"LACKADAISICAL — Sumbudy who dont hav a daisy."
from Adventure Comics #329 (Feb 1965) by Jerry Siegel & Jim Mooney
From the same issue…Funky DJ Bizarro-S hand-cranking the jams:
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From the same issue…Funky DJ Bizarro-S hand-cranking the jams:
Ends and odds.
Just a few random things from the last few days, some of which you’ve already read about elsewhere, but I’m going to comment on them anyway:
- My favorite comment I’ve read on the Twitter recently. Well, I thought it was funny.
- I can’t top what Dirk wrote about the travesty of Civil War #1 winning the Harvey Awards category for “Best Single Issue or Story.” Honestly, go read what he said, because he really puts it in perspective.
I suppose if you’re approaching Civil War from terms of industry impact, there’s that…its delays fouled up comics schedules and cash flows for retailers, and irritated comic readers who, as these things usually work out, blamed the retailer for the book’s lateness. It’s also had the consequence of explicitly turning two of their major heroes into villains, one of whom has been featured in a couple of so-so movies, and the other with a big-budget feature debuting in the near future (more on that later). Plus, Civil War brought us the “Clone Thor” plot twist, which had the unique result of actually making even the most hardcore Marvel fans stop suspending their disbelief and declare, “oh, come on.”
Okay, most of that was from Civil War as a whole, and not just the first issue. But, hey, that first issue is where it all started, and it made money, and it attracted the general public for an issue or two until they got tired of waiting for it to come out, so it must be far higher quality than Ivan Brunetti’s Schizo #4 or the all-Aragones issue of Solo. Or anything else published that year. Or 32 pages of blank paper, folded and stapled and under a blank cover.
Well, maybe Civil War wasn’t as bad as all that…its main problem was that it was a standard issue superhero crossover/advertising tool punch-em-up that was pretending to be about “issues” and “moral ambiguity” without realizing that if you have two sides, and one side has Captain America (Marvel’s moral center) and Spider-Man (Marvel’s reader-identification character), the other side is, by default, the “bad guys.” And it doesn’t help that Spidey started on the other side, but questioned their motivations and actions. And that the other side’s leaders, Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic, build a robot Thor clone that ends up killing Black Goliath. Oops.
If you read it as “Iron Man has turned evil, and tricked other Marvel heroes into siding with him…and the rest of the Marvel Universe has to stop him!” — well, Civil War improves from that perspective. (“‘That’s how Stan ‘n’ Jack would’a dunnit!’ declared Old Man Mike, from his rocking chair on his front porch.”)
- Can’t believe I’m still writing about Civil War. Sorry about that. Blame the Harveys.
- And speaking of Sergio: new Groo this week. Buy it or I’ll hate you.
And according to news from some convention or other, Sergio is (along with longtime collaborator Mark Evanier) is taking over the writing chores on Will Eisner’s Spirit…alas, he’s not drawing it, too, which would make it one of the Greatest Comic Books Ever. No word on who is drawing it, but I’d suggest Dave Gibbons if anyone would listen to me.
The previously-announced Bat Lash revival with Aragones and John Severin is still a go, according to that con report, so that’s good to know, too.
- Other con news that you’ve already discussed to death, I’m sure: Jim Shooter not just returning to comics, but returning to the book he started his comic career on as a young teenager: the Legion of Super-Heroes.
The best thing about those original Legions by Shooter was that, as a 13 or 14 year old, he was writing adventure stories that were more mature and exciting than the adult-written Legion stories that preceded him. And they were written for kids, and not down to kids…because, of course, a kid was writing them.
Now we’re a long way from that Shooter, but here’s hoping we’re getting the Shooter that gave us those early Valiants and Star Brand (it’s good, honest!), and not the Secret Wars II, “More gore for the org!” Shooter.
- As long as I’m sorta on the topic…I really don’t like the character designs for that Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon. They’re just so ugly looking…when they cartoonized the Teen Titans, they turned out okay, but the Legion just looks harsh and angular and bleah.
