Category: Columns

Joe Corallo: Robots vs. Princesses vs. Kickstarter

I know I’ve been talking a lot about Kickstarter projects lately. Some have reached their goal, like Unmasked Volume 2. Some still need your support, like The Meatspace Omnibus. This week, I’m discussing a Kickstarter project from Todd Matthy, who’s learned a lot since his last Kickstarter.

I met Todd some years ago and picked up his self-published comic, Wicked Game, drawn by co-creator Roderic Rodriguez back in 2014. Since then, I’ve seen Todd at many local conventions working on other self-published projects.

For the last couple of years his focus has been on Robots vs. Princesses, a comic with art by Nicolas Chapuis and letters by Sean Rinehart. It’s a very “what you see is what you get” kind of title. The premise is that there are princesses banning together against robots. Specifically, Princess Zara wants to find a baby dragon, but on her quest runs into a robot. Now she and the other surrounding princesses have to defend themselves against the encroaching robot army.

It’s a mash-up of fairy tale story telling with giant robot anime. Todd is particularly passionate about this project as he’s an elementary school teacher who wants more comics that are accessible to younger audiences while still being interesting to adults.

Todd Matthy got a write up for Robots vs. Princesses in Bleeding Cool back in 2015 and got praise from comics professionals like Mark Waid and Kristen Gudsnuk. After getting some pages done, alternate covers from artists including Sean Von Gorman, and getting another MoCCA Fest under his belt, Todd went to Kickstarter in May of 2016 to fund the four issues that make up Robots vs. Princesses. The goal was $18,362. Unfortunately, that campaign ended with $2,875 raised ­– which meant that it could not move forward.

However… that was not the end of Robots vs. Princesses.

Anyone who’s done a Kickstarter that’s come up short, or gotten a rejection from a publisher knows that it can be discouraging. And just because you do everything right doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you want. Over the past year, Todd has gone to more shows, has made more progress with the comic, started a newsletter to build his up his base, and reworked the rest of his strategy going forward.

On July 25th, Todd took to Kickstarter once again for Robots vs. Princesses. This time the goal is more modest. Instead of trying to fund all four issues, this campaign is just looking to fund the first issue. The goal is down to $2,500 for the first issue. Seeing as the first attempt made over $2,500 this was a good goal and a safe bet. That safe bet has paid off spectacularly with this Kickstarter already about 75% of its goal with over two weeks left.

Not every comic Kickstarter is a big success. Not every comic gets picked up right away. Todd Matthy could have easily packed it in and called it a day after not getting funded in his first attempt like countless other creators have in the past. He didn’t. He sucked it up, took the time to reorganize and roll out a different strategy and it’s working. Patience is something that is required for anyone that wants to break into comics and it’s a trait that Todd possesses. Go check out his Kickstarter and see what an elementary school teacher is doing to make a passion project come to life for young readers.

Tune in next week when I (hopefully) am able to shamelessly plug a project that I’ll be involved in. Same Bat time. Same Bat channel.

Mike Gold: Too Many Heroes?

Super-hero movie fans are awash with anticipation. I’ll avoid the obvious jokes.

A couple weeks ago, executives from 21st Century Fox, the corporate head of 20th Century Fox, met with their counterparts at The Disney Organization, the corporate head of everything named “Marvel” except for Marvel Mystery Oil (see lengthy footnote, below). Evidently, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch needs some cash, as the purpose of the meeting was to see if Disney might be interested in purchasing the Fox movie and teevee operations, save for the sports-related stuff. Said meeting lasted several hours.

Of course, this is not a done-deal. It’s not even a deal. And to the best of my knowledge, there have been no further meetings. However, any such real offer was neither presented nor accepted. Disney appears to be… well, interested. So I guess it was a successful meeting.

Some fans are salivating over the prospect of an Avengers / X-Men / Fantastic Four crossover movie. Others – including me – firmly believe there’s such a thing as too much. I define too much as the maximum number of characters one could put in a 150-minute movie before they squeeze out an understandable and entertaining story. Avengers: Infinity Wars already sports at least 27 costumes, and that’s not counting Stan Lee.

What comes to my (admittedly diseased) mind is the stateroom scene from the otherwise somewhat overrated Marx Brothers movie A Night At The Opera. It’s phenomenal. It’s hilarious. And it runs four minutes and four seconds. Stretch that out to 150-minutes and, well, “Tain’t funny, McGee.”

Some are concerned that a Disney takeover will result in fewer Marvel super-hero movies. I respectfully disagree: the marketplace will determine how many Marvel super-hero movies it will support in any given year. It doesn’t matter how many studios split up that pie – it’s the overall size of the pie that matters.

I think what many of us want is to see the quality of the Marvel Studios movies subsume the quality of the average Marvel movie made by Fox. That would be nice, and it worked for Columbia when they “hired” Marvel Studios to take over the production of the Spider-Man franchise.

But the inside pressure to make Avengers / X-Men / Fantastic Four crossover movies would be inevitable and, I think unstoppable. It addresses every stupid marketing philosophy that Hollywood has embraced for decades.

Shirley Temple said it best. “If you eat too much, oh, oh, you’ll awake with a tummy ache.”

Pop Culture Trivia: In case you never heard of Marvel Mystery Oil and you think I made it up as some sort of twist on Marvel Mystery Comics, well, thanks for the compliment but, no, it is a real thing.

After World War I – you know, the great war – a guy named Burt Pierce invented the “Marvel Carburetor.” It was so successful it was deployed to roughly 80% of all vehicles. Unfortunately, they suffered from a clogging problem due to the high-lead content of the gasoline used at the time (and, in fact, up to about 40 years ago). So, in a blast of innovation so powerful it would have knocked Andy Granatelli’s socks off, Pierce came up with a lubricant that would allow him to continue to sell his Marvel carburetors. Why he named it Marvel Mystery Oil was the matter of some debate.

Did Pierce’s goo influence Timely (a.k.a. Marvel) Comics’ publisher Martin Goodman? Well, the stuff was very popular and it continues to be marketed today, but against massive competition.

The company was headquartered in Port Chester New York along the Connecticut border; back then you could throw a rock in any direction and hit somebody involved in the comics business. However, the oil company moved to Port Chester in 1941, more than a year after the comic book titled “Marvel Comics” changed its name to Marvel Mystery Comics.

Mindy Newell: Why D’ya Think?

From Martha Thomases’s column of August 4: Last week Heather Antos, an editor at Marvel, went out with a bunch of her colleagues for milkshakes at a nearby Ben & Jerry’s and posted a selfie on Twitter. She said “It’s the Marvel milkshake crew! #FabulousFlo.” The hashtag refers to Flo Steinberg, who had just died.

So, you know, a Friday after a long week, Heather and a group of her pals went out to remember a woman who was their friend and mentor. They didn’t go to a bar. They went for ice cream. They posted a photo on Twitter because that’s what the kids do these days. I don’t know what could be more wholesome.

Naturally, there was an upset. To some, this photo represented everything that was wrong with Marvel today. Women and people of color in editorial offices apparently is a menacing concept to them, and they menaced back. Ms. Antos received threats of rape and other kinds of physical violence. Others chimed in to say these women weren’t attractive enough to rape.

Fuck them.

Uh-oh. Mindy’s on a rant. Duck and cover.

Who the fuck gave these maggots permission to insult and threaten anyone who lives outside their minuscule, ignorant bubbles?

I’ll tell you who.

The liar. The bully. The malignant narcissist. The “Baby-Man.” Or, as I call him, Il Tweetci The Mad.

On June 29, Self magazine writer Nina Bahader listed 22 sexist comments made by the man who sits in the Oval Office. Here are some of them:

  • In tweets sent out earlier today, (June 29) Trump referred to Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and claimed she visited Mar-a-Lago while “bleeding badly from a face-lift.”
  • He tweeted that sexual assault in the military is simply what happens when men and women work together.
  • He wrote that women are inherently manipulative. In his book Trump: The Art of the Comeback (1997), he wrote: “Women have one of the great acts of all time. The smart ones act very feminine and needy, but inside they are real killers. The person who came up with the expression ‘the weaker sex’ was either very naive or had to be kidding. I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye—or perhaps another body part.”
  • He referred to women as “pieces of ass.” In an interview with Esquire in 1991, he said: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
  • He implied that unbelievably beautiful supermodel [and television host and entrepreneur] Heidi Klum was “no longer a 10” simply because she’d dared to age. During aNew York Times interview with Maureen Dowd, [he] mused: “Heidi Klum. Sadly, she’s no longer a 10.”
  • He said that women with small busts are not attractive. During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, he told Stern: “A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.”
  • He told a lawyer she was “disgusting” for pumping breast milk. In 2011, Trump was testifying in a lawsuit when lawyer Elizabeth Beck asked for a break from the proceedings so she could pump breast milk for her 3-month-old daughter. “He got up, his face got red, he shook his finger at me and he screamed, ‘You’re disgusting, you’re disgusting,’ and he ran out of there,” Beck told CNN. The New York Times reports that Trump’s lawyer does not dispute that he made this comment.
  • He credited women’s professional successes to their looks. “It’s certainly not groundbreaking news that the early victories by the women on The Apprentice were, to a very large extent, dependent on their sex appeal,” Trump wrote in his 2004 book, How to Get Rich.

A leopard doesn’t change his spots. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. During the campaign, he tweeted: “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” and said, “When she walked in front of me, believe me, I wasn’t impressed.” And he attacked her with this: “The only card [Hillary Clinton] has is the woman’s card,” he said in April 2016. “She’s got nothing else to offer and frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the woman’s card, and the beautiful thing is, women don’t like her.” He said of Carly Fiorina, his opponent during the Republican primary season: “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that the face of our next president?!’ and “I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really folks, come on. Are we serious?”

He called Megyn Kelley a “bimbo,” and then told CNN when asked about her questions during the debate, that “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

He has tweeted warnings to Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska about getting in step with the agenda.

He calls women he doesn’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs.”

His actions have led to abusive behavior by members of the Republican Party. The Washington Post reported that Representative Blake Farenthold of Texas said of Republican Susan Collins of Maine after her “No” vote in the health care debate that if she were a “guy from south Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.” In an interview with Ali Velshi of MSNBC, Georgia Representative Earl L. “Buddy” Carter said that “someone should go over there to that Senate and snatch a knot in their ass” a phrase that means to hit someone as punishment. And after Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also voted “No” on the bill, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the Senator that her vote had put Alaska’s future with the administration in jeopardy.

And you wonder why the maggots feel empowered?

 

Ed Catto: Dare2Draw with Eisner & Kirby

Dare2Draw is one of those cool events that I never want to miss and am always so happy after attending.

Founded by Charles David Chenet (now its Executive Director), Dare2Draw may seem like a comics-drawing class at first glance but it’s really so much more. In fact, this Saturday’s event will be celebrating the works and legacies of comic pioneers Will Eisner and Jack Kirby and celebrating their Centennial mark in the sequential arts.

Chenet describes this long-running organization as a mentoring, supportive and networking organization for artists of all levels. Dare2Draw is also designed to cultivate the awareness of and appreciation for the study of sequential art, and to the “furtherance and preservation of the comic book medium’s contributions to literacy, art, and culture, through outreach programs, events, and projects.”

I find these events to be invigorating. They are part drawing class, part lecture, part support group… and all fun.

For this upcoming event, Chenet will be bringing Dare2Draw back to the Art Students League of New York. It is a location with a historical importance.

“The Dare2Draw returns to The Art Students League for a very special event to celebrate where Will Eisner got his start and went on to lay down the foundation for the graphic novel,” said Chenet. “We will also be celebrating the work of Jack Kirby, who was able to revolutionize comics, without having a formal art education. Dare2Draw will be celebrating both of these pioneers in the industry of comics, helping to celebrate their centennial mark in the sequential arts.”

“We have invited Kyle Baker, whose irreverent spirit and boundless talent continue to push the art form, now and into the future. Kyle has earned eight Will Eisner awards and many others,” added Chenet.

In fact, Kyle Baker is a winner of not only eight Eisner Awards, but also five Harvey Awards and five Glyph Comics Awards. He’s planning to share his reflections on Will & Jack’s contributions and what the future of the sequential arts “comics” might hold.

Representing the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center will be Rand Hoppe. He’s a tireless advocate of Jack Kirby and will be exploring the artist’s accomplishments and legacy, and how it all relates to today’s artists.

