On Smallville’s upcoming seventh season.

INT. KENT FARMHOUSE: LIVING ROOM
CLARK KENT, clad in his usual jeans, red t-shirt, and jacket is slouched on the couch, a plate with pizza rolls on it planted on his washboard abs while his feet rest on the coffee table. MARTHA KENT enters.

MARTHA:
Clark, we need to talk.

CLARK:
Can this wait, mom? I’m trying to find out if the professor’s coconut radio is going to work.

MARTHA:
Please, don’t get me wrong. Since your father’s death, I’ve been very happy for your help around the farm, but you’re getting to the point–

CLARK:
Oh, this crap again?

MARTHA:
Son, you’re twenty-three years old. Chloe’s working at the Daily Planet, Lois looks to be joining her soon, I’m a senator…where’s your ambition?

CLARK rolls his eyes as MARTHA looks at him.

CLARK:
Ambition? Mom, I can fly and shoot death rays from my eyes. The only person that can beat me in a race is that Allen kid and frankly, that whole “I could beat up ten bears without breathing hard” thing sort of balances that out. I can be whatever I want to be, whenever I want to be it.

MARTHA:
What about your future? You can’t just sit on the couch and eat pizza rolls while–

CLARK:
You know, you’re right. I should consider the future more. Think about how my not doing anything now might affect it.

MARTHA:
Good, I’m glad to hear–

CLARK:
I’m afraid that I’m going to be real thirsty in about five minutes, so you’d better fetch me a Pepsi now.

MARTHA:
Oh. OK.

CLARK:
Chop chop, lady. I can barely keep this heat-vision in check.

CLARK pauses.

Really.

Experiment 01

I’m seeing these guys tonight.

Kirby Saturday: In Henry You Should Trust

From “Sserpo: The Creature Who Crushed The Earth!”
in Amazing Fantasy #6, inked by Dick Ayers

A Special Presentation

From “Forging Alliances” in
Star Trek: Kakan ni Shinkou
Written by Paul Benjamin | Art by Steven Cummings

(See what Mark made!)

The Rack: There’s no words, so you can read it quickly.

A frightening amount of research was necessary to create today’s strip. Birdie and I had to wander, waist-deep in sewage and swamp, just to put together the requisite comics jokes to sell this one to you, the consumer.

"…I found he uses very bad language in front of me."

From Secret Hearts #111.

The Rack: I Had A VW Rabbit At One Time, Too.

Gah.

"I grew very fond of him…"

From Sweethearts #81, March/April 1965.

The Rack: Staff Picks

Support My Addictions: A Reminder

The story is much more involved then that, but that is not important for issue #5. Last issue I thought the art was rushed, but this issue it looks very good. You really could have missed all four issues before this and still get a kick out of the action packed ending, whereby our unlikely dynamic duo take out the bad guys. This book was done with wit, style, humor, character building and some strong action. This was just a very good ending to a really well done series. I know that I extol the virtues of BOOM a lot on this blog, but it is because they package some really well done stories. If you skip this issue, do yourself a favor and pick up the trade that should follow.

If you wish to heed Jim’s advice, you can preorder it from the BeaucoupKevin(dot)com shop.

A silly self-portrait that will occupy the space of real content.

I made it with this.

Boosterism: Soon I Will Be Invincible.

I am, it should noted as quickly as possible, very suspicious of non-comics attempts to make superheroes work, especially on the printed page. Outside of the brain-dead near-camp stylings of Otto Binder’s Avengers from the late 60s and select choices from Marvel’s second line of superhero novels, they’ve just never worked for me. Be it Jack Kirby’s stylized, blocky figures smacking the viewer with foreshortened fists or Jim Lee’s intricately designed, anatomically unlikely heroes and heroines moving lithely through a hyperdetailed world, the visual element is intricately, explicitely tied into the superhero genre. This assertion on my part made me approach Soon I Will Be Invincible with no small amount of suspicion. After all, if Greg Rucka (who was for a while one of my favorite honest-to-god novelists) couldn’t write a Batman book worth a damn, then what chance did an outsider have?

Fortunately, Austin Grossman’s intelligent dual-narrative novel of a professional supervillain working on one last scheme and the up-and-coming superheroine with a past that’s mysterious to herself as well as others, is more successful than could be reasonably hoped, even if it’s not the mind-blowing, intelligent piece that is hinted at within. Grossman’s writing is propulsive and frequently very funny with deft character work: he manages to flesh many characters out with just a few words. Soon I Will Be Invincible uses one of the central tenets of writing very well: story is more important than plot. When charted out on paper, the events of the novel look like a series of superhero clichés dogpiled on top of one another, but watching how Grossman’s characters react to them provides more than enough motivation to keep turning the pages.

Grossman’s knowledge of superhero comics works to his favor here: like the best pieces of Busiek’s Astro City, parallels are apparent to those who know them, but not a requirement to enjoy the narrative, and he gets to pick and choose from his favorite eras and stories without having to explain very much: Kirby and Lee’s Dr. Doom and the Silver Age Lex Luthor are mashed together to create Doctor Impossible, for instance while Other elements are merely hinted at, like Englehart’s Avengers run or the clever use of a Lois Lane figure.

The disappointments I found in this book are, frankly, minor quibbles more to do with my expectations than the construction of the book itself. I found Grossman’s use of flashback when building Dr. Impossible’s backstory confusing on more than one occasion, and I felt the ending left things a bit flat. The latter, with its almost-deus ex machina ending, was most likely intentional. After all, in the world of superheroes, stories never truly end; they’re left in a stasis that offers the illusion of change while providing the comfort the longtime fans need.

The devastatingly handsome Chip Mosher told me to tell you guys…

…that Cover Girl #5 and Cthulhu Tales: Tainted are both available at the BOOM! Studios store. I’m sure if you poke around, the rest of the Professionally Published Comics Library of Kevin Church is available.

(OK, no, it looks like that link misses this and this, but that’s OK. Really.)

Talking about that whole webcomic thing.

From American Venture:

Platinum Studios, Inc. the owner and rights holder for one of the world’s largest independent libraries of comic book characters, today announced that the company recently completed a $5 million round of equity financing, and has also filed its SB-2 statement with the SEC to become a public company.

Considering the quality of the books I’ve seen from Platinum¹ and the fact they’re apparently under the impression that webcomics will make them rich, this looks to be a pretty excellent implosion that we may be able to watch as it happens. Don’t get me wrong – I really would prefer that a company with as broad a media presence as Platinum seems to have not drag down comics as a whole, but I’ve never liked their take on things² and I do like a good piece of schadenfreude when it’s offered up with a nice red wine.

Today, I’m going to set aside the sparse television deals³ and movies that have been in pre-production since the Cretaceous era, and focus one of the centerpieces for this announcement and how it relates to me: the numbers for DrunkDuck.com, Platinum’s webcomic site. Now, it sounds very impressive when it’s stated that the site receives 32,000,000 hits a month, but that’s spread over 4,000 comics, meaning that each strip gets an average of 8,000 hits a month, which can be further reduced to 266 hits a day. I’m sure there’s extremes on either side of that mean with a few stellar performers and some absolute dogs creating a different median, but even with that in mind, it’s still a fairly unimpressive number, especially if you (like I am doing here) assume they’re doing the usual Web2.0 Number Game where each click on the site is counted as a “hit” versus actually counting each visit.

Looking at these numbers, makes me feel a lot better about the numbers for The Rack, which Birdie and I own it part and parcel without having other brands associated with it. We easily beat DrunkDuck.com’s mean number and would probably qualify as a pretty large success on their site relative to the majority. That’s nice and comforting and serves as a welcome pat on the back, but we want more. We’ve passed through a big chunk of the crowd and now the marathon begins in earnest.

Expect some changes over on that webcomic of mine. Birdie and I have a slightly scary gleam in our eye and plans in the offing that will, hopefully, find us in rock-throwing distance of where we want to be⁴

¹ Kiss 4K? No, really, Kiss 4K?!?
² The company’s constant reference to comics series as “properties” makes me want to kick things. Hard.
³ Jeremiah? Do you remember that? Me, neither.
⁴ Total global domination.

Support My Addictions.

The cover on the left is, of course, the final issue of Cover Girl, the miniseries I co-wrote with Andrew Cosby. The right is an anthology title and features a bleak, nasty little western story by me that was drawn by Hero Squared artist Joe Abraham. These will be on your store’s shelves this week!

The Rack: On Countdown

Don’t ask! Just read!

Out Of Town, Again.

Be back Monday.

I’ll probably go to NYC to see this two weeks early, just like The Life Aquatic.

The Rack: Aaron’s Saga Comes To A Close. Kind of.

If you’ve been biting your nails anxiously, wondering if Aaron Welsh is going to prison for the brutal actions committed during his period of emotional flux, then you’ll want to click here.

(And talk to a doctor about biting your nails. Ick.)