Category: Columns

Mike Gold: Imitation Is The Sincerest Form of Thievery

Brave and Bold 109 S&SThe 1950s were a time of great experimentation for comic book publishers. Retail outlets were disappearing and post-war military scale-backs undermined PX sales. Superman was kept alive by its massive television exposure, but virtually all other superhero comics were either gone or in deep trouble.

Necessity being the mother of invention, comics publishers back then had no choice but to try new ideas and concepts. Western comics were hit-or-miss; those that featured top-line movie stars or characters were doing okay, the others were sort of meh. Romance comics, teevee tie-ins and some funny animal books were selling. The horror and crime comics that had been keeping publishers such as EC, Harvey and Gleason in the money were being condemned by the media, camera-hungry politicians and sanctimonious self-appointed “experts.”

So until DC and Marvel finally succeeded in rejuvenating the superhero genre, experimentation was the watchword of that decade. And that brings me to the subject of Robert Kanigher.

Brtave and Bold 314 S&SThis man was a legend. A writer and editor, Bob was best known for creating or co-creating Sgt. Rock, the Metal Men (over a weekend, no less), the silver age versions of The Flash and Wonder Woman, Poison Ivy, Rose and Thorn, Ragman, the Viking Prince, Sea Devils, and Enemy Ace. On the other hand, Kanigher was also… well… according to Wikipedia: “Kanigher was as well known for his unstable personality and violent temper as he was for his brilliance as a writer.”

I can attest to this personally, even though we got along quite well. When he died in 2002, I phoned a major comics writer/artist, a decent, considerate and polite man with a fine sense of humor who was a student of Bob’s at the Joe Kubert School. He immediately let out a joyous rebel yell that could halt a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.

Kanigher also had a fantastic memory.

When DC Comics was searching for new ideas and formats, he came up with quite a few – and most of them were quite good. Some were brilliant. He started up a title called The Brave and the Bold which initially featured legendary white knight types such as The Silent Knight, the Golden Gladiator and the Viking Prince. In issue #25, he dumped the swordplay in favor of a new series, Task Force X – The Suicide Squad.

Ace G-ManThis Suicide Squad ran six issues before being retired to the Old Comic Book Characters’ Home. The name was resurrected by John Ostrander in the mid-1980s in the Legends mini-series, and that’s the concept that was in the Arrow teevee series and will be in the movie theaters in August.

But The Brave and the Bold was not where the Suicide Squad first met the public. In fact, The Brave and the Bold was not where the The Brave and the Bold first met the public.

Shortly after the turn of the last century, Street and Smith started up a weekly prose magazine on pulpwood paper featuring rip-roaring adventures. It was called Brave and Bold, and it ran for 429 issues. Not a bad run at all. Publisher of Nick Carter Weekly, Street and Smith went on to create The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Avenger and many others.

The Suicide Squad is another matter. There was no such magazine under that name before Kanigher’s creation. However, The Suicide Squad was the very popular lead feature in Ace G-Man Stories. The G-Men (government men; the movies’ version of a highly idealized FBI) genre was very popular in our media and as far as the pulp era was concerned, The Suicide Squad was the leader of the pack. Created by Emile C. Tepperman (Operator 5, The Spider, Secret Agent X) the series ran from 1939 to 1943, when the host title was cancelled due to wartime paper shortages. All or almost all of these stories remain in print in anthologies and in electronic books.

Sky Devils PulpSo… did Bob Kanigher “borrow” these names? Let’s be fair: they were not under trademark, and publishers recycled titles all the time. If you don’t believe me, riddle me this: if Fawcett sold its characters to DC Comics, why does Marvel publish Captain Marvel? Hint: it’s not because of the word “marvel.”

One more thing. In 1960 Bob Kanigher and artist Russ Heath created a series for DC called “Sea Devils,” debuting in Showcase #27. Some think that, perhaps, Bob was inspired by the 1953 movie of the same name, starring Yvonne De Carlo and Rock Hudson. Or, perhaps, Bob was inspired by the 1937 movie of the same name, starring Victor McLaglen and Ida Lupino. Or the 1931 movie of the same name, starring Molly O’Day and Edmund Burns.

Or maybe, just maybe, Bob’s encyclopedic memory stored the details of Sky Devils, a pulp series that ran from 1938 to 1940. That one was published by Martin Goodman, the man who, at that very time, was preparing to launch something called “Marvel Comics.”

Of course, that Sun Devils is not to be confused with DC’s Sun Devils, created by Gerry Conway and Dan Jurgens.

What goes around…

Joe Corallo: A ComicCon Of Many Flavors

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This past weekend was MoCCA Fest 2016, or for those of you unfamiliar, the Museum of Comic and Cartooning Art Festival. Since 2014 it has been put on by The Society of Illustrators. Once again it was held at a new venue, the Metropolitan West next to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museu. Highlighted guests included Sonny Liew (Doctor Fate, The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye) and Rebecca Sugar (Adventure Time, Steven Universe). As with the past few years, I attended both days.

noelle.mocca_final2I was fortunate enough to get into both Sonny Liew’s Spotlight discussion on Saturday and Rebecca Sugar’s on Sunday. Both of these discussions were eye opening not only in the words that were said, but in who was listening to them.

On Saturday, Sonny’s discussion was moderated by his Doctor Fate collaborator, Paul Levitz. And you know that it’s an important discussion when people like Columbia University’s Karen Green and legendary storyteller David Mazzucchelli are sitting front row center for it. Sonny Liew was introduced to me through his work on DC’s most recent efforts to reintroduce Doctor Fate. Being a fan of Paul’s and following his Legion run in the New 52 as well as part of his World’s Finest run, I was looking forward to checking out Doctor Fate when it premiered last year. What kept me going on Doctor Fate was more than just Paul’s ability to craft a story, but Sonny Liew really knocking the art out of the park.

Another important element of this all was the diversity in Doctor Fate. After some 75 years, Doctor Fate is Egyptian in the main DC continuity. Granted, James Robinson and Brett Booth beat Paul and Sonny (not by much, but still) in Earth 2 continuity, but that Doctor Fate didn’t have his own solo title. And Doctor Fate is a character that really should be represented by someone of either African or Middle Eastern heritage. It was a (too) long time coming, but I’m glad DC got there.

Even then, that might not even be most important element of the diversity in Doctor Fate. Sonny Liew is. On the Friday before MoCCA Fest, Sonny and Paul were signing at Midtown Comics Downtown. Sonny Liew is a Malaysian-born artist residing in Singapore that was in town for MoCCA Fest. He’s had worked published on and off for over a decade at both Marvel and DC. His latest works with Doctor Fate as well as new hit creator-owned graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye have increased his profile. It’s how I became aware of him, despite loving Marc Hempel’s work and not realizing he also worked on My Faith In Frankie with Marc.

The point I’m getting at is at both the signing at Midtown Comics and the discussion at MoCCA, many people in attendance were of Asian heritage. A young man sitting by me was furiously taking notes and anxiously awaited his turn to ask Sonny Liew a question about how to be a better artist. Non-white women and men were excited by Sonny Liew and engaged in the discussion. This is important. This is the only way comics (and any entertainment medium) can have a future. Different people with different backgrounds and different stories to tell need to feel not only welcomed, but encouraged to participate. Sonny Liew is not only putting out great work on his own, but he’s inspiring other people to as well.

Rebecca SugarSunday was about all about Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar. If you were in attendance, you saw some people wearing their red t-shirts with a yellow star in the middle just like Steven Universe’s shirt. Sunday, however, such apparel was a phenomenon. Many people were decked out in Steven Universe merch or homemade creations. A line wrapped around the Ink 48 hotel where the panels were held. I was able to get into the discussion moderated by Ryan Sands, but by then it was standing room only. It was packed to the absolute limit. The excitement was contagious, and if you scanned the room, there was a smile on everyone’s face.

From the moment she began talking, the room hung on to every word she said. She talked candidly about her life and her creations in a way that’s rarely scene at these sort of conventions. She talked with an immense appreciation to all of her fans, and humbly about her roles at Adventure Time and Steven Universe at Cartoon Network. All of the points she made were encouraging ones. She pushed people to create. To always strive to be better. She talked about how Steven Universe is for her brother who is not only her best friend, but someone who helped her to strive and be a better artist. She took out her ukulele at one point and played the song “So This Is Love” from Disney’s Cinderella which meant a lot to her and she only played before in front of Ian, her boyfriend. You can watch that here. It was moving. You could barely hear a pin drop. She even mentioned she wrote some poems and wasn’t planning on reading them, but when everyone in the audience could be heard gasping in delight when talked about her poems, she read one anyway.

Once it came to the audience questions, people of all different ages, races, orientations and gender identities were given a chance to ask her everything from how to be a better artist to how can I geek out in front of you without being scary. It was honestly one of the most diverse groups of people I’ve ever seen at a convention discussion before, if not the most that wasn’t specifically about diversity.

You know why that is?

It’s because the audience Steven Universe has is that diverse. Rebecca Sugar unapologetically explores gender politics, alternative families, queer romance, and much more in a sci-fi cartoon that offers something for a wider audience than most television ever has before, if not offering the most for a wider audience. She also has the honor of being the first woman to solely create a show for Cartoon Network, proving once again that diversity works for everyone. It lifts us all up.

Rebecca Sugar also had advice on comics, the medium in which she started out. She suggested to any artist that wants to break into cartooning, that doing your own comics is the best way to start. No one can stop you from making them. She warned that doesn’t mean people read them, as she states from her personal experience, but it’s the only way you’ll get better. The same holds true for writing. No one can stop a writer from writing writing a script, a poem, a song. The only person stopping you is you. So stop it.

I left MoCCA Fest this year feeling inspired, and I don’t seem to be the only one. Which is good. I even felt less cynical. Having coffee with Molly Jackson after the show, the song “It’s All Been Done” by Barenaked Ladies came on. And you know what? I didn’t believe it this time. I’m never going to believe it again. It hasn’t all been done. So many voices have never been heard. More than we can even comprehend. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. Just you wait.

We need more Rebecca Sugars in the world with a creative voice. A lot more. I wish I was more like her. A lot of people do. And that’s what we all need. This is only the beginning.

 

Ed Catto: World’s Finest Anticipation… and Trepidation

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There’s something about team-ups that fascinate fans. And on the big screen, movies like Frankenstein Meets Dracula to Godzilla vs. King Kong, and AVP: Alien vs. Predator were all “can’t miss” affairs. Well, I actually did miss the last one, but it you get the idea.

317514-18006-124029-1-world-s-finest-comicAs I write this, the newest superhero blockbuster, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice premieres tomorrow. I’m sure the debut has been analyzed to death by the time this column is out, but there’s some strange things going on. And I wanted to analyze it all before the starting gun officially went off and pop culture runs full speed down the track.

One peculiar thing is that I can’t believe I’m not more excited about this movie. If I were to go back in time (ala last week’s column) to tell my 10-year old self that there will one day be a blockbuster movie starring Batman and Superman –together – he’d never believe me.

For years, comic fans delighted to Batman and Superman teaming up in the pages of World’s Finest Comics.  That was one of those comic series with a heart that was hitting its super-stride just as I was really getting into comics. In the late sixties, World’s Finest released a bunch of classic issues in quick succession:

  • World's Finest 169-00fcIn World’s Finest #168, Batman Superman and Robin fought the Composite Superman. He was a creepy bad-guy sporting a half-Superman, half-Batman look with Kryptonite skin. And he had all the powers of the Legion of Superheroes characters. He was one bad guy that gave me nightmares.
  • Batman and Superman struggled to change the Batmobile’s flat tire while Supergirl and Batgirl snickered at them, hidden behind a fence in issue #169. How could that be? A must-read!
  • Issue #175’s powerful Neal Adams art detailed Superman and Batman’s annual contest. But that particular year, the tradition would be interrupted by two criminal clubs bent of revenge of the World’s Finest Duo.
  • Superman and Batman had a King Arthur adventure in issue #162. This story contributed to my life-long interest in all things Arthurian. Of course, in this story, each of the Knights of Round Table had a different super power. I don’t think Mallory ever could have envisioned that plot twist.ad_wf170oct1967
  • Issue #170 was an 80 Page Giant – a real treat back then –representing seven classic World’s Finest
  • World’s Finest #184 was a shocker, even though it was an “imaginary tale”. Batman dies and Robin seeks revenge!

