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John Ostrander: Alt Universes

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  • October 23, 2017

Pencilers are not always satisfied. Maybe they’re never satisfied. They’ll take a page or panel that they’ve drawn and if they don’t like it, erase the sucker and do it over. If they do it too often, it gets all gray and muddy. I got a page to dialogue once that was erased so often that I couldn’t really tell what the figures were doing. Based on the plot, I threw on a lot of sound effects and hoped for the best.

You can do that as a writer as well. You can worry a plot or an idea to death, to the point where nothing really makes sense. At that point, it would almost be better to scrap it and start over.

Comic book companies (we’re talking about DC and Marvel) can do the same thing with their universes. For decades, DC had a stable universe – to the point of static. It was easier; the stories in one book were rarely if ever connected to any other story in that book or the larger DC Universe.

Marvel changed all that; their universe was very interconnected with stories and characters from one book often appearing or referenced in another. However, they were also proud of the fact that the continuity, once laid down, didn’t change (in theory if not lf not always in practice) even when that continuity creaked and groaned with age, begging for change.

These days, the universes (and some of the characters on them) flit by, get trashed, re-written, usually in a great company-wide crossover that promises that “Nothing will ever be the same again!” I’m not saying change is not a good idea; DC’s Crisis On Infinite Earths was a landmark event that DC desperately needed at the time. Marvel desperately needed barnacles scraped off its editorial hull.

It seems to me, however, that these “events” are simply marketing ploys designed to make the reader buy as many tie-in books as necessary. They’re not born out of a need for anything but sales.

The problem (again, it seems to me) is there appears to be no plan for where they want to wind up. Even Crisis suffered from the fact that there was no clear concept of who the characters would be at the end and what the DCU would look like.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been doing a fine job of connecting the dots that are their movies and have had a real plan for where they were going and how each film fit into and furthered that plan. The DC Cinematic Universe… less so. They opted for dark and broody, broody, broody. Man of Steel, for any other faults it may have had, suffered from a Batmanization of its worldview.

Now Warners Bros (DC’s parent company) has announced that, in the future, not every film will fit together with the other films; in other words, like the DC Comics University of old. Some will fit together but not all and that seems to me to be a mistake. That invites confusion and there’s one thing that the general public will not appreciate is confusion.

The comics themselves, both DC and Marvel, also seem to be wrapped in confusion. It doesn’t help when the origin or the nature of the character is radically changed or the whole universe is re-stacked and changed. I think you run the serious risk of losing readers. You can erase things and redraw them so often that you turn it all to mud. You don’t grow the audience and, with the success of the superhero franchise films, you should be able to add readers. However, the event-driven books these days are not very accessible to new readers. Maybe there should be a line of a limited number of books that would be accessible and thus draw readers into the respective comic book universes. Even I, an old hand, am finding it hard to get into what’s going on. Constant change just becomes constant noise.

Find a good story. Tell it in as few issues as necessary. Otherwise, the reader starts to suspect you don’t have enough good stories to tell.

Unlike the movies.

Ed Catto: It’s a Groovement!

Last week I reviewed several of the brave souls – you might call them entrepreneurs or creators – from the recent New York Comic Con. There’s something inspiring about creators who work so hard on a project and then work just as hard, or even harder, getting the word out at comic cons. I love conventions and always have, but let’s face it, being an exhibitor can be tough.

It comes natural to some guys, like the incredibly charismatic and energetic Billy Tucci. He’s got talent, personal confidence, a great family behind him and a smile for everyone. But for most exhibitors, it’s a grind. And that’s why I showcased all those creators in last week’s column.

This week we take a deeper dive with author Mark Voger. His newest book, Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture is on sale next month from TwoMorrows. The book looked fantastic at NYCC and Mark is a fascinating, passionate guy. I caught up with him after the show.

Ed Catto: Can you tell me a little about the book and the background behind what prompted you to write it and get it published?

Mark Voger: Groovy is all about the psychedelia of the 1960s – the crazy colors and wild music and dancing hippies. It’s not a purist work; I cover H.R. Pufnstuf as well as Woodstock. I was always fascinated with this period. I was eleven when Woodstock happened, so I was old enough to notice what was going on but too young to participate. I would hear Crimson and Clover by the Shondells on the radio and then see the Banana Splits on Saturday morning TV, and it all somehow fit together in my young brain.

EC: This book looks so different from the many books of TwoMorrows. What makes it different, and does this appeal to a different type of reader?

MV: This one’s a bit outside of TwoMorrows’ wheelhouse. Their bread and butter is comics history, though they do branch out on occasion. My book covers groovy culture overall — music, movies, TV, art, animation and, certainly, comics. It’s very visual. I’m hoping it will appeal to TwoMorrows’ core, as well as the wider audience that remembers this period, or young people who dig it and want to find out more about it.

EC: Did you run across any surprises in writing it, and what will surprise the readers?

MV: I absolutely did. When I started the project, I expected Groovy to be mostly a lighthearted romp. It is very lighthearted, but there’s more of the dark than I’d expected. You really can’t separate groovy culture from the grim events of the era – the assassinations, the struggle for Civil Rights, the Vietnam War. Groovy culture was very much a response to all of the bad stuff. It’s like the lone flower that grows in a neglected parking lot full of broken glass and cracked concrete. I’m hoping readers will be surprised by what the creators of the culture have to say. Over a 25-year period, I interviewed every groovy musician, actor, artist, director, etc., I could track down – Peter Max, Donovan, Melanie, Brian Wilson, Peter Fonda, lots of Woodstock and Altamont veterans. My aim was to preserve their memories.

EC: The design and layout of the book is fresh and engaging. What’s the story behind the design?

MV: Thank you; I designed the book as well. I’ve carved a career as a writer-designer for newspapers, and Groovy is the latest result. My aim was to make the book itself a psychedelic experience as you page through it. The great thing about psychedelia is that you can’t overdo it. But, of course, you still must follow certain rules of design — legibility, complementary color schemes, clear points of entry, just overall reader-friendliness. Still, I took a couple of calculated risks. There’s a brief interview with artist Jim Steranko in which the story itself, the type, swirls in a psychedelic way. It’s a challenge for the reader, almost like a little game, in the spirit of the era.

EC: What reactions to the book did you get at NYCC?

MV: It got an encouraging response, I think. I had an enlargement of the cover hanging at the TwoMorrows booth. It was interesting how young girls would often stop and page through the book. I think they’re attracted to the colors; it’s a very colorful piece. A young Japanese woman, who is an artist, stopped and looked at every page for about half the book, and she was almost squealing with delight. I treasure that moment. A woman turned to a spread of Monkees memorabilia and said, “I had all of this stuff!” Those are exactly the responses I’m hoping for.

EC: Anything else to add?

 

MV: Well, thanks for your interest in Groovy, Ed. I would only add that looking back at this period is a lesson about what’s going on now. I don’t talk about current events in “Groovy” – that would only date the book – but it’s as if we need a refresher course in so many things that people fought for in the ’60s, Civil Rights and the environment among them. We’re all in this together. Kindness rocks. “Smile on your brother,” a lyric from a 1967 Youngbloods song, is still a terrific idea.

•     •     •     •     •

Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture book ships on November 15. The list price is $39.95 and the ISBN number is 978-1-60549-080-9. It’s a 192-page hardback in color. Grab it a bookstore, online or best of all, at your favorite comic shop.

Marc Alan Fishman: CyclopsGate

For those following along at home, this has been a contentious week. For reasons I’m too bored to research, writer extraordinaire Gail Simone has started a blood feud with Fabian Nicieza over the specific pseudo-science of an X-Man’s mutant ability.

Before we explore the depth of the debate, let’s just catch up those few of you who truly don’t know your X-Men from your West Coast Teen Titanvengers.

Cyclops, the almost-often leader of Charles Xavier’s mutant strike-force, has the mutant ability to (according to Wikipedia which cites the Marvel Handbook as a source) shoot Optic Blasts — the product of his body metabolizing sunlight and other ambient energy. This is similar to his brother Alex (alias Havok) who metabolizes cosmic radiation. This metabolized energy is then released in the form of the beam from his eyes. (Thank you, Wikipedia)

Ms. Simone posits that these beams are, in fact hot, and as such said blasts are akin to Superman’s heat vision. Mr. Nicieza dutifully leans on his Marvel Handbook definition wherein the blasts are merely concussive – hence not containing any heat. Hilarity has since ensued as each creator has taken to social media to defend their point of view.

Conflicting reports have buoyed from the argument being tongue-in-cheek to absolutely-sincere. The fanboys have taken to arms over it. One might even posit that Simone’s initial declaration was more a way to oust angry fan-boy-man-children into a stupor to question her authority – not as a creator, but as a female creator. But subsequent meme’ing across the Facebook-Twitter-verse has perhaps grown what might be a funny little distraction to an all-out who-gives-a-flying-fuck (pardon me) for folks now declaring themselves #TeamGail and #TeamFabian – with equal membership aligned on the aforementioned spectrum of sincerity.

