Tagged: Mindy Newell

MINDY NEWELL: Paging Dr. House

This past Tuesday, August 30 to be exact, the New York Times ran an article by Dave Itzkoff about the “new” DC reboot. It was called “Heroes Take Flight, Again.”

It’s an interesting article. And its tone is that of a penultimate eulogy. To quote Itzkoff, “Within the DC universe, this new status quo is the result of efforts by the fleet-footed Flash to alter the course of history. But in the real world it is a last-ditch plan to counteract years of declining sales throughout the comics business.”

It’s rather like an episode of House, isn’t it? He wants to try a risky, dangerous, could-kill-the-patient-instead-of-saving-him treatment and everybody around him either has an opinion or just wants to avoid the whole subject. Cuddy is worried about the lawyers and the reputation of Princeton-Plainsboro Medical Center. Wilson is busy psychoanalyzing his friend’s penchant for walking on the edge. Foreman objects mostly because he didn’t think of it first. Chase, having forsaken the medical principle of “first do no harm” a few seasons ago when he killed a dictator who was under his care, pretty much shrugs his shoulders. Cameron is too busy in the ER to get very involved, other than to shake her long blonde hair and hot tush in House’s face and say, “you’re just gonna do what you want anyway.” Taub is caught between his Torah – he who saves a single life, it is as if he has saved the whole world – and probably causing the patient even more suffering if the treatment is allowed, and “Thirteen,” facing eventual horrible death herself thanks to the Huntington’s Disease that stalks her, thinks House is right, because she sees herself in the patient, and she wants to live.

I remember when I first heard of Crisis on Infinite Earths. I was upset. I didn’t understand why DC had to go messing with my childhood. But under the able hands of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, it was, frankly, a thrilling story. To me, when Marv and George killed Supergirl – and I’m still mightily pissed off about that! – that was it, man, I knew this was going to be a classic.

The only trouble was, it started off a wave of “mega-reboots” over at DC that sounded like “good business” at the time. And now, after some 30 years, only seems to make me, and everybody else, yawn.

Infinite Crisis. Final Crisis. Crisis, My Ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don’t know.

‘Cause most of these reboots, start-overs, begin-agains are so obviously an attempt to “save the life of the patient” that it’s insulting to the reader. Jim Shooter is quoted in the Times article as saying “This whole attitude of, ‘Oh, go ahead, start over, reboot,’ people get tired of that…as storytellers, I don’t know where we wandered off to.” I totally agree with him.

S-T-O-R-Y. A narrative. An account. A tale, yarn, legend, fairy-tale, chronicle. Something that stays with you. That for whatever reason strikes a resonant chord within.

Was The Lord of the Rings a business decision? Was Grapes of Wrath? A Tale of Two Cities? The Three Musketeers? Alice in Wonderland? The Man in the Iron Mask? Peter Pan? If I keep on going this will be a column about the Book-of-the-Month club.

I’m hoping this works for DC. I’m hoping the company doesn’t stay alive just to feed the licensees. I’m hoping that I’m thrilled again.

I’m hoping that Dr. Gregory House can pull another miracle out of his misanthropic hat.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MINDY NEWELL: Where’s Superman When You Really Need Him?

Apparently, I can run for mayor of New York City because – to paraphrase Sarah Palin – I can see New York from my house.

I live in Bayonne, NJ, across the Hudson from the city, about two miles from Lower Manhattan as the crow flies, and on a good day, and if I judge the timing right, I can zip through the Holland Tunnel and be in the city proper in about fifteen minutes. (Then there’s rush hour L.)  Seriously, right now I’m looking out the window at New York Harbor, Staten Island and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (its proper name) are to my right. Directly across the water is Brooklyn – on a sunny clear day I can see the cars moving along the Belt Parkway without binoculars – and to my left is the Statue of Liberty and the skyline. I can even see the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and a hint of the Williamsburg Bridges. I can watch the Macy’s July 4th fireworks from my roof.

I love my view. Like a cat, I like to sit and look out on the water and the harbor traffic and the constantly changing colors of the sky. Most of the time it’s glorious.

