30 November 2009

A Little Moore Love, Part the Third incorporating The Summup.

Ah, well. Here it is the thirtieth day of November as I write this, almost the end of Alan Moore Month, and I did not get the last two parts of my little series completed in time. Oh well, I'll try to make the best of it and hit the last two series in condensed fashion. Again, I'm just attempting to shine a light on certain Moore-scripted efforts that made a lasting impression on me, without citing a lot of the usual suspects.

The final two series I wish to bring up have a bit in common, which is to say that they both feature strong female characters as their leads. Now, believe me, I know that discussing "strong female characters" is a red flag to some, who will always find some point or another to dispute your claim no matter how good the intention is; that said, I think Moore has done quite a bit towards giving us characters of that ilk- Abigail Arcane, Mina Harker, Dhalua and Tesla Strong to name a few. And yes, I know you can nitpick these selections as well- some of them are dependent, to different degrees, on the male characters in the books in which they appear; it seems to me to point towards the pursuit of a well-rounded character rather than any sort of slight, intended or not.

One such character was an early effort, released in 1984 at roughly the same time as Saga of Swamp Thing: The Ballad of Halo Jones, a British series that was collected and reissued Stateside in three volumes. It was probably the first thing I read by Moore after I had discovered him via Swamp Thing. In collaboration with longtime British comic stalwart Ian Gibson, he gave us a young lady of the 50th century who embarks on a quest of sorts, without even knowing it. She leaves Earth after the death, under mysterious circumstances, of her best friend, then eventually heads into outer space as hired help on an luxury space liner before ending up, through a set of odd circumstances, as a soldier in a interplanetary war. She really undergoes a life-changing journey, and I found it fascinating when I first read it so long ago, especially thanks to more than one really deft plot twist as the story unfolds. It also points to another unfortunate reoccurring situation in Moore's career, and I borrow Wiki's assessment: "a dispute between Moore and Fleetway, the magazine's publishers, over the intellectual property rights of the characters Moore and Gibson had co-created", effectively ending what was originally intended as a nine-issue saga. A couple of pages from Book Three:


The other series is Moore's highly imaginative, and often hard to (for lack of a better word) penetrate ABC series Promethea, in which he once more confounded expectations by taking what had appeared on the surface to be an attempt to bring us his version of Wonder Woman into some strange and unexpected places, taking the opportunity to expand upon and instruct the great unwashed about his views and beliefs on divinity and the afterlife, as well as the nature of Man. Heavy stuff, and to Moore's credit he gradually worked it in rather than overwhelm us with it. By issue #10, he got around to the nature of sexuality, and how it tied in with the imagination as well as magical realms (some would say there's no difference), and while I had been exposed to many of these ideas in a number of other places, I had not seen them presented as concisely (and I must say I had never seen them presented as well, either, thanks to the great J.H. Williams III) as I had here. In this issue, in order to learn how to harness her abilities and powers better, as well as face the threat she was dealing with at the time, she enters in an agreement with the John Constantine analogue Jack Faust, (who appears to her as he truly is, an old man, rather than the young-looking glamour he wore when we first met him) who offers to instruct her (and alter-ego Sophie Bangs) in exchange for sex. Well, it's not quite as sordid as it sounds-- and the lesson proceeds something along these lines:





See what I mean? Anyway, the series proceeded to get more metaphysical and phantasmagorical from here, and while sometimes it seemed like Moore was headed straight up his own arse with much of it, he did bring the series home nicely at the end. This issue in particular, though, has remained one of, if not my very, favorite of the whole run due to its clever and fascinating way of enlightening a subject that remains near and dear to my heart, even after all these years.


So, to sum up, it seems to me Mr. Moore gets some stick in a lot of corners, usually from the people who are inclined to be contrarian and simply hate to see anyone or anything praised or highly regarded in what they consider to be excessive or disproportionate fashion. Me, though, I have no problem with the accolades he's been given due to the many, many outstanding works he's given us. Sure, in many cases he's simply recycling ideas he's gleaned from a multitude of sources-- but isn't that what most writers do? Einstein once famously remarked that "The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources", and I believe this to be true. And while he may not be an Einstein, Mr. Moore is a pretty smart fella. Smart enough to take a look at comics, their characters and their tropes, -many sacred, others less so- and rethink many of them. Look at them in a newer, more realistic light. Separate the good stuff from the bullshit and distill them down to their essences, and reshape them to his more level-headed way of thinking. Sure, many other writers have also done this since-- your Morrisons, Ellises, Ennises, Gaimans and so on (notice most of them were from that big UK invasion of the mid-'80s/'90s) have done the same, and it can also be argued that Frank Miller took this tack (in my opinion, he still toed the Marvel House line and kept his innovations squarely in the Spillane-school area, and DD still looked/felt like a Marvel comic) when he revamped Daredevil in the very early '80s...but Moore was one of the first, or at least the first to get my attention in this fashion. To me, that's something remarkable, and it's a shame that all the battles with American comics publishers and all the kerfluffle with Hollywood have seemed to drain his energies and dent his reputation somewhat.

Regardless, while I've been a bit disappointed in recent efforts such as LOEG: Black Dossier and Century, if he writes it, I'll check it out- I still believe in his ability to make, well, magic.

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Alan Moore's Lost Treasures - #6 in a 6 Part Limited Series

“The Bowing Machine”

The third issue of Raw (volume two), the digest-sized final collection of Art Spiegelman’s art comix series, is the best single volume of a comics anthology ever published. Included among the book’s extraordinary contents are Spiegelman’s own penultimate chapter of Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, a classic 32 page excerpt of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat (the famous “Tiger Tea” sequence), an exquisite Gary Panter sketchbook, “Thrilling Adventure Stories,” the first glimpse of the genius that was to come from Chris Ware, “Proxy,” a highly under-appreciated collaboration between novelist Tom DeHaven and Richard Sala, and Kim Deitch’s masterpiece, “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” The anthology also includes strong pieces from Lynda Barry, Muñoz and Sampayo, Drew Friedman, Marti, Justin Green, Kaz, and several lesser-known but equally talented European artists, not to mention the brilliantly sarcastic R. Crumb cover. With such an impressive lineup, it’s easy to see how a little story by Alan Moore got forgotten in the mix.

Yet “The Bowing Machine,” Moore’s unlikely collaboration with Amy and Jordan creator, Mark Beyer, is among the highlights of this impressive book. The story, which runs all of nine pages, is a subtle exploration of the socio-political tensions that arose between the US and Japan in the early 90s as Japan’s economy returned to international prominence. In the very first panel, Moore’s nameless Japanese protagonist describes, in scathing fashion, the toxic influence that foreign investment has had on Japanese culture: “Ah, there is so much money, rolling west in giant waves of dollar green topped with a silver froth of dimes, to break amongst the broken crab-claws down in Tokyo Bay.” Once again we are immediately confronted with evidence of Moore’s unparalleled grasp of the English language.

The story quickly narrows its focus onto a single rivalry between the narrator and a co-worker, both employees of an unnamed Japanese company, as each struggles to curry the favor of their superiors that they may ascend the corporate ladder. The personal competition between these two is a metaphor for the larger competitive tensions that existed between the US and Japan, and Moore plays a note-perfect riff on international politics in the way he depicts these two rivals, each going to ritualistic extremes of politeness in their professional behavior, while secretly harboring a seething mutual hatred for one another.

Eventually the story takes a Steven Millhauser-esque dive into obsession as the protagonist becomes a self-trained master at bowing to his superiors. The importance of the bow as a professional and cultural ritual is keenly understood by the Japanese narrator, but as one of the story’s many newspaper articles describes, “It is not enough to just bow in Japan. The exact angle of the bow must be determined by the nuances and subtle shades of a complex system of social intercourse. But today, as the country continues to absorb the ways of the West, older Japanese are worried that the new generation is losing the gentle art of bowing.” In the narrator’s hands, this simple social grace is once again elevated to a high art, and becomes the foundation upon which he briefly stakes his professional reputation.

