Sequart Organization is proud to announce the release of The Anatomy of Zur-en-Arrh: Understanding Grant Morrison’s Batman, by Cody Walker.
Grant Morrison has made a career of redefining heroes, but his work with Batman has been the most comprehensive. From Arkham Asylum and JLA to his recent seven-year run on the Batman titles, Morrison has redefined and reworked the Caped Crusader from the ground up. He’s also introduced new characters (such as Damian Wayne) and new concepts (such as Batman, Inc.).
The Anatomy of Zur-En-Arrh looks at how Morrison’s run understands and reinterprets Batman’s long history. Also, an exclusive interview with Morrison rounds out the book.
The book runs 272 pages and is available in print (list price $16.99) and on Kindle (list price $6.99). For more information on The Anatomy of Zur-En-Arrh, visit the book’s official page. Also, the book features a beautiful cover by David A. Frizell.
If there is one thing that sets the superhero genre apart from its cousins – science fiction, detective/mystery, fantasy and mythology – it is the garish costumes our heroes and villains wear. The practice dates back to the inception of superheroes, even in western comics like The Lone Ranger, to bring in young readers with heroes (typically in primary colors) and the bad guys who started off as mobsters then became such foes and fiends as the Joker and Doc Ock in secondary and tertiary colors… grab a color wheel guys I’m getting deep here… to help the young heads full of mush differentiate and keep their attention throughout the book…
Now, Let’s fast forward to today, and leave the past, which is always prologue behind.
Why are some of our beloved “superheroes” still wearing primary colored laden tights when it goes against the very fiber of the well established character that we have come to know over the past 50 years? Superman, I get that. Captain America? Yeah. Not a costume but a way of wearing Old Glory mixed with some armor. The Punisher wearing a big white skull on his chest, perfectly reasonable way to draw enemy fire towards the body armor he’s wearing. I can buy that. The Batman, as it has been explained over and over and over again is also wearing body armor mixed with a “flair for the dramatic” to “instill fear” into a “superstitious and cowardly lot.” It’s a stretch, but I’m still on board. The many Green Lanterns are wearing the Crops uniform.
Where my suspension of belief stops is Wolverine. Logan. James Howlett.
I can believe in all the fake science. As Denny O’Neil famously said, it’s fake, but it’s ours. I can believe Logan’s two hundred years old. I can go along with almost every nuance and minutia over the character. Until we get to that costume. It does not compute.
I understand that Wolverine was created, in the comics, to lead Canada’s superhero team. Fine. However, that was many years ago, both in real life and in comics continuity. So, are we going to continue with the idea that a guy that has killed more people that can be counted, used to smoke cigars (until someone took charge at The House of Ideas put a moratorium on smoking) and drinks like a fish, has been trained as a samurai, has fought in every major war since (well it varies, but we will go with) the American Civil War is going to put on skin tight yellow and blue spandex suit because Professor X told him to?
Really?
Can we look at the character again? This dude would look Professor X or General Patton himself in the face and laugh, light a cigar and go on his merry day to the nearest non-smoking bar. And, maybe stab a ninja or two on the way just for kicks.
Grant Morrison changed this dramatically, and generally fanboys (I’m a fanboy, too) booed and hissed and bemoaned the change. Larry Hama and Adam Kubert did a great run with Wolvie outside of the costume after the Fatal Attractions storyline. The point being, there are plenty of heroes that don’t wear costumes, that stick to their character and it works for them. Shouldn’t we look at our heroes and villains and see which ones work in “costumes” and more specifically which ones don’t? Don’t we owe it to a guy that we love like Wolverine to let him stop dressing like a clown and let him just be who he is?
FUTURES END #1 Written by Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen Art by Patrick Zircher
I won’t lie to you, this book’s got me confused.
