Rants & Raves

SUNDAY FUNNIES POSTAGE STAMPS

The Sunday Funnies postage stamps went on sale July 16. On panes of 20, the stamps carry on their flip sides the following descriptions (or, if not these, exactly, something similar):

Offering an idealized portrait of American adolescence, Archie existed only in comic-book form before debuting in newspapers in 1946. A typical small-town teenager with a knack for goofing things up, 17-year-old Archie Andrews is often torn between haughty brunette Veronica Lodge and sweet, blonde Betty Cooper.

A military strip with universal appeal, Beetle Bailey first appeared in September 1950. Possibly the laziest man in the army, Private Beetle Bailey is an expert at sleeping and avoiding work. His chronic indolence antagonizes Sergeant Orville P. Snorkel, who is tough on his men but calls them “my boys.”

Dennis the Menace follows the antics of Dennis Mitchell, a good-hearted but mischievous little boy who is perpetually “five-ana-half” years old. His curiosity tests the patience of his loving parents and neighbors, guaranteeing that their lives are anything but dull. The comic debuted in March 1951 as a single-panel gag.

Garfield first waddled onto the comics page in June 1978. Self-centered and cynical, the crabby tabby hates Mondays and loves lasagna. He lives with Jon Arbuckle, a bumbling bachelor with a fatally flawed fashion sense, and Odie, a dopey-but-devoted dog.

Calvin and Hobbes explores the fantasy life of six-year-old Calvin and his tiger pal, Hobbes. The inseparable friends ponder the mysteries of the world and test the fortitude of Calvin’s parents, who never know where their son’s imagination will take him. The strip ran from November 1985 to December 1995.

The Dennis image, by the way, is one of several thousand drawn by his creator, Hank Ketcham. The current renderers of the strip — Ron Ferdinand on Sundays; Marcus Hamilton on dailies — decided not to flip a coin for the privilege but to pin it on their one-time boss. No doubt Ketcham was highly practiced in drawing Dennis, but it seems to me that in the rendering that appears on the stamp, the pestiferous five-ana-half year old’s left arm is growing out of his back. Anatomically impossible, but mayhap effective cartooning: this arrangement conveys the kid’s hyperactive energy, legs pounding, arms flailing from wherever they are haphazardly atached. The First Day Cover production  featured the entire cast drawn by Ketcham, all their arms in comedic array no doubt.

NEW FROM THE COMIC-CON: BOOKS, PART 3

Fantagraphics astonished classic comic strip fans with the news that they were teaming with Disney to publish all of Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse strip, which Gottfredson produced from 1930 to 1976, in a series of deluxe reprints. “Considered the definitive version of the Mouse,” MacDonald noted, “Gottfredson's Mickey is a bold adventurer with a temper and a tart tongue. In his 45-year run on the strip, Gottfredson introduced such characters as the Phantom Blot and Mickey's nephews, Morty and Ferdie. The multi-volume series begins publishing in May 2011 and will be designed by Jacob Covey.”

At a panel session during which Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth announced the Mouse plan, longtime Disney fan Dana Gabbard of the Duckburg Times was flabbergasted and expressed both astonishment and disbelief: “Did you really say you were going to publish all of Mickey Mouse?” he blurted out. “Yes,” said Groth. Later, Gabbard voiced his wonderment to me: Disney has always been so hard-nosed about reprint rights — sinking Gladstone’s comic book business, for instance — how did Fantagraphics get the Mouse job? My guess: Fantagraphics has established its grown-up bona fides with the Peanuts books.

NEWS FROM THE COMIC-CON: BOOKS, PART 2

The oddest book I saw as I was buffeted down the bustling aisles at the San Diego Con was Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman: The First Jewish Superhero (194 7x10-inch pages, b/w and color; paperback, Feral House, $24.95). The book reprints several of Funnyman’s comic book stories, some Sunday strips, and some dailies, and it comes with argumentative text by Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon. Among Gordon’s pronouncements: the Jewish sense of humor was born in a July day in 1661. I haven’t read much of the tome, but I fully expect that it will assert Funnyman’s Jewish roots; but I’m not sure it will do so in all seriousness. Something about Gordon’s prose leads me to think he may not be altogether serious about his thesis. We’ll see. And when we do, I’ll let you know.

“Despite the bombast of Hollywood studio hype,” publishersweekly.com’s Heidi MacDonald said, “indie comics publishers still made some noise with their own announcements.” Drawn & Quarterly plans to produce a memoir, Over Easy, by Mimi Pond, “a cartoonist-illustrator and writer perhaps best known for writing the first episode of ‘The Simpsons’; her book will tell the tale of her youth in the growing punk rock scene of 70s Oakland. ‘In this day and age of the graphic novel, it's astonishing to come across a fully-realized and seasoned cartoonist who has yet to release comics in long-form,’ said acquiring editor Tom Devlin.”

