Lasagna

Note: The following column has been subcontracted to a fat orange cat



So, have I ever mentioned how much I hate Mondays? The alarm clock rings (I’m a cat, why the fuck do I even own an alarm clock in the first place?) and I can feel the evil seeping in like the light through a venetian blind. It’s strange, as I am a four-legged housepet, and have never had to work a 9-5 job, that I dread Mondays so much – but there you have it.

There’s a Boomtown Rats lyrics that I’ve had in my head lately that I think sums the issue up nicely:

Tell me why/
I Don't like Mondays/
I want to shoot/
The whole day down

That’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it?

Perhaps my dread of Mondays is merely a conscious indicator of the overall malaise in my life. I can’t sugar coat the truth: I’m a morbidly obese housecat. My life is an endless series of personal humiliations. I can’t even clean myself after I take a shit, Jon has to clip the wads of soiled fur from around my ass. And really, the problem only compounds itself. Like Dr. Phil says, it’s a vicious cycle: I eat because I’m unhappy, and I’m unhappy because I eat.

It perhaps doesn’t help that my so-called "master" is one of the most pathetically closeted people in the world. He thinks he has a crush on my veterinarian. This is horrible for me, because he’s spent thousands of dollars on unnecessary and particularly unpleasant procedures just to get the excuse to spend time in the same room as this woman. But he’s not really in love with her, she just reminds him of his mother and he’s transferring his maternal fixation onto her. It’s deeply unhealthy. I mean, she’s married, for Chrissakes. One of these days he’s going to get his ass beat, and I for one am not going to be able to feel much pity for him.

Besides, I know what kind of dirty magazines the man buys. He keeps them right under his bed, where I hock my furballs. I’ll give you a hint: they have sweaty naked men on the cover.

In any event, they’ve made a movie out of my life. Which is odd, considering my popularity peaked about fifteen years ago, but hey. I guess that makes sense. They didn’t make a He-Man movie until Prince Adam was parking cars in Redondo Beach.

In all seriousness, I’m a bit pissed about the whole thing. How many billions of dollars has that Davis prick made off of my image and likeness? All I ever get is a plate of soggy microwave Stouffers lasagna. Bill Murray gets to do Letterman, I get to do a pissant comic book blog. Where’s the justice?

So, since I’m in the type of foul and curmudgeonly mood that has made me beloved by millions of unimaginative toddlers and "developmentally challenged" high school janitors, I figured I’d share some juicy gossip to pass the time.





It’s not secret that Beetle here has been a grateful beneficiary of the Armed Forces "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy. King Features has actually done a good job of covering up the more recent and far more serious allegation that Beetle was one of the half-dozen or so MPs indicted in the recent Abu Ghraib prison scandal. That dog being sicced on Iraqi prisoners? That’s Sarge’s loveable pooch, Otto.



Ah, if it ain’t everyone’s new favorite firebrand radical, Huey Freeman. Nothing like making militant radicalism palatable to the mass market in order to sell plush toys and TV pilots.

But the secret that the Universal Press Syndicate doesn’t want you to know is that until 1997, Freeman was a registered Republican. It was only when it became politically expedient to be a liberal that he switched party affiliations, perhaps in hopes of nabbing his party’s vice-presidential nomination.

Oh, wait, I’m thinking of Ret. General Wesley Clark.



Well, shit. I guess I’ll just say Huey’s gay too. Is anyone surprised? It’s always the angry ones.



Ah, the Patterson clan. Is there a better example of filial unity and unadorned affection to be found anywhere on the comics page? What dark secrets could possibly lurk under this lovely exterior?

Well, there was great consternation on the set when it was learned that the actress playing Deanna Patterson nee Sobinski had actually had an earlier career playing "blue" roles in Brian Michael Bendis comic books. Apparently the strict moral code that Lynn Johnston forces her actors to work under almost caused an irreparable tear in the strip’s continuity. It was only the last-minute interference of United Features that saved the character from an untimely death by wood chipper after the revelation was leaked.



Here’s Deanna Patterson, in "family" way in a very pro-family oriented strip . . .



. . . and here’s Deena Pilgrim, in a not so family way in a very un-family oriented strip.

They took away Vanessa William’s crown for less.



No. Fucking. Comment.

