Friday, September 17, 2004

here's something fun for people who love both Crayola Crayons and Spider-Man.

Spider-Man reviews a new box of Crayola's.
It's babies 'a poppin' here at The League these days.



First, Jill sprouted hard-rockin' baby, Arden. Then League pals, Ryan & Trisha, dropped Isaac upon an unsuspecting world. Now college pal, Anna (Mitchell) Clark and her husband, Luke, have brought us our latest installment. Theodore Robin is now proudly wreaking havoc in the greater Conroe, TX area.

Well done, Anna! And let's all give little TR a big "welcome to the world" thumbs up. The little dude has a lot of work ahead of him and needs some encouragement.

I also hear that another Loyal Leaguer may soon be a soccer-Dad, but that's a lot of heresay and innuendo.

The League has no children, and does not believe Melbotis would tolerate them, anyway. Mel tried to eat a kid a few years ago on Halloween, so we're going to keep cool on the kid front down at League HQ. Until Mel is ready, it's just not up for discussion.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Marvel Zombie (and, coincidentally, fan of zombie comics) Jim D. called me yesterday to alert me that he had, in fact, enjoyed Identity Crisis #4.

Identity Crisis is the DC Comic which is getting attention from CNN, AP and other locations. And, yeah, for some rather grim content, it's a pretty darn good read.

"Steeeeeeeans!" Jim D. declared, "You gotta read it!"
"I'm at work."
"You gotta read it now!"
"I'm about to enter into a phone conference with China."
"You gotta read it. Supes is totally getting into it!"

Now, Jim's a fan of Marvel, which is the rival to DC Comics. And comic fans are prone to select a house style they like (DC or Marvel) and that's their camp. I ride both sides of the fence, but when push comes to shove, I guess I fall into the DC camp. Couldn't tell you why, but I do.

But even Jim himself finds it significant that he's enjoying a DC book this much, when he'd rather be spending his hard-earned dough on Captain America or X-men, Spidey, I suppose (or a comic starring the living dead).

I often think of DC as an acquired taste, but I don't mean that in a snooty "it's what REAL comic readers read...". I just mean that either you dig DC, or you don't. And very few people actually begin reading comics anymore through DC. Most folks start with X-men or Spider-Man and then branch out.

DC, to me, wears a certain complexity to how their books interconnect which I find rewarding. Marvel is more complex on the character level, I am told, and books like Daredevil have really given credence to the stereotype. In fact, I don't know how many DC books I would even throw at a first-time comic book reader.

I did blaze through Identity Crisis #4 while I listened to the teleconference (which I didn't even need to be there for). And Jim is right. It was a great read, and Superman is, in fact, getting into the thick of things.

Identity Crisis is progressing well, and is going to be a significant event in DC comics for quite a while. Meanwhile, Greg Rucka is also writing soem terrifc Superman comics over in Adventures of Superman, Chuck Austen is spiralling out of control and quality in Action Comics, and the Azzarello/ Lee team still has me captivated by "For Tomorrow", a 12-part series running monthly in Superman comics.

Meanwhile, Loyal Leaguer Nathan Cone (and his lovely wife, Renata), have arrived. We had a nice dinner and then retired to League HQ to get some bedrest. Mrs. League immediately took them into the Fortress to show off what too much money and too little brains can accomplish when coupled with OCD.

Today Nathan and Renata are going to check out some Frank Lloyd Wright stuff about town, and then take in a D-Backs game.

Mel is also thoroughly excited to have them here (though they were previously unacquainted), and he has not been shy about displaying his affection.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Hello Leaguers - Mrs. League here. I feel as though I should entertain you while the League is a busy bee at work. Unfortunately, nothing too thrilling has happened recently in beautiful Maricopa county. We're still in the middle of summer2 (our seasons here are spring, summer1, summer2, and fall) which after four months of 100+ heat makes you want to lie down and give up. Seriously, it will be in the 100s for at least another month.

We haven't even seen any movies recently, although the League is eagerly awaiting the release of Funkey Monkey. I personally thought he would rather see the flying robots, but I guess primates + Matthew Modine win every time.

I guess we haven't had a Melbotis or Jeff the Cat update recently. Melbotis had a bath on Sunday, and proceeded to make a beeline for his beloved dirt patch the second he was released to freedom in the backyard. For this, he got the hose, which is high on his list of Mel-fears. (This includes smoke detectors, flashlights, vacuums, and small children.) Jeff the Cat has been unnervingly normal recently, which leads me to believe he is plotting something...

And I leave you with the best job in the world.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Busy.

Here's Adam Strange and the Omega Men.

Monday, September 13, 2004

In defense of my mom, she no longer wears a fanny pack. It has been replaced by a fashionable leather purse.

