Three long items (not an off-color joke)

-I went to go see 300 yesterday instead of writing a post. I didn't like it, no sir. Rather than explaining the ways in which I didn't like it, let me link to my good friend throughsilver's review (which has the added benefit of comparisons to the original comic, which I have never read). I'm in pretty much total agreement.

Oh, I saw the trailer for Grindhouse, and I'm kind of surprised that the Rodriguez half looks much, much dumber than the Tarrantino half. Which, in turn, is probably ripping off some movie from the 70s for which I might have owned the poster at one time. I used to work at a movie theater which was part of a mostly defunct chain. For whatever reason, they stored a bunch of posters accumulated over 20-30 years behind one of the screens. I was fortunate enough to be working there when the manager decided to clear all this out, and so my college apartment was covered in various exploitation posters (stuff like a Jim Jones exploitation flick, Viva Knievel, a bunch of sleazy "coed roomates" kind of things, at least one movie about a sex change operation gone wrong, Inframan, etc.). Then I decided to grow up and gave them all away, a decision which I actually don't regret at all. My brother still has the poster for Mad Monster Party, though. In fact, he's had it framed.

-New internet pastime: Greg Rucka watch. His interview with CBR a few months got some attention here for his comments about fellow 52 writers. CBR also features a wrap-up of the Emerald City Con with this little witticism:

"Quote of the con, by Greg Rucka - Questioned on how he felt about the comics industry when he started vs. how he feels about the comic industry now that he's worked in it awhile, Rucka said, 'Comics are like sausages - you don't want to know how they're made.'"

Tom Spurgeon linked to his gripes about lettering yesterday, leading me to discover his Live Journal. Which is worth the effort of reading, since Rucka is certainly the kind of guy who speaks his mind:

"Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of people, y'know, UNDERSTANDING THE RULES OF PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR. In fact, I think those writers out there who show flagrant disregard for the same (and they know who they are) reveal incredible disrespect for their craft and their peers by proudly displaying their ignorance.

But I'm working on the first pass pages right now, and I've got to tell you, the copy editor on this manuscript read Ms. Truss a little too much, because she's inserting commas fucking everywhere.

I'm particular about commas. I use them with precision, or so I should like to believe. As Ms. Truss has made loads of money explaining, altering their placement without due consideration changes the meaning of the sentence."

[I like commas because, as Nabokov said, I like privacy.-DH]

Rucka also addresses the controversy over the CBR interview mentioned above:

"But that's only part of it. The other part of it is that I've broken an Unwritten Law, one that stretches all the way back to my first writing classes. I've offered criticism, and even if it was constructive and mild, it opens me up for the same.

Which is bullshit. The paradox of writing for a living is that people are going to read what you write, and some of them (maybe a lot of them) Are Not Going To Like It.

You have to learn to deal with it, and the key word here is 'learn' and not 'deal.' It's an ongoing process, and I don't know a single writer who isn't stung by criticism of their work, no matter how minor, infantile, or incompetent the source. It may not be a major sting, it may not last, but I continue to find it amazing that some Net Troll who offers his unsolicited and uneducated 'review' of my work can bother me almost as much as a bad review from, say, Kirkus. "

Rucka also hints at his frustrations with DC:

"Back at Powell's today. Just completed the detailed breakdowns for Checkmate 14 and Outsiders 48 based on yesterday's conversation with Judd. Still excited about the project, and looking forward to starting the writing on the next two issues this Friday.

But this is tempered by more comic industry bullshit, and no, I'm not talking about this, or this, or even this.

It's the 'Nooo!' that gets me, there.

No, this is something entirely different, and it's illustrating to me (pardon the pun) one of the conflicts I'm going to have to resolve for myself if I'm going to continue doing this. Namely, how much of the curtain do I pull back on the business versus on the process. Fact is, I'm more interested in talking about the work itself, the writing, than I am in dishing dirt about the industry in general, or DC in particular. No, I'll leave that to people far better suited to the task than I.

The thing is, the two are inextricably linked at this point. There are projects I simply cannot talk about yet, much as I might like to. And when my involvement in the Can't-Talk-About-It project looks to be in jeopardy for fairly complicated reasons...well, there's frustration."

