Selling Green Lantern

You know, as much as I'm personally inclined to dislike this Green Lantern event thing, I have to say that the people at the DC booth in Baltimore were so friendly, so sincere, so absolutely enthusiastic about "Blackest Night" – explaining to me both the concept of the event and the promotional strategy – that when I had left with my black ring and promo copy of "Green Lantern," it was hard for me to continue my enmity for this series. Which is really the job of anybody in promotions & advertising – to become the "face" of the product being sold, to weld that personable quality with the product in order to leave people feeling good.

That said, I haven't really read a great deal of this event, so I couldn't give a real assessment of it at this point. I heard there's a lot of dead characters in it, right? And something with colors?

I Heart Dead People: Why Do We Love Zombies?

**Spoilers**

Geekstir wonders if the upcoming "Blackest Night" event isn't DC's version, in some way, of "Marvel Zombies."

With even Jane Austen getting a walking dead makeover, the big question is: why do we like seeing shambling zombified versions of our favorite characters and stories?


Is it a commentary on pop-culture icons that have survived long past their prime? Or, like the calavera of Mexico, is our fascination with the dead or nearly-dead just a playful coping mechanism for the painful knowledge of the mortality of our loved ones and ourselves?


Or is it just...brainnnnnnnssssss???

What Do You Do When Previews Spoils Your Story?

edit: Spoilers for Green Lantern: Blackest Night :-)


Okay, you can use creative solicitation copy and blacked-out images to protect your comic book's secrets...

But what about action figure solicitations?

I'm not familiar with current Green Lantern lore to care one way or another, but obviously the fans consider these images from Previews to contain important information.

This reminds me, in some tangential way, of when the Star Trek III paperback came out before the movie, and I simply read it to find out all the spoilers about Spock. Synergy? Not quite.

"Whoa Superman of Earth 2 looks like Kilowog."

Yeah, that's what I thought. But it's just that his face is messed up, right? Sort of like this guy:

Pop-Culture Wars: Green Lantern Vs. Wonder Woman

The big three of DC have always been: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Officially in licensing and other concerns, and unofficially in the collective consciousness of the comic fan, these characters are the most iconic the company has to offer -- the Trinity, if you will.

However, Green Lantern has also developed a cult following -- the green "ring" T-shirt becoming an accepted part of pop-culture. High sales on the monthly title, plus a rumored major motion picture, may give the character(s) a bigger profile than it has ever had before.

Now, Superman & Batman are pretty untouchable as icons. But is Wonder Woman, despite her inclusion into The Big Three, really more on the same level as Green Lantern, or Flash? And could any of these "second tier" characters replace her, in some sense, as the third most popular DC character in pop-culture?

A vote for "no" -- I would hazard to guess that more non-comic readers would recognize WW than GL.

A vote for "yes" -- If the proposed Green Lantern movie succeeds at the level "Iron Man" did, I think he might get that coveted third spot. Because before the movie, I pegged Iron Man as a solid second-stringer; and now he's not.


And does/should Wonder Woman's gender play a role in this? Does her uniqueness as perhaps the most famous female superhero of all time automatically rocket her into the Big Three? Or does such a view undercut her worth as a superhero, regardless of gender, and ignore her rich history and formidable powers?

Or should there simply be a Big Four?

Vote in the poll to your right on the sidebar:

And if you are a Wonder Woman fan -- please don't get pissed at me! I'm not saying Wonder Woman is not as awesome as Green Lantern! I'm just trying to have a conversation.

Though if I had to "call" it, I'd say it largely depends on which movie gets made first, GL or WW, and how successful it is.

Occasional Thoughts

Thoughts. I do have them.

On my vacation from my blog I sought corporate sponsors for Friends of Lulu's annual Lulu Awards. This is not much different than selling Girl Scout cookies, except there are no cookies, and if you fail, the really bad Christmas tree with the three branches is going to be in the pageant.

Do not want:

Do want:

The biggest DC news to come out of MegaCon, as far as I'm concerned, is that there was an audience member in the DCU Countdown To Crisis Panel dressed like Jay Garrick. You get rid of the Speed Force, this fellow's coming after you with that metal salad bowl on his head.Just in case you thought the furor over Spider-Man's OMD/BND has settled...well...

No.


I was particularly impressed by the poster who said he posted to religious websites about "One More Day" even though he was an atheist. Love of Mary Jane apparently trumps religious persuasion. Now that's something we can all get behind. It's like buying the world a Coke.


Lisa Fortuner provides guidelines for writers of international characters, courtesy of "The Mainstream Comics Industry":

"However, the Mainstream Comics Industry advises against researching another culture and creating a well-rounded original character based on actual facts, because this could result in your readers thinking of foreign nations as places with a rich history and culture populated by a variety of individual thinkers who are worthy of respect as human beings. This leads to the audience raising their standards and refusing to pay for books that don’t adhere to that standard. "

But Lisa, if you just think of those characters as Legacy Heroes, and give them a chance instead of tearing them down because of supposed inaccuracies and "uninspired characterization" (my God, as if there really is such a thing), maybe they can blossom.

(runs)

Which reminds me...

Remember Faith from JLA?


What the hell happened to her?

See, when I worked on JLA, Faith was created to "kill two birds with one stone" by virtue of her Latin-American heritage. So you got a Woman (big W, trademarked) and an International Character.

Ask Morrison if he's going to use Faith in Final Crisis. Maybe she can be in one of those epic George Perez-like crowd scenes that get turned into a poster with a numbered identification index. She could be right behind Fire's shoulder. Boy, that Fire, I'll tell ya -- she's one hot Brazilian. Get it?


You know, I was really cool with the Yellow Lanterns. To me, that made all sorts of sense.

But now there are Red Lanterns...


So according to this Newsarama article, the Red Lanterns spew "their red energy of hate."

And the first of these Lanterns is named, appropriately, "Atrocitus." George Lucas School Of Naming. Atrocitus used to hang out with Evilicus in middle school.

I don't get it, weren't the Yellow Lanterns supposed to be the bad guys? And the really important question -- the action figures, are they coming out soon?

Where Geoff Johns gets his writing inspiration:


Video: "Asian Christopher Walken"



Bonus points if you understand the meaning behind the "Miss Saigon" T-shirt he's wearing.

It fascinates me that Asian stereotypes are still acceptable in entertainment. I dunno, is Fu Manchu offensive?


Another thing that seems still acceptable in entertainment is homophobia. I just caught the movie Wild Hogs on cable the other day -- you know, sat through as much as I could of that dreck. The movie was obsessed with jokes about homosexuality. I mean, one after another. All of them of the "being thought gay is the absolute most humiliating thing ever!" variety.


"Oh, no, we're all naked in the watering hole and now there are boys swimming in it! Don't get too close to my naked body! And look, now the naked gay cop that's been stalking us is going to jump in the watering hole too! What a freak! WE aren't freaks like that. We are real guys."

In the scene, John Travolta's character plays the most homophobic guy of the bunch.


Well, that's all I've got. Back to the grind.

"Green Lantern" Movie To Be Directed By "Dirty Sexy Money" Auteur

Once again, I have to hand it to Warner Brothers for realizing that action movies with male protagonists are guaranteed moneymakers. Hot on the heels of the announcement of the "Flash" movie, word comes from Variety (via Newsarama) that Greg Berlanti, from the TV show "Dirty Sexy Money," is on board for the new "Green Lantern" movie.

Says Berlanti,

"To me, this was on the last great comic book movie that hasn’t been made."

No comment:

Hot Comic Book Action!

...dedicated to the roughly 30% of new readers I receive daily who stumble upon this site looking for some smokin' superheroine action.

Supergirl-as-stripper "Smallville" promo images from Comic-by-Comic

Picture from the window of Jim Hanley's Universe taken this Saturday

for those "fire and ice" more adventuresome members of the audience (because domestic violence can be *hot* -- and men are always more stronger than women so they can never *really* be physically abused, so cute with women hitting them with their itty bitty little balled fists...)

The Ms. Marvel Bingo Sheet

...and something for the ladies!

The real reason there are so many female Green Lantern fans

Penance: a very sensitive young man (at least his extremities are)

"Why I Hate The Green Lantern Crab Mask"

Recently I made a post where I had a one-off throwaway line regarding my antipathy for the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern "crab mask."

The public spoke, and spoke loudly: "We love the crab mask!"

Well, after much debate, I have decided to spill the secret origin of why I hate this particular mask.

The story starts some five years ago, when I was an assistant at DC Comics and working for the "JLA office."

We had a big metal art file in the office, and it was crammed to the gills with half-drawn or mostly complete old JLA miniseries & specials that never saw the light of day and the majority of which were started before I was even hired.

When Dan Didio came on board, he inquired as to what was in that big metal art file.

And thus several miniseries that had been started years before but never published were pulled out of the file.

The dictate?

"Get these @&#$@$ books into production!"

But because the books in question were relatively "old," they featured Kyle with the crab mask, not the redesigned Jim Lee costume.

So I was told to go over every page with Post-It notes and find all the crab masks so they could be patched by the inker.

This was a long process, and over time I learned to hate the crab mask.

Ditto later on for Aquaman's harpoon-hand.

No, perhaps it is not a legitimate reason to disdain an admittedly stylish bit of Lantern Corp sartorial flair.

But it's my story & I'm sticking to it.

Fangirl Fridays

Good morning! My neck really hurts because I did the salon thing; they baked my hair for an hour, washed it like 10 times. Patient boyfriend waiting for TWO HOURS in the salon, thumbing through their fashion magazines, torture.

Is Vogue More Sexist Than Adam Hughes Covers?

Patient boyfriend, after reading every women's magazine in the salon, inquires:

"How come there is such feminist uproar specifically over comic books when these magazines also show idealized, often skimpily-dressed women on a regular basis? I mean, any number of these blond models could be Ms. Marvel."

I, of course, was quick with an answer:

"Well, the purpose of cheesecake comics is the boobies, the purpose of Vogue and In Style is to make me feel like I'm not living up to an artifical standard thus propelling me to buy more stuff."

It's a good question, though. And of course I'm answering this as I'm paying through the nose to get my hair done.

This Week At The Comics Shop

I didn't go to my usual comics shop yesterday so I'm sure I've overlooked some issues...

New Green Lantern Issue: nice, but there's no urgency there. Oh, Hal and Kyle/Parallax are going to mix it up! Wow, didn't see that coming! Oooh, will one of them die? No?

Alternate cover for Flash #13: It takes a lot of balls to put out "collector's covers" for a book of this quality.

Punisher #49: Here's a new one: breast cancer instead of rape for a female character's motivation. Bought this, haven't read it yet. Opened it up on the train, faced with naked woman w/one breast covered in blood shooting the face off another guy while everyone is naked and covered with blood. Punisher naked handcuffed to bed while said woman climbs on top of him and asks him to "f**k" her and then blows her own brains out. Yes, the streets are tough.

Countdown: Probably would help sales if Wizard wouldn't reveal everything that happens that day.

Deadpool/GLI: No, the present isn't safe for you, Squirrel Girl & Speedball. Dan Slott has to seriously think of a way to protect Squirrel Girl so she doesn't become the next Sue Dibny. Speedball, Sue, then possibly ripping Jimmy Olsen's intestines out through his nose -- no square character is safe!

Putting The New Gods Out Of Their Misery

What happens to the quaint properties of yesteryear after several revivals have failed?

Well, you could hire Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr. to do a mini-series.

Or you could ask Jim Starlin to kill them and reboot them all.

A Wildstorm "revival" of some of the New Gods characters was on the docket while I was still working at DC. One or two involved artists that would in theory take such a long time to finish an arc that conceivably there might even be a finished issue or two ready to roll.

These revivals seemed to me to be more like Morrison-esque reinterpretations rather than wholesale reboots. However, the gist I've gotten from Starlin's Newsarama interview is that there are going to be reboots.

I don't think inventing whole new character concepts based on the original New Gods names is in itself a bad idea. But based on several recent DC reboots I am a little skeptical.

Then there is the whole question if killing off all the New Gods and rebooting them is disrespectful of the memory of Jack Kirby. And there is the whole question as to whether factoring in such a consideration is the publisher's job, since they own the properties and can do whatever the hell they want.

Zuda, Zudes, Zudons, Zudez, Zudent

Speaking of companies owning properties, I've been pondering this Zuda comics initiative.

I don't think we can really know what Zuda is about and if it is going to work or not until it actually gets launched. I'm reserving judgements until such time.

However.

All the internet commentary on the subject brings up the larger issue of work-for-hire and creator rights.

Tom Spurgeon brought up the point that no matter how above-board DC is, no matter how "informed" the creators are about what they are getting themselves into, it is still ethically wrong to ask a creator to sign away their rights to an artistic work.

Another point-of-view would be that without the economic incentive of aquiring intellectual properties, there is no reason for a big company like DC or Marvel to waste their time. That to ask these publishers to allow creators to hold on to the rights is to ask them to do something out of an ethical, not business, motivation.

This brings me to something I noticed yesterday when I was getting my hair done.

The neighborhood was pretty posh, and most of the boutiques there were these overly-priced tourist traps that offer discount-quality clothing for inflated prices. There was only one boutique there that had decent prices. It was run by an affable, down-to-earth lady who believed in offering fair prices for quality goods. She was from California, a little bit of a hippie, and completely contrasted with the elegant but cold Euro-shops that dotted the block.

I bought a really good peacoat from that woman last fall for a great price.

She's gone now, replaced by another inflated-priced Euro-shop tourist trap. As I knew she would be when I bought that awesome coat.

It's a great coat.


Teh Internets, They Are Teh Dead

Man, between the Summer Vacation & the pre-San Diego Con festivities, the internet is *dead*!


Me me me me me me me me pimpage me

I've got a big(ish) announcement at the beginning of next week. Just another chapter of my interesting life in comics -- be there!

"Sinestro Corps"
Required Reading List

Just think, you only need to have read/have a passing knowledge of these storylines in order to understand "Sinestro Corps":

Reign of the Supermen
Emerald Twilight
Zero Hour
The Final Night
Rebirth
Infinite Crisis
Crisis on Infinite Earths
52

And don't forget to follow "Countdown" weekly so you can follow what that evil Superman Cyborg has up his sleeve!

Now With 80% More Evil KyleThe "Sinestro Corps" new second printing cover.

Wait a minute, they didn't just Photoshop the Kyle image from the end of "Sinestro" onto the original cover, did they??? Or is this a mock-up?

Occasional Reviews:

"Annihilation" Vs. "Sinestro Corps"

Spoilers

"Annihilation Conquest: Prologue" & "Sinestro Corps" pretty much set out to do the same thing: establish the framework of a comic book sci-fi epic and get readers to buy all the tie-ins and spin-offs. The level to which both have succeeded in said mission is the focus of this review.

The books take distinctly different approaches to storytelling. "Annihilation" is a classic science-fiction narrative, with careful world-building and development of political intrigue. "Sinestro Corps" is an unabashed love-fest of both the Green Lantern mythos and the pencil-shavings from the recent "Infinite Crisis." Which approach one prefers depends a lot on the fan.

Basically, if you are not familiar with the Green Lantern Corps, you may find this book a little confusing. The book is fun and full of those exaggerated moments of four-color sturm und drang (my new $10 phrase) that have made "World War Hulk" such a hit. But it also assumes a lot.

"Sinestro Corps" assumes you know all about Hal's troubles, that you know who Parallax is, that you know who "evil Superboy" and "evil Superman robot" are, that you know and care that Kyle's ma was sick, and that you know that the big guy on the last page of the book (the "big reveal") is not Chemo, as I assumed, or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man or whomever.


On the other hand, I approached "Annihilation Conquest" with zed knowledge of the previous "Annihilation" series or the characters. I mean, at least I knew who Hal Jordan was -- who the hell is this Quill guy?

But "Annihilation Conquest" walks you through its universe as if every reader was new, as if every reader was as damn clueless as I was. And the result is that by the last page I was on-board to buy most (not all) of the "Annihilation" tie-in books. To actually get me to show any interest in purchasing "Star Lord" -- freakin' STAR LORD! That takes a lot.

I don't think you can get two more different writers than "Sinestro's" Geoff Johns and "Annihilation's" Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning. Johns is writing for the fans, for all those who followed "Infinite Crisis" & "52." Abnett & Lanning are writing classic sci-fi stuff; as they did with "Legion," they carefully build their worlds.

In the end, I chose to follow "Annihilation" through and to assume a wait-and-see stance on future "Green Lantern" books. But if you are specifically a DC fan, I could see how "Sinestro" could get you pumped; it out-Countdowns "Countdown."

As an aside, there is a really strong central female character in "Annihilation" and "Sinestro" is more or less a boy's club until (I assume) crazy mating Star Sapphire flies on the scene. Though I'm expecting a psychedelic girlfriend-in-refrigerator flashback to torment Kyle.

What True Love Is All About

BF calls me: "Hey baby, I'm down to my last $10, but would you like me to pick up anything for you before I come home?"

Me: "Could you please stop by the comic store and pick up The Sinestro Corps #1?"

BF responds: "Sure, baby, no problem."

And that's what true love is all about, Charlie Brown.
BF comes home: "You know, that Sinestro Corps cost $5."

"It's Time For Love"



Watch out, Green Lantern! Star Sapphire (and her glowing hoohah) has you in her crosshairs!

I think I had a She-Ra doll that did this once.

Of course, in a world of perfect economy, Saffy could be paired up with the dude from the Omac #3 cover and all would be well in the world...



(Anyway, just one more reason to run to your store & buy Green Lantern #18, in case you were looking)