Unless you were in an isolation tank this weekend, you were bound to hear something about the premiere of Iron Man. And I’m sure some of you had a distant relative politely inform you they heard on the news that some store was giving away free comics and asking you if you knew anything about that. Given the understandable popularity of both topics, I decided to pull multiple related quotes on both Iron Man and Free Comic Book Day (FCBD). First up, some reactions to the Iron Man movie. Please be advised, if you follow the links some of these reviews have major spoilers in them. Major. You are warned. And if you’re a fan of Flickr, this search for the term “Free Comic Book Day” turns up some fun photos.

“The movie is great. They did a terrific job of translating the screenplay to the screen (not always a guaranteed endeavor, I can assure you) and Robert Downey, Jr., the first thinking man’s superhero, took Tony Stark to a whole ‘nother level with his deftly brilliant performance. The rest of the cast brings their ‘A’ game, but it’s Downey’s heroic journey that both anchors and elevates the movie. An absolute must-see.”
- Peter David, a writer of great depth and versatility, dipping from the “must-see” well of phrases. I tease. But be sure to read the entire post as the best part is the play-by-play of his red carpet stroll at the premiere.

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Frederic Wertham–still dead–still a hot topic. And folks continue to recover from NYCC. But at least we have apes in our future…

“From a writing standpoint, certain names lend themselves to the monkeyverse more easily than others. For instance: Spider-Monkey is just too perfect not to use. And, personally, I got a kick out of Iron Paw (who can make his paw like unto a thing of iron!). Captain America, on the other hand, is still called Captain America. Not Captain APE-merica. No need to insult him. Believe me, you don’t WANT to insult him…”
- Karl Kesel, revealing the wit that one hopes is prevalent in the upcoming Marvel Apes limited series.

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For my money, the best quote is the first one and I only wished it could have been said much sooner. Kudos to the legal team and everyone at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for this long overdue justice. A majority of the quotes this week deals with comics and kids (but not as some subtextual odd celebration of the Gordon Lee case resolution, I promise). And the Galactus quote is something all kids should be taught.

“All charges are dismissed. Gordon’s nightmarish ordeal is finally over…

A clean win is a clean win. And this is a very clean win.”
- Charles Brownstein, confirming that the persecut–er prosecution of Gordon Lee had ended.

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This was the week where the number of people debating the flaws and merits of a fellow dead since 1981 (Frederic Wertham) outpaced the seemingly countless supply of folks wishing to share why they were not reading Mark Waid/George Perez’s Brave and Bold series (or weighing in with displeasure about a cartoon of the same name that no one has yet to see). On the positive side, at least we weren’t taking to the webpages of Slate to debate the size or scope of Power Girl’s cleavage-centric costume hole.

“Art Spiegelman’s Maus is of course a modern classic with a very striking cover, appropriately reminiscent of a World War II poster. But I had a student once who said a man on the subway gave her the evil eye for reading it, possibly motivated by the swastika on the cover. (Or could it be that the man was an anti-Semite?)”
- Jeet Heer, charting the ways and means of Eyebrow Raising Book Covers

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This week legal blogs across the Internet learned if they could weigh in on the Siegel/Action Comics 1 developments they could ensure fairly strong traffic. But for me, attention must be paid to the comic creators who mock B.F. Skinner’s plotting skills and a presidential candidate’s bowling acumen.

“I will ask that, rather than purchase Secret Invasion # 1, use the money to buy an indie/small print comic. You will thank me for it later. Honest.”
- Gordon Dymowski, asking consumers to just say “No” to Skrulls.

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No matter what quotes I found this week, I just really cannot compete with the exchange of opinions/infinite monkey theorem experiment that began on Friday evening. So without further delay, the quotes that caught my interest.

“I ask to all those with their negative comments to try and exude some class and respect for a man that truly loved his family and worked so incredibly hard to create works of art for millions of people to enjoy. Lets not forget that no one, INCLUDING YOURSELVES, are perfect- we all try as best we can.”
- Katherine (Vince Colletta’s granddaughter), bringing a much-needed perspective from Eddie Campbell’s comments section, which Campbell in turn reposted to draw greater focus on her thoughts.

“Why would the Fantastic Four contact Iron Man for anything? I could see Mr. Fantastic calling up Tony Stark to bounce technical ideas and theories off him, but Iron Man…? The only things Iron Man brings to the table are repulsor rays and rocket skates. There’s absolutely no reason the FF would need Iron Man for anything.”
- Sean Kleefeld, defining his hate for Iron Man and working in an alliterative reference to Shellhead’s rocket skates.

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Every week when mining the Internet for quotable gold, I stumble across myriad opinions and discussions that when boiled down to their core essence reveal themselves to be fairly petty. Fortunately, that’s not what I link to this week. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

“*Civil War* and I are no longer on speaking terms.”
- fellow Blog@ contributor Kevin Melrose, honing a fine rendition of faux petty

“Children loved most the very comics that [Frederic] Wertham and his ilk thought were especially harmful, in part because these comics possessed the true unruly spirit of youth. The childish imagination is nurtured not just by wholesome and didactic stories, but also by tales of bloodshed and vengeance, which bring good and evil vividly to life. Children need monsters and ghouls just as surely as they require parents and teachers.”
- Jeet Heer, looking back at 1950s America, when it clearly was not a simpler time, in his review of David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America

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Another week of strong opinions and interesting Vince Colletta anecdotes. Sadly also a week where we lost a great artist, Dave Stevens. But it’s not all sadness, as we even have a quote from Client 9.

“There are a lot of awful, awful graphic novels coming out these days. Whoever’s guarding the gate, be it retailers, journalists, ‘journalists’, whatever, I beg you; be discerning in your praise, don’t pass along PR without having vetted the project yourself, stand behind your recommendations and, if you can’t, own up to your mistakes.”
- Christopher Butcher, trying to build a metaphorical dam to cut off a flood of awful graphic novels

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What kind of a week has it been? In terms of quotes, a writer who is known for his ear for dialogue found himself explaining that what he had written on his own message board had to be taken within the context of smiley faces. Are you still a serious writer if your major line of defense is a smiley face? [note MY smiley face, please]

Oh Lord, will the future generations have to minor in emoticons, rather than semiotics, to be literary scholars? In all seriousness, kudos to Bendis for ultimately posting an apology and doing his best to move on in the most constructive manner. Is the whole dust-up worthy of quoting here? No. But many people were quoting the discussion this week, even after the initial message board thread was deleted. So this week’s collection of quotes may be stuff you missed while noticing the presence or lack thereof of smiley faces…

“A superhero costume is a concept, not a piece of clothing. As soon as you try to translate it into actual garments, no matter how well you do, it’s still a failure because there was nothing there, in a sense, to reproduce.”
- Michael Chabon, clearly thinking far more about superhero costumes than your average fellow, in an audio supplement to his original Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory essay for the March 8, 2008, issue of the New Yorker. Also worth a listen for Chabon’s admission that he consulted his five- and 10-year-old sons to confirm the Beast is a barefoot character.

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“I could relate my thrilling trajectory as a comics consumer… how stories set in Riverdale left me with a completely inflated sense of the centrality of the malt shop in teen life… how I believed for some time that the comics medium could offer no greater spectacle than Valkyrie quelling a riot in a women’s prison in an old issue of The Defenders… how I realized somewhat belatedly that habits are unhealthy and hobbies should be fun and took steps to expand my comic-reading horizons. But you’ve heard that trajectory described a million times, and my version is probably even more boring than the average.”

- David P. Welsh, being anything but boring with his first Flipped column in its new home at The Comics Reporter

“There were assorted times during the thread when somebody would nominate a story or a sequence that i thought was just utter rubbish, and I’d despair a bit, and hope for somebody else to come along and knock it down. But it all shows that everybody’s tastes are just a little bit different, and even the crummiest comic books appeal to somebody.”

- Tom Brevoort, reflecting upon the 10 Marvel Classics “audience participation” thread trends (And fostering some interesting discussion with that post and a few other of that ilk in the past week)

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This post marks my official debut…and yet in a way it is a return, as I wrote for The Great Curve back in the days of Alex Segura and Chris Hunter. With this column, I’m feeling the “great power/great responsibility” vibe as I take on a column previously done by Kevin Melrose. Kevin, who has his plate full doing myriad other things for this blog and elsewhere, is a person who I have always respected immensely for his wit, intelligence and insight. For that matter, I find myself honored to be joining this blog as it consists of a group of people that brings a depth and perspective on comics (plus a periodic dose of skepticism) that is much needed. Of course, other folks offer up opinions with great depth and perspective (as well as some not so great…) that are worth noting–in this column. I won’t get all the snippets worth quoting, though, and when I do miss a good one, please do me a favor and mention it in the comments section. I hope to do well, but with the help of this blog’s comments regulars, I assume I can do better.

“Clearly, there’s only one cheerleader that can live up to those standards.That’s right, folks: It’s Isis, the captain of the East Compton High School Clovers, the greatest cheerleader in Bring It On history. And with her often-imitated, never-duplicated cheerleading skills and a squad that includes both LaFred and Jenelope, it’s not hard to see how she parallels Orson Randall and his Confederates of the Curious.”

- Chris Sims (of Invincible Super-Blog), both celebrating Bring It On week and reviewing The Immortal Iron Fist: Orson Randall and the Green Mist of Death at the same time

“Comics don’t always have to be ambitious to be worth one’s time. When people stressed the value of the disposable element of comics 10 years ago, it sounded like a defense mechanism for crap. And yet with a lot of different kinds of comics falling off the face of the earth, or at least withdrawing from easy distribution and even the barest hint of financial viability they had once upon a time, I’m thinking we can need all the little overpriced handouts with dumb jokes we can find.”

- Tom Spurgeon, making a larger point in his CR Review of the mini-comic, Bug Infested Comics #5

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Friends and fans of Steve Gerber around the internet are posting their thoughts and memories about the man that brought us Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown and Thundarr the Barbarian:

“Within a year’s time I was a serious fan girl, with long boxes and a subscription to THE BUYER’S GUIDE, as it was then known. I knew which issue The Vulture had debuted in and who inked Thor #232. While I filled my mind with all that useless information there was one other thing that I knew for sure: any comics that had ‘Written by Steve Gerber’ in the credits was going to be good. It was going to be more than good. It was going to be a story that was funny, dark, exciting and filled with a knowledge of the mysteries of the human heart that no other writer of the time could match.”

Heidi McDonald

“Steve Gerber was a giant. Is a giant.”

–Warren Ellis

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“It’s a movement in which males and females more or less equally participate. It’s a movement that is racially inclusive. It’s a movement in which consumer participation and customization is essential. It’s a movement not about collecting but experiencing. It’s a movement complete with a whimsical aesthetic that I am only beginning to understand.

“And whether Peter Parker is married or not or Batman is Bruce Wayne or not makes not the single whit of difference to them.”

– blogger Valerie D’Orazio, on the “youth movement” vibe at the New York Anime Festival

“I had a dream last night that the creator of Aqualad (who I think is Robert Bernstein, or a tag-team effort between Robert and Ramona Fradon) was struggling to stand up amid a crowd of angry people. I looked at him helplessly and noticed that he was visibly very similar to Aqualad himself, in that he had black, curly hair and a red shirt, and I suddenly felt very guilty about redesigning his beloved character to look like an awkward fish boy.

“Not that I’d change anything, but I felt really, really bad about it for a minute.”

– artist Karl Kerschl, who redesigned Aqualad for the Teen Titans: Year One miniseries

“It’s good to know that if [Batman] ever fought Osama bin Laden he’d hit him with a Batarang and drop him off at Arkham Asylum. The Joker has killed a lot more people than al Qaeda, and it’s good to know the Justice League is OK with that. Because God knows the thing that matters is that they keep their hands sparkly-clean. You know, if I were President of DC-Earth, I’d make a point of telling Superman that he could crush the Joker’s head. Not, you know, to go out of his way or anything, just, if it ever came up, please feel free.”

– blogger Tim O’Neil, annoyed by The Joker

“Just because someone carries a gun doesn’t make him a bad person.”

– writer Ed Brubaker, on the new, gun-toting Captain America

“As writers and creators continue to pour into our industry (taking jobs from the writers who have been doing it for years, mind you), the amount of content the publishers are producing is skyrocketing, which means two things: They’re spending more and taking more risks, AND, with more books in the marketplace, less units of each title are being sold, forcing us to rely on the licensing as opposed to making it an additional income source. With all eggs being put into the Hollywood basket, what happens when Hollywood stops calling?”

– writer Jason M. Burns, worried about a souring of the relationship between comics and Hollywood

A collection of interesting quotes from this week:

“Aunt May is very old. And her husband is dead. I just want you to consider that before you do anything crazy like trade your life as you know it for hers. I know you love her. We all do. But seriously, she is, like, what? 150 years old now? She probably wants to die. And she certainly doesn’t want you throwing your life away so she can live the last six months or whatever of hers.

“Also, incidentally, your comic books suck.”

– blogger Rachelle Goguen, in her message to Spider-Man

“The character designs — what is it that makes them so appealing? I can’t figure it out. ‘Appealing’ is the only word that seems to fit — they’re not ‘cute,’ exactly, or ‘pretty,’ or ‘dynamic,’ or at least, insofar as they are, that’s not what I like about them. They’re the visual equivalent of a catchy song: they draw the eye and hold it. Even long before I read the manga or watched the anime, I saw Naruto-related art all over the internet, and it was always distinctive and attractive. Masashi Kishimoto certainly has the ‘it factor’.”

– blogger Katherine Farmar, finally giving in to Naruto

“I’m sure that it exists to some degree, but I saw no negativity, no beefs, no snark, no rivalries. It was just this great show where comics are art, and I use that word properly, not capital-A art or art with finger quotes around it but a legitimate art form, like it should be everywhere. Imagine an industry that’s truly balanced, where the overall output resembles more the catalog from First Second than it does the Marvel insert in Previews. Where instead of being stuck in a warehouse convention center somewhere, the show warrants an immense outdoor set-up in one of the most beautiful medieval cities in Europe?”

– writer Brian Wood, on the comics festival in Lucca, Italy

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A collection of interesting quotes from this week:

“Just because Marvel’s comics have a shitty interface or an unwanted run of Gambit comics doesn’t validate my pirating their stuff, it doesn’t excuse or justify it or give me any moral or ethical high-ground. If I’m stealing their IP then I’m a thief, and I either make my peace with that or I don’t, and stop stealing.”

– blogger and retailer Christopher Butcher, on torrenting and entitlement

“I simply can’t stress enough how shortsighted, how ignorant, how goddamned lunkheaded DC and Marvel are being right now. They aren’t just shooting themselves in the foot like other media companies; they’re shooting themselves in the head. Internet downloading and the word-of-mouth generated by it has been quietly driving their business for the last couple of years now and they want to kill it. It’s just staggering.”

– blogger Christopher Bird, on word that DC and Marvel have sent cease-and-desist letters to a popular torrent site

“Frankly, the problem with American comics is that they were too conservative. They lacked the courage to go fully with the creator-owned model to the extent that Japanese publishers have. The American publishing companies are corporate-owned, and they go with this mindset that they’ll ‘reinvent Spider-Man for every generation.’ You can’t read every issue of Spider-Man that’s come out since 1963 and read it all the way from then to the present — that’s just ridiculous and impossible to do.

“And maybe that’s what some people want. They want a story that they can just drop into at any point. But I think that it’s much, much more rewarding to read and follow a complete story and to identify the story with the artist, not just the character.”

– Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, comparing American and Japanese comics

“What’s great, and rather unique, about comics is that we’re a small concern, financially. No one is sinking tens of millions of dollars into a new monthly series like they would a film, so the freedom is so much greater. A creator can see his vision realized just like it is in his head, not after being rewritten by a bunch of hacks, edited mercilessly, and filtered through a bunch of producers and a director. I have a feeling if I tried to write for Hollywood I’d be stressed out and driven mad within weeks.”

– writer-artist Brian Wood, on comics storytelling

“I was just always amazed that people used to rag on my movies. Nobody really acknowledged the fact that [Batman] was slightly different at the time from other comic book movies. So lay off, will you? They would get on my case all the time and it’s still kind of that way today.”

– director Tim Burton, on criticism of his Batman movies

A collection of interesting quotes from this week:

“Of all the comics published over the course of 2007, could this really have been one of the worst? Really? I understand if people didn’t like it, if they didn’t respond to what we were going for, or plum didn’t have a good time while reading it … but does it really fail on every level one can aspire to when creating comics? Is it illegible? Unreadable? Insulting to the readers’ collective intelligence?”

– writer Marc Bernardin, on the first issue of The Highwaymen appearing on a list of the “worst comics of the year”

“Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men comic, a title that exists solely because Joss Whedon and John Cassady have enough of a grip on the nerd festival that they could get Marvel to publish a comic where USAgent spent 22 pages making out with Fin Fang Foom, is pretty much the holy archetype comic of all time. Every issue has clever dialog and big booming fights, and it’s pretty comprehensible even though it only comes out every three months or so. That means it’s supposed to be really good, right? Yet it still seems to lack a bit of the soul and imagination that shows up in lesser books. It might have something to do with it being about the X-Men, a family of characters that’s about as unwelcoming to an uninformed reader as a watching untranslated French soap operas would be to a confused Dallas Cowboys fan. Or maybe it’s just that Joss Whedon and John Cassady are both a little better than this kind of stale tripe, and their lack of ability to disguise their condescension comes across too aggressively.”

– blogger Tucker Stone, in his review of Astonishing X-Men #23

“I think they’re pretty good at it. Like anything, it’s a challenge, when you’re selling books all over the world, to keep records like that. But I think they’re pretty good.

“One proof of that is that recently we felt our market share was increasing and that was reflected in Diamond’s reporting. Our market share is going up this year, which is great. So, I may be more skeptical of Diamond’s numbers if we’re, like, ‘Hey, our sales are going up, how come your information isn’t reflecting that?’ But it is. So, I think it’s pretty on the money.”

– Dirk Wood, director of marketing for Dark Horse, on the accuracy of the Diamond sales charts

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A collection of interesting quotes from the previous week:

“Now, in Zudas tiniest defense, when I orginally pitched the J & Jesus screens for ‘This American Strife,’ I was told to modify certain things to make it kosher enough to have it public. However, I changed these ‘questionables‘ and re-drew every panel in accordance to their requests. But to have weeks go by and then release ‘This American Strife’ with such a crucial, non-disclosed edit is lame. So lame. So lame and disrespectful to one of their selected artists prompted to help premiere and promote their site . . . I cant help but feel a bit offended, agitated, and slighted.”

J. Longo, one of the first Zuda contestants, on a missing page from his submission, This American Strife

“We were a casualty of the change in Editorial at DC that came right at the time we finished the book, really. Elseworlds was on it’s way out to begin with, and I was told our story would confuse fans of the new Titans series, despite the fact that there were two competing versions of the Teen Titans at the time, and nobody seemed too baffled. Honestly, I think the story was simply too weird for them.”

Jay Stephens, on the Teen Titans’ Swingin’ Elseworlds Story that’ll finally see print as the Teen Titans Lost Annual

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A collection of interesting quotes from the previous week:

“It’s fun to write a stupid protagonist because you don’t really have to know anything.”

Bryan Lee O’Malley, talking about the title character in the Scott Pilgrim books

“… DC shouldn’t be aiming this at me; they should be aiming this at folks who aren’t reading comics yet but could possibly be talked into it.”

Matt Maxwell on Zuda

“I think that Webcomic collectives are the new garage bands. Everyone plays an instrument and you look for people to develop a sound with. We all got together and started jamming one a week and realized, ‘holy crap, guys… this sounds GOOD. We should take this on the road.’”

Scott Kurtz, on the recently formed Halfpixel

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