In the same week where #MeToo has spurned significant debate and discussion, it’s hard to figure out if the snowballing of the argument itself has been the barely concealed point this whole time, or offered as scapegoat distraction against some heavy and tumultuous postings.

Furthermore, why I bring this all to you this week, comes seated in my own idiotic apprehension to voice my (unnecessary) opinion on who specifically is right.

Whilst a litany of women whom I love have bared their souls across my feeds, I was personally compelled to do something, anything, to show my love and support. I cribbed a posting from a good (guy) friend who did his best to respond. In short, he wrote a blanket apology to all women whom he might have inadvertently scorned or hurt through his jovial nature; making it clear while he had never committed any heinous physical action to any women, he was unsure if in his own brand of humor had not ever accidentally offended any women in his life, or made them feel harassed. His sentiment was pure, and in seeing it, I was compelled to share it myself.

The reaction was positive – as many of my female friends ‘liked’ and commented in support of my desire to ensure my stance as someone who never intends to harm any living soul with my actions or words – keeping in mind that no matter how mindful I may be, my own brand of humor may have pushed limits unintentionally. Within the post came a desire for any women who I’d ever committed an inadvertent sin to let me know (privately or otherwise) so that I may sincerely apologize, and (of course) recognize where I might have previously been an idiot.

But in taking even that action, I was reprimanded a day later. A very intelligent, thoughtful, respected friend of mine took my posting to task. She let me know that in my desire to right a wrong, my intentions may have been pure, but the desire to do so was couched in the very thing the #MeToo movement is in essence fighting to change. To tell a woman (or anyone who has been harassed) to speak up to correct me may be unduly forcing them to relive erroneous feelings I caused. In short: If I can’t recognize what I’ve done wrong? I’m still part of the problem.

And with that, we return to CyclopsGate. You see, I side with Fabian. To the best of my recollection, Cyclops’ beams carry no heat. While they may have the ability to melt objects and such as shown in many comic books throughout X-history, I’ve long held the belief in those instances the concussive blasts caused friction across the target, which in turn caused combustion. Or, at very most, when specifically stressed Cyclops can add heat to his optic blasts inadvertently (like, say, he’s mad. Mad beams hot. Being tactical? Beam stays cool.).

The thing is, I love Gail Simone. I am thoroughly #TeamGail. But to declare her right when I believe her to be wrong? Well, I got #MeToo’d into silence.

My fear of missing the joke (or non-joke) of this feud (or faux-feud) has me fretting over my opinion. Gail is clearly a lot closer to mainstream comics than I am. Perhaps she is right! But if I voice my opinion (one bolstered only by the internet research I could complete via sources that vacillate between hearsay and Wikipedia), do I accidentally side with tiki-torch-wielding man-children?

I don’t know, so, I’ll just declare myself #TeamWolverine (X-23 though, not that misogynist Logan, damnit).

The Law Is A Ass #421: Daredevil Ends The Art Show, Mural Less

The Law Is A Ass #421: Daredevil Ends The Art Show, Mural Less

Well, since they’re going to make it easy for me…

In Daredevil vol 5 # 11, there was a new villain in town, Muse, a deranged artist who painted a mural on a wall. Given that we’re talking about a comic book, I think you can Banksy on the fact that there’s more to this villain than meets the eye. Not just Daredevil’s eye, which is blind after all, but even more than meets the eye of an eagle with 20/10 vision. See, it’s not that Muse was using other people’s walls for his paintings; that would only make him guilty of vandalism. Muse was also using other people’s blood.

Yes, while some artists paint in oils and others in watercolors, Muse used the blood of his victims. I think for Muse, his medium is the message.

Muse painted a mural on the wall of a warehouse owned by one Freddy Durnin using the blood of over one hundred and twelve different missing persons. Freddy wanted to display the painting to the public for ten dollars a head. Did the public want to see this corpuscular – or should I say corpse-puscular – work of art? I think the idea grue on them, because there was already a line that went “around the block.”

Personally, I’m not too sanguinary about Freddy’s chances. DNA tests established that one of the victims whose blood was used in the painting was the niece of Andrea Pearson, Speaker of the New York City City Council. And Ms. Pearson did not want the painting displayed to the public.

