TL; DR: The New 52 - This Reader's One Year Later

In September of last year, DC Comics relaunched their line of comics for the first time since Crisis on Infinite Earths back in 1986.  In general, comics fans my age grew up considering Crisis to be a necessary step in the evolution of superhero comics and enable them to reach a wider and more adult audience.

The relaunch of 1986 gave DC Comics a chance to give their intellectual property a fresh start where they felt necessary (ie: Superman and Wonder Woman), and continue telling the stories about their characters that didn't seem to need a rejiggering (Batman).

What nobody ever really talks about is that:  DC spent more than the next two decades trying to fix all the messes they'd created in their half-baked relaunch effort.  The gaps in planning and execution led to numerous attempts at editorial clean-up and we were treated to numerous in-narrative attempts to "fix" the problem, from Zero Hour to Infinite Crisis and, finally, to Flashpoint with dozens of other hiccups along the way.  In short, after 20-odd years of fixing the problems created by the reboot, DC had more or less reset their universe to very much reflect the DCU that existed prior to the "necessary" change.

My initial response last June on seeing the information that DC planned another relaunch - which I read on my phone in the back of a crowded ballroom at a conference I was supposed to be managing - was absolute surprise.

In 2007, I was reading over two dozen different DC Comics titles, and, of course, other titles, too... but DC was my bread and butter.  I firmly believed that Infinite Crisis - leading into 52 and One Year Later (DC's linewide narrative jump forward a year) were going to be well executed, well realized attempts to finally merge the old, Pre-Crisis DC with the current DC, and we had a chance to enter into a new golden age at DC.  For a long, long time I had believed that DC was working on a mega-narrative intended to pull together a DCU that kept the history of the company intact in its entirety, merging Pre and Post Crisis continuities and celebrating the 75 years of publication history.

I have no idea if DC ever rolled out the promised additional characters in the sidebars.  I do know Wonder Woman is no longer in leggings.

Nope.  They were sort-of scrapping the work and works of the past 7.5 decades in order to draw in an audience that had been daunted by DC's history and the internet chatter about how confusing DC had become (that was, at best, half true), and a lot of misconceptions about DC's stable of characters.

I don't know exactly how soon it hit me, but the realization slowly sunk in that, at age 36, I had just passed out of the 18-34 demographic in a final and unceremonious fashion.  DC Comics was happy to have had my money (a LOT of my money) the past few years - but they were going to do something else now.

Over the years I've had email chatter with a few older and former readers of comics, and I watch folks at the comic shop.  I was aware that there is some point many, many comics readers hit where they hang up their guns and declare themselves done with the characters and worlds they loved - at least in trying to keep up in the Wednesday shopper fashion that the Big 2 cater to.  I'd see these older guys on comment threads, sighing and saying "it's been ten years since I picked up a new comic, and this is why I don't miss it", and sometime about four or five years ago I went from writing them off as old, grumpy men to know that this was an inevitability of the hobby.  Something made all of these people move on.

The Comics Haul 8.22.2012 (and bonus note on TV's "Toy Hunter")

I made it to the comic shop this week and didn't exactly break myself trying to grab new books.

• Prophet has been getting a lot of good buzz, including from Signal Watch favorite writer Chris Roberson.  The trade was inexpensive and the descriptions I'd read on the Image website were interesting, so I'm giving the trade a try.
• Superman: At Earth's End is an Elseworlds special from a long while back.  I wasn't really seeking this out on purpose, but I've been meaning to read it for years.  It's pretty well liked, I understand and I came across it while doing some routine browsing of the Super-books at ABC.
• The Ring of the Nibelung is actually volume 2, and I haven't read volume 1, which is listing for quite a bit on Amazon.  I saw this on the shelf a while back and told myself on a light week I'd pick it up so I wouldn't need to watch the price on Volume 2 go up as well*.  But I won't read it until, of course, I've secured Volume 1 and watched the entirety of the Ring Cycle operas.
• Batman Incorporated 3 was supposed to come out the week after the release of Dark Knight Rises, but apparently has some material that seemed insensitive in the wake of the Colorado movie theater shootings.  I don't mind the delay in the slightest.
• Superman 12 is possibly my last issue of the current run on this title.  I am buying so I don't have a hole in my collection, and even writer Dan Jurgens is distancing himself from his work on this book right now thanks to all the editorial interference that's reportedly occurring at DC at the moment - and which is leading to top name books like this feeling like they were put together by nitwits.
• Supreme 66 continues the story by Erik Larsen that's okay, but not at the height of what Alan Moore was doing on this many, many years ago.

I didn't pick up the 50th Anniversary issue of Spider-Man like I planned to as it was kind of expensive.  New Rocketeer I will read in trade format.  I almost bought Captain America and Namor, but that will be cheaper in trade, and I'm doing just fine with Cap in trades now, anyway.


BONUS Content:

Toy Hunters, a new show on Destination America, came to our own Austin, TX this week.  The host visited Wonko's Toys in North Austin, a private collector of all sorts of toys and the fellow who runs Planet Superhero and lives just south of town, Tim Gardner.

I once met Tim randomly while at Wal-Mart.  He was savvy enough to spot a guy looking at some toys and asked about my interests and I explained I was mostly a Superman fan and we had a very nice chat about his website and collection.  He puts whatever I've got to shame.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the show, unfortunately.

1.  The host kept referring to a Super Powers toy from the 1980's as the vehicle of "Dark-Seed" as he was referring to Darkseid (pronounced "Dark Side" - as was made clear by the cartoon promoting the very vehicle he was buying had made clear).    He must have said "Dark-Seed" 20 times.  Total bush league, rookie mistake.
2.  The idea is that this guy goes around the country buying things from people and then sells them for a higher price at auctions in New Jersey.  This has absolutely nothing to do with the model of how vintage toys are bought and sold in today's market - but showing people clicking on eBay listings isn't good television, I suppose.  What was most vexing was watching the folks he was visiting basically take the same price for the goods they'd give someone off the street, not what they'd sell the item for themselves.  Tim and the guy from Wonko's Toys in North Austin are professionals - and this guy sort of made them look like chumps out in the sticks who can't figure out how to sell their own stuff.
3.  Yes, its Texas.  But Wonko's is located in a suburban strip mall in a developed and fairly well-to-do part of town.  The Country Bear Jamboree music made it sound like they were about to take a canoe ride in Deliverance territory.
4.  Do not explain to The Superman Expert anything about Superman.  It makes you look like an idiot.  I don't care if it IS for the cameras and people at home.  It's as awkward as when people find out I like Superman and try to explain to me that the first Superman comic is worth a whole lot of money.

The host is sort of an uncharismatic pill who uses that weird diction of anyone coached for talking about what they're doing for a reality show, and, frankly, the program needs a hell of a lot of polish.  They should try acknowledging something about the expertise of the people they're buying from, and maybe make it about what this guy can learn about the toys, the history of the toys and why they're valuable to someone rather than pretending he's the all-seeing oracle of toy value - something anyone with an internet connection can look up on eBay.



*last time I waited too long to pick up a book, I missed Torpedo Volume 1 and have just watched the cost rise and rise on Amazon as its also out of print and now in the hands of a different market.

"Read Comics in Public Day" - a celebration of something or other

On August 28th the comics interwebs is once again asking comics readers to take to the streets for what is now an annual event called "Read Comics in Public Day".

To be clear, "Read Comics in Public Day" is pretty stupid.

I'm sorry.  Look, I know that's not a nice thing to say, but....

A few years ago some folks online decided that the reason why comics aren't more popular is because, by gum, you don't see enough comic nerds conspicuously sitting at Starbucks for hours reading a comic book.  Or at the park.  Or on a bus.  Or, probably, you know, lounging awesomely under a statue like that one in the plaza at the strip mall with the fountain that might make a cool picture for facebook or tumblr.

So... why?  Why is this even happening?  As near as I can tell, the purported reason for folks to take to the streets with comics is "promotion of comics".

these kids were reading comics in public before it was cool

The thinking went:  If more people were seen out in public reading comics, the whole entirety of what's wrong with a market that requires people spend $4 on 5-10 minutes of entertainment, that requires finding out-of-the-way shops in run down strip malls and understanding 20 years of back stories and, on top of that, often requires a byzantine pre-ordering structure...  All the financial woes of the industry would evaporate - if  only the masses saw a 20-something sitting on a bench outside the ice cream shoppe reading Ghost World or The Flash.

Yup, the problem is that nobody has seen you, you special snowflakes, reading comics.  In public.

There's kind of a curious logic to the idea that maybe doing this .3% of the year is not kind of pointless - especially given the limited number of attendees and that the sole criteria is that you appear "in public".  Why not send everyone to, say, the local library?  Starbucks?  Something that might make this newsworthy or even noticeable?  Strength in numbers?  Something for the cameras?  Why not, say, alert the media?

It's also a tradition born from the assumption that most people don't just mind their own damn business and that people actually look at what other people are reading.  Or, maybe, assumes that the person actively reading will somehow generate enough charisma by showing up "in public" that the casual passer-by will, of course, want to know what such an iconoclast is reading.

The Oddly Life Affirming Superman Toy

Saturday I had to go to Target to buy a new telephone.  Not a smartphone, just a $15 thing to plug into the wall.*  Whilst at the Target, I stumbled upon the latest Superman toy from Fischer-Price:

Hero World™ DC Super Friends™ VOICE COMM™ Superman™

The name your 3 year old is sure to share with you accurately as you head into the toy section.

I'm out of the action figure game unless its a Superman toy.   Despite the odd paint and plastic, this still qualifies as Superman, so I picked it up and looked at it, and this fellow, intended for kids 3-8, has kind of a weird, kid-friendly sculpt and a bunch of voice related features.   Basically, he's got some sort of chip and I guess he can interact with other figures in the line and it all seems a bit more complicated/ compelling than pulling a string and hearing the same phrase repeated over and over about a barnyard animal.

Neat enough.  But I was pleased to hear was what actually came out of Superman's mouth, so to speak.

"Why did I make these chains out of kryptonite?  OWWWWW!!!!"

This Superman doesn't talk about punching anybody or breaking things.  He's pretty much all about helping folks (quickly) and seems a bit alarmed about Lex Luthor and General Zod's whereabouts.  But, mostly, making declarative statements about leaping into action to help out at some specific emergencies and some less specific.

I like this.  It's a proactive Superman who isn't trying to teach kids 3-8 about dark vengeance or grim justice or some such.  It seems like it should be okay for superheroes to be as much about saving the day (our Superman toy blurts: "There's a truck in trouble!") as clobbering other action figures, but a lot of superhero toys don't seem designed that way.

The Comics Haul: 8.15.2012

So this is what I picked up after 2 weeks away from the shop.

2 issues of Atomic Robo (ongoing series and a mini), Popeye ongoing #1, a Daredevil Annual, Saga #6, the new Allred project - which is an old Allred project, It Girl!  I have no idea what It Girl! will be about, but I'm betting that at least I'll like the art.

And I came across Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #30 in pretty iffy condition, but it's a book I've been lacking from my Jimmy Olsen collection and one of my favorite Jimmy covers, so there you go.

The Phantom Eagle I picked up on a whim, but it's a Marvel war book from the 60's-era Marvel and obviously meant to grab some of that sweet, sweet Enemy Ace money.  Several years ago Garth Ennis used the character in his book War is Hell: First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.  I hadn't thought much about the character since, but the cover jumped out at me and I figured it was a good addition to my aviation comics.

Yes, I sort of buy and collect military aviation comics.

Shut up.

I also put a few sheckles down on my lay-away copy of Action Comics 101, a comic that I will one day actually have in my home.

Digitally, I've picked up the one-shot Busiek and Lieber comic, Thoughts on a Winter Morning, published here by MonkeyBrain Comics.   It's a lovely slice-of-life story, and makes you wonder what else Busiek would be writing about if he walked away from superheroes and whatnot for a bit.  It's a nice meditation on time and perspective, and uses the medium of comics beautifully.  At least, it seemed so on my laptop on guided view.

Joe Kubert Merges with The Infinite

Comics legend Joe Kubert has reportedly passed.

I point you to the obit run at The Onion AV club, as it's a pretty damned good summary of Kubert's bio and will hopefully explain to those of you who don't follow comics who the man was and how he stood in the pantheon of comics heroes.

Kubert was at DC Comics for most of his career, first arriving in 1943 and holding positions as a writer, editor and artist, depending on where the winds blew.  Today's fans like myself are mostly familiar with his co-creations like Sgt. Rock, or his own creation, Tor and the stunning artistry he brought to the page.  Where Kirby was volcanic energy in need of an outlet, Kubert was an illustrative master capturing the world-weary faces of Easy Company, battle-worn soldiers of Earth and beyond, but a master of perspective and detail.

...and I like his Iris West.

Happy 25th Anniversary in Comics, Mr. Waid

Mark Waid has been one of my favorite creators in comics for a while now, but I was a little slow on the uptake.  I still haven't read his run on Flash excepts for partial excerpts.  I haven't picked up all of his terrific volume of work.

I was alerted by the headline at Comics Alliance that we're celebrating 25 years of Mark Waid working in comics.

Let The Signal Watch not be remiss in saluting this tremendously talented and influential voice in the comics medium.

Last summer Mr. Waid came to Austin on the dime of Austin Books and Comics to host a screening of Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger.  He was terrifically gracious with us stuttering fanboys and the few sentences that he shared both at the movie - and the next day when he signed some of my favorite Waid-penned books - were sort of my own equivalent of meeting a rock star and it actually living up to what you'd hope.

Of late, like other terrific friendly-rock-star-story creator Chris Roberson and MonkeyBrain Comics, Waid's been exploring digital comics with his Thrillbent digital imprint and the terrific Insufferable.

But, as much as that, Waid is doing the thing the best writers seem to do as he gets older...  he just keeps getting better.  It's absolutely stunning to check out his work and see how well he handles different genres, characters, etc...  and how each resonates.

Anyway, look up Waid's work.

A few recommendations:

• Irredeemable
• Incorruptible
• Insufferable
• Potter's Field
• Kingdom Come
• 52
• Superman: Birthright
• Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty
• Here Comes Daredevil
• Empire
• Fantastic Four
• Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes

Gleiberman's article in EW on Pop Culture and The Dissipation of Empathy

NathanC posted a link to an Owen Gleiberman editorial on the Entertainment Weekly website in which Gleiberman, a longtime film critic/ reviewer for EW discusses his perceptions of the obsessions of pop culture and how they come back in mutated form in incidents like the one in Aurora, Colorado.

It's not a huge secret around our house that I don't hold Gleiberman's taste in very high regard, and you can pretty much count on his befuddlement when it comes to genre pictures (Jamie has had a subscription to EW since around 1995, so we've had opportunity to discuss the man's writing).

I won't say I don't echo some of Gleiberman's thoughts, but the more I thought about the article and it's constant accusations, backtracking on the accusations with a "I'm just saying" statement - the more I found it a bit disturbing.

I encourage you to pop over and read the article on your own.  It's free.

Let me clear the decks first and roll my eyes at Gleiberman's creeping assertions about fanboy culture and his ability to finally have a way to express his discomfort with the phenomena.  Exasperation with sci-fi/ comics/ fantasy and the culture around them has been an ongoing theme in his reviews for a decade.  He basically is both aware of and flustered by the fact that these people will not listen to reason when he can demonstrably prove his favorite Meryl Streep movie is of more value than Serenity.  So, in a way, I'm not all that surprised by the path he goes down here.  I'm more surprised that he bothered to point out so many other examples of media-influenced killers, basically only identified Holmes, and went on with the charge of associating fan culture with a breeding ground for mass killers.

That said, his definition of "fanboy" extends to "pretty much anybody with an obsessive interest in a bit of media".  Of course, he mentions local nightmare Charles Whitman in making the case, a person with no particular interest linked to any media, but who also killed a lot of people.  He dismisses the long history of disturbing, mass or serial killings (Devil in the White City, Lizzy Borden, the fact that modern police work, a lack of records and immediate communication meant people just used to disappear and nobody noticed, etc... et al....  anybody?  anybody?) believing that only Jack the Ripper ever got more than one person before 1950.

Odd Moment of Realization of How Badly DC is Handling Themselves At the Moment - courtesy, Randy

So, Randy IM's me:

Hey, did you hear they're making a Guardians of the Galaxy movie?  With Rocket Raccoon?

And I wrote back about how I was excited, even though I hadn't loved the comic, but the movie might give the neat idea a second lease on life.

Then, about three minutes later I realized:

Rocket Raccoon will get a feature film before Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, or any of DC's other staple players.  


Rocket Raccoon.

Look, I LOVE Rocket Raccoon as a concept, and I loved his early appearances.  I read all that mid-00's Marvel cosmic stuff til I got bored at some point during some cross-over or other and noticed I wasn't really missing the series.  That, and having your cast just standing around glowering isn't characterization.  Just saying.*

Batman ain't got nothin' on Rocket Raccoon

But, man...  Despite Marvel's fairly well mapped ability to turn themselves into a brand and studio, DC just simply cannot get their act together enough to simply copy Marvel.  Even the comments at Comic-Con from WB employees read basically as "if Superman fails, we're done".  Now, they didn't say that exactly, but there's no bold plan on the table at DCE or WB.  It's all conservative number crunching - and the problem with that is that there's no magic formula for making a blockbuster.  Instead, you wind up with a paint-by-the-numbers movie like Green Lantern that's greatest weakness was the utter predictability and 90's checkbox storytelling mentality of the movie.  Every decision was a "safe" one, from casting the supposedly bankable Ryan Reynolds to the pat telling of the origin to casting Angela Bassett as Amanda Waller.  

In the end, the movie arrived as a lifeless husk.

And the hiring of Zack "I did comic movies before!" Snyder for Superman?  WB wears their risk aversion on their sleeve.

The fact is, Marvel has put out more duds than big wins, but the big wins help build the brand so you'll at least give their flicks a chance.  And they've been willing to do some interesting hiring, from Sam Raimi to the Crank guys on the latest Ghost Rider (wait, Ghost Rider has had two movies and Shazam has had none?), and all that means they're constantly mixing up the formula to get new blood and excited talent in there.

Anyway, if you told 14-year-old-me that I'd be looking at a Rocket Raccoon movie in 2014, I would have burned you for a witch.

*I went to high school in North Houston.  I associate standing around glowering with drunk red necks sizing me up to see if I'm some uppity city folk they might need to learn a few things

Book Watch: SuperGods by Grant Morrison

In some ways, I feel like I could send the dozen or so regular readers of this site a copy of SuperGods by Grant Morrison and call it a day with The Signal Watch.

The basic breakdown of the book is equal parts comic book history and Grant Morrison's personal journey and how it associated with comics, eventually becoming his career, which, he reports, is fairly lucrative.  If you read your fair share of comics history and Grant Morrison interviews (and I do), then there's not a whole lot new in the pages, but what Morrison manages to do is what he does so often in the comics he writes: takes an existing idea and takes it on a new journey with a new thesis statement.

The bits of bio about Morrison are what's been reported in comics press: working class Scottish upbringing, hippie anti-nuke parents, punk-era-living under Thatcher, bands, a really vocal attachment to his cats (man, I hear you), early comics he's still talking about, etc...  And if you've read your David Hajdu, Lee Daniels and Gerard Jones, the comics history stuff is mostly known.  However, it's interesting to hear about it through Morrison's filter, what grabbed him as a kid, what grabbed him as a young man, and as a guy at the tipping front end of Generation X (I consider myself the last, dying gasp of the X'ers before Y came along assuming the internet was a foregone conclusion), how we looks at Miller and Moore's books in relation to the industry.  And, of course, he gets to talk a bit about the guys he works with who have been making comics history for the past two decades and more.  

Columbus (Ohio) Day, Comic-Con Stuff and a few words on Music

Columbus, Ohio

Tomorrow I present in front of a bunch of folks from a consortium of libraries here in sunny Columbus, Ohio.  The trip had been rumored since I was in Boston, but I didn't get confirmation that they actually wanted me here until last week.  With the mad scramble to get paperwork done during a holiday week, it wasn't really all locked down til Tuesday that I was actually going.  

So here I sit in a Springhill Suites in Columbus, Ohio.  I've seen only two slivers of the town.  The route I came in on and then the route I took to a nearby comics shoppe, something I like to do when I'm a-travelling.  I have to give a thumbs-up to Laughing Ogre Comics, not just for the great name of the shop (it sounds like they really want to open a pub where people can play RPG's with no fear of wedgies), but to their shop itself, which was professional, friendly, well-stocked and well laid out.  If in Columbus, we recommend.

You Can Never Take Nolan's Superboy with Balloons Tattoo Away From Me

I had a pretty good couple of weeks.  While I feel badly that Jamie is currently suffering from allergies, I wrapped up my week by visiting the newly relaunched Austin Books Sidekick Store and then having a burger and beers with recent Houston-to-Austin transplant and high school pal Marshall, and, of course, Paul.  Turns out Marshall took a position at the place Paul already worked, so we're all chumming around.

I really dig the cast of characters at Austin Books and Comics, but I honestly can't remember the last time I saw Nolan around.  He's a swell fellow, and we share a mutual admiration for Superman, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane back issues.

But Nolan has taken it up a notch.  Maybe all the way to 11.

I saw a couple of Super-feet poking out from beneath his sleeve and asked to his his ink.

He produced this:

On the Announcement of MonkeyBrain Comics and the New Digital Model

You guys will have to forgive me.  My brain has been on vacation mode for several days, so while I was able to participate in the MonkeyBrain Comics kick-off press call (I KNOW.  Look at me all acting like a legitimate news source.), I was unable to muster an intelligent question during the MonkeyBrain Q&A.

The basic idea behind MonkeyBrain is as follows:

MonkeyBrain will be your middleman and promotions arm if you're a creator-owned comic that wants to start off in the digital world.  That said, this isn't for just any schmo off the street to submit their work.  MonkeyBrain is Chris Roberson and Allison Baker's effort to develop a direct-to-digital channel for creator-owned work.  It sounds like a non-exclusive, digital-print-rights contract that will enable creators to show up on Comixology on Wednesdays alongside players like DC, Marvel, IDW, and more.

You can read the press release here.

In short, it seems Team Roberson/ Baker looked at what was going on and saw a way to support independent creators by creating a channel for them to get into the same "newsstand" as the big boys.

The effort is the logical outcome of the past several years of (a) the big players not adjusting their model to take advantage of the ability for distribution of chancier works the internet truly provided (b) the infinite newsstand of the internet - but placing the comics where they'll be seen.

MonkeyBrain Comics is GO!

MONKEYBRAIN AND COMIXOLOGY ANNOUNCE EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTION AGGREEMENT FOR

MONKEYBRAIN’S NEW LINE OF INDEPENDENT CREATOR-OWNED COMICS

CELEBRATE INDEPENDENTS DAY!

New York Times Bestselling Author Chris Roberson to Head Up New Comic Book Publishing Imprint with Co-Publisher Allison Baker

July 2nd, 2012 – Portland, OR / New York, NY — New York Times bestselling comic book creator Chris Roberson is celebrating “Independents Day” a little differently than others this year as he and co-publisher Allison Baker launch MonkeyBrain Comics, with a slate of creator-owned titles from some of the top names in the field.  MonkeyBrain Comics will debut digitally first on comiXology — the revolutionary digital comics platform with over 75 million comic and graphic novel downloads to date —through a exclusive distribution agreement between the two companies.

Joining New York Times bestselling author Chris Roberson (iZombie, Memorial, Cinderella) under the Monkeybrain Comics umbrella with their own independent titles will be a who’s who line up of creators, including; Grace Allison, Nick Brokenshire, J. Bone, Chad Bowers, Wook-Jin Clark, Colleen Coover, Kevin Church, Dennis Culver, Matt Digges, Ming Doyle, Curt O. Franklin, Ken Garing, Chris Haley, David Hahn, Phil Hester, Joe Keatinge, D.J. Kirkbride, Adam Knave, Axel Medellin, Jennifer L. Meyer, Michael Montenat, Ananth Panagariya, Thomas Perkins, Adam Rosenlund, Chris Schweitzer, Brandon Seifert, Chris Sims, Matthew Dow Smith, Paul Tobin, J. Torres, Josh Williamson and Bill Willingham, among others.

More creative teams with new titles will be announced next week at Comic-Con International during the Monkeybrain Comics panel on Friday, July 13^th at 7PM.

“MonkeyBrain Comics was born out of a desire to directly explore what opportunities there were in the newly expanding digital marketplace for creator owned material,” said Chris Roberson, co-publisher of Monkeybrain Comics. “We knew from the get go that we’d want to work exclusively with comiXology, who have become the undisputed leader in the digital comics field with their platforms’ unparalleled reading and shopping experience. And we’re pleased to have so many of our close creator friends along for the ride. I can’t wait to see what fans around the world think about our first batch of releases!”

“We’re excited to be the exclusive digital home of MonkeyBrain Comics,” says co-founder and CEO David Steinberger. “ComiXology’s mission is to get comics into the hands of people everywhere and we look forward to doing just that with Chris and Allison’s stellar line of creator owned comics!”

