Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Wolverine #46

Has anyone read Wolverine #46?! I haven't, but I was checking my backed up RSS feeds from the Spoilit! blog to find out that the masterminds behind the Civil War sparking Stamford incident was friggin Damage Control! Damage Control?! What the hell?!?! Damage Control?!

Wolverine #46:
Wolverine arrives at Damage Control HQ to see Walter Declun, the man responsible for supplying Nitro with MGH. Instead, he is greeted by Ann-Marie Hoag, President of the company. Wolverine tells her what Declun did, and says how Damage Control got the clean-up contract in Stamford. Declun interrupts, having just called SHIELD.


Wolverine leaves, and later sneaks in to retrieve a tech-mining device he planted during his first visit. He brings it back to Forge. It reveals that Damage Control is doing everything they can to increase the number of super-hero battles, and encouraging the registration process so that they can get profitable government contracts out of it all.

The Real Story of the Superheroes




Dulce Pinzon has a website dedicated to to his photo series/exhibit The Real Story of the Superheroes, which focuses on the heroism of Mexican immigrants who work in NYC to send money home to their families. Pinzon dresses up Mexican workers as classic superheroes, and photographs them in their work environments, posting the workers name, occupation, and the dollar amount they send home to their families in Mexico once a week.


The Mexican immigrant worker in New York is a perfect example of the hero who has gone unnoticed. It is common for a Mexican worker in New York to work extraordinary hours in extreme conditions for very low wages which are saved at great cost and sacrifice and sent to families and communities in Mexico who rely on them to survive.

The principal objective of this series is to pay homage to these brave and determined men and women that somehow manage, without the help of any supernatural power, to withstand extreme conditions of labor in order to help their families and communities survive and prosper.


This project will consist of 12 color photographs of Mexican immigrants dressed in the costumes of popular American and Mexican superheroes. Each photo will picture the worker/superhero in their work environment, and will be accompanied by a short text including the worker's name, their hometown in Mexico, the number of years they have been working in New York, and the amount of money they send to Mexico each week.



Link

Monday, September 25, 2006

Favorites!!


Josh:

Civil War

52

Grant Morrison & Andy Kubert's Batman

Geoff Johns & Tony Daniel's Teen Titans



Eli:

x-factor, runaways....powers, invincible....superfuckers...and i keep hoping godland will be amazing, but i'm mostly dissapointed.

Honorable Mention: Uncle Same & The Freedom Fighters


Tonio:

Ex Machina

Cassanova

Fell

Deadman

All Star Superman

X-Factor

Jonah Hex


Honorable Mention: Invincible; Ed Brubaker's Daredevil; Grant Morrison & Andy Kubert's Batman; Brian Bendis & Mark Bagley Ultimate Spiderman (most consistently satisfying guilty pleasure pull)

Friday, September 22, 2006

Found this on the internet...



Eli & I were just having a conversation a few days ago about how Peter David's X-Factor is probably one of the best comics being put out regularly right now, and definately the best comic working heavily in an established continuity of the SuperHero idiom. If you haven't been reading it, please take the time to check it out. It even tied into House of M/DeciMatioN & Civil War in a tasteful manner! I re-read the series up until the issue that just came out this week last night and totally forgot this momen in one of the early issues. It remains one of my favorite comedic scenes in the book.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006


GENE LUEN YANG's American Born Chinese is in stores tomorrow. I've been looking foward to this since reviews and such have been popping up after San Diego. If your mildly interested, check out the preview pages available on First Second's website. I'm definately going to pick it up some time this week.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Stephen Colbert on Marvel's Civil War

Colbert Chimes in:

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Alan Moore's pornographic Alice/Wendy/Dorothy graphic novel

It may be tired news at this point (thanks a lotRich Johnston), but Sci-Fi author/BoingBoing contributor does make some fascinating statements behind the psycho-sexual basis of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls erotica graphic novel.

Alan Moore's pornographic Alice/Wendy/Dorothy graphic novel: "Cory Doctorow: The meta-story of the three heroines of Lost Girls is fascinating. JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan, suffered such terrible emotional abuse as a boy that he developed something called "psychogenic dwarfism," which caused him never to go through puberty. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), took chaste-but-creepy photos of naked little girls. L Frank Baum based Dorothy on a downtrodden and abused girl he met as a Kansas schoolteacher. Previous authors have made the link between these girls, their authors, and the buried dark erotic sub-currents in their stories -- see, for example, Geoff Ryman's World Fantasy Award-winning novel WAS, about L Frank Baum and Dorothy."

Kemonozume

Jean Snow Blogs: Kemonozume: " I finally got a chance to watch the first episode of KEMONOZUME the other day (it airs Saturdays at 00:30 on WOWOW), and I’m not even sure where to start. OK, let’s start by saying that this is one of the most interesting new anime series I’ve seen in while, and it feels good to be excited by a new show again (the last time was probably with SAMURAI CHAMPLOO). It comes from MIND GAME director Masaaki Yuasa, and if you’ve seen that film, you’ll sort of know what to expect, but with a twist, and that’s the thing. What starts off as a weird conversation between two “players” turns into a monster fight with mech-equipped warriors, but all done in the wacky, indie-style animation that was used in MIND GAME. And then, we find out that we’ll be following the story of these monster fighters. But things quickly go into romantic/dramatic territory — with a comical twist that involves a monkey — before finally tying into the whole mythology of the show. From this first episode, I’m absolutely hooked, and cannot wait to see more. You can view a trailer for the show here."


You can view the first episode on Youtube, but I have yet to see a subbed version of the episdoe up. Looks great.

Friday, September 08, 2006

New Evangelion Films

New Evangelion Films:

"Not one, not two, no, not even three, how about four new Evangelion films! According to the October issue of Newtype (Japan) (On sale September 10), four new Evangelion movies are in the works. The four movies will include a prequel, a mid-series movie, a sequel and a “final” movie. The prequel movie is due out early summer 2007.

While the new story will be set during the same time frame as the original TV series, Newtype states that it will be an entirely new project, not be a remake or improvement of any sort. Newtype also mentions that viewers will not need to have already seen previous Evangelion material in order to understand and enjoy the new movies.

Hideaki Anno will write the scenario for the first movie and will be the general director and manager for the entire project. Kazuya Tsurumaki will direct the movies while Yoshiyuki Sadamoto will provide character designs and Ikuto Yamashita will provide mechanical designs. Shinji Higuchi will provide storyboards for the first movie. Khara, a new studio that shares office space with Gainax, was was recently set up and is seeking production staff to work on Anno’s new project. (Anime News Network)"

digital comics


digital comics
Originally uploaded by I Heart Adam Brody.
I really feel like I could crawl into a dark hole and never come back out right now.

Too tired and too lacking in caffeine to actually think straight right now. C's been working long days; our never-ending insect problem has been, well, not ending; my mental health has recently not been the pinacle of triumph and achievment that past therapists and my parents would have you believe; and my column has continually been late/behind-schedule for little over a month now. In all of this hecticness, I still wade through a see of headlines featuring atrocious foreign-policy fueled by racism to further abate racism, and celebrities making themselves look like asses. Still, the RSS feed world does have much to offer me in the form of webcomix.

The new line-up for Act-I-Vate's "Wave 3" is finally up, after months of teasing anticipation. One such contributor seems to be a random myspace friend of mine, Jenn Tong. I took a look at some of her work on her myspace and livejournal profiles, and it really is quite remarkable stuff. I look foward to what she has to offer to Act-I-Vate.

The thing about webcomics is that, because of the intermitent nature of publication, and because the artists involved are most likely not getting paid for their work, it makes it a completely different kind of reading experience. It's hard to sit down and read a story in comprehsible bits like a print comic, and it's even harder to go back after it's all been published to sit down and re-read the whole thing as a complete story. Most of my favorite stuff being hosted by WebComicsNation does allow this. But because it is a paid hosting service with no real community basis (no links, hard to find links to it, etc.), it is hard to find something that you would actually like in a mirad of shit. I blame this on two things: 1) the very base design of the site leaves much of the artists personality out of the presentation, which is an arena which webcomics have the potential to really excel in; 2) most artists, save for maybe Roger Langridge, really just use the service as an image hosting service, presenting the images, out of order on personal blogs - something you could easily do with a service like Flickr or something, rather than proport that WebComicsNation can serve as an actual hub of any sort to this burgeoning medium. Scott McCloud is clever enough to use his websites own server to this end, allowing you to read work that you can pay for or can view for free, as opposed to WebComicsNation's either/or accounts (I may be wrong; I have yet to see someone either both free or payable webcomics through a single webcomicsnation profile).

