On HU
Featured Archive Post: Mahendra Singh on the draftsmanship of Jeffrey Catherine Jones.
Chris Gavaler on analyzing comics layout.
Me on why writing for hire isn’t spiritual debasement.
Me on Robocop 2 and the joy of hating children.
Roy T. Cook tries to tell Indiana Jones from Harrison Ford.
Robert Stanley Martin with on sale dates of comics from the end of 1950, including the first graphic novel ever.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Guardian I :
—interviewed William Richards on his new book about psychedlics and spiritual experience.
—wrote about Lex Luthor, Jr, and corporate fan fiction.
At the Establishment I wrote about my son’s acting career and the myth of meritocracy.
At Splice Today I wrote about
—Project Runway and how people suck and friends don’t win.
—why Trump is not the future.
Other Links
Mistress Matisse on the James Deen accusations and how the law doesn’t care about sex workers.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on hope, or lack thereof.
Neil Drumming on diversity on Project Runway.
I don’t believe ‘corporate fan fiction’ is a valid term. Fans write fiction out of love and/or obsession with no expectation of a return. The only love or obsession corporations manifest is for money.
Well, it’s a little tricky. E.L. James wrote fan fiction with some expectation of return. On the other hand, many of the folks who write for corporations love the characters.
“Lex Luthor has been a hero on occasion, and was outfitted with a truly hideous green and purple supersuit for a while, which made him look like he’d been eaten by a toy line.”
Great burn, but it wounds me. I loved the corny power suit! He was like an evil, super-sized Buzz Lightyear!
Is Eisenberg really that hated? Man, I was already considering seeing the movie based on his parts of the trailer – now I’m even more inclined.
Come to think of it: Maybe the real problem is that he reminds the techbros (who seem to constitute most of the people who take superheroes very seriously on the internet) of themselves? Like, not themselves as they like to imagine themselves (that’s the Joker, naturally), but themselves as they actually are?
I don’t know…I think it’s just that people don’t like him as Luthor?
He seems to be kind of a jerk…he wrote a nasty piece about critics recently. But I find him enjoyable to watch. He and Kristen Stewart were really fun together in American Ultra, though the movie itself didn’t manage to quite be worthy of them. He certainly looks like the most enjoyable part of BvsS. Not Frank Gorshin or Ceasar Romero, but potentially entertaining.
Boooooooring.
I think Noah nails it here:
“Not Frank Gorshin or Ceasar Romero, but potentially entertaining.”
The reaction to Eisenberg strikes me as a knee-jerk reaction to camp. For a lot of fans, “Batman 66” represents a low point in the public’s perception of/regard for superhero comics. There’s a cruel irony, then, in Eisenberg’s performance in a movie that borrows from Frank Miller’s “Dark Night,” which was part of the “Bam, Pow, Comics Aren’t Just for Kids Anymore” media coverage of the movement. I guess this makes Eisenberg the “return of the repressed,” or something like that.
I think Nate magnificently nails it here: “Batman 66… return of the repressed”
I didn’t think Jesse Eisenberg’s thing about critics was nasty so much as lame. The idea of a narcissistic critic who prefers to talk about himself is at least as old as Pale Fire, and he didn’t even try to come up with an interesting or funny character. But everything in The New Yorker’s humor column, “Shouts and Murmurs,” is always lame. I subscribed to the magazine a few months ago, and I’m kind of amazed at how bad its humor writing and cartoons can be.
@Nate
“Frank Miller’s “Dark Night,” which was part of the “Bam, Pow, Comics Aren’t Just for Kids Anymore” media coverage of the movement.”
And yet, the prevalence of the argument that comics aren’t just for kids anymore is sufficient proof that that’s exactly who they’re for. It just so happens that many of the kids in the target audience are well into their forties or past that.
@Jack
“I subscribed to the magazine a few months ago, and I’m kind of amazed at how bad its humor writing and cartoons can be.”
I feel like this should’ve tipped you off like a giant neon sign: https://www.google.com/search?q=new+yorker+obama+cover&espv=2&biw=1255&bih=724&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz5Z6m0dnJAhUJdR4KHeIJAecQ_AUIBigB&dpr=1#imgrc=MocBNXSM8ri0hM%3A
Yeah, I also figured any backlash would be from memory of camp, tho I’d point to the Joel Schumacher movies as Fanboy Enemy #1. Fans really hate that movie, just like they hated Kevin Spacey’s Luthor-as-Hackman turn in that oddball Superman Returns movie. To be (pointlessly, thanklessly) fair, Eisenberg’s performance in the trailers does look at odds with the overall tone of DC’s movies since the first Bale movie, which is relentlessly dour and humourless.
Noah, I hadn’t heard that supposed secret origin of Luthor’s baldness. Any true fan, however, knows that Luthor went bald when Superboy saved his life by putting out a chemical fire with his super-breath (which is also the reason Luthor hates Superman)…but I suppose that stopped being canonical about 67 reboots/retcons ago.
Speaking of uncredited assistants, how much do you know about HG Peter’s use of assistants? I’ve been reading through that collection of the newspaper Wonder Woman, and there’s some surprisingly lovely work in there with craftint. It’s hard to believe that Peter was doing all that, on top of two separate comic books.
Peter definitely used assistants. Who they were and how much precisely they contributed, I don’t think anyone knows.
@Petar At least comic book fans are self aware enough to feel the need to deny that their medium is for kids, though. They could be genuinely unaware of it – you know, like rock critics.
Hey, now.
Love ya.
Fair point. Score one for comics fans.