Tagged: Adam Hughes

Mindy Newell Is Writing This During The Giants / Packers Game

The Crown Season 1

This is going to be a relatively unusual column today as I am frequently stopping to watch the New York Giants/Green Bay Packers wild card game. Right now there are 20 seconds left in the 1st quarter, the G’ints just punted, and Green Bay’s drive will start on the 45 yard line. The Giants should be up by at least one touchdown, but Beckham has dropped two perfect passes in the end zone – commentators Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are speculating that it’s because of the cold weather and although that’s possible, that’s not what I expect from a player of Beckham’s caliber. He made the All-Pro team this year. Anyway, the G’ints are up by a field goal (that’s three points for you non-football fans out there) and Green Bay has yet to put anything on the board.

I will say that New York’s defense in the 1st quarter has been terrific, but it’s a loooong game. Also, as I pointed to out to my daughter, son-in-law, and brother, the Packers have lost two previous play-off games to the Giants and they are as hungry as I would be. Eye of the Tiger, y’know?

Man, it’s hard not to write a running commentary on the game, but this is ComicMix, not NFL SuperPro (to mention the magazine I edited at Marvel in conjunction with NFL Properties), so I will digress from the pigskin.

To be honest, I haven’t ready any new comics that have impressed me enough to talk about – although I do love Adam Hughes’ Betty & Veronica – but I sure have been on the web a lot lately checking out “ComicMix-y” series, along with previews and trailers for what’s “coming soon.”

Constant readers will know that I have watched The Crown on Netflix (the geek connection is Matt Smith as Prince Phillip) and just finished the second season of The Man in the High Castle on Amazon. I’m currently looking forward to The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the 1985 speculative fiction, dystopian novel by the noted Canadian author Margaret Atwood, which will be premiering on Hulu in April. Set in a bleak future in which the United States has been become the theocratic Republic of Gilead, in which women have two functions: Madonna (wife and mother) and whore (the “Handmaids” of the title). While the novel primarily explores the themes of the roles of women in society, it also raises questions about the relationships between men and women, the purpose of class and caste, freedom of speech and thought, and the power of religion to subvert individualism.

The novel won the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award and Booker Prize; it was also nominated in 1987 for the Prometheus Award. It has already been adapted as a movie (which starred the late Natasha Richardson, and which, im-not-so-ho, did not do the book justice) and has also been translated to radio, opera, and stage. I’m really looking forward to it’s adaptation as a series so that the book has the chance to “stretch its legs.”

It’s the 2nd quarter, 3:60 left, and the G’ints are up by 6 – two field goals. Green Bay hasn’t yet scored…fuck! Green Bay just scored…and I must admit it was a daring pass by Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers to the successful and talented wide receiver Davante Adams. With the extra point, the Packers are now up by 1 – the score is now 7 – 6.

Much closer – next Saturday (January 15) is the television premiere of the sixth season of Homeland, although Showtime is already streaming the first episode and has made it available on Showtime On Demand. Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is in New York City, specifically Brooklyn, disengaged from the CIA, and has started a foundation to help falsely accused Muslims. Saul Berenson (Mandy Pantikin) and Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) are back, as is…

SPOILER ALERT!

…Rupert Friend as CIA “black ops” agent Peter Quinn. (To paraphrase Captain Kirk to Spock in The Wrath of Khan: “Isn’t he dead?”)

I check out the premiere of Emerald City (NBC, Fridays at 9 P.M.), which co-stars the indomitable and magnificent Vincent D’Onofrio (Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. the Kingpin, last seen on the whatever screen you use in second season of Netflix’s Daredevil) as the Wizard…

Double fuck!!!!! I missed the play (in fact, I don’t know how the Packers got the ball back because I was writing this), but the Packers have just scored again – and it’s an 8-point Green Bay lead. 14 – 6 going into halftime. What the hell happened to New York’s defense??

Okay. I’m calm. Depressed, but calm. As I was saying, I tried Emerald City, but it just didn’t work for me. It was too slow…or something. Not sure. I didn’t make it to the second half of the two-hour premiere – not actually a pilot, but two episodes run in sequence. But YMMV.

24 will be back, premiering on Fox after the Super Bowl (February 5), but without Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lyn Rajskub). Yep, Fox is doing a sequel, officially called 24: Legacy. Corey Hawkins is the “new Jack,” playing ex-Army Ranger and war hero Eric Carter. However, Carlos Bernard as agent-gone-bad Tony Almeida will be back. I don’t know about this one. Keifer and Chloe put such indelible marks on the show; it remains to be seen if lightning can strike twice.

