Never Be Game Over

Believe it or not - this is not related to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and one of its characters - Quiet. It is a snapshot from one of the final issues of Matt Fraction / Chip Zdarsky Image comics series Sex Criminals (aka the one that went out with one hell of a whimper). But it fits really well into Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain lore and sentiments in the aftermath of Quiet's Exit.

Five years too late.

The many faces of DC Comics' Joker

Joker is one of the most versatile characters on the DC Comics villain roster. While this often results in the character being overexposed and overused, there is a reason for that.

Joker is a shorthand of a perfect comic book villain. You can do many things with him without bending over backwards. The basics of the character always stay the same - green-haired, purple-suited permanently grinning, tenaciously laughing psychopath with a knack for theatrics.

However, the characterization itself changes with the time and the attitude of the author.

Since there's a movie coming out soon, let's look at the most prominent iterations of the character.

1
The original Joker was a thug with a gimmick. He was a sociopath with no remorse whatsoever regarding his actions.

He was killing people left and right. Sometimes bluntly with no excessive theatrics. Sometimes exuberantly elaborately.

He was unhinged and somewhat reckless but not going overboard with the bombastic theatrical swoosh. He had a distinct style that differentiated him from the rest of the Gotham's crooks - a brand of sorts. But it wasn't his defining feature, just a coat of arms.

2
Later on, he morphed into a bizarre Clown Prince of Crime as seen in Silver Age comics.

Comics Code of Authority put a kibosh on the visceral violent antic, so the character needed a reinvention.

The characterization became much more cartoony, but if you think about it - the theatrics and the attitude of Silver Age Joker is rather chilling, to say the least.

All of his zany antics act as a symbolism taken to the extreme. It is weird, and you can't really tell when it is just a joke and whether it is going to be just a joke.

However, because of that, the gimmick became the personality. And that is how the character was presented from then on. It's not like it was detrimental to the concept. Quite the opposite, it helped to solidify the essence of the character.

3
On the other hand, O'Neil/ Adams Joker is a combination of the previous two iterations.

This Joker had the theatrics of the Silver Age, and at the same time, he retains the danger of a rabid dog. I think this is the definitive version of the Joker in terms of consistent characterization.

It had the right balance of nasty and odd. O'Neil/Adams' stories were showcasing Joker as an unpredictable psychopath with a knack for theatrics and quite practical managing skills in terms of maintaining a gang of crooks and planning his elaborate crimes to a tee.

This reinvention of the Joker reinvigorated the popularity of the character, and this led to Joker's most odd and random hour. He received his own solo series.

4
Solo series Joker is a very odd interpretation of the character. It is kind of O'Neil/ Adams iteration that devolved into Silver Age zany because it gagged and bound by the CCA guidelines.

In other words, Joker had to do Joker stuff, but it wasn't allowed to be anything but goofing around. 

The series depicts Joker as a master criminal who a taste for the show and some blunt and nasty attitude all while channeling Silver Age goofiness and slapstick. This combination creates some intense cognitive dissonance.

There is an issue where Joker taunts an actor who thinks he is Sherlock Holmes. If you pass through the clumsy scripting - the whole thing is downright cruel.

5
Frank Miller's Joker is O'Neil/ Adams version amplified up to eleven. This Joker means trouble and when he actually means it - this is some terrible, awful, horrible news.

In terms of showcasing what Joker in action really means - this is the most striking example. He kills people left and right with no apparent reason apart from causing the commotion and enacting chaos. He is unpredictable because he got no endgame, just the process.

In addition to that, Miller's Joker got very distinct death drive. Unlike any other interpretation of the character, this Joker wants to go to the absolute extreme.

6
Alan Moore's Joker is a rather strange take on the character. His iteration is more or less inverted Batman, and that was the whole point of the story in a way (among other things).

Moore fleshed out the character to the point of dissipating the initial mystery of the character and instead of creating another mystery of Joker's train of thought. However, it did a big disservice for the character. Fleshing out the character's journey turned him into something else that is based on the concept but not really represents it.

Since the whole story was ambiguous all the way anyway - the entire thing was impressionist padding for the sake of pareidoliastic fleshing out.

With that being said - this version of the character is downright nasty. The whole Barbara Gordon episode is disturbing, and the way he attempts to break Commissioner Gordon is vile and sickening.

7
Grant Morrison's Serious House Joker had an emphasis on being a really-really violent fellow with some weird, cruel, and manipulative tints.

He was a psychopath with lapses of character and distorted perception of reality. It was a great spin on the concept - it avoided overexplaining things while retaining a nondescript but definitely unambiguous sense of threat.

On the other hand, Morrison's latter regular continuity Joker was more traditional take primarily based on O'Neil/ Adams version. It had some splashes of Silver Age zaniness, but the core character was rooted in the 70s iteration and offered no new insights.

8
The Man Who Laughs Joker takes on the original concept of the character and amps it up to eleven. There is a resonance with the O'Neil/ Adams version, but it is distinctly a thing of its own.

This Joker is a career criminal with a gimmick. He is deranged and utterly nihilistic. Nevertheless, he's a little bit improvisational here and can have a laugh for laugh's sake just because why not in the end. There also this maddening completely spontaneous streak in expressing his thoughts.

Despite that, his actions are logical and clearly planned. He's there to orchestrate mayhem that benefits him and provides with opportunities to grab what he currently wants.

This approach is further elaborated in The Devil's Advocate story. This Joker is O'Neil/ Adams version updated to the current times and a little bit intensified.

He's the man with the plan who can pretend to be absolutely mental when necessary but otherwise he is the guy who knocks. And smiles.

9
Elseworlds' Batman: Nosferatu got an interesting take on the character. In this story - he is murderous cyborg, which is an interesting direction to explore.

There is a slight reference to T-1000 with a more sadistic twist and horrifying self-awareness. It is not well-developed in the narrative, but the concept is fascinating.

10
Flashpoint version of Joker is a u-turn. For instance, instead of being an enigmatic character, the origin of this iteration is more than well-known.

In this case, the Joker is Martha Wayne, who went mad after her son was killed in a random mugging incident.

This version of Joker is implied to be a really nasty one. The comments of her misdeeds are peppered throughout the stories. But we have only glimpsed what she is capable of and what she had already done. There is a lot left to be explored. 

However, suggestions and implications are working better than just showing off the stuff. It gets your imagination working, and it is the right way of building up the menace of the character.
After all, when you have such a set-up for the character - there is a lot to chew regardless.

13
Brian Azzarello's Joker is probably the nastiest, most wicked and vile, and at the same time the most grounded (for the lack of the better word) take on the character.

It depicts him as a career criminal with a lot of baggage that is expressed and elaborated through his theatrical gimmick.

In a way, he is not very different from Richard Stark's Parker. Given the fact that he just moves forward from scene to scene as a knife through butter makes him really scary. He's driven by his goal and doesn't really care where it takes him because, in the end, he will get what he wants.

13
Scott Snyder's Joker is inspired by Frank Miller's take on O'Neil/ Adams version. This Joker is nasty and deranged. He does stuff that distresses. It takes Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns Joker's death drive and elaborates on it, adding new shades and figuring more setpieces to the mix.

He enjoys being bad. There is this hollowness in the characterization that makes the character unknowable, even ununderstandable. He's not much of character to speak of but a force of nature that wrecks and wrecks and wrecks.

In order to present this new and improved iteration of the character - Snyder got his cut off his face and wears it as a mask.  Then he goes on to orchestrate an increasingly chaotic spectacle that leads to literal down and dirty endgame between him and his nemesis.

***

Exploring the Joker character is an exciting journey. He was taken in many different directions and was used to represent different kinds of evil depending on the intentions of the authors and the tune of the zeitgeist. 

However, in every iteration he retained that demented vibe that kept all the disparate versions of the character consistent. 

That's a testament to the power of the Joker character concept.

MFT: Superman Adventures #41 - "Twenty-two stories in a single bound"

"Twenty-two stories in a single bound" is a title of Issue 41 of "Superman Adventures" comic book series. The issue was written by Mark Millar and illustrated by a murderer's row of illustrators including Ty Templeton, Terry Austin, Joe Staton, Neil Vokes, Bret Blevins, Min S. Ku, Cameron Stewart, Mike Manley, Craig Rousseau, Rick Burchett, Darwyn Cooke, Aluir Amancio, Philip Bond. It was released in March 2000 and It was the last comic of Millar's run on the title.

