Ditko's Spider-Man panel compositions, Part 1 [Abstract Comics] [via ADDTF]

Gene Colan Fundraiser To Be Held In New York This April; $150 a ticket [Bleeding Cool] [Marvelous Color]

Posted 8 February 02010 - Permalink

Official: Neil Gaiman To Write Doctor... Who Episode [Bleeding Cool]
If you squint, you might see "Strange Movie" instead. But still great news.

Lovely, fun passage from Bendis in New Avengers #61. The Corrupter has touched Bucky-Cap, and orders him to shoot Steve-Cap, while he takes a vid on his iPhone. The Living Laser's all like Dr. Evil's son, exhorting that they simply kill them and quickly. "This is the kind of crap that always gets us in trouble." Corrupter replies, "You're wrong, Laser. This is the kind of crap that makes us." Perfect answer that "explains" comic-book villain trope/stupidity, and the perfect answer someone named the "Corrupter" would say. (Of course, it got them in trouble. Bucky-Cap fires (another thing Neilalien liked- it gives Corrupter some competence (he's been powered up by Norn Stones) and avoids the boring usual "willpower" defeat)- Steve-Cap deflects it towards Corrupter with the shield.)

For the month of Valentine's Day: 28 Days of Jack of Hearts [Armagideon Time]

Posted 7 February 02010 - Permalink

Strange #4 preview, out Wednesday [Comic Book Resources]

Jim Shooter's Affidavit Against DC Comics Over Flex Mentallo [Bleeding Cool]
The ex-Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief appeared as an expert witness for Charles Atlas Ltd, who was suing DC for infringement over the Flex Mentallo character. Affidavit includes interesting glimpse into Shooter's mind re: the comic-book reader's expectations for a shared universe and continuity, the difficulty of introducing new characters, his resume, etc.

Posted 6 February 02010 - Permalink

Invincible Iron Man #23 came out this week, featuring Dr. Strange by Fraction and Larroca [Comic Book Resources preview]

Don't Mess With Batman's Cake [Kurt Busiek] [via Comics Reporter]
Why doesn't the Flash just clean up Gotham City too? Because good Batman stories are the cake, the shared universe is the frosting.

Posted 5 February 02010 - Permalink

Doc Strange, Sorc'rer Supreme o' the Wild West... [mashup illo by Joel Carroll]

The Racial Politics of Riverdale: Why an Interracial Kiss Is Still a Big Deal [ComicsAlliance]

Retailer: If the comics stories are all inter-related in endless crossovers and Big Events, then fans with less cash nowadays can't just cut back on a couple titles, so they cut back on them all [ICv2]

Posted 4 February 02010 - Permalink

Brendan McCarthy interview; lots about Spider-Man: Fever [Robot 6]

Tomorrow 4 February at MoCCA: Craig Yoe Interviews Faux Ditko with Faux Stan Lee, played by celebrity impersonators [BroadwayWorld.com] [Super ITCH]
This sounds tacky.

Rare (first since 01989?) interview with Calvin & Hobbes genius Bill Watterson [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

Posted 3 February 02010 - Permalink

What makes a (comics)blogging pioneer?

There's just no way to write this without sounding like a "Where's my props?" ass (which Neilalien is not)- nor without sounding like Neilalien would besmirch The Beat's unique voice, place in the history of comicsblogging, and legitimate accomplishments in any way (and if anyone can claim 5.5-year stretches of "daily" output, it's certainly not Neilalien). But The Beat's "bringing the tablets from the mountaintop" "history" isn't passing any smell tests, is it? The Beat states that it started in June 02004. That's a full 2.5 years after 9/11 and the explosion of political and non-tech blogging after 9/11. That's about six months after Sean T. Collins, Progressive Ruin, Thought Balloons, and that entire explosion "wave" of comics blogging started, Doane's Comic Book Galaxy was already a nearly four-year-old "online magazine", Journalista 1.0 had already ended, and it's after a full 02003 year in which Neilalien linkblogged an enormous amount of near-daily news content (with tons of links to other comics blogs). Isn't June 02004 a bit late for claims of being a "pioneer" or innovative re: blogging or comicsblogging news-outlet format, content or style? The Beat's "pioneering" "one-person shop" gave way to the "Gawker" corporate-team mold?- that is the evolution in comics blogs (and all blogs) we have witnessed, happening slightly later than with some other topics- but Gawker launched in December 02002- "one-person shops" were pioneering in 01997 (early enough in order to "give way" to Gawkers starting in 02002), not 02004- and there were already a tad few websites and blogs, even just in comics, like The Beat on Comicon in June 02004. Rick Veitch's Splash on Comicon [started in 01998, to March 02003] was much more pioneering in Neilalien's opinion in the comics insider-industry-news-gossip-weblog animal kingdom. Neilalien has never and would never claim in hubris or self-delusion to be a "pioneer" re: blogging, and his blog started a week before the invention of the permalink. If The Beat really thinks that the blogosphere- or even just the comicsblogosphere- was "still a youngling at Jedi school" in June 02004, and felt like she "was making things up as [she] went along" (implying that The Beat had somehow invented something new about blogging, and operated in an empty blogosphere vacuum (meanwhile, Google launched AdSense a full year earlier, so it couldn't have been too empty)), then she wasn't looking around that hard! Congrats on starting ComicsBeat.com- Neilalien will be a near-daily reader- but please, don't tell us in five years how "pioneering" it was to start such a website when we know the world was currently full of ComicsAlliances, Bleeding Cools, etc.
[A sample blogging history/timeline, New York Magazine]

