SCHWAPP!!!

An Experiment Of Sorts

2012-05-29T11:12:00.000-04:00

Deliverance
American History X
Pulp Fiction
The cover to FLASH #9

All things with images of male rape.

C'mon, look at it...

Held down on the left...

Held down on the right...

Held at knife point and held down from behind...

Then there's the full cover with the titling...

Which all combines for:

I'd be interested how many folks can't "unsee" that perspective on the cover now.

Look, I'm sure it wasn't intentional or desire...and it takes some finagling to see it this way. But the elements are there and I thought it'd be funny to share.

Until next time, when we go over the cover where Dreamgirl lures Brainaic 5 into being tentacle raped...

AQUAMAN Subscriptions Saved

2012-05-26T00:20:00.000-04:00

I might have missed it being stated elsewhere, but after Didio hinted that there might be a change as to whether the Aquaman subscription was being killed, I can confirm it is no longer the case.

I called the company that handles the subscriptions and they indicated that, not only was the cancellation reversed, but subscribers would be getting an extra issue tacked on to their subscription to make up for the confusion.

Interestingly enough, when I asked them about the Green Lantern: New Guardians sub I had a letter telling me was being moved to GLC, they could find no record that GL:NG was having its subscriptions cut off. They're going to look into it to make sure, but it might well be another book that is surviving, albeit due to a miscommunication, rather than a change in plans.

Give To Tony DeZuniga

2012-04-25T22:01:00.003-04:00

As has been reported elsewhere and, again, recently by Neal Adams on BleedingCool.com, Tony DeZuniga, legendary comic book artist largely responsible for the Jonah Hex we know and love, is in dire straits and in need of medical care he cannot readily afford.

Donations are requested to be sent to tonydezuniga@yahoo.com via PayPal (which deposits into his daughter's account, to pass along to her parents for the medical bills).

The Avengers Movie For Kirby Fans

2012-04-24T18:38:00.000-04:00

There's a lot of talk about boycotting The Avengers movie by comic book fans, out of respect for how Jack THE KING Kirby wasn't treated/compensated/credited fairly by Marvel.

Let's all be honest with each other...

Comic book fans are a small subset of the audience for this movie.
Fans that have declared they will boycott are a small subset of that small subset.
Fans that will actually follow through are a small subset of a small subset of that small subset.

How badly will this really punish Marvel? I mean, if you're dedicated to it, I doff my cap to you and admire you. If you're honest, you'll know you're really accomplishing little more than making sure to put your principles in action, which is a worthwhile goal on its own.

Wouldn't it be great, though, if all the people that find it difficult to resist summer blockbuster crack had an option?

Is there no one that can arrange for some sort of donation vehicle that can funnel money directly to the Kirby family? Perhaps a "sin tax" of a few dollars per ticket or DVD bought, which would be more than the average per ticket compensation they'd have seen if Marvel and Stan Lee didn't wrong The King?

Barring that, I'd encourage all those that love Kirby's contributions but can't resist the siren's call of the movies to at least make a donation to The Hero Initiative to help other creators still with us that might not have been compensated properly in their career or, for some other reason, have fallen on hard times now.

Even if you just contribute $2 per ticket and $5 per DVD/Blu-Ray/permanent digital copy, you'd be making a difference and, maybe, help assuage a bit of your feeling dirty.

If You Like Music*...

2012-03-23T20:57:00.001-04:00

...allow me to heartily endorse the following site:

Adrian: "I'm not expecting critical fucking acclaim...just let me know you give a shit."

How could you not click over there so fast that you risk injuring a digit? ;) Seriously, though, he's a passionate audiophile. Give it a read.

*I, however, hate music. It's all rubbish that assails my senses like nails on chalkboard. Though this could be due to only having listened to the stylings of Nails on Chalkboard, including several of their live albums. Maybe I should research this music thing a bit more...

Dueling Justice League Teams? Or Dueling Batmen?

2012-03-22T19:30:00.000-04:00

DC has seemed to pride themselves on consistency of editorial message with their relaunch. There's supposed to be great continuity.

