Oh, Almost Forgot: Happy B-Day, Jack Kirby!

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Fangirl Fridays: The Knitty Gritty of Comics Today

Hi there,

This is just going to be a jumble of thoughts and links that have come up while surfing this fine Internet-thing --


Bring Out Your Dead?
A commentary on all the DC comic books that have been canceled as of late, plus speculation as to whether the end is near for Jonah Hex and Simon Dark.
This brings me back to what I have posted earlier about how many comics in the future might be put out in mini-series or "volumes" rather than be ongoing. After having the read the last three months worth of Amazing Spider-Man, I definitely see that dynamic in play, though within the banner of one title.
Jonah Hex is a perfectly good title with consistent quality. I think, however, its biggest strength lies in the collected editions.

Did you ever want a list of all the female comic book characters who have *not* been raped?
If roughly 80% of female characters have not been raped, does this debunk the "rape myth" of comics that says female characters are often raped?
I think it's not a question of bean-counting but of how the rapes that do occur are presented in the comic books.
Of course, these sorts of posts run the danger of discounting all concern over the rape of women in comics, since it is "only 20%."


I'm noticing more and more blogs are posting entire old stories that are in public domain, assumed to be in public domain, or that nobody really cares anyway what domain they're in.
I'm enjoying these stories immensely, here are two I've read recently:
"The Head Of The Family"
"The Cadmus Seed"
both by Jack Kirby, whose ability to draw really freaky disturbing shit should not be under-estimated.


I found this Comics Reporter post, "I Can't Even Bring Myself To Open This," rather amusing. It refers to an issue of DC/Wildstorm's X-Files. Having opened up the issue in the comic store, I did note the standard static art resembling various photo stills. This phenomena of so heavily using photo reference reminds me, of all things, of the work of Henry Darger. Darger's story is long and sad, but basically all you have no know for now is that part of his art consisted using the same source material as tracing templates over and over again. So when you look at Darger's art, you keep recognizing the same figures & faces. This is what a lot of comic book TV and movie adaptations look like to me, especially the ones with either uninspired art and/or ultra-strict approval requirements from the studios.

As a contrast, check out Charlie Adlard's work on X-Files for Topps. I think I heard something like his lack of on-model photo-referency art drove 20th Century Fox crazy. But at any rate, what Adlard did was how I think you really should adapt TV to comics. By realizing it ain't TV, it's comics.


Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't highlight John Rogers' thoughts the cancellation of Blue Beetle:

"Wow. It's almost as if basing your entire business model around a series of must-buy big event crossovers in a market with limited purchasing resources hurts your midlist."

and

"Let's put it this way -- stripping out distribution costs and our share of the rent for those nice DC offices in Mahattan, Blue Beetle could have cost fifty cents an issue at its worst sales level, and still paid Rafael and myself more than we made on the run of the book."

At this point, I can't see why any high-level person within the comics industry wouldn't be encouraging the development of their company's digital comics program. Webcomics may not a replacement for paper (well, in about 20 year they might be, at least for mass consumption), but they are going to play a bigger and bigger role in a publisher's total output.

The trends regarding this and other things are all around us. We can spend day after day ignoring them, thinking the clock will turn back. Or we could do our research and prepare, and get ahead of the curve. Even in a recession, those who diligently take the latter approach will find themselves not only better off -- but in a vastly better place once things improve.

And on that note, enjoy the start of your weekend, all!

It's Hard To Dislike "Death Of The New Gods"

Why? Because it's Jim Starlin. DC really dodged the bullet on this whole miniseries by getting Starlin to write and draw it. Because it's like if you put Marv Wolfman & George Perez on Countdown -- yeah, it's another editorially-mandated clusterf**k but how can you dislike it when you've got such legendary creators on it? It would be like hating Stan Lee. Which is like hating Comics. There's some math in there.

If you're familiar with Starlin's work with characters like Captain Marvel or Warlock at all, you understand that this guy's a master of the Cosmic Story -- probably right behind Kirby in that regard. So if you get bogged down or confused by metaphysical/galactic sentences like:

"They'd actually taken the Source's cryptic meanderings and sculpted them into the foundation of a ridiculous little religious fantasy,"

rest assured that it all has some higher spiritual purpose and that God will probably make an appearance in the third act, even if He is in the form of a section of drywall or a Nerf ball with Kirby crackle emanating from it.

Because the mini is called "The Death of the New Gods," a big portion of the suspense and emotional impact is taken away because you're poised to expect DEATH. In fact, if the # of deaths don't total at least three each issue, one might almost feel disappointed.

That all said, I can only imagine what die-hard Kirby fans must be thinking when they read this book. It's like if you were a die-hard Buffy fan and you watching a TV movie called "The Death of All the Buffy Characters."

In that sense, this book is both a tribute and a slightly patronizing "farewell to thee" to Kirby's legacy at DC. Further, I see Death of the New Gods as an interesting companion to Marvel's recent Elementals mini. The two publishers, faced with these uniquely "Jack Kirby" characters and worlds, have gone and used two different approaches with them -- one, to put Neil Gaiman on the job and make it all pretty, and the other, to perform radical and fatal "heart surgery" on the cast.

Which begs the question: is the Fourth World saga - and Jack Kirby's bombastic creations in general -- old-fashioned and dated in comparison with comics today? I dunno. Ask George Lucas.