My knee is feeling much better. Thanks for asking.
More than a year ago, I shared my resolution to sample more new books. How’s that working out?
Two comics I bought last week show why trying new stuff is great.
Well, I mean, if trying a new series by two talents who have proven themselves over and over again can be called “new” stuff. Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang are at the top of their game in Paper Girls. The story of a group of four girls who deliver the morning newspaper in suburban Ohio, these two men manage to capture a lot of what it feels like to be pre-pubescent and female.
Of course, it’s much much more than that, with dreams and fights and scary creepy guys wrapped in mysterious robes. The creative team has a lot to play with, even if they limit themselves to the toys in the first issue.
(In an odd bit of synchronicity, the New York Times had an article this past Sunday about the disappearance of the word “tomboy”. I’m not sure if the main characters in Paper Girls are tomboys or not. The series is set in the 1980s, so they wouldn’t refute the Times’ thesis, which is too bad, because it is the kind of petty inconsequential fluff that the paper likes to equate with feminism.)
I also bought the third issue of Americatown, by Bradford Winters, Larry Cohen and Daniel Irizarri. When I bought the first issue, I was really proud of myself because I’d never heard of any of those guys. It turns out that Winters and Cohen have careers in television and movies, and are probably much more well known to the general public than the comic book talent I follow. I mean, Winters created The Americans, which I’m sure has more viewers than any comic book out there.
The premise is what intrigued me. In the near-future, the United States is no longer the economic and political utopia we present ourselves to be today. Large numbers of American citizens emigrate to other countries in an attempt to find a better life. The series looks at a group of people who sneak into Buenos Aires, and their attempts to avoid the law, find work, and take care of their families.
There’s a lot of entertaining detail here. The “Americatown” of the title makes me reconsider the stereotypes and downright racism I bring to a visit to Chinatown or Little Italy. And speaking of racism, I found it much easier to identify with the plight of the undocumented immigrants in this story because they look a bit like me and they speak English. Maybe this reflects poorly on me, but it shows the good stuff that can happen if more people read this series.
Have I picked up any duds lately? Yeah, probably. I didn’t like Public Relations at all, thanks to creepy sexism and jokes that weren’t funny enough. If you’re reading it and you like it, perhaps you can tell me what I’m missing. Please continue to enjoy anything that makes you happy.
Now, if only issue four of Airboy would come out ….
This week we close out our Top 13 (Not Scary) Halloween Movie List with the numbers 6 through 1. We disagree about Hocus Pocus, but come together on all things Tim Burton and Winnie The Pooh. You’ll also find out in this week’s episode what food Anya should dress up as for Halloween and learn about her famous Pants Dance. There’s also some girl crushing on Wednesday Addams and a our favorite non-musical Disney Channel Movie series.
We saw a science-fiction movie a few days ago. And you shrug: so what? Is there a multiplex in the land of the free that isn’t showing science-fiction? Especially if you count superheroes as SF?
There are a couple of answers to that question. Let us discuss.
When SF first began to creep onto the nation’s newsstands, and much less frequently into its bookstores, it was pretty easy to identify. It dealt with science, technology, distant worlds, extraterrestrials and, with few exceptions, the future. The heroes tended to be stalwart, competent, practical. Scientists, or maybe military guys. The odd engineer or two. The women were…there. Plots turned on the kind of stuff stalwart, competent and practical gentlemen might find themselves involved in. Endings were generally optimistic. (We might encounter evil aliens out there between the stars, we noble humans, and they might give us a lot of grief, but in the end we kicked their ass, or whatever passed for an ass on tentacled monsters.) Fine prose was not much of a concern. Plot and plain vanilla storytelling – those were foremost. The literati scoffed. If it’s good, the canard went, it isn’t science-fiction.
Then came the changes, as young and very smart writers who valued literary niceties and had spent some time in science classes began to explore the genre. They experimented and expanded SF’s parameters, but one rule of their predecessors remained pretty much inviolate: Writers weren’t allowed to contradict was known about the real world. They could extrapolate and, in effect, guess about where new technologies and scientific discoveries would take us, but they couldn’t just make this kind of stuff up.
By this criterion there hasn’t been much so-called “hard science-fiction” on screens for years. (We might rationalize the mini-miracles in, say, Star Wars, and your correspondent might not be above such activity, but explanations aren’t included in the script.)
As for comic books… the editor-god of the field, Stan Lee, once told me that readers will believe what we give them because we give it to them. In other words, they want to be entertained, not educated. No harm in that.
But twice recently, as a matter of fact, I have experienced hard SF in my local multiplex. Last year there was Gravity and though some eminent scientists complained that plot events couldn’t have happened as they were depicted, by and large the movie stuck to what is. Great flick, too. And that SF movie we saw a few days ago: It’s called The Martian and like Gravity it begins with a scientific blooper, one that the film makers were apparently aware of from the git-go and were willing to ignore for the sake of storytelling. Like Gravity, The Martian delivers plenty of entertainment while sticking pretty closely to those pesky facts.
I doubt that anyone would refuse to call The Martian science-fiction, despite the relative lack of glitz and spectacle. So yes: it’s SF.
All those other movies, the superheroes and all that play fast and loose with those facts?. Are they not SF? Maybe that should wait till next week.
I’ve learned a very important lesson this past week: Never ever start training for a new day job the day after a four-day convention. All it does is turn your completely exhausted brain to mush. However, with said new position I will have a very small amount of extra cash available to do something I miss. Set up a comics issue pull list at a local comic store (LCS).
