I find it somewhat amusing that in order to guarantee me getting a copy of Phonogram: The Singles Club #1, I'm going to be picking it up from a comic shop 5,000 miles away from where I am now.
Bless Chapel Hill Comics and all who sail in her! Admittedly, I won't be able to read it for a month, but as Kieron says it has been under-ordered, better to be safe than sorry.
(so yes, if you do see it in the shops tomorrow - do grab it while you can)
Not only Phonogram: Pull Shapes, but a new series of Blue Monday! Hurrah!
I have this in my room. Grant Morrison's Dare and Really & Truly; the first reveals that Margaret Thatcher was in league with The Mekon (secretly, we all knew this, right?) while the second is possibly the only comic to be written by Ecstasy. Oh, and how it shows.
(in fact, R&T is probably one of my favourite Grant Morrison stories; pared right down to the bone, the gorgeous Rian Hughes art, the fact that I first read it hopped up on Lemsip on the couch, curtains drawn while pausing to be sick…good times. I think.)
Perhaps I should do a proper comics round-up soon. News that Warren Ellis is going to be following Joss Whedon on X-Men won't entice me back, but Grant Morrison doing Final Crisis, which sounds as if it's based on his old Hypercrisis idea? Oh yes. More of this sort of thing later in the week. With pictures!.
I didn't talk too much last week about Civil War, Frontline, and Mark Millar's continued insistence that 'the right side won' in the recent Marvel crossover. Personally, I think that Millar's lying through his teeth; on the side of 'right' is somebody who's an arms dealer, who has lied about his identity, faked his death, disabled SHIELD technology, allowed super-villains to escape from a secure prison, mindwiped the world, and, oh, yes, while under the influence of Immortus killed two people allied to the Avengers. On the side of 'wrong' is the guy who punched Hitler in the jaw.
In Frontline, we're told that the reason that Cap's side was in the wrong was because he doesn't know about MySpace (yes, really), and is thus out of touch with America. In the same issue, it's revealed that Iron Man was behind the Atlantean assassination, has been dabbling with insider-trading to bolster his fortune, and, yes, well, there's the matter of assembling a superhero group with The Green Goblin and Venom on it.
So I don't believe Millar. What I do think is that they're saying all this right now in order to make the fans look forward to this year's World War Hulk and hope that the Hulk trashes Stark's little tin body (Iron Man and a few other heroes sent Hulk into space last year to protect Earth. Unfortunately, he conquers the planet that he lands on, and is currently on his way back…).
This all brings us to today's news and the publication of Captain America #25. Is Cap dead? I think not, given all the technology in the MU. What it does do is get him out of the way for a little while so he can talk Hulk down after he's wrecked half of the planet. Unless the good Captain gets addicted to MySpace, of course…
Wow. I don't think I've read a worse comic since MyS-TECH Wars #4…
I finally managed to get hold of a copy of Phonogram #1 yesterday. Only a week after #2 was released. I think I'm going to have to resort to desperate measures in order to follow the series. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing Kula Shaker being ripped to shreds in further issues. And hopefully more Kenickie, of course…
Also mentioned is “the Great Ten”, a Chinese-government controlled/sponsored superhero team making their debut next month in 52. According to the article, the team includes, "the Celestial Archer, with ties to Chinese mythology; Mother of Champions, who can give birth to a litter of 25 super-soldiers about every three days; and Seven Deadly Brothers, a martial arts expert who can divide into many."
They've let Grant Morrison loose again.
It's almost four years since I started this blog. Which is rather scary. Every now and then, I get the urge to give it a rather radical make-over. It hasn't really changed much since 2002, aside from the photo-strip down the right and the change from using a Helvetica knock-off to Gill Sans for the title (and the body text too, if you're lucky enough to have Gill Sans on your system). Two years ago, I thought about redesigning to a vintage, McSweeneys-like layout. One year ago, I came up with a design for making the site based around a 9x9 grid with fancy comic stylings.
As you can see, I didn't really get around to it. And I'm drawing a blank on new ideas just now. But I thought I'd give you a warning: things may change around here. Although they probably won't.
In what may be a precursor to the update, or not, I've finally signed up to Last.fm. Go! Behold my current listening choices, and mock me!
Alas, Graeme, we'll miss you and your daily dose of comicboard-related sarcasm.
(I was hoping that for the final entry, we'd get the infamous Ellis/Camgirl transcripts, but for ultimate horror, K-Box's Aunt May porn fiction can't be trumped. Or read without wanting to scoop your eyes out so you can stick a knitting needle in your brain)
And you thought the New Order entry last week was showing high nerd levels…
Previously, on Snappish Thoughts, I went into far too much detail about a comics series called Crisis On Infinite Earths, aka 'The series that changed Everything', aka "OMG! THEY KILLED KARA ZOL-EL AND BARRY ALLEN SAVED THE UNIVERSE! OMG!" I also mentioned that twenty years on, DC are producing a follow-up to that story, with the very different title of Infinite Crisis.
Issue #1 shipped this week. And I would like to vent rage upon it. So, if you'll allow me a little indulgence:
What has come before:
Identity Crisis: Jean Loring decides that she wants to get back with her ex-husband, The Atom. To do this, she eschews the common method of compliments, some chocolates, and perhaps, perhaps, a visit to the movies or two, instead going for the more esoteric option of stealing her husband's shape-changing belts, shrinking herself down to a microscopic size, and walking on Sue Dibney's (wife of Ralph Dibney, Elongated Man) brain. When this ends up with the rather unfortunate result of a dead Mrs. Dibney, Jean burns her body with the flame-thrower that she handily brought with her and flees, leaving the JLA to discover Sue's corpse.
