Comics Website

Just poking my head out to post this link to a cool site, Just the First Frame, which allows you to see/sample a comic yet by posting only the first frame, doesn't violate copyright the way so many sites do.

I haven't otherwise posted here lately because I still haven't been reading comics and therefore, haven't had anything to talk about.

Aquaman Guest Stars in Monty

This made me chuckle.

The Joy of Comics

This sums up the appeal of comics perfectly, I think.

Comics and Comic Books

The NY Daily News went down to 2 pages of comics from 3 pages. A lot of my favorites are gone. I can get most of them online in one form or another, either emailed or in Google Reader or via a GoComics widget in iGoogle, and even via Facebook. But Sherman's Lagoon seems to not be available via a feed of some sort. So I bookmarked it on the Seattle Times site of all places and we'll see if I remember to check it. I fear print comic strips are a dying art form.

A few reviews of comic books, which likely will last a bit longer than newspaper strips.

Brightest Day 21
J'onn J'onzz accomplished his "mission" and the White Lantern got him. That's really all that happened. ;) Lovely art and a solid installment of the story.

Streets of Gotham 20
Really weird flashback to Bruce's parents story. Not bad, but I not one of my faves, for sure. Some nice Bruce Batman and Catwoman scenes, though.

Freedom Fighters 7
I'm really sorry this book has been canceled, but it really isn't for everyone with its heavy political themes and rah rah patriotism. It also has solid writing and nice art and some great characters, but I guess that isn't always enough these days. However, it looks like my favorite Freedom Fighter Firebrand is dead, and I'm getting really tired of killing decent characters in the DCU. I hope he's revived at the conclusion of the story/title.

Secret Six 31
I so love this book. Things are getting a tad out of hand with Scandal skewering Ragdoll, and next issue promises to be a typical adventure for the gang. The cover is a stunner, too.

Modesty's Creator Dies

The news that Peter O'Donnell, creator of Modesty Blaise, possibly the greatest, non-super-powered female comics character, has died greatly saddens me. Inspired by a young refugee O'Donnell met during World War II, Modesty is a tough, skilled crimefighter who started on the wrong side of the law. After she and Willie Garvin, her loyal friend and helper, retired, they were convinced to use their skills to help bring all manner of bad guys to justice.

Along with the Modesty Blaise comic strip, O'Donnell also wrote a series of books using the characters. I discovered Modesty in the '70s when the strip was being reproduced in an anthology periodical that repro'ed a number of strips. It was instant love. Modesty and Willie loved each other, but it was platonic, the ultimate friendship between a man and a woman. Willie, owing his life to Modesty, would do anything for her, would die for her if he had to. Modesty was far from modest, and while the art, drawn over the years by a number of talented people, was sexy without being exploitive, IMO. The strip was one of the best action/adventure strips and if you haven't ever read them, you'd be doing yourself a favor in picking up one of the softcover collections.

We Interrupt the Comic Book Posting for a Rant

First, for anyone coming here to the blog itself, it seems the host for my site where most of my blog graphics are stored is down. I haven't heard from the guy in charge, so I don't know what's going on. But for now, my apologies for the mess. Now, on to the rant.

I've been a loyal reader of the comic strip For Better or For Worse since it first appeared in the New York Daily News many years ago. I've enjoyed the fully realized characters, the daring plots (Lynn Johnston introduced disabled and gay characters, killed off others, and tackled sensitive subjects), the slice of real life feel, the wonderful art, the fact that the characters age and grow. But now, the culmination of a long, ongoing storyline looks to be ended as I've been dreading for the last year or so. And I'm not the only one who is appalled by the engagement of Elizabeth and Anthony.

Aside from how poorly it was written, not to mention dull, it is clear to me that Warren returned only to be the impetus for Anthony and Liz to have "the conversation" about the M word. In the past, Lynn would never have resorted to such an obvious plot device.

What has continued to bug me is that Liz is the character who left home, looking for adventure, going up north to teach in a tiny community, where she met Paul who seemed her soulmate. Then, pining for home after a couple of years, she just leaves, expecting he would follow and leave the only life he knows or wants. She was the one who'd left home to seek out new experiences, she was the one who entered his world. And yet, he considered giving up his job for her. It was similar with Warren, a pilot she met during that time, prior to meeting Paul. She could obviously teach anywhere (she seemed to have no trouble getting jobs), but the men in her life had jobs that were not easily transferable. But they obviously didn't love her enough or she them, because she had no trouble returning home to her boring old life and her boring old boyfriend Anthony who now, after splitting with his cold, selfish wife, is a single father. And as has been pointed out in the LiveJournal discussion I linked to above, not once have they said they love each other. They're merely two old friends who are comfortable with each other who want to marry.

It's Lynn's right to do what she wants with her characters, but I guess I don't like the whole theme of settling for what you have in the place you grew up, that you can't find happiness outside that small, comfortable world where your expectations aren't challenged and there are no surprises. And yes, it does feel like settling and Liz comes across as manipulative, as if she'd been angling to get Anthony all along and merely toyed with the affections of Warren and Paul. I think perhaps Lynn's only marital problems (she and her husband split after he was unfaithful) has influenced her story arc for Liz, and if so, that's sad. Liz when she was teaching up north was a fun character, becoming part of a new community, forging a new life for herself. Now, she's back home and with her bun, looks like a younger version of her mother. She looks a bit worn, too, as if the best years are behind her.

feh. I hate when something I love reading becomes routine and boring or simply loses the spark that made it special. Kinda like the post-Darwyn Cooke The Spirit, so far.

Is it Better or is it Worse? A Rant

This isn't a comic book post. It's a comic strip post and newspaper comics were my intro to graphic storytelling (Mark Trail, The Phantom, On Stage, Little Orphan Annie, Steve Roper, and dozens of others), and this interview with Lynn Johnston is bugging me, so I'm blogging about it.

I was saddened to learn of the breakup of Lynn Johnston's marriage and am glad she'll now be doing more new material for the For Better or for Worse comic strip, but I just don't get the reasoning behind reuniting Elizabeth and Anthony. In particular, this is the paragraph that irritated my comic reading sensibilities:

Johnston said she reunited Elizabeth with Anthony partly because of advice from late "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. "'Sparky' accused me of having too many characters," she recalled with a chuckle. "'It's so confusing,' he said. He was right." So bringing back Anthony rather than introducing a new permanent love interest for Elizabeth made sense in that respect.

Let me add a big WTF? and a HUH? That comic has had dozens of characters on and off over the years, with many fading into the woodwork when their stories ended. Or they're tied to individual members of the Patterson family. There are Elizabeth's friends, Michael's friends and family, Ellie's friends, John's co-workers, April's school friends, and the extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. So it's assumed we can't keep track of Elizabeth's boyfriends?

One would think, after a breakup, we wouldn't see them again, but there was Warren showing up after Liz broke it off with Paul. And the whole breakup with Paul? That didn't have to happen. I think a lot of readers liked him. As long as characters are drawn as individuals, they can be differentiated by the average reader and Paul was interesting. Personally, I wish Liz had stayed up north. Sure, the stories might have become limited, but I think Liz settling down there with Paul, having kids, becoming a true member of that community, would have led to interesting stories. And his cheating on her was so obviously a setup/plot contrivance, given he was ready to follow her back to her hometown. But okay, if not him, why not Warren, another character we already knew?

But no, we get Liz and Anthony. And the overall effect is that you can travel, but at heart, we're all just homebodies. Excitement is for the young, but then reality settles in and excitement is left behind. That sort of theme might've worked in Thomas Hardy's day (know yourself and your lot in life and don't try to change it or disaster will befall you), but it doesn't cut it now. Especially since that theme has already played out with Michael and Deanna. And talk of too many characters being confusing comes across as a smokescreen for the truth.

I'm not happy about freezing the characters in time, either. I loved that FBOFW characters aged. I loved the real life feel of the strip. So, while I'm glad Lynn will be doing more original work than she'd planned, albeit for a sad reason, I'm still not sure if the strip will continue to be one of my must-reads.

Delurker Issue 0

So, it's Delurker Day or Week or whatever. It's so hard to keep track of this stuff. So, if you're reading this, don't be shy, say hi. In the comments. Thanks and hugs and kisses.

The Flying McCoys did a Batman joke today. A bit lame, but I had to share.

Hybrid For Better or For Worse

Instead of ending FBOFW, Lynn Johnston is opting for a hybrid strip so it can continue and she can still enjoy her life. Which is nice, because I love the strip, so I'm glad it will continue in some form, but I don't know how I feel about the characters no longer aging. One of the things I loved about FBOFW is that the strip followed real time. April is around the age of my nephew so I was always comparing their development. I enjoyed seeing how she aged the characters art-wise, the subtle line changes and shading. But I guess I'll be happy just to have the strip for years to come. As long as Elizabeth does not end up marrying that wimp Anthony.

52 and Comic Alert

Another incredibly (un)clever post title.

I added a link to Comic Alert (shiny button link) near the bottom of the sidebar. I'm trying it to get feeds for some comics, including Pooch Cafe. I hope it'll do the trick. I haven't discovered yet if they limit the number of comics you can have in your feed. I also realized Cathy was another of the strips the NY Daily News dropped. Says something that I didn't miss it for 3 days. If anyone else knows a good, free site for comics feeds or emails, please leave the link in a comment and I'll do a post about them. No spamming, tho, please.

52 35
Nothing surprising here, but Nat has come to realize her uncle wasn't being a jackass and really is on to something. Lex is such a slimeball; again, no surprise there. Things got rather gory and it was nice seeing Kendra back in action, with Guy and John Stewart and some other lesser string heroes. Nice little vignette between Plas and his son, Offspring. The art was nice. The minuses: the question of The Question is still unanswered (dead yet?), no Black Adam and family, and no Ralph.

I got the second Manhunter anthology, so now I have the few issues I'm missing and can get caught up in reading this fine book.

A New Year, Fewer Comic Strips

In what has become almost an annual event, a new year brings on changes to the NY Daily News' comics pages. In 2006, we had 4 tabloid pages of comics goodness. True, I didn't like all of them, but 4 pages! plus a couple of strips stuck elsewhere is serious comics availability. Usually, strips are dropped in favor of others. This year, the paper seems to have dropped an entire page, adding nothing new. Comics long since their prime like Beetle Bailey and Gasoline Alley, along with the insipid One Big Happy remain, while fun comics like Pooch Cafe and Tina's Groove are gone. I'm peeved. Got hooked on those only to have them yanked away. I wonder what I love that I'll lose next. So. Not. Fair.

Comics and Cartoons

I wanted to try out Google's Documents and Spreadsheets service (formerly Writely which Google bought recently), so wrote the following essay with it both at work on my lunch hour and at home. I copied it here because supposedly you can't publish from it to beta Blogger.

~~~@#$%&~~~

My love for comics started with the daily strips in the newspapers, as well as comic books in doctors' offices and the kiddie ones my parents bought for me. The Long Island Press, a full-size broadsheet like the NY Times, had 2 full pages of comic strips. We had that delivered every day and my father brought home the NY Daily Mirror, which had lots of old time comic strips. When it folded, the NY Daily News took on many of those strips and that became our second newspaper, until the LI Press folded. By then, we'd moved to Long Island from Queens, NY, and added Newsday to our newspaper subs and it had comics, too.

Growing up, I read Little Orphan Annie (the Leonard Starr era was my favorite), Dale Messick's Brenda Starr (Ramona Fradon did a good job when she took it over), Leonard Starr's wonderful On Stage, L'il Abner, Mark Trail, Dick Tracy, Steve Roper (later Steve Roper and Mike Nomad), Terry and the Pirates, Gasoline Alley (back when it was good), and a host of others. I recall The Born Loser, Fred Bassett, Andy Capp, BC, Beetle Bailey, The Wizard of Id, Blondie, Dennis the Menace, Peanuts (of course), Joe Palooka, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, Mickey Finn, Rex Morgan MD (another one that went downhill), Pogo, Smilin' Jack, Apartment 3G, and Steve Canyon. There were many others, some that I thought were okay and some I didn't like but read simply because they were comics and they were there.

Thanks to Comics Curmudgeon, I can see that many comics I loved that are still around, like Mark Trail, Apartment 3G, Rex Morgan MD, and Mary Worth pretty much stink these days. Comics were dropped from the papers and others took their place. There was Funky Winkerbean because there always seems to be a strip focusing on teens. Cathy, the single woman, came along. I love Cathy, related to her, but now, even with marriage, we are far apart. Her obsession over clothes turns me off. Sure, the fashion industry seems to have it in for women (must every skirt or sweater I like be wool which I can't wear? Why can't skirts have good-sized pockets?), but as is sometimes the case, exaggeration isn't always funny and in the case of Cathy, it's almost embarrassing.

Over the years, I came to love Doonesbury, Bloom County (I'm still lamenting its end, but it's been fun reading Opus, a Sunday bit of satire and nonsense that shows us a grown-up Steve Dallas and he's everything we would've thought and not), Larsen's Far Side (which I miss terribly), Calvin and Hobbes (another one I miss). There were cartoonists I know just from published collections or postcards. My father also had collections of cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s and I became a big fan of Chas. Addams, Roy Doty, and many others. I discovered more cartoonists through MAD and National Lampoon, talents that include Chas. Rodriguez, Sergio Aragones, Don Martin, Mort Drucker, and Sam Gross. And there is also, Modesty Blaise, a strip and series of books I discovered through a comic strip anthology zine I found in a comics shop back in the '70s.

Nowadays, I read Doonesbury, Blondie, Jump Start, Sherman's Lagoon, Pooch Cafe, Mother Goose & Grimm, Mutts, Close to Home, The Flying McCoys, Shoe (have to read this online now), Opus, Zits, Tina's Groove (new to me, but I'm enjoying it), Get Fuzzy, F Minus (another new one), Rose is Rose, For Better or Worse, Agnes, Hagar the Horrible, Flight Deck, Non Sequitor, Girls and Sports (which shows single guys is a bad light for a change), Stone Soup, and Baby Blues. A few others, I still look at out of habit: Garfield, Marmaduke, The Lockhorns, Ziggy, Heathcliff, Cathy, Beetle Bailey, Wizard of Id, BC (which appears in our Sunday papers only).

Ones I miss because we don't get them now: The Neighborhood, Herman, Tank McNamara (is that still around?). When I take the time to think about them all, I realize the list is amazingly long and likely to continue to grow.

Edited to add other favs: Broom Hilda (another I don't see except online), and Shoe (which I now get on my Yahoo! page). It's frustrating that while there are many online comics sites, they allow on 1-3 free emails. And it's hard to find rss feeds for the ones I can't find in my newspapers. If you want more than a couple, you have to pay.

Comics I get via feeds or in email are: Savage Chickens, Foxtrot, Unshelved, Shoe.