It starts in the semi-distant future of the time of Batman Beyond, a world that has been taken over by the latest iteration of Brother Eye, a sentient satellite/robot/thingy, which has taken over the world in Terminator-esque fashion. In an attempt to Fix What has Gone Wrong, Batman Beyond/Terry McGinnis comes back in time to kill someone, a person not specifically named as of yet, but since in this story, they maintain that now it’s Mr. Terrific who built Brother Eye, one might be able to guess he is the target.
The thing is, Terry has not gone back in time far enough. He landed fives years in our future, a time where Michael Holt has already created Brother Eye and is in the process of introducing its technology into society. Terry says they’re seven years too late, but he landed five years in the current DCU’s future, which means he should have landed about two years in its past, relative to our present, which would be a little bit before the narrative of the New 52 even started…
Timeline worries notwithstanding, another big problem here is that we’ve already seen Brother Eye in the New 52, in the pages of Dan Didio and Keith Giffen’s OMAC, and he had no connection to Mr. Terrific at all. At the same time the Mister Terrific book was going (and I was enjoying it) and there was no mention of any Brother Eye technology at all. Indeed, when they ended the book, they tied it into the coming Earth 2 title instead. If one wanted to go there, one would have to assume that this book spoils to some degree the events in the aforementioned Earth 2, wherein Michael is currently in somewhat dire straits.
I must assume it will be explained, but we’re once again in a position where DC seems to be reversing itself on the storylines of a new universe that’s not yet even three years old. This appears to be the third version of Brother Eye in only five years, and the fourth in total. In the previous iteration of the DCU, Brother Eye was created by Batman as a fail-safe system to take down his fellow heroes should the need ever arise. The system gets out of hand…
and they have to take it down, a goal at which they only partly succeeded, as various OMACs kept popping up in various places.
In the New 52, Brother Eye is back in control of a single OMAC, in the person of one Kevin Kho. After the brief (but enjoyable) run of his title, he popped up in various titles, most recently the Suicide Squad, mere weeks ago during the events of Forever Evil.
(And this is all over and above the original OMAC series created by jack Kirby during his brief but creative period that he was at DC, a period that also brought us The New Gods, another stable of heroes too good for DC to not keep using.)
So I’ve no idea how these stories from the current DCU will be tied to the new facts presented in this first issue of the weekly book (which got a tease last weekend as part of Free Comic Book Day.
The story as presented has some obvious parallels to The Terminator, but older DC fans will also recall the MaxiMegaCrossover Armageddon 2001, where a hero of our time chooses to take control of the world, forcing a person to come back to the past, discover which her is was, and stop them.
The book suffers from a weakness not of the story, but the premise itself. Taking place five years in the future of the DCU, it can be safely assumed that the events of the story will never come to pass, so we’re effectively reading a just short of a year-long(more on that in a moment) “imaginary story” that will have no impact or connection to the ongoing narrative of the regular titles. Such stories are lots of fun to read in graphic novel or other one-shot format, but 40-odd issues at three or four bucks each? Not so sure. I mean, Trinity was entertaining, and Countdown…a bit less so, but both ended up being very expensive stand-alone stories, and they got a lot of people quite annoyed as a result.
They’ve certainly started the death toll quickly, with one major DC down already, and one super-team which was getting positive press for apparently getting a major spot in the book…suddenly not. But again, since the book takes place in a nebulous future that will almost certainly never take place, there’s no sense of loss at all. I expect we’ll hear neither hue nor cry at these, or any deaths in the book, as even the most casual reader will suss the fact that they Won’t Really Count.
There’s another weekly starting in October that will connect with Futures End in some way. I think it takes place in the present in the DCU, which, if so, would still be later than when the string of events supposedly started. How they’ll connect, or if it will be a story you could enjoy on its own, we shall have to see.
