| Sharing My Holiday Pain |
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| 07:46pm 19/12/2009 |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/4thletter/~3/fb8m7NSJ07o/ http://www.4thletter.net/?p=4739
You may have noticed that 4L has been rather light on content lately. hermanos has been writing for like 50 other sites and Esther, from what I understand, has been taken down by seasonal illness. Me? I just haven’t had the energy due to my job. I’m working Barnes and Noble and we all know how fun retail can be in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
I’ve been through it many a time before and you know I’ll be back to it with the strength of a gorilla. But in the meantime, I want to show you a defining sting of the 2009 holiday season.
There’s a product called Elf on the Shelf. It’s a book that comes with a little sitting elf doll. Last year, the B&N chain completely underestimated how popular it was and the warehouses were sold out immediately. I think we sold a dozen before being tapped dry. This year, they decided to go balls out. They sent us about 180 copies of it and starting in mid-November, we put up three different displays for it throughout the store. The main display is on a table a few feet behind the big Customer Services desk in the center of the store. This area is somewhere most employees have to spend hours around during each shift.
On this table is a big pile of Elf on the Shelf boxes surrounding a DVD-playing monitor that’s been tied down by like 5 locks so nobody runs off with it. In the player is a special DVD lasting a mere 3 and a half minutes. Then it loops. This is what we’ve had to put up with NONSTOP FOR A MONTH!
Jesus Christ. It’s creepy and annoying, but I don’t know which trumps the other. Now imagine having to listen to that day in and day out for a month. It starts with that annoying theme song blaring. Then the generic holiday music is okay to take in. The talking is harsh, but you can filter it into background noise after a while. That is, until the whole thing restarts and the loud jingling bells in the intro song remind you of this hellish DVD!
Just yesterday, we were finally able to shut off the DVD player and put it away for the holidays. Why? Because we finally sold out of this shit! Yes, people actually get this… and they get it a week before Christmas! The whole point of this thing is that you use it for the weeks leading up to Christmas, so what’s the deal here?
One last thing about this abomination: I was looking it up in the store computer one day and I noticed that under the product’s information, it was labeled “Light-Skinned Elf”. Intrigued, I found that yes, we did also carry the “Dark-Skinned Elf”, though in far less quantity. I figured it made enough sense, since it’s little different from there being black Barbies. Then I came across one of them and found that by “Dark-Skinned Elf”, it was just an elf who had spent 3 hours in the sun and came out with a very slight tan. He also has orange pupils, making him even more disturbing than usual.
And that’s the story of how I saved Christmas.
   
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| Alfred, No! |
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| 06:15am 19/12/2009 |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/4thletter/~3/7eh88cG7f4Q/ http://www.4thletter.net/?p=4736
Yes, he did.
No, not like that.
Of course.
This panel is from a story in the Batman 80-Page Giant issue that came out on Wednesday. In it, Alfred picks up a hooker who looks to be in her late teens or early twenties. He takes her out to a fancy party, while she’s still in her street wear. People talk, Alfred makes a scene defending her, and they get kicked out. He suggests they go up to a room.
There’s a panel in which the girl is in the bathroom, freshly showered and in a towel. She’s looking at herself in the mirror saying, “You can do this,” while Alfred, visible through the open door but turned away from her, sits on the bed in the main bedroom.
Then she comes out in full snow gear (boots, pants, sweater, gloves, had, scarf), and he tells her she looks wonderful. They go to the bus station, he tells her that he has had her criminal record erased and puts her on a bus headed for home.
The story should work, but it doesn’t. Not quite. And the reason it doesn’t is in that first panel. There are plenty of comics that make it look like something morally questionable is happening, only to reveal the character’s noble intentions, but by leaning too hard on the double meanings, this story buries its own point.
The point is that Alfred is trying to do right by this girl. He’s insisting that people treat her with respect and give her a chance to shed her past. But that’s not really happening in the story.
A respectful person doesn’t take a woman to a party when he knows that she’ll be ridiculed there. Alfred can afford a dress for this girl, and has clearly shopped for her. Still, instead of letting her wear something appropriate, he exposes her to ridicule. Fighting for the girl’s honor doesn’t ring true after her deliberately brought her somewhere she’d feel self-conscious in inappropriate dress.