But they look like they’re drawn by Rembrandt compared to the McDonalds Happy Meal toys…you can see a small pic of them at the bottom of this page. Pal Dorian gave me the Superb…er, “Young Superman” figure, and the girlfriend’s nephew had a Tharok figure, and boy, they’re about as unappealing as figures can be. The designs from the cartoon were no great shakes to begin with, but the toys managed to even screw those up. Yuk.
I realize that neither the cartoon or the toys are aimed at me, but still, don’t care for ’em. Hey, parents…if you’re going to introduce kids to the Legion, get ’em one of the Archives. Start with number 2 or 3. Or the Showcase black and white reprint.
- Hey, Iron Man movie trailer. Doesn’t look too shabby. Robert Downey, Jr. looks spot-on as Tony Stark.
Please please please let’s see this happen in a sequel. I mean, c’mon, live action Modok? How bizarre would that be? I suspect it would look a little something like this, only sitting in a flying chair instead of a terrarium.
- DVD pick of the week, just because I’m happy as a really happy thing that this movie finally came out: From Beyond
, yet another in a series of films where fellow Oxnard native Jeffrey Combs plays a man who screws around with science and gets what’s coming to him. If you liked Re-Animator, you gotta see this. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I remember really loving it at the time…and hey, when is Combs not fun to watch? The man automatically improves any movie or TV show by approximately 38% just by his mere presence. Yes, that’s right, I said 38%, and don’t you argue with me.
Anyway, there’s an Amazon link in the sidebar, wink wink, nudge nudge, and I’m probably going to continue to update that link every week with whatever DVD or CD happens to be grabbing my attention at that time. Yes, I know, it’s another ad, but maybe you’ll get to learn even more about my tastes, or lack of same, by what I post there. See, it’ll be fun, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll all learn a little something.
- Oh, now, really? $19.95 for Who Wants to Be A Superhero: Feedback? That’s the highest price I saw, though there are an uncomfortable number of other copies selling in the ten dollar range on the eBay.
Well, that surprises the heck out of me. I didn’t know that many people still cared. Though, you know, if it were me, I probably wouldn’t have emphasized the “investment potential” of this book in my listing. “Honest, it probably won’t be forgottten about as a merchandising tie-in to a fully-scripted oddball cousin to ‘reality’ shows on a third-string cable network.”
"We all die alone and afraid, Spider-Man!"
Digging through the back room for more online auction fodder, I turned up a couple more posters I wanted to share with you. That one above is “Spider-Man XII,” copyright-dated 1995 (and drawn the year before, as the artist, Kent Williams, dated it “’94”).
This has always struck me as an odd choice for a poster image. Okay, it’s not as peculiar as the Wonder Woman with Noose poster, but still, a picture of Spidey dangling over a coffin that reads “PARKER” across its lid?
Now, the first interpretation of this image is that it symbolizes Spider-Man’s guilt over the death of his Uncle Ben, and how that guilt is intertwined with Spidey’s motivation toward superheroics. In fact, and I know it’s hard to see in my pic there, but Spider-Man’s arms are bound by his own webbing, perhaps representing how he’s always trapped by his own guilt over his lack of action in preventing Ben’s murder.
Pretty bleak for a Marvel poster, right? “Hey, would you like THAT on the wall, Little Billy?” But then I came up with something even more depressing.
What if that coffin, instead of representing Spider-Man’s beginnings, represents his end? Spider-Man is trapped by his own webbing over a coffin intended for him…one strand of web trailing down beneath him, as if it were leading Spidey in the direction of that pine box. A bit of foreshadowing, that Spider-Man’s superheroic life will be the cause of his death?
My, how cheery.
I was talking about this with pal Dorian on Saturday, and we pondered the possibility of this image perhaps tying into the apparent death of Aunt May from around this time. Now that I’ve had a chance to look into it, the timeline doesn’t exactly work out…the poster was drawn sometime in ’94 for a ’95 release, the comic featuring “May’s” death (not really May, but an imposter…er, SPOILER, I guess) wasn’t out until early ’95. Well, I guess the timeline could work, if they were planning ahead on the merchandise, but I suspect if this poster were tying into May’s death, Marvel wouldn’t be so subtle about it…there would at least be a giant floating ghostly Aunt May head looking over a sad Spidey, gazing beatifically down upon her nephew with pride and love. Besides, what kind of weird-ass tie-in would that be? “Commemorate the death of the old lady with a swell new poster, suitable for framing!”