But here’s the thing – Dan Didio has already let slip that all three weeklies (the third being Batman Eternal, which is quite good so far) will not all be a year long, as the past weeklies have been, but will all be ending in March of 2015. This certainly gives the impression that something will be coming in April of 2015, which only happens to be the 30th anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
So DC has effectively gotten people to already half-discount the current story, making it seem like it’s nothing more than a prologue to Whatever’s Coming Next. It’s the exact same mistake they made with Trinity War and Forever Evil. They sold Trinity War as a Big Event, but as soon as news (and the solicitations) for Forever Evil came out, interest in Trinity War all but ceased as people assumed that FE was the real Big Event. It’s a process they’ve been using since Infinite Crisis, but now that people are hip to the move, interest in the current book drops as soon as news (or even just rumors) of the next Event come to light. Forever Evil has ended, though the last issue of the book has been delayed over a month, resulting in several books coming out that take place after the ending. And largely, save for Dick Grayson, not a heap of a lot seems to have changed. Lots of rebuilding, some strained relations between folks who knew Grayson, but pretty much it seems to be back to first position.
Mixed into the coming months is also Grant Morrison’s next mini Multiversity, which also deals with other worlds of the DCU, and will (assuming it doesn’t get delayed, because how could that ever happen on a Grant Morrison book?) will also be ending next Spring.
So DC has certainly done a good job of getting people interested in next April. Problem is, there’s a whole Gorram year between now and then, a year full of books that DC needs to keep people interested in. If people start to get a whiff of a Clever Theory that DC plans to pull another massive change to their books, we may end up with a year-long lame-duck session, with people dropping books they presume (correctly or no) are going to go away, which will only serve to make that more likely a possibility.
In short, DC needs to make its books exciting and engrossing right now, and not dangle a carrot into the future and ask us to trust them. Sorry but fool me…lessee, carry the four…
Let’s just say I hope we’ll all be here come next April.
“Don’t you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don’t even have to be true!” – Dave Barry
Some thoughts this week reflecting upon my fellow ComicMix columnists’ opinions…
Last week Martha Thomases felt compelled to once again write about the bullshit practice of attacking women who “o-pine” (as Bill O’Reilly says) and dare to speak “truthiness,” as Stephen Colbert puts it, in her column, Criticizing Criticism. Toward the end of the piece Martha wrote about a panel at Washington, D.C.’s Awesome Con (held just this past weekend) that she was planning on attending. The name of the panel was “Part-Time Writer, Full Time World.” All the panelists were women, and apparently they were going to “O-pine” and “speak truthiness” about balancing the demands of a full time job, of being a parent, of having a part-time job – with these women, the “part-time” job is writing – with having time for your personal life, all while keeping a sane thought in your head. She made an excellent point when she pointed out that there were no men on the panel.
Hmm…
To (mostly) quote myself in the “comments” section of Martha’s column:
“As far as the full-time job/parenting/writing/hobby balance thing, it’s not a question of whether or not men don’t do any parenting. I think a lot of men are extremely involved in their kids’ lives these days.
“But what I think what Martha is pointing out is the assumption by the con runners, or at least those who set up this particular panel, that it’s only women who are dealing with this conundrum. Or, to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they just wanted to do a “Women in Comics” panel and thought this would be an interesting twist on the subject. Either way, it does seem somewhat sexist–against both sexes for a change!
“The answer, btw – and I feel that I am qualified to answer this conundrum because I was a single parent, and also because I’m now watching Alix and Jeff juggle parenthood, work, and school – is, paraphrasing a certain global sports apparel company:
“‘You just do it’…
“While seeking plenty of help from family, friends, babysitters – and sometimes, if you’re really lucky, an understanding boss or editor.
“And then, when the kids are all grown up and have families of their own, you have the luxury of being a grandmother, and you can just love and spoil the kid and then hand him back when you’re tired or he get’s cranky or it’s just time for you to have some
“me-time.”
“And be proud of yourself, because you just ‘did’ it.”
Denny’s and Marc’s columns made me think once again of how Marvel is doing everything right, and how DC is doing everything wrong. As I indicated in last week’s column, Marvel’s creation of a “telefilmverse” has been just brilliant in its adaptation of its comic universe’s history, in its invigoration of old concepts and old heroes, and in the excitement and joy its inventiveness is creating in both old and new fans.
