May 2012
5 posts
Committed: Diving into the X-Statix Omnibus
Last night in my dreams, The Orphan from X-Statix was asked to do an interview. In the way of dreams, I don’t remember what it was about. But I do remember that he didn’t say what he was asked to say, and while Spike Freeman wasn’t happy about it, the team loved it. I woke up gagging to get back to reading my giant comic book.
This is what happens when you pick up the massive...
Fairytale gay wedding vs gay marriage
Yesterday, amongst some media attention, Marvel announced an impending gay wedding. I can’t help but notice that there are no fairytales that begin with the main characters’ wedding. When there are weddings, they are the payoff, the money shot, and definitely the grand finale of the fairytale. No one wants to read a fairytale that begins with a wedding, because then it would be about...
PunisherMAX: Better in Black & White
Some books simply demand the stark simplicity of no color, the absence of any warmth or hope. Steve Dillon’s stunningly beautiful artwork shines in black and white. Simultaneously, Jason Aaron creates an all-encompassing bleak world view for the inhabitants of the Punisher’s world. The PunisherMAX has little use for color.
[[MORE]]I just finished reading Jason Aaron and Steve...
How The Avengers Movie is like a Musical
Like a lot of people, last weekend I went to see The Avengers movie (and if you haven’t, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil any surprises here.) Anyway, I saw the movie and had a revelatory moment while watching it. Before the movie, I always thought that I was part of this big community of adults who all enjoy reading the same superhero comic books. I had assumed that all of us...
Committed: Dolls & Death (Kurosagi Corpse Delivery...
Just before I moved apartment, volume 12 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service came out. Last week I finally had time to curl up on my new couch and read this wonderful book. This time, the three short stories involved examined dolls, virtual life, and the existence of the soul. One after another they shocked, delighted, and devastated me. Now I’m hoping that I can entice some of you to...
April 2012
3 posts
Committed: Why Ancient Mythology Breaks in...
Adapting ancient parables and mythology is a large part of current comic book lore, as writers seek to imbue their creations with weight by borrowing from more established folklore. But in doing so without context, we’re ignoring the reasons why these stories worked so well, and what they would have meant in their original eras.
[[MORE]]My friend Tara, an anthropologist and archeologist...
Committed: How Attendees Make ECCC Great
This is an article in praise of the people who attended Emerald City Comicon. Last week I covered some of the basic interactions that I had, meeting and briefly talking to comic book creators at ECCC. What I missed writing about, and why I felt it worthy of a follow up article, is the fantastic crowd who attend this Seattle convention.
[[MORE]]When it comes right down to it, the reason any...
Committed: My Emerald City Comicon, 2012
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Emerald City Comicon is my favorite comic book convention. It truly is all about the comic books, not just for the fans but for the creators too. There is something almost thrilling about how excited everyone gets about the medium, whatever the perspective, the enthusiasm is palpable. I made a postcard about it (right), because this...
March 2012
3 posts
Committed: Moving Horrors & Frankenstein
All comic book readers know the creeping fear that goes along with moving house and with it, moving the comic books. For me, packing has revealed the scope of my collection (which was all shelved until recently), and once I’ve moved, there is the nagging fear that there won’t be room in the new place. And what sort of order do I put them in? Alphabetical by author, or by title, or by...
Committed: Comics Should Be FUN
I feel that I ought to be thinking of something to write about that I’m really worked up about over comic books, but I can’t. Comic books are fun, I like them a lot, love them even, but I don’t have it in me to get really furious up about them right now. A lot of my friends who write about comic books are vehemently arguing about something… I’m afraid I don’t...
Committed: Meeting Creators at the Image Expo
Image Expo was great fun. Perfectly formed, with a smaller space and less room for waste, ever aspect of it was lovingly crafted and casually, comfortably enjoyable. Meeting talented artists and writers is a boon at any convention, but at Image Expo it was absolutely the focus. In retrospect, that is almost all I really did at the Image Expo, and it reinvigorated my excitement for comic books and...
February 2012
5 posts
Committed: Jubilex Loves You!
The intimacy and warmth of the Image Expo last weekend reminded me that we create in order to share the love, and so I’ve posted my weird cat cartoon calendar for you to download and print.
Because of the intimate, comfortable layout and boutique feel of the Image Expo, I was able to properly explore all of the independent creators work. It inspired me so much that I became completely...
Committed: Image Expo
This weekend will see the first Image Expo, a comic book convention supported by local Bay Area publishers Image Comics. Famous for their creator-owned comic books, Image Expo promises to be a very different sort of convention. With the move of Wonder Con to Southern California this year, this leaves the field wide open for something new and Image seem ready to meet the challenge. I spoke to Image...
Committed: Back Issue - The Liberated Ladies Issue
If you wrote a magazine just for me, designed to plug into my brain and force me to purchase, it would have to be the “Liberated Ladies” issue of the new Back Issue magazine. Devoted to the in-depth examination of just a few of the strongest female superheroes in comic books, as well as interviewing three of the most identifiable women working in comic books - I had to read it.
The...
Committed: Covers with Depth (INVINCIBLE IRON MAN...
There are comic books I have bought for their cover and only for their cover. While the interior hasn’t displeased me, this meat of the comic book is not what drew me to it, nor (more importantly) what made the purchase a satisfying one. These are comic books I won’t sell or give away, even though I probably won’t read them again. While the interior are strongly echoed by the...
Committed: Webcomics and Art Links
This week, while I ought to have been writing you a column, I was wasting time on the internet and making things. Here are the webcomics and art that distracted me so effectively. Enjoy!
Vapor Trails Will Strode’s futuristic, science fiction story about sentient animals rebelling against their human masters is well under-way now at around 40 pages, which should be enough to get your teeth...
January 2012
4 posts
Committed: Targeted Marketing for the Geek-Curious
Outside of comic books themselves, there is very little advertising for comic books, online or on television. Targeting non-comic book readers could be effective, but are the corporations who own comic book publishers really trying to sell comic books?
It seemed like there was universal acknowledgement of the fact that the dorky television ads DC used to promote the new 52 #1’s worked at...
Committed: Crime Fighting Female Duos - Daughters...
I just read Daughters of the Dragon, simply out of curiosity about one of the only female crime fighting duo’s (in comic books or any other entertainment medium.) While I’m a bit of an old Iron Fist fan, and I do enjoy reading comics about female superheroes, and Misty and Colleen are a creation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne (who did some very weird but very good things with...
Committed: Aspirational Posture
Most superheroes are depicted standing so tall and straight that they almost arch their backs backwards. Meanwhile we sit at desks all day, curled up with almost the opposite posture, yet we are so engaged by these images. Are we trying to tell ourselves something?
I started the day so well, with my first yoga lesson in ages. A new teacher and a new type - much mellower and slower than I’ve...
Committed: Designing a comic book logo - Grim...
Comic book logo development is a lot of fun for me and I thought you might like to see how one gets made. Like a lot of self-employed people in this industry, I spent part of the holiday season working. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Being a graphic designer can be fun, but being a graphic designer for a comic book can be incredibly fun. So I worked on some ads for a new comic book...
December 2011
4 posts
Committed: My Top 10 Comics (for ANY year)
Rather than pick out my favorite comics of 2011, I present my top ten favorite comic books for any year (more about why this is non-specific to 2011 below the list.) Realistically, I’ll probably change my mind at some point, since inevitably I’m probably going to change myself at some point too. But for now, these are the books which made my this year, and every year so far, pretty...
Committed: This one goes to 11...
Last week I was finally walking again and able to pick up three weeks of saved comic books! In the haze of ankle sprain and grouchy tiredness, it was incredibly blissful to lie in bed reading the ongoing stories of some comic books that I know I love. Just for fun, and because I’ve been reading a lot of older comic books lately, I thought I’d give you a quick one paragraph synopsis...
Committed: Reading "Time Flies" (by Garth Ennis...
Recently I had the very good luck to get my hands on a copy of the Garth Ennis and Phillip Bond 2000AD series; Time Flies. After years of searching for back issues, a friend who collects 2000AD gave me a “spare” copy of 2000AD Extreme Edition #19, which compiles the entire series. It isn’t that I’m any kind of fanatic for time travel stories (though I do like science...
Committed: Grant Morrison's JLA is a great...
Last week I finally read a large chunk of Grant Morrison’s ‘90’s run on JLA. It was something I’d been really looking forward, saving up to read when I felt like I deserved it. I knew it was going to be good, I just didn’t realize how much so. It was my birthday last week. Well, not quite my birthday, the day after my birthday, but I still wanted to keep celebrating...
November 2011
5 posts
Committed: Ms. New 52 and Her Powerful PMS
DC’s solo, female superhero titles depict women who are firmly focused on emotions, family, home, and sex. These women are so distracted by these things, that they’re barely able to think about their jobs as superheroes. It is disappointing to read so many women characters depicted this way, consistently unprofessional and erratic, and it is hard to imagine a male character ever...
Committed: Depression Fun
Today my friend Stephanie reminded me of this webcomic, linking to it in a discussion about the societal denial of emotional depression. It touched me so much, making me smile at something so bleak, that I had to share it.
Years ago I went camping in Death Valley over Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if you can imagine what a bad idea this was, but the weather isn’t actually conducive to...
Committed: Secret Ultimate Spider-Man Appreciation
I’m enjoying the new Ultimate Spider-Man. I hate to admit it, partly because I’d much rather be all old-school and tell you to go look up some classic Spider-Man stories. But the comic book isn’t just okay, it is actually working just a little more for me than the original version did. Then I also hate to admit it because this is obviously not a comic book aimed at adult women...
Committed: The First Hit is Free...
How to get new readers addicted to comic books… People who have never read a comic book often ask me where to start. Sometimes the question is only half serious, more of a sort of bewildered curiosity about what I could possibly get out of it. Maybe because of this column or because my house is filled with comic book ephemera, but people come to me when they want to start and I’m...
Committed: What British Comic Writers Learned from...
If a cigar can be just a cigar, and not some obvious phallic symbol to be endlessly sucked and played with, then can a superhero ever be just a superhero, or is it always representative of a deeper, more complex need within us?
One of the stand-out moments from the Warren Ellis documentary (Captured Ghosts) previewed in New York last month was when he spoke about his attitude towards the...
October 2011
4 posts
Committed: Airplane Reading for Funerals
Taking eight flights and traveling something like 14,000 miles in the last two weeks I’ve had some reading time on my hands. Thankfully I had friends with me, including Batwoman, Buffy, Hellblazer, Supergirl, Unwritten, Secret Avengers, and Wolverine. A girlfriend once told me that she loved to fall asleep with a book, it felt like company. Similarly, I was happy to have my comic books...
Committed: NYCC (Warren Ellis, Talking Shop, &...
As I write this, I’m slumped on the couch having just returned from New York Comic Convention. This was my second time at NYCC and I can confirm that it is a very different sort of affair from its West Coast counterparts like San Diego International Comic Con. Like New York itself, the convention is a little darker and more crowded, with less physical space for a similar amount of people and...
Committed: More content, please
It’s not enough. I want more. If I’m going to buy a monthly comic book, instead of waiting for a trade paperback compilation, then I want creators to pack in as much story and development as possible. It isn’t enough to just meander delightfully through 20-24 pages without anything much happening, I’m not buying these comics just for a relaxing atmosphere change, I want...
Committed: Confusing Bodybuilders with Superheroes
Yesterday I posted a link on my Twitter to this, joking that if they drew busty female superheroes in the same way that they draw male ones, that they’d look like this new version of Jodie Marsh. Surprisingly, a few people suggested that women ought to be drawn this way because it would be more realistic, which I thought might be useful to talk about.
Jodie Marsh is a British...
September 2011
4 posts
Committed: Your friend, Johnny the Homicidal...
Today I want to focus on a great comic book, one which has given me some comfort in times of stress, and has become an odd sort of touchstone for the idiosyncrasies of life. Of course I’m talking about Johnny the Homicidal Maniac…
Okay, not “of course”, in fact I’m sure that (as usual) some of you think I’ve lost my mind. But the thing is, Jhonen Vasquez is a...
Committed: New Comics for Everyone! Batwoman,...
Daredevil, Batwoman, and Moon Knight are the top new comic books that I’ve been recommending to new readers lately. People who haven’t read comic books in years are looking to get back into reading them, and while they want something they can jump into without any continuity problems, they aren’t exactly looking for a paint-by-numbers either. Much has been made of the new era...
Committed: Jason Aaron - Macho Men for a Modern...
It takes a certain kind of character to make a violent, bloodthirsty superhero likable. It certainly isn’t an easy task. There are plenty of superheroes with “codes”, rules which prohibit them from killing and so forth, these are more enjoyably relatable, we all want to think that, even when pushed to the edge of endurance, we would maintain a certain moral code. It is much...
Committed: Regarding Male Superheroes as Sex...
As someone who spent her entire youth having inappropriate thoughts about superheroes, I’ve always understood that women aren’t the only ones being physically objectified in comic books, and men are being depicted as basically naked and entirely perfect as well. Finally it seems that the rest of the female population is catching on.
Women were always sexually objectified in comic...
August 2011
5 posts
Committed: "Wolverine The Best There Is", Gluttony...
Gory, silly, funny, violent and a little bit sleazy… Sometimes that’s what I crave from a comic book, and nothing is delivering it for me right now like Wolverine: The Best There Is.
I need some monthly comic books that can be the peanut butter & jelly sandwiches of my emotional diet. I use them to feed me with all the wrong stuff, yummy, fattening and pretty much irrevocably...
Committed: Superheroes and the Social Contract
With the popularity of superheroes there is much talk about the modern mythology we’re creating. But the movies aren’t being made about any old superheroes, the most popular heroes are the golden and silver age ones who not only fight evil operating on their own authority, but are motivated by a need to support the weak, to help the poor and generally aspire to lofty, humanitarian...
Committed: The Weird Life of Avenger Couples
After I saw the Thor and Captain America movies, I got pretty excited about The Avengers movie (that was the idea, wasn’t it?) Thor, Captain America and Iron Man all stand up pretty well, but after a while these solo movies feel like a complicated teaser campaign and we find ourselves gasping for the payoff of The Avengers movie. With this anticipation grinding away at me, I thought...
Committed: 10 Great Science Fiction Comics
A few people have asked me to recommend great science fiction comic books. Here, in a slightly random order, is my list of great science fiction comic books.
This was actually written and ready to post a few weeks ago, but simultaneously, Sam Humphries happened to post his own list of science fiction comics on Robot 6, so I thought I’d give it a bit of breathing room. Since then I have read...
Committed: A Week of Nostalgic Comic Work / Love
When I offered to cover three specific panels for Comic Book Resources at Comic-Con International, I should have known those choices would shape not only my experience of Comic-Con, but also the weeks afterwards. Perhaps I ought to have expected subjects so close to my heart to influence me…
Writing up three panels and combing through 1000’s of photos has consumed a lot of the last...
July 2011
7 posts
Committed: A brief Comic-Con photo diary
This is the week that I just cannot fit in writing my column, instead I’m going to give you a sneak peek of some really swanky photos I took (the rest will be going to a CBR piece.) I would love to write about my week, because I had one hell of a time at Comic-Con International in San Diego, but it is exactly because of this that I have no time.
One of the great things that I am lucky...
Comic-Con International: Art of Design, aka Comics...
Moderator Chip Kidd opened the “Art of Design” panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego by appropriately renaming it “Comics and Design.” Once he had taken care of that bit of business, Kidd went on to introduce his guests from the world of comic book graphic design, along with interesting factoids about each of them; Mark Chiarello (born on Halloween 1960, vice...
Comic-Con International: Celebrating 30 Years of...
As a rather fabulous start to the panel spotlighting creator Alan Davis’ work at Comic-Con International in San Diego, the writer/artist was awarded a CCI Inkpot Award in comic art.
“That was a surprise,” Davis exclaimed, as he took a seat amidst a roar of applause. “I don’t have anything to promote or any axes to grind, so I’m here to answer any questions...
Comic-Con International: "Love and Rockets" Panel
While waiting for Los Bros Hernandez to arrive for the panel celebrating their groundbreaking “Love and Rockets” series at Comic-Con International in San Diego, the room quickly filled with a quiet hum of expectant excitement. Mario arrived first, closely followed by Gilbert, who waved warmly to familiar faces in the audience. “We can’t start without Jaime!” they...
Committed: Understanding Harry Potter Fans
This week I gained a unique insight into what life is like for those who exist outside the sphere of fan love when I attended the opening night of the new Harry Potter film.
Last Thursday at 6pm a friend of a friend offered me a ticket to the coveted first showing of the very last Harry Potter film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2.” Despite knowing that it would involve...
Committed: Women in Comics
Apparently there are journalists who are so naive as to think that the reason more women comic book creators aren’t successful is because they don’t feel comfortable with the aggressive subject matter of superhero comic books. It has been suggested lately by a number of people (who should know better) that the main reason women aren’t well known, mainstream comic book artists,...
Committed: Independent Comic Book Gifts
It being just a couple of days after Independence Day and (by strange coincidence) the bulk of my friends birthdays, I’m sharing my gift list of independent comic books (as well as the weird types of people I matched up to those books.) People with a vague interest in comic books often come to me asking for recommendations so maybe this list will be useful to you in your future gift giving.
...
June 2011
5 posts
Committed: Keep Me Hanging On
While marketing departments say otherwise, I would always rather wait for an incredibly late “monthly” comic book than read below par work or fill-in artists and writers. Increasingly I find myself appreciating the comic book creators who withstand external pressure and take the necessary time for their work.
Recently I found out that Optic Nerve #12 will be in comic books this...