Comics Of The Weak: All Things Are Replacable

The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror 15
By Tim Hensley, Matthew Thurber, Kevin Huizenga, Jordan Crane, Ted May, Sammy Harkham, Will Sweeney, Jon Vermilyea, Ben Jones, John Kerschbaum, Jeffrey Brown, C.F. & Dan Zettwoch
Published by Bongo Comics
"Printed by World Color Press Inc, Montreal, QC, Canada 9/16/09 in the forest of unshed tears"

"This is all Matt Groening's Fault yet all our hands have been stained red and swollen while his remain hairy, unkempt, and idle".

That's how it opens, this thing, this comic book. You'll see a leg, decapitated head, a hand: The Couch. Because you don't know or you do, improvisation works like this: a fluctuating wave pattern trapped inside a defined box. The boxes definition does not stem from the artist. The requirement--the purpose of the improvisation--determines the walls and its rules. The artist is then to madly fluctuate within, creating something that bounces off all the edges, doing and imagining, most of all, being: whatever they want, their skills, at their best.

It's why improv comedy is often terrible, it's why licensed work is often terrible, it's why work-for-hire is so often a failure. Not because of the limitations placed by the editor--although sticky fingers and mandates can destroy, the problem, the failure, often lays in the limits the artist places on themselves. That's not a criticism, although stupid, weak artists see it as one, so used they are to the defense of "their fault", "their rules", "not mine". It's not a criticism because the glory--when glory is achieved--belongs to them. Not the tools, not the owner, never the rules. The creation--wonderful, new, fresh and ultimately, courageous--belongs completely to them. You don't want another Treehouse of Horror after you read "Boo-tleg". You want whatever Ben Jones has to give.

This thing? This mash-up of Kramer's Ergot, indy creators and Simpsons? This is a triumph, but it's also a rebuke. It's a comic that laughs in the face of the weak, those that use the greed of corporations to excuse their cheap hackery; it's a comic that snaps a finger into the eyes of the lazy reader that handicaps their pleasures; it's a piece of art that puts to the lie the power of the tastemaker. It's aesthetically resonant in a way that almost no anthology is, a cohesive mass of story that crashes through a pinwheeled vision of right now and right then, a brilliantly illustrated and extraordinarily dialogued piece of comics as work, comics as art, comics as pure cocained genius. It will have "favorites", as contributors like Jones and May are almost unstoppably funnier than anyone surrounding them, but the entire enterprise is ultimately a complete success by nature of it's fervent, bleeding passion. It's a production that stinks of care--for the reader and the paymaster, yes--but mostly for the men who took an opportunity and used it to create risk. 

There will be few like these. Some will decry that it has not found its audience, when the initial sales return a story of trash and fodder stomping Treehouse's numbers off the charts. But at the end of it, art will win.

It always does.

Superman Secret Origin # 1

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by Gary Frank, Jon Sibal & Brad Anderson

Published by DC Comics

Hopefully, there's an adorable 9 year old boy reading The Diary of A Wimpy Kid, and he'll physically grow into a man's body, get a job working in comics of such popularity that he can write his own ticket, and then he'll reveal his dream project: re-inventing Greg Heffley so he looks like Zachary Gordon. He'll re-write the stories of his youth while seated across from his artistic cohorts, occassionally holding up his hand in wait of an accompanying clap, a high five for awesome, just like Jolly Johns and Frankly Frank must have done here, with their pointless, creepshow Superboy, a child with the skull of a dead man screwed onto the body of a prepubescent girl. This comic may not be the worst thing ever--that would probably be the comic that your neighbor just finished stapling together, which is about how hard it was when mommy forgot the morning hug--but its definitely a top contender in the DC Could Sell Some People Anal Fissures If Geoff Asked Nicely contest.

New Avengers # 57

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger & Dave McCaig

Published by Marvel Comics

Somebody should tell Bendis that black men are capable of responding to stress in more than one fashion.

Blackest Night Superman # 2

Written by James Robinson

Art by Eddy Barrows, Ruy Jose, Julio Ferreira & Rob Reis

Published by DC Comics

This comic opens with the phrase "This Morning". Normally, that prepares the reader for a series of sequences that are set during the morning. The artist helps contribute to this by drawing said series during the period of time that one refers to as "morning", i.e., daytime. So why is the first line of dialog, "Thanks for staying open late"? That implies that the local barber--who responds to the line by saying that he'll stay open as long as possible to keep his customers from "looking like hippies"--usually stays open overnight, closing his barbershop in the morning. The next panel consists of a solitary boy saying "Simon, come downstairs, dinner's ready. Not hungry Mom...." One would assume that the child is speaking to his mother, except all of the dialog--the "come downstairs" and the response "Not hungry"--is attributed to the boy, through the standard usage of word balloons. 

Oh--why is dinner being served in the morning?

That's the first page of the comic, the first three panels. The last page of the comic is Martha Kent saying "It's on!". She says this because she is preparing to fight a zombified Lois Lane Black Lantern in a cornfield. With a torch.

It was more fun feeling sorry for the people who make this shit back when you could honestly believe that somebody actually read them before they went to press.

Fantastic Four # 571

Written by Jonathan Hickman

Art by Dale Eaglesham & Paul Mounts

Published by Marvel Comics

They changed that "final solution" credit they gave Lee & Kirby, if you care. That was a pretty boneheaded thing to do. Now it's "greater than the sum", which is only upsetting if you start thinking about what it would look like if those two had actually made a baby with their body parts. Reed still looks beefy, the art is still shiny and off-putting, but the story is sort of interesting, especially if you know somebody who read the Time Traveler's Wife, because that makes you wonder if all of these Reed characters are occasionally giving each other a quick tug whenever the need arises, since they've all apparently abandoned their wives to live in a magic nerd compound where they fix things and lobotomize an infinite number of Dr. Dooms. Back in the 80's, one would have been considered weird for obsessing over the sexual behavior of comic book characters, but nowadays, you have to think about this stuff in advance just to keep yourself from experiencing the sort of surprises that would bring a half-digested lunch by for a return engagement with your tender lips. (You could just not read them at all, but that's how all the fucking snobs win.)

Conan The Cimmerian # 14

Written by Timothy Truman & Benjamin Truman

Art by Joe Kubert, Timothy Truman & Tell-A-Graphics

Published by Dark Horse Comics

The first four pages of Conan are drawn by Joe Kubert, and the last three pages of the comic are drawn by Joe Kubert. That makes for a total of seven pages, despite the text on the cover that says "Featuring Guest Artist Joe Kubert" without mentioning that he doesn't do anything but those seven pages. That's irritating enough, but the strangest part is that the seven pages aren't used to form bookends to the main story. It's just Joe Kubert starting the story, and then it's not Joe Kubert continuing the story, and then it's almost over, and then it's Joe Kubert again. It's also unreadable, but that's sort of the point of Conan anyway.

Dark X-Men: The Confession # 1

Written by Craig Kyle & Chris Yost

Art by Bing Cansino, Roland Paris, Edgar Delgado & Brian Reber

Published by Marvel Comics

There was some comic that came out that said, in so many words, that if you wanted-nay, needed- to read about what it was like when Cyclops told Emma Frost about stuff and Emma Frost told Cyclops about stuff, you should wait until this one comes out and buy it. It did that on the second page? The silly thing about that idea was that Cyclops was going to tell Emma Frost stuff she would already know about if she read the X-Force comic book, and Emma Frost was going to tell Cyclops stuff he would already know about if he read that Bendis comic where Alex Maleev drew Namor like an alcoholic sex criminal. But anyway, it came out, and it took two writers and four artists to do what some amateur historian was able to handle in about two cups of coffee time over at wikipedia.

Giant Size Wolverine Old Man Logan # 1

Written by Mark MIllar

Art by Steve McNiven, Dexter Vines, Mark Morales & Morry Hollowell

Published by Marvel Comics

Part of the reason this comic book is "Giant Size" is because it has a bunch of filler back pages in it, one of which is, no shit, the cover of the comic book that It Also Is, meaning you have one page that is just like the cover, because it is the cover. There's also this really intricate page of Steve McNiven's pencil work, which is probably included so that the book's defenders can point at it and say "Look at how fucking hard this guy works, that's why the book's schedule ran off the rails so spectacularly." There's no real argument to the contrary, McNiven clearly puts in a lot of work. There's all kinds of fucking detail here, when people get their shit cut open, when they get their arms sliced off, when people get eaten alive and then rip their way out of people's stomachs, when people rip a mid-air cow in half with their claw hands before putting on a duster and cowboy hat and riding off into the sunset with a Lone Wolf Hulk Baby in the horse-y version of a carseat--shit, there's a lot of goddamn detail to the whole enterprise. Like--McNiven obviously spent some time on this thing, getting up in the morning, working all day, going to bed, repeating the process. One almost wishes that Millar had done the same, but he was clearly too busy not coming up with anything beyond Oh Shit Dude, What If Venom Was A Dinosaur Pass Me The Bong I Just Shit Brain Gold, and you can't blame him for that.

Oh wait. You can, can't you?

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Chris Jones]

-That is the nicest collection of things anyone will ever say about a Simpsons comic.

-Oh sweet Lord, that Blackest Night Superman is just completely fucking disgusting.

-The last line of that Conan review made me chuckle.

-I've always thought Millar's writing was more intelligent than people give him credit for, but it's also possible that I'm a doofus.

[Chris Jones]

*From the second note, I meant the cover, not the comic. That is like a concave boner distilled into sad.

[LurkerWithout]

How the hell has that Wolverine comic been out a week and I haven't seen ONE comics blogger ask why it has a goatse cover?

[The Beast Must Die]

"Oh Shit Dude, What If Venom Was A Dinosaur Pass Me The Bong I Just Shit Brain Gold"

Iz good.

The way Millar continually fails to follow through on anything beyond the most obvious 'woah, KEWL!' moments that litter his comics is one of the main reasons I stopped reading his self-aggrandizing, turbo-hack horsehit a long time ago.

[Amy]

Well placed Youtube clip!

[Tucker Stone]

Geez, Lurk, you're totally spot on. Didn't even catch that.

...

[barf]

[Lugh]

What, you don't like Tim Truman? Shit, son...

It's odd... whenever DC makes a fucking gross-out cover does Marvel respond in kind? Also, where's the Hulk's ring? Or whatever the fuck that green thing on that Wolverine cover is.

[Matthew J. Brady]

I didn't read the first issue of Millar/McNiven's Wolverine run, but was there any explanation as to why the Hulk had become a hillbilly? In this issue, he said that he ended up hooking up with She-Hulk, because she was the only one who could handle his giant green man-meat, but fucking your cousin does not automatically make you a trailer-park-livin', hootenanny-dancin', moonshine-drinkin' redneck. Come on, he's a brainiac super-genius and she's a big-city lawyer; did their collective IQs drop precipitously as soon as their bodily fluids intermingled? As usual for Millar, he probably thought it was a funny joke, and didn't bother to think about it too much. And also as usual, I obviously put way too much thought into it.

Re: New Avengers - I hope Bendis doesn't think the "We can't operate on a guy with super-hard skin" idea is new or anything; hasn't it been done with Superman a ton of times? Eh, it's not a bad idea for a plot though, but have you seen December's solicits? He still hasn't had the damn surgery by then! What's the holdup, doctors? Don't they have special magical scalpels for that sort of thing?

[Lugh]

That's for sure, Matthew. For example, in the past, some Jews used to marry their (distant) relatives, no doubt owing to the diaspora and our traditional reluctance to hook up with people of different faiths. I guess they all moved to the Appalachians.

Also, Tucker? Thanks for your review of Treehouse of Horror. I went and got it, and it's hilarious in a way that no other Simpsons comic I've ever read is. I appreciate your thoughts on the potential power of working in a shared universe and what a shame it is that so many less-than-talented creators use it as a crutch instead of a launching pad.

Hey, remember that Garth Ennis Treehouse of Horror story that was like any other Simpsons comic, with none of his distinct voice? That was a shame.

[david brothers]

Matthew-- Radiation makes you southern. Though he lives in California, which has a different kind of redneck than Georgia or the rest of the south, but hey hey hey! Wouldn't it be awesome if the Hulk was a redneck? And Wolverine was Clint Eastwood? And Mark Millar bit like six different movies and comics to craft the ending to an ultimately pretty and worthless story?

I've got this great idea for a Spider-Man story-- it's Kids meets Die Hard meets Spider-Man 2 meets Superman. Interested? You've got the email.

[Lugh]

David - I'm intrigued. Who's Peter? Is he Telly or Casper?

[Bob Temuka]

Oh boy! I honestly can't wait to read that Wolverine comic when it comes out as a big, fat book. I know I should be embarrassed by this enthusiasm, but I'm really not.

I also can't wait to read the Simpsons comic, because those Halloween comics are always worth a look, but I can't find that mofo anywhere.

[Kenny Cather]

I laughed a lot during the Millar Wolverine story, but I certainly won't defend it. Once the Spider-Buggy showed up, I thought it was obvious he was just tossing stuff out there for the cheap laughs, but who knows, maybe he took it all seriously?

Anyway, I can't wait until I can get to a comic store again so I can buy that Simpsons comic. This is totally dropping the ball on my part. I've been excitedly waiting for it to come out ever since it was announced,

[Tucker Stone]

They had Superman operate on Power Girl with his heat vision in Justice League Europe once. It was back when Wally West was a lothario, so it included some moment where they scolded him about watching the operation, since he was doing it just to catch a peek at her, you know, lady parts.

[John K(UK)]

In defence of James Robinson may I just say that he is English and over here we English often have dinner first thing in the morning. Nothing sets you up for a hard day tilling The Queen's fields like roast turkey with all the trimmings at six am. I'm lying of course; there is no defence for James Robinson.

Did Millar ever explain why John Byrne was driving Wolverine around? That's my best and only joke. Sorry.

That Simpson's review was fantastic. Truly.

[Jacob]

I've never read Starman, and I've always heard it was a masterpiece. Robinson's current output is so bad, however, that I just can't believe it's that good. Is it really as good as people say?

[Lugh]

Yes, it is, Jacob. Leave it to Chance is good as well. The Golden Age is good too. It's like "What if All-Star Squadron wasn't about answering continuity questions nobody asked?" Some people swear by his WildCATs work (I think it followed on the heels of Alan Moore's) but I haven't read it.

I think the thing is that DC are basically giving Robinson money to put his name on a committee written product. It would be the same no matter who wrote it. I can't blame him for taking the check, but I don't understand the mindset behind having your name run through the muck like that.

[Brian Nicholson]

The other good James Robinson comics were some Legends Of The Dark Knight arcs. The one drawn by Tim Sale and the one drawn by... Paul Johnson? The guy who did the Dane Macgowan issues of the first volume of The Invisibles.

Also I know Abhay Khosla liked Firearm, with art by Cully Hamner.

It's not the craziest thought that someone good in the 90's would fall off and continue to find work based on good will earned, when the comics industry no longer functions in a way that allows them to do what they do best. This applies to pretty much every good comics writer of the nineties to one degree or another.

[The Beast Must Die]

Yeah, writers, like musicians, can fall the fuck off.

Or they can get better and better like a ripe fucking cheese. I'm looking at you Frank The Tank.

[Nathan]

I personally feel you were a bit too harsh on Superman: Secret Origin, but the New Avengers review was funny enough to make up for it

[Matthew J. Brady]

Man, I've got to get to the second volume of Starman, because I read the first one, and while I can understand why people like it, it's pretty goddamn far from the work of genius it's regularly hailed as. Sure, it was ahead of its time, and Robinson was doing some decent plotting and shit, but he was so fucking enamored with the quirks of his dialogue that he would fill issues with internal monologue captions about collectibles or long speeches about random bits of pop culture in between the gratuitous violence. Robinson was definitely the precursor for Geoff Johns, maybe with some Mark Millar faux-coolness thrown in. I was going to review that first volume story by story to point out what I did and didn't like about it, and why it bugged me so much, but I gave up after the first issue. I still keep hearing people rave about it though, so maybe I need to go back and finish the thing once and for all.

The thing is, it's not like the book is terrible, it's just so fucking overrated. But if you were reading it at the time, in the midst of the crap-laden 90s, it must have seemed like the promised land or something, so I can understand its reputation. Still, you gotta look at it with some distance, and realize that plenty of better work has come out since. At least, I hope you do; I know comics fans can be plenty fucking set in their opinions.

Or maybe it really goes through the roof after that first volume, and starts to deserve its reputation. In which case, I'll eat my nonexistent hat.

[seth hurley]

Alright, that's it right?

Last one out, turn off the Youtube.

[Kenny Cather]

Matt, you are 100% right (in my opinion). At the time, Robinson's Starman was like - holy cow, this is awesome - but it does *not* hold up well for all the reasons you mentioned. I was going to write something saying everything you said, but I decided against it because I didn't want to stir stuff up. But yeah, Starman is a book of its time.