Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 247
Man In Motion
EUROTRIP
Greetings from… Belgium… I think? I’m on a drive and don’t have service on my phone, so I can’t say exactly. We’re on our way to Berlin.
I tend to think of governments at their absolute best as representing the majority of people. And at their worst, the tyranny of a self-dealing minority. And on average, just engines with terrible efficiency, sending power to aspects that don’t require it and artificially throwing a governor on individual achievement. So, needless to say, I get pretty morbid in Berlin.
Beautiful, interesting city. Filled with artists and wannabe artists and generally nice people. A good time.
But take me on that walk along what remains of the Berlin Wall and my mood changes. I feel like I’m tip-toeing through a serial killer’s apartment. “So this is where terrible thing happened?” I hate imaginary lines that limit human potential.
For a largely unintentional rumination on a similar topic, check out my book with the great Antonio Fuso, SURVIVAL FETISH.
Alright, let’s talk comics.
I PROMISE I’M NOT HATING, I’M JUST CONCERNED
Dynamite launches a THUNDERCATS book with 100+ variants.
Alright. I admire Dynamite for working its lane and managing to navigate a difficult market. But, man, c’mon.
And I know this isn’t the first time. I think one of the VAMPIRELLA launches had almost this many covers. But how many times can we go to this well? The sales are good, I hear. But what sales are those exactly? This is where the foolishness of the whole “the real consumer is the shops” mentality is best illustrated.
“This is unsustainable,” has become a cliche. But, damn, this doesn’t just meet the definition, it is the definition.
Are we literature or are we collectables? Both? Ok. Now are we pop culture or are we niche tchotchkes for fixated completists?
All that said, I’m happy for Declan Shalvey and Drew Moss. And 30 years into his career I continue to be amazed by Jae Lee. Look at this cover. He is a high-level rule breaker. Artists of that era were pretty flagrant, but Lee was the one that elevated it with mood.
I wish it was not an homage to X-MEN #1, because it really doesn’t need to be. It just rules for all the reasons Lee has always ruled. Heavy on the cool factor.
THEY’RE DOING THAT THING AGAIN SPRAY THEM WITH WATER PLEASE
Marvel and DC announced they’ll be reprinting the company crossovers, including the Amalgam thing they did.
I’m only mentioning this because I typically post some comics news and this is comics news. I don’t have any warm space for this in my heart. No nostalgia. Continuity was a big part of the fun when I was a kid. And these crossovers always flipped that table in a way I never enjoyed. As an adult, I like stories that thrill me or move me. And we run up against the same hurdle: these stories always feel… fake… for lack of a better word. It’s all fake, obviously. But stuff without weight really feels even more false.
Of course, if this scratches an itch and brings back great memories for you, I’m happy. Certainly my young life was made up of books that may not have been great in retrospect, but there’s no reason to subject them to retrospect. They are formative and beautiful for that reason. You are entitled to your version of that.
But I ask that we do not make it a fan thing to request more of this. We have to acknowledge at some point that the readership is older and there is no going back. The Big Two characters can still be great vessels for stories, but the stories will have to be for adults if they are going to have meaning moving forward.
MEDIA CONSUMPTION THIS WEEK
As a proper Chad (superfan of Paul Chadwick), I’ve consumed most of his limited (but endlessly rewarding) bibliography. But I had not read his Vertigo Comics collaboration with John Bolton, GIFTS OF THE NIGHT.
It’s a tiny thing, really. A short story written, I have to believe, as a short story. That’s in contrast to so many comic miniseries that don’t seem to understand their own limited nature. This title most certainly does. It’s fairy tale, right down to the didactic moral of the thing. Obvious allegories abound. It’s blunt but literary enough (you’d expect nothing less from Chadwick) that you don’t feel talked-down-to. Bolton’s art is serious when it needs to be and playful everywhere else.
Chadwick maximizes comics in a subtle way. He’s like a playwright who will do any visual thing necessary to keep you engaged with his characters’ words. In Chadwick books, a conversation is a ride and Bolton throws himself into it. The thing being discussed always appears on the page. Topics are illustrated and demonstrated in dreamlike fashion throughout the dialog in Chadwick’s books. Perhaps my greatest inspiration for that reason.
GIFTS OF THE NIGHT is, again, a short story. That means it may stick with you, but more likely as a tiny sliver in your mind rather than something you recall often. A worthwhile read, even as just a palate cleanser.
Moving on.
Watched Cruising for the first time. I love the unmotivated killer stalks a city’s [insert demographic] genre. This one happens to be killing gay men into the bar hookup scene. It’s interesting to read about the outrage surrounding the film when it premiered. Gay orgs said it painted homosexuals in a bad light. They had enough problems with gay-bashing incidents and police harassment, they didn’t need the added headache of looking like sex-mad perverts in a Hollywood film.
I get it.
But I worked in the West Village for years and these dudes definitely exist. Confirmed. The meatpacking district gay clubs in the movie are mostly true to life, as I was in the city for their last gasps. The critics that described the film as a sensationalized version aren’t being honest. I’m not gay and I’ve still somehow been to places with names like The Cock Fight or Man Hole where guys are living this life. So I know these critics have at least some contact with that world, even if it’s not their scene. No reason to lie.
I guess the question comes down to what’s ‘responsible.’ Do you have an obligation to paint a marginalized group in the best possible light? A balanced portrayal? In that case, who decides what balanced means? Or can you treat characters in a story as the the individuals you wrote them as without regard to audience biases?
You can guess my view.
Last month I watched Fort Apache The Bronx. It’s meandering and not quite gritty enough, but hardly the creative failure its often dismissed as. Bronx residents (or at least groups claiming to represent Bronx residents) were upset by the depiction of their borough. But… you can just go to documentary footage of the place (of which there is copious amounts for free on Youtube) to get the memo. The interpersonal dramas and individual characters in Fort Apache The Bronx may be sensationalized, but there’s nothing in it we can’t picture happening in real life. At least based on real life news items, documentary footage, and personal accounts.
So are writers expected to neuter the depiction of a character because that character comes from demographic x? Can’t have the depth of either a real person or a literary character because we must protect ‘you’ in some broad and impersonal fashion?
What an anti-art crock of shit.
The people in Cruising were real enough that anyone with any contact to that scene would recognize them. Not perfect depictions of people they literally knew, but broad silhouettes because that’s all most art can aspire to. But even if they were high fantasy versions of leather daddies that had no tether to reality, it’s not anyone’s responsibility (there’s that word) to depict x as x. Reality is an obstacle in most cases. It’s not something to suckle on indefinitely for fear of growing past it. And should someone very close to a thing not care for your depiction, that’s entirely fine. You’re never gonna nail it. I REALLY hate the portrayal of people with developmental disabilities in film. A lot. Not because I’m offended, but because I’m as close to that population as one can get and I’ve never seen an accurate depiction.
BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THE DEPICTION SHOULD NOT EXIST. IT JUST MEANS I MAY NOT WATCH THE DEPICTION. WHICH IS FAR FROM THE END OF THE WORLD.
Here’s an example to think over. Right now there’s a subculture of a subculture within the bear scene. These guys fill their scrotums with a silicone of some type. And I mean BIG. It’s really wild and/or upsetting to see. Google it if you want a strange morning. So, these fellas are uncommon in the leather bear party circuit community, rare in the larger bear community, and vanishingly rare in the broader gay community. You could go your whole life and never encounter a man with a plastic-inflated nut sac.
But, they exist.
I know this because I know one. An acquaintance of mine has his scrotum looking like a bag of concrete these days. And a friend adjacent to that scene sends me shock photos of these fellas living their best most-pumped lives.
So is it your job, you, I’m talking to you now, is it YOUR job to only depict the normal, well-adjusted (by whose standard?) gays in the story you’re writing? Or is it your job to entertain your readership/audience? The guys with the giant scrotums visiting a general practitioner for their yearly checkup is far more entertaining a scene than your friend Ross who is gay but has been with the same guy for 11 years and works as a school teacher running the same errand. Do you get it?
It’s a delicate balance, clearly. Because if you go for TOO interesting, you end up with a character so exceptional that that he or she feels like they are a separate story from the one you’re telling.
But that should be a matter of taste and a calculated STORY risk. Not a matter of self-censorship.
HELP ME UNDERSTAND WHY YOU CARE
In the broader entertainment news, Gina Carano is suing Disney. I shouldn’t be shocked by some of the responses I’ve seen, but I am still disappointed. If the woman has a case, let it play out. If she doesn’t, let it get tossed before you do your victory dance. Or refrain from a victory dance altogether, really, as anything she loses in life isn’t awarded to you and you shouldn’t give a shit about any of this. In fact, if you care about this at all, and that’s not what I recommend, you should consider looking at it through a labor lens.
You need protections for your off-worksite speech. Here we go again. I’m saying it again. Skip it if you’ve gotten this quarter’s quota of me talking about this. You need protections for your off-worksite speech. We all do. The way those projections would be established are by test cases. Test cases will, never, ever, by their very nature, ever, be palatable to the majority. They require speech that challenges established norms in such a way that litigation is required to uphold them.
But, regardless, you need protections for your off-worksite speech. We all do.
There’s some debate if social media as a phenomenon is slowing down or just reaching a natural stasis. But a future without it is unlikely. And YOU, yes, you, need your job to respect your time away from the office. Including your thoughts. And as I’ve pointed out here a billion times, the parochial notion that ‘censorship’ only applies to government action is backdated to a world where corporations don’t have greater assets than nations. You need protections.
If Carano said something you disagree with or offends you, it’s immaterial to the real conversation. Bringing it up is to assume the role of the “oh, me, me! Teacher look!” student in a classroom. You want to be part of the thing happening, but your contribution is worthless.
Either she has a case, or she doesn’t. Let it play out. And should she get a settlement or a court rule in her favor, YOU should celebrate it. Even if you hate her or whatever the narrative around her is. Even if you are a Disney adult who feels some need to side with the world’s largest entertainment company against an individual worker. Even you should be happy. Because this is a labor matter. And I imagine you labor in some capacity.
The simple reply to these things is “you may not think you’ll ever offend, but you never know which way the pendulum may swing and you could find yourself outside the window of acceptable conversation at any time!” But becoming an adult is the realization that some people truly never will offend. Because they will always fall within whatever is permitted. Some will forcibly move their views to become acceptable. Others have no views to speak of.
But you MAY still need protections for your off-worksite speech. If even by accident.
I’M OVERTIRED AND I HAD TOO MUCH SODA
I have two projects that are mostly done and prolly due for an announcement soon. When you’re new in comics, getting an announcement of your work is THE most important thing to you. You feel like you don’t exist until everyone knows you’ve got a real life book coming in the near future.
But then you do a number of books, realize you’re in the mix as much as anyone else, and you let go of whatever imposter syndrome-adjacent neurosis it is that causes you to prioritize being accepted over being truly done with a book.
So, those will get announced when they get announced. Until then, more ponderous newsletters will hit your inbox.
Hope everyone is in good health and feeling good about the trajectory of their year. Do for self.