On a week of Death, part 1 - Non-fictional

Comic fans deal with death almost every week.  Luckily, most of the time they're transitory, temporary, and reversible; so much so that it's almost a running joke.  We have several examples of that this week, and they will be addressed shortly.  But alas, there have been two all too real examples this week, both deserving moments of respect and remembrance.

Dwayne McDuffie died this week, apparently from complications after surgery for a heart issue.  This has been met with disbelief and depression across fandom.  Dwayne created Damage Control, a series of hilarious minis from Marvel about the company that fixes New York City so quickly after the endless superhero battles and alien invasions.  It was an organization so well received, it was used as part of a major plot-point in a couple of the last Marvel summer events. 

He was instrumental in the creation of Milestone Comics, which brought us some of the most memorable new superhero characters of the 80s and 90s.  There was rarely a DC panel at a convention that someone didn't ask when they were returning. After their canceling, he went on to create an animated series based on Static, one of the characters from the run, launching him to a whole new audience. More on that in a moment.

His run on Fantastic Four was brief but memorable, mainly for creating an all new team and relegating the original members to supporting cast, and still being staggeringly entertaining. I still maintain that his one-shot "My Dinner With Doom" was one of the best bit of character work with the characters in a very long time, and it alone was what made me excited for his FF run.

He is likely responsible for introducing more people to the Justice League of America than any single issue of the comic since the birth of the direct market, possibly any year's worth of issues.  He wrote for, script edited, and produced the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series for Cartoon Network, as well as a number of their dvd releases, including All-Star Superman, released the day after he passed.

His run on the JLA comic should have been triumphant, but ended up nasty, brutish and short.  Hobbled by a number of events and crossovers he was alternately asked to incorporate into his narrative or step aside as others did fill-in issues, while his stories were exemplary, he never got the chance to get up to speed. As a result of the tumult of the various crossovers and events, he was more than once asked (at the eleventh hour) to rewrite stories, replacing one character for another, including one exchange where a character's living status had changed 180 degrees between writing and publishing. When he gave his fans a look behind the curtain at what he had been dealing with (stark honesty and forthrightness was one of his strong suits), he was hastily fired from the book, adding a number of stories to the Library of the Unwritten.

At the same time, many fans' requests were answered when the Milestone characters were announced to be returning to the DCU.  The return was handled...oddly.  Characters began reappearing in random books, Dwayne wrote a (very good) story in JLA that served to explain how the world of the Milestone Universe and the DCU merged, And Static (now wearing a version of his animated series costume) appeared in and joined the Teen Titans.  But after a brief period of use, the majority of the characters dropped to the bottom of the cauldron, leaving only Static.  Were I prone to conspiracy theories, I would opine that DC made a deal for the entire run of characters solely so they could get access to Static, easily the most well known character of them all.  Static is getting his own title shortly, but so is Xombi, one of the later additions to the lineup, which seems to (happily) throw a wrench in that theory. 

Perhaps of his connection to Milestone, Dwayne was ever being accused of doing things for politically correct reasons, and sometimes less polite choices of words.  His changes to the FF and JLA roster, most of which were dictated by Editorial, were seen as "forcing minority characters" upon us.  He would often have his fun with said people - when he posted a sketch of all black/minority characters in a JLA thread, it started a (you should pardon the expression) firestorm of vitriol across the Internet as small-minded fans thought up new ways to insult him.

While I often heard Dwayne speak of his adventures with various people and publishers, I don't recall him ever complaining.  He carried on, persevered, and ultimately succeeded.

His passing is tragic, and all too soon.

The same day, we learned of the passing of Nicholas Courtney, best know for playing Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart on Doctor Who.  Much like many actors from the original run of the series, he kept in touch with Who-fen via the convention circuit, as well as various reprises of the character with the folks at Big Finish, producers of radio-style audio plays based on Who and several other popular series.  The Brigadier got a few mentions on the new series, ultimately returning to the role on the DW spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring fellow Who-lumna Elisabeth Sladen.  Posts and related tales paint him as a kind and gentle man, with nary a harsh word against him. 