Many moons ago I moved from the suburbs to the bright, shiny lights of NYC. When I did that, I left behind my LCS Amok Time (Go check them out, I still heart them so much!) and with it, my last pull list. I wanted to give myself a few months of trying on the large variety of comic shops in my area and finding one that fit well. Alas, a few months later when I was getting serious about committing, I ended up in a 14-month period of unemployment.
I made the responsible but not fun decision not to commit to buying single issues on a regular basis and began reading graphic novels from the local library, which I totally recommend. Being unemployed made me a little nervous about committing to spending on a regular basis. Even after being employed steadily for almost two years, I am only now considering it because I am getting the aforementioned raise.
My real desire to move forward is all the amazing books starting to come out. At NYCC, I picked up a few things I have been meaning to check out and frankly, I am afraid I will miss an issue here or there. And after finally getting and reading Bitch Planet Vol. 1 at NYCC (I can almost hear EIC Mike Gold admonishing me for waiting so long), I don’t want to wait for Vol. 2 to come out. I want to see each issue unfold. I got issue #1 of We Are Robin (plus got it signed by Khary Randolph at NYCC) and almost missed issue #2 coming out this past week! Not to mention I only just discovered Paul Levitz’s Dr. Fate! Pull lists will mean I don’t always have to be on top of what comes out when.
So yes, it will be a very small pull list. Probably five or six titles at the max. I need to save a lot of my moolah for the future, like attending more conventions, so my LCS spending will still be at a minimum. However, part of my relationship with money is prioritizing what is important to me. Comics, like probably all of you, are important enough to me to bring lunch to work rather than buying or passing on some unneeded shopping.
And, I miss the special trip of picking up my pull.
She is, rightfully, symbolic of strong women who can take care of themselves, stand up for themselves, and help others – men and women alike – do the same. These are very good things. She started out before America entered World War II, so you can’t really attribute “Rosie the Riveter” juju to her origins: she was created at a time when most strong women were to be found in movies, and by then almost always in front of the camera and not behind it.
To be sure, there were plenty of other women super-heroes in comics. Some were spin-offs or sidekicks to male superheroes – Mary Marvel, Bulletgirl and the original Hawkgirl come to mind – but others were stand-alone creations: the original Black Widow (1940), Phantom Lady (1941), the original Black Cat (1942), Liberty Belle (1943), and my personal favorite, Miss Fury (1941), the only one of the bunch that was created, written and drawn by an actual woman. Wonder Woman thrived and was the principle reason DC Comics bought All-American Publications for the simplest and best of reasons: she was the most fully realized of them all.
But in lesser hands than those of her creators, she encountered her own glass ceiling.
Wonder Woman got her start in All-Star Comics #8, December 1941, as a nine-page feature backing up the usual Justice Society of America story. It was a bonus for the readers, as pages were added to the issue for the story. No mention was made of any of this on the cover. One month later, her series debuted in Sensation Comics #1 and she was so popular she was awarded her own title several months later.
She would return to All-Star Comics in 1942 when the Justice Society guys voted her in as their first female member, something long denied to Hawkgirl or Liberty Belle or even Merry, Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks (don’t ask). This was only a few months after the publication of Wonder Woman #1, and only 10 months after her debut appearance in All-Star.
Talk about the fast track. But, sadly, it was the fast track to that glass ceiling.
Wonder Woman joined the Justice Society not as a full-fledged member, but… wait for it… as the Society’s secretary.
No shit. While the readers’ moms were working at the defense plant, the phenomenally popular super-heroine was relegated to taking notes about the adventures enjoyed by the men. In fact, just like Rosie the Riveter her position was only guaranteed “for the duration of the war.”
Whereas she occasionally played an enhanced role in the story, Wonder Woman did not become a fully active member of the team until All-Star Comics #38, December 1947, six years after her debut in the same title. Coincidently, that story also offered a guest-shot from Black Canary, who was asked to deliver a message (“everybody else in the JSA is dead”) to Wonder Woman. In turn, WW picked up the bodies of her fellow JSA members – her fellow JSA fellows – and brought them back to life using the Amazon’s Purple Ray, a staple in the Wonder Woman series.
Amusingly, it was Black Canary who saved the JSA members at the end of the story. As a reward… no, she wasn’t made the new secretary… she was given the team’s thanks and a nice pat on the back and was made an honorary member. Three issues later, Black Canary finally was given full membership.
When the Justice League of America debuted in 1960, Wonder Woman was there as a fully involved member of the team. I’d say this represented progress, and I guess it did but those initial stories only had five fighting members of the team, Superman and Batman being “too busy” to join in the fun. That only left four other DC superheroes plus Wonder Woman. But there was no relegation to second-class status for the iconic heroine… and that does represent progress.
It would be a while until women were regularly involved in creating Wonder Woman’s stories, not to mention those of the other DC superheroes which were expanding like amoebas. But, hey, Eisenhower was president. The New Frontier didn’t start until the following year.
In almost four years of reviewing movies the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been in a movie theater was watching Mama, the 2013 horror movie produced by Guillermo del Toro. I remember very few of the particulars of that movie but what I remember quite viscerally was scene after scene of being transfixed by the action on the screen and wanting nothing more than for it to be over. Crimson Peak is the first movie since then to recreate that feeling so precisely, when the movie wanted to scare me I was consistently scared to what I believe to be the maximum level I can be scared while watching a movie. No matter what else I thought about the movie, it was completely successful at its objective and that’s worth a lot.
