights to the superhero characters Kirby created. So the court case isn't over and there is still time to get on board this protest against Marvel and Disney.

Everyday I hear from a few more people who are joining the boycott. Yesterday I received a comment via Facebook from cartoonist Jay Stephens that he's kicked Marvel. Anyone else? Let's see: yep, it looks like the comics critic and founder of The Doug Wright Awards, Brad Mackay, has joined the boycott, a brave move for the father of a little girl who just discovered Kirby's classic run on the Fantastic Four and is clamoring for more. Good luck Brad!

Elsewhere, Brendan Wright writes a really wonderful essay on the case for Kirby and how heartened he is by the boycott in terms of restoring his faith in humanity. You should go read it!

"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."

And Tucker Stone, who writes some of the hardest-to-parse comics criticism around, especially in his weekly "Comics of the Weak" beatdown of the latest superhero comic books, has his regular harsh things to say about the latest Marvel offerings, with a few references to the "boycott Marvel" movement. I think Mr. Stone works in a comic shop, so he may not technically be buying these comics? Anyway, it's pretty funny as usual but you shouldn't read it if you like Squirrel Girl or if you are sensitive about the use of "bad language" in your reviews of Hellboy tie-ins and Marvel's Fear Itself miniseries.

All good stuff!

Marvel Boycott Diary #8: NYT

2011-08-13T21:51:00.001-05:00

Well, the New York Times has covered the Marvel Boycott, sort of, by mentioning it on their comic book and graphic novel Bestseller List and linking to Steve Bissette's original call for a boycott and the letter from Seth posted here on Mystery Hoard. So that's something.

In my own boycott news, I went into my local comic shop last week, the first time I've been there since this whole thing started, and cancelled all my subscriptions to Marvel books. I'm not a big fan of current Marvel but I have gone through several periods of buying new comic books from the company over the last few years out of a combination of senile nostalgia and a misguided effort to "keep up" with all aspects of comic art. My tastes these days lean more towards graphic novels and classic comic strips, but when younger bloggers write about the plots of Jonathan Hickman comics or the slick stylings of Kyle Baker in Deadpool Max, I still burn with curiosity and have to see for myself. Usually I'm disapointed, but I have come to appreciate the various virtues of the works of Bendis, Brubaker, et al, and have even come to terms with John Romita, Jr., among many others. Regardless, I dumped the tiny batch of Avengers spin-offs and miniseries I was buying and won't buy another until Marvel does right by Kirby and his legacy. Just to be 100% Marvel-free, I even dumped the nicely-drawn-and-coloured Incognito by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips because the publisher, Icon, is owned by Marvel. (Yes, I realize that the whole idea behind the Icon imprint is to publish creator-owned work, but I still felt badly about Marvel taking even a penny from me when Kirby gets zero royalties or credit, let alone ownership, for any of his Marvel work.)

My thanks to Any Chop, the manager at The Dragon in Guelph for her patience while I explained why I was boycotting Marvel. Hopefully soon we will all have a petition ready to share with comic shops and other fans to take some of the bafflement out of this sort of exchange.

Marvel Boycott Diary #7: The King

2011-08-11T09:20:00.006-05:00

Just one link and one fun note tangentially related to the Marvel Boycott today:

The artist Michael Netzer has posted a long article about Jack's status as "King" Kirby that delves into the origin of the nickname and Stan Lee's role in the creation of both the Kirby Legend and Marvel's keystone comic book characters in general, all in the context of the litigation and boycott. Worth checking out, especially for Netzer's concluding sentence.

At the heart of the litigation to reclaim the rights to Marvel properties by the Kirby Estate is an issue of a moral injustice and personal humiliation that Marvel, aided by Stan Lee, tried to inflict on Jack Kirby because he dared ask that their promises to reward him, should his work help the company succeed, be fulfilled. It is painfully human and humane to understand the combative mode Kirby entered into during his latter years, which ultimately brought upon him the bitterness of betrayal that caused him to lash out in all directions. It’s a natural reaction for someone who trusted the people he worked with, and reacted with resentful emotion upon having that trust become so horrendously shattered. It becomes a much more understood reaction when seen in light of how Marvel tried to destroy Jack Kirby morally and in spirit, by attempting to turn him into the villain, when he was in effect their victim.

Now on to something a little less serious. I spent the past few days at a trade show where I picked up DC's Fall 2011 book catalog from their distributor Random House Canada (they also distribute Archie to bookstores, I think). It's fascinating to see how DC markets itself to traditional booksellers, selling their graphic novels and creators the same way other publishers market the latest mystery series or "great American novel". The thing is slightly different from the insider or fan-directed hype that is the stock-in-trade of Previews and DC's websites. Anyway, there are a few Kirby books scheduled for late-2011 release in the catalog, including Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, Vol. 1 --a 300 page, full-colour trade paperback (graphic novel) collecting the first part of his New Gods epic. The book design plays up Kirby's status by printing the author name first and in giant letters above the title. As I understand it, although Warner/DC owns the characters, they still pay royalties on these reprints as well as giving full credit to the creator. The opposite of the current Marvel situation. The biographical ad copy is worth quoting (emphasis added):

Jack "King" Kirby's comics career began in 1937 and continued for nearly six decades. With partner Joe Simon, Kirby first made his mark in the 1940s by drawing and/or creating numerous features for DC Comics including Captain America, the Young Allies, the Boy Commandos, Sandman, the Newsboy Legion and Manhunter. As the most valued team in comics, Simon and Kirby went on to create titles and concepts including Fighting American, Boys' Ranch and the creation of the romance comics genre. In 1961, the first issue of Marvel's Fantastic Four cemented Kirby's reputation as comics' preeminent creator, and a slew of famous titles followed that elevated him to legendary status, including Incredible Hulk, Avengers, and X-Men. Kirby returned to DC in 1971 with his classic "Fourth World Trilogy," which was followed by THE DEMON, OMAC and KAMANDI. Kirby continued working and innovating in comics until his death in 1994.

A very concise, if a trifle carefully-worded, capsule biography of The King, but I'm sure that Joe Simon would be surprised to hear he and Jack created Captain America for DC Comics!

Marvel Boycott Diary #6: Seth

2011-08-10T07:31:00.003-05:00

Seth on The Marvel Boycott

"...For a bunch of guys who like good-over-evil stories you sure meet a lot of morally bankrupt assholes"
--"Ashcan" Kemp

-----

I love Marvel Comics. I have loved Marvel Comics as long as I can recall. Marvel Comics were among the very first comics I ever read.

I should qualify that statement though. When I say "Marvel Comics" I don't mean the heartless corporation. I mean Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Larry Lieber, Paul Reinman, Carl Burgos, Stan Lee (among others), and the most important name of all, Jack Kirby. The man who created most of it.

I was pretty disheartened recently to hear that the Marvel corporation had succeeded again in robbing Mr. Kirby of his credit and his legacy. And of robbing his children of the income their father would surely have liked to pass along to them.

The corporate lie about Kirby's role in the creation of all those characters is abhorrent. It's a bold faced lie. Everyone knows it's a lie. No one is fooled. Everyone lying for the company should be ashamed. Stan Lee should be ashamed. What the Marvel corporation is doing might be legal but it certainly isn't right.

I was even more disheartened to read some of the comments of comics fans last week. A great number of whom clearly have more sympathy for the Corporation than the people who crafted the comics they grew up with. I cannot understand this and I won't bother to try. No matter what you think of the Lee/Kirby collaboration and of who did what --I simply cannot understand how anyone could agree that Mr. Kirby does not deserve at least the same credit and compensation as Mr. Lee. That's asking the very minimum of justice. "Ashcan" Kemp was speaking about collectors in the quote above but it certainly applies to superhero fans as well.

Bryan Munn asked me if I would write a couple of words to support Steve Bissette's Marvel Comics boycott. I am certainly in favour of it. I hope it catches fire and spreads. The corporation badly needs to be shamed into doing the right thing.

Admittedly, it's a pretty symbolic gesture on my part. I cannot even recall the last item I purchased from the corporation (maybe a Marvel Masterworks volume or something of that sort), nor have I ever worked for them. I certainly won't work for them in the future either until something is done to right this wrong. This is a rather hollow promise as well though --what work would I likely be withholding from Marvel Comics?!! It's not much of a heroic stance on my part.

Still, I would encourage anyone reading this to refrain from supporting the corporation until some form of justice is brought forth for Mr. Kirby. Might I suggest that money usually spent on Marvel products be redirected into the back issue market --buy some of those charming early 60s comics. That's the real stuff anyway. Not the decades of vulgar elaboration that followed. Decades of barnacles encrusting Jack's works so thickly you can barely see his genius any longer underneath all that crud.

Seth,
August 9, 2011

Marvel Boycott Diary #5

2011-08-09T09:16:00.002-05:00

Disassembling

The latest on the ongoing reaction to the Marvel Boycott.

Over at The Comics Journal, cartoonist and comics critic Frank Santoro joins the boycott and announces his new backissue sale.

On the opposite side, in a FAX-based interview with Straw-Man creator David Brainstetter, self-publisher and Biblical scholar Dave Sim (Cerebus, Glamourpuss) skirts the issue of Marvel and Disney's moral obligation to do right by Kirby in favour of more armchair legal analysis:

"Even if you leave aside jurisprudence and seek Overview in True Justice, I think you have to look at the pattern of behaviour. Jack Kirby was always a freelancer by choice. Even when Joe Simon pitched him on publishing Young Romance themselves, his choice was to take it to a publisher, thus costing them a lot of money they could have been making. [...] What was Kirby's pattern regarding his other creations? Did he actively seek to regain ownership of characters whose trademark and copyright had lapsed or did he allow them to fall into the public domain?"

Of course, Sim seems to be ignoring the major issue: wouldn't it would be "True Justice" if Marvel acknowledged Kirby's role as creator and co-creator of their major characters and compensated the Kirby family? (Whatever happened to a little "The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me"?)

Meanwhile, the man who started the whole boycott, Steve Bissette, continues to chronicle the Kirby case with a couple of blog posts on Kirby's value and the nature of co-creation, with plenty of reference to Bissette's own experience with Alan Moore and Steve Ditko's working relationship with Stan Lee on Amazing Spider-Man. Lots of great facts dug up in the comments, including a real gem courtesy of Patrick Ford quoting Steve Ditko’s letter to Comic Book Marketplace magazine published in issue #63:

"In your Comic Book Marketplace #61, July 1998. page 45, Stan Lee talks about “…a very famous scene…” of a trapped Spider-Man lifting heavy machinery over his head. The drama of that sequence was first commented on and popularized by Gil Kane. Stan says “I just mentioned the idea…I hadn’t thought of devoting that many pages to it…” I was publicly credited as the plotter only starting with issue #26. The lifting sequence is in issue #33. The fact is we had no story or idea discussion about Spider-Man books even before issue #26 up to when I left the book. Stan never knew what was in my plotted stories until I took in the penciled story, the cover, my script and Sol Brodsky took the material from me and took it all into Stan’s office, so I had to leave without seeing or talking to Stan.
Steve Ditko, New York"

Marvel Boycott Diary #4

2011-08-08T10:48:00.004-05:00

FFF: Fiftieth Anniversary of Fantastic Four #1

How propitious that the Marvel Boycott begins with the 5oth anniversary of the publication of the Fantastic Four comic book, the Jack Kirby creation that revived Marvel Comics and began Kirby's run of incredible characters and stories that are still being exploited by the company today without any credit or compensation being given to Kirby or his children.

The Kirby Museum reminds us of the anniversary here, and Tom Spurgeon has some comments here.

The Kirby museum also has some recommendations of Kirby-related comics you can buy if you don't want to support Marvel, as does this blogger who is not participating in the boycott, mainly because of the perceived effect on retailers:

"As sad as the situation is the LCS [Local Comic Shop] should not pay for Jack’s adult decision 30+ years later. I was told the LCS’s would survive selling indie titles in place of the Marvel book, and I pointed out that indies do not have the same mainstream appeal and would not fill the 60% income gap that Marvel represents every week for these stores. Now I could be wrong, but cutting off a income stream is hard on any business. At this point I was told I didn’t know anything, and my LCS was worthless compared to this persons LCS which sells nothing but indie titles (something smells like a bull in that statement)."

The idea of a boycott is to put pressure on Marvel through local retailers, but that doesn't mean those who are participating have to drop comics altogether. As Bissette mentioned in the manifesto that started all this, just put the money you would usually spend on Marvel product into something else, while letting your retailer know what's up. This doesn't mean don't pay for things you've already agreed to pay for.

(At least Shawn Hopkins at the Toonzone blog has some positive suggestions --like writing letters-- to counter his objections to an actual boycott.)

Marvel Boycott Diary #3

2011-08-05T10:04:00.001-05:00

Very Exciting!

A couple good posts today from the blogosphere about the Marvel Boycott.

First up, Danish comics critic Matthias Wivel weighs in with some thoughts about why he is joining the boycott. (There is also a good discussion n the comments between Matthias and Patrick Ford about Stan Lee's deposition and the weird testimony he gave that led to the recent court decision.)

"It may seem utopian to get Marvel to change its ways, but its nearest competitor has made some progress on the issue, paying royalties to creators from films in which their characters or concepts appear. Their track record is far from perfect, but they’re doing a hell of a lot better than Marvel and its corporate overlords at Disney, who are raking in that box office moolah over assorted Kirby-derived superhero movies as we speak. And, as Tom Spurgeon has pointed out, Kirby’s collaborator at the inception of the Marvel Age in the early 60s, Stan Lee, won himself a lucrative deal with the publisher with just as little legal claim to his work for Marvel. Why can’t Marvel do something similar for Kirby’s family?

I think Bissette’s suggestion is worth taking seriously and have decided to join his boycott. I’ve been enjoying superhero comics from both Marvel, DC, and elsewhere for a number of years now and think there are a lot of talent in the business right now, and I shall be sorry to give up on some of my favorite creators, but thinking things through I just cannot bring myself further to support a company with policies as rotten as Marvel right now.