Of course, that's questionable, as Justice League's opening arc, set five years ago, appears to conflict with other titles running at the same point in the timeline. But that's the sort of thing that can get overlooked.

Titles that are in the same line try to keep a pretty tight relationship. We've had Frankenstein and OMAC crossover, while Swamp Thing and Animal Man have been swapping background info in prep for their crossover. The Bat family is crossing over shortly. For some reason, Stormwatch, Grifter and Superman are all going to throw their lot in together on a Daemonite arc.

But the one place we don't seem to have continuity is in the Justice League franchise.

In the top right, you'll see a page from Justice League International, where Batman is clearly shown to be a member of the team. He's been in the whole time and rather publicly, too.

So why did Geoff Johns write the following exchange into Justice League?

He's a member of the team he calls a joke. It has only ever existed with him as a member in the current continuity. In fact, he's had chances where he could have let it crumble on its own, but he fought to keep them together. There's no one else as Batman in the current continuity and, even if there were, it'd seem silly for him to have one of his incorporated bunch on the team, but still deride the whole function.

So what's the deal? Johns and his editor can't really be that ignorant of the character's membership on the team he's actually shitting on, can they? I mean, he's on covers, for fuck's sake.

Recaps Vs Reviews Ep 1

2012-03-20T15:30:00.000-04:00

A while back, I asked if you'd all like me to review the reviewers. One of my biggest concerns was that recaps were masquerading as reviews. Having been a reviewer, I know the challenges of trying to discuss episodic entertainment while trying to avoid directly giving out a lot of the details (both in an effort to avoid spoilers or to be read/valued simply as Cliff Notes).

I embark on this journey not to shit on anyone doing reviews out there, but to encourage them to up their game. I'll state at the start that I'm unlikely to cast this eye towards BEST SHOTS, as I have friends there and I can't ensure impartiality.

For today's ep, I take a look at Jonathan Williams over at ComicBook.com.

His "review" of Superboy is four paragraphs, two of which are pure recap. In what is left, he reviews the character and concept, not the actual issue. The "review" doesn't truly aspire to be anything more than your average fan on a forum talking about his favorite characters.

Line most worthy of being included in something called a review:

"Some of his actions are certainly un-hero like but we can see the hints of the hero deep inside, especially with his care of the scientist and meta-human Caitlin Fairchild."

What he writes about Resurrection Man is even less of a review. Let's do the math:

5 total paragraphs
-3 recap paragraphs
-1 paragraph suitable for the solicitation blurb (read the first paragraph of his "review")1 paragraph of indeterminate content that you might argue is review-ish

Again, what passes for the review in the entry is largely passing out general comments on the run of the book so far and hopes for the future issues being better.

Line most worthy of being included in something called a review:

(space left blank intentionally)

The lack of meat for me to go through here leaves me feeling a bit too much like a recapper for my tastes.

Any Other Examples?

2012-03-19T21:47:00.000-04:00

I didn't put up my previous post purely to take a shot at one individual, even if I did need to vent about my personal experience in order to finally let it go.

It was meant to be the start of a dialogue. Unfortunately, I've not always been the savviest person when it comes to timing and made my post on the eve of a pretty big comic book convention. So, now that some of you have settled back in from the news, do any of you have any solid examples of where you feel that the lines have been egregiously blurred?

I Won't Go Home Again

2012-03-14T19:31:00.001-04:00

David Brothers ripped Newsarama pretty badly a month or so ago. While I don't agree with all of his points on the matter that led to the 'Rama editorial, I do tend to agree with a lot of what he's said about problems there and with comics journalism in general.

Allow me to put a finer point on it.

When the BLACKEST NIGHT finale came out, Newsarama wanted to do a feature article where as many Best Shots members as possible would contribute their review. Troy Brownfield had moved over to running Blog@, while David Pepose had taken over Best Shots. Due to scheduling concerns, Lucas Siegel was going to be handling the article on the day of release.

I had my review in hours before the article would run...yet my review was nowhere to be found in the article. Come to find out later that a fellow contributor had their review dropped, too.

We happened to be the only two voices in the crowd that had written negative reviews about the finale.

At the time, Lucas Siegel was actively pitching comic book work. I know for a fact that one of the publishers he was pitching to was DC.

To his credit, David offered to run the long review with day-after-release shorter reviews or with the Monday Best Shots column, but I really had no interest at that point. I didn't stop contributing to the site immediately, though I wish I had, since I wound up taking out a good deal of this frustration on Pepose at a later date (sorry, again, sir).

It should be noted: David Pepose made it clear that he disagreed with my conclusion that my review was left out due to the opinion expressed within it.

Brothers' piece and/or the comment thread it generated takes broad shots at members of the comics journalism community pitching while they're covering it. I can tell you that, despite later work towards careers writing comic books, neither Matt Brady or Troy Brownfield ever bumped my work or tried to dissuade me from a negative review (even with the headaches I would often cause Brady). I'd take a bullet for either of them. David Pepose never did such things, either, but I'm not aware of whether he plans on pursuing that sort of career and, if I'd worked under his lead longer, would probably feel the same about blocking the path between him and a gun.

I happen to very much enjoy the work of Marc Bernadin, who often positively covered DC Comics (Warner Bros) while writing for Entertainment Weekly (Warner Bros) before writing for WildStorm (Warner Bros). I wouldn't question the honesty of any of his work just because of that chain of events, nor do I feel it is fair to make assumptions about anyone in a similar position.

While I feel that pitching interests of "comic book journalists" can be a concern, I find the active pitching by site editors to be a larger one...dwarfed only by so many of the sites being beholden to the big publishers (for "exclusives" and "previews" to generate their income) that they make wholesale changes to how they do business. Articles blending right into message boards and comment sections become links to forums become suggestions that you friend them on Facebook and comment there, with the initial impetus for the movement being that publishers and creators didn't like seeing people criticizing them or their product right under their interview.

If not for the great friendships I forged along the way, I swear I'd wish I never wound up on the "professional" coverage side of the divide. Once you've seen behind the curtain, it all starts to lose its magic. And once you see how the sausage is made, it starts to turn your stomach.

DC Cutting Back On Subscriptions?

2012-03-12T08:52:00.000-04:00

Heidi MacDonald's THE BEAT has noticed that DC has dropped the number of titles that they offer for subscription on their site. I posted the following as a comment there, but since it is something I've attempted to call attention to a number of times here, I figured I'd slap it in its own blog entry:

Funny, just about a week ago, they offered a drastically reduced subscription to Aquaman through Tanga. It was $11 for a full year. I've been skipping that book, but got sucked into subscribing at that price. I've linked to a screen cap of the offering if anyone doubts it. I've kind of wondered how happy retail partners would be about them offering a decent section of their books at a 67+% discount (and no tax). BATMAN, BATMAN & ROBIN and BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT ($12) have all been offered (I don't recall DETECTIVE making it on the site yet). JUSTICE LEAGUE, GREEN LANTERN and GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS have, also, been offered.

I know the argument for the 30-35% discount not being an instance of them competing with the DM is based around the inconsistent delivery dates and possible damage, but doubling that discount (which is something no retailer can match) has to open that back up to concern, no?

Editor Antics

2012-03-09T15:50:00.000-05:00

A certain Marvel has been trolling the interwebs of late. If you mention his name (once, not even three times), he seems to appear...and trolls.

I've been trying to wrap my brain around it a bit.

Forgetting the right/wrong of the debate, I'm trying to think about ramifications of it and, indeed, the thought process behind it.

There are few people more critical of that editor's behavior than me. Yet I don't find myself moved to take action on it beyond a few responses on message boards. I couldn't blame someone else for dropping a book he edits as a statement on how they feel about his behavior.

But for as much as his performance is based on the success of the book, his contribution to the actual end-product is minimal when compared to the writer and artists. On this more than other potential boycotts, I'd be ever aware that dropping the book would hurt innocents. I feel like publishers would take a loss of sales on a title as far more reflective of interest in a character or creator than ever pin it on the staff.

