1. The Justice League Unlimited episode based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Superman Annual story aired last night…and hey, they managed to do the story justice. Not perfect, but it was a lot better than I expected it to be. Lines of dialogue made it intact from the printed page into the cartoon, and the emotional impact of Superman being forced to give up his fantasy world remains unchanged. Seeing Kal-El tell his “son” “I don’t think you’re real” is still as distressing, even 19 years after I first read that line.
1a. John Byrne mentions a “glaring plot hole” in the original Superman Annual (that, of course, isn’t really a plot hole) a few posts in on this thread, and one of the forum members points out to Byrne that, no, that supposed plot hole doesn’t exist, given a careful reading of the text. Insulting response by Byrne in 3…2….
2. So I guess Michael Chabon made a speech in which he stated that American publishers need to try harder to get kids to read comics, and some comic creators took him to task for that horribly controversial statement, and so on. By the time I started paying attention to this, everyone’s pretty much already had their say in the matter so I don’t know what I have to add, beyond mentioning that I have plenty of children customers at my store, and they are interested in a wide range of comics. As pal Dorian (who also works at the same shop) has stated, they’ll pick up superhero comics if there’s a currently popular movie or cartoon based on the property (with the exception of the always popular Spider-Man titles), but they’re also reading Simpsons, or Sonic the Hedgehog, or the Archie line, or manga. There are plenty of comics for kids out there…you just have to 1) cultivate the clientele (having a clean, organized, well-lit store is a step in that direction); 2) realize that kids probably will never return to reading superhero comics en masse;
and 3) carry the books kids do want. How many comic shops out there don’t even bother with ordering Archies or Disney titles?
3. As Legomancer points out here, my warning to not do a search on “elfquest orgy” has had an ironic result…it appears I am the top search for “elfquest orgy” on Google. (Ringwood is #2…I’m not takin’ the fall alone, buddy!)
4. You know what other comic I don’t get? Strangers in Paradise. Is it a romance? Is it a super-spy story? Is it a domestic comedy? Is it fakey-lesbian tomfoolery? Is it a support mechanism for the kind of poetry you really shouldn’t be writing once you’re out of middle school? If you’re a fan, more power to you, and the trades usually sell consistently for us, but every time I look at the comic, I really have no idea what kind of story Terry Moore is trying to tell. I’m sure it’s all well and good (except for that poetry), but again, I get the “reading someone else’s mail” feeling whenever I crack open the covers on this title.
5. Happy birthday to pal Tom!
