Mass Communicatin'

To my own perception and regret, the Internet has been lousy with my work this week, what we cliche-hounds call 'a perfect storm.' I don't post 'em I only write 'em, so there. I deem this 'internet-famous' like barrage, 'Sacks-ing' after the benevolent overlord of Comics Bulletin, Jason Sacks, as in "I had four posts go live on Comics Bulletin this week! I am so Sacksing right now!" Trust me, it's a thing.

 

Sacksing can't happen without the great editors I work with at Comics Bulletin, Danny Dejeljosevic and David Fairbanks. Without them I'm one hand-clapping. Thanks men!

 

Here's a quick rundown of the week and remember if you haven't seen it or read it (Reddit?) it's new to you:

 

Jamil Scalese and I form a new team on Comics Bulletin with a look at FF #1. NOW! Jamil and I agree on most of what Mike Allred and Matt Fraction have to offer here. What struck me most (and I think Jamil agrees) is this -- for Jamil it's better, for me, worse -- is another #1 that over-promises and under-delivers. It might be a great series once it gets going, but this issue, for me at least, never gets out of first gear.

 

Daniel Elkin also helped me keep pace with a visit to the Supermarket, Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson's 2006 mini-series. It's good clean fun with an 'eep' or two and some cartoon violence thrown in to keep it spicey. Elkin took me to task (rightfully so) for not taking Supermarket at face value. It's dismissive to call anything 'minor' in an artist's oeuvre, so let's call this a welcome departure from Wood's heavier work and, oh yeah, I want more of this Donaldson.

 

Next, I weighed in over at the Two-Headed Nerd with an essay on why I write about comics. A lot of it is all 'sweetness and light;' however, more than a love letter to my own ego, I tried to make it a call to arms to get more people writing and talking about the comics they love and why they love them (and if those comics happen to be creator-owned, all the better). I also added my voice (and my arms) to new column that THN calls Slave Revolt. Tony Doug Wright of Champion City Comics led the charge while Aaron Meyers and I took to the battlements beside him.

 

The biggest bombshell to drop was a piece I wrote with David Fairbanks: 'Why I Want to Pour Gasoline on Corporate Comics.' This is really a companion piece to the one that ran on THN except it's more acidic. It's a conversation-starter that I hope gets more people 'thinking' about 'why' they buy the comics they buy and not only 'what' they buy.

 

The piece I'm most proud of is something I hinted at a month or so ago: Old Mutants, New Ideas: Bill Sienkiewicz's New Mutants. I'm writing about Sienkiewicz's complete thirteen issue run and trying to capture what Sienkiewicz means to me and what it was like to be twelve-years-old and in love with comic books, words and most of all, art. For me, Bill Sienkiewicz represents the art of the possible. ¶ There is more that I've written that's yet to post (thank Crom!) and (better yet) more to write. I'm going to work to make IiSF? my library at Alexandria -- oh, yes, I know hype and how to be pretentious -- and keep it updated with the 'new' and the 'new to you.' As I said at the end of my essay for THN: go and do likewise, go and do likewise.

Review: It Girl! and the Atomics #3

All(red) The Small Things

''Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler,'' so said Einstein, maybe. It's Occam's Razor; you know, that idea that the simplest solution is usually the best. Occam's Razor? Right? It Girl! and the Atomics is simple, but no simpler than it needs to be. ¶ The candy colors and sugary Saturday-morning cartoon buzz of It Girl! and the Atomics lifts it above its competition with the dour and serious superhero set where even jokes about lattes are served with a scowl. Writer Jamie S. Rich and artist Mike Norton know the sweet spot between comedy and camp, silly and surreal. As a critic himself, Rich has developed a strong criterion for knowing how not to insult the audience (reader) with 'wink-wink-nod-nod' storytelling. Writers are writers not telegraph operators. ¶ Norton's art engenders such loopiness that when the script calls for a flying car to zoom into frame or crooks and costumes courtesy of the mustelidae family, it all makes sense. Like Rich's writing, the simple lines and uncomplicated backgrounds that Norton creates contain all the information the reader needs and nothing less. It's not so much that there is an economy of thrift to this objet d'art as much as Norton gets where the details need to go in order to add restraint and weight to this meringue and madcap milieu.

Look no closer than the TV in the villain’s hideout, it has dials. Dials! The 'thunk-thunk-thunk' of those big clunky kinds of switches went out of style with Underoos and $ale of the Century. Details like this 'shimmer' with the retro chic that one would expect from IG!atA. On one hand, it's a gag, on the other, it's information that serves the story -- an important distinction that's easy to overlook.

 

Later on it's 'revealed' that Ferret probably liberated the TV from his mom's garage, the gang's old den before they moved out (and down) to new digs, in a sewer. I use the word 'den' for two reasons: 1. it's an appropriate word choice for where one should expect to find characters named Otter, Ferret and Hedgehog and 2. because it's another example of how Norton (and Rich) create mood and atmosphere with the exact amount of simplicity and verve that can get easily overlooked i.e. dismissed when done with such subtlety. It Girl! and the Atomics is a clubhouse writ large. Rich, Norton and the gang are all inside and they're waiting for you.

The superhero identity crisis has been done to death, resurrected, retconned and reimagined so many times that it has gone from cliché to comic book SOP. Rich is so familiar with this trope that he is literally playing with the idea of what it means to be a superhero in the first story arc, ''Dark Streets, Snap City.'' In issue #3, It Girl is back on 'Dark Streets,' the videogame that she was playing when the series kicked off. Her domino mask can't hide the fact that she's frustrated and unsure of who she is and what she's supposed to be (aren't we all). 'Dark Streets' is a balm, a refuge, a place where, as It Girl says, ''being a superhero has clear goals. If I don't know what's going on, point totals tell me.'' Rich has made the real and the ideal -- and the blur between the two -- a central theme of this story. This dark night of the superhero soul in a comic like IG!atA is unexpected (fizzy) new wine from an old jar.

 

It would be nice to imagine a world in which more comic books take place in discos. Colorist Allen Passalaqua brings a shine and sheen to the second-half of It Girl! and the Atomics #3 that, I hope, is as painstaking to do as it looks; and if it is some digital filter with a cute nickname like 'Studio 54' than it's smart-thinking on Passalaquas part. It's another of the small things, the simple things that make this comic book about breakable ice men and atomic space slugs stand out.

They say 'good' comedy is a stickier wicket to navigate than middling drama. With so many disposable and dreary heroes crowding the imaginary multiverses, it's good to know there's an It Girl out there on patrol of those dark streets. Don't let the (sometimes) unbearable lightness mask the fact that for all its candyfloss and froth, It Girl! and the Atomics is serious comics. Simple, no?