Japanese Spider-Man

It's Spider-Man, it's Japanese and it's crazy as a shark's knee:




Thanks to Phil for pointing this madness out to me.

Watchmen: Bigger, Louder and Uncut

I went to see Watchmen last night.

As a somewhat obsessive fan of the original comic book (alright then, graphic novel), I expected this to be something of a Manichean moviegoing experience. I'd leave the theatre either loving or hating the film, hailing Zack Snyder as a cinematic genius or denouncing him as the New Schumacher. Like the moral standpoint of Rorschach, one of the anti-heroes from the film (alright then, motion picture), there would be no middle ground, no compromise.

That was yesterday. Now, I'm not too sure.

My good friend Phil likened the film to the Ludovico technique, that fictitious aversion therapy from Clockwork Orange in which Malcolm McDowell's Alex was forced to watch a barrage of lurid, violent images with his eyes prised open. Watchmen was two hours and forty minutes of relentless sensory overload which made me feel happy, annoyed, ecstatic, angry, gleeful and perplexed and often all at the same time. It's also left me feeling a bit like Malcolm McDowell.

I'm still trying to process it now. Like Schrödinger's Cat - which is both alive and dead at the same time - I find myself simultaneously loving and hating Zack Snyder's Watchmen. I'll try to write something more coherent once my neurology settles down.

Or I might just go to see it again.

Nite Owl and his Amazing Friends

Re-reading the Watchmen

As you might have already noticed, the Watchmen movie comes out this week. Unlike most online commentators with geekazoid tendancies, I'll try my best to reserve judgement on the film until I've actually seen the damn thing. Whether I end up loving it film or loathing it, at least it's given me an excuse to re-read Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' original comic series for the umpteenth time:

"Moe Vernon was a man around fifty-five or so, and he had one of those old New York faces that you don't see anymore. It's funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they're related. Look at pictures from ten years later and you can see that there's a new kind of face starting to predominate, and that the old faces are fading away and vanishing, never to be seen again."

I first read Watchmen when it was released as a 12 issue series between 1986-7. A lot of things have changed since then, but it's still my favourite comic.

Thor Blimey!

It's not every day you see an item of news that will excite fans of Marvel Comics, Norse mythology and popular Brummie playwright William "The Bard" Shakespeare.

Here's something from Variety that might:

"Kenneth Branagh is negotiating to direct 'Thor' the next Marvel Comics property that will be turned into a live-action film by Marvel Studios. Pic will be released in 2010."

Well, maybe not the Norse mythology crowd. They're never easy to please.

The prospect of Kenneth Branagh directing a big-assed superhero flick might seem like the maddest idea since, I dunno, Ang Lee directing a big-assed superhero flick. Then again, this one's about a hammer-wielding God who's partial to a bit of blank verse blather. It might not be too much of a stretch.

I suppose that over the coming months there'll be all sorts of feverish speculation amongst fanboys as to who should play the God of Thunder. Me, I don't particularly care - I'm more interested in the supporting cast. I'm hoping that Branagh once again calls upon his regular company of performers to lend a bit of much-needed gravitas to the project. I want to see Thor's dad Odin played by Richard (The Good Life) Briers. I want to see stately, plump Volstragg played by Brian (Z Cars) Blessed. But most of all, though, I want to see Thor's arch nemesis played by a truly great British performer. Someone who has worked with Branagh before. Someone who'd be perfect for the role. Someone who was born to play an evil trickster god.

I want to see Ken Dodd as Loki.

The letter writing campaign starts NOW!

Who Watches the... What?

With the hype machine for next year's Watchmen film already powering up (it was the cover story to last month's Empire and the trailer is attached to Dark Knight, that bat-themed vigilante flick that's currently doing the rounds), it's only a matter of time before non-comics literate friends and affiliates start asking me: "What's it all about, fanboy?"

Sadly, I'm no better equipped at providing a straightforward, snappy and easily digestible answer than I was when other friends and other affiliates were asking another me exactly the same question over twenty years' ago. It's just as well, then, that there are people out there prepared to do the hard work for me. Tom Spurgeon asked his Comics Reporter readers to define Watchmen to the uninitiated. I quite liked Cole Moore Odell's take on the book:

"Watchmen is about power: its trappings, its limits, and the consequences of its use. We see the USA and Russia as global superpowers; Dr. Manhattan with the literal power of a god; the power that normal people have to affect both individual lives and the course of history, and the power of writing to shape thinking. It is also about powerlessness -- as embodied by the child who would become Rorschach, or the inexorable slide toward war -- and the self-deception practiced by people (Ozymandias in particular, but all of them) struggling against that helplessness. It's only about superheroes to the extent that the genre allows Moore and Gibbons a multitude of ways to explore the theme."

I'm also quite partial to Matthias Wivel's explanation:

"Watchmen is about a lot of things, many of which have been brought up in your round-up, but fundamentally it is about what all Alan Moore's comics are about: Order. The sense that there is a structure to the universe, and to existence, and how this structure starts in ourselves and determines our perception of the world. Moore exemplifies this in the meticulous structure of the comic itself, but also in the character of Dr. Manhattan who perceives the order we can only intuit.

"The conflict of the story arises from the way the individual deals with it, and the main characters each make their own choices: The Comedian absolves himself and becomes amoral, Ozymandias wants to control it, Rorschach has lost faith in it, Dan and Julie chose to make their way within it, and Dr. Manhattan stands back. The play's the thing."

But the award for the most straightforward, snappy and easily digestible answer goes to Dustin Harbin:

"Watchmen starts out as a superhero murder mystery and turns into a really dense rumination on the motivations behind might and right."

It doesn't provide a full explanation as to why this book is still considered so important by people like me, but it'll be a damn sight easier for me to remember.



Thanks to Pete for the heads-up.

Bull$#@% Bulletins

Here's something else I recently dug out from the archives. If you have no interest in comic books - or, for that matter, low humour - then I strongly suggest you look away now.

Some years' ago, during my ever-so-brief stint as a small-press comics creator, I used to write a page of made-up news stories in the style of Marvel Comics' old Bullpen Bulletins. Technically speaking, it was filler material. As Alphonse Karr would say: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

Be warned: there's plenty more where this came from...


This autumn, London's ICA will be hosting an exhibition dedicated to the notorious underground comix title, Outside Now!

Originally launched in 1964 by the now-defunct publishing house Bench Press Press, Outside, Now! featured cartoon interpretations of fact-based fights between the major comic creators of the day. As its former publisher Cornelius Numb recalls: "In those days, the comic industry was full of people from all sortsa different backgrounds. Like me, most of them started out on the bare-knuckle boxing circuit."

Holding up a 1960s Fantastic Four comic, Numb continues: "You only got to look at a page of Jack Kirby artwork to see for yourself. Take a look at that bold foreshortening and tough, no-nonsense linework. Just imagine the amount of muscle that went into each of those pencil strokes. Now, try to imagine the kind of damage the fist clenching that pencil could do to your face. It's no wonder we called him 'King'."

According to Numb, Kirby wasn't the only Comic Book Clobberer or Silver Age Scrapper. "These were stand-up guys who settled things the old fashioned way. Take [Steve] Ditko, a skinny guy to look at, but a real dirty fighter all the same. He never gave up. I watched him beat seven shades of shinola out of Carmine Infantino and Bill Everett after a Marvel vs DC baseball game turned ugly. He kept screaming: 'Submit to my will! Submit to my will!' He really knew how to psyche out his opponents.

"We ran that fight in our double-sized Christmas 1971 issues. Despite their injuries, Steve, Bill and Carmine [all] collaborated on the strip. Say what you like, but those guys were pros."

The magazine reached its peak in popularity during the 1970s, and Numb claims that mainstream publishers were quick to cash-in on the phenomena: "You ever see that Superman vs Muhammed Ali book that DC put out? I rest my case."

During the 1980s, however, Outside, Now! experienced a sharp decline in sales. A new wave of comic book artists went straight into the industry from art school or advertising. "Most of them were derivative little sons of bitches who just wanted to imitate their favourite comic artists," recalls Numb. "Those guys didn't know the first thing about fighting."

"I mean no disrespect, but most of these people were fans," says Numb bitterly. "If you ask me fans shouldn't be making comics, they should be reading them." By the time the 80s came around the only people in the industry who'd fight on a regular basis were the letterers. People like John Costanza, Ken Bruzenak and Tom Frame tried to keep the tradition alive, but without the involvement of 'hot' comic artists of the day, the days of Outside, Now! were numbered.

"Those guys tried their best," says Numb, "but what kind of chump wants to read a book that doesn't have drawings?"

Invincible

Okay, let's start this with off a pair of disclaimers. Firstly, due to time constraints I'm going to have to knock this out in a bit of a rush. If it appears at all disjointed, misspelt and badly structured it's possibly due to the excuse that I'm working against the clock. Secondly, although I'm writing about the film Iron Man (which I went to see yesterday), I do so not only as a card-carrying cinephile but as someone who has also spent just over three decades as an unrepentant comics fanboy.

So, having said all that, I'd just like to take this opportunity and say that Jon Favreau's Iron Man was the most fun I've had at the cinema in bloody ages.

As summer blockbuster fare goes, I found it hard to fault. Smart direction, excellent performances and more substance and subtext than you'd normally expect from that kind of budget at this time of year. As a superhero movie - that increasingly ubiquitous if not always respectable of genres - it was one of the best. Up there, in my humble opinion, with long-underwear benchmarks like Superman: The Movie, X-Men 2 and Batman Begins.

As a comics fan with a more than passing familiarity with the source material (the first superhero comic I read as a 7 year-old featured "Shellhead"), I was quite taken aback at the extent to which Favreau and his team successfully condensed forty years' worth of fictional history whilst remaining true to the spirit of the comics. Sure, the same has been said for other successful comic2films adaptations, but none have gone as far as Iron Man to strive for authenticity. I kept waiting for that one duff artistic choice that would spoil it for me - like Sam Raimi dropping Spider-Man's character defining wisecracks because they didn't fit his vision- but it didn't happen. It was a note-for-note perfect adaptation.

And what can I say about the casting of Robert Downey Jr as the eponymous armour-clad person of mass destruction? It was a bloody stroke of genius: RDJ is Tony Stark. He absolutely nailed the role. I've been a big fan of Downey Jr since 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, going out of my way to watch pretty much anything he's appeared in ever since and never being let down. I think he's one of the most charismatic actors of his generation, and its great to see him getting top-billing on a big summer blockbuster. And his well-documented bad boy shenanigans of the past actually helped Iron Man: his personal baggage was actually an asset to the role, giving Tony Stark the kind of implied background a 12A certificate can't make explicit.

For fans of Iron Man - and Marvel Comics in general - the film was packed with treats and hints of things to come (and, if there's any justice in the world, there will be more to come - I haven't left the cinema that hungry for a sequel since Batman Begins).

And as for the obligatory Stan Lee cameo - it's a gem.

I quite like this one, too...

OK, I'll stop this now. It's getting silly.

I suspect my geek gland will be working overtime this summer...

Steve Gerber, 1947-2008

I was sorry to hear that Steve Gerber, one of my favourite comic book writers, passed away on Sunday.

Gerber was best known as the creator of Marvel Comics' Howard the Duck. Forget the atrocious George Lucas-produced 80s movie adaptation, Gerber's HTD was the real deal: a cynical, cigar-chomping, anarchistic antidote to the traditional funny-animal strip. Although I read it at as a kid, Gerber's HTD - with its strong vein of subversive satire and narrative experimentation - had a lasting impact on my sensibilities.

At one stage, The Walt Disney Company famously threatened to take Marvel Comics to court, claiming that HTD infringed on their Donald Duck copyright. In 2001 Gerber returned to the character, producing a more explicit version of the strip for Marvel's adult-orientated 'Max' imprint. In this story - and for reasons too ludicrous to explain - Howard finds himself transformed into an cynical, ugly, cigar-chomping rodent.

Needless to say, he wears white gloves...

I found a pair of old Docs...

I watched a couple of vintage documentaries about two of my favourite writers on Ye Olde Interwebs this week that I haven't seen for bloody years. I guess it says a lot about my particular strain of temperament that [a] I can get genuinely excited about watching vintage documentaries I haven't seen in bloody years and, [b] I never previously thought of checking the likes of YouTube or GoogleVideo for hot-damn, good-shit examples of the aforementioned [a] that I didn't bother videotaping when they were first broadcast. Proof if proof were needed, then, that I'm still an analogue man living in a digital world.

Anyhow, the first was an BBC Arena doc from 1994 about SF author Philip K Dick called A Day in the Afterlife. I was 23 when I last saw it and, until then, the only PKD book I'd read was Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep in my capacity as a dutiful fan of the film Blade Runner. After watching the doc, I greedily devoured every PKD book I could lay my badly-manicured mitts on.

This is it:



Worth watching for the fake, Ubik-style PKD commercials presented by two of my heroes, fellow PKD fans Terry Gilliam & Elvis Costello.

The other vintage doc I revisited this week was brought to my attention that sage of online omniscience, Gentleman Pete Ashton. Called Monsters, Maniacs and Moore it's about the Bard of Northampton himself, comics writer extraordinaire Alan Moore [who, as Pop Will Eat Itself once astutely observed, "Knows the score"]. The last time I saw this one was when it was first broadcast in 1987. I was even younger then.

Unlike the PKD doc, this didn't turn me onto the works of the Bearded One: it was more a case of preaching to the converted. Watching it now, two decades later, reminds me of how exciting comics were back then. This was the period of Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - of Barefoot Gen and Maus - when even Marvel Comics were publishing English language editions of Moebius albums. To put it another way, this was a period when comics seemed to grow up just as I was supposed to be growing out of them.

Part 1 is below [parts 2-4 are here]:



Monsters, Maniacs and Moore was part of an 80s documentary series called England, Their England which was broadcast by what we used to call Central TV. That's right, this brilliant and thoughtful documentary about a staggeringly brilliant writer working in a widely despised medium was broadcast on ITV. Possibly at prime-time.

Times have certainly changed.