“Both these men will help us explore the contributions – Kyle, from the perspective of an artist and a peer of Will Eisner, and Rand as a curator of the Kirby legacy,” said Chenet.

You know these events are headed in the right direction as they are attracting sponsors. Of note: Brooklyn Brewery is supplying the beer.

This event will be hosted by Simon Fraser and Edie Nugent. It runs from 5:30 to 9:30 pm and the Art Students League is located at 215 West 57th Street in New York City. Have fun and post your art if you go!

•     •     •     •     •

Credit Given where credit’s due: I really must credit the creative in this week’s column. Will Eisner’s work appears via the courtesy of Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Jack Kirby’s creative provided courtesy of The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center.

Unblocking John Ostrander!

A sad fact of a writer’s life is writer’s block. That’s when you sit down and look at the blank page or the empty screen and go “I’ve got nothin’.” Some form of that can happen every time you start to write. The really bad version can go on for a long time, maybe for years. Not only do you not have an idea, you feel that you can’t write, that you could never write, that you will never write, and what the hell were you thinking when you thought you could write.

There are things you can do when the malady strikes, some less useful than others. Crying, swearing, cursing, screaming are all options but you eventually run out of energy and then you’re back at square one – the damned blank page or screen.

Not all solutions work for all people and what work’s in one situation may fail in another. That all said here are some things that I’ve tried that sometimes work.

Do not panic! Seriously, calm down. It only feels like life and death. You’ll write again. Relaaaaaax.

Do something else. Staring into the abyss (a.k.a. that blank page or screen) until you’re cross-eyed only hurts your vision. Go do something else. Something physical. I’ve been known to wash dishes when I get desperate. Go for a walk or a run. Don’t read, watch TV, play video games, text or call someone. You’re looking for something that will shift your mind into neutral. Something that will silence the chattering monkeys in your skull.

Work on something else. I generally have three or four different projects working at the same time. If I get jammed up on one, I’ll go to another. If I get jammed on all of them, I revert to the rule above. Play with a cat. If nothing else, it may amuse the cat.

Check the basics. If I stall out on a plot, it generally means I’m making a Writing 101 mistake. I haven’t done the basics regarding plot construction or building a character. I tell myself that I’ve done this for so long that I can skip a step or two. That’s hubris talking and hubris is a lying bastard. Or maybe I’m so late with the deadline I don’t have time for all that. Wrong again. When you’re running late you only have time to do it right once. Take the time. Do the work.

Write about it. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing here. I sat down to write this week’s column and had nothin’ so I wrote this column about having nothin’. A rather Seinfeld column. Seriously though, as a writer you put into words that which exists only in your mind and heart. It’s most likely will be nothing you will ever read again or show to anyone but the physical act of putting words – any words – down can be therapeutic. Yes, it most likely will be crap. Let it be crap. Write it and flush it.

Get paid for it. At one time, I thought I had a serious case of writer’s block. Had it for years. Nothing came, nothing worked. Then Mike Gold offered to pay me for a story (my first printed work, as it turned out). Boy Howdy, that block just evaporated. Funny how motivating a paycheck can be. Knowing someone will give you the real coin of the realm for your writing can be awfully encouraging.

I hope all this has been a little help to some of you but – hey, I’ve got this week’s column so I’m good.

See y’all next week.

Unless I hit a block.

Marc Alan Fishman: So How Do I Get My Kids Into Comics?

Last week I got a little hot and bothered over Dan DiDio and Jim Lee’s declaration that their holy trinity (and let’s assume all the rest of their ilk) were being introduced to would-be-suitors for the third time via the printed page. They sought to make the comic shop the first meeting point between the kiddos (you), and their heroes (you know, the ones with the muscles and tights). Simply put, it’s a cute idea but it’s pretty much impossible to pull off.

It leads me to this week, where my good friend (and real-life Wolverine) Todd asked me point blank: so how do I get my kids into comics? Well, bub, here’s my step-by-step guide:

  1. Let the TV, movies, or the Internet be that first touchpoint.

Let’s not split hairs here. It’s astoundingly simple to flip on a show, YouTube clip, or take the family to the matinee. Especially for pre-literate wee-ones. The screen is a part of their lives from birth unless you’re one of those holier-than-thou-hipster-parents who turn your noses to such savagery. You can’t shake a stick these days without hitting something comic related that will speak to your li’l lads or lasses. Ray gun to my maw? Teen Titans Go! is as great a place to start as any. Proof in point: My five-year old has been watching since the pilot aired, and still regularly calls me “Dude” because of it. When a show/clip/movie hits the mark, you’ve got the spark.

  1. Now, take that spark, and add some kindling

For me personally, it was stumbling over the Adam West Batman – more specifically the Dick Sprang inspired animated intro that truly made me pause and glue myself to the set – that would lead to my first foray into comicdom years later. Had I a time-machine I’d find that younger me and immediately take that newfound curiosity and stoke a fire with actual comics.

Much the same, I propose that when your wee-one has sunk their teeth into a character, it’s time to take their love to the page. If Teen Titans tipped their curiosity, introduce them to Tiny Titans. It’s just as funny, just as accessible, and widens the breadth of known commodities with aplomb. Or, take a horizontal swing from the Titans to their adult counterparts. The Justice League comes in a veritable rainbow of iterations – one is bound to suit the proclivities of your scions.

  1. Now, put those kids in a helicopter, and rise above the ground

A few movies or TV shows got them hooked. The comic (or related adapted kids books, etc.) hinted at a larger landscape. Now, with them invested… show them the world! The best part of the age in which we live now is the access afforded to anyone with an attention span. To like Teen Titans Go! is to like team action adventures. From that single precipice, you can leap across the aisle to Avengers or X-Men. Or, be bolder, and let your hellspawn into the realms of the smaller creator-owned fodder. I’d give a kid Molly Danger a hundred times out of ninety-nine versus anything Marvel or DC published. The key here is simple: A trip to the comic shop should come with an invitation to be curious.

Even if the words are above their pay-grade, comics have pictures for a reason. Give your kids the keys to a castle choked to the moats with possibilities. Now, all that’s left is to close the deal with a pair of key action items.

  1. Take your kids to A Comic Con

Be it big or small, a full weekender or just a day-trip, attending a comic con is a rite of passage every lover of pulp and paper should take in. In the real world, comic heroes may be mainstream but the books they hail from are still a niche market. They open up the realm of the fandom to innocent eyes. The very first time I went to the Wizard World Chicago show, it felt literally larger than life. In a convention hall bursting at the seams with comics, toys, cartoons, and anything else I could imagine, it was seeing thousands of like-minded ne’er-do-wells rifling through long boxes, and debating at panels that really stuck with me. To know that beyond those at my local shop, there existed a community gave me a sense of self that stoked the eventual fire to become a creator. Which leads me straight away to my last suggestion.

  1. Give them a piece of a paper, a pencil, and an assignment

“Now, you make me a comic!”

Let their mind run wild. There’s a visceral universe living and breathing behind the cookie crumbs and desire to play video games. For those you are trying to will into nerdery, I offer no better advice than to invite them to create. When a child becomes the owner of an idea, I believe it bonds them not only intrinsically to the notion itself but to the world from which it stems. Be it anime, a random cartoon, a specific action figure, Lego playset, or, yes, a comic book. Give them the task, and open the floodgates. Before too long, you’ll be taking them to the comic shop on the regular, you know… for reference.

Excelsior!

 

The Law Is A Ass #416: The Metal Men Are In Cogito

René Descartes once said, “cogito ergo sum,” which, for those of us not fluent in dead languages means, “I think, therefore I am.” René’s observation was pithy, but it leaves one question unanswered. I understand that because I think, I am; but what, exactly, am I?

What am I also happens to be the question raised in the Metal Men story in Legends of Tomorrow #4, “Everything Old Is New Again!” Or, more precisely, What are the Metal Men?

Technically speaking, and speaking technically, the Metal Men are androids. They were created by Dr. Will Magnus when he put advanced thinking devices called Responsometers into some vats of molten metal, one Responsometer per vat, and vat’s a lot of metal. The Responsometers caused the metal in the vats to form metallic bodies around themselves. The resulting bodies – one for each of the vats of metal used – had the properties of the metal which formed them. The bodies were also, thanks to the A.I. properties of the Responosmeters, “self-actualizing entities capable of making their own decision and independent thought.”

Magnus made several of these Metal Men – Gold, Iron, Tin, Mercury, Lead, and Platinum– all of whom had artificial intelligence thanks to their Responsometers and incredible metal-based powers. The Metal Man had the potential to be agents of incredible good, so naturally Army General Thelma Scarletti wanted to dismantle the Metal Men and harvest their Responsometers for her own purposes. Because what’s a general in a comic book if not self-interested; obsessed; lacking any morality; and, you know, basically evil? Seriously, is there any high-ranking military officer in a comic book who isn’t an offal sir not a gentleman? I shudder to think how Amos Halftrack would behave if DC were ever to license Beetle Bailey.

Because it was Chapter 4, “Everything Old Is New Again!” opened with a dangling cliffhanger; Dr. Magnus and the Metal Men surrounded by General Scarletti and more solders than you could shake a stick at, provided you ever wanted to shake a stick at some soldiers. Scarletti demanded that Dr. Magnus turn the Metal Men over to her or there would be dire consequences. The Metal Men wanted to fight. Dr. Magnus wouldn’t allow that, as he considered the dire consequences would be death and destruction. His and the Metal Men’s, respectively. Magnus was preparing to surrender the Metal Men to General Scarletti, when Cliff Steele showed up.

Only Cliff didn’t show up as Robotman, former daredevil who had nanomachines injected into himself which created a new robotic body around his still-living brain when his old body died in a car crash and who became a freelance super hero. Instead he showed up as Clifford Steele, attorney-at-law. Not just an attorney, but an attorney who found a sympathetic judge who issued a writ of habeas corpus releasing the Metal Men into Cliff’s custody until a court case could resolve the issue of whether the Metal Men were robots with artificial intelligence or living beings with the full panoply of constitutional rights.

Now this revelation raises a couple of questions. First, when did Cliff become a lawyer. No, seriously, when? I’m not saying that Cliff couldn’t have gone out and secured himself a law degree at some point, I just don’t remember him ever doing it. Was this something he did while he was still an adventurer and daredevil before he got his robot body or something he did to fill those idle hours while he was sitting around waiting for clients to hire Robotman, freelance super hero? Okay, it’s not an important question, but it’s still one I wondered about.

The important question is where did Cliff find a judge who was so sympathetic he or she would willing to grant the Metal Men a habeas writ before the trial which was to decide their legal status? The Fourth Amendment says that “The right of the people [emphasis added] to be secure… against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” So the Fourth Amendment only applies to people. You couldn’t, for example, get a writ of habeas corpus to force the police to return your Mr. Coffee if it had been illegally seized during a warrantless search. The Mr Coffee is a mister in name only; it’s not a person.

For the same reason, until some court had a trial and ruled that the Metal Men were people, who were protected by the Bill of Rights, and not machines, which were not, I don’t think any judge would grant the Metal Men a habeas. By granting the Metal Men a habeas the judge basically settled the ultimate issue of the pending trial. The judge granted a writ intended only for people, so the judge implicitly ruled that the Metal Men were people.

That doesn’t mean there was nothing Cliff could have done. There is a perfectly good writ that can be used to return property that has been illegally seized. It’s called the writ of replevin. Cliff could have filed one of those saying the Metal Men should be returned to Dr. Magnus as his property, until such time as a court could determine whether they were property or people.

Wouldn’t that also mean that the judge issuing the replevin writ is deciding the ultimate issue? After all, wouldn’t he be implicitly ruling that the Metal Men were property by granting a replevin on their behalf?

No.

The Metal Men are androids. They are presently regarded as machines and the law would presume that they are machines until such time as a court ruled them to be people. Thus a judge could grant a replevin because of the Metal Men’s current presumptive status as machines without any ruling, implicit or otherwise, on the ultimate question of the trial; are the Metal Men actually living beings?

So what do you think, are the Metal Men simply robots? Or are they living beings and greater than the ergo sum of their parts?

The Law Is A Ass #415: The Green Hornet Throws A Tamper Tantrum

I think the Green Hornet is starting to believe his own press clippings.

The Green Hornet is a hero who pretends to be a villain. By day he’s Britt Reid, publisher of Chicago’s The Daily Sentinel newspaper. At night, Britt dresses up as the Green Hornet and pretends to be the secret crime boss of Chicago. He uses his guise as a villain to infiltrate criminal organizations and thwart them. And get the bad guys arrested. So sometimes he does some bad things but for the right reasons. Only now I think he’s starting to believe he is a criminal, because in The Green Hornet: Reign of the Demon #1, he started doing bad things for the wrong reasons.

According to the back story of Reign of the Demon, several months ago the Green Hornet took down crime lord Vito Cerelli. Apparently, the Hornet indicated that he was going to retire and some people believed that nonsense. I called it nonsense because, like nature, organized crime in comic books abhors a vacuum. As soon as one crime boss is overthrown, another comes in to take over. Making the Green Hornet needed all over again. Let’s face it, The Green Hornet had about as much chance of retiring as all 5’7” of me has of slam dunking on Dikembe Mutombo. Britt Reid’s former secretary, Lenore Case, was one of those people who believed he was going to retire the Green Hornet and she didn’t think that was a good idea. So she set out to change his mind. By robbing a bank as the Green Hornet.

Yes, you read that right. Lenore Case took her boss’s Green Hornet costume and equipment and used it to rob a bank. Then she allowed herself to get arrested with the Green Hornet costume. All this to “make [Britt] see that giving up being the Green Hornet was a bad idea.” How Lenore expected that to convince Britt not to retire the Green Hornet, I’m not sure and that’s a problem. Green Hornet’s chauffeur, Kato, is the Asian member of the group. He’s the one who’s supposed to be inscrutable.

Britt didn’t want Lenore to “rot in prison” so he devised a plan to spring her. The Green Hornet and Kato broke into police headquarters. They stole the Green Hornet costume Lenore used from its box in the Evidence Room and replaced it. When the district attorney took what he thought was a Green Hornet costume out of the box to show the jury, he pulled out a clown costume instead.

The trial judge gave the prosecutor a one-hour continuance to try to find the physical evidence, which, obviously, the prosecutor couldn’t do. So one hour later, because, “the state has evidently misplaced all of its supposed evidence against Miss Case,” the judge dismissed all the charges against her. Moreover, given that the trial had started when the judge dismissed the case, Lenore couldn’t be tried again. Once a trial has started, jeopardy has attached for double jeopardy purposes and if the case is dismissed, the defendant can’t be tried again. So Lenore walked on the bank robbing charges, not just then but for all time.

Usually when the Green Hornet does something bad, it’s to stop a criminal operation and bring the criminals to justice. Here the Green Hornet tampered with evidence and obstructed justice – both felonies so I’d call them bad things – to keep a bank robber from being convicted and punished. That’s not a good thing, that’s another bad thing.

If it’s not bad enough that the Green Hornet let a bank robber escape justice, he also hurt other people in the process. Remember, Lenore did rob the bank. So the prosecutor wasn’t doing anything wrong when he prosecuted her. And the police officer in charge of the evidence room was doing what he was supposed to do by storing Lenore’s Green Hornet costume as evidence to be used against her in trial. But the Green Hornet made these two innocent officers of the law look incompetent and have probably ruined their careers in the process. And all to help a guilty bank robber. So, yay!

Of course, the Green Hornet had help in obstructing justice in Lenore’s case from the least likely source. The judge presiding over the trial.

The judge felt that because the state had misplaced all of its evidence against Lenore, he had “no choice but to dismiss all charges.” Which was a bit precipitous on his part. A bit? It was a whole monsoon of precipitous. The judge shouldn’t have dismissed the charges, because there is no way that box contained all the evidence the state had against Lenore.

The chief of police didn’t say, “Someone wearing a Green Hornet costume just robbed a bank, round up the usual suspects. Oh, and while you’re at it, better bring all the secretaries in the city for good measure.” No, the police have to have followed some trail of evidence which led them to Lenore. The story didn’t say what that evidence was but it doesn’t matter what it was. What matters is that there had to have been some evidence which led the police to Lenore Case. Evidence other than that Green Hornet costume which disappeared.

The prosecutor could still have tried the case against Lenore. He could have introduced all of the other evidence that led the police to Lenore in the first place. He could then have introduced the testimony of the officers who arrested Lenore and found the Green Hornet costume in her possession. There was enough other evidence that the case could – should – have gone forward.

Sure the defense attorney could have attacked the credibility of the state’s case, because someone misplaced the Green Hornet costume. And maybe the jury would have found her not guilty for that reason. But that was no reason for the judge not to let the trial continue. The state had other evidence and it should have been allowed to make its case as best it could.

Makes me wonder what they taught that judge in judging school. Other than how to be snarky, that is.

Martha Thomases: Of Milkshakes and Men

This column is not for the lactose-intolerant. Or for the anything-intolerant.

Last week Heather Antos, an editor at Marvel, went out with a bunch of her colleagues for milkshakes at a nearby Ben & Jerry’s and posted a selfie on Twitter. She said, “It’s the Marvel milkshake crew! #FabulousFlo.” The hashtag refers to Flo Steinberg, who had just died.

So, you know, a Friday after a long week, Heather and a group of her pals went out to remember a woman who was their friend and mentor. They didn’t go to a bar. They went for ice cream. They posted a photo on Twitter because that’s what the kids do these days. I don’t know what could be more wholesome.

Naturally, there was an upset. To some, this photo represented everything that was wrong with Marvel today. Women and people of color in editorial offices apparently is a menacing concept to them, and they menaced back. Ms. Antos received threats of rape and other kinds of physical violence. Others chimed in to say these women weren’t attractive enough to rape.

I feel like this shouldn’t be necessary, but I’ll say it anyway: The photograph does not contain any comic book images. It supports no candidate nor ideology. It is a group of women affectionately remembering their friend.

(In the 1990s, there were a group of us at DC who used to go to women’s night at the Russian Baths in the East Village to sauna and steam. I’m very glad that the Internet wasn’t a thing yet, or we would have probably made it nuke itself.)

The comic book community rallied in support, which makes me so happy. We are, in general, thoughtful folk, and we are frequently very funny about it. The hashtag#MakeMineMilkshake was trending all weekend.

I’m still entirely gobsmacked that this happened. I know we are a polarized country today, and a lot of us feel scared and threatened by people with whom we disagree. Sometimes it doesn’t feel good when things change, especially when these are things we love. We want someone to blame so we don’t have to take responsibility ourselves. I get this. Really. I’m still pissed that the Carnegie Deli is gone.

My inner two-year old wants to scream and yell and break things when the world doesn’t do what I want. Over the decades, I’ve learned that when I scream and yell and break things, nothing gets better and sometimes change so that I like it even less. It’s much more effective to use my words (and, when appropriate, my money) to try to change minds to agree with me, or at least take my feelings into consideration. That’s not what happened to Heather Antos. Instead, a bunch of two-year olds screamed and yelled and threatened to break things. We can disagree with each other without all this other dribble-dribble.

Writer Mike Baron

Mike Baron and Kyle Chapman announced they were making an alt-right comic and somehow, I have managed to control myself enough so that I haven’t publicly appraised their physical appearance or whether I think they should be stabbable.

I’ve been part of some horrified private conversations among people who disagree with Baron and Chapman. These are just that – private. No one taking part in these conversations said anything about committing physical violence against any of the creative talent. We mostly just said that the book didn’t sound like anything we would want to read.

Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe Chapman and Baron will create the next Maus and we’ll all be knocked out by their insight and artistry. I don’t think they will, but that’s my bias and I would love to be proven wrong.

And if they want to post a picture to Twitter of them having a milkshake or even (horrors!) a beer, I’m cool with that. I bet Heather Antos is, too.

Tweeks: SDCC Steven Universe & OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes Interviews

We’re back with more interviews from SDCC 2017! In this installment of our Comic Con adventures, Maddy talks to Rebecca Sugar (The creator of Steven Universe — ALL HAIL!) about musical theatre being the voice of Marceline’s mom on Adventure Time, what to expect in Season 3, in what order she first drew the Gems & more.. Then she also chats with the voice of Steven, Zach Callison about stuff like his favorite fan theories and what’s in store for Steven next season. And she doesn’t leave the Cartoon Network press room without speaking with Ian Jones-Quarty about his brand new show, OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes, what he learned from working on Adventure Time & Steven’s Universe, and Legend of Zelda on Gameboy.

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks