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Thursday, December 25, 2025
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Sunday, October 19, 2025
Explore Morocco Differently with Alternative Desert Morocco
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Sunday, February 23, 2025
RUN! On Great Tribulation
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Tuesday, February 04, 2025
Knowledge of Good and Evil
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hope this email finds you well.
Please find below my petition to the UK Parliament concerning the knowledge of good and evil.
You can find out how it all started with a lie here.
In this post, you can read about the consequences of not knowing how to spell good and evil.
I devised a method to distinguish the sheep and goats in your life, and you can take the sheep or goat self-test to find out about some good news and more.
Please also see my warning letter concerning the imminent danger of Artificial Intelligence and analysis of the resulting hyperinflation.
Finally, some humble opinions on the terminal illness of nihilism.
For Love and Devotion,
Jonah T. Yang
-------- Forwarded Message --------
| Subject: | Get supporters for: "Find the knowledge of good and evil. What crime against humanity did I commit?" |
|---|---|
| Date: | Tue, 21 Jan 2025 08:46:26 +0000 |
| From: | Petitions: UK Government and Parliament <no-reply@petition.parliament.uk> |
| Reply- To: | Petitions: UK Government and Parliament <no-reply@petition.parliament.uk> |
| To: | Jonah@hesaid.love |
| You're receiving this email because you created the petition: "Find the knowledge of good and evil. What crime against humanity did I commit?". Dear Jonah Troublemaker Yang, You're not done yet! Five people need to sign your petition for us to check it. Share your petition with your potential supporters, or send them the information at the bottom of this email. Once you've gained five signatures, we'll check your petition to make sure it meets the petition standards. If it does, we'll publish it. If it doesn't, we'll let you know why. This can take up to 10 working days. During holiday periods, this may take longer. Thank you for your patience. Up to 20 people can sign your petition while we are checking it. Please wait until it's been checked and published before sharing it more widely. Thanks, I want to start a petition – will you sign it? Find the knowledge of good and evil. What crime against humanity did I commit? Long story short, I'm 28 and my income was mid-six figures last April. I was effectively a single parent since COVID and paid for my two adult younger siblings' private and higher education in London. I nearly threw myself off the balcony on the fifth-floor in front of my sister back in August. I declared bankruptcy three months ago and started writing down my story on my blog, HeSaid.Love (HeSaidLove.com) and I have written 245 posts on topics including but not limited to mathematics, physics, computer science, psychology, economics, philosophy, performing arts and theology. I was in Jerusalem last week, and I wanted to speak to a rabbi regarding the Book of Isaiah, but I ended up crying alone on Mount Zion. I would like to know if anyone still knows how to spell good and evil. | ||
Monday, December 23, 2024
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Claim Your Free $10K PDF NOW, Penelopecat!
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Hi Penelopecat Meow,
Driven by my mission to empower people like you to achieve success, I'm excited to share an exclusive resource: the Free $10K-a-Month Checklist PDF.
Here's what this PDF will help you achieve:
- Boost Revenue: Proven strategies to hit $10K a month.
- Streamline Campaigns: A step-by-step checklist to ensure email success.
- Drive Engagement: Actionable tips to connect with your audience.
This guide is designed to provide you with actionable insights that can transform your email marketing efforts immediately.
If you have any questions or need support, feel free to reach out. I'm here to help you succeed.
Best regards,
Deniss Solonin
Marketing Consultant & Lecturer
Sunday, May 08, 2022
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Christmas Eve and I'm back!
So, as I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, I’ve been having a lot of trouble staying cheerful and happy this year. It just feels like we’re in the middle—or, worse, just at the beginning—of a period where people are feeling way too comfortable being nasty to each other and treating the world like crap. So I haven’t had the energy to blog about the things I enjoy, For that matter, I’ve been having trouble feeling that enjoyment from things that would usually make me happy, because the darkness of the world is overwhelming all my joy.
I want to change that. I want to find ways to feel happier and more optimistic. Part of that is doing what I can to make the world a better place, which, admittedly isn’t that much. But if all I can do is call my congresspeople and tell them I want them to stop passing laws that hurt people, because even that stresses me out, then that’s what I’m going to do.
