It's funny because it's sad.
Премия имени Скотта Снайдера (подзаголовок - "заткнись уже!") в этот раз достаётся Энн Ноченти, которая с октября будет сценаристом "Женщины-Кошки". По этому поводу Энн дала аж четыре интервью о планах на персонажаПремия имени Скотта Снайдера (подзаголовок - "заткнись уже!") в этот раз достаётся Энн Ноченти, которая с октября будет сценаристом "Женщины-Кошки". По этому поводу Энн дала аж четыре интервью о планах на персонажа:
Interview: CATWOMAN Gets A New Creative Team - I think that when a comic does something that has been building for years and years it's fun -- it's kind of a cool thing. But the idea that they would then actually have a relationship? You know, I don't know. It seems like a cool idea to say 'alright, these two are finally going to consummate this buildup,' and I think that gives a kind of a release from that tension…and it goes back to something much, much more complex. To me it seems like she has some rescue fantasies, you know, it's almost like she needs to know that he will rescue her yet again. That's the real sexuality if you know what I mean.
BREAKING! New Writer Ann Nocenti Talks About Taking Over CATWOMAN From Judd Winick - Yes, she has the heroism of a damaged person. You know, maybe she’s more human? Most people I know don’t run around devoting their lives to saving other people; although I do know people like that. But most humans just kind of take care of their own stuff and they don’t feel particularly heroic. I mean, the heroism of the ordinary person is more like, they’re getting food on the table for their kids, you know? Or helping their neighbors a little bit or something. So she’s not driven by heroism she’s driven by something so compulsive. It’s heists but it doesn’t feel like the kind of thing you’ll see in, like, an old French film about a heist. It’s more like almost a kleptomania. It’s like something that she cannot stop.
ANN NOCENTI Takes Over a 'Still-Sexy' CATWOMAN - It is true that, for those of us who have experienced addictions, it's unquestionably fun, you know, to be at a poker table, or at least it is for me. But in Catwoman, I want to play with the idea that there's just a tiny bit of disassociation. There's a moment where you're about to go to the casino, and you just say, "I'm not going to go. I know that ride. I know how it ends." But then she goes. And your point is well taken. It's fun!
Ann Nocenti Takes Over "Catwoman" with #0 Issue - She's got this little orphan girl sort of trauma and she'll never be able to have enough stuff to feel safe. So I don't really think she's somebody who goes out and just robs -- she goes on heists sometimes because she needs money, but I think it's way more complex than that. It goes back to never feeling safe. She's sort of the opposite, in some ways, of Green Arrow because he was born with a silver spoon.
Да, я тоже заметила, что Энн повторяется. Вот что бывает, когда ты одновременно даёшь четыре интервью на одну и ту же тему.
Сам Скотт Снайдер, кстати на удивление затих. За почти три недели он дал всего три интервью. Всего три! То есть: раньше он выдавал по три-четыре интервью в неделю! Мало того, одно из этих интервью старое, то есть на самом деле он их дал два! Избавляться от зависимости крайне тяжело, и чтобы поддержать Скотта в этом правильном начинании, я в кои то веки дам ссылки на все - всего, я всё ещё не могу в это поверить - три его интервьюСам Скотт Снайдер, кстати на удивление затих. За почти три недели он дал всего три интервью. Всего три! То есть: раньше он выдавал по три-четыре интервью в неделю! Мало того, одно из этих интервью старое, то есть на самом деле он их дал два! Избавляться от зависимости крайне тяжело, и чтобы поддержать Скотта в этом правильном начинании, я в кои то веки дам ссылки на все - всего, я всё ещё не могу в это поверить - три его интервью:
COMICS ANONYMOUS TALKS TO SCOTT SNYDER - Batman is my favourite character – he’s always been, ever since I was a kid. With me, if I don’t have an idea that I don’t care as much as Court of the Owls or the next story line we’re going to do, if it’s not as important to me or as deeply personal as these stories are, I won’t do Batman. I’m not going to stay on Batman past that point where I have a story that, to me, isn’t as important to my character and to myself as the one I’m doing now. So that’s the way I perceive Batman – I joke that ‘you’ll have to kick me out of Gotham’ – but I would happily leave Gotham if I don’t have the story for it.
Snyder Promises Bat-Tie-Ins with JOKER's Nightmarish Return - But because the story is so big, and because Joker is attacking all those members of the Bat-family, essentially, to prove this point that he's come back to Gotham to prove and to expose this secret that he has, you will see Joker attack Nightwing in Nightwing. And you'll see him come after Batgirl in Batgirl. And you'll see him go after Damian in Batman and Robin. And Tim, even, in Teen Titans. And Jason in Red Hood [and the Outlaws]... So in a way, he's sort of saying, "You've created this false family around you. You've created this group of people. And I'm here to show you what's wrong with that. And you've forgotten about me. And now I'm going to show you why that's wrong. And I'm going to expose this secret. And in doing that, I'm going to tear you guys apart worse than you've ever seen."
Interview: Scott Snyder Talks 'Return of the Joker: Death of the Family' - He feels he knows them better than anyone else. He serves him as almost a court jester to his king in that way. In that, he makes these horrifying nightmares to life to make Bruce stronger. He feels he has a very special bond and relationship with him that way. It's something that only the two of them share... That Joker, to me, is something that's built on a lot of versions that have come before but is also important to me in a personal way. It's my own take on the mythology of this event that we'll explore in this event. It has to do with the symbolism of the court jester, the tarot card of the joker, Peter Pan and all kinds of stuff that I'm going to roll into it to make it something that's different even if it's built on the legacy of the character.
Разделаемся с интервью, не поддающимся разбросу по прочим категориямРазделаемся с интервью, не поддающимся разбросу по прочим категориям:
SIMONE Talks BATGIRL #0 and 'Collision' with the JOKER - Гейл Симон о Бэтгёрл, Джокере и травме в пост-ребутном DC: I spent a lot of time speaking with specialists and survivors about this, and one thing we saw with trauma survivors over and over was, the nightmares often go on even after the body heals. It's not weakness, it's not self-pity, it happens to the bravest people on Earth; soldiers, police, on and on. And Barbara being who she is, she finds herself wondering why she is regaining her mobility when so many will never have that option. Because of her experiences over the first year, she's having to grapple with it. But again, she's Barbara Gordon, she will find a way.
Levitz On Brainiac 5, Female Friendship and the #0 Issues of "Legion" & "World's Finest" - Пол Левиц о том, что нас ждёт в нулевых номерах "Легиона супергероев и "Лучших в мире": We were able to come up with a storyline that simultaneously deals with stuff we didn't know about Brainiac 5 as a person, how he came to make his decision to join the Legion and also about how he has been dealing with essentially having inherited the great cosmic Pandora's box that is the original Brainiac's treasure trove of past stuff... I think it's the fun of the book; on one level, you have the Superman/Batman dichotomy with two very different sets of powers, and to some extent, different heroic worldview. But on another, you just have an utterly different emotional relationship than you've seen with Superman and Batman. Hopefully, you're really getting to like these two people.
INTERVIEW: Gregg Hurwitz - интервью с текущим (начиная с #10) сценаристом "Тёмного рыцаря": I have two favorite panels in this issue—one is the double-page spread which I think David just killed, with Batman swinging through and smashing the guy out through the car. And the other is the exact opposite kind of scene, with Batman sitting with Clair in her hospital room and she reaches over and takes his hand. And that scene, where he is there and he understands—he’s asking Clair questions and he realizes that he’s helpless to do anything and the only way he can help her is to sit with her and comfort her when he sits side by side with her. The next scene is the scene with Damian, where it’s his own son who’s trying to talk to him and he’s ill-focused. And that, to me, is the epitome of what it is that Natalya was talking about when she calls him to task. He’s there and enormously available to people when it isn’t intimate, when it doesn’t involve closeness, and why that is has a lot to do with the issues that the Scarecrow wants to pry into.
Аметист, Чёрная Молния, Синий Дьявол и скандал вокруг их появления в пост-ребутной Вселенной DCАметист, Чёрная Молния, Синий Дьявол и скандал вокруг их появления в пост-ребутной Вселенной DC:
Не так давно DC объявило, что, во первых, вновь собирается выпускать комикс про Аметист, фэнтези-героиню родом из 80-х, а во-вторых, в пост-ребутной вселенной вновь появятся Чёрная Молния и Синий Дьявол. Все три персонажа предстанут перед публикой во в той или иной степени изменённом состоянии. Интервью с авторами объявленных историй:
This September, the creator of Jem will write DC Comics’ most 1980s fantasy heroine - This will be a complete reboot. The first thing I wanted to do — based on the tonal guidance Dan gave me — was age her up a bit. She's just turning 17 rather than being 13. She has a very different family background, but the same basic things are there. She grew up on Earth with a strange childhood and ends up back in her homeworld which she's never seen before. I'm taking a more intimate, familial approach to her adversary, who is her homicidal aunt who does not want to share power. I'm going for something dynastic with emotional complexity that will draw people in, and not just a bunch of people swinging swords. I'm trying to avoid a sparkly-crystals-and-pegasuses kind of approach. This is an alien world with blood powers that are related to crystals, but I'm going for a much more holistic approach.
EXCLUSIVE: Andreyko Sees Black & Blue In "DC Universe Presents" - This was just in passing as we were waiting in line for rides, and then I kept bugging him about it and the ideas just started flying. It's a grand tradition in entertainment, literature and films of two people who are complete opposites becoming friends in spite of themselves, whether it's Maddie and David on "Moonlighting" or Felix and Oscar on "The Odd Couple," or even Bert and Ernie on "Sesame Street!" So the idea of taking these two characters, one who was explicitly magic-based and one who was explicitly not, added metaphorically to the differences they had... In the story, personality-wise, Jefferson Pierce is an Olympic-level athlete, so for him the training and discipline begets power, whether that's athletic power or honing his lightning skills. Magic to him is kind of foreign because magic tends not to be from A to B to C -- magic is sometimes A to C and then all around. So Blue Devil's very powers are contrary to the way Jefferson thinks and the way Jefferson lives his life. Jefferson is a very focused guy. You have to be to be an Olympic athlete. You have to have discipline and training. Dan comes from a Hollywood family and has always been this kind of guy who glides through life, taking jobs when he needs them and then, when the money runs out, taking another one. Magic sort of extrapolates on his persona. The conflict there is both personality-wise and super-powers.
Звучит любопытно, да?
Может быть. Проблема вот в чём: эти образы персонажей... несколько расходятся с тем, какими их представляют создатели. Для Аметист и Синего Дьявола это сценаристы Дэн Мишкин и Гэри Кон, а для Чёрной Молнии - сценарист Тони Изабелла и художник Тревор Фон Иден. В случае с первым из последних, точнее их правами на персонажа, всё не то чтобы так уж чисто ещё и с юридической стороны.
Latest Updates - Тони Изабелла реагирует на новости у себя в блоге: Yes, I have heard the news about Black Lightning. You don't have to e-mail me, private message me, phone me, or post links on my Facebook page. My only public comments to date have been "Words fail me" and, to my friend Dan Mishkin, "Forget it, Dan. It's DC Town." But, really, if you've ever read anything I've written about Black Lightning and DC's continued refusal to honor its agreements with me, and if you have half a brain, you already know how I feel about the news.
