In Review: Looking for Calvin and Hobbes

When I was about 12 years old I told my grandpa that I was going to take over Calvin and Hobbes when Bill Watterson died. In an especially bitter moment, he gently chastised me, saying that it was likely that his family would take it over, and that Watterson probably wouldn't want anyone else to draw it anyway. Now I know for a fact my grandpa knew nothing about Bill Watterson, but damn if he wasn't right. Watterson HATED legacy strips, and felt he was the only one who could ever tell Calvin and Hobbes' story.

That's just one thing I learned in Nevin Martell's new book, Looking for Calvin and Hobbes. The book is subtitled "The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip", and true to that it's part biography and part love letter. Anyone who fell under the trance of Watterson's comic strip will find lots of interesting tidbits about its origins and author.

That's the good part. Martell's research is above reproach. He interviews more people than anyone else would consider necessary and gets them to open up. He goes to Watterson's hometown of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. He visits Ohio State University's Cartoon Library and Musuem, to which the cartoonist donated ALL of his original Calvin and Hobbes strips. He even calls Watterson's mother on the phone.

Though the book isn't a strict biography, Martell does a good job of presenting the basic facts about Watterson's youth and development, the journey he took to create Calvin and Hobbes, his reaction to his success, and what he has been doing in the 14 years since the strip ended.

But the book is nonetheless problematic. Let's break it down:

1) Martell sets up his book as a quest for an interview with the notoriously press-shy Watterson, something that you know is not going to actually happen. If it had, the book would have been called Finding Calvin and Hobbes. It's a lame attempt to create drama. And though I think Martell's quest was a doomed proposition (by all accounts Watterson wants Calvin and Hobbes to speak for itself and is uninterested in rehashing the past any more than he already has), he didn't help himself with the way he went about his request. Included in the book is the text of his interview-request letter, and it's pretty lame and embarrassing, sounding like it was written by a gushing fanboy. I wonder if Martell would have had more success by asking Watterson if he'd talk about everything BUT Calvin and Hobbes.

In the absence of Watterson, we get Martell's rehashing many of his past interviews and speeches, and this is valuable. But Martell also chose to quote generously from Watterson's various introductions to Calvin and Hobbes collections. This feels unnecessary, and a little bit like cheating.

2) When doing anything other than presenting the results of his interviews and research, Martell's writing voice is awful. In a very curious move, he regularly interjects his own opinions and experiences into the story. That would be fine for an introduction, but Martell seems to believe that his own superfandom of the Calvin and Hobbes affords him a large place in the strip's story. It doesn't. I'm okay with when it's relevant, such as when he describes his experience looking at Watterson's original artwork at OSU. But when it comes to describing his desire for an eternal summer, or comparing his father to Calvin's father, or talking about his writing process, it's just distracting. Throughout, he peppers his writing with dorky, awkward references to things like "the trixster god Loki", Jessica Biel, and American Idol (ironically, this is something he praises Watterson for not doing). This type of writing has its place, but not in a biography.

3) Similarly, Martell constantly tries to philosophically analyze various Calvin and Hobbes characters, situations, and running gags. This would admittedly be less annoying had he actually had permission to print the strips in question, but even so, he rarely offers anything insightful. It's all cliched platitudes such as, "Of course, no young boy's life would be complete without a secret club." And really, I mean, I agree Calvin and Hobbes was a great comic strip, but do we need to elevate it to "Bill Watterson is the most brilliant pop artist of the late 20th century" levels?

You can also tell that Martell has worked as a rock critic, and is used to substituting laborious comparisons for actual descriptions. Check out his summary of Richard Thompson's comic strip: "Cul-De-Sac looks like Ralph Steadman and Charles Schulz fighting over a pen to draw The Yellow Kid crossed with FoxTrot, with a dollop of Watterson's wit thrown in for good measure."

One can't help but wish that Martell had worked with a stronger editor, someone who could have saved him from his self-indulgences and organizational challenges. I hate books like this, because you just know it could have been so much better, but you can't dismiss it outright because hiding in the mess a lot of good information.

