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davidmariottecomics · 2 months

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Not So Evergreen: A Perennial Problem

Hi there,

Wouldja believe it, this week I was thinking about comics?

I know, it's hard to imagine I've had time around Valentine's Day and preparing for our impending nuptuals (which you can contribute to if you're so inclined!).

Or around the continued bullshit that is KOSA, which you might've noticed is NOT actually fixed--and still needs to be stopped. Or, as long as we're talking about regulation and the internet and what can/should be regulated to try to make it a better safer place, all the latest "Generative AI" nonsense (not linking anything in particular here, but there're new stupid developments every day).

Or while keeping track of what's happening in Gaza and, specifically, in Rafah, where Palestinians were told to evacuate to and that is now under bombing, or as they continue to attack hospitals and kill civilians. Sharing up top some recent resources I've seen, including a nice list of places where you can donate (you may also notice the PCRF on our registry and thanks to the folks who've already given there) and a nice collection of Palestinian cultural reading and listening and cooking you can do. There continue to be demonstrations and actions--with a lot in the past week being organized to keep hands off Rafah. Call.Fax. Email.Contact the White House. Keep an eye out for actions from organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, BDS, and the Democratic Socialists of America, or whatever local organization is making efforts near you. If spending money brings you any comfort and you feel a need to put something into good practice, the Cartoonist Cooperative's page still lists a ton of resources for E-Sim cards.

But despite the many other things that should and do reasonably take up my time and brainspace--the good and the bad--it is my job to make comics and I do have to spend some time thinking about 'em and something I've been thinking about this week is the strange state of "evergreen titles."

A Perennial Should Standalone

In particular, I was inspired by seeing some random young person somewhere online say a fairly common refrain, something along the lines of "I tried Western superhero comics, couldn't see myself in them, other than one (now) 35-year-old Vertigo series, and found a lot more in manga for me."

This is one of those things I've talked around every part of in the past, I think. I've talked, fairly recently, about how it is strange to me when people cut themselves off from or don't give themselves the opportunity to continue to explore a format or genre of comics entirely as if they're homogenous and how I think that can make you lose out on some of the contextual history of the medium and how storytelling can work within it. I've talked about how manga is just another word for comics and how I think some of the separation of manga and "Western" comics is more artificial than people realize. I've talked about continuity and how it can be a real turn-off for people, but also how even when it does matter, it maybe kinda doesn't matter, and even earlier than that, I talked about how they say every comic is somebody's first comic and the strange balance of serialized storytelling and accessibility. And just last week, I was mentioning how I think N.K. Jemisen's Far Sector is a really great example of a modern "here's how cool superhero comics can be" book. Now I want to pull it all together and talk about how we've maybe canonized a lot of comics that require a higher bar of context than they're often given.

Now, last bit of business before we dive in, just in case, what do I mean when I say perennial or evergreen title? They are a little different, though I'm largely using them interchangably here. There are certain comics that have been canonized (not meaning made canon to a in-universe continuity, but the older definition of added to the historical register as a work of significance) that you can pretty much always find, and that has grown even more with the increased importance of the book market to comics sales. To use a very important example, you can walk into *most* any comic shop or bookstore that carries comics and is not specifically a specialty shop (like not Silver Sprocket probably, but also, shout out to them for joining the PACBI) and find a copy of Watchmen. Doesn't matter that the book is nearly 40 years old, it has been kept in print constantly (which... if you aren't familiar, is a story unto itself) and y'know, still sells. New people discover/buy/upgrade their copies of Watchmen every year and DC always points to it as an Essential title in their annual catalogs.

DC in particular is actually pretty good about promoting their evergreens. They release an annual catalog to comic shops (and some book stores) that's like a free 80-ish page thing about like "if you want to read DC comics, here are titles we recommend." And if you're even halfway immersed in American Superhero Comics, you could probably name a good half-dozen of them off the top of your head. Watchmen! The Killing Joke! Sandman! All-Star Superman! Batman: The Long Halloween! Batman: Hush! Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth! Kingdom Come! Dark Knight Returns! Other titles written 30-40 years ago by a White British person! Any title from the past 7 years written by a guy named Tom! Etc! I'm being a little flip, and generally, like a lot of those books, but it's true, those tend to be what gets platformed in that way. And, credit where it's due, I know the last catalog also included things like Far Sector and Wonder Woman Historia and Nubia: Real One and the Kami Garcia/Gabriel Picolo Teen Titans OGNs.

But what I find complicated about a lot of those decisions is that a lot of those books may be self-contained in that you can read a single volume or single series and get a pretty complete story without a lot of continuity fluff or cross-reading or whatever, but I think a lot of those books benefit from having existing grounding in reading superhero comics that can get lost when they're being presented not only outside the context of what they were originally in conversation with, but as books of high accessibility or jumping on points.

I could probably go on about most of these, but I'm going to use Killing Joke as an example because it's a really clear one. It's famously a "read this book" kinda book. I think it's still in the DC 25 Essential titles list. It's also a book that is STEEPED in important context that it usually isn't presented with and that I think does really change the reading experience.

Like, when Killing Joke was originally released, it was part of a big push of the Joker at DC. In early 1988, Killing Joke comes out, followed a few months later by A Death in the Family (the one where he killed Jason Todd Robin) and the year capped off with a Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told collection that didn't include either of those stories because, y'know, they were both too new. And modern collections (the 75th and 80th, respectively) both include, interestingly, 1 issue each of A Death in the Family (and different ones at that) and only an excerpt of Killing Joke because they usually don't like to collect it because it can take up a lot of pages for a book that most people own as an individual volume (though... interestingly, the 80th does include Mad Love). Sorry, getting a little distracted. But you know what the Greatest Joker Stories does include? A comic from 1966 that came in a box of PopTarts. Pre-'88, he had gone through cycles of being serious, silly (not even connected to Batman '66, the Joker's many boners story was from the early '50s!), and serious again when he returned in the '70s, but it was never to the extent that Killing Joke went to and that was solidified by the next year of publishing. And, even then, the next year brought some very different Jokers: Jack Nicholson's live-action version who is very much not the Killing Joke Joker and the Joker of Arkham Asylum, who again, is also violent, but in a very different way.

As you start looking at the long-tail, you see the Killing Joke interpretation more in the Batman: The Animated Series version of the character (though, obviously, toned down somewhat for the audience) and that continues to resonate through each version of Joker that happens after across media (except maybe Batman: The Brave and the Bold, because that series is so Silver Age-y). You get Oracle going from a somewhat unexpected character in Suicide Squad to being a major part of the Bat-family and really evolving as a character as Birds of Prey took flight in the late '90s (pin in that for a sec). There are stories that directly reference it, like that Booster Gold issue where he keeps trying (and failing) to change the past because Rip Hunter (almost wrote Rip Torn, who would've made for a very different Booster Gold book) lied to him. There are whole projects that are inspired by it, like the One Bad Day books from 2022/23. There are real world effects, like the things I mentioned earlier with it becoming an evergreen title and one of the first big DC tentpoles to have as a constant at comic shops and in bookstores (especially as the book market has become increasingly important).

Looking at the sort of joint in continuity and publishing history leading up to Killing Joke, it's important to know that Joker and Barbara Gordon had been sort of in-and-out of the comics. Joker hadn't had a major break in a while--also an influential factor on Killing Joke, another darker '80s Joker was in Dark Knight Returns just a couple years prior. But he had been a character who kinda disappeared out of the comics in the past--I think before his return in Batman #251 in '71, he had not been in a comic in like 4 years. And, speaking of not being in comics in 4 years, Barbara Gordon had largely retired as Batgirl before Crisis on Infinite Earths in '85 and was basically a non-character in DC comics post Crisis until Killing Joke. It's part of why the story got approved with her in it and part of why she got taken over to Suicide Squad afterwards... there weren't any plans for Batgirl otherwise.

And all of that is before we're even talking about stuff like the fact that it was recolored and the recoloring really changes the reading experience (TBH, I am not a fan) or that it's a book that if you are recommending it to someone, you should tell them that it's a book with a heavy trigger warning for sexual assault. It's not talking about it as an Alan Moore project and his publicly bad relationship with DC/Warner (see, among other things, that earlier Watchmen article).

So many of these books have that sort of important contextual elements that change the way they're read. I think it's important to know that Sandman is a DC universe book and at least something about some of the DC characters who get featured (like Prez, Element Woman, and Dr. Destiny). All-Star Superman is in conversation with Superman comics of the Golden and Silver age and I think in particular dialogue with Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow (and, hey, again, probably helpful to know that Grant and Alan have their issues).

How to Contextualize, Or Find New Evergreens

Okay, brief note: Becca and I went and saw Madame Web and this was left unfinished when we did. Madame Web was great. It was genuinely bad. It was the Cats (2019) of superhero movies. I've never seen a movie where literally all the content was in the trailer and the rest of the movie was deleted scenes. Anyway, after it was over, we went to the Barnes & Noble next to the theater and listened to this couple talking in the comics section and literally every book they gravitated to was one of these sorts of evergreen titles--Sandman was mentioned, Watchmen and Before Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc. It was clear they weren't really readers, they seemed to be shopping for someone else, but that their primary frame of reference was TV shows and movies, which also goes to the whole "what makes it evergreen" argument and is really interesting because through adaptation, some of the importance of how these things work in the comics medium is lost. And by the end of it... I think they just didn't pick up a comic. Anyway, was just kinda funny to have a real world example of this exact phenomenon I'm talking about happen mid-blog.

Only other thing I want to say before getting any further. Obviously, I've focused a lot on DC titles. The reason is DC makes it easy. Like I said, they literally put out a catalog with their "here's what we think is most essential from our library" every year. DC's also got a long track record of these types of titles to examine and particularly because the initial comment led me to think it was more about American Superhero Comics, it was a clear focus. Every comic company does have their evergreen titles and I think evergreens are a good thing! When positioned properly, they are supposed to be new reader friendly and a great way to get into the medium. I'll talk a bit about Marvel in this section, but I'd also like to acknowledge that one really smart move that Image made (not entirely sure if they're still doing this, but props where it's due) is they made the first volume of multi-volume series--particularly the ones that seemed ripe for perennial status like Saga--$10. I think making these titles at an accessible price point is a good way to help prop up the things that can help secure a love of the medium and drive further visits to comic shops and bookstores.

More generally, I think there are two things that would both be rad if they were to happen because I think they'd be really helpful for onboarding new readers. The first is I wish there were more international approaches that were like the partworks collections. If you're unfamiliar, there've been a few of them from the UK, including Marvel, DC (who started with Eaglemoss and actually got picked up by Hachette later on), Transformers, Star Trek, and Judge Dredd, wherein significant arcs were released periodically with connecting spine art so they looked really nice together on a shelf that featured additional material like introductions and contextual writings on the reason the arc is significant and the featured character(s) and the creators and really provided at least a starting point of context. The other kinda interesting thing is for the Hachette ones at least, they were released with two numbering systems: one by release of the partworks collection, one by (relative) release order of the original story relative to the other partworks releases. It's almost like when you used to buy an encyclopedia set and every however often the new volume would be ready and you'd have to buy that. I think that's a really cool approach to bringing comics backlist to new and lapsed readers and particularly with the contextualization element, gives you reason to understand why these stories are evergreen. It's exciting to look at partworks as almost a curated greatest hits collection.

The other thing, and again, I think this is already in progress with both what DC is doing generally with their Essentials catalog and specifically with a lot of the stuff in their middle grade and young adult OGN space (and to a lesser extent with Black Label) and with the more recent additions to the Hachette Partworks--is I think that the "canonical" books need to be updated. And, of course, I have a lot of thoughts on what should be on those lists. I've said it before, but Far Sector would certainly be on my list. As would Superman Smashes the Klan. Just to throw out a couple of others: Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, Batman: No Man's Land, Young Justice: Sins of Youth, New Frontier, GL/GA: Hard Travelin' Heroes, (when it's collected, the first arc of the current Birds of Prey series), no longer a big two series, but Astro City (honestly... any volume), Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt, X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga, Marvels, Shadow of the Batgirl, Wednesday Comics, Gen13: Meanwhile (hey, that collection slaps), Mr. Majestic (the '99 run), Starman: Hell and Back, uhh... can we just collect all the pages where the Legion of Superheroes wore outfits designed by kids and fans, and probably a lot of other dumb stuff. But besides being the books that I really like and feel like are deserving of a place in more readers minds, I think the important thing is that we expand from books that may've had a splash outside the medium's traditional haunts (be that in films & TV or literary circles) or that we as comics people recognize for their artistic merit or internal cultural significance to books that celebrate and capture how fun comics can be! Also... and I realize what my own list looks like as I say this, but... fewer comics by white guys, please.

And now, our regular features.

New Releases this week (2/14/24): None

New Releases next week (2/21/24): Godzilla Rivals: Mothra vs. MOGUERA (Editor - IDW, post-leaving)

Announcements: Happy Black History Month! This week, I want to spotlight writer/editor Joseph Illidge! He's one of those guys who has been everywhere--Milestone/DC, Valiant, Heavy Metal, Lion Forge, etc. He's got irons in a few fires right now, from Noir is the New Black to teasing a new Image project coming to doing more editorial work to doing some pretty good articles of his own on the current and historical state of the comics biz. Among his many editorial credits is one of the books I mentioned feeling like should be treated more as an evergreen title (though... given it's complexity and just how many titles it ran through, I do understand that it's a bit harder): Batman: No Man's Land. But he's on all the socials and always has something cool brewing, so throw him a follow!

Sorry that Patreon is still behind! I've sent in a help request and once it's all sorted, blogs will be going back up regularly! As mentioned above, we're getting ready for wedding and travel and expenses around all that, so please also check out my webstore, my Kofi, my eBay, and Becca's site for additional ways to support us and get a little something for yourself!

What I enjoyed this week: Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), Solve This Murder (Podcast), The City We Became (Book), Blade Runner 2049 (Movie), Madame Web (Movie), Witch Watch (Manga), One Piece (Manga), Dandadan (Manga), Lore Olympus (Webcomic), Death to Smoochy (Movie), Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), and big thanks to everyone who has already given us a little something for the wedding!

Pic of the Week: Nadja made a new friend (?) and his name is Optimus Prime. But she HATES that Sonic.

#comics #stop kosa #free palestine #hands off rafah #eyes on rafah #batman no man’s land #killing joke #canonical comics #far sector #a lot of dc comics sorry #comic opinions #a cat that loves optimus and hates sonic

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davidmariottecomics · 2 months

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Valentine's & Our Registry

Happy Valentine's Day to my valentine, Rebecca Ann!

As you know, later this year, we're getting married! We've decided to roll our wedding and honeymoon plans into one... AS A TRIP TO JAPAN!!!! We're very excited! On this day of love, in lieu of traditional gifts, are asking our friends and loved ones to contribute to our wedding/honeymoon plans just to make it all that much easier! https://www.zola.com/registry/brysonmariottewedding

Thanks for any help you can provide!

From Becca!!! "Friends I am so excited to share what has been seventeen months in the making! After so much consideration, number crunching and reality checking, we came to the conclusion that bundling our celebrations into one as a Japan trip would be the best way to honor our commitment to one another. Our entire relationship we have worked so hard for our community, and I am so excited to be able to turn back to ya'll and say 'help us celebrate our love'. Thank you for being a part of our lives, thank you for wanting to celebrate our marriage with us, and thank you for any support you give!"

#personal #wedding stuff #honeymoon stuff #registry #money please #david and becca #comics

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davidmariottecomics · 3 months

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I'm 100 Hours in and I Still Don't Know if I Like Baldur's Gate

Hello there and welcome back!

As the title suggests, I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 a lot recently. I picked it up slightly before starting my new job when I had a lot of free time and have continued to put in a few hours on some weeknights and weekends. I've been playing for around 100 hours, or right around 4 full days of my human life, and I still don't entirely know if I like this game. This week, I wanna talk a bit about why I both continue to have complicated feelings about this game and why I continue to play it, some games that I have grouped together as similar play experiences and why I have different reactions to them, and more generally, why all of this makes for making comics based off of games such a challenge that feels so rewarding if you manage to do it right.

Baldin' the Gate First and foremost, let's talk about Baldur's Gate 3. It came out last year and has since won a number of notable game awards, received nearly universal good reviews from critics, received lots of praise from players, and has all the good indicators that it's a good game. I also have no idea what sort of presence it has in the public consciousness because while it's sold millions of copies and I see lots of fan art and my friends talking about playing and whatever, I also know that I particularly inhabit spaces for people who like games like this and in part because of it being new and in part because of it being an adaptation of a sort, I don't think it has entered the overall cultural osmosis in the same way as Mario or Sonic or Halo or Call of Duty or Overwatch or whatever.

How it plays is it's essentially single-player (or multiplayer if you have friends you want to connect with), Dungeons & Dragons. Literally D&D, it's a licensed game set in the official Wizards of the Coast D&D world. Like, they talk about Drizzt a couple times. Minsc, a character who was featured in some of the D&D comics I worked on, is playable later in the game. There're all your core mechanics digitized, including many of the things you do being determined by a "die roll." You can journey with a party of 4 companions--a number of whom are major pre-built characters and you can build your own guy and choose their specs in traditional D&D fashion and solve puzzles and charm your way around town and fight enemies and pickpocket people and all the D&D stuff you'd like to do. Kinda. We'll get to that in a moment.

The last bit of table setting with this is you're on an epic journey with a couple possible end goals. Within limits, because there have to be limits to your options, you can self-determine how the game goes in a lot of ways. Technically, you don't have to play with any of the pre-build, story-involved companions. You can be evil. You can be good. You can choose to usually kill or choose to try to just knock people out. You can do what I do, misunderstand a prompt that was going to unlock a character to your party, and accidentally have them get killed in the fight because they weren't one of your guys (whoops). Again, one of the things that is really rightfully praised in this game is that you can experience it for so long and whatever way makes sense to you.

