On account of the whole “busy” thing, I’ve missed out on most of the Big Books of the Year so far. And on account of the whole “$4! For what???” thing, I’ve missed out on most of the mainstream, too. Halfway into the year, I think my favorite book so far is probably GUS AND HIS GANG by Chris Blain, published by First Second. Hell, not even a 2009 book, released in 2008, already definitively and thoroughly reviewed by my betters, placing the following somewhere between drastically unnecessary and deeply embarrassing, really. Now up for an Eisner Award in the category of Best Book No One Cares Won an Eisner.

The nomination is well deserved for the art alone; perfectly paced, expressive, *funny*, fast-moving. Enormously pleasurable. But: I liked the story, too, I think, in case that matters especially (it doesn’t).


The premise: three cowboys, robbing banks, getting into adventures, violently dealing with a variety of enemies. None of which ends up mattering very much, none of which the book is particularly about. The cowboys don’t really care about being cowboys; it’s a French comic— the cowboys are just interested in girls.


Westerns. Why do you think “the Western is dead”? The chattering class says that every so often, when some minor movie like Russell Crowe’s dopey 3:10 TO YUMA remake fails at the box office. “The Western is dead.”

A common sub-species is to claim some great movie ended it, usually Clint Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN. “UNFORGIVEN ended the Western, and now the Western is dead.” I don’t know that I understand that. UNFORGIVEN might say “the traditional Western story was all lies.” But why would that matter commercially? What genre fiction doesn’t rely on a little lying? They made four DIE HARD movies regardless, and even the fourth one is pretty rad. Die Hard fights evil computers in it, but he refuses to die thereby making him hard to die a death caused by computers, skyscrapers, airplanes, or terrible Samuel L. Jackson movies. Why not cowboys?

Actually, snobbier types usually blame everything on the same two movies: “STAR WARS and JAWS ended the Western. They ended the 1970’s. They ended actors, writers, directors, and parents mattering. They ended Robert Kennedy’s bid for the Presidency, cookies tasting good to children, and the myth of the vaginal orgasm.”

But I don’t know that I disagree with the premise that the Western is dead, particularly. Genres do sort of diminish in popularity over time. Screwball comedies. Point & Click adventure games. Sitcoms with super-bizarre premises. Steve Guttenberg, in toto. People used to love the Goot; I still think he’s hilarious. Go figure.


I’m inclined to say there’s no ailment on earth that swearing and hookers can’t fix, but there’s a non-existent fourth season of DEADWOOD saying I might be wrong about that.

My guess: I think people’s tolerance for looking at dirty people has gone down over the years. Cowboys, all covered with dust and dirt, with deodorant nowhere to be seen? Maybe that’s all too gross for our sissified age. I remember that was a reaction I heard a couple times over to a non-Western, Kevin Costner’s box-office disaster WATERWORLD: “Why is he so dirty the entire movie if he’s living on the Waterworld? Why can’t he just go bathe in the Waterworld? He’s surrounded by water!” The Western dies around the same time as the rise of metrosexuality and lady-boy action stars— coincidence? Or just one more thing Orlando Bloom needs to answer for, besides fucking ELIZABETHTOWN.


Some day we all must answer for fucking ELIZABETHTOWN, as a species, and there will be no cowboys there to save us.

The Western comes up among comic fans on occasion, strangely prominent on the cliché list of What’s Missing from Comics: “Where are the mystery comics, the romance comics, the Western comics?” But mysteries happen, in life. Romances happen, in life. Walk down the wrong alley at night with money hanging out of your pants, and either and/or both of those things could happen to you.

But when do Westerns happen, in daily life…?


“This is Hi-Fi... high fidelity. What that means is that it's the highest quality fidelity.”

The thing GUS AND HIS GANG most reminded me of wasn’t a Western anyways. It was SEINFELD. SEINFELD, Season 8, Episode 143, entitled “The Abstinence.” That’s the episode where Jerry Seinfeld’s sidekick George has a girlfriend (Louise) who gets sick. As a result, George has to give up sex for six weeks.

When George gives up sex? He becomes a genius.


Jerry, from that episode: “Yeah. I mean, let's say this is your brain. (Holds lettuce head) Okay, from what I know about you, your brain consists of two parts: the intellect, represented here (Pulls off tiny piece of lettuce), and the part obsessed with sex. (Shows large piece) Now granted, you have extracted an astonishing amount from this little scrap. But with no-sex-Louise, this previously useless lump, is now functioning for the first time in its existence. (Eats tiny piece of lettuce).”

I think about that episode basically all the time. And by all the time, I mean the time I spend looking at internet pornography. I could have been a genius, cam whores! All that time, lost! To the internet, magazines, flipbooks. On one confusing yet magical night, a rerun of BARNEY MILLER. Lost, so much time lost! There are entire advanced degrees I could have earned. If I had that time back? I could have easily earned a Ph.D. You would have to call me DOCTOR SHITHEAD in the comments section of this post.

The best way to look at it is, “These things aren’t distractions from work. We work so that we can afford time to spend trolling for creepy thrills in DAWSON’S CREEK chatrooms.” But I’m just not that care-free. It’s just too difficult to spend time guilt-free watching something called PIRATES 2: STAGNETTI’S REVENGE. Because I’m really not sure how Stagnetti got any sort of revenge in that movie whatsoever. Herpes, maybe, but revenge? Aah, sweet mystery of life.

Of course, a more puritanical sort would say the ability to say no, to refrain, is what separates Man from the apes. Guy on the public radio the other day, though, was saying what actually separated man from the apes is that man cooks his food. I prefer that. If we’re lowering the bar to mankind to the ability to sauté, I feel like my cause in this world has been advanced, however slightly. I can cook up all sorts of shit; suck on that, you damn dirty apes.


Success, education, upbringing— none of that might keep a person from unraveling completely, if certain launch codes are pushed in the correct order. People I've known? Lawyers, architects, engineers, all equally screwed up once they're off the clock. Rich, powerful business executives with elaborate “understandings” and "loopholes" in their relationships more sophisticated than a damn WTO treaty. Even in comics: as soon as Spider-man learns to take off his glasses and comb his hair, and he’s 5% less of a nerd socially, he’s out trying to get revenge for his high school years by hate-fucking a model?



(Rhino on the Rampage...)

The characters in GUS AND HIS GANG are similarly distracted. Blain draws what they’re thinking right onto their face: “This could all be so much easier if I could just keep my mind on what I’m supposed to be doing. Robbing banks. Shooting guns. Riding horses. Running from the law. Living a proper, cowboy life.”

But, yeah: no. Not meant to be. Blain takes the most macho of genres, and uses it to wallow in male self-pity. Blain’s cowboys are completely awesome at being cowboys; macho’s easy. But past that, they’re stumbling around in the dark, like the rest of us. I like that; that’s clever.

And I suppose that’s not a lovable comedic topic for everybody, male self-pity. I’m amused by it, but I’ll acknowledge it can be kissing cousins to a very tiresome “men are all dogs, am I right, ladies?” type of humor. Or Benny Hill comes to mind, say— not a lot of people defending Benny Hill in the world. On the other hand, they say Benny Hill was a workaholic who died a lonely, mean virgin, surrounded by cash and un-deposited checks— which, you know, there’s probably a metaphor there somewhere. At least, if you want to listen to what They say. They say the “Western is Dead” and they say “Bennie Hill died a workaholic virgin” and they say “Aliens did not insert a probe into your anus.” Well, how come my rectum is sore, you government sons of bitches? Oh, right: I was fingering my ass while watching reruns of THE BENNY HILL SHOW. That’s what I’m into now. The nervous system gets desensitized to stimuli over time, so you’ve got to up the ante now and then. I upped it to stimulating my prostate to the soulful sound of Yakety Sax. Right… I forgot…


But the older I get and the worse I get, I basically find stories about failure comforting. Blain’s cowboys struggle to interpret a lady’s conflicting signals properly. They struggle to work the bar scene properly. They struggle to keep from cheating. Fail, fail, fail.

