Upd. Еще обложки

[QVall]

— В поддержку борьбы с раком груди ряд комиксов Марвел в октябре выйдут с обложками розового цвета:

смотреть дальше

Остается пожелать всем девушкам и женщинам быть как супергероини, которые, несмотря на постоянные облучение всеми формами радиации, раком груди не страдают.

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[picspam] - 2012-09-24

[QVall]

Предупреждение: содержит спойлеры, сцены насилия, queer-jokes и Майлза Моралеса

Внезапно, закрытый костюм Звезды Сапфира; в редакции ДиСи кто-то все-таки прислушался к голосам из интернета...

Зачем, Кэрол, зачем Кайлу чувствовать большую любоффь к Хэлу?








Авенджерс-муви-момент )


И по количеству сцен в неглиже Петя Паркер признан самым сексуальным героем Марвел








Дикки, мой мальчик! Совсем вырос

@темы: QVall-picspam

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[QVall]

Закрытая запись, не предназначенная для публичного просмотра

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Zap Comix #00-03

[Jaya]

Извиняюсь перед теми, кто уже видел это у меня.

Zap Comix - издание знаковое для "андерграундных" комиксов, появление которых связывают с введением Комикс-Кода и одновременно молодёжной культурой конца 60-х годов прошлого века. Андерграундное течение приняло в себя множество авторов, впоследствии признанных классиками медиума, и оказало огромное влияние на развитие комиксов как искусства.

Картинки

Zap Comix #03, 1968:

Zap Comix #0, 1971:



















Скачать: #00, #01, #02, #03

@темы: Скачать, Robert Crumb

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0_o

[QVall]

50 пар!

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И снова про позы

[QVall]

Так как дайри не предусматривает реблог с тублера, копипаст отсюда:

Finding That a “Dynamic” Pose is Defined by Gender

What makes a male pose dynamic? What makes a female pose dynamic?

As I mentioned in this post, “A B&B [boobs and butt] pose for the sake of consumption means that it’s okay to portray women as objects for sexual satisfaction in the public sphere. It’s to the point where I’ve read that redrawing a B&B pose into something more sensible makes the pose less ‘dynamic’.”

I received a comment in response to that post wherein a reader said: “all of your redraws are far less dramatic than the previous drawings. They lack the energy and dynamism and are far more static.” (And I’m sure they are, since I meant only to critique the unnecessary prevalence of B&B poses. I’m hardly a professional and my intent was never to undermine or belittle true professionals, only to make a point.)

After a while, I started wondering what exactly is expected out of a “dynamic” pose between genders – because it’s clear to me that they’re vastly different.

I started with this cover image:



Obvious anatomical problems aside, I’ve seen this staple over and over again. I can’t seem to get away from it. Essentially, the most common pose for women is the ‘S’ curve, which will generally be some sort of variation of this:


— No guts
— Always arched back/Broken spine
— Accentuation of the curves
— small feet
— Pointed toes

This is a basic battle stance for a woman. (And as demonstrated in my previous post, now it’s taken even further.) The ‘S’ shape is very clearly defined in the above cover image.

(By the way, this was really hard to do, as I kept having to cinch her waist more and more, and I don’t think I could muster the will to do it again.)

So, what would said cover image look like with male bodies?



Well.

I see no problem with this. What’s wrong with this? Yes, it’s not realistic to jump down and attack with the legs folded in like that, but the pose IS possible, and, well…yes, it’s going to be very problematic when they land and actually try to attack from that position, but…

It looks good, right? Got them ‘S’ curves, and comic books are for entertainment purposes anyway, so who cares if it’s not realistic? It just has to be sexy. The male readership will just have to get over their whiney selves and deal with this. It’s not my problem if their male superheroes are sexualized or portrayed ridiculously.



Does that sound familiar?

You might have read at least one comment lashing out against women (and men too, of course) who complain that their female superheroes are simply serving as sex objects for the male readership.

Let’s be honest. What would that cover really look like with two men? Based on the formula given, something like:



How dynamic is it to face the camera front-on and flat? For a man, very interesting. Powerful. Cover shot. For a woman, it’s lacking energy, isn’t dynamic at all, and is static.

It’s as if “dynamic” for male superheroes translates to “bold, strong, confrontational, dominant,” and for female superheroes “dynamic” translates to, “sexy, curvy, suggestive”. Sexualized media has altered how we inherently view the roles of males and females in society.

That’s why a huge fanbase takes issue with the guys who say, “So what? I want to look at sexy women, and it’s a comic book, it doesn’t have to be realistic.”

Well, we want our female superheroes to be on the same bad-assery level as our male superheroes, even if the B&B/’S’ shape pose in question is possible or explainable.

There needs to be less of this:



And more of this:



There needs to be fewer breasts and butt cheeks to the camera:



And more, uh…



Well, we could stand to see a little more of that.

But if that’s the case, we might just see more of everything.



There is a time for sexy, but it doesn’t have to be all the time. Society generally refers to that as porn, and our favorite female superheroes deserve to be treated just as responsibly as their male counterparts.

И tumblr с артом комиксных героинь в немыслимых позах )

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Прекрасное

[Jaya]

Тим О'Нил о людях из мира комиксов. Незнакомые имена рекомендую погуглить, просвещения ради:

Alan Moore
Sex ain't a sacrament, because rape sure as hell ain't no black mass.

***
Brian K. Vaughan
I've never before met a man whose goal in life was to become a Showtime Original Series.

Ещё

Greg Rucka
I've never before met a man whose goal in life was to become an FX Original Series.

Brian Michael Bendis
Sold his soul to the two Davids - Mamet and E. Kelley, got change back for a $20. Thinks $4 for 20 pages of stuttering is money well spent.

***
Matt Fraction
Every comics writer has that moment where they realize they stopped being that edgy indie creator who works in mainstream comics to fund his edgy indie books and instead became a mainstream comics writer whose rapidly dwindling spare time is eaten up by conference calls with emotionally needy editors. You reenact this moment every day like Guy Pearce waking up at the beginning of Memento.

***
Tom Brevoort
True story: once said in an interview he always imagined he'd end up working for Fantagraphics. Probably still get the better part of the deal.

Los Bros Hernandez
Good News! Comics finally made it out of the low-art ghetto! Bad News! Welcome to the academic backwater of American literary regionalism!

***
Chester Brown
Ain't no way to a shame a man who released a 300 page first-person memoir about paying for it called Paying For It.

***
Stan Lee
Probably deserves every bit of credit alongside his collaborators, but will go to his grave vaguely dissatisfied by the fact that no one likes a company man.

Jack Kirby
Had the misfortune to pick the least remunerative industry possible relative to his talent. Most likely could have made more money drawing department store underwear ads.

Frank Miller
Has spent twenty-five years in a dogged campaign to convince people he's nowhere near as smart as we once gave him credit for. To be admired for his tenacity.

***
Jim Lee
One of the dominant forces in mainstream comics for over twenty years, still can't grow a God-damn mustache.

@темы: Ссылки

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[picspam] - 2012-09-20

[QVall]

Предупреждение: содержит спойлеры, сцены насилия, поп-культурные отсылки и прочее комиксное безумие

Оооокей, Мерлин - сын Люцифера...




Оооооокей, Терри Слоан - Максвелл Лорд вонаби

@темы: QVall-picspam

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[QVall]

Robot Chicken DC Special - и там много еще прекрасного, за что мы любим комиксы и этих персонажей )))

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[QVall]

Барри - Капитан Очевидность ДиСи и мастер парадоксов

@темы: DC

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[Quissenonego]

Международный киевский фестиваль рисованных историй, комиксов и манги
«ComART FEST»
– это проект, основанный любителями рисованных историй, организованный для продвижения
9-го искусства на территории Украины и ближнего зарубежья.

Место: АртПричал
г. Киев
Дата: 10-11 ноября

Теперь вся подробная информация - на сайте!

Сайт фестиваля: comart.com.ua/
Группа вконтакте
Страница на facebook

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Человек. Пароход. DC

[Jaya]

Так. Это, конечно, очень старая новость, но добраться до неё вовремя у меня... я... ну в общем так вышло.
Подумав, я пришла к выводу, что рассказать об этом народу всё-таки стоит: а вдруг кто-то не в курсе? А вдруг?

Итак: Роб Лайфелд.

Это... автор комиксов. Художник, сценарист, персонаж. Фигура довольно спорная, и нет, я не издеваюсь, я действительно считаю, что, вопреки распространённому мнению, вынести ему однозначный приговор нельзя.
Он - человек-эго, один из популяризаторов определённой правившей всю первую половину 90-х эстетики (Кровь! Пушки! Сиськи! Огромные мускулы! Экстрииииим!!!!!!), чья популярность (эстетики, хотя и Роба тоже) зацементировала воспринимающуюся сейчас как данность ориентацию большей части супергероики на "мальчиков-подростков". В этом месте многие добавили бы, что Роб же ответственнен за ориентацию комиксного мейнстрима на дешёвые спецэффекты в ущерб нарративу, но, думаю, это всё-таки не совсем справедливо: да, Лайфелд - плохой сценарист (в этом сходятся все), но вряд ли стоит обвинять его в том, что, увидев, как он стал популярным вопреки этому своему недостатку, многие решили, что нарратив неважен, так же как вряд ли стоит обвинять Алана Мура в моде на "мрачняк и кишки" (приготовьтесь: это не первый раз, когда я ставлю эти два имени рядом). Тут у меня появилась левая мысль о том, что истинным идейным последователем Лайфелда является Марк Миллар нулевых и далее - только он перенёс подход Роба с рисунка в собственно нарратив, но это тема для отдельного разговора.
О Лайфелде как художнике сказано было много, что неудивительно - мы говорим о человеке, подарившем нам это:

и многое другое, тем, кому интересно - дорога сюда.

Продолжение

Роб Лайфелд рисовал так, как он рисовал, не умел писать, не знал, что такое сроки, не доводил начатое до конца и при этом был безумно популярен. И даже после того, как его некомпетентность стала притчей во языцах, Роб всё равно ухитрялся находить себе работу. О, а ещё он придумал нескольких персонажей, которые в руках других авторов превратились в любимцев фанатов, и имел наглость утверждать, что все эти авторы - Д-листеры.
Оу.
Серьёзно, как можно не испытывать к этому парню неприязни, о чём тут спорить?
Защищать его как художника я не буду и пытаться, за этим сюда или сюда. Но. Но есть ещё одна сторона медали, к которой мой сегодняшний рассказ имеет непосредственное отношение.
Два слова: Image Comics.
Роб Лайфелд - нахальный эгоманьяк со звёздной болезнью, и, судя по всему, он был таким и двадцать лет назад. Это нехорошее сочетание черт характера. Это неприятное сочетание черт характера.
Это именно то сочетание черт характера, которое нужно, чтобы, собравшись с друзьями-коллегами, сказать своей корпорации-работодателю, что нет, тебе не нравится то, как погано в этой индустрии обращаются с тобой (и с творцами вообще). И чтобы, когда твой работодатель посмеётся над твоими требованиями, уйти, хлопнув дверью, и основать собственную компанию, кардинально изменив ситуацию на рынке и, что уж там, сегментацию медиума, создав феномен "альтернативной супергероики".
Роб Лайфелд сотоварищи консервным ножом вскрыли систему, съевшую Джека Кирби и поломавшую Алана Мура.
Поневоле задумываешься: а что было бы, обладай хотя бы Мур характером Лайфелда, его наглостью и его демонстративностью? Я предупреждала!

Можно долго говорить о трендах раннего Имейджа, о том, насколько хороши были вещи, которые эта кучка суперзвёзд сделала путевым маяком для всей индустрии, но роль их в борьбе за права и статус авторов комиксов неоспорима.
И потому самим своим существованием Роб Лайфелд обнажает присутствующий в в последнее время развернувшейся особенно рьяно "борьбе за создателей" элемент лицемерия. Роб Лайфелд неудобен. Представляя всё, к чему стоит стремиться как фигура, он абсолютно не вписывается в подспудный нарратив "авторское - значит хорошее" как творец. Упс.

Старательными танцами вокруг имён Лайфелда и тех из его коллег по началу Image Comics, которые придерживались похожей эстетики, многие из (виртуальных и не только) активистов "борьбы за создателей" ненароком демонстрируют свою настоящую мотивацию. Старательное обхождение, почти замалчивание истории нехорошего парня Роба показывает, что на деле для многих борьба эта является следствием скорее общих претензий к супергероическому жанру (и его популярности) вообще, чем заботы о свободе достойно компенсируемого творческого самовыражения.

И вот теперь, немного прояснив контекст, приступим к делу.

Чуть больше двух недель назад Роб Лайфелд... кое-что сделал.
Как мы знаем, Роб был среди авторов, работавших над Ребутом Вселенной DC. В "новых 52-х" на нём сначала были Hawk and Dove, а после закрытия серии - Grifter, Deathstroke и The Savage Hawkman. Хотя Роб и не был особо доволен условиями работы, планировалось, что он останется в DC как минимум до следующего года.
Планировалось.
О да.

Сложно сказать, что именно произошло в офисках DC, но двадцать второго августа в твиттере Лайфелда появилась следующая цепочка сообщений:

Just finished sending my thank you's to DC personnel. Officially got off the DC52 treadmill this morning...

— robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) August 22, 2012

Scott Clark will be replacing me p. Deathstroke. Marat will continue the work on Grifter...I had a great time at DC.

— robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) August 22, 2012

I believe in what DC is doing, but had to preserve my sanity. — robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) August 22, 2012

I walked off all 3 books. Can't wait to see any attempts to spin. I have every email. — robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) August 22, 2012

This is the 4th time I quit in the last 4 months. This time it will stick. — robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) August 22, 2012

Reasons are the same as everyone's that you hear. I lasted a few months longer than I thought possible.

— robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) August 22, 2012

Massive indecision, last minute and I mean LAST minute changes that alter everything. Editor pissing contests... No thxnjs

— robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) August 22, 2012

Если вкратце: Роб Лайфелд решил досрочно свалить из DC, потому что редакция делала его существование невыносимым.
Об этом написали все. Об этом и многом другом.

Иными словами, это НОВОСТИ!!!

А потом общественность выдохнула и задумалась о правых и виноватых.
Потому что, с одной стороны, это Лайфелд. С другой стороны, проблема с редактурой в DC очевидно существует, как нам всем напомнила недавняя история с Джорджем Перезом. Но, но... но это Лайфелд! Встать на его сторону - действие, противоречащее самой природе слишком многих членов околокомиксной тусовки. ЛАЙФЕЛД!!!

Итак, вслед за вплеском Новостей последовали Мнения:

Rob Liefeld Leaves DC Comics - This does make me wonder just how much of the books we are reading every month are heavily influenced and changed by DC editorial. How much creative control do the creators actually have? How many of the issues we read are changed at the last minute, and to what extent? Are some of the books we are reading changed entirely? It does make me question the integrity of the publisher a little bit. I mean, if so much of a book we are reading is altered from the original sсript handed in by the book's writer, can they really say it is still written by the creative team on the cover?

Rob Liefeld Parts Ways With DC Comics - It all makes me wonder if it's simply too late to look backwards to the comics boom of the Nineties...maybe Liefeld is better off working on his creator-owned projects for Image. And maybe more young blood (see what I did there?) needs to be put on these "New 52" titles. You can't re-create "lightning in a bottle"...

Но, оказывается, это было только начало. Потому что Роб напрочь отказывался заткнуться. Потому что не всех в DC это устраивало. Потому что у Скотта Снайдера тоже есть аккаунт на Твиттере. Не очень ясно, с чего начался разговор, судя по первому публичному сообщению Лайфелда, они со Снайдером некоторое время говорили в привате, обсуждая критикуемых Робом редакторов, но начавшееся быстро стало прекрасным:

А? А?! Радость и счастье.
Нет, это не конец.

К потасовке между делом подключился Том Бревурт из Марвел, заявив, что после ЭТОГО в Марвел Лайфелду путь заказан, и, и... ах:

Tom Brevoort: After that Twitter flame-out, I can’t say I’d be in a hurry to get onto that train.

(Tom tweeted a few more comments backing the DC Comics' editor that Liefeld had problems working with.)

Rob Liefeld: Someone told me that loser fat ass Brevoort was talking trash about me today. I dropped him awhile back . I gotta coach football games..out

Rob Liefeld: Sorry they passed you over for EIC Tommy B. Get over it and get back to mixing and matching Avengers and X-Men #doucher

Rob Liefeld: I know, Tommy B, why don’t u all tell Kirkman how “concerned” u are for his future post Marvel. That’s our funniest bit that we HOWL at.

Tom Brevoort: You remain a sweetheart, Rob. Don’t go changing. Also, feel free to say any of this to my face, you feckless bully.

Tom Brevoort: Takes a big man to go postal publicly on a young editor like that. #kickspuppiestoo

Rob Liefeld: happy to @TomBrevoort then u can bump me with your gut

Rob Liefeld: And FYI, I don’t drink. Haven’t touched liquor in 30 years.


Вы счастливы? Я - да. Вот, вот для чего небо послало нам Твиттер: чтобы мы могли в реальном времени наблюдать детсадоские потасовки между людьми, которые стремятся быть уважаемыми и любимыми нами профессионалами!
Полезная ссылка: The Do’s and Don’ts Of Being A Comic Professional On Twitter

После этого, разумеется, в ход снова пошли Мнения.
Мнения людей, которые получают от DC деньги, думаю, стоит выделить отдельно:

Гейл Симон отметилась у себя на тумблере. Два раза: I’m a fan of Rob’s, one of my most prized pieces of art is a gorgeous Robin page he kindly gave me from our story together years ago. This hurts, it makes me sad. I know he’s upset, but this just makes me feel terrible to read this stuff... The truth is, this doesn’t sound like Rob to me, Rob is usually very gracious about other people’s work and I don’t remember him ever attacking people by name like this. So I think he’s just upset, and will get over it, and probably look back and wish he hadn’t said some of this stuff.

Пит Вудс, художник Legion Lost, тоже нашёл пару слов: Before DCNu I heard a lot of people complaining that DC continuity was all over the place and no one had a plan. I’ve read some of the reactions to what Mr. Leifeld has said about editorial and most of his complaints involve DC having a plan. Now people complain about DC being too restrictive… Micromanaged is just another way to say that there is a plan.


Хммм. В словах Вудса, конечно, есть смысл, но... но об этом ниже. Сейчас прочие Мнения, о Поведении и о Последствиях:

Random Thoughts! (August 28, 2012): Rob Liefeld is an entertaining guy when he’s not making comics, isn’t he?... Liefeld’s big complaint was editorial changing the plan at the last minute on a pretty constant basis. When that continues to happen, it’s no longer called ‘a plan,’ it’s called ‘making shit up as you go.’

AICN COMICS REVIEWS: GREEN LANTERN! ROCKETEER! JL8! Plus OPINIONS ARE LIKE @$HOLES: Optimous Douche on the Liefeld Twitter Meltdown!: I have seen a slew of creators who are immensely more talented living off of Raman noodles. You were given a gift sir and you have proven once again you are not worthy of it. You were incinerated to ashes during the meltdown of the 90s, and some will say you helped push the buttons that launched the missiles of market destruction. Despite this fact, people still followed the words of the bible, “just because a man once bloweth donkeys, allow him to once again pet your donkey, he might not blow it this time.” So we all gave you another chance when you were taken under the wing of Robert Kirkman and welcomed with open arms by your old comrade Jim Lee in 2011. After all, 15 or so years should more than enough time to learn the virtues of feet, guns with triggers, backgrounds beyond screen doors, anatomy, a hair style other than the 90’s fade, physics, not all outfits come with copious amounts of pouches, mouths have lips, and last but certainly not least…CONTI-FUCKING-NUITY…from panel-to-panel. Alas, this was not the case. What we received was simply more of the same old Rob from the 90s, minus the pollybagging and chromium covers. Little did I know that those things weren’t marketing techniques, but rather shields from crappy material.

The Liefeld Fallacy – Creator Says Creators Don't Matter: Fans and numbers would disagree, then, with Liefeld's assertion that titles sell because of a character in it, but it's even more problematic when you consider the fact that even Liefeld himself disagrees with it. Or at least the younger version of him did. He was one of the founders of Image Comics, whose whole purpose was to give creators the right and freedom they deserve. To come out twenty years later and say that the creative team of Batman can be interchangeable goes clearly against what Image stands for.

Three More Raymond Carver References And I’ll Win Those Tickets To Cancun
: The most confounding bit was where Liefeld quoted a DC editor saying, “Early on we had a lot of indie talent that weren’t used to re-writes and changes … made it hard.” DC thinks the problem was it hired too much indie talent? Also: DC thinks it hired any indie talent at any point? Say what you will, but Sue Coe’s issues of Psyba-Rats were underrated. People really seemed to mind what Liefeld was saying and felt an urgent desperation to share that fact with anyone they could. (I guess everyone in comics is still supposed to pretend to be Bullpen pals, the way strippers are all supposed to be paying for computer classes…?)... Scott Snyder finally cracked why people like Batman, and it turns out the answer is Scott Snyder. And apparently, Scott Snyder just goes around privately letting other people who work in comics know that someday they can spread his legend, so that our children and our children’s children will know.

Bastard children - The behavior exhibited by Rob Liefeld (among others) is unacceptable and unprofessional—for publishing. An editor at Candlewick Press would not comment upon a dispute between an author and Chronicle Books. A writer would not hurl personal insults at the editorial team attempting to improve his product. Issues are handled privately, and if they cannot be handled privately, they are handled publicly with decorum and respect. There are certain standards to be held.
However, for visual entertainment industries such as film and television? This behavior is commonplace and beneficial. It is rewarded with publicity and new opportunities. Does anyone truly believe that there is no place for Liefeld at Marvel given the buzz he has now created? Brevoort's words mean nothing, for we have seen Liefeld zip from company to company (Marvel included) based on his ability to draw eyes. And, akin to celebrities such as Charlie Sheen or Kanye West, he has reached such a status in his field that he is able to say anything sans repercussion (save for public giggling or grumbling, which again provides free publicity).

Сравнение с Чарли Шином пришло в голову отнюдь не только Черил Линн - Is Rob Liefeld The Charlie Sheen Of Comic Books?: In a way, Rob Liefeld has been a victim of his very own success. He helped create the "monster" he rails against so much. Anything that successful is eventually going to be micro-managed by the publisher, the editors, the bean-counters, the investors, the publicists; because too much money is on the line. Some of Liefeld's Image co-founders anticipated and understood this -- witness DC co-publisher Jim Lee. Liefeld rants bitterly over "editorial interference" -- but that's just the tip of the iceberg when working with characters like Superman, Batman, Hawkman, and the rest. And while I agree there should be more of a dialogue about this -- and how comic creators can get more freedom within the corporate structure of publishers -- saying someone has "a small pecker" really obscures the issue.

Any thoughts on the recent Rob Liefeld blow out with DC?: However, his recent round of Tweets where he shit on his editor by name and shit on his artist and then went after Scott Snyder (let alone call a Marvel editor “fat”) show that as shitty as he is an artist and creator Leifeld is even shittier as a person.


Вот как-то так. Что теперь будет с Робом Лайфелдом?
Пнятия не имею. В принципе, наверное, можно было бы бросить что-то вроде "для него всё кончено", но,Э во-первых, эта индустрия чудесно-непредсказуема, а во-вторых, как показали последние лет десять у Роба определённо есть что-то общее с легендарно неубиваемыми тараканами. Пока что Робу есть чем заняться, и DC тоже есть чем заняться в его отсутствие.

А мы, пожалуй вернёмся к комментарию Пита Вудса про то, что "редакторский произвол" по сути равен "чёткому общему плану". Возможно это действительно так, что уж там.
В конце концов, Лайфелд - это, ну Лайфелд. Всего лишь Лайфелд.
Человек-шутка. Человек-легенда в самом плохом смысле этого слова.
Слушать его, верить ему, признавать, что в его претензиях есть что-то кроме ущёмлённого непомерного эго, глупо, правильно?

Нооо...
Но снова вспоминается история с Перезом. И скандал вокруг Джеймса Робинсона весной. И то, что из DC внезапно решил свалить Джадд Виник. И грядущий уход Гранта Моррисона. И недавние слова Марка Уэйда о влиянии редакции DC на отдельные сюжетные повороты в комиксах, где он был сценаристом. И рассказ Билла Уиллингэма о давлении, которое на него оказывали, когда он писал про Стефани Браун. И...

И Лайфелд - это, конечно, Лайфелд.
Но что, скажите мне, происходит в DC?!
Как правильно заметил  Sir Carnage, "вообще в индустрии, где почти все всё время говорят почти обо всех хорошо (потому что кто знает с кем потом придётся работать), ДиСи умудряется доводить рекордное количество творческих людей до откровенно негативных высказываний в их адрес". И не только.
Хммммм...

@темы: DC

---

Лампочка внезапного цвета

[Jaya]

Привет, ребятки разных полов и гендеров!

Ну да, конечно, вроде как мне надо делать очередной (снова опаздывающий!) линкспам. И ещё два запланированных узкотематических ссылкопоста. И дописать статью по Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, после которой фанаты Джонена Васкеза захотят моей крови. Что-то плохо она у меня идёт: уже почти тысяча слов, а к сути я пока так и не приступила.

Но!
Но я, читая один из самых лично мне интересных сайтов и-про-комиксы-тоже, наткнулась на разгромную статью, посвящённую "Зелёному Фонарю" Джеффа Джонса. В комментариях там завязалась дискуссия, появились ссылки на прочие мнения... и я подумала: эй, народу может быть интересно! И раз уж со своими словами у меня затык, поделюсь-ка я с вами чужими.

Ссылки, цитаты, слова и даже картинки. Картинок мало.

Итак:

Speaking Power to Stupid: The Ever-Dumb Green Lantern Comics of Geoff Johns

Ну вперёд, угадайте, про что это! Правда, глядя на название, это сделать довольно сложно?

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This style has its proponents, even among people who should really know better, due to its constant hammering on nostalgia buttons, emphasis on “awesome” moments, and constantly-expanding stakes that reassure readers a long-term plan is in place, no matter how idiotic it is. What’s more, regular injections of gruesome violence and attempts at making everyone a badass make Johns’ comics perfect for those developmentally-stunted members of the audience who want to pretend that the kiddie entertainment of their childhood is all grown up now that it’s full of rape and dismemberment.
...
Why Hal needs to fly planes to get his adrenaline kicks should be the main question here, since he has a ring that lets him create anything imaginable and zoom around the universe at presumably faster-than-light speeds (since he’s always traveling to other star systems) anyway, but it’s mostly the nostalgia factor at work; that’s what he did back in the 60s (when planes were futuristic and glamorous), so that’s what he does now, dammit.
...
There’s also Hector Hammond, a gross, giant-headed scientist who Johns attempts to turn into a creepy, telepathic riff on Hannibal Lector, sitting in a prison cell and making cryptic comments to Hal, while commenting that Hal is so cool and he’s Hal’s biggest fan in an apparent attempt to replicate the creepiness of Frank Miller’s take on the Joker in The Dark Knight Returns, but without all that icky homoeroticism.
...
That’s how most of these plots work themselves out, by taking leaps that really don’t make any sense. In a later story, Hal and a couple of his fellow pilots get shot down over Chechnya and spend a few months in a prison camp, all because he likes to court danger by not wearing his ring when he flies. That’s a dumb way to start a plot, even if it’s already been established that Hal is a thrill-seeker and a doofus, but there are a hell of a lot of super-people who should have rescued them at some point. The Justice League shows up and apologizes, saying that they thought he was off in space, but none of his fellow Green Lanterns (three of whom are also from Earth) thought to check up on him when he went missing? It’s all meant to give him something to angst about (since he could have saved them all in minutes if he was wearing his ring), and maybe to plug some real-world threats into the book, but it takes some serious mental contortions to even attempt to accept.
...
The relatively straightforward nature of the story doesn’t stop it from including all sorts of idiocy and tastelessness though. For one, Sinestro manages to get Parallax to possess Kyle Rayner by revealing that his (Kyle’s) mother was killed by a member of the Sinestro Corps who is a sentient virus. Why that makes him scared rather than angry is unknown. Dumber still is a scene in which we learn Hal’s greatest fear, which is that he’ll never know what his father’s last words were. Does that even make sense? What a weird thing to be scared of. That’s pretty typical of Johns though; he tries to work in dramatic moments that fit the themes he tries to write about (in this case, “fear”), while constantly mashing on the buttons labeled “Hal is awesome and everyone loves him” and “Hal wanted to fly just like his father”.
...
And so begins the simplification of all emotion down into a small number of possibilities (what about happiness, despair, betrayal, regret, or, I dunno, nostalgia?), creating fodder for innumerable stories in which different colors can fight each other with a “my hope shall overcome your rage!” simplicity to their actions. As dumb as this idea is, it’s a concept that could work well enough for kiddie entertainment, like something out of Care Bears or My Little Pony, but wedding it to regular maimings, the constant spilling of blood, ridiculously-proportioned women thrusting their secondary sexual characteristics at the reader, and teeth-gritted angsting about law and justice turns it all into a loud, garish mess.
...
These guys power Hal’s ring up to 200% capacity and tag along with him to rescue Sinestro, but they get to demonstrate how great they are along the way by cooling down a star about to go supernova, saving all the inhabitants of the planet revolving around it. Interestingly, this is one of the only times in the entire series that any of the Lanterns perform their (or at least the Green shade of the spectrum’s) stated mission to patrol space, fight crime, and help people out. The rest of the series is all about people attacking Hal because they are obsessed with him, or engaging in power struggles between different colors. By including a simple moment like this, the entire premise and conflict of the series is thrown into relief, seeming like petty infighting between the powerful, who ignore the plights of those not worthy of their attention. This wouldn’t be a bad metaphor for modern society, if it was at all intended as such.
...
As with most of Johns’ comics (and superhero comics in general, really), this is action figure storytelling, grown men playing with toys and trying to think of cool playsets to build and different childish conflicts for them to get into, but while that sort of thing can have its charms (most Hollywood action movies aren’t much different), Johns turns it into a distasteful exercise in arrested development, trying desperately to make it serious and dark and violent and “adult”. Hence the nasty stuff with the zombies, the constant sexualization of any female characters (even the weird alien ones), or the more ridiculous stuff he comes up with later, like a scene in which zombie Aquaman presents Mera with a reanimated version of their dead baby, and she vomits red blood-acid all over it.
...
As much as Johns seems to want to use these emotion-colors to tell stories, he’s got nothing interesting to say about them, or any depth to any of his characters. The killer is unrepentant and evil, ready for death, but he still cracks and starts begging for his life when the various scary monster characters attack him. The father is sad and angry, and I guess we’re supposed to feel sorry for him as he cries and screams and turns into a killer himself. But there’s no attempt to address the morality of capital punishment or the effect that violent revenge might have on those who carry it out; it’s all just window dressing for aliens and costumed creatures to fight over who gets to wield power.
...
That sort of massive-scale ambition is kind of commendable, and, sure, it could be a good basis for a kiddie cartoon of some sort, but Johns takes it all so damn seriously. He tries to retell the origin of life and address the nature of death and the afterlife. He has characters confront the horrors of genocide and debate the morality of capital punishment. He attempts to delve into the nature of “pure” emotions themselves and see how they can be manipulated, twisted, or channeled by people. This seems like it’s more than just a big spandex space opera to him; it’s a way of life.
That’s what ultimately sours me on the entire enterprise: the need to turn what could be dumb-but-enjoyable action-adventure stories into some sort of statement, even if that statement is just “look how mature and adult this is!” That’s the nature of superhero comics these days, adding sex (or hints in that direction, mostly consisting of skimpy costumes and cleavage/upskirt viewing angles for female characters) and violence (which is not nearly as coy, usually being front-and-center on the page and as gory as possible) to the children’s entertainment which the creators and the audience have such nostalgia for. Johns’ ambition in revamping and “maturing” the characters and milieus that he loved so much as a kid is obvious, but while he may have stumbled upon some halfway decent ideas and managed to put together some pretty good action sequences, the execution is so blunt and dumb, full of ridiculous nonsense and crammed with tawdry attempts to make the stories “dark”, that anyone in their right mind should just laugh, rather than celebrate him as some sort of master storyteller.


Окей. Океееей.
Тут вот какая штука: ну да, лично мне с супергероикой уже некоторое время как не по пути. Ну да, я не то чтобы хорошо отношусь к Джонсу и нет, всего этого я не читала.
Но с точки зрения чистого, если и предвзятого, то не в ту сторону: автор, ты не убедил меня.
И не то чтобы задача была совсем уж невыполнимой: владеющий словом (а лучше - ещё и обладающий комедийным талантом) человек может в принципе расчленить едва ли не что угодно. а тут с материалом и вправду есть проблемы. Но тут редкие внятные аргументы и хорошие оброты (почти все они - в цитатах выше) разбавляют собой слегка (но недостаточно!) злобный перессказ с постоянной подспудной отсылкой на "очевидность" тех или иных выносимых оценок. Но автору повезло с публикой: аудитория сайта к супергероике испытывает в лучшем случае сдержанную нелюбовь, а потому многие из понятных вопросов заданы не были. Впрочем, не уверена, что они в принципе могли бы быть заданы: увы, люди, люди, которые могут вести спор на определённом уровне, и люди, которым интересно заводить такой спор о Зелёном Фонаре - группы, пересекающиеся не так уж и часто.

Дискуссия, впрочем, в комментариях всё-таки развернулась, и там были

сказаны вещи.

сказаны вещи:

One of the problems with this writeup is that, in trying to paint this comic as the dumbest thing in existence, you’ve actually made it sound INCREDIBLY ENTERTAINING.
But the main issue is that it doesn’t seem to be intended primarily as a critique of the work itself so much as an attack on its readership. Per the article, the summary of all this is that the writing of Geoff Johns “begs to be ignored and forgotten by anyone with half a brain.” The audience for Johns’ work is described as “man-children like himself who can’t manage to expand the boundaries of their sphere of knowledge beyond stories of muscular behemoths in colorful, skin-tight costumes beating each other into oblivion.” That same audience is then implored to take the author’s advice by reading something better. But what is “better”?

At points in this critique, I was reminded of the question of why the Jedi would use light sabers rather than laser guns. Is ‘Sinestro’ a less silly name than ‘Atrocitus’?
I’d say there’s a difference between, say, the seriousness of Cooke’s New Frontier and that of Johns’ Green Lantern. The former really doesn’t recognize the inherent silliness of its means in attempting to say something significant about the American spirit through nostalgic superheroes, whereas the latter just sort of goes with the silliness, accepts that the story has few implications for our world and then amps the silliness up. I read the series up though the Blackest Night and found it thoroughly entertaining in the best lowbrow way (got bored with the revenants, though).

Johns isn’t a character writer but he goes after the high concepts and the splashy images without ever building the structure to support them. They’re cool because Johns thinks they’re cool without him having the skill to ever really convey that to the reader.

That Blackest Night prologue issue is one that I’ve seen cited here and there as good horror writing, but it’s just a guy obsessed with death who murders his family, kills himself, then gets resurrected when an evil Guardian shows up and vomits up a black ring. It also pauses to spend two double-page spreads recounting every death and resurrection in DC comics, to the point of numbness. Yawn.
And when it comes to “basic human emotional concerns”, I don’t see anything worth trumpeting either. His version of hope is a vaguely religious recitation of the phrase “all will be well”, which is nearly meaningless. His idea of love is all warped, seemingly informed by bitterness toward a controlling, overprotective partner, or a feeling of being grossed out by obsessive voyeurism. Compassion seems kind of threatening, a primitive, literally tribal impulse that mind-controls villains into doing heroic acts against their will. This isn’t really relatable stuff that everyone understands, but terms that everybody knows stamped onto space creatures shooting different colored beams at each other.

I would say that Johns’ comics are written by and for people who do not instinctively understand that “Sinestro” is a good character name and “Atrocitus” is a stupid one.

The “superhero comics fans are more than stunted man-boys” argument misses the point. Sure, you can be an unwashed social retard and eloquently speak of Handel.
But, the thing is, there is that part of themselves — their “inner (sometimes not so hidden) fanboy” — which goes nuts for grim n’ gritty violence posing as maturity, oversexualized fan service femme fantasy figures, adolescent power-tripping rendered in anally tight, gradient-packed art. They could rightly say, “Comic Book Guy, c’est moi!”


Заодно там поговорили про фанатов и поп-музыку, но мы тут не для этого.

Автор сослался на своё "вдохновление", вот это: The Geoff Johns Literalism Method: A Primer

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What is it that Geoff Johns does so well when it comes to revitalizing characters? It's very simple: reduce the character or team into a single core idea and rebuild every aspect of the mythology around that idea. I've termed this "Johnsian Literalism," and it's an approach that's becoming more widely used.

A character's location, family, friends and villains should all reflect or refract an aspect of that core idea -- a crystalline, fractal concept that extends itself into every narrative tendril of every story.
...
Johns's run on Green Lantern centers around a single, overwhelming concept: manifestations of willpower. For years previous, the Green Lanterns had been known for not having fear, but Johns's run reframed the concept around very specific theme of overcoming fear.
...
Johns mastered this approach and made it very popular in superhero comics. Variations from other writers include Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction's Immortal Iron Fist and Jason Aaron on Ghost Rider. They utilized aspects of the Johnsian approach to extend the legacies of their characters into millennia-spanning epics and create entire worlds around the main characters and their themes, like vengeance in the case of Ghost Rider or accepting responsibility in the case of Iron Fist.

Интересно, что это замечание о том, как именно Джонс представляет своих героев читателям, перекликается со статьёй Мэтта Сенеки, о которой мы поговорим сразу же после того, как я пролцитирую один из комментариев Мэтта в первоначальной дискуссии:

i think i have an even higher opinion of johns since then, mostly informed by chill seshes with andy khouri, who knows him on real life. none of the stuff about bravery and hope is contrived, those are real messages he is sincerely trying to impart. how many comics, super or not, want to inspire their readers to be better people? johns is speaking a language more people understand than what pretty much anyone else in comics is speaking, and he’s working out some heavy cosmological shit with it – creating a fictional universe with no relation to ours whatsoever but using it to address the most basic (or hell, base, i’ll say it, who cares) human emotional concerns. motherfucker is a g. also: doug mahnke consistently amazes me with the level of high focus horrorcore drafting he is able to produce on a monthly basis.

С Сенекой вот какая штука: хотя из процитированного этого и не видно, но, чёрт, этот парень умеет писать. С ним часто одновременно невозможно соглашаться (потому что юноша он странный), и невозможно не согласиться, потому что когда Мэтт удосуживается раскачаться, то, что он пишет, читается как песня, и нельзя не восторгаться чистому умению обращаться с языком. Для примера: раз и два. А ещё он очень похож на моего двоюродного брата. Брр.

Разуммется, на то, что он написал про "Зелёного Фонаря" Джонса посмотреть стоит. Раз: Geoff Johns: The Best On Offer (1)

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Like pretty much everything else about Johns’ work, this quality carries no inherent positive or negative value -- in fact, it’s quite tricky to even assign a value to. It simply is: if you buy a Johns comic, attention to continuity is one of the parameters the story will operate within.
...
The second of Johns’ identifying mannerisms is his interest in the iconic. That’s a word that got bantered about a lot during the middle of last decade as the ideal mode for superhero comics (since this country’s economic collapse, it’s been replaced in that capacity by fresh). Iconic is basically an attempt at alchemy, the distillation of year upon year of backstory into compact form, characters presented as a kind of telegraphing symbol for their own long history. The easiest cross-medium comparison is to music: making a character iconic is a bit like making a dance remix of a song, pruning away the ornamental and the expositional and rendering a single, steady hook that retains the identity of the whole while ceasing to hint at the complexity it might have held in its original form.
...
Every truly great writer of superhero comics does more than just exploit the “shared universe” concept: they put their own spin on it, creating stories that change the fabric of the story environment itself, forcing future writers to work within the parameters of their stories. There’s nothing wrong with this.
In Johns, however, that desire was mingled with an equally strong attachment to what he saw as the purest forms of the character concepts he was using, the iconic readings of them that first emerged in the continuity-heavy comics of the high Silver Age and were perpetuated by the on-model renderings of the Super Friends TV show in its various incarnations. Johns’ stock in trade became something between reversion to type and retooling for the future. The “Johns relaunch” was typically composed of a return to something approximating the original idea that birthed the character in the middle years of the 20th century, a dangerous and sexy face-lift for the villains that had played the biggest part in the hero’s early career, and the introduction of darker concepts to the range of story possibilities.
...
There was a troubling aspect to some of these relaunches, which erased decades of conceptual growth and saddled versions of the characters that were fully and completely intended for children when they were created with uncomfortably adult story material (and occasionally carried an even more vexing hint of racial whitewashing). Though superhero comics have “not been for kids anymore” for a fair few decades at this point, Johns’ reinterpretations made a cottage industry out of ignoring the stories that had passed during those years, moving the characters back to the conceptual ground they operated on during the years when even a thrown punch was an uncommonly savage thing to see in a DC comic. What Johns seems to be doing is going back to the versions of these characters and worlds that were made for children, and seeing how they fare when they have spilled entrails and blown brain matter to contend with.
...
To please an ever more passionately divided audience, Johns has made DC’s superhero universe into a venue for unprecedented exercises in exploitation storytelling and conceptual darkness. Under his guidance, the “DCU” has traveled far indeed from the whimsical, consequence-free place it was when the stories whose concepts and frameworks he so regularly borrows from were written. But then, the people who dip their imaginations into it with the greatest frequency and intensity have traveled far themselves. Johns’ writing is writing for children that grew up long ago, a gospel of violence and degradation pitched to an audience whose passion for the material would seem to testify to the deep level it speaks to them on.
...
There’s an unanswered question raised by Johns’ resurrection of these works, one that won’t go away: why does he feel it’s necessary to add the violence in?


Хммм, "иконический по Джонсу" - в этом точно что-то есть. Ну да ладно, два: Geoff Johns: The Best On Offer (2)

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As far as Dargeresque superhero comics are concerned, it’s Johns and Johns alone. The overriding sense in both men’s work is one of complete dislocation from reality as we know it: human forms still converse and conflict and move through space, but that’s about it. The rules of the game, the governing principles of reality, are completely alien, the province of an entirely imagined logic. In Johns’ Green Lantern universe it often seems that nothing is random, that the laws of inertia and physics have been replaced by the ministrations of various cosmic deities representing the spectrum of human emotion. It’s a vastly compelling idea: though he has never been one to flinch away from showing the most degrading, disturbing things allowed in mainstream comics (and at times actively expanded the parameters of how far into the meat grinder things can go), in Johns the very presence of death and evil is firmly explicable, the fault of “bad” entities who merely require defeat at the hands of the “good” ones.
Johns’ cosmology occasionally approaches the grand terms morality play operates on, but there’s no actual morality involved in these stories. All the blood explosions and breaking skeletons and planed-open bodies and the forces that govern them are conceived as pure entertainment, with no greater message whatsoever to communicate. Though the presence of “good” and “evil” imply some higher relevance, there is no reflection on right and wrong action, no lessons to be learned or messages to take away. The actions that drive the plot of a Johns comic are literally impossible for humans to take in the real world, and all that is shown of their effects is the influence they have on other, similarly abstract entities. Good and evil cease to matter when it’s impossible to practice either one. For all their near-divine grandeur, these comics are literally meaningless when considered as anything but the actuality of what their panels depict.
...
It’s also one of the most unremittingly bleak and violent issues of a superhero comic ever published without the caveat of a mature readers label or an out-of-continuity disclaimer. As far as the “DCU” is concerned, this is all real, and the lack of any excuses is one of the most striking things about it. This is nothing but a mainstream superhero comic, pitched to the most general of audiences the medium commands, and it is absolutely horrifying.
...
There’s a linear story beneath the chilling string of imagery Green Lantern #43 presents, but it simply doesn’t feel as important as the sense of utter hopelessness that Johns and Mahnke create: if any Johns comic goes beyond its own complexity and into the realm of successful exploitation work, it’s this one. The point of the comic feels utterly abstract, the creation of something monstrous more urgent for a moment than the epic saga it’s supposed to be leading into.
...
When superheroes win we see them as amplifications of the human spirit, elaborately drawn symbols for the idea that though the world may often seem an evil place and humanity all too assailable, day by day we remain alive, and sometimes that alone is a victory. When hero comics give way to this thick a darkness, though, the sense is one of total hopelessness. That downbeat sense doesn’t invalidate the art propelling it -- the list of great works ending on a note of defeat is vast and includes plenty of comics -- but it begs the question of why superheroes are a part of the story at all. They exist to triumph, and when they don’t the poignancy of hopelessness itself is lost, set adrift by a failure to highlight the fragility of the human condition. Johns’ darkness is real darkness, the dark of malice but also of vacancy: comics as pure, vapid spectacle, the aesthetic potential of the ideas being worked with left behind.
...
What that says about the medium’s audience is open to interpretation, but I’m afraid I can’t see a way that it says anything good. And what it says about the superhero comics themselves, these stories of inhuman beings fighting for a simpler, lighter world, seems all too obvious. Though they win the battles like they always do, when it’s happening in Johns' comics they’ve already lost the war.


Хорошо, да? Да.
Об этом даже стоит подумать.

И ещё две ссылки всё из тех же комментариев:

Poodle: “I’ve seen superman having sex and it wasn’t very nice” - помните, что я выше говорила про автора с комедийным талантом? Вот вам отличная демонстрация. Разгромная рецензия как перформанс злословием - очень отдельный жанр, и это - прелестный его образчик.

Выдержки

Выдержки:

By resurrecting fucking EVERYONE in the DCU he gets to work all his favourite hangups into the equation: his overdeveloped reverence for DC history and continuity, erecting bloody statues, monuments and super-tombs on every other page, his desire to mine even the most inconsequential characters and cul-de-sacs of the universe for story potential, to enliven – what was it that other blogging bloke called it? – all of those ‘blobs of colour in the corner of the crowd scene’, and, most importantly, have everyone hang out with each other.
...
Seriously, if you think Blackest NICE is about anything other than the continuity fucking itself then just read the comic again. Everything, all the ‘dramatic’ stuff, centres around some bullshit that happened in a comic (I hope) you didn’t read: Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s relationship, the return of Martian Manhunter, Ralph and Sue Dibny… It ends on bloody Ralph and Sue Dibny because that’s, you know, definitely the most dramatic thing ever. Only it’s not. Not unless you give a shit. And I don’t. The Flash cries about it or something, but I didn’t.
...
Look, Geoff, if you care so much about the demise of these inconsequential characters, if the Flash cares enough to ‘sit down for the first time since he got back’, it has to be because of what Ralph and Sue represented – fun, silliness, childishness, goodness – everything that makes comics good for kids and puppies – so then why oh why do you not understand the irony of turning them into rotting zombie people who like nothing better than to impale their mates with big spears [Editor's note: ah, but that's the point, Poodle: it's about the tragedy of innocence lost!]?
...
And another thing. I’ve noticed this trend for you to patronise scientists by having them waffle on about the really, real supernatural side of life and the transcendent power of emotions (which we have you on record as saying you believe are somehow super-physical, just like the lantern’s spectrum) and the ability of these things, and only these things, to invest life with meaning, and you know what: bollocks.


Late on Tues, it’s our reviews: Green Lantern #52 - про неясность видения Джонса.

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Выдержки:

Fair enough Final Crisis had the Earth as the gods’ battleground, as a kind of notional universal center, but Morrison had so much other stuff going on that it would be silly to accuse him of geocentrism. His Earth was the center of the universe because it’s the center of the fictional construct (the DCU) that was the meta-textual concern of his very meta-textual story, and he went to great pains to get us to understand that that was where he was coming from. If Final Crisis is a story about DCU stories, which it undeniably is, then of course Earth is the most important place in the universe.
...
Johns on the other hand, he’s not saying anything that isn’t written on the tin and what’s written on the tin is genuinely weird*. The Green Lantern concept allows Johns to quite literally reify just about anything he likes and so he has: Life? Check. Death? Check. Avarice? Check. Rage? Yup. Everything is reduced to spandex and glowing energy. In that way he’s not entirely unlike Kirby or indeed any number of other writers, but unlike some of those writers Johns has none of Kirby’s wild creative energy, add that to the very particular world view that comes through in his comics (love=the Predator remember) and the overall deficit of broader, non-DCU, non Green Lantern orientated concerns gives Johns’ mythology a parochial and bizarrely concrete feel.
...
hns is an original: there’s no-one out there doing what he does, no-one else who would feel it important to explain the historical significance of Ion, and that’s probably a big part of why he’s so successful. But where others see awesomeness, I see comics that are fixated on comics and nothing but comics – Green Lantern comics in particular.


Вот как-то так.

@темы: DC, Ссылки

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Seeds GN (2011)

[QVall]

скачать 42 Мб

Автобиографический комикс Ross Mackintosh вызвал у меня противоречивые чувства. Я бы сказала, что он мне не понравился. Неотшлифованная графика, прямолинейное построение, огромные буквы. Да и сама тема - о столкновении автора как сына со смертельной болезнью своего отца - довольно тяжелая. Но все же, у автора хватило такта написать не слезодавилку или депрессивную рефлексию, а повесть со светлой грустью, и даже повторяющийся из века в век простой вопрос человечества ("Что есть жизнь? Что есть смерть?"), кажется уместным, а не натужно пафосным

@темы: Скачать, Отзыв

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[QVall]

Вот поэтому Пайпер - злодей =)))

@темы: DC

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[picspam] - 2012-09-04

[QVall]

Предупреждение: содержит спойлеры, ретро-рубрику с Бэт-сериями и прочие странные кадры из комиксов

Локи, снова? Или его алтимейт отпрыск?


















Трагедия! Ужас!

Ретро-рубрика:

Мини-серия «Man-Bat», не о чем, ну кроме того факта, что дает ориджин Аарона, что не имеет значение в новой 52


Были времена, когда герои ДиСи вызывали скорую, для тех кого побили...




И прекрасное - Year One - Scarecrow, которую писал Брюс Джонс, человек, чье творчество не остается в каноне (и слава Богу!), зато рисовал Шон Мерфи.




Дики, поэтому ты мой любмый сайдкик

@темы: QVall-picspam

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Линкспам: возвращение (часть вторая)

[Jaya]

Вы думали, я шутила про продолжение?
Зря: у меня нет чувства юмора!
Итак, продолжаем:

Супергерои вообще

Супергерои вообще:

Why We Still Need Heroes - о том, что же означают супергерои. На самом деле, конечно, статья довольно поверхностная (особенно с прекраснейшим "это просто кино!" в конце - хотя, пожалуй, "политический" элемент последнего "Тёмного рыцаря" заслуживает эту оценку), особенно если вспомнить, что дискуссия о фашистском (скорее уж ницшеанском, но поскольку ницшеанский подход социально опасен именно потенциальной трансформацией в фашизм, утрирование представляется оправданным) элементе в супергероике вполне себе ведётся, причём давно. Имеющиеся два комментария едва ли не интереснее основного материала: It is way out of line to say that Batman is a form of propaganda for the 1% and for gun-toting, fascist conservative wingnuts. But what’s even more out of line is the declaration in the title of Maupin’s piece that we don’t need super-heroes. We absolutely do need super-heroes. We always will. Super-heroes serve as escapism when times are tough, they inspire us to do great things when the chips are down, and they teach us important life lessons. They are not saviors – it’s still up to us to get our asses out of the fire – but they represent the idea of the savior within us all.

The Male Superhero As Rock Star / Drag Queen - супергерои как обладатели качеств, не очень-то "полагающихся" мужчинам в нашей культуре: It is increasingly clear to me that part of my early interest in male superheroes stems from this interest in more visible men. On some level I like the fact that superheroes are so overtly trying to change people’s perception of them. They generally wear skintight clothing, brightly colored, body-conscious suits which aggressively assert that they’re totally aware of the external gaze. Simultaneously they hide their identity, sometimes to the extent of covering their faces. This creates an interesting tension between opposites, where the identity is protected while the body is vulnerable. There is strength in this visible disguise, which echoes the woman in a tight dress and a lot of make-up. Women and male superheroes both display physical assets, while guarding their identity with masks.

Are Superheroes Good for Society? - супергерои как источник, воли, вдохновения и ответов: Maybe if we look deep within ourselves we can find the strenghth to help those who can't help themselves. But some of us may have a strong heart, but a weak body. One hero we all know went through the same thing CAPTAIN AMERICA and if you wanna count him SPIDER-MAN. I'm not sayong go fight crime but there are smaller things that we can do. Maybe helping someone up if they fall. Or if you see someone getting picked on help them out. We can stand by our morals when faced with temptation of any kind.

The Benefits of Bonding with Batman - любопытная заметка. Интересно, каковы были бы результаты, реши авторы исследования обратить свой взгляд на женщин: In the researchers’ words, this suggests “one possible explanation for the overwhelming popularity of superheroes in our society is that, for some men, they may fulfill an important psychological function: making them feel better about their bodies.”

Comic books help humans strive to be extraordinary - и снова комиксы как источник вдохновения: Superhero stories are not just about meta-human champions beating on baddies. They’re about the struggle to be good and just. They’re about triumphing over impossible odds, whether they’re a heard of flesh-craving zombies, an enraged, gamma-powered mutant or a just a genius-gone-evil scientist. But most importantly, it’s about finding the human in someone who is a little bit more.

Интервью - Джо Куберт, Грант Моррисон, Марк Уэйд, Джим Ли, Брайан Ли О'Мэйли и прочие интересные люди, про которых вы знаете и не знаете

Интервью:

Люди, про которых вы знаете

Люди, про которых вы знаете:

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Joe Kubert by Alan Kupperberg & Steve Mitchell - большое старое интервью с легендарным Джо Кубертом. Забавно замечание интервьюера о том, что "супергероям конец", интервью вообще примечательно в том числе как демонстрация "пульса" индустрии на схваченный момент времени:

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IN my opinion, I’ve always felt that the success of Superman was always the stories. You could always have Superman in a position where he looks like he couldn’t escape but, at the last minute, he would get out of it alright. The artwork, to me, has always been terrible, except for the last two or three years. Since then, it has sort of come up to par with the stories. The stories have always been up there and that’s what I think has probably sold the book. A little kid can go out there and say, “Oh, gee! What is gonna happen to Superman this week?” It is interesting, like a TV show.
...
I think it was Milt Caniff who said that no comic strip, no cartoon effort can be considered really successful unless it’s a combination effort of writing and artwork by the person who is actually executing the final work. That is, generally speaking, the most successful efforts in the cartooning field have been done by guys who have controlled the writing as well as the artwork, for whatever thing they’re doing.
...
The Code is something that was profligated by the business itself. It’s not something that was foisted on the business. The business did it simply because they felt, on account of all the criticism that they’d received – to show that they were cognizant of their responsibilities. They formed their own board of censors. Now, I think that the Code will probably exist as long as they feel it’s important to have that stamp on the magazines. The most important fact in that the Code is on the magazine is merely in order to make an extra couple of sales.


Comic Relief with Mark Waid - Марк Уэйд говорит обо всём подряд. Народ больше всего (если опустить слова про отвратительное поведение DC в связи со смертью Джо Куберта) зацепился вот за это: The grimness is just absurd. It’s “how do we out-grim each other, how do we out-violence each other”. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not offended because I want comics to be like they were when I was a kid. I don’t care. I don’t want comics to be like they were when I was a kid because I still have my comics. If I need that I’ll go look at those. What I need is for comics to not cheapen out and just do what they think a bunch of bloodthirsty 15 year old fans want. Stop trying to gross us out with blood and violence. It’s just cheap. It’s bad storytelling. I’m not offended on a moral or ethical level, I’m just offended on a creativity level. There are other ways to create tension and drama than to have somebody stabbed through the back with a sword.
Люди вспомнили про участие Уэйда в "52", смерть Ральфа Дибни, и начали... задавать вопросы: So Who Killed Ralph Dibny Anyway?. Это приводит нас к разговору о текущей ситуации в DC, но полноценнно об этом (как я уже говорила) будет отдельно, а пока опустим.

Being Grant Morrison: From "HAPPY!" To MorrisonCon & Beyond - смотрите, Грант Моррисон! Оказывается, он - кавалер Ордена Британской Империи во втором поколении. Задумайтесь об этом. И ещё: он (пока?) завязывает с супергероями.

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I'm not saying that I'll never write superheroes again. It's just that my relationship to them has changed especially after finishing the book and I’m not sure if I want to maintain the same kind of relentless level of production.
...
But there's definitely some kind of centrifugal movement away from the mainstream toward new and more personal, expressive, creator-owned stuff, and I think it's partly because cinema has appropriated so much of the stuff we’ve been doing in comics for the last thirty years. Movie superheroes finally look better than their comic book counterparts. And creative people are more informed and want to own their ideas, and to be able to protect them or profit from them. The audience has developed a fresh appetite for new characters and stories which is driving a shift toward those kinds of stories again. Writers and artists are experimenting again. The future’s back and you could feel the floodgates opening at Image this year, in particular. It seems like everybody’s got something new coming out.
...
I wish I could be more like Warren Ellis, and have a commanding internet presence but I can never think of anything to say online. I waste days perfecting a few lines of an e-mail or tweet It’s pointless. For me nothing is faster, sexier and more rewarding than communicating with people in person.


Jim Lee reflects on a life in art — and the art of life - Джим Ли о своей карьере и своём творчестве. Видео.

War Rocket Ajax #127: Bill Willingham Talks 'Fabletown And Beyond' And, Yes, Stephanie Brown - подкаст. В какой-то момент там появляется Билл Уиллингэм, и с ним говорят, о да, о написанной им смерти Стефани Браун и о том, как Стефани стала Робином. Очередные радостные картинки из жизни DC! Да мы всё ещё будем говорить об этом отдельно.

Beyond the Many Lives of Scott Pilgrim - интервью с Брайаном Ли О'Мэйли о раскрашенном "Скотте Пилигриме", своём новом проекте и не только.

Выдержки

Выдержки:

Tumblr culture and the whole reappropriation-without-context thing are a double-edged sword in that they both raise awareness of my work and also kind of devalue it at the same time. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t mind. Culture is evolving and I’m along for the ride.
...
Like, I get to actually fix mistakes that were made so many years ago, or I get to spend more time on something that I always regretted rushing through. On the first book I made a lot of tiny changes that people won’t notice, just “correcting” faces and hair shapes and things. On the second book I started going to town a bit and really cleaned up and redrew some stuff. To some degree I might look at that when it comes out and wonder why I changed certain things at all, but it just felt kinda cathartic.
...
Well, on a new book, in a new world, it’s a clean break and I felt like I could push my art into new places. I can toss out intrinsic things about the Scott Pilgrim look that always bugged me over the years, and I can bring different influences to bear. I think the new book looks pretty different, but it’ll still be instantly recognizable as me.


The inspiration for Comic Sans gives his verdict on this 'awful' font - Дэйв Гиббонс о Comic Sans. Ну да.

Люди, о которых вы можете знать

Люди, о которых вы можете знать:

Round Two with Brian Wood - интервью с Брайаном Вудом. "Конан", "Звёздные войны" и особенности работы по найму. В какой-то момент становится очевидно, что задаваемые вопросы Вуда бесят, и он начинает откровенно отпинываться.

Выдержки

Выдержки:

The biggest, and most important thing is to know your place. With a licensed book, be it Conan or X-Men, I’m a hired gun, there to deliver a sсript according to instructions and basically walk away. With a creator-owned book, I’m running a business, one that I founded and own. Getting that straight in your head is key to sanity. I’ve seen some of my peers get too attached to the work for hire projects and have their hearts broken when they realize one day that, yeah, you ultimately don’t get to be the one who decides things.
I make it sound a little mercenary, but work for hire IS mercenary, and I don’t hold it against anyone. It’s the way it goes. I used to do creative work for a day job, design at a video game company, and it was the same thing.
...
This sort of thing happens elsewhere in comics, too, where readers are only interested if a story “matters,” meaning, its part of what they consider the “main” story. You can leave a lot of great work unread, taking that sort of binary approach. It also really stunts the industry as a whole, because new works can rarely get a toehold in a field of constantly self-referencing work. Some publishers are at the point of not bothering to launch new books that don’t “matter” because, well, the market has spoken.
...
I don’t have to be 100% fundamentalist in my devotion to all continuity, or 100% in direct opposition to all continuity with no chance at anything in between. There are degrees to how much you can reasonably let this sort of thing control the story.


Artist August: Brandon Graham [Interview] - Брэндон Грэм, автор King City и один из авторов (интервью с другими здесь и здесь) текущей инкарнации Prophet: So making art is like my diary and my entertainment and about trying to create something that could connect with someone the way Moebius or Shirow or Fil Barlow’s work connected with me. And sometimes it’s about just making it without worrying that anyone else will ever see it. I like drawing and coming up with stories and jokes. I like how many options art allows, I’ll never have enough time in my life to explore it all. I feel like the only thing I have to worry about is remembering that.

CBR SUNDAY CONVERSATION: Nicola Scott - Никола Скотт, в настоящее время рисующая для DC серию Earth 2 говорит о своей жизни и немного о работе.

CRUMB ON OTHERS, Part Four - легендарный Роберт Крамб о разных людях: Вуди Аллене, Чарльзе Бёрнсе, Абрахаме Линкольне, Ральфе Бакши, Эрже и прочих. Любопытно. Приктически полностью не про комиксы.

Fraction Broadcasts Sex, Murder, & Mystery in "Satellite Sam" - не интервью, а скорее коллекция высказываний о новом совместном проекте Говарда Чайкина и Мэтта Фракшена.

Jewish Mythology and Witch Trials: Terry Moore on Rachel Rising #10 - Терри Мур, автор Strangers in Paradise, о своём последнем проекте: It just seems that when you’re writing a big heavy story, everything ponders along like a semi, so once in awhile you need something to suddenly something rush up to you. It’s a subconscious thing, but I think it tires the reader out if every plot ponders along to the same methodical beat. Once in awhile, you need a swift right hook.

Chatting with Jock - интервью с художником The Losers: Drawing interior pages is about creating a whole; it’s not about one image, it’s about the way the comic is laid out. The way that you’re moving the reader’s eye around the page, the drama, the acting, all of those things, whereas for a cover, one thing I try to bring is a design sense. So I always like the covers to pop and grab you, but it should also tell a story as well and be intriguing.

Artist August: R.M. Guera [Interview] - интервью с художником недавно завершившейся серии Scalped: As I grew up on both American and European style of comics, I just had this sense about it – like a small vision inside bundle you show to nobody – that it is possible to make something like “best of both worlds”. I wanted to make those differences blur, and underline the sensitivity. It’s not important which “school” it is, it’s important that it’s a good story to tell. Make it more real. Like finding a great spot to intervene creatively

Conversing on Comics with Leinil Yu - интервью с нарисовавшим много всего для Marvel Лейнилом Ю.

Люди, про которых вы скорее всего не знаете

Люди, про которых вы скорее всего не знаете:

Paul Tobin On Madness And Paranoia In ‘Colder’ - смотрите, какая обложка! Пол Тобин о своём новом хоррор-комиксе: I never like it in paranormal stories where everything is so wonderfully explained. It’s far more terrifying for me to think in terms of “Ahh! Ghost!” then it is to understand, “Ahhh! Ghost! Because we took that sacred artifact from the dig site and if we get it sanctified by a properly ordained Irish-Shamaness then we can return it to the grave and give the ghosts the rest they deserve after being killed in battle by the hands of the Vikings in 853 AD.” That gives too much grounding. It removes the mystery. If you open up the closet at night and find that some of your laundry tumbled against the door, everyone knows they can go back to sleep, but you’ll stay awake all night until the mystery of why it creaked open is solved.” That terror of the unknown feeds on itself, and gnaws on you.

Si Spurrier: The Only Hope for the Ravaged Masses of Humanity - свежеобъявленный автор X-Men Legacy о своём авторском проекте: So with Extermination the concept was as simple as it was fun. Let’s accept the silliness of superhero conventions, let’s show a world where dressing in a colourful outfit is synonymous with being a Good Person, let’s have team-ups and ridiculous one-liners and overblown villainous schemes and daft weapons and all that… and then let’s take away every fucking thing that gives it meaning.

Artist August: Charles Paul Wilson III [Interview] - интервью с художником the Stuff of Legend: I dig down and try to find a way to empathize with each character’s experience as I draw them and whatever’s happening to them. If something tragic is happening with a character I sometimes feel for them when I come across it in sсript or it’s told to me over the phone, but I think I really feel it when I see the drawings working themselves out. And I think if it can kinda have the intended effect on me then there’s a good chance the reader will feel it too.

Люди, которые сами комиксы не создают

Люди, которые сами комиксы не создают:

Dan Braun Revives Your Favorite Horror Comics - человек (музыкант и пр.), занимающийся переизданием классических хоррор-антологий рассказывает об этом захватывающем процессе: Creepy was special, Creepy was something that I was not allowed to buy when I was that age; my parents wouldn’t want me reading that. Even though they were liberal, these comics were still too much. It always had a kind of mysterious lucidness to it, and I think it had a lot to do with the covers.

Interview: Philip Nel & Eric Reynolds on Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby from Fantagraphics - редакторы издания коллекции классических стрипов рассказывают об этом захватывающем процессе о стрипе и его истории: Yeah, exactly. Unlike a lot of the great comic strips of all time, Barnaby was never in a ton of papers, so it was not the most commercially successful strip around. But it was definitely one of the most literate and beautifully drawn and funny and charming strips that I’m aware of.

@’s by Writer Larry Tye Of SUPERMAN: THE HIGH FLYING HISTORY OF AMERICA’S MOST ENDURING HERO! - автор книги про историю Супермена говорит про... ну давайте, угадайте: It's a function of being the first, the best, and the most righteous. That makes him an easy target, same as it always has. People always like to take a swing at the king of the mountain, in hopes of pushing him off and being remembered as the one who did. It's also easy to make fun of Dudley-do-Right, because doing good can seem boring and lacking in edge. The truth is that Superman keeps coming back, defying his critics, delighting writers and artists who help forever find new ways to make him interesting, relevant, and even vulnerable. My favorite touchstones on whether or not Superman is cool is how many kids hold him up as a model -- and all you need to do is walk down any street in America to see that more kids are wearing Superman's shirt than Spiderman's, Batman's, or any other hero's.

Comics versus Art: Interview with Bart Beaty - Барт Бити, профессор, возглавляющий Кафедру Английского (серьёзно, я не знаю, как это перевести не так коряво) в Университете Калгари говорит о новом, переработанном издании своей книги, в которой он рассматривает комиксы как искусство: The most difficult option is to try to completely reverse and upend those biases. That’s a more challenging task, because the biases are so commonplace in our culture. Comics scholars receive very little condemnation when we teach Crumb, Spiegelman and Ware (and Satrapi and Bechdel and…). When we do receive raised eyebrows is when we teach Archie and other works that are “not serious” or “not sophisticated”. The route that the comics world might have taken would have been to fundamentally challenge that ideology.

SuperHero Photography - Josh Hamman - короткое интервью с фотографом комикс-косплея. Да, контраст с предыдущей ссылкой разителен. Да, я специально.


Ну и по мелочам:

Грег Пак об X-Treme X-Men, Лиа Мур и Джон Реппион о Damsels, Talking Comics with Tim | Van Jensen, интервью с Менди Чеггуром, и Крис Гиаруссо о своём, вдохновлённом Кирби, авторском комиксе.

Создатели и персонажи - кто важнее?

Создатели и персонажи:

Kurt Busiek wants to know: Is it creators or characters that win your money? - начавшееся с записи Курта Бьюсека обсуждение того, что же скорее привлечёт читателей: имена авторов или герои/франчайз.

The mob has spoken: Creators trump characters (mostly) - подведение итогов обсуждения: A number of people observed that characters, specifically superhero and sci-fi/fantasy characters, first brought them to comics. As they matured as readers and/or grew tired of the cyclical nature of those stories, they followed specific creators whose work spoke to them, even if that was to creator-owned books or books at other publishers.

Comic Vine NewsRSS Email Us a Story Off My Mind: Comic Book Characters Vs. Creators - про то, вера в какую мотивацию читателей отражается в действиях издательств: If there are popular characters that will sell no matter who the creative team is, why don't publishers put their top creative teams on titles that don't sell? Marvel puts their "architects" on the top titles. If a book was selling poorly it would make more sense to put the really good writers and artists on them to boost sales while the popular characters will be able to sell themselves. It doesn't work that way.

Marvel HOW? - про то, как приходится отвечать на вопрос о предпочтениях в свете грядущих подвижек в Marvel: Who knows what the real draw is in this medium? The big-league players who want to bleed you dry of every last dime even as you lie openly weeping, clutching your desiccated throat and crying to the heavens, “Why, God? I have given you everything, and this is how I am repaid? What recourse is there for me?” as your bloodied wallet falls into an open gutter provide their consumers with the very best comic book entertainment on the market at the fairest, rock-bottom prices have their own ideas about what drives their consumers.

Комиксы как медиум - рассуждения о том, что есть "комикс" и инструкции в помощь интересующимся процессом

Комиксы как медиум:

Jim Valentino on the Potential of Comics - просто чтобы задать тон, короткое видео с одним из основателей Image Comics, говорящим о потенциале медиума.

Comics Within Comics: John Stanley's Little Lulu Fairy Tale Meta-Stories - принципе это довольно интересный рассказ о Little Lulu, но меня скорее зацепили слова о том, что является комиксом, а что - нет. Как вы, возможно, помните, я с радостью готова заявить, что та или иная вещь комиксом не является, но, скажем так, не то чтобы по этому поводу существует окончательный консенсус: Pretty drawings galore, line-work and color, and a narrative, all situated within ruled boxes. (Not to mention Tarzan's impressive mullet.) Comics, right? They were published in newspaper comic sections, and they did contain something that compelled readers to return on a weekly basis. Yet these picture-stories lack the one defining tool that makes comics comics. Part of the distinct recipe of comics is the speech or thought balloon.

Abstract Comics - о конкретной антологии в частности и об "абстрактных комиксах" (блог для интересующихся) вообще: So-called “abstract comics” is one of the more extreme fronts. It names a form of wordless comics that not only dispenses with the word, but also those things traditionally allied with it, like speech, sound, plot, and interiority... In these, as in a number of works in the anthology, there is an interest in what might be termed a logic of “vestigiality”: the organ divorced from its original function but still maintained, so that it oftentimes comes to impose upon the organism that had abandoned it. Might this principle also underlie the metamorphic comics? After all, their plasmatic substances have a striking resemblance to the spongy, pneumatic contours of the speech or thought balloon. If so, it seems that the abstraction of comics against the word and its supports is never total, but rather marked with traces of partial amputation.

Missing Ink - о леттеринге, вырисовке букв. Интересен весь архив колонки, но тут автор говорит прежде всего об инструментах: The traditional tool for comics lettering is a dip pen with a specialized lettering nib, which has a flattened surface, usually round or oval shaped, which puts ink down smoothly and evenly. This is in contrast with the more angular drawing nib, which allows the user to vary the amount of ink that reaches the paper and create a range of line qualities. Conventional block lettering strives for a strong, even, consistent line. If you are used to a dip pen and can load and wipe one so it works, then outfitting yourself with lettering tools is a matter of finding a source of lettering nibs of the proper size to suit your page compositions.

Techniques and Tricks: What Not to Do - учимся на чужих ошибках: заметка о том, чего делать не стоит.

DECOMPRESSED 006: MARK WAID AND MATT FRACTION ON THE MARVEL METHOD. = Мэтт Фрэкшен и Марк Уэйд рассказывают в блоге Киерона Гиллена о том, что означает делать сценарии для комиксов по "методу Марвел". Подкаст.

Карл Кисл - про одно хорошее дело

Карл Кисл - про одно хорошее дело:

Околокомиксный мир часто представляется довольно специфическим, закупоренным и сосредоточенным на созерцании своего безумно интересного но всё-таки пупка. Поэтому, всякий раз, когда кто-то, известный прежде всего как "человек из индустрии" делает что-то, оказывающее положительно воздействие на "реальный мир", это вызывает особое чувство, содержащее в себе гордость с удивлением, но ими отнюдь не ограничивающееся.
К чему это я?
Вот к чему: Карл Кисл, автор, писавший, помимо прочего серию про Супербоя (ну ту, родом из 90-х) и серию про Харли Куин, недавно объявил, что он распродаёт свою обширную коллекцию комиксов. Почему он решил это сделать? Потому что ему и его жене внезапно понадобились деньги: они усыновили младенца с врождённой героиновой зависимостью: Karl Kesel, Marvel Comics Writer, Sells Comic Book Collection For Adoption Of Baby With Heroin Exposure.
Похоже, продажа коллекции прошла успешно, что не может не радовать: Reddit users, retailer and creators rally to help Karl Kesel and family

А... а и всё. Просто захотелось вам об этом рассказать.

Отзывы и рекомендации

Отзывы и рекомендации:

Marie Severin’s Due - отзыв на книгу о Мари Северин, одной из немногих масштабно засветившихся в (относительно) ранней истории медиума женщин. Автор сбивается на рассказ о самой Мари. но оно и к лучшему: The E.C. section is particularly well done. Severin began coloring for them when editor Harvey Kurtzman wanted to upgrade the look of the books, in Severin’s words “to look more like Prince Valiant in the newspaper.” For the next few years she colored first Kurtzman’s war books, then the entire line, with the exception of some covers and stories colored by the perfectionist Kurtzman, as well as a few stories colored by the similarly autonomously-minded Bernard Krigstein (both of whom Severin typically characterizes as “artsy-fartsy”). When Cassell tells Severin, “you’ve been credited with a lot of the success of EC because of those vibrant covers,” she effaces herself to credit instead the quality of the “content,” but truly, covers are the primary selling factors on the newsstand and the color is the more significant part of the initial impact of the visuals on the reader. And, Severin’s interior coloring is no less sensitive and considered.

Top Ten Dense Comics - десять комиксов, при повторном прочтении которых открываются всё новые и новые грани.

Review: Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics - философские учения в комиксах. Есть в этом что-то такое то... ну, книжек "для чайников", чёрт, у нас в стране вполне себе шутят про "N в комиксх" как единственную понятную убогим форму подачи информации: Again and again, de Heer makes choices that bring the reader closer to the ideas that she is expressing in her book. Again and again, she uses the power of the comics page -- and her very conversational approach to the material -- to make it thoroughly relatable and -- really, seriously, no lie -- actually fun while not skimping on the important material that any budding philosopher needs to know.

This Comic Is Good – Shooters OGN - комикс о ветеранах и, похоже, том, какова жизнь после армии: The PTSD aspect of the book is fascinating, because like depression, how can you possibly understand it unless you actually lived through it? Here, Trautmann and Jerwa shine as they do their damndest to get us to understand something that we can never really understand.

Lost at Sea - об одной из первых (да, до "Скотта Пилигрима" работ Брайана Ли О'Мэйли: At the end of the day, whether you call Lost at Sea a road-trip story or a coming-of-age/bildungsroman or something else—at its most basic and pared-down, Lost at Sea is a book about going home. I can’t begin to suspect why those who write the book off as “emo bullshit” do so, nor would it be very much a fruitful endeavor to try. Everyone’s got their reasons, their biases, their preconceived notions. Maybe mine are why I enjoyed the book.

Shepperton’s Waltz Review - вестерн с фантастикой: The entire set up is crazy, but the meat of the story is straight forward. The sci-fi aspects aren’t original, but written well. The reader knows next to nothing about the history of this little town and why the aliens are here, but we don’t care. Angus is an interesting character, and that’s all we need to know.

Review: Spooks Volume 2 - не-вестерн с мистическим детективом: Along the way you’ll uncover the corruption and deception threatening the very highest levels of the political classes in this very young, turn of the 20th Century America, not quite wild, certainly not west... And as good as the plotting is, the art by Rossi matches it. He gets it absolutely right almost every step of the way here, keeping that fine balance between good, simple, straightforward storytelling to keep hold of the complex plot, and throwing a little flashy stuff in simply because he’s oh so capable of it.

Johnny Space Commander: Smirk Til You Die - пародийный комикс про космические приключения. Обещан грубоватый юмор: I mean, Johnny Space Commander is basically Bill Watterson’s Spaceman Spiff with dick jokes. Its tagline is even “Saving The Universe One Ridiculous Situation After Another.” It’s old sci-fi pulp like what Calvin and Hobbes would lightly satirize, with a caffeinated story pace, simple-as-bread plots and cookie cutter characters, and it’s funny.

Women of Action | Courtney Crumrin - для тех, кому интересны интересные женские персонажи: What’s wonderful is that as a storyteller chronicling adventures in these worlds, he’s fearless. He doesn’t restrain himself, afraid of revealing too much and not leaving anything for later. Instead, he dives into the deep end and shows us what’s lurking there, confident that he’ll never run out of new characters, beasts, and magic to share.

Age of Reptiles Omnibus - для тех, кому интересны динозавры. Нет, правда, независимо от всего остального, изображения динозавров выглядят как минимум любопытно: Delgado’s first series, “Tribal Warfare,” features very detailed penwork. Every crease, crevice, and fold in his dinosaurs’ skin is rendered in crisp black lines. Delgado’s attention to detail is somewhat awe-striking, but generally (and despite a good sense of visual presence and doing a lot with negative space) the art in these pages feels exceptionally busy.

Tygers and Lambs #2 – Wild Children - тут вот какое дело: ранее отзывы на этот комикс были... ну очень разными. Положительными (Wild Children is completely different to anything on your ‘to read’ stack and deserves all the praise it gets. Sure, there are comics out there that make us question the world around us but how many make us question the very nature of comics themselves and the way that we consume them?), резко отрицательными (Эко-мусор пишет, эко-мусор в главных ролях, мысленный мусор в наполнении и лишь рисунок заставляет смотреть до конца то, что должно быть комиксом, но оказывается арт-хаусным, мерзотным проявлением эго и желания выделиться, которое ведёт автора. Дикие дети, дикие мысли, дикая дрянь) и смешанными (While “Wild Children” fails to completely impress and could better from some subtlety, the book suggests potential for a budding comics writer). Иными словами, это как минимум очень интересно: Now, if you were feeling harsh you could reduce this down to something like “living in a comic is weird, if you/I/we do in fact live in a comic”, but I’m mostly too charmed by Wild Children’s energy to take that approach. So, if the comic hasn’t quite managed to shatter my perception of time and space it has at least remind me of a time when I felt like that was possible.

Ryan Kelly offers first issue of Funrama for free - бесплатный комикс!

Preview: The Odyssey by Seymour Chwast - превью комикса от дизайнера.

Вещи, которые вы (почему-то) можете купить

Вещи, которые вы (почему-то) можете купить:

Quick, Robin! To the Bat-bowling alley! - боулинг-атрибутика!

Comic Couture | Marvel villains, Batcuffs and more - Бэт-запонки! Бэт-плащ для вашей собаки! Ну или одежда с символом Супермена для неё же. Почему бы и нет!

Как вы могли заметить, я всегда лобавляю вот это "(почему-то)". В этот раз я увидела прекраснейшую новость, которой Вселенная ответила на мой вопрос - чтобы такие вещи происходили: Man Allegedly Attacks Roommate And Mother With Fake Wolverine Claws. Ну, то есть, это, конечно очень печально. Очень!

Списки и прочие развлечения

Списки и прочие развлечения:

On The Perils & Pleasures Of Comicbook Schools - школы в комиксах.

Those Tiny, Tiny Cartoon People: A Baker's Dozen Of At-Best Pint-Sized Heroes & Villains - миниатюрные, э... существа в комиксах.

Top Ten Favorite Comics Cats - кошки в комиксах!

Top 5: Super Villains to Avoid Choosing as Your High School Lab Partner - это тоже список!

This Year on Read Comics in Public Day… We Saw You! - женщины, публично читающие комиксы! Сперва я подумала, что в этом милом развлечении эпатажа куда больше, чем содержания, а потом вспомнила, как один из моих (фандомовских!) знакомых отреагировал на мои солова о том, что комиксы я читаю всё больше в метро с планшетника: "Слушай, люди же смотрят! Я бы застремался". Ну да. Хотя смотрят, что уж там. Вот сегодня с утра, когда я ехала на работу, моя соседка по скамье в метро усиленно пыталась разглядеть, что же это у меня там на экране.

Hours of fun: Nevins’ The Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes - об онлайн-энциклопедии героев Золотого Века. Ожидаемо, прелестно.

Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization. - Майк Стерлинг разбирает очередной каталог с гиковским всем: At long last, Wonder Woman has finally achieved her full potential, as Batman’s newest Robin... This is identified as a “role-play accessory” in the catalog, and all I can picture is a kid running around shouting “the maniac has cut off E.T.s hand, OH GOD WHY”... I originally read this as “Doc Ock finds out Spidey’s secret identity,” but maybe he just finds out that Peter Parker is, like, a jerk or something. “Man, that Parker kid never tips! What a dick!”

Картинки

Картинки:

Вообще, конечно, картинки - это не моё. Обычн,о когда я вижу что-нибудь, кажущееся мне интересным, я кидаю соответствующую ссылку  QVall, и считаю, что "моя работа здесь завершена". Но чёрт с ним, пусть будут картинки. Точнее, ссылки на картинки. Потому что я - это всё ещё я:

Tripwire covers 20 of the best – part one и Tripwire covers 20 of the best – part two - в честь двадцатилетия британского журнала комиксов Tripwire: его лучшие обложки.

iFanboy Upstarts: John Kantz - новый художник!

Sergio Toppi, 1932-2012 - не картинки, но косвенно про них. Краткий рассказ о Серджио Топпи: Toppi's work was classically grounded but also uniquely staged, focused on the human figure in several panels and pages that would make stand-alone illustrations by themselves. Many of his better single make dramatic use of white space as a balancing and directional element. His greatest contribution might have been in how the details of his work could slip into the fantastic in a way that emphasized or gave emotional context to the historically rigorous scene being depicted.

Milo Manara Draws The Scarlet Witch. And It’s Pretty Much As You’d Expect. - Алая Ведьма от Мило Манары. Это... это ужасно. Бррр. Если бы мне снились сны, это лицо я увидела бы в моих кошмарах.

What If Marvel 60s/70s Marvel were more like 60s/70s DC – weirdness ensues - как-то так:

Ну и всё. Да, я себя тоже пугаю. И раздражаю. Раздражаю чаще.
Вот вам напоследок особо актуальное в связи с ФБ:

@темы: Ссылки

---

[QVall]

Одна из причин, почему я не могу любить Бэтмена. Что за рукоприкладство?! Batman, you are a dick!

@темы: DC

---

[QVall]

О, эти чудные бесполезные вещи с символикой супергероев, которые должны быть у каждого фаната =) Например, этот переключатель света

Не фанаты Кэпа? Ничего, есть варианты с Капитаном Марвелом (Шазам), Дормаму, Одином, Ангелом, Онслотом, Хобгоблином, Хэвоком и ...

=> отсюда

@темы: Marvel

---

Линкспам: возвращение (часть первая)

[Jaya]

Всем привет. Лето закончилось, и я снова с вами. Ура?
Притворяться, что это четверг бесполезно, но повторное погружение в мир комикс-новостей далось мне на удивление тяжело, так что соблюдением (придуманного мною для меня же) графика попытаюсь заняться со следующего раза.
Пока - ссылки.
Осторожно: этот пост крайне обманчив, под нечеловеческим количеством катов скрываются чудовищные объёмы!

КИРБИ!!!

Джек Кирби:

Еcли кто не в курсе, то в прошедший вторник - двадцать восьмого августа - Джеку Кирби, многими называемому "Королём Комиксов", исполнилось бы девяносто пять лет. По этому поводу на неделе выло сказано много слов и вывешено много картинок. Кликните хотя бы на пару ссылок, любителям комиксов стоит знать такие вещи:

Kirby's Characters - список придуманных Кирби персонажей. С большой вероятностью неполный.

It’s Jack Kirby’s Birthday - The King of (Kick Ass Women in) Comics - ну или вот так вот: придуманные Кирби значимые женские персонажи: And so it is time to pay tribute to the man who created some truly female comic characters that truly do kick ass.


Слова и посвящения:

Happy Jack Kirby Day! - I've heard that many people who were inspired by Jack's work took their drawings to him to see what he thought. And regardless of their skill level, he'd try to find something positive to say and encourage them. But in those encouragements, he also tried to tell them NOT to copy him. Not that he was offended, or felt there was any sort of competition, but he wanted people to create IN THEIR OWN VOICE.

All Hail The King: Jack Kirby - He defined style and language for a comic book industry still very much standing on his shoulders.

JACK KIRBY MAKES ME STUPID - Дин Хаспиэль о Кирби: I dig the way Kirby graphically presents the clash of transition. The organisms of the old in conflict with the technology of the new while commenting on the state of the future. A world wide war. Kirby was fascinated with the twilight of the future while honoring the wisdom, heartbreaks, and history of the past.


Пиксапамы и слова о рисунках:

A birthday message for The King from THE WORLD THAT'S COMING!!!!!
Art For Art’s Sake – Happy Birthday Jack
The King of Comics
Happy 95th Birthday, Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby, The King Of Comics, Would Have Been 95 Today
Making a Splash: "Madbomb"--Jack Kirby's Return to Captain America and Marvel
“WAM!” PEOPLE! A King is Born!
Cosmic Theology: Jack Kirby's Representations Of God


Разное:

And now….topless Jack Kirby

The CR Video Parade Jack Kirby 95th Birthday Special - коллекция видео.

Random Jack Kirby Links And News Round Up - коллекция ссылок.

Bizarro Back Issues: OMAC And The City Of The Super-Rich!! (1974) - один конкретный комикс.

Happy 95th Birthday, Jack Kirby - про Дарксайда, добро, зло и смерть: Kirby redefined good not as a moral issue, but one of freedom. The freedom to love, laugh, share, create, and more. There's the potential for harm, and many of the New Gods struggle with that potential, but just having that potential is vital. It needs to be there. Being able to choose to do wrong is greater than being forced to do good. Free will is everything. The Life Equation is everything beautiful, warts and all.

Jack Kirby’s Collages in Context - интересно о коллажах Кирби: Removed from sequential storytelling and employed rather as illustration, these collages stand on their own as singular works of art. Kirby was so passionate about this art-form, that when he was asked if they should bring anything, he would request visitors to his home bring periodicals as fodder for his collages.

Kirby Dynamics - ну и блог для тех, кому мало, и кто хотел бы получать новую дозу Кирби по несколько раз в день. Осторожно: присутствует ненависть к Стэну Ли!

DC - обсуждение Ребута, Лига Справедливости, Бэтмен с его фильмом, Супермен, Before Watchmen и прочее, включая комиксы не про супергероев

DC:

Ребут, которому на днях исполнился год, так что дальше подобного будет больше

Ребут, которому на днях исполнился год, так что дальше подобного будет больше:

The New 52: Did We Get What We Hoped For? - про то, сбылись ли надежды. По пунктам, общий вывод смешанный, но с очевидным уклоном в "нет".

The Top Five Things I Miss in the DC Universe - чего не хватает в новой Вселенной DC. История, пресонажи, мегакроссоверы.

Two Reasons The New 52 Is Disliked - за что не любят DC после Ребута. Ожидаемое, предсказуемое.

One Year Later: Catwoman - Женщина-Кошка через год после рабута: Issue #3 was the moment when the character snapped into focus for readers, and suddenly the book’s rushed, racing momentum started to make sense as a character trait. We were used to seeing a Catwoman who stands up to Batman without any fear, and has a great time, you see -- but what Winick did was show us the other side of that. After first giving us the prototypical Catwoman, all sexual, tightly-clothed and Batman-bothering, Winick then pulled a switch on readers and showed us the toll that keeping up this persona has on Kyle’s psyche... There’s always been a struggle for DC in making Catwoman a heroic protagonist, because she’s meant to be a villain turned reluctant aide to Batman. She’s not meant to stop crime, so much as she’s meant to be a time-bomb vigilante destined to implode one day. As a result, most of the famous runs with the character had to glamorize her villainous side, making her seem like an action hero when she’s really a crook. Winick crushes this viciously in his run.

One Year Later: Batwing - от тех же людей про Бэтвинга, ссылки на всю серию "год спустя" есть в конце статьи. В любом случае, перспективы персонажа на данный момент крайне туманны, потому что в DC... ладно, об этом потом и отдельно, а пока: Which wouldn’t have made a bit of difference if the solo series had been awful. But instead, the series proved to be… well, let’s call it "decent." It was never an incredible, amazing title, but it was solid read each month. Batwing came across as a likeable, inventive central character -- not as dynamic as Nightwing, but more empathetic than Tim Drake; and the storylines attempted to deal with political and adult ideas. The one complaint is that writer Judd Winick did struggle to make the book something appealing to all-ages, but sandwiched between two fairly dark Batwing-centric stories came the big "Night of the Owls" crossover thing.

Лига Справедливости

Лига Справедливости:

Justice League #12: Five Things We Learned и Justice League International Annual #1: Five Things We Learned - выводы из двух комиксов.

Justice League of America: What Does it Mean for DC? - перспективы Вселенной DC и отдельных комиксов через призму нового состава "Лиги Справедливости": The addition of a number of embattled characters to this team may have ramifications for some of their titles, too. Catwoman will likely hang on for a while without Judd Winick, but it’s hard to imagine that there’s nothing telling in both she and Green Arrow coming onto this title. Even if their books are kept alive (because of their high profile in other media) it seems impossible to put both of them on a book together and not cede some control of it to Ann Nocenti, who writes both of their monthlies.

Justice League Movies: What Stories From the Comics Could Work? - идеи, которые можно использовать при создании фильма. Который обязательно будет. Когда-нибудь.

Off My Mind: Looking at the New JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Roster - размышления о новом составе "Лиги": If you're going to form a new Justice League team, it makes perfect sense to get a Green Lantern on board. The question is, where does his allegiances lie? If we're seeing a new Green Lantern being added to the Corps now, right when the Guardians are plotting to take them down, you have to wonder if they had anything to do with his being appointed. Also, how will he be convinced to join a team on Earth when he has the power to fly through space?

Q&A #168: Who would you cast in a Justice League film? - фанатский кастинг, наглядно демонстрирующий проблемы, типичные для фанатских кастингов и заодно дающий представление о том, какие телесериалы смотрят авторы. Селена Гомез в роли Затанны, серьёзно? Впрочем, могло бы быть и хуже: я всё ещё помню, как на роль Чудо-Женщины фанаты активно хотели (бррр) Меган Фокс.

Бэтмен

Бэтмен:

Комиксы

Комиксы:

On Batman Incorporated #3 (Part 1) и On Grant Morrison & Chris Burnham's "Batman Incorporated" #3 (Part 2 of 2) - хвалебный отзыв о Batman Incorporated от любимого мною автора:

Выдержки

Выдержки:

The post-Millennium super-book has so often been a corrosively bland, flaccid experience. Page upon page of ill-focused waffling slapped over dull, repetitive visuals. Page after page of mostly textless spectacle, reliant upon all those strange hyper-muscled, manically-rendered obsessions which we've learned to associate with locked-in fanboy syndrome. But Morrison and Burnham, among all too few of their peers, are obviously saturated with the knowledge of how the comic book used to hook and snare its readers.
...
Where Morrison's speech bubbles are carrying things forward in a way that's not immediately compelling, Burnham's art is either imaginatively complimenting the text or offering a beguiling if not overly-distracting counter-narrative.
...
Burnham's take on Wayne himself seems to strangely suggest a small lad who's jumped from boyhood into uber-maliness without any of the inconvenience of the intervening years. What could be more appropriate for the Darknight Detective, who never did grow up in the aftermath of his parent's murder? In an interesting reversal of roles, it's actually Damian who emerges in The Hanged Man as the voice of suspicion and caution, his fundamental adoration of his father expressing itself as an almost-patriarchal concern.
...
A narrative with nothing but the welfare of Batman at its heart is likely - though not entirely damned - to be a relatively thin and uber-masculine one. The caped crusader is, after all, inevitably going to survive, and his fate will tend to ultimately depend on his capacity to outpunch his opponents. So far, so ultimately predictable. But none of the various Gothamites which we're briefly shown here have any such a guarantee of survival, and their vulnerability even in passing adds a charge of uncertainty to what might otherwise be a fundamentally foreseeable, if undoubtedly brilliantly presented, tale.
...
Here, there's a great many other players standing between the Dark Knight and the mother of his troubled, if formidable, son, which suggests a fascinatingly chaotic system rather than a straight-forward Manichean confrontation between our man and their woman.


10 Reasons the Next Batman Movie Should be Batman Beyond - почему следущий фильм мог бы быть основан на "Бэтмена Будущего". Этого, конечно же, никогда не случится, но пусть: That's the sweet spot for something that's being adapted to film — you need something that's got a lot of great stuff at its core, but doesn't demand total fetishistic adherence to every little detail.

Batgirl! The Secret Origin - вроде как история появления Кассандры Кейн, но на самом деле скорее рассказ об атмосфере в офисе DC в середине 90-х: And then somewhere on the way back to my office I had this crazy vision of a new Batgirl. She was young—late teens, I thought—and Asian, because, well, at the time we had an awful lotta white faces in the DCU, and I thought, if we’re creating a brand new character in the DCU, why on earth would we make her white when other races are under-represented?

The Killing Joke: A Different Way to Read It - альтернативная трактовка "Убийственной шутки", во многом (но не полностью) разбивающаяся о подразумевавшийся при создании комикса "альтернативный" статус истории: From a publication standpoint, it may be seen as one of the linchpins, the pivotal turning points from the grim and gritty Batman. And from a narrative standpoint, it may explain Batman's descent into being more withdrawn, colder, and more distant to his friends and loved ones in the 90s. The narrative explanation for that is usually the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd, and how Batman couldn't deal with his inability to save him, but maybe it was actually this moment, when something just snapped in his brain.

DC Histories: Ace the Bat-Hound - Вы ведь тоже хотите узнать побольше про Бэт-Собаку? Да хотите, не притворяйтесь.

First Impressions: Robin - "Про Робина и меня": Robin has come very much to be the tail end of “Batman and” for me, even not being an avid Batman guy. I suppose just as I’ve never been attached to Bruce Wayne but as a fan of comics am intrigued by Batman as a concept and archetype, I’m interested in what Robin adds to the mythos as a counterbalance, whether Dick as the light to the darkness, Jason as the rededication to the stagnation, Tim as the deliberate thinker to the ask-questions-later figure of vengeance, and even Damian as the unruly child to the reluctant adult.

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises:

Это был фильм. Скорее всего, вы его даже посмотрели. Я тоже. В мире огромное количество людей, которые считают, что это кино великолепно. В мире так же огромное количество людей, которые считают Кристфера Нолана Мастером, Художником и со всех сторон прекрасным режиссёром. Я за них очень рада. А сейчас ссылки, которые как на подбор радуют моё сердуе:

A few spoiler-filled questions about The Dark Knight Rises, with spoilers! - про вопросы к сюжету. Претензии, честно говоря, так себе, часть из них так и вообще придирки, а другая - про системные свойства нолановской трактовки франчайза и персонажей, в которой режиссёр вполне последователен (к самой трактовке возникает куча вопросов, но внутри она довольно стройна - что есть, то есть).

The Friday You Just Go With It - предыдущая ссылка была дана в основном для того, чтобы контекстуализировать эту. Тут претензии автора заметно понятнее и заметно более внятно изложены: The good news is that the audience wants to play along. Really, we do. We will agree never to bring up the Hulk’s extra mass or WayneCorp’s horrible financial records or even Clark Kent’s utterly inadequate disguise. It’s much more fun to “just go with it.” Especially if we believe in the emotional reality of the characters. We go along with the idea of Batman because we all get why Bruce Wayne would want to be Batman... But the Batman in Rises… I didn’t believe in that guy. A Bruce Wayne who quits, who holes up in his mansion like Howard Hughes, who doesn’t bother to vet the woman he’s handing a giant piece of weapons technology…. no. I don’t buy it. That wasn’t Batman.

You Needn’t Get Up on My Account - рецензия на фильм на сайте The Comics Journal. Именно то, что можно было ожидать от такого расклада. Местами (во второй половине) смехотворно, местами в точку: From the day a parent first answers the question “Why don’t they just call the police?” with “Because then they wouldn’t have a movie” and you keep on watching, you have been recruited into the universe of It’s Only a Movie. The makers of movies should be careful about abusing this privilege. Science fiction writers refer to a major suspension of disbelief as a “gimme,” as in, “Gimme one completely outlandish thing and I swear everything else will be plausible.” Dark Knight Rises is gimme gimme gimme gimme from start to finish.

If 'Dark Knight Rises' Was 10 Times Shorter and More Honest - пародийный сценарий от Крэкд. Потому что да: Yeah, I'm sure that would hold up in court. "Your honor, he was sad first."... For the crime of me sitting through Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I sentence you to exile!

How It Should Have Ended: ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ - видео, которое вы все уже видели.

Супермен

Супермен:

Man of Steel: Five Ideas For the Ending (That Don’t Involve Justice League) - что из мифологии Супермена могло бы засветиться в новом фильме.

What's So Great About Jimmy Olsen? - название говорит само за себя: For those of you who aren't aware, Jimmy Olsen is basically his generation's Harley Quinn, but without the legions of cosplaying SuicideGirl fans... In a lot of ways, Jimmy Olsen is the Silver Age, all of its excesses and strange rules and metaphors and inspirations brought together in a perfect snapshot of the time. And that might be why creators in other eras have such a hard time working with him, even in a genre that's steeped in nostalgia.

Agent of S.T.Y.L.E. - KRYPTON Couture - Криптон и мода, или Много Всего Разного: But some futuristic and alien touches are added even to the wardrobe of Krypton's early history, causing some of its inhabitants to resemble characters from high adventure fantasy novels and Tolkien-inspired sagas. Thanks to this, ancient Krypton becomes not just the world of tomorrow but also a place where wizards and dragons may exist.

Флэш

Флэш:

The Full Run - подробный разбор "Флэша", номер за номером, начиная с 1987-го. На данный момент авторы дошли до Марка Уэйда и сентября девяносто седьмого.

DC Histories: The Rogues - краткая история временами-не-то-чтобы-совсем-злодеев Флэша: The Rogues as we know them today wouldn’t come into play until two years after this first teamup. In 1965, a group of six Flash villains came together to fight their common foe.

Agent of S.T.Y.L.E. - FLASH Fashion Facts - Флэш и мода и история. В основном история. Но и мода тоже: One very cool thing about Wally’s Speed Force suit was that he would condense it into the shape of a ring and then when he needed to go into action, its energies would expand around him at will. Again, this pays tribute to Barry but still shows us that Wally is his own hero racing down his own path in life rather than treading over old ground.

Прочее супергероическое

Прочее супергероическое:

Why The Curse of Shazam is the right move for Captain Marvel - одобрение пост-ребутной трактовки Капитана Марвела: I believe that The Curse of Shazam offers the only take on the character that could conceivably work in the context of the current state of the DC Universe and the current comics distribution system.

The Atom: Where Do I Start? - краткий список "обязательного чтения" для интересующихся Атомом: The Atom is more than just a size-shifting superhero one-step removed from Ant-Man; epic comics writer Gardner Fox turned him into a epic adventurer our of shady sci-fi pulp novels, covering everything from interstellar travel, 1700s England, to fighting in miniature worlds decades before anyone ever heard of Micronauts. The Atom has been everything from scientist to superhero to super-spy and even an outer space border patrol agent.

When We First Met – The Life of Roy Harper - Рой Харпер, начало и продолжение, история в картинках.

Classics on Infinite Earths - классические истории про альтернативные реальности. В принципе читать стоит всю серию. Последний "выпуск" посвящён The Weird Джима Старлина и Берни Райтсона: This is not your standard Justice League story. It’s not even your standard super-hero story. It’s bizarre. It’s alien. It’s abstract science-fiction. But it surprises us with its humanity, more bravely depicted than most stories without such exotic elements. The Weird is a about unfathomable alien beings battling for Earth. It is about the strangeness that super-heroes like the Justice League might really encounter, beyond the traditional super-villains.

Before Watchmen

Before Watchmen:

Как вы, наверное, слышали, вдохновлённое коммерческим успехом приквелов? DC решило запустить ещё (пока что только) одну мини-серию, на этот раз про Молоха. От этой новости, я бы слегка умерла внутри, не будь я уже мертва внутри. По этому поводу я решила вывесить несколько подвернувшихся под руку негативных отзывов на Before Watchmen. Вам кажется, что слишком уж много у меня ссылок на плохие отзывы на Before Watchmen? Вы неправы: плохих отзывов на Before Watchmen не бывает слишком много! Нет, правда. Это научный факт. Итак:

Ладно, хорошо, вот вам сперва для баланса хорошее: Review: BEFORE WATCHMEN: DR. MANHATTAN #1
И колеблющееся: Best Shots Rapid Reviews: SCALPED, VENOM, DR. MANHTTAN, More, Before Watchmen: Doctor Manhattan #1 Review ну и …And the Superhuman Review – Before Watchmen: Doctor Manhattan #1 - That being said, yeah, as much as I enjoyed some of the ideas in this issue and how they were presented, it seems like through the way that it has mostly just revisited the events of Watchmen so far it is also the most inconsequential of the seven Before Watchmen series (it will undoubtedly be unseated for the title by Moloch when that comes out).

Уфф, это было тяжело. Ладно, наконец:

Dr Manhattan Rewrites Watchmen, And Chooses His Own Adventure - In Watchmen, Dr Manhattan is the most powerful person in the book. Yet his powers reflect those of the every day reader. He can read reality in any order he wishes, he can flip forward, he can flip back, he can see what happens next. Just like the reader can? Who watches the Watchmen? Well you do, and as an ordinary member of the public, you have the powers of a God when doing so. However, you can’t change things, Watchmen is a fixed text. For all its talk of quantum realities, it’s a clockwork world. Before Watchmen: Dr Manhattan changes that experience at its fundamental core. Instead it has now become, for the character at least, a Steve Jackson Choose-Your-Own Adventure book… an experience that the reader is now divorced from, because we cannot do that. It also either makes a mockery of Manhattan’s claims about his ability to alter events in the original, or makes him out to be a liar. Which, you know, he has been. We just didn’t know he was lying about that too. Of course, in the original, he probably wasn’t. I guess it will get Star Trek Reset Button outed at the end, but even the possibility of this interpretation fights directly with one of the central aspects of the reading experience of the original.

On "Rorschach" #1 а вот это очень зло и очень здорово.

Выдержки

Выдержки:

If you really are setting out to publicly piss in church, then the least you can do is make sure that your bladder's full to bursting before you do so. Yet Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Rorschach #1 is so woefully complacent, careless and insubstantial that it hardly seems worth their having attempted the heresy at all. You'd think that anyone taking the silver for a Before Watchmen book would at least want to balance out the damage to their ethical reputation with a bravado display of their storytelling chops. After all, even if you don't believe in the tenets of the church you're pissing in, you've got to be aware that it is a church and that folks are going to care what you do there. Finding a quiet corner and making just a tiny little bit of a mess while congratulating yourself on your daring isn't going to minimise the disrespect, but it will leave the sense that you didn't have the imagination, conviction and nerve to do anything more substantial with your moment of taboo-busting transgression.Yet Rorschach really is nothing more than a string of poorly told, grindingly obvious and misguided references to the character's starring role in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen.
...
Yet another beautiful, objectivised female victim. Yet another example of body-mutilating depravity. It's all as hackneyed and stupid-minded as it's sexist and cold-hearted. The apologist's argument will no doubt that every woman in Rorschach #1 is portrayed as stereotypically sexualised object because that's how the title character and the Bard see them. But if a creative team can't represent prejudice without replicating the form of deeply bigoted work, then they're really not up to their jobs.
...
Faced with the challenge of either creating a worthy, respectful adjunct to Watchmen or producing a vigorous and ambitious experience of their own, Azzarello and Bermejo have chosen instead to inexplicably eulogise all that's worst about the post-Watchmen vigilante fantasy.
...
Where Watchmen was threaded with a host of ethical questions and delivered in the form of what was then experimental storytelling, Rorschach is focused on nothing but threadbare genre cliche and boy-man thrilling titillation. When a comic's single surprising shot is that of a trousers-round-his-ankles reprobate wanking himself off in a room hired specifically for the purpose, the creators can hardly be criticised for an excess of ambition and innovation. Yet for all his enthusiasm for the pruriently irrelevant, Azzarello can't bring himself to produce a plot which makes sense in its own terms.
...
Yet all the semen-soaked tissues in the world can't transmit a sense of verisimilitude when the story itself is so carelessly bolted together. This isn't just a ethically unpleasant book. It's a poorly made one too.
...
By contrast, Rorschach is a depressingly stupid and reactionary book, concerned not to make us think so much as to revel in the uber-masculinity of it all, and that's as true for Bermejo's art as it is for Azzarello's scripts.
...
Rorschach should appear to be far more offensive than it does, but it's so obviously pathetic when compared to Watchmen itself that it's hard to do anything more than sneer. It certainly is as abhorrent as it's inept, and yet, what better karma could there be for its creators, than for everyone to know that they've produced this? There's little point in worrying too much about lambasting either writer or artist further when they've already done so much to damage their own reputations.

Не про супергероев

Не про супергероев:

Duet On 'Solo' - Мэтт Сенека и Шон Вицке о серии 'Solo'. За этим стоит следить. Цитаты вытаскивать бесполезно, предмет обсуждения прочитать желательно. Замечание от лично меня: в принципе я часто с интересом читаю разборы вещей, которые я сама пока не открывала. Тут - не тот случай, ощущается необходимость знания.

Hero Of The Counterculture: Hellblazer #1 - подробно про первый номер легендарного комикса: I think it’s important to note that Constantine’s sense of displacement is very much a cultural crisis experienced by an older, British, white male (though it may no doubt resonate with people beyond this demographic, many of whom may have felt out of sync with or disavowed by the present for decades if not centuries). Constantine can dismiss the British Museum as “the treasure house of the empire,” but he can’t quite extract himself from its implications: it’s where “we keep all the loot.” He can keep his distance from people like Hawkins who want to romanticize the past, and he can condemn people like Lester more interested in keeping the “drop out” aspects of the 1960s counterculture alive instead of the movement’s political and social aspirations. But Constantine can’t necessarily shake the feeling of survivor’s guilt, a sensation that’s obviously tied to the personal losses he suffered prior to this storyline but also seems to be saying something about the legacy of colonialism and empire.

'The Invisibles' Omnibus Collects The Essence Of Grant Morrison In 1500 Pages - Еще один легендарный комикс, на этот раз Гранта Моррисона: As such, reading all three volumes collected in the omnibus in one sitting may just entirely rewrite your personal cosmology. Proceed with caution. Chaos magic, LSD, tantric sex, the sunspot cycle, neuro-linguistic programming, memes, William S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories, the Mayan calendar, alien abduction, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Situationism, Discordianism, Dadaism, shamanism, transcendentalism, and several other -isms all find their way into the book, providing numerous pathways of discovery for the adventurous reader willing to stop and write down every eclectic reference and thought-provoking idea contained in every issue. Which was essentially what Morrison wanted: to provoke thought, to encourage consciousness-expansion, and to disseminate the types of ideas that he believed might go on to infect and motivate readers. Repeatedly referring to The Invisibles as a "hypersigil," a long-form magical act meant to alter reality in accordance with intent, Morrison was actively trying to make a better world through fiction.

Marvel - Стэн Ли, Люди Икс, Человек-Паук и не только

Marvel:

Стэн Ли

Смотрите: Стэн Ли!

Потому что. Ну а теперь - ссылки:

With Great Power: Stan Lee, superhero - про фильм про Стэна и, собственно, самого Стэна: In the Douglas, Frakes and Hess universe, 1961 is the year that John Kennedy became president, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, the bikini was born and Marvel Comics published the first "Fantastic Four." (That's actually from a clip of Hugh Downs on ABC's "20/20.") And Marvel Comics is the "greatest revolution in literature on campus since the fold out nude" according to the University of California's now-defunct humor publication, "California Pelican." These popular culture quips are catchy but not always particularly useful, such as the brief inclusion of Paris Hilton proclaiming that Stan Lee is hot.

At Last...The End Of Stan Lee Media Inc vs Stan Lee - по случаю завершения процесса Stan Lee Media против Стэна Ли рассказ о том, в чём же там дело, и что произошло: Judge Wilson was totally correct when he stated that the case boiled down to this: Stan Lee Media were arguing that Stan Lee had signed a contract back in 1998 handing over any and all characters that he’d created in the past and would create in the future to Stan Lee Media. Stan Lee argued that any copyrights on Marvel characters were not included in the deal; they belonged, and still belong, to Marvel Entertainment and, to add more confusion, Lee signed a new deal with Marvel a month later (November 1998) which reassigned his copyrights and trademarks, in return for a million dollar per year deal, plus perks.

Marvel Now!

Marvel Now! - что и как происходит:

A Pair Of Dispatches From The Department Of Yuck - Том Спёрджен о заявлениях Марвел про Marvel NOW! и маркетинговую политику компании: Thinking that event comics are going to be worth something is a deeply-ingrained part of comics' public identity. It's going to be decades before that goes away. In general, though, the idea behind speculation seems like something more folks should stamp out whenever they see it. There should be culture-wide resistance to ripping people off that way, and I say ripping off because it almost always proves not to be the case that people get rich off of buying extra or expensive copies of these things. Constantly frustrating people that are interested in comics seems like a terrible idea at this point in the medium's history; it seems like a bad thing to do just for the doing of it.

Marvel Talks Marvel NOW! with Retailers, Emphasizes It's Not a Reboot - и кстати о маркетинговой политике: Марвел настаивает, что происходящее - не ребут. Разумеется, без пинка в адрес главного конкурента при обсуждении планов не обошлось: "The way a moviegoer could walk into 'Iron Man 2' and not necessarily have to have seen 'Iron Man' to really enjoy that movie or to go into 'The Avengers' and not have to have seen 'Iron Man,' 'Iron Man 2,' 'Captain America' or 'Thor' to enjoy that movie, that's what we're trying to get at here," he said... "I want to speak very bluntly and plainly to this because one of the faults of the New 52 for me was that they had such non confidence in many of the writers that by the fourth or fifth issue, they were shaking up the relaunches," Alonso said. "You will not see that in this launch. The writers are there to stay for the long term. Is it possible that somewhere along the road [one] might drop by the wayside? It's always possible. But if you take a look at the lineup of people we're putting out there, you don't hire Matt Fraction to write a book or Jonathan Hickman or Brian Bendis to do a franchise book and then fold up shop eleven or twelve issues into the run.

Post-AvX, is Marvel quietly renovating its Architects line-up? - о том, как трансформируется группа ключевых авторов Марвел: Looking at that, it seems Brubaker might have effectively left the world-building Architects group entirely, with Bendis and Fraction reassigned to the X-titles and the Fantastic Four, respectively. Hickman is shifting in to play a more central role, and Aaron’s doing Thor: God of Thunder and Wolverine & the X-Men while seemingly waiting for another title (or titles) to be announced.

Люди Икс

Люди Икс:

Avengers Vs X-Men To Be The Model For Future Marvel Events - Марвел крайне довольны реакцией фандома и рынка на кроссовер и планируют продолжать в том же духе. Слышите? Слышите далёкий плач души трезвеющих фанбоев?

SUNDAY SLUGFEST: Avengers vs. X-Men #10 - обсуждение на данный момент последнего номера великого кроссовера: On the other hand, it's sort of a cheat to have Wanda, the wild card for the second half of this series, suddenly have her "chaos touch" powers falter, though. They never really told us why she was an anti-Phoenix force, and now they're none-too-clear on why she isn't. Sure, Cyclops has powered up even further, but much more interesting was seeing both Magneto and Charles chafing, each in their own ways, against the yokes imposed by the Phoenix Five. Seems Scott and Emma have finally worked everyone's last nerve.

Riding the Gravy Train 21 (Uncanny X-Men #17) - можно ли считать ли убийство Синистеров геноцидом? Я склоняюсь к "нет", но "на поиграться" мысль интересная: If Sinister was one man, would we necessarily balk at the X-Men killing him? How does that change if that one man duplicates himself on a large scale? Is that really a different race or simply a bunch of photocopies? Is there a difference? Hell, whether a single being or a million, isn't something unique and differently genetically, like Sinister, a race? But... I don't think if Sinister were just a single man, we'd consider his murder genocide despite the reality (an entire race wiped out) being the same. I guess there's also the problem in comics that we're not certain that the entire race is dead, or that Sinister won't return at some point. However, I'm not sure that actually matters. Cyclops's perception that he's killed the entire species is the same whether or not he's actually accomplished that goal. In his mind, he's murdered them all. Is that, for our purposes, any different from his committing genocide?

The Fifth Color | Paradise burns - про Uncanny X-Men #17 и то, чем на самом деле этот комикс отличался от прочих современных комиксов про людей Икс: Man, I miss villains for the X-Men. Characters like Sublime or the new Hellfire Club just don’t cut it for me; I need a guy (or gal!) with a clear goal that is morally wrong but that they have convinced themselves is right. With the number of threatening people who’ve joined up with the X-Men, Cyclops’ hardline goals and Wolverine’s willingness to lead a kill squad, we’ve entered a gray period of who’s really on whose side, and the Avengers fighting the X-Men doesn’t help much either.

Wait, So Wolverine… What? And Then… Huh? Welcome to a Marvel Retcon! и What the @#$% Is Jeph Loeb Doing to Wolverine - про очередные изменения в непредсказуемом прошлом Росомахи. Да, опять. Ну вот так: Maybe I'm wrong, and Loeb has the modern Wolverine masterpiece of our time waiting for us. But based on his recent body of work, I'm betting that's not the case. Honestly, I'd bet that Loeb just really, really wanted to do a big Wolverine twist, came up with this one, and decided he figure out what to do with it later. Why don't you ask M. Night how that's working out for him?

From A Library – Wolverine: Old Man Logan - о прекрасном, чудесном комиксе Марка Миллара: Millar’s success is based on a mixture of easy-to-grasp concepts (which are not original but he promotes them as such), shock tactics and clear storytelling. He is good at taking ideas that have worked in other forms and transposing them to comic books. Case in point: Old Man Logan is essentially Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, with some extra road movie thrown in, with Marvel’s Acts Of Vengeance crossover from 1989 as a starting point... The thing that annoys me about this comic book is the sloppy plotting that Millar uses to justify the ‘coolness’ of his story (which is his modus operandi).

Человек-Паук

Человек-Паук:

Spider-Man has spun his web for 50 years - посвящённый юбилею комикса материал из мейнстримной прессы. Десять причин его популярности: The past 50 years have seen Peter Parker toss his costume in the garbage and quit, warn of the dangers of drug addiction at the request of the government, get cloned and unmask himself to the world, among other things. That created a deep emotional connection.

Amazing Spider-Man #692 Review - большой отзыв на юбилейный номер: This added responsibility adds an extra layer to the conflicts Peter will face as Spider-Man. For the first time he not only has to work with someone in his adventures but also train someone. The way Peter will approach training Alpha will be interesting given the fact he has never received training. Just from the brief splash page of the training Spider-Man put Alpha through shows that there are a lot of fun possibilities with this new mentor role Spider-Man is in.

Chain Reactions | The Amazing Spider-Man #692 - коллекция ссылок на отзывы на всё тот же юбилейный номер.

Off My Mind: Spider-Man and his New Amazing (?) Sidekick - размышления о том, зачем Человеку-Пауку сайдкик: The main problem with Spider-Man becoming the mentor to a new and young sidekick is it makes him feel older. It was said that one of the reasons to erase the marriage between Peter and Mary Jane was because it would be hard for younger readers to relate to a married superhero. Using this same logic, one would think it might be hard for those same younger readers to relate to a hero that's in a position of authority. Do kids relate to their teachers or parents? Probably not in the way Marvel might want.

Celebrating Spider-Man: Five Decades of Anniversary Covers - коллекция юбилейных обложек.

50 Years Later: Growth And Maturity in Amazing Spider-Man 1-50 - про довольно редкую для франчайзовой супергероики эволюцию персонажа как личности: Peter Parker, as a character, is not the type of person you would like to hang out with. He's deeply insecure, as a result of being bullied and coddled perhaps, and that insecurity manifests itself as extraordinary arrogance and self-centeredness. Parker spends many of those early issues railing against unfairness and his enemies. He has an "If only they knew" point of view, one that reinforces his own perception of himself as an underdog and loser. Even after successful moments of heroism, like when he rescued John Jameson from a botched space launch, his first thought is of himself, and how even J. Jonah Jameson would hire him now... Peter Parker got lucky. He had a family that loved him, and they did their best to teach him right and wrong and prepare him for life as an adult. He didn't get it when he was a teenager, but precious few of us did. But as he grew, as he gained life experience and friends, he came to understand that being Spider-Man isn't a thing you do just because you can, or to get a thrill, or to show people how awesome you are because you feel inadequate.

Разное

Разное:

Avengers VS X-Men: War Journals | Relatable Characters - люди о том, с кем они себя ассоциируют и почему Видео. Вдруг кому интересно.

Should Deadpool Regain His Healing Factor? - альтернативный взгляд на то, нужна Дэдпулу его регенерация:The thing is, Deadpool is all about recklessness. In fact, the very term encompasses his personality and is what makes his character so unique. There's something about picking up a Deadpool book and reading a story about a character that just doesn't really give a damn and does basically, whatever he wants, that is so much fun. The stories are funny and lighthearted, and his sense of humor can be attributed to the fact that he doesn't really have to worry about anything because he can't really die. It's what makes him different from any other hero or anti-hero or…well, whatever he feels like being today. So maybe the healing factor was a big part of the reason why Deadpool was so much fun to read. But can you really tell an interesting story about a character who does, basically, the same thing over and over again? Who is invulnerable to any attacks? Whose actions have no repercussions? That is, essentially, what good storytelling is all about, right? Or is Deadpool the exception?

Looking at Loki Part 7: More Than a Memory, a Bond Beyond Blood - про комиксного Локи, часть цикла статей-заметок в основном пересказывающих комиксы: I like how it's in keeping with the spirit of Loki: in mythology, Loki's mishaps, while they seem bad at first, often lead to things working out for the best, creating good circumstances that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Some Thoughts on David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil: Born Again Artist’s Edition - комментарии к новому изданию "Сорвиголовы" Маззуччелли. В комментариях интересная (специфическим людям вроде меня) дискуссия о целях таких изданий. Да, издана книга не Марвел, но запихивать эту ссылку в другую категорию мне показалось... странным: Mazzucchelli crafted some of the best down-and-dirty action sequences of in comics, employing a kind of Toth-ian clarity in combination with urgent linework and tone. The viewer always knows where the fight is going, who is doing what, and the brutality of it is, if anything, accentuated, because everyone looks human and breakable.

The Big Fat Lesbian Problem With Guardians of the Galaxy: or State of the Cosmic Books circa 2009 - мёртвые лесбиянки в... да много где. Но в данном случае - в ваших комиксах: See, it’s not so much any one thing. If Moondragon happened to die in a big crossover, I’d say “well, so did other characters” and cut some slack. It’s that she dies without ever kissing her girlfriend, after being turned into a creature that literally cannot kiss girlfriends.

Luke Cage: “And if I’m fake, I ain’t notice, ’cause my money ain’t!” - Люк Кейдж как метафора необходимости афроамериканцев адаптироваться к миру белых людей: So what’s a fella with newly-hardened brown skin to do? The only thing you can do: you find some way around the rules. If you can’t use your powers in plain clothes or get a straight job, then you do something that lets you do that. In the Marvel Universe, you throw on a costume and you come up with a gimmick. You find something that’ll let you get by. More generally, or maybe more specifically from a black American point of view, you find something that’ll let you get by in a white man’s world.

Pretty sure I didn’t have a single friend, then I checked the mailbox - ещё один из серии постов Криса Бёрда с идеями, которые можно было бы воплотить в жизнь, рассказывая истории про Доктора Стрейнджа: Why does this matter to Dr. Strange in the present day? Well, it matters for three reasons. Firstly, it matters because quite frequently the answer to a magical dilemma can be found in correspondence between two sorcerers who have both been dead for over a century, which means negotiating with the people who now hold those letters. (Dr. Doom, unsurprisingly, has a large library of it.) Secondly, it matters because it’s still happening today via email and secured forum posting – and, yes, snailmail for the traditionalists – which means at any given point there are literally dozens of would-be wizards casting spells and unintentionally (one hopes) causing chaos that can be a tremendous bother when you are Sorcerer Supreme.

Image Comics - юбиляры

Image Comics:

И ещё один юбилей - на этот раз двадцатилетний!

Image Innovation: Then & Now - о значении Image в современной комикс-индустрии: Because where will creators turn when they need to create without a heavy editorial hand? Where will they turn when they need to own their properties both for quality control and for future investment? When they need high production values and solid exposure without the work for hire downsides? The answer of late is simply IMAGE.

Sharpening the Image: Introduction - вступление к рассказу о формировании Image как творческого конгломерата. Стоит сделать закладку и отслеживать: Instead of a historical perspective, then, my intent is to begin looking at the actual titles these revolutionary creators produced — from the company’s inception to the “leaner” years following the industry-wide comics “recession” to the more recent “comics renaissance” of the new millennium. Through careful examination, perhaps one might conclude that, in spite of any immediate fallout from Image’s explosive beginnings, their move to expand the publishing playing field has strengthened the industry and provided readers with some of the strongest examples of mainstream comics to date.

Price Drop Alert! Saga, Fatale, The Manhattan Projects & More Image #1′s are now FREE! - бесплатные комиксы!!! Ну, если вам доступен формат.

The Middle Ground #118 | Turn left - о трансформации индустрии и роли с одной стороны Большой Двойки, а с другой - компаний с... другой политикой в отношении авторов, в частности Image: The odd thing, perhaps, is that the Big Two publishers are part of the equation at all. If Image is both your launching pad and your escape pod, then why take the detour to Marvel or DC in the first place? I’m asking somewhat sarcastically, because I know that the answer is “because we want to,” as well as “because there are readers out there who pay attention to the Big Two in a way that they don’t pay attention to other things, and it’s a way to catch the attention of an entirely different readership that isn’t available anywhere else.”

Comic Book Casting: The Image 7 - кастинг воображаемого фильма про основание Image Comics. В роли Тодда МакФерлейна - Джеймс Франко. В роли Роба Лайфелда... нет, вы лучше сходите по ссылке, оно того стоит.

Супергерои - DC и Марвел вперемешку

Супергерои - DC и Марвел вперемешку:

DC versus Marvel versus Hollywood - автор задаётся вопросом о том, почему у DC всё хорошо с анимацией, а у Marvel - с игровым кино, и приходит к выводу о том, что это "врождённое": The basic truth is that we watch animation to escape and we watch live action to relate. The characters and universe of DC are a true escape, which is why their animated movies are so great. It is also why, with maybe 3 or exceptions, their live action movies are not so great. The difficulty lies in translating fantastic escape to a relatable experiance. The characters and universe of Marvel are truly relatable, which is why their live action movies are so great. On the flip side, when translating them to animation, the temptation is to make them more than what they are and, thus, the finished animated movies of Marvel leave you feeling like something wasn't quite right.

DC vs Marvel: My Take - а вот тут автор размышляет о том, кто лучше: Карк или Пикард. Извините, у меня сентиментальная тяга к несмешным шуткам: I will judge this on 7 different types of criteria: Heroes, Villains, Movies, Animated Films, Video Games, Graphic Novels, and Teams.

Olympians: Superhero Bodies and What Real Athletes Look Like и Superhero Body Diversity: Female Artists Offer Their Take - комикс-художники разных полов сравнивают разнополых же героев с телами атлетов, профессионально занимающихся тем или иным видом спорта, и распределяют героев по категориям: Captain America is a boxer or a rugby player, though Andrasofszky suggested a marine's physique. All three types could be described as compactly muscular. Because Batman is an all-rounder, he was tagged as either a triathlete or a mixed martial artist. Namor, unsurprisingly, was labelled a swimmer-type by three artists, though Andrasofszky's ranking suggests a bulkier build. The character is more of a brawler than a speedster, so a water polo physique might fit... The artists agreed that Catwoman and Psylocke would be about the same size, "but I think Catwoman has more of an hourglass shape, and I'd give Psylocke more muscles," said Cloonan. "Psylocke should be definitively a bit bigger, in strength and muscle, she hits while Catwoman dodges," said Rios. "I see Psylocke as a martial artist and Selina as an acrobat." Scott echoed this assessment, noting that Psylocke would be "lean but just a little beefy", while Catwoman "still has all her curves."

Thoughts on how the female figure is illustrated in comics these days - Курт Бьюсек отвечает на вопрос на Формспринге: My complaint is that variety is necessary to storytelling. When artists draw all the women to look like they're auditioning for a Vegas chorus line, it gets in the way of storytelling. It even gets in the way of making the characters who are supposed to be sexy look sexy, because if Kitty Pryde looks like a stripper, where do you go to make the White Queen look sexier and vampier? Make her even more so? Doesn't take long down that road to hit "ridiculous."




Ииии я подошла к лимиту знаков в записи. А у меня ещё столько всего более-менее, почти, слегка интересного в запасе! Хм. Э... похоже, продолжение следует!

@темы: DC, Marvel, Image Comics, Ссылки