Bent Corner

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I’m not sure exactly what to think about this. Erik Larson’s comic book character Savage Dragon is endorsing Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Savage Dragon is the one on the left.  The green one with a fin on his head.  Barack Obama is the one on the right.  The one with his sleeves rolled up a little bit and ready to get to work for America.

I guess this a smooth move if most of Larson’s readers are Obama supporters.  It’s not such a smooth move if a lot of them are John McCain supporters.  According to Real Clear Politics, they actually exist.  McCain supporters that is.  RCP currently shows Obama leading McCain 45.5% to 43.5%.

If those numbers show anything, they show that Larson may very well be pissing off nearly half his readers.   As Michael Jordon once said when asked why he didn’t endorse the Democratic challenger running against racist Senator Strom Thurmond, “Republicans buy shoes too.“

Tags: Barack Obama, Comic Books, Erik Larson, Michael Jordon, Savage Dragon, Strom Thurmond

I read an article over on Newsarama where they ask various comic book creators to weigh in on comments made by comic book writer Robert Kirkman. The creator of Battle Pope, The Walking Dead, and Invincible advised his fellow creators to concentrate their efforts not on working for Marvel or DC, but on their own independent stuff.  He said that not only would it be better for the individual creator, but it would save the comic book industry.

My favorite was the comment made by comic book writer Chuck Dixon. He said:

I don’t worry about the “future of the industry.” There will always be comics. They’re cheaper to produce now than they’ve ever been and relatively easy to make compared to other media.

Back in the day, my brother and I would ride our bikes down the street to Hardy’s Liquor and buy a comic book. They were around 20 cents. Now, they are at least three bucks each. If Chuck Dixon is correct and comic books are cheaper to make now then they’ve ever been, why do they cost so much?

Tags: Battle Pope, Chuck Dixon, Comic Books, Hardy's Liquor, Invincible, Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead

A friend of mine emailed me this scan.  It’s of a piece of art he won during the charity auction at the 2008 Pittsburgh Comicon. Click on the image to see a larger version.

The artist is Josh Medors.  It’s based on Incredible Hulk #340 drawn by Todd McFarlane.  Wolverine is a zombie.  I’m not sure if the Hulk is a zombie too.  All I know is that it looks superb.

In fact, it’s making me rethink my stance on buying original comic book art.

Tags: Hulk, Incredible Hulk #340, Josh Medors, Pittsburgh Comicon, Todd McFarlane, Wolverine

When Fangirls Attack is a blog dedicated to linking to blog posts dealing with gender issues pertaining to the world of comic books.  It is maintained by three bloggers, Kalinara, Anna, and Ragnell.

Mostly it was about the reactions to the stupid, sexist stuff that comic book companies do.  It also dealt with the stuff stupid, sexist and misogynistic comic book fanboys said or did on the Internet. Being that there is never a shortage of sexist or misogynistic crap in the world of comic books, When Fangirls Attack was always worth checking out.  On the few occasions one of my blog posts was linked there, I received a massive amount of traffic from there.  It is a popular site.

The site has not been updated since July 1, 2008.

Now either there hasn’t been any comic book misogyny on the Internet, or something else is going on.  I’m guessing it’s the latter.  I miss reading the posts linked there.  Some of them were really quite good.

There was a slowdown in June.  That slowdown has since turned into a complete standstill.  I’m hoping the site returns soon.  Normally I would delete the RSS feed from my newsreader if a blog went dark for over a month.

I’m not going to so that with When Fangirls Attack. I hope it returns soon.

Tags: Anna, Comic Books, Gender Issues, kalinara, Misogyny, Ragnell, Sexism, When Fan Girls Attack

Word out of the San Diego Comic-Con (the cool kids call it SDCC) is that the comic book website Newsarama won an Eisner award for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism.  I normally don’t put much stock into awards, but seriously, Newsarama, an award for journalism?

It seems to me that whoever decided Newsarama should win an award for journalism either does not know the meaning of the word journalism or didn’t get wind of the recent Heroes Con panel entitled, “Covering Comics: Criticism, Reportage, and Gossip“. Newsarama’s co-founder and current editor Matt Brady attended the panel and made some startling comments.

Among the many things Brady said was that there had been times where he had to think about the long term picture before breaking a story. He admitted that he sometimes worried about repercussions from the publishers if he (Newsarama) was the first to break certain stories. He said that sometimes he would ask himself if it was more prudent to “hang back” and allow certain stories to break elsewhere — like a blog or a rumor column — and comment on the story then.