But sometimes, things happen. Like on September 11, 2001. For a week I kept the blinds down, because I couldn’t bear to see the smoking emptiness where the towers had stood. It only helped a little, especially at night, when the mega-million kilowatts of giant spotlights and the still-smoldering embers of death and destruction would break through the slats.

Like today, as the metropolitan New York area prepares for the arrival of Irene.

Yesterday I was one of the scoffers, as Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Christie, and other officials in New York and New Jersey announced mandatory evacuations and closings of the transit systems and roadways. (Governor Christie closed the Garden State Parkway heading south from exit 98 – which is the “entrance” to the Jersey Shore – as of 6 P.M. because he wanted to keep all lanes available for evacuation and emergency vehicles.) “Oh,” I said to anyone who would listen, “It’s the media. It’s a slow news cycle. Obama’s on vacation, Congress is in recess. And we’re coming up on an election year. Nobody, Democrat or Republican, wants to get caught with his or her pants down, like Brownie and Dubbya during Katrina. And anyway, the levees broke in New Orleans. Besides, hurricanes draw their strength from warm water. It may be summer, but the Atlantic up here is nowhere near as warm as it is down South or in the Caribbean.” And on and on I went.

I even got into a fight with my daughter, who lives in lower Jersey City, over evacuating. “Why are you gettin’ crazy?” I said when she said she wanted to come to my house last night, which was Friday. “It’s not even going to be here until Sunday morning.  Wait and see. The Giants haven’t cancelled the game against the Jets, they only moved it to start at 2 p.m. instead of 8. If they cancel the game, then it’s time to worry. It’s football. They never cancel games unless it’s a real emergency.”

The Giants-Jets game was cancelled Friday night.

Alixandra and Jeff are now in my living room. They came over last night. Well, Alix came over. Mandatory evacuation because of storm surge. Jeff, who was at Oberlin in Ohio being oriented as a new professor, had to drive all night to get here because not only was his flight cancelled, all area airports were closed. He wanted to be here before they possibly closed all roads in. Plus, they’re in love. If I lived a few blocks or a mile to the west or east, I’d be mandatory evacuated, too. I don’t have to worry about flooding, but will my windows hold up? What about the cell towers up on the roof of my building? What happens if they get blown over, will they coming crashing down through my ceiling? (I live on the top floor.) This morning I walked down the street to the supermarket because I didn’t have any teabags, and I love, no, I need, my tea in the morning. Do I have to tell you what a madhouse that was? The store was actually running out of food and water. Later I drove past my local gas station. Well, I inched past my gas station, because the gas-rationing days of 1979 were back, with twenty or more cars waiting in line at both entrances to fill their tanks. Mine was already filled.

Irene is coming. Storm clouds are gathering outside my window. It’s her. There’s a monsoon outside my window. Wait, it stopped. No, it started again. A warning. She is approaching. There was no breeze earlier. Now the leaves of the trees are rustling. Irene is near. I hear a police siren. And an ambulance.

My refrigerator is stocked. But what if the power goes out? Alix brought over shit none of us have eaten in years. Like Chef Boy-ar-dee. (Yum-Yum) I got Twinkies and Entenmanns’s and potato chips. Hey, they’re not called non-perishables for nothing.

Anyway, all this got me to thinking. If Thor was here, he could stop Irene – after all, he is the God of Thunder. All he’d have to do is swing Mjolnir around and poof! there goes Irene. Or if the Flash was around, he could run circles around Irene, break her up into little squalls. If Storm was in the area – wait, does she still live in Westchester? – she could simple command Irene to back off! Green Arrow and Hawkeye could launch some type of special chemical arrows that would cause Irene to collapse into herself. If Zatanna was here – !yawa og, enerI

Instead we sit here waiting. For the full force of Irene to strike.

Yeah, where’s Superman when you need him?

TUESDAY (Electric power willing): Michael Davis

JOHN OSTRANDER: Doctor Whose?

Doctor Who returned to TV last night and my household is thrilled. Big fans of the Doctor here; I once wrote and tried to produce a Doctor Who stage play with the idea that this was the only way I would ever get to play the Doctor. The play never got to production and, despite being the writer and the producer, I couldn’t get cast as the Doctor which tells you, right there, one of the big reasons I gave up acting.

