Comic Book Resources

HA!

Josh could get a lot of mileage out of Sturgeon's Law in these arguments. Particularly if he could apply it to indie comics as well as Marissa applies it to superhero comics.

I don't think putting the First Class books on the same category as Teen Titans and New Mutants is really fair.

It took me a second read to catch this one, but I like the idea.

You guys. You guys. You guys.

69.

Homogeneous prick villain characters plucked from the most popular in Marvel's stables, so "innovative."

Decent strip, though. Cut out the last two panels and I think you have a winner. On the other hand, we have seen a lot of these broad, "superheroes as stale nostalgia porn" jokes before (insert Geoff Johns snark).

I have to disagree with Josh, outside of his point about not reinventing the wheel. The genre doesn't have to be about the newest thing, but just good stories. I consider the indie movement to be akin to reality tv, while real comics is still about sitcom writing. Sure you have long lived shows like two and a half men that has never been any good, but the same could be said about classics such as threes company or even Gilligans island, but you also have Scrubs filling in the M*A*S*H* void. With Indie comics they don't have to be about anything to exist, similar to reality tv. They won't build these wonderful universes that you have with Marvel and DC, instead when the writer gets board writing about the typical guy with a goatee and moves on to something better, nobody will take up the reigns of his discarded work and like reality tv, 50 years from now people will know Spiderman and the Cosby show but have forgetten the Real World and Scott Pilgrim.

First off, the average indie comic does not have a guy with a goatee. That's usually the mainstream comic's role.

Second, Scrubs is not even close to filling M*A*S*H*'s slot. That show is pure stink.

Third, People are going to remember the Real World, because it's been on for over a decade and it's a cultural icon. It doesn't matter that it's dumb. Kind of like Spider-Man.

Fourth, when you use terms like "real comics", you come off really badly.

Thank goodness Apodaca is around to say the complete OPPOSITE of what I would, at least on the first two points.

Fourth, when you use terms like “real comics”, you come off really badly

just tweaking the indies. I don't even know what an indie comic book is vs any other. The only two I would guess for sure is something called Scott Pilgrim is an indie and Captain America is not. Beyond that I would have no clue what the difference is, except when dealing with people that are smug about their taste in comics, (just like music-) that I'm usually dealing with someone that would consider themselves an indie.

Beyond that I like superhero comics, hate violent meaningless comics(in which the protaganist is an actual villain but because he is 'better' than the other villains he's not classified as a villain---see every iteration of the Punisher) can't stand books that spend more time talking than furthering the plot, I find books which attempt to deal with the real world to be pathetically boring, again why waste time with paper medium when tv could do just as good of a job (I understand cost)

Indie comics: Scott Pilgrim (no goatee), ACME Novelty Library (no goatee), Seaguy (no goatee).

Mainstream comics: Green Arrow (goatee), Iron Man (goatee), General Zod (goatee).

Jim Lee - goatee
Geoff Johns - goatee
Dan Didio - goatee

Adrian Tomine - no goatee
Chris Ware - no goatee
Michael Kupperman - no goatee

It's not a matter of opinion. The goatee is a mainstream style. The indie crowd ditched it last decade.

The difference is just in who publishes it. It has nothing to do with the subject matter.

" just tweaking the indies. I don’t even know what an indie comic book is vs any other. The only two I would guess for sure is something called Scott Pilgrim is an indie and Captain America is not. Beyond that I would have no clue what the difference is, except when dealing with people that are smug about their taste in comics, (just like music-) that I’m usually dealing with someone that would consider themselves an indie. "

More irritating is anti-smugness, where people assert superiority based on how plain, mainstream, and " down-to-earth " their tastes are; people who use intellectual laziness as a badge of pride. The stereotypical smug indie fan may not be pleasant to get along with, but they have put work into trying new things and looking at things in a different way, and it is understandably frustrating when that isn't appreciated. The stereotypical anti-smug person is....well, George W. Bush.

The stereotypical anti-smug person is….well, George W. Bush.

ouch that is harsh, of course Bush is about as smug as you can get, I mean it takes a lot of smugness to treat the Constitution, which gave you power, as toilet paper.

being indie (pro or against isn't anti-intellectual of any type) things don't need to be plain or mainstream, or anti-mainstream, but just to be good. If you write a good story, it doesn't matter who publishes, what genre it takes place in, for it to be good. There are plenty of small books out there that are equally as crappy as a mainstream Bendis book.