Another thing I can do is make a conscious effort to let things make me happy. Tomorrow is Christmas. After tomorrow, Doctor Who will be played by a woman, and that’s exciting. This time next month, I will have gone to Disneyland to celebrate my wife’s birthday, and that’s exciting. Six months from now, if all goes according to plan, I will have driven a real train, and that’s exciting. So many positive things I have to look forward to, and I need to embrace them.
I’m going to try to get back in the habit of blogging weekly again, too. I don’t know how successful that will be; maybe biweekly is a more realistic goal. I think I stopped enjoying it because I was putting too much pressure on myself. For example, I still really want to promote the Catalyst Prime line of comics, because they’re great, and a fantastic example of diversity in a world that seems to loudly wish it was all white male. But I was having trouble finding the time to write about their new comics every week, and so it started feeling like a burden and a failure rather than a joy. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
I’m going to try to start things off with a bang. Starting tomorrow, I’m hoping to post 12 shorter blogs in a row, for the 12 Days of Christmas. (Yes, the 12 days start on Christmas and end on the Epiphany. Look it up.) I’m going to write about things that make me happy during this holiday season. They’re almost all Christmas-related, which I suppose isn’t very inclusive. However, none of them are particularly Christian, which reflects the way my wife and I view Christmas. We are Strict Decorationists.
Please check out my blog starting tomorrow, to find out about some of my holiday favorites!
Friday, January 22, 2016
I'm back!
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged regularly, but I’m hoping to get back in the saddle again. I’ve been inspired by my wife, who regularly posts to her makeup blog.
I’ve also been inspired by what often feels like overwhelming negativity on the part of the Internet. I go looking for blogs or other Internet articles about things that I like, only to find people just bitching about them. I get that writing snark is more fun than writing praise or enthusiasm, but it’s not always fun to read. Especially when it’s just kind of silly. Like when I go looking for someone writing about comics I enjoyed in the 1980s, and all I find are people talking about how they read like they were published in the 1980s. You think? It’s like complaining about the lack of CGI in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
So I’m going to focus on writing almost exclusively about things that I like. For those who know me, it’ll mostly be about comics, TV shows, books, and movies. Hopefully, my enthusiasm will show through, and those of you who read my post here will be inspired to check out the things that I love.
One thing I want to state clearly: I will not be writing reviews. I will be writing about my reactions and responses to the things I enjoy, but I’m not going to be analyzing them in detail. This may occasionally come across as if I am overlooking the flaws in things; more accurately, I am probably just not writing about them.
I will try to post something at least once a week, so I encourage you to please follow me and let me know what you think. And feel free to share the things that you love in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
Friday, January 03, 2014
The Guardians: The Sandman and the War of Dreams and Masks
So here are my quick thoughts on the books i read the last couple of days:
The Sandman and the War of Dreams by William Joyce
I love William Joyce’s Guardians of Childhood series. The picture books, the novels, the movie… they’re all a lot of fun. I’m sad that the movie—which is really good—didn’t seem to get much attention, and I’m sad that it appears that the next novel looks like it’s the last one. Still, they’re all quick enough reads that I can go back and read them all over again.
This latest novel brings the character of Sanderson Mansnoozie, the Sandman (geddit?) into the fray, after having had his origin told in a picture book. While each book in the series builds from the last, this one is very much an installment in a serialized tale. Following the capture of young Katherine in the previous volume, the Guardians search for their friend. Along the way, we learn more about the evil Pitch, his daughter, Mother Nature, and we see the Guardians begin to set things up for what may be the final battle.
As with previous books in the series, I really enjoy the mythology Joyce is building. It’s an epic adventure featuring Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Mother Goose, but it neither feels silly nor overly serious. The books have the tone of an oral folktale, one that has been told again and again over generations. And yet, they also feel focused and detailed. While this time around, we don’t get too much insight into most of the characters, we do learn a great deal about Pitch, Sandman, and Nightlight.
Unfortunately, it felt as if this volume had fewer illustrations than previous ones. I really enjoy Joyce’s artwork, so that was a shame. Also, this feels less like a complete installment than setup for what will come next. Having said that, the background information this book provides more than makes up for that. And since I am totally enjoying the series as a whole, I’m okay with installments that expect me to read what came before and what will come next.