Posted 2 February 02010 - Permalink

Sold for over $1,200 recently at auction!: 01967 concert poster by artist Greg Irons for Youngbloods concert at San Francisco's California Hall [Hake's Americana & Collectibles]

14x20-7/16" first and only printing poster for Jul. 21-22, [0]1967 concerts at California Hall featuring The Youngbloods, Magic Fern, Wildflower, Chapter Three and Northern Lights. Art by Greg Irons for "Strange Happenings - A Dance Concert With Bands, Lights, And Vaudeville All Giggley & Weird..." features art image of Marvel Comics' character Dr. Strange standing in cloud listing band names. [Previous: One alien's quest to get a great scan of this image: 11/02002, 1/02005]

Posted 1 February 02010 - Permalink

02009 Neilalien Awards

Best Dr. Strange Appearance: Strange Tales #1, "Dr. Strange vs. Nightmare" by Dash Shaw
It was awesome to finally see this in print, and it was as hilarious and twisted as expected. The only negative was that it was only four pages long.

Best Dr. Strange Appearance, Runner-Up: in a Megan Fox photo shoot

Worst Dr. Strange Appearance: the entire "New Sorcerer Supreme" storyline in New Avengers [Neilalien rants]

Other Notable Dr. Strange Appearances: new Strange miniseries written by Mark Waid; Thor #602 [Neilalien item]

Best Appearance of a Dr.-Strange-Affiliated Character, Accoutrement, Parody, etc.: Top 10: Season Two #4's Strange-Gun that shoots Gamma-Hoggoth blasts
Neilalien has a weak spot for Top 10, and the times Doctor Strange and references to him have appeared.

Best Appearance of a Dr.-Strange-Affiliated Character, Accoutrement, Parody, etc., Runner-Up: Ditko-esque dimensionscape, complete with a path through a fanged mouth, in cartoon Batman: The Brave and the Bold, "The Eyes of Despero" episode written by J.M. DeMatteis.

Worst Appearance of a Dr.-Strange-Affiliated Character, Accoutrement, Parody, etc.: the Eye of Agamotto around Brother Voodoo's neck

Biggest Disappointment to Dr. Strange Fans: the entire "New Sorcerer Supreme" storyline in New Avengers

Greatest Hope for Dr. Strange Fans: Brendan McCarthy's Fever miniseries; the undoing of the entire "New Sorcerer Supreme" storyline in New Avengers

The Comic Book of 02009: Asterios Polyp by David Mazzuchelli

Some More Comic Books That Brought Neilalien Much Joy in 02009:

Incognito by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Captain Britain and MI:13 by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk
Strange Tales by various
Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1, edited by Blake Bell

Neilalien might populate this list with a couple more items over the next week as he re-reads more of the year's comics and Doc appearances.

And just to prove that no matter how niche you go, there's always someone better: Sanctum Sanctorum Comix' Doctor Strange Awards for the year. There's a lot of agreement this year- great minds think alike- except that he has the benefit of speaking positively about Doctor Voodoo.

