The rate of (comic) universal expansion
While I may try to fight it, I’ve always been a sucker for expansions to comic titles. The adjective-less X-Men title (damn your multiple covers) sewed a seed in the early ’90′s that has since managed to empty my wallet and pack full several short boxes many times over. As a Marvelite, this means X-titles dominate about a third of the collection, followed most recently by Avengers in all forms – new, dark, mighty and recently initiated.
I often wonder, though, just how close are we skirting the line between excessive and complete overkill? (Or was it crossed a while ago?) I am not going down the continuity rabbit hole here, by the by. Anyone spending more time talking about the plot time lines of comics rather than the significance of the ideologies comic heroes represent aren’t really reading comics. Get over it. A story well-told beats a chronologically consistent one any day. We comic readers (for the most part) are adults and should be able to wrap our heads around this fairly easily.
What I’m getting at is a complete desensitization to our beloved characters and the ideas and themes they represent. Take my personal fav. Wolverine. When I began reading X-Men I savored every last line and panel featuring the ol’ Canucklehead. Didn’t matter what the story was – as long as Wolvie was in it, I was, too. This was fine when that meant picking up two or three titles, but bring that concept through to today and I could easily find myself dropping an extra $20 or more a week at the comic shop in order to snap up every title featuring Wolverine. Not that I’m opposed to doing so, but it muddies the waters a bit when I can simultaneously see Wolvie battling his abandoned son Daken, bounding around San Francisco with the regular X-Men crew, carrying out covert wet-work ops with X-Force, teaching the New Mutants a canned lesson in life and three or four other story lines in the numerous new X titles I now cannot bring myself to buy.
The point here is that we’re treading steadily up the hill of the major marketing no-no of over-saturation. It’s simply too much and the ultimate victim ends up being the character. I don’t care, necessarily, what he does where and the order in which he does it. What I care about is whether or not he’s still on the mission to make sense of his past and balance the feral and human facets of his life. Unfortunately, amidst fighting the brood, his son, anti-mutant hysteria, Magneto, Romulus, government operatives and biker gangs, it’s hard to attach oneself that, through it all, the hairy little mutant is still trying to sort himself out. Hell, he doesn’t even have time to eat or fit in a good lay (that isn’t entirely true – thank you Jason Aaron and the consistently solid new Weapon X series).
Don’t get me wrong. I want to see my favorite characters doing as much as possible, I just want to keep the feeling that they’re actually being amidst all the doing.
When digital gods question their own faith
In addition to being a life-long practitioner of the proud traditions of the comic book geek, my skills as a resident geek of all things pop and tech culture have grown quite a bit over the past few years. One place I’ve found these ideologies of geekdom to have come together quite nicely is the Underwire blog on Wired.com. The tasty little slivers of all things comic-bookly techy pop (in varying combination) have aptly filled many a lunch hour. That is until I came across Scott Thill’s recent post on Andi Ewington’s Forty-Five appeared it would provide the same satisfaction.
From the outset the post was a great teaser for a graphic novel I soon hope to own. It touched on the concept of, essentially, a new style for investigative journalism’s use in graphic fiction. I’d honestly love to see the technique used more and hope Ewington brings us something that’ll push the medium further.
Scrolling down past several beautifully executed pieces of finished art, it all gets a bit lost. Instead of exploring the book and its themes, the post breaks down into a recounting of the hard work it takes to pull together resources and meet deadlines in order to get a book out. (Really? It’s hard work?) Everyone now and then should be allowed a few pedestrian bits to help fill space (wouldn’t doubt it if most of you will probably think that’s exactly what I’m doing now). That being forgiven, what really gets me here is Thill’s final statement exploring the horizon for comics, questioning if there’s a digital age ahead.
Just to be clear, here we have a blog on the site for one of the world’s most preeminent technology publications questioning if the comic medium has a future in digital format. I don’t mean to break balls, but I can’t help but be astounded at the lack of credit given to the comics industry by a blog that should damn well know better. Sure, there could have been earlier strides made to move comics away from print, but when I can now turn on an episode of Man Caves (you heard me) and see Marvel’s digital subscription service getting prime product placement as part of a fellow geek’s comic-themed basement renovation, I think it’s safe to say the digital age is here.
As creators, we shouldn’t even question the possibility of digital formats – we should embrace them, champion them. From the very start of a new comics project, we should be thinking of the digital promotion and delivery of the book right behind theme development and talent procurement. But most of all, we shouldn’t have to read pontifications by apparently savvy experts on all things geek as to where the future of our medium lies.
We’ve seen our future. We know it. Now let’s get our there and prove it.
Hello, Monday.
Nothing like some kung fu a la Cowboy Bebop to start the week off right. Enjoy.
Watchmen cartoon
Opening the New Year under the very real threat of ultimate vengeance from Alan Moore and his unmerciful snake god, I give you the Watchmen cartoon.
DH says comics are now mainstream…and now, the sarcasm.
Came across a press release today from Mike Richardson and Dark Horse stating something that the rest of us (mainstream included) have been through the looking glass on for quite a while. Read the full release here:
Comic Books Are the New Mainstream
— Millions of Americans are fans of comic book
creations, and many might not even know it.
Sure. Why not? After all, isn’t it always that case that when something attains mainstream status, it automatically necessitates a PRESS RELEASE? The PR angle here isn’t wasted on me. Certainly a successful company with quality, rev-generating properties like Dark Horse wants to remind us that, while Iron Man and The Dark Knight alone have taken in enough in theater sales to fund an effective coup against Omar Bashir (look it up), they’ve got the goods, too. (And the thing is they do, damn it!)
Thing is, if you’ve got what the mainstream is so obviously aware of, the point of telling us all falls a bit moot. Not to mention the oxymoron this produces, i.e. that Dark Horse “remains the number one independent voice in the industry because of the embrace of the mainstream consumer.” Still trying to get my head around that one.
I write this with the realization that this post may prompt Dark Horse to never publish anything from panel88. Of course, my cockles couldn’t help but be warmed just a bit in knowing what such a blacklisting would say about who actually reads this blog.
Drug ring used comic books to launder cash
So, apparently one of the largest drug rings in Colorado decided to deal in premium comics to help move their cash. (Save yourself a little time and wait for the video to load and then skip to the end.)
I wouldn’t have thought golden- and silver-age comics would be the most lucrative way to launder money in a down economy. Sure you can get your hands on the books (and probably at a decent price), but who’s going to buy them? Well, besides other meth dealers, that is. Remember kiddies – Selling drugs will never lead to anything…other than one kick-ass comic collection that could put Nic Cage’s once-legendary stash to shame.
(Oh, and be sure to read through this article in order to get more detail than anyone interested in this story could even remotely need to know about how they moved the meth out into the streets.)
It could always be worse…
For anyone currently involved in or about to break into the profession of comics, recognize the battles that have been fought on your behalf to open the doors to expression free of censorship. Comics have not always been the accepted forum for interplay between science fiction and social commentary (and, let’s face it, Hollywood movie fodder) that they are today. Hard to believe that comics preceded Communism as the focus for mid-50′s witch hunts seeking to rid society of its ills. Fredric Wertham alone nearly brought about the end of an industry through a quack’s diagnosis of delinquent youths. “If juvenile offenders read comics, then comics must be the cause of their delinquency.” An argument that holds about as much water as “The sun rose the day after the Manson crew killed Sharon Tate, so we’ll need to keep slaughtering pregnant actresses if we want to live to see another day on earth.”
Comic creators – battles have been fought and generalizations overcome to see us into a world where comics have become a hotbed for new, original storytelling in the modern age. Might all our struggles – political, social, racial or otherwise – see as much success.
Chicago Comic-Con pics
Just a couple shots I grabbed between rounds of either sweating my ass off or pitching our latest projects at the Chicago Comic-Con.
The new panel88.com
This is the new site for panel88 comic productions…now in blog form. Pretty much the usual, obligatory post so that there’s at least something here for you to read while we continue populating the site with goodies and whatnot.
Most anything you’d want to know about us you can find in the About and Projects pages. In the meantime, come back for more news on upcoming projects and the whereabouts of all our creators and their latest work.
panel88 is an emergent creative house bringing together the writing and artistic talent needed to produce fully realized, original comics stories to promote to the creator-owned and top-tier comics publishers. This site is our open call to artists looking to bring their creations to life; and our opening salvo on publishers: We’re gunning for you next.