Pull List | Rethinking single-issue comics

Atomic Robo: The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #1

I recently started buying single issues of comics again. Not because I feel like I'm hurting the industry by trade-waiting (I don't), but because it's more fun that way. A lot of writers and publishers are making obvious efforts to create a more rewarding experience out of buying single-issues.

The trouble is that I've just started adding series to my pull list willy-nilly without giving a lot of thought to what I'm doing. That's where this post comes in. I'm going to start assessing what I'm buying every week and make some choices. I need some limits, not only for budget reasons, but also to protect my time.

I've decided that a pull list of 20 series is pretty reasonable. That works out to about five, individual issues a week: a little over an hour of reading time and between $15 and $20. It doesn't include graphic novels and series that read better in collected form (BPRD, for instance). I'll have to assess those separately.

Saga #4

Last week, the single issues I bought were (in alphabetical order):

All-Star Western
Atomic Robo
Aquaman
Courtney Crumrin
Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE 
Saga
The Spider

Of those seven, I know that I want four on my final list of 20.

I've been a fan of Atomic Robo since it started and though I also want the collections on my shelf where they're easy to get to, it's a comic that's really made to be read as single issues. I resisted buying both versions, but it always hurts me when I pass up the monthly version on the shelves. That tells me something.

Courtney Crumrin is another series I'm going to want to keep buying. I love Ted Naifeh's work in general and it's great to be able to read about his terrifying, but so-cool, little witch girl on a regular schedule. Plus, the individual issues feel like complete units, even though they're parts of a larger story.

Courtney Crumrin #3

I just decided last week to check out Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staple's Saga instead of waiting for the collection. I'm glad I did, because it reminded me how much I enjoyed getting a new installment of a BKV comic every month. This one is a space opera with fantasy and horror elements and there's a huge feeling that absolutely anything can happen from month to month. It's a brand new universe that needs exploring.

Finally, David Liss and Colton Worley's The Spider is a fantastic pulp-superhero series that I don't want to wait for.

The other three series are all on the bubble for various reasons. I really liked Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE when Jeff Lemire was writing it, and loved Matt Kindt's first issue for what it was. The problem is that Kindt changed some things in a way that jolted me a little. It's a speed bump I expect to be able to get over, but it shook my confidence some.

The Spider #2

I'm also generally enjoying Aquaman (I'm behind on it, but catching up), but I'm not fully sold on it yet. I'm tired of the constant reminder that Aquaman's a pop-culture joke and the series' defensiveness about that. There was also a fill-in issue in which Mera is sexually harassed in an unbelievable, ridiculous way just so she can show how tough she is by beating the guy up. In other words, the comic feels desperate; like it has to cheat in order to make its heroes seem cool. On the other hand, Aquaman's teamed up with a jungle girl, so that's pretty great.

I'm almost positive I'm done with All-Star Western. It keeps retelling the same story in different ways and after ten issues, I'm looking for something new. As I keep adding series to my 20 every week, I expect All-Star Western to fall off the list pretty quickly.

Here's how I rank these seven:

1. Atomic Robo
2. Saga
3. Courtney Crumrin
4. The Spider
5. Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE
6. Aquaman
7. All-Star Western

Something besides a man

The Hathor Legacy

Paul Taylor, one of the artists on The Cownt, was recently interviewed for the Hathor Legacy site about his popular webcomic Wapsi Square. It's a cool article with some great insight into Paul and his work, but I'm also linking to it because it introduced me to the Hathor Legacy site itself.

I haven't browsed much yet to see how much our specific tastes and opinions align, but I love the concept and the tag-line, "the search for good female characters." You can read their mission statement here and catch up on the conversation here. What I can't seem to find there is any mention of who Hathor is, but a quick Google tells me that she was the Egyptian goddess of love, music, and beauty.

The Bechdel Rule

One of the things the Hathor Legacy mentions is Alison Bechdel's famous movie test. It's an easy test to remember and sets up some great criteria that more writers should implement. To pass it, a movie just needs to have 1) at least two women in it who 2) talk to each other about 3) something besides a man. The Hathor Legacy adds that the women should be named characters, which I suppose is an okay amendment, but it's worth noting that it's not in the original comic strip that the Rule came from.

Also not in the original strip is any sort of suggestion about what this Rule should be used for. It's in the context of one woman sharing her personal preferences with another woman and it's never said that all movies should have these elements. I don't see that suggestion in my initial look-over of the Hathor Legacy either. What I'm getting - and what I totally agree with - is simply that more movies should be that way. The Hathor Legacy also includes TV shows, books, and comics, but admits that this is less of a problem in those formats.

I'm looking forward to finding out what the Hathor Legacy writers are into and what they think should be better. In the meantime, NPR also recently had this discussion and came up with its own, short list of shows that meet the Rule's criteria (giving special mention to The Middleman, yay!).

Did you know NPR had a pop culture blog? How have I been missing that?

Okay, on to other stuff that may or may not meet the Bechdel Rule, but that's okay too...

Kitty Hawk



I started reading this webcomic expecting a typical action/adventure story, but it's a lot more than just that. Sure there are jet packs and robot pilots and mysteries, but there's also a beautiful, quiet story about a young woman trying to figure out where she fits into the world around her. And the art's amazing. Start here and click Next.

Atomic Robo and the Sparrow

I'll have more to say about Atomic Robo's awesome Sparrow character later, but for now, you can see what her creators have to say about her here, including how she was initially going to be a dude until it became apparent that a lot of Atomic Robo readers are girls. Very cool.

