Robot Chicken DCU Special

Coming in September:

Batman: Earth One?

Geoff John's recent graphic novel Batman: Earth One offers a radical take on the Dark Knight that makes him far more human than we're used it (see the summary on Wikipedia). There are also some shocking twists to his traditional back story and some very original takes on the supporting cast. This is certainly a transformative take on Batman, and, even after two reads, I'm still not sure if I'd recommend it. Still, there is certainly much for discussion and debate.

Some useful resources include the following:

BATMAN For A New Era: Gary Frank on BATMAN: EARTH ONE (08 Dec. 2009)

Exclusive! Batman Re-Imagined: An Interview With Geoff Johns (n.d.)

Interview: Geoff Johns Brings Batman to 'Earth One' + EXCLUSIVE Art! (25 June 2012)

Batman: Earth One with Geoff Johns (Plus Exclusive Pages!) (10 July 2012)

Geoff Johns crafts an Everyman Batman in 'Earth One' book (27 June 2012)

INTERVIEW: Geoff Johns talks Batman Earth One (29 June 2012)

‘Dark Knight Rises’ and ‘Earth One’ : A hero lost in shadows (30 June 2012)

INTERVIEW: GARY FRANK TALKS BATMAN: EARTH ONE AND SHAZAM! (19 July 2012)

Interview: Artist Gary Frank Talks BATMAN: EARTH ONE, Vol. 2, SHAZAM, and More (19 July 2012)

Gary Frank Speaks on 'Batman: Earth One' and 'Shazam' (19 July 2012)


Extended Reviews:

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/155936005/how-he-became-a-bat-once-more-with-feeling

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/best-shots-advance-reviews-120703.html

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/the-good-the-bat-and-the-ugly-batman-earth-one-by-geoff-johns-and-gary-frank

http://www.tcj.com/reviews/batman-earth-one/

Joe Kubert Has Died

Comics creator Joe Kubert passed away earlier this week. A detailed obituary can be accessed from the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/arts/design/joe-kubert-giant-of-comic-book-art-dies-at-85.html. For details of his career can be found online at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Kubert).

Brooker on Batman Links

A series of recent Batman pieces by Will Brooker in anticipation of his new book and the current Batmania:

"Review of The Dark Knight Rises." (19 July 2012)

"Batman can't come out as gay – his character relies on him being in denial." (28 May 2012)

"Occupy Gotham: Analysing the Dark Knight Rises Viral Campaign." (8 May 2012)

"Clothes and the Batman: Analysing the Outfits in Dark Knight Rises." (5 May 2012)

"My Life With Batman." (3 May 2012)

"Why Fans of The Dark Knight Should Embrace Batman: The Musical." (24 April 2012)

"Anne Hathaway's New Catwoman Outfit - First Images." (16 April 2012)


In addition, there is also an interview with Brooker at the Scottscope website accessible at http://www.scottsmindfield.com/2012/06/dark-knight-dissected-interview-with.html.

Will Brooker Returns to Batman

Will Brooker, author of Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon (Continuum, 2000), returns to the world of the Caped Crusader in a follow-up book that has received a lot of attention online. Here are the details.


Hunting the Dark Knight: Twenty-first Century Batman 
Will Brooker

Imprint: I.B.Tauris
Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

Hardback  £57.50
ISBN: 9781848852792
Publication Date: 30 May 2012
Number of Pages: 272
Height: 216
Width: 134

Paperback  £12.99
ISBN: 9781848852808
Publication Date: 30 May 2012
Number of Pages: 272
Height: 216
Width: 134


Publishing alongside the world premiere of Christopher Nolan's third Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises", Will Brooker's new book explores Batman's twenty-first century incarnations. Brooker's close analysis of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" offers a rigorous, accessible account of the complex relationship between popular films, audiences, and producers in our age of media convergence. By exploring themes of authorship, adaptation and intertextuality, he addresses a myriad of questions raised by these films: did "Batman Begins" end when "The Dark Knight began? Does its story include the Gotham Knight DVD, or the 'Why So Serious' viral marketing campaign? Is it separate from the parallel narratives of the Arkham Asylum videogame, the monthly comic books, the animated series and the graphic novels? Can the brightly campy incarnations of the Batman ever be fully repressed by "The Dark Knight", or are they an intrinsic part of the character? Do all of these various manifestations feed into a single Batman metanarrative? This will be a vital text for film students and academics, as well as legions of Batman fans.