Of course, the poster could be implying that the ultimate fate of anyone in Spider-Man’s circle named “Parker,” including Spidey himself, is doomed to a death caused by his superheroing. All paths from Spider-Man lead to the grave.
…
I think the next time a customer asks me about this poster, that’s what I’m going to tell him. “Oh, this poster symbolizes the death and destruction inherent not only in Spider-Man’s origin, not only in his ultimate end, but in the lives of all those around him. Only $4.99! Will that be cash or charge?”
Another poster I found, which I mentioned in Saturday’s Twitter-fest, was this one:
Like I said in my Twittering, I can’t believe we still have this around. It’s a poster (retail or promo…I’m not entirely sure) advertising the Chrome series from Hot Comics, released in the mid-’80s. It was written by Peter Gillis, and illustrated by Kelley Jones, and I haven’t read it myself, but the Slings & Arrows Comic Guide, 2nd Edition (great resource, tons of series reviews, click the ad at right to get a copy, cheap!) gives it a glowing review as an intriguing, if incomplete, story. (Short synopsis of the premise: an American and a Russian astronaut are test subjects of a new, body-covering, and non-removable, metallic suit…when there’s an accident and one dies, the two governments find themselves at odds, unsure of which man actually survived. Hijinks ensue.)
I keep meaning to poke through the store stock and see if we have any of these comics still floating around so I can check them out myself. I mean, we still had the poster, for God’s sake.
Speaking of ’80s indies, that collection we got in the other day contained a few issues of Spaced, Tom Stazer’s sci-fi comedy/adventure comic that was eventually distributed by Eclipse Comics (EDIT: …and no relation to the UK TV show). This is one of those comics I remember reading about at the time in ‘zines, and being intrigued by it, but, for whatever reason, I never got around to purchasing. There were only thirteen issues published, so it’s not like a huge financial investment or anything.
Now, it’s not so much a matter of money as it is of being able to find those issues. The few issues from the collection, combined with what we had in stock already, gives me 8 of the 13 issues, missing the first four and number 6. Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had to actively search out missing issues of a comic book series…oh, if only there were some kind of worldwide computerized communication and search system I could use to track them down.
Or I can just use my site. Hey, any of you guys got those issues I’m missing, and are willing to part with them? (So long as they’re in reasonably okay condition, and you don’t charge me $30 to ship ’em.)
I need to amend the store’s dress code.
So there I was, minding my own business, trying to get some stuff done at work, when in walk former employee Josh and his lady friend Dana (the little sister of former employee Nathan).
And they were in their Harry Potter-verse costumes:
Dana was dressed as Ginny Weasley, and Josh was…well, I’m not sure he actually was in a costume, since that’s pretty much how he dressed when he worked here. But he had his Hogwart’s top on, and he was wearing his “SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY” badge.
To top it all off, they weren’t just coming back from some Harry Potter convention or costume party. Oh, no. They dressed like this and came to the shop specifically just to freak me out, man.
But I can take it…I’ve had in the store lady pro-wrestlers in costume, Klingons, bearded women, and a gal whose top was comprised entirely of electrical tape. I can handle your HP cosplay!
…Though I did sigh a little.
1970s DC, you have brought me disappointment.
WHAT I WANTED TO READ:
The story from this cover to The Witching Hour #50 (January 1975, illustrated by Nick Cardy), where the guy’s hand has actually turned into a skull, and, you know, maybe it’d talk to him and torment him and stuff:
THE STORY I GOT:
A guy steals a magic skull from a shop, and finds in short order that 1) it’s bringing him an endless supply of bad luck, 2) it’s permanently attached itself to his hand, and 3) it doesn’t talk:
It’s a fine distinction, certainly, but I found myself somewhat disappointed. I wanted the “talking magic skull that’s replaced the poor sap’s hand” story, but alas, ’twas not to be.