Now, given that there was the blood of over one hundred victims in the painting, I’m not sure how any DNA sample wouldn’t have been so hopelessly contaminated that it would have been impossible to positively identify any one victim’s DNA. But I’ll give the story that one. After all, this is the Marvel Comics Universe. Reed Richards probably killed an hour one afternoon when the Internet was down by developing a highly efficient method of separating cross-contaminated DNA samples that’s used by whatever DNAgency operates in the MCU.

Anyway, back to Councilwoman Pearson. When Freddy rebuffed her, she went to the District Attorney’s office to get him to shut the display down. And DA Hochberg turned the matter over to assistant DA Matt Murdock. Hochberg was mad at Matt, who had been shirking his duties as an assistant DA. Seems Matt was out protecting the streets of Hell’s Kitchen as Daredevil when he should have been attending to his ADA duties. So Hochberg dropped the case, and a sarcasm bomb in Matt’s lap, “You are supposed to be one of best attorneys of your generation, Matt. Please… do us both a favor. Prove it.”

Wow, some punishment. Hochberg punishes Matt by giving him a job that was so easy even a first year law student intern assigned to filing duties because the alphabet was at the upper end of his competence could accomplish in half an hour? Yes, punish the guy by giving him punishment that basically amounts to a paid afternoon off, that’ll show him.

Seriously, while I was writing these words, I came up with three arguments Matt could use to shut down Freddy’s nightmare. And I wasn’t even giving any thought to the problem.

  1. Have the police say they’ve only finished their initial investigation and that the warehouse is still an active crime scene that has to be kept free of outside contamination. So no visitors allowed.
  2. Have it declared a public nuisance. After all, that blood will attract flies and rats and other vermin to the area.
  3. And, hey, human blood is biological material. Some of that blood may have AIDS or hepatitis or some other infectious disease. That means the mural is a health hazard which is too dangerous to be open to the public. Even more so when you consider that this is blood from one hundred twelve people in the Marvel Universe. So one of them probably had radioactive spider venom or cosmic Gamma rays or Terragin mists or just plain, old New York City water coursing through their blood. That makes it even more of a biohazard.

Once Matt had a theory or five he would petition the court for either a preliminary injunction, an ex parte proceeding in which the person or persons who wanted to enjoin – or prevent – an action from happening appear before a judge without the other party to the case also appearing. To get a preliminary injunction, Matt would have to convince the court both that allowing the act he wanted to enjoin – here Freddy operating his art gallery – to occur would cause some sort of damage and that Matt’s argument would more than likely prevail when the case came to an actual trial. If the judge agreed, the judge would grant the preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking Freddy from running his gallery and setting the case for a immediate hearing in which both sides could argue their cases.

And seeing as how several pages after Hochberg palmed this problem off on Matt, the police presented Freddy with a preliminary injunction, that must have been exactly what Matt did. See, I told you they made it easy for me. Matt did everything right, so all I had to do was explain what he did and why it worked without the extra step I usually have to include of explaining what Matt should have done but didn’t do and why he should have done it.

Still all I said was that Matt made it easy for me, I didn’t say he made it painless. There was that extra scene when Matt complained to Foggy about his possible moral conflict. The DA’s office is supposed to promote justice, not shut down some guy’s business “because it gets on City Hall’s nerves.” Matt, baby, don’t invite problems. You weren’t shutting a business down because it got on Andrea’s nerves, you were shutting it down because it presented a legitimate health hazard. That’s a good thing and what you’re supposed to do as a DA. Don’t go worrying about problems that don’t exist yet.

If Hochberg tells you do to something at a later date which you think is wrong, then you can have your moral crisis. Don’t worry about it now, before he’s asked you to do that thing, whatever it is, worry about it later when he actually asks you to do it.

And considering how loose your legal ethics have been the past few years, I’m not so sure you’ll worry about it all that much later, either.

Martha Thomases: What’s In It For Me?

So, a lot of us here enjoy discussions of diversity in comics (and, no, I don’t mean this schmuck). It’s an interesting subject to consider in light of popular culture, contemporary politics, and the meaning of life.

It is also interesting in terms of marketing.

When we talk about comics marketing, especially in terms of diversity, I think we often miss the point. This may be because, in my experience, comics marketing tends to involve advertising in comic books and sending posters to comic book shops. These methods are terrific for attracting the attention of people who already read comics, but they are less effective for reaching people who don’t.

Sometimes, if a graphic novel is scheduled to be published, and is either written by a well-known writer or published by a mainstream book publisher or the source material for a critically acclaimed movie, you might see an ad in the book section of a newspaper or magazine. In general, however, it is too expensive to advertise individual monthly comic books on a national level.

