Filed under Around the Web
Last year’s New York Comic Con got me much more interested in the history of comics. The second book I’ve read in my pursuit of comic book knowledge is Grant Morrison’s Supergods. I was already interested knowing that Grant Morrison had written it but when a friend of mine recommended it, I decided to take the plunge. I don’t always enjoy a Morrison book, but there is no arguing that he is one of the biggest and most influential names in comics right now. I expected an insightful discussion of comic characters with some of his personal experiences interspersed throughout the book. What I got was far weirder, far more personal information than I had bargained for.
The book starts off with several chapters dedicated to Golden Age superheroes. Morrison’s analysis of the beginnings of classic heroes like Superman and Batman was both insightful and enlightening. He presented these well-known characters in ways I had never thought of them before and made me reevaluate how I saw them. My favorite of these early chapters dealt mostly with Superman though the 1950’s, after the establishment of the draconian censorship rules of the Comic Code when the plot limitations made writers come up with some very whacky stuff. Morrison’s description of the off-the-wall adventures of the Man of Steel is quite a bit of fun. Personally, I’ve never been much of a Superman fan, but this made me want to read some of those old stories. I was so captivated by these opening chapters I could hardly put the book down.
As Morrison got to the comics of the 60’s and 70’s, he began to incorporate his personal experiences in comics and explain how he got his start in the industry. This was all pretty interesting and it fit well with the general theme of the book (on occasion he begins to drift off topic, but even then it’s still interesting and at least tangentially related). In these chapters, Morrison begins talk about some of his favorite of the more esoteric, less well known comics. The comics he experienced are not the same ones that I enjoyed, although to be fair, I’m an American who grew up in the 90’s and he is a Scot and about 25 years my senior. I am certain, however, that some of his references would be lost even on many of his Scottish peers.
For me, the wheels really started coming off this ride when Morrison began to talk about his exploration into magic. That’s right, magic. While I honestly have no issue with whatever the man chooses to believe, and I was aware that the book was partly an autobiography, I was not prepared for this level of weird. I felt that it really detracted from the comic history in the book and that both subjects would have been better served by being separated into freestanding volumes. If Morrison had written an autobiography and included every odd thing from Supergods and anything else he felt like covering, I would still probably have read it. Grant Morrison is a fascinating man with a real gift for his chosen craft and I would be interested to see what insights could be gleaned from his life experiences, but I would prefer it in a book dedicated to his own personal stories.
This book is filled with comic book history and explores the use of archetypes within our society. It is not, however, a book I would recommend to someone with only a passing interest in comic history or even the average comic fan. Morrison delivers an insightful look at our modern culture through popular art and an interesting depiction of his own person journey to comic book legend, but the mixture of these two often disparate themes tends to dilute the impact of both.
Rating: 3.5 / 5 Death Stars
Filed under Andrew Hales, Book Reviews, Books
DC Comics helps out a children’s hospital in Brazil. This is what superheroes are really about. It’s heartwarming to see a company look after people like its characters do!
Completely to my surprise, I’ve become a huge fan of digital comics. There, I’ve said it, and you can’t make me take it back. I didn’t start off as a fan, but like a new convert learning about Scientology, I didn’t realize it until I was eyeballs deep in it. For months I had been buying comics that came with free digital copies but I didn’t do anything with them because I didn’t have a device that would allow me to read them properly. Sure I could have used my phone, but it’s less than satisfying. That all changed when I received an iPad mini for Christmas, and I have to say that I love this little device. It is small enough to be truly portable but the screen is big enough that it doesn’t feel like I’m trying to look at something on my phone. Also there are lots of great apps, some of the best of which are the various apps from each of the major comic book publishers. Suddenly, I discovered that I now have a device that can make use of all those free digital copy codes that I hadn’t bothered to do anything with. Thankfully, they were attached to the comic itself; otherwise I would have probably lost them.
The Marvel codes are 12 character alphanumeric codes that must be entered into a website in order to get the digital copies, which is a bit annoying, especially considering that I was new to digital comics and had a considerable backlog. However, a few hours and about 150 codes later, I was ready to start enjoying my digital comic collection, and man did I ever enjoy them. Over the course of a Christmas vacation I was able to catch up on months of comics without having to bring a short box around with me or risk damage to my physical copies by shoving them into a backpack. The image quality is just plain awesome. It would be easy to assume that reading comic graphics on a digital screen would be a strain but so far all the comics I’ve seen have been excellent. Although I have glasses and all around pretty crappy vision, I very rarely have an issue reading a page of comics on the screen. On the rare times I do, I can just double tap the panel I’m having issue with and it automatically zooms in on the panel. It even works for two page spreads by focusing on small areas at a time. All of the major publisher apps are powered by Comixology, which means that they function in nearly the same way, making it as easy to switch between publishers without too much culture shock.
Another reason I am a big fan of digital comics is that I can find and read many back issues that I wouldn’t easily have access to otherwise. All of the publishers are working to fill in the back catalog of old comics, and while their complete libraries aren’t available yet, quite a few substantial runs are. One of my first strictly digital purchases was Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27, ultra rare books that I could never possible hope to hold in my hands. Now I’ve got them, in digital form.
I also use the digital format to follow and read books that I’ve heard good things about but was unaware of at the time they were released or books I could not justify buying at full price. New books online are priced the same as the physical ones—probably to keep retailers from rioting—but older books are often discounted, making it worthwhile if you don’t mind being a couple months behind reading the book. Some publishers are also looking for new ways expand their digital footprint with things like digital first content or digital codes for other products like trade paperbacks.
Although all digital comics so far use the same developer, Marvel has clearly taken the lead in this digital frontier. They seem to really be pushing people into the digital realm any way they can. Many of their titles come with free digital copies. However, their method of pushing digital copies does have its flaws. The digital copy that comes with the physical comics isn’t really free, since they charge a dollar more for the books that have them, and there isn’t an option to buy the book without the code. The store attached to the Marvel app runs 99₵ sales every Monday and sometimes has other specials to celebrate comic or real life events. I have gotten some great comic runs out of these sales, which made me very happy (although my wallet less so). While other publishers have sales, they are less frequent and often a bit lack luster. Another really cool thing is that each time a Marvel code is redeemed, the store that sold the book gets a small credit, provided the purchaser specifies their retailer from the provided list. It may not be much per book, those little bits will add up, helping out local comic stores.
On the other hand, DC prints two versions of the book, one with a code and one without, and the book with the code comes in in a polybag. Unfortunately, they don’t really explain how their system works. Until a month ago, I had no idea that’s why they had polybag versions of comics. While I personally am willing to pay the extra dollar for the digital copy, I can understand why not everyone wants to pay extra for something they aren’t going to use.
As with all new things, there are some downsides. Pricing at times can be inconsistent. Captain America Vol. 7 #1-5 are still $4.00 each despite being up to six months old now even though other titles from the same publisher are down to $1.99 after only a month or two.
Unfortunately, the support is sometimes questionable. On a couple of occasions I have not been able to redeem codes for various reasons and have submitted help tickets without a response from the publisher. Other times after returning home from my local comic book store, I’ve opened a book only to find that there isn’t a code inside. At that point I’m left with the choice to either pay for the comic again, or to do without the digital version. I’m hoping they will get some of this sorted out in the near future.
I am looking forward to seeing where this interesting new realm of comics is going to take us. For all my love of digital comics, I will always enjoy having the physical book in my hands, even if I don’t necessarily read it in that form. For some people, though, this is exactly what they need to keep reading their comics, without cluttering up their house.
The best part is that by expanding how comics are published, they can hopefully spread the joy of comic reading to even more people. With access to comics in all forms increasing and the popularity of comic characters growing, thanks to all the new movies that have come out in recent years, we are hopefully close to a new and wonderful comic book resurgence.
Filed under Andrew Hales, Comics
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Therefore I Geek 