Quote for the Week 12/20/11

"... I have more of an emotional attachment for these characters than I thought possible. I don't know what else to say that hasn't been said hundreds of times before so I'll just say thank you. Thank you for revitalizing my love of reading. Thank you for making me see comics as valuable entertainment. Thank you for all the wonderful stories you've given me. And thank you for all the ones you still have to tell. ..."

~ "The Walking Dead" reader Jason Winchell writing in to his favorite comics' letter column Letter Hacks with gratitude for the work of writer Robert Kirkman, printed in the back of last week's "The Walking Dead" #92.

Surprise?

Thanks to a request from my friend Davy (@davidbrustlin) I had a copy of this comic in my house for a few days:

"Fear Agent" #32, the last issue of the series. Now, I am notorious (especially to Davy) for reading (or watching) ahead, skipping over issues (or episodes), and generally 'spoiling' myself on all kinds of developments 'ahead' of me in serial narratives

I rarely find that my enjoyment of a story is ruined by knowing what's happened chronologically further down the river from where I stand in the current. The ideal? No. A disaster? Not really.

So I opened up "Fear Agent" #32...

...and I was delighted to find this message on the inside front cover.

Rick Remender, Tony Moore, and Dark Horse (@DarkHorseComics) are smart gents.

They saw my type coming a mile away:

I read it anyway.

I liked it. A lot.

I found, in "Fear Agent" #32, a story I could mostly understand and although I could not appreciate its connection to the overall structure of the series, I did deeply appreciate its structure as an individual issue. I just plain, old-fashioned, enjoyed it. I followed the conclusion to its main character's emotional arc, felt its resonance in my own life, and was moved by it.

And as I write these words, I'm reading "The Walking Dead" #92 on the NYC subway without having read #14 through #91. I like it, but not a lot.

Not enough to commit to reading the ongoing zombie survival horror epic. Sorry. But still. This is not a bad thing.

I think of it as a test. If I can enjoy this issue for its emotional, storytelling, creative content out-of-context? The creators are doing something right.

So congratulations to writer Rick Remender (@Remender) and artist Tony Moore (@tonymoore). You made me love something. Even without having "read the book up to this point".

~ @JonGorga

Another Legend Gone

As much as it saddens me to have to do this, to post about the death of one comics great right after a post about the death of another, I don't really have a choice, since Joe Simon, co-creator of Captain America, passed away on Wednesday. Because I'm in the final throes of the most stressful finals of my life, I don't have the time to spend on a post commemorating Simon the way he deserves, but there'll be one, after the first of year.

In the meantime, here's to you, Joe Simon. 

The Gentleman of Comics is Gone

People revered Jerry Robinson in our industry because he created The Joker and worked on Batman when he was seventeen years old. I revered Jerry Robinson because he survived our industry with his integrity intact.

He died two days ago, here in New York City.

[via NYCGraphicNovelists.com]

In 1938, he started working for Bill Finger and Bob Kane on Batman as a letterer and assistant inker. A year later, he was inking the book, then naming Robin, on to creating The Joker, Two-Face, and the best butler in popular fiction: Alfred Pennyworth. Soon, he was the key writer, then he switched to penciling the adventures of the Dark Knight.

Later he moved over to newspaper strips, creating two different strips in the 60s and 70s, which in turn led him to two terms as the president of two different nation-wide cartoonists guilds. He next tried his hand as a comics historian, penning a comprehensive history of comics in newspapers.

Most remarkably, in 1975, he and superstar artist Neal Adams secured credit and a lifetime stipend for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, long-since cast-away. Siegel and Shuster were literally brought in-house and eventually fired from DC after selling them their biggest cash-cow: the first superhero, Superman. Thanks to Adams and Robinson, a small permanent salary was established and their names have been attached to every piece of media featuring Superman ever since. Although even partial ownership rights to their creation was still not granted to them or their families until quite recently, the first steps were made by Adams and Robinson.

In 1978, he upped his commitment to this industry and founded an international syndicate of comics creators, one that still exists today.

This man's accomplishments are not just wide-ranging, not just impressive. Not merely great. They were genuine. They displayed integrity.

When I met Jerry Robinson, very very quickly, in October 2o1o, I was delighted to discover that he was a gentleman. I also learned about his versatility that night: Artist. Writer. Historian. Humanitarian.

Jerry Robinson was an inspiration. A direct inspiration, as I foresee in his legacy a world where comics creators don't have to be cheated out of their rights or their pay.

Losing this man is a loss for us all.

