Marvel Cartoons for Mature Audiences? Yes Please!

This morning while I was driving back from a fun event at The Magic House (it is a really cool place) with my son, Clarkson, my phone suddenly dinged a bunch. Once I was home and could check it I then saw that what has quickly become my favorite app, Key Collector Comics, was sharing the news that there were going to be four new animated Marvel cartoons on Hulu geared toward mature audiences AKA adults (but not in the, "ADULT," sense). I looked into it online and sure enough, Hulu is going to get a, "Howard the Duck," "M.O.D.O.K.," "Hit-Monkey," plus, "Tigra & Dazzler." Eventually all the shows will come together for what will either be a season or just a special (that seems unclear) titled, "The Offenders," which is admittedly a hilarious title that takes a little bit of a swipe at all the dramatic, "The Avengers," movies and, "The Defenders," show, may it rest in peace. Taking advantage of this info I made sure to dig-up my old Deadpool comics where Hit-Monkey first appeared (plus a random one-shot) and I'll put those aside in the hopes that when the shows come out they are hits and I can sell those comics and make enough money to cover my pull-list at the comic store for or a week or two (here's hoping).

The shows don't look to be throwaway cash-grabs either, with some solid talent involved. I'm talking Patton Oswald as M.O.D.O.K., Kevin Smith writing the, "Howard the Duck," show, and Chelsea Handler is involved in some capacity with, "Tigra & Dazzler," to name just some creative folk working on these shows. Now then, some people online were asking, "Why Hulu?" considering that Marvel is owned by Disney and Disney+ is launching soon-- it will have all sorts of Marvel content, to be sure. The best reasoning I could find is the idea that Disney+ will apparently try to keep everything in the realm of PG-13 and younger and these shows might easily tip-into R-rated language/TV-MA content (I mean, we are talking Kevin Smith here); so now that Disney will be acquiring much of Fox they'll basically have around a 60% share in Hulu, making it perfect for more grown-up programming. This has all just been announced so it may be awhile until we get the completed shows or even much in the way of teaser footage. That said, between the wacky character choices and great creative/acting teams involved, this sounds like we will be getting some shows that will be quite off-the-wall if nothing else.

My First WildCon Was a Blast!

Saint Louis Community College at Wildwood for a number of years has held their mini-con, "WildCon," and this year I was able to attend for the first time! Put on yesterday by the department of Campus Life and College Transition, it has a bunch of student volunteers to help run it and was stellar!

Despite calling itself a, "Mini-Con," there was a ton of stuff going on! WildCon is completely free and geared towards being fun for families so there was great deal of activities for all ages--something I liked as sometimes cons seem to forget that there are younger fans of comic-culture out there! For all the ages there was everything from face-painting, to temporary tattoos, coloring, making your own cape and super-hero mask, old-school video-games hooked-up, and the Saint Louis Student Robotics Association was there with some incredibly cool robots that people could drive around with remote controls. Plus, as all good cons need there was a photo booth for cosplayers to take a picture at before taking part in the cosplay contest. I also quite enjoyed playing with the display of, "Devil sticks," which involves careful balancing...so I enjoyed it but was by no means good at it! Throughout the day other activities occurred as well such as Magic Tournaments, karaoke, and there was cake!

I drew this.
I'm proud it only took me till I was this age to stay in the lines.

There were a number of creators present at the con, with Author Morgan Straughan Comnick of the, "Spirit Vision," series there, as well as talented caricature artist Andie. I met pocaster Jim Yelton of the, "Geek Universe," podcast, and ran into Mike Cole who I often see at comic-cons displaying his stupendous art! I especially was impressed with what app-maker Ryan Talbert had at the show. He was showcasing his new app, "HerdMap," which I had actually seen an ad for at an ice-cream shop the previous day! It is an app you can download to your phone and use to read reviews of local businesses--not unlike Yelp--but the really cool aspect is that a number of businesses have partnered with the app to provide coupons and deals exclusive to HerdMap. This makes it a great way to discover a new place to shop or eat and get a good deal. In addition, a portion of its profits are put towards animal-based charities. I've been fiddling with the app and find it quite user-friendly and intuitive. The majority of deals are based in Saint Louis for now but Ryan told me he had plans to expand it soon!

