* Longtime comic book writer, creator rights advocate and industry observer Tony Isabella explains the methodology he is using in his continuing career autobiography. He’s about to get into contentious territory, so it’s good that he is letting readers know exactly what he is thinking and how he is laying out the facts he is presenting. Having known Tony for years and having some small idea of where he’s going with at least some of this, I can almost guarantee you that a lot of hardcore corporate superhero “fans” who have nothing whatsoever to do with the industry, or the injustices Tony and countless others have suffered at its hands, are about to get righteously outraged at the truth about the North American sooperhero machine. For the rest of us, those interested in the truth about the history of the comics industry, this is absolutely essential reading, if not always pleasant to learn (see Wednesday’s Tony’s Bloggy Thing, in which the tragic story of DC colourist Adrienne Roy is recounted).
* Tom Spurgeon interviews Dee Vee’s Daren White. Dee Vee was a quietly awesome comics anthology, one you’ve probably never heard of, that contained great comics by names like Eddie Campbell, James Kochalka and many others. I came for the Kochalka and stayed for the general comics excellence. I haven’t read this interview yet, but as soon as I get myself settled this morning, this interview is first on my to-do list. Spurgeon’s holiday interviews are always a highlight of this time of the year, but honestly this year seems to have raised the bar to an intimidating degree. Just one great comics discussion after another, day after day. Thanks for making the season bright (and informative and entertaining!), Tom.
* Derik A. Badman runs down his best of 2010 list. Derik’s critical analysis is not quite like any other comics blogger, and his list looks pretty solid to me.
* Steve Bissette and Dave Sim continue their public discussion of creator rights and their personal experiences in the comics industry (part one) (part two) (part three) (part four).
* Short list of links today, the wife has errands for me to run. Happy New Year, and thanks for continuing to read Trouble With Comics. I hope you’ll be back for more in 2011.
— Alan David Doane
December 2010
16 posts
Comic Depot opened six years ago along a fairly rural stretch of Route 9N north of Saratoga Springs, NY, and I’ve had a pull list there for nearly as long as they’ve existed. Although my list is small, I rely on the shop for special orders (mostly hardcovers and trades), supplies like bags and boards, and good conversation with the owner, Darren Carrara. Darren recently closed his original location and is focusing his efforts on an expanded site in the Wilton Mall, located in a retail-heavy part of the Saratoga area that is bound to bring him more foot traffic. I took the change as an opportunity to pick his brain about comics retailing in upstate New York and get a feel for his approach to operating the store. — Alan David Doane
Tell me a little bit about how you became interested in comics, and how that led to you opening up your own store.
I have always been a fan of super heroes. When I was young I remember reading my brothers Conans and Incredible Hulk comics. But as I grew up I grew away from comics.
I became reacquainted with comics again in college. A friend of mine had been an avid collector and our talks about comics sparked my interests again and I found a local shop and began to pick up a few titles.
This same local shop was where I picked up my first large collection of comics. I was in the store one day and the owner was yelling at someone on the phone about how they screwed up his order, of course this was Diamond. This was the last straw for him, he asked if I wanted all of the comics in his store? You bet I did! He was asking a very reasonable price, so I picked up over 100 long boxes of mostly ’80s and ’90s stuff. Right place at the right time!
My now wife and then girlfriend, Kristi, and I lugged around this huge collection from Potsdam, NY to Boston, MA. Then over to Saratoga Springs, NY. Where it sat for a couple more years till I opened up the Comic Depot!
My biggest concern was monetary. I opened up during a retail and real estate boom; retail space was, in my mind, very expensive. So we had to find a location that was out of the way, to make it more affordable. It also had to be short term in case it didn’t work out. And there were a few other stores in the area and I didn’t want to step on their feet. So we narrowed in on Greenfield, just a few minutes outside of Saratoga Springs.
The best and worst part of Greenfield was the location, very rural. You had to drive to the store, there was almost no one who could walk there. But that was also great, it made us a destination store. Almost no one wandered in who wasn’t into comics and gaming. It was perfect for our Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments, parents could feel comfortable leaving their children for tournaments cause there was nowhere for them to wander off to.
You know my taste in comics is pretty far afield of the typical “comics fan.” I’m not in the store enough to get a sense of how many other customers you have who focus, like me, more on alternative and artcomics than on the weekly superhero fix. Can you thumbnail your clientele for me in terms of what percentage you think are superhero fans versus the rest of what is going on in comics?
I would say 50% are straight up super hero fans, they only get superhero stuff. And that is the same group who is like to only pick up Marvel or DC comics not both. Maybe 5% (sorry Alan) are into art comics. Maybe 10% are collecting everything Stephen King, or stop in to get Amory Wars, or any Rob Zombie book. So the rest are more of the equal opportunity crowd, they read what is good, like Walking Dead!
How about male/female? What’s the percentage there?
Less than 5% are women, but that number is growing.
What are the best-selling titles you carry?
Amazing Spider-Man, Green Lantern, Walking Dead, lots of X-Titles, Return of Bruce Wayne (mini), Stephen King (Dark Tower, Stand, American Vampire), most of the new Avengers titles.
How do you see the rise of the graphic novel in terms of sales of floppy, single issues? Do you think they both have their place?
They both have a place, the same as digital comics. They are made for different people who all enjoy different aspects of comics. Graphic Novels are awesome, you get to read a whole store or story arc in one sitting without waiting six or more months for floppies to come out. They are also portable and lendable, and less expensive then their floppy counterparts. But for collectors there is the floppy, the comic book. Without the floppy the industry ends, in some way or another. And floppies are also there for those of us too impatient to “wait for the trade.”
What comics are you reading now, and what titles do you consider your all time faves?
Love Walking Dead, love it! The Sword by the Luna Brothers under the image imprint, awesome, sad it’s over. Green Lantern, I love Hal Jordan and I loved Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night. I do love Deadpool too, although I’m not a big fan of everything currently being published. I like a lot of the stuff from Radical Publishing too, FVZA and Legends the Enchanted was cool. Lots of good stuff from Avatar too, both past and present. And Proof from Image, Mulder as Bigfoot=awesome.
All time faves? Walking Dead, I have reread this more times than anything else.
