January 13, 2006 Johanna Other Manga Publishers One comment

Doing Time

Doing Time‘s author spent three years in jail due to violating Japan’s gun possession laws, and he’s captured the time in excruciating detail. It’s very different from what one sees of American prisons in the media, since the Japanese prisoners are very regimented and well-behaved. Unfortunately, Kazuichi Hanawa, the author, shares little of his interior perceptions or feelings. There’s no insight into what brought him there or what he learned or how the experience changed him as a person, and […]

January 13, 2006 Johanna Other Publishers Leave a comment

1000 Steps To World Domination

It doesn’t surprise me at all that this, as a minicomic, was pushed by James Sime and as a book, was published by Larry Young. All three have in common a sense of importance orthogonal to reality and as a result, all three are achieving their goals based on building their own legends. 1000 Steps To World Domination is a series of mostly four-panel, one-page cartoons. They all revolve around Osborne’s desire to rule the world, although some connections are […]

January 13, 2006 Johanna Books About Comics Leave a comment

The Science of Supervillains

The Science of Supervillains opens with a preface that gives the reader the basics of the Silver Age of superhero comics. After that comes an introduction by Chris Claremont where he talks briefly about Magneto and the problems of writing plausible villains. Then the chapters, one each for Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, Brainiac, The Vulture, Poison Ivy, Doctor Octopus, The Lizard, Venom, Gorilla Grodd, Magneto, Vandal Savage, The Silver Surfer, Sinestro, Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite, and strangely, the Crisis on […]

January 13, 2006 Johanna Movie Reviews Leave a comment

Christmas in Connecticut

Christmas in Connecticut is my favorite holiday movie. Every time I see it, I love it more. From 1945, Barbara Stanwyck plays that generation’s Martha Stewart, a famous magazine writer who’s always describing her farmhouse, her delicious gourmet meals, and her loving husband and baby. Problem is, she has none of those things. She’s a working woman who can’t cook but buys herself a mink because she’s always wanted one. When a war hero writes her publisher saying all he […]

January 13, 2006 Johanna Manga News Leave a comment

Manga Retailer Out

A small-town friend of mine had noticed that his Suncoast store had cleared out all of their manga. (I mention the “small town” because that was one of his few outlets for browsing.) Now, ICV2 is reporting that they are “exiting the category” and returning all of the books due to their parent company’s bankruptcy. I stopped into my local branch yesterday, and when I asked, the clerk, without prompting, told me something similar, only she also said that the […]

January 13, 2006 Johanna Comic Book Films One comment

Fantastic Four: The Movie

I know the Fantastic Four movie wasn’t all that popular with comic fans, but I liked it. It was exactly what I expected, an enjoyable summer action movie with comic book characters. Some random thoughts: Reed Richards really was portrayed as the “world’s dumbest smart guy”, as Doom said. He didn’t seem to do much of anything in this film; everything was someone else’s invention or choice or accident. He was pretty to look at, but that got boring quickly. […]

January 11, 2006 Johanna Comic News One comment

Sexual Harassment Reactions

Laura Gjovaag has a powerful emotional response to recent stories of sexual harassment. She comes to the conclusion that Superheroes are constrained by their own success. And it’s a dubious success at that. As long as superheroes dominate the market, the stories will continue to pander to the fanboys… the lowest common denominator of the fanboys. They will continue to be the kind of stories that embarrass the casual reader and drive people away. And they will continue to be […]

January 9, 2006 Johanna Comic News 5 comments

How to Deflect Criticism

In a Howling Curmudgeons post that tries to understand outrage over Frank Miller’s butt shot (as drawn by Jim Lee, it’s beginning to look like the shot heard round the blogosphere) by pretending that such things are common in fine art, Marc Singer posts a hilarious checklist that made me laugh out loud. Checklist for deflecting criticism of a comic: – Claim it’s actually a parody. – Claim that it’s all a big joke on the mundanes/fanboys/idiots who don’t get […]

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