Tagged: New 52

MIKE GOLD’s Top 10 Comics Of 2011

It’s the end of the year and everybody’s got their Top 10 list, and since I went to journalism school I’m obligated to list mine. I’m looking at titles that were released in 2011 because cover dates are meaningless. I’m not looking at original graphic novels or reprint projects, even though in dollar volume they constitute the majority of my purchases. Besides, original graphic novels are done to very different standards. Finally, some of these titles are done by friends of mine; I refuse to disqualify them because they just might buy me lunch. Having said all that…

#1 – Life With Archie Magazine (Archie)

Top of my list for the second year straight. Two stories – Archie marries Veronica, Archie marries Betty. Parallel worlds which converge, but that’s not why this book is great. There’s very real character development here, layered on personalities that existed for 70 years without it. We watch them grow, not into adults, but as adults. Better still, the most interesting character in both series is Reggie Mantle! Paul Kupperberg writes this, with art from Norm Breyfogle, Fernando Ruiz, Pat and Tim Kennedy and a host of others.

#2 – Tiny Titans (DC)

If you see this as a kid’s comic, that’s great, particularly if you’re a kid. If you see this as a brilliant loving satire of DC Comics and its convoluted universe, that’s great too, particularly if you’re an “adult.” Art Baltazar and Franco are pushing towards 50 issues here, and there ain’t a clunker in the bunch.

#3 – Elric: The Balance Lost (Boom)

Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion has been in the hands of a lot of comics creators and a lot of comics publishers, and the output has been… inconsistent. This latest series is among the very best: all of the various shades of Elric are here, and interweaved through the storyline are very contemporary elements and environs. Good stuff from Chris Roberson and Francesco Biagini.

#4 – Daredevil (Marvel)

Once again, Mark Waid does what he does best: he takes a well-established character that, like all well-established comics characters, has been covered in paint about a dozen too many times and strips it back down to the wall, preserving everything that made the character work while imbuing it with a contemporary environment. On this series, he’s going just that – and he’s doing it better than ever. Penciler Marcos Martin ain’t no slouch, neither. This is a real superhero book.

#5 – Justice League Dark (DC)

This one’s my surprise of the year. While very little of DC’s New 52 answers the question “why bother,” this one takes a bunch of characters of a somewhat mystical nature and thrusts them, Justice League like, into a trauma vastly larger than any one of them… and maybe all of them. Sort of like The Defenders, with all the style and John Constantine’s wit. Peter Milligan’s DC work has been inconsistent for me (I tend to prefer his U.K. work), but I’m glad I checked this one out. Mikel Jann draws the series. Very different… and very good.

#6 – Fly (Zenoscope)

I reviewed Raven Gregory and Eric J’s series about a recreational drug that gives kids the power to fly way back here. I liked it then, I like it now. Of course it’s out in trade paperback, so if you blew me off in August, give it a shot now.

#7 – Red Skull (Marvel)

Retrofitting a backstory onto a well-established character is a gambit that is often ill conceived and, worse, boring. Not this one. Greg Pak and Mirko Colak take us back to the villain’s adolescence where we learn – definitively – where his allegiances truly lie… and why. The fact that it’s got the best covers I’ve seen on a mini-series in a long while doesn’t hurt, either.

#8 – Batgirl (DC)

I don’t have a clue about how this series fits into any continuity, current or past. I’m told it does. What I do know is that this is a series about a young woman who’s trying to reestablish herself as a superhero after enduring traumas that shattered her body and soul. She’s not necessarily great at being a superhero, but she’s giving it all she’s got. This is exactly what I expect out of Gail Simone, and that is a very high standard. Adrian Syaf offers solid and exciting storytelling.

#9 – Action Comics (DC)

I went here because of Rags Morales’ art – I’d buy Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes if Rags drew the box – and I stayed for Grant Morrison’s innovative and engrossing script. This is the all-new young Superman, before he figured out what to wear on the job. It’s set well before the all-new older Superman in his eponymous title. I don’t know how this leads up to that, and I don’t care. This is supposed to hold up on its own, and it does. I’ll get over the slap in history’s face with the numbering (if such lasts); this is the best-produced Superman title in a decade-and-a-half.

