Tagged: Martha Thomases

MARTHA THOMASES: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Flashpoint — Not!

This is the week when everything is supposed to change. The first of the New 52 comics is on the stands. Since better  folks than me are weighing in on the new stuff, I want to talk about what went right before.

Specifically, Flashpoint.

While I like team-up stories, I’m not a big fan of “After today, nothing will ever be the same again” hype. Not because I’m against change, but rather because change is constant. After every day, nothing is ever the same. In reality, this hype usually means a bunch of characters will be killed. Death is the substitute for drama in modern comics.

I didn’t like Supergirl’s death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Kara has always been one of my favorite characters, even though she was rarely written well.  Her love interest was named Dick Malvern, for crying out loud, which I always understood to mean Bad Green Penis. I thought her death was a symbolic admission that the men who wrote comics at the time didn’t understand girls.

Ever since, there have been company-wide, month long crossovers where nothing will ever be the same. This year, the promise was backed up by 52 Number One issues that will be published the month after the crossover ends.

So what happened in Flashpoint? Damned if I know. As near as I can tell, it was a five-issue Bill & Ted adventure, except that instead of Bill and Ted remembering to travel back in time to leave themselves a note telling themselves what to do in the past, there was Flash, a Cosmic Treadmill, and no George Carlin. And a lot more carnage.

Why is this necessary? I mean, I actually enjoyed the Flashpoint mini-series, but they would have been just as satisfying as Elseworlds, and that would have allowed the creators to let loose even more. Is it really this complicated to jump through these hoops to wipe a slate clean?

Why can’t we just agree that the old continuity is gone, and get on with telling stories? And if, for whatever reason, some of these stories aren’t successful, why can’t we let a new creative team come in and start from scratch again?

When I first started writing comics, an editor (sorry, I forget who) told me that no one wanted to read comics written by someone’s mom. In this case, though, I think comics could certainly use someone who simply said, “Because I said so.”

Dominoed Dare-Doll Martha Thomases thinks there should be more George Carlin in comics, and everywhere else. Read her political stuff at michaeldavisworld.com every Saturday.

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

MARTHA THOMASES: Comics, Quality and Obscenity

Inevitably, when discussing the best way to market comics to a larger, non-indoctrinated audience, someone will suggest “good writing and art” as the sure-fire remedy.

The mirror image of this is accusing publishers of employing “cheap publicity stunts.” I was on the receiving end of this charge from Gary Groth of The Comics Journal when he was questioned about the Death of Superman in USA Today. Naturally, I was miffed, because I thought my salary proved I was not cheap.

(I’m sure that’s the occasion when the most people ever thought about The Comics Journal.)

The premise, in any case, is incorrect. Or, rather, it should be. In publishing, the editorial department should decide what to acquire (or, in the case of comics and other work-for-hire situations, solicit) and the marketing departments (which include publicity) should promote this material to the people who would most enjoy it.

It never works like this. Publishers want to attract the largest possible audience, and they’ll instruct editors to jump on the latest trends, whether that’s sword and sorcery, black and white indies, steampunk, graphic novels, television and movie adaptions or whatever. You’ll notice that’s a jumble of genres and formats, not a single directive. That’s the kind of thing that makes editors lose their hair.

But wait! There’s more! Sometimes marketing people think they know more about what makes a book good than the editors. I’m thinking of one person at DC (now a vice-president) who boasted to retailers that he wouldn’t promote a book he didn’t like. I have no doubt that he thought this was the honorable thing to do, but it does a disservice to his employers and to the retailers. The marketplace is not made up of people with exactly the same taste as this vice-president. By limiting the options he offered to them, he limited their sales.

I didn’t like every book I promoted. However, I knew that there were potential readers for every book, people who would be entertained and amused and involved. I didn’t necessarily know these people, but I wanted them to be happy, so I wanted them to know about our comics.

It’s not a perfect system. At the time, DC published about 70 titles a month across all imprints. There weren’t enough mainstream media outlets to cover that much. I had to pick and choose what was most relevant to the media I was pitching. Again, trying to match the story to the potential audience was the key. I’m sure I made mistakes in my choices. I’m sure some worthy projects didn’t get their share of attention.