But of course, the American rival has no concept of the bow’s importance in traditional Japanese culture, and instead seeks to best his rival by use of technology. He purchases the “bowing machine” in an effort to learn to bow in the same impressive manner as his Japanese rival, never understanding that bowing is a revered cultural tradition, not some mundane skill one can learn on the weekends with a simple machine.

The story ends with a bitter irony when, despite his ignorance, the rival becomes entangled in the bowing machine for several days, and suffers a crippling back injury in which he is permanently bent forward, like some hideous monstrosity. When he returns to work, hunched in his grotesque posture and relegated to a wheelchair, the Japanese narrator realizes he has been bested in their silent competition. His superiors, whether out of pity or admiration, are unable to ignore the immense sacrifice they perceive he made in pursuit of cultural sensitivity, and are moved to promote and favor the tragic figure over his upright, majestically bowing rival. Thus, a grave miscarriage of justice prevails as the accident victim is shown favor and privilege within the corporate culture.

Mark Beyer’s art is an acquired taste. His style is over-simplified and to the untrained eye, may seem childlike and unattractive. But upon closer examination, his panels are deceptively complex. First of all, Beyer makes great use of colors and patterns, using meticulous hatching and shading, as well as bright swaths of primary colors to add tone and texture to his panels. In addition, Beyer rises to the considerable demands of Moore’s script, which calls for several recurring images that inform the story’s underlying themes. In particular, the arcing posture of the bow itself, noted not only in the physical act depicted throughout the story, but also in the breaking arc of the “waves of dollar green,” operates as a visual motif for the cynicism and defeatism of the main character. Beyer also incorporates newspaper articles, both in Japanese and English, to convey a large quantity of story context (including a brief history of the machine’s invention) in a relatively small amount of space. Finally, each page features a shifting series of symmetrical wallpaper patterns, set against stark black backgrounds, adding a distinctively Japanese aesthetic to the story.

In the end, this is one of Alan Moore’s most cynical tales. Its focus on the unspoken bitterness inherent in international politics is a brutal indictment of American arrogance. What lingers most is the final image of the rival, pathetically mangled in his wheelchair. Though victorious, his bastardization of a sacred cultural ritual, not to mention the self-destructive nature of his behavior, makes him a loathsome and disgusting figure. His victory is pathetic and hollow, and, in the story’s larger metaphor, it portrays America as a scrupulous giant, blindly destroying the world in search of the all-important profit. Moore’s final words are scathing in their indictment of America's globalization and the impact it's had on the world.

“Now he has laid himself so low that I can never rise above him.”

****************

That's it! I really hope you enjoyed this series of posts. If you're still hungry for more Alan Moore short stories, I also recommend checking out:

1) "Brighter Than You Think" - an awesome mini-biography of occultist John Whiteside Parsons, illustrated by Lost Girls collaborator, Melinda Gebbie, which appeared in the anthology Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions.

2) "Tapestries" - a great little story about the horrors of war that appeared in Real War Stories #1 (Eclipse Comics, 1987). Illustrated by Miracleman collaborator, John Totleben (with Stan Woch) and Stephen Bissette.

3) "The Bojeffries Saga" - the majority of this story originally ran as a back-up in Fantagraphics' Dalgoda and Flesh and Bones, and was recently collected by IDW.

4) The New Adventures of the Spirit #1 and 3 - The first issue features a new, full length collaboration with Dave Gibbons, while the third issue contains a short story with stunning illustrations by Daniel Torres. Both issues published by Kitchen Sink Press.

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29 November 2009

Alan Moore Month - Lost Girls


Lost Girls
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Melinda Gebbie
Published by Top Shelf Productions. $45.00 USD


Now available as a single hardcover volume, I remember the stir around the 2006 Comic-Con International - San Diego when the first, limited edition, three volume slipcase edition was released. I believe it was touch and go whether the book would debut at the convention at all. Moore was enjoying renewed attention in 2006 with his America's Best Comics imprint and all those quality titles like Promethea, Top 10, Tom Strong and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so it wasn't a bad time to put out this lavish work.

The book received good reviews, though they were fairly scant, due no doubt in large part to the $75 price and there only being 500 copies printed. But I think there may also have been a reluctance on the part of critics to follow Moore's lead and engage pornography as a valid artistic medium. Although I was one of those who purchased the slipcase edition then, I was surprised to go searching and find I, too, had failed to review the book.

Moore may be a self-proclaimed anarchist, and some of his work reflects those ideals, but the manner in which he constructs his stories, while complex, is rarely very subversive. More often, he uses his intellect to try to recapture elements of a genre or character that gave him delight in the past, but whether he adds darker layers or references or storytelling conceits rare or new to comics, his first intention is entertainment. Watchmen, for everything else going on with it, is a superhero story, and there's a good deal of extraordinary individuals fighting. In Lost Girls, like any pornographic work, there is lots and lots of sex. A shameless amount of it.

In fact, being shameless is the whole point of the book. Moore wants to rescue pornography from the gutter and place it not on a pedestal but at least on a level with other literary genres. Sex, whether with others or oneself, is a regular, necessary part of life, after all, so why not make the facilitator or stand-in for it something of a high quality? To this end he enlisted his partner, Gebbie, who brings a style both feminine and fearless. So much pornography is ugly and harsh and anti-woman, so Gebbie's use of soft, glowing pastels is perfectly welcoming. It's also probably a necessary corrective as it makes the social taboos being violated in the sex scenes more palatable.

Moore has three goals in mind with the book: 1) to get the reader off; 2) to get the reader to think; and 3) to have fun with old literary characters. In the story, Moore has taken Dorothy from Baum's The Wizard of Oz, Alice from Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and Wendy from Barrie's Peter Pan, and brought them together as adult guests at a libertine European hotel just before WWI. The three women meet and begin exchanging their stories, as well as copious amounts of saliva and other fluids. Moore models their stories on the literary works, so that over the course of the tale-telling, Dorothy has had sex with farmhands with the traits of The Scarecrow, The Cowardly Lion, and The Tin Woodsman, while Wendy and her brothers are led into sin with the young vagrant Peter, and Alice is raped by a friend of the family nicknamed The White Rabbit. Moore banks on readers recognizing their beloved childhood stories being turned dirty, and it works. Moore understands that achieving the first and third goals requires a combination of not just inventive scenarios but also deft characterization. The brain is the largest sex organ humans possess; naturally situations are more erotic if we can engage the imagination. Moore isn't satisfied with just a lavish Tijuana Bible (and indeed it gets a little dull by the time of Dorothy's third farmhand, despite the addition of a horse), so he also draws on Gebbie's skills of mimicry (and his own) to punch up the book with several pages taken from the hotel manager's "White Book," with stories in the style of legendary pornographers of their day such as Aubrey Beardsley and Alphonse Mucha. Moore seems to be paying homage to those who inspired him and who took great risk with their artistic careers to tell their scandalous stories.

With all three characters, Alice, Dorothy and Wendy, we get variations on dewy innocence spoiled. The nubile virgin being awakened to adult pleasures is a prime fantasy. If Moore only wanted to show these literary characters as sexual beings, getting it on together with no worries, that would have been fine. But what he attempts is to deliver on two almost contradictory ideas and make them work. First, that sex and pornography are necessary and healthy, and second, that sex is never without consequences. Moore has to walk a fine line throughout the book. Wendy's stuffy English husband has been stifling her for years, condescending to her and not considering her needs. His inability to see the hot-blooded woman right before him, and his awakening to his own homosexuality, are presented comedically, as well as with that great old technique of shadows revealing the desires the characters can't say out loud. Wendy's and her brothers' young gropings with Peter have left them estranged and embarrassed, and her not able to tell her husband what she wants. Alice's rape led to endless depravities with her lesbian schoolmistress and eventually, a stay in a sanitarium and estrangement from her family. And Dorothy's own incestuous shame has left her without a family as well. Monsieur Rougeur, who runs the hotel and has staffed it with attractive, willing young servants, embodies the contradictory ideas Moore is putting forth, in that he is not simply a bon vivant with a wonderful, guilt-free pleasure palace, but a man who made his fortune trafficking in child prostitution and art forgery. There is no children's book for Rougeur, but he is just as much a creature of self-deceit and repressed memory as the women. What Moore is saying is that fantasies--sexual or otherwise--are good. Expressing our desires--no matter how dark or depraved they may be--is also good, as long as that expression is through art and not hurting anyone. When we act on these desires in real life, there are always consequences. To this end he sets this bacchanal a few days before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which led to the First World War. As a date for a kind of loss of humanity's innocence, it's as good as it gets. It's a remarkable book in that it really does succeed in being extremely dirty, and yet even with the revelations about the characters, there's no guilt. That's not what Moore is after. He wants the reader to be aware of the consequences, but at the same time, to revel with the three women as they overcome their own repressed feelings.

