Chris Haley is... THE ENTHUSIAST!

Let us set out for space and our future.

Let us band together and see those stars up close.

Let us become one with tomorrow and make the universe our own.

I tell you now, we can do it.

We need but choose, together, to excel, and we shall soon find that only nothing is impossible.

(Photo via bigredrobot. Words via my brain.)

(via bigredrobot)

Editor’s Note: This had a lot more swearing when I was saying it out loud to Curt.

Man, does everything have to be so goddamn serious?

Does everything have to be such a big, damn deal?

Can we not just make interesting comics that are fun to read?

I was reading a thread on the Bleeding Cool forums about Brian Wood taking over as writer of Supergirl and I ran across a comment that just (as my older relatives would say) flew all over me. If you’re not familiar with olde timey slang, that means it really pissed me off.

So, for that person (and for anyone else who thinks like him) I have prepared a statement.

If you are the kind of person who thinks the problem with Supergirl’s current comic is that she doesn’t have enough sex appeal and your biggest complaint is that she wears shorts under her skirt (instead of a thong or nothing, which I presume would be your perfect world scenario) then I need to tell you a few things:

1) You are the worst.

2) Get that weak shit off my track.

3) Stop reading comics. I don’t want you associated with the medium I love the most in any way.

xo
ch

“The War of the Green Lanterns will forever change the lives of Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart and Kyle Rayner in ways that nobody could predict. In the first chapter of WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS: AFTERMATH, a two-part event, GREEN LANTERN CORPS writer Tony Bedard explores the shocking consequences the war had on the Corps and its central members.”

War of the Green Lanterns just got started and here they are trying to hype the comic that takes place after it’s over.

YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!

I mean, I understand how these things work, but bullshit like this is why everyone has “event fatigue”.

The ending of this week’s Superman/Batman Annual #5 is actually the kind of ridiculousness I think I can get behind.

Some real Silver Age WTF-ery!

calamityjon:

One of my favorite comic pages, despite being from a series I didn’t like all that much.

This is from Justice, the limited series from DC as created by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger and Doug Braithwaite. I read this when it first came out and just couldn’t follow it, a problem I attributed to the immense cast of characters (there’s probably something like a hundred in these twelve issues) and its bi-monthly publishing schedule. With so much going on, I assumed I was just losing the thread from issue to issue.

I recently re-read the whole thing in a single sitting and, no, it’s no more coherent. I get the larger plot, but making heads or tails of individual scenes within the comic is more like making hay. Part of the problem is that the actual mechanics of story-telling take a backseat to dynamic layouts and cinematic spreads, so that the illustrations are stunning but make for a lousy, cloudy read.

Part of it also has to do with the fact that this series emerges from the legacy of the oversized Dini/Ross books, and like those books this is not a book about a story; it is a book about ideas. This is a series about who Ross and Kreuger believe these characters are, essentially, at their core. When things happen in this book and the plot moves along, it’s mostly to get us to another scene or another caption where a character’s monologue can tell us something about themselves, or their friends and allies.

Here, Ross and Kreuger get Captain Marvel and his relationship with his deadliest and most persistent foe, all in a single panel.

Confronting the insidious Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana in his cell at Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane - and observing the torment Sivana is suffering as near-microscopic alien parasites riddle his bodily tissues - Marvel turns with the grave, bright seriousness of a child and explains to his companion ”This is my greatest enemy.”

For good or ill, Sivana is a part of Captain Marvel’s life, and Captain Marvel is -at heart - still a child. Here he reacts to the threat of losing his greatest enemy the same way a child might respond to death or divorce, the fear that some day everyone will go away. When he describes Sivana as his greatest enemy, he may as well be saying “This is a member of my family, and I want him to be okay” …

Read this.

calamityjon:

Another page from Justice, by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger and Doug Braithwaite.

What makes Lex Luthor Superman’s most implacable foe?

Over the course of many decades, Superman’s greatest power has proven time and time again to be the rightness of his convictions. In the earliest stories of the 1930s and 1940s - either by example, encouragement or threat - Superman won his battles not by knocking out the teeth of his enemies but by convincing them that they were wrong to be cruel, greedy, selfish, craven or hard-hearted. The vast majority of Superman’s adventures in his first fifteen or twenty years ended with the villain swearing off his wrong deeds or the victim picking himself up and realizing that the things he held precious are worth fighting for.

Even after that, Superman’s victories more often came in the form of solutions rather than knockouts - invading aliens were provided alternatives, mad scientists were made sane, discomfited spirits found peace. Eventually, even some of his classic villains either reformed - take, for instance, the original Toyman, or the tyrant sun Solaris - or found themselves allied with Superman as often as opposing him, such as with Mxyzptlk.

But never Luthor.

In All-Star Superman - arguably the greatest Superman story ever written - even though Luthor is given a chance to literally see humanity as Superman’s elevated perception allows the Man of Steel to see us, even though Luthor has an enlightened moment to perceive all life as a vital and interdependent connected network of which even he is only a part, he refuses to let the experience change him. He finds comfort in, at the end, being the man who killed Superman and nothing more.

Paul Cornell tackled the same idea in this week’s Action Comics #900, which I’ll avoid discussing in detail inasmuch as it’s such a recent release.

Suffice it to say, the lesson at the end is always the same: Luthor cannot be humbled. He will always refuse the lessons and ethical code which Superman represents, no matter how right or relevant, and that is what makes him the greatest ever enemy of the Man of Tomorrow…

READ THIS.

guttersnipercomics:

From FF #2
Written by Johnathan Hickman
Art by Steve Epting
Inks by Epting & Rick Maygar
Colors by Paul Mounts

Since I just bagged on Epting for phoning it in on Ben Grimm’s boot treads in issue #1, I’ll give him this: the rest of his Ben Grimm is pretty dang great. I think it was Doc Shaner who pointed out that the Thing isn’t some bulky guy with a skin condition (as seemed to be the house style, at least for merchandising for a little bit there after the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies/travesties); he’s a Marvel monster like Badoom or Zzutak or Orrgo or any of those other crazy Kirby/Lee creations. And Epting draws him that way, which, all credit to him.

Also, this page is perfectperfectperfect, from the dialogue to the pacing to the lettering. I love that Doom walks into the Baxter Building and immediately starts being a massive, merciless jerk. He can’t not be a tool. And I love that. In fact, I loved the the whole issue. High fives, guys.

bigredrobot:

I started a comics nitpicking Tumblr called Guttersniping. Here’s my first post on the credits splash from this week’s issue of Batman, Inc.

I’m also opening the blog up for submissions, so if you really need to gripe about some little detail in a comic that’s bugging the crap out of you, feel free. All I ask is that you keep your language PG-ish and that you try to be fair and constructive in your criticism.

Cheers.