I didn’t even realize half of these guys had died: “Top Ten Character Deaths of 2008”
A question for British readers: Is Spider-Man hyphenated on your side of the Atlantic, or is it spelled “Spiderman” like “Batman?” I assume the former, but this piece on the favorite superheroes of the cast of Demons made me wonder. I mean, you guys add e’s and u’s in places we Yanks don’t, so maybe you also subtract hyphens.
Has someone started writing a book on the “Reals” phenomenon yet?: Someone should pitch a publisher, get a big advance and start traveling the country and interviewing these folks. That’s my career advice to aspiring non-fiction writers with a background in journalism in the reading audience. Anyway, here’s another story about a Real. Willamette Weekly touches base with Zetaman, who they had previously featured in a cover story, for an end-of-the-year update piece.
You’re not sick of best-of lists yet, are you?: If not, you might want to check out Matthew Price’s list for The Oklahoman. He’s the second person I’ve seen refer to Supergirl as “most improved.”
Man impersonating The Odinson frightens varlet: In the burglar’s defense, who wouldn’t run when they saw a dude dressed only in tin foil coming at them?
This weekend’s must-read piece: Tom Spurgeon interviews Abhay Khosla, one of the Internet’s best writer’s about comics. Here he is discussing Secret Invasion, a topic he devoted quite a bit of attention to this past year:
The biggest comic company in the country’s highest profile series of the year was about religious fanatics blowing themselves up because their religion tells them they’re entitled to a specific parcel of occupied property, where the heroes tell the religious people that the heroes’ white-skinned God will lead them to victory, where the happy ending was that the Marvel heroes kill all of the religious people and that a religious woman has her head blown off mid-prayer. What were they even trying to do?? What did I even read, Comics Reporter? How was that the ending? It’s such a weird comic book. And comic fans make it stranger because most of them seem to think a one-panel Obama cameo is the only politically charged material in the book. People don’t think mainstream comics might mean things! People think mainstream comic creators are brainless fanboys just because mainstream comic fans are brainless fanboys. It’s a bizarre culture.
But look: does anyone want to hear the opinion of Marvel comic book fans on the Middle East peace process? Me neither times infinity.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Top Cow recently published a story recently very similar to Reals in their latest Pilot Season contest, called Twighlight Guardian. Personally, I didn’t think it was very good, but it got enough votes to get started as an ongoing if I remember correctly.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
The entry for The Wasp in that deaths list is sheer brilliance.
And with Abomination being dead, that means Rick Jones is dead too, yeah? There wasn’t much general mention of that especially given his history with the likes of Captain Marvel.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
We Brits hyphenate re: Spider-Man, but then we don’t eviscerate the English language (normally).
January 4th, 2009 at 1:48 am
And again, Abhay Khosla shows the kind of contempt that a lot of “comics critics” have for the readers. We know that President-Elect Obama still collects Spider-Man and old Conan comics. Therefore, he’s a Marvel Comics fan. Shouldn’t we kind of want to hear what he thinks about the Middle East peace process? Khosla comes off as elitist and insulting, directing his ire at the fans. I haven’t read his writings on Secret Invasion, but I wonder what he makes of the fact that Bendis is Jewish in light of his observations.