tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59660639581391383702024-03-05T08:30:01.294-08:00CRACK! POW! WHAM!The Golden Age of Comics is twelve...A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-78867484415123229212022-10-31T10:30:00.001-07:002022-10-31T14:09:00.965-07:00Happy Halloween!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEoytmkZZdh31-bdQXfODwT3graxAe7EVg21sQCiLhNW_0R78f9qIYOgnO0f-yyplLI8LXEUl-vLNE98xwLIBFKDTRgyvKeqlwOTxEn5SLGFSZjsoDZi2JBtPgK8k5FfJVSYEtUBLO7VdAgp-Hh2Fq9MvvECv4Stsz_jtpuuvHgZ90Eq-pqiHqaeagg/s1859/SGF%20LOIS%20LANE%20%2301.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1859" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEoytmkZZdh31-bdQXfODwT3graxAe7EVg21sQCiLhNW_0R78f9qIYOgnO0f-yyplLI8LXEUl-vLNE98xwLIBFKDTRgyvKeqlwOTxEn5SLGFSZjsoDZi2JBtPgK8k5FfJVSYEtUBLO7VdAgp-Hh2Fq9MvvECv4Stsz_jtpuuvHgZ90Eq-pqiHqaeagg/w440-h640/SGF%20LOIS%20LANE%20%2301.jpg" width="440" /></a></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Cover by Curt Swan & Stan Kaye</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Although it has no relation to the cover above, today being
Halloween and all that made me think of one of the Superman’s sixties and
seventies stories aspects I enjoyed more when I was a kid: his weakness when
confronted with magic. In some way I find hard to explain, his susceptibility
to the supernatural was something that resonated with me much better than the
more prosaic kryptonite. But then again, maybe because DC (mainly during the reign
of Julius Schwartz) is so closely associated with the material world of
science, whenever the supernatural intruded its effects were much more chilling
than, say, in Marvel Comics. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Maybe that’s why Deadman, The Phantom Stranger, Etrigan,
or Solomon Grundy had a more lasting effect in me than Ghost Rider or Morbius,
the Living Vampire. Marvel, obviously, excelled with Lee and Ditko’s Doctor
Strange, and few characters left a more iconic impression of villainy than The
Green Goblin (again, through Ditko’s horror attuned imagination), but few
stories had more impact on me than Wolfman and Perez’s Brother Blood Saga from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NEW TEEN TITANS</b> back in the early
Eighties, or the initial run of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SWAMP
THING</b> by Wein and Wrightson.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Except, maybe, for the one I have the fondest memory
of: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Monsters Among Us!</i>”, written
by the same Len Wein (with Paul Levitz), and penciled by Curt Swan (inked in this issue by Frank Chiaramonte), from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SUPERMAN</b>
# 344 (cover dated February 1980). That’s the story I always remember each time
the leafs fall from the trees and the full moon rises behind the naked branches
of crooked trees on Halloween night.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">So, Happy Halloween, folks!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwcgV_tPvEJMD8Gi0ijzhCminu9al_7vdp17rg6-S52okJLCxC6bVgn6Bo7FvQBatCCPGrYSokgoKnYsYTHc2JsviGKVXc7OE7Yqn17HdA-VS4HaUkHVLiV78_gCWpZtgl5PUlt_c7BB74CSxquP2DFtKZ9xIDga5iLwELoiLxdnZjvl2t-Lh6oeOkg/s2600/Superman%20%23344.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2600" data-original-width="1712" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwcgV_tPvEJMD8Gi0ijzhCminu9al_7vdp17rg6-S52okJLCxC6bVgn6Bo7FvQBatCCPGrYSokgoKnYsYTHc2JsviGKVXc7OE7Yqn17HdA-VS4HaUkHVLiV78_gCWpZtgl5PUlt_c7BB74CSxquP2DFtKZ9xIDga5iLwELoiLxdnZjvl2t-Lh6oeOkg/w422-h640/Superman%20%23344.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Cover by José Luis García-López</span></span></i></div></i>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-61675931228501827912021-07-27T14:39:00.001-07:002021-09-30T04:10:20.170-07:00Peeking into an Alien World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC9k0k666_3MhhCC1R8e9V_hBfx9dhpOev7btSytqv9SMhG3mztnsoJi0-9b8faJVifvhSHeTlfey2GVUHmHEAXyJqlwBb826PY4BYoCIfm2wy2827L7WEJDshPxwa_SOyO4TuprO1HWoh/s1510/Forbidden+Love+03+18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1510" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC9k0k666_3MhhCC1R8e9V_hBfx9dhpOev7btSytqv9SMhG3mztnsoJi0-9b8faJVifvhSHeTlfey2GVUHmHEAXyJqlwBb826PY4BYoCIfm2wy2827L7WEJDshPxwa_SOyO4TuprO1HWoh/w400-h260/Forbidden+Love+03+18.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>When I was a kid, you wouldn’t caught me dead with a romance comic book in my hands. In fact, I never read a Romance comic book in my life, and what led me to <b>DARING LOVE</b> #1 was Blake Bell’s reference to it in <b><i>Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko</i></b> (Fantagraphics Books, 2008) as containing Steve Ditko’s first published work (the final story of this one-shot issue, the six-pager “<i>Paper Romance!</i>”). The first thing that stroked my attention was the amazing cover by Bernard Baily, that I appropriately found on a wonderful summer afternoon this past week, not unlike the one depicted on it. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiYxg8F323NpqFtOVdnCp_nMRvOVC08uB558XGFfifL7EufHwq-OECPLbdcN3d7wGknz7Z6s0-anbVgl3Za55ahFurD7jHduODlE0N4scy3PHQRlUTCXI6zE1hZOadrgY4ovExxlIwmE_u/s1570/Daring+Love+01+%2528Bernard+Baily%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1570" data-original-width="1048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiYxg8F323NpqFtOVdnCp_nMRvOVC08uB558XGFfifL7EufHwq-OECPLbdcN3d7wGknz7Z6s0-anbVgl3Za55ahFurD7jHduODlE0N4scy3PHQRlUTCXI6zE1hZOadrgY4ovExxlIwmE_u/w268-h400/Daring+Love+01+%2528Bernard+Baily%2529.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br /> The girl on the cover reminded me of Martha Vickers in 1946’s <i>THE BIG SLEEP</i>, when Bogart/Marlowe first visits Sternwood’s mansion, legs up to her waist and sunshine in her hair. The golden hay she’s reclining on serves as a rich reminder of the summer heat outside the barn, where one can easily imagine the air shimmering with heat waves rising from the dry ground. A cover about endless summers gone. A wonderfully nostalgic cover, resonant in its clichéd simplicity.<p></p><p>A cover I’m sure I would have loved had I found it when I was a young kid in love with Kara Zor-El. And that led me to think of how would my younger, kidder, self, have found such a comic book like? Yes, me, who thrilled with cowboys and Indians shoot’em ups; who brandished wooden swords side-by-side with the likes of Sandokan and Robin Hood; who played Star Wars with my gunslinger plastic cowboys; who enjoyed binge-reading huge piles of Donald and Scrooge Walt Disney comic books, that were only (albeit, promptly) set aside when I glimpsed my first Superman comic book on the corner’s newsstand where my father used to buy his paper? </p><p>Braving beyond the cover, my younger self would have found a world more alien than Krypton, weirder than any of the planets where the Enterprise’s red shirts went to die, peopled by aliens as gorgeous as Supergirl, but as distant as the most sinister creature from the unknown pits of Mongo: women in love!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBgz2UgjP5JAm3BFVGL1eRDGPRSjSmIH9dNwUMtO_5FxmojRsyaNXwHranq1xpI-K8mvY6h-cFhFa6MVQPPEea2P41IqoQLnnJRvhANackZgBGyAeyByx4Ny_hkxbW4QHXBVxlOrt97sL/s856/All+Love+27+%25281949%2529+13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="856" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBgz2UgjP5JAm3BFVGL1eRDGPRSjSmIH9dNwUMtO_5FxmojRsyaNXwHranq1xpI-K8mvY6h-cFhFa6MVQPPEea2P41IqoQLnnJRvhANackZgBGyAeyByx4Ny_hkxbW4QHXBVxlOrt97sL/w400-h378/All+Love+27+%25281949%2529+13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>“The Price of Fame”, <b>ALL LOVE</b> #27 (1949), pencils and inks by L.B. Cole</i></span></p><p>Of course, women in love were a species known to occupy any entertainment habitat, from adventure serials to cerebral science-fiction. They were always hindering, or helping, our heroes. Most of all, they seemed to have the most pronounced proclivity for being in danger and in need of rescue. They were mostly blonde, sometimes brunette, seldom redheaded, and never, <i>never</i>, black-haired. Those were the <i>femmes fatales</i>. The villainesses. But neither of them were ever shown quite like this.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YtYzbuCn5AUL6bThkPoe2E7iQW53nEbfGvmzsPHynY5fhqE5XMvGZlhxHnNFKogM9QEfka5q3yYuXFOXpMRvvSy-SF3bHxHIfA_eBHKpHMA4s7tePZx3RdzYfqZX__AnFKwLiLMF2Cf3/s940/Daring_Love_01_04.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="940" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YtYzbuCn5AUL6bThkPoe2E7iQW53nEbfGvmzsPHynY5fhqE5XMvGZlhxHnNFKogM9QEfka5q3yYuXFOXpMRvvSy-SF3bHxHIfA_eBHKpHMA4s7tePZx3RdzYfqZX__AnFKwLiLMF2Cf3/w400-h219/Daring_Love_01_04.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Dear John”, <b>DARING LOVE</b> #1 (1953), pencils by Gerald Altman and inks by Jon D’Agostino</span></i></p><p>There, one would have found women in their own secret identities as,well… women, speaking in terms unheard of, as aking to any alien language as Klingon or Swahili, but looking so utterly and unexpectedly gorgeous as any kid could have never imagined on the pages of <b>PALE RIDER</b> or <b>ZORRO</b>.</p><p>Of course, I don’t believe I would have recognize them as any of the girls that were usually around my heroes. Sure, they were equally pretty and alluring, but would seldom reveal more than a round shoulder through an expertly torn dress. I wouldn’t ever imagine that even when preparing to brave a snow storm to take some important plea to the governor, our heroine would take care in smoothing her stockings:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0XO7wtlf9Ba43PBJJyTKX6el-VWg3gYPh7nK_O2J1BE8Ssv8mD9cDZyeG0ZMhCljobSPFzHGqWSJD6OifEHEknv1QV_NXR3j4Z6kTRi7Pq0NcRf70v-AiZehSPF1kTMa8RZOdbAwMCPIw/s949/Page23_LoveMystery001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="949" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0XO7wtlf9Ba43PBJJyTKX6el-VWg3gYPh7nK_O2J1BE8Ssv8mD9cDZyeG0ZMhCljobSPFzHGqWSJD6OifEHEknv1QV_NXR3j4Z6kTRi7Pq0NcRf70v-AiZehSPF1kTMa8RZOdbAwMCPIw/w400-h184/Page23_LoveMystery001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>“Terror at Tarn House”, <b>LOVE MISTERY</b> #1 (1950), pencils and inks by George Evans</i></span></p><p style="text-align: left;">Nor would I ever have imagined, from the height of my twelve-years old innocence, that it could be such a recurrent and sensual gesture, one that we never saw Supergirl or Batgirl performing.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOGywZjOd-wXdufvP-ZqinG6LFGMRFDVpQyTSVlrWL12uTNCE2uw_qgnaflYng57bWg3NyC3H55Ssu5wk6TmsViHBkZcFFxJzjRdfOR17YNmDZdMDwW4w6APBvys6-gzu4BV60-mbzbdFG/s1396/Intimate+Confessions+%25232+06.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="1396" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOGywZjOd-wXdufvP-ZqinG6LFGMRFDVpQyTSVlrWL12uTNCE2uw_qgnaflYng57bWg3NyC3H55Ssu5wk6TmsViHBkZcFFxJzjRdfOR17YNmDZdMDwW4w6APBvys6-gzu4BV60-mbzbdFG/w400-h189/Intimate+Confessions+%25232+06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Too Young to Love!”, <b>INTIMATE CONFESSIONS</b> #2 (1951), pencils by Walter Johnson</span></i></p><p>And, despite knowing that Supergirl and Batgirl and Wonder Woman had to change from their secret identities to her super-heroine <i>personae</i>, one would never had suspected that under their blouses and skirts any of those wonderful girls – Linda Danvers, Barbara Gordon, Diana Prince – would wear a bra and panties, and least of all, stockings! For all the times one would see Linda Danvers rip her shirt open, just like his more famous cousin, one never got to see what was beneath the blue leotard with the exciting s-shield that always got in the way.</p><p>Not so in these Romance comics; here one would glimpse the truth beneath the exterior façade, the secret accoutrements that remained more hidden than Superman’s identity as Clark Kent. When these girls changed clothes, there was always a second tier of intimate protection that bore no resemblance to colorful out-of-this-world costumes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXuPv8z60v5pDSp3N5Z0u3y0yJZFxoulRaiTZLcKdGp6_vC1j8yxCAMNQnu7Fz0RS9Lz0RwZ5FQ8WGn2VCWFYAJGRr15nihIlSfJvCYH99I1Xdqwe0seeIhQ91iUO1iKR465iyf5GwKEwX/s1569/Forbidden+Love+03+06.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="761" data-original-width="1569" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXuPv8z60v5pDSp3N5Z0u3y0yJZFxoulRaiTZLcKdGp6_vC1j8yxCAMNQnu7Fz0RS9Lz0RwZ5FQ8WGn2VCWFYAJGRr15nihIlSfJvCYH99I1Xdqwe0seeIhQ91iUO1iKR465iyf5GwKEwX/w400-h194/Forbidden+Love+03+06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>“Kissless Bride”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #3 (1950), penciller and inker unknown</i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BTJZFp_MvQHkaBbgWIeFPBVn_G-b4rzgifC3uNddgQ-SKtblWAXkgZnf0F3fZrXmP50vVzwWPlj6X451Ta99iRTozLUHlA5dDq81W6b6lhA_ympOu8Zc6mg3nSyNwv7i7A5vsonf9dJc/s1536/Forbidden+Love+04+42.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="1536" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BTJZFp_MvQHkaBbgWIeFPBVn_G-b4rzgifC3uNddgQ-SKtblWAXkgZnf0F3fZrXmP50vVzwWPlj6X451Ta99iRTozLUHlA5dDq81W6b6lhA_ympOu8Zc6mg3nSyNwv7i7A5vsonf9dJc/w400-h178/Forbidden+Love+04+42.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“The Inner Fire”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #4 (1950), penciller and inker unknown</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF6jvkudseh_BDc7rsjRZWK-KjN5ruqv6JxJfOCpnAuIMERzOfFVHmFFRy3ubYl4rJqRg7MMNcihbNk_TdiLgkC1vWK9a4VE71bl5F6rRvVanUc3o1qDEXlmoFPOFn7W-AOKkA8wA5J9-I/s1388/Intimate+Confessons+%25232+19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1388" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF6jvkudseh_BDc7rsjRZWK-KjN5ruqv6JxJfOCpnAuIMERzOfFVHmFFRy3ubYl4rJqRg7MMNcihbNk_TdiLgkC1vWK9a4VE71bl5F6rRvVanUc3o1qDEXlmoFPOFn7W-AOKkA8wA5J9-I/w400-h195/Intimate+Confessons+%25232+19.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Two Wayward Girls”, <b>INTIMATE CONFESSIONS</b> #2 (1951), pencils and inks by Louis Zansky</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0mGfqYNzF8X8U4noftah526hawJRMA7zBFdlgzaVmydzmrthou1kOEHIX7E1Hi6UnI9_i93TgbB8uLbbFeN3oxU2rIr4bqraIMB3caCAlH74bR0qrFstHMgGMGNQ1r5scmPxKqb9WHUE/s1656/Forbidden+Love+03+23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1490" data-original-width="1656" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0mGfqYNzF8X8U4noftah526hawJRMA7zBFdlgzaVmydzmrthou1kOEHIX7E1Hi6UnI9_i93TgbB8uLbbFeN3oxU2rIr4bqraIMB3caCAlH74bR0qrFstHMgGMGNQ1r5scmPxKqb9WHUE/w400-h360/Forbidden+Love+03+23.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Love for Sale”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #3 (1950), pencils and inks unknown</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPll8OImZJSWj2YFHFj0yAeEL3E9vUEVgK7v2AXnqD9OkpvO0jTjG79YPiOYN7PpyI2eyCe1MUnAsifP8k2fOSEJHCY-kWwF4SSLlU7QE2CnnGiAl10Zoe8EChxWa3YW04onEUObJ7huKp/s1003/Forbidden+Love+01+06.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1003" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPll8OImZJSWj2YFHFj0yAeEL3E9vUEVgK7v2AXnqD9OkpvO0jTjG79YPiOYN7PpyI2eyCe1MUnAsifP8k2fOSEJHCY-kWwF4SSLlU7QE2CnnGiAl10Zoe8EChxWa3YW04onEUObJ7huKp/w400-h286/Forbidden+Love+01+06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Heartbreak Road”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #1 (1950), pencils and inks unknown</span></i></p><p>Although their conversations and musings kept sounding like alienese, one would win insight into the they-to-day life of these strange and fabulous creatures. One would follow them into the locker-room and be privy to what went on in there.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK8QVwdIceUbvMs4HApHHewU_VvsChSYOCxiLJu5Or7w97BNcNFUmQ2bdO-aTW39HHz9gBXiJkqmQl-dUnXUIt3xqmeij-CjbkIDxbRkgr7OfDNoHdpXOdHO2_LmvIpcrj6RG-bhRxTx8m/s754/Forbidden+Love+04+32a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="613" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK8QVwdIceUbvMs4HApHHewU_VvsChSYOCxiLJu5Or7w97BNcNFUmQ2bdO-aTW39HHz9gBXiJkqmQl-dUnXUIt3xqmeij-CjbkIDxbRkgr7OfDNoHdpXOdHO2_LmvIpcrj6RG-bhRxTx8m/w325-h400/Forbidden+Love+04+32a.jpg" width="325" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Hate on Skates”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #4 (1950), pencils and inks unknown</span></i></p><p>And, in the late hours of the night, we would accompany them in the stifling heat, in the inner turmoil of the senses. Unlike the girls we saw in other comics, these women were seemingly incapable of sleep. Their nights a sensual storm of sheer negligès and naked flesh, tousled hair and parted lips, tears and rain and heat. Body heat. Mind fever.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq6jafKrH4GxkE7wYhzAg7XP9QFxzVsdUs74iGG9vCmz0iyUUdLFJh6YSyDVRHq6mjDRaJJPnrM2oEQ23bV_mb_94XaEpXweCJp47M0ZP2cPzvDiUFI0VEfb-mhDAWcAWjxb4xDC6V6rlH/s926/Daring_Love_01_02.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="926" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq6jafKrH4GxkE7wYhzAg7XP9QFxzVsdUs74iGG9vCmz0iyUUdLFJh6YSyDVRHq6mjDRaJJPnrM2oEQ23bV_mb_94XaEpXweCJp47M0ZP2cPzvDiUFI0VEfb-mhDAWcAWjxb4xDC6V6rlH/w400-h198/Daring_Love_01_02.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Dear John”, <b>DARING LOVE</b> #1 (1953), pencils by Gerald Altman and inks by Jon D’Agostino</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGHgzGaBg_y7mszNqOd3pUWSW8zR5J6wsaF03T6RQfa_NtrvV46UjD7HSSMMNf7VzVKvXMvdGvz89YSgWJv4nxtg24wezvp9V-vfijoCuJ823PdZc7H23d7NLE6HEVUDhXgPrxp4s8-kds/s966/Daring_Love_01_27.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="966" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGHgzGaBg_y7mszNqOd3pUWSW8zR5J6wsaF03T6RQfa_NtrvV46UjD7HSSMMNf7VzVKvXMvdGvz89YSgWJv4nxtg24wezvp9V-vfijoCuJ823PdZc7H23d7NLE6HEVUDhXgPrxp4s8-kds/w400-h251/Daring_Love_01_27.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Paper Romance!”, <b>DARING LOVE</b> #1 (1953), pencils and inks by Steve Ditko</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJos9HZSzS_lDL8CBV5zR1zVvuv6xpg_I0oBfsq-hG_RNZeYfjHEXNWzeDjgS1APn_j9NYEzK6qgfuBYhuS4ldSXuCgwQqarCWqHT7BD43agMbqWLgt1pIHBZjoDzOXcNriq6Pq0L1CzZ3/s1534/Forbidden+Love+01+23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="1534" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJos9HZSzS_lDL8CBV5zR1zVvuv6xpg_I0oBfsq-hG_RNZeYfjHEXNWzeDjgS1APn_j9NYEzK6qgfuBYhuS4ldSXuCgwQqarCWqHT7BD43agMbqWLgt1pIHBZjoDzOXcNriq6Pq0L1CzZ3/w400-h180/Forbidden+Love+01+23.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Man not for Sale”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #1 (1950), pencils and inks by Reed Crandall</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64i8nyeopwRRGezNIsnWFKda0-vJqc3UkrP27CrdS5YcjsASrybwVJA3pQ0q98rIHdS3KoL-EOREXZsk1Hd09gUxlFnROxFejNFoxQpUVMRCM49FkCTFZP5LLdB5FcJsCTVud9v_rLJG5/s1553/Forbidden+Love+03+14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="1553" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64i8nyeopwRRGezNIsnWFKda0-vJqc3UkrP27CrdS5YcjsASrybwVJA3pQ0q98rIHdS3KoL-EOREXZsk1Hd09gUxlFnROxFejNFoxQpUVMRCM49FkCTFZP5LLdB5FcJsCTVud9v_rLJG5/w400-h173/Forbidden+Love+03+14.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Girl-in-Waiting”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #3 (1950), pencils by Norman Nodel</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2205xnFuYkTXvVm6SoXDybA4EhM_1fdVG0kAlUShjF9L_A8LCdb9kYIlyO5RtAOeTDPlksIN4al8uk178sR_SbXdSxmzSHU7TeKmGa6puXz2olXJXIM4xSjGv1ZSp1j4bEN1zMAZctNsw/s708/Intimate+confessions+%25232++14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="708" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2205xnFuYkTXvVm6SoXDybA4EhM_1fdVG0kAlUShjF9L_A8LCdb9kYIlyO5RtAOeTDPlksIN4al8uk178sR_SbXdSxmzSHU7TeKmGa6puXz2olXJXIM4xSjGv1ZSp1j4bEN1zMAZctNsw/w400-h375/Intimate+confessions+%25232++14.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Doomed to Silence”, <b>INTIMATE CONFESSIONS</b> #2 (1951), pencils by Louis Ravielli</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO4RDwFq_vqQCLSQG8dffpDFpgU_WaI7tmhhAPFNQiiF1Z1IYDlTO-CNNC7TR8Lz4MvggY7iU1DHdgvf_GmJCOobaTdb7wgmXrHTP_T6Bh1W0mzOYybfJpUW6u7L-nhzcBJQ4Tg7PdSH7K/s1431/Intimate+Confessions+06+32.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="1431" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO4RDwFq_vqQCLSQG8dffpDFpgU_WaI7tmhhAPFNQiiF1Z1IYDlTO-CNNC7TR8Lz4MvggY7iU1DHdgvf_GmJCOobaTdb7wgmXrHTP_T6Bh1W0mzOYybfJpUW6u7L-nhzcBJQ4Tg7PdSH7K/w400-h200/Intimate+Confessions+06+32.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“No Substitute for Love”, <b>INTIMATE CONFESSIONS</b> #6 (1952), pencils and inks by unknown</span></i></p><p>For someone totally unaware of Romance comics (as was I when I read mainly comics) it may come as a surprise the important role they’ve played in the medium. A greater surprise may be to find out that the Romance comics concept was “created” by such giants as Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, responsible themselves for the creation or co-creation of many of the greatest comic book characters of all time. And no lesser a surprise derives from the knowledge that many of my favorite artists dwelled there – and Dick Giordano comes immediately to mind – putting their names to something that goes way beyond the – to me, at least – uninteresting plots: the gorgeous art, in its close-to-reality depiction of mostly dream-like <i>real</i> girls and <i>real</i> women. Romance comics were born still in the Golden Age with Simon and Kirby’s <b>YOUNG ROMANCE</b> (1947-1975), and would cross the entire expanse of the Silver Age, well into the Bronze Age of comics, as an invisible, yet always-present, companion to the more famous and popular super-hero books from the sixties onwards.</p><p>In his <b><i>DC Comics: A Celebration of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes</i></b> (Virgin Books, 1995, 2004), Les Daniels quotes DC executive Irwin Donenfeld as stating that Romance comics “<i>weren’t sexy in any sense of the word</i>” (p.107). Maybe that’s a perception influenced by Donenfeld’s analysis that Romance comics were read mainly by young girls. Or maybe because they came to an end when the Sixties cultural and social revolution brought about a new, more explicit, sexual <i>mores</i>. However, for the twelve years old kid that never read Romance comics that is a point hard to sustain. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC0TtjQOGyC7VC4QZyTSP3EnkSrs5ebCKWpb85jI2wn4rKBo5ncaCr_fnKYlHaZHwZ2PIulNzBxkqvKeD-Rl58cnH_pIIhhTK-hN_aRALiIAGzil6RMW5Cm-VMv48yJdvVVFQjCbf2oOqi/s1116/Forbidden+Love+04+34.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="679" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC0TtjQOGyC7VC4QZyTSP3EnkSrs5ebCKWpb85jI2wn4rKBo5ncaCr_fnKYlHaZHwZ2PIulNzBxkqvKeD-Rl58cnH_pIIhhTK-hN_aRALiIAGzil6RMW5Cm-VMv48yJdvVVFQjCbf2oOqi/w390-h640/Forbidden+Love+04+34.jpg" width="390" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Hate on Skates”, <b>FORBIDDEN LOVE</b> #4 (1950), pencils and inks unknown</span></i></p><p>Through mostly inspired good girl art, Romance comics provided an unexpected peek into the lives – real or imagined – of the female of the species. Allowing us to look over their shoulders and into their rooms, under the pretext of caring for their love troubles (that are, along with death, the troubles of us all), these books gave us the chance to admire the female anatomy at its barest, something other comic books – for boys – seldom did. As such, they are, by themselves, an education, a schooling, and a revelation. Something my twelve-year old self would like to have seen then. And so here it is now, in memory of Summers long gone.</p><div><br /></div>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-55505305742541309872021-07-15T05:57:00.000-07:002021-07-15T05:57:06.788-07:00Gallery of Sexy Covers: DARING LOVE #1 (1953)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvAmg0570v5wUglKMjBms80iWJxOaWdSL5R4vWE90Jt-rPJ0Tk8KqP0WqSB6v02dwRGSR8h2AuvwQAMAB9boCJyQ2AK5npaaXDct6aEYSdTvyGXeFlP3bjGIeVhVLp0B-04VE7wlSqAGiN/s1570/Daring+Love+01+%2528Bernard+Baily%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1570" data-original-width="1048" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvAmg0570v5wUglKMjBms80iWJxOaWdSL5R4vWE90Jt-rPJ0Tk8KqP0WqSB6v02dwRGSR8h2AuvwQAMAB9boCJyQ2AK5npaaXDct6aEYSdTvyGXeFlP3bjGIeVhVLp0B-04VE7wlSqAGiN/w429-h640/Daring+Love+01+%2528Bernard+Baily%2529.jpg" width="429" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i> Cover by Bernard Baily</i></div><p></p>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-32111773707298778502020-12-27T16:21:00.000-08:002020-12-27T16:21:45.287-08:00Sex Still Sells<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2VWkWYRq5xrnHYt3bXVsv4g8LYv3QV7EbbbNiK1vNuk4Ba3u4ZjtH8dQDWoU_NY9onrRkgI1XFkIQlarjiZ4FV98O_spOUWhty-B-X6UYNhXBjUBFPY9QywUR0wDTA675jxkJ2VJ7T8-/s2035/GEN13JANET.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2035" data-original-width="1342" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2VWkWYRq5xrnHYt3bXVsv4g8LYv3QV7EbbbNiK1vNuk4Ba3u4ZjtH8dQDWoU_NY9onrRkgI1XFkIQlarjiZ4FV98O_spOUWhty-B-X6UYNhXBjUBFPY9QywUR0wDTA675jxkJ2VJ7T8-/w422-h640/GEN13JANET.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">Who doesn’t remember this variant cover by Jason
Pearson, from the March 1995 <b>GEN 13 </b>comic
book? It was one of several variant covers for that series inaugural issue,
many of them quite sexy, making it clear that the reader was about to buy a new
kind of super-hero comic book: a somewhat more daring, more sexy – even more
sexual – version of the X-Men. The cover, striking at first sight, gains an
added level of <i>frisson</i> later on after
Caitlin Fairchild, who appears topless, with her bountiful breasts covered, but
barely contained, by (fellow teammate) Grunge, has become an extremely popular
character among comic book readers.</p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Of course, the cover replicated one of the most
controversial and iconic magazine covers of all time, <b><i>Rolling Stone</i></b>’s September
1993 issue, featuring Janet Jackson (and his boyfriend’s Rene Elizondo’s hands)
, who had just published her fifth studio album, “<i>janet”</i>, which with its sexually charged lyrics reputedly marked Janet’s
transition from charismatic singer into a bona-fide sex-symbol. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-p3RjsmUdU2YzcfnfqCNdvLQqJMrmwsS9KE_dxmcLrSY_v3hLbaZXFKMLRfmnR2uhdYeMReba_CzvH-IHzX2Ngpmug5VQZ5UDy8xNs-yEtyTWchiMP2zgAmBnWajTo6fCYpq2lpaE1DKG/s769/rs_634x769-130717121719-634.janet.ls.71713_copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="634" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-p3RjsmUdU2YzcfnfqCNdvLQqJMrmwsS9KE_dxmcLrSY_v3hLbaZXFKMLRfmnR2uhdYeMReba_CzvH-IHzX2Ngpmug5VQZ5UDy8xNs-yEtyTWchiMP2zgAmBnWajTo6fCYpq2lpaE1DKG/w528-h640/rs_634x769-130717121719-634.janet.ls.71713_copy.jpg" width="528" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In a way, it’s as if in replicating Janet Jackson’s <i>Rolling Stone</i> cover </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">(the full photo would only appear in the limited <a href="http://musichaven.blogspot.com/2005/11/rarities-8-janet-jackson-janet-1993.html">edition of the album</a>, the original featuring Janet’s face
on the front, and her torso on the back)</span><span lang="EN-US"> Image Comics was
trying to announce a new era in comic books: a more liberated, erotically
charged, and daring era. Well, maybe not for the Big Two, but certainly for the
burgeoning independents, of which Image was the clear spearhead.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">What made me think of this cover, was a <a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.com/2019/10/sexy-comic-book-covers-blog.html?showComment=1572126551108#c2511018275213779095">comment made by Gene Phillips</a> on one of my rare posts,
concerning sexy comic-book covers. In it, Gene made two pertinent points, one
relative to market conditions – “<i>These
days I wonder if comics fans respond to covers in the same way, given the
dependence on TPB collections.</i>” – and another relative to the cultural (or
should one say <i>political</i>) zeitgeist –
“<i>And given the politically correct
atmosphere, I wonder if any publishers even attempt to use the female body for
a selling point</i>”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Obviously, without objective data – data that I’m sure
comics publishers aren’t willing to share – one cannot take any of those two
points for granted, as convincing as both of them sound at face value. However,
as to the first point, I would counter that, as long as monthly issues coexist
with the TPB collections, they will need individual covers (as well as the
collection itself), and those individual covers may or may not make use of the
female body in erotically suggestive poses or situations (which could be
considered a selling point). So, one would have to find out if, and in which
ways, this use of the female body impacts the sales numbers of any given issue before
coming to a secure conclusion. As the publishers – for obvious reasons, in the
present oppressive cultural climate – will not forward these numbers, the point
is destined to remain a moot one. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">One known fact about cover artists is that most male
illustrators (as well as many females) enjoy drawing sexy women in sexy poses –
something not difficult to understand if one adds up <i>biology</i> (all heterosexual men enjoy looking at sexy women) , <i>venue</i> (superhero comic books are fantasy,
not requiring a realistic approach – quite the opposite, in fact) and <i>effort</i> (to do a comic book cover demands
work and effort, so if you must draw a fantasy woman, why not spend the hours
required drawing sexy women instead of realistic ones?). Which brings us to
Gene’s second point: are there instructions from the publishers for artists not
to illustrate covers with women portrayed in erotically charged or sexually
suggestive poses? Again, in the current #MeToo climate it wouldn’t be hard to
believe. After all, Mickey Marvel’s comic books have become nearly unreadable
with gender and racial politically-correct self-righteousness, and DC is
following suit, judging by the cop-out to the Thought Police that <b><a href="https://www.cbr.com/dc-future-state-brazilian-wonder-woman/">Future State</a></b> apparently will be. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I, however, would tend to answer no. Sure, Marvel and
DC would never go for sexually aggressive covers. But they put out enough
comics books every month so that a comfortable percentage of their covers
feature sexy women in sexy poses. That percentage is not enough for us to
deduce anything as to representation politics in either of the publisher’s
covers, not only for the high number of titles that feature mainly or exclusively
male characters (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron-Man, The Avengers, The
Flash, Aquaman, Thor, The Hulk, etc.), not always requiring a female to be in
the cover, but for the growing dependence on their respective cinematic
universes that get their books to an audience larger than that of mere comic
book readers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">But what if we turn for the smaller publishers?
Dynamite is one publisher that puts heavy stakes on covers (to such a degree
that one gets the impression that covers are more important than the book’s
contents). Besides that, Dynamite’s main characters are female – Red Sonja,
Vampirella, Bettie Page, Dejah Thoris; and, just like other small(er)
publishers, not abetted by a lucrative cinematic franchise or a built-in mass
of readers amassed through eight decades of familiarity, they depend on comic books
sales to keep in business. And judging by the look of it, they <i>do</i> bet on sex to sell their comics. And,
as a glorious example of it, a few weeks after my post and Gene’s comment,
Dynamite put out <b>VENGEANCE OF VAMPIRELLA</b>
#8 (July 2020), with this luscious cover by Lucio Parrillo. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd78rs5RD1bj8hiOoPSuwll34Q2e_z3l3wlITQTZ5oJGsOwnAuSySIGb0LxIPFu3ZErcdeDF-84dfo3TBxprYFiDODBcfVrti2wsY3sw_7HJjaRRWIVa9Siz6m56LDe1OcDjT8K_L7uRad/s2048/Vengeance+of+Vampirella+08+%2528cover+Lucio+Parrillo%2529+%25282020%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1332" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd78rs5RD1bj8hiOoPSuwll34Q2e_z3l3wlITQTZ5oJGsOwnAuSySIGb0LxIPFu3ZErcdeDF-84dfo3TBxprYFiDODBcfVrti2wsY3sw_7HJjaRRWIVa9Siz6m56LDe1OcDjT8K_L7uRad/w416-h640/Vengeance+of+Vampirella+08+%2528cover+Lucio+Parrillo%2529+%25282020%2529.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I guess this is as close as you can get to actual
intercourse in the cover of a comic book aimed at a Teen+ audience. Both the
hand crushing Vampirella’s breast, and the hand crawling up her thigh, mingle
with the blood running from her ruptured neck in a portrait of overwhelming erotic
violence and beauty. I’m sure many would by this book solely for this gorgeous
painting.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Before that, in June, there had been a similar cover by
Mike Miller for Image’s <b>A CLASH OF KINGS
– PART II</b> #6, with its exciting promise of a living dead gangbang.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ogYTxDKTtTQtgyqwgfWzNflbJnOO42r7e_en_hQsAxQOWh0W-sk8edcgM4G3-IEhVSEYK5s9HmNx8UTJdxvQD_fDElFFSGqoXkeNF0JpJTLUTS5PFx9g8bAadups_bKSLVT4ic5NCbo5/s2048/George+R.R.+Martin%2527s+A+Clash+Of+Kings+-+The+Comic+Book+Vol.+2%252306+%2528Mike+Miller+%2526+Nanjan+Jamberi%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1332" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ogYTxDKTtTQtgyqwgfWzNflbJnOO42r7e_en_hQsAxQOWh0W-sk8edcgM4G3-IEhVSEYK5s9HmNx8UTJdxvQD_fDElFFSGqoXkeNF0JpJTLUTS5PFx9g8bAadups_bKSLVT4ic5NCbo5/w416-h640/George+R.R.+Martin%2527s+A+Clash+Of+Kings+-+The+Comic+Book+Vol.+2%252306+%2528Mike+Miller+%2526+Nanjan+Jamberi%2529.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">Here, besides the hands that are ready to rip Daenerys’
gown to shreds, and the hand clutching her left breast, there is an added
erotic frisson from the breast’s nudity. True, both George R.R. Martin’s books
and the HBO series that inspired the comics are filled to the brim with sex, but
even so, one wouldn’t expect a major comics publisher’s cover to be so sexually
assertive.</p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Yet, more breasts and groins are groped and menaced in
BOOM! Studio’s Maria Llovet cover for <b>FAITHLESS II</b> #5 (October 2020), where a
trio of ethereal demonic female spirits swirl around the comic book’s protagonist,
running their hands all over her body, with one of them clearly cupping her
semi-naked left breast.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHYOVFzgr3-qknpziCxx_O-WsMlrb5o1wDQgl_FBIAddxwSo-hRVkJhO3wgwwo1RX70FIKiklPWtbvZbTA0Sn_IMIln2LNAhLkw43g21dGXSI5_PcDFzctRmizL_kNGZRuCjBUlISnaf_/s2048/Faithless-II-05-%25282020%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1332" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHYOVFzgr3-qknpziCxx_O-WsMlrb5o1wDQgl_FBIAddxwSo-hRVkJhO3wgwwo1RX70FIKiklPWtbvZbTA0Sn_IMIln2LNAhLkw43g21dGXSI5_PcDFzctRmizL_kNGZRuCjBUlISnaf_/w416-h640/Faithless-II-05-%25282020%2529.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">I’ll admit that it can be considered cheating a
little, as <b>FAITHLESS I & II</b>, by Brian Azzarello and Maria Llovet is an
erotic comic book, and all of its covers are quite risqué, although none ever
came close to this level of sexual explicitness. However, the same excuse
cannot be opposed to Image’s Nicola Scott’s cover for <b>BLACK MAGIC</b> #16 (November
2020).</p><p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUIZxUjoepoOLueZwh-dxP35UoIKhj516ga_kGnk7SUbh93G-bCu9WDqD1knIiRM05fAQwwE2rsQpK8jKYjBQ_tPdLCGlypQun6kVDcbLS05vaOZVfEUmGgHwSflshbVT-kQOvdn49qXCO/s2048/Black+Magick+16+%2528Nicola+Scott%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1332" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUIZxUjoepoOLueZwh-dxP35UoIKhj516ga_kGnk7SUbh93G-bCu9WDqD1knIiRM05fAQwwE2rsQpK8jKYjBQ_tPdLCGlypQun6kVDcbLS05vaOZVfEUmGgHwSflshbVT-kQOvdn49qXCO/w416-h640/Black+Magick+16+%2528Nicola+Scott%2529.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Here, a female spirit is riding piggyback on a
motorcycle while sexually assaulting the bike’s driver, our main protagonist,
Rowan, sticking its tongue on her ear, groping her breasts with one hand, and
burying the other between the girl’s thighs. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Now, maybe it is the fact that all these comics have a fantasy and supernatural bent that allows for such generous doling of comic book eroticism. But, as I said above, all superhero comic books are, by nature, fantastic. But what I think is more noteworthy is that these smaller publishers are not afraid to go the sex way when putting the pages between covers. Being naturally more fragile and more susceptible to both reader and critic antagonism, they don’t refrain from offering some quiet erotic and daring covers. Or maybe <i>offering</i> is exactly the crux of the matter. They offer what the readers want. And when one considers they need readers to stay afloat, one is bound to conclude that maybe, just maybe, sex still sells. And thank the gods (and other supernatural spirits) for that!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-40040483986621257562020-12-20T09:17:00.002-08:002020-12-20T09:17:55.445-08:00Words of Wisdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqoskVP0lJvCKKAci-6N5jxvk1C2QLKEHDDBR96QzhKKpCkbuJmDTxjRKWM2CCAFpc_zAyY3RLoB7_M3a29SfcaCWPZaeXn6fI-YCtAMnGAI6t-t-0vY4Fnn2gzhgUIfzLzOaTzt0a-ap/s2398/Batman+ComicStrip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="2398" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqoskVP0lJvCKKAci-6N5jxvk1C2QLKEHDDBR96QzhKKpCkbuJmDTxjRKWM2CCAFpc_zAyY3RLoB7_M3a29SfcaCWPZaeXn6fI-YCtAMnGAI6t-t-0vY4Fnn2gzhgUIfzLzOaTzt0a-ap/w400-h130/Batman+ComicStrip.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I came across the above strip on Les Daniels’ <b><i>Batman:
The Complete History</i></b> (1999). It was originally published on December
16, 1970, by the Ledger Syndicate. The syndicated strip was then being written
by E. Nelson Bridwell, who had taken it over from Whitney Ellsworth, who, in
turn, had been scripting it from its inception in 1966. Daniels contrasts the <i>politics</i> of the strip with the opposite bent
then being infused in the Batman and Green Arrow comic books by Denny O’Neil. It
marks a split that seems to be quite raw and bleeding today, after we’ve
witnessed all the excesses of this our year of 2020. Yet, despite the savage behavior
of some bad cops (every large corporation is bound to have a few rotten apples)
Bridwell’s assertion does sound… well, sound.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">That same split was made evident a while later on the
pages of <b>THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD</b> #100,
when under editor Murray Boltinoff, writer Bob Haney and artist Jim Aparo had
the Green Arrow kill a drug-dealer with an arrow through the heart, something a
lot more akin to the recent TV incarnation of the character in <i>ARROW</i> (2012-2020), than to the O’Neill scripted
vigilante of <b>GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW</b>.
As was made clear in the pages of that book where after accidentally offing a
thug that was trying to kill him, O’Neill sent the Arrow on a months-long downer
of a spiritual journey in search of forgiveness. It was O’Neill’s clear
response to Haney’s unapologetically stance before the reader’s controversy
over his story. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Of course, this was the time when <i>EASY RIDER</i> (1969) and <i>DIRTY
HARRY</i> (1971) represented the opposite extremes of American society. The
above strip, as well as the stories I’ve just mentioned, were part of the time’s
dialectic, and a clear example of how the same comic book characters were
sufficiently plastic to accommodate such those two such extremes views. Just
like the Classic gods of yore, it is that plasticity what makes super-heroes
such endurable myths for these technological times of ours. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Although Daniels doesn’t mention it, there’s another aspect that stroke me as quite illustrative of the times. And that’s the way as just as the comic books were adopting the EASY RIDER code of thought, the newspaper strip went along with the DIRTY HARRY ethic. After all, it was in the Sixties that comic books became quite popular in Colleges all across the country, just at the same time as Marcusian politics and Gramschian radicalism. Newspapers carrying the strips, on the other hand, were read mainly by blue and white-collar workers, whose low and middle-class world-view was necessarily more pragmatic and reality-anchored, thus favoring the tough-guy approach. In a way, it’s more or less the same dichotomy patent on the famous quote usually attributed to Clemanceau: <i>Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart. Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head</i>. Comic books can have heart, and head, often, but not always, at the same time.</span></p>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-73368093695714813092020-06-12T12:47:00.002-07:002020-06-12T12:47:49.266-07:00R.I.P. Denny O'Neil (1939-2020)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcOcc460nQXOPCSOBo0OGBn1eVhfCzsBy_iHaXPJiEHugSux093TiF6C6juiWzs-MSgHAKwmA1yUO2jb9s4VRXIP3tZSS1e_jmJ9EOzTXkuET-EfqrdKKQokxjx09kUFyz23JgaRL5ZE0/s1600/Denny+O%2527Neill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="642" data-original-width="1210" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcOcc460nQXOPCSOBo0OGBn1eVhfCzsBy_iHaXPJiEHugSux093TiF6C6juiWzs-MSgHAKwmA1yUO2jb9s4VRXIP3tZSS1e_jmJ9EOzTXkuET-EfqrdKKQokxjx09kUFyz23JgaRL5ZE0/s400/Denny+O%2527Neill.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Denny O’Neil was, to my memory, the first comic book writer whose byline I recognized and looked for when I started reading comic books regularly. In such a visual medium as comic books, the fact that a writer’s name would mean so much to me, years before I started caring for comic book credits, is testament to his impact on my education as a comic book reader. His work with Neal Adams on the Bronze Age Batman books still defines my definitive Batman, the touchstone for all later Batmen (save for Miller’s, perhaps, but Miller is in a league of his own).<br />
<br />
When O’Neil started writing the Batman comics (then the reign of supreme Batman-writer Frank Robbins, then at the top of his game), one immediately perceived a penchant for the Gothic, something one could apprehend right from the start in the somewhat failed story “<i>The Secret of the Waiting Graves</i>” in <b>DETECTIVE COMICS</b> #395 (1970).<br />
<br />
O’Neil would go on to impact on the DC universe in indelible ways, from reviving the Joker (in his hands no longer a joke) to eradicating kryptonyte from Superman’s world (kryptonite was also turning into a joke with so many variant colored strains affecting Superman in so many weird ways). His most important impact, however, was clearly the transformation he operated on Green Arrow, starting with <b>GREEN LANTERN</b> #76 (1970), frequently hailed as a turning point in comic book history, by the inclusion of social concerns with a marked (and somewhat problematic) left-leaning bent. When I first read those stories (I confess my original aim in reading <b>GREEN LANTERN</b>, and then <b>GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW</b>, was to delight my eyes with Black Canary), with the idealistic naiveté of youth, I thought them absolutely amazing. And, in some ways, they still are…. However, as one grows old one cannot ignore the huge propagandistic bent that weaken those stories, as such – one (in)famous moment has a black man demanding from Green Lantern what had he ever done for Blacks, an invective so silly that immediately brings to mind the famous Monty Python’s sketch “what did the Romans ever do for us?” from THE LIFE OF BRIAN (1979). That, however, is a matter from another post that I’ve been thinking of for some time.<br />
<br />
O’Neil also left his mark on Marvel, but my channel to him then was DC Comics, and when he got back from his second stint on the House of Ideas, he grabbed me again with his rendering of the faceless <b>THE QUESTION</b> (1987-1992), with art by Denys Cowan, and the wonderful graphic novel featuring The Shadow, <b>1941</b> (1988), with art by another giant, Mitch Kaluta.<br />
<br />
It is a sadly worn cliché to say that the world got poorer with Denny O’Neil passing away; but it is no less true. Fortunately, O’Neil was someone whose work - however polemical, however controversial - lives on, both on readers’ collections, reprint trade paperbacks, and the fond memories of pleasant reading hours. Even when one must disagree with what one is reading.<br />
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A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-12615326027837383762019-10-25T16:17:00.000-07:002019-10-25T16:17:38.633-07:00Sexy Comic Book Covers: The Blog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZfKp-yfpxUinDojLbeAhyphenhyphenMxv0DOgPlMsAoWxPlTgb3tJQEk-Q0Q7J2PTXr66dZQRfY722P4HGe0uNpwOqyl1Vmp2Es_fQOxdXgkWuh7-wyPNmutPG12VEhlmCTTy1b20gzJuvQkidkdKd/s1600/Friso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="1277" height="104" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZfKp-yfpxUinDojLbeAhyphenhyphenMxv0DOgPlMsAoWxPlTgb3tJQEk-Q0Q7J2PTXr66dZQRfY722P4HGe0uNpwOqyl1Vmp2Es_fQOxdXgkWuh7-wyPNmutPG12VEhlmCTTy1b20gzJuvQkidkdKd/s400/Friso.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I do like writing about comic book covers. Covers are the first thing that one notices when perusing a magazine rack or the comic book stand. And there are certain elements that never fail to attract the eye: vibrant colors; dramatic composition; screaming lettering; and sex. In these present times of stifling political correctness, sometimes the cover is the only thing justifying the act of buying a comic book. And I intend to keep writing about it here, both about <a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.com/search/label/GGCBC">great comic book covers</a> and <a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.com/search/label/GSC">sexy comic book covers</a>. And eventually, stupid comic book covers. However, in thinking of coming back to this blog, with my dismal record and posting rhythm, I could see it easily becoming dominated by posts about covers, and not about comic book reading. Instead of a weekly update about covers (say, each Wednesday) amidst longer and more substantial posts, it threatened to turn into a substantial text every three or six months and lots of posts about covers. That’s why I decided to create an unpretentious, and merely ancillary blog to post my thoughts about – for now, at least - <a href="https://sexycbcovers.blogspot.com/">sexy comic book covers</a>. It doesn’t mean I won’t tackle here some sexy covers in more depth; only that I will use this other blog as a more frequently updated repository of such covers. Maybe one day, <a href="https://sexycbcovers.blogspot.com/">it</a> and <a href="http://capesandbustiersgallery.blogspot.com/"><b>Gallery of Capes and Bustiers</b></a> my form a kind of virtual iconotheque for all things of comic book’s aesthetics of erotica (although less pretentious than it sounds). So, dear eventual reader, if that’s also your cup of tea, or if you are just curious or looking for some sexy images of your favorite characters, drop by sometime and leave a comment or two. After all, I’d love to know if you also find sexy what <i>I</i> think is sexy.A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-39881236717402527932019-09-29T05:11:00.000-07:002019-09-29T05:11:01.321-07:00Gallery of Sexy Covers: RED SONJA AND VAMPIRELLA MEET BETTY AND VERONICA #5 (2019)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4fMXiJKo4c4406-gqhYmP6RN0WUYnMPm-yEm8Zv45GtUEJzxrhxitNy42FL7KYrq4MS0_uZD5ip_y131zBAsMH-r926l7zUjMSIAMp_uRjSO3wri8QsuNELKMZ9B5XVIEv1AR3U0apjXt/s1600/Red+Sonja+and+Vampirella+Meet+Betty+and+Veronica+005+%2528Fay+Dalton%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1041" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4fMXiJKo4c4406-gqhYmP6RN0WUYnMPm-yEm8Zv45GtUEJzxrhxitNy42FL7KYrq4MS0_uZD5ip_y131zBAsMH-r926l7zUjMSIAMp_uRjSO3wri8QsuNELKMZ9B5XVIEv1AR3U0apjXt/s640/Red+Sonja+and+Vampirella+Meet+Betty+and+Veronica+005+%2528Fay+Dalton%2529.jpg" width="416" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Cover by Fay Dalton</i></div>
A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-27426139216955374642018-06-22T12:11:00.000-07:002018-06-22T12:11:10.178-07:00Why is this a Sexy Cover?<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That’s
really the question nobody asked, isn’t it? Why do I propose this to be a sexy
cover? And I bet the first answer on everybody’s mind is simple and obvious: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boobs, man… duh</i>. And, yes, I’m sure
breasts are a prominent part of it (no pun intended). But there is so much
more. After all, comic covers with big breasts are a dime a dozen (thankfully),
but not all of them are sexy. And, for me at least, this one is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So, let me
try to project some of my subterranean libidinal thoughts into this wonderful
cover, maybe misreading it, probably enraging some sensible readers, but – I
hope – not twisting what is there. Or, better yet, what isn’t there. For I
guess what makes this cover <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so</i> sexy
is precisely what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">isn’t</i> there. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ALL STAR COMICS</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> #59 sports only the second cover featuring
über-chested heroine Power Girl, who had made her first appearance in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All-Star Super-Squad</i>” in the preceding
issue. As such it is a full plate for that particular kind of reader (yeah,
that’s you, you pussy!) who’s ready to point a vigorous finger at the way such
a powerful feminine character is shown as a defenseless damsel in distress
right from the start. Even if she is presented as less powerful than Earth-1’s
Supergirl and not “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as strong as [her]
cousin, Superman, but (…) still ten times as strong as any mere man</i>”, she’s
clearly the main hero in this two-parter. And those who’ve read the story in
#58, and were duly impressed by the feats she packed in the mere four pages she
was in (diverting lava flows, causing the earth to tremble from a single
foot-stomp) will get the measure of the present menace by seeing her in such
dire-straits in the cover at hand. And yet, what dire-straits are those, as
nothing even remotely similar takes place inside the book?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One can
only conjecture. The one thing one can be certain of is that the enigmatic
stone-man’s goal is to take Power Girl. To what end, who can tell? Is it of any
significance that she is the only female in the group? That she is the prize to
be fought over by all those males? But again, why? The anonymous monster,
although clearly male, is markedly sexless. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcGBbBhCBjQtsKrr9_tapuiICxULqSDTTQfxqdzio5ZyQHOTy6x7PQnnZYHX3IKLj_tTwwzqfFVhX7MqRu0I6yhDcU8BYfdmeY14aO6nuC2psw_I8_bQgvvdkMai_7jvFJ98OGycoJNNv/s1600/ASComics%252359%2528centernote%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="514" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcGBbBhCBjQtsKrr9_tapuiICxULqSDTTQfxqdzio5ZyQHOTy6x7PQnnZYHX3IKLj_tTwwzqfFVhX7MqRu0I6yhDcU8BYfdmeY14aO6nuC2psw_I8_bQgvvdkMai_7jvFJ98OGycoJNNv/s400/ASComics%252359%2528centernote%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Copulation
cannot be its intent. However, one cannot help but notice that the artist
intended Power Girl’s breasts (her only sexual attribute that is not hidden by
the colossus’s body) to be level with the monster’s (and Flash’s) groin; it is
a non-sexual and almost subliminal contrast between the cold sexlessness of the
creature , and the soft, nurturing, warm, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">living</i>
breasts of the powerful girl. It is almost a symbolic depiction of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eros</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thanatos</i>, eroticism and death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>An equation made even more powerful for nothing in the picture (besides
the reader’s conviction that she’s the hero – although a new one, and therefore
potentially killable) allows us to feel sure that she is still alive. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I’m sure a
lot could be made out of her being the only female in the cover, and the only
one apparently defenseless. But is she? What about the other invisible element
from the cover? Yes, what about you, the reader? Are you not there as well?
Aren’t we all there? That’s what the cover’s composition seems to imply with
its worm’s-eye-view that places the reader on the floor, fallen, already
defeated on the fight with the anonymous colossus. Are you male or female, dear
reader? In what side were you fighting? Was the metal colossus your creature,
were you its victim? Were you trying, as the Flash was, to save your partner?
Or are you about to be saved? Or to be picked up from the floor to be taken
along Power Girl to be subjected to ‘a fate worse than death’?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is a
cover that takes you back to that magical time when you’re young enough that
you’re still able to immerse yourself as an invisible character in the action; not
yet as grown up as to derive all the sexual implications from the situation depicted,
but already raging with the inner fire stoked by the subconscious eroticism of
the scene.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On a final
note, one’s clearly drawn to Power Girl’s breasts. They literally defy gravity:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNyrA4dYHTFs_0cQ2r0vJLwWm27zqhOyNaXEKLYQ86hSEzCakM0CU1UHqdIvqwoDmE5GZWUvya0HXsuj1USlmvzqeY7kifJzV7aY7SFHBKdc0vCr03Ortczh896faejJwuKEw64MQHubUu/s1600/gravity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="597" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNyrA4dYHTFs_0cQ2r0vJLwWm27zqhOyNaXEKLYQ86hSEzCakM0CU1UHqdIvqwoDmE5GZWUvya0HXsuj1USlmvzqeY7kifJzV7aY7SFHBKdc0vCr03Ortczh896faejJwuKEw64MQHubUu/s400/gravity.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In true
Wally Wood style, they look equally and gorgeously enticing even if you choose
to flip the image upside-down. As such, they’re depicted as an erotic note, not
a realist one, and that as always been one of the magnets pulling young readers
to comic books. In it casts into shame the present attempt to de-eroticize
comic-book art, reducing all characters into big shapeless and sexless
colossuses.</span></div>
A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-408620060515919812017-07-21T06:25:00.000-07:002019-09-29T05:11:35.786-07:00Gallery of Sexy Covers: ALL-STAR COMICS #59 (1976) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0Tvg1clXQ5DIQhNYMQjhExb30si-OqHSxWhWjoWv95v35OZ4Wc_qLjtLWAWVf027GOKMOe7_lc67vVBrkBqhzuW5jSqgqaUsqR20pYopy4_siMX82xlCBbyXr3IaX0afWLWQi_ZXpF6Z/s1600/AllStarComics%252359.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="541" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0Tvg1clXQ5DIQhNYMQjhExb30si-OqHSxWhWjoWv95v35OZ4Wc_qLjtLWAWVf027GOKMOe7_lc67vVBrkBqhzuW5jSqgqaUsqR20pYopy4_siMX82xlCBbyXr3IaX0afWLWQi_ZXpF6Z/s640/AllStarComics%252359.JPG" width="432" /></a></div>
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<![endif]--><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cover by ‘Ernie’ Chan, José Luis García-López
& Tatjana Wood</span></i></div>
<br />A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-47786960934337376102017-07-19T15:44:00.000-07:002017-07-19T15:44:13.949-07:00INTERREGNUM (iii): Comic Book Logic, Torn Costumes and Violence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<![endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Doc Savage</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> is the most well known precursor to
modern-day super-heroes, and several authors have already noticed the striking
similarities between this Man of Bronze and Siegel & Schuster’s Man of
Steel. In fact, Doc Savage stands in the unmarked frontier between pulp fiction
and comic books, serving as the prototype to both Superman-like heroes and
Batman-type action-detectives, as well as several other tropes. In his
crime-fighting and adventurous career, Savage fought criminals, mad scientists
and natural monsters, including dinosaurs, and had to survive firefights,
crashing planes, sinking subs, fires, explosions, and everything else ‘Kenneth
Robeson’ (mostly Lester Dent) could think of. As a result of such extreme
adventures and near-misses, the tattered shirt of Doc Savage became a permanent
fixture of the character in such diverse media as pulp covers, comic books,
graphic novels and films, functioning as a signifier of extreme violence. By
means of contrast, injuries were kept to a minimum, mostly never more than a
broken lip or a bleeding nose. It was as if the damage suffered by his
costume/clothes stood for the intensity of the violence he had to suffer
through. Very much as it goes in cartoons (printed or animated) where a
character (say Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck) after surviving an explosion, is
shown with body blackened and clothes in tatters for a few seconds, before
regaining his normal un-disheveled appearance. And such graphic practice was
transmitted to comics from its very beginnings.</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As I will explore in my next post (the last of
the two-year-in-the-making introductory posts to this blog), the superhero
costume is very much part and parcel of the hero’s identity and personal
definition; something that shouldn’t need further explanation as through the
years we’ve seen different characters assume the mantle of iconic super-heroes
like Batman, Batgirl, Robin, Captain America, Black Panther and such, implying
that besides the particular powers specific to each character, it truly is the
costume that makes the hero. Even when, as is the case with Doc Savage, the
costume is merely defined by tattered clothes, something equally valid when
dealing with Savage’s own female version: his niece Pat Savage.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDJAqPB-scS6vxP2tY-LetgXus3-fPLDi2iwXSVfk8SE5ePW8ceXMnf7bdS410as26zhpbU1KGq70Ik3ijPtCDZQ8KeZhTa-MfRMtdMrMMC9nSbBVZOQf6aUYyxGx-tPYputquL1CrOPY/s1600/Pat+Savage+in+Action.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="800" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDJAqPB-scS6vxP2tY-LetgXus3-fPLDi2iwXSVfk8SE5ePW8ceXMnf7bdS410as26zhpbU1KGq70Ik3ijPtCDZQ8KeZhTa-MfRMtdMrMMC9nSbBVZOQf6aUYyxGx-tPYputquL1CrOPY/s400/Pat+Savage+in+Action.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I’ll admit that what I’m about to posit needs a
little more statistical confirmation, but I’ll advance it anyhow in the spirit
of impressionistic empiricism: as Mulvey, Dworkin and McKinnon’s
unsubstantiated assertions on female objectification and identification of sex
with violence drove feminist and extreme-right reaction against female (and
even male) exposed flesh, comic book creators started putting forth lame
explanations for costumes not to get torn to shreds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I guess one can set <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS</b> as the representational turning point,
with a bevy of costumes being torn as entire earths and heroes were swiped
clean, culminating in the torn and bleeding Supergirl dying with her costume in
tatters, a confluence of torn costume and injuries, and a vision not soon to be
repeated. In his re-imaginings, Byrne would erase the smallest rip from
Superman or Wonder Woman’s costumes, with ridiculous explanations of bodily
auras that would protect the cloth in contact with the hero’s skin, and
generating endless jokes about the incredible number of capes Superman had to
replace.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, as the successive torn capes made
clear, even Byrne felt that the costume in tatters was the best way of
representing the outcome of physical violence, short of representing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real</i> outcome of violence itself. That
is: broken teeth, black-and-blue pulped flesh, broken bones and lots of blood.
And, in a way, that’s the way comics went under the neo-victorian code of
representation. Intact costumes would demand and bring forth ever more
excessive degrees of physical violence. Thus, we went from something like
this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8k75xHnTd53qxqmlLb0ToFkpXRN0pyauTnsLUaJgPovabq-IRYMNKoFeGJYiL59jM1Pdx1Nd_6hIJsX5krmP4f5Qi-yLpr5QroCZexN39gHEk6djoOumlFA31bBuR3hlGKbFi9W5MYO9e/s1600/3507121-apokolipsnowpage31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1485" data-original-width="958" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8k75xHnTd53qxqmlLb0ToFkpXRN0pyauTnsLUaJgPovabq-IRYMNKoFeGJYiL59jM1Pdx1Nd_6hIJsX5krmP4f5Qi-yLpr5QroCZexN39gHEk6djoOumlFA31bBuR3hlGKbFi9W5MYO9e/s400/3507121-apokolipsnowpage31.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to things
like these:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPzWkvzXQrmCcYo7Q8zKR2EdvVxdsmoFhXAlqDFAwvZtR5VpOtvtGS-KSfFcPeKEKXnI3v64TUDzf3hbmKbPLweW0AlZZpHqlJ2qYR0ER3MuOdTlmoZ6bA9vgVfXYU70XhiI7fDrDRnu4L/s1600/Jason-Todd-Punches-Batman-Hard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPzWkvzXQrmCcYo7Q8zKR2EdvVxdsmoFhXAlqDFAwvZtR5VpOtvtGS-KSfFcPeKEKXnI3v64TUDzf3hbmKbPLweW0AlZZpHqlJ2qYR0ER3MuOdTlmoZ6bA9vgVfXYU70XhiI7fDrDRnu4L/s400/Jason-Todd-Punches-Batman-Hard.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7RAXHTbHnsdM3e6QOp2BcfAID2f5qvLV58mqFqZLrEvm6L-lSDTQ9v8Mt98cqWwhYqDh8-2fbx9VbXbKFVpbCGmaqqoHZOPdjGXnDHXDCVkslQwz2uHhCalIu_idnlV9Y598YVUnouQo/s1600/Nightwing-Dukes-Batman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7RAXHTbHnsdM3e6QOp2BcfAID2f5qvLV58mqFqZLrEvm6L-lSDTQ9v8Mt98cqWwhYqDh8-2fbx9VbXbKFVpbCGmaqqoHZOPdjGXnDHXDCVkslQwz2uHhCalIu_idnlV9Y598YVUnouQo/s400/Nightwing-Dukes-Batman.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Of course, for the progressive
politically-correct noisy minority, violence is always preferable to sex, blood
to breasts, death or mutilation to pin-up poses, better to allow them to
hypocritically rage over their filled-to-capacity refrigerators. And so, the
blood for intact costumes mode of representation became dominant in the major
publishers, and affected both male and female characters. Case in point, one of
my first pre-adolescent objects of desire: Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the seventies, after she emerged from the
shadow of Capitain Marvel, Carol Danvers became one of the most popular female
superheroes, Marvel’s worthy response to DC’s more tame Supergirl (also a
Danvers, and my first ever comic book crush), even if not to ür-Superheroine,
Wonder Woman. Hailed as a feminist and progressive icon (<a href="http://flashbak.com/feminism-fail-ms-marvel-comics-in-the-1970s-31303/"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">something over which not all
feminists are in agreement – what else is new?</span></a>), she nonetheless
figured in two cult-covers from her own magazine, where torn costumes are used
as effective pointers to the level of menace facing Ms. Marvel (even if not at
all faithful to the stories within).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIfEwDBMEg8g7r4u_TXzTVcivEZTp9Acn6NWxyZCwkR_Zhr1J6UqgWB064iU033sz8B_YeJZ-9U_0UmRrY0R930GGj-4VZqYI0qphTqDTtX40AusDZa7LGq0zNDrLlq_gZZJ6WGcqzTGP/s1600/MsMarvelcomposite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="813" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIfEwDBMEg8g7r4u_TXzTVcivEZTp9Acn6NWxyZCwkR_Zhr1J6UqgWB064iU033sz8B_YeJZ-9U_0UmRrY0R930GGj-4VZqYI0qphTqDTtX40AusDZa7LGq0zNDrLlq_gZZJ6WGcqzTGP/s400/MsMarvelcomposite.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Both covers substitute the torn costume for any
bloody signs of violence, which could be confused with topic domestic violence,
or battery and assault (and Odin knowns the sexual readings that radical progs,
fed with Freudian-mush, already get out of the covers as they are). But, as I
stated above, torn costumes had to go, to be replaced by more overtly violent
graphics. Now the question is how to represent that level of violence when the
one on the receiving end is a super-powered, practically indestructible,
super-being, without letting it slide into cartoon caricature? And the answer
is: not easily.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Let us consider <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MS. MARVEL</b> #18-24 (2007-2008), a set of books that comprises the “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Puppets</i></b>”
and “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Monster
and Marvel</i></b>” story-arcs, both of them easy fodder to varied readings and
interpretations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However interesting as
they are (and I intend to do a go-over around “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Puppets</i></b>” in the future),
it is not the stories <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">per se</i> that I
want to tackle now, but the graphic representation of violence, as it escalates
towards a maximum of absurdness of which the creators seem not to be aware.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It begins in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MS. MARVEL</b> #18, when our heroine is hit point-blank with a grenade
that literally explodes on her face without causing the smallest rip on her
costume.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKi1oAuom8CUIDirdHC97kQrij9Ade2argoJk_UM19K1FWusYs3qzx45X-hNYvWo7LSaD-hiyiu3EzqFb8F1tbLGmYef42fnJ2KnLa5XQt2cmpQKJiB3YJLn28ffheg4UDz0V3Etpoicf/s1600/Ms_Marvel_18_11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="1206" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKi1oAuom8CUIDirdHC97kQrij9Ade2argoJk_UM19K1FWusYs3qzx45X-hNYvWo7LSaD-hiyiu3EzqFb8F1tbLGmYef42fnJ2KnLa5XQt2cmpQKJiB3YJLn28ffheg4UDz0V3Etpoicf/s400/Ms_Marvel_18_11.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If one was to take that as a little bit absurd
but still within the bounds of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">comic
book logic</b>, issue 20 brings a quick escalation of power-yield, as Carol
once more comes out unscathed from what appears to be a multiple-megaton blast.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAiR_dcbdN0Kdlz_4RX_-PCi367hBajITW4yBptn8BEXPK2KAPkTeo1WVYTVyzPY9Dvq0O1oLZbPkbMsd2ayrLqPfgPCXWAnok752i4cjzKGs898PUPw9CLTcGej2ZR-ERxg_ogSq06AAJ/s1600/Ms_Marvel_20_25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1280" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAiR_dcbdN0Kdlz_4RX_-PCi367hBajITW4yBptn8BEXPK2KAPkTeo1WVYTVyzPY9Dvq0O1oLZbPkbMsd2ayrLqPfgPCXWAnok752i4cjzKGs898PUPw9CLTcGej2ZR-ERxg_ogSq06AAJ/s400/Ms_Marvel_20_25.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Needless to say, despite emerging from the
blast amidst a maelstrom of raging fire, her costume remains equally unscathed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjampZMQ34NJGKDOK2zpo2-DIofcbrT6xEVvn0P_FlnpD6xpEZyqBSrapMsqDYiA8WhilUQsWfL5LDKyP18WDs3iUdTfJQ4CJ0BQqFZ_99Z-Q4ipYjwkV9w3ac0JmAeTcr2JAUoVAPgnCas/s1600/Ms_Marvel_20_27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1028" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjampZMQ34NJGKDOK2zpo2-DIofcbrT6xEVvn0P_FlnpD6xpEZyqBSrapMsqDYiA8WhilUQsWfL5LDKyP18WDs3iUdTfJQ4CJ0BQqFZ_99Z-Q4ipYjwkV9w3ac0JmAeTcr2JAUoVAPgnCas/s400/Ms_Marvel_20_27.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Immediately in the same issue, Ms. Marvel’s
quarters aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. light helicarrier are destroyed in another
impressive explosion when hit by an alien missile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tOkVm49W9fc_3-V1VQVSfONd3QXq0n3HppLWsJdtcIMhsI2A5M8KqYec0QRSvhOMZVrtma_UJWBoXXy5eGxk2kwhqImX_K4_J8GVS334fZ95dCnLAyGlh1kuG-KNxtUw6uTHJUBmon-x/s1600/Ms_Marvel_20_32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="1264" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tOkVm49W9fc_3-V1VQVSfONd3QXq0n3HppLWsJdtcIMhsI2A5M8KqYec0QRSvhOMZVrtma_UJWBoXXy5eGxk2kwhqImX_K4_J8GVS334fZ95dCnLAyGlh1kuG-KNxtUw6uTHJUBmon-x/s400/Ms_Marvel_20_32.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And again, there seems not to be any amount of
energy capable of damaging Carol’s costume:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_2FY-7tG51nh59pqogSEU1LxBJCpCjNvs_hLgGEv6iQqFcYK5T36FNyTvdsu6fppL5an0cLs1TllFYuipRG3gJIBf5vItv1s591VIlsPQM7mNyVc7mFkySoTjLIx4d2ZBv5PkiZkdUldz/s1600/Ms_Marvel_20_DCP_0033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1029" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_2FY-7tG51nh59pqogSEU1LxBJCpCjNvs_hLgGEv6iQqFcYK5T36FNyTvdsu6fppL5an0cLs1TllFYuipRG3gJIBf5vItv1s591VIlsPQM7mNyVc7mFkySoTjLIx4d2ZBv5PkiZkdUldz/s400/Ms_Marvel_20_DCP_0033.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But if you thought that impressive, by issue
#21, Carol drops from the outer atmosphere of some alien world… in her pajamas…
which miraculously come equally unscathed from the fall and the friction and
the heat generated by both.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5g2HRoKQ1xhQPfv6XbGy1NjttklTOyiblmYDmIq2C5eKYYxENiJABdvS2i7zGvrwSkVA5_unWjLhyphenhyphen4MFytMYjc40OSxSxANw-SnwxZP-uuFdBBW07DbY0gL757ctKYIobZsJVg7eLF5a/s1600/Ms_Marvel_21_13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1032" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5g2HRoKQ1xhQPfv6XbGy1NjttklTOyiblmYDmIq2C5eKYYxENiJABdvS2i7zGvrwSkVA5_unWjLhyphenhyphen4MFytMYjc40OSxSxANw-SnwxZP-uuFdBBW07DbY0gL757ctKYIobZsJVg7eLF5a/s400/Ms_Marvel_21_13.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjziM-Vq5BwGVzEiuqGJeLfzvP-Q7L7Nvyu1sTL4Hma0kf6zJcLYZGJZAmB3GNOMfCCeeJMucz-WAGTPLQaoxqnTVxBhdTo1mNX2wPdj6mUwc0CiCc6I_H1CMEAoBDRAnQ4DbJXZRLUjo9J/s1600/Ms_Marvel_21_16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1020" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjziM-Vq5BwGVzEiuqGJeLfzvP-Q7L7Nvyu1sTL4Hma0kf6zJcLYZGJZAmB3GNOMfCCeeJMucz-WAGTPLQaoxqnTVxBhdTo1mNX2wPdj6mUwc0CiCc6I_H1CMEAoBDRAnQ4DbJXZRLUjo9J/s400/Ms_Marvel_21_16.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And there’s
no way in hell that repeated references to the “blue stuff inside me” can
explain the indestructibility of Carol’s clothes. And it doesn’t stop here, as
the creators (writer Brian Reed and penciler Aaron Lopestri) go one over the
top and in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MISS MARVEL</b> #24 don’t shy
away from a good-old nuclear blast at close range in the plain vacuum of space:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LlezRKlVumwacprZI4yb_Gm3CYxK5BA_R_vseip9EYmX3EftPs6Wwve01r_y1tu7UCr5WrON6sU5sA0p2_A9EyXdJxDAF3POPDgM9X188N4WzgcU_ERMGOtoywDrm9lPtUDY8KV6JzBU/s1600/Ms_Marvel_24_21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1033" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LlezRKlVumwacprZI4yb_Gm3CYxK5BA_R_vseip9EYmX3EftPs6Wwve01r_y1tu7UCr5WrON6sU5sA0p2_A9EyXdJxDAF3POPDgM9X188N4WzgcU_ERMGOtoywDrm9lPtUDY8KV6JzBU/s400/Ms_Marvel_24_21.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is a
spectacular blast that sends the equally indestructible alien creature
careening through space, gaining Ms. Marvel – and Earth – some well needed
time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE3DJtajWsXB-Q1xLDZQwyI15sPMzPGhCQlHCO7WQVcT6uOvnw-_6Rcg6mnPt8qLw3QbHtQxYDgDEZV6QtIXrGfukFl1vO5MP7yDGKdovxA06pVcMGJsztjWiTwUekwb4cvDgqK87APGnZ/s1600/Ms_Marvel_24_23a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="1198" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE3DJtajWsXB-Q1xLDZQwyI15sPMzPGhCQlHCO7WQVcT6uOvnw-_6Rcg6mnPt8qLw3QbHtQxYDgDEZV6QtIXrGfukFl1vO5MP7yDGKdovxA06pVcMGJsztjWiTwUekwb4cvDgqK87APGnZ/s400/Ms_Marvel_24_23a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Of course,
once again, both Ms. Marvel and her unbelievably resilient costume survive
unscathed, even adding another vertiginous fall through the atmosphere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5vXqQVe0n0iNBoTxNI40DmoBFc7b9CRmU4YAMRvbcrO1RQ2IFM3M9S9gUKqOARj406hlo-zYiuPiRnqm1nu6iBw386wYXMSzkPKHHfcIthC3WdhvWO09zmnY34d-uX692UENk5A6JA6D/s1600/Ms_Marvel_24_23b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="388" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5vXqQVe0n0iNBoTxNI40DmoBFc7b9CRmU4YAMRvbcrO1RQ2IFM3M9S9gUKqOARj406hlo-zYiuPiRnqm1nu6iBw386wYXMSzkPKHHfcIthC3WdhvWO09zmnY34d-uX692UENk5A6JA6D/s400/Ms_Marvel_24_23b.jpg" width="167" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Both story
arcs from which the images above were selected are told with verve, both literary
and visual, and one comes out of them with a distinct impression that its
authors are aware they are straining the good will of their readers in
accepting that a mere piece of cloth could survive such rough handling; not
only that, one senses they know their readers will swallow it whole, because
not to do it would be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">politically
incorrect</i>. (Surely they wouldn’t believe their story was so brilliant one
wouldn’t notice how synthetic fabrics can withstand nuclear explosions and
temperatures as close to those of the sun as they can get.) Underlining these
impressions, is the fact that in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MS.
MARVEL</b> #21 the issue of Carol Danvers/Ms.Marvel’s identity is broached in a
pertinent way, denying any exceptionality to Carol/Ms.Marvel’s costume:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We’re
the same person. I am Ms. Marvel. It’s just a costume</i>”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now, one
can argue that something in Ms. Marvel’s powers can keep her clothes intact;
not only her uniform, but also her pajamas. That somehow, Carol’s
invulnerability extends to whatever she’s wearing. But how could this happen?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSIs-N04NLJOH2Ew_tOUDnFgYBEPAumN7qoQOdwnGkMcxrDy3y_exlcVwuPviAqVdKzZkyLUwm2QK98rg1I2ljqoKSXxzQ0RDMfTpIdMbltXbWqvaykrq7298zAxV_HhwDlgQDs3tsR0U1/s1600/Ms_Marvel_21_06a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="358" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSIs-N04NLJOH2Ew_tOUDnFgYBEPAumN7qoQOdwnGkMcxrDy3y_exlcVwuPviAqVdKzZkyLUwm2QK98rg1I2ljqoKSXxzQ0RDMfTpIdMbltXbWqvaykrq7298zAxV_HhwDlgQDs3tsR0U1/s400/Ms_Marvel_21_06a.jpg" width="192" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span id="goog_1229811450"></span><span id="goog_1229811451"></span></span>True, in issue #23, Carol discovers that the
alien Cru can “turn her powers off”. Certainly that could explain how the
alien’s sting could penetrate through Carol’s costume and Carol’s flesh. Bu
then how to explain this in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MS. MARVEL
#19</b>?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWw-PPnX1OPpDeMEqnmcNUQXWx8PTjaWMydDXt9C0TLrR0nYGSKEHJFH6MggSJhMCYJidZQh4hvwYPfh_hLgEM5W_IiHmZ_RovWj-CR5bD7HnSP5wyGE1iN-GOcWKYfDY9w1YsQXkagPn4/s1600/Ms_Marvel_19_21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="1249" height="103" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWw-PPnX1OPpDeMEqnmcNUQXWx8PTjaWMydDXt9C0TLrR0nYGSKEHJFH6MggSJhMCYJidZQh4hvwYPfh_hLgEM5W_IiHmZ_RovWj-CR5bD7HnSP5wyGE1iN-GOcWKYfDY9w1YsQXkagPn4/s400/Ms_Marvel_19_21.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Despite
catfighting Tigra (no pun intended) for over two pages (ok, one’s a splash
page) and then tackling Silverclaw for two more, Ms. Marvel comes away bleeding
from her torn cheek, but with her costume absolutely pristine: again, with
costume intact in order not to raise the ire of the righteous left, it is
necessary to draw (pun intended) blood. (It is true that in the story, the
scratches on Carol’s face are a contrivance used to subdue Ms.Marvel through a
toxin in Tigra’s claws, but that does not explain how could the striped
ex-Avenger break Ms.Marvel’s atomic-blast-proof skin.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I think I illustrated
– although briefly , and without delving<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>too much on the details of both story arcs, resting on a more visual
approach – how I think that the politically correct refraining from present the
female characters in ways that could eroticize them through too much exposed
flesh , or even equate too uncomfortably eroticism and violence (not that they
are mutually exclusive, quite the contrary, but remember this is literature for
children – some, quite sophisticated children, but children nonetheless) led to
the need to represent more blood and bodily maiming to convey the same degree
of danger and menace that yesteryear was conveyed by torn clothes.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyGSiFLxbP1aDqlHdPHT8R2uJ6457Oi75EYy6XguA-hoQYHjGDQBloPB3LkX8Bt6n0Zdb8sUa57BwVw3siwvheWcVu-idtMKsGL6bQBVt5TVcuLRs6hK7w9fZeOwHPCG8u7gmlz1ZJmDoo/s1600/Ms_Marvel_21_07a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="1192" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyGSiFLxbP1aDqlHdPHT8R2uJ6457Oi75EYy6XguA-hoQYHjGDQBloPB3LkX8Bt6n0Zdb8sUa57BwVw3siwvheWcVu-idtMKsGL6bQBVt5TVcuLRs6hK7w9fZeOwHPCG8u7gmlz1ZJmDoo/s400/Ms_Marvel_21_07a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So it is
that we see Carol Danvers scratched and bleeding, with her back torn by the
barbed tendril of Cru, blood running like gravy from her rendered flesh, but
with costume proper and primly intact, surviving explosions and nuclear blasts.
Carol’s costume in this pages seems like the huge elephant in the middle of the
room, that everyone is pretending no to notice. And more than following <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">comic book logic</b>, it calls our
attention for nothing as much as those old Disney comics: for kids, you know!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVtSNeqiqbghHIZlto6sLLqQM8F2080IQSTw4i8lmtxeMfQYkHX4zk9AKzbtFP7y9ZbIiVEJf3D4zYBYCNRQdTEWgAVck-8pINK9ItJZuiwhnkgJz-9V89vggJdo1np6LlkeFI03yqbW6/s1600/Christmas+on+Bear+Mountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1455" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVtSNeqiqbghHIZlto6sLLqQM8F2080IQSTw4i8lmtxeMfQYkHX4zk9AKzbtFP7y9ZbIiVEJf3D4zYBYCNRQdTEWgAVck-8pINK9ItJZuiwhnkgJz-9V89vggJdo1np6LlkeFI03yqbW6/s400/Christmas+on+Bear+Mountain.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-64423520702208936642017-06-16T08:20:00.000-07:002017-06-16T08:22:54.190-07:00Comment on a Great Cover (1): THE FLASH #258 (1978)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahZhMUfsWsYhCSxS2pb-9sQ8X-167OVzNmG9ml5hsBS7qNTChoJ0qJVPVkcaO0OVQEdnjGBHAkq_PUodQGligFbKLN5PMAHY7gzKIvjI0EztsKYKZZdnRA09XH3aHwDPOjaJ7ERVX2RIl/s1600/The+Flash+v1+258+%25281978%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1517" data-original-width="1004" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahZhMUfsWsYhCSxS2pb-9sQ8X-167OVzNmG9ml5hsBS7qNTChoJ0qJVPVkcaO0OVQEdnjGBHAkq_PUodQGligFbKLN5PMAHY7gzKIvjI0EztsKYKZZdnRA09XH3aHwDPOjaJ7ERVX2RIl/s400/The+Flash+v1+258+%25281978%2529.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have never been a great fan of the Flash. I
remember reading some of his stories around the time <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS</b> was redrawing the DC Universe, but surely
not enough to tell Barry Allen from Wally West at first sight, or to care much
about it. And not even <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FLASHPOINT </b>(2011),
which I read from cover to cover, and to which Flash was central, did anything
to draw me into the fold of Flash fans. And maybe, just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">maybe</i>, it was due to this excellent cover by Jack Abel and Rich
Buckler that haunts me from the time I was eight or nine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And I’m sure it was not just any child’s natural
fear of the fire that consumes Flash’s flesh, exposing the skull beneath. Nor
the realization that superheroes are mortal after all, as much flesh-and-blood
as any of us – a scary thought for any kid, used to believe that heroes live
forever and cannot be defeated by second rate villains like Black Hand (not
that I had even heard of him before). That the cover is gruesome (although
brilliantly so) cannot be disputed, but it has remained an object of fascination
for me since then. And there are several reasons for that, pilling one over the
other, building a graphic edifice of macabre grandeur. Some of those elements
are of clear intention; others however, result from fortuitous circumstances,
like the darkly morbid humor that results from the juxtaposition of the hero’s
sobriquet – the fastest man alive! – with a cover illustration where the Flash
is everything but:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguP38T5_0zvz6XBwmKer1LLghmjmfqqIVww1IlcomFDKeHe7vqFxF5WoB1Jc3JQunMxKejdAkpvT72zgw8uC0mZSL5_VcYsv_lkR8bkyTlXwR15ei76yi_gnNOvkDFN8iyAl58JO061qcd/s1600/fastest+alive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="481" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguP38T5_0zvz6XBwmKer1LLghmjmfqqIVww1IlcomFDKeHe7vqFxF5WoB1Jc3JQunMxKejdAkpvT72zgw8uC0mZSL5_VcYsv_lkR8bkyTlXwR15ei76yi_gnNOvkDFN8iyAl58JO061qcd/s400/fastest+alive.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then we have all the macabre trappings of the
Flash being devoured by flame to the very bone, his skeleton sticking out from
charred flesh and burnt costume, the shadows on the musculature of his torso
looking nothing as much as fire-blackened roasted flesh. I guess death as never
been rendered so viscerally in a super-hero comic book cover, something I
believe can be attributed to Abel’s experience inking horror stories for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MISTER MYSTERY</b> (#2 -3 , 1951-52) and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS</b>. And what
can one say of the look – the hopelessly desperate look on Flash’s eyes, still
alive in the exposed caves of their orbits? In truth the progression of terror patent
in Flash’s eyes in the last three steps of his deflagration tell unheard tales
of unexpected horror and despair.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">All this is fostered by the cover’s extremely
dynamic layout: the reader’s own eyes are subtly dragged from the cover lower
right along with the Flash’s curving trajectory, past where it’s intersected by
the fatal beam from Black Hand’s gizmo-rod (C), and finally to the hovering
villain himself, gloating like a mad-angel of death, in the right upper-corner
of the page, there to be sent again along the beam of the rod <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to where it hits Flash (C), igniting him,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a dramatic circularity that subliminally convinces
the reader that there is no escape for our hero.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRDNM7d-LlRq99PJznkz8-Lh2CgE57RNKiylyCk1m7rAsNBGxSYbVovffegkNHjlMVD4nqtyR5-j3gYzS49plBdt-Tbavfi2Ce1XqoflB1C0uLeJEBi7tg_I7Kydyi4BRCLHqhzrosiEj/s1600/The+Flash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1517" data-original-width="1004" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRDNM7d-LlRq99PJznkz8-Lh2CgE57RNKiylyCk1m7rAsNBGxSYbVovffegkNHjlMVD4nqtyR5-j3gYzS49plBdt-Tbavfi2Ce1XqoflB1C0uLeJEBi7tg_I7Kydyi4BRCLHqhzrosiEj/s400/The+Flash.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At least, that was the idea that held me in its
unbreakable grip for all these years. So much so, that it kept me from reading
any more Flash stories. Maybe I should make a short parenthesis in here: it is
true that a good cover must be able to stand for itself – and this one surely does
that. But in this particular instance, besides being effective from a dramatic
and commercial point of view, the cover really had something to do with the
story inside. And in that story, “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Day Flash Ran His Last Mile!</i></b>” (by
veteran Cary Bates, penciled by Irving Novick and inked by Frank McLaughlin),
the villain Black Hand addresses the reader through the fourth wall, putting
forth a clever explanation for his sinister plan:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJrHEYXLHpTbyr6IHXu9o7z-AzUEqiqfkXhyphenhyphentt8hgKGNgGYTu1m4_5DqHiOxPvNa4FVO8s5FFkDYRJPAVjk4z12vSeil6A7uLRXpEryQ2n-GNDAyObltb2A4PX_7sKEqcVjCficNF00peY/s1600/No258p22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="976" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJrHEYXLHpTbyr6IHXu9o7z-AzUEqiqfkXhyphenhyphentt8hgKGNgGYTu1m4_5DqHiOxPvNa4FVO8s5FFkDYRJPAVjk4z12vSeil6A7uLRXpEryQ2n-GNDAyObltb2A4PX_7sKEqcVjCficNF00peY/s400/No258p22.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I must admit that the idea of a “protective
aura” shielding Flash from the friction-heat of his speed seemed cleverly logic
to my young mind. After all, how would he be able to run at such speeds (even
light-speed if one’s to believe his earlier stories) if it wasn’t so? And how
clever of Black Hand to devise a way to neutralize said aura. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the stuff great adventure is made of.
However, the story at hand was a two-parter, to be concluded in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE FLASH </b>#259 the following month.
And, thanks to the erratic distribution of Brasilian-printed comic books in
Portugal, where I then lived, I never got to read its conclusion (not for a few
decades anyway, but it was enough delay for the effect to from the cover to dig
deep in my mind). As such, the last I heard of the Flash was the final gloat of
Black Hand assuring me that our hero had ran his last mile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgttW9m2E28gL2ay-BDBWCQQwwsT9HGC0z0fy1CHb_GjfALevz-NoCNQgoIlkAyW7xsQNRUYQ8W4j_X3Lna5ksPNasUEe-JekPvlEEWoo8PxZPg2qZeTXDafMAYL9gbldYc_OHIxOq_Ruxy/s1600/No258p31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1507" data-original-width="972" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgttW9m2E28gL2ay-BDBWCQQwwsT9HGC0z0fy1CHb_GjfALevz-NoCNQgoIlkAyW7xsQNRUYQ8W4j_X3Lna5ksPNasUEe-JekPvlEEWoo8PxZPg2qZeTXDafMAYL9gbldYc_OHIxOq_Ruxy/s400/No258p31.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The truth is, I could not see how could the
Flash escape such a tragic destiny. And I don’t mean in the story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">per se</i>. Even at such a tender age one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knows</i> that he must have found a
solution, or else there would not be any more stories featuring the Flash – and
I knew there were (although I kept away from them). But I couldn’t see how
could he escape such a tragic destiny <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">forever</i>.
If he truly depended on that aura to survive such speeds, how could he run that
fast without ever thinking that his aura could fail from one moment to the next?
That someone else would discover the same gizmo as Black Hand did. Or, what the
heck, what’s to say it wouldn’t just fail by freak accident? And I kept hearing
Flash’s voice panting in panicky effort in my brain “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I can’t<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>slow down… fast enough…</i>” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I guess it was this existential dread that killed
my taste for the Flash. When one relied solely in comic book logic, it was easy
to accept the workings of his powers. But as soon as one tries a scientific
approach to it (an acquired taste from Julius Schwartz, who was then ruling
editor on the book), the unavoidable cold equations take hold… and the universe
is indeed a cold and indifferent place. One can run, but one can’t hide. And to
err in the side of caution, better not run as fast as the Flash.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-32436370544800195722016-09-22T03:09:00.000-07:002017-07-21T06:25:33.030-07:00Gallery of Great Comic Book Covers: THE FLASH #258 (1978)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinX7jbNi9gxc8SKRChU_1Gt5D3tfy50O4HlcKVSQjr2gfUu6qDTGeFB-pzb9wke_cGfevMCpBGYKrsif_RlM79v1aROZvlgzCq4XjhnFAdXiv8mGZrSjU5gFA8jXoztbgkx9Btu74pl9RT/s1600/The+Flash+v1+258+%25281978%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinX7jbNi9gxc8SKRChU_1Gt5D3tfy50O4HlcKVSQjr2gfUu6qDTGeFB-pzb9wke_cGfevMCpBGYKrsif_RlM79v1aROZvlgzCq4XjhnFAdXiv8mGZrSjU5gFA8jXoztbgkx9Btu74pl9RT/s640/The+Flash+v1+258+%25281978%2529.jpg" width="420" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Cover by Jack Able & Rich Buckler</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-19397408611301567842016-09-21T14:12:00.000-07:002016-09-21T15:47:14.722-07:00INTERREGNUM (ii): Comic Book Logic and Rape<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQ2eLvuZxpase2Lgh2yKvQAcaJM7tEEr2Nyc1WsU353Czj5WQWFZnxTthRdngegdOdlmsqCSJ7Z7xu20bKgel-j5YapY9iETnpk2FCrNRywvfn20xcFN2SpY4KyExnVQDYDnAYVEnH7wF/s1600/plaatsen_aphro05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQ2eLvuZxpase2Lgh2yKvQAcaJM7tEEr2Nyc1WsU353Czj5WQWFZnxTthRdngegdOdlmsqCSJ7Z7xu20bKgel-j5YapY9iETnpk2FCrNRywvfn20xcFN2SpY4KyExnVQDYDnAYVEnH7wF/s400/plaatsen_aphro05.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Comics suffer the constraint of perception. For
all of its growing social relevance, for all of its long history from the pages
of the funnies to the glossiest of graphic novels, comic books still bear the
stigma of entertainment for kids. Comics are still that crazy kid’s stuff. And hence
that delightful paradox: no longer for kids, who barely think of sex, they’re
targeted at teens who barely think of anything else. And one thing teens won’t
find in super-heroes books is sex (at least beyond the tame suggestion of it in
the context of romance).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now, it is obvious that sex mustn’t have a
prominent place in super-hero comic books, since as a rule those are not erotic
or porn books. Each genre with its own rules, even though nothing prevents
genre fluidity, or the successful inclusion of explicit content in superhero
comics, as both Comico’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ELEMENTAL’S SEX
SPECIAL</b> (1991-1993) and WildStorm’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE
BOYS</b> (2006-2007) or Dynamite’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">HEROGASM</b>
(2009) clearly attest. Nor is either of those matters the point of this brief
post, although I intend to tackle both of them in future writings.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If I now bring up the subject of sex I do so in
a more specific context – that of rape in superheroes comic books, and even so (saving
the subject for a future and longer post), only as the utmost perfect
illustration of Goldman’s rule #4: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
comic-book movie doesn’t have a great deal to do with life as it exists, as we
know it to be. Rather, it deals with life as we would prefer it to be. Safer
that way</i>”. Even if the way we prefer it to be is childish.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">First of all, I’m not talking about graphic
representations of rape. Just as graphic representations of sex, they would
have no place in mass-market entertainment like the comic books put out every
month by Marvel or DC. What I really want to discuss is the very <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">concept</i> of rape. The basic idea that
anywhere in the universe – in the superhero universe – such a thing could
happen. To anyone. Let alone to some super-powered female come from Krypton or
a power-stripped mutant in Genosha (yes, I’m thinking of the infamous <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">UNCANNY X-MEN</b> #236) or Kansas, or
whatever.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfM1z9MR6dpCg-PTFSO6yVU80wiKutDjisQ8ePl5BrKTAMdolLn0-x7qqV84gLgsIBCwTFKaE7n6qTFWsjHBPan5xVSWnIImlrODab-D5W5quTrW0gTsHv2lIGFxQ_YSj0Za4h1vJ-xVv/s1600/venom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfM1z9MR6dpCg-PTFSO6yVU80wiKutDjisQ8ePl5BrKTAMdolLn0-x7qqV84gLgsIBCwTFKaE7n6qTFWsjHBPan5xVSWnIImlrODab-D5W5quTrW0gTsHv2lIGFxQ_YSj0Za4h1vJ-xVv/s400/venom.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Despite endless talk about why superheroes need
secret identities to protect their families and the ones they love, we know
that the Vulture, or Doc Ok, or Venom will go straight after Peter once he
advertises his true identity, and if they go for Aunt May or Mary Jane, they’ll
do so without the least lubricious thought in their minds. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, one would expect rape to be a
professional hazard to super-heroines (if not super-heroes). After all, their
job is to fight, many times at close quarters, with vicious super-powered
villains intent on world domination and drunk on power. And even more so if
said villains are of the Freudian persuasion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In fact, reality tell us that, even allowing a
large margin for underreporting, and despite a decline in crime statistics, and
if we’re to believe the UNODC data for 2011, more than 26 women for each
100.000 is a victim of rape, while the FBI, for 2012 alone, lists a total of
67.354 female victims of rape in the United States. In the military (something
more akin to superherodom) that number rises to one in three.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJAN2xlqoi1Ce_sCd0g24yzYx1v409z0JKzaKXVmZIeJ-HAzscXgYwTnUvVJsqVHk2r4BlB-sydi4N1EPb_wvfv837KjTFyLMz-fTYw0rxBPEbe3anMworVLQQPxLHyFUoTGTnp7CXJT1_/s1600/The+Boys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJAN2xlqoi1Ce_sCd0g24yzYx1v409z0JKzaKXVmZIeJ-HAzscXgYwTnUvVJsqVHk2r4BlB-sydi4N1EPb_wvfv837KjTFyLMz-fTYw0rxBPEbe3anMworVLQQPxLHyFUoTGTnp7CXJT1_/s400/The+Boys.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But, just as it happened with Gwen Stacy, the
intrusion of reality in the comic book world is a shattering event. That
supervillains are willing to rape, and that superheroes are unable to prevent
it, is something people seem incapable of handling. It’s something that defies <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b>, something that
further punctures the improbability sphere that surrounds the world of each
main character in superhero books. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Indeed, the rape of a minor
character, Sue Dibny, in a hugely popular mini-series – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">IDENTITY CRISIS</b> (2005) – was probably the most decried event in
comic book history. In fact it was decreed anathema from all quarters. It was
deemed by some to be “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110916000620/http:/spectrumculture.com/2011/02/revisit-identity-crisis-by-brad-meltzer-and-rags-morales.html"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">the
stupidest, most offensive move in modern comics</span></a></i>”, while others
considered it “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://comicsalliance.com/the-15-worst-comics-of-the-decade/?trackback=tsmclip"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">the
embodiment of all of the worst aspects of current super-hero comics</span></a></i>”.
Some tried to justify their aversion to it because the story <a href="http://www.cbr.com/breaking-down-event-comics-part-one-identity-crisis-1-7-or-why-you-should-always-stop-one-issue-short-of-your-goal/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">did
not dwell at length with the trauma of the rape victim</span></a>, as if that
was or should be the point of the story. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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others still, wi<span style="font-family: inherit;">th</span> shock-and-awe bombast and no sense of ridicule, proclaimed
that <span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/the-mission-the-death-and-rebirth-of-dc-comics"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">t</span>he
rape of a superhero's spouse ripped through the superhero community, broke
rules of corporate superhero fiction, and left the spirit of the DC Comics
universe in tatters</span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">.</span></a></i>”</span></span> </span>But, in the end, what they all were
objecting was this:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVwjVbF9guGqjwMNx_KAH0QNoRGzAa9m5LKOZdUmBR2IKtqVaXN9B_208DGw18lrzR2IOMsJUi6HW54KXGc1CyeWdYoa1v78V8jXRTpGP_LynfKZ03vZkTshBDTc3A52TsJd2wZaq6JCYx/s1600/Identity+Crisis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVwjVbF9guGqjwMNx_KAH0QNoRGzAa9m5LKOZdUmBR2IKtqVaXN9B_208DGw18lrzR2IOMsJUi6HW54KXGc1CyeWdYoa1v78V8jXRTpGP_LynfKZ03vZkTshBDTc3A52TsJd2wZaq6JCYx/s400/Identity+Crisis.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Quite restrained isn’t it? Even
tame, by comparison with some of the other images I chose to illustrate this
post. There’s nothing graphic about it – not even the slightest hint of nudity,
despite the discrete <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rrrrrp</i> sound
that I imagine is Dr. Light ripping Sue’s trousers. So, the only thing
objectionable on this scene is the shock of the rape itself. The unexpectedness
of it. Not the unexpectedness of “how could it have happened?”, but of the more
crude “How dare <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">them</i> (the publishers/writers/artists)
do it?” type. As an example, Shaun Spalding, referring to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">IDENTITY CRISIS</b>, admonishes his readers: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110705132218/http:/www.heavytargets.com/general/rape-should-not-be-a-plot-device/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">If
you’re going to write a rape into your superhero comic book, </span>be prepared
to write it well</a></i>.” Sadly, no examples are given on how to do it. What a
surprise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The best way to summarize the
reaction and the ballyhoo about this scene is the one employed by a reader in a
comments thread (and I’m sorry for dropping on her shoulders the heavy burden
of poster-girl for social indignation) when she wrote that: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 77.9pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 77.9pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“<a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/5846565/10-crises-we-wont-miss-now-that-the-dc-universe-rebooted-itself?comment=43273458"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">My
primary problem with Identity Crisis, which I mostly liked, was the rape
because it wasn't necessary to the story. Dr. Light being crazy dangerous and
smart enough to infiltrate the satellite and hack their computers and threaten
all their loved ones was enough.</span></a>”</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-right: -.05pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The shocking thing in
this scene was, in fact, that Dr. Light dared go beyond the mere threat. The
thrill of the menace was enough, just like in a theme park ride. In the comic
book world some readers like to inhabit, bad things don’t happen to good
people. Superhero’s wives are not raped by unscrupulous villains. Super-heroines
are not objects of desire. It’s safer that way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-right: -.05pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-right: -.05pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In truth, this kind of
reaction harkens back to a time when comic books really seemed incapable of
going beyond infantile prudishness even when dealing with larger issues. Take,
for example, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY</b>
#84 (September 1962). At a certain point of the cover story for that issue “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mighty Thor vs The Executioner</i>”, Dr.
Don Blake (Thor) is captured by the titular villain, a prescient ersatz Guevara/Castro
figure that shows us the Marvel was much more aware of socialist reality than
many of its critics.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj96O04i16CHTQ2TNl1Q5JTVVbLY9pxYwWLbFSC3n2KYFlp5MPRQXOWTJnwhWngq8lGCReur9eVOGDPN6JhOUhbm9l_PeyH3Wj85Wyeoh5G2I38ai-FTH_m6G3JebqZcM06ssnAA_UgDytL/s1600/JiM_84_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj96O04i16CHTQ2TNl1Q5JTVVbLY9pxYwWLbFSC3n2KYFlp5MPRQXOWTJnwhWngq8lGCReur9eVOGDPN6JhOUhbm9l_PeyH3Wj85Wyeoh5G2I38ai-FTH_m6G3JebqZcM06ssnAA_UgDytL/s400/JiM_84_01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-right: -.05pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-right: -.05pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When the Executioner,
who has noticed the enticing young American nurse Jane Foster: “<i>Such lovely
eyes… such soft hair</i>” is clearly a displaced appreciation of the girl’s other bodily
charms – unmentionable by name in a comic book for kids. The sexual subtext is
there, the libidinous menace is clear; and, noticing the concern of Jane over
Dr. Blake, the ersatz Cuban dictator expresses his most primal instincts for
the young American girl:</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7zlwea3ZEPbD1rAl-6ti0t-6wIP5DwgUFpYc2MXMVg-QQwDXjnKbUjM4diOFoGKZL6Ft39ssrVL_pUcxaM0xw8PSSSeqORxPSinu985cwgN7rrlAsEgazEakgOofmBiMHYh6BJsESk9I/s1600/JiM_84_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7zlwea3ZEPbD1rAl-6ti0t-6wIP5DwgUFpYc2MXMVg-QQwDXjnKbUjM4diOFoGKZL6Ft39ssrVL_pUcxaM0xw8PSSSeqORxPSinu985cwgN7rrlAsEgazEakgOofmBiMHYh6BJsESk9I/s400/JiM_84_02.jpg" width="273" /></a></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Would you marry me?</i>” Yes… the sexual
subtext is there, in a language that only children could identify with.</span>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-22783099543911589152016-09-19T01:35:00.003-07:002016-09-19T02:16:20.861-07:00INTERREGNUM (i): Comic Book Logic vs Cartoon Logic<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfASa4SmO9iDtodHXpixT2Q73Fx958pqSwdhXSIAHxUE8NuQLT7A_tPJ3pfamLZn716kz2X3gW4JJx7m4OGRQoC8OFsghOg9Hh5q_rEuxFm4PobFH1-rIwGBimEW6r4MX0Pj6IcKw2S9wk/s1600/FF_v1_04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfASa4SmO9iDtodHXpixT2Q73Fx958pqSwdhXSIAHxUE8NuQLT7A_tPJ3pfamLZn716kz2X3gW4JJx7m4OGRQoC8OFsghOg9Hh5q_rEuxFm4PobFH1-rIwGBimEW6r4MX0Pj6IcKw2S9wk/s400/FF_v1_04.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Comic Book Logic</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> works because it maintains the
coherence between the reader’s expectations and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">storyworld</i>. We accept superhuman powers as a given, and so we
accept their functioning inside its own intrinsic logic. It is as if each and
every super-powered being acted inside a sphere of non-causality, with varying
radius, and inside that sphere, their powers work as they should were it not
for the uncompromising laws of physics. To reach such affect, writer and artist
must aim at the realistic portraying of impossible feats, both in story
structure as in art. By <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">realistic</i> I
don’t mean mere photo-imitation (one can be realistic without adhering to
realistic representation), but a special codification of the logic structure of
the working of such feats against the story’s expectations. The risk here is
that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b> should
inadvertently slip into <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cartoon Logic</b>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The image above, from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FANTASTIC FOUR</b> #4 (1962), sits uncomfortably near to that fateful
incline towards ridiculousness. Mr. Fantastic, here penciled by “the king”
Kirby, looks disproportionate in relation to the buildings that surround him.
At that height, just try to imagine the size of his feet, dozens of meters
below. In the early stories from Marvel’s Golden Age (during the Silver Age of
Comics) the super-heroes’s super-powers were somewhat fluctuating and
malleable, as if they hadn’t been completely thought out (as they probably
weren’t) before being committed to the printed page. Here, Mr. Fantastic not
only expands his body, as he seems to expand his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">size and mass</i> as well – something that seems awkward, for a man of
the size of Reed Richards on the panel above would be so massive that he
wouldn’t be able to stand, and much less move. But although it is a silly
situation – Mr. Fantastic stops a helicopter to ask if those aboard have seen
the Human Torch – it still hasn’t slid entirely into a cartoonish mindframe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As it had done, for instance, in the previous
issue (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FANTASTIC FOUR</b> #3), when the
same Mr. Fantastic turns his body into a racecar-wheel:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6LylAKuucIih0tuFDpjTop6IzbVESiikyWR9jLGXhyeKi_dCth4S42mvl7f6pvxwF__gyI6ip0Ta0b5ztkSaFkvUVe1lRY5vMAlbDodQsQXuMPvWrCdFFFLGHPK2LxxR-f742fudgCCp/s1600/FF_v1_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6LylAKuucIih0tuFDpjTop6IzbVESiikyWR9jLGXhyeKi_dCth4S42mvl7f6pvxwF__gyI6ip0Ta0b5ztkSaFkvUVe1lRY5vMAlbDodQsQXuMPvWrCdFFFLGHPK2LxxR-f742fudgCCp/s400/FF_v1_03.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Please mind that Mr. Fantastic didn’t turn
himself into a tire (which would be ridiculous enough by itself), but into a
full functioning wheel for a speeding racecar, in the middle of a high-speed
chase. Think of the sheer mechanical complexity of such feat, and the mind
boggles…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Truth is, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cartoon
Logic,</b> just as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b>,
does not adhere to the laws of physics, but unlike the latter, it does not
aspire to present a credible representation of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">storyworld</i>. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cartoon Logic</b>
thrives on the unexpected, on the surrealist logic of dreams, on the unchecked
imagination of children still free from a sense of the world as it is. Its is a
logic of free-association, of willingly incoherent rules, where one cause does
not necessarily produce the same effect twice. Its dimension is a dimension of
symbols, and when it invades the real world, it does so with a hint of madness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Maybe <i>madness</i> is a strong world, for this
madness I’m thinking of is no more than the craziness of childhood. For only a
child could imagine an entire building floating through the skies, ridden like
a ski by a semi-naked Amazon that, lassoed to an invisible airplane through a
golden lariat, drives that incredible mass of tons of bricks and steel, with
the might of her shapely thighs. Well, maybe not just children, for the above
scenario appears on the pages of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE
BRAVE AND THE BOLD</b> #28 (1960), written by Gardner Fox and penciled by
Michael Sekowsky:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzimvFBfuzYRL72p2TxDQAHtZM1hGigc-hEm5JnW_vKXeSyHMsXPz4ORtq7N7Gb7Mn9IW6FRdMwPeLdL74F15AJj470Ki6mUDed9z6oSL7eEaO3II1G5RIR2DorqG2Ms1OiWaiP5Rs99P/s1600/Brave+and+the+Bold+28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzimvFBfuzYRL72p2TxDQAHtZM1hGigc-hEm5JnW_vKXeSyHMsXPz4ORtq7N7Gb7Mn9IW6FRdMwPeLdL74F15AJj470Ki6mUDed9z6oSL7eEaO3II1G5RIR2DorqG2Ms1OiWaiP5Rs99P/s400/Brave+and+the+Bold+28.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Super-hero comic books were on their twenties
when these two examples were published. Still a long way away from the
revolution that would shake the comic book world around 1970, ushering the
greatest comic book era of all time – the Bronze Age of Comics –, and that
being so there were sometimes childish stories, already bearing the seed of
great things to come, but not always more sophisticated than their forebears
from the Golden Age were (1938-1954). Comics in their infancy, are surely
entitled to the occasional slip into cartoonish situations.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Not so with more recent comics, where <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cartoon Logic</b> sometimes erupt like a
mushroom on a well-kept lawn. In modern super-hero comic books, such eruptions
tend to signal a return into childishness, an attempt to remove comic books
from the adult status they sometimes have achieved, and throw them back into a
mythical infancy of safe parental embraces. Of Saturday morning cartoons.
Consider, for instance, the following panel from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">HARLEY’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK</b> #1 (2016), written by Jimmy Palmiotti
& Amanda Conner, and penciled by the same Amanda Conner with John Timms:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9PKabw8KXZA8fqlj9v8w0TRQx3bOgK5Qfp87jiM6unjAwyMNNiK7z2XvPVpMbZq9Zt4mPOjert3ZEILucrt5ISaZVzrezdUTOLg7I11xptQnilUGuYLEP4O2I2qkOEcaJZtvUplzykBoV/s1600/Harley%2527s-Little-Black-Book-001-%25282016%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9PKabw8KXZA8fqlj9v8w0TRQx3bOgK5Qfp87jiM6unjAwyMNNiK7z2XvPVpMbZq9Zt4mPOjert3ZEILucrt5ISaZVzrezdUTOLg7I11xptQnilUGuYLEP4O2I2qkOEcaJZtvUplzykBoV/s400/Harley%2527s-Little-Black-Book-001-%25282016%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is the kind of image we expect from French
or Italian comedy films of the sixties and seventies (movies by Jean Girault or
Michele Lupo for instance), films where the chaos of the surrealist imagination
would subvert to comic effect the strictures of neo-realism and the less than
ideal real world politics. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I’ve stressed in my <a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.pt/2016/09/some-more-notes-on-comic-book-logic-2.html">previous
post</a> that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b> could
be a symptom of the infantilism in the medium of comic books. When it slips
into cartoonish antics, it is undeniably so. Consider that Wonder Woman would
be subject to the same Newtonian laws that governed Superman’s attempt to stop
the Metropolis Bullet in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ACTION COMICS</b>
#1 (2011) (as also discussed in my <a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.pt/2016/09/some-more-notes-on-comic-book-logic-2.html">previous
post</a>). The same as saying that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in the
real world</i> she wouldn’t have made it. The momentum of the speeding Mini
would push her for kilometers, even if she could keep her arms locked with
enough strength to prevent the sword from cutting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i> in half. Accepting – as we do – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Comic Book Logic</i>, we would also accept that she would be able to
stop the car with the blade of her sword, smashing in the entire front of the
Mini. But to slice the car in two perfect halves, cutting through the motor
innards like it was butter… I’m sorry, but that is pure <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cartoon Logic</b> – something beyond even the brilliant cartoonish
buffoonery of Deadpool, a character with a logic all of his own.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">As I reread the previous lines, I can’t help but
feeling that I’ve wasted too much time on what shouldn’t be more than a short
footnote to my <a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.pt/2016/09/some-more-notes-on-comic-book-logic-2.html">previous
post</a>. And I’ll be the first to admit that none of the examples quoted are
enough to disqualify comic books as relevant pop entertainment. But I feel that
these hints of childishness that sometimes creep back into comics, hark to
something darker, as childishness is not always equated with innocence.
Childishness is also a symptom of totalitarian thought control, and there is
one aspect of this control that I want to discuss briefly in my next post: rape.</span></span></span></div>
A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-82336762154351310812016-09-18T05:29:00.000-07:002016-09-19T01:37:18.923-07:00Some More Notes on Comic Book Logic (2)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaW28GKLRcgZdxtKD8xe8ZXJ0WIgdr7wP8LdfNxwztXTDL-bniJ2Q6DW5HQvB0v7L5V-P631QCokOeA1NXw5D8kXQONJk7WB55-utKjF-0VB2RpjsKJw0YIPjVvIu4Kxcwll6E3qCj38tt/s1600/AmzSM121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaW28GKLRcgZdxtKD8xe8ZXJ0WIgdr7wP8LdfNxwztXTDL-bniJ2Q6DW5HQvB0v7L5V-P631QCokOeA1NXw5D8kXQONJk7WB55-utKjF-0VB2RpjsKJw0YIPjVvIu4Kxcwll6E3qCj38tt/s400/AmzSM121.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So, onto Goldman’s Rule number (4) and its
relevance for my understanding of Comic Book Logic: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the comic-book movie doesn’t have a great deal to do with life as it
exists, as we know it to be. Rather, it deals with life as we would prefer it
to be. Safer that way</i>”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As I’ve mentioned before, the first thing one
derives from such a iteration is an implicit condemnation of escapist forms of
entertainment. However, that is not helpful when dealing with comic books, as
they are – as every other popular form of entertainment – escapist in nature,
inasmuch as life problems tend to be totally ignored or wholly subject to
larger-than-life crisis. On the other hand, unless one professes that fiction
must be absolutely faithful to life as we live it, there would be no point in
comics, films, music or books as they would be at best confirmation of one’s insignificant
role in the grand scheme of life, at worst a dreadful bore.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">To say that comic books – and therefore comic
book logic – do not conform to life as it exists, could also mean (and
necessarily does) – as I’ve pointed out in my previous post – that superheroes,
by definition, do not conform to the natural laws. They are not bound by
gravity, affected by friction, explicable through biology or physics; they are,
in all other aspects but their diagetic origin, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">god-like</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now, it is true that not all comic books are
superhero comics; and it is also true that superheroes were not the first ones
to come back from the dead – if not the first, the most famous example of
resurrection by popular demand is that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock
Holmes, returned from a fatal fall over Reichenbach Falls in “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Final Problem</i></b>” (1893), further reinforcing the tie between comics and
pulp traditions (and, apparently, confirming Goldman’s assertions, as even the
supreme value of life – and the ultimate sacrifice of death – seem to be
devalued). But this allows me to stress the fact that my own understanding of
comic book logic is best illustrated by superhero comic books. It’s not a
matter of it being applicable mainly, if not exclusively to superheroes, but
that they do serve as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reductio ad
absurdum</i> that help to gauge said logic in other comics. For, in a final
instance, Comic Book Logic is no more than a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">special case</i> of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">willing
suspension of disbelief</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This being said, what am I aiming at? What is
the subtle distinction that differentiates it from the logic of, say, pulp
fiction? On first attempting to answer this question I felt it was a matter of
degree. One could be made to believe that, say, Indiana Jones could escape from
a pilotless plane about to crash by jumping from it using a blanket to slow
down his rate of descent, parachute-like (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES</b> #4, 1983).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTtj7lUqby_Mt8DBajITv1Axq0ECZrzjhsBT_L-QzUDYv_l6wJv3PLb-BIp4GCkmpagihuRXqL_GdikfVgJKVrVm7ebp7DZpP8zadu8YC610SOHPXOVUnqakR_a0pLUTnivQ4iHA3FKFm-/s1600/Marvel+Indiana+Jones+04-03.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTtj7lUqby_Mt8DBajITv1Axq0ECZrzjhsBT_L-QzUDYv_l6wJv3PLb-BIp4GCkmpagihuRXqL_GdikfVgJKVrVm7ebp7DZpP8zadu8YC610SOHPXOVUnqakR_a0pLUTnivQ4iHA3FKFm-/s400/Marvel+Indiana+Jones+04-03.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Everything in the scene conforms to the laws of
physics: Indy uses the blanket to slow his fall (or to “glide” as the caption puts
it), and then, when the unforgiving sea waters grow near with the implacability
of a brick wall and the blanket no longer holds, he spreads arms and legs to
increase air-resistance and, in the final moment, positions his body in the
most hydrodynamic configuration to diminish the force of the impact on the
water.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ6iWQ02WoaPZ0SGDF1AiY5owmkSqE076rJh4pHpPlAgWLHkQHFk1qNm8g1IMvVY9OMQmeCYwzIC5u7lfuBZAt9lpUm2Lv6qGCeX4uS6Q9vNZEltpZ02WV4qLc7VDef9h4nV1dq9j7M_jS/s1600/Marvel+Indiana+Jones+04-04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ6iWQ02WoaPZ0SGDF1AiY5owmkSqE076rJh4pHpPlAgWLHkQHFk1qNm8g1IMvVY9OMQmeCYwzIC5u7lfuBZAt9lpUm2Lv6qGCeX4uS6Q9vNZEltpZ02WV4qLc7VDef9h4nV1dq9j7M_jS/s400/Marvel+Indiana+Jones+04-04.JPG" width="263" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Again, as I said, everything in the above scene
conforms to the laws of physics, even if not to the law of averages. I bet not
one in ten thousand doing what Indy did would be able to survive (or even have
the guts to try it). It is an exaggeration, what we can call an extraordinary
man facing extraordinary circumstances and playing the laws of probabilities.
He is, after all, the story’s hero. His actions are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">believable</i>, even if the outcome strains our willingness to accept
it as totally feasible. After all, we expect extraordinary solutions from
heroes. But at no moment did we expect Indy to start flying, or for a flying
man, wearing a cape, to rescue him in the nick of time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So, pulp logic – the daring of possible feats
in impossible circumstances – would be a degree below the logic of super-hero
comic books – the violation of the laws of physics, instead of the laws of
probabilities. Pulp logic will strain, but not break, the laws of physics.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But I soon understood that was not enough. And
not only because much of pulp fiction depends on violations of the laws of
physics (time-travel, hyper-spatial velocity, FTL drives, magic, etc…), but
because if we accept super-powers as something akin to super-scientific gadgets
(or magic for that matter) we would be left with nothing to differentiate <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pulp logic</i> from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">comic book logic</i>. So, despite being close, there’s another factor
that we must bear in mind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I wrote <a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.pt/2015/09/my-no-theory-of-comics-comic-book-logic.html?showComment=1443653433625">before</a>,
in this regard, that “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">comic books are ruled by their own
self-validating logic, a logic that cannot be challenged by facts extrinsic to
their own internal consistency</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i>”
And, it was pointed out by Gene Phillips, prompting this train of thought, that
so is pulp fiction. If one accepts FTL as a given, the story logic must be
judged not by current physics, but by another set of assumptions that admit FTL
travel. The consequences of such possibility must be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">logically</i> appraised in relation to the fictional admittance of that
tenet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In order to avoid an endless circular
reasoning, instead of defining the difference as a matter of (probability)
degree, one must search the answer in another, obvious, but subtler difference.
And that difference resides in the fact that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pulp logic</i> applies to the entire fictional universe, whereas <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">comic book logic</i> applies only to
super-heroes. That is to say, if there is something like FTL drives,
teleportation or magic in a given fictional universe, every character in that
universe is, in principle, capable of using it. If Indy can jump from a
pilotless plane, so can Hildy, Jack or Minnie. The rules of reality, strained
as they may be, apply equally to all. The fictional universe differs from ours
in some ways that are typical of that universe, not of the characters
populating it. In the case of the Indiana Jones example, the universal laws are
the same as ours. But in super-hero comics there are two sets of laws
operating: the laws that apply to super-powered beings <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and those in touch with them</i>, and those that apply to the common
characters of that universe (be them our laws, or the ones that allow for FTL,
magic, etc…). Again we have a matter of degree of separation from the known
laws of physics, but in the rules governing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">comic
book logic</i>, we have two different standards to measure them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I know this sounds like a wee bit feeble
argument. Obviously, super-heroes, because they have super-powers, defy – by
definition – the laws of physics. It is a logical tenet of the story that even
if Superman can fly, no one else can. He is, after all, an alien from another
world that gains powers from the radiation of our yellow sun. Every other
kryptonian, in fact, will have the same powers. True. And it is also true that
every common character can gain super-powers in the same way as any other:
being bitten by a spider, fused to metal waldoes, genetic mutation, electricity
igniting chemical compounds, etc…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
from that moment on, they will as well be freed from nature’s constraints. Also
true. But that is not what I mean. Let me demonstrate. Consider these panels
from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MAN OF STEEL</b> #1 (1986) and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SUPERMAN</b> #18 (2013):</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcxYDo7L8HSiL32Om5FaaS1Gem6_OJ4L3ZRRydCOC8XqhYfEQzIBpZUCED51ibCUW6UjErUgKiuVhtnmTL6cj5t3V2bFl_43eVsTYUQR5EQHaI5VJcpghpgBnAQ4cSGr7atGq2UtISQjrH/s1600/ManofSteel01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcxYDo7L8HSiL32Om5FaaS1Gem6_OJ4L3ZRRydCOC8XqhYfEQzIBpZUCED51ibCUW6UjErUgKiuVhtnmTL6cj5t3V2bFl_43eVsTYUQR5EQHaI5VJcpghpgBnAQ4cSGr7atGq2UtISQjrH/s400/ManofSteel01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoR8EajygiHfPmruCUSipV0DcDZ9eo89dvHF3A9j35vDsD1bDQ02pVdJ_FE3cIymrcNusnv1CeRTaj914USut1l3WMqx5LA19OkGOuuIRjKkWfuKReGoDb3Tq6CovzBEr7f6ejYjfyiPeK/s1600/Superman18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoR8EajygiHfPmruCUSipV0DcDZ9eo89dvHF3A9j35vDsD1bDQ02pVdJ_FE3cIymrcNusnv1CeRTaj914USut1l3WMqx5LA19OkGOuuIRjKkWfuKReGoDb3Tq6CovzBEr7f6ejYjfyiPeK/s400/Superman18.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">John Byrne’s take on Superman defined the
Mythos for the generations that followed. The panel above represents the moment
– that became canon – when Superman appears in public for the first time,
stopping an experimental space-shuttle from crashing in Metropolis. The shuttle
– a concept now dated, but then much en vogue (for good and, then soon to be,
sad reasons) – has been substituted by commercial airliners in more recent
takes in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SUPERMAN – THE ANIMATED SERIES</i></b> (1996) and the dreadful <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">MAN
OF STEEL</i></b> (2013) by Zack Snyder, but one can easily find other instances
where Superman (or Supergirl, Power Girl, Captain Marvel, The Hulk, whomever)
stops fast moving vehicles with his bare hands.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Such instances serve a clear purpose: to
illustrate the hero’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">power</i>. He can
stop a diving airplane, stand the impact of a runaway train, stop the out of
control truck from hitting the old lady in the street. And, usually, they are
opportunities for artists to exhibit their talent for representing that power
through the representation of energy and motion. And it really works. The
reader is lead to believe that – having accepted the essential impossibility of
the hero’s powers – he could do it. If the hero has super-strength,
super-speed, the ability to fly, why, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">surely
he can do it!</i> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, one needs not think long to know that
it isn’t so: never mind that Superman himself would need to have an engineering
degree just to know where to apply pressure, where to lift, where not to press;
airplane’s were not designed to be held by the tail, to stand impacts on the
nose, their wings are really not that resistant to applied pressure from solid
objects, nor to torque motions at high Gs. If Superman were to stand in front
of a falling commercial airplane, ready to stop its fall, his hands would go
straight through the nose of the airplane and the avionics lodged there. Would
he grab it by the tail, his fingers would tear the flimsy fuselage at best,
break the airplane in half at the worst. That is, assuming he could stop the
airplane at all, lacking a firm support where to ground the force necessary to
stop de airplane’s momentum.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The most illuminating example is, perhaps, the
recurring moment where Superman (or any other superhero) must stop a speeding
train or truck. Were we to discard Newton’s laws of motion, pretending that he would
be able to stand his ground by planting his feet at an angle, thrusting them as
deep inside the earth as he could, he would not stop the train (or truck) but
disintegrate it. But bringing such laws back in the equation, what is more
expectable, is that the kinetic energy of the speeding vehicle, and its mass,
would overcome Superman’s resistance as the entire strength he can apply comes
from the friction of his feet with the pavement. For instance, Manuel Moreno
Lupiáñez and Jordi José Pont, from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
calculate in their 1999 textbook “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">De King Kong a Einstein: La física en la
ciencia ficción</i></b>” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From King Kong
to Einstein: Physics in Science Fiction</i>) that given a weight of about 90Kg
for Superman, would he try to stop a truck of 50 tons, moving at 100Km/h, and
admitting Superman would survive the impact, he would be only able to exert a
force of about <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>880N that would cause the
truck to decelerate 0.02m/s each second.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is to say, Superman would be able to stop the truck after 25
minutes and at a point 20Km from the point of impact. Something very distant
(pun intended) from even the most approximate depiction of such a feat on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ACTION COMICS</b> #1 (2011) by the superior
Grant Morrison (writer) and Rags Morales (art):</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNoi9ZIkR1sn0q-ADlgclhb-a32u4GosuN4eWfGbzjoTCVEdQBLUrvGURQcC5h3Qj-rfQFC_O-3tBWf5J5nyHClwtuwHHhHMWGItdrF4nqmoqBGxOsPBz0ZbOw5IRP_07QY5S7xfg21NG/s1600/bullet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNoi9ZIkR1sn0q-ADlgclhb-a32u4GosuN4eWfGbzjoTCVEdQBLUrvGURQcC5h3Qj-rfQFC_O-3tBWf5J5nyHClwtuwHHhHMWGItdrF4nqmoqBGxOsPBz0ZbOw5IRP_07QY5S7xfg21NG/s400/bullet.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A depiction that would be slightly more
credible if Morales didn’t draw Superman with his feet barely ever touching the
ground – which means that after the initial impact the train isn’t even loosing
speed from Superman’s action.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnURJBDRnJ7HvMqYg56GwwBTGRjCNfgYzyT4pO-PXzMRBpF3EtbKZXgoiJuGqrkdqj9BVYynl8GqLEUr7JMuB8fmBD10OfIRaHZtSb9KQUozhtyicYXLqYPcm51AfBEWeiwhc9pXJtGDxs/s1600/bullet+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnURJBDRnJ7HvMqYg56GwwBTGRjCNfgYzyT4pO-PXzMRBpF3EtbKZXgoiJuGqrkdqj9BVYynl8GqLEUr7JMuB8fmBD10OfIRaHZtSb9KQUozhtyicYXLqYPcm51AfBEWeiwhc9pXJtGDxs/s400/bullet+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But a lot more interesting than this simple
demonstration is the situation represented in the previously reproduced panel
from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SUPERMAN</b> #18. In it, due to a
hypnotic command imbedded in a DJ’s sound system, a small crowd of party-people
start to jump lemming-like from the top a skyscraper. From the story art we get
just an incomplete picture, but one that allows us to measure the height of the
building at no less than 65 meters (21 visible stories, considering each to be
3 m from floor to ceiling, plus 2 meters for the ) and the jumpers to be no
less than 28:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD57ZdEEgmWs2ynvLNmlzviwLXQrNXi9wSiWGeKEdZ7QhQIF9gxCVItzP3YQ_8J5M-LFOulB1ExPGCeDRfyHyEvKBJ4gMK6xCLni06P90hzb_vcqF58CmwE8VBWKaLCtooVh6fJ79jNre-/s1600/jump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD57ZdEEgmWs2ynvLNmlzviwLXQrNXi9wSiWGeKEdZ7QhQIF9gxCVItzP3YQ_8J5M-LFOulB1ExPGCeDRfyHyEvKBJ4gMK6xCLni06P90hzb_vcqF58CmwE8VBWKaLCtooVh6fJ79jNre-/s400/jump.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And
Superman saves them all just shuttling up and down at full speed, picking them
from the air and depositing them on the terraced rooftop of a near building,
adding that much distance to his dislocation. Well, at sea-level a falling body
does so with a constant acceleration of 9.8m/s<sup>2</sup>, that is, from a
starting zero-velocity, each and every jumper will accelerate towards the
earth, changing his velocity by an amount equal to 9.8m/s. That is, the jumper
will have travelled 9.8 meters at the end of the first second, 29.4 meters at
the end of the second second, and 58.8 at the end of the third second. That is
to say, each of the jumpers would hit the ground in less than four seconds,
with a velocity of 35.7m/s or 128.5 Km/h (you can check my calculations <a href="http://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1224852055">here</a>). And, from the
image above, we can estimate that the human lemmings are jumping in bunches of
six, one after another, with intervals of less than a second. But let us give a
comfortable margin of about five seconds for each suicide to stop drinking or
dancing, moving to the edge of the building and jumping. Each of these 28
jumpers, in bunches of seven, would take less than 40 seconds to hit the ground
(five seconds interval between the 4 bunches = 20s, plus the falling time of 4
seconds for each bunch = 16s). Inside this time interval, Superman would have
to change from Clark into his red-and-blues, and execute more than 28
high-speed flights for, as Superman himself lets us know, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Soon as I catch them… they leap off again</i>”. That time-frame must include
deceleration to soften the impact of the falling revelers against his arms,
acceleration towards the ground or the nearest roof, again deceleration to drop
the almost-suicide, then again acceleration towards the next intended victim
that would have kept falling, doing so with even higher velocity and with less
space for deceleration, and so on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Should we accept that Superman could travel at
the necessary speed to get to the twenty-eight jumpers – never less than
1.579,5Km/h, faster than sound – and that he could catch them and take them to
solid ground, we would be forced to conclude that each of the victims would die
or suffer severe injuries from pulped or blasted inner organs from the sudden
deceleration and acceleration of their savior, along with burns from contact
with Superman’s body, heated by his friction with the atmosphere at such
velocities, not to mention pure and simple physical disintegration under the
unbearable G-forces. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With this, I intend to show a very simple fact:
that used to reading comics under the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>premise
that superpowers are indeed fantasy, demanding we willingly suspend our disbelief
(much as FTL travel in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Trek</i></b> or Hyperspace drive in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star
Wars </i></b>demands of us), we don’t usually stop to ponder the consequences
of the use of those same superpowers. That is to say, even if we admit that Superman
can fly at super-speed and can withstand the impact of a speeding train, we must
also recognize that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">even if it was
possible</i>, Superman wouldn’t be able to use such powers to stop a train, or
to save people falling from a skyscraper, or to safely land a crashing airplane.
To accept this second degree of impossibility, we must accept <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b>: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the necessary mental or thought process that derives from impossible
powers impossible consequences, in such a way that although not conforming to
reality, is coherent with the way we imagine those impossible powers to work</i>.
We need a double-degree of suspension of disbelief, that second degree defining
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b>; a reading logic
that goes beyond Pulp Logic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One can argue that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b> is a symptom of the atavistic infantilism of the
comic book medium itself. And in some ways it is undeniably so (although that
is an issue to expand in a later post). However it may be, the inherent tension
in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b> (and the thought
processes it demands) sometimes allows for great comic book moments, precisely
because the artists break the logical convention with their readers: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwTptjSBhPK6mR-voW8rMOO6oqrje39KuZueQp0GfsPy_ygJJMObwPbwZzH0TkWc24epKmVMdUnN1taHUTenCcqKzAT7r02z8YJJ4JccLzsV5yMcFHk7i3lHKcFocUoAm2REh8m9jmAgfM/s1600/Amazing+Spider-Man+121+-+18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwTptjSBhPK6mR-voW8rMOO6oqrje39KuZueQp0GfsPy_ygJJMObwPbwZzH0TkWc24epKmVMdUnN1taHUTenCcqKzAT7r02z8YJJ4JccLzsV5yMcFHk7i3lHKcFocUoAm2REh8m9jmAgfM/s400/Amazing+Spider-Man+121+-+18.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In such unexpected moments, the comic’s
creators allow <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reality</i> to supersede <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b>, to intrude in the
comic book world with sudden and unexpected fury (or maybe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">coldness</i> is the most appropriate term). The shock of intrusion is
clearly psychological, and it is clearly strong, for it necessitates a sudden jump
between levels of reading, the brutal passage from a reading code to another,
with all their respective expectations: from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b> to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Real
World Logic</i>. From “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">life as we would
prefer it to be</i>” to “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">life as it
exists, as we know it to be</i>”. An in that brutal moment, we feel comics as
we never did before. In that SNAP moment when Gwen’s slim neck brakes under the
sudden stop that breaks her fall. As soon as the Green Goblin threw her from
the top of the bridge we know she is dead – that’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the world as it really is</i>. There’s no way in the known universe to
stop her fall. And yet, we are reading the story under the influence of Comic
Book Logic and we know Spider-man is there, and he has enhanced-reflexes,
enhanced-strength, and he shoots webs from his wrists, as strong as steel
cables and as flexible as a real spider’s web. And we have seen him do it time
after time: stopping criminals in mid-air (the Vulture, the Goblin himself),
surviving vertiginous falls by the simple expedient of shooting a web or
creating a web-safety-net. We <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> he
will save Gwen. What we fear is that he might miss Gwen, and that she will plummet
to her death. But, as we know, that’s not what happens. He does catch her. What
really happens is that reality intrudes for the first time, in a way it never
had before, and what kills Gwen is Spiderman’s own powers. It betrays reader’s
expectations, it forces him to change reading planes, planes of overlapping
logic, and the effect is devastating. That SNAP sound is the most shocking and violent
onomatopoeia in the history of comics. It echoes over the Hudson, reverberating
inside the empty soul of countless readers of all ages. Cold, real, definite:
SNAP.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiT5HcGddTmCMtepd4RXJkRY0mPAzw4pBnp0sT19tbj5iAZIWLTeI5hgklAMUxNmD7dcyTIVfUCkrGiy66xbo-OvR2nan2bjR2r1ajaWsoR62uWsb_aU920wRs1VUumxCUNY7oMA0X5mve/s1600/Snap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiT5HcGddTmCMtepd4RXJkRY0mPAzw4pBnp0sT19tbj5iAZIWLTeI5hgklAMUxNmD7dcyTIVfUCkrGiy66xbo-OvR2nan2bjR2r1ajaWsoR62uWsb_aU920wRs1VUumxCUNY7oMA0X5mve/s400/Snap.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Comics being comics, Gwen came back as a clone
only two years later in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE AMAZING
SPIDER-MAN</b> #144 by popular and editorial pressure. But her death changed
comic book history forever, and it still helps us understand the reading process
of comic books. As I said above, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic
Book Logic</b> may be understood as a symptom of infantilism in comics, not as
much of the comics medium itself (although it is childish enough – and even
more so under the recent onslaught of PoMo feminism and multiculturalism), but
of the expectations readers sometimes derives from them. This will be more
evident when I’ll discuss the use (or absence) of rape in super-hero comics as
another instance where (some) readers seem unable to cope with reality’s
intrusion over <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Comic Book Logic</b>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">But that is a matter for another post. Before I
finish this exposition of my “No Theory” of comics (in part three of this long
rambling) we’ll make some detours in order for me to address two aspects (I don’t
know if they have enough dignity to me thought of as corollaries) derived from
this post’s conclusion: this I’ll do in the next (short) posts before I turn to
part three (you all know where I’ll be getting at: super-hero costumes). Sorry
for the extended absence from this blog. Let’s see if I can keep myself on
track f<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif";">rom</span> now on.</span></span></div>
A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-10122796570935426192016-01-13T17:38:00.002-08:002016-02-21T03:03:57.194-08:00Some More Notes on Comic Book Logic (1)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzCz9CcczLqcSVOkMcDIcjLBlXv58p6ED5V-Lhzji2v1Uv4pesmpdTDmjk-hPite44VbgseZocYwWErZPA2IRwRG9QZShH2H2XYftINzyG9p-j9O2dEIdJV3he2HbpuoEVA7zlJX_B6Xg/s1600/dos12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzCz9CcczLqcSVOkMcDIcjLBlXv58p6ED5V-Lhzji2v1Uv4pesmpdTDmjk-hPite44VbgseZocYwWErZPA2IRwRG9QZShH2H2XYftINzyG9p-j9O2dEIdJV3he2HbpuoEVA7zlJX_B6Xg/s400/dos12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In a
comment on my last post, Gene Phillips made a pertinent observation about my
use of ‘comic book logic’, noting (rightly) that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://crackpowwham.blogspot.pt/2015/09/my-no-theory-of-comics-comic-book-logic.html?showComment=1443653433625#c2849664834189864581">it's
a tradition that long precedes comics. The original TARZAN novel is full of
"comics logic," both in the way the ape-man teaches himself how to
read, and in the way he manages to become a muscular super-stud rather than
looking the way REAL feral human beings look.</a></i>” And, indeed, most
iterations of comic book logic (CBL) are an ingrained part of the tradition of
popular and pulp fiction, and most certainly do historically precede both comic
books and pulp fiction; I think it wouldn’t<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>be too far-fetched to find examples of it not only in medieval chivalric
“romances”, but also in Classical Greek literature and mythology. This being
so, I feel it necessary to elaborate a tad bit more on my use of Comic<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Book Logic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Mainly,
because I think it differs in a crucial point from the common use as
illustrated by the Tarzan example adduced by Gene – in itself as comic book
logical as one can expect. Lets consider, for instance, the loose definition
William Goldman uses to describe what he deems ‘comic book movies’ in his
fascinating memoir <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood</i></b>
(1983):</span></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-right: 28.3pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Generally,
only bad guys die. And if a good guy does kick, he does it heroically.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-right: 28.3pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There
tends to be a lack of resonance (…); it’s not meant to last.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-right: 28.3pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
movie turns in on itself: its reference points tend to be other movies. (…)</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-right: 28.3pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(4)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And
probably most important: the comic-book movie doesn’t have a great deal to do
with life as it exists, as we know it to be. Rather, it deals with life as we
would prefer it to be. Safer that way. (Quoted from the 1997 reprint from
Abacus, London).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On first
reading these points, one feels, undoubtedly right, that Goldman equates the
comic-book movie with what we would call a ‘pop-corn movie’, the kind of film
one parks the brain in the foyer and enjoys in a state of mindless stupor.
Nothing wrong with either of them, nor does Goldman cast aspersions on their
enjoyment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I have some contention
with any of these four points, it’s with the implied criticism of so-called
“escapist” entertainment, and (again, merely implied) support for stale realism
in point (4). Of these four points, number (3) defines what may or may not be a
characteristic of comic book logic, post-modernism, and, along with point (2),
somewhat debatable, have no great import for what I intend to address.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However,
points (1) and (4), taken by themselves, or in tandem, offer some valuable help
for me to formulate my meaning of CBL. Lets begin – as we should – with point
(1). In my thirty years of reading comic books (from the time I’ve ditched
Disney and started first reading the Belgian and French <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bandes desssinées</i> published in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">TINTIN</b>
magazine, and then DC and Marvel) I’ve lived through a good dozen deaths of
super-heroes. And, in the main, super-hero comic books conform with point (1)
of Goldman’s list of rules. Bad guys have a higher mortality rate than good
guys, and good guys do die great epic deaths.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieTTugtNqjr2Lz99Rps-ikKZFgVfhT2Yqz1P9gNyB6-n4EANqUx8mLo5-rdME1jnm1Usr5IimxKVaqWvlRXBHjNiwsZVfHRNYrTq1SYGge-lb7t6MJKuKwtkMIxPc8bwdyRI65pz6lLlJF/s1600/2974421-jd1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieTTugtNqjr2Lz99Rps-ikKZFgVfhT2Yqz1P9gNyB6-n4EANqUx8mLo5-rdME1jnm1Usr5IimxKVaqWvlRXBHjNiwsZVfHRNYrTq1SYGge-lb7t6MJKuKwtkMIxPc8bwdyRI65pz6lLlJF/s400/2974421-jd1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The first
super-hero death I remember reading was Jean Grey’s at the climax of the ‘Dark Phoenix
Saga’ in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">UNCANNY X-MEN</b> #137 (1980). At
first sight, Jean’s death conforms to each and every pointer to ‘comic-book’
death per Goldman: it is one of the most heroic deaths one can remember and,
deservedly so, it remains at the top of any list of Great Comic Book Moments.
Jean’s death is unquestionably heroic, but is it a ‘comic-book’ death? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Not to my
thinking. Obviously, the sacrificial hero is a central tenet of the Christian
mythology, and surely predates it for several centuries. Christ’s sacrifice on
the cross (in itself a cheat, as in true comic book fashion, it has been
retconned throughout the centuries intro being a self-sacrifice with
pre-assured resurrection) lacks the over-the-top heroic quality of Phoenix’s
death, opting instead for a weighty dramatic core that apparently removes it
from the canon of ‘comic-book’ deaths.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJ2mcTAYqYqH81bk8MbTSppWGw3Q_vs0HZ8Hw5isPVYgW8nTD-cRdgmgOKuQ4c3KIvYuDRvhanDBp5IjHZs88Gmo1aRZnrFnsf7rJh_QdXOOfH9MolyyfOzAug5XDFh9vfX5rZQXCZPUQ/s1600/Phoenix+Death.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJ2mcTAYqYqH81bk8MbTSppWGw3Q_vs0HZ8Hw5isPVYgW8nTD-cRdgmgOKuQ4c3KIvYuDRvhanDBp5IjHZs88Gmo1aRZnrFnsf7rJh_QdXOOfH9MolyyfOzAug5XDFh9vfX5rZQXCZPUQ/s400/Phoenix+Death.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However,
Claremont’s take on self-sacrifice was a winning and rewarding bet. Instead of
going for the ages-old hero-sacrifice to save the Universe from whatever threat
endangering it (or from Evil, as in the Christian cannon), Jean is dying to
save the Universe from herself. That she chooses a moment of battle adds an
epic dimension to her death, but what makes it really memorable – as corny as
it may sound – is that her sacrifice is framed as the apex of a love story. A
love story that Byrne’s artwork elevates to cosmic proportion through the
identification of its flame with the explosions from the fight on the Moon and
the all-consuming light of the Sun. If ever a succession of three panels so
perfectly condensed the theme of one story it surely was the one above these
lines. And, I’m sure you’ll agree, dear reader, these three silent panels are
soaring with epic music, an unheard soundtrack that echoes the music of the
spheres. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQif_YcSYDa9fIRHA24z0Lkay0RxeakjUcxqmMvs0eAnAMId3a0KuStq4jO3r4Tj4LljjtSgw9wumFsNNPxEEj1h3Wpqw1R57ZWy6hQSdrFIXnfSroI3XaHwVPCmWHbEbktqyOrN0Orji/s1600/Elektra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQif_YcSYDa9fIRHA24z0Lkay0RxeakjUcxqmMvs0eAnAMId3a0KuStq4jO3r4Tj4LljjtSgw9wumFsNNPxEEj1h3Wpqw1R57ZWy6hQSdrFIXnfSroI3XaHwVPCmWHbEbktqyOrN0Orji/s400/Elektra.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then came the
bloody, cruel, gratuitous, totally unexpected and devastating death of Elektra
Natchios in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DAREDEVIL</b> #181 in April
1982. I do remember seeing the cover of that special issue (then in Portuguese,
but with the same layout if I remember correctly) promising “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bullseye vs Elektra. One wins. One dies.</i>”
and thinking, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shit, there goes my favorite
Marvel supervillain!</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alas, that was
not to be. Now,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>maybe I felt Elektra’s
death more than most for I and a good friend had also created a Greek female
character for a project we were writing (both of us in high school), and
Elektra worked as a personality model for her. We were so in love with her. She
was gorgeous, and implacable, and a skilled fighter, and yet so… unexpectedly humane.
And so, to see her stumbling and bleeding as she dragged herself to a cold
painful death in Matt Murdock’s arms… it somehow didn’t seem right. Didn’t seem
fair. And it was a bravado piece of art. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXQSFvEKksGHRmbW8NsUUInzHCiz8SxGARW33x-fyHISlg-qUP7fmpa1N5J-v8N-jkzcYg19QPm4meKjZ_iKji_VKQMiFcU-GILp3r1rQEEesk9h6uvqYMV6pZt5ZIKYlVL6k0BO7gKYZA/s1600/Elektra_Death.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXQSFvEKksGHRmbW8NsUUInzHCiz8SxGARW33x-fyHISlg-qUP7fmpa1N5J-v8N-jkzcYg19QPm4meKjZ_iKji_VKQMiFcU-GILp3r1rQEEesk9h6uvqYMV6pZt5ZIKYlVL6k0BO7gKYZA/s400/Elektra_Death.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I read
somewhere that the Comics Code wouldn’t allow for the graphic representation of
a blade coming out of a pierced body, that being the main reason Miller had the
blade pushing Elektra’s tunic away from her back. But <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wow</i>! What an effect. The panel looks like a moment of
imponderability, a nanosecond frozen in time; just that infinitesimal fraction
of an instant before gravity reasserts itself and the blade will come through
the cloth, and the body’s weight will slide the blade impossibly deeper inside
Elektra.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The ninja’s
death is one of the more touching I remember reading. It was in no way an epic
death. It was a lonely death, the outcome of a cowardly trap, a solitary fight
among the garbage and the cold. As if, touched by the warmth of love, having
spared the life of Foggy Nelson a couple of pages before, she had displeased
whatever cold-hearted gods were watching over her. To die at the moment of
redemption is the stuff of powerful myth. And it was the wisest of decisions by
Miller, not to allow her to ever interact again with Matt Murdoch (although it
would have been even better if he had kept his intention of not allowing her to
be used again by Marvel).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheplEczs0C-4PdNj8xEkeTnRgQ6eG-K3wtI2O7VSRt73pXOp8PfF3LyYqy8zS2H9sTMjExUl6f90wnhmsJsTV31agtjGlm7sRkAKAc-YUcXTi-XfX54RqKJFEWXh3zVJQezzRD1bEtI92I/s1600/The-Death-Of-Captain-Marvel-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheplEczs0C-4PdNj8xEkeTnRgQ6eG-K3wtI2O7VSRt73pXOp8PfF3LyYqy8zS2H9sTMjExUl6f90wnhmsJsTV31agtjGlm7sRkAKAc-YUcXTi-XfX54RqKJFEWXh3zVJQezzRD1bEtI92I/s400/The-Death-Of-Captain-Marvel-4.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And then, also in 1982, came the strongest of
them all: Jim Starlin’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Death of Capitan Marvel</i></b>, the
first in the new line of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MARVEL GRAPHIC
NOVELS</b>. Fighting a cancer, Captain Marvel died peacefully under the
respectful watch of his colleagues. It is not usual for one to find a moment of
such quiet dignity between the pages of comic books, and it clearly
demonstrates the more mature and adult bend Marvel wished to imprint to its
graphic novels line, pushing it closer in themes and execution to the European <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bandes dessinées</i>. Never, in my opinion,
did the comics medium, so adroit at getting through the idea of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">LOUD</i> sounds, so wonderfully convey
silence as in that last panel, with one lonely word calling the readers
attention to what must have been the slowly decreasing intensity of Mar-Vell’s
heartbeat.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The epic dimension of Capitan Marvel’s death is
elegantly displaced into a touching inner fight for acceptance of death itself.
And when such acceptance is reached, Marvel’s alien heart – in a graphic
representation – stops beating in a humanizing sign of the concept of the
super-hero itself, no longer just a super-man, but human, all too human… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEwyAyoT4-SZI44czpxah_o34yZpsWhCob1X5Hmi148ZD2zjktgXcH927WJpNOmR2H_k1S9NZUk_DVAGwGsHHrKX3cMTV1ilGxUUcOiqbfWbT6bpcpe8H3-Sq2XzmcE2VkPIzsWg4aHNld/s1600/24xla45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEwyAyoT4-SZI44czpxah_o34yZpsWhCob1X5Hmi148ZD2zjktgXcH927WJpNOmR2H_k1S9NZUk_DVAGwGsHHrKX3cMTV1ilGxUUcOiqbfWbT6bpcpe8H3-Sq2XzmcE2VkPIzsWg4aHNld/s400/24xla45.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These three examples somehow transcend the
comics medium; or, at least, the popular perception of the comics medium as
light entertainment for kids and teens. They certainly contradict Goldman’s
first rule, for here we have three heroes dying in ways that are not epic in
the common sense, although they are undoubtedly moments of undeniable grandeur.
They are not comic book deaths, despite belonging to comic books. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And one other factor made them feel like real
deaths: when each of this characters died, at the peak of their popularity (the
cases of Jean Grey and Elektra), or because they were commercially expendable
(Captain Marvel), their deaths were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">definitive</i>.
One didn’t come out of the reading with the feeling that these characters would
soon return, retconed or revived, to grace yet more adventurous pages. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And then there came the infamous <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DEATH OF SUPERMAN</b>. Despite even <a href="http://comicbook.com/2014/11/19/throwback-thursdays-dan-jurgens-remembers-the-death-of-superman/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">recent
protestations</span></a> by writer Dan Jurgens, the greatest comics event of
1993 felt like nothing more than a cheap gimmick. Now, please, let me qualify
this statement: I don’t mean the story, or the art, were poor in quality terms
or as a comics story; hell, even as a comics epic. But, simply, there was no
way in heaven or hell that DC was going to kill not only their flagship
character, but the most recognizable of comic book icons of all time. No way.
The exact moment Superman’s heart stopped beating, there started the clicking
of the clock counting down to resurrection. Every reader knew Superman would be
back. The only question was just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">when</i>
(just about six months, as it turned out) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how</i> (the silliest way possible).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGSaNvxUlKVo_TZcNkszBYbFKwK_4c18wFStK3k1eY8H-1TIZliQsUoTHB9r0O3Qiz3Vyj-acGYN9i5yZBlXdA5_gdzrhYIxX7AO-QDw-3qL_15mwwSv1o1wvZGxEK0vuqEzPQr7vGSmAU/s1600/Superman-Doomsday-color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGSaNvxUlKVo_TZcNkszBYbFKwK_4c18wFStK3k1eY8H-1TIZliQsUoTHB9r0O3Qiz3Vyj-acGYN9i5yZBlXdA5_gdzrhYIxX7AO-QDw-3qL_15mwwSv1o1wvZGxEK0vuqEzPQr7vGSmAU/s400/Superman-Doomsday-color.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> forever cheapened every super-hero
death that came after it. And boy, once the mortality of superheroes (the diagetic
mortality – not the weird permanence of an eternal present, indifferent to the
flow of time outside the narrative) was removed, they began to fall like flies:
Batman, Captain America, Hal Jordan, Donna Troy, Wolverine, almost every main
super-hero has died at least once over the years. And each and every time, we
knew they would be back. In a more convoluted way, or in a less convoluted way,
after a month or after a year, or after a decade, or in a parallel universe, we
knew that – just like James Bond – they would return.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Besides degrading the face-value of the heroics
currency, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN</b>
brought about the absolute fulfillment of Goldman’s first rule: now, indeed,
every superhero could die big epic heroic deaths (and more than once, even!),
thus making super-heroes deaths truly comic-book deaths. (On an aside, one can
classify Christ’s death as a comic-book death as well, as we all know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he</i> would return as well – I always found
Christ’s sacrifice something like a kind of a cheat, except when watching the
great death scene in William Wyler’s 1959’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">BEN HUR</b>.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On the other hand, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN</b> underlined an essential characteristic of
super-heroes, highly relevant to the point I want to make about ‘comic book
logic’. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>Superheroes are not subjected
to the laws of nature</u></i>. This would seem like a simple <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lapalissade</i>, but I think one tends to
think of the world of comic books (a lot like the pulp fiction worlds) as not
being <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wholly</i> subjected to the laws of
nature: men fly, machines fly faster than light, telepaths read minds,
feminists sound clever, a professor and a student become fused as a single
entity and radiation as the most astonishing effects. But I intend to separate
these two propositions as follows: a) in super-hero comic-books, super-heroes
are not subject to the laws of nature; b) everyone else in the same fictional universe
is. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In a way, going back once more into the world
of cinema, I think it’s totally appropriate to comic-books the reading Danny
Peary does of the typical nameless anti-hero of Sergio Leone’s westerns in his <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cult
Movies: The Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful</i></b> (1981).
Equating Leone’s anti-heroes with the heroes of mythical Greece, Peary sees in
Leone the working out of the premise of a mythical western era in which “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">several warriors were blessed with divine
powers to help them in their never-ending combat (…). These warriors were (…)
supermen who lived among mortals</i>”.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">And, I think, that’s the only way to understand
the working of super-hero comic-books and of comic-book logic; a way that
indeed has common roots with pulp literature, but goes somewhat beyond that. And
that somewhat will be the point of my next post, when I’ll turn to Goldman’s
rule number (4).</span></span></span>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-75347721595488078062015-09-27T16:52:00.000-07:002015-10-18T07:39:07.662-07:00My "No Theory" of Comics: Comic Book Logic<!--[if !mso]>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I stated in
my last post, that I bring no “theory” with which to read comic books.
Obviously, as one might have guessed, that is not entirely true. No one can
spend years reading all kinds of comic books, reading and writing superhero
fanfiction, and not bring with him some amount of baggage as to how he reads
comic books. However, the way I’ll explore my reading of comics in this blog
has not the necessary gravitas to be held as a theory. Maybe even to refer to
it as a method would be too pedantic. Let’s just call it a set of flexible
postulates that guide the kind of questions my reading of comics usually faces.
And how should we call this set of vague postulates? One might think of it as
common sense, but in this murky days of intellectual post-modernism, even that
could sound pedantic. So, let us just call it “comic book logic”. Said logic,
at least for me, derives from three very simple premises:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1 – WHERE WAS SUPERMAN ON 9/11?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0oUVpBgjHUB8liRtRCY8UdWX_ApwOZxA_Hy0u0Bz52otLnBWoitgyZu_yr3SrdUWNCtuw_MSadZrhcwdrW-tUKbUhRDpz8PBBBIzqea3MwVYFh6UNItLGZI1W7belh25ui2hdasOxGwdK/s1600/explosion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0oUVpBgjHUB8liRtRCY8UdWX_ApwOZxA_Hy0u0Bz52otLnBWoitgyZu_yr3SrdUWNCtuw_MSadZrhcwdrW-tUKbUhRDpz8PBBBIzqea3MwVYFh6UNItLGZI1W7belh25ui2hdasOxGwdK/s400/explosion.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: PT; mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This was a
question heard more than once after the cowardly terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center in that fateful year of 2001. It was, understandably a cry of
frustration, maybe even an unfair indictment against the inadequacy of the modern
American mythos embodied in comic book superheroes. And the concept to stress
here is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unfair</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Surely no
one was expecting Superman or The Avengers to intervene and defeat the very
real evils of terrorism, international politics, and pre-9/11 government
inadequacy to deal with both. After all, it was not the first time that
superheroes were called to intervene in deeply traumatic historical events.
Both Superman and Captain America (among a plethora of other costumed heroes)
fought alongside American GIs on the battlefronts of WWII. And yet, even in that
early period of development of such a demigod as Superman, one must have had
the notion that with the Kryptonian hero on the side of the Allies, the war
would be over in less than a month. It would take less than that to pinpoint
the exact localization of the OKH officers and Hitler himself with Superman
X-Ray vision and super-speed, and neutralize each one of them (lethally or
non-lethally) even inside the strongest bunker. No V-2 rocket would fly past
Superman’s heat vision , super-blow and super-velocity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What were the Axis’s chances then against the
combined powers of Superman, Wonder Woman, The Justice Society, etc… (Come on,
even the Commando Cubs were able to get into Hitler’s own bedroom on the cover
of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THRILLING COMICS</b> #41, cover-dated
April 1944, even if not on the interior story.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">No GI in
the Pacific Front or on the fields of Europe, carrying a battered copy of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ACTION COMICS</b> rolled up on his duffel bag was expecting the red and blue
marvel to come flying through the trees and start smashing German Panthers or blasting
Japanese Zeros from the sky. This inherent impossibility – that goes beyond the
as-yet-impossibility of good Science Fiction – must perforce define Comic Book
Logic. And define the way we read comics. We accept their internal logic, even
though we know <u>every aspect of it</u>, is impossible. We cannot ascribe to
superheroes (with the possible exception of masked vigilantes like Batman and
other un-super-powered characters) the degree of highly-improbable-yet-possible
credibility one can ascribe, for instance to a Jack Bauer or a James Bond (that
we can think of as believable characters in near-impossible circumstances).
That is the same as saying, superhero comic books are part of Fantasy, not
Science Fiction (even when using SF’s tropes or modes).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And so, the
first corollary must be: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">comic books are
ruled by their own self-validating logic, a logic that cannot be challenged by facts
extrinsic to their own internal consistency</b>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: PT; mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2 – HOW CAN SHE/HE FIGHT IN THAT THING?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTLTJIYu3cBdyYFcbxj8qXCIqilFRlGSPIhGkSElLOiP_NudyqmMSqAqTuTbNFmb6E6DJT0vHL6qpm4oqVfV7fuECIAmrRLtvMZqNGTa5NrRGg1ht7c3ewg5tLpgZSMNldtBMsXSLjQ3A/s1600/Sue+Storm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTLTJIYu3cBdyYFcbxj8qXCIqilFRlGSPIhGkSElLOiP_NudyqmMSqAqTuTbNFmb6E6DJT0vHL6qpm4oqVfV7fuECIAmrRLtvMZqNGTa5NrRGg1ht7c3ewg5tLpgZSMNldtBMsXSLjQ3A/s400/Sue+Storm.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Or, Spandex
Works Fine, Thanks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There has been in
recent times a recurrent ballyhoo about superheroes costumes. To be more
honest, most of the ballyhoo confines itself to female superheroes costumes,
and to how revealing they are of the female charms. Most of the criticism leveled
to female costumes is mere cant from feminist crusaders that were never able to
enjoy freedom of speech, aesthetic values, or mere biological constants. That
is to say, most such criticism is political and ideological. Which would be
very fine if they weren’t so blatantly masked as arguments concerning
practicality. And what makes that smart-ass technique even more infuriating, is
that the arguments presented are so stupid, that one cannot believe that their
authors are not in the least aware of how intrinsically ridiculous they are.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The only
true ‘practical’ problem with superheroes costumes arose when superheroes
became the object of millions-of-dollars budgeted film adaptations. More
precisely, during the pre-production of Bryan Singer’s seminal <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">X-Men</i></b>
(2000). The garish comic book look of the mutants’s uniforms didn’t translate
as well to film as the ones of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superman</i></b> (1978-1984) or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Batman</i></b>
(1989-1996). Singer wanted them to look real, as he was planning a less
comic-bookely and more realistic film (how ironic that at the same time
costumes were becoming more practical and real, everything else in superhero
film adaptations was going down the drain of garish video-game CGI visuals and
action). The film and its first sequel was a tremendous success, and the looks
and textures of film-real costumes began to infiltrate comic-books. So far, so
good. But “real-looking” does not necessarily mean “real-practical”. As a film
like <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Incredibles</i></b> has laugh-out-loudly demonstrated, any costume with a cape is
inherently impractical. And if practicality was of essence, every super-hero
costume would tend to become a uniform, as every element (helmets, gloves,
cybernetic-armor, flying shields, whatever) conferring a modicum of advantage
would be adopted by other caped-crusaders. Fortunately, that is not the case. Capes
work as symbols with long traditions. And so do garish uniforms, which, until
recently, had a totemic quality relating to the origin-story of each character.
Superhero costumes are not meant to be practical, they are meant to be
symbolic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And yet, it
is frequent to find such incredible diatribes like this one from Newsarama,
that merits to be quoted for sheer stupidity. Considering the then upcoming
reformulating of DC’s Starfire’s costume, wrote George Marston and Lan Pitts:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“<i>For
decades [Starfire] sported one of the comic book industry’s most infamously
skimpy, at times gravity-defying, and downright impractical get-ups.</i>”</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One's
attention is immediately called to the “at times gravity-defying” part,
something that, judging by what they write later on, has something to do with
Starfire’s cleavage. Well, one cannot help but note that Starfire has the power
of flight – you cannot get much more gravity-defying than that! The relation of
superheroes to gravity has never been subjected to Newton’s laws but
exclusively to the “comic-book logic” I mentioned above.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then we
have the impractical “get-ups”, impracticality that Marston&Pitts seem to
evaluate according to the “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">favors [the
costume can do] in a real superhero-supervillain
battle-to-save-the-known-universe dogfight</i>”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, one has but to read the long-line of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">TEEN TITANS</b> comic-books to gain a
strained jaw in pure awe concerning the vast energies blasting in any dogfight
Koriander can be engaged in. For that kind of battle, for the kind of
super-powers Starfire (come on, her simple moniker says all that needs to be
said) can yield, in practical terms she could as well be fighting naked – and her
opponents too – as there’s no armor that could sustain such damage. Except, in
comic-book logic. And comic-book logic exempts superhero costumes (male and
female) of any logical, practical or even psychological consideration (although
in the diegesis, there can be any or all of them).</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So, the
second corollary is: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">superhero costumes are
exclusively aesthetic or erotic in nature, and are not bound to constrictions
of realism or practicality</b>.</span>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">3 – COMIC BOOKS ARE SEXY</span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-US"></span><span lang="EN-US"></span><span lang="EN-US"></span><span lang="EN-US">One would think that it needn’t
to be said. But all the talk about costume practicality, can lead one to think
that all erotic characteristics should be banned from comic books. Sad it
already is that few overt erotic or sexual situations should occur in comic
books, even when more and more adults are reading them. But to pretend to completely
de-eroticize comics is tantamount to pretend that guns should be banned from
crime comics (they’re not essential to the genre, but are part of the
tradition). Both male and female super-heroes (and many of the super-villains)
are soft caricatures of perfect morphology: exaggerated only so that natural
characteristics are enhanced in an aesthetically attractive way. Male and
female super-heroes are drawn as close to idealized perfection as can be
managed by the talent of the inker. They are the modern Pantheon of new gods
and goddesses. And that is undeniably one of the historically main reasons that
attracted pre-teens and teens to comic books. Men larger than life, women
sexier than sin. A power fantasy that allowed nerds and geeks to escape the
bullying of jocks and assholes in general, gaining a putative revenge over them
as they knew – like only nerds can know – that one day, they would get what was
coming to them: just look at the way nerdy Peter Parker took care of such
bullies as the Vulture, Rhino and über-teacher Doc Oc.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And one must
not forget that to most young boys, in an age before the advent of the
internet, when even under the counter was to high to be reached, the first
glimpses of perfect female bodies they ever got, came through comic books. Not the
fleeting blink-and-you’ll-miss-it images of movies or tv shows, but gorgeous
perennial panels in garish-colored comic books, that you could appreciate
longingly for as long as you liked. So yes, comics are sexy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s
always an erotic tension that arises from female (and male) bodies in action: and
in superhero comics, that action goes always over the top. Any killjoy can cry his
throat sour about torn costumes, and impossibly firm breasts peeking through the
tears on the fabric (never the nipple, mind you) , but one must surely stand in
awe as how resistant all those costumes are to the level of power and high
energy those fights yield. If you ever got into a fisticuffs you know that no
matter how brief it turns out to be, or how unprepared any of the combatants is,
both will end up with shirt buttons missing, torn sweaters, or broken wristwatches.
But you can throw a nuclear bomb on Supergirl or Power Girl and if their
costumes get even a small rip, that rip will be artfully located in such a way not
to be the least revealing (talk about practicality and realism in comics). But that
is as well, as the forbidden fruit is ever more enticing. (As a male reader, I
tend to talk of superheroines, but the same is surely true for female readers ogling
Conan’s six-pack or Wolverines manly naked torso, sweaty from killing hundreds
of ninjas; and it is curious as every twerp complains about Red Sonja going
into combat in a chain mail bikini, but give a free path to Conan who does the
same in leather breeches).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Further on,
I’ll detail my own take on this imbecile list, as I believe there are some
valid points to be made about its subject, points that Marston-Pitts go out of
their way to ignore. But for now, let’s finish with this third corollary of
comic book logic: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">super-hero comics are
inherently sexy, as their heroes are idealized archetypes of physical
perfection</b>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">So these
are the lines that will guide my appreciation of any superhero comic book I’ll
happen to comment on. Obviously, I do not confine my reading to superhero comic
books. So, take these lines as my manifest. This is what you’ll get if you
stick around or just come by one in a while. And I hope you do.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<![endif]-->A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5966063958139138370.post-79795398203494469782015-09-25T13:08:00.000-07:002015-09-26T18:30:14.229-07:00The Golden Age of Comics is Twelve<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHQMFELxsZBhg8hJRNZSn2bia6x19G0jExYJIYhnbFix3GSl4N7hNwa56jVIEbWkA9EELExa5V3M2kGkWqqykqXqKCJ5Etf0Zf1Vyzy3kxsWTf6hsnPK6YwCbKTl9QRE5CPZpdMVQtPEf4/s1600/christopher_reeve_superman_the_of_steel_hd-wallpaper-1314946.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHQMFELxsZBhg8hJRNZSn2bia6x19G0jExYJIYhnbFix3GSl4N7hNwa56jVIEbWkA9EELExa5V3M2kGkWqqykqXqKCJ5Etf0Zf1Vyzy3kxsWTf6hsnPK6YwCbKTl9QRE5CPZpdMVQtPEf4/s400/christopher_reeve_superman_the_of_steel_hd-wallpaper-1314946.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">'The Golden
Age of Comics is Twelve' is a well known tropism I’m freely borrowing from
Science Fiction. Its origin, an article by fan Peter Graham, states that it is
about that age that most SF enthusiasts discover SF for the first time. And I
guess that’s true of comics as well. I started reading Disney’s comic-books
when I was about seven or eight, some assorted Superman, Wonder Woman and
Superboy DC titles around ten, and although I’d progressed to teen novels and
adult novels in my preteen years, it was only when I was fifteen that I finally
graduated into a regular reading of Marvel and DC comic-books. About that time,
I had the fortunate pleasure of coincide with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crisis on Infinite Earths</i></b>
from DC, the magnificent run of Frank Miller on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DAREDEVIL</b> and the all-time best Claremont’s run of runs on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">X-MEN</b>, all of them then being published in translation in my native country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I was a
weekly avid reader of all things Marvel and DC from the mid-80s to the early
90s. Then came the infamous and gratuitous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">DEATH
OF SUPERMAN</i> event, the dreadful sequence of events leading to his eventual resurrection,
and the overall change in style from the gorgeous pencils of Byrne and Perez to
the sharp-angled hyper-muscled body-archetype of the nineties (Jim Lee and the
entire Image school of comics) and I simply lost all interest in comic books. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I was
hooked back only recently by Bendis’s reign on the Ultimate Marvel Universe –
something that happened with some delay in early 2009 </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">–</span> and have been trying to
catch up with both Marvel and DC ever since, steadily braving the deep oceans of fabulous
art and dismal plots being served today. For now, the few pearls found have
been satisfactory, but not fulfilling. One feels that superheroes are being
knocked down the ladder of the Imagination, downgraded from the modern pantheon
of serviceable myths and archetypes (and no one can deny that the stories of
Superman, Batman, or Spiderman have achieved worldwide recognition as modern
exemplar myths in the vein of the classic Greek gods) to mere sound-boxes of
contemporary angst. The politically correct thought-police keeps a shrill and
obsessive vigilance over every aspect of the comic books that could have them
remotely aspiring to a deserved place on the great Western Heritage of Artistic
Endeavour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when comics try to grow,
to free themselves from the castrating ties of strict realism, hysterical
feminists and reason-challenged on-line pseudo-critics raise up such a storm of opprobrium
that immediately grounds any and all such daring.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">They want
to castrate the imagination, to bring the comics down to an eternal infancy from
which they were struggling to get free. No sex, no violence, no dialogue that
can sound the least offensive to the smallest minority one can think of. And remember,
don’t look at the quality of the books, just make sure that there is “gender”
parity in the table of contents.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Well, comic
books do look infantile. Come on, why waste time reading books that sit between
the full text-only work, and painting? Shouldn’t text satisfy
your need? Obviously, one can argue that comic-books developed on a par with
cinema. So their panels are a lot more akin to film-frames than to literature or
painting. Their technical effects – perspective, dialogue, sound and silence,
color or lack thereof, are taken from film techniques. The aesthetic of comic
books, its narrative rhythm, are those of cinema, are those of freeze frames, at
the same time ready to burst with action and presenting themselves to the eye
like single-panel paintings in the tradition of the Plastic Arts. They are
that, and they are more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now, before
start blogging here, I must admit that I don’t know much about comics. I don’t
have a “theory” that I intend to illustrate with the comics that I’ll discuss
here, in the vein of what Tom Wolfe used to say about post-modern art critics. I read comics for pleasure. For fun. I
read comics for themselves, believing like I do, that each book has to suffice
in itself. That its merit must be intrinsic, born out of the concerted dynamic
of its plot, art and storytelling technique; from the confluence of mastery and
affect. A book to which one finds only meaning in extrinsic or implied factors,
can never be a worthy work of art, and if you force into the comic-book
meanings that are not there, you’re making it a disservice. Fortunately, people
<a href="http://arche-arc.blogspot.pt/search/label/thor">like our good neighbor Gene Phillips</a> can honestly navigate the intrinsic value
of each text, and extract <a href="http://arche-arc.blogspot.pt/search/label/thor">illuminating readings</a> that – WITHOUT FORCING THEMSELVES
INTO THE TEXT – show how a determined work adheres to or breaks from a
continuous structure of meaning. It was to such a reading, that this blog owes
its existence. Not that I will try here to follow his footsteps – I would if I
could – but his enthusiasm for the medium is highly contagious and – something rarer
each day – invite you to seek out the books he’s writing about. He sent me back in a trip of discovery of old classics from the Golden Age – books, heroes and stories I hadn’t
even heard of – to explore forgotten books of the Silver Age, to reread my favorites
from the Bronze Age, and thanks to that, to understand better where comic books
are today. (I don’t know if I should thank him, as I had a lot more to do then
spend a couple hours every day reading and writing about comics, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before he came in</i>…). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So, let
this be a site to share some reading experiences, to vent some frustration over
this or that book, this or that author, and a forum to exchange ideas about
comics with other readers that prefer their comics untortured and untwisted by
post-modern cant. They say everything is political, than let our policy be: to
read comics like they are meant to be read. In the words of Joseph, Bishop
Butler (in a rare instance when – contrary to Thomas Henry Huxley – a bishop’s
indeed right), “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything is what it is,
and not another thing</i>”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kZXFzUoC8V-QmPc15sN1-tBdCgEAMPY3H1q4KbllDOEzGNlRcX_C-oT3QMbt5KUCnXi5U715bqVJ5BiG9Yhz4CkgaPGVUe5YIKU_UVrvlFDYGQS0ZmRJazuP_LAc3OPeQuMjxt1-iJgU/s1600/Superman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kZXFzUoC8V-QmPc15sN1-tBdCgEAMPY3H1q4KbllDOEzGNlRcX_C-oT3QMbt5KUCnXi5U715bqVJ5BiG9Yhz4CkgaPGVUe5YIKU_UVrvlFDYGQS0ZmRJazuP_LAc3OPeQuMjxt1-iJgU/s400/Superman.jpg" width="295" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As someone with a dismal record of blog-updating
I dare not promise frequent posts, but I’ll try – I’ll really really try – to keep
it updated at least once a week. And so, with no further ado, here we go, up up, and away!</span>A. Sherman Barroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11993841605520936806noreply@blogger.com9