I just had a bit of a scary thought. As I was going about my usual patrol of comic book news websites and blogs, I seriously thought unironically, “I hate comics.” 

This isn’t an entirely unprecedented thought for me to have. I picked up Brian Michael Bendis’s Moon Knight when it first came out, missed an issue so I stopped reading it, but continued buying the issues for when I could get the missing issue. Today, I sat down and read all 12 issues and found myself sorely disappointed. I had been collecting them for a year and saving them next to my bed and in one afternoon, they were ruined.

It wasn’t necessarily that that the story was bad, but it took 12 issues to tell a story that most writers could tell in 6 and Grant Morrison could tell in 3. It feels frustrating and like a waste of money and time to blow through 12 issues of useless tripe so much so that I swore off Bendis once and for all (to be fair, I think I’ve made this same threat numerous times over the years).

Please keep in mind that my dislike for his Moon Knight isn’t a reflection on Bendis as a person or because I believe he has some sort of hidden agenda in killing Echo (one of my favorite characters for some odd reason), but that I simply desire more plot and substance for my money and that is simply not Bendis’s strong suit. He is great with dialogue and while that is certainly entertaining, I can no longer use that as my basis for purchasing a book. I wish him well and if you like his work, then by all means continue to read it.

See what I did there? I was civil. I acknowledge that his work wasn’t for me, but if it is suitable to others, then they should enjoy it. I didn’t insult Bendis as a writer, nor did I invoke any dark gods to ruin his soul or the souls of his children.

But, I’m no ordinary comic fan, and I’m frankly getting sick and tired of comic fans (another phrase that I’ve stated over and over again) and the only thing they can seem to do which is complain about comics. And when they’re not complaining about comics, they are demeaning the tastes of others or invoking race or gender in order to give their displeasure some sort of elevated cause.

I wish I could go into more specifics, but they’re too numerous to mention and mostly from people that I felt like I could respect (and some from people that I know I can’t). I’m just fed up with fan culture. I’m fed up with the arguments and the hateful back and forth between people with their own agendas.

With Popgun Chaos, I’ve always tried to be critical of fans and praising of the medium and I know that I need to get back to recommending all of the beautiful and amazing comics that I’ve been reading lately, but it’s hard to do so when people would much rather nit-pick everything.

I was more fired up when I started this post, but after three phone calls in the middle of writing, my fire is gone out. I’m off to read the new Dark Tower book.

This past weekend, Samantha and I went to the great city of Chicago for the Chicago Comics Entertainment Expo (C2E2) where we had press passes! My head is still swimming with all of the cool things that happened, but the coolest person I met was Mark Waid. He was the first person we saw when we arrived to our hotel and I thanked him for the interview I conducted with him about Shazam. He told me that he really enjoyed it and my questions were really thought out. I could go into all of the announcements that I came across, but instead, I’ll just use this as a place to compile all of the links to our Bleeding Cool stories. 

One thing that Sam and I noticed throughout our interactions is that any time we said that we were from Bleeding Cool, we were met with horrible responses. One writer said, “You know I can’t talk to you anymore” (probably joking, but he stuck to it). The only person who was totally cool with us was George Perez who we found meandering around before the doors opened. He was exceptionally nice and hoping for something more low key once he finishes his six issues on Worlds’ Finest. He said that he feels like “the prettiest girl at the dance” in reference to how DC continues to asking him to do things.

This is my article about Mark Waid’s announcement of Thrillbent.com. The day after it went up, I saw Waid walking the floor with his wife and I stopped him to share that I had reported fairly and emphasized that he wasn’t against print comics. His wife said, “I noticed that! Thank you so much!”

The New 52 DC Panel

As the Before Watchmen panel was going, I was typing furiously onto my laptop while Sam was tweeting from her iPad. At the end of the panel, I e-mailed it out and once we got back to the room, I got on Bleeding Cool and saw that I had been scooped by my own wife. All of her tweets were up in an article called “One Woman Tweeting”

Here are Sam’s tweets from the Vertigo panel.

My tweets from the Valiant panel.

Here is my conversation with Dan Didio about Wally West. I forgot to mention in my article that I said to Dan, “It doesn’t help when Brett Booth draws Wally West and leaks the art.”

He laughed and said, “Yeah, he sent us a Ted Kord Blue Beetle picture the other day and we were like ‘BRETT! You’re a really talented artist, but stick with characters that we WANT to develop!”

Despite all the crap Dan Didio gets from fans and the press, he maintains a kind and cool demeanor. He was easy to talk to and I can’t express how nice he was. It really was the highlight of the weekend for both of us.

Ugh . . . so much to say, but I’m exhausted. I hope you like the articles!

My schedule today:

5:00 a.m. – Wake up. Make a pot of coffee and grade as many essays over The Great Gatsby as I can.

6:45 a.m. – Get ready for school.

7:30 a.m. – Arrive at school. Grade more while on hall duty.