And for a curtain call he decided to do something out of an ordinary.

The issue consists of 22 one-page stories, all self-contained and dedicated to a particular character and specific element of Superman mythos. The narrative is built around "a day in the life" format focusing on key events in their most expressive forms.

For example, there is a story about just another working week of Lois Lane. She is depicted as a damsel in distress for the majority of the panels until the script is flipped and Lois is shown to be capable of standing on her own - you know, it's just she doesn't need to do it all the time.

Or there exploits of Mister Mxysptlk who tries to ramble and scramble and bumble and rumble Superman with his reality warping powers. It doesn't go the way he expects. On the other hand, bumbling backwards Superman adversary Bizarro gets his legitimate hero moment and that is nice.

There is also a page where all the key characters are sleeping and we can see what they are dreaming about. Which is exactly what you can expect - Lois Lain being Superwoman, Jimmy Olsen being The Boss to Perry White, Bibbo (don't ask) dreaming about sleeping (of course), while Lex Luthor dreams about Superman being defeated. The page is capped with Superman doing his job. As usual.

Overall, an issue can be described as a mosaic, a kaleidoscope of moments that seems disjointed but ultimately comes together into a cohesive whole. Every story is drawn by different artist which gives them distinct indentities even though the aesthetic is largely the same.

"Twenty-two stories in a single bound" is an exercise in ultra-minimalist condensed storytelling - one-part newspaper comic strip and one-part constrained comics of the likes of Chris Ware. In a way, it is a great showcase how to tell a story in leaps and bounds that omits everything superfluous and concentrates on the key elements.

MFT: Wolverine Publicity

There are some things that can be considered both entirely reasonable and absurd in the same time. Case in point - Wolverine Publicity. 

Wolverine was one of the biggest draws in the Marvel Comics fold back in late 80’s up to late 90’s. No wonder why - his hard boiled tough guy demeanor and badass attitude was appealing to the target audience like nothing else. He was different from the rest of the X-Men. Wolverine was enigmatic, the information about him was scattered but even a slightest glance was enough to understand that he was a real deal. 

Needless to say it did wonders to the sales figures. His first solo series made a significant splash in the sales and his appearances were always an attention grabbers. Soon enough publishers took notice of this and started to exploit character’s popularity. And so Wolverine started to appear in the other Marvel titles.

This phenomenon became one of Marvel's most infamous marketing practices known as Wolverine Publicity.

On a conceptual level - there is nothing wrong with the popular character showing up in the other titles. It happens all the time, especially if the other title is just starting out and needs to establish itself or just struggling to gain momentum. Cameos of an established and popular characters in the comics are reasonable business practice. If done right, it may even help to get the other title over with the fans by proxy. If done right...

Superman does it all the time and no one complains. But Wolverine Publicity is infamous for a reason. 

At first, Wolverine’s appearances were moderately reasonably justified. He could show up because the heroes needed his help to solve a particular problem. His first X-Men appearance in Giant-size X-men was like that - the team got lost and so Xavier hired Wolverine Then there were stories were his presence was welcomed but not exactly necessary. Anyway, it was a nice touch short of being slightly overbearing. Wolverine was drawing target audiences attention and that often gave the other titles a positive sales rub.

Then things started to go out of control and the whole cameo thing started to make no sense. It was going in an increasingly random direction with Wolverine showing up, the story stopping dead so that he could pop his claws and say one of his catchphrases. And then the story went on as usual. It started to get annoying after a while but it worked. 

At some point Marvel became so reckless they didn’t even bothered to put Wolverine in the stories itself instead just keeping him on the covers.

The most infamous was the one for comic book adaptation of Anita Blake series. It had Anita Blake fighting off Wolverine and that had nothing to do with the story, it was the cover-only thing. And there was a little text in the corner notifying “Wolverine does not appear in this issue”.

