DC's big reboot brought readers a-flockin' to the banner-- but mostly people who already read comics. Those elusive brand new readers continued to shun superheroes the way financial success does me. That's pretty much what I predicted would happen way back in June, 2011. Remember? No? Luckily for you, I do! I remember everything because I'm a wizard. Allow me to educate you by turning you variously into different types of furry animals, birds, insects and fish.
People describing themselves as "avid fans" seemed to love the new DC, accounting for 70% of the sales. "Lapsed readers" like it, too, making up "a quarter of in store consumers." But new readers make up a whopping 5% of the buyers. And most of these are guys. Women seem to have stayed away in droves. But then when you step back, most people of whatever gender tend to do that when it comes to comics.
Here's what really interests me in the discussion about this survey: while reporting a 1% drop in female readership, the DC Women Kicking Ass blog got another one of those "leave DC alone!" type comments from someone claiming women are nothing more than a niche market hardly worth DC's while to approach. The comments in response to that genius are worth a read, especially when yet another person chimes in to reiterate it. It's like certain comic book guys go to some kind of school to learn how to miss the point.
The idea is to appeal to as many people as possible. Because, face it, tiger, comic book readers themselves are the niche market the way things stand. Everyone else seems to have something better to do with their time. Or so they think, and nothing DC's tried so far-- or Marvel, for that matter-- has done anything to change this. You know-- the endless reboots, taking heroic characters and thrusting them into nihilistic stories, the casual misogyny, the massive multi-part stories that undermine any forward momentum the individual monthlies might have, the deaths and rebirths and creative team shuffling.
Nothing really seems to appeal to the general public, of which somewhere around half are women. Which boggles the mind when movies starring superhero characters are all the rage at the box office. People in general seem to like Superman and Batman in the talkies, but don't want anything to do with them on the printed page or even in digital form-- which, according to this survey, hasn't turned into either the industry's savior or the death knell of paper and ink-- just the most recent iteration of the infamous chromium-covered variant edition of the regular printed edition for people obsessive enough to need multiple versions of the exact same thing.
What's to be done? Well, trying something new, some heretofore unseen strategy-- whatever that might be-- could possibly help. But you know what never will, kid?
Yelling at the girls to keep their icky cooties out of your super-secret he-man boys-only tree fort.
My guess is DC would love to have a vast new readership even if that means losing people like you and the other people who endlessly shift their loyalty from book to book depending on whatever's trending that month. But you know what? After reading about this survey, I think you'd probably still buy comics even if they were suddenly colored a gross-out pink and dolled up in ribbons and lace and Batman and Superman started doing a bunch of sissy stuff like talking about their feelings and spending all their time-- ewwwwww-- kissing their girlfriends! Who probably also have icky cooties, no doubt!
You're a comic book fan! Buying comics is what you, almost exclusively among your fellow citizens, do! And to be honest, I don't see those vast new audiences ever showing up to buy comics, so your furtive little hobby is safe in all its sexist glory, buddy. You did it! You defeated the fangirls. Enjoy. Enjoy the onanistic pleasure of double-bagging your superhero comics in monastic solitude.
Weirdly, over here in Japan, where comic sales are slumping, the reverse is true. It's hard to throw a rock without hitting a comic book reader. Let's leave aside the Nielsen survey and some sticky questions about its validity and methodology-- which actually I think are beside the point if DC commissioned it and plans on relying on its data-- let's look at some other numbers. The top selling Japanese title vastly outperformed the top American book.
I'm talking One Piece, an international sales juggernaut of epic proportions, versus Justice League. One Piece sold 37,996,373 copies in 2011. That's just in Japan. DC's Justice League of America sold in the 40,000-50,000 range before it spiked to 180, 709 in September for its second issue after DC chopped off the geographical signifier and entitled it simply Justice League as part of their New 52. In total, it sold 1,026,441 copies during all of 2011. To get this figure, I added all the Justice League of Americas and Justice Leagues, including the second month sales of Justice League #1, but I don't know anything about math. It was never my good subject.
Still, even if I left out a few or a lot we're not anywhere near One Piece's numbers and we live in a world where more people care about what happens to Monkey D. Luffy than to Clark Kent. If you want to be a stickler, feel free to add things up yourself and toss in Justice League International, Justice League Dark, various Justice League-related trade collections and possibly Marvel's top selling book as well. See how many American titles it takes to equal One Piece.
Look at it this way: Japan's population is 127, 450,460. Just over a third of them bought One Piece. If I ride the train here tomorrow and look at the person sitting on my left and the person sitting on my right, there's a pretty good chance one of them has read One Piece. How niche-y do you feel now? Think DC wouldn't love to figure out a way to push their books on a third of the North American population? Think Time-Warner, Inc. and its stockholders wouldn't love that?