I went to my local comics store today, passed over the superhero comics I would usually consider and picked up the latest issue of The Jack Kirby Collector. It felt good. You should consider it."

The second post comes from Alec Burris, who writes an open letter to Marvel. Maybe we all should write letters!

"I implore you, as a fan and a reader of Marvel comics since the age of six, show us some of the heroics that grace the pages of your books. Until you do, those books -those heroes- will not line my shelves.

And I will miss these books. I will miss seeing Captain America during it's theatrical run. I will miss my monthly Amazon order of all the sweet premiere editions I have been buying since I switched from issues to trades. I will miss the upgraded Ultimate edition of Marvel VS Capcom 3. But all of these things will be waiting for me to come back to as soon as you take a stand and do the right thing."

Marvel Boycott Diary #2

2011-08-04T11:02:00.003-05:00

Blog Reviewer Strike!

Two things about the Marvel Boycott today.

The first comes from Christopher Allen and his blog, Trouble With Comics. Chris writes that he and his partner won't be reviewing any Marvel product:

"I recently reviewed Marvel’s Thor Omnibus here on Trouble With Comics. That’s likely the last time you’ll find on this blog a review of a Marvel Comics product that stems from the original work created by Jack Kirby, unless Marvel Comics changes its corporate policies enough to do the right thing for the heirs of Kirby’s legacy. I’ve discussed this with my colleague Alan David Doane, and we agree that, even though we’re just one small part of the online comics discussion, we’re going to be true to our own values and not continue to endorse Marvel’s profoundly unethical treatment of the Kirby family."

The second post I thought worth mentioning is this one from cartoonist DJ Coffman, who proposes a few changes that Marvel could make that would signal the end of the boycott for him.

"Here’s are my suggested demands. Personally I would be happy with just ONE of the following happening:

* Now: A one time donation to the Kirby Estate of One Million Dollars, as simply a retroactive royalty for things in the past. 1 Million is a drop in the bucket, and a little insulting… but it would be a HUGE step forward.
* Forward: Give some sort of new royalty to the Kirby Estate that’s similar to the one given now to artists who draw so much as licensing art for a Toothbrush on Hulk. It’s only fair to toss a little back. If it’s not given to the Kirby Estate directly, make it go to charity of some kind on behalf of Kirby.
* At least CO-CREATED BY credit on anything Stan Lee has taken credit for creating."

Coffman also proposes, like Bissette, a creators strike. However, I think Allen's blogger strike has a greater likelihood of recruiting members than asking people to give up their livelihoods for a moral crusade, even for a short time (like one week).

Marvel Boycott Diary #1

2011-08-03T12:03:00.005-05:00

So I decided to boycott all Kirby derived Marvel Comics product, including reprints, video games and movies. Since Kirby is responsible for about 80% of the recognizable Marvel characters (and other creators who have not been recognized, like Steve Ditko, created the rest), that basically means I'm not buying anything Marvel does. Not even a Benjamin Marra USAgent miniseries since USAgent is basically a Captain America rip-off, I think partly designed to get around any future legal issues involving Cap.

Anyways, the basic impetus of this decision was Steve Bissette's call for a boycott, which I endorsed on Sequential, the Canadian comics news site I contribute to. As I said there, I think this is a moral issue and Marvel needs to imitate some of the superheroes it publishes and do the right thing.

I'd be happy to give Marvel money again if one of these 3 requirements happens:

1. Marvel acknowledges Kirby as the creator or co-creator of the relevant characters and titles, giving him credit with each publication, film or other product.

2. Marvel begins paying the Kirby heirs royalties.

3. The Kirby heirs win the copyrights to the characters Jack Kirby created while at Marvel.

As for the reasons behind the boycott and arguments against, you could do worse than read Tom Spurgeon lambasting some naysayers over at the Robot6 blog:

Whether or not Kirby’s family has a legal right to share in the billions of dollars generated by these characters is what’s being decided in court through this case and the appeals process that will follow. What people are arguing today is the moral right that Kirby — and since Kirby’s not here his family — has to a modest share in the rich rewards roughly eqal to two or three years of bonuses received by a bunch of goofy-ass lawyers privileged in life to sit on boards designed to lift money away from creators and into their pockets, people that have as much to do with the creation of these wonderful characters as you or I did.

No one on planet earth older than twelve years old is comparing Lee and Kirby these days as some serious point of contention. It’s possible to love Stan and Jack. One’s awesomeness does not diminish the other’s. Lee did a ton of things super-well; Marvel would not have been possible without him for about a dozen reasons, from the script and idea work he did to a lot of unappreciated things, like his ability to communicate to artists he had exactly what he wanted in terms of dynamic art.

(And although I’m a fan of Lee’s work, I have to say that pointing out he did great work with Steve Ditko, Wally Wood and Bill Everett is hardly a slam dunk as to his stand-alone talent as those guys are all-time pantheon-level mainstream comics makers. I don’t think Lee needs to be a great stand-alone talent, though.)

The point is, though, that Stan Lee did receive — after regrettably having to sue — a level of reasonable compensation for his many and awesome contributions. (He deserves more, but still.) Why can’t the Kirby estate get a Lee-sized settlement? Why would this be such a bad thing? Why would this need to be wrung from Marvel in a court decision? DC manages to pay people for use of their characters in movies while Marvel blows this off — DC hasn’t collapsed because of this. Maybe there’s no legal reason to do it, but it seems there’s a hugely obvious moral reason. It’s the right thing for them to do. Since Marvel traffics in morality, why can’t they be moral here? Why is it “With great power comes great responsibility” in the comics and “With great power comes great responsibility to the shareholders and fuck everybody else” in real life?

I know that people say “that’s the way corporations are” but that’s just a horrendously debased and depressing way to look at life. Plus it’s historically inaccurate. All the big comics companies have changed policies for the better over the years, and stopped doing things that could certainly be defended as “that’s what companies do.” Why not change this set of policies, too?

Gene Colan: How Do I Make Him Love Me?

2011-06-26T23:35:00.012-05:00

Imagine my surprise this afternoon, just days after learning of the death of comic book artist Gene Colan, to be offered for sale by a total stranger a small pile of books and magazines including exactly one comic, My Love #13, published in 1970 by Marvel Comics with cover by John Buscema and Frank Giacoia and a lead story illustrated by Colan, "How Do I Make Him Love Me?" I bought the lot based on the Colan story alone, thinking the coincidence too significant to ignore.

Along with Our Love Story, the My Love title was part of Marvel's re-entry into the romance comics market in the late-1960s and early-1970s. These titles were made up of new stories plotted and scripted by Stan Lee and his small stable of writers and co-plotted/illustrated by the Marvel Bullpen of artists from the regular superhero/action side of the company, including John Buscema and John Romita. Most issues also featured reprints of earlier Marvel romance work (often updated by artist Marie Severin) as well as the "Suzan Says" advice column penned by Marvel secretary and "Girl Friday" Suzan Pasternak (aka Suzan Loeb). These 70s romance comics are fascinating in part because they offer us a glimpse of these popular artists creating more adult, less fantasy-oriented material for a female audience, while at the same time they reveal the degree to which the Marvel comics of the time had become dominated by romance tropes in terms of both story and visuals, the classic Marvel soap-opera style of plotting that emphasized strong female supporting characters and continuing erotic entanglements for the hero. The classic examples of this peak period are the John Romita-illustrated Spider-Man, with characters like Peter Parker's girlfriend Mary Jane Watson, and the Gene Colan-illustrated Daredevil, featuring the sexy super-spy and Matt Murdock love-interest, The Black Widow.

Despite this genre crossover, the romance comics represent a separate comics reality and allow the artists to flex different muscles. Although shorter than the superhero adventures of the time (most are between 6 and 8 pages long), these anthology stories by their nature devote more space to the subtle emotional states of their protagonists and are interior, domestic, and humanly-scaled where the superhero comics are often focused on gargantuan public spectacle and violent expressions of emotion. The artists respond to this different subject matter with a more varied approach, using more filmic and comic strip-y techniques like montage, atmospheric shading and colour, and lots of close-ups and medium two-shots.

The Gene Colan story in My Love #13 is a fairly sedate example of this approach, a 6-page tale of a young woman learning how not to scare away her boyfriend by seeming to be overly bold, needy, or desperate (the moral: quit calling him and try playing a little hard to get). In "How Do I Make Him Love Me," written by Stan Lee, Colan's art serves the script with economy and clear cartooning, with pages laid out in more-or-less conventional 5,6, and 7-panel grids that give equal weight to each panel beat or scene. Frequent collaborator Bill Everett's fine, woodcut-style inking perhaps mitigates any variation in line and shadow that may have been present in Colan's original pencils, rendering everything with a well-lit clarity although there still are one or two shadowy panels and a moody urban night scene (and the story's protagonist seems to morph facially between a Susan Dey-style hippie and an arched-eyebrow Atlantean princess).

Throughout, Colan demonstrates his skill at depicting realistic street scenes, gesture, and facial expression, augmented by cartoon devices, camera angles, and caricature. In one panel, even the young lovers' bell-bottom jeans seem to share in their carefree experience of a fun day at the amusement park, splaying out wildly like a fashionable version of Dr. Strange's animated cape. In other panels, the extremely dramatic angles highlight the importance of the telephone to the plot.

Kirby Costume Design

2011-05-29T23:12:00.006-05:00

Two things I've been devouring lately: the 50th issue of The Jack Kirby Collector (aka Kirby Five-Oh!) and various Kirby comics from the 50s, 60s and 70s. The giant Kirby Collector issue, published in 2008, is made up of a number of themed articles incorporating the number 50, including a list of top 50 character designs by Sean Kleefeld. You should really seek out the issue to read Kleefeld's arguments but the list really got me thinking about Kirby's approach to costume and character and I started looking more critically at some of his superhero and monster comics with a focus on costume.

Ten Classic Kirby Costumes

1. Ant-Man: A pure superhero costume. The design incorporates totemically aspects of the character's namesake powers in a very bold and stylized manner. The helmet is functional in that it serves as a both mask and source of his power (ability to communicate with and control ants). At the same time it looks like an ant head! The rest of the costume follows the conceit of the helmet. The ant symbol on the costume is stylized almost to the point of abstraction.*

2. White Zero: This is Kirby doing a generic superhero costume and gives us an idea of how he might approach the idea of the superhero as an outsider, almost as parody, but using a more intellectual attack than in Fighting American or Brand Echh. A Kirby cosmic design that is also more of a traditional superhero than almost anything he created after 1970.

3. X-men: Iconic, versatile team uniform design, great colour scheme and logical. The idea of a school uniform grafted onto the superhero.

4. OMAC: Very unique costume that spotlights a Kirby design feature that few other older artists outside of the classic strip creators paid attention to: hair. I could write a whole separate list of best superhero hair, but suffice to say that OMAC's mohawk elegantly marks him as both futuristic and a warrior, perfect visual shorthand. The rest of the costume, including the all-important, all-seeing central eye, is nothing to sneeze at either.

5. Capt. America: One of the first iconic Kirby designs. I've read that Joe Simon did the initial sketch but Kirby certainly refined Cap to an elegant purity over the years.

6. Impossible Man: Besides being a great fun character with a classic colourful look, Impy is representative of that whole trademark Kirby skinny alien approach to character design.

7. Ikaris: A personal nostalgic favourite and representaive of the elaborate goofy god designs.

8. Klaw: A great villain design and one of the first, along with Quicksilver, zig-zag costume designs.

9. Thing: Simple, but visually interesting. Instantly recognizable, even though never drawn the same way twice. The Thing makes the character's skin the costume.

10. The Demon: see below.

-----
I like the generic 70s heroes (White Zero, Manhunter, Sandman) and the monsters-in-trunks (Thing, Demon, Karkas) for their simplicity and streamlining. But I have to admit that what makes Kirby interesting is the more trademark weirdness. The busy-ness and extraneous zig-zag zaniness. In terms of the heroes, maybe Thor was the first of that lot? Certainly the various gods, both New and Norse, exemplified that approach the most. There are interviews in Kirby Five-Oh with Kirby pastiche artists like Joe Casey collaborator Tom Scioli and John Romita Jr (he illo'd the Neil Gaiman Eternals heresy) and lots of talk about the modern approach to making the Kirby gods uniforms look more logical or more like skins since we can't imagine immortal beings with control over atoms pulling on their pants, even though the "uniforms" should really be seen as ceremonial or religious garb, not a uniform per se. The great thing about the costumes, however, is that Kirby DID imagine these gods pulling on their pants. We can imagine him saying to himself, to the extent he ever verbalized his creative process, "This is a super-god, so therefore he needs a super-god costume, like a superhero's but more awesome. Naturally, this includes a pair of trunks on top of leotards. But these are cosmic trunks and extra-dimensional leotards." Sometimes he shows someone like T'Challa ceremoniously putting on the Panther suit, or suddenly transforming (Ben Bolt, Sersi), but mostly the latter-day cosmic Kirby heroes have very little in the way of civilian garb and wear their costumes like everyday clothing. Of course, the weirdness of the clothing lends a certain majesty or alien-ness to the characters. I like to imagine Ikaris or Orion pulling on their wrestler-style shorts or stiff loincloth one leg at a time, just like any other super-schlub. In Kirby's proletarian approach, this seems perfectly natural.

Some of Kirby's costumes seem designed around a functionality or specific use or feature, but still combine with a ritual/cultural look. I'm thinking of Black Bolt's wings and antennae, Metron's circuit diagrams, and Orion's helmet and astro-harness (without which he looks naked). The classic example is Captain America, a mix of propaganda and army uniform, gaudy and utilitarian.