--Mrs. League
Two quick news items:

Batman remains in greater England, this time appearing at Buckingham Palace.

Ever notice how you never see Batman and Prince Charles in the same place...?

And, just in case you saw the photos and you're wondering, I believe Batman has given up his utility belt for a fanny pack. My mother-in-law is in good company.

And this one comes from Mrs. League:

Apparently there's a new consumer grade truck. No, not a pick-up, a TRUCK, like they use to mix cement or carry mobile homes. Now you can have one of your very own...

Says Mrs. League:

"For personal use, it's for people who want to make a
statement."

Statement = I'm an a**hole.


I don't know if the folks where you live have the same excitement over Hummers that the good people of Scottsdale, AZ have for these symbols of over-compensation, but there are a surprising number of these things on the road out here. Apparently owning a hummer entitles you to ignore all previously established traffic laws and create your own on the fly. If others don't go along with your new rules? Penalty of death or crippling injury. Luckily, since most of them are painted a Sesame Street-approved canary yellow, you can always see them on the road.
Bring on The Batman

Saturday saw the debut of the new WB! cartoon for kids, The Batman.

If I were a kid, that cartoon would have had me hopping about madly, tossing anything resembling a batarang around the house for hours. Not being a kid, there was substantially less hopping, but it pretty much had the same effect.

Here's the weird part... that isn't so much really Batman as I've known him for 27-28 years. This is formative Batman, chronologically 3 years into being Batman, a few months from meeting Dick Grayson (Robin 1) Batman. But this Batman doesn't reside in stately Wayne Manor. Instead, this Batman lives in a sweet loft/ warehouse-thing in the middle of Gotham (and on top of a cave?).

Logistically, I guess this makes more sense. And at one point in the late 70's or early 80's, Batman lived in a penthouse overlooking Gotham. So I guess you can say they borrowed that idea, or else decided Batman doesn't need no stinking commute.

The supporting cast is the strangest part. Sure, Alfred is still there. But Bullock, Gordon, Montoya, Cris are all MIA. Instead, we have sort of analogs to those characters with different names. I have no idea why they bothered to do that, or why they cut out Gordon altogether.

The animation is nice, with quick, well-choreographed action. The voice casting is done well, even if I miss Kevin Conroy as Batman (he's been the voice of Batman since about 1992). The voice of The Joker is well-done as well, but it's so close to Mark Hamill's depiction, I kind of wondered why they hired a new guy.

Apparently the show will have embedded signals in it which will activate your Bat-Wave ready Batman toys, or, possibly, shut down Uncle Fester's pace maker. Either way, it should liven up the cartoon hour. (Something about the TV turning on devices in my home creeps the hell out of me).

All that said, I loved this week's JLU episode with 80's DC superstar Booster Gold.

The team putting together JLU has walked away from the two-part Grant Morrison-wannabe epics, added more characters than Gardner Fox would have wanted to deal with, and taken the tone up a few notches in levity. I think the results are impressive (except for Hawk and Dove, which was kind of lame). Sure, each episode is focusing on introducing us to a new DC hero, but prior episodes were just introducing us to new DCU villains, so I'll take this format any day.

JLU is not going to be for the folks who want every super hero to be a dark and brooding Batman or Wolverine clone. That isn't, and never has been, the DC way. DC agrees that it takes a certain kind of weirdo to dress up in tights and fight crime, just not necessarily a depressing weirdo. Sometimes these weirdoes are people from the future trying to make a quick buck in the past, such as Booster Gold.

I encourage you to catch the episode if you haven't already. It also has appearances by Elongated Man (Ralph Dibney), Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., The Shining Knight, Huntress, and a few others. It was a lot of fun.

Oh, and I also heartily recommend the new cartoon "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends". It's by the same guy who created the Power Puff girls.
Loyal Leaguer Nathan Cone and his lovely wife, Renata, will be ditching San Antonio for the Grand Canyon State later this week. Jamie and I have scrubbed and cleaned Melbotis in eager anticipation.

Watched UT win last night in spite of themselves. If last night's performance was any indication, I can't watch the Oklahoma game at all. Not without without wearing a bag over my head.

Watched the Cowboys and Cardinals lose today while I was doing other things. Did some homework, and aside from that, not much this weekend. Did some homework. Bleah.

Oh, and the Krypton Kruiser is in the shop. This should make tomorrow's commute a real joy. Hopefully it'll be healthy again early this week.

Friday, September 10, 2004

Dear Japan...

Shadow Basketball
Frank Thomas, one of the "Old Men" of Disney animation, has passed on.

I read about this at The Beat. Go here for Heidi's article.

I need to get out my VHS copy of "Frank & Ollie" this weekend.
Heidi also uncovered some stills from the Frank Miller/ Robert Rodriguez movie, Sin City.

