Spider-Man: The Short Halloween

Written by Bill Hader and Seth Meyers

Art by Kevin Maguire

Published by Marvel Comics

This one passed me by when it first came out earlier this year. As a special Halloween treat, let’s look back at this delightful one-shot. How often is it that you have “Saturday Night Live” veterans writing a superhero comic? Is it possible that Bill Hader and Seth Meyers are the first? I think so but I’d be happy to learn that there’s like some Chevy Chase script about Wonder Woman out there or maybe Al Franken’s take on Wolverine.

Hader and Meyers opt to be respectful and even include a reverential recap on how Spider-Man got his powers just in case you’re from some other planet. The story finds Spider-Man in typical fashion, pursuing a baddie. But that’s perfectly fine as we ease into some offbeat and often hilarious writing. It’s easy to see that Hader and Meyers love comics and the people who read them. The title itself, “Spiderman: The Short Halloween,” is a geek in-joke referring to Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s “Batman: The Long Halloween.” And the story, well it’s not some obvious satire. No, it’s actually a little masterpiece involving mistaken identity and, in the bargain, a clever juxtaposition of the weird world of superheroes and us average citizens.

In some ways, you feel like you can’t cross a line with Spider-Man. Peter Parker is as average as you can get. He’s forever fighting for his well-earned cash from The Man, J. Jonah Jameson. Who can’t relate to that? And, as Spider-Man, the guy gets no respect. What’s not to love? Hader and Meyers appear to feel the same way and give you a story where Joe Average gets to take center stage and we consider his problems. And the villains, they’re average too. Actually, they’re below average. And Spider-Man is totally enmeshed in this.

You can really take this mistaken identity thing to new heights. What happens is that the real Spider-Man is quite accidentally knocked out while confronting a third-rate wannabe villain. At the same time, a drunk in a Spider-Man costume, who happens to have a great Spider-Man costume and a credible build, is being hauled around by two of his buddies after a Halloween night that has gone wrong. As the drunk Spider-Man careens down a corner and collapses by a dumpster, the real Spider-Man heroically falls out from the sky and crashes into a heap nearby. So, the buddies haul the real Spider-Man into their apartment. And the awkward villain makes off with the drunk Spider-Man to show off to the rest of his crew of lame baddies.

I love it every time New York gets to be a character in a Spider-Man story. I  prefer the offbeat and the more domestic and talky stuff and how it can play off the superhero stuff. That’s always been an important part of Spider-Man and it’s carried off here with a lot of authentic dialogue and some very natural action. For example, the drunk Spider-Man’s life is a mess with his girlfriend ready to leave him. Finally getting past his friends, she is more than ready to go through “the talk” with him as he lays on a couch. Having said what she needs to say, she feels some regret and goes to kiss his hand. And, with perfect comedic timing, that’s when Spider-Man’s webbing shoots into her face. It’s a scene done with such skill since it’s so in the moment.

What keeps the writing so in the moment too is the amazing art by Kevin Maguire. His realism mixed with cartoony flourish is a perfect match. From the start, you know that Fumes, the clumsy villain, is more like us than Doctor Octopus. He has that face. And the guys out on the town with the drunk Spider-Man, elicit sympathy. You’ve been in that same cab with these guys as they agree with their pal that’s he’s Spider-Man– or at least you feel like you have.

How often does comedy mix with comics? Well, within superhero comics, there’s some of that in the current run of Marvel’s “Strange Tales” which includes Peter Bagge’s hilarious sendup of The Hulk. Of course, superhero comics can have a sense of humor but strictly comedic, not so much. Then again, it all depends on where you look, like for instance, “The Metal Men.”

That said, comedy is certainly as viable as anything else in comics. As reported here at Newsarama, American Original’s Jeff Katz, in connection with Top Cow, will gather a lineup of star comedians to create their own comics. They will be collected into graphic novels under the series title, “Comedy Death Ray.” It will be an impressive roster including Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Paul Scheer, B. J. Novak, Janeane Garofalo and another SNL talent, Fred Armisen. The proposed first four issue run is scheduled to come out this winter.