One of my favourite examples from the pile of Kirby comics I've recently read is "Witchboy!" from The Demon #7 (March 1973): Kirby teams up his two 1970s DC magic characters in a story where The Demon rescues Klarion from the pursuing puritan-garbed elders of The Beyond Country. Quite wonderful pacing, great characterization. The Demon lives in Gotham City and as Jason Blood he goes to parties with his friends. He has a sexy blonde girlfriend named Glenda Mark. She has a wide forehead with dark eyebrows. Every single panel here is sheer delight, each with some novel graphic detail, variation in perspective and camera angle, and lots of action. Sometimes Kirby drops the backgrounds but his larger panels and spreads have unique, economic-yet-decorative scene-setting detail. The Demon's costume is interesting. Supposedly medieval, it is made up of a red jersey with matching cuffs/bracelets with matching black-and-white circular pattern, red belt and shorts, with little red booties and a baby blue cloak/cape fastened with a circular yellow clasp, all of which contrasts nicely with his yellow skin and red eyes. The Demon often drapes the cloak over himself and can use it as a magical prop, as when he covers up Klarion and makes him vanish at the end of the story. Jason Blood, The Demon's alter ego, is distinctive as well. Cut in the heroic leading man mold, his craggy good looks and broad shoulders are accented with slightly-pointed ears and curly eyebrows, topped off by slicked-back red hair with a distinctive widow's peak and broad white streak. The red hair is a nice piece of continuity with his surname and The Demon's costume.

Klarion's outift is less interesting but still graphically bold: a simple blue/black puritan-style suit. He gets his graphic impact from the contrast between the skinny, purple/black-clad child's body and large head with big eyes and expressive features, including two horn-like curls on the top of his black hair. For further contrast, Klarion carries around the orange cat Teekl, his tiger-like familiar. Both Etrigan and Klarion are mischeivous and laugh alot. Both are fun variations on the standard superhero type with ancestry in earlier Kirby concepts. The Demon is one of Kirby's monster heroes (The Thing, Hulk, Karkas), but with a more sophisticated power set (spells, flame-throwing), and Klarion, as a sort of delinquent child/adolescent, has much in common with Kirby's kid gangs (Newsboy Legion, Boy Commandos). They make a good team, an oddball witchy couple with Klarion the troublesome nephew and Jason Blood/Etrigan the good-natured, wise and protective uncle.

----
For reference: Kleefeld's Top Ten.

1. Silver Surfer
2. Black Panther
3. Warlord Kaa the Living Shadow (st79)
4. Marvel Girl/X-Men
5. Black Bolt
6. Demon
7. Skrulls
8. Odin
9. Kang
10. Kirby's Children

The list has tons of famous and obscure characters as well, like Mark Moonrider (#16), and The Goozlebopper (#49). But no MODOK (monster-meets-Metron?).

*I have to admit that many conversations with the cartoonist Seth on the subject of the excellence of Ant-Man may have influenced this ranking.

Mad Dogs and Canadians

2011-05-17T10:27:00.005-05:00

I was slightly drunk when I concocted this but at the urging of Brad Mackay I am posting it.

Isn't it funny how many of us had our first exposure to classic Tin Pan Alley songs and showtunes through Mad Magazine? Inspired by the Wright Awards and the presence there of the Tony-winning Drowsy Chaperone composers Don McKellar and Greg Morrison, I present this travesty:

Made in Canada Comic Book Publications
(sung to the tune of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Noonday Sun")

In northern climes
There are certain kinds
of gay
and bohemian engravers
who rebel against your New York-based
comic book enslavers.
They are some of the fools
Who work their tools
All day
Because the need to publish comics
Must ignore the economics
and pay.

The natives blink
When the cartoonists
sling their ink
Because they're obviously,
Definitely
Nuts.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book
Publications!

The Japanese have manga,
and Tezuka is lingua franca.
Belgians and Americans
Have Herge and Obama
But Canadians
Just love their
Koyama.

In the Philippines
They have Nino and Alcala
To provide Marvel books with ink.
The United States
Has work-for-hire rates
and the legacy of Kitchen Sink.
In Montreal
With love for all
We have Drawn and Quarterly.
With Doucets and Chester Bruns.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book PublicationS!

Such a surprise
For the eastern eyes
To see,
That though the cartoonist are effete,
They won't admit to defeat.
When Andy Brown arrives,
Every Maritimer hides
In glee.
Because the simple creatures hope for
a Conundrum CORNICOPIA
of arteests.

It seems such a shame
When Canadians claim
The Earth,
That they give rise
To such hilarity
And mirth.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,
He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,
Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book Publications!

The toughest DC bandit
Can never understand it.
In Italy
the practioners of BD
Are just what the natives shun,
They put their pens
Or brush down
And rush down.
To the place
where comics are made on ice.
In the age of La Pasteque
The comics that we peck
are decidedly magnifique
and put to shame the scribblings
of Groth's Fantagraphic middlings.
In New York
to stroke Disney's cock
Marvel foams at the mouth and comes.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book Publications!

etc

Gary Panter Thor T

2011-05-12T09:40:00.000-05:00

I can't resist posting this.

TCAF 2011 Photos

2011-05-10T23:56:00.008-05:00

2011 Wright Award Winners

2011-05-09T14:34:00.002-05:00

Girard, DeForge, Fellows earn top nods at 2011 Doug Wright Awards

Toronto, May 8, 2011 — The star power was sky-high at Toronto’s Jackman Hall last night as Canada’s finest comics and graphic novels were honoured at the 7th annual Doug Wright Awards.

Hosted by Tony Award-winning writer, actor and filmmaker Don McKellar, the event drew a capacity crowd of the cartooning world's luminaries and fans, including the Gemini Award-winning star of Being Erica, Erin Karpluk.

This year’s top honours included:

Bigfoot by Pascal Girard (BEST BOOK)

Alex Fellows for Spain and Morocco (BEST EMERGING TALENT)

Spotting Deer by Michael DeForge (PIGSKIN PETERS AWARD for experimental and abstract comics)

Held in conjunction with the 2011 Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), the ceremony also saw legendary Vancouver cartoonist David Boswell inducted into The Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame.

The creator of the influential alternative comic Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkman, Boswell's work made him a favourite of underground and alternative comics fans in the 1980s and he subsequently was a major influence on a generation of alt-comix cartoonists.

The 2011 Wright Awards were decided by a jury comprised of musician Sara Quin (of Tegan and Sara), Michael Redhill (poet, author of Consolation, Martin Sloane, and publisher of the literary journal Brick), artist and award-winning illustrator Anita Kunz, Marc Bell (artist, cartoonist of Hot Potatoe and winner of the 2010 Pigskin Peters Award) and National Post books editor Mark Medley.

Speaking about Alex Fellow's work the jury said:

“Fellows' illustrations not only perfectly capture the languid Spanish afternoons, sun-soaked beaches, and cramped hostels, which any backpacker will recognize, but the fleeting nature of a one-night stand, and the rude awakening of a hangover. Spain and Morocco is a story about love, friendship, and, most of all, life. With an artist's eye and a poet's tongue Fellows chronicles the strange journey of two lost men without ever losing the reader's attention. He is unquestionably deserving of this year's Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent.”

Speaking about Pascal Girard's work the jury said:

“Pascal Girard's Bigfoot is a generous and funny coming-of-age story about growing up in a small Quebec town with a big heart. Jimmy is in love, his best friend has humiliated him via YouTube, and the adults in his life are around the bend. Add to this a rumour of Bigfoot at large in the Saguenay woods, and what you get is a wonderfully warm and comic portrait of life as it is lived. Expressively and crisply drawn figures fill the pages of BIGFOOT, and Girard's bright colours--something he has become justly celebrated for---give it all a gorgeous depth. Wry, rueful, and profoundly honest, Bigfoot is a triumph of cartooning and is surely deserves to win the 2011 Doug Wright Award for Best Book.”

Speaking about Michael DeForge's work the Wright Awards nominating committee, which chooses the annual Pigskin Peters Award, said:

“Like a lost episode of the Audubon Wildlife Theatre broadcast from the Twilight Zone, Michael DeForge’s Spotting Deer is an otherworldly travelogue on the habits, habitat and culture of a species of large Canadian slugs which physically resemble deer. Typical of Deforge's distinctive and rapidly growing body of work, Spotting Deer deftly combines the beautiful with the repellent into a truly original comic.”

The Best Book and Best Emerging Talent winners received a glass-and-wood trophy made by Guelph, Ontario cartoonist Seth. The Pigskin Peters Award winner receives a unique “wearable” trophy that is comprised of a customized bowler hat and plaque that also serves as a hat hook (also designed by Seth).

In addition, each of the winners received a trophy and a special hard-bound copy of their winning book.

About The Doug Wright Awards
The Doug Wright Awards are a non-profit organization formed in 2004 to honour the lasting legacy of the late, great Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright (1917 – 1983), whose strip Doug Wright's Family ran in newspapers in Canada and around the world from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. Founded in 2004, the annual awards recognize the best and brightest in English-language comics and graphic novels published in the previous calendar year (including first translated editions).

Nominees for The 2011 Doug Wright Awards

2011-03-15T23:28:00.004-05:00

Finalists for 7th Annual Doug Wright Awards

Toronto, ON —The Doug Wright Awards, Canada’s premier comics awards, are proud to announce their 2011 finalists.

The nominees for Best Book are:

Bigfoot by Pascal Girard (Drawn and Quarterly)
Chimo by David Collier (Conundrum Press)
Lose #2 by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press)
Moving Pictures by Kathryn Immonen, Stuart Immonen (Top Shelf Productions)
Streakers by Nick Maandag

The nominees for Best Emerging Talent are:

Aaron Costain, Entropy # 5
Alex Fellows, Spain and Morocco (www.spainandmorocco.com)
Keith Jones, Catland Empire (Drawn and Quarterly)
James Stokoe, Orc Stain Volume One (Image)
Tin Can Forest (aka Marek Colek and Pat Shewchuk), Baba Yaga and the Wolf (Koyama Press)

The nominees for the Pigskin Peters Award (which recognizes non-traditional and avant-garde comics) are:

Indoor Voice by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn and Quarterly)
Stooge Pile by Seth Scriver (Drawn and Quarterly)
So I’ve Been Told by Maryanna Hardy (Conundrum Press)
Spotting Deer by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press)
Wowee Zonk #3 edited by Patrick Kyle, Ginette Lapalme and Chris Kuzma (Koyama Press)

In addition, this year’s inductee into The Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame, will be legendary Vancouver cartoonist David Boswell, the creator of the influential alternative comic Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkman.

Founded in 2004, The Doug Wright Awards recognize the best in English-language comics (or translations of French) by Canadians living at home and abroad. The 2011 nominees were chosen by a committee from a long list of works and submissions published during the 2010 calendar year, which for the first year officially included web comics. This year’s committee included Chester Brown, Seth, Jerry Ciccoritti, Bryan Munn and Sean Rogers.

The 2011 winners will be decided by a five-member jury and will be announced at a gala ceremony as part of the Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF). The jury will include Sara Quin (musician; one-half of Tegan and Sara), Michael Redhill (poet; author of Consolation and Martin Sloane; publisher of the literary journal Brick), Anita Kunz (artist, award-winning illustrator), Marc Bell (artist, cartoonist of Hot Potatoe; winner of the 2010 Pigskin Peters Award) and Mark Medley (National Post books editor).

The 7th annual Doug Wright Awards, a feature event of the 2011 Toronto Comics Arts Festival, will be held in Toronto on Saturday May 7, 2011.

For more information, visit www.wrightawards.ca.

The Week in Me

2011-03-15T10:08:00.003-05:00

Well, more like "The Months in Me".

Some updates and links:

-Reviews: two new comics reviews I did for Sequential. The bizarrely cute Catland Empire by Keith Jones and the slightly underwhelming and boring woodcut novel about September 10, 2010 Book of Hours by Bryan A. Walker.

-I wrote a short history of The Comics Journal on the occasion of its new online incarnation edited by Tim Hodler and Dan Nadel.

-the best piece in the new Journal is this review of Johny Ryan's New Character Parade by Sean Rogers (it's good 'cause it has swears)

-I also liked the Great Dilbert Debate (criticism of the year so far)

-are there only 100,000 people who buy comics in comic shops on a weekly basis?

-I also liked this podcast featuring Frank Santoro. They talk about the end of the graphic novel boom and mega-advances for comics from big publishers.

Queen's Flash Gordon by the SFGMQ

2011-03-14T20:48:00.001-05:00

Pure genius.

Willie Nelson vs Mr. X

2011-01-30T18:44:00.004-06:00

This Willie Nelson double album was designed by Dean Motter, he of Mr. X comic book fame/infamy. Kind of a lacklustre design for such a memorable graphic novel designer and pioneer.

Chester Brown, Seth, Sean Rogers

2011-01-24T02:25:00.004-06:00

After Wright Awards meeting. Cartoonists Seth and Chester Brown, journalist and comics academic Sean Rogers.

The Week in Me: Sequential Updates

2011-01-11T19:54:00.003-06:00

The Invisible Reporter brings the goodies. Things I like, things I wrote. A personal linkblog.

-To start the new year off right I broke the news about Seth's upcoming graphic novel. Scoop!

-I also did a round-up of the past year's major stories in Canadian comics news for my annual Sequential Year in Review.

-Feeling ambitious, I finished cobbling together the Top Ten Canadian Graphic Novels of the Decade list.

-The other fellows at Sequential put together a podcast about 2010 as well. One of the things mentioned in the podcast is how Ho Che Anderson has seemingly abandoned comics (I think I first saw it mentioned in the interview he did with Howard Chaykin.) Anderson's King was one of my top 10 comics of the decade and his work is seriously boner-inducing. If this news about his "retirement" for the world of film is true, he would be the third person on my list to quite comics. 3 out of 10. How weird is that?

-I know there were a ton of Canuck cartoonists in the latest issue of Marvel's Strange Tales II, but I think my favourite piece was the most American: Benjamin Marra's USAgent story. Marra's Night Business comic is pretty awesome and gives me quite the critical boner.

-Is this legendary Jack Ruby strip by Jack Kirby from Esquire Magazine the most intense comic Kirby ever produced or what? Just gripping. Not sure the colour is original? But it is excellent. The yellow caption blocks, the Crumb/Pekar-like detail, everything. Just excellent.

