[September 20th] The New 52, Week 2

Part for time two of my DC’s The New 52 recommendation list. Out of the thirteen titles from last week’s release I set my eyes on the following precious, chosen ones. I've read most of them and the ones I haven't mentioned are the ones I will need two or three more issues to decide on whether to recommend of not.

[Batwoman] Easily, the most visually stunning comic book I’ve ever read. This is art of the highest concept, which could make me ignore even the shittiest story. Thankfully, the story is promising, especially with the supernatural angle.

[Demon Knights] Interesting bunch of immortals grouped together against a dynamic backdrop in popular mythological era. Madame Xanadu is a pure joy to read and the flirt with Etrigan promises for a fertile development ahead.

[Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.] Father Time as a small Japanese school girl. A group of highly recognized monsters as black ops team. A mummy as a cleric. Need I say more?

[Resurrection Man] Not very clear with what ‘overdue’ means or what the heck is happening at the moment, but the concept is nice and the writing to solidify the superpower is strong. I will gladly explore where this will head.

[Superboy] Can I say this is perfect? No, but there is a high possibility to see Superboy in a hero against hero action, which I so adore. Plus the theme about people that are being made and therefore are broken or incomplete fascinate me.

[September 19th] The New 52 Week 1

I’m, yet again, missing in action, so this is why I’m late to comment on the first releases from the DC reboot. If you can’t tell, I’m excited, cause I’m a super hero fetishist and in the mean time I receive a strange tingling sensation, when my eyes zero in ‘#1’. From the thirteen titles released in the first week, I can recommend five as I know that those five I’ll be reading with a great interest.

[Action Comics] I admit I’ve never given Superman the chance he deserves. His purity puts me off, but with the reboot, Superman has a bit more character and comes off enjoyable in his cocky behavior. I’m very interested to see where this series is heading.

[Animal Man] The cover art had me drooling right after the line-up had been introduced and I have no idea, who Animal Man is. His powers kind of remind me of B’wana Beast, but I kind of only know B’wana from The Brave and The Bold. Fantastic first issue. It’s something I’d enjoy writing and reading in any format.

[Batgirl] It’s Barbara Gordon and Gail Simone. So far the first issue is wobbly with a rather weird nemesis and baffling last pages, but I’m not losing faith yet.

[Stormwatch] I have no idea, where this is going, nor do I know any of the characters, but I praise the superpower of speaking to cities. Yes, I’m reading a series because of a concept, but as far as I know, this is the sole series to tackle the overarching universal plot. This might get interesting.

[Swamp Thing] Good writing and interesting story, if you don’t trouble yourself with who in tarnation is the lead character: a human, a creature or a genetic margarita of both. Bonus point for nailing one of my favorite powers, plant life manipulation.

[September 5th] Thoughts on JLA Issue 1

In the wake of The New 52 here is what I think about the 1st issue of the new Justice League series. Statler and Waldorf summarize the rollercoaster I entered, when I opened my issue:

Jim Lee’s art kept me attention. Although I’m not partial to how he draws Batman’s chin [I’m guilty of watching too much The Brave and The Bold], Lee commands the panel. I wish that Geoff Johns could do the same in the writing department. While it’s true that he captures the emblematic douche-ness of Green Lantern Hal Jordon [a character I dislike and the more I’m exposed to his dialogue, the more I dislike the comic]; I feel as though half of what he says is unnecessary.

I’m unaware what the general opinion for infodumping is for comic books, because I’ve read older series, where a speech bubble took two thirds of a one-third-page panel, but Geoff is in details, which I don’t care for. Do I really need to know how Batman got the tip for the alien thing that did something at the docks? Do I really want to know Hal’s life story, considering both heroes are on the run from the police?

After the initial introductions between Batman and Green Lantern, the issue follows a very repetitive pattern. Batman says something, Jordan acts on impulse rather than any reasoning, something unexpected happens and then Batman swoops in to fix things. Check the ending, which foreshadows Batman vs. Superman fight*. I’m also not at all pleased with Batman’s new need to prove himself superior or more accurately the writer’s goal to have him be superior. The easy peasy way how he figured how the power ring worked and guessed what the robot planted in the sewer, when the power ring failed too.

