Интервью Брубейкера? Вау. Признания Переза? Вау. Абей Хосла про "Сагу"? Вау! Статья про "Капитана Америку" Саймона и Кирби? Вау! Разбор первой страницы "Бэтмена"? Вау! Серия постов Мэттью Доу Смита? Вау! И так далее.
И да, я снова Очень Сильно Задержалась. Но об этом не будем.
Итак, приступим.
ИнтервьюНачнём, как всегда, с интервью:
И, что уж там, первым пусть будет главное интервью прошедшей недели:
CR Sunday Interview: Ed Brubaker - Эд Брубейкер и Том Спёрджён говорят обо всём подряд. Главные новости: после восьми лет работы над приключениями Капитана Америки, Брубейкер решил, что с него хватит, и собрался сосредоточится на авторских проектах. На это отреагировали все подряд, но и без этого там много интересного: похвалы в адрес Шона Филлипса (по словам самого Брубейкера, вот уже лет десять, как они с Филлипсом делают по 10-12 совместных комиксов в год), размышления о состоянии индустрии, мнение о "before Watchmen" и прочее.
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I think he's an incredibly strong storyteller. I think sometimes people lump him into a certain category that I don't think he's actually in. Artists that do this stiff, photo-y kind of stuff. Sean's stuff... what distinguishes him from a lot of those photo reference-y guys is that there's a looser artistic sensibility to what he does.
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I hit a point with the work-for-hire stuff where I was starting to feel burned out on it. Like my tank is nearing empty on superhero comics, basically. It's been a great job, and I think I found ways to bring my voice to it, but I have a lot of other things I want to do as a writer, too, so I'm going to try that for a while instead.
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I never had anybody ever order me to do anything on Captain America. I never had to do anything I didn't want to do with that book. When you're on a character for that long, you sort of have proprietorship of it. You know that Marvel owns the character, but you lie to yourself to a certain amount that you're the one in charge. And if you lie effectively enough and do good enough stuff, you are the one in charge.
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My favorite era of mainstream comics was when every character had just one comic, or the odd character that was really popular had two. They had the same writers for years and years and years. They had the same artists for years and years and years. The occasional fill-in. These people got to tell a story. There were no events and crossovers.
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You know when you work on these company-owned characters that there's a history there, a lot of it ugly and unfair to the creators. So you go in eyes wide open to that past. And that's the problem, poor treatment of creators, that's supposed to be the past, not the present.
And now with Before Watchmen you're seeing people weighing in on Alan Moore, saying he's a hypocrite. "He's mad about this, but he used to work on Swamp Thing or Superman." But if you actually read interviews with Alan Moore, he'll talk about the fact that the more work he did on that stuff, the harder a time he had with doing it. So obviously, his views evolved through his personal experience, as views tend to do.
But apparently there's some kind of moral absolutism where he's now not allowed to have an opinion.
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I was surprised by the bloodthirstiness, and I was surprised how much I cared about the issue, too. But the PR that came out... Some of the stuff JMS was saying in preemptive defense of the project... A lot of it made me kind of vomit in my mouth. The way that fans attacked Alan Moore -- "screw him, he signed a shitty contract!" -- and the debates back and forth about how he's done the same things with League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen so he can't complain... which just... that makes no sense. An author always has the right to complain about the treatment of their work. You don't forfeit that when you write an issue of Superman. To see that reaction from the fan base was disheartening. You expect them to be on the side of the creator.
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But what I can't get beyond is the way DC is sort of rewriting history here, and pretending like they didn't say Watchmen was this great new deal. It was supposed to be the thing that was different than Superman, different than Howard the Duck, and in the end, it wasn't at all.
Story City - Bill Willingham - автор Fables Билл Уиллингэм о своём готовящемся отметить десятилетие комиксе и внезапной популярности "современных переосмыслений" сказок.
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And it seems for better or worse, in entertainment and fiction, or at least American entertainment and fiction right now, we are definitely in the age of revisiting fairy tales or folklore or things like that.
Fables was not the first. When we look back at this, we may discover that Fables was early on in recognizing that, but not the first. There were things like this wonderfully — ill-conceived, I almost want to say, but it wasn't — a quirky failure of a show called The Tenth Kingdom, which posited that these [fairy tale and folklore] characters were still around. It had some delightful aspects to it, but overall, I think it wasn't the most powerful story.
But Into the Woods and Linda Medley's Castle Waiting and so many other great things have presaged Fables. And then the things now, like Once Upon a Time and Mirror, Mirror — which I've not seen yet — I intended to go see it the day it premiered, but I was at the Emerald City con, and couldn't at the time. And boy, if you're not there that that first moment, how quickly other things can impose themselves. I still intend to see it.
I just love the fact that all this is happening. I do not think that it's a case of one thing riffing off another. I think it's more of a everything in some way does feed on another and help it along.
A New Creator - John Lupo Avanti - Джон Лупо Аванти, начинающий художник, говорит очень интересную вещь: If it were possible to get people to pay long enough attention to understand a painting I would be a full time painter. Unfortunately, fine art painting is totally obsolete as a form of expression. I like animation as the highest level of illustration and public art for its massive impact on the community, but I probably prefer comics overall. I have been drawing comics for myself since I was in third grade. I like it because it is wide open for anything. A good "artist" or painter usually wants to be overly protective of what they are trying to say. I want funny. I want blood and guts and things that are cool to draw.
5 Questions About Right State with Mat Johnson - автор Right State о политическом ядре своего комикса: You have two major political tribes in America: the right and the left. Each group has its own mythologies, its own distortions of the other group, its own strong points, and its own weak points that it clings to out of tribal loyalty. I don't think the situation we have now would have been completely different if Hillary Clinton had become the president. Certainly it would have been different in some ways, but it's not like that opposition wouldn't be there. Likewise, if somehow miraculously Herman Cain became the Republican president, it's not like liberals would have lined up to support him just because he's black. Even black liberals. Long after the issue of race has become redundant and irrelevant, tribalism will still be a part of human existence. It's just the way our brains work. We group the world into the simplistic categories of Us versus Them. Our challenge as a nation is to get past that.
Interview with Faith Erin Hicks - Фэйт Эрин Хикс о вебкомиксах и своей личной эволюции как автора: There is a real freedom in that. I understand that because that's why I started drawing comics and why I wasn’t afraid to draw them even though my skills were so rudimentary. Especially with the internet, I was like, okay, I’m not asking anyone to pay for this. I’m just doing this as a way to tell this story in my head. For those first years where my readership was fairly low I didn’t get people really giving me crap for my crappy artwork. I just had people who enjoyed it.
Про индустриюПро индустрию:
The Relatively Big Two; or, This Kool-Aid is Delicious - про права авторов, корпорации и личный выбор: By taking this passive stance against Kirby’s heirs, you understand, I am putting myself in the corner of a multinational corporation that has undoubtedly done unspeakable things in the name of grabbing my dollar. If only someone had warned me. And yet, nothing Disney or Time-Warner does has dissuaded me from purchasing their products. They’re so diversified, I’m not sure I could cut them off if I tried. At the same time, the guys who went indie have done so in a fashion I find so obnoxious that it makes me never want to touch another book again as long as I live.
The Big Two: Not the biggest opportunities in town any more as creators move on - про то, что всё больше авторов не хочет связываться с "Большой двойкой". Примерно на эту же тему размышляет Том Спёрджён: Go, Read: Two Clues As To Marvel's Way Out.
Do what you want to - снова в связи с интервью с Брубейкером: о том, что Миллар и Лайфелд в каком-то смысле очень большие молодцы: There’s been a snobbery, unconsciously, toward both creators, a weird (and accidental) discounting on my part about the importance of both men — at the time, at the top of their commercial games — giving up what could’ve easily been lucrative careers at Marvel or DC for the sake of doing what they wanted, and being able to control their own creations and work. Because I didn’t like it, and thought that it wasn’t significantly different from what they’d already been up to, I didn’t give them the credit they deserved for going it alone and inspiring other people to do the same, forgetting that “doing what you want” doesn’t have to mean “doing what I want” in order to be worthwhile.
Thought Bubble #1: Why Aren't Comics Funnier? - мнения про то, почему же современные комиксы большей частью такие... невесёлые: I think a large part of the absence of funny comics from the Big Two [DC and Marvel] comes down to the fact that your average superhero reader is living in a kind of denial about the inherent ridiculousness of a character who wears his underpants outside his trousers and punches people called "The Riddler" for a living.
Новые технические методы и способы: Madefire (Read: Mamtor) Launches New Digital Graphic Novel Format With Dave Gibbons, Bill Sienkiewicz and Friends и Yahoo To Create Grant Morrison And Andy Diggle Motion Comics
Growing Up a Gay Comics Reader Part 4: Archie, the Unexpected Trailblazer - про то, как "Арчи" неожиданно изменил всё.
И дискуссия, с середины месяца ведущаяся на IcV2:
Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Better... But Still Not Good - про злосчастную статью Мачмана и проблемы индустрии.
Ed West on Big Two's Current Direction - советы издательствам: хватит играть с нумерацией, к чёрту авторские проекты (всем плевать на авторов), меньше спорных тем (вроде этих неудобных геев), больше ориентации на детей и "ценности".
Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Seven Ways to Save Comic Books! - "письмо в редакцию". Повторяет кусок про спорные темы, добавляет цену, стиль рисунка, подход к повествованию.
Jim Crocker of Modern Myths on Why 'People' Don't Read Comics - не нравятся "спорные темы? Прекрасно, мы не очень-то и хотим вас в нашем фанатском кругу: All of that said, if she's really the kind of person who actually gets offended that gay characters exist, and that they occasionally get a token mention, then I'd rather she not read comics.
Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Welcome to the Conversation - завершение с пояснениями.
Про медиумПро медиум:
Отсюда видео про историю манги:
Like Language to the Slaughter - про комиксы как язык и комиксы как медиум.
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It is said that images are worth a thousand words, but nobody said which words those are. Hardly clear-cut textbook definitions, more likely a chattering, discursive debate with itself, weighing multiple views against each other without really deciding on either, but your sister might like this, and should we maybe go for coffee somewhere? Now, that may resemble how many people actually talk, but also the way many read images, or perceive reality for that matter.
So, images are intuitive, rather than specific; ambiguous rather than concrete; meandering rather than direct. They are a roundabout way of communicating, not like the above, bare-boned definition of language.
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What kind of broad statement can you even make about “comics”? That they’re sequential in nature – except when they’re not? That they are all printed? Please, that had whiskers on it in the last millennium! Certainly not that they’re comical, that is to a large extent reserved for short-form “strips”, like some webcomics and the newspaper strips of old. The body of “comics” has become so complex and huge that we need to find proper names for its organs and limbs. Take the “graphic novel”. No, please, take it. That poor, abused, disowned appendix of a term.
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The (US) mainstream, or what is considered as such, is centered around fan worship to the extent that “comics” seem to have become synonymous with “superheroes” and, by implication, anything not superheroes is deemed off-mainstream. But superheroes. Aren’t. Comics. They’re not even a genre, but tucked somewhere within the pulp genre, which, in its heyday, spread from dime novels to radio and cinema periodicals.
And now, to demonstrate the impact of Jack Kirby and Marvel, here are two apes - про влияние Кирби на примере двух обложек.
Про авторов и их работуПро авторов и их работу:
Comic Book Artist: Jason Pearson - про художника, знаменитого прежде всего своей работой над Body Bags.
What I Do For A Living - редактор отвечает на несколько вопросов: That’s how I got started, but I kept going with comics because they seemed to be able to tell stories that movies and TV couldn’t and tell them in ways those mediums couldn’t either. There was a nostalgia and an affinity and a love for them, but they also seemed to be this unique, pure medium of fiction and pop culture where possibilities appeared limitless. They’re a venue for modern mythology, who wouldn’t want to enjoy that and try to be part of it?
Отсюда ссылки на крайне интересный рассказ художника и сценариста Мэттью Доу Смита, работающего над комиксом по Доктору Кто, о своей карьере в индустрии:
Part One - про то, что в этой индустрии гораздо легче быть художником, чем сценаристом.
Part Two - про перемены и неизбежность исчезновения бумажных комиксов.
Part Three - про работу на DC и попытку работать в "корпоративном стиле".
Part Four - про CrossGen и сочетание творческих стремлений с работой по найму.
Part Five - про начало работы над Доктором Кто.
Part Six - про первую написанную (а не просто нарисованную) историю про Доктора, и её значение.
Part Seven - про творчество, деньги, киностудии и понимание необходимости переходить к авторским проектам.
Статьи про конкретные комиксыСтатьи про конкретные комиксы:
Ten Things: SAGA - про "Сагу" Брайана К. Вона и Фионы Стейпл.
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In a context where the Corporate Character is Everything, what a meager alternative they’re selling: “If the Character isn’t everything, why then I must be Everything.”
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My favorite of the ads shows a photograph of Todd McFarlane, with the following quote: “Once you turn that creative switch on, it doesn’t go off ’til you die.” McFarlane is shown drawing Spawn, who first appeared in 1992. Tragically, the evidence thus suggests that Todd McFarlane died halfway through 1991. Our condolences. This ad is especially enjoyable if you happen to purchase CREATOR OWNED COMICS #1 which comes with a Neil Gaiman interview where Mr. Gaiman references Mr. Mcfarlane, within the pages of an Image Comic, as follows: “Comics has a solid 80 year history of exploitation of the creators, and one huge legal case to force a publisher to keep promises was enough for me“–!
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The Sextillion is a scene at the opening of the #4 where these malformed caricatures of women come to the book’s Heroic Man of Action and promise him outrageous sex. Any darkness to the “character visits whorehouse” character beat is defused by Staples– she hyper-exaggerates the female form, such that the whores are all legs, giant heads. Because that’s what comic artists do, after all– they take the sex characteristics that they obsess over and then inflate those, beyond any point of recognition. The Man of Action hasn’t just gone to a whorehouse– he’s gone to a whorehouse that might as well have been run by Judd Winick. Staples does that but without choosing the same sexual characteristics– invokes the grotesque, without accidentally titillating us with breasts, ass, camel toe, hormones, shame.
Staples’s approach resembles that Frank Miller took in Dark Knight Strikes Back, his own assault on mainstream comics. Unlike Miller, though: Vaughan/Staples’s deformed women seem to build to something resembling a fucking point.
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I think Vaughan has been wildly influential, but for comics maybe he’d want to disown if he were aware of them, for that horrid formula of “here’s the first issue that lays out some ordinary schmoes, then end with the big cliffhanger that sets out the high concept.” Go look at any movie-pitch independent comic.And if you’ve read about SAGA, you’ve invariably heard about the lettering, but yes, yes, the lettering. Vaughan went to Hollywood, but came back from it with a comic book with comic book pleasures to it. Instead of a broken thing.
How often does that happen? Kyle Baker came back different, but Kyle Baker 2.0 (and 3.0 and 4.0) were all pretty great. Besides that… anyone want to rep Frank Miller 2.0 being > Frank Miller 1.0? Some people make a case for Chaykin, and… good luck to them on that. Anyone want to read Neil Gaiman’s Marvel comics? It’s not a long list.
Greatest Comic of All Time | Light Comitragies - Мэтт Сенека продолжает писать о Самых Лучших Комиксах, и в этот раз предмет впечатляет настолько, что лично я его даже скачала... скачиваю, вот прямо сейчас: Light is one of the first color underground comics, and even today it remains a downright eye-searing piece of work, its benday tones screaming off the page with the power of a heavily distorted guitar riff... It’s one of comics’ all-time great sequences, a dreamlike, apocalyptic piece of pure vision and expert, fluid animation unlike anything else... More than all this, though, it’s a comic that manages to be both so beautiful and terrifying in such equal measure that it’s impossible to think about its historical significance or even its political message while you’re looking at the pictures. Every image in Light takes you away the moment it hits your eyes, reduces the world down to a sheet of paper printed with black lines and colored dots, and until you turn to the next one, nothing else matters.
Joe Simon & Jack Kirby’s Captain America (1941) - про хорошие старые комксы.
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Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s “The Case of the Hollow Men” is punk super-heroics. Exuberant, gleeful, transgressive, rough-edged, snag-toothed, life-affirming, street, political, violent, fun. To read it again is to wonder what the super-hero book’s been doing for most of the past 70 years. It’s the motherlode and the ur-text, the Sun Sessions and The Stooges of the costumed crimefighter book. What’s more, it may just be the most vital, the most galvinisingly raw super-hero story that’s ever been published, and it’s almost certainly one of the most exhilarating.
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Simon and Kirby’s page designs remain, even today, both brutally focused and startlingly innovative. Their work is incredibly ingenious, and yet all their energies are constantly directed towards charging up the comic book equivalent of a mosh pit. It’s that mixture of an entirely unpretentious purpose fused with a desire never to bore the book’s intended young audience which would mean that Simon and Kirby’s punkishness would soon evolve into ever more complex and controlled forms. But their Captain America stories from 1941 capture the creators at a moment at which they were mastering the fundamentals of their craft at the same moment as they were relentlessly experimenting with it too. Naive and sophisticated, radical and yet not too intimidatingly out-there, their achievements were designed to never allow the reader to look away from the page..
The Nightly News | Jonathan Hickman - про дебютный комикс Джонатана Хикмана: In this world of multimedia and visual mandates, it makes sense for Hickman to display this comicbook the way he does. If anything, he’s riffing on the state of things and bleeding into the info-graphic culture we inhabit. You could even say he’s using the weapon usually aimed for us and turning it back on its handler, subverting the norm as well as casting his own brand of spicy propaganda. This mindset works to the book’s cynical attitude as it furthers its point about the hypocritical cult, that no matter what side you choose, conformity’s on your mind and the same tactics are in use, all leading you no further from your enemy.
Direct Message 03: Moon Knight by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev - беседа Чеда Неветта и Алека Берри о Monn Knight.
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The coloring of this comic does become an interesting aspect when you consider how involved it is in the impact. I do prefer Maleev’s traditional look, but for something like this – a super hero comic, Wilson, and later Hollingsworth’s, colors make sense because they lend a sense of dynamism to Maleev’s line while still presenting the presence and posture his drawings have. Wilson adjusts his work to Maleev’s perceived style by washing out and toning what is usually a more rich look in Wilson’s books – compare Wonder Woman to Moon Knight.
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You’re right. Bendis does boil Spider-man, Cap and Wolverine down to their most predictable, basic points, but I still feel in some sense, just by their presence and the context of previous knowledge, something is revealed of Marc Spector. Those characters clearly stand for three different types of heroes. Cap’s obviously the patriotic, by the book one. Wolverine’s the savage. Spider-man encompasses that guilt as well as the energy and excitement of being a super hero. All of that comes together to say something about Spector, whether he’s all of that at once or up in the air about what type of hero he wants to be.
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Maleev’s sort of this dude with a lot behind him in terms of reputation and role in comics. I know that sounds weird because in actuality I don’t really see the guy as anything more than a better than average contemporary, but there is this certain sect of people who see Maleev as this game changer. And, due to runs like Daredevil and his connection to Bendis, he’s been provided the label of “super star.”
Some disjointed thoughts on Wolverine By Greg Rucka Ultimate Collection - ну и про Росомаху: In the rear-view mirror, the run was quite an aberration, a rather realistic take that eschewed pandering to the regular Marvel Universe audience in order to seek out potential readers who liked what they saw in the X-Men movies, or were intrigued with the idea of a stoic bad-ass type who could summon knives from his knuckles to kill bad guys in need of killing.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 2009 thoughts - про последний выпусл "Лиги..." Алана Мура. Ну тот, что с Гарри Поттером.
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And it’s a shame, because the story Moore wants to tell — of the deterioration of culture since the 1960s — is one that could be plausibly made. But to make it work, one has to criticise the 60s counterculture. Most of the problems in the world today stem, ultimately, from the utter self-obsessed infantilism of the generation that were young adults in 1969 — Moore’s generation, the generation that voted in Thatcher, the generation that made up Blair’s cabinet — but rather than admit the link, Moore has instead basically taken a line of “Weren’t the 60s great until Charles Manson and Altamont, but now the world’s full of young people with their hippity-hoppity music and their pinpods, and I wish it would all be like it used to be.”
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Violence in Moore’s books tends to be treated an awkward and reprehensible occurrence, and troubling as it can be his treatment of rape is in line with this. A “rape-happy” comic would play out more like Rape an Ape, and would do much to make Moore’s point about modern culture for him.
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I think when his critics tackle Moore in blog post after blog post about not properly engaging with the culture he’s attacking, what many of them (and that includes us) fail to notice is the man’s fine attunement to social injustice, a modern problem he’s absolutely allowed to go at with all guns blazing. We’ve talked a lot in the past about the way that, in Moore’s writing, the human body is so close to the surface, and that includes the body politic. As we’ve observed in our prior League thoughts, the poor literally crowd out the margins of Century.
On The Batman in Detective Comics #475, by Englehart, Rogers, Austin and Oda - прекрасный анализ одной первой страницы: At each step of the eye's journey down to the title line of The Laughing Fish, specific aspects of the design carry our attention briefly in the direction of the costumed crimefighter before others immediately drag it away again. The hotel flag bearing the label of Gotham City points vaguely towards Bruce Wayne, but its billowing fabric simultaneously works in combination with the direction of the lightning bolt to push us towards the second and third captions instead.
On "Kiss" #1 by Chris Ryall and Jamal Igle: Reader's Roulette Round 3:2 - и от того же автора: анализ ещё одной первой страницы... не столь хорошей.
Comics Time: Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller - о комиксе про Хелен Келлер.
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Though Lambert’s access via cartooning to Helen’s inner world is unique among depictions of this well-worn story, it’s only through juxtaposition with the more traditionally told tale — the literal wrestling matches bas Annie tries to physically force Helen to learn — that the magnitude of Helen’s struggle becomes clear. Without seeing Helen in all her painfully adorable and vulnerable and angry tousle-haired glory, throwing plates and running into walls and knocking Annie’s teeth out and leaving both teacher and student in (magnificently well-drawn) prostrate exhaustion amid debris-strewn rooms, her famous eureka moment at the well, which we see alternating back and forth between Annie and Helen’s perspectives, would not have the power it does.
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The real trap of it is that it’s precisely that act of illumination that damns Helen in her interrogator’s eyes, and partially in her own. When her life is one great string of discoveries, her joy is unstoppable; when she’s forced to confront how those discoveries were all filtered through one other person, she can no longer trust her own ability to determine where she ends and Teacher begins. Is she the water, or just the pitcher into which someone else’s water was poured? Moreover, the trap is twofold: . Lambert’s third-hand revelation of Annie’s potential deceit is deftly done, and breathtaking in the way it takes what we’d come to see as virtues in “Miss Spitfire” and unveils them as potential faults. Based on everything we’ve seen of her — her desire to get the full credit she deserves, no less but also no more — it’s highly unlikely that she consciously committed the crime of which she stands accused.
No Man’s Land….. conceptual brilliance, but…… - про комикс, красивый и беспощадный: I can certainly agree it’s visually quite staggering, beauty perhaps not the quite word, but certainly incredible, colours and shapes forming an intoxicating series of tableaus on each full page of artwork. But everything else about it just seems overcooked, overly long, a comic in love with the sound of its own voice-over below each image. I’m calling Emperor’s new clothes on this one... In fact, that quote I used above “French illustration genius Blexbolex” seems very relevant to my thoughts on this. Because that’s what this feels like – pure illustration, beautifully done. Yet the words get in the way, an annoyance, a narrative that falters and spoils the pictures.
Comics as Literature, Part 5: Impolite Dinner Conversation - продолжение коллекции рекомендаций, на этот раз в фокусе религия.
Dig Comics: No Tale to Tell - о нескольких инди-комиксах. Сссылка тут в основном из-за вот этого: Your worst nightmares never make sense, you just know they are terrible. The visual information can’t add up, adding to the unknowable fear. Columbia uses exacting skill to take your eyes there. In one panel, children look out a window, where the background is in bold ink, but their legs and feet and the floorboards are thinly sketched in pencil. Which might not matter, except that something terrible is approaching the house and their only possible sanctuary is disappearing.
Gold Out of Straw - об Ed the Happy Clown Честера Брауна, обложках The Shadow, Брэдбери и прочем: Shock elements tend to lose their charge over time because the shocks depend on contemporary attitudes that are subject to change. Brown’s outrages remain outrageous because he approaches them not with a youthful sense of moral certainty but with the deadpan matter-of-fact detachment of someone who finds the world essentially mysterious. His approach is of one who has not yet passed judgment.
Exit Sandman - Ной Берлатски о The Best American Comics 2010 Геймане вообще и Сэндмене в частности: Sandman had some serious problems, one of the most prominent being the inconsistent, generic, and even shoddy work of some of its pencilers.
СуперменСупермен:
George Perez Talking About Being Rewritten On Superman - легендарный Джордж Перез о том, каково ему было работать над пост-Ребутным Суперменом. Если вкратце: не то чтобы весело.
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
Unfortunately when you are writing major characters, you sometimes have to make a lot of compromises and I was made certain promises, and unfortunately not through any fault of Dan DiDio, he was no longer the last word, lot of people making decisions, going against each other, contradicting, again in mid story. The people who love my Superman arc, I thank you. What you read, I don’t know. After I wrote it… I told them here’s my sсript, if you change it, that’s your prerogative, don’t tell me. Don’t ask me to edit it, don’t ask me to correct it, I don’t want to change something that you’re going to change again if you disagree.
...
I had no idea Grant Morrison was going to be working on another Superman title, I had no idea I was doing it five years ahead, which means, my story I couldn’t do certain things without knowing what he did, and Grant wasn’t telling everybody, so I was kind of stuck,who exists, DC couldn’t give me answers.
Дополнительные обсуждения: George Perez couldn’t ‘wait to get off Superman’, George Perez Explains His 'Frustrating' Superman Experience In The New 52 и
Breaking: DC's New 52 Might Not Have Been Completely Thought Out.
Lobdell on Superman: be afraid - скептические комментарии к планам Скотта Лобделла на Супермена: I remember the powers that be (doing stupid things) wanted to make a more alien, outcast-feeling Superman. You know, except that he has NEVER BEEN THAT! EVER! Even on Smallville Clark was withdrawn but still outgoing. He had friends even while hiding his powers. And Smallville was the show that got so much wrong I started looking at Lois & Clark in a more favorable light. There’s even a line by Clark in that series that sums him up nicely: “Superman is what I can do, Clark Kent is who I am”.
Несколько рецензий на книгу "Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero" и размышлений по её поводу: Superman by Larry Tye, TRUTH OR JUSTICE и We Need You, Superman.
Про юридические битвы вокруг главного супергероя:
creators' rights - общие мысли о правах Сигела и Шустера.
Superman lawyer scores a minor win in brutal battle with Warner Bros - о споре представителя семей Шустера и Сигела с материнской компанией DC.
Whatever the lawyers say, Ohio IS the birthplace of Superman - о попытке Warner Brothers и DC Comics воспрепятствовать появлению автомобильных номеров, провозглашающих штат Огайо "Родиной Супермена".
1933's 'The Reign Of The Superman' - The First Superman Story, EVER - первая созданная Сигелом и Шустером история про Супермена... не такая, как вы могли бы подумать.
Top 5: Best Superman Homages & Rip-Offs - лучшие из в той или иной степени вдохновлённых Суперменом персонажей.
Человек-ПаукЧеловек-Паук:
The Many Origins of Spider-Man: A History - краткий курс по тому, как Питер Паркер начинал свои супергероические похождения в самых разных медиумах.
Hero Worship: What I Learned About Spider-Man - Человек-Паук как трагический персонаж: Perhaps it’s something obvious to other readers, but for me, this is the first time I’ve ever really examined Peter Parker from a real “tragic hero” angle. While I hope that the article I did was helpful for readers looking for more good Spider-Man stories to read, I’m happy to say that the experience of writing it was beneficial to my own understanding of the character himself.
Retrospective: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man - разбор Человека-Паука от Ли и Дитко: с чего всё начиналось.
Why Gwen Stacy Was Peter Parker's Greatest Love и Why Mary Jane is the Best Love Interest for Spider-Man - для шипперов и не только.
Conway & Kane’s Amazing Spider-Man 122 - и снова про Мэри Джейн и смерть Гвен Стейси: Part of the mythos of Spider-Man is that Peter Parker is an extraordinarily selfish person. Or maybe just regular selfish — it’s hard to tell when everything in cape comics is so heightened. But he takes everything personally, and he tries to walk around with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He snaps and buckles under pressure before regaining his strength, but that snapping is the important part. Peter Parker needs support. He needs someone to tell him things are okay or to have his back in a pinch.
Agent of S.T.Y.L.E. - SPIDER-MAN's Fashion Spider-Sense - про костюмы Человека-Паука: Unlike certain Bat-themed heroes, Spidey’s outfit was primarily meant to be flashy, cool and attention-grabbing rather than body armor. But there were also some practical factors involved. For one thing, Spidey found that his wall-crawling abilities didn’t work as well through thick layers (such as the soles of most sneakers or dress shoes). A skin-tight gymnast outfit or ski suit was necessary if he wanted minimal interference. This also made it easier for him to hide his uniform beneath civilian clothes when he became a full-on superhero later.
10 Memorable Occasions Spider-Man Acted Like A Nutjob - а ещё Питер Паркер умеет просто прелестно сходить с ума.
И как особая вишенка на торте: чем вдохновлялся Эндрю Гарфилд.
Про разных прочих супергероев и не толькоПро разных прочих супергероев и не только:
The Mysterious Potential of Superheroes (in praise of the vague) - о том, что одна из главных ценностей супергероев как идей в их "размытости": The major characteristics of superheroes which can stand the test of time aren’t fashionable or contemporary, they’re vague and incongruous. They maintain their appeal for decades because of (not despite) all the holes in their creation. So many questions are created by their existence, and we as readers are forced to answer them ourselves.
Arcade and Why Success Doesn't Make a Villain Credible - про то, что делает из злодея серьёзную угрозу: Villains, after all, aren't really made to succeed; if they were, they'd be protagonists. The villain is just there to provide an obstacle for a hero to overcome, and the best villains aren't the ones who rack up a massive body count, they're the ones who make the most interesting obstacles.
Heroes Con Wonder Woman Panel, A Discussion of Amazonian Strength! - про Чудо-Женщину от авторов её нынешнего воплощения: Because Wonder Woman at its heart is about the adventures of a fabulous princess who is from a fantasty island. Who you’re trying to sell this to at the bottom line is not the same match as to who is buying Superman and Batman. Her origin also has twice as much weight and complication as other origin stories.
AvX Halftime: the future versus our place within it - Мстители и Люди Икс, философия конфликта: The X-Men have traditionally been about the future, based on the idea of evolution and mankind’s adaptations toward a new era. They have dealt with the hate and fear that come with the unknown and have fought against ignorance and tried to promote understanding between who we are today and what we might become. Mutants are more real to us when they are balanced in character and fleshed out in emotions, so that we can learn what it’s like to embody that future. If we were to give the Avengers a broader theme, you could say they have been and were founded on reactivity. Come on, it’s in the name.
Riding the Gravy Train 12 (Avengers vs. X-Men #6, New Avengers #27, Secret Avengers #28, Uncanny X-Men #14, and Avengers Academy #32) - снова про философию конфликта, но уже с печальными выводами: Except, there's the problem that always crops up in stories where heroes are given extraordinary powers and decide to use them to make the world better: everyone else has a shitfit and decides that they must be stopped. How dare those uppity mutants try to end war?!? How dare they talk to the bad guys instead of crushing their skulls!?! How dare they do anything except fight and fight and fight and fight and fight... So, of course, they fight. And they just showed up a little. And they'll overreact and prove that, yeah, maybe power corrupts and they need to be stopped. And the lesson at the end of the day is that a real hero shuts up, colours inside of the lines, and doesn't try to actually do anything except punch problems away.
Black Panther: Where Do I Start? - всё, что нужно прочитать, чтобы иметь представление о Чёрной Пантере. Туда же: его первая встреча с Шторм.
Вещи, которые вы (увы) вряд ли сможете купитьВещи, которые вы (увы) вряд ли сможете купить:
Супергероические балетные пачки!
Локи-кольцо!
Тор-виски!
Ну и развлечения, точнее спискиНу и развлечения, точнее списки:
10 Best Things About the Current MARVEL Universe и 10 Worst Things About the Current MARVEL Universe
10 Comics Characters Who Debuted Outside Comics
Five Potential Partnerships (So Crazy They Might Just Work) - Дакен и Дэдпул!
5 Ridiculous Things That Show Up in the Art of Every Comic - See, it's doubly anguish-inducing because on the one hand, oh no, a friend is dead, and on the other hand, oh no, you have such an awful tumor in your brain, your head is literally emitting light. You should see a doctor as soon as your grief allows for it. In fact, maybe grieve in an ambulance... I like that Liefeld, in updating the Supergirl image, took the bold move of not giving Deadpool hands. Apparently he's supporting Cable's body on his penis. Cable, meanwhile, has tragically died of lockjaw and Only One Thigh Sclerosis. It's a terrible disease.
Вот. Читайте, просвещайтесь, наслаждайтесь. Ну или можете, если ещё не видели посмотреть фанатский фильм про Дэдпула: