Just some random stuff.
1. I was Googling around and found this: the T.M. Maple Memorial Leaf Pit, archiving some of this prolific letterhack’s writings from various comic book letter columns. The main page links to other neat features, including a gallery of letter column header images, with commentary!
2. Johanna provides a summary of some reactions to this week’s release of Civil War #4. I know I said yesterday that I read it and it struck me as inadventently amusing, but…well, I’m trying to think of a way to sum up my feelings about this issue. The thing that keeps coming to mind is (and I’m gonna get into SPOILERS here) the bit with the apparent return of the formerly dead Jason “Robin II” Todd in the Batman: Hush storyline. One chapter ended with the revelation that Jason Todd was the bad guy, which got the fans excited…even I thought that was a great reveal, in a storyline that otherwise left me pretty cold. Of course, to the disappointment of everyone, it turned out that it wasn’t really Jason, and that disappointment sort of cast a pall over the remainder of the series (at least among my customers). Jason eventually did come back, for reals this time, honest, in post-“Hush” storylines, but the impact of that return was undermined by the previous fake-out, it seemed.
I don’t know if the whole “return of Thor…or is it” thing will cast similar pall over Civil War, but I am seeing a lot of “oh, for God’s sake…are you kidding me?” types of reactions to it, so it doesn’t look good.
Plus…um, I can see Iron Man being a government tool, I can see Peter Parker being emotionally manipulated into joining Iron Man (and eventually seeing the problems with IM’s position)…but the Reed Richards in this series is not one I recognize from the many decades’ worth of Fantastic Four I’ve read. I’m totally calling “no way” on this portrayal.
And there are lots of other little things in this particular issue that are beginning to show the cracks in what I had initially believed to be a reasonable and interesting idea for an event series. Ye Olde Comic Blogge hits most of those points.
‘Course, it’s still gonna sell like crazy.
3. “Bible comics catch few eyes”
“Christian comics have been around for decades. But, unlike Christian rock, religious graphic novels have yet to find a wide market.
“Some Christians question whether comics are appropriate for religious content. Some apparently shy away from the books because they think ‘graphic novel’ means adult material. Some mainstream stores are reluctant to carry books appealing to what they view as a small niche.”
4. That list of questions I posted that I had found on a message board? Tony takes a crack at answering them.
5. The comicweblogosphere’s resident medical expert, Polite Scott, discusses the scarring of DOOM. And, if you are so inclined, you may dare give DOOM your own dialogue, like so:
