Comicsgirl

Archive for July, 2008

I know I said this week, but it’s not going to be done today and I’ll be gone this weekend. This week just sort of slipped through my fingers.

I’m aiming for Monday. It may be a two-part deal, depending on how it goes and how much I decided I have to say.

I’m only sharing because I know there was all of two of you who were waiting for it.

(Everyone seems to be taking a break post San Diego, even people who weren’t there. I think it’s just that time of year.)

I was looking for something else and came across AMOS’s Wonder Women of America, a compilation of photos of women who dressed up in costumes at San Diego Comic-Con last year.

Typically, books like this can go one of two ways — the bad way is that these women get fetishized for wearing costumes, and the good way is that it becomes a celebration of women finding their power through a character they identify with. This book, from glancing at the photos (there are more here) seems to be going the “good” way. I see a pretty big diversity of ages and body shapes (although, sadly, not much of a racial diversity, but I hope that’s only the sample photos).

STRANGEco still lists it as “coming soon” but I’m assuming they’re resettling after SDCC. I look forward to checking this book out.

Last night at a bar, Nick Fury: Agent of Shield starring David Hasselhoff came up in conversation, because these are the sorts of things we talk about in bars.

I’ve been reading comics long enough to remember the version of The Punisher starring Dolph Lundgren and the Captain America starring no one who’s particularly notable to me. Not that I really sat through these — I just remember they’re out there, despite Marvel’s best attempts to erase everyone’s memory of them.

But oddly, while Hasselhoff-as-Nick-Fury was being discussed, I suddenly remember that Fox made a Generation X movie from 1996.

I liked the Generation X comic quite a bit. Yes, it had a stupid title, but it had a bunch of characters I liked. It had Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo as the creative team. It’s a title I would love to see collected in full.

But the Generation X movie? It was bad. It didn’t need to be as bad as it was, even with the budget it had.

For those of you who didn’t watch it (which was basically everyone), here’s a clip:

Yeah. I actually don’t know if I managed to get through the whole thing when it first aired. And I really wanted to like it. I would’ve watched the series. You know, if it hadn’t been so terrible.

Which also brings me to the Birds of Prey series. We’ll go with the official clip from Warner Bros.:

I know I taped the first few episodes of Birds of Prey, but we didn’t have the WB at the time. Instead, our NBC affiliate would show the WB programs really late on Sundays or Saturdays or … basically whenever they felt like it. If some sort of sporting event ran late or they needed more time for infomercials, oh well. So keeping track of Birds of Prey was next to impossible.

I do remember wishing it was a little bit better than it was. But I still kind of liked it. So I was pretty delighted to see it’s newly out on DVD, and the Gotham Girls Flash-animated shorts are included (and I’m surprised and delighted to see they’re still online). I will probably buy this set.

I imagine there is more superhero TV that has long been forgotten about. I had fun looking up both of these on YouTube (and learning Generation X didn’t get better with age).

Esteban I.V. Galindo of The Capistrano Dispatch offers A Ladies’ Guide to Comic Book Heroes. And for proclaiming to be a guide, it’s really not that informative. I think most “ladies” would be able to figure these things out on their own.

So Galindo’s wife isn’t interested in superhero movies or the comic books they were based on. There is nothing wrong with that. But she’s not representative of all women. Neither am I. I think that’s the ultimate flaw with pieces like this — just because one man knows one woman who may be more interested in Sex in the City than she is in comics doesn’t mean that all women are. I certainly don’t think all men like comic books or football.

While I did feel myself getting more and more stupid watching G4’s coverage of San Diego Comic-Con (and the commercials! How many do they really need?), I was delighted by Blair Butler. Sure, she’s a lovely girl and it’s obvious that she appeals to G4’s target demographic, but her excitement and enthusiasm for being there, getting to talk about comics was unmistakable. I doubt she needs a “ladies’ guide to comic book heroes” either.

The Wake Buy from tfaw.com

Three things first off:

1. The hardcover of The Wake is beautifully presented and I think the cover is my absolutely favorite Dave McKean image. So perfect and gorgeous. I feel lucky to have the book in this form.
2. Matthew’s comments at Dream’s funeral make me cry. Like in that impossible-to-read-anymore-can’t-see-through-the-tears-have-to-put-the-book-down way. Every time.
3. The pun of the title is an obvious one, but I still love it.

It’s hard to know what to say about The Wake, really. After the manic The Kindly Ones, this is a quiet, meditative conclusion.

Michael Zulli’s intricate art in the first four parts provides a great counterpoint to Marc Hempl’s blocky, saturated art in The Kindly Ones. The contrast is a fitting one. There’s little action here. It’s mostly just characters talking, trading stories about Dream. I especially like his old lovers exchanging their thoughts about him. I like seeing Richard Madoc again (who, until he appeared, I’d forgotten about). I also like Batman and Martian Manhunter showing up here. While Neil Gaiman did get farther and farther away from trying to put this story in the DC Universe, I like the little reminder of “yes, friends, this was, in fact a comic book by the same people who publish Batman.” It’s a subtle bit of self-awareness.

While the three issues of “The Wake” and its epilogue, “Sunday Mourning,” do a good job of wrapping up the major plot points, I liked the feeling that these stories weren’t over. These characters are going to go off and have other adventures. I just may not get to watch. The Sandman exists in such a rich, lovely world that I feel like I was just given small glimpses into.

Hob’s decision to live in the end is beautiful and hopeful – it’s a choice that Dream couldn’t make for himself. Gwen even jokes about “they all lived happily ever after.” (And I know that he has a black girlfriend in the end was, in part, a reaction to that most of the black women in the comic ended up dead.) We know, from having read this comic, that there probably aren’t too many cleanly happy endings out there, but we leave most everyone at the point of a new beginning.

“Exiles” is a strange story – almost unnecessary, except that Jon J. Muth’s style here is amazing and for one line – “Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while.” That is, essentially, the theme of all of The Sandman. Dream was his own prisoner. The only way he could find the way out of his cage was by dying.

And it’s impossible to not read “The Tempest” without injecting Gaiman himself into the story. Shakespeare is at the end of his career, writing his final play, and Gaiman’s wrapping up a nine-year long project. Shakespeare’s comments about family neglect, using personal tragedies in his work may or may not be autobiographical, but it’s pretty clear that any creative work involves making some sacrifice. It’s Gaiman’s explanation as to why he didn’t want to do this anymore, in one way or another.

And it’s the perfect ending to an amazing series. I closed the book and was left feeling thoughtful and complete. There’s other stories we could’ve been told, sure, but I don’t think I could really ask for The Sandman to be anything other than it was.

Except, for you know, being told about Alianora. But tiny, tiny complaint.

–

In a few days (next week?), I’ll do a final wrap-up on The Sandman. But I will say this now: I am absolutely glad I reread it. I don’t know what took me so long to do it. I already knew the series well, but I was amazed at how much there was in it I didn’t remember or didn’t notice before. I’m sure, in a few years, if I reread it once again, there will be even more. I think that is what struck me this time – just how much stuff there is here.

This subject is something I’ll do more with later, but it’s timely.

Lots of news outlets are writing about the mass of teenage girls excited about the Twilight movie. Now, I know, despite the name, the San Diego Comic-Con hasn’t been just about comics for a good long while. But all these teenage girls are there, excited about a movie based on a book that’s genre fiction (although, yes, vampires are an acceptably romantic and tragic form of genre fiction) and they’re at something that has “comic” in the name.

So where are the comics for these girls? Would they not read them? I don’t think it’s entirely a leap for a girl who graduated to Twilight from the Harry Potter books to pick up a comic. Yes, there’s manga, and maybe she does read that, but as far as American comics go, I think she’s pretty much being ignored. There is this huge, passionate audience that remains untapped.

Why isn’t anyone trying to get these girls to read comics? Because they will. I was, more or less, like these girls. (Some would go as far to say I’m still basically one of these girls, despite not being a teenager, but I suppose that’s a different matter.)

I’m sure some of these girls do read comics. But I think they deserve more.

New York magazine has the image of the 20th anniversary poster for The Sandman, drawn by a bunch of different people who worked on the series (and possibly more). It’s cool. Not something I would hang in my house, but still cool (and anyway, I already have the first Yoshitaka Amano Sandman poster on my wall).

The Kindly Ones Buy from tfaw.com

I always remembered The Kindly Ones as being long, messy as complicated. I remember reading it for the first time in one sitting, not looking up for hours, and once I closed the book, I realized I was really hungry.

Certainly it was engrossing. And I supposed I liked it. But I didn’t remember much else about reading it, other than a few scant plot details.

And yes, The Kindly Ones is still long, still messy and still complicated. Those memories remain true. But I was amazed by it this time – it’s perfectly paced and brutally heartbreaking. It’s long and unrelenting, but it does pay off in the end.

To me, as much as I love Brief Lives and a lot of the short stories in The Sandman, this is probably closest to what the title was always capable of. It has the darkness, the depth the title had from the beginning, but Neil Gaiman manages to pull all of its disparage storylines into one final epic and doesn’t miss a beat doing it. I was honestly amazed at how well it all worked and how saddened I was by several of the deaths. I knew what was coming at the end – I knew it before I read it the first time, even – but the sense of loss continued to affect me for days afterward. I didn’t expect that.

Neil Gaiman also does a neat trick when it comes to the Kindly Ones themselves – there are the obvious ones, the fates in their form as the furies, but then there are also the other women that act, even unintentionally against Dream – Lyta the mother; Nuala the maiden, and Thessaly/Larissa the crone. Yes, I know everyone else figured this out years ago. It’s not like it’s not obvious (and I kind of feel like I probably saw it the first time I read it, too). But I still think it’s a lot of fun and lovely.

Oh, and Thessaly? It’s good to see her again. I know plenty of people didn’t quite understand the reasons behind her being Dream’s mystery lover – as in, they didn’t understand what Dream saw in her. I think most of those people where men, though. I know what Dream saw in her, though. Because it’s what a lot of women see in themselves.

Stick with me here.

In The Sandman, we see Dream fall in love with a queen, a muse … and OK, we don’t know quite who Alianora is, but I think we can assume she’s probably someone special.

Thessaly, or Larissa, as she calls herself now, isn’t a queen or a goddess. Sure, she’s a powerful, basically immortal witch, but other than that, she’s probably the most normal of Dream’s girlfriends (that we know of, anyway). Obviously, Dream can see past appearances and doesn’t just date rock stars or models (so to speak). In other words, girls, Dream would totally date you. Remember what I said about pandering to the female audience?

Maybe it’s not really any of that. It’s good drama, though. And while Thessaly’s protection of Lyta may seem overly cruel, she was just doing what she had to. She knew what was inevitably going to happen and I personally think she wanted to have some control in how it did. Her actions were self-serving, maybe, but I don’t think there was anything necessarily vindictive about her actions toward Dream.

Ultimately, though, I think the character’s journey I most relate to in The Kindly Ones is Nuala. She first appeared in Season of Mists as a fairy who gets her glamor taken away from her. She pops in and out of the issues after that, as a rather plain, ordinary girl. When she’s called back to the Faerie, she decides she liked who she learned she was while in The Dreaming and rejects glamor. She wants to be an ordinary girl because it means she’s herself. I always thought that was wonderful thing (although the fact Dream barely knew who she was or that she was in love with him does sort of negate my whole statement of “Dream will totally date you.” But whatever. Men are oblivious).

And I do think that’s what I like about The Kindly Ones: The women aren’t to blame. Yes, their actions do contribute to Dream’s downfall, but Dream’s downfall was his own fault and something he more or less wanted. It was something he sought out. There is not a moment in The Kindly Ones where any fingers point to any of the female characters as being responsible. That would’ve been the easy way out and I love that Gaiman avoided it entirely.

While contextually, Rose Walker’s story here doesn’t have much to do with the overall plot, I still think she’s a necessary part of this book. I like seeing her again and I like that she gets some sort of resolution. In her own strange way, she embodies all three aspects of womanhood – maiden, mother and crone.

And yes, I like Marc Hempl’s art here. I think it’s perfect for this story.

Now I just have The Wake left to read. And I am more than a little sad about this.

I don’t have particularly high hopes for the Watchmen movie, but this does make it look good. But we’ll see.

And yes, I know this is all over the Internet and you’ve already watched it. But some of us were working.

Philadelphia writer and comedian Meg Favreau writes about her experiences at Wizard World Chicago, where the above quote was said to her (while she was picking up a volume of Preacher).

She writes this:

The Suicide Girls and Wizard World can only be alternative up to a point; after that they would cease to be as popular and, perhaps moreover, as profitable. Unfortunately for me, that means that at Wizard World, the Suicide Girls set the bar for what girls are supposed to be — cute and kind of alternative, but still seen more as sex symbols than nerds.

And that’s been somewhat my experience. I can’t exactly think of one instance where I’ve ever been talked down to by men when it comes to comics — certainly, I’ve been in comic book stores where I’ve felt left out of the boys’ club, but that’s a little more subtle. I’ve had boys try to act like they know more about comics than I do because they’re boys but that hasn’t happened in a while (I think I’ve just learned to keep better company). The only people who recommend “cute” comics to me are those who know I do like cute comics.

But I know experiences like Favreau’s do happen, and probably all too often. And I do know what it feels like to be stuck in the realm between “girl” and “person who likes geeky stuff.”

It’s a good read. Go check it out.