It Really Is

Drawn! posted this link with the following equation:

Batman + dialogue from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One = Awesome!

I can't fault the math.

Service With A Scowl

The other day at work I was reading a post on one of the comics blogs I frequent, and in the comments someone mentioned an old Silver Age Superman story in which there is a very disturbing scene featuring Superman tenderly holding Supergirl’s chin and explaining to her that he can’t marry her because she’s his cousin, but that if she weren’t his cousin he would marry her, and he wishes that he could meet someone just like her who isn’t his cousin so that he could marry her.
(Update: see the actual panel here, thanks to Scipio over at The Absorbascon. Note Supergirl’s expression: frightened and kind of skeeved out, yet oddly titillated.)
I’m sure that when it was written it seemed innocent and harmless, but in this much more cynical and jaded time it just seems creepy.
Naturally I shared this with Scott and a discussion ensued in which the seed of an idea for a parody cover was planted in my mind.
Here’s what it grew into:




If I were more skilled as an artist – and a lot less lazy – I might have included a shot of Krypto in the background, covering his head with his paws in shame and embarrassment over what he’d seen going down in the Fortress of Solitude.
On the topic of irritating dogs, I was on my way back from dropping something in the mail when I was stopped by an older woman walking a dog.
Turns out she’s my downstairs neighbor and the owner of stupid new dog. She’s aware that the little piece of shit starts barking as soon as she leaves and wanted to apologize for it.
I did my best to be gracious and downplay just how irritating it is, but while it’s nice that she’s aware and is apologetic, that doesn’t keep me from wishing her dog would spontaneously combust, so the whole exchange was a little awkward.
I did make a comment about how I’m sandwiched in between two barking dogs, and she had the temerity to complain about stupid old dog being worse than hers.
Beyond receiving a pointless apology from the owner of the stupid new dog, I went out this morning and stopped at the barbershop to get a kicky new summer do, then did my grocery shopping. After paying for my groceries I went to the service desk to buy some stamps. The women working there saw that I was coming, so naturally she walked away.
When she came back, she made a show of ignoring me, before finally acknowledging my presence. I asked for the stamps (politely), and then handed her a twenty to pay for them, which she then dramatically held up to the light to examine in order to ensure that it wasn’t counterfeit, grudgingly accepted it, gave me my change, then my receipt, and then, finally, grunted, “Here,” and gave me the stamps. Even though she didn’t say it, I very clearly understood that it was her hope that I choke on the stamps.
Not sure what was up with that. I mean, I hated having to deal in customer service too, but on my worst day I was never anywhere near that rude to anyone, and it’s not like I was unpleasant or demanding.
Oh well.
Lousy customer service continued once I got home, though. A while back, my already slow Internet connection became 75% slower. I’d hoped it was a temporary glitch, but it hasn’t gotten better. Today, as the channel that’s supposed to be TLC suddenly became the Dish Network information channel, I decided to call in to complain. They said they’d send a technician out for the TLC problem, then transferred me to technical support for the Internet issue, where I was informed that my account is and always has been set at 256 Kbps, despite the fact that for over a year I was getting 1 Mbps. The technical support guy wouldn’t come out and say it, but the implication in his tone was that I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and that I was only imagining that I ever got faster speeds than I’m getting now and that it’s perfectly reasonable to pay $33 a month for 256 Kbps when I could get 768 Kbps DSL from Verizon for $14.95. He said that I needed to talk to someone else to get my account changed to get faster speeds.
So I talked to someone else who explained that the speeds offered have always been – get this – 256 Kbps down and 1 Mbps up.
Excuse me? I explained to her that such a set up makes no sense whatsoever and that she must have it backwards because no company in anything approximating its right mind would offer that kind of speed set up because what people care about is fast downloads, not fast uploads.
(I didn’t bother pointing out that, for the record, I’m not getting anywhere near 1 Mbps up either, so I’m getting hosed anyway, even if that is how it’s set up, nor did I point out that everyone else I spoke to, the moment I complained about my speeds, jumped in and said, “We only offer 1 Mbps down.”)
She said that she saw that I was already set to have a technician come out tomorrow and that she would add the fact that I had complaints about my connection speeds to the dispatch notes.
Hopefully the technician won’t be a complete idiot and won’t think that I’m an idiot who wouldn’t be able to notice the difference when my connection speed drops by 75% and am not someone inclined to hallucinate and who therefore imagined that I was ever getting faster connection speeds than I am now.
In any case, that was today’s excitement, and now I need to stop trying to do anything online so that I can finish downloading a large file with my blazingly fast connection.

Drugs Are Bad, Anti-Drug Comics Are Worse

In the early 1980s there were a couple of comics featuring The New Teen Titans (sort of) that were distributed for free in schools across the country to promote drug education of the Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” variety.
Throughout the years there were a lot of comics like that, such as a Captain America comic promoting energy conservation, Supergirl helping to illustrate the effectiveness of a wearing a seat belt, and, for whatever reason, Superman teaming up with the Nestle Quik Bunny.
There were also the Radio Shack comics that featured Superman defeating Luthor with the aid of a couple of kids and their TRS-80 computer.
In any case, my school never got the first Titans anti-drug comic, but we did get the second.
The comic, which was published by DC in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Customs Service, and, for reasons that are utterly beyond me, the Keebler company.
Yes, that would be the Keeebler Elves people, though thankfully Ernie and the rest of the gang did not make an appearance in the main narrative.
The book did not feature the regular Titans line-up, as at that time Dick Grayson had retired from his role as Robin and had not yet picked up the mantle of Nightwing, and so was replaced in the comic by last-minute invention Protector, a sort of off-brand version of Robin.
Kid Flash also bowed out in favor of former Green Arrow sidekick and reserve Titan Speedy, himself a recovering drug addict.
Those weren’t the only, or even most significant, ways in which this book varied from the regular series, though.
As everyone knows, not only are drugs bad, boobs are also bad, so Starfire’s bosom was made considerably less ample, and her costume was modified so as to cover up whatever cleavage might have remained.
Despite these changes, the artwork of New Teen Titans co-creator George Perez was, as always, phenomenal, though the story, by necessity, was heavy-handed and preachy and always cycled back to the point, which was that drugs are bad.
I remember being excited when I heard about this book and had seen an image from it on the news. Why? Well, as I’ve mentioned many times, I was a huge Titans fan, and the idea of getting a free copy (though given that my parents bought them for me, all of my comics were free) of a Titans comic was exciting in and of itself.
However, what pushed it over the top was the glimpse of the never before seen by my eyes character of Protector.
You see, as mentioned, Dick Grayson had given up on being Robin and had stepped down as leader of the Titans, and someone else – a kid named Jason Todd – had become the new Robin.
However, it was made clear from the start that Dick, despite turning in his hot pants and pixie boots, had no intention of giving up on costumed crime fighting for good, so the question was, once he finally finds himself, what will his new identity be?
This question, to give you an idea of how much of a nerd I am (as if you didn’t know), literally kept me awake at night.
So when I saw Protector, I thought, “Is this it? Is this the new identity?”
Of course it wasn’t, and eventually (a year later), Dick finally took on his new name and put on his new costume, a costume that was…incredibly gay.
That’s my view of the costume now. At the time, I thought it was cool as hell.
(Since that time his costume has been modified and updated and it actually is cool as hell.)
In any case, I was disappointed to discover that this comic did not contain the reveal, and was even more disappointed in the actual content of the story. I mean, okay, I get it, drugs are bad and they’ll kill you if you use them even if you don’t think that will (or perhaps especially if you don’t think they will).
And if I thought it was bad then, let me just say that it hasn’t improved after 24 years.
After the main story, the comic had a few pages of activities (which did feature Ernie Keebler) designed to help to reinforce the ideas presented in the comic.
I decided to scan in and complete one of the activity pages and post it here.
I hope I put down the right answers, because I don’t want to end up being addicted to drugs.
(Hey, booze is legal, so that addiction doesn’t count.)



I would suggest that those of you reading this post your own Choices in the Comments, but that’s pretty pointless because as almost no one but Scott posts comments unless it’s to insult me or to accuse me of not liking Rachel Weisz.
(I like Rachel Weisz. I like her a lot. Okay?)

From Tail Wagging To Tail Drooping With Special Bonus Comic Book Innuendo!

At some point yesterday afternoon at work I’d headed over to the vending machine to grab a snack, and when I got back to the desk I said to Scott, “Well, that was disappointing."
When he asked what I was talking about I said, “When I was at the machine I heard someone coming, so I looked over to the door thinking that it might be the pretty girl who smiles at me that I sometimes see over on that side of the building, but it really wasn’t.”
Not only was the person who appeared at the door not the pretty girl who smiles at me that I sometimes see – I have no idea who she is or what her job is, or even if she’s still there as it’s been a long time since I last saw her – she was not pretty at all and I don’t think I would have wanted her to smile at me.
That it wasn’t her was made all the more disappointing by how much I was hoping and anticipating that it would be the pretty girl who smiles at me that I sometimes see.
Scott said, “If you were a dog, your tail would have been wagging right up until the point that you saw that it wasn’t her.”
That’s a pretty accurate assessment.
Figuring (correctly) on yesterday being a more typically slow Saturday then the last one, I brought all of the comics I’d bought in to read at work. Several hours later, after having read the last of them, I said, “Well that was $86 well spent.”
Despite the sarcasm, I did really enjoy them, and I’m glad(ish) that I’ve gotten back into the comic buying swing of things, but it was a lot of money, as was the money spent on bags and boards (to say nothing of the time bagging and boarding is going to take, or the remaining money to be spent on the comic book database software and new boxes).
I don’t recall how we got on the topic, but at some point later in the day Scott made some sort of comment about how my unwillingness to cull from the “pay for play” stock of women is what’s preventing me from having any sort of companionship.
I said, “Are you kidding? I’ve got buyer’s remorse about spending $86 on comics, and I’ve liked those since long before I was interested in girls, so there’s no chance of me paying for a woman. Plus, I actually get to keep the comics after I pay for them.”
Speaking of comics, I’ve been going through some of the old ones piled up on floor waiting to be re-archived.
One such book from the early 80s was a digest reprinting several old “Imaginary Stories” featuring Superman.
Imaginary Stories were stories that didn’t actually fit into continuity, but were written to give fans the opportunity to see how things might go if X were to happen.
Some of the most common Imaginary Stories appeared in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and focused on – what else? – what might happen if Superman and Lois were to get married. This could only be done in Imaginary Stories, after all, as no one could even consider that they might actually get married “for real.”
(Ten years after it happened “for real,” there are still some people who bitch about Clark and Lois being married and who would like to see a return to the old status quo. I call those people “idiots.”)
In any case, there was one story – and one particular panel – that stood out for me in collection of stories.
This particular story posited a world in which things started off normal: Krypton exploding, last survivor rocketed to Earth, found by kindly farming couple, raised as Clark Kent.
However, on the trip to Earth the child was exposed to Gold Kryptonite (a form of Kryptonite that causes Kryptonians to permanently lose their powers) and grows up as a normal Mid-Western teen.
Because Clark has no powers he never becomes Superboy and never causes the accident that makes boy genius Lex Luthor go bald and turn evil.
Clark and Lex becomes the best of friends and Lex develops a formula that gives him powers that, coincidentally enough, are exactly the same as the powers a Kryptonian would have on Earth.
Lex makes himself a fanciful costume and takes on the identity of Superboy.
Meanwhile the Kents – who have never revealed to Clark that they found him in a rocket that crashed in a field – sell their farm and open a general store in Smallville, where on one fateful night a robber shoots them both dead.
As Jonathan Kent lies dying in the hospital he starts to tell Clark about the rocket, but dies before getting the chance. Swearing vengeance, Clark notices a bat in the window and takes it as a sign.
Leaving Smallville, he begins to train his mind and body for a mission of vengeance on the criminal world. After inheriting a vast fortune from a wealthy uncle, Clark creates a base of operations that he calls – wait for it – the Batcave, and begins his mission as the caped crusader Batman.
In due course, the now-grown Superboy takes on the name Superman, and he and Batman become the World’s Finest super-team, and, after revealing their secret identities to each other, rekindle their childhood friendship.
Though Lex – who gives up science to become a reporter for the Daily Planet, because, you know, why not – secretly pines for spunky reporter Lois Lane, she only has eyes for hunky millionaire playboy Clark Kent.
Eventually Clark and Lois are wed, and on the first night of their honeymoon Clark reveals to his bride that he is, in fact, the Dark Knight himself.
It’s the next panel that just kills me, though:



I just love the whole “Oh, no” from Lois, because you know she has to be wondering just what kind of kinkiness she’s gotten herself into. I mean, first her husband strips off his tux to reveal that he’s wearing tights underneath, and then his best friend shows up in their honeymoon suite and starts undressing.
“That’s right Lois. Lex and I are even closer than you thought. And we share everything.”
And on that note, I’ll leave you with this link to the Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panels.
(And as the comments on the site point out endlessly, superdickery did it first.)

The Big Project Unveiled (Prepare To Be Disappointed)

(For all non-comics fans reading this, which is pretty much everyone as far as my regular readership goes, you’ll probably be inclined to skim over this entry, if you even read it at all. I wish you wouldn’t, but I recognize that you will no matter what I say or hope. I will ask you, however, to click on the link to Figure 2 because, though it doesn’t look as good as it possibly could, I am unspeakably pleased with it. It cracks me up every time, and I think it’s something that can be enjoyed by anyone, comic fan or not. Anyone who isn’t easily offended by bad language and perverted sexual practices, at any rate.)

I know that when I write entries that delve deep into comic book-related issues I’m writing for an extremely small group of interested parties (basically Scott).
However, when I write any sort of entry I’m writing for extremely small group of interested parties anyway, so I figure, “What the hell.”
So in that spirit, and knowing that it will cause most of you to tune out, I’m going to write about comic books.
Most everyone who knows me knows that I love comics. I grew up reading them and kept on reading them after I grew up. I’m of the opinion that it is an ideal storytelling medium for pretty much any kind of story, as has been proven again and again by various writers and artists throughout the years.
Of course, the nature of the medium makes it an ideal format for telling stories of the fantastic, such as the adventures of super-powered costumed adventurers. Though, as mentioned, you can tell any kind of story in comic form, super heroes have historically been, and remain, the bread and butter of the industry, and they’ve been, and remain, my favorite genre.
Sure, growing up I read my share of war, horror, and western comics, but my primary interest was super heroes, and even as I got older and came to enjoy some of the more sophisticated fare, I never lost my love for the spandex-clad crowd.
Not surprisingly, the general public also associates comics with super heroes, not even realizing that there is a whole other world of stories out there, and having a view of comics that colored more by stereotypical representations in other media, they naturally assume that comics are juvenile.
And in large measure, they’re right. The major comic book companies will tell you straight up and without a trace of remorse that their target audience consists of adolescent boys.
So people say that comics are for kids, and, for the most part, they’re right.
However, most publishers also put out material aimed squarely at adults, and even their mainstream works are, ideally, written in such a way that they have the elements that appeal to boys, but have other elements that people of all ages can enjoy.
So in that respect, it’s unfair to dismiss comics as juvenile.
Still, throughout the years there has been one thing more than any other that has contributed to the public perception of comics being for kids: the cheesy, over the top dialogue.
Some time ago Scott and I had re-read some old comics from when we were kids and were just stunned by how bad they were. As Scott put it, “Why did we ever like them?”
Of course, that’s a result of the hindsight that comes with age and experience, and it’s also due to the fact that in the intervening years, comics, even mainstream comics, have matured considerably, and that things like dialogue, plots, and characterization have gained considerable depth, and, for the most part, lost the cheese.
This has been the result of many factors, not the least of which is the infusion of fresh blood as new, younger creators have come into the industry.
What they bring to the table is a wealth of experience as comic fans, having grown up reading the adventures of these characters and developed a real affection for them. They’ve also, as Scott and I did, looked back on some their beloved adventurer, saw the writing, and thought, “Yeesh!”
In essence, these were people with a wide range of influences and ideas from the world outside of comic books who looked at the work that had been done before them and realized that while much of it was wonderful, much of it was…not. Not feeling the need to adhere to the old rules about how things “had” to be done, and being much more able to feel the pulse of the fan base, they began to make changes in the way stories were told, exploring new themes, adding new layers of complexity and meaning, and, thankfully, updating the dialogue.
(This sort of effect can be seen in other media as well, such as television and movies. It can kind of be summed up as the difference between a generation that grew up watching MTV and the generation that might say things like, “I don’t know what’s with these kids today with their rock-and-roll music and the MTV.”)
I am of course glossing over a major portion of comic book history, and I don’t mean to show any disrespect in doing so; I’m simply trying to keep this as brief as possible. I will add, though, that this is hardly anything new; it’s exactly the sort of thing that Stan Lee did back in the 60s when he changed the face of comics forever. This is all merely a continuation of his work.
One other change that occurred, and this is simply my view of things based on things I’ve seen and read, is that many people working in the industry in its earliest days were doing so rather unwillingly. Working in comics wasn’t what they wanted to do, it was just where they ended up. I’m not suggesting (okay, maybe I am just a little) that their work suffered as a result of bitterness. Rather, my point is that the newer generations of comics creators were people for whom working in comics was a life’s ambition.
Instead of people working in comics in the hopes of breaking into some other media, you started having people who were working in other media in the hopes of breaking into comics. These fan-creators brought with them a lot of enthusiasm and love for the medium, along with the desire to make it into what they’d always wanted it to be when they were kids reading comics.
Every comics fan has had the thought that starts out, “If I were making comics…”
These particular fans were the ones who had the ability to put that thought into action.
(Well, within the boundaries of editorial guidelines and whatnot. I realize that reality is probably not quite like the fantasy, but again, for the purposes of brevity, let’s just pretend that’s a given.)
So, in many ways, comics improved. In others…well, that’s a subject for another day.
At the very least, most comics did away with the over the top dialogue, or, more often than not, monologues. You had characters who talked the way people actually talk.
Kind of.
Certainly more like people actually talked than they had before.
And this, at least, was pretty uniformly a good thing.
Kind of.
I recall a class I took in college in which we discussed “realism” in writing.
The professor contended that you don’t want realism in writing, you want mimesis.
Reality would be impossible, or at least really irritating, to read. After all, realistic dialogue would be full of umms and ahs, and pauses, and repetitions, and various kinds of misspeaking that would prevent an economic and natural flow. Sure, when someone is nervous, you’ll throw in some of those vocal flubs as part of the dialogue, and it works, but would you want to do it all the time? Would you want to read that?
Think about how a teenage girl talks. Allowing for the use of the word “like,” it would take you seven pages of straight dialogue to express one idea if you wrote her “realistically.”
No, mimesis – or life-likeness – is preferable, creating an illusion of being natural and “real” without interrupting the flow or impeding the pacing of the narrative.
The one writer who is arguably the hottest property in comics, one Brian Michael Bendis, is apparently unaware of this distinction, though, and tends to opt for the “realistic” approach.
It obviously serves him well, since, as mentioned, he is extremely popular.
And I’ll say up front that he’s also extremely talented. I’ve enjoyed many a Bendis story (I positively adored Alias, which has no relation to the TV show of the same name).
Ultimate Spider-Man, one of his biggest hits, remains a favorite.
So yes, very talented.
Except…
His dialogue drives me insane.
I have to say that for a long time dialogue has been important to me. I could – and still can – forgive bad art in a comic more easily than I could bad dialogue.
Even as a kid, long before the “British Invasion,” which saw an influx of UK-based creators into the American comic scene, bringing about a revolution in how comics were written and perceived, and which did much to improve the quality of dialogue, bad dialogue irritated me.
Now, much older, and “spoiled” by a wealth of wonderfully-written, crisp dialogue, when I encounter bad dialogue, I find myself cringing more than ever.
And the effect of bad dialogue is, I think, cumulative. I had really enjoyed Bendis’ work for a long time, but over time it just began to wear on me.
Even so, it remains some of the most popular work out there, and, as Scott will point out, there is a lot of good in there, some real nuggets of great dialogue, or wonderful little scenes, which make the bad so much harder to take.
I guess I have to liken it to Seinfeld (though Bendis’ dialogue seems more reminiscent of another 90’s sit-com, Mad About You, as many of his characters seem to talk like Paul Reiser.). People love the show. Universally praised.
And yet, for me, a little goes a long, long way. I can only take so much Seinfeld. If forced to watch a marathon of episodes, I’m sure that by the end of it Jerry’s life would be in danger.
And why? The dialogue. Sure, it’s (arguably) funny, and it’s a great back-and-forth (which is where much of the humor lies), but how much of it can one person really be expected to take?
So it is with Bendis.
See Figure 1 for a visual aid that illustrates the problem.

Figure 1


Bear in mind that this is really light compared to what you might actually see in a Bendis-scripted comic. Sometimes you get whole pages of nothing but dialogue like this, or two-page spreads that have talking heads – if there’s room for anything other than word balloons – spouting out paragraph after paragraph of an expository monologue.
This is to say nothing of the fact that every single character, regardless of color, gender, or age, talks pretty much exactly the same way (usually with a vague undertone of contempt towards whomever he or she is talking to, unless he or she is in panic-mode, which is the other emotional state of Bendis-written characters).
I could say so much more about his writing, but I’d best move on before his violently loyal legions of fans track me down and kick my head in.
I mentioned that comics have seen an influx of fan-creators, people who grew up reading and loving comics. Overall, it’s a good thing.
The one problem you can run into, though, is what I call the Fanboy Effect.
Take Robert Kirkman, creator of the wonderful and popular Image Comics title Invincible.
Invincible is great stuff, and I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read of it immensely.
Based on his success at Image, industry giant Marvel Comics (which, by the way, is who Bendis primarily works for) wooed him over to do some work for them.
He began writing a revived version of a classic Marvel comic, Marvel Team Up.
(As an aside, Andy, the titular virgin, can be seen reading an issue of MTU in one scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin.)
Based on his work on Invincible, I thought I’d enjoy MTU.
…
It’s clear that Kirkman is a huge fan of the characters who appear in the book and that he has a blast working with them.
However, that doesn’t necessarily translate into good stories or dialogue. The basic problem is that there are things that, as a fan, he’s obviously always wished that, for example, Spider-Man would say. So he has him say it. And it’s not as cool as it must have seemed in Kirkman’s head.
The worst bits are the comments made about the dynamic of character relationships. There are aspects of the personal and professional relationship between Spider-Man and Wolverine, by way of example, that as fans we understand. Here’s what’s important: these are things that we tacitly understand. We don’t need them explained. But Kirkman does explain them. He actually has the characters take the time to engage in “humorous” expository dialogue to let us know what we already know without needing to be told, and which new readers should be able to pick up on from their interaction without the writer having to stoop to such tacked-on, hacky methods.
A lot of people didn’t like the movie The Last Action Hero (mostly, I think, because they didn’t understand that it was supposed to be a parody), but anyone who ever saw it will likely remember the scene in which the kid from the real world with the “golden ticket,” who is the biggest fan of the movies, is sitting in the office at the police station in the movie world watching protagonist Jack Slater argue with his Captain.
The kid is smiling and enjoying the moment because the Slater-Captain dynamic is one of his favorite aspects of the movies.
When asked why he’s smiling, he explains, “For all the arguing and yelling you two do, you’re really the best of friends.”
That moment, in a nutshell, is the Fanboy Effect. It’s a moment in which the writer inserts himself into a scene and obtrusively comments on it, explaining what he thinks, why he likes it, and attempting to put into words why you like it.
It’s obnoxious and it’s unnecessary, and in addition to generally making for bad dialogue, it’s amateurish, something along the lines of what you might find in bad Fan Fiction.
Another result of the Fanboy Effect can be attempts at making characters talk “like me and my friends do.”
(That he goes for naturalistic dialogue in this way is, I think, a large part of Bendis’ appeal. Fans can say, “When Bendis writes, Spidey talks just like me and my homies do!” “Word up, g!” Or something. There; I’ve contributed my own bad, out-of-touch dialogue to the discourse.)
Again, this is born out of thinking, as a fan, that it would be cool to have a character say some particular thing or other, then, as a creator, getting the character to say it.
Filmmaker Kevin Smith, a lifelong comics fan, has been guilty of this on more than one occasion, as he has ventured into the world of comics writing, resulting in scenes in which you find Superman and Batman talking to each other rather like Randal and Dante.
Works great in Clerks. Not so much in Justice League.
See Figure 2, if you’re not easily offended, for an extreme and exaggerated example of this (Be advised that, in addition to being crude, this image is HUGE.)

Figure 2


Okay, nothing he ever wrote for mainstream comics was quite like that, but in general, there were interactions that wouldn’t be out of place or out of character in his movies, but within the comics they didn’t fit, and for the most part, I have enjoyed the comic work that he’s done.
And that’s the thing, ultimately. Overall, I’m pleased with the changes that have taken place in comic book writing, and I have enjoyed much of the work written by the creators mentioned here, but that’s what makes these problems stand out so prominently and makes them so grating.
There is a lot more that I could write about, and I could have written something much more in-depth with the material I did write about, but I’m sure this has gone on more than long enough, and ultimately the whole point of the entry was to showcase my “Imaginary Story” in which Superman and Batman debate the finer points of A2M, because the thought of it just cracks me the hell up.
(And yes, I probably could have done a better job on the art on said piece, but it was taking long enough as it was, and I just wanted to get it done, and as long as it worked to get the basic idea across, I had to decide that it was good enough. Besides, it was my first attempt at ever doing a full comic page in god knows how long.)
Anyway, this was all meant to be a tongue-and-cheek, good-natured jab at people who are far more successful and driven to put their talents to use than I am, so any comic fans out there reading this should just take a breath and realize that I’m not actually attacking their favorite writers maliciously so much as I’m plucking their noses a little in a small, petty, bitter, and envious way. Okay?
I just want to make sure that my comments about Bendis don’t end up cracking the Internet in half or anything like that.

Long Distance Dedication To Chris Claremont

(To the tune of "You Are So Beautiful" as performed by Joe Cocker)

You are so painful
To read
Can't you see?
Your dialogue is so hokey
That it makes my eyes bleed
You are so painful
To read

Such cliches and repetition you bring
Such cliches and repetition you bring
It makes me scream
A tired old hack whose work is so trite
Retire as a gift to me
You are so painful
To read

Minor Change

I've modified my Profile picture a little bit using some of the new techniques I've picked up, and I also added a few components to increase the overall old comic book feel of it.

Portrait Of The Artist As A Fat Ass

You may have noticed that along with the slightly new look of Threshold I've added a different picture to my profile.
The overall effect I was going for with this new self-portrait was to make it look like something you might have seen in a comic book back in the days before the use of higher quality paper and the advent of digital pre-press technology.
How well I achieved that effect is up for debate, but the one thing that is clear is that I didn't take any steps to make myself look like less of a fat lump than I really am (though I did leave out the gray hair).

Pulse-Pounding Peanuts Action In The Mighty Marvel Manner!

Check out these images that combine Peanuts characters with the Marvel Universe:

Peanuts Meets Marvel

A Chick Tract Featuring Reed Richards? 'Nuff Said!

This Chick-style tract featuring the leader of the Fantastic Four is pretty damned funny, but I'm not sure that "Lee and Chick" has quite the same ring as "Lee and Kirby" does...
Check it out here.

You Really Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover (Though You USED To Be Able To)

So I spent most of today working on the second visual aid that I mentioned last week.
It turned out very well, I think, and serves as a perfect counterpoint to the first.
Of course, those of you who were enticed by the “mysterious” aspect of it all will, no doubt, be very disappointed by the actual post that the two visuals were created to support, and you may want to just take note that the post is about comic book covers and just skip ahead to look at the pictures.

For those of you who didn’t skip ahead, I’ve noticed that comic book covers have changed a lot since I was a kid.
If you’re into comics at all, covers are very important, as, all too often, comics actually are judged by their covers, so as a fan there are certain elements that you’ll look for, and as a publish you really need to be aware of what the fans are looking for.
(It’s worth noting here that it’s an established – albeit bizarre – fact in the comic book industry that a comic book, any comic book, that features a gorilla on the cover will experience increased sales for that month.)
In any case, when I was a kid, you could look at a cover and have an idea of what was going to happen inside, as the cover usually depicted a scene that was at least representative of some element of the story.
(As another aside, during his tenure at DC Comics, the late, great Julius Schwartz would often have an artist come up with a cover image for a book and then task the writer to come up with a story built around that cover image. Shortly after his death, as a tribute, several writers and artists put out new stories based on some classic “Julie” covers.)
Covers often featured some expository text that would help to entice you further, often incorporating the book’s title, providing you with something like this:




(Note that while it lacks a gorilla, this cover does feature a weeping character, which, oddly enough, has also been observed to increase a book’s sales. And for the record, this cover is probably unnecessarily [as opposed to necessarily?] mean to Ashlee Simpson, but it’s just a joke, and I must admit that she has actually been looking pretty damn good lately, though the real point is that hotness is relative, pun intended, and compared to her relative, no matter how good she looks, she’ll never, ever achieve a Jessica level of hotness.)

John Byrne in particular loved to use the expository text/book logo device.
These days, though, you will never see a cover featuring expository text, particularly in the style above, and it’s increasingly unlikely that you’ll see a cover that has anything to do with the story inside at all.
If it’s a “team” book, the odds are it will just feature a random picture of one of the team members (if it’s an “X” book, said member will, more often than not, be Wolverine), or of the entire team.
Certainly it won’t give you an idea of what’s actually going on inside.
These are the sort of covers that were reserved for “special” books back in my day, like an anniversary issue or something.
Now they’re the norm.
Worse than that, though, are the totally misleading covers. These covers not only fail to give you an indication of what’s happening inside, they don’t even give you an idea of what the interior art is going to be like.
It used to be that the artist who did the interiors also did the cover art. Not so anymore. There is an increasing number of comic artists who make their living almost solely from drawing covers.
Many of them are extremely “hot,” and a cover done by one of them will, like a weeping gorilla (or the color purple; another odd sales booster) will bump up the sales dramatically.
Is that really a problem? Honestly, I love a great Alex Ross, Greg Horn, Adam Hughes, Greg Land, or Frank Cho as much as the next fanboy, and there’s no denying that a comic book cover like such as this one has a definite appeal:




But the problem comes once you flip the book open and find that rather than some beautifully painted Ross artwork inside you’re greeted by what looks to be the manic scribblings of a chimp armed with a crayon.
(During a particularly irritating part of its run, Marvel’s Elektra was the worst offender, featuring lavishly detailed Greg Horn covers with interior art that looked like it was pieced together from random doodles I’d done when I was five.)
Still, all things considered, this current trend is nowhere near as irritating as the foil/hologram/velvet “variant” cover craze of the early 90s, so I guess I can’t complain too much.
Even so, I do miss the days when you actually could judge a comic book by it’s cover.
The real point of this entry, though, was the creation of the visual aids. I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
I know that there are some “in-joke” elements that will leave you a little puzzled (The “XYZ+” on the second cover, for example, is meant to spoof Marvel’s incomprehensible rating system. WTF is PSR+ supposed to indicate?”), but I think they work pretty well to illustrate the differences between the covers of today and the covers of my distant youth.
I think both are suitable candidates for inclusion in the Heroic Portraits gallery, as I can imagine that there are people who might like to see themselves featured on a comic book cover.
Speaking of Heroic Portraits, I’ll need to devote most of tomorrow to actually putting up a site.
Somewhere along the line I’ll try to crank out a more traditional Threshold entry.