i'm just sayin'...the dark knight was better

I saw Watchmen yesterday, and I'll be short about it. It was as good and as faithful an adaptation as a fan of the original story could possibly hope for. For those of you out there, who think that Alan Moore should justifiably be shaking his many-ringed fists in the air and screaming drug-addled obscenities to the heavens, I have two examples of how it could have been worse. Hilarious examples:


"Will you sign my copy of Watchmen Babies?"

Or, instead of a pretty faithful feature-length film, it could have been optioned into the kind of toy-pimping cartoon I grew up watching.



In short, it was enjoyable and carried a pretty fair amount of the themes and events from the comic. Oh, and it had blue wangs all over it. Lots of blue wangs.

UPDATE: Slate has a few other ways this thing could have ended up mangled, depending on which directors could have gotten the job. The Judd Apatow one is dead on and hilarious.

funnybook of last week: New Avengers #50

Well, the ending to issue #49 and the cover to this issue seemed to promise a big, fat showdown between the New Avengers and the brand new Dark Avengers. Did it deliver that?



Nope. But what we did get was a great look at how Norman Osborn's Dark Reign in the Marvel Universe is going to work. What we did get was Clint Barton going after Osborn through the media in a pretty rockin' monologue. What we did get was Bendis extending a middle finger to his many critics who claim there isn't a difference between the voices he gives characters. What we did get was a pretty epic throwdown between the New Avengers and a different squad. What we did get, was the funnybook of the week.

funnybooks of the two weeks prior to this one: The Walking Dead #56 & What If? Spider-Man: Back in Black

So, on the day that new books for this week should be coming out (they won't until Friday, but if you were chomping at the bit for me to get this out you already knew that), I give you my picks for the previous two weeks. Shall we?



I will continue to repeat this until you get tired of it. Zombie movies, zombie comics, zombie pretty much anything are all at their best when they're about the people who have to live through it more than the hows and whys of the zombies or even the danger those zombies present. I said zombies a lot there. Zombies.

With The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman shows that he not only knows this, but thrives on the idea. This is a crazy drama about real people doing real things in a messed up world. The zombies are window dressing, this is a dramatic book that deals with the consequences of living in constant horror.



So a What If? book goes like this: a landmark story from Marvel Comics' history is retold with one detail having been changed, therefore taking the story in a different direction. When this was a regular series, many people would read across the top (for example: "What If the Fantastic Four all had the same powers?" and reply to the comic "everyone dies."

Because that's kind of what happened in most of them. As such, the What If? series is usually a story darker in tone than most mainstream capes & tights comics. This issue, though, which explores what would have happened if the bullet that hit Aunt May (and caused Spider-Man to make a deal with the devil) had instead hit and instantly killed Mary Jane. The result is raw emotion from Peter Parker juxtaposed amazingly against the cold Kingpin and the "by-the-book" Iron Man. And, oh goodness, is it dark.

Peter crosses a few lines, causes some trouble, and goes all Dolemite at one particular moment. Most What If? stories wrap up in one issue, but when next year's batch comes out, I'd like to see where else a Parker that has made these choices and landed in that situation can land. Make it happen, Marvel.

would you really trust me to write a book about a teenage girl?

While anyone who particularly cares already knows about this*, I still wanted to give my industry outsider opinion on the cancellation of DC's Minx line of comic books. Minx was an imprint that produced comics aimed directly at teenage girls, supposedly inspired by the success of manga and a few other books like Persepolis among a demographic that remains unreachable when it comes to big-time, American-based funnybook publishers.

Given the clueless approach taken towards the creation of this line, I'm not surprised to see that it's been scrapped. The story at Comic Book Resources gives this line:

Multiple sources close to the situation agree...that this development should be seen as a depressing indication that a market for alternative young adult comics does not exist in the capacity to support an initiative of this kind, if at all.

I disagree. I think the audience is out there, clearly. Someone is buying the books that gave DC the confidence to go ahead with the Minx line. Let me toss out an idea that you may do what you will with.

My diligent internet research reveals that the best-selling manga title is a series called Chobits. The creative force behind it is a group of four creators that go by "Clamp." All four are women. Persepolis was created by Marjane Satrapi. In case you were unaware, she's also a woman.

So who are the creative forces behind the Minx books? Mostly men. There were some women involved, but by-and-large the Minx line was guys trying to write comics for teenage girls. In the case of Mike Carey, who does fantastic work with the X-titles over at Marvel, they're 50-year-old guys trying to write books for teenage girls.

So DC(and Marvel, if you're interested), if you want to attract this audience, start hiring the best female creators you can find. Let them do whatever they want to do. Put that product on the shelves of the local bookstores and promote it as its own thing. Not as a big company most known for supplying movie studios with material trying to imitate something...but as something that exists on its own. Let the dollars roll in. Thank me later.

*I wanted to talk about this earlier, but decided that it would be good to let this post hang out up top for a little bit longer.

funnybook of the week: Transforms Spotlight - Hardhead

Since IDW got the rights to the franchise, Simon Furman has been writing one of the greatest science fiction stories ever. No one will ever recognize this because 1) it's in a comic book and 2) it's in a comic book based on a toy line.

That's really too bad.

[insert "head" pun here]

Well, most of you will find this nerdy and useless. Unfortunately for most of you, I can think of more than 2 people who will be entertained by Super-Villain MODOK interviewing Brian Reed. The first question:

Brian Reed, please describe your head. Use as much detail as possible.

MODOK is the wave of the future. Eat your heart out Barbara Walters.



UPDATE: MODOK is back with another interview as well as a link to his blog!!! It's more head-tastic awesomeness from everyone's favorite giant-brained villain. I am officially going to purchase the hell out of Marvel Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11.

FURTHER UPDATE: Marvel Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11 was entirely disappointing. Giving MODOK the same hard luck with the ladies story that motivates every old villain that hasn't been assigned motivation outside of "evil" isn't going to attract me to this title.

i'm not sure that "nerd" covers it

Been missing my insight lately? I have too. But there are more important things to do. Allow me to tell you what those are in a round-about way with this parable...

It was the summer of 2002. I had finished college, but had not yet graduated into anything resembling responsibility. I was making what money I needed waiting tables as a 10-to-4 job, which left plenty of time for whatever nonsense I decided to dedicate myself to. One particularly beautiful morning, that nonsense was hockey.

I don't recall the specifics, but I do know that there was a loose puck followed by a stick between my legs. I hit the ground shoulder-first. After sitting on the bench for a while and being mocked for being a pansy about my injury, I finished the game in goal(I didn't do so badly, either). The shoulder still hurt, but I didn't think much of it.

One shower later, I was in Durham for a Destroy All Monsters practice. One scene we did, in particular, stands out. It wasn't very good or very funny, but we did paint...a lot. The mimed brush strokes still bothered my shoulder; but I had fallen on it, so that was to be expected.

Having completed our practicing, we hopped in Ross' car and went to Apex to watch Summerslam. Jeremy Krevat welcomed me with a beer. I gladly accepted the offer, popped the top and raised the drink to my mouth...and experienced a considerable amount of pain. Only now was I worried.

I decided that I'd be going to see a doctor the next morning. Doctor visits were not a part of my life then(as they are now that my body is finding new and exciting ways to betray me), which caused the following thought to creep up on me: "Ben, you've finished college, but not yet graduated into anything resembling responsibility."

That's when I made the fateful call to my mother.

"Hello?"
"Hey Mom, am I insured?"

The answer was no, and the diagnosis was a separated shoulder. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but it's coming up on 5 years since that night and I only recently got renters' insurance. You know, so if the house burns down I'm not left asking "Hey Andi, are we insured?"

As it turns out, part of the items that would be covered under our new policy are my comic books. In order to make sure that they're covered, though, I've been told I need to keep a detailed list of what I have. Hence, my free time in front of a computer has not been spent blogging but rather adding to this work in progress. Tonight, I have come to the conclusion that the only thing I can do that would possibly be dorkier than cataloging comics online is blogging about cataloging comics online. Check.

Fear not, loyal readers, you'll not be without me for much longer. If Andi can stand another night of me going through my comics and remarking to myself about each book as I inspect and log it, it should be wrapped up in the next few evenings or at least rather soon-ish. I know. I can't wait, either.

For the record, I'm enjoying this process more than I should be.