“Comedy Death Ray” probably won’t have that much to do with superheroes. The series editor, comedian/writer Scott Aukerman, is more of a fan of stuff like Dan Clowes’s “Eightball” and Peter Bagge’s “Hate.” But maybe he’s read “The Short Halloween.” If so, that’s a good thing since it’s a great example of comedy writers writing comics.

Greetings, Blog@teers — have we got some news for you!

For the past six months, a webcomic has been featured by Ain’t It Cool News and CNN, celebrated for its action, characterization, and respect for the blaxploitation films that inspired it. As its creator notes, it’s Super Fly meets The Equalizer, the step-child of Shaft and Rip Kirby, a love letter to the Black action films of the 1970s. For some, it’s street justice like you’ve never seen — and for those on the run, well, all that’s coming their way is a WORLD OF HURT.

And in keeping with our mission to deliver the best and the brightest to you, our readers, we are proud to announce that WORLD OF HURT will be making its second home at Blog@Newsarama, as the latest in our weekly webcomics series. We sat down with writer/artists Jay Potts about the comic, his blaxploitation inspirations, and what the future holds for Isaiah “Pastor” Hurt.

Newsarama: Jay, just to start out with, can you tell new readers a little bit about what World of Hurt is about?

Jay Potts: WORLD OF HURT is a weekly, black & white serial adventure webcomic that is my personal love letter to the Black action films of the 1970s and the Golden Age of newspaper adventure strips.  It is set in the early1970s in the city of Pointe Blanc, a fictional version of San Francisco and Oakland, and follows the exploits of a Black troubleshooter named Isaiah “Pastor” Hurt.

Nrama: In terms of getting to know you a little bit — what’s your background been in terms of comics? Is World of Hurt your first one, or have you been building up this?

Potts: I’ve been drawing since the age of four and have been a comic book fan for just as long.  However, it wasn’t until I entered the graduate program in Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA in 1997, that I received any formal instruction.  What I learned there about storytelling and composition, and the exposure to an incredible range of talent, was truly eye-opening.

(more…)

So early next year, when Smallville gets their second half of Season 9 under way, there’s the little matter of an episode written by Geoff Johns and featuring key members of the Justice Society (with the one-word title of “Society”). Well, the show’s producers, in their ultimate wisdom, decided that it was too good to confine to one episode, and it’s getting a second part entitled “Legends.”

And with this two-parter, the ever-reliable Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly reports that a veteran Justice LEAGUER will be in on the action: J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter! Self-professed comic book geek Phil Morris will be reprising his role as the Metropolis police detective for the first time this season.

So between Superman (Clark Kent), Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) and Det. John Jones, and Hawkman (Carter Hall), Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson) and Stargirl (Courtney Whitmore), we’re looking at the first live-action crossover between the JLA and JSA!

If there was a book that isn’t Sandman more deserving of oversized, supersaturated Absolute edition, Promethea is it. It’s a sometimes-skipping, sometimes-running, sometimes-strolling journey through a dream world as wild and beautiful as Neil Gaiman’s but ruled by a warrior-queen who’s everything Wonder Woman ought to be.

Promethea is a living story, and she’s just taken over a new human host. The previous incarnations, like something out of Joseph Campbell, have all left their mark on her, and they each have something to teach young Sophie Bangs, a college student whose research has led her to Promethea’s tale.

I love Alan Moore (which should almost go without saying) and yet I’d never read these stories, which are probably the most like me of any of his works. Promethea is in one sense the wealth of woman-knowledge and magic passed down from generation to generation, and that’s an idea I can certainly get behind. But the story is less about ideas than about feelings; less a story than an experience.

Imagination-scapes unfurl across double-page spreads full of symbols that evoke a visceral reaction and yet are things you’ve never seen or heard of. It makes me want to write, or dream, or write about dreams. Hell, it makes me want to draw, and I’m no good at that.

Layered into the story are thoughtful critiques of power, hierarchy, patriarchy, as well as pokes and gibes at mainstream comic storytelling. The tale gets stranger as it goes on, spinning off into splashy explanations of Moore’s thoughts on magic and myth within the myth he’s created.

It’s less a narrative than a trip, fables layered on top of stories and characters’ identities shifting into dreams. If Watchmen is Moore’s Ulysses, then Promethea is Finnegans Wake and it demands the same experience—stop trying to make it make sense and just let it wash over you and enjoy the ride.

Rotten #4

Written by Mark Rahner and Robert Horton

Art by Dan Dougherty

Published by Moonstone

Agents Wade and Flynn proceed to their next zombie mission out in the Wild West in Part Four of Rotten. In a comic full of clever dialogue and wonderfully structured stoytelling, both in the writing and the art, you could say it’s sort of a bonus to include zombies.

As the popularity of “Zombieland” should make clear, it’s not just zombies that bring in an audience. It’s always going to come back to the story and the characters. In Rotten, you’ve got a very different kind of story led by a couple of likable and authentic guys, Agents Wade and Flynn. They are under special orders from Pres. Hayes to investigate reports of attacks from creatures or,  “the undead,” out West.

Issue Four finds our heroes going undercover as commanding officers taking over a snow-bound and desolate Army fort. For all purposes, it shouldn’t even exist. There’s a lot of good tension-filled scenes between the new officers and the troops as neither group is eager to reveal everything they know.

Dan Dougherty is definitely the guy to be drawing this. He has a very distinctive style: sharp-edged and lean. He knows how to keep the story moving with tight compositions. He also knows his way around the subtleties of human expression. In this issue, the pressure is really applied on Agent Wade to not only act as a leader but to be one even when his orders sound outright strange. His every move must be convincing to a group of desperate men. Dougherty keeps us in the story and gives us a deeper appreciation of this complex character.

And what are these strange orders coming from Wade? Well, they’re nothing compared to what the men have been hiding from him. It’s spooky stuff in the tradition of “The Twilight Zone.” You don’t want to say this sort of thing too often but Rotten remains one of those best kept secrets in comics and I recommend you get in on it. This issue is the start of a new arc and a great place to dive in.

I really enjoyed this video from GRITtv, with cartoonists Jennifer Camper, Carlo Quispe, and Erika Lopez, discussing drawing comics and depicting marginalized lives.

Host Laura Flanders notes that most comics have in common, “the idea of capturing different dimensions,” and her guests are people from different ethnic and economic backgrounds, telling their stories particularly through the lens of their sexuality. Camper notes that she likes to tell “regular stories about working-class people,” and Quispe discusses “being infatuated with someone for twenty minutes” while drawing them. Lopez jokes that she is popular because she is “ranting from the bottom,” and all three note that it is not just people of color, not just LGBT people who read their work.

“Those are the kinds of stories I wanted to read,” Camper said, and the others agreed.

For New Yorkers, there’s a show of these cartoonists’ work opening Thursday at the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.

The internet loves you, and it brings you fun things. Today:

Twilight-haters will no doubt have even more to complain about, but I don’t care: Stephenie Meyer’s The Host to be made into a movie.

From Wired: Get to know the Surrogates comic before the movie hits.

Fun little comic page by Matthew Sheret and Julia Scheele.

Jason Aaron has some thoughts on Scalped. You know, the best comic that comes out each month. (He didn’t say that. I did.)

Another story from Wired. I don’t know why I’m linking it, really. Those illustrations are sort of cool, I guess. Who’s the artist? Oh, some guy named Ryan Kelly…

One of the only reviews of Jennifer’s Body that I’ve seen that doesn’t spend half its time complaining about Diablo Cody (see comments on Stephenie Meyer).