Available exclusively worldwide via comiXology’s digital platform across the iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire and the Web starting July 4^th, the initial Monkey Brain Launch titles are:

Aesop’s Ark by J. Torres and Jennifer L. Meyer

Amelia Cole and the Unknown World by Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire

Bandette by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover

Edison Rex by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver

October Girl by Matthew Dow Smith

MonkeyBrain Comics is a new comics imprint of Roberson and Baker’s long-running publishing company MonkeyBrain Books. Over the past decade, MonkeyBrain Books has published a line of prose novels by authors such as Phillip Jose Farmer, Michael Moorcock, Rudy Rucker, Paul Cornell and genre collections edited by such notables as Joe R. Lansdale, Lou Anders and others.

Launching their first titles on July 4^th with the slogan “Independents Day” exclusively on the comiXology digital platform, Monkeybrain Comics are currently exploring following up their digital releases with trade paperback collections.

About Monkeybrain Books and Comics

Owned and operated by Chris Roberson and Allison Baker since 2001, Monkeybrain Books was originally founded as an independent press specializing in science fiction & fantasy and nonfiction genre studies. Print titles from Monkeybrain Books are distributed to the book trade by National Book Network, and are available from wholesalers like Diamond Comic Distributors, Baker & Taylor, and Ingram, and from finer booksellers everywhere. In 2012, Monkeybrain launched a new creator-owned digital comics line, Monkeybrain Comics, which is distributed exclusively digitally by comiXology.

About Chris Roberson and Allison Baker

New York Times bestselling writer Chris Roberson is best known for his Eisner-nominated ongoing comic book series iZombie (co-created with artist Mike Allred), his modern fantasy series Memorial (co-created with artist Rich Ellis), the Fables spinoff Cinderella mini-series, and his work onSuperman, Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes, and Elric: The Balance Lost, all of which are available for digital download at http://cmxl.gy/CRoberson. His favorite food is meat, he’s allergic to wheat, and his favorite cocktail is a caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil.

Allison Baker has worked in feature film and political media production for over 13 years, while also managing the day-to-day operations of Chris Roberson and Monkeybrain Books. She likes the color pink, enjoys a challenge, fixing things, and is allergic to being bored.

Chris and Allison met at a Ben Folds Five show in 1997, got married in 2000, started their own business in 2001 and had a baby girl in 2004. All three currently live in Portland, Oregon with a lot of books and their two cats, Bubbles and Blue.

About comiXology

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Signal Watch Watches: Superman vs. The Elite (2012)

The latest release from DC Animation's feature group is an adaptation of the Joe Kelly penned, Doug Mahnke penciled issue of Superman, #775, actually somewhat known by the issue's tile of "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way".


For simplicity's sake, the movie has been retitled Superman vs. The Elite, more or less letting the casual observer that this was Superman in a super fight against a bunch of punky superheroes and that they're in for big Superman fights, if that's what they're looking for.  

Too much background

At the time of the release of the original story in the comics (a single, double-length issue), for a number of years Superman had been dwindling within the DC Universe as a featured player.  In an era of trying to make superheroes "realistic", the idea of a guy with incredible super powers, a flying dog and who disguised himself with a pair of glasses didn't fit with what the aging fans of comics, guys who were into Schwarzenegger movies, saw as the proper mode for an action hero.  The sort of Roy Rogers take on Superman that had been his primary mode of existence wasn't working very well for an audience that was turning to Reservoir Dogs as it's idea of an action film.

TL; DR: On Willing Suspension of Disbelief, John Carter of Mars, Superheroes and Sci-Fi

I was reading a post at The Onion AV Club offering a reconsideration of this spring's commercial disaster, John Carter, and a single statement stuck out at me.

On the run, Kitsch ends up encountering a Thern in a cave and is teleported to Mars. (I’m sorry, I mean Barsoom).

And with that, I had to re-evaluate everything else in the article.


Rightfully, elsewhere in the article the reviewer points to the pulp roots of the movie, that it was a film that perhaps reflected a different era not just of writing sci-fi (or, as it was called, "Planetary Romance" before "scientifiction" had been coined, which, of course, became "science fiction") but of film making.  Sure, I'm onboard with "not the right place on teh spacetime continuum for this movie, and not the right marketing"


But what struck me was the curiously quasi-anglo-centric/ xenophobic/ concrete thinking that belies so much of why sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, etc... have such a hard time with an adult audience.  In short, I'm guessing this same author wouldn't have phrased it as "Kitsch end up encountering a Man in a cave and is teleported to Japan. (I'm sorry, I mean Nippon)." 

Superman Bio and Interview on NPR's "Fresh Air"

The word you're searching for when pondering this image is "awesome".

I spent the evening listening to Terry Gross's excellent interview of Larry Tye, who has written a sort of biography of Superman and the character's history across multiple mediums.  Thanks to Nathan and others for the link (Nathan alerted me to the interview bright and early).

It may be some time before I read the book.

Not to sound super-snooty, but I spend a lot of time reading about Superman, and have done so for quite a while.  All this fandom means that on top of the hundreds and thousands of Superman comics I've enjoyed, I've also read multiple histories of Superman - the media property, and check in daily with The Superman Homepage (an amazingly thorough web resource).  I've also read more than one comics history that used Superman as its fulcrum*.  I have seen all the Superman movies multiple times, watched every episode of the the 1950's TV series, watched the Ben Affleck movie about George Reeves, watched the Superboy TV series in small bits, have watched Lois and Clark, watched most of Smallville, listened to episodes of the radio show, watched the original movie serials, the 40's cartoon, the 60's cartoon, the 80's cartoon and the 90's cartoon.  Am hoping for a new cartoon in 2013.

In short, there's very little in the way of new information for me in the way of Superman.  Which is why I may actually read the thing.  It's always great to find out something new and interesting.  I confess to being a little concerned with the usual trotting out of Superman as stand-in religious figure.  It seems like a post-facto reading of the actual Superman comics until maybe the late 60's or early 70's, so you're talking 30 years of initial stories that I don't think really suggest any conscious parallels, but, whatever.  It doesn't mean the character isn't heavy with cultural fingerprints.

I still have a few Superman novels to read (both by Elliot S! Maggin), and there's plenty to know and learn about the upcoming Superman movie.  But I'm also not averse to checking out Tye's book at some point.  I still genuinely enjoy Superman fandom, and I'm not letting a little New 52 reboot get in my way on that front. After 75 years, its just a small patch in the middle of everything else.

Yes, I wrestle with what's happened with the Siegel estate, but I have hope that both the law and justice will prevail, and we'll see a sound resolution to the ownership of the character, publishing rights, copyright and trademark, and everything else that's not in the comics, but which has driven the comics for the past year, all shake out and disappear into the background.

We can hope.

Give the interview a listen.  It's a nice, brief overview of some of the highlights of Superman's history and the folks who've been involved with the character.


* check out Men of Tomorrow.  It's an amazing book, and sometimes I think I'm the only one who has read it.

Dan Didio, you mad, beautiful genius

Not that I'm paying much attention at the moment, but DC cancelled another handful of titles with plans to replace them with, in a Direct Market populated solely by comics readers from whom their is no alternative audience, ideas just about as promising as the books that they're cutting.

On the chopping block:
Captain Atom - a conspicuously Dr. Manhattanish take on Captain Atom, the character Alan Moore was riffing on when he created Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen.
Resurrection Man - a book that was never that popular back in the 90's, so why 2011 was the time to relaunch, what with nobody asking for it...
Voodoo - I forget the exact provenance of this book, but it was never DC and part of some other line at some point and was about a stripper alien?  Maybe?  I wasn't clear, but...  they fired the character's creator off the book and put on someone who actually understood the character or something... Nobody read this.  It's all moot now, I guess.
Justice League International - a book that was intended to build off the good will garnered over 5 years of great Justice League stories that don't exist...  Here's your whole problem with the "5 year leap" thing DC was trying to do with the New 52.  Dan Didio couldn't clap enough to make everyone believe that we weren't totally rebooting the DCU.

but now you can get:
Talon - well, I can't argue that a major event should generate a new character.  I haven't read one issue of Court of Owls, so this is lost on me.
Phantom Stranger - some characters just work better in the background as mysterious figures or in mini series.  Phantom Stranger and The Spectre are at the top of this list.
Sword of Sorcery - I predict a very small, very vocal group of fans who will complain about the right treatment of Amethyst, which is an hilarious thing to do.  This book will never see 2014.
Team Seven - it seems impossible to have cooked up a more generic idea, even in light of the failure of Blackhawks.  But somehow... a book featuring too many characters that nobody cares about wearing post John Byrne armor in gray and carrying silly looking weapons seems like the ur-New 52 book, so I think this may take off.

But that's not what made me slap my forehead.