Crossing Over

I'm fairly into both American and Japanese comics, and there's something that's struck me about them, vis a vis one another. (Nothing against European comics; I just haven't had much exposure.)

Comics from both support a very wide range of storytelling genres and subgenres. Looking just at the geeky/speculative fiction end of things:

Japan: Giant robots, magical girls, super martial artists, transforming heroes, hero teams (sentai), etc.

America: Superheroes, space opera, gothic fantasy, cyberpunk, espionage, etc.

Of course, especially in this day and age, you can see any of those subgenres in either country, but certain genres still predominate in different nations. But I've made an odd observation: English-language comics are way more quick to cross genres.

For instance, looking at Japanese comics, there's practically no chance you'd see a comic that mixes robots, magical girls, and martial arts. Can you imagine a cross between Gundam, Sailor Moon, and/or Dragonball that isn't a parody?

Conversely, in the DC Universe for instance, you have an almost ridiculously huge array of different genres all coexisting: Superman, Princess Amethyst, Angel and the Ape, Sergeant Rock, Swamp Thing, the Phantom Stranger, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, etc., etc., etc. - just by reading their names you can tell that if there were no shared DC Universe, there's no chance any of them would ever cross over, yet they all still make regular appearances in crossover events.

Why is this? I'd say it's a weird trick of publishing history. DC and Marvel both started out publishing comics that had nothing to do with each other, but with the emergence of the superhero genre we started getting crossovers, crossovers became superhero teams, teams begat shared universes, and by the '70s or '80s almost everything each company had ever published was deemed to have a corner in those universes to themselves in case a modern writer had an idea for them. Nothing like that ever happened in Japan, where almost all comics are self-contained, or maybe part of a single author or franchise's greater universe.

None of this is to say that one is an inherently better set-up than the other... but I have to say, a universe where John Constantine, Claw the Unconquered, and Captain Carrot's Amazing Zoo Crew can rub shoulders is a lot of fun.

About Captain Planet

Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug is a cool guy who reviews bad comics. I really enjoy his video segment on That Guy With the Glasses, "Atop the Fourth Wall", and recommend y'all check him out.

Anyway, he reviewed a Captain Planet comic...



...which started me reflecting on the show it was based on. This post is adapted from my comment on his video.

I liked Captain Planet and the Planeteers when I was a kid, though I'm fully aware of its flaws now. I guess I just liked anything with action and superheroes, plus the lessons it delivered were in line with my family's values - we were and are a bunch of blue-collar New England Democrats, and respect for the environment is something I believe in.

But the problem, as many people have said, is that Captain Planet slams you over the head with its message, appealing to cheap emotional responses, while getting half of it wrong. I'm basically a socialist, but I'm mature enough to realize that capitalist CEOs aren't mustache-twirling villains - they're human beings just like me, and more often than not believe that they're doing right.

If you want to see what a good environmentalist story looks like, watch Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. The proto-capitalist "antagonist" has noble motives and actually helps people in her own way by giving them employment and shelter. The conflict between her and the nature-worshiping protagonists (who can be seen as eco-terrorists) is far from cut-and-dry. Even the nature spirits themselves are not "good" - they're dangerous, alien creatures who can be downright monstrous.

On a less serious note, I always felt sorry for Ma-Ti, the Planeteers' fifth wheel. Everyone always gets down on him for having a stupid ability. What kind of dumb power is Heart, anyway? But when I think about it, he'd potentially be the most powerful of all the Planeteers. I mean, his powers include clairvoyance, telepathy, and mind control. Just think what he could do if he had the imagination - and the ruthlessness - to use that power to its full potential!

If I were writing Captain Planet? I'd set it 15 years in the future, where Ma-Ti has gotten fed up with being the butt monkey of the team. He's become an extremist and used his ring to become a Communist dictator, controlling the hearts and minds of the masses. The other Planeteers struggle against their former friend, but they dare not summon Captain Planet, for without Heart to guide him, the planet's avatar has become a mindless force of destruction, nature's wrath incarnate.

That's what kind of dumb power Heart is!

More Good Cosplay

Green Goblin Costume by ~jacemoore on deviantART

See, this is what Gobby should have looked like in the Spider-Man movie, I'm just saying.

(Oh, and happy Valentine's Day, everyone!)

