Author: Mindy Newell

MINDY NEWELL: Am I Really A Writer?

One of the doctors I’ve worked with once asked me “What’s it like to be a writer?”

I guarantee that every single one of the columnists here at ComicMix has been asked that question, or a form of it, quadrillions of times.

The mother of one of my daughter’s friends: “Where do you get your ideas?”

A co-worker at my day job: “So what do you do? They give you the comic and you put the words in those balloons?”

An old boyfriend: “You get paid for that?”

My mother on the phone, back when I was a full-time freelancer: “What do you do all day? How can you sit in your pajamas until 3:00 in the afternoon?

Mom on the phone again: “I’m sorry to bother you. Are you typing?”

The answers:

“What’s it like to be a doctor?” (Cracking wise.)

“I don’t know.” (Case in point: last week’s Bizzaro column. Where the fuck did that come from?)

“Yeah.” (I used to go into a full-scale elucidation of the full-script method, which is similar to writing a movie script, except that in a movie script very little art direction is given as the writer pretty much leaves that up to the cinematographer, whereas in a comic script the story is broken down panel-by-panel with instructions to the artist of what is happening, which can range from “Superman hits Doomsday,” to detailed descriptions of what the man standing behind the woman in the crowd watching Superman hit Doomsday is wearing – and you should read one of Alan Moore’s scripts for anything he’s ever written if you really want see and understand what I’m talking about – and dialogue or captions or thought balloons vs. the “Marvel-style” of writing comics, in which the writer breaks down the action into page-by-page descriptions of what’s happening in the story, after which the editor sends it to the artist to – oh, never mind. I know you’re getting that bored look, just like the questioner, who would blank out on me within ten seconds of my explanation, just like I know you’re doing now.)

“Yes.”

“It’s 3:00?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m typing.”

I think all writers go through this type of third-degree in one form or another. Yes, even Pulitzer Prize winning novelists like Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay), Oscar Hijuelos (The Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love), Toni Morrison (Beloved), Michael Cunningham (The Hours), and Bernard Malamud (The Fixer).

And the funny thing is, those questions from co-workers, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, and parents: What’s it like to be a writer? Where do you get your ideas? You put the words in the funny balloons? You make any money at that? What do you do all day? How can you sit around in your pajamas ‘til 3:00 in the afternoon? Are you typing? – are the same questions I think all writers ask themselves.

Fer shur I’ve asked myself those questions. Many a time, and over and over.

And I have a confession to make.

I still have trouble saying “I’m a writer.”

Is it an ego thing? I don’t generally go around saying, “Look out, world, here I come! Get out of my way!” But I do have it on good authority – Alixandra and Jeff – that I’m a “firecracker.” Which is very gratifying to my ego, but then why am I in therapy? (Funny story. I was talking with my therapist before Alix and Jeff’s wedding, telling him how I was having all this angst and shpilkes (Yiddish for “nerves”) and bad dreams, and he said “That’s because you’re neurotic,” and I yelled at him, “I’m not neurotic!” Um…well, I guess you had to be there, or in therapy, to get it.)

A writer can plot. I still can’t plot worth a damn. Fellow columnists like Denny O’Neil and John Ostrander have tried to teach me, and though I do get it intellectually, I fail more often than I succeed. Julie Schwartz told me that there’s only one essential plot. Boy meet girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl. Every story is a variation of that. (I think he was repeating, or paraphrasing, something that someone famous once said, but I can’t remember.) I get it. I really do. And sometimes it works for me. More often than not I hit a wall, and then I’m dead in the water. I didn’t even know what I was going to write about when I sat down to write this column.

A writer doesn’t put off writing. I’m a natural-born procrastinator. Yep, I’m essentially a lazy couch potato. Or computer solitaire player. Without a deadline (and I’m writing this on Saturday night, right now it’s 10:59 p.m., and though it’s still Saturday, I should have finished this column way, way earlier, like last Monday), I’m hopeless. I’ll never finish that novel in my drawer because there’s no agent/editor/publisher breathing down my neck to finish it.

