Batman and Robin

This new series provides an excellent jumping-on point for new readers. There’s just enough exposition to bring new readers along but it’s conveyed with humour enough that established readers will break a smile rather than a groan (Chris Claremont, I’m looking at you).

With Bruce Wayne’s apparent demise (at least to his proteges and son – his living in the prehistoric past where he will no doubt bring justice to the dinosaurs is known to readers).

This new start with the first Robin taking on the heavy mantle of his mentor and Wayne’s son bearing the red and green of Robin is brought to us by the very lively team of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. It’s a fresh excting style of writing with the wonderfullly dyamic (duo) wide-screen sweeps that Quitely does so well.

But… They’ve got a lot to live up to. With Spiderman’s Brand New Day and Brubaker’s run on Captain America with the new cap over the last couple of years… There have been other very high profile re-starts of a very high quality.

There are also echoes of the same team’s run on New X-Men. Which, while it started out as a fresh invigorating take on well established characters, proved comprehensively why Grant Morrison should never ever be given mainstream continuity characters to play with.. as, like a keen child at Christmas, he just can’t help breaking his toys. It ran well and was a fiercely enjoyable read but… Magneto really still being alive as a floating helmet in a crazy broken NYC while Jean Grey ascended Swamp-Thing style into some higher order of super-Phoenix’s? … Please, Grant, tone it down. Marvel has spent years trying to recover from the damage and silliness that series wrought.

So I’m excited to see a new Batman and Robin under his stewardship and I like change in comics… but please Grant… don’t break the Caped Crusader.

Rorshach’s flawed worldview

I was reading up on Objectivism recently in reference to Steve Ditko’s characters, Mr.A and the Question, and more specifically Alan Moore’s Rorshach from the recent Watchmen movie.

This article here (http://www.reason.com/news/show/132100.html) is what prompted me to look it up and have a think. There’s an idea in the article that I’ve come across before; that Rorschach sacrifices himself. That he is the true hero of the tale. But I’m no so sure.

I never thought this was the case. Rorschach uncompromising objectivism: being his cold dispassionate view and the moral absolutes that he himself creates and writes upon the world. These are just revealed to be fake constructs in the end. His philosophy hits the villain’s complete compromise like a wave crashing against a cliff. Because the world isn’t so black and white. Because the final ultimate sinful compromise to evil is what will save the world.

I think the clue is in the voice. In the end Rorschach fails and the human stil trapped inside begs to be put down. I also believe that’s the biggest mistake the film made. It fails to distinguish between Kovacs and Rorschach.

He investigates a particularly vile case. A young girl has been kidnapped and Kovacs discovering that her body has been fed to the kidnappers dogs is the final push toward psychosis. His creating the persona of Rorshach is the only reasonable response in the face of such absolute evil. The most apparent clue is the voice; the monotone wheeze that narrates much of the book. It is not the voice of a human; it is the cold dispassionate voice of a natural law. Just as there is gravity; just as the sun rises, so is there Rorshach’s morality. There is absolute Good and absolute Evil. Objectivism. Rorshach is a persona created by Walter Kovacs but, Kovacs himself puts it, “It was Kovacs who close his eyes. It was Rorshach who opened them again”.

It is only when his mask (or his “face”) is torn away that his Kovacs’ human voice returns. At the book’s climax when the heroes are faced with a moral compromise so vast, so impossible to conceive, that they are forced one-by-one to admit defeat. Rorshach alone stands against this: “Never compromise. Not even in the face of armageddon”. Knowing full well that to follow his course of action means triggering World War Three is of less relevance to him than his coherence to his moral code.

When confronted with Dr.Manhattan who refuses to allow him to continue; he tears away his mask and demands his own murder. Rorshach’s simplistic view of the world has failed. His moraltiy shattered. His ‘face’ is torn away and Kovacs, still alive under there, pleads for his end.

The movie fails here; his voice has its rises and falls throughout. There has been no contrast between Kovac’s human frailty and Rorshachs’s cold certainty. In the book however, his sudden scream, his very human demand for his end is emotionally jarring.

I don’t think this is a brave sacrifice. I think this is a study of a man who has hung his entire life upon a philosophy of absolutes. A philosophy that has no place in the real world and that it has been challenged, found wanting and that he pleads for his end.

How to draw manga?

I had a friend ask, on behalf of another friend, how they might improve their drawing skills. Specifically to draw in a manga style. I don’t really feel I’m an expert here, but I read comics and, once upon a time, was actually a semi-trained animator so… fair enough.

I’m curious to here anyone else’s thoughts on it though… What I suggested was simply doing a lot of life drawing. At least one evening a week. Comic art really comes down to excellent observation and drawing ability. I think, once you have that you can create and refine your own style. As in, it doesn’t matter so much whether you draw a hand with sharp fluid lines of manga or with the jagged peniclly lines popular in US superhero comics right now; the question is really whether or not you know what a hand looks like and can render it in a way that suggests shape and depth.

What I used to find very difficult was finding a model who did dynamism. Outside of the animation course in Ballyfermot most life drawing classes tend to be quite sedate affairs. The more energetic poses are extremely tiring for a model to pose and most simply aren’t physically fit enough to be able to do it.

I suggested a book she might consider, which was been derided and praised in equal measure, called ‘How to draw Comics the Marvel Way‘. It focusses very much on the ’60’s superhero styles and suggests that a ‘house-style’ is better than an individual approach… But… the bulk of it does focus on how to quickly sketch the basic shapes of dynamic exaggerated poses and she could possibly learn from that and disregard the final inking touches that lend style.

What does anyone else think? Any advice to pass on?

Discovering comic characters like hidden roots

I was chatting with a friend recently about Watchmen (both book and movie). Specifically about the origin of the characters. A third, less comic-geeky but no less enthused party, asked us what we meant by the origins if not the back-stories contained in the text itself.

The characters in Watchmen as ‘ur-heroes’ of sorts; ‘proto-heroes’ perhaps. Usually when a writer tries to reference superhero history as a whole, and perhaps make a statement about the entirety of the superhero-comic genre,  they draw upon predictable, and Alan Moore is no no less guilty of this, analogs of Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman (with maybe Doc. Savage and the Spirit thrown in for good measure). The writer will create a new version of these characters, thinly disguised, and make statements about their history or meaning that could not be made directly. For example, Warren Ellis might imagine them as lovers.

What is uncommon in Watchmen is that a Superman is not included at all; which is an virtually unknown in any comics setting. Wonderwoman is referenced only in that the pornographic comics that feature the ’60’s Silk Spectre bare (see what I did, good pun, eh? ) relation to early issues of Wonderwoman (phalluses and all). Nite Owl is not a Batman analog, as might appear most obvious. He is the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, who arguably was himself a parody of sorts; a more realistic take on what a millionaire would be like if he tried to become a caped crusader. Moore was deliberately drawing on the lesser known superheroe comics of the ’60’s and ’70’s, as befitted his setting.

But we knew this and agreed on it. Rorsach had us talking though. He referenced Mr.A, and old Ditko character I was unfamiliar with. I thought more of the Question, a character I knew from mid-90’s DC and also from Frank Miller’s DK2. What prompted me to look Mr.A up was my friend mentioning Ayn Rand and Mr.A’s worldview of absolute goodness and absolute evil; no shades of moral grey. I remember the Question being criticised for his reliance on Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged to guide his every motive in DK2.

Rorshach

So, I googled Mr.A and Ditko and all things and discovered that Ditko had created both Mr.A and the Question. (Ditko is one of the secret masters of the comic world; he is little known to those outside of avid readers but his creations underly many very popular well-known characteres and settings). Indeed there is even the assumption that he intended the two to go together, Question & Mr.A. That, after his co-creation of the icon Spiderman, he went on to work on the otherwordly Dr.Strange. That his work slowly crept further and further toward a brutal right-wing politic and that, after studying Ayn Rand, he created Mr.A and later the Question to espouse his new, and I would say simplistic (though I’m sure Rorshach would say essential), worldview. As Rorschach himself explains: ”there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this.” Moronic I’m sure most would agree but, I must admit, quite beguiling in its certainty.

I’m reminded of the Bowie track, ‘Law (Earthlings on Fire)‘, and the line, “I don’t want knowledge. I want certainty”.

Rooting deeper still into the web I happened upon other pop culture references to Mr.A. Hoosier released a song called ‘Goodbye Mr.A’ (video below) and still deeper, bringing the epistemological search in a full loop, Alan Moore recorded, with the The Emperors of Ice Cream, a track called, obviously enough, ‘Mr.A’.

… I love comics. I love the layers and layers of intertwining creators and characters.

… A tangential point (though I’m unsure if I really had a point above) perhaps is Dr.Manhattan. Where does this character come from? Intuitively I recognise the idea of the ‘absolute’ superhuman; so advanced as to be unknowable. This has been touched off time and again in various cosmic stories from both DC and Marvel. But… It’s Watchmen. Moore’s drawing on something specific. I’ve heard Captain Atom mentioned… But I’m not sure I buy it… not entirely anyway though I realise the obvious similarity in their back stories. Perhaps, as Grant Morrison pointed out with the Captain Adam character in Final Crisis, Moore intended Dr.Manhattan as something of an ending to the idea of the superhero. The Omega to Superman’s Alpha. Any ideas?

“There’s a hole in your logic
You who know all the answers
You claim science aint magic
And expect me to buy it“

Should comic stores wait for action from Diamond?

A previous post of mine pissed off a new commenter. The post was this one: http://waxydan.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/closing-comic-book-stores-we-need-to-try-something-new/#comments and you can read his comment there. And, if you like comics, you really should read his comment and get in on the discussion.

Comics mean a lot to me. So I thought I’d reply both in the comments and in a whole new post. Basically I said that the industry is dying and stores that are unfriendly to new readers (especially females) have to a) become more accessible and b) take advantage of the current trend for comicbook movies.

Ron Ferraro, who I notice runs a store himself, got pissed at this and pointed out (with no small amount of accuracy) that the blame should really be laid at the feet of the publishers and the assholes at Diamond Distribution. He’s quite right. BUT… in response…

I’m not a store owner but I’ve had friends for over 20 years now who are so, while I can’t claim to be intimately familiar with the industry, I’m far from “completely unfamiliar”.

First off, while you might be correct that “the comic stores that have closed are probably the smarter ones”, but I’m going to discount that. Not that I have evidence to the contrary or anything like that; I’d just rather not accept the medium dying. So you might well be right in that statement, but I don’t accept it. Not by evidence or a force of argument; I’m just not happy with there being no more comic book stores.

Secondly; I’m well aware of the stranglehold that Diamond has on the industry; it hits stores badly, it also affects independent creators and, ultimately, every reader as its practices stifle creativity and that’s not good for anyone. And, indeed, I should get around to posting how I feel about Diamond and how I feel about the inaccessible stories published my the big publishers.

*But*… I do not think that a retailer has the power right now to immediately affect the practices of Diamond. You suggest three things that publishers and distributors could do differently. All of which I agree with, but none of which a comic store owner can do tomorrow morning.

What they can do is sell copies of Watchmen. Which I notice the chain bookstore, Waterstones, is selling out of. A whole stand full of it and it’s selling out. But I also notice that my local comic store doesn’t appear to stock it (well, it does if you ask for it, but passing trade aren’t going to do that). The train station at the end of the same road has people reading every morning but they didn’t buy it in that store. Nor did they buy their Dark Knight DVD’s or Sin City trade paperbacks there.

They can also push the Minx line and some manga series harder and try to get in new *female* readers. Something that, again, I notice some larger chain bookstores are doing. And they’re doing it with exactly the same rotating comic holder that I see in the specialist store. No bigger or smaller stock. Just better promotion. Every time I go into a chain bookstore with a comic book section; I see women browsing the shelves buying the same books that are for sale in my local comic store. I have *never* seen a female reader in the store. I know three in my area; they all shop on Amazon, eBay or in Waterstones and they all cite the same reason; they feel like unwelcome intruders in specialist stores. Two of them went to look for a copy of Persepolis a week after the movie was released; it wasn’t in stock. The Minx stand is literally gathering dust and its going to cost that store hundreds when they have to bin all those trades.

There are two comic book reading clubs in my area. I know of a few others across London. I don’t know of any stores are associated with them. While I understand that apathy sets in after a decade or more of struggling to stay open I also think that the store owners themselves appearing intersted in the medium, in what regulars are reading, and *especially* what new readers might be interested in seems like a good idea.

What about buying *direct* from independents? It worked in the ’60’s and publishing’s only gotten cheaper since then.

Or they can put little “staff recommends” stickers on their shelves. They can get some synergy going with the local arthouse cinema. They can get mentioned in the local paper when a major movie is released. They can open a Facebook group and get discussions going. They can sell some of the back stock on an eBay store. They can try a podcast; I listen to Around Comics every single week.

Or they can do none of these things and go out of business. Or they can wait for the big publishers and the distributor to radically change their practices… and likely go out of business while they wait.

It’s worth a shot surely?

I’m watching the Watchmen

I’m sure, by this point, that people are at least passingly familiar with history of this project. Based on the seminal comic released in 1986 by luminary Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons, the movie has been in preproduction purgatory for two decades.

I am, as you may have guessed, a fan. Full disclosure at a moment like this is essential . The story is important to me. I grew wiser on its morals. Knowledge of this esoteric pop culture icon was , to quote another blogger, ‘the handshake of my youth‘. So I went into this with the pedantic eye of a purist. Surprisingly it was not a departure from the text that disappointed.

Zack Snyder cut his teeth directing Frank Miller’s 300 and, unfortunately, he brings the same aesthetic to bear on Watchmen, perhaps assuming this is what a mature comic looks like. Miller, while a writer I very much enjoy, tells brutal tales often accused of glorifying misogny and facistic violence. It is an irony that his aesthetic creeps into a fable designed to harshly critique these very things. The violence of the comic is made more extreme and dwelt upon in almost pornographic slow motion. It is lurid, unnecessary and fantastical. This is the directors most telling error. The characters on the page are frail, pot-bellied, impotent, easily-tired, and importantly all too human. The fantastical nature of their violence on the screen removes them too far from their human weaknesses. I have difficulty reconciling the sure-footed superhuman who can crash through ceilings and dispatch 20 foes with casual ease with the aging impotent man who sits worried for the world amid his dusty trophies. This dichotomy is, of course, central also to Moore’s text but here all subtlely is lost to Snyders puerile leering gaze. And this is perhaps my central point. The facts of the story are there, Jon’s difficult distance from humanity, Walters horrible past and Eddie’s view of the world terrifying due to its alluring accuracy but… I feel that Snyder misses these themes and all he sees are ‘cool superheroes’.

It is this approach that grates. At times the the adherence to the book is too slavish. A line that that compels in a cartoon text box falls flat and conceited onscreen; “What happened to the American Dream?” “It came true”. The difficulty most of the cast, with it has to be noted some real exceptions, have with this acting thing also disturbs the audiences involvement. The variations in Rorschach with and without mask are gone. The villains accent teeters further and further toward that of a camp nazi, climaxing as the denouement is reached. The differing philosophies of the heroes are lost as all veer toward ultraviolence and ‘comic book cool’.

When we left the cinema I made the point that ‘It was like a badly told joke’. In retrospect this is a bit unfair and was a rude comment hastily made. It’s not a bad film. It’s entertaining and the source material is intact enough for great lines (‘I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me’) to shine and some of the themes of death, age, fear, impotent rage, and nihilism to peek through. But I felt that Snyder was retelling a great joke passed to him by a friend. He got every detail, remembered all the lines, but just can’t deliver a well-timed punchline. Here, all the details are lovingly enshrined but the point, I feel, is lost.

Good soundtrack though

End of the line for comics?

It’s something I wrote about a few weeks back and, I guess, even before that…. It’s something that I’m genuinely worried about.

As silly as that may sound, but I love comics, I really do. And, just as a music lover might mourn the possibility of every orchestra the world over closing their doors, I fret. Oh how I fret.

Read this: http://okerok.blogspot.com/2009/02/time-for-comics-to-grow-up.html it’s a good critique. Erok presents some challenges to fans and store owners alike to change their ways. We cherish the eccentric nature of our interest but it is this very exclusivity that will bring about its demise.