I have a few of the trades, and, man, am I looking forward to this movie.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Margot Kidder, the Lois Lane of the 1970's and 80's, is going to be on Smallville!

She's not playing Lois Lane, but it's great to see her getting involved.

Here's the article from SupermanHomepage

KryptonSite have learnt that Margot Kidder will be making an appearance in the fourth season of "Smallville".
Superman fans of course know Margot Kidder as Lois Lane from the Christopher Reeve "Superman" movies. It appears that Margot Kidder will be playing a character by the name of Bridgette Crosby, an emissary to Dr. Virgil Swann (Christopher Reeve).

Scheduled to appear in at least two episodes, Margot Kidder will first appear in the premiere episode of this new season, before returning again in the sixth episode.
DC's Identity Crisis gets attention on the AP.

Now Jamie will know why I didn't hand her the second issue.
I'm stuck on hold on the phone and I just realized something.

Muzak of Natalie Merchant songs sound exactly like regular Natalie Merchant songs.
feliz navidad

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Man, that's the last post about comics for awhile. I can hear the crickets chirping from here.
Jaws in thirty seconds - performed by bunnies.

--Mrs. League

Comic Books, Comics Scholarship and a Terrific Reading List for People Who Want to Get Into Comics but Think Superheroes are Dumb

Several days ago, Jim D. sent me a FAX at work. Apparently Jim is auditing HNRS 3161 (02), Comic Book Novels and Their Culture

The class is being offered at Lamar University, and is one of the growing crop of courses being taught by guys who, in 1986, stopped while reading The Dark Knight Returns and said to themselves: this is way better than that dumb book I'm reading in school. And thusly, Comics scholarship was born.

I find the readings interesting. I've read almost all of them.

Art Spiegelman's Maus
Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Alan Moore's Watchmen
Daniel Clowes' Ghost World
Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan

I have not yet read Neil Gaiman's Violent Cases

The idea of comics scholarship is an odd one. On the one hand, it offers people a chance to see the potential of the graphic medium for storytelling, and offers the potential to lay the literary establishment on its ear as comics are recognized to be a viable mode of storytelling within the hallowed halls of "those who know better".

On the other hand, who is going to register for this class who isn't already clued into the world of comics? My guess is, everyone in that class will have already read at least Dark Knight and Watchmen. The guys in the berets will have already read Ghost World and Jimmy Corrigan. A few will have read Maus because they thought they probably should. There might be a few indie rock girls who read Ghost World, but I don't think this is going to get popular with sorority girls looking for an easy-A.

The readings are the list of comics I'd give to my English Major friends when they say that all you need to know to know everything about comics is, "comics, oh yeah. Well, everyone knows Batman and Robin are closet homosexuals."* So aside from some assertions made by the late (and perennial fan-boy whipping boy) Frederic Wertham, what do these books have to offer?

A pretty wide array, if just from this small sampling. Ghost World and Jimmy Corrigan live in a microcosm, live and breathe with small characters living in a small world. The characters are real people, instantly recognizable as people from your high school or maybe from the post office.

Clowes' art is instantly recognizable, being simultaneously a red-headed step-child of 1970's indie comics and perhaps the master of this slice of a slice of a genre. He doesn't do much to fuzz with the use of sequential-art storytelling in Ghost World (not as he'd later do with Eightball #23, "Death Ray"), but his characters are utterly believable to look at, and their dialogue, etc... is painfully familiar.

Jimmy Corrigan is going to live on for decades as the culmination of a world-class obsessive compulsive disorder and a microscopic eye for detail. Confession time: I'm not a huge fan of Jimmy Corrigan. I can appreciate what Ware is doing, and I actually am very happy to have a copy of the book just to marvel at the work put into it, but the story didn't really do much to either move me or grab me. That said, from a scholarship standpoint (and that's what we're discussing here, right?) this may be one of the most important comic books ever published. Without getting all esoteric on you, Ware's understanding of use of the panel and sequential art may be unparalleled and shows a unique genius for conveying time, depth, emotion with the simple use of time compression and expansion in those tiny spaces between the panels. His art is sharp, clear and industrial, and, honestly, I have no idea how he does it (but I suspect he's using a Mac).

Ware had a strong follow up with Quimby the Mouse last year. I bought a beautiful hardcover copy, which I immediately f**ked up in my suitcase on the plane on the way home from Austin.

Maus gets mixed reviews in the comic book fan-world, but in literary realms, the book is pretty much universally praised. It is NOT an allegory, but a mix of semi-autobiographical material and recollections of stories of Art Spiegelman's father. Essentially, Maus tells both the story of Art Spiegelman and his father as they work on their relationship in Art's father's twilight years. Meanwhile, Art is collecting stories from his father who was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp.