#10 – To my friends who didn’t make this list: each of you came in tied for #10. Now go fight it out.

Notice how there aren’t any teevee or movie tie-ins? I never warmed up to that stuff. Not even as a kid. Which means it took me a while to realize Steve Ditko actually drew Hogan’s Heroes.

I have no doubt that within weeks at least two of the above-named will start to suck. Like all commercial media, comic books are subject to the whims of the lords and ladies of irony. But as a professional cynic, these titles and perhaps another half-dozen meet and exceed my bizarrely encrusted standards. Your opinions might differ, and that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wrong.

Of course not.

Extra: Happy birthday wishes to fellow columnist Marc Alan Fishman, who turns 30 today and, therefore, is old enough to know better. His son turns 0 in about a month.

Extra-Extra: Thanks to Gatekeeper Glenn for saving my life this year.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

MICHAEL DAVIS: The New DC 52 – Is It All That?

Most people in the industry know that my best friend is Denys Cowan.

Denys is one of the greatest comic book artists that the business has ever seen. He’s the artist a lot of other artists look at and as to underscore that fact he’s been nominated for not one but two Eisner awards for best penciler.

He has worked for every major publisher out there. He’s one of the few artists that commands respect from both Marvel and DC without pissing one or both off.

That’s rare.

There’s not a major publisher out there that would not consider it an honor to have a Denys Cowan project under their imprint.

Denys is really hard to impress when it comes to comics.

Me?

I like what I like but I don’t have the depth of knowledge about comic books like Denys does.

Both Denys and I both think the new DC 52 are just wonderful comics.

I’ve got a less than stellar history with DC comics. That said, they are and have always been my favorite comic book universe since I was a kid.

It’s not just nostalgia I’m thinking about. I feel that way because I think DC comics has done some great creative stuff in the last 20 plus years. The second silver age was 90% DC in my opinion.

Denys looks at comics from a much more artistic point than I do, but we are both fans of the New 52.

So, are Denys and I on crack? Is the New 52 as good as we think?

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

 

Independent Comics Month-to-Month Sales: October 2011

Independent Comics Month-to-Month Sales: October 2011

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  • December 4, 2011
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Buffy continues in the top spot, while a double-shipping Walking Dead takes second and third places. Turtles creeps back up to fourth, and Star Trek/ Legion of Superheroes gets off to a very promising start. Further down, Orchid benefits from a rock star contributor, Garth Ennis & John Byrne launch new titles and a remarkable success story finishes off the month.

This month everyone wants to know how DC’s New 52 has affected the sales of everyone else’s books. It’s a little too early to tell, the re-charting DC books have pushed a lot of indies off the charts, but while the indie publishers have a lot less titles charting this month, their market and dollar share have only dropped a little, suggesting that sales are up overall. The next three months will show the effects far more clearly.

Only 87 indie books charted this month, down from last month’s high of 127 and again the number 87 book sold around the same as the number 87 book last month. The bottom book sold 5,167 compared to last month’s 3,341. In total those books sold approximately 921,878, well down on last month’s 1,053,116. That said, last month the average sales were 8,292 per book, this month it’s 10,596.

MIKE GOLD: Marvel Comics Cuts The Crap

Hmmm. It’s been rather quiet, but over the past several weeks Marvel’s been cancelling titles steadily, one or two at a time.

What’s leaving? Let’s see… All Winners Squad, Alpha Flight, Black Panther The Most Dangerous Man Alive, Daken Dark Wolverine, Destroyers, Ghost Rider, Herc, Iron Man 2.0, The Punisher (MAX), Victor Von Doom, Villains For Hire, and X-23. A few of these titles were either mini-series, now castrated, or never released in the first place.

Many speculate S.H.I.E.L.D., Generation Hope, and Deadpool MAX are not long for this world as all three have direct sales figures in this same neighborhood – around 15,000 to 20,000 copies. More interesting (at least to me), Ghost Rider’s last issue will be released around the time the second movie comes out. That’s hardly a vote of confidence in their film division’s latest gem.

Separating the wheat from the chaff has long been a comics publishing tradition, and doing so in such a manner as to generate consternation and paranoia among both the creative community and the few surviving retailer outlets is standard operating procedure.

Twelve titles and counting is a lot, but I am certain it does not represent a decision to publish fewer titles. Fewer money losing titles, sure, and that’s an act of business sanity. But there are at least two very significant reasons why Marvel will simply replace them with other stuff come the spring.

The first is called “the fourth of May.” No, that’s not another X-Island Fear style event; that’s the release date for The Avengers movie. Note Marvel has yet to cancel any titles with the word “Avengers” in it, even though Avengers Academy and some of the current Avengers mini-series sell in that red zone.

The second is called “the third of July.” You guessed it; that’s when The Amazing Spider-Man movie is foisted upon an all-too-suspecting public.

If Marvel’s past habits remain intact – and by “past” I mean “2011” – we can expect to see a plethora of sundry Avengers and Spider-Man movie tie-ins… like, say, The Scarlett Spider.

Of course, most comics publishers would murder their aged grandmothers and their puppies for sales figures in the realm of those now-deceased Marvel titles. I look forward to their organizing an “Occupy Marvel Comics” encampment.

Historically, DC and Marvel go through this housecleaning OCD at roughly the same time, a remarkable coincidence by the standards of anti-trust law. This time, maybe not. DC’s only now beginning to sense which of their “New 52” titles are losing steam, although with the massive talent changes in that line it does seem they’re busy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Nobody – certainly nobody in upper management at DC – expected all 52 to be successful, and if they maintain that “52” campaign they’ll just replace this fall’s losers with next summer’s losers.

This is the comic book food chain. Eat what you like while the food’s on your plate.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

MIKE GOLD: Green Lantern Trashed – Three Times!

I’ve been trying to make it through the Green Lantern DVD. I didn’t see it in the theaters – nobody I knew actually liked it, although to be fair few totally hated it. But when a close friend who happens to be in the intellectual property racket told me the best way to see it was to download a bootleg, I got dissuaded. So now ComicMix reports there’s an “extended cut” DVD out there. Hot damn! 360 seconds of more mud.

Bobby Greenberger, who writes under the name “Robert,” reviewed this dachshund a couple days ago and he did so with all the eloquence and joie de vivre one should expect from a comic book editor turned Star Trek writer turned politician. All I can say about his review is that I agree with his observations and, damn, he’s a lot more polite than I am.

Green Lantern deserves better than this. There’s a reason why the guy has been in print for all but about eight of the past 70 years. The character actually deserves a real movie, not ten tons of CGI squeezed into a ten-ounce can. He’s survived countless reboots – and I mean countless; you can play the Monty Python Cheese Shop game with GL reincarnations. There’s something there there, and it’s something the filmmakers missed. Or avoided completely.

Now I see the clips for the new Green Lantern animated series. It’s from Warner Bros. Animation – go figure – and once again, they seem to have missed the boat by driving to the wrong ocean. This is the same company that did brilliant adaptations of the character in two solid, entertaining D2DVD movies as well as on their Justice League and Superman animated shows. Heck, they even did a great job with the guy on their Duck Dodgers show. So why they decided to abandon all of this for a diuretic dump of overly modeled CGI crap is beyond me.

Well, it isn’t quite beyond me. They’re simply following in George Lucas’s footsteps. Personally, I would have picked Bruce Timm. Or even Jay Ward. Tom Terrific looked better than this.

Maybe the writing will be so fantastic it’ll overcome their clunky, awkward and cheesy animation approach. I’m more than enough of a fanboy to give it a shot. It goes up on Cartoon Network on Armistice Day.

And, please, don’t get me started on the New 52 Green Lantern.

MIKE GOLD: Marvel Comics – Anybody Remember These Guys?

Fickle little bastards that we are, most of the hubbub around the American comics world has been revolving around DC’s New 52. Is it any good? Are any any good? Which ones really suck? Which title has the most breasts? It’s all great publicity in the short term; nobody’s talking about Marvel Comics.

Marvel movies are another matter. But, this week, that would be a digression, even though the first Avengers trailer was just released.

The House of Ideas (anybody remember that catch phrase?) is in the middle of two Big Events – three, if you count whatever the hell is going on with the X-Men titles. They seem to be going through their own new 52. Or perhaps new 104. There’s so many of these books I couldn’t read them all even if I were Pietro Maximov. So, this week, the X-titles are a digression.

I’ll admit I started off liking both the Fear Itself and Spider-Island Big Events. Neither were spectacular, awesome, incredible, nor uncanny, but both were good solid superhero dramas in the Marvel motif. Not everything has to be better than ever and “good solid” is just fine most of the time. I’d say I recall saying that about the second Hulk and second Iron Man movies but I’d be indulging in digression.

But after the passing of a couple months both became a burden. No, I haven’t been reading all of the tie-ins and mini-series and such – Marvel’s been great about maintaining the sidebar nature of these subordinate series. But the cumulative nature of both Events happening simultaneously has worn me down. I’m having a hard time giving a damn, and these books have been sinking down in my reading pile buried under the weight of comics that show more spontaneity and innovation. Few are published by DC or Marvel these days.

Here’s the rub. I still proudly think of myself as a fanboy. I also proudly think of myself as a pain in the ass, but that’s still another digression. Two of my favorite characters are and damn-near have always been Doctor Strange and the Sub-Mariner. I’ve liked the Red She-Hulk stories I’ve read. Now all three of them will be in the new, new Defenders, along with that one-man Greek chorus, the Silver Surfer.

It appears that the new, new Defenders will be an outgrowth from Fear Itself; writer Matt Fraction is a major force behind both. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s a new event all onto itself. Damn, would that suck. Anyway, I’m reluctant to abandon all this current Marvel Event stuff because these specific characters continue to warm the cockles of my fanboy heart.

What to do, what to do?

I think I’ll read Dick Tracy.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

MINDY NEWELL is Grumpy

I’ve been in a grumpy mood all weekend. I don’t know why exactly… and I made it worse today because, being in a grumpy mood yesterday, I didn’t work on my paper for school – the topic being An Ethical Analysis of a Current Domestic or Global Issue, and normally I love to talk ethics and issues with a capital “I,” but I just was so grumpy, I couldn’t get my interest going – which of course I should have, but I blew it off.

Which meant that I had to do it all today, which led to me missing the Giants game against the Seahawks. Which they lost 36 – 25. And yesterday was Yom Kippur, but I was grumpy, so I blew off going to temple, too, which made me feel terribly guilty, but I grumpily chose to feel guilty rather than do the right thing and go to temple with my parents. Who are really getting up there in age and who knows if we’ll all be here next year, and would it really have been so horrible to go to temple for a few hours and make them happy?

Although I did fast. Sort of. Meaning I drank a lot of Diet Pepsi and smoked a pack of cigarettes while being grumpy and watching The Dick Van Dyke Show on TV Land. So I’m feeling guilty and grumpy about not going to temple yesterday, even though my parents were totally cool with it, and anyway, I haven’t gone to temple since 9/11, when I just decided that all organized religions totally suck.

And I’m grumpy because I’m not all that happy with my paper, which is called “There’s Something Happening Here” and is about the Occupy Wall Street Protests and the unethical practices of Wall Street (which of course is enough to make anyone grumpy) and the bullshit crap about Occupy Wall Street that’s coming out of the mouths of people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and John Boehner (which should make everybody grumpy, but it doesn’t, which makes me even more grumpy), and there’s so much to say, but I had a word limit, which I went over, which makes me grumpy, and with my luck my professor is a member of the Tea Party, which will really make me grumpy if it’s true.

But this column’s supposed to be about comics.

So what did I read this weekend? Well, I wanted to critique Catwoman #1 of DC’s New 52, because I have a special interest in Selena, having written the first Catwoman mini-series, and it’s been making me grumpy that in that series I wanted Selena to deliberately throw the bad guy who had raped her sister off the catwalk, but the powers-that-be at DC at the time wouldn’t let me ‘cause “Selena a cold-blooded killer? Nonononono, bad, Mindy, bad,” but apparently now it’s okay to show Selena and Bruce doing the dirty on a roof in total Photoshopped glorious color. But my comic book shop guy screwed up the order for the second week in a row now, which has also made me grumpy.

