No, I didn't forget a "Monkey of the Week" last week; I just couldn't find any! Talk about disappointing!

This week somewhat makes up for it, though, because our "Monkey of the Week" cover also features a bikini-clad knockout! Behold...
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle 99¢ Preview
(Yes, it looks like preview art, but it's only missing the trade dress. The cover really is a non-colored pencil drawing.)

Sheena first appeared in a 1937 British magazine called Wags. She soon found herself showing up in the American Jumbo Comics and saw her own self-titled comic in early 1942, predating Wonder Woman by several months. She was created by none other than Will Eisner and, while her popularity has waned over the decades, the fact that she still appears in comics speaks volumes to her validity as a character.

A number of early (now copyright-free) Sheena comics are available for download here and a number of Jumbo Comics in which she appears can be found here.

Over at Newsarama, they have an article discussing the digital delivery of comics with current retailers, which I've touched on before. I think this is great because the comic retailers are generally under-served in my opinion, and I feel that their voice needs to be heard. Retailers have a unique perspective on the industry, and I'm frequently disappointed that they're not consulted more often and their input taken on board more readily.

In any event, the upshot of the article is that the reatilers involved weren't terribly worried. They seemed to think that, by and large, having digital comics would allow readers to sample more material, but would still fall back to the printed page for the stories they're most interested in.

What's not really discussed is WHY readers prefer actual comics to digital ones. Brian Hibbs, who I've discussed here before, touches on the point obliquely when he notes that "the disadvantages of the experience, portability, and presentation don't prove much of a 'threat' to the physically printed object." He's absolutely right, of course, but the article doesn't go into any further details on that point.

The biggest problem with digital comics currently is the delivery vehicle. There are plenty of delivery methods, but the vehicle itself is the hold-up. That vehicle, of course, is your computer. Computer monitors have a fairly low resolution -- generally between 72 and 96 dots per inch. That means that an image that appears on the screen is going to look to be at low-resolution, no matter what the image's resolution actually is. And that monitor resolution is low enough that your eye has to work much harder to "read" the individual dots that make up the whole screen.

Most professional printers (and, indeed, many personal printers) run their jobs at around 600 dots per inch. Most humans can't discern, under casual observation, any differences above around 300 dots per inch. That means that printed comic books are at least four times the resolution of what a digital image of one appears to be on a screen. That's why it's so much harder, and less comfortable, to read comics digitally than it is to read their printed counterparts.

The next issue, of course, is portability. If you download a comic book, it's tied to whatever computer you downloaded it to. If, while taking advantage of a high-speed internet connection, you download a high-quality scan of a comic (legal or not) to your computer at work, you have to find a way to transport that to another computer if you want to view it at home. You have several options, of course (burn it to CD or DVD, copy it to a thumb drive, etc.) but those are generally cumbersome and tedious processes. Downloading it to a cell phone or PDA proves somewhat more portable, but you're limited now to not only lower resolution screens, but smaller ones as well.

Permanence is a third factor. Since many people are unfamiliar with what goes on inside a computer, they're largely unwilling to commit their collection something as ephemeral as a hard drive. Computers are subject to errors which many people find strange and almost mystical, so it translates roughly to buying a real comic book, sight unseen, and letting someone else hold it for you indefinitely. You could go over and visit, but ultimately you don't feel true ownership.

So those factors, I think, are key to why comic book shops are in no real danger from the proliferation of digital comics... for now. We're already seeing higher resolution screens (how long do you suppose it will take computer manufacturers to pick up on HDTV technology) and more "natural" or "intuitive" computers that act in a way more in line with how people want to use things (the iPhone coming out in a few months is a great example of this). The biggest hindrance, it seems to me, will be penetrating the mindset of comics' physicality -- and no amount of technology is going to change that. That is a factor that's going to have to work it's way through the collective social consciousness naturally, and I'm guessing that will take at least another generation to really climb on board that notion.

Then again, I would've thought iTunes wouldn't have gone over nearly as well as it has, too. Maybe it would only take Apple to create a hi-res tablet PC type of device specifically designed for reading books and comics. Include wireless and blue-tooth technology to download books on the fly. A good size hard drive to hold an entire collection. CD/DVD writer to switch out and copy files onto a "hard" collection. Built-in software to read various electronic book/comic book formats. Make it look really cool. It might work.

But ultimately, I think it's a question that still needs to be addressed. Comic retailers have plenty of things to concern themselves with already, but I think it's an issue that will rear its head a lot sooner than they'd like. Brian Hibbs may not have to deal with it himself, but his younger peers might.

As I've noted oh-so-many times before, I'm always on the hunt for books that are somewhat outside of the mainstream these days. I've picked some books up simply on the strength of the creators, and I've picked up some books because of the "high concept". The downside of picking up books on the premise of an unknown concept is that the execution can be tricky, regardless of how great a concept it is. Pirates vs. Ninjas for example is a fabulous concept, but could easily have gone down the tubes quickly. (It hasn't, BTW.)

In that regard, I've been pretty lucky. Most of the "cool" concept books I've bought lately have been very good and that's why I try to review them here. It's stuff out of the mainstream superhero set, but good quality material that a lot of "normal" comic fans might enjoy if they knew about them. Today's review is no exception; I'm talking about Maintenance from Oni Press.

The basic premise is that Doug and Manny are the two janitors for TerroMax, Inc. -- the world's largest organization dedicated to helping mad scientists and evil geniuses conduct their research. We follow the day-to-day lives of Doug and Manny as they clean up exploded marauding gigamorphs and pry carnivorous zombie kittens from vending machines.

For anyone who doesn't get it: yes, it's a comedy.

Actually, what makes the book work so well -- and it does work quite well -- is that we really don't see Doug and Manny doing the grunt labor. That's left "in the gutters" as it were; Jim Massey (the writer) and Robbi Rodruiguez (the artist) leave those concept jokes in the set up, by and large. We "get it" as soon as Doug and Manny's boss tells them to get a couple of mops to clean up the gigamorph, so we cut to them back in the break room covered in goo and don't bore readers with the actual clean-up work. In some respects, it's like Red Dwarf in that we follow the lives of people who aren't defined by their jobs -- it's their lives outside of their jobs that interest us.

There's also plenty of gag material to work with. Doug and Manny's boss is a former scientist who's been demoted to the sanitation manager -- a fact that she makes no qualms about being angry about -- so there's some options for extended antagonistic relationships. But, likewise, the actual cast of scientists is a perpetually rotating one, so Doug and Manny can have run-ins with evil geneticists, evil physicists, evil biochemists... This allows a lot of room to keep things interesting and fresh.

Issue #1 came out back in December and #2 came out a couple weeks ago. I haven't heard/seen a lot of press on this, so any shop that carries Oni books probably has a good chance of still having these on hand.

Personally, I'm getting tired of tired of the dread seriousness which has been pervading most of Marvel's and many of DC's books lately. I'm all for making comics that are dark social commentaries, but I think it's a bit much to push that throughout the majority of your line. I want some comics that are fun, and Maintenance fits that bill very well. I mean, where else are you going to find a man-shark named Cobra McPunchy having an existential dilemma while discussing the finer points of Porky's 2?

I've just found the New Media Examplar Library's interviews with Nick Bertozzi. From what I've seen thus far, the information isn't startling new, in terms of the basic information that's conveyed -- I've seen/read/heard much of this type of thing before with other artists. The nuances of Bertozzi's creations are, obviously, unique and that's certainly interesting to compare/contrast his methods with others' but that's not why I'm linking there today.

I'm more interested in the supplemental material: vocabulary terms, curriculum and resource materials, text transcripts... in effect, everything a school teacher would need to produce some excellent lesson plans. Indeed, director Henry Jenkins noted on his blog recently that these "are designed to get students to reflect more deeply about their own potential roles as media makers and to think about the place of media in their own lives." Gene Yang likewise has some comic related material for classrooms on his web site.

Were more students exposed to comics this way (since they don't see as many in drug stores these days) I can't help but think it would benefit the industry on the whole. Of course, the problem we have here in the U.S. is that universal primary education is systematically being leveled with the apparent goal being privatization. Part of those repeated cut-backs are an increasing focus on readin', writin', and 'rthimatic and a decreasing focus on anything resembling arts or culture.

But if the comic industry as a whole can figure out a way to promote comics as a form of literacy, using the images to compliment the reading of the story and understanding of the words, I think that the industry will be better off in the long run and we'll have more people who aren't afraid to read.

Wha..? DC just announced that Green Arrow will be cancelled with #75. This doesn't bode well. GA has been one of DC's mid-range titles, selling in the 30,000s for a while now. Not a great seller, but certainly better than a number of their other books.

That, coupled with the announcement that he'll be marrying Black Canary in a mini-series this summer, suggests that they'll be doing some substantial overhauling of the character. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I like the angry ex-hippie Oliver Queen.

I have a bad feeling about this...

Earlier today, fellow blogger pillock (nee plok) suggested "Quimby" as the name of those running the show at Marvel. His rationale was that things are currently run largely off the direction of Joe Quesada, Mark Millar, and Brian Bendis. Q+M+B, phonetically pronounced Quimby.

What he didn't realize at the time was that Quimby is also the name of the mayor on The Simpsons. Serendipity, I suppose, but it makes for some interesting analogies...

Mayor Joe Quimby is, unlike many of the foils running around Springfield, no fool. He's actually rather quick-witted and has remained the democratically elected mayor for nearly 20 years. He stands as a decidedly warped parody of President John F. Kennedy and, at least superficially, is shown as JFK's moral opposite. Quimby is decidedly contemptuous of his constinuency and is more interested in his own power-base than the good of Springfield.

For those who've watched The Simpsons, you'll know that Quimby is generally quite blatant of his opinions of the electorate. He's been known to speak of them thus: "I'm sick of you people; you're just a bunch of fickle mush-heads" and "You are a bunch of low-income nobodies!" and "Welcome futurists, cyberphiles, and the rest of you dateless wonders." A bit harsh, perhaps, but does that not seem like the attitudes that are the undercurrent of many a Joe Fridays? It's nothing you can really pin down most of the time, but there's a seeming attitude that they seem to share -- "We're just making funny books because you guys are silly enough to pay money for them."

Now Quesada's expressed a love of the medium in the past, and I have to believe that he wouldn't be editor-in-chief of Marvel if that weren't true at least once upon a time. But have you seen his home? It's at a level of opulence I daresay most comic book readers will never even aspire to, much less achieve. From the circumstantial evidence (including a circle of friends that now includes many a name-droppable celebrity) it would appear that Quesada has moved beyond interests in storytelling and into the arena of the beyond. That nebulous state of mind far removed from those of us toiling away to make ends meet. At its extreme, that place inhabited by the likes of Michael Jackson and Bill Gates. Millar and Bendis seem to be there, too, disparaging those who piddle away their lives on video games.

It's like watching The Colbert Report, except that instead of the self-aggrandizing act that Stephen Colbert puts on, it doesn't seem like the attitude is an act. The act here seems to be that there's still a level of humility that keeps them in touch with the comic book community. There's some superficial self-effacing jokes and a general cordiality that gives them the air of being "one of us." But, as time wears on, it strikes me as less and less genuine and specifically done for a particular effect.

I've never met Quesada or Millar. I ran into Bendis once at a convention about six or seven years ago, and had little more than a two sentence conversation with him. I don't know these guys other than tangentally through their online remarks. But for as much as Mayor Quimby of Springfield is a warped version of JFK, Q+M+B seem like a warped version of Stan Lee. The analogy is amazingly apt, I think.

"Give us hell, Q+M+B!"

One of the problems of living in southern Ohio is that all the cool stuff (at least as relating to comics and the comic book industry) happens just a little too far away to be readily accessible. The three big "centers" here in the United States seem to be in California, New York, and Florida. Chicago tends to be the "hub" for Midwesterners, but that's not exactly an easy (or cheap) trip either.

With this past weekend's convention in New York, I talked with and saw several blogs of people who noted how great it was to meet up with friends, old and new. The atmosphere, from what I've read, was very congential overall and no one seemed to have less than a decent time.

Here in Ohio, we have the Mid-Ohio-Con -- which is a good show, certainly, but I've never really been able to "connect" with anybody there. I've talked with creators and once met up with an online buddy of mine, but the last few years have felt strangely hollow for me. Probably in large part because I was flying solo and didn't have much more to ask/say to the creators I'd already seen year after year.

We also have, as I understand it, an excellent collection available up at Ohio State University's Cartoon Research Library. They periodically do host comic-related events but, in the past, they've either been decidedly scholarly in nature (as in, "educators presenting research papers") or ones that have conflicted with other things I've had going on. For example, Scott McCloud will be there on April 4 at 4:00 pm -- which would mean I'd have to take a vacation day off work in the middle of the week to attend.

All that said, there are two things in the area I think I should be able to go to.

The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is hosting a "Native American Portrayals in Comics" panel on March 10. While I'm not an Native American, the idea of learning about under-represented cultures in the medium appeals to me. They're also running an exhibit of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, two artists whose work was heavily steeped in popular culture. Lichtenstein especially dipped into the world of comic books on any number of occassions to develop his work.

Slightly closer, and running through June 20, Miami University's Art Museum is presenting and exhibit called, simply, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century." My initial thought was that they would perhaps have a few comic strips clipped from old newspapers, but it would largely be props used by either Buster Crabbe or Gil Gerard. A local NPR report, however, noted that it indeed was largely comprised of original comic strip artwork, much of it by Dick Calkins -- who worked on the strip from 1929 until 1947. Supposedly, the exhibit contains original artwork of whole stories, not just an occassional daily, and tries to to place new relevance on them by relating them to both the original historical context in which they were written as well as how that context is similar in many ways to a contemporary one. I don't know how successful the exhibit is at doing this, but the NPR report painted an excellent picture of the show.

So, if you don't see me report on these two things at some point this year, call me on it and I'll post a series of public excuses only mildly more original than "my dog ate my homework."