She’s not in the DCnÜ. I’ve waited, but the news is never good. Back in March, DC Women Kicking Ass broke some news that at Emerald City Comic Con. I’m just going to quote it:

But yesterday someone above the creator level, Batman head editor Mike Marts, provided some direct answers for the audience about the status of Stephanie Brown:

• Q: How’s the post-Steph Brown Batman, Inc. transition going?
• A: We’re not allowed to talk about that.
• Q: Will Steph Brown be back any time soon?
• A: Nope.
• Q: Why isn’t Steph Brown considered a Robin any more?
• A: Willingham: I’m so glad I don’t have to answer that one. Martz:(sic) Steph is close to my heart, close to all of our hearts. But for the moment we’re staying away from her.

from DC Women Kicking Ass, dated 03/31/2012, emphasis original

 

Cut to a few months later, and we get the announcement that Steph will be showing up…in Smallville, Season 11. Which is awesome, but not a part of the New 52. I’m happy for her, she’s being written by Bryan Q. Miller, who knows the character. I’ll read it.

But…

Steph means a lot to me, and a lot to other fans. We don’t want her forgotten. That’s where Waffles for Steph (FYI, if you don’t like Facebook, use this link) comes in.

In short, on August 10th, they want people to deliver waffles to DC world headquarters, along with a note or essay about what Steph means to you. Why waffles? Read Bryan Miller’s 24 fabulous issues of Batgirl (available in trades and on Comixology! Or look at these pretty pictures:

So please, if you want to help Steph out, get a waffle and send it to DC World Headquarters on August 10th. Write them a note, or an essay, or a poem about why Steph is so important to you and put it with the waffle. (Please, please, please don’t be negative. Steph wouldn’t like that.) Send it to:

More information about the project can be found at the Waffles for Steph facebook page:
Waffles for Steph

Or on this forum thread:
Let’s bring Steph to the DCnU

Finally, another facebook fan page:
Save Stephanie Brown

Thanks.

I’ll be the first to confess that until I picked up Avengers: Solo, I had never read anything by Jen Van Meter. The only reason number one went into our pull list was because my partner EvilBob had met Jen at GeekGirlCon, and she was so nice that we decided that we’d give this title a shot.

I’m not an Avengers fan. The closest I ever got was the Ultimates line, but Ultimates vol. 3 kind of ruined it for me. I like some of the Avengers individually, but when they team up, I’m put off.

Fortunately, Solo focuses on (surprise) a single Avenger. I always remember Hawkeye from the Great Lakes Avengers days. It seemed that he played one of two roles, played for laffs or far too serious. I try to ignore it most of the time, because I have a soft spot for the regular guy on the team of world shakers.

Van Meter surprised me with her take on Hawkeye. He’s played as both funny and serious, whatever the situation calls for. I laughed out loud at some of his lines, and I took seriously most of his serious moments. Here we see Hawkeye as what he really is: a more-or-less regular guy surrounded by Gods and monsters, icons and billionaires and all the bad guys out there. Somehow, he still maintains his humanity, without going completely bat-shit crazy.

Roger Robinson does a great job on the art, keeping us focused on what we should be focused on. I’m afraid to say that I really wasn’t paying all that much attention to the art though, because after issue 1, the story hooked me.

Look, I want you to read the story, so I’m going to skip the part where I tell you most of the gritty, spoilerific details. Trust me, this is the best Avengers story I’ve read in a long time. It beats out everything, including the original Ultimates. Basically, Hawkeye gets to play detective, and the people he’s helping don’t want the Avengers involved.

That’s an important thing. Hawkeye isn’t saving people, he’s helping them. He’s not treated like an Avenger. He doesn’t call all the shots. Instead, he collaborates with people, and treats them with respect.

On to the one spoiler I’m giving. If you don’t want spoilers, stop reading here and just buy the comic!

One of the characters in the comic is transgendered. When we get the reveal, Hawkeye treats him like a real person.

