Quote for the Week 2/12/12

"We [Joe Simon & Jack Kirby] discussed this idea, about America. This was at a time when everybody was patriotic... and it was ridiculous not to do Captain America because there was an idea that would have been bought by everybody. So Joe and I did that. Our job was to sell comic-books. And we did.

...

[after being asked about a current Captain America storyline:]
I receive the books from most of the companies... That's their prerogative. Whatever they do with Captain America is their prerogative. If you like it, fine... I say that Marvel has every right to put out the kind of book that they like. That's their business, to sell books."

~ Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, on a panel in Troy, Michigan on the 29th of May in 1988.

This month, @DCcomics announced a series of prequels to Alan Moore's "Watchmen". Moore was quoted in an interview that this is: "shameless". The creators attached to the books defended their involvement in multiple ways including pointing out that Moore himself has used characters created by other people both for corporations ("Swamp Thing", "Superman", "Green Lantern") and in his own projects ("League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", "Lost Girls"). He dislikes the project and stands to make no money from it. (I've already covered this story myself here.) This page on ComicsAlliance.com summarizes the reactions.

Then, Ghost Rider creator Gary Friedrich was ordered to proffer to Marvel $17,000 he has made in selling his own Ghost Rider merchandise AND refrain from publicizing himself as the creator of Ghost Rider. Commenters have brought up Friedrich's health and financial problems as well as the fact that many, many professional comics artists supplement their careers with simple commissioned sketches of corporate-controlled characters at conventions or by mail. Some say @Marvel should settle with winning the case (i.e. not owing Friedrich any part of the earnings from the first film from 2oo7 or the new one opening this week) and rescind any request for damages or the somewhat ridiculous demand that Friedrich stop referring to himself as the character's creator.

And on top of all of this, original "The Walking Dead" artist Tony Moore is suing fellow co-creator Robert Kirkman claiming a proper half of proceeds from "The Walking Dead" TV show and merchandise has not been sent his way. The two were reportedly close friends who worked together on multiple projects before Kirkman (@RobertKirkman) became a part of the corporate structure of Image Comics (@ImageComics).

Supposedly
money + agreement = fair use of characters
but which part of that equation is more important? The compensation or the permission? And is there leeway for artistic relevance? Financial or health status? Even friendship?

Where do we draw the lines between business and ethics? Why do we draw lines there at all? Who is in the right: the creator or the copyright owner?

In this sudden rush of news in regard to creator's rights, it's interesting to me to remember that some of the most screwed over were also the most respectful. Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sued DC several times. Kirby never sued Marvel. Was Kirby a fool or a gentleman?

~ @JonGorga

DC Expands Alan Moore's Superhero Masterpiece

I'm not against it.
But I ain't entirely for it either.

DC Comics' announcement last week that there will indeed (no longer rumored) be an expansion to the original 1986 comic-book mini-series "Watchmen" rather stunned the comics world. It certainly did this comics commenter.

In fact, there will be seven new "Before Watchmen" prequel mini-series each focusing on a different character or group from the back story of the original 12 issues. The most exciting of these, to me, is: "Minutemen" written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke [released cover at right].

Sign me up.

[via DC's The Source blog]

(That awful, simple title "BEFORE Watchmen", by the by, only makes sense if you're familiar with DC's "AFTER Watchmen" program which I mentioned early on here.)

The reaction has been blown-up into something more polarized in appearance than it truly is in reality. Most everyone fall into one (or more) of three camps:

1. It's a disgraceful cash-grab.

2. It's not a bad idea.

3. I'll wait and see.

Josh Flanagan (one of the iFanboy boys) does a beautiful job of summarizing many of the main points of this strange little news item of last week. Read his editorial.

Josh F's main point there is that the comics industry is a business. No one can be faulted for trying to make money and keeping everything afloat. The only thing I have to add is: in any business choices must be made, and made publicly, and we all make examples of ourselves when we do so. Sometimes foolishly.

Moore has publicly stated:

“I don’t want money” ... “What I want is for this not to happen.”

[via The New York Times]

Can the choice to produce these comics be seen as an ethical one under the circumstances? He created the characters but never gained legal ownership of them.

Perhaps more importantly, can these new comics live up to the original? No, quite frankly I can't imagine how they possibly could, in no disrespect to the very talented assemblage of folk they have to work on them. Just a comparison of the released covers with the original series' covers belies a lack of the detail-oriented thinking that was so integral to the make-up of the original.