Here’s an interesting artifact from the 1980s black and white boom: issue #2 of The Protectors, published in 1986 by New York Comics, features a history of the creators’ troubles with a particular publisher that runs beneath each story page throughout the entire book:
It makes for compelling reading. And yes, the comic itself is, shall we say, less than professionally polished, but good on them for putting it together and getting it out despite whatever hardships they were facing. It may be extremely amateurish, but in a way it’s a lot more entertaining than, for example, any given Civil War tie-in.
Get a load of this handsome bastard:
This is the “retailer incentive” variant cover for Star Trek Year Four #2, but IDW really missed a bet not making that the regular cover.
Also, looking at that makes you realize, in regards to the forthcoming Star Trek film “reboot” — it’s a fool’s game to recast Kirk. I mean, how do you top perfection?
My Twitters, let me show you them.
Currently Twittering today’s workday at my Twitter page. Updated when I can (or when I switch the CD on the store’s player, which gives me an excuse to Twit. Um, yeah).
"Feel so much closer to them…like having them in your own family!"
from Teen Confessions #36 (November 1965)
There’s an additional ad on the same page as this one, for copies of the birth certificates of all four Beatles. It’s $2.00 for all four of these, so it’s a better deal than the mariage records. Thanks, Dad®!
Madeleine L’Engle (1918 – 2007).
So long, Madeleine.
“Be!
Be, butterfly and behemoth,
be galaxy and grasshopper,
star and sparrow,
you matter,
you are,
be!
Be, caterpillar and comet,
be porcupine and comet,
sea sand and solar system,
sing with us,
dance with us,
rejoice with us,
for the glory of creation,
sea gulls and seraphim,
angle worms and angel host,
chrysanthemum and cherubim
(O cherubim)
Be!
Sing for the glory
of the living and the loving
the flaming of creation
sing with us
dance with us
be with us
Be!”– Madeleine L’Engle, A Wind in the Door
This is the first time I’ve mentioned "Rambo" on my site.
So pal Sean finally convinced me to go check out Cartoon Dump, a parody of a kid’s cartoon show as if produced by a studio with absolutely no social responsibility whatsoever. (So, as if it were produced by a studio, har har.) Brought to us by cartoon expert Jerry Beck and Mystery Science Theatre 3000‘s former TV’s Frank, Frank Conniff, Cartoon Dump presents hilariously awful animated shorts for our amusement and/or terror. Apparently there’s a live stage show version of this put on monthly…that’s gotta be a hoot. Reminds me a bit of the old Pee Wee Herman stage show where he did similar routines.
Episode #1 is available at the link above, which also features several behind the scenes cast shots (and the lovely young lady dressed as “Buf Badger” pictured there that’s given me an all new appreciation of furries). Episodes one and two are available here, along with several other animated shorts.
Purchased very, very few comic books this week. The Lobster Johnson comic, by Mike Mignola and Jason Armstrong is appropriately pulpy and action-packed, but doesn’t it feel weird that this character is a Hellboy spinoff? I know he was there from the beginning, but it’s been so long since Lobster Johnson has appeared, and Hellboy has been, more or less, a constant presence on the stands and cutting its own path, that being reminded that there’s essentially a costumed superhero in the Hellboy milieu feels a bit odd.
Yeah, I know, the Hellboy universe regularly features witches and fishmen and humanoid frogs and spirit-animated robots and big ol’ tentacled Lovecraftian critters and werewolves and so on, but I’m apparently drawing the line at “superhero.” Yeah, well, what can I tell you? I’ll get over it.
Brought up in a discussion with Captain Corey at the store on Thursday:
Crossover we want to see? Well, we were discussing the possibility of Sylvester Stallone someday doing a Rocky versus Rambo movie, with him playing both roles of course, but the general consensus was that Rocky was probably outmatched by the newly over-the-top splatterpunk Rambo (as seen in this probably not safe for work trailer).Yeah, I know some of you may have a differing opinion on this, but just go with me here, okay?
So who did we decide could pose a sufficient challenge to Mr. Rambo for a big budget crossover movie?