-This Gray Morrow page from Eerie #2 kinda reminds me of the cover of Love and Rockets 1.

Bus Griffiths Interview CJ 187

2011-01-08T21:57:00.008-06:00

For Brad Mackay:

Bus Griffiths is the missing link of Canadian comics history, connecting 1920s comics with the Canadian Whites 1940s comic books, to graphic novels, with his Now Your Logging, as we see here in this classic Comics Journal interview with Shawn Conner.

Griffiths had a great fluid lettering style coupled with that sexy inky outlining and shading technique that made his figures jump out at you, like a sort of porno woodsman icon.

Lots of unanswered questions, like what other comic stories did he have published, what work is still out there (ie, not stole by those damn fool babysitters), and, generally, What the fuck?! is this not the craziest Canadian comic ever????!!!???.

Things to Come

2011-01-02T12:15:00.001-06:00

Sequential Updates

2010-12-27T08:42:00.003-06:00

The latest from Sequential:

I posted the most recent Canadian Comics Bestseller List, reflecting some pre-Christmas sales from bookstores across the country.

For December 25th, I dug up some pages from George Feyer's obscurely forgotten Xmas classic, The Man in the Red Flannel Suit, a book of edgy Santa Claus cartoons.

You can see another classic Canadian magazine cartoonist, Peter Whalley, on this cover from Maclean's.

And here's a short interview with the writer/editor behind a new comic book floppy adaptation of The Communist Manifesto.

Sequential at Word on the Street, 2009

2010-11-13T21:08:00.003-06:00

Wow, actual video of Max and myself interviewing Brad Mackay and Kevin Boyd at WOTs in Toronto last year. Fantastic sound and crystal clear images for the panelfocusing on Canadian comics awards (Brad is head of the Doug Wright Awards and Kevin is one of the founders of the Joe Shuster Awards). Representing Sequential!

Part 1

Part 2

The Stan Lee Hoard

2010-11-06T09:54:00.002-05:00

The Mystery Hoard to end all Mystery Hoards!

Rumours today that Stan Lee has a giant storage unit full of Silver Age Marvel Comics art, possibly including Jack Kirby pages.

Stan may have been holding out on us.

Stan Lee has always had a central, if quizzical role to play in the controversy over creator rights and the fight for Jack Kirby's original art. Maybe he bought these things from reputable dealers at conventions over the years. Surely he didn't steal them from the Marvel offices or claim the pages as his own even though they were drawn by Jack Kirby and others?

Statues of Canadian Poets

2010-11-04T01:09:00.007-05:00

Robert Service, Killwinning, Ayrshire (England)

Octave Cremazie, Montreal

Francois Xavier Garneau, Quebec City

Al Purdy, Toronto

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Ottawa

Pauline Johnson, Vancouver

Help Get Jay Stephens' "Oh, Brother!" Comic Strip in the Guelph Mercury

2010-09-07T11:53:00.002-05:00

So I started a Facebook group dedicated to getting the great new strip by Guelph's own Emmy-award-winning cartoonist and super fun guy Jay Stephens a slot on the comics page of the Guelph Mercury. Please join the group if you'd like to help out, even if your not in Guelph right now.

"Oh, Brother!" is a new comic strip by Bob Weber Jr. and Jay Stephens. It was launched June 28, 2010, by King Features Syndicate but is not carried in Jay Stephens' own hometown newspaper, The Guelph Mercury. Please join our group and let The Mercury know that you want to see this great new strip on a daily basis.

Some things....

2010-07-20T20:00:00.002-05:00

Snapshot:
Things I like on the internets today.

1. I guess Howard Chaykin is a genius. This 1970s comic book looks quite fascinating in miniature. Blown up, it scans well and is just golly gee weird. I thought about Chaykion this past week becasue I saw the new Predators movie and I remember him in that old Comics Journal or Amazing Heroes interview complaining about the first movie with Arnold and Jesse "The Body" Ventura, noting of the bloated 80s action directorial style, that it took fifteen minutes for them to get out of the goddam helicopter at the beginning of the movie. Not so the 2010 sequel.

2. There's something about the colour and the panels and the expressions in these old Kirby comics that transcends genre and period.

3. My local comic book store, The Dragon in Guelph, has been nominated for an Eisner "Spirit of Retailing" award (winner to be announced Friday at Comicon in San Diego) and I just want to say congrats to Jenn and the gang at the shop, even though I've only been in twice since they moved. They used to be at the end of the street my store is on and I would go in twice a week when I went to the coffee shop/bar next door. Sort of sad they moved but not sorry I stopped buying piles of shitty new comics published by Marvel and DC out of boredom and nostalgia. Anyway, the store is great: clean and professional with not too much space afforded to gamers and games and some good graphic novels on the shelves and support for manga, kids comics and comics for non-fans/casual readers.

2.

Seth Rescues Canadian Notes and Queries

2010-06-23T19:50:00.003-05:00

Seth redesign for CNQ! Canadian Notes and Queries, the venerable literary journal launched in 1968, has received a facelift courtesy of the pen and brush of cartoonist Seth. Now the iconoclastic reviews and essays are matched in their wit, humour, and laser-sharp lacerating criticisms and insights by Seth's classically whimsical aesthetic, as expressed through his new logo, lettering, illustrations and cartoons, including new mascots Hudson and Stanfield, all wrapped up in a new cover by the artist.

Edited for many years by the dean of Canadian letters, John Metcalf, CNQ features some of the best reviews, interviews and literary history published in Canadian journalism. This issue (#79) features an hilarious eviseration of the Giller nominees (Ann Michaels included) by Ryan Bigge, Metcalf's "Century List" of the 40 best short story collections of the 20th Century, a review of Leon Rooke by Jeet Heer, and a cartoon by Seth. Plus tons of other stuff. A perfect companion to the latest issue of the Walrus which also has a Seth cover and an article by Andre Alexis about the decline in Canadian criticism which Alexis blames on Metcalf et al --the sentences vs structuralism/critic vs academic debate.

The magazine had been sporting a more accessible look over the last few years but it still fell 'squarely' into the literary journal pigeonhole, with photos of old writers and editors on the cover, long columns of unadorned print and a generally dry, serious design. The new design seems to open the mag up a bit, the shiny saddle-stitched cover and Seth's drawings and hand-lettering making the criticisms of the CanLit establishment and the variety of essays about short stories and Alice Munro's perfection more easily digestible.

Shirts Off!

2010-05-19T00:12:00.001-05:00

On a bit of a Billy Childish kick lately.
http://tinyurl.com/2co783g

Superman Mystery

2010-05-13T12:53:00.002-05:00

I knew this was a story I had to link to thru Mystery Hoard because it has Superman and Mystery in its title. It's about a Superman painting in a library which is the original for the giant Superman treasury from the 70s.

It turns out the painting is the

first official full-length portrait of Superman, commissioned to promote the Superman radio show that went on the air in 1940 — an image for a medium you cannot see.

The painting’s provenance was a surprise to officials at Lehman College, in Bedford Park, the Bronx.

“I don’t think any of us realized what it was,” said Janet Munch, the reference librarian and college historian. “We knew who it was.”

It all began as Mr. Saunders prepared a biography of the illustrator who painted it, H.J. Ward, who had studied with the prolific painter N.C. Wyeth and also created portraits of the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet. Mr. Saunders knew about the Superman painting because it had been reproduced on Page 45 of “Superman: The Complete History, the Life and Times of the Man of Steel” (Chronicle, 1998). But where was the painting itself?

The author of the book, Les Daniels, said last week that it was not in DC Comics’ offices when he was working on the book. “We used a photograph,” he said.

Martin Pasko, an author of “The Essential Superman Encyclopedia,” which will be published by Del Rey in August, was puzzled.

2010 Wright Awards are coming.

2010-05-02T11:45:00.003-05:00

Who Will Win???

The jury for this year's Doug Wright Awards is made up of a stellar coterie of writers and cartoonists:

Geoff Pevere (author, Toronto Star books critic)
Matt Forsythe (editor of Drawn!, author of "Ojingogo")
Carl Wilson (editor/writer Globe and Mail, author of "Let’s Talk About Lov...e: A Journey to the End of Taste")
Fiona Smyth (artist, cartoonist)

The ceremony takes place in Toronto May 8.

The host this year is actor and raconteur Peter Outerbridge.

May Day 2010: Pass on Left

2010-05-01T11:24:00.005-05:00

The Archie comics universe is one of scarcity and constant proletarian struggle. Witness this cover image from Mad House Annual #8, 1970. A generational-political schism emerges between the anachronistic beatnik Jughead stand-in and the lumpen appliance porters. A 1930s meets 2010 recessionary class conflict whose main expression is rejection. Rejection of logic. Rejection of good taste. Rejection of proportion. An upside-down world where repo-men both pass on the left, in the rejection sense, and pass on the left, in that they circumvent the already existing left to an outer left that is more left than left. By texting us with his ass, our hungry worker actually steps outside his inane scenario, into the realm of the possible.

"They are trying as directly as possible to sell you experiences, i.e. what you are able to do with the car, not the car as a product itself. An extreme example of this is this existing economic marketing concept, which basically evaluates the value of you as a potential consumer of your own life. Like how much are you worth, in the sense of all you will spend to buy back your own life as a certain quality life. You will spend so much in doctors, so much in beauty, so much in transcendental meditation, so much for music, and so on. What you are buying is a certain image and practice of your life. So what is your market potential, as a buyer of your own life in this sense? "

Slovoj Zizek, Believer magazine interview.

Further reading:

Making sure the recession will not pass the left by...

"We shall pass on to the misfortunes of our “Left” Communists in the sphere of home policy."

5 Superhero Movies I Like More Than Kick-Ass

2010-04-23T11:06:00.004-05:00

So we finally saw Kick-Ass last night. Not having read the book besides seeing a few pages online and in interviews, I had to judge it solely as an original work and not an adaptation. The goofy plot --average joes with mental problems dress up as superheroes and kill gangsters, finding love and redemption along the way-- was dotted with several nice suspenseful action set pieces but the whole thing was marred by a laboured voiceover device and lots of other cliches that were insufficiently shielded by the film's generally ironic tone. Sure, superhero stories are all going to have an element of the cliche, being basically made up of squashed-together elements of action movies, bad scifi, crime fiction, and adventure comic strips, but at this point we expect a little more from the genre, given its varied history in print and on screen, than some half-hearted, cynically controversial post-modern toying with convention and morality. At this point, it's all in the execution and it's no surprise that when we walked out of the theatre last night, the poster for the movie that is replacing Kick-Ass, a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez, was already in place.

Other, Better Superhero Movies (many from the same year)

5. Batman (1968) This movie version of the Adam West tv show has all the qualities that made the series great. West's deadpan mock heroism, great visuals, classic villain/b-listers mugging and camping it up, a goofy plot and a tone that makes it accessible to a variety of audiences.

4. Ultraman (1967) My first introduction to the character and the Japanese tv show, this movie condenses the series into a crazy battle royal featuring the giant space policeman and a cast of costumed monsters (including Gomora). Very interesting colour, humour, and fantastic miniature and set design combine with a confusing garbled narrative, traditionally funny dubbing, and a sense of childish wonder to make a very entertaining work of art.

3. Spider-Man 2 (2004) The best of the recent crop of Marvel comics adaptations, this episode has all the great soap-opera romance of the Lee-Romita comics with improved special effects, just enough jokes, and the continuing appeal of Tobey Maguire.

2. The Incredibles (2004) This animated take on superheroic family dynamics a la the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four is funny, well-plotted, has good vocal performances and is gorgeous. The animation naturalizes the superpowered action in a way that seems impossible for live-action and the film has many nods to comics and previous movies that doesn't detract from a simple story with great design, "effects," and affection.

1. Kung Fu Hustle (2004) Steven Chow's chopsocky epic is a wonder-filled homage to Hong Kong genre film but it also is about the secret origin of a superhero who learns that with great power comes great responsibility. Crosses over the thin line that separates kung fu movies from superheroes, filled as it is with secret identities, costumes, and super powers. A fast-moving, funny plot, really quite beautiful music, and, of course, fantastic gravity-defying fight scenes.

New Stuff/Netbook Update

2010-04-19T14:45:00.007-05:00

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-Two new things over at Sequential: this week's Canadian Bestseller List for graphic novels, and a review of Michael DeForge's new book, Lose #2.

-Michel Rabagliati is a bestseller in France, in Canadian bestseller terms.

-For the Wright Awards I'm going to be listing some fundraising art by past nominees on ebay. Some nice homages to classic DC superheroes from the likes of Joe Ollman, Jeff Lemire (picture) and Diana Tamblyn are already "in the can." Plus more I haven't seen. Exciting!

-via twitter, cartoonist Hope Larson is adapting Madelyn L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time for Farrar Straus & Giroux, even though she notes L'Engle didn't want her books illo'd. She may have a fine line to walk pleasing older fans while introducing a new generation to a classic in her own style.

-Toronto artist/performer Robert Dayton has been posting scans of the awesome Nellie No-Date strips by Ogden Whitney.

Thor News

2010-04-04T23:21:00.004-05:00

Yes, the Thor movie news keeps rolling in. What a marvelous event this film will be.

And yet, no mention to date about making Stonehammer beer the official beverage of the franchise. What gives, Marvel and producers Victoria Alonso, Louis D'Esposito, Kevin Feige, Alicia Gelernt, Craig Kyle, Stan Lee, Patricia Whitcher, et al?

New look for Sequential!

2010-03-31T08:40:00.000-05:00

Publisher Max Douglas has updated the look of Sequential. The newsblog of Canadian comic book news and cilture bow has an updated, more magazine-y look, in keeping with our status as an annual print journal and more varied webcontent (look for more interviews and reviews in the near future). Check out the new wordpress-o-rific site.