Guillermo del Toro seems as if he was put on this earth to make a movie set in a decaying Victorian manor house full of ghosts. It takes a little while to get to the titular setting, but once we’re there the movie is consistently breathtakingly beautiful. The house is falling apart, the roof is barely present in the main hall, the pipes run with blood red water, and the house is sinking in to a foundation of soft red clay and every little detail is the perfect visual metaphor for the story at hand. Crimson Peak has the perfect gothic look and it seems so effortless; like what Tim Burton would do if he could let go of being quite so precious.
I suppose if we keep the Burton metaphor alive, then Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain feel more than a little like a redux version of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, but that’s not giving either actor enough credit. Neither makes me feel quite as weary playing well-worn gothic archetypes, although between this and Only Lovers Left Alive, Hiddleston should probably watch his step. Chastain is especially good in this and is playing so far against her normal type that she becomes almost completely enveloped in the role of Lucile. Lucile is a magnetic character that demands attention whenever she’s on screen, and while she never has to share the screen with one of the film’s grotesque ghosts I would say she’s even more arresting in the frame.
I’ve said that this movie is terrifying, beautiful, and has standout acting, but unfortunately the story is a little thin. The actual plot is very straightforward, and anyone who has regularly consumed any media at all in their life will know all the twists and turns of the plot in the first half hour or so. All roads lead in one direction and the film happily chugs along that path with no real diversion and a handful of pit stops to show off some horrifying ghost effects. It doesn’t make the movie less enjoyable to watch, it’s always the journey more than the destination with any piece of narrative, but it would have been nice to be surprised by something that wasn’t a specter bursting through a wall or floor.
I’m deeply impressed by Crimson Peak, and I sincerely hope that del Toro goes and does a few more things before returning to horror. I would love to see a Pacific Rim sequel or another Hellboy movie or if he still has the desire to do an endless fantasy epic after his adaptation of The Hobbit fell through I would gladly watch that. I could use another 30-month break before I have to squirm through a collection of scenes as scary as I was given in Crimson Peak or that he influenced in his work on Mama. I’m delighted to get to watch a master work the way del Toro makes horror movies but I’m afraid I just don’t have the constitution— and more than that, I’m afraid to see what he’ll do to scare me next time.
My boy Marvin Haynes and I just knew we were going to get caught, go to jail if lucky, get shot if not.
Nassau County in Long Island New York once (maybe still) had the highest paid police force in the country. Some of the homes in the Five Towns area of the county were so grand as a young child I thought they were department stores. That highly paid police force made sure nary a worry would the residents of Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, and Hewlett have.
There was very little crime in Nassau County and no black people. The only place you would see people of color in Five Towns were the shopping malls or the cotton fields. Cotton fields? Can’t say I ever saw them, but I was born free.
Give that a second…
This was a community African Americans were not welcome in and the towns made no attempt to hide that. The city council must have been high when they green lit a shopping mall that featured low cost anchor stores black people loved. Most likely they were unaware that black people could read or perhaps figured we wouldn’t
But I think they were high.
Mays, Times Square Stores, (TSS.)and Korvettes were Mecca to poor black people back in the day. Throw in a Robert Hall store and poor black people living in the hood would gladly travel a great distance at least once in their lives to shop there. The funny thing is poor black people lived rather close to Nassau County but distance does not equality make.
Marvin and I lived in Far Rockaway Queens or as we called it, the Rock. He lived in Redfern, I was from Edgemere. Both were housing projects in different hoods and if you were from one you didn’t even think about going to the other.
Think, Hatfield’s and McCoy’s, Crips and Bloods, Yankees and Red Sox, Ted Cruz and a clue.
Five Towns was surprisingly close to both of us. That’s because for some reason Far Rockaway is considered Queens and not Long Island. That’s mighty curious considering you have to pass Nassau County to get to Far Rockaway coming from most places in NYC. Just the name alone, Far Rockaway, would make those unaware of its location assume Long Island.
I wonder if it has something to do with all the poor people of color living there and Long Island property values. Far fetched? Maybe, but consider the world famous Beverly Hills California street Rodeo Drive. It’s pronounced ro-DAY-o. Fun Fact: Rodeo Drive runs from Beverly Hill all the way to the hood. However, where working people of color live it’s no longer Rodeo Drive (ro-DAY-o Drive), it’s now simply rodeo and its pronounced rodeo, as in bucking broncos and the like. That must be because of all those black cowboys who live there.
Whatever.
Marvin and I met at Five Towns that cold September Saturday night to have our first meal as future Masters of the Universe. There were no suitable eateries for such a moment where we lived, so it was off to Long Island.
That night became the most important night of my life up to that point. That evening we changed from boys to men and did so in the belly of the all-white beast. That night we faced down the beast that had wrought our lives in the past by limiting our future.
That was the night the future became our future. That September we became who we are today. So much happened that night but I remember it all without much help from my journals. I can’t believe how crisp in memory that night is to me still, It seems that night was both forever ago and yesterday.
Oh, and we robbed a white boy.
Yeah, we robbed a white boy, that’s why we were running. We crossed Rockaway Blvd at breakneck speed. It’s a miracle we didn’t actually break our necks. My cousin, Ronnie, had both legs broken when he tried that stunt a few years earlier. That was forefront in my mind. So why risk being crippled or perhaps death?
Let’s see, arrested in Five Towns or death?
No contest.
Our destination was Mays and its connected mall. That’s if by some divine miracle we made it, we figured we could lose ourselves amongst all the other black people there. But two black kids alone and outside in Five Towns we had no chance and we knew that.
I’m sure there were and are people in Long Island that welcome African Americans as they would any other American with respect and kindness. I know because I met one a long time ago… on that very night.