So should you read it or not? If you want to know more about the story behind Calvin and Hobbes and its creator, Martell's book is basically the only resource you'll find. So I don't regret reading it. Even so, I can't shake the feeling that I probably would have gotten more out of taking all of my old Calvin and Hobbes collections off the shelf and rereading them from beginning to end.

In Review: Was Superman a Spy?

For several years, the indefatigable Brian Cronin has been addressing comic book urban legends on his Comics Should Be Good blog. He has written over 200 entries, each one tackling 3 legends. That means he's researched and proved or disproved over 500 stories from comic book history. They're required reading for serious comic fan.

Now, Cronin has released Was Superman a Spy?, a collection of legends previously-covered and newly-revealed. Some minor quibbles aside, it's just as essential.

There are a couple of jarring things about the book for those who've followed Brian's work on the blog. For one, the book is not structured the same. The blog poses each legend as a question and then attempts to give a definitive true or false. It's a very effective structure. The book abandons this approach and tells the legends in a sequential, narrative form. This results in what feels almost like "the secret history of comic books."

However, the book is more organized than the blog (which, despite occasional theme weeks, is haphazard in subject matter). In the book, the "chapters" are arranged by company and character, making it very user-friendly. It's too bad these two approaches couldn't have been combined, with the "true or false" structure organized by company and character.

My only other complaint is Cronin's writing voice. For the most part, Cronin comes off as a believable authority, which is important for an informative book of facts such as this. However, there are places where he still sounds more like a fan (which he is at heart - aren't we all?). For example, in summarizing a legend about Martin Landau's brief career as a comic book artist, Cronin writes: "It's probably for the best, because if comic books gained Landau, the world of acting would have lost him, and he is far too good of an actor to lose." There are several moments like this peppered throughout the book, where Cronin's opinion intrudes, and feels out of place.

There are also a couple of places where Cronin's logic doesn't quite follow, like when he writes about Marv Wolfman's original intent to introduce a black Teen Titan called Jericho. Carmine Infantino, then publisher of DC, rejected the story as written. Much later, Wolfman did introduce Jericho into the Titans, but as a curly, blond-headed white guy. Cronin calls this a "measure of revenge". Wait, what? If the offense was not allowing a black character to be introduced, wouldn't the revenge be Wolfman's creation of Cyborg, a black Titan who became quite popular with fans?

Even so, Was Superman a Spy? does a lot to recommend itself. The book is generously illustrated with original covers, interior art, and photos. Many of the legends require (or are at least enhanced by) visual reference, so I'm glad the publisher ponied up for the rights to reprint these images. And Cronin is a great historian and researcher; he has uncovered some wonderful anecdotes. My favorites include the story of Ray Bradbury's clever response to EC Comics' unauthorized adaptation of two of his short stories, and Disney duck artist Carl Barks' insistence on the scientific accuracy of his stories leading to the discovery of a process to raise sunken ships and a previously-unknown chemical compound!

Those of us who love comic books have long been required to learn our historical information piecemeal and through unreliable sources. Brian Cronin has done some wonderful work in Was Superman a Spy? by cutting through the fiction in a medium where the stories that get printed often aren't the only works of fantasy.

Raw Deal

News came through this week that Dwayne McDuffie has been fired from his post as writer of Justice League of America. Make no mistake, it's bad news.

McDuffie, co-creator of Ben 10 and the Milestone line of comics, is a talented guy who obviously isn't getting the respect he deserves. Consider that he put together a very good run on Fantastic Four a couple of years ago with artist Paul Pelliter, and then was shuffled aside in favor of the hit-or-miss Mark Millar. And now this.

McDuffie says he was fired, believe it or not, because for the last two years he has given fans truthful answers to their questions about the behind the scenes decisions that go into a high-profile book like Justice League of America. Maybe the higher-ups wouldn't have minded if they had made good decisions. Instead, after letting novelist Brad Metzler set the table perfectly with a stacked roster (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Red Tornado, Hawkgirl, Black Lightning, Vixen, Geo-Force, and Red Arrow), DC prevented McDuffie from getting any sort of rhythm in his nearly 20-issue run. How did they prevent it, you ask? Well, they forced McDuffie to use his JLA stories to set up events in the DC universe that had little organic connection to the Justice League, including Salvation Run, then Tangent: Superman's Reign, then Final Crisis.

McDuffie was also saddled with a rotating cast of artists, never getting into a good creative flow even when he was allowed to tell his own stories. Though he got one-off issues with talented pencillers Carlos Pacheco, Ethan Van Sciver, and Shane Davis, and a couple of issues with Rags Morales at the end, he was usually paired with Ed Benes, whose work is sporadically thrilling, but is more often frustratingly stiff.

And finally there's the issue of the team itself. That powerhouse line-up he inherited? Slowly, it got stripped away. McDuffie took Red Tornado himself, but everyone else got taken from him. Final Crisis took out Batman and Hawkgirl (Are they dead or alive? Who knows?). A new (ill-concieved, in my opinion) Titans book grabbed Red Arrow and Flash. Black Lightning and Geo-Force were called back from whence they came (the Outsiders). Superman was sent away by the New Krypton storyline and Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) left to start his own Justice League (in an upcoming limited series written by James Robinson). McDuffie has had to do his best with the leftovers.

Even before McDuffie's dismissal, rumors had been swirling that either Grant Morrison or Geoff Johns would be taking on JLA, possibly with ace artist Jim Lee. Likely, DC's "indignation" at McDuffie's behind-the-scenes revelations were merely a convenient excuse to clear the decks for the new creative team. And do you think that the new writer won't be given the green light to rebuild the roster with the big names, and get all the glory for it? It's likely that McDuffie is more a victim of timing and poor editorial planning than any sort of conspiracy, but that's nothing but cold comfort.

The larger problem is one of continuity and creative freedom. I'm of the mind that to be truly creatively successful a book like JLA has to be slightly out of touch with what's going on in the larger DC universe, and the writer needs to be given carte blanche to tell his or her stories (within limits of course; you can't have Superman get a sex change, at least without him getting it reversed before the storyline wraps up). I wish that courtesy had been afforded to Dwayne McDuffie.

In Brightest Day...

Check this out:



I don't get that excited about comic book movies anymore, because it's just so hard to get them right. But if this was the actual trailer for the upcoming Green Lantern movie, I'd be in line already.

If nothing else this makes the case that Nathan Fillion would be a perfect Hal Jordan. In reality, they probably won't cast him because of his age. They'll want someone young enough to reprise the role over the next 10 years in potential sequels and a Justice League movie, and its potential sequels. This mindset has overtaken comic movie planning and, I think it's a misguided approach. All that energy should go into making the first film as good as possible, instead of taking success for granted.

Also, the guy who made this, Jaron Pitts, should get a job working on the actual film, or at least a chance to make the real trailer.

In Review: The Avengers (Free Comic Book Day)

I was always a Marvel kid. The first comic books and characters I loved were Marvel books and characters.

But since returning to comics reading in the last few years, the love just hasn't been there. I still follow a couple of Marvel books and enjoy reading older issues, but overall, I don't like the current direction of the line.

The recent Avengers Free Comic Book Day offering is a perfect example of why.

I won't complain about the size (it's significantly smaller than a modern comic, which is already significantly smaller than golden age comic), as some have.

Nor will I complain about the art. Jim Chueng is a great draftsman (his work looks like Chris Bachalo and Oliver Coipel genetically spliced together) and a pretty good storyteller.

The problem lies with the script by Marvel it-writer Brian Michael Bendis. The basic story is good enough: The Avengers face a pissed-off Norse ice giant called Ymir who has just taken out Thor. The problem is in the execution.