McSweeney's 33: San Francisco Panorama

2010-03-31T01:06:00.003-05:00

Pretty excited: just picked up the latest issue of McSweeney's: The San Francisco Panorama newspaper issue, featuring a giant full-colour comics section with strips by Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Seth, Adrian Tomine, and more! To make the week complete, also picked up The Believer's annual film issue. Whew!

Playing on the Girls' Team: Notes on Jaime Hernandez and Female Super Teams in the Comics

2010-03-27T13:27:00.003-05:00

A Hundred Pretty Girls

Love and Rockets 2 was one of my favourite comics of 2009, mostly because of Jaime Hernandez' "Ti-Girls Adventures Number 34," a fun metatextual superhero comic featuring three separate teams of female superheroes and set in the world of Hernandez' Locas stories (part 1 came out in 2008). Jaime's story had me wondering, why hadn't more U.S. superhero comics featured teams of women?

Hernandez has always liked the superhero women. Much of his early fan art seemed to focus on the femmes of the DC and Marvel universes. As well, his own stories are just packed with a surfeit of lady leagues, including Las Widows street gang, ladies' wrestling tag-teams, and all-girl punk bands. He introduced his own superhero women (Cheetah Torpeda, Comrade 7, et al) in the pages of the 1980s iteration of L&R, but hadn't really tied them into the team concept until recently. The superhero epic of "Ti-Girls" reveals a complex world of well-imagined female teammates, more subtly realized (and fun) than anything in the genre. But before the working-class black and latina amazons of Jaime's T-Girls, Zolars, and Fenomenons came on the scene, there was precious little in the world of comic books to rival them.

The first superhero team, the Justice Society of America, was an old-boys' club with one token female member, Wonder Woman, who held the rank of secretary. Of course, WW was not only a member of the all-woman society of Amazons who inhabited Paradise Island (the first superheroine "team"?) but was also given her powers by the chief female gods of the Greek pantheon (another all-star group of women). WW adventures featured quite a few girl couples and mini-groups, not to mention regular appearances of the Holliday Girls, an army of women chosen from Etta Candy's sorority, described as "a hundred pretty girls brave enough to capture dangerous men."

After the JSA, most superhero teams followed the same pattern of several men and one or maybe two women members. Thus we have the Marvel Family and Lieutenant Marvels, and later the JLA. The first incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes had a two-to-one ratio of men to women (3-to-1 when Superboy joined) but quickly expanded to include a whole cohort of women members, achieving near-parity several times (especially when you factored in Triplicate Girl) but the same could not be said for efforts like The Doom Patrol, Blackhawks, and especially The Inferior Five, which all featured a sole female member each. In 1960s Marvel Comics, the Fantastic Four, Avengers, and original X-Men all featured just one woman per team. Although the Avengers gradually added more women, it wasn't until the 1970s, with the advent of the Chris Claremont-penned new X-Men, that groups with a larger female membership began to dominate.

Brief Highlights in the History of All-Female Super-Teams

For some reason, in these comics written by men, powerful groups of women are often pictured as villains.

"The Revolt of the Girl Legionnaires" (Adventure Comics #326, 1964): The girls are brainwashed by Queen Azura from the planet Femnaz (paging Dave Sim!) into seducing the male Legionnaires and luring them into various traps but the day is saved when some of the boys save Femnaz from an exploding moon and the evil Queen has a change of heart. The genius of Jerry Siegel and the pencils of John Forte created this bizarre, adorable psychodrama.

"The Mutiny of the Super-Heroines" (Adventure Comics #368, 1968): In this recycled story, the female members of the Legion of Super-Heroes get a power boost and take over the Legion, kicking the boys out. By the time of this story, the girls already outnumber the guys 9-7 (check out the roll-call), but are still depicted as generally weaker than the boys and totally docile and obsessed with homemaking until a feminist harridan from another planet (this time Ambassador Thora from Taltor) boosts their powers. (Little known fact: Mort Weisinger was a huge fan of the films of Russ Meyer, especially Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!)

"Lenore Goldberg and Her Girl Commandos" Motor City Comics #2 (1969): Crumb's satire of the nascent women's lib movement is actually quite an awesome political document besides being a wonderful piece of underground art. Lenore and her gang kick some righteous bourgeois ass and shake up notions of class and gender to boot. The fact that the whole story is essentially a Crumb sex fantasy just makes it all the better.

It Ain't Me Babe (1970): Trina Robbins edited this anthology of women underground cartoonists and kicked things off with a cover featuring a team-up of Golden Age divas, including WW, Sheena, and Elsie the Cow. Similar amalgamations were to clutter her art for years and eventually lead to a gig writing Wonder Woman for DC!

The Liberators (Avengers #83, 1970): Writer Roy Thomas rehashes the old Legion plot mentioned above in a John Buscema-drawn story that features a new character called Valkyrie who convinces the female member of The Avengers that the sexism in the Marvel Universe means they should form their own team. This new amalgamation of Medusa, The Scarlet Witch, The Wasp, and The Black Widow goes on to defeat both The Masters of Evil and the male Avengers before Valkyrie is revealed to be Thor villain The Enchantress, craftily using her fellow women to help her steal some super-scientific doohickey. The Liberators subsequently return to their roles as Avengers while hinting at "male chauvinist pig" behaviour that might cause them to reunite.

The Female Furies (Mr. Miracle #6, 1972): Of course Jack Kirby has to be on this list somewhere. Lashina, Stompa, Bernadeth, Mad Harriet, and Big Barda were a team of immortal bad-asses from New Genesis trained by Grannie Goodness. When Big Barda, Kirby's zaftig Wonder Woman, falls for Mr. Miracle, her teammates pursue her to Earth and get their butts kicked. The gang has made occasional appearances since, in Karl Kesel's Guardians of Metropolis from Superman's 90s mullet era, and in Grant Morrison's 7 Soldiers and Final Crisis, but only Kirby brought his best game to the concept. A little known fact about this comic is that a copy was found in Henry Kissinger's briefcase when he visited China prior to Nixon in the early 70s. The event nearly caused an international incident and was later immortalized in "The R. Crumb $uck$$e$$ Story" in The People's Comics. (Bonus: Female Furies covers.)

The Grapplers (Marvel Two-in-One #54-56, 1979): Perfect 1970s cheese created by writers Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio along with artist John Byrne, the Grapplers were a team of women wrestlers given super-powers by an evil oil company so they could fuck-up Project Pegasus, a U.S. government alternative energy research facility where the Fantastic Four's Thing was hanging out as some sort of glorified security guard. Titania, Letha, Poundcakes, and Screaming Mimi were the big-thighed working girls who were joined by Thundra, the Amazon from another dimension who had been an off-and-on member of the FF cast for years and kind of had a crush on old Blue-Eyed Benjy. As with the Female Furies, Thundra rebelled from the group and they were eventually defeated by Black Giant-Man and Quasar, but lived to fight another day. I think I had an unhealthy obsession with this comic as a kid. Like, boner unhealthy.

Immola and the Luna Legion (1992): Joan Hilty created this group of lesbian superheroes for her contribution to the anthology comic Oh... and they later had an entire issue of the mag all to themselves (#8). I haven't seen this comic in the flesh but Hilty is an editor for DC and produces her own syndicated comic strip, Bitter Girl. Little known facts: Kurt Cobain wrote his suicide note on the back cover of Oh...#1 and an extended 20-page tribute to the Luna Legion forms the centrepiece to Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.

Femforce (Femforce #1, 1985): The team of superheroines created by Bill Black for his Americomics line of sexploitation, t&a, and public domain comics reprints. The team was made up of Blue Bulleteer (based on Phantom Lady), Miss Victory, and She-Cat (based on Harvey's Black Cat), Rio Rita (based on Fiction House's Senorita Rio) and a mix of other characters, some from 1940s comics appropriated by Black, other created whole cloth in the 1980s. Nancy Reagan was reputedly a fan, was published on several letters pages, and even went so far as to invite the Americomics team to be her guests at the Los Angeles Olympics. Although I know of no all-female group from the 1940s, Americomics large-breasted retcon fantasy does its best to fill the void, with everything from dvds, web-serials, and, incredibly, over 100 issues of Femforce comics.

Birds of Prey (1996 to present, off and on): Writer Chuck Dixon dreamed up the idea of a team-up of long-time DC superheroines Black Canary and Oracle (formerly Batgirl) set in a gritty noir-ish Batman-style continuity. Writer Gail Simone later added The Huntress as a core character of the continuing series. It was a tv series and later Gilbert Hernandez even wrote some issues (no joke)! Maybe because Gilbert is also a big fan of girl groups and created those weird leaping ladies from the Roy stories. Now that DC is competing with Warners/DC one on one, look for more superteams featuring lesbian mermaids and S&M princesses.

Mystery Hoard: Dried-Up Superheroes

2010-03-18T15:40:00.002-05:00

Received a small Mystery Hoard of 1970s-80s comic books yesterday. The person who brought them into the shop is an acquaintance of mine who works in the waste management industry and the books are a little crispy, as if they were once moist or among moist garbage and then dried-out under a lamp or something, but they don't have any smell besides that nostalgic old paper aroma.

Captain Marvel #58 (1978) An issue of one of those second-string superhero comics from 70s Marvel, illustrated by Pat Broderick. This is the kind of cartoonist I used to be dismissive of, but now see he has an interestingly dynamic approach to panel design and figures. Awkward-seeming but vigorous, if you know what I mean. Inventive. Lush inks, by Bob McLeod, that nicely highlight the tight, well-muscled buttocks of the protagonists --when Mar-Vel fights Drax the Destroyer it looks like two oily seals frolicking in the ocean. The book also has some nice colour effects which I've just checked and discovered are by "F. Mouly" --who I assume is RAW magazine founder and Toon Books editor Francoise Mouly so that explains that. The story by Doug Moench is a boring slugfest redeemed by a few panels of typical "70s Marvel-style" soul-searching involving Capt Marvel wandering around Denver, Colorado in a leather jacket.

Invaders #32 (1978) Classic Jack Kirby cover featuring Hitler and Thor wraps up an adventure of Roy Thomas' retro superteam, with art from the team of Alan Kupperberg and Frank Springer. Great sketchy, anxious-looking cartooning with figures composed of angles and planar surfaces. Characters squat and twist to fit into the panels. Lots of leiber gotts, etc. Bonus: a surprise appearance by Josef Stalin. The Invaders have to protect the mass-murderer from Russia from their future ally, the God of Thunder. A weird pop political artifact.

Thor #281 (1979) Totally forgettable story of Thor fighting the Space Phantom in limbo, trying to find his hammer, and then getting stuck in one of those time/space nexus thingies. Post-Buscema art by Keith Pollard and Pablo Marcos. Lame dialogue sample: "The fool has fallen into the trap as planned --baited with my lies about his hammer. His immortal body will serve as a timeless cork --plugging the hole from real-time into limbo..." I think this might be the philosophy behind the upcoming Kenneth Branagh Thor movie.

Fantastic Four #210 (1979) I actually read these FFs when they came out! They haven't aged well. 210 is a by-the-numbers space-opera actioner by Wolfman/Byrne/Sinnott --"The Search for Galactus!" featuring B.E.M.s, a M.I.L.F., and H.E.R.B.I.E.

Fantastic Four #220 (1980) One of the early "all-Byrne" issues, 220 has a dramatic red and black (and pink and yellow and white) cover. Very undramatic storytelling from Byrne does little to enhance a plot about a mysterious alien invasion and crystalline structures, interspersed with slice-of-life vignettes of the first family of superheroes shopping, etc, in the nostalgic Lee-Kirby vein. Questionable highlight: the team flies to the North Pole with a cameo from Byrne creation Guardian, the Canadian superhero.

Fantastic Four #224 (1980) The FF go back to the North Pole and encounter more crystals housing a lost city of vikings, in a horrible story by Doug Moench illustrated in a boring pedestrian post-Adams style by a young Bill Sienkiewicz.

Marvel Two-in-One King-Size Annual #3 (1978) An epic issue of the Thing team-up title guest-starring "The Man Called Nova" in another bland story (plot and dialogue by Marv Wolfman) about an alien invasion. Lots of repetition in this Hoard. The art is by the majestic Sal Buscema, one of my favourite oddball 70s artists. His weirdness is kind of damped down here, unfortunately due to the uninspiring material and deadline, I'm sure. Some nice green aliens and women with pointy breasts (not as banana-shaped and pointy as Infantino breasts, though). Sal cranked-out 33 pages of layouts for this annual which were then inked without love by Dave Hunt and Frank Giacoia. I thought I would like this the most, but it's kind of a disappointing waste.

2010 Doug Wright Award Nominees

2010-03-12T12:32:00.003-06:00

So, the list of nominees for the Wright Awards was released today. I was on the nominating committee again this year which was alot of fun and a great privilege. The newest member of the committee was Sean Rogers who writes about comics for The Walrus magazine and provided the Wrights with a necessary kick in the ass in terms of his wide-ranging comics and cultural interests, youthful exuberance, and superfine taste. These skills came in handy for the long discussions we had about the potential nominees, what books to include in what category, and what exactly qualifies as comics. The result is a very diverse list of awesome books and cartoonists, some of whom were unknown to me before the deliberations began. I'm also pretty excited about the new location for the awards this year, the brand-spanking new Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, located on the top floor of the Toronto Reference Library where TCAF is being held.

I think Max at Sequential was the first to kick out the press release but you can check out the whole awards site here.

6th annual awards to be handed out as part of Toronto Comics Arts Festival

March 12, 2010 Toronto- Running the gamut from the acclaimed to the unconventional, the 15 finalists for this year's Doug Wright Awards were announced today in Toronto.

Hand-picked by an esteemed panel of comics experts, the 2010 finalists represent the finest, most thought-provoking work produced by Canada's vibrant comics community.

The shortlist contains works that explore diverse subjects, from the legendary life of Kasper Hauser and the fictional life (and death) of a fading TV host, and spans a range of formats, from wordless lino-cuts graphic novels to "manga" inspired by Western Canadian Haida mythology.