Masks by Chris Roberson, Alex Ross and Dennis Calero
I also read Masks, the collection of the Dynamite comics series bringing together a ton of pulp heroes, including the Shadow, the Green Hornet, the Spider, Miss Fury, the Black Terror, and many others. The story, by Chris Roberson, gives us the state of New York under the grip of the fascist Justice Party. This is a corrupt political party, essentially run by gangsters, meting out terror and oppression under the name of the law. The notion that a state government could be so easily subverted, and the streets of New York start being patrolled by an army of masked, armored thugs feels very pulpy, in the spirit of the characters it teams up.
Unfortunately, the story ultimately feels so busy and crowded that nobody really gets much of a chance to do anything. The Shadow gets his best lines, with his “Why don’t you all quit screwing around,” attitude. Others, like Miss Fury and the Green Lama, end up making token appearances. We get the origins of the Black Bat and a new Zorro, but ultimately, their roles could have been played by anybody, and that makes the story feel kind of pointless.
For that matter, the revelation of the villain behind everything, and his motivation, seems very perfunctory and rushed. It’s a character we’re supposed to know, but we never see him out of the context of being a villain. He ascribes more complex motivations for his plan than we see on the surface, but it’s difficult to believe him when we only ever see him doing anything besides masterminding this fascist organization. Also, things get wrapped up so easily it’s hard to imagine how they got so bad in the first place.
Fortunately, it’s got great art by Alex Ross on the first chapter, and Dennis Calero through the rest of the book. While I hadn’t thought of Calero’s pen-and-ink work with its heavy use of shadow as particularly similar to Alex Ross’s painted pages, they share a lot in terms of layout and character acting. So the whole thing feels like a cohesive whole, despite what, on the surface, are two very similar styles.
As a huge fan of the Shadow, it’s hard for me to pass up any story featuring him. And this is a very pretty one, but also very slight.
The Sandman and the War of Dreams by William Joyce
This latest novel brings the character of Sanderson Mansnoozie, the Sandman (geddit?) into the fray, after having had his origin told in a picture book. While each book in the series builds from the last, this one is very much an installment in a serialized tale. Following the capture of young Katherine in the previous volume, the Guardians search for their friend. Along the way, we learn more about the evil Pitch, his daughter, Mother Nature, and we see the Guardians begin to set things up for what may be the final battle.
As with previous books in the series, I really enjoy the mythology Joyce is building. It’s an epic adventure featuring Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Mother Goose, but it neither feels silly nor overly serious. The books have the tone of an oral folktale, one that has been told again and again over generations. And yet, they also feel focused and detailed. While this time around, we don’t get too much insight into most of the characters, we do learn a great deal about Pitch, Sandman, and Nightlight.
Unfortunately, it felt as if this volume had fewer illustrations than previous ones. I really enjoy Joyce’s artwork, so that was a shame. Also, this feels less like a complete installment than setup for what will come next. Having said that, the background information this book provides more than makes up for that. And since I am totally enjoying the series as a whole, I’m okay with installments that expect me to read what came before and what will come next.
Masks by Chris Roberson, Alex Ross and Dennis Calero
I also read Masks, the collection of the Dynamite comics series bringing together a ton of pulp heroes, including the Shadow, the Green Hornet, the Spider, Miss Fury, the Black Terror, and many others. The story, by Chris Roberson, gives us the state of New York under the grip of the fascist Justice Party. This is a corrupt political party, essentially run by gangsters, meting out terror and oppression under the name of the law. The notion that a state government could be so easily subverted, and the streets of New York start being patrolled by an army of masked, armored thugs feels very pulpy, in the spirit of the characters it teams up.
Unfortunately, the story ultimately feels so busy and crowded that nobody really gets much of a chance to do anything. The Shadow gets his best lines, with his “Why don’t you all quit screwing around,” attitude. Others, like Miss Fury and the Green Lama, end up making token appearances. We get the origins of the Black Bat and a new Zorro, but ultimately, their roles could have been played by anybody, and that makes the story feel kind of pointless.
For that matter, the revelation of the villain behind everything, and his motivation, seems very perfunctory and rushed. It’s a character we’re supposed to know, but we never see him out of the context of being a villain. He ascribes more complex motivations for his plan than we see on the surface, but it’s difficult to believe him when we only ever see him doing anything besides masterminding this fascist organization. Also, things get wrapped up so easily it’s hard to imagine how they got so bad in the first place.
Fortunately, it’s got great art by Alex Ross on the first chapter, and Dennis Calero through the rest of the book. While I hadn’t thought of Calero’s pen-and-ink work with its heavy use of shadow as particularly similar to Alex Ross’s painted pages, they share a lot in terms of layout and character acting. So the whole thing feels like a cohesive whole, despite what, on the surface, are two very similar styles.
As a huge fan of the Shadow, it’s hard for me to pass up any story featuring him. And this is a very pretty one, but also very slight.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Books read the week of Christmas
Thanks to having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, I managed to get a couple of graphic novels read. (No covers this time; I haven't had the time to figure out how to really work with pictures in Blogsy.)
My Little Pony: Pony Tales volume 1
Collecting the first six micro-series issues, each one focusing on one of the "Mane Six" lead characters from the popular TV series and toy line, this was a lot of fun. While all very much in keeping with the tone and style of the show, each story--written and drawn by different creative teams--had its own distinctive voice and feel. Similarly, each character had a story appropriate to their personalities, giving us a range of tales from action-adventure (Rainbow Dash), character drama (Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Applejack), and humor (Pinkie Pie and, arguably, Fluttershy). IDW and Hasbro get points from me for allowing so much individual expression to show through a licensed comic, and not forcing creators into a cookie-cutter house style. Lots of fun for folks already familiar with the series.
Doomsday.1
John Byrne was one of my favorite creators back in the 80s, and it's great to see him still active in comics. Doomsday.1 is a revival/reimagining of one of his earliest series, Doomsday+1. Not having read that series, I can't say how this compares. As a piece of post-apocalyptic fiction, featuring a group of survivors from a space station returning to an Earth devastated by solar flares, it's pretty stark and grim. While some of the situations feel like familiar tropes of the genre--prisoners taking over a prison, for example--he still creates a palpable sense of danger for his characters, and follows through by not always having everyone come out okay. Byrne's art also effectively communicates the horrors of the ravaged world. Unfortunately for the reader, this appears to just be the first part of a longer story; here's hoping that the Doomsday.2 he promises on the final page comes out sooner rather than later.
Mister X: Eviction
I've written about Dean Motter's Mister X before, and I think there's a much longer piece about it and its impact on me as a comics reader percolating in my brain. This book is the second volume in his rebooted series, and it continues to be great, seeing Motter in complete control of the series. (In previous iterations, he would write and design the series, but this new version is the first extended time we've seen him both writing and drawing.) This collection of stories completely embraces the character and the setting, giving us stories that really wouldn't fit anywhere else. We see the enigmatic Mister X working with the specific problems caused by the warped psychetecture of Radiant City, where the structure of the city is literally driving its citizens crazy. While completely steeped in a retro stew of noir and classic science fiction, this is very much more than the sum of its parts and influences, and is instead very much its own thing. It's a weird noir mystery, but one that could not be told in any other setting or with any other characters. And the art is fantastic.
Bandette
Telling the story of a young, female Parisian thief, Bandette oozes charm from every page, every panel, every line. It's like if Catwoman had been created by the creators of Amelie. She rides around on a Vespa, has exciting fights and capers, and proclaims that she possesses the power of Presto! The art, by Colleen Coover, feels very strongly European without slavishly imitating any single creator. It's bright and entertaining and funny without feeling like a parody of something. It's the kind of story where a costumed supervillain can ride a bus or subway to a fight, and it feels perfectly natural. I love Bandette, and I love this collection of stories, including a number of short strips by guest artists fleshing out the supporting cast. In terms of book design, in terms of writing, in terms of art, in terms of tone, Bandette is a thing of charm and beauty, and reading it will make your day seem that little bit brighter.