Rockaway Blvd. is a massive street, 4 lanes of traffic heavy with cars, the preferred route to JFK airport and the two massive shopping centers positioned on opposite sides of the Blvd. We were now across (thank you, Jesus!) the Blvd. and the bright red neon lights of Mays lit the way to our escape route, its connected mall.
We stopped running and resisting the urge to skip in happiness as we approached the welcoming doors of Mays. About 20 feet from the entrance the door opened and an officer appeared walkie-talkie in hand. He held the door and motioned us in… shit.
Part 2. Take The A Train
Two Years Earlier…
It was my first day at the High School of Art & Design. I didn’t know anyone, nor did I care. This was the first day of a true to life dream come true. From that moment in 6th grade when I was told there was a high school where you could study art I was determined to be admitted there.
I have never wanted anything so bad before or after. It was at Art & Design I started to develop a keen sense of my own life and what would be important to me. Somehow, I knew those scant years I spent at A&D would be the best years of my life, and they have been.
I was filled with joy but I was also a kid from Edgemere so when I met this Marvin from Redfern I was on guard. Edgemere and Redfern were always at war and I had to represent the best I could.
We unofficially met on the walk from the Lexington Ave 59 St. Subway Station. But I noticed him when I made the switch from the A Train at Broadway Nassau to the 5 Train. You tend to notice people from other Hoods more when you are away from yours.
Before long it was obvious we were going to the same place, but neither of us said anything to the other. This was our ritual for about two weeks. He would get on at the beginning of the line, Far Rockaway Mott Ave. Four stops later I would get on at Beach 60th Street.
Our official meeting came on a cold winter’s day when I had taken train back to Mott Ave. There was a little chance of me getting a seat at 60th street and in the cold of a Far Rockaway winter I wasn’t the only person backtracking to Mott Ave. There were so many people doing it the odds of Mott Ave. riders getting a seat was greatly reduced as well.
At Mott there were a ton of people waiting to get into the car. Marvin was one of the first into the car, on impulse moved my backpack off the seat next to me to allow him to sit down. “Thanks” and “Sure” were our first words exchanged.
Before long we had worked out a system. Depending on the time of year it was pretty easy to figure out when the seating situation would warrant action. To that end I’d save Marvin a seat if I backtracked and he’d save me a seat if I didn’t.
We soon became good, no, great friends.
The day Marvin told me he was a Fashion major, I was amazed at how much I’d grown since entering A&D. My first Redfern friend and he was gay on top of that!
To my surprise I had no problem with it. Up to that moment I’d spent my entire life thinking gay meant faggot and that meant sissy, punk, homo, pussy and assorted other names I’d knock a motherfucker out today for calling any of my gay friends such.
Back then I was a product of my environment. The atmosphere today in the black inner city is not much better and the black church isn’t helping much. But that’s another story someone can bitch about having no superheroes in.
It wasn’t until I saw Marvin leaving the 5th floor bathroom heading towards the up staircase to return to his 7th floor class, I learned he wasn’t a homosexual. “Why didn’t you just use the 7th floor bathroom?” Marvin stopped, looked at me then he started laughing. “Good one, Mike.”
At Art & Design, the 7th floor restrooms were unofficially reserved for homosexuals.
This was part of the magic of the High School of Art & Design. Two black kids from warring hoods could become the best of friends, a tradition of stupid prejudices wiped away in a few weeks and life long friendships you would know were going to be just that, life long friends.
One of the happiest and saddest days of my life was the same day. My graduation day was so bittersweet, even now thinking about it I’m moved from a huge smile to tears. It was that day Marvin and I decided we would not drift away as friends. So, a few months later there we were in Five Towns enjoying what, to both of us, was our first ‘adult’ meal at a real restaurant. Beefsteak Charlie’s was an upscale eatery as any Marvin and I had ever encountered.
Our waiter was Jim, a white boy not much older than we were. Jim explained the menu items, but patrons who were getting up, placing some money on the table and leaving without so much as a goodbye to the woman at the cash register. Their waiter or the guy who leads you to your seats captivated both of us.
This was a culture shock like no other. There was no way we would even think about rolling out like that in the places we eat at in the hood. After the novelty had worn off and Marvin and I settled down for our first mature feast and it was what we thought it would be. All the talking on the phone about our new lives as college men and our bright future seemed to truly be within our grasp.
Then Stevie Wonder ruined everything.
Part 3. Songs In The Key Of Life
Long before Twitter, Facebook, Google, or even the Internet, word of mouth was the social network. Without a doubt the biggest buzz in every hood (it seemed) all over the world was the release of Songs In The Key Of Life that very day.
As if the world knew it would be, it became Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece.
Once Marv and I got on that subject we talked of little else. “Man, if we didn’t have dinner we could have brought the album…”
And that, boys and girls, is how Marvin and I ended up running across Rockaway Blvd after ripping off Jim at Beefsteak Charlie’s. To this day whose idea it was to fold a single five dollar bill so it appeared to be a few five dollar bills, making a false run to the bathroom, which was inches away from the entrance, then calmly walking out only to brake into a crazy run as soon as we were out the door, has been the subject of the longest debate of my life.
Marvin swore it was mine and I swore the idea was his.
I could tell you precisely who came up with what part of our master plan from memory and Marvin could also. This was part of our routine. We would embellish the story each time we talked. After a while all it took was one word from the story such as Mays or Jim to crack us up. Man, that story never got old and never ceased to get a laugh from each other or whomever we told it to.
Laughing was the last thing on our minds when the officer holding the door open at Mays said, “The store’s about to close, you guys better hurry up.” Hurry up? Hurry up and get arrested? When we got to the door the cop turned out to be a security guard who was locking the doors because Mays was closing.
He wasn’t looking for us. It seemed no one was looking for us.
“I saw you guys jet across the freeway, whatever you want must be important. “ Marvin and I could not believe our luck. That luck continued when Songs In The Key Of Life was on sale.
Around 11 pm Marvin called my house to see if I had gotten home, I had. The bus we took from Five Towns let his lucky ass off right in front of Redfern. I still had a decent click to go. He had already started playing the album and I soon joined him while still on the phone. This was the back in day, Google Hangout.
We talked about the evenings adventure and our laughter would always peak when we talked about Jim. Jim the white waiter, Jim, whom two black kids from the hood ripped off. No idea at what time of the morning Jim stopped being funny or when Marvin and I realized we were better than that “from the hood” shit.
The High School of Art & Design made us much better than that so the next day we went back with Jim’s money. Jim was off but the lady at the cash register remembered us and knew exactly why we had come back. She put the money in an envelope, wrote Jim’s name on it and placed it in the register. She did this with a huge smile on her face the entire time.
She’s the reason I know there are people in Long Island who see black people as equals. Her boss on the other hand came at us like a mad man. He refused to listen to his cashier and demanded we wait for the police. Art & Design aside, we were still two kids from Edgemere and Redfern. In mid-rant he realized his situation when Marv and I stepped in his direction he stopped screaming.
“Tell Jim we’re sorry.” Marvin and I said to both the manager and cashier then we were out. We walked to the bus stop but then decided to just walk the rest of the way to Redfern. I’d get the bus from there. Best walk I ever had. I began the walk as a boy by the time I reached my house I knew I was a man.
Marv and I were true to our word and stayed in touch. There were pockets of time when we fell out of contact for a bit but never for long. He was the first of my A&D family to come to L.A. to see me. Years later he asked me to look after his daughter Ashli when she got to L.A. She’s an awesome actress and as Marv is like a family to me, she is also.
Ashli called me a few months ago and ripped me apart on a matter. Although, I didn’t agree with her reasoning, the last thing I should have done was debate her, but I did.
Bad, bad move.
She caught me pissed and feeling sorry for myself so I did what I do when that happens, I react like I don’t give a fuck and usually I don’t but she’s family and I should have been better. Yes, I’m dealing with severe depression but that isn’t any excuse. My illness is no excuse for anything except damage done to me. I know that shit. I wondered if I should have run the conversation by Marvin but I decided against it. I figured I’d call him after offering Ashli my apologies. I’m smart enough to wait until I’m better suited to handle disputes with people I care about so I haven’t yet.
Once it works itself out, I’ll call Marv and we’ll have a good laugh.
I haven’t been laughing much lately. I could do with the always-hilarious trip back to Five Towns via Memory Lane.
I’ll see Marv on Memory Lane many times in the future but we won’t make any more trips there together. My friend, my brother, my boy, Marvin Aaron Haynes, passed from this earth Oct. 1st 2015.
That was over two weeks ago. Since then I’ve done little but write this and write my shrink a check.
So much for my weekly return to Bleeding Cool, ComicMix and life as I knew it.
Earlier I joshed about someone bitching about no superheroes or for that matter comic’s related fodder in what is now the longest single article I’ve ever written.
Fair enough.
I went to A&D to become a cartoonist ended up never taking cartooning. I went another way. Those types of things are to me infinitely more interesting and informative than another, you can see Spiderwoman’s ass cheeks article. Yes, these are personal insights and not for everyone but there are plenty of people who write for everyone.
I write for those who want to see beyond the narrative of an article. An artist’s work is his life and my art, regardless of the medium, is fueled by events from my life. This particular event was to be the backstory for the Static Shock / Rocket, Milestone graphic novel, ‘the roof, the roof is on fire’ I wrote more than 20 years ago for the original Milestone.
It was to be Vigil’s coming of age story taking place in the future. When I was part of M2.0 I was going to revisit and update it. Now I’d consider doing that with M2.0 but I’m done waiting for answers.
Lastly I write for those out there who want to do what I’ve been lucky enough to. To achieve any level of success those who mentor, advise and teach you must share more than what any book or website can teach you. They must share real life facts about any profession in all its gritty reality. That goes especially for those who mentor black kids. Tell them the truth warts and all. I’m sharing this for everyone who has a person in his or her lives there the moment you became you and regardless of who you become they accept that person.
Hopefully that person not only shares that moment but also joins you in it. Like Marv and me. The following is just for Marvin but you’re welcome to read it.
Marvin,
Only love could get me back to Rockaway, and I loved you but damn Negro, could you have waited a click? You knew long before my bout with depression how much i dread flying. Once I was diagnosed, flying was something even my shrink said was a bad idea. Dude, because it was you, I brought a plane ticket and reserved a hotel room for the trip back to Rockaway for your New York memorial. You know I’ve much respect for those who live and work in the Rock, I’m from Edgemere and proud of it. That said the Rock took half of my family, so I’d just as well stay the fuck away.
Sunday night I arrive at LAX and all is well. Checking in, finding my gate and boarding could not be easier and as luck would have it, I’m in an exit row. You looking out for me, Aaron? Yeah, it took a while but you knew I’d call you the ‘A’ name before I saw you again.
Now about seeing you again…a funny thing happened on the plane. I started to have a panic attack the moment my ass touched the seat. I left the plane, left my luggage, laptop and meds, exited the terminal, and went to my car and for the next hour cried like a little girl.