The Doug Wright Awards finalists for Best Book are:

* Back + Forth by Marta Chudolinska (The Porcupine's Quill)
* George Sprott: (1894-1975) by Seth (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Hot Potatoe by Marc Bell (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Kaspar by Diane Obomsawin (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Douglas and McIntyre)

The Doug Wright Awards finalists for Best Emerging Talent are:

* Adam Bourret I'm Crazy
* Michael DeForge Lose #1 (Koyama Press), Cold Heat Special #7 (Picturebox)
* Pascal Girard Nicolas (Drawn and Quarterly)
* John Martz It's Snowing Outside. We Should Go For a Walk.
* Sully The Hipless Boy (Conundrum Press)

The finalists for the 2010 Pigskin Peters Award (for unconventional, "nominally-narrative" comics) are:

* Bébête Simon Bossé (L'Oie de Cravan)
* Dirty Dishes by Amy Lockhart (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Hot Potatoes by Marc Bell (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Never Learn Anything From History by Kate Beaton
* The Collected Doug Wright Volume One by Doug Wright (Drawn and Quarterly)

Founded in 2004 (in a dimly lit Toronto bar) to celebrate the finest in English-language comics and graphic novels, The Doug Wright Awards have since evolved into one of North America's foremost comics awards and one of its most anticipated events.

Wright Awards finalists defy easy categorization, and include past and present masters of the form and off-the-beaten-path newcomers alike, all vying for one of the most unique and coveted trophies in comics.

This year's nominees were chosen by a five-member panel who chose from works released in the 2009 calendar year. The panel included: comics historian and author Jeet Heer; filmmaker Jerry Ciccoritti; cartoonist Chester Brown; Walrus comics blogger Sean Rogers, and writer and Sequential.ca publisher Bryan Munn.

The winners are chosen by a jury that includes cartoonists, writers, actors, directors, musicians and, on occasion, politicians.

A featured event of the Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF), the 2010 Doug Wright Awards ceremony will take place on Sat. May 8, at 7 pm at the Toronto Reference Library's new Bram & Bluma Appel Salon.

Anniversary Comics

2010-03-07T13:15:00.007-06:00

Tom Spurgeon celebrated the 200th edition of his "Five For Friday" feature with a list of anniversary comics and events today. My own list is represented but there are lots of other books to look at there. And lots of chances to wonder "Why are anniversary editions of comics so crappy?" Too much pressure coupled with the inability of most kids comics creators of decades past to cobble together longer narratives on a monthly schedule. Still, I have nostalgic fond feelings for many of the 70s-80s comics on the list. Avengers #200 (Ms Marvel has a baby after being raped by a cloud who turned out to be her own son, or something, in a notorious story by Jim Shooter/Bob Layton/David Michelinie and art by George Perez that I absolutely loved as a kid in 1980) is just one "classic" anniversary comic of woe. I like the "War in Heaven/Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink"-style bloated epics like Thor #300 and Swamp Thing #50. Superman Family #200 is an awful comic that I nontheless treasure. But the best of the bunch from the lists at Comics Reporter is the awesome "big butt" cover from Hate #30. Because you can't spell classic without "class" and "ass".

Brad Mackay=Nipper?

2010-03-03T16:26:00.005-06:00

You have to admit there is a resemblance.

Brad Mackay and his labour of love, The Collected Doug Wright, Volume One.

Doug Wright

2009 Canadian Graphic Novels and Comics: The Long List 1.0

2010-03-01T06:28:00.001-06:00

Just putting together my reference list of English-language Canadian comics published in 2009 in preparation for the upcoming Doug Wright Awards nomination meetings. The actual awards are scheduled for Saturday May 8 during TCAF at the Toronto Reference Library.

The list so far, based on the books I've read and/or spotted in the wild:

Angora Napkin, Troy Little (IDW)
Back and Forth, Marta Chudolinska (Porcupine's Quill)
Beast, Marian Churchland (Image)
Bebete by Simon Bosse
Binky the Space Cat, Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)|
Claire and the Water Wish, Janice Poon (Kids Can Press)
The Delicious Bug, Janet Perlman (Kids Can)
Dirty Dishes, Amy Lockhart (D+Q)
George Sprott, Seth (D+Q)
The Hipless Boy, Sully (Conundrum)
Hot Potatoe, Marc Bell (D+Q)
I'm Crazy, Adam Bourret (self)
Jan's Atomic Heart, Simon Roy (New Reliable Press)
Jellaby: Monster in the City (Hyperion)
Kaspar, Diane Obomsawin (D+Q)
Lose, Michael Deforge (Koyama Press)
Mirror Mind by Tory Woollcott (self-published/Maybe Mumkin)
Nightschool: The Weirn Books, Volume 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Yen)
The Nobody, Jeff Lemire (DC/Vertigo)
Papercut Heart, Ian Sullivan Cant (Conundrum)
Parker: The Hunter, Darwyn Cooke (IDW)
Poof! by Line Gamache (Conundrum)
Pope Hats 1, Ethan Rilley (Adhouse)
Quarter-Life Crisis: Only the Good Die Yung, Evan Munday (self)
Red: A Haida Manga, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Douglas and McIntyre)
Rex Libris, Vol 2, James Turner (SLG)
The Road to God Knows, Von Allan (self)
Scaredy Squirrel At Night, Melanie Watt (Kids Can Press)
Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe (Scott Pilgrim Vol 5), Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)
Sword Of My Mouth #1, Jim Munroe and Shannon Gerard, (IDW)
Spot 12: The Story of a Birth by Jenny Jaeckel (self/mini)
Taddle Creek Summer 2009 (anthology)
True Loves Vol. 2: Trouble in Paradise anthology, ed Jason Turner (New Reliable Press)
Tyranny, Lesley Fairfield (Tundra Books)
The Undertaking, Michael J.Hind (Conundrum Press)
A Very Kraftwerk Summer, Christopher Hutsul (Koyama Press)
Warlod of Io & Other Stories (One-Shot), James Turner (SLG)

For those rare serialized "floppy" comics by established creators, like Dave Sim's Glamourpuss which I'm quite enjoying, I'm "waiting for the book." I'd appreciate any suggestions for additions. The Wright Awards are mainly a book award, so suggestions for consideration should generally be in book form. We also consider comic books and mini-comics, especially for the Best Emerging Talent and Pigskin Peters prizes.

Most Expensive Comic Book Ever, Part Y: Action Comics #1

2010-02-25T00:48:00.003-06:00

Sure, the Sequential list of Bestselling Canadian Comic Books can give you a taste of what comics are making money, but the CBC has the real lowdown on the high-flying comics nerds who spend the big bucks on comics. Last year they reported on the sale of Action Comics #1 for over $300,000. Now comes the news that a copy of the same issue has finally cracked the million dollar mark. Since it originally cost 10 cents, it doesn't really qualify as "most expensive comic ever" like giant editions of Crumb sex comics or the Gary Panter monograph, but still....

The buyer Monday was a New York-based collector, according to a ComicConnect.com spokesman.

"It's considered by most people as the most important book," said John Dolmayan, a comic book enthusiast and dealer. "It kind of ushered in the age of the superheroes."

This copy got a better price than earlier copies of the same comic at auction because it is in better condition, Dolmayan said.

Bestselling Comics in Canada?

2010-02-17T01:27:00.002-06:00

Ever wonder what the bestselling graphic novels and manga in Canada are? The answer is in the Sequential Bestseller List, a semi-regular feature at the Sequential blog based on bookstore sales compiled by the Bookmanager software. I just posted the first list of 2010.

On to 2010...

2010-01-15T01:29:00.003-06:00

Finally got around to slapping together my 2009 in review post for Sequential, summing up the major events and themes in the anglo side of Canadian comics over the past year. Rather than talk about the economy (boring!) as the major story, I decided to go with a look at Seth's success and how the reception of his books can be read as a positive story for our comix culture in general. I went with Seth even though other cartoonists seemed to get just as much attention for individual projects. The giant edition of Jeff Lemire's collected Essex County opus, his new Vertigo series, and the Nobody graphic novel were certainly big news and say quite a bit about comics publishing and the place of young cartoonists today. Ditto the hype around the latest Scott Pilgrim graphic novel and the upcoming film project starring Michael Cera. Bryan Lee O'Malley feels like the hot cartoonist of the moment, but I think his star will burn even brighter in 2010. Nope, for 2009 it was definitely our man in the chapeau and his bevy of books...

Comic Fan Project: 70s Shazam!

2010-01-07T00:42:00.007-06:00

The latest entry in the Canadian Comic Fan Project comes from a 1970s issue of the Shazam! comic book. The letters page was called Shazamail. During the 70s, DC tried to revive the Marvel Family franchise, in tandem with a live-action tv series. The comics were written by Elliot S! Maggin and E. Nelson Bridwell, and they were even drawn by some of the original marvel Family artists like CC Beck and Kurt Schaffenberger. The stories were never quite as fun or original as those of the 40s and 50s, but they were great looking and generally well-crafted. Plus, there were lots of reprints of the old stories, many of which have not been reprinted. As in previous decades, fans were split over who they like better and the place of humour in superhero comics. Back in the day, Captain Marvel outsold Superman, but the owners of Superman eventually sued the owners of Cap for copyright infringement. The bonus was that both Schaffenberger and writer Otto Binder came to work for DC and ironically created some of the best Superman Family stories and characters. 1970s fans debated some of the same issues.

From Shazam! #13 (July-August 1974):

Dear Editor,
Captain Marvel is a totally irrelevant and unrealistic character and I love him. He possesses a certain charm, a charisma all his own that is totally different from the colossal, serious, world-saving Superman. Let Superman prevent the world from splitting in two. Captain Marvel will worry about a talking tiger or a pet monkey. Superman will keep us rooted in our seats, while Cap engagingly entertains us. Captain Marvel is a complete escape with down to earth dialogue and exquisitely simple artwork. Long stories would detract from the intent of the comic and the hero. The short stories fit in nicely with the overall character and all stories should be left that length.

As to the question of who will win the sales battle of the 70s, I think that Captain Marvel will, in a close fight. Having not previously seen a hero of Cap's calibre, today's generation will scramble to buy this comic. In their eyes --and I am speaking of young children-- a hero who humorously concerns himself with the fate of pets and young tykes will be their idol. Although it is we hard-bitten fans who critically analyze comix as art, it is the children who buy most of your comix and increase your sales. Trying to strike a happy medium between fandom and sales isn't always easy, but you usually pull it off.

I sincerely hope Captain Marvel achieves the popularity he deserves.
David Steele, Calgary, Alberta

Alas, Shazam! was soon canceled (whether through publisher antipathy, consumer ignorance, or the DC implosion, is unclear) and Superman continued as the flagship character, buttressed by multiple comics titles, toys, animated cartoons, and the 1970s Richard Donner movie. However, the critical consensus lately seems to be tilting towards the Captain Marvel end of the spectrum, with everyone from Jeet Heer to the Comics Comics gang to Ben Schwartz taking up the magic word and agreeing with Dave Steele of Calgary that Shazam! comic books are the best.

Obit Writing

2010-01-06T02:17:00.002-06:00

So I posted an obit for Barry Blair over at Sequential. I didn't like his art. It was ugly and kind of creepy. He was a graphic novel creator, publisher, and pornographer, sure, but was he technically a producer of kiddie porn because he drew erotica about youths? Dave Cooper seems to have based a creepy molester character on him in his "Dan and Larry" graphic novel. Anyway, I tried to write an objective bio, but it's hard when your not into the subject.

3 More Days Until Beethoven's Birthday!

2009-12-13T11:14:00.000-06:00

Feyer: The Comic Art of George Feyer

2009-12-08T21:39:00.002-06:00

Since the great Brad Mackay is blogging about George Feyer's classic Stamp Book, I thought it would be a good time to remind folks that there are still some copies left of the little George Feyer book I put together for Feyer's induction into the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame a few years back. The book includes a small collection of cartoons from Feyer's magazine work as well as some book illos and gags. It's available for $6 (including postage):

Canadian Comic Art Centre/Chat Noir
32A Wilson St.
Guelph, ON
Canada
N1G 3A2

Dive Into Our New Book!

The Canadian Comic Art Centre is pleased to announce "Feyer: The Comic Art of George Feyer".

This 24-page collection of cartoons by the late George Feyer coincides with Feyer's induction into Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame.

Learn how George Feyer eluded the Russian Bear and went on to live a full and happy life as one of Canada's greatest cartoonists!

George Tuska as Superman Family artist

2009-10-21T00:04:00.004-05:00

Cartoonist and comic book artist George Tuska died last week. The long-time Marvel Comics freelancer also had a career with DC and is responisble for a handful of Superman-related comics in the Silver Age/Bronze Age.

"Brotherly Hate!" Script by E. Nelson Bridwell, art by George Tuska (Superboy #172, Mar 1971)

"War of the Wraith-Mates!" Script by Cary Bates, pencils by George Tuska, inks by Vince Colletta. Legion of Super-Heroes story. (Superboy #183, Mar 1972)

"The Baffling Block of Metropolis" Cary Bates script; George Tuska & Murphy Anderson, art. (Action Comics #409, Feb. 1972)

"The Reality War!" Gerry Conway, writer; Tuska/Colletta. (World's Finest Comics #250, Apr/May 1978)

"Superman's Time-Killing Trip!" Gerry Conway/Tuska/Colletta (Action Comics #486, Aug. 1978)

...and many more...

Tuska was also the main artist, with inker Vinnie Colletta, on the newspaper comic strip "The World's Greatest Superheroes Present Superman" which ran for 15 years aftet the success of the 1977 Superman movie. The strip was written by Paul Kupperberg, among others.

Links: My first Fanexpo round-up of 2009

2009-08-30T22:59:00.002-05:00

all the links that're fit to blog

Top 10 Penis Names Based on Marvel Superheroes

2009-08-09T22:45:00.004-05:00

Some men name their penis. Some don't. Regardless, it just so happens that many superhero names also make perfect penis names. Some names just don't work (Invisible Girl, Puny Banner), others work eerily well. What follows is a scientific survey.