But I did pick up Batgirl #1 by my gal friend Gail Simone and artists Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes along with Wonder Woman #1 by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, and Action Comics #2 by Grant Morrison, Rags Morales, Brent Anderson and Rick Bryant. Plus Green Lantern, Batwoman and Voodoo. But it’s making me grumpy that I’m behind the eight ball and it feels like everybody else has already put their two cents in.

Gail does her usually superb job writing Barbara Gordon, and I’m trusting her to answer why Barbara remembers being shot by the Joker and being in a wheelchair for three years if none of the characters are supposed to remember their previous incarnations. Or is it that she just doesn’t remember her time as Oracle? But I really like that the emotional and psychological reverberations of the Joker’s attack are still there. It would make no sense if Barbara was just “la-di-di-dah.” I’m trusting Gail to follow through with this for quite a while. No instant fixes, please, girlfriend! The artwork made me a little grumpy though.

Wonder Woman is always her best, imho, when her Hellenic background plays a strong part in her book. Which is why I loved Wonder Woman! I especially liked the cape worn by unidentified bad guy who pulls a “Godfather” on the horse in the stable. (The bad guy is only unidentified if you’ve never read any Greek mythology and so don’t get the significance of that particular cape.) Brian Azzarello does his usual brilliant job at dialogue, dropping hints and making the characters come alive. The artwork definitely did not make me feel grumpy.

Action Comics #2 is sucking me in but good! Special highlight for me was the “exclusive peek behind the scenes” at the development of the characters and artwork. Especially the artwork. As a writer who can’t draw beyond a stick figure, I love seeing (or reading) how an artist makes the magic.

I wasn’t feeling grumpy there for a few minutes, but now I’m grumpy again because I didn’t have time to read the rest of my haul, which puts me even further into the backfield. But I’ve run out of room anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t be grumpy.

Except that I’m running really, really late on this column (again!) and that’s making me grumpy.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MARC ALAN FISHMAN: Editing Away the Future

This past weekend I was graced with the presence of ComicMix EIC/Columnist/Cranky Elderly Statesman Mike Gold. He invited me out for a brisket sandwich and conversation. For those not in the know, Gold and I are Jews – and as such, after circumcision, Bar Mitzvah, and a wedding to a Jewish bride, “brisket and conversation” is the next milestone in the Hebrew circle of life. In a day I’ll not forget for a good long while, we waxed poetic on a bevy of topics. It was like “Tuesday’s With Morrie,” except no one was dying. One point that seemed to come up again and again revolved around the state of the comic book industry. And when the dust had settled, and my brisket was fully digested, it came to me. There’s plenty of good going on in comics today, but for all the bad the finger of shame is pointed heavily at the editors’ desks.

What is a comic book editor? Well, he or she is many things to many people. To artists and writers, they are the boss. They assemble the parts, and roll out the final product. They help dot i’s, cross t’s, and make constructive criticism to ensure that the book that hits the shelf is the best it could be. To the fans, they are mysterious figure-heads who get their names right under the talent on the title page. They are the kings at conventions, giving sage advice one minute, and spinning bad fan-reaction the next. In the days before the Internet they were the keepers of secrets – the walking Wikipedias of their brands.

And today? They are that and more. Constructors of continuity, ruiners of rumors, and dolers of dreams. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. Has their hubris finally caught up with them? I offer some proof, by way of my all-powerful-never-wrong-because-I’m-a-columnist opinion.

How about the Epic Cross-Over of Infinite Magnitude! The first time it happened it sure must have been novel. Upend the whole universe and throw all the heroes together in a big fight. Sounds cool, right? Sure. And I bet it sold like hot cakes. A chance to see Spider-Man, Captain America, The Thing and Ben Gallagher all fight Dough Boy, Red Skull, and Avalanche no doubt equaled a nice spike in sales, and plenty of direction for the respective players, when the dust settled. But be it the editors, or the powers that be behind them. what was a once-in-a-decade deal has now become a yearly escapade. And it drags down the whole industry with it. And where it used to be a single book to encapsulate the ruckus, thanks to those editors, it now permeates the entire line of comics coming out.

