Rob Liefield

You know, I don't ever hear about too many people declaring that they're Rob Liefeld fans...usually the opposite, in fact. But someone's buying these comics.

… Mike Sterling

Over at Progressive Ruin, Mr. Sterling's commenting on the rapid sale of Onslaught: Reborn #5, the latest (late, last?) issue in Marvel's attempt to do a 10 year anniversary revisit to the Onslaught and Heroes Reborn story lines. Rob Liefeld, who must be one of the most hated men in comics, does the art.

I'm reluctantly going to admit to being a fan of Liefeld's work. I bought X-Force #1 solely for the art, and grabbed Youngblood #1 for the same reason. The guy can't draw feet, barely manages human anatomy and loves pockets far too much, but I still enjoy the energy and enthusiasm that fills some of his best work. When he was younger, working on something like Hawk and Dove, you could just see that he was a guy who loved what he was doing.

In the late 80s, early 90s, I think comic book art went through a revolution. On the one hand, you had folks like Erik Larsen, Rob Leifeld, Jim Valentino and Todd McFarlane on one side, who were injecting their books with high energy and loosey-goosey style that broke from the more staid works of people like Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Curt Swan, etc. On the other hand, there was the work of people like Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio, who stretched the realism and detail work of a Neal Adams, John Byrne and (once again) George Perez out to the limits.

I really enjoyed all these new artists works – they pushed comics into new, interesting looking directions. While Rob was probably the least polished of the bunch, he also seemed to have the most fun with what he was doing. At the time, and even today, I value fun in my comics a lot and so I became a fan.

I suspect that, as time has passed and things changed … because things always change as we grow older … that some of the fun Rob was having has passed. His work seems to be trying harder to conform to expectations of the audience, rather than his own imagination and ideas. While it remains identifiable as Rob Leifeld in style, a great deal of the energy and appeal for me has faded. Yet I can still look at the cover to something like Onslaught: Reborn and feel a bit of the rush that I had 15 or so years ago, going into the comic store.

I am a Rob Liefeld fan.

Distractions

In truth, I don't know that I can ever actually be bored. I have far too many distractions, as yet another late blog post can attest. Recent distractions now include Pirates of the Burning Seas, Rock Band, my D&D campaign, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, and the comics I bought yesterday. This leaves out Holly & Hunter, the two best distractions I could have. I have a shelf full of DVDs to be watched, shelves of books to be read, boxes of comics to be flipped through, and a stack of games to be completed.

Pirates of the Burning Seas is truly an obsession right now, though. It's an MMORPG set in the Caribbean, circa 1720, with the player nations of Spain, Britain, France and Pirate. Sailing ships, boarding actions, and even some swordfight on shore make up the action component of the game. That alone hits on two of my interests – wooden ship combat and old-time fencing. Add in the complex economy modeled, as near as I can tell, on the theories of Adam Smith and his The Wealth of Nations, and I'm sucked into a black hole of deep interest. I'm maintaining an offline spreadsheet of resource costs to work out up to the minute values of products I'm making and working out profit models, all while battling pirates and the evil British in my Spanish cutter.

It's all too much fun, and also the reason this post is short and late.

Marvels

This writing every day thing is harder than it looks.

I went to the comic shop today (Legends Comics on Johnson St. in Victoria – great shop, you should shop there) and picked up 2 months worth of comics. Not with a lot of enthusiasm, mind you. I did grab up a collection of the Savage Sword of Conan stories from Dark Horse, though, and the Essential Captain America 4. Good nostalgia fodder, that. More modern fare includes The Immortal Iron Fist trade, collection Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction's story with the character, and the usual suspects: Punisher: MAX, Astonishing X-Men, The Spirit and World War Hulk. I wish I felt more of an urge to read the books, though.

What I did re-read recently is MARVELS, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross' breakthrough series… it's actually 14 years old now, which surprises me. When the books first came out, I passed them up, mostly due to the cost. I think they were a little more expensive than other books, and I had only recently moved to working full-time. This would have also been back when I was collecting a whole bunch of books from DC, Marvel, and others – my monthly budget for comics was already used up. I didn't really pick up and read the collected trade until last year.

Well, I missed out on something grand. The books really do establish the tone and style of Busiek, with the emphasis on the human perspective on the super-humans and the impact of super-beings on the normal world. This is something he does very well in the best of his Astro City work, and even manages to inject him his more mainstream works (like his Iron Man or The Avengers runs). That's one key element of the series. The second key factor is that the books treat continuity and the old comics with respect and finds a way to weave the existing old stories together to create something epic, but also accessible. The final factor must be Alex Ross' art. The feel here is looser and rougher than his later work, on Kingdom Come or Earth X. It has life and energy that's often lacking from his latest works – Justice comes to mind. Even so, the painted images with their sense of reality and humanity transform the old stories from fantasy to something with a real weight and reality.

I look at what Busiek and Ross were doing in 1994 and have to remember that it was likely a response to the wild and irreverent approach to superheroes being taken by companies like Image and Malibu. Just as Mark Waid would later do in Kingdom Come, MARVELS is an attempt to restore a kind of respectability and luster to the older stories that these authors and artist grew up reading. There's no real attempt here to tear down the heroes, to bring them to earth by giving them flaws or new failings. Instead, even in their failures and flaws, Busiek gives them a grandeur and style that reminds me why I grew up loving superhero comics.

If you haven't given it a read, I recommend it.

They’re &S&*@ My Childhood

The big news in comics this past week or so has been the "oops" reset of Spider-man continuity over at Marvel. The core of the story is that Peter Parker and Mary Jane, in a bid to save Aunt May's life, make a deal with the devil (Mephisto). The price of this deal is that they never married and never will marry, so are giving up a future of happiness and hope. Which is why Mephisto is making the deal – it helps cement his status as Evil ™. Apparently a side effect of Peter and Mary Jane never getting married is Harry Osborne (son of Norman Osborne and the second Green Goblin) never died or married Liz Allen; instead, he vacation in Europe and has opened a coffee shop in New York now. Oh, and the organic web-shooters Peter developed have reverted, and he's back to using mechanical web-shooters. Plus, he's not very successful, so he's moved back in with Aunt May and he's broke all the time.

In other words, welcome to 1976, I hope you enjoy the visit.

It's been said that the Golden Age of Comics is when you first started reading them (for me, somewhere around 1974 or 75, thanks to long drives in the car). I suspect 1976 played a big role in Joe Quesada's comic book development, because that's effectively what he's brought back. Given he would have been about 14, it seems a likely explanation. I return to my Golden Age by reading the old comics again – Marvel's gone a long way to make this easier with the Essential collections and putting out CD-ROMs with comics collected on them. DC has followed suit with Showcase collections. I recognize that my enjoyment of these older stories is driven partly by nostalgia, though some of them hold up really well even today. In any case, it's not like I could bring back the old days – that's why they're the old days.

The difference between me and Joe Quesada (one difference, anyway) is that Joe is the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel. If he wants to roll the clock back to when he remembers reading and enjoying Spider-man comics, he can and will. Everyone will just have to follow along.

Am I outraged? Not really. I'm mostly curious how much these storylines and changes were driven by a personal nostalgia dressed up in marketing-speak.

I skipped yesterday's entry, as the cold wiped me out for the most part. Hopefully that won't happen too often.

I see Hillary is suddenly on top and in charge and leading the pack after a "surprise" win in New Hampshire. From what I could tell, she and Obama were only a few percentage points apart, so it promises to remain an interesting battle for the nomination in the next month. On the Republican side, I wonder if we'll see a rally to McCain, as perhaps the more middle of the road members of the party realize they may accidentally turn the GOP into a theocratic party if they don't pay attention.

Plus, its sounding more and more like the depression that should have hit the U.S. a year or two ago is finally arriving. I suspect the sub-prime mortgage market which is leading the pack on the current recession indicators was also responsible for delaying it – easy credit to people who previously couldn't qualify could hide and mask the economic downturn, after all. Surprise, surprise, though – extending credit to people who can't afford to pay it off isn't a great business model. Now there's a sudden drain of buying power out of the economy, matched with the slowdown of job creation and the slow death of actually producing anything (replaced by the "service industry"), and it looks like some lean times are coming. I'm curious to see how wide-spread the effects are, however – is the US really that vital to the world economy, or has its previous privileged position been replaced by some other *cough* China *cough* country?

A Scrabble update: I finally won an actually game, by 1 whole point. This will not likely happen again this month. Or this year.

Blip-blap-blort

As Gman is fond of saying, "You shouldn't have dumpstatted your Constitution."* I can feel a cold coming on, likely an infection passed from a co-worker who's been sick for a few weeks. My nose is dry and aches, my eyes are heavy, and I've got a general ache in the joints that usually precedes me going into the full sniffles and sneeze mode. I'm hoping that it's not the case, and instead is just a combination of weather changes and a lack of sleep, but I'm just not sure.

Big find on Saturday was at the Great Canadian Super Store. Holly, Hunter and I headed out there mostly as a time killer – I was half-thinking about picking up a few food items, and we were going to check out their prices on diapers and the like. When we got to the store, while I was off checking the long-shot that they might have Rock Band Special Edition for the PS3 (so damn hard to find), Holly was checking out the discount DVD bins. Where she found a copy of Angel: Season One for $15. Well, that started us both dumpster diving – I can up with StarGate SG-1 Seasons 1, 2 and 3, along with Angel Season 1 and 3. Holly grabbed the Simpsons Season 1 … all for $15. That's a heck of a mark down from the $55 they were selling for a year or so ago.

I'm finding the outfall from the Iowa primaries interesting, as the Republican machine scrambles to groom someone (anyone?) as a viable alternative to Huckabee. Meanwhile, on the Democrat side, John Edwards is angling for the Vice President slot with Obama, and Clinton finds herself suddenly portrayed as a loser. The dynamics on the GOP side are interesting, as the religious wing is now contesting the neo-con and conservative wings of the party for dominance. On the Democratic side, you've got the interesting mix of race, gender and economic class all battling it out. Yet despite all the talk of Iowa and New Hampshire, both are relatively minor in terms of delegates, and we could still see one of the current "losers" take over. Despite my pessimism about democracy in general, I find this current mix fascinating for what it might bring.

Holly's a big Steelers fan, so I feel bad that the team lost yesterday. They were without Parker, a key element in their running game, and Roethlisberger threw 3 interceptions, which just sealed the deal, really. The score was close, but only because the Steelers tried to mount a 4^th quarter comeback, not because they were the dominant team. It's hard to win against the clock, in football, and time just ran out for Pittsburgh. The safe bet, really, is that the Patriots are going to win the Superbowl this year, but I'm not going to put any money on it.

And in other news, I continue to get my butt kicked around in Scrabble. Sigh.

* Dumpstats are where you put the lowest values when making up a RPG character.

The Camouflage of Sports

I don't know that I would claim to be a big fan of sports. I follow football, hockey, and baseball with a casual interest. I have my favorite teams, mostly picked for regional reasons (Canucks, Seahawks, and Mariners) or nostalgia (Oilers, Cowboys, and Phillies). I dabble in some fantasy league stuff, but not for any money or big prizes. Other sports like tennis, golf and soccer also ping against my knowledge radar. In general, though, it all happens mostly at a step removed from any kind of real passion.

I was drawn to sports mostly as a thing to talk with other people about. When you're passionate interests are history, comic books and role-playing games, there's a real lack of common ground with people outside those circles. Given the size of those circles, that means you're lacking common ground with a lot of people. I found that being able to talk about last night's game, or how a team was performing, provided a safe and comfortable way to connect with people at work. There's a kind of camouflage it provides to keep people from seeing you as strange.

Even with a casual interest, though, I've discovered things I consider interesting. For one, everyone has a sport they absolutely hate or consider boring… but that same sport will be someone else's passion. I've often discovered that someone's interest in a sport is directly related to their understanding of the underlying game-play of the sport. For example, a lot of people consider baseball rather dull. I often find, though, when I start explaining the strategy of the pitchers versus the batter, and how what looks like just some guy throwing a ball at a guy with a stick is actually a complex psychological matchup… some people will get interested. Watching a baseball game with them later finds them often discovering that what previously looked dull is actually exciting.

That's what happened to me with golf, which is just one of those sports that seem so dull. My co-worker, Kelly, was an avid golfer and started describing the decisions and processes involved in the game and suddenly I could watch Tiger Woods teeing off and get excited when you made a perfect drive. Or, conversely, recognize when someone else made a less than perfect drive and why. It sparked an interest in golf in me that allows me to watch the sport on television and not fall asleep.

I've taken that lesson and started to apply it to other hobbies people have, as well. I think a lot of things that strike me as dull or uninteresting appear that way because I am ignorant about them. It is easy to confuse my ignorance with some kind of privileged value judgment, and to believe that my feelings about someone else's interests are truer than their own feelings. While I'm not always able to manage it immediately, I have taken to trying very hard to step back from my initial reactions and to take a little time to become informed about what they seem passionate about so I can understand and accept.

Scrabble

Yesterday, I mentioned that I'm not really big on winning games which is a good thing, because I really suck at Scrabble. Still, it's a good illustration of what I enjoy about games.

I've been playing a fair amount of Scrabble lately, thanks to the Scrabulous application on Facebook. I enjoy the game, which isn't just about making words with the tiles. There's strategy involved in positioning and where to play the words to score maximum points. Like many games (poker, for example), the play of the game appears deceptively simple but rewards close attention and a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanics. Or it would, if I could just turn that understanding into better play.

Aside from a few decent bingos (where you play out all 7 letters in your tray in a single word), I have yet to truly put down a good run of words. I can take some small satisfaction that my win-loss record (2-13) is still better than the Miami Dolphins this season (1-15), but I have more faith that they'll improve more next season than I will in the next few games. The problem mostly seems to be that I'm playing against people who are really, really good at the game. However, another part of the problem is that I'm still working on the skill of assembling words out of the letters in ways to maximize points.

The dirty secret of my Scrabble play is that I'm often more attracted to playing a word that amuses me or makes some commentary on the game, than one that makes the most points. Of course, this makes it sounds like I'm purposefully choosing a losing strategy… I'm not. The other half of the dirty secret is that I haven't memorized the list of wacky Scrabble words that maximize points (did you know that EDS is a word?) and can, with a few strategic plays, move someone into the lead in the game.

At the moment, I mostly take pride in the fact that I can play a good enough game to keep my opponents on their toes and, hopefully, keep their interest. That should be enough, right?

Now if I can just figure out a word using I,I,I,I,I,U,S …