That doesn't mean no one should ever try to expand on previously published high-quality characters as a rule, I just wouldn't have imagined rolling several of them all out in a short burst of months was the wisest way to do it. These 'prequels' will come out in far less time than Moore and Dave Gibbons took to produce the twelve issues of the original series...

Frankly? This whole thing seems a risky mess.

We'll see how they do come summer.

~ @JonGorga

Only in a World of Sequential Art

24 frames-a-second? No, I prefer thinking in panels-per-page myself. More flexible.

Poetry or Prose? No, I can choose between romantic or constructivist, photo-realistic or cartoony, impressionist or classical as I build my story (or afterward). More variety that way.

"I really think comics are more fun when they play to their strengths, and do the things that movies can’t do, and go to places in the imagination where movies can’t go. Let’s take up the type of storytelling that movies daren’t do, you know? Why are we conforming to Hollywood storytelling styles and losing sales when we can do anything? ... Comics begin with a guy, with a pencil and an imagination, or a guy at his word processor, and after that anything can happen. And so rarely does."
~ Grant Morrison interview in Comic Foundry, final issue, Spring 2oo9 (& readable here)

Comics are not 'movies on paper'. Nor are comics 'visual literature'. Those statements aren't strictly speaking wrong, they are close to the truth-- a version of it. But comics are something else entirely and to limit them by what other media can't do is... just limiting.

Josh's recent post about investigating form and a recent conversation with comicsmith Jason Little at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival has got my brain flowing with old academic thoughts. "More academic than usual," I hear the multitudes scream? Yes, more academic than usual.

Can you imagine the distinct world of the comics medium?

the opening pages of the Luna Brothers' "Girls" #1
Image: A young man in the throws of orgasmic physical pleasure. Image: A young woman lays with her clothes in disarray. What just happened? Not what you think.The magic of comics is in the 'sequential' part of sequential art. Two images in sequence create a moment of time, but a moment made up of two frozen images can create particular illusions other mediums can't. A momentary trick that makes the status of the Lunas' main character painfully obvious. The second panel is a close-up. He holds a pornographic magazine and not a woman's love, as he wishes he did.

the faux-prose at the end of "Watchmen" #1-11 and "Superman: Earth One" and probably thousands of places
Whenever a comic visually displays something with text in the fictional world in such a way that it can be read as if it were actually prose, something unique has happened. A film that zooms in so close that the viewer can read some text on the screen would be awkward and slow the film's pace to horrible effect. (It was common in the 1940s, sure, but it was awkward.)

In a comic, the reader can stop to read the text as if it were prose, give it a quick scan, or choose not to read it at all and simply accept it as another two-dimensional prop existing in the world of the comic (at peril of missing out on part of the story, of course).

the typewriter sound effects in Jason Lutes' "Berlin" #3
The "tak" "takketa" "takka" sounds coming from Kurt Severing's typewriter transform suddenly into snippets of words being pounded out by the writers across the street, at least in Severing's imagination. All in typewriter font.

Environmental onomonopeia becomes a representation of a character's perception of the world in the very image of the environmental element's effects on paper! Or something like that. Either way, it's beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the moment where musical notes in the air become birds in flight.

the entirety of Jason Little's "Jack's Luck Runs Out"
The WHOLE THING is drawn in an imitation of the classic playing-card illustration style, everything from the characters and their props in the foreground to the environment of Las Vegas in the background.


The same stiff poses, the same blank stares from your game of 52 pick-up, but now in the service of a disturbing narrative about vacuous gamblers, show girls, con-men and the spiteful things they do.

the 'thought balloon-storm cloud' in Brendan Leach's "Pterodactyl Hunters in the Gilded City"
As a young man walks the streets of New York City circa 1904 turning over and over in his mind the current events of his life (like we all do) snippets of the last conversation he took part in dance around his head, mixed up like a tiny abstract poem surrounded by rough, uneven, random lines.


Comics can use any visual art styles or tools, any design elements, any written languages, and any typographic fonts the creator chooses! These examples I've given are only a fraction of the tricks and experiments out there that could only have been done in a comic.

