Tagged: Dennis O’Neil

MINDY NEWELL: Am I Really A Writer?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The answers:

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

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

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

“Yes.”

“It’s 3:00?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m typing.”

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

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

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

And I have a confession to make.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or do I?

Oh.

Wait.

I guess I am a writer.

Or a typist.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MIKE GOLD: The Bizarro Family – Marilyn Monroe and JFK!

Bizarro Mindy Newell’s column debut last Monday inspired me to trash the column I had in mind for today and instead tell you the story of Bizarro Marilyn Monroe and Bizarro John F. Kennedy. Well, let’s say postpone – the first rule of deadline writing is “thou shalt not never ever throw any idea out.”

Way, way back in the days shortly after newsprint replaced papyrus and the stapler revolutionized the magazine industry, DC Comics published a monthly called Adventure Comics. At this moment in time – February 13, 1962 – Adventure’s lead feature was “Tales of the Bizarro World,” based upon the popular characters running rampant through the DCU of the era. If you’re even thinking about asking if these stories were in continuity, please immediately see your doctor about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

DC’s approach to humor at the time allowed for inside jokes as long as they didn’t interfere with the story. Batman #66, “The Joker’s Comedy of Errors,” is perhaps the grossest evidence of this. The editor of Adventure Comics was Mort Weisinger, and there’s been a lot of stories told about the guy. He was rough on writers – they would have to pitch several stories only to be rejected and fed a premise to work on instead. I’m told some pitches would then be given to another writer. Perhaps the writer was better suited for the concept; perhaps Mort was just a sadist.

Anyway, what is less known is that Mort Weisinger was pretty heavily wired into the political and celebrity scene. The DC job was a three day a week gig, and he did a lot of writing for “legitimate” publications such as the highly credible newspaper magazine insert, This Week. I don’t know how close he was to the Kennedy family, but he ran in those circles.

What people did not know during President Kennedy’s life was something that is common assumption today: JFK had quite a sweaty relationship with Marilyn Monroe. The media knew all about it, but back then they didn’t print such stuff.

Boy, how times have changed.

So we pick up Adventure Comics #294 (cover-dated March 1962) and we find the story “The Halloween Pranks of the Bizarro-Supermen.” That’s an odd story for springtime. Halloween being what it is, various Bizarros dress up as Jerry Lewis, John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. Bizarro Superman #1 (don’t ask) donned a Mickey Mantle mask. Marilyn was almost always seen next to JFK.

Was this a remarkable coincidence? The story was written by Jerry Siegel and, for the record, was drawn by John Forte. It certainly is possible that Weisinger fed Siegel the gag. According to second-class mailing permit stats, the average sale of Adventure Comics in 1962 was 460,000 copies. Even if Mort sent copies to some of his friends, I’m guessing the number of readers who did not get the joke was around… 460,000. The story went into a different direction, evolving into a saga about the friendship between Bizarro Krypto and Bizarro Lex Luthor, with Bizarro Kltpzyxm (sic) and the “real” Krypto tossed in for good measure.

Whereas there is no physical proof of a relationship between the two celebrity Earthlings, Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot makes a pretty good case and various confidants of both individuals have acknowledged the liaisons over the years. Marilyn died (one way or another) in August of 1962, a half-year after Adventure #294 was published. JFK was murdered 15 months after that – 48 years ago last week.

Now we flash-forward to 1976. DC President Sol Harrison thought it would be cool if I met Mort Weisinger because of our mutual interest in politics. Mort and I had a fascinating conversation that ran about two-and-one-half hours. I asked him about the Bizarro Marilyn / Bizarro JFK story. At first I thought I made him angry, but his broad facial gesture turned into a huge laugh. “You know, you’re the only guy to ask me that!” And that was his only response.

A tip of the green visor to the Grand Comics Database for confirming the data, and to Bizarro Mindy Newell for pushing the snowball, umm, up the hill.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

MARTHA THOMASES: Frank Miller Bounceback

There’s been a lot of noise on two areas of the blogosphere that I follow – comics and politics – because Frank Miller recently posted about the Occupy Wall Street movement on his blog. My favorite response, as usual, was on TBogg’s blog, because I love me some snark.

See that photo over there? It’s had an honorable position on my refrigerator since it was taken about 15 years ago at the San Diego Comic Convention. It’s me and Frank, back when he could still walk the floor.

I’ve known Frank since the late 1970s. I met him soon after I met Denny O’Neil, and we hung out a lot when he was drawing the Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14. My friend, Legs McNeil <http://www.amazon.com/Legs-McNeil/e/B000APOLAA>,  was (and is) a huge comic book fan. He managed a band, Shrapnel, that was essentially Sgt. Rock set to music. We conspired to put them into an issue of a comic book, a mission that required many trips to CBGBs.