There were plenty of vendors at the show, from the always-radical STL Comics to other comic-sellers plus the great Anime-based store, Animeggroll. I also was impressed with the wares on display from Alexandra Geektique. I picked-up a first issue of the old, "Howard the Duck Magazine," as well as a trade collection of the trippy, "Supreme: Blue Rose," Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay did recently at the show, so I was pleased!

My first time at WildCon was was a blast! From all the fun activities, to great number of creators, to the packed vendor hall this free comic-con was awesome for kids, adults, and anyone who just loves having a great time! I plan to go again for sure next year in March of 2019 and will also have my wife and son come along so they can enjoy it too!

$4.99 Should Really Not Be a New Price Point for Comics

This is Worrisome

There have been folk noticing that certain comics from Marvel are jumping up to $4.99 in a trend reminiscent of how some comics went to $3.99 with the standard number of story pages and a back-up strip before eventually losing the back-up strips and just costing $3.99 (a trick both Marvel and DC pulled some years back). That of course was followed by almost all the comics then becoming $3.99.

This has led to theorizing we could see average-length comics for $4.99 before too long. If you're something besides a big event such as "Secret Wars" #9 or a few other cases what I do say to such a proposal? No, just no.

Seriously, there are many interesting-looking comics I don't buy because even just $3.99 is just too steep a price-point for me when something that costs 4 bucks after taxes takes me all of 10 minutes to read if its mostly splash-pages. I know, I know, I should take my time and savor the artwork in a comic, but sometimes you just breeze through those suckers if the art is okay and the writing is minimal.

Now, I'm not utterly opposed to a $4.99 comic if I feel I'm getting my money's worth. Give me a 72-page magnum opus or even a meaty 48 pages and I'll be pleased (I even don't mind the $7.99 price-point for "Island", but that's basically a massive monthly graphic novel anthology). That, or you could look at the current "Providence" comic coming out from Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows which has a very detailed regular comic and then a great deal of prose back-matter that results in those five dollars lasting me a good hour in terms of time spent reading the book (and it is simply 40 pages or so each issue between the illustrated parts and prose sections).

The idea of Marvel or DC taking more (or all) of their books to $4.99 just absolutely disgusts me and even if the new relaunch of "Howard the Duck" (yes, the 2nd this year) is going to include a, "Gwenpool," back-up I'm seriously considering just not picking it up. "Howard the Duck" has tended to be a super-solid comic, but I don't know if this whole Gwenpool business of taking Spider-Gwen and Deadpool then mashing them up into a single character is going to have much in the way of staying power or entertainment value. I suppose time will tell and I should at least try the first issue of the new series, but I'm definitely wary.

This isn't just a concern with Marvel and DC either. I could picture some smaller publishers raising prices because it is admittedly harder for the smaller folk to turn a profit, and $3.99 or $3.50 has kind of become the standard price-point for a comic with a few lower-priced exceptions--and when something is only $2.99 that does in fact greatly increase the chance I may buy it and give it a read. That said, when the day comes a 24 page comic is $4.99 that is the day you can basically guarantee I ain't buying that book no matter what. Oh, and let's not even discuss $5.99 as a price-point for anything less than a solid 72 pages or so.

Rant-Reviews--Two New Image Books, Howard the Duck, and a Weird Issue of Batman

A Strange Assortment
For this smattering of Rant-Reviews I thought I would share my thoughts on two new Image books that came out this week, the newest launch of a Howard the Duck comic, and the 39th issue of Batman, with the series having gotten really strange lately.

The Reviews
The Surface #1
I am a fan of Ales Kot, so almost anything he writes is bound to be something I like. The Surface is his newest release with stellar and surreal art by Langdon Foss, and it reads like how people in the past might have predicted our comics in the future would read. It randomly bounces around between our main story and faux-articles about technology or interviews with some mysterious artist. It focuses on a world where we are so obsessed with our computers we let them share all our lives, and in the process lose any privacy (sound at all familiar to today), and some young hackers desire to fix this by finding a mysterious space called, "The Surface," which may or may  not prove all of our existence is a hologram

The comic clearly draws influences from Warren Ellis' famous "Transmetropolitian" comic with its satire of our society, and proudly wears such an influence on its sleeve, with one newsfeed we see flutter by in the comic mentioning a, "Spider Jerusalem" as a graffiti tag. The comic is also pretty humorous and a bit sad in the manner "Transmet" was but is clearly its own strange beast too. Foss' artwork has a realism to it that makes its ability to also look exaggerated and cartoonish even more impressive.  I'm not quite certain where Kot is going with this title, but I bet it will be pretty weird. In case you weren't sure, that is a good thing.
4 out of 5 stars.

Southern Cross #1
I like Becky Cloonan, and her writing for this comic set in the future (also like fellow image comic, "The Surface", go figure) carries a relaxed and down-to-earth tone with our main character, something that serves as a good counter to the fantastic space-elements as Alex Braith goes to the moon of Titan to recover her sister's body from a sleazy corporation that mines the planet--and one which Braith suspects might have had a hand in her sister's death. We don't actually learn this issue what happened to Braith's sister, but I am sure as the story continues more will be revealed. A solid start for the series, even if that weird last-page reveal is more confusing than anything else.
3.5 out of 5 stars.

Howard the Duck #1
I have seen it discussed how doing a "Howard the Duck" comic without the late Steve Gerber feels wrong, for a variety of reasons ranging to how he and Marvel quarreled about the character to how no one else seemed to write the character as well as Gerber did. I will agree there is some discomfort to such a comic appearing, but after the surprise cameo by Howard in last year's, "Guardians of the Galaxy," (Um, spoiler-alert for the one person who still hasn't seen it)" and the roaring response that got should we really be surprised if Marvel/Disney sees a chance to make money they take such a chance and run as fast to the bank with it as they can?

That said, it really helps that Chip Zdarsky (normally known for his art on "Sex Criminals") turns in some superb writing, giving us a comic full of gags and self-aware humor--even acknowledging Howard's at-times painful past with cinema (George Lucas, anyone?). Between making fun of everything from Spider-Man's obsession with Uncle Ben dying to She-Hulk pointing out Howard has an office straight out of the 1960's, Zdarsky writes a truly laugh-out-loud title. Joe Quinones supplies art that matches the tone perfectly, with a bright and poppy appearance hearkening back to Howard's old days while simultaneously fitting-in with today's era. It may feel sacrilegious to have Howard without Gerber, but even if we can't have that ever again at least this is a superb first issue.

5 out of 5 stars.

Batman #39

"Batman" has been quite strange as of late. Snyder wrapped up "Zero Year" to take us to events set after "Batman: Eternal" with the Joker causing utter mayhem. Joker has always had a variety of origins,  and the previous issue added another wrinkle claiming that some strange chemical has kept him alive for centuries, always being a troublemaker--as I said, kinda weird. Whether the story is true or pure nonsense may not really matter--as even the back-up story makes clear with the argument that the Joker is everything to everyone who needs some sort of boogeyman. That said, I've always been quite partial to the Alan Moore argument made in "The Killing Joke" that the Joker was simply a normal man who had a terrible day, with just the right elements leading him to crack. Whatever the case, writer Scott Snyder has made it clear that the Joker is done playing around, knows exactly who Batman really is in his public life, and wants to utterly destroy city.

The thing that makes this all a bit more interesting than any other time Joker had almost destroyed Gotham is the element of how the Court of Owls (characters Snyder introduced in this title's debut arc) may tie in with their chemicals that keep people alive, along with the interesting addition at the climax of this issue where Batman enlists the help of some of his other foes who despise him but also realize that if Joker obliterates Gotham they are out of luck too. Capullo also continues to supply art at an amazing level that makes you wonder where he was all these years before doing "Batman"--and the answer is that he was trapped in the hell of doing "Spawn" comics, a fate that can befall many a good artist, with even the phenomenal Ashley Wood once stuck illustrating a "Spawn" mini-series that was decent, but still "Spawn".

Snyder and Capullo have consistently made "Batman" a comic that is fascinating; whether is it good, bad, weird, or whatever else they choose it manages to consistently surprise me, something that I enjoy having occur.

4 out of 5 stars. 

Conclusions

Some good comics have been coming out lately, and whether on their debut issue or further along I found each of these at least pretty entertaining. That's always a good thing, you know?