July 2003 Archives

This site is allegedly about comics, so for my first article with any real content, I will not talk about them. Wait, no, that's not exactly what I mean. Manga (that being the crazy Japanese-speak for comic books) are comics, but they're very different from the comics we know in the United States. There's at least one difference that's are part of the reason that I've never been completely able to break into the American comics scene.

It's a matter of method of publication and price. In the mythic, far-off land of Japan, comics are serialized in massive, black and white phonebook-like publications that you could hit someone with, inflict some pain, and not leave any incriminating bruises (you learn so much from watching The Shield.) The books are organized by genre and theme; in Shounen Jump ("shounen" meaning "boy" and "jump" meaning "jump"), you'll find titles geared to the young male set (sports, explosions, only using 20% of your actual power, and ninjas), while in something like Hana to Yume (meaning "really girly stuff" ... wait, wrong dictionary. "Flowers and Dreams") you'll find titles geared to the young female set (love, romance, complicated love polygons, and angst). These giant tomes can hold somewhere around fifteen-twenty different titles, and can be published weekly, bimonthly, or monthly; in a weekly publication, you'll find around nineteen to twenty pages of hot comic goodness for you every week, while monthlies can run anywhere from fifteen to thirty pages, depending on how much of a flake the artist is. (You may think you hear some bitterness there. You're right. I don't want to talk about it.)

All and all, it's a great deal, particularly if you follow more than one series in a given book. Imagine if all the various X-titles were published in one big mass that you could hit your friends with and claim that it was your mutant power. One stop shopping. This system isn't all sunshine and shurikens if you only follow one title in a book; you can't, as far as I know, buy a single title. So, that leaves you with a phonebook, and you're only interested in a tenth of it. But you are left with, as I've established repeatedly, a handy weapon for hurting the people you care about.

What really gets me about this system, what cripples me from really regularly buying and following an American comic publication is the price. An issue of Weekly Shounen Jump that I bought on my recent trip to Japan cost 230 yen. That's around $1.90. Now, the last time I bought an American comic (the first issue of Scott Kurtz's Player vs. Player) I got thirty black and white pages and paid three dollars for it. I imagine it would have been more if it had been one of them high-tech color glossy paper comics I've heard so much about. When a given manga title has published 180-200 pages, those pages are published in a tankouban, a paperback-sized collection that sells for between $5-$7 (although sometimes ranging up to $11-$12 for oversized books). These tankouban are published for nearly every title, sometimes as often as three volumes a year. My dork knowledge fails me here, but from what I've seen in the comic book shops, the production of trade paperbacks for American titles is on a much smaller scale, and, again, a lot more expensive. While $12-$20 for 150 full-sized full-color pages is understandable, it still makes comics financially painful to collect.

My point with all this? I'm mostly an outsider when it comes to the American comics industry, having gained all of my knowledge by having Stephen drop, say, the entire run of Savage Dragon into my lap and say "Read this. Now." But this outside view, this different perspective can make me see that the economics of the situation may help to kill an already waning field. There's something that just isn't right when I can get more content for less, and the product is imported, and I'm not talking about those plastic jugs of vodka. What I'm saying is, ow, my wallet.

Tune in next week for when I possibly have more elitist things to say about various comic producing ways, or maybe just talk about Metal Gear Solid for a while.

You know who we need to get into comics? Homosexuals. You always see them having parades and unity festivals and big meetings. You must realize that shows like the Anna Nicole Smith show and Will and Grace and all these shows are ratings hits because they've cornered the market on gay viewers. Why doesn't anyone try to corner the market on gay readers, eh? I mean, they say that one in ten people is gay so just imagine one tenth of America reading comics! Hell, if one twentieth of America read comics, that'd be a godsend! And the perfect candidate to do reach this audeince is Marvel. Why Marvel? Because they have a secret weapon already in place: Johnny Storm.

You heard me: Johnny Storm. The Human Torch. Mr. "Flame on!" himself. Who better to have represent the homosexuals of America than a person who's catch phrase is "flame on?" And didn't you always suspect that deep down he wanted to hook up with the Thing? Why else does he tease him all the time and play little practical jokes on him? It's just like elementary school all over again, you tease the ones you love.