So, I relate to that. And yes: I also relate to crying. Why do people keep asking me that?

Stories about characters deciding this or deciding that-- those are fun. When you read them, you get to pretend to believe fun things like “You create who you are. You’re in charge of how you respond to conflicts. You decide your destiny.” But it’s pretty relieving, something like GUS AND HIS GANG. Sometimes, you don't get to decide how your brain works, or control every last thought; sometimes, you just enjoy the ride. That doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me for a comic book to be about.


Did I ever pitch you my idea for a yaoi Western called WOWBOYS?


GUS AND HIS GANG is divided into a series of shorter comics of varying length. I hope against hope that this is the sort of comic that’s featured by MAD MAGAZINE in France. You know how they have international editions of magazines like TIME? Is that true of MAD? Oh, how I wish MAD FRANCE were true.

American 4th grader, talking about latest issue of MAD: "The new issue, it’s like STAR WARS except Luke Skywalker is called Leaky Aircrutch. They really take the piss out of STAR WARS, man."


French 4th grader, talking about latest issue of MAD FRANCE: "Ahh, yes, the new issue is about a sexual cowboy. Sometimes, there is carnality, and yet sometimes, he is frustrated by his inability to understand women. But alas, life is sometimes like that. Let us smoke and think upon these things, then laugh as we must at the futility of trying to control our manhood. My greatest ambition in life is to become immortal, and then die."


Woman: "You have no values. With you, it’s all nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm, and orgasm."

Woody: "Hey, in France, I could run for office with that slogan, and win!"

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At the beginning of March, I spent a week living out of a hotel room.

Hotel-living turns into the fucking Shining for me pretty fast. Long creepy hallways of identical rooms, filled with strangers. Why are there so many pillows on hotel beds now? 9 pillows? 10 pillows? The classier the hotel, the more pillows on the bed. Occam’s Razor says that the logical conclusion is that fancy people like to play pillow fort on vacation. Plus, thanks to the Local Channel 6 News Action Eyewitness Investigation Squad-team on my TV, I’m convinced that if I had UV goggles, the entire room and all 20 pillows would all glow white-hot with fancy-man semen stains, like Tron bukkake aftermath.

After the hotel stay, I visited my hometown, stayed with my family. I was around My Stuff again, not Hotel Stuff. Not just My Stuff, but My Old Stuff. Found a stack of old comics, thirteen random comics from different years, different eras, slung together next to my bed, collecting dust.

I want to write about that stack. Not really "reviews" or anything that formal-- I don't see the point of "reviewing" any of these comics, but just talking about what books were in that stack. Plus there’s another stack, a second stack.


The Mighty Thor #382 by Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema: This was the very last issue of the Walt Simonson run. Thor's soul is trapped in the body of the invincible Destroyer robot, and he has to robot-fight his way through Hell in order to steal his dead body away from the Goddess of Death, in time to defeat an army of evil ice dwarves invading Asgard.

Do they still make comics like that? Maybe they do; I haven’t bought one recently.

In the letter pages, Sean of Tahoe, California, "a fan of legends", writes a letter in support of Thor's new beard. He is responding to a previous letter from an earlier letter column that disapproved of the beard.

Tank Girl 2 #1 by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett: A collection of short Tank Girl stories. They just cram jokes into the margins, nooks, crannies— it’s just filled with drawings and doodles and noodling. It still feel very alive. A lot of people don’t make that effort.

Suicide Squad #18 by John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell, and Bob Lewis: After I quit Marvel comics in middle school, I eventually switched to DC. This was one of my first DC books; I got it from the 24-Hour Ameristop next to the chili place in town. The Suicide Squad fights some bad guys. Without even re-reading it, just by looking at the cover, I could remember at least one line from it: Captain Cold tells a bad guy how "Hell isn’t hot. Hell is cold, and buddy, I'm Captain Cold."

When I first got into DC Comics, everyone in them was a middle-aged failure at life. The Suicide Squad was all about Amanda Waller, an aging, widowed, morbidly obese bureaucrat. The Secret Origins story of Cave Carlson ends with one of Cave Carlson’s sidekicks, years after their adventures together, homeless and in a wheelchair, begging for change. The Atom was divorced, after he’d caught his wife cheating on him in the back of a Chevy. Captain Atom had a dead wife and kids he couldn’t relate to. The Swimmer would go from swimming pool to swimming pool, fighting crime. I don’t really understand DC characters any other way, I guess. DC books don’t make any sense to me, anymore.

The Last American #1 by Alan Grant, John Wagner and Mike McMahon: I don't really remember anything about this comic other than buying it for Mike McMahon's drawings, the way he builds drawings out of sharp lines, flat colors, off-kilter shapes. Lego humans, wandering through desolate post-apocalyptic landscapes.

Most of the comics I’ve read lately have just been that sort of “Art Experience” for me. When I got home from my trip, I returned back to a second stack of comics. I’ve been buying #1 issues this year, non-established-universe #1 issues, trying to get some whiff of what’s new in comics, what people making new things were trying to do. But: Jersey Gods (Image), The Great Unknown (Image), Mysterius the Unfathomable (Wildstorm), Bang Tango (Vertigo), The Life & Times of Savior 28 (IDW)…?

Couldn’t catch a scent of anything.

I’m not saying these are bad books necessarily (well: maybe some of them)(Bang Tango), just that my experience of them has been really art-focused. I guess I’ve been distracted. I've already forgotten every single one of Jersey Gods' characters; I just remember enjoying Dan McDaid's performance.

Jersey Gods is about Kirby-style Space Gods fighting in New Jersey; The Great Unknown is about an inventor whose ideas are being stolen from his mind; Mysterius the Unfathomable is about a magician who is a PG-13 asshole; Bang Tango is about a retired gangster who dances tango, who goes back to being a gangster; Life & Times of Saviour 28 is about a superhero who gets murdered while protesting the Bush Administration.

Some of the books are entertaining, for what they are. Mysterius seems focused on “fun” in a very professional way, and in a way I think most people will find effective; I think smart people trying to create fun stories is at least admirable in theory-- it's something I've always enjoyed about the Ocean's 11 movies, say. Et cetera. Sure: entertainment, if you’re in the mood to be entertained.

I just didn't feel very connected to any of them regardless.

American Flagg #3 by Howard Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak: Aaah-- Chaykin, lingerie, blowjobs, Ken Bruzenak lettering, and violence, all for a single U.S. dollar.

But more than that—the way a comic can contain a whole world. You can see signs in the background, you can see what people are wearing, you can see the brand-names of their junk food. The characters in FLAGG, I know what they watch on TV: Bob Violence. The name of the cab company in WATCHMEN? Prometheus Cabs.

Who does that needlepoint right now?

The new comics I’ve read-- none really created an entire world for themselves. Jersey Gods tried but its first issue cribbed so heavily from Jack Kirby that it was hard to take it very seriously as its own thing. But I can’t really criticize all of these new books for failing to tell me their main characters' favorite TV show, can I? That sort of world-building seems rare in general, so singling these books out in particular strikes me as unfair.

X-Men Classics #98 by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr., Glynis Oliver, Dan Green: Before I’d ever seen an X-Men Comic, or had any idea what one was, another kid in third grade attempted to describe the contents of this issue to me. Do you have any idea how long it took him? “The X-Men fight Nimrod” takes somewhere between nine hours and forever to explain to someone who’d never heard of a mutant, Rogue, Wolverine, Sentinels, Days of Future Past, any of it. Now, you can just rent the movie.

Someday, I would like to travel back in time and give both of those kids wedgies. Then: I'd put them in a figure four leg-lock or a camel clutch, and I'd explain to them that they were gebronies. Then, dangle them over a cliff until they wet themselves, you know like Bill Paxton in True Lies. Then, I would explain sexual intercourse to them because I think at that age, it'd really gross them out and it'd just be super-funny to see their expressions. Plus, I would throw in stuff like vagina dentata or nekomimi fetishes or docking or whatever, just to screw them up a little mentally, you know, for giggles. Then, if I had time, and I wasn't tired, I'd go back in time and murder Hitler and prevent the Holocaust or whatever. But first: beating up those little brats. Priorities.