This phenomenon was even mocked in one of the issues of “Moon Knight” that also had Spiderman and The Punisher on the cover and the text “Wolverine does not appear in this comic” right in the middle of the cover that was continued by “But with Spiderman and The Punisher guest-starring, we have a feeling you won’t mind".

Just think about it. How reckless a publisher should be if it is so confident that people are going to buy anything with a presence of a particularly popular character even if it is a cover-only affair? Then it all came crashing down as the overall comic books sales started to wine down. With sales, constant Wolverine spotting became less and less frequent until it quietly died down.

In a way, Wolverine cameos of that era are something of a genre of its own. A kind of comic book haikus. Relentless and senseless pieces of something popping out of nowhere, making no sense and dissipating into ether.

MFT: David Lynch - The Angriest Dog in the World Comic Strip

The Angriest Dog in the World — is a comic strip by american film director David Lynch. It is about the dog that is very-very angry because the world around is quite obviously unbearable and is completely unmitigated piece of undeniably stinking feces that is surprisingly undeservedly fecund for one activity — relentless barking at the breaths end. 

As the opening paragraph says: “The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.” (Imagine Don LaFontaine saying that.) David Lynch once explained the reasons behind the anger in the interview, he said: “That’s a mystery. Certain clues come from the world around him.”

The strip was conceived in 1973 when Lynch was in the midst of the shooting of Eraserhead film. Which was, for the lack of a better words, “tumultuous and conspicuously frustrating”. As the production of the film was going in a not very smooth direction (let’s say it was a bit rocky) — it started to take a significant toll on Lynch himself who seemed to have reached the tipping point in an attempts to keep things from falling apart. He started to slowly but surely snap — bit by bit he succumbed to a slow motion wreck that his life was turning into. 

Hopefully, around the same time, he discovered the joys of transcendental meditation and started to direct his obtuse frustrations and obvious desperations into a more creative direction. As he himself said: “I don’t know why I chose a dog. It has more to do with people and that the idea that anger is so intense… I was curious about anger. Once you’re angry, you’re really, really angry.” Thus came “The Angriest Dog in the World”.

It stayed a little personal venture for quite a long time before it first appeared in press in 1982 in LA Reader. As Richard Gehr, the editor of LA Reader during that time, recalls: “David Lynch called up the editor James Vowell, and said, ‘Hi, I’d like to do a comic strip for you,’ and James wisely said, ‘OK.’ And David Lynch said, ‘Well, it’s kind of a weird concept. There’s only like one…part.’ And James said, ‘Well, OK, let’s see how it goes.’ “.

And so every week Lynch had called the editorial office and dictated “the script” to the editors. Then the editors would send “it” to the production department who would clean the balloons from the previous installment and write in the new ones.

The strip showed up here and there in various magazines and newspapers (including Dark Horse Comics’ Cheval Noir) over the years up until 1992. After that it continued to appear occasionally on Lynch’s official website before slowly slipping into complete oblivion. Currently it is merely a footnote in the Lynch’s oeuvre but undeservedly so as it is one of his most uncompromising and surprisingly relatable works.

***
Technically, “The Angriest Dog in the World” is a constrained comic — the one that confines itself in set of particular rules in order to get above the profane routine. The strip itself is very simple. It is starkly black and white and contains four panels plus an introduction. The panels remain the same in every strip — it is astoundingly static (except for one time when half of them burned off for some reason). Panels contain a dog who lays in the backyard attached to a chain, growling relentlessly while random and seemingly disconnected phrases come from the window of the bland suburban house. And then it is dark and the dog is still there, straining on a leash, barking on an infinite loop, exhibiting severe hostility towards the world. There is also a factory far away belching the blackest smoke into the sky with no visible effect. And a tree, because there must be a tree in a backyard. Lynch once commented on this: “I just drew the tree and the dog. I got the idea that nothing would change pictorially. I like the idea that nothing would change.”

(In fact — you can see the seeds of Lynch’s later project here — flash series “Dumbland” and you can view his video for Moby’s “Shot in the back of the head” as a spiritual companion).

Curiously, but the titular dog is just there. It is merely a piece of background with nothing else to do but growl. The dog serves as a bait, a memorable hook for the readers attention. The dog looks a like a crocodile of sorts — stretched in a futile attempts to get something. A certain detail that sticks. While all the “action” comes through the window.

While the information given to the reader is scarce and limited — you can actually piece together what is going on. There are no indications who says what but there are some names. The family in the house — Bill, Sylvia, Pete and Billy Jr. are somewhat related to each other, bound together by the confinement of their home. They’re often trying to be nice with each other, showing some wit and then slip into arguing, trying to put out their frustrations and let the steam blow off. In other occasions they’re intensely trying to muse on meaningful topics resulting only in spiteful ripostes and tasteless observations of some sort of enigmatic manner or dumbfounding silence. One of the most horrifying strips contains only one word balloon in the last panel (which is usually left with no balloons) saying “It doesn’t get any better than this”. Considering every element shown to you — it is almost possible to feel the chill going through you.

The nature of questions and responses tells a lot about the atmosphere in the house. Some members of the family are deeply frustrated with their lives. The others keep the faith and look for answers to some fundamental and ultimately meaningless questions. The most prominent of the latter is call-response “Bill, what is your theory is relativity?” — “Life is shit2”. (Nuff said).

The other phrases like “Woe is me”, “Let’s merge” or “There is a reason usually for everything” or “There are people dying living here” or “Some weeks nothing is funny” read like some sort of Zen minimalist concrete poetry albeit somewhat stubborn in concept and mind-numbing by its sheer banality of execution.

Every speech balloon represents some eternal truth about absurdities and injustices of life and it is disgustingly, infuriatingly awful. Sometimes you get horrendously clumsy attempts at anecdotes, for example: “Did you know that Pinnocio loved birds?” — “He did?” — “He even had a woodpecker”. Aw… This is intentionally corny beyond reason.

It shows the contents and the limits of the worldviews of the characters. They are rampantly unable to express their thoughts and that results in a hostile demeanor and bleak mood with a hopeless cheers. Words don’t express what they mean. Not even close. And you can feel the distance between what they say and what they possibly mean. None of them wants to be there, they want to do something else somewhere else but they don’t know what exactly and how. Just like the titular dog they’re chained and too angry to do something about it. They’re numbed, battered, bound and gagged by the life itself. Contaminated with self-hatred for the lack of miraculous skills. Filled with utter horror of failing to succeed and finally realize their ambitions. They strive for more meaning, they long for irrational solution of their situation. Sounds like something anyone can encounter.

And that is what makes “The Angriest Dog in the World” such a relatable piece. It has nothing really strange or off-putting. It contains merely a snapshots of everyday life taken out of context. Life of people whose guts are torn away with salvo and a gust of wind and filled with minced meat and then turned into a fancy sausage in a lovely bag with funny sticker and a discount for the highest honor of “staying behind for too long”. People who had their balls and brains put into a vice and twisted around for a whole fucking week again and again and again.

In the end — it doesn't matter what Bill, Sylvia, Pete and Billy Jr. say. It is irrelevant. It’s merely a placeholder for something you, the reader, can put there instead. We all have such moments and we all catch such glimpses of other peoples recurring torments. 

Reader is left with no options but to be put into the role of a stranger who is just passing by and hearing those remnants of a possibly meaningful conversation while thinking about his own things and accidentally slipping into thought on nature of existence. Otherwise “The Angriest Dog in the World” seems to be a pile of bollocks — an exercise in exploration of the concept of pointlessness.

But there is no reason for trying to interpret this particular work. Finding finite meaning in this strip is utterly futile. It has no specific point and is proud of it. It drops your defenses and fears and gets into your head and stays there. You put it in a desolate place subconsciously and then something really callous reminds you of it and you start operate within it, looking for the answer you already know.

If you find some parts of it confusing or incomprehensible — it is probably your own fault. You’re trying too hard. Don’t overthink it. Let it flow. You will need to read it again and again until you get it the way you are. That’s probably the only way to comprehend “The Angriest Dog in the World” — raw, fierce and cutting comic strip about existence.

As David Foster Wallace wrote in his seminal essay on David Lynch: “Is this good art? It’s hard to say. It seems — once again — either ingenuous or psychopathic. It sure is different, anyway.”

Here's a selection of the strips as they can be found in Cheval Noir. This is the best copies out there. Enjoy

MFT: Will Eisner's "The Spirit" monochrome strips

Even decades after its initial run, Will Eisner's "The Spirit" is still a blast of a read. You already know that. It is an obvious fact. Sure, some of its elements haven't aged that well (ahem, Ebony White, depiction of female, characters, yellow menace stuff, etc) and some of it more out there moments (Trip to the Moon, in a hard boiled noir comic? sure thing!) are still endlessly baffling throws of despair - but overall, its style and presentation defined they way american comic books look today.

"The Spirit" established fast-paced no-nonsense narrative which proppels forward with each coming panel, it codified the way action scenes are broken down and sequenced. You can learn how to write comic books by reading "The Spirit" - it is that good. 

One of it signature features was unorthodox use of the first pages of a story. It was always more than just a beginning of another tale. It established everything you need to know about the story - style, themes, tone. These pages often had short blurb descriptions of the stories in the top header, as is with _ or _.

However, in some cases this space was simply filled with monochrome rectangles as a simple breaker-separators between the stories. They are effective in this role. But looking at these separating monochrome strips on their own is even more fascinating than within a context of a comic. 

These rectangles offer something nondescript, something abstract. Bundled together, they sure are able to compose some sort of an impressionistic narrative. A very abstract one, but nevertheless.

Since i've spent last couple of years collecting various abstract and black panels - it was natural for me to start snapping these rectangles with subsequent shoving into the queue. But it doesn't mean that this post will be left with any examples.

For your convenience, here are seventy four of "The Spirit"'s monochrome rectangles.Enjoy!

Endlessly fascinating Mindhunter Overkill...

Sometimes the best thing about a particular work of art is the title. It is easy to understand the reason why. Because that part is usually easier to pull off than actually do something worthwhile through and through. After all - "title is the half job done". Good title can salvage mediocre or merely generic piece of work simply by being irresistible. It is able to elevate the work to another level where imagination can run amok on the possibilities hidden behind the intriguing title. That kind of instigation sometimes can be all the piece needs in order to stay.

And I want to tell you about two particular works of art that perfectly encapsulate that statement.

There are two comic book miniseries with somewhat generic titles "Overkill" and "Mindhunter". Both are part of inter-company crossover between Dark Horse Comics and Top Cow Productions. (stop for a moment and think about narrative potential of such team-up. Dominant cow and mysterious horse. Oh, oh, oh, oh... Where is Mighty Boosh when we need them?)

The selling point of the series was pairing down four signature characters from respective companies in the "ultimate showdown": Aliens and Predator on the Dark Horse side - Witchblade and The Darkness in the Top Cow corner.

Despite offering some curious narrative opportunities - both series are fairly generic crossovers that follow traditional Aliens\Predator crossover formula. The same that driven the series to the ground around that time. It goes like this: "Aliens happened to nest somewhere, Predator happens to be hunting nearby, Somebody Someone is caught in-between and fighting back". "Overkill" is exactly what it says on the tin while "Mindhunter" goes a bit into "Lovecraft meets Barker" territory but barely does anything with it.

Since every character is recognizable brand - it seemed reasonable to include all of them on the cover. Overlong list of participants made the titles special. Because of that the official titles look like this: "Overkill: Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness" and "Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness: Mindhunter". These are long-long titles. Too long to be coherent.

But because of that already generic titles became overcrowded to the point of incoherence. The list of participants made the titles extra clumsy. By shoving all involved parties into the titles - the whole thing turned simple titles of the story into a demented poetry of sorts. The titles are hijacked to the parts unknown. For some reason titles of the story are situated in the different places - in the beginning and the end respectively. That adds some rhythm to the thing.

Just try to read them: "Overkill: Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness" / "Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness: Mindhunter" - they are so long that by the time you have finished reading you already forgot what it was all about. It is too much one can take in the title. I guess that wasn't part of the plan.

And there is only thing that could be done with it - going further in combining the names and making a poem out of all possible combinations. Because endless repetitions can strip them from the remnants of the sense and turn these lists of participants and brief summary of the ordeal into a insipid incantation.

Here's my version:

My Favorite Things: Flash - This is so stupid

There is something special in finding pages from comic books taken out of context. You have no idea what it is and they always seem supremely odd no matter how you try to reconstruct the narrative or rationalize the scene. It is a beast of its own and it in some way it is better that way.

This is a page from some old "The Flash" comics. It is a splash page numbered 14. The page depicts The Flash running up in the air around the airplane. There is a sharp contrast combination of starry sky and some snow-white clouds or smoke in the background. I guess the plane is in some kind of trouble and The Flash needs to work it out. Or not. Whatever... It doesn't matter. 

Text caption says "This is so stupid". Indeed, this is so stupid. Taken outside of its original context it is surprising cathartic.

From my point of view - it is simply a perplexing situation caught inappropriately from the awkward angle in the wrong moment of time. It is something akin to John Baldessari's "Wrong" series where he took photos with intentionally bad or confusing compositions.

I've found it online while googling picture for the word "stupid" because i felt that way. I guess it is fair to say that this finding isn't exactly what i was looking for, although it is thoroughly satisfying anyway. I don't even have any idea where it is from. I suppose it is somewhere from Wally West run. Probably Mike Barron stuff. Who knows... But it doesn't matter. 

I feel like i can proudly embark on butchering U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" via horrisonant humming.

MFT: That awkward moment out of context

This is a page from "Alice Grove" web-comic by Jeph Jacques. It occurs near the very end of a story as a transition to a definite conclusion. On this page you can see a woman dressed in white skin-tight suit standing in a nondescript place. Over the course six panels she breaks down in hysterical laughter. Background fades to white while she is laughing. By the end of the page she is out of breath exhausted, standing on her knees trying to catch a break in the middle of nowhere. 

I won't give any context for this page because it works perfectly fine without it. This page is very different from everything else in this web-comic. It is completely independent thing-in-itself. It makes a story of its own. The story of a particular moment when the levee breaks and the gut just snaps and it all rushes over. There is no narrative in this story - it merely takes out one particular moment. 

Lack of beginning and end makes this page a fine example of Camus existentialist schtick performed in impressionist manner. As middle without proper start or finish - it is rather thought-provoking piece. You don't need the background to get its point. We all had moments like these: when we just break for a moment. And this abrupt moment of rushing into clarity is often cathartic.

My Favorite Things: Hawkman vol.3 #27 cover

This is a cover for issue 27 of third volume of Hawkman comic. It contains everything you need to know about the character. Which - there are multiple versions of the character and it is extremely complicated. It should be noted that i was looking for the cover of #27 for a longer period of time than i was writing this post.

The Best Thing about DC Zero Hour: Crisis in Time

Superhero comics are extremely incoherent. That is the fact. There are no two ways about it. You either live with that or ignore it or try to convince yourself it can be somehow fixed. 

There is a reason for incoherence - let's call it elaborately unfortunate "too many cooks" and "anywhere the wind blows". All these magnificent continuity mistakes, laps of logic, aesthetic inconsistencies, downright narrative contrivances and astounding bouts of cognitive dissonance on every turn - it is pointless to try to make any straightforward sense of it. Traditional rules of narrative are not applied to superhero comics. They can work in the genre but it will make things less interesting - it will leave out one vital element of the genre. 

Superhero comics are not just the stories, they are also documents of certain moments in time when certain decisions were made. Those decisions bleed into the stories. Every stupid thing has a history - someone thought it was a good idea that was beneficial for the business. In the long run it might have been proven otherwise but it is still there - ready to be reassessed. 

Since i've skipped fanboy phase of appreciating comics - i never really perceived continuity clusterfuck as a tragedy. That's why Piskor's "Grand Design" did nothing to me. Even more - after years of reading those increasingly incomprehensible stories - its inconsistency and incoherence had grown on me and soon became its favourite part. I'm leaning towards Grant Morrison's idea that everything is canon no matter what. 

It seems logical - those things were published thus they happened. It might be just bad or simply ridiculous - but it is just a work of fiction and you can turn in whatever direction you want. You can ignore it or you can acknowledge - you can do whatever you want. Nothing really matters in superhero comics except for what is next. 

That is why I never really understood the need to directly address issues with continuity and attempts to fix it inside the narrative. I think reasons behind it are more monetary than aesthetic. Sure, elaborate continuity clean-up provides intriguing narrative opportunities. But it is also extremely lucrative from a business standpoint. 

The following pages are from DC Comics crossover event "Zero Hour: Crisis in Time". It is sad sadness story about how great hero Green Lantern Hal Jordan had gone mad because of a tragedy caused by Superman Terminator Imposter (it's complicated) - his hometown and its citizens were obliterated. Out of sorrow he tried to fix things with his ring. But that is violation of Green Lantern's code of conduct - one can't use the ring for personal gains no matter what. After intense conversation with the higher-ups Jordan snapped and methodically destroyed entire Green Lantern Corps in order to gain enough power to fix things. It didn't worked out. So he united with Green Lantern Corps arch-nemesis and long-time battery Parallax and decided to erase entire universe and start over again. A lot of jumping, punching, screaming ensues. Fallen hero was defeated and gone for good until DC found a way to exploit Alan Moore's legacy even more than they already exploited. 

"Zero Hour" is appaling. It is awful. It is stupid. It doesn't make much sense. There are seeds of good story inside - but it was botched on every turn. There was never an intention to tell a story. It was always about fixing continuity issues with an elaborate swipe. 

But there are four pages that are perfect. They come near the end of the story. Jordan manages to pull his thing off and everything is seemingly gone. It is all blinding white now. There is nothing. It is obvious borrowing to John Byrne's "Alpha Flight" white issue but here it also serves as a glimpse at something that never happened. Jordan disappears in whiteness and after a while some abstract shapes turn up. That is something superhero comics never really tried. Sure there were some development in the 60's and 70's - Doctor Strange and Kirby's stuff comes to mind first but they never really went full-on abstract. But these four pages of a terrible forgettable comic actually go there for a moment. 

And then things return to terrible. But for a moment it is really beautiful.

End Pages - the best thing about Ed Piskor's "X-Men: Grand Design"

I've been reading issues of Ed Piskor's "X-Men: Grand Design" recently. It is a nice project with noble aspirations - it tries to condense and make sense of five decades of X-Men history. Think about that - years of stories redesigned into one big thing with a throughline. Sounds intriguing, right? Marvel counts on that. They know people like and buy something that is actually readable - although, judging from their recent output, they tend to ignore that. Anyway - the concept is great. But that is about it.

***

The best thing about Ed Piskor's "X-Men: Grand Design" are the end pages where author lists all the sources he used in order to construct the story. That is really interesting part of the project. Because the story Piskor had contructed and the way it is told is rather ordinary and at times feels really contrived and forced. Essentially it is nothing more than a glorified rethread, a little bit more elaborate and inventive recap. It is middle of the road, nothing special, just barely good narrative that tries to make the least conflicted, universally accepted version of the story. Because of that it feels like a wasted opportunity.  

In some way "Grand Design" reminds me of John Byrne's Star Trek Photonovels - but unlike Piskor - Byrne is not doing rethreads, he forges new stories from the old parts.

The list is different thing. Because is not the thing - it is merely an inciting device, a catalyst for something else. It works on a different level.

Unlike the comic itself - the list of sources makes the case for imaginary collage. Something like "make your own story" "for imagination only". And that is something worth exploring. Because it is better than the book itself. It gives space to think and overthink and get bored - unconstrained by someone else's point of view. That is where the weirdness may come and thrive.  

MFT: Frank Miller - The Chase

Here's a little rarity for your delight. I've found this story while gazing through selections of Pilote and Charlie on a comics-related blog.

"The Chase" is a shortstory by Frank Miller. It was published in great french magazine Pilote (home of Valerian and Laureline) in 1988. It means that this story is one of the earliest glimpses of Frank Miller's post Batman stylistic shift that culminated in the early nineties with Sin City. The lines are getting more erratic and in the same time static, contrast is amped up to eleven. Narrative is minimized and told mostly through action. The way panels are matched is snappy and clearly punctuated. Stylistically it is firmly in a hard boiled noir vein with thick shadows of hard-edged expressionism coupled with wordless novels of the 1930s.