And you can tell they're serious about it because all their heroes showed up to watch Green Lantern actually draw that line in the sand! The last time anybody was this fired up about lines in the sand, we got a whole bunch of commemorative bubblegum cards, belt buckles and the inciting event in The Big Lebowski, man!
What is this line? Why is it in the sand? Could Green Lantern pull a similar trick with his name in the snow? What's this all about? DC has vowed to hold their titles at 2.99 rather than 3.99.
"This announcement reaffirms DC Comics' commitment to both our core fans and to comic book store retailers," said Jim Lee, DC Comics Co-Publisher. "For the long term health of the industry, we are willing to take a financial risk so that readers who love our medium do not abandon the art form."
According to Dan Didio, some people said 3.99 for a 32-page comic book is too expensive-- and when the accountants finished crunching the numbers, he agreed. I think 2.99 is too expensive for most comics, but I'm also willing to shell out about 10 bucks for a copy of Yazawa Ai's Nana, or 14.99 for Love and Rockets New Stories. It's a matter of perceived value.
I regularly buy Dark Horse's Conan the Cimmerian, and while it has 22 pages of story, same as any DC monthly, it feels more substantial. Some of this comes from the heavier paper stock Dark Horse seems to use for the covers-- but I also derive the feeling of a "cheaper" 2.99 book from the overall quality. Timothy Truman's writing is pulpy and substantial, the interior art is gorgeous to behold, there's a letters page in the back and even fan art and pin-ups. Plus, that "The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob" comic strip feature.
I applaud DC for drawing this price line, but I also want to see them one-up my beloved Dark Horse and pack in the perception that I'm getting a bargain for my 2.99 via better storytelling. Cover price aside, I've rarely bought DC books over the past few years because I haven't enjoyed the darker storyline direction or the way they've abruptly discarded characters I've forged emotional connections to. I've long thought Identity Crisis was a rotten piece of crap (other than the artwork, that is) and all these Crises and Identities and Countdowns and whatnot have just seemed to entrench that kind of off-putting storytelling. I wouldn't pay .29 for those books, much less 3 bones.
They should also take another cue from Dark Horse and also from Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead series over at Image, which retails for the same 2.99 minus the color but is still more than worth it not only for the compelling story but also for the heavy-duty letters page and the creator-fan give and take. It's participatory. Even though I haven't written a letter, I feel my involvement in the characters is being validated by Kirkman's recognition of his readers' concerns. He might occasionally give a smart ass answer to said concerns, but it's all in good fun.
Anyway, thanks for the (kinda) price break, DC. Now let's see you build on this by making the contents of those books more fun and involving. That's how you keep fans like me from "abandoning titles and characters" we've read for years. I might also remind you that I didn't abandon my favorite title-- Batgirl. You took that away from me.
Oh, and try to avoid killing anyone off for a while. That's been done to death.
Go ahead, click on it and check it out. Spidey won't bite you. It's the first official image of new Spider-Man/Peter Parker Andrew Garfield in costume-- and in deep emo mode, apparently.
It looks like a modified version of Tobey Maguire's costume; all textured in the modern movie tradition. Plus, Puny Parker looks like he's been dumpster diving or installing big block V8 engines all day and now he's heading home for a much-needed shower. Long and lean Spider-Man, huh? I won't know how much I like this look until I see the movie.
But for now, slap some corporate branding and a title logo on it and this image looks like it could be the cover right off a Marvel monthly-- the work of some hotshot Photoshop jockey artist-of-the-moment who eschews dynamism in favor of photorealism. Garfield's mopey face looks very Parkeresque, and the mood's right. Spidey's stories have always had ample portions of soap opera-style melodrama. I just hope he cleans himself up and starts mocking his enemies like a gymnastic Ricky Gervais at some point. I prefer my Spider-Men in pristine condition and in full-on smartass mode. And imagine what the poor guy smells like right now!
I could really get rolling on Joe Dredd (and his tragically corrupt twin brother), and maybe I will. I was such a fan of Eagle Comics' Judge Dredd reprint book at one point, I talked my dad's best friend's wife-- she was a native of the UK and a naturalized US citizen-- ask her relatives to send me issues of 2000 A.D. I was the only kid in south Georgia in the early-t0-mid 80s who was a regular reader of the "Galaxy's Greatest Comic!" They didn't put out issues, the released "progs."
Unfortunately, the writing was in a kind of moribund phase and I didn't find any of the storylines particularly compelling. Nothing came close to matching the classic "Judge Cal" storyline, or the "Judge Child Quest" or the time Dredd had to drive this huge armored vehicle across the Cursed Earth-- a post-apocalyptic wasteland full of poisonous rats, horrible mutants and malfunctioning technology left over from previous eras-- to deliver medicine to Mega City Two out on the west coast. I did have the Special with "Block Out at the Crater Bowl," with art by none other than John Byrne, though. That was a pleasant surprise, because I was a big Byrne fan then, too.
The point of all this rambling is-- here's a cool blog review of Medicom's Stallone-as-Dredd figure from 1995. 1/6th scale action figures weren't as popular in 1995 as they are today. Assuming they're still popular; I dropped out of that racket a few years ago when I stopped being able to afford them. I do know some of the stuff Hot Toys puts out looks almost museum quality, though!
Do you like Dredd's new law-togs? I think they're a vast improvement over Sylvester Stallone's ridiculous outfit from 1995's justifiably-maligned Judge Dredd. The new suit isn't comic-perfect but it does have that Euro sci-fi styling, a kind of Moebius-lite the early Dredd strips had in 2000 A.D. Reminiscent of his production design work on Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, too. I know Moebius didn't have a damned thing to do with the Judge Dredd comics, but I've always gotten a similar vibe from his costumes with their funky helmets and knee-pads and those in Dredd. And in my mind, they've conflated into this concept of "Euro sci-fi," which had its greatest cinematic expression in Besson's movie. And this image. Which I like.
Take a deep breath, Justification Boy!
And yes, I've seen some of the Photoshop jobs floating around where dedicated Dredd-heads have slapped Urban's mug under a helmet of almost 100% comic book accuracy, along with a uniform to match-- and those look pretty stupid. Even stupider, in fact, than Stallone's ridiculous garb.
Here's the cover, courtesy of Comic Vine. The Six Million Dollar Man #5, published by Charlton Comics Group. You just couldn't find these in my hometown. And while all the boys at my elementary school were hardcore fans of Col. Steve Austin and his various cyborgian body parts, we never really warmed up to his four-color adventures. That was probably at least partially due to our prejudice against Charlton's magazines, which were considered vastly inferior to those from DC, Marvel and even Gold Key.
The cover art is pretty dynamic, it does give away a large portion of the composition to some generic motorcycle guy with little or no charisma-- hunting rifle notwithstanding-- while foolishly relegating the star of the book to the lower left hand corner where he suffers the further indignity of having his torso stamped over with a UPC code. Even the cycle jockey in the background can't believe his eyes! Far freakin' out! The Bionic Man should be the central design element on the cover of his own title, man! Even if he did just clobber me and trash my bike!
Charlton's cover typography was never all that attractive, nor was their use of conjoined circles in kind of a full-bleed configuration. They make a visual irritation up there, kind of a tangent you'd generally want to avoid. Frankly, it makes the book look cheap compared to the big publishers. Charlton books always looked sheepish in the spinner racks, as if they knew they couldn't quite cut the mustard alongside Batman, Superman, The Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four.
I'm sure Sgt. Rock told them to "Buck up, mister. It's a long war and the fella in the foxhole next to you needs to know he can count on you." But as a longtime veteran of the war for readership-- a vicious, bloody struggle of attrition that continues to this day-- Rock knew the score. Charlton just wasn't going to make it. Sooner or later, it would break under the strain and either do something foolish like bolt during an artillery barrage and get itself killed or else just start sobbing and wetting its pants and have to be evacuated to the aid station for combat fatigue. Poor Charlton. They never should've drafted it into this man's comic book army.
What the hell am I talking about? Oh yeah, The Six Million Dollar Man #5. The interior art by Jack Sparling was pretty sweet and I remember especially admiring how he drew these incredibly lush eyelashes on the female characters. Col. Austin resembled Lee Majors, which was a plus. The plot had something to do with invisibility and a Las Vegas showgirl and there were a few moments of wry humor but, overall, it just didn't have that much of an impact on me as a kid. It remained just an oddity in my collection, along with those freaky Spire Archie comics the youth minister at our church gave me when I had my tonsils out.
I never saw another issue of Charlton's The Six Million Dollar Man after this one-- and despite its being labeled #5, I felt pretty sure at the time it had to be a one-off thing and any indication otherwise was some kind of con job or mail fraud or something. Then again, I never looked all that hard for this book. I was too busy reading Sgt. Rock.
But after all this time, I'd love to snag another copy of The Six Million Dollar Man #5 and see if the mental images I'm experiencing while writing this bear any relationship whatsoever to what's really inside its pages. I'm usually so wrong about these things!
Now is the time of the year where we high-powered, in-the-know comic book bloggers focus our mighty minds on the endless task of telling you, the lowly reader, what to think about the year you just experienced for yourself. Here on my own personal Mt. Olympus, I have gazed far and seen many wonders which I will now relate to you from my god-like perspective as an all-powerful force for good, able to grasp the entire comics industry in my palm and shake it like as if it were but a pair of dice and yet bend it to my will so that the results when I toss it always come up in my favor...
Actually, I spent the first four or so months of 2010 in Japan, the final 8 looking for a job and my comic book obsessions have always been peculiar to myself—so what I found noteworthy this past year is probably going to seem a bit skewed. Enjoy the When Comic Books Ruled the Earth retrospective, Top 10 style!
10) Green Lantern? You Poor, Poor Bastard. You probably shouldn't judge a movie by its trailer, but you certainly can determine if it's something you'd like to see. And Green Lantern isn't something I would like to see. Not even as an in-flight movie on my way back to Japan. (November)
9) Onion A/V Club Writer Fired for Writing Review of an Unpublished Book. And becomes endlessly repeated in-joke on the message boards there in the classic A/V Club tradition. What if you were assigned to write a review for a book that hadn't been published yet? How would you handle it? Hopefully, you wouldn't do what this guy did and write a review of it anyway. It cost him his job, spawned a minor war of words between a comics blog and various A/V club regulars and now we have to put up with a lame-ass reference to this incident on practically every comment thread at the Onion. (December)
8) Cassandra Cain Returns to DC Continuity. And for once, Cass-fans don’t have to take to the web to angrily denounce it! While the in-story reason for her absence doesn’t appear to make any sense and despite some rude treatment the last few years at the hands of various writers and artists, Cass bounced back in 2010 courtesy of… Fabian Nicieza? Who saw that coming? She made a 5-page appearance in Red Robin #17 and was appropriately bad-ass and taciturn. Thanks, DC! (November)
7) Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Changes the Game… and Flops! Edgar Wright's colorful and fun adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley's Scott Pilgrim graphic novels garnered positive reviews but couldn't turn them into ticket sales. The end result is an odd little one-off comic book movie adaptation with a game cast and a crackerjack soundtrack that’s probably destined for cult status. (August)
6) Spider-Man Musical Determined to Kill Its Cast. Spider-man Broadway musical all about your friendly neighborhood guy who wears webs on his costume and swings from webs while spinning webs debuted with impressive production credentials—Julie Taymor as director and co-writer, music by Bono and the Edge. How could this thing fail? Massively! Apparently, the Sinister Six took offense at their lack of inclusion and sabotaged the whole thing. $65 million, a disastrous opening night, brutal reviews and a stuntman in the ICU… and a legend is born! (November/December)
5) Walking Dead Kills for AMC. AMC’s The Walking Dead series debuted to much acclaim and… uh… killer ratings. Then producer Frank Darabont axed all the writers. Okay, I should have made some kind of zombie-related joke there. I’m sorry. I let you down. I let my family down. Through six episodes, Darabont and his team took Robert Kirkman’s comic characters into places strange and unfamiliar. It’s “loosely adapted,” I suppose. While I’m a huge fan of the books, I’m glad they’re not just throwing those stories up on the screen. I like the idea the TV show can still hold surprises. Especially the second season debut where Rick gets turned into a zombie and eats Dale. Oops! Spoiler alert! (October/November/December)
3) Yazawa Ai Released from Hospital.Renowned mangaka Yazawa Ai continues to recover from a mystery illness that led her to lay down her pen and ink and put her massively-popular serial Nana on indefinite hiatus.While it seems unlikely she’ll continue her work anytime soon, we wish her a happy and healthy 2011.Take care of yourself, sensei.Your fans will always love you! (April)
2) New Spider-Man Movie Series! You can’t keep a good money-making franchise down. People love Spider-Man and they also love Spider-Man movies… with cash. So when Sam Raimi, Tobey McGuire and Kirsten Dunst decided they didn’t want to make anymore Spidey flicks, you didn’t expect Sony and Marvel to just give up, did you? Now they’re taking advantage of our adoration for all things Webhead by combining it with our uncritical acceptance of that other Hollywood phenomenon, the “re-boot.” Director Marc Webb and stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone will take the Spider-Man movie franchise into bold, new directions. By which I mean, yet another re-telling of the origina story but in 3D and updated with even quicker editing and stylistic flash for today’s audience for whom the years 2002, 2005 and 2008… probably occurred before their birth. My New Year's resolution: Stop being so cynical. (January)
1) Al Williamson and Dick Giordano Pass. These hurt. I’ve been an Al Williamson fan almost as long as I’ve been a comic book fan and I spent years trying to learn how to draw like him before giving up. His lush ink line and flawless figure-work will always set the standard and when I think of high adventure and science-fantasy, the settings will always look as though they flowed from Williamson’s brush. His influence extended beyond the illustrative medium-- it's hard to see Han Solo with his strapped-down sidearm, super-tight pants and tall boots as anything other than the cinematic descendant of any number of Williamson's sci-fantasy heroes. Dick Giordano was not only an inker par excellence, but he was also an editor and later Vice President/Executive Editor at DC and editor-in-chief at Charlton Publishing. He brought a clean, sharp look to DC’s house style-- particularly in collaboration with Neal Adams and George Perez-- and mentored many young inkers. While some of his views generated controversy, there's no denying his immense positive impact on the look of superhero comics. Another great loss. (June/March)