"Just finished a phone call with Judd to break down the last four issues of the Checkmate/Outsiders crossover, and I'm feeling something about the writing and the story I haven't felt for what seems like a very long time.

I'm actually excited about writing this. I'm actually enthusiastic about it."

"This is my secret shame of the last several years -- I've all-but forgotten how to read for pleasure, and reading 'in genre,' for lack of a better phrase, has been excruciatingly difficult. I've been working since the first of the year on relearning the art, on attempting to rediscover the joy of reading for the sake of reading, for the pleasure of the story.

The problem is that most of what I read, I can't stand. Seriously. It's like the line about the sausages; some things it's better off not knowing how they make 'em. Books. Comics. Sausages."

Greg Rucka, if you're reading this (which is entirely possible, since you seem like the type who compulsively Googles his own name), please sign an exclusive with Marvel, then start dishing the dirt, under a pseudonym or via Rich Johnston, if necessary. Thanks.

-Last word (barring some unexpected flare up) on McDonald vs. Deppey: Mr. Deppey's argument about the success of Naruto vs. the more modest success of Spider-Man in bookstores is that the latter would sell better if casual comics consumers (aka, unfortunately, "civilians") could pick up a coherent, uninterrupted work by a single author. Today he suggests that Ultimate Spider-Man could be such an item, if it were not for the veritable sea of collected Spider-Man publications available on bookstore shelves.

I've been thinking about this debate, and I've come to the conclusion that the issue (at least re: Spider-Man GN sales) is not quality so much as quantity. Kids who loved the Spider-Man movies just don't know where to begin. With Naruto, there's a clear starting point: Naruto volume one. There's no Essential Naruto, Ultimate Naruto, Web of Naruto, Naruto: Reign, Naruto: Blue, Naruto: Kraven's Last Hunt, etc. Spider-Man, on the other hand, has to drag the weight of 40+ years of publication history, and there's an army of obsessive fanboys making sure the tether never breaks because WE CAN NEVER, EVER FORGET our precious continuity, lifeblood of the kind of deliberately mediocre comics which, tragically, the industry depends upon.

So there's my answer: continuity sucks. And don't go telling me that you were smart enough to figure it out when you were 8 years old. So was I, but back then there were only two Spider-Man comics on the drug store spinner rack (and it was pretty clear that Amazing was the one that mattered, since it was in the 200s while Peter Parker was in the 100s). Some kid in Barnes & Noble will see at least a couple dozen, maybe more depending on the quality of the GN section at the store in question.

Canned worms on sale; some may be slightly dented

-Steven Grant seems to have harsh words for Jim Starlin (and/or his followers; it's a little unclear):

While officially acknowledged as such by no significant Christian sect that I'm aware of, in the popular imagination the God-Devil relationship is pretty much Zoroastrian: like thousands of bad heroic fantasy novels, a war between the forces of good and evil for the souls and future of humanity. Not that there aren't plenty of other interesting theological issues born of Christian thought, but throw these concretized concepts into a literature already obsessed with good vs. evil, and everything suddenly becomes Good vs. Evil, and usually far more simplistic than discussions of more complex issues would allow. Throw in generations now of comics writers and artists compelled to use their art to detail cosmic secrets of the universe (it was Jim Starlin who popularized that particular runaway train) they somehow managed to stumble on while living over their parents' garage. (Mainly, I think, the cosmic secret is that if you can't get a date you can always draw pictures of your perfect inflatable dream girl, even though, if she were real, she certainly would never give you the time of day either.) Thing is, these stories are almost universally dull; the binary viewpoint of Good vs Evil automatically rigs the game, and a rigged game is only interesting in the long term to him what rigged it. Everyone else just keeps playing in a desperate hope of somehow making their money back.

Sorry for the long quote, but it doesn't make any sense otherwise. He goes on to diss Vertigo, but you probably already know that from Graeme McMillan. Actually, I have a bit of a bone to pick there. More from Grant:

It's been in vogue for almost 20 years now - whatever you can find in Vertigo, you can find dozens more independent comics treading the same rancid water as if, wow, this is the coolest, most original thing anybody ever thought of - and maybe it was a "cutting edge" notion once to play with Christian theology like it's Norse mythology, but now it's tired, and tiresome. If it's tiresome for non-believers, I can only imagine how tiresome it is for believers.