No one is going to argue against quality. It’s like arguing against apple pie and Mom. Maybe there’s an opposing side, but only opinionated and obnoxious people like Mike Gold and I like to argue for the sake of arguing. And because of our Talmudic tradition.

Unfortunately, when it comes to comics, quality is like obscenity – I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. And what I see as quality you may not.

Lots of people enjoyed the Death of Superman storyline and its follow-ups, and lots of comics cognoscenti sneered at them for enjoying it. A lot of these people are preemptively sneering at the New 52. I hope they’re wrong. I hope it works.

I hope it brings happiness to millions.

Martha Thomases, Dominoed Dare-Doll, will spend next week looking for Spider-Man at Walt Disney World.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

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

 

 

DENNIS O’NEIL: Enough with the Superhero Movies?

Not long ago, I was chatting with a movie guy (yes, that was me, riding shotgun in the gold Ferrari, tooling down Rodeo Drive, heading for Brad and Angie’s…) and he said that the summer of ’11 could be make-it-or-break-it time for superhero flicks.

As you know by now, there have been four – count ‘em four – such entertainments released in the past several months, raising the question: Have we had enough?

Hard to say. Three of the four films were solid profit-makers and the last will probably limp into the black eventually, if it hasn’t already. So the chair-fillers aren’t reacting against super-doers, but if you squint, you might be able to detect signs that the honeymoon is over. A hundred and ten minutes of a dude in a funny suit doing grandiose stunts and bashing other dudes, also in funny suits, is no longer box-office surety. The novelty value is gone.

Remember when kung fu flicks first hit the U.S.? (Okay, most of you don’t because that happened before you were born, but indulge me.) For some of us, including me and my post-toddler son, any martial arts movie was the right martial arts movie and we spent a lot of afternoons in sticky-floored theaters watching them. The new approach to action-melodrama, the exotic casts, and – oh yeah! – the nifty fight-acrobatics (and whatever amusement could be gotten from bad dubbing) were enough to engross us, regardless of these Asian imports’ other merits or demerits. Then along came Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon and then Jackie Chan and…

And, eventually, kung fu became just another genre, like westerns and war and romance and family comedies and raunchy comedies… Another genre. I still watch and enjoy martial arts films, particularly those with acrobatics, particularly acrobatics as practiced by performers from Thailand, and you can enjoy them, too, because your local Blockbuster has a goodly selection for rent and you don’t have to troll too far on your cable TV hookup to find one or two or…

Another genre, yes, but one that comes in a lot of sizes and shapes and languages and one you might patronize because of the virtues of a particular movie, not because of that movie’s label.

Superhero movies are, I shyly contend, undergoing a similar evolution. Already, perhaps, some of you don’t go to see a Marvel flick, you go to see Robert Downey, Jr., doing his Iron Man, and it’s well worth the trip. The acting is improving, the themes becoming more complex and the special effects…well, sometimes you aren’t aware of them as effects; they exist to serve the narrative, not to make us ohhh and ahhh as though we’re watching a spectacular fireworks display. It’s about story, not spectacle.

Spectacle is fine, but narrative offers other rewards, and most movies are narratives. The best special effect I’ve seen all summer happened early in Captain America, when somehow the cinematic wizards grafted Chris Evans’s head onto someone else’s body – seamlessly, perfectly realizing a plot element. No explosions, no shattered planets, just splendid storytelling.

Recommended Reading: The Boy Who Loved Batman: A Memoir by Michael Uslan.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

DENNIS O’NEIL: Green Lantern’s Unused Potential

I wonder why the Guardians of the Universe never got past the projectile–hurling stage.

Yes, we’re again riding the Green Lantern hobby horse and noticing that his almighty ring operates a lot like Doctor Strange’s conjuration and Harry Potter’s wand. They operate a lot like guns. They shoot stuff out. Exactly what the stuff is made of isn’t much defined, but it generally does what bullets do: hit and smash and shatter.

Ask yourself: wouldn’t the weaponry of the oldest, wisest, most technologically advanced cadre of blue-skinned savants in the whole, star-spangled universe be better than high-tech battering rams?