Any strategy that involves concentrating on a very few declining readers while ignoring new markets isn't one that's very viable for the long term. My palliative-- which is all it can ever be because I really don't think those readers are out there-- is always tell better stories, with better art. Care more about the characters than the events. Give books time to grow their readership without involving them in crossover events. Experiment with genres. Scout for and cultivate new talent from unexpected places. These things would bring me back as a regular reader to DC (as opposed to sporadic whenever I go on a jag related to one character or another), but I'm not sure any of that would work for a wider audience because the days of kids riding their bikes to the convenience store to find a spinner rack of brightly colored fun are long gone. These days they ride their virtual robots to the virtual battlefield to shoot virtual bullets at each other online. Or something that seems like some kind of horrifying magic to my Neanderthal mind. Everybody else is too busy voting for American Idol or whatever it is people do.
Gail Simone, however, dissents. She's pretty sure there's something fishy about these Nielsen numbers. Hey, she may be right. I hope she is. But whatever, I'll keep finding ways to entertain myself over here in my own little niche.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Dark Horse celebrates women in comics with a sale!
It's super appropriate because if there's anything women love more than shopping, it's shopping for 50% off items! Right, ladies?
Oh lord, I'm so, so very sorry for that. Sincerely sorry. I haven't had much sleep lately and I'm starting to hallucinate. I blame a severe serotonin deficiency. And while my lame attempt at ironic humor has more than likely undermined any serious point I wanted to make here let me just say how much I truly respect and admire all the women who make comics. From Marie Severin to Jan Duursema, Lynda Barry to Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Rumiko Takahashi to Ai Yazawa and Kate Beaton, Misako Rocks!, Sana Takeda, Chika Umino and many, many more-- your work just knocks me out. It thrills me. It makes me happy. You're the best!*
This is how my train of thought has been working lately. As my reader no doubt knows, I've been really getting into Creepy magazine which features some of the early editing work of Louise Simonson who went on to shepherd the books that made me the insanely obsessed comic book fan I am today, namely Uncanny X-Men and especially The New Mutants. As such, it's difficult to overestimate Simonson's impact on my pop culture-lovin' life. This extends even to her hair, which apparently made a cameo appearance atop character Maddy Prior in Uncanny X-Men #168, thanks to artist Paul Smith. And via Simonson's The New Mutants I just started enjoying the amazing artwork of both Mary Wilshire and June Brigman. I would have sooner, but they worked on that book after I'd given up comics in favor of being a rock star.
And we see how well that's worked out for me!
To connect this back to Dark Horse, it's mainly due to Dark Horse's Creepy reprints I owe this belated recognition of some prime movers in my comics consciousness. Dark Horse is the once and future home of my all-time favorite series, Nexus. When I discovered Nexus, the editor of record was the amazing Anina Bennett, whose letter column replies to all sorts of controversies never failed to impress me with her candor, intellect and willingness to mix it up. I always felt confident Mike Baron and Steve Rude were in good hands with Bennett. And she's a creator in her own right, too.
And even though Dark Horse rejected my own little effort at getting into print, that's one comic book company that hasn't disappointed me. From Nexus to Hellboy and points in between, they just keep rocking great product. Publisher Mike Richardson even returned the Nexus rights to Baron and Rude. Think about that during all this talk of boycott and petition signing. A comics publisher that returns rights to comic creators.
* I'm the worst!
I signed the pro-Kirby petition...
Yes, I did. Even though I doubt online petitions have much weight, I felt it important to take a moral stand on this issue. I also signed the one about Gary Friedrich. I think it's ridiculous Marvel is trying to get $17,000 out of the man when they've already made so much money off him. That amount is such a pittance to Marvel and Disney and a huge amount to Friedrich it seems like gratuitous bullying, like giving a wedgie and a swirly to a kid after stealing his lunch money and giving him a black eye. Marvel probably wastes that much in Post-it notes and toilet paper in a week. He sued and lost, Marvel. Let it go already.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Fantagraphics has a Valentine for Jack Davis!
Look at that line-up of artists! This makes me wish I lived in Seattle, Washington, instead of Asahi-shi, Chiba-ken. Jack Davis is one of the nicest people ever to work in the industry and it's wonderful to see Fantagraphics showering the man and his work with well-deserved love. I'm really looking forward to their Davis art book. That along with the Alex Toth book by Dean Mullaney are musts!
On a personal note, not only did I once interview Davis by phone-- a treat for me-- but I also sent Peter Bagge an embarrassingly fannish email to which he replied in a gracious manner. He even had a nice compliment for some of my stupid art, a t-shirt I'd designed for a local Athens band. I've been pretty lucky in my interactions with various creators. I've only had one somewhat sour experience and that was due mostly to a misunderstanding. I'm one of those foolish hero worshipers and I treasure these moments when the people whose work I admire so much turn out to be genuinely pleasant types who find a moment to answer my gushy-mushy love notes with gentle good humor instead of the restraining orders or the visits from paid assassins I so richly deserve.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Things I, as a comics blogger, must have an opinion about: DC's Watchmen prequel comics and a pro-Kirby boycott!
Watchmen Prequels
Is Watchmen a sacrosanct text? Maybe, if your frame of reference consists entirely of comic books and graphic novels. Or you just like to get pissed off about things. This is the Internet; that's what we do here. Watchmen is a great book, a fantastic achievement in fiction, but I don't think it's any more untouchable than Catch-22-- one of the most influential novels of the 20th century on impressionable undergrads. Author Joseph Heller went one step beyond and produced a yawn-worthy and largely unnecessary sequel to it, Closing Time.
I rank Watchmen ahead of Mario Puzo's The Godfather as a work of art, yet Francis Ford Coppola adapted that into a classic movie... with an equally-classic sequel. All we got from Watchmen was that shitty Zack Snyder thing. And go ask Michael Winegardner and the suits at Random House if Puzo left anything unsaid about his characters and their lives. For that matter, consult Alexandra Ripley and Warner Books about Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.
So while I believe Watchmen makes a definitive statement then gracefully ends-- a rarity in American comics where characters are nothing more than trademarked entities to be endlessly recycled-- and even though the word "sequel" only makes me slightly less queasy than the word "prequel," DC's decision to expand the story is genius of a sort. We're talking about it, people will probably buy it and I have to admit the idea of seeing some Adam Hughes sequential artwork has me drooling like a contented baby. I'm not big on either Brian Azzarello or J. Michael Straczynski, but Len Wein has never wronged me and I'm starting to warm up to Lee Bermejo's artwork.
The best thing to do if you don't want more Watchmen is just to ignore the prequels. Then there's no way they can sully the original for you. Especially if your first name isn't Alan and your last name isn't Moore. Moore does have a point about DC being "dependent on ideas [he] had 25 years ago." Speaking of dependent on other people's ideas...
Jack Kirby Boycott
I was going to skip The Avengers anyway, because it takes more than sticking a red white and blue suit on some actor and calling him Captain America to interest me in a film even if you toss in Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo (their first work together since Zodiac!) and Samuel L. Jackson. Iron Man was a pleasant surprise and both The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2 are genre classics.
The rest have been mediocrities at best and most of them have been outright stinkers. Fantastic Four movies, I'm looking at you and your bombastically fakey action sequences, over-abundance of lame humor and crass product placement. Daredevil? Ghost Rider? Thor? X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Kick-Ass? Superman Returns? I'm sure there are people who love these movies and make it a point to see every super-flick that comes out, but I'm not among their number. You've got to wow me with things beyond CGI puppets flying around, a bit of latex and a familiar hero name.
But beyond all that, according to a story on Slate, there's another reason to give The Avengers a miss and extend that to everything Marvel because Jack Kirby's family isn't getting a cut from all these characters he co-created. A Marvel boycott.
I'm absolutely pro-Kirby, but that doesn't mean I'm anti-Stan Lee. These kinds of false dichotomies reign in fandom and I'm not giving into them. Having said that, I do firmly believe the Kirby family should be compensated for what Jack did for Marvel. Without Jack, there would have been no Marvel. That's also true of Stan, but "the Man" sued Marvel successfully, while the Kirbys lost. The decision may have been according to the letter of the law, but it's still one of those painful things where the right thing and the contractual thing don't coincide even in the slightest.
Kirby got screwed. He had to allow the screwing so he could provide for his family, but that doesn't mean the screwing was justified or deserved. Face it, if any one of us had done even a fraction for a company what Kirby did for Marvel but received only his compensation compared to their profit margin past, present and future, we'd be ranting day and night until we get what we feel is equitable. And even then, it would be such a small slice for them and a huge one for us. You may claim to feel differently, but you're not going to convince me you're sincere. Unless you want to sign a piece of paper for me where I own your imagination and can profit from it until the sun consumes the earth while paying you merely a living wage.
We, the fans, whether we're all that aware of Kirby or not, have benefited over the years from all the characters he illustrated and created. Marvel has made an ungodly amount of money of this man's labors-- Disney paid 4 billion dollars for this company based on how much money they can make by exploiting its Kirby-created properties-- but his family gets nothing because he cashed his checks back in the 60s.
I doubt any Marvel boycott will affect The Avengers. The allure of Marvel heroes cavorting together on the big screen is going to prove too much of a lure to the casual fan who is probably only vaguely aware a man named Jack Kirby ever existed. And the rest probably don't read comics at all and will come away only mildly confused as to why Superman and Batman weren't on the roster. As for buying Marvel products-- that's already pretty difficult for me because I'm living in Japan. I can order graphic novels from Amazon.jp or buy digital comics, but getting my hands on an actual monthly magazine is incredibly difficult. I have an Amazon.com associates comic book store of my own, but to date I haven't made a single sale. It's chockablock with Marvel trades. So what would my role in such a boycott be? Skipping a possibly craptacular summer action flick is the easiest step to tak.
What then? Ditch the Marvels from my failure of a comic book shop? Stop writing about Marvel books on my loser blog until the Kirby family gets its due?
Hmm. I think I can do the former this weekend, but the allure of pop culture mockery is too strong for the latter.
Is Watchmen a sacrosanct text? Maybe, if your frame of reference consists entirely of comic books and graphic novels. Or you just like to get pissed off about things. This is the Internet; that's what we do here. Watchmen is a great book, a fantastic achievement in fiction, but I don't think it's any more untouchable than Catch-22-- one of the most influential novels of the 20th century on impressionable undergrads. Author Joseph Heller went one step beyond and produced a yawn-worthy and largely unnecessary sequel to it, Closing Time.
I rank Watchmen ahead of Mario Puzo's The Godfather as a work of art, yet Francis Ford Coppola adapted that into a classic movie... with an equally-classic sequel. All we got from Watchmen was that shitty Zack Snyder thing. And go ask Michael Winegardner and the suits at Random House if Puzo left anything unsaid about his characters and their lives. For that matter, consult Alexandra Ripley and Warner Books about Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.
So while I believe Watchmen makes a definitive statement then gracefully ends-- a rarity in American comics where characters are nothing more than trademarked entities to be endlessly recycled-- and even though the word "sequel" only makes me slightly less queasy than the word "prequel," DC's decision to expand the story is genius of a sort. We're talking about it, people will probably buy it and I have to admit the idea of seeing some Adam Hughes sequential artwork has me drooling like a contented baby. I'm not big on either Brian Azzarello or J. Michael Straczynski, but Len Wein has never wronged me and I'm starting to warm up to Lee Bermejo's artwork.
The best thing to do if you don't want more Watchmen is just to ignore the prequels. Then there's no way they can sully the original for you. Especially if your first name isn't Alan and your last name isn't Moore. Moore does have a point about DC being "dependent on ideas [he] had 25 years ago." Speaking of dependent on other people's ideas...
Jack Kirby Boycott
I was going to skip The Avengers anyway, because it takes more than sticking a red white and blue suit on some actor and calling him Captain America to interest me in a film even if you toss in Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo (their first work together since Zodiac!) and Samuel L. Jackson. Iron Man was a pleasant surprise and both The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2 are genre classics.
The rest have been mediocrities at best and most of them have been outright stinkers. Fantastic Four movies, I'm looking at you and your bombastically fakey action sequences, over-abundance of lame humor and crass product placement. Daredevil? Ghost Rider? Thor? X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Kick-Ass? Superman Returns? I'm sure there are people who love these movies and make it a point to see every super-flick that comes out, but I'm not among their number. You've got to wow me with things beyond CGI puppets flying around, a bit of latex and a familiar hero name.
But beyond all that, according to a story on Slate, there's another reason to give The Avengers a miss and extend that to everything Marvel because Jack Kirby's family isn't getting a cut from all these characters he co-created. A Marvel boycott.
I'm absolutely pro-Kirby, but that doesn't mean I'm anti-Stan Lee. These kinds of false dichotomies reign in fandom and I'm not giving into them. Having said that, I do firmly believe the Kirby family should be compensated for what Jack did for Marvel. Without Jack, there would have been no Marvel. That's also true of Stan, but "the Man" sued Marvel successfully, while the Kirbys lost. The decision may have been according to the letter of the law, but it's still one of those painful things where the right thing and the contractual thing don't coincide even in the slightest.
Kirby got screwed. He had to allow the screwing so he could provide for his family, but that doesn't mean the screwing was justified or deserved. Face it, if any one of us had done even a fraction for a company what Kirby did for Marvel but received only his compensation compared to their profit margin past, present and future, we'd be ranting day and night until we get what we feel is equitable. And even then, it would be such a small slice for them and a huge one for us. You may claim to feel differently, but you're not going to convince me you're sincere. Unless you want to sign a piece of paper for me where I own your imagination and can profit from it until the sun consumes the earth while paying you merely a living wage.
We, the fans, whether we're all that aware of Kirby or not, have benefited over the years from all the characters he illustrated and created. Marvel has made an ungodly amount of money of this man's labors-- Disney paid 4 billion dollars for this company based on how much money they can make by exploiting its Kirby-created properties-- but his family gets nothing because he cashed his checks back in the 60s.
I doubt any Marvel boycott will affect The Avengers. The allure of Marvel heroes cavorting together on the big screen is going to prove too much of a lure to the casual fan who is probably only vaguely aware a man named Jack Kirby ever existed. And the rest probably don't read comics at all and will come away only mildly confused as to why Superman and Batman weren't on the roster. As for buying Marvel products-- that's already pretty difficult for me because I'm living in Japan. I can order graphic novels from Amazon.jp or buy digital comics, but getting my hands on an actual monthly magazine is incredibly difficult. I have an Amazon.com associates comic book store of my own, but to date I haven't made a single sale. It's chockablock with Marvel trades. So what would my role in such a boycott be? Skipping a possibly craptacular summer action flick is the easiest step to tak.
What then? Ditch the Marvels from my failure of a comic book shop? Stop writing about Marvel books on my loser blog until the Kirby family gets its due?
Hmm. I think I can do the former this weekend, but the allure of pop culture mockery is too strong for the latter.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Every Old Katana is New Again!
Created by writer Matt W. Barr and artist Jim Aparo, Tatsu "Katana" Yamashiro's been bouncing around the DC universe since 1983 when she debuted in the pages of The Brave and the Bold #200. Despite his long held aversion to killing, Batman allowed Katana to join his Outsiders group, where her place was roughly the same as that of Wolverine in the first Chris Claremont-written issues of Uncanny X-Men. Like their Marvel analogues, the Outsiders were originally an international team. Katana as one of the few members from a real nation with a real culture to explore, even if in a somewhat superficial way. Her code-name is the Japanese word for the main sword used by
samurai, a similar situation to when I appeared as a character in a
manga about dorks who blog about comics and called myself Computer Keyboard.
Strangely enough, her sword wasn't always a proper katana. In some issues, Jim Aparo's version appears to be a no-dachi, a longer bladed weapon used for chopping down riders and horses so one might have a better chance at fileting the fallen enemy. And not just any no-dachi; it's a magical one named Soultaker because it contains the souls of all killed by it-- which gives it more of a Moorecockian lineage than anything having to do with samurai-- including Katana's dead husband. To whom she talks fairly often while... er... polishing him. It. I mean "it."
Alan Davis's sword is more the classic katana, although as you can see, its size sometimes varies from panel to panel. "SHAKKKT" was Katana's version of Wolverine's famous "SNIKT." But however an artist depicted the weapon, once it was in Katana's hands even the largest of enemies understood discretion as the better part of valor. We can only imagine that quizzical guy... polishing... Katana's sword there lying in the bushes in two neatly bisected pieces, the grass covered in red slowly drying to a brown crust. No word from Katana's dead husband on how much he enjoyed the poor fellow's loving hands, though.
Since Katana's a comic book Japanese person, writer Mike W. Barr characterizes her as secretive and largely emotionless, expert at martial arts and the ways of Bushido. The other choice for comic book writers at the time was to write their Japanese characters as arrogant and frequently infuriated for no reason; i.e., the female Dr. Light and Sunfire over at Marvel. And experts at martial arts and the ways of Bushido. Katana's backstory also contains an ex-lover in the Yakuza for the customary family honor business. Once again, this was during the era when The Uncanny X-Men and its break-out character Wolverine-- especially the version drawn by Frank Miller-- had made all things Japanese cool and hep in the superhero genre.
In Katana's case, think Wolverine's doomed fiancee Mariko Yashida, only this time she's the stone-cold killer instead of just giving someone else justification for his various murders.
Okay, so we've established Katana as an efficient martial arts-based hero with a fancy sword. But what about her powerful maternal nature? This is what makes her unique among comic book martial artists. Sure Lady Shiva spends a lot of time trying to repair her relationship with biological daughter Cassandra Cain, but that's only because it's every parent's dream to fight her offspring to the death for the leadership of a secret cabal of international assassins. Katana, however, truly embodies the classic nurturing archetype. You know: the extraordinarily deadly martial artist mother with a fancy soul-eating sword.
On the rare occasions when she does show emotions (I mean other than the joy that comes from bisecting an anonymous thug with with a perfect killing stroke), Katana largely directs them at her naifish teammate Halo. During the first few issues, the two quickly form a sort of familial relationship, with Katana as the strict and occasionally insanely protective and possessive parental figure who seems obsessed with her young charge to the point of stalking her. Finding Halo working as a roller-skating server at a fast food join in #43, Katana demands she quit and then rather desperately offers to buy the girl any clothes she wants. Which is kind of wacky, considering Katana herself was the one initially trying to push Halo into the superhero equivalent of a "normal life."
You know, attending school, hiding your powers from your classmates, donning disguises, lying to everyone you meet, jetting off at odd hours to kill people all around the world.
Classic Katana may have been two parts stereotype to one part Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in the trash classic Mommie Dearest, but she was also a pretty cool and compelling character for those of us who are into Sonny Chiba movies and Koike Kazuo comics.
What about contemporary Katana, now that she's got a regular monthly gig again, but no longer with the Outsiders? Some things about her are comfortingly familiar. She's still a working part of a renegade team of heroes, this time the Birds of Prey alongside Black Canary, Starling and Poison Ivy.
"SHUK" instead of "SHAKKKT," but Katana shows up in Birds of Prey #2 (by writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Jesus Saiz) and immediately racks up quite the body count. On her first page, she's already diced and cubed five members of the Crazy 88s without changing her facial expression. Or even having one. Katana kills and kills and in between killing she sometimes takes breaks to kill.
Why, I remember this one time Katana woke up, killed a couple of guys on the way to the kitchen, poured herself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, killed three more guys while getting the milk from the refrigerator, ran outside to kill a team of ninja trying to steal her morning paper, then killed a few more people on the way back to the front door before sitting down and reading For Better or For Worse while eating her cereal; a breakfast ritual for her-- she loves that strip. She spent the rest of the day killing.
So if you're not willing to take my word for it and you're still wondering whether or not Katana uses her sword in the way The A-Team used their Ruger Mini-14s or if she swings it in earnest, I think this image pretty much settles the issue:
"SSSSSHK?" Wrong again. It's "SHAKKKT." Just a flesh wound. The flesh being the center of that guy's heart. I don't think those two rubes in the bottom panel are going to be bouncing their children on their knees or swinging them up to the blue, blue sky anytime soon, either. Or breathing.
No one really seems interested in stopping her murderous ways, which is kind of odd. We all love dark stories where the murk hides the boundaries between right and wrong, but honestly, what kind of hero team amasses that many corpses and remains a hero team? And why don't the international authorities care about due process and basic human rights? Sure, these are villains and some of the killings can be justified as self-defense, but one has to wonder how many and what the limitations are on deadly force as they pertain to superheroes.
Hey, I'm not judging her. I'd rather have a killer Katana than a Katana who waves around a mostly useless sword and only uses it to cut ropes and buttons off villain shirts and pants. I'm just wondering why people like Black Canary-- and even Batman back in the day-- tolerate it, and why Interpol or the United Nations or even Amnesty International doesn't get involved at some point. I understand why Starling doesn't; she's too busy shooting people in the face.
Katana has evolved on other ways over the years. Her costume was once Ronald McDonald-esque with a vaguely Asian motif. Now she's one of the more visually impressive heroes in DC's roster. The new Superman flies around in a hideous cast-off that looks like a collaboration between Mr. Data of Starfleet Hills and the people who invented "Mighty Men and Monster Maker" (when he isn't wearing a bath towel, t-shirt and jeans), Batman now wears a codpiece or an adult incontinence pad, but Katana sports a sleek armored suit reminiscent of Japanese lacquer wear, with a samurai shoulder protector and greaves. She hides her face behind a half-mask and Kabuki-inspired make up. It's an extreme look, making her somewhat monstrous and robotic and all together menacing. She's one of the few sensibly protected female characters in comics.
We'll probably learn later it's a plastic bikini and some kind of shiny body paint. But until that day comes-- and perhaps it never will-- she looks fantastic. Not someone you want to mess with. Or sit next to on a crowded train.
Also different is her hair style. No more bangs or Louise Brooks bob, nor does she sport the Davis-era shag. But the change most telling of its era is that it's now ambiguous as to whether or not her sword contains her husband's soul. She obviously still believes it does, but we readers are no longer party to their conversations. Black Canary and Starling are presented as kind of dubious about the whole "talking to an inanimate object" thing as well. The point is to call into question Katana's hold on reality. Is she a little off? A little nutty? That makes her all the more dangerous. And anyway, flying people and half-robot people are completely within the realm of possibility, but talking swords are only ridiculous, right?
Katana no longer uses contractions when speaking English. As one of those EFL teachers over here in Japan, I find that kind of difficult to believe in someone who's as fluent in English as Katana. It does give her that cold, almost inhuman feel to go along with the costume. I have a hard time accepting a stiff, overly formal Katana knowing what I know about her relationship with Halo. Still, as we've seen, people do change and Katana most of all.
On that note, time will tell if she's still competing for Substitute Mother of the Year. I hope she is. It gives her depth and humanizes her so she's not just a relentless human lawnmower-of-faceless-goons. I hope she fixates on Starling and starts smothering her with concern and buying her clothes to cover that gothy corset top. Or, alternately, offering to pay for more tattoos to make her arms appear more symmetrical.
Strangely enough, her sword wasn't always a proper katana. In some issues, Jim Aparo's version appears to be a no-dachi, a longer bladed weapon used for chopping down riders and horses so one might have a better chance at fileting the fallen enemy. And not just any no-dachi; it's a magical one named Soultaker because it contains the souls of all killed by it-- which gives it more of a Moorecockian lineage than anything having to do with samurai-- including Katana's dead husband. To whom she talks fairly often while... er... polishing him. It. I mean "it."
Alan Davis's sword is more the classic katana, although as you can see, its size sometimes varies from panel to panel. "SHAKKKT" was Katana's version of Wolverine's famous "SNIKT." But however an artist depicted the weapon, once it was in Katana's hands even the largest of enemies understood discretion as the better part of valor. We can only imagine that quizzical guy... polishing... Katana's sword there lying in the bushes in two neatly bisected pieces, the grass covered in red slowly drying to a brown crust. No word from Katana's dead husband on how much he enjoyed the poor fellow's loving hands, though.
Since Katana's a comic book Japanese person, writer Mike W. Barr characterizes her as secretive and largely emotionless, expert at martial arts and the ways of Bushido. The other choice for comic book writers at the time was to write their Japanese characters as arrogant and frequently infuriated for no reason; i.e., the female Dr. Light and Sunfire over at Marvel. And experts at martial arts and the ways of Bushido. Katana's backstory also contains an ex-lover in the Yakuza for the customary family honor business. Once again, this was during the era when The Uncanny X-Men and its break-out character Wolverine-- especially the version drawn by Frank Miller-- had made all things Japanese cool and hep in the superhero genre.
In Katana's case, think Wolverine's doomed fiancee Mariko Yashida, only this time she's the stone-cold killer instead of just giving someone else justification for his various murders.
Okay, so we've established Katana as an efficient martial arts-based hero with a fancy sword. But what about her powerful maternal nature? This is what makes her unique among comic book martial artists. Sure Lady Shiva spends a lot of time trying to repair her relationship with biological daughter Cassandra Cain, but that's only because it's every parent's dream to fight her offspring to the death for the leadership of a secret cabal of international assassins. Katana, however, truly embodies the classic nurturing archetype. You know: the extraordinarily deadly martial artist mother with a fancy soul-eating sword.
On the rare occasions when she does show emotions (I mean other than the joy that comes from bisecting an anonymous thug with with a perfect killing stroke), Katana largely directs them at her naifish teammate Halo. During the first few issues, the two quickly form a sort of familial relationship, with Katana as the strict and occasionally insanely protective and possessive parental figure who seems obsessed with her young charge to the point of stalking her. Finding Halo working as a roller-skating server at a fast food join in #43, Katana demands she quit and then rather desperately offers to buy the girl any clothes she wants. Which is kind of wacky, considering Katana herself was the one initially trying to push Halo into the superhero equivalent of a "normal life."
You know, attending school, hiding your powers from your classmates, donning disguises, lying to everyone you meet, jetting off at odd hours to kill people all around the world.
Classic Katana may have been two parts stereotype to one part Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in the trash classic Mommie Dearest, but she was also a pretty cool and compelling character for those of us who are into Sonny Chiba movies and Koike Kazuo comics.
What about contemporary Katana, now that she's got a regular monthly gig again, but no longer with the Outsiders? Some things about her are comfortingly familiar. She's still a working part of a renegade team of heroes, this time the Birds of Prey alongside Black Canary, Starling and Poison Ivy.
"SHUK" instead of "SHAKKKT," but Katana shows up in Birds of Prey #2 (by writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Jesus Saiz) and immediately racks up quite the body count. On her first page, she's already diced and cubed five members of the Crazy 88s without changing her facial expression. Or even having one. Katana kills and kills and in between killing she sometimes takes breaks to kill.
Why, I remember this one time Katana woke up, killed a couple of guys on the way to the kitchen, poured herself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, killed three more guys while getting the milk from the refrigerator, ran outside to kill a team of ninja trying to steal her morning paper, then killed a few more people on the way back to the front door before sitting down and reading For Better or For Worse while eating her cereal; a breakfast ritual for her-- she loves that strip. She spent the rest of the day killing.
So if you're not willing to take my word for it and you're still wondering whether or not Katana uses her sword in the way The A-Team used their Ruger Mini-14s or if she swings it in earnest, I think this image pretty much settles the issue:
"SSSSSHK?" Wrong again. It's "SHAKKKT." Just a flesh wound. The flesh being the center of that guy's heart. I don't think those two rubes in the bottom panel are going to be bouncing their children on their knees or swinging them up to the blue, blue sky anytime soon, either. Or breathing.
No one really seems interested in stopping her murderous ways, which is kind of odd. We all love dark stories where the murk hides the boundaries between right and wrong, but honestly, what kind of hero team amasses that many corpses and remains a hero team? And why don't the international authorities care about due process and basic human rights? Sure, these are villains and some of the killings can be justified as self-defense, but one has to wonder how many and what the limitations are on deadly force as they pertain to superheroes.
Hey, I'm not judging her. I'd rather have a killer Katana than a Katana who waves around a mostly useless sword and only uses it to cut ropes and buttons off villain shirts and pants. I'm just wondering why people like Black Canary-- and even Batman back in the day-- tolerate it, and why Interpol or the United Nations or even Amnesty International doesn't get involved at some point. I understand why Starling doesn't; she's too busy shooting people in the face.
Katana has evolved on other ways over the years. Her costume was once Ronald McDonald-esque with a vaguely Asian motif. Now she's one of the more visually impressive heroes in DC's roster. The new Superman flies around in a hideous cast-off that looks like a collaboration between Mr. Data of Starfleet Hills and the people who invented "Mighty Men and Monster Maker" (when he isn't wearing a bath towel, t-shirt and jeans), Batman now wears a codpiece or an adult incontinence pad, but Katana sports a sleek armored suit reminiscent of Japanese lacquer wear, with a samurai shoulder protector and greaves. She hides her face behind a half-mask and Kabuki-inspired make up. It's an extreme look, making her somewhat monstrous and robotic and all together menacing. She's one of the few sensibly protected female characters in comics.
We'll probably learn later it's a plastic bikini and some kind of shiny body paint. But until that day comes-- and perhaps it never will-- she looks fantastic. Not someone you want to mess with. Or sit next to on a crowded train.
Also different is her hair style. No more bangs or Louise Brooks bob, nor does she sport the Davis-era shag. But the change most telling of its era is that it's now ambiguous as to whether or not her sword contains her husband's soul. She obviously still believes it does, but we readers are no longer party to their conversations. Black Canary and Starling are presented as kind of dubious about the whole "talking to an inanimate object" thing as well. The point is to call into question Katana's hold on reality. Is she a little off? A little nutty? That makes her all the more dangerous. And anyway, flying people and half-robot people are completely within the realm of possibility, but talking swords are only ridiculous, right?
Katana no longer uses contractions when speaking English. As one of those EFL teachers over here in Japan, I find that kind of difficult to believe in someone who's as fluent in English as Katana. It does give her that cold, almost inhuman feel to go along with the costume. I have a hard time accepting a stiff, overly formal Katana knowing what I know about her relationship with Halo. Still, as we've seen, people do change and Katana most of all.
On that note, time will tell if she's still competing for Substitute Mother of the Year. I hope she is. It gives her depth and humanizes her so she's not just a relentless human lawnmower-of-faceless-goons. I hope she fixates on Starling and starts smothering her with concern and buying her clothes to cover that gothy corset top. Or, alternately, offering to pay for more tattoos to make her arms appear more symmetrical.
Monday, January 2, 2012
How the new "Nexus" story came about...
If you're interested (as I obviously am), you should read the blog at Steve Rude's website. The Rudes just posted an entry called "The Real Story Behind the Nexus Reunion." It seems to have happened pretty fast. One minute Rude and Mike Baron were talking on the phone, the next minute Mike Richardson of Dark Horse got involved and a minute after that, Rude was at the drawing board laying down lines with everything in line for a May publication date. I have to hand it to the fine folks at Dark Horse and especially Richardson for making this happen. He must have jumped at the chance, and as luck would have it, Dark Horse Presents happens to be enjoying a comeback of its own-- the perfect vehicle for Baron and Rude to revisit Nexus.
While I love the cool photo of Rude working away at his drawing table, my favorite part of all of this is one little comment that seems to be a promise:
That has me all wiggly over this yet again! Rude back in comics! Baron writing Nexus! Nexus stories coming our way in 2012 and possibly beyond! Look for the new story in Dark Horse Presents #12, this May. They've rung the bell and I'm already slobbering like a conditioned dog. Conditioned to love delicious comic books!*
*Don't worry. I'm not going to eat it. Well, I make no promises.
While I love the cool photo of Rude working away at his drawing table, my favorite part of all of this is one little comment that seems to be a promise:
A man who speaks as succinctly as his written words, Mike Baron simply
added, “I look forward to many more stories with the Dude.”
That has me all wiggly over this yet again! Rude back in comics! Baron writing Nexus! Nexus stories coming our way in 2012 and possibly beyond! Look for the new story in Dark Horse Presents #12, this May. They've rung the bell and I'm already slobbering like a conditioned dog. Conditioned to love delicious comic books!*
*Don't worry. I'm not going to eat it. Well, I make no promises.
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