One of the beautiful things about webcomics is that it makes work so accesible for everyone without having to go through the publishing process which requires comics to be a saleable commodity in some sense. This allows artists, of all sorts, to publicly present their work to any one as art for arts sake. In the realm of comics and cartooning, this allows the cartoonist to visually explore things that were only really previously explored on a self-published mini-comics level. And while the occassional independant publisher's anthology project may allow a cartoonist to reach a wider audience, it in no way compares to the scope of internet publishing.

That being said, as someone who is attracted to the writing process of comics, and someone who enjoys writing comic scripts in his own time, I have to say that the medium of webcomix really is the artists domain. Unfourtunately, both internet publishing, and many bigger, artistry-focused, small press publishers see comics as a primarily visual medium, leaving little room for a comic writer who cannot draw wishing to explore ideas within both of these formats' scopes. This has it's draw backs. Few webcomics read as great stories. Most of the more acclaimed "literary" aspects that comics have attained in the past few decades are completely devoid, leaving the webcomic to be relegated to either gag strips or surrealist (visual) art work. Don't get me wrong. I love this stuff, and not all comics have to have a discernable narrative flow. But I just wonder if the advantages of such a medium are also it's weaknesses.

One day, I'd like to do a webcomic. I wish I could draw, but I can't. I can write...sort of. You tell me. I've been writing since I was 8, but I stopped drawing somewhere around 11. I wish I had never stopped. The thing about webcomics that fascinates me is the artists willingness to explore new ideas simply because they may or may not be interesting, with "story" being a secondary concern. I wish there were some way to blend these two thing into one cohesive mindmelting work, but as I said before, the role of the comic-writer in the sphere of webcomics has been relegated to postings on various message boards. I guess that's a place to start.

optimus prime head


optimus prime head
Originally uploaded by RoninKengo.
Tom Williams, has collected every leaked image and set snooper photo and promising updates the second new ones pop up. You can see the pictures here at a Flickr page.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Wiki-stupid-ia

So Wikipedia has a new page dedicated to the stupidest edit wars over articles among usuers. Here are some comic-related excerpts:

John Byrne
A somewhat controversial comic book artist who felt there were errors in his article and so blanked almost all of the content without explaining what specifically the errors he was objecting to were. He raised the subject on his own message board and both supporters and detractors flocked to Wikipedia to join in the fight, resulting in numerous articles in blogs and other comic industry media about the ensuing conflict.

Daffy Duck
Did Daffy Duck father any children? Should the events of certain animated films be taken to have occurred in "real life" while others should not? And is it Wikipedia's business to document the "real life" of fictional characters in the first place?

Avengers (comics)
Should there be a separate page for New Avengers (comics)? Is the name of the team now the New Avengers or is it just a new Avengers? Is it a new comic entirely or just a continuation of the old one? Following a positive merge vote, a series of reverts occurs when an editor "merges" the two by simply pasting the merged information into the article, creating two articles in one. The slow nature of the revert war means that, technically, nobody violates WP:3RR, and requests for help from other admins go unheeded because, well, it's lame. After a series of exchanges on the talk page questioning people's command of English as well as their sanity, the issue appears to have been settled with the creation of New Avengers (comic book) (note the oh-so-subtle distinction).
Link

Mary Worth cartoon reenactments: comic strip as Bergman film

Mary Worth cartoon reenactments: comic strip as Bergman film: "Cory Doctorow: ZeroTV has re-enacted a series of Mary Worth daily newspaper comics in black-and-white video, recreating the exact poses and adding an eerie whistling wind soundtrack that turns the whole affair into something like a Bergman film. Link (Thanks, Scott)


"

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

...

Terrorism and my toothpaste

from NeilGaiman.com:

Terrorism and my toothpaste: "I have just read the TSA list of permitted and prohibited items in full.

Toothpaste is out.
Hairgel is out.
'Topical or rash creams' are out.
Lip gels are out.
Shampoos and conditioners are out.
Personal lubricants are... just fine.

I blink. I find I'm suddenly unsure whether or not that means exactly what I'm certain it does mean, so I google 'personal lubricants' and yes, it's talking about exactly what I think it's talking about. Up to 4 oz. of personal lubricants are just fine.... practically the only liquid you can take with you onto a plane.

um....

I think I must be losing it.

For a moment there, I really planned to drive up to a drug store, buy a 4 oz container of personal lubricant, empty it out, wash it and refill it with toothpaste."