Thirty By Thirty #3 - Stop Buying Comic Books

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways. For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known."

1 Corinthians 13:11-12

In the spring of 2001, I dropped out of college. Specifically I'd had my fill of the small liberal arts institution I was attending in Wisconsin and decided to move home mid-semester. I moved in with my grandfather for the summer, got a job downtown at a production company and started riding the 156 bus to work. Most days I'd have a little extra time on my way to my stop and I'd duck my head into Big Brain Comics which was located on 10th St at the time.

When I was growing up I read a lot of comic books. My grandmother would buy old issues at garage sales and bring them to our family cabin in Central Minnesota. For the most part they were Archie comics with people being more willing to part with them I'd guess than X-men books. But occasionally there would be a superhero book mixed in. This was providential, of course, because when I was nine the first Michael Keaton Batman movie was released. Suddenly there was an entire realm of knowledge to dive directly into face-first.

Now fast forward back to 2001 when I'm living with my grandfather. I'd wanted to get back into comic books for a while but getting comics in Green Bay was inconvenient if you were like me and lacked a car. Now I was walking past a comic book store everyday on my way to the bus. After doing a little poking around, I took the plunge.

Even though the movie was still a year away, the character I was most interested in was Spider-man. Seeing there was a new title which was less than a year old I bought my first issue of Ultimate Spider-man written by Brian Michael Bendis. I was instantly hooked. I started adding other Bendis titles like DareDevil and other Ultimate titles like Ultimate Marvel Team-Ups. Little did I know there was a comic book renaissance going on which would explode a year later when that first Spider-man movie would push comic books into the collective conscience. I expanded my titles and reading further and further, again discovering new knowledge to drink up.

But like all good things, there needed to be an end. My favorite series "Y: The Last Man" ended in January of 2008. Most of the books I was reading out of habit instead of really wanting to read them. I wasn't spending a lot of money keeping up but it felt more like responsibility than entertainment. So I decided I was going to follow the series "100 Bullets" to its conclusion and that would be it.

The 100th and final issue of "100 Bullets" came out this April. I went into Big Brain (now on Washington Ave but again on my commute home) bought the last issue and put it on the stack of comic books I need to catch up on. I'll probably keep reading comics from time-to-time in graphic novels. The days of buying individual issues though has ended.

I threw the "growing up" tag on this post even though I dislike that phrase. "Growing on" would be a better way to describe setting aside comic books. I've benefited from reading comic books because they taught me a love of reading and of voluminous knowledge and itt would be foolish to lose that message as I separate from the medium.

5(+1) Questions About Watchmen (NO SPOILERS)

One of the joys of living in Chicago for the last two years was meeting, befriending and seeing a metric ton of movies with Miss Mary Kravenas. We met when I worked briefly at a book-seller in Evanston and bonded over our love of all things nerdy, geeky and comic book-related.

In fact, we have one of the best origin stories of any friendship. One day on the train into the city I read an ad saying Amy Sedaris would be signing copies of her new book at the Michigan Ave. Borders near my office. We decided we would go and took our place pretty far back in line when we arrived after work. So far back it took us until past midnight to reach the head of the line. Anyone you can spend six and a half hours in line with and have a deliriously happy good time is surely a true friend.

Mary was fortunate enough to see a preview screening of "Watchmen" tonight and when she got home, I asked her five spoiler-free questions about the film.



Mike: Okay, first question. The one every fanperson is worried about. Is it good?

Mary: Yes, and one of the people I went with was unaware of the graphic novel and he enjoyed it a lot.

Mike: Does the movie have the feel of the graphic novel or is it an entity unto itself?

Mary: It has the feel of the graphic novel. But it definitely has the cinematic feel too, much like "300" where the hong kong action film, turn-and-pivot filmmaking is present.



And the use of some of the actors--namely the dwarf actor who's in, well, everything, brought some unintended humor, I think. There were definite cheers and applause

Mike: Peter Dinklage?

Mary: No, let me find his name. He was in Seinfeld... Danny Woodburn



Mike: Malin Ackerman. Was she okay? Please be honest.

Mary: She did a good job. She kicks ass as Silk Spectre. There were some parts as Laurie where it was a little soft. The Night Owl/Silk Spectre sex scene made me roll my eyes a little.

Mike: Related to that. Did the filmmakers have the um... guts to include Dr. Manhattan's um... bits?

Mary: Yes, uncircumcised and everything. I haven't seen that much wang in a movie that didn't have an NC-17 rating.



Mike: Finally everyone worth their salt knows the Giant Squid is out. Did the replacement ending live up to it?

Mary: Well, it's no Giant Squid. There were parts of the replacement ending that I feel worked well. Because this is a movie, I think the changes that were made to the ending worked and made the ending and how things tie together/are explained more... realistic isn't quite the word.

Also there are a couple of elements that were very "Hollywood." There are going to be quibbles. If the movie could just end a couple minutes earlier I think some reviewers would've been happier. I don't know that I agreed completely with some of the thinking on the ending. There is a parallel to some recent movies.

But in an overall sense, I think the new ending worked for the movie. Even if I didn't agree with it completely.

Mike: Anything else to say?

Mary: There are some great choices of music like when Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is played during the Nite Owl/SS2 sex scene which made me snort. And Jackie Earl Haley is brilliant.



Mike: Mary, thanks a lot for putting a lot of my fears to bed.

Mary: You're welcome. It's not a perfect movie. But it's really good.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

When the original Spider-Man movie came out in 2002, I was disappointed by it. I felt like the action looked too CGI-ed, the story was weak and the Green Goblin lacked any real motivation to be, y'know, evil. I was one of the people who helped it to $115+ Million in box office on its opening weekend. But that was the only time I saw it in the theaters and never watched it on DVD. However when the second movie came out, it was my favorite movie of 2004. My best guess is that since the first one made Sony so much money, they left Sam Raimi alone for the second one.

Which is exactly what seems to have happened to Hellboy in a roundabout way. The first one came out in 2004 and wasn't very good. It had some promise but didn't follow through on it largely getting lost in the smart aleck aspects of Hellboy instead of the comic book's mythology. Normally that's the end of the line for an action movie franchise, especially one that doesn't even make back its production budget. There was a catch. Guillermo Del Toro, the director of "Hellboy", made "Pan's Labyrinth" as his next project. That movie was well-reviewed and raked in more than four times its production budget. Suddenly Del Toro was a hot director again and the door was reopened for a Hellboy sequel.

The result, "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army", is the best movie of this year so far exceeding "Iron Man", "Get Smart" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". Basically Del Toro was allowed to work to his strengths. He was able to build a fantastic world on the mythology of Hellboy (that's basically what comic books are, modern hero mythology) and make a visually stunning movie which doesn't feel like it was whipped up on a Mac. The number of practical effects in this movie are refreshing in the world that gave us both Hulk movies. Add in that the story suceeds on the both the Big Problem and little problems levels and it's what makes a great comic book movie.

It's amazing on some level that Hellboy movies are being made. Just like DareDevil, Iron Man and Elektra, the level of awareness of the Hellboy character amongst the general non-comic-book-reading populace should be limited to the family and significant others of people who read Hellboy. Instead a really good and well-done too sequel to an earlier box office bust based on Hellboy was the number one movie this weekend. Almost 8 years to the day from when my brother and I saw the X-Men movie at the Mall of America, the comic book movie has become more than just an abberation or a curiosity that lives off of previously existing fans. It is healthy and survives under its own merit as a viable genre and that's amazing like Spider-man.

Peace to Dirt Dog. I'm Back like Deja Vu.

Last night I saw a preview screening of "Iron Man" with K-Dogg. The movie comes out this weekend so I can't claim great exclusivity like when we saw "Spider-Man 3" last year a few weeks before it came out. But I've always held Iron Man as one of my favorite comic book characters so I've been looking forward to the movie since it was just a rumor.

In the grand thrust of movies based on comic books coming to the screen, there are a select handful including the original X-Men movie, "Batman Begins" and "Spider-Man 2" which encompass the upper eschelon. Those are movies which are good enough to stand up on their own irregardless of genre in the same way "Star Wars" is more than just a sci-fi film.

The next level down from that is where "Iron Man" belongs. It's a good movie and I was thrilled as a comic books fan to see they stayed faithful to the character. Like the first "Spider-man" movie or the Thomas Jane "Punisher" film, it's really good for the genre and should do a good job satisfying both the fans of Iron Man and the general public who is properly meeting the character for the first time.

One thing which did stick out for me about the movie was the enemies in the movie were Taliban-esque warlords in Afghanistan. And for the first time since our Global War on Terrorism began, it didn't feel heavy-handed to have them be the enemy. Perhaps it's because it's the last year of GWB's presidency and perhaps it's because the "with us or against us" rhetoric has died down since Rumsfeld resigned.

I think a bigger part of it is the movie's self-awareness showing that it's not guys who live in caves and warm themselves around woodfires who are making the guns being fired at our military. In a way, it is both literally and metaphorically our own imperialism being fired back at us. That little extra is what distinguishes making an Iron Man movie from making a movie about a man in a flying metal suit.