The last panel of this comic is my favorite-- a Russian with an eyepatch says "We are fast approaching a crossroads, Sasha. And I fear that somewhere, somehow, the decision has already been made...to turn us irrevocably towards Armageddon."

I’m about 100% sure this is how every single issue of the X-men ended in the 1980’s.

Tribe #1 by Todd Johnson and Larry Stroman: this was a black superhero team by Larry Stroman at the peak of his comic career, published by Image Comics near the peak of its fanboy-dominance. 1993. The cover is black cardstock with the Tribe logo in gold-embossed letters. No art-- just the gold-embossed letters. Stroman and Johnson's names are almost bigger than the title of the book. According to Wikipedia, it was cancelled by Image before the second issue came out, because it had been delayed so much. According to Wikipedia, its final issue was issue #0.

If you explained the 90's to a kid reading comics today, do you think they would believe you?

Jinx True Crime Confessions by Brian Michael Bendis: Bendis creates a comic around a series of monologues and interviews, people talking about violence they've witnessed, pranks they've pulled. I think this is reprinted in the Total Sell-Out trade.

The selling point aren’t any characters; it has no characters. The selling point is just Bendis. The old Jinx books were just so packed with entertainment value-- letter pages, reviews, short humor strips from his Cleveland newspaper strip. That’s not really true of any of the books in my New #1 Comics stack. Everyone’s trying to make their stories the stars; no one seems very interested in communicating anything about themselves instead. Only Jersey Gods even has a letter page, and it’s not exactly rich with personality...

I doubt this one-shot would ever get made today, but it’s not like comics have ever really been set up to sell books like this. Plus: not many people seem interested in making stuff like this anyways, comics that are just entertaining without trying to sell some new character / concept / bullshit.

Stray Bullets #3 by Dave Lapham: This issue is titled "The Party," but it doesn’t have Lapham’s best party scene in it. For that, you want issue #5, the first Orson issue. But I remember when this comic first started coming out being so excited, going out-of-my-head excited, that the page numbers continued from issue to issue. You know, how if issue #2 ended at page 45, then issue #3 started at page 46...? Oh, man!

It's a strange detail to be excited by but I think a lot of people overlook how much those little details can matter for fans. The letter page in the old Bendis Jinx comics, the page numbers in Stray Bullets, the lettering in American Flagg-- just some hint that there's something going on, some extra bit of work being invested.

The new comics I’ve seen? Can I really tell any of them apart? The Great Unknown has a one-color all-blue color scheme, but even that’s becoming a thing now, maybe.

I tried Dave Lapham’s Vertigo book Young Liars again a couple weeks back, issue #13 (“The Rock Life”). I hadn’t thought much of the first issue, but the new issue had some Twilight Zone moments that were somewhat appealing. The premise apparently went in more of a science fiction direction than the first issue had promised. I didn’t think the first issue had promised anything with any particularity, at all.

Which: maybe that’s true of the other new comics I’ve read recently-- maybe they’re holding back some key part of their DNA. Reading past a first issue is essentially a leap of faith. One I’m making less often.

I went to a screening of a documentary about Joe Sedelmaier the other day. Yes, THE Joe Sedelmaier. At the Q&A afterwards, he said two things that stuck out. First, talking about the work he'd created that he hadn't felt good about, he said "I always said 'Oh-oh' when someone said to me, 'Joe, it's good for what it is.' If something's 'good for what it is', what it is is usually bullshit." I laughed and thought of Mysterius the Unfathomable. The second thing he said, before introducing a (terrific) short film he'd made: "It's about the importance of having an open mind. Everyone thinks they have an open mind, the same way everyone thinks they have a sense of humor. Usually, they don't have either." I didn't really laugh at that.

Instant Piano #1 by Kyle Baker, Mark Badger, Robbie Busch, Stephen Destefano and Evan Dorkin: This was a very uneven issue of a comedy anthology. Some comedic voices blend together well; these guys, not so much-- everyone's voices were just too different. I remember the second issue being much better, but the series didn’t last very long. Dorkin still makes comics, too rarely; Destefano works on the Venture Bros. now, I think; I don’t know what happened to Badger or Busch, though both have blogs, of course.

Challengers of the Unknown #2 by Steven Grant, Len Kaminski, John Paul Leon, Shawn Martinbrough, and Matt Hollingsworth: Aaah, John Paul Leon working with Matt Hollingsworth-- why doesn’t that happen every week?

This was in a brief era in comics in the mid-90's when everyone was trying to recreate the success of the X-Files television show. DC's solution was a Challengers of the Unknown revamp. I enjoyed it at the time—Grant & Kaminski did done-in-one “weird mystery” stories that Leon & Hollingsworth were suited for more than would always be the case in their later assignments.

But living in something else’s shadow never makes much sense in the long term. I’m no expert on positioning, but-- you know: as fun as Dan McDaid’s art is (and it’s fun), as hard as they try, can Jersey Gods ever be anything besides “that book trying to be Jack Kirby”? Jersey Gods is about Kirby; tango-dancing aside Bang Tango’s first issue didn’t promise anything besides cliched pulp crime fiction; Mysterius is about a Mandrake/Doctor-Who type character; Life & Times of Saviour 28 will likely be compared unfavorably to the current storyline in Captain America, let alone any number of other superhero "deconstruction" stories. An argument can be made here on behalf of The Great Unknown. The Great Unknown at least doesn’t feel assembled from a pop culture erector set, at least. Which isn't to say it succeeds at the whole character/dialogue/plot thing, but...

Of course, The Walking Dead perhaps started out owing some debt to George Romero; Casanova owes a debt to, well, plenty; Umbrella Academy probably pays some small licensing fee to Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol. I don’t know. There’s an expression that “bad artists copy; great artists steal.”

Casual Heroes #1 by Kevin McCarthy: This was a weirdly well-remembered celebrity superhero riff-- very fondly remembered by the few people who caught on to it, though glancing at it now, I don't really know why. The celebrity superhero riff has become old hat since this first came out; maybe it was fresher then. There were rumors that Kevin McCarthy was making comics again a few years back, but I don’t know what became of them.

Super Powers #4 by Jack Kirby, Joey Cavalieri, and Adrian Gonzales: This is terrible shit, a 10-cent bin gamble that never paid off. Jack Kirby draws a cro-magnon Superman fighting the Justice League on the cover, but nothing inside remotely pays off on the promise of that.

Adrian Gonzales draws the interiors. The cover sold the book, though. Jack Kirby. I went with the Jack Kirby hardcover LOSERS collection this week. I’d never seen any of his LOSERS comics, but I love the Kirby HOWLING COMMANDO comics. I'm only a couple issues in; so far, the Losers aren’t quite as cheerfully violent as the Howling Commandos. I like Kirby’s war comics for the violence, but I have a hard time putting the fact that he served in the war out of my head. Kirby almost lost limbs to frostbite, but could still make happy-go-lucky comics about the Losers saving a classical pianist from the Nazis...? These sugary candy-coated explosion-fantasies. But, you know, Lee Marvin made The Dirty Dozen. It's sort of amazing, sort of odd.

According to wikipedia, Kirby’s wife Roz worked in a lingerie store during the war. I’d never read that before today. What were lingerie stores like during World War 2? I never really thought about World War 2 era lingerie stores before, what that shopping experience must have been like.

“Dateline: Normandy. Jerry's nowhere to be found now that our boys landed on their shores. Goodbye, Jerry, say hello to St. Peters. Dateline: New York. Sale on Crotchless Bustiers brings Broadway to its knees-- the bee’s knees. Why, is that Vivian Leigh buying a chiffron babydoll with faux fur trimmed cups, satin bow, and g-string? Those leathers corsets she's buying provide as much support for her, as Liberty war bonds provide support for our boys. Our March to War has been silky smooth thanks to pink-satin corsets with removable straps. What’s that? Francis is getting in on the action, buying a spaghetti-strap fishnet crotchless bodystocking with low-cut, criss-cross backstraps? Thatta boy, Francis! You know who doesn’t likes Lace Deep-V Teddies? That’s right: Adolf Hitler.” Oh god, I could do this all weekend...

And weren’t they rationing fabrics during the war? Was lingerie during World War 2 made out of, what, potatoes? Sex potatoes? I’m guessing Jack Kirby's wife didn't sell very sexy lingerie. Deal with that opinion, nerds. Savage critics.

Anyways, right: comic books. I guess I gave up on my whole first issue plan. It just wasn’t leading me anywhere interesting, and I'm having a better time sticking with Jack Kirby. Same as everybody, I really enjoyed Boom Studios' and Roger Langridge's MUPPET SHOW #1-- I'm not made out of stone. Same as everybody, I liked that they didn't do some "Muppets have a Charles Dickens adventure in Space" bullshit but stuck with the Muppets at their most entertaining: theater-nerds trying to put on a show.

Past that, I’m not finding anything that means anything to me. Whatever inspired these creators to create these particular books, I didn't share in that feeling when I read them. But: I didn't give any of them much of a chance either. If I'm honest about it, I don't think I did. Everyone thinks they're open-minded but... And I don't know why that's the case, why I wouldn't be receptive to what they're selling. They're nerdy books? Well, I'm a nerdy guy so that should be an okay marriage. But: not so much. And it's disconcerting. It’s like being in a hotel-- you’re surrounded by this stuff, and it’s like, “Bed” or “Table”, stuff you like in theory. But they're not right. There’s something not right about them. There’s too many pillows.

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In the coming weeks, it’s probable that much will be written about Bryan Lee O’Malley’s SCOTT PILGRIM Volume #5. It is EXCELLENT. This has been said with every installment, but: Volume #5 is the best written, most confidently executed installment of the series yet. Every comic, every success story attracts its share of Grinches-- you know, it’s pretty fun to be that Grinch. But Volume #5 makes me so enormously sad for SCOTT PILGRIM's Grinches. What a terrible fate that must be, to lack the capacity to enjoy this book. You've made terrible choices in life.

So: I'm gushy sweaty spazzy about this book, basically-- not a state of mind where anything I can write is well-advised or likely to be helpful to you. But I noticed something in a few other reviews that had bothered me, something that I felt had been overlooked.

Most of those reviews had focused on Volume 5 in light of how it developed the stories of Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Kim Pine, Knives Chau, and/or Wallace Wells.

Why aren’t people talking about Young Neil?

Because, holy shit, dude: Young Neil!

* * * * * *

Spoilers, severe spoilers ahead.

I know there have been supply shortages and lines and screw-ups at Diamond. I know buying this comic book apparently resembles buying toilet paper in the old USSR in multiple ways for a great many of you out there, and I sincerely don’t want to spoil this episode for anyone. Because there is so very much to spoil. For example: the scene where Scott Pilgrim has sex with a hooker to restore his health and then murders her (just like in video-games!). Don't let anyone spoil that scene for you. Or the scene where Kim Pine takes off her pants and reveals her penis, Shiwasu No Okina style (it’s manga influenced!). Once these scenes are spoiled for you via textual summary, there is no un-spoiling them from your mind.

So, please be certain that I will 100% spoil this comic for you, if you read ahead, even though I’m focusing on Young Neil who you might (incorrectly) think is not a major character in the series.

* * * * * *

SCOTT PILGRIM has never been a series without flaws. For example, in two words: vegan police. And if someone were to tell me that they couldn’t enjoy the series on account of the extent to which it’s saturated in crap culture-- well, I wouldn’t be upset by that. I don't imagine the book’s use of video-game tropes, anime nods, etc. is for everyone, even though I happen to be personally amused by those elements. The most emotional moment of the Vol. 5, the departure of Ramona Flowers, vaguely recalls the worst moments of shitty anime like DNA-Squared or … I don’t even want to know what. Some people might not be able to get past that.

But I think SCOTT PILGRIM fans might agree that anyone complaining too much about those elements is underestimating how relatable the characters are, and as importantly, how there are multiple characters to relate to. In other words, I understand if you don't know what a Super Mario Brother is, but were you really never aimless and selfish in your 20's? Lucky you.

In her book Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media (or as most comic book critics call it, The Bible), Susan Douglas discusses how the success of the girl bands of the 1960's can be attributed to how they allowed girls of that generation to "try on" different sexual identities, whether the troubling thrills of dating the bad boy of Leader of the Pack or the hopeful uncertainty of the Shirelle's Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

I've always thought SCOTT PILGRIM likely owed its success to that same quality-- that it didn’t merely randomly reflect some temporary spasm of the zeitgeist, that it’s not some fluke of particles colliding in a vacuum, but that its success can be tracked to how SCOTT PILGRIM fills a different vacuum, a vacuum for cartoon characters, modern cartoon characters, that speak to life experiences other cartoon characters can’t and/or historically haven’t.

Younger fans can see themselves in Knives Chau as much as Ramona Flowers, in Wallace Wells as much as Scott Pilgrim. But the true facts are that many of us, maybe even most of us, aren’t the heroes of any story. We face no thrilling battles; our romances are not action-adventures. Our presence or absence makes no difference to the world around us, maybe even the majority of the people around us.


Many of us are Young Neil.

* * * * * *

Volume 1 is the heyday for Young Neil. He's Stephen Stills's roommate, Sex Bob-Omb's only fan (besides Knives Chau). But by Volume 3, it's over. It's all over Young Neil before he even knew it. He’s expelled from his group of friends for offenses he barely knew he committed.

Well, that’s an overstatement: dating a friend’s ex without the proper hesitation or consideration isn’t a minor offense; you know: ignorance of the law is no excuse. But surely he paid for his crimes! Look at the poor guy.


He thought he might get laid, and instead he's ending the night watching a girl who’s all wrong for him randomly crying for reasons he can't guess. At least, when I look at that scene, based on my life experience? She’s crying. I know: the fact he’s drawn with his heart literally on his sleeve is pretty overt, but… the poor son of a bitch.

I re-read the series on Tuesday, in anticipation for Volume 5. What does it say of my life experience that the thing I most related to in the entire goddamn series was Young Neil and the crying girl? Oh, right: it says I need to change my fucking life. Thank you, Internet. You are a comfort as always.

It was my first time through the books since I'd first read any of them. Probably my first time noticing Young Neil as anything besides comic relief. I hadn't paid attention to Young Neil before. But that's sort of the whole point of Young Neil, I think: because neither do his friends. Young Neil is just there. Until he's not.

Until finally, in Volume 5, there's Young Neil and he's in a dirty room, completely alienated from the people who he used to think (incorrectly) were his friends, just spending a day getting high and listening to music. Move over, crying girl: I now have a new “Scene I Relate to the Most” winner.

How did he end up there? It wasn’t that his friends ever sat down and decided to hate Young Neil in the prior books. They just didn’t care. I’ve done to that people. It’s, I don’t know-- it’s easy. And I’ve had it done to me. That was … well, less easy.

* * * * * *

It’s a tough book, the SCOTT PILGRIM Volume 5, with no shortage of bleak scenes for fans who’ve grown attached to these characters. My favorite scene in the book is the bus station scene, and the simplicity of its dialogue-- for me, it called to mind one of my all-time favorite movie scenes, the Bill Murray “She’s my Rushmore” scene that begins the winter stretch of Wes Anderson’s RUSHMORE. There's something so powerful to watching an apology, and yet they seem so precious and rare in our fiction. Why do we always want to watch people fighting? Fights are brief; regrets take longer. What the hell is wrong with us, like, as a species?

Tribute must also be paid obviously to Volume 5's sex scene, a sad and wildly un-erotic scene. God, look at it. The last sex, the goodbye sex? It’s a sex scene in silhouette. It’s a sex scene that neither of the characters are actually PRESENT for. Just the shape of them in the technically correct poses. Crikey.

So, no, sir, there’s no shortage of scenes to feel horrible about relating to in SCOTT PILGRIM Vol. 5. But I would argue to you that the final Young Neil scene in the book is not in any way less than those others, is in fact one of the hardest scenes to sit through if you have any affinity for that character (which you should).

* * * * * *



My theory is you don’t become less of an asshole when you get older. You just learn to hide it more. But setting that little future Hallmark card aside…

There’s Young Neil at the end of book 5, angry at Ramona, lashing out at Stephen Stills. And there’s Ramona not even pretending to care. And it’s strange and I don’t understand it. You take any close group of friends, and just add time. It’s as if by some magical clock, everyone wakes up one day and decides to start hurting each other. And I wish I could say I’ve only seen it just the once, or that I knew why it happened. What is that exactly? What is the explanation for that? Why do we so persistently do that to each other?

SCOTT PILGRIM seems to subscribe to the same explanation for it that I had in my 20’s, that ancient Latin graffiti of “Penis erectus non compos mentis” (a stiff prick knows no conscience). Stephen Stills betrays Scott Pilgrim’s confidences on account of his crush on Knives; Young Neil’s rejection by Knives didn’t seem to help, etc. Oh, barely legal Asian ladies: is there nothing good you can’t destroy!


But: that's just what I thought in my 20's. I don't think that anymore, though I haven't replaced that hypothesis with anything more considered. It just seems like too pat an answer; I don’t think it explains enough. Even if you could take stiff prick out of the equation, somehow, by some evil voodoo magic, I still maintain that even then, even assuming such a frightening & unpleasant premise, that you’d see that same exact phenomena repeat itself endlessly. What the hell is wrong with us, like, as a species?

Extra-reason why the Young Neil scene is great: volume 4 closes with all of the SCOTT PILGRIM cast around a restaurant table, laughing. Can you see them all together like that after the Young Neil scene in volume 5? The Young Neil scene is great because it makes scenes in earlier books retroactively sad. Goddamn, Young Neil! Goddamn!

* * * * * *

Bryan Lee O'Malley from 2007: "I actually kind of like most of my characters. There’s this character named Young Neil that I kind of don’t like drawing because his hair goes in his eyes. So he has no eyebrows. So it’s really hard to give him facial expressions. So he always looks kind of dopey. Sometimes he has to not look dopey, but maybe I should try writing him so he’s always like that."

* * * * * *

But if Young Neil is an asshole-- and in that final scene with Ramona, he absolutely is, well you can at least see how he got that way, book by book, scene by scene. I would argue that Young Neil in Volume 5 is as sad, as heartbreaking as anything in the book. So much of Volume 5 is about Scott gradually awakening to the fact that as he's had his epic story of growing up, everyone around him has had their own (the shout-out to Jason Kim is especially welcome in that regard).

With Young Neil, as much as is the case with Ramona, Kim Pine, whoever, the threat is that Scott might be waking up to that fact too late.

He’ll get a second chance in Book 6, which I look forward to, which I'm eager to read. But many of us don’t have that opportunity; will never have that opportunity. Absent friends. Friends who are no longer tethered to this, our mortal coil. All the people we’ll never see again. And I don’t know how I can end a review of SCOTT PILGRIM Vol. 5 other than saying I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry.

Labels: Abhay

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Tom Spurgeon interviews Abhay as part of his ridiculously good Holiday Interview series.

Go read it here.

-B

Labels: Abhay, Brian

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So, with the eighth and final issue of SECRET INVASION now in hand, we’ve come finally to my favorite part.

Not the ending of SECRET INVASION. The endings of crossovers are always lousy. The end of CIVIL WAR? Terrible ending. WORLD WAR HULK— I have no memory whatsoever of how that ended, and that’s a series I liked. INFINITE CRISIS— I still don't understand the end of that series. RETURN OF THE JEDI— the Jedi wake up next to Bob Newhart from the THE BOB NEWHART SHOW...?

No, my favorite part is spoiler-dodgin'.

Marvel asks readers for, what, $32 (if not far more) for a crossover, by repeatedly promising them an ending that changes things… forever. But if you give them your money, they do everything in their power to spoil the ending of the story for you. So then the fun part is: will you get any shred of your money’s worth or will they manage to spoil every single possible thing for you before that happens?

Certain parts, there’s no avoiding. If you’re a comic fan, there was really no avoiding the fact this series ends with the “Dark Reign” starting. Which means— look: it more likely than not means the bad guys win in some fashion or another at the end of SECRET INVASION #8. But we don’t know the precise mechanism by which they win— well, except that it very heavily involves Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin. They spoiled that in THUNDERBOLTS back in November. But— okay— but the precise mechanism by which Norman Osborn is the conduit for evil winning? That’s kind-of sort-of still a mystery, right?

See, that’s the fun part. Marvel tries to spoil that, too! It’s only a mystery unless you read the New York Times. Because they put an article in the New York Times the day the issue was released, to make sure the ending got spoiled. The New York Times doesn’t cover just anything— Marvel had publicity personnel work very hard to have that story placed. Worked hard to have it placed on Wednesday, and not on a Thursday when none of us would be spoiled. After all: by Thursday, the nonsensical events transpiring in an imaginary universe to fake people would no longer be “breaking news.”

So really: the most suspenseful— strike that, the only suspenseful part of SECRET INVASION for me was this last week: Would all of #8 get spoiled or just most of it? Fun!

Let’s give Marvel some credit, though: Marvel’s only able to spoil the end of SECRET INVASION because they can understand it. DC would have loved to spoil the end of BATMAN RIP, but they’d have to understand what happened at the end. And as far as I can tell, nobody does. The issue after Batman is killed by Satan / his Father / some actor (?) / a helicopter that he punched too hard (!)(!)(!), he’s trapped in a machine by alien gods from the god dimension and forced to relive For the Man Who Has Everything outtakes.

What? What in the fuck? How do you conceivably spoil that?? DC has no idea! They don’t understand it anymore than anyone else.

***

Let’s just get this over with. I wish I could tell you I had anything big and elaborate planned for this final installment, but: I really just want this to be over. I just want this to be over. It’s my most sincere desire for this to be over. This? Over? Yes, please.

*************************************



The status quo prior to SECRET INVASION: a force for evil had infiltrated the very heart of the Marvel universe, and were threatening to bring down the Marvel heroes from the inside. Who can the Marvel heroes trust?

The status quo after SECRET INVASION: oh my god, guys! A force for evil has infiltrated the very heart of the Marvel universe! It’s threatening to bring down the Marvel heroes from the inside! Who can the Marvel heroes trust?

Just tell me who to hand my money to. $4 an issue in a deflationary economy? Sold! No Whammies No Whammies No Whammies!

***

The best line in this entire damn series belongs to Joe Quesada in his afterword: “The surprises in store lie in every corner of the Marvel Universe during DARK REIGN. Who are the DARK AVENGERS? … [H]ow far down can these villains actually get when given greater power? … How will Hank Pym deal with the loss of his beloved ex-wife?”

SECRET INVASION literally did not get more entertaining than that sentence during its entire run.

***

The first half of this comic is just…

The issue starts with the Wasp increasing in size, thereby causing black dots to erupt onto the other characters. The black dots cause pain. There’s a narrator during this scene, but even the narrator can’t come up with any explanation whatsoever as to what’s going on in this scene. Then, we’re told “There was Only One Way to Stop It.”

What was that one way? Seriously: I don’t know. What was that one way? Can anyone even understand what’s happening in this scene? I can’t. Did Thor kill her to save everyone else? That would have been a cool thing to happen— is that what happened? I can’t even make out what was happening.

Blah blah blah: so, the Wasp is dead. Which— at least something has finally happened in this series!! I'll take what I can get.

Then, Spider-Skrull-Woman-Queen wakes up from having been killed in the last issue, so that the greatest heroes in the Marvel universe can unite to kill her again. However, while last issue she was shot in the head by an arrow, this issue she’s shot in the head with a ray gun. The guy who shoots her with a ray gun is a hero to the entire world and gets a Cabinet-level position with the government, while the guy who shot her in the head with the arrow is promptly ignored by the public.

Kids thus learn a valuable lesson about heroism: nobody think it’s heroic to shoot a woman in the head with a bow & arrow; they only think it’s heroic to shoot a woman in the head with a ray gun.

(This is all really incredibly bizarre material politically, and the only thing that makes me comfortable with this series is my deep and abiding belief that comic creators, publishers, and fans are so divorced from the real world around them that they literally have no clue that what they’re creating, publishing and/or reading is completely and totally batshit fucking crazy. I don’t even want to talk about it. No joke, it makes me genuinely uncomfortable.)

***

The rest of the issue? Nothing much happens. Last issue’s cliffhanger involving the Jarvis Skrull threatening a baby, like every cliffhanger in the series, leads absolutely nowhere. Didn't the Jarvis Skrull get exploded by Maria Hill in issue #5? Don't sweat the details.

Various characters come back from the dead, including my favorite character of the series— the LED lights from issue #1.

Finally, Barack Obama (?) puts the Green Goblin in charge of the Government, and Dark Reign starts on the last double-page spread.

"Dark Reign" is just a plain old Masters-of-Evil story. They JLA-ized the Masters of Evil. It's an idea, I guess— I'm not continuity-savvy enough to tell you whether it's been done to death before or not.

There are six Masters of Evil. I was able to identify four of them: Emma Frost, Doctor Doom, Norman Osborn, and Loki. There’s also Namor and the Hood who I didn’t recognize because they’re colored red for… some reason…?

***

So, the big game-changer, the big change in status quo for the Marvel Universe: before SECRET INVASION, there were eight incarnations of the Masters of Evil in the Marvel Universe, and now after SECRET INVASION, there are now nine incarnations.

Truly, the Marvel Universe will never be the same.

Kids today are lucky. In my day, we didn’t have nine incarnations of Masters of Evil. We could only fantasize what a ninth incarnation would look like, with only the prior eight incarnations and the North star to guide us. Kids today don’t know how good they have it.

***


Points to Leinil Yu and Mark Morales, though, for including Elvis on the Skrull ship, in the distant background. I'm an easy mark on a "Elvis isn't dead" joke.

Nice work on the series from those two— especially, on the double page spreads. Personally, I thought they nailed a whole heck a lot of those. We can say that they handled some moments better than others— e.g. I personally was never too taken by their outer space stuff. But like I tried to mention last time: they delivered a quality product on a timely basis. It’d be a damn foolish thing not to have some appreciation for that, in this day and age. Marvel fans should be hoisting these guys on their shoulders anytime they leave their house.

I gave it a sort of re-read. Skimming through the entire series beginning to end, issue 1 to issue 8. It only took about 5 minutes to skim through it.

Conclusions: It’ll be okay enough for trade readers, I suppose, who will pay less and not have to read the series over an 8 month period. Parts of the story won’t work at the trade level, either, though. Anything involving Captain Marvel and Marvel Boy should have been left to spin-offs as those parts went especially nowhere. The trade will work fine as a shallow character-free action comic.

I just don’t know how to judge that or what to make of it. Does it mean anything to you that the trade will be okay? It doesn’t endear me to the work any more that it succeeds at that level, but it’s at least worth acknowledging, I suppose.

I think the key issue has been the timing. For an 8-9 month event, each issue has been shallow and slow. If they could have found a way to squeeze all of this into 4 months, maybe this would have worked out pretty well despite all of its narrative problems. It’d have still been flawed, but the flaws would have come fast enough and often enough that the reader might have stopped caring. 8 months is just too damn long to live with this many flaws and this little substance, though. I guess sales have been good, and fans are happy, but to me... to me, 8 months is a very long time. I don't see how you can expect anyone to sustain their enthusiasm for 8 months. But I have commitment issues, maybe, so...

***

So: what are the “story possibilities” that the new Masters of Evil generate exactly?

Maybe I’m not understanding but isn’t it really just a question of when and how the Masters of Evil’s existence gets revealed? Once somebody goes “Hey, the Masters of Evil are in charge of everything,” isn’t the story over? Which- how long does it take for that to happen if two of the Masters of Evil are good guys? How evil can they get without Namor or Emma Frost stamping down on the brakes?

Or- I'm confused how much damage Norman Osborn is supposed to be able to do just because he runs ... whatever it is that he runs. Is Captain America going to start eating babies because Norman Osborn says so? Would Captain America eat a baby from the feet towards the head, or do you think he'd start from the baby head and eat towards the feet? If Norman Osborn made us all eat babies, I think most of us would eat from the feet towards the head because we'd want to put off realizing that we were eating a baby until the last possible moment. I know I certainly wouldn't start at the head, like some kind of fucking pervert. But Captain America? He fought in the War and probably ate all sorts of crazy stuff while he was wandering around World War 2 era Europe during the winter. I'm thinking Captain America would want to just get it over with because all the time spent playing with his food? Hey, brother, that's time that he could spend fighting for his country. I think he would start at the head and goes towards the feet, but in his case, not because he's some kind of weirdo, but because he's a fucking hero. (Bucky or Steve Rogers Cap; I don't think there would be any difference between the two when it comes to baby-eating).

It seems like they’re angling towards putting together an espionage/conspiracy thriller for the Marvel universe, some kind of "chess match"-y type thing. That could work, I suppose, but… I'm having a hard time seeing how they're not going to tread dangerously close to Roger Ebert's Idiot Plot territory every step of the way, based upon the characters they've chosen.

Am I misreading the situation? Is there any series that people are looking forward to coming out of this? Are people excited?

***

I am so happy this series is done. I am so happy this series is done. But look: it’s not completely the series’ fault. You’re not supposed to read series like how I read this one, with the essays or the hooplah or the thinking about it or the hoping it’d be any good or the expecting anything to happen—anything at all! I’m like the boyfriend who’s “suffocating.” Me and the Marvel Universe just need some space. A lot of space. So much space. The more space, the better.

What happens next for me? I’m going to clean up my apartment, wash my hair, and then get started writing reviews of the new issue of HUSTLER MAGAZINE. I’ve decided that from now on, I’m going to only write reviews of hard-core pornography magazines for this blog.

HOLY SHIT: LAST-MINUTE TWIST ENDING!

Comics used to be a passion before SECRET INVASION, but as you can see that didn’t really work out. But luckily, I have a passion for vaginas.

Here’s a taste of what you can look forward to in 2009:

HUSTLER’S ASIAN FEVER #1: while the cover of ASIAN FEVER (NSFW) promises a “Penetrating Premiere Issue”, it turns out this is a gross overstatement. In terms of insight into either the topic of Asians or the topic of Fevers, very little is offered that would qualify as "penetrating." Why, I hate to say it but this magazine is barely even literate! Instead, Mr. Flynt seems to have intended “penetrating” to be a mere double entendre for sexual penetration involving an erect “penis.” Come on, Mr. Flynt: aren’t we a little old for that sort of low-brow humor? I wish ASIAN FEVER would expect more of its readers. On the other hand, boobies. Very good.

THE SAVAGE CRITIC WEBSITE WILL NEVER, EVER, NEVER NEVER BE THE SAME, NEVER. Except it still won’t update very often. We’re sticking with that.

Labels: Abhay

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I.

Starting in April 2008, the SAVAGE CRITIC website began to bring you a five-part series on the cancellation of BLUE BEETLE. It “technically” hadn’t “happened” yet. “Technically”, BLUE BEETLE was only canceled on November 12th, but...


It wasn't exactly difficult to predict.

And suddenly, last week: our little corner of the internet spasmed. Suddenly: I’m not alone. All sorts of people were asking themselves: “Why didn’t BLUE BEETLE succeed?” And their answers involved things being shoved into asses! I’m not alone, universe! I’m not alone!

So... This one’s going to be extra ramble-y. Sorry.

II.

Before the blog post which received some attention last week, the book’s author, John Rogers posted an earlier statement to his (actually, otherwise quite entertaining) blog, a sort of recap of his intent as the writer of BLUE BEETLE:

We wanted to establish a new superhero for younger readers, and add a different viewpoint to the DCU. Something you could give your 12 year old nephew to read without first forcing him to complete a degree in DC Continuity. A lot of people hated us, then some of them liked us, and then some of them loved us ... while a lot of people still hated us. Those people can go pound sand and collect Final Crisis variant covers.

Let’s begin by seeing if we should go pound sand and collect Final Crisis variant covers. Let’s pound out a single issue of the series, issue #16 of the BLUE BEETLE series. Just so we’re all on the same page as to what it was exactly that got cancelled.

Issue #16 is very near the end of the series (if not the technical final issue of publication). The series’ story concludes in issue 25; it just kept getting published past that point.

So: a rock crawled up young Jamie Reyes’s ass and turned him into the Blue Beetle. In issue #13, Blue Beetle learns that the rock was a device from an alien empire named The Reach. At first, the Reach pretend to be “good guys”, but the book abandons this idea within that issue and reveals that they’re evil immediately, rather than create or maintain any sort of suspense. However, the rest of the world is unaware that the Reach is evil, as the Reach has approached the governments of Earth promising aid & assistance.

A reader might expect this to be a source of tension & conflict in future issues. Nope, not at all: that reader should go pound sand and collect Final Crisis variant covers! Aliens invading Earth-- what’s the logical next thing to happen?


Eclipso opens us up. To the wonders of interpretive dance. FAME, I’M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER-- LIGHT UP THE SKY WITH MY NAME-- FAME! So, for the 12 year old nephews: who is Eclipso?


Dear Joss Whedon, Please go back in time and prevent your own existence, perhaps by seducing your own mother at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. Very truly yours, Me After Having Read BLUE BEETLE. P.s. Would Willow make out with me even though she turned all gay at the end? I hope so. XOXOXO.

Say: Who’s that talking and explaining all of this? It’s Blue Beetle’s brand-new romantic interest, Traci 13, introduced to BLUE BEETLE readers for the first time in issue #16.


Things I Don’t Know To This Day: (a) who this character is, (b) who created this character, (c) if this character is featured in any other DC comic, (d) what other characters she hangs out with, (e) who the “Croato—Uh, some detectives” are, and (f) what love feels like.

The issue begins with Eclipso fighting Traci 13, who is wielding the “stolen Staff of Arion”, a reference to a supporting character debuting in 1982 in the series WARLORD. This will be exciting for your 12-year old nephew, provided that your 12-year old nephew was born in 1970.

To help in the fight, Traci 13 recruits Blue Beetle. Together, they discover that Eclipso has strung up members of the Posse like the victims of the aliens in Aliens, using some kind of sadness-goo. Blue Beetle uses his powers to free them from the sadness-goo that’s holding them.

Blue Beetle, Traci 13 and Blue Beetle’s friend Paco then confront Eclipso. Paco saves the baby, and Traci 13 defeats Eclipso. The issue ends with Traci 13 and Blue Beetle holding each other, presumably to start making out once the comic fades to black. Despite the fact that Blue Beetle mentioned vomiting earlier in the issue. As soon as this comic is over, Traci 13 is going to shove her tongue into Blue Beetle’s vomit mouth, and taste the flavor of his upchuck. I think this will be a huge turn-on for your 12 year old nephew, in so far as he’s probably into some pretty weird-ass kinky shit that I’m not even hip to. You know: like, stuff involving boners, basically.

***

What was the story told by issue #16?

You could argue that the story of this issue is “Blue Beetle gets a girlfriend by being heroic.” But the problem with that interpretation: Blue Beetle never acts heroically once in the issue. Not once. The only thing he does the entire issue is defeat some sadness-goo. Which— hell-naw, if wiping away sadness-goo was enough to get you laid, I got a tube sock that’s Wilt Chamberlain. Furthermore, that interpretation ignores page 21. Page 21 needs to be shown in whole…


So, your 12 year old nephew is now supposed to understand that:

1) This is a reference to the DC character, the Elongated Man, a former Justice League member who dates back to 1960.

2) Traci 13 was apparently raised by the Elongated Man and his wife Sue Dibny.

3) Sue Dibny was murdered by Jean Loring, the Silver Age ex-wife of the Atom.

4) Jean Loring became Eclipso in some issue of something sometime, for some reason. I don’t know when or why myself, but that apparently happened.

This issue is all about the character of Traci 13 and her revenge on Jean Loring / Eclipso for the events of 2004’s IDENTITY CRISIS (which your 12 year old nephew would love since it’s wall-to-wall rape and dead pregnant women).

HOW DID THIS COMIC EVER GET CANCELED???

***

Allow me to head off a counter-argument: I didn’t pick a bad issue from the run on purpose, to make my point. I picked an issue involving two ladies having a sexy catfight. I didn’t pick an issue to make BLUE BEETLE look bad-- this was the part of the B-movie montage where Kato Kaelin starts up a bonfire in the background, and Trishelle from Real World: Las Vegas takes off her top, and George Perez and I high-five. It’s all fucking downhill from #16.

***

Here’s the bigger problem--

Two words are never mentioned in the issue: THE REACH.

The bad guys for the entire series.

They’re never mentioned once. Three issues after their introduction.

In any competent work, The Reach would become the focus of what follows. The stakes would escalate, getting the audience to hate The Reach more and more until the book reached its emotional and thematic climax.

Instead:

Issue #15 is a fill-in issue involving a team-up between Blue Beetle and Superman.

Issue #17 involves Blue Beetle fighting Typhoon, the “Soul of the Storm”.

Issue #18 involves the Blue Beetle teaming up with the Teen Titans to fight Lobo.

Issue #19 minimally advances the La Dama subplot.

Issue #20 is a SINESTRO WARS cross-over that features The Reach, but only while it crosses over to another multi-title crossover I haven’t read, and have no intention of reading.

Issue #21 involves the Blue Beetle meeting the Spectre.

The book ignores its own bad guy until the finale, at which point we’re supposed to care about them again. The bad guys don’t spend the second act … being bad guys, doing evil things, antagonizing the hero, any of that.

They flat-out don’t even appear in the comic.

Dude!

III.

The conclusion I draw from the foregoing:

BLUE BEETLE tried to be a simple story about a young boy learning to be a man and to find his place in the world by heroically facing insurmountable odds with the help of his friends and family.

But that isn’t the story they told. The story they told was: a new DC character introduces himself to other DC characters, and finds his place in the DCU.

The audience for that isn’t 12 year old nephews; it’s DC fans, for whom that story served no pressing need or desire or want. And also: BLUE BEETLE?

Look, it’s sort-of a rip-off of INVINCIBLE.

INVINCIBLE is a creator owned series created by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker that launched in 2003, and is currently published by Image Comics. It’s about an optimistic teenager who gets superpowers and tries to juggle his exciting new life as a superhero, his teenage friends, and family, without losing his upbeat attitude. BLUE BEETLE, on the other hand, is about…



I was at a bookstore the other day; saw this quote by Stephen King in his book ON WRITING (haven’t read the book, but I thought it was a good quote): “People who decide to make a fortune writing like John Grisham or Tom Clancy produce nothing but pale imitations, by and large, because vocabulary is not the same thing as feeling and plot is light-years from the truth as it is understood by the mind and the heart.”

This was a series that didn’t offer anything to people that they couldn’t already get elsewhere, from a product with more acclaim, less baggage, easier to jump onto, more fun to jump onto, with more issues in the can, and … shit: how about a *twist*…? BLUE BEETLE doesn’t have anything resembling a twist anywhere in it; my theory is that a twist would be too upsetting, and the fanboy definition of The “Fun” Comic usually equates to nothing more than hyper-bland inoffensiveness, but… that’s a separate debate perhaps.

