Transmetropolitan Soup For The Soul #10

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 1…

I have just finished Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 1.  This material is legendary among comic fans – past a certain age – and these trades have been out for awhile now, but it has taken me some time to pick up a volume and check it out.  Everything I have heard about it was high praise, despite the dated nature of the material.  I must say, for stuff published in the early 1970s this was great.  It has aged very well, and though it maintains a bit of the whimsical elements of comics that were published in the 70s, it manages to be pretty insightful and interesting.

The basic background is that Jack Kirby had gotten royally pissed when management changed at Marvel and Stan Lee was taken as the golden child that had the major input to create the character.  Now, if you think about it, Stan’s one page plots were made good (if not great) by the layouts and character designs made by some great artists like Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr. and Jack Kirby.  Without these great artists then Hulk, Spider-man, Thor, X-men, all of that would be easily forgotten.

The things that were invented by Kirby for the Fourth World titles may not have become as huge as The Hulk – not the thing the guy in the street would recognize.  He did invent Darkseid and all his minions, Mister Miracle and Then New Gods.  All of this became very important in the recent Grant Morrison written Final Crisis series, an avant-garde literature experiment (with variable and contested results).  He also wrote the introduction to the first volume.

The issues are reprinted in chronological order and contain:  Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 (Oct 1970)
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #134 (Dec 1970)
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135 (Jan 1971)
The Forever People #1 (Feb 1971)
The New Gods #1 (Feb 1971)
Mister Miracle #1 (Mar 1971)
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136 (Mar 1971)
The Forever People #2 (May 1971)
The New Gods #2 (May 1971)
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #137 (May 1971)
Mister Miracle #2 (June 1971)
The Forever People #3 (July 1971)
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #138 (July 1971)
The New Gods #3 (July 1971)
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #139 (July 1971)
Mister Miracle #3 (Aug 1971)

If you have any knowledge of hippie culture, you might find a lot of interesting elements here.  There are sequences where you would think that the characters have dropped LSD or something, but in fact it has been achieved through science, as this is primarily a science fiction book with some superheroes.  There are no drugs, the comics code would not have allowed it, but there are several psychedelic experiences depicted.  This is not just in a visual sense, but in the forms of experience that the characters have.  There is that strong Alan Watts or Carlos Castenada element of understanding the role of the individual in society and the breakdown of the ego.  In essence it is highly reflective science fiction, showing the vast (and idealistic) potential of young people in 1970.  Youth is not stupid, silly or ignorant here.  Well, maybe silly in a few sequences.  The character Flippa Dippa comes to mind, an unfortunate example of comic silliness.  But youth, as portrayed here is not considered to be a “risk”.  They are not a danger to society, but are in fact the only thing which can protect it for Darkseid and his evil.  High praise and a bit progressive for comics at that time.  Marvel would take a little longer to embrace that understanding of their youth market, mainly doing so because Stan probably read Kirby in these issues and decided that there might be something in copying it.

I had read the Forever People stuff before, but it was in a black and white trade.  Seeing it in color really makes the experience so much better.  That is something about this packaging, the color has been translated very nicely and they managed to put it on a non-glossy paper so the images don’t look sloppy.  Compared to something like the Amazing Spider-man Omnibus it is a much better collection.  The paper is not cheap or low quality, but manages to have some of the qualities of fresh newsprint in texture – without going yellow in 3 months.  I would really like to see this kind of paper used in the higher end books.  The Absolute Long Halloween uses a paper a bit like this, with very good results in terms of providing a nice backing to Tim Sale’s art.  But if you look at the Absolute Hush, though far from terrible paper, the high gloss becomes reflective at times.  Jim Lee has some great art in that book, and the glossy paper does not detract from it, but the high gloss paper is a bad match in the Amazing Spider-man Omnibus.  The high gloss paper might help in some instances with highly processed art, but in the case of this older stuff I think a nice acid free paper with no gloss is a much better choice.  I think this book shows how much of an advantage there is to such paper.

Considering that these issues were published every other month, and Kirby wrote and penciled the issues, it amazes me that he could put out essentially two high quality comics a month.  No computers, no photoshop, no special tricks.  He just imagined it and wrote/drew it.  He also wrote a crossover themed event, without it being claimed as such, which is pretty early.  What Kirby created with Darkseid is a common enemy for all these titles, and I doubt if there were many readers that were picking up all of this stuff just based on the Kirby factor.  Comics were still pretty character based at that time, and the name of the creator was probably a very minor part of the selection process.  Even a genius like Kirby was only going to sway a small group of readers.  But even if you read only one of these titles, you were not missing out on the story.  If you did read more than one then the fact the Darkseid was in more than one title at the same time must have added some interest for a reader.  This sense of character exchange and overlapping is the standard today, as we have extrapolated the character into a universe and created an interchangable set of identities that can cross titles and creators.  Indeed this is the real property for these companies now, not so much the stories or the creations that the characters exist in but the images of the characters and what they evoke as symbols for people.  That is where the money is, liscensing.  To see a group of characters used like this, as plot motives, is pretty interesting.  These are new characters too, except for Jimmy Olson and Superman, who are only a part of the Jimmy Olson title.  You read this through different eyes in a collection like this, but it is much more interesting and satisfying to read the four titles in order of publication instead of as individual runs.  Your brain can parse that (at least mine can) sequence of four titles with different yet tangental plots.

Transmetropolitan Soup For The Soul #9

Social Networking and Friends From High School, a few thoughts…

As most of America I have a myspace and facebook account in addition to this blog.  People from high school have added me, only a few thankfully, but it got me to thinking about what would motivate one to add people from high school.

Some people feel a responsibility to keep track of their class, including everyone.  Those are the people that usually add me.  They are also the people that organize reunions.  I got invited to my 10 year reunion, thought about going and then decided not to.  Why?  I guess I consider high school my time on the “inside”, the way ex-cons consider their time in prision.  I did not want to be there, except for a couple of decent teachers the school was a joke.  I was not popular, I did not get along with many people, but then again I did not make an effort to.  So the class president became a bit like my parole officer, checking up as a part of their job in keeping track of the class.

There are others who are nostalgic about seeing where people they remember from school are and what they are doing.  That is a pretty fair reason, and I find myself wondering such things at time when brings up a random memory but I usually just go back to whatever I am doing.

I think health has something to do with it.  As I have gotten into my 30s I am not the cast iron constituted thing I used to be.  As we start to feel age we think back to youth, when our bodies were stronger and easier to use.  That takes you back and you pull up the distorted memories of high school and start to wonder.

The last reason, and probably the most critical one, is the people that peaked in high school.  Life is a progression, high school should not be this thing that they try to say things like “you’ll make friends that will last for the rest of your life”.  It is not really true.  In high school we are stupid, close minded, insular, unexpressive and generally worthless as human beings.  This is not just me being bitter about high school.  If you honestly look back on your high school experiences with a few years hindsight you will recognize just how idiotic and meaningless most of it was, just how embarassing your behavior and how unfulfilling the whole experience was.  Either that or you lie to yourself about it, which is fine too since sometimes such an existential hell is not something you want to remember.  So you make a golden days out of a pretty random experience.  Sure it is foundational, but if you cannot move beyond it then I am left to wonder how long you have been an alcoholic.

I have recieved an apology from a former high school alum about the way they treated me.  I think they were disturbed when I told them I did not give a fuck, in those exact words.  I think it probably angered them that I was not interested in their apology and that I was not helping them feel better.  But the reason I said those words was more about me not caring about what happened in high school.  I don’t really care.  It was only a fraction of my life, and I mean that in the sense of a meaningless experience that was endured before I could go pursue a real life.  Sure, they provided some team sports and dances but really they just held you back, took away any control you may have had over your own destiny and stuck you in a building full of other equally miserable sons of bitches.  Sure, you may not have felt that way about your high school experience but think about it…that first day you woke up and realized you would never have to go back to that school were you really sad?

So, when people contact me from high school and want to know how I am doing I am usually nice for their sake.  I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but really I just don’t care.  In a 99% white, middle class Christian oriented school I found out that I have only managed to be white, and it has not been something I have really cared about either.  I did not change after high school, I knew then the world was a lot bigger than the little dump that I was stuck in and I did not have to go somewhere else to figure that out.  I am not hateful of the high school years of my life or the people I knew there…I just think it was pretty insignifigant and if you are actively seeking out memories from it then you should seriously think about where your life is and why those years seem like something worth remembering.

The Preacher: Gone To Texas by Garth Ennis

I had heard things about this series.  About how crazy it was.  About how disturbed it was.  About how violent and freakish it was.  Most importantly, how damn good it was.

Now I should be writing my thesis right now, plus an annotated bibliography on visual anthropology, but I got sucked into this book.

So what is it about?  A preacher who loses it, goes into a bar and starts calling out people on their problems, gets drunk, gets in a fight and wakes up on Sunday morning to do his services when an escaped spirtual being from heaven attacks the church and kills everyone.  That is just the first issue.  The army then shows up, and hilarity ensues as the army, a bounty hunter from heaven, the preachers ex-girlfriend and a vampire she met all show up.

It is violent, the humor borders on the perverse (and crosses that line easily with characters such as “assface” – a failed copycat suicide following Kurt Cobain with a face like a sphincter but a positive attitude), some intensly strong language and just some messed up stuff.  But hey, this is a Garth Ennis book…would you expect anything less?

Well, as bizarre as it sounds it is a very compelling book.  I got the next three volumes as well, and I try not to start reading them to soon before bed (when I usually read comics), but I just couldn’t help myself last night and read Volume 2.  I couldn’t go to sleep until I finished it.  I imagine most people have already read this series, but it was new to me.  I had only heard good things, with some minor complaints about the super intense dialog being a bit distracting.  It is not a book for children, and when the wife and I get around to having a couple of the spores I am going to have to build a special bookshelf with a locking area for things like this.  Though I am not a big fan of keeping kids away from “harmful matter” things in popular culture I gotta say that this is not for the kiddies.  But who am I kidding, my kids will probably read manga and listen to techno, if for nothing else than to spite their old man.

If you haven’t read comics in a long time and are looking for something edgy and adult to read than this is a good thing to check out.  One of two things will happen:  1.)  you will read some of it, put it away and never read another comic while probably wondering what is wrong with me for recommending it, or 2.)  you will not be able to stop and become a crack fiend, ignoring friends, family and appointments, forgoing sleep, while you plow through these trades.  That is how it is with Garth Ennis books…you either read one and say “wow, this man must have had a distrubed childhood” and avoid any future books by him, or you actually like this stuff and keep down the path that will probably do some damage to your soul and brain cells.  Now, I don’t believe in a soul (but I can use it in a sentence) and I don’t need any help in damaging my brain cells but I think the trade off is pretty fair in this case.

I have heard there have been some attempts to get a Preacher movie made, or possibly and HBO miniseries.  I think both ideas are sad, because I am not sure you can actually make a movie about something as edgy as this without doing some real neutering to the book.  That is the biggest drawback for a film version of this, it will have to be watered down.  In this wonderful insane country we live in we can dismiss comics as make believe but movies have some weird level of reality that some people cannot accept.  The Divinci Code was fine as a book, but once they made a movie there was people protesting it and feeling the need to tell others that this book was wrong.  It is not about it being wrong, it is a movie, a piece of fiction and you should be able to parse the difference.  Still, I think the problem is that the people who have trouble with reality and fiction divisions don’t read books anyway, so the movie is going to be the immediate threat to them since they will probably see it.  But I digress…

Beware, once you start this you will either be offended or will not be able to stop.  Both are possible and not mutually exclusive.

Essential Iron Fist Vol. 1…

First off, I’ll admit a bias.  I love the Claremont/Byrne Uncanny X-men stuff.  They are some of my favorite comics are from that run and John Byrne is probably so wrapped up with the quintessential idea of what a comic book should look like that I often do not even think of him as a good or great artist, but a standard against which everything else is measured.   So naturally the high points here are his issues, but I found myself really digging the whole thing.

This volume collects Marvel Premiere #15-25, Iron Fist #1-15, Marvel Team-Up #63-64, and Power Man & Iron Fist #48-50.  The Marvel Premiere issues are in the second person narrative voice, and can be a little rough around the edges.  The 15 issues of the Iron Fist series are where the really great stuff shows up.  It is a perfect example of what is good about 1970s Marvel.  Byrne looks really good in black and white, but all of the artists look pretty good without the color.  That is what is really good about these Essentials.  Though the black and white part may bother some people, it is preferable to me since some of the colors from the 1970s could be wonky.  Even when they do a recoloring job it can end up looking kinda ugly.  I don’t know what it is…it seems over colored in places – like if you check out some of the non-Masterworks trade paper backs of Avengers stuff you just get the feeling that it is all over colored.  I actually prefer the black and white over that coloring, and I have only seen a few examples that really show a signifigant improvement to the coloring of the original issues.  The Absolute Watchmen is a good example, but I really cannot think of any others.  But I digress…

While the stories in this book seem a little dated to many readers, they are an example of everything that was good about 1970s Marvel.  If you have been reading the new Iron Fist series that Marvel has been doing and go back to this one you might have some problems.  Iron Fist wore these little ballet slipper looking booties for one thing.  That might challenge you.  If you can get past that there is still the fact that a story might finish in one or two issues.  That is way different than the current practice of taking half a year to do a story, but that is just me being grumpy about these “kids today”, though it is all people my age that are reading and buying the current stuff it seems.  I was a bit surprised because this does not seem overly dense, which bugs a lot of people about the older stuff that gets put in these Essentials.  This one seems pretty light compared to other books that were contemporary to it.  Maybe Claremont concentrated more on other things he was working on at the time, but he still managed to put out some pretty good stuff here.

Overall it was a good read, once I got past the Marvel Premiere stuff – which was a little trying.  But once I got past that the pace picked up and I really enjoyed the book.

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