The One Thing You Can Never Rewrite Into Mainstream Comics Continuity Is A Sense Of Proportion
There was a semi-fascinating sprawl of arguments around the comics Internet over the last week or so, generated by the video snippet at right featuring Darwyn Cooke. I believe it was pushed along mostly by this essay and subsequent conversation at 4thletter!, at which point it was whisked off to dozens of places dark and mysterious to be mulled over and clucked at. There was a lot of dork court legal action going on here -- by which I mean taking what someone said/wrote, setting it in stone as if it were a brief filed somewhere of that person's absolute belief, presuming that ever sub-argument and digression informs that belief, and then picking at the whole thing with 10,000 tiny hammers. No one comes across well when that happens.
Honestly, though, I think if you step back and take a look at what Cooke's saying, it's almost 100 percent of a piece with one of his long-standing talking points: that a way to honor the original creators of corporate superhero product -- these unfortunately and maybe against-their-will absentee fathers and mothers -- is to hew as closely as possible to the intent and feel of their creations as initially established. Two points, then. First, my strong suspicion is that Cooke's not coming at that idea as a nostalgic fanboy with an emotional connection to the characters as he first encountered them as much as he sees himself as a fellow creator in an invisible fraternity attached to an industry in a way that makes him deeply sympathetic to past creators and thus sees working with their characters in a do-unto-others fashion. Second, I further suspect that as much as the content of what breaks with the conception of those original characters may be important to you or me, the how they're different, it's not the nature of the break with the original character but its severity and degree of difference that concerns Cooke.
Maybe the most fascinating thing about the mainstream comic book portion of the comics industry as a leviathan of creative enterprise is its relationship to formula and innovation. Fans of that material desire something that's new and specifically relevant to their conception of art and reality, and yet they also want to mine every last bit of pleasure out of something that works, all the way out to the last, faintest echo of how the original element that hit with them. Let me suggest that this kind of phenomenon may be deeply compelling only if your face is right up against the glass and staring at this stuff with those folks, fully invested and unlikely to stop being so any time soon. If you take a step back, if you allow yourself several steps back -- away from the glass, over by the stair, maybe even the other end of the hall -- you start to wonder if it isn't just easier, less problematic and in the end much more fulfilling to move on to something all the way new, noting as you make up your mind that there are dozens if not hundreds of opportunities for doing so.
FFF Results Post #225 -- Game Show
On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Three Comics-Related Categories On Which You'd Likely Do Well On A Quiz Show, And Two Where You Might Be In Trouble." This how they responded.
1. Independent comics (well)
2. Undergrounds (well)
3. Marvel comics from the 60's-70's (well)
4. Image comics (trouble)
5. Manga (trouble)
*****
Ryan Kirk
1. Comic Strip History (well)
2. X-Men Comics (well)
3. Alternative Comics (well)
4. Shojo Manga (poor)
5. Crossgen Comics (poor)
*****
Chad Nevett
1. Superhero Before and After (well)
2. Avengers (well)
3. Vertigo Comics (well)
4. Mini-Comics (trouble)
5. Golden Key Comics (trouble)
*****
Christopher Duffy
1. Kids comics of the Golden Age (well)
2. DC hero reboots of the 80s (well)
3. Don Glut's Gold Key mini-comics universe (well)
4. Underground-era cartoonists who aren't Crumb or Deitch (trouble)
5. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (big trouble)
*****
Joe Field
1. WonderCon: The First 15 Years (well)
2. Comics Retail (well)
3. '60s Marvel (well)
4. Underground comics (trouble)
5. Manga (trouble)
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. Newspaper Strips (well)
2. Jack Kirby (well)
3. DC Earth II (well)
4. Post Crisis (trouble)
5. Deadpool Comics (BIG, BIG trouble)
*****
Nat Gertler
1. Black and White Explosion (well)
2. Imprints (well)
3. Charles Schulz (well)
4. The Undergrounds (trouble)
5. Alternate Covers (trouble)
*****
Steven Thompson
1. Comics Drawn by Wally Wood (well)
2. Silver Age Humor Comics (well)
3. Earth II (well)
4. Image Comics Art (trouble)
5. Charlton Westerns (trouble)
*****
Justin J. Major
1. The Legion of Super-Heroes (well)
2. Secret Origins (well)
3. Comic Book Lawsuits (well)
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle clones (trouble)
5. 21st Century Comics (trouble)
* Comic Book Movies (well)
* 1980s Comics (well)
* Comic Strips (well)
* EC Comics (trouble)
* Webcomics (trouble)
*****
Adam Casey
1. Unfinished series (well)
2. Direct Market history (well)
3. 1940s comics production shops (well)
4. 1990s comics (trouble)
5. Dell Four Color comics (trouble)
1) 1960s Superman comics (well)
2) Alternative comics (well)
3) Teen Titans comics (any era)
4) Legion of Super-Heroes comics (trouble)
5) Almost any manga (trouble)
*****
I deleted a few entries that didn't fulfill the request to keep to the above format. It's nothing personal, I didn't even look at the names before hitting the delete button. It's a holiday weekend, I have guests, and I don't have the time I'd need for re-formatting or processing complaints from those that wanted to add commentary because you got to. That's why I made the requests I did. Sorry about that, I'm usually much more lenient, hopefully no bad feelings, and I hope you'll play next time.
Quote Of The Week
"I paid $47 for an electronic book and all I got was one-on-one counseling with a man who lost the rights to his own IP." -- Dave Shabet
*****
today's cover is from the 1940s-1950s mainstream comics publisher Avon
Safe Journey And Best Of Luck To Longtime D+Q Staffer Rebecca Rosen
Rosen was an early -- the early -- hire at Drawn and Quarterly and a key in that publisher's transformation into a small but potent boutique publisher. A very sweetly-written tribute to her and her time at D+Q can be found here.
South Bend Tribune Lays Off Full-Time Staffer Ron Rogers; Last Cartoon Today
Longtime newspaper industry magazine of record Editor & Publisherreports via the ever-vigilant Rob Tornoe the South Bend Tribune has ended the employment of full-time editorial cartoonist Ron Rogers.
The article notes that Rogers is believed to be the sole African-American cartoonist working as a traditional, full-time staffer on a daily newspaper. Moreover, he was one of those editorial cartoonists to work in a variety of roles at his publication outside of providing the traditional cartoon, including reporting on live events. Rogers had begun freelancing for the paper in 2002, and became full-time at the publication in 2005, approximately 18 months to three years before a distressing surge of financial turmoil at newspapers and the elimination of several editorial cartooning jobs nationwide.
According to the Tornoe article, Rogers plans to continue cartooning, going so far as to not do a farewell cartoon for the Tribune because of the way that might reflect on the state of his career. Rogers has more than two decades of freelance experience starting in his native Virginia in the early 1980s.
an example of Tornoe's sketchbook work for the Tribunecan be found here
Darryl Cagle Cartoon Initiates Objections I love that when someone in an e-mail casually mentioned a mini-furor surrounding a Daryl Cagle cartoon, I was immediately 99 percent certain the most thorough discussion of it on-line would be done by Cagle himself. According to a cartoonist, a cartoon he made appearing on yesterday's front page of Reforma decrying the recent, horrific waves of violence by showing violence against the flag itself, has instigated a formal letter of protest from the Mexican embassy in the U.S. to Cagle's MSNBC employer. A potential complication beyond the visceral reaction some are having to the cartoon is that there may be a law against parodies involving the flag, although that would fall at the newspaper's feet rather than Cagle's. Cagle also provides a number of intriguing links -- one to the reader response when the cartoon went up on his own blog, others to Mexican media sources discussing the cartoon and at least one other like it.
There is also a comics-related category, "Best Comic Book Movie," made up of The Losers, Kick-Ass and Iron Man 2. I think these awards may be going into their fourth or fifth year at this point...?
I love that when someone in an e-mail casually mentioned a mini-furor surrounding a Daryl Cagle cartoon, I was immediately 99 percent certain the most thorough discussion of it on-line 