There’s a lot to be done in this new series of episodes, including explaining how the Doctor, who was shot dead in the first episode of this season’s series of episodes, escapes (the Doctor who was killed was from 200 years down the time stream; did I mention that Doctor Who is about time travel?). If the show does not explain that by this end of this season, I will personally hunt down the show’s brilliant writer and show-runner, Stephen Moffat, and throw him into a Pandorica until he tells. (If you haven’t seen the show, don’t bother trying to understand the reference. In show in-joke.)

However, that’s not the point of this rant. When last seen, the current Doctor (Matt Smith) went to war to recover his companion, Amy Pond, and her newborn child who would grow up to become River Song who would become the Doctor’s wife at some point later in the time stream. The adult River is along for the adventure, by the way. Sound confusing, perhaps, I know; it’s a timey-wimey-wivey thing. It works. Trust me.

However, towards the end of the episode, River gives the Doctor crap about how his life is going, how he is becoming too much the warrior, and some such bilge. Excuse me? The Doctor goes up against nasty horrible bad guys that are trying to take over the Earth and/or destroy/enslave humanity and/or destroy the universe or time itself and the Doctor time and again defeats them armed with nothing but his wits and a sonic screwdriver.

This has happened before. The previous incarnation of the Doctor – David Tennant (The Doctor regenerates from time to time when they need to change the lead actor and it’s a wonderful idea that keeps the series fresh) – got taken to task by one of the worst of his enemies, a fiend called Davros who invented the Daleks who go around killing anything that isn’t a Dalek. Said fiend accuses the Doctor of manipulating his companions so that they do the dirty work so the Doctor doesn’t have to. And the Doctor appears to take him seriously! Where does the creator of the Daleks have any moral ground against the hero who has saved the universe time and again from the product of Davros’ invention?

Is the Doctor supposed to feel bad about being the hero? Am I supposed to think the Doctor is not the hero me thinks him is? The Doctor is the good guy here, folks; I don’t want him all angsty and doubting his own motives. I mean, c’mon – the next thing you know, he’ll be doubting that bow ties are cool!

I know bow ties are cool. The Doctor told me so. And I trust the Doctor.

 

MONDAY (Hurricane willing): Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: Brave-ish New Worlds

JOHN OSTRANDER: Brave-ish New Worlds

In last week’s column, I talked about target audiences and how, in comics, there has been a primary and a secondary audience – the retailers and distributors being the primary audience and the readers being the secondary audience. If you don’t get the product on the shelves, you can’t sell it. I surmised that could change as comics go to same digital sale as the comic shops; that could mean the readers become the primary audience.

So – what does that mean? What might it mean? Let’s do a little idle speculation and what I would like it to mean. Maybe you would, too. Let’s compare note.

More readers. Actually, this isn’t just a wish, it’s a necessity. Not that there’s anything wrong with the readers that we got; you guys is swell. But we need more in sheer numbers and that’s the point of going digital: comics need to go where the eyeballs are and that’s on the web. Nor is it enough to just preserve the status quo. We need to increase the readership, meaning new readers, and that involves some of trick below.

Lower prices. I think this mandatory. The jury is still out as to whether folks on the web will pay anything – lots of folks online are used to and defend downloading for free – but I don’t think they’re going to pay $2.99 for 22 pages of story. Also, the costs of producing the product is less: no printing, no shipping, no cost of paper. Yes, the companies have to pay for access to whatever reader they’re using, but I’m betting it’s less than the cuts taken by retailers and distributors.

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MINDY NEWELL, R.N., CNOR, C.G. (Comics Geek): How I Became A Comics Professional

…Or How The Fuck Did That Happen, Part Two

Where was I last week?

I was in the midst of a great crusade against the most terrifying villain ever unleashed upon the universe. A tyrant created by an evil greater than Mephisto – or Emperor Palpatine or Darkseid, choose your poison – whose sole purpose is to destroy humanity. A crafty, insidious, and totally nasty piece of work, capable of twisting even the greatest brains ever known – Einstein, Newton, Hawkings, Reed Richards – into Roquefort cheese, of destroying REM sleep, of chaining even the raging Incredible Hulk to a chair for weeks.

