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not-the-blue · 2 years

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(all new hawkeye [2015], jeff lemire & ramon perez)

finally got around to reading all new hawkeye (2015). only reason it took this long is because i have a long standing feud with lemire ever since doctor star (why did it suck jeff???).

while i do think ANH was extremely fanfic-y in its writing, and not necessarily in a good way, even though i love fanfic - the characterization was clunky, exaggerated and, like i told @evilwickedme, about as subtle as ten bricks to the nuts - i like this barney take. it reads like lemire standing outside with a cardboard sign shouting what he thinks of these characters, but it gets the point across - barney is a big brother in every sense of the word, he's had to protect clint from some tough shit, and he can't afford to have anything like clint's strict moral code. and it's because of him that clint gets to have it, and it's because of him that clint gets to be a superhero.

he DID leave clint to die at the circus after his fight with swordman. he DID go on to lead a life of crime - petty or serious, depending on the run - and he DID hurt a lot of people, including clint. people tend to paint him as an unredeemable abuser because of that. but barney, not unlike clint, has always been the regular guy that does his best. yes unlike clint, his best is never good enough, and that's fascinating to me, on a character level. his moral ambiguity has been explored since his very first appearance and it's great and i love him

in this house we love, respect and sometimes fear barney barton, a big brother who tries his best.

i'm glad all new hawkeye said it with no room for ambiguity, but i still think some of my mutuals could've done a better, subtler character exploration. stop letting people i'm enemies with write my blorbos marvel i'll bite you

#i talk about comics #barney barton #i wanted to write more about barney but instead i just bitch a lot about lemire's writing lmao #i liked his stuff!!! but then i read doctor star and it sucked so bad it burst his writing bubble #made me see the flaws better because they were so naked ther #like with matt fraction and jimmy olsen #sorry not sorry

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nofacednerd · 10 months

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Were you always a Superman fan before the show?

I would consider myself a fan, but I think the hardcore comics people wouldn't lol

I've always enjoyed him conceptually and I've liked DC comics (and comics in general) for years, but admittedly, I haven't read as many Superman comics as I'd like :( I think that's partially because writers will either write him boring or they're tom taylor I mean what's the difference lmaoooo

Fun fact: I DID once put together a powerpoint presentation about how Clark is Jewish as fuck for school (technically it was a presentation about propaganda and representation in comics but still)

So yeah, I think I would consider myself a fan before the show, but the show DEFINITELY made me more of a fan. I was super excited for it when they announced it at Fandome a few years ago and it's sooooooo good. I need people to write Clark like this more pls pls pls

#also I've like. seen smallville and stuff #I also have this pre-superman novelization about clark that was inspired by smallville?#and there's a bunch of comics I totally read legally a few years ago but I really don't own any physical copies :pensive:#most recently I read the Matt Fraction Jimmy Olsen run tho because I LOVE his hawkeye run and saw it in a store #I tend to read more bat stuff but in general my FAVORITE FAVORITE comic run is Young Justice (OG run not the CN stuff)#so. I guess technically I've read more Kon than Clark :(

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trinitea-fics · 2 years

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Trades of comic runs going out of print so often is my villain origin story

#matt fraction's jimmy olsen is already out of print and it's only been two years???#offended #most of my comic reading is p*rated or from the library #but i wanna have a collection of the stuff I enjoy you know?#(also cuz I don't like digital as much as physical)#cuz I don't want to be tracking down copies form ebay 10 years down the line cuz I wanna reread it #but NOOOOO #that's the tea

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jesncin · 1 month

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I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but why did you decide to make Lex Luthor, whose motivation is basically racism and xenophobia from my understanding, a person of color? This isn’t like, a criticism, more just, I really like your JL remix stuff and you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one

I understand the curiosity! But I have to point out that "you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one" made me laugh, haha. Long answer coming because I have a lot of feelings- but the point in the very end is worth it, trust me.

So for one, Lex is Afro-Greek in my version. This comes from the popular headcanon that STAS/DCAU Lex is Black (and his design is based on a Greek man). His character design, skin tone, and Clancy Brown's enigmatic performance became unintentional perceived representation for Black fans (and even DC writers). And now in the Harley Quinn show, that's become canonized! For why they like it, that's not my place to say as a non-Black person- so I listen!

I don't agree that Lex's motivation is "basically racism and xenophobia"- his themes are much broader than that. It's the desire to be the Man of Tomorrow, his jealousy of Superman, the way his intellect alone is a match against Superman's strength. Sometimes that jealousy is expressed through bigotry, but it's all a means to an end for Lex. My approach is: if Lex being Black is something we want to integrate more into his character, what opportunities does that open up narratively? Because there's rich potential for him and the characters connected to him.

When discussing MAWS I talk a lot about how when you're writing a bigoted marginalized character, there needs to be specifity with where that internalized bigotry is coming from. So a change like that for Lex Luthor could, for example; discuss how privileges like wealth can assimilate otherwise marginalized people into the kind of power that harms others in their community.

The ripple affect this has on a character like Superboy/Conner is that we get to see how -even though they're both Luthors- Conner is profiled, othered and further marginalized as a Kryptonian and a Black homeless teen because he doesn't get to benefit from any of Lex's privileges. This is just part of the many reasons why I think Conner would be infinitely more interesting if he didn't look like Kal El despite being a clone. You get to see a new intersection of how the Kryptonian identity intersects with Blackness on Earth. The potential ripple effect for a character like Lena is also really fun! What if she's struggling with her own model minority pressure when she's making up for her brother's crimes? It's all very compelling!