I thought you’d like that. Yeah, I cried, Negro, you would have also, that was a brand new Mac.
As much fun as Turtles Day(as I now affectionately call the Thursday of New York Comic Con) was, it’s most definitely not the only awesome thing about NYCC. There’s always so much awesome stuffed into those four days that it’s hard to sum it up.
This year, to assist me in my round-up, I thought I’d finally try out a New Method of Doing Things, given that my awesome friend Cleolinda Jones finds it so useful, and that she’s been using it to successfully round-up all of the online things we mention during our Made of Fail podcast (which is still going, by the way! Our latest episode was Dragon Con: The Wrath of Con. Lisssstennn!)
So even though I’m still going to hit the highlights below, I’m also going to direct you afterwards to my brand new, shiny first effort at using Storify (woo!) for even more details and pictures and who-all knows what. We’ll see how we like this whole Storify thing, eh? Call it a social experiment. And now, without further ado:
My Favorite Things About NYCC This Year:
Well we already mentioned Nickelodeon’s TMNT. Check out last week’s column for all the details on that!
Artist Alley
This is and always will be one of my favorite parts of NYCC. This year I got to walk the entire room with enough time to stop and look at the art and other items on display, and to chat with some creator and fan friends and meet some new friends. I walked around with one of my TMNT friends who was happy to meet some cool artists (hey, Kathy!), strolled some aisles with my DC-local friend who bought some most excellent My Little Pony art (holla, Petra!), and bounced around to see some creators with Eric Bauza (including taking him, as the Voice of Amadeus Cho, over to meet Reilly Brown, one of the Artists for Amadeus Cho. That was fun.)
Of course, inevitably after the con ended I realized I’d somehow still missed a few people I wanted to see (alas!) but that always happens. I watched some artists working (love doing that! Tony Moy was particularly fun to watch this year), resisted mightily buying everything in sight, and picked out just a few things to take home with me. Chief among them were Jason Hurley and Jeremy Haun’s Beauty, the first two issues of which are intriguing, and have convinced me to keep reading. I also picked up four issues of Runaways written by Noelle Stevenson, with art by Sanford Greene, which I’m looking forward to (I loved Brian K. Vaughan’s original run but got away from it for awhile after he left the book. I’ve been meaning to dive back in!). I got a cool metallic-finish Deadpool poster from Reilly Brown, as well as his new sketchbook.
And since I’m in the process of working on some comics projects myself, I was particularly excited to score a signed copy of Make Comics Like the Pros from Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente; and an X-Files comic with accompanying limited-edition script from Joe Harris. And last but not least, I picked up the most adorable dancing Groot sketchcard from Janet K. Lee, which I’d commissioned at a previous con. Yay!
Walking the Con floor
Okay, so I admit that this year even I was slightly overwhelmed by the crowd, and had to go hide in the still very crowded but less frantic-feeling Artist Alley from time to time. However, I did get to do some really fun things on the con floor. I saw my wonderful friend Ellen Datlow at the HWA booth, where I picked up a free copy of her The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 7 anthology, and bought a copy of her Nightmare Carnival anthology (creepy carnival stories! I will read them with shivery delight and then never sleep again). I hopped over to the IDW booth, had a nice chat with Dirk Wood, and picked up a copy of God is Disappointed in You, which I am super-curious to read.
I swung by the Marvel booth, and, although I sadly missed the spectacular Daredevil poster, got a great Jessica Jones poster and comic and a handful of other cool swag, including the cutest Skottie Young Secret Wars print you ever did see. I mostly avoided buying collectibles because my apartment overfloweth with them already, but did get a tiny adorable stuffed ram (what, it’s tiny!) and an awesome inflatable Companion Cube ottoman (for my casual dinner parties! Totally practical! I always run out of seating). I got to visit with the ever-charming Mark Gagliardi and meet Hal Lublin, both of The Thrilling Adventure Hour, and stroll around with great friends like fun fellow DC-ite LacyMB, awesome voice actor Eric Bauza, and fellow reporter Ashley B. And Ashley and I got to take creepy crime scene videos of ourselves after being “killed” in the line of reporting duty (probably trampled by crowds trying to get into the Funko booth, yes?) at the Spotless exhibit. All-around good adventures.
Ash vs. Evil Dead
This was a fantastic panel. I love Bruce Campbell (particularly after Burn Notice – he was so good as Sam!) so I really wanted to see him on a panel; plus, I’ve been curious about how they’d make this show work ever since I started seeing the media for it at SDCC. This panel was particularly cool because I went with someone else who was totally excited about it (probably the most excited of anyone there, really) and good panel-going company always makes it more fun. We got nifty swag (Ash4President buttons, and foam chainsaws), Bruce et al. (and host Kevin Smith) were very entertaining panelists, and they showed the entire premiere episode (during which I am not ashamed to admit I jumped a lot. My startle reflex will never disappear. Neither will my desire to hide behind people or couches during scary scenes).
Unfortunately there were no couches at the Hammerstein Ballroom, but I survived. The premiere is exactly what you would want if you’re an Evil Dead fan, I think; and even if you’re not really up on the franchise, it’s engaging enough to draw in a new crowd – that is, if they are people who can handle a lot of gore and gratuitous violence. I was pretty interested in the characters they’re starting to build for the younger leads (Kelly and Pablo, played by Dana DeLorenzo and Ray Santiago) and the storyline they’re starting with the cop (Jill Marie Jones) and Lucy Lawless’s character Ruby. And of course, tying it all together is the always classy (sarcasm, what? I will say I thought the sex scene early on was a little much even for this character) Ash, and a boatload of well-done references to the franchise. My one caveat is that I think in order to keep people interested, they’re going to really have to do some character and story-building with the non-Ash characters – but if they do it well, this show could be a really cool addition to TV horror.
Seeing awesome people!
And so many of them; but primarily here I’m talking about Andrea Romano, who I was delighted to learn was autographing this year (if she has in the past, I’ve missed it). She is definitely one of the uber-talented people of the animation industry that I most admire (plus she’s super classy and nice), so it was great to see her again and get her to sign what is turning into one of the most-autographed things I own, a TMNT pizza box. Phil LaMarr also added his signature to the collection (I love him as Baxter Stockman), and it was great to see him as well. And as it turned out, the delightful and hilarious John DiMaggio was also signing at the same time, so I got a great Joker picture signed by him. Yay!
The ICv2 White Paper Happy Hour
Although I love all the media stuff that goes on at comic cons, I really like to spend time on the comics end of things too. I’d never been able to get to the ICv2 stuff before, since they usually do events on Wednesday before I arrive in town for the con. This year, though, they changed tack and did something during the con. For those who don’t know, ICv2 studies and reports on the statistics and trends about in the industry, including e.g. comics and convention trends. It was interesting to hear the latest on the State of the Industry at the event, and particularly the continued growth in female readership in comics, which was regarded with enthusiasm (good!).
Of course, it was also nice to grab a drink and a chat with comics friends, and engage in some more serious discussions regarding news such as the most recent sexual harassment in the business (which I will be addressing more in another column). I’m glad these things are being discussed rather than ignored.]
And finally…
Just all of the fun and energy of going out and about with all of the awesome people who are in NYC during Comic-Con. That includes the Image party, at which everyone in comics showed up (seriously, I mean I didn’t personally run into everyone, but I’m pretty sure they were all there) in a maze-like bowling alley/arcade/bar/dance club with many levels and rooms and cool chairs I wanted to steal. Also the several lovely breakfasts and dinners I had with high school friends and law school friends and con friends (and apparently this year’s accidental restaurant theme was seafood, since I ended up at Grand Central’s Oyster Bar, Crave Fishbar, and L&W Oyster Co. all in the space of three days. Not that I minded! Such gooood foooood). And the fun bar scene, which this year included the Campbell Apartment which I had no idea existed and which is exactly the sort of place I love to discover (thanks, Dennis!). And of course the wrap-up of my NYC trip, which ended with a great long-form improv show featuring Phil LaMarr at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, which I’d never been to. It was fantastic; and I haven’t laughed that hard in some time!
And that was pretty much my show this year! But if that isn’t enough excitement for you, or if you’re hurting for my usual linkage to tons of pictures, for even more round-up, click here or just scroll down to check out my NYCC Storify (and let me know if you like it, as a thing. Should I do it again? Feedback, people! Do tell!).
Like many of the contributors on ComicMix, I spent the other week at New York Comic Con. In a continuing trend, attendance keeps going up with a greater representation of the general population, and with that, more programming centered around diversity.
Diversity in comics has been an important topic to me for years. Important to the point where those panels I prioritize over all other kinds. The Internet can tell me all the Batman announcements later. This year, I made it to at least one diversity focused panel (usually two) every day of the con. And because I’m so passionate about these things, I wanted to share with you all why these panels are important to me.
First off, and probably most importantly, they are safe spaces at the con. Knowing you’ll be in an environment with people who are either like you or at least empathetic can be and often is important to an attendee. Being othered sucks. It really sucks. Just being in a place where you can listen to people talk about their struggles being an outsider, and how they’ve made it work for them anyway can really be inspiring.
Second, they’re also great places to hear from creators of different backgrounds and become knowledgeable of their work. Truthfully, the goal of nearly all panels is to get you to buy the publisher or creator’s books and merchandise. As cynical as this may sound, the reality is the only way we’re going to get more diversity in comics is to actually buy comics with diverse characters in them. Crazy, right?
I had already been picking up DC’s Midnighter, the company’s only solo superhero comic with a gay male lead, written by Steve Orlando. I wasn’t aware of his Image Comics graphic novel, Virgil. After hearing him on a panel talk about Virgil as being a blood soaked revenge story and as “queersploitation” (a reference to blaxploitation films of the 70’s) I knew I’d love it. I went down to his booth in Artists’ Alley after the panel, picked it up, and already read it. I did in fact love it, but I might not have known to get it if I didn’t go to these panels.
FInally, they are helping to change the discussion in comics. Yes, social media is doing the day to day work, but diversity panels at these cons provide an opportunity for the publishers and creators to roll out their new books that will better reflect the changing demographics of comic readers, and gauge reactions. Sunday’s Culturally Queer panel moderated by Geeks OUT‘s Joey Stern opened up a conversation about queer representation in comics between the panelists where they differed greatly on what makes for good representation. This is an important conversation to be having. There is not necessarily a uniform right way to have representation. There are certainly some uniform wrong ways, however.
The biggest example of a change in the discussion that I saw was Thursday’s BOOM! Studios panel moderated by their President of Publishing and Marketing, Filip Sablik. The panel discusses the Push Comics Forward movement, which is actively setting out to make the comic industry more diverse over the next 10 years. However, the panel was made up of all white (or white presenting) panelists, with eight men and two women. Though there was some queer representation, Filip Sablik actually addressed this at the beginning of the panel, stating that they do have more diversity in their talent pool, and it just so happened that the people able to make it to the con and who were able to attend this panel for the books they wanted to highlight were mostly white male creators. I thought this was incredible. I give BOOM! Studios credit for addressing this. I don’t think we would have seen something like this happen even last year, and that’s a testament to the publishers and creators putting themselves out there on the issues of diversity in part because of these panels and that some of them are listening to us.