Will Brooker is a leading expert on the Dark Knight, author of the cultural history of Batman, Batman Unmasked.  His other books include Using the Force and Alice’s Adventures. He edited the Audience Studies Reader and The Blade Runner Experience, and wrote the BFI Film Classics volume on Star Wars.  He is Reader and Director of Research in Film and Television at Kingston University, London, and is the editor of Cinema Journal.

Marc Singer's Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics
By Marc Singer

256 pages (approx.), 7 x 10 inches, 50 line illustrations, bibliography, index

978-1-61703-135-9 Printed casebinding $65.00
978-1-61703-136-6 Paper $25.00
978-1-61703-137-3 Ebook $25.00


A critical study of a postmodern comics writer who flaunts superhero conventions

One of the most eclectic and distinctive writers currently working in comics, Grant Morrison (b. 1960) brings the auteurist sensibility of alternative comics and graphic novels to the popular genres--superhero, science fiction, and fantasy--that dominate the American and British comics industries. His comics range from bestsellers featuring the most universally recognized superhero franchises (All-Star Superman, New X-Men, Batman) to more independent, creator-owned work (The Invisibles, The Filth, We3) that defies any generic classification.

In Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, author Marc Singer examines how Morrison uses this fusion of styles to intervene in the major political, aesthetic, and intellectual challenges of our time. His comics blur the boundaries between fantasy and realism, mixing autobiographical representation and cultural critique with heroic adventure. They offer self-reflexive appraisals of their own genres while they experiment with the formal elements of comics. Perhaps most ambitiously, they challenge contemporary theories of language and meaning, seeking to develop new modes of expression grounded in comics' capacity for visual narrative and the fantasy genres' ability to make figurative meanings literal.


Marc Singer, Hyattsville, Maryland, is assistant professor of English at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He is the coeditor of Detective Fiction in a Postcolonial and Transnational World.

IJoCA 14.1 Contents

Contents for IJoCA 14.1 (Spring 2012) have now been posted at the journal's blog. Details at http://ijoca.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-issue-of-international-journal-of.html.

Housekeeping August 9

My apologies for the long gaps between posts this summer. I've been mired in Frankencomics (more on this eventually) and other more pressing matters. I've got a series of posts for night just to clean up a few things.

Michael

IJOCA Spring 2012

A quick update:

The last number of the International Journal of Comic Art 14.1 for Spring 2012 is now available. The issue is 634 pages. Contents details will be posted ASAP.

CFP UK Conference

Comics Forum 2012
Location: United Kingdom
Call for Papers Date: 2012-07-16 (in 6 days)
Date Submitted: 2012-05-17
Announcement ID: 194608

Multiculturalism and Representation: A Conference on Comics
15 -16 November 2012, Leeds

Multiculturalism, and the representation of it, has long presented challenges for the medium of comics (including manga and bande dessinée). Questions surround the ways in which characters of differing cultures and/or nationalities can and should be presented; answers to which have ranged from anthropomorphism to xenophobia. Issues also exist around the diversity of creators and characters, and the (lack of) visibility for characters that do not conform to particular cultural stereotypes. At Comics Forum 2012, the fourth event in the Thought Bubble conference series, we will attempt to draw out some of the complexities of this field in order to better understand both the problems and the achievements of the medium in dealing with multiculturalism. 


Subjects for discussion may include, but are not limited to: 
 • Cultural diversity (or lack thereof) in comics, manga and bande dessinée 
• Ways in which multiculturalism has been represented, visually and/or linguistically in comics 
• Moves towards increasing the representation of particular cultural groups in comics, either as creators or characters (e.g. Milestone Comics) 
• The modification of existing comics and properties to address new markets (e.g. Spider-Man: India) 
• Controversial representations of cultures and relations between cultures (e.g. Tintin au Congo) 
• The modification of existing works in new-media representations (e.g. the omission of Ebony White in the film version of The Spirit; the controversies surrounding Idris Elba’s role as Heimdal in Thor) 


Proposals of 250 words are invited for talks of 15-20 minutes in length, and should be emailed along with a short biography (around 100 words) to Ian Hague (Department of History, University of Chichester) at: I.Hague@chi.ac.uk. 


The deadline for submission is 16/07/2012 and notification of acceptance or rejection will be emailed by or before 30/07/2012. 


