I've always tended to be a bit more on the cynical side. Still hopeful, but cynical nonetheless. Lately, though, I've felt that cynicism growing more pronounced and I suspect it's due to several factors. First, there's news almost every day about some selfish bastard screwing over hundreds, if not thousands, of people for their own greedy purposes. AIG execs, Madoff, take your pick. I also happen to be reading two books that deal with the issue: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Leadership Redefined by Todd Dewett.

Rand's book is a work of fiction, but there are any number of characters whose petty and small-minded schemes continually hamper the few characters that are trying to improve things. True to Rand's Objectivist philosophy, the most sympathetic characters are indeed money-loving capitalists, but they are honest and forthright about their intentions. They speak plainly and seek the most efficient and elegant ways of achieving their ends, and are repeatedly thwarted by myopic dimwits who are more interested in maintaining their comfortable status quo.

Dewett's book is non-fiction and is squarely aimed at business managers who want to become better leaders. His style is considerably more casual, even flippant at times, but he tends to take a cut-the-bullshit-hype approach. (I had him as a professor in one of my MBA classes, and he's like that in person as well.) But, despite his generally upbeat and positive approach, he still acknowledges that some people you'll deal with in the business world are smarmy, power-hungry so-and-sos who will actively get in your way if your attempts at efficiency also happens to tread into their little cubicle fiefdom.

And don't get me started on some of the crap I'm dealing with at my day job these days!

All of this has fed my own cynicism, and I've caught myself thinking how pleasant my neighborhood is because I can walk my dog 9:00 at night and everyone's already gone in for the night.

"Sean, what in the hell does this have to do with comics?!?"

Civil War. Countdown. Secret Invasion. 52...

Pick any company produced comic series. Heck, any of their regular titles: Action Comics. Uncanny X-Men. Justice League. Amazing Spider-Man...

These books are created under the same business circumstances. No, I'm not talking about "editorial interference" or anything like that. Editors, by and large, hire the writers and artists they think will do a good job on a specific title. But there's a much larger business behind that. Do you think Tom Brevoort or Matt Idelson or Mike Marts or Axel Alonso only have to deal with their creative teams?

No, of course not! They have to deal with their bosses, their peers, the printing reps, the distributor reps, the office admins at all sorts of locations... the list goes on and on. Now, certainly, some of those people are going to try to be helpful and do the best job that they can. But some of those people will also undoubtedly have their own agendas, which may or may not coincide with the production of a good comic book.

Maybe the printing rep is just hanging on to her job because he gets to fly from Winnipeg to New York regularly and wants to sit in on a taping of Letterman. Maybe the editor from down the hall feels like he's gotten all the crap assignments and conveniently mislays other editors' files in a petty attempt at sabotaging their projects. Maybe the office admin really wants to be a fashion model, and is only working there to pay the bills until his "real" career takes off.

The individual impact of any one of these people might be small, but the cumulative effect can be huge. Especially if you're not Marvel or DC (whose relative sizes give them at least a little leverage).

"So what?"

The 'So What' here is that there is an alternative. An option where there aren't dozens of people getting between the creator and the reader. An option where the only person to be cynical of is the creator him/herself. There're no office politics. There's no catering to sensitive egos. There's no having to deal with incessant fools if you don't want to.

The option, of course, is webcomics.

(You knew that was coming, right?)

Now, go read Tozo or Charles Christopher or Odysseus or something!

My apologies if this is old news, but the LA Times has been running a series for several weeks now on "Comic Book Store Clerks of America." Installment #6 features Dayton, Ohio's Bell, Book & Comic where I used to frequent when I was still buying pamphlet comics.

The Question: What's Sean been up to the past couple weeks?

As noted here, G.L. Nelson is drawing some of his readers into his comic, The Sergeant and Professor Skeary Winslow. I was "hired" to guard the Professor and you'll notice that I've been diligently sticking to my duties these past couple weeks.

Well, it looks like it will be another year that I won't be attending S.P.A.C.E. despite it being practically in my backyard. (Dang recession!) As always, it looks like some good folks will be there, too! If you can, by all means, attend and let me know how it goes. And, hey, if you want to pick up some cool comics and send my way, I won't stop you!

So I woke up this morning with absolutely nothing to accomplish the whole weekend. I don't have to put in any overtime at work; the fridge is stocked; I've got enough clean clothes that I can skip laundry for several more days... the first weekend in quite a while where I've got nothing to do but relax. "Great! I think I'll just kick back and have a leisurely read for a bit this morning." Of course, between making a conscious attempt to have a leisurely read, and the fact that it was still before I'd had any caffeine, I didn't want to get into anything that might be too taxing. A quick browse through one of my comic shelves later, I came across JLA: Zatanna's Search.

I'd originally bought the book when it came out a few years ago as a gift for my father. But shortly after purchasing it, I decided it wasn't really a very good present and I never gave it to him. So it's sat on my shelf, unread, since then.

The book reprints a series of Gardner Fox stories from the mid-1960s in which Zatanna is searching for her missing father, the great magician/hero Zatara. The stories originally ran through various comic titles, allowing Zatanna to team up with the likes of Hawkman, Atom and Green Lantern. Each story stands alone well enough, and they all have a naive sort of charm that's almost inherent in DC comics from the 1960s. There are astounding leaps of logic and insane coincidences, which make no real sense if you give them more than a passing thought. But, like many other classic comics from the 1960s, the story moves so fast that you really don't have time to give anything more than a passing thought. So, not surprisingly, Zatanna does find her father with the help of various superheroes and all is right with the world at the end. Which is precisely the type of reading that I wanted this morning.

But the story strikes me as interesting for some other reasons. I had actually read a few chapters (including the conclusion) of it when I was a kid because they had been reprinted in various DC 100-page giants in the mid-1970s. I remember it because it was one of the only multi-issue stories I'd ever been able to read the conclusion of. (My comic collection back then was spotty at best, and my transportation and budget options were roughly nil.) To a ten year old, the stories made perfect sense. Sure, the bounds of logic were strained but everything was explained within the story so that, no matter how absurd the explanation, a young child could follow along pretty easily. And there was always sufficient flashback explanations and character identifications that it didn't faze me at all that I was missing the first, second and fifth chapters.

I'm a quarter century older now, and generally look at stories more critically than I did when I was ten. I study plot structure and dialogue; I analyze "facts" presented in the book ("I Ching is imbued with black magic? Really? It's a book of philosophy!"); I look to see how subtle the foreshadowing is... But back in the day, those stories were fun. There was enough pseudo-science to make me feel smart, but there was plenty of action to carry me through the plot holes.

Not to mention Gil Kane was at the top of his game, and the often under-appreciated Mike Sekowsky turned in some darn memorable work as well! Geez, even Carmine Infantino's cover to Detective Comics #336 stands out in my childhood memory, and I only recall seeing that from some house ads!

All in all, I had a great time reading the story again this morning. It's definitely not the type of material I could indulge myself in all the time by any means, but it was exactly the type of thing I needed to start a casual weekend.

Viper Comics has posted Oddly Normal volume 3 in its entirety on their web site. For free. Go read it.

The S.O. alerted me to this Kevin Moore comic highlighting not only the issue of domestic violence, but also the manner in which it's discussed in mainstream media. Moore uses his blog to discuss the subject, and his treatment of it, in more detail.
I've caught only bits and pieces of the media "discussion" surrounding Chris Brown's abuse of Rihanna, but what I have caught has almost entirely fallen within that third panel. Even some of what I heard Oprah talking about fell into that vein.

One should expect, I think, some level of vapidity with TV and the talk show circuit. It's very much geared towards that lowest common denominator. The nature of TV (and movies) is that it comes and goes so quickly that the viewer has little (if any) time to reflect, which is conducive to lots and lots of style with very little substance.

Comics, on the other hand, have a greater permanence to them and give the viewer to digest the message. There's a much greater capacity for substance. (Indeed, this is exactly what some critics have said is the greatest disappointment of the Watchmen movie compared to the comic.) Kevin Moore, I think, gets that and makes a very concerted effort to not dismiss the subject too casually. His concern is a completely valid one and, readers might note, that he doesn't so much discuss the abuse itself as the media's discussion of the abuse. It's not a dissimilar approach to The Daily Show which spends at least as much time criticizing the media and their reporting as it does the subjects of their reports. Moore's comic is criticism of the discussion.

Which isn't to say that's not a valid subject! Just that he needn't have worried so much about tackling domestic abuse as a subject since, effectively, he didn't.

Which further leads me to wonder if domestic abuse itself is a subject that warrants more attention in comics. Moore certainly has a point that it's not something that should be taken lightly or laughed at, but comics as a medium haven't spent much time discussing the subject. A few occasional superheroines try to highlight the misogyny inherent in metaphorically locking women in refrigerators, but the subject of domestic abuse is tackled very seldomly.

Now it's a subject that I, personally, am by no means an expert -- I don't know that I'm qualified enough to even bring the topic up -- but I would be interested to see somebody tackle the issue as a serious subject of comics. We've got people out there smartly writing about all sorts of political and social issues; why doesn't this one get more play?