I don’t remember talking politics with him, but its possible that I did. There are a lot of people in comics that I like, but with whom I disagree politically. Dan Jurgens, Larry Hama, Chuck Dixon – we don’t agree, and that’s fine. We also tend to like different kinds of music, movies and books. We have fun conversations.

Our disagreements never led me to boycott their work. And I’ll boycott quite easily. For example, I haven’t bought any Revlon cosmetics since Ron Perelman plundered Marvel.

But I won’t give up something that gives me joy. If my joy is ruined by my disagreement with the owner or creator, then I’ll give it up.

What amused me about this particular kerfuffle is that, once you got away from the comic book sites, the reactions were fairly hilarious. Most people seem to think that Frank Miller, not Zach Snyder, was responsible for the movie, 300. It’s true that Snyder spent a lot of time and energy trying to mimic specific pages of Frank’s work, but he also added a lot of other stuff to fill out the 117 minutes of playing time.

I disagree with Frank on this issue. I think he’s wrong, profoundly wrong. I think he’s far away from this issue, and getting his information from less than reliable sources.

But I don’t think he deserves to be called names. As grown-ups who defend the free exchange of ideas, we can disagree with each other. We should. But it’s bad for the country when we descend into name-calling.

In other words, this.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

MARTHA THOMASES: Good Times At Comic Con High

It is something of a movie cliché, especially in buddy-movies, for one of the two, in the heat of battle, to mutter, “I’m getting too old for this.”

That’s how I felt before New York Comic Con.

It’s another cliché that, just when you think you have life figured out, it changes. I had a pretty good time.

Granted, I was frustrated by the crowds, and the noise aggravated me (and yet, I live in New York City!). Also, I wasn’t there on Saturday, when I’m told the crowds were the worst. And I’ve been to so many shows by now that I know how to edit my experience.

So, despite the backpacks and the people who thought that because they were taking photographs they were entitled to take away an entire aisle from pedestrian traffic, and the plethora of booths devoted to gaming, not comics, there’s a fun time in there.

Let me count the ways:

• Even before the show, the press coverage was so much better than comics used to get. Sure, there was a lot of attention paid to people in funny costumes, but there were also stories like this in the New York Times, which focused on people who are cool and creative and artists worthy of attention, just like other New York talents.

• Not only are talented writers and artists getting some respect, but so are the fans. True, there was lots of pandering to people’s desire to get something for free, but there were also some unusual businesses setting up booths. The Museum of Natural History promoted their planetarium. Chevrolet not only had a booth, but they also had artist-painted cars around the show, including one by Neal Adams. This is so much better than the first show, where there were military recruiters.

• There are so many kids (who probably hate being called kids, but indulge this old fart) who are excited enough by comics to want to make them. For example, Joe Corallo recognized me and chased after me to give me his self-published comic, The Uncanny Undergrads. Comics remain one of most democratic of media, where anyone with an idea and guts can make something amazing and try to make a career out of it.

• Best of all is seeing old friends. I never went to comic conventions as a fan. It was never part of my social life. When I met Denny O’Neil, I started to go to convention parties, back when they were easier to crash. When I had to go to cons for work, I found out that, for me, Artists’ Alley was the most fun place. It still is. At a big show, it’s a place where you can usually avoid mobs, and actually talk to the people who make the comics we love. This year, I was blessed to run into Bob Camp, whom I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years. He’s still sweet and funny and brilliant.

So maybe, if I have to go to more comic shows, I’ll go. I’ll kvetch, but I’ll be secretly pleased about it.

Martha Thomases is proud of herself for not buying a rabbit on Saturday.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

DENNIS O’NEIL: Superman’s Two Daddies

When Jerry Siegel first conjured up Superman, some time in 1934, he really didn’t tell us much about the Man of Steel’s doomed homeworld. We were informed that it exploded and that only baby Kal-El survived the big bang because his father, Jor-El, shot him into space in a prototypical spacecraft which, for reasons not really explained, had room for only one subsize occupant. This was after Jor-El had appeared before some governing body or other and warned of impending doom, and was ignored.

Not a lot of information there. For openers, we might ask where, exactly, Krypton was located. I’m betting that Jerry had our solar system in mind, and why not? In the early 30s, not even degree-bearing scientists knew their way around our sun and its planets, much less a kid from Cleveland. If Jerry were doing his creation today, he might mention alien stars, or distant galaxies, and worm holes and space/time warps, and then he’d have to explain how someone so far away could know about Earth and an ecosphere capable of sustaining Kryptonian fauna. (Or maybe he’d just ignore the whole question. If so, he’d get no scolding from me, my friend.)

Jerry gave no hints about Kryptonian socio-politics, geography, religion, or customs. We don’t even know if the planet had any moon(s). Nor do we know why Jor-El was the Kryptonian version of Cassandra. (Remember Cassie, from Greek myth? She could foretell the future but was cursed to have nobody ever believe her.) Lately, I’ve been wondering if Jerry was himself a prophet, albeit of the accidental variety.

Let me elucidate:

We begin with raw speculation, but, not having information we can be forgiven for trying to fill in a few blanks ourselves. Let us, then, suppose that at the time of Jor-El’s Cassandra number, the Els had been recently removed from office – the Els being, or course, the legislative clan Jor belonged to. They were replaced in the chambers of Krypton’s odd government by their age-long rivals, the Les. (Long “E.”)

Among those who scoffed at Jor:

Chain-Le: Chain was an industrialist-turned-politician who saw an opportunity to enrich himself and his cronies by blaming the symptoms of impending doom on secret weaponry unleashed by another nation and having war declared on these presumed enemies.

Rev-Le: Rev was a clergyman who said that according to scripture, the world wasn’t supposed to end until half-past the next millennium and so, not only was Jor wrong, he was a heretic who should be stoned.

Iggy-Le: Iggy was another politician who thought these scientists, like Jor, were just a bunch of snooty eggheads who ought to be ignored, though Iggy thought that maybe Rev-Le had something with that stoning notion.

Geo-Le: Geo, the most powerful official in the legislature, didn’t actually join in the condemnation of Jor because Geo was a puppet. It seems that ancient and ill-understood Kryptonian custom allowed hand puppets to occupy the position of head-of-state if the electoral process somehow became hopelessly subverted. The only explanation for this anomaly was written in a long-dead language and has been translated as: Why not?

We could possibly go on but…hey – is it just me or is it globally warm in here?

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

DENNIS O’NEIL: Read This Column Or We’ll Shoot– Okay, We’re Lying

DENNIS O’NEIL: Read This Column Or We’ll Shoot– Okay, We’re Lying

Cheeseface on the cover of National Lampoon.

Image via Wikipedia

Let’s get the anecdotal/name dropping portion of this blather out of the way up front:

Five, maybe six years ago, I was leaving the British Broadcasting Company’s offices in Manhattan, where I’d been brainstorming a kids’ show with a producer and some writers, including Sean Kelly, who was accompanying me to Third Avenue. Sean mentioned that when he was editor of the late, lamented humor magazine, the National Lampoon, and the Lampoon shared a midtown building with my usual employer, DC Comics, he considered asking me to contribute something to his pages, but that someone told him that I wouldn’t be interested.

Now, let me take a deep breath and aver, emphatically, that I would have been delighted to have my work appear in the hippest and funniest magazine on the racks. I don’t know and don’t want to know who Sean spoke with, but it’s fair to say that this mysterious person did me a disservice with an untruth.

So yes, experience allows us to state that falsehoods, whether malicious or innocent, do affect people and events, and we can’t console ourselves by thinking they have no consequences. And they piss us off: some squiggle deep in our brains probably perceives them as threats and we want to react, we want to strike back and avenge and bring low the foe.

Not easily done and maybe not wisely done, either. I retaliate and the foe retaliates to my retaliation and there are arguments and side-choosing and and and and…

The unhealthiest part of the relevant egos, foes’ and mine, fattens on anger and vengeance and, yes, hate, and validates their existence with our sorry conflicts.

Redress by law? Hey, ever been privy to a lawsuit? There’s no guarantee of satisfaction from a process that can drag months in its wake, maybe years, and break the bank and chew up and spit out one’s life…

I’ll stop waxing metaphorical now, take another deep breath and, head bowed, admit that I have recently been on the receiving end of some brickbats that make whatever was said to Sean Kelly, decades past, seem like powder puffs. (I said I was done with metaphors, didn’t I? Sorry.)

A final deep breath and–my friends: I believe the First Amendment to be the best thing in the Constitution and I believe John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty should be required reading for everybody (or at least recommended reading) and I wish there was some way of reprimanding politicians and journalists and pundits when they deviate from the truth but…we pay a price for our most cherished freedoms and allowing the publication of rumors (or worse) is the ugly cost of freedom of speech.

This can be, I admit, a paltry consolation, and at the moment it is indeed feeling pretty paltry ,but it will have to serve.

Recommended Reading:

  • [[[On Liberty]]], by John Stuart Mill.
  • [[[Saints Preserve us: Everything You Need To Know About Every Saint You’ll Ever Need]]], by Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers

 Friday: Martha Thomases

 

DENNIS O’NEIL: The Need For Superheroes

(Editor’s note: Obviously, this column was written before Hurricane Irene hit the Atlantic Northeast. This was very smart on the author’s part, as nobody knew if he’d have power to write and send it until it could have been too late. Thanks for the foresight, Denny!)

If superheroes existed, they’d be near Cape Hatteras, where Hurricane Irene is expected tomorrow, or maybe here, where big wind is expected Saturday or Sunday. Or they’d be monsters.

I lived through a hurricane in 1963, aboard the USS Lake Champlain – petite as aircraft carriers go, about the size of a small village, but huge among ordinary watercraft. We were in the Caribbean, reasonably safe because something as massive as a carrier probably won’t capsize, but making our way along decks that were constantly swaying. Once, I stuck my head outside a port and looked at the huge waves breaking over the flat bow of the ship and thought, well if I wasn’t a believer before…

Our pilots spent the next few days flying rescue missions to and from Haiti and I got a story or two to tell.

And last May, in Missouri, we were close to a tornado that passed within a mile of our hotel. The next morning we drove through the area, where Marifran grew up, past the spot on the curb where we sat in my father’s station wagon after a movie and pizza, good Catholic kids doing nothing more than lingering. Mari’s childhood home was intact, but the garage in the back yard was flattened. That’s how it was in Ferguson, Missouri that May morning: normal plots of suburbia punctuated with devastation.

And what will happen to Nyack, New York tomorrow or the day after?

Superheroes, I think, come from the same place as deities and good luck charms, They represent something greater than our frail and frightened selves, something bigger and stronger and vastly benevolent that will shield us from the cruelties we thrust upon us by ill fate, cruelties that may be edging toward Nyack from the south and may soon ravage us. They don’t exist, these superheroes, but evolution has gifted and cursed us with imagination, and maybe we can be comforted by pretending that they do.

We’ve done some preparing, and may do more. But I remember those waves crashing onto the carrier deck and I doubt that our paltry efforts will be able to affect the results of the storm.

What I want is a superman to protect me, or at least a father’s hand to hold. But supermen aren’t real and my father has been dead for years.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

DENNIS O’NEIL: The Weight of Fall

It’s the time of year when the world holds its breath. Back from vacation and if you’re old enough and lucky enough to be employed, fill the tank, Monday morning will be here before you know it, and if you’re going to school, either to sit in rows among the other students or to stand and teach… well, there are supplies to get – how late is Staples open? – and maybe some last minute reading and – one, two, three, all of us cop to it now – the anticipation: will the subjects be interesting, will the room’s other occupants be pleasant and/or pretty or trolls, will something that spins existence on its axis occur and change life forever and if you’re a lady who’s just retired after schoolmarming in four states for fifty years will you feel a tad blue – not that I know anyone like that – and, finally, will the English teacher get really frosted at having to read sentences that go on and on and on and on…?

No gold star for me? I’ll live with it.

If you’re a comics geek – and yes, we do know who we are – you may be feeling a bit disoriented. Not long ago, the days that cluster around the September holiday marked the end of major fan activity. The big conventions were history, the summer annuals lie all snug in their Mylar nests, the big publishers seemed to take a breather between those annuals and the big Christmas push to fill stockings with graphic novels, preferably in hardcover. Oh sure, all the regular titles appeared, but they were just … you know… stories. Nothing special. This year, though, there are several conventions yet to come, including the monster-doozie that occurs at the Javits Center in Manhattan, Marvel and DC are going digital, which will almost certainly change the biz, maybe a lot, and – what am I forgetting…?

Oh yeah. DC Comics is relaunching its whole line. Relaunching its superhero pantheon when print publishing is struggling to survive and reinvent itself in what may be the most turbulent climate since Gutenberg set his first stick of type: an important bookstore chain that according to one estimate accounts for maybe fifteen percent of retail sales is closing its many doors and an online retailer is altering the way business is done and nobody seems to know what the hell the e-book revolution will spawn.

All that is figure resting on the ground of a legislative system that seems hopelessly broken and huge environmental uncertainties that might affect publishing and everything else.

Plus…is the Mayans who say the world will end next year? Or am I thinking of that television preacher?

Yessir, Mr. D, the times they are a’changin’.

Ask me if I care. In about six weeks, the Rockland County foliage will begin its yearly display and, for a while, the daily trip to the mailbox will be reason for rejoicing. That will be enough now, and maybe forever.