I will pause here so you can marvel at how stupid that sounds. I would also like to point out that this plot was conceived by an author who has made the New York Times Bestseller charts. The mind, clearly, boggles.
Anyway, during the JLA's investigation, it is REVEALED, in a SHOCKING flashback, that Sue Dibney, part of a comedy duo with her husband, was once savagely raped by the villain Dr. Light (for those less nerdy: it was like an episode of Friends, if said episode opened with the cast finding Phoebe's blood-spattered corpse on the hallway between the apartments). To pile on THE TRAGEDY, it turns out that Sue was pregnant when Jean decided to play a game of hopscotch in her head (at which point, readers started betting on what horrible event would retroactively be inflicted on Sue throughout the rest of the series).
BUT! In a further shocking development, it turned out that when the JLA of that time caught Dr. Light after the rape of Sue, they decided to mindwipe him, so he'd no longer be a threat to humanity. As Zatanna was casting a spell, Batman arrived at the satellite, catching them in the act. As you might imagine, Batman - not a fan of mindwipes or summary justice. So, the JLA mindwiped him too.
By the end of the series, it's fairly clear that Batman knows his mind was tampered with, and Is Not Happy. Superman is rather annoyed at the old JLA members who did the Erase and Rewind thing with Dr. Light, and Jean confesses to The Atom, saying she did it all for him. Because she loves him. No, really, a New York Times Bestseller.
Superman is also Not Happy with Batman, for no real reason that I can remember. But it's important for them not to like each other, as we'll see.
Okay, so that was earlier this year. Four mini-series began soon after, all leading into Infinite Crisis, aka "Fanboys, Open Your Wallets!". These were The Rann-Thanagarian War (BIG SPACE BATTLES!), Villians United (Lex Luthor manipulates a group of supervillains, including Mike The Parademon, Priest's loving rendition of Mike Chary, noted USENET wag, who sadly dies (BOO, GAIL!)), Day of Vengeance (Jean Loring, now offically Completely Nuts and having been spurned after her tapdancing frolics, does the only proper thing: she becomes a supervillain! Who seduces The Spectre and gets him to start a war on MAGIC! I'm sure it made sense in their heads), and OMAC (One Man Army Corps), which is probably the most important (although MAGIC was destroyed in DoV, thus seriously injuring Paul Zenon's attempt for a new series of Tricky Business).
Now, I must confess that I didn't read OMAC., so I may be missing a few points, but here's the basic plot: there's a guy called Brother Eye (who Batman seems to have created, in another misunderstanding of Morrison's BatGod concept, but there you go), in a satellite above the Earth, who sends out nanomachines that can turn humans into killer automatons. Classy!
Oh! But I've left something out! Countdown to Infinite Crisis, an 80-page comic which introduces the OMAC threat. To sum up, everybody makes fun of Blue Beetle, who then stumbles on the secret controller of the project, his old boss, Maxwell Lord (who has spent most of his comic life being a comedy figure. But, we forget, THIS UNIVERSE IS DARK AND WRONG, so he has to be evil). Who then kills him. w00t!
Anyway, back in OMAC, the Big 3 (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) bicker a little, and then! Max Lord uses mind-control powers on Superman, and has him fight Batman and the rest of the Justice League. THE BIG SCENE! Batman and Wonder Woman have tracked down Lord, and are trying to stop him, while Max taunts them. As Superman comes closer and closer to returning to fight the pair, Wonder Woman gets impatient and throws a shoe at Max Lord. Or slits his throat with her magic tiara. One of those, anyway.
Batman and a freed Superman are horrified, while WW is all like "whatEVER! I just saved the world! Now make me a sandwich!"
(oh, the OMAC project is not completely stopped, so there's still thousands of OMACs out there)
And thus, the scene is set for Infinite Crisis! Distrust amongst the heroes! A sense of things have gone wrong! It's too dark and gritty! (Possibly, just possibly, because in the past year, the DCU has been thrown off the rails to make everything as depressing as possible. After all, even in the darkest days of the 1990s, the idea of having Sue Dibney, of all people, raped would seem absurd. But apparently not now).
Still with me? I'm sorry.
DANGER! DANGER! "THINGS AREN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE" NARRATION!
IC#1 opens on the moon, in the ruins of the JLA Watchtower (I guess somebody blew it up. I'm sure it happened in an issue of something, but I have no clue what). Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman argue about what's happened (she wanted red peppers, but Superman was stingy and just bought the sandwich from outside the Daily Planet).
Back on Earth, RED SKIES! JUST LIKE LAST TIME! OMACs are attacking all over the place, but Superboy's sulking because, er, he's a clone of Lex Luthor mixed with Kryptonian DNA. You can see his point, really. The narration gives him a tongue-lashing. And THEN! FOUR! SHADOWY FIGURES! WATCHING! THEY'RE THE NARRATORS!
My heart sinks. Because I know who these people are.
After a weird bit with Nightwing (Dick Grayson, the original Robin), we go COSMIC with the Green Lanterns and the Guardians of Oa! They're concerned that the universe is dying, and more importantly, Oa is no longer the centre of the universe! All those maps! Ruined!
Then, Uncle Sam (yes, that Uncle Sam) leads the Freedom Fighters into a trap! Cue more death.
(By the way, if you're looking for non-exploitative use of female characters in all this, well, I'd sit the next few months out, to be honest. TINY FOOTPRINTS ON THE BRAIN!)
But! back on the moon! While the trio are arguing, Mongul shows up for, well, I guess he's got a reason, and gives us an excuse for another fight! This goes okay, but then Wonder Woman tries to kill him. Tsk. Tsk. It's almost like she has a taste for it!
So, then, another argument. And the final wedge driven into the group, as Batman snaps at Clark:
Oooh, GET HIM!
(We're obviously meant to forget Superman leading the planet against a Martian invasion, him holding the moon in place, fighting against a vessel of angels that were prepared to destroy Creation to hide their Secret, that when the population of Earth were given superpowers to fight against the Anti-Sun Mageddon, they came because 'they owed Superman one', or that this Superman lives to the 852rd century, inspires the generations of Supermen, becomes the greatest Green Lantern ever, and saves the universe from Solaris. All of which Batman knows about. But Geoff Johns doesn't like this Batman, so whatever)
The final two pages, then. The ending to the first part of a series that will change everything! A series promoted as the start of something new! Gaze in awe as the four figures break through the wall, REVEALING! REVEALING!
A Superman with white temples, a ginger guy in a gold suit, a Superboy, and a middle-aged Lois Lane.
Yes. IT'S CAPTAIN YESTERDAY! HE'S BACK TO SAVE US ALL!
At the end of the original Crisis, Superboy, the old Superman from Earth-2, Lois Lane, and Alex Luthor (Lex's son from Earth-3), realising there was no place for them in the new, combined universe, disappeared into a portal, heavily suggesting that they were heading off to Heaven. But now they're back. Because Things Have Gone Wrong.
Sigh. Yes, I know. But this series, and the rationale behind it irritates me a little (hahaha, well, perhaps a bit more than just a little, as you might have guessed). The writers seem convinced that the Silver Age was full of light fun, and the current stories aren't. So to take us back there, they've spent the best part of two years making the DCU a miserable place. Which, to me, is stacking the deck a bit. I don't have a problem with them bringing back the multiverse; while I prefer the current system, I'm not all that attached to it; I just think that spending thousands of pages of comics watching the Silver Age fans get their revenge on DCU Editorial of 1985 isn't all that entertaining.
Why couldn't they take a leaf out of Mr. Grant Morrison's hat? Instead of moaning that things need fixing, he brings that oft-discussed "Sense of Wonder" back into the DCU, but as something contemporary, not just the old sensibilities (His DC1,000,000 series cannot be read without MANLY NERD TEARS as you get to the final few pages).
Also, a tip. If you ever find yourself involved in a Crisis, make sure you're not wearing a Flash costume. It's bad for your health.
Finally, the cover to Infinite Crisis #2:
AMAZING FANTASY #16 Written by Simon Furman Penciled by JAMES RAIZ Cover by LUCIO PARILLO The fans have spoken in Marvel’s second online pole for which character will get revamped in AMFAN. Friends and foes alike, may we introduce to you Death’s Head 3.0!
I'm not crying, yes? It's tears of joy, yes? The continuing adventures of a freelance peacekeeping agent…oh goodness.
I'd rather jack than Fleetwood Mac.
As previously mentioned on this blog and elsewhere, the world of superhero comics is a confusing one. Especially since every summer, MILLIONS WILL DIE. It's a little like hurricane season but with giant robots and holes in the space-time continuum (and no, Polyfilla doesn't work, sadly). This year? Well, EVERYTHING YOU KNEW ABOUT THE MARVEL UNIVERSE IS WRONG! Again. But this time they mean it, as after Marvel is finished with their imaginary world dreamt up by The Scarlet Witch Which Is A Bit Different From The Alternate World Where Professor X Died Or The One That Franklin Richards Made When All The Heroes Were Killed By Professor X Who'd Gone A Bit Bonkers' story, they're coming back with Decimation, a title that conjures up all sorts of fun images. The rumour is that in the 'new' Marvel Universe, there won't be quite so many mutants around. So lotsa people gonna die.
It's all DC's fault, of course. Twenty years ago, they released a series, which really did change everything, and everybody has been copying it since. You see, Superman, Batman, and a few other DC heroes debuted in the 1930s, but by the end of the 1940s, superhero comics weren't selling in big numbers anymore. Most of the titles faded as both Marvel and DC (or Timely and National, as they were known then) moved into romance, horror, and true crime genres. In 1955, though, that all changed, as the Flash was reintroduced and heralded a new age of superhero stories. But the new Flash wasn't the same as the old one. This Flash was Barry Allen, a police scientist who gained speed powers after being involved in a chemical accident (and some lightning). He took up the name of Flash, because he remembered reading about the adventures of the original Flash (Jay Garrick) during the 1940s.
So far, so good. New versions of other characters followed, eventually leading to the comic Justice League of America, which comprised all of DC's big heroes; Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and many others. Then came the slight wrinkle - after all, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman had been going since the 1940s - how come they hadn't aged?
The correct answer, I suppose, is 'who cares?', but that's not how DC decided to answer the question. Instead, in Flash #123, Barry Allen travelled to an alternate Earth, the one that contained the 'real' Jay Garrick. In Justice League #21-22, this was explored further, revealing that in this other Earth, known as Earth-2, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and others fought in WWII, whereas in the proper Earth (Earth-1), they had started their adventures after the war.
Simple, eh? And then it got very complicated. There was an Earth-3, filled with evil duplicates of the Justice League and a good Lex Luthor, Earth-X, where the Germans won WWII, Earth-S, the home of Captain Marvel, and Earth-Prime, which was supposed to be the real world (although given that it was ravaged by nuclear war, let's hope not). The fun thing for writers was that you could use the older age of Earth-2 characters to write stories that you couldn't do with the Earth-1 ones (who were always set in the here and now); for example, the Huntress was originally an Earth-2 character, and her name was then Helena Wayne, being the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle.
By 1985, it was a mess. People kept jumping between universes, and it was a major headache for both the writers and readers to keep everything straight. So, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of DC Comics, Marv Wolfman came up with a proposal to streamline the DC Universe in a 12-part mini-series called Crisis On Infinite Earths. It's one of the goofy things that I love about superhero comics; sure it'd be much easier just to restart everybody at issue #1, and not even mention what's gone before, but no, we have to have a huge event to explain a new editorial mandate.
The plot of Crisis was simple: a big bad guy (the Anti-Monitor) is wiping out universes. In the first ten pages, an unnamed Earth and Earth-3 are completely destroyed - this series has the highest body count of, well, pretty much anything ever (Infinite Earths, remember?). The heroes from the remaining universes band together to save what's left. They succeed, but at a high price: Barry Allen is killed when he destroys one of the Anti-Monitor's machines, and Supergirl is completely erased from history (both Flash and Supergirl weren't selling well). The series ends with just one Earth, which has elements of all the old ones, but has a new history. Simple!
Except...well, it would have worked, if the comics had truly started again from scratch. But most of them didn't, leaving some readers clueless about which stories 'happened' and which didn't (again, it mostly doesn't matter, but some people like to know these things). Then there was the Legion of Superheroes, who screwed everything up. You see, the Legion was a group of teenagers from the far future, who came back in time to visit Superboy and Supergirl, taking them back to their time to have lots of fabulous adventures. But in the new timeline, Supergirl didn't exist, and Clark Kent didn't get his powers until much later - there never was a Superboy. This completely wrecked the Legion's origin, and was fixed by a pocket universe, the Time Trapper, another alternate world ruled by the sorcery of Mordru, and finally replacing the lost pair with the Daxmaites Mon-El and Laurel Gand.
If you understood even half of the previous paragraph, then I feel for you. And I hope you feel for me.
Ten years later, and some of the continuity wrinkles were just too big to ignore, so there was another big story, this time called Zero Hour. Hal Jordan, Green Lantern, went a bit loony after his home city was destroyed as a result of an alien invasion, and decided he was going to fix things. By recreating the multiverse (it's possible that the aging Jordan was chosen to represent the older fans who were rather upset about Crisis), and giving everybody a lovely little paradise to live in. His plan failed, but he did reboot the universe, allowing editors to decree that certain stories never happened, and fixing the Legion Problem by starting it over from scratch (like they probably should have done back in 1985.
And now, ten years on, we're here again; DC's big event for this year is Infinite Crisis, another story that promises to change everything. The run-up to the story involves rape, mindwipes, TINY FOOTPRINTS ON THE BRAIN, the Batbooks continuing to suck, Superman having his throat ripped open by Wonder Woman's tiara, and the General Death of Fun (and all of Giffen/DeMatteis’s JLI characters). I think that they're trying to get us to welcome the reboot by making the current universe such a miserable place. And, as mentioned at the top of the post, Marvel is also having its first reboot this year as well (Marvel didn't reuse too many 1940s superheroes during its 1960s boom, so its managed to hold off a reboot for longer, but these days, the origins of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, and many others are tied a little too tightly to the Cold War)
There you go, a handy guide to the Crisis and why superhero comics are rather complicated, but one mystery remains - why is Power Girl's costume like that?
As I promised - Japanese school girls.
Jisatsu Sakuru (Suicide Club) is a manga adaptation of a 2003 film with the same name. Having said that, it has very little in common with that film, except for the opening scene: a group of schoolgirls, holding hands, jumping into an oncoming train. The story follows Saya, the sole survivor of the accident, and her best friend, Kyoko, who begins to get suspicious about the company Saya is keeping.
Somewhat unusually for manga, it's only one volume long, so can be read very quickly (although the last few pages are somewhat…uncomfortable). It hasn't been officially translated yet, but you can get hold of a fan-translation here (a warning: it's definitely not for children). If, for some reason, you're in the mood for an unsettling story involving teenage suicide, well, it's your lucky day!
Also enjoying Viz's Short Cuts Vol. 1 at the moment. It's been around for a while (as you can tell by the Western right-to-left layout of the official translation), but I've only just come across it. Manga has a fairly well-deserved reputation of having stories that take place across 30+ 200 page books, but here, a tale is doing extremely well if it gets to a third page. It's a funny send-up of the clichéd handling of, er, schoolgirls in the manga scene (look, I swear, this post didn't start out as dodgy as it's turning out).
In cartoon news, Bonnie and I have discovered The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, currently showing on the Cartoon Network. Billy and Mandy are typical children, winning a bet with the Grim Reaper, and as a consequence, he's their Best Friend Forever. The Grim Reaper also appears to be Jamaican. Series Three began on Sunday, and since then we've had a spider that insists Billy is his dad, an Evil Tricycle from an alternate Pittsburgh (complete with bad British accents), Billy racking up thousands of years of bad luck in a mirror shot, and Grim's body becoming a supermodel. It's insane and very amusing…
Tomorrow…music!
Consumers feel frustrated by legal music downloads! Music industry whistles…
Make fire with just a can and some chocolate! (You can eat the chocolate afterwards too)
Yay for Benedict VIII. Or perhaps not.
Doctor Who update: I'm glad they're not having Keith Boak back next series. He just can't handle action scenes. But! UNIT! A classic Who cliffhanger resolved in ten seconds! And the promo for next week! NERD-GLEEEE! "WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE!?!"
(Ian has been replaced by a gibbering loon. Stop sniggering, Judas.)
(Yes, this week, I will be doing Lee & Herring catchphrases.)
Does T4 hold incriminating photographs on Simon Popworld? I had the misfortune to switch on the TV to The Morning After Show this afternoon (yes, even the title's a mistake), and he had this "please, will somebody shoot me, and put an end to this unbearable pain?" look in his eyes. But still, the little spat between him and The World's Smuggest Pop Star was quite amusing (Mr. Daniel Beddingfield, who seemed to think that he could say 'I'm a bachelor' to explain why he has a toilet in his bedroom. Daniel, I think, even with the ways that record companies avoid paying you money, that you could probably afford a separate bathroom…).
I apologise for the lack of updates this week. I have a few ideas for next week, and I'll try and get the avatar code fixed as well. Plus the usual bobbins and stealing other people's material. And then I got off the bus…aaaah!
Finally heard from Salford today. Apparently, it was a close-run thing, but another candidate had NetWare experience, and that gave him the edge. On the one hand, yes, a little disappointing, but at least this time, it wasn't my ineptitude in the interview that doomed me…
In my defence, it didn't rain all the time I was there. In fact, Sunday morning and this evening have been pleasant and sunny. We'll skip over the icy winds and persistent drizzle.
Before I go any further, I wish to mark the passing of two important Mancunian landmarks. It pains me to reveal that the Manchester Odeon is no more. It was our Friday night destination for almost three years, with a main screen that was over fifteen feet longer than the Mauritania, and now it's gone. Perhaps its biggest claim to fame is that it's visible in one scene in 24 Hour Party People, where some of the characters talk in a cafe (yes, I know that's not really narrowing it down too much - it's been a while since I've seen it!). Incidentally, the cafe has also gone now.
But, even worse, to those of us who were held rapt by the adventures of Skel Nonch and Erk Dre, is that Halon Menswear has also disappeared. Yes, the Oxford Road no longer caters for the upscale man. To pile insult on the injury, it's been replaced by a Starbucks (I'm also reliably informed that it's actually a surprisingly good Starbucks, so perhaps the good men of Halon's influence still holds sway over the building).
Well, what else can I say about the trip, after those bombshells? Not much, to be honest; it wasn't a weekend of Big Happenings and Debauchery, although we did partly run the risk of having an electrocuted Tom while he was rewiring his kitchen. Instead, a leisurely, gentle stroll thorugh old haunts and seeing new things, spending far too much time in shops, and trying hard to avoid having to wear a gown while in Hall. It was a little weird being back in St. Anselm again; while I wasn't in my old room, I was close to it, and had to use the shower block that I used previously. It was a little trip back in time, especially when I walked back from the city on Sunday afternoon.
I found some interesting clothes shops this weekend (cheap, too!), but I'm on a self-imposed ban from buying any new clothes at the moment. Partly, this is because I'm going to America in a few months, and everything will be much cheaper there, but mostly, it's because my current idea of a good outfit involves dressing up like the Fifth Doctor and his Edwardian cricketer fashion. So, for my sake and all the others that have to be around me, I'm not buying anything until it passes, lest I deck myself out in white striped jumpers and straw hats. It's for the best. Although, if my next phase is Gothic Lolita, you're probably going to cry out for the return of the straw...
The Northern Quarter has now become fashionable, instead of the small bit of town where the comic shop is hidden. There's lots of fancy new shops, but Manchester is still Manchester: next to a ultra-cool design studio sits a sheet metal welding workshop. And the comic shop is still there, as is Vinyl Exchange. I almost bought a M.I.A. promo, but decided that I'd wait until the album was out properly in a week or so. Then I spent far too much time in Magma. Magma is a book shop that caters primairly for graphic designers and the hangers on who think the books and toys are really interesting (guilty). The only downside is that it doesn't have any seats, although, as Phil pointed out, it's probably a safety measure to prevent Tom and I from spending all day in there.
Lots of goths. That's not a bad thing, mind you. Fancy costumes and teardrop make-up! Livens a Saturday morning up, that's for sure. Also, I think there has been a red dye explosion over vast swathes of Fallowfield; I can honestly say that 1 in 3 girls, at least, was sporting dyed red hair. Not too much blue, sadly.
So, you've got this far, and you're probably wondering: "But what about the interview? Red hair and weird asides about old fashions are all very well, but what about the point of this piece?" To which I must point out, just in passing, that our Italian waiter on Friday night seemed to take it as a personal insult that I didn't want parmasean cheese on my pasta. It was as if I had besmirched his family's reputation. Not wishing to cause an international incident over a condiment (is Parmaean cheese a condiment? Perhaps not. It's more a topping, I'd imagine.Although you often find it with the condiments, so possibly...but that might be a debate best saved for later), I relented, and everybody was all smiles once more. Splendid, you mught say.
"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INTERVIEW?" Oh, if you insist. Although there isn't much to say, really. I went, I talked, they asked questions, and it was over in twenty minutes. They didn't ask the usual question ("So, there's this giant hole in your CV. Want to talk about it?"), and I have no idea how I did really. I think I answered the technical questions reasonably well. and the more general stuff seemed to go okay. I don't believe I'm going to get the job, though. It seemed too quick to be all that positive.
And now! I'm writing this on a train! Plugged into a powerpoint on the side of the carriage looking like one of those sad people who does their office work on the way home. It should have Wi-Fi installed.Then I could do other stuff while heading back. But I'm done now, so I'll hit save and fall asleep instead. Pictures tomorrow…
As it turns out, the last entry gets to live!
Okay, so, new server, new, shiny version of MovableType, and a migration to a MySQL database. I'm sure you're all giddy at the prospect at the fun times ahead!
May I just say once more: TWO POINT FOUR GIGABYTES! IMAGINE THE THINGS I CAN FIT ON HERE!!!
Things that don't work: Hobart Paving hasn't been imported into the database yet, so there's that to do. It's my excuse for not updating it in ages - I didn't have the space for uploading any more artwork. And now I don't have that excuse. Hmm. Okay, perhaps I might write something on the next couple of weeks, once I get it imported (which won't happen until I'm back from Manchester).
The Avatar code isn't working, and I can't work out why at the moment, so that may take a week or so. Everything else, though, should be peachy keen. Tell me if it's not.