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27 November 2009

Alan Moore's Lost Treasures - #5 in a 6 Part Limited Series

“Madame October”
“Madame October” originally appeared in issue #16 of Negative Burn published by Caliber Comics. The “song” was part of a recurring series of poems and short verses that were featured in the anthology and referred to generally as “Alan Moore’s Songbook.” This particular poem, which features spot illustrations by Strangers in Paradise artist, Terry Moore, was also included in the Best of Negative Burn Year Two collection.

The poem recounts the tale of two French men, Albert and Rene, both lovers betrayed by the same woman known only as “Madame October,” conspiring to murder a third, unknown man who they suspect has stolen their lover’s affection. Compared to Moore’s body of work, this story is slight; there are not a lot of character and plot developments, per se.

But once again, Moore’s prose in this song has the elegance and beauty of spun silk. With just a few words, Moore’s lyrics conjure stunningly vivid mental images. Consider the opening stanza which sets the scene as we are introduced to Albert and Rene, the two protagonists, conspiring together in a smoky French café:

“Albert and Rene, like a poison cruet set,
Sit perched on chrome stools,
In the Gaulois bar.
From the jukebox,
Piaf tells Manuel not to go there,
And out in the streets,
Where the pug-dog faced cars
Sound their horns,
There are soldiers and girls by the Seine,
And gendarmes, in wet midnight capes,
Look away when they kiss.
Garlic breeze haunts the mews,
And you’d swear nothing bad ever happened
On nights such as this.”

While the poem doesn’t quite adhere to a strict iambic pentameter, there is definitely a rhyme scheme in place. But the tempo is disjointed, and the musical tone of the words is hard to hear. Nevertheless, Moore is on his game in this short piece. The meandering rhythm of the poem fits its mysterious, drunken subject matter, as if the words, like the two heroes, are staggering drunkenly down a narrow cobbled alleyway toward an inevitable, tragic mistake.

Terry Moore’s five richly detailed spot illustrations are gorgeous, enhancing the dramatic elements of Moore’s poem without overshadowing its lyrics. The drawing of the cobbled Parisian alleyway where the crime takes place is particularly beautiful and captures both the romance and menace of the accompanying prose.

But Moore not only contributed illustrations, he also designed the elegant page borders which frame Moore’s words in a rich shroud of looping fabric and autumn leaves, brambly trees and arching gates. Even “Madame October” herself lurks in the margins, mysterious and seductive, casting a ghostly shadow across the unfolding drama. Rather than carrying any particular storytelling responsibilities, the design is strictly decorative; yet, like a theatrical backdrop, its presence is invaluable in heightening the erotic tension of the of the underlying mystery.

The song concludes with a clever Roald Dahl-like twist-in-the-tale which imposes a painful sense of irony on the characters’ actions. But it is Moore’s masterfully woven language that makes “Madame October” memorable. The writer’s ability to conjure specific and emotionally wrought images from such an economy of carefully arranged words is a skill that never fails to amaze.

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26 November 2009

Alan Moore Month Update!



Alan Moore Month Status Report!

We're winding down our celebration of Alan Moore Month here at Trouble with Comics. Are you sure you haven't missed something...?

* Johnny Bacardi on Top 10 #8
* Matt Springer on Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?
* Matt Springer on UK Batman story The Gun
* Marc Sobel on Come On Down
* Johnny Bacardi on Saga of the Swamp Thing #24
* Christopher Allen on Alan Moore's Wild Worlds
* David Wynne on The Killing Joke
* Marc Sobel on I Keep Coming Back
* Christopher Allen on Supreme
* Christopher Allen on Watchmen
* Marc Sobel on Pictopia
* Christopher Allen on 20,000 Years of Erotic Freedom
* Marc Sobel on The Hasty Smear of My Smile
* Christopher Allen on Alan Moore's Complete Wildcats
* Mick Martin on V for Vendetta

We're not quite done yet, so keep checking back for more Alan Moore Month updates here at Trouble with Comics!

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Thursday Link Party: Alan Moore Dodgems Logic

Bleeding Cool has the first review I've seen of Alan Moore's new magazine project, Dodgem Logic. Sounds like a fascinating read; like Rich Johnston, it kinda makes me want to try and put together a local version. In Orlando. A true HOTBED of creative innovation and risk-taking. Maybe Disney's Dodgem Logic?

This week's gonna be mostly NOT COMICS, I fear, but you'll be too busy watching the Macy's parade and eating large fowl to even read this, so who cares, right? It's the last day before a four-day weekend. Let's just go with the flow.

This week's "Man, 4thLetter is awesome" post is from Gavok who defends the recent Franken-Castle storyline in Rick Remender's Punisher run. Gotta say, it sounds like fun creepy comics and I will probably track down the trade.

Are you excited that they're actually making an American Gladiators movie? And if so, can I punch you in the face?

One of the great underrated comics bloggers out there, Pillock, offers a philosophical dismantling of Geoff Johns fans.

Charlie Jane Anders at io9 has a pretty comprehensive overview of the history of media tie-in novels, and a link to a detailed & damning tale (warning: link is to a Word doc) of one helpless writer's treatment at the hands of the Roddenberry juggernaut back in the days before the Great Bird of the Galaxy flew away forever. A must-read for long-time Trekkies who like hearing the dirt behind the scenes.

Bookgasm has a picture-packed report from the Toy & Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. Who knew?

Finally, in case you're sitting at work practically alone like I am and it feels like one of those YouTube days, here's some viewing material...

Topless Robot linked to this short documentary from the late seventies on the "cutting edge" computer graphics used in the original Star Wars.



Part one of a three-part Mike Wallace interview with TV legend Rod Serling from 1959. Click here to see parts two and three. Fascinating stuff.



I realize this has made the rounds two or three times already. It's the Muppet "Bohemian Rhapsody." If you haven't seen it, see it now; if you have seen it, find someone who hasn't seen it, and make them watch it.

I am thankful for the Muppets. Happy turkey day.

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Daily Breakdowns 042 - Noir


Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics
Edited by Diana Schutz
Featuring Stories by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips, Brian Azzarello & Moon/Ba, Rick Geary, Paul Grist, David Lapham, Jeff Lemire, Dean Motter and others.
Published by Dark Horse Comics. $12.95 USD


Schutz has been putting together anthologies for Dark Horse for years, and they've always been pretty good, Autobiographix having probably the best line-up of excellent cartoonists, even if the work contributed was not always up to standard (Matt Wagner walking readers through a recipe for chicken parmagiana, for instance). In fact, there is usually one head-scratching entry. I'd liked to say that now that I'm older, those things don't bother me as much, and sure, it's nice that the price of this book is the same or lower than similarly-sized anthologies from years ago, but...why is there a text story in "a collection of crime comics?!" It seems to be a Dark Horse anthology trademark, as the Scott Allie-edited horror anthologies do the same thing, but...aren't there enough people willing to do a a decent short comics story that you don't need to run a text story? The story in question here, Ken Lizzi's "Tru$tworthy," is really mannered and irritating, like someone trying really hard to read like old pulp fiction except it's modern, so there's more profanity, and a really off-putting set-up that throws away the chance at the reader buying into the author's world, for no good reason.

There's a good and salacious Brubaker/Phillips Criminal "emission" involving a femme fatale and a sucker. Brubaker knows his noir. that's a sleazy femme fatale noir. Also in the "existing property" category is "Open the Goddamn Box," a David Lapham Stray Bullets story featuring the teenaged Virginia Applejack, tough as nails but a ways off from Amy Racecarhood. Bonus points for the title being not only key to the story but a reference to a song by one of Lapham's favorite bands, The Fall. Paul Grist's Kane tale kind of fails as a police procedural, in that the case closes itself without the police doing much, but it's always nice to see his storytelling. Motter's Mr. X story is kind of like that as well--a nice way for old readers to peek in on a familiar world or character, though maybe a little lightweight for new readers. Also, maybe a more high-contrast approach would have worked better than the computer shading Motter utilizes here.

Jeff Lemire's "The Silo" isn't surprising, but the spare, rural setting and cool delivery help it stand out. Weeds writer and producer Chris Offutt makes what I believe is his comics debut with, "The Last Hit," a story about an aging assassin on the way out that displays enough with in the narration and dialogue to overcome the familiar beats. It helps that Kano and Stefano Gaudiano illustrate it, too. Rick Geary is sure no stranger to crime stories, but here he gets to make one up instead of creating another true crime, early 20th Century effort. It's kind of fun that it ends up being about a crime averted, or rather, diverted. M.K. Perker's, "The Albanian," is intriguing, about an office worker gone nuts, so that may hit closer to home for more readers than the other stories of heists and hits.

That ends the discussion of the good stories, and the annoying text story. Despite good art from Eduardo Barreto, who has no problem drawing cheesecake, Gary Phillips' "The New Me" takes a bit too long to get to its silly, sci-fi twist ending, while the Alex De Campi/Hugo Petrus and Fillbach Brothers stories barely even qualify as crime stories, and are nearly incomprehensible. Some pages of the De Campi/Petrus story have twenty-four panels per page, which, although mostly wordless, suggest perhaps she was undone by a restrictive format, or perhaps it was a formal experiment that just didn't work.

The final story here has some pretty big names, Brian Azzarello and the increasingly popular art team of brother Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. It sure looks good, but Azz lets down the side with a plodding tale whose twist (SPOILER) is that it's the set-up for the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents. There wasn't a DC book this could have fit in? I give Azzarello credit for coming up with something new, if by something new you count making Thomas Wayne an insurance fraud arranging for his wife's over-insured necklace to be stolen. On second thought, no wonder this isn't in a DC book.

Leftovers aside, although there are a few weak or unclear stories, and some routine efforts, and even some that are crime comics only by a broad definition, much less featuring any of the many characteristics of the oft-debated definition of "noir" fiction, there's still some good work here from a number of talented creators of the past and of the moment, for a reasonable fee.

Christopher Allen

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25 November 2009

Daily Breakdowns 041 - An Interview with Sean T. Collins



Sean T. Collins is probably a name familiar to most of those reading this column. He's been writing about comics for several years, on his blog, other online destinations like Robot6, of late, and in publications like The Comics Journal and Maxim. He's even written his own comics. We started around the same time, and though both of us have contributed to some of the same websites and publications, and I think he's even a Facebook friend, I can't say I've ever really taken the time to get to know the guy. This was something I wanted to rectify, especially since I've always respected his writing. Plus, who doesn't want to read a substantial interview over the Thanksgiving break? -- Christopher Allen

Sean, where did you grow up?

I grew up on Long Island in New York, in a town called Garden City.

Did you write from an early age?

Yeah, I guess I did. I enjoyed writing assignments in school, and I wrote for fun as well, though I never considered myself "a writer" or thought about pursuing it for a living, despite encouragement particularly from my high school English teachers, until a year or so after I graduated from college. Fits pretty comfortably now, though.

I seem to recall you, like many others, maybe posting on message boards before an actual website or blog. Would that have been Brian Michael Bendis' Jinxworld message board where you first got into the fandom side of comics?

Actually, no, I never hung out there. The first place I ever wrote about comics online was the Savage Dragon message board, because from my senior year in college, beginning in 1999, through about 2001, that and The ACME Novelty Library were the only comics I was regularly collecting. Eventually I discovered The Comics Journal message board, where people hadn't just maybe also heard of ACME, they actually wanted to discuss it. So that board was my stomping ground for quite some time, until I realized how little I enjoyed the nasty back-and-forth that message boards engender and realized that with a blog, I could curate how I interacted with other people about comics a lot more effectively.

I think at the time you were working on Abercrombie & Fitch's Quarterly catalog/magazine, which had its share of controversy. Can you tell me a little about that experience?

Oh man, it was a lot of fun. And that's really where I got into comics. My boss was a comics fan, and it was a chance encounter with his copy of the Wizard magazine with a preview of Grant Morrison's New X-Men that got me thinking about going to the comic store, Jim Hanley's, to check it out, and maybe see what else was going on. For years I'd only been getting Dragon, ACME, and whatever Frank Miller was doing, and didn't think of myself as being "into" comics. That started at A&F, as did thinking of myself as a writer at all--before then I'd been working as a production assistant on films and TV shows, and it was only another chance encounter with an old high school and college friend who worked there that lured me into writing full-time.

As for the job itself, it was a blast. You could expense virtually anything, first of all, so thank you "Uncle Abercrombie" for all the comics you bought me during that period. Secondly, we had almost total creative freedom. When I think of the people I interviewed for that publication, from Clive Barker to Will Eisner to Underworld to Chuck Palahniuk to Phoebe Gloeckner, I still can't believe it. I shall not see its like again. Lousy cultural conservatives spooked the company into shitcanning it, damn their eyes.

What led you to AttentionDeficitDisorderly Too Flat and online criticism??

Well, like I said, I'd been posting on message boards but found that increasingly frustrating and negative. I started up a blogspot blog briefly and worked on that for a few months in 2002, if I recall correctly, but I think one last pang of "oh my God, once I write this stuff here, it's there forever!" panic, coupled with the feeling that I was duplicating the services of other, better pop-culture/political bloggers, led me to delete it and stop. But eventually I was inspired by how much I was enjoying the blogs of Bill Sherman, Jim Treacher, and my friend and soon-to-be Alltooflat.com web host Ken Bromberg to give it another shot.

In the early days comics was a pretty small part of what I was writing about, and in fact I regularly apologized for writing about them at all, because at the time I believe my main audience was friends of my kid sister who thought it was neat I was writing an online diary, essentially. But I soon realized how much fun it was to talk about comics with other people whose opinions I respected, so comics all but took over.

What did you think of the scene at the time?

I had just made it in on the ground floor. I was just telling someone the other day that I'm positive I was one of the first twenty comics bloggers and reasonably sure I was one of the first fifteen, and it's possible I was one of the first dozen.

What was interesting about comics blogs at the time was, because there were so few of them, anyone who posted about comics once in a while was welcomed with open arms. For example, folks like Jim Henley and Eve Tushnet, who were primarily political bloggers, were pillars of the community. It helped that their writing on comics was pretty sharp, of course, but even still. These days big political bloggers post about comics every so often and it doesn't even register; back then they could have toplined Journalista for that day.

Speaking of, Dirk Deppey's Journalista was a huge step forward in the evolution of the comics blogosphere. He sort of centralized the discussion and got us all in touch with each other, and made me realize that there really was a discussion going on in the first place. He's a really key figure, along with NeilAlien, who was the first, and Dave G., who created the automated Comic Weblog Update tracker, and Kevin Melrose and Graeme McMillan, the big "third wave" comics bloggers whose linkblogging established what eventually became the model for pro comicsblogging.

You were at Comic Book Galaxy for a short time. We didn't cross paths then, as I was writing elsewhere. How did you come to be on CBG?

I don't know that I was ever "at" Comic Book Galaxy, actually. I knew Alan from blogging, I think--I know he used to hang at the Journal board, but our time never really overlapped. He also hosted a discussion group or two that I was a part of. If I recall, he asked me if I'd be interested in contributing, and I was.

I do remember you reviewing Eightball #23 before most everyone else, and being pissed. And then ADD reviewed it, and so I was discouraged from reviewing it myself after you two. That doesn't seem to be a question. OK, what else did you write, if you remember, and what led you to leave the site?