But what if we could? To whom should we target the ads?

When I was in college, I did an internship with the research department of a major Chicago advertising agency. We analyzed data from thousands of questionnaires distributed at shopping malls all around the country (shopping malls were still a thing in 1976). New questionnaires were always coming in, because we wanted our analyses to be as up-to-date as possible. One of our clients was General Mills, so the questionnaires included a lot of questions about cake mix and instant mashed potatoes and the like. I learned from this experience that, if you want to reach a shopper who might buy cake mix occasionally, you emphasized the characteristics most appealing to people who baked more than four cakes a month.

(I will now pause and wonder what my life would have been like if I had been raised in a house that smelled like cake four times month).

By that logic, comics marketing is right on track. By promoting the characters, the colorful battle scenes, and sometimes the creative team, the ads appeal to those people who already are familiar with these elements of the story, and are familiar with those kinds of storytelling.

For better or worse, that’s not how marketing works anymore. My internship took place more than 40 years ago. The corporate pressures today are much different, and stockholders aren’t satisfied to simply reach the same customers they’ve always had. Instead, there needs to be more more more!

Toyota, with its Camry model, is a good example. Read the link, because it’s really interesting.

Now, I’m not an expert on Camrys, Toyotas, or automobiles in general. My regular car is the E train. I am not the audience for these ads. Therefore, I can look at the story with a certain level of detachment.

What I notice is that Toyota wants to reach not only the broadest audience (the white/multicultural pop music one) but also as many specific audiences as they can. As a result, they make a general commercial, but then also make commercials aimed at African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American markets. Each of those ads, for the same car, emphasizes traits that are determined to be most attractive to the targets.

(I am not in a position to comment on whether their assumptions about what is appealing are correct. I’m interested in the effort.)

Toyota doesn’t say to Hispanic car-buyers that the Camry is good because it has been selling for decades. Instead, they talk about why Hispanic car-buyers would like it.

Similarly, it isn’t enough for Marvel to say that Iron Man (as an arbitrary example, not to pick on it specifically) is a good comic for you because Marvel has been publishing it forever, or because Robert Downey, Jr. is really cute (although he is). Marvel needs to tell me what’s in it for me if I buy it. Is it a commentary on capitalism, or human nature, or the meaning of life? Is it funny, or scary, or emotionally moving in another way?

What’s in it for me?

And just as Toyota doesn’t only make Camrys, but has lots of different models for people with different driving needs and preferences, comics should (and does!) have lots of different kinds of books for people with different tastes in reading.

If you’re a straight cis white guy who loves comics, that’s great. Most of the titles in your local comic book shop are intended for you. You are still the largest demographic segment in this market. However, in order for the business to grow (and for profits to rise), publishers need to explore books that will appeal to new markets. Some of these experiments will fail because that’s what happens when humans try new things. But some of these experiments will succeed, and then there are more books for everybody.

We will not attract new readers to our books if we demand that they all fit in the same box.

Not even if that box is chocolate cake.

Mike Gold: Here Comes the Equestrian Statue

 

A short one this week, because I’m not here.

In fact, I’m in Pennsylvania having just completed my fourth convention in eight weeks. Yup: Chicago Wizard World, Baltimore Comic Con, New York Comic Con, and last – and best – the Kokomo (Indiana) Comic Con. That latter one came highly recommended by ComicMixers Denny O’Neil and Marc Alan Fishman… and they were absolutely right.

Whereas I am now completely exhausted, I had more fun than a monkey with whippits. I saw lots and lots of good friends and co-workers, made some new ones, and I seem to have managed to avoid pissing off the usual number of people. I guess I’m maturing a bit – as evidenced by my now being exhausted. Of course, because I avoid flying these days I had my car so I took a few side trips along the way, including a great lunch and great conversation with some great folks in Chicago – you might have seen the picture on FaceBook. And it’s always fun going back to the old homestead.

So, other than some sadly not-malicious gossip, I am woefully uninformed about what happened in the comics world this past week… if anything. Anything new, that is. So, no posturing and politicking from me this week.

The main reason I still go to comics conventions after – gasp – 49 years is to talk with the fans. Sure, I do some business when I have to and I sign a lot of comics, which is good for the ol’ self-esteem. But being able to get into one-on-one conversations with the folks who read the books, watch the movies and teevee shows, invest time in deploying our medium in educational and expansionist activities… you just can’t operate in the public media without having a clue what the “end-users” desire, and what they don’t care for.

