Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 290

Make It Make Sense

THE CALL TO PRAYER STARTS REALLY REALLY EARLY

I’m situated between three mosques, and it’s not like they line it up to harmonize. They’re just blaring three different songs into my window. At 4:30am.

Small price to pay, I suppose. The people here are kind. And while a bout of food poisoning has made me gun-shy, I’m starting to find restaurants I like. Jakarta is maybe nobody’s idea of a vacation destination, but I’m enjoying my time here.

Now we’re fully in 2025 and it’s time to talk comic books. Big year for all of us, right?

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REMEMBER WHEN THAT THING HAPPENED

This upcoming week marks the 10th anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo Massacre. I think the ‘Charlie Hebdo Attack’ framing, as the Google auto-complete goes, is borderline malicious. This wasn’t an assault on an Airforce base. It was the murder of unarmed cartoonists and office workers. Nor does ‘Charlie Hebdo Shooting,’ as it’s listed on Wikipedia, do it justice. Plaxico Burress had a ‘shooting.’ This was slaughter.

I won’t use this as an opportunity to bang the drums I’m known to. I’ll keep it succinct and say there is no ‘but.’ If you caveat a statement about this with a comma of any sort, you’re wrong. The “they shoulda known better” or “they were punching down” murder apologia makes you a blockhead loser. Satire doesn’t need to meet your standard of goodwill to keep it above a death sentence. Fucking obviously.

And if that comes on strong, I’ll remind you that a few comic book people embarrassed (revealed) themselves that day by shrugging or, worse, rationalizing.

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R CRUMB NEEDS 50 ISSUES OF MOON NIGHT

Last week I was waiting in line at the gate for a flight from Tokyo to Jakarta. Youtube is in my headphones. A comic book stream show comes on. I’ve seen other episodes. Chemistry between two people is hard, so streams with five guests is usually too much for me. But, why not.

I came in during the middle, so I’ll ask for some grace on any missed context. Also, I am about 90% sure I’ve bought comics from the man I’m about to reference, and found him a pleasant and helpful retailer. So, this isn’t an attack on an individual. It’s just a jumping off point for a conversation (monologue).

As I’m getting on the plane, I hear “you know what Will Eisner’s problem was? He never had a Spider-Man run.”

I had to sit with that thought for an 8hr flight.

On some level it’s my fault. This was a stream for people who love corporate comics first and foremost. What did I expect? And, to be fair, he was saying it as a ‘fact’ rather than a judgement. As in, “people only care about Marvel, what can ya do?” Retailer realities. I get it.

I can lodge my objections until my fingers fall off and my voice fails. Or I could disbelieve. Or I could disparage. But I think my time is better spent trying to understand. I’m not gonna say anything revelatory, but bear with me as I work through a thing.

Facts in evidence:

• Big Two readers believe in the primacy of Big Two work and believe it legitimizes creators. Essentially, Marvel and DC are the trusted gatekeepers of talent.

• Big Two readers believe that within their time as readers those publishers have experienced a precipitous drop in quality, due to a weak talent pool.

• No resources are expended on promoting mid-tier or lower books. These are volume business. Ballast. Spammed out for hardcore collectors we may as well consider smokers. This means only the top-tier titles experience ANY chatter or energy.

• Top-tier titles are determined by legacy cache and publisher initiatives, and ‘top-tier’ does not directly correlate to quality. So, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN will always be a top book, even if it somehow is of lower quality than a She-Hulk title.

• The creators on those top books books are determined by a combination of popularity, editorial relationships, and optics. This mix makes almost no one happy. This is best illustrated when a line revamp is announced and it reads as “guy you want, guy you can stomach, guy they’re propping up to eventually replace the guy you want, and guy nobody likes but fulfills some optics requirement.”

Now here’s where I just struggle a bit, because I don’t need people to make perfect sense but I dunno what to do with contradictions this extreme. If points 2-5 are true, how can the first point sustain?

“I’m not satisfied with what I’m reading. I believe these books used to be better. I have an oppositional relationship with editorial at these companies and hold them responsible for the decline... but I trust them implicitly to know what’s best.”

Help. I can’t square this circle. I read what little chatter there is on social media about comics. I watch what little there is on Youtube. And it’s all genuine disgust for the status quo. It gets weirdly infused with politics on the edges (conservatives hate the intent; progressives hate the details) but for the most part it’s just normal ass readers who aren’t satisfied by corporate comic books.

And, yet, we can’t get them to break the habit. When they hit their limit and do break off their relationship with Spider-Man, that’s it. They don’t shift to the hundreds of indie books, some of which are better-made than any Spider-Man title. They just stop reading new comic books.

What the fuck, man?

I’m tryna find a comparison. If Marvel stopped making movies, would some people never watch movies again? I guess maybe.

Is it my job to try to win these people over? How? I’ve gotta go make multinational corporations very small amounts of money for some stretch of time? Like I’m trapped on an off-world prison colony in a sci-fi story? Then I’m, what, approved? It’s insane.

Particularly insane because even the buzz is manufactured. Or at least engineered. Donny Cates flamed out, so they’re crafting a new model. One that hopefully won’t malfunction. And, great news, this one has feel-good politics he can repeat on command.

Look, all this is shit everyone knows. And the people who feel this way about the Big Two aren’t gonna change, they’re just gonna burn out. If creator-owned books aren’t more exciting to you than corporate books just by virtue of the phraseology alone, ‘creator-owned’ vs ‘corporate,’ then you’re never gonna come over to this sensibility. And we can just respect each other. I like a few corporate books each year. You like a few creator-owned, hopefully mine. We’re casuals in each other’s spheres. All good.

But who do I get to read good comics then?

I suppose I’ve gotta start at home. I’ve mostly tried to keep music and comics separate. Sometimes I bring my books on tour, other times not. When I bring them, they sell. But I’m always hesitant. These are two of the most sensitive and often malicious worlds a creative person could occupy. And the idea of cross-collateralizing them further than I already do is unappealing. But I guess that’s over for me. If you’re reading this because you like my music, guess what? You’re now my target market for comic books. Don’t know anything about them? No sweat. Neither do most comic book readers.

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MEDIA CONSUMPTION

Sorry for the manifesto. Here’s some thoughts about movies I watched. I’m gonna try to get to Bandung this week to check out the country’s oldest comic book store. If I make it, I’ll do a little haul report.

They REALLY don’t make movies like this anymore. The Eiger Sanction is a hitman flick with shady albino paymasters and mute Bond girls. It’s ridiculous, but so rough that it’s impossible not to enjoy. Our hero kills people in undignified and brutal ways? The gay man in the film is an ex green beret and his lapdog is named Faggot? The lead sleeps with the proper love interest and a couple days later sleeps with his trainer? Oh, and the love interest is a black woman named Jemimah and it’s a frequent talking point? Alright. Let’s go.

Side note: Can you please look at this Wikipedia for The Eiger Sanction Actress Brenda Venus and tell me if I’m totally insane? Until a few days ago, this was the photo in the Wikipedia infobox of this 77-year-old woman.

According to the page archive, last week someone did tag it as fake and swap it for a new image. But it was up for almost a decade. I’m not crazy- this isn’t a photo that coulda existed during the time that Brenda Venus looked like this, correct? As in, chronologically lining up her age and the type of photography. How did it go unnoticed for so long? Also, the caption read ‘Portrait of Brenda Venus’ which is vague in a suspicious way. I mean, the image that replaced this one is just as strange in some regards too. There’s hundreds of clear photos of this woman. Why not use one? Maybe she’s editing her own entry? If so, my bad. Do your thing, Brenda.

Onward. Remember when I watched Naked Killer and said, “yeah, pretty good. Wild stuff?” Well, this one is called Naked Killer 2 in some regions and I expected a continuation, logically. But it’s Hong Kong title translates to Raped By An Angel, and it has truly nothing to do with Naked Killer. So, is it also “pretty good. Wild stuff?”

Half. It’s definitely wild stuff. I was on the phone with my wife, “yeah, watching something called Raped By An Angel, but I think Hong Kong just went for provocative names because so far there’s no hint of sexual violence.” Ten minutes later, whoops. I was wrong. This is a stalker thriller with a handsome but maladjusted serial rapist as the villain. It’s pretty deranged overall and the surprise ending is one that really only ‘works’ in 1993.

Kandyland is just badly-acted low-budge exploitation drama. I really liked it. Setting: strip club (though there’s little nudity and none of the dancing is stripping per se). Characters: Broken collection of misfits, plus one aspiring star. It’s like Flashdance. And love wins in the end.

Moving on, we’ve got John Woo most indulged. Hard Boiled is as insane as anything I’ve talked about in this newsletter. It just does it with more style and is of higher-quality, so the nuttiness isn’t centered in conversations about it. But this guy had goons popping outta windows shooting patients evacuating the ICU.

This is the best/worst of the Woo movies I’ve watched. It doesn’t have any of the gravitas of A Better Tomorrow, and it’s not as clever as The Killer. It’s really just fun trash, but boy is it. Fun as hell. Great shootouts. All-time action.

Below is an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon freshly in public domain. That poor beast thirsts for death in this one. Also, are we ever gonna talk about how suicide is the Trojan horse for censorship? It’s such a uncontroversial thing to be ‘against’ suicide, so we take it as a natural good that corporations restrict our access to information about it. ‘Unalive.’ Crazy. Kids can’t access a video where a cartoon rabbit aims a cannon at his head? What?

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HERE’S HOPING YOU DON’T THIRST FOR DEATH

Let’s have a good year, huh? Do for self.