The Top Ten

10. Iron Man (alternate: Shellhead)
9. Black Panther (alternate: T'Challa)
8. The Thing
7. The Human Torch
6. Mr. Fantastic (alternate: Stretcho)
5. General Thunderbolt Ross
4. Doc Samson
3. Mjolnir
2. Cyclops (alternate: Scott Summers)
1. Jarvis

This is just such a great cover, with the penis-like Jarvis brandishing a vacuum cleaner, Thor polishing his hammer, and The Beast crouching at crotch level with a knowing look in his eye: the cover fairly screams, "This comic is about penises!"

(Spider-Man villains also make great penis names, with The Vulture being a shoe-in for #1.)

Chat Noir Now Open

2009-08-08T23:33:00.004-05:00

Update: Yes, my project for the last few months has been the opening of a new store in downtown Guelph. I am proud to say all the hard work has paid off and Chat Noir is now open. Located at 32A Wilson St, in Guelph, just around the corner from Meow!, Chat Noir is a vintage decor and antiques -slash- furniture and giftware store. Kara and I are very proud and quite enthused about the new endeavor. Perhaps the best thing, from a comics perspective, is that, as with Meow!, internationally-renowned cartoonist Seth designed our logo and sign. Thanks Seth!

Thanks to everyone for being patient. Hopefully, regular blogging will soon resume.

More on the Supergirl Underwear Controversy That is Shaking the Nation

2009-07-09T14:02:00.003-05:00

This may finally establish who wears the pants in the Superman family.

Let There Be Bike Shorts: A Profile In Comics-Geek Courage

by Glen Weldon

Last week, we learned about a man possessed of a bold and praiseworthy vision. With a single editorial edict, this brave iconoclast dispensed with venerated tradition and blazed a new path, knowing only too well that his decision might unleash a frothing nerdstorm of outrage.

The man in question: DC Comics editor Matt Idelson. The pronouncement he issued was just eight words long, but such is its paradigm-shattering power that it will surely stand one day in the annals of comic book history, alongside "With great power comes great responsibility," "Truth, Justice and the American Way," and "Shazam!"

Thus spake Idelson:

"I never want to see Supergirl's panties again."

Most Expensive Comic Book Ever, Part III

2009-06-20T23:25:00.006-05:00

Following hot on the heels of Taschen's massive Crumb Sex book, comes news (via Tom Spurgeon) of a signed, limited edition of Crumb's new Genesis book, available from his publisher WW Norton. The special edition retails for $390 Canadian. Even if the suggested retail price is $625, the book is still no match for the reigning champ, the $1000 slipcased Gary Panter book I wrote about earlier.

I read a preview of Crumb's Genesis in the New Yorker last week. His retelling of the Garden of Eden story was about what I expected: a gorgeous, meticulously-rendered and masterful word-for-word adaptation of the Bible story. The story has the standard Crumb sexiness (how could it not?) but doesn't seem to have that extra touch of depth that a less-literal version might have. Chester Brown's Gospel adaptations are a case in point. They are weird and off-model enough that they actually make you think about the intellectual content of the time-worn source material. Likewise, Basil Wolverton's illustrated Bible is so weird and passionate that it approaches from a distance a sort of Blakeian artistry. Of course, Genesis is a fucking weird, schizophrenic book to begin with, and Crumb's crystal translation only makes this more obvious. Crumb doesn't have to add anything. Plus, his Eve is hot.

The book comes out in October.

2009 Wright Award Winners

2009-05-10T20:52:00.004-05:00

Winners of 5th annual Doug Wright Awards announced in Toronto ceremony

Toronto, ON, May 10, 2009 — The Doug Wright Awards are proud to announce their 2009 winners, which were handed out in a ceremony at the Art Gallery of Ontario last night:

Best Book: Skim, by Jillian & Mariko Tamaki (Published by Groundwood Books)

Best Emerging Talent: Kate Beaton (History Comics, katebeaton.com)

The Pigskin Peters Award: Ojingogo, Matthew Forsythe (Published by Drawn & Quarterly)

The annual Doug Wright Awards (DWAs) represent the best and brightest English-language comics and graphic novels, and are decided on by a five-member jury. The 2009 DWA jurists included Bob Rae, Andrew Coyne, Martin Levin, Joe Ollmann, and Diana Tamblyn.

This year's jury praised Best-Book winner Skim as "ravishingly beautiful," adding that:

"A jury far from being made up of teenage girls was won over by the elegance, sweep and detail of the art and by the unsentimental, often funny telling of this contemporary tale of young people trying to figure out who they are in a world that's often too exciting and too complex. Illustrations and story merge seamlessly as the mood and intensity of the black-and-white art vary according to the mood and intensity of the story. Unique and unforgettable."

Of Kate Beaton's work, the jury said:

"Beaton's superficially simple drawings can mask a considerable sophistication of line and expression. She also offers a very winning blend of historical literacy and range, from Diogenes to Diefenbaker, from Robin Hood to Riel; and all this in concert with a youthful insouciance, a skillful application of comic-book tropes such as superheroes to historical events and characters, and often laugh-out-loud funny dialogue.

For instance, her sketch of the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard has him obsessing over his characterization in the press as a hunchback. Or her heritage minute rewrite of Pierre Trudeau has him arguing with Margaret, who's wearing a dress with decollete a la Julie Couillard, about turning Canada from 'Boresville to Party Country.' Her work is assured, impressive, hilarious."

The DWA nominating committee, which chooses the annual Pigskin Peters Award, said of Ojingogo:

"With his lushly imagined book, Montrealer Matt Forsythe joins a distinguished tradition, that includes Winsor McCay and Art Spiegelman, of cartoonists exploring dream imagery. Like Oz or Wonderland, and equally populated with strange creatures and bizarre happenings, Forsythe's impressive debut puts forth a wonderfully imagined universe, rich with oddity and wonder. Forsythe excels in the difficult art of world-creation – creating here and imaginary landscape that is both dense with life and as unsettling as a dream."

The awards were handed out at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Saturday May 9, 2009, at a gala ceremony hosted by filmmaker Don McKellar.

The event also featured a moving tribute to cartoonist Jimmy Frise, who was posthumously inducted into the Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, in a talk delivered by CBC Radio's Stuart McLean.

In addition, this year's event also served as the official launch of The Collected Doug Wright: Canada's Master Cartoonist, the first of two lavish books published by Drawn and Quarterly that will re-introduce Canadians to one of their country's greatest cartooning talents.

Founded in 2004 to recognize the best Canadian comics published in English, The Doug Wright Awards have grown to become one of Canada's most-anticipated comics events.

Saturday: The Doug Wright Awards!!!!!

2009-05-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

Finally, after a long nomination process, jury selection, and tons of planning, the 2009 Wright Awards are here. They will be held at Jackman Hall at the AGO in Toronto, Saturday, May 9. 7pm to 9pm. Free Admission! Don McKellar is hosting and there will be lots of new stuff this year.

An all-star jury this year, including Joe Ollman and Diana Tamblyn (and some famous people who aren't cartoonists).

The nominees are stellar, too:

Best Book

Burma Chronicles Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
Drop-in Dave Lapp (Conundrum Press)
Paul Goes Fishing Michel Rabagliati (Drawn & Quarterly)
Skim Jillian & Mariko Tamaki (Groundwood Books)

Best Emerging Talent

Kate Beaton (History Comics)
Caitlin Black (Maids of the Mist)
Jesse Jacobs (Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow)
Jason Kieffer (Kieffer #2)
Nick Maandag (Jack & Mandy)

The Pigskin Peters Award

Hall of Best Knowledge Ray Fenwick (Fantagraphics)
Ojingogo Matthew Forsythe (Drawn & Quarterly)
All We Ever Do is Talk About Wood Tom Horacek (Drawn & Quarterly)
Small Victories Jesse Jacobs (self-published)

Google Street Car Spotted

2009-05-06T14:12:00.003-05:00

I saw the Google Car at the corner of Wellington St. and Gordon St. in Guelph at 3:07 PM today. The car was going east along Wellington. I fished my camera out of my bag but was too late to get a shot and thought that it would be too ridiculous to chase it through traffic. But not too ridiculous to blog about!

No it wasn't being ticketed like this one. And it was a dark blue-grey colour.

Sequential Magazine

2009-05-06T05:00:00.000-05:00

Sequential: the magazine!

I'm very pleased to report that the first issue of the print version of Sequential will be available for free at the Toronto Comics Art Festival this weekend.

Sequential is the daily newsblog about Canadian comics that I contribute to. It has been online since 2002 but for TCAF this year we decided to create a print edition that captures in physical, 3-dimensional form the essence of what we do on a daily basis with the blog. To this end, we enlisted the aid of several cartoonists and writers whose stories and art we have covered and linked to over the years, and the result is a 22-page magazine full of comics, reviews, interviews, and features about every aspect of comics and graphic novels in Canada.

The mag features a cover and a graphic-novel preview by Sequential editor/publisher Max Douglas (aka Salgood Sam), who also worked tirelessly recruiting and riding herd on talent, fielding story-pitches, selling advertising, dealing with the printer, writing, and laying the whole issue out solo. There are also articles by Robin Fisher, Jamie Coville, Jim Munroe, Brad Mackay, Robert Pincombe, and yours truly. As well, there are comics by John Martz, Fiona Smythe, Sean Ward, Dan Zabbal, Willow Dawson, and Mahendra Singh. We cover old strips, new strips, webcomics, bande-dessinee, and everything in-between. And I have to say, the thing looks pretty damn sharp.

Canadian comics is a dynamic culture of wonderful art, artists, writers, readers and publishers (not to mention all the various craftspeople, printers, cosplayers, retailers, and whatever-the-hell Herve St.-Louis is), and we like to think this new incarnation of Sequential captures just a little bit of that magic.

The magazine will be distributed for no charge at TCAF and hopefully will serve as something of a guide to some of the people and events of the weekend. Please drop by and check out the issue and maybe say hi to some of the contributors. I hope to see you there!

New Canadian Superhero: Polar Man

2009-04-30T14:11:00.000-05:00

Polarman - Our Hero

Doug Wright is Punk Rock!

2009-04-23T13:24:00.002-05:00

Thanks to SweetiePie Press, on sale at the upcoming Toronto Comic Art Festival.

Medium/Genre, Genre/Medium

2009-04-05T00:54:00.002-05:00

So, is science fiction a medium or a genre? From a Telegraph article by the confusing Tim Martin:

"Like science fiction, this is a medium with its roots in pulp and the alternative: for every scholar who attempts to trace the history of sequential art back to pre-Columbian parchment or the Bayeux Tapestry, there will be 50 diehards who claim it all started with Superman."

and

"The central misconception around comics is the idea that they're a genre, not a medium. "

Pigskin Pete

2009-03-19T03:03:00.002-05:00

The Wright Awards nominees were just announced. This year Jimmy Frise, creator of Birdseye Center and Pigskin Peters is being posthumously induced into the Giants of the North Hall of Fame. I don't exactly know what this video has to do with that. (thanks to Sean Craig)

Hype: Complete Peanuts, 1971-72

2009-03-16T05:33:00.001-05:00

It's easy to forget that these books are coming out on a regular basis. The temptation is to take them for granted now that the initial interest over the first volumes has largely subsided. Now that two whole decades of Peanuts have been reprinted in the deluxe hardcover format published by Fantagraphics and designed by Seth, we can really get a sense of what a huge achievement this project is and will continue to be for a generation.

The latest volume is number 11 in the series. It features major appearances by Marcie, Rerun, and the ultra-obscure sportsman, juvenile delinquent and class warrior Thibault (featured on the spine). Here is the press release:

Peanuts surges into the 1970s with Schulz at the peak of his powers and influence: a few jokes about Bob Dylan, Women's Liberation and "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex" (!) aside, these two years are as timeless as Peanuts ever was.

Sally Brown -- school phobia, malapropisms, unrequited love for Linus and all — elbows her way to center stage, at least among the humans, and is thus the logical choice for cover girl... and in her honor, the introduction is provided by none other than Broadway, television and film star Kristin (Wicked) Chenoweth, who first rose to Tony-winning fame with her scene-stealing performance as Sally in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Two long Summer-camp sequences involve Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty, who has decided that Charlie Brown is madly in love with her, much to his clueless confusion. Snoopy shows up at camp as well, as does Peppermint Patty's new permanent sidekick, the one and only Marcie.

The eternally mutable Snoopy mostly shakes off his World War I Flying Ace identity and turns into Joe Cool, college hipster extraordinaire. And in three long sequences he writes a fan letter to his favorite author, Miss Helen Sweetstory, then goes on a journey to meet her, and finally enlists Charlie Brown's help when her latest opus, "The Six Bunny-Wunnies Freak Out," falls afoul of censors.

Also, Woodstock attends worm school, falls in love with a worm (perhaps the most doomed unrequited Peanuts love story ever!), and is nearly eaten by the neighbors' cat... Peppermint Patty is put on trial for another dress code violation and makes a very ill-advised choice in terms of lawyers... Snoopy turns Linus's blanket into not one but two sportcoats... Lucy hits a home run... and the birth of one Rerun Van Pelt!

Great Caesar's Ghost

2009-03-15T05:00:00.001-05:00

Beware the Ides of March!

read more adventures of Great Caesar's Ghost
Super-Caesar
Wonder Woman's creator on Caesar

Sex Guardian

2009-03-10T00:38:00.001-05:00

Canadian superhero action figure discusses sex on a talk show, or something.

Craptain Canuck vs Watchmen, Part 2

2009-03-09T02:05:00.009-05:00

It will come as no surprise that I felt the best part of the recent Watchmen movie was the ending. Specifically, the choice of music played over the closing credits: Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan." No other song could be so fitting. An ironic, apocalyptic song-poem droned by Cohen over a cheezy, 1980s synth-pop track, the piece perfectly sums up the contradictory impulses at work in the horrible film that preceded it. Seemingly used to serve as a nod both to the conspiratorial nature of the film's plot and to the centrality of the Dr. Manhattan character, the song's opening lines perfectly sum up my feelings after sitting through the interminable movie: "They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom..."