Another issue I had stems from Cyborg’s pre-hero arc. While I do care, who Victor Stone was before becoming Cyborg, I don’t believe starting as far away from his origin is justified. First, his appearance is disconnected from the main plot [though plot is an overstatement right now] and then this first issue has to establish the readers’ interest in a staccato pace. Maybe Stone’s accident as a cliff-hanger would have boosted the appeal.

Is this a bad comic book? In on itself, no. Considering how many months went into The New 52 in terms of promotion and promises how everything would be altered, yes. I’ve read worse, but I can’t deny that this issue suffers from inefficient storytelling.

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* Also who else thinks a Batman vs. Superman brawl is as cliché as ideas come.

[September 4th] What the Water Gave Me

I've been in a creative dead zone as of late. I've found myself interested in digesting art in all of its mediums rather than creating, which is always a bad thing, when my goal is complete these final edits before undertaking my trip to the UK. In the mean time, I've found it rather cathartic to add some order to my computer's hundreds of files and burn discs with files and movies. Again, while a fun, control-freakish activity is hurting my productivity.

I'll try to be good, but I can't promise anything.

As a peace treaty, I'm offering my new slice of inspiration "What the Water Gave Me" by Florence + the Machine, whose yet untitled album will be released on November 7th.

[August 24th] Weird Tales' sudden change of editors

I'm very distraught at the news that Weird Tales has been sold and its staff fired. As I learn from The World SF Blog, a writer named Marvin Kaye has bought it in order to edit it himself. Details on the purchase are scarce and are competently summarized in the link I've provided. I find this very hard to swallow.

One of my goals as a writer was to have a short story accepted by Weird Tales under VanderMeer as an editor. Now that won't happen. I also lament the loss of the all female staff, which managed, in my honest opinion, to bring a state of Reconnaissance to the magazine. I can't say what will happen with the magazine now. I do hope it maintains popularity and credibility, but I am distraught that such an exciting and innovative era has come to an end.

Here is Ann's farewell letter.

[August 23rd] The Mall by S.L. Grey

As I prepare for my interview with writer duo S.L. Grey, I'll leave you guys to watch the trailer of their book "The Mall," which is a refreshing take on horror.



It doesn't just scare, it disturbs and leaves you in unease through most of the time. Enjoy:

[August 22nd] Sex, Anime and YA at random

This one is called "The Crying Tree"

I've been thinking about various topics to discuss in a blog post and also, I've been having random thoughts that can't exactly manifest into full fledged posts. So I'm stitching them together.

1] I'm tired of sex being ignored in fiction as an important pillar in a character's growth and arc. I see sex either tag along with ('naughtier') romance novels, where it acquires a sweet, sweet aura as 'making love' or I see sex turned into a weapon, either as manipulation or as violence. It's why most villainesses are portrayed as depraved or highly sexual. Poison Ivy, anyone? Catwoman certainly appears on a lot more pinup style art than say Wonder Woman? Why? Cause she is a bad girl, both from a legal and moral standpoint. When sex takes on a more important role in a work, the work itself is deemed as less important, because sex equals porn equals mindless fornication equals no place for a good story.

2] Japan needs to stop with the superhero crossovers they have picked up. Iron Man flat lined in a sense that Japan simply can't peg down his vices in a way that makes Tony Stark himself. Not to mention that the X-Men overhaul is appalling. While the Scott/Jean post-Dark Phoenix drama fits the Japanese storytelling method in anime, Emma Frost does not cry. Her name is Frost for a reason, you know. Composure. Yet, all the female characters are reduced to crying and panicky weaklings. Not to mention the breasts. I do not like the swollen flesh balloons and I do not like the closeups of them jiggling.

3] At the same time, I have to compliment Japan on giving the world "Ergo Proxy" and "Dead Man Wonderland". Though a bit typical for Japan as a story type, both follow a wonderful art direction, which more or less for my 'oh shiny' syndrome is a big plus.

4] Is YA a genre? From my comments on my Saturday post, it was mentioned that YA is an age classification, but more or less it has become a label and the term YA now creates certain assumptions and expectations, much like how Epic Fantasy makes the reader expect a multi-factional war. I feel the same way, when I hear adult fiction. I instantly think of sex and violence with a dose of reckless decadence.