Recommended Reading: The Will Eisner Companion, by N.C. Christopher Couch and Stephen Weiner. Disclosure: I contributed an essay to this book, but I’m not in the way of any royalties. If you know Eisner’s work, you’ll want to read it, and if you don’t…hey, it’s about time.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

 

MIKE GOLD: Hey, Here’s A Surprise!

Well, I’m having fun.

Back when we started out, ComicMix used to run all these fabulous columns written by all these swell writers and, well, by me too. Those columns disappeared after about a year and a half and a lot of people told us they wanted ‘em back. Among those people were most of the columnists themselves. And me. Man, I bitched up a storm. And nobody can bitch up a storm like me.

So we re-geared out operations (that term creates the ambiance that we actually have a clue as to what we’re doing), and, effective right now, we’re reinstating our daily columns. Joining returning writers Dennis O’Neil, John Ostrander, Martha Thomases, Michael Davis and myself are two newcomers: Marc Alan Fishman and Mindy Newell.

You know Marc from his frequent contributions to ComicMix. He’s just a kid, which is weird because his wife is pregnant with a smaller, younger kid. A life-long comics fan who knows his barbecue, Marc is part of the mighty Unshaven Comics crew. That’s at www.unshavencomicsonline.com, where he’s joined by his buddies and my pals Matt Wright and Kyle Gnepper. Together, they publish indy comics that are truly worth reading; that’s how we found Marc in the first place. Check ‘em out at their website.

Chances are pretty damn good you’ve also heard of Mindy. She’s making her return to comics here at ComicMix; she spent about five years editing at Marvel Comics and ten years writing such features as Wonder Woman, Catwoman, the Legion of Super-Heroes, American Flagg!, Daredevil, Black Widow, The Next Wave… you get the idea. She’s also an operating room nurse, which I think might come in handy around here. Somebody told me – I think it was Mindy – that I cannot live on barbecue alone. I try.

We’ll be focusing more solidly on comics than we did last time around. Not to say we’ve abandoned the heavy political/social stuff: Martha, Michael and I have been writing those type of columns every week for www.michaeldavisworld.com for a couple years now and we’ll be continuing to do so until we get arrested for sedition.

But here at ComicMix we’ll be mostly talking about comics and directly related media and phenomena. We’ll probably be talking about the comics related movies and teevee shows and, if we can find somebody wealthy enough to buy tickets, even to comics related Broadway plays. Perhaps I’ll even do an expose about just how many Wonder Woman statues a 35-year-old woman can squeeze into her basement apartment.

Most important, we invite you to join in on the fun. We’re in for some hectic times in the greater comics world. DC is recreating itself again, and Marvel going nuts with special events. Everybody’s got something new, and new publishers continue to pop up like rabid Whac-a-Moles. Please feel free to comment until your fingers fall off. It’s probable that the relevant columnist will play in and we can get a nice little dialog going. Think of ComicMix as sort of like Twitter with an attention span.

And bring along your sense of humor.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil!

Moustache Wax, by Dennis O’Neil

Moustache Wax, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • October 21, 2008

My brother had a Sportsman McCain sticker on his car, but I wasn’t worried. The night before, a nice young man in a bookstore, a complete stranger, gave me a big peace button and with that pinned to my vest, I was pretty sure I was safe from the McCain vibes, even though we were in a red state.

I watched Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live a few hours later, and although I thought she handled the comedy okay, and my dirty old man merit badge glowed just a tiny bit, I was and am not tempted to vote for her, no siree, and so I guess the peace button was potent even indoors.

Who might that nice young man have been? Merlin? Galahad? The ghost of Thomas Jefferson? Or, given that I was in St. Louis, land of the mighty arch and my childhood, the ghost of my own naïve, youthful dreams?

Ah well. No matter. What’s important is that the peace button/amulet did its stuff.

As a shield against the dark enchantments of McCain and Palin, it did its stuff. In other areas…not so good. At this moment, our luggage is somewhere between White Plains Airport and Dulles, or between Dulles and Lambert Field, or in a terminal or storage facility in one of those three terminals. This provides me with an absolutely unnecessary reminder of one of several reasons why I hate commercial flying. Or – could it be? – our bags are in a sub-basement of the Republican National Headquarters where Palin herself is squirting my moustache wax from the little tube, seeking the secret of how I resisted her SNL appearance. (Rest easy: she won’t find it. The peace button was in my carryon.)

And what, the inquisitive among you might be asking, has any of this to do with comics, popular culture, or even real politics, for it seems to be less concerned with any of those things than an Andy Rooney kvetch about how expensive goods are nowadays has to do with the Gross National Product. Fair question. Answer? Let me see…Okay, try this.

(more…)

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