My Spieder-Sense is Twittering by Shannon Smith

via Tumblr http://ift.tt/1aGWE86

Fat Spider-Man forever. (Drawded by Javier Rodriguez in The...

Fat Spider-Man forever.

(Drawded by Javier Rodriguez in The Amazing Spider-Man 700.4.)

via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/72471980187

Six year old girls like Kitty Pryde.

(Kitty Pryde and Dazzler by Kassidy Smith age six.)

I mentioned before how much my daughter likes the Dazzler comic we picked up a few weeks ago.  It was Dazzler #2 and it has just a few panels showing Ktty Pryde and some of the other X-Men.  I've been amazed at how interested she has been in Kitty and yesterday when I came home from work she was proud to show me a bunch of Kitty Pryde and X-Men drawings.  The fact that she is a kid and often wears normal clothes seems to make the character very appealing.  I loved the X-Men as a kid and always cared about Kitty a bit more than the other characters.  And by cared I mean that I worried about her.  She was just a teenager so when she was in peril it had a lot more impact than if Colossus or even Storm were in a bind.  (I liked the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini-series even more than the Frank Miller Wolverine series.)  However, I've never been a little girl so I had no real scope of the impact the character had on girls.  No I get why so many girls got into comics through the X-Men.  It makes perfect sense.  They can see themselves in Kitty and she changed clothes more than the rest of the cast so there is that whole fashion element girls are attracted to.  

Was there a point to this post?  Um, I don't guess so.  I just find it interesting to look at these comics through someone else's eyes.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s.  And since I'm talking about X-Men I may as well say I was disappointed by the new Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon.  It was kinda boring.  My daughter seemed to like it though.  She lit up every time Kitty was in a scene and she seems to think the Beast is hilarious.  I don't think she could care less about Wolverine though.  It's not a bad cartoon but it's a big step down from Batman: The Brave and the Bold or Spectacular Spider-Man.  I like the character designs and the cast choices but the animation, writing and music are all below the standard of what I'm used to seeing on Cartoon Network and the Kids WB, er, I mean whatever they call those CW cartoons now.  I also don't even have that Nick Toons channel so we caught it somewhere else on Sunday.  However, if I did have Nick Toons, I doubt that I would watch the show because Wolverine is on at the same time as Batman and Bats is simply better.  So far.

p.p.s.  And since I mentioned Spectacular Spider-Man... Hey CW, change your schedule!  Spidey is on wayyy too early.  7:30 for your best show?!?  C'mon.  I needs my Spidey fix at around 9:00 or 9:30 Saturday mornings.  Get that fixed right now!  Chop chop!

A tale of two comic shops or things used to be better back when they sucked less.

(Gaze into the face of Awesome. This is the glory that was. All Star Squadron #37. 1984.)

I love comic book shops but now that I live in rural America my comic book shop visits are very infrequent. Neither the town I work in nor the town I live in even have a spinner rack much less a comic book shop. A county away from me my pal Brian at Cavalier Comics runs a nice shop and is happy to get me what I need but I am seldom in that neck of the woods. Way over in Bristol, TN there is a shop called Mountain Empire Comics. It's the shop I went to when I was a kid and it's a nice little store. They carry Rasl and that's about all I can expect of a comic shop these days. (I've given up on them carrying stuff like The Comics Journal or much else I have interest in.) I've shopped at comics shops since at least 1985 and from about 1991 to 2007 a comic book shop visit was a weekly thing for me but now in my grown-up-daddy-of-two-rural-life if I visit a comic shop six times in a year then that would be a lot.

(I don't know who this new "Obama" character is or what his super powers are but that is a pretty boring costume. It's just a suit. How is he going to swing over the city or punch bad guys in the face with a suit jacket on? I hope he does not replace Spidey.)

