Comic Book Resources

Inglourious Basterds is one hell of a movie but I’m biased because I love everything that Tarantino does.

I would put Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis on the Top 2 of the comics writers list and add Mark Waid to the superhero comics list. When it comes to pure, entertaining superhero comics you can’t beat his Flash run.

I never thought that reviews are influenced by Marvel or DC but I see in some sites (not this one, but ones like IGN) that there’s almost a writer bias, and that guys like Bendis, Geoff Johns and Morrison can get away with anything they write(although in Morrison’s case, I’m guilty of that too).

Oh and by the way, my real name’s Lebowski

My given name is Ultimate. Weird parents.

Agreed on Wonder Woman. I’ve bought tens of thousands of comics in my life over the past 20 years, of all styles and genres, and have definitely got hundreds by most of the classic super-heroes. But I’ve probably only bought about 3 Wonder Woman comics. And I don’t see that number going up. Ever.

It must be obvious that I could never make this name up.

“When we don’t love something, it’s not because we’re biased or on the take or whatever stupid excuse you made up in your head, it’s because we didn’t think it was good.”

So, you don’t think bias ever leads you to think something isn’t good when it is, or is good when it isn’t? (I agree that “on the take” is a ridiculous notion.)

I’m a big Tarantino fan, too, Dude, and I can’t wait to see Inglorious Basterds. I brought it up to a friend of mine who said he thought Tarantino was overrated. My only response was, “why do you hate movies?”

I’m a big Warren Ellis fan as well, Chad, but you should probably stop smoking whatever it was that convinced you he was better than Grant Morrison.

As for one character I find completely uninteresting, this is tough for me, because I tend to be able to find something interesting about almost any character as long as he/she is in the hands of a good writer. But I guess if I had to pick one it would be Venom. He just represents the worst of ’90s excess to me, and unlike a character like Cable, no one has written him since in a way that transcends the one-note “psycho alien symbiote that hates Spiderman” characterization.

“First step to being taken seriously online: drop the lame username. Use your real name. There are exceptions, of course, but you’re probably not one of them.”

If you are a teacher, it might be best not to use your real name. I know one creator who doesn’t, and another poster who doesn’t. And I just read an account that said Phil Seuling, who basically created the concept of the direct market, had been fired from a teaching job because of his involvement with comic books.

It may sound paranoid, but teachers are under a lot of scrutiny these days. They need to take care to protect themselves from irrational persecution.

@Neal K: nice comeback to your friend:-) some people probably think Tarantino overrated because he draws from the same well of influences many times but in Inglourious Basterds he strays out of his comfort zone a bit and he still nails it.

I also agree with you about Warren Ellis. I love his work but the majority of the stuff that I like of him isn’t superhero comics: Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Fell,etc(his Stormwatch and Authority runs are of course the exceptions). On the other hand his JLA work was average, his Astonishing X-Men isn’t shaping up to be much better and the Ultimate Extinction work that was reviewed here recently wasn’t very good in my opinion.

Michael P — I was, of course, speaking about the more ‘sinister’ biases that various online message board posters have attributed to my colleagues, not the obvious ones that every single person has in his or her own unique way. But, also, we do try and go beyond those biases when we can. I’ve written reviews that were more positive or negative than I personally felt (not by a lot in either direction, but some) because I knew that my reaction to a comic was clouded by a very specific personal bias of mine.

Neal K — I’ve gotten pretty much every piece of work each writer has done in the last… christ, far too long, and I stand by my assessment. Strangely enough, I see the two writers at almost opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to superhero comics: Ellis has a complete lack of love and affection for the genre and characters, motivated by his ability and desire to do a good job; Morrison possesses a large affection and love for the genre and characters, often motivated by that love and affection, and, of course, his ability and desire to do good work — but, part of that desire to do good work is to ‘honour’ the characters, to elevate them. They stand on two sides of the genre, which is interesting to me.

Alan — Good point. Even as I was writing that thought, I considered that — or that people could use false names. The point still stands that it will always be difficult to take some people serious because of lame internet usernames.

