Four Colour Alchemy

Before...all the moaning began

2012-02-13T16:26:00.001+01:00

The recent announcement of 'Before Watchmen' has once again caused fanboys to drop their dummies and spew forth more bile than ipecac drinking contest.

Do we need these prequels? No, not really, we don't need chocolate biscuits either but the're impossible to resist.

I will grant you there are some fundamental problems with the idea, namely there is no dramatic tension, you know what happens to these characters. None of them can die, you know the character arcs eventual destination, but how did they get to the state they were in before Watchmen? How did the Keen act effect them? How does Rorschach avoid the police for so long? When did Doctor Manhattan walk on the sun?these are potentially interesting stories to tell and in the right hands they could be worth reading.

There's going to there's some very good creative teams behind them:

RORSCHACH (4 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo
MINUTEMEN (6 issues) – Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke
COMEDIAN (6 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: J.G. Jones
DR. MANHATTAN (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artist: Adam Hughes
NITE OWL (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artists: Andy and Joe Kubert
OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) – Writer: Len Wein. Artist: Jae Lee
SILK SPECTRE (4 issues) – Writer: Darwyn Cooke. Artist: Amanda Conner

So long as JMS can get past the first few issues.

Taken from D.C.s website, and the artwork for the covers is truly gorgeous to behold, in fact the only thing ruining them is that bloody awful logo they thought was a good design.

What do you see? A mask that needs a wash.

Blue man group porn.

The angriest buzz about this though seems to be fanboys thinking that this is all somehow disrespectful to Alan Moore and that somehow his feelings will be hurt. Now I've read some of Moore's reactions to this that include statements that make Moore sound like he's now living in a nursing home.

Not yours Mister Moore.

“I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.” : Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman all pushing 70-75 years old. DC have been dependent on ideas a lot older

than 'yours' Mister Moore.

“completely shameless.”: Why should DC feel any shame in this? Or more to the point do you think they are going to?

Apparently Moore is afraid of an “infinite battery of lawyers.” if he takes this to court. Again, DC OWN THE RIGHTS TO THESE CHARACTERS NOT YOU, you wouldn't have a leg to stand on, it was work for hire.

“I don’t want money,” he said. “What I want is for this not to happen.” Good because the're not giving you any and tough shit.

Mmmm MERCHANDISEING!

Alan Moore did the Watchmen FOR DC, it stands perfectly well by itself but if DC choose to expand that universe they can. It might even be good. They might even reach people who read the Watchmen but nothing else and hook them into comics, AND THAT REALLY IS A GOOD THING!

Even if Moore is just acting up his crotchety hermit persona it's an act that's tired and fanboys take what they can get and use it in an almost religious fervour.

There may be a case to make for the fact that Alan Moore did create these characters and that DC should show them a little respect but there's two points against that. The first being:

DC are still trying to milk these guys.

The Watchmen characters are all based on Charlton characters that couldn't be used because DC wanted to use them somewhere else. So Moore and Gibbons created some analogs for the purposes of Watchmen. Now you can get all the legal wrangling here for all its worth Alan Moore on Watchmen but what it boils down to, accepting all underhandedness from DC and moaning from Moore, is that Moore and Gibbons where doing work for hire so long as the book was still in print. It is still in print. People are still buying it. It's still work for hire.

DC do show the characters respect. Do you really think they didn't ask Moore if he wanted to be a part of the prequels? In 2010 DC offered Moore the rights back if he worked on the prequels. He flat out said he doesn't want them back. For all intents and purposes he's washed his hands of these characters, even when he was offered to work on them again.

He was interested in doing prequel work back in the day, so the idea of expanding and telling more stories in that universe is not a new one and even came from the series creator. The whole thing boils down to these three things:

No one can stop this, no one is forcing you to buy it, it may actually be a good thing .

DC Cancels titles...

2012-01-30T01:40:00.000+01:00

Just a short one this time, felt I had to get this out there. I'm doing something I actually like next.

SO DC are cancelling six titles that are underwhelming and frankly a bit shit. No great shocker there and it makes sense.

BLACKHAWKS, HAWK AND DOVE, MEN OF WAR, MISTER TERRIFIC, O.M.A.C. and STATIC SHOCK, all bite the dust with issue eight in April. Frankly I'm not really that surprised at these, though I was buying Mister Terrific which is a bit of a pisser as it was a good read. Blackhawks from what I've seen and heard was as substantial as a fart in a typhoon, Men of War will in fact simply be replaced on the sly with one of the NEW 6 new 52 titles to come out, namely G.I. COMBAT, O.M.A.C was fucking atrocious and Static Shock appears to be a bit of a shame to be honest read this... John Rozum explains his exit from Static Shock. DO I REALLY need to say anything about Hawk and Dove?

Says it all really.

So as I mentioned one of the books is basically getting a different title, which is a little sneaky but there you go, so what about replacements for the other five books? And have they found another job for Rob Liefeld? Well they are both very interesting questions, even if you didn't care about the latter trust me, it's an interesting question.

Well to answer the first here's a list of the six replacements taken from here.

BATMAN INCORPORATED – Writer: Grant Morrison. Artist: Chris Burnham. The acclaimed ongoing writer of ACTION COMICS, Grant Morrison, presents a fresh take on BATMAN INCORPORATED, in which the Batman brand is franchised globally in preparation for a major international threat.

Wellll ok they did say this was coming back, but could we please get rid of The Dark Knight instead of just adding yet another fucking Bat title?
EARTH 2 – Writer: James Robinson. Artist: Nicola Scott. The greatest heroes on a parallel Earth, the Justice Society combats threats that will set them on a collision course with other worlds.
I'm genuinely curious about this, I'm a JSA fan and this promises to have some of those characters I hold dear in there, but I'm not a huge fan of the whole 'earth 2' shtick, they was an elegance to the idea that costumed power fantasies had been operating since the invasion of Poland. Still, a good creative team.
WORLDS’ FINEST – Writer: Paul Levitz. Artists: George Perez and Kevin Maguire. Stranded on our world from a parallel reality, Huntress and Power Girl struggle to find their way back to Earth 2. Perez and Maguire will be the artists on alternating story arcs

Nope, sorry not interested. I get the feeling many are but I'm not. It's a good idea on the face of it, Female versions of Superman and Batman from another universe have larks and away with enough T&A to make the share holders of Kleenex very happy chappies.
DIAL H – Writer: China Miéville. Artist: Mateus Santoluoco. The first ongoing series from acclaimed novelist China Miéville, this is a bold new take on a cult classic concept about the psychological effects on an everyman who accidentally gains powers to become a hero.

OK.
G.I. COMBAT – Writer: J.T. Krul. Artist: Ariel Olivetti. Featuring the return of a classic DC Comics series, THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT, along with rotating back-up stories and creative teams – including THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, with writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti and artist Dan Panosian; and THE HAUNTED TANK, with writer John Arcudi and artist Scott Kolins.

So they'll polish off the stories they wanted to tell in Men at War later if there's a demand for the return of Sgt' Rocks grandson. I'll give it 12 issues before charging into no mans land.
THE RAVAGERS – Writer: Howard Mackie. Artist: Ian Churchill. Spinning off from TEEN TITANS and SUPERBOY, this series finds four superpowered teens on the run and fighting against the organization that wants to turn them into supervillains.

Because DC saw how popular Runaways over at Marvel was and thought they may try a slice of that pie.

Cynicism aside though more power to DC for being willing to chop the deadheads and allow potential to grow. This leads me to the interesting point of Rob Fucking Liefeld.

Hawk and Dove died because 1. Rob Liefeld wanted to do everything in it and he can't and 2. because the writer got sick of the cretin.

Now he's doing writing and art Deathstroke, a Marmite title (love it or hate it) and plotting for Savage Hawkman (a book that needs to die in order to be re-incarnated better, ironically) and Grifter a book that's going nowhere and doing even less.

No words.

These are three books that are generally not well received and are well suited to the nineties approach to action styled comics. Guns, broads and swords are the staple of this kind of book so on the face of it giving them to a product of the nineties seems like a good idea.

But.

Pick someone who is actually good and who's reputation isn't steadily becoming the comic industries equivalent of the Insane Clown Posse.

Does this mean his fans are called 'Lielos'?

The only explanation is that DC want to cut these books ASAP and they know handing them over to a chimp throw poo at them will get them cancelled faster than Gary Glitter's subscription to Cbeebies.

I'm glad DC stuck to it's guns regarding it's commitment to putting out quality books.

Formatting your comics...

2012-01-19T00:38:00.001+01:00

There's been a lot of buzz recently regarding how you read your comics. By that I don't mean on the couch or in the toilet I mean do you like them on paper or screen?

REALLY? How did he pay for that?

With the New 52 from DC (that's getting older every time I fucking say it!) they did a same day and date digital launch along side the hardcopy and Marvel is slowly but surely following suit. Many comic companies are also going digital with the advent of tablets and their ever decreasing prices and ever increasing capabilities. Downloading comics and reading around the Wotzit smear left from having to touch the screen is burgeoning.

The rise of digital comics is a good thing, not just because fanboys will have to wash their hands more but because this means there's the possibility of getting new readers through online advertising, it's environmentally friendlier and if you ever get a female to co-inhabit with you she won't even notice you move your comic collection in because it will all be on a memory stick, with your porn.

Here's the bit that hurts though, periodical comics are dying out.

I'm afraid so.

The Comic Industries biggest act of self denial is that floppies, as a format are dying out. Book shops such as Waterstones and...well Waterstones simply will not stock floppies as it makes no sense at all to do so. But they do stock trades and trades do sell, especially after big screen adverts like Thor and Batman. They even do little recommendations from the staff which I find utterly charming, even if one of them is a positive review about something Geoff Johns coughed up.