As our audience has become more and more diverse, this quest for input becomes all the more important. Well, at least to me and those who are charged with putting up with me.

So, I thank everybody with whom I spoke these past eight weeks. You improve our work, and you feed my ego. Whereas the latter is virtually insatiable, it’s all good.

Thank you, comics fans, convention promotors, somewhat bewildered reporters and my companion denizens of the donut shop. I might be exhausted right now, but it’s a good type of exhaustion.

Joe Corallo: Indie Comics Showdown!

So my last couple of columns have been a bit on the heavy side. This week I’m going back to telling all of you how I feel about specific comics. This week is a Kickstarter project, The Showdown Volume 2, by creator, writer and letterer Russ Lippitt, illustrator Ezequiel Pineda, colorist Nate Esteban, and editor Jessica Kubinec. Before I get into that though, I’d like to chat a little bit about the indie comics scene.

Indie comics and creator-owned comics are terms that are used pretty interchangeably. While The Walking Dead is one of the highest selling comics every single month and have two different TV series out, it’s not unheard of to see it mentioned as an indie comic. Often folks talk about the big two (Marvel and DC) finding indie talent to bring on board. Indie talent tends to refer to any comics put out by publishers that aren’t Marvel or DC. Image, Dark Horse, and IDW would all be considered comics publishers with indie talent more or less. The tier below that would be BOOM!, Dynamite, and Oni. From there would be Lion Forge, AfterShock and Titan. Then we get into Black Mask Studios, Scout and so forth. You get the idea. It’s kind of indie, but also not quite. Now self publishing comics, that’s where we get the real indie stuff!

Okay, full disclosure, I have self published some comics before so maybe I’m a little biased. Going to Zine Fests, MoCCA Fest, SPX, that’s where you see the real raw indie talent doing what they really want to do. Some of these books you see at those kind of shows are quick little stories, art books, playing around with the format, and so forth. Other self publishing indie type comics look more like what you’d find in any given comic shop like Unmasked or The Showdown Volume 2. Both of those examples are actually a bit more like comics collectives rather than straight up self publishing as The Showdown is part of Broken Icon Comics, but you get what I mean.

Speaking of The Showdown, I should get to talking about it. This volume is 110 fully colored page about a car race in hell. It’s a bit of Wacky Races meets Zenescope’s Grimm Tales of Terror. Basically, lots of bad dead people in vehicular abominations are racing around all the different levels of hell. We jump around following more than a few different groups of racers as they encounter zombies, Nazis, dragons, fire and ice. Some of the racers we follow are more likeable than others, which is the point.

I don’t want to give too much away, but it is filled with references to bands and songs, some of the jokes are teenage boy type jokes which is not a knock it’s just that’s the target demographic for some of it. There are also plenty of visual nods to things like Ridley Scott’s Legend and characters like Harley Quinn.

Where The Showdown excels is pacing. The story just keeps moving which helps make this 110 page graphic novel a real page turner. The setting is a familiar enough mash up that you don’t need a lot of explanation to jump right in. I haven’t read Volume 1 and it didn’t stop me from understanding the basic elements of the plot. Where The Showdown falls down is in the stakes. The story bounces around between a lot of different characters so it’s hard to build up a strong attachment to any one in particular. Add the lack of feeling like there are any real stakes and consequences with what happens to the winners and losers and what the ramifications of that will be makes for a bit of an aimless read. (In fairness, part of that may be because I have not read the first volume.)

The other sticking point for me was the artwork. I feel a stronger horror artist might be able to help carry the story better. Some of the elements in the story could have been more terrifying or grotesque and it would have elevated the story. By that same token, if Ezequil would have went harder in the other direction and made it more cartoony that would have changed the feel of the story and possibly enhanced it as well.

If you have an interest in Wacky Racers with a horror twist then you should check out Russ Lippitt’s Kickstarter. One of the best things about it is that the comics is already done, so once it’s funded it will definitely be coming out! That’s usually not the case when it comes to comics on Kickstarter, so no worrying about a creative team switch up or a book being a year or so late. If you’ve been pledging to comics on Kickstarter for years and years like I have you know what I’m talking about.

Thanks for reading my column this week and do me a favor and go support some indie comics. The self publishing kind of indie.

Ed Catto: Comic Con or Entrepreneur Con?