Can you imagine the world of sequential art? A world where time exists frozen forever in snap shots, yet feels animated in sequence? A world where text can be read like prose, but the story can be told in bold visuals like film? A world that moves without motion and speaks without sound.

I can, and it is so damn beautiful.

~ @JonGorga

Jon Gorga's Precious Little Time!

Last year's "Watchmen" film adaptation came out and there was a huge fan-fare and the trailer was magnificent, advertisements appeared everywhere, the world seemed to scramble to book stores and comic shops to read it and it sold like crazy for a few months, the action figures were gorgeous and, amazingly, in recognition that something was in the air, The New York Times finally created a 'graphic books' best-seller list (only online, however) and all us comics types were very happy.

Whew! Yeah! Awesome!

[Rorschach action figure image at right from DC Direct website.]

But then something happened. The film was a garish, occasionally unintentionally hilarious, extravaganza of superhero violence.

That was my initial reaction anyway. Can you tell I was disappointed? I've calmed down a lot since that day but I stand by my core reaction: in making a Hollywood motion picture out of Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' mini-series Zack Snyder took out all the quiet character moments and amped up the violent/sexual ones. The resulting film had a lot of the core spirit of the comics, but none of the beauty or honesty.

I said to everyone beforehand: 'Hey, if the movie is great more people will come out jazzed to read it than there are already. If it sucks, millions of regular, everyday people across the world will say 'It wasn't as good as the comic' and mean it." Still, the resulting film was so self-indulgent and violent I feared that there would be a backlash. That people would say: 'See? In reality all that superhero and comics stuff just comes to violence and sex. No more.' Generally, we didn't get that outside of a few cranks. (Despite the fact that we saw it big time when "Sin City"'s adaptation came out years earlier.) More importantly we didn't, thank god, move backward; but the movie's release slowed the progress we were making. Junot Diaz, awesome novelist and establishment geek, said something that amounted to: 'the Watchmen movie trailer was the best thing to happen to the comics industry in a long time.'

ENTER: Bryan Lee O'Malley's series of graphic novels that began with "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" and Edgar Wright's upcoming film adaptation "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" that opens tonight at midnight. The process that came before the release of "Watchmen" has happened again, but bigger because both the film and the last comic are summer releases! Let's hope the last part of the story doesn't repeat as well.

Clare has informed me that not only is the last comic "Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour" sold out in the comics store she works at, but that ONI Press itself has run out of copies of the book and has to go back to the printer and thus only the chain bookstores have copies.

That's pretty remarkable. Superhero comic-books sell out of stock. Indie graphic novels do not.

I think it shows that people really are willing to find comics shops (at least Graphic Novel sections) and try something if they've heard good things/they want to be informed about a big cultural phenomenon at the zeitgeist. That's the one solo difference between this moment in time and past big-scale adaption film releases or films based on non-superhero comics: The sixth book just came out. Everyone can be pretty nearly on the ground-floor together and enjoy the latest (and final) comic and the adaptation of the whole series together.

But if it's a bubble ready to burst (not jinxing it, not jinxing it, not jinxing it) I want to enjoy it too, and the window is closing fast. At time of writing I am 35 pages into "Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together", the fourth book in the series. That means just about three graphic novels to go. I am going to finish them by midnight tonight.

So help me god.

Oh and Twitter. So help me Twitter. Because that's where you'll see my updates on this adventure over the next... YIPES! less than twelve hours! I better get back to reading!

~ @JonGorga (<--See if I make it on my Twitter account! Not the LongandShortbox account.)

Symposium Notation

Once again, the Bard Comics Symposium has come and gone and for once I had almost nothing to do with it! How refreshing it was to sit back and enjoy the show after three years of presenting and two years of presenting AND c0-organizing past incarnations of the project!

Well, as I was your eyes and ears on the scene here's a transcription of my Facebook status-update-micro-blogging of the event exactly as it is on Facebook, with all comments and 'likings' as of April 10 intact combined with my Flickr photostream of the event!

It's long overdue! Enjoy!