Even if you’re not willing to join me on the phrase “rip-off” – look, would you at least agree that BLUE BEETLE was second place? You don’t get points for being second place; comics don’t have a silver medal. Remember any vampire series in comics after 30 DAYS OF NIGHT? How many worthwhile crime comics have had to live in the shitty shadow of shitty-ass SIN CITY? How many other series about cat-people in wheelchairs fucking and sucking can you name besides OMAHA THE CAT DANCER?

The fact the 15,000 people who stuck with it liked it enough to say so on the Internet doesn't make a series "critically acclaimed." Bart Beaty isn't exactly working on a monograph, as far as I know. It just means 15,000 people live near a public library.

They didn’t have anything new to offer. That’s the sadness of comics. The cancellation is just gravity.

IV.

The cancellation isn’t the mystery here. The mystery is this: DC launches failed title after failed title. Off the top of my head, just in 90’s and 00’s: Young Heroes in Love, Damage, Power Company, Chase, Hawk & Dove, Suicide Squad, Major Bummer, Xero, Breach, Bloodhound, Manhunter, Doom Patrol, Primal Force, Lab Rats, Stars and STRIPE, Vext, Aztek, All-New Atom, Harley Quinn, Hourman, Martian Manhunter, and probably many more I don’t remember. Just for the DCU alone.

None of them ever, ever work.

There’s an Einstein quote President-Elect Obama (yay!) is fond of: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”


The mystery is this: Why do they keep doing the same thing that doesn’t work, over and over again? The pertinent question isn’t why was Blue Beetle canceled. The pertinent question is: why did they publish it to begin with? What did they think would happen, in spite of the overwhelming weight of history and experience? Did they think they were doing anything differently from what had failed countless times before? Why would this cancellation be surprising to anyone anywhere?

Does it even look like a publishing scheme to you, or some kind of elaborate sleight-of-hand so Time-Warner-Keebler executives don't ask too many questions? When the executives come to check on how things are going, do you think there's someone at DC whose job it is to yell "They're coming! They're coming! Pretend you're working!"? It looks like an embezzling scheme.

With respect to the cancellation, as has been widely reported, author John Rogers angrily pointed the finger at DC’s publishing strategy, DC’s confused self-identity, “creepy” specialty shops, DC’s offices in Manhattan, DC’s gender confusion, the time DC fondled his balls at summer camp, DC’s gut-flopping fetish, etc. (And don’t forget the rest of us, still busy pounding our sand and collecting our Final Crisis variant covers.)

The standard Comic Creator “It’s Us vs. Them” finger-pointing... uhm: usually, it’s from people who work in comics, talking about series they still write…? Petty-Me found the whole thing extraordinarily strange: an author who didn’t actually write a comic anymore, angry that DC couldn’t find a way to continue to exploit the creative energies of young writers and artists in order to keep his abandoned creation alive, angry despite the fact sales straight-up cratered during his tenure on the title. The fact people quoted that without comment or question? A little strange.

“How dare DC not continue to suck the creativity of young talent to keep a series I created alive after I didn’t want to do anything with it? P.S. I was completely not in any way at fault for simply having written a comic that shed 35,000+ in sales while I was writing it. It’s time to go rogue on the Internet, maverick-style!”

And by young talent, Petty-Me is referring to folks who didn’t get handed their own DC ongoing series on near-zero comic-writing experience, just based on screenwriting credentials, a comic culture obsessed with Hollywood star-fucking, and well-connected friends, and then completely fail to deliver sales. The disinterest in nurturing native talent in favor of fly-by-night screenwriters is not something that’s wrong with comics at all!


But… But that’s all Petty-Me, and Petty-Me's a bit of an idiot sometimes, so... Let's try to find the deeper issues.

V.

I suppose it’s worth noting here the obvious truth that BLUE BEETLE succeeded by the only criteria that matters. It generated a parcel of IP that DC/Time-Warner-Keebler was able to exploit in a cross-media property. On a balance sheet, the rest—you, me, Grandma Midge-- we’re all minutiae.

Some fans question canceling the series once the character won the IP lottery. But: they have books they can sell curious Blue Beetle fans. They have four volumes of BLUE BEETLE trades that they can sell to all the new BLUE BEETLE fans of the world. All that argument amounts to is “they could have had five or six volumes instead of four.” Oh. Oh, well.

And what lucky new fans! Getting to read SINESTRO WAR or IDENTITY CRISIS tie-ins-- fun! Maybe the error wasn’t canceling the book; maybe the error was not insuring that those four books would be able to stand alone. I’ve heard the argument that you can understand the issues without knowing the specifics of the SINESTRO WAR crossover—but I personally think there’s a distance between comprehension and entertainment that argument doesn’t account for. For me, that SINESTRO issue especially was a huge turn off; you could perhaps understand the What of what happened, but not the Why. Reasonable minds could differ on that point, though.

VI.

My eyes glaze over anytime I hear the phrase “mid-list” though. I guess because I always flash on the same image anytime I hear it, the double-page splash from CRISIS OF INFINITE EARTHS #5:


In my head, I always hear “Why are you reading about Batman? Why aren’t you reading about that one speck instead? The little half-doodle George Perez made in the upper left-hand corner is a really great character. You should really read about the red speck next to the blue-green speck on the left hand cluster of specks. You have beautiful hair.”

It drives me a little crazy when people say “Fans don’t want new superheroes.” Because usually the people saying that? That’s not what they’re selling—— they’re just selling new specks. It’s less than surprising that there’s a ceiling on that enterprise.

But a mainstream comic market that’s as harsh as this one to new series. It’s … well, Jesus, it’s something, isn’t it?

Though: to an extent, it doesn’t make me entirely sad. You know, because I read good comics, too, and those are doing pretty decent lately…? I’ve got BERLIN 2: CITIZENS ON PATROL on the coffee table, waiting to be read. I finished the BOTTOMLESS BELLY BUTTON recently—— pleasant book. I’ll end the year reading POPEYE, maybe. It’s often hard not to look at comics and think that the good guys are winning. And if Marvel and DC can’t get their acts together, and end up with failure after failure, well: there is a part of me that takes a certain pleasure in that. I might be very slightly bummed that I don’t get to read THE ORDER anymore, but if Marvel never sustains a new series again? Well: isn’t that satisfying to the part of you that believes in karma? Marvel, DC, these aren’t companies that deserve any love. These were never people to root for.

But…

But the water’s edge isn’t BLUE BEETLE. It’s Image series, Vertigo series, alternative monthlies. It’s the serial format, paper-and-staples comic. It’s a whole era of comics which, however misbegotten, is the one I was raised with, have affection for, want to continue with, etc. Plus: people I hope good things for still work in that system. For a certain kind of creator, whose work falls outside the narrow confines of what’s considered “artistic”, for genre creators, that’s still an important industry for any number of reasons.

I don’t suppose I’m interested in offering any great solutions to the problem here; having no real-world expertise, doesn’t that become absurd quickly? It’s just too premature to say how digital delivery systems are going to play out, and beyond that, any fancy prognostication becomes silly quickly. Until… until you’re the weird guy in the comment section yelling “Why don’t they sell Batman in an anthology like SHONEN JUMP?? They can sell them like they sell SHONEN JUMP in Japan, at newsstands next to stops for the bullet train. Because this country is also riddled with newsstands and bullet trains. The Japanese have the right idea—they like art, they’re fond of underage girls and they hate pubic hair. Me, the Japanese and John Ruskin, we’re all on the same page. Join us on Team Ruskin, DC.” Which—you know, I shouldn’t speak ill of Team Ruskin: I have my own silly little predilections (stand-alone maxi-series, one-shots, CBZ files, ass-to-mouth, etc). But…

But let’s ask: when people talk about a book like BLUE BEETLE failing, isn’t that an inherently different conversation, just by virtue of being a DCU title? Is the BLUE BEETLE conversation nothing more than-- “Why won’t the guy who buys BATMAN, SUPERMAN, X-MEN, SPIDERMAN, etc. also buy this other book? Why aren’t the people we squeeze and squeeze and squeeze for money—why can’t we squeeze some out of them, for this other book instead?” Isn’t that a question with its answer built into it?

T