This past Wednesday (the 14th) was apparently a big day for some comic shops. For me, it was just Wednesday but out of random dumb luck and the need to get the kids out of the house on a snow day I ended up visiting two comic shops. I had to go by the doctor over in Abingdon VA which is about 45 minutes from my house. There is a newish G2K store over there. This G2K location is part comics shop part video game store. It's a cool store. If I were 15 or under I would want to go there on a weekly basis. Nice, clean, new, well lit, lots of video games, lots of toys and all your new mainstream comics. Well, not all of them. I took the kids in and we looked around. The clerk was still putting out new comics and toys from the Wednesday shipment. He was nice and asked if we were looking for anything. As both a nerd and an Obama fan I of course was aware of the Spidey comic with Obama so I asked if he had any. He of course said they were sold out. I expected that. Then I came back with a question I dreaded to ask. See, I don't really care about new mainstream comics. It's not that I don't like them it's just that I don't' need them. I have about 1000 comics in my basement that are written better, drawn better and probably even stapled better than most of what Marvel and DC have put out in years. I'm all good on the super hero books thanks. That being said there is one specific super hero comic I have been wanting. Since my first daughter was born it has been a dream of mine that DC would make a Wonder Woman or Supergirl book for kids that wasn't terrible and actually made sense. Recently, DC started a new Supergirl book so I've been wanting it. Granted, the girl in the comic does not look anything like Supegirl but hey, I'm desperate to have a comic I can read with my daughters other than the Archie books. But, alas, I've never seen this Supergirl comic anywhere. So, I summon up the nerve and I ask, "Do you have that new Supergirl comic for kids?" Now the comic is a month or two old so I expected them to be out of it but the answer I got was like a punch to the stomach. "No, we stopped carrying kids comics due to lack of interest." Ouch! They never even ordered the thing. Supergirl dead on the vine. No, I do not at all fault the small business for making the call it feels it has to make on any product. I've been there myself. As a former book retailer I've returned some of my favorite books due to lack of sales. I get it. But as a customer, it kind of sucks to be told that the store has given up on the one and only product you would have any interest in. If your local grocery store stopped carrying your favorite beer because it turned out that you were the only one that ever bought it, you would understand but you would still be pissed. The difference is that you would probably go back to the grocery store. You would need milk or bread or something. But as a parent who spends his meager discretionary income on his kids, I don't have much need for a comics shop that does not sale kids comics. I really tried to find something to buy. My oldest daughter loves comics and she was sick so I wanted to get her something. I looked at the comics racks over and over but all the books were terrible looking. Ugly, dark, violent art in this terrible post-Alex Ross hack painting style all over the place. Marvel and DC sure make some ugly comics. The only comic that interested me at all was a Grant Morrison Dr. Who comic but I nearly had a stroke when I saw the cover price. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find a copy of the Supergirl book at a convention or something.(There was a time when things happened in mainstream comic books. The Superman Family #183. 1977.)

So we left G2K and headed for Bristol, TN. I need some shoes and I had heard about a going out of business sale. (Oh that wacky recession.) On the way I noticed a comic shop I had never been to before so I pulled in. It is called Vintage Comics.

The shop looks like most of the smaller shops I've been in. Lots of comics and toys crammed from the floor to the ceiling in every corner of the shop. And of course, they have video games. One thing I didn't notice was any new comics. I asked the clerk if they carried new comics and he said, "No, we quit fooling with them a few months ago." I was taken aback by this for about a half a second but then I thought to myself, yeah, that's exactly what dealing in new comics is, "fooling". I wouldn't fool with them either if I were a small business owner. Vintage comics had a dozen or so long boxes of dollar comics so I started looking through those and immediately found just the type of comics I was looking for. They had bunches of pre-Crisis DC books with Wonder Woman and Supergirl and all the heroes my daughter likes from back in the day when comics had stories in them that made sense. Forget new comics. Forget Spidey and Obama's Spectacular Sales Gimmick. What we need are old comics.

(That's right. Twenty cents. Uncle Scrooge No. 112. 1974.)

I even found and old Uncle Scrooge. (Lately I've been picking up all the funny animal comics I find for a buck or less and it's all Josh Latta's fault.) I let my daughter pick out a few and we ended up with eight comics. We came away with my Scrooge book, the All Star Squadron and Superman Family books pictured above, a couple of Wonder Woman comics, a Superboy with freaking amazing art by Kurt Shaffenberger, a Cloak and Dagger and a Dazzler. They only charged us six dollars. Eight awesome comics for less than a dollar a piece! If I ever have any discretionary income any time soon I'm going back and cleaning them out. My six year old loves the comics and I do too. She is really blown away. The All Star Squadron alone is enough to satisfy one's superhero appetite for quite a while. It has the Marvel kids taking on Superman, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel in the comic at the same time, all the heroes riding in a Plastic Man raft, all the heroes fighting freaking Hitler and the Flash and Plastic man get shot! Now that's a comic book! If all that stuff happened in comics today it would be a year long company wide crossover called Secret Infinite Invasion Crisis. Back in 1984 they just called that the September issue of All Star Squadron. Needless to say, I can't wait to get back to Vintage Comics.

So two comic shops in one day and two every different results. A new school shop that has completely given up on kids comics. An old school shop that has completely given up on new comics. What does it all mean? I don't know. Last week was a weird week for comcis. You had the Spidey/Obama thing dominate the mainstream media's perception of comics. You had Batman freaking die and no one outside of the comics community cared. You have comic's monopoly holding distributer to the direct market make a change that means they probably won't be carrying any new books from the publishers that actually make the kinds of books I like. Odd times. I'm just glad the folks in charge today do not yet have time travel technology that can allow them to go back and time and destroy all the good comics that are already out there. None of those clowns are allowed in my basement. If we can keep the savages from stealing or destroying all the old comics then at least my daughters and I will have something to read.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s. The comics we picked up inspired my daughter to make a lot of great drawings and even invent her own superhero rock band and make up a theme song for them. Team/band members include Light Girl and Fast Girl. You can see some of the drawings here. There are dozens more but I can't scan fast enough to keep up with her.

p.p.s. Yesterday, Saturday the 24th, me and my posse hit up another comic shop. This time it was Hero Headquarters in Kingsport, TN. It is a nice friendly shop. Lots to toys. Lots of G.I. Joe. They only had a small amount of new comics and rather than having them on a rack they were just laid out on the counter. No Spidey/Obama and of course no Supergirl. He had a nice selection of fifty cent books where we found an issue of Wonder Girl and some other goodies. (Kassidy is already drawing Wonder Girl adventures.) I also got a book from the old Marvel Graphic Novel series for just a buck! I'll probably talk more about that after I read it.

The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon

I love cartoons. But just not any cartoons. My true love is a specific type of cartoon. Sure, I like anime. I don't follow it as much as I used to because I don't have time or discretionary income. I like the Adult Swim stuff but I'm a rickety old man and can't stay up that late. I'm a big fan of Disney and Miyazaki of course. There are even some good cartoons on the introweb. But the kind of cartoon I really love is the Saturday morning cartoon. When I was a kid, Saturday mornings were a holy time. Kids all across America were locked into the the same three channels watching the same cartoons eating the same multi-colored high sugar cereal. The Super Friends, Thundar, Scooby, Transformers, Johnny Quest, the Warner Brother's regulars, the Hannah Barbara lineup, The Smurfs, The Hulk, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends... I could go on. Those were some good times but to tell the truth, the Saturday lineups of today are even better. There are more great shows on Saturday now than ever before. This may really be the golden age of the TV cartoon and I don't think anyone notices. The reason it does not have the magic of the Saturday mornings of my time is there are too many distractions. Now kids have 200 plus channels of garbage to distract them from the quality cartoons. They also have round the clock cartoons on dish and cable seven days a week so there is nothing special about sitting down and watching cartoons on Saturday. It's a shame because Saturdays have a lot of good cartoons right now. The Kids WB has some great shows; Johnny Test, Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get a Clue and Legion of Super Heroes are great cartoons. The Batman is a great show with a fantastic theme song. (Water comes out my eye a little over the news that there will be no new episodes. Surely Warner Brothers is not stupid enough to have a new Batman movie coming out with no new cartoon to cash in on it so maybe there will be a new Batman cartoon. Even so, I'll miss the theme song. But I digress...) CBS's Kewlopolis has a lot of good stuff for the girlies. And now, Spider-Man is back in the mix.

I'm a pretty big Spider-Man nerd so I've been kind of anxious for this new Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. I really find it inconceivable that during the past several years that the geniuses that be at Marvel could find the time to stop counting their movie cash long enough to get a new Spidey cartoon on Saturday mornings. Yeah, there was that MTV thing but my stomach hurts just thinking of the idea of watching MTV. You would have thought the Marvel geniuses that be would have wanted exploit the movie's popularity in every genre and format and that a new cartoon would be a no-brainer. But what do I know? They wear Italian shoes and Rolex watches. I wear Chucks and a two dollar Star Wars watch I got from Burger King. They win.