But, again, I'm not moved to boycott. Which is odd, because I'm normally one to take a principled stand over things that even friends of mine would call trivial. Quite honestly, if this was the talent on the book, I'd probably be telling my retailer, on every trip to the counter, "I'm not buying _____ because _____ is a flaming asshole."

The flip side, though, is that I don't see what positive development this behavior brings. It's a shock jock angle, but, with the individual keeping the antics to the free internet and only contributing a tame column to his books, where does it benefit the company or the product? If you've ever watched Howard Stern's biopic, they boil down the commercial viability of the shock jock approach by going over the survey results that show haters tune in even more faithfully than the fans, because they need to hear what outrageous thing is said next. But, again, this absurd behavior isn't happening where he'd be rewarded for bringing the extra attention and it doesn't seem to translate to that much additional attention to the good product his office is generating.

I think the net results of his performance art, if anything, will lead to a slight decline in his readership, but not so much as to be a major concern. But I could be wrong...

Not This Time, Tanga!

2012-03-07T11:30:00.004-05:00

You already set me up with BATMAN and BATMAN & ROBIN, Tanga. Expecting me to fall for this offer is foolhardy at best, even at $11.99.

Damn You, Tanga!

2012-02-16T10:52:00.001-05:00

I'd quit Aquaman. The same "water/fish/etc" jokes were getting used repeatedly and I felt like it was more to take aim at fans to make fun of them rather than make them laugh. I generally like the character and this is the first time I can recall dropping a Johns book.

But then Tanga went and threw it up as an $11 subscription.

At least I don't have to feel as guilty about this one, as I'd not have been buying it at the LCS currently.

Kirkman Manifesto: Fuck Over Your Friends?

2012-02-09T21:49:00.000-05:00

Wow. Tony Moore is suing Robert Kirkman because, he alleges, his old friend duped him into an agreement that put control of their Walking Dead property in Kirkman's hands, with little of the promised monies making their way to Moore and absolutely no access to the books to insure honest profit-sharing.

Don't write for the corporations, but profit like them by screwing over others.

Moore Should Have Known Better...Maybe

2012-02-02T19:42:00.001-05:00

Each time Rich Johnston trots out talk of the WATCHMEN contract, I get a reader (I know, I was shocked that I still had any, too) pointing out to me that some of his statements about graphic novels in print are false.

To wit:

No one has ever cited that Marvel collected the Dark Phoenix Saga in trade in 1984 (wikipedia is wrong about the first version; the first was in '84 with a Sienkevich cover). And that went into multiple printings. Marvel also released their "graphic novels" (Death of Captain Marvel, etc.) to bookstores, and those had more than one printing. In the '70s and early '80s, Marvel did a number of bookstore books (Origins of Marvel Comics, Son of Origins, Bring on the Bad Guys, etc.).

By the time Watchmen came out in September of 1986, Marvel had done upwards of 22 of the Marvel Graphic Novels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Graphic_Novel
DC put out its first collection of RONIN the same month that Watchmen ended.

So, there were graphic novels in print and previously serialized monthly works that were put into continuously reprinted trade 1-2 years before WATCHMEN saw publication.

I'm not necessarily saying Gibbons and Moore went into this with eyes wide open, but that half the shutting would be due to their own lack of observing the market. I still don't like the deal and think that rights should revert to them, but I no longer have as solid an objective case for it as I once used to.

Why Is My Confidence Lacking?

2012-01-18T18:56:00.000-05:00

Green Arrow has a pilot in production for The CW, per The Hollywood Reporter:

Arrow, based on DC Comics' long-running Green Arrow, revolves around the hooded super hero, a wealthy playboy by day who secretly saves the city by night using his enhanced arrows.

The hourlong drama is a modern retelling of the legendary comics character and hails from Green Lantern duoGreg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, who will executive produce and pen the project alongside Fringe co-EPAndrew Kreisberg, with whom they worked on Eli Stone.

1. I'd probably have preferred that SuperMax movie that was running around the 'net awhile back. This most likely means the chances are even slimmer.
1a. I'd like to remind you that "preferred" is relative. As in I might prefer to be punched in the gut than kicked in the junk...
2. The team that brought you Green Lantern? Obviously, this amazing project can't come soon enough.
3. Kreisberg? Really? And, again, this team all worked together on that bastion of TV success, ELI STONE?

I wish them well, but the track record is distinctly lacking.

Evidence That 2012 Is, Indeed, The End Of Times

2012-01-18T08:20:00.000-05:00

Someone is trying to get a HONEY BADGER DON'T GIVE A SHIT TV show on the air.

Just shoot me now.

I'd Buy Any Amanda Conner Project

2012-01-02T15:04:00.003-05:00

Yup...any project...

Worst DC Relaunch Ever

2011-12-03T23:22:00.000-05:00

And before I saw the photo-variant cover, I had said, "finally, some New Gods stuff!" ;)
Found here!

DC 52: On the 1s & 2s: Frankenstein

2011-11-19T02:26:00.000-05:00

About, oh, two weeks ago, I asked folks for examples of DC 52 books they might be interested in seeing reviews for. I had the idea for reviewing two issues of a series at once, largely because I wanted to use the "on the 1s and 2s" phrase, but, also, because it has felt like there isn't always enough meat to the single issues of this relaunch to fairly judge just one. The first up is Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.

The first thing I noticed when going over this selection was how at odds the cover art seems to be with the interior. Employing JG Jones on covers doesn't just give you art that is at conflict with the interior pencils, but suggests practically a brand difference.

But then breaking past that initial concern, I'm faced with yet another apparent contradiction. The story elements, on the surface, seem to suggest more action movie than indie drama. But the muddied, moody art (including the way coloring is employed) suggests the type of story you'd see in Vertigo books, where the action is rarely THE THING, but mostly there to service the story. The coloring, in particular, really seems to fit what I more often have seen on Vertigo product than DC Universe: larger sections of one solid color, rather than more intricate detail. Which, separate from a review, makes me wonder if there's some manner of cost savings in such a move, rather than simply being an artistic decision.

This is not to say I don't enjoy Alberto Ponticelli's art at all. I do, despite some of the inconsistencies (namely Frankenstein's monster looking like several different characters throughout the book). His art is always effective, tells the story ably and can handle the blend of action, humor and drama well. One of the strongest stretches for the art appears with a flashback in the second issue. In relating a supporting character's history (and, also, informing us on some of S.H.A.D.E.'s history), the art team perfectly evokes the feeling of old, grainy home movie footage.

The book uses classic horror movie characters, which would seem to suggest the style of art is fitting, as moody/muddied is often found in horror comics. But the cast is really a swerve, as it is much more of a sci-fi book with huge, bloodied battlefields through the first two issues; a sort of "sword and raygun" fantasy that might be better served by cleaner pencils.

The writing is very strong. I'll be honest: despite my warning above regarding single issues being hard to judge a property by in DC's 52, I had decided to stray away after the first issue, until this book was suggested for review. I'm very glad for the opportunity, as the additional installment casts the whole in a different light. It's difficult to pinpoint where and why there was a change, but suddenly everything clicked much more nicely once I was several pages into #2. Ideas seem less thrown out there, but are, instead, part of well-executed world building and character depth. Not every note is perfect (the gag about no one telling the doctor that Frankenstein's monster was such a gentleman comes to mind), but, somehow, the accumulation of bits between the issues starts to gel, without there being anything to put my finger on as being done differently from one issue to the next.

Lemire deftly weaves horror concepts into sci-fi properties and makes some of his sci-fi concepts feel all too real. Whether we're talking their base of operations, the prison within it, the communications system or the nature of the external threat in this first arc, all of the ideas just work.

Except when it comes to lettering. Of all the things to still have difficulty adjusting to, it was the method of delivery for S.H.A.D.E.net communications. The lettering was an x-on-black style (where x could be white or, more commonly, some other color that was used in large amounts elsewhere on the page) that was a bit of an irritant to my eyes. Why the purpose was clear (setting itself apart from other captions/bubbles), the combination of using it in such dark areas of art and often using non-white colors (making it stand out slightly less well on the black) was a source of frustration. Hopefully, it is something they can adjust and I can adjust to going forward.

Overall, this is an enjoyable series with a talented creative team. I think I'll be adding this to my regular purchases going forward.

A Request

2011-11-05T19:37:00.000-04:00

I'm looking to review a swath of New 52 books from DC. I've read practically all of them, but I'm not such a masochist that I'm eager to go through them all. Ideally, I'd like to go over the first two issues of at least ten of the titles. But, since I'm being selective, I'd like to get a little direction from those who are reading the blog.

Please take the time to note five of the New 52 that you'd like me to review the first two issues of. With the limited replies I generally get, you just might see me review all five of your requests. ;)

Victor Von Dammit!

2011-11-04T22:46:00.002-04:00

I think someone pulled a Brevoort here.

To the right, you see a story, as it ran on BleedingCool.com before Rich Johnston was swamped with complaints about questionable reporting on it (Rich committed the error of putting too much faith in his original sources, it seems).

The story he was fed? The real story behind cancellation of the Victor Von Doom mini wasn't lack of orders, a shift in Marvel strategy or because the original editor (the witty & well-liked Alejandro Arbona) was shit-canned, but that the artist (Becky Cloonan) had personal emergencies that led her to not have finished ANY of the artwork for the mini. Marvel claimed to not have received a single, solitary page.

Sources came to Rich almost immediately upon publication of the article, telling him Marvel's story was patently false and that they had seen the completed pages for the entire first issue.

Which brings me to "The Brevoort"...

Most folks probably don't remember this to the point of obsession like I do, but when Civil War delays led to delaying a bunch of titles that tied into it, Tom Brevoort tried to cover for the fact that Marvel only owned up to it the afternoon before it was supposed to be on shelves because, FOR THE SAKE OF RETAILERS, they needed to hold off on announcing it until they had a plan in place for "fixing" it. I'm in good company thinking that the whole move screwed over retailers, seeing as how that was Tom Spurgeon's opinion at the time. Going toe to toe with Brevoort over how asinine his claim was wound up being the first time I recall Marvel complaining to Newsarama about me (expecting an unpaid reviewer to have his opinion kept in check by the site).

Fast forward to today, with the product being much lower profile, but the overall issue of cancelled Marvel product being a little more embarrassing and the delay in announcing it being, once again, unprofessional. So they leak that it is because a freelancer had personal life get in the way of their professional commitments and, though they still love her and no one is mad at her, it caused the series to currently be cancelled...even if that might not be the real explanation.

While everyone is mad at Rich Johnston for having reported this, the real focus of the ire should be his source. Really...even if true...they wanted so badly to take the heat off of Marvel's decision to cancel by taking a swing at the professionalism of a freelancer that, by their own explanation, seemed to be going through some trying times?

Johnston's reporting here speaks to the larger problem with the state of comics journalism. Due to so few sites being willing to potentially frustrate their meal ticket, the publishers, there aren't many outlets for news stories that might cast anyone in a negative light. Yet a significant number of the audience eats up those stories, making the race to be the one who puts out the few bits of real news that ever trickle out a cutthroat one.

So, Johnston trusts his source. His source places the blame as politely as possible on a freelancer. He makes at least a token effort to reach out to the freelancer, but doesn't hear back soon enough for his comfort. Why the discomfort? It's Friday afternoon and he's losing his most valued readership time. Weekends are generally more dead than weekdays on comic book sites. If he doesn't get this up before the end of the business day, he will have to debate saving it for Monday.

Meanwhile, every moment he holds on to it, there's a chance the story will leak out to someone else who will run it without further confirmation without having nearly the same relationship with the source that he might have. And then what happens next time? Will the source bypass Johnston for the person willing to run the story immediately on their word next time? Maybe he crassly does the math that the source who gave him this story will be in a better position to give him future stories than the freelancer he'd be respecting by waiting for their response or eating the story altogether.

But here we stand: at last check, there were a lot of people who screamed "FUCK RICH JOHNSTON", but I didn't notice anyone adding "...AND FUCK WHOEVER GAVE HIM THIS 'STORY', TOO!"

Of Spoilers & Setups

2011-11-04T14:17:00.007-04:00

Ed Brubaker (gentleman on the left in the picture to the right) put forth a Twitter tirade about his Fear Itself 7.1 story getting spoiled on comic book news websites (mostly directed at BleedingCool.com, I believe).

But he misdirects his anger...and I think even he might admit by now that he overreacted a bit.

No way to discuss this without acknowledging the spoiler, so, out of respect for his frustration, I'm putting the rest of the talk on a click-through after showing a few of Brubaker's initial tweets on this subject:

More...

Why would I say he misdirected it? Because most readers were already fairly certain that Bucky wasn't going to stay dead due to how lackluster his "death" was in the Fear Itself mini. The Gutters affirms the notion in their blog beneath their parody of Bucky's rise/fall/rise/fall thus far. If odds were laid, Vegas would have probably had it at even money or 3:2 that he was coming back, at worst, while not even bothering to publish a line on Thor (but I digress...and pay far too much attention to NFL spreads these days).

Then there was Marvel choosing to release a teaser for the Winter Soldier series a few weeks back that was very clearly his star and similar to the teaser that led to Captain America: Reborn, which only further cemented the idea that Bucky was coming back...and, quite honestly, caused the race to post the spoiler information as part of updating the teaser discussion (for any sites that aren't beholden to an embargo or owe a lot of their traffic to keeping good relations with Marvel, at least).

To be fair, Brubaker slid further and further away from generally complaining about day-of-release spoilers to complaining about it being so immediate and then settling on the complaint being that the spoiler was built into some article titles, as to be virtually unavoidable for any reader visiting those sites involved. Where he settled is fertile ground: the weak setup and Marvel's inability to withhold hyping until the reader catches up offer no cover for slapping visitors in the face with information that they should be able to choose to know or not know. Even if Marvel had the Daily News run a spoiler, it doesn't mean you have to throw the same information in a headline.

But the irony is that, when fans respond to his work on Twitter in a fit of anger, rather than as rational discussion, he's justifiably quick to cut them to ribbons on it. If he took the constructive approach he lambastes others for eschewing, he could have had those offending sites pull the spoilers out of the titles of articles and hide them behind click-throughs, rather than impotently yelling into the ether and telling those who could manage to catch his signal in the overwhelming noise that is the average Twitter timeline to avoid websites before their trip to the shop. Approaching the sites directly (hell, even tweeting at them) would have been much more productive.

Brubaker's not a bad guy for his reaction at all. He's human and all of us have our emotions get the better of us from time to time. We, also, are guilty of criticizing actions from others that, upon reflection, we'd recognize we do ourselves from time to time. Not all of us are as talented at writing as Mr. Brubaker, though, and I can't endorse strongly enough his past, current and future works, especially the Criminal line.

Out Of Context Theater

2011-11-04T03:52:00.002-04:00

I guess we all have our price.

Uncanny X-Men #1

Occasional Competent Studio?

2011-10-29T22:00:00.000-04:00

Bleeding Cool pointed readers to a blog by someone who used to run day-to-day operations at Platinum Studios. He goes on about a fictional (read: not that fictional) Goldmine Studios, owned (to its detriment) by a silver-spooned idiot who throws money at any problem or desire.

The stories are much less salacious and about a much smaller "mover/shaker" in the comic book industry than Valerie D'Orazio's DC memoirs, but are so much less veiled as to make up for those shortcomings. It is a riveting and hilarious window into the worst kept secret that a particular studio was terribly mismanaged by its owner, despite having some well-intentioned employees trying to make it a success despite him.