And, a little bit of advice to those of you in Chapel Hill:
Every year on this day, the comic shop in the town has a big sale; comics and graphic novels at excellent prices! So, if you're in the area, I suggest you have a look (I arrived ONE day late for this sale last year! Bah. But they had a Hallowe'en sale as well, so I did okay in the end). It's Chapel Hill Comics, on Rosemary Street. Just go through the Bank of America building, carrying on until you get down the steps onto Rosemary, past the nightclub that changes its name every year because the owners go bust when the students leave in May, and out onto the path. Head towards Columbia, and it's on your left!
(Everybody else: umm, I don't know. Wear something green?)
One of the great things about the Internet is the lovely group of people known as scanlators. They take foreign comics that aren't available outside of the host country (usually Japan), scan them in to a computer, and translate them into another language (usually English). Then they stick them up on the Internet for everybody to download. It's a good way of discovering comics from other countries. Completely illegal of course, but the scanlators have a code of honour which means they take down scans once a title is released commercially in the translated language, so the comic companies don't bother them too much (and indeed, they keep tabs on the scanlation scene to see what's popular). Anyway, most scanlations are epic Japanese manga series, and not really suitable for casual reading, but every once in a while, there's a few one-shots which are worth the three minutes or so it takes to read. Today's discovery is a one-shot tale about a girl who gets turned into a fridge.
Yes. A fridge.
As you might expect, it's quite bizarre, including almost obscene descriptions of a boy putting beer into the cooler, and it also shows you just why you shouldn't annoy a fridge.
You can download it using BitTorrent from the scanlator, Kotonoha, but if you want a direct download, I'm hosting a zip archive of it as well:
Oh, and remember, manga is read from right-to-left, not left-to-right. You'll get used to it, I promise.
Slightly disturbing news from the still-young Western manga front. Sad to see that the New Hope of Western comics is determined to be almost as bad, creatively-speaking, as the old industry. Heck, even Marvel & DC now have "creator-participation" contracts, which mean that writers and artists will be compensated if the comic is picked up for TV or film (Warren Ellis's Global Frequency was produced under this type of contract, if I'm remembering right). Not so with Tokyopop, it seems.
I'm ambivalent about the Manga Revolution. I have nothing against manga; I've been reading it for years, and I can almost read right-to-left almost as well as reading left-to-right, but it troubles me somewhat. I think my main fear is that the Western comics industry will turn into little more than simply a reprint market for Japanese material. While Tokyopop and others are attempting to create a home-grown market, I'm not convinced that they're going to be a success against the reprinted material (where costs have already been recouped by their initial Japanese printings). I've seen it happen here – in the 1980s, Britain had a decently-sized comics industry, from toy adaptations like Transformers UK to the more adult-themed titles like 2000AD and Crisis. Today, there's hardly anything left; 2000AD creeps along only because a software company bought them, and the only Marvel comics left on the stands are reprints. I'd hate to see America go the same way.
My main problem, though, is length. Not wishing to be ungrateful, but most manga comics are just too long! Take Lone Wolf and Cub for example. An excellent book, with beautiful art and almost-perfect storytelling. And it's so cheap! $9.95 for almost 300 pages of story! So, you think about getting the rest.
There are 28 books in the Lone Wolf and Cub series.
That's almost 8,500 pages. And I think that's just a little too much. I prefer stories that are more manageable; Eagle and Milk Squad are a little simplistic (Eagle is a political drama about the first Japanese-American candidate for President of America, but it suffers from trite dialogue and too much melodrama, and comes off very badly when you compare it to The West Wing), but are entertaining manga that only take four or five volumes to tell a complete story. But these seem to be the exception rather than the norm.
Still, I don't want to be too negative; 20th Century Boys is the best thing I've read so far in 2005 (although, there's still a whole bunch of Grant Morrison stuff to come). I just don't think that importing manga wholesale from Japan is going to solve all our problems.
So, Smallville. The first episode of the (fourth?) season has just finished. First annoyance — the writers have finally succumbed to introducing Lois Lane. I had a feeling they wouldn't be able to resist. But it's dumb. Lois has always, always, been part of Clark's Metropolis life, and not his Smallville days. It makes little sense, as a big part of the Superman mythos is the initial mistrust between her and this 'hayseed' from the country.
But whatever. I can grumble quietly about that.
Having Clark Kent appear naked before Lois, without glasses, and using super-strength? Uh-huh. You don't think that she might, just might, remember five years later when a guy with an S-shield turns up in Metropolis and — hey look! Clark's just started working for the Daily Planet!
And the constant references to the films are tiresome. This week, Margot Kidder! And yes, hahahaha, she says she had a relationship with Dr. Swan (Christopher Reeve) "in a different life." DO YOU SEE! SHE WAS LOIS! AND HE WAS SUPERMAN! And she's saying it to the actress who played Lana Lang in Superman III! Who's now playing Clark's mother! Even Oedipus didn't have as many issues!
I should really stop watching.
In the distance, there is a low rumble. If you strain your ears, you can hear the sounds of tens of thousands of comic fans logging on to the Internet, screaming "YES!", and then sobbing tears of unbridled joy.
Grant Morrison. Frank Quitely. Superman. Coming next year.
I need a tissue.
(Plus! English Kellerman! Can Naked Pirate Kellerman be far behind?)
A choice quote:
I still think the manga format is going to be where the big action is and that Tokyopop is currently setting the pace as far as remaking comics into something attractive to the mainstream goes - they've already got Courtney Love writing for them, haven't they, and surely she knows a bandwagon when she sees one trundling around the corner?