I’ll repost this under events, but I found it interesting: from Johanna Draper Carlson, a lecture by Noah Berlatsky, whose blog examines classic Wonder Woman comics.

So it’s well known in sports — prep, collegiate and professional — that the rookies get hazed. From taping football players to the goalposts, to freshmen carrying the game film and projector on the road (scroll down toward to item #10b & c to read which Hall of Famer had to do that, AFTER winning a national championship!).

But New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi may have to answer the question “How is this punishment?”
Pictured with the skipper are some of the rookies currently wearing Yankees jerseys in their day jobs. This year the theme was clearly Batman, and a couple years ago it was apparently Wizard of Oz. That time I can see how dressing up as Dorothy was the unfortunate assignment. I guess this year the raw deal went to the players suited up as Catwoman and Robin.

My biggest question was this:
That guy dressed up as the Penguin is a Major League Baseball player??

I have to say I sort of miss the days when Brian Wood did his own DMZ covers, but there was something about JP Leon’s cover to #45 that really struck me. I’m the furthest thing from an art critic, but there’s something oddly intense about the shadowy back here, the broad shoulders–funny how I never pictured Matty Roth looking threatening, menacing, but suddenly he does here, and it’s not just the gun.

At the WildStorm blog.

Coming in October. You’re welcome.

This post on girl power in comics, from Retconning My Brain, is a seriously awesome piece that made me want to read a lot of these books (Power Girl, Batgirl, etc.) more than I already did.

The original “Girl power,” a sugared-up, popified version of what Riot Grrl was, hit when I was in my last years of high school. The late 90s, which brought us post-communications deregulation prefab pop, but also at least sort of acknowledged that women wanted pop culture that was their own, and that there was more to it than fighting over a man on a soap opera. It brought us Xena and Buffy, too.

I’ve never been the type of feminist who is terribly bothered by the word “girl”–if prodded, I can even conjure up a defense of using it as a word that doesn’t contain the word “man,” although that’s really not any less useless to me than spelling woman with a y. At the ripe old age of almost-thirty, I still refer to myself as a girl and usually anyone else who is my age or younger. I’ve even been scolded for it by friends male and female. But I can’t really help it, and I wonder if the twin specters of Riot Grrl and Girl Power are to blame.

I was thinking about Girl Power, while I was writing my generally-happy reactions to the stories, and I remember learning about third wave feminism and discussing Girl Power in my class, and the positives and negatives. You had shows with strong (Xena) or complex (Ally McBeal) female leads, but they were wearing short short skirts (and some of them could have used a sandwich, ahem). You had the Spice Girls saying friends come first (in a way more empowering way than bros before hos, yo) but most of their popular songs were still about finding love or something. I think. I can’t actually admit in public to listening to the Spice Girls. You know.

So. Is the rash of “Girl” comics a revival of this kind of feminism-lite? There certainly has been a trend lately, especially with DC books, toward female leads. Batwoman, Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens (and yes, Marvel Divas) and many more that I’m probably missing because this just isn’t really my area of expertise. The pop universe doesn’t seem to be swinging that way in the dramatic fashion it did in the Spice Girls era, but we do have Twilight and other pop-culture phenomena that are aimed at girls bringing a new demographic to geek culture–check out Vaneta Rogers’ awesome piece on The Fangirl Invasion.

Either way, I have to agree with this statement, again from Retconning My Brain:

What it came down to for me this week was that it was nice to buy a bunch of comics that are led my female superheroes, who are super with or without their male counterparts, but don’t exist in a vacuum of femaleness or solely for the gaze of the male reader. They’re there to kick some ass and be super.

Amen to that.

TV Guide provides is with the first look at Brian Austin Green (Beverly Hills 90210, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as John Corben, better known to Superman fans as METALLO. Thanks to this, by way of Smallville, I now have a reason to gladly stay home on Friday nights.