And MOST importantly, in a 3 trillion IQ Lex Luthor-style move-making Lex Luthor Black means that some version of Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen arc exists in my au. Which famously hinges on the twist that LEX LUTHOR AND JIMMY OLSEN ARE DISTANTLY RELATED. THEREFORE!!! We have now found a convoluted way to have Wacky Renaissance Artist Jimmy Olsen connected to The Manifestation Of Black Excellence Evil Edition Lex Luthor in this au.

#askjesncin #jesncin dc meta #lex luthor #remember how in Crazy Rich Asians the inspiring moral was “u can transcend racism with ungodly wealth”#when that should be dystopian actually #also Lex being Black isn't “marginalized evil person” trope when he isn't the sole Black person in the Supers cast #the weight of representation isn't placed on one character- so why not have some evil ones for a variety of reasons

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ladyloveandjustice · 1 year

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My favorite Manga and Graphic Novels I Read in 2022

I read 54 different manga and graphic novel series in 2022 (you can see them here, from the beginning until the print novels start with Hench. I only included one from each series for my own weird reasons but I'm up to date on everything except Adachi and Shimamura and Prince Freya, which I dropped for now). You can also see my favorite novels of 2022 here!

Here are my favorites!

Snapdragon by Kat Leyh

A young girl gets involved with a witch who has has lots of skeletons (animal and otherwise). I’ve always loved Leyh’s work, and this is her usual super queer fantasy that has everything I adore- cute art, cool witches, animal magic, older butch lesbians with eye patches, lovable characters and lots of sweetness.

SHWD by Sono.N

It’s refreshing to see a dark sci-fi yuri about incredibly ripped adult women fighting monsters, and it really pulls off the horror of the monsters well with some gripping action. The characters were pretty charming too and there was a lot of attention paid to the trauma of the situation.

However, it does have a 'character who looks like a child', which is not my favorite trope for a lot reasons. It bothers me a bit less than other series because the art style does not do cutesy. She just looked like a short adult. The reasoning for having her there was...interesting, I'm not sure where they'll go with that, but it's original, though potentially weird?

Anyway, I like what it's doing and I'm interested to see where this goes. I hope we continue to get a variety of yuri like this published over here!

The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This by Takashi Ikeda

Two ladies- 32-year-old anime screenwriter and 22-year-old newbie anime voice actress- live together and navigate their romantic relationship. It’s mostly done in short vignettes, but the central couple has a fun dynamic and the art is nice, and some plot threads slowly develop as the books go on. It’s a cozy read, and it’s nice to see the ups and downs of an adult relationship where they share living space. I also find the 32 year old attractive, to be honest, I’d date her.

Until I Met My Husband by Ryousuke Nanasaki, art by Yoshi Tsukizuki

An autobiographical story of the first religiously recognized gay marriage in Japan. It’s not super lengthy or meaty, but it’s a sweet read.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

You might have heard of this book based on how it was banned in a lot of places, it’s simply an autobiographical story of growing up genderqueer. It’s a breezy read with some nice evocative art, and Kobabe is pretty relatable.

Nubia: Real One by L.L. McKinney, Art by Robin Smith

I read a bunch of the DC standalone YA offerings from the library this year and found most of them to be a let-down, but this was a good one. It follows a young Nubia, a black girl who discovers she’s an Amazon related to Wonder Woman herself, and uses her abilities to confront some very real dangers and injustices, while also struggling against racism and other forms of prejudice. Satisfying, solid YA.

Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? By Matt Fraction, Art by Steve Lieber

Another library read. A fun riff on the zaniness of Silver Age Jimmy Olsen comics with a healthy does of humor, it follows the bizarre life of Superman’s BFF as he tries to avoid assassination and does some viral YouTube videos .I especially liked the weird but sweet relationship Jimmy and Clark had in this, and the gentle dunking on Batman.

Run Away With Me, Girl by Battan

Maki’s girlfriend, Midori, broke up with her during her high school graduation, saying she had to “move on” to dating guys now that she was grown up. Ten years later, Maki runs into Midori and finds she’s in an abusive relationship with a man she’s engaged to after getting pregnant. Maki asks Midori to run away with her, but will she?

This is definitely a darker yuri- the abuse Midori faces escalates, and the dude she’s with is basically an incel- but it’s handling the subject matter well so far and I’m really interested to see where it goes. There’s been a notable amount of yuri lately that’s tackled the belief that love for other women is just a childish phase, but this is the first one I’ve seen that explores what happens to a woman who believes that and forces herself into a heterosexual relationship. The abuse Midori faces is not at all framed as her ‘just desserts’ or anything, but a tragic circumstance that happened to a woman who was desperate to fit in and not be alone. The art is also fantastic and distinctive. I really hope it sticks the landing!

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki

A slice-of-life foodie yuri manga! Nomoto cooks more than she can eat, and she notices her next-door neighbor is a big eater and invites her over. A very slowburn romance strikes up. I got interested in this because of the authors marriage equality activism, and it’s a cute read. It’s laid back and slow paced, but there are nice moments of realism that make it very grounded- the way the women talk about being mistreated at work, Nomoto complaining that all the fashion articles she look up talk about impressing men- it was relatable! I also liked that Kasuga is large and butch and doesn’t have to look conventionally ‘cute’.

Cheer Up: Love and Pom-Poms by Crystal Fraiser

A cute YA about an acerbic young lesbian joining the cheer squad and repairing her relationship with her people-pleasing trans friend. It’s for a younger audience, but it’s a sweet romance with adorable art.

I Want to Be A Wall by Honami Shirono

I’m interested to see where this one goes. An aro-ace woman and a gay man in love with his (seemingly, so far) straight best friend enter a marriage of convenience. Yuriko’s obsessive BL fandom can get annoying, but it’s always refreshing to see the ace character represented and the manga is realistic about the struggles we face. I’m rooting for this one!

Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon by Shio Usui

A slow burn office lady romance, it’s just downright cute. It might be a little slowpaced for some but I enjoyed it!

Catch These Hands! by Murata

I’m a huge sucker for delinquent girls, so the story of two former delinquent girl rivals who meet again as adults, only for one to challenge each other to a fight with the condition that she’ll date her if she loses? Sign me up! This is, unfortunately, a little uneven- the second volume was kinda eh and introduced an annoying side character with some questionable tropes-but the third volume picked things up again and included a wonderfully absurd training montage. Though it starts with one of the women wanting to change and appear less like a delinquent and more ‘normal’, the clear message of the series is she doesn’t need to. If you don’t like any kind of violence, no matter how weird and divorced from reality, this isn’t for you though, as there is the whole challenge-to-a-fight thing, but it’s tongue in cheek and wacky enough I don’t mind.

Continuing favorites:

Witch Hat Atelier- Can't believe Witch Hat punched the 'funny anime pervert' trope to dust like it deserves, while also exploring and denouncing victim blaming in a genuinely affecting way. This manga is legendary. Also I'm very worried for everyone.

Yuri is My Job!- Really escalated wonderfully with it’s tangled web of relationships, rich backstories, and commentary on how people, especially queer people, often put on a performance. What IS the true self? One character’s commentary on how she wanted her work place to ‘like romance without the romance’ (a la class S) yet can’t suppress her true romantic fantasies was especially well-done. There’s also a character saying ‘friggin’ heteros’. The accurate representation we need, clearly. I just really enjoy this cast of characters.

Spy x Family (A Yor arc! Finally! And there’s just as much murder and mayhem as that should entail!), My Love Mix Up! (continues to be adorable), Yona of the Dawn (dramatic backstory reveals!), How Do We Relationship? (it’s really interesting to read a gay romance where the central relationship is acknowledged as not good for both of them and they try to move on), Delicious in Dungeon (the dungeon adventures are ramping up!), A Man and His Cat (more kitty cuteness), The Way of the House Husband (more hijinks), Bride’s Story (another volume of the beautiful historical epic! It’s been a while.), The Adventure Zone graphic novels (continue to be a lot fun with fantastic art), I Think Our Son is Gay (continues to be a sweet look at a mom supportive of her gay son), Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun (I’ll always love these idiots) and My Wandering Warrior Existence by Kabi Nagata (another entry in Nagata’s moving autobiographical series about the struggles of mental illness, self reflection, and queer exploration).

#my reviews #year in comics #snapdragon #shwd #the two of them are pretty much like this #run away with me girl #she loves to cook and she loves to eat #I want to be a wall #witch hat atelier #yuri is my job #catch these hands #doughnuts under a crescent moon #manga #yuri #dc comics #comics #books #recs

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buriedalienfma · 10 months

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This week saw the release of episode 5 of 'My Adventures with Superman', and as usual I wanted to share my thoughts on it. I feel like the writing in this episode was a lot stronger than the previous episodes, and a couple of things that I nitpicked in those episodes have been improved this time around. The show is slowly starting to build on the plot threads that its been setting up, and that made this episode very exciting to watch.

And with the obligatory spoiler warning, here's my thoughts on Episode 5:

- It's nice that this episode places a little bit more focus on Jimmy Olsen and how he feels like a bit of a third wheel in the main trio. It makes it seem like the lack of focus on him in the previous episodes was intentional. Jimmy being a conspiracy nut is a funny take on the character, but I have to point out that some of things that Jimmy talks about as part of his conspiracies - the existence of Atlantis, the psychic Starfish, etc - are all things that are well established in the DC Comics. This gives me even more hope that this show will take inspiration from the Silver Age Jimmy Olsen comics or the 2019 Jimmy Olsen series by Matt Fraction.

- The dynamic between Steve and Jimmy was pretty entertaining and I like that Steve actually had some insights on the friendship dynamic between the main trio.

- The show follows up on the cliffhanger from the previous episode with Lois trying to prove that Clark Kent is Superman. That's such a classic Superman plot point and I love it. There's some funny gags here, like Clark constantly rushing off everytime he hears a crime on the radio, only for the radio to report on Superman taking care of the situation.

- I also like that Clark is invested in trying to trace the connection between the villains from the previous episodes and the stolen tech that they were using. That's yet another plot point that's followed up on from previous episodes, and that helps to make the writing of this episode feel stronger.

- Through a convoluted series of events, Superman and Lois eventually discover that the villains that they've been fighting in the previous episodes have been kidnapped by a third group of people. That group consists of Slade Wilson, Amanda Waller and a third unknown man who seems to have a grudge against Superman for unknown reasons. Some people have speculated that this man could be Sam Lane, Lois Lane's father. And honestly, I hope that's true. You can get so much drama and interesting stories out of Lois's father being one of Superman's antagonists.

- Slade Wilson and his gang get into a skirmish with Superman and they go all out in trying to capture him. The fight scene in this episode feels a lot more visceral and exciting compared to the previous episodes. It just feels more fast paced, there's more than one enemy involved and Superman is constantly kept on his toes while still getting beat up. I also like that Superman is on the losing end for much of the fight until civilians are put in harms way, at which point he stops pulling his punches and turns the tables. I've said it before, but this show totally gets Superman and what he's all about. He's not just a guy who only exists to punch supervillains. He genuinely wants to help and protect others.

- During the fight scene, Slade Wilson states that they're the good guys while the third unknown man stops the fight when civilians are put in danger. It's clear to me that these antagonists are a part of Task Force X, a morally grey Government organization from the comics. This show hints that the organization has some connection to Clark's past and that the third man might have some personal history with Superman ? We'll have to see where that plot point goes.

- And finally, the biggest plot point in this episode - Lois finds out that Clark is Superman. To be honest, I was hoping that the show might hold off on Lois finding out the secret until later on, but this works for me too. The relationship between the two can be developed a lot more once you get that out of the way. But now that the secrets out, there's a lot more tension between Clark and Lois and they have a bit of a falling out. In fact that's the main theme of this episode which had two main plot threads. The "A" plot focused on the rising conflict between Clark and Lois and while the "B" plot that focused on Jimmy didn't appear to be connected to the "A" plot, there's still a thematic connection with Jimmy starting to resent Clark and Lois for not being there for him which leads to all three members of the trio having a falling out with each other. I like that there's some tension in this group. You can't just have the relationships be wholesome forever, and the group could feel even stronger when they eventually sort out the tension that they have with each other. This is especially true when it comes to the romance between Lois and Clark. It's at its best when the characters have some drama to work through. Hell, that's the premise of one of my favorite short Superman stories, "Glasses" by Jeff Loveness and Tom Grummett. I'm very excited for how the future episodes will deal with this conflict.

So that's episode 5. It's a great episode and an improvement over the previous episodes. I can only hope that the show will continue to improve even more and I can't wait for more episodes.

#my adventures with superman #superman #clark kent #lois lane #jimmy olsen #dc animation

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nitewrighter · 23 days

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One of these days I'd be interested in doing a deep dive on like, how aspects of 90's Comics Ron Troupe ended up getting slotted into MAWS's Jimmy Olsen. Like, don't get me wrong, MAWS's Jimmy definitely still has classic Jimmy Olsen pluckiness, goofiness, and like, a certain level of Silver Age derangement that we saw in Matt Fraction's Jimmy Olsen that got translated to MAWS Jimmy being a DC-universe-accurate conspiracy theory nut, but also the original comics Jimmy Olsen was always kind of like Lois and Clark's joint-custody sidekick and they keep putting him through whole arcs where he's scrambling to be taken seriously. Comics!Ron Troupe on the other hand is a newcomer to the Daily Planet compared to Clark and Lois, but quickly establishes himself as a peer through sheer braininess--and you actually see him as coworker that ends up filling in this kind of third wheel role to Clark and Lois when Jimmy leaves the Planet, but rather than a cub reporter it's as this very intelligent and competent peer who also has his moments of geekiness and sensitivity. I dunno, it's this really fascinating look at how workplace hierarchies have evolved and the characters have evolved with them. Like they had to plug in those "Ron" aspects to MAWS's Jimmy to really establish the trio as a group of peers.

#my adventures with superman #jimmy olsen #ron troupe #dc #I just like Ron a lot he's lowkey the mvp of the Daily Planet

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dragonomatopoeia · 2 years

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Working Bibliography

This is a (currently incomplete) inventory of the sources I'm pulling from when researching material for Counter/Feint. It will be divided into three sections: General References (for things like sewage treatment, state laws, tax codes, white collar crime, etc), Original Media (for comics, episodes, movies etc), and In-Line References/Allusions (for when a character's narration makes a literary allusion, uses jargon, or directly quotes a line from part of the source material)

some of them will be in MLA format and some won't because i am prone to arbitrary whims

General References

“A Fix for Combined Sewers — The Cost of Cleanliness.” PBS, 8 June 2022, https://www.pbs.org/show/a-fix-for-combined-sewers-the-cost-of-cleanliness/. Accessed 5 Sept. 2022.

Collins, Chuck. The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions. Polity, 2021.

Delaware's Regulatory Provisions Concerning Public Health

Delaware Solid Waste Auth. v. News-Journal Co., 480 A.2d 628 (Del. 1984)

Hanley, Tim. Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet's Ace Reporter. Chicago Review Press, 2016.

Houston, Brant, et al. The Investigative Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases and Techniques. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

Kurkjian, Stephen A. Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled off the World's Greatest Art Heist. Public Affairs, 2016.

Kent County, Delaware's Sewer Regulations

Michel, Casey. American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the Greatest Money-Laundering Scheme in History. Scribe, 2021.

Murphy, Jarrett. “Through Illegal Pipes and Improper Dumping, Homes and Businesses Pollute NYC Waterways.” City Limits, 17 Jan. 2018, https://citylimits.org/2018/01/16/in-unknown-numbers-and-often-unwittingly-homes-and-businesses-pollute-city-waterways/.

Planet Princeton's award-winning series of investigative pieces on the Princeton Sewer Operating Plant bribery case, including this piece: https://planetprinceton.com/2020/03/08/state-fined-municipality-of-princeton-35000-for-operating-illegal-dump-at-sewer-facility/

Ritter, Roy H. “The Wilmington, Delaware Sewerage System.” Sewage and Industrial Wastes, vol. 28, no. 5, 1956, pp. 644–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25033068. Accessed 5 Aug. 2022.

Original Media

Superman: The Animated Series- "World's Finest" - This one started the whole exercise because I thought it was hysterical that Lois had dated Bruce/ found out he was Batman WAY before she learnt anything about Superman's identity. Hilarious.

Superman: TAS- "The Late Mr. Kent"- This one's important to me and my characterization of Clark for about one million separate reasons

Batman: TAS- All of it

Batman #177- notable for Bruce Wayne's love of cubist expressionism and also the character of Roy Rennie who shows up here and never again. He wants to be the Alfred Foundation's publicist so, so, so bad. I have realized his dream

chapter 2 edit: this is also where the Lathrop Gallery comes from! In the comics, the Lathrop Gallery received an endowment from the Alfred foundation

Fraction, Matt, et al. Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? DC Comics, 2020.- This is in MLA again because it's physically in front of me. It has a profound impact on my characterization, especially Lois's. Her disdain for conspiracy theories and insistence on using the term 'sociogram' over 'conspiracy board' comes from this. It's also the origin of Janie Olsen

Superboy (1949)- I think it's funny to pick and choose elements from this and incorporate it into Clark's backstory arbitrarily. I also think it's funny that I first wrote the line about Clark wanting to kiss Superman if he hadn't BEEN superman before i started reading Superboy because guess what. He forgets he's superboy constantly. and what does he immediately do. Start sighing over superboy. I am SO good at comics

Superboy #85- Especially notable for the appearance of Mightyboy! "Who is Mightyboy?" you might ask. As well you should, since he appeared once in 1960 and never again. However!!!! This is a surprise tool which will help us later because he lives in my brain and also Clark's backstory

World's Finest #285-288- There's just. A lot to unpack here. But I sure have incorporated it into characterization and quirks! Still undecided on if I want Clark to have super hypnosis or not because I think it would be characterful for him to have it and not use it. and also it's extremely stupid as a concept and i love stupid. but also i hate hypnosis

World's Finest #84- Spoiler for the fic, but this premise was so hilarious to me that I immediately decided to replicate it, but with a twist that is typical of my ethos: making bruce step directly onto a rake

Ironically enough, a similar story was presented in Adventure Comics #275, but again. It does not make Bruce step on enough rakes for my taste. Still works as inspiration though!

Superman Annual #11- For the man who has everything. I love this one so so so so much. It greatly informs my understanding and portrayal of Superman, but also it's just a really tight narrative. Also!!! Jason Robin is there!!! Every day I regret placing this fic on a timeline that doesn't align with Jason making an appearance. Lad of all time.

Also important from Superman Annual #11 is the imagery of Batman pathetically presenting a designer rose he had commissioned special for his boy bestie, only for it to be crushed underfoot in the wake of a battle. now there's some symbolism. there's some pathos. there's some grade a pathetic bruce-isms.

Yang, Gene Luen, and Janice Chiang. Superman Smashes the Klan: The Graphic Novel. DC Comics, 2020. - Absolutely phenomenal work that digs into the diaspora elements of Superman's narrative and grapples with The American Ideal, racism, and what it means to stand for your community against violent bigotry. Also the art is soooo charming. I reference this one a bunch because I love it. It's got everything I love about Superman

There's way more to add but I'm tired and this is a working bibliography. I promise more will come

In-Line References/Allusions

Because comics are the way they are, I wanted to make this fic feel like it existed in a bunch of overlapping time periods all at once.

This means that instead of refraining from making references to broader pop culture like I do with other fics, I'm leaning into them instead. Therefore, some of these are going to be deliberate references that I thought would be characterful. Especially since Lois and Clark are reporters, and Jimmy and Bruce went to fancy schools for fancy little lads

"You're killing me, Smalls"- A famous line from The Sandlot (1993). I am unable to resist the pull of low-hanging fruit

"he could always depend on the kindness of strangers"- semi-ironic deployment of a line from A Streetcar Named Desire. on one hand, Clark genuinely trusts in and relies on mankind's desire to do right by each other. on the other, he thinks bruce wayne is a complete and utter tool here. he's being a bit tongue in cheek about how he's relying on a jackass to help him out

"the pale blue light of a sympathetic moon" is from The Drowsy Chaperone. It's such an evocative phrase. I think Clark would enjoy musicals

"Saint Laurent"- Listen. I read fashion blogs for this. I asked my friends who lose their minds over fashion on the regular. I looked through ready to wear collections and slide shows. And while I want to have faith in the Bruce Wayne that lives in my head and nowhere else, I understand that the search for an ethical designer label is a fruitless one. All I can do is say "in this universe, YSL was never acquired by Gucci, and yet it still, inexpicably, has the insufferable ready to wear collection that includes the ugly fucking gentrified rodeo wear."

also a lot of the outfits look like they're designed for haunted little victorian boys. which. [gestures at him]

"Dorothy [...] you're not in Kansas anymore"- I think this one's obvious, but it's a Wizard of Oz reference

“Is there a ‘c’ in ‘absence’?”- Lois's habit of frequently misspelling words comes up in a lot of adaptations and runs, and I think it's incredibly charming

"There better be a thirty on your buyback piece!"- Traditionally, -30- marks the end of copy that's been submitted for editing

Backfielding- Another term for conducting line edits

Ron Troupe- Political analyst for the daily planet. In comics, he was introduced RIGHT before Superman died but I'm playing calvinball here and I like him :) so

Adam Grant- Cat's son! I'm not killing him off, unlike the comics. There's a lot re: The Toyman where i'm just. y'know. i'm just not gonna. look. at whatever's going on there. So it goes with comics

"the gentle way the strongman had spoken to him, telling him about the disarming power of a silly costume, the way performance became its own kind of strength"- referencing a sequence from Superman Smashes the Klan. This will not be the last time

Lan-Shin Lee- For instance, Lan-Shin is from Superman Smashes the Klan! At the end of the original work, she becomes a cub reporter

Carmine Falcone- I still have never read a frank miller comic and you can't make me. but i will steal the occasional character. for flavor. anyway he's either one of the biggest or the biggest ringleader of organized crime in Gotham, depending on the run and adaptation

“While discontinuous in action, perceived surveillance—”- Bruce is paraphrasing a bit of Discipline & Punish here, specifically the part about panopticism