Spider-Man narrates, which is all fine and dandy if you're behind the idea that Spider-Man should be a full-time Avenger. I'm not. I always liked the idea of him being a reserve called in for extra special occasions. It makes more sense with Peter Parker's lifestyle, too. I'm even more against Wolverine being an Avenger. It's not strictly because I dislike the character (which I do a little bit), but more because he's already ON THE X-MEN! It's a stretch to me that he would even be on one team, let alone two.

That aside, this is an interesting Avengers line up. With Ms.Marvel, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye (now Ronin) and Mockingbird, it's like a dream team circa 1977. Captain America (Bucky Barnes in shiny armor) rounds out the group.

But in actuality we only get four pages of the Avengers (some of them don't speak more than two words the whole issue) before a whole other team of Avengers shows up. It's the Dark Avengers, led by Harry Osborn, formerly the Green Goblin, currently the Iron Patriot. Having helped beat back the Skrull invasion, he is currently a hero in the public eye. Of course we all know he's bat-sh*t crazy. He has brought along his own team of analogue heroes who are actually villains going by the names of heroes. Confusing, yes, and Spider-Man even acknowledges this. Of this group, Ares emerges as the focus of the issue, while everyone else is relegated to background noise.

Ares aside, it seems like the inclusion of the Dark Avengers was unnecessary and took space away that could have been spent telling us more about the Avengers themselves, their powers, their personalities, etc. Look, I'm not one of those people who thinks every issue of a comic needs to be contain a primer for a new reader. I believe the average fan is savvy enough to pick up what they can and fill in the backstory as needed. But seeing that this was a Free Comic Book Day book, and it was a good opportunity for Marvel to try to lure me back into the fold, it's just a wasted opportunity.

There's also the matter of Bendis' trademark wordy dialogue. Comic dialogue has never been an especially subtle or realistic thing, and I'm all for elevating the art form, but this isn't how I'd go about it. Basicaly, everyone on the team cops the same sarcastic hipster voice. It works for Spider-Man, 'cause that's who he is, but does the whole team need to speak this way? It's like watching Dawson's Creek, or a Kevin Smith movie, where every character speaks in the voice of the writer. Witness the first exhange of dialogue between the Avengers:

Luke Cage: Damn.
Mockingbird: Well put.
Luke Cage: I am a wordsmith.
Captain America: What is that?
Ronin: You know what...I actually know what that is. It's a Norse ice giant.
Iron Fist: Great, okay, just tell us how your beat it the first time and we'll --
Ronin: Well, uh, a big giant fire god came and they beat each other out of this dimension.
Luke Cage: Do you know any fire gods?
Ronin: I do not.
Luke Cage: So nothing you said helps us at all.

Blech. There are "cute" exchanges like that all over the place. I'm all for a little levity, but it just doesn't work for me. And it doesn't seem to fit with the tone Bendis is trying to set in his stories. Anyway, superhero comedy has already been done. It was called Justice League, by Keith Giffen, J.M.DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire.

The story wraps up with some mumbo jumbo about a "twilight sword" and an never-acutually-gets-going throwdown between the two Avengers teams. Like I said, promising premise, disappointing execution. Besides the art, the only thing I truly enjoyed was Thor's badassitude at the end. "You and I shall have words another day," he tells Osborn and it brings to mind the beat-down he gave Iron Man in issue 4 of his most recent series. I might be on board for a repeat of that.

But am I going to buy any new Avengers comics? Or anything that Bendis is in charge of? Not based on this issue. Marvel, keep trying. You'll get me back one day.

I Read Fantastic Four #300 and Now I'm Going To Tell You About It

Welcome to a new ongoing feature on 24 Pages. The idea is simple: I read a comic book and tell you about it. The inspiration for the idea isn't as easily summarized.

Last fall my wife and I were on a weekend vacation to Two Harbors, Minnesota. In the hotel room, we came across an episode of the AMC TV show Mad Men. We had heard many good things about it, but both thought it would be ideal to get the first season on DVD and catch up on the second. However, there in the hotel room we made a daredevil decision: We would watch the episode despite a lack of knowledge of the characters or what had come before.

After watching (and enjoying) the episode, we talked about how it wasn't that long ago that if you wanted to watch a show, you just watched. You didn't worry about not having seen earlier episodes. If you missed an episode you just had to hope they'd repeat it soon. There was no DVR or DVD or Internet.

I bring this up because it kind of reminds me of being a comic book reader. Too often I fall into the mindset of feeling that I have to read everything in order from the beginning. Often reading large runs of issue in order is a satisfying experience, but sometimes it feels like more of a chore.

That gets me thinking about my when I first started collecting comics. I didn't know anything about companies, creators, or even the characters. My only access to comic books was the spinning racks in the local Jewel and Kroger grocery stores, or the drug store next to the place my mom got her hair done. I was limited to what was available and what caught my eye. I didn't worry if the issue I bought was part of a multi-issue story arc. If it was, I just tried to figure out what was going on.

Of course that's the first stage of the collecting bug. We all know the next step is to discover that there are shops that sell old issues, to start trying to put together consecutive runs. That's part of the fun of being a comic fan, but when it comes to actually reading the issues, sometimes I miss just picking a random issue up and enjoying it for what it is.

Thus, this feature. My initial idea was to write about every single issue of Fantastic Four, out of order, but I realized it might get kind of tedious. Instead, I'll keep true to the concept and write about whatever issues I happen across.

So, here we go:

Fantastic Four #300 has a cover date of March 1987. Unlike many milestone issue numbers (usually in intervals of 25 or 50) there's no extra pages or special cover or retrospective or self-congratulation or even any real acknowledgment of the significance. It's kind of refreshing until one realizes that, the title had already used up all of its anniversary tricks on issue #296.

Another interesting item of note is the fact that the cover notes Marvel's "25th Anniversary" in the upper left hand corner. This makes sense, if you count Marvel's beginnings as the 1961 debut of this very comic. Fast forward to 2009, and Marvel's covers are bragging about "70 Years of Marvel Comics." No, your math isn't wrong. It hasn't been 45 years since 1987. I believe, in order to respectfully compete with DC's 75 years, Marvel has started counting the 1939 debut of Marvel Comics (featuring Namor, the Sub-Mariner) as their starting point, even though the original 1961 date makes more sense.

Who's Responsible?

This issue was written by the venerable Roger Stern. He only wrote (or co-wrote) 8 issues of the title before giving way to Steve Englehart's run. John Buscema drew the issue with inks from his brother Sal. Both of them had runs on the titles in the '70s.

What Happens?

Even though there's no acknowledgement of the 300 milestone, the issue still features a big event in the lives of the F4. As you can see on the cover, this is the one where Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) marries Alicia Masters. Alicia was a blind sculptress who had previously been involved with Ben Grimm (the Thing). Johnny and Alicia got together during John Byrne's run (which had just ended with issue #293) so this is a continuation. The two eventually broke up during Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan's time on the title when it was revealed that Alica had really been replaced by a shape-shifting Skrull imposter named Lyja.

Anyway, this being a comic book it isn't just a straight-ahead wedding. See Alicia's step-father is the villain called the Puppet Master (he's the eye-lift surgery recipient on the cover) and he's not happy about her marrying Johnny. So he allies with the b-listers Thinker and the Wizard to ruin the wedding. But once you think you know how the story is going to zig, it zags.

Plus, Ben and Alicia have a sweet peace-making conversation, and archnemesis Dr.Doom acknowledges the wedding in his own in idisynchratic way.

What Did You Think?

I thoroughly enjoyed this issue. It has the feel of an event issue with out the hullabaloo.

It's also the solid performance you'd expect from the creators involved. The writing has some great moments and pacing and never tries to overstep its bounds. Same thing for the art. It's nothing outstanding, but it's well-drafted and always in service of the story.