Posted with BlogsyTuesday, December 17, 2013
The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream by Sam Gennawey
Disneyland is one of my favorite places, and I've been visiting it for years. I know a lot about the park, but I haven't been obsessive about how things have changed and developed over the years. I also don't know that much about its history, beyond what I've seen in various TV specials, at the park, and at the Walt Disney Family Museum. I recently decided I wanted to learn more about Disneyland, but found there weren't a whole lot of comprehensive histories of the park. Fortunately, one was due to come out, and I purchased it as soon as it was released: The Disneyland Story, by Sam Gennawey.
Gennawey tells the entire history of Disneyland, from its earliest conception in the mind of Walt Disney, all the way up to 2012. The book shows the obsession to detail of a true fan, but Gennawey presents his history objectively, without judgment. This doesn't read like an Internet obsessive's guide to the good old days followed by where things went wrong. Instead, we get a true sense of how the park has always been a growing, evolving thing. There were attractions that Walt Disney championed at opening day that failed to catch the public's imagination. There are more recent additions, created long after Walt's passing, that because hugely popular. Gennawey treats all those stories equally.
While he doesn't seem to have an ax to grind as far as favoring nostalgia over innovation and change, he doesn't shy away from problems, either. This is particularly evident in the details of the park's ongoing negotiations with the City of Anaheim and its residents, trying to work out the best deal for a business that has tremendous impact on the community around it. As a Disney fan, I was more interested in the history of the park, but Gennawey keeps the politics to a minimum, getting the important information across without getting caught up in dry minutae.
Overall, this sums up the approach to the book: we get a timeline for new attractions opening, and details about them as they open, but things are kept brief enough that the story keeps moving along. If the book is lacking in anything, it is in illustrations, presumably due to this being an unofficial publication. However, Gennawey creates enough images through his prose that we can almost see the park in the eyes of our minds.
Fans looking for a guidebook to Disneyland will be better off with other publications, as will fans looking for an opinionated document written to advance a specific point of view. What readers will find here is an interesting recounting of the development of what has become, for many visitors, a magical place. He doesn't skimp on the park's successes, and it's fascinating to see how a place that means so much to so many people developed the way most businesses do, driven by ordinary men. A definite must-read for people who want to see the evolution of Disneyland over the decades.
The Desperate Adventures of Zeno and Alya by Jane Kelley
Thanks to the little Senegal parrot living in our house, I've become a big parrot fan. So this story, about Zeno, an African Grey parrot who loses his owner--not that he'd ever admit to being owned--and Alya, a young girl suffering from leukemia, caught my attention. I didn't expect it to be a happy story, and indeed, I found myself in tears over and over again. But I still loved it.
More than anything else, this is a story of frustration, and Jane Kelley communicates that very well. Zeno, like all African Grey parrots, is highly intelligent, but he isn't a human. His concerns are those of a bird, and while he has a highly developed English vocabulary, he finds himself alternately unable to communicate what he really wants to the humans, or finds humans unable to understand that he is really trying to speak to them, raither than just imitate sounds.
Alya, on the other hand, is frustrated with her declining condition. She can no longer do the things she took for granted, and she feels like she is losing her friends and family as a result. They're still there, but they treat her differently. Kelley effectively shows how both Zeno and Alya perceive this loss of control, and how it upsets their lives.
This isn't a typical kid-animal bonding story, and it lacks a lot of the heartwarming moments you'd expect from that sentimental genre. It's tough and hard-edged, and there are a lot of harrowing sequences. I found myself particularly upset at one character, a woman who takes Zeno home, but is more interested in how he fits into the decor of her house than his well-being as a living, thinking creature. I know that there are far too many people like that out there, who don't understand the responsibilities of bringing an animal into their home. There's too great a perception that because animals don't speak a language that we recognize, they are somehow inferior to humans. As if the ability to smoke and kill each other over religion is an indication of superiority.
Ultimately, this is a tough book for me to pigeonhole (pun intended). It's so well written, and so tugs at the heartstrings, that I recommend it for its sheer quality. But it's also very upsetting through most of it, so definitely not a light distraction. I loved it, but I don't think I need to revisit it again for a while.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Legends of the Dark Knight: Alan Davis Volume 1
By the time these stories started coming out during my senior year of high school, I was already a fan of both Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis. In fact, the first then-modern Batman story that I had bought was the fabulous Batman Annual 8, written by Barr with fantastic art by Trevor Von Eeden. I’d followed Barr through various Batman annuals and specials (including his work with Michael Golden on the oft-reprinted classic, The Player on the Other Side) and on Batman and the Outsiders (another favorite). So when he finally got a shot at writing a regular solo Batman comic, I was pretty excited.
I probably became an Alan Davis fan through his work on Batman and the Outsiders as well, when he took over from cocreator Jim Aparo, who had moved over to the new Outsiders “deluxe” comic. As a kid, I was very much a fan of the slick, detailed work of folks like George Perez, Paul Smith, and John Byrne, and Alan Davis fit right in with that. His characters were distinct individuals who somehow looked like believable, iconic characters, even though they were built to superhero proportions. And he drew the best facial expressions. His characters were great actors on the page, and I was ecstatic that he’d be working with Barr.
It’s been years--decades, even--since I’ve read these stories from Detective, now collected together in Legends of the Dark Knight: Alan Davis Volume 1. And they absolutely hold up. The first couple of issues, featuring a plot by the Joker to turn Catwoman evil again, just to mess with Batman, is great. While written to fill an editorial directive to make Catwoman no longer aware of Batman’s true identity, Barr takes the opportunity to illustrate the Joker’s craziness (messing with Batman is more important than anything) and give Catwoman some new edginess.
Also, in rereading this story, a couple scenes really illustrated to me why I don’t enjoy reading the current Batman stories. About a year ago, I read the first collection of the current Detective series, and was really upset by a sequence where Batman interrogated a thug by beating the crap out of him, only to discover that he was never going to get any answers, because the man had had his tongue cut out. So, knowing that, Batman punches him once more for good measure before turning him over to the cops. That's not the Batman I know; that's a cruel bully.
In this story, Barr and Davis show Batman intimidating information out of a crook though dialogue alone. That’s the Batman I know, who uses his wits instead of his fists whenever he can. Of course, it’s an action comic; more often than not things are going to be resolved through fights, but they don’t have to be acts of bullying on Batman’s part.
These stories also have a great deal of humor. One scene, with Batman tricking a villain’s thug, has me laughing every time I see it. And Robin is constantly making jokes and puns. It’s not the unrelentingly grim comic I’ve come to associate with the Batman of today. And, while I get that today’s Batman is the version that today’s audience wants, and that it’s not out of line with what’s come before, it’s not a version that makes me happy to read.
Barr and Davis’s Batman is very human. He doesn’t treat Robin as just a replaceable soldier in his war against crime. He talks about how Robin helps keep him human, and how he takes Robin out crimefighting now, so that he doesn’t have vengeance bottled up inside of him his whole life, and ends up like Bruce Wayne. He even gives Robin the chance to stay out of what promises to be a pretty nasty fight.
In many ways, these stories work for me because they fuse the darker, more complex and realistic Batman of the 70s and 80s, by creators like Denny O’Neill, Neal Adams, Frank Robbins, Irv Novick, and Don Newton, with the more wacky, stylized, larger-than-life crimes seen in the late 40s and 50s by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang. This may be best illustrated in the story featuring the Mad Hatter, which even features a fight involving giant props.
While this collection starts off with several stories about Batman’s colorful rogue’s gallery, it takes a turn toward the dark and somber towards the end, with a reflective tale of the Batman looking back on his origins. This leads into the first chapter of Batman Year Two, which is the only chapter reprinted here. Unfortunately, through editorial interference, Alan Davis quit the book after completing that first chapter, and went to work for Marvel.
The circumstances surrounding his leaving, as he relates in Modern Masters: Alan Davis, are particularly frustrating. He had drawn a story with Batman carrying the gun used to kill his parents. Because Batman is a big guy, he needed to carry a big gun, and the script specified a Mauser. That script was approved by their editor, and so was the art that Davis turned in. However, when David Mazzuchelli turned in his art for Batman Year One, he had illustrated the single panel showing Joe Chill’s gun with him holding a .45 automatic. So, instead of having Mazzuchelli change his one panel, Davis was told to redraw his gun throughout the entire issue. This was just the latest in a string of what Davis saw as editorial incompetence, so he quit.
And that’s disappointing, because it draws to a premature close one of the most fantastic periods of Batman’s history. Barr’s brilliant combination of two disparate periods and styles of Batman stories would not have been nearly as effective without Davis’s art. His pencils managed to bridge the serious drama with the more outlandish sequences, with the same delicate balance as Barr’s scripts. His Joker could look like a crazy clown, but could also look incredibly menacing. The Batman creators of today seem to feel that the way to add menace to the Joker is to have him cut off his own face and then staple it back on. Davis managed to make him look scary by drawing him in a way that made him look scary.
Also, to this day, Davis is one of the few artists I can think of who can convincingly draw Batman as if he’s smiling.
I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the other artists who worked on the 50th anniversary story along with Davis. Terry Beatty did a great job with hard-boiled detective Slam Bradley, who predated Batman in Detective Comics. When this issue came out, I was already a Beatty fan from his work with Max Allan Collins on Ms Tree. After this, though, I would have been almost as excited if he and Mike Barr had started up a Slam Bradley comic.
Veteran creator Carmine Infantino returned to his stretchable detective, the Elongated Man. While at this point in his career, Infantino’s art was much more stylized than in his earlier years, he remains an innovative storyteller. And ER Cruz’s return to the Victorian setting of Sherlock Holmes is gorgeous. All in all, this story, teaming up Detective Comics’ greatest detectives in a story featuring Sherlock Holmes, was a fantastic celebration of the series. And the fact that it’s all one self-contained story is even better.
I’ll be the first to admit that not everything from my childhood lives up to my memories. But these stories do. They remind me why I love Batman, as a character. And, as long as I have books like this on my shelf, I don’t need to settle for the new stories that I’m not enjoying. I can go back and reread the ones that I do love, and remember those happy days.
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Newsstand: December 1981
Looking at the comics cover-dated December 1981, the month seems notable more for stuff I didn't buy at the time. I don't think I bought any of these comics when they were initially released, but I either got them as back issues or reprints. So, the list of comics I wish I had bought as new in December, 1981 includes:
All-Star Squadron #4 Once I started reading All-Star Squadron, I was hooked, and collected everything back to the first issue. At this point, however, I probably thought it was just another superhero comic. Or hadn't even noticed it yet.
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 Actually, I've never actually read this. And possibly Frank Miller's name wouldn't have meant anything to me when this was published (although it might have, since he was writing and drawing Daredevil by this point). But it just seems to me that if I knew more about comics at that point, I wouldn't have let a Frank Miller-illustrated Spider-Man comic pass me by.
Nexus #1 Nexus would become one of my favorite comics, but it wasn't really on my radar until issue #3 came out with its flexi-disk read-along soundtrack. And it would be quite some time before this first issue was reprinted in an affordable format. So I didn't become a fan of Nexus, Mike Baron, or Steve Rude as early as I might have.
In fact, if I did buy any of these comics when they were released, it probably would have been Condorman #2. Because I was fascinated by the idea of a Disney movie about a superhero, and was super-excited about that movie. (I have it on DVD, but haven't watched it. Will it hold up to my memories? I'm almost afraid to find out.)
Sunday, March 03, 2013
New Mutants Classic
In today's comics market, where it appears to be a federal law that fully 1/3 of all Marvel Comics' output must be X-Men-related at any given moment, it's tough to recall that back in the early 1980s, there was only one X-Men comic: Uncanny X-Men. So, in 1982, when the fourth Marvel graphic novel introduced a new team at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, it was a big deal. As a newly-minted X-Men fan, having been brought into the fold through the X-Men/New Teen Titans crossover, I was excited at the possibility of getting in on this story on the ground floor, so I eagerly snapped it up.
The art on the graphic novel, by Bob McLeod, also holds up, I think. I now know that this was an early project for him, and that it was a bit of a rush job. I don't see that in the art at all. He does a great job with a story that features a lot of scenes of normal-looking people in normal environments, and that grounds the book in a reality that sets it a bit apart from Uncanny X-Men. Like Claremont, he creates characters who are distinct individuals, with specific looks and body types. The reader can tell who is who without having to rely on costumes or hair colors. It's a good introduction, and sets the tone for what is to follow.
It's probably worth pointing out that the ratio of female to male characters on the team was three to two. This may have had some additional appeal for me.
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