D&Q will also add to its growing library of "gekiga" manga “two books from manga legend Shigeru Mizuki, perhaps the most famous living cartoonist in Japan. Onward  Towards Our Noble Deaths is a semi-autobiographical account of the final weeks of WWII, as Japanese soldiers deal with orders to die for their country. (Mizuki served in the war and lost an arm.) NonNonBa is a less horrific story set in Mizuki's youth in the 30s, as he dreams of creating his own worlds with the help of an old neighbor woman.”

Top Shelf announced “a slew of new projects”: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century No. 2: 1969, the latest in the series by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, and new works by the publisher’s regular stable of cartoonists: The Homeland Directive by Robert Venditti and Mike Huddleston, Any Empire by Nate Powell, Super Natural by Matt Kindt; The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire; and a new volume of Incredible Change-Bots by Jeffrey Brown. The publisher also has new works by Jess Fink and Jennifer Hayden on tap as well as a reprinting of Kagen McLeod's Infinite Kung Fu, and Masahiko Matsumoto's Cigarette Girl, “a collection of short stories by another founding father of gekiga who worked alongside Tatsumi. Finally Top Shelf will bring to English Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme, a recent prizewinner at Angouleme.”

NEWS FROM THE COMIC-CON: BOOKS, PART 1

Sandy Eggo is the place where announcements are made and new projects flogged mercilessly. Here, for instance, is a news release from Abrams ComicArts announcing that it will publish Harvey Pekar’s last book, Yiddishkeit, which had been completed by the time he died earlier this month. The book’s title means “Jewishness” in Yiddish, an expression generally used to refer to Yiddish culture, and that, not surprisingly, is what the book is about: following an autobiographical section at the beginning, the main narrative of the volume consists of stories on different aspects of Jewish and Yiddish culture. Paul Buhle, who edited a number of books written by Pekar, assembled the book; at approximately 240 pages, the volume is slated for publication in the fall of 2011.

Forthcoming tomes for the fall include Jerry Robinson’s biography, subtitled Ambassador of Comics. Robinson is the only cartoonist to have served as president of both the National Cartoonists Society and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and among his other accomplishments is working out the pension deal for Siegel and Shuster with Warner Bros. His watershed history of comics will also be reprinted this fall.

And Chip Kidd has another of his fancy-footwork books on deck, Shazam: The Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal, touted here as a 250-age “finely designed coffee table book.” That means, no doubt, that Kidd’s book design, as is almost always the case with him, will be more prominent than the content of the volume. The irony here is that the artist whose style formed the image of Captain Marvel, C.C. Beck, was famous for his irascible objection to the modern tendency to draw heroic bodies with every tendon delineated in detail. My guess is that Beck would favor a simple-looking tome.

FRESHLY SQUEEZED

Here’s a note from Ed Stein, formerly the editorial cartoonist on the Rocky Mountain News, freelancing since the demise of that honored albeit tattered tabloid: “On September 20, my new comic strip, Freshly Squeezed, distributed by United Feature Syndicate, will launch in daily newspapers. Those of you who followed my Denver Square comic strip feature in the Rocky Mountain News will recognize the characters, although they’ve been updated a bit. In the new strip, Irv and Sarah, Liz’s parents and Nate’s grandparents, have lost their retirement savings in the economic collapse, and have moved in with their grown children and their grandchild. That’s when the inter-generational fun begins.

“According the Pew Research Center, multi-generation families are growing rapidly, with 49 million Americans living in multi-generation homes as of 2008, largely as a result of economic trends, and that number is surely larger today. Folks over 65 are the most likely to live this way. In other words, the strip is relevant and timely. And well-drawn and funny, and emotionally honest, if I do say so myself.”

Probably Stein can get away with saying the strip is honest because, deprived of a salaried perch for the last 18 months or so, he has probably faced situations not unlike those Irv and Sarah are facing. Stein’s Denver Square strip was a gem, a shining moment in newspaper comic strippery, and you can find a healthy sampling at the Usual Place, Opus 224 where we reprinted some of the strips.

Here's a Freshly Squeezed Sunday. You can see more samples of the feature here.

 

FIRST ISSUE: BLACK WIDOW

BLACK WIDOW BACK AGAIN

An admirable first issue must, above all else, contain such matter as will compel a reader to buy the second issue. At the same time, while provoking curiosity through mysteriousness, a good first issue must avoid being so mysterious as to be cryptic or incomprehensible. And, thirdly, it should introduce the title’s principals, preferably in a way that makes us care about them. Fourth, a first issue should include a complete “episode”—that is, something should happen, a crisis of some kind, which is resolved by the end of the issue, without, at the same time, detracting from the cliffhanger aspect of the effort that will compel us to buy the next issue.

The most remarkable thing about Black Widow No. 1 is the artwork by Daniel Acuna: the pages fairly shimmer with pristine sharp-edged colors that model in flat layers without feathering, chips of color highlighting, Acuna’s black solids and bold lines giving definition to the imagery, and other lines, hued in darker shades than the solid colors they embellish, flickering with final etching touches. 

The issue’s other remarkable thing is John Rhett Thomas’ six-page illustrated text history of Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff at the end, liberally laced with the names of her lovers — Bucky Barnes, Hawkeye, Daredevil (one of whom, Alexei Shostakov, she actually married but he died in an experimental rocket explosion; then surprised her by coming back to life in a later episode); here we find every twist in her convoluted biography, some of which illuminates the story that precedes it.

But some of the story, although needing illumination, remains darkly mysterious. The opening sequence, for instance — in which Natasha meets an old comrade, the former spy Black Rose, a brutish disfigured hulk of a man, and they celebrate their reunion by kick-boxing rather than with hand-shakes and hugs (“too boring,” writer Marjorie Liu tells us).

Their reunion seems pointless in the context of this issue’s narrative; perhaps it’ll make sense later, when we learn the import of the flower, a black rose, that crops up every half-dozen pages here.

As she leaves their tete-a-tete, Natasha is assaulted by a seeming old woman, who, assisted by an anonymous cohort in this central episode of the issue, knocks the Widow unconscious and then performs an insidious surgery, removing some unspecified part of her interior. When she’s discovered and taken to the hospital for some repair work (during which she remains somewhat conscious, musing painfully to herself all along about the terrible agonies she is experiencing under the surgeon’s knife), the doctors marvel that whoever assaulted her apparently “just wanted to open her up to see what she looked like on the inside.”

So what did her assailants find therein? Next issue, mayhap.

Meanwhile, in this issue’s penultimate episode, a year later, Natasha has dinner with James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, the erstwhile Winter Soldier, her current love life, leaving the table to follow a notorious wife-beater into the men’s room, where she beats him up. But before that — “last year” (the function of the back-and-forth in time is vague) — while she was recovering from the operation in the hospital, her buddy and one-time mentor Wolverine goes out and in this issue’s concluding scene finds the personage who engineered the assault — but we don’t see who he is. Next issue, mayhap.

Wolverine, unaccountably, walks away from this sinister entity without killing him. Next issue, mayhap. We learn enough about Natasha — her fortitude in dire circumstances (on the operating table), her combat skills (with Black Rose and the so-called “old woman”), and her compassion for her fellow females (in the men’s room with the wife-beater) — to admire her and to want to know what happens next.

COMIC-CON GOES TO THE MOVIES

This year's Comic-Con International at San Diego, the 41^st of this annual geekfest, was filmed for a documentary by director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden)  and a team of producers including Marvel Comic's icon Stan Lee and Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” writer/director). Entitled Comic-Con Episode Four: A Fan's Hope, the documentary, quoth independent.co.uk, followed seven people from around the world attending the Con July 21-25. Stan Lee, naturally, rejoiced and indulged in a little deserved back-patting: "Many of our highest-grossing movies, best selling toys and most popular video games owe their existence to the increasingly influential comic book."

COMIC-CON

We may now safely assume that the Comic-Con has arrived as a fixture of American popular culture. Both USA Today and Entertainment Weekly did articles about the event in the weeks leading up to it and covered it feverishly once it got going.

The Comic-Con has arrived, but comic books have not. In fact, they’ve been shoved quietly into remote niches. Only one of the USA Today stories was about comic books, a focus on small publishers (IDW, Top Shelf, etc.). And in its post-convention report — an extravagant 11 pages — Entertainment Weekly concentrated solely on movies: “For four days every summer,” the magazine gushed, “the geeks inherit the earth — or at least Hollywood. From July 22 to 25, the entertainment industry relocated to San Diego ... to stoke the buzz among the 150,000 fanboys and fangirls in attendance.”

Actually — or, at least, according to David Glanzer, the Comic-Con’s pr guy — attendance was 125,000-130,000, almost exactly the limit imposed by the city’s fire marshal.

Movies and tv shows previewed or excerpted included Green Lantern, Captain America, Tron: Legacy, Thor, Cowboys & Aliens, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Green Hornet, True Blood, Dexter, The Big Bang Theory, Hawaii Five-O, The Event, The Walking Dead, Falling Skies, The Avengers, No Ordinary Family, Nikita, and The Cape among, I assume, a few dozen more that I missed references to, many, like Scott Pilgrim and The Walking Dead, based upon their comic book origins.

In the exhibition hall of the world’s biggest comics convention in the booths of the country’s two largest comic book publishers, DC Comics and Marvel, no comic books were on display. Not one. Every now and then, the proprietors of these gargantuan two-story, high-rise booths gave away copies of a title, but nothing was on display — no rack of comic book covers representing the dozens of titles each company publishes every month. Instead — action figures galore. Life-sized and small. Giant-sized renderings of superheroes on billboard walls. Movie sets for superhero movies. But no comic books.

Golden Age funnybooks have all but disappeared. The good stuff has long gone; what’s left are the comic books of Charleton and other small bore publishers, all priced too high for me.

Movies, tv shows, action figures, toys, islands of illustrators selling their wares (pricey prints as well as original art), webcomics. And costumes. Everywhere you look, fans playing dress-up. And on every side, as they strut their stuff through the hallways and byways of the Convention Center, are lines of amateur photographers peering into cell-phones as they focus on the colorfully attired objects of their temporary affections.

Despite all this carping, the Comic-Con, even with a mere dearth of comic books visible, has enough that appeals to the same sensibilities as dote on comics. Withal, it’s the only giant comics mall in America, a massive opportunity to buy comics stuff or to get comics stuff free.

Yes, I’ll be back next year. You can’t find comic books at DC Comics or Marvel, but you can find graphic novels at IDW, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, and Image and in the small publishers’ section, and reprints of masterpieces in the medium, and original art in Artists Alley and elsewhere in the hall where cartoonists and illustrators sit behind display tables, showing their wares. And I’m not the only one who’ll be back: you could buy a ticket for next year’s Con this year during the festivities. Reportedly, 15,000 tickets for next year have already been sold.

LILY RENEE

Newsweek for August 9 includes a highly unusual “news” article — a three-age discussion of a comic book artist who hasn’t produced comic book drawings for over fifty years. Lily Renee is a familiar name to comics historians who frequent the books and articles of “herstorian” Trina Robbins, but neither Renee’s name, her former celebrity or her current work justify a “news” article, so this piece, entitled “A Real-life Comic Book Superhero,” is clearly an accolade of respect and affection by Adriane Quinlan. Renee, whose actual last name is Phillips, disappeared from the comic book industry in about 1949, and many may have presumed that she died long ago. She didn’t. Not in the post-war period during which she married and began raising a family. And she didn’t die in the years before World War II either — when she, a Jew, fled her native Austria and lived for two years a teenage refugee in England. How she finally reached the U.S. and a career as a model and then as a comic book illustrator at Fiction House doing “good girl art” (which Quinlan doesn’t quite understand) is the gist of Quinlan’s article, worth reading and filing.

FIRST ISSUE: THE LIGHT

An admirable first issue must, above all else, contain such matter as will compel a reader to buy the second issue. At the same time, while provoking curiosity through mysteriousness, a good first issue must avoid being so mysterious as to be cryptic or incomprehensible. And, thirdly, it should introduce the title’s principals, preferably in a way that makes us care about them. Fourth, a first issue should include a complete “episode”—that is, something should happen, a crisis of some kind, which is resolved by the end of the issue, without, at the same time, detracting from the cliffhanger aspect of the effort that will compel us to buy the next issue.

The Light No. 1 is a book whose premise, whatever it may be, is defeated by drawings much too artsy for storytelling purposes and by the absence of narrative information that might help us dope out what the heck is happening. Too many pages have only 3 or 4 panels — probably to enable Brett Weldele to slather on tonal variations of one or two colors and then attempt visual clarification with a webby penline; but the result is pretty pictures, lots of mood, and no plot clarification. 

In one sequence, the visuals collapse altogether into a parade of solid black panels, four of them, because the protagonist turns off the lamp. Nathan Edmondson’s story, what there is of it, doesn’t help much. His protagonist, Coyle, suffers from colossally inconsistent characterization: is he a drunken failure? Or not? His wife left him, we learn, and he has a nagging mother and a disillusioned teenage daughter. So far, so good.