Closing Comic Book Stores; we need to try something new

They’re closing at a terrific rate.  In Notting Hill, Soho and Tottenham. I’m hoping Avalon in Clapham hold out; it’s good store.

I do wonder though, in this age of comic book movies and the medium’s re-entry into mainstream culture, if there’s more that a the stores could do?

When Hulk and Iron Man came out; why wasn’t there more promotional material? What0′’s worse… why didn’t History of Violence or Persepolis bring in a whole new demographic of customer? Now, with Watchmen coming out… goddamn WATCHMEN!!!! … I’m still not seeing posters and events in the comic book stores. Waterstones and even independent bookstores seem to be cashing in though.

The industry has been failing for well over a decade (though I’ve heard that recently sales are rising).  I’ve spoken with staff in large bookstores who have commented on how their comics sections just keeps growing.

Yet still comic book stores, evironments that I love, are not welcoming to new readers. Persepolis, especially in areas like Clapham, could have dragged in some new customers.  Female (gasp!) readers looking for something new, a few of which might have been hooked on DC’s Minx line. The film was sold out for weeks in an arthouse cinema just a few blocks from the store; could there have been some promotion or marketing between the two businesses? Watchmen will be released in a few short weeks; how many absolute editions could be sold to well-paid movie buffs? The stores I know are dark secret affairs; enchanting to fans but intimidating to newcomers. They need dusting off. They need ’staff recommends’ stickers. They need a new approach.

I love comics. I really do. I love the artwork and the stories and the, sometimes cheesy, heroism. But, the stores are closing and readers are getting old and leaving. We have to try something new.

The Walking Dead: My hate for a fictional character is boundless

Walking Dead Cover

What to do? I’ve been reading this comic (The Walking Dead). It’s bloody good. The premise is a great one for anyone who likes zombie movies for the ‘right’ reasons (in my pompous opinion). That is; for the character drama created by this extreme situation rather than the blood and guts (though certainly they’re in no short supply). The idea, as the writer introduces it, is that he is normally frustrated at the end of a good zombie movie. That we have these snapshots of people trying to survive, both physically and morally, and then it’s over… What happens next?

Here, in the Walking Dead, we’re going to see it. We’re going to see what years of living in a brutal world does to a person. What a good kind man becomes when viciously smashing skulls becomes part of day-to-day life.

The characters are fascinating and all too human. I’ve come to really care about what happens to them; particulary the central hero and his family.

But, it wasn’t until I read the most recent collected editions that I realised how much.

He’s come through a lot, he really really has. So when he finally makes contact with another group of survivors I was genuinely delighted. A lucky break, I thought! Horrah! Lodgings and comfort and all manner of good things! This is unusual; in that, had I thought about, a comic about some guy living happily ever after probably isn’t going to be that compelling. But I care for him and his group so I felt genuine relief.

Which was nothing compared to the genuine horror I felt when the situation turned on them. When, in one terrifying sentence, it became very clear what was actually going on. When limbs were lost and brutality of a Pol Pot level was visited on these characters I was affected. I found it difficult to turn to the next page to find what new torture was going to be laid onto these fictional creatures.

It’s been a long time since I was so affected by a comic and, I guess, it’s a hallmark of good writing.

But what I found *really* disturbing was my reaction when the tables were turned on the villian. When one of my heroes escaped and decided that escape was not sufficient; that vengeance need to be meted out; I found myself eagerly turning each page. I really wanted this guy to suffer. The torture scene is surprisingly prolonged and, while not overly visual on the page, certainly leaves little room for the imagination. The reader is almost eager for the scene to last longer; for dozens of pages to be filled with the bad guy being brutalised in all manner of ways. And that makes you (me) sit back for a moment and consider my role as a reader here. Also to spend weeks pondering questions of revenge and justice. Especially in this fictional extreme environment where there is no rule of law.

It’s great writing to produce such a reaction; I think the last time I found myself really questioning my motivation as a reader/viewer was watching Man Bites Dog in the cinema over a decade ago. It’s good stuff and I’d be very interested to know what anyone else thought about it.