8:15 a.m. – Group picture with the Comic Book Appreciation Society for the school year book.

8:40 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. – Peer review for sophomores, and Modernist poetry with juniors.

2:15 to 3:30 p.m. – Meeting over end of course exams.

3:50 p.m. – Buy comics. Drop off books at MSU for a book signing. Purchase book at Half-Price Books.

4:00 p.m. – Call parent of student.

5:00 – 6:00 p.m. – Read comics.

6:30 p.m. – Bring dinner to Sam at work.

Still to do

- Pay bills

- Grade more

- Enter grades

- Make PowerPoint for tomorrow

Yet, despite all that I’ve had to do today and all that I still have to do before I pass out from exhaustion, I feel compelled to share why you should read Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors.

When was the last time you read a comic that made you legitimately laugh? I don’t mean an ironic laugh about how bad something is, but a good, hearty laugh that comes from enjoying something that you’ve read. Invincible used to be my go-to comic for this, but it’s a comic that has fallen on dark times and isn’t reliable for a chuckle any longer. Eric Shanower and Skottie Young’s Oz series elicits a laugh or two, and while I love that series, it’s a comic that warms my heart with it’s optimism and kindness rather than a read that gives me the giggles.

Before Gladstone’s, I honestly don’t know the last time I’ve laughed at a comic. What writer Mark Andrew Smith and Armand Villavert Jr. have crafted is not only a comic that features some delightfully funny lines, but also a series that is so undeniably charming that it hurts that the series is on hiatus right now.

And you know what?

It’s your fault.

Make no mistake, it’s partially my fault as well. I didn’t hear about the comic until the second issue had hit, and I didn’t pick it up until a week ago when I decided to download it on Comixology, but let me be more specific on who I mean when I say that it is “your” fault.

(If you know me, then you probably know who I’ll blame).

Yes, I’m blaming Dc Women Kicking Ass once again.

On her tumblr, in addition to highlighting the various gender issues affecting the comic industry, Sue frequently discusses how she feels that comics are too “grim” and that they should be for all-ages. To be clear, I don’t disagree with this point necessarily, but I think that everything has an audience. It just so happens that there aren’t enough all-ages comics out there and this is especially true for DC and Marvel. It isn’t any wonder, really, because the fanbase has aged and with this, the narrative ages as well. Good comics for all-ages seem to be relegated to their own lines like Johnny DC.

But, here’s the thing: those comics suck.

Sure, Tiny Titans had a good run, but on the whole, those are comics that are skewed too young to the point of treating the audience as if they are completely immature. There is a fine line between talking down to an audience and being accessible to all-ages, and yet, we have Gladstone’s as a reminder that it can be done effortlessly.

While Sue and her flock were busy tearing apart mainstream comic books in the midst of Flashpoint and the DC Relaunch, along came this little, unknown comic that was the answer to almost all of their requests (sure, both creators are male, but Smith’s Mummy Girl is a fun female lead) and it went almost completely unnoticed.

In May 2011, the first issue of the comic debuted at 211 on the Diamond Sales Chart with 6,214 units sold. Not bad for a first issue of an unknown comic, but not great either.

The second issue was at 297 with 4,737 units sold. Second issues notoriously drop off a little.

Issue 3 was at 267 with 4,638 units sold.

In August (the same month that Justice League debuted to kick off the New 52), Issue 4 wasn’t in the top 300 but the bottom-selling comic was Blue Estate at 4,514 units sold, so it had to sell lower than that.

Issue 5 made 289 with 3,729 issues sold on the same month that the New 52 was in full swing and Sue was complaining that their direction the new line was taking was too grim-and-gritty. Meanwhile, how often did Sue mention Gladstone’s? If you guessed, “Never” then you are right.

Issue 6 (so far, the final issue, but there will apparently be more) didn’t even break the top 300.

I know that it’s perhaps a bit over the top to be blaming Sue for the lack of sales on this comic, but it is rather indicative of a much larger problem with the industry as a whole.

People don’t really want “all-ages” comics. They want RECOGNIZABLE all-ages comics.

See, the problem with Sue and people like Sue is that they try to make comics be what they want instead of looking for a comic they want. Then, when they go into a comic with preconceived notions about what it is and it doesn’t live up to their standard, they are pissed and rant for change.

Does Teen Titans oversexualize Wonder Girl? Well, you’ll have none of those problems in Gladstone’s. There is a romance in the comic, but it’s sweet and cute rather than a hormone-infested romp with bad art. But, make no mistake, Gladstone’s isn’t just a cute, funny book. There are some very serious, dramatic moments as well with action sequences that are as good as any comic from DC or Marvel.

Brand recognition makes it difficult for people to leave their comfort zone and try something new, but it obviously works at times or Walking Dead wouldn’t be as successful as it is. Sure, comparing Gladstone’s to a zombie thriller isn’t exactly a good comparison, but the point is that people will branch outside of Batman and Spider-man comics, but they have to be willing to give something a chance.

