Why Newspaper Comics Send Me Into a Rage

I don't enjoy newspaper comics. At best they are sort of below that sector of humor that Mission Hill explores so beautifully, the zone between laughing aloud and laughing inwardly. Most of them are just bland, sanitized exercises in telling the same running gag that's been going since the 1920s. But a lot of them make me irrationally angry. The worst thing is that if I get my hands on a newspaper, I can't even pick out the meh comics and leave Family Circus to its own devices. I am compelled to read the entire page from start to finish, except, mercifully, for the soap comics.

They do things in them, though. Things that are calculated to drive me up the wall. The first thing is the callous disregard of the comic's own setting, and the worst offender is BC. Now, I know that the cavemen worship Jesus and cavort around with dinosaurs. That's okay. The secret to BC is that it does not, in fact, take place in prehistory but rather in a post-apocalyptic future.

Yeah, that's canon. And it even might make sense for the characters to reference figures from antiquity, like we do with ancient Rome and all that, but the rate and detail level at which they do so is just obnoxious. The other day a strip about campaign ads ran. Really?

The other thing is animal psychics. Red and Rover needs to get out of my newspaper and I am not playing around. It's a cutesy strip about a boy and his dog that has absolutely nothing else going on in it. It only runs on Sundays in my paper, so maybe they interact with any other living thing during the week. I don't know. It's a bit creepy, frankly. Anyway, Red talks in speech balloons and Rover thinks in thought bubbles in a conversational way in which it is obvious that they are responding to each other. Don't do this. Haul off and make it a talking dog. Garfield skirts this line as well. Also, remember when Garfield had side characters? These comics just seem to fall into their schtick and don't let go to explore new stories anymore.

Convention Comics Cavalcade Part 1

Before I went to the con I made up a list of all the major Ambush Bug and Great Lakes Avengers appearances, as well as some of the other holes in my collection. It seems like all the stuff I want is in this weird collector's dead zone, because comics slightly newer are plentiful and older comics are also abundant but super expensive. Actually, I just found out that they published Showcase Presents: Ambush Bug featuring basically everything earlier this year, so it's just as well that I didn't spend too much. I do like having the actual issues around for the ads and letters, though.

Action Comics #560 (1984)


Cute story about this one: I was complaining that none of the booths seemed to have any Action Comics lower than 600 or so. Kyle asked me what I was looking for and he disappears for a few seconds and comes back with this book. Awww! On the inside front cover is a sweet ad for Mario Bros. on the Atari 2600, and then most of the issue is a boring Superman affair. He fights some guy who's destroying prisons and courthouses with some kind of crazy magic handcuffs as an act of revenge for being falsely imprisoned, although it kinda sounds like he did it and he's just delusional. I dunno, if it were me I would have just lay low after breaking out of jail instead of wrecking up municipal property and attracting any number of costumed do-gooders, but to each his own. I'm only really interested reading about Superman when he's being incredibly camp in the 60s and 70s, the kind of stuff that ends up on Superdickery.com.

Of course, the selling point of this issue is the eight pages of Bug-tastic action. Clark Kent comes into Ambush Bug's detective agency attempting to do a piece for the Planet, and AB quickly sees through his pathetic disguise (that super-humanly clear skin is a dead givaway!) and makes him a partner. Supes flies off in a huff, but Ambush Bug continues to prey on his mind.

Actually, Superman in this was really interesting to me. I don't know if they've attempted to give him more of a personality recently, but I know him as the most milquetoast, zero personality goody-two-shoes in the superhero pantheon. But in this story, he has a dream about Ambush Bug, and when he wakes up he says "the only reason I sleep at all is for dreams." The implication here is that he doesn't actually need to sleep, he does so out of a selfish indulgence. Superman actually wanting something for himself that no one else can benefit from and then indulging in it is so contrary to what my idea of the character was. He could be staying up all night fighting crime, but he chooses not to. Then I thought, hey, even having a real life is taking away from the good he could be doing the world. Why would he do that? He's lonely; only by being Clark Kent can he make actual human connections. Through the magic of Ambush Bug, Superman has become a much deeper character to me. Is it just the joke heroes that are this thought-provoking or do the mainstream comics have this much to offer? Am I missing out on a whole world of art here or just reading way too much into this?

Teen Confessions #58 (1969)

This purchase was inspired by my mate's recent post about Gidget. It's basically what you'd expect, super lame over-inflated teen problems based around dated social mores. In the first story, homegirl cheats on her Green Beret boyfriend while he's fighting for her freedom to do so in Vietnam. He comes home only to reveal that he's had half the town spying on her for him, and he forgives her...but only if she'll be just as understanding about him! Those wacky dames!

In the second tale, a girl is madly in love with a mysterious bearded man, but she can't help freaking out about it. "What is he really like? Is he handsome? Does he have a hideous scar to hide? Or...or a weak jaw line?" she wonders. Her friends hint at a dark secret, and he refuses to shave it off or explain. She breaks up with him, naturally, and later at the beach she meets a handsome, clean shaven stranger! Why, it turns out that the man is her hirsute heartthrob! And he only had the beard for a play. He couldn't tell her this why? And he didn't invite her to see his performance or anything? Argh, I'm already fed up with this crap. All these problems could be solved with just a little communication.

Before the main feature, we have a real life teen romance problem action letter! M.R. is so lovesick over this girl that he's dropping stuff. Breakable stuff. His parents wisely advised him to write to a comic book advice column instead of actually offering guidance or support. Good ol' Doc Gluck sets the kid straight by recommending that he actually talk to her. Oh, if only it were that simple...

Ahem. Moving on we come to the cover story, "The Teeny Bopper." Girl is in love with this guy that she's bullied since childhood, but she goes one step too far when she snubs him for the hero of the beach. The guy leaves town for a few days and comes back in a psychedelic VW Beetle with this way-out happening hippie chick. Who of course is his cousin helping him out, because he's just trying to make the girl jealous. Dames!

We finish with a one-pager advising waiting until the man finishes school before marriage. Peppered throughout are ads for weight loss and seriously creepy beauty products, like Whyten, which looks a lot like dentally applied liquid paper. Eww.

Bird Hurdler

It's a free anthology of indie comics. They're all quite short, some are cute and some are surreal. I don't really have a lot to say about them because I seem to have wasted "the magic" on Teen Confessions, so check it out yourself. I also picked up a bunch of sweet postcards (also free) at the same booth (pictured below).

Heroes Con '09 Report Part 2

Saturday:

After the three of us spent the night on a pile of Sumo pillows, an experience like "being in a ditch filled with beans" as Kyle put it, the Editor, Kyle, and I bid each other a tearful adieu and they returned to the crappy podunk towns from whence they came. I hit the con again with Chase and Jason.

We spent most of the time down at the Indie Island and the artist tables. We checked out Guy Davis again who had a stack of the Free Comic Book Day Hellboy, which he signed and gave to each of us. He is such a sweetheart! Chase picked up Comic Book Tattoo from Kelly Sue DeConnick, which actually looks really cool despite my aversion to Tori Amos. She was the nicest lady; she pointed out all the other people at the con who had had a hand in it to get autographs and offered Chase a candy bar when he made a comment about not being able to buy dinner. Dawwww.

We headed out and got some chilly drinks (Charlotte isn't too far from where I live but it's a million times muggier!) and went through our hauls. Chase runs a webcomic which I will plug for him again, Particulates! We talked about getting a table next year and brainstormed some ideas. I figure this gives me about a year to learn to draw and be half as awesome and creative as he is. Then it was nap time, or in my case, devour his Scott Pilgrim collection time.

The evening was passed with pizza, beer, anime, and gossip about my romance problems. We watched Memories, of which I had seen "Magnetic Rose" in high school. The other two segments were definitely not on the same level, but they were both pretty good. He also introduced me to Robot Carnival, which is so amazing that it's going to get its own article later, but go ahead and watch the intro:



Well, that about does it for this year's Heroes Con. I had a great time and hopefully I'll be on the other side of the table next year! Keep feverishly refreshing this page for the low down on all the crap I came home with.

Heroes Con '09 Report Part 1

Thursday:

Recently I attended Heroes Convention down in Charlotte, NC: The Queen City, The Hornet's Nest, Crown Town, My Big Fat Chinese Buffet, The C-Nasty. My car, the 1991 Toyota Celica, Undisputed King of the Road, seems to have developed a problem where it starts getting way too hot after it's been running for about an hour, but I made it down there by running the heat with the windows down. I stayed with my main bro Chase, who doesn't care how smelly you get when you've been driving in the heat with the heater on. It was pretty late when I got in, so we just chatted a bit and watched some music videos, including that one video they showed on Beavis and Butthead one time with that guy on fire. It turns out that they really set a guy on fire to make it. Who knew?

Friday:

Chase had to work, so I headed down to the con. I had prepared a giant list of all Ambush Bug and GLA appearances, plus the holes I have in my collection. Can you believe I'm still missing The Tick: Karma Tornado 6 and 8 after all these years? After a longbox search-induced cuticle injury (gasp!) I went back to the lobby and perused my growing haul while waiting for my main lady bro, the Editor of Capt. Ahab's Shanty, and this guy Kyle. We did the lunch thang at a resonably priced and reasonably tasty pizza joint down the block. With my tiny system thus fueled, I and my chums hit the con full force.

Now, I'm kind of a shy person (viz: meet every criteria in the DSM-IV for social anxiety disorder), which is why I only prattle on about my day using the anonymity of the internet, so going around and chatting with strange artists isn't something that would even occur to me as a thing to do. I found out that it totally is. We made the rounds of all the people who we wanted to sign things who weren't too popular and checked out the little guys. Everyone was really nice and I'm very jealous of people who have drawing ability. Guy Davis was there and he was free to do an sketch and have a nice chat. Jeff Smith was there but what with that line there was absolutely no way. I felt kind of bad for him though when I caught a glimpse of him with his little carpal tunnel wrist brace on. I didn't have too much money to spend, but I picked up a really nice Nightcrawler print and a tiny comic about mugs from Joseph Lambert, who messed up my change twice, but signed his name extra big.

At one point, Kyle bought a pack of TMNT trading cards which still had the original gum within. We tried to eat it which was totally a mistake. It was too powdery to spit out and too nasty to just deal with it. After the con we headed back to Chase's place and got some dinner and drinks with him and Jason. Stay tuned for the Saturday report and the con swag review!

I'd buy that for a dollar!

I’ll buy any comic for a dollar or less on a strictly cover-art basis. Today, I went down to my local comic shop in my new locale for the first time, and they had a bunch of longboxes with old comics--which were not alphabetized at all--out front. Here’s what I came home with:



Wha…Huh? (2005)

Now, I used to read What If? as a kid, but unless it had the Fantastic Four in it my eyes would just sort of slide of the page. I was concerned about this one because the fearsome foursome didn’t appear on the cover, but my trepidation was quickly overridden by my curiosity about how anything with Spider-Ham on the cover could be “suggested for teen and up.”

When it came time to sit down and read the thing, I realized that I might be a bit out of the loop in case they wanted to poke fun at any character introduced or developed after 1985, which is where my knowledge of the Marvel Universe ends. Fortunately, this comic was made for the nerdiest of the nerds, my kind of nerds, the ones who keep track of like sixty years of continuity. Wha…Huh? is a delicious and silly romp through your dad’s comic book collection. It devotes a page or two to such questions as “what if the the Avengers all had beards” and “what if Doctor Doom was named Doctor Strange and Doctor Strange was named Doctor Doom?” And it’s even got a couple Fantastic Four stories, one of which features the Thing attempting to hit Mr. Fantastic with a “moon tree.”

If you’ve got small children you’re probably still freaking out about that parental warning thing I mentioned in the first paragraph. I’m honestly not sure what makes this thing risqué in any way, except maybe the implied voyeurism on the part of the Watcher. I was pleasantly surprised by a sweet ad for BOD, the poor man’s AXE, by Glen Hanson, the guy who did the art for Spy Groove. This prompted me thinking about Spy Groove for the first time in years and, possibly, another post in the future! This is truly the comic that keeps on giving, and was, ironically, the only one in the bunch that actually cost me less than its original cover price. The irony is that it's the only one that has any value.

Dazzler #2 (1981)

I bought this on the merit of it being about Dazzler and it being the “last stand in discoland!” Dazzler, fresh from all that Dark Phoenix business, has decided to pursue a career as a disco queen, which will undoubtedly bring her long-term success. Apparently in the last issue she won a gig over the Enchantress, who will not let this stand. In an obvious attempt to get people to actually buy this comic, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the X-Men all show up to Daz's first performance and end up in this huge fight with the Enchantress, and then help Dazzler get an audition with a record exec.

I’m not an expert on the character, but her power seems like it could be a lot less lame than it is. She’s at this disco “dazzling” her opponents, but what does that really mean? Is she giving them epileptic seizures, or more subtly using specific light patterns to hijack with their brains somehow, like optical phone phreaking? Or can she just mess them up with lasers? These are the questions that are totally brushed aside by this nonsense.

At least it’s got some good visuals, in that pop art kind of way. I think this one’s going in the decoupage pile. I will one day have the most boss (bossest?) end table. Also, Hostess cupcakes!

Fantastic Four #276 (1985)

This one I picked up because I kind of liked how they extended the whole consumed-by-blinding-light thing to the title and box with the little picture on the upper left.

We open with the Human Torch moving in on Thing’s woman, oh snap! Then they declare that they’re tired of talking about feelings and get to the action, namely Reed and Sue in disguise in the suburbs, setting up secret identities to give Franklin a normal life. Except their crazy neighbor thinks they’re witches and summons up a whole bunch of demons to fight unholy fire with unholy fire. And then it’s up to Doctor Strange to bail them out...next month.

The letters page contains a discussion of the relative temperature of the Human Torch’s feet. Overall, it’s just a comic. It doesn’t stand out in a particularly camp way or a particularly interesting way.