To keep up with all the latest Comics Forum developments, see http://comicsforum.org. 


Ian Hague Department of History, University of Chichester Email: i.hague@chi.ac.uk 


Visit the website at http://comicsforum.org/comics-forum-2012/

DC Comics Now on NOOK

Full details on the DC Comics blog at http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2012/06/26/dc-entertainment-graphic-novels-now-available-on-nook-by-barnes-noble.

Tribunella on Moore's Lost Girls

From the latest number of The Journal of Popular Culture Vol. 45.3, June 2012:

“Literature for Us ‘Older Children’: Lost Girls, Seduction Fantasies, and the Reeducation of Adults” by Eric L. Tribunella.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

From the Tony Awards (nominated for 5 Tonys):

Alphas Season 2

The X-Men-like Alphas returns July 23rd to Syfy:

Justice League New 52

Geoff John's Justice League was the first book of the New 52 and presents a new version of the team's origin for a post 9/11 world.The core of the team is an expected group--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan's Green Lantern, Barry Allen's Flash, and Aquaman--but Cyborg is added to the roster, perhaps in effort to add diversity to the team, suggesting that the Titans or Young Justice are no longer feeder programs for the League (a curious omission given the popularity of the Young Justice series on The Cartoon Network). As relatively untried figures (the Age of Heroes in the New 52 books began about six years ago), the heroes are all engaging characters and the interactions between the members of the nascent team are interesting and, at times, humorous.

In a story set five years in the past, the series opens with super-powered beings being (rather like the X-Men) hated and feared by the world they are sworn to protect, but the world comes to recognize that (at least) some of these individuals are heroes, when America is suddenly attacked by (essentially) terrorists from Apokolips. Darkseid is the villain of the first arc--recently collected in hardcover as Origin--and is collecting organic matter (i.e. human beings) from across the universe (or, possibly, the multiverse) as an element of an as yet undefined grand scheme, but part of Darkseid's mission is revealed: he seeks to recover his missing (wayward?) daughter (!). The heroes--Cyborg is especially instrumental here--come together to defeat Darkseid and his minions and are recognized as positive forces, an occasion that leads into the series proper. Issue No. 6 concludes with an epilogue that ties into the earlier Flashpoint series and presents both Pandora (a new character to the DCU) and the Phantom Stranger in conflict and referencing a "Third Sinner" (they are the First and Second, as revealed in later stories) and setting the stage for future storylines. Extra material in the collected edition continues this trend of future looking and references the upcoming "Curse of Shazam" storyline.

Animal Man and the New 52

Jeff Lemire's critically-acclaimed Animal Man series, part of DC's the new 52, is a bold reinterpretation of the Animal Man character that links him firmly with the supernatural/horror cohort of the new DC Universe that also includes Alec Holland/Swamp Thing (staring in Swamp Thing) and John Constantine (featured in Justice League Dark), characters newly reintroduced into the post-Flashpoint, mainstream DC Universe. In the new series, Buddy Baker (a.k.a. Animal Man) and his young daughter are presented (similar to Swamp Thing and his relationship to the Green) as aspects of the Red, a personification of animal life, and, because the girl (rather like Swamp Thing's daughter Tefe in the old DCU) is an avatar of the Red, the pair must do battle with the Rot, personification of decay, in order for her to achieve her destiny. As their connection to the Red is heightened, the pair display a variety of incredible powers, and Buddy's now manifest in grotesque warp-spams (akin perhaps to the Irish mythological figure Cuchulain) that transform him into bizarre human-animal creatures.

So far, the book is an enjoyable read, though the art is often disconcerting. The first arc, recently collected as The Hunt (a recent number one in the New York Times bestseller graphic novel list), does a fine job of introducing the main cast and their mission and, most importantly, does so without jettisoning the previous history associated with the characters. Following this story, a bridge issue leads into the next arc and prepares for an upcoming tie-in to the new Swamp Thing series.

