I have been thinking about what I would do If I started a super hero comics right now.
-No costumed characters without powers -No long standing secret identities -Lots of villain vs. villain feuds. Heroes would spend a lot of time breaking up these feuds -Lots of hero vs. hero feuds. These would be less public but source of a lot of rumors -Heroes would be part of celebrity culture -Lots of hero and villain sexual and romantic relationship. -Lots of Post traumatic stress disorder -Lots of Hero identities being passed from one hero to another -Super Hero groups would be like rock bands -Super heroes would get caught in politics -Paparazzi would follow superheroes -Some Superheroes would get old and their powers would fade, while others would not -Some Heroes would have a negative public persona. This would be the Barry Bonds effect.
Right now DC comics and Marvel comics are consistent with their past. They have created the world like it has always been for them. I think if you started a new superhero comic you could make some real changes. I am not sure anyone would ever get this chance.
A friend send me a link for a site that takes random Family Circus comics and adds random Nietzsche quotes. I think this is one is very funny. It is a great idea. I think there are lots of comics that could use this kind of treatment. I know the Family Circus is easy because the text is not part of the cartoon. I wonder what The Far Side would look like
Going to comic con made me get off my ass an finish this blog entry There is a lot of love about comics, even if I feel disconnected to comics currently.
Favorite Comic Book...
Heroes Capitan America Colossus Blue Beetle Hawkeye Starbrand Doctor Pym
Villains Sebastian Shaw (The Black King) Jack O' Lantern Tarantula Two-Face Starro Kang the Conqueror Surgeon General
Teams Justice Machine Avengers West Coast Avangers Suicide Squad Doom Patrol DP7
Comics No One Remembers Go Man elementals Brat Pack DP 7 Justice Machine Next Men
Favorite Spiderman Plotlines Who is the hobgoblin Black Spiderman Costume Death of Aunt May Spiderman is really the clone Spiderman and Black Cat dating
Graphic Novels Watchmen The Dark Knight Returns Powers Vol 8 Ledgens Astro City: Tarnished Angel It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken By Seth Amelia Rules!: Superheroes
Ten other things I love about comics Man of Steel by John Byrne Neal Adam's Batman and Green Lantern Peter David's The Hulk Marv Wolfman and George Pérez's New Teen Titans Post-Crisis Flash Wally West Frank Miller's Give Me Liberty Chris Claremont's 15 years of Uncanny X-Men John Byrne's first 28 issues of Alpha Flight First 100 issues of Fantastic Four The Tick Comic Superdickery
I was reading The Comics Curmudgeon. There is comment for one of his posts that said "You might be able to get away with that in a Funky Winkerbean strip, but never of Popeye"
Of course this made me think about Funky Winkerbean. When I was young Funky Winkerbean was a gag strip. I remember my sisters in the band loved it. There were a lot of Funky Winkerbean strips about the high school marching band.
When I was in college everything about Funky Winkerbean changed. It stopped being about high school and caught up with some of the old characters. It not only stopped being about high school, it also stopped being a traditional joke strip. It started to be a strip about people trying to live their lives. It became drama with jokes instead of just straight comedy.
The wikipedia entry does a good job covering the the 1992 Reboot. I noticed this change when I was back in Philadelphia in 1994. I really loved the new strip. One of the most famous plot lines is the Land Mine Story Arc. It is the story of one of two of the characters in Afghanistan doing aid work. I am amazed that you can read this whole plot line on the web site. It is worth checking out.
I heard about this story line and most people described it like Tom Batiuk had lost his mind. People do not want this kind of story when they turn to the comics page. They want to get away from the reality that is in the rest of the news paper. They do not want that reality on the funny pages also. Even if this is only 1 of 30 strips.
I read the Land Mine Story Arc and was amazed. Tom Batiuk is someone who really understands comic strips and wants to move the art form forward. This strip made me feel so much for these character. I think that this is what comic strips should be. I would much rather read this than a Garfield strip that is just redoing jokes from 15 years ago. I am not saying every strip should be like this, but there is room on the comics page for strips like Funky Winkerbean.
Brian Greene has looked at the ways people think time travel can happen and had declared Time Travel is impossible. This does not surprise me. To be honest I never believed in time travel. I could never down with the idea that we could move through time at our leisure. It is that old saying about time travel not existing because we are not awash in thousands of time travelers from the future. On top of that no one from the future showed up at the Time Travelers Convention. Those things happen only in comics.
To draw an end to the Marvel Civil War plot line, Captain America has been killed. This has just happened, so it is very early to see what will happen. I have not read Captain America lately or the Civil War plot line. I have not read Captain America for more than 10 years now. I cannot say if they are doing a good thing or not. I am not sure if this is a cheap plot or not.