How did this get in here? I am not talking about this shitheel.

Next slide.

Next fucking slide.



Everyone’s favorite comic strip medico, Dr. Rex Morgan, has some skeletons in his closet, too . . .



Ah, to be young and desperate for money.



Finally, we have those comics page mainstays, the Dagwoods. Nothing wrong here, is there?



Well, we’ll never know, since King Features paid a rumored $5.6 million dollars to bury a 1996 BBC documentary on the couple’s supposedly rocky marriage. The terms of the settlement explicitly forbade any BBC employees from revealing just what the shocking revelations would have been, but let’s just say that a little birdie told me that Farley Patterson’s death was no accident.

He knew too much.



About a month before Farley died he came over to see me. It was late and he’d been drinking. He seemed very upset, like he’d just had a jolt or a horrible shock. I couldn’t get anything straight out of him, he just kept coming back to the same sad refrain: "I know what’s in Dagwood’s sandwiches . . ."

About a month later he died "saving" that Patterson brat. The truth died with him.



And if I did know, I’d never tell. Because I value my life.

Mailbag!

Note: The following column has been subcontracted to a talking milkshake



What the hell, people? What is going on here? I am supposed to be doing important things in my life, important beyond the comprehension of your puny brains. This is the best my booking agent could get me? Answering e-mails on a website, and what is more, a website without naked ladies on it? I do not know what I have done to deserve this, I really do not.

"'what they are and were always intended to be'

"cheese Tim I have read both yours and Dave's back and forth and I just wanted to pipe in with the fact that you may have stepped into more than you realize.

"Artistic intent has got to be the watch word of most of what has been labeled post-modern crit in the past 20 years. After a certain fashion who gives a rat's arse what Alan Moore intended with the Watchmen for the pleasures of discovery are not found in unlocking a grand design devised by the genius who more likly than not doesn't know what he is doing anyway. If anything came out those years and tiresome papers then let it be that there is some equal good in art tha also operates from the unconscious. I am not saying that intent is valueless just that it is not as important as you suggest. I also think Dave wins me over just on the merit of a treasure found rather than the eat your vegetables approach to art.

"sorry - keep up the work I still enjoy reading you often"



I would answer your questions but I will not on the grounds that you and your petty concerns bore me. And this Tim of which you speak - he is not talking to anyone now. I had to get my own pudding cup out of his refrigerator because he was curled up in a fetal position in the corner of the room, apparently too scared to breath.

And as for eating vegetables - I personally do not think that eating vegetables is in any way proscribed by the law or Almighty God. After all, if God had wanted us to eat vegetables he would not have given us legs with which to hunt and kill deer and cows, now would he have? So what I am trying to say is that you should not eat vegetables, it's just a terrible, terrible thing . . . there are children in India who want to eat carrots, and to this I say we should let them have at it. I am a humanitarian.

"Mr. O'Neil,

"I have no problems discussing the relationship of Superheroes and Fascism. As much as I claim they are 'The New Mythology' and agree with most of the 'Literature of Ethics' arguments, I will be the first to admit - even point out - the inherent Paternalism in the idea in an individual with all the power choosing what is right. But you are painting with too wide a brush. In trying to make 'Great Power' come from Mussolini, you essentially dismiss *all* power as Fascist. It makes a nice bumper sticker - like 'All Sex is Rape' - but it is as brain dead and one sided as simply mouthing 'Literature of Ethics'. Or never questioning authority. (Or never questioning those that insist we should always question authority, for that matter.)

You accuse your detractors of 'intellectual laziness', and yet you resost to the knee-jerk, superficial arguments. 'Power Corrupts' is not an absolute. The original phrase is 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' More likely than not, perhaps, but not a tautology. Are you going to insist that *every* police officer, every soldier, every politician will eventually abuse their power? That regardless of who they are, they will all sink to a level of corruption equivalent to their rise in power? Are you saying that were you to wake up one morning with 'the power to change the course of mighty tivers', you *would* become a mass-murdering world tyrant, simply because you could? Before you worry that comics never analyze their assumptions about morality, perhaps you should analyze your assumptions about the lack of it.

"'Just because we can do a thing does not mean that we *must* do a thing' is another nice moral bumper sticker. But one that is perhaps more appropriate. The ideal that superheroes pose is not in what they do, so much as what they choose not to do. Everyone assumes the 'Great Responsibility' is to use the power, to abuse the power to enforce one's personal ethics on the masses. (But then, don't we all?) But it is actually the realization that with the power to do things comes the responsibility to use that power wisely. Since you have the ability to do more, you have to be more careful in what you do. Superman is not Superman because he could take over the world, but because he doesn't. Paul Dini made it explicit in the recent 'Peace on Earth', but the idea that Superman cannot be there for every one goes back to Superman #352 with Destiny, and further. The early comics were pretty two-dimensional, sure. But they were merely a product of their times. Post-Watergate, there are plenty of stroies that question those in power, or question the need to apply that power. 'Spider-Man no more!' wasn't created just for this summer's movie, but has been a constant theme in Peter Parker's life ever since he took on 'Great Responsibility'.

"The claim that '99.9% of all superhero books' never examine the ethical dilemma is as vacuous as the statement '99.9% of mystery novels never question the protagonist's ability to come to a solution through careful detective work.' Literary genre's are defined by their convention, not their exceptions. And in this case, it's even more false as well. While a few mysteries are solved - and crimes comitted - by luck as much as careful planning, nearly every superhero story has the collary to 'Great Responsibility', the person that decides that great power is to be used any way they choose: the Super Villain. And just like the Hero, we have seen an evolution of the Villain. Luthor started as just a nut, a vaguely Russian nut as if that explained everything. Then he was a nut with a really silly hatred of Superboy. Then he was a businessman distrustful/jealous of people with superhuman abilities. For a time he was even a hero, in an environment without a Superman to hate. We have seen Villains who feel they are doing the right thing, and Heroes for whom the ends justify the means. About the only place that the strict Black/White 'Comic Book Morality' really applies anymore is in arguments about why comics are 'just for kids'.

"Now, one aspect of comic book morality that does go unquestioned a little too oftn for me to recommend them as social primers is the question of vigilantism. The 'Voluteer Fireman' argument tries to explain it in terms of Good Samaritainism. I tend to fall back on Nietzche's Ubermensch, having 'gone over' traditional morality and being the only one capable of dealing with others of his kind. (In other words, superheroes can't follow 'normal' rules because those rules were not written with them in mind. But as Kurt Busiek showed in the recent Astro City, the Law is a dance, and it will adapt to new situations.) Many heroes do end up hunted by police at one time or another, or gain official sanction at still another. But since you insist that any sanctioned superheroics is nothing more than facism, they can't win. Either they commit anti-social acts by seperating themselves from societies rules, or they abuse their power by enforcing the rules that society has created for them. (Gosh, ethics is not a collection of absolutes, but requires a balance between the ideals of governance and the realities of personal interactions. A 'Never ending battle' if you will...)

"If you want to engage in a discussion about the application of power, or ever the morality of applying it in the first place, then by all means, take an extremist position and defend it with rational arguments and a rigid code of ethics. That's exactly the way that morality and government should be constantly analyzed and hopefully improved. But if all you have is some sophmoric, 'I hate my parents so I dress up in a black bandana and trash a McDonalds to "denounce" the G8 summits' pique of adolescent rage, then don't for a second try and point fingers about whose literature is 'just for kids'.

"Sincerely,

"David Oakes"



I gave up trying to read this letter because, in all honesty, it did not interest me. These people know too many big words and that is a frightening fact of life. I do not know who these people are, that have the time on their hands to write such long and boring letters. Do they not possess television sets? Is there no cable TV? The farm report was on the television once and I swear to God I was so bored that I felt my life slipping away from me, seeping out of my body and into a small puddle on the ground.

Now, I did skim the last part of your letter and it seems to me that you are accusing this person of being a Hippy. If I were him, I would challenge you to a duel in order to reclaim my honor, because there is nothing worse on this planet than a dirty hippy. I saw one of them on TV once and I think it scarred me for life, it really did. I like bathing, even if I don't get to do so as often as I would like, because, frankly, I am a busy man, and life does not always play out as we would like, and that is why I am talking to you today.

I have a slip of paper here that says I am supposed to tell you that some comic book company declared bankruptcy. To which I say: we are all safer for it. There is really nothing to be done about the fact that our society is being slowly destroyed from the inside out by traitorous, disease-carrying Chinamen -

(Editor's Note: The views expressed by Master Shake do not necessarily reflect the views of The Hurting or its editorial staff.)

- and these Chinamen are all reading comic books. I was in the supermarket the other day and I saw them on the shelves, some sort of strange books that read from right to left. So, to top it off, the cannot read correctly either. If comic book companies are going bankrupt, then I say the Republic is safer on account of that.

What was that? You want me to talk about the comic books?

I have been given a pile of books to "read" and comment upon, but I do not think I shall do this. Rather I shall burn the books and inhale the fumes, and form these ancient signs shall I foretell the future.

I have been given something with people on it, people drawn in some sort of pose around a coffin or something, perhaps a cooler with cold beverages inside it. There are breasts on a skinny child with long black hair.



What is this crap? This is crap. This was written by an old, old man, for the consumption of other old men. I have been told that this is the "comics event of the year." So you are telling me that the comics event of the year is a flimsy paper pamphlet designed to launch a Stretch-Guy limited series, or whatever this douchebag's name is? I mean, killing someone's wife to make a third-tear character more interesting really isn't a new idea, didn't they do that on Manimal or something?



And what is this? This was actually pretty good. Not good enough to pay for it, but better than that first piece of crap . . .



But then again I would not pay for any of this. My money has many more valuable things to pay for than this. But anyway, I enjoyed this, this reminded me of a movie I saw once, I don't remember what, maybe something with Richard Grieco. This is fun because I know that at some point people are going to get blown up, and perhaps even set on fire at some point in the future, and that is a good thing because most of these comic books are just boring.

So, the book that seems to have been copied from a late night Cinemax heist fick is definitely better than the book that seems to have been written by Dr. Boring, the Mayor of Boringville, USA. If I had to read but one comic book for the rest of my life, it would not be either of these, but then again, I would be thrilled with joy at only having to read one comic book for the rest of my life.

I need to lay down, perhaps in a darkened room. My sciatica is causing me great amount of pain, and I do not care enough for any of you to continue speaking when I am clearly in massive amounts of work-related pain.





Travels With Larry Part XI

Demo #6

During my previous round-up of Demo #1-5, I maintained that the series seemed to be improving with every issue. I am pleased to report that this trend continues with issue number six, probably my favorite of the series so far.

First of all, the MVP for this issue would have to be Ms. Becky Cloonan. Just in the space ofthese six months, her skills as a storyteller have improved by leaps and bounds. This is perhaps her most confident issue yet, and that probably has as much to do with the fact that, from a storytelling sense, this is her most straightforward work on the series.

There's nothing flashy here, no big high-concept storytelling gimmick or elaborate stylistic departure. Just well-composed panels, one after another, that add up to an incredibly solid story. Her use of gray to balance her compositions is something that definitely sets her above many of her AiT/Planet Lar stablemates, some of whom draw B&W no differently than they would a color illustration (this has been a weakness of books such as Abel and Giant Robot Warriors. I particularly like her stylized use of zipatone (or, I imagine, computerized zipatone). But on that same note, I think she could also profit from using some gray-washes in future issues, which do allow for a more subtle range of effects than the artificially stippled computer tones.

Of particular note is the sequence of wordless panels on page seven, a sequence that manages to communicate both the events and the emotions of the scene with perfect alacrity. If I had one complaint it would be that sometimes Cloonan forgets one of the most important rules of storytelling: never leave a big reveal on the bottom of the right-hand page. She does this with a particularly important scene - I won't give it away if you haven't read it but it involves the puppy (if you have you'll know which one I'm referring to). It's the most dramatic reveal of the series but it's on the bottom of a right-hand page, so it's telegraphed long before you actually reach it.

But aside from these brief quibbles, Demo #6 is the confident work of a team at the height of confidence in their growing prowess. They seem to be growing past the stylistic twitches that may have marred earlier issues of the series. I look forward with growing anticipation to seeing how the rest of the series plays out.

Oh, Dios Mio!

Well, shit.

Without meaning to, I seem to have riled up the ol’ interweb hornets again. You see, I wasn’t trying to be controversial, I was just trying to find something interesting to write. Seriously, I promise.

It’s taking a lot of self-control to keep from getting cranky about the whole thing. Everyone else seems to be getting cranky, but I will try to keep a civil tongue about me. I won’t make any comments like “have fun at Wizard World,” or “make sure to double bag your Youngblood back issues,” or even “dude, sounds to me like someone’s spider-sense woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” No, that would just be an asshole thing to do, and I’m hardly an asshole, now am I?

I’m just a floating nimbus of freelance love.

Anyway, on with the show.

Kudos to Dave Fiore for keeping a civil tongue and not dismissing my arguments out of hand simply because I disagree with him. As always, he writes some of the most cogent and interesting stuff around, such as this:

. . . here's my question: what intelligent adult accepts anything they read at face value? That's why I would say that the only people who shouldn't read superhero comics are kids who haven't developed a critical perspective yet! Look at Tim--he's a smart guy, but he seems unable to entertain the notion that these heroes are just textual elements in a swirl of narrative. Why? By his own admission, it's because he read too many superhero comics as a young child . . . (Emphasis Mine>

The answer to your question is painfully simple. Given the state of the world today, when you ask “what intelligent adult accepts anything they read at face value?” I have a hard time not laughing. I’m sorry, perhaps I am cynical. But people are gullible. People are willing to believe anything, and the percentage of the population who practice the kind of critical thinking and examination you and I obviously take for granted is miniscule (and no, for all you smartasses out there, I don’t have any exact figures). It’s just damned naïve on the face of it, and I hate to say this because I respect your intelligence, but you’re giving the average Joe way too much credit. Even the average intelligent Joe doesn’t read everything with that kind of critical eye, and especially not escapist literature like superhero comics.

I would ask you, in all seriousness, if you’ve ever read an issue of Wizard from cover to cover. I have. I used to subscribe to the damn thing, “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” (as they say). That’s the mentality of the average reader of superhero comics. And by average, I mean the vast majority.

Fiore points out, correctly, that I “[seem] unable to entertain the notion that these heroes are just textual elements in a swirl of narrative.” Well, yes, that’s true. For an Alan Moore or Grant Morrison story, yes, I’ll definitely buy that. But for the most part . . . the kind of structuralist and post-structuralist lit critique you’re applying to the average superhero book is patently absurd.

You want to know what I think about the Gwen Stacy Clone Saga? Well, buddy, with all due respect to someone who seems to spend quite a bit of time thinking deep thoughts on stories like this: the Gwen Stacy Clone Saga is quite possibly one of the stupidest stories every written. It’s a bad soap opera with outlandish sci-fi elements that break the suspension of disbelief in a premise already filled to the brim with bad sci-fi elements. It wasn’t written with any sort of systematic literary ideation in mind, it was written with the hopes of entertaining 8-12 year olds and hopefully getting them to spend cold hard cash on thirty-two pages of garishly printed newspaper.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that something written for a pop audience as disposable escapism was later revealed to have deep and fathomless depths of which the masses were unaware. But considering the circumstances, an infatuation with 70’s Spider-Man seems masturbatory at best, downright inane at worst. I may be proven wrong by the cascading tide of history, but I doubt it.

Why are we even talking about these books? The superhero genre is such a tiny, insignificant corner of the comics medium that it is simply galling on the face of it that so much literal and digital ink is wasted on the subject. Yes, wasted . . . because I’ll be damned if I think that bad 70’s Spider-Man comics deserve this kind of rigorous explication while Louis Riel or Quimby the Mouse or even The Boondocks are never discussed. Love & Rockets makes 99% of even the best superhero books look like dog puke, and I never see anyone discussing it. I’d love to see Fiore tackle a book like that, something I think could actually reward such a deep examination.

Elsewhere, Fiore states:

My own hypergeneralized tag for the genre was "the literature of moral and epistemological inquiry". Of course, in order to entertain this notion, you have to accept my contention that superhero comics have been progressing toward the work of Gruenwald (Squadron Supreme, Quasar and Captain America) and Morrison (Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and, most recently, and perhaps most spectacularly, The Filth) since the beginning (or, at least, since 1961). There's no reason you ought to accept this. But there's no reason to dismiss my statement simply because most superhero comics have fallen far short of these exalted heights either.

I think that’s a pretty fair and pretty reasoned idea. But I just don’t think it holds water, because the only trends that have any meaningful relevance on mainstream comics history are marketing trends. Now, of course, marketing is a part of every art medium, however much one may try to deny it, but there’s also no separating the fact that editorial decisions in mainstream comics are made solely on the basis of what sells. Manga is popular, so what does Marvel do? They produce numerous books that copy the superficial qualities of manga. Watchmen and Dark Knight were popular in the late 80s, so what did they do? Produce a series of books that questioned the moral and epistemological underpinnings of the genre in a formalistically experimental manner? No, they made their heroes “grim & gritty” and used a lot of spotted blacks to make the heroes look all tortured and dangerous.

So that’s why I think looking for literary trends in commercial comics is ultimately futile, because the trends in commercial comics are fueled by what fifty-year old men in bad suits think twentysomethings in soiled WCW T-Shirts will buy. The percentage of the audience who read mainstream comics in as critical and involved a matter as you people do is statistically negligible, so they just don’t make the comics with these ideas in mind. If they do come out like that every now and again, it’s surely a mistake.

Moving on to the less kind members of our blogosphere, Steven at Peiratikos takes less-nuanced umbrage with my statement that “there is no examination of ethical dilemma in 99.9% of all superhero books.” He sees this as a “cop out generalization,” which is, I suppose, fair. I’m not going to go over every spandex book ever published in order to back that kind of a statistic up. I’ve read a shit-load of the things, both good and bad, and whatever their various strengths or weaknesses may be, they are just not very ambiguous in terms of moral examination.

He finishes up his rather curt arguments with the galling assumption that “[his] real point seems to be that he prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike (uncritical) manner, rather than an adult (critical) matter, and his elaborate justifications merely obfuscate this. Which would be a nice way to win the argument, if it wasn’t a gross misstatement.

This whole argument reminds me, in a roundabout way, of a book that was published a few years back which caused quite a bit of uproar in the scholarly community. It was called The Bible Code and it was written by a man named Michael Drosnin. This book claimed that there was a secret code hidden in the first five books of the Bible by God as it was dictated to Moses, and that this code revealed all sorts of magical secrets of prophecy.

Of course, this is poppycock of the stinkiest kind. The point is, you can find anything if you look for it hard enough. People have been finding explanations for the wackiest behavior in the books of the Bible for some 1,800 years by now, and it doesn’t look like its going to stop anytime soon. Likewise, I think people who insist on reading you average, garden variety superhero book and seeking out deep and subtle meanings are just looking too hard for something that isn’t there. Stan Lee wasn’t trying to undertake any sort of secret philosophical dialectic in the pages of the early Marvels, he was just writing some cheap entertainment, and doing his best to keep Ditko and Kirby’s philosophies (overt and covert, respectively) out of the books as best he could.

I think most superhero books should be read on an uncritical basis because that is how they were intended to be absorbed. I guarantee you that if they had thought people would have any interest in debating these things all these years later, they wouldn’t have made such a botch-up of Wonder Girl’s origin, for one. That’s a cheap joke but it’s basically the truth: for most of these books, if you go looking for deeper meaning, you’re going to end up grafting your own prejudices and conceptions onto the text, because, with some exceptions, the deeper meaning just isn’t there to be found.

(And I’m hardly encouraging children to read pro-Fascist literature. I think kids should read all the wonderful fantastic literature they can find, be it C.S. Lewis or Tolkein or Harry Potter or Captain America. Subtext is something you, hopefully, discover when you’re grown up. When you’re young, its good enough to understand that Cap tries to do the right things for the right reason, and the question of how and why can wait until you’re older . . . or, at least, I hope they can. Likewise, I wouldn’t care about my kid reading The Chronicles of Narnia either, despite the overt Christian subtext. They’ll figure it out later - if they care to - when they’re old enough to make their own decisions about these things. Likewise with Cap.)

Marc Singer over at I Am Not The Beastmaster says some interesting things too, which I would recommend you read, even if I don’t quite agree with him. I’ve already spent enough time defending myself from Peiratikos’ slings and arrows, and I’m getting tired – if I had known I’d be writing about this subject again, I’d have just kept my trap shut – but there is one point where he chimes in with Steven’s argument to add that “he [me] prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike manner and then criticize them for being childlike”.

Which is not the case. I prefer to read them in an uncritical manner, yes, because otherwise (if you’re not going for a formalistic reading of the storytelling geniuses involved in some of the books) they fall apart like the cheaply-printed tissue paper they are. I’m not criticizing the books for being childlike, I am merely pointing out a fact, just as the sun rises in the east and Marmite tastes like ass. I am criticizing otherwise healthy, sane, rational adults for taking such limited, stunted, and downright silly literature so damned seriously. It’s not a criticism to say that the Clone Saga was intended to be read by children and young adults, it’s merely a statement of fact. It’s almost a tautology: children’s books are meant to be read by children, and therefore most of them are childlike.

What a freakin’ concept, Vern.

Sorry if that offends you. It just seems pointless to spend so much time thinking about such damn trivial pieces of art. I mean, I can talk about bad old comics all day long, I love it. But I think it’s a grievous error to accept the vast majority of them as anything more than what they are and were always intended to be: fastly produced, cheaply made escapism.

There is so much good stuff out there that is absolutely ignored, and seeing the heartfelt attention that is paid to the crappiest of the crap breaks my heart.



"This subject of discussion is hereby declared illegal. It is stupid and must be destoyed!"

the Secret Origin of Il Duce

Sean T. Collins recently threw out this little bon mot on the Comics Journal. Basically, in a nutshell, I get the idea that Collins doesn't quite agree with the notion that superheroes are an essentially fascistic idea.

In my life, I have spent some time thinking about just this concept. As I see it, it's pretty cut-and-dried. Superhero stories, at their heart, were created to appeal to children. As such, they make great childrens stories, and can even have some appeal to non-children when done well enough. But the same attributes that make them marvelous vehicles for entertaining children make them absolutely poisonous - ideologically speaking - for grown adults to take too seriously.

In a lot of ways, this hearkens back to the "literature of ethics" conversation of a few months back. As we discussed then, the "literature of ethics" concept was good except for one teeny-tiny fact: there is no examination of ethical dilemma in 99.9% of all superhero books. Black and white, good and evil, are pretty much accepted as is, and any shades of grey are presented as mere obstacles to be overcome. So, when you pick up The Avengers or Superman, the unspoken assumption is that the powerful superbeings whose adventures take place therein are morally infallible creatures whose strange abilities give them the obligation to combat "evil" outside of the traditional constraints of our legal system.

If you're eight or twelve, its an attractive and enjoyable fantasy. But if you grow older and never at some point examine the deeper ethical questions of obligation, responsibility, and corruption that would inevitably follow if superheroes really existed, you are ignoring the facts of reality and history.

Namely, the fact that power corrupts, and even if absolute power could theoretically be wielded by an incorruptible superman (like, say, Superman), it would still be intrinsically dangerous simply because the potential exists for abuse.

"With great power comes great responsibility" could easily have been said by Mussolini. Fascism was, above all else, a system dedicated to the destruction of the Individual by powerful forces in the State. As with Stalinism, fascism created and maintained the notion of the state as a living organism with needs and responsibilities above the petty concerns of the Individual. Unlike Communism, however, whose ultimate (stated) goal was a classless society of equals, Fascism was very much dedicated to the notion of social Darwinism. Weakness - whether in individuals, peoples or nations - was something to be eradicated and purged, so that only the strong survived. The strong were best represented by supernational entities who rose up from the faceless masses to protect the State from the hazards of mob rule (democracy and anarchy) and who were believed to embody the chosen ideals of the nation. This is the way the world works in a fascist state: the State is an organism whose cells and organs are composed of separate individuals, and whose head is ruled by the actions of preturnaturally gifted supermen such as Hitler or Mussolini. (Of course, in practice, this is also how Communism ended up working, as the high ideals of socialist revolution were uniformly replaced by the totalitarian pseudo-fascism practiced by Lenin and Stalin and later Mao and Castro. It's important to remember that despite the many similarities in the Communist and Fascist systems, the Communists and Fascists hated each other more than either of them hated the western republics, which explains why the USSR fought with the Allies. But you probably know all that, and I have digressed mightily.)

So, if you are a grown person who takes the moral underpinnings of superhero comics seriously, I don't know what to say: you would make a great fascist.

Uncritical acceptance of powerful authority figures is great when you're a kid... hell, it comes with the job description. But as you get older you need to question authority. You need to realize that power exerts a corrupting force. All the things that makes superheroes great and wonderful in the context of a kid's comic book make them deeply, powerfully impracticable in the real world. The idea of sanctioning groups of powerful supermen to watch over us - either tacitly, as with groups like the X-Men, or overtly, as with the Avengers and JLA - is damn near suicidal, and definitely fascistic.

Which is why I just don't think an intelligent, grown adult can seriously accept most superhero books on face value, because to do so is to court the worst kind of moral laziness. There have been a relative few books that have actually attacked the ethics of superbeings in one way or another, and whenever these books have tackled the notion of even semi-realistic superheroes, they have almost always touched on the fascistic elements implicit in characters who can change the course of mighty rivers with their bare hands.

I'll talk about some of these books tomorrow.

Psychology Is One Of My Subroutines

There is nothing in this world more frustrating than not being able to find something you know you own.

If you know me at all, you know I am only sporadically organized. Some things, such as my wife's records, I make a good attempt at keeping orderly (for her sake, believe me). Other things, such as my own comic books, are not even close to being slightly organized.

So one of the all-too-common recurring motifs in my life is rummaging through longboxes in search of one or two specific issues which I just can't seem to find. Of course, there are patches here and there that are organized, bunches of books that I bought many years ago and don't reference much (like, say, my complete run of Sleepwalker). But the books I like and want to find on a consistent basis are the ones that forever elude me.

Over the past week I must have spent probably four or six hours rummaging through comics in search of two (T-W-O) issues of a book which I can't find. I'm one of those people who often saves mini-series to read after they've been completely published, but sometimes this technique backfires, as when I cannot find two issues of a ten-issue series which I know I bought in its entirety as it was released. I won't give away the name of this series, save ot say it rhymes with "Louis Riel."

So, I'm a bit frustrated. Now, I don't have all my comics with me - most of them are in safe storage a good 3,000 miles across the country - but the comics I do have with me still represent an imposing pile. So, I've wasted quite a bit of time looking through these boxes, repeatedly looking for two issues which have disappeared off the face of the planet. Of course, the two issues in question can probably still be bought for around cover price, so I have spent hours and hours and hours of my life, hours which I will never regain, in a fruitless hunt for 6$ worth of lost comic books. Its the story of my life, I tell you.



Travels With Larry Part X

Scurvy Dogs

Just so you know, and in the spirit of complete candor, my favorite nautically-themed movie of any kind is Cabin Boy which I regard to be an underrated masterpiece of world cinema. I'm not joking, either.

So you know I'm no snob when it comes to humor. But I still find Scurvy Dogs an unsatisfying mixed bag. On the one hand, its obvious that Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount have a lot of fun putting every issue of this series together. On the other, its just not what I would call "ready for prime time", either in the consistent level of the humor or the craftsmanship involved in the book's production.

For this type of humor, I consider Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comics to be the absolute gold standard. There is not an issue of AYC that does not succeed in getting a few belly-laughs out of me, despite my best intentions - it's sick, twisted, offensive and brutally, almost maliciously evil in its consistent desire to flaunt all conventions of civilized existence. But whereas AYC is Ha-Ha Funny in a big way, Scurvy Dogs is just sorta Mildly Wacky. The occasional chuckle is the most I can expect (I have to admit, "Lita Fjord" was pretty good).

If this were a folded & stapled mini-comic I think I would like this better. As it is, as a 3$ comic with card-stock covers and great production values, it is something of a baffler. Larry Young's commercial instincts seem pretty spot-on to me: even if I don't like something AiT/Planet Lar publishes, I think I have a pretty good chance of figuring out why it was published. But other than the grating "Pirates Are The New Monkeys" legend on the inside front cover, these series seems to have no overriding reason to exist other than the compromising photos Boyd & Yount took of Young with that anteater at the San Francisco Zoo.

Which is not to say that in another five years Scurvy Dogs couldn't be one of the best, funniest comics being published. But its not there yet, and I don't see how I can reccomend it until it is.