Just a quick note to remind any readers who are attending Dragon*Con this weekend that OutlantaCon and the Brit Track are throwing a queer-targeted Rainbow Flag Party on Saturday night from 10pm to 12:30am. From the pocket guide it looks like that happens in the Sheraton but honestly I am not sure that I have quite worked out how to read this thing. I'll be wearing a nametag with my nom de plume and a black shirt. I know, I know, it's shockingly original con wear but sometimes one must simply pick a stereotype and lean into it. Feel free to come hang out at the party, say hi and get your groove on. I'll also have access to email all weekend.
Maybe after we can stalk Peter David together stalk cute nerds together compare notes on the Dragon*Con experience!
This month's reader helps to put Loki's horns in context.
I've been reading PK for a few years now and really appreciate the work that you folks do! I'm always excited to read your New Comic Book Wednesday posts and Klarion's review of X-Factor #200 inspired me to work through my ridiculous childhood loyalties and pick up a Marvel book for once!
Name: Brandon B
Age: 31
Where you're from: Texas, originally ... but I've settled in Western Massachusetts
Are you L, G, B, or T (or just friendly): Queer
Relationship Status: Seeing Someone
What's on your pull list: Secret Six, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman, Batman & Robin, Supergirl, everything Superman, Detective Comics (but only until The Question second feature wraps up), JLA, JSA, Power Girl, everything Green Lantern, Brave & the Bold, anything with Batwoman, anything with the Young Avengers, The New Mutants TBPs, various X-Men TBPs, and anything related to Love and Rockets
Favorite story: It's hard to pick just one, so I'll pick three. The Rucka/Williams run with Batwoman in Detective Comics was incredible. The art blew my mind and Rucka really wowed me with Kate's origin story. I also have a special place in my heart for Gail Simone's totally creepy and twisted Secret Six "Depths" story ... I've had that panel of Artemis saying "I've got some bastards to kill" as my wallpaper ever since. And, finally, say what you will, but the George Perez run on Wonder Woman was my first true comic book love. I thought Perez brilliantly (and subtly) exposed the modern dynamics of sexism through the eyes of a naive but courageous young Diana. And, in Diana, I found a hero I could relate to and grow with.
Superpower you'd most want to have: Tactile telekinesis (including flight)!
More about you: I work as a college educator/administrator and occasionally get to geek-out with students over comics. I'm particularly interested in the ways in which comic books have helped to expanded our national discourse on issues of identity, power, and social justice. After doing a few workshops about this with students, I set up a website to start more discussion on the topic (www.SocialJusticeinSpandex.com). I'm also really into ancient queer history and queer mythology ... did you know that Odin was into ritualistic homo sex and Loki was a nelly gender-swapper? If Marvel went there, I'd add Thor to my pull list in a heartbeat.
If you would like to be featured as one of PK's loyal fans, check out this post to join the love fest.
A brief interview with Darwyn Cooke has been making the rounds recently, where he discusses the pitfalls of modern comics storytelling, maligning the mature themes and drastic character modifications, supposedly because these actions take the fun out of the industry and make them less accessible for everyone. Numerous threads have gone up in arms taking offense to his statement, which deserves a careful examination.
Hooray! We have winners for our American Vampire giveaway, courtesy of the amazing Scott Snyder! I corresponded with our winners yesterday to find out how they'd like to be identified and here they are:
- The signed issue #5 of American Vampire goes to a Pink Kryptonite reader who is herself a writer of horror fiction: Carrie Clevenger of Texas, who noted that American Vampire got her permanently back into reading comics.
- The signed American Vampire promotional poster featuring portraits of Pearl and Skinner Sweet goes to Pascal, a Pink Kryptonite reader from Germany.
- The complete, autographed set of American Vampire issues #1 through #5 goes to Pink Kryptonite reader S. Thalmann from Michigan.
That is some sweet prize-related action, and many thanks to everyone who entered our drawing. It was great getting to swap an email or two with everyone who entered and talking about how much we all love American Vampire and especially the incredibly generous Scott Snyder. Thank you, Scott!
Reaction to the giveaway was great, so hopefully we will be able to line up something else like this with some of our other favorite books in the future. Thanks again!
DC put out a preview this morning of Knight & Squire #1, an upcoming series about the British Batman and Robin analogues. Paul Cornell works on the script, who I've come to appreciate as one of Britain's more accessible writers for detached, tourist-y consumers, so I couldn't think of someone better suited for such a UK-centric book. In the short preview, we get a glimpse at a bar full of fresh new rogues, including the silver-age inspired "Milkman" and the "First Eleven", a multinational corps who hail from Britain's former colonies, though no American was keen on taking part. What really caught my eye, after noting a sign for "Tights and Capes Disco every Thursday", was the new figure Faceoff, who adamantly introduced himself with a statement about his sexuality and made sure no one went around slingin' slurs about it.
Various low-class rogues meet up at a bar where rowdiness eventually ensues? That's the single most effective comics pitch ever to appeal to me. I'll be buying the series once it kicks off in October.
Question: who else is going to Dragon*Con in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend? I lost the scarlet V of con attendance in June by going to Heroes Con and that inspired a friend to suggest we attend Dragon*Con for the first time. We've both thought about attending it before but we're both also a little intimidated by the complexity and sheer size of Dragon*Con. Peter David is on the guest list, though, and the potential of getting him to sign an X-Factor or my copies of the Legions of Fire books is way too exciting for me to let a little thing like shyness get in my way.
I bring this up here in hopes that there are members of the PK community with strategies for finding the good stuff. Right now, looking at their website and the fan tracks, it all seems a little overwhelming in terms of figuring out what to do and where to go. At Heroes Con, pretty much everything was in one big room. Dragon*Con is clearly a wholly different kind of animal.
I'm also mentioning it now in case there are PK readers who want to get together for a social hour over beverages on the Saturday of the convention. Surely somewhere at the convention, or nearby, there is someplace that won't be packed with tens of thousands of our fellow fanfolk... right? No? A bit of naïveté showing there? Probably so, but it's worth a shot.
Leave a comment or send me an email if you want to share a tip for navigating the cosplay sea. If you want in on a social hour, shoot me an email off the blog at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net.
The enticing $1 "What's Next" series from DC is an exemplary promotional tool that got me into The Walking Dead series. A single dollar investment that led to a frantic search for the collected editions and gave me a new series to get excited about. It's a simple rule; You advertise a good product, people will line up for the real deal. What follows are my own mini-promotions, the working elements that bought my interest as a reader and have me awaiting the AMC series with great expectations, all spoiler-free.
Just a quick reminder that if you want in on the Great Pink Kryptonite American Vampire Giveaway then you should enter soon as I'm drawing the winners on Sunday afternoon. Haven't entered yet? That's easy: send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net. All you need to send me is a note that you're entering. We can work out mailing addresses and the like once you win. If you don't hear back from me within 24 hours that your entry was received, send it again.
See the original post for full details!
Spoiler Alert! The full post contains some spoilery discussion of events in the film itself!
Rubber Justice suggested last week that we both see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World this weekend then produce a joint review of it. We've both read a portion of the Scott Pilgrim comic book but neither of us has read the whole thing. I thought this sounded like a grand idea and yesterday we hashed out our thoughts.
The short version? We both liked it and we both kind of didn't. It's interesting, because this book is obviously extremely popular but everyone I know has roughly the same set of heavily mixed reactions to it and that's before anyone gets into discussing the character of Wallace. The process of translating a comic into a film doesn't usually do anything to improve the iffy bits, either. All this added up to what I think are a really interesting range of responses to the film.
Read on for Rubber Justice's and Klarion's thoughts on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World!
I haven't gotten as far as reading #3 of this comic - released last week - but over the weekend I did read issues #1 and #2. As a huge fan of the cartoon a decade ago I was very excited to see the resumption, brief though it be, of Terry McGinnis' career as the Batman of the Future. Unfortunately, so far this comic seems to be more about Bruce Wayne's past than Terry's future. It's an entertaining book, yes, but it isn't exactly what I'd hoped it would be.
Read on for more thoughts (and send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net if you want in on the American Vampire giveaway)!
(Don't forget that if you want in on the random drawing for one of three sweet American Vampire giveaways, courtesy of Scott Snyder, you need to send me an email at klarion at pink kryptonite dot net!)
I was completely unaware this comic existed but my comics shop slipped it into my bag as it's a tie-in with The Return of Bruce Wayne. I've come to like the idea of the character of Booster Gold, though, and despite knowing next to nothing about Rip Hunter I figure that with a name like that he must have a drag queen sidekick around somewhere so I was an easy sale.
I turned out to enjoy this comic book for the most part. As soon as it stopped being explicitly about the hunt for Bruce Wayne, though, I couldn't care less.
Read on for more thoughts!
Graeme McMillan has an excellent post over at CBR concerning the reputation of literary comics, and how readers may be unwilling to approach certain graphic novels because of the notoriety that surrounds them.
It's more than a little embarrassing to admit, but up until a couple of years ago, I'd pretty much successfully gone out of my way to avoid reading anything by the Hernandez Bros., and it was almost entirely because of the reputation of their work. Surely, I thought, nothing could stand up to the probably-hyperbolic praise thrown in their direction!
Which is an aspect that I believe most regular comics readers have sensed before. Certainly, price and availability are a huge factor in whether or not I buy a comic, or even if I'll try flipping through it at the bookstore café, but there are definitely books that have been bumped down on my "must-read" list based on hear-say or prejudices formed through other peoples' readings of a comic. A big one for me is The Dark Knight Returns. I feel like I've missed its moment of temporal poignancy, that I can't appreciate it after reading from a comics industry that's already taken so much from it. I'm not much of a Frank Miller fan anyway, with its dirty cops and neon cityscapes, but it's the weight of the book's name that keeps me from reading it. But Graeme concludes, correctly, that this self-restriction is a folly:
I was an idiot every single time I got scared of a book because of its reputation. For one thing, it's comics - You read it and it clicks or it doesn't, and that's the end of it
I wholly believe that we learn by taking in things from outside our established comfort zone, and I'm really impressed by this point. Guess I'll be picking up TDKR sometime soon, then. Anyone else avoiding the top shelf out of a silly fear?
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