Michael Hutchison: December 2006 Archives

CBR's "Comics Should Be Good!" column has a regular feature on Comic Book Urban Legends that I just discovered. Some of these are very intriguing.

Steve Ditko uses his priceless artwork as cutting boards.
Anyone can produce a Phantom Lady, Human Bomb or Black Condor comic book.
James Robinson did not ask to kill off a slew of characters in Starman #38.
Triumph was gay.
A Batman Musical by the guy respondible for Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" as well as Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" has been in development for years.
Bob Kanigher had to come up with a new G.I. Combat story on his lunch hour because a notation to drop cover artwork an inch led to the announcement on the cover that it contained a story called "Drop An Inch"

Others are puzzling. "For almost a decade, there were born again Christian comics produced starring the Archie characters." How is that an urban legend? I guess it is just my Christian upbringing; I saw Spire Christian Comics everywhere when I was a kid.

Oh, and if you ever sent away for Sea Monkeys, hoping to see those weird humanoids who build their own societies and live in family units, only to get microscopic crustaceans that didn't do much besides die off... you can thank Joe Orlando!

There are over 240 urban legends that are confirmed or debunked so far. You can probably spend hours there. I know I have!

This seems relevant:

Let's all carol along with Chewbacca!

My unemployment continues, and I'm selling off some of my comic book collectibles on eBay. I'm hoping to add a bunch more in the next two days. Anything you can do to tell your friends is appreciated.

And please add me to your favorite eBay sellers so you can get notified when I add more. I'm doing this in stages.

It's slow going because the web designer in me really wants to take time with every entry...but I really need to start hustling and get this stuff online. I've got tons of pictures ready to go, I just need to get cracking.

Oh, and I changed the name of my comics-for-sale site: http://www.thehutch.com/comics/
(See, I'm making you click the link to find out the name. Why I can't find a job in marketing is beyond me.)

Did you ever wonder if those cartoon kids whose theme park ride trapped them in the Realm of Dungeons and Dragons ever got home? Alas, the show was canceled without a finale. Yet, now it can be told: the Final Episode of Dungeons and Dragons.

The Unproduced Dungeons and Dragons Finale, at least the rough draft written by Michael Reaves, can now be read online in PDF format. With the cartoon released on DVD and now showing on Toon Disney, this seems a good time to spread the word.

Thank you to Hodge for the tip.

Archie Comics is going to change the look of Archie. Instead of the cartoony appearance that has gone through only minor changes over the last half-century, Archie, Betty, Veronica and the gang will now be drawn as (ahem) "realistic" teenagers. That is, if realistic means that all the girls are underfed 13-year-olds.

Here is my initial reaction.

Read on for my rant about this end to all things good in the universe.

eBay: Simpsons Christmas Express - 31 Cars - Hamilton Collection

Yep, that's me. I'm selling my Simpsons Christmas train. No bids yet, but if this sells at all it'll probably all happen in the last 45 seconds.

And yes, I'll be selling some comics collectibles in the next few weeks.

I'm loving the "Put Up or Shut Up" series over at Libertas, and here's a great segment on Dialogue & Subtext. Although the series is about screenwriting, most of the advice is just as valid in writing comic books.

Love this comment, too (emphasis mine):

“On the nose” writing is, of course, the reason why George Lucas’s dialogue in the Star Wars films is almost universally awful.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, in the first one (the REAL first one), Harrison Ford is so far and away superior to Mark Hammell and Carrie Fisher because he actually imposed subtext on Lucas’s wooden dialogue which may not have even been there, and Hammell and Fisher did not.

The creator of the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott (and thus, the founder of the entire Green Lantern legacy), has passed away.

Here's the news from Matt Hawes of Comics Unlimited:

Late last month, Dave Cockrum, creator of Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler, passed away. Now, sadly, another wonderful person and artist has left us, Martin Nodell. He was 91 years-old.

Martin Nodell created Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, and designed the Pillsbury Doughboy. I have attended the Wizardworld Comic Convention for every year but one since 2001, and I always made it a point to visit Martin Nodell's stand at the show. He was a sweet man who was very kind and appreciative of his fans. I enjoyed several conversations with him, and his late wife, Carrie, an equally lovely person. I was lucky enough to have also seen him in Saint Louis one year.

Martin was one of the people responsible for the business and entertainment I love so much. It was his work, along with others, that helped lay the foundations for the comic book industry. He was an elder statesman of comic books that I looked forward to visiting.

Rest in peace, Martin. You are missed.

I would just like to second Matt's sentiments. One of the highlights of Wizard World Chicago was going over to Artists' Alley to see which former Playboy model Martin was placed next to. It's a shame that one of the few surviving Golden Age creators had to buy his own table and wasn't even allowed into Wizard's guests lounge, but Martin seemed to sell enough merchandise and meet enough stunned admirers to make it worth it every year. I talked to him several times, and Martin was always happy to meet Green Lantern fans.

Martin was confined to a wheelchair but managed to run his table fine with the help of his wife, Carrie. She seemed much younger than he was, bustling around the table area to make sure that people didn't use a flashbulb when taking pictures or rearranging the merchandise. The first time I saw him at Wizard, which was either 1999 or 2000, I remember thinking that it was great Martin was able to attend a con one last time. Next year, I check: he's still there, doing fine. If anything, he looked healthier. The next year, same thing. Then last year I went only to find out that he's still there, but his wife had passed! It was a moment of shock, followed by even more shock that she went first. Wasn't expecting that!

I'm reminded of the DC writer John Broome who created numerous characters that became DC institutions then quit to move to Japan. He attended only one con in his life, the 1999 Comicon in San Diego, and had had no idea until then how highly he was regarded. He died not long after.

Martin Nodell left this world knowing that he was appreciated for his accomplishments, and that's comforting. R.I.P.

You may have noticed that I prominently featured the trade paperback version of "Cobb: Off The Leash" in several places in our aStore. Writer Beau Smith is a chum, of course, but my hyping this book is mainly due to my wanting to read more. I want a series, I want at least another mini, and I wish this book had gotten many more readers than it did. I hope that you'll all buy one. (Secondarily, I hope you'll use our aStore link to buy it. Hey, I'm upfront about it!) The book version is $12 and it will be born on Christmas Day.

Still hesitant? Maybe these two opinions will sway you:

First, Scoop's Top 10 Comics of 2006 has Cobb as the #3 book of the year, tied with Dynamite's excellent "Lone Ranger" #1.

3. [Tie] Cobb: Off The Leash IDW Publishing; $3.99 In a career marked thus far by diverse characters from a variety of publishers, ranging from The Black Terror at Eclipse Comics to Guy Gardner at DC, Beau Smith has established himself as a writer with a distinct take on things. Whether he's been working on someone else's characters, such as Wildcat, or his own, like Wynonna Earp, his characters have had a certain rough-and-tumble directness to them, a straight forward honesty akin to John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. That said, even Smith's diehard fans might not find themselves ready for Cobb #1. Matched with the fluid linework of artist Eduardo Barreto, Smith has poured himself and his sensibilities into this new series and the results are outstanding, a real page turner of a read. This first issue introduces Cobb and his world and sets up what is no doubt going to be a seriously fun story.

As if that's not enough, Cobb was reviewed by Tom McLean on Variety's "Bags and Boards" blog. Though he pooh-poohed the straightforward plot, he got a lot of feedback disagreeing with him...INCUDING MARTIAL ARTS MOVIE STAR CYNTHIA ROTHROCK! How cool is that?

If someone from Variety thought my work was OK and Cynthia Rothrock loved it, I'd be in heaven.

(Note to self: Remember to tell everyone about seeing Cynthia at WizardWorld. In fact, instead of doing that later, just recopy it from Chuck's messageboard in the extended entry.)
(Note back to self: OK. I don't know why you are taking the time to write this out.)

Just a quick note that I've added our new aStore to the navbar above. Check it out if you haven't already.

The navbar sucks, I know. The whole site layout is not what I'd like; I need to find some time for a major rebuild. "How is it an unemployed guy doesn't have the time?" you ask. Well, I'm busy working on eBay listings, and you'll want to watch for that soon. I'm going to sell off some of my comic book collectibles. I hate to do it, but I need the money. Look for that announcement very soon.

Good news, everyone!

You're going to deliver a shipment of super-concentrated manure to Crapulon 4!

(Sorry, I get on a Farnsworth tangent whenever I open a post like that.)

Seriously, good news. I've finally got my audio equipment hooked up correctly on my computer. I've been anxious to use Skype for a while now. So...who else has a Skype account? Anybody?

My username is "fanzing". You can leave yours in the comments, so long as you don't mind others using it, or just e-mail me privately at fanzing-AT-fanzing.com.

I gather from various message boards that, while 52 is selling quite well in general, most of the people I know aren't reading it, or they dropped it. They don't like Montoya the smoking drunk depressed whining drifter who is now going to become The New Question despite not having the personality to be the Question. (No matter, apparently, to DC. Just plop the no-face on her and call her The Question, even if Vic Sage's outlook on life is what The Question is all about. It's more important to get rid of the Charlton white guy and replace him with an Hispanic lesbian.) They don't like Booster Gold becoming a parody of his personality of 20 years ago, even if that one was never a slick shill to begin with, before going out in a blaze of glory. They don't like the meandering pace of a lot of these subplots, like this space plot that goes on forever. They don't like the Steel/Natasha plot which is entirely dependant on his not getting a word in edgeways whenever they talk. (A friend observed that, not me, but it's a good point.)

Me, I've been buying it and liking bits of it. You really can tell that it's by an assemblage of writers, though.

Some bits don't even make sense, like when Detective Chimp tracks down Ralph Dibny even though he should be trapped in that blood-dome at the time according to his own series, Shadowpact. (A surprisingly good book, by the way. I wasn't going to buy it, but I purchased the first few issues cheap at FallCon and got hooked. Haven't read this good a team book since Ostrander's Suicide Squad, and that's a high compliment coming from me.) The actions of Ralph and his JLA buddies during the resurrection ceremony are puzzling, because there's no harm in just going through the ceremony and seeing what happens, and if it's a hoax it's a bizarre hoax with no purpose. (How is anyone profiting from it?)

As you all might imagine, it's Ralph Dibny's plotline which is keeping me interested. For those of you not reading, the short version is that Ralph has stopped taking Gingold and was near suicide when a mystery regarding the "Cult of Conner" who desecrated Sue's gravestone sent him chasing Wonder Girl and her buddies. He discovered the cult was going to bring Sue back to life (as a trial run before bringing back Superboy), and he sneaked Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Zauriel and Metamorpho into the ceremony. He wanted their opinion, since all four had come back from death; they all told him that Ralph was getting scammed, and they stopped the ceremony only to find that it had begun to bring Sue back to life before it was stopped. Since then, Ralph has begun a journey with Dr. Fate's helmet through the physical and metaphysical world on a quest to bring Sue back to life (and learning from Dr. Fate that all magic comes at a cost).

The highlight so far has been seeing Ralph finally getting some resolution to Sue's murder by confronting Jean Loring. Using the Spectre's powers, the two travel back in time to Ralph's house (I know, they've already retconned part of "Identity Crisis" so that it happens in a house instead of what was clearly an apartment) the night Sue was murdered. The best part is that Ralph forces Jean to be sane, so that she doesn't have the "excuse of insanity"... which I took to be a mild dig at Brad Meltzer's feeble excuse for Jean's actions. No, strike that...the BEST part is when they first appear back in time and bump something before Ralph makes them intangible, thus finally explaining why Sue heard a bump. See? It wasn't just a red herring to throw us off the trail...it was proactive retroactive continuity! Meltzer wasn't jerking us around, he just set up a story that wasn't even conceived of at the time!

So, so far I've been fairly satisfied by Ralph's journey, even though the character is still pretty much wrecked. They could bring back Sue tomorrow and it wouldn't be the same two characters I know and love. In fact, Ralph as he is being written just doesn't even seem like the character I knew. He's almost mean, and terribly self-centered.

Then we come to this week's story...and I'm not really shocked, but I am disgusted. Ralph meets Wonder Girl in Metropolis and he's drinking from a flask! Now, I was a little disappointed that Gerard Jones made Ralph Dibny a drinker back in Secret Origins #30, but as I got older I realized it was probably because Jones and other writers see Ralph and Sue as very comparable to Nick and Nora Charles, and Nick drinks like a fish. OK, so Ralph drinks at parties and special occasions, I can accept that. But here he just looks like a drunken bum. Ah, wait... maybe he's just drinking water. He must need to have some sustenance while traveling with Dr. Fate. Or maybe he's drinking gingold, which he'd need to have in a travel container and a hideable flask would make sense. He has gingold extract which he is carrying with him, since he used it on a demon. (Ahem! We'll ignore the fact that it only works on a small portion of people, whereas the vast majority of people are deathly allergic to it... plus Ralph has the meta-gene, as shown in Invasion #3...AND demons aren't human.) Perhaps I'll turn the page and he reveals it's gingold when he stretches again.

Oh, no, wait. Panel 7. Ralph offers the flask to Wonder Girl, and she sniffs it and says, "Eeew. No." So it must be something awful. Great. So Ralph's gluggling down cheap liquor.

WAIT A MINUTE. Cassie Sandsmark is underage! Ralph just offered liquor to a minor? I'm assuming that DC made her 18 so that they weren't showing an underage sex scene in the Teen Titans Annual #1...and yes, I'm still puzzled as to how Cassie and Kon-El could suddenly be 18 before the One Year Later jump when Robin is barely driving age...but the drinking age is still 21.

And the very next word balloon is a bit of editorial butt-covering when they realized that calling it the "Cult of Conner" means they're jeopardizing Conner's and possibly Clark Kent's secret identities, so in a cumbersome bit of exposition, Cassie mentions that it was a good thing that that's just what Ralph and Cassie were calling it in private. Jeez, how bad can a single panel in a nine-panel page get?

It was my understanding that Mark Waid was the guy handling Ralph's part of the story. I have to say, if that's true, this isn't what I expected from the guy who wrote one of the best Elongated Man birthday mysteries ever.

On to other parts of the book. I'm guessing Xaos is swarming with insects, and there are only so many names to go around, since the original Xax of Xaos died fighting the Qwardians and Guy Gardner's criminal gang in Green Lantern #198. Let's hope there's another Xax his ring can go to.

And while we're talking about editorial butt-covering, the cover of this issue has the subheading "The First Death of Captain Comet." I'm guessing that there was some mis-communication and they thought they were free to kill him off, not knowing about Mystery In Space which made a dramatic deal about Captain Comet dying.

Let's get on to the big clue this week: Ralph Dibny has figured out who is under the mask of Supernova. Here are the clues:
* WHO it is under the mask "makes sense"
* The powers were not expected of the person, until Ralph figured out the "one device that could tie them all together"
* Superman being out of the picture was the key. "Two Keys if you want to be cute about it."
* He addresses Ralph as "Ralph" and wishes him good luck. (So it's not Lex Luthor.)
* The person under the mask does not know Wonder Girl well

Who could it be? The person requires a device of some kind. I'm wracking my brains...and I'm sure some of my guesses are impossible if I were to go back through every issue looking for who is around when Supernova appears. Here are my guesses:

* A Green Lantern
* Mr. Miracle
* Steel
* Sinbad

I'm sure none of them are correct. What do you all think?
*

Play it big. Don’t crowd around that tiny computer monitor. Play your PC games on the big screen with the power of Intel® Viiv™ and HP®.

I hope you'll all give this a click just once before the campaign ends this month. I had to take off the ad banner because we'd actually maxed out the number of impresions...which is a good thing, meaning the site's traffic is way up. I think it's a much more suitable product for our site, anyway. It's a bit of a unique idea, allowing people to watch PC video games on their big plasma screen TVs instead of squinting at a small monitor. I know there's a good portion of our audience who are big enough video game enthusiasts to be interested in this.

Sadly, I don't play anything besides solitaire and the occasional Red Ace Squadron because if I were to play any new video games they would take over my life for a week...and I just don't have any spare time to devote to them. I haven't even cracked open my "Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich" because I'll just wreck my carpally tunneled hands playing it for hours!

[UPDATE: Half a day late, it occurs to me that "The 'a' in aStore is for Addictive" would have been a way way funnier subject line.]

This stupid "Monitor Duty aStore" is just too much fun! Or maybe it's a lot of work. I can't really tell at the moment.

Aside from talking to Beau Smith on the phone (Beau answers as though he's auditioning for "The Blue Collar Comedy Tour") and hitting a showing of "Casino Royale" for an all-too rare date with my wife, my Friday was spent adding products to the aStore. My only regret is that I filled up a category called "Cartoon box sets" before I realized it should have been a sub-category, and i don't want to have to redo all my work!

One thing I would mention: Amazon is having a major sale on DVD box sets for TV shows, as you'll see at our aStore. Robot Chicken (which I JUST bought for the "low sale price" of $15 at Target) is only $9, as is the highly-recommended "Venture Brothers" and the first season of Harvey Birdman. These and many more would make great Christmas Presents for the geek on your list (though any true geek already has them).

I created a "Making Comic Books" category and am busily hunting up more books for it. I'm sure that will come in handy to many of our readers. There's also a "Michael Recommends" section; I realize I'm opening myself up to ridicule as you see the kinds of music I like, but it had to be done.

From Paul Dini's Live Journal:

Just learned Shirley Walker passed away at age 61. Shirley was the composer we worked with on many of the Warner Bros. animated adventure series: BATMAN, SUPERMAN, BATMAN BEYOND, THE ZETA PROJECT as well as a number of direct to videos. In addition to be a tremendously talented composer, Shirley was one of the sweetest people you could ever hope to meet.

I could go on and on about how amazing her music was, but any of her scores could tell you better.

Shirley did the music for "Mask of the Phantasm" and created a new choral Batman theme that was so good it replaced the Danny Elfman theme as the opening for "Batman: The Animated Series." R.I.P.