YET ANOTHER BLACK LIGHTNING INTERVIEW - Тони Изабелла о сути юридических проблем а заодно и о персонаже в целом: I really liked the Black Panther and the Falcon and Luke Cage, but I wanted to create a more relatable hero, one who wasn’t an African king or an ex-con... Black Lightning was supposed to be a partnership between me as his creator and DC Comics as his publisher. Unfortunately, DC has never honored its agreements with me.
"Amethyst" Creator Dan Mishkin Speaks Out On Character's "Sword of Sorcery" Revamp - Дэн Мишкин об истории персонажа, сожалениях, и том, почему изменения губительны для сути Аметист: It doesn't feel great. It doesn't feel great to see our characters handled in ways that don't seem true to what we were intending to do. I've really been trying to adopt a "don't hate the player, hate the game" approach, and I don't even hate the game! I can be unhappy about it; I can be disappointed. It's never been a thrill to have a writer say to me, "I would love to write Amethyst," or "I would love to write Blue Devil," as if I must be dead or something. I would like to write them too -- in fact, I created them! But this is the business... Would I like DC, if they're going to do this character they've announced, to do it with a completely new concept that doesn't trade on stuff Gary and Ernie and I created? Sure. But that's not going to happen... You can do that, and because of the rules of the game you can even call it Amethyst. But to say that it's essentially the same as what we did -- I'm sorry, I just don't think that's true, because essentially what we did was a story about being on the cusp of adolescence and discovering what the moral choices of adulthood are going to be. You don't do that at seventeen; you do that at twelve or thirteen... Let me put it this way: People look at superheroes and they say, "Power fantasy." What you see in a lot of comics is an exploration of power fantasies and embittered things; stories about heroes are often about the failure, maybe even the impossibility to living up to the greatest ideas of heroism. My stories, "Amethyst" included, tend to also be power fantasies, but the fantasy is, "What choices would I have to make if I had power? Will I be able to rise to the demands placed on me?"
Ну и, конечно же реакция породила ещё реакцию: Black Lightning Or Black Lightening?, Black Lightning, Blue Devil Creators Respond to DC's 'Black & Blue' Revival и иже с ним.
Новости рекламыНовости рекламы:
DC решило включиться во внезапно сформировавшуюся тенденцию обращать внимание на авторов комиксов и выпустило серию постеров "Познакомьтесь с создателями".
По странному совпадению эта серия напоминает серию, уже некоторое время как выпускаемую Image, что не преминул с издёвкой отметить у себя в блоге издатель Image, Эрик Стефенсон.
DC Buys Into Maker Culture with New SDCC Ads - тут сравнивают слова, которыми DC ('makers'), Image ('creators') b Marvel ('Architects') называет "своих" авторов: "Makers" doesn't just feel less important than "Creators," it feels more temporary: Making isn't as unique as creating, it's doing a job, goes the implication. A maker is someone who can be replaced without the final product being affected too badly... It's the opposite tack from Marvel, which promotes its creators as "Architects," positioning them as being responsible for a "House of Ideas," although that branding also removes the "creator" term -- again, with good reason -- and portrays what the creators do as a job, instead of something more romantic and idealistic.
DC spotlights talent in new ad campaign - а тут сравнивают то, что показано на постерах: If you were going to characterize each campaign, we’d say DC’s present the makers as likable folks posing authoritatively. The Image campaign features people creating away at their drafting boards. So analyze that.
Эй, у меня есть идея! Знаете, как DC могло бы крайне успешно прорекламировать свои комиксы? Пусть какой-нибудь из их значимых авторов даст подробное интервью. Например Скоттт Снайдер!
Бэтмен и компанияБэтмен и компания:
The 25 Greatest Batman Graphic Novels - очередной список Самых Важных Историй.
COMICS: Barbara Gordon To Replace Stephanie Brown as Nightwing In SMALLVILLE SEASON 11? - потому что всем плевать на Стефани Браун, как бы говорят они нам.
Ed Brubaker isn’t walking through that door - про серию Gotham Central Эда Брубейкера: Seeing a mix of characters with varying levels of GCPD experience helped give Gotham Central the feeling that generally, the Major Crimes Unit had been dealing with the Bat-family for longer than it would have liked. In 2003, that meant somewhere around ten years. As mentioned above, if Gotham Central were relaunched today, naturally it could include the same names and faces, but it might have to go farther to create such a convincing world-weary atmosphere... The New-52′s backstory doesn’t appear to lean on existing stories as much as the old one did, which reinforces the perception — good or bad — that DC now sees its voluminous library as a storytelling liability.
Why Batman Always Falls for Bad Girls - о том, чем же именно Бэтмена привлекают злодейки: Bruce Wayne has spent his life taking on one challenge after another. He says he’d like to reform these women, they say they want him to walk on the wild side with them, and yet they all might get disappointed if any of these changes occurred. The line of law that separates them keeps things thrilling. As Catwoman once told him, “Honey, if I ever went straight, you’d never pay any attention to me.”
Meow! 10 Memorable Catwoman Moments in History - кстати о "плохих девочках", лушее из истории Кошки.
Detailed Infographic Depicts 73 Years of Visual Batman History - картинка. Думала перепостить, но она всё-таки слишком большая, лучше сходить по ссылке.
The Gotham Alphabat by Dan Schreiner - а вот эту перепощу.перепощу:
ADULT FILMS: The Dark Knight XXX: A Porn Parody arrives online this week - новости порно: The sensational cast of the parody, headlined by charismatic newcomer Giovanni Francesco as Batman/Bruce Wayne, includes Axel Braun’s contract girl Aiden Ashley as Catwoman, performing in her first ever boy-girl scene, Andy San Dimas as Kathy Kane, Penny Pax as Batgirl, Dani Jensen as Poison Ivy, and Christy Mack as Zatanna. Their male adversaries and partners include Brendon Miller in a brilliant turn as The Joker, Derrick Pierce as the villainous Bane, Brian Street Team as Nightwing, and Clarke Kent as Constantine, with porn-legend Tom Byron in a cameo as Commissioner Gordon.
The Final Birds Of Prey XXX Trailer As The Porn Parody Launches At San Diego Comic Con - ээээ... ещё новости порно. А по трейлеру и не скажешь - смотрите сами.смотрите сами:
Супермен и компанияСупермен и компания:
Superman, Batman and worldviews - чтобы переход был помягче, начнём с короткого сравнения персонажей и идей как в том числе маркетинговых концептов: Imagine giving a talk to a conference full of Batman types. It's going to be very different than one filled with people who share Superman's privileged and generous worldview, no?
More From George Perez On Working At DC Comics - продолжение рассказа Джорджа Переза о том, что же пошло не так: Things are being second guessed left and right, a case of too many chiefs, not enough Indians now. Whether it will work? Who am I to say. They want it to be like Hollywood, and it’s becoming like Hollywood, in producing comics, and what you have is a corporate room deciding where things are going to go. And part of the reason for me leaving Superman is that I had certain ideas I wanted to do unfortunately, stuff that they okay one day, they would change their mind the next day, and it was becoming way too difficult, slowing us down.
Sweet Superman: The Legacy of Christopher Reeve - как фильм сформировал представление о характере персонажа: Silver Age Superman was, quite frankly, the very definition of arrogance. It was quite common for this Superman to abuse his mighty powers and employ them in the execution of some cruel prank played on Lois and Jimmy, his defenceless mortal chums. And Silver Age Superman wasn't above using mind controlling devices to bend the will of his foes, such as the time he devised an "anti evil ray" to eradicate evil impulses across the globe.
DC Comics $20,000,000+ Payout For Superman – REJECTED - юридическое: последний эпизод в тяжбе семей создателей Супермена с DC.
"Seek legal advice..." - How Hanna-Barbera Took Millions From DC Comics - снова юридическое, не совсем про Супермена: история спора вокруг легендарного мультфильма Superfriends.
Supergirl: Where Do I Start? - Основные рекомендации для тех, кто заинтересовался Супердевочкой.
Чудо-ЖенщинаЧудо-Женщина:
On Wonder Woman - про сложную природу Чудо-Женщины и её преломление через Фрэнка Миллера.
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
Wonder Woman is a special case of a superheroine created for a purpose. Most of them, sadly enough, were created for economic purposes. The competitive nature of the comics market in the early 1900s meant that a best-selling hero was copied and copied again, with Superman being the template for most of the other heroes that we have today. Wonder Woman came out of a different process. Rather than being created to grab market share away from Superman, Wonder Woman was created to push the ideology of comics away from the masculine fantasies that Superman represented.
...
Wonder Woman, conceived by Marston, is a tempering force that fights against the strict male ideology of the comic book world. She usurps the fantasy of Superman and implants one of powerful women, which Marston believed that men wanted more than anything. As a character, she is an interruptive force that preys on the “real” fantasies of a male readership: to be dominated by a strong woman.
...
Wonder Woman has a dual duty to both her family of Amazons and to justice and “rightness” as an abstract concept. Abnett and Lanning attach onto this concept during their Flashpoint Wonder Woman series–the social ties, and the ideological and theoretical underpinnings of those ties, inform the way that Wonder Woman deals with the world outside of Paradise Island. The matriarchal social structure of Amazon culture is written into her mind, and she applies it judiciously outside of that space.
It is because of these two poles that we have such a convoluted understanding of Wonder Woman. She is both retributive in her sense of justice and social organization and restorative in her belief that everything has the potential to love and be loved.
...
So I’ve done a lot of work to get around to this one point: Frank Miller presents Wonder Woman as the perfect libertarian.
Wonder Woman’s story, from Miller work to Miller work, is the most important and complex. Batman is a psychotic who, like a broken clock, just happened to come out on the right end and fight against an oppressive regime. It could have gone either way. But Wonder Woman, right off of Paradise Island, is equipped with a sense of moral duty and a love for all people that would make her a perfect ruler. The only way to keep her down is to be more powerful than her, and thus to capture her; sadly, we see that happen with Superman.
Frank Miller Hasn’t Even Seen the Venus Girdle - ответ на предыдущее с предположением о том, что дело в разном понимании сути любви, силы и власти Марстоном и Миллером.
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
In some sense, this is, as I suggested, simply a reversal of Miller — in DK2, the strong woman submits; in Marston, the strong man does. Male/female is not a purely reversible binary, though; the two terms have long histories of meaning and inequity which aren’t simply substituted when you flip them. Men on top and women on top are different in more ways than just the positions of the bodies.
Specifically, Miller’s fantasy of men-on-top is about love as a seizing of power; love and force go together, so that when Superman fucks Wonder Woman, he literally sets off an earthquake. The power of the love is attested by its violence. Men on top express real love by seizing and destroying.
Marston disagreed. “Love is a giving and not a taking” he wrote in his psychological treatise. And so Steve expresses his love not by grabbing Wonder Woman and taking her as his prize, but rather by submitting. With women on top, love is giving up power, not seizing it; embracing weakness, not asserting strength. And where Miller’s version of love involves male dominance and excited female submission, Marston’s version of love-as-renunciation seems more reciprocal.
...
In Miller, male strength emphatically enforces typical gender norms; Superman’s phallus turns Wonder Woman from battling Amazon to mother, and all is right with the world. In Marston, on the other hand, male strength feminizes…which doesn’t change the fact that when Steve submits out of love, he is also following a feminine ideal. Men on top reads gender straight; women on top, on the other hand, makes everything queer.
It’s probably needless to say that Miller’s version of the character seems to me in just about every way more conventional and less interesting than Marston’s. But more than that, I think Miller’s handling of Wonder Woman really suggests pretty strongly that Kunzelman is wrong when he says at the conclusion of his essay that “Wonder Woman is special.” After all, there’s nothing special about women-as-phallus; there’s nothing special about women as cog in male psychodrama. There’s nothing special (certainly not in Miller’s work) about fetishizing female strength in order to more fully fetishize the strong man who conquers it.
Зелёный фонарьЗелёный фонарь:
Off My Mind: How the Third Army Will Change the Green Lantern Corps - суммирование имеющейся информации о нововведённой Третьей Армии: The Third Army will be able to take the Corps by surprise unless Hal and Sinestro can get word to the others. Hal is slightly limited with what he can do since he is using a green power ring created by Sinestro and still hasn't been allowed back by the Guardians.
This is really more about Alan Scott being compared to Swamp Thing than you’ve ever wanted to read. - связь между Аланом Скоттом и Болотной тварью в пост-ребутном DC: Oh, yeah, the whole “green” thing, with “green energy” being the embodiment of the Earth’s life force an’ all, like in the Swamp Thing comics, where it’s referred to as “The Green.” And it’s referred to as such in Earth 2... Anyway, minor connection between the two, right. Well, we’re still dealing with “The Green” and I’m sure no one writing comics, particularly not James Robinson, is unaware of that particular nomenclature being used by Alan Moore to describe Earth’s life force during his Swamp Thing run. So I guess it’s simply an alternate take on the same sort of thing Moore was getting at, down to the Green choosing a champion to fight on its behalf when necessary.
Pre-New 52 review: Green Lantern: War of the Green Lanterns - отзыв на "Войну Зелёных фонарей".
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Let me try again. It boils down to this: Villain attacks Green Lanterns, all of the Green Lanterns fight, our heroes come to their sense and get new costumes and powers, they beat the bad guy. It's got all the complexity of a Power Rangers episode, although there's plenty of nuance and texture for those primed to enjoy it.
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Mogo is, of course, the Green Lantern who is also a planet created by Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for a short, one-off sci-fi twist story entitled "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" in 198-fucking-five. (One of the many, many, many things that makes me want to scream about this whole DC/Moore/Before Watchmen thing is the way the publisher has been continually, constantly exploiting every little bread crumb Moore gifted them with decades ago. Mogo is a joke character, yet at this point he's had more appearances than dozens of characters created to anchor their own books, and even appeared in the last Batman cartoon series).
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John Stewart once destroyed a whole inhabited planet, in Cosmic Odyssey. How many planets are you allowed to destroy before they kick you out of the Green Lanterns...? (Actually, there probably isn't a limit; Hal destroyed all of existence in Zero Hour, and they let him back in the Corps).
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One thing haunts me, though. At one point, Krona decides that since the Guardians of the Universe suck so bad at their jobs, because they try to run the universe without opening themselves to any emotions, he should make the four emotion-feeling Earth-born GLs the new Guardians, and he even captures Hal and Guy, dresses them in Guardian red robes and covers them with "ancient evolving bandages" that apparently turns people into giant-headed, tiny-bodied Guardians.
It really sucks that Mahnke didn't get to draw Hal, Guy, John and Kyle with giant, wized heads and tiny little floating bodies in robes. For a cover, if for nothing else.
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Thursday WHO’S WHO: Solomon Grundy - Соломон Гранди и то, почему его новая версия глубоко неправильна.
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But someone handed me the first three issues of Earth 2 last week, and – well, they’re shitty comics, of course. I mean, it’s great that they’re setting up Alan Scott as basically Earth-2′s Superman equivalent, except he’s gay. But all this means, in practice, is that they replace a woman in a refrigerator with a gay lover on an exploding train; that the comic is slightly more progressive doesn’t make it not-shitty. It’s just a non-shitty note in a shitty comic. But the Nu52 version of Solomon Grundy shows up at the end of the third issue, and it is basically a microcosm of everything I now hate about DC Comics.
The new Solomon Grundy appears to be some sort of avatar of death – he bears an irritating resemblance to the revamped design of Necron that showed up in Blackest Night, with leather bondage straps and skirt-trousers and things like that (and has it really been over two years since that awful, no-good crossover finally ended? It seems like it was just yesterday that its unflagging shittiness was new to us). He is an avatar of death because Earth-2′s Green Lantern is, sort of, an avatar of life.
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But regardless of who is actually writing this, it is bad, because Solomon Grundy is not an avatar of death. Nobody wants to read about Solomon Grundy being an avatar of death. What people want out of Solomon Grundy being in a comic is for him to be, when you get right down to it, a off-brand version of the Hulk who is usually a bad guy.
Seriously, this shit isn’t hard. Solomon Grundy is a copy of the Hulk that lets DC Comics write the Hulk into stories without having to negotiate anything with Marvel. That’s the entire fucking point of the character. He can be a vicious cunning Hulk (like in the Golden Age stories where he first showed up) or he can be a dumb savage Hulk (like he was in The Long Halloween), or he can be a gentle cute and cuddly Hulk (like in Starman). But that’s who he is. That’s who the fans expect him to be. There’s no reason to try and tie him into the rest of your superhero universe’s pre-determined theory; really, if you’re writing a superhero universe and everything ties back to one central origin element for everybody, you’re probably doing something wrong.
Hawkworld by Timothy Truman & Alcatena (1989) - про Танагар как политическую сатиру:
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In Hawkworld, the reader who for twenty-years had known a sober and at times even austere and crabby Katar Hol suddenly found themselves face to face with a man revealed to have been a fascist foot-soldier, a murderer, a patricide, and a drug addict.
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Saturated with themes of class conflict and imperialism, Hawkworld’s a tale so politically charged that it’s hard to imagine it being commissioned by DC Comics today. Truman’s decision to create a founding father for Thanagar in the figure of Kalmoran, who’s a combination of Julius Caesar and George Washington and Marcus Garvey, suggests something of the explosiveness of the ideas that he was set on exploring. His take on Thanagar presented the planet as a neo-fascist imperial power which bore a strange resemblance at times to certain aspects of the America of Ronald Reagan’s Presidency.
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In that, Hawkworld was and is a condemnation of America’s role in creating and perpetuating a global system of economic and military exploitation every bit as much as a critique of the homeland’s own class system.
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Indeed, the Thanagarians have reduced themselves to indulgent and occasionally supremely violent children, hopelessly reliant upon the very alien races which they most depend upon to survive.
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On the one hand, Truman shows us the feckless wealthy with their conspicuous consumption and their sensation-addled lives, with their utter ignorance of their own culture’s past and their profound disinterest in the welfare of anyone from beyond their ranks. On the other, he presents us a struggling mass of individuals reduced to market-place cannon-fodder, desperate for the basic freedoms of economic security, free expression, and even access to decent health care. In some ways, today’s America seems closer to a Hawkworld than it ever did when the comic was first published.
The New 52 – Five Characters Who Are Stronger Than Before Flashpoint и The 5 Biggest Winners of DC's New 52 (and 5 Losers) - очередные списки про достоинства и недостатки пост-Ребута. Интересно посмотреть, насколько они пересекаются.
Catwoman and Huntress covers by Guillem March that have been changed - история изменений нескольких обложек с женщинами DC.
И отдельным блоком самые важные, необходимые миру и обожаемые мной приквелы в истории человечества - Before WatchmenИ отдельным блоком самые важные, необходимые миру и обожаемые мной приквелы в истории человечества - Before Watchmen:
ОбщееОбщее:
Exclusive First Look at BEFORE WATCHMEN Variant Covers - для тех, кого интересуют подобные вещи: альтернативные обложки от местами очень хороших (эх, Пол Поуп, я понимаю, что гонорар ты пожертвовал на благотворительность, но...) художников.
Contemplating “Before Watchmen” - о приквелах как оправданной неизбежности, и да, я очень сильно несогласна: It remains just as true today as it did then, as Before Watchmen is recycling old ideas and making them new. Perhaps this is simply how this industry must function. New ideas replacing old ideas that are meant to fit the parameters of a certain time space. The serialized comics often get flack for never truly progressing. Characters who die will often return before long to ensure readership more than anything.
Writer/artist Darwyn Cooke talks Before Watchmen and creating strong heroines - интервью с Дарвином Куком, в котором он, помимо довольно интересного прочего, говорит о своём отношении к оригиналу и своём участии в создании приквелов.
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Starting with Catwoman, [writer] Ed [Brubaker] and I both—right off the bat when they threw us together—we both were not happy with what was in the book as it stood. We saw her as a function for male readers, and we wanted to negate that and see what we could do with the female audience. That automatically took us into this area where we would have to redesign her look if we want any credibility with women. At that point my first thought was, “She has to look sexy, because women won’t accept her being unattractive, but you also have to look functional.” There has to be a realistic aspect to it, something that women can look at and go, “Well, it’s both. I could do that. And wow, she’s not wearing heels. There’s no push-up bra attached to it.” And Ed’s wife had a wonderful notion that instead of a mask, she wore an aviator helmet and goggles, and I thought that was brilliant.
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I don’t consider it perfect or the masterpiece that some do, but I was mightily impressed. And I can remember, you know, how rare it is that anything you read can really actually move you—maybe once—but I can remember three, four times in Watchmen where as I read it, I was dramatically moved by what they’d put together. I think it’s an astounding achievement, especially when you consider the time they put it together. And yeah, it’s something I guess we all look at from a construction standpoint, and we all stand in awe of it.
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In all honesty, I didn’t expect, “Poor Alan Moore.” I just didn’t expect that. So that sort of took me by surprise. I certainly expected people to have an opinion about whether this beloved material should be explored any further, and I believe that that’s a question, but it’s also a challenge that I’m happy to meet. All the stuff with Alan, I didn’t count on that or really give it much thought. It’s now an incredibly large issue. So, it is what it is. I guess the most important thing for me, and it’s funny because I have some friends in the business who I have an incredible amount of respect for, and they completely disagree with me on this thing.
Watching ‘Watchmen’: A Classic Comic’s Classless Return - помните Тима Мачмана? Да, он снова. На этот раз он берёт интервью у Лена Вейна, редактора оригинальных (гррр) "Хранителей" и сценариста двух серий приквелов. Как можно догадаться, получается весело, хотя с утверждениями про оригинального Озимандиаса я согласиться не могу.
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Pam, who had arranged and was monitoring the call, works in some capacity for either DC Comics or its parent, DC Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. whose mission, according to a press release from a few years ago, is “to fully realize the power and value of the DC Comics brand and characters across all media and platforms.” Warner Bros. is itself one of the many subsidiaries of Time Warner, which has annual revenues larger than the gross domestic product of about half of U.N. member states, which I mention because it suggests the scale of the vast unyielding drive for profit that has led to, among many more obviously horrible things, Before Watchmen. (I should also mention that I have happily cashed Time Warner checks.)
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Moore hangs a lampshade on the ridiculousness of it all—Veidt, while wearing a purple-and-gold jumpsuit with a cape and tiara in his “Antarctic retreat,” rhetorically asks if he looks like a Republic serial villain—but Ozymandias, author of one of the most pointlessly intricate schemes in the history of pointlessly intricate supervillain schemes, is essentially a plot device. (“How much more fun can you have,” Wein asked, “than to be manipulating the guy manipulating the entire story?”)
It’s difficult to say anything definitive about how Wein is handling this nonexistent character without having read the full storyline (and because of the vague terms of the embargo my advance copy came with), though I will note that DC Entertainment and/or DC Comics has re-re-imagined Veidt’s sexuality, which may or may not be edgy and provocative. It is really a question of individual taste: either you think that the story of a man who kills millions of people with a fake telepathic squid is improved by the inclusion of details about how he was bullied as a child or not.
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“I think after 25 years,” said Wein, “some of the weight of Alan’s objections have lost weight.
“All of what we are doing we have offered him, and all we are doing he has turned down. We spent a quarter of a century offering him opportunities to do things with these characters, and he kept turning them down.”
Not wanting to be rude, slightly mystified by the implied statute of limitations on ethical actions, and intrigued by the idea that if you ask someone if you can do something for long enough you can eventually just do it without their assent, I moved into a more general line about whether telling the back stories of such deliberately vague characters might not remove a bit of their mystique.
The Incredibly True Story of Before Before Watchmen - фанатский фильм о настоящей реакции Алана Мура на приквелы. То есть скорее трейлер, но суть ясна.
Ну и по конкретным комиксамНу и по конкретным комиксам:
Before Watchmen: Ozymandias #1, комикс, который "added a “Women in Refrigerators” moment to WATCHMEN as the grossest of its sins[/b]":
BEFORE WATCHMEN: OZYMANDIAS #1 - I’d like to have seen the tales told more organically, but instead, because of the nature of the storytelling with Veidt speaking into a recorder, most of the book is narrated, restricting the amount of dialogue that takes place. Wein though has managed to craft an incredibly interesting backstory for Adrian, with his fascination for Alexander the Great taking him on a path of both enlightenment and training through the middle east. Veidt is a fascinating character, just like in the original Watchmen series, he stands perfectly on that boundary between genius and madness – is he crazy or is he so much more intelligent that he can see something we don’t?
…And the Superhuman Review – Before Watchmen: Ozymandias #1
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I presume the bit people will be most interested in is this comic is revelation that Adrian was romantically involved with a woman. By the way, we are five comic books into Before Watchmen and we’ve already had two cum jokes. Two out of five! That’s kind of nuts.
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As for the writing… I’m torn. If it wasn’t basically an expansion upon Watchmen #11, I probably would have liked it more. But, it WAS that, so it fell into ‘needless expansion of an origin story,’ something that I have a hard time with in comics. I hate origin stories at this point, especially retellings of ones that I’ve already read. Most of this comic felt unnecessary in the information it ‘added’ to Adrian’s past. How he built his empire and segued into costumed adventuring is much more open and seems like it will work better in this ‘expanded retelling,’ because those parts in this issue were miles ahead of what came before. I would have rather the comic start with his return and expand the rushed relationship with Miranda and her death. Actually give that relationship a little meaning instead of introducing her, having her interact with Adrian a few times, and, then, die. She was a plot device instead of a character and that’s a shame.
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Especially because Adrian in Watchmen wasn’t a cold, distant person. He was able to rise above his emotions and do things that he found horrible, but he was a passionate, warm person at the same time. Or, at the very least, able to come across as such. After all, his entire plot to save the world is driven by passion and you can see that in how he reacts to it working.
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The superhero who needs a person tragedy to give him the push to put on a costume and take down some bad guys… That it began as a slightly misguided attempt to make the world better was more in his character. He did it because it was fun and he was somewhat deluded into thinking that, by doing it, he made a difference — a delusion that was later shattered at the Crime-Busters meeting when he realised that his actions were on far too small a scale to really ‘save the world.’
I’d Like To Declare My Independence From These Pants
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Basically, Moore is giving away the book’s ending, beyond even the seeming ambiguity of the famous corporate-owned ketchup dripping onto the world-renowned corporate-owned smiley face t-shirt of that fat guy whose childhood I am dying to explore.
Len Wein, in contrast, spends his opening page basically explaining the concept of ambiguity to the slower readers, via a block of metafictional rib-nudging wherein Ozy goes on about how very nearly flawless his crazy plan is, though history will be the judge in the end — because his plan totally might not stand up to history at all, that was the ending of the original book, remember? It’s dramatic irony!
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All became clear, though, later in the story, when adult Ozy, standing nude and playing the stock market over an old-timey phone in front of — yes — a giant clock, says: “I have goals to achieve, dreams to make come true.”
This, of course, is a supremely awkward phrasing totally unbecoming of a man of Adrian Veidt’s supreme refinement, so I was initially very shocked, until the Sexy Girlfriend Character laying in Ozy’s bed responds with: “Well, then, let’s see what else you can make come in the meantime, shall we?”
I’m leaving open the possibility that Ozymandias, in his “GENIUS,” was actually playing 4th-dimensional chess with the poor girl and deliberately molested grammar in anticipation of his lover jumping on the opportunity for a terrible pun, thus reinforcing his sense of superiority over her, but coupled with that fucking thing with the blocks the circumstantial evidence becomes persuasive that Len Wein is simply writing a spectacularly crap sсript, the kind of misbegotten effort that flails at edgy sexuality by presenting one panel implying that the title character might have had sex with a man — thereafter defaulting to black lingerie routines straight out of an era when Moore was doing backups in American Flagg! – and seeks to match the richness of the original text with little more than soggy fan service.
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The problem is, Lee presents here that rarest of superhero occurrences: art that seems to be making textual contributions exclusive of the scriptwriting. Lee is reunited here with frequent colorist June Chung, who applies an uncharacteristically bright-ish palette (directly, it appears, upon pencils) to accommodate a wholesale transformation of Lee’s aesthetic into a bizarre cross between Alex Raymond (circa Flash Gordon) and J.H. Williams III. Everything, suddenly, is bent to serve the page: clocks and posture and the curve of shoulders and knees.
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Lee’s career-long build toward frustrating the cinematographic expectations of superhero comics by applying a sense of theatrical dramaturgy has now pivoted to accommodate Moore-like symmetries into its very mise en scène. In other words, it rejects Dave Gibbons, almost totally, in favor of absorbing Alan Moore into visuals.
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In the end, this comic confirms everything I’d expected from this particular wing of the Before Watchmen franchising opportunity: a freakish blend of emphatic, imperfect, searching visual style with a goofy, purplish sсript that only seems capable of banal “homage” to the original, and only then on the most superficial of levels. You know what finally prompts Ozy to slip on the purple & gold? Len Wein kills off the Sexy Girlfriend Character to spur him to vengeance. Jesus F. Christ. Yet when Lee & Chung depict the sorry girl’s descent into drug abuse from her boyfriend’s neglect, she enters the top-most panel through a red curtain and pouts her way through a hellish void of scarlet mist and white silk that recalls the Rectum from Irreversible as framed by F.W. Murnau, with a Luciferian villain pulling giant hooped-plunger syringes from his velvet coat.
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1:
…And the Superhuman Review – Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1
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After three first issues that I enjoyed (even Minutemen was enjoyable despite its handbook nature), we’ve got one that’s pretty awful and, surprise surprise, it’s the first written by J. Michael Straczynski. A fact that, no doubt, surprises no one.
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The ‘becoming the new Nite Owl’ part of the comic was no better from the Tim Drake origin (what happened to writing Mason a letter?) to Rorschach appearing right away, offering to be partners (I always got the feeling that they were more like Spider-Man and Daredevil and, sometimes, worked together) to his insistence that he felt some connection to Laurie at the Crimebusters meeting. All of it was so contrived and self-aware in the most obvious of ways. Really, really awful stuff. The kind of awful that everyone who trashed this project before it started was predicting. This was the cliched awful Watchmen prequel comic made real. Who at DC could have thought this was good?
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I don’t know if I’ve ever told you the amazing plot idea I have for a time travel movie, but it is to have the two leads go back in time and everyone they encounter (everyone) will only talk in veiled references to the future. “Hi, how are you!” “I’d be better if someday there was a baseball team right here in Toronto, but I know that would never happen. Baseball in Canada! What a thought!” I thought of my incredible movie plot idea during Daniel’s interactions with Laurie.
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Plus, one of the most famous sequences in all of Watchmen, from an art criticism perspective, is the wonderfully subtle interplay between the characters in the Crime-Busters meeting that Captain Metropolis holds. Dave Gibbons was masterful in the sequence. So why in the world would they decide to try to re-create that sequence in the comic – only not nearly as effectively? It was basically this over-the-top “HEY, EVERYBODY! I AM FLIRTING!!” bit. So odd.
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl Gives Some Odd Advice - Like much of its genre, on further reflection, this piece of advice strikes me as rather immature. Adults don’t do things solely because they’re meaningful — they also do them for income, to build a career, to take care of their family, because you don’t throw over your life on a whim or a bad day. There’s also obligation, living up to your word if other people are depending on you continuing what you said you would do. However, adults also don’t put on costumes to punch people, so perhaps this is as starry-eyed misguided as what that type of story has become. As an argument against self-reflection, though, I reject JMS’s “advice”.
Minutemen #2:
…And the Superhuman Review – Before Watchmen: Minutemen #2- I really enjoyed the contrast between Captain Metropolis’ ill-fated attempt to bring down “saboteurs” and the later (much more serious) mission by Mothman, Nite Owl and Silhouette to investigate the missing child. What really gets me, though, is that you could have started this series easily with this issue and not missed a beat. Maybe you would have had to throw in a little exposition, but this issue introduced the characters all very well and all their respective personalities. So it made the “Who’s Who?” feel of #1 seem even more pointless.
Interview: CATWOMAN Gets A New Creative Team - I think that when a comic does something that has been building for years and years it's fun -- it's kind of a cool thing. But the idea that they would then actually have a relationship? You know, I don't know. It seems like a cool idea to say 'alright, these two are finally going to consummate this buildup,' and I think that gives a kind of a release from that tension…and it goes back to something much, much more complex. To me it seems like she has some rescue fantasies, you know, it's almost like she needs to know that he will rescue her yet again. That's the real sexuality if you know what I mean.
BREAKING! New Writer Ann Nocenti Talks About Taking Over CATWOMAN From Judd Winick - Yes, she has the heroism of a damaged person. You know, maybe she’s more human? Most people I know don’t run around devoting their lives to saving other people; although I do know people like that. But most humans just kind of take care of their own stuff and they don’t feel particularly heroic. I mean, the heroism of the ordinary person is more like, they’re getting food on the table for their kids, you know? Or helping their neighbors a little bit or something. So she’s not driven by heroism she’s driven by something so compulsive. It’s heists but it doesn’t feel like the kind of thing you’ll see in, like, an old French film about a heist. It’s more like almost a kleptomania. It’s like something that she cannot stop.
ANN NOCENTI Takes Over a 'Still-Sexy' CATWOMAN - It is true that, for those of us who have experienced addictions, it's unquestionably fun, you know, to be at a poker table, or at least it is for me. But in Catwoman, I want to play with the idea that there's just a tiny bit of disassociation. There's a moment where you're about to go to the casino, and you just say, "I'm not going to go. I know that ride. I know how it ends." But then she goes. And your point is well taken. It's fun!
Ann Nocenti Takes Over "Catwoman" with #0 Issue - She's got this little orphan girl sort of trauma and she'll never be able to have enough stuff to feel safe. So I don't really think she's somebody who goes out and just robs -- she goes on heists sometimes because she needs money, but I think it's way more complex than that. It goes back to never feeling safe. She's sort of the opposite, in some ways, of Green Arrow because he was born with a silver spoon.
Да, я тоже заметила, что Энн повторяется. Вот что бывает, когда ты одновременно даёшь четыре интервью на одну и ту же тему.
Сам Скотт Снайдер, кстати на удивление затих. За почти три недели он дал всего три интервью. Всего три! То есть: раньше он выдавал по три-четыре интервью в неделю! Мало того, одно из этих интервью старое, то есть на самом деле он их дал два! Избавляться от зависимости крайне тяжело, и чтобы поддержать Скотта в этом правильном начинании, я в кои то веки дам ссылки на все - всего, я всё ещё не могу в это поверить - три его интервьюСам Скотт Снайдер, кстати на удивление затих. За почти три недели он дал всего три интервью. Всего три! То есть: раньше он выдавал по три-четыре интервью в неделю! Мало того, одно из этих интервью старое, то есть на самом деле он их дал два! Избавляться от зависимости крайне тяжело, и чтобы поддержать Скотта в этом правильном начинании, я в кои то веки дам ссылки на все - всего, я всё ещё не могу в это поверить - три его интервью:
COMICS ANONYMOUS TALKS TO SCOTT SNYDER - Batman is my favourite character – he’s always been, ever since I was a kid. With me, if I don’t have an idea that I don’t care as much as Court of the Owls or the next story line we’re going to do, if it’s not as important to me or as deeply personal as these stories are, I won’t do Batman. I’m not going to stay on Batman past that point where I have a story that, to me, isn’t as important to my character and to myself as the one I’m doing now. So that’s the way I perceive Batman – I joke that ‘you’ll have to kick me out of Gotham’ – but I would happily leave Gotham if I don’t have the story for it.
Snyder Promises Bat-Tie-Ins with JOKER's Nightmarish Return - But because the story is so big, and because Joker is attacking all those members of the Bat-family, essentially, to prove this point that he's come back to Gotham to prove and to expose this secret that he has, you will see Joker attack Nightwing in Nightwing. And you'll see him come after Batgirl in Batgirl. And you'll see him go after Damian in Batman and Robin. And Tim, even, in Teen Titans. And Jason in Red Hood [and the Outlaws]... So in a way, he's sort of saying, "You've created this false family around you. You've created this group of people. And I'm here to show you what's wrong with that. And you've forgotten about me. And now I'm going to show you why that's wrong. And I'm going to expose this secret. And in doing that, I'm going to tear you guys apart worse than you've ever seen."
Interview: Scott Snyder Talks 'Return of the Joker: Death of the Family' - He feels he knows them better than anyone else. He serves him as almost a court jester to his king in that way. In that, he makes these horrifying nightmares to life to make Bruce stronger. He feels he has a very special bond and relationship with him that way. It's something that only the two of them share... That Joker, to me, is something that's built on a lot of versions that have come before but is also important to me in a personal way. It's my own take on the mythology of this event that we'll explore in this event. It has to do with the symbolism of the court jester, the tarot card of the joker, Peter Pan and all kinds of stuff that I'm going to roll into it to make it something that's different even if it's built on the legacy of the character.
Разделаемся с интервью, не поддающимся разбросу по прочим категориямРазделаемся с интервью, не поддающимся разбросу по прочим категориям:
SIMONE Talks BATGIRL #0 and 'Collision' with the JOKER - Гейл Симон о Бэтгёрл, Джокере и травме в пост-ребутном DC: I spent a lot of time speaking with specialists and survivors about this, and one thing we saw with trauma survivors over and over was, the nightmares often go on even after the body heals. It's not weakness, it's not self-pity, it happens to the bravest people on Earth; soldiers, police, on and on. And Barbara being who she is, she finds herself wondering why she is regaining her mobility when so many will never have that option. Because of her experiences over the first year, she's having to grapple with it. But again, she's Barbara Gordon, she will find a way.
Levitz On Brainiac 5, Female Friendship and the #0 Issues of "Legion" & "World's Finest" - Пол Левиц о том, что нас ждёт в нулевых номерах "Легиона супергероев и "Лучших в мире": We were able to come up with a storyline that simultaneously deals with stuff we didn't know about Brainiac 5 as a person, how he came to make his decision to join the Legion and also about how he has been dealing with essentially having inherited the great cosmic Pandora's box that is the original Brainiac's treasure trove of past stuff... I think it's the fun of the book; on one level, you have the Superman/Batman dichotomy with two very different sets of powers, and to some extent, different heroic worldview. But on another, you just have an utterly different emotional relationship than you've seen with Superman and Batman. Hopefully, you're really getting to like these two people.
INTERVIEW: Gregg Hurwitz - интервью с текущим (начиная с #10) сценаристом "Тёмного рыцаря": I have two favorite panels in this issue—one is the double-page spread which I think David just killed, with Batman swinging through and smashing the guy out through the car. And the other is the exact opposite kind of scene, with Batman sitting with Clair in her hospital room and she reaches over and takes his hand. And that scene, where he is there and he understands—he’s asking Clair questions and he realizes that he’s helpless to do anything and the only way he can help her is to sit with her and comfort her when he sits side by side with her. The next scene is the scene with Damian, where it’s his own son who’s trying to talk to him and he’s ill-focused. And that, to me, is the epitome of what it is that Natalya was talking about when she calls him to task. He’s there and enormously available to people when it isn’t intimate, when it doesn’t involve closeness, and why that is has a lot to do with the issues that the Scarecrow wants to pry into.
Аметист, Чёрная Молния, Синий Дьявол и скандал вокруг их появления в пост-ребутной Вселенной DCАметист, Чёрная Молния, Синий Дьявол и скандал вокруг их появления в пост-ребутной Вселенной DC:
Не так давно DC объявило, что, во первых, вновь собирается выпускать комикс про Аметист, фэнтези-героиню родом из 80-х, а во-вторых, в пост-ребутной вселенной вновь появятся Чёрная Молния и Синий Дьявол. Все три персонажа предстанут перед публикой во в той или иной степени изменённом состоянии. Интервью с авторами объявленных историй:
This September, the creator of Jem will write DC Comics’ most 1980s fantasy heroine - This will be a complete reboot. The first thing I wanted to do — based on the tonal guidance Dan gave me — was age her up a bit. She's just turning 17 rather than being 13. She has a very different family background, but the same basic things are there. She grew up on Earth with a strange childhood and ends up back in her homeworld which she's never seen before. I'm taking a more intimate, familial approach to her adversary, who is her homicidal aunt who does not want to share power. I'm going for something dynastic with emotional complexity that will draw people in, and not just a bunch of people swinging swords. I'm trying to avoid a sparkly-crystals-and-pegasuses kind of approach. This is an alien world with blood powers that are related to crystals, but I'm going for a much more holistic approach.
EXCLUSIVE: Andreyko Sees Black & Blue In "DC Universe Presents" - This was just in passing as we were waiting in line for rides, and then I kept bugging him about it and the ideas just started flying. It's a grand tradition in entertainment, literature and films of two people who are complete opposites becoming friends in spite of themselves, whether it's Maddie and David on "Moonlighting" or Felix and Oscar on "The Odd Couple," or even Bert and Ernie on "Sesame Street!" So the idea of taking these two characters, one who was explicitly magic-based and one who was explicitly not, added metaphorically to the differences they had... In the story, personality-wise, Jefferson Pierce is an Olympic-level athlete, so for him the training and discipline begets power, whether that's athletic power or honing his lightning skills. Magic to him is kind of foreign because magic tends not to be from A to B to C -- magic is sometimes A to C and then all around. So Blue Devil's very powers are contrary to the way Jefferson thinks and the way Jefferson lives his life. Jefferson is a very focused guy. You have to be to be an Olympic athlete. You have to have discipline and training. Dan comes from a Hollywood family and has always been this kind of guy who glides through life, taking jobs when he needs them and then, when the money runs out, taking another one. Magic sort of extrapolates on his persona. The conflict there is both personality-wise and super-powers.
Звучит любопытно, да?
Может быть. Проблема вот в чём: эти образы персонажей... несколько расходятся с тем, какими их представляют создатели. Для Аметист и Синего Дьявола это сценаристы Дэн Мишкин и Гэри Кон, а для Чёрной Молнии - сценарист Тони Изабелла и художник Тревор Фон Иден. В случае с первым из последних, точнее их правами на персонажа, всё не то чтобы так уж чисто ещё и с юридической стороны.
Latest Updates - Тони Изабелла реагирует на новости у себя в блоге: Yes, I have heard the news about Black Lightning. You don't have to e-mail me, private message me, phone me, or post links on my Facebook page. My only public comments to date have been "Words fail me" and, to my friend Dan Mishkin, "Forget it, Dan. It's DC Town." But, really, if you've ever read anything I've written about Black Lightning and DC's continued refusal to honor its agreements with me, and if you have half a brain, you already know how I feel about the news.
YET ANOTHER BLACK LIGHTNING INTERVIEW - Тони Изабелла о сути юридических проблем а заодно и о персонаже в целом: I really liked the Black Panther and the Falcon and Luke Cage, but I wanted to create a more relatable hero, one who wasn’t an African king or an ex-con... Black Lightning was supposed to be a partnership between me as his creator and DC Comics as his publisher. Unfortunately, DC has never honored its agreements with me.
"Amethyst" Creator Dan Mishkin Speaks Out On Character's "Sword of Sorcery" Revamp - Дэн Мишкин об истории персонажа, сожалениях, и том, почему изменения губительны для сути Аметист: It doesn't feel great. It doesn't feel great to see our characters handled in ways that don't seem true to what we were intending to do. I've really been trying to adopt a "don't hate the player, hate the game" approach, and I don't even hate the game! I can be unhappy about it; I can be disappointed. It's never been a thrill to have a writer say to me, "I would love to write Amethyst," or "I would love to write Blue Devil," as if I must be dead or something. I would like to write them too -- in fact, I created them! But this is the business... Would I like DC, if they're going to do this character they've announced, to do it with a completely new concept that doesn't trade on stuff Gary and Ernie and I created? Sure. But that's not going to happen... You can do that, and because of the rules of the game you can even call it Amethyst. But to say that it's essentially the same as what we did -- I'm sorry, I just don't think that's true, because essentially what we did was a story about being on the cusp of adolescence and discovering what the moral choices of adulthood are going to be. You don't do that at seventeen; you do that at twelve or thirteen... Let me put it this way: People look at superheroes and they say, "Power fantasy." What you see in a lot of comics is an exploration of power fantasies and embittered things; stories about heroes are often about the failure, maybe even the impossibility to living up to the greatest ideas of heroism. My stories, "Amethyst" included, tend to also be power fantasies, but the fantasy is, "What choices would I have to make if I had power? Will I be able to rise to the demands placed on me?"
Ну и, конечно же реакция породила ещё реакцию: Black Lightning Or Black Lightening?, Black Lightning, Blue Devil Creators Respond to DC's 'Black & Blue' Revival и иже с ним.
Новости рекламыНовости рекламы:
DC решило включиться во внезапно сформировавшуюся тенденцию обращать внимание на авторов комиксов и выпустило серию постеров "Познакомьтесь с создателями".
По странному совпадению эта серия напоминает серию, уже некоторое время как выпускаемую Image, что не преминул с издёвкой отметить у себя в блоге издатель Image, Эрик Стефенсон.
DC Buys Into Maker Culture with New SDCC Ads - тут сравнивают слова, которыми DC ('makers'), Image ('creators') b Marvel ('Architects') называет "своих" авторов: "Makers" doesn't just feel less important than "Creators," it feels more temporary: Making isn't as unique as creating, it's doing a job, goes the implication. A maker is someone who can be replaced without the final product being affected too badly... It's the opposite tack from Marvel, which promotes its creators as "Architects," positioning them as being responsible for a "House of Ideas," although that branding also removes the "creator" term -- again, with good reason -- and portrays what the creators do as a job, instead of something more romantic and idealistic.
DC spotlights talent in new ad campaign - а тут сравнивают то, что показано на постерах: If you were going to characterize each campaign, we’d say DC’s present the makers as likable folks posing authoritatively. The Image campaign features people creating away at their drafting boards. So analyze that.
Эй, у меня есть идея! Знаете, как DC могло бы крайне успешно прорекламировать свои комиксы? Пусть какой-нибудь из их значимых авторов даст подробное интервью. Например Скоттт Снайдер!
Бэтмен и компанияБэтмен и компания:
The 25 Greatest Batman Graphic Novels - очередной список Самых Важных Историй.
COMICS: Barbara Gordon To Replace Stephanie Brown as Nightwing In SMALLVILLE SEASON 11? - потому что всем плевать на Стефани Браун, как бы говорят они нам.
Ed Brubaker isn’t walking through that door - про серию Gotham Central Эда Брубейкера: Seeing a mix of characters with varying levels of GCPD experience helped give Gotham Central the feeling that generally, the Major Crimes Unit had been dealing with the Bat-family for longer than it would have liked. In 2003, that meant somewhere around ten years. As mentioned above, if Gotham Central were relaunched today, naturally it could include the same names and faces, but it might have to go farther to create such a convincing world-weary atmosphere... The New-52′s backstory doesn’t appear to lean on existing stories as much as the old one did, which reinforces the perception — good or bad — that DC now sees its voluminous library as a storytelling liability.
Why Batman Always Falls for Bad Girls - о том, чем же именно Бэтмена привлекают злодейки: Bruce Wayne has spent his life taking on one challenge after another. He says he’d like to reform these women, they say they want him to walk on the wild side with them, and yet they all might get disappointed if any of these changes occurred. The line of law that separates them keeps things thrilling. As Catwoman once told him, “Honey, if I ever went straight, you’d never pay any attention to me.”
Meow! 10 Memorable Catwoman Moments in History - кстати о "плохих девочках", лушее из истории Кошки.
Detailed Infographic Depicts 73 Years of Visual Batman History - картинка. Думала перепостить, но она всё-таки слишком большая, лучше сходить по ссылке.
The Gotham Alphabat by Dan Schreiner - а вот эту перепощу.перепощу:
ADULT FILMS: The Dark Knight XXX: A Porn Parody arrives online this week - новости порно: The sensational cast of the parody, headlined by charismatic newcomer Giovanni Francesco as Batman/Bruce Wayne, includes Axel Braun’s contract girl Aiden Ashley as Catwoman, performing in her first ever boy-girl scene, Andy San Dimas as Kathy Kane, Penny Pax as Batgirl, Dani Jensen as Poison Ivy, and Christy Mack as Zatanna. Their male adversaries and partners include Brendon Miller in a brilliant turn as The Joker, Derrick Pierce as the villainous Bane, Brian Street Team as Nightwing, and Clarke Kent as Constantine, with porn-legend Tom Byron in a cameo as Commissioner Gordon.
The Final Birds Of Prey XXX Trailer As The Porn Parody Launches At San Diego Comic Con - ээээ... ещё новости порно. А по трейлеру и не скажешь - смотрите сами.смотрите сами:
Супермен и компанияСупермен и компания:
Superman, Batman and worldviews - чтобы переход был помягче, начнём с короткого сравнения персонажей и идей как в том числе маркетинговых концептов: Imagine giving a talk to a conference full of Batman types. It's going to be very different than one filled with people who share Superman's privileged and generous worldview, no?
More From George Perez On Working At DC Comics - продолжение рассказа Джорджа Переза о том, что же пошло не так: Things are being second guessed left and right, a case of too many chiefs, not enough Indians now. Whether it will work? Who am I to say. They want it to be like Hollywood, and it’s becoming like Hollywood, in producing comics, and what you have is a corporate room deciding where things are going to go. And part of the reason for me leaving Superman is that I had certain ideas I wanted to do unfortunately, stuff that they okay one day, they would change their mind the next day, and it was becoming way too difficult, slowing us down.
Sweet Superman: The Legacy of Christopher Reeve - как фильм сформировал представление о характере персонажа: Silver Age Superman was, quite frankly, the very definition of arrogance. It was quite common for this Superman to abuse his mighty powers and employ them in the execution of some cruel prank played on Lois and Jimmy, his defenceless mortal chums. And Silver Age Superman wasn't above using mind controlling devices to bend the will of his foes, such as the time he devised an "anti evil ray" to eradicate evil impulses across the globe.
DC Comics $20,000,000+ Payout For Superman – REJECTED - юридическое: последний эпизод в тяжбе семей создателей Супермена с DC.
"Seek legal advice..." - How Hanna-Barbera Took Millions From DC Comics - снова юридическое, не совсем про Супермена: история спора вокруг легендарного мультфильма Superfriends.
Supergirl: Where Do I Start? - Основные рекомендации для тех, кто заинтересовался Супердевочкой.
Чудо-ЖенщинаЧудо-Женщина:
On Wonder Woman - про сложную природу Чудо-Женщины и её преломление через Фрэнка Миллера.
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
Wonder Woman is a special case of a superheroine created for a purpose. Most of them, sadly enough, were created for economic purposes. The competitive nature of the comics market in the early 1900s meant that a best-selling hero was copied and copied again, with Superman being the template for most of the other heroes that we have today. Wonder Woman came out of a different process. Rather than being created to grab market share away from Superman, Wonder Woman was created to push the ideology of comics away from the masculine fantasies that Superman represented.
...
Wonder Woman, conceived by Marston, is a tempering force that fights against the strict male ideology of the comic book world. She usurps the fantasy of Superman and implants one of powerful women, which Marston believed that men wanted more than anything. As a character, she is an interruptive force that preys on the “real” fantasies of a male readership: to be dominated by a strong woman.
...
Wonder Woman has a dual duty to both her family of Amazons and to justice and “rightness” as an abstract concept. Abnett and Lanning attach onto this concept during their Flashpoint Wonder Woman series–the social ties, and the ideological and theoretical underpinnings of those ties, inform the way that Wonder Woman deals with the world outside of Paradise Island. The matriarchal social structure of Amazon culture is written into her mind, and she applies it judiciously outside of that space.
It is because of these two poles that we have such a convoluted understanding of Wonder Woman. She is both retributive in her sense of justice and social organization and restorative in her belief that everything has the potential to love and be loved.
...
So I’ve done a lot of work to get around to this one point: Frank Miller presents Wonder Woman as the perfect libertarian.
Wonder Woman’s story, from Miller work to Miller work, is the most important and complex. Batman is a psychotic who, like a broken clock, just happened to come out on the right end and fight against an oppressive regime. It could have gone either way. But Wonder Woman, right off of Paradise Island, is equipped with a sense of moral duty and a love for all people that would make her a perfect ruler. The only way to keep her down is to be more powerful than her, and thus to capture her; sadly, we see that happen with Superman.
Frank Miller Hasn’t Even Seen the Venus Girdle - ответ на предыдущее с предположением о том, что дело в разном понимании сути любви, силы и власти Марстоном и Миллером.
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
In some sense, this is, as I suggested, simply a reversal of Miller — in DK2, the strong woman submits; in Marston, the strong man does. Male/female is not a purely reversible binary, though; the two terms have long histories of meaning and inequity which aren’t simply substituted when you flip them. Men on top and women on top are different in more ways than just the positions of the bodies.
Specifically, Miller’s fantasy of men-on-top is about love as a seizing of power; love and force go together, so that when Superman fucks Wonder Woman, he literally sets off an earthquake. The power of the love is attested by its violence. Men on top express real love by seizing and destroying.
Marston disagreed. “Love is a giving and not a taking” he wrote in his psychological treatise. And so Steve expresses his love not by grabbing Wonder Woman and taking her as his prize, but rather by submitting. With women on top, love is giving up power, not seizing it; embracing weakness, not asserting strength. And where Miller’s version of love involves male dominance and excited female submission, Marston’s version of love-as-renunciation seems more reciprocal.
...
In Miller, male strength emphatically enforces typical gender norms; Superman’s phallus turns Wonder Woman from battling Amazon to mother, and all is right with the world. In Marston, on the other hand, male strength feminizes…which doesn’t change the fact that when Steve submits out of love, he is also following a feminine ideal. Men on top reads gender straight; women on top, on the other hand, makes everything queer.
It’s probably needless to say that Miller’s version of the character seems to me in just about every way more conventional and less interesting than Marston’s. But more than that, I think Miller’s handling of Wonder Woman really suggests pretty strongly that Kunzelman is wrong when he says at the conclusion of his essay that “Wonder Woman is special.” After all, there’s nothing special about women-as-phallus; there’s nothing special about women as cog in male psychodrama. There’s nothing special (certainly not in Miller’s work) about fetishizing female strength in order to more fully fetishize the strong man who conquers it.
Зелёный фонарьЗелёный фонарь:
Off My Mind: How the Third Army Will Change the Green Lantern Corps - суммирование имеющейся информации о нововведённой Третьей Армии: The Third Army will be able to take the Corps by surprise unless Hal and Sinestro can get word to the others. Hal is slightly limited with what he can do since he is using a green power ring created by Sinestro and still hasn't been allowed back by the Guardians.
This is really more about Alan Scott being compared to Swamp Thing than you’ve ever wanted to read. - связь между Аланом Скоттом и Болотной тварью в пост-ребутном DC: Oh, yeah, the whole “green” thing, with “green energy” being the embodiment of the Earth’s life force an’ all, like in the Swamp Thing comics, where it’s referred to as “The Green.” And it’s referred to as such in Earth 2... Anyway, minor connection between the two, right. Well, we’re still dealing with “The Green” and I’m sure no one writing comics, particularly not James Robinson, is unaware of that particular nomenclature being used by Alan Moore to describe Earth’s life force during his Swamp Thing run. So I guess it’s simply an alternate take on the same sort of thing Moore was getting at, down to the Green choosing a champion to fight on its behalf when necessary.
Pre-New 52 review: Green Lantern: War of the Green Lanterns - отзыв на "Войну Зелёных фонарей".
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
Let me try again. It boils down to this: Villain attacks Green Lanterns, all of the Green Lanterns fight, our heroes come to their sense and get new costumes and powers, they beat the bad guy. It's got all the complexity of a Power Rangers episode, although there's plenty of nuance and texture for those primed to enjoy it.
...
Mogo is, of course, the Green Lantern who is also a planet created by Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for a short, one-off sci-fi twist story entitled "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" in 198-fucking-five. (One of the many, many, many things that makes me want to scream about this whole DC/Moore/Before Watchmen thing is the way the publisher has been continually, constantly exploiting every little bread crumb Moore gifted them with decades ago. Mogo is a joke character, yet at this point he's had more appearances than dozens of characters created to anchor their own books, and even appeared in the last Batman cartoon series).
...
John Stewart once destroyed a whole inhabited planet, in Cosmic Odyssey. How many planets are you allowed to destroy before they kick you out of the Green Lanterns...? (Actually, there probably isn't a limit; Hal destroyed all of existence in Zero Hour, and they let him back in the Corps).
...
One thing haunts me, though. At one point, Krona decides that since the Guardians of the Universe suck so bad at their jobs, because they try to run the universe without opening themselves to any emotions, he should make the four emotion-feeling Earth-born GLs the new Guardians, and he even captures Hal and Guy, dresses them in Guardian red robes and covers them with "ancient evolving bandages" that apparently turns people into giant-headed, tiny-bodied Guardians.
It really sucks that Mahnke didn't get to draw Hal, Guy, John and Kyle with giant, wized heads and tiny little floating bodies in robes. For a cover, if for nothing else.
...
ПрочееПрочее:
Thursday WHO’S WHO: Solomon Grundy - Соломон Гранди и то, почему его новая версия глубоко неправильна.
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
But someone handed me the first three issues of Earth 2 last week, and – well, they’re shitty comics, of course. I mean, it’s great that they’re setting up Alan Scott as basically Earth-2′s Superman equivalent, except he’s gay. But all this means, in practice, is that they replace a woman in a refrigerator with a gay lover on an exploding train; that the comic is slightly more progressive doesn’t make it not-shitty. It’s just a non-shitty note in a shitty comic. But the Nu52 version of Solomon Grundy shows up at the end of the third issue, and it is basically a microcosm of everything I now hate about DC Comics.
The new Solomon Grundy appears to be some sort of avatar of death – he bears an irritating resemblance to the revamped design of Necron that showed up in Blackest Night, with leather bondage straps and skirt-trousers and things like that (and has it really been over two years since that awful, no-good crossover finally ended? It seems like it was just yesterday that its unflagging shittiness was new to us). He is an avatar of death because Earth-2′s Green Lantern is, sort of, an avatar of life.
...
But regardless of who is actually writing this, it is bad, because Solomon Grundy is not an avatar of death. Nobody wants to read about Solomon Grundy being an avatar of death. What people want out of Solomon Grundy being in a comic is for him to be, when you get right down to it, a off-brand version of the Hulk who is usually a bad guy.
Seriously, this shit isn’t hard. Solomon Grundy is a copy of the Hulk that lets DC Comics write the Hulk into stories without having to negotiate anything with Marvel. That’s the entire fucking point of the character. He can be a vicious cunning Hulk (like in the Golden Age stories where he first showed up) or he can be a dumb savage Hulk (like he was in The Long Halloween), or he can be a gentle cute and cuddly Hulk (like in Starman). But that’s who he is. That’s who the fans expect him to be. There’s no reason to try and tie him into the rest of your superhero universe’s pre-determined theory; really, if you’re writing a superhero universe and everything ties back to one central origin element for everybody, you’re probably doing something wrong.
Hawkworld by Timothy Truman & Alcatena (1989) - про Танагар как политическую сатиру:
ВыдержкиВыдержки:
In Hawkworld, the reader who for twenty-years had known a sober and at times even austere and crabby Katar Hol suddenly found themselves face to face with a man revealed to have been a fascist foot-soldier, a murderer, a patricide, and a drug addict.
...
Saturated with themes of class conflict and imperialism, Hawkworld’s a tale so politically charged that it’s hard to imagine it being commissioned by DC Comics today. Truman’s decision to create a founding father for Thanagar in the figure of Kalmoran, who’s a combination of Julius Caesar and George Washington and Marcus Garvey, suggests something of the explosiveness of the ideas that he was set on exploring. His take on Thanagar presented the planet as a neo-fascist imperial power which bore a strange resemblance at times to certain aspects of the America of Ronald Reagan’s Presidency.
...
In that, Hawkworld was and is a condemnation of America’s role in creating and perpetuating a global system of economic and military exploitation every bit as much as a critique of the homeland’s own class system.
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Indeed, the Thanagarians have reduced themselves to indulgent and occasionally supremely violent children, hopelessly reliant upon the very alien races which they most depend upon to survive.
...
On the one hand, Truman shows us the feckless wealthy with their conspicuous consumption and their sensation-addled lives, with their utter ignorance of their own culture’s past and their profound disinterest in the welfare of anyone from beyond their ranks. On the other, he presents us a struggling mass of individuals reduced to market-place cannon-fodder, desperate for the basic freedoms of economic security, free expression, and even access to decent health care. In some ways, today’s America seems closer to a Hawkworld than it ever did when the comic was first published.
The New 52 – Five Characters Who Are Stronger Than Before Flashpoint и The 5 Biggest Winners of DC's New 52 (and 5 Losers) - очередные списки про достоинства и недостатки пост-Ребута. Интересно посмотреть, насколько они пересекаются.
Catwoman and Huntress covers by Guillem March that have been changed - история изменений нескольких обложек с женщинами DC.
И отдельным блоком самые важные, необходимые миру и обожаемые мной приквелы в истории человечества - Before WatchmenИ отдельным блоком самые важные, необходимые миру и обожаемые мной приквелы в истории человечества - Before Watchmen:
ОбщееОбщее:
Exclusive First Look at BEFORE WATCHMEN Variant Covers - для тех, кого интересуют подобные вещи: альтернативные обложки от местами очень хороших (эх, Пол Поуп, я понимаю, что гонорар ты пожертвовал на благотворительность, но...) художников.
Contemplating “Before Watchmen” - о приквелах как оправданной неизбежности, и да, я очень сильно несогласна: It remains just as true today as it did then, as Before Watchmen is recycling old ideas and making them new. Perhaps this is simply how this industry must function. New ideas replacing old ideas that are meant to fit the parameters of a certain time space. The serialized comics often get flack for never truly progressing. Characters who die will often return before long to ensure readership more than anything.
Writer/artist Darwyn Cooke talks Before Watchmen and creating strong heroines - интервью с Дарвином Куком, в котором он, помимо довольно интересного прочего, говорит о своём отношении к оригиналу и своём участии в создании приквелов.
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Starting with Catwoman, [writer] Ed [Brubaker] and I both—right off the bat when they threw us together—we both were not happy with what was in the book as it stood. We saw her as a function for male readers, and we wanted to negate that and see what we could do with the female audience. That automatically took us into this area where we would have to redesign her look if we want any credibility with women. At that point my first thought was, “She has to look sexy, because women won’t accept her being unattractive, but you also have to look functional.” There has to be a realistic aspect to it, something that women can look at and go, “Well, it’s both. I could do that. And wow, she’s not wearing heels. There’s no push-up bra attached to it.” And Ed’s wife had a wonderful notion that instead of a mask, she wore an aviator helmet and goggles, and I thought that was brilliant.
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I don’t consider it perfect or the masterpiece that some do, but I was mightily impressed. And I can remember, you know, how rare it is that anything you read can really actually move you—maybe once—but I can remember three, four times in Watchmen where as I read it, I was dramatically moved by what they’d put together. I think it’s an astounding achievement, especially when you consider the time they put it together. And yeah, it’s something I guess we all look at from a construction standpoint, and we all stand in awe of it.
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In all honesty, I didn’t expect, “Poor Alan Moore.” I just didn’t expect that. So that sort of took me by surprise. I certainly expected people to have an opinion about whether this beloved material should be explored any further, and I believe that that’s a question, but it’s also a challenge that I’m happy to meet. All the stuff with Alan, I didn’t count on that or really give it much thought. It’s now an incredibly large issue. So, it is what it is. I guess the most important thing for me, and it’s funny because I have some friends in the business who I have an incredible amount of respect for, and they completely disagree with me on this thing.
Watching ‘Watchmen’: A Classic Comic’s Classless Return - помните Тима Мачмана? Да, он снова. На этот раз он берёт интервью у Лена Вейна, редактора оригинальных (гррр) "Хранителей" и сценариста двух серий приквелов. Как можно догадаться, получается весело, хотя с утверждениями про оригинального Озимандиаса я согласиться не могу.
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Pam, who had arranged and was monitoring the call, works in some capacity for either DC Comics or its parent, DC Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. whose mission, according to a press release from a few years ago, is “to fully realize the power and value of the DC Comics brand and characters across all media and platforms.” Warner Bros. is itself one of the many subsidiaries of Time Warner, which has annual revenues larger than the gross domestic product of about half of U.N. member states, which I mention because it suggests the scale of the vast unyielding drive for profit that has led to, among many more obviously horrible things, Before Watchmen. (I should also mention that I have happily cashed Time Warner checks.)
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Moore hangs a lampshade on the ridiculousness of it all—Veidt, while wearing a purple-and-gold jumpsuit with a cape and tiara in his “Antarctic retreat,” rhetorically asks if he looks like a Republic serial villain—but Ozymandias, author of one of the most pointlessly intricate schemes in the history of pointlessly intricate supervillain schemes, is essentially a plot device. (“How much more fun can you have,” Wein asked, “than to be manipulating the guy manipulating the entire story?”)
It’s difficult to say anything definitive about how Wein is handling this nonexistent character without having read the full storyline (and because of the vague terms of the embargo my advance copy came with), though I will note that DC Entertainment and/or DC Comics has re-re-imagined Veidt’s sexuality, which may or may not be edgy and provocative. It is really a question of individual taste: either you think that the story of a man who kills millions of people with a fake telepathic squid is improved by the inclusion of details about how he was bullied as a child or not.
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“I think after 25 years,” said Wein, “some of the weight of Alan’s objections have lost weight.
“All of what we are doing we have offered him, and all we are doing he has turned down. We spent a quarter of a century offering him opportunities to do things with these characters, and he kept turning them down.”
Not wanting to be rude, slightly mystified by the implied statute of limitations on ethical actions, and intrigued by the idea that if you ask someone if you can do something for long enough you can eventually just do it without their assent, I moved into a more general line about whether telling the back stories of such deliberately vague characters might not remove a bit of their mystique.
The Incredibly True Story of Before Before Watchmen - фанатский фильм о настоящей реакции Алана Мура на приквелы. То есть скорее трейлер, но суть ясна.
Ну и по конкретным комиксамНу и по конкретным комиксам:
Before Watchmen: Ozymandias #1, комикс, который "added a “Women in Refrigerators” moment to WATCHMEN as the grossest of its sins[/b]":
BEFORE WATCHMEN: OZYMANDIAS #1 - I’d like to have seen the tales told more organically, but instead, because of the nature of the storytelling with Veidt speaking into a recorder, most of the book is narrated, restricting the amount of dialogue that takes place. Wein though has managed to craft an incredibly interesting backstory for Adrian, with his fascination for Alexander the Great taking him on a path of both enlightenment and training through the middle east. Veidt is a fascinating character, just like in the original Watchmen series, he stands perfectly on that boundary between genius and madness – is he crazy or is he so much more intelligent that he can see something we don’t?
…And the Superhuman Review – Before Watchmen: Ozymandias #1
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I presume the bit people will be most interested in is this comic is revelation that Adrian was romantically involved with a woman. By the way, we are five comic books into Before Watchmen and we’ve already had two cum jokes. Two out of five! That’s kind of nuts.
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As for the writing… I’m torn. If it wasn’t basically an expansion upon Watchmen #11, I probably would have liked it more. But, it WAS that, so it fell into ‘needless expansion of an origin story,’ something that I have a hard time with in comics. I hate origin stories at this point, especially retellings of ones that I’ve already read. Most of this comic felt unnecessary in the information it ‘added’ to Adrian’s past. How he built his empire and segued into costumed adventuring is much more open and seems like it will work better in this ‘expanded retelling,’ because those parts in this issue were miles ahead of what came before. I would have rather the comic start with his return and expand the rushed relationship with Miranda and her death. Actually give that relationship a little meaning instead of introducing her, having her interact with Adrian a few times, and, then, die. She was a plot device instead of a character and that’s a shame.
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Especially because Adrian in Watchmen wasn’t a cold, distant person. He was able to rise above his emotions and do things that he found horrible, but he was a passionate, warm person at the same time. Or, at the very least, able to come across as such. After all, his entire plot to save the world is driven by passion and you can see that in how he reacts to it working.
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The superhero who needs a person tragedy to give him the push to put on a costume and take down some bad guys… That it began as a slightly misguided attempt to make the world better was more in his character. He did it because it was fun and he was somewhat deluded into thinking that, by doing it, he made a difference — a delusion that was later shattered at the Crime-Busters meeting when he realised that his actions were on far too small a scale to really ‘save the world.’
I’d Like To Declare My Independence From These Pants
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Basically, Moore is giving away the book’s ending, beyond even the seeming ambiguity of the famous corporate-owned ketchup dripping onto the world-renowned corporate-owned smiley face t-shirt of that fat guy whose childhood I am dying to explore.
Len Wein, in contrast, spends his opening page basically explaining the concept of ambiguity to the slower readers, via a block of metafictional rib-nudging wherein Ozy goes on about how very nearly flawless his crazy plan is, though history will be the judge in the end — because his plan totally might not stand up to history at all, that was the ending of the original book, remember? It’s dramatic irony!
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All became clear, though, later in the story, when adult Ozy, standing nude and playing the stock market over an old-timey phone in front of — yes — a giant clock, says: “I have goals to achieve, dreams to make come true.”
This, of course, is a supremely awkward phrasing totally unbecoming of a man of Adrian Veidt’s supreme refinement, so I was initially very shocked, until the Sexy Girlfriend Character laying in Ozy’s bed responds with: “Well, then, let’s see what else you can make come in the meantime, shall we?”
I’m leaving open the possibility that Ozymandias, in his “GENIUS,” was actually playing 4th-dimensional chess with the poor girl and deliberately molested grammar in anticipation of his lover jumping on the opportunity for a terrible pun, thus reinforcing his sense of superiority over her, but coupled with that fucking thing with the blocks the circumstantial evidence becomes persuasive that Len Wein is simply writing a spectacularly crap sсript, the kind of misbegotten effort that flails at edgy sexuality by presenting one panel implying that the title character might have had sex with a man — thereafter defaulting to black lingerie routines straight out of an era when Moore was doing backups in American Flagg! – and seeks to match the richness of the original text with little more than soggy fan service.
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The problem is, Lee presents here that rarest of superhero occurrences: art that seems to be making textual contributions exclusive of the scriptwriting. Lee is reunited here with frequent colorist June Chung, who applies an uncharacteristically bright-ish palette (directly, it appears, upon pencils) to accommodate a wholesale transformation of Lee’s aesthetic into a bizarre cross between Alex Raymond (circa Flash Gordon) and J.H. Williams III. Everything, suddenly, is bent to serve the page: clocks and posture and the curve of shoulders and knees.
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Lee’s career-long build toward frustrating the cinematographic expectations of superhero comics by applying a sense of theatrical dramaturgy has now pivoted to accommodate Moore-like symmetries into its very mise en scène. In other words, it rejects Dave Gibbons, almost totally, in favor of absorbing Alan Moore into visuals.
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In the end, this comic confirms everything I’d expected from this particular wing of the Before Watchmen franchising opportunity: a freakish blend of emphatic, imperfect, searching visual style with a goofy, purplish sсript that only seems capable of banal “homage” to the original, and only then on the most superficial of levels. You know what finally prompts Ozy to slip on the purple & gold? Len Wein kills off the Sexy Girlfriend Character to spur him to vengeance. Jesus F. Christ. Yet when Lee & Chung depict the sorry girl’s descent into drug abuse from her boyfriend’s neglect, she enters the top-most panel through a red curtain and pouts her way through a hellish void of scarlet mist and white silk that recalls the Rectum from Irreversible as framed by F.W. Murnau, with a Luciferian villain pulling giant hooped-plunger syringes from his velvet coat.
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1:
…And the Superhuman Review – Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1
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After three first issues that I enjoyed (even Minutemen was enjoyable despite its handbook nature), we’ve got one that’s pretty awful and, surprise surprise, it’s the first written by J. Michael Straczynski. A fact that, no doubt, surprises no one.
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The ‘becoming the new Nite Owl’ part of the comic was no better from the Tim Drake origin (what happened to writing Mason a letter?) to Rorschach appearing right away, offering to be partners (I always got the feeling that they were more like Spider-Man and Daredevil and, sometimes, worked together) to his insistence that he felt some connection to Laurie at the Crimebusters meeting. All of it was so contrived and self-aware in the most obvious of ways. Really, really awful stuff. The kind of awful that everyone who trashed this project before it started was predicting. This was the cliched awful Watchmen prequel comic made real. Who at DC could have thought this was good?
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I don’t know if I’ve ever told you the amazing plot idea I have for a time travel movie, but it is to have the two leads go back in time and everyone they encounter (everyone) will only talk in veiled references to the future. “Hi, how are you!” “I’d be better if someday there was a baseball team right here in Toronto, but I know that would never happen. Baseball in Canada! What a thought!” I thought of my incredible movie plot idea during Daniel’s interactions with Laurie.
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Plus, one of the most famous sequences in all of Watchmen, from an art criticism perspective, is the wonderfully subtle interplay between the characters in the Crime-Busters meeting that Captain Metropolis holds. Dave Gibbons was masterful in the sequence. So why in the world would they decide to try to re-create that sequence in the comic – only not nearly as effectively? It was basically this over-the-top “HEY, EVERYBODY! I AM FLIRTING!!” bit. So odd.
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl Gives Some Odd Advice - Like much of its genre, on further reflection, this piece of advice strikes me as rather immature. Adults don’t do things solely because they’re meaningful — they also do them for income, to build a career, to take care of their family, because you don’t throw over your life on a whim or a bad day. There’s also obligation, living up to your word if other people are depending on you continuing what you said you would do. However, adults also don’t put on costumes to punch people, so perhaps this is as starry-eyed misguided as what that type of story has become. As an argument against self-reflection, though, I reject JMS’s “advice”.
Minutemen #2:
…And the Superhuman Review – Before Watchmen: Minutemen #2- I really enjoyed the contrast between Captain Metropolis’ ill-fated attempt to bring down “saboteurs” and the later (much more serious) mission by Mothman, Nite Owl and Silhouette to investigate the missing child. What really gets me, though, is that you could have started this series easily with this issue and not missed a beat. Maybe you would have had to throw in a little exposition, but this issue introduced the characters all very well and all their respective personalities. So it made the “Who’s Who?” feel of #1 seem even more pointless.
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18.07.2012 в 12:04Йеп, именно это они и сделали. Когда я распинаю лень в очередной раз, я напишу о вот таком вот хреновом
летеравноправии засунутых в холодильник.-
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18.07.2012 в 12:58У меня на следующий линкспам припасена ссылка, вот там вообще адик:
“...Alan just had to be this universal guy that everyone could fall in love with. That’s who he needs to be. He is the ultimate super-hero on Earth 2, and everyone is instinctively going to follow him. It was very clear to me what he needed to look like. Sam is a man of the world in his own way. He has to be beautiful because Alan is very beautiful. The dynamic between them, and I had to make this clear visually, that Alan was the top.” Laughter ensued, and Scott continued, “I just don’t see him as a twink or a more feminine kind of man.”
Штампы из ваших слэшных фанфиков: теперь и в ваших комиксах!
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18.07.2012 в 13:10строго говоря, это же выдавало по крайней мере художника относительно того, что он там на самом деле думал про пол персонажа.
спасибо, я таких фиков и в 16 лет предпочитала не читать =)
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18.07.2012 в 13:16Мне нравится, что он об этом спокойно говорит вслух.
То есть это даже не проекция нерефлексируемых внутренних установок, это вот просто человек прямо думает, что это так работает и потому об этом можно прямо рассказывать. Публично.
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18.07.2012 в 13:30не, мне всегда было интересно равенство отношений, да и я обязательность топа/боттома я не верила, так что искусственное "утоньчение" одного партнёра и наращивание роста, мышц и размаха плеч другого меня действительно не привлекало)
то же и с гетом)
А, ну в этом плане действительно - хуже, если б молчал... Но матчасть бы ему почитать, что ли >_<
Впрочем, я не спорю, что там у всех сейчас по поводу однополых отношений тараканы один страннее другого, причём что со знаком +, что со знаком -.
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18.07.2012 в 15:01А мне в гете нравится "перевёртыш")).
А, ну в этом плане действительно - хуже, если б молчал... Но матчасть бы ему почитать, что ли >_<
Ну да. То есть вот теперь видно, что делаемое DC делается вот примерно из такой точки. и все будущие инициативы их по этой линии теперь вызывают куда больший скепсис.
Впрочем, я не спорю, что там у всех сейчас по поводу однополых отношений тараканы один страннее другого, причём что со знаком +, что со знаком -.
Печаль в том, что здесь даже хуже(.