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demiurgent Whistling in the Dark -
wednesday eyecatch
“Now, back to the part about no insurance. I know that the first instinct any time this kind of terrible bad luck hits someone is to try to donate to help them with their medical bills. The thought is appreciated, but please… DO NOT GIVE US DONATIONS. Donations are very unlikely to cover the bill, but they are guaranteed to make Michael ineligible for the existing financial aid options. Instead, if you really want to pitch in, please go to either our Etsy shop or our online store and buy the original Errant Story comic pages. Those purchases will put money into the business, and won’t affect Michael’s eligibility for financial aid. No matter how this turns out in the long run, they’re beautiful pieces and a good investment for you, and the money going into the business will give us options to figure out what on earth we’re going to do when this is over. So that’s the best way to help. Well, unless you’re a comic artist. Then you could maybe give us fan art or fan comics to run on the site for a while. Either Does Not Play Well With Others or Errant Story fan comics would be awesome, and hell, if you’ve got pent up Exploitation Now fandom bubbling away inside you, we’ll gladly run with that, too.”
More info at the linked page.
A couple of (cool) people have pointed out that TVTropes has the “Five Man Band” page, and how it predated Chris Sims’s breakdown of the core five elements to a Superhero team. Different folks pointed it out for different reasons, but a recurring theme was, essentially, “hey, Chris Sims didn’t come up with this.”
Well… obviously he didn’t come up with the concept of the 5-team. However… I honestly think Sims’s interpretation is superior to the TVTropes page.
Let’s look at the five:
- TVTropes: The Leader vs Chris Sims: The Leader. Um… obviously no change here, so we move on.
- TVTropes: The Lancer vs Chris Sims: The Wild Card. This is a significant change. The Lancer, in many ways, is a codified second in command. He or she might be hotheaded vs. a cool headed leader, or it might be the opposite. There might be sarcasm or snark, or taciturn quiet. Lance (duh) from Voltron. Skye, from Power Rangers: SPD.
The Wild Card, on the other hand, is just that. The Wild Card may not be a team player at all. He or she may need active reining in, and will likely foment conflict between one or more of the participants. And there’s little chance the Wild Card will be second in command. In fact, the Wild Card is likely to be on probation at best. Guy Gardner. Gambit. Early Wolverine. Hawkgirl. Harley Freaking Quinn. - TVTropes: The Smart Guy vs. Chris Sims: The Brain. Let’s set aside the fact that it is “the Smart Guy,” IE — can’t be a girl. It’s significant and wrong, but let’s set it aside. The Smart Guy is intelligent, often nerdy — “played for comic relief.” Generally physically unimposing. Pidge, from Voltron. Billy, from MMPR. The geek, the dork. Not the hero except in very special episodes.
The Brain, on the other hand? Is BATMAN. Intelligent, wise, tactical. Uses intellect to not just level the playing field but stack the deck against the villains. Brainiac 5. Batman. Oracle. Amanda Waller. Far from being the comic relief or the nerd, the Brain is what makes the superteam something other than a pack of jocks beating up muggers. - TVTropes: The Big Guy vs Chris Sims: The Muscle. The Big Guy (again — guy) is just that. Big. Strong. A little goofy, generally. Maybe dumb. Hunk, from Voltron. Ryū/Tiny/Hooty from Gatchaman. There’s little more to say about him.
The Muscle is the sheer power a superhero team can bring to bear, be that physical or some other kind. This power may be overwhelming or even uncontrolled, or may be tightly reined in. Superman or Wonder Woman, depending on if one is the leader. The Hulk or She-Hulk. Thor. Carol Danvers. John Stewart. Starfire. - TVTropes: The Chick vs Chris Sims: The Heart: Well, on the one side we have—
…we have….
You know what? No. This one’s just flat out a ‘no.’ The Chick is just that. In the Five-Man Band trope there’s one girl — maybe two. And that girl is perhaps a touch sassy but is also the kind, mediating influence who everyone’s a little in love with and no one ever bangs. And yeah, I love Voltron too, but Princess Allura — at least in the original run — is there to be slightly incompetent, beloved and in distress. Princess/Jun from Gatchaman isn’t nearly so professionally helpless, but still. This is not something for a modern western superhero comic to emulate.
The Heart is a necessary component for a team comic. Someone who binds the team together, who exemplifies the reasons they fight, who smooths over the conflicts, especially between the Wild Card and everyone else. Someone to inspire everyone when things are at their darkest. You know who the Heart of the Avengers was during the Roger Stern era? (For my money, the best of the 80’s and one of the best of all time?) Captain America. While Janet Van Dyne and Monica Rambeau were leading the team, Captain America was the glue that held it together. Cosmic Boy or Element Lad of the Legion, depending on the era. Kitty Pryde or Cyclops, once upon a time before… well, before. J’onn J’onzz.
Look, I’m not knocking the TVTropes entry. It’s an accurate entry, describing a recurring trope in several media. But it’s not a blueprint for what a successful superhero team comic needs. Superteams need a balance that gives each character a reason to be in the comic, without making them too cardboard or, worse, indistinguishable. There needs to be something that makes the team work while also building intra-team conflict. The Five-Man Band doesn’t try to do any of that.
In other words, it’s the difference between a formula, and a well thought out cast.
Five Man Bands still exist and still work. Heck, I just saw a well composed one launch on Power Rangers: Megaforce. (The Yu-Gi-Oh rangers! Collect all the power cards!) But part of the reason they work is because they’re traveling well worn paths. There are no surprises to be had, there. And all too often, the stories they tell are simplistic.
Not always, by any means. But all too often.
Chris Sims may have been inspired by the Five Man Band, but what he laid out in his article was more subtle, less stereotype. That makes the conversation very different, and for my money a lot more interesting.
One more post, before I sink back into torpor, because this crossed my radar and it’s fascinating, and I quoted it last post:
“Assuming that we’re not just going to go with a bunch of characters that I like — which would really just be Batwoman, Batgirl, Huntress, Oracle and… oh, you know, what’s her name, that blonde kid who was Robin for a hot minute — I think there’s a pretty easy formula you can use to slap together a team of super-heroes. You really just need to fill five roles: the Leader, the Brain, the Muscle, the Heart and the Wild Card.”— Chris Sims breaks down superteams, Super Sentai and everything in between in one short paragraph. (via websnark)
Having reblogged that (it’s from his “who would I pick for an all female Justice League or Avengers” article), I find myself pondering JL lineups, if we ignore market or brand management concerns.
And yes, the Justice League is generally more than five members. I’m going to ignore that for the moment — we can always assume there are other folks floating around in the background. What we’re looking for are the essential elements of the team. Anyone else will lose screen time. Anyone who isn’t one of these five is officially “and the Rest.” Which, as anyone who watched the black and white season of Gilligan’s Island can tell you, are those members you figure aren’t significant enough to get credited in the opening credits.
Another reason I want to skip the ‘and the rest’ part of the Justice League for now? All too often, ‘the rest’ includes ‘the chick we need to put in because we have to,’ or ‘the black guy.’ As far as I’m concerned, if I fail the diversity test in these main five, then I’ve failed the diversity test, period.
(Oh, to forestall something in the comments — as I’ve said before… yes, there’s a diversity test. There’s always a diversity test. Any time you don’t have as close to 50% women and appropriate breakdowns of people of color on your superhero team, you’ve failed the diversity test. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t matter to you. It matters. And as I’ve said before — the compositions of these teams are editorial decisions, period. No one loses a job because they’re not put on a fictional superhero team. End of minirant.)
Here’s a few, in order of team role, after the read-more:
I’m breaking my… well, let’s call it retirement though this isn’t any kind of announcement. It just sounds better to be retired or semi-retired and occasionally pop up than to call the sometimes months between six or seven posts ‘hiatus.’ But I digress.
I’m breaking said retirement because this Something Positive strip highlights something I think the best writers know, but often times the best readers don’t. Kharisma, who’s currently going by ‘Nancy,’ has gone through tremendous character development since her first appearance. In her time of being disinherited, working at soul crushing jobs, becoming a phone sex worker specializing in being an ex-cheerleader being demeaned by the geeks she once demeaned, attempting to marry creepers for their money, being set on fire, attempting to kill horrible people as a part of a game (for their money), being wrongfully convicted of murder, being broken out of prison and ultimately going on the run accompanied by… by… a thing that may or may not be real… Kharisma has developed and grown. She’s gained depth and emotions and empathy. She’s learned many things, not the least of which is how to use Robert’s Rules of Order properly in a sentence.
What she hasn’t done, at her heart, is stop being a completely terrible person. She’s grown enough of a soul to feel badly about it, though she can get used to it.
That’s a good thing. Character evolution doesn’t have to mean evolving to the better. Sometimes, it’s just just a new kind of terrible.
I am, by nature, a roleplayer.
This perhaps isn’t a shock given the existence of this blog in the first place. I play roleplayings. Occasionally, I write for roleplaying games. I’ve got two roleplaying games fleshed out and ready for a creation that may never happen. When given Doctors’ diagnoses, I mentally argue why I deserve a saving throw.
This, naturally, extends to the online arena. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time playing MMOs. While I’d tried Everquest back in the day, it wasn’t until City of Heroes — now so painfully gone — that the form sunk its hooks into me. Since then, CoH, along with Champions Online, Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic have all grabbed my cerebral cortex and refused to let go. Among others, of course, but that’s not important right now.
However, there has often been a question… are these really roleplaying games? Do they truly constitute the assumption of a role, the playing within the context of that role, and the resolution of that role’s activity. Given the lack of a proper gamemaster responding to your actions, is there really a role being played, or is there just a well constructed avatar? And doesn’t everyone more or less just admit this isn’t any kind of RPG? They used to be called MMORPGs — Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Now… they’re MMOs. It’s still ‘massively multiplayer,’ with thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of players, but the ‘role playing game’ is left off.
It’s actually a more complicated question to answer than you might think.
My first really long essay in a while, on my Grognard Pedant blog. It’s mostly about RPG theory fu, to warn.
The start of the school year — or “f’ing September,” as we tend to call it — is a brutal thing. Nothing not school related happens, and it has gotten worse over the years. This year, we had an exceptionally tough summer with some heavy infrastructural upgrades and network expansions/changes/reformulations, and none of it is known to work until you have a full student body using it.
As a side note — so far it’s going very well indeed. But I digress.
Needless to say, my already pitifully small number of posts became “no posts at all,” and that’s the way it was. Honestly, I’m in no position to pick back up (in part because I have a rather ambitious plan for online doings — no, it does not involve a Kickstarter — that will shape what my online life for 2013 and beyond will look like, and so this is not the time to redevote my scrivenorial efforts to essay-writing) anytime soon.
But I just had a discussion with a coworker that I absolutely needed to pass along to you, the folks who I like passing stuff along to.
The discussion was on a technique he used for commenting code, and through it composing and documenting code. And it’s brilliant.
And it would work for almost any form of writing, cartooning, or creative endeavor just as well.
More after the break. I’m Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Aire.
Sometimes, even at this late date, people ask me why I’m so fast to disregard Authorial Intent in a work.
It’s a fair question. After all — all creative people feel inexorably bound to their creations, for good or ill. It feels like a tiny chunk of you has been wrapped up in descriptive text, imagery, lyrics, melody or what have you. And for many (not all) people, there is generally something you’re going for. Something you want to say, whether directly or indirectly. Something you want to imply. Some meaning behind your words. That meaning may be prosaic — sometimes a running gun battle is just a running gun battle — or obscure. (Sometimes a running gun battle is a metaphor for the individual finding himself opposed by his own dark reflection while the world of conformity around him is shattered in collateral damage which rains down upon the innocent and guilty alike. Also there are doves. Just accept that part, okay?)
“Yeah, alcoholism sure is a hoot!”
—Crow T. Robot,Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Giant Gila Monster
The thing that bugs me is without the drinking? I was actually regaining my appreciation of Hazel. There was poignancy involved, and a sense of growth, however slow. She was still essentially selfish and afraid of anything resembling change, but that was beginning to add to her character arc again.
Plus the fish thing was fun.
But, from zero to Kegstand. The joke’s good, but my interest in Hazel’s continued story took a fast nosedive. Here’s hoping this is just a one-off and not an excuse to have Hazel’s alcohol-fueled hijinks return.
Man, I should just dedicate this thing to Girls with Slingshots and be done with it.
I would like to decry Hazel for her dismissive attitude at the end of this, but… honestly, it’s way less horrifying than the practice of awarding children living animals as prizes at carnivals in the first place. Sprinkles is just acting according her nature as a cat, and I have to imagine the goldfish had a better and faster end than most of these fish get at the hands of 5 year olds who get bored with them after a week.
Readercon’s Convention Committee, after taking the time to carefully examine the decision of their Board of Directors and the firestorm of controversy that followed that decision, has issued a statement detailing their response to the situation. In brief: they have admitted culpability, apologized in detail and depth, overturned the decision of the board, applied the Zero Tolerance policy in full to “Bob” (yes, I know I’m the only guy left on the internet who doesn’t name the parties involved. Allow me my indulgences), and accepted the resignations of all the board members. They have also committed to updating and improving their policies — hopefully taking out the Zero Tolerance bits while developing a means of response that protects the safety of the convention — and papering the next Readercon with notices and guides for avoiding harassment and reporting it when and if it happens. They have also offered refunds to anyone who prepaid for Readercon and doesn’t feel they can attend regardless of this response.
Go ahead and click the link above. It’s worth the read.
On the whole, this was the best response they could have had. It clearly accepts responsibility for what happened, takes steps to vindicate those who spoke up, restores the penalties as they were listed — heck, give me a second and I’ll reproduce the penalties section:
The concom has voted to overturn the board’s decision in the matter of harassment committed by [Bob], and to permanently ban him from attending or participating in Readercon in any way. He may not purchase or otherwise acquire a membership; he may not participate in the program; he may not be or work for a dealer in the bookroom; he may not join any Readercon committee; he may not volunteer. We have informed [Bob] of this ban and he has not contested it.
I am a big, big fan of unambiguous statements, and this is a doozy. It makes it clear that this is a real ban, not one that can be worked around. (I can’t imagine Bob intended to try and work around the restrictions anyway.)
Of particular note is their acceptance of responsibility and their apology. They didn’t try to mitigate their responsibility or deflect any of the blame. They simply stated their culpability and their commitment to resolving the situation.
My post on the subject was largely about how the original ruling by the Board had caused a lot more damage to everyone involved than simply banning Bob in the first place had done. So, the question now is — how does the response mitigate that damage? Is Readercon out of the woods? Are the victims? For that matter, does this allow Bob to express contrition and move on as well?
I don’t know.
I think it was the best response they could have — in part because it feels sincere, instead of feeling like damage control. (Whether or not it was sincere is beyond my capability to report, in as much as I lack clairvoyance, telepathy or magic.) However, there was a lot of reporting and damage done, and it took long enough (thanks to the realities of a ConCom’s deliberations even in the Information Age) that there was plenty of time for the poison to spread in Readercon’s well. Will their numbers be down next year? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Further, the review and redevelopment of their Harassment policies is all to the good. Lacking nuance can only lead to pain, as we’ve learned. I hope what will emerge is a policy that outlines a series of potential penalties, up to and including a permanent ban. What may work better — which is to say, erring on the side of safety and affirmation of the victim’s experience while eschewing absolutism — is to ban the perpetrator for the foreseeable future, and then list at what point the perpetrator can petition for reinstatement, as well as the criteria that will need to be shown. That puts the burden on the perpetrator to show proper contrition through action as well as words, and gives the Convention cover should they elect not to reinstate him or her. That’s just one potential way to improve the current policy, of course.
As for the victim and her supporters — the sense of vindication and justice would have to be profound. There is something to be said for the glaring spotlight of indignation being shone on the subject of Con Harassment. While Readercon is (and must) reviewing their policy and will be under a microscope during the process, this situation should be a wake-up call for every fan-run convention: no one wants this to happen again, either to an attendee or to a convention itself. With luck, there will be a lot of different reviews going on.
(An interconvention committee might be a good idea — letting experienced con-runners debate and discuss the issues openly, to help put together a model antiharassment policy for individual conventions to adopt or adapt as needed. Many eyes make for fewer bugs, et al. Of course, herding cats would be easier than fans blah blah blah aphorism.)
Finally, what does this mean for Bob?
Bob’s going to have a rough time of it. There isn’t a convention or fan gathering he can attend without having at least some attention focused on him for this. And I can’t say this breaks my heart — my sympathies remain with the victim. Still, what should have been specific to a single convention (though public enough to give warning to others to watch his behavior) has become fan-wide, and I don’t see Bob recovering from that anytime soon. Internet justice is the justice of chainsaw and grenade, which is why it’s a bad idea to fall back on the internet community’s response for corrective behavior.
Still, all this is resolved, in terms of this specific incident. The discussion is ongoing and will be for some time. With luck and work, this will lead to conventions having clearer, better put together policies against harassment and much greater transparency in their execution of those policies.
Nothing’s going to make this a winning situation for Bob, Carol or Readercon. Nothing could. But maybe — just maybe — this can turn into a win for fandom and fan organizations in general.
Yeah, I enjoyed this one. Well, maybe Luke Cage didn’t need to channel his inner Rayne Summers, but what can you do?
Not that. But I digress.
The whole marriage between Storm and the Black Panther seemed… just wrong to me in the first place. Maybe because the apparently predestined marriage of a Kenyan woman from what was likely a Kikuya, Ameru or Maasai tribe that was actually still organized around traditional lines (save that they abandoned the rich religious spirituality that each tribe developed individually from common roots so they could worship a mutant who could make it rain — a function normally ascribed to a sangoma)to the tribal leader of a rival tribe that was actually the ruling clan of the most technologically advanced nation on Earth managed to completely ignore the incredibly complicated multi-ethnic and multi-national situation spread across the African continent in favor of simply making them “African.” Or, let’s be blunt, “black.”
Or maybe it was because they made an admitted editorial decision to target African American women with their comics — itself a good goal — and felt the best way to do that was to ramrod and retcon a relationship between their two African characters, ignoring decades of history for the characters, an incredible and diverse backstory and web of relationships for Storm, and pretty much all of the byzantine and politically nuanced development of the Black Panther in favor of popping a rating.
Or maybe it was because in 1980 a backstory was established where a 12 year old Ororo saves the Black Panther from racists, but in the run-up to this spontaneous marriage the Black Panther saves her from them instead, because… um… I guess because otherwise it wouldn’t appeal to their target market? Heh? Oh, and then they had sex.
Stop and be skeeved, my friends. Stop and be skeeved.
Or maybe it was the fact that all of the above is racist, sexist, and reductionist when put together.
So I don’t mind this development, and I dearly hope the plan is to spend the next thirty years not mentioning this marriage ever again.
On the other hand, I have to applaud the strange groundbreaking concept of annulment for the dissolving of a comic book marriage instead of a universal cosmic retcon/reboot, one of the two being horribly killed, or the pair making some kind of pact with the devil. It’s a shocking, risky move, I know.
During SDCC DC Comics confirmed that Renee Montoya won’t be showing up in the new 52. Not surprising actually as the writer most associated with her, Greg Rucka, has said that his conversations with DC “made it very clear they had no interest in seeing Renee continue, either as the Question or…
I missed this last year. It’s freaking great — beautifully drawn (and in an idiosyncratic style most mainstream comics lack right now) with characters and situations that remind us how rich the DC Universe was before the New 52. I don’t mean to suggest the New 52 lacks richness now, but it’s not the same.
Honestly, I don’t know why DC doesn’t have selected Pre52 titles as online comics right now, but it’s something I’d like to see. I’d heartily encourage fans to keep up a Fannish Pre52 universe (even form an alliance to do so, maybe even on the old ‘Webring’ model which now just makes me sound old), but given the huge effort such a thing would take for, essentially, no money? I’ll just enjoy things like this when they come up.
Still, if itswallie wanted to continue the adventures of Pre52 Wally West, I sure as Hell wouldn’t say no….
The latest run of Young Justice is called “Invasion,” and while it is not in any way the same, it draws certain elements off a late 80’s comics crossover called “Invasion,” in particular focusing on the discovery and exploitation of the Metagene and ways to eliminate powers, control metahumanity and the like, as well as the use of shapeshiftes (Durlans in the original).
“Invasion,” the comics crossover was plotted largely by Keith Giffen, working with scripter Bill Mantlo. Mantlo, known more for his Marvel work, where he created and developed long runs on the Micronauts and Rom, as well as creating properties like Cloak and Dagger, was involved in an automobile hit and run in 1992, which gave him irreparable brain damage. He had some progress getting better, after institutionalization, but his insurance ran out and he ended up in the only care facility his family could afford (and that just barely). The story is heart-rending for anyone to read. For someone who grew up with his comics, it is agony to think about.
DC? Warner? You don’t owe Bill Mantlo anything, legally. He did a job for you, did it well, was paid and you both move on. I don’t mean or want to claim otherwise. (I might have choice words for Marvel in this regard, but not DC). But here you are, drawing elements off work Mantlo did for you for a storyline in a popular cartoon. This is an opportunity. An opportunity for great press. An opportunity to have a public statement — to say “we recognize that we have no financial obligation to Bill Mantlo, but we and all the modern comics industry owes a lot to this man, and as the “Invasion” storyline develops, we want to demonstrate the kind of heroism we have always stood for.”
Please. Subsidize Mantlo’s care. It might be too late to give him the kind of recovery he once could have had, but at the least you can greatly improve his quality of life. At the least what progress could be made could be made.
I don’t have much I can offer as inducement, but here’s what I can offer. I’ve been critical of the New 52. I don’t apologize for that. But if you do this… I’ll buy every issue of every comic in the New 52 produced in its first year. It will take some time — I’m not particularly flush — but as long as they remain available via Comixology I’ll do it. I’ll buy all the good ones I couldn’t get to. I’ll buy all the ones I don’t care for. Hell, I’ll buy all the ones I actively dislike. Red Hood and the Outlaws? I’ll buy every. Stinking. Issue.
Like I said, it’s not much, but it’s what I can offer. It absolutely pales in comparison to what you can offer Bill Mantlo, his family and his legacy.
Please.
