Posts tagged Mark Evanier

Text
Posted 1 year ago

A couple of interesting articles.

I just thought I’d share a few pieces I’ve read today that I found interesting for one reason or another. I’m considering making this a regular thing, listing some of my favourite articles every week. (We’ll see how long THAT lasts. Probably a week, that’s my guess.)

For this inaugural post, it’s one part women’s rights and three parts comic books. If I ever get around to making a second such blog post, I’ll try to make it a wee bit more varied.

An excellent piece by Sasha Pasulka at Hello Giggles about how morally reprehensible it is for Chris Brown to be performing at the Grammys while he’s on probation for physically assaulting Rihanna.

It says a lot about our society that some people actually came to his defence and made this scumbag appear the victim, while Rihanna was essentially vilified. And the Grammy are practically rewarding him by letting him perform? Insulting in the extreme.

A thought-provoking, and rather moving, article by Mark Evanier about the shameful and, again, morally reprehensible, goings-on at Marvel Comics and it’s treatment of Gary Friedrich, the penniless creator of Ghost Rider who is being completely shafted by Marvel’s law squad.

In addition to not seeing a single penny of the first Ghost Rider movie’s $228,738,393 profits, he’s being forced to pay $17,000 out of his own pocket to Marvel to cover their lawsuit fees. Even discounting the legal aspect, morally it’s digusting.

A lengthy write-up by Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter about the shitstorm kicked up by DC Comics after they announced a series of prequels to Watchmen, the ground-breaking and genre-defining 1986 comic that effectively redefined the industry. I’m in complete agreement with him; the prequels are unwanted, they’re redundant, and they fly in the face of the original comic’s intention.

Where the Watchmen of 1986 was a bold statement highlighting the potential maturity of the medium and the importance of creator rights, these prequels are tacky and give the impression of a cashing-in on the comic’s name. Similar to Marvel, DC engaged in some scummy rights-holder bullshit to prevent Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons from obtaining what was (and still is) rightfully theirs.

And finally, something a little more light-hearted (it’s a few years old now but it’s still a good read). Hanstock and Bill over at Progressive Boink share 40 of the worst pieces of comic art by Rob Liefield, an unbelievably shitty artist who, inexplicably, is massively wealthy despite his artwork being sinfully awful.

Even a relative newbie to comics like myself recognises how badly females are portrayed in today’s industry. Overly sexualised (to the point of ridicule) and grossly disproportionate, it’s little wonder that female readers find a lot of comics off-putting.

It makes you wonder if some of these “professional” artists have ever seen a woman’s body or even understand fundamental biology (humans need a place for their organs to live; those obscenely thin waists are ridiculous, guys.)