A writer carries around a little notebook to jot down ideas. Or writes them down on any piece of paper he or she can find. Woody Allen does that. Last week I watched the PBS documentary about Mr. Allen, and I watched him pull out a drawer, it was in his bedroom, and in that drawer were pieces of paper, napkins, post-it notes, paper plates, handkerchiefs, anything he could write one, all with ideas, a sentence here, a word there, an observation, a thought – and he laid them out on the bed and it was a heap o’ words, a collection of yeeaarrsssss. Well, I did have a little pad to carry around with me at work – oh, hell, I’ve bought dozens of ‘em – but I always get so busy and I don’t know where the hell they go. Or I’ll write something down on a scrap of paper and lose it.

A real writer writes because he or she has to. Whether it sucks or whether it’s a bestseller that’s optioned and becomes the next Oscar and Golden Globe winner. I don’t have to write. I don’t have that burning need.

Or do I?

Oh.

Wait.

I guess I am a writer.

Or a typist.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

BIZARRO MINDY NEWELL #1: Me Praise

Me read Frank Miller’s blog and me think Miller is right. Me think all those people who am mad at Frank are dunderheads.

Me think protesters at Occupy Wall Street just don’t want to clean their own homes. It am easier to go live in a park in New York City and make a new mess there. After the protesters make the park is dirty Mayor Bloomberg is very nice. He send policemen to help protestors move to a new place.

Me heard that in Oakland the policemen did not think the place where the protestors were living wuz dirty enuf, so the policemen helped with tear gas. All the protestors am happy, they laugh and giggle and cry with joy.

Me saw students sitting on ground, me think they could not get up, like that nice lady in the TV ad. The nice policeman tried to help them by putting pepper spray in there faces so they wood sneeze, but me do not know how sneezing wood help the students get up. But at least the nice policeman try and help them.

Me heard a lady had a baby inside her and the policman hit her in the stomak to help the baby come out. Then the lady went to the doktor and the doktor said the baby am dead. The lady am very happy to not have a baby inside her any more.

Me think Amerika is a very noisy country. People yell and shout and march instead of going to their jobs. Me work hard. Me make lots of money and then I give it to the nice taxman. This am fair because if me not give money to taxman he will lose his job. Me not want nobody to lose there job.

Me heard there are some people who make so much money they are called the 1 per cent. Me heard me am part of the 99 per cent. Me not know what this means but the nice man with orange skin in the big house in Washingten must know because he said the 1 per cent does not need to give money to the taxman because they make jobs. Me not understand, because Mr. Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital makes my job. Me not know any body at my job named Mister 1 per cent. Me will rite the nice man with the orange skin in Washingten and ask him who Mister 1 per cent is. He am very smart. Me sure he will know.

Me went to school and learnt about Amerika. A long time ago some bad men did not want to pay taxes to the king. They said “no taxation without representation.” Me not know what that means, but the bad men throw tea bags into the cold water. They are very stupid. If me am there me wood tell them u need hot water to make tea. Me make tea at home every morning.

The bad men said “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Me not know what that mean.

The bad men said “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of Amerika.”

Me not know what that mean, either. But silly bad men spelled Amerika wrong. Me fix it for them.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MINDY NEWELL: Pissed Off Again

Lots of ruminating this week. Mostly political. Mostly causing me to make sure my passport is up-to-date and to wonder what the hell country I can move to if the Repugnanticans – my term for what passes as the Republican Party these days – actually win the Presidency.

This past Thursday, November 17th, marked the two-month anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street. Some smart mouth caller to the Tom Hartman show pointed out that the prefix “anni” comes from the Latin anno, which means “year,” so November 17th couldn’t be the “two month anniversary.” Why did I think while listening to this jackass that he was a front for the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity or Karl Rove’s American Crossroads? So just call it an observance, a tribute, a celebration, or a commemoration, asshole.

The Los Angeles Times reported on November 20th that police officers who just walked up to students peacefully demonstrating in solidarity with the Occupy movement at the University of California-Davis and pepper-sprayed them dead-on in their faces have been put on administrative leave while their actions are investigated. (You can go to my Facebook page to see the video, or check out this link.) Hmmm. Administrative leave. That means they’re getting paid. Just like…

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MINDY NEWELL: To Love, Honor, And Cherish Until Death – Or Editorial Decision – Do Us Part

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know that my daughter, Alixandra Gould – yes, she’s keeping her name – married the love of her life, Jeffrey Christopher Gonzalez, last week. (A big thank you! to Mike Gold for posting a beautiful column last week that I posted on Facebook, then e-mailed to every single person I’ve ever met just to make sure they read it, and which Alix and Jeff thought was terrifically cool.) So of course I decided to write about superhero marriages this week. Not a big leap, is it?

I just finished googling “superhero marriages.” There were “about” 7,750,000 hits in 0.23 seconds, the most recent being a slide show in the Huffington Post posted only four days ago – well, five days ago since this appears on Monday – on November 9, 2011 titled “Comic Book Weddings: 8 Of Our Favorite Superhero Weddings.” In order, they are (1) Spider-Man, a.k.a. Peter Parker, and Mary Jane Watson in 1987’s The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Annual; (2) 1962’s The Incredible Hulk #319 in which Bruce Banner and Betty Ross’ nuptials are interrupted by a “special guest”; (3) The X-Men’s Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey (Phoenix) in 1994; (4) Wonder Woman in her eponymous title married Mr. Monster in 1965 – ‘nuff said!; (5) Aquaman and Mera in Aquaman #18, 1964; (6) “Death Waits to Kiss the Bride” screamed the cover of Lois Lane #128 in 1972 – featuring the now iconic picture of Superman holding somebody’s dead body; (7) The Flash races down the altar to stop Iris West from marrying the wrong Barry Allen in The Flash #165, 1966; and (8) Wonder Girl, a.k.a. Donna Troy, marries Terry Long in Tales Of The Teen Titans #50, 1985.)

How did they miss Reed Richards and Sue Storm Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman? Im-not-so-ho, Reed and Sue are the most realistically portrayed marriage “pros” in the comics universe.

The couple married in 1965, making this year the 46th anniversary of their being a Mr. and Mrs. (They look pretty damn remarkable, don’t they? Must be all those visits to the Negative Zone.) Down through the years, Reed and Sue “have and held, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” and have loved and cherished each other through everything the Marvel Universe could and continues to throw at them, including “real life” curves like a miscarriage, potential affairs, political differences, and a brother’s death.

Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson came pretty close in matching the Richards’ record – not in years married, but in a realistic view of marriage – but then Marvel decided to “disappear” their relationship. Clark Kent and Lois Lane had a wonderful thing going, too, but DC recently terminated without prejudice that couple, too.

And what the hell happened to Scott and Jean?

Jean Loring, the wife of Ray Palmer (The Atom) has a “mental breakdown” and goes on a rampage, killing Sue Dibny, the wife of the Elongated Man (Ralph Dibny), in one of the most gruesome scenes I’ve ever seen in any comic.

Betty Banner, wife of Bruce Banner (The Hulk) was abused, suffered miscarriages, was turned into a harpy, and died. She got better and turned red.

Shayera Hall, Hawkwoman, dead.

I’m sure glad Jeff isn’t a superhero.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

NOT QUITE MINDY NEWELL: Happy Times In New Jersey

Nope, this is not Mindy writing. Mindy’s a bit tied up right now. This weekend, her daughter Alixandra Gould married Jeffrey Gonzalez at the Newark New Jersey Art Museum.

Yes, Newark New Jersey has an art museum. Grow up.

People with Y-chromosomes who have never studied the process aren’t as appreciative as we should be about this process and its impact upon the mother of the bride. It’s far easier for us guys to simply do as we’re told (weddings aren’t really about us anyway) and stay away from the battlefield until it’s time to do the transformative I Do voodoo. For the mother of the bride, however, and in another fashion for the bride herself the experience consists of long periods of intense work separated by somewhat briefer periods of frantic behavior and occasional military acts, followed by an undefined period of complete collapse. It even takes its toll on those who do not have a day job; lucky for Mindy, I strongly suspect her years of service to humanity as an operating room nurse prepared her for this endeavor.

We-all at ComicMix congratulate Alixandra and Jeffrey and wish them a long, healthy and fun life together.

– Venerable Boy Editor

(photo by Adam Haley)

TUESDAY: Michael Davis, unless he’s getting married or something

MINDY NEWELL: A Face In The Crowd

Outside my window it’s January in October; the snow is falling in thick full flakes, the wind is howling, and the steam radiator is hissing and spitting heat while I write this. I just finished watching Captain America: The First Avenger. The perfect movie for a day like a day like this, when I’m all warm and cozy inside while a little Ice Age is raging on the other side of my window.

It’s a really great movie, totally true to its comic book roots, and yet with just enough of an underpinning of truth that enables – for me, at least – a total suspension of disbelief. I haven’t felt this way about a super-hero movie since I first saw Superman. Yeah, I dug Batman Begins and Dark Knight and I’m looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises. And I liked the X-Men movies, even though they were all about Wolverine – hell, the guy even makes a quick cameo (brilliantly done and totally in character) in X-Men: First Class; but Superman and Captain America are movies that leave me walking on air and just full of joi de vivre.

So much of the credit, like 99% of it, goes to Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of Superman, and I think, in the same way, 99% of the credit for the success of Captain America goes to Chris Evans. They both really get it. They get that these characters are representations of, characterizations of – no, the embodiment of the American dream, the American ideal, the “gee whiz, this is the best country in the whole world, and I am one damn lucky fellow to be living in it” experience.

When suits at Marvel made the decision a few years ago to kill Captain America, I was so upset. Honestly – and I mean this in the best possible way – it was for me as if Christopher Reeve had just died all over again. Reeves had proved himself a true Superman, a true American hero, in so many ways; and his death was, for me, an end of an era. And then, a few years later, and all for the sake of $$$, for publicity, Cap is dead. And I felt like – well, let me put it as succinctly as I can:

This country is fucked.

In 1957, Elia Kazan directed A Face In The Crowd. Starring Andy Griffith in his film debut, it’s the story of Lonesome Rhodes, a hard-drinking country-western singer pulled out of obscurity and given his own radio show by talent scout Patricia Neal. His “down-home” philosophical spiels soon lead to his own television show, leading to worshipful fans, drooling sponsors with money, and political influence. Now drunk on power instead of alcohol, Rhodes is a manipulator of Machiavellian proportion. And although A Face In The Crowd was not considered a success during its theatre run, it has proven to be, as so many of Kazan’s movies were – prescient in its depiction of the overtaking by pop culture and big business of the American political system.

And now we have Herman Cain. Everybody knows him as “The Pizza King,” and who hasn’t seen his “Imagine There’s No Pizza” performance? (John Lennon must be rolling over in his grave. Yoko, can’t you sue him or something?) But did you know that he’s also a gospel singer, and performed on the 13-track album Sunday Morning released by Selah Sound Production & Melodic Praise Records in 1996? Did you know that he writes an op-ed column that is syndicated by the North Star Writers Group to over 50 newspapers? Did you know that he has written numerous books – Leadership is Common Sense; Speak as a Leader; CEO of SELF; They Think You’re Stupid – and that the latest, This is Herman Cain: My Journey to the White House, is on the bookshelves now, and that he is not only campaigning, but on a national book tour as we speak? And did you know that, until he formally announced his candidacy, he hosted The Herman Cain Show on WSB-AM in Atlanta? Lonesome Rhodes, you’ve met your match!

So is he just a huckster peddling his wares? Well, let’s see. Did you know that Cain was on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve in Kansas City? And that he was the chairman of the Omaha branch? (It’s not surprising that Fox News never reports on that, since the Fed is one of the big bad bogeymen under attack by the Repugnanticans.) And that he sat on the boards of some of America’s biggest corporations, including Nabisco and Whirlpool?

So he ain’t just a huckster, he’s a corporate toady and a bankster too! (Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Together, are you listening?)

And since 2005, and ending when he announced his candidacy, Herman Cain worked for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a right-wing political action committee (PAC). You know who funds AFP? The Koch brothers!!!! You know who’s Cain’s campaign manager? Mark Block, his co-worker at AFP. You know Cain’s senior economic adviser, Richard Lowrie, he of the totally huckster 9-9-9 tax plan? Guess where he met Cain? Yep. Lowrie sat on the AFP board of directors until Cain announced his candidacy.

