Welcome to Wasted Potential.
The life and not so hard times of Norm Burns, an aspiring cartoonist who works at a fast food restaurant while dreaming of being the next Charles Schulz, and his friends and family.
Let The Jacko Sightings Commence
Already, thanks to that wonder of modern technology we call the Wild Wild Web, speculation has begun that Michael Jackson is in fact not dead. The Weekly World News which despite suspending its print edition a couple of years ago soldiers on upon the Internets bringing the light of truth to the world, claims to have predicted fifteen years ago that MJ would someday fake his death, and of a heart attack, no less, which is the official story of how he died at this time.
While I don't believe a word of it, if you think about, this is Michael Jackson we're talking about here, and if anyone was crazy enough to actually attempt to pull off a crazy stunt like faking his own death, it be Jackson. He had reason, after all. Suppose he decided he didn't want to do that 50 concert comeback/farewell stand that he'd foolishly and publicly committed himself to. If he just canceled, he'd be hit with dozens of lawsuits, which, being already millions of dollars in debt, he could in no way afford. There was only one way out: he had to die.
Of course, if the News is right, he's been planning this for a long time. That may be the real reason he married Lisa Marie. He wanted to know how Elvis pulled it off back in '77, and Lisa is the only who knows where the King is.
Of course, none of this is true. Many people loved Jackson, for reasons I will never fathom, and I know from far too much experience that when someone you love passes, it's very hard to let them go.
[ 0 ] Still Waiting
As I said to Norm in a strip a few weeks ago, I can hold a grudge for years, and yesterday I was reminded of one I've been holding onto for a good long while now.
I was reading through my old Ambush Bug comics (yeah, I know I just recently bought the Showcase Presents AB TPB, but some of the jokes actually rely on color, and the book doesn't include the letters columns, which are just as funny as the comics, or Dick Giordano's Meanwhile... columns, which are a time capsule of the comics industry in the 80s) and I came across an old ballot for the Comics Buyer's Guide's Fan Awards. At the bottom, CBG promised a free copy of the issue of the then weekly newspaper (now a monthly magazine) to anyone without a subscription to CBG who sent in a ballot.
Well, I'm still waiting.
About fifteen years ago, back when I still read periodical comics--in fact, it was during my mercifully brief rabid fanboy phase, I photocopied and filled out one of those little ballots. As you've obviously guessed by now ('cause my readers are unusually perceptive--and exceptionally good looking--like myself), I never got my free issue. And I'm still waiting for it, despite the fact that I really no longer give a crap about the comics industry.
Hear me, CBG publishers? Sure, I've moved twice since I sent you the ballot, but I'm really not that hard to find if you go looking, so I will be expecting that free issue any day now.
I'll let you know in another fifteen years or so whether I get it this time.
Word Of The Week
The Wild Wild Web has added many new and colorful terms and phrasess to our ever evolving and vibrant English language. Some will pass into disuse and obscurity rather quickly, while others may become cliches, enduring long after their origin and initial meaning has past into the mists of collective memory.
Truthfully, the former will probably be the fate of the newest web inspired word to come to my attention.
Wednesday, during my weekly gathering with fellow cartoonists at a local coffee shop, we become, as often happens, the object of the curiosity of some of our fellow patrons. Seems they were there for a "tweet-up", aka, a "meet-up" organized through the auspices of the hot social networking site of the moment, Twitter.
As I say, "tweet-up" probably won't make it into the OED. After all, Twitter is the big thing now, but something else will come along in a few months, or more likely weeks or even days, that will make Twitter "so 2009".
Speaking however, of formerly trendy social networking sites, I felt this might be a good time to remind you all of the Facebook Wasted Potential Group. Join now!
Secret Identities
Finally got around to watching the Iron Man movie last. Yeah, I know, it's been out for a year and what kind of self-respecting comics geek am I to wait that long. I'll let you know when I finally get around to seeing Batman Begins.
Anyway, the film once again raised for me a point I'd always wondered about in older Iron Man comics, which is why Tony Stark ever bothered with the old "secret identity" routine. The rationale Smilin' Stan Lee would give in those old stories doesn't hold water if you think about it for even a nanosecond. Stark would always be thinking to himself that if the world knew that he and Shell-Head were one and the same, Iron Man's enemies would be attacking Stark International facilities all over the world seeking revenge. Yet at the same time, Stark invented the fiction that Iron Man worked for him as his bodyguard, which invariably resulted in Iron Man's enemies attacking Stark International facilities all over the world seeking revenge.
I know, it's not an earth-shatteringly important thought, but it has been on my mind ever since reading Essential Iron Man volume One, and I had to write something here.
Or did I?
Maybe next week, I'll talk about that.
Recommended (or should I say "Essential")Reading
I kind of grew disenchanted with the whole super-hero genre, as I'm sure many others did, back in the 90's, and for the most part the only super-hero comics I read these days are reprints of stuff from the 60's through the 80's, especially Marvel's Essentials line and the Showcase Presents series from DC. Books in both lines consist of big 500 page, black and white volumes reprinting a specific series from the beginning. Almost all of the big two's classic Silver Age series are represented. Some have lamented the lack of color in these books, but where else are you going to be able to grab Jack "King" Kirby's entire run on Fantastic Four for under $100.
