DC's July previews reviewed

DC's solicitations for books shipping in July have been released and are currently peruse-able.

The big news this month is that it will be the kick-off of DC's fourth consecutive weekly comic, this one shorter than the other three, and featuring the industry's top talents on a wide variety of DC properties in an unusual format. Here's the solicit, which, barring any last minute changes, includes the final information about the project:

WEDNESDAY COMICS #1-4
In July, DC Comics gives a fresh twist to a grand comics tradition with WEDNESDAY COMICS, a new, weekly 12-issue series by some of the greatest names in comics today! WEDNESDAY COMICS is unique in modern comics history: Reinventing the classic weekly newspaper comics section, it is a 16-page weekly that unfolds to a sprawling 28” x 20” tabloid-sized reading experience bursting with mind-blowing color, action and excitement, with each feature on its own 14” x 20” page. Spearheaded by DCU Editorial Art Director Mark Chiarello, whose past editing credits include BATMAN BLACK & WHITE, DC: THE NEW FRONTIER and SOLO, each page of WEDNESDAY COMICS spotlights the continuing adventures of DC heroes, including:

—BATMAN, WEDNESDAY COMICS’ weekly cover feature, by the Eisner Award-winning 100 BULLETS team of writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso

—ADAM STRANGE, by writer/artist Paul Pope (BATMAN: YEAR 100)

—METAMORPHO, written by New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman with art by Eisner Award-winner Michael Allred (Madman)

—THE DEMON AND CATWOMAN, written by Walter Simonson (Thor, MANHUNTER) with art by famed DC cover artist Brian Stelfreeze

—DEADMAN, written by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck, art by Dave Bullock

—KAMANDI, written by Dave Gibbons (WATCHMEN, GREEN LANTERN CORPS) with art by Ryan Sook (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, ARKHAM ASYLUM: LIVING HELL)

—SUPERMAN, written by John Arcudi (The Mask) with art by Lee Bermejo (JOKER)

—WONDER WOMAN, written and illustrated by Ben Caldwell (Dare Detectives)

—GREEN LANTERN, written by Kurt Busiek (TRINITY, ASTRO CITY) with art by Joe Quiñones (TEEN TITANS GO!)

—TEEN TITANS, written by Eddie Berganza with art by Sean Galloway

—SUPERGIRL, written by Jimmy Palmiotti (JONAH HEX) with art by Amanda Conner (POWER GIRL)

—HAWKMAN, written and illustrated by Kyle Baker (PLASTIC MAN, Special Forces)

—SGT. ROCK, written by Adam Kubert (SUPERMAN: LAST SON), ilustrated by legendary comics artist Joe Kubert

—THE FLASH, written by Karl Kerschl (TEEN TITANS YEAR ONE, THE FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE) and Brenden Fletcher, illustrated by Karl Kerschl

—METAL MEN, written by Dan DiDio with art by Ian Churchill (SUPERGIRL)

WEDNESDAY COMICS will arrive in stores folded twice to 7” x 10”, with the first issue set to reach stores on July 8. Issue #1 on sale July 8; Issue #2 on sale July 15; Issue #3 on sale July 22; Issue #4 on sale July 29 • 1-4 of 12 • 7” x 10”, 16 pg, FC, $3.99 US

I'm tremendously excited about this. That line-up is full of folks I'll buy just about anything by—Paul Pope, Kyle Baker, Neil Gaiman, Mike Allred, Joe Kubert, et cetera—but there aren't really any slouches in the bunch. I'm leery of editor Eddie Berganza, whose comics tend to be bad ones, writing, but artist Sean Galloway mitigates that concern. Well, and then there's the Metal Men feature by DiDio an Churchill, who collaborated on a super-shitty Blue Devil story in which grown-up Charlie Brown and Linus kill Snoopy in a ritual sacrifice to raise a killer Great Pumpkin that ran in DC's supremely awfully Infinite Halloween comic.

But otherwise it looks like a whole bunch of top talent on some of DC's biggest and quirkiest properties.

I was a bit surprised by the $3.99 price tag, as cheaper seems a better way to go with a weekly than more expensive (of the three previous ones, the most successful was the cheapest one), but I'll gladly make an exception to my no-super-comics-over-$2.99-for-22-pages stance for such an interesting project.

Even with all this info, I'm still a little confused about some aspects, including how it will work/what it will look like and what the paper stock will be like, and am curious about some other aspects, like how it will be received and how it will eventually be collected, given the unusual format.

At any rate, I'm extremely excited about this comic. In fact, I can't remember the last time DC or Marvel announced such a promising sounding project.

As for the rest of DC's July plans? Well, there are some that sound like winners, and some that sound like losers. Here's what looks best/worst to me...



In this issue of Batman, by Judd Winick and Mark Bagley, someone…what, breaks a couple thermometers on Batman’s head…?


Batman: Streets of Gotham #2
Written by Paul Dini; co-feature written by Marc Andreyko
Art by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs; co-feature art by Georges Jeanty & Karl Story
Cover by Dustin Nguyen
In this second issue by the dynamic duo of Paul Dini (DETECTIVE COMICS) and Dustin Nguyen (BATMAN), Commissioner Gordon teams with the new Batman to combat the fiery threat that Firefly has spread across Gotham City. And to make matters worse, the mysterious adversary known only as Abuse makes his presence felt!

Meanwhile, in the Manhunter co-feature, now that Kate Spencer is the new District Attorney of Gotham City, will she use her legal power or her Super Hero identity to find the killer of the previous D.A.?

New Batman, same old fucking villains.



Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #6
Written by Art Baltazar & Franco
Art by Stephen DeStefano
Cover by J. Bone
It’s the magic of Shazam versus the magic of King Kull! Winner take all!

Oh fuck yes! I like Mike Kunkel’s Shazam just fine but man, if him not being on the title gets us Stephen DeStefano comics, then good riddance Kunkel!

DeStefano works in animation, so his comics art is way too rare, but he drew the original (and best) Jingle Belle story for Paul Dini, when Oni was still publishing it, and he illustrated the framing sequence for the Bizarro Comics anthology and it was fan-fucking-tastic.


DC COMICS CLASSICS LIBRARY: BATMAN — A DEATH IN THE FAMILY HC
Written by Jim Starlin and Marv Wolfman
Art by George Pérez, Jim Aparo, Tom Grummett, Mike DeCarlo and Bob McLeod
Cover by Jim Aparo
The Batman classic of the 1980s is collected in a hardcover featuring stories previously released seperately as BATMAN: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY and BATMAN: A LONELY PLACE OF DYING for the first time in one place! Including BATMAN #426-429 and 440-442 and THE NEW TITANS #60-61!

Readers were invited to vote on the outcome of this story — and they decided that Jason Todd should die! In this tragic tale, Jason lived up to his hot-headed reputation, ignoring his mentor's warnings when he attempts to take on The Joker by himself and paying the ultimate price. Driven by anger, with Superman by his side, Batman seeks his vengeance as he looks to end The Joker's threat forever.
Advance-solicited; on sale September 23 • 272 pg, FC, $39.99 US

Er, DC? You guys know you brought Jason Todd back to life right? Kind of invalidating these stories, which are The Story Of How Jason Todd Died, and The Story Of How Grief Over Jason Todd’s Death Drove Batman Insane(-er).

