"WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME -- GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!"

Stan Lee, "Spider-Man!" Amazing Fantasy No. 15 (Sept. 1962)

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Batman Family Origins

 Concluding today's look at DC Comics-based books, here's one I did like:

Sazaklis, John. Batman: Dawn of the Dynamic Duo. Pictures by Steven E. Gordon. Colors by Eric A. Gordon. I Can Read! 2. New York: Harper-HarperCollins Children’s Books-HarperCollins, 2011. Print. 978-0-06-188520-4

A laudable combination of text and comic-book-like illustration, Batman: Dawn of the Dynamic Duo offers beginning readers an adventure featuring Batman, Robin III, and Nightwing in battle against Two-Face and his men. Serving (in part) as an introduction to Batman and his world, the book is noteworthy for its presentation of origin stories for Tim Drake (12-15) and Dick Grayson (16-17), as Robin and Nightwing, respectively, and its silent omission of Batman’s second partner Jason Todd. The story is therefore most in line with the continuity of the DC Animated Universe in making Drake and Grayson the only partners of the Dark Knight.

More Justice League for Kids

Another entry--lamentable again, I'm afraid--in the new line of Justice League products:


Sonneborn, Scott. Justice League: Partners in Peril. Illus. Andy Smith. Colors by Brad Vancata. New York: HarperFestival- HarperCollins Children’s Books-HarperCollins, 2013. N.pag. Print. 978-0-06-221007-4

In Justice League: Partners in Peril, the Justice League assembles to battle the rampaging android Amazo (one of the team’s less well-known foes). The roster here very much represents the classic Justice League and features Batman, Black Canary (apparently Dinah Laurel Lance), Flash (most likely Barry Allen), Green Arrow (Oliver Queen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Hawkman (presumably Katar Hol), Martian Manhunter, and Superman. The art is of variable quality, and there appears to have been no effort made to match the various characters to their comic book originals.

Kid-Friendly Origin of the Justice League

DC has begun to extend the Justice League franchise into alternate media, including a new ongoing series of children's books, of which the following is the first. Sadly. its not the best translation from the comics page:

Rosen, Lucy. Justice League: Meet the Justice League. Pictures by Steven E. Gordon. Colors by Eric A. Gordon. I Can Read! 2. New York: Harper-HarperCollins Children’s Books-HarperCollins, 2013. Print. 978-0-06-221002-9

Inspired by the first story of the Justice League of America from The Brave and the Bold No. 28 (February-March 1960), Justice League: Meet the Justice League recounts the formation of the Justice League when Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman—the stars of an earlier series of books in the I Can Read! series—enlist Aquaman, Flash (presumably Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), and Martian Manhunter to thwart the plans of Starro (a relatively obscure villain from the team’s sixty-plus-year history) for world domination. The art is unexceptional and not truly representative of the characters’ comic book origins, and, at some points, figures appear grossly out of proportion and/or distorted.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Walking Dead Collection CFP

Forever catching up it seems:

Edited Collection: The Walking Dead
Publication Date: 2013-05-25 (in 29 days)
Date Submitted: 2013-01-30
Announcement ID: 200899 

Articles are invited for an edited collection on issues related to any element of The Walking Dead (either the original graphic novel or the AMC television series).

The following categories are meant to suggest possibilities but are by no means exhaustive:
 • Monstrosity
• Fandom and/or Reception
• Transformation and/or Adaptation
• Gender
• Race
• Hybridity
• Zombies
• Posthumanism
• Heroism
• Villainy
• History and Memory
• Family
• Power

What to Send: 300 - 500 word abstracts (or complete articles, if available) and CVs should be submitted by May 25, 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the collection, a full draft of the essay (5000 – 8000 words) will be required by October 25, 2013.

Abstracts and final articles should be submitted to supernaturaltelevision@gmail.com. Please include “Walking Dead” in your subject line.

Dr. Margo Collins
Email: supernaturaltelevision@gmail.com

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Iron Man Collection CFP (7/15/13)

Thanks to Gene Kannenberg of Comics Research & Such for the head's up:


CFP: The Ages of Iron Man Call for Papers
Date: 2013-07-15
Date Submitted: 2013-04-14
Announcement ID: 203005 

Collection: The Ages of Iron Man: Essays on the Armored Avenger in Changing Times
Edited by Joseph J. Darowski
Publisher: McFarland & Company

Please circulate and post widely

The editor of The Ages of Iron Man: Essays on the Armored Avenger in Changing Times is seeking abstracts for essays which could be included in the upcoming collection. The essays should examine the relationships between Iron Man comic books and the period of American history when those comics were published. Analysis may demonstrate how the stories found in Iron Man comic books (and the creators who produced the comics) embrace, reflect, or critique aspects of their contemporary culture. This will be a companion volume to The Ages of Superman, The Ages of Wonder Woman, The Ages of the X-Men, and The Ages of the Avengers.

Essays should focus on stories from Iron Man’s comic book adventures, not media adaptations of the character. Furthermore, essays should look at a single period of comic book history, rather than drawing comparisons between different publication eras. For example, an essay that analyzed Iron Man comics from the early 1960s and contextualized them with what was happening in American society would be more likely to be accepted than an essay that contrasted Iron Man comic books from the 1970s with Iron Man comic books from the 1990s. Any team title or mini-series that features Iron Man prominently can be considered as source material for potential chapters. The completed essays should be approximately15 double-spaced pages.

Some possible topics for essays include, but are not limited to, the following:

An Entitled, Womanizing, Weapons Designer is Our Hero?; A Viet Nam War Superhero: Tony Stark, Industrialists, and the Cold War; Communism and The American Superhero: Tony Stark’s Early Adventures; The Mandarin: Cold War Stereotypes, and Supervillains; “The Demon in a Bottle” and Social Relevancy in Superhero Comic Books; Race Under the Armor: When James Rhodes Was Iron Man; “Doomquest”: The Changing Meaning of Heroism; Armor Wars: Weapon Proliferation and Deterrence; From Iron Man to War Machine: Rhodes’ Journey to Hero; Force Works and a New Vision of Defense; Earth X Iron Man: Tony Stark as Millennial Doomsday Prepper; “The Best Defense”: Superhero Politics and the Aggressive Defense of America; Extremis” and the Biological/Technological Hybrid; Marvel’s Civil War: Iron Man’s Quest to Control Potential Threats Post 9/11; Iron Man – Director of Shield: A Weapons Engineer Leading the Military Industrial Complex; Gender and Iron Man: Pepper Potts as Rescue

Abstracts (100-500 words) and CVs should be submitted by July 15, 2013

Please submit via email to Joseph Darowski, darowskij@byui.edu

Joseph Darowski
Brigham Young University-Idaho
525 S. Center Rigby Hall 122
Rexburg, ID 83460
Phone: 208-496-4456
 Email: darowskij@byui.edu

Sandman Essay in JPC

Out now:

The Journal of Popular Culture
Vol. 46.1, February 2013

“The Sand/wo/man: The Unstable Worlds of Gender in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Series”
Ally Brisbin and Paul Booth

Comics Scholarship in JPC for December 2012

Catching up:

The Journal of Popular Culture

Vol. 45.6, December 2012

“Failure to Launch: Not-So-Superheroes in Gravity’s Rainbow and Superfolks” by Megan Condis

“The Accidental Supermom: Superheroines and Maternal Performativity, 1963-1980” by Laura Mattoon D’Amore

“The Female Link: Citation and Continuity in Watchmen” by Erin M. Keating

BOOK REVIEWS
Hatfield, Charles. Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2012. Reviewed by Matthew Costello.

Wonder Woman Documentary

A head's up from the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly:

PBS is currently airing a film called Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines. More details at http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/wonder-women/.

Trailer follows: