The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen

Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? This week’s special guest is Simon Monk, an artist whose “Secret Identity” paintings we featured here on Robot 6 not too long ago. Monk is actually selling limited edition prints of his paintings on his website now, so go check them out.

To see what Simon and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below.

*****

Michael May

Habibi

I finally finished Habibi (it wouldn’t have taken me so long if I wasn’t reading four other books at the same time. #WhenWillILearn?). As others have noted, it sticks with you long after you finish it. The sheer amount of time that I spent with Dodola and Zam means that I can’t just put them away and move on now that I’ve finished the story. Especially not after everything I watched them go through. It’s a manipulative book, and my natural reaction to noticing I’m being manipulated is to resist it, but Craig Thompson pushes through my defenses with the overbearing weight (in emotional terms as well as page volume) of his book. That sounds like a bad thing when I write it, but I suppose the important part is that it works. I felt strongly for these two characters and became invested in seeing how they turned out, even though I could see what Thompson was doing to make me feel that way.

I also read Howard Lovecraft and the Ice Kingdom. A friend of mine wrote the sequel, so I wanted to catch up on this before I check out his. There’s probably a way to turn HP Lovecraft’s C’thulhu mythos into an all-ages comic, but this wasn’t it. The tone is uneven, zipping back and forth wildly between disturbing horror and children’s cartoon. Ice Kingdom wants us to take its threats seriously (and is at its best when presenting disturbing monsters and their effects on young Lovecraft’s now-insane father), but it’s hard to do that when the boy adopts C’thulhu himself as a pet and insists on calling him Spot. On the other hand, I also could have bought into a fun lark through a tame version of C’thulhu’s world without the references to human sacrifices and child-eating elder gods. Ice Kingdom tries to have it both ways and doesn’t work.

Tom Bondurant

This week I caught up with one book about which I’d been morbidly curious, and another about which I just learned but knew I had to have.

Justice

The first was Justice, the 12-issue bimonthly miniseries from plotter/finisher Alex Ross, scripter Jim Krueger, and penciller Dougie Braithwaite. I read the first issue when it came out (back in 2006); and despite a somewhat compelling end-of-the-world teaser, it never quite grabbed me. Still, at worst I figured it would satisfy whatever desire I might have to see Ross’s take on the ’70s DC of my youth. First I waited for DC to collect the whole thing in one book, and then I waited a while longer for an acceptable discount. And it’s not a bad story, as far as semi-gritty evocations of “Challenge of the Super Friends” go — it’s just that whatever good story there is, is buried under Ross’s watercolor sentimentality. The plot involves Luthor, Brainiac, and a Legion-of-Doom-ish array of super villains turning to the good side (or are they?) in order to cast the Justice League as an insensitive pantheon who’d rather keep humanity down than solve the world’s problems. Much of the book involves the villains incapacitating our heroes and their friends and allies, including an extended subplot about Brainiac’s experiments on Aquaman. (Apparently, if you ever thought “Super Friends” needed more surgical torture, this book is for you.) Because the cast expands geometrically as the book goes on, it all gets busier and busier; and between double-page layouts which don’t initially read that way and finishes which literally blur away critical distinctions, Justice can be hard to read. There are also some sequences which just don’t pass the smell test, like Solomon Grundy (apparently, since it’s off-panel) taking out both Robin and Kid Flash. However, Green Lantern’s “imprisonment” pays off, despite looking at first like an indulgent foreshadowing of “Emerald Twilight,” and there are a few other odds and ends which make me want to give it another chance. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of fan service here for those in the know, like extended homages to the ’60s “Batman” show and gratuitous attempts to “prove” that Plastic Man is eternally superior to Elongated Man. To paraphrase another cartoon from my youth, of all the Alex Ross books in the world, this one may be the Alex Rossiest.

The second book was Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson’s adaptation of Alien for Heavy Metal, a graphic novel called Alien: The Illustrated Story (lettered by John Workman and I suppose colored by Simonson). At 61 pages, it tracks the movie pretty faithfully, but it neither adds to nor subtracts from the movie’s essential beats. Instead, it translates them almost effortlessly to the printed page, capturing everything from the sterile opening sequence to the eerie ancient spacecraft and the xenomorph’s brutality. Simonson also does a great job with likenesses, which seems trivial but really helps with something like this. Perhaps because of the format, or even the painted color palette, this comes across as entirely separate from Simonson’s other licensed work on Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars. This adaptation boils Alien down to its visceral horror-story core, and makes it something which could easily have appeared in a sci-fi anthology like Heavy Metal.

Oh, and I read Winter Soldier #1 (by Ed Brubaker and Butch Guice), which was as good as I was expecting from the team responsible for making Bucky’s revival both believable and sustainable. And yes, that means I was (once again) totally wrong about the predictive value of any similarities its promotional materials may or may not have had to a certain Stephen J. Cannell/Lorenzo Lamas syndicated TV series, and I am not just saying that because a guy named “Bonderant” (one letter off, but still) gets the crap kicked out of him halfway through the issue. In short, I’m on board for issue #2, okay? Okay?!?? (Sheesh!)

Tim O’Shea

Finally read the final issue of the Alpha Flight miniseries/ongoing/nope, miniseries. It’s a shame to see a creative team firing on all cylinders (as Greg Pak/Fred Van Lente and Dale Eaglesham were on this project) and for the sales not to follow in response. The writing team’s approach toward Puck is one aspect I will miss the most.

Fatale #1

This week two colorists really floored me with their work. First up is Dave Stewart bringing an outstanding cinematic sheen to the second issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Fatale series (Image). Sidenote: I am bewildered at the thin paper stock that Image is using for the covers of this series. But that is a minor complaint. It does not take away from the overall unique noir look to the series. I say unique in that Stewart is using a diverse (and sometimes vibrant) color palette that surprisingly works in the noir setting (which is typically rather dark by nature).

The other colorist is someone I’ve raved about before–Bettie Breitweiser. On the first issue of Brubaker’s Winter Soldier, she works wonders with Butch Guice’s amazing art. There is one scene where James Barnes is videoconferencing with Jasper Sitwell. The layers of floating red video screens countered with the cool blue tones of James’ panels are just astounding. One panel had me just sitting there and wondering how Breitweiser did it. I appreciate when art gives me reason to pause. In terms of characters, Black Widow is as much a star of this series as James, which is a welcome approach for my money,

Hulk #48. May I officially beg writer Jeff Parker to keep Machine Man as a member of the Hulk cast? In this issue, Parker has Aaron thank someone, in the heat of battle, when they hand his cut-off arm back to him. Heh.

One question to the readers: The countdown banner to AvX–is anybody else reminded of the Toys R Us Shopping Spree banner (among other banners) in the 1980 Marvel Comics?

Brigid Alverson

The Unwritten

I jumped right in to Mike Carey and Peter Gross’s The Unwritten with the first volume of the collected edition, and I loved it from the start. It’s the story of Tom Taylor whose father used him as the lead character in a Harry Potter-like fantasy series. His father disappeared under mysterious circumstances when Tom was still a child, but his whole past is coming back to haunt him. The creators do a really nice job of weaving the Tommy Taylor stories in with their ongoing plot, and they bring in all sorts of other literary allusions as well. The first volume ends with a side story about Rudyard Kipling that is simply stunning. Unfortunately, as I near the end of the second volume, I’m starting to wonder how tight the plot really is. The stories are becoming episodic, but there are also a lot of questions left unanswered, and I’m not sure the authors know the answers. I certainly hate it when a character in a book refuses to share information with the hero for no good reason, as is happening here. Still, even as a series of episodes, Tom Taylor’s adventures are good fun and full of interesting literary trivia, so I’m in this for the long haul.

I spent some time in the Mignolaverse as well this week, with B.P.R.D.:Being Human and Hellboy: House of the Living Dead. The B.P.R.D. book is a collection of short stories, each focusing on different characters, and it’s actually a good first B.P.R.D. book as it touches on a number of origin stories. The first, and longest, story features Liz Sherman as a sulky teenager dragged along by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm to help out with the exorcism of a house and forest where a witch was hanged during the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trials are a bit overdone as a topic, but I like the way the story showcases the young Liz in all her awkwardness. In the other stories, an older Liz and Abe Sapien discuss the ethics of killing their enemies, Roger the Homunculus and Hellboy do a little zombie-fighting in the Deep South, and we see the origin story of the Ectoplasmic Man. There’s plenty of horror and action in these stories, but the creators do a good job of mixing in the human side of the characters as well.

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead takes Hellboy south of the border and turns him into a luchador who is compelled to fight a latter-day Frankenstein’s monster. At only 56 pages, this story is short and pretty straightforward, but it’s well done and an interesting take on the Frankenstein story.

Simon Monk

Supergods

I recently read Grant Morrison’s book Supergods in which he sets out clearly his ideas about life, the universe and everything. Although I tend to be more attracted to street-level narratives such as Daredevil and The Spirit, I have always enjoyed Morrison’s work for its exuberance and extremity. Reading Supergods encouraged me to reread some of his classic stuff such as Zenith and Animal Man, but the biggest surprise turned out to be The Invisibles. On its initial publication I gave up on it about half way through its run so I had never read it as a single entity. It was far more coherent and exciting than I remembered it, despite fizzling a bit at the conclusion. I was struck at how Kirbyesque it seemed, thematically it is very Fourth World and the team/family interaction felt like a twisted version of the FF.

I love autobiographical comics such as Eddie Campbell’s Alec, and I recently discovered a self-published gem titled Many Happy Returns by Jan Wheatley. It turns out that Jan is the same age as me and had a very similar upbringing just 10 miles away from my home town. These coincidences gave the two issues published so far an incredible personal resonance for me, adding up to a pretty moving reading experience. Jan Wheatley is definitely a creator whose development I shall enjoy following.

I have a six-year-old son called William, and we tend to read a lot of comics together. I love testing out new stuff on him to see how he responds. Big hits so far include early Fantastic Four (started when he was three!), Bone, Jack Cole Plastic Man, ’50s and ’60s World’s Finest and Chip Kidd’s Bat-Manga book. Perhaps surprisingly the trade collection he can never get enough of is The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen featuring Elastic Lad, Human Flame-thrower, et al. Some of these crazy silver age tales have been read in bed on a Sunday morning a dozen times or more. He is a big fan of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon so I tried a few of the ’70s Bob Haney and Jim Aparo issues on him. Not a great response from William but I was surprised at how gritty they were: some of them read like a ‘Kojak’ episode with superheroes added.

"You're not going out in *that*?!?"

Although they won’t be solicited for a few more weeks, DC has already been talking up the six new(ish) titles coming in May. G.I. Combat, Dial H, Ravagers, and Worlds’ Finest join the returning Batman Incorporated and the long-rumored Justice So– I mean, Earth 2 — as the replacements for most of the New-52′s lowest-selling books.

As with the original New-52 group, every new title except one is familiar to longtime DC fans; and as with the original New-52, that book spins out of an existing feature. (Then it was Batman Incorporated begetting Batwing; here it’s the Teen Titans/Superboy nexus spawning Ravagers.) However, where the New-52 tried noticeably to make many of its books accessible — or at least uprooted them from established DC lore — most of the new titles seem to require some prerequisite reading.

For me, this is not a problem, because I’ve been reading Batman Incorporated (and the rest of Grant Morrison’s Bat-work) since the beginning; and I grew up on the annual JLA/JSA multiple-Earth team-ups. However, I am not exactly the target audience for the New-52, and it’s curious to me why DC would head back towards the deep end of the continuity pool with at least half of its new offerings. In fairness, it is possible to boil hairsplitting topics like parallel Earths into easily-digestible packets of information. It’s not so much that there’s an alternate Earth, it’s that there’s an Earth which doesn’t tie into forty-odd other monthly comic books. Likewise, the new/old Huntress and Power Girl need not be throwbacks to comics from the ‘70s and ‘80s, just plausible takes on their extremely-familiar superheroic heritage. After all, “Batman and Catwoman’s daughter” was good enough to get that “Birds Of Prey” TV show on the air (even if what the “BOP” show did with it was something else….)

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at the newcomers in detail.

The New-52 books have already “reclaimed” a number of Vertigo characters, but with Dial H the line between the two imprints gets blurrier as uber-editor Karen Berger helps relaunch one of the Silver Age’s quirkier concepts. Let me repeat that: Dial “H” For HERO was quirky for the Silver Age because it invited readers to design their own superheroes, who would then be worked into the stories. These days, that kind of thing practically dares a publisher to craft some social-media reader-participation component, but it sounds like writer China Miéville has enough of his own ideas about where to take the series. Specifically, its protagonist looks to have a hard time adjusting to the endless cycle of random powers and/or identities which once were governed only by the whims of DC’s readership. To tell you the truth, that makes it sound like Daffy’s descent into madness in the classic “Duck Amuck” — where another capricious omnipotence kept changing the rules of Daffy’s reality — but I’m sure that is just a facile comparison.

A better one may be to the New-52′s Animal Man which, ‘way back when, made the transition from DCU to Vertigo and has come back working a good bit of that smart-and-cool Vertigo mojo. Dial H sounds like a good-enough-for-Vertigo superhero comic, and it certainly has the pedigree (the original Dial H even debuted in the old House Of Mystery, looong before that book was annexed by Neil Gaiman’s Sandman). Thus, my expectations are high, but with good reason.

G.I. Combat replaces Men Of War perhaps in name only, since on the face of it I’m not sure that much distinguishes the two military/paranormal mashups. MOW stars a new Sgt. Rock and had an anthological backup feature, while GIC will pair The War That Time Forgot with rotating backups like The Unknown Soldier and The Haunted Tank (the latter a staple of the original G.I. Combat). In fact, this version could easily have been called Weird War Tales (which eventually featured the original “War That Time Forgot”) for its more direct melding of the battlefield and the strange. Oh, heck; titles are irrelevant: the Unknown Soldier was the last regular feature of Star Spangled War Stories, “WTTF’s” original home.

All three of these features have been revived fairly recently — WTTF as a 12-issue DCU miniseries, Haunted Tank as a 5-issue Vertigo miniseries, and Unknown Soldier as a Vertigo ongoing series. As you might expect, the Vertigo versions made some changes, placing the Tank in Operation Iraqi Freedom and the “Soldier” in 2002 Uganda. Regardless, these features arguably have some residual name recognition (besides being perennial favorites and entertaining concepts), which may have contributed to their inclusion in the new G.I. Combat. In the end, I’m glad DC is sticking with a military-oriented book set in its main comics line, because it makes the line more diverse.

Not helping diversity as much is The Ravagers, which spins out of Teen Titans and Superboy. From what I can tell, DC is doing “edgy Teen Titans” in Teen Titans itself, so if Ravagers is “even edgier,” I don’t know if there’s much of an audience for that. Actually, the premise sounds more like Gen13, it includes at least one Gen13 alum, and “on the run from shadowy organization” is a decent starting point. Still, I have a bad feeling it will try too hard to be edgy and/or extreme, in keeping with its ‘90s roots. Much of this goes back to artist Ian Churchill, whose work on 2008′s Titans relaunch couldn’t quite overcome his tendencies to exaggerate and/or objectify. I do like Superboy’s Rose Wilson and Caitlin Fairchild — well, I don’t dislike them, and artist R.B. Silva draws ‘em in a nice, non-exploitative manner — so I will give this a chance. I’d like to think it will be better than Red Hood and the Outlaws, but that’s not exactly grounds for a commitment.

I have already committed to Batman Incorporated, so I’m glad it’s back on the schedule. There might not have been more to say, except for editor Mike Marts proclaiming that BatCorp Volume 2 is “the final, unbelievable act of a saga six years in the making.”  If you’ve been reading Morrison’s Batman for the past six years, that’s one thing. Otherwise, I’m sure DC would love to sell you a few collections (or at least the hefty Leviathan special) to bring you up to speed. That’s a lot of material, even digitized. It’s good stuff, don’t get me wrong; but again, there’s six years of it. In that context, the Earth-Two Huntress may be an easier sell, even having been out of circulation for most of the past twenty-five years; because that kind of break surely means that Worlds’ Finest will go out of its way to be accessible. Six years of Batman comics? You can get through that over a long weekend.

And that brings us back to the two parallel-world — excuse me, next-generation superhero — titles, Earth 2 from James Robinson and Nicola Scott and Worlds’ Finest from Paul Levitz, George Pérez, and Kevin Maguire. I will be getting both of these eagerly, mostly because of my stated affection for the old Multiverse. Again, though, I wonder how many of the New-52′s newer readers will be interested in a pair of books which (re)introduce another Earth’s worth of continuity? The old Earth-Two was basically the home of Golden Age DC stories, which had apparently occurred in real time (or in whatever faithful-to-the-originals order Roy Thomas arranged them) so that, starting in the early 1960s, DC’s writers and editors could distinguish Then from Now.

Soon enough, though, Earth-Two became its own ongoing concern — got its own Now, as it were — and Power Girl and the Huntress were very much a part of its unique identity. Like Supergirl, Power Girl was Superman’s first cousin; but she landed on Earth almost forty years after he did and was more like Clark and Lois’ adopted daughter. The Huntress was Helena Wayne, Batman and Catwoman’s actual daughter, who became the new Darknight Detective after her mom’s death drove her dad into retirement. These are not difficult concepts to grasp. Regardless, Earth-Two was full of just-different-enough characters, even if (from the Golden Age fan’s perspective) the new folks were the different ones. Green Lantern wasn’t a space-cop. The Atom didn’t shrink. The Flash wore a helmet. Hawkman … ugh, let’s not get started with Hawkman. Then there was Doctor Mid-Nite, Doctor Fate, Mister Terrific, Starman, and various others who hadn’t gotten Earth-One counterparts. When I first learned about the Justice Society and Earth-Two — when I was six, so it’s been a while — I wanted to know more. I recognize now that I could have also dropped that issue of Justice League like a hot rock and run for something less complicated.

With that in mind, I understand why DC didn’t advertise the current Huntress miniseries as a prelude to the Earth-2 series, since (SPOILER ALERT, maybe?) it features Helena Wayne posing as her not-related-to-Batman counterpart. That wouldn’t have been a bad hook for an old-school Huntress fan, but I wouldn’t have wanted to market a New-52 book to an old-school fan. Still, I didn’t pick up Huntress originally, because my interest couldn’t quite overcome budgetary concerns, and now I’m wishing I had. (Haven’t had time to download the issues yet, either.)

As discussed above, you’d think Earth 2 and Worlds’ Finest would make a special effort to be new-reader-friendly. I’m also interested in how old-reader-friendly they’ll be. If this is the Earth-2 glimpsed briefly during Geoff Johns’ run on JSA, it’s had a while (since the end of Crisis On Infinite Earths, in fact) to develop into something even more distinct. It shouldn’t be a replacement for the pre-Flashpoint DC-Earth, because it wouldn’t have had any Silver Age characters or their legacies — so no Green Lantern Corps, no Barry Allen, Wally West, or Bart Allen, no Jason Todd, Tim Drake, or Damien Wayne, etc. I wonder if there’ll even be the full complement of Starmen. Of course, the hypothetical new New-52 reader might not know what s/he’s missing, but I suspect us oldsters will make even more assumptions about what Earth-2 “should” be, well in advance of May’s first issues. It’s kind of like J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, creating a new setting with enough of the old to seem familiar, but not enough to be a duplicate.

At the very least the two books should look great. Nicola Scott is an asset to any team book — she handled crowds pretty well when Birds Of Prey guest-starred the Secret Six — and I can’t wait to see Pérez and Maguire trade off on Worlds’ Finest.

Not surprisingly, I hope these books find a decent audience beyond the core of JSA/Power Girl readers. It’s not that the New 52 needs the stylistic alternative of an Earth-2 as a safe harbor from all those high collars and ‘90s callbacks. For a long time, being a DC fan meant buying into the Multiverse and/or the legacies, so it’s nice that some of that is coming back. How much of it, and for how long, are questions for another day.

Action Comics #5

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our guest today is Marc Singer, author of the very excellent book, Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, which is an excellent, excellent book that you should read if you’re at all interested in Morrison and his work.

To find out what Singer and other members of the Robot 6 crew are reading this week, simply click on the link below.

Tim O’Shea: If Amazing Spider-Man readers were not already reading Daredevil before this two-part crossover (Amazing Spider-Man 677/Daredevil 8, both written by Mark Waid), the writer sure as hell gave them several

Daredevil #8

good reasons to start reading the book. And for Waid, this must have just been fun to write. In some ways, it read like a throwback to the 1970s Marvel Team-Up issues I grew up reading. In the first part, Waid worked in a scene where Spidey is confused about DD’s secret identity status. Spidey/DD banter is always fun to read, even when it’s marketing work intended to inform a non-DD reader. In the second part, we are given:

1. A Paolo Rivera cover that has me wanting the artist to do a 52-card playing deck of Marvel characters (and a great use of a fire escape for a cover)
2. An exquisite splash page by Kano
3. Waid writes the issue addressing previous plot threads and planting seeds for future issues (a risky approach considering the number of potentially new readers drawn in with this issue) but it works
4. A great billy club meets helicopter scene
5. A smidge more DD/Spidey banter

Amazing Spider-Man 678
This week’s Spidey (Christ, I feel absurd even saying that) offers readers another part one of a two-part story. In the world of neverending event comics (is Fear Itself over yet?), the fact that I get to talk about two two-part stories in one week is a refreshing surprise. If you look back at the number of writers of Spider-Man over the years, there were some writers that seemingly did not know how to write Peter Parker outside of his longjohns. Slott, on the other hand, relishes it. The cast of characters and the scenarios Parker finds himself in, thanks to his Horizon Labs job, allows Slott to stretch his writing muscles. This issue revolves around a time portal doorway that one of his lab associates has developed (Slott, ever the comedic writer, has it be the doorway for the lab’s break rooms. I appreciate Slott and Marvel editorials restraint on this story. A glimpse into the future where New York is destroyed could have easily been stretched out into six parts, so I am appreciative of the fact that this is a fast-paced (so far) two-parter.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents 3
In the third issue of this six-part miniseries, I am pleased to say that writer Nick Spencer surprised me. Admittedly he’s been revamping the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. history throughout his run with the characters, but his reveal at the end of this issue is one I never expected. I have been often on the fence with this series (a fascination with things Wally Wood-related has made me hang in there though). But there is no doubt I would have bought this issue, no matter what, given that I saw Walter Simonson pitched in to do some scenes. (And yeah, I cannot believe I forgot to pick up this week’s Legion of Superheroes 5, a standalone completely drawn by Simonson). On a Simonson-related note, if you are a fan of his like I am, go read the brief interview Josie Campbell did with him for CBR. Even in that brief exchange, Simonson unleashes some great gems of details—about his dad and other things.

Approximate Continuum Comics

Chris Mautner: You know who’s great? Lewis Trondheim, the incredibly prolific French cartoonist. Evidence comes in two recent publications, both autobiographical. The first is Approximate Continuum Comics, an English translation of a six-part series Trondheim published in the 1990s concerning his struggles in the comics industry, desire for success and acclaim and just general angst, anxiety and feelings of self-doubt. It sounds all terribly self-involved to the point of tedium, but Trondheim is simply too skilled a storyteller to allow his own ego to override the quality of his work. Approximate is filled with wonderful visual inventions, like an early daydream about dealing with obnoxious passangers on the subway. More to the point, Trondheim’s self-effacing sense of humor is so charming and revealing that the book never becomes too solipsistic or insufferable. Time has dimmed its

Trondheim continues to reveal his life to readers on a weekly basis over at his Web site (and the NBM blog), most of which has been collected in his “Little Nothings” series. The lastest book, My Shadow in the Distance, offers more of the same, and such a wonderful same it is. The material in Shadows is more one-page humor strips, similar to, say, American Elf, but Trondheim hasn’t lost any of his angst or irritation at modern life and travel. If anything he’s become a more accomplished artist, especially with watercolor, which graces the content of Shadows in lovely wash tones. Plus, it’s really funny.

Do the Gods Wear Capes?

Marc Singer: I’ve just picked up a ton of books, scholarly and otherwise. Right now I’m in the middle of Do the Gods Wear Capes? Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes by Ben Saunders (which is absolutely not about how superheroes are “a modern mythology” and is all the better for it). I’ve also been leafing through Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives, a collection of essays about comics, television, video games, tabletop RPGs, and other media that lend themselves to huge, open-ended narratives. For fun I’ve been reading Kim Newman’s Mysteries of the Diogenes Club, a collection of short stories published by Chris Roberson’s MonkeyBrain Books. Newman has created his own “vast narrative” about the Diogenes Club, a group of occult investigators and secret agents that stretches from Mycroft Holmes to the present day. But I need to clear some of these out of the way, because the book I’m most looking forward to reading is Charles Hatfield’s Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby.

As far as comics go, I’m pretty much a lock for anything Grant Morrison writes, so I’ve been following Action Comics since the big DC relaunch. I have mixed feelings about this one. For all of Morrison’s pre-release hype about writing a working-class “Bruce Springsteen version of Superman,” the comic never really delivered on his promise of an old-school Siegel and Shuster superhero who takes on crooked contractors and greedy mine owners. Hints of that approach were wedged into the first two issues — just barely — before they were shoved out in favor of the kind of ‘definitive’ origin retelling that attempts to cram in Brainiac, Metallo, Steel, and as many other old familiar faces as possible.

On the other hand, social realism has never really been Morrison’s strong suit and he handles the fantasy elements with more confidence. Each issue has been better than the one before it, with the possible exception of the origin story, which manages to do in twenty pages what Morrison once did in four panels and eight words. Still, he writes a suitably heroic House of El and each issue adds some new details that are collectively adding up to a bigger picture. I just can’t shake the feeling that the book’s craft and its ambitions are moving in opposite directions. (And it’s never a good sign when you find yourself looking forward to the fill-in artists.)

Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes was much more to my tastes. I’m not certain this “corporate franchise” phase of Morrison’s Batman mega-narrative is going to amount to much more than a fast-paced team-up book, but with incredibly talented artists like Cameron Stewart and Chris Burnham on board, I don’t care. And Morrison’s compact, modular storytelling lets him work in a wide range of genres without losing focus: any book that can go from St. Trinian’s to Steranko is all right by me.

The Flash

The most pleasant surprise of the DC relaunch has been Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato’s Flash. Manapul’s approach to the Flash — using the character’s speed powers and accelerated perceptions as an excuse to experiment with different ways of representing time and motion on the page — is so perfect that you can’t believe nobody’s tried it yet. At the moment, Manapul’s still deeply indebted to his influences (the most recent issue trades Frank Quitely for J. H. Williams III) but I get the sense that when he fully absorbs their styles and starts creating his own visual idiom, this book is going to look even more amazing than it already does.

Flash radiates a pure joy in being a comic book that, among mainstream superhero books, is rivaled only by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Marcos Martin’s work on Daredevil. This is another one of those so-obvious-it’s-genius ideas—building a comic around Daredevil’s senses, which forces Waid and company to devise new ways to represent sound and texture on the smooth, silent page. It’s a testament to their skill that they make it look easy.

If you want to talk about sheer joy in comics as comics, it doesn’t get much more ecstatic than the crescendo of creatively designed, emotionally charged pages that Jaime Hernandez builds up to in his final story for the latest volume of Love and Rockets: New Stories. But Jaime’s command of his art—every aspect of his art, from lines to layouts to inks to body language to facial expressions—is so great that a single panel of Reno slouching away into the shadows can be just as breathtaking as the double-page spread that sums up the relationship of Maggie and Ray. A couple of years ago, I was hoping that Jaime’s foray into the loopy superhero sci-fi of the Ti-Girls would lead to a renewed freshness and vitality in his more realistic stories. “The Love Bunglers” delivers, big time. At this point Love and Rockets: New Stories probably doesn’t need any more rave reviews, but Jaime’s work is still the highlight of my comics pile.

Prophet #21

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Graeme McMillan

If I had $15 this week, I’d avoid Marvel and DC altogether and go for some more independent offerings. Top of the pile would definitely be Prophet #21 (Image, $2.99), Brandon Graham’s much-anticipated revamp of the Rob Liefeld book from the mid-90s, recreated (with artist Simon Roy) as some kind of Heavy Metal fever dream; I’m a massive fan of Graham’s, and excited to see what he can come up with when he tries to play it (relatively) straight. I’d also grab Dynamite’s Kirby Genesis: Dragonbane #1 ($3.99), another spin-off from the Busiek/Ross/Herbert series this time focusing on the almost Thor-analog warrior, and IDW’s Memorial #2 ($3.99), continuing the urban fantasy series that I enjoyed so much last month. Lastly, I’d grab the cheap relaunch for Antony Johnston’s Wasteland (#33, Oni, $1.00); I’ve really enjoyed this post-apocalyptic world building book for awhile, but this relaunch – which will return the book to a monthly schedule as well as debut new artist Justin Greenwood – looks set to be a good jumping-on point for those who’ve never sampled its charms before.

If I had $30, I’d be likely to put Dragonbane back on the shelf and try out Marvel’s Fear Itself: Journey Into Mystery Premiere HC collection ($19.99) instead. Not having been a fan of Matt Fraction’s Thor, I skipped the first few issues of this and then, by the time I kept hearing great things and realized I actually really enjoy Kieron Gillen’s writing, it was far enough into the run that I knew I’d end up waiting for the collection. Color me cautiously optimistic.

When it comes to splurging, my love of comics from around when I was born rears its ugly head again, and I find myself drawn to Marvel Firsts: 1970s Vol. 1 TP (Marvel, $29.99). This is possibly my favorite era from the House of Ideas, so the idea of an anthology of some of its weirdest hits sounds right up my alley.

Kramers Ergot 8

Chris Mautner

If I had $15, I’d join the crowd and put $3 for that new, Brandon-Graham version of Prophet. I’ve yet to read King City (I know, I know) and I know nothing about the Prophet character, but I like the little bit of Graham’s work I’ve been exposed to so far and I’m curious to see how he handles this type of sci-fi/superhero tale.

If I had $30, I’d put back Prophet, snatch an extra $3 and change from my wife’s piggy bank (shhh, don’t tell her) and nab the eighth volume of Kramers Ergot, the latest edition of the mind- and genre-bending, cutting edge anthology from editor Sammy Harkham (this time published by Picturebox). This one runs a bit counter to past Kramers. It mainly features longer, more direct stories in a smaller, more standard book-size format. Contributors include CF, Gabrielle Bell, Dash Shaw, Frank Santoro, Gary Panter, Chris Cilla and others. Oh and there’s a generous helping of “Oh Wicked Wanda,” Penthouse’s answer to Little Annie Fanny for those who care to remember it.

My splurge this week would probably be Bill Griffith: Lost and Found, an “odds and sodds” collection of work by the Zippy creator, mostly done prior to that strip’s creation. I’m not actually certain what’s included in this book, but a good deal of Griffith’s non-Zippy material is pretty great, even better than the strip in some cases.

Batman #5

Chris Arrant

If I had $15, I’d lead off this week’s haul with my most anticipated book in some time: Prophet #21 (Image, $2.99). I am an immense fan of Brandon Graham’s work, so seeing him segue into writing is interesting… but I also admit to being a fan of Prophet. I remember trying to draw like Dan Panosian did in an early issue of this title. Next up would be Uncanny X-Force #20 (Marvel, $3.99), for Remender, for incoming artist Greg Tocchini, for X-Force, and for the entrance of Captain Britain. Rounding my Marvel haul would be Daredevil #8 (Marvel, $2.99); excited to see guest artist Kano on this. Last up for my $15 haul would be Batman #5 (DC, $2.99); on paper I like Wonder Woman more, but when it comes down to it I’m more enjoying Snyder and Capullo’s story in this. Oh wait, I have some money laying around… Wasteland #33 (Oni, $1) is it for a dollar.

For $30, I’d double back and get Wonder Woman #5 (DC, $2.99); for me, Azzarello’s story seems like a slow burn and I’m hooked in. I’m interested to see how Tony Akins handles filling in given Cliff’s one-of-a-kind art. Next up I’d get a Marvel 3-pack: Avengers #21 (Marvel, $3.99), Avenging Spider-Man #3 (Marvel, $3.99) and Uncanny X-Men #5 ($3.99). Then finally, I’d get my second $1 book of the week, Lord of the Jungle #1 (Dynamite, $1.00). More books should consider going their first issues at $1, especially ones that are lesser known and less likely to be tried.

For my splurge, I’d happy fork over the bills for Steve Canyon HC Vol. 1: 1947-1948 (IDW, $49.99). Milton Caniff is a titan, and being able to read the previous Terry & The Pirates collections and then lead into this, in the original order they were published, is amazing; it’s like being there to see how Caniff developed.

Planet of the Apes #10

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d make it unanimous by also grabbing Prophet #21 ($2.99). Brandon Graham is always interesting, but I’m in it as much for Simon Roy’s art as Graham’s story. I had the pleasure of working with Roy on an extremely short story for Panels for Primates and he’s an awesome artist. Then I’d grab a bunch of superheroine comics that I’m enjoying: Wonder Woman #5 ($2.99), Supergirl #5 ($2.99), Birds of Prey #5 (2.99), and Fear Itself: The Fearless #7 ($2.99) featuring Valkyrie.

If I had $30, I’d quickly add Planet of the Apes #10 ($3.99) to that pile and try to think of new adjectives to convince more people to read it. Speaking of primates, I’d also check out Dynamite’s Tarzan of the Apes adaptation, Lord of the Jungle #1 ($1.00). After that, I want to see what’s up with Danger Girl: Revolver #1 ($3.99). I’ve never read a Danger Girl comic, but it sounds like the kind of thing I’d enjoy. Jumping into IDW’s new mini-series is a cheaper way to try it out than getting one of the collections and catching up. Finally, I’m curious about the reprint of Grant Morrison’s Steed and Mrs. Peel #1 ($3.99) from Boom!. I don’t know much about the TV Avengers, but I dig groovy, ’60s spy adventures.

If I only had a little to splurge with I’d check out Danger Girl: Danger-Sized Treasury Edition ($9.99), but I’m hoping for a nice windfall so I can join Chris A in Steve Canyon, Volume 1: 1947-1948 ($49.99). I’ve read some of those stories from when Checker reprinted them and they’re cool enough that I want them in the nice hardcover.

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Today our guest is cartoonist, musician and publisher Zak Sally. Sally is known outside comics circles as the former bassist for the band Low, but inside comic circles, he’s known for great books like Like A Dog and the Ignatz series Sammy the Mouse, the collected version of which Sally will be releasing any day now from his own La Mano 21 press.

To see what Sally and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading this week, click on the link below.

Dead Man's Run

Tim O’Shea: Dean Man’s Run 1. The nice thing about being a fan of Greg Pak’s writing? Every once and awhile, you luck out and get a sneak peek of his upcoming work. This Wednesday, January 18, marks the first issue of his collaboration with artist Tony Parker for publisher Aspen Comics, in collaboration with Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla on Dead Man’s Run. I’m interested at the set-up Pak has built with this series — hell as a prison with folks looking to break out. Rather than being Con Air Metaphysical or something, the writer casts a guy who happens to be a cartographer the lead of the series. It’s a quirky choice for hero casting (a variation on Amadeus Cho, admittedly) and Pak also constructs a great many monstrous hellmates in the cast that allow Parker to draw some interesting folks. If Pak plans to explore the warden character (as seems to have been teased in this issue) he might the right formula for an engaging series.

Wolverine and the X-Men 4. When has anyone ever described an X-title as fun? It’s an apt term for this Jason Aaron-written series. That’s not to say the read is a goof romp by any measure. While there’s comedic elements, Aaron uses Deathlok as a guest lecturer to great effect in this issue. I’ve not noticed artist Nick Bradshaw prior to this issue, but I like his style.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold 15. The core appeal of this series? Rudimentary tales that are done in one (but that I could see stretched out for four issues in the non-DC Kids/regular DC line). Not to spoil anything but where else could I get a Batman versus Darkseid battle in one regular sized comic book? Thank you writer Sholly Fisch. Side note, the way that Stewart McKenny draws eyes on his heroes reminds me of Fred Hembeck (that’s a compliment in my book).

Secret Avengers 21. This issue has Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen together again. And everybody wins. If Marvel editorial does not get Ellis to write a Steve Rogers miniseries at some point (unless he has no interest, of course) they are idiots. Ellis’ Rogers is not like Brubaker’s (or like anyone else for that matter). Two bits of Rogers dialogue gave me pause: “I don’t believe in torture. It’s ugly, dishonorable and unreliable… So I’m going to let my colleagues do it.” (A line that could also be interpreted as bluffing on Rogers’ part admittedly, until you see the next scene) Or when a battle starts going south for the Secret Avengers and Rogers suggest blowing up the building where the heroes (other than Rogers) are, Hank McCoy says: “Steve, I have the greatest respect for you. But I will not kill again for you. And especially not my own team.” Which prompts Rogers to respond: “Then give me options.” I was reminded of Ellis’ Global Frequency with this set of issues.

The Shade #4

The Shade 4. This is the writer James Robinson I remember from Starman — writing stories that hooked me from the first panel, lacing teasers of other tales in between bits of dialogue. It would be insane if poor sales kill this miniseries. This particular issue is a Times Past flashback to 1944 drawn by none other than Darwyn Cooke (inked by the equally great J. Bone). Longtime Robinson fans will be pleased to see which masked man he works in this issue. The cinematic visuals of this story are made even more juicy by Dave Stweart’s colors and the exquisite lettering of living legend Todd Klein. Seriously, if I am editor Wil Moss I would just be giddy with the talent I get to wrangle on this project. If you are a fan of Cooke’s art, you need to read this issue, for the love of God the man makes shadows fascinating.

Black Panther 528. What’s more fun than watching Spider-Man or Daredevil beat Kingpin? The methodically thorough way in which Black Panther is torturing Wilson Fisk. Writer David Liss infoms readers that T’challa is one of the smartest heroes in the Marvel universe by actions, not by having characters say: “Wow, is he smart.” Am absolutely bewildered as to how industry veteran Michael Avon Oeming was garnered for an arc that almost everyone (I assume) knew was the series’ swan song. Not an insult of Oeming, I love his work on this story, but surprised to see him involved. I hope this arc is not the last we see of Liss in the Marvel U.

Batman & Robin 5. I think it will be a tight race for the first Robot 6 reader who gets to tell me I am mistaken for liking Peter Tomasi’s Batman in this series more than I like Scott Snyder’s Batman. But it’s true. Tomasi effectively juggles the Alfred (as surrogate grandfather), Batdad and Damian dynamics. Also, I am pleasantly surprised at how strong artist Patrick Gleason is with angst-ridden Bats. Looking forward to seeing how things play out with Damian in issue 6.

Captain America 7. Fairly certain that Brubaker could have all the characters singing “Mah Nà Mah Nà” on a continuous loop and as long as Alan Davis was the artist, I would still say: “outstanding read”. Fortunately Brubaker writes more than that. But honestly, Alan Davis inked by Mark Farmer and colored by Laura Martin (with Larry Molinar) is eye candy of the highest caliber. Excuse me while I redrool over some of the pages. Added bonus, Cap rides shotgun while Sharon drives the flying car. Cannot get enough of the SHIELD flying cars (I am a child of 1960s/1970s Marvel, what can I say).

Scarlet Spider 1. Yeah, it’s a spider clone. But by setting the book in Houston — and with the tagline of “All of the power. None of the responsibility.” writer Christopher Yost and artist Ryan Stegman hope to give readers a book unlike any other Spidey title. And after interviewing Stegman, I think they might have what it takes to succeed. This is striving to be a quirky book — the hero rescues an elderly lady and then cusses her out for putting herself in a dangerous situation. I like what I saw in this first issue (an unlikeable character begrudgingly playing hero [granted not a unique concept]) and while not eager to part with $3.99 on a monthly basis quite yet, I will likely be back next month. In the long run, Yost might be too busy working on the Avengers show for Disney XD, but I really want to see Yost’s approach to Marvel characters grow in popularity.

Chris Mautner: I’ve spent most of this week reading Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, a new, analytical look at the work of the famed Invisibles author by Marc Singer. Singer might be best known for his blog, I Am Not the Beastmaster, where he regularly writes about comics (when he’s not busy teaching that is). Singer has always been one of the smarter comics bloggers out there, so it should be no surprise that Morrison is a highly insightful, erudite examination of one of the more popular writers in comics today. Singer hurtles himself chronologically through just about the entirety of Morrison’s bibliography, making the larger point that Morrison’s great feat might be in the manner he takes abstract and challenging modes of expression and applies them to mainstream comics. And though Singer throughs out the occasional bit of jargon, his book remains an engaging read. Anyone interested in Morrison’s work should read this book.

Zak Sally: Strangely, i’ve been reading books without pictures; I know for a lot of cartoonists, they say “comics; I don’t read comics in my spare time, I read REAL BOOKS.” Whereas for me, I read comics constantly. So I actually got to the point recently where I thought I’d better back off a little, since I hadn’t read a straight prose/no pictures book in some time.

Clans of the Alphane Moon

So, right now I’m almost finished with this Little, Big book by John Crowley and … the whole way through, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. and now I’m almost at the end and thinking that maybe it’s the latter.

Also, dipping (well, diving, really) into some heavy Philip K. Dick research. Not so much his novels (although I just cracked Clans of The Alphane Moon, which I’d somehow missed in the past 26 years) but re-reading a lot of biographical material about him — Lawrence Sutin’s excellent Divine Invasions bio, and I Am Alive and You Are Dead by this French guy Emmanuel Carrere (which is pretty good as well). Also the 4 volumes of Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick that Underwood-Miller did in the 80s (anyone out there looking to get rid of their copy of 1938-71?), and a couple other things as well. Why? Because i’m going to make a BOOK WITH PICTURES out of it, of course. It’s a huge undertaking and you got to dive deep, with that stuff.

I also just got a bunch of whacked-out Hollow Earth theory books– you know, where there’s another world inside the earth, accessible via deep tunnels at the earth’s poles. It’s well documented, and apparently quite nice in there, real temperate and lush, and I plan to visit at my earliest convenience.

It strikes me as I write this that the theme is: “crackpots” taking unpopular and/or bizarre notions and creating real, living valid worlds for themselves out of it.

Yup. makes sense.

Richard Alf

Passings | Richard Alf, who as a teenager fronted the money for the first three years of San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con, the annual event that later became Comic-Con International, passed away Wednesday from pancreatic cancer. He was 59. Alf, who co-chaired the first convention in 1970 and became chairman the following year, later opened Comic Kingdom in North Slope, a business he sold by the end of the decade. [U-T San Diego, Mark Evanier]

Conventions | iFanboy, San Francisco’s Isotope Comics and Grant Morrison are teaming up for MorrisonCon, which will feature “A once in a lifetime opportunity to see Grant Morrison and 9 hand picked comic creator superstars, all together for one weekend, one time only.” They’ve released few details so far, but the website says it’ll occur next fall. [MorrisonCon]

Awards | Comic-Con International is now accepting submissions for the 2012 Eisner Awards, which will be presented in San Diego in July. The deadline for submitting materials for consideration is March 6. [CCI]

Legal | Former comics retailer Michael George, who was convicted of the 1990 murder of his first wife and given a life sentence in November, has asked the judge to acquit him or order a new trial. George’s lawyer filed documents last week that claim there was weak evidence and improper tactics during his second trial. They also plan to appeal the case. [WDIV]

Dragon Lady Comics

Retailing | Toronto’s Dragon Lady Comics will close in early February after nearly 34 years in business, a move the store’s manager attributes to rising rent and slowing sales. [The Joe Shuster Awards, blogTO]

Creators | Brandon Graham delves into his process for Prophet, the upcoming Image Comics relaunch of the old Rob Liefeld property. [Warren Ellis]

Creators | Collaborators Shane Houghton and Matt Whitlock chat briefly about BOOM! Studios’ new Peanuts series. [LA Weekly]

Comics | Chad Nevett provides a supplemental reading list for the Joe Casey-written Vengeance, for anyone “wanting to know the background on various characters and concepts Joe Casey is using in that series.” [GraphiContent]

KCRW, a National Public Radio affiliate that broadcasts in the Los Angeles area, regularly hosts celebrity disc jockeys, and in the past have welcomed Mark Waid and Jimmy Gownley. This week Action Comics writer Grant Morrison spun a few tunes for the station, including “The Queen Is Dead” by The Smiths, “Mogadishu” by Baader Meinhof (“this would have been the theme song of The Invisibles“) and “Blue Flowers” by Dr Octagon:

The next song is “Blue Flowers” by Dr Octagon, and this one’s here to represent Hip Hop, because I do listen to quite a bit of Hip Hop. But this one was kind of what got me into it back in the 90′s. And it came out at the time when I was working on Invisibles and we had a character in Invisibles called Jim Crow. He was kind of a master of voodoo Hip Hop, or trip hop, and someone wrote to me and said, ‘You know, you’ve got this Jim Crow character, and this is the music he would make.’ And they sent me this album, and I just was blown away by it.

Again, to hear something so intelligent, it was a Sci-Fi album but it was Hip hop. It sounded like comic books, it sounded like my favorite science fiction, it sounded like the weirdest television show you’d ever seen. So again, it’s on the psychedelic theme, I mean, this is Hip Hop’s finest expression of psychedelia, “Blue Flowers”, and the bizarre trip to the park is very much in the Lennon mold, but for a new generation.

You can hear the whole thing and read a transcript on the KCRW site.

Wired’s GeekDad and Underwire blogs have an exclusive first look at Action Comics #5 which, as teased in the issue’s solicitation text, takes us back to doomed Krypton for some “keys facts about Superman’s past” — not the least of which is the apparent fate of Krypto. If you don’t want to know that last detail, you probably shouldn’t click the second link.

Action Comics #5, which features a main story by Grant Morrison, Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang, and a backup story by Sholly Fisch and ChrisCross, arrives Jan. 4.

It’s not merely that it’s the latest of Chopra’s many Seven Spiritual Laws books, which began with the publication of 1994’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and include …for Parents, …of Yoga and …of Love.

Certainly it seems like a new coat of paint applied to a pre-written book in order to cash in on the emerging cultural popularity and importance of superheroes, and Chopra’s late career has intersected with superhero media of late thanks to his son Gotham Chopra’s involvement in the failed publisher Virgin Comics (now Liquid Comics) and some high-profile appearances at Comic-Con (including sharing panels with Grant Morrison). But Chopra doesn’t just repeat the same seven spiritual laws—for example, Superheroes and Success only share a single law; Superheroes and Yoga another—although ultimately the philosophies behind those laws, and the recommendations for fulfilling them, are the same.

No, more problematic is Chopra’s bluntly and repeatedly confessed ignorance of superheroes, at least of the comic book and movie variety he cites as examples to illustrate the laws (Batman, Storm, Iron Man, Dr. Strange and even The Beyonder are among them).

Son Gotham, who gets a “with” byline under his father’s name on the cover, is a constant presence in the book, penning the foreword and figuring prominently as his father’s gateway into the world of pop culture superheroes (as opposed to the religious and mythic superheroes Deepak is familiar with). Each chapter opens with Deepak recounting a conversation between the two.

These will usually start with Deepak talking about the connectivity of the individual with the universe, and Gotham saying, “I get it. You’re talking about Storm from the X-Men.” Then Deepak through Gotham will relate a storyline from a comic book series to illustrate the law.

Each chapter, however, includes an awkward transition where Deepak will go from the curious student of superheroes to making definitive statements about them. The second half of each chapter consists of Deepak Chopra saying things like, “Superheroes don’t waste time or energy in self-righteous morality or judgment of the moral actions of others.”

Superheroes do, superheroes don’t, over and over, so that he shifts from playing dumb to playing authoritative, which is supremely unconvincing (Especially if you’ve read a lot of comics; much of what he says superheroes do or don’t do will fall apart in your head as you read, and you remember all the times Batman or Superman did this or that, or if you think over-much about the morally flawed Marvel superheroes or the post-Punisher antiheroes or the post-Geoff Johns Hal Jordan and “New 52” heroes).

Chopra’s expertise on superheroes is further challenged by his statements early on, in which he calls Stan Lee “the creator of the Marvel Universe” instead of the “co-creator,” or a head-scratching reference to Grant Morrison, who has only written one, maybe two books a month for the past five years, “The most prolific writer in the comic-book industry today” (something the 3-6 books-per-month Brian Michael Bendis might have something to say about). These are little, even petty things, of course, but little things at which superhero fans—the presumed intended audience—tend to think of as big things, and will catch and glom onto in ways a general audience might not.

If the presentation is often highly dubious, however, the advice itself is good.

The superheroes Chopra is actually talking about in the latter half of each chapter aren’t the ones from comics or films, of the sorts he and Gotham cite or that artist Jeevan Kang creates to illustrate the cover and each chapter—but ideal ones of his own imagination.They are essentially morally, ethically and emotionally perfected examples that act in the world to better it. If they have superpowers, they are the same all of us have—or have the potential to unlock—and these are the heroes who actually thoroughly embody the laws Chopra discusses.

I think he could have saved a lot of readers, particularly those most likely to be interested in such a work, a great deal of cognitive dissonance by making this clear, but Chopra’s writing isn’t exactly challenging or complicated, rhetorically or otherwise. His voice is clear, simple and engaging, but that simplicity often comes at the cost of accuracy and more compelling, forceful argumentation.

You’ll have to read the book to get a full view of Chopra’s idea of the superhero and our ability to embody superheroics as a broad metaphor, but it stems from Chopra’s belief in the connectivity of all existence, expressed in a way that is general enough that it fits in with any religion—even made-up comic book ones, I imagine—and even atheism. You can call this The Universe, or God, or Allah, The Force, The Source, The Matrix or, as Chopra puts it for those “uncomfortable with the idea of God entirely,” “acausal, non-local, quantum-mechanical interrelatedness.”

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes is a sort inf instruction manual on how to become more aware of and then live in peace with that interrelatedness and, by doing so, better your life. Much of this is common sense—be mindful, eat well, meditate and/or pray, exercise, avoid toxic substances and relationships and emotions—but these simple things can be hard to accomplish when thought of in a general way, and Chopra provides specific instructions for various ways to go about achieving established goals.

And what’s a toxic emotion? Well, I suppose cynicism is probably one of them, huh?  But for my cynicism regarding aspects of this  book, and for detecting cynicism in its creation, I blame Chopra’s rhetorical efforts in constructing it. And maybe Gotham for not insisting he make some changes to make it a bit more palatable to superhero indoctrinated world.

Although blame is probably a toxic emotion too, huh?

Hey, pretty clever way to critic-proof your book, Chopra!  That’s as good an example of a person who has activated his superhero brain as any, I suppose.

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

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes: Harnessing Our Power to Change the World by Deepak Chopra, HarperCollins, 165 pages, $26

Batman, Inc.: Leviathan Strikes!

This past Wednesday saw the return of something I didn’t expect to see quite so soon or even ever again–the pre-reboot DC Universe. DC Comics released Batman, Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes! #1 by writer Grant Morrison, artists Cameron Stewart and Chris Burnham, and colorist Nathan Fairbairn, which collects what would have been issues #9 and #10 of the well-regarded series.

“See the last hurrah of Stephanie Brown as Batgirl, in a sinister school for suicide spy girls! Find out what caused the Batman and Robin team to split! And witness the unmasking of Leviathan in a shocking final page twist that sets up 2012’s Batman: Leviathan, the epic concluding act of a Batman story six years in the making!” Morrison said on DC’s The Source blog. While you can never say never when it comes to comics, this could be the final glimpse into the DCU of old.

So what are folks saying about the big finale? Here’s a sampling of opinions on the comic:

Chad Nevett, Comic Book Resources: “Ostensibly Batman, Incorporated issues #9 and #10, Batman, Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes! #1 ends the first ‘season’ of the title and sets the stage for next year’s return and conclusion to Grant Morrison’s tenure on the Batbooks. The wait for this comic may have been long, but with Cameron Stewart and Chris Burnham providing the art, it was well worth it. Morrison delivers both an entertaining ‘done in one’ style adventure spotlighting Stephanie Brown and an ambitious issue that pushes the story about as far as it can go before it breaks. It ends with the big reveal of who is behind Leviathan, the criminal organization that Batman has created Batman, Incorporated to fight. It’s the sort of issue that arrives just in time to remind critics that, maybe, they left Batman, Incorporated off their top ten of 2011 lists and that, obviously, was a mistake.”

Erik Norris, IGN: “It’s no secret that it’s been a really long time since the last issue of Batman, Inc. shipped. Therefore, it’s very easy to forget what’s happened in the series up to when Leviathan Strikes! #1 takes place. That’s why, in rare fashion, I’m going to recommend you flip to the back of the issue first to read the 8-page recap that covers the formation of Batman, Inc. and the pertinent information from the entire series up until this point (just don’t mistakenly see the final page reveal!). Honestly, if I’d known this was included, I would have done the same and the book would have made a lot more sense during my first read-through. This recap also does a marvelous job pointing out all the bread crumbs Morrison has thrown on the ground over the course of Batman, Inc., stretching as far back as Batman R.I.P.”

Colin Bell, Newsarama: “Jam-packed with rug-pulls, betrayals, allegiances and big Bat-ideas, it’s a dizzying, giddy rollercoaster that demands the reader’s attention, and rewards those that keep up. The way the story zips around puts me in mind of the raised stakes of the ending stages of Morrison’s run on New X-Men, and indeed one part of this story seems to echo a beat from that work to the point where it’s nearly a cut and paste job. That said, you get the feeling that Morrison has been champing at the bit to let rip with Leviathan’s grand plans, and it’s an infectious enthusiasm permeates Burnham’s art and leaps off the page. Special mention must go to Nathan Fairbairn, whose use of color veers from tastefully subdued and foreboding in Stewart’s portion, to lurid pop in Burnham’s, and really enhances the read.”

Minhquan Nguyen, Weekly Comic Book Review: “Stewart’s light, easy style makes a perfect fit for Steph Brown as Batgirl, especially since he can draw young girls who look like young girls and not try-outs for Teen Maxim. He adds in all sorts of cool, funny details (e.g. rhinestone-studded pistols, sub-headmistresses wearing outer corsets) that definitely mesh with Steph’s quirky world. As for Burnham, you have to respect the guy; he probably tore his hair out trying to translate Morrison’s loaded script into coherent visuals, and for the most part, he succeeds. Fairbairn offers sympathetic coloring work for both artists.”

Greg Burgas, Comics Should Be Good!: “This comic, however, is up to snuff. Stewart’s Batgirl-centric story of her adventure at St. Hadrian’s School for Girls is ridiculous in all the right ways, and Morrison, as he usually does, gives us a sidekick who has earned Batman’s trust and is allowed to do quite a lot on her own (Batman needs to come in at the end, but more to assist rather than to rescue). Burnham draws the second issue, as Batman, Dick, Tim, and Damian fight their way through Dr. Dedalus’s labyrinth of death, and it’s really a magnificently written and drawn issue.”

BLAMMO #6

Season’s Greetings and welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at what we’ve been reading lately. Today our special guests are Geoffrey Golden and Amanda Meadows, editors of Devastator: The Quarterly Comedy Magazine for Humans. Their latest issue has a video game theme, with contributions from James Kochalka, Corey Lewis, Danny Hellman and many more. And if you head over to their website between now through Dec. 16, the code ROBOT6 gets you 20 percent off single issues.

To see what Amanda, Geoffrey and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below.

*****

Michael May

Amulet

I’ve been wanting to read Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet for a while now and have finally gotten to the first volume. It begins a lot like so many other fantasy stories for young people: with a single parent taking her children to an old, secluded, family property because lack of money has driven them away from the city. There, the family’s dark history and a magic item or two involve the kids in an adventure to save their parent and possibly the world. It’s an old premise, but a powerful one. Every kid longs to discover that there’s something cool and powerful in their family history that will change their lives.

What separates the good versions of this story from the bad are the details and what happens once the secret is uncovered and the young heroes are engaged. In this case, Kibuishi unleashes his considerable imagination to plop his protagonists into a world of magic, robots, dark elves, and cephalopod monsters. It’s an exciting, visually impressive story with a great deal of heart.

Chris Mautner

Things I read recently:

Feynman

Feynman by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick — As the title suggests, this is a basic biography of the famed physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman. Ottaviani attempts to mimic the scientist’s wayward, anecdotal manner of speaking, which can take a bit of getting used to, but once you do, it’s a pretty smooth ride. Myrick’s loose, wobbly style fits Feynman’s loose, haphazard manner rather well. This is a pretty basic biography, aimed clearly at readers who may have heard Feynman’s name, but are unfamiliar with his life and work. In other words, it’s a starting point, and not for someone whose already read one of the many biographies about the man. This graphic novel won’t replace any of those books, either, but as a “basic intro” guide, it suits rather well.

The Adventures of Herge by Bocquet, Fromental and Stanislas — Another biography, this time about the famous cartoonist George Remi, i.e. Herge, the creator of Tintin. Rather than attempt to completely chronicle the artist’s life, the authors instead aim for a “significant snapshots” approach, dramatizing every two pages or so a particular event in artist’s development. A picture does emerge of the artist as a conflicted, driven, relatively genial fellow, but it remains a rather cursory glance in the Herge’s life. The book is really best suited for Tintin fans or fans of Stanislas’ art, which is lovely.

Carla Hoffman

Defenders

I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. Defenders #1 has all the elements a gal like me should love: Matt Fraction (FRACTION 3:16), slick and stylish artwork, Doctor Strange and an assortment of quality characters who deserve a place in a book of their own, rather than a guest star role in an event tie-in. Betty Banner is here (kind of), Danny Rand is back, and oh my Lord there are tiny out-of-frame comments on nearly every page!

And then… we have two awkward hook-ups from guys who should be above making such freshman choices (okay, maybe not Danny Rand), the continual “I hate myself and want to die” theme from people who seem to be wallowing in it, the Silver Surfer seems to have powers that contradict his appearances in Thor (Fraction should talk to the writer of that book and get things straight!) … I don’t know. I’ll give it three issues, but it seems to me like (yet another) Doctor Strange mini-series might have been a better idea.

X-Club #1 is a better first issue, strangely enough, probably because I am not expecting it to blow my tiny little brain. It’s giving me what I want, the same quality of faux-Ellis techno-sarcasm I got from the past “X-Club” outings from Simon Spurrier, the snickering humor and delightful dance of characters that normally just bring exposition in the regular X-titles. A shady corporation builds a sky elevator with the help of Utopia and then monsters. This won’t be Sandman, but it will be funny, and that’s a rare quality in comics.

Which is why I continue to buy Deadpool MAX. It also confuses me as it makes me laugh, bringing an uncomfortable humor that makes me wonder if I’m a terrible person for finding any of it funny. Remember reading a MAD Magazine as a kid and finding it so unlike anything else normally marketed for kids that there was almost a thrill to getting an issue? Yeah, it’s a little like that. Grab a copy of the Deadpool MAX X-Mas Special and hide it in a copy of Grant Morrison’s Supergods.

Brigid Alverson

Habibi

I’m sort of all over the place this week. I read Craig Thompson’s Habibi yesterday–I picked it up thinking I’ll just attack it in small bits and ended up reading the whole thing in two sittings. I can’t do it justice here, except to say that after all the discussions I was expecting it to be all literary and boring, and it wasn’t. There were things I liked and things I didn’t like, but the story kept pulling me along.

Everything else was on the light side, though. I picked up BOOM! Studios’ Peanuts graphic novel, Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, and while it’s very attractive, the opening sequence is basically a bunch of one-page gag strips, mostly about Linus and his blanket. I’m pretty sure some of them are old, because the gags seem very familiar, but at any rate, the structure makes for some disconnected storytelling. I’m hoping we get something closer to a linear story as the book goes on.

I’m also reading volume 17 of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack. I’m always reading Black Jack, because Vertical puts out a volume every two months, and it’s one of my favorite comics to just relax and enjoy–I don’t feel like I have to analyze Black Jack or find a deeper meaning, it’s just short stories about a bad ass surgeon. He starts this volume by doing surgery on himself, which is a pretty tough act to follow, but this is the last volume that Vertical is putting out. It does include a nice extra: A list of every Black Jack story, in chronological order, along with the volume of the Vertical edition it appeared in. That makes for a nice project for obsessive Black Jack fans–to read all the stories in order–except that there are a few that, on Tezuka’s orders, were never collected in English or Japanese.

Tom Bondurant

Manhunter

I started picking up Marc Andreyko’s Manhunter only after its first cancellation, so this week I finally started from the beginning. Maybe it’s the collected-edition effect, but I am through the first two paperbacks and didn’t want to put either one down. Andreyko and penciller Jesus Saiz tell Kate Spencer’s story in compelling fashion, with snappy dialogue and expressive artwork, making her transition from prosecutor to vigilante seem natural and seamless. What’s more, these stories take place on the margins of Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis, but Andreyko integrates those events into his narrative pretty well too. The same goes for various references to DC history, like Hawkman’s past with the Shadow-Thief, Cameron Chase’s knowledge of Checkmate, and Superman’s relationship with the (then-late) Firestorm. I thought Manhunter was good already, but I didn’t know it was this good.

Mr. Mautner will be delighted to hear that I also got a chance to watch the “Ultimate Cut” of 2009′s Watchmen movie. This is the one which incorporates the “Black Freighter” sequences, and some other previously-deleted scenes as well. Anyway, it turned out to be more of the same: faithful to a fault, except when it’s cranked-up with Zack Snyder attitude. I still didn’t hate it, though. I just think it’s ironic that it tried too hard to be a big-budget Superhero Movie! instead of the more subdued work the comics depicted. Snyder’s Watchmen is like Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings–enough of an effort that you hope someone gets it right later on.

Tim O’Shea

Action Comics #4

Action Comics #4: Not sure which annoys me more: writer Grant Morrison having Superman enemy Sam Lane ask Superman to save his daughter, or the fact that this storyline is delayed until issue #7. On the first point, a case could be made that the guy who was holding Superman prisoner in issue #2, is a pragmatic military man who will use whatever resources he has (even an alien he does not trust) to save his beloved daughter. But still, the shift in Lane’s demeanor (going after Superman to seeking Superman’s aid) was made more jarring by the fact I swear that’s Lane’s only speaking line (and second appearance [the first is him running alongside Luthor in a panic) in all of issue #4. As for the delay of story, I am unsure if I am interested enough (yes, I know it’s Lord Grant Morrison and all, but still) to come back with issue #7.

Stormwatch #4: I bought Stormwatch because Paul Cornell was writing it. Am the only one annoyed that after settling in for a nice long run, I just found out he is leaving with issue #6? I do not know all of the behind the scenes machinations, Cornell may have taken the assignment to help out DC editorial as a favor, never intending to write past issue 6. Maybe he barely had anything he wanted to say after issue #6 and if he stayed on the book, issue #7 would have sucked. I kind of doubt it. Cornell is a good writer. So as much as I enjoyed this latest installment (what I loved about old Authority stories? The team’s ability to pull a victory or at least gain an upper hand in the midst of chaos, but typically a worldscale chaos, even)—this issue reminded me of the best of the Authority in that regard. The lack of leadership in the team is an intriguing aspect that gets some major play (and allows Cornell to do some great character bits) in this issue. Before I forget, artist Miguel Sepulveda continues to impress me.

X-Club

X-Club #1: I almost did not buy the first issue of this X-Men miniseries because I thought it was a rave book (I am only 90 percent kidding on that point). I have never read writer Simon Spurrier before–and know next to nothing about the characters, but there was a humor amidst the action (particularly with Dr. Nemesis) that I enjoyed the issue. I am not reading all of the X books, but I am starting to see a pattern of Cyclops (jackass) and Wolverine (golden boy). Not sure if it’s that way across the board, but I wonder how many longtime Cyclops fans are feeling alienated by this approach (more informed X-Men readers, feel free to chime in in the comments with any counterpoints/info you may have).

The Amazing Spider-Man #675: I generally opted out of Spider-Island, no matter how much fun people said the event was gonna be, the folks turning into monsters did not look like fun to me. So I was glad to get back to Spidey fighting garden variety crooks (or in this case the seeming murder of crooks). What really hooked me to buy this two-parter (which wrapped in this issue) was the art of Giuseppe Camuncoli, inked by the great Klaus Janson. Many of the current Spider-Man artists seemed to have a sketchy quirky style to drawing the lead character. In the case of Camuncoli and Janson though, I get an element of Jim Mooney or Gil Kane. What I always loved about 1970s Spidey comics was when Spidey leapt into action, some artists would draw the progression of his movement from point A to point B, and that’s another element that Camuncoli works into a few scenes. Did I mention Spidey even uses a new and improved Spidey signal light in this issue? Yeah, I am a kid comic reader at heart sometimes.

Hulk #45: Writer Jeff Parker continues to give me an enjoyable supporting cast with this comic. In this issue, Machine Man uses his head to fight a foe. No really, literally just his head. Some might accuse this issue of being light on action, as Parker tries to connect the dots of the plot to position more action in the next issue. And yet, artist Patrick Zircher’s layouts are so dynamic there’s an energy to them that made me not care that a great deal of the story was flashback/background info. In fact, if you had told me I would be dazzled by a two-page spread of a microcosm, I would have doubted you… until I read Hulk #45. Zircher is enjoying himself on this arc, no doubt. Folks that bailed this title in the Jeph Loeb era should revisit this book ASAP, as it’s a different and better title under Parker and company.

Geoffrey Golden and Amanda Meadows

Hark! A Vagrant

Hark! A Vagrant – Kate Beaton signed her exquisite Drawn and Quarterly collection for us at a signing at Skylight Books in Los Angeles, and this week we’re revisiting all our favorite entries in her beloved webcomic. 80s Business Woman, Mystery Solving Teens, and of course, several AP classes’ worth of mocked historical figures, with equally funny margin notes accompanying the strips. Fun fact: every single guy we know wants to marry Miss Beaton. Good luck, gents!

BLAMMO #6 – First of all, it’s hard to argue against purchasing any comic with the title BLAMMO. Amanda found the latest comics collection from Denver cartoonist Noah Van Sciver at this year’s APE and it was a stand-out purchase from our yearly haul. Amanda liked the honest dialogue, artfully crude illustrations and realistic characters in the autobiographical strips. Geoffrey liked the comic called “Punks vs. Lizards,” in which a gang of 1980s British street punks murder a bunch of giant lizards and say things like, “anarchy and shit!” Van Sciver’s humor is versatile, offering something for everyone.

Club Wolverine #14 – Logan and his nightclub’s all-mutant staff continue to experience prejudice and pure ecstasy in mid-70s New York City. We love that writer Mort Bendis (not related to Brian Michael, though he keeps claiming otherwise) finally takes us into appropriately seedy territory as Mojo holds the club hostage for a swingin’ orgy, in honor of Dazzler’s new disco album, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Oh My. Wolverine, warning Mojo that the club doesn’t have a proper orgy license, says our favorite line yet in the series: “time to do the hustle on outta here, bub.”

Buffalo Speedway #3 – Admittedly, we picked up the first Buffalo Speedway book at Meltdown Comics on a whim because Geoffrey’s from Buffalo, New York and we thought a graphic novel series about a pizza delivery boy sounded like fun. Though the characters are actually from Texas, this series by Yehudi Mercado “delivers” the goods (Mmm… pizza puns). Charming characters, snappy dialogue and a fun story involving the busiest day ever in pizza delivery history — the day of O.J. Simpson’s Bronco chase — the final volume was satisfying to the last bite. (Mmm… additional pizza puns.)

Pogo

Pogo Vol. 1: Through The Wild Blue Wonder – Geoffrey has been eagerly anticipating this collection for years, making it the perfect early Christmas gift! Walt Kelly’s classic comic Pogo was an inspiration for many brilliant cartoonists like Berkeley Breathed and Jeff Smith, in addition to a comedy magazine called The Devastator, which we’ve never heard of. Kelly’s illustrations are masterful, with expressive characters who are warm and friendly. Pogo‘s deft social satire makes this collection about Pogo Possum and friends a must own for humor comics fans and people who just like good things in general. “We have met the enemy,” and he is not getting this for Christmas.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Action Comics #4

Chris Arrant

If I had $15, I’d start with Image’s new anthology Thought Bubble Anthology #1 (Image, $2.99). That Becky Cloonan cover is great, and seeing that the book holds new shorts from Andy Diggle, Duncan Fegredo and others is enticing. Next up would be a DC three-pack: Swamp Thing #4 (DC, $2.99), Animal Man #4 (DC, $2.99), Action Comics #4 (DC, $3.99). DC really wins this week when it comes to my wallet, and these three books are becoming the key titles in the New 52.

If I had $30, I’d try out Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson’s Defenders #1 (Marvel, $3.99). While I was nonplussed by their previous collaboration in Uncanny X-Men, I remain high on other segments of their work and hope this one lives up to that potential. Next up would be X-Club #1 (Marvel, $2.99), based solely on this eclectic line-up. The X-Club was one of the few parts of the previously mentioned Fraction run on Uncanny X-Men I enjoyed, and I hope this mini makes them a more viable part of the universe long-term. Next up I’d get iZombie #20 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99) for the ongoing adventures of Roberson and Allred and Irredeemable #32. I’m really enjoying what Diego Barreto brings to the book, and Mark Waid continues to deliver.

If I could splurge, I’d get IDW’s collection of Mike Grell’s Shaman’s Tears maxi-series. This was one of the early Image titles, and gave me my first glimpse of Grell’s work and the potential for Image outside the original 7. As the series went on I ended up going back to track down Grell’s earlier work, but Shaman’s Tears holds a special place and I’m anxious to relive it without dusting off my longboxes.

The Eyes of the Cat

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

A lot of my regular monthly buys are out this week, so my first $15 would be split in some manner between Boys #61 (gross-out humor!), Glamorpuss #22 (Misogyny! Jeff Jones tribute!) and Vol. 8 of Bakuman (paper-thin leads sweat profusely over making manga – but in exciting ways!).

If I had $30:

I’m way behind in the series (I only just got Vol. 9), but Vol. 17 of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack is out this week, so I might get that, but hold off on reading it for awhile.

Splurge:

My splurge pick for the week would likely be one of three books. Firstly there’s Grant Morrison: Combining the World of Contemporary Comics, a new lengthy analysis of the noted writer by Marc Singer, who’s no slouch himself with words. Secondly there’s Vol. 3 of the Art of Herge, a collection of hardcover books featuring stuff George Remi (his real name) did outside of his most famous creation. I have the first volume, and it’s a lot of fun to pour over. Finally there’s Eyes of the Cat, which collects the first collaboration of Moebius and Jodorowsky. Humanoids apparently is only doing a limited run of this $70 book — 750 copies — so get ‘em while they’re hot.

The Defenders #1

Graeme McMillan

It’s been a long time since I’ve bought a single issue of DC’s Hellblazer – I’ve been reading it in trades for awhile – but this week’s Hellblazer Annual #1 (DC, $4.99) seems particular enticing for many reasons, not least of which is the creative team of Peter Milligan and Simon Bisley, 2000AD veterans both and a pairing that’s proven surprisingly well-suited to the title on issues of the regular book. For the remaining amount of my $15 starter, I’ll add the still-great Action Comics #4 (DC, $3.99), including the much-teased Steel solo story back-up strip, and the debut of Marvel’s latest attempt to revive The Defenders (#1, $3.99). For this week’s episode of Wait, Wait, Jeff Lester and I re-read the entire Steve Gerber run on the original incarnation of this title, and it reminded me just how much I really love the idea of the Defenders as a “non-team,” and the characters involved. I’m really hopeful about this book, and really, really praying that it doesn’t break my comic-loving heart.

If I had $30, I’d pick up Image’s Thought Bubble Anthology #1 ($2.99) to see what Andy Diggle, Duncan Fegredo and the like are up to these days, as well as my guilty pleasure from the New 52, OMAC #4 (DC, $2.99); I’m very worried about the future of this title if Keith Giffen really is off the title as artist with #6, but we’ll see what lunacy happens between now and then nonetheless.

In terms of splurging, Vertigo’s Bad Doings, Big Ideas hardcover collection of Bill Willingham’s non-Fables material (DC, $49.99) looks very, very tempting indeed, but if I had suddenly discovered a large amount of disposible income, Marvel’s X-Statix Omnibus ($125.00) would be coming home with me, thankyouverymuch.

Jurassic Strike Force #0

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d start with a couple of $1 comics: Jurassic Strike Force 5 #0 ($0.99) from Zenescope and Boom’s Valen the Outcsast #1 ($1.00). Zenescope doesn’t usually publish my kind of comics, but they’ve got me figured out with a bunch of lightsaber-wielding, mutated dinosaurs who fight an army of other mutated dinosaurs and the alien warlord who created them. The pitch for Valen is Undead Conan, so as long as his eyes aren’t falling out of their sockets and I can’t see his intestines, I’m interested. Next, I’d grab a trio of comics featuring some cool, female heroes. I’m not thrilled by the mediocre story being told in Huntress, but I do like a globe-trotting adventuress and I’m not frustrated enough yet to give up on it. I’ll give #3 ($2.99) a shot. Fear Itself: The Fearless #4 ($2.99) features another international adventure with a butt-kicking woman, but has a much more fun plot. Then there’s Bonnie Lass #4 ($2.99), which is still a funny, unique pirate comic set in an interesting, not-always-that-piratey world. Finally, I’m getting Action Comics #4 ($3.99). I’m still enjoying it, but I’m beginning to question whether I’m enjoying it an extra dollar’s worth over my other comics. This issue and it’s back-up story (as opposed to lame Making Of featurettes) will help determine that.

If I had $30, I’d add X-Club #1 ($2.99). Since Alpha Flight‘s going away, I’ll be back to making due with former AF members like Madison Jeffries appearing in other people’s series. Plus, a mutant science team is just a cool concept. Then I’d get Betrayal on the Planet of the Apes #2 ($3.99) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Micro-Series #1: Raphael ($3.99), two books that would have made the $15 cut if they were priced lower. I’d top off the stack with Voltron #1 ($3.99). I know nothing about Voltron, but it’s about a giant robot, so I’m willing to learn.

My splurge item this week is Girls: The Complete Collection ($49.99). I read some of the last issues in that creepily sexy series and was hooked enough to want to go back and start at the beginning.

Amazing Fantasy #15

Comics | While going through a box in his attic, a Grange Park, Illinois, man discovered a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, that he had bought as a kid. While other copies of the comic have fetched as much as $1.2 million, Chimera’s Comics is selling it for $12,000 due to its condition. [LaGrange Patch]

Comics | Brian Truitt profiles Marvel’s Fantastic Four, talking to Mark Waid, Tom Brevoort and Tom DeFalco about the long-running comic. [USA Today]

Publishing | Janna Morishima, formerly of Scholastic and Diamond Comic Distributors, has joined Papercutz as its first marketing director. [Papercutz]

Creators | Alan Moore discusses his friendship with Harvey Pekar: “We developed a friendship, because of a mutual love — an obsession, really — of old books. Harvey loved looking around the old tomes in my library, and Joyce told me I only enabled Harvey. They hadn’t got a spare inch of space, and Joyce would blow a fuse if he brought home a slim volume of poetry. He would smuggle them into the house by stealth. He’d slip them in among the old dusty books, and leave them there for about six weeks, then one day, walk over to the shelf and open them like they were cherished artifacts. The fact that this would take weeks showed his level commitment to great literature. He did everything short of wrapping them in plastic and hiding them in the lavatory.” Moore wrote the introduction for the forthcoming Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland, a posthumous graphic novel due in March. [Fast Company]

Art by Cameron Stewart

Creators | Andy Khouri talks to writer and artist Cameron Stewart about his work on B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Exorcism, part of a flurry of upcoming B.P.R.D. comics due out next year. [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Author Marc Singer discusses his book Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics. [Mindless Ones]

Creators | Just a few months after winning the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, Mike Keefe has accepted a buyout offer from the Denver Post. Keefe plans to “semi-retire” and will continue to draw cartoons for the Cagle Syndicate. [Comic Riffs]

Commentary | Alex Woodward looks at Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler’s Oil and Water. [Gambit]

Review | Manga newbie Jeff Jackson Ian Johnson reads Breathe Deeply, a new indy manga from small publisher One Peace Books that mixes medical ethics, suspense, and wistful romance. [Comic Attack]

Analysis | Kristy Valenti looks at Osamu Tezuka’s use of theatrical techniques and motifs in two very different books, Princess Knight and The Book of Human Insects. [comiXology]

Absolute All-Star Superman

Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.

Strap yourself in, kids, because this is going to be a big one, as we run through the lengthy and considerable career of one of mainstream comics’ biggest stars, Grant Morrison.

Why he’s important

If nothing else, Grant Morrison is a writer with a definitive vision. A big believer in the power of the superhero genre to inspire hope and change, his stories often — despite his considerable ability to frighten and disturb – are optimistic affairs, suggesting that even in one’s darkest moments, things are never as bad as they seem. That he can frequently pull this type of sincere optimism without seeming saccharine or winsome is a testament to his skill as a writer.

Morrison is not always an easy writer to read. He’ll frequently break the fourth wall, indulge in non-linear storytelling or throw out obscure references. He expects his readers to meet him halfway and often a bit of work is required to suss out exactly how everyone moved from plot point A to B. Usually this type of effort is rewarded, however, as at his best his writing blends surreal, dense and sometimes elliptical storytelling with a fondness for humanity and a yen for crafting likable, fully rounded characters.

Note: In culling this list together I decided to skip over some of Morrison’s single-issue stories, anthology contributions and unfinished projects (like those two issues of The Authority). Otherwise we’d be here all day. Feel free to yell at me about it in the comments section.

Where to start

Doom Patrol Vol. 1: Crawling From the Wreckage

Morrison’s most well-known and beloved work is easily All-Star Superman, and thus makes as likely and new-reader-friendly a place to begin as any. Working with his best and frequent collaborator Frank Quitely, Morrison penned a loving mash note to the Silver Age, Weisenger-era Superman that didn’t ever once come off as nostalgic sentimentality. In many ways, All-Star Superman is a thoughtful treatise on the fragility and splendor of life, with Morrison asking readers what sort of legacy they’d like to leave behind for friends and family after they’ve gone. The series is available in two softcover volumes, or you can buy the whole shebang in one expensive Absolute edition.

Personally though, I feel that Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol features not only some of his best writing ever, but it’s also one of the best, if not the best, superhero comic of all time. Teaming up with artist Richard Case, Morrison created a comic that reveled in playful sense of surrealism and absurdity. New, bizarre ideas and characters seemed to spring off every page — Paintings that eat cities! A villain that has every super power you can’t think of! — only to be tossed aside to make room for the next big notion. But it’s all grounded by the main cast of characters who, despite their odd appearances and complex problems, remain very sympathetic figures. The series has been collected in five six easy-to-find trade paperbacks: Crawling From the Wreckage, The Painting that Ate Paris, Down Paradise Way, Musclebound, Magic Bus and Planet Love.

From there you should read

Flex Mentallo Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe Edition

After his run on Doom Patrol concluded, Morrison spun-off one of his creations from the series, Flex Mentallo, into a self-titled four-issue mini-series. The comic followed the “Muscle Man of Mystery” as he tried to find his former friend and fellow crimefighter, The Fact, while also focusing on a burned out rock star calling a suicide prevention line who may or may not be imagining the whole Mentallo storyline. Working again with Quitely (who does some of his best work to date here) Morrison lays out his entire feelings about the superhero genre and why he’s so sweet on it. As manifestos go, it’s a pretty sterling one. Though it’s long been out of print, it’s scheduled to come out in a deluxe hardcover collection early next year.

Morrison’s other great superhero project is the wildly ambitious Seven Soldiers of Victory. The idea was to create a loosely interconnected series of comics, each starring a semi-obscure character from the DC Universe: Klarion, the Guardian, Mister Miracle, the Shining Knight, etc. It all builds up towards an epic battle against a nefarious enemy from the future, the catch being none of the characters ever meet (at least not for more than a few seconds). Really, it all comes together a lot better my meager description would suggest and features some great art from folks like Doug Mahnke, J.H. Williams III, Frazier Irving and Ryan Sook. The whole blessed extravaganza has been collected in two hardcover volumes.

At the same time Morrison was pushing the dada envelope in Doom Patrol, he was cheerfully breaking the fourth wall in Animal Man.The series started off as a familiar second banana character revamp, with art by Chas Truog, but quickly became something deeper and stranger as main character Buddy Baker started fighting for animal rights and inadvertently found his world literally coming apart at the seams, with the end result being a meeting between the character and his creator. The entire storyline is collected in three volumes: Animal Man, Origin of the Species and Deus Ex Machina.

While I disagree somewhat, many consider The Invisibles to be Morrison’s definitive work. Certainly it’s one of his most fondly remembered works and the one that won him a decidedly devoted audience. A superhero/spy story that draws on countless conspiracy theories, the Invisibles follows a clandestine group of operatives who work at overthrowing a shadowy Illuminati-type group that manipulates humanity and history behind the scenes. The first half is excellent, but it begins to falter somewhat in the second half before gaining steam again, perhaps in part due to the fact that Morrison fell gravely ill while writing the series. You can read the whole thing via seven volumes: Say You Want A Revolution, Apocalipstick, Entropy in the U.K., Bloody Hell in America, Counting to None, Kissing Mister Quimper and The Invisible Kingdom.

Rounding out Morrison’s collaborations with Frank Quitely is We3, a surprisingly effective sci-fi revamp of The Incredible Journey with a cybernetically outfitted (and incredibly dangerous) rabbit, cat and dog on the run from the military that wants to “decommission” them and trying to find their original owners. In a rather neat feat, Morrison manages to give all the animals speaking parts without ever having them lose their animal nature or resorting to easy sentimentalism. As violent as this book can be, it’s hard to reach the end with a dry eye.

And then you should read

Seaguy

The Filth was Morrison’s follow-up to The Invisibles and something of a flip side to the latter’s more positive, rebelling against the status quo attitude. I think it’s a more successful book though it certainly has its detractors. It’s about an average schlub of a man who (re)discovers he’s actually the member of a super-secret organization devoted to maintaining the “status q” known as The Hand. Or maybe he’s a pedophile who’s starting to hallucinate because he can’t handle the fact that his beloved cat is dying. Morrison keeps readers guessing the true nature of the story’s “true” reality all the way up to the end and beyond. It’s one of the writer’s densest, most challenging books to date largely, but a hell of a ride, largely due to the considerable artistic abilities of Chris Weston.

Seaguy and its sequel, the yet-to-be-collected Seaguy: The Slaves of Mickey Eye, is an energetic, dystopian superhero fable dealing with a scuba-outfitted hero who slowly comes to realize the seemingly perfect, amusement-park world he’s living in is a facade hiding lots of nefarious goings-on. It’s a fun, affecting ride, largely abetted by the cheerfully clean styling of Cameron Stewart. Morrison has promised a third and final Seaguy series but as of yet nothing has been announced.

Morrison must have a deep fondness for Oscar Wilde. How else to explain Sebastian O, which re-imagines the author of The Importance of Being Earnest as a witty assassin, wrecking havoc on the establishment that sent him to prison decades ago? It all wraps up a little too quickly, but longtime collaborator Steve Yeowell and Morrison manage to spin a clever and occasionally disquieting steampunk ode to Wilde and his contemporaries as well as giving a fat raspberry to the voices of censorship and repression.

One of Morrison’s most recent Vertigo books is the just-collected Joe the Barbarian, a charming fantasy story about a boy who, in the midst of a diabetic seizure, imagines himself transported to a fantasy kingdom where he is “the chosen one” who can save their world (Notice a pattern here? Morrison’s big on the ability of imagination and fantasy to transform everyday life.) Despite the Vertigo label and seemingly convoluted storyline, this is one of Morrison’s most direct, straightforward works ever and his first and only all-ages styled book to date. He and artist Sean Murphy do such a fine job here that you wonder why he doesn’t try his hand at this type of thing more often.

Though the bulk of his work has been done for DC/Vertigo, Morrison spent some time a decade or so ago at Marvel. The most notable fruit of his labors there was his run on the New X-Men, where he shook up and in some cases completely altered the status quo on the long-standing, convoluted superhero soap opera series, laying lots of established back story to literal waste and giving a hipper sci-fi edge to the proceedings, all while re-emphasizing the adolescent angst that gave the series’ its heart. It all suffers quite a bit from the revolving door of artists that came in to handle various arcs or fill-in issues (Igor Kordey’s best work is certainly not represented here). But still, there are some great ideas at work here and some really stunning sequences, usually involving Frank Quitely (there he is again). The best way to experience the series is probably through the latest three-volume set of omnibuses (omnibi?).

Further reading

Final Crisis

Morrison teamed up with Duncan Fegredo for Kid Eternity, a three-issue prestige-styled mini series that was yet another dark revamping of a long-forgotten superhero character, in this case a boy who could summon classic (and dead) characters from history just by saying the word “Eternity.” Teamed up here with a hapless stand-up comedian, the series is basically Morrison’s take on Dante’s Inferno, as the pair wend their way to hell and back in order to save the Kid’s mentor and possibly the human race. It’s a bit muddled at times, but still entertaining.

Having attempted a convoluted mega-crossover series with Seven Soldiers, Morrison got the chance to try something similar with DC’s A-listers in Final Crisis, one of those super-duper “event” stories that plague superhero comics these days. Morrison basically dares to ask the question “What if Darkseid really won?” and then goes on to explore how the Superman and friends manage to pick up the pieces and restore order and justice to the universe. It’s kind of a mess — the divergent elements don’t cohere very well, part of which may be due to the fact that artist J.G. Jones was replaced early on in the series by a variety of artists, including Doug Mahnke. And I recall being very irritated at figuring out at the end that I needed to read some of the tie-in series in order to figure out what was going on. Still, all that tie-in stuff has been included in the collected edition, so maybe it all reads better in book form.

Morrison first made his name in 1989 with Arkham Asylum, a heavily-hyped standalone graphic novel that teamed him up with a pre-Cages Dave McKean. The book had Batman wending his way through the titular mental institution, combating various villains and Jungian archetypes along the way. At the time (and despite the strong sales) it was derided by some fans as being needlessly convoluted and self-important, but I think it’s held up rather well over time, though it does perhaps take itself a bit too seriously.

Those looking for a more straightforward Batman story should check out Gothic, which was originally serialized in Legends of the Dark Knight. The story, featuring some nice art by Klaus Janson, pits the caped crusader against a seemingly immortal killer named Mr. Whisper who’s secret origins may tie into Wayne’s own personal history. It’s one of Morrison’s most simplest and straightforward stories ever and perfect for those who are just looking for a nice Batman story without all the surreal frou-frou.

If you haven’t guessed yet, Batman is clearly Morrison’s favorite superhero. Or, at any rate, he’s the superhero he’s spent the most time with, having not only done the previous two books but also having written the eponymous Batman series from 2007 to 2010. Here he attempted to incorporate every single aspect of the character’s mythos from the past 70-odd years, from the silly to the profound. Again, it’s hard to fault his ambition, but it’s clear certain artists weren’t on the same page as Morrison or weren’t capable of matching his vision and thus the quality and tone vary wildly. Morrison’s run is collected in Batman and Son, The Black Glove (the best of the bunch, with some great art by J.H. Williams III), The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul (another multi-series crossover Morrison took part in), Batman R.I.P. (where everything comes to a head), and the coda, Time and the Batman, which also re-explains some events from Final Crisis.

Morrison hit the ground running from his Batman run with Batman and Robin, which imagines first Robin Dick Grayson taking over the Batman role in Bruce Wayne’s absence, joined by Wayne’s cocky illegitimate son Damian. This was a deliberate attempt to harken back to the goofy TV show and carefree era of the 60s, while maintaining a bit of menace and gravitas. Overall it’s a more successful run than Batman, though, once again, there are some really awful stumbles depending on who’s handling the artistic chores. You can read the whole thing in  Batman Reborn, Batman vs. Robin and Batman and Robin Must Die!

The whole saga came to a head in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, which found Bruce Wayne traveling through time — here a caveman, there a puritan — but still solving crimes and righting wrongs. Honestly, the whole thing feels a bit perfunctory and is not one of Morrison’s better works.  Much better is the series it led into, Batman Inc., which finds Wayne expanding his superhero empire around the globe. So far that series has been pretty solid and though it’s currently on hiatus, there’s no reason to suspect the quality will dip down once it returns.

Even further reading

Vinanarama

Morrison went Bollywood with Vimanarama, a three-issue mini-series he did with Philip Bond about a nebbishy British Asian man who finds himself battling ancient giant monsters bent on destroying the world as well as juggling various personal crises, most notably his impending arranged marriage. On the whole this is slight and more than a bit silly (deliberately so), but it has a devoted fan base among Morrison devotees.

Along with New X-Men, Morrison worked on the series Marvel Boy with artist J.G. Jones. The short-lived comic featured a surly Kree warrior as its anti-hero, who, after having his ship destroyed and friends killed, felt little love for humanity and was more than happy to carve a giant “F.U.” into the New York landscape, in between battles with a villainous armored millionaire who craves his technology. After X-Men, it’s probably Morrison’s best work at the House of Ideas.

Apart from the X-Men, Morrison didn’t get to handle to many of Marvel’s iconic characters, though he did get to offer his take on the FF with Fantastic Four: 1234. This short, slight story features some nice, moody art by Jae Lee as the Richards family find themselves beset with doubt, with Doctor Doom moves in for the kill. The best part in the whole thing is Sue Storm’s verbal takedown of Doom.

Finally, there’s Skull Kill Krew, which Morrison worked on with Mark Millar and Steve Yeowell. The comic, about a group of misfit anti-heroes hell-bent on destroying the Skrulls hiding in society (and presumably plotting world domination) adopts a cheerfully amoral and anarchistic tone as the group merrily goes about slaughtering aliens left and right (and in the end decimates an entire town). The defiant, tongue-in-cheek attitude isn’t for everyone certainly, but there’s something to be said for a superhero comic that comes off as having an attitude without seeming like a cynical marketing ploy.

Millar and Morrison also collaborated on Aztek the Ultimate Man, an original superhero character blessed with a magic suit of armor and given a quest to save the world from … well, you know the drill. N. Steven Harris’ angular art gives the whole thing an off-kilter, claustrophobic edge, which works to the story’s advantage, considering it takes place in an allegedly “sick city.” Beyond the simple “hero saves world” plot is a nice running commentary on the uber-violent, “dark” superheroes that were all the rage in the 1990s that gives the series a little kick.

Aztec’s final fate is revealed toward the end of Morrison’s run on JLA, better known as Justice League of America to simple souls like myself. Morrison took over the then moribund-title in 1997, attempting both a back to basics approach by bringing in heavy hitters like Superman and Batman and giving the series an epic scale by having them face off against some seemingly staggeringly tough opponents. It was an enormous success and garnered a new group of fans for Morrison that had previously found his work alienating or confusing. In retrospect, however, the series suffers a bit from repetition: each plot involves the JLA facing being painted in a corner, either by a super villain or a universe-shattering event, only to come through at the last possible second. The series was also a slave to the vagaries of various plot threads going on in other books, which can be irritating (Superman’s blue and electric! Now he’s normal again! Wonder Woman’s dead! Now she’s not!). And then there’s Howard Porter’s art, which is serviceable at best. The entire run is collected in four oversize volumes, the fourth of which collects also collects JLA: Earth-2, a stand-alone story where the heroes face evil versions of themselves. It’s far, far better than the bulk of the rest of the JLA material, perhaps due in large part to the fact that — you guessed it — it was drawn by Frank Quitely.

Ancillary materials

Morrison teamed up with Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka for 52, a year-long, weekly series that juggled various plot threads to reveal what was going on in the DC universe after the events of Infinite Crisis. It’s a bit all over the place, but still entertaining. One of the most fun parts is trying to figure out what sections were written by Morrison.

Remember Virgin Comics? At one point they planned a multi-part animated Internet-0nly series based on the classic Indian text the Mahabharata, to be written by Morrison. It all fell apart when Virgin collapsed, but you can read Morrison’s lengthy story pitch and some of his initial scripts in 18 Days, published by Dynamite. The book also features some lavish illustrations by Mukesh Singh that, combined with Morrison’s conceptual ideas, make you wish the project had come to fruition.

An enormous amount of Morrison’s early work, especially his work for 2000AD and other British comic magazines, has yet to be collected in the states, including Big Dave, Bible John and the New Adventures of Hitler. Some of these are available online in various illegal fashions. Probably his most notable early work is Zenith, another epic superhero saga starring a snotty youth who would rather be a pop star than fight crime. It’s a bit too jam-packed, though it settles itself out a bit as it goes on, and you can see a lot of his initial ideas on the superhero genre being laid out here. Eclipse published two volumes of Zenith but those have sadly long since fallen out of print. Supposedly a collected edition will be coming out from 2000AD sometime in the near future but I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting, as Morrison and the publisher have supposedly been at loggerheads about who truly owns the rights to the character.

One early Morrison comic that did get reprinted here in the states was St. Swithin’s Day, which Oni released only to let fall back out of print again. The comic, featuring some lovely art by Paul Grist, follows a sullen teenager who may or may not be plotting to kill Margaret Thatcher (Morrison has gone on record as saying the comic is at least partly autobiographical). The whole thing’s terribly earnest, but sweet in its own way and worth tracking down.

Fans of the classic British TV show The Avengers will want to check out Steed and Mrs. Peel, in which Morrison and Ian Gibson dream up new adventures for the classic spy duo. It’s pretty amusing, but really only if you’re a fan of the source material. BOOM! plans to re-release these comics in January.

Finally there’s Dare, a modern politicalized rethinking of the classic British Dan Dare sci-fi comic done with artist Rian Hughes. As with The Avengers, it helps to be familiar with the source material. Dark but still entertaining, the comic is more of a showcase for Hughes’ considerable talents work than for Morrison’s writing. The story can be found in the Hughes collection Yesterday’s Tomorrows, which is well worth tracking done because Hughes is such a masterful artist.

Avoid

The Mystery Play

Don’t let the subtitle to Supergods fool you. The book is not really about “What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human.” Instead what you get is a rambling, warmed-over, rather problematic (to put it mildly) look at comics history, along with some rather self-aggrandizing reminiscences by Morrison. On the other hand, it is a good place to find out more about a number of events the author has hinted at in various interviews, particularly a transcendental experience he had in Katmandu. More than anything, though, this book was in really bad need of a good editor.

The news that Morrison was going to return to Superman in Action Comics as part of the new DC revamp was heralded by many, but so far the series has proven to be something of a disappointment, feeling tired and rote where it should be vibrant and fun. Perhaps it will improve as it progresses …

Morrison can be a little too “on the nose” sometimes, and that’s absolutely the case with The Mystery Play, a graphic novel team-up with Jon J. Muth that reeks of symbolism and allegory to the point where you want to scream “Enough already.” The story takes place during the modern re-enactment of a medieval mystery play, see, only God gets murdered in the first act. The rest of the book is more of the same painfully obvious allusions that cause the reader (or me at any rate) to wince inwardly when reading them.

That “on the nose” thing also plagues  Kill Your Boyfriend a “youth on the run” comic with Philip Bond that despite its apparent desire to shock and awe seems a bit too overly familiar and annoyingly cute. You don’t necessarily have to “avoid” it but I’d recommend saving it for last.

Next month: Jessica Abel

Occupy Miami

Creators | Sarah Glidden, creator of How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, chronicles her time at Occupy Miami Nov. 15-21 in a sketchbook. [Cartoon Movement]

Creators | Corey Blake follows up on the Bill Mantlo story published by LIfeHealthPro, including some clarifications of issues raised in the story and additional details on various fundraisers over the years to help pay for Mantlo’s care. [Corey Blake]

Creators | Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society Podcast interviews Skullkickers writer Jim Zubkavich about piracy and the Stop Online Piracy Act. [Berkman Center for Internet & Society Podcast]

Creators | Christopher Irving interviews and Seth Kushner photographs creator Alex Ross. [Graphic NYC]

Creators | At the Miami Book Fair, Underwire creator Jennifer Hayden triumphed over an impressive array of novelists and poets to take top honors in the Literary Death Match, a sort of biathlon in which the two events were live readings and a spelling bee. [Knight Arts, via Comics Worth Reading]

Aquaman

Creators | Geoff Johns talks about writing the new Aquaman series, potential appearances by other “aqua” characters and the use of humor in his writing: “I mean, I wanted to make it all about the characters first. When you focus more on character interactions, a character’s humor comes out. I just wanted to make the books a little bit different. If I was just going to write the same books, then it wasn’t going to be a challenge or something new to me. I wanted to look at every book and approach it differently than I would have prior to the relaunch. I think humor is definitely something that there is a time and a place for, and I think humor really grows out of characters. Especially in Justice League when you have all these alpha personalities interacting with one another.” [IGN]

Creators | Hayley Campbell talks to Anders Nilsen about his latest opus, Big Questions, after a comics reading in London that was part of his staggeringly long book tour. [The Comics Journal]

Manga | Jason Thompson has an imaginary dialogue with Shaenon Garrity in order to explain the classic Viz title Midori Days, about a teenage boy whose right arm is mysteriously transformed into a girl who has a crush on him. [Anime News Network]

Commentary | Former Tokyopop editor Tim Beedle revisits the advice he gave aspiring global manga creators back in the day. It’s still pretty solid guidance for anyone who wants to create graphic novels in any style. [Words That Stay]

Zatanna

Comics | As the shine begins to wear off DC’s New 52, Jeff Reid is providing refresher courses on the history of various characters. This week: Zatanna. [iFanboy]

Comics | After hearing about the destruction of the People’s Library at Occupy Wall Street, Sean Kleefeld sent over some of his own books to replenish their collection. Only after he sent off the package did he realize that most of the books were by Frank Miller. [Kleefeld on Comics]

Conventions | John Hogan moderated a panel on graphic novels at the Miami Book Fair, and he came away with an impressive list of recommended reading. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Conventions | Michael Buntag has a report and some reflections on the seventh annual Philippine Komics Convention (Komikon). [Nonsensical Words]

Humor | Dorian Wright presents the Grant Morrison Bingo Card. [(postmodernbarney.com)]

Hiya kids, it’s time for What Are You Reading?, a weekly look into what the Robot 6 crew has been reading lately. Today’s special guest is Thom Zahler, creator of the delightful superhero/romantic comedy comic Love and Capes.

To find out what Thom and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below.

*****

Michael May

Baltimore

I didn’t get to Baltimore: The Plague Ships before Halloween like I’d planned. I had illusions about reading the novel it’s based on first, but I’m slow with prose and the graphic novel was just sitting there on my reading table; taunting me with its gorgeously gruesome Mignola cover and its peg-legged, harpoon-wielding hero. I’m sure that I would have gotten more out of it had I read the novel first, but Mignola and Christopher Golden did a fine job (as they will) of keeping the comic self-contained and filling in enough details to explain the world (an alternate reality in which WWI was cancelled on account of vampire-plague) and What’s Come Before (Lord Henry Baltimore may have sort of caused the whole vampire-plague and is hunting the Vampire-in-Charge for reasons having as much to do with Revenge as Saving the World).

Ben Stenbeck’s art has a great look (he’s got a special gift for fungus-zombies) and in the sketchbook part he explains how closely he worked with Mignola on creature designs. And thanks to Dave Stewart’s colors, The Plague Ships feels very much like part of the Hellboy-verse even though it’s not.

I wasn’t planning to say anything about Justice League #3, because I’m still frustrated by the price tag, but I have to mention how perfectly and succinctly Geoff Johns updated Wonder Woman’s mission for the post-Flashpoint DCU. “This place…is filled with so many wonderful things…but there is also a darkness that lurks here too. One I’m going to fight. That’s what I’m here for. That’s why I’m staying. To fight.” The post-Crisis missionary-of-peace/Amazon-warrior dichotomy never worked for me, but this essentially updates her Golden Age motivation for coming to our world and it’s awesome in its simplicity.

Brigid Alverson

Tesoro

Natsume Ono’s Tesoro is a collection of her short stories that were published between 1998 and 2008. Ono has a lovely, linear drawing style, and we can see it develop from scribbly to more controlled between the earlier and the later stories. Her storytelling technique improved as well. I like Ono’s work because her characters are so human; a lot of manga characters behave in stereotyped ways, almost like little person-bots, but hers have moments of real doubt, awkwardness, and silliness. Several of the stories are set in Italy, as were her manga Gente and Ristorante Paradiso, and others reflect small incidents in everyday life in Japan. The book is beautifully produced with French flaps and earth-toned inks, and it really feels like something special. While genre manga such as Naruto and Vampire Knight will always dominate the American market, it’s nice to see Viz bringing over more literary titles like this one.

It’s well known that Osamu Tezuka was an admirer of Walt Disney, and that shines through in his Princess Knight, which was originally published in 1953. The edition I am reading, published by Vertical, is actually a retelling of the story that Tezuka did in the early 1960s, but the Disney connection is still there; this is a children’s story, and it is filled with adorable animals and cutely rounded angels and villains. The pacing also makes me think of animated cartoons, with lots of short gags and asides. Princess Knight was one of the early shoujo manga that set the style and the conventions for many manga that followed, but it is quite enjoyable in its own right, aside from any historical significance.

Tim O’Shea

Supergirl #3

Supergirl #3: As I settled into the third issue of this series, I realized something I should have realized at the outset of this series. Why did DC set up a new universe where right out of the gates it’s clear that Superman is not the sole survivor of the destruction of Krypton? Why did the new Supergirl have to be so oddly related to Superman, essentially in the same way it was in the old DC universe? I was distracted in the first two issues as the new Supergirl gathered her wits about her. In this third issue, I just found myself bored, feeling like the series has settled into another Supergirl series that will suffer ultimately lackluster sales and tread on the brink of cancellation. But I am getting ahead of myself, for right now, with this issue #3, I realize I have no interest in returning for issue 4.

Blue Beetle #3: Again a new DCU retreading much of the same ground as the last Blue Beetle series. But in this instance, there’s a major difference in that I find myself still interested. And the reason likely is the supporting cast—namely Jamie’s strong family ties. In this issue, writer Tony Bedard allows Jamie’s mom (and her love of her son) to shine through with a really great, intense scene. Also the villains in this round of the Blue Beetle seem a bit more violent than the last one (not an asset, or a detriment, merely an observation).

Captain America #4

Captain America #4: For the first arc of a new Ed Brubaker Captain America title, this plot is sluggish and not engaging at all. What really astounded me in this issue was Steve McNiven’s art; more specifically his portrayal of Sharon Carter in one scene. Worried about the fate of Steve Rogers, McNiven has Carter nervously bite her lip. It would be understood she’d worry about Steve, but to have a longtime, accomplished SHIELD agent and a member of the Secret Avengers bite her lip? The helpless female lip bite is beneath Carter’s character, no matter how much she may care for Rogers. (Plus it shows minimal faith in a guy that just a year or so ago proved he could come back from the friggin dead)

Birds of Prey #3: This new incarnation of the Birds of Prey has little in common with the old one, but to my delight it continues to work for me. Writer Duane Swierczynski does a great job of juggling all of the cast members and giving them little moments to impact the storyline, while still moving it forward and engaging.

Avengers Academy

Avengers Academy #22: I was glad to read writer Christos Gage tweet that the book is not at risk for cancellation (unless the rumors of its cancellation negatively impacts the number of people buying it, then we have the infernal self-fulfilling prophecy), so I can respect his request for folks to pre-order the book. For Quicksilver fans wanting to know if he was ever going to talk to dad (Magneto) in this series, you get your answer in this issue. Clearly Gage had been loading up and looking forward to writing this issue, but in his haste to tackle the meet-up at every single angle, he dropped the ball slightly. I still love the series, do not get me wrong. But when given the chance to unleash a major character reveal, the reaction to the news is muddled and lost amongst the other action ongoing in the issue. It is my hope this reveal has rippling impacts. In the meantime, however, I still consider this the best Avengers book Marvel is publishing.

Thunderbolts #165: Regular WAYR readers will not be surprised. A book written by Jeff Parker? O’Shea loves it. Indeed, but this is an extra enjoyable Parker story (no really), because it is a time travel story. Parker getting to play in 1940s Marvel, with the Invaders is never a bad thing in my book. With this issue, Parker is at his best with the Namor and Satana scenes (though the dialogue and action from Moonstone is a close second).

Thom Zahler

Daredevil

Mark Waid’s Daredevil has been raking in its share of accolades. You now why? It’s fantastic! Everything they say is true. Mark’s writing a comic book in the very best sense of the world: long stories, short stories, overreaching arcs and yet ever 20 page issue is a satisfying chunk. What’s most remarkable to me is how quickly he manages to pivot Daredevil from the bleak character he’s been to a more shiny happy character, and yet it doesn’t feel forced but effortless.

Mark, along with his artists Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin are also finding new ways to show and to use Daredevil’s powers. That’s not an insignificant task for a character who’s been around as long as The Man Without Fear has. They manage to visually illustrate Daredevil’s very non-visual senses in just a stunning way.

Really, I love everything about it. It’s Shakespeare the way it was meant to be seen.

Over at DC, I find myself loving Action Comics. That’s a superhuman feat in itself because the new telling of Superman’s early years is not the one I’ve gotten used to, or even the one I’d prefer. But Grant Morrison is harkening back to the early 30’s rough-and-tumble Superman and carrying me along for the ride. It’s a Superman with a bit of an edge, and if you’d pitched it to me that was I would have turned it down. But it seems to be working.

Grant Morrison has a way of embracing all the varied, and sometimes conflicting, facets of a character. He’s making this book one of the ones I have to read as soon as it comes out. And the art by Rags Morales is just beautiful. That guy must have gone to a good school. (Kubies rule!)

You may have missed it, but Dracula the Unconquered was one of the highlights of Halloween. The other was seeing the Tim Burton exhibition at the LACMA, but that’s not important right now. The book, written by Chris Sims with art by Steve Downer and Josh Krach is the type of comic I want to see more of. I think in complimenting Chris on it, I compared it to a Twix bar. It’s got all sorts of sugary goodness to it, but enough of a solid crunchy core to it that it’s not empty calories.

Dracula the Unconquered

Dracula the Unconquered takes place in 1901 as Dracula is freed from his imprisonment in the Tower of London by nefarious people for nefarious plans. I don’t want to spoil anything more than that. Here’s the thing: it’s an all-ages comic. My goddaughter will love it when I give it to her, and I love it to. It doesn’t make the common all-ages mistake of talking down to its audience. She will like the fun art and the frenetic pace of the story.

Most interesting to me is that Dracula here seems to have the bloody past from the novels, and yet the character is instantly engaging and likable. I’m looking forward to seeing how Chris straddles that line.

Also, the comic is embracing digital only. It’s a 24-page story all for just a dollar! (Listen up Big Two.) It’s the perfect price that you can’t say “no” to, and distributed in a way that wouldn’t be possible years before. I thing digital and print books can co-exist, and I’ going to enjoy seeing Action Age help carve this path.

The Dreamer

Lastly, while I haven’t finished reading it yet, I adore Lora Innes’s The Dreamer, published by IDW. The second collection of Lora’s time-traveling historical romance just came out this week, and so far it’s just as good as the first. Lora writes and draws the book, with colors by Julie Wright.

Lora excels at portraying very grounded, human characters doing grounded, human things. It’s an artist’s compliment, but I envy her ability to portray fashion and fabric in a way which eludes so many of us. Yet, her art is never overwrought and has a Disneylike quality to it. It’s just so… smooth.

It’s also a historical piece and Lora doesn’t skimp on the history. She’s clearly got a love for the American Revolution time period and it shines out of every inch of the book. She doesn’t sacrifice storytelling for accuracy or the other way around either, it’s very much a well-balanced approach. I find myself thinking “I wonder if that really happened” and then, more often than not, find out that it did indeed. It’s great to see someone who cares so much about the accuracy of the world they’re building and the story they’re telling.

The book also exists as a webcomic, too, so give it a look at http://www.thedreamercomic.com/.

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes

It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics. As usual, we’re focusing on graphic novels, collected volumes and first issues so that I don’t have to come up with a new way to say, “ Mouse Guard is still awesome!” every month. And I’ll continue letting Tom and Carla do the heavy lifting in regards to DC and Marvel’s solicitations.

Also, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell me what I missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.

Amulet

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes - With the Flight anthologies done, the all-ages version, Flight Explorer has morphed into this. I expect it to be as lovely as its predecessors and especially like the Mystery Box theme.

Archie

Jinx – J Torres and Rick Burchett’s graphic novel aimed at tween girls.

Kevin Keller, Volume 1 and Kevin Keller #1 – Archie collects the first appearances and mini-series of their major, gay character and also launches his ongoing series.

Ardden

Flash Gordon: Vengeance of Ming – The third volume in Ardden’s Flash Gordon series.

Ferals

Avatar

Ferals #1 – David Lapham writes werewolves.

Atmospherics, Color Edition – Warren Ellis and Ken Meyer’s re-mastered and newly painted story about a woman who’s either a disturbed witness to a UFO attack or a heroin-using serial killer.

Bongo

Simpsons Illustrated #1 – Bongo launches a Best Of series collecting material from various Simpsons titles.

Boom!

Steed and Mrs. Peel #1 – Reprinting Grant Morrison and Ian Gibson’s 1990 Eclipse Comics story of the other Avengers.

Peanuts #1 – Kicking off the regular, monthly series with new stories as well as reprints of Schulz’s Sunday strips.

Campfire

Jungle Book - Campfire’s artwork can often be perfunctory, but I like the whimsy of Amit Tayal’s cover for this one.

Cartoon Books

Bone: Quest for the Spark, Book 2 – The second installment in Tom Sniegoski’s series of novels set in Jeff Smith’s world (with illustrations by Smith himself).

Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand

Dark Horse

Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand #1 – Mike Mignola’s pulp hero returns for a five-issue mini-series.

The Monstermen and Other Scary Stories - I love Gary Gianni’s linework anyway, but I especially dug his Corpus Monstrum/Monstermen stories that appeared for a while as back-up features in Hellboy comics. This volume features Gianni’s tuxedo-wearing, medieval knight fighting zombie cowboys, squid pirates, abominable snowmen, and mustachioed skulls.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – War #1 – I’m pretty much done with the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but if you’re not or are curious about it, Dark Horse is billing this as a major jump-on point to the part that covers the ancient period of the Star Wars galaxy.

Compleat Terminal City - All fourteen issues of Dean Motter and Michael Lark’s retro-scifi/noir series.

Mighty Samson: Judgment - Probably as close as we’re going to get to a Thundarr the Barbarian comic.

King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword #1 – This four-issue mini-series adapts Robert E Howard’s first Conan story.

Dark Horse Presents #8 – Features a BPRD eulogy for Hellboy and a new Tarzan story.

DC

Justice League #5 – Looks like the team’s finally together.

Frankenstein vs. OMAC

Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE #5 and OMAC #5 – As a faithful reader of Jeff Lemire’s Frankenstein, I”m actually kind of excited that this will give me some motivation to check out OMAC, which I’m hearing good things about.

Xombi - The biggest casualty (for me, anyway) of the New 52 gets its collection.

Drawn and Quarterly

Goliath - The David and Goliath story told from Goliath’s viewpoint through the filter of corporate bureaucracy and presented in a lovely, minimalist style.

Dynamite

The Lone Ranger #1 – I tried Dynamite’s first Lone Ranger series, was disappointed that it wanted to stretch the familiar origin story into a multi-issue arc, and immediately dropped it. Assuming that won’t be the case this time – and noticing that it’s written by Ande Parks, whose writing I’ve enjoyed very much on other things – I’m up for another try.

First Second

Olympians, Volume 4: Hades, Lord of the Dead – The latest in George O’Connor’s wonderfully exciting and insightful review of the the most important characters from Greek mythology. Hades has always been a favorite of mine, so I’m especially looking forward to this one.

Silence of Our Friends - “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke is supposed to have originated that quote, but it was driven home for me by Vicente Amorim’s 2008 film, Good about good Germans who were too afraid of the Nazis to assist their Jewish neighbors in WWII. But even that gave me some comfortable, historical and geographical distance from the people and events it was talking about. I expect that Silence of Our Friends, about the civil rights movement in the ’60s, will hit even closer to home.

The Sincerest Form of Parody

Fantagraphics

The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s MAD-Inspired Satirical Comics - I can’t decided if I’m more interested in the historical context of what folks were parodying in the ’50s or just looking at some cool Jack Davis and Kirby art that I’ve never seen before.

Hermes

The Phantom: The Complete Sundays, Volume 1: 1939-1943 – I like daily strips too, but Sunday comics are the best.

Humanoids

Whispers in the Walls – Guillermo del Toro’s co-writer from The Devil’s Backbone goes solo on this tale of horror at a Czechoslovakian children’s hospital in the late ’40s.

IDW

Infestation 2 #1 – Since I’m not a zombie fan, I passed up the first Infestation even while I was loving the idea of connecting all those weird, incongruous universes. This time around it’s Lovecraftian demons, which is not only a more appealing concept to me personally; it also makes a lot of sense from a dimension-crossing standpoint. That something exists tying 30 Days of Night and Dungeons and Dragons together with Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gives me all the joy I’ll ever need.

Danger Girl: The Danger-Sized Treasury Edition - I’ve been wanting to check out Danger Girl for a while now. This collects the first three stories to get me started.

Danger Girl: Revolver

Danger Girl: Revolver #1 – And here’s the new story.

Womanthology: Heroic - The controversial Kickstarter sensation comes to life.

Doctor Who #13 – Occasionally I have to break my rule about only mentioning new series. Josh Fialkov’s taking over Doctor Who for four issues to put the Doctor in 1941 Casablanca is one of those occasions. It starts here.

Steve Canyon, Volume 1: 1947-1948 - I read these stories when Checker published them and was eager for more. Unfortunately, Checker quit, but now Milton Caniff’s globe-trotting pilot is at IDW in a great-looking hardcover.

Image

Fatale #1 – Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ supernatural noir comic has everyone’s mouths watering, including mine. I’d buy it for the “Beauty” cover alone, though the “Beast” one looks cool too.

Prophet #21 – Two of my favorite artists, Brandon Graham and Simon Roy are collaborating on this, with a cover by Marian Churchland. That’s the exact opposite team of whatever I expected from a continuation of a Rob Liefeld book. Seriously: good on Liefeld. I’m also impressed that he’s not just starting the numbering over again with #1. Seems like that would be the obvious thing, especially with the book going in such a new direction, creatively, but it’s because it’s surprising and counter-intuitive that I like it. And it’s not even like he’s cashing in on a milestone issue-number. If my calculations are correct, he’s counting two mini-series (one, ten-issues; the other, nine), a one-shot, and an annual to get to 21. If this is what we can expect from the new Extreme, and apparently it is, my interest is piqued.

Whispers #1 – I find the Luna Brothers interesting enough that a new, supernatural thriller by one of them gets a check-out.

The Intrepids

The Intrepids, Volume 1 - Teens vs mad scientists (and a cyborg bear).

Marvel

Scarlet Spider #1 – The latest spin-off for the Spider-Man franchise.

Amazing Spider-Man #677 and Daredevil #8 – I like a couple of things about this crossover. First, like DC’s Frankenstein/OMAC one, it’s pretty unobtrusive. Second, Mark Waid’s writing both parts of it.

Alpha Flight #8 – SOB! I’ll miss you, Alpha Flight!

Wolverine and X-Men Alpha and Omega #1 – I’d usually feel ungenerous towards a mini-series spin-off of a comic that’s only four issues old, but Brian Wood is writing it and that bears looking into.

X-Men Legacy #260.1 – Christos Gage takes over from Mike Carey. I’m sad to see Carey go, but intrigued to see what Gage has planned. I hear good things about his Avengers Academy.

Daredevil by Mark Waid, Volume 1 - Waid and Paolo Rivera’s critically acclaimed run for trade-waiters.

Moonstone

The Big Book of Kolchak: The Night Stalker – Collects the first seven, long-out-of-print Moonstone Kolchak stories.

Oni

Possessions, Volume 3: Better House Trap - Sadly, it’s only recently that Ray Fawkes’ name has been on my radar. Now that it is, I want to check out his slapstick series about a possessed little girl trying to escape the loving, nurturing environment of the haunted house that traps her.

Wasteland

Wasteland #33 – Oni is celebrating Antony Johnston’s post-apocalyptic series’ going monthly with a $1 kick-off issue. I’ve fallen extremely behind in reading it, but it was one of my favorite comics at the time I decided to trade-wait it.

The Avalon Chronicles, Volume 1: Once in a Blue Moon – I’m a sucker for stories about young people who get transported to magical worlds where they discover things about themselves. Especially ones as nicely drawn as this one.

Papercutz

Monster Mess - Lewis Trondheim’s story of two kids who discover their ability to bring monsters to life (and have them fight each other) just by drawing them.

Putnam

Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian, Volumes 1 and 2 - It’s a cute enough concept, but Michael Rex’s art and Fangbone’s deadly serious expression on the covers are what sells it.

Russ Cochran

Sunday Funnies #1 – This is kind of brilliant. I’ll just let the publisher describe it:  ” A monthly, 32-page, full-size comic section containing historic Sunday pages from as far back as 1895, and including favorites such as Gasoline Alley, Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, and many other classic Sunday pages that you’ve probably never seen before. Each issue … will be a full-size 22″x16″ comic section, containing full page Sunday comics in full color. These pages are coming from the archives of Ohio State University, which, thanks to Bill Blackbeard, has the largest and most comprehensive collection of Sunday comics in existence. The retail price will be $10 and I will be selling subscriptions, 12 monthly issues for $100.” Should go well next to Wednesday Comics collections.

Bettie Page in Danger

SHH

Bettie Page in Danger #1 – Even more brilliant. A fumetti using real Bettie Page photos to tell a story about the pin-up queen’s career fighting zombies, mad scientists, and other naked ladies.

SLG

Sparko – This sounds a little like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere with the Thames replacing London’s Underground. I don’t mean to make that sound like a bad thing. Coming from SLG and including a murder mystery, goth goblins, and a pickpocket named Belle, I trust that it’s not.

Tor

Girl Genius Omnibus, Volume 1: Agatha Awakens – The Hugo-winning, steampunk webcomic gets the deluxe hardcover treatment.

And that’s it for me. What did I miss?

Steel

DC Comics announced today that John Henry Irons will shine up the Steel suit for his big New 52 appearance in Action Comics #4. Steel will also appear in the first eight-page back-up story in Action written by “Grant Morrison’s hand-picked choice,” Sholly Fisch, and drawn by Brad Walker.

“The lead story in Action #4 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales features the debut of the ‘New 52 Steel!” said Will Moss, associate editor, on The Source blog. “Last we saw of John Henry Irons, in Action #2, he had quit his military job in protest over Lex Luthor torturing Superman under General Lane’s command. Now, as the Terminauts lay siege to Metropolis, it’s time for John Henry to put his money where his mouth is and go help Superman defend the city. The backup in #4 ties into the main story by depicting a critical fight between Steel and the brand new Metall-0!”

Back-up tales are also slated for issues #5, #6 and #7. Issue #5 will feature an eight-page tale by Fisch and ChrisCross, starring Ma and Pa Kent. CrhisCross is also drawing the back-up for issue #6, with Walker returning for issue #7. Issue #8 concludes Action‘s first story arc and won’t have a back-up.

“As a bonus, check out this first look at Steel’s armor by Brad Walker (based off a design by Rags Morales)!” Moss said about the above image. “Much in the same way that Superman is wearing jeans and a T-shirt in this current arc, at this point Steel’s armor is in its ‘prototype’ phase. Look for the final design somewhere down the line, but in the meantime, get ready for one heck of a throwdown!”

Google+

Publishing | Marvel and DC Comics are among the first companies to join Google+ as a part of the Google + Pages initiative, along with other early adopters like the WWE, Angry Birds, The Muppets and Pepsi. Companies that initially joined Google+ back when it first launched had their accounts shut down as Google worked on “building a similarly optimized business experience for Google+” like they had for individuals. Google+ Pages launched yesterday. [The Source, Marvel.com]

Creators | Cartoonist Susie Cagle shares her account of being arrested last week during Occupy Oakland. [AlterNet]

Digital | Digital comics distributor iVerse Media has received a $4 million private-equity investment for the expansion of marketing and product development for its Comics+ app. [TechCrunch]

Comics | They can’t call it The Avengers, because, well, you know, but BOOM! Studios is reprinting the Eclipse series Steed and Mrs. Peel, written by Grant Morrison. The original miniseries, which ran in the early 1990s, comprised three issues, but BOOM! will be splitting it into six, priced at $3.99 each. [Multiversity Comics]

Resurrection Man #3

Creators | Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning discuss their work on DC’s Resurrection Man. [USA Today]

Creators | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson and Anime News Network reporter Crystal Hodgkins interview Hiro Mashima, creator of the whimsical shonen manga Fairy Tail. [MTV Geek]

Retailers | Chris Sims tours the Marvel Retailer Resource Center, saying that it is “a neat idea with a lot of potential that could easily help retailers, with a few major bugs that still need to be fixed.” [ComicsAlliance]

Comics | Super Itch shows off some vintage issues of Stan Lee and Stan Goldberg’s teen comic Kathy the Teenage Tornado. [Super Itch]

Scene | Kevin Czap reports in on the comics scene in Cleveland, hometown to such legendary creators as Harvey Pekar, Bill Watterson, and Brian Michael Bendis, as well as a fresh crop of young artists and writers. [The Comics Journal]

Conventions | Margaret O’Connell takes the long view in her report on New York Comic Con, giving a good overall view of this year’s con and its evolution during its short life. [Sequential Tart]

Justice League #2

Comics | John Jackson Miller slices and dices the October numbers for the direct market, noting that overall dollar orders for comic books, trade paperbacks, and magazines topped $40 million for the first time since September 2009. Orders rose 6.9 percent over September, the first month of DC’s relaunch. “While that may sound counter-intuitive, it isn’t when you consider that all those first issues continued to have reorders selling through October,” Miller writes. “Retailers with an eye on the aftermarket may also have some sense that second issues are historically under-ordered — something which goes at least back to the experience of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #2 in the 1980s, which wound up being much more valuable than its first issue.” [The Comichron]

Passings | Tom Spurgeon reports that author Les Daniels has passed away. Daniels wrote horror fiction and nonfiction books on the comic industry, which include Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics and DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes. [The Comics Reporter]

Action Comics #2

Creators | Grant Morrison talks about coming back to Superman after his work on the character in All-Star Superman: “After I‘d done that story, it was kind of the end of Superman’s life, and I was interested in going back to the roots of the character, and his social and political roots, and maybe doing a take that dealt with him as a young man, but I didn’t really have any plans for that until Dan [DiDio] came over and then when he gave me the opportunity, and he said that they were willing to even change the continuity, and to let some new ideas and energy into it, it seemed perfect for that.” [CNN Geek Out]

Creators | Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang discuss their work on the relaunched Wonder Woman and her recently revealed new daddy.”If you went to the average person on the street and showed them a picture of Wonder Woman they would recognize her immediately,” Chiang said. “Ask those people her origin story and some of them might know the clay story but many, many others would not know that at all. That’s not a problem you have with Superman or Batman; everyone knows their origin. By making her the daughter of Zeus, we’ve gotten a big driving force behind our story. It gives her a motivation and it’s a key to character that we now feel is very important. She’s a child of the gods who defends us from them, in the same way that Superman is from another planet trying to save humanity and Batman is the orphan who is protecting us from the criminals who killed his parents.” [Hero Complex]

Creators | The student-run Observer reports on a lecture given by Notre Dame alum and Marvel editor Bill Rosemann: “The comic books industry is many fields coming together at once. It’s never been just about art. Instead, it’s this glorious American collision of art, commerce and history.” [Observer]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #3

Creators | Andrew Chambliss discusses his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 and Dollhouse. [TFAW]

Creators | Ian Flynn talks about his approach to writing the New Crusaders, the Red Circle reboot due from Archie Comics due next year: “The Red Circle characters are brimming with untapped potential. We’ve seen how other super hero properties have grown and matured from their silly, sometimes zany origins into the blockbusters they are today. The Red Circle heroes are no different. They have powers, desires and stories that can be fascinating when run through today’s filter of modern sensibilities. Everything is so wild and free, it’ll be a lot of fun to make it all work in one coherent world.” [ComicsAlliance]

Conventions | Dave Roman reports in from Quai des Bulles, the second-largest comics convention in France. [The Beat]

Manga | Deb Aoki talks to Hikaru Sasahara, the CEO of Digital Manga Publishing, about his company’s acquisition of Yaoi-Con and the progress of the Digital Manga Guild, their experiment in online publication using amateur translators and editors. [About.com]

Review | Jocelyne Allen reviews Adam Hines’s Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One, which won the Lynd Ward graphic novel prize earlier this year. [Brain Vs Book]

Awards | Irish Comics News appears to have only been around for a few months, but they have already given their first awards, which were based on a popular vote. And here’s a nice touch: The award for Best Mainstream Published Irish Writer went to Garth Ennis, who won by a single vote—and that vote was cast by another nominee, Nick Roche. [Irish Comics News]