Via When Fangirls Attack, which curates all the great women-and-gender related comics posts out there on the web so I don’t have to, I find this piece on “Marvel Bromance,” or now, apparently “Marvel Super Hero Team-Up.”

I wasn’t aware that there had even been a planned “Marvel Bromance,” which just shows you that I have entirely too much work to do in my life that doesn’t revolve around comics. Because you know I would’ve been all over that, right?

The evolution of the “bromance” out of the “buddy movie” has been interesting to me because it’s deliberately skated across that line of homoerotic tension that buddy movies always shied away from. In comics, the grand pairing of “buddies” was always Batman and his series of Robins, and since Robin was usually a good bit younger than Bruce Wayne, you really want to stay on the right side of that line with those books.

But the “bromance” is still ironic, not genuine. The movies are comedies; the stories loaded with snark and jokes about sharing feelings far more often than actually sharing feelings (when the kids in Superbad say “I love you” to one another they immediately have to pretend it didn’t happen). And so, as Chris Butcher noted, was Marvel’s solicit copy for the trade.

If This Be Bromance–! Marvel’s greatest buddies take the spotlight in this one-of-a-kind collection, and it’s male bonding like you’ve never seen — as Cable and Deadpool swap stories, Wonder Man and the Beast share a plane ride, Spidey and the Human Torch battle back-to-back, Wolverine makes a bet with Nightcrawler, Black Panther and Everett Ross lay their feelings on the line…and the Warriors Three set sail for fun! Plus: Captain America and the Falcon, Iron Man and Jim Rhodes, and more! Be here as Marvel says, “I love you, man!”

However, apparently “Bromance” was too–what, edgy? didn’t get enough attention? any ideas? It’s been changed to the too-long and unmemorable “Marvel Super Hero Team-Up,” which is so bland that it almost seems it must be a euphemism for something.

While “Bromance” might have been silly, it was at least an acknowledgment of the changing rules of same-gender friendships in the wider pop culture. More accurately, since the trade would be a reprint of classic stories, it would have been an acknowledgment that male friendships have always been more complex than a secret handshake or a gruff “Thanks.” Now it’s just another super hero team-up.

It’s Thursday. I have had too much caffeine and haven’t bought my comics for the week yet. Have some links.

Boondock Saints comics? Hell yes.

Becky Cloonan’s ongoing webcomic-saga of her “feud” with Amy Reeder Hadley just keeps getting funnier.

Warren Ellis thinks you should buy this print from Laurenn McCubbin. I think you should buy it for me.

One of my favorite political bloggers, Spencer Ackerman, is now the star of a comic book. Where the heck is MY comic book, people?

Jonathan Lethem on the “Squandered promise of science fiction.”

Joshua Dysart’s Unknown Soldier is featured in the New York Times today.

Unknown Soldier is unflinching in its depiction of violence, and that comes across even more strongly in the collected edition, without the monthly break between issues. One particularly horrific scene deals with the disfigurement of the title character: an inner voice navigates him through the violence, but when he reaches his breaking point, he hacks at himself to try to silence it. That gruesome episode came from Mr. Dysart’s imagination; some details he learned from his trip, he said, were too awful for the comic.

[snip]

“I witnessed people at the lowest point of their lives, and I came back and turned it into an action-packed war comic,” he said. “We try our best not to be exploitative, but in my heart I don’t know if this is the right way to do it.”

I’m a fan of Unknown Soldier; I think Dysart’s efforts to bring attention to an area of the world through comics are worthy and I appreciate his own conflict about whether he’s doing the right thing. It’s nice to see the comic getting this kind of recognition.

I’m sure Hawkman and Hawkgirl would beg to differ!

Courtesy of Player vs. Player, August 10, 2009.

I waited to write this until this piece went up, and now I can’t even particularly remember why.

Regular readers here may know that I’m not much of a superhero comics reader, but that I’ve been branching out lately. When I was asked if I wanted to talk to Kieron Gillen and Steven Sanders about their new series, I jumped at the chance even though it required me to binge on Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men so I had some clue of what I was talking about.

If you’ve read the comics, or are mildly aware of my love for Whedon’s work, you can probably guess what my reaction was to Whedon’s vision of the X-Men. Yep, I loved it. Intensely. Mostly, I loved Whedon’s Kitty Pryde.

As I’ve mentioned, I didn’t exactly grow up on comics, but I have a distinct memory of the X-Men cartoon and seeing this little brunette girl who looked kinda like me, who wasn’t all badass like the rest of the characters but could walk through walls (and didn’t I feel at times like I wanted to just sink through a floor and escape my life?). So Whedon, who likes to take those normal girls and make them extra-special, really did a great job with Kitty, contrasting her with the super-sexy and conniving Emma Frost and using her powers to save the world when all the offensive skills in the universe couldn’t have done so.

Of course the end made me sniffle a lot, but it also made me think about superheroes differently. I’ve always seen them as creations designed to allow people like me to transcend their normal lives; to become larger than life. I’ve never read books or comics simply because I identified with the characters (though I certainly have my share–Megan in Local being a prime example).

Yet the appeal of the X-Men has always been that they’re freaks; the world doesn’t understand them. As blogger Renegade Evolution noted:

The X-Men have the misfortune of being born different into a very intolerant world. They are mutants. Outcasts. Feared. Hated. Seen as dangerous…when for the most part, they just want to live and be left to it like everyone else. Hummm…imagine that? And it is odd, in my geekdome and time spent hanging out with other comic nerds, I have noted that a lot of people who are big into the X-Men are also somehow…well…different. Non-traditional.

Is it so weird, then, that of all the various reasons, and after all the explosions and action in Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, that I love it because I see myself in Kitty?

No, my linkblogging posts don’t come on any particular day, they just tend to appear when I’ve gathered enough links that I like but don’t really have enough to say about to warrant their own posts. In case you were wondering. Now, onward!

At The Nation (full disclosure: I’m currently a Nation intern), Melissa Harris-Lacewell talks about the conservative campaign to paint President Obama as the Joker, and does an excellent job teasing out some interesting political parallels with The Dark Knight film.

Via When Fangirls Attack, a post on close female friendships in comics. How many female “buddy” or “bromance” pairings can you think of?

A comparison of Marvel Divas and Gotham City Sirens, also via When Fangirls Attack.

Johanna Draper Carlson looks at Huntress: Year One.

From Splash Page, Charlyne Yi of Paper Heart and Knocked Up is doing a comic with Oni Press. Insert random blather about how Yi is actually a geek here, right? Well, because she’s not Megan Fox (read, sexy girl everyone slobbers over) this hasn’t gotten that much attention, but it makes me happy: Charlyne Yi is funny, and from what I’ve seen of Paper Heart, is actually creative as well.

Jezebel looks at my favorite superheroine from childhood: She-Ra.

Finally, Defamer wants to know how gay Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is going to be. Apparently word leaked out that there was going to be some sexual tension between the leads (Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.), which was enough to send Michael Medved into a panic. Apparently there’s nothing to offend Medved in the screenplay, at least, and so he can go back to doing what he does best–which certainly isn’t knowing what women would like to see in a film. Or at least, this woman.

From the UPI…

Really, if you want to push a right-wing agenda, you may want the help of a dictionary. I’ll let the Chicago Sun-Times‘ Richard Roeper explain:

Just a few ways in which Obama’s policies differ from a socialist agenda: socialism would mean no health insurance companies; decriminalization of drugs and prostitution; immediate withdrawal of all troops on foreign soil; a certain cap on all salaries in any situation and public funding for the media. I don’t see the White House calling for such measures, do you?

What say ye? Inventive comic tie-in? Guerrilla propaganda at its finest?