Now, you might ask "but Guy, Johnny was married." To which I'd reply, "Shut up! Who's column is this?" Then I'd punch them in the face and kick them while they're down. But, then I'd answer their question, which is valid. Yes. Johnny Storm was married to Lyla but first of all, it was a failed marriage. Second of all, she was a Skrull. A member of a shape-shifting race. Who is to say what form she took in the bedroom, eh? Perhaps she even looked like a certain ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing? (Maybe it's time we also evaluated the Thing's self proclaimed title of "ever-lovin'").

The question remains though, will this ever come to pass? No. Why? A year ago Grant Morrison made the suggestion that Johnny was attracted to his sister and the anti-incest uproar that followed probably means that Marvel isn't willing to go this route. Which is a shame. Also, a few years back, there was going to be a storyline that revealed that Mystique was not Nightcrawler's mother but his father and that Destiny was his mother. However, Marvel backed off fearing that their readers might not dig the homosexual direction in the X books.

But perhaps someday Marvel will overcome this irrational fear and little Johnny Storm can come out of the closet.

On a mission from God,
Guy Ryder

You know those movies that are so bad they're good? I love those types of movies. I have a not so secret love affair with the Fantastic Four movie and Battlefield Earth. The only problem is that LXG is not one of these movies. It's a movie that is so bad, it's just bad. In other words, it's just not campy, it's closer to just crappy.

I probably wouldn't judge the film so harshly if it weren't adapted from such a great source material. But for some reason what Alan Moore could pull off in comic form, the filmmakers just can't pull off in movie form. Moore's hidden references are as subtle as a Sphinx while so many of the lines in the movie are so aware of themselves you can't help but groan.

For some reason that I can't fathom, they went farther away from the storyline of the comic than was necessary. In the comic, the villain they fight is Fu Man Chu while Professor Moriarty posing as M is manipulating them. In the movie they fight the Phantom of the Opera who is really M who is really Professor Moriarty. I'm still scratching my head over why they replaced the villain with a far worse one and why they made Moriarty into a needlessly complex character to follow.

Also gone are the opium addicted Alan Quartermain and the leader Mina Murray (the film's version retains her married name of Harker... actually, considering how much the trailers made her look like a pointless sex object, she was alright but not nearly as empowered as she was in the comic). To make up for this they've added the presence of Dorian Gray (actually, a fitting addition to the League) and Tom Sawyer. I know that they probably added Tom Sawyer so that American audiences would better like the film but the problem is that this is not is his era. His character would be closer to fifty or so at the turn of the century and not in his twenties.

Despite some of my complaining, the movie wasn't all bad. It did have some horrible movie clichés in it but it also did have some good moments, some decent fight scenes (well, two of them anyway) and I must say that I really enjoyed the way the filmmakers portrayed the Jeykll/Hyde relationship.

So, the final Jeopardy question: is the film worth seeing? It's worth seeing a matinee of once in the theatre, yeah. If for no other reason, it lets you appreciate the brilliance of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. For this is what the comic might've read like if it hadn't been for two such geniuses at the helm.

You want to know how to convert people to reading comics? Give them free swag. It's the modern day equivalent of "bread and circus," you know? Who doesn't love getting free things? That's the beauty of Free Comic Book Day. There is one problem, however, with Free Comic Book Day. It's not aggressive enough. It doesn't grab random pedestrians and just shake sense into them.

That's where I come in.

I have persuaded a comic retailer friend of mine to relinquish to me all the comics that were left over from Free Comic Book Day, and then I purchased the rest of his stack of Batman and Superman 10 cent adventures; his Fantastic Four 9 cent adventure; his Gen 13 13 cent comic; and his X-Men, Namor and Dardevil 25 cent comics. With such a healthy stack of comics under my arm I went out into the world to try and show people the error of their way.

Now, the question came: where to go to give away said comics? That's when I realized that the movie theater was the optimum choice. Who better to try and get to read comics then people coming out of LXG, The Matrix Reloaded (which is why I went to go see it with Stephen), the Hulk, or the Terminator?