Yeah, good ol’ Herman Cain. He’s just a regular old joe. A face in the crowd.

Watching Shane now.

Come back, Cap. Cap. Cap, come back. Come back, Cap! Caaaaaaap!!!!!!!

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MINDY NEWELL: Chest Hair Or No Chest Hair

Walking home from food shopping, thinking about this week’s column. Thinking about all the “news that’s fit to print” (and some not) about the portrayal of women in comics. And I thought, has anyone written about the portrayal of men in comics? I’m talking down and dirty, hot stuff, glistening muscle, chest hair or no chest hair?, blue brown or green eyes, skin-tight costume, hunky super-duper M-E-N.

Distaff geeks unite!

I’ll start. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:

  • Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine. Chest hair. Goddamn, he’s sexy.
  • Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Robin in New Teen Titans written by Marv Wolman and drawn by George Pérez. He looked like a guy I had a crush on in high school… and for years afterwards.
  • Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman, drawn by Curt Swan, Jerry Ordway, John Byrne, and many others, up to and including Rags Morales and Jesus Marino.
  • Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern. Just read recently that Julie Schwartz wanted him to look like Paul Newman. Explains a lot.
  • Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops. Who’s behind those Foster Grants?
  • Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man. It was Revenge of the Nerds, thanks to J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita, Jr!
  • Adam Strange. Why can’t a Zeta-beam land him in my bedroom?

Now for the “live-action”:

  • Christian Bale makes delicious eye candy and engenders dirty thoughts as Bruce Wayne/Batman. But isn’t it odd that the comic version doesn’t make my “off-the-of-my-head” list?
  • Of course the true superhero, Christopher Reeve. “Easy, miss. I’ve got you.”
  • And I have always, always, always had a thing for Robert Downey Jr. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Iron Man. Even sat through Iron Man more than twice just to look at him. Special mention for Sherlock Holmes.
  • Not so much for the blondes, generally. Though there is Chris Hemsworth as Thor. And Robert Redford (“See ya, Hubble”) in The Way We Were. And Jason Lewis as Jared Smith on Sex And The City – the scene where he shaves his signature long, blonde, thick hair in solidarity with Samantha as she loses her hair due to the chemotherapy, well, every man who has ever questioned why his girlfriend or wife left him should be chained to a chair ala Malcom McDowell in A Clockwork Orange and forced to watch that scene over and over and over until he screams Igetitigetitigetitigetit!

uh, sorry ‘bout that. where was i? she said sheepishly.

  • John Wesley Shipp as The Flash on the too-soon cancelled TV series.

No quibbling allowed on the next four. I am the columnist. I am allowed my all things Buffy. Anyway, maybe they started out as live-action characters, but they all appear in comics now. And don’t give me any lip about any of them not technically being superheroes. I don’t see you fighting demons and vampires and saving the world over and over again.

  • David Boreanaz as Angel, first on Buffy and then on the eponymous TV series. Broody, morose, dark and tragic. A vampire Hamlet.
  • Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I envy Alyson Hannigan.
  • James Marsters as Spike, a.k.a. William the Bloody. Just for the record, I’m one of those who believe in Spike and Buffy 4 Ever. S.W.A.K.
  • J. August Richards as Charles Gunn. He almost didn’t make the list, ‘cause his selfish actions led to the death of Fred, but I can’t deny that bod’!
  • Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles. Loved him ever since the Folger commercials. ‘Sides, I’m a sucker for British accents. Ask John Higgins.

What’cha think of my choices, fellow geek women? Who are yours? Martha, y’ wanna start?

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MINDY NEWELL is Grumpy

I’ve been in a grumpy mood all weekend. I don’t know why exactly… and I made it worse today because, being in a grumpy mood yesterday, I didn’t work on my paper for school – the topic being An Ethical Analysis of a Current Domestic or Global Issue, and normally I love to talk ethics and issues with a capital “I,” but I just was so grumpy, I couldn’t get my interest going – which of course I should have, but I blew it off.