You have a pretty big focus on role-playing games, tell me what you offer customers interested in that aspect, and how it’s worked out for you.
I have a bunch of RPG books, but most are vintage. We do much more with Collectible Card Games, like Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! One of our main focuses is tournaments for those games. Also the board game market is starting to boom.
You’ve been very active in the re-emerging Albany-area convention scene (and other, more distant shows as well). Tell me why you think it’s important to be at comic book shows, and what your approach is when you’re behind the booth at a show.
It is a great way to reach your target audience, the most effective marketing tool is to be in a room filled with local people who want to buy your product. I think of a comic show as a giant Comic Depot advertisement, that’s the business side.
The fanboy side says: they are a ton of fun, no better way to get your geek on then to spend the day with hundreds of people who share your interests and passions. Lots of great conversations, lots of awesome merchandise, creators, costumes, and at the end of the day if you made money and had that much fun, then what more could you ask for?
About a year ago you opened a second store in the Wilton Mall, just outside Saratoga Springs but much closer to the main regional highway, I-87 (“The Northway”). A few weeks ago you closed the original Greenfield Center shop and moved your entire operation into a second, larger spot in the mall, across from your former mall location. Tell me how your mall presence has evolved since it began, and what led you to decide to put all your eggs in the mall retailing basket, as it were.
Kristi and I wanted to try out a mall spot just for the holiday season. Comic books are popular again, comic book movies are all over the place with no end in sight. So we thought it would be a good idea to open up a second location for the holiday season. But people seemed to really respond to having a comic shop in the mall. All day long kids beg to come into the store, “Mom please, please” and the sounds of crying if they don’t come in, and grownups swearing out front, “Holy SH*T, it’s Castle Grayskull. I had that as a kid!”
This location is great it is conveniently located just off of exit 15 of the Northway, which is closer for almost all of our regulars. And the foot traffic is great. Granted malls aren’t exactly what they used to be, but a hell of a lot more people walk through the mall than through Greenfield. Avengers, Captain America, Green Lantern, Deadpool all coming out in the near future, it doesn’t hurt to be close to a movie theater. And we even had some “movie premiere parties” at Ruby Tuesdays, they were kind enough to stay open an extra hour or two while eager fans such as myself had a beer or two and a complimentary slider while waiting for Iron Man 2 and Kick-Ass opening night.
What changes are you expecting to make with the new, bigger location?
More stuff! We are always buying great collections of action figures, comics, RPG, Magic cards, posters and who knows what else. But lots of cool different merchandise is one of the things people can expect to see. We are also going to try to be better organized with our comic book back issues, that will be a work in progress for a while I’m sure. The same great customer service! Bigger and better tournaments for Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! More promotions, including sales and hopefully more “movie premieres.”
Photos provided by Darren Carrara. Previous retailer profiles: Modern Myths, Northampton, MA; Comickaze, San Diego, CA; Earthworld Comics, Albany, NY.
* Matt Seneca runs down ten comics he loved in 2010. Dude’s got good taste in comics, although it would take a profound and unlikely reshuffling of the laws of physics to ever convince me to read a Deadpool comic book.
* Tom Spurgeon interviews Dylan Horrocks, as his holiday interview series just gets more and more essential.
* Tony Isabella — one of the most outspoken and right-on advocates for creator rights — begins telling one of the definitive cautionary tales within that issue, his creation of Black Lightning. You’ll want to bookmark Tony’s message board and check back daily for upcoming installments of this story, which could very well change your perception of the corporate superhero comics industry.
* Steve Bissette and Dave Sim are having a very public chat (part one) (part two) (part three) (part four). This one could get very interesting. I remember well the Warren Ellis Forum incident that Bissette recounts, so damn, I must be old.
* Which reminds me, it was 11 years ago today that I first met and interviewed Barry Windsor-Smith. It was a memorable day for many reasons, including the fact that I got to meet and pick the brain of one of the smartest and most gifted comics creators of all time (not to mention a personal favourite comics creator of mine), George Harrison was stabbed that day, and it was less than 24 hours before the dreaded Y2K non-event occurred. The morning of the 30th I worked 5-11 AM at WABY (an all-news AM station) in Albany, met up with my friend Marshall for a quick lunch and then we hit the thruway to make the hour-long drive down to Barry’s studio. I ended up with something like four hours of taped interview, and had a mind-blowing time talking comics and more important issues with Barry, Marshall, and Barry’s studio manager Alex Bialy. At the end of this very long day, Barry treated Marshall and I to an incredible meal, Barry signed my copy of Opus Vol. 1, and we agreed that we would all talk again (which we did, many times). I drove back to Albany, where Marshall had left his pickup truck, and now it was something like 2 in the morning on 31 December 1999. I had to be at work at WABY again at 5 AM, so instead of driving an hour further north to Glens Falls to refresh myself, I just went to the radio station and tried unsuccessfully to take a nap. 5 AM came all too soon, and I zombied my way through my shift until I could finally go home at 11 AM, where I slept until evening, and then stayed up to watch the end of the world at midnight as the year 2000 was rung in. Needless to say, there was no catastrophe, the internet did not explode, airplanes did not fall out of the sky, and I went to bed, exhausted but quite pleased that my radio career and my interest in comics had intersected to allow me to have this amazing experience. Really the first time, but not the last.
— Alan David Doane
Welcome to a special “Understanding Comics” edition of TWC News with ADD.
* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon interviews Jason Miles, “Operations/Editorial” for Fantagraphics Books. Miles explains the title and discusses publishing and his own experiences in comics.
* At World Famous Comics, Tony Isabella discusses the long history of DC Comics destroying the lives of the people who make the comics that allow them to exist as a corporate entity, and focuses on the sad and completely unnecessary tragedy of longtime colourist Adrienne Roy. This is must reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of North American comic book publishing, and the great, casual injustices the industry is capable of.
* At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer explains why you should be reading the autobiographical comics of David Collier, an opinion I thoroughly agree with, for precisely the reasons Heer lays out.
* At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson runs down her list of the Best Manga of 2010. Pay attention.
* Former Troublemaker Mick Martin plans to blog every weekday at Superheroes, Etc. for the first six months of 2011, and also plans to read more graphic novels with an eye to creating a Best of 2011 list at the end of the coming year. These two resolutions could combine to make for some fine reading for us all in the next half-year, my friends.
* Hey, while we all wait for Mick’s 2011 list, Bob Temuka is running down his top ten GNs of 2010 over on Tearoom of Despair, starting with #10, Wilson by Dan Clowes.
— Alan David Doane
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Vol. 1
Writer/Artist - Jacques Tardi
Publisher - Fantagraphics Books. $24.99 USD
Fantagraphics continues their collection of translated Tardi with this fourth release, which collects the first two albums of what would become a celebrated French literary heroine. The stories collected here are Pterror over Paris and The Eiffel Tower Demon, both of which Tardi produced in 1976.
I enjoyed a nice Christmas Eve morning reading them, but was a bit puzzled by the tone. One could call it “all ages” with the understanding that that would mean something quite different to American readers than it would to the French, who after all allow children to drink wine with meals. In other words, it’s a story that doesn’t glory in violence, but doesn’t shy away from it, and the story is not particularly dumbed down for children, nor is the character of Adele made likable for mass appeal.
In the first story, Adele Blanc-Sec, a young woman of means and with two male assistants in tow, travels from the countryside to Paris for reasons unclear, but becomes embroiled in the case of a pterodactyl whose million-year-old egg had been hatched by groundbreaking new science, and which was now terrorizing Paris and eating animals and citizens. Enter a bumbling detective trying to make a name for himself, and a plot involving the hatching method that leads to the betrayal of Adele by her assistants, and you’ve got a fairly involving, if somewhat confusing, yarn.
The second tale picks up right after the first, which is interesting in that one expects adventure albums of this sort to be more self-contained a la Tintin. But no, in this one, one of Adele’s former assistants is front and center as a member of an evil secret cult in Paris that worships an ancient Assyrian demon, Pazuzu. There’s police corruption, and more bumbling, and again, the calm and tight-lipped Adele plows through the mystical nonsense and red tape to save the day.
The chief reason to recommend the books is Tardi’s art. Though I prefer his black and white work in You Are Here and West Coast Blues, his photorealistic vistas of early 20th Century Paris are lovely, especially in the pastels and autumnual hues used here, and his cartoonish characters with their bulbous noses and waxed moustaches are a treat. Best yet is the design of Adele, with her period pulled-up hair, slit eyes and only top lip visible, which makes her appear more business-like and asexual, yet somehow more alluring because of the barriers presented.
The shame of it, though, is that Tardi doesn’t give the reader much reason to really care about her yet, so for all her steely competence and bristling anger she is still something of an object rather than a character. I’m not saying she needs to be more likable; I just want to know more to get more of a handle on her. That said, with the artwork and the affection I have for the other Tardi books I’ve read, I would certainly like to keep going with this series to see how it develops.
—Christopher Allen
I don’t post often about comics publisher sales and such, but Fantagraphics is having a good one, with 40% off some great books from Gilbert Hernandez, Peter Bagge, George Herriman, C. Tyler, Jim Woodring and more. It’s three days only, starting today, so basically you’ve got through Wednesday. The books in question are here.
So DC Comics is going back to the $2.99 price point on their ongoing titles. You know, the price point that we complained about until it got worse at $3.99. This reset is apparently worthy of posters and cardboard displays.
The auldtastic savant R.C. Harvey begins the first of a two-part history of the now mercifully euthanized Brenda Starr comic strip, easily one of the worst I grew up with in the Chicago Tribune in the ’70s and ’80s for its boneless art and brainless stories. This was a strip where you never bothered lifting impressions of it with Silly Putty, and you never even bothered to deface it like I did drawing a big dong on Marmaduke or gunshot wounds in the Family Circle kids (I haven’t done this in years. At least two.) The unlikely hero of the article ends up being New York Daily News publisher Captain Joseph Patterson, who prevented the strip from being published in his papers during his lifetime, sort of the anti-Hearst to Messick’s Krazy Kat. But it does show how adaptable old comic strips can be. Messick’s version was fashion-and-romance-obsessed, and she assiduously avoided learning anything about Starr’s field, newspaper journalism, for fear it would interfere with her creativity, while the strip’s writer for the past 25 years did her best to research the details of the locales where Starr’s adventures were set. As sad as it sounds, if there were space left on the comics page, I could see another iteration of Brenda actually working, if she was more of a Sex in the City-type globe-trotting blogger unlucky in love. But, I suppose it’s better that we all just move on and leave room open for someone’s new idea.
In a good-natured but bizarrely rosy post on comicky things he’s thankful for in 2010, Douglas Wolk is happy that comic specialty shops have not yet become extinct, but at the same time, isn’t it great that the back issue market that kept some afloat has become so unprofitable? This quote was strange as well:
*The general shift toward the rights of individual creators is a very good long-term sign. The most talked-about comics-inspired projects in other media this year were Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim and The Walking Dead—all of which are properties owned by the particular people who created them. That’s a huge change.
Well, no. I don’t see the fact that three creator-owned comics had some adaptations in other media, and that those adaptations got some press, as a big deal at all. At least, it’s not indicative of any vague shift towards creators’ rights being a concept that the majority of the public understands or even thinks about, much less supports. And let’s face it, the first two projects weren’t very successful even with small budgets, while critical reaction to The Walking Dead has been mixed at best. Also, Wolk forgets to mention that non-creator-owned media adaptations of comics properties like Iron Man 2 and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark have gotten more attention than the others, even if, in the case of the Spidey musical, for all the wrong reasons. I like Wolk, but he’s creating a bullet point here where there is no casing or gunpowder to base it on. Did you know the Nook Color is the most talked-about electronic device of 2010…behind the counter at Barnes & Noble?
—Christopher Allen
Time Magazine’s Techland has a new post up by Douglas Wolk running down a handful of 2011 graphic novels of note…and it’s interesting to me that although only two titles on there will be on my must-buy list (Mister Wonderful by Dan Clowes and Paying For It by Chester Brown), both are really on my must-buy list, like, I’d skip a meal or two to make sure I have them.
