Death Star Canteen: The Lego Dramatization
Jun 05Probably some of you have seen this already. I’ve watched and treasured the Izzard bit by itself, but it is somehow made even more brilliant by this amazing Lego dramatization. (EDIT: The user who posted this, Thorn2200, has a bunch more Lego/Izzard vids. Check ’em out!)
IFC comics doc starts tomorrow
Jun 05The fluffy TV Guide writing style aside, the 10 part documentary, Ink: Alter Egos Exposed, looks like some good viewing. The fact that we’ll be hearing from people like Gail Simone and Bendis suggests strongly that this isn’t going to a goofy, aren’t-comic-nerds-weird throw-away. Actually, the having ten parts is also a pretty clear hint that this is a serious undertaking. Can’t wait to see it!
Four-Color Critiques #5: This Column…ADVANTAGEOUS!
Jun 03I recently spent the better part of a weekend trapped deep in the bowels of my ancestral home in South Holland, IL, helping my parents clean their basement in preparation for a move.
This involved a couple things: I inhaled whole spoonfuls of mold and dust, I disposed of stacks upon stacks of Choose Your Own Adventure books and college mixtapes, and I sorted the last of my teenage comic book collection into two “keep” boxes and two “ditch” boxes.
Boy, was that a trip down memory lane. I came up in the speculator era; my most enthusiastic reading period was from about 1989 to 1994, or from age 13 to 18. This is the exact target age group for marketing ploys like “HOLY SHIT THIS COVER GLOWS IN THE DARK AND IF YOU SCRATCH OFF GHOST RIDER’S FACE MAYBE YOU’LL SEE JESUS OR TOM DEFALCO.”
Which means I found piles of quadruple and quintuple copies of many, MANY comics. I even somehow bought doubles of random issues in the midst of runs–like I have two copies of stray issues of Detective Comics, out of nowhere. Did Wizard tip me off that these would be “hawt” comics, or did I just buy them on accident? Who knows?
Spider-Man 1 was published in 1990 with something like fifty thousand slightly different covers, all of which I purchased, and some of them multiple times. As of this writing, I own three different versions; I’m keeping one, and consigning the rest to the dustbin of history.
The early issues of that Spider-Man title define the nineties’ EVENT COMIC. Written and drawn by Todd McFarlane, the debut issue of what was at the time the FIFTH Spider-Man book quickly became the highest-selling single issue of all time. As I understand it, X-Men 1 would come along just a year later and shatter that record.
I decided to sit down and re-read Spider-Man 1-5, or “Torment,” McFarlane’s first arc as writer-artist on the book, mostly because these comics exist in my mind more as EVENTS than artistic product. It’s one of those things where everyone somehow collectively decides, “Okay, we don’t give a shit if this is any good; we just all LIKE IT A LOT, and we will BUY A LOT OF IT. Hooray.” (Or more accurately, some shadow council of old white men sit in a semi-lit room and determine what we will like, and then commit massive resources of money and manpower at MAKING us like those things.)
But really now, are these comics truly the nadir of the speculator era’s emphasis on style and outrageousness over substance?
Probably. Damn, though, if they weren’t kinda fun to read.
