The Rack: Counting Back To Ten.

There’s a really cheap joke in the last panel of the latest strip, but I’m not going to apologize for it. Not one bit.

I love bourbon and I love comics, so why does this make me so uncomfortable?

Oh, right. Because they invade their friend’s privacy by going through his trash instead of asking him like reasonable people. Freaks. This is why I hate the suburbs, right here.

RJ found this here and informed me immediately.

Good soldier.

Marvel Boy won’t shut up.

From “The Deadly Decision,” originally printed in Astonishing Comics #5.
Script and Art by Bill Everett

The Rack: Smashing!

So, yeah, the beginning of a two-week-longish storyline (at least that’s what I’ve got marked out) means it’s the perfect starting point for you to introduce your friends to The Rack.

OK, probably not, but just nod and smile.

With Rob Liefeld getting some press, I thought it’d be nice to look at what might have been.

Click to read the script for Alan Moore’s unpublished
fourth issue of Youngblood

Kurt Busiek and Ernie Chan have some messed up ideas about black people.

Attention, everyone.

I love Laura Hudson so very, very much right now.

The Rack: Blackboard Jungle

So, it’s a day late and everything, but the final installment of this week’s descent into terror is up and available for your eyeballs.

Friday Night Fights: Seriously, kid. Don’t.

My bookie told me to Always bet on Bahlactus.

(Then he got sent up the river for four years.)

Seriously. Let’s ban the fuckers.

Returning to the well.

If you only read one thing today, this should be it.

Rob Liefeld on Alan Moore:

Alan just wants to get paid more money, that’s it. Sorry Alan. I got my body of work out of Alan Moore, he doesn’t intimidate me, I don’t put him on a pedestal like Jack Kirby and Frank Miller. He’s just a guy who wants to get paid, and he cuts deals for himself that he doesn’t like down the line, and then he gets whiny and cries about it…Hey man, he worked for me for two years, I was quiet for like ten years. And then I watched him burn every other bridge, and I go “Hmm.” Although we didn’t have a falling out with him. He just stopped working with us, because he now wanted to invest in his new universe with Wildstorm comics, and again, like I said, OOPS! That went up in flames. He gives ‘temperamental artist’ a new meaning.

Oh, the complete lack of self-awareness, it’s killing me.

The Rack: Delayed!

It’ll be up tonight. Go look at the archives.

Basic Cartoon Math, Volume 1.

Chapter Headings from How Your Body Uses Food, Copyright 1960 National Dairy Council, Chicago.

Boosterism: Essex County Volume Two: Ghost Stories

A disclaimer right up front: I know (and like) Jeff Lemire.

By using a Stephen Leacock quote about hockey and the Canadian experience at the beginning of the latest installment in his Essex County trilogy, Lemire states outright that “It’s a Canadian thing, you may or may not understand,” something he may not have been able to do even just a few years ago, before the Great Graphic Novel Revolution occured in the popular press and work from outside the United States became just a bit more acceptable in bookstores and (some, if not all) direct market outlets. I’m sure somewhere, there’s a neoconservative comics pundit who’s hammering away at his keyboard, furious that one of the two great American art forms has become corrupted by foreign influences, but, you know, fuck that guy.

Anyway, back to Lemire’s book.

Ghost Stories is about hockey and family and senility and aging and loneliness and heartbreak, among other things. It’s beautifully rendered, cinematic in a just-surreal-enough way – the image of a streetcar in a field of wheat is one of those touches of whimsy that avoids being cloying, and the casual depth of the writing engages the reader on an emotional level that can be uncomfortable without reaching the levels of (self) loathing that, say, Tomine can induce. There’s a few moments in this book where I paused, sort of amazed at the reaction it was pulling from me, perhaps a bit jealous.

Lemire’s making great strides as a comics creator. As accomplished as Lost Dogs seemed when it debuted a couple of years ago, his narrative voice has become clearer and his art more and more accomplished. I may consider him a friend, but I also think of Jeff as someone that’s pushing comics forward without muss or fuss, a typically Canadian way of doing things.

There’s a preview of Ghost Stories on Lemire’s website. You can buy it from my Amazon shop or support Top Shelf Comics directly.

I am looking forward to this much, much more than I should any comic with "Zombie" in the title.

Yes, the new Radiohead is very good, but let’s discuss something important, like the video for the new Kylie single.

1. Yes, I like it, but I wish someone had told her that Christina Aguilera already did “that look.”
2. Am I the only person getting the Songs of Faith and Devotion-era Depeche Mode vibe off this?
3. That dude’s hair is fucked up.
4. Wow, she looks a lot like Madonna with that bright red lipstick.
5. More pop singles should be shorter than three minutes.

The Rack: Staff Picks for the Week of October 10, 2007

Answered Questions, Part The Second: The Fall and Rise Of Malaise.

Here we go with the second batch. I’m probably going to come off as a bit of a dick (no, really) as I’m fighting a cold. At least that’s the excuse I’m using.

Matthew Craig stuffs the ballot box:

1. Who creates the better romantic foils: Stan Lee, Joe Shuster or Warren Ellis?

Joe Shuster created the archetype, so I’m going with him. Stan gets points though for making sure that we all felt Peter Parker was a dip for managing to whine about his lot in life when MJ and Gwen were both interested in his sexmeats.

2. Can you see your house on Google Map, and do you know on what day the picture was taken?

Yes, I can. No, I don’t.

3. If you could remove one comic from The Great Set Texts Of Comics, changing the comics landscape forever retroactively, which one would it be, why, and/or what might be the hypothetical consequences?

Kingdom Come. I honestly do not understand why it’s as popular as it is outside of serving as an attractive version of superhero Where’s Waldo. The versions of the characters presented are anathema to me. I’m not sure what would be gained by yanking the book out of DC’s editorial canon, but I’m pretty sure a lot of this “trinity” nonsense that they’ve been shoving down the readers’ throats would disappear.

3b. Same question as above, but “add,” instead of “remove.”

I think DC: The New Frontier is already there, so I’ll go with Morrison’s Animal Man, as completely redrawn by Chris Sprouse or Frank Quitely.

4. Robin doesn’t exist, never existed, won’t ever exist. Better for Batman?

Nope.

5. What are your five Desert Island Comics – by which I mean hard copy, paper comics, not crafty CD-ROM collections of forty years of F4.

I’m going to cheat and use print collections in this list. Love And Rockets: X, Love And Rockets: The Death Of Speedy, the second Fantastic Four Omnibus, a random Complete Peanuts book from the strip’s first decade, and a random DC Showcase Presents collection, probably the second Superman volume or The Unknown Soldier’s tome. It’s killing me to make this list without Watchmen or another Alan Moore work on it.

6. Helen Mirren wants to play a comicbook character. Her agent asks your advice, because I keep telling her that she should play Elizabeth III, based on my screenplay/envelope.

“Tae complete tha trilogy,” Sez I.

Which comicbook character nets Dame Helen the Oscar?

Queen Hippolyta, in a Wonder Woman movie that doesn’t completely reek. (This is very unlikely.)

7. Would superhero comics be better or worse off without the concept of “legacy heroes?”

(God, these are all a bit comicy. Sorry.)

Better, with rare exceptions, one of those being the new Blue Beetle book. That’s most likely due to the fact it has very little to do with the earlier versions of the character.

8. One time, I was so utterly rapt in a book that I was reading – Neal Adams X-Men Visionaries – that I rode the Docklands Light Railway from end to end TWICE without noticing, and ended up missing my lunch appointment. Have you? With What? And Missing?

No, and there’s a reason for this: I get extremely nervous if I think I’m going miss an appointment of any kind, or if I think I’m going to be late. I’m talking sweating, nausea, etcetera. I’m one of those people that’s at the airport three hours before a flight. I’ll read on the train or bus, but I’m constantly, constantly checking the timetable and looking at the map.

Dom has a collector’s question.

One piece of tape or two?

No bag or board, at least with new comics. Old comics get what they came with.

James decides to do my head in:

Here’s a potentially long one. Either Marvel or DC (your choice or both if you’re adventurous) give you the chance to a Seven Soldiers style book revamping the 7 characters of your choice. Who do you choose and why?

I’m fighting a cold, so I’m not going to be supremely adventurous. I’ll go with Marvel, even if Jeff Parker went and made Agents of Atlas, which is kind of close to what I’m going to pitch.

The team:
The Golden Age Angel, The Masked Raider, Electro (The Marvel Of The Age, and apparently ganked by Straczynski for that upcoming project The Twelve with Weston), Ka-Zar (yes, I know, he’s got his fans, but when was the last time any of you read a comic featuring him?), The Defender (the Simon and Kirby character from USA Comics), and The Fin.

Why?
Because I love the goofiness, vim, and vigor of Golden Age Marvel comics. Most of the ouvre owes no small debt to whiskey-spiked coffee and it shows. Nextwave proved that there’s an audience for pure action comics, and by using older characters that very few people in the modern audience care about, a lot more fun could be hand.

Max thinks question marks and the shift key are for the weak.

Of all the new justice leaguers, which one belongs on the team the least.

Don’t know. Don’t care. I think McDuffie can make it work, even if I wish the current book resembled JLU a bit more and the lethargic 70s Justice League of America comics a bit less. (I know, I know – give him time.)

Miranda disqualified herself before asking:

Which superhero has the most useless or pathetic powers ever, and why are they the worst?

What? No, let’s not. I’m a firm believer in the idea that every character can be used well. It just takes a keen mind that can see things with a new angle and make the audience see what they see.

(Or Batman. I mean, really.)

Chris joins in the ballot-box stuffing.

1) King Faraday vs. Nick Fury. Who would win, and how?

1960s slash fiction writers would win. I think you know how.

2) How many times were the X-Men drawn playing any type of sport during the 90′s? And how many times did Bobby Drake scream “No Powers!” before they got on with the plot?

I don’t know; didn’t read X-Men in the 90s.

3) On that line of thought, How many times did the Justice League play softball during the same time period?

I don’t know; didn’t read the Justice League comics in the 90s.

4) Nathan Fillion as Jonah Hex. Thoughts?

No? Yes? Had to look him up on the internet; never seen him in anything. No, you can’t make me watch Firefly

5) How long do you think it’ll take Judd Winick to figure out he can’t write Trials of Shazam?

It’s not whether or not he “can write” Trials of Shazam. It’s whether or not DC can continue to sell the comic that matters. How long will it take you to drop the title and vote with your dollars, y’know?

6) Who was (is) the best wife in the DC universe?

Alfred.

Rod Lott’s name makes me happy. I like single-syllable names like Rod Lott, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne.

What’s the most stunningly awful mispronunciation of your blog name that you’ve heard thus far?

I want to smack everyone that writes out “Beau Coup Kevin.” It happens more often than you’d think.

Ray Cornwall wants me to speculate a whole lot.

What would the comics in a world where Watchmen never came out look like?

Probably more like a grotesquely misunderstood The Dark Knight Returns. At least I wouldn’t have to fret over Zak Snyder missing the point on a grand scale in 2008! Seriously, though: if Watchmen weren’t there, then something else would have become the gold standard for “mature” superhero books that people try to emulate. Maybe it’d be Brat Pack. That’d be interesting, wouldn’t it?

David Bedard wonders about my writing “career”:

If someone offered you a career as one of the most successful writers of our time, but in exchange you had to write only one title that you loathe (say, Wolverine) for the rest of your life, would you accept?

Of course. I can’t imagine there being a character that I hate enough to make writing its title painful. Again, I’m a believer in execution over concept. There are (say) Wolverine stories I really like that are grossly outnumbered by the ones I can’t care about at all.

Bonus question: What title wouldn’t you mind writing forever?

The Rack. Birdie and I own it. It’s ours. That’s more important to me than maintaining someone else’s copyright.

Rasselas:

How many Wolverine action figures does Warren Ellis secretly own and fondle when he claims to be “in the pub, writing a letter to the future on a glass harmonica that Xeni Jardin got from a Hmong cyborg art dealer in Tijuana”?

I’m sure Rasselas wrote that so the world would know what he thinks of Warren Ellis, so there you are, buddy. Now get your own blog!

Gordon strokes my ego a tiny bit:

Now that you’re actually writing comics (rather than just commenting on them), are you getting an increase in annoying e-mails? Young ‘uns calling you “sell out”? Wannabes asking for tips? Joe Quesada inviting you out for hot dogs and beer at Hooters?

I get emails asking me how I “broke in” and people don’t understand that I’m serious when I write things like “because I have pictures of Ross Richie and two clowns.” If Joe Quesada asked me out for a trip to Hooters, it would confirm every suspicion I’ve had about the man’s personality.

(Yeah, that sound you hear is my Damage Control pitch being fed for an industrial shredder.)

Sir Jorge thinks it’s the 1992 MTV Presidential Forum all over again:

boxers or briefs?

Been over this; boxer-briefs.

Baal demands tribute:

Your blurb says ‘I drink more than I probably should and obsess over stuff that, really, isn’t worth obsessing over.’ Have you ever drank too much because of things that aren’t worth obsessing over? Have you ever obsessed over drinking more than you probably should? And finally, what posts were made possible solely because of drinking more than you possibly should?

No; yes; I’m sure there’s a video post or two on here that are the result of me being drunk.

Zak Attack!

Kevin,
Do you read today’s newspaper comics? On a daily basis? Which ones do you prefer, and which ones do you just loathe? (Garfield is not to be mentioned. That one’s obvious.) I frequent “The Comics Curmudgeon” and am always pleased with what Josh shares with us. Specifically the last few days and some of the story lines that are going on right now. Thanks for the reply, Zak.

Zak:
I stopped reading newspaper strips some time ago. I read Comics Curmudgeon two or three times a week and that’s it. I just can’t be bothered, for the most part. I know, it’s not the answer you were looking for.

Sorry for the reply,
Kevin

I’ll figure out who deserves the brilliance of Johnny Ryan’s scatological take on life, the universe, and everything when I crawl out of bed later.