Joe Simon, one the the creators of Captain America, is upset about his death. Captain America was created in March of 1941. This was well before 9 months before America got into World War II. On Nightline Simon said that March of 1941 was more like right now that people want to remember. Lots of people did not want to get into the war. Everyday Simon had protesters or hate mail at the way the comic depicted Hitler. He said, "We really need him now."
I agree that we need Captain America right now, but the question is how to we use him. I think that since Captain America is so iconic, he is whatever people want him to be. People on both the right and the left can both see him as an icon.
Meanwhile, at the time Captain America died in the comic, nobody was any longer quite sure what he was supposed to stand for. "All the really hard-core Left-wing fans want Cap to be giving speeches on the street corner against the Bush administration, and all the really Right-wing fans want him to be over in the streets of Baghdad, punching out Saddam," said its writer Ed Brubaker.
Growing up, Captain America was my favorite character. He seemed to be more complex than Spider-man, more interesting than Iron Man, and more human than Wolverine. Even at a young age there seemed to be something there that was interesting to me. I found out that Captain America is a very hard character to write correctly. It is easy to make him jingoistic. It is easy for him to be an out of touch crew cut.
Captain America is a character that has to have an absolute moral compass. He has to stand for not want America is but what it should be. He has to be what we want to be even if we call short. The Best Captain America stories are when he struggles with those things. To write good stories for him you need to give him moral conflict. You need him to question the actions of his government. You need him Steve Rogers to bring Humanity to the character of Captain America.
I am not too upset that Marvel Comics is killing Captain America. I have to give them point for Captain America being assassinated. That is how icons die in America. I like that the Red Skull was behind it. I hope that there are conspiracy theories and people who keep on saying he is still alive.
If I was cynical, I would say that Marvel Comics has killed Captain America just to get press. They have got more press then the new Spiderman movie. It is possible that they only let this to get press and money. It would not be the first time this has happened.
I also know that death means nothing in comics. The only character to stay dead is Uncle Ben. Another character can dress up in Captain America's uniform. They can always bring Steve Rogers back to life if they have to. I hope that the death of Captain America leads to a really good story line. I hope that Captain America's death is good for his canon.
I will admit that this might get me to read Captain America again. I guess that would make me a mark for this whole event.
I have been reading The Man From Krypton. It is a book about Superman. It is a collection of short essays about Superman. There is a lot to think about with Superman. He is an American cultural icon with over 80 years of stories written about his. With thousands of issues of comics there have been many writers what have added to the myth of Superman. All of this makes for an interesting body of work to write about.
It should surprise no one to find out I was a comic book fan growing up. When I was in elementary school and junior high school I liked Marvel comics more than DC comics. DC Comic, the home of Superman, seemed to make less sense to me. It was easy for me to figure out what was happening inside the Marvel Universe. DC did not have that same consistency. The whole DC Multiverse with Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-X and so on, was stupid to me at the time. (My favorite was Earth-Hostess where Hostess snack cakes and pies were all that were needed from hero. I wonder what happened to that earth during Crisis on Infinite Earths
I did not start reading Superman until after Crisis on Infinite Earths. I loved John Byrne's Man of Steel. Before Crisis Superman was powerful enough to move planets (some of the time). When I was a young comic book reader I was really into Super heroes powers and weaknesses. Superman seemed to be too powerful and had too specific of a weakness. I liked to see how super heroes would be the odds. The odds were never against Superman.
The restart of the Superman storyline made it something I enjoyed. I also felt that I did not need to know 50 years worth of Superman stories to understand it. The Man of Steel story was great. Byrne did a lot to add humanity to the character of Superman. I think that is important. If you write Superman as a character that is not in touch with his humanity, there is very little to work with.
For the ten years I read Superman I found out that there were few good ways to write Superman as a main character and lots of bad ways. The question about Superman is what is compelling about him as a character. It is not struggle for him to beat any super villain. The stories have to be about something else.
I think the best Superman stories are the ones where the conflict is within him. When his life as Clark Kent is in conflict with his life as Superman. I think that Superman wants to be just a regular guy. He wants to be Clark Kent more than he wants to be Superman. If not he would just be Superman all the time. The problem is that Superman does not have any friends and Clark Kent does.
The next most interesting set of stories to me is when Superman has to make moral choices about using his powers. How many times can Superman put Lex Luthor back in Jail before you just want to kill him. Superman is so powerful it would be easy to see him get frustrated with the world around him. The storied like when he killed the Zod of the pocket universe. Superman has to live with killing someone. It is a great story.
