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§ February 29th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
1. I hereby call for a moratorium on jokes based on the 70s Marvel Comics title Giant-Size Man-Thing. Yes, we all can’t believe that Marvel actually published it either. But, after nearly 30 years, we’ve all heard just about every variation on the joke there is, and, really, it needs to stop. I know, what with the movie opening soon on an airplane near you, that the temptation is there to drag the joke back out again, but you need to resist. Besides, once J.M. DeMatteis used the joke in an actual issue of the 90s Man-Thing series (out of the beak of Howard the Duck, no less), it’s come full circle, and there’s nothing more to add.
1a. But if you have to wrap your hands around a Giant-Size Man-Thing (har har), make it issue #4, with the absolutely heartbreaking “The Kid’s Night Out” by Steve Gerber, Ed Hannigan, Ron Wilson, and Frank Springer…it’s one of the few comic books to make use of extended text pieces in such a way that it doesn’t drive you crazy. Plus, there’s a great Howard the Duck back-up.
2. I read a post on a message board (you can probably guess which one) where the person claims that you could read three consecutive pages of any comic that Grant Morrison has written and “correctly extrapolate” (that person’s words) every other comic Morrison has written. Um, there must be some other “Grant Morrison” writing comics, because that doesn’t describe the one I’m thinking of. You can look at St. Swithin’s Day and extrapolate The Filth? You can read Animal Man and extrapolate Kill Your Boyfriend? You can read G.I. Joe European Missions #3 and extrapolate The New Adventures of Hitler? Okay, in all fairness this message board poster was probably exaggerating to make a point, that Morrison does like to repeatedly explore certain themes, but, you know, that’s what writers sometimes do. Deal.
2a. A Grant Morrison bibliography.
3. Speaking of Morrison, there was a letter in the most recent issue of New X-Men in which the letter writer complains that the issue with a solo adventure of Xorn appears to contradict the later revelation about that character. All I can say is that this letter writer has apparently never heard of the concept of “the unreliable narrator.”
4. Non-comics-related Mac OSX joke: it’s a shame that Apple Computers didn’t advertise their new GarageBand software with the very obvious tagline “Rock out with your Dock out.”
5. I was going to post more on Rich Tommaso’s 8 1/2 Ghosts, but Bill Sherman beat me to it. Go read his review, and mentally insert my voice saying “yup, he’s right” after every sentence.
§ February 28th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
About four years before another certain superhero discovered he was just a character in a comic book, a villain in Fat Ninja, published by Silverwolf Comics, was clued into the exact same thing:
from Fat Ninja #3 by Gary Amaro and Emilio Soltero
Compared to the rest of the Silverwolf/Greater Mercury output,
Fat Ninja was one of the better titles, with an appealing cartoony style and a tongue very firmly in cheek. Think a slightly less-silly
Tick.
§ February 27th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "YOU’RE FIRED!"
Okay, so I happened to be looking at the above cover the other day, when I noticed something peculiar. If you were to take this cover as a literal representation, and not just symbolic, here’s how the sequence of events would have gone:
1. Perry (or some other higher-up) fires Clark.
2. Clark cleans out his desk.
3. Clark starts heading for the door with his box of personal effects.
4. Perry pops up again to remind Clark (and everyone within listening distance) that he’s fired.
So, basically, Perry’s a big jerk who’s going to follow Clark out the door, shouting “YOU’RE FIRED” at him repeatedly, heaping additional humiliation on him during his Walk of Shame.
Or maybe it’s just symbolic. Yeah, I think I’d better stick with that.
§ February 27th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on No relation.
Really, how could I not link to something called Sterling – The Comic? It’s a 1,000 page graphic novel in progess…currently on page 57. There appears to be a fairly active forum as well.
§ February 27th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on A new tool.
It’s the Comics Weblog Update-A-Tron 3000, courtesy of Dave! Well, okay, that’s not what he calls it…it’s what I would have called it, so it’s a good thing he did it and not me. Anyway, let this page keep you updated on when your favorite weblogs (like Neilalien) and your least favorite weblogs (like mine) get updated. Or, at least in my case, when I last revised my weblog to correct the misattributions and dumb typos. It’s pretty neat, so go check it out.
§ February 27th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Permalinks not working at the moment. Haven’t the foggiest reason why. Please remain calm. Do not panic.
EDIT: Apparently titles are required for the permalinks to work properly. At least that’s what seems to be the case, from trial and error experimentation. Oy. Looks like I have some more editing to do.
§ February 27th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Superboy again.
Here are a few more details about that Superboy cover I posted a couple days back, via Mah Two Cents.
§ February 26th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Superboy.
You may think you know about Superboy, but you don’t know this much about Superboy.
There’s a whole lot more on the site’s main page.
§ February 25th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on New comics follies.
Most disappointing part of New Comics Day: having pal Dorian look at the cover of the new issue of Uncle Scrooge and proclaim “Golden Age Scrooge versus Modern Age Scrooge!” For a brief moment, I thought this was true (what with the presence of Magica DeSpell on the cover), but, alas, it’s just yet another distant relation and most definitely not a time-travel Scrooge vs. Scrooge story. Rats.
A couple nice items showed up today…volume two of Gyo by Junji Ito, which, if at possible, looks even more horrifying than the first volume. I’d written about Gyo before, and looking back, I realize that I never did follow up on Uzumaki. I’d better get cracking. Also arrived today was 8 1/2 Ghosts by Rich Tommaso…just grabbed it on a whim. There’re ghosts, there’re sordid doings, there’s filmmaking, Satan is in there somewhere…I haven’t read it yet, so I have no idea what’s going on, but it looks to be pretty entertaining.
Also took a look at a couple previews of comics shipping next week…the first issue of the Punisher movie adaptation has this winner of a last page image (SPOILER ALERT, in case you’ve never read a Marvel comic book in your entire life). If that’s an accurate portrayal of the quality of the movie…well, consider yourself forewarned. I did read the new Swamp Thing #1 by Andy Diggle and Enrique Breccia…oh, it’s good. It’s practically issue #172 of the prior Alec Holland Swamp Thing series, without ignoring the intervening Daughter of Swampy stories. Pick that up next week, internet pals. Oh, and pal Dorian pointed out in the new Alpha Flight #1 that one of the characters is the son of Major Mapleleaf…isn’t the death of Major Mapleleaf’s son one of the main “plot” points in the “Northstar Comes Out” issue from a previous Alpha Flight series? I suppose it could be another son…but what if it isn’t? What if it’s Major Mapleleaf’s zombie son, back from the dead to fight crime in Canada? I’d read that, certainly. Well, read it next week and we’ll all find out together, I guess.
Oh, and just in case you can’t get into Mel Gibson’s Passion movie tonight, may I suggest this viable substitute?
§ February 24th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Blogosphere.
While Alan David Doane has his 5 Questions (the most recent is Chester Brown), Flat Earth has his Archie comics and romance advice columns, Neilalien (who manages to refer to himself in the third person and make it sound natural…I do it and people laugh at me) has got his Dr. Strange and Laura has her Aquaman, and Graeme has his finely-honed eye for message board nonsense…
…I’ve got an old Superboy cover:
Superboy #189 (August, 1972), cover by Nick Cardy
During the early 1970s, when horror was finding its way back into popular culture, via movies, books, and television, comic books were not immune. You had Superman fighting devils, Swamp Thing and Man-Thing were hauling themselves out of their respective swamplands, the Son of Satan getting Comics Code approved (somehow), people were getting possessed left and right (like, oh, say, Ghost Rider), and, where he was cavorting with Krypto and teaming with the Legion of Super-Heroes before, now Superboy was dealing with “The Curse of the Hangman’s Noose.”
What I like best about that cover, I think, is the inset Superbaby head between Pa’s feet.
And that, my friends, is what I have to contribute to the Comics Blogosphere.
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