Whew!  Another New York Comic Con is in the books. As usual, there was a lot of conversations about how these big conventions “aren’t about comics anymore” and instead focus on other fan-centric efforts. I’m maintain there’s still a lot of comics at big conventions. And I’d take it step further – one of the most interesting things at this year’s show was the plethora of creative entrepreneurs who use the show as platform to launch their comic focused efforts.

Here’s a few:

Mark Sparacio is a longtime comics artist with mainstream work on Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex and Captain Action.  He’s become a staple of the convention circuit, including San Diego Comic-Con, selling his character illustrations.  I was surprised, but shouldn’t have been, to see his work on a lovely Wonder Woman program cover for the Rochester Comic Con last year. Mark and his wife Lisa were working it hard at their New York Comic Con booth and I was particularly intrigued by his new graphic novel, Chelsea Dagger. It looks like a mash-up of Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D. and a Tom Clancy novel. Sparacio talked about his research with members of the military, and how encouraged he was.  More info here: https://chelseadaggercomics.wordpress.com

It’s no relation to the Fratelli’s song of the same name, but I like that band and that song too.

Mark Vogur is a kid who loves monsters and 60s culture, and just happened to grow up to become an author. His latest, Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture, is published by TwoMorrows and even though it’s not officially on sale until Nov 15th, he had copies at New York Comic Con.  The book is packed with 60s ephemera and lovingly designed with mindful respect of the source material. More on this treasure in an upcoming column.

Has “world-building” replaced “transmedia” as the hot phrase among the entertainment  development community?  I hope so – I never liked “transmedia”, although I get it.  I ran across Liberty Endures in the small press section of NYCC, and they get both these concepts.  The team behind this concept has created a fascinating world, and tells the story in comics and serialized audio dramas.  Their booth was fun and their site, libertyendures.com , is too.

When it comes to comic art, I’m a bit of a traditionalist. I still love and have been recently enjoying giants from the past like  Alex Raymond, Frank Robbins or Stan Drake That’s why it’s all the more surprising that I’ve become such a big fan of Space Pirates, the new Image comic by . Alexis Ziritt.  This one is batshit crazy. It’s like drinking too much tequila in a biker bar that only uses black lights and everyone wears fluorescent colors. Ziritt grew up reading comics in Venezuela and just loves making them today.

Vincent Ferrante is a determined creator who’s become a regular on the NYCC exhibition floor. His company, Monarch Comics, started with Witchhunter and now has expanded to including several titles including  Horror Island and Evil Monkey Man. Ferrante is out there each and every year, banging the drum and introducing new fans to what is clearly a labor of love. I tried to catch up with him this year, but each time his booth was swamped!  Join the party at www.monarchcomics.com.

Tina Fine is a NYC author with a story to tell, and she’s chosen comics as her medium to tell it. Off Girl is a new comic about woman in New York City with a big problem.  Artist Mark Reihill brings Fine’s vision to life with a animation-isa style.  I admired Fine’s hard work selling at her booth, and even spotted her booth model, in full Off Girl regalia, on the show floor.   https://www.offgirl.com

I met the Lew and Jon, the entrepreneurs of FanSets last year in the Javits Center at Mission: New York, the Star Trek Convention. They create high quality enamel pins for hard-core collectors and casual fans.  This entrepreneurial enterprise has rapidly grown in a year to include several new licenses including Harry Potter, Firefly and DC comics.  In fact, an obscure DC character pin, the Grown-Up Robin of Earth Two, is what attracted my attention in the first place. One gets the sense that these two co-founders work hard at these conventions and have fun doing it.

Living the dream or fighting the good fight? These creative entrepreneurs straddle that middle ground between these two abstract start-up concepts. It’s never easy, but my hat is off to these strong willed creators who get it all together and enter the arena; armed with talent but also equal doses of bravery and determination.

 

 

 

 

 

National Graphic Novel Writing Month: Pick Your Shots!

 

Your graphic novel writing exercise for the day:

Take a tracking shot from a movie or TV show– one long, unbroken take that runs for a minute or more. If nothing immediately comes to mind, we’re going to take the opening from the last James Bond film, Spectre:

Your mission, 007: select the single shots from this sequence that tells the story.  All the important visual pieces that tell the story. You don’t have to draw them, you can just freeze frame from the clip. Keep the continuity from panel to panel, shot to shot. This clip is great because there’s a minimum of dialogue, so you can’t easily link panels by covering the action with words.

Beginner level: This shot’s a little over 4 minutes, so we’ll make it easy and give you five pages to do the sequence. Pick your shots. Then hand it to someone else and ask them if it makes sense.

Intermediate level: Describe the shots for your artist— what are the important things that are happening in each panel that the artist has to include, including continuity between panels? (Obviously, assume your artist has never seen this clip before.)

Advanced level: Cut two pages from your beginner level sequence.

Ready? Go.

Marc Alan Fishman: A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1

As you, my gentle readers, peruse this article, my Unshaven cohort Matt Wright and I will be on the road for the last time in 2017. We’ll be showcasing our wares at the annual Kokomo Comic Con in Kokomo, Indiana. We’re pleased as punch that this year we lured ComicMixers Mike Gold and John Ostrander down with us. Denny did it a few years ago, and it appears he didn’t have anything but nice things to say – hence Mike and John agreeing to make the trek out. I’ll cover how that show goes next week. For now, I want to jump into the way back machine to last week when my full Unshaven Comics crew and I descended once again on New York City for the ReedPop colossus known as New York Comic Con.

New York Comic Con is an undulating mass of humanity crammed into the Javits Center for four full days of geekery. This year, rumor has it over 200,000 attendees amassed amidst hundreds (if not an actual thousand as one fan postulated) of exhibitors and artists. Unlike previous years, the Artist Alley was nearly one third its original size – as the Javits renovates the pavilion wherein said Alley assembled in previous iterations of the con. Unshaven Comics specifically popped up our booth in the small press area on the main floor. We were luckyish to have landed in the same spot as 2016.

Let’s start with the cons so that we may build to up to the pros. This is especially easy as we had a very good show, mind you. But nits should always be picked, my friends.

The biggest concern for Unshaven Comics remains our classification with ReedPop. While yes, Unshaven Comics is a small independent publisher of original comic books, graphic novels, and art, we don’t necessarily consider ourselves to be Small Press. There is a stigma that the label of Small Press carries with it an odd “chip on the shoulder” mentality. To be Small Press, as some fans see it, is to be defiantly not-one-of-the-big-boys. Unshaven Comics certainly isn’t Marvel, DC, or anything even reasonably close to it. We are three best friends putting out a single series of comics. We are, in our own minds, merely an Artist Alley table that couldn’t fit down in the Alley. But I digress. This classification simply led to times throughout the convention when the waves of fans washed past our booth as they made way from one exhibition hall to the next. We were displaced barnacles willfully ignored by schools of fish traveling to deeper waters. Nothing hurts more than being ignored.

But our fans – and yes, this year proved to us that we did in fact have them – made way to find us. Over the course of 4 days, we bearded brothers-from-other-mothers pitched The Samurnauts to 699 people. 321 of them purchased 540 books. In addition, Matt and I both took several commissions, and Kyle was able to sell plenty of copies of his book Toolbox. In terms of the raw numbers? Unshaven Comics is plenty happy. With our friendly neighbors – Unstoppable Comics (look them up!) and Publisher’s Weekly – when fans took the chance to stop and hear us out? Well, it worked out just fine for the lot of us.

The biggest takeaway for me personally came in the projections for our Unshaven future. As we’ll collect The Samurnauts: Curse of the Dreadnuts into our first graphic novel here at the tail end of this year, our numbers tell me that next year’s New York Comic Con will potentially see us move 75-100 of said graphic novels. And knowing the difference in profit between floppy copies and a trade (an article to come, I assure you)? Well, that makes me smile from ear to ear.

Beyond raw sales though, what will leave a lasting impression on me this year will be the subtle shifting of my l’il studio in the indie space. This year saw Unshaven Comics rubbing elbows with ComicMixers Joe Corallo and Molly Jackson. Our wonderful host Glenn Hauman whispered a few cryptic thoughts in our ears of future projects to consider. We broke bread once again with Mike Gold, Martha Thomases, and several other friends of the ‘Mix.  More than any year prior, 2017’s New York Comic Con felt lived in for Unshaven Comics, in the best way possible. Gone were the nerves and that quivering question are we just faking it until we make it? Replaced; hardened by New Jersey Transit Tickets, Street Cart Chicken Kebobs, and Brooklyn Hipsters slapping our stickers to their poster tubes. All of it coalesced into a gestalt of limited-but-contented success.

While we didn’t beat any previous sales records (not being literally across from Marvel’s booth will do that to you…), we did prove that we’ve the mettle and drive to define our success in the comic industry. Tune in next week, when I contrast the sea-of-humanity to the most human show we table-up for. ‘Nuff said.

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