I would think that if you are going to hang back and allow someone else break a story so that you don’t get flack from the Marvel or DC, you are not a comic book journalist.  You are certainly not an award winning comic book journalist.

Tags: Comic Books, Eisner award, Heroes Con, Journalism, Matt Brady, Newsarama, San Diego Comic-Con, SDCC

Filmmaker Kevin Smith is returning to comics with a 3-issue miniseries for DC Comics. It will feature the villain Onomatopoeia. Not only was I not familiar with the character, I didn’t even know what the word onomatopoeia referred to.

Like I have to do with a lot of DC Comics characters, I had to consult the good people of Wikipedia.

I like Kevin Smith as much as one heterosexual man can like another heterosexual man, but he has a reputation of being kind of late with his comic book writing. Not that he is the only celebrity comic book writer that enjoys that particular reputation. Newsarama reports that DC executive editor Dan DiDio told the audience at the DC panel at the San Diego Comic-Con that all three of Smith’s scripts have already been completed and turned in.

Tags: Dan Didio, Kevin Smith, Onomatopoeia, San Diego Comic-Con

The official trailer for the Watchmen movie is up over at Apple’s official movie trailer site.  It looks like this movie is going to be as great as I have been hoping it would be.  Seriously, I think Alan Moore will even have a hard time watching this and feeling pesimistic about it’s potental.

Tags: Alan Moore, Comic Books, Doctor Manhattan, Movie Trailer, Watchmen

Science fiction blog io9 has an article explaining the Jack Kirby created characters from DC’s Fourth World line of books. The characters have been popping up in DC books as of late and reportedly they are the core characters in this summer’s big event Final Crisis.

I wouldn’t actually know since I am not reading it.

In fact, I’m not reading any DC Universe comics right now. They are just too hard to understand. It seems the reader is required to have an extensive knowledge of the history of the DC Universe and that’s something I just don’t have. I wouldn’t know a Mother Box from a bread box. When reading Amazons Attack!, I had no idea who the gray haired, heavy set woman revealed on the last page was. In fact, I thought it was Beatrice Arthur. I had to go online and do some reading to find out it was a character from the New Gods line called Granny Goodness.

Granny Who?

I have a strong suspicion that I’m not alone on this. All three of the New Gods books in the 70’s were canceled because of low sales. This means not an awful lot of people were reading them. How then are readers today supposed to know everything there is to know about the characters from New Gods?

I just don’t get it.

Tags: Amazons Attack!, Beatrice Arthur, Comic Books, DC Universe, Final Crisis, Fourth World, io9, Jack Kirby, Mother Box, New Gods

Comic book artist Michael Turner has died. He was 37.

Comic Book Resources has a nice article about him and his eight year battle with bone cancer. I think Newsarama has also written about Michael Turner passing, but it’s muddled under articles about Wizard World Chicago and the new Wall*E movie that opened this weekend.

Michael Turner was an extremely talented artist. More importantly, he seemed like a very nice person.

Michael Turner will be missed. This really sucks.

Tags: Cancer, Michael Turner

If you are a fan of reading any of the various comic book news sites or blogs, you need to check out the podcast from one of the panels held at the recent Heroes Con in North Carolina. The panel was entitled, “Covering Comics: Criticism, Reportage, and Gossip“. It was moderated by Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter. The panel was comprised of Johanna Draper Carlson (Comics Worth Reading), Matt Brady (Newsarama), Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), Tim Hodler (Comics Comics), and Carlton Hargro, editor of the local alt-weekly Creative Loafing.

After listening to the entire panel, I was the most impressed with Carlton Hargo and Johanna Draper Carlson.

By far the most interesting segment was when Matt Brady spoke about repercussions from comic publishers. It’s at around the 20:00 mark if you want to jump ahead. He pointed to two stories that he believed put Newsarama on the map. He mentioned the Siegel/Superman stuff and the DC Comics/Wildstorm deal. He stated there would be multiple hoops to jump through and there would be “repercussions” if those topics were covered today.

He then talked about “carrots and sticks” and “threats and spankings”. He went on to say that there have been many times where he has had to think about the long term picture before breaking a story. He admitted that he sometimes worries about repercussions from the publishers if he (Newsarama) is the first to break certain stories. He said that sometimes he has had to ask himself if it was more prudent to “hang back” and allow certain stories to break elsewhere — like a blog or a rumor column — and comment on the story then.

Wow.

I felt uncomfortable listening to it on my iPod. I cannot imagine sitting in the room and hearing it in person.

Tags: Carlton Hargro, Heidi MacDonald, Heroes Con, Johanna Draper Carlson, Matt Brady, Tim Hodler, Tom Spurgeon