But at last, the geniuses that be have delivered a new Spidey cartoon. It's pretty good. Not quite gosh wow. Not quite up to the quality of the Warner/AOL/DC cartoons. But still pretty good. There are not enough numbers on my keyboard to express percentage by which this new cartoon exceeds the quality of that horrible, horrible Spider-Man 3 disaster. But, don't' get me started on that.

So, about this new Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon....

The good:

• The title. I was a fan of Peter-Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man back in the day. Good title. Does Marvel make a comic by that title these days? You would think they would what with the cartoon and all but they have an amazing track record of not cashing in on TV and movie success with their comics. Speaking of those movies. After the success of Spider-Man I hoped they would call the sequel The Amazing-Spider-Man and follow-up with The Spectacular Spider-Man. I mean, "2"? "3"? How boring. But, what do I know? Two dollar Star Wars watch etc.
  
• Spidey looks like Spidey. Way ta go geniuses! High five! They even got the eyes right instead of that horrible, horrible costume from the movies. And the underarm webs! Underarm webs are where it's at people! I've sewn underarm webs into all my shirts. You should see the way people stop and stare when I walk by. Fashion gold people!


• Web shooters. I loves me some web shooters. I like the idea of Peter as a boy genius. A kid that can invent web shooters is improbable but possible. A kid that shoots 'organic' webs out of his wrists like in the movies is not only impossible but gross. I like that Spidey has gadgets, or at least the Spider Signal. Maybe the Spider Tracers will show up in an episode.


• The supporting cast. Hey, the gangs all here. In just the first two episodes there is a huge supporting cast from Spidey's life. All those you would expect and a few I never expected like...


• Liz Allan. I always think of Liz Allan and Betty Brant as Pete's first girlfriends but I don't' think we've ever seen Liz outside of the comics. It's cool that she's there, even if she looks nothing like Liz Allan. Which is kind of weird because, in the first episode there is this slow dreamy close up of Pete's dream girl and as it closes in on her, I'm thinking, "That's Liz Allan. Blond, preppy, out of Pete's league. That's Liz Allen." But it wasn't. It was some girl named Sally. Umm, okay. The geniuses that be put in the Liz Allan character and gave her a different name. We've seen weirder things. But what's crazy is that, a character named Liz Allan that looks nothing like Liz Allan is also in the same scene. But wait, it gets even weirder. In the same scene we also get a character who fulfills the Flash Thompson role by being Pete's dream girl's jock boyfriend but he's not Flash Thompson. He is a 7 foot tall 400 pound African American high school student with the voice as deep as Michael Clark Duncan. My high school had zero giant deep voiced kids but, what do I know. So, back on subject, in one scene, you have the Liz Allan preppy girl character and the Flash Thompson jock boyfriend character but both of them are new characters with new names because....? But wait again! It gets weirder, another Flash Thompson character that is actually named Flash Thompson is also in the scene. What what what?!? I just think it is weird that the geniuses that be would devise a scene so similar to the standard Peter/Liz/Flash scenes from the Lee/Ditko/Romita Spidey comics but change the the Liz and Flash characters to new characters and then still decide to put another set of Liz and Flash characters in the same scene and actually call them Liz and Flash. This is exactly the type of thing that keeps me up at night. Like I said, two dollar Star Wars watch.


• Betty Brant. I'm a big Betty Brant fan. I like her character design here too. I hope we see a lot of her.


• I like that Norman Osborn drops out of the sky and barks orders to cops and that the obey him. That's funny to me.


• Internal monologue. I like that Pete is always talking to himself. If reading Spider-Man comics for around 30 years had taught me anything it is that Peter Parker is freaking nuts.


• The Lizard's family. I always remember that first Lizard story from the comics and about the dram with his wife. It set him a part a bit. His wife made him more of a real person as opposed to the Green Goblin or Doc Oc who were apparently just born jerks.


• That closing shot with the Spidey mask in the background behind Aunt May's house. Classic
  

The bad:

• Character design. I'm kind of torn on this. I think Spidey looks great. The girls look fine. Most of the characters look good from the neck down but what is up with those eyes? It's all iris and no pupil. Well, except Peter who is all pupil and no iris. I get. It's not a terrible design style. I reall like the Kim Possible design style and you see that look in a lot of other cartoons so it makes sense to go that route but I have a preconceived idea of what the Spider-Man cast should look like and that idea includes both pupils and irises. And what is up with Peter's nose? I've never noticed that Peter had a big triangular shaped chunks missing out of either side of his nose. He's horribly deformed. I feel pain looking at him. All the guys in the cartoon have unfortunate noses. Maybe it's just me. I too have an unfortunate nose.


• That mole. What is up with that mole on Peter's face? To disfigure the poor guy's nose is one thing but the mole is just plain distracting.


• The theme song. This is the thing that most disappoints me about the show. The song isn't bad. It's catchy enough but the performance by the musicians and vocalist is a snoonzer. There isn't any life to it. The same song in the hands of OK Go or The Hives would probably be awesome buy this version is a bore. It just does not hold up to good theme songs like the one from the new Scooby show, Johnny Test or The Batman. (No, not that boring one the Edge recorded but the new one.)

The undecided: There are a few things I'm on the fence about with the show.

• Mary Jane. Okay, where is she? From what I've seen on the introweb it looks like she will show up in the show at some point but unlike the movies, she is not one of the stars. Oh, the geniuses that be decided to stay "true to the comics". You see, this a cartoon about high school Peter Parker and in the comics Mary Jane did not go to high school with Peter. That's cool. My nerdometer approves. I give the geniuses that be a lot of credit there. I mean, you've got these three blockbuster movies where the core story is about Peter, Mary Jane and Harry. Seems like the safe way to go in the cartoon would be to make it about Peter, Mary Jane and Harry. But not these geniuses, these guys can't be bothered with the temptation of cashing in on proven success. No, these geniuses are "true to the comics" so MJ can't be around. Not much love for MJ in 2008. Dunst in rehab. Peter sells his soul to Satan to end his marriag to MJ in the comics. But wait, you gotta have a girl in the show and since we are being "true to the comics" we could use Liz or Betty... no wait, we'll use Gwen Stacey. We love Gwen Stacy! Uh oh. Spider-sense is tingling...


• Gwen Stacey. Um... Gwen Stacey didn't' go to high school with Peter Parker. (And neither did Harry Osborne or Eddie Brock.) Yeah, I know. I'm being a nerd who cares what happened in the comics? This is a cartoon, not a comic and it has to be it's own thing and you can't blame them from taking all the best parts from Spider-Man's rich multimedia history. And, to tell the truth, I like this Gwen character in the cartoon. I like her design and she fills a nice counterpoint to Peter's goof-ball-iness. My main beef with the cartoon Gwen Stacey is that it ain't Gwen Stacey. If it's not Gwen Stacey then who is it? I'll tell you who that character is, that character is Chloe from Smallville. It really couldn't be anymore obvious. Looks like Chloe, acts like Chloe, serves the same purpose in the story as Chloe. That's Chloe. But, on the upside, I like Chloe. Probably the least annoying character on that show.


• Harry Osborn. Not sure to make of this character. He looks a little like Harry from the comics but he also has an unfortunate nose and what is up with that sweater vest? Do high school kids wear sweater vests? I'm not sure what role they are looking for him to play in this series. His character is nerdier than Peter. Nothing at all like the Harry in those blockbuster movies. Not much like the Harry who didn't go to high school with Peter in the comics. I don't know what he is supposed to be other than Norman Osborn's son.
  

All in all, it's good to see Spidey back on Saturday mornings and the show is entertaining enough. It just raises some questions about the choices the geniuses that be make. Why these things keep me up at night, I have no idea.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon 'cares way too much about Saturday morning' Smith

p.s. Have I mentioned how awesome the theme song from The Batman is?

I Wrote Stuff

This website has been a work-in-progress since about 1998. It was once a message board, then it became a regular website and now it's a multi-blog. Soon, I will be ridding the internet of the old website and all that will remain is what I store on this bloggity blog. I've been looking through the old site pages to make sure I don't lose anything important and I came across some old reviews I wrote for Pop Matters. Sometimes I regret not focusing myself more on critical writing but at the end of the day, I would rather be a creator than a critic and I have not had the time to be both. Still, I like writing reviews and will continue to do so as time permits. I just like talkin' 'bout stuff.
Here's dem reviews...
Marvel Boy
Midnight Nation
Peter Parker: Spider-Man

Your best pal ever,
Shannon