Miscellaneous Musings & Media Giants
June 12th, 2009 |Hi, Everyone!
This vacation week has been sunshine and roses all the way! Today, Benita and I ate lunch with some old friends from college. We are just about done getting issue 9 corrected and packaged, and it will be off to the printer quite soon. At the end of next issue, we may have enough material for the next trade-paperback!
When I mention “correcting” an issue, it’s just that. Benita and go over the issue from top to bottom, and we check for misspellings, or continuity errors in the art. Since I rarely get to draw a scene all the way through, without extended breaks for inking and coloring, I’ve been known to flub up costume details, eye color, etc. Correcting the comic is our chance to go back in time and retroactively improve it.
As I understand, we are getting close to the opening of ComicsXP. Digital comic downloads have been tried many times before to various levels of success, but something tells me that the time for this service is upon us, and that ComicsXP has the right mix of to really make it work. I hope you all vindicate me in this.
I’m listening to the audio book “From Russia With Love” by Ian Fleming—that guy sure could write! But, this brings me to an interesting observation: you’ve probably heard me wax poetic about my beloved British authors, such as Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, Michael Moorcock, JRR Tolkien, Neal Gaiman, and Simon Green, again and again. Well, I don’t want to give the impression I read only British authors, because there are some American authors I think a great deal of: Geoff Johns, Ed Brubaker, Brian Michael Bendis, Jim Butcher, and Kurt Busiek All of these writers are well worth checking out.
I didn’t mention Frank Miller, did I? Well, I suppose I have a few issues with Frank. “The Dark Knight Returns” is one of the most important books in my life, up there with “Lord of the Rings” as literature that played a transformative role in my development. I liked 300, and I’ve enjoyed Sin City. Yet, “The Dark Knight Strikes Again” takes unenjoyability to a new level, and “All Star Batman and Robin” reads like a sadistic bondage violence porn novel, and it is all sorts of offensive. Even read as a parody, this comic seems to take joy in twisting its source material out of shape. As I said, I have a few problems with Mr. Miller’s later work. He’s a media giant, so I imagine that he can shrug off my disappointment easily.
Scott
I totally agree with you on Frank Miller. His take on Batman in "The Dark Knight Returns" has always been an inspiration to me. SinCity simply blew me away. If you ask any comic creator they'll more than likely agree on the impact Miller has had on us creators.
Yet… has he begun to believe the things written about him? So much so that he can, as you said, just shrug off disappointment of the fans. I believe so. Unfortunately one of my most favorite creators is VERY low on my list these days… it's sad.
Agreed, it is sad. I think some of the things that gave his early stories an edge have been amped up so much over the years that they have become parodies of themselves. In ASBAR, Batman gleefully indulges in child abuse, killing police, burning victims, etc. This is not an improvement on the source material! I haven't even brought up the rampant mysogny.