So how about a halt to all this now? If you want to say God doesn't exist, fine. Do a story that says it. Don't do a story that says God exists but he's a right wanker. It's not the same thing. Unless you've got something genuinely original to say, let the Christians have God back and move on. There are more interesting things to write about.

Don't know if Grant is giving Vertigo writers enough credit here. I'm not a huge fan of Vertigo by any means, but I've read a good chunk of Hellblazer and all of Preacher. Actually, I suppose this means I'm mostly familiar with Garth Ennis' Vertigo work, so I'll try to stick to that. (I'm an avid Fables reader as well, but Grant seems to be using "Vertigo" as a synecdoche for...I don't know, Hellblazer, Preacher, and Lucifer? Maybe Sandman as well?) I don't view these books as simply denunciations of Christianity--they're more allegorical than that. I find that Ennis approaches the war between heaven and hell like he would a more mundane, terrestrial war. The generals are amoral and sometimes incompetent while the soldiers suffer in the trenches. These are the lasting impressions I have from Ennis' Hellblazer: Constantine's camaraderie with his ostensible enemies; his contempt for pointlessness of the war, especially given the toll it takes on innocents; his determination to survive; the betrayals necessary to do so. Maybe subsequent writers were much more ham-fisted, but I thought Ennis' approach was more anti-authoritarian than specifically anti-Christian. Preacher: sort of the same, only through Ennis' America-as-a-John-Wayne-movie prism, plus Ennis is a great deal more misanthropic, especially in his depiction of rural America.

Hey, maybe this means Grant's wrong about Jim Starlin as well! Surely someone will let me know if he is.

-Via FLOG, this Peter Bagge interview on what I finally figured out was a porn site about halfway through. Worth checking out for the picture of Bagge alone, which makes him appear to have an enormous left ear.

-I had no idea until today that my post about 70s comics partly inspired a thread on the Comics Journal message board. I still think people have grossly misinterpreted what I was trying to say, but it's good to see some folks still milling 'round the old cracker barrel, which thankfully seems to have been relocated from my front porch to the aforementioned message board. Note to the wizened culture warriors: I'm shocked no of you have mentioned the exponential increase in quality at Chick Publications yet. Surely that's an important legacy of the 70s on par with the others cited thus far.

-Speaking of stuff already covered here, I didn't really expect the whole Dan Slott vs. Piracy thing to explode like it has. Spurgeon and McDonald both covered it today (Spurge=it's against the wishes of the author/publisher/owner to get these comics without paying for them; Heidi=who wants to read comics on a computer screen, anyway?). Haven't seen too many people comparing the situation to the music industry, thankfully. Briefly, the comparison is inherently flawed because: (1) Live concerts are a part of a band's income, whereas the closest thing in comics are sketches and original art sales--which only benefit artist(s), leaving writers out in the cold. (2) Intellectual properties in comics are a different than in music. The American comics industry is (for better or worse) driven by trademarked characters like Batman; there is no equivalent in the music industry. So it's not like we're going to see a whole lot of DIY Incredible Hulk comics all of the sudden (unfortunately). Or wait--maybe we will, if the distribution system is totally decentralized, thus making Marvel's attempts to protect its copyrights much more difficult. The main drawback here is that nobody would be paid for making such comics, thus increasing the likelihood of a fan fiction level of quality for these hypothetical punk rock Alpha Flight comics.

All the same, I'm shocked at the respect people are giving 20th century capitalism here. This is the decade where we finally get to FUCK SHIT UP and SHOVE IT UP THE MAN'S WHITE ASS. When the revolution comes, anyone who paid for Wolverine: Origins will be among the first earmarked for execution.

-I'm seriously not watching the Superbowl if the Patriots are in it again, as Peter King seems to think is inevitable. Well, I'll watch it if the Eagles are in it as well, which is a pretty strong possibility given the apparent weakness of the NFC.

Pomegranate and cranberry bran muffins might sound good, but....

-Greg Burgas suggests comics were better in the 1970s. Is there any other decade that gets shorter shrift than the 70s? Every other decade in (American) comic book history has an identity:

1940s-The Golden Age of superhero comics
1950s-EC Comics; Wertham, Senate hearings, and the Code; the golden age of romance comics
1960s-Wacky Silver Age fun; birth of underground comics
1980s-Event comics/crossovers; "dark" superhero comics are born; the independent publisher explodes onto the scene; the direct market begins to overtake the newsstand
1990s-Crap-tacular comics with stupid gimmick covers; rise and fall of the major independent publisher; the big speculator bust
2000s (so far)-Manga gains major ground, overtaking Marvel/DC in several categories; graphic novels begin to supplant the pamphlet format; probably a bunch of other stuff that will seem clearer in hindsight

The 70s, however, don't have such a clear identity. We often portray the comics industry in that decade as either an outgrowth of the 60s or a precursor to the 80s. There are some notable exceptions. Underground Comix were generally coasting along, seemingly content to nurse a hangover from the previous decade until Arcade, a wonderful anthology which reinvigorated several cartoonists, most notably Robert Crumb (and, IIRC, it's Alan Moore's favorite comic of all time). Yet it's often viewed as more of a bridge to the more important 80s anthologies RAW and Weirdo, both of which lasted longer and featured numerous young cartoonists in addition to stalwarts of the 60s Underground. Marvel and DC were likewise rehashing the previous decade until Claremont and Cockrum (with much help from Len Wein) reinvigorated the superhero team comic. But again, the new X-Men are often lumped in with the comics of the 80s, perhaps because it was so influential on the comics of that decade.

The horror comics of the 70s certainly get their due, particularly those appearing in b&w magazines. But why stop there? Mr. Burgas suggests the bizarre work of Jim Starlin as another touchstone of the 70s; I think we can give the two Steves, Gerber and Englehart, similar consideration. And yet! Can we not consider the comics produced by these men to be precursors of later trends? All three had a darker approach to superheroes than Stan Lee or Gardner Fox. And their epic, cosmic style (esp. Starlin's) might have presaged the event comics of the 80s. Okay then, what about Heavy Metal? Clearly a break from tradition, but one could argue that it set the stage for the early independent "ground level" type comic. Cerebus? Even more so. Jack Kirby's Fourth World? A continuation of the themes from his earlier work at Marvel.

So basically: there were many good comics published in the 70s, especially if you're into idiosyncratic superhero comics, Underground Comix, or horror. But I'm skeptical that the 70s will ever be considered a monumental epoch in the history of comics. Some important wheels were set in motion, but the industry didn't undergo any of the extensive changes (on either the art or business front) seen in other decades. So maybe it's not such a great crime that the 70s dwell in the shadow of the two decades bookending it, an island of humility between two oceans of conceit (I think that's how that saying goes).

-Hey Howling Curmudgeons--don't you guys have anything better to talk about? I mean, nobody else is complaining about The Confession (well, Graeme McMillan reviewed it, but at least it was a review rather than a bunch of "here's what should have happened"), perhaps because they flipped through it in the store, realized it was an extended monologue with a brief and pointless vignette appended, and decided it wasn't worth their time/money. But then again, Howling Curmudgeons reads like a typical wacky nostalgia blog, only someone took away their (communal?) scanner and it made them REALLY, REALLY ANGRY. Also, I assume "I keep getting tempted to write a fanfic version Civil War...." is a jocular rhetorical flourish, right?

-Will Joe Sacco be writing the foreword?

-Chris Allen Butcher expresses a few fears about linkblogging, a post so important I thought it deserved the widest possible circulation. (There will probably be about 20 other bloggers who beat me to this joke, but I consider it a matter of honor to run it anyway since I hadn't read any of those (hypothetical) blogs when I wrote this, plus I think I've added my own subtle twist.) Also: the stuff on Death of Superman? Newsarama message board quality, chief. (And no, I'm not referring to this.)

-I think I figured out why my blog was the top Google entry for "Asorbascon"--I'm misspelling it. And yet none of you have noticed/felt the need to comment on it. No need to break with tradition now!

-Outrage of the day: Michael Turner's cover to an upcoming issue of...Justice Society, I guess? Maybe Justice League? Anyway, outrage is expressed here and here, and probably a bunch of other places too. Well, it is a pretty crappy drawing. Does he have to draw every woman with a pointy little chin?

And I thought Turner signed an exclusive contract with Marvel during last year's convention season. Why is he still doing covers for DC? Let's try to contain him to just one company, okay?