Werewolves of Montpellier | by Jason | Fantagraphics Books

Lest people think my attack on Bigfoot was because of it’s “cutesy” factor– and not what I found to be problems in the writing– I bring to you my second choice for best of 2010: Werewolves Of Montpellier by Jason.

So much has already been written about Jason’s simplistic yet elegant style of drawing and writing that it’s daunting to me to try to add anything to the subject. But I don’t have to: this was one of my favorites last year, and I just have to tell you why.

[Spoilers ahead, if thats the kind of thing you're worried about in a Jason comic.]

The title refers to in Montpellier, France, where the main character Sven lives as a thief who dresses up as a werewolf. He does this so that, if luck may have it that he’s caught in the act, people would be so scared at seeing a werewolf they wouldn’t react to the thievery going on in front of them. All fine, until he draws attention to himself by getting his picture published in the paper.

One night he runs into a werewolf on the rooftops, which confuses the both of them. A brawl ensues and the werewolf falls off the rooftop, hereby setting Sven directly in sites of the city’s other werewolves.

(It should be noted that the Werewolves in this story are more or less just dudes who turn into werewolves every full moon, not uncontrollable beast creatures with a blood lust.  Just dudes. Dudes who get all fangy and hairy, but more or less just dudes.)

This being a Jason book, the premise is only a backdrop to the real story: a love story between Sven and his lesbian neighbor, Audrey.

When not stealing jewels he pals around with Audrey, draws vignettes of the city and plays chess with his buddy Igor.  Sven is kind of withdrawn, but not in a creepy way– more of a cautious way.  He’s a pretty enjoyable guy, doing kind of mundane activities by day, which I assume levels him out from his crazy full moon jaunts as a fake werewolf.

Not wanting to ruin the ending of the story, I would like to focus on why, for me, this was one of the best books of last year.

In the middle of the story, Sven meets one of Audrey’s friends Celine at a party, thrown by Audrey. The two get along, and so Audrey forces Sven to ask Celine out on a date.  Sven goes to Celine’s house, where they end up smooching. Celine stops him.

“You’re in love”, she says to Sven. Sven responds: “I am?” Celine takes his hand. “With her.  That’s not going to work you know.”

Sven nods. “I know,” he says, as he gets up and leaves.

This one page of the book moved me.  When I’m reading, or watching a movie, I tend to drag my personal history into it. It plays on my ability to properly critique, sometimes.  But I think the reason stories work in general is because they essentially tell a universal truth that people can relate too, or, minimum, accept as true for that character, even if they disagree.  For me, that one page stung a little.  I’ve had the experience of going out with a girl, and having her see right through me. She was smart enough to call it quits, too.  I was reading a comic, the truth of that moment dragged me out, put me into my own history, then I came back to the story more intensely than I would have imagined when I picked the book up.

Werewolves of Montpellier has a couple of other moments like this as well.  A lot of Jason books tend to do this to me: I’ll be in the middle of some ridiculous story about werewolves, or time traveling to kill Hitler, and in the middle of it I get dragged out and remember a stupid or wonderful moment in my own life.  Which is kind of wonderful writing, in my opinion.

–

Writer’s notes

1.I have been plagued for about two months now about an ending to a script, that will effect the beginning of the script, when I am not writing these things, I am contemplating driving my car into a wall in hopes that it will kick start my horrid brain into some ending I can live with.

I just wanted you to know how I suffer.  I’m like an artist and shit.

2.Soundtrack to this writing was a compilation called “All Tore Up:  unrequited love, Tormented Romance, Tragedy and Tear Jerkers 1955-1968” which is just the most amazing songs from the blues and funk end of the musical spectrum  Songs with grown men sobbing into the mic about love gone bad, hearts buried.  Woman who were done wrong, and moving on.  Singing out their hearts even though they effectively don’t have one anymore. It’s oddly not depressing.  More of a “Better you than me” thing going on.

Bigfoot (Drawn & Quarterly)
by Pascal Girard

I don’t even know how to begin this.  So far, in my very brief tenure as a writer for this esteemed site, I have yet to write any negative reviews.  My thoughts on that were, “why would I waste my time reviewing things that I thought sucked?  I should spend my time pushing all things cool into your collective heads.”  I mean, the boring and mediocre have a million fans and detractors, did I have to be among them?

Mind you, it’s not that I’m not reading garbage on occasion, it’s just I chose not to bother you with it.  That is, until now.

Bigfoot by Pascal Girard is in a long line of books I should not be reading, but on occasion, because of my fondness for the publisher, (in this case, Drawn & Quarterly) I sometimes take chances on a book I should not.

Why bother telling you this?  Well, it was also brought to my attention that maybe part of a reviewers job is to tell people what you don’t like, because if an audience likes what you do like, it stands to reason you can sway some people away from the other stuff and save them some time and money.

I’m going to spoil everything about this book. Everything. I need to, in order to explain why I disliked it as much as I do.  If you plan on reading it, or have it and have not yet read it, you have been warned.

I'm just going to use pictures of other Bigfoots.

The book starts out with Jimmy (the main character) being made fun of everywhere he goes because his “best” friend Frechette uploaded a video to YouTube, without his permission, of jimmy dancing in his room.  He becomes a viral sensation: T-shirts and everything.  Jimmy hates it.  At school, Jimmy meets a girl Jolene whom he develops a crush on, takes extracurricular drawing classes to be around, but is too shy to ask out.  In the meantime, Jimmy’s uncle believes he has caught footage of Bigfoot on his cell phone while camping and wants Jimmy to help him upload it to YouTube, because he mistakenly believes Jimmy uploaded himself onto it on purpose.  Jimmy wants nothing to do with it, but his uncle does it anyways.

Frechette meets two townie tramps and tries to hook Jimmy up with one of them.  Jimmy, while not super into her, fantasizes about the chubby chick Frechette was trying to push in him. Later, Jimmy doesn’t go for it, other than a quick make out session one night, mostly because of his feelings for Jolene.

Jimmy’s uncles video blows up. He is interviewed by the news, and it is brought up that he is related to “Disco Jimmy.”  Within a week, another video pops up on Youtube of a kid dancing like Jimmy, but with a Bigfoot mask on.  Everyone thinks its Jimmy, which infuriates him to no end.

The next weekend, Jimmy is hanging out with Frechette at one of the townie girls’ houses and accidentally walks in on Frechette fucking one of the girls. Frechette tells Jimmy to come in anyway (he’s into it– Frechette is kind of a piece of shit.)  Jimmy and Frechette leave after this incident, and Frechette tries to convince Jimmy to get the keys to his uncle’s campsite so they can bring the two townie girls up there to fuck them.  Jimmy is completely not into it.

While walking they run into Jolene, the girl Jimmy likes. Frechette starts to hit on her and invites her to go camping with the two of them. Jimmy again declines, but Jolene begs him, so he caves in.

So the three of them go camping, and Frechette acts like Jimmy isn’t even there, and very immaturely and tackily flirts with Jolene, and she totally digs it.  Which is pissing off Jimmy, because, well, you know.  This goes on into the evening until Frechette starts dancing with Jolene in the cabin, and Jimmy asks to talk to him outside.   Jimmy tries to talk to Frechette about not hitting on Jolene, and in the midst of their conversation realizes that Frechette was the person making fun of him in the YouTube video of a guy dancing with a Bigfoot mask on.  Frechette fesses up, Jimmy punches him, Jolene comes out to scold Jimmy, and Jimmy walks off in the woods to cool off.  When he gets back Frechette is fucking Jolene.

They go home the next day in silence.  Then the epilogue:  a couple weeks? months? later, Jimmy runs into Jolene on the street.  She tells him Frechette stopped talking to her after they had sex.  Jimmy is nice enough to her. She then hands him a picture she recently drew of him.  It was a picture she was asked to draw about the first thing that popped in her head.  It was Jimmy. Aw.  She hands it to him, walks away. Jimmy smiles.  The end.

End spoilers(?)

Ok, so what’s wrong with that?  I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it: every story needs conflict.  It might not have to be world shattering decisions, but drama, comedy– every genre needs conflict to move along.  This entire story has no conflict. This schmuck, Jimmy, just goes along with everything that happens to him.  He is the biggest non-character I have had the unfortunate opportunity to read in almost five years. If a story can be completely negated by something incredibly easy, where no hard decisions would have been made, it doesn’t work for me. It’s not really drama to just have the character make no decision.

The story could have been ten pages long: Frechette is a total piece of shit.  Jimmy could have just not been friends with him.  This is abundantly clear by the first three pages when you find out that Frechette put him on YouTube in the first place.  Plus, throughout the entire book, Frechette makes Jimmy uncomfortable, and goes out of his way to make him uncomfortable.  In what world is this the moving force of your drama?  A stupid kid who lets himself be abused? If this were to happen in my neighborhood growing up, a black eye or a busted lip would be the result of that shit, minimum. And I wouldn’t let him stick around to fuck up my life further.

Another way this book could have been pared down to ten pages:  just ask the girl out. One of two things would have happened: she would have said yes, and yay! or she says no.  And then you know, and you can start looking and eventually meet someone down the road you will like.

So I guess my problem with the book is it’s really, really lazy. You can see the plainest ways to stop the drama, which is pushing the narrative forward. If it were at least funny I could give it some leeway for attempting humor instead of approaching logic. There is no reason to keep reading the narrative: no “problem” that’s really a problem, a main character that barely does anything.  What the hell is this book?  I feel I could have gotten the same story out of reading a bunch of gossipy teenagers’ tweets over a slow weekend.

Let’s, for fun, break down the three main characters in into real life comparisons, so that if you know anybody like these three people you can avoid them:

Jimmy is this new breed of shoegazing idiots that just kind of meanders around, not doing much.  You literally know nothing about this kid other than he masturbates, lets people walk all over him and is shy.  In real life you should just avoid these Michael Cera haircut, American Apparel wearing kids, because they will bring nothing into your life, other than getting annoying crushes on your girlfriends and then act as if you have done them a great disservice by not bending over backwards to accommodate their awkwardness.

Jolene is the kind of girl who is easily impressed by anyone showing her the least amount of attention.  So, in return, they fall for the most insincere shit possible.  But they feel put upon when they find out they were just that week’s lay. I wouldn’t care about these people if they were just in it for the sex, but the fact they think they were special?  I can usually tell within five minutes what kind of person I’m dealing with– they couldn’t tell a line of bullshit and feel disrespected. It’s ridiculous. I’m not saying date the emo kid, but you don’t have to fuck the clearly obvious gash hound either.  And you know, if this has happened to you, like more than once, you’re probably unintelligent.  Book smarts can only get you so far in life.

Frechette.  We all know womanizers, guys whose mission it is to say the most unbelievable shit to a girl, just line after line after line to get to the goal.  And they’re really sad people in the long run, because after treating woman as objects for so long, they usually end up missing the girl they should be with, the one that could make their life good, because they’re so hardwired to keep accumulating. Or, if they do settle down, they’re always the guys that end up getting divorced, because they don’t learn how to work through arguments.  They have kids who hate them, and the only friends they end up with are guys they can walk all over, because no normal person is going to put up with their shit. It’s sad.

Now I’m not trying to regulate sex in any way. I’m pro sex (read my porn article.) But while I acknowledge it as an important part of all our lives, the above characters always piss me off, because they either abuse it, or let it wither and die, and neither are acceptable to me. This book is full of the kinds of people you should avoid in real life, and as it turns out, in boring fiction.

Oh, also, $20 to be this bored and irritated? No good.

–

Writer’s notes

1. I know everybody is excited about the upcoming Marvel and DC super-hero movies.  But am I the only one stoked about a new Judge Dredd Movie?
2. This week soundtrack:

• The Dirtbombs- UltraGlide in Black
• Early Man- Death Potion

First off, I would like to give thanks to the two writers of the book, Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly, for taking the time to research and write it, because I’m sure like many others it’s a topic that has come up for me in conversation. And after spending the last two days plowing through this majestic slab of crucial, comically informative reviews, part of me envies them in having done it first, while some other part wants to thank them for taking a bullet the rest of us don’t have to.

What we have here is an alphabetical list of movies containing punks from the years 1974-1999.  It covers the obvious big ones (Suburbia, D.O.A., The Return Of The Living Dead, Class of 1984) to the less obvious and completely obscure.

King Vidiot!

It’s also crammed with some amazing interviews with people connected to certain movies.  If your already familiar with some of the more well-known films this is a great supplement, because it gives you more information than just the write-up. My three favorite interviews were with Jon Gries, for Joysticks because it explains what he was thinking by going balls out bat-shit like he did for the character “King Vidiot”;  the interview with Sickie Wifebeater of The Mentors for a movie Madame Wang’s of which I have never seen, for the sheer politically incorrectness of the whole thing (he goes on a tirade about starting a vendetta against the movie’s “fag” director, but rescinds by saying, “you know what, it doesn’t matter. I like fags.” I don’t condone the use of slurs, but sometimes horrible people are interesting for just how horrible they actually are;) and, on a personal note, I was stoked to see Lisa Langlois “Patsy” from the movie Class of 1984 interviewed. Not only because I have never seen or read an interview with her in my entire life, but growing up as a teen I was beyond horribly sexually attracted to her character from said movie. Class of 1984 is one of the few movies where the punks are allowed to grow exponentially in character and, by default, evil deeds.  Which not only makes it unique for punk feature films, but… well, any film.  What other film allows its villains that much air time?  Anyway, her character “Patsy” sent me spinning.  I always wanted to date the villain girls in movies, and she was the one that started my fascination with “Bad Girls”.  Consequently, I date a lot of assholes. Thanks a bunch, Lisa.

A very confusing character for young Jay.

Besides just film reviews, if read in it’s entirety the book also becomes a sort of thesis about what punk is, was and how it was seen by outsiders who exploited its image for easy marks as villains or comic foils (or both). I think inroads to punk music and lifestyle vary– a lot of people would never know what it was other than the colorful way of dressing with the snide, fuck authority attitudes portrayed in the movies.  And as far as villains go, I loved that about a lot of 80’s movies.  I was never once offended by the use of punks as villains, because I read comics, and those punks in 80′s outfits sometimes reminded me of super-villains. And super-heroes, for the most part, are lame.  Something I was (and am) into was being portrayed on-screen as universally scary and– other than the acting– was kind of real.  That was awesome!  How much more rock’n’roll could you get?

Admittedly, my view is not shared by all.  A lot of people who associate themselves with punk through their lives often look at those portrayals as a means to marginalize a group of people who already were a little outside of society already.  And this may have to do with age.  Nowadays, the idea of punk is spread just a little too thin.  Rich kids from suburbia with a little hair dye and some baggy pants think of themselves as the same crew of maniacs that were prowling around California and New York in the late 70’s early 80’s– when you could get the living shit kicked out of you for looking even a little different, let alone like the apocalyptic mutants they did.

Because of this, the way you look at the movies can be as varied as we look at punk culture in general.  I related to this book because, like many others, my introduction to punk was through films.  Or, one film in particular: The Return Of The Living Dead.

When I was younger The Return Of The Living Dead was playing seemingly all the time on HBO.  It scared the living shit out of me, but it was my favorite movie.  I must have seen that movie at least 30 times on television (and have seen it now at least 8 times in a theatre) and it left a scar on my brain.  One Christmas I was given my first Walkman (I assume because my parents knew if I was given a stereo they would have to suffer through whatever shit I would eventually end up listening to) and my Dad brought me to the record store to get my first tape.  I was kind of square so I didn’t know that much about music, but when I found the soundtrack to The Return Of The Living Dead my eyes lit up. And it was all down hill from there: that tape introduced me to my all time favorite band ever, The Cramps, and accidentally changed my entire life.  After listening to that tape months on end, how was I supposed to relate to things like New Kids On The Block?  Or… well, most popular music?  And I could not be luckier.  I cannot imagine myself now if my favorite bands growing up was just the disposable music of the day.  I would probably be watching Jersey Shore as a “window into my way of life” or some such shit.

I suppose they've got spiked hair like punks?

But because of my age, when I was getting into punk a lot of the cool bands were already done.  I missed Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, The Minutemen and The Plasmatics by mere years.  And sure, I got some important bands like Fugazi in return, but the time of Mohawks and all the crazy get ups seemed just outdated enough to know not to emulate them.  It seemed to me that at one point it was probably an act of pride in creating a visual way to identify your community.  But to me, if I or people around me in upstate NY dressed like that at the time I was into it, it would have seemed insincere at best. Even now, if I see a young kid dressed up like an 80’s movie punk , I kind of roll my eyes.  It’s no different than a young kid, or college kid dressing up like a 70’s hippie.  Yeah the ideals of both movements still live on, but the fashion is now just a costume.  I can only assume they’re going through a phase.

I'm honestly not sure what else I would have expected.

Which, I realize, is because maybe I’m a little more jaded at this point in my life than I would like to admit.  And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with dressing the role, to me “punk” never meant the way I looked as much as how I conducted myself; by what I bought into and what I didn’t in society.  It meant to be inquisitive, while also kind of being a dick if you needed to be. You know, stand up to the bullies kind of thing.  Got something that needs to get done?  Just fucking do it.  Real simple kind of stuff.

Stuff that I can’t honestly say I would have gotten into were it not for punk, because that lead to skateboarding, which led to reading zines, which lead to me reading books I may not have sought out before, and listening to bands I may have overlooked, and going to shows, and meeting people who took active roles in trying to change things (sometimes that last part unfortunately also meant meeting a lot of self-indulgent idiots.) Again, if I was into, let’s say, Boyz II Men, would I still be the same person?  I’m not saying I wouldn’t be, but I think it’s safe to assume I wouldn’t.

And even though I believe in all of the above, I think the reason why I have such a fascination with these movies that depict punks, for good or bad, is because I just missed the boat on being smack dab in that scene instead of the one I was (and am) in.  It’s fascinating to think what would I have been like were I born a decade or so earlier: would I still view what punk is the same way?  What would I have thought of the kids who came after me?  These things run through my mind.  And even though I know so many of the movies are ridiculous, I love them as the time capsule that they are, for capturing both the real and fake views of those before me.

And this is where Destroy All Movies! becomes indispensable, really.  It’s put forth so much effort on behalf of these films. If you have any interest whatsoever in the topic you really cannot do without a copy of this book.  If you’re like me, it will make you want to revisit some movies again, and search out some you’ve overlooked (my wallet weeps because of the twenty or so movies I am now determined to have in my collection).   In no uncertain terms, this book comes with my highest recommendations.

Writer’s notes

1. Although not a punk movie, I recently watched the new Jean-Pierre Juenet film MicMacs and found it quite enjoyable.  Still has the visual flair of Amélie and The City Of Lost Children, but more of a comedy.  You should check it out.
2. Soundtrack to this writing:

• CIRCLE JERKS – GROUP SEX
• SHARK ATTACK- DISOGRAPHY
• SUICIDAL TENDENCIES- JOIN THE ARMY

The 2010 sales numbers are in, and pretty much everyone has had something to say about them. I don’t have too much to add, but here’s a couple of points that I want to expand upon.

First, I don’t think it can be overstated what a tremendous impact Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Brian Bendis have on mainstream comics. Douglas Wolk points out that the 26 best-selling DC single issues were all written by Morrison or Johns, and if you look at the top of Marvel’s charts, Bendis rules the roost over there. In fact, taken as a group, Sean T. Collins points out that 65 of the top 75 best-selling comics of the year were written by one of three people.

I also don’t think it can be overstated how unhealthy this is, though I’m not sure who it says more about: the industry or the fan base. I’d like to believe that it isn’t the fault of the fans, that Marvel and DC are just shooting themselves in the foot here. Banking on three people for all of your output sounds like a bad creative decision and an even worse business model, and I don’t really believe that’s something fans want. Logic dictates that the more kinds of comics there are the better comics will be overall, and that the more people creating comics, collaborating with and challenging each other, the better the stories will be. If fans are that easy to please, that lazy, there’s nothing to stop companies from continuing that practice.

But you can see from the numbers that it isn’t necessarily something fans are looking for: as Collins also points out, Marvel has a few other writers sporadically break through in the top 75 comics, like Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction. Over at Newsarama, J. Caleb Mozzocco talks briefly about this phenomenon.

Marvel seems to be doing a pretty good job of grooming newer talents over a period of years, so it’ s not impossible to imagine the likes of Matt Fraction or Ed Brubaker or Dan Slott or Jonathan Hickman or Jeff Parker or Fred Van Lente or Jason Aaron or Andy Diggle eventually killing Brian Michael Bendis and taking his power (I think that’s how it works in comics), but DC doesn’t seem to have quite as deep a pool of writing talent at the moment. I don’t mean that as a criticism of the men and woman writing for DC at the moment. I’m not saying, like, Parker and Van Lente rule, while Peter Tomasi and Tony Bedard drool or anything; I’m simply referring to the various writers’ ability to sell books in the direct market based on their name recognition, and the publishers investing their writers with particular portfolios.

I mean, I guess if Mozzocco won’t go there, I will: Parker and Van Lente are better writers than Tomasi and Bedard. Marvel has done a significantly more impressive job of cultivating talent than DC has. I think there’s probably reasons for that– maybe DC doesn’t see the need to expand outside of Johns and Morrison right now, considering how well it’s working out for them– but for both companies this seems disastrous if it moves into the long-term.

My second quick point is about the “graphic novels” charts, in which Erik Larsen points out that nine of the top ten were creator owned books. Impressive? Maybe not, says Collins.

Of course, the flip side of this is that NINE of the TOP TEN graphic novels in 2010 had major Hollywood properties to thank for much of their notoriety, Walking Dead, Kick-Ass, and Scott Pilgrim among them. (The tenth was a Superman book that got over with mass audiences largely on the strength of a fortuitous press comparison to Twilight.) I don’t mean to short-change the success of Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard, Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., and Bryan Lee O’Malley, but proponents of creator ownership and creators’ rights probably ought not break out the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner just yet.

That’s sort of missing the forest for the trees, isn’t it? Yes, creator-owned properties are experiencing a surge in Hollywood recognition, but at the same time, creator-owned properties are experiencing a surge in Hollywood recognition. That’s a huge deal, and if it translates to higher sales that isn’t something that should be discounted. It’s not as if Scott Pilgrim or Walking Dead were Hollywood properties first. They gained enough popularity or notoriety to be considered a viable product to mass market audiences. I think Larsen’s point is spot-on, and the charts are telling us exactly what they appear to be telling us. I’m not saying “Mission Accomplished,” but it’s an impressive opening salvo.

Daytripper | Fabio Moon, Gábriel Bá et al | Vertigo

In my very first semester as a journalism student much of our focus was on working through the fundamentals of what makes a good journalist. We went through all kinds of drills: crime drills, courtroom drills, drills to help us make sense of statistics, drills that focused on education or politics. One of the drills that I really took to was the obituary drill. On the surface it seemed a little morbid– we were given a certain public figure, and told to write an obituary about this person, complete with fake quotes from real life people– but it ended up being really interesting. Good obituary writing is an art form: you have to hone in on that one element of a person’s life that was unique or interesting, something that defined that them, and you have to look at their life through the lens of that element.

A good obituary is powerful. It’s the last word on someone’s life. A great obit writer can make a tremendous career for himself, and the job of the obit writer involves a flourish of creativity that you don’t see in a lot of other reporting positions. I often turn to the obit section of the New York Times website just to see some of the worlds’ interesting stories and moments we often miss.

Daytripper focuses on those moments that make up the measure of a man’s life.

(The following piece contains plot points and story elements of the story Daytrippers.)

In Daytripper, the brothers Bá and Moon tell the story of Brás de Oliva Domingos, an obituary writer and aspiring novelist in the shadow of his famous writer father. It also tells the story of his wife, son and best friend, all crucial players in Brás’ story. The importance of these people can not be overstated, because throughout the ten-issue miniseries the interactions he has with them shape the outcome of his life in fundamental ways.

In the beginning of the first issue we’re shown a shocking scene: our protagonist, or the man we’d come to see as our protagonist, standing in a bar covered in blood, the bartender laying dead on the floor. The story immediately jumps back to earlier events, showing how we got to that moment. As the story progresses we come to know Brás better and we wonder how he got into that position– and how he’ll get out of it.

He doesn’t. Brás is shot by the same man who killed the bartender, dead at the age of 32. A wonderful, poetic obituary accompanies his death on the final page of the comic.

In issue two we meet Brás again, this time 11 years younger. Ah, we think. They’re telling the story backwards. Here, a 21-year-old Brás is on vacation in Rio Vermelho. He meets a beautiful woman. He becomes infatuated. And on the last page, he dies again. Drowning this time, accompanied by another obituary. Issue after issue, he doesn’t make it out alive.

This is the formula of Daytripper. It jumps around to different moments of Brás’ life, explaining how these moments were important to him via his obituary. Each moment exotic while at the same time familiar, each death original and sad, each obituary beautiful and life-affirming. Each tale driving you from anxious, to sad, to oddly happy. Even after a few issues, when you aren’t sure what the sum of the story will add up to, there’s a content feeling in just the small chapters of Brás’ life you’re getting a peak at. It puts into perspective our own moments in life: what would your obituary say if you died today? What about five years ago? What do you want it to say five years from now? Life is fleeting, the artists suggest, and every moment is important. Making the most of it is not only suggested, but essential.

Daytripper is poetry, and not just its prose– the book is visually stunning. Bá and Moon have been on my radar since picking up Casanova a few years back, and I’ve been trying to consume as much as I could from them since. I don’t know their work well enough to know which artist worked on what sections of the book– their styles are extremely similar, and it seems like only Gábriel signed his pages– but no matter who worked where, the two nail such subtlety as expression, physical traits and  movement with great aplomb. Clothing, of all things, is really spot on. So many artists have no concept of modern fashion, but Bá and Moon make the people in the story dress how real people dress.

The layouts are crisp, no wasted space. Sound effects are endearingly integrated into the scene. They concentrate on the most important aspects of what they’re drawing and sort of whimsically sketch through the rest, showcasing a confidence that comes with expertise in one’s craft. Overall, the two artists are just made for the medium. Arguably my favorite page out of all ten issues contains no people at all. It’s a scene directly after learning about one of Brás’ many deaths:

(click to enlarge)

Empty space. The words in the last three panels are coming from Brás’ young son, who is reading the final letter his father has ever written him. This is the eighth issue, the eighth time we learn of Brás’ demise, but through words and pictures the two brothers make it feel like the first. In fact, the entire focus of issue eight is on his immediate family. Our protagonist manages to have an emotional impact on a comic in which he doesn’t even make an appearance.

The collected edition of this series will definitely be worth picking up if Vertigo decides to print it on better paper. As is the case with most Vertigo books, Daytripper got the newsprint treatment, which is a shame, because Dave Stewart’s colors really help make the book come alive. But it all works toward the same goal: words and pictures. Words and pictures. It’s essential if you want to make great comics, and this is great comics. And just like the best obituaries, Daytripper tells a powerful, memorable story.

So the last couple of weeks I have had a couple of conversations about this post by Jason Aaron more or less telling Alan Moore to “Fuck Off” for talking shit on the comic industry and, by proxy, himself.

And while I want to comment on some things, one thing I don’t necessarily want to do is take sides.  Where as I can understand why Mr. Aaron could get upset at what Mr. Moore said, I think he made the common mistake of holding a person up to their work.

What I mean is– and in my life this has happened a few times– where you meet a musician, or comic writer or artist you’re really into, and they act like a complete piece of shit.  It may just have been a bad day for them, or they may actually just be rotten people. I try not to let it affect my view of their work.  And while I understand it’s human nature to hold a grudge against someone who says or does something to you in person, I find it weird to get upset over a third party interview.  Alan Moore talks shit. That’s what he does.  At this point in his career he’s known as much for that as his actual artistic output.

That being said, there are a couple of things that have, for a while now, bugged the shit out of me about Watchmen and Mr. Moore’s dealings with the property that I am sure are going to come off as possibly a personal attack on the man.  Not so: other than Watchmen, I very much enjoy much of his output, Promethea being one of my favorite series ever.

But Watchmen is its own beast.

The first thing is– and this has nothing to do with Moore per se– is when I worked at a comic shop, I constantly had people coming in asking for Watchmen, because they had never read a comic before and one of their friends told them that this was the best place to start.

I fucking hate that.  This means some dude, who probably only reads superhero comics, made the above recommendation, which, by the way, is something the incredibly lazy media outside of the comics blogosphere bought into as well.  Why would you send somebody who has never read a comic to read Watchmen?  It’s a book that deconstructs a time and genre of books before it– if a person has never read a comic before it won’t resonate with that person. And consequently, it isn’t anything new anymore.  The whole “superheroes in the grey area” thing is so matter of fact now that when people go out of their way to write a more positive spin on a character (see All Star Superman) that in itself is considered a sort of deconstruction.

If a person is interested in super heroes, there seem to me a million better stories to get them into it, and after talking to most people and explaining this, and asking them what they are interested in other media (be it Science-fiction, Horror, Crime, Romance, Comedy) I feel safe in saying that 90 percent of the time I found them a better entry way into reading comics than Watchmen.

Again, this isn’t Alan Moore’s fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that it bothers me.

Now, people get mad for saying all that, as if it’s somehow an insult to Alan Moore.  ”HE CREATED A NEW WAY OF TELLING STORIES IN THE COMIC MEDIUM!!!” and such, as if this is why Watchmen deserves to be put on such a high pedestal.  One, he did not create a new way of telling stories.  There were plenty of other writers all heading in that direction at the same time or a few years behind him, meaning they were writing like him at the same time, just not being published yet.  To give Alan Moore all the credit most people do and he does himself is arrogant and short sighted.  He was part of a zeitgeist– comics were going to head in the direction they did with or without him. And if he wants all the credit then he should also take all the credit for the almost two decades of shit books that were published because of its influence.  To me, Watchmen never symbolized the medium growing up– it symbolized less talented writers and artists trying to emulate it and giving us the grim and gritty comics that followed.  Comics that felt like kids making what they thought were adult content, but obviously just looking more ridiculous than if they just made fun comics.

Two, Alan Moore also said something to the effect of ‘why has nothing better been written in the last 20 years?’ Well, I personally think a lot has been written that’s better.  As you can guess by now, I don’t think too highly of Watchmen in general, but also, since he didn’t specifically say any better superhero comics, I would say Bone, Love & Rockets, his own Promethea, The Invisibles and to a certain extent MADMAN, The GOON and even in the last year, the two Parker books by Darwyn Cooke have had more impact and resonance with me (and I’m sure others) than sexually frustrated clowns and a trick ending.

Lastly, and this has always, always bothered me about any interview I have read with Alan Moore about Watchmen, he acts as if DC is constantly mistreating him for the way they handle his property.  I am trying to make my way as a writer in this world, and I have twice now (not in comics) been asked to work on others properties.  This is what we call work for hire.  If it’s not my property, what I write I don’t own.  I know this.  If I write something on my own time and bring it to somebody, I can do one of two things: I can try to retain some semblance of ownership, or if I sell it, they can do whatever they want with it because it’s theirs. They bought it.  Alan Moore knew what he was doing and who he was writing for and who owns it.  And I am sure he made an extremely large amount of money for his work for hire.

And I understand it must smart to have written such an important piece of work and not be able to control it, but he knew that from the beginning.  I truly don’t understand his stance on any of the Watchmen controversy. I am not pro-corporation by any stretch of the imagination, but I know when I’m working for one and when I’m not, and those are choices I make, and he made. DC doesn’t have to ask him shit. In fact, they can and should do whatever they want with the Watchmen product, because they own it.

But that’s just my view on it.  Others can see what they want to, but this is what I have always more or less thought. I would be glad to defend any of my views, or clarify them if need be.  But I also secretly hope to never have to write or talk about Watchmen ever again for the rest of my life.

Writer’s notes

1. Regarding Paul’s last post about super-hero movies: I’m more or less in the same boat.  I could care less if another one was ever made.  The books don’t need them.  However!  The reverse of that is sometimes interesting– comics getting made because of movies.  At the moment I’m thinking of 28 Days Later, and the hopefully upcoming Godzilla and Hellraiser books. I love my Clive Barker stories.
2. I would like to thank Travis Kray for dealing with my stupid phone calls in the middle of the night when my stupid brain couldn’t remember the word “deconstructed” and he needed to help me figure out what I was trying to say.
3. Soundtrack to this writing was Dead Meadow – Feathers

In a recent response to the Alan Moore/Jason Aaron non-controversy, Air writer G. Willow Wilson had a lot to say about Moore and the times in which he wrote his comics versus the times in which we live in now. Wilson’s point ostensibly seemed to be that Moore would never be able to get away with the comics he wrote now, because we live in a much more conservative society where views like his would be frowned upon and/or censored. I have my own thoughts on that topic, but that’s not really what I’m focusing on today. Wilson cited the V for Vendetta film as proof that, as a country, we don’t respond well to films in which leftist or counterculture views are portrayed prominently.

“Look at the reaction to the V for Vendetta movie, set against Bush-era issues,” Wilson tweeted. “It was a universal ‘meh’. We have no balls.” Wilson continued, saying “the box office returns were dismal, and the comics community at large pretty much abandoned the film.”

First, I completely disagree with her last point– I seem to remember a whole lot of comics people raving about the movie, and that’s one problem I want to touch on today. That leads to my second point, and what I think is the deeper issue here as it pertains to comics culture and films based on comics properties, and that’s the false equivalency Wilson places between American audiences’ feelings about the movie’s importance, and Americans’ politics as a whole. The problem with V for Vendetta was not that the American public is not ready for revolutionary politics on film, it’s that the film in question wasn’t very good.

I want to try and segue that into the topic of superhero films, because it got me thinking. Movies based on characters in superhero comics are, by and large, terrible. I would say  the vast majority of films based on a Marvel or DC property are downright unwatchable. Fantastic Four, Wolverine, Superman Returns, Daredevil, Catwoman, both versions of Hulk, Ghost Rider– I’d venture a guess that for every good superhero movie there are at least two terrible ones that have come out or are coming out. Yet comic fans tend to be apologists for the genre, as if arguing the merits of the latest superhero blockbuster is equated with defending comics’ honor.

Comics don’t need that, and they don’t need bad superhero action flicks giving them a bad name. The superhero movie is an awful trend and, if 2011 pans out the way I think it will, it’s also a dying one.

While the quality of superhero films decreases steadily, 2011 finds us with a new crop: Captain America! Thor! Green Lantern! Hooray! Yet there’s an inherent problem with banking on a fad: pretty soon audiences get tired of whatever it is you’re peddling, and the wave you’re riding crashes. Warner Bros. was able to make Batman Begins because a movie like Spider-Man did so well. Those sequels could be made because the originals also performed well. Movies like Watchmen could be made because of quality films in that genre that came before.

We are now in the post-Watchmen, post-Losers, post-Jonah Hex age. Audience patience with the genre is growing thin, and the buzz of superhero movies is dwindling as the months move on. As fewer objectively good cape movies are being produced by Fox and Warners, the type of audience who would be willing to see said films is shrinking. Marvel and DC, it seems, approach filmmaking the same way they approach comic making: just churn out whatever lazy work you can, as fast as you can do it, and watch people consume it. Rather than aim for best work possible they opt for pandering to a tiny subset of movie fans. It’s a short-term plan at best: catering to a group of rabids in their niche publishing world totally works, but catering to that group in the cinema world is an idea set up to fail. No one (read: normal people) will want to see cape movies anymore, and you’re left with the same size audience going to see your movie as you are people who read your comics. Serious Adults™ who went to see Watchmen learned their lesson and won’t continue to go see Ryan Reynolds be an Abercrombie & Fitch model for two hours. Studios will see the sun setting, and the writing will be on the wall: superhero movies no longer work.

If 2011 is truly the end of the superhero film there are undoubtedly pros and cons. This could be a disaster for DC: the comics company’s future, as evidenced by the appointment of Warner Premiere President Diane Nelson to president of DC Entertainment, has been tied directly to the success or failure of their future cinematic endeavors. Marvel’s safer, but there’s no denying that, for both publishers, losing the steady stream of cash that they’ve been used to seeing is going to be a loss no one’s really prepared for. Hopefully it will lead to better comics being made, at the very least.

A loss of selection is also a problem artistically. By definition more kinds of films being made means more variety, and “more” can be a good thing. But it doesn’t mean much unless what’s being produced is of a certain quality. If it isn’t being done right it shouldn’t be done at all. The folks who would argue for superhero films do so because they think that these films’ sheer existence is proof that comics have earned some measure of mainstream respectability. I’d argue that, if done incorrectly, they accomplish the exact opposite. They portray themselves as over the top and ridiculous, and peg comics as “this one kind of thing,” instead of a medium full of diverse work and tremendous history. All this despite the fact that bad superhero films say more about the state of Hollywood than they do about comics.

This isn’t to say superhero films can’t be good, just that they haven’t been since about 2008. I’d be more than happy to see Green Lantern become not only a financial success but a truly enjoyable, well produced film. Ryan Reynolds is hardly Heath Ledger, though, and Martin Campbell is certainly no Christopher Nolan. However you might feel about the quality of comics in the last year there’s no denying that the state of comics as a whole is better than it was, say, 15 years ago, and the mainstream has already taken notice. So enough superhero movies. Go away, and don’t come back until you’re ready to put in the effort.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch The Cape.

But that’s no reason to disparage the comics made that were actually good. In fact, it almost makes it imperative that I write this best of: you need to know.  And if not me, than who?   You?  Highly unlikely.  First of all, you would have to have a command of the English language, that quite frankly, I don’t believe you possess.  And secondly, how could you possibly know what my choices for the top ten are?  You could speculate at best.  But that’s not what you do.  That isn’t what our relationship is like.  I give, you take.  I accept this.

Also, just for the record, I’m writing ten reviews in ten days, but they’re not in order of least to best.  Nope– not what I do.  These are just my ten favorite, period.   Also, the more I think of it, it might be like the top six or seven. I told Paul my top ten list, and he pointed out that three of them came out the year before.  I don’t feel like bumping up the honorable mentions to bonafide hits.

OK, let’s begin.

The Stuff of Legend | Written by Mike Raicht and Brian Smith | Art by Charles Paul Wilson III et al | Th3rd World Studios

OK, first off, full disclosure: I know Mike Raicht.  He frequents the shop I worked at, and I have had a good handful of conversations with him, and where as I get along with him and think he’s incredibly talented, I wanted to state under no circumstances is The Stuff of Legend on my top ten list because of this.  It stands on its own merit. A wider audience should read this ongoing work. This is my intent.

The Stuff of Legend takes place in 1944, dead smack during WWII, which makes the story itself a parable of what happens within the book.

The main premise is: you know when you’re young and afraid of the boogy man in your closet?  We’ll you should be, because he’s real, and for reasons yet unrevealed he has abducted a young child from his bedroom through his closet into a hidden world that would feel comfortable residing in Terry Gilliam’s imagination easily.

The abduction happens via black tendrils that slither out and drag him into the dark of the closet, the beginning of this book plays out like a horror film that turns not quite into a fantasy book as much as a weird war book.