 

Mindy Newell: Girlfriends

betty & veronica hughesVeronica Lodge: “Bring it on, Blondie. Bring it on!”

Betty Cooper: “Oh, it’s brung! It’s brung!”

Betty & Veronica #1 • Adam Hughes, Writer & Artist • Archie Comics, 2016

So I finally got a chance to read through my stack of comics, and the one that elicited the most positive reaction, the one that left me incredibly eager to read the next issue, the one that left the biggest impact on me was…

Betty & Veronica #1, by Adam Hughes.

Like so many others, I have loved those two iconic frenemies since I was a kid, which is mmpph years ago now. Sometimes I was Team Betty Cooper, and other times I was Team Veronica Lodge – there were times when I thought that Betty was just too good for her own good I and wanted her to pull off some nasty stunt to get back at Veronica… but then again, every time it seemed that Veronica’s nose was permanently up her own damned stuck-up ass, the girl would reveal her heart of 24-carat gold. I never really got the yearning both girls had for Archie; redheads have never done it for me. Besides, he was all too often incredibly mean to Betty, dumping her the minute Veronica waved her finger, and, at best, seemed to treat her like a pair of well-worn sneakers, the kind you put on when your feet are aching and tired after a long day at work.

Betty & Veronica #1Veronica’s adoration of young Mr. Andrews was a complete mystery to me, except that having a thing for the son of an ordinary “Joe” was possibly some kind of rebound complex against her rich-as-Croesus parents, especially her father. Although I seem to remember reading a story in which Mr. Lodge said he and his wife sent their daughter to the Riverdale public school system instead of to some private school so that she would grow up with an appreciation and awareness that not everyone in the world was wealthy – or something like that. Was there such a story? To be honest, I’m not sure – maybe it’s just an idea that I made up in my head to explain what the hell the Lodges were doing in Main Street, U.S.A., instead of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Then again, the only Riverdale that I knew was a leafy and wealthy conclave just north of Manhattan that was a pretty exclusive area, boasting the might-as-well-be-private Horace Mann Public School and the absolutely private Riverdale Country School, both which, if I may digress for just a moment, offer a superb education…

But to get back to and finish the original thought of the above paragraph, if Daddy Lodge wanted daughter Ronnie to mix with the peasants, then why did he object to her going out with one? Of course, there are peasants and there are peasants, he might say. He didn’t seem to object so much to Reggie, did he?

Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica was first published by Archie Comics in March 1950, although Betty made her first appearance in Pep Comics #22 (1941) and Veronica four issues later. Although friends, their adventures pretty much revolved around the girls’ rivalry for Archie. Hannah Rosin, who authored a recent article about the blonde and the raven-haired teenagers for Smithsonian Magazine (“Why Betty and Veronica Are the Real Stars of Riverdale,” July 2016) noted:

If the comic were a field guide to teenagedom, what did Betty and Veronica teach these girls? At best they are complementary archetypes, saucy and sweet, like Ginger and Mary Ann. At worst they are poison to the developing female mind. For decades, all those two ever did was “accidentally” spill lemonade on each other’s dresses. The duo conveyed that being an American teenage girl meant being a boy-crazy aspiring pinup who hated her best friend.”

It’s a good point, but I guess I never got the complete message. I never felt “boy-crazy,” although I had my fair share of crushes (which, like most crushes, were never really acted upon) and I don’t remember ever actually “hating” my best friend over a boy – sure, there were girls I was jealous of, but that was because I thought they were “prettier” or “more popular” than me, the two usually going hand-in-hand, and they were never girls I would say I was friends with, anyway. There was one girl who thought I deliberately stole her boyfriend, but I didn’t even know he was dating her when he asked me out to make her mad after they had had a fight, and was it my fault that he ended up liking me better than her? I only found out about this teenage guerre des coeurs (“war of hearts”) after the fact, when her crowd ganged up on me one day after school, called me all sorts of horrid names, warned me that “you’ll be sorry,” and sent me home crying. But that’s another story….

But I did love those fashion pinups, Ms. Rosin, the ones that were basically splash pages of Betty and/or Veronica in “different looks” – sometimes it was for “Fun In The Sun” with the girls modeling bathing suits (classic pinup, although rated “G”) and sometimes it was “Haute Couture,” featuring Betty in the latest fashions. Other times the page(s) would feature Betty and/or Veronica in different hairstyles – Betty with a short, chic pixie cut or Veronica in a pony tail a la Betty or both in “updos.”

