“I guess the thing that I want to say about fandom is that it’s the closest thing to religion there is that isn’t actually religion. The love of something and what it’s trying to accomplish or mean are usually very separate. The people who are like, ‘Well you can’t do it. That staircase was seven [...]

“I guess the thing that I want to say about fandom is that it’s the closest thing to religion there is that isn’t actually religion. The love of something and what it’s trying to accomplish or mean are usually very separate. The people who are like, ‘Well you can’t do it. That staircase was seven steps, not five.’ They totally missed the point of this. When I first met the comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, we were talking about comics and he told me his favorite letter was, ‘Daredevil would never say that. Die. Die. Why can’t you just die?’ [...] And Bendis can’t, by the way. Sunlight, stake through the heart, beheading, he won’t die. He’s actually very powerful. [...] Yeah, you know, he likes to get his head cut off at parties. But that thing of needing to replicate and to venerate this thing that we love isn’t about that thing’s philosophy. Those two things are separate. Hopefully, the idea in Buffy was that they were so entwined that there wouldn’t be people who loved that show excessively that didn’t get it.”

– Joss Whedon, discussing The Avengers, comic books, fandom and abusing language with Wired

Some rambling thoughts that have been rumbling around my head this week. Don't expect it to make any sense.

Some rambling thoughts that have been rumbling around my head this week. Don’t expect it to make any sense.

TCJ has been running a roundtable this week focusing on Jack Kirby and Charles Hatfield’s new book on the same, with critics including

Jeet Heer, Jonathan Lethem (novelist and comic book writer), Glen Gold (novelist and comic art collector), Sarah Boxer (cartoonist and critic), Doug Harvey (art critic), Dan Nadel (co-editor of The Comics Journal website), and Robert Fiore (comics critic).

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

As you may have noticed, this is a 1998 home run derby level lineup of comics critics. But unlike other such critical conclaves, it’s not a total sausage fest by virtue of Boxer’s inclusion. But, it turns out….she’s not exactly in the Kirby cheering section:

I’ve been watching the Kirby lovefest from the sidelines — not with envy, but with a kind of fascination. Why I can’t I dive in? Why does my son want to? (I see a superhero comics fan in the making and I am horrified but interested too.) There must be a reason. Hatfield’s chapter “How Kirby Changed the Superhero” speaks to the point. And it also seems to explain my physical revulsion for almost all of the Kirby superheroes except, perhaps, the Silver Surfer, a giant phallus on a surfboard.

BURN. Yeah, why DON’T girls like Jack Kirby, huh?

Oh wait, they do.

Okay okay that’s the Power Rangers Voltron, but still…

Anyway, even if women aren’t writing their scholarly tomes on Devil Dinosaur, Moviefone got an incredible amount of heat for a dumb piece that was originally entitled GIRL’S GUIDE TO ‘THE AVENGERS that was so sexist and condescending that they had to post a disclaimer:

[Editor's Note: As you can see, we've gotten a lot of heat for this article. It was meant to be a satirical piece, and obviously, it did not come across that way. There are plenty of female superhero fans, and our intent was not to make them feel marginalized. We've changed the headline to reflect the focus as we originally intended it (but did not communicate as well): One woman's perspective on the Avengers]

This after, for instance, a 13-year-old girl (or someone purporting to be one) posted this:

I am only thirteen and I find this offensive. If you seriously believe you did something wrong, take it down. It doesn’t read as satire. And yes my dumb female mind knows what that is. It presents an unfair stereotyped view of the female sex. Now, I know some people might need a refresher. In that case I suggest the internet. It is an awesome resource for things like this. The Internet and sites like comicvine helped me understand comics when I started reading a year ago. It isn’t really all that hard to figure out what is going on.

The Discriminating Fangirl, aka Pamela, spoke out for the legion of empowered female genre entertaiment fans with this:

WOMEN LIKE ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

There’s not a contract that we sign at birth stating that we can only like stuff with glitter and princesses and romance. Guess what? We DO like stuff with glitter and princesses and romance, and we also like stuff with badass superheroes, aliens, and ass-kicking. So stop writing about genre films as if women haven’t the faintest clue that superheroes exist, and they need a cutesy little nudge in the right direction so they can please their boyfriends. Stop perpetuating the misogynistic stereotype, okay?

Hm, but what does Sarah Boxer think of all this?

In my own, admittedly narrow, empirical research, while at the local Duane Reade to get some diet Dr. Pepper the cute female cashier with the multi-colored hair volunteered “I can’t wait to see that!” when she saw the Avengers tie-in on the bottle. Although she then sheepishly added, “Even though I’m a DC fangirl.” We chatted about New York Comic-Con, Robin, and a few other topics. Even though she might not be able to hold her own on a scholarly roundtable, I feel my Duane Reade cashier would, at least on an enthusiasm level, be able to stand up very well for Jack Kirby’s work.

And speaking of Jack Kirby…both girls and boys must deal with the dilemma of seeing THE AVENGERS while still supporting Jack.

Confession time: we’re seeing THE AVENGERS tonight at midnight. And we couldn’t be more excited. Is it wrong? Maybe. Is the fact that Stan is everywhere as the father of the Avengers when Captain America, at the very least was demonstrably a Simon/Kirby creation rather demoralizing? Yes.

For those of us conflicted about seeing this movie, Jon Morris has suggested giving a donation equal to the ticket price to the Hero Initiative, a splendid alternative which we’ll be putting into action.

On a more pragmatic note, it would be totally cool of Disney to give a tithe of the gabillion dollars this movie will make to the Hero Initiative, but to do so would invalidate some of their current legal actions, so don’t expect that to happen. A boycott is unlikely to have a financial impact, but shining light on the inequities in an embarrassing way is more likely to yield results…some day.

So yeah, fight on, girls and boys. And GIVE to the Hero Initiative.

Richard Sala (Delphine, Cat Burgler Black) has posted a six-page, six-chapter comic about monsters, genre women and the fleetingness of life. If you like that first page, you’ll want to check out the others featuring witches, vampires, jungle girls, mummies, a bandita, a pirate, a cheerleader, and an ape in a tux. Like life, you [...]

Richard Sala (Delphine, Cat Burgler Black) has posted a six-page, six-chapter comic about monsters, genre women and the fleetingness of life. If you like that first page, you’ll want to check out the others featuring witches, vampires, jungle girls, mummies, a bandita, a pirate, a cheerleader, and an ape in a tux. Like life, you won’t want it to end as quickly as it does.

Jason Inman of Sh*t Comic Book Nerds Say fame sent along this Free Comic Book Day promo video. It’s funny and has me more excited to visit my local store on Saturday (and spend some money at their big sale), so maybe you’ll enjoy it too. Which free comics are you looking forward to?

Jason Inman of Sh*t Comic Book Nerds Say fame sent along this Free Comic Book Day promo video. It’s funny and has me more excited to visit my local store on Saturday (and spend some money at their big sale), so maybe you’ll enjoy it too. Which free comics are you looking forward to?

Can't wait until you see THE AVENGERS tonight at midnight? Here's some stuff to keep you from jonesing yourself into a puddle.

Damn, nearly forgot about that AVENGERS movie opening this weekend! Then we opened our email and an avalanche of AVENGERS tie-ins—some of which might be called stretching it—tumbled out. On the microscopic chance you are not Avengered out before the movie has even opened, here’s a sampling of what’s going on.

¶ GQ has a profile of the man of the hour, Joss Whedon with a bonus illo by Cliff Chiang!

Whedon doesn't look as exhausted as you'd expect him to, but he does seem sort of battle-hardened. He's lost weight, either in advance of making The Avengers or because of it. The red hair that used to flop whimsically over his forehead is cropped as short as his beard. He's explaining why it took this long for somebody to wise up and let him make the big superhero movie. "It's an interesting question," he says, "because I always think of myself as, like, the most commercial guy. You look into my heart of darkness and, wow, it's Star Wars peeking back at you. Yet everything I've done has been a hard sell for somebody running a studio."

¶ What a coincidence, this month’s issue of BACK ISSUE is all about the Avengers!

Just in time for the team’s big-screen debut, BACK ISSUE #56 (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine, $8.95 cover price) lets the “Avengers Assemble,” in an issue devoted to the history of Marvel Comics’ mightiest super-team! This issue features: Writer ROGER STERN’S acclaimed 1980s Avengers run, West Coast Avengers, early Avengers toys, and histories of Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Wonder Man. Featuring art by and/or commentary from JOHN and SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, BRETT BREEDING, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, BOB HALL, AL MILGROM, TOM MORGAN, TOM PALMER, JOE SINNOTT, and more. With a GEORGE PÉREZ cover spotlighting the Avengers’ “Big Three.” Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

¶ The Marvel Lexicon! Wordnik has a dictionary of such vital lingo like mandroid and legacy virus. Use them both in a sentence and you might be the next Thunderbolts writer.

¶ An Eclectic Method remix of the Avengers trailer? We thought things that cool were illegal! Word on the street is that the Hulk and Mark Ruffalo are stealing the show, and this trailer will show you why.

¶ The Avengers Minimates just went on sale, and they are cute.

¶ If you’re not done with Stan Lee, here are clips of him talking about all the Avengers and various cast members interviews. Above, Stan on his cameos.

¶ Andertoons has posted a pdf of a 1982 Marvel activity book. The activities were so simple then, like solving a mystery in the Hulk’s pants, or what the fuck Blue Star is going to do with his life now that he’s trapped within his own starforce.

¶ More video! In this one it’s Avengers Intervene! as they try to stop Tony Stark’s drinking. Hoo hee hee.

¶ And in this one, the Avengers are a ’90s boy band. Nice!

¶ Let’s go back another decade, as as Chris Haley and Daniel Butler picture the ’80s version of the movie for Comics Alliance.

¶ Stride Rite is debuting a line of Avengers-themed shoes for kids.

¶ And finally, Scarlett Johansson was so eager for the movie premiere that she killed time getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Are we the last possible person to link to Michael DeForge's poster for this Saturday's Doug Wright Awards? Possibly. It's also a reminder that we'll be at TCAF this weekend! First time and we couldn't be more excited! The webste has all the debuts, guests, party poop, programming and other info you could possibly need, so we'll just direct you there for everything except to note that we'll be moderating this panel on Saturday at The Pilot:

Are we the last possible person to link to Michael DeForge’s poster for this Saturday’s Doug Wright Awards? Possibly. It’s also a reminder that we’ll be at TCAF this weekend! First time and we couldn’t be more excited! The webste has all the debuts, guests, party poop, programming and other info you could possibly need, so we’ll just direct you there for everything except to note that we’ll be moderating this panel on Saturday at The Pilot:

11:15 – 12:30 – Comics & Music
The visual and the auditory – two very different mediums.  But somehow, words and music combine in comics and graphic novels.  Three superstar creators talk about how their own music-based comics projects, and how they make them work. With Bryan Lee O’Malley, Kid Koala, and Arne Bellstorf.

Excited! See you there!

Legendary writer and editor Stan Lee, seemingly a magnet for lawsuits, has been drawn into yet another legal battle, one that could leave the future of his POW! Entertainment in question. According to Hollywood, Esq., Lee and POW! executives Gil Champion and Arthur Lieberman, among others, have been sued for $3.6 million by two people [...]

Legendary writer and editor Stan Lee, seemingly a magnet for lawsuits, has been drawn into yet another legal battle, one that could leave the future of his POW! Entertainment in question.

According to Hollywood, Esq., Lee and POW! executives Gil Champion and Arthur Lieberman, among others, have been sued for $3.6 million by two people who claim there was a conspiracy to inflate the worth of the media company’s assets at the time of a reverse merger in 2004 that allowed POW! to become publicly traded without slogging through the lengthy registration process.

Making the lawsuit more complex, or at least more dicey, is that one of the plaintiffs, Valerie Barth, worked for years as Lee’s public relations representative, and asserts she was instrumental in the creator receiving his star last year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The claims are rooted in Lee’s departure in 2001 from the bankrupt dot-com Stan Lee Media — that company has its own winding history of lawsuits involving, at various times, its namesake, Marvel and Conan the Barbarian, among others — to form POW!, which in the past decade has struck deals with such companies as Disney, Archie Comics and BOOM! Studios. Three years later a reverse merger with a shell corporation called Arturian Entertainment allowed POW! to immediately go public.

Still following? Barth, whose PR consulting company Media Dynamics was the controlling shareholder of Arturion, and Ron Sandman, whose UltraVision Inc. was a minority shareholder, now allege that Lee and his partners misrepresented POW!’s assets and provided documents demonstrating that the company controlled Lee’s intellectual property, including his name and likeness, and downplayed threats of litigation. (That same intellectual property forms the core of Lee’s ongoing legal fight with Stan Lee Media.) According to Hollywood, Esq., Barth and Sandman have been so vocal in their accusations that POW! sued them, claiming fraud and abusive business practices.

In their counterlawsuit, the two allege that POW! fraudulently took control of Arturion, violated dozens of laws, and permitted Lee to divert and co-mingle revenues for consulting, literary works, interviews, honorariums and the like. In addition to the $3.6 million in compensatory damages, Barth and Sandman seek the removal of POW!’s board of directors, and the transfer of shares.

According to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, POW! Entertainment generated just $24,628 in net income in 2011; the previous year, the company saw a $1.1 million net loss.

Katie Skelly's NURSE NURSE from Sparkplug was a sellout at MoCCA, but you can still get a copy in NYC at tonight's book party at Desert Island.

nursenurseinbrooklyn_thumb.jpg
Katie Skelly’s NURSE NURSE from Sparkplug was a sellout at MoCCA, but you can still get a copy in NYC at tonight’s book party at Desert Island.

After hinting at it on their Facebook page for a while, Tokyopop's surviving member, Stuart Levy, announced a little wee return...as a licensing entity, anyway. The Right Stuff, in conjunction with Genosha Comics, will republish three volumes of Himaruya Hidekaz's HETALIA: AXIS POWERS, including the first two—which came out from Toykopop before it imploded last year—and the never-before-in-English third book, which was in production when Tpop went away.

After hinting at it on their Facebook page for a while, Tokyopop’s surviving member, Stuart Levy, announced a little wee return…as a licensing entity, anyway. The Right Stuff, in conjunction with Gentosha Comics, will republish three volumes of Himaruya Hidekaz’s HETALIA: AXIS POWERS, including the first two—which came out from Toykopop before it imploded last year—and the never-before-in-English third book, which was in production when Tpop went away.
HETALIA was one of Tpop’s late hit pick-ups, a satirical look at World War II’s Axis powers as a bunch of snotty boys. The popularity of the book has led to a lot of cosplay, which looks a little alarming but isn’t really about dressing as the Gestapo.

The Tokoyopop daily mailer reveaeld more release details; although a limited number of all three books will be available—with 8 pages in color—after the initial print run, the books will be POD only, and without that color insert.

Patience is a virtue and, believe us when we say this, you guys are perhaps the most virtuous fans out there. It is with great pleasure that we're able to announce that we have partnered with Gentosha Comics and Right Stuf, Inc. to publish Hetalia Axis Powers, Vol. 3 in English-translated book form for the first time ever.

In addition, reprints of the first two volumes will be available exclusively through RightStuf.com. Volume 3's first print run, which features an exclusive eight-page color insert from the original Japanese manga, will be available in late June 2012 and is available for pre-order at a reduced price of $10.99. That translates to 30% savings for 100% brand new Hetalia, which ain't too shabby.

Despite the overwhelming demand by fans for us to bring back Hetalia, it should be noted that we have adopted a print-on-demand model for publishing this volume. As the first run will have limited quantities, pre-ordering is highly recommended or else you may find that copies have run out faster than Italy can introduce Germany's face to his palm. Plus subsequent volumes won't come with those swanky full-color pages. For those of you who can't wait til June for your Hetalia fix or need to brush up on your history, the first two volumes are available immediately for $15.99. We guarantee it's at least three times more fun than reading The Economist.

Stay tuned for more details on our publishing operations as they emerge and join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus pages. Never before has history been so fun and we're happy to be a part of history in the making by bringing Hetalia, Vol. 3 to our English-speaking fans. We've got to say, it's good to be back, TOKYOPOP fam, and your patience and support means the world to us. Go ahead, say it with us now: "PASTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

As the mailer hints, this might not be the only former Tokyopop title that we’ll see resurrected this way. It does seem like a sensible way to provide the fans who were clamoring for these books—and were left high and dry by their sudden end—a happy ending.

I hate announcements of announcements of teasers of trailers for the debut of a feature film. I...

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#FREECOMICBOOKDAY at @MeltdownComics, Saturday, May 5th at 11AM #FCBDSIGNINGS 12-2pm Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Spectacular Spider-Man, Young Justice) 12-2pm signing copies of Mecha-Nation Victor Cook (Ben 10, Darkwing Duck, Hellboy: Blood & Iron) 1-3pm Caleb Monroe (The Remnant, Hunter’s Fortune, Negative Burn, Batman) 1-3pm Brandon Easton (Writer The “NEW” Thundercats & Shadowlaw) 3-4pm Scott Lobdell (Legendary [...]

#FREECOMICBOOKDAY at @MeltdownComics, Saturday, May 5th at 11AM

#FCBDSIGNINGS

• 12-2pm
  Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Spectacular Spider-Man, Young Justice)

• 12-2pm signing copies of Mecha-Nation
  Victor Cook (Ben 10, Darkwing Duck, Hellboy: Blood & Iron)

• 1-3pm
  Caleb Monroe (The Remnant, Hunter’s Fortune, Negative Burn, Batman)

• 1-3pm
  Brandon Easton (Writer The “NEW” Thundercats & Shadowlaw)

• 3-4pm
  Scott Lobdell (Legendary writer for DC & MARVEL Comics)

#FCBDSAVINGS

• Bring your AVENGERS movie stub and receive 20% any marvel comics product!
• Love the AVENGERS characters and unsure of where to start? no worries… pick up a marvel grab bag. 10 comics, $10 bucks.
• 30% OFF BACK ISSUES ALL DAY
• Sidewalk Comics by the pound sale! 1LB OF COMICS FOR $3 BUCKS!
• Swag from Famous Monsters Magazine
• Swag and Signings from Archaia Entertainment.
• PULL CUSTOMER 20% OFF ALL DAY!!!
• 25% OFF SUPER-HERO T-SHIRTS

#FCBDCASTINGCALL

Fan Wars will be on the scene this Saturday at Meltdown Comics, looking for potential contestants and helping to celebrate free comic book day!

If you’re in Los Angeles or happen to be within a stone’s throw of Hollywood, stop by Meltdown Comics where we will be casting superhero and uber comic book fans who want to put their knowledge to the test in front of Stan Lee, Jace Hall and a slew of comic book legends on Fan Wars! We’ll be there starting at 11am so come one come all!

…And be ready to be on camera and prepared to state your case, answering one of our 10 topics of choice as to why you are the biggest comic book fan on the planet.

Contestants who wow us with their knowledge and fandom will get a chance to argue their case in front of a live court, with Stan Lee, Jace Hall and other celebrity judges presiding over and MAKING THE FINAL RULING!

Think you’ve got what it takes? Visit Meltdown Comics this Saturday May 5th at 7522 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA and check out more on submitting your video for all the details.

 

Remember the Lovelace movie that’s coming out starring Amanda Seyfried? I know, it’s...

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