With a few exceptions, Superhero Comics worked best, and made the most sense, in the Silver Age. Although the genre was born decades earlier, it was a product of the Pulp Era of magazine publishing, and the early work, while often having interesting artists, was crippled by preexisting genre conventions. (Name a single Golden Age character not drawn by C.C. Beck or Jack Cole that’s immediately memorable for the storytelling and not later uses of the character. The Spirit doesn’t count.)

Following WWII, the superhero was dead. Other genres flourished, blah blah, and finally, the superhero was resurrected around 1956. In the interim, these other genres (specifically romance and horror comics, in my estimation) had innovated enough to get comics unmoored from literary pulp convention. When the superheroics genre returned, it functioned on a new platform supported by these previous developments. (Look at Fantastic Four #1’s cover. That thing is a monster comic. But it isn’t.)

Featuring condensed stories with truly dynamic artwork, no profundity was expected of it, and thus none was offered. At one point, Stan Lee started calling his books “Marvel Pop Art Productions.” This is the perfect way to conceive of the era: they are art, functioning on an iconic level superior to their own meagre offerings but still basically just pop. Disposable culture, weird trash and somehow also timeless.

I realized yesterday that the Classic Albums of 1967 are forty years old. Amazing Spider-Man #50, the best “I QUIT BEING A HERO!” Spider-Man story, was published in 1967. Currently Marvel are doing their latest crap iteration on the idea; it’s a trope they drag out about once every year or so. Imagine if one out of every twelve CDs released was a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club tribute album. Same thing.

The problem with superhero comics is that no one figured out what to do next. The genre died decades ago, spawning an industry of necrophiliac fans and creators. There’s a reason why there aren’t any new readers: no one under twenty-five has any desire for these rotting bodies. The path from 1969 is a dark one lit only by the occasional appearance of creative talents slumming it amongst the hoi polloi. I’m not dealing with it. Needless to say that, in 2007, superhero comics are broken so profoundly that there’s no way back. The 70s offered a handful of ideas, which failed, and the 80s did as well. Those too failed, except for one peculiarity: the introduction of Maturity and Grimness.

And with this in mind, kids, I recommend you return for the next installment in which we tackle J. Michael Straczynski’s recent Thor #3, possibly the most flagrant example of everything wrong with mainstream comics. Not only is it a crap unnecessary story by tired creators, it’s profoundly, profoundly offensive and just possibly racist, too!

CYA THEN.

When I decided to Examine a bad superhero comic, I knew that I had to pick a title written by J. Michael Straczynski. The only superhero comic I read with regularity– out of a perverse nostalgia & the fact that my mom reups a subscription every Christmas– is The Amazing Spider-Man. Having now read six years of J. Michael Straczynski’s run, I knew that this was one man who would not fail me.

As of late, Straczynski has been scripting the new Thor. Issues #1 and #2 are standard material– 44 pages of a bloated origin story that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee would have done in 8 panels. But this is nothing unusual– it’s the state of the genre in 2007. Expanded storytelling with pointless devices like eyebrow arching “humor” and “character development” amidst splash panels, impossible anatomy and nonsense narration.

Thor #3 is when the ol’ Straczynski magic appears. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for this issue, possibly the second most offensive comic book that I have ever read.

Thor, having Willed himself to Power and recreated his city of Asgard, is looking for the other Nordic Gods. He flies to post-Katrina New Orleans. Here, he laments that he was too dead to save the city from Katrina and then wonders why the other Marvel heroes did nothing. He then encounters some residents of New Orleans.

Did no one in editorial think about the tastelessness of a giant ARYAN SUPERMAN going to a disaster area where African-Americans in the Lower Ninth Ward were traumatized to a degree far higher than any other segment of the population? And then have this ARYAN SUPERMAN use his visit as a platform to wonder why super heroes aren’t super? Also, check out that crowd scene on the porch– a groundbreaking twist on the DC/Marvel white guilt complex that usually manifests itself whenever Daredevil beats on street thugs and the gang is de facto multiracial.

After Thor’s sobfest, Iron Man shows up and they fight. They damage the city. Thor goes back to the dude who was yelling at him. The dude turns out to be a Nordic God. Thor takes him home.

Just so everyone’s clear, let me break that down: an Aryan Superman visits a ruined city with a large African-American population that apparently only has three black people in the whole place. He gets sad. Then he and his old buddy wreck the place just a little more. Then he takes an angry white man back to his GIANT, UNINHABITED FLOATING PARADISE.

But there I go again, trying to shoehorn logic onto a story that is nonsensical and worse yet, cheapening and offensive. Not only is the disaster of Katrina trivialized, but by the story’s constant appeals to a literal Deus Ex Machina, this comic obscures the basic truth of Katrina and gets the underlying story wrong. The hurricane itself was not the major problem. The problem was that the storm waters breached subpar levees, sending flood waters into the city.

The people of New Orleans didn’t need a quasi-God to fight the rains. They needed their government to do its job.

I’m not from New Orleans, and I’m not African-American. I wouldn’t dare to presuppose that I know what it means to have been black and been in Katrina. But I was on Manhattan for 9/11 and I saw WTC #7 collapse 500 yards in front of me, and I can assure you that at no point did I think to myself, “Jesus Christ, what this city really needs right now is Doctor Doom to be here crying.”

Mainstream comics have given birth to an oddity– creators embarrassed by the medium in which they work. You can smell it coming off the pages– all these hackneyed attempts at relevance, at realism, at engaging with the real world, at metaphor for greater social ills, and as commentary on the perfidy of the sitting government are symptomatic of individuals consumed with shame. Shame, I suppose, that they have to write about dudes in capes fighting other dudes in capes. Yet for all their apparent superiority, they remain funnybook writers with no new ideas, apparently no clue as how to write plausible characters, and ultimately nothing to say.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I love genre (any genre) work more than I care to admit– there’s something deeply satisfying about a writer who isn’t playing a daft superiority game with his material and is willing to work within its conventions. This is why, for instance, the first X-Men movie was great, or why Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and All-Star Superman have been so satisfying. Morrison likes what he’s doing and it reflects in his work. Not everyone can be a Morrison, obviously, and superheroes are basically exhausted, but at least I understand someone who grew up reading Spider-Man and now wants to write the character, even if they’re only pushing out rehashed fanfic.

It’s hard to imagine Walt Simonson sending Thor to New Orleans, or Spider-Man and a weepy Doctor Doom to Ground Zero. These are the tactics employed only by a writer desperately trying to convince both the readership and himself that there is Meaning in the Work. This is a mind sussing out the deeper resonances of a one dimensional commercial archetype warped beyond its original context. A nostalgia act, a U2 cover band with the faint hope that, in the end, all those nights of “Mysterious Ways” and “Veritgo” will somehow mean something. Even big hairy Alan Moore fell victim with his Killing Joke, but at least he recognized it:

“But at the end of the day, Watchmen was something to do with power, V for Vendetta was about fascism and anarchy, The Killing Joke was just about Batman and the Joker - and Batman and the Joker are not really symbols of anything that are real, in the real world, they’re just two comic book characters.”

Listen, I don’t blame people who feel above this crap: it is embarrassing. But there’s a solution which doesn’t involve trivializing multiple American atrocities.

It’s called getting a job.

What live T.Rex I’ve heard has me convinced that they were a studio band. Marc Bolan’s vocals, in particular, always sounded listless on stage. This video doesn’t argue otherwise, but there’s something about it that I really like. Maybe the performance, achieving madness, has really made it. It could just be the screaming girls singing backup and the coked out frenzy that ensues.

The Way Johnny Khalud Back It Up Make Me Wanna Smack It Up

From Captain Marvel Adventures #43. Blackhead removal. New science, Bob helps Jim submit to Honey’s vanity. Jim gets married. Is it this easy? Thanks to Vacutex!

“Remove Ugly Blackheads Or No Cost.”

Johnny Khalud is METAL GURU!

special shout out to “unicorn marc.”

This cover of John Fred and his Playboy Band’s Judy in Disguise (In Glasses) is from the second printing of the LP; the titular song is pretty well done, and supposedly a parody of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” If this commonly accepted piece of pop lore is true, then the song ranks as a massive failure. Nothing other than the mild similarity in titles would indicate its parody status. Not the lyrics, not the music.

The song interests me, but more so the album art. I’m conceptually turned on by design degeneration– the process by which subcultural and quote-edgy-unquote design motifs and elements get absorbed into the mainstream, and there’s no period in which this was more fascinating than the post-psychedelic era of 1968-1969-1970. In America, anyway, this involved biting directly from the 5 or 6 artists who had defined the Filmore/Family Dog era of posters. (Little known truth: by about ‘69 most of the major artists had moved on to other things, leaving a whole new crop to produce successively less experimental posters for successively less interesting bands. For the record, I think the best artist of the period was the great Victor Moscoso.)

As I type this, I’m sitting beneath a framed version of this:

It’s dead on certain there’s no one else alive who loves this poster as much I do. From a design degeneration standpoint, along with cultural ramifications, there’s no better example of psychedelic artwork getting ripped off and abused by the Money Thresher of Mammon. Background: this is from Disney’s 1969/70 re-release of Fantasia, a naked cash-in on the druggie head-and-college crowd.

This particular image is too small to show all the details, but those orange blurs dancing down the yellow path at the left of the image are, in fact, magic mushrooms. Now in stereophonic sound! The function of the poster is a pure, commercial signal to the dope addled youth: this is what you want to see while high.

I believe this poster coincides with the period where Disney were unwilling to let young men with long hair into DisneyLand.

Courtesy of Kyle Baker.

Originally, this post had about 1000 words of an extremely angry denunciation of the J. Michael Straczynski authored Thor #4, in which Thor goes to Darfur and solves the Crisis by smashing his hammer in the earth and creating a big hole between the warring factions. But then I saw this press release from Marvel, and I realized, oh god, they’re bragging.

“In addition to giving Thor additional depth, Straczynski hopes to expand the tapestry of the Marvel Universe by infusing locations that exist and matter in today’s headlines.

‘The strength of the Marvel Universe always has been [that] it operates in the real world,’ contends the writer. ‘That real world is not confined to the United States, it reaches out and penetrates everywhere.’

Sending Thor into situations like these and involving him group such as Doctors Without Borders continues Straczynski’s mission statement to make THOR a book that can be enjoyed by fans of the character’s classic adventures, but also something more.”

Four very simple points.

#1. Stop.

#2. Thor doesn’t go to Darfur– he goes to “Darhan.” But last issue Thor went to a clearly identified New Orleans. Comics have a long history of disguising places under different names– but I believe that this is to avoid difficulties, legal or otherwise. Is there any reason for the switch besides not wanting to cheese off the Sudanese, a potential future, or perhaps an existing (via film), market for the company’s products? Could this be, pray tell, an example of Thor entering the real world of global corporations?

#3. This issue ends with Thor transforming 3 of the Doctors Without Borders into his chums and bringing them back to Asgard. If you’re writing a comic intended to call attention to a catastrophe and the noble beings struggling within it, isn’t it a little weird that a rollicking tale of an Aryan superman wrestling with African problems then ends with that same superman spiriting away the  Noble White Doctors? Counting Thor’s alter ego, “Darhan” is four doctors shorter by page 20 than it was by page 4.

#4. Stop. Really. The real world doesn’t have dudes in capes. You write genre fiction. You’re totally not Alan Moore. You’re not Grant Morrison.

Sir, you are not even Warren Ellis.

Stop.

Update, Later: Oops. A commenter rightly points out that Thor, in fact, takes away the 3 best guards. Not doctors. My bad, and apologies. Either way, Thor’s visit remains a net loss for Doctors Without Borders. If anything, Thor’s continuing Holiday in Other People’s Misery now seems even worse. At least my erroneous read gave a perverse strength in numbers, with me thinking that there were other doctors willing to abandon the noble mission for high times with swords and sorcery.

But let’s not split hairs: I find it hard to believe that anyone could read this book and find the whole story line to be anything other than a nebulously defined narrative pretext for Thor to gather more guns.  You know, the Real Work.

Live & Direct from retro Jay-Z land, it’s Punjabi MC and this time there’s no Preetee Kaur, Blonde Travolta or Angry Sik, but instead an extended fit of delirium tremens breaking out into costume changes, dancing and wild Steve Ditko-esque hand gestures. Awesome.

Incidentally, if you’re trying to hunt this as an mp3, you’ll have the best luck searching for a transliterated title of “Main Hogaya Sharabbi.” This should not be confused with “Jatt Hogaya Sharabi,” an entirely different song.

Live & Direct from the external hard drive, that arcane & eldritch repository of years past: a letter to my landlords of 2003, writ in Anger. There’s many stylistic things that I’d change if this was being written today, but I like how much it holds up– and how raving mad I sound.

Common Good? Their ward? Wrong doing and apathy?

It would seem that in my lunacy I had confused my landlord with Batman.

–

Jarett Kobek
10 Barnes St, Apt #5
Providence, RI 02906

[Landlord Name & Address Redacted]

August 11, 2003

RE: Parking at 10-12 Barnes St.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Per our many conversations, you are by now no doubt aware that for some time there has been a series of ongoing and flagrant violations of stated building rules regarding the number of cars that may be parked per unit. As we have discussed on several occasions, and as was assured during the process of lease signing, there is a space available for one car per unit and one car only.

I have no desire to police this situation, nor am I unreasonable enough to believe this rule should not be subject to a certain amount of flexibility. Certainly there are occasions and one-time situations which may take place without any real trespass, but when violations occur with a repeated and daily frequency, it’s hard to miss the emerging pattern of abuse, and even harder to deny the progression of circumstance from merely annoying to utterly intolerable. You’ll recall that my complaints have come not in relation to certain and very specific units parking two vehicles each and every night.

I now find that this situation has further escalated. On the night of August 9th, 2003, the tenants of 10 Barnes Apt #3 have parked not only the car (a tan Saturn with Canada Registration # [REDACTED]) and truck (a grey Toyota with New York State Registration # [REDACTED]) with which they routinely flout the rules regarding parking, but also a third card (silver Honda Civic, New York Registration # [REDACTED].)

Allowing this behavior to continue would constitute sheer madness.

Surely, as Landlord of this residence, you have a familiarity with the limited number of available parking spaces and are able to easily imagine the basic antisocial nature of this transgression. When the number of cars being parked by any single unit is three, the situation becomes not merely the breaking of a soft rule, but a brutal attack on the Common Good. I would like to believe that your organization recognizes its inherent responsibility and duty towards the protection of that Common Good, and understands that all of its tenants should not suffer needlessly because of wrong-doing and apathy. Your actions, however, have only reflected your apparent disinterest in the protection of that which is your ward, and it seems as though you would rather let the well-being of All be trampled and destroyed by the Few who have no sense of human decency, nor no natural regard for others, let alone any respect for stated regulations.

Clearly, as several apartments within the building remain vacant, the impact of these violations is minimized. Equally clear is the reality that the building is near two colleges, and that school soon will be in session. When these empty units are occupied, these matters will enter a state of crisis.

I write to you now not with the desire to shame any person, nor merely to complain, but with the hopes that you will recognize this letter for exactly what it is: a chance to correct a bad situation before it becomes considerably worse. Our conversation in June left me believing that assigned parking was an impending reality. Instead, it has proven to be a fanciful possibility that might some day come to fruition. While I am sympathetic and understand that certain elements are no doubt working in such a way as to avoid daytime detection, surely as protector of the Common Good, you can recognize the multiple ways in which this situation may be redressed without resorting to nighttime surveillance.

I am enclosing an informal letter delivered to the tenants in Apt #3, 10 Barnes.

I look forward to your immediate and efficacious response. I am,

Sincerely yours,

Jarett Kobek

cc: tenants 10 Barnes #3

enclosure

–

What a dick!

One of the better tracks off the great Dead City Radio LP. Much of the material on the record ended up printed in Tornado Alley. They still make the CD. The book is long gone. So’s Bill, for that matter.

Happy thanksgiving, everybody!

One of my more recent and disquieting obsessions has been a certain vintage of Romance Comics. I’m not going to bore anyone with a history of the genre, so let’s simply state that for three decades, comics publishers put out a large number of books whose audience was girls in their tweens-and-teens. Charmingly, the writers and artists on these titles were predominantly men. It may be safely generalized that these creative fellows were at least a decade away in age from the books’ target demographic. With 21st Century minds, this sounds like trouble– whom amongst us would be daft enough to allow today’s mainstream comics professionals near our daughters and sisters?– but somehow the stories were entirely heterowholesome, and, if it was your bag, rather instructive on the virtues of making a boy hold out while you hold out for his ring.

Thankfully, my obsession has yet to turn all-inclusive and is limited to Romance Comics from about 1968ish until 1973ish. Returning to the topic of an earlier post, this period fascinates because the entire aesthetic and look of the work mutates by encompassing the greater culture’s fashion and artistic trends. Presumably due to their subject matter (stylish middle class girls), Romance Comics proved unusually susceptible to the slow design bleed of the psychedelic era. Much of this mirrors developments in superhero comics– a break-out of artistic styles and experimentation– but, ultimately, no matter how wild Peter Parker’s bell-bottoms, the Spider-Man costume never changed. Romance Comics, desperate to stay relevant, required an au courant look and fashion sense. With the dawn of Mary Quant, and the eventual trickle down from elite to everyday fashion, Romance Comics got swingin’.

(The real stars of this period were DC. One amazing Steranko story aside– available in his Visionaries trade– Marvel’s romance comics of the late 60s/early 70s were ugly. Some Charlton ones were OK, but in the end it was DC who owned the dying genre.)

The change is best demonstrated visually. Here’s are covers from 1955, 1959, 1965, and 1966, respectively:

What I take away from these covers is their similarity. Yes, hair styles and clothes change slightly, but any one of these books could have been drawn in the same month as any other.

Here’s a load of dynamite from 1968:

Contrasted against the earlier examples, this cover demonstrates that while staying true to the genre’s basic themes of chastity and questions about true love, an enormous shift has occurred in both the look and plotpoints driving narrative. In many ways, this speaks to one of the chief virtues of Silver Age comics– a cheap medium’s ability to function on a purely iconic level.

Here are several great examples:

And, of course, the creme of the crop:

Guns & Butter Presents The Mystical, Magickal Powerhouse of Arcane Arts and YouTubed Youth Gone Wild, A Psychedelic Outing That’s Real Freakshow

FIRST UP: The Great, Tragic Syd Barrett in One Last Song with The Old Band

asking everyone’s favorite question:

“what exactly is a joke and what exactly is a dream?”

SECOND IN LINE: The Incredible String Band with A Number Not From Their Finest Album, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, A Favorite Around These Parts

but that’s ok

THIRD UP: The Andrew “Arcana Obscura” Harrison Recommended Wallace Collection, with “Day Dream”

Featuring an Unbelievable Number of Hippies Dancing to a Lilting Tune

FOURTH: “Dark Star Blues” by the Kings and Hierophants of Freak, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Blah Blah Blah

what else can be said?

And, to take the badness away, here’s a truly bizarre performance of “Muswell Hillbilly” by everyone’s favorite anti-psych band, The Kinks. Replete with Ray Davies being a bit of a dick, butchering the song and impersonating Johnny Cash. Nice coat.

Actually, that’s wretched enough that it needs its own antidote. Here’s a live-ish version of “Days.”