Posts

American Vampire has always been more about America than vampires. Because America has always been portrayed as a land of opportunity, it has always attracted those most desperate for that opportunity. That has often led to the exploitation of those least able to defend themselves. Yet, unlike many countries, throughout a good chunk of America’s history, it has been one of the easiest countries to move up the social ladder. For some that meant running away from debts to start anew in America. For others, it was getting free, large tracts of land out west from the American government. From the industrial revolution forward, a good idea and a bit of luck could propel one to the highest heights. A great deal of fiction has explored what happens once someone catapults out of their poorer circumstances - sometimes up just one level and sometimes from poor to rich. Do they now treat their former peers with the same contempt they once received? Or do they remember where they came from and remain respectful of those in poorer circumstances?

Long time readers of Comic POW! know that I am a fervent advocate of DRM-free comics (and this news story). If you’ve seen the site evolve you’ve also seen my tastes evolve. While Marvel and DC continue to tell great stories and explore new characters (like young Ms Marvel), I’ve grown to love indie comics a lot more. The main reasons are that anything can happen (including permanent death of the main characters) and usually the stories have an ending that the author is working towards. So I was very stoked to read today that Image Comics has put out a new Humble Bundle. I was even more excited when I read how Image organized the comics in the bundle: Image Comics is pleased to announce an all-new Humble Bundle digital sale— Humble Comics Bundle: Image Comics featuring Creators Own Worlds—set to bring awareness to equality and to support the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the educational arm of America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. This Humble Bundle highlights some of the series from Image Comics that are created by or significantly feature LGBT characters. With the Humble Comics Bundle: Image Comics featuring Creators Own Worlds digital sale, fans will experience $400-worth of some of Image Comics’ bestselling and award-winning series at pay-what-you want pricing.

Two things attracted me to C.O.W.L.: the subject matter and the author. I knew Kyle Higgins from Nightwing Vol 3 (AKA New 52 Nightwing) where I enjoyed his writing. C.O.W.L. takes place in Chicago in 1962 when unions are still strong and the Chicago Organized Workers League (C.O.W.L.) happens to be the superhero union. Similar to Watchmen, and very in vogue right now, the heroes are not pure of heart; some of them are just shy of being sadists. The main plot of Watchmen is two-fold, someone is investigating hero murder and someone is trying to create a tragedy to unite humanity and end the Cold War. But knowing that doesn’t take away from the story, which is a deconstruction of Super Heroes and is focused on their stories and personalities. Similarly, the main plot of C.O.W.L. is a negotiation with the city about whether to continue the contract with C.O.W.L., but the story is about the characters Higgins has created. If I may continue the comparison for one more subject, I’d say that both Watchmen and C.O.W.L. benefit from being self-contained stories of about the same length. It allows Higgins to focus on the story without worrying about the long-term implications for his characters.

The most important thing you need to know about this title is that it is pure, unadulterated pulp. It is cheesy in a throw-back sort of way and it celebrates that. I’ve been getting a lot of pulp and neo-pulp from Dynamite for some time now. For the time being, they seem to be the undisputed masters of the revival in pulp comics. Jungle Girl is an older pulp than the one that gave us Batman, The Shadow, and detective stories. Jana, the eponymous jungle girl, traces a direct line back to Tarzan, which, if Wikipedia is being accurate today, came out in 1912. It also mixes in a bit of The Land Time Forgot which, like Tarzan, was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. So the story is almost one giant tribute to Burroughs’ legacy. I have not read the source material so I’m unsure of how much Cho is also making tribute in the format of the story, but there is not so much a plot as a constant propulsion of our protagonists from one scene to the next. In one sense it’s nice not to have a McGuffin. Too often they are too transparently simply a means to start the plot and, as the linked TV Tropes page defines it, could be replaced by almost anything else. Still, the only driving force of this story is to constantly run away from trouble. They literally stumble around from one dino attack to another and then to the territory of rivals. The antagonist of the second series is seemingly found just as randomly.

At the end of volume 8, we’re just past the 1/3 point without counting the spinoffs. Bill Willingham seems, at this point, to perhaps be following a three act structure. Of course, bear in mind, dear reader, that I’m reading these for the first time with only the knowledge that the mainline series ends at issue #150. Still, while much is setup for future volumes, he does seem to put a bow on all the plot points until now. Snow and Bigsby, who’ve had a will-they/won’t-they and star-crossed lovers arc since issue #1 end up married. Last volume we learned the identity of The Adversary and while it’s not in the storylines, the supplementary materials contain a map that note The Adversary now has an embassy in NY. Rose Red has taken responsibility and is helping raise Snow’s cubs. Prince Charming has also had a Han Solo-esque character arc. And so, since it was mostly clean up, not much happened. Still, there are some ideas to explore in these volumes.

I read Wytches back in September before Baltimore Comic-Con because I wanted to be able to talk to Scott Snyder about how it was a personal meditation on what it means to be a parent. Snyder being as popular as he is, I was unable to get a solo interview with him this time, but I did get to ask a question about Wytches during his panel. During the panel we learned that fatherhood has been on Scott Snyder’s mind quite a bit recently. His recent Batman arcs have explored that relationship between Bruce and Alfred. He also mentioned that he doesn’t do Bruce and Damien stories because it’s too real for him with a son around Damien’s age. I’ve also been thinking about fatherhood quite a bit. When I Wytches I had a 3 year old. But I knew my wife was pregnant with twins. Part of the reason this article is late is because they were born early and part of it is because I knew they were coming so I was trying to jam in every activity I knew would have to leave behind for a while when they arrived.

I read Scott Pilgrim in its original manga-sized, black and white form when it first came out. With the final volume of the color version coming out this year, I thought it would be a great time to revisit the story as well as looking at how the addition of color changes things. I’ll be exploring the story and themes volume by volume. This time,we reach the conclusion with Volume 6. At this point, it appears that everyone has grown up except Scott Pilgrim. Nowhere is this more apparent than his misguided attempt to figure out if any girl who’s ever shown an interest in him will sleep with him. Of course, in this volume we finally learn why Scott Pilgrim has been such a dummy for the past five volumes - he purged himself of any self-reflection and memories of anything that ever went wrong. In one of the many Gen X/Y references, this is personified by Nega-Scott. Until Scott completes the metaphor by merging with Nega-Scott, he cannot grow up. Because no one can be a true adult if they don’t ever deal with anything they ever do wrong.

I was sure I knew how this was going to go. I’ve seen plenty of anime with this same plot. Usually the guy gets an android because either he’s too shy around girls or because he’s a loser (at least by cultural standards). However, instead of the main male character (and the ones I’ve seen usually have a male as the main character) taking the easy route and ending up with the android, usually she is just a teacher - a live action female simulator for the boy to get over whatever it was that kept him from getting the girl. To help make the boy less cruel, the android is usually destroyed or has to be returned because the trial period is up or some other reason to make the boy get on with his life and not cruelly end things with the android. So I avoided reading Alex + Ada. The cover with Alex opening up Ada’s box didn’t help things along. But rather than either the love story I was expecting or a sex romp, it turned out to be one of the most prescient comics I’ve read recently. (Right behind The Private Eye by Brian K Vaughan) We’re presented with a world in which a Google Glass-like technology has reached near ubiquity. Alex, the eponymous main character, has one such device embedded (technically making him and most Americans cyborgs) and uses it to think commands at all the computer devices around him. This is also a world in which the leading tech companies were working on achieving AI sentience. When, some time in the past, one of the companies succeeded, the newly self-aware robot massacred everyone at the factory. This leads to a law banning sentience. It is also a world in which non-sentient androids are everywhere - as coaches, sex-bots, and companions for the elderly. Finally, there are self-driving cars controlled via the Google Glass-like tech.

By this time, long-time readers of Comic POW! will know that I have been exploring pulp comic storytelling via Dynamite’s offerings. As the main deal-makers with many of the rights holders of the old pulp characters, Dynamite is leading the way in neo-pulp in comics. So far I’ve really been enjoying Gail Simone’s run on Red Sonja. However, of course she’d be able to do justice to strong female characters with her pedigree on Women in Fridges (the website) and lauded runs on Birds of Prey and Secret Six (among other titles). What would happen with a campy vamp (in both senses of the word) written by one of my favorite writers (Grant Morrison) and a writer that just as often rubs me the wrong way as the right way (Mark Millar) in which they teamed up on the script? They didn’t go in the same direction as Red Sonja in which she had a less ridiculous outfit within the comic, but that’s OK (while not the best possibility). What I didn’t like about the main story, and perhaps it’s an effect of the way the story was collected, is that it appeared quite disjointed. It went from Vampirella trying to save a mob boss from vampires to being accompanied by a wannabe vampire hunter. Additionally, if this girl can easily fight vampires after like a month of training - just how hard are these vampires to fight, anyway? Overall, it appears they just wanted to create an action romp and there’s nothing wrong with that, but with these guys as the writers I was expecting something groundbreaking in the mythos - especially with how interested in these types of things Grant Morrison tends to be. Instead we got the same tired refrain - the head vampire is Judas Iscariot.

When I started the relaunch of Comic POW! while taking Christy Blanch’s gender dynamics-based comics MOOC, part of the premise was that comics are a product of the times in which they’re created. This has been true of many of the comics I (and other Comic POW! writers) have explored, but I feel that, among the classics of the 80s Revivals, this is most true of spiritual brothers: Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Both are so steeped in the despair of the 1980s and the effects of the Cold War on the psyches of those living through the constant threat of annihilation. Both mine these depths to deconstruct the modern hero mythos (as seen through comic book characters). While Alan Moore has more lattitude with reimaginings of old characters DC Comics had acquired in an IP sale, Frank Miller has somewhat more impact with me given the decades of familiarity with young, mostly optimistic Batman. But it is a testament to the feelings in the Jungian consciousness that both More and Miller have their god-being (Superman/Dr Manhattan) as the ultimate weapon against Soviet agression. It’s also worth exploring how the consequences of their actions lead to both similar and dissimilar results.