Oh, yes, it was a battle for the ages. He tried driving me mad with visions of z-scores and ANOVAs and Pearson Correlations and Chi-Square Tests for Goodness. Of blinding me with rs = 1 – 6∑D2/n(n2-1) and SSA = ∑T2ROW/nROW – G2/N and t = (M1 – M2) – (µ1 – µ2)/s(M1 – M2) equations and incapacitating my ability to write my column.

Who is this creature from which Doctor Doom hides in the blackest caves of the deepest forests of Latveria? Who is this monster that chases Galactus through the Andromeda galaxy? What is this, this thing, which sends Doomsday scurrying for his Mommy?

He is Statistics.

And though in the end I was bloodied and broken, I triumphed.


So where was I?

I had found some typewriting paper in a drawer. I had pulled my old portable manual out from underneath my bed, where it has been collecting dust bunnies for I-couldn’t-remember-how-long. I had gotten a paper towel and some Windex and had wiped off the keys. I had prayed that the ribbon was still good. I had rolled the paper in. Had set the margins.

And started writing…

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Pro Advice – Hit By a Bus

From time to time I’m going to use this space to talk about professional concerns gleaned from my experiences of the past twenty-five plus years in the industry and pass on words of advice that I got in that time.

For example – if you go to a Convention and you’re a pro, you’re probably going to be asked to autograph copies of your work. Here’s something I didn’t know when I began and was taught by another pro: keep your autograph separate and different from your legal signature (the thing you sign checks and binding contracts with). Walt Simonson, for example, has a great autograph – looks like a dinosaur. I doubt he signs his checks that way. It makes sense. If your autograph is the same as your legal signature, it makes it easier for someone to forge that signature and that’s not good.

Here’s another bit of advice. I was once negotiating a contract at one of the major companies and I had a question about something in the contract that no one could answer. I was told, “Oh, John. Just go ahead and sign it. We’re all family here.”

My answer was – no, we’re not. I know who and what my family is and the company isn’t it. I applied my “Hit By A Bus” theory which goes as follows: if everyone I knew (and liked) at a given company all went out to lunch together and they were all hit by a bus and killed, all I would have would be the contract as written.

I have lots of friends at lots of different companies in lots of different positions ranging from editorial to management to production to the business end. They’re all personnel and can be promoted, demoted, fired, leave, and so on. The company itself can merge with another, change divisions, be sold, be bought, and more than one has gone out of business out from under me. Businesses will make business decisions that are usually based on financial reasons. The famous line from the Godfather, “it’s not personal; it’s just business” remains true.

I don’t fault businesses for that. It’s what they are. I may have friends at a certain business and, yes, I often depend on them to be friends. I never expect a corporation to be my friend. I don’t care what a commercial that’s trying to sell you something tells you to the contrary. A business is not your friend and certainly isn’t your family. They are a corporate entity and they will act like one. Don’t expect anything different.

Short form: read the contract, any contract, and know what you’re getting into. If you need a lawyer to explain it to you, get one. Don’t take the word of anyone working for the company as to what it means; make sure it’s someone who is not part of the corporation. That’s true outside of comics as well as in. If it isn’t in the contract, it doesn’t exist legally. There is no “understanding,” there’s only what’s on paper. Know that before you put your legal signature – not your autograph – on the dotted line. You and your family will be happier as a result.

And watch out for killer buses.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: How Piracy Made Me A Comic Book Writer

One of the questions I’ve been asked most frequently over the years has been “How do you break in to comics?” – usually by someone looking to break into comics themselves. My standard answer is, “Through the roof with crowbar in the dead of night.” The true answer is – I don’t know. I got into comics because Mike Gold, who was then starting up First Comics, was my friend and liked my work as a playwright and knew I really loved comics and wanted to see what I would do given a chance. So I guess my answer is, “Make friends with someone who will someday become an editor and give you a shot. And then don’t screw up.” Not the easiest advice to follow.

The main reason Mike gave me a shot was one particular play – Bloody Bess – that was co-written by myself and my long time friend, William J. Norris, with Stuart Gordon on plotting assist. The play was performed first by the legendary Chicago theater company, The Organic Theater, and you may know some of the people involved back then. Stuart was founder and director and, if you know him for nothing else, you must know him as the director of the film, [[[Re-Animator]]]. You may know some of the actors who were involved such as Meschach Taylor (Designing Women), Dennis Franz (NYPD Blue), and Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds, Fat Tony on The Simpsons).

