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5 Minute Marvels!

I wish I could say I discovered it on my own, but it was brought to my attention by site co-creator Tim Miner.

5 Minute Marvels began simply with Tim’s six year old daughter Grace drawing superheroes every night before bedtime.  Once she asked her dad to join her, something he hadn’t done in nearly twenty years, a new tradition was born.  Every night for five minutes before bedtime Tim and his two daughters Grace (6) and Cate (4) draw superheroes, and in that five minutes a lot of quality time happens, not to mention some pretty great results.

Grace and Cate’s Scarlet Witch is my personal favorite:

I love how Grace got Wanda’s curly red hair, and Cate’s creative use of the pointy red aspect of Wanda’s headpiece…it’s actually fascinating I think to see her inclusion of it into the face.  Great stuff ladies!

Tim’s story of how this all got started, and his invitation for everyone to get involved can be found here.

I don’t actually have any kids to draw with, but Tim and his lovely girls agreed to draw my favorite heroine from when I was a kid, Rogue, so that I could participate remotely.  Below are all of our Rogue versions.  I have to say, it was the most fun drawing (even without a child present) that I’d had in a long time.  I’d recommend this to anyone that has kids (or even if you don’t)…and if you do try it out, make sure to send your results in to Tim so he can post them on 5 Minute Marvels.

Tim mentioned that Cate (far left) saw Rogue’s white stripe as a star, but noted that she was too tired to draw a star, so she just went with a cross.  Hilariously cute!  Here’s my Five Minute Rogue…an old school (sorta) punky Rogue version:

Thanks for letting me participate you guys –  I had a great time!  Spread the word everyone…let’s get a whole new family tradition going.

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063 Phil Noto

Last week’s DC Nation page featured a Wonder Woman renumbering controversy that fans of Wonder Woman hold dear to their heart – the issue is this – Why the hell is the preeminent female superhero of the DC Universe currently on issue #45 while Superman and Batman are edging towards #700?

Wonder Woman, like her Justice League teammates has actually had just short of 600 issues, however her title has been relaunched so many times that she’s now “technically” only on issue #45 of her latest relaunch.  And there’s been a campaign going on to get her the recognition she’s earned.  Well the fan cries have been heard because last week Editor-In-Chief Dan Didio addressed the issue in DC Nation and gave fans an opportunity to actually make a difference:  send in a postcard in favor of Wonder Woman getting renumbered to #600 and if they receive 600 postcards, it will be done.

Now, I hate blogging about Wonder Woman because I always feel a bit like a wolf in sheep’s clothing as I’m really not a true fan.  I keep trying…I WANT to love her so badly.  But no writer has been able to make it happen for me yet.  So why should I bother blogging about this issue?  Three reasons.

1.  I think it’s great when DC (or any corporation) actively wants to listen to their fans – and truly gives them an opportunity to voice opposition or approval and affect change, as Dan Didio is doing with this postcard pledge.

2. I’m not a big fan of revamping and “relaunching” books in general, so I see this as a way to right those wrongs.  Not that books don’t sometimes need an update, or when they’ve gone horribly wrong, don’t deserve (or yearn for) a fresh start, but I’m pretty against starting off with an “ALL NEW FIRST ISSUE!” every time things get tough.  I understand that it gets people excited and likely sales briefly spike, I get it, but as a long time reader I’m not a fan.  It makes being a reader (and a collector) a huge pain.

“You’re talking about issue #3 right?  Oh, wait, which issue #3…would that be volume 1, volume 2, the super secret alternative arc volume 8?  ARGH!”

And I do believe it’s some of that madness that freaks other “normal” people (i.e. non comics fans) out and away from comics.  Comics are DAMN complicated.  And they don’t have to be.  Sure, relaunch a title with a new creative team…but you don’t have to call it “ALL NEW WONDER WOMAN ISSUE #1” and undo the last 200 or however many issues.