As people came out of the theater, I walked up to them and put the books in their hands. Now, when people are handed something, they immediately try to figure out if they know you. Once they realize that they don't, then they think you're selling something. After a bit of instructing, people realize that you are indeed just giving the comics away. (I never thought it would be so difficult to freakin' give things away.)

I had not realized that distributing comics in a movie theater counted as "solicitation" but there you go. This guy came over to me and asked me to leave. I said "no." He came back fifteen minutes later with two other guys. I'd rather not talk about the following five minutes of my life.

Once I found myself outside with my remaining comics, I had found that I had lost a lot of my enthusiasm. As I limped home, I threw the occasional comic into an open car window. I can only hope that the drivers appreciate the free treat they've been given. (I can tell you didn't and that was the cab driver that brought me home... I'd spent the last of my money buying the comics and movie tickets so, being a little low on cash I tried to pay the driver with the remainder of the stack of comics. To say the least he was not pleased but that's another article).

Some people gave the comics back, most took them. Did they read them? Did they enjoy them? Are they now converted? Who knows? I don't have some kind of phenomenal cosmic power. All I know is that at the end of the day, a couple of dozen of comics had found their way into the hands of people who may not have grabbed them otherwise. My conscience is clear and I'll sleep well tonight.

With your mom.

On a mission from God,
Guy Ryder

Tales from the Dork Side! It sounds like it could be interesting, doesn't it? Or maybe like it could be the same thing you've seen before on a dozen other websites. Well, I, Whitney, the author of these tales, am here to tell you that it will be both of those things. "Someone writing vaguely sarcastic reviews of recent media, likely with pop-cultural references! The internet has never seen it before," I said to Stephen when he asked me if I would write articles for him. "Except for all of the times that it has."

Now that I've established some sort of crack-wising tone, let me tell you who I am, and what I hope to do here. I, like many dorks, am a college-going twentysomething who lives in New York City most of the time, studies Japanese and Linguistics, dreams of actually possibly being employed with one of the skills this expensive liberal arts education has brought, doesn't get out of the house very much, and has breasts. You will often see these aspects of my existence reflected in my writing (Note: this does not mean boobie pictures. That's only on the paid version of glasseyecomics.com.)

My mission here is to bring news from the dork front: information, reviews, and opinions on anime, manga, and video games from the past, present, and possibly the future, if I can convince Stephen that an article plagiarized from Game Informer Magazine is my own. (He'll never know that I didn't actually go to E3. He'll never know.) While this site is geared to the American comic fan, if you are a comic book guy, you are likely a dork, and will have interest in the above issues. Please don't be sad that I called you a dork. You have to understand; I can smell my own kind. It's both a defensive ability, and useful in mating season, when the dorks flock to the convention halls, slithering across the dealer's tables, making uncomfortable eye contact and having halting, awkward conversations about costuming techniques until the Mike's Hard Lemonade starts to flow, and heated debates about the morality of scanlations lead to love... but I digress.

So, come with me, not into the dark side, but the side the side lit by the loving glow of computer screens and television monitors. It should feel a little like home.

I'm just gonna come out and say it: The Matrix Reloaded sucked in comparision to the first film. Gone is the subtley and intellectual aspects of the film, as well as any moral or ethical dillemias. Instead, they've been replaced with fight sequences that go on so long they lose all meaning and an Englishman doing a horrid French accent.

The film instead of intellectualism decided to rely on action and emotion. The action, as I've already said, is over done and it's always a bad idea to base a film on emotion when Keanu Reeves is your star.

I did not like Zion. It couldn't decide if it was technological or tribal. And why, why a city-wide rave? Did that serve any purpose?

I am saving most judgement for this film until the next movie comes out because I think it's going to be hard to judge these two films separately. They were, after all, conceived and created together. I'm hoping that the next film will validate this film and just make it the weakest link in the chain instead of a sign that the series never should have extended past the first film.

Let me just come out and say that I enjoyed this film. I wasn't quite sure that I was going to but I did. I mean, it's hard to get yourself pumped about a film that the only good thing I'd heard about it was that one of my friends said, "it was good but Spider-Man was better." I had heard all the complaints: the science was too heavy, the Hulk comes in too late in the film, the Hulk doesn't speak, they butchered his origin, the relationship between Bruce and Betty is misused, et cetera, et cetera. I went into the film expecting it to be a waste of my time.

So why did I even go? Besides a morbid curiosity that I was born with (and which has made me sit through numerous bad and sometimes painful movies) I also knew who was making the film: Jim Schamus and Ang Lee. These are two guys whose work I respect. They always manage to make films that I enjoy and get me thinking. I had faith, although it was a little shaken by reviews, that if anyone could pull this film together, it was these guys.

I was right.

After seeing the film, I have no idea what everyone was complaining about. In close-ups the Hulk manages to emote with an amazing degree of believeability. His body moves in an incredible but still realistic way. As for the science and how long it takes for the Hulk to appear, to that I must say that I'm surprised by that reaction. It doesn't take that long (I had heard that it took an hour and a half, it was more like forty minutes). What the film is doing is called "back story." It's what makes the difference between a character that we care about and a two dimensional thug.

Schamus and Lee tapped into the psychological aspects of the Hulk and made a great film. They didn't make a pure slugfest, which is what I'm sure many people wanted, and I'm glad that he didn't. If he had, it would've been the Matrix Reloaded where fights just go on and on until they lose all meaning. Don't forget, this is the Hulk. He's so strong that in most fights it is a foregone conclusion that the Hulk will win. To make an interesting Hulk film, you can't merely focus on the physical. You have to focus on the emotional and the mental and that's what this film does.

But don't think that means that there isn't any fighting in the film. There are some good fight scenes (personally, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the "Hulk dogs" fight considering how stupid I thought it was going to be when I heard of it). Besides the dogs, there's also a long fight with the military that fills us with a type of "shock and awe" that would impress even Dubya.

The Hulk is one of the better comic book films made so far and my only regret is that I doubt that Ang Lee will be allowed to make the sequel (if, indeed, Universal feels it did enough business to have one). The odds of another comic film respecting the intelligence of the viewer this much is not very good.

This is the way that comic book movies should be made. Let's be honest with ourselves as fans. Marvel and Fox could've filmed monkeys playing the parts and we would still go and watch it.

"We are you going?" Our friends might ask.

"To see the new X-Men movie," we'd reply.

"Isn't it just an hour and a half of a bald monkey throwing feces at a monkey in a Magneto helmet?" They would ask, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

"Yeah but it's an X-Men movie," we'd shrug.

We waited years and years for the first movie and when it came out it was good. We were so shocked that we would be willing to see an follow-up, at least once. So that's why I applaud Fox for doing it right and actually putting forth the effort for a good sequel. Now, I'm not going to lie and say that it's a perfect movie. In terms of baseball it's a triple, not a home run but it's a mighty fine triple.

They handled Nightcrawler (one of my favorite X-Men) really well... at the beginning of the movie. By the end of the film his role was reduced to, "Kurt! Teleport there and do this thing!" And he would. Gone was his religious faith and pathos, he became a plot device.

I really liked the movie though. It was a film that stood on it's own but was improved if you'd seen the first one and was even better if you were a fan of the X-Men comics.

I am looking forward to seeing the next one and can only hope that they will have a better title for it than "X3."

This book was my introduction to Grant Morrison. It would in no way prepare me for his particular brand of insanity found other ventures (Invisibles, anyone?) but what this book did do was make me like DC Comics. I'd been a Marvel Zombie for years when I came across this book (in issue form at the time). I'd always felt that their characters were too boring, that they were too mythic and not human enough. I purchased the first issue on a whim and I fell in love.

Porter's art is good, his heroes look heroic and he has good panel layout and pacing. He manages to reflect Morrison's story being either dark or silly depending on the moment. But the true star of the book is Morrison. He gives the team a real challange that is deserving of such a crew of superheroes (hard work considering this all-star line-up). Also, impressive is that he got rid of all the weak links of the chain and brought out DC's big guns ("the Magnificent Seven" as Guy calls them when he's feeling clever).

The real triumph is how he writes character interactions. In particular between Superman and Batman as well as between Flash and Green Lantern. He nails these complex relationships. Superman and Batman, with their competitive best friend aspect while the Green Lantern and Flash act more like siblings as they bicker, tease and try to get more attention.

As part of the generation that grew up on Sliders and Quantum Leap, the concept behind this comic is nothing new or amazing in and of itself. To compensate for this, Winick tries to prove that in this first arc that events will have reprecussions and that nothing can be taken for granted. Besides the evolving group dynamic there is also a death and a turncoat that no one saw coming. Winick doesn't do these things just for the shock value, however, instead everything feels like a natural part of the storyline while at the same time heightening the drama of the series.

I've already gone on the record as being a large Judd Winick fan and if I wasn't already one, this book would be enough to convert me. Winick's humor and creative situations is what keeps this book going. His dialogue is witty but to me the true gem is in his captions. He has the ability to use the dry narrative voice with an amazing ability to either touch us or make us laugh.

I only wish I could be as complimentary of the art as I am of the writing. Mike McKone is good (his drawings of Morph is actually on par with if not better than Winick's words) but he's just not great. His figures aren't as dynamic as they could be and sometimes its hard to read the characters' expressions (there's a panel where Magnus [the son of Magneto and Rogue] learns of his father's presence and is shocked, instead it looks as if he just has gas). Also McKone has some consistency issues in terms of character designs for Blink, Thunderbird and Nocture [the daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch]. Despite these set backs though, his art is quite nice.

This book is a good read. What Mark Waid does in this trade is similar to what Alan Moore did for Swamp Thing. He managed to change the direction of the book without altering the core character (it's true that Waid lacks some of the finesse that Moore has but if we compared everyone to Alan Moore than our selection would look pretty drab).

Captain America before this point was sucking. He was feeble, living in an Iron Man style suit, everytime he used his power he was slowly killing himself. In several pages, Waid turns this all around and brings back the Cap we all know and love, the super soldier with the can do spirit.
We also get the Red Skull and the mysterious return of Sharon Carter, yet another time when Waid's extensive knowledge of a character's history has managed to bring back long forgotten story elements to weave back into modern continuity.

Waid was born to write Captain America just as Garney was born to draw him. His Captain is athletic and fit without being too muscle-bound. He looks like a man at the peak of physical perfection without any hint of over-exaggeration. His only real flaw seems to be the nailing of the Red Skull whose physical apperance seems inconsistent throughout the book. However, his art flows nicely, giving it a good movie action feel.

I don't usually read children's books but I have a soft spot in my hear for Neil Gaiman. So despite my own preferences I gave this book a read. It was good. It was a cute little story told very well. However, the thing that made this book was its art. Dave McKean, who's work always impresses me, is at the top of his form in this book.

This book is about as close to tripping acid as a six year old can get with its wild visual styling and odd logic. The only stigma it must overcome is that it is techinically a children's book and not a comic but I'd argue (and I have many times) that this is a comic that's geared towards children. My advice is to buy it for any child you know and then give it a quick read yourself. The child will enjoy the story and you can enjoy the art.

It examines the guys of who Batman is: a brilliant detective, a self-made man, a driven man. It then takes those concepts and turns them on their head. It's a story where Batman becomes addicted to a performance enhancing drug (the now famous Venom), going against his very nature of hard work and dedication. Through the book we see as the drugs rob him of his intellect and how he suffers from his addiction. It's a very human and engaging tale of the Dark Knight. This is not the urban myth version of Batman, this is a weak and vulnerable man who's trying to prevent any more families being broken.

O'Neil writes in his introduction: "Nobody ever becomes an addict to ruin his or her life. Addiction always begins with a desire to be better. Stronger. Smarter. Suaver. Richer. Braver. More. The promise is always of less pain and greater fulfillment, and the promise is always a lie. It's a lesson millions of people are learning, particularly on the streets of our cities -- an agonizing, intensely human lesson." These words are eloquent and as true now as when he wrote them.

This book proves what we knew all along: Batman's one of the toughest hombres of all time.