The one idea that I would love to see explored is Superman is who everyone needs his help, yet he cannot help everyone. There are just too many things happening at the same time. Anytime a plane crashes, why did Superman not save them? Every time there is a fire, where is Superman to put it out? Samaritan in Astro City deals with this a little. In those stories the Samaritan is under stress because he cannot be everywhere. I want to see how people be angry at Superman because he was not there when he needed them. I would love to read more stories about the Superman backlash.
Reading the Man From Krypton has got me to think about writing comics. Part of me has always wanted to write comics. I have a couple of good ideas what I would do with a Superman story. One idea is a world where super humans stop being super heroes and super villains and just live everyday life. In that world Superman would become a one man habit for humanity. With his speed and power he could end homelessness on his own.
One of my recent favorite Superman stories is Superman: Red Son. I like it because it is not only a 'what if...' story, but it also deals with the nature of Superman. What parts of him would not be changed if history was different. It is worth looking into.
I watched V for Vendetta last weekend at home. I saw the movie when it was out in the theater. I like the movie when it was in the theaters. I found it to be smart and well made.
I knew it was going to be different than the comic and I think that was to the benefit to the movie. They are really hard to compare to each other. I loved the comic when it came out. It is on my 100 Things I love about comics list. I know some people hate the movie because they loved the comic. I had an easy time seeing them as two different works of art.
Watching V for Vendetta again I noticed something that I did not see in the theater. The best parts of the movie are the flashbacks. What is happening in the present is not anywhere as interesting as what happened in the past. I know in a story about the future is it often good to find out what is happening by looking at the past.
The very best part of the movie is right before the end where the police detective puts everything together. He sees how all the parts fit together. What he is talking about does not describe the images, he just complements the images.
I think this is an interesting way to tell a story. As a writer I love the idea of the story within the story. I love to use flashbacks within flashbacks. I love the idea that life is really just made up of other stories. V for Vendetta made me think about that. They do a good job of making the flashbacks compelling.
I am very happy I was not drinking coffee when I read this something positive comic. I would be cleaning my keyboard right now if I was. I need to read this comic more often.
Jimmy had his best comic con ever. He was surprised at how many books he sold. Comic Con was the debut of his new Amelia Rules graphic novel, Super Heroes. It was also the release of the hard cover editions of his other two graphic novels. The hard bound editions are beautiful. They have that feeling of what a kids book should be. People were just snatching up those books.
I hung out at Jimmy's both a lot during the show. The other people at the Kids Love Comics! booth were great. He even let me sit behind the table when I needed to take a load off my feet. It was good to have a place to stash my stuff.
It was good to see Jimmy. We had dinner together on Saturday after the convention. I am happy that I can have friends from the old days but our relationship is not about the old days. I hope that Jimmy can break the bank with the new graphic novel.
I looked at my life a few years ago and thought about something. I was sitting at a coffee house thinking about starting a new zine. I was trying to rack my brain trying to figure out what I could personally publish that would be interesting for people to read. I was thinking of the zines that I had read recently. There was nothing that I was reading at the time that really excited me. Most of it was pretty meaning less.
I had read a decent number of zines. I have even published about a half dozen issues. I looked at what other people were writing. I found something incredibly personal in zines. They were a place where people could try to construct some kind of story about their lives. The zines I was reading at the time where unlike any of the other stories I was finding in the rest of the world.
Being 23 years old there was something really empowering about zines. I was right out of college and I seemed to be going nowhere in the world. All of my friends were facing the same situations. We were working at bookstores and restaurants. We were clerks and temps. We spent our time watching clocks and find ways to slack off. Zines seemed to be the best way to work out our artistic frustrations. Using the office copy machine to cut the cost of a zine was a natural thing to do.
I was sitting at this coffee shop and I was not 23 years any more. I was 27 years old and my friends were starting to find their way into careers. They were becoming teachers, designers, and engineers. It was my day off from a dot.com start up. The way my life was happening was slowly sinking in for me.
For most of my life, my friends have been the artist type. Growing up we would tell stories, dream up comic books, and talk about the kinds of movies we wanted to make. We were all writers at heart. As I went through my life, these were always the kinds of people that I became friends with. We were people who dreamt about making our impression on the world. We thought about big ideas and big ways to express them. The problem was that we were becoming regular people.
There is a whole generation of people that are just like me. People that in their heart see themselves as writers and artists, but their job does not reflect that. We are sitting around playing in bands for recreation. We write zines and web sites as an artist outlet. We keep on thinking that someday we will be able to break out and become a true artist.
In this light, writing a zine is Sad Salvation. It is not only our artistic salvation, but it is also salvation because it is what we value most in this world. I am not speaking about everyone. I am just talking about a type of person I seem to be close with. We are not starting families, we are not growing roots in a community, we are not working toward building specific lives for ourselves. I wonder if we will ever find that Salvation we are looking for.