The best part of the recent Watchmen hoopla and hype is that it has re-opened the critical debate on the comic book source material of the movie. Stalwart soldiers for the cause of comic art, like Jeet Heer, take a stance against all superhero comics that are not straight parodies or fun kids' stuff. Others, like cartoonist-critic Frank Santoro, say you have to be a true-believer to even begin to understand where Alan Moore is coming from. Somewhere in the vast middle is Tom Spurgeon who, while he pans the film, still finds several interesting approaches to enjoying the graphic novel.

There is no denying the graphic novel is interesting, a well-crafted, intricately plotted story packed-full of stimulating and often funny ideas about superheroes and politics, but it is essentially a failed masterpiece the parts of which never really cohere in any significant way. A great gaudy graphically complex book, Watchmen nevertheless suffers from Dave Gibbons stiff figure drawing and Moore's shallow characterizations, unbelievable plot, and ambiguous relationship to the material.

For, in truth, it is extremely hard to take superhero adventures seriously, let alone craft aesthetically sophisticated versions of them for adults. The most successful contemporary examples of mass-market superhero comics seem to straddle a fine line between slick genre exercises that meld aspects of crime fiction to superhero fantasy and utter fannish dreck that would have been rejected by producers of 1970s Saturday morning cartoons. There is only so much metaphor and thematic density a rickety genre about magic boy scouts in circus costumes can support.

For your consideration, another group of superhero-related comics that attempt to do something with the genre, inspired by Sean Rogers' recent Watchmen "Corrective":

Trashman by Spain Rodriguez (collected in Trashman Lives! by Fantagraphics Books)

Orginally appearing in 1960s underground press forums like the East Village Other and in Spain's own Subvert comic book series, Trashman answers the question nobody asked, "What if Jack Kirby's Sgt. Fury was a horny Marxist from the future?" Spain re-imagines the traditional superhero story from the point of view of a working-class leftist militant confronted with creeping political fascism and corporate capitalism, confronting it with paranoid drug-influenced page layouts and plotting, clunky post-Kirby figure drawing, heavy black inks, and trippy sloganeering and self-referentiality, all set in a fantasy of revolutionary sex and violence. Trashman is really a prole named Harry Barnes who is recruited and trained by the Sixth International to fight the cops and defend the workers. Trashman has several paranormal senses and the ability to change his shape at will, but he mostly likes to shoot people with machine guns in the service of a disjointed narrative --sort of OMAC meets Che Guevera. The Trashman comics are beautiful and funny love letters to a revolutionary ideal.

Archie as Pureheart by various (available in 2010 as Archie: Pureheart the Powerful form IDW)

As explained here, the Archie team decided to simultaneously cash in and parody the craze in superhero comics spurred by the 1960s Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko revolution at Marvel and the revitalization of Silver Age superhero products at DC by penning a series of adventures starring the Riverdale gang as a group of superheroes, with lots of tongue-in-cheek fun and beautiful fluid clean cartooning. It's a self-aware kids comics that's not afraid to take a numbskull premise and run with it, without looking back, and without making a career of it. The result reads like a combination of classic MAD superhero parodies (Superduperman, et al), Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man, and Otto Binder and CC Beck Captain Marvel/Shazam comics of the 40s and 50s. The sort of superhero comics that Jaime Hernandez would do, minus the sex and punk rock (but still with lots of fishnet stockings and people hitting each other with their butts).

Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware (Fantagraphics)

Ware's searing masterpiece puts Watchmen to shame with its ironic distance, convolutions and diagrammatic precision. A reflection on mortality, failure, family, childhood, and an obsession with superheroes, Jimmy Corrigan is a graphic novel that treats the godlike nature of our heroes with a probing wit and academic artistic scalpel. The fact that both almighty god and a washed-up Steve Reeves-style actor appear as a Superman figure is just a bonus. Did any comic do more for and to the genre of superheroes than Jimmy Corrigan? As Peter Schjeldahl wrote for The New Yorker, "Reading 'Jimmy Corrigan' is like operating an intricate machine whose function is not immediately apparent. Gradually, meanings emerge and emotions crystallize. None gladden." The doom that comes to Jimmy is ultimately more banal and overpoweringly wonderful than the boredom of Dr. Manhattan's demise and resurrection.

Graphic Novel Review: Tamara Drewe

2009-02-25T01:35:00.005-06:00

Part 1 of The Best of 2008
(see the full list here)

Tamara Drewe
by Posy Simmonds
(Jonathan Cape/Random House)

Posy Simmonds draws the best cows of any living cartoonist and her ability is ably demonstrated in this pastoral farce that reads like Leah McClaren as drawn by Frank Thorne (or maybe David Lodge meets Colleen Doran?) --and is in reality an homage to Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (which was originally illustrated by another woman, Helen Paterson, way back in the 1800s). The book has a wonderful polyvocal narrative centred around the goings-on at a writers' retreat in the English countryside. The titular heroine, a zaftig columnist-turned-novelist, is the catalyst for a series of romantic and literary calamities that befall a small group of creative types forced into close quarters in the wide-open spaces. For a comic, Tamara Drewe has relatively large chunks of text, and the book feels very writer-ly, as befits its source, subject matter, episodic plot, and original serial publication, but it actually has a very tight structure built on a foundation of humour, beauty, and skilled storytelling.

Batwoman loves Catman

2009-02-19T02:14:00.004-06:00

I love this cover. Sort of a Freudian dream image combining a child-like approach to lust and femininity with bold iconography. You can see why artists like Dan Clowes have made so much of Silver Age DC comics tropes. Background: Catman was a Batman villain who had a major crush on Batwoman (Kathy Kane) and fantasized about her wearing kinky costumes. Sort of a superhero (or supervillain) stalker. But he had a cool pad and liked cats, so he couldn't be all wrong. The Catman "epic" played out over a scattered trilogy of issues during the mid-60s.

Captain Canuck vs The Nihilists of Sarnia

2009-02-16T00:22:00.001-06:00

This classic comic book adventure presents the superhero dilemma in a new light. Canada's favourite son, Capt. Canuck, superhero with a cause, fights U.S. imperialism as only he can, through meditation.

Who Cares If A Comic Book Doesn't Solve a Problem?

2009-02-10T22:05:00.006-06:00

I wonder with some of these vendors, these artists, these companies--are they really asking themselves ‘what problem does this solve?’ --Nina Stone

Maybe I just didn't understand the argument, but I'm not sure if I get the point of Nina Stone's post about the New York Comicon. Stone writes with great empathy about the plight of the lonely vendors with empty booths at the convention, dredging up her own memories of being a gifted elementary school near-crybaby and comparing her experience of being thrust into the adult world of problem-solving without the tools or even the desire to figure out solutions in a logical, "adult" way, to the experience of entrepreneurs, publishers and artists who have created products for which there appears to be little or no market. Stone blames the "insular" and "self-serving" (read: childish) nature of comics fans for their inability to be "more successful."

Businesses and products (and art) flounder and fail all the time. And its not just because the creators can't see past their own navels and are stuck in a sort of anal-stage of business development, playing with themselves like monkeys in a cage and filing their own shit in sealed mylar sleeves. If the magic key to "success" was "solve the 'right' problem" (which sounds like "build a better mousetrap" to me), you would still have the same situation. There are so many other factors that go into "success" it's almost not worth talking about. Much more than "guidance," a lot of it seems to be luck and timing. Oh, and intelligence. And talent. And a million other things. And what is "success" anyway? I'm guessing, the financial renumeration enjoyed by people on the bestseller list or people with a blockbuster movie. Or "success" means having a girlfriend or the respect of strangers, maybe?

For many, comic conventions are therapy. They are a thousand other things. Comic conventions --just like hardware conventions or fashion tradeshows-- are also filled with dishonesty and ugliness. Intellectually and aesthetically. Sometimes they are also filled with great art or, at the very least, even products that satisfy a small but needy and grateful market.

Best of 2008

2009-02-09T01:40:00.005-06:00

Of the graphic novels and comics I've read from 2008, here are my favourites. I've categorized according to rough genres. I'm drawn to long-form fiction comics (graphic novels) more than most forms of comics and tend to favour them in my reading and list-making. Dash Shaw's Bottomless Bellybutton was a revelation for me, wonderful art, a mesmerizing, emotional narrative. It was also the work of a relative newcomer, as is the work I've listed in minicomics. I feel kind of silly comparing, say, Jason Kieffer's or Jesse Jacobs' short comics with Shaw's massive book but end-of-year lists seem to do that all the time. Some things are easier to rank. I actually read more new superhero comics in 2008 than in any year since 1986, including large chunks of the latest from Grant Morrison, Brian Bendis, and Ed Brubaker, and I can honestly say that the 6 pages of Gary Panter in Omega #7 and the first two chapters of Jaime Hernandez's superhero saga in the new Love and Rockets blew most of those long-underwear types out of the sky. They were also more profoundly beautiful than several of my choices in other categories.

I also refuse to rank archival re-issues of classic comic strips by past masters, some of the best comics of all time, alongside new minicomics or memoirs or prints of Japanese horror adventure comics. And speaking of translations, I decided to lump the translated Canadian comics on my list in with the other translated comics I read. So, more divisions. I thought of a separate Canadian category for all, but thought the Canuck entries stand up well in international company. It also says something for the current era of comics publishing that there is enough interesting, quite excellent and even wonderful work being published in a number of different categories.

Fiction
Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds
Bottomless Bellybutton by Dash Shaw
Skim by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
Acme Novelty Library #19 by Chris Ware
Dietch's Pictorama by Kim, Simon and Seth Dietch

Non-Fiction/Memoir/Reportage
What It Is by Lynda Barry
Drop-In by Dave Lapp
My Brain is Hanging Upside Down by David Heatley

Minicomics
Kieffer #2 by Jason Kieffer
Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow by Jesse Jacobs
Small Victories by Jesse Jacobs

Reprints
Breakdowns by Art Spiegelman
Little Orphan Annie Vol 1 by Harold Gray
Popeye Vol 3 by EC Segar

Translations
Paul Goes Fishing by Michel Rabagliati
Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle
Tokyo Zombie by Yusaku Hanakuma
Cat-Eyed Boy by Kazuo Umezu
Red-Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi

Superhero
Love and Rockets #1 by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
Omega the Unknown #7 by Gary Panter, Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple

Webcomic
www.harkavagrant.com by Kate Beaton

Canadian Fan Project: Super Letters

2009-02-06T02:45:00.003-06:00

More missives from the distant past of fandom, when Canadian comic book fans weren't shy about speaking truth to power:

"As an ardent reader of your fascinating magazines, this is my first opportunity to catch you. In 'The Unknown Superman', you show Strong Bear boring with his hands in the coarse soil and tough rocks. If his ring was not destroyed by that, why was it destroyed when Lois dropped it? And why didn't the ring become indestructible on earth just as everything from Krypton does, if Strong Bear automatically gained superpowers here?" Robert Romano, Montreal Quebec (Lois Lane #52, 1964)

"I though Jimmy Olsen No.101 was just great because it had an interesting plot and plenty of excitement. But in my opinion, it was a mistake to kill off Miri and her father, Dr, Zak-Lor. This was a pretty drastic and unnecessary move, because they were two very important characters in the story. But aside from that, the feature was out of this world!" Arpad de Szoeczy, Weston, Ont. (Jimmy Olsen #103, 1967)

"I say, guv'nor, this is Ringo Starr speaking on behalf of all us Beatles. We are quite flattered that you mentioned us in your comic. But if you're going to put us in, please do it properly. On the first page you show Mr. James Olsen watching us on the telly and your artist depicts us with lapels on our jackets, whereas we have none. We want to thank you for the publicity. You see, we are making all this money to get something we have always needed --a haircut!" Pat (Ringo) Boardman, Toronto (Jimmy Olsen 81, 1964)

"I especially like Rose and Thorn. I am looking forward to seeing much more of her. I don't really know why I like Rose, but maybe its because she has the same haircut I do!" Linda Hamilton, Winnipeg (Lois Lane #108, 1971)

"I truly enjoy your stories, and their characters. They're simply great! I don't believe in telling people of their mistakes, especially since I haven't any to speak of ...So I'm writing just to tell you that I think you're very fair in your attitudes towards your readers. You take the complaints of those who do write to complain, and you answer them constructively. As long as Lois Lane is on sale, I will continue to buy it, and remain a follower of Lois adventures!" Bonnie Erickson, Alberta (Lois Lane #137, 1974)

Superman Robots

2009-02-03T02:10:00.005-06:00

Some of the most poignant melodramatic aspects of the Superman family children's comics of the 1950s and 60s involve the Superman robots. Automaton slaves created by scientific genius Superman to act as his backup beards, and kept hidden in the closet when not in use, many classic stories relate the AI-like attempts at individuality and rebellion of these sad creatures. Superman kept his robots stashed away in his parents' basement, in a cave at the North Pole, in the closet of his apartment (whole Phds await!). Supergirl kept her robot double waiting patiently in the trunk of a tree, never sleeping, in those anxiously whimsical stories drawn by Jim Mooney.

The most recent robot tale I've read concerns Robot X-3. While training a new batch of robots (Superman trains his robots instead of programming them with essential information like, "don't let anyone see you change into Clark Kent"), Superman is turned invisible by red kryptonite and X-3 has to take his place and rescue some astronauts. X-3 gets lost in space and ends up on a tiny planet where he meets a stranded mermaid woman who reminds him of Superman's first girlfriend, Lori Lemaris. X-3 is such a hero-worshipper that, when the mermaid dies, he creates a robot mermaid family and builds a little house where he lives forever and happily ever after, kind of like The Little Prince meets Space Family Robinson, as illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger .