Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 268
San Diego: Never Heard of It
READY YOURSELF
We’re almost ready to rock. After many months of nothing on the shelves, I’m cueing up a wild 2025. Here’s a detail from a EPHK piece. We’re not going cheap and we’re not going boring. This is comics for the winner’s circle.
SAN DIEGO COMIC CON
Despite whatever devilish materials listed me, I was not in attendance. And instead recorded an album in Pennsylvania.
I don’t care for conventions outside of seeing a few people I enjoy and picking up some cheap trades. The crowds put me off as I don’t like feeling rushed and also don’t appreciate being held up myself. It’s a bit like being inside a Trader Joe’s for three days.
A few bits of gossip from the convention came my way, but for the most part I got my news the same way you did. Don’t know how much there is to report on. Batman books got a new editor. DC got a new (old) logo. IDW lost more than a name when they lost Scott Dunbier, as he’s now taken the recipe for good archival editions to his own company. Robert Downey Jr is in Marvel movies again; film twitter is mad while normal people are mildly interested.
I don’t know anyone agreed with every Eisner award winner, but I imagine that’s how it’s supposed to be. I will say that it’s a bit confusing who the awards intend to reward. I think for anyone to take this seriously it needs a mission in clear language. Also, and I know this is a stick subject as I’m a creator and there’s no way to not seem like I have my own agendas, but…
“Usually included are a comics creator, a critic/reviewer, a graphic novel librarian, a comics retailer, a scholar, and a member of the Comic-Con organizing committee.”
Those are the judges, by role, typically on the awards panel. Respectfully, could you list a comic book critic or scholar you would trust with this responsibility? What about a librarian? Is there one you think is particularly distinguished and needs to be on this voting body? etc. etc. You know what, never mind. This award just isn’t something that people like me should investigate. Have fun with it.
Many comic professionals seemed to have a good time at this year’s SDCC, and that sounds like a success to me. I’m happy the vibe was mostly good and some creators could make some money or further themselves in whatever way. I can’t say “wish I was there” but I do wish I was at the Ocean Beach People’s Co-op which is a few miles from the convention and has wicked breakfast options.
I SHOULD NOT BE THE CLEVER ONE IN ANY ROOM
Some of the announcements coming outta San Diego alienated me in a specific way.
I make comics for people who know the genres I’m working in and appreciate whatever tiny jazz improvisations I’m doing in those spaces. I’m average IQ and really only creative in the sense that I think there’s always more you can do with familiar ideas. I would not enter a dick measuring contest with the creators I admire. I’m on a path to hopefully reach them someday, but it is for sure a long path.
That’s all to say: I don’t wanna be the smartest guy in any room I’m in.
So why in the hell are the announcements making me feel like some type of genius? Where is the Morrison book that will be over my head but nevertheless a fun read? Why am *I* feeling intellectually superior to A N Y O N E ??? Bad sign, comics!
Some comic friends and I were talking about the role of comics in a post-newsstand reality. No means to reach young people with periodical comics. Broken pricing. Broken delivery method. A challenge that we just don’t know how to beat yet. So what is our role? If our job is to enrich ourselves while being good partners to stores, what kind of material is intuitive? I want smartly done shit. Not necessarily smart shit, but smartly done. I can’t be alone in this. But did I guess wrong?
This guy’s commentary on whatever this post-Holzer affirmation art is called is essentially my commentary on corporate comic books.
But maybe I didn’t get the memo that this shit is still aimed squarely at children?
HATE THEM ON MENUS; HATE THEM IN COMICS
Marvel has some QR code gimmick where you get more content from your print books when you scan it. But they’ve done such a shit job of explaining it that people have run with the narrative that readers now have to scan a code to read the last page of their comics.
“Common Marvel L” as the kids say.
I get tryna do new things and why the hell not ultimately, but any process that requires more work on the readers’ part is gonna brick. Ask your website guys how brutal a second-click is for retention. Nobody wants to make reading a multi-step process. And anyone coulda guessed that.
I have a gimmick for Marvel. Hire capable people and lengthen the leashes on them so they can work.
WHO IS YOUR DADDY AND WHAT DOES HE DO?
A few creative non-entities (objectively; that’s not editorialization on my part) made Ed Piskor their hobby horse this week. They asked that you dismiss his work and/or recalibrate your view of him to “scumbag.” Think pieces(?) and tweets designed to undermine his Eisner nomination (and later, win).
The larger purpose? I’m not entirely sure. If you think Piskor was a predator of some type and this display is your… stance against predators… then may I suggest you do more than shit on an already dead guy? If you believe that sexual predation or the exploitation of young talent is a problem in this industry, I’m certain there are real-life, right-now, examples you could devote yourself to. When moralized to, it’s a thinking person’s obligation to always ask, “ok, and what are you doing about it?”
My newsletter is tiny and nevertheless I reach more people each week than the many of posts on comic news sites. Colleagues’ newsletters have 5x my reach. Which means many times further reach than the outlets people have been told are credible.
We’re in a different era. The commentariat will always exist, but now it exists exclusively in its own silo. People who don’t know any better go to people who don’t know. And when they’re exposed to someone who does, they defect from ignorance and listen to someone who has real world experience.