I don’t think I read enough mainstream superhero comics anymore to go five deep on a list of favorite mainstream superhero comics writers. Morrison, Ellis, uh, Fraction, uh…

I don’t want Thunderstrike to come back, mostly because he’s totally one of my all-time favorites (Yes, that’s right– a DeFalco/Frenz original is in my Top Three All-Time Favorite Characters, and I’ve got the plaque to prove it! [no I don't]) and his death was pretty exceptionally done, and should remain final.

I would be interested in your thoughts on Dark Knight Strikes Again. I maintain it’s a fiercely underrated series.

I still haven’t answered my own question from this week. Who do I find completely uninteresting? Almost all of the grown-up Titans: Dick Grayson (though Morrison is proving me wrong, here), Donna Troy (zzzz), Roy Harper (zzzzzz), Garth Tempest or whatever his name is (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). They are all stuck in mediocre character limbo, at least until they reboot DC again. How do you go about fixing them? I genuinely don’t know, but they desperately need a niche. Start a school for the next generation of superheroes? Maybe? That just makes them even more like weaksauce X-Men. And I don’t even like the X-Men, either.

I am listening to the NPR interview of Tarantino about Inglourious Basterds.

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=08-27-2009

Pulp and Circumstance: Tarantino Rewrites History

IG was a very fun movie, and very well made.

You read but didn’t like George Perez’s amazing revamp of Wonder Woman? Hmm.

Phil Jimenez also had a great run on Wonder Woman. I thought his WONDER WOMAN #170 (“A Day in the Life”) was one of the best comics of the year.

P.S. Here are some thoughts on Tarantino:

“The Terrible Moral Emptiness of Quentin Tarantino Is Wrecking His Films”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-terrible-moral-emptin_b_270809.html

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2009/08/tarantinos-apache-warfare-fiction.html

Rob — I haven’t read either run. I’ve heard mixed things about the Perez one, but not much about Jimenez’s.

Oh, and I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, as did the Girlfriend.

I recently started to use my real name online for the very reason you cite, so it’s nice to hear described as a good idea

And also, I want Thunderstrike back too!

Holy shit! Is Funky actually Eric Bana? I knew it. You’ve been outed FGJ, so might as well just use the real name now.

I still haven’t answered my own question from this week. Who do I find completely uninteresting? Almost all of the grown-up Titans: Dick Grayson (though Morrison is proving me wrong, here), Donna Troy (zzzz), Roy Harper (zzzzzz), Garth Tempest or whatever his name is (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). They are all stuck in mediocre character limbo, at least until they reboot DC again. How do you go about fixing them? I genuinely don’t know, but they desperately need a niche. Start a school for the next generation of superheroes? Maybe? That just makes them even more like weaksauce X-Men. And I don’t even like the X-Men, either.

Bill, I think that you answered your own question with regard to twentysomething Titans: re-boot ‘em.

If Wally West is no loner the Flash, then what is standing in the way of these characters going back to their roots? Well, once Grant Morrison is done with Dick as Batman.

The hook on each of the characters you mentioned is their relationship to an older hero. Dick Grayson is the kid that Batman chose to replace him one day. Donna Troy is Wonder Woman’s kid sister. If you assume that Atlantis maintained a classical Greek culture, then Garth is probably the eromenos of Aquaman. Roy Harper suggests that maybe fighting Silver Age menaces is emotionally damaging for a child, even if your mentor is a cool guy like Ollie Queen.

That is a compelling story for teenagers, but becomes faintly pathetic in adulthood. By the time a person hit their mid-20s, you stop wanting to hear about what their parents are, or did. You want to know what they are about. Unless DC wants to kill off its most famous characters for good, then the older Titans are stuck in an increasingly pathetic cycle of being adults forever over-shadowed by their mentors.

The only fix is to wind the clock back.

The first entry just proves you’re not “on the take” as you didn’t list either of the big Jeffs (Loeb or Johns) in your list of favorite superhero writers. Though the inclusion of Bendis does raise eyebrows its cancelled out by the addition of scary-man Warren “Good morning intertube pustule slut-puppies” Ellis.

I agree on your non-opinion of the Disney/Marvel deal. Not only did this news just break yesterday but no details have been given on anything aside from the various interested parties stating that nothing will change (yet). The possibilities excite/frighten me but until we see some actual movement on the acquisition its too soon to tell if this is good/bad/ugly.

If you dig Neil you really need the archive. Worth it for the On the river album alone.

P.S.
On the river is awesome for two reasons:
1.) The songs are phenomenal.
2.) Neil is clearly high off his ass and in between tracks he just rambles on for minutes on end. It’s pure gold.

Oh, I WANT the archives, I just can’t afford them right now. Maybe I’ll get lucky when Christmas comes around.

Random thought: Unless you have a high end graphics card AVOID CHAMPIONS ONLINE LIKE THE PLAGUE

I played City of Heroes since launch and have been so looking forward to this game. I have a newish PC that I bought earlier this year with a quad core and plenty of RAM. My graphics card isn’t high end but so far I’ve been able to run just about anything I throw at it with now problem. Champions Online though, is a huge mess. The game has to be set to the minimum settings to even get it to run halfway decent and then it looks like crap and still plays like crud.

I am so pissed off that I am out $50 and won’t be playing Champions any time soon. I’m not dropping a bunch of money on a new GFX card just to play this. I’d got back to City of Heroes but I’m so bored with that game at this point having played it for years now.

Man, I’m so pissed at Cryptic at this point. So damn pissed….

I’m a teacher, and I don’t think anyone in charge would care that I read comics. Phil Seuling had trouble, but that was a different time.

Inglourious Basterds was fun and somewhat disturbing. I liked it, but I had some difficulty dealing with the abrupt tonal shifts and ruthlessness of the protagonists (Brad Pitt’s crew). My wife didn’t have the same trouble cheering on the Basterds’ tactics. She is Jewish, and the tragedy of the Holocaust has been a topic drilled into her from childhood. She loved all the Nazi killing.

I’m a teacher and I AM in charge, as I am also a Dean at my school. Most of the faculty and students know I read and write about comics, and I tend to think anyone who uses a fake internet handle is a coward.*

Seriously, use your real name. What are you afraid of?

*I can understand that if someone began using a fake online name and sort of gained some kind of internet credibility with such a name, then they might want to continue using it. Jog, Matt Fraction, etc. But those are rare exceptions. I haven’t read anything by the FrankCastle007 types that has a whole lot of value.

TimCallahan: Try reading The Economist someday. Pseudonymous writing, often of considerable worth.

Or, just keep on calling people chicken, like you’re Biff Tannen; whatever works.

I didn’t know my true name until my Mistress gave it to me.

Nobody writes superheroes better than Ennis.

I’ve bought about 8,000 comic books in my life. Less than two dozen starred the Flash. Any of them.

Wonder Woman is one of those characters that works better as a guest star than as a lead.

I have the suspicion (and hope) that when Miller finally finishes ASBAR, everybody will go, “Oh, now I get it.”

You’re assuming I care whether or not people take me seriously here (or at least whether or not I value that over my desire for privacy.)

IG was a very fun movie, and very well made.

I’ll agree that it was very well made, but was it a fun movie? I found it incredibly tense the whole way through. Which is defiantly not a bad thing, but makes it, in my opinion, a hard slog to watch.

And I can’t see this idea that there is no moral ambiguity in the movie. Tarantino seemed to go out of his way to make some Nazis as sympathetic as possible.

Holy shit! Is Funky actually Eric Bana?

There’s no way that Bana would pretend to be from Sydney

I only use my real name because I’m not clever enough to come up with something better.

i have no interest in lots of charecters, including anyone in Preacher. i can’t think of anything that someone could do with them to make them interesting to me. Also, D-Man is a pretty pathetic charecter. Actually, now that i think about it, just about any charecter created by Mark Gruenwald. i can’t stand his writing and think that his charecters should all just be flushed away.
DFTBA.

“Seriously, use your real name. What are you afraid of?”

Of my psychotic sister who scours the Internet looking for any trace of my life to try to control from 1200 miles away.

Seriously.

There are exceptions, of course, but you’re probably not one of them. (FGJ, you are.)

Right now, I wanna tongue you.

I’m Ben Lipman, by the way… I’ve considered using that, but on the CBR boards when other people change their name, unless they keep the same avatar, I always get confused and have trouble remembering them as the same person.
I’d thought I had enjoyed the posts of old poster ‘MadmanDan’ and wished he’d come back, all the while enjoying the posts of new poster ‘Dan Apodoca’ – blew my mind the time, years later, Apodoca made a reference to when he used to post as ‘Madman Dan’.

But those are rare exceptions. I haven’t read anything by the FrankCastle007 types that has a whole lot of value.

FrankCastle007 wrote the best ‘how he would have written Punisher MAX better than that Ennis hack who ruined it’ post eva.

I’m a big Tarantino fan, too, Dude, and I can’t wait to see Inglorious Basterds. I brought it up to a friend of mine who said he thought Tarantino was overrated. My only response was, “why do you hate movies?”

I’d say he’s gotten overrated – Kill Bill, Deathproof and now Inglorious Basterds all could have been a lot better.

Charaterisation wouldn’t hurt, paying off buildups would be nice, and actually having a point would make them better films – at the moment they haven’t really risen above reference films.

Bastards was just a series of scenes stuck together – there was no consistent flow or tone to them… I know that’s the point, it was just meant to be fun, but it could have been fun and great if he’d added a few bits and cut down on some scenes.
(For instance, removing writing appearing on the screen and scenes with narration telling us information, and instead have that information conveyed to us through the scenes themselves… now that I think of it, he Mark Millared it a bit! Show, don’t tell!)

I just don’t think he’s living up to the potential as a filmmaker he showed.
I enjoyed it – for what it was – but it’s no classic… and it should have been.

And I say this as someone who totally fell in love with film and film theory (and now works cutting trailers) pretty much because of Pulp Fiction.
It opened my eyes to film beyond standard Hollywood fare, and because his name was all over it, first made me see that different creators can make different films.

i have no interest in lots of charecters, including anyone in Preacher. i can’t think of anything that someone could do with them to make them interesting to me.

Have you read Preacher?

Also, I think it was more a question about characters in comic universes – not characters created for a specific story and storyline.

Say more like MoonDragon – even her and Marlo getting on couldn’t make me feel the need to pick up a book with her in it.

When even Peter David and lesbian sex can’t make a character interesting, that’s a bad character.

But Mantis is worse.

I used to use a pseudonym on various message boards (including CBR). I stopped years ago because I decided it was time to use my own, and that carried over to my half assed blogging career. While it would be nice to have plausible deniability about some of the shitty posts I’ve made, I’m… well, I’m kind of stuck with the responsibility now, aren’t I?

Despite Baker’s Hawkman being fun, I’m still never going to be a huge fan of the guy. I’ve also never found the Avengers interesting (the Ultimates is as close as I ever got), but I imagine I’d probably enjoy what someone like Engleheart or Busiek did with them.

This one agrees that Mantis is lame.

Also: every Teen Titan created in the ’70s or ’90s (okay, I thought Argent wasn’t bad). While I kind of like the original cast and the Perez characters (vastly improved on the Teen Titans cartoon), every other Teen Titan seems completely uninteresting.

First step to being taken seriously online: drop the lame username.

Taken seriously? Pffft, it’s the internet, who cares

And I am Oz, I just needed something a little longer than that.

Brad, have you ever read Hawkworld? The Tim Truman mini and John Ostrander, Truman, & Graham Nolan series made me a fan. Katar Hol came off as a serious cop who becomes a likable idealist. Shayera Thal kiced ass, and became one of my favorite superheroines.I think they based the JLU version of Hawkgirl on the one who appeared in Hawkworld.

I’m confused will the movie or girl friend be fantastic – or both?

Bill, I think that you answered your own question with regard to twentysomething Titans: re-boot ‘em.

If you include the original Bob Haney series, I think the original Teen Titans are on their fifth or sixth ongoing series (not including the Dan Jurgens team). I agree, as a team/family they are fundamentally broken and vaguely pathetic. And I’m saying this as someone who suffered through the end of the Wolfman run and Devin Grayson’s attempt.

The Titans have no real purpose. At one point they were supposed to be mentoring younger heroes, but that kind of evaporated. They’re the only team I can think of off the top of my head that doesn’t have a well-defined purpose, and I’m including Gay for Justice. They seem to exist solely for the inter-character drama. Fighting crime is secondary. It’s like Secret Life of the American Teenager with robots.

Of course, I’ve only flipped through the most recent series, so I could be totally off base.

So, you don’t think bias ever leads you to think something isn’t good when it is, or is good when it isn’t?

Just because we don’t like something doesn’t mean it isn’t well made.

I don’t like peanut butter. Never have, never will. You could give me the world’s greatest, award-winning peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I wouldn’t eat it. Doesn’t mean the peanut butter isn’t good. Just means that I don’t like it.

There are plenty of things out there that are poorly made that I still love. I’m re-watching Quantum Leap on Netflix right now, and the first season is flat out awful. Not in concept, mind you, but in execution. Bad acting, ridiculous leaps of logic, that sort of thing. But I still love them.

In message-board-land, too many people assume that if they don’t enjoy a title, it doesn’t deserve to exist. Or if they don’t enjoy a writer, he shouldn’t be in the business. They don’t have the ability to tell the difference between quality and their personal tastes.

(Granted, there are some things that are legitimately awful, but it takes a little time to judge something accurately–even if Ultimatum and Cry for Justiceseem to be leaning that way.)

Thunderstrike isn’t back from the dead yet?

During the heydey of the 90s boom, it looked like Marvel was going to start becoming more legacy-oriented, the way DC was. Or at least franchise-oriented.

I think, not including Ben Reilly, Thunderstrike was my favorite of Marvel’s “second generation” heroes of the time.

And where is my Thunderstrike action figure? I was promised a Thunderstrike action figure!

When I first started posting on message boards, I decided that I would do the opposite of what I’d heard most people do; I would tell nothing but the truth, and I would pick one handle and stick to it.

If the people I work for knew I was The Mutt, I’d be fired tomorrow.

If the people I work for knew who I was, I’d apparently have a job, and wouldn’t be so freaked out about this mortgage payment.

Meanwhile, I’ve been wondering if my blogging “career” deserves a line on the ol’ resume.

My favorite mainstream superhero writers at this moment, based on what they’re doing these days (not an all-time list by any means):
1) Grant Morrison, 2) Matt Fraction, 3) Paul Cornell, 4) Mike Carey, 5) Joe Kelly? Less solid on Kelly, I love him but there are quite a few other contenders too.

For comic book writers, all-time, it’s”
1) Alan Moore, 2) Grant Morrison, 3) Neil Gaiman, 4) John Marc DeMatteis, 5) probably Donna Barr

Warren Ellis’s evident lack of affection for the superhero characters he writes about is probably why I’m not normally excited about his superhero stories, although Planetary’s been wonderful all in all. I much prefer Transmet.

I really dug Truth as Wonder Woman’s central concept and I was excited about that “Golden Perfect” story too, and I agree, he didn’t really fulfil on that. I always wanted to do a team-up with her and Kyle Rayner, exploring the relationship(s) between Truth and Art.

I’ve been posting under “jazzbo” since the mid 90s, so I don’t really see any reason to stop now. Plus, my real name is Adam Johnson, which is pretty common. I wasn’t able to get Adam Johnson for my email address (at least not without about a 7 digit number after it), so I had to come up with something other than my name anyways. There’s a decent chance there could be another Adam Johnson posting. Not so many Jazzbos.

And honestly, someone on a comic book message board thinking I’m a coward because I don’t use my real name isn’t going to keep me up at night.

I’ve also been posting under alias (The Dane) since the mid-’90s. It started out as a lark, but now I see it as a pretty valuable buffer between some of the people in my real life and the opinions I manifest on the internet. Even using an alias, I’ve had too much real life spill over into my online interactions. I’ve been removed from teaching positions, lost two girlfriends, and nearly lost my current job (about six years back) because people didn’t like something I said online. Justified or not (I still think: not), people in my real life deducing that I post as The Dane has, at times, cause more commotion than is enjoyable by anyone.

Nowadays, I write online both under my real name and my alias. I tend to write more serious stuff under my own name and the fun stuff (posting comments on various blogs) under this silly name. I don’t post much here on CSBG (though I read every day) but in other places where I’m a more frequent contributor, I think other readers tend to take me fairly serious. Or at least as seriously as one can take any internet personality.

Random Thought! Chad, in this weeks Splash Page, you should’ve been all ‘Tim, how can you say Cadwell is an evolutionary leap above the majority of the other artists, yet admit that his panel layout required you reading it twice to figure it – do you really think one giant picture overrides a failure on the basic requirements of the form?’, or something like that.

I’ve been Scavenger online since before the Web was World Wide. I’d say my net.celebrity days are well and truly faded away, but there it is. (not like my true name has ever been a secret, even back in the school days, it was part of my email address as it is now–This is all just to be dramatic and stuff )

I once posted under my real name on a site I’d only recently started reading, so I wasn’t familiar with their messageboards, and one of the regulars went off on me because my real name was too close to the name he posted under (no idea if it was his real name or not) and he thought I was pretending to be him.

Granted, that’s not likely to happen often. Mostly I use a fake name so if I ever feel compelled to post from work (I’ve read the site at work; to date haven’t posted from there, but have come close) I don’t have to worry about one of my co-workers reading my name, seeing what time I posted, and realizing I, you know, posted from work. (Yes I have co-workers who read comics, and at least one who reads this site)

And if I’m not going to use my real name, it feels somehow more honest to use a name that’s obviously not real, to always use the same name, and to use the same name at every site I go to (so it doesn’t seem like I’m overrepresenting my opinion by posting under multiple names). I realize that last part sounds kind of unhinged.

Who do I find completely uninteresting? Almost all of the grown-up Titans

Good call. Also:
Hal Jordan (natch)
Hawkman (including Hawkworld)
Cyclopse
Jean Grey
The Guardian (the white guy, not Grant Morrison’s version from Seven Soldiers)
The Cadmus Project
The Newsboy Legion

Chad: Though some corners of the internet widely panned it, I loved Rucka’s run on Wonder Woman. Pity it was cut short during Infinite Crisis and handed over to that TV hack. Anyway, I would expect you to run out and catch his WW trades, considering you don’t like the character … but maybe give his “Hiketeia” a read. I found it at my local library, so I didn’t even need to buy it! But it’s well worth the cash — great WW story (with Batman in a supporting role at the end) and great JG Jones art.

Hey Funky(or should I say BEN!!!!), I got to really disagree with you about Tarantino’s recent films, Inglourious Basterds and Death Proof especially. Inglourious Basterds is about racism in Hollywood. Watch the movie again, the Nazis are Cowboys and the Jews are Indians. Yeah, he makes lots of references to other movies, but that’s because his movies are about movies, in the same way that Morrison writes comics about comics. I make a more detailed analysis on my blog.

http://digitalpanhandling.blogspot.com/

Inglourious Basterds is about racism in Hollywood.

I should point out that I once read a very convincing essay about how Kubrick’s The Shining is really about the spread of Whites across America at the Natives expense – great essay, really convincing… don’t buy it for a second.
If he was commenting on racism, he did not better than Michael Haneke with Funny Games – making a film that is apparently a comment/denouncing that gives in to all the tropes of what it is commenting on and denouncing.

Doing a film where one side is awesome and the other is horrific doesn’t comment on racism in film – it’s just a film torn along racial lines, that encourages the audience to cheer on the death of one side – even the one flashed out and sympathetic German soldier tries to rape a character.
Without a scene that condones this behavior at the end – he in fact escalated it – it’s just giving in to those old racial stereotypes.

Far From Heaven is a film that comments on racism and uses the tropes of old pictures – if Inglourious Basterds was trying to achieve what you say, he probably should have watched this one a little more.

Watch the movie again, the Nazis are Cowboys and the Jews are Indians.

Maybe one day, but it was too long to watch for quick kicks, and not enough substance to feel me needing to give it a re-watch – there was nothing there that makes me want to go and re-watch it so that I start to pick up on themes.
(And I’ve watched Joel Wright’s Pride & Prejudice twice! And without being forced! Okay, it sounds like a good example of re-watching anything, bu it’s actually a bloody ripper of a film).

Yeah, he makes lots of references to other movies, but that’s because his movies are about movies, in the same way that Morrison writes comics about comics.

Morrison has shown he can do more than that though – only his superhero comics are usually about comics.
Tarratino hasn’t really shown he can do more – Jackie Brown would be his closest to it (and best film in my opinion), but even in that it’s a bunch of shots lifted from other films, and full of references.

Where’s the sense of experimentation or pure originality?
What does he bring new to film?
He brought it looking a ‘trash’ films and seeing the good in them and other bits of ‘trash’ culture, BUT, he’d done
that in his first film through conversation – he hasn’t moved on, he just keeps re-doing it on a larger and larger scale.
It’s Warhols soup can over and over and over again – only even in the execution it’s getting longer and longer and less exciting to see, because he keeps putting in more and more and more talking and no pay off to it.

Until you’ve read George Perez’s Wonder Woman, you haven’t really read Wonder Woman.

Doing a film where one side is awesome and the other is horrific doesn’t comment on racism in film – it’s just a film torn along racial lines, that encourages the audience to cheer on the death of one side – even the one flashed out and sympathetic German soldier tries to rape a character.

That is not what I got from the movie. Tarantino was not just commenting on racism, he was commenting on racism in films and Hollywood’s power over people’s perception. He writes a Western film where the Indians are the good guys fighting off the Manifest Destiny Cowboys and a War Film where Jews use films to destroy Nazis in a movie theater.

I can understand if you don’t think it was done well, but he was clearly trying to do something more than just a violent revenge film. He spells it out in the King Kong scene.

“I loved Rucka’s run on Wonder Woman. Pity it was cut short during Infinite Crisis and handed over to that TV hack.”

I agree. I started reading the run during the build-up to Infinite Crisis and it was really getting good. It probably could’ve really redefined the character if Rucka had been left on it. I wouldn’t say Heinberg is a hack though — he gave the book a solid direction with the DEO stuff and brought Nemesis back nicely, but it’s just a shame it came at the expense of cutting Rucka’s take off.

By the way, John Cage is an alias. I started using the name online when I was in high school because most of the boards and sites I visit and contribute to are comic related and I was… well, I don’t want to say afraid, but I wasn’t eager to be “outed” as a fanboy back then. Now I use my real name online about half the time, usually for old time’s sake.

Have a good day.
John Cage

That is not what I got from the movie. Tarantino was not just commenting on racism, he was commenting on racism in films and Hollywood’s power over people’s perception. He writes a Western film where the Indians are the good guys fighting off the Manifest Destiny Cowboys and a War Film where Jews use films to destroy Nazis in a movie theater.

Was he commenting on it?
Because all I saw was a scene where a Jew decided all Germans were Nazi’s, and burnt them alive – the film even showed that non-Nazi’s were at the premieres, including three teenage girls who walked up the stairs at one point.
(Please don’t judge me for noticing teenage girls in a crowd scene! It wasn’t like that, honest!)

I can understand if you don’t think it was done well, but he was clearly trying to do something more than just a violent revenge film. He spells it out in the King Kong scene.

He may have been trying, but he made a violent revenge film – he’s third in a row.

If he wanted to do a serious comment piece, he would have done that – instead he didn’t, he at most put some lines in there saying what he was trying to do, but that doesn’t make the whole film a comment.

Yeah, real names woot!

Top 5 Superhero writers go go go

Morrison
Brubaker
Ellis
Millar
Aaron

the Nazis are Cowboys and the Jews are Indians.

I think you are correct in that Cowboys and Indians do form an aspect of the film, I think the scalping makes this explicit, although I wouldn’t have put so much weight on it as you did, I don’t think it explains the whole film.

It invites the question, though, that if Tarantino did want to talk about Cowboys and Indians, why didn’t he just film a movie with Cowboys and Indians. I think that if he had made a straight western (well, straight for Tarantino) it would have made a better film. This way it just looks as if he is pulling his punches.