So, I suppose the big comic-related news from the weekend is Micah Wright's confession. The writer of Stormwatch: Team Achilles and a WWII-propaganda remix book made much of his Army Ranger past, talking about his secret missions in Panama and other parts of South America, and using it when debating people who held views contrary to his own. He was featured in the Guardian, Fox News, and the Washington Post, his book has introductions by none other than Howard Zinn and Kurt Vonnegut, and he is currently working on another book of remixed propaganda posters, this time featuring Greg Palast. He's a military man who turned against the current government after seeing some of the horrors carried out in its name.
Except, on Saturday, he admitted that he never was a Ranger. It was a lie he made up eleven years ago, and he never got around to telling the truth. Until a group of Rangers, suspicious about his background, got in contact with the Washington Post, which led to a Freedom of Information Act request against his name. The truth took several months to come out, but yesterday, the Post published the truth, a few hours after Micah's confession on his forum. As you can imagine, the comic community has spent the last 48 hours talking about it (to be honest, it's something of a welcome diversion; previously, the most interesting thing people were talking about was whether Snapper Carr will be killed in Identity Crisis. And yes, that's as geeky as it sounds).
I'd like to say I wasn't taken in, but I was; he did sound fairly convincing when he talked about his past, although whenever he talked about military technology or tactics, he tended to be corrected by other forum members, which I found a little strange. His recent obsession with Skull & Bones conspiracy theories lead to me tuning him out in the same way that I did with Warren Ellis during his "Stalin" period. I'm not really shocked, or angry, or supportive, like some on his forum. The only thing that keeps coming back to me is this bit from Quiz Show:
I'm happy that you've made the statement. But I cannot agree with most of my colleagues. See, I don't think an adult of your intellegence should be commended for simply, at long last, telling the truth.
Stormwatch has already been already cancelled, so this won't affect that in any way, but Micah's second book has just been pulled by his publishers, and his new comic series, Vigilante, supposedly launching in November, looks like it may not appear (DC is refusing to comment at the moment). Plus, he's got a bunch of Rangers annoyed with him. And I hear they're not the forgiving sort.
Hmm, I have to admit that I don't have the utmost confidence that it'll still be published this time next year, but it does sound relatively interesting; Priest's "Pembleton from Homicide" take on the Falcon has me intrigued, and although he and his editor have spoken at length to say that it won't be an overtly political take on Captain America, the first storyline, "Two Americas", does sound as if it will touch on the current political situation somewhat. Anyway, I'm happy to know that there will still be Priest-written comics to read next year…
Okay, I haven't watched the past two seasons of this, because I thought that the story had been played out, and I didn't really want to see what contortions the writers went through to end up sending Dawson back to the Boston area. When I heard that Kevin Williamson was returning to write the finale, I knew that if nothing else, the final two episodes would be worth watching. And yes, they were. Metafiction jokes about the infamous stylised dialogue and the ages of the cast, a look at the motivations of a writer, a sad farewell, the return of fond-remembered characters, and even a final resolution of the love triangle (which managed to give both Joey/Dawson and Joey/Pacey fans what they wished for, although in different ways). It was all a final episode needed to be, and a little bit more besides.
Still, you'd be surprised at the huge grin on my face after reading JLA/Avengers earlier this evening. Sure, superhero comics are a childish power fantasy, most likely responsible for holding back the acceptance of comics as an art form in the US and UK. And this book is probably the ultimate fan-fantasy, teaming up the two big teams from the DC (Batman, Superman, Flash, etc.) and Marvel (Spider-Man, Captain America, The Hulk, and so on) Universes.
But, for what it was, it managed to include everything that can make these things great. Stupid gigantic cosmic menace that wipes out inconsequential universes in the first few pages? Check. A silly quest to find important objects? Check. The two teams meet up, immediately distrust each other, and start fighting? Check, check, and check.
It contains everything you need in a good crossover, backed-up with the usual gorgeous art from George Perez.
And! Jokes! The Batman beats up the Punisher off-panel! Quicksilver looks forward to being worshipped as a super-speedster in the DC Universe! Hawkeye thinks that the JLA are a copy of the Squadron Supreme! Plastic Man! Lobo versus the Sh'iar!
(Of course, none of that makes sense to the majority of you, but trust me, it's amusing. Nod your heads and back away slowly...)
It's gloriously unashamed superheroics, casting aside the dead-end of the Authority and Dark Knight eras, and going back to crazy, goofy ideas. Can't wait for issue #2.
(Quick comic round-up: The Priest Curse strikes again, so The Crew will be ending with issue #7. Grr. Neil Gaiman's 1602 is intriguing, but I think it's definitely going to be a minor work. The Filth continues to get better. I'm thinking about selling all my Global Frequency issues on eBay, in the hope that some Ellis fan will appreciate them more than I did, and boy oh boy did Morrison pull a fast one on us, eh readers?)
I think this entry can only go downhill from here. Soon, I'll be explaining my love of the Five-Year Gap, why it was Straxus in Time Wars rather than Megatron, thinking about why Delight became Delirium, the identity of V (in both instances), and the significance of the different Key viruses in The Invisibles. So I'd best stop here, for all your sakes.
Having problems today. I made a list of all the stories I'm currently working on. It comes to a grand total of nine, all in various forms of completion (two have most of the plot fleshed out and two-thirds of a script, while one is little more than a sentence). All I have to do is pick one, and see it through to the end.
Obviously, this is where the problems start.
Every time I sit down to work on something, my thoughts automatically shift to one of the other ideas. I think that it might be a better idea to do the New York story, or a way of fixing a fatal flaw in the road-trip script suddenly comes to me. And shouldn't I work on the other thing before my memories become unreliable?
This goes on for a while, and I end up writing very little at all. It's most annoying.
On a brighter note, I hope to be hearing about the Top Secret thing in the next few days, and it appears that my final paycheque from Chapel Hill will be in the capable hands of the Royal Mail by next week. Yay for extra cash (mind you, by the time it arrives the current exchange rate will make it worth £5)!
I don't think anybody expected Panther to be the best work of Priest's career. From the dubious origins of T'Challa, Priest crafted a deeply funny and complex book, soaked in the politics of Black America, African tribes, and superheroes. It was The West Wing, but with explosions. It had multi-layered plotlines, sharp and witty dialogue, fabulous art by the likes of Sal Velluto and Mark Texakira, and the Devil's Pants.
And nobody bought it.
Priest has tried just about everything to improve the sales of the title, reducing the cast to a more manageable level, having guest-stars such as Wolverine make an appearance, and streamlining his complex plots. Nothing has worked. Black Panther #50 is the final attempt. Priest's own take on the revamp is 'less West Wing, more Law & Order'. King T'Challa is missing, presumed dead, but someone in the Black Panther costume has been spotted around New York, using extreme measures to stop criminals. New artist Dan Fraga's art is quite impressive, and the 'widescreen' panel layout used throughout the issue gives it a very cinematic feel. It's not Black Panther as you knew it. But it's still infused with Priest's excellent dialogue and plotting. You should buy it, or at least have a look at the first trade paperback, Black Panther: The Client, featuring the Devil's Pants.
Sadly, there was a flipside to all this. The WEF at times resembled little more than a personality cult centred on Warren's rather Spider Jerusalem-like online persona. Sycophancy ran high, with many posters regurgitating Warren's screeds about superhero comics and work-for-hire contracts. The forum was regarded by most other Internet comics communities as being too elitist for its own good. After Warren's blistering 'This Is What You Want' discussion, where he highlighted that many people on the Forum were talking up a storm, but continued to buy the same superhero comics every week, there was a definite decline in the atmosphere. The WEF had a strict moderation policy to prevent flame wars in the USENET style, but the satellite fora were not so controlled. Instead of preventing the bickering, all the 'Stalinist' moderation did was move it to the satellites. In someways, this was even worse than the USENET system, as it just built resentment rather than dealing with things out in the open; people explored various forums such as Memecenter to find that they were being mocked mercilessly. The 'old-guard' WEF posters drifted away from the forum, many saying that the sycophancy of the newer crowd, plus less interesting threads to participate in, meant that they were less interested in the forum now, Ellis attempted to cut back on the extraneous threads, especially the news threads that sprialed out of control whenever somebody brought up Israel. But it didn't seem to help much. I imagine that eventually, it just got boring to Warren. People kept on asking the same questions, month after month, and Delphi's removal of the search facility for guest users made things worse. The ending of Transmetropolitan gave Ellis an escape hatch, which he used with glee.
Having said all that, I'm glad that the WEF existed. Without it, I wouldn't have discovered the work of people such as Matt Wagner, Jason Lutes, Carla Speed McNeil, Wong Kar-Wai, and Takashi Miike. I wouldn't have started up this site, I wouldn't have got back into writing comics again, and I probably wouldn't be sitting here in America writing this (I had several discussions with a CS grad student on the forum, which convinced me to apply). It was the best arena for comics discussion anywhere on the planet, and I'm going to miss it a lot.
We were the WEF. We were Mighty. Now it's time to go outside. It's a wonderful world; let's go exploring...
Tropical Storm Kyle. Heading this way. The temperatures are still crazy here - it was 32?C today. But this is most unusual for this time of year, so don't send death threats just yet....
My one regret about my brief falling out with DC after the 'Superman Incident' is that I didn't get to do my Hypercrisis series at DC to explain all this stuff and set up a whole new playground. It's the one thing I could still be arsed doing with classical superheroes. If I ever go back, I'll explain the whole Hypertime thing and recreate the Challengers of the Unknown as Challengers: Beyond the Unknown.
It's one thing I still want to do. It had a monster eating the first few years of the 21st century and Superman building a bridge across this gaping hole in time. A bridge made of events. The Guardians of The Multiverse and a new Green Lantern Corps made up of parallel reality Green Lanterns, the Superman Squad and the mystery of the Unknown Superman of 2150 etc, etc. There's a huge synopsis filled with outrageous stuff.
When I grow up, I want to be Grant Morrison.
The Internet continues to find ways to make me part with my money. Today, it's a fantastic album by The Polyphonic Spree (the link goes to their website, but I got more information by using Google). Imagine what would happen if Godspeed You Black Emperor woke up to a perfect summer day, and decided that, hey, it's all gonna work out
. You'd probably get something like Soldier . Definitely worth a listen.
When was the last time that the publication of a single comic changed evrything? Was it ten years ago, when Youngblood #1 signalled the speculator boom? Fifteen years ago, when Watchmen #1 cast a mature and accomplished look at superheroes? Forty years since Stan Lee's Fantastic Four announced the Marvel Age? Showcase #4? Detective Comics #27? Action Comics #1?
Shonen Jump #1 is being published in November. In Japan, it has a readership of 3.4 million every week. It will be in every Suncoast store in the USA. It is being published on a returnable basis. It's cheap, crammed full of exciting, energetic manga, and it has the possibility to change everything.
With a price tag of $4.95 for 240 pages, the Marvel/DC newsstand selection will be slaughtered. Children will go for the value, rather than spending $2.25 on a (admittedly very lovely) 22-page New X-Men. pamphlet. Retailers, especially in the more traditional outlets (bookstores, newsagents) will prefer the higher profit margin that Jump will provide, and the fact that Viz will be making the comic returnable just adds to the appeal.
Shonen Jump will feature series such as Cartoon Network's popular Dragonball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh, meaning that advertisers will be more plentiful than other publishers whose audience often skews the wrong side of thirty.
Viz Communications could own the US comic industry within two years.
Fasten your seatbelts. The Japanese are coming.