I better get back to my to-do list, but please, if you love comics, then you’ll love Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors, so please go out there and buy the trade so Image will fast-track this comic back into production. It deserves its own cartoon, toy line, cereal, and shampoo. I miss it already.

Going back through an old blog of mine, I found this old gem of a rant about people who hated Final Crisis. It was Popgun Chaos before Popgun Chaos and I thought I’d post it here in order to show that things just never seem to change:

——————————————————————————————-

I hate comic book fans. I really wanted to write a witty and elegant story about how we should all stick together as comic fans, but I am just so outraged that I can’t do it. Instead, I am going to go on a rant.

To all the people that disliked Final Crisis, I want you to realize one thing: you didn’t have to buy it. The book stayed out of regular titles, so there is no reason to buy it to understand what is going on in the main DCU. If you don’t like Grant Morrison, then why purchase the title?

You know, I wanted to rant a bunch and complain, but I believe Grant Morrison has said it best himself, so allow me to repost parts of his interview from Newsarama. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/010928-Grant-Final-Crisis.html

Of course I’m aware of a perpetual and chronic discontent from a particular jaded minority on the internet but I try to overlook their constant expressions of dissatisfaction on the grounds that it’s depressing and often personally abusive.

Surely part of the fun of comics includes following stories across titles? If you like comics, what’s so awful about buying another one to see what happens next? And if you don’t want to buy it, don’t bother. Do something else. Buy cigarettes or booze or bananas. I don’t know!

Every time I read about the agonizing pains of ‘event fatigue’ or how ‘3-D hurts my head…’ or how something’s ‘incomprehensible’ when most people are ‘comprehending’ it just fine, it’s like visiting a nursing home. ‘Events’ in superhero comic books FATIGUE you? I’m speechless. Admittedly they do tend to be a little more exciting than the instruction leaflets that come with angina pills but… ‘fatigue’?

Superhero comics should have an ‘event’ in every panel! We all know this instinctively. Who cares ‘how?’ as long as it feels right and looks brilliant ?

Final Crisis was a crazy series that relied on things being over-the-top and insane. That is what silver age comics were. Silver age comics captured a wonderment that is lost somewhat in modern comics. Characters could do anything in those books because they were FICTION. Not only that, but they were SUPERHERO BOOKS. People that complain that FC was a mess because the story doesn’t make sense need to realize that comic books themselves don’t inherently make any sense. People are hurling cars, flying at supersonic speeds, and traveling to different dimensions but unless there is a pseudo-science way to explain the stupid things, then we all have to complain because they aren’t realistic?!

Grant has more to say:

It’s one of the most highly-structured and demanding pieces of work I’ve done and brings to fruition a lot of long-time obsessions, I suppose. It’s my Monitor-vision, high-altitude view of the DCU as an entity; before I take a long-awaited break to do some other work. It’s my sci-fi/horror version of everything I love about DC, everything I ever thought or felt about DC, in one book. It’s about the confusion and excitement of getting into this wild, colourful fictional continuum as a kid, and it’s an attempt to define what makes DC unique and vibrant in relation to other superhero universes. It also offers a full cosmology of higher dimensions, including our own, and an insight into the creative impulse of God, so it’s well worth the cover price, I like to think. It’s filled with interesting and life-changing occult and philosophical secrets too and the more you read it, the more you’ll pick up on them.

It’s also a deliberate attempt to show how so-called ‘rules’ can be broken to create different kinds of effects in our comics. It’s a way of using superhero comics to talk about the ‘real’ world that doesn’t rely on news headlines, mock-‘relevance’ or ‘adult’ language and imagery.

I found myself wondering what it would be like if comics’ storytelling stopped aping film or TV and tried a few tricks from opera, for instance. How about dense, allusive, hermetic comics that read more like poetry than prose? How about comics loaded with multiple, prismatic meanings and possibilities? Comics composed like music? In a marketplace dominated by ‘left brain’ books, I thought it might be refreshing to offer an unashamedly ‘right brain’ alternative.

Just as Marvel Boy in 1999 foreshadowed the storytelling trends of this last decade, Final Crisis is an attempt to predict how ‘channel-zapping’ techniques might develop as the Fifth World of the Information Age of Obama gets underway and begins to define itself in opposition to the previous generation’s ‘rules’.

It’s all of the above. I was trying to distil everything I love about superhero comics into this loaded, condensed…artefact, which meant using all the lessons I’ve learned in a lifetime’s writing for a living.

So, you didn’t like Final Crisis? Chances are, you didn’t like it from the start, so why did you read it all the way to the end? Why did you suffer through the whole thing and complain how much it all cost when, in the end, you knew you wouldn’t like it anyway? That seems stupid to me.

At the very least, you have to say that at least it was better than Secret Invasion and it cost less.

I believe that in a few years, people will look back on this book and realize its greatness. After it is collected in trade and everyone gets over the strange scheduling that comes with ANY EVENT EVER!

I look back over this post and I am upset with myself for not being able to properly vent my frustrations with the comic book community. I am just so angry, that I can’t seem to put everything together.

Perhaps I can summarize like this: comics are going up in prices and the readership is dwindling. We all thought the movies were the answer to our problems and we were wrong. Readership is not increasing and it isn’t hard to see why. One look at the community that we have created shows us a group of angry young men who have nothing better to do than waste their money and complain about it. We spend and spend and we are never satisfied with the outcome. When I was comic guy at Vintage, I would complain about books and my manager would get mad at me. He said that it was because of me that people were dropping titles because I was telling them about how crappy some books were. I thought he was wrong, but you know what? I was wrong. I complained and people would stop reading. Imagine what all of us are doing to the image of comic books when we complain about them?

We are a group of people that can never be satisfied. We are like late 90′s ECW fans on crack (I suppose the ‘on crack’ comment is a bit redundant). Creators put everything they have into their books and we always want more. We want everything to be perfect and wonderful and we never want to be surprised or for anything to change. We want Batman to be the detective all the time with never a change in status quo. He has to be a detective and solve mysteries and that is it. Never change the formula. There is a mystery to solve and Batman goes to solve it forever and ever and ever. To me, that sounds boring. That sounds like hell.

I liked Final Crisis. I didn’t always understand it, but I liked it. I liked it because it was different. I liked it because it was new. I liked it because so many people have complained about Superman not acting like Superman and Grant fixed that. Superman was the ultimate hero numerous times in this book. Granted, he wasn’t the traditional, “I’ll keep hitting something until it stops” Superman, but Final Crisis was about a different kind of superhero book, so we got a different kind of salvation from Superman.

For those of you that think Final Crisis did nothing, think about how it portrayed both Superman and Batman at the end. Batman had to resort to the one thing he would never do: murder. He had to use a gun to kill Darkseid. His conclusion was as tragic as could be for that character. Meanwhile, Superman wished the best for everyone and rewrote the universe to have a happy ending. To me, there is nothing more defining than that. Batman has a tragic conclusion that he was always destined to have and Superman is the ultimate savior.

I’m exhausted with you comic fans. You depress me and make me want to quit reading comics.

I’ve just returned home from Planet Comicon and it was hands down the largest convention that Overland Park has ever seen (at least that I can remember). Saturday was PACKED more than I’ve ever seen it, which is a great thing, but it was tough to move around at times. A few stories from the con:

Jason Aaron

Regular readers of Popgun Chaos know how much I admire Jason Aaron. I was fortunate enough to hang out with him one afternoon in Springfield last year and he was really down to earth. We talked for a few moments on Saturday and I confessed, “I don’t read your X-men run, and I’m really sorry.”

“Why not?”

“My wife and I just don’t read X-men anymore.”

“Don’t read X-men? Why the hell not?” he asked in a surprised voice.

Sam and I fumbled for words, but explained that after Joss Whedon left the title and Warren Ellis jumped on, we both were tired of it. Jason Aaron was diplomatic as he said, “Yeah . . . it wasn’t his best work.”

After that, he pulled out two copies of the first and second issue of Wolverine and the X-men, signed them both and just gave them to Sam and me. “Here,” he said, “read them and if you like them, buy the rest.”

I promptly purchased issues 3 – 5 and fell in love with X-men all over again. I’ll go into more detail soon, but needless to say, Jason Aaron’s X-men does not disappoint. It hits all of the perfect X-men sweet spots. Again, I’ll go into more detail soon.

Tim Sale

I can’t really say anything about Tim Sale that others haven’t already said, so a concise, “His art am pretty” should suffice. Superman: For All Seasons is my favorite, but I brought my copy of Challengers of the Unknown because I thought it would impress him . . . it didn’t. Anyway, Sam and I were waiting in line and Sale’s assistant and was registering people for sketches. He called Sam over and I stayed in line. She came back and said, “I’m signed up for a Flash sketch.”

“For how much?”

She told me. My jaw dropped and I asked why she would agree to that. She replied, “What was I gonna do? Just walk away and let him think we’re poor?”

When we went back for the sketch, Tim started and then asked, “Do you have a photo reference for me?”

We sort of looked at one another and promptly got out our iPhones to pull up a picture. Once Sam had a decent one, Tim Sale looked it over and asked, “Do his ears come out of the costume?”

Sam replied with a cautious, “Um . . . noooooo. They’re just lightning bolts.”

“Oh, okay,” and he went back to it.

Half way through, Sale said, “Sorry, but I’ve never drawn the Flash before. Would you mind if we scan it and put it up on our website?”