 Then “the light” attacks. If you look at it, you are consumed by it and expire in a flash of brilliant fire. In subsequent issues, “the light” seems to be a virus of some sort; but in this issue, it seems more of a physical phenomenon. Coyle runs around, trying to save his daughter. That’s it. Apart from the lurking of “the light” menace, there’s no cliffhanger, no ultimate moment of suspense. No completed episode by which we may judge the character of both writer and his creations. And none of the characters are likeable enough for us to want to know what happens to them. 

ANNIE

Tribune Media Services stopped production and distribution of one of cartooning’s iconic creations, the newspaper comic strip Little Orphan Annie. The resilient redheaded teenager made her last appearance in the nation’s newspapers on Sunday, June 13, just two months shy of celebrating an 86-year run. But the longevity, while notable, is deceptive: the strip foundered badly after the death of its creator, Harold Gray, in 1968, and while one of Gray’s successors righted the craft for two decades, Annie never again achieved the circulation or cultural status it enjoyed in Gray’s hands, proving yet again that a comic strip, uniquely the product of individual inspiration, usually cannot survive the death of its creator. And Gray’s strip was more idiosyncratic than most, a proposition we attempted to prove in the Usual Place with our May 17 posting to Harv’s Hindsight, where we reviewed the history and appreciated the artistry of Gray’s magnum opus.

Immediately upon receiving the announcement about the impending cessation, Michael Cavna at ComicRiffs phoned Steve Tippie, the syndicate’s licensing VP, for more details. The decision to end the strip was not arrived at lightly, Tippie insisted, and it involved a number of factors. One was the sheer expense of paying the strip’s current writer and artist, Jay Meador and Ted Slampyak. Their salaries and the production costs of getting the strip distributed “crossed the profit-loss curve this year.”

But the syndicate, Tribune Media Services (TMS), also had an eye on future deployment of the feature. If it stopped pouring money into a strip that, with less than 20 client newspapers, could no longer make a profit for anyone, it could start scanning the horizon for other revenue-producing possibilities with the franchise.

And TMS has its corporate eye on licensing Annie. TMS owns all licensing and production rights to the Annie characters, trademarks and copyrights. “What we do not own,” Tippe said, “but participate financially in as a licensor, is the ‘Annie’ musical and its songs. But the musical creators license the property from us.”

Annie may not return to a print medium, but the emerging electronic environment offers considerable potential to “a sequential visual story-telling property in mobile, eReader/iPad and other yet-to-be conceived electronic channels,” Tippe said.

SUPERMAN SUIT

From ICv2: In an aggressive legal maneuver designed to protect its Superman rights, Warner Bros has filed suit against Marc Toberoff, alleging that the lawyer for the families of Superman creators Jerome Siegel and Joe Schuster had interfered with agreements between the studio and the heirs and had finagled a deal that would give him 47.5% of any rights recovered. Warner Bros’ suit alleges that the deal between Toberoff and the Superman heirs is illegal under copyright statutes. According to the New York Times, Warner’s complaint “cites a timeline of Toberoff’s attempts since 2001 to become involved with Superman.” According to the complaint, Toberoff and talent agent Ari Emmanuel (the reported inspiration for Entourage’s super agent Ari Gold) attempted to persuade the Siegel heirs to file a lawsuit against Warner Bros with the financial backing of an unnamed billionaire. The Times reports that the timeline was prepared by a lawyer who had worked for Toberoff. Toberoff, who has had some success in pursuing rights cases against the studios, is currently representing the heirs of Jack Kirby in a dispute with Marvel Entertainment, which is now a division of the Walt Disney Company. Toberoff characterized the studio’s lawsuit as “a smear campaign” and “thug tactics.”

FIRST ISSUE: KILL SHAKESPEARE

An admirable first issue must, above all else, contain such matter as will compel a reader to buy the second issue. At the same time, while provoking curiosity through mysteriousness, a good first issue must avoid being so mysterious as to be cryptic or incomprehensible. And, thirdly, it should introduce the title’s principals, preferably in a way that makes us care about them. Fourth, a first issue should include a complete “episode”—that is, something should happen, a crisis of some kind, which is resolved by the end of the issue, without, at the same time, detracting from the cliffhanger aspect of the effort that will compel us to buy the next issue.

Here’s one to warm the heart of every high school English student: Kill Shakespeare. Hoohah! I don’t know how long this’ll last, but the first issue sets the stage. We meet Hamlet (the only character with a short, 21^st century haircut), who, for having just mistakenly killed the nosy courtier Polonius, is banished from Denmark and sent to England. En route, one of his two traveling companions, Rosencrantz (the other is Gildenstern — two of the greatest names in English literature), reveals that he was supposed to give the King of England a letter that instructs him to kill Hamlet “without haste or deliberation.” (I had trouble with that expression: does it mean the King of the Olde Merrie is to kill Hamlet quickly but accidentally? A good trick.)

In the book’s central episode, they encounter a boatload of pirates and a messy sword fight ensues during which Hamlet proves his mettle but Gildencrantz and Rosenstern (sic) are killed; too bad — as I said, those’re the best names in English literature and having them around, just the names, would gladden any tale. Grief-striken Hamlet is thrown overboard and washes up on England’s shore, where he’s promptly taken under the wing of Richard III, he of the twisted claw-like hand, who tells Hamlet that he is fated to rid the turbulent island of the tyrant wizard-god William Shakespeare.  Hamlet takes some convincing, accomplished through incantations by the three witches from “MacBeth,” and Richard promises to bring Hamlet’s dead father back to life.

There’s a little too much spooky stuff festooned herein — blue-hued supernatural personages chanting in the margins and filling up some pages with mist and smoke — but the idea is a charmer, and writers Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col finish the issue with an actual poem.

The book’s back cover promises the series will “pit the Bard’s greatest heroes against his most menacing villains in a dark saga that is Fables meets League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with a dash of Northlanders.”

And the interior pages amply demonstrate the ability of the creative team to do what they promise, abetted by crisp art from the able Andy Belanger, who makes drawings with a steady outline, eschewing feathering and other visual adornments in order to concentrate on inking clear pictures, which colorist Ian Herring then sometimes obscures with monochromic colors that are occasionally too dark. 

Hamlet, despite having acquitted himself well while fighting pirates, seems a bit of a wimp, but that’s his personality, remember? He just can’t decide anything, so he keeps putting off definitive action—like killing his uncle, the usurping Claudius, who killed Hamlet’s father and is now married to his erstwhile sister-in-law. In short, McCreery and Del Col have managed to reincarnate Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane intact despite having given him an entirely different role and assignment, and that persuades me that watching them do the same with other of the Bard’s creations will be fun. 

VERONICA: GAY GUY AT RIVERDALE

As if Archie’s bigamy doesn’t shatter molds enough in the Archie Comics line, in Veronica No. 202, out in the fall, the Archie operatives will introduce a gay character, a slender but hunky Kevin Keller, in a story entitled “Meet the Hot New Guy.” Written and drawn by Dan Parent, the idea for the story — and the character — “came as a new twist on the perennial story of Veronica's selfishness,” reported Publishers Weekly.Archie CEO Jon Goldwater explained: “Dan’s concept was, ‘What if Veronica can't get something she wants,' and we said, ‘What couldn't she get?' and he said ‘What if someone is really good looking and she wants to date him and she can't because he's gay?’ It really just came out of a creative meeting more than ‘Let's plan this whole thing.'"

Douglas Wolk, previewing the story at salon.com, said: “It appears Parent is treating Kevin's orientation as a surprise but not a shock: the hot new guy is being pursued by Veronica but has no interest in her, Jughead advises him that she's pretty persistent, and Kevin declares: ‘It's nothing against her! I'm gay!’ To which Jughead's immediate reaction is deciding to wait and let Veronica figure it out for herself, and the plot goes on.” Kevin feels kind of bad and thinks he should tell Veronica, but Jughead, whose sense of humor is more than a little perverse, insists Kevin should wait because he, Jug, enjoys watching Veronica make a fool of herself.

Parent, quoted at newsarama.com, said the story works because it isn’t something radical concocted just to introduce a gay character. “The story is very much in the true context of our Archie stories,” he said. “It’s Veronica being Veronica. The fact that there’s a gay character in the story isn’t a big deal to the characters. We didn’t do something with turmoil. The guy just happens to be gay, and the characters accept it, and that’s it,” Parent finished, adding that Archie Comics wants to reflect what high schools are like in America where being gay “isn’t a big deal anymore.”

Well, yes — except for the Archie tradition. Kevin clearly represents a massive sea-change at Archie Comics, Wolk says. “The comics-historical significance of Kevin's appearance is that it marks a shift in the Archie franchise's history. The Riverdale gang appeared in a series of very conservative Christian comic books in the '70s and '80s. And in 2003, playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa — who's also written for Marvel Comics and ‘Big Love’ — wrote a play called ‘Archie's Weird Fantasy,’ which involved older, gay versions of the Archie characters, and was blocked by a cease-and-desist order shortly before its premiere. (It was promptly rewritten as ‘Weird Comic Book Fantasy.’)”

Kevin’s arrival not only brings Archie Comics into the latest century but has thus far generated the best possible publicity. Almost as soon as the news seeped out at the C2E2 (Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo), at CNN’s website message board, comments initially blurted with the typical bigotry — a parent vowing to ban Archie comics from his home, another moaning, “This is crazy. Why do they have to bring gay people into everything?” — but more enlightened attitudes eventually prevailed. And syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. — among the most enlightened of American journalists — weighed in with his customary insights:

“This looms as a watershed moment. That's precisely because Riverdale exists at that junction of wholesomeness and Americana. There are few entities in mass media more conservative than Archie Comics. ... So when it comes to introducing Riverdale's first openly gay teenager, the salient issue isn't how well they do it or what they stand to gain from doing it, but that they are doing it at all.” Pitts continued: “Twenty years ago, homosexuality was dangerous, 10 years ago, it was risqué. The appearance of a gay character in Archie Comics strongly suggests that it has become, is becoming, mainstream. Even safe. ... Which is not to suggest the fight for full gay citizenship is won. But it is to suggest that the parameters of that fight have changed. It is to suggest that, message board malcontents notwithstanding, we are at least done contesting the very right of gay men and lesbians to simply be — and to be seen, being.”

Writer Michael Uslan is delighted. “Corporately, a sleeping giant has awakened,” he told Optimous Douche. “Archie Comics Group had traditionally been considered a mom and pop comic book company. Today, it is daring, adventurous, and pushing the envelope in every aspect of comic book publishing, mass media and delivery system platforms. That's great for the company, great for the characters, and great for the fans and the readers among the general public. Creatively, they are wide open and encouraging of exploring new concepts and breaking old rules and generally ‘going where no man has gone before.’ As a creator or writer, I love this environment! As a comic book historian, I feel that as long as the essence of the characters are retained and their integrity is not violated, the exploration of alternate universes and time periods and big events will work as well for Archie as they have for DC and Marvel.”

The awakened giant stalks the land.            

"PEANUTS SOLD"

The headlines were just a tad alarming: “Peanuts Sold,” they exclaimed in one variation or another. (“Snoopy Sold” being another version.) Burrowing down into the newsstories, however, we found the situation a little less panicky. Iconix Brand Group is indeed buying licensing rights to the characters of the famed comic strip — 80 percent of them, that is; the heirs of the late cartoonist/creator Charles Schulz will own 20 percent of those rights, which is more than even Schulz owned. He, like most syndicated cartoonists of his generation, gave up rights to the strip when United Feature Syndicate contracted with him to distribute it. All these years, UFS has owned Peanuts; Schulz owned nothing.

E.W. Scripps, which owns UFS and United Media, a sister syndicate, has been hankering to get out of the newspaper business and acquire financial resources that it can invest in niche cable-tv and online ventures. To that end, Scripps has been “exploring strategic options” for United Media Licensing since early February. One of those options was to sell the licensing arm. It’s not altogether clear that Iconix  didn’t buy the whole enchilada, including Peanuts; most newsstories mention other character “brands” — Dilbert and Fancy Nancy, Raggedy Ann and Andy and other characters — that Iconix acquired the licensing rights to when it, and the Schulz family, paid Scripps $175 million (just about enough to replenish Scripps’ coffers after its $181 purchase of the Travel Channel six months ago).

Presumably the Schulz family wasn’t interested in any pieces of Dilbert and paid their share of the purchase price only for Peanuts rights. The Associate Press reported that Scripps sold United Media Licensing, the whole thing. But the distribution and sale of comic strips will still be accomplished by UFS. The syndicate, in other words, is still in business: only the licensing rights have been sold.

Iconix, which halted talks to buy Playboy Enterprises Inc. in December, may do "a big deal with one of the big retailers" over the Peanuts license, according to Iconix chair and CEO Neil Cole. Other opportunities may be found in video games and emerging markets such as India, he said. About two-thirds of Peanuts sales come from outside the U.S., Iconix told Andrea Snyder and Lauren Coleman-Lochner at Bloomberg News.

Following Schulz's wishes, no new Peanuts strips will be drawn, according to the website of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. The Schulz family, which didn’t own the brand but, in partnership with UML, managed licensing through Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates, will work closely with Iconix, Cole said: "We're going to be partners and they're going to be very involved.”

The Iconix deal will end a 60-year relationship between United Media and the Schulz family. Peanuts, with its cast of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the gang, is licensed in more than 40 countries and generates annual retail sales of more than $2 billion, by far the biggest single hunk of UML’s revenues.

Said Craig Schulz, son of the late cartoonist: "Peanuts now has the best of both worlds, family ownership and the vision and resources of Iconix to perpetuate what my father created throughout the next century with all the goodwill his lovable characters bring,"

JC

 Muhammad can't show his face around Comedy Central, but the network is developing an animated show entitled “JC,” as in “Jesus Christ,” reported Michael Cavna at ComicRiffs.com. In this new hilarity, Christ appears as a “regular guy” who moves to New York to escape the shadow of his “powerful but apathetic father.” In other words, he won’t be disguised in a bear suite, Cavna said, alluding to the “South Park” device used to satirize Muhammad in a recent outing. Concluded Cavna: “The network is again signaling that it's comfortable with satirizing some religions' prophets through cartoon, but not others.” The production company behind “JC,” Cavna adds, was also behind “The Office” and “Ugly Betty,” but, he cautions, “in general, most shows in development never made it to air.” 

LUCKOVICH'S LUCK

Mike Luckovich’s cartoon featuring a scabrous caricature of Georgia House Speaker David Ralston appeared in the cartoonist’s paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on Wednesday morning, April 28. That evening, Luckovich went to a dinner to be honored by the Georgia First Amendment Foundation; Ralston was the guest speaker at the event.
 AJ-C blogger Jay Bookman reported that Ralston had been more than a little bemused on Wednesday morning when he opened his paper. “‘What a coincidence,’ he thought, that his first starring role in a Luckovich cartoon would occur that very day. But to his credit he never thought about withdrawing from the evening’s event.” Then the phone started ringing as friends called to tease him about the cartoon and to laugh with him. Bookman recorded Ralston’s jocular quip: “My mother called today and said, ‘If you’ve gained that much weight, it’s time to come home.’”

That evening, the dinner’s sponsors, Bookman said, were “worried that the event might be marred by hard feelings between the guest speaker and the honoree,” but apparently they were no more in on the joke than Bookman.

“The cartoon turned out to be one of the highlights of the evening,” Bookman continued. “When Luckovich showed up to receive the foundation’s highest award, the 2010 Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Award, he brought with him the original of the cartoon and presented it as a gift to Ralston. In the margins of the cartoon, he noted that he had once drawn Ralston’s celebrated predecessor, the late Speaker Tom Murphy, wearing nothing but a diaper. In other words, nothing personal. A grinning Ralston gladly accepted the cartoon, ostensibly as a peace offering.” Then he sprung a surprise of his own.

“Your honoree and I had a private discussion earlier,” Ralston told the audience. Summoning Luckovich to the podium, Ralston continued: “Since I believe in reciprocating, I brought you a little something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black garter, handing it to a gleeful Luckovich.

Calling Ralston “a really good guy,” Luckovich promised that he would never draw the speaker again.

“Well, at least not naked,” Bookman finished. “The Speaker was no doubt grateful, and so are the rest of us.”

I have an irrepressible suspicion that the entire episode was one of Luckovich’s legendary practical jokes. Winner of both the Pulitzer and the NCS Reuben, Luckovich is notorious for committing satirical drolleries in public. He has attended more than one occasion of high ceremonial import wearing dark glasses with one end of a phone cord stuck in his ear, the other snaked down the back of his neck and under his jacket collar. This crass impersonation of a security personage seems to work. At the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2006, Luckovich perpetrated this prank and managed to fool Henry Kissinger, who asked Luckovich to escort him to the security area. (That’s another Mike, Mike Peters, with him in the accompanying illustration.) 
 
 

KEITH KNIGHT: CHIVALRY AIN'T DEAD

Keith Knight’s compendium of his strip, The Knight Life: Chivalry Ain’t Dead (224 8.5x11-inch pages, b/w dailies and Sundays in color; paperback, $17.99) is in hand. It reprints 3 daily strips to a page, leaving lots of white space, which makes Keef’s minimal artwork seem even more minimal; 4 to a page wouldn’t have crowded up the pages at all and might have created a better visual impression. But that’s a quibble. Keef’s irreverent humor is amply evident, on every page, and he’s added footnotes of relevant comment to many strips. On a Sunday, for instance, the subject is “ye olde comic book convention,” and Keef appends: “Someone wrote to say how stupid I was for spelling ‘old’ wrong.” About the gray tone adorning his wife’s torso: “Kerstin’s shirt became darker after the syndicate thought she looked nude in a white shirt.” Clarence the street musician “has a different instrument every time.” And more, much more, throughout the volume.