In addition to those two, I have already pre-ordered the Captain America Operation Rebirth Premiere Hardcover because I love the original Waid/Garney run on that title and have been waiting for a nice hardcover collection forever, Conan Vol. 10: Iron Shadows On The Moon, which will complete my hardcover Busiek/Truman Conan collection at long last (I am really bummed that Truman is leaving the title), and Gotham Central Vol. 4: Corrigan Deluxe Hardcover, which completes the HC reissues of that beloved and much-missed title.
I’ve also got a standing order for the Alan Moore Swamp Thing hardcover reissues (still kicking myself for ever selling off those original issues), and will be buying the final issue of Neonomicon (Moore and Jacen Burrows are doing amazing work on that title) in 2011, and will continute to buy Criminal, Incognito, and anything else Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips create together. I’ve also been buying Fraction’s Iron Man in hardcover and enjoying it, and I think that actually covers all the comics I expect to buy this year. Not many ongoing titles in there, huh?
What are you looking forward to in 2011?
* World Without Journalista, Day 01: Farewells and thoughts on the end of Dirk Deppey’s TCJ era from Johanna, Kleefeld, and Noah. There’s a Facebook page to register your appreciation and share your thoughts about Dirk and Journalista.
* My, that’s a big Bone.
* Awesome Fantagraphics warehouse find: Two Jack Jackson collections. I have God’s Bosom and it’s fantastic. Go buy some great comics before they’re gone again.
* It’s a good thing I subscribed to Robot 6’s RSS feed at Dirk’s suggestion, or I’d miss oddball weirdness like Miss Grundy having cancer, but apparently only in one of the two universes she occupies, like Schrodinger’s Cat.
* Uncomics: Paul Cornell on ebooks and illegal downloading. Lots of food for thought here, folks. Love the revelation of the reason publishers think ebooks should cost as much as a hardcover first edition. Fucking idiots.
— Alan David Doane
Leave it to Dirk Deppey to close out one of the very best comics blogs ever with one of his most essential posts ever. In his final Journalista, Deppey provides the usual significant links of the day and then goes on to create the most relevant, concise and useful list of comics-related links that could possibly be generated right at this very moment. And then he makes me cry just a little by honouring Trouble With Comics among the blogs he finds worthy. Then he coins the best and most resonant and accurate new term to describe what some fans and sites narrowly focus on, the “Direct Market reservation.” Fucking brilliant. Well played. RIGHT-FUCKING-ON.
Let me just say this and I’ll be done with it:
DIRK DEPPEY IS THE COMICS BLOGGING HERO OF 2010 AND SOMEBODY BETTER GODDAMNED WELL START PAYING HIM TO WRITE ABOUT COMICS SOMETIME IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS.
Update: Please stop by Facebook and thank Dirk Deppey for Journalista.
— Alan David Doane
After many years as one of the finest comics bloggers on the internet, Journalista’s Dirk Deppey has been laid off from Fantagraphics. In the world of comic book blogging, there is Neilalien, there is Tom Spurgeon, and there is Dirk Deppey. And then there’s everybody else. I know I speak for just about the entire comics blogosphere when I wish Dirk the very best in whatever he chooses to do from here, and with every molecule of my being, Dirk, thank you for all you did for comics both as editor of The Comics Journal and as Journalista’s guiding light. It’s no exaggeration to say my time spent reading about comics every day will be greatly diminished by the loss of Journalista. I hate that this has happened, and I can only hope that it results in something far better and more profitable coming your way in a very short span of time.
— Alan David Doane
Hello, Happy Holidays and welcome to what might very well be the last TWC News with ADD (a double entendre if ever there was one) of calendar year 2010. I was fascinated to note that, a decade in, people finally started saying the name of this year in short form, as we did in the 1900s, (“Twenty-Ten” instead of dragging out the entire year as “Two-Thousand-And-Ten”). Frankly I thought this
* I don’t know that there was a comics article I enjoyed more this year than Tom Spurgeon’s personal tour through his favourite Wildstorm titles. Automatic Kafka never grabbed me (although Chris Allen loved it, it should be noted), but every other title on Spurge’s list is one of my favourite comics of the past 20 years, and like Tom, they’re comics I re-read often and will have as long as I have comic books in my house. I was especially pleased to see Tom views Warren Ellis’s long run from Stormwatch Vol. 1 #37 through all of Vol. 2 and The Authority #1-12 as being all of a piece, as this is usually how I re-read those comics. It’s a powerful pile of entertainment, to be certain. I’m a little amazed DC has never collected that entire run under one collection of trades, as it’s really how they should be read, and the Stormwatch stuff, in my view, is wildly under-rated.
* A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a promising young writer vowed to review every comic book John Byrne had ever worked on. Today at Trouble With Comics, Christopher Allen reviews John Byrne’s Next Men #1, a revival of Byrne’s ’90s creator-owned superhero effort. And the circle is complete.
* At his still-lovely new(ish) web site, Sean T. Collins looks in wide wonder at Renee French’s gorgeous new graphic novel H-Day (which I recommended in my holiday gift guide, in case you’re still looking for a comics-related last-minute gift that will keep on giving all throughout The Year Two-Thousand-And-Eleven).
I hope you and yours have a wonderful Winter Solstice, or any of the other many subsidiary holidays entirely derived from the Solstice, should that be how you choose to roll at your house. And Happy Festivus!
— Alan David Doane
John Byrne’s Next Men #1
Writer/Artist - John Byrne
Publisher - IDW Publishing. $3.99 USD
I’ll give John Byrne some credit here: to return to a famously unfinished series after 15 plus years is pretty ballsy. Those who never liked it or have come to not like Byrne or his work in that time are going to be very difficult to win over, while many of those who liked the series may have built up their own endings or high expectations. I suppose I fall into the the category of a fan of the series when it came out, and I enjoyed rereading the first IDW collection of it, though hadn’t gotten around to reading the rest.
What I found here, then, as an old fan who had partially revisited the material already, is a first issue that shows heavy tinkering, but with too much of an emphasis on bringing the reader up to speed with every event in the previous 28 issues, as well as too many misdirections. We meet the Next Men, unplugged from their virtual reality of The Greenery as well as the reality that had them as escapees from Project: Next Men into a life of fugitive, costumed heroes. Only Jasmine has doubts about this new reality, not to mention the readers, as her long flashback leads into a creepy rape dream sequence, and finally into her being trapped in dinosaur times with Nathan. Is she still telling a story? I don’t know.