After the abduction the child’s toys become animated with life and have a brief discussion among themselves as to go on a rescue mission to save the child from the land in the closet, and the Boogy Man of whom they are all familiar.

This is the beginning of the book, and I’ve heard people detract from it, comparing it to Disney’s Toy Story franchise in a not-so-good way.  Well first off, toys having self-awareness and moving is literally the only similarity between the two stories.  Once the toys go into the closet, within the first issue, they are no longer toys; they take on flesh and blood anthropomorphized personas.  The piggy bank becomes a pig, the teddy bear a bear (the talking kind, with personalities– the best kind) and toy soldiers and ballerinas become just soldiers and ballerinas and so on and so on.

I find many comic readers perception of what is a rip off fluid at best.  They tend not to mind when you have twenty variations of Batman running around, but the idea of more than one story with talking toys in the age where a hit movie about some exists?  Inexcusable.

Seeing as toys being self aware and physically animated is nothing new in literature, by the logic above most people should blow off Disney’s films as well because they weren’t the first in a long run.  I mean, in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker a prince is turned into a toy (the reverse of what’s happening here) was penned in the 1890’s.  The Velveteen Rabbit ~ or~ How Toys Become Real was written by Margery William in 1922.  And if you don’t want to go that far back Calvin and Hobbes was created in the 1980’s.

So now that the story has begun, what I found so engaging about The Stuff of Legend is its ability to throw curveballs into the mix.  The toys, now not toys, are behind enemy lines. Not only that, but the lines are drawn up into warring factions and roaming untamed terrors (dinosaur sized mud golems that roam in packs and destroy all living and standing structures) but they have to deal with Shakespearian style betrayals that feel natural to the story (‘why should I risk my life for this kid?  He will eventually destroy me.’).  Also, there’s a budding romance story, which is surprisingly touching under the danger and pressure the rescue team is under.

But what really, really stands out is the characterization.

SPOILER ALERTS

Within the first book, the leader of the team, the brave hero character, completely fucks up and gets himself killed.  This shock was great.  It would be if you cast an army movie with Brad Pitt, Danny Pudi and Donald Glover and they went off

to kill Hitler, because seriously, fuck Hitler.  And in the first twenty minutes Brad Pitt got his head shot off, and now it was up to the other guys to finish the job.

This is exactly what happens in this book. The not so brave ones and the strong but not so smart ones are left leaderless with an almost impossible job to do. It’s great seeing who falls into what roles, who has to become even braver than they thought, who needs to chill out, and who has to sacrifice.  It goes from bad to worse: they lose allies, they get separated, beaten and bruised. This story has casualties.  People you like get hurt and killed.

And it’s only like half way through.

I tend to skip over art when reviewing comics, mostly because I’m usually more interested in story beats, narrative and dialogue; but it should be noted that Charles Paul Wilson III is something to behold.  His figures, even the bizarrely shaped ones, all look anatomically correct, in that I mean when they get hit or hurt, you can almost see how they would slosh around the insides.  Also, his expressions are wonderful.  I am sincerely sick of comic artists who draw all bodies more or less the same with the exact same nose, lips and eyes for everyone.  When someone goes out of their way to make sure everyone has a distinct look– to bit players in the background. I love that stuff.

I think when this is eventually collected into one giant book people are going to keep going back to it. It has that cross over appeal to people who don’t really read that many mainstream comics, and because of the twists and turns it makes for a surprising read  even among the comics it’s similar in vein to. People will catch on and keep recommending it to others.

I’m just recommending it to you now.

–

Writer’s notes

1. I’m totally not going to write a review a day.
2. Instead of cluing you in to what I listened to while writing, here is a list of movies I saw in a theatre last year in the order I saw them.  It’s not all the movies I watched, but if I sat in front of a screen with an audience, it goes on the list.  And yes some of the movies are old– people still show them.  Why show the list?  Dunno. Just trying to give you more bang for your buck, maybe?  Also, I’m weird.

1.Phantasm

2.Black Dynamite

3.The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

3.Legion

5.The Wolfman

6.The Crazies

7.Repo Men

8.Hot Tub Time Machine

9.Red Dawn

10.The Terminator

11.Kick-Ass!!!

12.Brooklyns finest

13.Iron-Man 2

14.Iron-Man 2

15.Best Worst Movie

16.Splice

17.Predators

18.Inception

19.Cyrus

20.Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

21.Survival Of The Dead

22. •Rec 2

23.The Other Guys

24.The Expendables

25. Piranha 3D

26. Piranha 3D

27.Going The Distance

28.Jack-ass 3D

29.Faster

30.Monsters

31. Death Wish 3

32. Vice Squad

33.Black Swan

34.Silent Night, Deadly Night

35.True Grit

Irredeemable | Written by Mark Waid | Art by Peter Krause et al | Boom! Studios

My favorites of 2010 are not to be confused with what might be the “best” of 2010. It’s just some of the stuff I really liked that I thought I’d be able to add something to. I don’t think I have more to say about King City, for example, that David Brothers hasn’t already covered in one of his 12 Days of King City pieces at 4thletter!.

While the dearth of superhero comics worth talking about that I mentioned last week in my cry-like-a-baby post is troubling, and the creative output by mainstream publishers downright offensive, it also helps bring to light some of the stuff that’s worth discussion.

Irredeemable started  in 2009, a year I thought brought a lot of quality mainstream comics. Detective Comics, Scalped, Batman & Robin and Chew, all produced by mainstream publishers, each made it onto I Love Rob Liefeld’s Best of 2009 meta-list. Twelve others cracked the top 50. While that’s a crappy percentage compared to the amount of comics these companies produce, it’s a pretty impressive to see a book starring Batwoman placed among the ranks of David Mazzuchelli and Darwyn Cooke. Irredeemable didn’t make my top 10 last year, but I listed it as an honorable mention. In 2010 it makes my list in a heartbeat.

In my review of Irredeemable #6 last September I raised a concern I had with the comic’s concept– namely, that it seems like an ongoing based around a specific event (“superhero turns bad”) couldn’t possibly work. Eventually he’s either stopped or he isn’t stopped. Either the good guys win or they don’t win, and that’s the end.

Except it isn’t the end, and over a year later Irredeemable is one of the most clever superhero comics on the shelves.

Irredeemable follows a group of heroes who are out to stop a rogue Superman analogue, a story as old as Alan Moore himself. Irredeemable is a study in how to take that tired high concept that everyone with a longbox, a dorm room and a bag of weed has had at least a million times and make it interesting for twenty-plus issues. That it does work is undeniable at this point, but I’ve been struggling to understand how it works, and I think I’ve kind of got it. The theme– absolute power corrupting absolutely– is such familiar territory by now that early on Waid was never forced to provide explanation or background for absolutely anything.

The first issue itself was remarkably simple: a superhero kills people. What followed was a year-and-a-half’s worth of characters’ hopes dashed and mysteries revealed, as each issue was left with a cliffhanger that didn’t seem like a plot device, because the reader had absolutely no knowledge of these characters’ histories. There isn’t any information we receive about the Plutonian that isn’t new, because he’s only one, three, nine issues old. It will always be a surprise, and it makes Waid’s job a lot easier.

As 2010 rolled around the game changed a little. The basic plot remained intact but the lens through which the events played out was altered. No longer is it just the story about how to stop the Plutonian, but about how the characters adapt to a changing world, and how– or if– that new world affects the fundamental way in which they view a hero’s responsibility. What steps would the characters take in order to stop the Plutonian? Would they be willing to kill? Would they bargain? Would they, themselves, become corrupted?

As the year closes out that feeling of dread we felt whenever we saw the Plutonian has faded for us as well as the characters involved. They’ve found something that can hurt him– a couple of somethings, actually. The dread has been replaced with a sense of uncertainty about the future of humanity. Ultimately– for us, for them– that’s the scariest feeling of all.

The companion piece to Irredeemable, Incorruptible, is hardly as effective. Also written by Waid, it’s about what happens when the villain becomes the hero. On paper it’s just as interesting a question, but it’s infinitely more difficult to make successful. All that happens when the Red Skull waves old glory is that you’re reading another Captain America book.

The only real problem with Irredeemable is one that’s common among publishers who produce comics by committee: the artwork, while serviceable, is inconsistent. When Peter Krause is penciling, the book is at its strongest. He owes a lot to Dave Gibbons, and even a little to John Totleben– which is fitting for a book that evolved from Watchmen and Miracleman. It’s when fill-in artist Diego Barreto takes over that Irredeemable takes sort of a wrong turn for me. Krause, while not exactly a visionary, brings a hint of style to the work. Barreto doesn’t. His generic comics figure-drawing mixed with the digital coloring makes the artwork look like one of those new Archie comics. It’s flat, lifeless. You don’t feel anything.

But that’s the cost of putting out a book on a monthly schedule: often, that schedule is more important than a comic’s quality. Sometimes those things can work together, and sometimes that’s an impossibility. It’s the name of the game. Irredeemable may not be the best example of comics as craft, but it’s a wonderful story written by a wonderful storyteller.

I remember starting Wednesday’s Child in the early hours of 2009, and the kind of content I imagined I would produce here.

Initially, I remember thinking that there needed to be more intelligent criticism of comics on the web. Music, film, literature, even television: all media with an extensive and impressive critical history, all featured prominently on arts and culture sites the web over. There is no dearth of thoughtful examination on the films of Hitchcock, or Kurosawa, or even Uwe Boll. People have intelligent opinions on everything from Faulkner to Palhaniuk. If I hear another LOST theory, I’m going to fucking shoot somebody. Why do I not get this kind of talk about comics? You know: that old argument.

I discovered soon after that there were a bunch of people worth reading. When Abhay Khosla or Tucker Stone talk about something you should probably listen, even if on the surface it doesn’t sound very serious. I found out that Tom Spurgeon was a person who existed. I read that Douglas Wolk book, and despite a few glaring problems I’m not going to get into here, it’s probably the best collection of comics analysis around. There’s very few people worth reading, mind you, but they’re there, and although it’s a crime that they aren’t read by more people, that probably says more about the squares of the world than the quality of critical comics analysis available. I always thought I could contribute to that, if not in sheer quality of content, then at least in approach. If I wanted more criticism, better criticism, it should start with me, probably.

I soon realized this was a stupid idea. Maybe it was true, I don’t know– maybe the lack of thoughtful comics criticism is a serious problem to some people, but not to me. Not really, because it’s not something I feel is necessary. And it’s part of the reason why I hated comics this year, why I got so sick of them. I know Serious Comics Journalism™ is probably a good thing in theory but I don’t know how it can work when the people making the comics– and I’m talking about mainstream, superhero comics here– when they don’t care about what they say or mean or look like.

I wrote a review of Wilson, and I liked it, and I even got into a little debate about it in the comment section of Tim Hodler’s post, which is cool because, hey, I sometimes like Tim Hodler’s writing as much as those other guys up there. What a fun time. That was really great. Books like Wilson get a lot of recognition from people, and a lot of thoughtfulness goes into making it, talking about it, and putting it on our super-duper top 10 lists. That is a comic a lot of people thought was great that I thought was only mediocre, and had specific analysis as to why I thought that was. The world is better for having talked about Wilson.

Do you know how difficult it is to do that with an issue of Superman? Or how pointless?

Why didn’t I review this year’s big “Superman walks across America” thing with the same vitriol everyone else in the comics-loving world did? Simple: it was an ugly comic with a stupid story. Everyone knew it was an ugly comic with a stupid story, and every review boiled down to some variation of it being an ugly comic with a stupid story. And that is what’s frustrating: the comic was put out by a company who knew what a piece of shit it was, but banked on a subset of human to pick it up because it is a collectible. Not insofar as it will be worth any money whatsoever, but in that people feel compelled to continue collecting issue after issue. Critiquing a Superman comic has become quite a bit like critiquing a new Matchbox car: the intended audience doesn’t really give a shit what you have to say, elitist pig.

But those are the kinds of comics I’ve always loved reading. I’m not looking for a tremendous amount of effort, here– I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Green Lantern fan, despite how inherently terrible I know that character is. I’m looking for a bit of escapism and maybe a plot that makes sense. Preferably, I’d like a little less talk and a little more rock but PB (POST-BENDIS) I know this is probably an impossibility. Quality artwork is a must, but even the word “quality” means something different than it used to. A piece of mediocrity I can digest and talk about. This way, when something like Batman & Robin comes along it gives people something to sink their teeth into, critically.

2009 did that. Major companies put out really strong work, like Dark Reign: Zodiac, The Incredible Hercules, the first three issues of Batman & Robin and even Amazing Spider-Man. The mediocre was just that: mediocre. The bad was there, of course, but it made more sense to talk about it the way people talk about it this year. People openly laughed at Cry For Justice, calling it the worst book since Identity Crisis after just one issue– which is pretty good when you consider Identity Crisis came out all of five years before. It seemed like some sort of anomaly, when it was, in fact, the beginning of a trend.

Superhero comics were bad this year, and it really upset me. Other comics were great, and Jay and I will talk about those over the next couple of weeks, but Marvel? DC? I could hardly read anything. 2010 was the year comics stunk. 2010 was the year Paul DeBenedetto stopped caring.

Ring in the new year.