It is often my experience that when asking someone to get you something, the more specific you are the better the chances you have you’ll get what you asked for. An experience that I had this past week made me rethink that concept. I was looking for a graphic novel, a trade paperback, and instead all I got was a single issue. I did what I was supposed to do – I gave them specifics.  But, what I got wasn’t what I described.

I wanted to read “Excalibur,” specifically the original series drawn by Alan Davis and written by Chris Claremont. I am fully aware that the series had a healthy run of over 100 issues, and I know that I didn’t want the full run.  I wanted to start at the beginning. Rather than try to find the first issue I decided that I wanted the trade paper back of the first story arc. I guess this is where the problem started.

I couldn’t find the trade paper back. I looked at two shops in the area and neither of them had what I was looking for in stock. I didn’t want to use the internet because I didn’t want to pay for shipping costs. I decided to ask the clerk in the second store if they had it, and he said he wasn’t sure. He said they might be able to order it but to call back to confirm that the order was placed. The following day I received a phone call from the store. Once again, I described what I wanted - the graphic novel of “Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn,” written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Alan Davis, the first volume. The store clerk said that he’d look for it and if they didn’t have it he would order it, and he’d call me when they got it in.

Another day later, I received a call informing me the second store had it. I was happy so I decided to stop at the shop after work. I told them who I was and what I was there to pick up. They handed me a single issue in a plastic bag. I looked it over and asked if this was the trade paper back of Excalibur. The clerk’s response was “yes” and that was issue number one of the first story-arc of the book titled “The Sword is Drawn.” At that point I was perplexed. I asked for what I wanted. I chose words like “novel” and “trade-paper back” and yet all I got was a single issue. Rather than fume over it, I paid the clerk and left. I started to really miss my regular comic shop; they would have known what I was talking about.

I had to go to a regular chain bookstore and have them order me what I wanted.  It is strange that the staff at the typical bookstore understood what I wanted but, the alleged pros at the comic shop didn’t. What am I going to take away from all of this? Precise communication doesn’t ensure good communication. No, that’s not it. How about: next time I go back to that shop and I want a trade paper back from them, I’ll give them the ISBN. How much more specific can I get then that? I hope you all have better luck than I did when you ask for a trade paper back.

There are readers out there who set out a specific time to read their books. I was never like that. I would go to the shop, pick up my books, and then get home and try to read through them all in ten minutes. I would read one issue in two minutes then another issue after that and another after that. I had to fit all my books in a very small time frame for reading, I would never budget my time for reading. Looking back I realized that I shouldn’t have read my comics like that. I was doing myself a disservice by reading comics so fast.

When I was in my ten minute reading zone, my priority was not to enjoy the book. My priority was to read every page in the book and move on to the next one before I ran out of time. If I ran out of time before I finished my stack of comics, it would have to wait until the following week, when I would try to fit more books to less time. This would cause me to read the books faster to avoid a backlog of books, which meant it was more important to get through the books than to enjoy them.

Here I was spending money on some great reading that I wasn’t enjoying. I was treating reading comics like a chore which was a real bad priority. My priority should have been to enjoy my comics, instead it was to make sure my pile was small for the next week. My chore was to get through the stack of my books. I really missed a lot of great things when I speed read through my books.

Comics are a mixture of art and words. A comic is only truly great when you take some time to admire the medium for what it is. When I speed read the books I figured I was getting the important parts of the book, the plot. I was wrong. A comic story is more than the dialogue of the characters. The story of the book is the panels, art, backgrounds, and how they work together. Almost like watching a movie, it’s not just the actors it’s their dialog, the settings, and the chemistry between actors that makes a great movie.

I no longer speed read through my books. I take my time to enjoy each issue for what it is, and I can truly say I enjoy my books now. My book might start to backlog due to my new reading habits, but it’s worth it. I’d rather spend twenty minutes on one issue than ten minutes on seven issues. Under my old priorities it wouldn’t be efficient. I guess I‘m really glad I don’t operate on those old priorities anymore.

There are going to be some great comic book movies hitting theaters this summer. I’m predicating that these movies are going to have a positive impact on comic readership, because they will increase the amount of new readers. Publishers will now have a challenge on their hands: how do you keep new readers when current stories are built upon comics that have been publishing for over 10 years? On the flip side of that question, how do you write stories for new readers that don’t dismiss long time readers, as well as the past 10 years of a published title? I guess comic publishers have to learn to strike a balance, which has become very important. What does a balance look like?

New readers have always trickled into comics. Due to the popularity of comic movies, new readers tend to come along in spurts. They buy a few books and try to follow the story arc, they get lost and then they drop the books. A movie sequel hits theaters and they try it again, lasting longer than before, but still lost and therefore dropping the book. When I say lost I mean that new readers can’t understand the context of some the story due to major story elements involving a past story. New readers aren’t consistent unlike regular readers who have followed a book or character for at least one whole year.

Publishers have tried new methods to keep the movie fans interested in comics after movie momentum has waned. Publishers build comics directly related to the movies. These are generally single issue stories that are more a part of the movie than they are about the comic that has been published for a long time. The idea is that these movie issues will act as a bridge to the regular comics. It’s a good idea, but it’s a big transition to go from a single issue story to one that has been going for over 10 years.

Another option has been to write completely new stories so that new readers can jump on and not have to worry about the past stories that they never read. This is good because it keeps new readers involved, but then the consistent readers feel short-changed. Long-time readers read those past stories, they know what a character has gone thru and to dismiss all that to keep new readers only helps to breed some contempt. “Contempt” is probably too strong a word, but there are some ill feelings. Publishers don’t want to dismiss consistent readers because they tend to be the majority of readers now. Dismissing them would truly hurt those core readers who have followed a series over a 5 year span.

Publishing comics has become a balancing act. On one hand you have writers who want to write stories involving a character’s past, but they can’t because new readers aren’t familiar with that past. On the other hand, if your writer wants to write something brand new about a character, you run the risk of disenfranchising long time readers. It’s a balance.

A compromise that could work is for stories to be accessible to new readers in ways that recognize the past. How do they do that? Well, they mention the past but don’t make those past events the main focus of the current story. It validates long time readers when past stories are brought up again, while for new readers it doesn’t disable them from enjoying the current story. It’s a balance that needs to be done right; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I hope for the sake of readers everywhere that publishers have a good plan before the summer movies get here.

I think I remember reading the joke. It was from one of those Q&A sessions with Joe Q. (Joe Quesada) and he joked about “Marvel Apes” as a cousin to Marvel Zombies. Now, as I read about it on news sites, I just can’t believe he was serious. Or was he? “Marvel Apes” is a crazy idea that I wouldn’t take seriously, but is this crazy idea good enough for a real book?

Joe Q. is good at what he does; he makes people talk about Marvel and Marvel Comics. Whether it’s the death of Captain America, destroying Spider-man’s marriage to Mary Jane, or even showing up on The Colbert Show, Joe Q. is out there talking up Marvel comics. Sometimes what he says is true, other times it’s a big lie. “Marvel Apes” is one of those concepts that seem too crazy to be true, no matter how much he talks about it. I guess I was wrong, “Marvel Apes” is really happening.

For those of you who haven’t been reading the news sites, “Marvel Apes” is going to be a mini-series in which all the Marvel heroes are apes. I can’t recall any of the hero names, save for Spider-Monkey, which really just writes itself for a name, but I have to wonder can Captain America translate to ape name as easy. Will it be Captain Apemerica? Will there be a United States of America in this universe? I find it hard to say at this moment, I’ll have to wait for the story.

From what I’ve read the writer, Karl Kesel, is going to be taking this whole thing seriously. He’s going to develop a background and try to truly make these apes as natural to their universe as humans are to the mainstream Marvel Universe. It’s strange to think all this is happening due to a joke. It’s going to be an ape story and I’ll think it’ll be great, good if not great. If Marvel Apes turns out to be the worst idea out there and flops horribly, it’ll be remembered. Not just because of the flop, but because it was so crazy that it was worth a shot.

It’s hard to stop reading comics, which makes it hard to stop buying comics. It’s as if one feeds into the other, the more comics I like the more comics I buy. What a vicious sequence of events that becomes. Okay, it’s not vicious, but after a while there will be less money available for comics. With a limited supply of money how should one decide what to buy?

If you’re like me, you have a pile of comics to read. You stack the stuff you want to read on top, and trickle your way down to the bottom. A quick way to see what’s on the chopping block would be to see which books remain at the bottom of the stack the longest, or the most often. If you have a pile 10 books high, I can see how this might work for you. If your pile is only 3 or 4 comics at any given time, this may not be a successful way of trimming down the books you read. Sadly, I don’t notice what stays at the bottom of my pile. I think it’s because it always changes and I always try to get through them so nothing really stays at the bottom.

Rather than worry about my pile, I can look at my pull list. This is a definitive list of what I read, and if there have to be cuts it has to come from this list. This list betrays me. It’s the list of the stuff that I want to read regularly, so cutting from it is going to be difficult. I could go through each title and see how much enthusiasm I have for each title. It’s my pull list so my enthusiasm is very biased, it has a very limited range between one point - “I can’t wait until the next issue”, and another point - “I want to see where this is going.” My pull list isn’t really diverse in the way I need it to be. Maybe the pull list isn’t a good idea.

