“You can tell that Johns is trying very hard to write something that doesn’t just lie there on the page, and in these troubled times, that counts for much with me”: Johnny Bacardi has an excellent review of the beginning of Geoff Johns’ Blackest Night event/story, made all the more interesting by the fact that Bacardi explains that he isn’t exactly a huge fan of Green Lantern, or of continuity-heavy event books, or of superhero decadence, or of Geoff Johns’ plotting, but still found himself admiring “the scope and the lurid drive of the thing.”
“Who…wants to read this crap? Whose idea of a hero is a NPR commentator in a swimsuit?”: Noah Berlatsky is still reviewing his way through the Wonder Woman catalog, and he’s really not into the Greg Rucka run, as that quote no doubt indicates (and it’s one of the nicer assessments of Rucka’s Wonder Woman-as-celebrity/political figure take in Berlatsky’s piece). I say it depends on the NPR commentator, are we talking Daniel Schorr or Kevin Kling? Kathryn Yu or Baxter Black?
Speaking of NPR…: Their Lynn Neary recently profiled artist Tim Hamilton’s graphic novel adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451. You can give it a read and/or listen here.
“All of this serves once again to make the company…continue to look like a slow-moving behemoth, incapable of making decisions, compared with the new kid on the block, Marvel Comics”: In a blog post for The Guardian, Ben Child discusses Warner Brothers’ reluctance to formally, officially announce the next Batman movie, and wonders why they’re having such relative trouble making a Superman, Wonder Woman or another Batman movie. Personally, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Hal Jordan is going to end up beating Wonder Woman to the silver screen.
“The two faces of Condi and Michelle”: In a post at Real Clear Politics, Tom Bevan discusses the way that former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was depicted by political cartoonists “with all of her features exaggerated in the most unflattering—and, let’s be honest, racist —way,” while First Lady Michelle Obama gets off easier. He presents some examples, but I’m not convinced there’s a double standard at work here, since there’s a much simpler explanation—as first national security advisor to President George W. Bush and then his secretary of state, Rice was a much more powerful figure than a first lady. Something interesting for political cartoonist observers to think about, anyway.
“The first female G.I. Joe action nurse is produced, which turned out to not be popular”: The Chicago Tribune offers a timeline of G.I. Joe history, from the 1941 comic strip to next month’s live-action movie.
August 1st, 2009 at 9:10 am
Geez, how does someone not like the Rucka Wonder Woman run? My only frustration with it is that after the first 6 issues it becomes a more traditional superhero/adventure/mythology book when I wanted him to keep running with the political stuff.
The premise that Wonder Woman’s mission was more than just punching the Cheetah now and again and that by punching the Cheetah more than doing anything else she was basically failing in it was really interesting.
August 1st, 2009 at 10:27 am
Considering the rest of Berlatsky’s commentary, I find anything he says about the character a bit hard to take seriously. He has a somewhat creepy obsession with the bondage fetishism of the original stories and the backup in issue 200 he describes as “delightful” sounds horrible. I mean, the pacing was certainly a bit off in Rucka’s first arc, but I thought it was fascinating to see someone take the notion of Diana as an ambassador completely literally. Even if it didn’t always work, at least it was something original.
(I also love the one comment posted by one of his readers complaining that Rucka’s now writing about “lesbian superheroines” in Detective so he won’t read it. Really, if “she’s a lesbian” all you’re taking away from his Batwoman work, just go back to reading Hulk or something, but I guess that’s a different discussion.)
August 1st, 2009 at 11:47 am
J. Caleb Mozzocco wrote:
“I’m not convinced there’s a double standard at work here, since there’s a much simpler explanation—as first national security advisor to President George W. Bush and then his secretary of state, Rice was a much more powerful figure than a first lady.”
As a Black person, I have to side with Tom Bevan. It’s well known that White Democrat cartoonists don’t consider Black Republicans to be “really Black.” So, it doesn’t shock me that Republican Rice is racially stereotyped while Democrat Michelle Obama isn’t. The same is true in comics as demonstrated by Reggie Hudlin’s run on Black Panther.
The real shocker is if a cartoonist portrays a Black Republican (real or fictional) in a respectful manner. That maybe explain why the title character of the series, Icon, caused a stirred when he debuted back in the 1990s:
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Augustus_Freeman_(Dakotaverse)
August 1st, 2009 at 1:02 pm
“Geez, how does someone not like the Rucka Wonder Woman run?”
By reading it?
August 1st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I’m sure Noah Berlatsky is a very nice guy, but I think I’ve disagreed with almost every single thing he’s ever written regarding comic books. “Who would want to read this crap?”, casting aspersions not just on the work but on the people who enjoy the work, is a rhetorical argument that fails on me every time.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:12 pm
“Who would want to read this crap?”, casting aspersions not just on the work but on the people who enjoy the work, is a rhetorical argument that fails on me every time.
I hope no one takes my out-of-context quote of his piece as the entirety of his argument, as it doesn’t really do it justice. I just pulled out that part so I could make a joke about Daniel Schorr in a swimsuit. Also, I ellipsed-d out an expletive.
Personally I read Rucka’s run and didn’t get too bored of it until near the end, but I don’t think it holds a candle to the original stuff (but then, nothing that’s followed the Marston/Peter stuff does). Huge-headed humunchulus Dr. Psycho on stage in a tuxedo summoning ectoplasmic manifestions and just cold hating on women trumps all later Psychos easy, even Simone’s in Villains United/Secret Six (who could be a lot of fun).
August 1st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Berlatsky was interesting when I first started reading that blog, and had some interesting points, but he just got tiresome after a while, with the seeming need to constantly keep up the same level of one-note high dudgeon in his rants, like a need to constantly keep pumping away at masturbating his temper.
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