So this week, we found out that Lois Lane and abortion were once discussed in a very strange sense. And as much as I’d love to link to esoteric Grant Morrison hero worship (his writing just seems to attract this kind of praise), these are the quotes I chose to reflect the past week.
“You know, because you can compare a corporate franchise like Superman, a creator-owned property like Jesse Custer whose influence is limited to Preacher, and motherfucking ART SPIEGELMAN’S DAD.”
“I’d like to see Catwoman over the Penguin. Not as a prostitute, and not as the Tim Burton version — what, cats sniffed her back to life? — but perhaps the Adam Hughes design, with the goggles. That’s very realistic. I can imagine her in street clothes that are designed just right. I also like the idea of them creating villains just for the movies.”
- Steve Niles positing who would make a great villain for the next (potential) Nolan/Bale Bat-flick
“Quick aside: Wouldn’t you love to see AMERICAN IDOL open auditions in Gotham City? Paula would be mistaken for the Joker.”
- Ken Levine mixing the world of Gotham with the world of Idol. (Thanks to Blog@’s Tom Bondurant for leading me to this gem)
“I love creating work that can be enjoyed by my four year old and my grandfather. Anything that can be enjoyed together is a big deal for me. I personally enjoy that type of work and want to reflect that. Some of the challenges are connecting with the wider audience. There’s that stereotype that “all-ages” means “kid stuff”, but I think that it’s slowing beginning to shift, I think, a large part, thanks to Pixar.”
- Josh Alves trying to break away from the all ages stereotype
“I’m a firm believer in the Joss Whedon approach– if things are tense and you make a joke it’s funnier, and if you’re telling jokes and than something horrible happens its even more horrible. I think that’s a great way to write stories.”
- Karl Kesel achieving the balance between writing comedy and drama, in this instance, as it applies to the upcoming Marvel Apes project
“As a gesture of our apology and deep respect for the folks at MAD Magazine, we are creating a cross-departmental task force to study the importance of humor in the corporate workplace and expect the resulting Powerpoint presentation to top out at least 300 pages, chock full of charts, graphs and company action plans.”
- Jim Babb, PR fellow for Circuit City, showing a sense of humor while trying to do damage control after a satire of the retailer in the most recent issue of MAD magazine prompted an overzealous Circuit City employee to issue a destroy order on its copies of the magazine
“Oh, sure, it’s a good likeness of her and the fact that Captain America and Dr. Strange are playing guitars behind her is chuckle-worthy. But I think it’s more entertaining to see C-3PO playing drums behind them!”
- Sean Kleefeld marveling at the old 1970s Pizzazz magazine (and in this case a Linda Ronstadt cover with a super back-up band
“We can complain today about comics with immense splash pages or double-spreads and how decompressed storytelling leads to comic books that take five minutes to read, and if you’re being testy you can partially lay that at the feet of Byrne’s big double-page spreads. But to be fair, every panel mattered in these early X-Men, and Byrne’s spreads were not simply to speed up the pace or to take up room, but instead provided us with a widescreen panoramic snapshot of the amazing, spectacular, and uncanny world these trouble four-color heroes occupy.”
- Bully paying tribute to Byrne’s X-Men work and his double-page spreads in particular
August 11th, 2008 at 4:50 am
If fairness, Tim, Final Crisis hasn’t attracted anything like the kind of praise Amy is heaping upon it, even if Morrison’s previous work has, so I think there’s room for a loving rant. In fact, I think it’s quite misleading to frame what Amy’s written purely as praise, and downright naughty to describe it as hero worship. A term which has a number of highly negative connotations, especially when it comes to critical discourse.
It seems to me that what Amy’s attempting to do is provide the audience with a tool kit for appreciating Final Crisis. A way of looking at the comic that emphasises its pleasurable aspects rather than its weaknesses. Some people might think that a good work of art shouldn’t require advocacy of this sort, or might be inclined to reject any prescriptive approach to understanding a text, but there is unarguably a long tradition of this kind of thing within the world of critical thinking. Hey, and sometimes it’s nice to get a few pointers.
Sure, along the way he has some fairly dismissive things to say about some of the commonly heard criticisms (and in true Amy style those putting them forward) but that’s because he feels that what’s good about the book is significantly more interesting than what isn’t.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Is it cool to hate FC? I wouldn’t expect this kind of group think from Blog@
August 11th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I’m not sure group think is in evidence, or even FC hate, for that matter
August 11th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Honestly, I really almost linked to it describing it as “roughly edited criticism”, as Amy herself suggested it might need some tweaking, Zom. And it clearly clicked with you as evidenced here (http://mindlessones.com/2008/08/08/a-few-thoughts-about-final-crisis/#comment-1056). But I thought “esoteric Grant Morrison hero worship” was more apt. The placement of adjectives makes it confusing. Am I saying she’s worshiping Morrison or am I saying she’s worshiping the hero dynamics he constructs? Um, maybe both?
But really, I linked to Amy’s writing because while it did not click with me, I’m willing to bet there are Morrison fans who would totally agree with analysis like this:
“I do want to make it clear that when I say strange I do not mean ‘weird’. ‘weird’ has, in comicbook forum speak, become a ghastly shorthand for ‘I dinnert get it. It was shit.’ No, when I say strange, I mean the sense of a looming, reality rending otherness – impossible emotions, gleaming technologies of the soul, sideways worlds and the sense that consensus reality is just a hair’s breadth away from slipping into the chasm of the Pony-dogs. Strange is that eerie feeling that something isn’t quite right with the world, that unfathomable glint in Superman’s eye, the vast abysses of Apokalips and towering gardens of New Genesis. Grant Morrison knows strange, he’s taken the LSD and met the nu-rave aliens, just like all the best sci-fi writers and rock bands, and, however prudish you might be, you can’t tell me those who’ve tasted it aren’t in the best position to sell it. Final Crisis is like the first wave of the trip when the veil is pulled back on the pedestrian reality you thought you knew and Wonderwoman and the rest are revealed as the blazing gods that somewhere in the back of your mind you always thought they were, but due to years of lazy, uninspired writing you forgot.”
Amy clearly had a blast writing this piece, Zom. And in blog terms, any piece that generates 26 comments (at present) is clearly clicking with folks. And as I parenthetically pointed out, Morrison elicits this kind of analysis on a regular basis. I just did not quote it because I could not single out one thing to quote that did it justice. (Is that praise? I guess.)
Zonked!, I’m not quite sure when I expressed hate toward FC. I haven’t actually read it. I’m reading Morrison’s Batman. A few months back I convinced a fellow shopper in a used book store to buy an Animal Man TPB. Doom Patrol is in my top 5. It’s just that, Morrison has a fan base that is inspired to indulge in such opinions as http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/06/10/comics-you-should-own-flex-mentallo/#comment-110113
“Flex Mentallo… best. comic. ever. It eclipses even the mighty Watchmen, for me, but you *do* need to be a hardcore comics nerd to fully love it, I guess.
Reading this comic gave me some kind of bizarre high. Flex Mentallo ate my brain and changed my life. I will forever adore it. It deserves a trade collection.”
Judd Winick only wishes his writing could eat someone’s brain. Morrison praise taps a subdivision in the fourth world. Worlds build and collapse, Warren Ellis message boards open and close in between the sands of Morrison praise time. Oh christ, now I’m doing it.
Bottom line. No hate for the FC. (But man I hate the OC) Just no interest on my end in FC at present.
Gosh, I randomly decide to link to a post that includes the line “Christ, I even know fuck all about the New Gods.” and suddenly I’m part of some buzzwords like group think. My mom wouldn’t let me join the scouts, so to be inducted in group think and get married in the same week, man life is rich.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Thanks for responding, Tim. On the topic of roughly edited criticism, I initially asked Amy to give it a thorough edit but ultimately decided that that would be in some way against the spirit of the piece. It’s supposed to be a gushing rant, but a gushing rant that contains clear purpose and a chunk of perspicacity.
August 11th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I say, I say, the goggled Catwoman design is from Darwyn Cooke, not AH!