What went wrong with comics?

Okay, so we have the Golden and Siliver Ages of comics that bring us into the ’80’s… I’m none too sure what we call it after that. It seems too easy to term the last three decades “The Modern Age”… I know DC have recently tried to rebrand it “The Obsidian Age” which, had Didio had the balls to see through his retelling of the DC universe as a place of high adventure divorced from the occasional child-murder and rape of the last few decades, might just have worked. But it really didn’t stick.

But we can still see broad trends across the last few years. Starting, let’s say, in 1986 with Alan Moore’s arrival in the US. Different contractual deals with the US companies regarding royalties saw the seminal 2000AD stripped of its writing talent (to say nothing of its artists). Within a very short number of years Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Swamp Thing led to Sandman (which I must admit to personally despising), Hellblazer, Shade the Changing Man, The Killing Joke, Elektra Assassin, Skreemer and others. All notable for the British authors, with the exception of Frank Miller who brought a very American twist into the wave of the ‘British Invasion’.

New narratives were told and classic superheroes were retold  by this generation of outstanding storytellers. The Joker finally being let loose put Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair. Batman finally pushed it too far and became an intolerable liability to the government. Shade’s madness threatened to swallow cities whole. Swamp Thing… well… just go and read it… It’s great…. … Comics started making the New York times bestseller list. DC made the first move to embrace this trend and commendably brought a ‘mature reader’ line; Vertigo, to allow the writers and artists more scope to experiment.

Marvel tried to follow suit a half dozen times but never really managed to quite get it right. Which was, perhaps in the long run, to its benifit.

I think this is where it all went wrong for comics. Until this point comics writers walked a tightrope pushing the boundaries of rightwing sexual values with the X-Men, Green Lantern and Green Arrow tested out the morality of the two wings of US political ideologies on the streets, Daredevil addressed the difficulties of inner city life day in and out. If now those ‘mature’ themes were told elsewhere… where did that leave our caped and spandexed heroes?

It left them with poorly-told boring plots. Sales plumetted and publishers stopped taking risks. Every mainline comic needed foil collectable covers, ridiculous spikey gritty anti-heroes, death of supermen mega-events, wallet-leaking crossover events, give every hero a mohawk and trenchcoat. Ludicrous. That’s what happened to our heroes. That’s what happened in the ’90’s.

Even the Mature Reader lines started to fall into predictable ruts. Gaiman’s influence left us with a generation of empty over-stylised goth tales; just as soulless as the superhero titles they stood as the alternative to.

And we all stopped collecting comics.

Sure a few creators kept producing quality work but this was very much in the sidelines. Morrison, Milligan, occasionally even Moore would resurface; but always in marginal stories. What we needed was another influx of new talent to take the big titles, Batman, Superman, X-Men, Thor and all the others, in a new direction. To rediscover why we liked these characters to begin with. To remind us why, after six odd decades of watching a guy in long-johns spin around Manhattan, we still want to read his story.

And I think we’ve got that recently. Creators like Millar, Mack and Bendis have cut their teeth on cheap-to-print black and white titles like Jinx and Kabuki, just like the 2000AD and Warrior creators of the ’80’s, and now they’ve been given the reins of the big titles. I hope it works.

I think it will.

DC have struggled under a meddlesome chief editor and we’ve seen the result. A gut of great writers were allowed get DC back on track with Infinite Crisis and 52. Brave sweeping changes were promised. But we all saw what happened with Didio couldn’t help getting his hands dirty and threw 52 off rail. Now they’re trying it again with Final Crisis. Only this time the creators are being alllowed to create and it just might work.

Marvel got it right a whole lot sooner and we’ve seen the readers react favourably to it. Give a writer the main seat of chief editor and, I guess, it’s bound to go well. With Bendis and Millar being allowed to steer the course of the Marvel Universe for a few years and to hang it off a very simple concept; a good story not a good sales gimmick.

It’s a good time to be a comics fan. I hope the industry recovers. I think it will. I think we’ll stop trying to meddle in good stories in the movies like X3 and get to the heart of the characters like Batman Begins. I think the public are smart and will respond favourably.

It’s a good time to be a comics fan.