Genre comics & superheroes

"Why can't we have more non-superhero work from Marvel and DC?"


That's a common refrain that you'll see on any comic book message board.  The Big 2 make a living on superhero comics, but why can't we get more material like war comics or westerns or crime comics?

A few months ago, it seemed like the publishers might be listening.  One of the comics I was looking forward to most among the new DC52 was Men of War and they had a sexy sounding western title called All-Star Western.  Marvel got in on the act with the recently released Six Guns, which seemed to be a modern-day western.

But, all of these new series have fallen very flat for me because they are still tied to their respective superhero universes.  Men of War tells the story of what it's like to be a solider in a world with superheroes.  All-Star Western puts Jonah Hex in fricking Gotham City.  And Six Guns features bikers and bounty hunters dealing with D-list Marvel heroes and villains.

All of these comics are well written and well drawn, but I lost interest the second I saw that they contained superheroes.

Granted, once you get away from the Big 2, the world is your oyster if you want a non-superhero comic book, but why can't the Big 2 use their financial muscle and access to talent to make it a little better.

How about you?  Do you like having a helping of superhero in your genre comics?

- Dean Stell

Things To Not Worry About: Creators' Social & Political Opinions

Over the past week or so, there have been a lot of forceful, and occasionally angry, opinions posted across the internet about the thoughts and opinions that comic creators choose to espouse. Frankly, I found the initial outrage ridiculous and hardly worthy of much attention at all. The outrage I’m speaking of, of course, is the response to Frank Miller’s blog post regarding the Occupy Movement; a movement that is sweeping the country and bringing all kinds of like-minded folks to the streets to protest and attempt to stand against what they feel is political, social, and economic injustice. My views on the movement are a bit complicated and absolutely not worth discussing here—particularly as they are irrelevant to this discussion. What encouraged this post is a point that was raised on the 11 O’Clock Comics message board. On the board the following question was posed: Can you separate artists from their art? That is, does your personal opinion of an artist affect whether or not you are able enjoy his or her work?

So here’s my position: I don’t care. Not even a little bit. If I got all flibbity gibbet every time someone famous espoused a political, economic, social, or religious view that was different from me, I wouldn’t be able to watch TV, read books, watch any movies, or listen to nearly any music ever…except for maybe Rush…and that's a big maybe.

What is difference of opinion and what is "wrong"?

Interesting things happen when you interact with the public, especially when you interact with the comic book public and talk about things like art in comic books.

As some followers know, I write reviews for 7-8 current comics every week at www.weeklycomicbookreview.com.  It's a fun thing to do and I think it has made me a better comic reader because I'm constantly trying to think of ways to put into words what a comic makes me feel.

But, you see some interesting things in the comment thread....  And, I LOVE our comment thread.  There's no better feeling that knowing that something you wrote caused someone to spend some of their time interacting back, so I always try to respond to everyone on our threads.

Ordinarily, I think comics should be a no arguing zone.  I mean....when I think of the people who get into fist-shaking rages over comic book arguments, I feel kinda the way Allen Iverson used to feel about "practice".  My attitude is usually, "C'mon....we're arguing about comic books!  Are you fricking kidding me??"

And, you'll see that attitude on most of the "feel good" internet comic forums: Hey! We're all entitled to our opinions!

But....what if their opinion is legitimately dumb?

REVIEW: Dinopopolous

One of the great things about comics is that their only limitation is the imagination of the creator(s) and, to a slightly lesser extent, the reader. Comics can be anything and do anything any time they want—and they don’t even need a reason for doing it. Cartoonist Nick Edwards proves that point with relative ease in his latest work, Dinopopolous. Creating a world filled with adventure, dinosaurs, evil lizard armies, ancient artifacts, laser knives, and sprinkled with a bit of heavy metal, Edwards taps into an innate sense of wonder and excitement that turned many readers on to comics in their youth. It’s that same sense of wonderment that has made Jesse Moynihan’s Adventure Time so brilliant and that burned movies like The Goonies and Monster Squad into the collective psyche of a generation; it’s what made Kamandi so amazing; it’s what fuels the cult following of bands like The Aquabats. I would even go so far as to say that, at its core, what drives this comic is the same sort of felling that makes people love Tom Sawyer. It’s adventure, it’s imagination, it’s boyhood.

It’s hyperbolic to compare Dinopopolous to something like Jack Kirby’s Kamandi, but the spirit of Kamandi certainly fuels Edwards’ work and gives it a certain quality that makes it much more than just another off-the-wall indie comic.

Bias & Fanboyism in Comic Reviews

As most of you know, I review new comics over at Weeklycomicbookreview.com.  It's an interesting avocation because there is no established source for comics journalism.  Even the "big boys" of Comic Book Resources, Newsarama and iFanboy probably aren't making much money on this stuff and if you go down a notch further down to sites like WCBR, you're talking about folks who are creating content just for fun.  Yet, there are fans and readers who want objective reviews.  

One's life as a comic reviewer is interesting.  You start out just flinging reviews into the ether.  You can see the traffic stats for your reviews and see that you're getting a whopping 15 page views per day and that most of those are search engines.  Then something interesting happens: You get an email from a real, live comic book creator who is thanking you for saying something nice about their comic book.  

You get an epiphany at this point, "Creators read this stuff!"  And, many of those creators are friendly guys.  Lots of them doing creator-owned comics at places like Image aren't getting paid anything and have dreamed of doing comics their whole life and suddenly they've got people critiquing their work in public.  

I don't know about you, but I don't love it when my professional work get's critiqued in public.  

Eventually you get friendly with some of these guys.  You become friends on twitter, learn that you have things in common with a few of them, see them at conventions, have them as sources to ask insider questions, etc.  Yet, along the way....you are still having to review their work.  At some point, it becomes like being asked to critique a friend in public.  It's also good to remember that it is a one-sided relationship in that way......Ryan Stegman probably isn't going to start blogging about my skills at writing patent licenses.

Top 10 (and more) Comics for Halloween

I love Halloween. Not as much as the people who build animatronic skeletons for their front lawns, or my friend Matt, who probably had his daughter just so he could keep trick-or-treating well into adulthood (just kidding, Matt), but I do love it. I also love horror movies and, of course, horror comics. Now, some people claim that comics can never be truly scary, and it's true that you can't apply the same rules to comics that you do to movies, i.e. jump scares are pretty much out. On the other hand, some of the most disturbing, creepy, growing-sense-of-dread entertainment I've experienced came from between the blood-soaked pages of our favorite medium. After the break I'll tell you briefly about some of my favorites. Share some of your own in the comments!

REVIEW: Death Ray

Rare is the time that I feel intimidated before I open my big fat mouth; however, every now and then I question whether or not I am actually worthy to critique a book. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Dan Clowes’ Death Ray led me to one of those instances of anxiety. A lot of my anxiety came not just from Clowes’ standing in the comics/cartooning community, but rather a combination of that standing and my embarrassing lack of direct familiarity with his comics work. Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to get over that initial embarrassment, so I threw caution to the wind and decided to tackle Death Ray.

I have a general familiarity with the visual aspect of Clowes’ work and greatly enjoyed the film adaptation of Ghost World (I haven’t read the book yet…sorry), so I kind of had a good idea of how the book would feel visually and figured that I could guess the kind of complex, often odd, characters I would encounter. Additionally, I own several of Clowes’ earlier works, this just happens to be the first I have actually read. Having taken all of that into consideration, I had received the solace that I convinced myself that I needed before taking on such a giant of a cartoonist. The fact (that’s right, fact) that Death Ray is an incredible story, naturally, put my mind further at ease, and made it very easy for me to feel comfortable commenting on it.