These were among the first Batman comics I ever read, and I liked them both a lot. I was just a teenager at the time, but I remember “A Lonely Place of Dying” being pretty darn emotional for young Caleb, as was, obviously, Death in the Family. And, of course, Aparo does some of the best work of his career in the former.


THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS TP
Written by Jim Starlin
Art and cover by Jim Starlin and Matt Banning
Witness the decimation of the Fourth World in this trade paperback collecting the shocking 8-issue miniseries! Someone's killing off the New Gods. Who — or what — is responsible? How is Darkseid connected to them? And will Superman, Orion and Mr. Miracle be able to uncover Darkseid's schemes before it's too late?
Advance-solicited; on sale August 5 • 256 pg, FC, $19.99 US

Wh— buh— Why? WHY?!


GOTHAM CITY SIRENS #2
Written by Paul Dini
Art and cover by Guillem March
Tommy Elliott, a.k.a. the villainous mastermind known as Hush, has escaped the confines of Batman’s headquarters and is wreaking havoc throughout Gotham City all under the guise of Bruce Wayne. Will the loose assemblage of Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn be enough to stop the madman’s rampage? Or are Gotham’s femmes fatales doomed to fail before they even begin?

Aw come on, Hush? Fucking Hush? Dini just did a story with Hush. I really want to read this series, as I like Guillem March’s art an awful lot, but I don’t think I can stand to read any more of Dini writing Hush…


JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE #1
Written by James Robinson
Art and covers Mauro Cascioli
What brings a team together? Justice! Batman and Martian Manhunter have been slaughtered. But he’s not the only hero to fall at the hands of villains. The murder has to stop, and it’s time to take the fight to the bad guys! Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Supergirl, Atom, Shazam, Congorilla and Starman unite in a cry for justice!

This 6-part miniseries from James Robinson (STARMAN, SUPERMAN) and rising star artist Mauro Cascioli (TRIALS OF SHAZAM) pushes our heroes to the brink and beyond as evil can no longer be tolerated to win. But when Prometheus plans his revenge on not only the heroes, but on the very places they call home, will this new team be ready to pay the cost for the justice they seek? This time it’s personal – and it’ll only get more bloody before it’s over!

Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers by Mauro Cascioli that will be separately orderable. Cover A shows the left side of the image; cover B shows the right side. Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.
On sale July 1 • 1 of 6 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US

Hey, that James Robinson-written ongoing Justice League comic they announced back in...when was it now, 1987?...is finally coming out. Let's see here, "this time it's personal"..."more bloody"...sounds just delightful. Also delightful? Each issue will come with half of a cover! Good looking out, DC.

On the plus side, it's a Justice League comic that might not be unreadable, it has a pretty interesting cast (Congorilla) and the first issue is $3.99...for 40 pages. See Marvel, DC can do it, why can't you?



JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #29
Written by Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges
Art and cover by Jesus Merino
A new era begins for the Justice Society of America as writers Bill Willingham (FABLES) and Matthew Sturges (BLUE BEETLE) take over the series with new artist Jesus Merino (SUPERMAN ANNUAL) just as two new recruits make their debut with the team! Strange happenings at the JSA Mansion are weird precursors to an all-out attack on all members of the team — all but one! And what is the strange connection that new members King Chimera and All-American Kid might have with the turmoil?

I'm totally dropping this after #28, although seeing that Merino will providing art does cause me some pause. That guy's not too bad with a pen and pencil.


Check out this sweet Nick Cardy Spirit cover:
Sweet, huh?


TEEN TITANS #73
Written by Bryan Q. Miller; co-feature written by Sean McKeever
Art by Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson; co-feature art by Yildiray Cinar & Júlio Ferreira
Cover by Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson
In the first feature, the team attempts to rescue Wonder Girl from the new Fearsome Five, as Calculator enacts his revenge on the team for not protecting his children. In the 10-page co-feature, Ravager faces the drug problem that could kill her!
On sale July 29 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US

So after whatever happened between Sean McKeever and his editors that resulted in the last issue of Teen Titans bearing a credit reading “original story by Sean McKeever” and no one credited with writing the comic...
...it looks like the new writer is…Bryan Q. Miller?

Who?

Teen Titans has been selling poorly, and selling more poorly each month. Barring something unexpected—like new, big-name creators— I sense cancellation in the near future, now that it’s jumped to $4 price tag.


VIGILANTE #8>
Written by Marv Wolfman
Pencils by Rick Leonardi & John Stanisci
Cover by Walter Simonson
Vigilante must risk his own identity in order to save FBI agent Laura Temple from the Costume Serial Killer. But is Vigilante actually helping her – or is he playing into a bigger trap?

Speaking of cancellation, the new Vigilante series still isn’t canceled! Will it hit the one-year mark? I didn’t think it possible, but by July it will be two-thirds of the way there

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

The neat freak's dirty mouth

Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew's Wonderland, which I mentioned here and reviewed here yesterday, features some comic book swearing in it, and employs a different strategy for depicting foul language in a comic than a few of the others we've talked about here before, so I thought it might be worth discussing.

If you haven't read Wonderland, either in its original six-issue miniseries format from SLG, or its current hardcover collection from Disney Press, it stars Mary Ann, the White Rabbit's housemaid (who he originally mistook Alice for in the book and movie). Like most of those in Wonderland, she's rather mad, and her particular form of madness revolves around cleanliness. Terms like "obsessive-compulsive disorder" and "neat freak" don't seem to adequately describe the depth of her emotions when it comes to dirt and disorder of any kind.

In the first issue, for example, the sight of a small red jam stain on her clean white apron moves her to snatch the Queen of Hearts' scepter from her and bring it crashing down on the tyrant's head. So it's no surprise that a mess can bring her to swear.

The first time she curses, it's when she's in the process of falling down a well. She bumps her head on the side of it, eliciting a loud "THUD" and a plain old run-of-the-mill cartoon curse:


The well she falls into isn't a water well, however, it's a treacle well. Once covered in treacle, and being pawed at by a trio of treacle-encrusted old ladies, she again snaps:
What's she saying exactly? I don't know, but it must be bad! It's the verbal equivalent of skulls of various shapes and sizes, a few lightning bolts and a black streak. I like this sort of comic-book swearing, as it is so far divorced from "real" swearing that it could really be anything, and the panel isn't really inviting the reader to suss out the real-world equivalent from the clues or context, the way, say, Brian Michael Bendis Avengers swearing does.

All the reader knows is that Mary Ann is completely freaking out, and using language so inappropriate that it can't be rendered into English. It gets worse in the next panel, when she drops English modifiers like "befouled," "bloody" and "blasted":



That seems like a good solution to the problem of how to have comic book characters swear without actually having them swear: Long chains of unique images with negative connotations, but no specific translation.

This is my favorite panel from Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew's Wonderland:

Yeah! Decapitate those two! They are unnecessarily annoying, what with the honking hips and beeping bellies. In fact, those fuckers shouldn't have even been in Disney's Alice and Wonderland; it's not like it was Through the Looking Glass movie. Death to the Tweedles!

Actually, that panel is only my favorite panel at the moment, but that will likely change, as there are so many good panels in it. It's one of the books I'm reviewing at Blog@Newsarama this weekend; you can read my review here if you like.

Amazo has better fashion instincts than I do

I never thought I'd say that of a guy who spends most days dressed only in a pair of green pants with darker green horizontal stripes, matching wristbands, and what looks like a bathing cap that's a few sizes too small for his head, but check out this image, yoinked from one of the activity pages of this week's Super Friends.

If someone—say, Professor Ivo—were to say to me, "Hey Caleb, pick out a pair of extremely tight pants in whatever color you like, and make sure they match anything." Well, I'd probably pick out a pair of black pants, because black goes with everything, right?

Well, Amazo went with brown pants and you've gotta admit, they go pretty well with the rest of his outfit. And when the rest of an outfit consists of Batman's cowl, Superman's cape, Aquaman's shirt, a glove each from Flash and Batman, and a boot each from Wonder Woman and Superman, well, that's no mean feat.

Looking good Amazo! You should really consider wearing outfits like this more often.

Here's something you don't see every day:

Or ever, really. I think there was some dinosaur droppings in the first Jurassic Park movie, and poor Plastic Man was forced into a pile of it off-screen in that Dinosaur Island episode of The Brave and the Bold (see, he disguised himself as a shovel to hide from the gorillas and...never mind, it takes too long to explain), but how often do you see a dinosaur in the act of going to the bathroom?

This particular image of this particular thing I you don't see very day was scanned from The Dinosaurs (Bantam Books; 1981) by William Stout, who wrote the introduction to Dark Horse's recent Turok, Son of Stone Vol. 1, and has a new art book coming out soon that I sure wouldn't mind getting a review copy of (hint, hint).

I've been trying to read The Dinosaurs for about two weeks now, but I keep getting distracted by the images, and spending a while looking at and re-looking at them and never actually getting to the words (After a few attempts, I'm only on like page ten). If you like dinosaurs or drawings I'd highly recommend the book, as it's just bursting with fantastic illustrations of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. If I were going to give it an in-depth review or discussion, I would want to scan some images, but narrowing it down to a couple of great ones would be pretty tough, and I'd want to scan about 50 or so.

So I decided to just scan one of a dinosaur going to the bathroom, and making a pretty funny face while it does so. Click on the picture for a better view of what kind of expression a sauropod might have had on its face while relieving itself.

Weekly Haul: April 15th

Amazing Spider-Man #591 (Marvel Comics) This is the latest stop in Marvel Comics’ fifteen-month journey to make it so that Peter Parker never married Mary Jane Watson and make it somehow logical enough that people might still want to read their Spider-Man comics despite essentially breaking a 45-year-old (more-or-less) continuous and consistent narrative.

It amazes me that they have gone through so much effort, spent so much time and burned so much good will to un-do a 20-year-old plot point no one seemed to think needed undoing, and yet they haven’t bothered to address perhaps the biggest but easiest to fix element of the Spider-Man comics: Norman and Harry Osborn’s hair.

Oh, it looked fine when Steve Ditko or John Romita drew it, and there are still a few Marvel artists whose drawings are comic book-y enough to pull it off (John Romita Jr., Marcos Martin), but when someone who draws in a rather realistic style tackles it, and the art is over-colored as is the house style at Marvel these days, well, it just looks fucking ridiculous.

In this issue, for example, Dale Eaglesham pencils a few images of Harry Osborn, and Osborn looks like he’s wearing a wig from that Living Color video.

Why has Marvel been fussing around trying to put the “genie” of a 20-year-old plot point back into a bottle, but they won’t let Harry get a fucking hair cut? Wasn’t he, like, dead before the re-boot? They can bring him back to life, but they can’t change his “iconic” hairstyle? I mean, even Aunt May and Peter have been allowed to change their hairstyles now and then, and their hairstyles translate into Marvel’s attempts at photorealistic comic art just fine.

Anyway, this wasn’t just 22-pages of Dale Eaglesham drawing Harry Osborn’s hair from different angles, so I suppose I should talk about the rest of the book too, huh?

The solicit for this issue promised a big turning point in the book. Here’s part of what it says:

Plus, life kicks into high gear for practically EVERY member of the supporting cast! Big changes, big surprises, and, like we promised: an event so HUGE, it's going to be felt in almost every Marvel title! This one's a gamechanger, Marvellites! Miss it and you'll miss out!

Given that the first half of this two-part storyline, “Face Front,” dealt with Johnny Storm being upset with Spider-Man for somehow making the FF’s knowledge of his secret identity disappear, a reasonable assumption that this big change might have had something to do with the ongoing scab-picking regarding the “Brand New Day” continuity re-boot.

Well, writer Dan Slott does engage in a little more picking of that particular scab, but that’s not the “gamechanger” the solicitation was referring to. There is a pretty big thing occurring in this issue, but it doesn’t have of anything to do with the story Slott was telling last issue—it’s apparently the culmination of a sub-plot that’s been simmering in the background of the not-quite-weekly ASM. (You can read about it in AM New York, apparently).

For a regular reader of this series, it likely seems more natural than it did to me, an occasional reader who only picks up issues when I like the particular creators involved and/or it’s a light week for new releases. To me, it seemed like a bit of a cheat, as did the clever but cheap technique of sending Spidey and the FF to a dimension where time moves faster than in their own, so that sub-plots involving various supporting cast members move at lightning speed through four-panel montages, essentially jumping two months ahead while the FF and Spidey bicker about the continuity re-boot and battle aliens.

Like I said, it’s clever, and well-executed, but it’s also pretty forced, and, were I one invested in things like Aunt May’s love life or J. Jonah Jameson’s well-being or Flash Thompson’s, uh, not having any legs, I can’t imagine I would have wanted to see all those scenes essentially fastforward-ed through just to get to “the good stuff.”

The art is a real mess this issue. Remember last issue, the first half of this single story, was penciled by Barry Kitson? This issue Kitson pencils and inks one page, handling lay-outs for Jesse Delpergang to finish (and they look like the pencil work of Delpergang, not that of Kitson). It’s still very nice work, but it’ so obviously different than what came before that it’s jarring.

But wait, there are more jars!

The scenes set on the real world are penciled by Eaglesham (and colored without inks, as far as I can tell from the credits). He’s a great artist too of course, and, with the exception of Osborn’s hair, his panels look just fine, but they clash loudly with Delpergang’s pages, to the point that when the FF return to earth and into Eaglesham’s pages, Thing’s facial structure has radically shifted and Johnny’s hair has grown out and been styled differently.

If a comic book has to have three different pencilers to finish it, this is done about as well as could be, but, well, a comic book shouldn’t have to have three different pencilers to finish it.

All in all, it’s mediocre work for very talented creators, more interesting for the way the creators tackle their various tasks than the story they’re telling. (Wacker’s credit made me laugh after the two seconds of puzzling it took to get the joke, though, and the last page reveal sure shows some promise).



Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #10 (Marvel) I really dug the first Ant-Man story in this title, by Fred Van Lente and pencil artist Matteo Lolli, so I thought I’d give this ish a try. Despite a different creative team (Todd Dezago, Derec Donovan and a pair of inkers), this issue seemed to follow #6’s template of Ant-Man as a down-on-his-luck inventor who serves as a champion to ants.

Dezago’s story seems to have started with as ingle image—Spider-Man villain The Sandman being split apart by little ant farm-like ant tunnels—and worked backwards to find a story that could support such an image.

Hank Pym is desperately trying to find a job to make rent on his trash apartment/laboratory, and interviews at a warehouse. So too does Flint Marko. When neither gets the job, Marko robs the place, while Pym dons his costume and fights him off with the help of an army of ants and the hindrance of his two ant roommates.

It’s not as funny as the Van Lente story (which also had the advantage of coming first), but it’s not bad either. I was less than impressed with the artwork, which is serviceable, but had some weak spots, like Marko’s tire-tread hair and Janet Van Dyne’s boob sock top (Plus, isn’t Jan supposed to be all into fashion? She dresses like a soccer mom from 1997…with a boob sock top…).

I do like that cover image.


Mysterius The Unfathomable #4 (WildStorm/DC Comics) The Dr. Seuss analogue plot from the last few issues dominates this one, and it’s awfully distracting. I think it’s kind of neat, but the fact that writer Jeff Parker is resorting to things like “Emil Gaust” instead of “Dr. Seuss” and “The Ape in the Cape” instead of “The Cat in the Hat” drives me nuts. If you want to tell a story about how Dr. Seuss is an evil sorcerer, go for it; if you can’t for legal reasons, don’t. It’s not bad, mind you, it’s just one of those things that bugs me, to the point where I have a hard time enjoying a work on its own terms. Tom Fowler sure drew the hell out of this issue though; the opening pages, with large swathes of the setting appearing as white space in the shape of things like streets and steps, and the highly expressive Seussian, I mean, Gaustian monsters are just impressive as all hell.



Sub-Mariner Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 (Marvel) I’m an easy mark for comics about Namor wrecking shit, so I might not be the most reliable person to ask regarding the quality of this thing, but I personally and it to be some pretty great super-comics (and by far the best thing I read this week).

Like last week’s similarly ridiculously titled Captain America Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1, this is a $3.99 anthology collecting a new story with a classic one, apparently in celebration of the fact that publisher Martin Goodman’s company released a book called Marvel Comics #1 back in 1939, featuring a couple of characters who would eventually become Marvel superheroes. SMC70AS #1 is one-up on CAC70AS #1 in that it has three stories, however.

The first is written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Mitch Breitweiser. Set before America joined World War II, it’s about Namor having second thoughts about killing a U-Boat full of Nazis, and letting them live. He’s feeling ambivalent about taking sides in a war between surface nation armies, so he surfaces, steals the coat and hat from some poor sleeping bum, goes to a kraut bar, hangs out with a Nazi lady, and decides to go ahead and kill that U-Boat full of Nazis after all, ignoring the lady begging for mercy.

Oh, Namor! That’s just so…you.

Breitweiser’s art is pretty nice, but it’s not a style that I care for overmuch. It reminds me a little bit of that in the Avengers/Invaders series, in which a couple of Namors are featured, so it’s certainly appropriate. (I do really like his cover too, with a lightly smirking Subby looking positively bemused by the fact that he’s about to smash a torpedo into a dude’s face).

The second story is a short, eleven-page one written by Mark Schulz and drawn by Al Williamson, and it’s a knockout one. Also set during the Golden Age, this one more self-consciously tries to replicate a classic adventure strip feel, which isn’t too difficult to do when Al fucking Williamson is drawing the thing. Namor fights more Nazis, this time at the behest of his weird-looking fish king. It’s a gorgeous looking piece, full of delicate, intricate line work and a handsome, grand character designs.

Finally there’s the original Sub-Mariner story by Bill Everett, fresh from the pages of Marvel Comics #1 , eight pages of Namor murdering some surface men—whom his mom wants to stuff and mount—while learning his origin and how it’s his destiny to personally beat the shit out of the surface world. Holy crap could that Bill Everett character draw a comic book panel.



Super Friends #14 (DC) Once again, the J. Bone cover is easily the best part of an issue of Super Friends, and just about justifies the purchase all by itself.

The art on the inside isn’t quite as slick, nor are the characters as sharply defined, but it is better than usual, and provided by an artist whose presence is a somewhat inspired bit of stunt-assigning on editor Rachel Gluckstern’s part.

Sholly Fisch is responsible for this script, in which the Super Friends’ super-pets come to their aid, while it’s penciled by Captain Carrot’s Scott Shaw (“with Mike Kazaleh”). Eh? Guy who drew that funny super-animal comic for a long time now drawing this funny super-animal comic? Pretty good idea, right?

The art’s nothing to get excited about, beyond the fact that the animals expressions occasionally remind the reader of those Shaw’s other animal characters have worn over the years, but the artist is allowed to wander farther off-model with the character designs than usual, which is good news as far as I’m concerned (the only thing I hate more than those Super Friends toy designs is seiing talented artists trying to clamp down their personal styles to ape it).

The story? Kanjar Ro uses the Gamma Gong to freeze every single person on earth like a statue. Sensing a loophole, Green Lantern John Stewart wills his ring to summon the non-human Lantern Ch’p to earth to help them. Ch’p in turn rounds up whis own super-team, consisting of Krypto, Streaky, Beppo, Ace The Bat-Hound, Jumpa the Kanga and Topo.

I realize it’s kinda silly to nitpick a silly superhero comic for kids and all, but a couple of things bothered me:

1.) Why was Ch’p gray instead of brown? He looked more like a squirrel or maybe even a raccoon than a chipmunk, despite being referred to as a chipmunk in the story

2.) How come Topo was all walking around in the open air like that? Octopuses can’t do that.

3.) I didn’t understand how all of the Super-Pets were talking to one another and to the Super Friends. Their dialogue bubbles were half speaking bubbles and half thought clouds, with shout-y corners and were, I think, supposed to indicate telepathic talk. But none of them are telepathic. And Aquaman’s the only Super Friend who should be able to communicate telepathically (well, sometimes Wonder Woman can talk to animals, and sometimes she can’t; I don’t know about Super Friends continuity). Ch’p or John’s rings could have made everyone telepathic, of course, but there’s never any indication that that’s what’s happening.

Sorry, but what can I do? I’m a nitpicker.



Tiny Titans #15 (DC) This issue features another Tiny Titans Pet Club meeting at Wayne Manor, with Alfred supervising to make sure things don’t get out of hand. When Zatara brings his pet, a white bunny rabbit named Abby (short for Abracadbara, natch) and it starts some shit with Streaky the Super-Cat, things do get out of hand, leading to a sound effect even cooler than those found in your average issue of Incredible Hercules: “KA-BUNNY!”

That, it turns out, is the sound of 30 white rabbits exploding in a geyser out of a magician’s top hat.

Art Baltazar and Franco also provide a short story in which Ravager babysits the Tiny Terror Titans, and an epilogue in which Baltazar draws the cutest version of Hoppy The Marvel Bunny ever committed to paper.

Early in the book, when Streaky starts chasing Abby while the other Super-Pets look on, I realized how much more enjoyable Super Friends would have been if Baltazar were drawing it instead of Shaw, but, well, Baltazar can’t draw everything. Although I admit there are times I wish he could.


Trinity #46 (DC) With this issue, the series has returned to one of its pleasures, which is just having a bunch of panels of a bunch of superheroes doing things. Hal Jordan and Firestorm flying around, Nightwing and Black Canary posing and talking, hey, if you like superheroes, this stuff is kinda cool, especially when Mark Bagley draws it (The novelty of Bagley drawing DC supeherheroes still hasn’t worn off for me, even though he’s been doing it for 46 straight weeks now). In the back-up, drawn by Scott McDaniel, whose work I’m pretty sick of looking at by this point in my life, is split between that Xor fellow hooking up with “The Dreambound” and Enigma facing the Crime Syndicate over on Earth Whatever.

Only six more issues to go, and now I find myself increasingly wondering what book Bagley will draw next. Assuming he doesn’t just drop dead or have his right arm explode in flames after drawing almost 50 pages a month for so long.

Review: Stinky

Trawling the Internet for articles to link to in my link-blogging feature at Blog@ the other day, I cam across this School Library Journal article that highlights a few of the fresh comics faces whose work for younger readers received Eisner nominations.

One of them was a Ms. Eleanor Davis, whose book Stinky (Raw Junior) was nominated in the “Best Publication for Kids” (Which looks like a particularly competitive category; Andi Watson’s Princess at Mighnight, Akira Toryiama’s Cowa! and Tiny Titans are also in the running).

I had not heard of Stinky until the nominations were announced (In fact, after the original announcement that Francoise Mouly would be doing a kids line of books, I hadn’t heard hardly anything about any of the Raw Junior “toon books”. A fact which leads me to believe that whoever is selling the things really oughta sell ‘em a little harder, and/or the rest of the comics blogsphere echo chamber should pay a little more attention to them, because that tends to be how I hear about a lot of books that I don’t hear about from the publisher’s or through publishing industry publications).

But then, that’s one of the good things about the Eisners. If their judges think a book is worth consideration for the award, with few exceptions it is probably a pretty good book, or at least a book I ought to read. So, having just read Otto’s Orange Day, I placed a reserve on Stinky at my local library.

Like Otto’s Orange Day, Stinky is a nicely designed book. Mouly and Jonathan Bennett share a design credit for it again, and apparently the entire line is designed with a unified look. I imagine they will look quite nice all lined up next to one another on a kid’s book shelf.

Stinky is the story of Stinky, a kid-sized swamp monster who is rather aptly named. He eats onions constantly, emanates stink lines and flies with visible dotted-line flight patterns, and his best friend is a huge, repulsive, equally smelly toad named Wartbelly.

This is what Stinky looks like:

As with Otto’s Orange Day, this is a very simple story, divided into three chapters: One that introduces the characters and a conflict, a second in which the conflict escalates and a third in which there’s a resolution and a lesson learned.

In the first chapter we meet Stinky and follow him on what starts like a normal day—brushing his teeth with a stick and a tube marked “Crust,” breakfasting on a pickled onion, taking Wartbelly for a wagon ride through the muddy swamp, right up to the edge of town, where he gets skittish.

See, he hates kids, since they hate gross things and like non-gross things. So he’s extremely unhappy to see that a kid, who goes by the name Nick, has just built himself a treehouse at the edge of the swamp.

Stinky tries a variety of plans to drive Nick away once and for all (including hiding his hammer in the alligator-infested heart of the swamp), but Nick keeps embracing the various gross, stinky and scary things Stinky throws at him.

Ultimately, Stinky learns that kids aren’t as horrible as he thought, and, in fact, Nick at least seems to be a lot like Stinky.

It’s constructed elegantly enough, and Davis’ dialogue sounds natural without ever being too obvious.

Being a grown-up, it was the art that I took the most pleasure in. The image above probably gives a pretty good idea of Davis’ flat, simple character design and her big, thick lines, but what I liked best about her work here was the level of detail she packed into the panels.

Not necessarily in the style—it never gets crowded with lines or anything—but in how much she puts in the panels.

The page is a splash of Stinky’s bedroom, for example, and it’s jam-packed with leaves, rocks, mushrooms and jars of pickled produce. Bats hang from the ceiling, cockroaches sleep with manga sleep-bubbles swelling from their noses, a cloud of flies hovers above Wartbelly, a spider hangs on a web above them, a little knife and fork in two of its arms, and a bluebird sits smiling on the window sill, a clothespin over its beak to block out the smell.

Davis similarly fills most of the panels with little animals in the margins. Rats play cards o his floor, a spider knits a sock with a ball of yarn in a tree branch, a mole parent reads a book to baby moles in an easy chair in their burrow. I love looking at the pages and hunting out the details, and I assume they would make this a great book to be read to for kids, as there’s so much to keep little eyes busy while the readers handles the words for them.

It’s an all-ages book, in the best sense of the word.

********************

Here’s a scan of the inside back cover, which is devoted to a map including all the locales Stinky and Nick pass through:
That possum tree really creeps me out.

********************

This is a really thorough profile on the Toon Books line; I really liked the part where Mouly expressed her preference for just calling them “comics.” “They're great books,” she said, “but not novels.” Yeah. I know the ship on what we call these things has sailed, and “graphic novel” is the term we’re stuck with for now, but I do like just calling all comics “comics.” Stinky may be a hardcover and have a spine, but it’s more of a comic book than a “graphic novel” or “graphic novella” or “graphic book.”

This is why I don't Twitter

(Aside from the fact that I only, like, 89% understand it. And I don't have a cellphone-y/handheld communication device on which to post things when not at my computer.)


Okay, Castle's on. One more show, a few hours reading, then bed.


I just got a good idea for a webcomic. I’m going to work on it as soon as Castle starts. Multi-tasking helps me feel like TV's not a waste of lifespan.


I also love Lacey. And Cheryl. And Edyta.


I love Julianne Hough. But IMDb says she’s only 21. I’m 32. Am I ALLOWED to have a crush on her? Or am I gross?


Who is publishing Alex Toth Goes Hollywood? I can't find anything about it online, other than that it comes out this week. Is there a publisher? Did it spontaneously generate?


I love hearing the name Edyta Sliwinska pronounced out loud. It's too bad for her that Lawrence Taylor sucks ass at dancing.


I believe in freedom of speech, "flag desecration" and all, but I do NOT believe in Chelsie Hightower's shirt.


Dancing With The *s in a mater of minutes!!!


This made me laugh out loud: (that link-y thing)


OMG, there’re no comics I want to read coming out this week! I count just four. You’re ruining my Wednesday afternoon, comics!


The message of Milo The Bunny: Big, huge, deformed, goonish looking people are still of value, on account of being big.


Llama Llama Misses Mama is the best of the Llama Llama books. I almost cried in the middle though. I have some kinda cries-reading-children’s-books disorder I think.


Eleanor Davis’ Eisner-nominated Stinky isn’t half-bad. Review...tomorrow...?


Nice, not only did I get a freelance check I also got my tax return! That's tens and tens of dollars! I’m going to buy so many groceries tomorrow!


Some financial advice: Buying Chinese take-out with your credit card is probably a pretty dumb idea. Delicious, but dumb.


Hurry up freelance checks, I need groceries!


Can one make a dinner out of fake meat crumbles, rice and onions with no sauce, gravy or broth?


The third-to-last sentence in Tucker’s Daredevil: Noir review made me laugh out loud: (link-y thing). Good job Tucker.


What is up with The Beat today? And there’s no Journalista. You let me down today, comics blogosphere.


Ha ha Mel Gibson's getting a divorce! It's funny because he's Catholic.


Having two mindless tasks to alternate between at work makes both seem less mindless.


Portishead and New Order round out the set that plays on way to work. CD 101 is a good station.


I like 311—or at least the songs they play on the radio—but I don’t know why exactly. I can’t point to anything in particular that I like about those songs.


I hate Coldplay, but I don’t know why exactly. I can’t point to a deficiency, beyond just not liking ‘em.


I miss my hair most when it rains; hair absorbs the rain water and keeps it out of your eyes.


Woo-hoo! I have enough quarters in my change jar to buy a bagel, like fancy, rich people eat.


Out of cereal! And bread! Breakfast options: Baby carrots or leftover spinach and potato soup…?


What’s up with centaurs? If “taur” has something to do with bull—taurus, minotaur—shouldn’t centaurs be half bull?


Had my first dream about Obama last night; he and the first lady and I were waiting for a bus to Miami at my grandparent’s house.

The Country Bunny, feminist hero

I had not given this particular book a thought in many years, and had forgotten it even existed until I saw the mother bunny in a shawl surrounded by the long line of her many children on the cover. This was one of the many storybooks my late grandmother kept at her house for her four grandchildren, and I was once quite enamored with it, even if I had forgotten the fact.

Re-reading it upon rediscovery a few years ago, I was surprised at the fact that I was remembering the images and story points as I was reading them, and yet also noticing that the artwork wasn’t quite as elaborate or as vivid as that memory.

It’s still a very good book, however, even if my forgotten childhood memory of it was that it was bigger, more expansive and more detailed than it now seemed (I wasn’t as sophisticated a consumer of art and story as a child, and was much more easily pleased than I am now).

The Country Bunny and The Little Gold Shoes (Houghton Mifflin; 1939) is the work of writer DuBose Heyward, who I assume is much better known for his Porgy and Mamba’s Daughters, who gives some credit to his daughter in the story’s conception, as he nailed it down by telling and re-telling it to her (the credits read “As told to Jenifer”).

It’s a very nice little story, and one that presents a surprisingly forward-thinking heroine, although as a child it was the artwork that impressed itself the most upon me.

It’s by Marjorie Flack, who is also no longer alive, and whose work I’m unfamiliar with (The Internet tells me she illustrated a series of books about a dog named Angus, and is best known for The Story of Ping).

Her rabbits are very realistic looking, as if they were the very same rabbits you’d occasionally see hopping around your backyard just before evening, only these ones stood on their hind legs and wore clothes. Thus the mundane and fantastic were combined in the character designs to a point that made the rabbit characters all very exciting to me as a child; they weren’t just drawings of rabbits, they were actually rabbits. They're very Beatrix Potter-y looking rabbits. Like, when I saw one of Richard Scarry's rabbits or cats, I knew it was just an artist drawing a picture of a rabbit or cat for his storybook, but when I'd see a Beatrix Potter-drawn rabbit or cat, I knew it was a picture of a rabbit or cat, but I didn't think of it in terms of the agency (In my child brain, realistic drawings weren't any different than photographs).

I now realize that Flack's drawings were also likely quite appealing because they were so damn cute.

It’s an Easter story, and had the feeling of being a classic or authoritative one, I suppose because of its great age (It was already forty years by the time I was born, and both Heyward and Flack were born in the nineteenth century).

The story opens with an image of five rabbits, dressed in coats with tails, vets, bow ties and short little pants out of which stick their big, long feet and their tails. Two are white with pink eyes, and two are brown and each carries either a basket or an egg.

“We hear of the Easter Bunny who comes each Easter Day before sunrise to bring eggs for boys and girls, so we think there is only one,” the story opens right below the image, and continues to explain that there are five Easter Bunnies, and that they are “the five kindest, and swiftest, and wisest bunnies in the whole world.”

When an Easter Bunny gets too old to do the demanding work any longer, the aged and wise Grandfather Bunny summons rabbits from all over the world to the Palace of Easter Eggs to choose a replacement.

It’s a role that many little bunnies aspire to, including “a little country girl bunny with a brown skin and a little cotton-ball of a tail.”
The rich, “big white bunnies” as well as the “Jack Rabbits” laughed at her and told her “to go back to the country and eat a carrot.” I suppose that’s a pretty bad insult among rabbits.

When she grew up, she eventually had a husband, and soon found herself the mother of twenty-one babies.
You can see how this would be appealing to a little kid. Look at all those bunnies! Baby bunnies!

Curiously, while a husband is mentioned prior to the arrival of the babies, he’s never mentioned again, and certainly doesn’t ever appear in the story. Did he run off? Was he eaten by a fox or made into pie by a farmer? Who knows. Cottontail, as the author sometimes calls the country bunny protagonist, is the sole parent of all these little bunnies.

That put an end to her dream of being an Easter Bunny: Twenty-one babies took a lot of time and energy, and didn’t leave much time to dream about anything else (The big white rabbits and Jack rabbits laugh at her and say “Only a country rabbit would go and have all those babies;” I’m not sure what to make of that statement. Do country rabbits/folks know less about family-planning? Is that the implication?)

When the babies “stop being babies,” there’s a wonderful four-page sequence in which Cottontail assigns each pair of them a special household task that they become especially adept in. Two are in charge of cooking, two in charge of bed-making and so on; once all the chores are accounted for, pairs are given arts to pursue for the benefit of all, so two learn to sing, two become artists and so on. (The leftover, twenty-first bunny’s task is simply to pull out his mom’s chair when they sit down for dinner, as he’s the politest bunny).
Well, as you may have guessed from the opening, there comes a time when an Easter Bunny retires, and the Grandfather Bunny calls for an assembly at the Palace. Flack renders him bigger and slightly fluffier than all the others, making him seem aged in the shagginess of his fir and the way his ears are tilted slightly back. He is dressed in a suit with tails and a big lacey collar and cuffs, and leans on a cane.

Many rabbits try out, but he doesn’t find quite the rabbit he’s looking for. Not until he asks about Cottontails 21 children, and she explains how she raised them, which demonstrates her wisdom and kindness. To prove her speed, she tells her children to scatter, and then promptly chases all 21 down and reassembles them before Grandfather, earning the job.

On Easter Eve, she returns to the palace and meets the other four Easter Bunnies—
—all of whom, I now notice, are male, and are dressed much more well-to-do than her.

By the end of the night, she has only two more deliveries to make: One to a sick child very far away atop a snow-covered hill, and the other two her own children, who are taking care of the house in her absence.

She’s about to make it to the sick child’s cabin just before the dawn deadline, when she falls and rolls all the way down the hill, hurting herself in the process. Struggling against the pain in her leg, she attempts again, and, for her bravery, is awarded the titular shoes by Grandfather Bunny. These allow her to hop painlessly up the hill and make the delivery.

Returning home, she sees the children have all done their tasks flawlessly, and she bring their basket to their bedroom, giving readers another cute image:
Awwww!

And that’s the story of the country bunny, who ultimately fulfilled her life’s ambition because of, rather than in spite of, what at first seems like an insurmountable handicap and a reason to give up on that ambition and focus her attention elsewhere.

I liked it as a kid because of the great artwork and well-constructed storyline. I like it as an adult because of the great artwork and well-constructed storyline and how positive it is without being the least bit preachy.

********************

I realize Cottontail is the protagonist and all, but I think this little guy is my favorite character:
He's so intense! He's just painting a couple of carrots, but he's painting those carrots as hard as he can.

And the needy, manipulative rabbit lived happily ever after…

Obviously an adult reader is going to experience a storybook intended for a child differently than the child is. But I still find myself occasionally struck by how discordant my reading is with what I assume is the intent of the author, particularly when you consider that the authors are themselves adults, and thus more likely to share the adult’s reading than the child’s. For example, Mélanie Watt’s charming Scaredy Squirrel books revolve around comical exaggerations of mental disorders, and Britta Teckentrup’s Grumpy Cat was one of the saddest things I’d ever read.

One of my strongest reactions to this phenomenon of seeing something I can’t believe is really there in a kids book came a few years ago, shortly after I started this blog (and spending an awful lot of time in the library), when I came across The Rabbit’s Wedding (Harper Collins; 1958).

It’s by the late Garth Williams, a fairly prolific and beloved illustrator who has almost 100 books to his name, including Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, as well as some other books you may be familiar with (Margery Sharp’s Miss Bianca books, 1953 editions of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, and George Selden’s The Cricket in Times Square). He’s a man who draws very good animals, ones that look quite realistic, but not to the point that they become unexciting or, more importantly, unexpressive.

Apparently, The Rabbit’s Wedding was quite a controversial book at one point, but not for the reason I thought (I didn’t know at the time I first read it that I was familiar with the artist’s work from books I’d read in my own childhood, nor did I realize how old this particular book was).
“Two little rabbits, a white rabbit, and a black rabbit, lived in a large forest,” the first page reads, and we see two rabbits in a rather long-ish shot, standing in a little patch of grass amid some yellow flowers, mist eclipsing much of the forest around them, thought the shapes of trees poke through. “Every morning they hopped out of bed, and into the early morning sunshine. They loved to spend all day playing together.”

They spend a paragraph and a two-page spread playing “Hop Skip and Jump Me,” one of the several rabbit games Williams includes, before the black rabbit suddenly sits down, grows quiet and gets incredibly sad looking.

Look at how sad Williams can make a sad rabbit look:
When the white rabbit asks what’s wrong, the black rabbit says nothing. This happens several times. They’ll play a game for a while, then the black rabbit will grow sad, and the white rabbit will ask what’s wrong.

Did you think that last sad rabbit image was the saddest sad rabbit Williams could draw? Well, it isn’t; he can go sadder:
Slowly the black rabbit reveals more and more about the nature of his sadness, until he says that thinking about his wish makes him sad.

“I just wish that I could be with you forever and always,” he finally tells the white rabbit, much to her shock. She prompts him to wish even harder and he does. “I wish you were all mine!”

So she makes his wish come true. They pick little boquets of dandelions, and then a bunch of rabbits holding hands skip over to them and dance in a circle around them, and Williams pulls back and we see them standing on a hill, surrounded by a circle of rabbits dancing on their hind legs around them, while various other forest animals watch in the foreground.


“And so the two little rabbits were wed and lived together happily in the big forest…and the little black rabbit never looked sad again.”

Now that I know this was written in the late 1950s, the fact that it implies true happiness can only come from a traditional, formal marriage doesn’t seem as odd to me, but on my first reading, I was really quite surprised.

Perhaps part of it was just how sad Williams drew the little black rabbit, or the way that the rabbit’s sadness kept intruding on his day-to-day life with the white rabbit—three or four times in the space of this single day—but it seemed pretty unhealthy to me.

The black rabbit already spent all day every day playing and eating with the white rabbit, but for some reason it just wasn’t good enough for him. He was worried that it might change some day, and thus he was unable to enjoy the time he spent with her because he was thinking about the possibility of not spending time with her. He was making himself miserable—and worrying his friend—by finding a negative where there wasn’t one.

I suppose I also felt some sympathy for the white rabbit, as we all know what it’s like to be around someone who is quite visibly upset by something, but refuses to share the problem, and the white rabbit is left in the frustrating limbo of knowing something is wrong with her friend but not what. The black rabbit wants her to know that he’s upset, but not why he’s upset, or what she can do about it.

Not for a while, anyway.

It all ends happily enough for the two rabbits of course, but if Now wasn’t good enough for the black rabbit, and he needed Forever as well, should the white rabbit be in this relationship? (It seems to me that it was just as likely that the black rabbit was afraid of being alone as much as he wanted to be with the white rabbit). And if she was completely unaware of the black rabbit’s feelings, does she really reciprocate them? (And what if the white rabbit only liked the black one as a friend?!)

And, forgetting the rabbits for a moment, is a loving relationship somehow lesser than if it’s not sanctified by the rite of marriage, which here means dandelions and dancing rabbits? Is marriage really a route to never being sad again, as the ending implies?

After I finished the book, I searched online to find out more about it and see if perhaps others had discussed the unhealthy relationship in it, when I found at that it was a “controversial” story. Not because of any imbalance in the rabbits’ relationship or Williams’ implied messages about marriage, but because one of the rabbits is black and the other is white.

If one were so inclined, one could interpret it as an interracial love story, which was illegal in 19 states at the time. A Wikipedia page on Williams quotes The Encyclopedia of Censorship:

The Rabbit's Wedding, by Garth Williams, was transferred from the open shelves to the reserved shelves at the Montgomery (Alabama) Public Library in 1959 because an illustration shows a black buck rabbit with a white doe rabbit. Such miscegenation, stated an editor in Orlando, was "brainwashing . . . as soon as you pick up the book and open its pages you realize these rabbits are integrated." The Montgomery Home News added that the book was integrationist propaganda obviously aimed at children in their formative years.

People are fucking insane.

The book is mostly black and white, with only touches of yellow in it, so the colors of the rabbits seem like they were merely the best choices for distinguishing them from one another. I suppose Williams could have called them “the white rabbit” and “the yellow rabbit,” but then, rabbits aren’t yellow. When the wedding rabbits all show up at the end, they’re the same shade of gray, and are indistinguishable from one another; there’s a white rabbit, a black rabbit, and every other rabbit.

It’s strange how much times have changed though. Some thought Williams was attacking and devaluing marriage back in the day by encouraging different “races” to marry, whereas my reaction reading it in 2009 was that he was attacking other types of relationships and overvaluing marriage.

Today is Easter.

When I was a little kid, that meant it would have been the third most exciting morning of the year, following Christmas morning and that of my birthday.

My siblings and I would look for the Easter baskets the Easter Bunny had hidden around our house the night before, and then hunt for the little chocolate, foil-wrapped eggs he had hidden around the house before our dog Jacoby sniffed them out and ate them all (You know, neither chocolate nor tinfoil are supposed to be very good for dogs; Jacoby must have had a stomach like a robotic goat).

Then I'd be dressed in a powder blue, polyester-y little suit with a clip-on bow tie, and go to Sunday morning mass, followed by dinner with my extended family, consisting of ham, lasagna, cracker meal or wedding soup, and a variety of bizarre (to me) seasonal pies: rice pie, meat pie and Farina pie.

Now I'm a grown-up, as well as a non-practicing Catholic and a vegetarian, which strips away pretty much everything that was once special and significant about the day. And I live far away from my family, so I'm not even spending the day with my littlest relatives and relations, watching them look for baskets or turn up their noses at rice and meat pies.

This is how I celebrate Easter now. By listening to an album about a radical ancient hippie who changed the course of world history for both good and ill when he martyred himself for a cause, completely boning his friend and fellow poverty activist Judas in the process...

...while blogging about children's picture books involving rabbits.

Rabbit related content to follow shortly; in the meantime, please enjoy the hymn above, and ponder the theological implications of a disco-themed heaven.

Okay, now I've read Otto's Orange Day

Never let it be said that I don’t listen to my commenters (Even the ones over at Blog@Newsarama, whom aren’t anywhere nearly as well-bred, sophisticated and good-looking as you guys are).

When rounding up links to stories about comics from the non-comics media for Linkarama, the thrice-weekly link-blogging column I contribute to Blog@, I came across this little story from the Poughkeepsie Journal. It was a guest column by youth service librarian Beth Zambito, in which she recommends graphic novels for young readers, including popular books like Owly, Amelia Rules and the newer collection of Scott Morse’s Magic Pickle (Which Oni published as singles several years ago), along with two books I hadn’t read. One was Gettysburg: The Graphic Novel, which I’m kind of skeptical of just based on the title (I haven’t read many worthwhile books that include a colon and the words “The Graphic Novel” in the title so far), and the other was Otto’s Orange Day by Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch.

In that particular installment of Linkarama, I wrote, “I’ve never heard of Otto’s Orange Day though, so I guess I better visit my local library.”

Frequent Blog@ commenter Vinnie Bartilucci posted this in response: “Otto’s Orange Day is one of Francoise Mouly’s Toon Books line of little kid’s picture books written and drawn by some of the most creative people in comics. WELL worth seeking out.” He also posted a link to toonbooks.com.

Well, since then I’ve visited my local library and secured a copy of Otto’s Orange Day, read it, scanned a few images and put it on my Blog About This Sometime schedule for Saturday.

And hey, today’s Saturday!

It’s written by Jay Lynch and illustrated by Frank Cammuso, and I must confess that I’m completely unfamiliar with the work of either of them, although from their biographies it seems pretty clear that that says more about my ignorance than their experience. (Actually, I’ve heard of some of Cammuso’s work, I just haven’t read any of it personally).

Both have a lot of experience with comics though, so I suppose it’s no surprise that this is a very accomplished, very polished work. It’s strange in that it reads like a comic, but looks, feels, smells and in all other ways resembles a children’s book. (It’s even sized for children’s hands, at nine inches-by-six inches, and is a lovely little object, for those of you/us who may fetishize books as objects; credit for its design goes to the line’s editorial director Francoise Mouly and Jonathan Bennett).

Otto is a little anthropomorphic cat who happens to be a couple different shades of orange, and reminds me of my friend’s cat Ramram, who recently passed away:
(Above: Ramram, sitting like a human being, as was his wont)

“Orange was Otto the cat’s favorite color,” a caption box informs us on the first page, and Otto, wearing the cartoon character uniform of a shirt and no pants, tells us how awesome orange is: “Orange is pretty. It’s bold and it’s strong!”

Yeah, sure Otto—but you can’t rhyme anything with it!

Then he sings a song about the color orange, only to be interrupted by a ding-dong at the door. It’s the mailman (well, he’s actually a maildog), who delivers a package to Otto:
This is the one moment of the book in which my suspended disbelief could not longer be suspended, and was thus re-spended. Why on earth would Aunt Sally Lee take the time to send her nephew a lamp, packing it up, writing him a letter and taking it to the post office, and not dust the lamp herself? What kind of aunt sends someone a dusty present?

Well, if you’ve ever experienced any genie-related entertainment before, you know what happens when he dusts it off. A (humanoid, rather than feline) genie appears, this one blue, goatee-ed and tapering off to a wispy tail like the Disney genie from Aladdin, only with a gold tooth and wearing a big gold G necklace (probably for “Genie,” rather than “gangsta”).

Otto of course gets a wish, and he wishes that everything in the world was orange. This leads to four pages of Otto running about, exulting in the orange and making some rather forced rhymes to describe exactly what “everything” encompasses: “ Orange clowns in orange gowns!… Orange monkeys…cows and lizards. And in the winter, orange blizzards.”

He soon realizes that having everything in the world be orange has some drawbacks. When his mom serves him a lambchop for lunch (Lamb? For lunch?!), for example, he wanders away from the table in disgust:
Then there’s the matter of traffic lights, and police APBs (“Alert! Be on the lookout for the escaped orange criminal… He or she has orange hair… and orange eyes… and is wearing orange!”).

Otto tries to fix things, with the help of his aunt, but the genie is being less than cooperative and, in the end, they have to trick the genie into making the world normal again, using something Otto learned himself in the course of realizing a one-colored world has its disadvantages.

I liked the story okay, but it seemed to be more of a kids’ book than an all-ages book (That is, targeted at younger audiences at the expense of older audiences). I mention that as an observation more than a criticism, by the way; there’ s certainly nothing wrong with kids’ comics targeting kids.

If I have a few reservations about the script (for adult readers, not kids, for whom it’s perfect), I have none about Cammuso’s art, which is pretty great.

The designs and sense of motion seem highly influenced by classic animation of the humorous short variety, but the lines look like those in an exceptionally well-drawn comic strip (In fact, it reminded me quite a bit of Bill Watterson’s, particularly in the way Cammuso lends energy and excitement to the common, every day settings like a kitchen table or a living room).

So I guess I’m inclined to agree with youth service librarian Beth Zambito and Blog@ reader Vinnie Bartilucci.

Is this why Warlord's hair is white?

Here's Travis "Warlord" Morgan, waking up after a long, restful sleep with his shape-changing cat-woman friend Shakira. He yawns, stretches and then leisurely goes to look out the window......and then, in the very next panel...

JESUS CHRIST A FUCKING GRIFFIN JUST FLEW RIGHT IN THE GODDAM WINDOW!!!!

These and 88 other panels, including the one where he straight up chops its head off, can be found in Warlorld #1 by Mike Grell, Joe Prado and Walden Wong.