One of my favorite things about Baltimore Comic-Con is that, unlike some of the larger cons, it’s still all about comics. And Baltimore Comic-Con is organized so that the indie creators and established creators are in the same spaces. This allows attendees to learn about neat, up-and-coming creators.

I’ll be live-blogging from the show floor while I’m there today. This page will update as I add new posts. [liveblog]

There’s only one more Wednesday between now and Baltimore Comic-Con! (5-7 Sept) If you live nearby you REALLY should come. There are top talent creators coming, but without the over-crowding of New York Comic-Con. Here’s a blitz of Comic-Con updates to get you excited about coming! Christina Blanch is coming back this year. She taught the great Gender in Comics SuperMOOC that led to this site’s revamp and she’s teaching another this summer. She also write The Damnation of Charlie Wormwood on Mark Waid’s Thrillbent Comics and Dynamite is going to be providing it in print. I interviewed her two years ago for Player Affinity and look forward to talking to her again.

As I mentioned during the announcement of Top Shelf’s DRM-Free store, I really like Comixology’s patented Guided View way of viewing comics. It is the best way to view comics that weren’t made with the expectation of being digital (eg The Private Eye, Lil Gotham) short of rotating a large computer monitor. Guided View isn’t perfect, but I find it works close enough to perfect. However, as I’ve mentioned over and over in different articles, I’ve been badly burned by digital restrictions management (DRM) over and over again. So I stopped buying comics on Comixology.

Dynamite is in an interesting place in the comic book marketplace. While Marvel and DC are constantly striving to update their characters, Dynamite embraces the pulpy past of comics. So they publish titles like Green Hornet, The Shadow, Vampirella, Jungle Girl, and Red Sonja. It was this pulp that contributed to the comics code back in the 50s. And it certainly is an aesthetic that aims to please the male gaze. It’s for this reason I never cared to check out Red Sonja before. Look at her, does this look like a heroine that will have stories worth reading or will, like porn, be all visuals with no substance.

This is not something I plan to do often, but I feel this book is something anyone who reads this site should check out. --- Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present by Dan Mazur My rating: 4 of 5 stars Disclosure: I received this book as part of the Goodreads.com First Reads program in which the winner recieves a copy of the book in exchange for a review. (It’s slightly more complicated than that, see the Goodreads First Reads terms for all the details) I love reading these types of histories about culture. I have read similar books about photography and animation published by Taschen. This isn’t my first time reading about the history of comics, I also read 10 Cent Scare and Grant Morrison’s Supergods. Anyone who’s been reading my reviews for a while knows that I love comics and actually run a comics analysis site, www.comicpow.com. The best thing about this book is that it starts from the 1960s. So far everything I’d read about comics can be compared to the way I learned US history growing up. Every year we’d start with Christopher Columbus. We’d learn about the Pilgrims and Jamestown and so on. Every year, when February rolled around we’d learn about the Civil War. We rarely made it past World War I. As a result I barely know anything but the pop history version of events from the 60s to now. I know more about America’s founding than I do about the decade in which I was born. The same often happens with comics. We start off learning about newspaper comics and The Yellow Kid. We learn about the 1930s and how revolutionary Superman and Batman were. Then there’s the creation of Marvel. Then some Brits came over and things got edgy in the 80s.

I mentioned last November that I was excited about the upcoming release of Black Science. Although I didn’t like Uncanny Avengers, I think that was more a casualty of being a flagship title that had to bear the burden of the whole Avengers vs X-Men storyline. I thought Remender had done an amazing job with Uncanny X-Force where he was allowed to do whatever he wanted because it was a title outside the constant event cycle (even thought it ended up affecting the other X-Men titles). I am happy to report that Black Science does not disappoint. At the time at which I’m writing this (a couple weeks before it’s published), I have finished reading the first six issues - which will make up the first trade

I wanted to read Rat Queens because it seemed to tick a few boxes that made it seem like something I would enjoy: Women you don’t want to mess with (bonus for seeming like all the principles are women) Irreverent humor Fantasy Tropes Looked like it might be quest-y like Magic Knight Rayearth, RPGWorld, or Slayers Well, it certainly encompassed nearly all of those. There are a lot of fantasy tropes hit: dwarves, elves, magic, skimpy female outfits - but there’s one key trope that it does not touch upon: a band of heroes (or anti-heroes) thrown together who have to learn about each other and how to get along. When Rat Queens starts the women already know each other. In fact, we quickly learn they are one of five adventuring groups operating out of the city of Palisade. The world of Rat Queens is one in which cities pay these adventuring groups to go out and protect the city or go on other quests. In fact, as a huge fan of the traditional jRPG, it’s very easy to see Palisade as the quest giver and then we get to follow the women around while they work through the quest before they return to Palisade to get another. As of the time at which I am writing this up, issue #6 has been released and the women have been on two quests and saved the city from attack, but the main storyline or super-arc is still resolving itself. (Compare to Buffy the TV show and the Big Bad and the little skirmishes that happen until the final battle with said Big Bad)

Last week we explored the major themes in Jonathan Hickman’s East of West. This week we continue with another Hickman series, The Manhattan Projects, and this time the main theme is deception. Hickman does also include his usual themes of hubris, love, and family relationships (particularly the paternal), but deception is the engine that drives this story. Last week I made the superficial comparison between East of West and The Manhattan Projects in that they both deal with alternate histories. The main difference at this level is that the former diverges after the Civil War while the latter diverges during World War II. But that’s where the similarities end. East of West is self-serious and the pencils and colors reflect that seriousness. The Manhattan Projects is, in a way, dark slapstick and the caricature pencils that mirror some of the Underground Comix looks of the 70s and 80s along with a light palette reflects the comedy. Nick Pitarra, on pencil and ink duties, does a wonderful job setting the tone with all the little details in his work. Last week, I compared East of West to Kill Bill. The Manhattan Projects is like Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. In fact, the comparison is spot on (including an ex-Nazi with a mechanical arm) - if you liked the tone of Dr Strangelove you’ll enjoy The Manhattan Projects. (And in issue #20 there’s a reference to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) In the first scene General Leslie Grove’s office is littered with weapons everywhere. His desk even has bullet holes and he wears a grenade on his chest

Most writers have themes they return to time and again, each time looking at a different way. This also is true of many of the most lauded comic book writers. Alan Moore is fond of using public domain characters and exploring politics and the deconstruction and reconstruction of super hero tropes. When working with established characters, Grant Morrison can’t seem to get enough joy out of mining a character’s past continuity to find new ways of making what is often a discarded, silly part of the Golden or Silver Age canon bring new light and understanding to a character. Morrison also likes to explore the metaphysical, leading to dense comic writing that can be hard to get through, but rewarding if you get all the references and points he’s making. He also likes to look at the future consequences of today’s actions, most famously during his runs on New X-Men and Batman. Mark Waid has become the master of exploring the consequences of lies and the truths we withhold from each other. His heroes have secrets even from each other and that can lead to dire consequences. Finally, we have Jonathan Hickman who seems to have two primary themes that run through his work. The first is about the role of fathers and the effects of having/not having a father and having/not having a family. He has explored this in more than one comic, but it is the central theme of his excellent run on Fantastic Four and FF. I would love to see another writer run with the fact that Hickman has Valeria choose Dr Doom as her father figure. Hickman also enjoys exploring how a cabal of very intelligent people can radically change the world. This was a minor theme during his run on Fantastic Four, but it is a central theme in S.H.I.E.L.D., The New Avengers, The Manhattan Projects and East of West. The Manhattan Projects, which we’ve covered before in the old challenge format of this site (and a commentary will appear next week), is a world in which the development of the atomic bomb was the least important and least radical thing being done by the group of scientists in the south west of the United States. Things continue to spiral into a radically different version of history as the scientists discover space travel, teleportation, and AI. East of West is starts off with normal history and then, during the American Civil War, a meteor strikes Earth. Control of the USA splits into seven nations - Union, Confederacy, Texas, Chinese (PRA), Native American nations (The Endless Nation), African American (The Kingdom), and I’m slightly unclear if Armistice is considered the seventh. A cabal of leaders - mostly the leaders of the Seven Nations at the time of the armistice - also write The Message. The Message is a Revelation-type prophecy for bringing about the Apocalypse. For some reason the cabal sees this as a desirable thing