I’ve been truly enjoying Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man now for two and half years. But lately, the books have been disjointed, discombobulated, and terribly boring. Fear Itself has consumed it, and because I’m not interested in Marvel’s excuse to dress everyone up in spikes and Tron lines. I’m buying a book that makes little sense. And when the crossover is over, I’ll invariably have to suffer for at least an issue or two more to deal with the eventual fallout. And the whole time, I can’t help but see the puppeteer’s grimy hand placed sorely up Matt Fraction’s asshole.

And yes, I know he is the lead architect/writer of Fear Itself. But I doubt he walked into the editor’s office with the pitch saying “This needs to bleed into seven different mini-series, and 13 other books.” The fact is with each passing summer “epic,” the publishers invariably encompass more and more books. And every time they do it, it stops any forward momentum on a series cold.

Invincible Iron Man was an amazing deconstruction of Tony Stark, full of intrigue, new and old villains, and a strong cast of supporting characters. Thanks to Fear Itself, I’ve had to suffer three or four books of Tony building weapons with dwarfs while he drinks. The intrigue? The drama? The 30+ books of character building? Gone with a swing of Odin’s Budweiser and a fight with a mud-monster.

But I digress. With the New 52, DC’s Dan DiDio stuck his neck on the line and said “this is what we need to do to shake things up.” And I whole-heartedly agree. But he chose to end the current continuity by way of one of those aforementioned epics, and then give all of us a do-over on his “One Year Later” trick. Remember that? And to boot, while countless writers sit on the sidelines waiting for a chance to shine, Dan hands himself a job on OMAC.

I’m curious. Did he pitch the book to himself? If the editors exist to challenge their artists and writers to make the best books possible, if the New 52 was supposed to exist to make it not only easy for new readers to jump in, but to hold the industry to a higher standard of quality. How do books like Voodoo, Hawk and Dove, Mister Terrific, and Grifter get published?

Furthermore, what about the books that were universally “meh’ed” like Red Lanterns, JLI, Catwoman, or Red Hood and the Outboobs? Did the editors really sit back at their desk with the assembled pages, and say “now here’s a book I am proud of” or did they just get the damned thing done and hope for the best?

Stay tuned next week, when all the ComicMix columnists will be editorially mandated to write on the same topic: Honey Badgers!

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

Announcing The DC 52 Deadpool!

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  • October 4, 2011

Look, they can’t all live forever.

It’s a sad fact of life. Just as every new TV season brings shows that sound good on paper and test well in pilot stage, some series are going to be cancelled sooner or later.

Even DC’s new 52 initiative, with multiple printings, will have series that will go by the wayside. And now that we’ve all had a chance to see the first issues, it’s now fair to ask– which ones aren’t going to make it? And which ones are going to drop first? Or do we heed the tweets of DuckBob Spinowitz, who thinks that DC stands for Disk Crash… “Isn’t that what you call it when a reboot fails?”

So we leave it to you. Who will live and who goes to that great 3/$1 box in the sky? Vote below (you can only vote for a maximum of 13 titles) and defend your decisions in the comments.

[poll id=”83″]

MINDY NEWELL: Go, Giants! And You Too, DC!

Just some rambling…

DC’s New 52 made the New York Times again. The title of the article is “So Far, Sales For New DC Comics Are Super,” by George Gene Gustines and Adam W. Kepler was published on Saturday, October 1, 2011 issue, and was featured on the front page of the Arts Section. According the article, the first five weeks of DC’s reboot of its universe has increased “the sales of DC Comics by leaps and bounds.” The first issue of the new Justice League – which the authors call DC’s flagship book. Really? I would have thought it was Superman, since the Son of Krypton is the flagship character. But what do I know? – anyway, the first issue sold “more than 200,000 copies, compared with the roughly 40,000 for each of the last few issues of the old book.” Well, I hope it keeps up, but these are the first issues. I think it’s a little early to call it a win – after all, the NY Giants just pulled out a win over the Arizona Cardinals in the last three minutes of the game.

(more…)

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