5] I watched "Hanna" and was impressed. Just WOAH. It made me think of being a voyeour in a musical video game reality.

[August 20th] YA Fiction is Female Territory, No Boys Allowed

I've been minding my own business on Twitter, when the @booksmugglers tweeted a link leading to a NY Times article, which in short complains that there are no books for boys and that YA books target a predominant female audience. You can see from the opening paragraph that you're about enter a bizarre world:

"At an American Library Association conference in 2007, HarperCollins dressed five of its male young adult authors in blue baseball jerseys with our names on the back and sent us up to bat in a panel entitled “In the Clubhouse.” We were meant to demystify to the overwhelmingly female audience the testosterone code that would get teenage boys reading. Whereas boys used to lag behind girls in reading in the early grades, statistics show, they soon caught up. Not anymore."

The author, Robert Lypsite, tries to convince the readers of his article that boys don't read because all modern YA fiction is geared towards girls. I think what Mister Lypsite is trying to say is that most popular and marketed YA novels that are spoken of are somewhat female centric. The Twilight boom has definitely boosted the profile of this particular YA genre. Is that a bad thing for boys and their literacy? Not necessarily.

For one, I as a boy always tried to read books written for adults. Can I say that based on my own experience I can judge for other boys? Probably not, especially not for American youth, when in fact I live elsewhere, but from my experience boys that do read, have been reading books with a very adult content, which was not especially targeted for them. Again, this may have a reasonable explanation in my country's case as we survive on the translated works from other countries, with our own national literary scene decomposing somewhere.

I think that boys read, but they may not read what Mister Lypsite is selling at the moment. As with all genres there are trends, certain genres and certain audiences rise to prominence, but that does not mean that there isn't anything else out there for other target audiences. It's just not in plain sight, which I think is far from the dramatic question Lypsite poses in his title "Is there any hope?"

Furthermore, I take gripe with the fact that most of his statements read like fabrications without any solid examples. Who said that editors "ask writers of books for boys to include girl characters — for commercial reasons —" and why would that "further blunt the edges"? I'm not a fan of the reasoning that a girl in fiction acts as a kryptonite for masculinity. And then of course comes the mandatory bash-speculative-fiction with "supernatural space-and-sword epics that read like video game manuals and sports novels with preachy moral messages — often seem like cynical appeals to the lowest common denominator".

Right, so the issue that Lypsite has is that boys are reading, but not what he's selling. Though I may be a bit biased by now, cause he certainly bashed speculative fiction. The whole article he wrote supports the theory that boys are interested in different readings such as nonfiction and that modern themes such as "disease, divorce, death and dysfunction" test better with girls. And I'm certain that should boys shift their interest in massive numbers to a genre, the industry will definitely pick it up and alter accordingly.

Plus, I think that the majority of boys are reading speculative fiction at the moment, but the one aimed at adults [though I am just stating this as a fact I have no data to back it].

SO, is there any hope for us poor, boys?

[August 19th] There is a difference from bird of prey to bird of prey

Two days ago I finished reading Birds of Prey, volume 2. I'm a huge fan of Gail Simone and this is the sole DC series, I was able to follow without having to read multiple others. The first volume, which ran from 1999 to 2009 turned into my all time favorite series. The reason: an almost all female ensemble cast from the brawn to the brains to the designated driver. I love female super heroes and it has little to do with pubescent male wish fulfillment, but more with the strong ties in my childhood, when I was exposed to the Magic Girl anime sub-genre.

Since those days a woman in a costume fighting crime/evil supernatural menaces strikes a very deep, creative cord in me. Birds of Prey came to me as a refreshment in a testosterone filled spandex universe and fully embraced the concept of a female warrior. It works. The first volume under Simone did and the second volume under Simone did. Whenever the series was written by a man, it kinda did click with me much. Not say that men can't write female characters. Paul Dini did a fantastic job with Gotham City Sirens, although that title felt more sexual and naughty.

Now, with the DC Universe reboot or relaunch or whatever they are calling it these days, a writer other than Simone will be heading the series. I'm not familiar with Duane Swierczynski's work, but he sure ain't no Gail Simone. The worst offense the people at DC did was mess with the cardinal cast:

Oracle will no longer be Oracle, but a very mobile Batgirl. I'm not sure whether the series will survive without Oracle, because it was because of Oracle's mind games that each issue blew me away. The intricate cat and mouse games, the deception and infiltration and double crossing. Without Barbara Gordon as the mastermind behind this operation, the Birds of Prey will be just like any other superhero team. And that is sad.

There will be no Huntress, no Zinda... Only the Black Canary, who also got a costume redesign I'd not wish on my worst enemy. Can any one recognize Dinah? I sure, almost, couldn't. Then we have Katana, whom I care for none. A new character, who may be of some interest and then Poison Ivy. Poison Ivy suffers again from a superhero fashion faux pax, but I think that the change from a villain to a semi-hero would be interesting to see. Almost like a mirror version of what Huntress was, a hero tip toeing to the dark side from time to time.

Either way, it's a shame that the guys at DC didn't at the very least keep artist Stanley Lau, who produced all the beautiful covers for volume two:

Will I love volume three? Possibly not... The very least I can give it a chance and see whether Ivy might not make it bearable.

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I'm back on the editing train. I'm two days behind and by the looks of it, I will possibly miss my deadline. I've finished the chapters I'm happy with and will now write brand new ones, inserting the very menacing agent Thater. Ouch.

Project: Crimson Cacophony
Chapters Edited: 20
Words total: 37,303/90,000 (with 30,000 to add)
Chapters left: 16 (supposedly)

[August 18th] First Sale: What does it mean?

I'm going for a simplistic piece. I'm a writer. It's me and the words.

Last Saturday, I’ve hit a milestone in my path [‘career’ sounds too presumptuous at this point] as a writer. My dark fantasy short story “Hurricane Drunk” has been accepted by the editor of Arcane Magazine for their second issue. Writing these words still feels a bit weird. I’m used to the rejection routine; send a short story and receive a rejection.

I literally had to reread the acceptance email to understand that I’ve done it. I’ve sold a story. To a magazine [awesome one at that]. A paying venue. It’s a simple thing that has happened. Someone said yes [though not just anybody, I always aim high]. Yet, this ‘yes’ resulted in a complicated emotional response. At first I roared [though in reality I probably sounded like a squeaking rodent, which found cheese heaven], I felt as though I have conquered the world. It still does.

Publication. One word and a thousand victories attached to it. It’s saying, ‘yes, I’ve been paid to have my short story appear in venue X,’ to the people, who ask ‘have you sold anything’ and try to belittle your craft. It’s receiving appreciation. It’s verification that you can do it. It’s the hope that this is just the beginning and that if you invest further, you may reap more. For me publication has an additional meaning.

It means that I’ve crossed the language barrier. It means that I get to slay my greatest fear in the face. Writing in itself is hard. Crafting stories in any language challenges the mind and has no exact regulations other than the obvious grammatical ones. Writing in a language that isn’t yours raises the bar and makes it ‘nigh impossible’ to an artistic soul with a paranoia [*clears throat*].

All the rejections I’ve received whispered to me ‘the editors can sense that you are slipping on a skin that is not yours; they can tell; they know and they will not have none of that.’ I don’t live in an English speaking community. I have no sense of how the language is spoken on a day to day basis. I’m not immersed in the cultural undercurrent connected to the language. How am I supposed to recreate the authenticity of the language, if I’m not exposed to it? This is the question, which burrowed between the lines of every paragraph I wrote.

I understand that I’m fretting over technicalities, but a story can’t live on a ramshackled stage. It doesn’t work, when the writing itself ejects you from what’s going on the page. This first sale proves that all my love for the English language comes across in my sentence structures and word choices and equates me to other writers at least on a technical level [bearing in mind that every writer has his/her unique voice].

What the first sale isn’t, is a law that states that from now everything will be fine and dandy. As people say, it’s easy to get published. It’s hard to stay published. The first sale is a promise of what may happen. Whether it does happen or not depends on the individual. Needless to say, I’ll work towards establishing my name in a niche. It seems possible, now that all doubts and fears are slumbering in their cave.