There are of course cases where relaunching a book with an all new #1 has worked and been a huge benefit, not just in sales but in content and direction, but in general I’m not a fan, especially when the character isn’t changing.  For example, though I’m personally not a fan of the ALL NEW Batgirl #1 relaunch,  it makes sense for that to be a new series in a way, because it’s a new character.  Sure it’s still Batgirl, but it’s no longer Cass Cain (much to my chagrin) so I find that more palatable. But Wonder Woman, in all her incantations over the years, is still Diana.  And she earned the hell out of that #600.

3.  I’m a feminist.  Whether Wondy and I have come to love each other or not, she still deserves the same recognition as her teammates.  And I think it’s only fair to acknowledge that as a female superhero, she’s actually had a much harder time becoming a success than Superman and Batman, and yet she has prevailed and stood the test of time.  She deserves the recognition of each one of those issues she struggled for.

Didio made a decent point in his argument that he thinks the #45 is less off putting to possible new fans than the #600, but I just don’t think it’s really that much less off putting.  45 issues is still nearly four years of issues – so it’s not like it’s issue #3 or something and you can just jump on board with zero drama.

Anyway, if you agree with me, or if you have your own reasons.  Send a postcard in to Dan Didio at DC proclaiming that you want Wonder Woman to start renumbering at #600.  My postcard is in the mail.  See?

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Since I keep track of what I read on this blog I want to post that I finished the book Superpowers by David J. Schwartz.  But I’m not going to post a review (or a starred rating) because considering the book I’m writing I guess I feel almost like it’s a conflict of interest.

The second post I ever made on this blog was a review of Soon I Will Be Invincible, which I took down for the same reason.  Feel free to call me out on this, but I really feel icky about talking about these books considering my own work in progress.

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So this is my first book review of 2008. The year in which I am not torturing myself to read a book a week, and I have to say, I’m really enjoying reading again, mostly because I don’t feel so pressured, it’s also of note that I’m getting a lot more done that isn’t reading – so it’s good on all sides.

Adam lent me this book, Superfolks by Robert Mayer (which he has not read) thinking I might find it interesting, both because I love me some superheroes, and also because my novel (and my in-progress second and third novels – part of a trilogy) are basically about a superhero. I think he thought it would be helpful and constructive to read, and that I also might enjoy it. He’s not wrong. I did enjoy it. But it also totally enraged me, and in the end, despite the fact that I concede my rating may be a bit unfair considering that it was originally published in 1977, it only gets 2.0 stars. Here’s why.

The Good: It was enjoyable in a fluffy way. I can appreciate that Mayer was doing something innovative with superheroes for his time. It reads easily and the hero/superhero David Brinkley is likable enough (despite the misogynistic aspects) but he’s also not too sticky sweet and perfect, he seems very three-dimensional.

One of my favorite parts of the book was a little detail that if Brinkley used his powers of ex-ray vision for non-superhero reasons, like looking at an interns boobs through her tight sweater, then he became instantly clumsy, and that despite the consequences, he often abuses the power and as such is often running into things and falling down. It was a funny bit and an element that would make Superman as Clark Kent more believable in his civilian disguise.

I was very interested in the idea, that was unfortunately only touched on, of Brinkley’s inability to perform sexually as his superhero persona, and the other more psychological ideas about the realities of being a superhero that were explored, it was all very interesting, but unfortunately not really fleshed out thouroughly.

There was a brilliant (also pretty unexplored) idea about villains (powered or not) that all went to the same boarding school (The Winthrop School For Boys) to be trained to be villains – Lee Harvey Oswald being a current (though deceased) alumni and martyr – it was funny and creative and I wish it had tied more into the overall plot, rather than just being a wonderful little side note. The overall conspiracy/plot was also quite clever, though it made for the most dull reading in the book.

The Bad: The title is terrible. Who came up with this title? The title really does not pertain at all to the story. David Brinkley lives in a world with superheroes and supervillians, yes, but the story does not focus on other heroes at all – there are vague mentions of them – mostly in an effort to create a sense of the world that Brinkley lives in, and I think two super villains and one superhero (retired) make fairly brief appearances. The book is also not really about people with super powers in general or as a comment on society, or science, or the future, or anything, so I can’t figure out the reason for the title choice. The Incredibles, with its five minute newsreel footage at the beginning, which brilliantly sets the political and social stage for that world is more about “superfolks” and how that effects them and the world, than this entire 240 page book.

We never know our “hero’s” superhero name. It’s annoying. He is often referred to as Indigo, but later it is suggested that this is just a code name for him by respective governments. You never know for sure. I’m certain Mayer had a reason for doing this, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out the reason. It only served to frustrate me.

There are little tricks that Mayer uses, which I’m sure many readers like, but which left me a bit cold. Tricks such as using famous names for normal people and normal people names for famous people, for example, Jane Doe is a famous movie star and Gloria Steinem (one of our most powerful women in reality – so of course she must be “brought low”) is described as married with children and wearing a smelly housedress and an extra 30 distasteful pounds. There are a lot of name drops like this and initially I thought it was a bit clever, but it gets old fast.

It’s also not clear what stage he has really set for his world, it’s not the real world, or any other pre-established comic book world (i.e. Wonder Woman exists, as do Batman and Superman, but so does Snoopy the Flying Ace and The Lone Ranger), so but I can’t get a sense of what it’s supposed to be like with any accuracy.

People in Mayer’s book also behave in ways pretty contrary to the way we do in 2008, and I suspect contrary to the way people behaved in 1977, and QUITE often in a borderline pornographic way, but there is no set up for why that is acceptable in this society…did something go horribly wrong…or right…to make people act this way? It came up too often to be ignored but not often enough that I accepted it without reservations…especially with no “historical” explanation. The little in-jokes may have been inventive and inspiring or chuckle inducing in 1977, but in 2008 it left me kind of bored, and without a clear sense of the world in which the in-jokes existed I was left frustrated.

The Ugly: The 1977 publication date is hugely at issue in this review because there are many 2008 socially unacceptable things in the book that were probably the norm in 1977. The same way I bristled at the N-word being used occasionally in Matheson’s I Am Legend (fitting that Will Smith got the lead in 2007 – it’s nice when things come around like that) I bristled at the black/white separation here and the way it was handled. I know I cannot expect things like that not to exist in what is essentially a period piece but it’s also hard to just accept it. And this brings us to my major issue with the book, especially in the final pages…

Spoiler Alert

Women are without a doubt second class citizens in this book.

They are sex objects and wives and mothers and that’s about it. They are certainly not superheroes, the best they can do, apparently, is be a hollow version of Superman’s ‘Lois Lane crack reporter’, in the form of Peggy Poole, who is really not as much a reporter as a vehicle for Brinkley to remember his youth and past sexual desire for her. Women can also be whores, as evidenced in the form of Brinkley’s ex-high school sweetheart Lorna Doone, who also operates simply as a vehicle for Brinkley to remember his youth and past sexual desire for her, though as a whore she is now sad looking and unappealing. Boy we women cannot win. What time period is this set in – the 1500’s? Jesus.

I understand it’s 1977, but really? I mean, Charlie’s Angels was on the air then (1976 – 1981)…I’m not saying that it was a groundbreaking show and the angels certainly used their looks to their advantage in every single frame and they were ultimately taking orders from not one, but two men (one of who lived inside a speaker phone no less) but at least they were the stars. They weren’t sidelined reporters and whores, and little housewives, they were private investigators, and spies, and models, and athletes, and they were smart. You know what else was out in 1977…a little show called Wonder Woman…oh yeah, and this show you may have heard of…it’s not like women weren’t on the rise…they were stepping up and were showing, especially during the late 1970’s, that they were NOT just the little wifey, the powerless sidekick, the whore, the sex object. And these shows weren’t even particularly innovative and revolutionary, but rather mainstream, so I have to say that ultimately Mayer’s book is buried in the opposite of innovation and forward thinking. It’s like he decided to do a superhero novel, which was super innovative for the time, and then decided that that was quite enough innovation and quit.

As if to add insult to injury, the end of the book is like a giant punch in the vagina of all women.

Seriously. In literally the last pages of the book, our “hero” allows his old flame Peggy to give him a blow job…he justifies the fact that he allows this to happen while his wife is literally in labor with their third child, by saying that “he didn’t ask for it or instigate it” and that he “deserves it” for saving the world (yet again). Whoo. What a hero. Someone hold me back from this awesome specimen…this golden example of man. Blech. It turns out that it is actually his apparently gay sort-of-one-time sidekick that is blowing him (his eyes were closed) and so he chases him out of the room when he realizes the mistake, and ‘hyuck-hyuck-hyuck’ we can all feel okay that he didn’t actually cheat on Pamela (his wife) with Peggy (his old flame) because it was really Peter (what’s up with the P names?) and he of course didn’t want that. So we are supposed to overlook the fact that our hero wanted it to happen and that he thought it was happening and allowed it to go on, but since it technically didn’t happen the way he wanted with the person he wanted then it doesn’t matter and all is well. Hahahaha! Isn’t life grand? Totally annoying.

And that’s not all – the WORST offense by far is that at the very end of the book Brinkley is basically losing his super powers (as he was in the beginning) and is lamenting the loss of them and of his lost heritage, but his wife has a baby BOY in the end, and SURPRISE, there are very strong hints (i.e. ridiculous hard to deny proof) that the son will have his father’s power. I guess those two little girls of his didn’t get anything. I mean what a surprise, why would they? Girls should pretty much be drowned like unwanted kittens at birth, or farmed out as strippers and whores, or maybe sold into the slavery of marriage, or oh, I know, they can be “crack reporters” that get captured all the time, so that heroes can have someone helpless to rescue.

BLAH! ANGER!

I’m disappointed in my man Grant Morrison for writing the intro to this and praising this book so much. I’m angry at Stan Lee for saying, “You’ll never look at superheroes the same way again” – he’s right, I can’t. And I’m more disappointed than ever.

So it’s getting better.  We got to see some cool stuff (mostly Peter being a badass) and some interesting plotlines are emerging. 

[Mild Spoilers]

The Good:  Seeing Peter doing some awesome superhero stuff in a “fighting scenario”.  The fact that the writers/creators do seem to actually have a few interesting plot lines up their sleeves for Hiro’s yawn inducing Kensei trip to the past (self healing for the drunken gaijin?  didn’t see that one coming).  Nicki, Micah, & DL are still blissfully absent.  I was frustrated to no end last year by “the Haitian” character (if only because he was called only “the Haitian”) but his return was surprisingly interesting and it was cool to see him reuinited with HG.

The Bad:  The predictable and repetitive stuff going on with Hiro in the past…it was better than last episode but it is still really rough and slow.  The super annoying and creepy “boy that will obviously be Claire’s love interest this year” peeping in windows and spying on people like a standard issue peeping tom.  Claire’s whiney behavior and childish antics, she’s above this.  Peter can kick the crap out of three guys, but he can’t take his precious little box of information from one guy?  Gimme a break.  I concede that he doesn’t have much control right now, but the writer’s can’t just decide to make him a badass one minute and a pussycat the next because it suits their needs.

The Ugly:  We still have to endure those bad Irish accents (some better than others – Caitlin’s was pretty good).  The twins are muy annoying.  Why are all the women characters so whiny lately?  The frustrating thing is that i like the twins power, or what we know of it, it’s an interesting idea that one twin can in effect “bring the other one down” from her killing sprees and that they have to stay together to prevent deaths, but so far it is not interesting to watch and the writers have given us no reason to like or relate to these characters.  Also, twins, notoriously in comics and SF etc., have similar powers or their powers work in synch or augment eachother, so it’s not like this is ground breaking stuff…I’m going to need a little more here.

Overall I give this episode a C+/B- and I am hopeful that the grade will continue to get better (although we are obviously due an appearance by NMDL – Nicki, Micah, DL – and that will likely only hurt the show’s grade).  But here’s to hoping that the superhero bubble doesn’t burst this year…if Heroes can stay smart and interesting…superheroes as a whole can hang on a bit longer to their current pop culture domination and maybe so can publisher/agent interest in my book (please please please…did that sound like begging? Cause it was).

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ah Invisible Man Claude…where are you?  Please come back and while you’re here kill some of the lame characters who eat up your screentime okay?

overall a very disappointing start. i’ll give the show a pass as you could see how much trouble they were having getting viewers caught up with such a large cast of characters (Niki, Michah, & D.L. were blissfully absent – the biggest upside of the whole episode).

[spoilers]

we got a few interesting threads to start us on our path (e.g. the mysterious killer of Hiro’s father) good stuff, and the last 10 minutes was pretty compelling, but overall there were too many chessy saccharine speeches and repetitive bits (if i had to hear Hiro say that Kensei was “supposed to be a hero” one more time i was going to pull my hair out). and the sad thing about that whole bit was that having Kensei the mythic Japanese legend turn out to be a white guy (and very much not a hero) was pretty funny, but everything that was interesting about that was worn away after seeing the same conversation between Kensei and Hiro twenty times.

the good: my boy Nathan Petrelli is back and with a badass grizzly beard – and what was up with his burned off face in his reflection in the mirror? one of the coolest things we saw all episode…can’t wait to see more of what is up with that – also cool was Nathan ripping his mother a well deserved new one. my boy Peter Petrelli is obviously not dead (as we all knew) and we finally got a peek at him at the end of the episode, with nice shorn off locks. I’m not a fan of amnesia as a plot device, but they’ve made Peter so powerful that i guess they will have to keep thinking of ways to hold him back…this season it will be amnesia i guess. my boy Parkman back in fighting form and seeming less whiny than before. my boy Suresh being smart (finally).

the bad: the saccharine sweet and too long awkward speeches by various characters (most notably HG…say it ain’t so). the cheesy over the top stuff e.g. dialogue between Claire and her new teen “love interest”; almost every word out of Molly’s mouth; HG’s “kinko’s” boss…played for laughs, but it was just….uncomfortable; and as mentioned before the repetitive speeches with Hiro and Kensei.

the ugly: what is Claire made of glass? why on earth would she suffer such a horrible break from a simple back tuck. i mean, i would probably suffer that break, but Claire? i don’t buy it, a weak device to get us to see her powers…i liked the scene overall the idea of highschool as the horror show we know it is and Claire being forced to hide her true awesome self was all good, but the scene would have played better if she had just done the back tuck and been fine…no reason for the badass leg break; also ugly were the horrendous accents and bad acting on our “Irish” guys in the final scenes…ugh what a horrible note to end on.

as a first episode i give this a: C-

if this had been the first look i’d ever gotten at Heroes i never would have come back for more. fortunately i know they can do better, so i’ll come back. maybe since my expectations are now down around my ankles i won’t have to worry about them “living up to anything” anymore…see…i can be a glass half full kind of person – i swear!

i’ve been reading girl-wonder.org off an on for the last month or so and generally enjoy what she has to say over there, but never have i agreed with her more than in her post of September 9th 2007.  check it out if you find yourself interseted in comics, feminism, or better yet, both.

http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/

too busy at work today to do a legitimate post, but here’s something fun.

viceland is awesome, their do’s and don’ts most of all…and here are some great superhero related ones that i thought i’d pass on. 

http://www.viceland.com/int/dd.php?id=1033&country=us

http://www.viceland.com/int/dd.php?id=237&country=us

http://www.viceland.com/int/dd.php?id=411&country=us

i love Stan Lee, actually that’s not true…it’s more i feel obligated to love Stan Lee regardless of his many crimes, but his show I Want To Be A Superhero is just an unforgivable crime against comics, and superheroes, and the whole ball of wax.  having this show on the air is the kind of thing that encourages people to give me weirdo looks when i say i majored in sequential art (comic books) in college. 

which gets really old really fast by the way.

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