Just yesterday I picked up Essential Amazing Spider-Man Volume 9. The Essential Spider-Man series reprints Spidey's flagship title from the beginning, starting with the wallcrawler's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 and Volume 9 brings the series into the 1980's, picking up with ASM #186 (which, by the way, I picked up back in '78 when it was first published) and continuing through #210, with a couple of Annuals thrown in for good measure.
I also recommend the previous mentioned Essential Fantastic Four, as well as Essential Avengers, Essential Thor, Essential Daredevil, Essential Dr. Strange Volume One (featuring amazing, mind-bending work by Steve Ditko), and Essential Howard the Duck (forget the movie, which wasn't as horrible as people say but nowhere near as good as the stories in this volume, which perfectly capture the zeitgeist of the 1970's and provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the late Steve Gerber).
From DC, I recently acquired Showcase Presents Ambush Bug, which reprints just about every appearance of Keith Giffen's teleporting trickster, from his first appearance as an incidental villain in a Superman/New Doom Patrol team-up in DC Comics Presents #52 through a surprising appearance in The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl where he decides to be a hero and into a series of mini-series and specials up to 1992's Ambush Bug Nothing Special.
Other notable Showcase Presents series include Superman, Batman, The Brave and The Bold: The Batman Team-Ups, Teen Titans, and Justice League of America, as well as volumes for Blackhawk, Batman & The Outsiders and even Booster Gold.
During the last decade, it almost seems that comics writers have forgotten, or never learned, how to write super-hero comics. These volumes provide a glimpse into the form at its height.
More Trek Talk
Not much to say about the strip this week, so I'll use this opportunity to rant about a subject near and dear to my geeky little heart: Star Trek.
In the face of overwhelmingly positive reviews and 79 million dollars at the opening weekend box office (respectable by any standard and more than double the 30 million of the previous highest grossing Trek flick, First Contact), the continuation of the newly revived Star Trek saga is a foregone conclusion, and speculation as to where the next voyage of the USS Enterprise will take James Tiberius Kirk and crew has already begun. Among the names being bandied about, most notably by the writers of the latest Trek film, is that of Khan Noonien Singh, a once all but forgotten minor villain from a relatively mediocre episode of the original series catapulted to legendary status as "the guy who killed Spock" by 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, considered by many to be the best Trek film until now. There's even speculation going on as to who might play Khan, and I now humbly offer my suggestion.
Noboby.
That's who should portray Khan. No one.
While comparisons of the new Enterprise crew to their forebears have generally been positive, anyone stepping into Ricardo Montalban's sandals is begging for a buttload of grief. Not to mention that both the new film and the last one, Nemesis, recycle many ideas from Khan. Nemesis recreates ST II's ending, while the current film not only features a brain sucking parasite ala Khan, it lifts several lines of dialogue verbatim from that film and even ends, as Wrath of Khan did, with Leonard Nimoy reciting the TV show's opening narration. Sure, Wrath of Khan is a great film, but how many times do you have to remake it?
Forget Khan, avoid V'Ger, ignore Dr. Tolian Soran,leave the Borg off in their little corner of the galaxy, and give the Klingons and Romulans a rest.(Especially the Romulans, as the last two Trek movies have focused on them.) The makers of the new movie went to a lot of trouble to give themselves a clean slate by setting up an alternate reality with a future as yet unwritten, and now they should use that opportunity to boldly go where no man or Trek film has gone before.
Saw The New "Trek" Last Night
So, after I finished pimping my comics in the lobby of the Arena Grand theater last night, I stuck around for a couple of hours and saw Star Trek.
So, how was it?
I'd probably put it in fourth or fifth place among the 11 extant Trek films, behind Star Trek--The Motion Picture (not the best film, but still my favorite, mostly because it was the most like the original series. It was, after all, originally conceived as the pilot for a second series.), First Contact, The Wrath of Khan, and maybe The Voyage Home. True, this film would never be called "too cerebral," as was "The Cage," the first ST pilot, but it does a good job of capturing both the spirit of Trek and of a modern summer "blockbuster" motion picture event.
The new cast have done a fine job of making these characters their own, with the standouts being Scotty and Chekov. Chekov, along with Uhura, are given more character development here than they have been afforded in the past 43 years of Trek TV and film.
The actor who most closely resembled his original Trek universe counterpart is Karl Urban, playing Dr. McCoy. It's not so much that he's impersonating DeForest Kelley, but that he was probably cast, at least in part, for his resemblance, in aspect and manner, to the role's originator.
I do have one small problem with the film, however---I wanted to see more of the green-skinned chick. (Not that we didn't see quite a bit of her as it was; when we first see her, she's clad only in underwear.)[b]
...and the livin' is easy...
Yes, summer of 2009 is here. Or at least the hotly anticipated "Summer Movie Season" is here, having begun this weekend with the release of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". And next week, J.J. Abrams' revamped "Star Trek" hits theaters. I haven't seen the X film yet, but I'll probably be seeing Trek on Saturday. After all, I will be hanging around a theater all day. My friend Victor Dandridge organizes what he calls "Arena Cons", giving local comics creators free tables at the Arena Grand Theater in Downtown Columbus Ohio to promote and/or sell their comics. I decided to skip Wolvie weekend and do Trek because Trekkies are my people. Look at all the ST references in the strip. So, I'll be there all afternoon and I'll most likely go and actually see the flick afterward. I'll tell you about the "Con" and the film next week.