Comment Policy
Offensive, harrassing or baiting comments will not be tolerated and will be deleted at my discretion.
Comment spam will be deleted.
Please leave a name and either a valid web-site or e-mail address with comments. Comments left without either a valid web-site or e-mail address may be deleted. Atom Feed LiveJournal SyndicationLOLcats feed
As cringe-worthy as a lot of Coo Coo Comics #20 is, there's still some good stuff in there. One story I think is a real gem, with great coloring and beautiful minimalist linework, "Petey Possum", marred only but significantly by the regretable racism of the period.
Since the topic came up today, and judging by the number of unfamiliar names I've seen in comments, it's probably time to make this clear again: I generally prefer comments on posts to be relevant to the subject of the post. And if you absolutely cannot comment on the subject, that the comment you do make be at least entertaining.
So, for example, a post about a Golden Age gag strip's spectacular failure to be funny? Not the place to gripe about your dissatisfaction with a line-wide cross-over (and, honestly, if you're expecting more than barely tolerable continuity-porn out of a line-wide cross-over, more the fool you). A post where I actually bother to point out that complains about, say, Countdown bear a striking similarity to complaints about 52 from this time last year, suggesting that either people are misremembering what they said about the quality of 52 or that what people are complaining about may just be the necessary pacing of a 52-part weekly serial? Yeah, fine, have at it.
I would make one request in the later situation though: don't make the same tired whines that I see in places like Newsarama and Scans_Daily all the damn time. Don't complain that Dan Didio/Joe Quesada is the anti-Christ because a minor character who hasn't appeared regularly in a book for twenty years is being written out of character in their two-panel appearance. Don't brag about stealing the book from a torrent site because you refuse to pay for your childhood being raped. Don't praise any allegedly funny parodies or reviews that consist mainly of paraphrasing the same complaints posters at Newsarama or Scans_Daily make. And for the love of all that is good and holy in the universe, don't pan Company A's cross-over for being continuity-porn while praising Company B's continuity-porn cross-over.
And now, the "Pop Korn" strip from Coo Coo Comics #20, in its entirety, because honestly, you have to read the whole thing, in context, to appreciate this:
And...that's it. That's the two-page gag strip in full. Now, if you're like me, you're wondering "where's the punch line? That wasn't the slightest bit funny. That was just sort of...there." And so it occurs to me that one of two things must be true. Either people used to have really low expectations for their entertainment, and you could do gag strips that weren't funny (and the rest of Coo Coo Comics #20 broadly supports that theory), or Pop Korn is actually making a really deep and profound point that we should all meditate upon in order to reach a higher level of enlightenment.
(No, honestly, that's the strip...my comic isn't missing pages, it doesn't continue later in the book...that's it.)
And now, how a contemporary comic fan would react to that comic...
"Clearly, this was all just some blatant cash grab on the part of Gold Key to try and drum up sales on the lower-selling Chip 'n Dale book by involving it in this useless cross-over! Clearly, the editors of Gold Key hate the fans, as Zeke Wolf would never be tricked by a pixie in such a shameless manner! We're going to have to have a Crisis of Infinite Disney to sort this mess out. Of course, they'll probably just have Geoff Johns/Brian Bendis write it, so the Golden Age Mickey Mouse would be killed off. Because Dan Didio/Joe Quesada hate fun!"
Some of the recent talk about gay representation reminded me that I wanted to point out an example of someone doing it right. I usually read light fantasy and humor novels on my lunch breaks. It gives me something to get my mind off of managing inventory and purchasing for half and hour to forty minutes, and so I want something I can open, read a bit of, and finish, without having to feel any pressure to really think about what I'm reading. For this, the "young adult" aimed novels that tie into the Doctor Who show are great. I can get through two or three chapters of easily digestible prose while I eat, then go back to work.
Now, one of the hallmarks of the latest incarnation of the show has been the commitment to racial and sexual identity diversity. Not every character on the show is white, not every character on the show is straight. It's a science-fiction program that actually acknowledges that not everyone in the world now is a straight white male, much less everyone in the future or the past. In one of the recent batch of books, Forever Autumn, by Mark Morris, there's a gay character. It's a minor role, just a hapless townsperson the Doctor and Martha must rescue, but he's there. And the text acknowledges he's gay. It's just his interesting back-ground detail, something to keep him from being Mr. Generic Town Guy. This is a young adult novel that ties into a massively popular (in its home country) television show. And it deals with gay characters (and black characters and Asian characters and female characters) as just yet another aspect of the world.
The Doctor Who franchise can do this because the producers and creators want to do this. They could very easily have brought the show back and had a curious dearth of characters with melanin. They could have avoided those icky sexuality discussions entirely. They chose not to. And that's the difference.
In much the same way, one of the most successful authors of our time, an author that has already borne much undeserved scorn for her works by closed-minded people, found time to obsessively detail every adolescent heterosexual crush of her characters, but decided that openly dealing with the fact that some boys like boys and some girls like girls wasn't something she was interested in doing. In much the same way, a major American comic book publisher could have decided not to hire the outspoken homophobe to write a book featuring two lesbians of color. But for that author and that publisher, dealing realistically and positively with issues of sexual orientation, well...it's simply something they didn't want to be bothered to do.
All Star Superman #9: Man, I never would have seen the death of Superman coming, nor his elevation to godhood. What a completely unexpected twist. Too bad there are no utterly infallible online gossip columns with 100% accuracy records to have given us clues about that... Oh, and I'm sure this will be a permanent and forever change to the Superman status quo, as well.
Batman and the Outsiders #1: Finally, Batman is being written as he was always meant to be written: as a homophobic prick.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier: After the last two volumes, and the edgy Lost Girls, I think it was quite shocking to discover that this latest volume is a completely sincere and serious examination of the history of British children's television. I had no idea there was a secret connection between the Wombles, Balamory and Danger Mouse. Nor that it was so sinister in nature.
Amory Wars #4: Not only does this book completely justify the oft-mocked and long-neglected genre of "comics based on lyrics", but it completely justifies prog-rock as well!
Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4: Now this was an unexpected change of direction. I don't know, maybe it's me, but based on the previous volumes, I think having Scott realize the vapidity of his hipster lifestyle and become the figurehead of a mass-murdering cult...it's a bit of a darker turn than I think the series needed to go in.
"Honey, why is Timmy surrounded by card-board boxes?" "He's controlling a giant killer robot from the inside." "Ah...so, do you want to call the child psychologist this time, or shall I?
Atom Feed
, there's a gay character. It's a minor role, just a hapless townsperson the Doctor and Martha must rescue, but he's there. And the text acknowledges he's gay. It's just his interesting back-ground detail, something to keep him from being Mr. Generic Town Guy.
