Who Will Help Us Watch The MR MEN?

Illustrator Steven Anderson adds some superhero style when he boldly takes Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men and Little Miss series to a place its never been before.  Our favorite Hargreaves is Mr. Bump by far, but our top Anderson is still a really tough call. We're liking his Watchmen Mr Men a lot -- especially since Mr. Smiley Face and even Mr. Moore are right there along with the rest.  Still, Anderson and prolific artistry have created plenty of tough choices and we've yet to decide. Hmmm... Maybe you can help us name a favorite? You'll find all Steve Anderson's designs on his Flickr page [here]. Pick one or two, and get back to us via  Back Issues below!

...7 HOTTEST Comics Properties! ...CASTING LIGHT on BLACKEST NIGHT... The SUNDAY FUNNIES ....NEWS of the BLOG

Dabblers, it's raining outside -- but the heat's turned all the way up at the Springfield Home Office! abbracadabbling's NEWS of the BLOG returns after a two month to-the-day hiatus sporting not just a complete makeover (sorta) but with our new reoccurring Special Report, Top 7 HOT.  Feel the burn!

With help from our friends at icv2.com, we turn our short attention spans this afternoon to the Top 7 Hottest Properties of the Comics Realm. Kind of interesting that only one of our Top 7 represents a direct comic book property -- DC Comics' Blackest Night, the Green Lantern -related crossover event that expanded the character's mythology exponentially and gave fans a storyline where their favorite DC heroes would be fighting legions on zombies -- for months! But most importantly, writer Geoff Johns addressed - and, for DC Comics, at least - offered a solution for one of super hero comics' most dogged complaints: the rationale for how characters return from the dead.   

In the last two decades, DC has killed off and then returned to the living every one of its major characters: Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Aquaman, and per current comics happenings,  the Batman -- sorta.  (Marvel Comics hasn't fared any better, having recently returned Captain America to the land of the living after making real-world headlines with their killing of the 1940's superhero a year and a half ago.)  While the soap opera style deaths of popular heroes can still make for a dramatic (and well-selling) story, their eventual and foregone resurrections become less and less meaningful as time goes on.  Though we'd argue that the killing of Big Name heroes has been more story-centered than ever before, the deaths of characters like Superman and Green Lantern in the past have been the result of their creators reaching creative dead ends. (For Marvel champions like the Avengers' Ant Man, death has been one of the character's morbid ongoing jokes.)

But with Johns' Blackest Night, which plays out its events throughout DC's line of comics, death has been given meaning, and explanations for heroic returns have become integral to story. That's the crucial element here, and Blackest Night's most important characteristic.  Both demise and resurrection of heroes have been imbued with new meaning, and  just as cleverly, the outcome of the blackest night in the DC Universe will also give new opportunity to DC's still-dead characters to once again return to new adventures.  Beyond that, DC will be immediately following up this smash event with a sequel, Brightest Day.  Taking that into account, as well as the cross-merchandising from Blackest Night that has given rise to best-selling action figures, tee-shirts, trade paperbacks and more, all figure in to the rationale for why Blackest Night is our Number One Hottest Property. 

Two collectible card games and three films - including the comics-related Iron Man 2 - make it into the Top 7 Hottest, the most recently released being director Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland from Disney Studios.  The film starring Johnny Depp has earned over $266 million in its three weeks of release, and has beaten records set by Avatar earlier this year. Burton, meanwhile, has already lined up his next two projects -- for one, he'll be teaming up with Timur Bekmambetov, his co-conspirator on the film 9, to produce a film adaptation of author Seth Grahame-Smith's newest book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  (The writer's other historically-set zombie novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is already on its way to the Big Screen.)  For the other, Burton will direct a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams' original ghoulish cartoon drawings of The Addams Family.   The 3-D movie will come from Illumination Entertainment and Universal Studios, and will bear no connection to former Addams Family movies, the TV show, or the soon to be opening Broadway musical. [via]

We're beginning to understand just how much it really takes to make it into the  Top 7 Hottest, and we hope you are, too.  We also think that's why there's a certain man smiling a big yellow happy-face smile. Did you know who he was when we blogged him yesterday? He's none other than comics writer Alan Moore, father of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and so many other medium-altering works.

While Moore's published comics since the 1986 release of Watchmen, it's Watchmen that redefined what modern comics can be and now, in 2010, what they are. Moore's contribution was to broaden comics' scope, their reach, depth, content, and maturity -- in other words, what is possible in comics, to a great, great extent. Moore's The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, an entire treatise on magic, its history, and how to employ it (plus a whole lot more), will be published as a 320-Page Super-Deluxe Hardcover by Top Shelf Comics in 2013. (Read all about it HERE.) But it's Watchmen's magical effect - and no coming Magic book -- that still puts Alan Moore among the Top 7 Hottest.

NEWS of the BLOG will continue with Breaking News...next!

Sunday Funnies is back on the comicsblog!! Sure, it's looking a little different in a re-vamped Special Feature format.  But with Funnies have joined NEWS of the BLOG, it's time to embrace change, dabblers.  (What can we say? Corporate takeovers can be a hostile bitch.) We're short but sweet and stayin' that way. This week, we're all about hilarity   straight outta the Top 7 Hottest. Have fun, and stick around for the answer to last week's Funnies' Green Lantern challenge!

Full Frontal

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Off Color

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Light Politics

[via]

Where's Green Lantern?

Answering the question Ryan Dunlavey posed to us last week should be easy for the savvy dabbler (as we like to say): 'Green Lantern' is everywhere -- and every one.  Hal Jordan, a 'Green Lantern', can be found on center stage (as we'd expect), but as Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi have shown in their respective Green Lantern titles, there are many 'ring-slingers,' and all of them important.  Until next time, viva El Dabbler!

Batman's Role In Alan Moore's WATCHMEN

 

 Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II

Alan Moore extrapolated the six main characters of his twelve-issue comic book limited series Watchmen from the superhero properties DC Comics purchased from Charlton Comics in the early 1980's. Each of the six - including Dan Dreiberg, The Nite Owl II - was created to present a world-view radically different from the others, so that the reader - and not Moore as writer - would determine which point of view might, or should, morally prevail. [source]

Dan Dreiberg /Nite Owl II - and his flying owl-like ship Archimedes - drew, at least superficially, from Charlton's Blue Beetle and the character's alter-ego, wealthy inventor and small-time industrialist Ted Kord. Kord used a variety of gizmos and gadgets in his war against crime, including the flying vehicle, Bug,  a hovering blue beetle-shaped craft  complete with two big yellow eye bubbles that doubled as the Bug's front windows.  Like Dreiberg, who donned his costume to carry on the fight of Hollis Mason, his progenitor, Kord's Beetle was also a second-generation superhero, a modernized namesake of an earlier Beetle from the World War II era.

Even though Moore ostensibly borrowed his concepts from Charlton's stable of heroes, Charlton - like most competitive comics  publishers and creators turning out superhero fare anytime after 1940 or so - had taken its inspirations from the most popular and best-selling superhero characters on the market - DC Comics' Superman / Clark Kent, and Batman / Bruce Wayne. 

And there's plenty of both DC's characters noticeable in Watchmen's later-day Nite Owl. The visually-impotent, mild-mannered, and often-times awkward Dreiberg seems a long-lost brother to Clark Kent, while his late-night vigilante alias, named after a flying nighttime creature using toys he both could buy and invent, could be a Dark Knight in disguise - minus the tragic origin.

Watchmen's Night Owl is by no means a knock-off; Moore created a bona-fide character in its own right.  The familiar characteristics he imbued his Owl with only strengthen Watchmen's overall allegory to -- and commentary on -- on superheroes, and open up his story to a broader understanding. As one of the most influential and effective comics works of the last thirty years, Moore clearly succeeded in doing just that.  But ultimately, he'd never have been able to do so without The Batman.

Less Obvious Heroes: WATCHMEN vs. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

J.D. Salinger, the semi-reclusive and slightly mysterious author of The Catcher in the Rye, past away Wednesday from natural causes at the age of 91. Catcher, which was first published in 1951, was Jerome David Salinger’s sole published novel; that, and a handful of short stories,  remain his only public writings.  Nevertheless, there's few among us who haven't met the 16-year-old Holden Caulfield or who could find meaning and relationship in his disaffected quest to be anything but a "phony" -- an unmasked vigilante of sorts roaming a masquerade world.

Having so few published works, comics' prolific pace would have been anathema to Salinger, but it's interesting to see him - and Catcher's Holden Caulfield - through comic book glasses.  From his obsession with privacy to his stature as a cult figure, Salinger would certainly have had much in common with Alan Moore - especially if Moore were to have quit comics all-together following Watchmen. Moore's recoil from the mainstream comics scene is reminiscent of Salinger's own aversion to publishing, to which he seemed to have a singular dislike. Both writers, intentionally or not, also sparked their share of controversy - for Moore, his pornographic novel, Lost Girls, may be his best example; however, Salinger easily trumps Girls, as Catcher in the Rye earned the privilege of being the United States' most-banned book of the 1990's.

Sales-wise, Catcher in the Rye is estimated to have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide since it was first published 59 years ago; it continues to sell about 200,000 copies annually. Watchmen was published 24 years ago, in 1986; The Los Angeles Times reported in 2008 that the graphic novel had sold 100,000 copies the year before, and that DC Comics had printed nearly a million more in response to rising sales spurred by the then-forthcoming Watchmen movie.  In addition, Watchmen's initial print run - as a twelve-issue comic book mini-series - would greatly increase its numbers - although exact data unfortunately doesn't exist (what does exist can be seen HERE).  Even if it did - all things being relative - abbracadabbling would declare this point a draw.

The stories and content of Catcher and Watchmen seem, at least on the surface, to be infinitely different.  Thematically, however, intriguing similarities exist, especially between the main character and narrator of each, Holden Caulfield and Rorschach.  Both characters have issues with masks, either metaphorical or literal. Both are extraordinarily cynical characters, each of them a wanderer in life with heroic intentions of saving others and somehow returning the world to a better, early way of being. Both rail against wealth and corruption, both are unwilling non-conformists and are alienated (if not eventually killed) because of idealistic beliefs they'll never sacrifice.  Both Rorschach and Holden's persistence with their ideals brings their sanity into question, and each is called upon to acclimate to a society they detest. Yet despite of the pervasive sense of alienation  that surrounds the characters,  Holden and Rorschach also remain pessimistic about their  (misguided?) role  as a savior and their mission to uphold an order they believe to be right and just.

 
When we heard of J.D. Salinger's death, we knew immediately it had a place on our blog, for undoubtedly Salinger's influence can be felt and seen in the works of many writers today.  It doesn't seem likely that the author would have considered Holden Caulfield to be a super hero, although his sixteen-year-old protagonist certainly meets many of the genre's criteria to be one. 

Like Moore's Rorschach, Holden is a psychological examination made human.  With no domino mask or cape to his name, Salinger's greatest contribution has given generations of young readers a less obvious hero, but a hero nonetheless.   

[Source]

Comics Christmas (Day Thirteen)

Santa! Behind You, Dude!

LEGO My Super Hero! [Redux]

We brought you Ulises Farinas legofied illustrations a few days ago, but giving the superhero treatment to those little block-buddies of our youth isn't just for guys who draw with colored pencils. Scads of graphic artists have taken Legos to task, too, and CG illustrator code name: polywen has gotten some great mileage from his take on Watchmen's nude blue Dr. Manhattan. If our old toys had a cool Uranium glow like this guy, we'd be pulling out our hair right now trying to find them. [Image via polywen on Flickr - link]

Alan Moore Should Watch Saturday Morning Cartoons

Last night's comicsblog debut of The Amazing Adventures of Little Batman had everyone talking about serious superheroes around the Home Office water cooler this morning. Any discussion by enlightened individuals about 'serious' and 'superheroes' will, sooner than later, involve Watchmen. Ours did, but then again, we also had a good laugh over Tiny Titans. Hmmm...

Back in 1987, when Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons wrapped up their original twelve issue Watchmen series at DC, the comics industry didn't really know just how serious superheroes could be, at least without losing the traditional characteristics that made them heroes in the first place. Moore and Gibbons changed that way of thinking, and opened the doors to storytelling possibilities that have since become the standard. And while most of them don't reach Moore's complexity or inverted heroism -- aspects that Zack Snyder captured so well with his Watchmen adaptation and which we believe may be the reasons some viewers found the film difficult -- comic book storylines, the heroes and villains and their worlds at large, are darker, grittier, and far more visceral. [Need a big-screen Watchmen refresher? Movie trailers and more can be found here. -- Courteous 'Dabbler]

You betcha, Alan Moore is as serious a fellow as his work might lead you to believe. Just how serious is a topic rich enough for a blog of its own (that gives us an idea!), but the short answer would be too serious. But pull past his thickly out-of-of-control beard and the fact that he worships an ancient Roman snake deity, take Lost Girls only at face value while considering many of his problems with Hollywood and the adaptations of his comics stem not from their quality but his own naivety, and what you have, dabblers, is a little boy. Really, it's true. Alan Moore's a little boy deep-down, one who quite respectably found his genius in comic books.

So when the Home Office's faithful neighbor Raley laughed and snorted about how funny it would've been if Zack Snyder's Watchmen interpretation ended up being a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon full of pizza, pastels, and a talking pink Bubastis, I nearly s%@! myself!

You will, too, when you get a peek at Happy Harry's inspired and frakkin' hilarious satire, Saturday Morning Watchmen. He skillfully twists so many of Watchmen's darkest moments and themes into campy and cuddly kiddie-fare so brilliant even Moore would have to laugh. We all know he could use a good one. Alan, check this out, buddy. Happy Harry's 'toon is serious superhero slapstick at its finest, your Saturday mornings will never be the same.

Was Saturday Morning Watchmen just too funny, or did it take up too-much space on the comicsblog? Are we being unfair to Sir Alan Moore, or have we been way too gentle? (We'll always be respectful, but talent's just part of the picture.) Abbracadabbling wants you - our dabblers and faithful comicsblog followers - to be a BIG part of our picture. So get talking and get involved!! Leave us your Back Issues today!!

Dick Giordano Apologizes for The Dark Knight Returns and I'll Have None Of It

The Comics Journal's blog Journalista for November 10th featured a short quote from Dick Giordano, a comics creator and DC Comics' Executive Editor from 1983-1993. Giordano was on hand when the company published both Alan Moore's Watchmen as well as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in 1986, and he commented on the latter:

"The Dark Knight Returns additionally helped start the grim and gritty trends in comic storytelling that still exist today. That was an unintended result, and I'm truly sorry it happened. Comics are much too dark today. Er -- in my opinion."

Criticism and apology? You're probably wise to clarify yourself there at the end, Mr. Giordano. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Miller's work not only inspire Tim Burton's first Batman movie but also last summer's Dark Knight, the $1billion+ box-office record breaker and cinematic phenomenon? Aren't the proceeds from that movie paying for your retirement?

And while the movies are great, let's not forget about the comics themselves. The Dark Knight Returns comes about as close as any comics work can get to being a force of nature, arguably even closer than Watchmen. As a former DC Executive, you know better than I, Mr. Giordano, that those two series heralded the sudden and drastic departure from the boring if not broken conventional compass that guided and defined the comics industry for decades.

What shape would the industry be in today if not for Frank Miller's revolutionary Batman tale? Consider the depth and a richness of comics storytelling today, just one hallmark of the sophistication that might otherwise never have been possible if not for Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen.

Both comics stories, for example, are skillfully set against the backdrop of nuclear Armageddon, a powerful symbol of the helplessness and self-destructive bent of their respective characters. Furthermore, the relevance of Miller and Moore's bombs as metaphors for precious endings and important changes extends even beyond the context of the comics! As an artist yourself, Mr. Giordano, surely you must recognize that their metaphor ingeniously also comments upon the very impact of both books on the comics medium itself.

Yes, sir, Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns rocked the comics world like A-bombs under your watch. And you know what? They're still shaking things up with the unforgettable impressions they've left on an entire new generation of creators. That extreme acts of creation are equally extreme acts of destruction that leave an even more extreme world in their wake is a legacy of literary talent today's creators can only hope to achieve within their own works.

I hope I've helped clear things up for you, Dick. For the record, I hope I've set you straight. I did, didn't I?