The play was begotten because Stuart wanted to stage a Jacobean revenge tragedy but he couldn’t find an actual one that he liked. It was the height of Watergate and Stuart claimed you could smell the desire for revenge in the air. So he decided to commission a new one. It was about pirates because we were also aware of two actual female pirates – Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

Mike liked the play a lot and came more than once to see the show. All of which brings us to the real reason to write this particular column – to re-tell one of Mike’s favorite stories from my theater days.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Hacking Up Letter Balls

JOHN OSTRANDER: Hacking Up Letter Balls

I wrote last time about digital comics and I realize there was another big question for me as we cross the digital Rubicon into this brave new world: will there be letter columns?

Now you might point out to me, “John, most comics don’t have letter columns now.” I’ve always felt that was a mistake. In fact, I think it’s one of the reasons for the decline of comics, if not of the entire Western Civilization as we know it. My first work in comics appeared in a letter column. During the Overlord saga in Thor, I pretty much figured out who the mysterious Overlord really was. (I think it was Odin or some manifestation of Odin or something.) I even was awarded a Mighty Marvel No-Prize for my efforts, which was supposed to be for service above and beyond the call of duty to Marvel before they cheapened it for giving it out to every slob who wrote in and said, “Make Mine Marvel!” and yes it still burns me today that they did that but never mind. (For those of you who are interested, the No-Prize consisted of a an envelope mailed to you that clearly stamped “No Prize” on the front. You opened the envelope and it was empty – there was no prize! That was the gag. My first reaction was that somebody slipped up and forgotten to include my No-Prize in the envelope. I did eventually get the joke. I’m not always real swift but I get there.)

I had a better letter published in a Savage Sword Of Conan.  One story had Conan betrayed by his female companion and he snarled at her, “Waitress!” Of course, they meant to say “Traitress!” Obviously, an error no one caught but my letter tried to prove that it wasn’t an error but a nice bit of characterization, showing that Conan obviously had bad experiences with female serving staff; thus, the worst thing he could call the wench was “Waitress!” I remember my closing line was, “After all, have you ever seen the big Cimmerian lug tip?!” I figured the letter was clever enough to make the letter column, and it did.

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MINDY NEWELL: Back In The Saddle Again

There’s a scene in Sleepless In Seattle where Tom Hanks, whose libido has been dead in the water since his wife died, comes home from work to discover his young son hanging out with a friend in his room – and that’s a literal hanging out, as the two of them are cozy cuddling on one of those mod hanging chairs built for one. Oh, did I forget to mention that the son’s friend is grrrl? One of those 9-going-on-24 types who seem to have waaaay too much information ‘bout the birds and the bees and who looks on grown-ups as burnt-out Muggies without a clue about the magic in the world and who you just have to tolerate because, well, that’s just the way life is.

“H-A-G,” the girl says to Tom. And, proving her point, he says, “Huh?”

“Hi and good-bye,” she sighs with a sad shake of her head.

“Oh. Yeah. Right” says Tom, and closes the door. Now Tom is such a brilliant actor, and you can just see the thoughts going through his head about just being kicked out of his son’s room, number one being, my 9 year old son is gettin’ some! And number two being fuck that! And the soundtrack gears up and Gene Autry sings “I’m Back in the Saddle Again” while we watch Tom going through his Rolodex and dialing the number of that cute interior decorator he works with.

So how does that relate to comics? As you’ll learn as you read my columns, my mind works in mysterious ways and I have given up trying to understand how that works.

See, it was a Saturday. A few days earlier Mike Gold had asked me to write for ComicMix. I was so flattered that I said yes immediately, and then after we hung up I’m like, “What the hell am I doing? Why did I say yes? I haven’t written anything in years. I’ve haven’t been involved with comics for years. I don’t even have an account at my local comics store anymore. I’m calling him back and telling him, thanks, but no thanks.” Only I didn’t. I watched Sleepless on HBO instead.

So the next day is Sunday and I’m driving out to Watchung to see my parents, and I’m listening to the Buffy “Once More With Feeling” soundtrack for like the millionth time and singing along and all of a sudden in the middle of I’ll Never Tell my mind flashes on that scene with Tom and his son and the wise-ass girl and Gene Autry singing in the background and I say to myself, Back in the Saddle Again. What a great title for my column.

