The Fractal Hall Journal

I notice Marvel’s got a Saxon poncing round with Excalibur in this week’s comics.

</Interminable Weekly Arthurian Snark>

In other news, modern design as applied to the humble drinks flask has brought the field of liquid containment immesurably further than it stood all those years ago when I had a plastic thing with a picture of M.A.S.K. on it. Speaking of which, stuff GI JOE, I want a motion picture event based around that 80s franchise, with Adam Baldwin as Matt Trakker, Hollywood’s All-Purpose Asian Guy John Cho as Bruce Sato and a darker, edgier T-BOB. Because I just can’t get enough of transforming vehicles.

And Spectrum’s got such sooh-per vih-hision. Muh muh muh muh, MASK.

My God, I think I may have found my life’s purpose; the pursuit of a faithful film adaptation of this lost gem, with Boulder Hill and everything.

But back to the flask. The heat retention ability of the Thermos® is nothing short of revolutionary, and it doesn’t leak. It’s what living in the 21st Century is all about, folks.

Anyway, I ended up bashing the smaller model and decide to upgrade. Only the 1L version is a hell of a lot bigger in real life than it looks in the box. Seriously, you could refuel a Boeing with the fucker. Plus, it means I’m getting through a litre of coffee a day. I’m not a hundred percent certain why I bring this whole flask thing up, except maybe to explain why posting is likely to get a little odd, then sporadic, then stop entirely when the palapatations assplode my heart.

While we’re waiting, let’s get our geek on.

• I’ve had a lot of good things to say about The Dark Knight, so here’s a bad thing. Comic book movies- well, movies period- aren’t really any good with their portrayal of women. The Dark Knight isn’t particularly exploitative, I don’t think, beyond Bruce Wayne’s dating habits as a cover for the Bat missions. The problem is how women are essentially an irrelevance in the film. Wayne’s mother is nothing more than an afterthought (hell, even Thomas Wayne got screen time in the first one), and Rachel Dawes is the definition of a pointless character. Or rather, a character who’s only point is to die and motivate the male characters. She’s subordinate to every man in the film, and only drives the plot by dying. They shove her right into the refridgerator, then nuke it, Spielberg-style. I know the problem’s caused mainly by faithfulness to almost 70 years worth of man-centric storytelling, but that’s just not a good enough excuse anymore.

• Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, does far better gender-wise. A little shaky when it comes to race, maybe, but points for having a Latino lead character. Veeeeery heteronormative, though. I’ve finally started to catch up, finishing Series Two and starting on Series Three. Bloody hell, this is grim stuff. And incredibly close to the bone, what with its use of insurgents, bombings and prisoner torture. I’ll probably have more to say after I’ve watched a bit more.

• I’m just finishing the sixth Rebus novel, Mortal Causes. It looks like Ian Rankin’s comics writing debut will be happening at the new Vertigo Crime imprint rather than as a Hellblazer story, which may be for the best. After all, while I’ve got no idea whether the man can do horror fiction or not, he can write the shit out of crime stuff. I’ll probably do a round-up of the Rebus series once I’ve finished with them. As Rankin himself says in the foreword, Mortal Causes is certainly the first of the “grown-up” novels, in that there’s less of an emphasis on a good-gosh-whodunnit twist than on the lives and motives of the police officers and the criminals. Pretty grim, too.

• Incredibly, it’s been over two months since I picked up any comics, and over a month since I got the first JMS Thor hardcover (have I written about that yet? Can’t remember. Anyway, very good, very epic, fantastic art and bound to be cocked up once it stops being a self-contained series and starts getting all crossovery). I still need to plug a few single issue gaps, like the last issue of Casanova and the last couple of All-Star Supermen, but apart from that I think I’m pretty much dedicated to the waiting-for-the-trade thing. Thank you, Comics Companies, for being so crap over the past year with one thing or another and making the decision so easy.

• This post has turned all too negative. Let’s go look at pictures of M.A.S.K. toys instead.

     Feed

I tagged Siskoid, and he tagged me right back, so let’s talk about writers some more. This time, let’s take a look at people who’s work is mostly, if not entirely, outside the comics industry.

George Pelecanos on Batman.

Or Daredevil, or any crime comic. I mentioned Pelecanos as part of the original challenge as an example of switching someone in from a different media, but it didn’t occur to me that people probably won’t recognise his name. He’s a crime novelist and screenwriter who’s been involved with The Wire, and I think a couple of films.

When I worked in the bookshop way back when I ran the crime section as well as Dragons, Spaceships and Underpants Guys. Outside of the Rebus novels (and more on them shortly), I hadn’t really read that much crime fiction, so I got through a lot in a short time to avoid looking like a slack-jawed shelf-filler should someone who knew their stuff appeared, because no one wants to be that guy who works at the Local Comic Shop but isn’t aware of more than two publishing companies.

Pelecanos was one of a set of American crime writers who do a specific kind of work, not so much mysteries or serial killers as examinations of police officers and the criminals they hunt. It’s very, very good stuff, and I don’t think I’d be too far off in suggesting that Ed Brubaker’s Criminal owes a lot to that school of writing, if not Pelecanos himself. And he doesn’t deal with small issues, either. The racial politics of Washington, D.C. (the actual living city rather than the white stone buildings of the capital, mostly) feature heavily, in novels set in the present and the 60s and 70s.

Although he’s not one of the biggest sellers in the field, I think there’s an objective argument to be made that he’s the best crime writer currently working, not to mention one of the best writers, period. So, yeah. Stick him on Batman.

Ian Rankin.

While I think Pelecanos is probably the best working crime writer, my favourite is Rankin, author of the John Rebus novels. Again, he’s in the top tier of British novelists writing anything, never mind crime, concentrating more on the study of people involved in both the police and the criminal community of Edinburgh rather than straight up murder mysteries, although there’s a lot of that too. And Rebus is the classic archetype of dogged, alcoholic investigator without any self-awareness or ability to play at politics, who pisses off (sometimes deliberately, sometimes not) damn near everyone he meets and will not let anything drop when he’s got his teeth into it.

It’s hardly surprising that the one comic Rankin’s been connected with is Hellblazer, via fellow Scot Denise Mina. I’m really looking forward to the run, should it ever appear, and there’s plenty of other titles I’d like to see him take a crack at. Maybe Marvel’s horror line, actually. Hellstrom, say, certainly as the last Max series seemed to take its cue from Contantine. Maybe the Question, too: original, rather than Montoya.

Alan Heinberg.

And speaking of the Question, last year at the Bristol convention, in a panel on telly writers in comics with Paul Cornell, Alan Heinberg mentioned that he was once involved in an attempt to make a Vic Sage Question series, although it fell through. He’s obviously a big fan of the character, and it would be interesting to see what tack he’s take. Although it would never come out.

     Feed

Some time ago, I was brewing a post on the thematic relation between the Punisher and Doctor Who.

Let that sink in a moment, because I can see you’re overwhelmed by my god damned analytical genius.

It does make sense of a kind. The kind you get when you’re flat on your arse drunk and talking crap to your mates about how you just innately understand how Harry Potter is a Marxist parable of emancipation from mental slavery, sure. But sense nevertheless.

My point is that both characters are aspects of the “trickster” archetype, the unstoppable outsider that enters then forever changes a specific state of affairs. A character we all identify with, that sometimes we even wish we could be, but one that is ultimately alien to us, next to impossible to understand.

Of course, there’s one obvious difference between the two: Frank Castle would probably have a breakdown (erm, an even breakier breakdown) if he killed someone he considered innocent. Who knows how far the Doctor (some of his incarnations, that is) would go for the greater good?

Anyway, poking the Whovian nest with a pokey stick isn’t really the purpose here. Obviously the above musings don’t go much further than a surface interpretation, so I doubt there’s much to gain by going deeper. But the whole “trickster” spin is a fascinating one; after all, it’s pretty rare that protagonists of any stripe get to be as ambiguous in their motives as, say, John Constantine used to be.

Here’s a question, though: How many female characters get to play the trickster? And out of them, how many get to be a trickster without having to seduce anyone?

Take the first two that spring to mind: Typhoid Mary in Daredevil and Deadpool (maybe Elektra, although she’s probably more of an anti-hero) and the Enchantress in Thor. And let’s face it, their archetype is Evily Sexy Seducer Who Wants To Make With The Sex. The only character that kind of fits is Jenny Sparks in the Authority, though at a stretch her archetype is Cynical Arsey Old Man Ellis which is practically a category all of its own.

Maybe I’m missing someone obvious; I probably don’t read enough in the fantasy genre to be certain, as that seems to be the area where that kind of character would turn up. But it seems to me that a female character from that mould hasn’t been done much, and would have a fair bit of story potential.

[EDIT, 9/2/08: It turns out that yes, I am indeed missing someone obvious. In an astonishing twist that brings the whole god damned analytical genius thing into question, it turns out Marvel's Loki is currently a woman. Oops. Many thanks to timeismine for pointing this out in the Comments.]

     Feed

Superheroes aside, is there any genre more prevalent in comics than horror? Or for that matter, is there any other genre with as many key works from the most gifted comics writers?

I like most horror comics in retrospect. I was too young to appreciate Sandman, Swamp Thing, or Hellblazer on their original runs. I remember seriously disliking them, though I love them all now in my own fickle way. But as much as I wasn’t keen on the grown-up stuff, I did like Marvel horror.

Ok, that was a bit mean, but you catch my drift. I liked the ’90s Ghost Rider, and I got to read some of the Johnny Blaze stuff (along with a couple of Son of Satan titles) that belonged to the father of one of my dearest buddies. But it wasn’t until the Tomb of Dracula Essential volumes that I realised quite how good Marvel’s material could be.

Tomb of Dracula benefitted from a consistent creative team for the bulk of its run. Any success the series has should really be credited to Gene Colan, an incredible penciller who brought a high standard to every issue, raising the overall quality even on the ropier scripts.

In all honesty, if the comic lets itself down anywhere, it’s the writing. The first few issues were written by a good few different people, giving the series an oddly disjointed tone, where it couldn’t decide if it was a straight sequel to the movie Draculas, the novel, or something else. The series continuity was somewhat fluid, and it took Marv Wolfman a number of years to tie down what exactly the relationship was between Dracula and his antagonists.

But despite the overwrought dialogue, occasional crap comedy relief and contradictions in the plot, the series gained a uniquely creepy atmosphere, not so much a take-off of other Dracula films, or an integrated part of the Marvel Universe (despite the odd dischordant crossover), as a sinister creature all of its own.

The key to the series is something that only comics can really pull off: a character study that evolves over many years. No television series could really delve into a central character the way Tomb of Dracula could, and no production team could really work on the one thing for so long- and it’s rare even in comics today. Because of this, and because the vampire hunters could never truly win, as it would mean killing off the title character, the series’ horror became based entirely around one man’s deeds, in both the past and the present, and examined his limits, motives and justifications.

In short, the length of the work combined with the consistency of vision created something intriguing and engaging, even through the occasional duff issue. It was the overall arc that held it together, as thematically complete as a Bowie album.

     Feed

So, to follow on from last time, the main thing that got me to buy a recent Vertigo title was (i) a previously established character and (ii) a creator I really like. Interesting, because I’m sure I was reading somewhere that it’s this formula that contributes to Vertigo’s hits, i.e. a creator or a character with a strong fanbase. I’m not sure how true this is, mind, and certainly wouldn’t account for Fables‘ success.

Essentially, there is nothing that engages me in Vertigo’s recent crop of new titles. There have been a few other titles recently that I could see fitting in very well at Vertigo, ones that I’ve really enjoyed and started picking up after buying the first issue to try, but actually get published by Image: Phonogram, The Nightly News and The Walking Dead.

Un-Men, another Swamp Thing spin-off, recently hobbled out into the world. I didn’t get this one because I wasn’t interested in the theme-park freak premise, wasn’t familiar with the talent involved, and thought the sample pages in Hellblazer were unengaging. Crossing Midnight: Like some of Mike Carey’s work, dislike some. Not particularly interested in the Japanese/fantasy setting, so I passed.

Next, two Brian Wood titles: DMZ and Northlanders. I’ve heard good things about DMZ, but not to the point that I want to buy the first collection to see if I like it. I think I saw the first issue online somewhere, but the interface was so shitty I gave up. I’ll probably give this a try sooner or later. The viking-based story of the latter title, however, doesn’t interest me, so I’ll pass on that.

100 Bullets: Read a couple of collections, and a few individual issues, and just cannot get into it. Not for me. American Virgin: Really not interested in right-wing American teenagers. Army@Love: I think Rick Veitch is a very good writer, but at this point I’m too sickened by the Iraq occupation to be entertained by it.

In fact, the Vertigo titles I rate the highest that I’m in the process of buying regularly are actually in collection form: Absolute Sandman, Y: The Last Man and Fables. The latter title actually confirms something Christopher Butcher mentions in his article: I was happy to pay a chunk of money for the first collection off the back of exceptionally good word-of-mouth, as well as a first impression that this was the kind of thing that would interest me. What’s even more significant is that the first and second volumes aren’t even incredibly strong: they’re good, but it’s only with the third volume that I felt it started to justify the hype. So I must have spent almost £20 before I got well and truly hooked.

The best thing Vertigo ever did was offer up the first issue of Y: The Last Man for free online. Both my cohort Marcel and I were immediately engaged, and I know a number of people who had the same reaction. From my friendship group alone, that one free issue has guaranteed Vertigo around £180 worth of business (probably more) once all the collections have been published. I can’t imagine our experience has been unique. Of course, what helps is an incredibly intriguing premise and probably the best premier issue of any series I’ve ever read; certainly the most striking. How can you not want to find out what happens next? Not everything works out as well, of course. Their free first issue of Testament also convinced me to get the title, but before I could I found out it had been cancelled and decided against picking it up.

Whatever happens, next year will be an interesting one for the imprint.

     Feed

This quote from a recent post on Christopher Butcher’s Comics212 has prompted me to brew up a post I’ve been mulling over for a while:

Oh, and I outright don’t buy the argument that readers won’t sample a new IP (intellectual property) when it’s $20 rather than $3… They do it in every popular medium including dvds, cds, video games, movies, oh and BOOKS, like from bookstores. Between internet previews, magazine previews, advance reader copies, POP material and more, there’s plenty of ways to get the customer interested in your project well before it arrives in stores…

The article resonated with two things I’ve seen being talked about online recently, the apparent drop in circulation on comics from DC’s Vertigo imprint, and the big drop in sales between the first issue of a comic and the second. I’ll try and avoid confusing the general with the specific by commenting on my own buying habits rather than that of comics buyers as a group, and by leaving out the retailer’s side of things.

I’ve got a fair few Issue Ones bloating up the long boxes at the moment. While I’m loathe to bin comics on the grounds that I’m sure someone would like them, I suspect that on the next round of weeding there’s a lot of stuff due to meet its destiny either in a charity shop or a recycling facility. And while a lot of these first issues aren’t bad, but there are usually a variety of reasons why I didn’t get any others.

Take the recent Booster Gold series. I really, really enjoyed the first issue, in particular the way it seemed like a better continuation of 52 (a series I loved) than Countdown is. Any other time it would’ve gone on the pull list, but I just happened to be taking some other titles off at the time, so I didn’t carry on with it. I may well end up getting it in trade form at some point. And after all, it’s easy to pick up a single issue for, say, two quid than it is to make a £24 commitment over a year. Other first issues just stink, of course, or for one reason or another just don’t click with me. I can appreciate why people like Marvel Adventures: Iron Man, but it just isn’t for me. Now, with the recent Vertigo stuff, I haven’t even been picking up the first issues. I’m not saying the following reasons are true of everyone who buys comics, or the reason why Vertigo seems to be in decline, but they’re definitely why I haven’t been picking up any of their new stuff.

Let’s start with a recent Vertigo launch I have been buying. Significantly, this isn’t a new title, but a change in writing staff. Not long ago, I read that Scottish author Ian Rankin would be doing an arc on Hellblazer. Immediately, I was geared up to buy the comic. Rankin is high on my list of living writers, his Rebus books not just excellent crime novels, but extraordinary works full stop. As it turns out, I don’t know when (if ever) his Hellblazer stuff is due, but around the time I started to keep an eye on the title Andy Diggle came on.

I bought Andy Diggle’s run on Adam Strange completely randomly for bugger-all on eBay, and fucking loved it to the point that I was happy to pick up anything I see with his name on the cover. Having him come on Hellblazer at the same time I’d finished reading some of the early Jamie Delano stuff, along with Rick Veitch’s Swamp Thing run, was just good timing. So on the list it went.

More on this next time.

     Feed