Tony Harris v. Cosplayers: Really?

There are rants and there are RANTS. This one falls into the catagory of "rants", but its funny and i like funny. Tony Harris, of Starman and Ex Machina fame, launced into a rant about cosplay girls on Facebook that Valerie Gallaher quotes in here article in The Beat. At the risk of being redundant, go read Tony's comments there and come on back if you wish.

You know, I blasted comic conventions in the 90's when it became popular for Playboy Playmates to come and sign centerfolds of themselves to the typical "Simpsons" comic conventions: fat unwashed men with no social skills and a distinct odor of permanent virginity about them, partly because i thought "that this is how low we've sunk?", partly because i thought that there is no way we can get girls and women in to comics if this is the environment that they have to come into", and partly because it simply didn't have anything to do with comics.

So now Tony is upset that we have hot, sexy cosplay girls. And while i'm not into cosplay, I just don't see how its a bad thing. Yes, some of them are serious comic geeks getting lots of attention playing their fave characters, and lots of others are just getting attention, but man, it just doesn't bother me. I don't care why they're there. I don't think you want to cosplay unless you want attention, unless you want someone to actually get your costume. (I saw one kid dressed as the gluttonous spirit from Miyazaki's Spirited Away and went over to tell him that i loved that he dressed up. His comment? "Finally someone gets it!!" so, yes, if that made his day, then great.) I've seen plenty of Power Girls and sexy Catwomen. Fine with me. Not because I like oogling sexy women in skin tight lycra and neoprene but because, well, they care enought to show up and get into the spirit of things.

I mean, c'mon, comics were dying in the 90's, and now we're pop culture, finally. Again. And women are part of the equation. Thank god. Now, Tony does way more cons than i do, and perhaps he has simply been put upon by too many women dressed up as sexy Catwomen or the Mist and he's totally over it. Perfectly legit. But for all the girls love this stuff, and want to dress the part: great, let them enjoy themselves however they want. I can't hate on anyone who has decided, for however many reasons, to show up in an intricately detailed costume. I'm just glad that they're there and into it. Not because i'm dying to see yet another "Slave Leia" but because that doesn't take away from my con experience.

Oh dear, its going viral. Can't Rob Liefeld do something now to take the heat off of Tony?

In Review Of: the Starman Omnibus

I've already called Starman The Great American Comic Book of the '90's, but haven't gone into much detail as to why I think that it deserves its title. The release of the Starman Omnibus #1 is a great reason to revisit the series and do a little dissection of the Robinson and Harris' creation. We also get to take a look at the Omnibus format as well.

In a prior post on the Kirby 4th World Omnibus, I commented on the paper and its quality, perhaps calling it a bit too light. While commenting on paper may put me in the "oh come on" catagory, it does have a lot to do with how it takes the color, and I think that I actually like this weight. I bears the very saturated colors of the Starman series as well as the older color style of the Jimmy Olsens.

And make no mistake, the colors of Starman look very much like the 1990s, which is not a knock on the series, but a compliment. The series has its own individual look, with distinctive Harris and Von Grawbadger artwork through the entire volume, with only two "Times Past" exceptions.

What is shocking is the quality in the early issues of how bad the reproduction is, particularly the black plate. There are entire pages that muddy up and word balloons that are either dropping out completely or have letters closing up. Its shocking really. So here is the conundrum: if the initial scans of the pages, because this is as far back as 1995 we're talk8ing about here, as really that shitty, do you not take the time to reletter the balloons for what is a true archival project, or do you leave it "as is" so that the archiving keeps the production errors as well as the charm of the growing young artist? I hate to say it, but the Sandman editions get it right. If there is a coloring error, or a balloon that you can't read, fix it for the premium editions. Get it right for posterity.

And this series is worth keeping for posterity. Robinson tackles our assumptions about superheroes and turns them on their ear more than once. But he also tackles thornier issues that resonate at a higher emotional level than "what happened to Solomon Grundy". Issues like fathers and sons and brothers and love and family and faith and redemption and he doesn't derail the cool comics concepts like Merritt's soul stealing poster, or the succubus circus or the new Mist. Somehow, inside what Robinson mentions as not an always harmonious working relationship with Tony Harris, was the making of a classic story, comic or not. I prefer to think that the sparks the exist between creators may not make for the easiest relationship, but they can certainly take the collaboration to new levels by playing off one another.

Robinson ties everything up neatly by the end of the series, much is the same way that Neil Gaiman was able to over in Sandman, and it makes for a great read. Unlike the endless saga of open ended cliffhangers that Claremont did for a solid 10 years of X-men, everything here means something. And while I still insist that he stretches far too much for the connection of Will Payton and the King Gavyn Starman (and in a classic comics touch, he even writes a scene de facto admitting that it can't all be shoehorned into position, no matter the size of the shoehorn, as Will tells his sister Sadie, "Its all pretty fuzzy."), is that really the point of the series?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. That scene wouldn't happen for years later in the comic. Here, we're treated to the storytelling conceit of a writer taking 5 issues to show a single day from five differnt players in the Opal City crime wave. And it works. Not totally, completely, in a flawless way, but it works, ocassionally bumpy narrative and all when read together, and it makes for a powerful canvas to continue the rest of the story of the Mist's first crime wave on.

Bottom line: great project, a dream to have on the bookshelf. I'll be getting more of the Omnibuses as they ship in the Starman series. A great collection of a classic series.