Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

Published 2011 by Spiegle & Grau

Before I get to my own review of Grant Morrison's book, Supergods, I need to say that I have read another review of this book previously, and I found my thoughts on Morrison's work very similar to the reviewer.  To read this review, "Superheroes, Surveyed and Sized Up," by Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times (July 18, 2011), please click on the hot link.

When I finally got to it, I was very excited to dive into Morrison's book.  I had been meaning to read it for some time, but other things kept coming up.  So a few weeks ago, it reached the top of my stack and so I started to read.  I was intrigued by the subtitle, "What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human."  Clearly, this was to be no ordinary history of comic books - though it is that to some degree. Morrison is aiming much higher.  It seems like he is aspiring through this book to become to comics what Joseph Campbell was to myth.  But if that is his goal, he falls short - and not by a little bit, either.

First Appearance of Superman

Roughly, the first third of the book is a summary of the Golden Age of Comics up through the Bronze Age.  It is absolutely riveting.  As a storyteller, Morrison is esteemed company.  He has a way of drawing you in and conveying a sense of newness and urgent importance to something you may have already known - or thought you did.  Morrison's description of the cover of Action Comics #1 is amazing.  I thought I knew all about that cover - that it had nothing new to teach me.  But he deconstructs it, revealing layers of meaning that I had clearly missed.  I won't repeat his exegesis here, but it is certainly worth reading.

I just wish that the entire book had been written like this - a history of modern comics from 1938 to present day and how this medium's myth-making relates to the human condition.  Now that would have been something - that's the book he ought to have written, or tried to write and then found himself lost.

Grant Morrison

I started tuning out in his more biographical sections.  Not that I object to his retelling of the angst of his teen years in Scotland.  Some of it is quite interesting.  But the portions of the book related to his life after he makes his mark in the comic book industry are often very egotistical and self-absorbed.  I was disturbed by his very frank admission to drug experimentation as a means of furthering his creative force.  His recounting of a hallucinogenic, pharmaceutically-induced mystical experience at the foot of Kathmandu is especially tedious and self-involved.  I don't question the importance of his mind-altering pseudo-religious experience to him and his creative process.  As he relates it, it's obviously filled with meaning for him.  But not necessarily for the reader.  And furthermore, it comes across as almost pathetic as he recounts how he tries and fails numerous times to recreate that unique experience.

The last part of the book devolves into a partial history of the modern era in comics and, as the NYT reviewer noted, mere "shout-outs" to his friends and colleagues in the industry.  It could have been - should have been - so much more.

I'm still glad that I read it.  Can I recommend it to others?  It depends on what they are looking for in this book.  I will say this - it is insightful of how the artist's life influences and shapes his writing process.  To read this book is come to some sort of understanding of why Grant Morrison's comics are the way they are - for better and worse.

Peace Out!

Steve Rhodes

The Age of Bendis: 2000-2012...

Brian Michael Bendis - the Man himself

The Age of Bendis

Sure, you have your Golden Age of comics (1938-1955), your Silver Age (1956-1969), your Bronze Age (1970-1983) and your Copper (or Modern) Age (1984-?).  Each one has its merits.  But I would argue that we are now in the midst of the greatest periods of comic-booking.  Behold, I present to you the Age of Bendis (2000-2012)!

But first, a moment of personal recollection...

I first started reading and collecting comic books way back in 1965  Then in 1976, upon the discovery of the existence and attractiveness of the female of the species, I boxed up my comics, put them into a closet, bade them farewell, and started dating.  Looking back, I ask my younger self, "What were you thinking???"  Comic books and girls are not mutually exclusive categories.  You can have girls AND comics, too.  The fact that I am now happily married AND a lover of comics proves the point.

Avengers Disassembled, 2005

Fast forward to the summer of 2004, when I walked into Dave's Comics here in Richmond, and realized that the fanboy flame still burned within me.  My passion for comics was reignited.  I started off with recommendations for graphic novels from Dave and his trusty assistant, Marlon.  They guided me through many of the collections of comic events and key stories that I had missed from the late 1970s to the present.  I read Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come, The Watchmen, Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: The Killing Joke, The Avengers: The Kree-Skrull War, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Batman: A Death in the Family, and many, many others that I cannot list here.  Suffice to say, during this period of 2004-2005, I ended up with over three long boxes of graphic novels and trade paperbacks.  You could say that I caught up pretty quickly.

One trade stood out in particular, Avengers Disassembled, by one Brian Michael Bendis.  It was a collection of a crossover miniseries which took the familiar team of the Avengers and essentially blew them apart.  Needless to say, the storytelling also blew me away.  I was awed by it.  In some ways, it reminded me of the Marvel I had grown up with, especially with the heroes turning against each other and having one big throw down.  But one a deeper level, it felt like it was this subversive tome, trying to undo the Marvel Universe and re-make it again in some new and different order.

The New Avengers #1, 2005

About this same time, I had begun to collect single issues again.  First DC, then Marvel, and then some of about everything.  When I told the good folks at Dave's Comics how much I had enjoyed Avengers: Disassembled, they recommended that I check out the new series of The Avengers by the same writer.  And I dutifully added The New Avengers to my pull list.

Issue #1 of The New Avengers made me absolutely giddy with delight!  Here was Captain America putting together a whole new team of Avengers.  When all was said and done just a few issues later, this new team consisted of Cap, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Wolverine, the Sentry, Spider-Woman, Ronin (Maya Lopez) and (gulp!) Spider-Man!  Who had ever heard of an Avengers team that looked like this?  It was awesome and cleverly told.  I was hooked.

At this point, I became a Bendis-oholic.  I simply couldn't get enough of this Brian Michael Bendis guy.  So I started reading The Ultimate Spider-Man (caught up in trades), Powers (both Image Comics and Icon), Daredevil, and basically anything else with his name on it.  And I'm proud to say that I am still addicted though these many years hence.

Powers #1, 2000

Brian Bendis has been at the forefront of so many of the Marvel events and inovations over the past decade.  Helping to launch the Ultimate Marvel universe in 2000 with Spider-Man re-imagined as a teen.  Bendis then re-invigorated the Daredevil franchise, running from 2001-2005.  Also in 2001, He took a Marvel B (or even C) character, Jessica Jones, and made her a detective in Alias, to amazing success, even though it was a Max imprint and geared for adults.  In 2004, he brought his creator-owned books published first at Image Comics, Powers, to the new Marvel creator-owned imprint, Icon Comics.  Powers is a detective mystery series about cops who police the superhero community.

With his hands deeply into the Avengers franchise, Bendis proceeded to take the Marvel universe from one event to another.  He wrote the stories for The Avengers/X-Men cross-over event, House of M in 2005.  Secret Invasion was published in 2008.  It was Bendis response, of sorts, to the earlier published Kree-Skrull War.  This along with House of M and Avengers Disassembled formed a trilogy of sorts.  Dark Reign follow Secret Invasion in 2008, as well as the intriguing comic title, The Dark Avengers.  The events of Dark Reign were brought to a conclusion with yet another event - Seige - in 2009.  In 2010, he relaunched the New Avengers as well as a newly constituted Avengers series bringing Marvel into a new Heroic Age.  In addition to these which I have mentioned are the many other Marvel titles that he wrote, such as Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate X-Men, and Ultimate Fantastic Four to name a few.  I'm sure I will get called out on those I have not mentioned.

Scarlet #1, 2010

Grant Morrison in his book, Supergods, says that when Bendis commits to a book - he really commits.  Take Ultimate Spider-Man (in all it's varied forms), Bendis has been writing that title(s) since 2000, and he's still going.  His partnership with artist, Mark Bagley, lasted over ten years until issue #111, when Bagley left for other pursuits and was replaced by Stuart Immonen.  This partnership between Bendis and Bagley lasted longer than the Stan Lee-Jack Kirby partnership on The Fantastic Four in the 1960s, which went for 102 issues.  Or take his commitment on Powers, which has now lasted over 12 years and two different publishers, as well as his partnership with artist, Michael Avon Oeming.  Then there's the Avengers franchise which he took over in 2004 lasting until this coming summer in 2012, when he will hand over the reigns to a new creative team.  That day will be a sad day indeed.

And Bendis is still going!  He created Scarlet in 2010 with artist Alex Maleev.  He co-wrote, Takio, with his daughter in 2011, a graphic novel geared for kids.  And he's partnered again with Bagley on a new title, Brilliant.  

If this brief survey of his enormous work doesn't convince you that the years, 2000-2012, have been the Age of Bendis, then I don't know what will.  He is, simply, the greatest writer of the modern era of comics.  I will concede that we live in a time of some truly great talent, a new kind of Golden Age for comics if you will, but no one has done more for the medium than Bendis.  Let's hope that this Age of Bendis is not concluding, but still evolving and continuing.

Thank you, Brian, for all the joy you have brought to fanboys and fangirls everywhere!  Here's to the future!

Dan DeCarlo: Comic Creators Profile

She's Josie #4, 1963

Comic Creator Profile

Put simply, Dan DeCarlo was "the" comic artist who established the style of what Archie Comics looked like.  I grew up with Archie and his pals in the 1960s and 1970s.  I loved the antics of Archie, Jughead, Reggie and Moose.  But I really appreciated the beauty of Betty, Veronica, Sabrina and Josie.  Josie was my favorite - mainly because I have a thing about redheads.  As you will read below, Dan created and named Josie after his French wife, whom he met while serving in Europe in World War II.  He also created Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Cheryl Blossom.

I just loved DeCarlo's art.  I think his style was a major factor for why I read Archie Comics so much as a kid.  And also for why I still collect Archie comics from that era.  I shared my love of all things Archie (and DeCarlo) with my own five children.  As soon as they could read, I began buying them Archie Digests, which reprinted older material, at the check-out line at the grocery store.  They grew to love Archie as much as I did.

_________________________________________

December 23, 2001

Dan DeCarlo, Archie Artist and Creator Of Josie and the Pussycats, Is Dead at 82

By Eric Nash

Dan DeCarlo, a top cartoonist for Archie Comics for more than 40 years and a creator of the characters Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the teenage witch, died on Tuesday in New Rochelle, N.Y. He was 82, and lived in Scarsdale, N.Y.

The cause was pneumonia, said his wife, Josie.

Mr. DeCarlo defined the look of the prototypical American teenagers Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and their friends at Riverdale High after taking over as chief artist at the comic book company in 1975, when the characters' creator, Bob Montana, died. Archie made his first appearance as a gap-toothed, bow-tie-clad teenager in loud checked trousers in Pep Comics in 1941.

The Archie cast was a combination of real people Mr. Montana remembered from his high school years in Haverhill, Mass., and the idealized small-town America of the Andy Hardy movies. Mr. DeCarlo brought his own distinctive, clean-lined cartoon style, which was soon adopted as the house style for the characters, especially the leggy females with wide eyes and snub noses.

Mr. DeCarlo was renowned for his curvaceous depiction of the female form, so-called ''good girl'' art, which had its origins in the pinup style of World War II. ''He was always interested in drawing shapely girls,'' Mrs. DeCarlo said.

In 1946 he worked for Timely Comics (later Marvel Comics) on cheesecake titles like ''Millie the Model'' and ''My Friend Irma,'' and free-lanced for The Saturday Evening Post, Argosy and Humorama.

''It was the time of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, so he was drawing that voluptuous type of woman,'' Mrs. DeCarlo said. ''When he went to Archie, he was drawing teenagers, so he changed his style a bit,'' she said. ''But he always had curve.''

Mr. DeCarlo gave the blond Betty Cooper her distinctive ponytail and kept up with what teenagers were wearing, from miniskirts and Nehru jackets in the 1960's to baby T-shirts and cargo pants in the 90's.

Mr. DeCarlo was born in New Rochelle and attended New Rochelle High School and the Art Students League for three years before he was drafted into the Army in 1941; he worked as a draftsman and had a sideline, painting company mascots on the noses of airplanes.

Josie and the Pussycats #46, February 1970

He met his wife, Josie Dumont, a French citizen, in Belgium shortly after the Battle of the Bulge. His French was minimal. ''We communicated with drawing,'' Mrs. DeCarlo said. ''He would draw things for me to make me understand what he had in mind. He was really so amusing. Instead of just using words he would use cartoons to express himself. Right away we knew that we were meant for each other.''

The ever-stylish Josie DeCarlo was the inspiration for the leader of the Pussycats. ''We went on a Caribbean cruise, and I had a costume for the cruise, and that's the way it started,'' Mrs. DeCarlo said about her cat suit, immortalized by the animated cartoon's bubble-gum theme song, ''Josie and the Pussycats/ Long tails and ears for hats.''

''The hairdo came after,'' Mrs. DeCarlo said. ''One day I came in with a new hairdo with a little bow in my hair, and he said, 'That's it!' ''

The exact circumstances of Josie's creation became the subject of a lawsuit involving Mr. DeCarlo and Archie Comics shortly before the cartoon was made into a feature film this year. Mr. DeCarlo said that he created the character on his own in the late 1950's and tried to sell it as a syndicated comic strip called ''Here's Josie.'' At least one syndicate turned him down, he said. ''You know, I threw that letter away,'' he once said. ''If I still had that letter, there wouldn't have been any case. I would have been a shoo-in.''

The position of Archie Comics was that Mr. DeCarlo created the character for them as ''work for hire,'' so the rights belonged to the company. The fallout was rancorous even by the standards of such suits over intellectual property rights: Archie fired Mr. DeCarlo in May 2000 after 43 years of work.

''They could have worked it out,'' Mrs. DeCarlo said. ''My husband was not asking for millions of dollars. They paid him well, but Dan felt that it was not enough. He was looking for them to realize that he was getting on in years and that he deserved to get something back.''

Sabrina the Teenage Witch #8, September 1972

He was listed as a creator in the end credits of ''Josie and the Pussycats,'' which did poorly at the box office. He did receive a bonus and credit as co-creator of Sabrina the teenage witch, which became a popular live-action television show.

The couple's twin sons, Dan Jr. and Jim, both deceased, also worked on their father's comics as inkers.

Mr. DeCarlo is survived by his wife, Josie, and two grandchildren.

Despite his falling out with the company, he loved Archie and his pals. ''Those characters that he drew for Archie were always the subject for our conversation at the dinner table,'' Mrs. DeCarlo said. ''We always wanted to know, what are they going to do tomorrow, what are you drawing, how are they going to dress? Everybody would voice his opinion. They were like part of our family.''

Remembering My First Comic

Fantastic Four #19, October 1963

It Came From the Long Box...

Let me begin with a confession... I actually don't remember which comic book that began my odyssey into the world of sequential story-telling.  I suspect it was probably a comic from Dell, Harvey or Gold Key.  From looking at my oldest comics, the time I began reading comics must have been around 1965 or 1966.  As I look through the stack of these earliest relics from my childhood, I notice how worn and well-read they are all.  All but a few are without their covers.  Yellowed and dulled, they nonetheless remind me of a time when I would read this stack over and over again.

But in my search for my oldest comic (a bit like an archaeologist sifting through the ruins to find the earliest civilization), I come across a cover-less, but otherwise intact copy of Fantastic Four #19!  Published in October 1963, it may well be my very first comic - not that I remember reading it in 1963, because at that time, of course, I couldn't read.  My older cousin, George, who helped introduce me to the world of comics must have given this to me sometime later.  But from the shape it's in, it obviously has been read many, many times.  

The story is entitled, "Prisoners of the Pharaoh," this issue was written by none other than Stan "the Man" Lee and his more than able partner, Jack "the King" Kirby, who was the artist.  Talk about finding the Holy Grail, I can't believe that I had this in my collection and had forgot about it.  How could I not remember having and reading such an early issue of The Fantastic Four - THE comic that launched the BIG BANG over at Marvel in 1961?  This was holding history in my very own hands.  From this I deduce that even at a very young age, I had good taste in comic books.  In later years, when Jack Kirby moved to DC Comics, I would become a huge fan of his unique style of drawing.  I longed to be able to draw like him.  I can remember trying to duplicate his art from an issue of Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth, but with little success.

Whether this Fantastic Four is indeed my first comic or just one of my early favorites, I cannot tell.  But it's place in my comic collection does remind me of all those wonderful, lost afternoons reading comics just like this one.  It's themes of time travel, special powers, cosmic conflict, battles between good and evil would repeat themselves in comic after comic, year after year, shaping me into an eternal fanboy.

Marvel Promotes Axel Alonso to Editor-in-Chief

Marvel Entertainment promotes Axel Alonso to editor-in-chief of its comic bookst

By MATT MOORE Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA January 4, 2011 (AP)

After more than a decade spent guiding several of Marvel Comics' biggest characters as an editor, Axel Alonso has been promoted to editor-in-chief, Marvel Worldwide Inc. said Tuesday.

Alonso will oversee all of Marvel's publishing aspects and will advise on their creative direction, as well as help develop new story lines and new initiatives for the heroes and villains that make up Marvel's roster, including the Avengers, Spider-Man, Punisher and Dr. Doom, among others.

Alonso replaces Joe Quesada, who was Marvel's editor-in-chief for a decade and its chief creative officer since 2010.

As the company's chief creative officer, Quesda oversees its creative endeavors in film, television, publishing and online, too. Marvel has expanded beyond the printed page in recent years, mounting film adaptations of Iron Man along with planned releases this year of Thor and Captain America.

Marvel also promoted Tom Brevoort, another longtime editor, to senior vice president of publishing.

Quesada lauded Alonso's uncanny ability to shepherd titles from simple idea to printed product.

"For over a decade, Axel's been instrumental in bringing fresh new voices to Marvel and reinventing our biggest characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men, Wolverine and so many more," Quesada said in a statement. "He's fought to create unique imprints like Marvel MAX while also bringing fresh new voices to the Marvel family."

Alonso joined Marvel in 2000 as a senior editor and helped oversee critically lauded runs of Amazing Spider-Man and the X-Men, along with revisioning western character Rawhide. He was promoted to vice president and executive editor in 2010.

Alonso also oversaw cross-promotional projects, including the recent mashup that saw several notable NBA athletes reborn as super heroes in "ESPN The Magazine."

Alonso said he was prepared to step up to his new role, which comes in a year when the company has said it will kill off a member of the fabled Fantastic Four and is unveiling a new event series called "Fear Itself" that will play on contemporary concerns and fears in its comic books.

"Marvel has a great history of the most dynamic and memorable (editor-in-chiefs) in comics history and I'm honored to step into this role," Alonso said. "I've been blessed to work with some of the most creative men and women in the world, bringing to life some of the most compelling stories you'll find in any medium. This new role provides me with exciting challenges and prospects I've never encountered before, but I know one thing-Marvel's getting even bigger in 2011."