But that's also the rub, at least for me, and why I'm still struggling to decide whether or not I really like BG3. I personally often feel the two competing forces at the core of the game: To be D&D like, it needs to give you options for how to play it and tries really hard to cast a wide net to do so, but simultaneously, for you to actually progress the story, you do need to play by the rules of the programming and stay relatively "on rails".

For example, one of the items you can acquire in game is rope. And, while at some point it might've had more reason to be in the game, in the final product, you can't actually do anything with it other than sell it, I guess. But I didn't realize that, so I spent a good amount of time in my early game acquiring rope, sure I'd need it at some point. Finally, say 8-10 hours in or so, I forget what exactly it was, but there was some issue where I figured rope was the way to go! Like, it'd let me climb up and down from somewhere without being hurt or I'd be able to use it as a lasso for a far off lever or something. But, I couldn't use it for anything and had to look it up and discover, nope, you just can't use rope apparently. And while I figured it out otherwise, it became very apparent in that moment the limitations of the game for the ways in which I would usually engage with this type of gameplay and storytelling in a different medium.

When you apply that to the actual story decisions though, it can be really frustrating. There're a number of places where I've gotten into a conversation and none of the options even come close to how I'd otherwise approach the situtation. Again, I get why they have to be limited in that way, it's a programmed game and not my friend who can roll with my unique character decisions, but there are times when it just feels so limiting. Keeping it vague, but SPOILERS for this game: There's a companion in the game who I think is really compelling. And to my understanding, there are like 4 ways their story can resolve and none of them is particularly good, which feels bad because I want this person to have a happy ending. For as much as I can recognize the why, it doesn't change my emotional reaction to that being the case.

So, I like a lot of the storytelling. I like a lot of the decisions available to me. I largely find the actual play mechanics fun, even if there're things I'd like to tackle a different way. I like just how big the game is and I find it appealing that by the nature of the game and the branching decision paths, you can find different ways to play it. But I don't know that once I finish this playthrough, I will come back.

Persona 5tar Rail

I like video games. Cool. Great. I am not personally someone who tends to put 100+ hours into a game--certainly not a single playthrough. I tend to like shorter games and games where I can dip in and out. If a game's working for me, I'll put a good chunk of time in. But--and recognizing that there are probably some games that've lost time in not syncing properly or the account being on multiple computers over a number of years or whatever--I just went through my Steam library and of those 270 games, BG3 is the only one I've put in over 2 days on. Most of the games that I've played, I haven't cracked 20 hours on. Most of the games, generally, I haven't cracked 20 minutes on. Getting me to invest so much time on a game is really rare.

But two games that instant came to mind when I was thinking about BG3 and it's replayability and how that affects my experience playing it are games I've also put a stupid amount of time into: Persona 5 and Honkai Star Rail. While P5 and HSR are closer to each other than BG3, they do all have a fair amount of overlap. They're all modern roleplaying games where you've got a party of four characters that you take through fantastical worlds and solve puzzles with and battle with and have interesting stories. As I think I've talked about before on this blog, Persona 5 might--despite some flaws--be my favorite video game. If I'm pretty hesitant to put 20 hours into a game, it must speak strongly to how much I like P5 that I've put in almost 200 hours across two playthroughs (one of P5 and one of P5 Royal).

One of the things that really works for me with Persona 5 is that I know each playthrough will be different, but not radically so. While there's a decent amount of flexibility in decision making in Persona 5, most of it is about choosing how you spend your time. There are certain things you want to do to progress the game to it's "true ending", but in terms of building your stats and your relationships and determining what to do when and how, it's wide open specificially because the actual ticking clock mechanic has such clear goal posts that you know you are on rails toward an endgame and can dig into how you want to play it in the meantime. It's a weird sensation, but because the limitations are clearer for what you can do and when, it removes a lot of the burden of "is this choice going to propel me forward in the way that I want with the game" and becomes "this choice matters only in so much as it reflects what I wanted to do and will ultimately fall into place for how I played the game this time." To me, that's more freeing, I guess. More compelling. Because I know how I like to play the game, and because that's how the game kinda wants you to play it, it feels like we're working in unison and each time I revisit is to see what I had missed before and how I can track different experiences to the same conclusion.

Honkai Star Rail, meanwhile, is this middleground between the two. Similar to P5, to play the story of the game, everyone's going to have a pretty similar experience. The differences come in what characters are available to you and because it's a live-service game (that is to say, a game that is constantly updating), what limited time events you choose to partake in. It doesn't have the same social webbing structure as BG3 or P5--there isn't the same ability to chose to be good or bad or to ignore certain relationships in the same way. And I think that is a big part of why I haven't kept up and I find games like this so hard to come back to. I was an early adopter and I played a lot and I got caught up and now there've been a number of updates since my last real play session, and I feel like because there's now so much more that I could do, I'm overwhelmed with the options of trying to catch up, while also knowing that even if I do, I'll only hit the end of the current update, and not the end of the game. HSR has no replayability from the beginning, really, because you want to continue what you've started because the game's continuing in your absence.

Okay, so Comics!

The parallel I can draw to comics is so while they're all pretty different, the similarities of BG3, P5, and HSR have created a grouping in my mind. I am taken on all three with the worlds that're created, I enjoy fan art of them, I get the same sort of satisfaction from how they control because that style of gaming is something that I like. But 100+ hours into each, I have a very different emotional response that changes how I want to interact with it going forward. I just want to finish BG3 and if this is my one playthrough, that's probably fine. I spent less than $1/hour of game. I know at some point in the probably not-too-distant future I'll revisit P5 (maybe I'll use it for some Japanese practice...). And I'll continue to check in with HSR because I feel like I've put a lot into it and I want to like it as much as I did at the start, but I really don't know that I can recapture the magic until it's done. And if that doesn't sound like the comics reading experience, I don't know what does!

BG3 is a series that I'm invested in, and keep picking up, even though there's part of me that just wants to bail because it isn't bad, but it isn't quite what I want it to be. P5 is... I dunno. Young Justice. Crisis on Infinite Earths. Secret Wars II. The sort of dumb thing that I want to revisit over and over and over again, because each time I do, between me and the game/book, I find something different and new in a familiar comfort. And HSR is a book that I dug and missed an issue and it isn't easy to track down, so now I have to decide whether I dedicate that time to going back or if I wait for the trade and maybe to deal with a bit of redundancy or if I just let it go because I liked it, but maybe not enough.

All of which is part of why I think it can be so difficult to translate video games into comics. I'm spending all this time deliberating over how to experience the story--what decisions I want to make and what decisions I have the ability to make, ultimately do I as an individual think I can revisit and make different decisions or am I just going to play basically the same because that's how I interact with the medium--which is something that comics storytelling doesn't really afford you. Not to say there aren't comics where you do have more input, but for the most part, you experience the story as presented to you because that's how the team wanted it.

I asked the question a lot working on Sonic, why would you want to read Sonic, when you can play a Sonic game? And if the characters are compelling and you feel like you're adding to the world and you truly want to engage in the sort of storytelling that only comics can to, that makes it a unique medium from something like games, you can probably find something. But you have to overcome that gap for a player who might be interested, because while both comics and games have plotted content, the difference of how the reader/player is engaged makes a world of difference.

I hope that all makes sense. And if not... hey, I'll revisit this sometime! See ya next week!

New Releases this week (2/7/24): Godzilla Valentine's Day Special (Editor - IDW)

New Releases next week (2/14/24): None

Announcements: Happy Black History Month! This week, I want to spotlight N.K. Jemisin! I finally started The City We Became this week and I'm already really liking it. She also wrote the first story in Out There Screaming, the horror anthology from last year that I've talked about here before and that I really loved. She wrote Far Sector, a DC Green Lantern book that's quickly becoming one of my big recommendations for"a standalone Big 2 superhero book that shows you why superhero comics are actually pretty fun! She is becoming a favorite writer of mine and is one of the modern names in science fiction, fantasy, and horror that I think you should know!

Usually, this is where I plug my Patreon! And I still will because you can *usually* read this blog there, get cool bonus stuff including some free comics and, at higher levels, stuff like podcasts, sneak peeks at things I'm working on, and more! BUT, Patreon's also not working right for me at the moment. I'm troubleshooting it now, but there's a slight delay in things going up, sorry!

You can also check out my webstore where I'm sold out of Transformers vs. the Terminator (wow!) and have a very limited stock on everything else, my Kofi (I updated the Anti-AI Zine--Pay what you want for a brief, printable explainer on why AI sucks!), and Becca's site (still pending a new update, sorry)!

Bluesky is now publicly open! You no longer need an invite to join. You can find my account here. You can find a bunch of other cool people through my follow list! And there's a really good skeet going around with a bunch of helpful block lists for not dealing with dummies on the site!

I mentioned last week that we're finally firming up plans for our wedding after a lot of back and forth and exploration on what makes the most sense. We've landed on some stuff we're happy with and will be sharing our registry soon (maybe later today???), if you'd like to contribute!

What I enjoyed this week: Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), Solve This Murder (Podcast), The City We Became (Book), The Sopranos (TV show), The Afterparty (TV show), Rent (Movie), getting some wedding planning done, Becca and I did an early Valentine's Day yesterday and I'm glad we had the chance to do that for ourselves.

Pic of the Week: Here's a very cute picture of Becca from our date yesterday at SUR, the restaurant from Vanderpump Rules.

#sur restaurant #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #persona 5 #honkai star rail #thoughts on games #thoughts on comics]#n k jemisin #please don't roast me for having complicated feelings on bg3

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davidmariottecomics · 3 months

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Stuff That Sucks, Part 2 (Not Everything is Terrible)

Hello!

This is going to be a long one covering a lot, so y'know, feel free to take breaks, stretch your legs, get some water. Take care of yourself. Because I took one week off and man, there is toooooooo much to talk about! One of my first blogs on my site, way back when was called "Stuff That Sucks, Part 1" in which I went over a bunch of stuff in the world that was bad. This time, I'm kinda revisiting that idea, but am also trying to put some silly or nice or just life-updatey things inbetween the bad stuff to have some balance, as much for myself as for anyone else!

Palestine

Since I've last posted about Palestine, a ceasefire agreement has been floated. Early reports were expecting it to be resolved this weekend, but we'll see. It's hard to be optimistic (generally, given the state of the world) after 120 days of violence and an agreement that's still seeking pause more than permanence (and, in that, seems more for the benefit of the aggressor). But maybe something good can come of it.

I also believe that it is because of the actions of brave people all around the world that we're starting to see more pressure and movement to resolution. Obviously, there are plenty of people and places who got it right in the first place, like South Africa bringing Israel to the International Court of Justice on genocide charges (still in review, but the ICJ did impose their rulings to not continue to kill people or commit war crimes and Israel... has ignored that). But there have also been so many protests, actions like last week's Global General Strike, and continued efforts in hitting them where it hurts (the pockets) with concentrated BDS plans. Even if it's happening slowly, minds are changing. The latest AP poll shows 1 in 2 adults in the US thinks Israel has gone too far, which I'm sure is bolstered by the repeated statistics that over 27,000 people have been killed, over 66,000 wounded, 85% of the population has been displaced, 25% is facing starvation, aid continues to be blocked, and hospitals and journalists continue to be targeted.

But, even if things seem to be developing, don't slow down on the pressure and the help.You can still contact your representatives: Call. Fax.Email. Contact the White House. Join actions from organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, and the Democratic Socialists of America, or whatever local organization is making efforts near you. If spending money brings you any comfort and you feel a need to put something into good practice, the Cartoonist Cooperative's page still lists a ton of resources for E-Sim cards.

The other thing that feels obvious to say, but I won't not say it anyway, is even if the coming week does bring a ceasefire and some sort of agreement or resolution, the work's still not done. There will be so much rebuilding to do and aid needed in Palestine. There must be measures taken to not allow this to happen again. Even if Palestinians are given full free unfettered access without the threat of violence to Gaza and the West Bank, they're still living under colonization. There're so many other places that are getting wrapped into this in various ways (like the US getting into it with Yemen and Syria). And, of course, there are still so many other places under similar circumstances, like Ukraine and Sudan. The work will change, but it won't cease.

(SIDE NOTE: You'll notice that one of the organic boycotts noted by BDS is Wix. I know a lot of people, particularly young people who are in school/freshly out of school use that for their portfolio sites. Might be worth looking into other options)

Barbie and Godzilla Okay, I'm going to try to alternate serious things with less serious ones. Because I didn't post last week, I am late entering the Oscar conversation, but my two cents is that Barbie did just fine (though... really, nominating Ryan Gosling for Ken???) with what they got. If there was one significant snub this year, it's that Godzilla Minus One only got a single nomination, when it rightfully should've been a contender in all major categories. Like, it was certainly the best picture I saw last year.

KOSA and the Invest in Children Act

I've talked about KOSA a few times here. It's the "Kids Online Safety Act" and it's notable for being bullshit. So, tell your reps to vote no. The reason KOSA sucks--as if the CEO of X being in favor of it wasn't enough--is it doesn't actually addresses the problem it claims to, but is a tool of censorship overreach. As has always been the case, preventing access to information doesn't stop people from seeking it, it stops them from getting accurate information and limits who is in the conversation. So, while KOSA seeks to "hold companies responsible for eating disorder and suicide content" or whatever to protect the kids, as co-sponsor of the bill Senator Marsha Blackburn has LITERALLY SAID, (quoted here from the Melissa Mira Grant article linked above) “Protecting minor children from the transgender [sic] in this culture and that influence,” is one of the most important issues conservatives can take a stand on now, Blackburn said, in an interview with the Family Policy Alliance, a group pushing anti-LGBTQ rights laws. “And I would add to that, watching what’s happening on social media. I’ve got the Kids Online Safety Act.” This bill, she claimed, “would put a duty of care and responsibility on the social media platforms, and this is where children are being indoctrinated.… They’re getting onto YouTube to watch a video, and all of a sudden this comes to them.”

Other advocates against KOSA have pointed out that not only is it seeking to further marginalize queer folks, but it'd also be bad for sex workers (who we'll get back to in a second), and potentially abortion information, as well as actual resources for people who are seeking help with disordered eating or suicidal thoughts. The only "good" that comes from this bill is, well, if you're an evil person in a governmental position looking to suppress information, you can do that if it passes. And if you want points for "protecting the kids", the name says you get them to people who don't know what's actually happening.

BUT, with all that said, instead of just saying to reject KOSA, we now have legistation we can point to as what we want instead: the Invest in Children Act! Unlike KOSA, or it's shitty predicessor, EARNIT (which I've also previously rallied against), the ICA actually seems interested in fixing the problems that do actually exist in the gaps between internet companies that already widely report issues of child sexual abuse online and a lack of action from NCMEC and the DOJ. But, y'know, the name isn't as snappy and this bill would actually protect children (something that given their response to what's happening in Palestine and the US, most of our representatives don't actually care about) and would do good for the world, so unfortunately my expectations are low.

(SIDE NOTE: Because this literally just happened while I was writing--I was listening to music on YouTube [not that they're great either because, I guess just everything is terrible now, but nominally better than Spotify???] and the video for Collective Soul's The World I Know was next in my queue and it paused. Y'know why? Because the website's already set up to tell me if a video may have references to suicide or self-harm! A thing that is already in place and doesn't need KOSA to happen!!!)

Original Comic Art

Be on the lookout for a couple original pieces by J.G. Jones that were stolen from him at OAX. Poor guy had these commissions stolen from his table during the show and I'm sure everyone in the situation (barring the thief) would like to see this beautiful Poison Ivy and Fairchild go to their proper homes. And, semi-relatedly, there have been a lot of creators this week announcing they're parting ways with their current art dealer and if you'd like a commission or to buy their art, you should contact them directly. I don't have a full list, but if you were in the original art market right now, might be worth double-checking where you can make your purchases from.

The War on Porn and Trans People

As if KOSA wasn't enough, it's been a bad few weeks for y'know, most people. In Oklahoma, a bill was introduced that sought to criminalize porn on an incredibly wide definition, brought forth by the sort of far-right Christian who despite being a preacher, has literally 0 understanding of what the Bible actually says because to him, religion is not about practice or belief in a shared understanding of how the universe was formed and how we got to this point, it's a tool of control.

There's a report that the owner of OnlyFans pleged $11 million to a pro-Israel group in the last few months. He has denied that claim. Regardless, as these things so often do, it has dragged performers on the site into the conversation despite A. OnlyFans not (yet) being a BDS target and B. with everything else going on, there are only so many places to move to left. At time of posting, PornHub is blocked in... 6 states. There are a lot of walls being thrown up to try to limit our access to adult material and further deplatform and marginalize sex workers, which was already a massive problem and it sucks.

Meanwhile, this week, Florida's trying to revoke trans people's driver's licenses and Ohio's banning trans kids from sports or gender-affirming care in their quest to ban trans people from existence entirely. And these are part and parcel of the pattern of trying to further criminalize, censor, and legislate women's bodies, trans bodies, sex workers, and anyone who isn't a cis straight white man. In the US, the New York Times, and in the UK, the Guardian are both doing the Tim Robinson hot dog "we're all trying to find the guy that did this" thing despite how much anti-trans bullshit they've spread.

As there are more bills introduced that forbid (or have to shield against consequences for) interstate travel of trans people and people seeking abortions, we're really reaching a breaking point and coupled with the dissatisfaction of both promient Presidential candidates for their records of *checks notes* inaction or hostile action toward the majority of the American people... let's just say I'm not looking forward to how this year shakes out for the most part.

Wedding Plans One exciting thing, though, is Becca and I soft-announced our wedding plans. We'd still like to try to organize something in San Diego for our friends and family presumably around SDCC time, but tha'ts up in the air because that's expensive and coming up much quicker than I think either of us would like with no plans firmed up. But our plan for the wedding itself has largely shifted to doing it internationally.

We were always thinking of a honeymoon in Japan and now have kinda figured that if we're going to do that, instead of trying to do a ceremony in the US and then also pay for a trip, it's cheaper and maybe more special for us to roll it into a single plan. Becca's been looking a bit at Sanrio PuroLand, the Hello Kitty amusement park, because they have reasonable packages and you can bring in an outside coordinator (and we'd love to find someone who has experience with queer weddings in Japan, if anyone might have any recommendations). I'm not quite as sold, but that is generally what we're looking at.

As things maybe solidify around SDCC or otherwise we get our picture all figured out for Japan, I'll share more news.

Virgilio Mendez Virgilio Mendez is a 19 year old migrant who has been held for a crime he obviously didn't commit. He's been charged with aggrivated homicide for a cop who confronted him for the crime of being brown and not speaking English. Mendez was literally just on the phone, repeatedly communicated that he does not speak English (and recently the court found the case couldn't move forward because, as a product of that, he has no understanding of the American justice system), the cop harassed him, ultimately called back-up, the cops proceeded to batter and tase him, and then the original offending officer had a heart attack and died, as the coroner has reported, of natural and pre-existing causes, and all of that has been pinned on this poor kid's back. It's just depressing and despicable.

Baldur's Gate

Okay, so... at one point I thought this was going to be shorter (haha, I don't know why I thought that) and I was going to talk about how I've been playing a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 and my thoughts on it. But I've run out of room for this time, and soooo... next week. I'm going to talk about BG3, Persona 5, Honkai Star Rail, and the ways that things that might activate similar sensations can leave you with very different impressions in the long term. But that'll be next week, so see ya then!

New Releases (2/7/24) Godzilla Valentine's Day Special (Editor - IDW)

Announcements: Happy Black History Month! This week, I want to spotlight Clarence Matthew Baker! He is notable for being one of the first successful Black men in American comics and one of the first successful gay men! That's a lovely little profile of him and his work, including some classic Phantom Lady and It Rhymes With Lust! The man had gorgeous art and influenced comics so much, not in the least because his art was one of the primary examples of the "seduction" of Seduction of the Innocent, the famous anti-comics book that turned comics into a witch hunt for pornographers because the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Check out my Patreon where you can access this blog as well as a ton of cool other stuff! Some recent highlights include the holiday catalog I made at the end of last year is now available to all backers (though $10+ backers got it almost 45 days early) and I've previewed some materials for something I'm working on and hoping to launch in the next month or two. Patreon will also be where I start posting some of my new original comics work later in the year, so keep an eye out for that too!

You can also check out my webstore, my Kofi (I still need to throw up my updated Anti-AI Zine), and Becca's site (also pending a new update)!

What I enjoyed this week: Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), The Traitors Season 2 (TV show), The Sopranos (TV show), Almost Famous (Movie), Heartburn (Movie), the mango pineapple chicken from the local Indian food place, getting new comics and making friends with an employee we don't know at the comic store (If you ever read this, hi, Clay @ Nuclear Comics North Park!), having had a good first couple of weeks at the new job!

Pic of the Week: Feels like it has been a while since I did this, but here's a cute picture of Tiansheng for what it's worth, but Hourly Comics Day was this week and Becca put together some strips. First one's linked and you can find the rest on their Bsky page!

#minus one snubbed #oscar snubs #godzilla #barbie was nominated for a lot and deservedly so #dumb cats #matt baker comics #wedding plans #personal update #world news #comic art theft #free palestine #free gaza #fuck kosa #stop kosa

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davidmariottecomics · 3 months

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New Job, Boom!

Hey friends,

Going to be a short one this week, but I definitely didn't want to let it pass without saying a little something. If you haven't heard otherwise yet, I'm now working at BOOM! Studios! Once I can say more, I'm sure I will, but it's early, things aren't really announced beyond that, and there are other matters to turn your attention to.

Announcements: It's the Global General Strike for Palestine! For the next week, people all over the world are striking from all sorts of regular activity to disrupt the economic systems supporting the destruction of Palestine and to put that time and energy into active protest movement. This is a pretty basic explainer of what you can do and know that doing anything is better than doing nothing, right? If you have to go to work, be visible. If you have to shop, be visible and thoughtful. If you have to rest, enjoy the things you already have. If you want to post, make it about what is happening. Current reports are estimating over 25,000 people have been murdered, with the death toll just going to keep rising between continued bombardments and the lack of resources. Over 60,000 people are wounded, 85% of the population has been displaced, and roughly 1 in 4 people is facing extreme hunger. No hospital is fully functional, for the ones that are still left standing. The IOF (Israeli Occupying Force) has admitted to exhuming graves, and have claimed it's to "find the hostages", but in the face of the other war crimes they've committed, it's hard to believe it wasn't vengeful malicious behavior to psychologically wound Palestinians as much as anything else. While we wait--possibly years--to find out if the International Court of Justice rules that Israel is in fact committing a genocide, people are going to continue dying from this. And so, hopefully, with a bit of concentrated disruption and pressure, this destruction that's already lasted 100+ days may finally find an end.

In terms of using your power and time, I've mentioned it before, but you could call your representatives. Fax their offices. Email them. Contact the White House. Join actions from organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, the Democratic Socialists of America, and be sure to focus your boycotts (during the strike and generally) on the businesses called out by BDS. You can take some time to read through Verso's Solidarity with Palestine reading list. Make signs for if you're going out protesting, to put in your windows, or coordinate outfits in Palestinian flag colors that show your solidarity. Make sure you're keeping an eye out for local events. If you see art installations, share them, and, yeah, that includes graffiti that bears the message. Let Palestinians take the lead in the global conversation on social media and if you see, say, your reps talking about other things, flood them with calls for a ceasefire in the replies.

If spending money brings you any comfort and you feel a need to put something into good practice, the Cartoonist Cooperative's page still lists a ton of resources for E-Sim cards.Bisan mentioned today that E-Sims are helpful, but their use is becoming more limited as the overall infrastructure has been so damaged that you need to be in a high place to use them.

Again, do what you can.

What I enjoyed this week: Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), How to Read Nancy (Book), Ted Lasso (TV show), my new big Taschen Ads of the 80s book, Movie Flick Chick Vol. 1 by BonerBob (Adult Comic), The Traitors Season 2 (TV show), The Floor (TV show), having a new phone and slowly getting back up to speed with it, seeing some stuff I had been working on at the old job get announced.

Pic of the Week: As I've been wont to do recently, I've made a little promo image with my announcement, so that's here, but my real pic of the week is this amazing photo of Nadja. She was in the chair sleeping and I went to move the Hello Kitty and I put it on top of her and she didn't move at all! It was very cute.

#comics #comics editorial #free gaza #free palestine #ceasefire now #strike for palestine #global strike

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davidmariottecomics · 4 months

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To Enter the Public Domain!

Hey friends!

I touched on this last week with public domain day (the first of the year) and obviously I've talked at length about copyright here in the past, but I wanted to expand on things a bit in light of a recent conversation on Bluesky.

Kara Huset, a super talented artist you might recognize from her original work or from a couple of Godzilla gigs, mentioned something about the original Blue Beetles and Captain Marvel being public domain. Which if I was a fact rating website, I'd call "kind of true." So, today, we're going to talk about why it's kind of true, why certain things are definitively in the public domain and some are way less clear, why Superman entering the PD in a decade is both exciting and daunting, and why sometimes the PD isn't as exciting as it could be.

So, Are Those Guys Public Domain?

For the sake of all arguments... no. Not really. There's a slightly more complicated answer, particularly for the original Blue Beetle, but the simple and short one is, no.

Let's very briefly talk about public domain in light of copyright law in the US. There are 3 major years/events to focus on for modern copyright law. First, the Copyright Act of 1976 was the first big change to modern copyright. This was a major codification and extension of US copyright law. It covered everything from new technology like television and comics (both of which were new relative to the last major update) to defining fair use to extending the terms of copyright to adding termination rights for work that's licensed after a certain period of time. It's extensive and still the backbone of how we understand copyright now, especially in terms of defining work for hire and rights held by corporate entities as opposed to those held by individual authors.

But one really key thing here is it removed one of the big old hurdles of U.S. copyright, initial registration and renewals. As has been said before, if you want to make sure you're *really* protected, you should still register your copyrights so there's a clearer track record if you ever have to go to court. One of the benefits is it gives a very clear date of when something was published in a copyrightable fashion and can be referred back to easily, which matters when we are talking about rights going public and other possible expirations. But as part of that, many works were also caught in an interesting place.

All works prior to 1977 that were published in the US without a copyright notice entered the public domain. Keep that in mind because it's the crux of the coming argument.

The law was updated in 1998 with the Copyright Term Extension Act which, like the name says, lengthened the terms of copyright in the US. And, for 20 years, pretty much killed the public domain! Literally, it just extended copyright 20 more years, so stuff that was supposed to go public 20 years earlier suddenly couldn't anymore. We were actually supposed to get Steamboat Willie in 2004! This also added another complication to copyright terms. As of 1998, to my understanding, what's in the PD today is everything prior to 1929 (meaning, stuff from 1928 and earlier, but not including 1929), anything from 1929-1977 that was published without notice or was only published with initial notice and not renewed after 28 years, and anything from 1978-1989 that was published without notice or registration within the first 5 years from publication. Which is both a lot and not all that much at all, especially when you consider that in another world where things weren't delayed 20 years, we'd be up to everything prior to 1949 now.

The last important year, of course, is 2019 which was the first year after the 1998 extension in which things started to be public domain again. That's less important to this specific thing, but I wanted to call it out.

Okay, with that all in mind, let's circle back to the "works prior to 1977 published without notice" thing. Many older comics, particularly from the smaller publishers, were published without copyright notice because that wasn't codified the same prior to 1976 and--equally importantly--a lot of those smaller publishers were already gone by 1976. For some of those books, even if could've filed and protected things, those companies had folded and were gone and there was no one to make sure things were properly protected. And the argument contends that this includes some of the old Fawcett and Charlton comics stuff. So, if Captain Marvel Adventures was published from 1941-1953 and wasn't properly filed, fair game (fair use), right?

Let's break this into these specific characters, because this is what makes it so complicated.

Captain Marvel in Brief(s)

Captain Marvel AKA Shazam was a Fawcett Comics creation. Again, assuming that you've got the proper archival material of the old comics to prove that they're public domain on the basis of a lack of notice that can be cross referenced with a lack of notice at the copyright office, sure, theoretically public domain!

EXCEPT, unfortunately for the Big Red Cheese, he's already been the subject of so much trademark and copyright dispute! The very short version of the story is: after Superman debuted, there were a crop of rip-off comics. DC sued one of these rip-offs (Fox's Wonderman, all one word)... and won. The character was in violation of copyright! Bolstered by this win, they did it again, to another Superman copycat... Captain Marvel! Both the Wonderman and appeal of the Captain Marvel cases fell into careful Hands... cousins Judge Augustus Noble Hand and (the even better named and more quoted) Judge Learned Hand. And both cases, at one point, found that the rip-off was indeed, legally, that. But Fawcett had an extra trick up their sleeve--they argued that Superman had been abandoned and was basically public domain anyway because, you guessed it, there was a problem with Superman newspaper strips having been published without copyright notice.

The case was argued into 1951 with various findings of "yeah, Captain Marvel is a rip-off" and "No, of course Superman's copyright hadn't been abandoned" and "yeah, we'll settle out of court because uhh... it's the early 1950s and superheroes are on the outs." Part of the settlement is Fawcett still owns Captain Marvel, but they can't publish the comics anymore which, again, they're kinda fine with because they thought the superhero bubble had burst. Like 20 years later, DC takes a wild left turn and licenses Captain Marvel from Fawcett, so they're publishing the CM comics (and in the 1990s, they outright buy CM and all related characters because at this point, DC's been publishing him longer than Fawcett ever did). But between those two points, Marvel Comics starts publishing their own Captain Marvel book and Captain Marvel character(s) and trademarks the name, Captain Marvel. Which is why DC's Captain Marvel no longer uses that name (though he did for a long time, even if his series did not).

But the long and short of it is, if any of that stuff's public domain, it comes from somewhere in that would-be notice/renewal cycle, something not getting filed properly. I don't have direct evidence that that's the case, but assuming it is correct, you'd likely have to face DC's lawyers to try to reprint any of it and knowing how these things go, they'd likely argue something to the effect of "we own these stories because we acquired them in our purchase of Captain Marvel/Shazam and related characters and the names and looks and whatever other elements of the Fawcett comics that we maintain are covered by our copyright and trademarks of these characters/stories/logos/etc" and "if we don't own these stories, in all prior instances, they've been found to be in violation of our copyright on Superman, so we'll sue ya with that existing standing."

There's no winning with that.

My Favorite Guy and Also Alan Moore

If you didn't know, the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, is my favorite superhero. There are other heroes I love a whole lot--G'nort, the entire cast of the David/Nauck run of Young Justice, Spider-Man, etc--but Ted's my #1 guy. I also fully don't think he's in the public domain. So, same argument as earlier, if any of his stories are, that's a result of a lack of filing or misfiling or whatever, right? It also, kinda, has to do with Charlton Comics, where he's from.

So, in the 1960s, some guy named Steve Ditko is doing a lot of work at Charlton and he and a few other creators have got this group of action heroes that you might've heard of. Most of them are just regular folks with talents and brains and brawn and then one real superpowered freak. The likes of Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, the Question, Nightshade, Peacemaker, Peter Cannon... Thunderbolt, Judomaster, etc. As time marches on and, once again, comics are dying and the industry has burst and nobody likes superheroes anymore (haha, it happens so very much) and in 1983, as a gift for former Charlton editor Dick Giordano, Paul Levitz has DC buy the Action Heroes characters for $5K a pop.

This is the first argument for why Blue Beetle isn't public domain--the assumption of that sale is that these characters have applicable copyright that can have the ownership transferred. The second relies on another famous work of DC's that's at the center of copyright disputes, Watchmen! For as much as all of these characters have changed over the years, if there was any question at the time as to the legal status of the Charlton characters and the specifics of their copyrightable story details and trademarkable looks and titles and stuff, there wouldn't have been a reason not to let them just be the stars of Watchmen. If there was any indication they were or could be public domain anyway, why not let 'em? But they weren't and aren't (even if the technical letter of the law might disagree) and so to keep those characters true to themselves and to allow Moore and Gibbons to tell their story, they just made a bunch of knock-off Charlton characters that could no longer be sued over because DC had bought those rights.

The reason I think there's a lot of confusion over this is that there are a lot of Charlton characters that did end up in a weird limbo. Basically, as much as possible, when Charlton saw the writing on the wall, they tried to sell things off. Some, like the Action Heros, went to competitors. A lot went back to original creators when possible. But some things just didn't sell for one reason or another and if they were created within those weird public domain windows, are public domain. But a lot of the big guys and big stories are not that, or even if they may technically be, folks have decided not to risk the potential of a suit over.

"Big Blue"

The first Blue Beetle actually has been featured as a public domain character!!! Kinda!!! Sorta!! Ehnnn!

Okay, so a few years back, Dynamite and Alex Ross did this big thing called Project Superpowers that was a team-up book of all the superheroes that had accidentally fallen in the public domain over the laws we've already talked about. There are a ton of them! Black Terror! The original Daredevil (renamed there to the Death Defying 'Devil)! Miss Masque (renamed Masquerade)! Etc. And one of those heroes is Big Blue, AKA the original Blue Beetle!

Now, his story's a bit more of a mess. He passed through a number of hands: Created at Fox, published at Holyoke for part of the original run, sold to Charlton (but there's debate on if a sale actually happened or if Charlton just kinda... took him), ultimately landing at DC kind of more-or-less as a related character to his own derivative character, Ted Kord Blue Beetle, who had definitely been sold to DC. But the general understanding is that this Blue Beetle, Dan Garret (1 T, that's hugely important, Dan Garrett is distinctly the DC version), is in the public domain. That's why he shows up in Project Superpowers. But, because DC's got their claim pretty solid with the other Blue Beetles, for trademark purposes, you can't just call him that if there's any way he could be confused for the DC version.

I've never read Project Superpowers. I actually don't know how involved he is as a character. But if you want to use him, he's probably the most viable of the three, just as long as you're doing your diligence not to impede on anything that is strictly DC's.

Why Superman Entering the Public Domain Matters More, Maybe

Superman's one of the next big public domain milestones. Debuting in 1938, we're still 10 years out from him (which, as we've learned, means if there hadn't been the '98 extension, we'd already be well familiar with PD Superman). There are plenty of notable works entering inbetween then and now: The Shadow's early stories; Flash Gordon's early strips; The Phantom's early strips; the first Disney feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the early Popeye-era of Thimble Theatre, the Nancy-years of Fritzi Ritz, etc, but for comics in particular, Superman towers over them all.

The reason Superman looms so large over comics should be obvious, he's Superman! He's universally recognized and liked in a way that few comics characters are. It's cool that we're living in a world where there have been multiple theatrical Shazam films and a Blue Beetle movie, but public consciousness of these characters is still far narrower than it is for Superman. In so many people's minds, Superman is The Superhero and everyone else in some ways stands as derivative of him. It's exciting having this major icon getting close to the public domain window for what you can do with the idea of the character generally, for the reprinting of those old stories, and for the act of him going PD as a signifier that the floodgates are about to open.

Within 5 years of Superman entering the PD (so 15 years from now), we'll also have Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, the original Flash, the original Green Lantern, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor, The Joker, The Cat, the original Justice Society, Captain America, The Sub-Mariner, the original Human Torch, Bucky, Red Skull, and a ton of other folks and early stories (including, definitively, the early Captain Marvels and Dan Garret Blue Beetles). That's a pretty major chunk of comics pop culture all dropping in quick succession.

Simultaneously...we've got a decade to sort of see how things shake out with the entrance of still active licenses into the public domain. Part of what's so complicated about the works of the public domain is that the case has been successfully made that works enter on the basis of their publication, not as a collective. It's why though Winnie-the-Pooh went PD last year, Tigger only joined this year and people've been really stressing that it's only 3 Mickey shorts that're PD this year. For the most part, the companies and individuals that control these properties nowadays have not been terribly friendly towards their works entering the public domain. If you look at, say, Sherlock Holmes (a character that's benefitted from being treated as public domain well before he actually was because it got people to read the old Doyle stories), you'll see a legacy of fighting for control of every last piece of Holmes media--like the short lived suit against Netflix for Enola Holmes featuring a "warmer, caring" Sherlock.

In my big copyright explainer from last year, I talked a bit about the differences between copyright and trademark. As a very quick refresher, copyright applies as proof of ownership of specific works of art as published--Action Comics #1's story and art is copyrighted. All Superman stories are copyrighted. And the characters within are copyrighted. Eventually, the copyright will expire (95 years in corporate ownership). Trademark applies to the distinctions and recognizability of brands. When Superman's copyright expires, he'll enter the public domain. However, the Superman logo, the S Shield, and other visual elements of what Superman is will still be under trademark because trademark doesn't expire after a set period, trademark expires after a period of disuse and non-registration.

Basically, it isn't super clear at this exact moment what all will actually be usable when these things enter the PD. What *should* be happening is that it should be really good for archival work. Anyone should be able to copy the original work and--transformation and modification aside--have the ability to share, reproduce, and distribute it, basically making it far more available and hopefully adding to the everlasting preservation of the work. You also should be able to transform, modify, and do all the other things to the work, including creating new derivative works, but that's where the treasure trove of material still under copyright and trademark might make things difficult.

By the same token, there's a lot of stuff that you can already do under fair use and I think it's worth it to ask to what extent is what you want to do not already covered? If you have ideas for earnest stories that'd compete with DC, yeah, you're not going to have a lot of leeway until we've got a clearer idea of what the landscape looks like. But if you want to do something to stick it to the man--Superman erotic material or over-the-top drugs and ultraviolence or recreating and recontextualizing Superman material in a new way as political art--you're probably fine already. Heck, if you just give the earnest stories a new name and look, DC doesn't really sue people over infringement on Superman's character anymore (plus, as I've mentioned before, comics has long had some additional flexibility for fan art).

In the meantime, if you're feeling interested and want to dig into it, there are tons of comics that have far more clearly fallen into the public domain already that you could mine for revival characters or, like some folks do, cool archival projects reprinting old comics for new audiences.

Next week, I *think* I'll be able to talk about my new job!

What I enjoyed this week: Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), How to Read Nancy (Book), Ted Lasso (TV show), Blade Runner (Movie), The Rehersal (TV show), the pilot of The Sopranos (TV show), my new big Taschen Ads of the 80s book, actually having some fun in my last week of not working, talking to a friend about putting together some original projects soon, prepping for Becca's next show. What I didn't enjoy this week was my phone dying! That's been real fun.

New Releases this week (1/10/2024): None

New Releases next week (1/17/2024): Sonic the Hedgehog: Fang the Hunter #1 (Editor)

Announcements: Becca's first show of the year is today, 1/13, at Alesmith! It's a mini-con with BizBaz! They've got lots of cool deals and new stuff for the new year, including a new version of our Anti AI zine, so come out and see them if you're anywhere near San Diego today! If you can't make it, you can always find their webshop and portfolio here!

The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. It's a nice little thing for you if you want it, but ultimately, man, giving an E-Sim could literally save a life.

You can also give more directly with your money or your time. You can call or fax or email or show up at the offices (or yell at the White House of) of your representatives to demand a ceasefire or to protest their inaction so far or to throw eggs at the president for participating in and encouraging a genocide. You should keep aware of actions, demonstrations, protests, movements, and celebrations in your community too. Given the nature of the things, they often come together fairly quickly, so do exercise your due diligence. Also, of course, being informed and just giving your time to Palestinian journalists and writers is incredibly valuable. I don't tend to be a big TikTok fan, but it has proven to be one of the most reliable resources for firsthand accounts of what's happening on the ground from folks who can get access to E-Sims.

Finally, check out my Patreon where you can access this blog as well as a ton of cool other stuff and this year, it'll be one of the first places you can see some of my new comics work, as well as my webstore (final stock on basically everything there except Jimmy Squarefoot), my Kofi (I'll get the updated Anti-AI Zine up there soon), and my eBay account as I am between paychecks for a while and those are other ways you can support me!

Pic of the Week: My phone died and in it's last days, I did try to reset it with a factory reset. Prior to that, I *thought* all my data had properly synced, but apparently my photos didn't, so I lost a ton of them--anything I didn't have uploaded elsewhere already, and I haven't been taking new pictures. So, uhh... here's the front of our holiday card from last year. It's Garfield!

#comics #public domain explained #superman #captain marvel #shazam #blue beetle #garfield #I am not a lawyer

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davidmariottecomics · 4 months

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It's Weird Being Between Two Jobs

Hi there and happy new year!

Title kinda says it all in this week's blog, but the strangeness of this time in my life is really settling in.

Just because of how things worked out with leaving IDW and starting the new job, I ended up with a little under a month of free time. And the first week and some change of that was the end of the year holiday season. But the past week has been me sort of watching from the outside as people started going back to work. I did finish up some additional new hire paperwork, but that took maybe an hour total and I'm still over a week from starting the new gig. It's an odd space to be in. I'm not working for anyone--I'm not getting a paycheck (and am currently sort of living this month off of my last IDW paycheck plus paid out time-off)--but I'm also not so far removed from a gig as to be strictly freelance.

And to be totally honest, I don't know that I really like it. I am not great at having free time. I like the idea of free time. I like the idea of having time to write for myself or relax with my hobbies. But I am not great at the latter and the former betrays the fact that even with my free time, I'm often trying to switch into work mode. Heck, at the end of the day, my starting this blog and crossposting it as a newsletter/Tumblr/Patreon is all influenced by my not being good at not at least trying to be productive with my free time.

If you're also someone who has been working from home and especially if you've been working from home freelance, I'm sure you know all the complications of the domestic and recreational life against your job and probably are familiar with how helpful routine and scheduling is with all that. Right now, I'm freeform. I don't want to just use my old habits--the advantage of time off is specifically that I can break a 9-5 M-F format--but I feel like I don't have enough time to start building new routines. So, it's been a challenging couple of weeks. I have not done nearly as much as I think I'd like to have at this point, but I also keep needing to remind myself that I have done a number of things that were on my to-do list and that it's okay to have time off for myself.

As such, instead of a really specific blog on something of late, let me share a couple quick bits that've been on my mind.

The Anti-EGOT I recently finished a big relisten of season 2 of Dungeons & Daddies and in the intro to the show of one episode, Anthony Burch introduced the idea of an Anti-EGOT. I think he retroactively changed it in a later episode, but the general idea was to be a writer in four of the least respected mediums and not win an award for any of it. I believe, in the initial mention, the idea was the four mediums of choice would be video games, comic books, podcasts, and pornography (with wrestling being retroactively either added or replacing one of these, but I don't think I'm much of one to write for wrestling). Honestly, that kinda sounds like a dream to me. As I was listening to this stuff in the run-up to the new year, there was a part of me thinking "is going for the Anti-EGOT my resolution"? And I ultimately decided, no. I don't think that's a good resolution, but it is sort of my stretch goal for the year. If I can write in all those fields, get paid for it, and not win any awards (or, y'know... do) in my lifetime, I'll be pretty stoked.

What my actual goal for the year would be is I want to try to release 6 comics. Different lengths and varieties. I'm not currently anticipating having that be like a single mini-series or whatever, but I want to try to do more in comics with what I am producing. And if I can maybe branch out into one of those other areas this year, even if it doesn't have a release for another year or more, I'd be cool with that too.

Steamboat Willie Last year, you may've read my four part explainer about copyright! One thing that is repeatedly touched on there is the public domain and what all that means. Obviously, this year, Steamboat Willie and two other Mickey Mouse shorts entered the public domain. And it's been really interesting to watch that play out a little. It seemed like--and I know it's only been a week--most everyone got it out of their systems within the first 2-3 days of the year. A lot of that probably goes to Steamboat Willie and those early shorts not actually being all that interesting (fun, but very story-light). A lot of it goes to so much of what people would want to do with "Steamboat Willie" is either already legal because it falls under parody, is not actually meant to be sellable in any way, or was knocked out in a day. A lot of it too probably goes to how unclear what counts as public domain remains. For a character like Mickey, people have been pointing out are you using elements that were added after 1928 or treading on issues of trademark that are not copyright and are not as available. I am very curious to watch how this continues to play out this year (if it does), how things develop next year, and in the next couple of years, watch how things fall in preparation for about a decade from now when more of the early Disney catalog will be public domain (including Snow White) and other major companies start having some of their big hits become PD (like, say, Superman).

I'm also kinda bummed to have not seen any immediate announcements/releases of new comic versions of Lady Chatterly's Lover like there were of The Great Gatsby or anything. That's the other really interesting/wild thing about this year--to me, it seems like the majority of the fuss was around the Mouse and the things that've remained popular in part due to the mouse, Peter Pan and Tigger. I have not seen nearly enough talk about One Million Cats or any of the film or music.

Post-Twitter

The other day, Diana Sousa was asking on Bluesky (and Twitter, I guess), if Twitter is still the major non-convention way that comics editors discover new talent. And I responded as someone who is NO LONGER ON TWITTER but who is still needing to have discoverability of comics artists. I said, part of it is I am on other socials. I see new folks on Bluesky or Instagram or whatever. I also keep an eye on various databases--you don't have to be on Twitter to have access to #VisibleWomen or the Cartoonist Cooperative database or Cartoonists of Color or the Queer Cartoonist Database or the Disabled Cartoonist Database or any of these many sorts of resources. Something I didn't mention there, but will mention here is when you've got a company email address, you've often got agents of various sorts emailing you about talent, internal talent databases and/or recruiter-type folks, sharing info with other editors (and, y'know, I've in the past shared talent who I didn't have a gig for with editor friends at other companies because I thought they'd be a good fit).

As I've mentioned before, the lack of access to talent was why I did wait so long to delete my Twitter (and also wanting to make sure I had ways of keeping up with world events and following non-comics people). But, genuinely, I am not stressing over continuing to find new people now that I've been without it for a little bit and know I've got a system. Check Yourself for Midjourney Training Hey, speaking of my explainer on copyright and the lengths of time therein I talk about how "AI" is a tool of theft and companies trying to avoid paying artists for the use of their copyrighted works, the lawsuit against Midjourney's resulted in a list of names of "artists" they've scraped. Now, I only put "artists" in quotes because the list was made by incompetent tech bros and/or their clueless lawyers, and so there are a number of writers listed who do not particularly do art but where you can extrapolate that the artists they work with were scraped as well as companies, systems, game platforms, etc. While I understand that of course lawsuits are expensive, I do know a number of artists have been reaching out to the lawfirm of the existing suit and seeking to join the case as plaintiffs. If you're a visual artist, probably worth the time to double-check and, if you can, do something about it.

Okay, I think that's it for this week! See ya next time!

What I enjoyed this week: Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), Spy x Family (Manga), How to Read Nancy (Book), Hitman 2 (Video Game), Pokemon Conceirge (Cartoon), Ted Lasso (TV show, finally started season 3), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Movie--can you tell I'm in a D&D mood?), The Floor (TV show), my new discord (friends can ask for access!), sending out some feeler emails for new projects and getting to do at least a little bit of writing for myself.

New Releases this week (1/3/2024): Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (Editor)

Announcements: The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza and at least 500 people have shown their proof of donation. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists.

You can also give more directly. Things are obviously still very bad in Gaza as we've hit 3 full months of them being under siege. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, including plenty of women and children. Israel has killed more journalists than any single conflict in my lifetime. They are attacking not just Gaza and the West Bank, but other neighboring countries. I hope the Internatioal Court of Justice can help bring this to an end, but in the meantime, the US has significant influence over the situation (between internatioal political power and the weapons and money we're sending as both a nation and that are being sent my many corporations in the US). You can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives to demand a ceasefire or to protest their inaction so far or to throw eggs at the president for participating in and encouraging a genocide. You should keep aware of actions, demonstrations, protests, and celebrations in your community too. Given the nature of the things, they often come together fairly quickly, so do exercise your due diligence. Also, of course, being informed and just giving your time to Palestinian journalists and writers is incredibly valuable. I don't tend to be a big TikTok fan, but it has proven to be one of the most reliable resources for firsthand accounts of what's happening on the ground.

Meanwhile, Becca's got their first show of the year next weekend, 1/13 at Alesmith for a mini-con with BizBaz! Come pick up some new for 2024 stuff! Also, they've still got a little room in their schedule for this year, so get them for your comic project before it's too late!

Finally, calling out my Patreon again as well as my webstore (final stock on basically everything there except Jimmy Squarefoot), my Kofi, and my eBay account as I am between paychecks for a while and those are other ways you can support me!

Pic of the Week: We went to one of our favorite local restaurants, Rakitori in Hillcrest. They had a spicy cheesy tonkatsu ramen and I'm not a food picture guy usually, but I did quite like this photo and I'm actually very fortunate we ate there at the tail end of 2023, otherwise I'd have already eaten the best meal of 2024.

#comics #midjourney lawsuit #steamboat willie #public domain explained #anti-egot #food pics

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davidmariottecomics · 4 months

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Best of 2023

Hi there,

This week, we're celebrating the 2 year anniversary of my website and blog (well, just under 2 years, it officially launched on Jan 1). So, to round out this year with the blog and in general, I thought I'd do a little roundup of my personal "Best of" 2023. This is more a list of stuff I really dug this year than a formal ranking of any sort, and a lot of this isn't necessarily new in 2023, so much as stuff I discovered (and rediscovered) this year! Some things will get a little extra blurb, some things will just be listed. Alright, without further ado, my best of 2023!

PODCASTS: Dungeons & Daddies - Legitimately, 90% of my podcast listening this year was either Dungeons & Daddies or Blank Check. I don't even think I meant for it to be like that, it's just how it happened. As a work of collaborative fiction, I really love Dungeons & Daddies. It's a super funny show and this past week-ish, I've been relistening to Season 2 so far and have just been delighting in it. Blank Check My Year in MENSA Solve This Murder The Real Housewives of Dungeons & Dragons Abandoning the Premise - Haven't heard of it? Well so far, there's only one episode and it's exclusive to my Patreon! But it was fun and I'd like to revisit in the future!

VIDEO GAMES: Reverse 1999 Honkai Star Rail - I am very bad at playing updating video games. It doesn't come naturally to me. I am not someone who completes a lot of games--if I am really gripped by something, I'll finish the story, but I'm not very good about new game plus and 100% runs or anything like that. So, what usually happens with games like this is I get to a point where I am caught up and then I take a break because something else catches my eye or I have less time or I just feel like there's not a lot to do with where I'm at in the game and when I next try to dip in, I feel too far behind. That's definitely where I am with HSR right now, but I'm hoping to take some of my remaining time off to actually try to play and enjoy it again. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Detective Pikachu Returns - This was a Christmas gift and it's delightful! A lot of the puzzle-solving is very easy, but, I dunno, I like hanging out with my friends the Pokemon.

COMICS: Nancy Chainsaw Man Milky Way by Miguel Vila - Another Christmas gift, this book is beautifully ugly. It is a semi-erotic relationship-thriller that I think does a very good job of balancing the grotesqueness of human nature and interpersonal relations with a sort of soft loving lens of what compels us toward each other, even when it's at our expense. There's deception and injury and fetishization presented in ways that remind you why they're often treated as morally repugnant, but also are so attractive to us so often. Superman Kaguya-Sama: Love is War 17-21 The Rock Cocks Witch Watch - Every Sunday morning, I read through my "webcomics" of the week. I hit up Webtoon and catch up on anything there, then hop to Shonen Jump and read my new stuff there. Consistently, Witch Watch is probably my favorite read each Sunday morning, just because it almost never misses weeks and the characters are all just so delightful. Even with the current storyline being kinda weird (one of the main characters has been turned from a teen into a toddler and is being kinda raised by her romantic interest...) there's such a solid core of thoughtfulness and care and humor that I think it just always works. Spy x Famiy Lore Olympus Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story Birds of Prey Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville - I recently talked on my Patreon about how I think playing backseat editor and coming up with "a book that would really get readers to the shop regularly again" isn't practical because I think there are other things that could bolster comic sales in longer-lasting, better ways and I think particularly with the current state of the readership, "comics readers" aren't looking for a unifying title, they're looking for the stuff they find personally compelling. I'm a guy in comics, I have a lot to say on that and how to improve things, but that's for another day. Why I bring it up here is between Birds of Prey and Fire & Ice, those are the books that if there was justice in this world would bring all the boys to the yard. These are the exact kind of superhero titles I wanna read all the time. Poison Ivy: Thorns Superman: The Harvests of Youth Dumbing of Age One Piece Crimehot - Crimehot #4 came out this year and includes the Cassidy and Butch to our main group's Jessie and James (That's a Team Rocket reference), the way more competent counterparts who all have weirdly deep backstories with the main cast. And let me tell you... like the name says, they're hot. And they do hot stuff. It's a good comic. Steamy Dandadan - I was recently gushing about Dandadan to some friends and described it as really hitting me as a comic that is so very much a book about whatever interests the creator at the moment (similar to Witch Watch in that way). If you read the pitch, it's like "she believes in ghosts and not aliens, and he believes in aliens and not ghosts and then wacky stuff happens to make a believer out of both of them" but it's really a light rom-com with just bonkers stuff happening and I love that about it. Three Rocks: The story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth What Happens Next - This is a webcomic I discovered not too long ago and there are content warnings on the very first page that I think are very helpful to make sure you're in the right headspace for it. I am a big fan of stories about younger adults finding their place in the world--not a coming of age "taking your first steps into real life" kind of thing, but a "you've been around for a while and life is hard and even if you're doing the right things, or nothing at all, why isn't it better and what comes next" types of stoires. This totally fits that. And it reads incredibly quickly since it's usually 1-2 panels per page.

BOOKS: Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror - I look at my comics list and I look at the things I didn't place on either list and I know I read plenty this year, but it does feel strange having such a short list for traditional books. There's a lot to that: I spent like 6 weeks spending all my free reading time catching up on 1100 chapters of One Piece. I started a handful of books that I was enjoying but for one reason or another paused and didn't really pick back up. And so while this is the most recent release on the list, Out There Screaming was a major help for me because it was something I could pick up and read in short bursts and leave satisfied and wanting to come back for more. Every story--even the ones that I didn't like as much, was compelling and fun and left me thinking about it afterwards. House of Leaves Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs - Book of the year. I don't even eat hot dogs, but I loved this book! I'm Glad My Mom Died The Broken Room

TV SHOWS: Poker Face Craig of the Creek Rise of the TMNT Transformers: Earthspark I Think You Should Leave - Out of everything we've consumed this year, I think ITYSL is the most quoted show in our household (though Real Housewives of Beverly Hills/Vanderpump Rules are close contenders). So much of this show is so funny and strange. The Rehersal Barry My Adventures with Superman Praise Petey - Without a doubt, Praise Petey is the least known show on this list. And because of that, as I just found out, it was canceled after a single season which sucks. The premise is after her cult leader dad dies, a down-on-her-luck New Yorker moves to the countryside and becomes a cult leader... whether she wants to or not and her own feelings on that differ minute-by-minute. Despite the broad premise, it's pretty in line with other animated sitcoms like Bob's Burgers or King of the Hill (it is a Mike Judge co-production) that I think speaks in an authentic, funny voice of the 18-35 demographic. If you like Only Murders in the Building, I think this has a similar energy, but hornier and with more of the concerns of youth than of old men. Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake Sex Education - Okay, I know I said I wasn't doing rankings, but as an overall piece of media, I think Sex Education is my show of the year. The last season, the one that came out this year, isn't my favorite of the series, but when so many shows flub their endings, this one really found a way to nail it (and to roll with the more major cast/location changes) in a way that felt real. This is one of those shows that, if it was available on DVD, I would buy to add to my "regular rotation", but much like Freaks and Geeks, I'd only ever be able to watch some of it again because as it got closer to the end, I don't know that I'd be able to emotionally take that on a regular basis. Joe Pera Talks with You Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

MOVIES: The Boy and the Heron The Fablemans - I have very complicated feelings about this movie. On the one hand, I really loved it on first viewing. It hit me emotionally in a major way. I've talked on the blog before about crying multiple times in the theater. And if you had asked me in the first half of the year what my favorite movie of the year was, it'd probably be this (even though it's technically a 2022 film). But I also have my issues with Steven Spielberg and... it is a film where I'm still navigating my own emotional catharsis with it relative to Spielberg as an artist/creator/subject of the film. Not to get too far into real issues of death of the author and separation of the art and artist, this is the sort of hyper-personal work that even moreso than usual I think cannot be separated from the creator and so my changing feelings on him means I'm still figuring out my new relationship with the work. M3GAN Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem - Up until recently, this probably would've moved into the movie of the year spot. I just thought it was so much fun. It's a visual feast. I like that it's a full story (Sorry, Spider-Verse). I love the world and the enthusiasm of the turtles and just really tuned in. Robocop Phantom of the Paradise - Becca watched this for the first time with me and we both marveled on how this kind of forgotten cult film actually informed so much of all pop culture for decades to come. I am happy to say that overall, still slaps. Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blue Beetle Gone Girl - I ended up watching a lot of Fincher movies this year, largely influenced by Blank Check. And Gone Girl has to be my favorite of his, and, on this rewatch, one of my favorite films of the 2010s. Oldboy Josee, the Tiger and the Fish Godzilla: Minus One - Again, not to rank things so much, but if Minus One did an Oscars sweep and took home (checks notes) every award, I'd be happy. Even the ones that don't make sense. Best Documentary Short? Give it to Godzilla, cowards! An absolute masterpiece on every level.

MUSIC: The Loveliest Time - Look, we got a new CRJ album. What else do you want from me?

OTHER STUFF: A smooth transition from IDW into the holidays (and into my new thing soon) Making a Discord for my friends and the feeling that I can spend a little time making my friendships stronger with some folks while we aren't also coworkers/collaborators. Bluesky (and not being on Twitter). Remaining boosted on my vaccines and not having any serious illness of my own. Becca's first year on Twitch. My first year on Patreon. WaifuExpo (now KimochiiCon) and generally being more open in my interest in consuming and creating adult material. Having some good experiences at shows and doing so many (will not be doing so many in 2024). Having good times with the people I love. All the comics I edited, all the blogs I posted, and just being at an end to that for the year.

Not to be a bummer at the end, but it has been a long, strange, difficult year. There is so much wrong in the world and so many are struggling. So, it's nice that there is also so much that I found enjoyment and comfort in. I hope you've had some real bright spots in this year too, and I look forward to next year with you.

I am not much for resolutions. I usually don't do a good job of them, if I bother to make them at all. But I do have some things I'll briefly say I'm excited for in the coming year.

I am excited to get married and to figure out what celebrations we can do around that. I am excited to start this new job and tell you all about it when I can. I am excited to make more comics. Besides my little self-drawn things that you can find on this blog, I didn't release any comics this year and I am very much looking forward to that not being the case in 2024. I am excited to grow my friendships. I am excited to continue this blog.

Thanks for reading. Happy new year!

New Releases next week (1/3/2024): Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (Editor)

Pic of the Week: A little thing about where else to find me online that I made.

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davidmariottecomics · 4 months

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Goodbye IDW! Hello Something New!

Hi there!

After seven years and some change, today, 12/22/2023, is my last day at IDW Publishing. It's for good reasons. Things just timed out that my last day could be the last work day of the year for IDW and in the new year, I'll be starting a new job elsewhere. I'll still be in comics and once I can talk about the new gig, I'm really stoked to be letting you all know. So, today, I want to say my goodbye to IDW.

But first, before I get to that, I did have something else notable happen this week. I sent my last tweet! I'm officially shutting down my Twitter at the end of the year and if you see a Twitter account claiming to be me after January 1st, it's an imposter. If you'd like to keep up with me, however, I've got good news! There are lots of other ways to find me still. Here are a few!

Check out and bookmark my website! Get access to my blog, plus lots of behind the scenes stuff and new projects at my Patreon! Subscribe to a newsletter version of my blog for free at Buttondown! Follow my blog on Tumblr! Keep up with my main socials: Bluesky and Instagram (I'm @davidmariotte at both)!

Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about it. This is not my first time saying goodbye. In fact, almost exactly a year ago, I said my farewells to Transformers, one of the hallmarks of my IDW run. I don't want to revisit that too much, so if you want to read about my early days at IDW or that part of my career or a big list of thank yous to my collaborators, you can! And while I've had significant runs with other books, most notably Sonic the Hedgehog which with January's Sonic: Fang the Hunter #1 will mark 100 issues of Sonic at IDW under my editorial eye, or my personally exciting, if shorter runs on stuff like Godzilla, Samurai Jack, the Hasbro Action books, Canto, Scarenthood, The Kill Lock, The October Faction, Wynonna Earp, Brynmore, Atomic Robo, or literally so many other books, I don't want this to just be a retrospective on the work. In fact, I'm largely not interested in talking about the past when I say goodbye this time.

IDW has afforded me a lot. They've helped me find my place in the industry. They let me do some writing. They let me do a lot of editing. I learned various other skills both through directly on the course of the job and through my own interest because of what I was doing and seeing there. I have made true lifelong friendships. And I have made comics. So leaving feels weird. I'm very bummed to be leaving a place that really has been my home (and for the past couple of years, has quite literally been mostly at my home) for so long. But I am even more excited about what's to come. On my side, I can't announce it just yet, but watch this space for some big news soon (after a couple weeks of much needed vacation).

Talking about the future I actually can say a little more about, I wanna tell you how excited I am for IDW. Yes, I'm leaving, but IDW remains home to so many people--both at the company and our freelance creators--and so many projects that are close to my heart. Next year is their 25th anniversary. That is an impressive feat in not just the world of comics, but any industry. For the milestone, they've got a lot of cool stuff planned.

I'm not going to blow up IDW's spot and say anything about what's coming up too early. Just to talk about the things that are already public knowledge, you've got things like the new TMNT: The Last Ronin sequel! The TMNT ongoing on it's road to issue #150! There are cool new originals like Golgotha Motor Mountain! There's the launch of the aforementioned Fang the Hunter which is IDW's first Classic Sonic mini-series and sees 100 unique issues of Sonic at IDW and is just laugh-out-loud funny and full of such good action! And I'll tease this, when the Sonic ongoing is back with issue #69 in May, you'll be in for an absolute treat as that series runs up to #75!

I know some readers of this blog don't read a ton of American direct market comics. You aren't "Wednesday Warriors" who go to the comic shop every week. You like the comics you like and I've been graced to be a person working on those comics. If you aren't as familiar with how these comics work, let me assure you of a couple things. The books I was editing and many unannounced projects that I set up will still be happening. Because of the timelines of comic production, you'll still see my name in IDW books for a few more months and, at the same time, you'll see new credits creeping in. And if we've done everything right, that'll be about the only thing you'll notice is different, at least at first. As the editors really take the reins and take over, we'll both be in for the treat of the unknown! I'll be reading them with a good sense of professional jealousy.

Now, there's one other book that has been announced for next year and I wanted to do a special call out for. Godzilla: Valentine's Day Special went to press this week. It's the last IDW book I saw all the way from inception to completion. And, in many ways, it's kind of a really good analogy of a comics editorial career. I think, genuinely, this may be the book that went from conception to reality the fastest in my career. I think it took... less than a week from a half-joking suggestion of doing a Godzilla Valentine's Day book to getting Zoe Tunnell's pitch in and approved by Toho and getting it on the publishing schedule. Usually these things take a bit--people are working on other projects, licensors need time to review things, whatever other bumps happen along the way--but this was like lightning. Everyone just got it instantly. And then Zoe turned in the script and it was great! Things continued, as they do, and then... we got a curveball or two. I won't go into too much detail, but major thanks to Sebastian Piriz and Rebecca Nalty for getting it done and having a book that we were all so proud of that I could send to press this week. And it struck me on that final press day that despite the curveballs we had been thrown, when it came to actually getting it approved, everything was so easy, straightforward, and smooth. When you read it in February, if I've done my job right, maybe you'll remember seeing somewhere that there were some curveballs. But mostly, you'll just have a really good book in your hands. (BTW, you did JUST MISS the final order cutoff on that, so do check in with your shop about still trying to get you a copy!)

Most of the time, after a book like that goes to press, an editor gets ready to do it again--maybe in a few minutes or days or the next week. For the first time in a long time, I won't be getting ready to do it again at IDW. That's a complicated feeling, but I'm so excited for the future.

The best metaphor I've been able to come up with for what is happening is it's like I've been working in a one room office constantly for the past seven years. It's got that dull office lighting, you know the kind. Each day, projects come and go across my desk, and as they otherwise disappear into the world, I put up one of those glow-in-the-dark stars as a memory of it. And each day, I work with so many people--my coworkers at IDW who've helped foster my growth, my collaborators as both a writer and editor who have made so many stories with me, all the folks where things never quite lined up but we kept trying, and the readers who are an inherent part of the ecosystem, the reason we make what we do. And so, for each of those people, I put up a little glow in the dark toy.

Now, for the first time, I'm going to get up and leave the office. As I flick the switch behind me, everything in there that has been soaking up light for years now glows. Some of the glows are slight. Some are so fantastically bright, it feels like they're drawing attention through the walls of the room. Together, they make the room brighter than it was when I left. Now, sometimes, I might sneak in to borrow a toy--make a copy of it for the new office I'm doing the same thing in. Other people will certainly do the same and make they've got their Evan Stanley figure on their shelf. If I ever return for a longer time, I'll be so glad to flick the light back on and let them all absorb even more light to glow an even longer time. If I don't, I rest happy that the glow goes on and forever people will be able to come back and discover some part of it. And I'll start working on a new office soon.

If I keep going, I'm a little afraid that I won't be able to stop. So, for now, I'll just say again, thank you. The future is about to be very exciting. Next year is for the creators you love or don't know you love yet, the books that are going to light you up that you've come to expect and the ones that will catch you by total surprise. While there are a lot of things I'm going to miss deeply and books that I'm going to wish I had gotten to do more on, I also have the really exciting experience of getting to see this stuff as a fan of IDW, just like you. And, hey, I hope you'll be a fan of the stuff I do next too!

As for next steps, like I've said, I'm not going far. I'll still be in comics. I'll share the news when I can.

Before that, I'm getting a little break. Not too long, just a few weeks, and obviously the holidays are part of those, but in my time between my jobs, I'm going to be working on some personal projects. I put together a little tracking list recently and I have something like 40 projects in various stages of gestation right now. Obviously, I'm not going to be working on all of those at once, and chances are, some of them will never see the light of day, but I'm going to be working on trying to bring a couple of them to you in the new year (and beyond). If you're an artist that I've had the pleasure of working with in the past and you think you might be interested in peeping the list and seeing what we could do together, let me know. You can reach me on my website contact page, through my email, or through Discord (feel free to ask if you don't have it!).

And if you read this blog, you'll see me hyping my last IDW projects up until we run out of what I left behind. Simultaneously, once I've got stuff to start hyping up for my personal projects and for the new gig, you'll see those start to pop up here too! I'll also keep talking about making comics and my thoughts on the state of the world and whatever else it is I blog about here on a regular basis!

Thanks for reading. Bye-DW! Next week, I'll be doing a little Best of 2023. But for now, onto our regular features.

What I enjoyed this week: Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Cunk on Earth (TV show), I'm a Virgo (TV show), The Boy and the Heron (Movie), an easy last week at IDW, all the well-wishes that've already poured in, leaving today to celebrate Christmas with my family and then have some downtime to work on my stuff, signing the paperwork for the new job, not being on Twitter anymore, getting all of our mail out in a timely fashion for the holidays, Chainsaw Man (Manga), I picked up Superman and Hawkgirl, so excited to get caught up on those, and knowing that in leaving this job, there are certain folks I just get to deepen my relationships with as friends, instead of co-workers.

New Releases this week (12/20/2023): Godzilla: The War for Humanity #3 (Editor) Godzilla Rivals: Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon (Editor)

Announcements: The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. Additionally, the CC is hosting their mini-comic awards! It's a cool way to maybe get your mini-comic recognized and make some scratch!

While Becca has got some things brewing for next year (and now on a schedule), you should reach out if you'd like to work on comics with them! You can find their gallery on their website and also, y'know, maybe pick up a few things for belated gifts while you're there!

Finally, I called out my Patreon earlier. You can support me (and boy, that would be cool during the time between paychecks because vacation is nice, but living is still expensive) and get not just this blog, but a lot of cool special features like extra posts, comics, infographics, and more! At the $10+ levels, you can also access stuff like a holiday gift guide I made, a podcast pilot for a spicy show with Becca, and a ton more!

Pic of the Week: Happy holidays from Becca and me! If you wanna full card in your inbox, lemme know!

#comics #godzilla idw #sonic idw #transformers idw #goodbye idw #comics news #david mariotte

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davidmariottecomics · 4 months

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HAPPY WINTER JAM DAY! this comic was an absolute delight to work on, everybody did such a fantastic job, and i hope you all enjoy it. happy holidays from us to you! 💙

❄️ The Winter Jam Crew ❄️ ⭐️ Iasmin Omar Ata (that's me!) (story/Cover R-10) ⭐️ David Mariotte (editor) ⭐️ Min Ho Kim (line art/Cover A) ⭐️ Reggie Graham (colors) ⭐️ Shawn Lee (letters) ⭐️ Johanna Nattalie (production)

⭐️ Abigail Oz (Cover B) ⭐️ Adam Bryce Thomas (Cover R-25) ⭐️ Priscilla Tramontano (Con-exclusive Cover)

💙 special thanks: Gigi Dutreix

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davidmariottecomics · 4 months

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Save Your Work!

Hello, friends!

This week is going to be very quick because, not to get ahead of myself, but next week is likely going to be pretty long. I didn't mean to time things out so there'd be a long one right after I'm done with work for the year and most people are off for that final week, but that's how things worked out. And the week after that, the last weekend of the year, I'm going to do a Best of 2023 round-up.

But, in my brief update this week, I wanted to talk about some very straightforward best practices.

I turned on my computer this morning and was shocked to find that I was *turning on* my computer this morning. One way or another, it had shut down since the last time I used it. Maybe it was Becca or a planned restart or something, but however it happened, my computer was off. And as any artist should know... you neeeeeeeeeeeed to make sure your stuff is saved again and again. You see, I was working on my holiday gift guide that I'm building for my Patreon when the computer shut off and I lost a whole spread and some change. All of it. The images, the hyperlinks, the text--both in terms of what I wrote and the font choices I made--everything. It shouldn't be terrible, but it'll add at least an extra hour on as I have to rebuild all of that. So, if you ever work on anything that would benefit from being saved, make sure you do!

The other best practice I want to emphasize today is something I say a lot. If you'd like to work in comics professionally, please make it easier on yourself and any potential collaborators/hiring folks, by making your web presence clear and accessible. Something I've slowly been working on over the past few weeks is going through my Twitter as I get ready to delete it before the end of the year and looking to make sure I have contact information from anyone I'm interested in not losing. I'm looking for emails, or agents, or websites. And the more varied the information, the better. Because I'm trying to incorporate that into my existing digital rolodex, whenever possible, while emails (for talent or their agents) are the things that are most helpful, I am looking to add your website info so I can quickly pop to it before emailing you and make sure you're who I think you are and your style is what I think it is. As much as possible, when I look through info I got from old like Visible Women sheets and the like, I'm looking for people who aren't just including their handle on one social because those can change, or who aren't just linking to an Instagram or Twitter account with "DM me" because while I know some people work best in DMs, for legal paperwork and the like, an email is so much more helpful.

Lastly, and this should go without saying, but this is a post about common sense practices, be kind to folks. I don't know why this seems so counter-intuitive to certain people, but if you're openly hostile toward your peers, they don't want to work with you. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of ostracization. It literally can't be said enough. Comics as an industry is doing just fine and differentiation in the medium in both format and talent is only a good thing.

Alright. More next week!

What I enjoyed this week: Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Dandadan (Manga), Godzilla: Minus One (Movie), Godzilla Raids Again (Movie), Cunk on Earth (TV show), I'm a Virgo (TV show), Clyde Fans by Seth (Comic), getting and making some really exciting 2023 news. There's some amazing stuff to come!

New Releases this week (12/13/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog: Winter Jam (Editor)

Final Order Cutoff next week (12/18/2023): Godzilla Valentine's Day Special (Editor) If you haven't seen it, I put together a little explainer on what exactly a "Final Order Cutoff" is and why it matters! And if you found this helpful and have a platform where you think people should know, those explainers are watermarked and good to share!

New Releases next week (12/20/2023): Godzilla: The War for Humanity #3 (Editor) Godzilla Rivals: Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon (Editor)

Announcements: If there is one blog this year that you should not miss, it's next week's. Big news to come.

The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. Additionally, the CC is hosting their mini-comic awards! It's a cool way to maybe get your mini-comic recognized and make some scratch!

You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. Keep your eyes open for actions too, whether they're another general strike like what happened last Monday or demonstrations and marches in your area. Given the nature of the things, they often come together fairly quickly, so do exercise your due diligence. Also, of course, being informed and just giving your time to Palestinian writers is incredibly valuable. Whether that is journalists on the ground--who are being murdered at extraordinary rates--or reading Fiyah's Palestine Solidarity issue or anything from Verso's solidarity reading list, having and sharing that knowledge is significant.

Becca just did their Art vs. Artist post for 2023. They did a lot of really cool work this year! They also posed a spicy art version. And as if it could not be said enough, while we've got some things brewing (and now on a schedule), you should reach out if you'd like to work on comics with them! I think we're both looking to do more next year! You can find their gallery on their website and also, y'know, maybe pick up a few things for belated gifts while you're there!

If you aren't a Patreon backer yet, well, like I said above, I've been working on something pretty cool. I'm building a holiday gift guide. It won't probably be out with a lot of shopping time for Christmas in particular, but I thought it'd be a fun way to showcase some of what I've been learning more generally about design and how to make comics and zines and stuff. I'm really proud of it and it'll be exclusive to $10+ backers for December and then will be made public in a couple months. Also at that $10+ tier, there's stuff like a tour of my workspace, an adults-only podcast pilot that Becca and I recorded called "Abandoning the Premise" (short sample here), a review of root beers is also coming up quick, old D&D campaigns I ran, and more! Another goal of mine for next year is to grow my Patreon and also have it start making some money to fund more comics ventures for myself.

Pic of the Week: I teased it last week, but the Winter Jam team did a Winter Jam-piece! Our fabulous leader, Iasmin Omar Ata, got Reggie Graham, Adam Bryce Thomas, Abigail Oz, Shawn Lee, and me to put together a happy holidays card from the Winter Jam cast! I did the thought balloon Froggy because even when Big is holding "Froggy", he can't stop thinking about that frog!

#comics #sonic idw #comic tips #save your work

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davidmariottecomics · 5 months

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100 Blogs (Give or Take): FIGHT!

Hello!

Welcome to my 100th* blog!

*Or, rather, blog week 101 over on my website. In terms of actual blogs, I'm probably more in the 70s-80s? I try to update as much as possible, of course, but some weeks things've not uploaded properly. Occasionally, I've had just too much life stuff or I haven't really had much to write about. And sometimes, on the extreme ends, I've had way too much to write about and have been overwhelmed at trying to parse out everything I needed to. Last week, when I missed the actual week 100, was somewhere inbetween those: feeling uninspired because I was so tired from both stuff in my personal life and the many many many things happening in the world at large.

I've, unsurprisingly, still got a lot on my mind. Like 200 organizations have pledged their support for KOSA and sounds like they might not all understand exactly what they're supporting (but you can still make your voice heard on why not to let it pass, namely the continued safety and security of LGBTQ+ folks online who might otherwise get explicitly banned from the most public online spaces, or at least implicitly banned through shadowbanning--as well as all the kids that could be harmed from the inability to access information that they might actually need.).

The U.S. blocked a U.N. call for ceasefire singlehandedly, despite the rest of the security council (minus abstaining U.K. and... that was noticed, guv) being in favor and, of course the overwhelming national and international support for a ceasefire (one progressive thinktank's polling suggested around a 60% US support for ceasefire, to whatever extent those kinds of polls can be trusted, however, the feet on the ground at protests, making calls, sending emails, trying to get into Senatorial offices with ladders, etc show a pretty vocal support for one).

The website formerly known as Twitter gave me just another reason to leave with their new AI. I don't want to see anything about it because I, y'know, get that it's like dunking on the people who wanted to use it for evil and that's funny or whatever, but it's also another AI system that's almost certainly just regurgitating things actually people said and thought and made and ought to be given credit and/or money for the use of. We shouldn't be letting our guard down around an AI just because it's telling transphobes to go fuck themselves--this is still the same shit that is stealing from artists or denying people their medical coverage!

And, also mostly on Twitter because it's a bad place (and I'll remind ya now, I'm leaving by the year's end. I'll be here on the blog and you can find me on Bluesky and I have a couple spare invites if you might need one, but my Twitter's coming to an end soon and I think my Facebook/Insta aren't too far behind...) multiple dirtbag comics guys decided to make the rounds again. They've had their airtime and I have no interest in giving them a platform, but boy, they sure were around.

Plus, y'know, all the other stuff that has just been continuing, from the continued assault on Ukraine to Covid hospitalizations and deaths going up again.

It's the end of the year and cha'boy is tired. It has been a long, long year and I'm very much looking forward to it ending for whatever that is worth and the time of relaxation I get to have around that end. And so, I wasn't really feeling like writing... but then, I saw a post on Bluesky from Marcus Jimenez asking all comics folks about crafting fight scenes. And so I wanna talk about that this week because I don't often get a chance to talk about the mechanics of comics within comics, and that can be really fun!

Squaring Up

As someone who has written and edited a lot of fight scenes, there are a lot of different ways to go about it. As I think I've said before, in my own writing, I tend toward a little more description and full dialogue so the artist has those space considerations in mind when working from my scripts. As an editor, I've worked the "Marvel" way where pages are more plotted with with less dialogue and specific action. I've worked with folks who do more of a rough pass where they focus on the concrete smaller moments and then leave a lot of the action up to the artist. I've worked with folks who're even more prescriptive than me. And there's something to finding the right balance on all sides with all these folks--from the writer and artist meshing in terms of what sort of detail they want from each other to having complimentary colors and letters.

But for myself, and something I have sometimes talked to creators about, one of the first things I focus on when it comes to an action or fight scene is the specific things the character(s) can do. When I think about some of my bigger fight sequences in say Transformers vs. the Terminator or Transformers Wreckers: Tread & Circuits (both available from my webstore, *hint hint*), one of the most apparent things is that I loaded them with a lot of characters doing a lot of things, so... sorry to my artists (no, I know Alex and Jack loved working on them--again, if you can, write to the artist's strengths and I happened to work with guys I knew were excited about these sorts of big scenes). But in that, there are a lot of characters with specific abilities. Generally speaking, right, in TF/Term, we've got three different types of combatants: Sarah Conner is a human, the T-800 is a Terminator, and the Transformers are Transformers. So the skills Sarah has are different from all the robots and, obviously, the Transformers have the ability to convert modes which is something unique to them as characters that can make for really exciting sequences. And even within the Transformers, there are different combat capabilities: Skywarp can teleport. Soundwave has sonic attacks. Megatron has a huge arm cannon. Optimus has an energon axe. The Seekers can fly. And characters like Velocity are medics, who she doesn't really shoot to kill, she can hold her own after millenia at war, but she's not a fighter first and doesn't wanna do terrible damage to anyone.

To me, it's the same thing as a fight with Spider-Man. You know he's got the proportional speed, strength, and agility of a spider. You know he has web-fluid (unless he doesn't and that sort of circumstance is interesting in a fight). He can stick to things and sense danger and all the standard Spidey tricks. And if you want a scene to be engaging, you wanna know what your characters can do in it that is unique--either to other characters and stories, or within this specific scenario. Seeing Spidey use his webs or his wall-crawling or his spider-sense is more interesting on a page than him just swinging his fists (generally). These are all sort of tools in the toolbox that determine what they can do in a fight. I also think that when you combine them with the circumstances of the fight, you start to see how they'll act in a fight. Why they make the decisions they do.

So, to use TF again, in TF/Terminator, let's talk about the set-up to the big fight that runs through issues #3 & #4. It starts out with Bumblebee and Sarah scouting out the Decepticons who are up to no good. And the instigating question is, if Bumblebee's a good scout, how does someone sneak up on him? Well, Skywarp is a teleporter. So he just appears! But he's also maybe a little dumb, so he announces himself. Bumblebee's first priority is protecting Sarah, so the best way to do that is for him to shift modes around her as a running shield. They'll go faster. If he gets hit, it'll reduce the impact on her. Etcetera. He could do other things--he could stay and fight and blast at Skywarp, but because the option is open to him to change modes and to drive away, he's going to because that's fun and it makes sense with his character. Then he tries to do some fancy driving to trick Skywarp into ramming into Megatron, but because Skywarp can teleport, hey, he gets away in perfect position to take another run at Bumblebee. But because he teleported higher to get a better position, it also left him more open to get shot by Optimus in the heroic arrival of the rest of the Autobots. The characters' abilities made a really clear picture of the sort of action that could occur with the setting and are reflective of why they act the way they do.

Throw a Punch A lot of the action is going to flow pretty naturally, from a writing standpoint, once you've got it started. If I know who my characters are, what they can do, and the basic scenario they find themselves in, as long as I've got that in my head, I can just sort of play them off each other and see how the action goes. But there ar some other practicalities I try to take into account as I go.

1. How many characters do I have to keep track of? Like I said, a lot of my fight scenes have been bigger. I've got groups fighting each other, with civilians to worry about. And while you don't need to show every beat of every action, you do have to keep roughly in mind how everyone is reacting and to what extent you do want to switch between POVs and protagonists. I tend to measure my beats to either pages or page turns, rather than doing too much action switching on a single page unless I'm trying to convey just how hectic things are and just how simultaneous actions are occuring.

2. How fast is your action moving? Two things I think about a lot when I'm writing action are that a round of combat in Dungeons & Dragons is supposed to be 6 seconds, and that the coolest fight I've ever seen on film is the almost 6 minute fight scene in They Live. (6 minutes later...) I'm back! Okay, so either way, I think what both of those are very representative of are how quickly action occurs in a fight and how much of the time in a fight is the other stuff. It's the non-combat movement. It's catching your breath or setting a trap or focusing on another problem or putting sunglasses on a guy. And in comics, you have the ability to dialate time as you'd like, so each panel can be a second or a matter of seconds, with the gutters allowing time to pass out of frame. You want your action to be logical and continous, but it's okay to have other things happening in the flow, and maybe more importantly, to chose which moments have the most impact. In D&D, 6 seconds can take like 6 minutes. And on film, you're getting so many constant frames. Comics lets you be a lot chosier in how you expand and contract the time around those moments.

3. How text heavy is the fight? Here's the other side of things. I know that I tend to be a talker. I mean... look how long it's taken to get to this point! I like dialogue in my comics and often have characters trading verbal jabs during the action. And that takes time and space. As do sound effects. So, I try to balance my fight scenes to the essentials. Much the same as the issue of time, I'm trying to select the moments of greatest impact with what we're "hearing". The more that's being asked of an action panel, the less text I try to give it. Let the art take over. But if I can use the action as a punctuation: If Optimus or Thunderclash or whoever is giving his hero speech and can toss a punch at a baddie to make his point, I'm going to use it. And if action is the visual punctuation to dialogue in this way, SFX are the visual punctuation to the action. They're an exclamation point on what sound is important. A lot of the time, it'll be no sound. But if it'll clarify the action or if it'll enhance the mood, go for it!

Most important to a fight scene is that *generally* they're supposed to be fun. They're moments of fantasy where a side that's in some sort of right and a side that's in some sort of wrong clash and there's a victor and we all cheer because it's entertaining to see Rowdy Roddy Piper get his ass handed to him up until the end, but when he finally gets one over on Keith David, you know it's because he was right. So while you're thinking of all this stuff, if you give in to the fun, it'll propel you through a lot of it. Now, there're obviously also moments when the fighting is supposed to be building tension or showing the horrors of violence, but I think that goes to a lot of the same mentality as we've already got. It's about making the characters respond to the situation of the fight and if their responses fall in line with that, it'll still be smooth sailing because it'll be what makes sense.

I think that's it for me for this week, but maybe in a coming week, I can do something like a mini-version of something I did on my Patreon when I did an annotated version of the Wreckers #1 script and do sort of a practical walk-through of a new original fight scene.

Until next time. Happy Hanukkah to those that celebrate!

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), Factory Summers by Guy Delisle (Comic), It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood (Comic), Slaughterhouse-Five (the Comic adaptation by Ryan North & Albert Monteys), being almost done with all gift shopping and wrapping 2 weeks early, Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Dandadan (Manga), our little mall Model Train Museum, Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville (Comic), Blue Beetle (Comic), Birds of Prey (Comic), Christmas lights, finding a good deal on a present for myself (I found the G.I. Joe Bishoujo Scarlett statue for a mere $40 at a local secondhand store and I think she's really pretty), not getting sick even tho Becca was, and I guess The Killer (Movie). Not my favorite Fincher by a lot. We're tentatively gonna see Godzilla: Minus One tomorrow, so looking forward to that and will try to figure out seeing Boy and the Heron, Eileen, Dream Scenario, and maybe The Marvels (tho it being a Disney film makes it a tougher sell) before they're out of theaters... and maybe Priscilla... and maybe FNAF on the big screen since Becca's really into FNAF right now. Too many movies! And I love movies!

New Releases this week (12/6/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog #67 (Editor)

New Releases next week (12/13/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog: Winter Jam (Editor)

Announcements: Look for a kind fun thing I contributed to this week! I'll share it when it's live!

The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. There are a ton of demonstrations happening this weekend and you can see if you can put your actions in on one of those!

If you aren't a Patreon backer yet, remember, it's a great gift for someone or yourself. At my $10 tier, last month, I got Becca to record an Adults-Only podcast called "Abandoning the Premise" with me. You should be able to hear a short sample at the link. And if that seems cool to you, you can get the whole episode, but a bunch of other weird stuff on my Patreon! This month's "Something Weird"s are going to be a root beer review (I bought 6 different root beers and Becca suggested I talk about what I thought of them and there'll be a little more to it that that) and hopefully posting next weekend, a Holiday Gift Guide written, chosen, and designed by me (be careful if you're a person who might get a gift from me... you might see your present in there)!

And keep an eye out for more news soon. Really hoping to have some cool news in the new year if not before!

Pic of the Week: So, last Wednesday, I made a trip up to the IDW Los Angeles office. Because we have a lot of people spread out, we have a couple office locations. But the LA office happened to host some friends from SEGA and, specifically, some visitors from Sonic Team! We gave them the tour, talked about the comics, gave them some to take home, all the good usual visiting stuff. But Karasuno-san, Kanemoto-san, and Hoshino-san very generously did some sketches for us before they left. So, should you get a chance to tour the IDW offices in the future, you might see this sketch page hanging on the wall.

#comics #comic writing #fight scenes #they live #transformers #transformers vs terminator #sonic idw #real life news

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davidmariottecomics · 5 months

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Why is it so Hard to Launch a Superhero Universe?

Face front, true believers!

We're talking superhero comics! In particular, we're going to be talking a little more history this time and then, y'know, time for a bit of updates on the world and what you can maybe do to help things not totally fall apart.

I was talking with someone this week about superhero comics and it made me think about what the new superhero universe of the 2020s is going to be. Now, I hope that the person I was talking to about it is the one who cracks it because they've got a lot of good ideas, but I wanted to do a quick rundown of just how hard it is to make a new superhero universe that lands in the market and has a real staying power. Looking at the history, I think since the 1990s, there's been one major front-runner each decade, and then some other notable accomplishments. So, let's walk through 'em and see if there's anything we can discover from that.

2020s: ??? Maybe the Massive-Verse? We're still pretty early in the 2020s and I don't want to make a definite call at this point, but I will say, I think the Massive-Verse, the Image comics spinning out of Radiant Black by Kyle Higgins and cohorts is a strong front-runner. And as we move backwards in time to talk about this all, I think it'll increasingly make sense why. But, to put a brief pin in this, let me say that I think Kyle's got a good pedigree in the Direct Market, a strong and largely focused concept that allows for a fair amount of different folks to work on very complimentary stories that feel of a shared creative vision, and a history of Image superhero books doing well.

2010s: My Hero Academia

Okay, so, now with the benefit of hindsight, I think it's fair to say that the biggest new superhero universe globally in the 2010s was My Hero Academia. It was this kinda crazy crossover hit that blends a lot of tropes of shonen action/school manga with American superheroes. But what made it a success?

First and foremost, I think a lot of what would be it's competition in a US comics-based market was in a weird place. That's not to discount MHA in any way, just to say that it was able to step into a niche that had kinda been forgotten. The most direct American superhero comics comparisons to it would probably be X-Men and Legion of Superheroes (with sort of Teen Titans/Young Justice as more strained comparsions). Both X-Men and Legion focus on a large team of heroes, often told through a couple key focal characters, who have generally unique powers from each other and the rest of the world with some minor concerns about being young and having school or the responsibilities of youth, but that was almost always backburnered for the action. Both have, at various points, had their characters wrestle with being empowered in a world where not everyone is and the various sorts of prejudices therein. And both, for a while, were largely read by a younger audience, but by the 2010s, Legion was for old fogeys (like me, a huge LSH stan) and X-Men was... were they on an island? I know they were fighting the Avengers a lot (and/or joining them as one bigger superteam). And with that shift away from being for younger readers and being more continuity heavy, and without sort of other young superhero books doing a lot to replace it (Young Avengers vol. 2, a great book, was already on it's way out when the first volume of MHA came out stateside). So, there were a lot of young people who had grown up with superhero media and with anime and manga and had an option to get both in one book that was easily accessible to new readers.

Of course, it also has a pretty compelling story and visual style. MHA was swiftly bolstered by an anime adaptation and spin-off titles and anime-original stories in the movies. All of that added to make the world--the universe--feel bigger, but simulatenously, managed to remain ancillary. If you wanted to get deeper, know more, here are your options! Have at! But if you just want to read MHA or just want to watch the anime, you don't need the rest of it. It isn't tied too closely to the story. It builds, but not so structurally that you can't still see the shape of the room without it. As I've addressed here before, I get that some readers are really looking for that. Whether I personally think it's accurate or not (and, as covered, I think most American superhero comics are as easy to get into as a sitcom--though I acknowledge that maintaining a readership can be very difficult for all sorts of reasons tied to price and access), there are people who believe that superhero comics have a high barrier of entry and were really entranced by this not having that. And so, it blew up and Volume 35 is still in the top 10 manga charts as of last month and I can buy MHA stuff at Target. It's huge.

Now, I also want to give some special mentions to other big initiatives of the era. The thing I'll say about all of these is up front is even if they had hit as big as MHA ultimately has, none of them are new universes. They're building on something existing. Keep that in the back of your mind too as we talk about the 2000s.

The New 52 - DC's first big initiative of the 2010s. This was a way to reset the universe and, to what was appealing about MHA, try to build in a lot of accessibility to new readers as well as to diversify the DC line. Lots of folks have taken stock of the successes and failures of the New 52, but I will say, I personally am kinda bummed that some of the efforts to really build a universe were pretty quickly lost (though not entirely and these things have re-come-and-gone since). I would love to see superhero publishers dig deep into the non-superhero elements of their history again: War, Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Western, Romance, Humor, etc. And I'd love to see them in a way that feels of a piece with a world with superheroes, but not like superheroes applied to those genres, necessarily. Also, just noting here, one of the New 52 launch writers? Kyle Higgins on Nightwing.

Valiant (2010s) - Valiant had a shot in the arm in the 2010s when, about a year after the New 52, they did their own relaunch. Again, I'm not here to measure the exact successes and failures of that though you can surely find plenty of folks who have done that deep dive, but I do want to note it because they did aggressively position themselves as a player. After a decade of being pretty quiet, the 2010s saw some real success critically and commercially for Valiant and things like, yeah, the Bloodshot movie, but also Faith: Taking Flight , the YA novel by Julie Murphy (author of Dumplin'). In a time and space where the Big 2 were undergoing a lot of reinvention and extension into other markets/media, Valiant made a point of also diversifying in that way too.

Power Rangers - Boom's Power Rangers obviously also kinda blew up in the latter half of the 2010s and has inflated as a comics universe unto itself that is obviously borrowing from the source material, but also really expanding upon it. And, notably, it kicked off with Kyle Higgins at the helm. You can pretty directly track the success of Power Rangers (and Nightwing before it) and the way it took a licensed property and really built it out into a little universe to the later success of the Massive-Verse.

2000s: Invincible

Somehow the big superhero universe of the 2000s is also big again in the 2020s, and that's Invincible. Much like MHA, it tapped into the right vein at the right time. It came hot on the heels of Marvel's Ultimate universe and The Authority and really just combined the sensibities of Image's superhero universe, Classic Marvel, and nu-Marvel. It was a book that lived on surprising upsets and a story that felt like it was maybe aiming a little younger because it was about a young hero that then went full-bore into being for ADULTS. Like the later Massive-Verse, Invincible kind of slowly expanded, sometimes retroactively adding other Robert Kirkman books, sometimes having more tangential spin-offs, but even when other creators entered the mix, it felt like part of a unified vision.

The weird thing with Invincible, and the reason it *almost* didn't count, is that it is built off of like... a jillion other universes. Like, obviously, Invincible is in many ways a reflection of other superhero tropes. He's Superboy and Spider-Man wrapped into one and plenty of major and minor Invincible characters are pretty clearly meant to be riffs on existing characters with other publishers. But in a more literal way, Invincible is piggy-backing on and joining various other company and creator-owned superheroes. Over the course of the series, he met Spider-Man (in an issue of Marvel Team-Up), joined The Pact (with ShadowHawk, Firebreather, and Zephyr of Noble Causes), and Savage Dragon and various other Image superheroes. A lot of it did manage to be self-contained and as the series continued, it did really parse down to only Kirkman-original characters, but it was a series that got some of it's esteem from being in a pre-existing shared universe too. The Massive-Verse is, to my understanding, in a similar place where they've got like... a Spawn appearance. There is something to the even casual and official early crossovers that really helps a universe get a hold and seem more likely to both last and, I think, have an air of legitimacy.

It's a very interesting contrast to MHA in that the universe is bolstered by a sense of larger continuity, while still being presented as something that has a lot of accessibility and both are, in my opinion, actually probably best enjoyed with an understanding of the tropes they're riffing on.

The Ultimate Universe - As a special mention, again, Marvel's Ultimate Universe is not it's own unique universe, but as an experiment in rebooting an existing project and making new easier access to it, the Ultimate Universe's existence is a key influence to most attempts at shared superhero universes, both existing and "new", that followed.

IDW's Transformers - While a shared universe with TF wasn't really a thing until the 2010s and the Hasbro Shared Universe, I will note that IDW's TF run had a lot of elements of superhero comics (including also meeting Spider-Man in the New Avengers crossover) and is ultimately notable as the first attempt to take an existing property and build it into a universe of it's own. Like, earlier Marvel TF, even as it became increasingly it's own thing, did have some core DNA in the Marvel universe (same for Godzilla, Micronauts, G.I. Joe, and all the others). And a lot of the other licensed comics of the time, like the early Dark Horse Buffy and Aliens or IDW's Angel were trying to either tie to the franchise's source material or exist in sort of limited, unconnected runs. Not to say there weren't others doing it at various points before, but I do think IDW's TF really became a blueprint for how to take an existing franchise and make it into a unique comics universe that you can see in things like IDW's TMNT or Boom's Power Rangers even today.

1990s: Image

Okay, people who were not into comics in the '90s... do you know that Image started out as a third superhero publisher? Like, when you think of modern Image, which just has a couple of superhero titles, do you know that superhero comics made up the majority of early Image? Like Spawn, Savage Dragon, and a lot of the stuff coming out of Top Cow and Extreme Studios and (in my personal estimation, the best one) Wildstorm? Because superheroes are where Image started and made their first big (jeans) money. It came out of artists from the big two deciding to do their own thing with their own characters and loosely building a shared universe for their ideas. I'd personally say Wildstorm was the stand-out for superheroes in the Image Revolution--they spun-off to be their own independant thing before getting bought up by DC and while they published a variety of titles, superheroes remained core to Wildstorm's publishing. They also published consistenty. Like, no crack to Youngblood or Cyber Force or whatever, but those books released less regularly than most of the Wildstorm titles--with Youngblood's schedule being... what it was and Cyber Force, even after being pretty regular for a while, becoming less central to Top Cow's identity.

So, of the stand-outs I've mentioned, Image technically makes up 3 of them (Massive, Invincible, Image) and the exact overlapping nature of these things with each other is a bit strange, but I think speaks to the central philosophy of what has made these universes appealing. They exist at a crucial intersection of recognizability out of the Big 2 (writers and artists who had been Big 2 guys taking the central vision, even if many subsequent members of the teams were starting in the "indie" space) with this sort of loose interconnectivity of other creator-owned superhero comics and a sense of some sort of reactive commentary on the other superhero properties of the time. While full mythos have been formed, something you can't really say about any of the superhero universes that've found success after the 1970s is that they featured a wholly unique take on superheroes, rather than digging into the tropes that had already been long established.

The other big thing behind early Image is because the founders were a bunch of Big 2 movers-and-shakers, even in the early days, they had a fair amount of room for crossovers (and $$$ for the BIG TALENT). But if you look at Wildstorm, you can see Gen13 team up with Superman, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Monkeyman and O'Brien, Generation X, etc. Add in the return of a bunch of the Image heavy-hitters for Heroes Reborn over at Marvel and there's a complicated web of connections that really elevated the legitimacy of the superhero titles.

Astro City & America's Best Comics - In a truly bizarre move, two of the other major superhero universes that came out of the '90s were... also by Wildstorm! Kinda. Astro City came out of Homage and America's Best Comics was it's own imprint, both through Wildstorm. And both have weird histories that ultimately end up kinda under DC (except for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which ends up at Top Shelf, but that isn't really a superhero book). And like a lot of what has already been mentioned, these things thrive from an incredibly strong vision from the original writer (Kurt Busiek and Alan Moore, respectively) and, as Becca mentioned when I was talking with them a bit when I took a break in writing, like a lot of the above, part of the way that they are engaging with the existing superhero universes is a sleek design sensibility. I have felt bad talking about the importance of the writers in all these successes and not giving enough credit to the artists, so let this be a chance to correct that. Something all of these have in common is when they're succeeding, they've got top notch artistic talent--Brent Anderson, Alex Ross, Kevin O'Neill, Chris Sprouse, J.H. Williams III, Gene Ha, and all the ABC gang--who are creating art that pushes the medium forward. Like, here and in pretty much every other example, we're talking about people who are capturing a sense of classicism--the looks are often clean and iconic and noteworthy--but are doing so with a style that shows where comics are going to be going in the next decade. It's a really fine balance to strike, but a notable one.

Milestone - While Wildstorm started as part of Image, went independent, and then was acquired by DC, Milestone was an independent publisher that had their material published through DC from the beginning, and in later years would actually be folded into the larger DC universe. Milestone fits the same model we've been talking about--a strong unified vision by the founders who created the Dakotaverse, a motivation both behind-the-scenes and on the page to respond to the current state of comics, art that felt classic and iconic while also being a vision of what future comics would look like. And, similar to Invincible in some ways, or Wildstorm, it also benefitted from a bit of loose connection to a larger established universe. It took a while for Milestone to officially cross over with DC, but the marketing and distribution relationship really helped it gain legitimacy within the market.

Valiant - I'll also give a brief shout-out to the original Valiant line. To the point of later Valiant, there was a fair amount of competition in the late '80s/into the '90s of publishers trying to enter the market and disappearing. Like, bless 'em, but Eclipse, Pacific, Malibu, etc all came and went and while some of those stories and characters are still around in various capacities, none of them have had quite the revival of Valiant which is notable to the strength of those core concepts.

1980s: The Non-Superhero Okay, so, no offense to anyone: Malibu or Capital or First or any of the other publishers that brought in new superheroes. But in my estimation, the big "superhero universe" of the 1980s was the '80s not really having a new superhero universe. Like, and I'll make this quick because I'm already going long--there are a ton of comics that came out that we can debate if they're superhero narratives, we can dig deep into the creators' intentions vs. their ultimate executions, but that ultimately don't feel like they're trying to build a superhero universe. TMNT is awesome and, obviously, has in latter years crossed over with a bajillion things. Usagi Yojimbo and Concrete and Mage which is part of a universe with Grendel and The Crow and whatever else you want to throw in this pot--superhero or not--feels primarily like the later association it may have with a larger world is largely accidental or in some way in spite of it's early siloing. Again, not to say this stuff wasn't ambitious or didn't crossover with it's peers or didn't have grand designs, just that in comparison to, say Marvel's New Universe, it feels much more disconnected and organic in the growth of these things.

I'm going to make one last special mention, and that is DC Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. And the reason I bring Post-Crisis up is that it is the prime example of (what I'd also contend is DC's ultimate strength) not making a new universe, but trying to do something about already long-legacies, heavy continuities, and various acquisitions. Like, we could chart the other superhero comics competitors pre-'80s, but so many of them before (and clearly, even some since) have been purchased or otherwise acquired by the big 2 powerhouses and folded into their worlds. And Crisis was a buckwild way of being like "okay, now Fawcett and Charleton and whatever else is also just DC forever" and making a point of it.

So, why is it hard to make a new superhero universe that sticks? Well... it takes a lot of planning and a lot of money and a bold vision of what superhero comics could be. So, to all those trying to make their new universe, best of luck! A Note for the Weekend

And, as usual, I've run long and this is going out later than expected. Uhh... well, the long and short of what I wanted to get to here is if you haven't already, continue not spending money for big corps for Black Friday and all weekend long. There're certain businesses that've been specifically targeted by the Palestinian National BDS Committee. You can see those here and learn more about BDS on their site and in this article. Obviously, boycotts can be complicated because there are some that're being called for by folks who don't represent the BNC that are sort of up to how you feel about them and the legitimacy of what you can do within the confines of your community. And this year in particular, there's extra weirdness around the idea of shopping because there are plenty of other reasons to boycott various businesses (solidarity with striking workers, stands against capitalism, stands against artificial and crushing inflation that has made the "Black Friday Deals" not good, literally so many reasons to not buy shit from big corporations) BUT ALSO because costs are rising all over, it's a lot harder for small businesses. Like... man, postage is out of control. It costs so much to ship stuff. I literally can't afford to ship things internationally and to all my international folks, I'm so sorry! It'd just cost a stupid amount to do and it already costs a stupid amount to ship just within the continguous 48.

With that all said, if you're saving some money by not spending this Black Friday weekend at big business, might I suggest spending some $$$ on your friendly neighborhood artists! Today (Friday) is an itch.io Creator Day, so all proceeds actually go to the creators. Inprnt's got a sale that a ton of really cool artists are a part of. There are tons and tons and tons of artists who have shops both locally in your community and online that could really benefit from your business. So, please, if you do shop, shop responsibly.

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Joe Pera Talks with You (TV show - Finished it and I miss it), Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Anime), Three Rocks (Comic - Finished it and I miss it), Chainsaw Man (Manga), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), the success of Comics for Gaza's Children, the protests made at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (and, yes, the TMNT float at the parade too because I'm a sucker for the parade even as I am critical of it as a celebration of capitalism and a bad holiday), all the money you're going to spend on my Small Business Saturday sale (hint hint)

New Releases this week (11/15/2023): Brynmore #5 (Editor)

Announcements: Do you have $10, want some cool comics, and also want to do good in the world? Adam Szym put together Comics for Gaza's Children on itch.io. When I posted about this less than a week ago in my previous blog, they were about 1/3rd of the way to their intial goal of $10K. Today, that goal has doubled to $20K and they're 98% of the way there! It'll easily meet $20K with your help and could even push to 25-30K before the drive is over. And in return, you get over 100 comics by people like Adam Szym, Reimena Yee, Blue Delliquanti, Emma Houxbois, Cam Marshall, Elaine M. Will, Duke NuCum, Rebecca Ann, and oh yeah, me too! Yeah! Get yourself Rivals and Jimmy Squarefoot and enjoy smut and monsters! And then when you've enjoyed them, buy physical copies from me or Becca!

I believe this is still going too, if you have more money to give, the Cartoonist Cooperative is doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists.

You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. There are a ton of demonstrations happening this weekend and you can see if you can put your actions in on one of those!

Thanks for reading all the way here! You deserve a reward! You can use the code "FREECOMIC" on my webshop and get a 10% discount for Small Business Saturday (11/25) through Cyber Monday (11/27) and I'll send you an extra free comic with your order! Want a bigger discount? My Patrons are getting an even better code exclusively on Patreon! Now's a great time to support so I can buy Becca these Chainsaw Manbunny figures that are on a good discount but that I still don't have $500 for. You can also get some stuff from my Kofi! Becca will be back to streaming soon, so keep an eye on their Twitch! Or if you're really ambitious, looks like some things are on discount on their Throne right now. I think Becca'll be doing something for SBS too, but can't say exactly what. And if you're a fellow hiring pro... maybe give 'em a job. Just have 'em do a comic!

Pic of the Week: Today, our physical copy of Aradia Beat, the magical girl magazine that Becca contributed to, came in, so here's the artist with their spread!

#comics #comics editorial #aradia beat #rebecca ann #superheroes #dc #marvel #idw #image #invincible #valiant #massive verse #my hero academia #buy from artists #small business saturday #comics for gaza's children #charity bundle

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davidmariottecomics · 5 months

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Keeping Your Comic Perspectives Broad

Hi there!

This week, I've had a lot on my mind. I saw a conversation going around Bluesky about whether the big two are publishing comics for kids in a way that's reflective of their multimedia presences. I'm reading Bill Griffith's Three Rocks: The story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy and, somehow, moments after putting it down after reading for a bit this morning, managed to open Bluesky to a creator I like having no idea who Nancy is. Becca and I each read the Palestine section of Joe Sacco's Journalism since it's the only Sacco book I have that I know where it is in the house, unfortunately. And, being a Sunday morning, I did my usual Sunday round-up of new releases on the Shonen Jump app and on Webtoons. Plus all the comics I read as a regular part of my work day--action-adventure with funny animals (Sonic), action-thriller with giant monsters & robots (Godzilla), and pitches and shorts of horror and sci-fi and superheroes and all sorts of stuff. I've enjoyed a lot of different types of comics, and all of that goes back to a different conversation I saw going around earlier on Bluesky, of why comics creators who may not particularly enjoy superhero stories should still recognize the fundamental comics storytelling that they've built and refined over the past almost 100 years.

So, today we're talking briefly on all of that in talking about the importance of keeping your perspectives broad on what the medium is and can be.

Is Nancy the Purest Expression of Comics?

Like... probably! Yeah. Nancy is great, whether you're talking about modern Nancy or classic! It is the only comic I consistently remember to read every day (though I try very hard to keep up with my other two current dailies, Dumbing of Age and Gil Thorp). I am not the first to say that Nancy is a comic inherently about comics, about the format and the ways in which we interact with them. In fact, there's a whole book called How to Read Nancy which contends that you can understand all complexities of comics through a single Nancy strip. Which somehow manages to be a bold claim and something so inherently true if you've ever read Nancy that it almost renders the book superfluous.

Something a lot of folks who are not Nancy-heads probably don't realize is that the strip is *technically* 101 years old. It started as a different strip, Fritzi Ritz, with a different creator, Larry Whittington. Nancy herself showed up in 1933, and accidentally kinda took over. Good for her. And, under Bushmiller's (and later assistants') pen, it became this just really condensed form of comics in usually 3-4 panel gag strips that play with all the conventions of the form. I've mentioned the new Comic Devices site and I genuinely believe you can probably find any of the devices mentioned in the great history of Nancy strips.

With this high pedigree and recognition by many cartoonists and the heights of how big it got as a newpaper comic, you'd think Nancy would be an instantly recognizable character to anyone who has ever read a comic and... she's iconic, no doubt, but especially now, I don't think that's true (see the above where I mentioned a creator I like having no idea who Nancy was).

The Conventions of Superheroes

The reason I bring up Nancy in particular is that Nancy is a comic strip. Yes, Nancy has also been a comic book and many strips are also now digital as well as print, but my point being, outside of a few strip collections and your more literary books like Three Rocks or How to Read Nancy, you aren't going to see a lot of Nancy at your local bookstore or comic shop. And that's also kind of one of the things I love about comics as a medium. While there are obvious downsides too, I do love that comics readers are spoiled with choice. Whatever genre may strike your fancy, whatever method of comics storytelling--single issues, collections and OGNs, webcomics, strips, weird hybrid things, whatever--you can kind of find and enjoy if that's what you want.

I bring this all up in reference to superheroes because there is still, even within creator spaces, I think there tend to be misconceptions about what "superhero comics" are, or bad experiences with superhero comics leading to a rejection of the breadth of that form of storytelling.

Take, for example, the many times I have gone into a bookstore (not usually comic shops, but bookstores) and have seen a display that reads something like "Comics without superheroes" and then it has Sandman on it. I think my local library's had that sort of display too. And I'm like... Martian Manhunter and Doctor Destiny are in volume 1 of this thing. Sandman is very much a part of the DC universe, it's just not telling "traditional" superhero narratives. But it is a book that exists within and because of superhero storytelling. Same with pretty much all of early/retroactively Vertigo--Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Hellblazer, Lucifer, that weird Prez one-shot, etc.

Or, alternatively, take the folks who love My Hero Academia and don't have the same relationship with other superhero comics. Yes, the actual forms of them tend to be different, but that thing wears it's Big 2 influences on its sleeve.

I think I'm drifting a bit, so to refocus on the point--even if you don't think you like superhero stories, chances are, there are some that would really resonate with you because superhero stories aren't a monolith. And, y'know, I also sometimes wonder if I'm the one with odd taste because while I may have genre preferences in the types of media I consume, I'm usually pretty flexible with trying different samples from different forms and finding stuff I like even if not everything's for me (like... I'm not a big jazz guy, but there's definitely some that does it for me). And the reason you'll find that there are stories that work for you is superheroes are a vehicle for storytelling the same as many other things. Superhero stories can be political commentary, they can be self-aware, they can be horror or romance or suspense or or sci-fi or sometimes even non-fiction autobiography. What you want is likely there, there just might be some extra footwork to find what you want.

And, if nothing else, you can find some amazing craft within superhero comics. I often link to it because I think it's quite the analysis, but years ago, ComicsAlliance ran a really great multi-part piece on superheroes as the basics of color theory and how that can apply outside the world of superhero comics. So many tricks to lettering and layouts and foreshortening and the ways in which we can create shorthand or pose bodies or create interesting juxtapositions can be found in superhero comics. And that's true of kind of any type of comic. You can find bits that you like there.

The other reason I stress all of this, and one of the other big misconceptions I think people sometimes have about superhero comics, is as I mentioned earlier, I saw a thread questioning basically "Are there comics starring Spider-Verse star, Spider-Gwen, that my middle grader can read?" And the short answer is yes! She's got a major role in Marvel Action: Spider-Man. A lot of her comics runs, honestly, pretty kid-friendly as long as you accept that your kid might have some questions about like... a few instances of word choices or like relationships. Which is how a lot of comics still are--we think of single issue comics that aren't shelved in the kids section as being "child inappropriate" and certainly, some of them are, but a lot of them are fine for an inquisitive kid. And, yes, publishers are trying to make it easier with clearer options for younger folks, like the DC younger reader graphic novels program or Marvel's Scholastic books.

Enjoy a Little of Everything Here's the big takeaway. If you let them be, comics can be a buffet of delights. You can sample so many different things and eat as much as you want and sometimes find, sure, this soup doesn't really work for you, but the one next to it slaps. And I think the best creators are people who recognize that and fully embrace it and try to read a lot of other comics in their various forms and genres and also, of course, consume plenty of other non-comics work too and maybe have some sort of life outside of pop culture. But whether it is trying to stay abreast of what is currently happening in comics to see if someone else is executing a similar idea or to be able to recommend a book to a lost parent or to really be able to seek out the things you personally enjoy and be able to incorporate the best of that into your own work, I think you've got to take comics with a broad perspective.

That's it for me this week! See ya soon!

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Joe Pera Talks with You (TV show), Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Anime), Gone Girl (Movie... I might've watched this two weeks ago, but hey, still slaps), Three Rocks (Comic), Journalism by Joe Sacco (Comic), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show)

New Releases this week (11/15/2023): Godzilla Rivals: vs. Mechagodzilla (Editor) - As an aside, a couple of my Godzilla creators, Kara Huset from Rivals: vs. Mechagodzilla and Lane Lloyd from an upcoming War for Humanity cover, are going through a bit of a tough time and could use some extra work. If you've got anything to send their way, I can vouch for 'em! They are both creators where in like 3-5 years, you'll be notable for getting them before they blew up!

Final Order Cutoffs next week (11/20/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (Editor)

New Releases next week (11/22/2023): Brynmore #5 (Editor)

Announcements: Do you have $10, want some cool comics, and also want to do good in the world? Adam Szym put together Comics for Gaza's Children on itch.io. They're already a third of the way to their overall goal and just launched this morning. It's over 100 items from more than 50 creators across a ton of different genres. I have a comic in there because Becca volunteered Jimmy Squarefoot as well as their adult NSFW comic with letterer Duke NuCum, Rivals. All proceeds are going to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.

If you have more money to give, the Cartoonist Cooperative is doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists.

You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. And, of course, if you need to step away for a bit so that you can do more again later on, please take care of yourself.

And this last part is unlikely, because you're someone who reads and/or works in comics, but if you've still got a couple of dollars, why not support some struggling artists? Aside from those already mentioned, you can visit my webstore, my Patreon, or my Kofi, and you can always visit Becca's portfolio/shop/Patreon/Twitch streams too. Depending on what time I have to go through things and update my shop, I'm hoping to do a little something for Small Business Saturday-Cyber Monday.

Pic of the Week: When Becca and I were grocery shopping the other day, we saw a genuinely very impressively sized eggplant. It was bigger than their hand. And hilarious eggplant as dick aside, honestly, it made us kinda bummed that we don't like eggplant because that's just a really impressive veggie!

#comics #comics editorial #superhero conventions #nancy #fritzi ritz #three rocks #eggplants

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davidmariottecomics · 6 months

Text

Burning a Resource (Or How I'm Leaving Twitter)

Hey again!

Yesterday, I drew and posted a little comic on my various socials (reposted here) about how I'm gearing up to officially shut down my Twitter. And I want to talk a little bit about why it isn't an immediate thing that I'm doing, and some thoughts I've had on losing what has ultimately been a really valuable resource in my personal and professional life, particularly in light of how it has gotten people jobs.

Why am I Leaving?

The long and short is I can't ethically stay. I find Elon Musk to be detestable as a human being and wish him nothing but ill-will, in the same way that he uses his money and resources to push ill-will upon the world. And under his reign--because he certainly treats it as a kingdom--the site had gotten a lot worse in a bunch of ways. For months, people have been describing the overall site's decline into far right views and activism. You can see all the problems of greed and bad business sense at work as so many functions have gone offline or been shunted to only being accessible behind a pay wall. There're increasing problems of the user experience--I know someone who has basically given up on Twitter because the site makes them "verify their identity/that they're human" multiple times a day, and then directs them to the Twitter Rules, without any sort of guidance on how any rule that Twitter has may've been violated. And, yes, there are a lot of services that I've elected to use despite having compunctions about them, but that's uhh... living in a capitalistic society and having to make decisions on how far you're willing to flex and while that's not a morally great feeling, it's part of how we have to exist at the moment and being cognizant of the decisions we make around these things is an important part of navigating further use. And this point, I am not going to keep using Twitter.

Why am I Staying?

That all said, I'm not leaving this exact moment. I'm not sure of my exact exit date. By the end of 2023, certainly. But I have a few things I'd like to wrap up before I go, and I want to briefly walk you through them.

First off, let me just say, this is also very highly influenced by my age. I am of the age when I have never worked at a company that didn't have a social media presence while I was there. I watched in real time as platforms like Twitter and Facebook became a regular part of business--through promotion and connections--and how that was added to workflows as I was coming up. I think a lot of the people who've had an easier time detransitioning from socials are folks who were not trained onto it from a young age. But that's not my case and I want to make sure that the business and personal aspects of my life that have been entangled in Twitter are compensated for in other ways.

To me, the most important loss that will come from this is of community. And that's why I've continued to stay above all else. There are a lot of folks I'm connected to on Twitter that I don't have connections to other places. Functionally, I like Bluesky a lot. I'm about to hit 1000 followers, which all told, is pretty good. I have over 4 times that on Twitter, but I would guess a significant portion of that difference is not on Bluesky because it's invite only. And while I may have connections here and there on other platforms, they're pretty diffused and I am not using most of those platforms regularly enough to actually know who all is where. Like, despite everything I just about Bluesky, it's my second largest platform above Facebook (not counting the IDW Sonic Squad page), Instagram, and on anything else, less than 100 people are set-up to regularly see my posts, and that makes the way I use social media harder to do.

And the primary way I do use social is to find and connect with creators and help promote their projects. So, this week, I'm setting my Twitter up with scheduled posts and through whenever I deactivate, I'll still have my posts going out about new projects that are important to me and to the people who worked hard on them. I think their work deserves whatever boost of recognition it might get from my social presence there.

In the coming weeks, my other big project will be to get as much contact info as I can. I have found so many artists that I really like on Twitter and I want to be able to reach out to them when I want/need to. I want to make sure my friends and I exchange ways to communicate outside of this. I'm taking this upon myself because that's, I dunno, my role? Editors tend to be the ones to reach out when we have a project. So I want to make sure I'm doing my part of be proactive about keeping that up.

Finally, I want to make sure that I'm not completely out of touch with the other personal and practical parts of Twitter. I follow Genshin Impact because I think the game's fun. I frequently get updates on it through Twitter and should probably make sure if I want to continue those updates, I'm aware of how to get them otherwise. I follow journalists and sex workers and activists and unions and smart people whose thoughts I don't want to lose and dumb people who post real funny and just like... my friends and I'd like to make sure they aren't lost in the ether either.

How We Collectively Move Forward Earlier this week, Becca and I got to do something pretty cool and talk to a class of sequential art students. If you were one of those students and are now reading this, hi! But we were asked to attend to give sort of a really cumulative look at working in comics from the point of view of an editor who has been at this for a long time and from a working freelance artist who does a lot of tabling at shows and indie work and is also still looking to get in and start doing work at bigger companies. As part of that, we talked to the kids about the advantages of tabling at and attending cons and how to go about meeting editors at shows and generally, how best to get the attention of an editor.

One of the things we talked about was with Twitter becoming less of an option, one of the more accessible ways to get on an editor's radar is going away. Not that editors like to be cold DM'ed necessarily, but as someone who has found a lot of talent through specifically Twitter and who recognizes that interstate, much less international, travel for cons is expensive and taxing, it sucks to lose that resource. And that's compounded by a lot of other resources going sideways--like, DeviantArt and ArtStation and some of the other art sharing sites have become hotbeds of AI theft bullshit and were full of NFTs before that. Some of the other potential social sites that could be used to promote your art like Cohost or Mastodon or TikTok are not always the best at discoverability or a good match to how you interact online (I don't really use any of those platforms). It's tough.

As has been said time and time again, it's neither fair nor particularly productive to have a significant portion of your work day be crossposting a million times and places and slightly different formats hoping to have your work hit where and when it needs to. Making comics is often a 2nd shift job, or a 4th & 5th shift job as you're trying to do more consistent work--be it a day job or non-comics freelance, plus caring for a family of some sort, plus the act of making art being a different job from the act of promoting it being a different job from the act of actually running an independent business to do all these things.

My only real solution is, y'know, collective support. On my own website, I have a Friends page with links to the sites of people I like and have worked with or like the work of. I know that the Cartoonist Cooperative has a talent database of their members. There's a fairly new Adult Artist Webring. One of the best things I think creators can do with their peers is equivalent exchange projects--be that getting blurbs from or having your friends/peers post about your new project on their platforms, exchanging promos of projects on Kickstarter updates or just reposting each other's stuff, making ad swaps so if you have an indie project, you can put an ad for your friend's thing in it. I think other people should of course have Friend-type pages on their websites, and I am always appreciative when an artist reaches out or declines a project and recommends some other folks they know. It's a major part of how things build in this industry and how we do maintain connection outside of social media spheres.

And, from an editorial perspective, one of the things that's really tough to navigate sometimes is how welcome you are in some of these spaces. I've mentioned Discords before, and while they can be a really great communal resource to the artists in them, there are a lot of very regular, valid reasons why artists might not want an editor in that space. So it does have to be considered and measured where and how folks are presenting themselves to get that visibility and traction.

My last thought is y'know do try your hardest while also, again, accepting that this is a ton of work all the time and is often done on top of other work, to figure out what makes sense for you to reach out to people. If you aren't able to go to cons and meet editors, or you're only able to go to cons where you don't think many editors are attending, how do you move forward? Well, maybe your solution is to do a lot of anthologies that have a mix of talent involved and might get some extra eyes on your work because it also includes people who are known names that editors follow. Maybe your solution is to get an agent who can send your work out to editors on a regular basis and let them know when you're looking for work. Maybe your solution is to get a hold of cool comic and zine shops and see if they'll do consignment on your books, even if you aren't local, because they're local to where publishing is. Maybe your solution is to look up if a company has a talent director/scout type role and to reach out to them, rather than editorial directly. There are alternate ways to both social media and cons to get your work in front of hiring folks eyes, thought they also require a bit of leg-work and luck.

Because I've talked about it a lot, here are the other places you can find me online.

Bluesky Instagram My Website Patreon Tumblr Buttondown Linktree I am on Cohost, Mastodon, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but don't really use them actively, so not linking here. You can email me, though I ask you please follow my rules on the contact page. If we know each other, you can ask for my Discord handle or my phone #.

Until next time! What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Solve This Murder (Podcast), One Piece (Manga), The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon (Book), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Joe Pera Talks with You (TV show), Witch Watch (Manga), Freakazoid (TV show), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Troy Little's graphic novel adaptation), drawing a little comic and generally trying to do a little more art to go with my writing, when the cats do understand their new litterbox.

New Releases this week (11/8/2023): Godzilla Rivals: Round Two (Editor on most of it) Sonic the Hedgehog #66 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog: Knuckles' Greatest Hits (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Art Collection (Editor)

New Releases next week (11/15/2023): Godzilla Rivals: vs. Mechagodzilla (Editor)

Announcements: If you'd like to have me on your podcast, Twitch stream, at your convention, signing at your store, talking to your students, whatever, feel free to hit me up via my contact page. To those first couple things, sorry a few podcasty/Twitch-streamy things have been delayed. We've been having some headphone/mic technical issues, but that should be fixed soon.

Wanna support me? Visit my webstore, my Patreon, my Kofi, or my eBay. And you can always visit Becca's portfolio/shop/Patreon/Twitch streams too.

It may feel futile as all polling already shows we aren't being listened to, but email, call, or fax your representatives to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and the stopping of a genocide. There are also plenty of places to donate your time and money.

Pic of the Week: Enjoy a little comic about leaving Twitter.

#comics #comics editorial #godzilla idw #leaving twitter #comic #I know I posted the comic by itself yesterday so sue me #finding comics jobs #finding artists

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