In my mind, The Brigadier will ever remain on assignment in Peru.

On the question "why did God harden the Pharaoh's heart?"

It's a phrase that has been dropped in Nick Spencer's wonderful T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series twice now, both times when SPIDER revealed that they were effectively in control of the situation to a degree that T.H.U.N.D.E.R.hadn't even considered. Much like the climax of Se7en, where the package is opened and Somerset says "John Doe has the upper hand!"

It's a reference to a long-debated religious question about the story of Moses and the Exodus. A snippet of the relevant text follows:

Exodus 9:12 - "12 And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken unto Moses"

That's read to mean that God actively MADE the Pharaoh more evil and vindictive against the Israelites, thus requiring Himself to send more plagues upon Egypt to effect the Jewish slaves' release.

Now if you read more of the passage, it can also be read that it's just that the plagues simply had the opposite effect desired, and made Pharaoh more angry toward the Israelites, as opposed to more amenable to setting them free. But yet the first argument is still asked. And for those who choose to read it that way, there are several versions of the argument that all pretty much boil down to the same thing:

God did it to make Himself look good.

Some temper the statement more to the idea that God, being omniscient, knew that Pharaoh would not react well to these acts and threats, and chose to take advantage of the path He knew things would go.

In short, God hacked the system, took advantage of advance knowledge to create a scenario in which He would be lauded and praised, and got His people out of the situation, just as He wanted.

Now take that scenario and turn it towards T.H.U.N.D.E.R..

How did T.H.U.N.D.E.R. defeat the Warlord, only to start fighting a new threat, SPIDER, almost immediately afterwards?

Why was T.H.U.N.D.E.R. so surprised that SPIDER had the upper hand on them?

Is T.H.U.N.D.E.R. doing things deliberately to make themselves look good?

And are those things getting out of their control?

Mind = BLOWN...

I've no idea how close to the truth I am (and judging by the way Spencer has been able to confound my expectations with each issue, I'm likely not even close), but it's an interesting topic of discussion.

There's also the fact that a terrorist organization is using the Bible in its statements, and not a text more closely connected (rightly or no) with more violent actions.

This is a stellar book.  Very much not a simple superhero title.  Seek it out.  The latest issue features a five-page section by George Perez that will remind you once again why he is not only head and shoulders above the rest of the artist in comics today, but chest, hips knees and shins as well.

For a more in-depth look at the debate of the Pharaoh's Heart, check here, and any other number of religions sites on the net.

On the public getting what it wants, and the industry getting what it deserves

Eric Powell, creator of The Goon (not to mention a Conspirator) recently posted a very funny video about the need for "diversity" in comics.  I naturally assumed he was referring to the PC concept of more women, more gay characters, etc, but no; he was talking about more types of comics - westerns, SciFi, etc.  I include the video here for your perusal:



UPDATE - Alas, due to many negative reactions to said video, Eric has removed it from the YouTube, faster even than anyone could grab a copy and re-post it.

Harsh terms indeed.

Now I grasp satire perfectly, and I'm not going to go off on a rant about any of his comments, as they're all valid to varying degrees.  Eric's worked for DC (his Bizarro World run was a delight) so I assume he doesn't have any Mooreian hatred for the Big Two. 

The point he makes is quite correct - comics in America is largely made up of Superhero books published by two compaines.  I don't agree with his choice of the term "monopoly", as that suggests positive action against other companies, and potential illegal activity.  They definitely have the market controlled, but not (IMHO) out of actively nefarious practices, just standard (take that as you will) competition.

I've written before about how hard it is to get a new book off the ground today, even from one of the Big Two.  Right now we've gotten the market to the point where the only people in it are people who like superhero comics, and trying to sell something new and different (even if it's not very much of either) to that audience is a sisyphean task.  That's more because of inaction than action.

The comics market has dwindled steadily in this country over the past 70 years, for a number of reasons:

F#*$ing Wertham - The Comics Code may have finally gone the way of all flesh, but its effect may never be erased.  Since the fifties, comic books have been seen as a) primarily children's entertainment b) bad for you.  Comics were the first of the many Reasons Your Kids Are Acting Up the popular media has tried to sell to the parents of America to explain why their beloved darlings started to act up when they hit their teenage years, as opposed to the perfect little angels they were as kids.  Wertham was the first pop psychologist - he understood the "new media", a term that has found new use today, but has ever been around, just referring to different media.  People in those days trusted figures of authority - he had a suit, and diploma and an accent, surely what he said was right.  Nowadays, not a single expert goes unchallenged; this is usually a good thing, but we may be reaching the other end of the pendulum-swing, to a land where ALL theories are valid, or at least deserving of a fair hearing. 

Many more explanations for your kids' misbehavior have been presented over the years; rock and roll, television, reefers, video games... lather, rinse, repeat.  But none was as decimated as comics.  Thanks to Wertham, the movie trope of "a comic book in a grown-up's hand means he's an illiterate cretin" has survived until today. And it took several billion dollars of ticket sales before even a dent was put in the standard practice of starting a comics-related news story with Batmanny sound effects.

In almost every other country, comics are as respected and popular a medium as any other.  I've ever mentioned the fact that there are comics (magna, whatever) in Japan dedicated to Mah-Johnng.  This is largley because adults read comics, openly and great numbers in those other countries.  The market exists, so the books are written to appeal to that market. 

The Direct Market - By the time the 80's rolled around, comics sales were dropping, but ironically, because of LOW prices.  Drugstores and candy shops, traditional homes of comics purchases, were not seeing enough profits from comics.  A slick magazine which sold for two or three times of a comics was much more alluring a product.  That's why the "Dollar Comics" were created back in the day, to provide a more profitable item for the newsstands.

The newsstand market was drying up, and the Direct Market was created to effectively save the industry.  Comics were sold directly to comic shops, bypassing the newsstand distributors.  It worked, and everybody made money.  But the downsides were numerous, the most obvious being it turned comics from an impulse purchase to a destination purchase.  The potential market shrank precipitously.  Since you had to go to a special place to buy comics, pretty much the only people who went there were already buying.  Unless a store could afford a prime location with lots of walk-by traffic like a mall or at least a major shopping high street, they were limited to "pre-sold" customers.

Isolationist Comic Shops - Sadly, for a whole lot of comic stores, that suits them fine.  There's still a lot of stores run by people who opened them to find a place to house their collections, and if they only had to deal with their fellow fans who knew what they were talking about and didn't bother them with dumb questions, that'd be great.  There's one store in my area that actively looks down their nose at non-fans, and another who, even though they have a mall location, chooses not to participate in Free Comic Book Day because they see it as a waste of money.  These are the stores have no desire to find the legendary "new readers".  They charge outrageous fees to the walk-ins for the hot Death issue that made the papers, and breathe a sigh of relief when they don't return.

Things That Are Newfangled - We'll never again see a TV show that earns anything above a 30 rating.  With hundreds of channels to choose from, not to mention DVDs, the electric-type Internet and endless other distractions, the viewership is so diluted it borders on impossible to attract the audiences of only a few decades ago.  The same holds true of comics.  With so many things to appeal to people, especially teens, getting them to try ANY comic, let alone a non-superhero one is quite a trick.  It's not impossible.  The young adult book industry was almost non-existent until a single mother from Britain wrote a book about a Boy Who Lived. 

We Do It One Way - What Eric seems to say is the biggest problem with comics today is IMHO the least important of the issues.  Right now, the "regular readers" comics market is made up of about 100,000 people, tops.  And largely, they like superhero comics.  So that's what the publishers supply.  If you want to compare DC and Marvel to Coke and Pepsi, it's not their responsibility to convince people to drink orange juice.

I've already alluded to how hard it is to get a new book off the ground.  That's largely due to the reasons I've mentioned, not because of any active desire to keep non-super-books off the shelves.  It's the eternal chicken/egg scenario - new types of comics will only flourish if there is a larger potential market, and the market will only expand if there are more types of books.  And with only a fraction of store all that interested in even GETTING new readers, the onus falls on the larger stores, mainstream bookstores and the up and coming digital market.  In short, the companies that are more often than not accused of "ruining" the industry.

The solution is not try to sell more and different books to the current market.  The secret is enlarging the market.  To light a candle as opposed to cursing the darkness.

How do we do that? Buggered if I know.

We may have gone too far.  The industry has drawn itself into a corner, and may not have time to wait for the ink to dry.  It may well end up that the lion's share of profits from a comic are from the film rights, and the comics become just ways to keep the character in the eyeline of the public, or at least the ones who know where the comic shops are.

But then you see the crowds at San Diego of the New York Comic Con, and you figure, "Surely there must be someone still buying these things". 

Like Eric, I don't have any answers either.  I just have different questions.  But the end result is the same - comics are a respected and beloved (and popular) medium and art form all over the rest of the world, and until it can become the same here, you better get to like multi-month crossovers.

On the varying ability to accept blatant breaking of the laws of physics

OK, I know, Indiana Jones should not have been able to survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator.  But you know, he's Indiana Jones, maybe it was a side-effect of drinking from the Holy Grail or something; let it go.

None of that stuff from the later Die-Hard movies should have really worked either, you don't see anybody complaining about that, do you?

But once in a while a plot point comes along that I just have to hit the mental brakes and scream "now HOLD on there!"

The Kid was just watching (and I can't believe I'm typing this) Tom and Jerry meet Sherlock Holmes. Malcolm McDowell  voices Moriarty, so there's that.  But here's the deal.  Moriarty has invented a device that uses the sun's rays, intensified by large diamonds he's stolen, to make a steampunky heat ray.  He plans to use it so steal the Crown Jewels.  "I intend to use the power of a solar eclipse to generate a beam SO powerful that it will cut right through the Tower of London", he says.

Ummm....

Professor...

You're going to do what?

The whole film is centered around the idea that the Napoleon of crime is going to use a solar powered device at the one moment in time that it will do him no good.

I explained this scenario to The Wife.  She has less knowledge of hard science than the average Republican Senator, and SHE saw the problem.

I hasten to add, he was explaining this plot to a young woman, a cat, and two clothes-wearing mice.  So his mental stability is already in question.

I get it, it's a kids' movie, I shouldn't get my knickers so bunched up about it.  But there's a slight difference between, say, getting Planck's Constant wrong and suggesting that a solar eclipse is a good time to attempt to harness the sun's rays for nefarious purposes.  I'm reminded of the (insert ethnic group of choice) space program planning a manned mission to the sun, but they're going at night so they'll be fine.

I also saw The Green Hornet today.

Now this was another film that a lot of people couldn't believe was happening.  I've been waiting for it as far back as when George Clooney was going to star, based on a Kevin Smith script.  Needless to say, this is not that movie.

But I tell you, Seth Rogen pulls it off.  The film is funny as all get out, but is not played for laughs.  Britt's desire to help the city is legitimate, his motivation works, and he doesn't become a super-buff fighting machine all of a sudden.  Kato builds Britt the Gas Gun specifically because he has the pugilistic acumen of a arthritic giraffe.

Christoph Waltz has a ball as the crime king of LA who fears he's no longer intimidating to his younger underlings, and Cameron Diaz gets a solid role as Lenore "Casey" Case, Britt's new secretary, personal girl Friday and resident genius.

The film worked, it was drop-dead funny (very much in the same "funny action movie" as his previous film Pineapple Express) but there was a moment where I was totally won over.  In the middle of a traditional "We're not friends anymore" man-fight between Britt and Kato, they tumble into the pool.  Kato can't swim, and Britt has to save him.  Now, if you don't know much about the history of the Green Hornet (Also known as "Everyone in the world"), you'd never know that in  the original Green Hornet stories, that's how Britt and Kato met; Kato is drowning, Britt saves him, and Kato pledges his life to Britt's service.  So for them to have gotten a nod to that bit of history was a REAL thrill.  According to the end credits there was a nod to the Lone Ranger in the film as well, but damn if I could find it. (George W. Trendle created both the Hornet and the Lone Ranger, and according to canon, John Reid is an ancestor of Britt).  It worked, and wonderfully.  The old school logo and themesong from the TV show get a cameo, and all told, it hit more notes that suggested that they really had read the books and heard the old radio shows than many other comics films have.