Posted 31 January 02010 - Permalink

Preview of Spider-Man: Fever by Brendan McCarthy [Comics Alliance]

Heroes For Haiti: Comics creators have been putting art up for auction [more info]

J.M. DeMatteis shares re: how his spiritual path inspired, mingled with, and even mirrored, his Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa [Creation Point] [thanks Pmpknface!]

Marvel kidney-punches the competition: Retailers can trade in 50 ripped covers off of DC "Blackest Night" tie-ins they can't sell for a rare Deadpool "Siege" #3 variant [Comic Book Resources] [Robot 6]

Lovenote to B.P.R.D., "the best ongoing superhero comic of the [0]2000s" [This Ship Is Totally Sinking]
Update: Ben Schwartz interview, re: BPRD [Comics Reporter]

Kid Goth: Neil Gaiman's Fantasies [The New Yorker] [via Boing Boing]

26 G.I. Joe Codenames that Are Almost Certainly Sexual Euphemisms [Topless Robot]

Posted 24 January 02010 - Permalink

Marvel April 02010 solicitations include Brendan McCarthy's Spider-Man: Fever #1 [Comic Book Resources]

SPIDER-MAN: FEVER #1 (of 3)
Written by BRENDAN MCCARTHY
Pencils & Cover by BRENDAN MCCARTHY
One of comics' most innovative and original voices, Brendan McCarthy, brings SPIDER-MAN: FEVER -- a truly unique and surreal story evoking the classic Silver-Age psychedelia of Steve Ditko's Dr Strange. In FEVER, Spider-Man is abducted by a depraved tribe of spider-demons to a bizarre dimension, where he is to be eaten alive. Dr. Strange goes on a perilous occult quest to rescue his friend -- and tangles with some very peculiar characters along the way...
32 PGS./Parental Advisory ...$3.99

Quick overview of some lesser-known Ditko work [Scott's Classic Comics Corner]

Richie Rich's ever-growing capitalist penis [Blog Flume] [via Comics Reporter]

How Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson changed the world with their Dungeons & Dragons concept of "experience points" [Grognardia]

Posted 19 January 02010 - Permalink

Out today for Doc fans: Strange #3, Invincible Iron Man #22 [Diamond Comics Shipping This Week]
"House ad" for Invincible Iron Man #23 [Marvel.com]

Stunning appreciation for artist J.H. Williams III, and his recent Batwoman work in Detective Comics [Jog at Savage Critics]
Found via its being named among the Best Online Comics Criticism of 02009 at Hooded Utilitarian.
Another appreciation for Williams, "Son of Steranko", those who deign to add graphic design and experimentation to genre gigs [Thought Balloonists]

Uncredited artwork at the MoCCA Archie exhibit picks at comics-industry creator-exploitation scabs, highlights MoCCA chronic under-staffing/funding problems [The Beat] [Comics Comics] [Comics Reporter]
You've never gone to an art museum and seen uncredited work. Until now. Dropped ball, putting it kindly.

Speaking of the above: Marvel sues to invalidate copyright claims by Jack Kirby's heirs [Robot 6]

Bendis' Avengers characters don't talk to each other- they talk to, mirror, and pander to, Avengers fans on the internet [Comiks Debris]

Let's tell the publishers in our best Frankenstein's Monster voice: "Unannounced creative-team changes, BAD!" [Savage Critics]

Steven Grant's long-running Permanent Damage (nee Master of the Obvious) column ending [Comic Book Resources]
Neilalien linked to about 200 of those things. Best of luck, Mr. Grant.

Posted 13 January 02010 - Permalink

Ryan Dunlavey's Fall of the Hulks: M.O.D.O.K. #1 includes funny Doctor Strange spit-take [Robot 6]

Complete analysis of "the deal with the devil" (Doctor Strange v. Tul'uth re: the fate of the baseball team) in Waid's Strange #1 [Ecocomics]

Craig Yoe's The Art of Ditko "represents a lot of what makes Ditko great and, yes, Stan, inimitable" [Trouble With Comics]

More Casanova on the way! Yay! [Robot 6]

Alan Moore interviewed re: his new print zine Dodgem Logic [Wired]

Marvel Shareholders Approve Disney Takeover [AP blurb on the New York Times website]

Disney closes Marvel deal; acquires 10% of Stan Lee's POW! Entertainment also! [Variety] [Zacks Equity Research]

Neilalien has nothing new nor original to add to the Avatar review meme. But he'll keep on writing anyhoo. The movie is lusciously beautiful, a technical achievement, and filled with neat ideas- if you're at all interested or curious, it is highly recommended you see it in the theater in 3-D (which works great), because your TV will not do it justice. This isn't your dad's Spider-Man CGI of a fake-looking rubber man on a webline. Only in a couple spots does it look poor (Sigourney Weaver's avatar is a total fail, though). While Neilalien wouldn't call the movie hollow or irredeemably void of emotional engagability (anything with Michelle Rodriguez wearing a tank top in it is going to generate emotion in Neilalien...), there are certainly things that distract from the astounding sights, beyond the usual nits. (1) A decision was clearly made that if you're going plunk 300 gazongas of money, time and effort into a CGI movie, the story had better be safe, and it is safe. It travels well-worn plot formulas and character types and stereotypes, and nothing surprises, this is the droid you've seen before. (2) It feels like an anti-Iraq-War movie through the lens of World of Warcraft, The Battle of Endor, and Cameron's usual no-one's-really-that-one-dimensional no-one-really-talks-like-that. (3) Neilalien was kind of thinking what other internet-lovers have thought- that if the natives did have such a natural planet-sized internet/library of all their past or whatever it was, there would have been other benefits. They would have progressed much further technologically than the equivalent of the Stone Age as a result (the tech might have been all-natural, but it would have been more advanced- it was advanced in places, like how they could body-swap someone into their avatar). It's as if they had this huge powerful information-sharing system and only used it for Facebook and porn... um, waitasec...

Posted 6 January 02010 - Permalink

The Doctor Voodoo series to end with issue #5 [Rick Remender interview at Marvel.com]

Paul O'Brien's November 02009 month-to-month sales analysis warned us that Voodoo #2 selling 16,681 copies wasn't pretty. There will be no dancing on graves here, per Neilalien's boycott-but-don't-be-an-ass editorial policy. Actually, Neilalien finds absolutely zero comfort in this development. Marvel can't win in his eyes. A Marvel Mystic book showing another character eating Doctor Strange's lunch is only slightly worse a thing than any Marvel Mystic book totally not given a chance to succeed. Neilalien would love to say that the fans/markets have spoken, rising up as he has, demanding Doctor Strange over Doctor Voodoo- but that rose-colored analysis misses too many other facets. Doctor Strange hasn't exactly been a sales champion lately either. Magic doesn't sell to the superhero crowd? There's little difference between B-list and C-list character preferences and sales in an industry/market destroying its own long tail. And unfortunately any analysis would be incomplete and naive without asking, Why Don't "Black Books" Sell? Bottom line: For Doctor Strange fans, the limbo to which they've become so accustomed after several title cancellations and lame-ass reformulations over the decades will continue. This website awaits the day when Dr. Strange's Beta Ray Bill phase is over, and Marvel Editorial deigns to return Doc's Mjolnir to him- Eye, Cloak, seat atop the Marvel Mystic hierarchy, etc. Or awaits a good yarn that shows us that this current Mjolnirlessness really is the better narrative- that something fun and dignified has been unleashed from the oppressive yokes of Sorcerer-Supreme responsibilities, power levels too high and undefined to be interesting, and nearly 50 publishing years of status quo. Or awaits just the next good Doctor Strange story, period.

Update: Marvel Editorial not interested in Doc Classic, while market factors make a non-Classic approach dicey [Comics Reporter]

Posted 2 January 02010 - Permalink

Doctor Strange Is Likely Not A Heart Surgeon

Neilalien enjoyed the recent New Avengers #60: Immonen's art is fantastic as usual, Doctor Strange is fairly competent here (detecting the bomb, insisting it gets removed, getting shrunk down by Pym particles (first time ever?) and going into Luke Cage's body to get the bomb out with Pym, Doc even gets a little nicely punchy when people question his abilities/readiness, etc.- although seeing the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak or Shield of the Seraphim or something used as a wall to keep Cage's immune response at bay would have been nice touch- Voodoo does nada), where they put the bomb once removed is hilarious, the Bendis Banter between this family of characters is fun, etc.

Unfortch for the Doc fans, New Avengers #60 also includes this steaming turd:

Walt Simonson once said, paraphrasing a P.D. James character, "Continuity is a good servant but a poor master." So true. But fans like attention to detail. You can say sarcastically that they like having their encyclopedic expertise generated on lonely weekend nights validated if you must- but they are the ones buying your comics. Fans certainly do NOT like the utter disregard/contempt for detail. This is Bendis' Chaos Magic brouhaha all over again. Does Bendis do even the most minimum research into these characters? Do Bendis' editors? Tom Brevoort should know better. With the most cursory glance at an OHOTMU entry, a writer can make continuity his servant, rather than be mastered by it.

There is nothing in the comic book record that has ever said that Doctor Strange is a heart surgeon. The meme is that he was a neurosurgeon.

Surprisingly, given the strength of the neurosurgeon meme in the Doc fan community, when Neilalien was going through the comic book record for this post, he discovered that the case for neurosurgeon is not overwhelming. Mostly, only "surgeon" is mentioned. But neurosurgeon is there- expertise with the heart has never been mentioned.

Above: Strange Tales #115. Only "surgeon". Doctor Strange's Wikipedia page currently states: "Strange appeared in the following issue and then #114 before co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko gave his origin story in #115 (Dec. [0]1963). In that eight-page tale, Strange is established as a world-renowned if selfish neurosurgeon, until a car accident damages his hands and prevents him from conducting surgery.". But that isn't correct- neurosurgery isn't mentioned in #115.

Above: Doctor Strange #169, the origin retelling. Neilalien thinks this is where "neurosurgeon" is established.

Above: Doctor Strange #56, another origin retelling. Only "surgeon". Do neurosurgeons look at chest x-rays?

Above: Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme #11, while relating the tale of what happpened to his brother Vic. Only "surgeon"- it is suggested he is to attend to a heart attack?

Above: Doctor Strange: The Oath #1. Only "surgeon". Vaughan succeeds, or at least keeps it simple, where Bendis fails.

Above: Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #3 (March 01983), Doctor Strange entry. "Neurosurgeon". Can't Bendis at least just read these OHOTMU entries before writing 100's of issues with these characters? It's not brain surgery, y'know (rimshot)!

His most recently updated biography, on Marvel.com itself, currently says neurosurgeon. (He was also a neurosurgeon in his animated DVD movie, but we don't put any canon-weight to that.)

Doctor Strange #80 [Polite Dissent post] is problematic- through astral control, Doc performs an operation that "used to be one of his specialties", and there seems to be a lot of chest/heart repair work being done (while neurosurgery seems to be more about the brain, spine, etc.). But again, it's left vague enough that it could be some kind of neurosurgery, or that Doc is there to more fight the mystic threats, or keep the real surgeon calm, or he may have bluffed the real surgeon in order to get the scalpel in his hands again.

Granted, in New Avengers #60, at least Doctor Strange himself doesn't actually assert, "I am a cardiologist"- Jessica Jones and Doctor Voodoo (based on what Jessica said) say it. What do they know? But it's not like Strange corrects them (maybe he doesn't correct them because he's finally learned that if he acts clueless around them, they'll give the action-gig to Voodoo instead). And it's obviously there to add some weight to the story.

Is it possible that Dr. Strange had multiple specialties? Was he that brilliant? Did he have the time? Or, as Polite Dissent often states, in comic lingo "surgeon" is shorthand for (to paraphrase) "better than any normal doctor and good at just about any type of medicine he puts his hand to".

If you actually give a crap about Doctor Strange on a meta level- and one would hope that his writers do- then you care that neurosurgeon is the better meme for Doctor Strange's origin. First, it's an elegant symmetry that nerve-guy Doc gets nerve damage from the car accident. Was Doc the only person who could have possibly repaired his own hands? (Or maybe he was the heart surgeon without a heart?) Second, on this Wikipedia page of medical specialties, neurosurgeon has the highest salary. Sound like any former arrogant money-grubbing surgeon we know?

The bummer is that with the smallest of aware tweaks, there's no problem whatsoever. You don't even have to alter the size of the word balloon in that first panel. Just have Jessica say, "You're Doctor Strange. You're a doctor. Can't you do--".

So, Doc uberfans, Neilalienistas, Dr. Polite Dissent- feel free to send in or post corrections, evidence, other mentions of Doctor Strange's Doctorness that Neilalien may have missed, thoughts, etc. Until further notice, the official position of this website is that Bendis dropped the ball here. Again.

More:
Polite Dissent
Answers.com neurosurgery entry

Special thanks to Sanctum Sanctorum Comix for help on this post!

A Happy New Year to all!

Posted 1 January 02010 - Permalink