And I’ll never forget that 1968 double page spread ad for CBS’s new Saturday morning cartoons. There were Superman, Batman and Robin. I clearly remember wondering if they’d all be in one adventure, ala World’s Finest. Spoiler alert – they didn’t team-up.

It’s easy to forget that in the mid-80’s, John Byrne’s Superman reboot and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns presented fans with an idea that was radical at the time – what if Batman and Superman weren’t friends? By now, it’s baked into the mythology and not a radical idea at all, but back then it was almost sacrilegious. But after forty years of the World’s Finest team-ups, we all knew it was time for a change in the status quo.

For this Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice movie, there is a lot of anxiety in Geek Culture and beyond. Before the movie debuted, the 13th Dimension wondered what effect early negative reviews will have on the cinematic plans for the DC heroes and Forbes had written about how Warner Brothers had destroyed the Superman brand.

On the other hand, let’s compare and contrast this to the other big super hero team-up. In Monday’s episode of CBS’s Supergirl, the Flash is scheduled to drop in for an adventure! With his incredible speed powers, he can travel through time, across dimensions and between networks!

This reminds me of when Oscar Goldman was hopping between networks to spend time with both of his bionic friends. The Six Million Dollar Man was on ABC and The Bionic Woman, having been cancelled by that network, was picked up by NBC.

I’m not hearing any anxiety about this TV team-up of Flash and Supergirl. In fact, it’s more reminiscent of a favorite cousin coming to visit during the holidays. It will be fun and you just can’t wait. There’s no overthinking involved.

But the brands of these heroes are different. The cinematic Superman and Batman are dour and serious, while their television counterparts have picked up the mantle of fun and hope. In fact, you may have seen this wonderful open letter a mom wrote to Supergirl stars Melisa Benoist and Chyler Leigh after meeting them at the recent C2E2 comic convention. She talked about what an inspiration these women are in their roles, and especially as they deal with issues of adoption and the effects on families. Carrie Goldman’s article is worth a read.

Movie and TV adaptations are a big deal. I’m currently enjoying Sundance’s Hap and Leonard, adapted from the Joe Lansdale novels. For me it’s still fresh and astounding to see these characters live as a TV series, even though there have been about a bazillion detectives who’ve made the leap from the printed page to the screen.

And that’s why I have this perplexing anxiety about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice movie. I hope it’s wonderful and everyone –from the creators to the studio to the theaters to the promotional tie-in partners – enjoy great success.

But now that this World’s Finest movie is finally here, I feel like I have to tell my 10-year old self, in classic geek fashion “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting.” We’ll see. And I’m eager to hear your opinions, too. What did you think?

Oh, and I’m also worried I’ll eat too much popcorn. But that’s a worry I have with every movie.

CBS SATURDAY MORNINGS 1968

John Ostrander: Through The Years

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I recently was talking to my friend and frequent (and upcoming) collaborator, Jan Duursema, about just the technological changes I’ve seen in comics over the course of my career. It must be getting close to thirty years since I began all this.

When I first started, I wrote my plots and scripts on a manual typewriter with a carbon copy for me. For you boys and girls who don’t know what a carbon was, it was a black inked piece of paper that you placed between the first and second pieces of paper. As the typewriter key struck the first page, the force of it would penetrate the carbon and leave an identical letter on the second page. If you hit it hard enough. In theory.

When I began, I wrote out my plots and scripts in longhand on yellow legal sized pads of paper from which I would then transcribe to the typewriter. It was easier to make corrections on the yellow pad than on the typed page. There, if you even made a spelling mistake, you had to haul out the Wite-Out (sic) or Liquid Paper. These were small round bottles of white paint with a cap with a small brush in it and it was a pain to use. If you didn’t seal it up properly, the liquid would dry out and become unusable. Some inkers who use it to this day either for corrections or to create effects.

When I worked at First Comics, I lived in Rogers Park which is on the far north side of Chicago. The First Comics’ offices were originally in Evanston and I could walk there or take a quick elevated train trip and drop off the plot or script. It got more complicated when I started working for DC Comics as well. Their offices were in New York City and I couldn’t easily walk my stories there.

If I got my work done soon enough before deadline, I could use the U.S. mail but, as my good friend and oft-times editor Mike Gold could tell you, that is usually an unlikely occurrence. Mike once called me on a script I was doing for him and informed me I had gone past deadline and was approaching funeral line.

More often I used Federal Express and usually their overnight delivery service. DC and Marvel both provided pre-paid shipping labels in those days but, still, there were too often the mad dashes to the FedEx office. The closest one to me, by odd happenstance, was in Evanston near the First Comics offices. The key was to get there before it closed (promptly at 5 PM as I recall). If you missed it and you had to get the script in the next day, it necessitated the late night run to the central FedEx office out near the airport. When I finished the writing really late, it meant a mad dash to try to get to that FedEx office before it closed at midnight. I remember one especially hairy run with my wife, Kim, driving and running red lights while I stuffed the pages onto the envelope and completed the shipping label. Some nights it was like a gathering of the local comic book fraternity of both writers and artists as we all tried to slip in under our respective deadlines.

I thought I had graduated to technical nirvana when I traded the manual typewriter in for an electric one. This one had a correcting ribbon built in! However, this was also soon replaced when I bought my first computer. Mike and others in the industry had been pressuring me to get one but, as usual, I was resistant. I am usually not the first to embrace a new technology. I may not be the dead last to do so but it’s usually a near thing. I got a Mac because that’s what most of the people I knew in the industry had.

Side note: one of the beefs I have with the movie Independence Day was that, at the climax, the alien mothership is destroyed by a computer virus introduced into its systems by a Mac computer. Macs couldn’t talk much with other computers on Earth; it can talk to an alien computer? Bah!

Working with a computer enabled me to quickly correct mistakes and, as I went on, I discovered spell-check. An even bigger discovery was the Internet and email. With email, I could simply send my work in and the offices would get it the next second. Which of course enabled me to push the deadline even harder.

With the Internet, I also discovered I could do my research when I needed it without setting foot outside my door. Previously, I had to go to the nearest available library during library hours, hoping they would have something. That wasn’t useful when I was working on something in the middle of the night. With the Internet and search engines, I could look up anything at any time.

Sometimes, however, you can get lost in research. I remember on an early Suicide Squad story I spent a lot of time looking up Soviet train schedules to see if my team could possibly get to certain places I said they got at the times when I had them doing that. Was that strictly necessary for the story to work? Well, no. But I think I hit my obsessed button and I couldn’t get out.

Another advantage of working with computer was that I could work more efficiently and could take on more assignments. OTOH, it also offers many more ways of goofing off. Hellooooo, Facebook!

These days I no longer write my stories out long hand; I compose right on the computer. However, I do use a written journal with which to work out the stories and characters. That still feels more natural. My thoughts seem to flow from my brain down my arm through my pen and onto the page. It’s more organic, more creative, for me that way.

The point of all this is that while I have had a good long career it hasn’t been that long since my days with the manual typewriter and the Liquid Paper. I’ll probably be getting another computer fairly soon; I’ve had the one on which I write this for more than a few years and it’s time. I suspect I won’t fully understand everything the new computer does; I doubt if I really understand even half of what my current one does. Technology has made me a more prolific writer – but has it made me a better one? Actually, I think it has. Re-writing has become easier, for one thing.

However, I don’t think it has made me better on my deadlines. How close am I to the funeral line, Mike?

Martha Thomases: Vex & Comics & Rock & Roll

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Every Monday my Facebook feed is filled with people kvetching about Vinyl, the new HBO series created by Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winters. Every criticism I see is valid (the pace is slow, the characters and the situations in which they find themselves are unbelievable), but I still kind of like it.

If you haven’t watched, you should know that Vinyl is about a record company struggling through the changes in music and culture in the early mid-1970s. I moved to New York full time a few years later, so perhaps some of the reason I like it is that it reminds me of my lost youth.

Bobby Cannavale plays Richie Finestra, the head of the company, a drug addict with no moral code (is that redundant?) who uses people in his pursuit of money and more drugs. We are supposed to believe that his love of rock’n’roll redeems him.

I love Cannavale. I love most of the actors in the series, with special shout-outs to Olivia Wilde, Ray Romano and Juno Temple. My problem with the series is that all of the characters are horrible human beings. I would not like any of them if I actually met them. Even Wilde’s character, Finestra’s wife who is struggling to break out of her housewife prison and be an artist like she was before her marriage (hanging out with Andy Warhol), just seems to me to be someone who has coasted on her beauty her entire life, now forced to adjust to middle age.

Richie is especially vile. If he wasn’t played by such a charismatic actor, I think we would all realize what a poser he is. He wants to go to the Mercer Arts Center and listen to the New York Dolls? He wants to sign a punk band? He’s an opportunist. I mean, that is almost his job description.

All of this was brought home to me when I saw CBGB, currently on Netflix. This movie covers the same era in the New York music scene, but from the perspective of Hilly Kristal (Alan Rickman), the man who started CBGBs, the punk club on the Bowery. There is a fictional record company guy, Nicky Gant, played by Bradley Whitford, who may be similar to Richie but who is clearly seen as contemptible by everyone else.

CBGB isn’t perfect movie but, unlike Vinyl, it’s fun. And you know one of the things that makes it fun? Comics!

Comics were a huge part of the punk scene. For one thing, some people credit Punk Magazine with giving the scene its name. (Note: some people do not. This is a pointless argument. Who cares?) I’ve written before about how important I think Punk was (and still is). This movie agrees with me, giving John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil prominent roles. It’s clear that the creative people on the scene at CBGBs did not take themselves as seriously as the people on Vinyl. They love comics, too.

There is also a large, deep cast, with talented actors (Alan Rickman, Malin Ackerman, Donal Logue, Rupert Grint, Estelle Harris, Stana Katic, Freddie Rodriguez, just for starters) playing all sorts of people, some real, some fictional. Unlike in Vinyl, the female characters are defined by more than just their sexual availability (although most have sexual appetites because, like the male characters, they are humans). They are musicians and producers and journalists and business managers and fans. I’m not going to say that the punk scene was devoid of sexism (because it certainly was not), but this movie certainly sees it as an improvement over the rest of the world at the time. And, in some ways, it was.

In general, I’m happy to see my memories validated, because I won’t be truly satisfied until all entertainment acknowledges my importance.

•     •     •     •     •

And Another Thing: If you’re going to this year’s MoCCA Fest in New York this weekend, stroll down to the Medialia Gallery at 335 West 38th Street and check out the exhibit, “From Panel to Panel: Our Voices,” featuring comic art from women and their allies, including Regine Sawyer, Sara Wooley, Kenya Danino and lots, lots more.

Dennis O’Neil: Words, Finest

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What is wrong with you people? Yesterday, I heard that CBS might not renew Supergirl for a second year, which generally happens to a television show because not many people are watching it and so I ask again, what is wrong with you? It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do with your Monday evenings! I could tell you that as this is being typed, in a few hours, Supergirl will deliver to your screens a first. (Well, actually a second, but we’ll get to that.) But you won’t read this until four days from now – unless you’re too busy to read it! – and by then what I’m about to reveal will be history. The way you young people reckon time, ancient history.

Well, fudge. I’ll reveal it anyway. The current episode of CBS’s Maid of Might entertainment will feature a crossover! The Flash, hero of another show, will visit Supergirl and… they’ll do some pretty darn interesting stuff, I bet. Probably catch a villain or two, maybe more. Now, of course, such events aren’t exactly boggling in tv these days. Just recently, the cops of Law and Order SVU, set in Manhattan, visited the

Chicago cops and… caught a bad guy. Both SVU and Chicago PD have the same producer, Dick Wolf, and appear on the same network, NBC, so although the crossover was a big deal it wasn’t that big a deal. And it had happened before and may happen again.

But The Flash and Supergirl? Here’s what makes this a socks-knocker: the shows appear on different networks! Those of you who read comics – there are still some people who read, aren’t there? – may be aware that comics publishing’s two Giant Gorillas, Marvel and DC, have been staging print intercompany crossovers beginning, I think, with Superman vs Spider-Man in 1976. There have been others since – I’m not sure how many, but some. That’s print, an ancient technology of which you may have heard. But television? Count the palling up of Supergirl and the Flash as revolutionary.

Or maybe not. Way back, characters from two lawyer shows, The Practice, broadcast on ABC, and Fox’s Ally McBeal, met on each other’s turf. Both programs were created by David E. Kelley, so maybe the stunt wasn’t earth-shaking, but it was unprecedented. And it set a precedent which I, at least, will witness at eight tonight. You? Well, you don’t seem much interested in watching Supergirl. You certainly don’t watch it enough to keep it on the air. Is what’s on C-SPAN really all that enthralling?

Molly Jackson: Listen and Learn

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So Batman vs. Superman happened. It was a thing. I saw it. But instead of talking about the movie, I’m going to talk about how Batman inadvertently introduced me to my latest obsession.

So last week, I felt bored and restless. Despite the TV episodes backing up on my Hulu account and the ever-growing stack of books and comics, I just wasn’t interested. Finally, after several minutes of staring at my wall, I remembered that I had activated a new skill for my Echo. The Amazon Echo (because I am assuming you don’t know) is a voice-activated speaker that comes with skills rather than apps and mostly wants to assist you with buying more things from Amazon. Still, some of the features are really great and it’s the closest I’ll get to the computer on the Enterprise. My only real wish was that the activation word changed from “Alexa” to “Computer” so I can really go full-on Trekkie.

Ok, the skill I decided to finally try was the voice-powered choose-your-own-adventure game called The Wayne Investigation. Yup, it is exactly like it sounds. You get to catch the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne! That is, if you are one of the few people who owns an Amazon Echo. This was released as a promotion for BvS, but it was honestly more fun than the film itself. I relaxed on my bed and tried a number of the options. Even after catching the bad guy Joe Chill himself, I kept trying other scenarios. The writing was so well-done and intriguing.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed playing this story. It was a relaxing time but held my interest, despite being one of the most played out stories in comics. (It ties with Uncle Ben dying as totally overdone.) This is more amazing when I consider I have never liked audio books or listening to podcasts and news reports. I think that the difference is that this was created with the medium in mind.

Admittedly, the game stayed with me over the next few days. So when I caught a 24-hour bug that came with a killer headache, I thought about how nice it was to listen to a story created for the auditory senses. That’s when I finally listened to a friend of mine and gave the podcast Welcome to Nightvale a shot.

It’s a radio show that provides community news and updates for the fictional town of Nightvale. Stylized like a serialized radio show on acid; the mix of sci-fi, horror, and sarcasm script a haunting and engrossing tale. And it is the only thing I’ve listened to in the past week. I kept putting off writing this column because I needed to hear what happened next.

It is an engrossing tale in the simplest of ways, with twists coming out of every turn almost because they can. It is almost all told from the perspective of the radio host Cecil, who provides his own commentary on the unusual and bizarre rules of this crazy town. I’ve almost come to care more about the political dealings of this fictional town than reality, but that could be that the fiction makes more sense at this point. Nightvale has been running since 2012, so I still have plenty of episodes to binge.

Ok, so writing about audio stories on a comics site is a little weird. Comics is most definitely a visual medium. I recognize that I’m preaching the exact opposite of what we usually write about. However, sometimes a change is a good thing. The comic-born (and killed) Waynes went audio, and joined the weird and bizarre stories of Nightvale, which might one day grace the pages of a comic floppy.

So if you ever feel the need for a change in medium, listen to that need. Literally.

 

Mike Gold Reboots Mike Gold

Opus Reboot

Our erstwhile editor-in-chief decided, at the last possible minute, to take the day off. Off of what, we don’t know. But we believe he’s at his laboratory coming up with a way to reboot himself. Why not? Everybody else is doing it!

Unfortunately, this is akin to how Bizarro got his start. Rebooting Mike into Bizarro 2016 seems… highly logical.

He’ll probably write another review or something in a couple of days. His ego can’t handle prolonged invisibility.

Joe Corallo: The Joker’s Name

darkdetective1This past weekend was WonderCon out in LA. DC made many announcements about it’s upcoming Rebirth, some of which we already had some idea about. Now we were given information on creative teams, like Scott Snyder heading up All-Star Batman with rotating artists including Sean Murphy and Paul Pope, and James Tynion IV taking the reigns on the soon to be back-numbered Detective Comics. One of the other Bat family announcements was that they will soon be revealing the Joker’s name.

Why?

The short answer is that Batman found out his name when he asked that question on the Möbius chair in Justice League #42 (42, the answer to the ultimate question of life. Coincidence?). The long answer is a combination of figuring out how to handle a decades old franchise coupled with changes in audience expectations.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. Don’t we already know the Joker’s name? Many comic historians will tell you that the Joker is Jerry Robinson. Some out there may still argue his name is Bill Finger or even Bob Kane. Or maybe it was Conrad Veidt?

His name has changed many times over the years. Dick Sprang, Carmine Infantino, Denny O’Neil (Hi Denny!), Neal Adams, and many others. Personally, I liked when the Joker was both Marshall Rogers and Steve Englehart. Maybe sharing two minds helped to fuel his insanity. In more recent years, he’s gone by Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, Grant Morrison, Dave McKean, Tony Daniel, Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, and many other names.

Conrad Veidt JokerThere are some purists out there who will tell you that no, the Joker only has one name. They’ll argue with you that his one true name is Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, or Heath Ledger. Some new Joker worshippers are even claiming that his real name has been Jared Leto all along. Perhaps we’ll find out soon enough.

Now that I’ve had my fun, I’ll address the long answer to that question (kind of the sort of thing the Joker does, isn’t it?) of why we are finding out the Joker’s name. The real answer is we’ve changed a lot as a society. Part of that is entertainment is different. Oddly enough, in the disposable age where we create more garbage than ever, the one thing we won’t discard is a story.

Way back in May of 1939 when Batman debuted, back when the United States was only comprised of the continental 48, comics were not intended to be reprinted the way they are today. Audiences were not expected to stick around either. No one imagined that a nine-year old reading Batman would still follow that character for decades to come. All of that came later. Television was the same way. People used to just pump out television programs and if an episode was rushed and turned out to be pretty bad, who cares! People will forget by next week. Who would ever see it again?

Now that’s all changed. We’ve gone back and we’ve read many of those stories. We’ve tried to make continuity out of stories that were never intended to have any originally because we demand that the world makes sense. We even demand that the Joker makes sense. Part of making the Joker make sense is giving him a name.

Detective_Comics_475Personally, I have less than no interest in the Joker’s name. Just tell me a good story with the character. That’s not the point of the Joker. Audiences want it though. Or we think they do. In the age of the Internet, people want to know everything about the things they like. Many people “keep up” with comics by reading wiki entries of storylines at this point. Maybe it’ll sell a few comics too.

In defense of the decision to reveal the Joker’s name, audiences do appreciate an immersive world and I do appreciate that and I even enjoy that myself. Escapism is easier in a fully fleshed out world that we can imagine. When imaginary worlds leave out pieces of information like that, it can be harder to be immersed in that world. Plus, selling a few comics isn’t and shouldn’t be a bad thing. Having issues of comics sell big in this market helps to allow the wiggle room to try more experimental comics or to keep a critically acclaimed comic that might not be selling as well afloat for a few more months.

Either way, we’re finding out his name whether we like it or not. I could have sworn Tim Burton already told us his name was Jack. I don’t see why Burton would lie to us.

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