So here I am.

I was going to write today about how I got into comics. See, I’m a nurse. An R.N. With extensive education and fancy certificates. I don’t talk about my “other career” at work. (For a reason. I’ll tell you about that later on, maybe.) But somehow someone always finds out. Through their kid, or their cousin, or their accountant, who are readers or collectors and “your name came up in conversation yesterday and my boyfriend asked me if you’re the Mindy Newell who wrote Wonder Woman. And I googled you and, wow, you worked for DC?” And then, you know, gossip, and in the middle of a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, the surgeon says to me, “Somebody told me you wrote the Legion of Super-Heroes. I loved the Legion. Read it all the time when I was growing up.” Once I had a patient who couldn’t get over that the writer of the Amethyst mini-series was his nurse.

And on the other side, the people who do read and work in comics, they always find it fascinating that I work in the operating room. A lot of them – maybe it has do with being comics fans? – always ask me about the blood, they all think there’s a lot of blood in the operating room, they’re like “how do you handle all that blood and guts and stuff?” and their eyes are glowing with excitement, and I swear, some of them, their mouths are watering, and I know they think I work in The Tomb of Dracula, but I love to fuck with them, and so I tell them that there really isn’t a lot of blood in the operating room, and that it can really be quite boring, but no one ever believes me, and they look so disappointed, so for those of you who really need that blood gratification, I will say that, yeah, sometimes there is tons of the red stuff, and that’s when it’s Avengers Asssemble!!

I promise I’ll tell you next time how I got into comics.

Oh, and one more thing.

I love being back in the saddle again.

Hope you’ll join me.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis!

JOHN OSTRANDER: The Digital Rubicon

A very intelligent man, one Dennis O’Neil (who you will also find here on ComicMix), and I were talking once about comics’ future. He noted that comics didn’t have to survive. Like the dinosaur, they could die out. Early cars had places for buggy whips; I doubt that you’ll find that feature on your car today. Food we need, water we need, air and so on. Story we need, I think, but comics as a venue for story? Not necessarily.

It’s no secret that comics sales are declining. The numbers of readers are declining, the numbers of stores are declining, the amount of cash being made is declining. It happened once before when comics were sold only on the newsstand, back in the Neolithic Era for you who are too young to remember. What saved it then was the Direct Market but that’s now killing it; the market is constricting and the numbers of readers are finite. What may save it this time is going digital – comics here on the web.

The reason is this is where the eyeballs are. As a product in comic books stores, comics are a very specific market – a destination shop for those who already know the product exists. The problem with selling comics on the internet is that will inevitably undercut the brick and mortar retailers, just as e-books are doing. (Amazon now says it sells more e-books than physical ones.) I love comic book stores. I admire the retailers who have put their hard work and passion into building businesses that cater to we the fans. I’ve made a living for more than twenty years because these people sell my stuff (and, okay, some other stuff, too). However, it’s going to happen. Comics are headed for the digital market big time.

Up until now, the majors have been releasing some titles on the web after the onsale date in stores but that changes in September. DC is renumbering its books and relaunching and all that but, to me, the bigger story is that they’re crossing the Digital Rubicon and putting everything on sale digitally the same day they’re in the stores. If that is successful, expect lots more companies to follow, big and small.

The big question in my mind is – will people buy comics on the web? If so, how much are they willing to pay? If all that happens is that those who go to the stores now buy online, this won’t fly. This has to increase the overall market – the number of eyeballs – or it will not only fail, it could sink much of what’s left of the retail market.

I’m thinking it’s part of the reason for the renumbering and rebooting (despite denials from DC) – to make the books more attractive to new readers. It will also attract some national media attention. It’s also necessary. In an era when superhero movies (and movies made from all kinds of comics – i.e. Cowboys And Aliens) attract huge numbers in the theaters, there is clearly a following for these characters. If even a small percentage of that can be attracted to the comics, it would make an enormous difference. I think DC is making a gutsy move.

Make no mistake, however; whatever happens in September, the comics biz won’t be the same. By this time next year, we may know if we’re still viable or making buggy whips.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell