House to Astonish Episode 105
It’s Free Comic Book Day, and it’s also New House To Astonish Day – Paul and I have got a hefty slice of comicsy chat for you, with discussion of the closure of Comics Alliance, Valerie Gallaher’s departure from MTVGeek, the blacklisting of The Outhouse by DC and the cancellation of the B&B column at CBR, as well as the end of X-Factor, the return of Spider-Man 2099, the Battle of the Atom crossover, Aw Yeah Comics’ partnership with Thrillbent, the return of Shaolin Cowboy, Dark Horse’s new Hellboy projects and Alex de Campi’s Grindhouse. We’ve also got reviews of Jupiter’s Legacy, The Movement and Mister X: Eviction, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is having trouble getting over its ex. All this plus a hyperbolic chamber, the Best Dog award and all the scandals you never knew about DC Comics.
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I have read the owls . . .
The original Mister X, with art by the Hernandez Brothers and Ty Templeton really is an amzing piece of work.
Some of the stuff in the 90s and 00s, like the Caliber stuff, not so much.
I believe the novel Paul was thinking of is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
I’m not sure about the other characters, but I believe Katharsis in The Movement is from Gail Simone’s Batgirl. She’s apparently an ex-cop who was kicked out of the GCPD for castrating someone.
Her real name is sadly not Kath Arsis, but it is, oddly, Kulap Vilaysack, named after the actress and podcast host who Simone is friends with.
Paul F is right. The real-world Kulap is also the photo reference for the character design.
Tremor is also a Gail Simone character from another title getting unbenched for The Movement. She first appeared in Secret Six; I think she worked under Amanda Waller there. (I haven’t read The Movement, but my sense is that she has been de-aged for the New 52.) Anyway, she is one of Gail’s pet characters: despite not getting much panel time in Secret Six, Gail has regularly mentioned on Tumblr how awesome she thought the character was. Part of that is apparently because she is both ethnically and sexually diverse. (According to Gail, Tremor is an asexual Bengali woman, though I don’t think the asexuality has ever made it into the comic. It’s a bit like how she maintains that Black Canary and Catman were meant to be bisexuals, but she never wrote that into the books themselves.)
So much is packed into The Movement you guys don’t even mention the subplot about a serial killer in the tweens. I feel like if Movement was written by Bendis it would have introduced the cops and ended with Burden appearing. This issue feels a lot like Batwoman and Wonder Woman to me ( non new 52) and free to tell its story.
I think FCBD has become less about new readers and more of a fan appreciation day. It’s a big event at most shops, the Big 2 usually give us the preview of their big events and it falls on the opening of a Marvel Studios movie. (they have been the cream of the crop in the genre now even my senior citizen parents await them.)
I think at its core I really thought the gathering had a good story in it but got caught up in the debut of a new counterpart every month. I remember Paul Ryan doing good layouts and redesigns at this time except for the jackets.
Jackets were basically the capes of the late 80s/early 90s. Everyone saw a few designs where they were carefully integrated into the costume and really worked well, and so suddenly every character had to have one. I still think it’s a good trick for designers to have in their repertoire, but it’s been so discredited by the “jacket over your costume=team uniform” era of Avengers and X-Men as to be a dead horse.
What I don’t get is why anyone at DC thought it was a good idea to actually TELL anyone that they were cutting off that website. As Paul and Al’s reactions suggest, it’s hardly well known enough that if they just stopped getting any interviews from DC creators anyone could be sure it was a blanket policy, it seems like they didn’t just want to not channel publicity through that site, but were actually deluded enough to think that they could influence them to stop making fun of them in exchange for access.
Maybe DC figured they couldn’t count on their people to toe the line, both in keeping it a secret and resisting from answering questions. Having it out in the open is worse publicity, but easier to enforce.
I did love the list of things made up about DC. Good writing, gents.
There pretty much was a book about a slacker superhero who didn’t really want that job; that was the starting premise of Major Bummer, an Arcudi and Mahnke series in the late 90s/.The series is probably most notable for its throw-away character Tyrannosaurus Reich, the dinosaur Nazi. Of course, fifteen plus years is more than enough time to revisit the issue of slacker superheroes. And Nazi Dinosaurs, DC. Hint, hint.
Katharsis was in Gail’s opening Batgirl arc and sadly her name isn’t Kath Arsis, it’s Kulap Vilaysack. She was a Gotham Cop who castrated a child abuser and then got dismissed, so think that’s why she was being told to hold back. I’m quite surprised that only her and Tremor had been seen elsewhere, I was expecting at least one of the characters to turn out to be Black Alice or Misfit.
Slackers died of Y2K, only to rise again as hipsters. Are there any hipster superheroes, yeah? With a magic messenger bag and a vintagedress costume. One word. Vintagedress. You know, like Pearl Jam, yeah? Which you can plainly see is one word?
COMING SOON: THE RISING INFLECTION AND VYNIL, THE PIGEON-TOED POWERHOUSE. They were already over? neo-militaristic chic? before you were over etcetera.?
(low-hanging fruit makes great pie)
It might be nice to see Miggy again, but I wouldn’t want to read a whole new series. That character had his story, it was great (the trade of SM2099 1-10 is one of my top ten fave Spidey stories ever) then they drowned him in shared universe slurry. AND THEN HE WAS THOR. Plus, there’s like nine Spider-Men already! That’s some weak squash.
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I’m still immensely amazed/amused that anyone in the world found the CBR interview style too hard-hitting.
What’s the URL for Dice to Astonish? Or was I just dreaming?
@Sol: http://twitter.com/dicetoastonish
Why it’s not “Heckboy”, I’ll never know.
Paul: Thank you!