Turn, now, to Marvel Comics’ Master of the Mystic Arts, Dr. Stephen Strange, and young Master Potter of Hogwarts. Their eldritch pyrotechnics are pretty impressive, especially on a big screen in 3D, but, really, in essence aren’t they just glorified roman candles? If magic exists (and can you say with absolute certainty that it doesn’t?) isn’t it more subtle?

Might not it…oh, say, cause tiny, undetectable alterations in the invisible rhythms and perturbations of nature? Can’t it achieve its ends gently?

And from here, it’s a short step back to the Guardians and their rings, particularly if you subscribe to Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Magic, technology… at certain levels they look the same and, in the examples we’ve cited, they get their results with methods that, while they’re gussied up, are still pretty damn primitive. If you were a Guardian tasked with ring design, wouldn’t you consider having the ring alter reality just a jot, maybe by changing, ever so slightly, the ratios of the various forces in the hearts of subatomic particles, or branching off into an alternate reality where things aren’t so hairy, or by remixing the chemicals in the bad guy’s brain so that person is not deeply unhappy and therefore is not motivated to act out by destroying downtown Pismo Beach, or wherever? (Okay, admittedly, that last one’s a little creepy.)

Well, the answer’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? We’re wired to react to the tangible, things our senses can respond to, which may be why we tend to put faces on our deities instead of regarding them, as some do, as grounds of being or the like. Comics and movies are dramatic media and, what’s more they’re visual dramatic media and it’s strongly recommended, if not demanded, that visual drama show us as plainly as possible what the good guys are contending with, and how they’re contending with it. I’m afraid that imperceptible perturbations of energies in tiny, tiny whatsises just won’t answer the need.

The uncomfortable next question might be: are our visual dramas teaching us that tangible force ­– call it violence – is the only possible response to our problems?

Just what are we doing in those foreign nations, anyway?

Recommended Reading: Given the subject of this week’s blather, it seems appropriate that I make you aware of a comic book, first published 50 years ago, titled Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. You can get it from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, P.O. Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960. Phone: 845 358 4601. Cost is three bucks per copy, and that includes shipping and handling in the U.S.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

DENNIS O’NEIL: Green Is The Color Of My Lantern

Now let’s see – where were we? Last time we decided that parallel evolution caused a duplicate David Niven… well, almost duplicate; there is the matter of that magenta complexion… a duplicate David Niven to evolve on the planet Korugar, because parallel evolution will have its way and Sinestro’s mom was so smitten with the magenta Dave’s moustache that she insisted her son grow a similar one. Or something like that. (And from here, Freudians can have their field day.)

Let’s call the moustache question settled, even if it isn’t.

Just two more items on the Green Lantern movie agenda and we can tuck it into our memory banks, at least until the sequel appears.

First, the Guardians. I dimly remember that when I was writing the Green Lantern comic book, I had the tiniest bit of a niggle over the Guardians. I mean, these aren’t just any lower case-g guardians…these are the big, honkin’ Guardians Of The Universe. The wisest, smartest, most advanced beings in the…well – in the Universe! And yet – look at them! Little blue fellas in red night shirts. Stately? Majestic? Not a bit of it. They look like first cousins to Smurfs.

Okay, I know, I know…maybe the most powerful being in the universe, if such exists, is the size of a microbe and looks like Elmer Fudd. I’m a fan of Mr. Mind, the criminal genius who bedeviled Captain Marvel and who, when his identity was finally revealed, proved to be a worm. But aren’t we allowed a bit of imagination here? Can’t our Guardians resemble something we can relate to when we’re thinking ageless galactic savants?

Here, we must offer kudos to the Green Lantern film makers. Without changing the basic design of the Guardians – still little blue guys in red gowns – they art-directed a certain gloominess and gravitas into the fellas and, if my aging eyes did their job properly, at least one gal, and these worked for the characters and the narrative. Watching the film Guardians, I had one of those uncomfortable why didn’t we think of this moments.

(more…)

DENNIS O’NEIL: Not Dennis O’Neil

When is a Denny O’Neil column not a Denny O’Neil column? When it’s being written by Man-Child editor Gold. Denny is under the weather – hopefully no longer in pain, as the only thing worse than being sick is being in agony. I know, because that was my situation for half of June and July.

All this means Denny and I are old and, obviously, decrepit. Let me tell you something, kiddies: that sucks. I’ll tell you two other things: it beats the alternative, and therefore if you live long enough for it to happen to you, you’re lucky.