The question moving forward and forever will be: “have you made a comic book and can I see it?”
If you haven’t made a comic book, get the fuck outta the commentary pool. If you have, but it’s lightweight crap made for an audience built to applaud lightweight crap, get the fuck out. If you fancy yourself an intellectual and see your contribution to comics as ‘necessary criticism,’ I assure you, no. Go put up some weight.
HOW COULD HE?????
Jim Shooter was asked about the state of the industry and said (I’m paraphrasing, though barely), “shit sucks. There’s not enough focus on telling entertaining stories. The energy seems to be going toward didactic propaganda pieces nobody is really interested in reading. Low-commitment to character. Low-commitment to fun.”
To which, people who see political sentiment as more important than craft or expression, responded poorly.
I don’t know what to say here. Is it possible that what one man said as an insult could be flattery to you? And is it possible that you could receive that flattery without getting wrapped around his intent?
Critic: “Lloyd Kaufman movies are tawdry, déclassé, and lower the bar of auteur filmmaking to the point it really does seem anyone can do it.”
Kaufman: “Finally! Someone gets it!”
If someone described me or my work accurately but said I was everything wrong with comics, I would just assume we worked from a similar premise to arrive at different conclusions. All good.
You can dismiss Shooter as being from another era, some type of vestigial appendage comics should shed. But, I think we all know that’s not true. He’s working from a shared premise and arriving at a different conclusion than some of you. That’s ok. Some of your books are really not focused on entertainment. And you know that. What is a bug to Shooter is a feature to you. Why not just own it instead of being mad?
MEDIA CONSUMPTION
On a whim I ordered the two NOCTERNALS omnibuses. This is the work of Dan Brereton and is very, very Dan Brereton. Every eyebrow is arched to the sky. You know the work instantly if you’re of a certain age and poking around comic shops in your youth.
Is it good? Well, it’s certainly one very interesting artist’s full effort at expression. So, yeah. It is good. But is it good? Tricky question. The stories are meant to be noirish but low-impact and fun. You get it. Superhero stuff, but with at least two very idiosyncratic twists on the genre.
I would say omnibus 1 is very worthwhile for fans of independent superhero comics. Maybe necessary, honestly. Because Brereton is not like his peers and may have no real creative children either. He’s unique and you know him as soon as you see him.
Omnibus 2 is really only for the heads. Low on story content, it’s a bit more of an art book than an omnibus. But the art is good, so that’s enough for many.
The publication history on these stories was a bit muddy for me. I do like that the kid in the group seems to be aging A LOT through the stories, which lends itself to a lived-in feel to the thing. Like these characters have been together, in their time, for the entire time since their first story.
A worthwhile oddity.
Watched Winter Kills this week. It’s great. Like, really, really just great. A viciously pointed Kennedy family satire produced 16 years after the assassination of JFK. It has a tone that lost some critics when it came out and would elude plenty today. But it all works if you’re not a concrete-brained literalist. As a thriller, your milage may vary. The nature of the thing is Kafkaesque and maybe actually about the pointlessness of it. Protagonist bounces off oddball characters and frustrating ideas until credits roll. Fantastic.
Working my way through the Female Prisoner Scorpion films. Really truly loved Female Prisoner Scorpion #701, which kicked off the franchise. A woman betrayed and brutalized for following her heart sits in neglect and abuse, waiting and plotting. The movie boils.
I must’ve been talking about the film, because my Twitter feed started sending me things like this:
And I couldn’t disagree more. I hated literature class in high-school because it was always a teacher being paid $55k a year to be an expert in nothing but somehow fill a full workday. So every pet theory about what something ‘meant’ was conveyed like gospel to kids who didn’t know yet that nothing ‘means’ anything in worthwhile art.
The movie is a boilerplate prison/revenge hybrid that we’ve all seen before it and after. it says nothing ‘about’ prison. It says nothing ‘about’ the viewer’s complicity. It’s nice to receive it that way, if that’s a read that makes it more personal or otherwise compelling for you. But it’s not what’s on the actual screen. The film is an AESTHETIC ACCOMPLISHMENT. It’s stylish and beautiful. THAT’S what it says. THAT’S what it means. Anything else is in your head.
We agree it’s a great film though. I’ll try to get through the manga that inspired it and report on that next week.
Finally got around to what some consider the greatest of Andy Sidaris films, Hard Ticket To Hawaii. Would you feel good if you paid money to see this in a theater? I think you’d have to. It’s budget but also ambitious in a weird budget way. Written like notes taken after a dream, it’s not what anyone would call cohesive. And characters often seem confused that they exist at all. But, there’s a ‘contaminated’ puppet snake sick from eating cancer lab rats acting like Chekov’s Gun for three acts, and that’s something.
Andy Sidaris viewing party continues with Guns, hopefully next week.
SWEATIN’
I forgot the east coast is so humid. Take me back to Perth. Take me back to Los Angeles. Get me outta the beautiful greenery and drop me in the desert. I can’t focus when my shirt is sticking to the chair.
Hope you have a great week and get something done. Do for self.