Although his stock of poses and angles is very familiar by now, Byrne does deliver some good art here…and some not so good art. It’s one of the most uneven books of his I’ve seen, with a wide variation in style that leads one to suspect some of these pages date back to the ’90s, before he’d decided to cancel the book. The rape pages seem to be in his most current style, but then it’s hard to place some of the earlier pages where he draws Danny as if he has Bell’s Palsy. Maybe things will even out as we get into for-sure all new territory.
What I was more disappointed in were the ideas here. And maybe this isn’t fair—for the early ’90s, this was a fairly sophisticated superhero book. Or was it? I’m trying to nail down just what makes this different from any other superhero team book. They all deal with alternate realities, conspiracies and increasingly bloody violence. Having sex be the catalyst for the emergence of superpowers is still a bit unusual, but it’s hard to say that Byrne has done much with the idea, and to a large extent, it’s hard to say he shows the capability of doing so. He deals in broad, obvious signifiers: Aldus Hilltop is a bad guy because Byrne draws him with a sneer and a gold bracelet. A decent, honorable man has no need of such ornamentation.
The recap was unfortunate in that it reminded me of times in the series where Byrne took the path well-traveled. The Next Men eventually got costumes and codenames. They fought a foreign team much like them who were led by someone at one time involved in Project: Next Men. Very typical stuff here, even reminiscent of Byrne’s X-Men and Alpha Flight work. And unfortunately, as of this issue, I’m not getting much to grab onto to feel like there’s a huge, amazing story to come, nor do I feel like I have a handle on these characters yet. At one point, this was Byrne’s baby, and the possibilities were only limited to his own imagination. Here’s hoping he can come up with some stories that live up to that potential.
— Christopher Allen
Note: Even though we’ve been working on Comic Book Galaxy together for a decade, Chris Allen and I didn’t co-write our first article together until 2004. We did it a couple more times and then laid off until now, because nothing was good enough to rouse the sleeping giant of our two towering comics intellects working in tandem (and also because we were deeply ashamed of the effete logo our efforts had been slapped with by the asshole publisher of the site). With the publication of Parker: The Outfit, that has all changed, and we’ve got the band back together to jointly twist your arms into buying one of the best crime graphic novels yet published. We had so much fun that we’re gonna do it again. See ya in 2015, pally. — Alan David Doane
CA: I’m sure most folks know this, but The Outfit is Darwyn Cooke’s second and latest adaptation of one of Donald Westlake’s Parker crime novels. Actually, I think I read he condensed another, less interesting novel in here as well. Now, I’m a pulp crime fiction fan, but I admit I haven’t gotten to much Westlake yet, and what I have read wasn’t in the Parker series. But, Alan, I think I recall you’ve read a bunch of them. What do you think of Cooke’s take on this one?
CA: Not that I would have suggested Cooke model The Hunter on the brilliant Point Blank at all, but it does show that one can add other elements to Westlake’s story (in the case of the film, the late ’60s psychedelic touches) as long as one adheres to the basic story. You can’t leave that film not knowing that Lee Marvin’s character wants his money and will do anything to get it. He may seem almost foolishly principled, but you know he means it, and that if he’s hurting over his betrayal he will never show it.
In Cooke’s version of The Hunter, he got all that right, but perhaps he was almost too faithful. Fans of books freak out when chunks of plot or whole characters don’t make it into a film adapation, but the film has to work on its own, and The Lord of the Rings aside, most films would be agonizingly long and boring if utterly faithful to their books. But while Cooke was faithful, there were some distracting elements that somewhat undercut the brutally spare story. Offhand, without having read the book in a year, I recall the opening sequence with Parker walking determinedly and a woman in a car checking him out with desire in her eyes, when it would have been more effective for her to be fearful. Parker is not going to be anyone’s boyfriend, not anymore.
There were also some set dressing such as specific types of early ’60s furniture, that were distracting in some scenes as well. The Hunter was good, but it’s not until The Outfit where Cooke seems confident enough to be free to open up and try different stylistic tactics to make the book more than another respectable, unsurprising adaptation.
ADD: Maybe it’s just Cooke becoming more seasoned as a writer/artist. When I first really became aware of him, on Catwoman with writer Ed Brubaker, I thought he was the best new comic book artist to come along in forever, with a classic style that demonstrated a profound appreciation for storytelling over superficial flash. The fact that he was replacing the absolutely talent-free Jim Balent as Catwoman’s artist of record, I am sure, had at least something to do with it, but Cooke very obviously had serious chops right out of the gate.
Unfortunately, Cooke’s career path was not 100 percent onward and upward after his initial splash with Catwoman. As fun as New Frontier was, it never really felt like it coalesced into a comic for the ages like I thought it was going to, and Cooke’s 12 issues on The Spirit mostly felt like a well-intentioned misfire, with the exception of the superb final issue.
But reading recent interviews with the cartoonist, one gets the sense that Cooke is coming to grips with his talent and his place in comics, and is maturing as both an artist and a businessman. I definitely look forward to more Parker, but I am also excited at the thought of his Cooke might apply the lessons he’s learned so far to whatever it is that he chooses to do afterward. And if nothing else, when all is said and done, we will all have a gorgeous set of thrilling Parker hardcovers to enjoy as comics and fetish art-objects. There’s not many creators that can propose such a project and then see it through to a satisfying fruition, but two volumes in, I have no doubt Cooke can do it, and he seems to have found the right partners in the folks at IDW to help him get it done.
CA: I don’t mean to break the illusion that we’re having a real time conversation here, with you sitting on my lap in that red leather clawfoot chair, but I must admit that between the time I wrote the first paragraph and now I’ve read one of the later Parker novels, Backflash (I also had nine meals, two shits, two bottles of wine, four beers, four orgasms and a pound of bacon — those last two items at the same time, with a call from my Grandma). Um, Parker. So, what I’m saying is, reading this novel, which is one of the last of ‘em from Westlake, makes me realize how well-suited Parker’s world is to comics, because essentially he doesn’t change. Like Peter Parker, he does pick up a woman here and there, but while he has a girlfriend of sorts in that 1998 book, she ultimately doesn’t mean much more to him or the book than a researcher, a helpmate to make the latest heist go over. The status quo doesn’t change much.