I grew up a total DC geek in its Silver Age. I loved The Legion Of Super-Heroes, Superboy, Green Lantern, Supergirl, and the “Imaginary Stories” of Julie Schwartz’s Superman. In the 80s and early 90s I was hooked on all things Vertigo (Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, to name just a few), Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s New Teen Titans, George’s Wonder Woman (even before I co-wrote it), Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen’s Legion Of Super-Heroes (before I was involved), Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, and Ernie Colon’s Amethyst, Princess Of Gemworld (ditto), Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland’s Camelot 3000 (ditto) and many more. Back then DC was a groundbreaker, an innovator, “Bold” and “Brave.”
Today when I think of DC I think of words like moribund, and mired, and morose.
Today, like Marc Alan Fishman, I say, “Make Mine Marvel!”
John Ostrander: Happy, happy, happiest of birthdays! I left you a comment, but I don’t know where it went, because it’s not there now. Just know that I wish you everything you talk about in the column – to live even longer than your paternal grandfather and his continue to bang out comic series and a new novel on a regular basis. I can’t wait to read the new GrimJack series, and that brilliant novel that resides on the New York Times Bestseller list for longer than Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games ever did. I want to see Peter David green with envy (just teasing, Peter!) with your success. Hell, I want to see me turn green with envy and choleric with bitterness about your success! And I want you to remember, bro, in the words of that old poet-hipster, James Taylor…
“Whenever there is a decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness then I send forth Myself.” —Lord Krishna to Prince Arjuna,[[[The Bhagavadgita]]] (Song of God)
Sanskrit in origin, and a central principle of the Hindu religion, an avatar is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “the incarnation of a deity in human or animal form to counteract an evil in the world. A central principle of Hinduism, it usually refers to 10 appearances of Vishnu, including an incarnation as the Buddha Gautama and the Buddha yet to come, called Kalkin.”
In the 21st century, it has also come to mean that little picture that represents the user, blogger, columnist, commentator, gamer, or fan on the Internet, and (usually) will tell you something about that person, whether it is whom that user, blogger, columnist, commentator, gamer, or fan admires or identifies with, or even their sense of humor about themselves. (See my avatar on my Facebook page, for instance, which is from the artwork of Anne Taintor and reads “I plead insanity.”)
James Cameron’s [[[Avatar]]] blended the two definitions in his hero, Jake Sully—Jake is both the “user” behind his genetically engineered Na’vi body (Jake’s avatar) and the “incarnation” of the savior of the Na’vi civilization.
With the bustle of the holiday season and the craziness that inevitably accompanies the end of the year, it wasn’t until this week that I was able to get to the final installment of Locke & Key. Joe Hill has been penning this amazing comic since 2008, but I didn’t start reading until 2012, so by the time I came to it there were only seven issues left to be published. For a lot of people, this would be disheartening. For me, it was thrilling.
Comics can be daunting. Spider-Man has been around since 1962, Batman made his debut in 1939, and Superman had them both beat by first hitting the scene in 1933. For a completionist like me, picking up one of these comic book staples would mean starting at the very beginning, and that seems downright impossible. Superman had 716 issues before a relaunch in 2011 brought another #1 around, and this doesn’t even take into account other titles in which Superman appears. Assure me all you want that there are acceptable jumping in points for long-running comics that don’t require me starting from day one, but I’ll never be able to shake the sneaking suspicion I’d understand them better, and therefore like them more, if I did indeed start at issue #1 and work my way forward.
Superman: Red Son, on the other hand? Love it. Mark Millar’s three-issue mini-series exploring what Superman’s life would have been like if he’d landed in the Soviet Union is well written, unique, and managed to get me to crack its cover despite the fact that its titular hero has decades of history behind him because in this particular volume, he actually doesn’t. By standing completely on its own, Superman: Red Son was accessible to me in a way no other Superman comic ever has been. And yes, I realize there are other stand-alone volumes out there, but even with something self-contained like Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman, I find myself held at arm’s length because there’s still an assumption that I know more about Superman when I start than I actually do.
Yet the years of backstory aren’t the only reason long-running comics feel impenetrable to me. The fact that they’re continuing their adventures into the future with no end in sight is equally discouraging, if not more so. How formidable can a villain be when I know there’s always another waiting in the wings? How high can tension run toward a climax when it’s understood there’s always another around the bend? And most importantly, how can a hero truly best his inner demons when his story is expected to carry on indefinitely?
Locke & Key is the best comic I have ever read. A large part of what makes it so amazing is not the fact that there’s a whole world in its pages, but that its pages contain its whole world. Whether or not Hill had the entire saga in mind when he wrote the first series, Welcome to Lovecraft, by the last frame of Alpha there is no stone left unturned. I came in knowing nothing of the story or characters, and that was perfect because I didn’t need to know anything of them.
The sole thing I knew from the outset was that I’d only have 39 issues to spend with the Locke family, and because of this, I appreciated each moment with them more than I could have without their end in sight. The characters travel an arc that is more moving in its fixed breadth than it could ever be were that arc just part of a larger ebb and flow. Their story is exactly complete, and so too is my enjoyment of it.
The dame walked into my office just before closing. An older woman, dressed like every other woman in this city in a black leather jacket and black pants. You wouldn’t look twice at her unless you were allergic to cats, because she was covered with cat hair.
“I require your services, Mr. Spade,” she said, a trace of the midwest in her voice. “I’ve lost something very precious. Perhaps it was stolen. In any case, I must have it returned to me. I’ll pay you anything if you can find it.”
I looked here up and down, paying attention this time. Did she have money to spend? “Tell me about the case,” I said, motioning to the chair across from my desk. “Let’s start out with your name.”
“Thank you. I just don’t know what to do.” With this, she wiped a tear away from her eye, using the sleeve of her jacket.
I handed her my handkerchief and waited while she pulled herself together. After a few minutes, she took a deep breath and spoke. “My name is Martha Thomases. That’s ‘Thomases’ with an e-s on the end. Like it’s plural.” She said this as if it was something she had said a million times before.
“My story. I can’t find it anywhere. I think it’s stolen.”
“Can you give me a description,” I said, taking out my notebook.
“It’s been with me since I was a child,” she said, as if that give me any idea what she was talking about. “I really must have it back.”
I looked at her with the pen in my hand. “A description,” I said. “What is it like? When did you last see it?”
“Well,” she said. “I don’t know that it has value to anyone but myself. It’s a story about a girl who grows up, her relationships with other people, the things she has to do to get ahead.”
“That’s describes a lot of people’s stories,” I said, still not writing anything down. “How would I recognize yours?”
“It’s mine,” she said, as if that gave me any clues. She saw my stare, and stammered, “Usually there is something about fathers in it.”
“That gives me something. Anything else?”
“And there’s super-powers,” she said. “Someone will be able to fly or read minds or something. And there will be capes. Dark blue capes.” She tried to repress a shudder of pleasure at the memory, but couldn’t keep the smile from her lips.
Why hadn’t she told me that first. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said. “When did you last see it?”
“Just the other night,” she said, crossing her legs. It might have been a sexy movie if she hadn’t been wearing sneakers. “We stayed up late with a bottle of wine. In the morning, there was no trace.”
“Perhaps your story left?” I said, trying to be diplomatic.
“No, never,” she said. “We’ve been together more than 55 years. Someone must have stolen my story.”
“Who would do that?” I said. “Do you have a list?”
“There’s a lot of writers out there who need stories,” she said. “I just don’t know who would take mine. What good would that do them? It’s my story.”
I stood and put out my hand for her to shake. “Let me make some calls,” I said. “I’ll get back to you with an estimate, and we can proceed from there.
She walked away, and I watched her go. Not a bad caboose, but she was old enough to be my mother. What did a woman her age need with a story, anyway?
Still, a job is a job. I made a few calls that afternoon, but they didn’t tell me much. I was going to have to go out on the street. I put on my coat and headed for the bookstore. They’ve got a lot of stories there. Maybe someone heard something.
I went up to the clerk at the information desk. “I’m looking for a story,” I said. “Something with capes. Flying. Maybe a father.” I didn’t want to give away too much.
The clerk pushed a few buttons, and a long list appeared on her monitor. “You want the graphic novel section,” she said to me, pointing to an aisle at the back of the store.
I walked back, looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t followed. I wasn’t prepared for what I found. Shelves reaching to the ceiling, filled with books that had spandex-clad characters with capes on the cover. I picked up a few that had dames on the cover, but there were so many I couldn’t tell if any of them came from my client.
I went back to the clerk. “These are all the same story,” I said. “How am I supposed to tell them apart?”
I went back to my office, no closer to the truth than when I left. As I unlocked my door, I saw a package on the floor. I took it to my desk and unwrapped it. It was a statue of some stupid black bird from the Thomases dame. I picked it up, and saw an envelope underneath. Inside was a check and a note. “Dear Mr. Spade,” it said. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time. I just needed a walk to clear my head and my story came back to me. It is the stuff that dreams are made of. So easy to misplace. Thank you so much for your time.”
Thanks so much for responding to me! Action Files seems like a great program for schools. I’ll be sure to look into it more. With the new Common Core Standards, I’ve noticed that there isn’t really any standards related to the content of what needs to be taught in an English course and that it mostly revolves around “can students read and write?”
With that in mind, I created a Donors Choose to teach Grant Morrison’s All-Star Supermanto my high school seniors. I was given four months to raise the money and I did it in 13 hours. As long as curriculum revolves around analyzing literature and understanding tone and purpose, the state doesn’t really seem to care what they’re being taught. In a way, that’s great because it opens up content, but in another way it’s strange because the field is wide open.
If there is anything I can do to help from the perspective of an educator please let me know. I confess that I don’t know how much help I can be given how much research you’ve done already on your end, but anything I can do, I’d be happy to.
Thanks again for your articles on Bleeding Cool. They’re exceptionally fascinating and insightful. And (though I know you don’t need my advice or insight on this either) ignore all the haters. They’re jackasses anyway. You’re all kinds of awesome.
Cody Walker
Wow.
I’ve received cool letters over the years but this is one of if not the coolest letter I’ve ever gotten. It’s funny I just realized the fan mail I get comes from an eclectic group of people.
Over the years people have written me about things I’ve done in comics or some other media but I do so little published work in the comics creative space I still marvel when someone says they like my work.
Denys Cowan in his career I’m sure has thousands of letters of fan letters. How do I know this? I was in his studio once when he got one. “What’s that?” I asked.
“Fan letter. I get them all the time.”
“Define all the time.”
“All the time as in all the time.”
I let the matter drop knowing he was clearly setting me up when he opened up a file draw thick with documents and placed the new letter in. I wasn’t taking the bait.
I on the other hand have hundreds, maybe a bit over a thousand fan letters but I’m counting every singe letter I’ve gotten that praised me for something or the other.
Just wanted to let you know you rocked my world last night. That was the best three minutes I’ve ever had in my life!
Susan
Yep. That counts.
From all my fan letters I can tell you exactly how many were comic book art related.
One hundred seventy-one, of which one hundred fifty-eight were from France and no I’m not kidding.
It seems the French really loved the series I illustrated for the DC mature reader imprint, Piranha Press. I couple of people liked Shado (Stevie Wonder was one) and I got a really nice letter for a painted Green Hornet cover done for Now Comics as well as another painting I did for Now based on the book ‘The Time Machine.’
Most of the fan letters I get are from grade school kids I’ve spoken to, high schools, universities or organizations I’ve lectured at, young artists, educators, parents and some partridges in pear trees.
My absolute favorite letters to get are from young artist I’ve reached (just got a wonderful one from Allison Leung a major talent you will be seeing more from) and educators.
Oh. Did you perhaps think I was going to say grade school kids was my favorite?
Really? Don’t you know by now I’m not one to play to the crowd?
Darn.I am talking about kids here and people lose their minds when they think you are somehow anti-kid when you tell the truth about way receiving letters from grade school kids is not your favorite thing in the whole wide world. You think those haters will give nary a thought to all the good work I’ve for kids?
No. Those simians will lose their minds and call Chris Hanson! The backlash will be terrible…
OK. I know what to do. I’m so glad I like to write my thoughts down then erase them. Can you imagine what the fallout would be if those hairless monkeys saw this?
My absolute favorite letters to get are from young artists I’ve reached (just got a wonderful one from Allison Leung, a major talent you will be seeing more from) and grade school kids!
It’s so great when a 4th grader writes me a letter telling me how wonderful my visit was and it’s just amazing that 30 kids had the same idea at the same time and all 30 letters came in one envelope!
Wow. If kids were not just the most precious things in all creation I’d think that someone put them up to writing those letters. Not that it would lessen the intent, mind you.
I guess if I had to choose (way way way behind) the second most favorite letter I like receiving would be from educators.
Teachers take a no nonsense approach to what’s right for their students. The letter I received from Cody Walker warmed my kid loving heart in many reasons.
Chief among those reasons is this. Cody is teacher who had the guts to create a high school reading program from comic books.
High School!
Comics!
High School!
Think about that for a hot sec. It’s very likely his idea was not met with universal love from all his educational peers. Some may even have voiced opposition or even worse not voiced support.
I have no doubt in my mind if faced with a parent teacher revolt against comics in the classroom so fierce all the major networks would have 24/7 news coverage (except Fox News – they would continue their 24/7 reporting of Obama and the allegations he shot Lincoln) Cody would fight the good fight and win.
I know this because Cody took the time and effort to create and find funding for the program (in record time), which he did not have to do.
Teachers like Cody are not rare. They are plentiful. Most teachers labor countless hours not paid for to come up with other ways to engage their students.
Like I said: teachers like Cody are not rare, what’s rare is recognition for great work done on behalf our young people.
On the sporadic occasion when recognition is granted to a well deserving teacher that acknowledgment is slow in coming.
Well, I was so impressed with what Cody wrote me after he read my article in Bleeding Cool I wanted to recognize him as fast as possible, hence he writes me a fan letter through Bleeding Cool and I write him a fan letter through ComicMix.
Cody, I’m a fan of yours, my friend. Many (but not nearly enough) thanks for doing what you do.
“And in each universe, there’s a copy of you witnessing one or the other outcome, thinking – incorrectly – that your reality is the only reality.”
– Brian Green, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos.
• • • • •
Who are you?
Are you sure?
• • • • •
Are you Buffy Summers, the Slayer, the chosen one of her generation who stands alone against the vampires, monsters, and demons who threaten the world? Or are you Buffy Summers, a schizophrenic patient in a psychiatric hospital battling the unleashed horrors of your own id?
Doctor: Do you know where you are?
Buffy: Sunnydale.
Doctor: No. None of that’s real. None of it. You’re in a mental institution. You’ve been with us now for six years.
Spike: Put a little ice on the back of her neck. She likes that.
Buffy: Some kind of gross, waxy demon-thing poked me.
Xander: And when you say “poke”…?
Buffy: In the arm!
Buffy: They told me that I was sick, I guess crazy, and that Sunnydale and all of this — none of it was real.
Xander: Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous. What? You think this isn’t real just because of all the vampires, and demons, and ex-vengeance demons, and the sister that used to be a big ball of universe-destroying energy…?
Willow: Okay, all in favor of research? Motion passed.
Doctor: In her mind, she’s the central figure in a fantastic world beyond imagination. She’s surrounded herself with friends, most with their own superpowers.