John Rambo versus Terminator.
C’mon, how cool would that be? It’d be the stupidest, most violent, and most absolutely fantastic movie ever. Especially since, in our fantasy film, at some point Rambo would have to be fitted with cybernetic parts to be more of an even match with the ruthless Terminator robots. Yes, Cyborg Rambo. Just ponder that for a moment.
Per Corey’s brother Chad: “Our historical records were incomplete, and we were wrong. It’s not John Conner who leads the humans to victory…it’s John Rambo!”
Granted, that’s a heck of a mistake to make, but, really, that’s all the set-up you need for the film that’s bound to be the 2010 Academy Awards’ Best Picture.
If you say you wouldn’t want to see this film…YOU’RE LYING.
Yes, I realize I probably should be on some form of medication. Hey, at least I’m not still going on about the eBay.
Picking at the scab.
I was kinda stewing a bit about the whole “eBay canning some of my auctions” thing, so while I was at the shop on Wednesday…well, it was kinda slow, what with no new comics yet, so I actually used the eBay “Live Help” function for the first time. Basically, it’s a chat window that connects you directly to some eBay employee (I’m assuming it is a live person, and not eBay’s version of Eliza*), and so I asked this person what was up with my auctions getting canned, while other naughty comics on the eBay got off (har har) scot-free.
Well, he didn’t have any answers for me, so he directed me to the page where I could contact someone else regarding this policy. I sent a message explaining what happened, asking why this policy was enforced so sporadically (for example, why my auction for the UK underground Edward’s Heave was removed, where the entire adult content was some bad words and a cartoon nipple, while there were nearly 200 auction listings for Preacher, the content of any given issue being far worse than anything in Edward’s Heave).
The response I’ve received told me, in essence:
1. The items were removed because they said “Adults Only” on the cover. [And so did several of the other items I listed but were left online, because…]
2. My other auctions were not removed because only the auctions that were reported to eBay were reviewed.
3. They rely on user reports for violating items, and that sellers are responsible for their own compliance.
To sum up: so long as no one complains, you apparently can get away with listing adult material outside the adult section. But, if you annoy a user who then reports you, eBay’s kinda obligated to do something about it, rather than risk showing up in some “PORN FOR SALE ON AUCTION SITE” news story.
When I sent in that e-mail, I did half-jokingly mention to Employee Jeff, “Gee, I sure hope I’m not about to screw things up for everybody” — you know, suddenly because of me all auctions for, say, DC’s Vertigo line are now restricted to the naughty eBay section. The likelihood of that happening is pretty slim, admittedly, since the eBay-owned PayPal payment service is prohibited, for various legal reasons, from being used for “adult” material, and I doubt eBay would want to take the hit in potentially lost PayPal fees from moving so many items to the mature area (where the PayPal option is verboten).
A few people threw the word “censorship” around in reference to my experience here, and I don’t really think it’s censorship per se. EBay’s policy on this material is clearly stated, and I just happened to get caught. It smacks more of eBay, Inc. covering its ass, trying to show a complainer that, oops, we don’t want that dirty stuff out where the young’uns can see it! See, it’s gone! No reason to complain! Or file a class action lawsuit! I think any actual censorious intent would likely not have let my auction for Gay Comics stand, since you know how would-be censoring busybodies like the gays.
I’m not saying that kind of censoring abuse isn’t possible, or hasn’t happened, on eBay. I just don’t think it’s the case here.
One other thing…when you sign up for eBay, one of the things you agree to under “Terms of use and your privacy” is that you’re at least 18 years old. So, theoretically, every potential bidder on eBay is an adult anyway, and if they’re not, that’s eBay’s fault, not the seller’s. See, buck successfully passed back!
For your convenience, here’s more “fun for all ages!” comic book stuff allowed to remain in eBay’s general listing section:
Threshold (Avatar’s porn ‘n’ violence anthology)
“Hey, Mike, bitter much?”
“Nah, not me.”
Pal Dorian ain’t busy enough, so he started a new When Fangirls Attack-esque linkblog Comic Gays. Go, encourage the man. At least check out his great logo.