Now personally I like a floppy (COMIC) I will freely admit to being old school and liking the monthly serialised format as it gives me something fun to look forward to. Nothing beats that stack of comics feeling. BUT I will also be the first to admit that I like every other format, even if I don't partake yet. I collect the trades and read web comics so a digital comic shouldn't be a stretch for me. I am though, in a minority.

There is a general feeling of resistance among comic readers (yes, yes accept for you who embraces new ideas like a python embraces a wild pig) to the digital medium, which is ironic when you consider how much time they spend on the net whinging about how their favourite characters should wear their underpants. From what I can gather it's mainly to do with people being too stuck in their ways.

"I like the feeling of paper in my hands." Well I like the way my cock feels in my hands but it will always feel better in a vagina.

"The rustle of paper, mmm" I never really noticed until you said it, now I play music to cover up the annoying rustling of paper.

"I just don't know how to read them on a screen." Because when you switch a piece of technology on you switch your brain off do you? It's a touch screen on a tablet, I'm pretty confident that's easy to figure out.

This person will have problems using a tablet.

If you're worried about brick and mortar Comic shops closing because they can't sell floppies, don't. Let's face it they are always on the verge of dying out and the good ones have long since learnt to adapt to the times and sell more than just comics. A good comic shop will survive off the back of trades, merchandising and careful trend following.

There are, of course a few genuine problems.

The prices of the comics themselves can also be a bit of a head scratcher. A while ago this was announced... Dark Horse goes digital! and while this is a wonderful thing 2.99 US is squeeze too far. They still have to pay the creative staff but I'm pretty confident the resources for getting a digital comic to its audience are far less than a printed one. Besides, you will get more none readers willing to click for a one dollar than four. But there are steps to get the prices down using special offers and more content like commentaries (yeah, just like a DvD) and behind the scenes type pages showing the sketches and designs that went into the comic.

The technology is too fucking expensive. I can read a comic that costs three quid on the train, I object if I'm holding a slab of equipment that costs a month's wages in front of people who were only thinking of mugging me before but the idea has since become a plan of action.

As with most things size does indeed matter. The screen size on a nice expensive ipad2 is 10.2 inches which is just enough to get a standard American format comic page on but the smaller more affordable (slightly) devices are seven inches on average which leaves you feeling like your wife does, wishing you had a few extra inches.

And of course I've never had to plug a comic in to read it.

But and it's a big BUT...

The size and cost of mobile phones in the eighties was monumental (In 1984 the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x (The Brick) cost $3,995) so give it a couple of years and these expensive tablets will be used by all and not just people presenting programs to raise awareness of famine relief.

In the oldy days we could only use them to talk to people

Now we can use them to tell the time!

The idea that I can just download the comics I want and never miss an issue is quite tempting. I can also store the entirety of my collection on my keyring and skills your brain uses for reading comics won't change, even the act of turning a page is still there in an easily understandable form.

Right now it's an option, soon and I promise you this, it won't be.

You can still do this with a tablet.

Apathetic Passion.

2011-11-20T22:08:00.104+01:00

I recently posted this blog as part of my irritated reply to this podcast by the CGS crew in which someone had bought Hawk and Dove #2 and I got a reply:

This is a link to the forum and here's the relevant posts, incase you can't be bothered clicking:

Here's me:

Pants.

You are a pillock.
http://fourcolouralc...this-demon.html

Here's the reply from David D.

I honestly don't get the point of expending energy railing against Liefeld at this point. Those that don't like him know what to expect, and will avoid his work, those that do like him will seek it out and buy it. What is there left to be said?

And it got me thinking; have comic readers become apathetic to their own medium? You see the point I was trying to make is Rob Liefeld is bad for comics and any potential audience of comics, yet people still work towards making him popular. There are the likes of him in every medium, Uwe Boll, Rick Berman and Kid Rock all find work while lovers of film, television and music all wonder how and why. Does this mean that we shouldn't try and better those mediums by outing these talentless poo flingers? Boycotting their output, critiquing in the name of informing? No of course not. So WHY do comic fans insist on getting all worked up over this...

The only thing distasteful about this image was the reaction it got from fanboys..

and yet THIS...

Won't some one please think of the children! OH the humanity! This is supposed to be on a plane by the way.

gets a free pass with comments like 'it's a guilty pleasure' or 'well I've always been a fan...'. I was a fan of laying on my back and gently filling my nappy at one time, till my wife got sick of it.

Black Spidey AKA Miles Morales was a big enough topic that even got some outsider press. Fanboy reaction to Miles though made comic readers look like a bunch of fuck nuggets. But if fanboys are so apathetic then why react to that and not Liefeld? Because Miles represented a big change to their beloved status quo, it rattled their world enough for them to make complete idiots of themselves. Whereas things like Liefeld, shitty comics and practices therein have become such a part of the comic book landscape that everyone just hikes over them accepting that they are just there.

My apologies and thanks to whomever this gentleman is.

Is it because fanboys were bullied in school and will therefore defend anything that represents their medium de jour even if it means they've replaced being forced to eat dog shit with being forced to eat Liefeld's? Well no, because black Spidey would have had a free pass.

Thanks Mister Schultz.

Fanboys are cliquey, insular and have fuck all self esteem and it shows in how they treat the medium. They use comics like a Linus blanket and any change like Snoopy. Seriously I would say comics fans should be ashamed of themselves but frankly anyone who can walk down the street looking like this...

At least he's happy...

is clearly bullet proof to insult coated rounds, so the issue is clearly not a lack self awareness.

No, the big problem is fanboys are happy being apathetic.

Apathy should not be a replacement for accepting crap, especially in a medium that has so little awareness from the public. Comic readers need to be heard if the medium is to survive. That means being able to separate the wheat from the chaff, the good comics from the bad and not making a tit out of yourself because Spider-Man now has a melanin count higher than yours. I'm not about to sit on my arse and listen to anyone defend a bad comic, especially by being apathetic. I'm not talking about a comic that I personally don't like or read but a properly awful comic that is to the artform what Michael Barrymore is to pool hygiene.

The difference between me and an apathetic fanboy is that I'm turning the energy that they used to rant about a black Spider-Man into ranting about the state of something I'm passionate about.

Long story short: I'll stop ranting about shit comics when people stop buying shit comics.

So much effort...

The crux of the superhero genre...

2011-11-15T01:05:00.008+01:00

In comics superheroes abound. It's the medium that they were born in and the one they thrive in. But often comic fans bemoan the fact that change in the superhero genre is transitory, death a revolving door and superheroes are stale.

It's understandable as these things remove dramatic tension and a lack of permanent change can lead to repetitive stories but comic fans miss the fundamental principle of a good superhero story, that is to tell a tall tale, build a mythology from bricks of parable and cement it with allegory, then present a legendary story of daring do, not to regurgitate a soap opera.

It's one of the reasons I like Thor, it's all mythic wonder and story telling, not who's shagging who's missing uncle from Perth.

I did a wee

Superhero comics are about wish fulfilment, epic battles, man verses god verses bacon! Stakes get higher, tensions mount and in the New 52's case knickers go twang! You can throw parables in there, analogies, metaphors and tell stories that add colour and excitement to the the imagination.

There are excellent comics out there in the soap opera vain:

Thank you Hernandez brothers for the perfect panel.

There are some absolutely shite comics in the superhero one:

It's like being slow bummed by someone using vix for lube.

But I'll read a 'soap' comic if I feel like taking part in the intimate lives of delightful characters and I'll read a superhero one if I want to see Thor hammer Galactus in the cosmic tuckus. Erm...

A lot of comic readers also whine on about the nature of death in comics, the fact you can get a return ticket to the nether world annoys the piss out of them. The argument here is that it removes the dramatic tension from the comic if you know that death lasts as long as a chocolate gateau at fat camp.

Yes death is transitory, Thor recently died and will be back soon no doubt but on the other hand he's a god in a universe where a trip to the netherworld is as common as forgetting which side your underpants should be on. Alternate universes swap members all the time and clones grow easier than e coli on a street vendor's hot dog. There's a million fun ways to kill a character AND resurrect them. In the mean time though we get some stories about different characters and journeys while the main character is taking a break in the after life and the whole thing is shaken up like a snow globe and we watch the pretty snowflakes settle, then shake it again.

In computer games you have the save feature, doesn't that remove the dramatic tension from a story driven game? No of course not, it means the game can continue, same with superhero comics, it means the story can continue. You can always stop reading.

Superheroes have often been compared to the ancient legendary characters like Hercules, Perseus, King Arthur as well as the ancient gods, just compare Grant Morrison's Justice League line up with the Greek pantheon and you'll see what I mean.

Superman - Zeus, Wonder Woman - Hera, Flash - Hermes, Aquaman - Posiden, you figure out the rest.

In those myths and legends no one was really interested in the interpersonal relationships of the characters, in fact it's only these days when all the spicy homo erotic shenanigans of the ancient Greeks was uncovered that it's become interesting at all. They were more interested in how the hero out fought, out thought, out fucked and generally out did the monster or villain of the piece. I will grant you that carrying on the concept of a single character for over seventy five years can make the stories stale but there's no one out there who's been actually reading say, Superman, straight for those seventy five years and there's as many 'legendary' stories as there are soap opera stories out there to amuse fans. Characters can age and mature, like a fine wine if cultivated properly. Also, you can stop reading.

WITH dignity

WITHOUT dignity

We all need the tales of daring do and wild adventure to remind us how fantastic life can be, superheroes give us that. A sense that even though their ideals are altruistic and their abilities are beyond those of mortal men they are something we all have a sneaking desire to aspire to and through reading the comics we can live, albeit vicariously those dreams of being larger than life.

So I know, you won't stop reading.

It really doesn't get more epic...

ok I need to exorcise this demon...

2011-11-12T21:05:00.002+01:00

Rob Liefeld, fans of his output and idiots who insist on employing him are the biggest problem facing the comic industry today.

This talentless gibbon is currently 'working' on Hawk and Dove for DC and The Infinite for Image. He's also trying to resurrect Extreme Studios, a nineties throwback that is to comics what the mullet is to hair styles.

If you need to be told what's wrong with any of this picture get your guide dog to tell you

At the start of the nineties comics looked like this...

Dynamic and full of movement ideal for the times.

Jim Lee did that in '91 and over the years his art style has at least become more solid without loosing it's vitality.

This is a Liefeld from the same year...

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

You will notice how the only pair of hands in the picture look like Cables mum took thalidomide and there are NO feet evident. Distortion has gone beyond stylised and frankly the whole thing looks ugly as fuck.

This is Jim Lee today...

The improvement has ripened to its fullest potential.

This is Liefeld today...

Where the fuck is that girl in yellow's leg?!

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GET WORSE OVER TWENTY YEARS?!?!?

Liefeld was part of the 'in' crowd when Marvel decided to get funky and hit the nineties like a bus ploughing through a playground. Jim Lee, Todd Mcfarlane and Eric Larsen were among the creators who got sick of their creative rights being under the wheels of that bus and so went off to form Image comics were they had the freedom to create their very own characters and develop them without an editorial whip behind them. Liefeld produced Youngblood. It was a wholly original concept about a group of young mutants under the employ of the government and tasked to go out and do stuff in the name of justice and... wait...

It's like the nineties never happened, or ended.

He was then released from Image because (short version) he's a douche and has been floating about in comics like a turd in the punchbowl ever since.

But why are fans of this rubber fingered idiot damaging comics as a medium? Easy the're buying this shite. Hawk and Dove#1 (if DC are to be believed) has outsold itself into second printings, along with the rest of the line. I would love to think that the people who bought this rag are the types of people who enjoy masturbating to car crashes but the likely hood is a mixture of nostalgic thirty somethings, impressionable youth and glue sniffers. No matter which they are pouring money into the coffers of whomever employs the bum wiggling pillock, even if it is just to watch the disaster unfold.

I've listened to podcasts and read many an article that basically say the same thing, to paraphrase; 'what's the name of his guide dog?'. They all bemoan his continued employment in our beloved medium BUT THEY STILL FUCKING BUY HIS 'WORK'!

Creators don't really help. Whenever you hear that a big name writer of comics (Gail Simone and Robert Kirkman spring to mind) is working with Liefeld, apart from the image of a gun to their head, they get very defensive and would win the gold if verbal gymnastics ever became an Olympic event. Here's a link to an IGN interview with Robert Kirkman, in it Kirkman blows enough smoke up Liefelds arse to warrant a call from the fire brigade and here's a page from The Infinite:

This is what epilepsy looks like

It's devoid of perspective, full of inconsistent design, poor sequential story telling and what the feck is wrong with the bottom right panel? One of the things that annoys me though is the way people think his art work is 'full of energy' and 'edgy'. It's full of energy in the same way a kid is when it's full of sugar, it's all over the place and with no coherent direction to it and has your attention stumbling all over the place. Imagine if the heads being shot weren't tucked away under a big panel and were two each down the side of the centre panel, so on and so forth. When you are looking at panel layout knowing you could do a better job there's something wrong.

When something as big as the DC New 52 happens and they include Liefeld in it, it not only looks like comic publishers think 'what's popular' over 'what's good' but things this big get beyond the reader stable and into the public, so if images from Hawk and Dove get publicity it's embarrassing. If you think 'Well the general public don't know about comic art so they probably won't notice how bad he is.' YOU ARE WRONG. My friends girlfriends six year old daughter couldn't understand why there are 'bad artists doing art'. My wife is baffled by his anatomy. A BLIND man can see that THIS...

oh god

Is a BAD fucking drawing.

I implore the comic reading public and the comic publishers, STOP giving this floppy fingered twat money to ruin the medium. Type 'rob liefeld worst drawings' into Google images and brace yourself for some of the most searing sights ever pushed onto your eyeballs.

Rob Granito even knew not to swipe from him.

Comic readers are killing comics.

2011-10-27T22:22:00.003+02:00

Do you know how I know this?

Look at any other enthusiast in their hobby and you will see someone who embraces their hobby, debates it throws it about but ultimately doesn't have to defend the medium that their hobby comes in.

Comic readers do.

A Star Trek fan will sometimes be derided or have a joke made at their expense but everyone has seen an episode of Star Trek and even if they didn't like it they didn't say 'well televisions certainly not for me'. You see they can accept that the method of delivery by which they experienced Star Trek is different from the program itself. They know they can go back to watching Downton Abby and forget they ever watched a stupid costume drama set in a strange time full of people speaking in a strange way...

You would be amazed that this didn't take long.

But if you showed them a comic of Downton Abby they would be as baffled as man with diarrhoea facing a barbed wire toilet seat. They just wouldn't be able to get past the idea of superhero comics and The Beano because the industry simply hasn't been reaching out to them, that's going to be the subject of another blog. None readers don't get that statements like 'comics are for kids' or better yet 'they might be worth a bit in a few years time' are like pissing in his Lordship's tureen because they think it's a potty to a comic reader.

Comic readers though don't do anything to rebut this image of comics held by the none reading public though. Being a bunch of insular snobs they view anyone who doesn't know what's in the third pouch on the left of Batman's utility belt as a philistine. So when they feel they have to defend their hobby they sneer and act aloof in an attempt to seem more mature than they are, only convincing the none reader that they are massively insecure about their own maturity and that there grasp of reality is somewhat tenuous because they actually did know what was in the third pouch from the left on Batman's utility belt.

Now you know.

My friend and I both take comics into work, usually trades for ease, and we have both been the subject of scrutiny and ridicule by our work colleagues, though my friend more so than myself. He took Alias by Brian Michal Bendis in and got the usual sneers of 'Mner comics are for kids' remarks. So he showed them the trade. They shut up. He went on to explain in patient tones that comics were just another delivery method for story telling and that the medium isn't defined by it's content and he liked them because there are fewer steps between the creator and the finished product so you get a purer story. Although he had to use flash cards and contemporary dance to get his point across.

The usual faces of a comic reader in the wild...

You see people fall asleep when you try to get them interested in something you are passionate about because nine times out of ten we reign in the passion because we think it scares people. It doesn't, I watch Top Gear because the passion they infuse into every word they say is intoxicating and I don't even have a driving licence. They make it interesting and fun and you know something else they are utterly childish and un-apologetic about that. Most watched program in the world practically.

Attack people with your passion and don't apologise for being right.

Comic readers are so hung up in the minutia of defending the contents of comics and in fighting over whether or not Batman should have sex or not that they don't realise that no one except them cares and it makes them look like this...

scary, no?

When they could look like this...

To a geek this is terrifying

Here's some links to very learned sites...

Comic Geek Speak: Free Daily Podcasts Scott McCloud | Journal WillEisner.com

No one questions the passion, but the it needs a better vocabulary and direction. Don't try to convince someone they would like Batman if they just gave it a try, find out what they like to read/watch and find them a comic based on it.

Introduce the comics to them, not them to comics.

There's a comic out there for everyone.

Why isn't Superman Super any more?

2011-10-11T17:30:00.004+02:00

Ever since the New Krypton storyline Superman has been shit.

For details on that look here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman:_New_Krypton

The whole, 'bring back Krypton' shtick was a good idea, never done before in that way and could have lent itself to a great run of stories after the initial arc was over. Instead it started to choke over a trilogy and eventually it was put to sleep and buried in the garden next to the geranium bush. But then mum and dad went out and got another puppy...

Sorry...THEN JMS took over writing duties and after his promising start on Thor (another beefy chap in a big red cape) everyone thought 'Hello, so long as he can stay on the book for longer than twelve issues, this could be a refreshing change.' But no, JMS decided (after a long period of Superman not really being Superman during this long period of time bear in mind) to make Superman go on what the aboriginal Australians call a 'walkabout' and what we comic readers like to call 'Why is Superman fucking boring again?'. JMS wanted Superman to spend a year (that's twelve issues) at the very least walking...WALKING across America on a spiritual journey to re-connect with who he is and what he's supposed to represent. He asks the question

'Does the world need a Superman?'

Fuck...right...off.

The world Superman lives in is shared by...

and

I personally think the police would need pretty big truncheons to spank that monkey, so can we get over the fact that in this particular pocket of reality Superman's self indulgent whining little question can be answered by pushing your tongue into your bottom lip and making an 'urrrrrrrrr' noise?

Good.

So JMS lasted a whole seven issues on Superman before someone was picked to go and tell him it was more fun reading the adverts and Chris Robinson squeezed out another seven. There's more but I want to keep the readers I have.

Then! D.C decided to re-boot their universe, again.

But this time it was a proper spit and polish with proper changes and proper fresh starts without the baggage of confusing continuity! Except for Green Lantern his continuity was more or less the same OH and Batman, his was compressed into five years but again more or less the same. And Justice League was to take place five years ago to help establish the team and Action Comics was ALSO set five years in the past despite Superman having a different costume to the one he wears in the Justice League and...

MMMMMNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Before

After

ANYWAY Action Comics, a perennial Superman tile was relaunched and Grant Morrison was tasked to re-invent Superman's first few months as a crimefighter! Good idea! We get to see a drastically de-powered Superman doing things he did back in the forties like fight crime bosses and corrupt officials and stop trains with his face! Even his costume reflects his blue collar approach to busting crime with jeans, worker boots and a Superman t-shirt and a red towel tied around his neck...yeah anyway, it was at least an exciting take on Superman being super and if we want to see Superman being the Superman readers have wanted him to be for the past few years then we can hop over to his titular book 'SUPERMAN!' were he's contemporary with his spanking new outfit and fresh new take on... oh my god I can't do this Superman #1 is fucking dreadful.