But always, and always, no matter what, Betty and Veronica were friends, real friends, who always and always came through for each other. Yeah, they got on each other’s nerves, yeah, they would attack and solve problems in their own ways, and yeah, sometimes they would swear that the friendship was over for good! But it never has been and it never will be, because Betty and Veronica are forever. My daughter Alix read them, and so does the next generation of my family, my 16-year-old niece Isabel. That’s because, as Hannah Rosin said in her piece: “The idea that Betty and Veronica truly cared about boring old Archie was always comically implausible. The real chemistry, and all the fun, happened between the two girls.”

After it was announced in 2014 that the writer and creator Lena Dunham was writing a Betty and Veronica mini-series, some fans suggested to her that she make the girls lesbians. I think I understand why that would be important and an interesting, um, twist on the two teenagers, and in the right hands it could be an absolutely terrific story, but I also think it would work better outside the established Archie universe, the way that the zombie apocalyptic Afterlife with Archie is or Archie Marries Veronica/Betty was, if only because I also think it’s super important for girls (and women) to know that sisterhood is, indeed, powerful for all girls and women, and that possible to have a wo-mance while still desiring men as sexual partners. (See Dunham’s Girls or Sarah Jessica Parker’s Sex and The City.)

But maybe I’m just being an old fuddy-duddy the way some Star Trek or Star Wars fans are, resenting and rejecting any change in canon. Like making Hikaru Sulu gay, which I thought was terrific, although some others did not.

I’ll have to think about that.

Right now, as Adam Hughes has written, the girls on the outs. I mean waaaaay outs. It’s over the effort to save Pop’s Choklit Shoppe, which is about to bought out by the evil Starbucks Kweekwegs Koffee, “that big chain from out West,” Pop tells the kids. Betty is immediately on it:

We cannot let this happen! We will not be frightened by some big, dumb corporation and their gaspacho tactics.” (I think she means Gestapo. Good one, Adam!) “If we allow this to happen, what’s next? Where will it end? Trendy eateries, fast-food franchises…Riverdale will become just another highway stop for truckers, holiday drivers and…and tourists! If we give in now Riverdale will just become like any other town. It won’t be special anymore. Not even for us. The big corporations will win…the tourists will win. If we let Pop’s close down, then the tourists already won.”

So Betty Cooper is organizing a drive to raise money so that Pop can pay off the mortgage on his Shoppe and tell Kweekwegs Koffee to go to hell, while Veronica Lodge is just tagging along, too busy sitting on her ass and texting and tweeting or whatever the hell she’s doing to say or do anything.

And then Betty finds out that Kweekwegs Koffee is owned by Lodge Industries.

The girlfriends face off.

And the world holds its breath…

Mindy Newell’s Shortest Column Ever?

wonder woman rebirth

Some of you who read my Facebook posts might have already seen this, but I think that it’s important enough to repeat the story. It’s from the “See Something, Say Something” school.

Yesterday I was walking down the block to the store and I passed a parked car with two dogs in it and all the windows closed, including the sunroof. It was 95 degrees here in Bayonne, which meant that inside the car it must have been at least 10 degrees hotter. I went into the restaurant on the corner and asked if anyone owned this car. No. So, what to do? I waited about five minutes to see if the owner came back – nope. So I called the police. I’m happy to say they showed up immediately. They went from door-to-door up and down the street, and to the storefronts to see if they could find the owner. I asked them if I should wait by the car, but they said no, they could track down the bitch or bastard who had left the dogs with the license plate if need be, and, if worse came to worse, they would open the car. So I went home, but I am still wondering – no, really hoping – that they gave the unfeeling owner a summons.

I have a bunch of comics sitting on my kitchen table that I just haven’t had time to read. They include the “rebirthed” Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka (writer), Liam Sharp (artist), Laura Martin (colors) and Jodi Wynne (letters); Liam and Laura’s work on the covers alone is just amazingly beautiful. Tomorrow I am bring this comic plus the others (Superman: American Alien by Max Landis and Francis Manapul; Betty & Veronica by Adam Hughes; Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, Ian Herring, and VC’s Joe Caramagna; The Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Guiseppe li, Cam Smith, Marte Gracia, and VC’s Joe Caramagna; and the “rebirthed” Superman by Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Mick Gray, John Kalisz, and Rob Leigh) to work to read at break and at lunch…if I get a break and lunch.