Jon Gorga is at the Fifth Annual Bard Comics Symposium and it has just begun!! Senia Hardwick is talking about Fear Toxin!
Sat at 3:21pm · Comment · Like
Ana Cerro likes this.
Ana Cerro
Ooh, reporting live from Symposium!
Sat at 3:26pm · Comment · Like

Jon Gorga sits patiently as Nicki France presents us a gorgeous slide of caligraphy now as she begins to talk about the ancient art as it's seen in the comics medium!
Sat at 3:38pm · Comment · Like

Jon Gorga just walked around and looked at the comics work of Molly Ostertag and is now listening to her talk about her work!
Sat at 4:11pm · Comment · Like

Jon Gorga is excited to see Josh Kopin take the stage to talk about "The Immortal Iron Fist"!!
Sat at 4:34pm · Comment · Like
Jon Gorga
Awww...! Josh referrenced my SP work in his presentation!! I am honored.
Sat at 4:41pm
K.J. Nolan
Jon, post a pic if you get a chance.
Sat at 5:15pm
Geoff Auerbach
nerd
Sat at 11:34pm
K.J. Nolan
@ Goeff -- and?
Yesterday at 11:19am

Jon Gorga is very proud to see Clare Nolan begin her presentation on the doubles and mirroring in "Batman: The Long Halloween"!!
Sat at 5:26pm · Comment · Like
Ana Cerro likes this.

Jon Gorga Chris Claremont is at the podim and dropping wonderful knowledge on us.

Sat at 6:41pm · Comment · Like

Rebeka Felicity and Sarah Gordon like this.

Devon Jones

Chris Claremont as in "the"? Oh my.

Sat at 7:53pm

Jon Gorga enjoyed attending the Fifth Annual Bard Comic Symposium! And he enjoyed sharing its play-by-play with you via Facebook!

Yesterday at 5:00pm · Comment · Like

George Harris Fish, Rebeka Felicity and Megan Humphreys like this.

A couple spelnig mystakes here and there. Not too egregious. It was real time... at the time.

Also, my apologies for the poor quality of the photos, I was pretty far back in the auditorium and taking them on my iPhone! I didn't snap any of Mr. Claremont (@CClaremont, class of '72) as it just felt wrong to distract him at all as he shared old stories about Bard and living in New York City post-college in the 70s.

It was really pretty inspirational.

~ @JonGorga

The Life and Times (and Death) of a Savior

I bought "The Life and Times of Savior 28" #5 (from IDW Comics) two months back and, as I'd gotten used to over the previous issues of this mini-series, I got something much more than the average smart superhero story.

I got something beautiful.


This review of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" #5 is long overdue, yes. But J.M. DeMatteis' and Mike Cavallaro's remarkable mini-series deserves more praise and a more critical exploration than I have seen it receive.

Alan Moore has stated that when he was writing the "Watchmen" mini-series, he really felt like it was going to be the end of the superhero genre. He thought that as far as he was concerned once he'd shown that the ultimate expression of Superman had to be either detached from humanity or devoted to destroying the few to save the many and the ultimate expression of Batman would either be a non-functioning psycho or an all-too human man-child the superhero genre would be dead. "Watchmen" was to be its tombstone. How naive of him.

The truth, as things turned out, is that people loved "Watchmen" so much (and indeed loved the psychopathic Rorschach most of all) that the genre was rejuvenated as a place where characters could be seen somewhat realistically destroying each other mentally and physically on a monthly basis. Superhero comics are still for children... except they also have to be violent enough that adults will take them seriously. Superhero comics have to be lighthearted enough that children will find them exciting and hopeful... except again they also have to be grounded enough that adults take them seriously. Paul Levitz, the until-just-recently Publisher of DC Comics, said in the 2003 documentary "Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked": "We point out, with some passion and energy, that comics not only aren't only for kids, they're not mostly for kids today." And, on the subject of "Watchmen", "Most of the guys in comics live within about fifty miles of here, so we were all at the same poker-games and the same parties. And it was just: 'Wow, how the hell did he [Moore] do that?' and you went home and you ripped up whatever you had done that week and just said 'No, dammit. There's more I can do.' " As well as the glorious general statement: "Comic-book writers and artists are doing the same thing the storytellers did drawing pictures on the caves at Lascaux. We're using story to create context for life. On a very, very good day (and we don't have enough of them) that becomes art, on an ordinary day it becomes escape. It's always magic."

(Yeah. If you haven't watched that documentary yet, you should.)

So the superhero fiction writer of today must ask himself this archetypal question: To continue the fight month after month or try to do something more?

The main character of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" is cracking under this exact pressure. Savior 28 a.k.a. James Smith (the most fantastically everyman secret I.D. name I'VE ever heard) is a character who doesn't know who he is anymore in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Like many Americans. Like the superhero genre itself.

I don't think any of us truly appreciate our superheroes. Despite the millions they rake in at the box office, they still seem to be a cultural joke in most people's eyes. That's the beauty of "Watchmen", it didn't take its characters for granted. And that's the main reason I can't stop thinking of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" as the new "Watchmen", because it doesn't either. And you, also, will no longer be able to take your superheroes for granted after you read the end of the first issue of "Savior 28". Because to watch a superhuman character lose the woman he'd loved, and drown the pain in alcohol, only to wake up on September 12th, 2oo1 and see the epitome of failure in his eyes? That's pain. Anguish, even. For James Smith and for the reader. What does James Smith do? The invulnerable super-powered flying man of the title?

He opens another bottle of scotch.

His next reaction? Suicide attempts.

Plural, of course. He's superhuman.

Mike Cavallaro's art is key to the evocation of pain in these scenes. James Smith's face changes in each panel into a new mask of horror. (Really. Click on this image, make it as big as you can get it and look at each panel. Distinctive expression of pain on each face in each image.) His smooth, almost cartoony line allows the character to fool our senses for a moment every time he appears in one of many too-horrible-for-words moments.

This is actually the first page of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" art I ever saw. It's the first page of the second issue. It sold me on buying the issue pretty much immediately. The following 21 pages sold me on the whole series.

Even though that was my introduction to the series, I don't think I'd recommend you read it that way. The series' writer and concept originator J.M. DeMatteis had something in mind in the structure of the mini-series. Is it as structured as "Watchmen"'s plot? No. Each issue doesn't have a unique arc and structure, but they do have their own themes: #1 and #2 are about the history of the superhero and the history of the 'real world', respectively. That's why the first issue is titled "A Kind of Eulogy". The third issue is about the superhero as celebrity/political figure. The media and political pundits of the 'real world' are featured. Hence, "The Whole World Is Watching". The fourth focuses on the Oedipal Complex exhibited by most superhero characters (albeit with a role reversal) and the fifth (titled "In Pace Requiescat") is about the superhero as (finally!) savior. The main thematic elements of superhero narratives are on display here: history (mainly, their own), social/political relevancy, Freudian/Oedipal tension, and religion.

Is this a definite and clear structure? Hell no. There are bits of every theme in each issue. Plus I just made half of that stuff up! I'm an academic folks, what can I say? But, this is part of my point. "The Life and Times of Savior 28" is not 'the "Watchmen" of our generation'. Such a title would be pretty damn meaningless anyway. It feels in a few ways, to this reviewer at least, like a kind of anti-"Watchmen". An antidote to ultra-realistic, ultra-violent, ultra-structured superhero comics. A silky-smooth-line-drawn, tastefully intense, organic superhero comic that examines and comments on superhero comics.

The final issue does not disappoint. The entire mini-series is framed as the memoir of Savior 28's former sidekick, Dennis McNulty, and the story reaches an emotional and absolutely fitting conclusion for both Savior 28 and his 'biographer'. I couldn't stop myself from reading this as soon as it was in my possession. The story hit home emotionally as I read it standing in a falafel shop. It is finally, at the end, so sad. Cavallaro's smart splash-page storytelling techniques are in full force here. But the real crescendo of the piece is a single page of twelve small panels in which almost the entirety of the series is silently summarized and as we see Savior 28's and Dennis McNulty's lives meet and intertwine and separate and end all on one page... it hurts. Everything that Paul Levitz said about comics is reflected in that one page, as well as in the last issue, as well as in the entirety of the series.

"The Life and Times of Savior 28" is a particularly smart and particularly beautiful exegesis of superhero narratives because it makes it clear that our superheroes can be saviors if, just like REAL people, they choose to sacrifice something REAL. Is it child-appropriate? Not really, no. As evidenced by the nine panel-grid page above and the splash-page at left. (If you want a great kid-appropriate comic, you must check out Clare's editorial here.)

I believe the mini-series "The Life and Times of Savior 28" reconciles much of the problems facing most superhero comics (and their writers...) coming out today.

Read it. A trade paperback collection has been solicited for January. For my money, you want to read the five 22-page issues to really get a feeling for their individual themes and rising energy. But I'm crazy. Just read it.