But since we have this space that’s Denny’s, I’m going to say a few words about the old geezer. I can do this because he’s even older than I am, and I was a teenager when I started reading his stuff. I loved his work (and continue to do so) since before there was a Dennis O’Neil byline in comics. His phenomenal work for Charlton, Children of Doom (Charlton Premiere #2 November 1967, drawn by the late-great Pat Boyette and edited by the similarly late-great Dick Giordano), was published under the pen name Sergius O’Shaugnessy.

Jeez, Denny. Can you get any more Irish?

Anyway, if you can beg, borrow or steal a copy, do so. Go to your local schoolyard or crawl under the covers with a flashlight and read the thing. You will be amazed, entertained, edified, and overwhelmed by the succulent smell of deteriorating newsprint. And as I recall, Charlton used pre-deteriorating newsprint on their presses.

Denny and I became wall-mates during our respective tenures at DC Comics in the mid-70s. When we both returned to those hallowed halls (well, they had moved but DC is always doing that) we became office-mates for several years. And here’s a shock: I was totally honored to be sharing space with the man.

In fact, when I became his editor on [[[The Question]]] (yes, I’m bragging), I was totally intimidated. How the hell could I edit this man? Now, this is a fanboy response and not a professional one: I edited Will Eisner and even Peter O’Donnell, and those were not self-intimidating experiences. Then again, I didn’t live with them eight hours a day.

I had a great time on The Question. At a few points, it was an almost volatile experience – DC is known for its office politics and fighting with the bureaucracy and particularly with our crack marketing department was an ongoing thrill. Some are convinced I enjoyed that.

Heh.

I don’t get to see Denny enough, but when I do I feel a strong connection to a kindred experience – one who, on his worst days (we both have a background in “journalism”), can write rings around me. So when his wife Marifran told me he would miss this week’s column – as saintly as Denny is, his being married to Marifran is an act of astonishing luck – all this dribble immediately popped up in my brainpan.

Thanks for letting me share. And Denny, get well soon or I’ll have to write that Dark Denny piece!

Recommended Reading: Charlton Premiere #2 November 1967, “Children of Doom,” written by Sergius O’Shaugnessy, drawn by Pat Boyette and edited by the similarly Dick Giordano.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

Related articles
#SDCC: Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con, Day 1

#SDCC: Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con, Day 1

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

The catch-all for all the off the cuff comments and interesting comments we’ve been hearing in the halls, following on Facebook, and tracking on Twitter.

Fernando Borrego: Only at comic con: bill nye gets a bigger ovation than nick cage

Chris Gore: Saw a guy at Comic Con wearing an NFL cap & called him Faggot!  Revenge for the 10,000,000 times I was called FAG in high school.  Win!

Bonnie Burton at the i09 panel: Pirates are the new vampire zombies!

BrianTruitt: Biggest irony of #sdcc: the one place you don’t have to stand in line is the bathroom.

paplikaplik: That lady’s trying to fit 200 lbs of Wonder Woman into a 90 lb costume.

mordantkitten: Damned if I haven’t found a way to sleep in line. Hee!

germainlussier: never seen hall h this full or full of females. its like a boy band concert.

ACED Magazine: Zoe Saldana has a
girlcrush on Megan Fox-but doesn’t know why casting decisions are made
by 65-yr-old men who want to see 25 year old girls rather than by looking to input from the younger generation who might want to see something different.

Paul Kupperberg “is 3000 miles away from Artists Alley and thinks the view from here is just fine.”

Geoff Johns, on the Green Lantern live-action movie : “I think the Green Lantern mythology has the potential to be one of
the biggest franchises in the world, superhero or otherwise. It’s as
epic as Star Wars and as deep as Lord of the Rings.
I think it could rival every other superhero out there if explored,
supported and executed right. … I think the success of films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight has shown us that good comics films can rule the screen. … I have immensely high hopes for Green Lantern.”

And finally, a tweet from Mark Evanier: “I’m at the con. Where the hell is everyone? The place is empty.”

(Thanks to Kim Kindya, Jenifer Rosenberg, Martha Thomases, and everybody else sending in their favorites. Photo by cranberries.)

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