That gives me a new perspective on The Outfit, because I realize here even more than I did just comparing it to The Hunter, that Cooke is going for broke (or close to) in trying to come up with different ways to tell the story. Let’s face it: he could have probably just adapted The Man with the Getaway Face as an entire graphic novel and it would have been fine. He could have adapted that with The Outfit as he did here, but in the same style as he used on The Hunter, and that would have been good, too. But what he does, and I believe he mentions this in Tom Spurgeon’s interview, he comes up with different cartooning styles for each heist. See, The Outfit is rather challenging in that it’s not one job. What Parker is trying to do here is really annoy the crime syndicate (The Outfit) by robbing their various enterprises until they give up on trying to kill him. It’s different from The Hunter in that it’s not about revenge and not really about money — it’s harassment. That’s less exciting on one level and yet more relateable, as we’ve all fucked with someone even if we didn’t exact the revenge we craved (Rose Kennedy escaped my clutches too soon).
As a guy who grew up a little later but nonetheless absorbed some of these cartooning styles through, say, early Al Jaffee paperbacks, I loved the early ’60s gnomish figures and gray wash stylings Cooke brought to some of these sequences, and he also did a terrific job capturing the coldhearted, zaftig waitress who gets what’s coming to her in the condensed Getaway Face sequence. The whole book is a stylistic tour-de-force that’s got a kind of sharkskin Rat Pack zing-a-ding-ding insouciance yet never getting too far away from the heart of Westlake’s Parker, which is that he’s a cool son-of-a-bitch who’s all about the job and his own self-preservation, yet under no illusions that the latest score will bring any happiness. The rare (only) two page spread on pages 130-131 is amazing: Parker sitting alone in the dark on the diving board of a covered motel pool. No pleasure here, just business, and don’t try to lift the cover before daylight. He’s not only the straw that stirs the drink but the ice cube that always floats on top and never melts. The cover says (shows) it all: this is not a man with features and the soul showing through his eyes; he’s an abstraction, a composite of hard angles that can’t be reduced by science or emotion.
The Hunter was a modest success but The Outfit is a triumph. One is a feather in one’s cap and the other is the entire pheasant. It’s exhilarating and troubling at the same time, because after reading that Parker novel, Backflash, near the end of the line, one realizes that Westlake chose to work within himself in the series. Cooke has vowed to do at least one more Parker book, perhaps two. What to do as an encore for a character who doesn’t grow? I’m looking forward to how Cooke responds to the bar he’s set so much higher here. At the same time, given the relative stasis of the source material, as entertaining and tightly wound as it is, I think when he decides it’s time to move on, we can look forward to even better and more surprising work. Maybe something with a less assured character, or one of a fainter masculinity. At the very least, don’t they have crime in Canada? Where’s The Salty Poutine Score?
—-
Buy Parker: The Outfit from Amazon.com. A copy was provided by the publisher for the purpose of review.
DC Universe: Legacies #6 & 7
Writer - Len Wein
Artists - Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen, Brian Bolland, Scott Kolins
Publisher - DC Comics
Aside from one of Giffen’s goofiest styles on a ridiculous Superboy/LOSH backup story, and the ponderous, out-of-place stylings of Kolins on the framing sequences, this series has had some really nice art, particularly for those like me who grew up on a lot of these ’70s-’80s superstars now getting to take a tour with Wein down Memory Lane. Either penciling or inking, any of the pages with Ordway’s hand in them are better storytelling than the majority of what passes for it today. That said, the story—indeed, the entire premise of this series—is pointless. It’s just a jog through some of the DCU’s biggest events, kind of through the eyes of an average guy named Paul Lincoln (except the many times it’s just straight sooperhero action), from ’40s street kid to, as of #7, around a 40 year old police detective in the mid-’90s. Strangely, the Paul who introduces each issue is elderly, far older than the 60 years, give or take, that he would be if he was telling the story today. Maybe we’ll find he’s in the future, I dunno.
Wein has no problem putting words in Lincoln’s mouth like, “A hero needs only an honest, noble heart,” that would make Superman gag, and the would-be Marvels-style regular guy story is really just a ’40s Warner Bros gangster film plot, with two kids taking different paths and the criminal one getting a chance to redeem himself. If you can swallow the dialogue, and convenient plotting that, say, allows a career criminal to get a job at S.T.A.R. Labs with easy access to experimental armor, all while cramming in the broad strokes of old stories great and small like Crisis, the Detroit JLA, Legends, The Killing Joke, Jon Stewart, the Bloodwynd/Maxima era of Justice League, Doomsday and Knightfall, then this is for you. Mostly, it’s nice to admire some solid artwork and ignore the story. Highlight: the Bolland-drawn “Camelot 500” story with the Atom, Shining Knight, Silent Knight, King Arthur, and Etrigan.
Wolverine #3
Writer - Jason Aaron
Artist - Renaldo Guedes
Publisher - Marvel Comics
Just because Wolverine goes to Hell doesn’t mean he has to take the readers with him. I gave this more than the benefit of the doubt, but man, what an unremittingly boring, repetitive storyline. Each issue is just this demon trying to break Wolverine’s spirit by making him fight more demons and hellish versions of old foes, and Wolvie is an ornery cuss who’s too stubborn to be turned, while Mystique, Daken and Wolvie’s girlfriend flit around trying to figure out how to get to Hell and help him, with zero results so far. Throw in some X-cameos and repeat. Aaron can write a fun, well-paced story, but this one is stuck in first gear. It also seems to have sucked Daken down with it.
Batman and Robin #17
Writer - Paul Cornell
Artist - Scott McDaniel
Publisher - DC Comics
Yeah, I don’t know why they just didn’t retire Batman and Robin after Morrison left, but whatever. It’s a perfectly good name. So here we have a new creative team, with McDaniel bringing his usual bag of trick to scripting by rising star Cornell. I say rising star, and I like the guy, but with this new villainess The Absence (who we needed like the hole in her head), Cornell might want to be careful he doesn’t overextend himself and become this decade’s Paul Jenkins. It’s okay so far; pretty typical old ‘Tec kind of mystery but with grislier details, and some fine is occasionally labored repartee between clenched Damian Wayne take on Robin and the more lighthearted Dick Grayson version of Batman.
Detective Comics #871
Writer - Scott Snyder
Artists - Jock, Francisco Francavilla
Publisher - DC Comics
Like Cornell, Snyder is quick to start playing with his new toys, in this case having some fun exploring the differences in the Dick/Gordon relationship from the Bruce/Gordon one. For one, Dick doesn’t silently slip away when the conversation is over. It’s cute. Still, I’m looking forward to Snyder digging deeper into what makes Dick a good Batman vs. just a different Batman. This one’s a mystery involving an unseen villain named The Dealer, who deals in hard-to-obtain supervillain stuff like the serum that made Killer Croc the way he is (who would buy this?) and something Poison Ivy-related that makes a would-be squealer grow a tree root out of his mouth. It makes for some good visuals but not much of a coherent story as yet, and one suspects Jock would be put to better use drawing the grim Bruce Batman. That is, he draws Bats exactly the same, but it would make more sense aesthetically if it was Bruce. Snyder doesn’t have a lot of room to get this one going, as he also starts a Gordon backup story, this one with nice art from Francavilla in a stylistic range that seems to be gaining traction (see also Paul Azaceta, Matthew Southworth). My takeaway from these two Batbooks is that the editor(s) are pushing for new villains and shorter story arcs. I’m in favor of the former but it’s too early to judge the results yet, and it makes sense for the latter as well. Three issues + three issues = HC/TPB. Having two arcs per collection conceivably increases the chances of a purchase, and just as far as the monthly series, it’s easier to jump on. Plus, I would not be surprised if this doesn’t also make it easier to get some better artists on for a three issue arc that wouldn’t want to/be able to commit to something longer term. Like, I don’t really see Jock doing 10 issues of this book, do you? I could be wrong about all this, but even if so, it’s not a bad plan. Note: of our players this week, Francisco Francavilla has the most fun name to say out loud.
The Traveler #1
Writer - Mark Waid
Artist - Chad Hardin
Not to take anything away from Stan Lee and his amazing accomplishments, but I’d be curious if his name on a comic really had any positive effect on sales. And this is not even getting into whether he had anything to do with the contents inside. For the record, the comic is copyright both BOOM! Studios and Stan’s POW! Entertainment (we finally got BOOM! and POW! together, but where’s BIFF!?), but Stan’s only credit is the vague, “Grand Poobah.” I imagine Waid and others came up with it and Stan signed off, maybe offering some minor input. Whatever.
As one might reasonably guess, The Traveler is decidedly lighter in tone than Waid’s other BOOM! series, Irredeemable and Incorruptible. Stan doesn’t do scorched earth and kinky sex and psychotic capes. But it’s not even a “feet of clay” type of old Marvel approach, either. Tonally, it’s more like ’50s DC stuff, with a cheerful, time-traveling hero trying to stop some other time-traveling creeps, all the while chattering with a scared African-American mom (with Hardin playing up her MILFy BOOM! POW! attributes a little much). Normally, Waid would be your go-to guy for Silver Age homage, but this one feels a little flat, fast-paced but lacking a distinctive hook or much in the way of characterization, and like he saved his best jokes for another comic. I mean, it reads like an assignment rather than inspiration, and while many of us would take this assignment in a minute, it doesn’t mean it’s going to turn out well.
—Christopher Allen
November 2010
17 posts
I don’t think I’ve ever really done one of these before, but with comics and graphic novels more in the public eye than they have been since, what, the 1940s? — and as the Winter Solstice draws nearer, I thought I would weigh in with what I think would make some nice gifts this holiday season for that special someone in your life. You know, that person you are pretty sure won’t give you the stinkeye when they open up their present and it turns out, it’s comics?
To keep this list to a manageable length, I set forth a few rules:
1. The gift must be at or under $100.00.
2. One gift suggestion per publisher.
3. They must be more than just “a good graphic novel,” they have to have something special that makes them truly gift-worthy.
4. They must have mainstream appeal.
And away we go!
Alec: The Years Have Pants HC (Top Shelf) — Eddie Campbell’s extraordinary life’s work in autobiographical comics makes a fantastic gift in hardcover. This mammoth slab of witty, whimsical and brilliant comics will keep your loved one amazed and entertained for the many weeks it will likely take them to read it. I can’t imagine a better way to get through the winter than being warmed by these charming and game-changing comics.
Castle Waiting Vols. 1 and 2 HCs (Fantagraphics) — These two huge hardcovers can currently be had for less than 50 bucks, and offer up a whole new world of wonder. Perfect for anyone who loves to be transported to another place and time.
H Day HC (Picturebox) — Renee French welcomes you into her head (literally) in this mysterious and gorgeous hardcover. More challenging than her previous efforts, but the rewards make the journey worthwhile.
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Box Set (Oni Press) — If they loved the movie, get ‘em the comics! I can’t imagine a better combo gift, too, than giving both this box set and the DVD of the great movie adaptation.
Star Trek Countdown HC (IDW) — For the Trek fan in your life, there’s no better comics offering than this. Countdown tells the story of what happened before JJ Abrams recreated the Star Trek universe, bringing in characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation to explain some unanswered questions about the 2009 movie, and it all ties into the new continuity flawlessly. As a huge Trek fanatic, I absolutely consider this story canon, and would dearly love to see it adapted as an animated film to come out ahead of 2012’s next chapter in the newly-revived franchise. It’s a classy, exciting and entertaining comic, and this hardcover edition would make a great gift.
Wilson HC (Drawn and Quarterly) — Dan Clowes is one of those cartoonists that really invites the reader’s eye whether they are already ensconced in comics reading or not. Wilson offers up a wealth of opportunities for discovery, both in terms of the oblique angles of its story and the mysterious way comics can unveil its wonders.
Yuggoth Cultures HC (Avatar) — Alan Moore’s Neonomicon (with artist Jacen Burrows) is the best new Moore title in years, but it’s not collected yet. So why not give this beautiful hardcover collection of eerie and strange Moore tales (definitely adults only) to satisfy the horror fan in your life?