Long winded script, redundant dialogue, crowded page layout, dull lethargic artwork, whining, pissy, moaning, twat Superman forgettable villains everything taking place at night so it's 'dark', nothings established and the big thing about the Daily Planet blowing up gets lost in the angst ridden mess. The first time we see Superman he's stood in mid air looking pissy, cape spread all angelic and he's in clouds, wow spot the symbolism. Not only that he's doing the one thing NO version or depiction of Superman has ever or should ever do, look down on the audience.

Look up in the sky!

Whether it was done on purpose or not this is as out of place as making Batman dress up in purple, red and yellow and saying he's an alien from...oh wait

Oh fuck off Grant Morrison it was a crap concept in the sixties.

Superman has never lauded it over the mere mortals he protects yet this one image doesn't set up a sense of sympathy for Superman's loss of the Daily Planet but an overwhelming sense that this is a godlike being and we will have no connection to him whatsoever.

I can understand wanting a little pathos in a comic, a little drama and with Superman and this being a re-boot it has to come with change and that usually involves the destruction of something iconic, in this case the Daily Planet building. It becomes a multi media outlet representing the changes in media and how the world is perceived today and mirroring (perhaps unintentionally) the launch of the New 52 DC line as a digital medium. It represents modernisation and is perhaps the only decent thing that occurs in this comic. But rather than be 'The Man of Tomorrow' and embrace the change and be the hero leading people into the future all Clark Kent does is whine, bitch and moan about how print isn't dead and whiney whine whine. Frankly he sounds like a fucking fanboy. Instead of the change being about a light in the darkness it's about the twat who moans he can't see his collection of used newspapers and bottles of urine any more.

Instead of a memorable villain we get some 'thing' apparently made of fire that Superman carries into space to kill it. We get a despondent Clark when he learns that Lois is knobbing someone else. At no point do we get a sense of freshness, or triumph that will herald a new Superman.

The art is so dense and cluttered it's impossible to follow, not challenging and interesting like Swamp Thing just a headache. There's a page with 14 panels and most of them full of word boxes or balloons. There's redundant dialogue describing what's going on in so many panels and god forbid anyone should have a genuine smile on their face.

Superman #1 is to comics what the prequel trilogy is to Star Wars, a big fucking stupid mess that ardent fans will defend till their dead.

Someone has even said to me it can't be worse than the nineties dross, well it is. You look back on that stuff at least it was entertaining. At least Liefeld did books SO phenomenally bad you could laugh at them.

Superman #1 is none of the things that should go into a Superman comic, even a new one. It's painfully obvious that George Pérez has read too many Mark Millar comics and said 'This is what the kids want these days.' Well George, not from Superman. The point of Superman is to represent the best we can be by teaching us how to achieve that. All I saw him do in his inaugural issue was swim through muddy art and moan about everything then he killed a fire 'thing'.

Hurry up Grant Morrison, make Superman super again!

Women are sexy!

2011-09-26T01:05:00.004+02:00

Go on argue with that one.

I'm not saying they have to be or that they should be treated as sex objects but I am saying that in comics women are, on the whole, curvy and delicious, even when the're hacking limbs off ala Wonder Woman, which I would like to add is actually bloody good comic.

But with the current controversy over Catwoman flouncing through her comic as if she were a a trollop at the docks and Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws offering sex like it was a bag of Werthers Originals in a nursing home I'm begining to think comic readers are living up to the virginal steriotype everyone see's them to be.

Catwoman herself has for a long time pranced about in skin tight black leather and indeed in the last version of the DCU started out as a prostitute so to think she isn't going to flash her cleavage to her advantage is naivety on parr with people who believe we didn't land on the moon. Artists are going to draw on this to, it's part of her character and the comic could well be classified as 'erotic thriller'.

Frankly my first thought was Batman...you LUCKY bastard.

As for Starfire being a promiscuous sexually liberated alien what's the big deal? I'll give you that there is more cheesecake in that book than diabetics wet dream but for the most part we're seeing Starfire through the eyes of a man who's been in jail for a while and who's sexual experiences have probably left him with a bad taste in his mouth and the ability to fart in a lift without anyone knowing it was him.

He doesn't say this in the comic, but the sentiment is there.

Is the sexuality of these two female characters depicted in a rather overtly fashion more fitting to a playboy spread than a comic aimed at teens? Yeah I would say for the most part it is but they are also depicted as powerful ass kickers with individual characters of which being sexually liberated is part of the package, and you can't depict a sexual liberation without showing sex.

I think something that bothers me is fandom's unhealthy attitude towards sex and it's depictions and there non-committal attitude towards say this...

Starfire's cheesecake is only on show for three or four pages in a 22 page comics whereas scenes like the above are prevalent in the other seventeen or eighteen and yet the fans don't get all worked up about the violence, which let's face it is a bit worse.

Other than the sexual immaturity of most comic fans the bigger problem here is their expectations are clouded by old habits and promises DC made about 'diversity'. Cries of 'How can you claim this is diverse?' and 'Women as objects' are erupting across the net like the spots of a teenager on prom night.

But here's the thing, taking four comics, Batwoman, Wonder Woman, Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws you actually have 4 very different approaches to sexuality, as well as very good diverse female characters. Batwoman is a lesbian thrown out of the army for being so and is thus a rough tough and very capable urban warrior. Wonder Woman has no real sexual orientation as she grew up on an island of woman so while she can hack up most of the cast of Homer's Illiad I'm guessing she wouldn't know what to do with a willy if you presented one to her with a set of instructions written by Heff'. To Catwoman sex is a weapon and one she can use either like a scalpel or a cannon, after all when is a man most off guard? Yeah even Batman's going to pass out after a knobbing from her. To an alien like Starfire sex is just something to enjoy or use to reproduce, her level of maturity is actually way above ours and sex is an easy way to show it.

I'm not saying there's never been any gratuitous ass shots in comics or that every depiction of sex in comics was handled with a level of maturity fitting the subject matter, but what I am saying is after one issue don't condemn the character or comic and for fucks sake grow up.

Fabulous helmet!

Green Lantern is fucking awful.

2011-06-27T01:58:00.002+02:00

I stepped out of my local fleapit in discussion with my fellow geek about what we had just seen. Ambivalence was rife and comparisons to (the perfectly acceptable) Fantastic Four 2 Rise of the Silver Surfer were made. In other words 'It's a shame it wasn't better but I wasn't horrified'.

But as I've come further away from the film I've come to realise several things about it that have not only soured my opinion further but actually made me angry that this film was made for the money supposedly spent on it, roughly 150 million dollars. That's fucking evil.

The story follows Hal Jordan an insecure test pilot who's given a magic ring to fight off space vomit. I know there's more to it than that but that right there is the nutshell, in this case a sweaty scrotum. If you need any more investment in the film have the orderlies tighten the straps on your special 'staying in' coat. The plot stumbles about making vague and loose connections that honestly make it feel like the writers were in a big huff with each other and tried to sabotage any poignancy or drama in the script. Take the supposed friendship hinted at between Hal, Carol (Lively) and Hector. It pops up for NO reason, nothing is made of it, it simply doesn't need to be there. Hector doesn't need a history with Lively for her to know he's a nerd with no chance of getting her to touch him in a special place thus making him jealous of Hal's 'Jock' position. One of many strange little points that made little sense.

The cast are utterly forgettable. I can remember Iron Man 1 had Jeff Bridges as the villain! I can't remember the actor that played Hector (the 'kind of' villain) and I've just seen Green Lantern. Hal has a female (played by the plain Blake Lively) that fauns over him but their relationship status at the end is nebulous at best. There's Hal's best friend who appears a few times and doesn't seem to have a name, he's nothing more than someone to put in a few scenes for a little more exposition. We also have a family with an adoring nephew who appear ONCE and are never mentioned or an influence on the film ever again. A slew of other disposable interchangeable people either die, or in the case of Amanda Waller (DC's joking answer to Nick Fury) simply exit stage left, never to be bothered with again. OH and Mark Strong as Sinestro, he makes it look like he's constantly waiting for a good line to say but has to console himself with the pay cheque.

What I think annoys me the most is that the script writers are all from TV stock and mostly at the Dawson's Creek end of the genre spectrum and weeping perverts on a barbed wire dildo, does it show! The waffleing scenes between Lively and Reynolds clearly play to their comfort zone of bland lines delivered with earnest deep into each others eyes. The scene in the bar close to the beginning of the movie began to bore me so much I honestly found looking for the dark chocolate bounty I had spirited away in my coat more enthralling. It cosseted the writers too long and contributed nothing to the story.

What it should have looked like...

There's also the Green Lantern Corps! An army of elite space police who do nothing but stand around going hooray a bit when Mark Strong's Character Sinestro says anything. They must be very easy to please as he often sounds like he's reading the ingredients on a packet of Jacob's crackers. Mind you they look like moss on a cave floor when the corps is seen in a long shot. Well OK there is one short space fight scene that lacks imagination and tension because the director manages to pull off the most pedestrian angles and screen compositions you can possibly imagine.

The truth.

Have you seen the trailers? Well there are only roughly three to four minutes more of the exceptionable hideous and horrifically designed Oa where the Corps and their leaders The Guardians (also exceptionable hideous and poorly rendered) and it all takes place in the same three digital sets. No kidding, there's the afore mentioned cave floor, the Jedi (oops sorry!) Guardians tower and a bridge. We get one fly through Oa, centred on Hal Jordan, which because it's a confused mess never impresses. So just watch the trailers, less disappointing.

The Movie Version, Oa mya Goda!

The Comic Version, mad but defined.

For something that was touted as a 'Space Opera' on par with Star Wars, Warner Brothers need to feel the shame of a man caught with his cock in a chicken by his wife. Honestly, apologists have been saying 'It's not that bad.', 'Mark Strong is really good.' Even I said that till I realised it made no sense and Mark Strong's only delivers monologues in a baffled manner.

If I wanted to watch a fucking sword fight I would have gone to see Pirates of
The Caribbean 4

Is there anything good? Ryan Reynalds is doing his best with a script written by a committee and the one (literally ONE) big special effect scene that isn't in the promo' material where Green Lantern makes his Earth début has a good idea in it. The special effects to do with the costume are also passable. All that said though there's no cohesion to the story, it wombles around confused and skips some very obvious money shots or tension and it all has the kind of half hearted direction that wouldn't be forgiven on the SyFy channel.

But most of all is the sheer waste of the source material. Nothing and I mean NOTHING feels grand or epic. Oa is truly horrible and characters like Kilowog and Toma re are UTTERLY wasted. Hector Hammond is a little bit fun but never really a threat, Paralax is just a space poo that comes and goes and the set up for the sequel is squeezed out like the last drops of come from a cheap porn stars bellend and makes little sense to those who don't read the comic.

150 million. That's minus the marketing and apparently other costs this movie threw up and it's ALL wasted.

Maybe a Space Dragon ala the comic would have been
more relatable than a space turd?

There are worse comic adaptations out there, Wolverine Origins, The Spirit, Watchmen, Spider-Man 3 and Catwoman but none of them could possibly live up to the total failure of Green Fucking Lantern in terms of wasted potential.

Hey Warner Brothers, after Dark Knight Rises, stop making films. You've gone a bit shit.

Are we in a piece of shit? Yeah

http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=green+lantern

X Men First Class

2011-06-09T16:25:00.000+02:00

Dodgy poster, good film.

Tis' the year of comic adaptations all over again. Flashbacks to 2008 are getting more intense as the sheer quantity of films based on my beloved medium launch themselves out the door along side other genre movies that could be cut from the same cloth.

Actually comic adaptations this year include Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, X-Men: First Class, Cowboys and Aliens, Priest and (sigh) Green Lantern, a film which I personally think will only do well if people are feeling generous this year.

All of them have one thing in common, none of them look to the here and now, to create a truly grandiose adaptation of the source material. This was evident with Thor. Instead of an Asgardian wonderland full of superheroic shenanigans with a more faithful take on the material that doesn't pander to producers sweating over the need to be safe and try to appeal to as many popcorn consuming, wellfare munchers as possible we got a very bloody good mind you 'safe' superhero movie that looked to set up a franchise.

There's nothing really wrong with a commercial view to movie making, but the best movies are ones that shun the long term franchise and concentrate on making a truly awe inspiring piece of cinema. It happens in comic adaptations to, look at The Dark Knight, The Crow, Road To Perdition, Ghost World all made with the idea that the film was more important than the action figures you could develop from it.

The argument that (for example) Thor would look silly if realised in film is moot. Christopher Reeve didn't look silly:

Sadly missed, greatly inspiring.

Why would Chris Hemsworth look silly in this:

It wasn't THAT far off in the movie, but still...

So does it happen with X-Men: First Class? Do we get an epic? Do we get the comic adaptation of the X-Men that we've always wanted?

Very nearly and almost...

Why? Because studios are still feeding off the old trilogy, despite that this one removes X3 from it's continuity by SPOILER IN INVISO' TEXT (highlight to read): Crippling Xavier and breaking the friendship with Erik, two things clearly at odds with the opening of X3.It still has a cameo and advertising campaign that clearly links it to the first two movies. Now, those first two (and if I'm being honest I quite enjoyed the third one) are excellent films, the second one specifically as it contains my favourite X-Man, the fabulous Nightcrawler as played by Alan Cummings,

Your dad was cool in First Class to!

but they suffered from being far too grounded, too much emphasise on trying to make it all make sense and not 'camp'. There's nothing wrong with that but one of the things about the superhero genre is the introduction of the fantastic into the mundane so that you can show the world what a wonderful and incredible place it can be. The setting should be normal so the fantastic stands out. The X-Men movies had to play safe because unlike Sam Raimi with the Spider-Man flicks Bryan Singer can't do spectacle; action and intrigue yes, spectacle no.

X-Men: First Class comes very close to what an X-Men movie should be, it's sixties setting helps this a lot with some of the sexiest, high collar designs and funky styling we've seen since the Austin Powers, Magneto certainly rocks a turtle neck! The 'camp' is allowed to breath a little allowing the setting to ease the viewers mind into the idea that Magneto's helmet is in fact awesome. So what actually let's the film down?

Chronic misuse of characters seemingly randomly chosen because they haven't been in the other movies, which in itself is another tie in to the existing franchise. There are characters, Beast and Mystique who have story arcs and are there for a genuine reason. Their story is easily something you could accept as 'movie continuity' as opposed to 'comic continuity'. But while Havoc, Banshee, Darwin and Angel all shine when they are on screen they don't get enough time on screen to blind you.

These two make the screen come to life and make the film. James Macavoy (left) as Charles Xavier and Michal Fassbender (right) as Eric Lenshir.

X-Men: First Class is a great film but it's let down a lot by not being an honest re-boot of the franchise and embracing it's roots with more gusto. Your average movie goer won't give a hoot and settle into the spectacle that this clearly gives you, a comic reader will wonder why Angel was used and not Angel.

(For the techy stuff go here... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270798/ )

DC Preaching to the converted...

2011-06-04T01:47:00.005+02:00

I think Green Lantern is
over compensating...

In September DC Comics are going to re-number and revamp all their titles and start them all from issue one and
simultaneously launch them all digitally, there's going to be 52 titles in all.

There's good things and not good things about this. Those things have of course 'split the internet in two' and like every great crossover and event in comics creates chaos, leaves destruction in it's wake and eventually amounts to bugger all.

The good things are that this could be a fresh new take on the DCU, making it the DC New U, giving potential new readers a first step in comics and a clean look at old characters. It proves that comics can adapt and are not afraid to make huge changes in the way things are done, despite that it's taken 75 years.

It creates a collector market all over again, now you can actually have a Batman issue 1! That won't really be worth anything in a few years, even less if you got it digitally, but hey, you have issue one!

Big name (to comic fans anyway) Jim Lee is doing the art chores on the re-launched JLA! Because his track record with team books is to be believed! Ahem.

'The Savage Hawkman' is the title to this comic
OR
as I like to call it 'Wolverine with wings'

The costume changes are a good thing, Superman has finally joined the rest of the superhero community and dropped the trunks on the outside look and everyone is sporting a shiny new 'v' collar (as an aside I've been using those for years in my character designs and suspect they pop up in many other places to) they would also look really good in any films coming out.

We're getting such titles as Red Lanterns! Aquaman! And Justice League International! Plus anything else DC can scrape off the bottom of a barrel because 52 titles is ambitious when you know most of the current line is selling as well as a Marmite flavoured condom. It's not an idle guess that most of these titles are going to die after 12 issues so this is DC's 'see what sticks' tactics again.

The back issue market may well decline because 'new' readers to 'new' DC are not going to need the back stories if the comics are indeed a fresh start. Sure, the histories may well still be relevant for most of them but origins get re-capped all the time and new stories ought to be even more epic than the old stories, so why bother? Plus do you honestly think a new reader will want to go to a comic mart'? I'm a comic reader now and I don't like going to comic mart's.

I hope this works, because it's brave and fun but then so's your first face full of ejaculate, it's only afterwards you realise it's a damp, piss smelling mess and you have to shampoo your beard.

Like the axeman said, it's all in the execution.

OOOHHHH It's the Atom, took me a while.

For Asgard! Well for a good two hours and change anyway...

2011-05-04T15:09:00.003+02:00

Is Thor any good? Is a really stupid question. Here's the imbd for techy details...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800369/

If you (like me) collect the Thor comics and this will leave you wanting, nay needing more, because you (like me) know what things are, how characters should act and the relationships between them and you get all that, but in movie sized pieces that while are completely palatable to the average movie goer, to a comic fan will leave you salivating like Pavlov's dog at a campanologists convention. That's not a bad thing though because what you get is spectacular. It is Thor, The Warriors Three, Sif and so on from the comics. The costumes have a subtle Kirby'esque feel to them, Asgard is beautiful and what we see of the nine worlds they are truly done a justice.

Make no mistakes, this is not the only way Marvel could have done Thor. They could have done a cheap knock off to rip off the audience or they could have gone Peter Jackson and put them to sleep. There's over six hundred comics relating to Thor so what story do you tell that wont confuse or put the audience to sleep and somehow please the fans? Well Kenneth Branagh pulled it off. For a start he cocked a snook at the origin story by telling a story about how Thor became a hero rather than how he got the powers, something the Marvel Studio movies have been quite good at but it's more obvious in Thor because the titular character is a big bad ass with thunder and lightening out the wazoo from the start, he just needs a bitch slap to calm him down and this is the story of said bitch slap.

Branagh's direction is simple, elegant but clever when it needs to be. Unlike so many directors today who use so much shaky cam' I'm not just sure they hire people with Parkinson's disease, or use so much slow motion the film is twice it's actual length. Branagh seems to know when we need to see a characters emotions and when we need to see him do something cool, how to set up an establishing shot and let the actors shine. It's a lot of very old school direction with some great polish that reminds me of Guillermo Del Toro but at a faster pace.

The acting is su'fucking'perb. Chris Hemsworth was born for this role. There isn't a point were you think he's hamming it up or not putting his all into it. The scene in the hospital (MINOR SPOILERS) were he looses his rag with the staff and throws them around the room only to receive an arse full of sedatives treats your emotions like Nigal Mansell treats a race car. You start out with anticipation as you see Thor strapped down, a twinge of humour and discomfort as he looses his rag with a fish out of water moment, nervous laughter as he quite frankly smacks the shit out of a few fairly innocent people and then down right humour as his face slides down the window into la la land. The scene has it all.

The effects are fairly flawless. Cgi abound obviously but to the whiners of said cgi do go and fuck yourselves. Cgi is to today's films what stop motion was to Jason and The Argonauts and Sinbad, a means to an end. It's a way to show what can't be done in real life and if you need to tell a story about a city full of gods then you either hitch a ride with Prometheus or break out the computers, because as good as it can be matt paintings and models simply don't cut the mustard any more so stop fucking banging on about them.

As a film Thor is fast paced and style'wise marches to it's own drum and when you consider that next year Thor has to stand and look good next to Iron Man that's pretty brave.

I've now seen this flick twice and beleive me it's better on second watching especially in 2D. The level of frenetic action in the film doesn't lend it'self to 3D very well and the once or twice it does stand out and make you go 'oooooh' aren't really worth wearing the spec's all the way through the film. The second time the critical glasses are off and you can sit back and enjoy it more and it actually did feel better paced. There's no padding in there that doesn't need to be, it reminds me of the first Men In Black movie.

To sum up, this is a film that pulled off the near imposable, made Thor appeal to everyone but the most ardent whiny twats and THAT's a good thing.

For Asgard indeed!

DC can go and fuck itself.

2011-04-19T17:10:00.002+02:00

I'll never be sorry for the sentiment that DC can honestly go and fuck itself. I will continue to buy relevant back issues I need and the seminal JSA comic but DC's marketing strategy seems to be akin to giving a hooker charging 2.99 because they only seem to be after short term gratification.

They've done bugger all but universe spanning crossovers and massive events of late to the point were the DCU is about as penetrable as Supergirl's hymen. With the death and return of Batman, the New Krypton story, Final Crises, Blackest Night, Brightest day and now Flashpoint DC can't seem to tell a story any more without making it seem like the end of the world every Wednesday.

But Flashpoint takes more piss than a porn star in 'Golden Showers 3 Here come the elephants!' It's roughly fifteen, 3 part mini series on top of a five part series as well as crossing into almost every book in the DCU adding up to the readers choice of buying a pile of comics you could use to wallpaper Buckingham palace or eating for six months.

Look at the latest crossover 'Fear Itself' in Marvel, an 8 parter (including prologue) and the usual crossing into the regular books but with the surprising assurance you don't need to read them to get the whole story. Now I've read Marvel's crossovers, this tends to ring true. But I've just borrowed Brightest Day book one from the library and every time we come back to Firestorm's part of the story for example I was wondering what the hell was going on as his character as it seemed to alter off camera between his pages. If the fill in story was going on in his own book well thanks DC, instead of making me interested in a potentially cool character and maybe getting me interested in a comic you've hitched up your skirt and shown off your marketing skills. And they cost 2.99.

To draw more comparison 'Fear Itself' is about an ancient evil coming back to show the Earth what it's scared of in an attempt to cause havoc The title itself suggests something and while the marketing hasn't been as clear cut as say, 'Secret Invasion' it's still presented some interesting imagery that's made me go 'Hmmm' to the point were I'm tempted to buy the issues rather than my usual wait for the collected to come out. Flashpoint on the other hand seems to be an alternate universe thing except it's not and it has something to do with the Flash. And Batman. And Cyborg. And someone else I don't care to remember. In other words it's as clear as the Rock Hudson's blood tests what the crux of Flashpoint is.

Now you may be thinking well so what? Buy what you enjoy, the story is being crafted by Geoff Johns a man gifted in epic verse, so long as he has an artist capable of pulling of his ideas (I'm looking at YOU Sinestro Wars you mealy piece of shit) and no one is forcing you to buy everything!

But they are stopping me from buying what I enjoy. Doom Patrol and All Star JSA (as well as one or two others) have been sacrificed to the deities of greed because they want people to buy the crossover not the lower selling books. Think about it; A DC fan with a limited budget wants to get into Flashpoint but there's only so much he can buy so he's probably not going to buy as much of Flashpoint as DC would like. So DC look at their herd of comics and wonder which they are going to put a bolt gun to. Well it's not going to be a Bat title, heaven forbid ole' dark and pointy should loose one of his completely fucking superfluous comics. It's not going to be Superman mainly because right now he only features in one of his comics and it's already been castrated by loosing it's writer. It's not going to be Green Lantern because there's a movie coming and the market needs saturating like old ladies gusset on a tilt 'a' whirl. And if you cancelled a Wonder Woman book there wouldn't be anything for the potential fans of the new TV show to wipe their arses on.

So it's going to be the low sellers. The small, quality books that the creators love because the editors don't really give a shit and leave them alone to write fun and quirky stories until they drop below the fiscally viable mark and are put to sleep. But as I understand it Doom Patrol at least had some more life in it but in order to make way for the up coming rainforest of paper that is Flashpoint (a name I add which makes me think of board room presentation) it had to go.

Why not tie the existing weaker books into the crossover to make them stronger? It worked for Blackest Night, the Doom Patrol issues were all I bought of that crossover and they were great!

OH because that makes sense and DC stopped making sense when they realised it wasn't making money.

2011-02-21T16:27:00.001+01:00

I hate, nay despise the term 'Graphic fucking novel' to the point were I can't actually say the words novel and graphic without inserting the word 'fucking' between them. Every time I see the words 'BASED ON THE...' projected on the cinema screen my arse clenches so tightly I walk out the auditorium with my own chair.

You may wonder why? Isn't it a nice mature term for comics that makes them seem more adult orientated and therefore acceptable to a potentially new audience. Well I suppose it is, in the same way 'Ethnic Cleansing' is a nice way to say genocide.

I hate it for many reasons, it's misleading, pretentious, inaccurate, corporate interference and often not even used for it's intended purpose. But the real reason I have a collection of cinema chairs is because it's been made to cover a shame that doesn't exist except in comic geeks.

We don't use the term 'Moving Pictures' any more, we don't call the theatre 'Live Cinema' and we don't refer to the radio as the 'Magic talking box' (though that is what I called my ex') so why do we feel the need to dress up a medium in this wankery? It's a comic. It doesn't matter how big it is if it's definable by the term put down by Scott McCloud "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence" then IT'S A FUCKING COMIC!

I could understand slightly different terms to denote length of material: Comic Strip, Comic, Comic Book gives you a sense of length and size of the three main types of comic. Trade Paperback implies the same as collected edition and are at least partially descriptive of the product if not the medium but I've asked a few people not savvy to the four colour world what they think graphic (fucking) novel means. I got answers along the lines of, 'Like a horror' or a 'book with pictures' no one really thought comics. This means marketing has failed and should bow it's head for the axe!

There's nothing wrong with the term 'comic'. Using the term in relation to mature subject matter will elevate the term not devalue the subject matter.

I'm sick of the world being afraid of words, it's about time we called a spade a ni...........

this kicks ass ;)

2010-08-11T00:27:00.002+02:00

When I was six years old all I wanted to be was a superhero. I was the kid that ran around with the towel tied around his neck leaping tall cushions in a single bound, sitting riveted to the exploits of the Incredible Hulk, Batman and Wonder Woman and re reading my then meagre shoebox of comics till they were falling apart. The figures of daring exploits that overcome all obstacles made me truly think I could do the same. Through my life I had and I’ve probably not given those comics enough credit in how I turned out. Sure these days I read any comics that I find interesting from Maus to Jar of Fools to Dork but superheroes; those that grew up with their audience have stayed with me. I’m more choosey, going by writers rather than characters and superheroes are more like high drama than high action these days but they still dazzle with wonder and capture the part of me that never took the towel off. I’ve just found this site http://www.reallifesuperheroes.com/ and I want to cry with happiness. There’s many kinds of hero from policeman to fireman to late night paramedic and they are all worth their weight in praise and honour but for me a superhero overcomes something that no one else can and in doing so becomes something no one else can be, a symbol, an icon, an anonymous hero who doesn’t do it for glory or prestige or even a wage slip but because it’s the right thing to do. Yeah :)

Secret Warriors 10

2009-12-03T15:36:00.003+01:00

With enough chocolate and coffee in my tank to make a silverback gorilla jittery and paranoid I'm going to review Secret Warriors 10 written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Alessandro Vitti. As much as I'm enjoying the unfettered exploits of everyone's favourite fascist liberal Nick Fury I am whole heartedly sick of a habit that Marvel has siding main stories that should take place in the favour of concentrating on what should be a support story. The latest storyline 'God of Fear, God of War' centres on the relationship between Ares, Greek God of War, Tactical expert in the Dark Avengers and ex-construction worker and his son Phobos Greek God of Fear, also known as Alexander and member of Nick Furies Secret Warriors. It's a good story. In issue nine there was a bucket of action thrown over some nice characterization and some serious head pounding of everyone's favourite punch bags the Dark Avengers. A side plot involving Nick Fury being smug and mysterious was thrown in to what I thought would be a good line up to issue 10. No. Nick Fury's story was sent off to be finished in a one shot so we could all read about a story of divine puberty. In issue 10 (Spoilers here for all you who give a shit) we a told a tale of Alex growing up in an endless war in the heavens, killing his dad (who doesn't seem to mind) and then being told he has to earn his spurs by standing in front of three gods and saying 'Yep' I'm the God Of Fear'. This is all handled surprisingly well (despite that fact that he's just killed his own dad THE GOD OF WAR and they all want him to prove himself still); the story does seem like a tour of what life is like in the world of the gods, the dialogue and the emotional beats are all in the right place and make sense when you step back and realise you're reading about immortal beings and what passes for politics in their world. The end does what the end of every good comic does and leaves you dangling of a cliff waiting to be rescued by the next issue. The art is crisp and well paced. But... I would rather have had this story either blended in better with the main attraction or spin off into its own mini series, took the contents of the one shot and poured them into this issue. You see as good as it is issue ten has more padding than is strictly necessary and it shows. We don?t need page sized recaps of Alex's top ten moments in life and I definitely don't need a recap of what happened in issue 8. We do need a finer balance between characters and story. What annoys me the most is that it's still a bloody good read but it's like finding out your meat and potato pie is mainly potato. Oh and sticking Thor on the cover when there is no Thor in the book, bit misleading.

Watchmen

2009-11-29T17:36:00.004+01:00

OK Watchmen, the movie that should never have been made. Short version. One of the most disappointing and badly adapted comic movies to date. In the longer version I shall explain why.

For context I went to see this with my ever amazing, artfully minded wife who doesn't read comics but is certainly tolerant and accepting of them. I read Watchmen around 15 years ago and several times since. Amazing Wife is as good a yardstick as a decent movie goer with no knowledge of the comic. She didn't like the movie. It was too long, and there was too little happening in the middle for someone with no knowledge of the comic to appreciate and then there were questions Amazing Wife asked, for example what exactly did happen to Jon Osterman? We as comic readers know but nothing is actually explained to the average movie viewer. Why was there a big CGI cat hanging around at the end that didn't do anything? Again we know it's an example of Ozymandias's genetic experiments, but as this is a moot point in the film why bother? Where did Latex (I'm sorry) SILK Specter get that gun from at the end and why do they all have super ninja powers when hubby said they were all supposed to be kinda' normal humans? Frankly she was bored.

My reaction as a fan of the comic was confusion. The problem with a lot of comic adaptations can be boiled down to one of two things, either the director has too much 'creative vision' or the studio has too much control. Spider-Man 3 is a good example of a movie destroyed by studio control and Batman and Robin is a good example of a director blowing the budget on rent boys and crack, then having too much 'creative vision'. Watchmen has both these problems in spades. Zack Snyder directs with visual flare, with many scenes lifted from the comic. But, he directs them with the attitude of an 11 year old boy that thinks 'mature' and 'adult' means 'sex' and 'violence'. The characters are treated with all the respect of a rentboy at Boy Georges house. Dan Dreiberg goes from tubby has been to super ninja in the time it takes to clench a cliched fist and delivers each line with so much painful earnest it's like watching Barrack Obamas inaugural speech all over again, in half time. Ozymandias is a chinless wonder in a nipple suit who is frankly camper than the Liberace appreciation society and Silk Specter is nothing more than a latex clad sperm receptacle with a scowly face.

The ending of the film is limp, apparently 15 million people where killed and there's nothing but a large hole that looks like a large demolition site, leaving you with a large desolate feeling where your emotional investment should have been. This is mainly because the build up has been as slow and impenetrable as a tortoise wearing a chastity belt and much like that tortoise you don't care enough to penetrate it anyway. While we're at it let's take all reference to cigarettes out to because they're very bad. Even though it's a period piece, an 18 and we're all adults who don't need big nanny to hold our hands and tell us things are bad. You are simply left not caring and after a lot of boredom, vaguely angry that you sat through it. Like Spider-Man 3 I simply don't care about this movie beyond expressing my opinion here. If I was offered a free DvD of Watchmen I would turn it down. The only reason I even did my own review was because this film could have been what Lord Of The Rings was to it's source material, a great way into something wonderful. The comic is the granddaddy of 'classic' comics and its comic adaptation should have reflected that as an entry point for new readers to the Industry.

That, unless someone starts a debate, is all I will ever say on this movie.

Hulk press X

2009-11-20T01:51:00.004+01:00

The games industry has been sucking the tit of comics like a lactation fetishist for more years than Hollywood's been clambering for the other nipple. And very much like a lactation fetishist they produce some of the worst shit ever. Back in the days of the Mega Drive (that's Genesis to you over the pond) there was one or two blossoms fertilized by that pale green poo (X-Men and X-Men 2 being the only ones that really spring to mind) but for the most part they were pale imitations of existing titles with different sprites. The reason for this is if you're going to play at being a superhero you want all the perks that being a superhero brings to the forum. If I'm going to be Superman or the Hulk I want to be an unstoppable juggernaut capable of bringing down multiple shades of smackery, not get shot a few times by a man with a spud gun and loose a life before I can even reach the pathetic little dweeb because playing the afore mentioned juggernaut would massively un-balance the game. And thus was the problem with comic adaptations. These days there are people with technology that can bring a comic to life in your hands. The level of sophistication in today's gaming environment lends itself perfectly to balancing a super powerful character against the rest of the game by using leveling methods and various story telling techniques that simply weren't available back in the nineties. Compare the original Sega Hulk game. A side scrolling platformer were the Hulk takes more hits than a prostitute holding back on her pimp. This for the Hulk of comics wouldn't be a problem he would simply bitch slap his way through the throngs and crush everything in between him and his goal and then crush that to. But the Sega Hulk winces like afore mentioned prostitute and after three gentle taps from that afore mentioned dweeb, reverts to Bruce Banner and then you're playing a skinny little man wearing nothing more than a pair of purple trousers about to die because if the Hulk can't survive this game skinny lad better give it toes out of dodge. Now take Activision's Hulk Ultimate Destruction on the PS2. Imagine a game like Grand Theft Auto where instead of playing a snotty car thief from the eighties you are The Hulk and instead of police you have giant robots and the army. You still have the police to but unlike Sega Hulk, PS2 Hulk can casually walk up to them and smack them into the PS3. You pick up more moves and fighting abilities as you go, including the ability to ride helicopters and rip a police car in two for boxing gloves (ironically later mined for the Incredible Hulk movie thus proving that Hollywood sucks harder than the game industry). And by god you can take more poundings than the American Economy before falling into a coma rather than dieing outright. Most Marvel games these days are pretty good. Team comics like X-Men get the role-playing treatment while others like Spider-Man and the afore mentioned Hulk get a sandbox to play in. But there are still problems. While Marvel characters lend themselves to being digitized far easier these days, DC's crowd are frankly impossible. It's a bit like trying to make a sprite of God for Street Fighter the Divine Edition. You wind up with the truly horrible DC Vs Mortal Combat.

DC has yet to solve the problem of how to have a godlike being as a believable playable character. Because when Superman was on the Sega he wasn’t really what you would call ‘super’. He could leap almost half the screen height, he wasn’t quite as fast the controls reaction time and he was almost powerful enough to take a bin lid in the face. Though three or four bin lids and he’d be down faster the Frank Bruno in a Tyson fight. The problem being if you’re Superman you are kind of uneven in terms of game play. Rather like being the fat kid on the seesaw. Superman Returns on the PS2 had a clever but fundamentally flawed idea when it came to balancing out the character. Instead of having the Man of Steel be the Man of Putty they made the city into the lifebar. That is, the more the city took damage the closer Superman got to Game Over. Not you may think a bad idea but when it precludes the sandbox aspect of the game and prevents you from going gonzo crazy and tearing the place up fighting the latest monster/gorilla/robot menace just in case you knock over the falafel stand and hit Game Over it removes the sense of freedom and enforces a moral code a lot of us don’t want when we get home from a hard day at work and all we want to do is destroy shit.

So to make a good game from a comic you need to have a massive sandbox and a Marvel character/characters because they are often flawed in all the right ways and lend themselves to the type of learning curve required in game playing. Throw in a bunch of unlockables from the comics and more goodies than a piñata at Hugh Heffner’s birthday bash and it will indeed feel like you are at Heff’s pad but instead of silicon woman pootleing about in their scanties pouting a lot you’ll be with a collection of muscle bound men in very tight outfits smacking each other around.

A truly Astonishing X-Men 32

2009-11-19T04:13:00.002+01:00

Astonishing X Men issue 32 by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez. Now while I am the first one to role his eyes every time Warren Ellis starts to write in the superhero genre then place bets on when he's going to 'walk away from superhero comics for good' again I'm also the first one to say he's bloody good at it (along with he should really think before he opens his face located noise producer). And low he decides to bless the X Universe with his well researched futurist views and witty banter, even if that witty banter seems to be painted in a very similar color of bile with only subtly different flavors of carroty lumps. This isn't the first time with the X-Verse as he took a collection of mutants (including my favourite Nightcrawler) and went off to play in his own private sandbox in the corner of the Marvel Universe with Excalibur and bloody wonderful it was to.

Now that Phil Jimenez has sorted himself out with the little things, like pacing and coherent page layouts the comic would be coming on in leaps and bounds if they could be arsed getting it out on schedule. Only All Star Batman and Robin (here after referred to as that Frank Millers festival of wankery or ASBAR) has a release record worse than this. But this issue demonstrates a problem comics seem more and more determined not to fix, that's the one of lazy writing. Yes we get some nice lines coming from Wolverine about how manly Cyclops is that don't actually sound homo erotic and the story is paced beautifully leaving you hanging with the villains Magoffin without actually revealing who the villain is making you slack jawed for more next issue BUT!

There's a scene were Beast and his beau are pulling a 200 foot tall zombie sentinel (here after referred to as zombinel) that fires brood soldiers from its fingers, out to sea by its face using grappling hooks fired from the X Jet. So far so good, but when aforementioned beau (who frankly doesn't intrigue me enough to drag my arse back into my long box and dig out her name) asks if there are any weapons on board Beast replies with a 'no but we have science!' So I braced myself for the trick Warren Ellis was going to pull off as the tension mounted and the zombinel starts pulling back and the X Jet starts breaking and knuckles get whiter and... Beast launches some missiles into its face. Now when I saw them I thought 'ooohhh what are they going to do?' basing this thought with total justification on the previous statement 'There are no weapons on this X Jet'. Are they going to turn out to be H Bombs where the 'H' stands for 'Hugs' thus confusing zombinel while Cyclops gives it a laser vision enema? No, they go into the zombinels face and explode. No weapons. But they do have face explody missiles apparently, which granted are scientific but hardly the bit of genius writing I held onto my pants for. This is what I hope to be a simple annoying quibble as the series ploughs on this issue is a great setup with all the right ingredients for chocolate gateau of mutant wonderment. I just hope Warren Ellis doesn't replace too many cherries with cat turds.

Doom Patroling issue 4

2009-11-19T04:11:00.003+01:00

Doom Patrol by Keith Giffen and Justiniano, who apparently has no first name but as he does a more than competent job with this fill in issue we'll forgive him. The regular art for those who've at least read this far is handled by Matthew Clark, a slightly more competent artist but as this issue gives him some breathing space to actually get the work done in order to get the book on time I'll forgive him to.

Now as this issue is a tie in to the latest 'big' thing to happen since the editors of DC took fucking idiot pills and let Grant Morrison do Final Crises, I was holding my breath and bought it mainly because it annoys the shit out of me when I don't have a complete run of a book that's been growing and developing nicely. I was somewhat gobsmacked that this doesn't need to be a tie in. If you care that much you can read an all points email from the Flash that Niles Caulder has up on his laptop which explains anything you need to know about why the dead are coming to life and attacking the living. Beyond that sit back and watch as Rita is attack by undead, ex member of DP Tempest when all she wants to do is rip the head of her ex (not undead) husband, marvel as Nile's ex (AND undead ex member of DP) wife disintegrates his already useless legs and go 'oooohhh' as Negative Man gets his negative arse handed to him by Negative Woman, whom I'm sure I don't have to tell you is undead and an ex member...yadda yadda yadda.

Not as monotonous as it sounds as it's sprinkled with what should be trademarked as 'Giffen Humour' but as this series has shown us it's a more mature humour not afraid to actually inject some proper pathos and actually make the Doom Patrol feel as disparate and distinct as it did before Grant Morrison started typing by smashing his head against the keyboard to the rhythm of Slip Knot in their transcendental period and actually produced the last great DP comic. Giffen has matured and he doesn't care who knows it either, in fact if this book has a weakness it's that the art stands back from the writing sometimes. You'll read someone's speech balloon and wonder how it connects with the panel or page in some way, but a comic that makes you think is a rare thing today so add that to the exculpation pile.

Two of the lead characters, Robot Man and Larry Trainer share a beautiful moment just before they are attacked by ex ex DP members. I won't spoil it but the love between the characters is there in a way it should be, freaks together because they've got nowhere else. The ending? Oh go look because I wouldn't spoil that for you for all the sex and coffee in the world. Doom Patrol to sum up is a fantastic book, growing subtly enough so it doesn't look forced but fast enough to keep you interested. This tie in is the best kind of tie in because it doesn't have to and it still crams more in than most comics. It's a shame it'll get canceled either at issue thirty or eighty depending on how popular it is. I may even get round to reading the Metal Men back up feature.

And low, I did read the Metal Men back up feature as co-written by Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis and penciled by Kevin Maguire. And it was the same as previous issues. An entertaining aside in the same way that that the Tom and Jerry cartoon (the none homogenized one from decades ago not the current neutered offering full of peace and 'wuv and thus making it more evil in intent than Jeffrey Dahmer's 'to do' list) was a fun little way to pass the time waiting for the movie before Orange took over. Unlike Giffen, DeMatteis hasn't matured in his approach and this would be forgivable if I felt that the back up strip was doing anything other than filling in pages that the Doom Patrol could be filling up. None of the Metal Men are fully realized and three dimensional characters by their very nature and this means the responsibility of reader access is poured onto what should be the perfect human counterfoil Dr Magnus, their creator. But he seems so full of himself it was as if he'd actually chowed down on his own feet and worked his way up. He's completely inaccessible. Not only that he flip flops between thinking of the Metal Men (a title I'm beginning to think would be great for a gay porn dvd) as nothing more than machines that can only mimic human behavior thanks to his own brilliance and then spouting the virtues of artificial life as equal to that or organic life.

It's entertaining and I wouldn't buy it if it was in it's own book is about the best I can say for it.

Darwin on comics

2009-11-19T04:08:00.003+01:00

Comic readers aren't born they evolve.

They start out with a shoebox full of Marvel comics including giant sized man thing bought because the title made them laugh. That is stage one the casual reader.

Then the traditional route is, a friend introduces them to the bigger picture by insisting he joins him on his monthly pilgrimage to a comic shop to pick up his latest order. Then, by reading said friends comic pile because you recognize the characters, something in the hind brain needs to know why they've changed their costume or what's going on in that little four color universe you enjoyed under the bed cloths as a kid. Then you realize that these are not the comics you bought to while away long car journeys to aunties weddings. These bad boys are speaking to you about high brow ideas and concepts comics never used to touch. So you go with your friend again and start buying as much as you can of that book. You are now a stage two, the fan.

You stay a fan of the comic and shun most others until you realize it's crossing over with other books in the company. So you go out and buy them to get in on the big story. you dive into a universe you never realized was there before and it's only when you realize you have no swimming trunks on that climbing out the pool is going to be a lot harder than diving in. But you enjoy them, you start to collect other books within the same company and soon you reach a stage three, the fanboy.

DC or Marvel, you adhere to your company decrying the other whenever possible, all the while wondering why your friend who got you into comics in the first place is buying titles not only from your rival but from companies you never saw in the newsagent spinner racks as a kid. You wear your colors with pride until one day you realize you like a book so much you check out who wrote it. And his credits include books from 'the other side!' OK you think he's that good I'll try that book, but ONLY because he wrote it. You are soon hooked on the writer and the moment you realize that there may well be other writers you have enjoyed but never looked for you evolve into a stage four the comic reader.

The problem with reaching stage four is that your opinions evolve with you and you start forming groups and joining camps with other readers and run the risk of become an elitist. A corrupted reader who knows what is 'good' and what is 'bad' and buys accordingly. But there is another type of reader, a comic reader who tuned from the dark side and into a full fledged stage five, the comic guru.

A comic guru knows what he likes and buys that. Occasionally he'll buy something that's so inherently good it deserves greater appreciation but for the most part his collection is driven by love and enjoyment. He can read a comic on a train stood up on an hour long journey, on a Saturday surrounded by screaming kids and go so far beyond the fourth wall the journey doesn't take 5 minutes. He hears the voices of the characters and feels their sensations. He knows that colour would ruin the line work in a good black and white book but doesn't care. To him 'shelf porn' is irrelevant and 'floppies' are something to worry about in old age. Comics keep him going by candlelight and poly bags mean he can read the story in ten years time and along with the same thrills and enjoyment also glean a faint waft of nostalgia.

And then the bags also keep his collection safe for his offspring, when she grows up and learns to appreciate them like he did. Knowing that despite the gloom and doom, comics will, in some form or other is around forever.

What about Wonder Woman?

2009-11-19T04:07:00.003+01:00

Wonder Woman is an enigma to myself and many comic fans. DC never know quite what to do with her and it's been pointed out that while she may be a fairly well known and popular character among people (specifically it has to be said women) she's better known for appearing on T shirts than in comics. Or more popular still, played by Lynda Carter.

I have recently finished for my part, a raging debate over on www.comicbookresources.com which you can find here http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=288141 for your perusal. I don't care past my final post what was said as frankly I doubt it was constructive and Gail probably accused me of being insane again but I needed a place to vent, that might actually get a clear signal to people who aren't actually into Wonder Woman but are into comics and thus support anything that increases there appeal to anyone who'll read them.

My point is Wonder Woman is not popular among comic readers. The highest I've found her charted (here http://www.comichron.com/ ) is 49. She usually floats around in between 70 and 80. Compared to other characters her age (Superman, Batman, JSA, Captain America) she performs badly and considering she's the iconic female in comics, per year other female comic characters outsell her by many chart places. She's sold consistently to a minority for a long time, had three volumes (that's three cracks at the whip folks) and frankly her 'major event' stories have been badly mishandled, as the recent 'Amazons Attacks' demonstrates rather too well.

Recently I caught an episode of Family Fortunes and with a healthy dollop of irony the question was 'Our survey asked a hundred people to name a popular superhero'. There were four places on the board. The first went to Superman, the second to Spider-Man the third to Batman. But when it came to the fourth suggestion I got a surprise. Iron Man was put forward and rejected, then the Hulk (maybe not as big a surprise but still am eyebrow was raised) only after Hulk was turned down was 'Wonder Woman' suggested. Only to be rejected for...

Super Ted.

The few people I've talked about have all gone 'What?' Yes, Super Ted was the fourth answer thus making him more popular than Wonder Woman, at least in a small survey.

My personal theory for Wonder Woman?s less than stellar reputation within the print sniffing ranks of comic readers is that she has no theme. Call it a crux or a central idea but you can't call it present and correct. Batman is an urban crime fighter, a legendary Dark Knight. Superman is THE superhero, an iconic man of steel. One has the gritty underworld of crime to deal with and Superman has menaces from outer space and the like. Wonder Woman has a sparkly rope, an invisible plane and a woman in a cat suit as her arch enemy. Well that's not strictly true, Ares the Greek god of war is her arch enemy but he tends not to get used as he outclasses most other villains in gatherings like the Injustice Society and so on. Wonder Woman has sported a myriad of looks and her powers have wavered more than Gordon Brown's stance on Iraq. She has less consistency than a helium meringue and it shows. There are no definitive Wonder Woman stories and there's only been a handful of strong runs on her book. It all boils down to no one having the first clue what to do with her beyond waving her around as a flag for passive aggressive feminism, the crutch of the lame writer.

Here's my take. Wonder Woman's equivalent over at Marvel is Thor. A God living in the mortal world, an ambassador and hero from mythological descent. Clean up her powers, make her the ambassador from Thymescra (her original premise I believe) meant as a peace maker. Her arch enemy now starts to make sense as all good arch villains are poler opposites, Batman-Joker, Superman-Lex Luther, all opposites. Give her a job in the UN that gives her access to information regarding situations that might call for Wonder Woman, akin to Thor's original alter ego Donald Blake, a doctor in a position to help the weak and infirm. Make her enemies from classical Greek mythology and throw in Thymescra politics and away you go.

It can't be that hard, can it?