Free Form Comments: anonymous personal attacks, random thoughts, questions, suggestions, ideas, information, requests to be added to the blog-roll, shameless self-promotion, and so on, put it in the comments.
I did a very active 12 hour day at Comic-Con yesterday, including a 6 hour period in which only the press was allowed. I got a good sense of everything there, the panels I wanted to attend were mostly on Friday, and I touched base with the people I wanted to find. I am going to swing by today, and maybe Sunday, but my attendance is going to be more sporadic, since I get the idea and saw what I came to see. Also I need to get some work done here. Keep me up on what I missed.
Just finished Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese, and I highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteThat title might give you the impression that it's a whiny auto-bio comic, but don't be fooled. All three of the intertwining narratives are lots of fun, especially the one about an arrogant little monkey god.
The writing is crisp and funny. The art is deceptively simple, yet very effective (reminded me of Scott McCloud's stuff). I doubt you'll be disappointed. And, since it was nominated for the National Book Award in the States, you've got a better than average chance of finding it in your local library.
Sorry I missed you yesterday, Geoff. I had to work most of the day, so I didn't go until last night. I'll be around today and tomorrow, too.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'll take the offer to be added to the blog role: http://bigmattyj.blogspot.com. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteDid you get to meet Frank Miller, yet?
ReplyDeleteAlso how do you feel about the way Miller portrayed Superman in DKR and DKR2? Superman's about virtue and always doing what's right, but Miller portrayed him as being morally com promising and putting law and order above all else. That just completely ruined DKR for me.
Also, what'd you think of Grayson being the Villian in DKR2? He was said to be a whiny childish brat. Uhh...Last time I checked Jason Todd fit that bill. Not Grayson.
Pat: I did not meet Frank Miller --I actually got busy after my 12 hour day at the con Friday and didn't get the chance to get back today (Sat). I may swing by tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteMiller is an iconoclast. He breaks characters. Plus Superman is known for standing for Truth, Justice and the American Way -- America has gotten pretty compromised, why shouldn't Superman be shown as compromised as well. DKSA was set in the future. People change.
Ahh..I just checked my Myspace, and guess who's birthday is coming up. I'll give you a hint. He's short, skinny, and white, and likes poetry. hmmmm..Sounds a lot like Edgar Allan Poe.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you re: Supes in DKR, Geoff. Batman scares the shit out of people. Superman bends over backwards NOT to scare the shit out of people. Hmmm, wonder which one of 'em would be more amenable to working for "the man." It fits. Miller persuaded me.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't persuade me with Evil Grayson, though. Dick-as-dick is an idea with potential. It's not a dead end like Magneto-as-drug-addict. But I didn't buy it in DKSA.
The fact that it's in the future is a plus, because it allows plenty of time for a drastic change to have occurred, but the chasm between grown-up Nightwing and the psycho ex-sidekick in DKSA was still a bit too wide for me to jump across. I wanted an intermediary step between the two. Not a huge, extended explanation or anything. Just a few well-placed snippets of dialogue or first-person narration.
It's funny, DKSA was criticized for being more "inside baseball" than DKR, what with all the DCU characters running around. But I suspect a general audience would have an easier time swallowing that version of Dick than me because they wouldn't necessarily be aware of the original Robin growing up to be Nightwing, a vital and responsible member of DCU's adult heroes. Instead, they'd just shrug and figure, "Dick grew up to be a dick" without Nightwing getting in their way.
Generally, I enjoyed DKSA. It was fun. I just don't think Darkwing Dick was a particularly strong, persuasive, or fun piece of it.
PS: I went to a the Frank Miller The Spirit movie Panel yesterday.. Miller is having surgery on his hip and hasn't been to any of the con.
ReplyDeletePat: yup.
ReplyDeleteTroy: Yeah, I agree with you in not finding Dick persuasive, but Miller cares much less about being persuasive in DKSA than in DKR. DKSA is just a big crazy party. So it matters less to me in that book because it creates a context where I don't feel like I need to take it that seriously.
You hit the nail on the head there, Geoff. The more I'm in crazy party mode, the less I care about the weak portrayl of Grayson.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone about DKX. Way to be controversial, Matt! Actually, I didn't especially like DKSA when it came out (I thought the first issue was okay, but it got progressively more wacky), but I think it's aged fairly well. Or maybe people/I realize Miller is getting kind of crazy in his old(er) age, so we are more willing to just go along with, as Geoff calls it, the big crazy party. It probably helps to not be too invested in the characters, so you don't get bent out of shape if the Flash or Wonder Woman act strangely.
ReplyDeleteBlog plug: I just put up an anniversary post of sorts (even though I've only been blogging for 3 months or so), where I look at An Anthology of Graphic Fiction. Good times!
Geoff, here's an excerpt from a CBR interview with Joe Kelly:
ReplyDelete"So "Steampunk" really should have been a Vertigo book and if it was it would have made it through to the end, but because it was a Cliffhanger book, its cutoff was a lot higher.
Once we hit 30,000 copies, that was when they worried whether we could lose money. So we made it to the halfway point, and they said they wanted to wrap it up in two issues! I had really mapped it out to 25, and I said absolutely not. We'd rather kill it in the middle than cram the ending.
And that's what happened.
In the second half, it would taken place in America. Cole was going to bail on the rest of the crew because he had Fiona back. So everybody split up and they were going to ride the submersible Titanic across the ocean and have a big battle there, and he was going to discover that he did not, in fact, have his long lost love.
And then it was going to become a race to hook up with the demon, and then they would have met Abraham Lincoln, who was a shaman warrior. There were a couple cool American characters who were going to show up.
And it would have stopped with one of my favorite endings of all time: he ended up with both girls. (laughs)"
I know you like Steampunk (as do I), and I thought it was cool to find out how it would have ended. Bummer that we never got to see it.
Matt: I FUCKING WANT THAT GOD-DAMN COMIC BOOK O MY FUCKING GOD!
ReplyDelete