Mindless Ones

Lingers on comics bought and read Thursday the 15th of May

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It’s one thing for Newsarama’s boards to host racist invective, but quite another for one of it’s journalists to spout the kind of nonsense quoted in this link. Jon, over at Funnybook Babylon, suggests that Kean should be sacked, a position I have some sympathy with, but what about the editors, what the bloody hell were they doing? Ah yes, covering the whole thing up, apparently.

Okay, I can understand their desire to get Kean’s comments removed sharpish, but wasn’t some kind of apology from the editorial staff necessary? Wasn’t attempting to excise the entire thing without publicly flagging their actions very bad practice indeed?

Over comics bought and read on Saturday the 3rd of May

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Crime comics, genre, anxieties about, that’s stuff you should leave at the door. I want to talk about a dead girl and a tragic young man.

Stray Bullets #1 is that rarest of beasts in the dark woods of serialized fiction, a first issue that’s on a par with the best of the run. David Lapham doesn’t need to find his stride, he hits the ground running, in fact his biggest problem as the series progresses is sustaining the quality, and perhaps the purity, of the early issues. I’d argue he’s largely succeeded, but that’s a topic for another post.

Here be spoilers…

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So I was blithering on in the original post’s comments about the secret message embedded in that super sexy scene with Mystique, and thought it would be nice to share my thoughts with a wider audience.

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BOOO! And TEARS! For all of you who haven’t heard Dave Campbell, comic commentator extraordinaire, is shutting his blog down for good.

Cheers, Dave. You were, are, and will always be an inspiration.

(Will get on and post something more substantial in the very near)

So, I said in part 1 that Cloak & Dagger’s origin needs revisiting, that’s because, like almost everything to do with C & D, it’s undercooked and under-exploited. For a start kids don’t just run away from home, something or someone pushes them. Whether it’s physical or emotional abuse, a catastrophic problem like drug addiction or mental illness, or some other insurmountable situational hurdle, the roots of homelessness usually run dark and deep, but with Cloak & Dagger what’s there on the page doesn’t really add up to much. Tandy was spoilt rotten, and neglected by her rich, socialite mother, so she bought a one way ticket to cardboard city? That doesn’t cut it for me. Not only does it feel inadequate, it lacks drama, and, crucially, fails to tell us anything much about the character. That’s the big crime. This stuff should be at the heart of who C & D are beneath all the eternal darkness and white-hot knives. Their histories unlock them as living breathing people, and, I’ll argue, augment our understanding of their transformation, and consequently open up all kinds of storytelling possibilities.

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…comics bought and read on Saturday the 12th of April 2008

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I mean, I definitely think the portrayal of women in superhero comics is fine, tasteful even. Very tasteful

Take Starfire, for example, here she is having a lovely lie down. She’s a bit wet, but I reckon that nice man plans on drying her off.

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