Going through the pull list will only remind me of the loss I’m going to go through by cutting out some books. I could try it from a different angle. I could look at the credits and see which artists and writers I really enjoy and start dividing my books that way. That method would leave me with only the writers and artists that really entertain me and I could lose the ones that I think are good but not the ones I want to pay for in a financial bind.

How do you decide what matters most? For each person that can mean different things. When finances get low, decisions have to be made. With comics it’s about what comics are worth the money that you’re using to purchase them. For some people the comic is worth its art, for others its stories, the collect ability for some, and a mixture of stuff for others. How ever you define the value of the comics will decide which ones you’re going to pay for when you’re in a financial bind. When the times come for you to cut back, it’s good to know what you enjoy, so think carefully. It might make the decisions easier, not necessarily easy, but maybe easier.

The CBQ podcast is almost always at the back of my mind.  No matter what I’m doing, there’s a part of my brain that is sorting through all the data that comes in, and thinking, “How can I mine this for the podcast?” Please bear this in mind as you read the next paragraph, and I thank you in advance for your gracious, nonjudgmental attitude about what I’m about to say.

Last night I sat down in front of the television and started listlessly flipping through channels, as I often do.  I’m not sure what program it was, and I’m frankly too lazy to do the research to find out now, but there was a news show about prison penpals and the people who write to them.  Suddenly, it occurred to me that there are probably comic book queers in the prison system.  They may not be able to get the latest issues of Gail Simone’s Wonder Woman in The Big House, but surely, a lot of these guys (and ladies) HAD to grow up reading comics.  And I bet a lot of them produce some kind of sequential art, too!  When they’re not in the yard conspiring to shiv someone, showering en masse, or making license plates, they probably have all the time in the world to perfect their art and storytelling skills!  Clearly, I’m one of those grossly misguided people that treats Oz like it’s a documentary.

So off to Google I went.  “Gay prison penpals.” Click.

The sites I found warned readers not to use a home address to write inmates, but rather to use a post office box for correspondence to insure safety. Without exception, these sites gave the full name of each inmate and the types of crimes for which they were incarcerated.  As most prisoners have no access to email, snail mail is the only option for communication.  Most of the sites I found had a search filter for the stated sexual orientation of the inmate, or for the sexual orientation of those from whom the inmate is willing to receive letters.  In other words, at some sites, it’s the inmates saying “I’m gay (or lesbian, or bisexual, or transgendered)”, and on other sites, the sexual orientation of the inmate is not stated, but the inmate indicates that they were okay receiving letters from people on the outside who are queer.

Virtually every ad I found was masterfully crafted to get as many responses as possible, without ruling any potential responders out.  Each site has a word limit on the ads, and every single word was clearly very carefully chosen to portray (or, so as not to sound too cynical, reveal) the loneliness, kindness, and vulnerability of the inmate.  Most ads stated that the inmate was strongly oriented towards monogamy, that s/he was in the market for a soulmate, and that age/race/gender/body type/degree of butchness/severity of hunchback were completely unimportant in terms of a potential partner.  It’s as if every ad was saying, “I’m here for the sole purpose of loving you unconditionally, and will be whatever you want me to be to make you happy.” For example, one female inmate wrote, “Would love to meet my Mr. Right with love, lasting passion to follow. I am bisexual. Love could be found in either sex. I’m a one person lover, though ~ unless your fantasy consists of more!” Wow, talk about keeping your options open!  Many ads used gender-neutral language in order to cast the widest net possible, e.g., “I’m looking for a fun-loving, adventurous, understanding, open-minded person to write. I’m not looking for financial support, but do as your heart lead you. I welcome diversity and view it as a great way to expand my knowledge, if something more develops ---- GREAT!”

Another thing I noticed, and I realize I’m treading on thin ice here, is that a lot of the gay inmates didn’t seem all that gay to me.  Realistically, we queer folk tend to develop highly sensitive and accurate gaydar early in life for our safety and sanity.  Honestly, if you’re queer and reading this, how often have you stepped into a crowded room and instantly picked out the four other queer people there with a fairly high degree of accuracy?  I know I have.  Here’s a tip for those of you with substandard gaydar: gay men have eyes that INQUIRE, and straight men have eyes that ASSUME.  Also, when most gay men call you “dude,” it sounds like an affectation.  And as I look at the pictures and read the text of these ads, I mostly see eyes that assume and a lot of un-ironic “dudes”.  It’s noteworthy that many of the male inmates willing to accept correspondence from gay men on the outside are looking towards a possible release date within the next year or two after many years of incarceration.  It seems like the closer they are to freedom and the complete uncertainty that comes with it, the straighter they’re not.

Even though I don’t know what “head games” are, I get it when virtually all the inmates say they hate them and won’t tolerate them.  I feel exactly the same way about the color mauve.  And I can’t really blame inmates for frantically trying to connect with people on the outside.  As I heard on the news show about prison penpals before I dashed for my computer, 80% of inmates lose contact with everyone in their lives within two years.  And to call our prison system a “correctional system” is, to say the least, overly optimistic.  And we all know that most folks released from prison have virtually no social or economic means of support.  I think I’d be lifting weights in the yard and sending out feelers for a sugar daddy if I was in their circumstances.

I didn’t have any luck finding a comic book queer in prison.  Most advertisers indicated they liked long walks (where?) and quiet evenings with the person they love, but nobody mentioned comic books.  A few inmates posted samples of their art, and a lot of their work was really amazing, but it featured no one in a cape, or even red patent leather boots.  Maybe I’ll check back again in a week or two.

When a comic is successful it goes to a monthly publishing schedule. When a comic is really good, it hits its 25th issue. If it’s great it goes to 100 issues. An interesting thing to note about a comic that goes 100 issues is that it’s not always the same writer doing the writing. There have been rare instances when a writer has written at least 100 issues, so it is possible, but it’s not common. Usually, over the course of 100 issues there could be 1 to 20 writers involved in those 100 issues. With all those writers writing stories about the same characters, how does a writer try to tell a unique story?

I’m not talking about a writer who can change the status quo of a character, or characters. Instead, I wonder how a new writer takes the reins of a character that he/she hasn’t written before and tries to come up with something interesting. There have to be some limitations involved. I can imagine that for a writer it is not simple to come on to a book and decide what is worth changing, what’s worth exploring, and what’s worth leaving alone and never writing about again. This is all on the assumption that that a writer is familiar with the character/s and has read past issues or stories.

A writer’s lack of familiarity with a book can cause a great idea to fail due to plot holes in the arc. If that happens, a writer might leave the book and a new writer must be brought in to try to work with the mistakes of the past; they now have to write an interesting story with a bad past and have to be successful. This is daunting to say the least. Writers are up for the challenge because each writer is special. They all have their own ideas for a character.

Writers are unique. They may share similar styles and have similar ideas, but their executions are different. Two writers can write about the same event in different ways. It’s their uniqueness that allows a writer to tell a story however many issues have been printed. For instance, Spider-man has always had trouble balancing his life with his heroic duties. That story has been repeated in many ways by different writers, and each has had a novel take on it. The story themes may have been similar but they weren’t the same.

Some might be great story and some might not be but writers are still going to take personal approaches. As more comics get published there is more of a writer’s shuffle, in which writers try out different books and characters. Some stories will retain some aspects but it’s not the same story. As long as writers have different perspectives and views, stories will share in them and that will allow us as readers to have a good supply of stories.

I grew up watching cartoons. I enjoyed watching them and was very entertained by them. When I hear that an artist’s comic work is too “cartoony,” or looks too much like an animated cartoon, for some reason my initial reaction is that the artwork isn’t very good. Somehow I have this idea in my mind, and I think it is shared by others, that comic art that looks like a televised cartoon is bad. After viewing and enjoying some cartoony art, I can say that this isn’t true, but why did I think this way before?

First let me clarify what I mean by cartoony-art. Cartoony-art is art that has some exaggerated aspects to it. Sometimes it can be that a character is too thin, too flexible, or the body or expressions looks disproportionate compared with a dominant majority of other visual representations. This is different than mainstream comic art in which the characters closer resemble the appropriate proportions of the human body.

One might say that cartoony-art is going in an opposite direction from the one toward which comic art should be heading. Instead of drawing realistically, cartoony-art is drawing images that don’t look realistic. Why should that be a problem? Who decides which representations look more/less realistic? We can suppose that in a medium that involves drawing realistic figures, the closer the art represents reality the better a person can understand the art. If the art doesn’t look realistic then there is the possibility that a person might not understand what the art is trying to “say,” or the story that is being told, and therefore not be able to understand the story altogether.

Yes, understandable art, or realistic art, helps to tell a story. There are limits to reality, though.  And there are limits to the ways in which our telling of a story depends on the kinds of art that we use. In a medium where characters can fly and people can shoot energy out of their body parts some unrealistic - fantastic - elements need to be present. They have to be present enough to tell the story. I think cartoony-art takes this idea and use it in a way that realistic art can’t.  It takes the realistic elements of a story and brings them forth in such an exaggerated way that it enforces the story.  It makes fantasy fantastic. Imagine seeing a character with a sad face, but if you extend certain aspects of their facial expression you can see more emotion in it giving the viewer a bigger impact as to what the character is feeling.

I use to think cartoony-art was bad because I thought it was primitive compared to what was being drawn in the mainstream. But I know now that some stories work much better through cartoony-art versus realistic art. Comics are a visual medium. If we can’t test the limits and boundaries of the art, how can we be sure what we see is good? How can we be sure we’re not overlooking something else? I overlooked cartoony-art but went back to it and discovered another great way for telling a story. 

Comics and capes have gone together for a long time. Capes are an important part of super hero and villain attire. Superman, Batman, Magneto and Dr. Doom are characters that have a presence and a part of that is their cape. Capes have been a part of the image of many characters, yet we seem to be fazing them out. Few heroes or villains have capes now. Where are the capes going? Do our modern characters even need capes?

When I think of a cape, I immediately think of Superman. We can see that due to his cape flowing in the air he is flying. The image of Superman flying has an impact. We start to associate flying with capes. How many times have kids imitated Superman by tying a towel or blanket around their necks and running around the house, arms stretched out in front of them? Flying equals a cape, that’s the equation.

Not all characters who wear capes can fly. Batman doesn’t fly and he has one. He uses his cape for more than just a costume. He can use it to hide in the shadows or scare enemies, and I think it is also fireproof. Unlike Batman, some characters use their capes as part of their costume. For example, Dr. Doom wears one because kings and rulers wear capes and since he is ruler of Latveria he wears a cape. I apologize for the bad logic but I don’t really understand why he wears a cape other than that it is part of the costume. Magneto can levitate, it makes sense he would have a cape to show off the fact that he is not stationary.

This brings about an interesting point about capes. They are most often used to show movement within the air around a character in graphic arts. Superman flying without a cape wouldn’t necessary reveal he was flying. You can tell more about how Superman is flying by how his cape is shaped, you can see if he came to sudden stop, if the air is smooth, or if he’s flying sporadically. You can even tell how weirdly or calm the weather is. The shape of the cape can show the action and/ or the motion the character is making in a still frame. The arc of Batman’s cape shows more action when he swings from building to building. In the medium of comics this is an advantage

Sadly, not many new heroes wear capes. It seems that action from the cape has been replaced through better art or motion lines trailing the character. But don’t fret, capes haven’t gone away they have also been modernized to an extent. I was watching the Matrix on TV this past weekend and noticed the main character wearing trench coats. At first I thought it was just another part of their costume. During the action scenes the characters jumped and moved and the coats followed them and provided some emphasis for their movements. The action sequences looked great due to the addition of the trench coats. The coats helped to highlight the movements and actions of the characters similar to how capes do in comics. The use of capes might have vanished but their impression is still being seen, just in different ways.

I love visiting comic shops. If the place is friendly and the books are stocked well, I want to stop by and take a look around. If I like the place, I pick up an issue to show some appreciation (it helps encourage good business practices, right?). I’m not talking about my local store, the one where I pick up my books regularly. I’m talking about another shop, one that isn’t my local store. Why would I want to stop at another store when my regular shop has my books? Am I the kind of guy who cheats on his comic store?

My local store has it all and then some. They have my books, a friendly staff, and the place has…sufficient lighting. So, why do I need to go somewhere else to fulfill my need? I don’t, visiting other stores doesn’t fulfill my local store need. Visiting other stores satisfies my curiosity.

I don’t visit other shop in the same town as my local shop. Not because I don’t want to, there is usually just one comic shop in most towns. When I’m traveling and I see a shop I pull over just to walk through. I pay attention to the layout of the store, how they stock their comics, how many back-issues boxes they have out, statues, action figures, etc. I look at it all. I say hi to the staff and try to make small talk. If the store looks good to me and the staff is friendly, I look for something to buy. I might buy a trade or an issue but either way, I have to purchase something. I’m just traveling through so I won’t setup a list with them, so a good way to show appreciation is in a financial capacity, by purchasing something.

Not many years ago shops were closing rapidly. Very few of them could stay in business and so comic shops became very scarce. Now, when I see a shop it reminds me that there are people reading and enjoying comics and this store is helping that happen. I feel like I have to stop by and support those shops that are doing a good job at keeping customers and more importantly keeping readers. Just to let them know that they are appreciated for selling comics. If I stop by a shop and I buy something, it’s my way of saying thank you. If I stop by and don’t buy anything, check your selection of indies and maybe your lighting.