Reading Regrets

From my excellent friends Ami Angelwings and David Wynne:

On the assumption that in ten years, a lot of twenty-somethings will be re-reading Twilight and wincing in embarrassment:

Name three series or writers that you devoured as a teen but are now somewhat sheepish about having liked as much as you did. For each series, list off what you dug about them, what you're wincing at in retrospect, and whether you'd read 'em again.

This was kinda tough, because there's not a whole lot I'm embarrassed about having enjoyed. (What can I say? I am a gentleman of exquisite taste.) Heck, I'm not even ashamed that I liked The Sword of Shannara! I had to really wrack my brain to come up with answers to this.

1: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
What I dug about them: They're epic fantasy. That alone was enough to get me hooked at first. C. S. Lewis was an imaginative writer who was equally good at writing action and humor, so it was easy to get into his books.
What I'm wincing at in retrospect: There's no easy way to put this: The entire series was a recruitment tool for conservative Christianity. I loved the books without question until the very last page of the last book, where Lewis wrote something to the effect of "...and Aslan no longer looked as a lion to them." Yes, Aslan didn't just represent Jesus, he was Jesus. The realization that the books served no purpose but to preach at me made me angry. I've hated allegory ever since. This is why I feel The Lord of the Rings was a far superior fantasy: there are Christian themes in the book and things Christians can find applicable to their beliefs, but nothing that actually represents anything from Christianity. And that's not even touching Lewis's implicit bigotry toward women (who screw everything up if they're not perfect little Christians) and racism (because good Calormenes actually worship Aslan, they just don't know it yet).
Would I read them again?: Probably not. Not least because I rarely re-read prose novels that I've already read (making an exception for Tolkien), but also because I just can't reconcile Lewis's worldview with my own. I'd be too busy gnashing my teeth in frustration to enjoy them.

2. Love Hina by Ken Akamatsu
What I dug about it: Akamatsu's art, while standard-issue "cute manga" style, was still very expressive and dynamic, and the man has an incredible gift for sight gags. If nothing else, the comic was consistently fast-paced and funny.
What I'm wincing at in retrospect: It's just a typical sexist harem manga. Actually, no, scratch that. It's the archetypal sexist harem manga. You've got one nerdy loser of a male surrounded by a bunch of gorgeous young women with improbable figures who by the end of the series are all head-over-heels in love with him. Plus some of the running gags, like Naru's hair-trigger acts of violence against Keitaro whenever she (inevitably wrongly) assumes he's perving on her or the other girls got incredibly tiresome after the first volume. And as for Ken Akamatsu himself, once I learned that he drew pornographic comics about pre-pubescent girls and wrote an essay that defended rape, well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Would I read them again?: I might, if only to look at the art again.

3. Lots and lots of Star Wars tie-in novels
What I dug about them: Um, well. They were novels about Star Wars. That's pretty much all I needed.
What I'm wincing at in retrospect: I can't really get as in-depth about these as the others. The problem with them is simple: they're cash-grabbing crap written by talentless hacks. That's all.
Would I read them again?: If someone put a gun to my head and ordered me to, I might consider it.

Phil Foglio is a God among Men

This is just a brief post to affirm my undying love and admiration for all the works of the great and powerful Phil Foglio and to inform all of you that if you're not reading any of his webcomics, which are updated daily, then you should be ashamed of yourselves and should start reading right now as penance.

That is all.

Magic Set Editor

Speaking of MTG, Magic Set Editor is a fun program that lets you design your own card sets. I was fooling around and made a few cards, including two for a couple of friends of mine (ya know who ya are).




(I don't know what to say about this other than that I was just fooling around with the multicolor settings.)

13 Posts: The Enigma of Amigara Fault

Alrighty. You want creepy comics, I got 'em.



Unlike "Hansel and Gretel", which merely poked fun at a scary old story, "The Enigma of Amigara Fault" is downright nightmarish. Published as a backup story to Junji Itō's Gyo, "The Enigma" concerns an unnatural geologic formation that manifests a bizarre pull on the local populace. Itō, an award-winning author of horror comics best known for his series Uzumaki, is known for creating detailed drawings of the macabre, and "The Enigma" is no exception.

The comic can be read here; read the pages from right to left.

13 Posts: Hansel and Gretel

When you think creepy comics, you probably think Tales from the Crypt, the classic flagship title of the now-defunct EC Comics. EC published many other horror and suspence comics, including Shock SuspenStories and Crypt's two sister titles, The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror. These comics were wildly popular in the late '40s and early '50s, and known for gruesome depictions of violence and gore; they were the main target of the anti-comics movement spearheaded by Dr. Frederic Wertham.



"Hansel and Gretel", from Haunt of Fear #23, is a classic example of the "twisted fairy tale" convention, which would become popular in later years with a slew of dark-'n'-edgy (and often tasteless) remakes like Snow White: A Tale of Terror and Grimm Fairy Tales. This story stands out from the others, though, with its subversive, sarcastic sense of humor, going to show that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Hosted by the Old Witch (the better-known Crypt Keeper's distaff counterpart), it retells the classic tale by the Brothers Grimm from a decidedly different perspective.

You can read it here.

Public Service Announcement

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program with this important PSA for our fellow Americans.



Get out there and vote!

13 Posts: The Doctor is In

What's Halloween without Frankenstein's monster? And what's Frankenstein's monster without Doc Frankenstein himself? The mad scientist, cackling over beakers of bubbling substances best left unidentified, seeking out forbidden knowledge, daring That Which Man Ought Not to Dare, is a classic stock character that works in almost every genre. From horror to sci-fi, superhero adventure to medieval fantasy (mad alchemists count!), and even mundane fiction, popular culture just wouldn't be the same without the mad scientist. It's safe to say that the character type originates from the (sadly still very prevalent) phobia of scientific advancement that permeates our culture, though personally I think all the Victor Frankensteins and Lex Luthors are balanced out by scientists like Emmet "Doc" Brown and Agatha Heterodyne who use their prodigious brainpower to help the forces of good, not hinder them.


Dr Sivana pinup by ~simonpimpernel on deviantART

Without a doubt, my favorite mad scientist is the one and only Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, archnemesis of your hero and mine, Captain Marvel, and RIGHTFUL RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!!! HEH HEH HEH! He's just so willfully, deliberately, unequivocably, and joyfully eeeeeeeeeeevil! How can you not love a villain whose stated goals are as follows:

1) Become RIGHTFUL RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!!! in fact as well as in name;
2) Further the spread of evil, cruelty, and nastiness throughout the cosmos; and
3) Humiliate, discredit, and ultimately KILL CAPTAIN MARVEL!!!!! HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!!!

That's in no particular order, of course.

Doctor Sivana (RROTU!!!) is like the perfect mad scientist. Disgusting little troll? Check. Lab coat? Check. Giant glasses that take up a full third of his face? Check. Bald of Evil? Check. In a comic book cosmos of increasingly gray morality, it's oddly comforting to read about a card-carrying villain who just wants to take over the world and make everyone miserable, no ifs, ands, or buts.

(Re: The hours upon hours of your life you're now going to waste surfing TV Tropes Wiki? You're welcome. HEH HEH HEH!!!)

Admittedly, the good bad doctor isn't the most complex villain out there, but when you're a snarky super-genius prone to fits of histrionics in a comic written for children and your archnemesis is a 12-year-old magic-powered Superman ripoff who hangs out with a tiger in a tux, you don't need to be. Captain Marvel has a mess of cool villains, from Mister Mind to Black Adam (hey, DJ!), but Sivana is the exact opposite of the Big Red Cheese (brainy old man who couldn't break a wet noodle with his bare hands? check), and no one can take his place as Cap's number-one nemesis.

Incidentally, I mentioned before that I thought Armin Shimmerman - Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - would make a good Sivana, and that's him in the picture above, buried under 20 pounds of Photoshop magic. That's my choice for a live-action movie; in a cartoon, no one but no one should play Sivana but Wallace "Inconceivable!" Shaun.

Can we get another shot of Sivana? Preferably by Mike Wieringo?


DR. SIVANA by *Wieringo on deviantART

Check.

You find some great stuff on DeviantART.

Gurren-Lantern by ~Panhandler on deviantART

Oh Fuck Yes.

Madame Xanadu

I'm really enjoying this series from DC/Vertigo. I heartily recommend you check it out if you get the chance.