Let's see. There was the Eightball #23 review, which Dirk eventually picked up and re-ran in the Journal. There was a thing I did on Invincible, Demo, and Black Hole on spec for some other place that didn't get picked up, but Alan ran it. And looking in the archives now, I did a review of Carnet de Voyage, too. But I think that's about it. It's not that I "left the site" or anything like that, it was just one of many venues I was writing for at the time, from the Journal to my own blog.

You ended up working for Wizard Magazine. I remember being disappointed at that, because you stopped doing comics reviews out of a concern over conflict of interest, I think, and focused more on horror movie reviews and your own zombie prose serial. What did you do for Wizard and what was that whole time like?

I did a bunch of different things for Wizard. I started as a freelancer, but I think I only did one or two assignments before they asked me to come in to interview for a full-time position. I started off in their Special Projects department, working on their various publications that weren't their four monthly magazines--How to Draw softcovers, tribute hardcovers to big-name artists or characters, their quarterly PosterMania pull-out poster mag, a paramilitary trade publication called Special Operations Report. In between I'd pitch in with the occasional assignment for Wizard proper.

Eventually I was moved over to a sort of soft-Managing Editor position at Wizard, where I was responsible for assigning work and scheduling deadlines and so on but didn't work on the budget. I did that for a while, during which time my writing and editorial presence in the mag picked up as well--I was the editor for the "Bookshelf" review section, and the "Secret Stash" indie/alternative comics column.

In 2007, after they'd relaunched the website, I was moved over to be managing editor of that. But I don't think they really knew how to monetize it, so that ended up being one of those "promoted out of a job" situations--I was laid off maybe four months after I took over, although during that time we added something like a million hits a month, so good for me.

That whole time was a pretty good one, on the whole. As I always say whenever anyone asks me about Wizard, I met some of the best people I've ever known there. Never have I worked with so many grade-A individuals, many of whom I'm still friends with today. I didn't necessarily make the industry connections that many folks make there--my responsibilities didn't include the weekly phone calls with creators that a lot of folks there did--but seeing how the sausage gets made was a real education. Recent events involving Wizard and its management offer a glimpse of what working there could be like from time to time.

A couple of reasons that kind of led to me wanting to interview you are that a) we both started reviewing comics around the same time, and b) we both kind of went away from it and came back with, to use the ciiche', a vengeance. You write criticism on your blog and elsewhere, but also news at Robot 6 and some work of a promotional nature for Marvel.com. What drove you to get back into the game in such a widespread fashion?

Well, when I was laid off by Wizard, being able to write about comics again on my own terms was tops on my list of "on the bright side"s. Obviously I'd maintained the blog presence, writing about horror as you mentioned, so it was easy to get back in the swing of things. I was gratified by the response I got from people who either remembered my comics blogging from before Wizard or with whom I kept in touch during that time, and even from some folks who'd gotten into the blog through its horror iteration and liked it enough to stick around for the comics material.

Meanwhile, during my time at Wizard, I was able to write about comics on a freelance basis for mainstream publications like Giant and Stuff--Wizard had no beef with its employees picking up some extra money writing for outlets whose main audience was outside the industry and its devotees. So that was going on all along, and continues to happen, mostly at Maxim.

And by the time I was let go, I'd made plenty of friends and acquaintances not so much on the creative end of comics as on the editorial end. I think that by the time I got home from the office that day, I had an offer from DC to write jacket copy for them. Two of my former Wizard coworkers who'd landed at Marvel got me work doing stuff for Marvel.com on projects I was interested in. I continued to freelance for Wizard and ToyFare. I contribute the occasional interview to The Comics Journal, for which I'd been writing on and off for several years. I covered San Diego for Comic Book Resources a couple years ago. Brian Hibbs asked me to join The Savage Critic(s). Finally, after a stint filling in for a vacationing JK Parkin, the Robot 6 crew made me part of the permanent staff. I'm really enjoying it there.

Some of those gigs pay well enough that I'm happy to do whatever I can for them. Others aren't a lot of money, so I make it a policy to only do assignments I'd want to do even if no money were involved. In all cases it's just fun to write about comics, and if I get paid for it, so much the better!

That seems to be the only attitude one can have if you want to have any longevity and satisfaction doing this. Speaking of the Marvel work, I know you had something to do with Strange Tales but wasn't clear what that was.

I did a couple of things for that project. The main thing was interviewing pretty much everyone involved for Marvel.com. That's a prime example of a freelance gig I'd have done for free, though please don't tell Marvel that. I also wrote the contributor bios for the back of each issue, and the jacket copy for the collected edition. It's a fun project, the end result looked great, and I'm happy to have been involved with it.

Did you come back to comics reviews with a different approach at all?

Definitely. I suppose the main thing--and I can't imagine I've been 100% successful in this regard--is that I try to be a lot less catty and nasty and snarky. It just seems so easy, and like such a waste of time to me at this point. Why spend time finding some dumb superhero book I know going into it I'm not going to like and then show off how superior I am to it, when I could be spending that time digging into something that at least has a chance of being worthwhile? Snark is an easy out for people to write off what you're saying to boot--"Oh, that guy's an asshole, fuck him." People still think I'm an asshole, but ideally it's not because I tapdanced all over some Warren Ellis comic anymore.

Also, beginning in 2008 I started reviewing at a pretty relentless pace: Three reviews a week, every week. (Though I did take a break in early 2009.) That's the best thing I've ever done for myself as a writer and as a critic and as a consumer of comics. Just getting your hands dirty, engaging with comic after comic after comic in specific and concrete terms. It made me realize that what I used to do was something different. It used to be a lot more pontifications and prognostications about Comics, if you will, rather than actually talking about actual comics. (At least on my blog, that is--I was reviewing for the Journal for a lot of that time.) It's nice to have reviews be at least as big a part of what I'm doing as a writer-about-comics as linkblogging or little stories about what I think this or that con or new series means for the industry.

That said, I still love linkblogging, throwing up little updates on what's going on with Clive Barker and Lost and He-Man and serial killers and Lady Gaga and whatever else tickles my fancy. My blog is always gonna be about whatever interests me. A lot of that is comics, and also horror and genre film, but the fact that it can be whatever I want it to be is what makes it fun to do every day. I also assume that by this point, whoever my audience is is my audience for that reason!

I totally agree about the benefits of frequent writing about comics--all sorts of comics. It's also nice being on a group blog because there's a nice sort of pressure to pull your weight and be productive; at least I feel that moreso than when it was just me on my own blog. I'm curious about the disinclination towards snark. Not that you should do anything you don't feel, but doesn't highly intelligent snark, or let's call it no-holds-barred criticism a la Abhay Khosla or Tucker Stone, have its place? Isn't it just as valid, as long as the arguments are reasoned and thought-provoking, no matter how harsh?

It may be valid, it may not be valid. It depends on the piece. What I can tell you is that valid or not, it's not interesting to me, and it's frequently actively annoying. I also think the harshness quickly becomes an end in itself, so in that sense, I grow suspicious of its validity pretty quickly, I guess you could say. I've done it in the past and I reserve the right to do it again, because grown-ups can change their minds about these things, that's part of the fun of being a grown-up, but for now, it is not for me as a critic or a reader of criticism.



I read recently where you clearly disagreed with Steven Grant on disco, of all things, but didn't really get into why.

If it was comics, a medium much younger in its critical evolution, wouldn't it be valuable to the medium to not leave poorly-reasoned arguments alone? One thing I think is missing from the otherwise high-quality criticism online are critics willing to take public issue with each other. If you can do it respectably, doesn't everyone benefit?


I hate to say "it depends on the piece" again, but it really does. In the case of Grant's thing on disco, he phrased his argument in such a way as to disinvite criticism from someone my age--an "if you weren't there, you don't understand" deal--so I'm not about to batter down the doors to take issue with a poorly reasoned argument whose maker seems that uninterested in hearing what I have to say about it. Which leads to a larger point, which is that some arguments are so dopey that no, engaging with them doesn't do anyone any favors. I think comics critics in particular, for some reason, have a weakness for "bomb-throwing" as Douglas Wolk has put it. You write your post about how all autobio/manga/superheroes/whatever are garbage, or how as a matter of fact Chris Ware or Art Spiegelman or Jack Kirby are awful, then sit back and wait for the hits and comments and responses to roll in. If fewer people responded to that kind of nonsense, for example, the state of comics criticism would improve.

That said, I don't think I have much of a problem taking issue with other critics. One thing I wish would happen is that there'd be less of a sense that when you're disagreeing with a critic's argument, you're fighting with that critic on a personal level. I'll admit it can be difficult to separate my ideas from my self sometimes, but usually unless you call me names, I try to keep sight of the fact that it's my ideas or writing you have a problem with, not Mrs. Collins's number-one son.

Reading your reviews, I'm curious--how come you don't seem to review old comic strip collections and the like?

I don't read 'em? I've been collecting the Peanuts volumes because I love Peanuts and at some point I plan on sitting down with those and giving them a real thorough read and review. Ditto Achewood, to use a more recent example. But generally I'm not a big strip guy, and with the older, "classic" strips in particular, I find their narrative sensibility and sense of humor just doesn't speak to me anymore. I can appreciate Krazy Kat, but I don't really enjoy it.

Do you think the quality of comics criticism--online and/or print--is substantially improved from where it was when we started, or five years ago? I read your transcript of the SPX panel of critics, and not only was it lively and sharp, but it was much more interesting than any such panel I've ever attended at SDCC in the years I've been going there.

Totally! It helps to know where to look, though. I'm about to articulate a viewpoint of mine that has come up in all sorts of different discussions, but a couple years of therapy taught me to find the things that make you happy, and go ahead and be happy with them. What that's translated to in blogging terms is that I'm always at a bit of a loss when I read complaints about how the comics blogosphere's not gettin' it done, or the state of criticism is poor, or whatever, because I'm just finding the critics I get something out of and reading them, not dashing myself upon the rocks of the folks who break down their weekly pull list, or hate everything, or love everything, or see criticism as a way to score points, et cetera et cetera. Tom Spurgeon's been reviewing again lately, you've got Joe McCulloch, the Comics Comics crew of Dan Nadel, Frank Santoro, Jeet Heer, and Tim Hodler, on Robot 6 there's Chris Mautner, I think Curt Purcell brings in a valuable outsider perspective when he discusses horror comics, I've always enjoyed the mix of voices on the Savage Critic, Blog Flume is infrequent but usually terrific...I don't want for good criticism.

This is all online, of course. Print, who knows. The last bastion of it, The Comics Journal, is basically kissing print goodbye as a meaningful way of engaging with the medium in a timely fashion. Or in the Journal's case, a remotely timely fashion. We'll see what happens when they move online--frankly, the mix of commentators they're touting for their blogs doesn't fill me with confidence.

Do you find the level of quality invigorating? Does it push you to be better? Do you consider yourself competitive in any way?

I find it invigorating in that it's fun to read good writing. I don't think it "pushes me to be better," no...I mean, in theory you should want to write well anyway, right? Most of the people I just listed are doing different things than what I'm doing, so there's not really a sense that I'm going one-on-one with them in any way. Whether they're great or whether they stink wouldn't really affect my writing either way. Maybe the exception is Spurge--he's the critic I feel I've learned the most from, in terms of a model that emphasizes in concise fashion what comics do and how they work in terms of the reaction they engender in the reader.

But now that I think about it, just as influential in that regard is the writing I did for Wizard! We had two critical outlets, the Bookshelf column in the magazine which reviewed graphic novels and trade paperbacks, and the Thursday Morning Quarterback column online which reviewed the week's floppies. In both cases space was at a premium--well, time more than space, in QB's case--and so you had to get in, say what mattered, and get out. My editor in chief when I started working on those columns, Pat McCallum, had a very, very specific recipe for what needed to go into each review. You needed to briefly summarize the plot, so that people had some idea what you were talking about. You needed to say something about both art and writing, and you needed to cite specific examples of whatever you said about them so that you weren't just asserting things without back-up. You couldn't just say "this sucks" or attack the creators--you had to keep everything engaged in the work at hand. And in Bookshelf's case, you had to do this in under 150 words. Once I discovered I could do that book after book, frequently with books I was amazed I had that much to say about, I realized I could certainly do this on my own.

Back to your questions--I definitely don't consider myself competitive. For one thing, like I said, I think most of the better reviewers are all doing different things, so competitiveness doesn't enter into it. In terms of hits, I've said this a million times, but for a very long time I couldn't properly track my site stats even if I wanted to, so I never really had any idea who was coming to my site from where and how many of them there were. After hearing myself say this during the Critics Roundtable panel at SPX, I decided I'd figure out how to use Google Analytics--due to my site's architecture it's not as easy as you'd think--and I did so, but found I still don't care at all. The times I've tried tracking my hits, I've mostly used it as a way to find cool blogs, since you can discover who's linking to you. I've certainly never considered blogging a certain way in order to attract hits and become a bigger deal versus other blogs.

Pat McCallum seems to have had guidelines quite similar to ones ADD and I set down for Comic Book Galaxy. Do you believe that having restrictions in place are more often helpful or harmful to art? I know you're a big defender of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Again, which always seemed to me to have suffered from any sort of editorial guidance.

Broken-record time: Depends on the art in question! Maybe a firmer editorial hand would have steered Miller away from doing two key action sequences in flashback, which would have made it a better book, but it also could have told Lynn Varley to tone it down or told Miller to do more crosshatching, which would have made it a worse book. Not surprisingly, I see the need for editorial guidance more in the work by lesser-experienced cartoonists I've read lately. But as a guy who's been blogging on his own since 2002 or so, I'm not about to go out there and campaign in favor of editors.

Speaking of that recent piece of yours about TDKSA, music clearly plays a large role in your life. When I read the piece, and it could be that I like the music you like while not liking Miller's book, but it got me thinking about the connections critics sometimes make to other works, and how it can almost be arbitrary. Like, if you were more into Johnny Cash or Wu-Tang Clan or Stockhausen, you could probably make connections from any of them back to Miller's book or whatever you wanted to, and it could be just as valid or invalid.

Oh, I agree completely that it can be arbitrary sometimes. Just a week or two before I wrote that piece, I was complaining to someone about the pieces you'll read here and there along the lines of "This issue of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers: Klarion the Witch-Boy is exactly like my favorite Sleater-Kinney album!!!" Now, art is not made in a vacuum, and even when direct influences aren't in play, resonances can be--people can tap into similar ideas or make similar decisions. It's as valuable for critics to be aware of what's going on in multiple disciplines as it is for artists themselves, and I think making connections you can make between disciplines is a perfectly valid approach. That said, making connections between anything and everything is as useless, critically, as making no connections at all.

That's why I made the specific points I made in that review--connecting The Dark Knight Strikes Again to glitchy, glowy music and visual art--and no more. To use your counterexamples, I happen to love Johnny Cash, and the Wu-Tang Clan is one of my all-time favorite bands--I'm certainly more into the Wu than I am into any of the bands I mentioned in that piece. So maybe that's my defense right there: I made a relevant comparison rather than forcing one where it didn't exist. There really isn't any kind of similarity between the RZA's production and Miller & Varley's art in that book, and I'd contest the notion that what I'm doing in making the different comparison I made is so formless and protean that I could have done it with any old music.

Moreover I didn't try to make the comparison complete--you didn't see word one about how Superman and Wonder Woman destroying a mountain while fucking or the bloody vengeance of the Hawkchildren had anything to do with the Washed Out Life of Leisure EP. Similarly, I've compared comics to music many times in the past: How Ghostface Killah's Iron Man-inspired oeuvre, particularly Supreme Clientele, could be an inspiration for Iron Man comics, or how metal like Slayer's "Raining Blood" and Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song" could be an inspiration for Thor comics, or that extended riff on the "Superman sings Darkseid to death" thing from Final Crisis that Shaggy Erwin and I did where I took scenes from Final Crisis and All Star Superman and captioned them with the lyrics to the Animal Collective song "My Girls." But in all those cases the comparison was limited, to tone in the first two cases, and to some lyrical resonances in the third case. I'm not going to make an argument that FC has a lot to do with Merriweather Post Pavilion, because it doesn't. Doug Mahnke does not equal Panda Bear.

And not that I'm making an argument to authority or anything, but several music critics I respect got a lot out of that DKSA post, which made me very happy. Long story short, I strongly disagree that any old musical comparison would be just as valid or invalid.

No offense meant. I just meant that everyone brings their own influences and background to a work of art and there could be someone else making just as valid connection between the book and a totally different kind of music.

If music and films are such an influence on you as they seem to be, have you ever considered completely flipping the script and immersing yourself in different music and different films than you're used to, to see if new thoughts and connections might start appearing in your writing?


Well, musically I'm pretty eclectic in my tastes. I mean, neither my time nor my taste is infinite, so I prioritize and I like some things a lot more than others, but there's nothing I just write off and wouldn't give a chance to. Obviously you can't listen to everything, but I listen to an awful lot. So I don't know if that would change anything.

Film, on the other hand...I've given a lot of thought to the fact that over the course of this decade, the vast majority of the films I've really engaged with have been, to one extent or the other, genre films. Even if they're indie or arthouse genre films, they're still genre films. Meanwhile, if you were to look at my CD shelves or check the sidebar of my blog for the comics reviews I've done, they're all over the map. Whereas if you go back to the late '90s when I was in college, I'm sure genre was still what fired me up the most--my senior screenplay was a horror screenplay, more or less--but I was watching and thinking about and writing about all kinds of films.

So I've thought a lot about that, and what changed. I think it's a combination of factors. My immersion in comics, and also music, has shifted my priorities for other media, so I follow very few TV shows and don't see as many movies and barely read any prose books, God help me. A big part of that is that I'm a married man with a wife who has her own taste that doesn't always overlap with mine, plus I have a day job and a commute, plus I do a ton of freelance writing and writing for fun, all of which limits the amount of time I have to read and watch stuff. Then there's that therapeutic breakthrough I mentioned earlier--shepherded along by the writings of Bruce Baugh, I should mention--and so when it comes to places I find enjoyment, my attitude, to quote Primal Scream, is "Don't Fight It, Feel It." Perhaps also my taste has been refined with time so I'm focusing more clearly on the stuff that interests and excites me.

I'm sure if I started tagging along with my blog-friends Jon Hastings or Jason Adams to the many, many, many movies they go to in the city every month, I'd be seeing more and different films, so of course I'd be making more and different connections. But again, "more and different" doesn't mean that every connection is equally valid or invalid. They rise and fall on the strength of the individual argument.

Art by Matt Rota from "It Brought Me Some Peace of Mind" by Sean T. Collins & Matt Rota.

Many thanks to Sean for his time and insight. I sincerely got a lot out of it, and hope you did, too.

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24 November 2009

Daily Breakdowns 040 - Amazing Agents of Authority



Agents of Atlas
Written by Jeff Parker
Penciled by Leonard Kirk
Inked by Kris Justice with Terry Pallot
Published by Marvel Comics. $24.99 USD


You know, handing out a cup of rice to a starving African child sure looks more impressive than just normal, day-to-day parenting, doesn't it? What I mean is, when a writer does decent work about a bunch of characters no one gave a crap about for decades, it stands out more than, say, a decent effort on Spider-Man. So Jeff Parker actually has a little bit of an advantage going in.

That said, this is pretty good work. Seven Soldiers of Victory, Terra Obscura...I like those forgotten teams that were around before I was alive. I also like that in this first storyline, Parker comes close to, if not Golden Age, at least Silver Age pacing. The team gets together quickly and solves the mystery of who is behind the Atlas Foundation. I especially liked how quickly they investigated the various Atlas-named businesses--so many writers would have devoted an issue to each, where Parker just takes a panel or two. Of course, brisk pacing wouldn't matter if the story and characters weren't interesting, but they are. There's an appealing, straightforward innocence here: many of the heroes follow leader Jimmy Woo because he's a good guy and a good tactician and they trust him. That's all they need. Parker has done plenty of research to make these sixty year-plus old characters make sense, and that's all fine, but mainly I just liked them together doing their thing, and I especially liked the Yellow Claw recast not as inscrutable Asian mastermind but rather a playful genius who has accepted his place in the scheme of things and is only trying to bring his replacement, Woo, up to speed. I didn't like the cover or logo at all, but for the most part Kirk's art is on the money. Note: the trade is a little overpriced, arguably, in that the six issue miniseries is augmented with Golden and Silver Age appearances of the characters making up the team, and most of that old stuff isn't worth a damn.


The Authority: The Lost Year #3
Story by Grant Morrison and Keith Giffen
Script by Keith Giffen
Art by Darick Robertson and Trevor Scott
Published by Wildstorm. $2.99 USD


Picking up from where Morrison and Gene Ha left off after their two issues, Giffen is left with a story of superhumans dropped down into a world that's never had them before. As Giffen admitted before the book even came out, this is one of his least favorite kind of stories. Add to that few are at their best when they're working from someone else's outline, and no one ever accused Giffen of being similar in style to Morrison, and you've got a recipe for a misfire, if not an outright disaster. Oh, and I think the current The Authority ongoing by Abnett/Lanning is already dealing with what happened after this "lost year," so it's not like there will be a lot of surprises, right?

That said, I was still curious to see if the book would have any promise, and I have to say it's pretty dire. For one thing, it's alarming that a series that presumably had a pretty decent lead time to get its shit together has to use two artists, and Robertson's and Scott's styles aren't particularly compatible. It also doesn't look like Robertson's best work; it's pretty stiff and most of his scenes are dialogue-heavy and set in boring metal hallways. In fact, that's the biggest problem here, that in trying to get readers up to speed and moving the story beats along, Giffen seems to have forgotten one of the hallmarks of The Authority is big, mind-blowing images. Sure, there's a huge space-Cthulhu thing at the end, which is cool enough. But the wordless Midnighter assault at the beginning is poorly staged and dull, and then the pages in between these two events are almost entirely talking. The normal folks highlighted here aren't very interesting, and Giffen so far has only captured the broad strokes of the Authority members. One nice bit, though: Midnighter admitting that his conception of their purpose is right in line with fascism, and he doesn't have a problem with it at all. I suppose that question--can The Authority do good without taking over this world--is at the heart of the year's worth of story. But right now I'm not convinced I should stick around to find out the answer.



Amazing Spider-Man #612
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Paul Azaceta
Published by Marvel Comics. $3.99 USD


This is my first foray into the Spider-Man books since his twenty-year real time marriage to Mary Jane turned out not to be true. Come to think of it, I dropped out with the repellent Norman Osborn-has-sex-with-Gwen-Stacy garbage, so it's been a while since I caught up with my favorite superhero. It's hard to be absolutely sure yet, but I might be in good hands again with Waid and Azaceta.

This is the beginning of "The Gauntlet," whose cover--at least the variant--suggests Spider-Man will be dealing with a lot of his classic rogues gallery. As the issue goes, it's a complicated plan by Kraven the Hunter's daughter, and the first part of the plan involves Electro, who takes advantage of a controversial government bailout of the struggling "DB"--formerly the Daily Bugle--by its owner and current governor, Dexter Bennett. Electro transforms himself from second-rate supervillain into a kind of folk hero, a voice of the people, and somehow they lap up his lies about only ever going after banks and corporations and never endangering working citizens. Of course, Spider-Man picks the wrong time to make a preemptive strike on Electro, and I do take some issue with that--isn't Peter Parker really smart? Has he no sense of timing? Aside from that, not a bad effort at making an old villain a little deeper than he's been before, and good art from Azaceta apart from a kinda thuggish Parker.

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Alan Moore Month: A Little Moore Love, Part Two.

Continuing a multi-post look at single issues of Alan Moore-scripted comics that made a lasting impression on me, without citing the usual suspects.

Like most of the titles from Moore's cheekily-named America's Best Comics, Top 10 had a ready-made hook: Hill Street Blues with superheroes. In the Top 10 universe, everyone had superpowers, and an attendant set of rules and regulations for them to follow. This, of course, gave Moore, in tandem with artists Gene Ha and Kevin Cannon, the opportunity to provide a panoply of imaginative characters--some pastiches of established types, some a bit more cleverly disguised. The Top 10 precinct was the hub around which many different storylines revolved; some overlapped, and many went independently of the others, until the climactic events of the final issue of "Season One".

In the period of time that had elapsed between this issue and the last one I wrote about, a span of some 15-plus years, we had found out a great many things about Moore, and he had written a great many of what most consider comics classics; Watchmen of course, From Hell, Killing Joke, and so on. We had found out quite a bit more about the man, as well, such as his disagreements with DC, his stance about the filmed adaptations of his work, and his embrace of witchcraft and pagan religious beliefs, if that's the best way of describing it. When he reemerged, doing stuff like WildC.A.T.S. and Supreme for Image, I figured that he must have some bills to pay or something, and it wouldn't last long. I was quite surprised when he launched the America's Best Comics line, and even more so that he was scripting every title himself- what an insane workload, thought I! But he pulled it off: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Promethea, Tom Strong, and this title are among his very best extended comics work, in my opinion. He once again exceeded my expectations.

But he also confounded them once or twice as well, and there's no better example of that than this issue, #8, in which Moore gives us a character that is a practicing, born-again, bible-believing Christian, in the middle of the cornucopia of beings and belief systems already established by this point. Her name is Lt. Cathy Colby, code-named Peregrine. She has flight-based abilities. We're given the beginning of her day like this:



A bit of explanation: in the world of Top 10, interplanetary travel is facilitated by Star Trek-like transporter technology. Sometimes accidents happen, as is the case here, in which a giant horse-headed (Beta Ray Bill doppelganger, perhaps?) alien being collides with a craft piloted by a husband and wife returning from vacation, an analogue for Adam Strange and his beloved Alanna. At first, the cause of the collision is unknown, but they report seeing an unknown man-sized shape of some sort. The horse-headed being and the man are slowly dying from being merged, and the wife is already killed. Lt. Colby decides that she needs to stay on the scene and try to figure out what happened, and provide aid if necessary. What happens afterwards has stayed with me ever since I read it, and BEWARE OF SPOILERS. I MEAN IT, I'M GIVING AWAY THE ENDING TO THE PRINCIPAL STORYLINE OF THIS ISSUE NOW:



The dying man asks Lt. Colby if she's a Christian; she replies in the affirmative. The three of them then begin in on a discussion about belief and philosophies that is on the surface somewhat simple, but no less profound for it, and ends on a touching, dramatically nuanced note. Another thing that surprised me as much as anything is that Lt. Colby, the conservative Christian, was not held up to ridicule or cast in a harsh light; she displays empathy and concern, as well as professionalism, until the very end--and this coming from a self-described snake-worshiping anarchist (according to Wikipedia, anyway), who had also begun to hold forth on his personal philosophies and beliefs via Promethea--maybe the last place you'd look to find a sympathetic portrayal of mainstream Christianity. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, since Moore's sprawling cast was shown to be made up of a number of different belief types, but this impressed the hell out of me--no pun intended--and even though I am not exactly what you would call a believer myself, I was very happy to see this...it made the ending (as well as my enjoyment of the series as a whole) that much greater.

Defying expectations. As far as I can tell, that's been one constant throughout his career to date.

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Alan Moore Month: Good-Bye, Superman! We'll Miss You!

"Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" is a two-issue comic book story by Alan Moore and Curt Swan, edited by the legendary Julius Schwartz. Its two issues were both published in September 1986.

Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons that would later be collected into a single trade paperback and become easily one of the best-selling and most-acclaimed graphic novels of all time. Its first issue was published in September 1986.

It's tempting to read boatloads into that largely coincidental symmetry (although I can't prove it's coincidental; I guess maybe someone in scheduling at DC was aware of the rich meaning in the shared month of publication, but I doubt it). Watchmen really begat the modern era of superhero comics, among other things; "Whatever Happened" was designed from the outset to act as the curtain call for a dead era in superhero comics: The Silver Age, as defined by a specific editorial and storytelling style at DC.

If my blogging compatriot Chris Allen is right and "Watchmen is about escaping the petal-soft death grip of nostalgia to live in the moment," then what is "Whatever Happened" about? On its surface, the story seems to have some nostalgia for the past. Moore frames the tale as an "imaginary story," employing this descriptor to poetic effect. Swan's art instantly evokes the Superman of the 1960s and 1970s. The story drags in every element of the Superman mythos and then some, in the style of other "imaginary" tales like "The Death of Superman" from 1961.

Yet even as he's using common silver age story beats, each gets twisted into some dark version of itself. Bizarro isn't a harmless buffoon; he's a mass murderer. The new Luthor/Brainiac "team-up" involves Luthor's death at the hands of the robot, who digs his metal claws into Luthor's brain and takes over his body; it manages to be especially creepy as drawn by Swan in his traditional Superman style.

In fact, it turns out there's very little nostalgia in the nuts and bolts of Moore's "Whatever Happened." Instead, each element from the past is subverted to more sinister ends than ever before. In a sense, Moore is commenting on the transition in mainstream superhero comics from the light-hearted frolicks of the silver age to the more "reality" based storytelling of the modern age. Those elements had already begun to leak into DC's titles but would fully dominate the publisher's storytelling from post-Crisis onward.

For Moore himself, it's an interesting utilization of these building blocks of the silver age, because it's always seemed clear that he has warm feelings toward the Mort Weisinger school of comics; aside from occasional comments in interviews, his Supreme run could be viewed as a massive modernized love letter to Superman's silver age, pulling off a similar trick of repurposing the era's storytelling fundamentals but with more obvious affection.

On the surface, it's a nostalgic wrap-up to the silver age; dig deeper, and it's a dark dissection of the impending era in superhero comics. Moore seems to be illustrating a gradual creeping of the modern into the stories of the past, creating a bridge of sorts between the pre-Crisis tales that have come before and the tone of the post-Crisis era of DC comics. In "Whatever Happened," the true archenemy of superheroes everywhere, "reality," infects the fantasy world of the pre-Crisis DC universe. Through his villains, Superman experiences vengeance and evil at a level he's never before encountered. The "innocence" of the silver age is abandoned forever.

Also infecting the Silver Age is a new fascination with character development and emotional truth. There were certainly emotions expressed between characters in the silver age, but it's all very surface and subservient to the plotting and ideas. To make a possibly unfairly broad generalization that will surely be refuted with gusto by fans of silver age books, those stories are incredibly clever and creative, and scads of fun...but don't seem very interested in creating real emotional lives for their characters.

In "Whatever Happened," Moore shows us Perry White and his ex-wife reconnecting in what they believe is their final living moments, a touching moment between those two characters that would be virtually unimaginable in any silver age Superman story. The sharpened purpose of Superman's villains raises the dramatic stakes; when members of the Legion of Super-Heroes (who seem to have knowledge of Superman's "end") appear for a final encounter, their *chokes* and *sobs* actually pack an emotional wallop for readers.

Or maybe not. Maybe Moore is just taking the piss a bit, slyly messing with the volume controls on the various elements in an average Silver Age Superman story toward making the whole enterprise more dark and "gritty." It could even be read as parody in spots, rather than affectionate satire.

I'd believe that to be the case, if not for Superman's final moments, the sadness with which he seems to step into the gold Kryptonite room, how he vanishes silently into the arctic mists, never to be seen again...except by us, the readers, who see "Jordan Elliot" wink at the readers, as if to say, "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

And he hasn't. Pre-Crisis DC, and the Superman stories created throughout the Silver Age, live on, in reprints aplenty and the fond memories of fans. That attitude of anything-can-happen fun lives on too with modern twists, in books like Incredible Hercules and Batman & Robin.

So is he saying you can take the comics out of fun, but you can't take the fun out of comics? If so, that's a pretty damned nostalgic point of view. Oh, how the ghost of you clings...

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