Which meant that I had to do it all today, which led to me missing the Giants game against the Seahawks. Which they lost 36 – 25. And yesterday was Yom Kippur, but I was grumpy, so I blew off going to temple, too, which made me feel terribly guilty, but I grumpily chose to feel guilty rather than do the right thing and go to temple with my parents. Who are really getting up there in age and who knows if we’ll all be here next year, and would it really have been so horrible to go to temple for a few hours and make them happy?

Although I did fast. Sort of. Meaning I drank a lot of Diet Pepsi and smoked a pack of cigarettes while being grumpy and watching The Dick Van Dyke Show on TV Land. So I’m feeling guilty and grumpy about not going to temple yesterday, even though my parents were totally cool with it, and anyway, I haven’t gone to temple since 9/11, when I just decided that all organized religions totally suck.

And I’m grumpy because I’m not all that happy with my paper, which is called “There’s Something Happening Here” and is about the Occupy Wall Street Protests and the unethical practices of Wall Street (which of course is enough to make anyone grumpy) and the bullshit crap about Occupy Wall Street that’s coming out of the mouths of people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and John Boehner (which should make everybody grumpy, but it doesn’t, which makes me even more grumpy), and there’s so much to say, but I had a word limit, which I went over, which makes me grumpy, and with my luck my professor is a member of the Tea Party, which will really make me grumpy if it’s true.

But this column’s supposed to be about comics.

So what did I read this weekend? Well, I wanted to critique Catwoman #1 of DC’s New 52, because I have a special interest in Selena, having written the first Catwoman mini-series, and it’s been making me grumpy that in that series I wanted Selena to deliberately throw the bad guy who had raped her sister off the catwalk, but the powers-that-be at DC at the time wouldn’t let me ‘cause “Selena a cold-blooded killer? Nonononono, bad, Mindy, bad,” but apparently now it’s okay to show Selena and Bruce doing the dirty on a roof in total Photoshopped glorious color. But my comic book shop guy screwed up the order for the second week in a row now, which has also made me grumpy.

But I did pick up Batgirl #1 by my gal friend Gail Simone and artists Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes along with Wonder Woman #1 by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, and Action Comics #2 by Grant Morrison, Rags Morales, Brent Anderson and Rick Bryant. Plus Green Lantern, Batwoman and Voodoo. But it’s making me grumpy that I’m behind the eight ball and it feels like everybody else has already put their two cents in.

Gail does her usually superb job writing Barbara Gordon, and I’m trusting her to answer why Barbara remembers being shot by the Joker and being in a wheelchair for three years if none of the characters are supposed to remember their previous incarnations. Or is it that she just doesn’t remember her time as Oracle? But I really like that the emotional and psychological reverberations of the Joker’s attack are still there. It would make no sense if Barbara was just “la-di-di-dah.” I’m trusting Gail to follow through with this for quite a while. No instant fixes, please, girlfriend! The artwork made me a little grumpy though.

Wonder Woman is always her best, imho, when her Hellenic background plays a strong part in her book. Which is why I loved Wonder Woman! I especially liked the cape worn by unidentified bad guy who pulls a “Godfather” on the horse in the stable. (The bad guy is only unidentified if you’ve never read any Greek mythology and so don’t get the significance of that particular cape.) Brian Azzarello does his usual brilliant job at dialogue, dropping hints and making the characters come alive. The artwork definitely did not make me feel grumpy.

Action Comics #2 is sucking me in but good! Special highlight for me was the “exclusive peek behind the scenes” at the development of the characters and artwork. Especially the artwork. As a writer who can’t draw beyond a stick figure, I love seeing (or reading) how an artist makes the magic.

I wasn’t feeling grumpy there for a few minutes, but now I’m grumpy again because I didn’t have time to read the rest of my haul, which puts me even further into the backfield. But I’ve run out of room anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t be grumpy.

Except that I’m running really, really late on this column (again!) and that’s making me grumpy.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MINDY NEWELL: Go, Giants! And You Too, DC!

Just some rambling…

DC’s New 52 made the New York Times again. The title of the article is “So Far, Sales For New DC Comics Are Super,” by George Gene Gustines and Adam W. Kepler was published on Saturday, October 1, 2011 issue, and was featured on the front page of the Arts Section. According the article, the first five weeks of DC’s reboot of its universe has increased “the sales of DC Comics by leaps and bounds.” The first issue of the new Justice League – which the authors call DC’s flagship book. Really? I would have thought it was Superman, since the Son of Krypton is the flagship character. But what do I know? – anyway, the first issue sold “more than 200,000 copies, compared with the roughly 40,000 for each of the last few issues of the old book.” Well, I hope it keeps up, but these are the first issues. I think it’s a little early to call it a win – after all, the NY Giants just pulled out a win over the Arizona Cardinals in the last three minutes of the game.

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MINDY NEWELL: SuperGod – Thus Spake Zarathustra

I came home from work on Friday to find a package had arrived from Amazon. It was Supergods, by Grant Morrison. I had first heard about the book while reading the Rolling Stone interview with Morrison, which I mentioned last week. Between that interview and all the hoo-hah about Action Comics Vol. 2 #1, both my own reaction and those in the media, I had to read it.

(The debate continues, by the way. Today, Sunday, National Pubic Radio – NPR – devoted a segment of its “Studio 60” program to the reboot, with two interviews: the first with a comic book shop owner in Brooklyn, and the second with Jill Pantozzi, who herself is a redhead and in a wheelchair. Jill wrote an absolutely brilliant and terrific Op-Ed piece for Newsarama about the transformation of Oracle back into Batgirl, entitled Oracle Is Stronger Than Batgirl Will Ever Be. You should check it out.)

Anyway, back to Supergods. The subtitle is “What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, And A Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human.” I’ve only read the introduction, and browsed through it, and already I’m enthralled.

Now granted (no pun intended – or maybe it was), Morrison is not the first to write about the mythology, the übergeist – I think I just made up that one from a combination of Yiddish and German – the collective consciousness of humans creating heroes to reflect themselves, their darkness and their light, their trial and tribulations. If you didn’t have to read it in college, you learned about Joseph Campbell and The Hero With A Thousand Faces from George Lucas through a little thing called Star Wars. But as one of the preeminent contemporary writers of superheroes, I can’t wait to really sit down and read it.

I think about God a lot. When I was a little girl, I had this recurring dream. I was somewhere in the middle of a field. It looked like the field in “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, complete with the farmhouse at the top of the hill. Of course it was a dream, so it was a totally warped “Christina’s World.” I was standing there, and it was blue skies and sun. All of a sudden the sky was black with clouds. There was an absolutely huuuuge clap of thunder and a lightning bolt, and suddenly God was standing before me. Well, all I could see was the bottom of his long, black Supreme Court Justice robe. I craned my head up and back and up and back and the robe went up and up and up beyond the sky. Then God bent over, and I could see His face, and it wasn’t happy. His long white hair and beard mixed with the grasses of the field, and He looked at me with stern black eyes, and just shook his finger at me as if to say, “You’re a bad, bad girl, Mindy.”

I don’t know why I dreamed that dream. Probably got punished by my mother or my father for something I did that I don’t remember. Talk about Jewish guilt!

God and theology continued to fascinate me as I grew up. I didn’t go to Hebrew school, wasn’t bas-mitzvahed, and I got kicked out of Communion class for asking the rabbi how the Jews could be so sure that Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, and saying that maybe we just screwed it up. (I asked a lot of questions that the rabbi didn’t like, like the time I asked him if Jonathan and David were maybe more than “just friends.”) But I read all the stories from the Old Testament that my brother brought home, and I read bits and pieces of The New Testament. I devoured movies like The Robe and Quo Vadis, and brought the books home from the library. My favorite though was, and still is, Ben-Hur.

There’s a line in Ben-Hur towards the end, when Esther and Judah Ben-Hur are taking his mother and sister from the Valley of Lepers to see Jesus. Judah’s mother is afraid, and Esther says, “No need. The world is more than we know.”

I know it was only a line in a movie, but I think the writer got it right.

Like Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, maybe the world was created by God because he’s a writer, and that’s what writers do, create, and we’re just the four-color two-dimensional characters in his comic book. Like Alan Moore’s Promethea, maybe we create the world out of our collective consciousness. Like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, the world is nothing but a dream set in motion by Morpheus.

Maybe there’s an obelisk on the Moon, just waiting to be discovered.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

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