Those are my suggestions! Leave your recommendations in the comments, and happy holidays!
Fire & Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics
Writer - Blake Bell
Publisher - Fantagraphics Books. $39.99 USD
During his time in comics, from the start of the Golden Age to the end of 1972, Bill Everett had the respect of many of his peers for his gifts as a an artist and storyteller. His penciling in the boom time for the industry of the late ’30s through the end of World War II showed a sure, almost cocky hand, the compositions dynamic with depth and potency and an easy glide of the eyes across the page. He created Namor the Sub-Mariner, comics’ first anti-hero and still a mainstay of Marvel Comics, and frequently set his creation against Carl Burgos’ Human Torch in co-authored battles legendary for their time and still recalled fondly today. So why isn’t Everett better known?
One of the striking revelations to Everett’s story is the pains both Stan Lee, and later, Roy Thomas, made to keep giving Everett work, despite his unreliability and—shocking—the fact that Lee never even met the man. Lee was just always a fan of his work. If anyone wondered why Everett only drew the first issue of Daredevil, it’s because he couldn’t meet the deadlines on it and needed help to get it done, so he was replaced, despite creating the look of the character and his blindness (based on Everett’s daughter being born legally blind). Still, although much of Everett’s ’60s work was journeyman and lacking his earlier panache, he did finish on a strong note in ‘72, having given up drinking and finding his old verve, only to be felled by a heart attack brought on by his other lifelong vice, a three-pack-a-day cigarette habit.
Author Bell has carved a niche in biographies of cartoonists obscure or reclusive. Although Steve Ditko differs greatly from Everett in having no apparent vices, is productive in his 80s, and has long created work born of moral and philosophical concerns, he and Everett are similar in one way: there isn’t a whole lot known about them. Not a ton of interviews, especially about their craft. Not to be crass, but this ends up working very well for Bell, because there is little on record to compare and contrast with his work, and the rather skimpy biographical details and the remembrances of family and colleagues leaves plenty of room for examples of Everett’s comics covers and storytelling, much of which makes a better argument for Everett’s importance than Bell does.
One can argue that comics analysis doesn’t really belong in a biography-cum-coffee-table-art-book, but this writer would have appreciated more in this area. Poring over the pages, one wonders why Bell doesn’t delve more into the “fire & water” of his title, such as where Everett’s early fury came from, if it ever dissipated and when, and why so many of his early characters were more at home in water or as vapor or smoke than standing with their feet on the ground. It might also have been worth exploring how in creating comics’ first anti-hero in Namor, Everett unfortunately created a character few would want to imitate, as anti-heros didn’t get long-running books, cartoons and toys until the ’70s and ’80s with Wolverine, The Punisher, Ghost Rider, etc. I would have loved to see examples of Everett’s antiauthoritarian streak playing itself out in his comics, or to learn if he had been upset about the start of the Comics Code Authority and the defanging of horror comics, since the examples shown in here are evidence he was right up there with the EC greats. Obviously, Bell can’t ask someone no longer with us, and perhaps his children just didn’t know much of their father’s feelings about his work and the changes to the industry, but it’s kind of a shame at least some of these threads aren’t explored or that there isn’t a more thorough analysis of Everett’s body of work for common themes, highlights, stylistic innovations or even shortcomings (his style seems out of place with swinging ’60s Marvel). It’s a good and valuable book, but one wonders what Bell could do with a better documented figure, if he can find an angle or provide insights not seen before. But enjoy it for what it is, a portrait and gallery of a talented, troubled artist whose work should be better known today.
— Christopher Allen
Buy Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics from Amazon.com.
Elmer
Writer/Artist - Gerry Alanguilan
Publisher - SLG Publishing. $12.95 USD
In this parable about racism and equality, longtime superhero comics inker Alanguilan tells the story of Jake Gallo, a chicken born in the second generation of chickens who found themselves able to speak, with all the intelligence and emotions of humans. In fact, they’re recognized as equal, but as with blacks or Jews or any other minority, not everyone can accept this. Jake is an angry young chicken, not well adjusted like his sister or particularly brother Freddie, a rising movie star.
If the reader can accept this conceit of smart chickens, they can go onto enjoy a terrific story. Alanguilan makes it easy, developing Jake as confrontational, even unlikable, but clearly hurting. His family loves him and wants him to adjust, but it’s hard, especially as he’s just lost his father, Elmer.
What gets Jake on the path to understanding is the discovery of his father’s memoir, which explains how things were from birth to the start of their human-level sentience. Alanguilan does a good job thinking through how humanity would react to these developments, and how the longtime foodstuff poultry would react to finally having the brains needed to hate and carry out revenge. The setting and plot are believable enough given the premise, but it’s his characterization that sells it. Fighting cock Uncle Joseph was bred to be a killer and he knows he can’t escape his fate; he can only be a symbol, a legend. It’s up to the wiser Elmer to take the smarter, longer range course for acceptance with his newspaper columns about life as a chicken, and it’s up to Jake to spread his father’s story and expand upon his work.
Alanguilan’s art is extremely well-suited to the story, utilizing grids for clarity but with his inking gifts on display with lots of rural texture (farmhouses, feathers, squalor), occasionally stopping for a jaw-dropping Philippine landscape or grisly scene of devastation or mass culling. Appropriately, the chicken characters are drawn with as great a range of expression (shock, joy, contentment, rage, etc.) as the humans. It’s funny, but each time I write, “humans,” I feel odd about it; that’s how convincing a case Alanguilan makes for the chickens being just a more recently recognized form of humanity. As it seems to be the last word Alanguilan wants on this world, one could make minor quibbles over the lack of development of Jake’s sister, or Jake’s possible romantic relationship with non-chicken human Anna Rosie, but again, these are minor quibbles. It’s a very well done book.
—Christopher Allen
Yes, it’s true, I’m still working my auction mojo on the eBay. Right now I have an updated set of auctions that includes hardcover and softcover graphic novels (including one Absolute edition), comic book sets, mini-series, and even a nice piece of original art.
Click over to view my eBay auctions and if you see something you like, bid early and often!
— Alan David Doane