I have discovered a new tactic when defending Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, thanks to the New York Times. (Again, some of you may have already seen this on my Facebook page.) It is a video from the Times’ website, and it’s called “Voices From Donald Trump’s Rallies, Uncensored.” And boy, is it! It’s more than uncensored, people, it’s downright sickening. After the various people who are against Hillary watch this, I say, “Do you really want to be associated with people like this?” And then I add, “This time it’s not about politics, it’s about love of our country.” I have gotten various reactions, from nervous laughter to “Oh, shit,” to shrugs.

Seriously, folks…check it out.

Like I said, if you see something, say something.

And before I sign off for the week, I want to give a ginormous hug to my fellow columnist and beloved friend, Mr. John (Johnny-O) Ostrander. Last week John and his bromance-for-ever main man Mike Gold attended the World Premiere of Suicide Squad in the Big Apple, where Mr. Ostrander received accolade and so-long-deserved R-E-S-P-E-C-T, as Aretha sang it. I am so happy for you, John! I am kicking up my heels! I am dancing in the streets….

Simply put, this Jewess is plotzing!!!!!!

Love you, John!!!!

 

 

Martha Thomases: Betty and Veronica and Adam Hughes and Sex

Betty & Veronica Adam HughesThis week, Archie Comics announced a Kickstarter campaign to launch a bunch of new titles. If you read the comments at the link (which normally, I would never recommend), you’ll see people who object to Adam Hughes drawing Betty and Veronica because it objectifies the characters, seeing them through the male gaze.

First, let me say that I like Adam Hughes’ work. I think the women he draws, while beautiful, also look physically possible, more like movie stars with trainers than broomsticks with hair and boobs.  If that gets me booted out of Feminism Camp, so be it.

But mostly, when has Betty and Veronica been about anything but the male gaze? Two beautiful teenage girls, interchangeable except for the color of their hair, wear the most revealing clothes the Comics Code would allow, mooning over a boy who is average at best. The fact that these have been described as “comics for girls” is an example of gender-role indoctrination at its most insidious.

And, yes, I kind of like them, too. I contain multitudes.

Anyway, this story, which might not be important in and of itself, seems to me to be part of a larger issue. We are in (I hope) a period of transition, as women and other groups who don’t look like studio heads and venture capitalists (i.e. by and large mostly straight white men) are trying to tell their own stories or, at least, see stories about characters who look like them.

This happens most felicitously when a variety of people get to tell their own stories in their own ways. It can also happen when talented straight white men who actually know a variety of people tell a story honestly.

It doesn’t happen when they take a straight white male hero and slap tits/black skin/brown skin/queer impulses on him. Unfortunately, that last option happens a lot. And when the hero is made female, she is too often cast because she looks beautiful, not heroic.

This was satirized brilliantly on a recent episode of Inside Amy Schumer. A jury of 12 angry men sat in judgment as to whether or not Amy Schumer was hot enough to star in a cable television show. They didn’t talk about whether or not she was funny, or a talented actor. They talked about whether or not her appearance gave them a “chubbie.”

Lots of women in show business have complained about this type of behavior, and for the most part, men – even sympathetic men — haven’t fully believed them. In fact, the show was inspired by a real event  and a real idiot, a man with access to entertainment executives, a man to whom the industry listens.

It’s tempting, at this point, to sigh and make a (stereotyped and bigoted) joke about nerds who live in their mothers’ basements and don’t know any real women. Those jokes might even have a bit of truth to them. However, we live in a time when women who express opinions and demonstrate autonomy get death threats. Their jobs are threatened. The men responsible complain about the tyranny of feminism (in which case, where is my scepter?) and lament that women get to control their own bodies when deciding with whom they want to have sex.

(Note: I read that somewhere online in a comments section, and can’t find the link anymore. It might be the opinion of only one guy. I hope so.)

There will be nothing on television in the upcoming season that extreme because television exists on advertising aimed at the mass market. Instead, we’ll get a bunch of shows that pat women on the head for being so gosh-darned resourceful as to manage both a career and a vagina . All the women starring in these shows will be as beautiful as Betty and Veronica. and they will have gorgeous wardrobes. Some will be able to chase criminals while wearing high heels.

It is up to us, as the audience, to see to it that this condescending, patronizing kind of show falls flat on its face.