All right, actually, just one more…
I always get itchy posting a lot of links in a row, but after pointing to those two articles, I'd be remiss in not pointing out just one more: Chris Sims over at ComicsAlliance came in swinging today with this one: The Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling--a look at how superhero comics, DC in particular (Geoff Johns in even further particular), in resetting the status quo to 1978, are whitewashing the superhero genre.
A favorite bit here:
By itself, in the isolated, insular world of comics, this makes perfect sense: If the characters of the '30s and '40s existed on a separate Earth from the characters of the '50s, then it makes perfect sense that characters created later would have existed on still another Earth. But the subtext here -- no matter how unintentional it is -- is that these newer characters don't belong in the DC Universe. They need to be somewhere else while the real characters, the ones who, by coincidence, aren't black or Italian or have Latino parents, have their real adventures.
It's the unintentional building of a cosmic-scale meta-textual ghetto.
Go, take a look. And for "fun," count off in the comments thread before someone outs themselves as ignorant - it, thankfully, takes a bit longer than usual, but not all that long.
I am superfluous
There are times when you look at what everyone else is doing, and wonder what the point is in trying to keep up. I highly recommend you check out these two articles to see what some great critics are up to:
- Matt Zoller Seitz, founder of The House Next Door, drops by Salon to point out that superhero films have proven themselves to be creatively bankrupt exercises that, as a genre, don't even aspire to as much as superhero comics.
- Over at The Comics Journal, Rob Clough takes a look at the Hicksville rerelease, including how retrospectively it seems to chart the trajctory of Horrocks's career, and also reminding us why the book is a modern classic.
I'm working on a handful of stuff over here, but things are going slowly. More hopefully soon.
I’m over at Mediaelites
Someone else was crazy enough to let me do the occasional piece for them! Over at Mediaelites, I have a quick note on the current status of the Marvel and DC legal battles. Go check it out! Thanks to all the guys over there for letting me through the doors.
While I'm here...
...I don't have anything to add, I just wanted to share that picture with you. Make your own comment. (h/t to Comicsalliance)
Main Dudes of History: Tesla (w/ Special Guest!)
My good buddy Richard asked me to contribute to his side project chronicling The Main Dudes of History - I've weighed in on fan-fave Nikola Tesla with a guest appearance from one of the other Main Dudes for people who just can't get enough:
Nobody ever portrays both of them together as a man in total; he always serves as a better symbol as one or the other. He's the modern avatar of the Roman God Janus, the patron of doorways and new beginnings who symbolized the transition from past to future.
Also, I recently contributed a pithy political statement to The Vomitoria, told in two video clips. Not totally sure it's what they wanted.
Comics Column, House Next Door
In '08-'09, I posted a very infrequent comics column, focusing in part on comics in relation to film, over at The House Next Door (now a part of Slant Magazine). I'm still a contributor over there (link to a new review when it goes up) but I'm not yet sure what the state of this column is. Editor Keith Uhlich, who has been incredibly supportive, has left the door open, but I'm not yet decided whether the column is actually filling any kind of niche - most of what I've said has been said elsewhere, and better.
Here is the archive:
- #1: Windows on the Other Art
- #2: Poetry and New Languages
- #3: A Question of Accessibility: Studying Pathology and Archaeology
- #4: Mapmaking and the Hoi Polloi
- #5: Untitled (Pluto, Scott Pilgrim, Watchmen)
- Special: More Than Meets Few Eyes At All - The Legacy of The Transformers
The column received some kind press in its time: Jog still has it in his linkroll, I made it onto Journalista! once or twice, and Savage Critic Abhay Khosla pointed me out twice, here and here. I've also received kind words from Top Shelf's Leigh Walton, and an earlier version of column #2 found its way into David Mack's "Best of Letters" collected in Kabuki: The Alchemy.