Miss America



Pappy's got a Golden Age story about everyone's favorite teen super-heroine from the '40s.

Lost: Season Five



Gettin' excited! (Thanks, /Film!)

Courtney Crumrin and the Prince of Nowhere



Newsarama talks with Ted Naifeh about the latest installment in his awesome series of charmingly spooky graphic novels.

Resident Evil 4

It's coming. I'm nervous about it, but I liked the first two enough that I'm still excited to see more. (The third one was okay.)

Amber Atoms



Coming in February from Image Comics.

AMBER ATOMS #1
story, art & cover KELLY YATES
colors MICHAEL E. WIGGAM

"CHAPTER ONE"
Blast-off with the newest sci-fi adventure heroine Amber Atoms! Follow the ongoing adventures of this modern day "Flash Gordon" as Amber dreams of leaving her mundane life, but not exactly how she imagined. Mercenaries and aliens suddenly invade Amber's world as she learns that her family history could decide the fate of the galaxy.

FEBRUARY 18 - 32 PAGES - FC - $3.50

CBR has more info here.

Pirate cologne, Jesse James films reviewed, and illustrators as actors

Kill All Monsters!-Related

I can't see BoingBoing at work, so I'll just have to trust that this link works and that it takes you to some cool giant-monster belt buckles. I'll check it out for myself later at home.

Dust to Dust-Related

I don't understand the connection between Jesse James and Seacoast New Hampshire, but the SeacoastNH site is running a very cool feature called the Dingus Project that looks at as many movies about James as possible and reviews them for historical accuracy.

And speaking of Jesse James movies, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is going to hit both the Toronto International Film Festival and Venice's 75th anniversary film festival. (Also appearing at both festivals is Keira Knightley's new movie Atonement, which should matter greatly to you.)

Pirates

Speaking of Keira reminds me about pirates, which reminds me that soon we'll all be able to smell like Jack Sparrow. As if that's a good thing.

Indiana Jones

One of my biggest disappointments with Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade was the lack of Marion Ravenwood. I really wanted to see that relationship continued from Raiders. Wish granted.

Dark Horse has also announced that with the new movie coming out, they'll be relaunching their line of Indiana Jones comics starting with an omnibus collecting their earlier Indy comics and eventually even reprinting Marvel's take. I gotta start saving some money.

Mystery

I've been enjoying Guy Ritchie and Andy Diggle's Gamekeeper comic from Virgin enough that I quit buying the single issues and decided instead to buy the trade when it comes out. So it's pretty cool that Ritchie's turning it into a movie.

Not really Mystery-related, but it's Crime, so close enough: Boom!'s doing a comic based on the Godfather movies. That's pretty frickin' bold. It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off, but they say that when they announce the writer "jaws will drop."

Horror

Another comics-film connection: Dreamworks has optioned a Courtney Crumrin movie. No word on if it'll be live action or animated. You have no idea how much I'm hoping for animated, especially if they can pull off Ted Naifeh's style.

And in other Important Horror Movie News: Johnny Depp will play Barnabas Collins in a Dark Shadows movie. It looks like he'll also be one of the producers.

Science Fiction

Jeff Smith has released details about his next project, RASL. It'll be an over-sized scifi comic about "a thief -- an art thief -- who is known to the police as 'RASL,' because that's the tag he leaves whenever he steals a piece of art. He spray paints RASL on the wall in the spot where the art was." According to Smith, RASL has a suit that can "create thermal-magnetic disturbances through space-time and step between dimensions. So if you were a really rich person who wants to collect, say, a Mona Lisa, you could pay RASL, and he'll go to another dimension and steal the Mona Lisa for you!"

The downside is that "what happens when you go through these dimensional barriers -- these light barriers between dimensions and universes -- is that apparently it hurts a lot. I mean, it hurts so badly that it takes him days to recover. The pain is so bad that, for days, he drinks and gambles and smokes and eats rich foods and has whores and all that. But to get back, he has to do the exact opposite. He has to completely clean his body and mind and thoughts and almost reach a zen, centered perfectness to get back through the light. But then he comes back out and is in pain again and it all starts over." Sounds really good. I can't wait for it.

Looks like the bad guy from Heroes is going to play Spock in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie.

And they're releasing the remastered/CGI-touched-up episodes of the original Star Trek series on DVD.

Writing is Hard

I like this quote from Hulk writer Greg Pak about letting artists interpret emotions themselves instead of trying to spell everything out exactly in the script: "For the most part, I'm trying to write for (illustrator) John (Romita, Jr.) using the same kind of language I'd use to direct an actor on a movie set. When working with an actor, I'd never say, 'Be sad.' Because that turns the actor into a puppet who's just trying to make the face you want and the soul of the scene dies. Instead, I'd say, 'Try not to cry.' Then the actor can just inhabit the character and the scene comes to life. Similarly, when writing for John, I try to describe actions rather than expressions. When the Hulk's gazing up at the fake Sentry that Reed's generated, I wrote, 'The Hulk continues stepping toward the light. Gazing upwards. Almost as if he's looking up towards an angel.' I don't describe the expression; instead I describe the circumstance so John can interpret the emotional content and get to the soul of the character on his own. John's a brilliant artist, which means that in the world of comics, he's a brilliant actor."

That's something I tried with Jason Copland on Kill All Monsters! and it resulted in some amazing, touching facial expressions and body language. You gotta have the right artist to pull it off -- one who knows how to make his characters act -- but Jason's totally that guy.