"50 years from now people will know ... the Cosby show"

You reckon? I'd have thought most people under say 25 will have mostly forgotten about it now, if they knew about it in the first place. I doubt that it will have much cultural currency in 50 years, other than in its effects on TV in general, in which case something like Survivor will be just as memorable, as it had as much (if not more) of an effect on TV.

ouch that is harsh, of course Bush is about as smug as you can get,

How can Bush be as smug as you can get when the guy right after him, Obama, is easily about 10 times smugger?

Third, People are going to remember the Real World, because it’s been on for over a decade and it’s a cultural icon. It doesn’t matter that it’s dumb. Kind of like Spider-Man.

Spider-Man is the pinnacle of superhero comic achievement, barring Superman mostly because he was the first. Grant Morrison could write every day for 100 years and never create a concept anywhere near as brilliant or ingenious as Spider-Man.

I agree with you on Scrubs though. Pure garbage.

How can Bush be as smug as you can get when the guy right after him, Obama, is easily about 10 times smugger?

Because the only thing worse than someone who's a smug know-it-all is a smug dumbass?

Can someone explain the joke to me though. I don't want to come off totally oblivious, but is the punchline is unclear to me. Did he scare Marissa off or something?

(By the way, just so I don't create anymore O.T political back-and-forth I want to assure all that I don't consider Obama a know-it-all, and don't think Bush is a dumbass. And I'll hold my tongue and leave it at that.)

Have a good day.
John Cage

"Can someone explain the joke to me though. I don’t want to come off totally oblivious, but is the punchline is unclear to me. Did he scare Marissa off or something?"

The joke is that he is agreeing with Marissa when she is out of earshot but as soon as she comes by he flips his argument around.

Can someone explain the joke to me though. I don’t want to come off totally oblivious, but is the punchline is unclear to me. Did he scare Marissa off or something?

The joke is that when Marissa's around, Josh is a staunch defender of superheroes, but when she's off-panel, he bemoans their shortcomings to Rick. The "punchline" is really in panels 5 and 6, where we see Josh break from his conversation to keep up the front of "Superheroes rule!" to Marissa, but then resumes commiseration as soon as she leaves. I think that's what it is, which is why I think the last two panels are unnecessary.

And, shucks, Eldric IV just explained it better and firster than I did.

I'd ask if the notion of there being more than one joke in a strip is that alien to some people, but then I remember the makeup of the modern day comic strip page, and realize that getting just one joke per strip is a luxury to most people.

The last two panels are where the funny is the guy Josh is talking too is her boyfriend. His Marissa sense is a valuable skill to have when dealing with a girlfriend. I did not laugh to the last panel. This was one of your better comics.

" ouch that is harsh, of course Bush is about as smug as you can get, I mean it takes a lot of smugness to treat the Constitution, which gave you power, as toilet paper. "

Anti-smugness is still smugness, just without reasons that typical logic would justify as reasons to be smug. Bush came across as amiable and down-to-earth, which unfortunately was more important to many people than the fact that he was a C-Student sheltered by a wealthy background.

As this applies to comics fans, the repercussions are far less grave for a person who touts, say, MC2 over Ultimate Marvel than they are for a world leader oblivious to the differences between various Muslim sects, but it's still annoying.

When Marissa says, "All that proves is that good writers can turn out good work in even the most dismal of genres. But they hardly represent the quality of superhero comics in general," she lost me.

I mean, what does she want? A genre in which bad writers can turn out good work? Good luck with that.

The tension between Marissa-the-indie-girl and Josh-the-big-two-or-so-fanboy would work better for me if she was shown more to be into the higher-end artsy indie stuff that legitimately might have a case for superiority over fights-in-tights comics, rather than (referencing a previous strip) "pirate ninja" stuff, which is barely a notch or so over the super stuff, if that.

How can Bush be as smug as you can get when the guy right after him, Obama, is easily about 10 times smugger?

Obama isn't smug like Bush is smug - Bush was smug because he was in charge and didn't give a hoot about popular opinion, hard research data or doing anything well.
Obama is smug in the sense that he knows he won't be as bad as the guy before him, and will seem great by just undoing everything the other guy did.

"Spider-Man is the pinnacle of superhero comic achievement, barring Superman mostly because he was the first. Grant Morrison could write every day for 100 years and never create a concept anywhere near as brilliant or ingenious as Spider-Man."

Okay. That's not contradictory to what I'm saying.

Spider-Man comics are, honestly, dumb. Not bad, per se, but straightforward and obvious. They're never going to be highbrow art, and that's fine. They're not trying to be. But in terms of equivalents in TV, I would name soap operas and reality TV.