For reasons I'll leave for the reader to decide, the characters are mostly portrayed as mice, with Nazis portrayed as cats. It's not Animal Farm (as I said, it's not allegory, really). Instead, Maus uses the unique format of comics to bring implied understanding and meaning to the situation with animal-themed visual cues.

Regarding scholarship, Maus has been infiltrating literature classes for years, so omission from the list of readings would be considered a gross oversight. Again, if we're studying comics as a unique art form, we're not looking just at the pictures alone, nor just the story, but the collaboration between the two. Maus's use of animal imagery is largely where the success of the medium comes into play, as well as well-timed beats and juxtaposition of Art's father's matter-of-fact recounting and the way in which the actual scenes are depicted.

Curiously, the complaints from comic fans seem to stem from a dislike of the animal-imagery, and a general feeling of distaste for the subject matter, being too serious for some readers, or somehow not connecting with them. This particular debate is, to me, a curious beast, as I don't feel Maus is in any way overly complicated.

I'll forego my usual gushing comments about Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. What I will say is that these two books are considered the pinnacle of superhero storytelling, and that's different from just successful comic-form storytelling.

The instructor for Jim's class has wisely avoided adding too many superhero comics (the money generator of the comics' industry) in favor of quality comic books which can appeal to a wider audience. This is a double-edged sword as most comics are super-hero and sci-fi based, but the selection of readings also gives a chance for people who are super-hero adverse to explore the medium. However, the instructor has included two comics which use superheroes and the ideas behind superheroes to explore issues of power, abuse of power and character exploration of larger than life characters in a way which your average comic may not do.

The impact of Watchmen and Dark Knight irreversibly changed the way in which superheroes are looked upon by their own greatest fans, and has given way to innumerable new stories looking at the ways in which those in power must behave responsibly. Prior to these efforts, the clunky moralism of early Spider-Man and perhaps the 1970's Neal Adams efforts on Green Lantern/ Green Arrow were significant efforts and an interesting approach to unwieldy topics usually left out of comics altogether.

Dark Knight and Watchmen asked only that their characters have motivations and behave according to those motivations. The publication of these two books cemented a path toward an adult readership which continues to this day.

I am very surprised by the omission of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, which is, perhaps, best read by folks already exposed heavily to the comics medium (I always believed web designers would get a kick out of it, too).

Also, both Will Eisner's "fictional" work (Fagin the Jew, A Contract with God, The Spirit) and his instructional manuals (Comics & Sequential Storytelling)are completely overlooked despite their importance within the industry.

I think work from either McCloud or Eisner would be absolutely necessary for such a class, but I'm not teaching it, so...

Look, obviously comics are my great obsession. And I could name a dozen more books totally deserving to be on this class's must read list (Rocket Raccoon, hello? anyone? No?), but I'm just thrilled to see this sort of course making it's way into the great halls of learning.

I am not suggesting that comics are as important as, say, Government 101. But comics originated in the US as a true art form, and probably have as much right to have their own class as the History of Elvis Presley class taught here at my employing university (I seriously want to take that class). Additional courses could include European comics, Japanese comics, or "Why can't anyone tell Clark Kent is Superman?"

Discussing comic scholarship within the comic fan community is an utter nightmare, if message boards are any indication. Many fans do not appreciate folks like Ware and Clowes entering into their realm without an idea for a caped and masked avenger in tow. Many complain the books are boring, and there's a general sense of "who do these guys think they are?", which almost suggests that these readers don't, ultimately, believe in the comics form enough to think it can hold up under the weight of stories which are not flights of fancy.

Many, many of these posters, to nobody's surprise, just do not appear to understand the stories they have read. I know. That's a little harsh, but there are some real knuckleheads on comics message boards.

I wish Jim good luck, and I look forward to hearing all about the nonsense with which his instructor fills his head.

*quick note: There is a whole field of study regarding the sexuality of superheroes, stemming mostly from Batman and Robin. Look, if that's how people want to read it, go for it. There's a similar situation with Star Trek and Kirk and Spock. I could care less. Just keep in mind, Wertham and his book in the 1950's almost shut down the whole damn industry.

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

this is the sort of thing that makes a portion of the comics population downright wet themselves.

Looks like Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly is doing some interesting things:

1) I never saw Firefly, but he's turned the cancelled show into a Hollywood sci-fi movie called Serenity.

2) Whedon has been writing the new X-men comic entitled "Astonishing X-Men." It's pretty good. ASTONISHINGLY good? That for you to decide...

3) Now rumors are mounting that Whedon is involved in X-Men 3, recently abandoned by Bryan Singer (who left to make the new Superman flick)

Is this good news? Sure, why not...

I never watched Buffy after Season 2 or so. I never watched Firefly, never watched Angel, but folks love that stuff the same way X-Fans love X-Men. So it sounds like a good match to me.

Phoenix Saga, here we come...