~ @JonGorga

Defenders Assemble

If there was any question as to whether or not Matt Fraction was the most versatile writer in mainstream comics, Defenders #1 should settle it. In the last year, Fraction added both one of Marvel's flagship books (his Thor is a highpop masterpiece, beautiful and consistently brilliant) and the best event comic in a long time (Fear Itself, which still definitely has its faults) to his bibliography, which already included his work on Casanova, Invincible Iron Man and, my favorite comic of all time, Immortal Iron Fist. Now, with his first year as Marvel's main man behind him, Fraction pulls what could very well be his best single comic ever out of the box; if Defenders follows up on the promise of this first issue, we could have the first great epic of the Modern Age on our hands.

Of course, to give all the credit to Fraction would be a pretty serious sin; this is a great looking book. It has no pretensions towards "high art," it gives no concessions to photorealism; this is high-grade comics art, pure and simple. Terry Dodson's characters move with ease; this art is easiest the supplest I've seen in a long time. There's definitely a certain thrust to his panel designs, and his figures are dynamic even though, as comic art, they're necessarily static. Beyond even that, though, the figures have this marvelous rounded quality; they're cartoony and stylized like what Kirby might have looked like if he had traded blocky for slick. All of this only works, though, because the people finishing up Dodson are so damn good. The inker is his wife, Rachel Dodson, who has to be among the best in the business. Her default line is heavy enough to be noticeable, it's an important part of what gives the art its distinctively slick look, but not so heavy as to be overpowering, and certainly not heavy enough to strangle everything else on the page. This is a very good thing, because colorist Sonia Oback does a very good job of doing a lot with a little. Although a far cry from the "flat" colors that we saw in the pages of Thor: The Mighty Avenger and, more recently, Daredevil, Oback's palate is simple, almost basic, and she doesn't try anything clever: she gives the Dodsons' lines depth, but does a very good job of going just far enough, so that what we get is a comic that looks like a comic, and that doesn't have pretensions towards anything else.

Defenders is an honest book, just trying to be the best comic it can be, and at that it is a magnificent success; that it looks like a comic book should look is only half the reason why (although, too often, it is something that gets overlooked).

Fraction, of course, is the other half. He's helping his art team here: the book does well the things that comics are supposed to do well. It has forward motion, for one, a motion driven by easily readable panel design and a certain artistic thrust, but defined by the general structure and pacing of the comic. Aside from being a clearly distinct narrative, with a distinct three act structure, (note: this sentence so far should probably read "FRACTION'S NOT WRITING FOR TRADE! HOORAY!," but I'm trying to contain my excitement at a writer practicing what should be the basic tenant of comics writing), it gives each protagonist a proper introduction and moment in the spotlight, and sets up a telling internal monologue for each of them, one that emphasizes character in particular contrast to what comes out in the dialogue. This is not to say that the characters don't fit together, or something: the dialogue is an absolute joy, and it seems as natural as anything.

I want to emphasize that, when I use the word "motion," that I'm not just talking figuratively: the way that Defenders moves from place to place literally is impressive (and the panels with the team on the train, with the Surfer outside the window, keeping pace on his board, are AWESOME). Fraction is clearly concerned with it: a surprising percentage of the comic is devoted to it. I'm hoping that it's indicative of a larger tendency towards meditation on the mechanics of what goes on inside the pages of the book, both in terms of the mechanics of the actual plot and in terms of coherence. A comic doesn't have to be perfectly explained to make sense, but the ones that are both (and keep in mind that "perfectly explained" doesn't mean that everything is explained, just the right amount) are few and far between. Fraction is clearly thinking about how his characters get from A to B, and I hope that means that, in the long run, Defenders is going to hang together quite well, that all the pieces are going to fit together and that everything is going to make sense, at least in its proper moment.

That this is a concern which the book diligently does not confirm is impressive, particularly since the premise is that this team that the Hulk is putting together is the team that is going to protect the Marvel Universe from the impossible. One wonders what is impossible in the Marvel Universe, what with its mutant mermen, its sorcerers supreme, its ripped red women, its silver surfers; anything that Fraction throws at this team he's assembled is going to have to boggle the mind. Interestingly, Defenders seems to be aware of its status as a comic book, and I do mean the book itself rather than any of the characters, as they are all blissfully unaware. On the bottom of the pages, though, there are these little messages, advising the reader as to where the story continues and advertising what's going on in a few of the other, perhaps important, Marvel books. A device like this makes me wonder if were in for some kind of meta-adventure, one much more Grant Morrison writing himself into Animal Man than Deadpool's "comic sense."

If we are, there's no team that I would trust to do it more than I trust this one. Defenders is the last essential comic of 2011, and it may also be the first. I haven't been this excited for the second issue of a series in a very long time.