Discussions:

Lemire Aims for Less Meta, More Family in DCnU ANIMAL MAN (8 June 2011)

BEHIND THE SCENES OF DC COMICS-THE NEW 52: THE ANIMAL MAN PROPOSAL (1 August 2011)

LEMIRE CUTS TO THE HEART OF "ANIMAL MAN" (9 Sept. 2011)

Exclusive: Writers Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire Talk 'Swamp Thing', 'Animal Man' and 'Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.' (28 Sept. 2011)

Animal Man interview with Jeff Lemire

LEMIRE'S ORIGINS OF "ANIMAL MAN," "FRANKENSTEIN" & "SWEET TOOTH" (30 Dec. 2011)

Writers Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire talk SWAMP THING and ANIMAL MAN (5 April 2012)

JEFF LEMIRE Schemes with GEOFF JOHNS On JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK (18 May 2012)

New Name

I've just realized that the blog has far exceeded its initial mandate and have begun a process of rebranding. Therefore, I now welcome you to Comics Links and More.

Michael Torregrossa

Stormwatch: The New 52

I've been a fan of Paul Cornell's comic work for a while (through Wisdom and later Captain Britain and MI: 13) and decided to give Stormwatch a try when the collected edition The Dark Side (collecting Nos. 1-6 and some extras) came out. The book offers a new version of the WildStorm Comics team that blends elements (including characters, foes, and plot motifs) of the old WildC.A.T.s, The Authority, and Stormwatch series and brings it firmly into the DC Universe with the addition of the Martian Manhunter and by making Stormwatch an organization with deep roots in the new history of the DCU (it is suggested, for example, that characters in Demon Knights, another series by Cornell, are their predecessors). New characters are also introduced, including an immortal who lives backwards in time from the Big Bang onwards (though he's a coward) and a modern-day swordsman (though he's a villain).

Overall, the ideas are interesting though somewhat confusing for an initial arc, and the characters do not receive much development (again a major flaw in a first arc). I'd be interested in seeing how things develop here, though Cornell has left the series as of No. 7.

Cornell offers some comments on the series in two interviews on Newsarama:

PAUL CORNELL Calls STORMWATCH "Kingpin" DCnU Title (3 October 2011)

THE DCnU Take 2: Paul Cornell's STORMWATCH (18 August 2011)

Jewish Comics Issue of Shofar

Now available in print and online through Project MUSE and other points of access:

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Winter 2011 Vol. 29, No. 2

Special Issue: Jewish Comics
Special Issue Editor: Derek Parker Royal
Editor, Philip Roth Studies

Contributors to This Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

“Shaloman”
Al Wiesner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x

Articles:

Jewish Comics; or, Visualizing Current Jewish Narrative: Editor’s Introduction
Derek Parker Royal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Thinly Disguised (Autobio)Graphical Stories: Will Eisner’s Life, in Pictures
Lan Dong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

The Search: A Graphic Narrative for Beginning to Teach about the Holocaust
Wendy Stallard Flory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Marvel Comics and the Golem Legend
Robert G. Weiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Jews and Super Heroes
Eli Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73


The “Outsider”: Neil Gaiman and the Old Testament
Cyril Camus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

“You Wouldn’t Shoot Your Fellow Jews”: Jewish Identity & Nostalgia in Joann Sfar’s Klezmer
Nicole Wilkes Goldberg and James Goldberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

There Goes the Neighborhood: Cycling Ethnoracial Tensions in Will Eisner’s Dropsie Avenue
Derek Parker Royal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: A Bibliographic Essay
Hye Su Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Topical Book Reviews:

Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed!, by Arie Kaplan
and
From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books, by Arie Kaplan
reviewed by Samantha Baskind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches,
edited by Samantha Baskind and Ranen Omer-Sherman
reviewed by Barry Laga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation
of the Superhero, by Danny Fingeroth
reviewed by Christopher Gonzalez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Jews in America: A Cartoon History, by David Gantz
and
Jews and American Comics: An Illustrated History of an American
Art Form, edited by Paul Buhle
reviewed by Amy Karp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Cartoons and Extremism: Israel and the Jews in Arab
and Western Media, by Joël Kotek
reviewed by Pamela J. Rader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Art Spiegelman: Conversations, edited by Joseph Witek
and
Backing into Forward: A Memoir, by Jules Feiffer
reviewed by Ranen Omer-Sherman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179


The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius
of Comics, edited by Denis Kitchen & Paul Buhle
and
Kirby: King of Comics, by Mark Evanier
reviewed by Thomas Lolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert, by Bill Schelly
reviewed by David Walton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Harvey Pekar: Conversations, edited by Michael G. Rhode
reviewed by Jordana Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, DVD,
directed by Andrew D. Cooke
reviewed by Tiel Lundy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Spider-Man Studies

Web-Spinning Heroics: Critical Essays on the History and Meaning of Spider-Man

Edited by Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner
Foreword by Tom DeFalco; Afterword by Gary Jackson

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4627-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-7864-9167-4
notes, bibliographies, index
271pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2012

About the Book
This volume collects a wide-ranging sample of fresh analyses of Spider-Man. It traverses boundaries of medium, genre, epistemology and discipline in essays both insightful and passionate that move forward the study of one of the world’s most beloved characters. The editors have crafted the book for fans, creators and academics alike. Foreword by Tom DeFalco, with poetry and an afterword by Gary Jackson (winner of the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments v
Foreword: My Pal Pete
TOM DEFALCO 1
Elegy for Gwen Stacy
GARY JACKSON 3
Introduction
ROBERT G. WEINER and ROBERT MOSES PEASLEE 4

I. Historical, Cultural and Pedagogical Angles
Donald Glover for Spider-Man
PHILLIP LAMARR CUNNINGHAM 22
Have Great Power, Greatly Irresponsible: Intergenerational Conflict in 1960s Amazing Spider-Man
PETER LEE 29
"Continually in the Making": Spider-Man’s New York
MARTIN FLANAGAN 40
Hegemonic Implications of Science in Popular Media: Science Narratives and Representations of Physics in the Spider-Man Film Trilogy
LISA HOLDERMAN 53
Teaching Peter Parker’s Ghosts of Milton: Anxiety of Influence, the Trace, and Platonic Knowing in Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 1
JAMES BUCKY CARTER 63

II. Considering Specific Graphic Novels
Weaving Webs and True Lies: Revisiting Kraven’s Last Hunt Through the Lens of Brooklyn Dreams
DAVID WALTON 70
The Hermeneutics of Spider-Man: What Is Peter Parker Doing in Elizabethan England?
CHRISTINA C. ANGEL 74
Strategies of Narration in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Spider-Man: Blue
DEREK PARKER ROYAL 81

III. The J. Jonah Jameson Problem
Spider-Man: MENACE!!! Stan Lee, Censorship and the 100-Issue Revolution
AARON DRUCKER 90
J. Jonah Jameson--Hero or Villain? Spider-Man’s Nemesis Hard to Pigeonhole
ANDREW A. SMITH 101
Spider-Management: A Critical Examination of the Business World of Spider-Man
MATTHEW MCGOWAN and JEREMY SHORT 113

IV. Spider-Man and Other Sequential Art Characters
Anti-Heroes: Spider-Man and the Punisher
CORD A. SCOTT 120
The Sinister Six: Anti-Villains in an Anti-Heroic Narrative
RICK HUDSON 128
Spider-Man and Batman, Disordered Minds: Friendship Through Difference
PHILLIP BEVIN 134

V. Trauma Textual and Extra-Textual
The Loss of the Father: Trauma Theory and the Birth of Spider-Man
FORREST C. HELVIE 146
Artificial Mourning: The Spider-Man Trilogy and September 11th
TAMA LEAVER 154

VI. Issues of Gender in the Spider-verse
Three Stories, Three Movies and the Romances of Mary Jane and Spider-Man
ROBERT G. WEINER 166
Women’s Pleasures Watching Spider-Man’s Journeys
EMILY D. EDWARDS 177
The Incorrigible Aunt May
ORA C. MCWILLIAMS 187
Spidey Meets Freud: Central Psychoanalytic Motifs in Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2
ROBERT MOSES PEASLEE 195

VII. Under-Examined Spider-Texts
Reinterpreting Myths in Spider-Man: The Animated Series
DAVID RAY CARTER 210
Finding the Milieu of the Spider-Man Music LPs
MARK MCDERMOTT 222
Games Are Not Convergence: Spider-Man 3, Game Design and the Lost Promise of Digital Production and Convergence
CASEY O’DONNELL 234
Afterword
GARY JACKSON 249
About the Contributors 251
Index 255

About the Author
Robert Moses Peaslee is an assistant professor in the College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech University. He has written for Visual Communication Quarterly, Tourist Studies, and NMEDIAC: Journal of New Media & Culture, and edited volumes related to visual culture. He lives in Lubbock, Texas. Robert G. Weiner is associate humanities librarian at Texas Tech University. His works have been published in the Journal of Popular Culture, Public Library Quarterly, Journal of American Culture, International Journal of Comic Art and Popular Music and Society. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.