It's really bothered me that there's this wall separating the mainstream DC Universe from the Vertigo characters who originated there. Madame Xanadu has gotten around that by telling a story suited for Vertigo using some mainstream DC characters and concepts, and that's made it great fun. In the first four issues, Morgaine le Fey and the Demon Etrigan have appeared, and the Green Lantern that would eventually make its way to Alan Scott has popped up as well. All that and Death of the Endless is slated to appear in an issue or two as well.

But it's not the shout-outs and in-jokes that make a story; it's the strength of the writer, and Matt Wagner (the author of Grendel and Mage) is doing a wonderful job showing us the evolution of the woman who will one day become Madame Xanadu. He's also turned the Phantom Stranger, in what is likely his first starring role since the '70s, into a compelling character as well.

All in all, it feels very much like The Sandman did ten years ago thanks to the narrative's slightly dreamlike quality. It's not quite as profound or clever, but it's compelling, and the art, by Amy Reeder Hadley, is simply beautiful. It feels like a return to old-school Vertigo and the early days of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer, and that's a very nice feeling indeed.

So again, I really recommend this comic. It's a quality read - don't miss out on it!

"Soda Pop" my eye!

I love this cover:



Clark: Man... you ever notice how weird your hand looks? It's like... *wiggles fingers*

Pa: ......dude, what?

Charles Schulz knows what women want.

More Batman Movie Thoughts (SPOILERS)

There's already talk that Christopher Nolan is considering one more movie in his Batman franchise, and that's got me thinking. We all know that Batman (or at least Batman movies) are defined by his villains. But the first two movies have pretty much used up the Bat's two biggest foes - Ra's al-Ghul and the Joker - and it's safe to say that neither of them are coming back for another. So who else looms large enough in the Caped Crusader's rogues gallery to carry a whole feature-length film?

My first thought was Bane, the villain from the early-'90s comic storyline Knightfall who appears mysteriously in Gotham, wears Batman down by staging a massive jailbreak at Arkham Asylum, confronts Batman, and breaks his back just to prove he can. I think that could make a decent movie, but I'd rather they not just adapt a storyline straight from the comics - The Dark Knight may draw heavily from Alan Moore's The Killing Joke and Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum, but it's still its own story. On top of that, Bane just never appealed to me as a character. He's an important part of Batman's world and rightly so, but he's just not one of the "classic" rogues, and I just like them better.

Catwoman's rights are tied up from the horrible Halle Berry movie and she's not really a villain anyway, so that leaves Two-Face, who survived The Dark Knight and has a personal grudge against the Batman that would give him a reason to set the events of a third film in motion. Plus Aaron Eckhart has said he'd love to return to the role, which is another plus. But Harvey Dent was a supporting character in TDK, Could he handle a whole movie on his own?

What I would like to see is this: Two-Face leading a collection of madmen in a headlong rush against Batman. It would be a great opportunity to mine the Arkham crowd for villains who couldn't hold a film on their own but who would make great supporting characters. Obiously a lot of the more fantastic characters (Mister Freeze, Clayface, Poison Ivy, Man-Bat) would be right out, but it would still give the more human rogues a chance to shine, and it would follow up on the idea in the first two movies that crime in Gotham is getting increasingly stranger due to Batman's influence.

What I'm thinking is this.

Two-Face: Harvey Dent's role in the sequel is a mockery of his role as Gotham's "white knight" in the previous one. His desire for justice has been subverted into a desire for control: If he can't take down the mob, he'll run them, and now that Falcone and Maroni are gone he's in a prime position to grab the reins himself, using both mobsters and his more flamboyant allies to run the city's crime while striking back at Batman.

The Riddler: Eddie Nigma is Dent's idea man and second in command. He's the only one of Two-Face's circle that isn't seriously mentally ill. His riddles aren't a compulsion - they're a performance. It's his way of showing how much smarter he is than anyone he goes up against. The Riddler is a smug little bastard you love to hate. He never gets his own hands dirty. My choice for the actor? Johnny Depp.

The Scarecrow: Cillian Murphy returns one more time, but this time the character will play up the scarecrow theme more than in the first two movies. Instead of the black business suit, he's now wearing something like a ragged Western preacher-man's outfit like in the '90s cartoon. Scarecrow is Two-Face's enforcer, intimidating their enemies not with brute force but with fear gas. To make him scarier, this time around we don't see Jonathan Crane out of the costume at all: He's completely vanished into the Scarecrow persona.

The Mad Hatter: Jervis Tetch is insane to the point of having little to no self-control. I'm not sure if his mind-control gimmick could work in the more serious world of the Nolan movies, but he could still be an expert of some sort - electronics, chemicals, whathaveyou. Aside from Two-Face, the Hatter comes closest to being sympathetic, since he's so far removed from reality that he doesn't understand that what he's doing is wrong, but he's still frightening because of just how nuts he is. As for the actor, I'm thinking Robin Williams, or maybe Martin Short if he could pull off a dramatic role.

That's what I'm thinking, and now that I've thought it up there's no chance of ever seeing it on screen.

Filby at the Movies

I just saw The Dark Knight.

Without giving out any spoilers, I will say:

• The movie was FUCKING AMAZING
  
• Heath Ledger is the most amazing Joker ever (except for Mark Hamill).
  
• When I saw what happened to Harvey Dent, I literally jumped.
  
• The nachos grande from the concession stand were great.
  
• The Scarecrow wasn't as scary this time around.
  
• Did I mention the movie was FUCKING AMAZING

(Gawd, I love the unordered list HTML tag...)

In the end, it was even better than Batman Begins. Blows everything else out of the water. GO SEE IT NOW

Going off on a tangent, I saw a lot of posters for animated movies at the theater, and it got me thinking about super-heroes. I'm not very fond of CGI animation, but you know what would look great in the medium? A Shazam! movie in CGI.

I'm thinking....

• Patrick Warburton as Captain Marvel.
  
• Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Black Adam. (Can you smell what Black Adam is cooking?!! I think it's couscous...)
  
• Wallace Shawn (or maybe Armin Shimmerman) as Doctor Sivana.
  
• Sir Ian McKellan as the Old Wizard (though I'm not sure if I'd want to typecast him like that).
  
• The actress who played Darla Dimple in Cats Don't Dance as Mary Marvel.
  
• Charles Durning as Uncle Dudley.

I'm drawing a blank on Cap Junior and Talky Tawny, but something might come to me eventually.

A Fine Feathered Fiend

I'm not a Batman fan. I think he's okay, I enjoy a Bat-story once in a while, and I like him when he's in an ensemble like the Justice League, but I never go out of my way to read Batman comics (cartoons and movies are another matter, but you get the gist).

That said, I think he has a fantastic array of villains, quite possibly the greatest rogues' gallery in comics. (I like the Flash's rogues better as characters, but in terms of overall quality they can't compete.) The one big-name Batman villain I've never taken a shine to, though, is the Penguin. He's just a funny little man who likes birds and umbrellas, you know? He's not part of the Arkham crowd: Tim Burton's version aside, he's perfectly sane, which makes him stand out uncomfortably among the likes of the Joker or Two-Face. Depending on the interpretation he's either a gentleman thief or a crooked businessman, which again puts him at odds with the more blatantly murderous Bat-rogues. There's just nothing scary about him whatsoever.

That's what I thought.

And I was wrong.

Click here.

How to Draw Like a Commercial Hack

Say, is it just me, or are 90% of the "How to Draw Comics/Manga/Whatever" books on the shelves written by artists who have never published successful comics?

Mind you, about 89% of "How to Draw Comics/Manga/Whatever" books are written by Christopher Hart...

Those who cannot do...

Sailor Krypton

So is it just me, or is Superman basically every optimistic, idealistic anime girl heroine who Never Gives Up and Believes in the Power of Friendship rolled into one big muscley guy in a cape?



I think so.

Loving the Legion

I do believe I have become a Legion of Super-Heroes fanboy.

I started watching the WB animated series on a whim recently as I've been looking for something to replace Justice League Unlimited and Teen Titans, and it more than fit the bill. Since then my interest in the comics has piqued, and I've checked out bits and pieces from several eras, including Mark Waid's recent Supergirl and the Legion and Geoff Johns's storyline in Action Comics. The best I've read so far, though, has been the "Legion of the Damned" and "Legion Lost" storylines from the post-Zero Hour/pre-Infinite Crisis Legion, which honestly got me a little misty-eyed at the end.

At this point I'm looking forward to Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds more than Final Crisis itself! I just hope Johns doesn't mess up the post-ZH Legion, 'cause I've gotten rather attached to them.

That's all I've got to say for now. Just felt like sharing my enthusiasm.