#thoughts on comics

[going-against-the-panel]

*On a rooftop, talking to someone who deeply, profoundly does not care*

Yeah, so, Kate, I think it's really important for us as superheroes to kind of consider the framing and history of the genre in a sociological context. Like, I consider the first realized superhero in a literary sense to be the Count of Montecristo personally, but the beginning of superhero film really was Birth of a Nation, which has to be recognized as leaving deep fingerprints on the budding emergence of the niche. And really, the core narrative structure of most long running superhero works is about combating like, the "urban degenerate" classes in a very colonialist framework. Like, you can make an argument that in a little of ways, the first comics of the 30s represent a movement of 19th century frontier narratives about the establishment of civilization in savagery to a more settled context of maintaining the status quo. And Kate, I think its really important that we be conscious in subverting those origins, especially since the main narrative action that conveys our commitment to "justice" is the enactment of violen--HOLY SHIT IT'S THE GIANT LIZARD WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR WE CAN FINISH THIS LATER

[julianova44]

Comics are hard sometimes

I was giving some feedback to another comics artist, and starting writing out a whole thing about how making visual communication is difficult and deeply rooted in both cultural norms and norms of the medium, but then I realized that was way more off-topic and decided to write out my thoughts here.

One of the people I like to run my art by is my dad. This is not because he's particularly well versed as an art critic. He is a complex human with fascinating tastes and a lot to say about a lot of media in a lot of contexts, but in visual art he tends towards the representative and simple. He is not a comics reader. He is almost certainly allistic, while I am not. He is a nerd, but not a pop-culture nerd.

So if he's not the kind of person who would typically interact with the sort of visual language I rely on all the time, why is he so helpful?

The reason I often run pages by him is *because* he is not a comics reader. He doesn't have the shared mental icon library that a lot people who have been reading comics for a long time have. He is as close as possible to what in a scientific study might be called treatment naive, where the treatment is comics.

My dad is my control group, because I can show pages to friends who think similarly and have read a lot of the same stuff and who all have similar shorthands, even if we don't know it, in how we see and process comics, and they'll see and understand in a similar way that I see and understand, and don't see the areas where maybe I rely too much on a visual shorthand, where I've used the conventions of the medium or genre in a way that excludes people who are only just starting to read modern comics. He has questions, and critiques, (some of which I decide to address and others I don't), that might not occur to others.

Comics- art in general, really- is often an exercise in trying to predict how others will interpret what you have made. With comics and visual art, there is a lot more automatic processing compared to, for example, prose, just due to how vision works. In parsing prose, you can say "A broken table"; but in a visual medium, a broken table is full of angles not normally seen, and perspectives that are hard to parse if we weren't expecting it.

This is a bit of a ramble, but the main point I am getting to is: Sometimes what I think is obvious on a page really isn't, and the kind of feedback that helps me refine my art is often from people who don't know what they're looking at.

[northstarfan]

Again?

I don’t ask for much, just that writers do some actual research about a character before they bring them up in context of the history of queer comics rep. There’s a difference between a character’s sexuality being “retconned” and a character’s sexuality finally being made explicit after decades of writers being blocked because of editorial cowardice/the ACC.

[alexdrawsagain]

My list in no official order Part 1:

ALL STAR SUPERMAN: Often referenced and copied, but never surpassed. By far my favorite superhero comic and the heart of what makes Superman great. It has nothing to do with powers, it has everything to do with the man inside SUPERMAN. And no, adding some quotes from this comic doesn't make your crummy superman movie good and meaningful (lookin’ at you Man of Steel). It just reminds me how much you missed the mark. Because this is everything Superman should be. Fun, exciting, beautiful, emotionally resonant, big as the sky, and subtle all at once. And Supermans’ line ”you’re much stronger than you think you are“ cuts me to the core every time.

DC: THE NEW FRONTIER For me this and All-star are what i measure all superhero comics by. It's such a comic of hope and wonder all filtered through a beautiful animated art style. It’s funny how often modern superhero comics harp about how inspiring superheroes are and how they’re modern myths and stuff. Then they go about doing dour grim dark murder rape stuff as usual. New Frontier stands as an eternal reminder of what superheroes should be.

SPACE RIDERS is a book i never knew i wanted nor needed so much. It's raw visual intensity that doesn't give a damn about your refinement or rules about what's correct in comics art. It's as subtle as a punch to the face and i love it for that. I love how one person put’s it: “It's like an early-80s children's TV show promoting psychedelic drugs for robots.“

FEAR AGENT is what fufilled my childhood wishes of being a bubble helmet wearing space man in a shark toothed rocket. It's also a beautifully tragic and crass story of redemption. Heath Huston goes through incredible trials that bring him to hell and back. And that just makes the series finale all the more moving.

PROPHET brought alien back to space adventure and utterly reimagined what comics could be for me. It introduced me to a new world of comics i never knew existed and more importantly to the art of Moebius. And it was a gateway drug to Brandon Graham, Giannis Milonogiannis, James Stokoe, Simon Roy, and the rest of a generation of artists redefining comics art for me.

[northstarfan]

MUTANTS HAVE CONQUERED DEATH!

By the grace of The Five, the resurrection protocols can bring back any fallen mutant. But such a huge enterprise isn’t without its problems and complications… When a mutant dies, X–Factor is there to investigate how and why to keep the rules of reincarnation. Writer Leah Williams (AMAZING MARY JANE, X–TREMISTS) and artist David Baldeón (DOMINO, WEB WARRIORS) take Northstar, Polaris, Prodigy, Eye-boy, Daken and Prestige into the world of murder and missing persons…

The creative team and cast for X-Factor was announced today, and holy fucking shit. This is enough good news to last me for months.

I adored what Leah Williams did with Northstar in The X-Tremists, and the fact that she gets to use him in the 616 is such a goddamn thrill. I trust her take on my favorite mutant completely, and it is such a goddamn relief to see that Kyle is coming along to Krakoa! The X-Men run on drama, I get it, but let us have one happy couple, OK?

Better than that, though? Kyle isn’t just there as Northstar’s plus one, he has a narrative purpose - give use baseline readers a view of Krakoa from the inside. 

From Polygon:

Northstar is one of Marvel’s earliest openly gay characters, and his wedding to his husband Kyle was the first depiction of a same-sex superhero wedding in a main DC or Marvel continuity. His inclusion in X-Factor offers Williams and Baldeón an opportunity to unpack a different kind of minority relationship in the X-men world: A mutant married to a baseline human.

“Kyle is a human living in a world built for and by mutants — comparatively an outsider [...],” Williams said. “We’ll see a lot of their married life and will be exploring all the important nuance to their living situation in Krakoa. (We’ll actually see a lot of every X-factor team member’s romantic life...) Tini Howard [Excalibur, Thanos] and I might also be collaborating on a really exciting story involving human existence in Krakoa, so be on the lookout for clues about that in one of our books!”

I am so glad - SO GLAD! - that a writer finally figured out that, hey, maybe we can actually use some of the story elements this character brings to the table! That alone assures me that some thought has been put into what each of the characters presented brings to the table. 

But man. There is so much good stuff here. David has his powers back - even if I didn’t like the kid, there’s is so much emotional weight attached to that mystery, especially given what David and his friends went through after M-Day. 

Daken and Northstar in the same book. I am expecting weapons-grade snark, friends.

Rachel. Man, I’m just happy to see her anywhere. She hasn’t been treated well the last few years. She deserves this. And that goes for Polaris as well.

One thing about those preview pages that makes my little heart go pitty-pat, though... I am sure I’m seeing pointed ears on our damsel in distress, plus JP getting freaked out by something I’m assuming is their twin bond. So I expect whatever this opening resurrection complication is, it’s going to put the Beaubier twins through the wringer.

I really cannot wait...!

[northstarfan]

Character deaths where I blame the villain: The writers have fleshed out the characters to where I’m deep enough in the story and its players to accept the consequences of my emotional investment. Good job. Now please excuse me, I need to be under the coffee table with a week’s worth of tissues.

Character deaths where I blame the writers: You haven’t put in the work to cover up where you’re obviously trying for cheap emotional manipulation and the seams show. Do better.

[northstarfan]

Friend: Wait, I'm sorry, wait. Is his COSTUME a maple leaf????? I am literally two pages into this and already I cannot BELIEVE

Northstarfan: YUP. That's Guardian/Mac Hudson. He stinks of maple syrup, mayonnaise, stupidity and deceit.

Friend: I really cannot believe these authors sat down and went, "Okay, we need a villain for our Canadian mutants to fight" and what they came up with was "THE CONCEPT OF CANADA ITSELF"

Northstarfan: I shit you not, Canada has the most evil shadow government in all of the Marvel Universe.

Friend: CANADA??!?!!

Northstarfan: Oh yes. Weapon X alone would put them in the running.

I live to recommend Alpha Flight to people, ngl.