So why am I mentioning it in the same breath as a Tom and Jerry film?  Because like the other films I've mentioned, it has moments of patent OH COME ON.  The Black Beauty, always a wondercar, now leapt up to Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang levels of efficacy, including being able to drive after being cut in half, with a quick explanation that it has front-wheel drive.  Oh, and was the gas tank in the front as well? 

You're having so much fun there's really no time to sit back and note the lapses in the Newtonian laws that hold our universe together.  But in a brilliant bit of marketing, the producers did a tie-in episode of Mythbusters, in which they actually tested some of the more outlandish stunts in the film to see if they could happen in real life, and proved that they were "pretty much bullshit", as Seth Rogen described them on a recent appearance on Opie and Anthony.  So it was kind of cool that they tried to take control of the argument by calling themselves out on it. 

So I didn't get upset when they escape from being buried alive by setting off all the car's armaments.  But if those weapons had been solar powered, I'd'a been right there railing against it.

On the return of a nigh-extinct mode of fannish communication

Last year, DC Comics announced they were reducing the price of their books back to $2.99, a move that got quite a lot of positive reaction.  The down side was we'd get two less pages of comic story per issue. They were reticent to say what they were going to put on those two pages, tho. Today they dropped the news - they were bringing back letter columns.  Old-school fans (raises hand) were over the moon at the news, and younger readers were all asking, "What's the point? we have Facebook and the electric-type twitter to let everyone know our opinions".  And the old school fans just shhok our heads and sighed...

Back before everybody had unrestricted access to every other person on the planet, you had to WORK to be heard.  You needed actual talent to be on television (Or if you were a woman, two talents), a tremendous amount of luck to get your music heard, and you had to be real witty to make it into the letter columns in the back of the comics.

Metropolis Mailbag.  The Ha-Ha-Hacienda.  Flash-Grams.  The JLA Mailroom. Europinion. This is where most fans met each other.  Indeed, comics fandom STARTED as a result of the lettercols.  When EC comics started publishing the names and addresses of letter writers in the columns, the fans did something weird - they started writing to each other.  Pen-pal friendships were started, and eventually fanzines started to make the rounds.

Look at the the current plight of the three major TV networks; When there were only three or four channels, it was easy to have a big hit. Now you're competing with hundreds of cable channels, not to mention video games, video on demand, Tivo and who knows how many other electronic hobbies.  Far harder to get your show in front of a lot of eyes.  Nowadays, anyone can start a blog, and like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "When everybody is special, then no one will be".  With thousands, maybe millions of blogs out there, everyone has an equal voice, but not everyone has an equal talent.  There's no filter.  Making the Letter Column was an achievment - the editor (ok, assistant editor) decided your letter was better than the piles of other letters they got that month.  Or, if you wrote to a book with limited readership, the letter was better than one they could make up themselves to pad out the page.  It meant that thousands of other people who read the book were seeing your name.  Like Navin R. Johnson once said, that's the kind of spontaneous publicity a person needs.

Some of comics' biggest names arose from those letter columns. Bob Rozakis and Martin "Pesky" Pasko were regular letter-writers. And in more recent history, a fan named Geoffrey Johns wrote to the editors of Superboy, suggesting that Kon-El might not only be a clone of Superman, but lex Luthor. Needless to say, he was laughed off the page by the editor, and he was never heard of again.

There were other perks too. Lucky lucky letter hacks and fans got tuckerized in the comics. There are more fans' names in Legion of Superheroes than about any other title; Here's a list of the ones we know about. BBC TV and radio host Paul Gambaccini was once a massive DC fan and letter hack. When they wrote the story about the guy who makes the costumes for the Rogues, his name was... Paul Gambi.

Being a regular guest of the letter columns meant other fans knew your name. It was like having a blog today, but a blog that people actually READ. Marc Lucas, T.M. Maple, Charles J. Sperling, Uncle Elvis; these are names well known to readers from the 80s and 90s. I was a fledgling letterhack, and in the equally fledgling days of Compuserve, would often get notes of compliment when I had a couple of letters published in one week. I even got a hand-written note from up-and-coming writer Jeph Loeb when I wrote a positive letter about his Challengers of the Unknown miniseries. Indeed, it was John Ostrander who got my career started, when he asked that I take a comment I'd made about his Hawkworld book on the Compuserve comics forum and send it in to the letter column, where more people would see it (The times, how quickly they changed...)

So seeing those letter columns return means a chance for fans not only to get their voice heard, but gain the extra little note of approval that those opinions were interesting enough to see print.  And proper print, with ink and paper.

To gain the legitmacy of the printed word is a vanishing achievment.  I'm pleased to see it make a return.

(And yes, I'm aware of the irony of talking about the advantages of letter columns on a blog, so there's no need in pointing it out...)

On the last role of a great man, that of the last plot of an evil man

Peter Sellers' talents as a comedian and an amasser of automobiles are inarguable.  But in many eyes, his last film, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu is a letdown.  IMHO, the people who are disappointed by it don't know a great deal about the character, or Sellers' earlier work.

Very few people have seen a Fu Manchu film that they weren't snickering at; fewer still have read one of the books.  Fu Manchu is the archetypal Asian mastermind, spawning endless imitators; from the comics' Yellow Claw to Buckaroo Banzai's nemesis Hanoi Xan, leader of the World Crime League.  He’s fallen madly out of favor in recent decades, thanks to encroaching political correctness, but if you can track down the original novels, they’re classic pulp entertainment, very much “of their time” but no less entertaining. 

Sellers plays a double role in the film, that of the titular Oriental master of crime and the English detective Dennis Nayland Smith, Fu’s arch-nemesis.  As the film opens, both Fu and Smith are worse for the wear. At the ceremony where the Devil Doctor was to drink his Elixir Vitae, the potion which grants him eternal youth, it's used by a clumsy minion (Burt Kwouk, Kato to Sellers' Clouseau, in a cameo) to put out a fire.  Near death, he is forced to hatch a scheme to obtain the ingredients for a new batch.  Once it's clear the insidious Si Fan is active again, the British police are forced to contact Smith, long since retired.  A series of torture sessions by Dr. Manchu have left him a broken man; he spends his time dazedly puttering around his country cottage in the company of Delight, a manual lawnmower (you heard me) he found and befriended after his escape.  The news that Fu and his hordes were on the march rouses him from his torpor and he agrees to help. 

Fu Manchu needs diamonds for his elixir; not a large number of small diamonds, but a small number of very large diamonds.  The 75-karat Star of Leningrad is stolen shortly after the film begins, and the plot to steal its twin, the King George V diamond is the meat of the story.  Smith realizes that Fu would not allow himself to simply steal the diamond; he predicts the yellow devil will attempt to kidnap the King and Queen, and ransom the gem. 

Still early in her career, Helen Mirren shines as  policewoman Alice Rage, selected (after a stellar audition where she tap dances and plays the saxophone, together and at the same time) to impersonate Her Majesty as a decoy.  She is captured by the evil Doctor, only to fall in love with him when he reveals his softer side. ("Call me 'Fred'!  That's what they called me when I was at Eton!") Her subtle lisp never fails to bring a giggle ("Oh, Fwed...") and her rendition of the music hall standard "Daddy Wouldn't Buy me a Bow-Wow", just a hair off-key is hilarious. 

American TV legend Sid Ceasar plays American FBI agent Giuseppe “Joe” Capone who spends most of the film acting the boorish American, spouting embarrassing racism ("You're one great Limey bastard!") or talking on the phone to a relative in Chicago, barely able to hear him over the sound of machine-gun fire.  David Tomlinson (best known to Americans from Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks) plays the British chief of police, his last role before retiring.

Many reviews complain of Sellers’ laconic performances in the film.  I must assume they didn’t make it through the film.  Smith slowly awakens over the course of the film as the chase reinvigorates him. Fu Manchu find love in Constable Rage, and that carries him through much of the film, until his quest to formulate his elixir.  So the soft  line readings many mention work perfectly for the character, and even if he was a bit weak during the filming (he was advised not to take the role due to his heart condition) it didn’t stop him from being funny. 

I have a rule of thumb for a spoof.  Read the script and take out the jokes.  If you still have a good script, you have a good spoof.  Following that rule, this is a fine spoof, as the plot is a solid (if formulaic) Fu Manchu story. 

As for the jokes…a majority of the humor in the film follow the madcap form of Sellers’ earliest success, the Goon Show.  The character “Fred FuManchu”, noted bamboo saxophonist, appeared in his own adventure as well as several cameo appearances over the run of the show.  The odd last names of many characters like “Minge”, not to mention Nayland’s wacky mode of travel at the climax of the film are also reminiscent of the wild mindset of the series.  This is even different from Sellers’ Pink Panther films, where most of the comedy was from slapstick and Sellers’ clever mime-style reactions to things.  Here the comedy is in the plot and the dialogue. There’s a fair amount in stereotypical humor as well, but again, seen in the context of the time, before people got skin the thickness of rice paper, it’s a lot of fun.

The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu is now available from Warner Archive, as is another of Sellers’ films, The Bobo.  No mechanical spiders are necessary for purchase.

On the many faces of Aquaman, and the importance of keeping Batman clean-shaven

On the DC blog-site The Source, Dan Didio writes about the recent Kevin Smith miniseries "Batman: The Widening Gyre". 

(TANGENT ALERT) Which I REALLY enjoyed.  When he's stayed responsible and gets the scripts written on time, Kevin does really good comics work.  This and the previous mini Cacophony (the pair making the first two thirds of a trilogy) are really fine "possibly in continuity" stories, with the kind of just shy of filthy humor that kevin does expertly.  The story he's building is very interesting, and the third chapter will be interesting indeed. I'll go so far as to say that his "Batman and the Joker" scene at the end of cacophony can stand toe-to-toe with the end of Killing Joke in the fight best "masks off, hearts on sleeves" scene between those characters.  And Walt Flanagan, a man best known to fans of the Askewniverse for having a fast dog, and who we met while he was working in Kevin's comic shop (he always remembers his friends; gotta give him that...) has a very different style, one that might not work for a regular monthly but worked perfectly for this very uniquely themed story. (END TANGENT ALERT)

In said piece, he discusses a sequence from the book which, as originally written, was hilarious, and could never be published.  The scene involves Aquaman misunderstanding Bruce Wayne's cries of private interpersonal communication (AKA Making The Beast With Two Backs) with cries for assistance.  The scene was still damn funny as published, but allegedly they were SCREAMINGLY funny as first handed in. And Dan knew they could never see print.

(TANGENT ALERT PART DEUX) Which right there is an argument for a Mature label for DC titles.  Like any character, there are stories that can be written for DC characters that might not be suitable for every reader.  Very good stories, stories that might attract new readers (I know, the semi-mythical "new reader" argument again) but since DC makes books for kids, they're loath to do "mature" stories with those mainstream characters for fear of Mommy or Grandma buying one for junior by mistake and starting a shitstorm.  The Vertigo line, originally intended to be the place for those kind of stories, has become its own successful and separate fiefdom, where characters go and (until recently,at least) don't return from.  If I may make a comparison to the films, DC has a "G" line (The exemplary Johnny DC books) a "PG" line (The mainstream DCU) a per se "R" line (Vertigo) but no "PG-13" line where slightly more mature (In the complexity and dramatic sense, not necessarily the salacious "boobies and poo-poo words" sense) stories can be told with an opportunity to give fair warning that the title "might not be for everyone".  The first of Kevin's minis danced controversially close to that line, to the point that some claimed it "went too far" for a DC book.  People were REALLY put off by the idea that the Joker even MENTIONED Batman's junk, let alone saw it.  The editors were cool with everything that got into the book, but (according to Kevin) had problems with the idea of Batman having stubble, something I find a great example of counting the pennies and letting the nickels fall where they may.  Anyway, If DC had a sub-imprint for the more adult-y stuff, such complaints could be addressed before they start.  MOST mini-series and one-shots are of questionable continuity already.  Implicitly suggesting that these "DC-13" books are slightly more questionable in their timeline placement is not going to make too many heads explode.  And the more mature reader is likely not going to want to worry (or care) about which two issues this story shoehorns into anyway, so BFD. (END TANGENT ALERT)

At first read, it seems Kevin wrote Aquaman in that slightly naive, "new to the surface world" mindset that Mark Waid experimented with in "JLA Year One", where Hal Jordan gets him to scour the Secret Sanctuary for a bulb wrench.  But in some Q&A sessions, he revealed he was basically writing Aquaman as a surfer/stoner, one who's not quite in phase with the world of the dry-legs.  (The result being that when I re-read the scene, I hear Jason Mewes in my head reading Arthur's lines)  This of course upset hard-core Aqua-fans, claiming that that's "not what the character's about".

(And this is not a Tangent alert, because it's what I actually planned to write about)

Interestingly enough, there have been SO many different interpretations of Aquaman in recent history, in many different media.  In addition to this "Hang loose" one, there's the "OUTRAGEOUS" version on B: B&tB, a version that, before he re-appeared in Blackest Night and Brightest Day, I'd have happily read comic books of.  Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner's included him in their Supergirl strip in Wednesday Comics, where Jimmy described him as "The Denis Leary of the Sea". His take was that Aquaman's zone of patrol is the ENTIRE OCEAN, so naturally he was gonna get a little testy.  Again, great idea; how well you could use it in a continuing story, who knows, but perfect for that moment at that time.  Even the Young Justice preview played him more in the regal sense, more than we've ever seen him played in the comics.  And I'm not even COUNTING the older animated versions, voiced by (variously) Marvin Miller and Norman Alden.

Now each of those interpretations, especially the ones for the cartoons, are all perfectly valid.  But as a rule, when you see that many interpretations of a character, it's because they don't have a personality to speak of, or at least not one that everyone identifies.  Aquaman is one of those characters that has gone though so many iterations, both subtle enroute changes and radical revamps, that he's one of the biggest messes DC has.  Dan would regularly ask at conventions "What's 'the Right' Aquaman?  Is it the green and orange suit, the more tied to Atlantean myth version Peter David wrote, the water-hand guy, which?" It was only after the vast majority of answers he got was "The orange-and-green-suit guy" did he start to have a course to pilot for a return.

Right now, the best solution DC has for sorting out a character is Let Geoff Do It.  That's not a dig - his work is spectacular, he hits all the points, and come up with a version of the character(s) that respects  the previous iterations, explains (or explains away) the less successful ones and results in a strong "first position" character that he or any other writer can then move forward with. Nobody's going to please everyone (especially comics fans) but his versions provide the greatest good-enough for the greatest number.  And now he's addressing Aquaman in Brightest Day.  He's bringing the character back to a recognizable state, while simultaneously making wholesale changes.  Mera is now a kickass warrior, though not from the extra-dimensional race she once was.  There's a new Aqualad, and his story is still unfolding.  And the Aquacave is back.  If Storm and Imp show up, I may lose the ability to digest food for a brief period.  The reaction to Tusky the Walrus is too horrifying to imagine.

But again, we're not getting the return of a past version of Aquaman, we're getting yet ANOTHER iteration, but one with enough similarities to the past ones it seems familiar enough not to inspire (much) controversy.  And that's the right way to go; namely, forward.  Flash, Green Lantern, Toyman (I've talked about that one before) nothing was un-done, just addressed, and moved past.  When we see  the much rumored and prayed for Captain Marvel fix (I'm invoking personal opinion and choosing the term "fix" over "revamp" on purpose), I imagine we'll see something the same.  Much of the previous versions (hopefully the best bits) will remain, with re-told version of other bits, forming a new paradigm intended to appease, appeal, and attract the various audiences.

Let Geoff Do It.

Aquaman currently appears in Brightest Day.  The TPB of Widening Gyre is out now.