Cop out! ;P

There are all these articles in the trade blaming competition from television and video games for the loss of that younger market in comics. But THIS is the reason. Not only has the news stand and supermarket rack been done away with (making it a special trip to even consider buying a funnybook-- a far cry from impulse buying), but the product has come to cater more and more to continuity fanboys. There's nothing out there now that a kid with a pocketfull of lawn-mowing money can safely pick up and expect not to be caught up in a commitment to spend another $30 finishing the story. And the only comic anthology mag to be found on the racks is the 'adults only' Heavy Metal.

It's not the kids' fault that publishers have bought into a marketing scheme that excludes them.

Have you heard yet about the story revolving around the upcoming publication of Battlin' Jack Murdock?

JoeyDaQ to intern: I'd really like to read that last issue of "Daredevil: Father" again.
Intern: I'll get right on that, sir.
Intern walks down to editorial.
Intern: Mister Quesada wants a book about Daredvil's Father!

get the right writer/artist team on board, and that could be VERY fun.

This isn't really totally true (lots of non-mainstream comics buck the trends) but it does seem to imply that there won't be very many campy fun story-in-one-issue comics until all comics are campy fun story-in-one-issue.

I think it's a bit of a disservice to dismiss him as just a Kubert knockoff. He has a fair body of work in both comic books and comic strips, and he was one of the few guys back then to do fully-painted covers, too.

Concerning Haney's "Super--Sons" stories, two points: A story in SUPERMAN FAMILY eventually established---in passing---that these accounts were fabricated by a computer in Supes' Fortress for his edification, hence the wives/mothers were shadowy and unidentified figures. However, Haney can't even be accurately credited with creating the concept, as somebody (GCD says Jack Schiff wrote the first story---WFC #154---and Edmond Hamilton the second---#157) did it back in the mid--60s, expressly labelled "Imaginary Story", with the wives/mothers Lois Lane and Kathy "Batwoman" Kane. Maybe the label puts these on a different level, but its still the same concept, especially the second with the boys as rebellious teens.

Bob Haney, SSWS, G.I. Combat, Jim Aparo, Robert Kanigher, Brave and Bold, Marvel Team Up, Rook and Vanishing Point all in one post? Awesome. Truly Awesome.

I do have a serious question, though. I can't read the signature on that Yang cover, but boy does that art look like the work of Joe Kubert. What's up with that?

I mean, I wouldn't have believed it to be possible that you could write a story about a soldier and his robot buddy fighting a giant Japanese enemy robot on an island of dinosaurs during World War II, and still have it be boring...but I've read the evidence.

I disagree that "art" and "kitsch" have to be mutually exclusive, however. They can exist simultaneously. This, for whatever reason, seems to be especially true in the medium of comics, where creators have a penchant for turning lurid and often stupid chunks of pop culture detritus into something creative, thought-provoking, and even artistically valid.

You mentioned Frank Miller and Warren Ellis as examples of comics creators whose work exhibits this strange "push-pull" effect where they don't seem to be sure where art stops and garbage begins. Good example... I completely agree. Any given SIN CITY story makes me question whether what I'm reading should be burned or framed. And check out Ellis' APPARAT. It's pulp paperback shit in the purest sense of the word, but it really fucks with your headspace the way good art often does.

This dichotomy is all over the place. From an aesthetic point of view, even WATCHMEN is campy as shit, and WATCHMEN is the deepest superhero comic ever produced.

I think we'll continue to see this into the future, because the younger generation that's now coming into comics has been raised on cynicsm and irony and EVERYTHING has to be a parody or make a statement about something else. Yet at the same time, they're embracing the very things they're poking fun at. The perfect example: Matt Fraction. Read THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE, or MANTOOTH. Better yet, read CASANOVA, which is the most explosive synthesis of pulp nonsense ever constructed. He seems to have a genuine affinity for the absurd, yet he's smart enough to realize it's all bullshit. Another great example: Joe Casey, whose GODLAND seems to be a parody of the most Kirby-esque qualities of vintage Kirby, but at the same time, revels in the lunacy of it all.

Also, check out FEAR AGENT by Rick Remender or AGENTS OF ATLAS by Jeff Parker. These comics are one part college-educated art student, and one part Ed Wood. And they're really fucking awesome.

As for these modern comics not being "outlaw" enough, I think it's the best of both worlds. Ironic chic makes it cool to laugh at and revel in the same thing, so reading something you KNOW is stupid isn't quite as shameful (or even as stupid) as it used to be.