Doctor: Together they face grand, overblown conflicts against an assortment of monsters, both imaginary and rooted in actual myth.
Doctor: Buffy, you used to create these grand villains to battle against. And now what is it? Just ordinary students you went to high school with. No gods or monsters, just three pathetic little men… who like playing with toys.
“Normal Again”
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Season Six, Episode 17
• • • • •
Who are you?
Are you sure?
• • • • •
Are you Buddy Baker, married to Ellen Frazier, father to Cliff and Maxine, and living in San Diego? Or are you a character in a comic book called Animal Man, which was written by Grant Morrison and published by DC Comics?
(to read this page at full size, double-click on the image)
• • • • •
Who are you?
Are you sure?
To be continued…
At least, in this universe!
(citations copyrighted by their respective owners)
Kick-Ass 2opened and I’m very psyched. Loved the comics. Loved the first movie. Even liked the Wanted movie, although it isn’t as sharp and funny as the book.
You see, I’m a big fan of Mark Millar. I’ve followed him ever since he wrote Swamp Thing with Grant Morrison, and, as DC’s Publicity Manager, I had to explain to people who he was. And while I haven’t read absolutely everything he’s written, nor have I loved absolutely everything I’ve read, he always engages me with his characters, entertains me and, in places, makes me laugh.
To be sure, I’m not surprised that there is a backlash against someone who is commercially successful in a popular art form. There are always those people, desperate to be cool, who affect disdain for anything popular. There is a subset of this group, who claim to have liked the person/band/actor/director’s work before, when they were unknown. I, myself, am capable of rambling on pretentiously about the first time I saw Talking Heads, when they were a trio.
That’s not what I’m talking about here. Instead, a (reasonably) well-respected magazine, The New Republic, did an overview of Mark’s work and didn’t like what they saw. They spoke with some people who defended Millar, and with some who criticized him. Mostly, the article focused on sex, violence and rape.
Of which there is a lot in Millar’s work. To quote from the article:
“Laura Hudson, the former editor-in-chief of the popular blog Comics Alliance and a senior editor at Wired, thought that scene was deplorable, but typical of Millar. ‘There’s one and only one reason that happens, and it’s to piss off the male character,” she said. “It’s using a trauma you don’t understand in a way whose implications you can’t understand, and then talking about it as though you’re doing the same thing as having someone’s head explode. You’re not. Those two things are not equivalent, and if you don’t understand, you shouldn’t be writing rape scenes.’”
Laura Hudson is someone I admire and respect. When I say I disagree with her, it is not my intention to dismiss her point of view (and I’m aware it can sound like that in print, when you can’t hear my tone of voice or see my evocative hand gestures). Having said that, I suspect we’re having a similar problem when we read the stories. I don’t pick up a tone in the work that celebrates actual violence or rape. I see those actions being used to define characters. Unlike Laura, I don’t think women in the stories are raped solely to motivate men. I think rape is used to show how awful the person is who commits it.
Is this a comic book problem? John Irving writes books that are full of raped characters and the men who love them. Most contemporary critics consider him to be a feminist, or at least an ally to feminists.
(And this will probably be the only time anyone ever discusses Mark Millar and John Irving in the same article.)
Writing about something – even illustrating something – is not the same as endorsing it. I’ve been involved in the non-violent movement for social justice for more than 45 years, yet I enjoyed these comics a lot. I’m tickled by the cartoon violence, in no small part because I know that no actual humans are involved. This may be because of the tone I infer from the stories, or because, as Scott McCloud describes, we each supply our own interpretation of what happens between the panels.
We bring our lives to comics in a way that’s different from other popular art forms. Maybe this is why we can differ so profoundly in our reactions to what we read. In my version, Mark Millar is sort of kind of related to Chuck Jones by way of Francis Ford Coppola.
Sequart Organization is proud to announce the release of The Anatomy of Zur-en-Arrh: Understanding Grant Morrison’s Batman, by Cody Walker.
