Michael Paciocco's Mind

[michaelpaciocco]

A various and Sundry post - featuring one of our own!

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/recommedations-yours-and-mine.html

Mishmash of things today, so I hope you enjoy;

-I normally don't recommend webcomics, because everyone has their tastes and it's such a broad field, but I'm still confident in recommending to you Jens Altmann's Made of Fail which is a nice look at the absurdities of modern life.

-I think I'm going to be travelling sometime this summer, possibly even to cities that still have comic shops, so if you have any recommendations for things that you can't get through Amazon, I'd love to hear them - particularly for more obscure, off-the-beaten path items.

-I'm having mixed feelings about this new "Marvel Adventures" style Infinity Gauntlet saga series by Atomic Robo co-creator Brian Clevinger. On one hand, I'm trying more and more to drift away from traditional corporate comics, but on the other hand, I do believe in supporting creators I like, and I get that Clevinger would like more high-paying work because it would help support getting more Robo out there. So I'm torn - your thoughts?

[michaelpaciocco]

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/still-fantastic-to-me.html

Reed was one of my first inspirations to learning about science in the real world, and despite the fact that Marvel these days does an excellent job of trying to break him (mostly because noir writers don't have a clue how science works in the real world), he still remains a great character. I just dig the way the character is in love with ideas, the way that something new, something he doesn't understand, excites him and compells him to learn more and expand his horizons. It's easily the feature I most relate to.

Just wanted to say that.

[Anders]

That's not limited to noir writers. Hardly any writers understand how science works.

[michaelpaciocco]

A simple Question today

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/opinions.html

So, how are you finding "The Heroic Age" and "Brightest Day" so far? Is there even a noticable change? Thoughts?

[michaelpaciocco]

Jun 8, 2010 21:58:16 GMT -8 Anders said:

If you want to bring in younger readers, reducing the cost may be step one but step two is kicking the continuity habit. You can't keep making stories with direct or indirect references to obscure stories and characters from 20+ years ago. When you pick up a comic that says "Spider-Man" or "Superman" on the cover you need to know that it's a self-contained story about Spider-Man or Superman doing their cool stuff and not a tie-in to a ten-title cross-over event focusing on an unresolved plot-point from a cross-over event in 1986 or part 3 in a 6-part story.

Short, self-contained stories. That's all.

However, the way mainstream comics have gone they're practically designed to exclude younger readers at the cost of keeping the older readers who have kept up with the titles for decades - us. We know enough to find a good jumping on point for a title (if we don't just buy the TPBs), we like stories that reference other stories we've read or at least know about, we like longer, more complex story-lines that build on what's gone before, we don't care if the story in a single issue can stand on its own as long as it keeps up the pace of the six-issue story-arc and as-many-issues-as-possible myth arc of the comic. (Yes, I'm generalizing somewhat, but not that much.)

As long as we keep buying the mainstream titles they will stay the way they are and new readers will be shut out.

Been meaning to get back to this sooner, but better later than never.

Anders, I think you are partly right - but not quite. I've seen the manga that line the bookshelves in bookstores with a large number of volumes - that implies some level of continuity. So I don't think it's that - or at least that precisely.

I think in terms of continuity, it'st that in manga continuity is more limited - it's internal to the series, and usually restricted to within one generation.

Marvel/DC continuity keeps refering to continuity from a full generation ago (25 years) and across a wider spectrum of titles.

It's not that continuity is bad, but continuity sprawl.

In my opinion.

[Anders]

You're right, of course; I was being too focused on how I experienced comics when I was a kid.

Or at least partly right. When I think about it, there are more types of continuity at play here. Title continuity, character continuity, universe continuity... But one thing they all have in common: mainstream superhero comics overuse them and screw them up worse than anyone else.

[michaelpaciocco]

I think we're more or less on the same page - it's not that continuity is bad - it's the Sprawl of it - too much of all kinds.

[michaelpaciocco]

Been reading some of the "Modern Masters" series. Thoughts

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/modern-masters-musings.html

Been reading some of the "Modern Masters" series of late (which is where some of thes B&W images are coming from), and here are a few random thoughts I'd like to share with you:

-A couple of interesting common denominators come out when reading the bios of a lot of artists. For one, many of them seemed to move around a lot as kids (mostly due to being Army brats) and nearly all of them have a great love and affectation for Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.
-Also, quite a few of them like dinosaurs and space exploration, which is also very cool.
-Man, reading the John Byrne interviews actually managed to make me like the man LESS. How is it possible for a guy to say that Golden and Silver Age creators don't have any creative rights because "That's how the system was back then and they knew it" and in the SAME INTERVIEW state that he feels he has to "protect" the creations of Jack Kirby? Doesn't that seem shockingly hypocritical or am I missing something?
-All of these have great sketches and pin up gallery sections, and that's just awesome.

I really enjoyed reading these and learned a lot, so I can't recommend them enough.

[michaelpaciocco]

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/atlas-stooped.html

Ok, today and tomorrow I'm probably going to be killing some sacred cows here, so watch out.

Agents of Atlas is a barometer on many of the things that have gone wrong in the comic industry.

Put the pitchforks down, I can explain.

First, this is nothing against the quality of the series, which has always been decent. In fact, I think Atlas should be the minimum bar by which to measure competent quality corporate comics.

But that's exactly it - it's a minimum, not a high bar, and no praising of Jeff Parker can change that.

It's a series that depends on resurrecting long dormant properties for a new grasp at relevancy, and it's done well.

It's a concept that requires, if not a strong understanding of the fundamentals of Marvel Universe's history, then at least the capacity to care that such a history exists and is important. You have to at least understand what Atlantis is in the Marvel Universe to understand who Namora is and why she's important, and you certainly need to get that the mythological exists in order to appreciate Venus.

This leads to another handicap on the book - this is very much a book about plot, and less about characters. I ask you seriously now - after 3 limited series, one 12 issue attempt at an ongoing, and some one-shots and other tie-ins, what do you know about Jimmy Woo, about who and what he is as a character? What about Bob? Have the characters progressed at all since that first six-issue mini that re-introduced them? Because I don't.

Now granted, that's probably because since the original mini-series, the concept has been used for nothing BUT tie-ins. Whether it was the previous attempt at an ongoing series, which started out tying into "Dark Reign" or the back up stories in "Incredible Hercules" or mini-series guest-starring the X-Men and the Avengers, it'd be easy for an objective observer to believe that Marvel was making a cynical push to get these characters published by featuring them alongside the big names of the Marvel Universe.

And I think that's the real problem here; Jeff Parker has created a concept that eschews cynicism, in a marketplace that contains virtually nothing left other than jaded hardcore fans.

It'll be interesting to see how this new series turns out, but I'm not holding my breath.

[michaelpaciocco]

Mario is *SOOOOO* stepping on my neck for this one....

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/beta-ray-stu.html

Boy, if you thought yesterday was uncomfortable, that's nothing.

Disclaimer - I still haven't read the Walt Simonson Thor Saga yet (I know, I'm a bad comic fan), but I do want to ask something about Bill here.

His backstory is basically that he's an alien cyborg who is so badass that he beats Thor, and then he can use his hammer. And everyone else in Asgard thinks he's so awesome that he becomes Thor's friend and ally and Odin makes him a hammer of his own and Bill gets to date Sif and....

I'm just saying, if it were anyone else but Walt Simonson, wouldn't this backstory make him sort of a Mary Sue Character out of bad fanfic?

Just wondering.

[jkcarrier]

Heh, when you lay it all out like that, it sure sounds like it ought to. But somehow, it never felt that way. One of the (many) things Simonson did well was managing to give other characters the chance to be awesomely badass -- Bill, Balder, the Executioner, even Volstagg -- without it ever diminishing Thor in the slightest.

[jessebaker]

Walt Simonson gets a pass from fandom regarding Beta Ray Bill, on account of:

1. Thor was a REALLY shit book before he took over. So shitty that people will give Walt Simonson a free pass on Bill being a Marty Stu

2. Bill, despite his bad-ass first appearance, quickly falls into the background of the book, all but outright disappearing after the Surtur Saga and Walt (as JK said) moving on to give other characters their own bad-ass moments, that quickly overshadow Bill's first appearance bad-ass antics.

[jensaltmann]

Jun 18, 2010 5:00:47 GMT -8 michaelpaciocco said:

I'm just saying, if it were anyone else but Walt Simonson, wouldn't this backstory make him sort of a Mary Sue Character out of bad fanfic?

Ignore Jesse. Just remember that to him, every other character is a Mary Sue character.

The thing with Bill is (and yes, I've read it -- when it was new, even, natch) that Simonson decided to play with one little piece of the hammer's enchantment.

"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor."

Where Walt thought outside of the box was that this someone wouldn't necessarily have to be human. Plus, it paved the way for getting rid of Don Blake, which was also something he wanted to do.

Look at the other plothole in Marvel's Thor: if Thor hits the hammer on the ground once, he changes to Don Blake. If he hits it twice, he activates the weather magic.

How come? Tapping the hammer twice should, instead, change him from Thor to Don and back...

[jkcarrier]

Jun 18, 2010 14:41:11 GMT -8 jensaltmann said:

How come? Tapping the hammer twice should, instead, change him from Thor to Don and back...

Maybe it's like double-clicking a mouse? ;D

[michaelpaciocco]

Bit Random, but WTF, why not?

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/atlas-no-other-one.html

I really really loved the Kurt Busiek Thunderbolts run, and for my money, it's one of the best superhero comic runs ever.

And easily my favorite character from that run was Erik Josten, the former Goliath who became Atlas. Given the characters I usually tend to relate to and talk about, this is a pretty odd choice. The thing to keep in mind is that Erik really, really, was a mess. He always made questionable choices, and most of the time, he wanted nothing more than to not have to make a choice at all. He had to struggle to develop a moral compass after a lifetime of bad choices and errors in judgement. He had to learn from the consequences of some pretty huge mistakes, to build himself a better person.

And I think that's it right now; his choices had consequences, not just for him, but for the people he cared about. Actually, more often it was others who ended up suffering for his mistakes, whether it was members of his family, or his teammates, or just other civilians. The character's struggle struck a chord with me because this was a guy who had come face to face with the wreckage left in his wake, and he had to struggle to find a way to make up for it. And it didn't come all at once either - he still made mistakes, he backslid, and progress was painstakingly slow.

But I couldn't help but root for the guy.