While the World Burns... even Morrison doesn't think this mode is sustainable

A frog in a pot will not notice when the heat around them begins to rise, and will get cooked alive.

I'll be honest with you, in a lot of ways I think this describes the bizarre culture that's grown up around comics and its resistance to facing down the hard numbers of the state of the industry.  Nathan C. today forwarded me an article from Rolling Stone in which comics writer Grant Morrison, arguably one of the more successful and definitely one of the smartest guys in comics, talks more bluntly than I can recall seeing from in an interview.

Morrison is making the rounds promoting his book Supergods (my copy shipped today from Amazon), and perhaps he's a bit tired out or punchy from too many interviews, but its the first I've seen of Morrison not being asked to play shaman and reinforce our own mystical beliefs in superheroes.  Instead, Hiatt asks Morrison some straight up questions about the flagging American comics industry, and Morrison answers from his own script rather than from the cheerleading script, no doubt his employers would prefer.

DC is relaunching its entire line – is there some desperation there?There's always going to be a bit of that because comics sales are so low, people are willing to try anything these days. It's just plummeting. It's really bad from month to month. May was the first time in a long time that no comic sold over 100,000 copies, so there's a decline.

So guess who just met comics scribe Mark Waid while seeing Captain America?

Wow! Fun night.

Me and Pal Kevin headed up north, had a lovely dinner and then ran over to the Gateway theater where Austin Books hosted a screening of Captain America with the Austin Chronicle. In attendance: Mark Waid.

Firstly, I am a big fan of Mark Waid's work on Flash, Captain America, Kingdom Come, Irredeemable and a whole lot of other books and characters. Secondly, of Marvel's roster of characters, Captain America is one of my three favorites (with Spidey and maybe Rocket Raccoon).

Waid (left) puts up with the unruly Austinites

So, this was kind of a big deal for me. Oh, and I also won a hat by answering a trivia question.

I actually had all the books that ABC had brought with them to purchase and get signed (like I said, I'm a Mark Waid fan), so I thought - ah, heck.  Why not?

yeah, I made him sign the hat, too

Mark Waid will be at Austin Books on Saturday from 4-7pm, if you have a chance to stop by.

My review of Cap is coming, but (spoilers) - I loved that thing.

A Brief Hiatus - Back Next Monday

Hi all!

At the risk of losing readership (both of you.  What up, Simon!), I'm going on hiatus for a week.

We sometimes go through these bits of manic writing, and when we come down from them, we need a break.  You probably would like a break from me, too, unless you were one of our many usual readers who started their break yesterday by avoiding reading Monday's post (and many of you did.  Probably all for the best.).

I bought a copy of this print a while back from artist Jill Thompson.

There is nothing I do not like about this picture.

While I'm away, I'll have Ms. Thompson's rendition of Wonder Woman watch over you, if that's okay.  She already took care of the Gorgon problem we had in the conservatory here at League HQ.


Anyhoo... we'll see you guys next Monday.   Of course the usual caveats about breaking news, etc... apply.

You guys watch out for each other, take care, and don't take any wooden nickels.

Signal Watch Reads: Power Lunch (by J. Torres and Dean Trippe)

Power Lunch
First Course
by J. Torres & Dean Trippe
lettered by Ed Brisson
designed by Keith Wood
edited by James Lucas Jones

So, one tough thing about running a comics blog is that sometimes we are asked to preview materials and write a review.  And sometimes we read something and we try to be as fair as possible, even when we know that the item we're reviewing isn't something we'd normally read because of genre, topic, etc...  or worse, sometimes its something we didn't like.

I'm happy to say that I just don't have that problem here in any way, shape or form. I just straight up dug this fun, well written, well designed/ drawn all-ages book. 

Here's that interview with Doug Mahnke I did a couple weeks ago at Austin Books

for more great videos from Austin Books and Comics, visit ABC's YouTube page/ channel/ internet page that makes with the tv pictures.

"Power Lunch" coming from J.Torres and Dean Trippe!

I don't know if you went to Free Comic Book Day this year, or if you picked up the All-Ages offering from Oni Press, but you should have done both.

Oni Press has been killing it recently with books I've loved like Stumptown (modern detective noir) and Sixth Gun (western/ horror/ fantasy).  And, of course, they're the publishers of Scott Pilgrim.  They've also put out Frenemy of the State, which is co-created by Rashida Jones, who I will now pause to consider while Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" plays in my head.

Watching every motion in my foolish lover's game...

And we're back.

Right. POWER LUNCH.

So, the Oni Press FCBD offering gave a preview of what's to come in an upcoming 40 page book about a young boy who gains amazing super powers based upon whatever he last had to eat (except for white foods. Which is pretty clever.)

Written by J.Torres, who has done lots of stuff I've liked (but especially Days Like This),and drawn by the indomitable Dean Trippe, Power Lunch looks to be a promising book that those of us in the room who dig all-ages stuff, and for the parents out there, I think this one is going to be a lot of fun.

Now, I happen to know Dean Trippe and I share a love of old school Superman shenanigans, and just today I tweeted J. Torres to find out when the book is actually hitting the shelves.  He said:

Volume 1: First Course, full color, 40-page hardcover hits comic shops on October 12! Everywhere else October 25.

 And then followed later with:

By the way, the first volume of #PowerLunch has a Superman theme to it.

I think Mr. Torres may have seen my site.  Or my Krypto-themed Twitter icon.  But I thought I'd also share a preview image by Dean Trippe to give you a feel for how this thing is going to look, and my early clue that Trippe and Torres might be working in some Superman theming.

So, yes.

Anyway, look for it this October!

Comics Legend and Great Gene Colan Merges with the Infinite

Artist Gene Colan did so much exceptional work over so many years, its hard to believe it was one guy.  He was also always much beloved within the industry.

I won't spend too much time eulogizing, but I will point you to this post pulling together thoughts from those working in comics, and this one from the AV Club which discusses Gene's career.

When I think of Gene, I think Marvel, which is funny because I know he did stuff all over the place.  But he's in there with Buscema, Romita, etc..  one of the people who created modern comics. 

We'll miss you, Mr. Colan. 

Here's a link to Mr. Colan's official site.

Kickstart a Horror Movie - become a producer, just like that!

Philly based comic guy Johnny Zito is trying to get his indie horror film Alpha Girls up and running. And I think you people can help.  But, no, you won't get a producer credit, so forget that dream right now.

Learn about the movie here or watch this video:



If you've never heard of Kickstarter, its a web-based service that helps artists crowd-fund their projects. Probably the most famous of these projects was the Robocop Statue that we all decided was a great idea for the city of Detroit.

If you'd like to Kickstart a movie and try your hand at being listed as a supporter/ producer/ whatever... sign up here.

Berkeley Breathed art on "Mars Needs Moms"

I am a fan of cartoonist Berkeley Breathed. His strip, Bloom County, was a favorite when I was hitting an age when I was scanning the page for more than just Slylock Fox, and I still enjoy the occasional Bloom County collection.

A while back, I picked up Breathed's children's book Mars Needs Moms, and it was a fun read, if a bit off-beat for a story aimed at kids. And then I heard it was being adapted to a feature film by Robert "I Sucked the Soul Out of The Polar Express" Zemeckis.

The thing is - Breathed's character style and sentiment is distinctly Breathed's. And, somewhat shockingly, unlike Polar Express, Zemeckis didn't seem to feel any attachment to Breathed's artistic style.

Its hard to really explain that Breathed's character design is part of the story, and so abandoning that design for the movie's humanoid, motion-capture friendly designs....  missing the point.

Look, Breathed's story may be a little scary for kids: its about a kid who sees his mom getting kidnapped by aliens after he's decided his mom is mean during a typical kid/ parent spat.  But the point of the story is to teach kids about sacrifice and explain to them exactly how much their parents love them.  Frankly, its not a bad thing to share with kids, and nobody is going to walk away scarred from either a picture book or movie about the depths of a parent's love.  Its called putting a conflict into a story.

Breathed's Mars Needs Moms is a slim picturebook, light on text and full of imaginative imagery.  Simply covering that scaffolding in typical "family movie" hoo-hah is going to do little but distract from and muddle a pretty straightforward story, and the only time I've seen it truly work was with Where the Wild Things Are.    Unfortunately we all know studios have a certainly saccharine version of reality they deal with when putting together family films, and it may be that adding spunky teenage Martians or whatever the hell the movie chose to do from the Hollywood Plot-o-Tron merely diluted the film to a nonsensical mess.

I'd guess Zemeckis and Co.'s insistence on the motion-capture technology took precedence over the exaggerated and intentionally absurd visual style that's been Breathed's trademark since his days on The Academia Waltz.  Trying to make the characters move and look "lifelike" was never the intention of Breathed's style, and its hard to imagine exactly why a decision was made to stray from what would have been a pretty unique and fun adaptation of Breathed's work.

I'm hoping to read Breathed's reaction in The Hollywood Reporter, even if I have my doubts that we'd get the full story or what it feels like to watch your much-loved book turned into something completely different on the screen and then watch that movie flop.  Or... we might.

I guess if there's any point to this post, its that a massive flop of a movie shouldn't reflect poorly on the source material, especially if the source is more or less ignored in favor of whatever the heck the producers feel is more fun to play around with.

Chris Onstad offers the reason for the multi-month hiatus on "Achewood"

This should probably get posted at our links sister site, but I'm posting it here.  Chris Onstad, sole creator and creative force behind the popular online strip, Achewood, has offered up a bit of an explanation as to why the series slowed to a drip and then went on hiatus, which seemed to start in earnest last October.

You can read his explanation here.

Some will say Onstad owed no explanation, but I'm not sure that's accurate. We can make a guess as to what happened and theorize, but part of having an audience does, in fact, mean that one has a responsibility to at least let people know what's happening.   Not knowing is a bit like if your waiter goes back in the kitchen and never returns (I actually did have that happen once, and its totally freaky.  I waited half an hour before flagging down another waiter and figuring out what happened.  Apparently my waiter's shift was over and he forgot he'd never closed out the tab at table 5.)

Achewood's tone and poise is not set to the same audience as that of "Marmaduke"

Onstad's response is more than adequate, but will confuse the howling masses who have been trained to expect their every whim to be catered to if they believe a penny can be made from such a whim.

His explanation is, by the way, basically:  I got burnt out.  It's been ten years, and with all the stuff associated with that sort of production, maintaining quality and challenging myself became a bit of a drag.  And the constant two-way feed of communication with the public seemed to be getting him down.

In some small way, I can relate on an infinitely smaller scale.  When I shut down League of Melbotis for several months and brought it back up under The Signal Watch, it was the best thing I could have done for myself and for my willingness to continue blogging.  Those months away retrained me that I was more than the work I did to get paid and a race each evening to post lest my readership numbers dwindle (for which I did not get paid).

Back in the blogging day, we attempted a sort of collaborative pop-culture blogging experiment called "Nanostalgia" that didn't really get off the tarmac before we settled gently back into the sea and I found myself on a metaphorical yellow rubber raft paddling back to shore and unnecessarily eating the ration packs.  But at that site I did a column about how hard it was going to be for webcomics because they aren't set up with all the niceties of the corporate structure, and its all on the shoulders of the single creator.  And that meant, man, you'd best be ready to give over your life to nigh-daily content production.

That all got a tough response from a webcomic guru, but six years later, I can see I was mostly right.  Making money and getting support is hard to begin with.  And once you do self-build that empire, its not unlike being successful at, say, owning a hardware store that becomes the size of a box store.  Suddenly you have all these new duties that aren't just "man, I have to get the new hammers out for the spring hammering season".  You got staff, deals to close, etc...  and its a much bigger thing than selling bolts or whatever reason you got into the hardware business to begin with.

And, I think, people do not get into the business of comics to feel like they're on an assembly line, cranking out comics that meet exactly the same criteria every panel, every episode lest the readership get nervous when the artist tries something new.

And, in my own small way, I wrestled a bit with the expectations of the readership, as it were.  I have enjoyed the freedom of the sandbox that I've staked out as The Signal Watch, and in many ways, its easier having a much smaller readership of friends, family, strange Canadians, etc...  who aren't much more invested than sort of checking in and do not think of the content as a product to be delivered to their RSS feed daily.  And while it had little to do with why I quit (however briefly), man...  its much easier to get the "hey, is everything okay?  You haven't posted in a while" emails than the "where are you?  what's your problem?" comments showing up because you decided to do something else for three or four days.  And I never had to deal with the entitlement of a readership that one could see in the sprawling comment sections beneath each and every strip.

I hope Onstad finds his way out of whatever creative qicksand he's been caught in.  I salute the guy.  He created a fantastic strip for about a decade, producing hundreds of times better content in that time than some strips that run 365 days a year, have hit every day for decades and have become the ugly, comfy slippers of the newspaper strip world.  I'll be sure to try to follow him wherever he goes, and I am certain that whatever he does next will be better than even Achewood die-hards would expect.

"The Rack" is Back?

Looks like our friends at webcomic The Rack might not have shut down after all, and that they may have just been on break.  Good news!

You may recall we eulogized the abrupt end to the series here a few weeks back.

Looks like the characters are set up in a new shop with a new focus.  Now may be a great time to jump on board.

Welcome back, Church and Birdie!

Dwayne McDuffie RIP

I am completely shocked and cannot believe the reports, but it seems that television and comics writer Dwayne McDuffie has passed.

Details are sketchy, but reports are appearing in comics media that McDuffie has died the same week that his animated adaptation of All Star Superman was hitting wide release on home video. 

Since I learned of his past and current work in the mid00's, I've felt that McDuffie was an extraordinary talent.  He was only middle-aged, at best, and I was unaware of any health issues McDuffie may have suffered. 

he was the creator of the Milestone imprint and a key contributor to that universe, his most famous creation likely was Static (aka:  Static Shock).  I absolutely loved his work on the superlative Justice League Unlimited, his run on JLA when editorial wasn't mucking about, and other bits of his work.

I am very deeply saddened to hear this news. 

Animated Superman Fan Film is Huge Retro Fun

You'll note I broke the borders of the blog to show this video.  I thought it was totally worth it.

CanadianSimon sent along the link to this video, and I highly recommend you give it a whirl.  It includes the cartoon, plus a quick behind the scenes. 

I don't know director Robb Pratt from the online Superman world, but it seems that he completely "gets" the Golden Age of Superman and what made the character fun, and he's obviously a fan.  If you have a couple of minutes, give the video a whirl (and then hope WB notices the cartoon, because it would be great to see WB consider this style for a show).



Also, bonus points to Pratt for landing John Newton from the Superboy TV show. His voice totally works (which shouldn't be a surprise)b.

If you've never seen "The Mechanical Monsters", the inspiration for this cartoon, I recommend you check it out.

Article on Austinite Chris Roberson - the guy taking over writing duties on Superman!

Chris Roberson is taking over writing duties on Superman comics with issue 707.  The issue comes out next week on Wednesday.

Roberson is a local Austinite, and, I have from very reliable sources in the Austin comic community, a HUGE Superman fan.  There's an article on Roberson in our local paper, The Statesman.

Roberson will be signing his issue at Austin Books on 1/12/2011 from 4-7.  Yes, I am definitely going.

Why I think Roberson is the right guy for the job?

From the article:

"The standard knock on Superman is that he is so powerful, what can you give him to do that is interesting?" Roberson said. "Well, that's the writer's job — give him something to do. If he's having to stop muggers, it's going to get old fast. If he's having to travel outside of space and time and sing a certain note to restart the universe, that is really cool to me."

me, too, man.

The Power of Muscle Mystery!

DC will finally reprint Flex Mentallo, a mid-90's Morrison/ Quitely collaboration.  

I haven't read this series since 1996.  Color me excited.

Read about Flex here.

Vertigo, DC's comic line aimed at not-kids, kept me in comics during the crucial period of high school and college when I might have walked away from the medium.  Shade, Sandman, Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Kid Eternity, Sandman Mystery Theatre (an undervalued and terrific book)...  I didn't get into Animal Man or Morrison's Doom Patrol until far, far later.  But I got to know Grant Morrison via The Invisibles,but his JLA and my growing interest in Superman brought me back to the DCU (with no small help from Waid and Ross's Kingdom Come).  Flex was a part of that, but its been forever since I read this series.

Mentallo first appeared in Doom Patrol before the mini-series hit.  Mentallo is loosely based upon the old ads for Charles Atlas, with a huge helping of Morrison.  The series is most famous now for the law-suit tossed at DC by the Charles Atlas Corporation.

Anyway, good news!

RIP: Irvin Kershner Merges with the Infinite

iO9 reports that Irvin Kershner, Lucas mentor and director of The Empire Strikes Back (the best of all Star Wars-related media) has passed in LA. He was 87.

here.

Grant Morrison talks Superman, etc...

Not a ton of new info here, but a good interview.



Thanks to Ransom for the link!

JH Williams Continuing Batwoman

I loved Greg Rucka and JH Williams' Batwoman run in Detective Comics. And so did, it seem, everybody. But Rucka really wanted to get back to his own books, and so we've had some downtime here, but it looks like JH Williams is picking up where he and Rucka left off with Batwoman in her own title.

Click for the full sized image.


You know, this guy is trying really hard to be my first response when people ask me about my favorite artist.

If you're one of the folks enjoying Batwoman, I highly recommend picking up Promethea, which was written by Alan Moore and ran from about 1998 to the mid 00's. It was widely underappreciated and, I'd argue, misunderstood at the time of its release, but was always worth it just for the visuals.

Harvey Pekar Merges with the Infinite

I was telling some folks earlier today that I was surprised that I had a moment when I read the headline.

Comics great Harvey Pekar has passed.

But, then, it kind of makes sense that, even as casual a reader as myself, might feel they knew Pekar little. To read Harvey's comics (most of which existed under the title American Splendor) was to get to know at least some version of the man. The comics were vastly autobiographical, honest, and unflinching. Sometimes funny, sometimes not, sometimes tough to read when Pekar shared his day-to-day, especially in Our Cancer Year.

If you haven't read American Splendor comics, pick up a collection or two, and if you aren't going to do that, then, for the love of God, rent the movie. The movie is actually just really, really good and stars Paul Giammti in most scenes, but it includes interview footage with Pekar, his family and the folks around him.

For a guy who outwardly seemed gruff and likely a little tough to deal with, its a bit surprising that the man more or less pioneered autobiographical comics, something that's become a huge staple of the indie comics and web comics scene. And, not to bag on anyone's efforts, Pekar is still largely unmatched. He wasn't enamored with making himself seem clever, or his life seem hip (good Lord, no), but he did like to catch the details of the everyday in a way authors, documentarians and Pekar's fellow cartoonists could only dream about.

That's a tough thing to do, and to keep it as honest as Harvey did, even through chemo and all the rest... kind of amazing.



Oddly, Harvey was never the artist of his own comics, but to work with Harvey who had started his work with R. Crumb, became a sort of thing. And to capture what Harvey was trying to put into his comics seemed to be a challenge artists wanted to rise to.

In his last few years I think Harvey enjoyed a little boost in personal fame and popularity. I'm not sure how much it helped with what seemed to be his anxiety over finances, etc... but I hope he came to see that there was a large audience out there that loved his work.

So long, Harvey. Thanks for changing comics.

I can only hope that you've got access to your record collection wherever you are.

Tpull Moves On from Comic Fodder

I want to take a minute to note the conclusion of Tpull's run as Head of Writing About Comics over at Film/Comic Fodder.

You can read his farewell column here.

He cites the best reasons I think one can hang it up: he is recently married. His wife is someone he wants to spend time with. I tip my hat.

Travis is a professional writer, so it was a pleasure when he joined up at Comic Fodder back when I was cranking out columns at that site circa 2007. When work and life got to be a bit much and I had to bid Comic Fodder farewell, he not only took the job of primary blogger, he greatly improved the content of the site, producing up to four comic review columns per week, covering a dozen or more comics.

On top of that, Travis wrote great columns and think-pieces on a weekly basis.

People, I don't know if you've ever tried to run a comic blog, but that is no mean feat.

One of the greatest things about Travis's columns stemmed from his absolute love of comics. That enthusiasm buoyed his approach, keeping him from taking the easiest of all routes for reviewers: the negative spiral.

The easiest thing in the world to do is to criticize. If you don't believe me, its because you're likely slow, and lack the critical thinking skills necessary to ponder such an idea, you nitwit.

Travis' reviews looked for the good and bad, managed to skirt much company or even genre bias, and were always a much better yard marker for the actual quality of a comic than 99% of the rest of the reviews out there on any given day. Add in Travis' greater understanding of the content of a comic than darn near any reviews at the more trafficked sites, his ability to analyze stories, writers, artists, etc... I don't know if it was his natural talent or a concerted effort that kept his reviews from playing the "it all stinks" card that so many other reviewers don't just give in to, but some have made a name for themselves by gnashing their teeth, but he was consistently fair and always provided insight.

I'm going to miss those columns.

On the other side of it: in his farewell column, Travis mentioned the joy of returning to reading comics without having to wear his critic's hat. I can empathize. Reading comics, in particular superhero adventures, shouldn't be a task to check off, and I've been down that particular path myself. I think Travis did better than myself at managing to avoid ever getting too bogged down with the responsibility of the schedule, but I am glad that he can close the comic and not have to worry about turning on his laptop.

Vaya con dios, TPull columns. You'll be missed. But I wish the best for you and Mrs. TPull.

Up, up and away.