“Have you tried committing a felony?”- This line comes directly from the World's Finest episodes of Superman: the animated series that first inspired this fic

Superman Signal Watch- this one's a classic. As seen in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, the watch works just as the fic describes

#there was a sewer man #air's dabbles

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kenplume · 2 years

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Well, a cover like this just makes me miss Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber’s JIMMY OLSEN series even more… https://www.instagram.com/p/CgEV1KTuuXF/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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daydreamerdrew · 2 years

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Comics read this past week:

the Jimmy Olsen story in Superman: Leviathan Rising Special #1 and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (2019) #1-12

A super fun read! I came at this not being a Jimmy Olsen aficionado so I’m sure that there were references to his history that I missed, but even without serious background knowledge on the character I really enjoyed this exploration of his character. This series was all over the place, much like Jimmy’s life, and while other characters can become frustrated with the in-universe consequences of Jimmy’s shenanigans, I think the team did a good job of never making the audience feel frustrated with him over the many twists and turns. I actually ended this with a lot of fondness for Jimmy, a character I hadn’t thought much about before. I also found the approach to Lex Luthor, a character that I did begin this already liking and therefore having preferences for, to be really fun! And while I’m not ordinarily a humor fan, I still found this book very amusing. The plotting approach was super interesting, lots of hard jumps moving all over the place timeline-wise with each issue being made up of shorter stories/scenes that still managed to feel like it was all moving in one direction and not become too hard to follow. Definitely an approach that would have been easy to mess up, but it all tied together in the end really well. Matt Fraction did a great job with this. Though I’m sure it would have been a pretty different reading experience to read this monthly as it was coming out, as opposed to all at once. And Steve Lieber’s art was really well-suited to this story and this type of writing. I borrowed a trade collection of this from the library.

Young Avengers Presents #6 and Hawkeye (2012) #1-22 and Annual #1

Loved this so much! Definitely deserves the high praise it gets. David Aja did an incredible job with this, truly some of the most effective comic art I’ve ever seen. I loved his approach to pretty much everything. There were a few other artists who had work within these issues and while all of them did their jobs and did them well, none of them wow-ed me like Aja did. And Matt Hollingsworth’s coloring work was also great. It was interesting reading two series written by Matt Fraction in one week. Both Superman’s Pal and Hawkeye presented their stories non-linearly, but the former used dramatic hard shifts with announcing title pages and everything, while the later had smoother transitions, some issues had some type of clear format to designate time jumps and others simply changed page-to-page with no announcement. And Superman’s Pal jumped all over the story very chaotically whereas Hawkeye’s time jumps were largely solely contained to the single issue’s story. But there were also issues with some overlapping moments, so we’d see part of a scene or some small detail without context in one issue and then several issues later we’d see the full context of what that was. That last bit honestly reminded me of the experience of reading Paper Girls, which is told chronologically from the characters’ POV but is a time travel story in which the protagonists you follow don’t really know anything about what’s going on for a long time, except that this was a lot more mundane in it’s context reveals. I found it to be a very rewarding read. I liked that this was an exploration of both Hawkeyes’ characters that didn’t go over all of their history. While there were a few flashbacks to Clint’s childhood, this largely felt like an exploration of them in the here and now. On that thread, this succeeded in telling a self-contained story without feeling too contained, like it was unnaturally constrained. Clint being a part of the Avengers and having contact with other heroes had just enough presence as to not feel as though he had been unexplainably cut-off, without having too much presence that it overwhelmed the focus on him or made you wonder why there weren’t other heroes intervening in his problems. I borrowed a trade collection of this from the library.

#my posts #comics read this past week

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theblackestofsuns · 4 years

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“I Kind Of Like The Smells”

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #7 (March 2020)

Matt Fraction, Steve Lieber and Nathan Fairbairn

DC Comics

#Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #Matt Fraction #Steve Lieber #Nathan Fairbairn #DC Comics #Great Comics #Great Comic Art #I Kind Of Like The Smells

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librarycomic · 3 years

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Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? by Matt Fraction (writer) and Steve Leiber (artist). DC Comics, 2020. 9781779504623. Includes Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen 1 - 12 and material from Superman: Leviathan Rising Special 1. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781779504623?partnerid=34778&p_bt

This graphic novel opens with Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen on a book tour, waking up naked and married in Gorilla City after an evening of drinking. His wife, Jinx, and interdimensional jewel thief, makes him promise to get their marriage annulled. Then a cat attacks him in the bathroom, then barfs blood all over Jimmy and the room. Both the cat and the jewel thief play into the plot of the book, which involves Olsen getting "killed," going into hiding, a series of ridiculous impersonations, and the history of Metropolis (involving the Olsens and the Luthors). It's a beautiful piece of non-stop ridiculousness involving the hero Metallo, the greatest Batman gags ever, and, of course, a little Superman (but not as much as you'd expect in a book about Olsen if you're a comic reader about my age). There are a ton of pages that are formatted like the first pages of a comic book, featuring a lot of explain-y text and narration and a logo -- a brilliant bit of silliness that keeps the whole book rolling along at high speed even as they seem to restart the story. Leiber is one of the best artists working in comics; his mastery of tone, storytelling, and character are evident on every page.

This is favorite "superhero" comic of the year, and the funniest book I've read in a while.

#bookreview #graphicnovel #graphicnovelreview #jimmyolsen

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secretlystephaniebrown · 4 years

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which comic writers do you trust/like?

none of them.

(okay, just kidding, let’s go. to be clear most of these people have probably done at least one book I don’t like/one thing I disagree with, particularly when it comes to people who have been in the industry a while, but in GENERAL, this is true)

Okay so right now, top of my list is

Mariko Tamaki, who’s doing Wonder Woman right now. Lesbian, Japanese, Jewish, generally has written things I’ve enjoyed, best Wonder Woman I’ve read in a hot minute. She’s slated to do Batman for Future State and I’m all eyes emoji over here.

Greg Rucka - big fan. I love Gotham Central, Batwoman: Elegy, his parts of 52 are my favorites, his Wonder Woman is good too, and I love Old Guard, both the movie and the graphic novel.

Ed Brubaker - *chef kiss* his Catwoman... we stan.

Dwayne McDuffie - We have to love him, it’s literally mandatory.

Darwyn Cooke - yes he’s more of an artist but he has written, and I trust him with my life.

G. Willow Wilson - Mostly I’ve read her Ms. Marvel stuff, having not read her Wonder Woman just yet, but I really do like her work, and her early Ms. Marvel stuff in particular really stuck with me.

Dan Jurgens - I haven’t been enjoying his Nightwing and his current Batman Beyond is a bit hit-or-miss for me, but I adore what he’s done with Superman, and I love his Booster Gold. Generally I also have a world of respect for any writer who also does his own artwork, which he does a lot.

Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis - listen they’re two old white men and they write like it sometimes, but they really do vibe, the classic JLI fucking slaps and their run on Booster Gold is good shit.

Mark Waid - Love a Wally West man, also his Daredevil fucking slaps.

Tom Taylor - I realize some people haven’t liked all of his choices, but All-New Wolverine? Genius. Also Injustice is good despite itself and DCeased is way better than a zombie AU has any right to be.

Paul Dini - his Zatanna book fucking slaps. ‘nuff said

Kelly Sue DeConnick - her Aquaman is great, I really liked her Captain Marvel, and just generally I find her solid and enjoyable.

Matt Fraction - *chef kiss* Hawkeye. Jimmy Olsen. a comedic genius, a great writer, a poet.

Gene Luen Yang - Superman Smashes the Klan, New Super-Man? I can even forgive that he wrote that depowered Nu52 Clark bit because those two are so good.

Kelley Puckett - His run on Cass’s Batgirl is honestly some of the best damn comic books I’ve ever read.

Ta-Nehisi Coates - nearly put him in honorable mention and then I remembered he came back to do Captain America, meaning he’s officially a comic book industry person in my book. His Black Panther is beautiful, man.

Honorable mentions who aren’t listed because generally they’re industry outsiders who have usually written one good story and then went on with their lives: Sarah Kuhn, John Rogers, N.K. Jemisen, Tamora Pierce.

#Steph Reads Comics #Anonymous #anon #asks #Steph Replies

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twiststreet · 3 years

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I know you're not following a lot of comics lately, especially not DC's output, but as someone who really hasn't liked anything Matt Fraction has written - ever - I thought his two-Eisner-Award-winning Jimmy Olsen series was fantastic and legitimately hilarious, and the jokes seem very much like your thing. It's very comic industry in-jokey at times, but in a way where the surface-level joke is still funny, and if you understand the reference, it's even better.

Yeah, I'm aware of it! It just came out during my no-DC era, which ended with the firings. But then I was into my just-manga era soon after that, I guess, or what certainly felt soon to me. There was probably a few months where I could've pulled the trigger, but you know, a few months go by pretty fast anymore. But Jimmy Olsen's my favorite Big Two comic character so I'd be happy to see what they did with it. I hear it's great from all kinds of folks. (Zero interest in comic industry jokes from people in the comic industry though. Yikes.)

Fraction, the one I liked recently from him was November-- I get the feeling it wasn't a big hit for them, but I thought that was a good one, as a swing of the bat at least. Well, I missed the finale of that since it came around-ish the just-manga era. (And I liked Casanova.) November was a City of Glass riff, but I really love City of Glass, too, so fucking yeah, a riff on it was my kind of good time (even if a more middlebrow riff, or whatever the right word is)...

But of comics I've missed, you know the one I want to look at the most that I haven't heard people talk about that I can remember at least, is that comic that Carmen Machado did, for Stephen King's son, the boy, the one who isn't Stephen King. I don't think I've heard anyone say anything, but ... Carmen Machado makes me curious, certainly. I didn't read her big Award book, In the Dream House, but the stuff people say about that book is so passionate, that I kinda wonder how she did with a comic. (She’d written some comics crit, but).

Sure, sometimes that book-to-comic thing is whatever- I glanced at the Green Lantern thing from whatshername, the one who hurt that Attack Helicopter trans girl's life profoundly, and I didn't think that looked like much of anything. Or ... well, I haven't read the Megan Abbott comic (I think she's really good though obviously) but like... I think it was a Hard Case comic and what I saw there, I didn't think the art was going to be something I could hang with. But the few pages I saw of the Machado thing... it looked like it could be something...?

But I don't if I'm going to be done with the just-manga thing at the end of this year (except catching up on all the Copra's I bought, finally), even though I've slowed down-ish. I have opinions about Substack as much as the next guy (e.g. the Snyder deal is much more interesting to me), but I generally haven't heard any noise that suggests I'm really missing anything, just generally. A bunch of largely-indistinguishable dudes sending emails to each other doesn't really sound like that's going to change that for me.

#worst hobby or worstest hobby?#dodgers up two in the sixth

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not-the-blue · 4 years

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Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (2019) - review

this pretty much wrote itself. contains much, much negativity about Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, be warned!

An artist - I honestly don’t remember who - once told me, “be careful when you make art about making art. You can easily get stuck in a cycle of cynical meta and your work will have no substance.” - and he was right. It’s easy to get lost in your feelings about creation, and end up making something that’s basically feeding on itself, with nothing to hold it up as a work of art that’s actually about something.

Few have done this right. Kelsey’s Wroten’s Cannonball comes to mind, as does Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s The Wicked And The Divine. Many have done this wrong - think every parody worthy “I’m a cynic who drinks whiskey, fucks models and writes the Great American Novel” type. Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen manages to get even worse than that, because it’s not even trying to sound deep. It’s above sounding deep. It’s above being anything.

The story - if it can even be called that - follows, as the title suggests, Jimmy Olsen, who’s friends with Superman (Clark Kent, but you didn’t hear it from me). The red headed, butt headed menace has a knack for shenanigans, and he’s sometimes a dick. That’s pretty much everything the reader gets to know about the main character. That, and his apparently problematic family legacy, from before Metropolis was even called Metropolis. As of issue #6, the two plot threads - the modern adventures of Jimmy and the life story of his “great-great-grand-something” Joachim Olsson - have not yet been connected. I’m sure they will. I’m sure it’ll be very clever.

Jimmy Olsen gets in trouble. Jimmy Olsen flees from Metropolis. Jimmy Olsen fakes his death. There’s a conspiracy - I think - and Batman shows up at some point, but if there’s an actual plot - a story that develops and follows some kind of thread to a satisfying, earned conclusion - it’s lost between flashbacks, flash forwards, Joachim’s side plot, mini chapters, faux cliff hangers and gags.

This review is actually kind of heartbreaking for me to write, because I love Matt Fraction’s work. Well, I love Sex Criminals and Hawkeye (2012), but I love them so much, I thought loving his work was a guarantee at this point. Hawkeye is smart, well structured, deeply personal and innovative without being showy about it. Sex Criminals is heartfelt, complex and cares a lot about its characters. Hawkeye, in second reading, can be a bit gimmicky, self important and sexist. Sex criminals is a bit hard to follow and at some point, a character being an asshole stops being interesting and starts being annoying. The only reason I’ve noticed these flaws is because Jimmy Olsen takes all of them and plays them up to eleven, making it impossible not to notice them in Fraction’s better works, which makes the comic, in my opinion, actively worse than just a bad story.

The art of Jimmy Olsen is very good. The lines evoke a nice vintage comic vibe, but it’s still extremely dynamic and expressive. It’s a very “the good ol’ times” wholesome, almost self parodying feel. Lieber does an excellent job at taking a classic character and modernizing it in a way that feels slightly off but still very pleasing to look at. It’s classic, it’s iconic, and it’s so completely wasted that it makes me want to cry a bit.

Now, a disclaimer: this is my introduction to Jimmy Olsen as a character. I also don’t read a lot of stuff published by DC comics. This is not by design - I don’t believe in the marvel vs. DC debate, they’re publishers, you can read both - I just haven’t found anything I like yet. My standards when it comes to superhero comics are, with some exceptions, “involved a woman somewhere in the making process”, so, uh, yeah. There isn’t much.

I don’t feel like knowing Jimmy Olsen would’ve made me like this better, though. On the contrary - this comic book mocks its reader for the mere possibility that they’d ever want to like, relate to or enjoy the content or the character in any way. It mocks the format of old comic books with long, ridiculous chapter openers that stop the story completely for a couple of paragraphs at a time just to tell you that no, the story doesn’t take itself seriously, god forbid.

Sometimes when a story doesn’t take itself too seriously, you get something delightful, like Kyle Starks’ Kill Them All, that’s basically just one big action sequence where three main characters kill a bunch of bad guys and it’s great. Sometimes you get the vintage comic Jimmy Olsen gets out of its way to mock - I managed to get some old West Coast Avengers (1989) issues recently, and reading through them, missing arcs and water damages and all, has been lovely. It’s over the top! It doesn’t make sense! But we’re all here to have fun. The writers, the artists, the readers - there’s a value in this kind of stories, a value Jimmy Olsen refuses to see. It starts with someone, or someones, REALLY WANTING to tell a certain story. These stories might not take themselves too seriously - they’re not here to say anything important, to be capital a Art - but they are treated seriously in that we all know what kind of experience we’re in for, and the creators make sure it’s delivered to the best of their ability, because they’re passionate about it.

To paraphrase Hannah Montana, Matt Fraction gets the worst of both worlds here. It is - or at least it feels like it is - trying to be capital a Art, like it’s trying to say something important and deep. But with the same breath it tells you, you know what, you won’t get it, and fuck you for wanting to enjoy a story. This is not what serious comic readers do. Serious comic readers sit in the dark and stew in their own meta, and if passion tries to get anywhere near them they instantly destroy it with a ray of cynicism so concentrated it will tear through Hawkeye’s suit and leave him shirtless for the rest of the story (no, YOU’VE been reading too much West Coast Avengers).

When Matt Fraction is passionate about telling a story, it makes up for the less good bits and the story becomes an instant classic. It seems like when he’s not, though, it’s everyone else’s fault. I hope he finds that spark again, but i’m not sticking through issues #7-#12 to find out. I prefer comics that wants to be read.

#comic review #jimmy olsen #superman's pal jimmy olsen #i know i never do this often. comic reviews and posting negative stuff here #i like to think the reason i feel so strongly about this is because i care and i wanted this to be good and i love fraction's writing #yknow?#if you like the comic honestly good for you #feel free to argue but know that i'm not necessarily disagreeing with you #right now though i am very salty. i wanted to like this so much #i was so ready to have a good time!!#oh i forgot to say!! there are moments i liked in the comic #where jimmy and clark get to be actual pals #these moments are adorable

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