Then there’s the matter of Alfred sitting on a bed with the door open while a girl showers in the next room. I can count on one hand the number of times Alfred has sat down in a chair on panel. And I can’t imagine he wouldn’t close the door when a girl was changing in the next room. But they need to make it look like something might happen, so they make him do something out of character.
Then there’s the last scene, in which Alfred announces that he spent the night with a prostitute. This is a page after he told the girl that she didn’t have to worry about her old life catching up with her and she could have a ‘fresh start.’
The story follows the letter and not the spirit of this character’s code of conduct. In going out of its way to portray Alfred as gentlemanly, it keeps him from being a gentleman.
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| In The Bleak Early Winter |
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| 12:51am 19/12/2009 |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8155 Tiiiired. Sitting here listening to Pocahaunted and chugging coffee in order to stay lucid enough to do a GRAVEL phone conference set for 1.30am. This week’s been utterly buggered — you may have noticed the silence here — by a member of the family being rushed into hospital early in the week, which has turned everything into bubbling chaos and is necessitating runs to the hospital, rescheduling, etc. And then the snow hit, turned into two inches of white stuff sitting on three inches of ice, and Britain shut down because it is now a country of weaklings and jabbering genetic wreckage who shit themselves when the sky moves.
GRAVEL phone conference with my producers is to set the storyline. I’ve spent what little time I’ve had this week putting all my notes in order. Which is how I ended up writing the line "Bill, you’re kind of persona non fucker around here."
Also, at the top of the week, I wrapped the last few pages of ULTIMATE COMICS IRON MAN ARMOR WARS #4, which is one of the more ridiculous titles that I haven’t invented myself. Sadly, the Marvel office chose to ignore the alternate titles I wrote at the top of each script. I liked IRON MAN: HUMAN SEX JEEP the best.
Had a conversation with David Bogart at Marvel about the future of the NEWUNIVERSAL: STORMFRONT project there that got stalled when my computer and backups were destroyed. Should be sorted in a few months. I think Dave’s official title at Marvel is Grand Inquisitor or Witchfinder General or something, but I’ve known him pretty much since he started out in the business, and, frankly, it’s always nice to know that there’s a guy in that office who will never try to screw me over. Dave will look after me.
Or, of course, I will have him killed. I know lots of people in New York. I mean, trust is good, but insurance is better, right?
If I can just get a few more pages on other things out over the next two days, then from Monday I am done with 2009, and anyone who doesn’t like it can bite my muckpump.
More coffee. |
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| Tony and the Captain Can Make it Happen |
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| 08:57am 17/12/2009 |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/4thletter/~3/IImxUu6X8Bk/ http://www.4thletter.net/?p=4726
I love Ed Brubaker and I love his work with Captain America. Believe me, I really do. But am I the only one who feels kind of disinterested in Captain America Reborn? Brubaker’s run with the character has shown that mysteries with obvious answers aren’t so bad when the storytelling is excellent.
It looked like they were bringing Bucky back and, lo and behold, they did. It looked like they were going to turn Bucky into Captain America and, low and behold, they did. The stories were obvious based on the hints and how natural they felt, but Marvel still acted like they were mysteries.
It’s not working this time, honestly. We knew from issue one that Cap would be coming back. The first issue was a basic explanation as to how he would be coming back. Everything else has felt like filler. Even worse, we’ve been given some scenes of Steve Rogers alive and well after this, so there’s no real drama to look at.
New Avengers Annual #3 shows Steve surprising everyone by showing up on the last page in his chainmail tights. The latest issue of Iron Man has both Caps there to share their shield. Before either of those is Dark Avengers Annual, ending with Steve in a more SHIELD-like outfit hanging out with Bucky Cap on their hunt for allies against Osborn.
Aha! The plot thickens. Since it was official that Steve was coming back, there had been lots of speculation that he was going to be taking over the Fury/Hill/Stark/Osborn spot as king of the superhero/government relations mountain. This would allow Bucky to remain as Captain America for at least a little while longer. This will probably be covered in part next week as Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? is released. This isn’t to be confused with Captain America: All Those Who Chose to Oppose his Shield Must Yield.
Like all things relating to me and Marvel, this goes back to issues of What If because I’m a fool who can’t stop bringing up that series. The fifth issue of the first volume was What If Captain America Hadn’t Vanished During World War II. It wasn’t an especially good story, but it does mirror what we seem to be moving towards: Steve Rogers is the Director of SHIELD and Bucky Barnes is Captain America. Sadly, it doesn’t turn out too well, as Bucky dies heroically against Baron Zemo and Sharon yells at Steve for it.
BUT! The What If parallels aren’t totally negative. In fact, there’s a reason I’m jazzed at these turn of events. Two years ago, they released What If: Civil War. It featured two stories with a framing device holding them together. The framing is written by Ed Brubaker with art by the always-inspiring Marko Djurdjevic. It’s an homage to the issue What If Elektra Had Lived, which everyone but me seems to love for reasons I could never understand other than it being Frank Miller.
Seriously. I get why people like All-Star Batman and Robin. I get why people like Dark Knight Strikes Again. I just can’t understand the love for that comic.
Much like in that Elektra issue, the Watcher appears to our hero in a cemetery during rainfall. Holding an umbrella, he proceeds to show him another world where things happened differently.
The first story is by Kevin Grevioux and Gustavo. In it, Iron Man dies during the Extremis story and isn’t around to hold up his side of the Civil War. Captain America has the entire superhero community behind him and fights a war he cannot win against a more cutthroat government. By the end of it, many heroes are dead – including Cap and Spider-Man. Henry Gyrich is President of the United States and the country is protected by an army of Sentinels and Thor clones. Not the most positive outcome.
Back in 616, Tony is cool with this story because it proves his point. Without him, things would be worse. He was right. The Watcher shows him another possible outcome that’s too late to come to pass. In a story by Christos Gage and Harvey Tolibao, when Iron Man confronts Captain America and shakes his hand while suggesting they talk things over, he proceeds to speak his mind and tells the truth about his feelings.
“Steve… thank you for doing this. I… Like I said, I believe in what I’m doing… but I want to be sure I’m doing it the right way. I need someone I trust to make sure I am. I need your help, Cap.”
Cap turns off his electric gizmo hidden in his palm and agrees to talk. Long story slightly shorter, Clone Thor is released and both sides unite to kick the utter shit out of him. Goliath is spared from his fate in this reality. Steve and Tony later discuss their differences and Tony finally hits the inspiration needed to end the war. When Cap says that the government is too corrupt to have power over the superhumans, Tony suggests that Cap could fill in that role.
  
Due to overwhelming popularity for the idea from the American public, the President folds and gives them the opportunity. Over a montage, the Watcher narrates to Tony.
“Under your shared leadership, the Avengers became an unparalleled force for good… One no foe could stand against… One which quickly won the respect and admiration of those it strove to protect. The champions of Earth stood together, united, under the banner of the Avengers. Young superhumans were trained by their elders; taught both tactics and responsibility; serving only by choice, their identities protected. And when discipline became necessary, it was meted out by their brethren, both swiftly and justly. So began a new golden age of heroes. In some ways, far different than what had come before… in others, much the same.”
A final look at this world has Iron Man and Captain America bullshit over meeting notes and how glad they are that they worked things out. Everything looks like sunshine and lollipops, but then we have to go back to stupid reality.
Poor guy. The Watcher says that he’s only showed these visions to pay tribute and show Tony Stark a lesson in how his actions, no matter how big, have consequence. Really, it shows the true moral of Civil War to me: Tony Stark was right, but he was a dick about it. Then again, could there be more to the Watcher’s appearance here?
Keep in mind, this framing device is 616 and Brubaker’s writing it. That means that it’s canon. Tony knows that Steve in charge (of our days and our nights! Steve in charge of our wrongs and our rights!) is a good thing. Could it have been part of the writing plan?
I certainly hope so. With the Big 3 of the Avengers on their way to standing side-by-side once again, maybe they should give this “new golden age of heroes” a shot.
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| DO ANYTHING 024 |
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| 01:52pm 15/12/2009 |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8142 Nearly to the end of the first volume, now:
…Alan Moore who’s also in the audience at an early Roxy Music gig and watching Brian Eno in some insane costume making music with Science, Alan Moore, whose early career could easily be described as trying to find out what might happen if Brian Eno had written the Fantastic Four, Brian Eno, who conceived of his generative art software project 77 MILLION PAINTINGS as “visual music,” which is as good a term for “comics” as any I’ve seen…
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| T-shirt Of The Week #008: SCROTUMPUNK |
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| 12:09am 15/12/2009 |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8140 TOTW is basically a joke that Ariana and I pull each week in our joint guise as the International Electrophonic Unit. Basically, we take some of the stupider things I’ve said on Twitter and elsewhere, often in a state of extreme alcoholic refreshment or severe sleep deprivation, and put them on a t-shirt. Ariana set up a Cafe Press store (because this is a joke and engaging with a serious maker of t-shirts would be less funny to us), and… well, once a week, here we are.
Through this website and this Cafe Press store, we’re going to release one t-shirt a week. It’ll go live on Monday… and it’ll die Sunday night — midnight UK time, more often than not. Each one lives for a week, and then it’s replaced by the next week’s shirt. Until I either run out of dumb ideas or Ariana’s brain explodes.
So, every Monday, I’ll post the new shirt here, and you can peer at it more at http://www.cafepress.com/electrophonic.
HOWEVER, THIS WEEK: it’ll run ’til next Monday, as we’ve been running late today due to my being in London for meetings. Okay?
This one needs some explaining. I once opined on Twitter that the word "scrotum" ruins everything. And proved it by providing the helpful example "scrotumpunk." And then, um…
…I present to you T-Shirt Of The Week #008: SCROTUMPUNK:
We also offer a couple of perennial items. Mostly because I wanted one of these for myself:
(And also a MAN COOK MEAT WITH FIRE "splatter-shield", because Ariana’s crazy)
Thank you for your kind attention.
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| Empty Box Of Pixels |
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| 08:45pm 13/12/2009 |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8138 I have to go into London tomorrow, as I’ve been instructed to meet a producer. Sometimes my agent talks to me as if she has some kind of remote-operated Destructo-Ray Projector in my office that’ll burn off one of my balls if I disobey her instructions. But she speaks with such confidence that I start to worry that she does actually have some kind of remote-operated Destructo-Ray Projector in my office, and so I go to the meeting.
So it’ll be all quiet here until tomorrow night. |
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| This Week in Panels: Week 12 |
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| 03:08pm 13/12/2009 |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/4thletter/~3/7oBTDAK8YnA/ http://www.4thletter.net/?p=4712
Absolutely massive set of comics this week. What If: World War Hulk is my pick of the week, even despite the crappy Thor story and the even worse comedy stuff at the end. The main story rocks.
Adventure Comics #5
Geoff Johns, Sterling Gates, Jerry Ordway and Francis Manapul
Batgirl #5
Bryan Q. Miller and Lee Garbett
Booster Gold #27
Dan Jurgens and Mike Norton
DC Universe Holiday Special
Jay Faerber, Peter Nguyen and many others
Deadpool #18
Daniel Way and Paco Medina
Ghostbusters: Past, Present and Future
Rob Williams and Diego Jourdan
Incredible Hulk #605
Greg Pak, Ariel Olivetti and Paul Pelletier
Incredible Iron Man #21
Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca
Magog #4
Keith Giffen and Howard Porter
New Avengers Annual #3
Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Mayhew
Punisher MAX #2
Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon
Punisher: Noir #4
Frank Tieri and Antonio Fuso
Spider-Man: Secret Wars #1
Paul Tobin and Patrick Scherberger
S.W.O.R.D. #2
Kieron Gillen and Steven Sanders
Secret Six #16
Gail Simone and Peter Nguyen
Shield #4
Eric Trautmann, Cliff Richards, Brandon Jerwa and Greg Scott
War Machine #12
Greg Pak and Wellinton Alves
What If: World War Hulk
Mike Raicht, Lucio Parrillo, Michael Gallagher and Patrick Spaziante
X-Men: Noir: Mark of Cain #1
Fred Van Lente and Dennis Calero
With the Ghostbusters comic, I know that they already dealt with the Christmas Carol ghosts on the cartoon, but the way they have Peter take the brunt of the “Ghost of Christmas _____” treatment is pretty clever. I didn’t even notice the Bill Murray connection until long after.
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| Battlin Jack: “No, you’re not. Not to me.” |
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| 06:58am 12/12/2009 |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/4thletter/~3/uehNXrpwVdk/ http://www.4thletter.net/?p=4699
Raise your hand if you wanted to read a story about Battlin’ Jack Murdock, bad father, washed up boxer, and dude with no powers. His son, Matt, grew up to have powers, but Jack? Nah. Pointless, right? Gimme the guy with the radar vision, not some pug ugly boxer.
I thought the same thing, and then I read Carmine Di Giandomenico and Zeb Wells’s Daredevil: Battlin’ Jack Murdock, a Marvel Knights series about Daredevil’s pops. I enjoy Wells in general, and Di Giandomenico isn’t half as popular as he should be, so I checked it out on a whim. In exchange for that whim, I got a great story that fits neatly into the Daredevil mythos, adding a lot of flavor to Jack Murdock’s last fight and last night on Earth. It’s much better than it should have been, considering its subject, and way better than probably anyone ever expected.
Pre-Battlin’ Jack, Jack was supposed to lose the fight, but he instead sees his son in the crowd, realizes that throwing the fight would be the ultimate sign of weakness, and knocks Creel out. The Fixer, who fixed the fight, kills Jack in retaliation, leading to Matt Murdock masking up and going out for vengeance.
Battlin’ Jack fills in some blanks. We see Jack’s side of things, from the moment when Matt’s mother abandoned him on Jack’s doorstep to Matt being blinded. We get to know someone who had previously been an archetype, Papa Drunk Boxer. His likes, his issues, his failings, and his goals.
The framing device is pretty swift. The book’s composed of four chapters, each of which begins with one of the first four rounds of Battlin’ Jack in his last fight against Carl Creel, bka Absorbing Man. We hear his thoughts during the fight and then it fades to white. On the next page, the past fades in and we get more back story. So, the flashback has a flashback inside of it. Make sense? It’s very organic in the book, and gives it a sense of… inevitability. We already know how this story ends, the question is what’s going to be different and what layers Wells and Di Giandomenico are going to add onto it.
Di Giandomenico apparently cut his teeth overseas on boxing comics. I’ve been giving some thought to digging one up and importing it, just because I like his art so much. The boxing scenes are just as good as anything you’d see in Hajime no Ippo. There’s a great sense of motion, and Di Giandomenico understands how bodies wrap and entangle when you throw a punch. It’s a little bloody, but hey- it’s boxing. Get punched in the face and see how much you bleed.
Di Giandomenico does a great job of giving each character their own feel, too. Jack is craggy and wear, head bowed, shoulders worn down from having the weight of the heavens on his back so long. Matt’s thin and wiry, but his head’s held high and he’s hopeful. Josie, of Josie’s Bar fame, is drawn with clean lines, borderline ingenue until she turns that on its head. The villains look genuinely bad, with Slade being particularly notable for being kind of a skinny Snidely Whiplash.
Good fight scenes are rare in comics. Too often it comes down to one guy punching another guy through a wall, then the other guy punching the first guy through a different wall, then some jumping, some quipping, and then it’s over and someone’s costume is ripped. Or mostly gone, if it was two girls fighting. Di Giandomenico gets flow and motion and rhythm, which makes his art wonderful to me.
Basically, the art’s great. Here’s a five page sequence to prove it.
  
 
This quickly became one of my favorite Daredevil stories, and I talk about the ending in the 22nd Fourcast!. Esther agrees that it was tremendous on the show. For fun, read Battlin Jack and go directly into Frank Miller and John Romita Jr’s Man Without Fear.
If you’re looking for more Di Giandomenico, he did Spider-Man Noir last year, which was probably the best Spider-Man story that year. Amazon’s got the normal-sized Premiere HC and a smaller softcover graphic novel . The smaller book is around the same size as Viz’s Signature books, like 20th Century Boys or Pluto. Maybe a little bigger.
But yeah, Battlin’ Jack Murdock was a good’un. And it’s dumb, but I kinda liked seeing Josie as more than “Hard-nosed chick from the bar with the window Daredevil always throws dudes through.”
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| Batgirl #5 Play-by-Play |
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| 06:22am 12/12/2009 |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/4thletter/~3/s3Q1cTMiYX8/ http://www.4thletter.net/?p=4698
Immediate cut!
In the last issue; everyone except Barbara was really mean to Stephanie, and Devil’s Square was a really, really bad place to live, even by Gotham standards.
This issue starts out with Devil’s Square being an even crappier place to live, what with a gigantic fire. The fire is consuming what a real estate mogul being interviewed by a reporter says was a state-of-the-art homeless shelter. For those of you in the know, Real Estate Mogul is code for Bad Guy, like Oil Magnate or Pharmaceutical Company CEO, or Child’s Birthday Clown. Given that and the fact that the reporter mentions said mogul by name, and you know that Stefano Gracia is going to make our heroine miserable by the end of the issue. Oh, and it looks like his son is Francisco, that charmer who called his girlfriend a bitch with PMS a few issues ago. Glad to see you, Francisco. I was so worried that the writer was going to realize that you were a hugely unlikeable character and drop you.
Inside the blazing shelter, a guy named Diesel is running around spreading flames. Stephanie swings in and throws around batarangs and buffy quotes. She and Diesel banter about the fact that he has gasoline for blood, and she tries freezing him with freeze-batarangs. It doesn’t work.
Batman (Dick) and Robin (Damian) swing into the action. Damian pins Diesel to the ground, not realizing that he bleeds gas and the building is on fire. Well, I assume that he know the building is on fire, but he isn’t aware that something terrible is just about to happen.
And something terrible does happen, but because of Stephanie, it’s a wonderful kind of terrible. She throws the freezerangs in the general direction of Damian and – heh. The big disappointment in this issue is that we don’t get to see his face.
A page later, Dick and Barbara argue over who has the worst trainee and trip all over Dick’s Bruce issues. Since I never need to see either of those things again for as long as I live, that’s all I’ll say about it.
Meanwhile, Damian is warming up and Stephanie is keeping him company.
Damian: “I hate you.”
Stephanie’s Monologue Box: “Join the club.”
Good one, Steph. And also, ouch.
Damian vocalizes the thoughts of thousands of Cass fans when he says that he wishes Cassandra were there. She’d beat you to death, Damian. Be glad you got Stephanie.
We cut to the library, where Francisco and Jordanna (the girl he called a bitch) are fighting (does anyone do anything else in this issue?) about the “shady stuff” his dad is involved in (the comedy rule of three says I should put something in here, but I got nothing). Stephanie leans in and hears Francisco saying that his dad is “just out for one thing – - protecting his family.” No indication, yet, about whether we’re talking about a Kent kind of family or a Batclan kind of family or a Huntress’ dad kind of ‘family’. Jordanna notices Stephanie spying and storms off. Francisco asks Stephanie if she’s game for getting some fresh air.
Stephanie, I assume that you have the sense god gave a - no. No, of course you don’t. Still, please tell me that your interest in this guy is purely professional. I know that Tim turned into a jerk at the end of your relationship and the beginning of Red Robin, but that doesn’t mean you need to pick up a guy who starts out as a jerk. You’re Batgirl! Have some pride!
Fortunately, before I can get too worked up about this, we change scenes to a coffee shop, where Barbara is sitting one booth away from a male love interest who doesn’t make me want to grind my teeth. Hello, Sergeant Nick! She’s waiting for her dad. He’s waiting for her dad, they both figure out that they’ve been set up at the same time. Aww.
Pity one page later they’re fighting.
Damn.
Next page! Oh. It’s Francisco and Stephanie.
Damn.
Next page. It’s Damian.
You know what? I’ll take it. See, when he gives a speech about how much Stephanie sucks, we all know he’s supposed to be a jerk, so it’s kind of funny. That’s a leg up on everyone else. Stephanie explains that he doesn’t really understand what she and Barbara are trying to do. They want to give people hope, not just fear. Then she tells him to stop looking at her chest. Good points, Stephanie.
Too bad you negated them by mooning over Francisco again. She spots him in a coffee shop, changes into Barbara’s clothes and attempts a ‘funny meeting YOU here’ conversation. Francisco doesn’t seem interested, instead telling her to run. Just what I’ve been saying, Francisco! You read my mind.
Next thing we know, a bunch of guys in ski masks are pouring into the coffee shop and kidnapping him. Stephanie fights them and seems to do pretty well, until she turns to see one with a gun pointed at her head.
And he shoots her. Yeah, even I know that they won’t kill her off this fast. Place your bets: rubber bullets for a fake kidnapping or incredibly lucky shot?
Interesting Irrelevant Detail: It seems that Damian is never without a hood. So far I’m not sure what to make of this beyond deciding that evil has no use for peripheral vision or cold ears.
Suckiness Advisory Warning: Well, there’s Francisco, who only digresses from mind-boggling blandness by being a sub-par human being. And as I said, when Damian is a jerk to people, it’s entertaining. That’s what he’s supposed to be doing. When everyone else does it, it’s just unpleasant.
Overall Awesomeness Level: But, again, when he does it, he is very, very entertaining. And he’s in the next two books. I foresee goodness.
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| Notebooknotes: Roughing It Out |
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| 05:21pm 11/12/2009 |
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http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8128 After many years of doing rough work on Visors and Treos, I switched back to notebooks this year. Moleskines and Field Notes. Usually working with a propelling pencil, until I found a reliable micro-Sharpie thing earlier this year. Just because I think it’s always worth looking at the way you work and seeing if a change won’t do it good.
These are from a Field Notes notebook started on 5 July 2009.
Had to crank this one up in GIMP, as I was working in pencil (some notes on ASTONISHING X-MEN I scanned were too faint for the scanner or GIMP to save). The left hand page was made around the time I was speaking to the Architecture Association. As you can see, I do tend to go back and add guidance notes later — here, reminding me not to re-use this bit because I ended up using it in a WIRED UK column.
On the right, is how I tend to start roughing out a comics script. It’s almost legible, innit?
I write GRAVEL as "scriptments," usually — a cross between a script, a short story and a film treatment, that Mike Wolfer then turns into something that makes some kind of sense before he starts drawing it. They can run to four or five pages, sometimes just becoming long runs of dialogue. This is me halfway through #15 of that book, just banging the dialogue down without stage directions, as it comes to me:
Yes, I do have bloody awful handwriting. Always have had. I’ll often write in block caps just for the sake of legibility — sometimes I can’t read my own writing.
I’ve filed the serial numbers off this one, as it were, because it was for a work-for-hire project that never got off the ground due to my lack of time. Hence the odd gaps on the page. But this is what you’ll most often find in one of my notebooks: looking at comics page flow. This was the start of several pages of diagrams and notes, trying to find a formal page flow I liked for a DPS, or Double Page Spread.
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| DC Holiday Special |
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| 06:28am 11/12/2009 |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/4thletter/~3/G4pVNu4OJxU/ http://www.4thletter.net/?p=4697
The problem with being a slobbering bat fanatic is no one believes you when you say the Batman story was the best part of the DC Universe Holiday special.
I’m unbiased. If you will remember, in last year’s issue, I favored the Aquaman story by Dan Didio, in which Arthur saves Mary (Yes, that Mary.) from pirates using a mind-controlled kraken.
The Bat-story was the best, hands down. A wordless series of images, it was short, sweet, a little goofy, and simple. When a story ends with Batman having milk and cookies, you know it’s a Christmas issue.
A contender for the top spot is a Superman story with one of the issue’s surprisingly frequent Hannukah stories. You know it’s the holiday season when you see Superman fighting a snow Golem over tins of caramel corn. Or maybe you don’t. Who cares? It’s a sweet story.
There’s a J’onn Jones story that is full of good character moments and that focuses on the early years of the character in an interesting way. However, given that it’s shot through with murder and misery, it’s a little out of place in a holiday special.
It’s followed by not one, but two stories in which soldiers on opposite sides of a war suspend their enmity and spend Christmas day being friendly with each other. You know Christmas is special when even Sergeant Rock gets along with a German soldier. Still, the stories are right after each other, and I wonder how that feels for the writers who came up with them. It must be like wearing the same dress to the prom times fifty.
Still. Batman punching Santas and eating cookies. It really is a wonderful life.
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