No shock, no “what the !@#*?”, none of the usual bullshit we get when a trans character comes out in comics. It’s the most touching, poignant moment I’ve read in a long time…in any format. Better yet, there was a twitter conversation involved:

“…behave the way I think a hero ought…”

That bit made Jen Van Meter my new hero. Without my even realizing it until I was writing this today.

I work in a restaurant in Missoula, MT. I work with people who routinely, without, I think, realizing it, make a lot of racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic comments and jokes. I need this job. Before getting it, I was unemployed for over a year. So, I didn’t rock the boat much. After reading the reveal in issue #4, something changed.

I wasn’t behaving the way a hero ought. I was being part of the problem. I was using the fact that I’m a cisgendered white guy who is presumed to be straight to avoid having to deal with bullshit. I was hiding.

After reading #4 and having this brief twitter conversation, I stopped that. I’ve called people out on their malarkey. I’ve stopped ignoring comments meant to make people who scare someone feel small. I don’t put up with hate for hate’s sake anymore. I haven’t gotten into trouble at work yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time.

You know what? I don’t care any more. The world needs more heroes, especially in a time where the men running for President of the United States seem to want to roll us back to 1950. When a state wants to require a woman to have an unnecessary medical procedure that violates her person in order to have an abortion.

Fuck.

That.

Noise.

 
That right there is the greatest achievement I’ve seen in comics. I read a lot of them, but very, very few have inspired me to change behaviors. Avengers: Solo reminds us that heroes are out there, and that there is more to being a hero than being one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

If you can find them, buy the loose issues from your local comic shop. If you want the trade, Amazon.com has it here.

The Good: Um, everything? Hands down one of the best hero stories out there right now.

The Bad: It seems really unlikely that we’ll ever see J again, and that is a crying shame.

Lately, it’s been chibis, those little stylized things that punch you in the neck with their cuteness. We got to talking, and came up with an Idea. You can tell it’s important, because the “i” is capitalized. That lead to an evening of character design, scripting, and arguing about the relative shapes of goblin heads. Also, horny viking jokes, but that’s not that far out of the ordinary.

Evil Bob’s recap of the evening made me think that I should say something about it, because I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be far too busy scripting for a while to really maintain Fishy Intent. It took a lot not to immediately open up Google Docs and start going when I sat down. But I promised to keep you guys in the loop, so here we are.

When we know more, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know. Now excuse me, I have to counteract the cuteness of the chibi style with some good old-fashioned psychological horror and graphic violence.

Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.

I’ve tried to work on TANKERS for a while now. I spent time developing characters, writing a first issue, restructuring the first issue a few times and swearing. I keep hitting a wall. I gave up for a while and worked on another project until I realized I was having the same problem.

I had a lot of cool stories, but they weren’t really going anywhere.

I’ve brooded about this for a few weeks. Today, the canned music at the restaurant I work at played “Closer to Fine.” The song is catchy, but the lyrics that have always resonated with me go like this:

Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable,
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear

Suddenly, I knew where the story was going, how it was going to get there, and what I needed to do. I had a goddamn theme.

The point here, if there is one, is that inspiration comes from weird places, and every story needs a theme tying it together. Now please excuse me, I have to go write some things.

So, Batman is for sure getting backups featuring tie ins to the main story. What is Detective getting?

The short answer is we’re not sure yet. Here are a few suggestions:

• Give us characters we haven’t seen enough of! Look, everyone loves the Bat. But a lot of us love his supporting cast. We understand that it’s expensive to print runs of comics, but here is the perfect opportunity to give fans of the GCPD, or of the many other neat characters who live in Gotham a bit of something to look forward to.
• Show the women some love! There are a ton of great female characters that DC has basically ignored in the relaunch: Renée Montoya, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Josie MacDonald and Romy Chandler, just to name a few. Give them some decent screen time. You’ve promised us some Steph Brown and Cass Cain, but so far, we haven’t seen either of them. This is your chance to make it right, on the cheap.
• Give the GCPD it’s due! Gotham Central was one of my favorite titles. Sure, now probably isn’t the time to relaunch the book, but using a backup in Detective Comics makes perfect sense. They are all detectives, after all.
• Show me some Batgirls! Okay, I’ve already mentioned Cass Cain (aka Batgirl and the Black Bat), and Stephanie Brown (aka the Spoiler, Robin and Batgirl). Both of them are fan favorites, and they both have a history together. Why not show them doing their thing? Fans who don’t read Detective (like me) would buy issues with either of them. They would have a heart attack and buy several copies of any issue with both of them. Want to get even more fans screaming with delight? Do a Misfit run. She tried her hand as the new Batgirl in old continuity, why not bring her troubled, homeless self back?
• Answer the Question! Look, I loved Renée as the Question, but that seems to be off the table now. So, bring back Vic Sage. He’s a detective, and I loved him in 52. Let a whole new generation appreciate the Question. Even better, use the backups to have Vic train Renée as the new Question. (On another note, if you do this, please put Renée on the Birds of Prey! Her appearance in Gail Simone’s run was inspired. More, please.)
• Classic villains! Whatever happened to the Riddler? Or Killer Croc? Or Bane? Tell us in a backup!
• Do some test marketing! Not sure if there is enough interest in a character? Give them a backup. Watch the sales rise and know that fans love Stephanie Brown, and Cass Cain, and Renée Montoya. Experiment. Take chances. People are buying Detective anyway, so take a few risks. They could pay off!

If any of these happened in the pages of Detective, I’d put it in my pull list in a heartbeat. So, listen up, DC. You have a chance to right some of the wrongs you’ve done in the past.

will feature the first of a series of back-up stories exploring the dark history of the Court of Owls, the mysterious and malevolent secret society wreaking havoc upon Gotham City in the ongoing series.

The Source Blog, January 9 2012

 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

I love backup stories. The backups from the new Action Comics are wonderful. Steel has appeared, but the story of Jonathan and Martha Kent really shined, and made me hope that Action would keep doing little stories at the end of a larger comic. I’m happy to pay an extra dollar for these gems.

Now, back to Batman. The price goes up a dollar, and we get…more Court of Owls stuff. For those of you unfamiliar with the Scott Snyder run on Batman, the Court of Owls is a mysterious organization that has done bad stuff in Gotham since the town’s founding. They are responsible for the death of at least one of Bruce Wayne’s ancestors, and possibly more.

Why do we need a backup for this?

Look, I like the Court of Owls stuff. It’s nice to see Batman not completely controlling Gotham City. It’s nice to see him wrong. But to me, a backup story should avoid direct tie ins to the Main Event. A backup can work if it’s coming at the Main Event from another direction, but this sounds more like a history lesson.

If we need history, why not include it in the Main Event? At least some of the backup is told from the POV of Alfred’s father. Neat, but I’m paying an extra dollar? When that could be included in the Main Event as diary pages, flashbacks or any number of other bits?

Okay, I get that it’s cool. Snyder has a great history of doing backup stories. I would rather, though, get a feel for the story from other characters that I care about. Say, Detectives Harvey Bullock, Renée Montoya or Crispus Allen. Even Commissioner Gordon would work. Seeing them working the case from a different angle would be interesting, and allow Gotham to develop from a viewpoint we rarely get to see.

Gotham City is a character in most Bat titles. It needs another point of view to develop it. The Wayne family is important, but there are other people in Gotham. I’d like to know how they see the city and the stories that have shaped it so much.

In no particular order:

Megan Lavey-Heaton
Megs is part of the team behind Namesake, my favorite web comic. She and Isa (see below) are the reason I was thinking about this today.

I’m scripting a comic, but realistically speaking, the chances of breaking into comics right now is very, very wee. I’ve been toying with the idea of publishing it online, but I keep coming back to the fact that I can’t bring myself to do that until it is at least one tenth as awesome as Namesake. That’s much more awesome than it is right now.

I enjoy a lot of web comics, but Namesake made me realize that a comic on the web could be more than a replacement newspaper funny. There is a story, rather than a series of comedic events. There is character development. While reading the comic, I’ve laughed, I’ve cried and I’ve cringed in horror. If there was any justice in the world, Meg and Isa would be able to work on this full time and make as much money as they could want off of it. If there was justice, I’d be able to find issues of Namesake at my FLCS, as well as trades and figurines of Emma, Warrick and the Card Soldiers.

Instead, I read Namesake on the internet and look forward to the day when I can buy their first book.

Isabelle Melançon
Isa is the genius behind the art of Namesake (and some of the story), so everything I said above applies here. But there is more!

Isa is one of the most talented artists out there. She captures the essence of every character in the story perfectly. She uses color better than just about anyone else out there. Often, when I see a black and white image with a splash of color on it, I just shrug and think to myself “Wow, that’s gimmicky.” I have never said that reading Namesake.

By turns joyous, pensive, creepy and outright terrifying, Isa reminds me that art can make a comic better. I’m a reader first, and look at the art second. Except when I’m reading Namesake. It is literally the only comic I’m reading where I could not tell you if I like the art or the writing more. Every other comic I’m reading right now the art comes second. Way to go, Isa!

Ed Brubaker
I am a sucker for crime stories. No one writes crime like Ed Brubaker. I recently had the opportunity to read his Criminal series, and it knocked my socks off. Okay, not literally, but it was close. If I hadn’t been wearing shoes at the time, my socks would have come right off.

Look, any writer that is willing to tell a story where the villain just fucking wins is rethinking how to do his job. He’s now writing Fatale, a book that I read yesterday. I need to read it again, because in horror noir things are never what they seem to be. Brubaker makes me hopeful that it’s still possible to tell the story you want to tell, rather than what editorial wants you to tell.

Jen Van Meter
I’ll be honest, I had never heard of Jen until my partner met her at GeekGirlCon. We only picked up one of her comics because we felt bad that she was so nice and we hadn’t read anything she had done.

Damn, am I glad that we did that. Avengers: Solo has somehow made the Avengers relevant again. It’s a five part mini-series, and I’m really, really sad that it’s going to be over soon. Jen’s Hawkeye is spot on. He isn’t played just for laughs (though laughs happen), he isn’t just dark and broody (though he has his moments) and he isn’t a complete fuck up. He’s a person, and that’s rare in superhero comics. Jen makes it work, and for that I’m grateful as hell.

Greg Rucka
I fell in love with Greg Rucka reading Gotham Central (also Ed Brubaker, it must be admitted. Seriously, whoever thought to put them together is a genius.) Then I read Stumptown. Now I’m hooked. Want more? Greg is writing the Punisher.

I’ve never been a Punisher fan. I read the first Garth Ennis run years ago, and I was much younger then. It seemed cool at the time, but rereading it has been…unsatisfactory. It did not stand the test of time. Frank Castle talks too damn much.

Rucka, on the other hand, hardly bothers with Frank Castle dialogue. He treats the Punisher more like a force of nature, something that happens to people. He’s not a hero. We know that, but Rucka makes us feel that. The stars are people around Castle, the victims the Punisher is avenging, the cops who have to deal with the fallout. It is one of three Marvel books I’m reading.

Oh, and the sound of Detectives Clemons fiddling with the knife from issue #7 still haunts me.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons last year. First and foremost, I am not an artist. I’m an okay writer, but drawing is not my thing. I manipulated photos for last years insanity, and that was enough to drive me crazy. It also means that I’m not quite satisfied with how Translunar turned out.

I want to do it again (and it starts tomorrow!), but I’m not sure that I can handle the art again. Instead, I’m giving myself a different challenge.

I’ve had two ideas floating around for stories (read about them here) lately. I’m going to spend the month of November writing five issues of one of them. That is 110 pages of comic scripted. In thirty days. At two pages of script per page of final comic, I’m looking at 220 pages of writing. That comes out to 7 1/3 pages of script per day.

And here I was, worried that this wouldn’t be as challenging.

The screaming starts tonight at midnight. If you’re on twitter, look for the hashtag #nanographicmo. Check out the Nanographicmo website. If I can do it, you can do it, probably better.