If you were at New York Comic Con last week and didn’t get to any of the diversity focused panels, definitely try to at the next con you go to. Even if you’re a straight cis white guy, there are so many new and exciting stories coming from women, nonwhite, and queer creators that you might end up loving just as much as I do.
“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.” • Dorothy Parker
“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.” • George R. R. Martin
“Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done, they’re done.” • Kurt Vonnegut
“Are you typing?” • My mom, when she would call me up in the middle of the day when I was writing for DC and other comics companies.
Who are the people who tell us our stories?
And how do they do it?
Some like to plot everything out, down to the last word, using what I call the “shuffling cards” method in which important plot developments or character moments are written out on index cards, and then mixed and jumbled and rearranged until the writer holds a royal flush. Some writers start at the end of the story and then figure out how it got there. Others get a scene or situation in their head; it could be the middle, it could be the end, it could be the opening paragraph, or somewhere in between. Then that scene or situation plays over and over again, like a needle skipping on a vinyl record in the middle of a song, and. like that skip, doesn’t stop until the writer does something about it.
There are writers who get up in the morning and eat a proper breakfast and take a proper shower and get dressed as if they are going to the office or meeting up with friends and walk to their study or their den and work a proper eight-hour day, writing. There are other writers who get up and squeeze their story-telling in the hours between the time the kids go off to school and the spouse leaves the house to join the 9-to-5 rat race to when it’s time to pick the kids up to take them to their play dates or swim team practice or religious school – not to mention cleaning the house and going grocery shopping and doing the laundry and making dinner for the husband or wife who will soon be home.
Then there are the writers whose beds never get made, their carpet never gets vacuumed, and everyone is picking their clothes out of the laundry hamper because mom or dad is “in the zone.” Or, perhaps, the only time the beds get made and the carpets get vacuumed and the laundry gets done is when the writer is having a particularly bad day and everything that works so beautifully in the brain comes out on paper or the computer screen reads like it was written by some ignorant schmuck of a troll in a Twitter feed.
There are writers who live in their bathrobes and there are writers who can only work in the middle of the night when everyone else in the house is fast asleep. There are writers who live alone but have the TV on as “white noise” as they write. There are writers who play classical orchestral symphonies while they are “at it,” and writers who play specific music that matches rhythms of their words, their characters’ lives, their plot, their story. And there are writers who must shut out all the sounds of the outside world, who must listen only to the noise, the racket, the voice of their individual muse demanding to be heard.
There are other writers who demand feedback, who meet a trusted friend or editor and over lunch or long walks or over a beer or a Guinness or a Scotch, and work out the voices in his or her head, like a neurotic going to see his or her shrink.
There are writers who are incredibly prolific, churning out story after story after story, as if they are not individuals, but simply shells of flesh occupied by hundreds, if not thousands, of “others” who wait on a line that stretches out into infinity until at last they reach the front of the line and it is their turn to tell their yarn. There are writers who have but one tale to tell, and when “the end” is reached, they are no longer writers; they are finished, they are done.
There are writers who drink too much wine and smoke too much tobacco. There are writers who need a doobie or a blunt to get the juices roiling. There are writers who can only write on deadline and writers who are masters of procrastination.
There are writers who get to the gym every day; there are writers who think walking to the stoop to pick up the daily newspaper is exercise. There are writers who withdraw from the world, and there are writers who are at every A-list party and every movie premiere. There are writers who are constantly on the phone to their agents or their publishers’ marketing departments demanding more publicity, there are writers who let their words speak for themselves.
There are writers who would never option their story to Hollywood. There are writers who tell their agents that they won’t finish the story until it is optioned by Hollywood.
There are writers who are braggarts; there are writers who are shy. There are writers who are savvy with the Internet; there are writers who still use pencil and yellow legal pads.
There are writers who write instant classics, there are writers who never see success until long after their bodies have rotted away and the maggots have eaten what’s left.
Those are the people who tell us our stories.
And that’s how they do it.
Editor’s Note: The graphic atop this column is of Ray Bradbury and Snoopy. Yes, we know you knew that, but that person sitting over there did not. It was cribbed from The Atlantic from about three years ago, and it is damned brilliant.
My knee is feeling much better. Thanks for asking.
(In an odd bit of synchronicity, the New York Times had an article this past Sunday about the disappearance of the word “tomboy”. I’m not sure if the main characters in Paper Girls are tomboys or not. The series is set in the 1980s, so they wouldn’t refute the Times’ thesis, which is too bad, because it is the kind of petty inconsequential fluff that the paper likes to equate with feminism.)
The premise is what intrigued me. In the near-future, the United States is no longer the economic and political utopia we present ourselves to be today. Large numbers of American citizens emigrate to other countries in an attempt to find a better life. The series looks at a group of people who sneak into Buenos Aires, and their attempts to avoid the law, find work, and take care of their families.
, the 2013 horror movie produced by Guillermo del Toro. I remember very few of the particulars of that movie but what I remember quite viscerally was scene after scene of being transfixed by the action on the screen and wanting nothing more than for it to be over. Crimson Peak is the first movie since then to recreate that feeling so precisely, when the movie wanted to scare me I was consistently scared to what I believe to be the maximum level I can be scared while watching a movie. No matter what else I thought about the movie, it was completely successful at its objective and that’s worth a lot.