Of course, we agreed, but I haven’t seen it up there yet. It was kind of strange to realize that Tim Sale didn’t know what the Flash looked like, but then we realized that he had never been on a book that required more than a few DC characters, so it made sense.

As he was drawing, someone asked if he was still working on Captain America: White to which Tim Sale responded, “Yeah, I just finished issue 3.”

“I heard it was cancelled.”

“I hope not. I just finished issue 3,” he replied in an annoyed manner.

Skottie Young and Ben Templesmith

Hands down the two nicest artists ever, Skottie Young and Ben Templesmith were a joy to talk to.

Skottie Young is the artist of Marvel’s Wizard of Oz series, but he recently wrote a four issue Magneto story that was really fun. Skottie did a really cool Madman sketch for me. I love it dearly.

Ben Templesmith has a very unique art style and he is the best-dressed man in comics. Templesmith says that he has been working on a new issue of Fell, but he knows it won’t come out until he has a few more and that means he will have to guilt Warren Ellis into finishing some new issues.

I would write more, but I’m exhausted and I have unpacking to do. Here are my pics of cosplayers from this past weekend.

[Show as slideshow]

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“This one last article,” I said, “then, I’ll never talk about it ever again.”

“I just don’t want everyone thinking that all you talk about is one thing. I don’t want everyone to think that you’re JUST the guy who writes about Marxism and comics,” she reasoned.

“I know. That’s why I’m writing this one last one. Something I can point to every time someone ropes me into an argument about the ‘art vs. commerce’ debate. After that, I’ll never write another one again.”

Well, I lied. 

For some reason tonight, I was reminded of the Chain World Kickstarter Project from back in September. This was a project where a 200 page book would have a cool cover, one page of story and then 199 blank pages for artists to pass around and create a jam-session comic. I received an e-mail from someone (who shall remain nameless only because I was nameless to him at a crucial moment) regarding this project with the description being that the purpose was to “discover if comics are still an art or only now an industry. Help us prove they’re the latter.”

Of course, the author meant “the former” meaning that he was arguing that comics were Art rather than an industry, but me being who I am, I immediately jumped on the typo and wrote out a lengthy response that was eventually included on the Kickstarter page. I have reproduced it here for you:

I’m curious about something. You wrote, “Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adavidlewis/chain-world-a-freeform-comic-book-experiment to find out details about CWFCE, but, basically, the goal of the experiment is to discover if comics are still an art or only now an industry.” Help us prove they’re the latter.”

So, you’re trying to prove that they ARE now only an industry? If so, I completely support you. Comics are completely a commercial medium – they exist in order to keep existing. But more importantly, if comics really were Art or if they ever were Art, then they would be given away for free. By simply having your kickstarter campaign, you’ve already achieved your goal of proving that they are indeed an industry because you’ve proven that in order for people to produce a comic book, they must first have money. You write:

“that goal begins with hiring both a canny cover illustrator and experienced bookmaker”

If comics really were Art, then you wouldn’t need to “hire” anyone. The people involved would put their money towards it and take the financial hit themselves for their “Art.” Furthermore, when you write :

“putting the four other industry professionals “on retainer” for whenever  the book reaches them comes with its own price. It’s an atypical set-up for them, to accept a fee for an assignment that they must complete whenever it reaches them.”

This is further proof that this is an industry because it shows that the artists working on this project aren’t going to do it for free.

Anyway, thanks so much for your project because it perfectly shows what I said on Kevin Thurman’s article on Sequart awhile back (which I’m sure you’ve read, but here is the link anyway http://www.sequart.org/magazine/4670/loud-sounds-and-bright-lights-comic-books-and-the-addict/) that comics are a purely commercial medium and that they sell in order to continue selling and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Your project perfectly exemplifies this idea and I thank you for starting it.

The author didn’t quite get that I was  being facetious (or, perhaps, he was retaliating with his own form of hyper-facetiousness and passive aggression that would ultimately try to trump my own), so he called my comments ”a strong misreading.”

But, I wasn’t misreading.

I was proving a point and it seems that my point is further solidified by the creation of the website for the book itself.

Before picking apart why I’m annoyed with the Kickstarter, allow me a brief digression about the name of the book itself – “The Tome.” I’ve always hated the word “Tome” because it doesn’t belong in the real world. It’s a word that no one should ever use much like “casement” instead of window. It’s a renfair word and while there isn’t anything wrong with renfair per se, renfair in the real world doesn’t work.

Enough with the naming, however. The project itself is worthy enough for my scorn.

First, the goal was $2,150 and it made $2,317. The rewards were either acknowledgments on the website (woot! U MEEN I GETZ MUH NAM ON DUH WEBSIT?!) or work from different artists that were going to contribute to the Tome. While the art itself is kind of cool, the fact that contributors will never see anything from the project itself is a bit disconcerting. So, essentially, people are giving SOMEONE THEIR MONEY IN EXCHANGE FOR NOTHING!

In essence, this is WORSE than if comics were JUST an industry. At least with a comic book, I am paying for a product. With the Chain World Freeform Comic Experiment, people aren’t getting a product – they are getting the satisfaction of paying for an idea. One can only imagine what the $300 donor was thinking as he clicked the “pledge” button.

“Surely, THIS won’t be a waste of money. After all, I get a printed acknowledgment in a book that I’ll never see, on a website that no one will go to that features ‘access to the special, invitation-only section’ and art from J.K. Woodward.”

Yes, there are incentives and yes, there is a website where they promise to post pictures of the progress (note: the first picture was up in early February and nothing has come of it since), but by receiving incentives, a person is essentially paying for goods of some kind. Therefore, the donors aren’t really contributing to the strictest form of ‘art for the sake of art’ because the presumption is that they will receive something for their efforts.

Furthermore, the Kickstarter boasts, “These pros have all quoted heavily discounted rates in order to be part of the Experiment. They are not getting rich on the endeavor by any means, nor is the Experiment Coordinator being paid at all.” Again, the artists working on the project are doing so because they are going to be paid. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t getting rich off of it, the point is that they are getting compensated for their work which means that they are part of industry and not part of art for its own sake.

Sure, this project was nearly six months ago and I shouldn’t be as cranky as I am with it considering that it won’t effect me in any way, shape, or form, but it’s pretentious crap like this that just really infuriates me.

Then again, I’ve been reading a lot of Transmetropolitan lately and I think it’s starting to infect my mood.

As you probably know, I’m not really a fan of DC Women Kicking Ass. I think Sue cherry picks issues in comics to pander to her fans and to get people riled up and hating comics for nothing. In my opinion, it’s a site that is no different than any other fan site that complains about comics, but it just so happens that because its focus is on women in comics, that somehow the complaining on that site is somehow more just and noble than others. It is worth noting, however, that the site has lately been comprised largely of fan polls about women. Whether this is indicative of the industry getting better (HA! I know, I thought that was funny too), or whether these polls are simply to generate more users to stroke Sue’s ego for site visits is up for debate (it’s the second one, I’m sure of it). Whatever the reason, it’s become a slightly more positive atmosphere which is always great, in my opinion. Furthermore, she has started a second tumblr that is comprised of nothing but positive moments of women in comics and I absolutely love it.

Now, normally, I don’t agree with DCWKA on much of anything, but she recently posted the solicitation for Superman #9 and it made my skin crawl. 

SUPERMAN #9
Written by KEITH GIFFEN and DAN JURGENS
Art by DAN JURGENS and JESUS MERINO
Cover by IVAN REIS and OCLAIR ALBERT
1:25 B&W Variant cover by IVAN REIS
On sale MAY23 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• SUPERMAN faces new supervillainess MASOCHIST!
• How can Superman fight an opponent he can’t touch?
• LOIS LANE faces a turning point in her career as a journalist.

Superman is squaring off against a female villain who likes to be hurt.

I don’t even know where to begin with this one, but I guess the best place to start is to change the gender. If it were a man that wanted to be hurt, then the comic would be going into some BDSM territory which isn’t really appropriate for an all-ages comic. One can almost picture how off-putting it would be to see another man enjoy being hit by Superman. But you know what? Hitting a woman and having her enjoy it is worse.

Worse yet is the t-shirt reading “Hurt Me.” I get that this is part of her costume, but it just invites an unhealthy image of a woman begging to be harmed. I keep typing a follow-up sentence trying to explain why this is wrong, but I keep backspacing because it seems evident to me.

Gender aside, while the idea of a villain who likes to be hurt is a seemingly interesting one (but one can’t help but hear “Watchmen did it!” in a South Park voice), it just can’t work in a Superman comic. It just sort of seems beneath him. Actually, all of the villains in the relaunch of Superman seem kind of beneath him.

Yeah, that's what I want to read - Superman fighting fire, wind, and rock monsters. What is this? Power Rangers?

The first six issues feature Superman fighting Kryptonian elementals or something and then issues 7 and 8 have him battling a WildCATS villain, and then he has to fight a woman who wants to be fought?

THIS is what Superman is doing in the New 52?

Fortunately, Morrison’s Action Comics has been doing everything it can to elevate DC’s most recognizable hero to a higher status, but when Superman is so lackluster, then what’s the point?

If All-Star Superman has taught us anything, it’s that Superman works best when he is battling beings that are impossible to comprehend. His stories only really work when they are modern mythology. It’s when he is elevated to the role of savior that he works best and that simply doesn’t work when he is hitting a woman with “Hurt Me” on her shirt.

Comparing Superman’s villains to the other parts of the DCU and it’s clear that Perez has been outclassed so far:

The Court of Owls will be a dominant force across the Bat-titles in May.

Nobody has been frightening in Batman and Robin.

The Rot has been horrific in Swamp Thing and Animal Man.

Stormwatch is facing villains as a team that Superman should be facing alone.

Aquaman has these really creepy creatures from the Trench that gave me chills.

I mean, Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE is a comic that packs in more wild ideas in a single issues than Superman has in six.

And Superman battles the elements . . . and a WildCATS villain . . . and then the poster child for why we need feminist voices talking about comics.

If this Masochist comic were in any other book, it could be simply written off as an offensive, bad idea, but one that was due to poor experimentation on the part of a writer.

But, this is SUPERMAN. This should be the comic by which all other comics are measured by. There should be a clear focus for the title and objectives to be reached to get to that focus. It shouldn’t feel like Superman is battling whatever stupid idea they’ve come up with next.

Ugh, I’m rambling now. I wish I could find my footing again to get back to writing witty things. Give me some time, dear readers.

For some time now, I haven’t been pleased with the way the media portrays comic book fans. Big Bang Theory is a prime example of how the public views nerds; we’re awkward, unfashionable, clueless, and so wrapped up  in our own world that we don’t notice anything around us. So, if anyone out there thought Kevin Smith’s Comic Book Men would subvert the stereotype (and I don’t really think anyone did, but I could be wrong), then all of those hopes were destroyed with tonight’s premiere of Comic Book Men.

I could go into detail as to why it was so difficult to watch, but Ethan Van Sciver has already  said it best:

So I just watched the premiere of the awful Kevin Smith reality show “Comic Book Men.” I thoroughly hated it and found it insulting in every possible way. But the worst thing about it is that is displayed no love, no real interest, and no information about our beloved hobby. Weirdos pretended to want to sell things, and they were either lied to about their object’s great value, (Bob Kane sketch) or they were lowballed and balked. But it was all very phony, and not at all funny or interesting. What came across is that comic collecting is a dying hobby in which nobody is buying and everyone is selling. Thanks, Kevin Smith.

Ugh. At least Walt Flanagan has a fast dog.

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted to Popgun Chaos and for that, I’m sorry, dear readers. I actually intended on coming back at the beginning of the year, but my extended break became an even more extended break. Let me say for the record that I have missed you all dearly and I’ve just really missed the whole process of writing columns. I look back at older posts and think to myself, “Did I write that?”  because I seem to have lost my writing voice and it has hurt a little.

I don’t really like to get personal on Popgun Chaos because I don’t want this to be an over-glorified blog about my life (I’d rather it be an over-glorified blog about my reflections on pop culture), so long story short, I started a new job and it has taken up a lot of time that has kept me from this site. Furthermore, after looking back over my year of Popgun Chaos, I started to realize that I hadn’t really written anything of creative substance and I needed those projects in order to fulfill myself.

Now, I’ve got a few creative things cooking and I’m sure I’ll be announcing them as they come along, but today, I’ve got something more important on my mind: the state of education.

If you’ve been on Yahoo at all today, you’ve no doubt noticed one of their top stories with the headline “Student’s third year book photo rejected.” If you haven’t noticed the headline, then good for you and I’m sorry for having brought it to your attention. Apparently, a teen by the name of Sydney Spies (a Bond villain if I ever heard one) has submitted three photos to her high school yearbook and all three have been rejected because they were deemed “inappropriate.” So, the school opted to go with her student I.D. and she is furious.

She has also been on the Today Show and some other news organizations. This one is my favorite:

The result, of course, is a Facebook group that is far more popular than it has any business in being.

And, another of course, an anti-group that isn’t nearly as popular because it advocates for common sense.

The problems with Sydney Spies are three-fold:

1) Though she claims that they are limiting her freedom of expression, it’s a school’s prerogative to put out an inoffensive yearbook. In a sense, they are creating a product that many people are contributing to and that many will purchase, so it is their duty to make one that is inoffensive.

It’s really no different than if an editor for an anthology of essays were to edit another’s work. The writer is beholden to the editor because the editor is the one in charge and has to ensure quality of product.

The school is further in the right because she missed the deadline for a school appropriate picture, so she is stuck with the results.

2)  This sense of entitlement that students have is abhorrent and a result of the culture they have been raised in. Remember in the 90′s when people were lawsuit happy? Well, unfortunately, those people had kids and raised them to be just as entitled. Sydney Spies is a perfect example of this.

3) Finally, and more importantly than the other two reasons, the Sydney Spies incident isn’t really about education at all, but rather, a hungry media that can only be satisfied by creating celebrities out of the mundane. Students wanting to do something that a school won’t let them do isn’t anything new, but when it involves a girl who wants to dress inappropriately (please note that I am being as polite as possible and not using any of the words that immediately come to mind because I’m trying to be on my best behavior), the news has to grasp the story and use it for all its worth.

Keep in mind, I’m not really blaming Sydney with this last comment. In a way, she is a victim, but rather than her being a victim of the school like she wants to be portrayed, she is a victim in a long line of people who have been elevated to a celebrity status for doing literally nothing.

One can almost imagine the meeting that occurred when various news organizations picked up the story. “Have you heard about this story out of Colorado? A high school won’t publish a picture of a scantily clad girl in their yearbook.”

“I don’t know if we should run that, Tom. I mean, what makes it newsworthy?”

“Did I mention that she was scantily-clad?”

“Yes.”

“Did I further mention that she is 18?”

“WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO?! STOP THE PRESSES!”

It’s strange to think that our world has reached a point when 15 minutes of fame is almost too long. We’ve reached a point now that our world is so fast that even 15 minutes of fame is too long. Youtube has put us at a point where 5 minutes of fame is all that people get and deserve now.

For further evidence of this, watch the documentary Damn!: Is the price of fame too high? It’s on Netflix instant and it’s about the “Rent is too damn high” party, but more importantly, it’s about how the media uses people for their own entertainment.

Ignoring the fact that there are plenty of important political and social issues that the news should be covering in depth, there are so many students out there across this nation that are incredible writers, or brilliant in science and math, or talented in music or art, and none of these students are EVER discussed on the news for their accomplishments and it sickens me that those kids who have developed their minds are ignored while the story of Sydney Spies is covered by the Today Show and on Yahoo news. The news isn’t supposed to be entertainment, but that is what the news has become. Not content with reporting on facts and things of importance, the news has to keep us from questioning the world around us by entertaining us with “controversial” stories that wouldn’t have made the local paper 20 years ago.

Seriously, I’m disgusted.

It’s great to be back, folks!

I can’t explain it, but I like Ryan Gosling.

It’s strange because I can’t really name any movies that he’s been in that I love other than Lars and the Real Girl and I had to go to his IMDB page to remind myself of movies that he’s been in and even then I can’t authentically say that I’ve watched a lot of films starring him. Still, my inexplicable love for Ryan Gosling abides.

Furthermore, I’m not really a fan of car chase movies. I watched 2 Fast 2 Furious in theaters because I was working at the Bolivar Cinema Four at the time and had access to free movies and even though it was free, I hated it. I watched Tokyo Drift with Sam because we were in the mood to watch cars do cool things, but outside of those two movies, I don’t watch car chase movies because they don’t interest me.

So, when I saw Ryan Gosling (an actor who I like for no other reason than he was in Lars and the Real Girl) in the trailer for Drive (a genre film that I have no interest in), it puzzled me when I realized that I wanted to watch the movie.

How does it measure up?

Well, it’s a movie that’s as puzzling as my desire to watch it.

Going into the movie, I was prepared to turn my brain off and watch pretty cars do cool things. I went into the film simply wanting to be entertained and without any expectations for anything more.

And at first, I was sorely disappointed.

The first driving scene takes place almost entirely inside the car itself. The camera stays on Gosling’s face as he is determined to shake the cops. While most car chase movies rely upon heavily stylized muscle cars to get the viewer’s attention, Gosling is driving a Chevy Impala because it’s the most popular car in California which means it will be much easier for him to lose the cops than Vin Diesel in whatever car he drives that makes all the car nerds drool.

At the time, I felt a little cheated that the movie was devoid of fast-paced, exhilarating chase scenes, but in retrospect, I realize that the film is absolutely brilliant in the ways that it completely and totally subverts the genre.

Drive effortlessly is the opposite of The Fast and the Furious in absolutely every way possible:

Where F&F glamorizes crime, Drive shows that there are consequences for our actions.

While the violence in F&F is cartoonish, Drive portrays violent acts as frightening and horrific.

Vin Diesel drives to Ludacris and Limp Bizkit. Ryan Gosling drives to a stylish, 80′s synth-pop pastiche.

Eva Mendes is a sex goddess. Carey Mulligan is cute and seems to be a good mom. Sex doesn’t even enter the film’s vocabulary. Even television’s reigning queen of all things sexy, Christina Hendricks isn’t glamorized as being just a great body.

This film isn’t interested in Id. It’s interested in looking at all of the conventional ideas present in car chase films and noting their inherent flaws.

In a sense, one could make the argument that the film is a satire – a dark, brooding, black satire, but satire nonetheless.

It’s strange, but for some reason, this movie reminds me of my old friend, Jared Lee. When we were kids, Jared would take his old toys into his dad’s workshop and he would take them apart. Vice grips, pliers, axes – he would uses anything and everything to destroy his old toys and then he’d reconfigure the pieces into his own twisted creations.

This film is much the same way. It smashes the genre into teeny tiny pieces and reconstructs what is left into something dark and twisted until the audience looks back at what it was made of and either admires what is new or regrets the loss of the old. For my money, I’d take this film any day of the week.

Go see this movie. It starts slow, but it’s supposed to because it is the antithesis of the standard car chase movie without being self-aware or parody. This film is wonderful, perfect and absolutely worth checking out, so get out there and do it already!