Tagged: Martha Thomases

ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending November 2, 2008

ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending November 2, 2008

  • News
  • November 3, 2008

Well, it’s been fun, people!  Although we weekly columnists never got our own little tab in the ‘mix, we’ve always tried to entertain you, make you think, and just plain give you some good reading.  Here are the final columns (mixed in with our other regular features) that have appeared this past week:

Mike Gold’s above-mentioned column was his penultimate.  His final column will be tomorrow; it’s only fitting that our beloved editor-in-chief get in the last word!  Goodbye, everyone!

Purple Haze, by Martha Thomases

Purple Haze, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • November 1, 2008

Originally, I wasn’t supposed to have a column.

Mike Gold wanted to have regular writers contributing during the week, Monday through Friday. He had the list of people he wanted to include – comics veterans like John Ostrander, Denny O’Neil and Michael Davis, plus popular blogger Elayne Riggs – and he wanted a soapbox for himself.

Me? I’m the publicist. I’m supposed to draw attention to the product, not to myself. The best publicist is the one you don’t see.

However, I’m also a team player. And an egomaniac. So, when the website started, and we didn’t always have a lot of content, I started to write. I wrote short essays that could get thrown up on the site when we were short on material. I’ve only been reading comics for 50 years, so there was always something on my mind.

One day, Mike said that, since I seemed to be writing regularly, perhaps my writing should have a name and a regular time slot. And so was born Brilliant Disguise, named for one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, from one of the more depressing Bruce Springsteen albums. It’s about love and loss, and the lies we tell ourselves so we can take care of each other through the tough times. How appropriate.

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ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 26, 2008

ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 26, 2008

  • News
  • October 26, 2008

Prepping this roundup a bit early this weekend, as I may be in transit from Los Angeles back to New York as it posts.  Seasonal decorations just don’t look the same in L.A.  Give me actual russets in nature, not just in store windows!  On the other hand, I’ve had a nice few days’ break from the chillier temps.  Meanwhile, here’s what our regular columnists have provided you this past week:

Only a few more days to Hallowe’en, and a few more to the Presidential Election.  Wonder which will be scarier this year?

Scary Monsters, Super Freaks. by Martha Thomases

Scary Monsters, Super Freaks. by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • October 25, 2008

Halloween is Friday. Before the American Marketing/Advertising Complex discovered that All Soul’s Eve was a terrific occasion to sell home decorations and slutty costumes, it was the National Holiday of Greenwich Village and the Vast Homosexual Conspiracy. Before that, it was a chance for kids to dress up and beg for candy from the neighbors.

What about the true meaning of the holiday? What about its spiritual roots?

Originally, Halloween was All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saint’s Day.  According to Barbara Walker, Christians appropriated the holiday from the Celts, who celebrated Sanhain, the feast of the dead. She says:

“The pagan idea used to be that crucial joints between the seasons opened cracks in the fabric of space-time, allowing contact between the ghostworld and the mortal ones.”

In other words, it was the time when ghosts came out and scared the living. These days, ghosts seem like the least scary things around. In fact, there’s a lot of ghosts I’d enjoy seeing again. But this stuff scares me:

• I was working at DC in 1990 when the new Robin costume was introduced. That was a few years after Miller’s girl Robin in The Dark Knight Returns. The new version of the new costume was its enhanced safety features, including a full-length Kevlar cape and covered legs. Then I see this.  I guess she’s not as frightened by bullets as she is by the possibility that someone might not see her ta-tas or nay-nays.

• Comic book companies used to have one mammoth super-hero cross-over in the summer, to amuse the kids at camp. Now, DC alone has Final Crisis, Trinity, Batman: RIP, Reign in Hell, and some Green Lantern thing about other colors of lanterns. At this rate, the Event That Will Change Things Forever will last forever. That’s pretty much existentialism but without the good wine and unfiltered cigarettes. That’s scary.

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ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 19, 2008

ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 19, 2008

  • News
  • October 20, 2008

Tampa Bay or Boston?  Who will make the World Series this year?  Clearly by the law of "they deserve it" it ought to be the Rays’ year, but even Yankees fans have to admire the way the Red Sox came back from that 7-0 deficit in Game 5.  Unless they, like most of the rest of the sports-loving citizenry, are busy watching football.  In any case, for those of you who also like written entertainment, here’s what our regular columnists have provided you this past week (including a brand-new ComicMix Six!):

As you can see, this past week brought a double-dose of Chuck webcomics review column; wish I could have seen all of these show up on my Bloglines feed, but apparently their version of Joe the Plumber only fixed the feeds from the last three days…

Sex & Gasoline, by Martha Thomases

Sex & Gasoline, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • October 18, 2008

The campaign is almost over. The last Presidential Debate was Wednesday. Those of us who are not Joe the Plumber may wonder what the candidates have to say about the issues that matter to us.

You can go to the candidate’s websites here (Obama) and here (McCain) to find out what they say. There’s a lot there, but it’s written in political speak, designed to offend as few potential voters as possible. Will anyone tell us about where he stands on the issues in words we can relate to?

I have my own opinions. Take a look, and you’ll see why I’ll never be elected to any public office:

• The candidates in DC Decisions seem to be running for office in the year 2000.

No one is talking about the price of gasoline. No one is talking about the war or windfall profits. No one is talking about gay marriage (the hot button issue of 2004). Maybe corporations are less greedy in the DCU. Maybe people there are more tolerant. It seems to be a wonderful place. They have a black woman running for the Republican nomination. People come to her rallies. No one has mentioned if she’s a Muslim.

• The Marvel Universe is having its own election. They get to vote for Stephen Colbert.

• There are a lot of graphic novels about cancer, including this one, this one and this one. There are no graphic novels or comic books about health insurance.  There is, however, a wonderful cartoon on the subject.

• Similarly, religion plays a huge part in our national conversation every four years. We don’t see that in comics. How would Rao vote? What would Odin do?

• Can dolphins vote in either version of Atlantis? If not, why not?

• One of the ways the Guardians of the Universe recognized Hal Jordan as a man without fear was his experience as a test pilot. John McCain crashed six planes. Would he get a ring? If so, what would his energy constructs look like?

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ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 12, 2008

ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 12, 2008

  • News
  • October 13, 2008

It’s been a frustrating week for those of us with Bloglines, as new ComicMix items haven’t shown up since last Tuesday.   Our news and comic alert feeds are two of the 50+ subscriptions not being updated on my reader at present.  While this may make getting through unread blogs easier, it also necessitates lots of click-throughs, so our thanks to the folks who’ve been doing that and others who’ve caught us via other RSS feeds!  In case you missed anything, here’s what our regular columnists have provided you this past week:

Welcome to new columnist and all-around great guy Dave Gallaher!  Now come on, Bloglines, get that plumber fixing your wonky feeds!

Behind the Mask, by Martha Thomases

Behind the Mask, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • October 11, 2008

In the early 1980s, conspiracy theories were all the rage. There seemed to be a cottage industry in debunking the conventional theories about the Kennedy assassination. Paul Krassner once said that he read so many articles on the subject in Penthouse magazine, next to the pin-ups, that he became aroused every time someone mentioned the Warren Report.

These ideas were everywhere. I remember seeing a long rant (printed up, on a poster in Washington Square Park) explaining that Mark Chapman and John Hinckley were both brainwashed by the CIA as assassins, with Chapman’s murder of John Lennon being a test run for the attempt on President Reagan.

While this seemed far-fetched, there was one aspect that made sense to me. Both Chapman and Hinckley were said to have acted in imitation of Travis Bickle, the character played by Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver. Robert DeNiro has never been more physically compelling than he was in that role, but Travis Bickle did not seem to me to be a happy person. It did not look like fun to be him.

Mark Millar plays with this idea in Kick-Ass. In this series, a scrawny young kid, feeling left out, puts on a set of long-johns and goes out on patrol. He gets the crap kicked out of him at first, but he also learns how to fight, and he attracts the attention from the media he can’t attract at school. Soon he’s considered a hero, and inspiring imitators of his own. Through it all, he remains a skinny kid, with few apparent social skills. I want to adopt him.

If people were going to base their actions on fictional characters, I thought it was much more likely for them to try to imitate Batman. After all, Batman and other non-super-powered heroes (like The Spirit, The Sandman and The Green Hornet) were beloved by millions, and Taxi Driver was a relatively small independent film, celebrated by elitist New York intellectuals.

Where were our costumed vigilantes?

It’s only taken a quarter century, but they’re here! According to a recent story in the New York Daily News, there is a group of people who dress up in costume and go on patrol.

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ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 5, 2008

ComicMix Columns and Features for the Week Ending October 5, 2008

  • News
  • October 5, 2008

Congratulations to ComicMIx’s own Matt Raub for making it through 24 consecutive hours of movie-watching!   He’s probably still sleeping as we write this.  I’d hate to think of what he’s dreaming about.  It could be worse, he could have watched 24 hours of presidential and VP candidate debates.  Meanwhile, here’s what our columnists have brought you this past week:

It’s not just me who thinks Caribou Barbie sounds like every character in the movie Fargo, is it Matt?

Diamond Dogs, by Martha Thomases

Diamond Dogs, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • October 4, 2008

Are you reading James Robinson’s Superman? You should be. They’re amazing stories. The Alex Ross covers should be enough to tip you off that you’re in for a treat.

But the best part is that they prominently feature Krypto, the Dog of Steel.

I’ve been a huge fan of Robinson’s writing ever since The Golden Age, with Paul Smith’s gorgeous, evocative art. It made me nostalgic for an era of comics I never read.

Starman knocked me out. I loved it so much that I had someone make a logo for me so I could have a leather jacket like Jack’s, which I still wear all the time (weather permitting), even though there was a ten year stretch when no one knew what it was about. People still ask me if it means I’m an Aquarius. That’s okay. I’m not, but it gives me a chance to talk about how great the comic is.

Robinson’s best trick, I think, is taking a character and giving him or her an interest in something beyond heroics, or relationships or career. Jack Knight loved antiques, especially Hawaiian shirts and Art Deco ties. Those are not things that interest me, but I loved that he loved them. It made him seem more geeky, more human.

Robinson’s Superman doesn’t seem to collect anything. Clark Kent is a young man, in a young marriage. He and Lois love each other, but, even after a few years, they’re still getting used to sharing their lives. When Clark wants to keep his dog in their apartment, they argue about it.

Clark’s dog is no ordinary mutt, but a dog from Krypton. When he chews on the furniture, it’s a disaster. Lois is reasonably worried for her own safety and that of her neighbors. 

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