Archive for February, 2011

Lets Be Superficial, who is the sexiest (male) comics creator?

February 23rd, 2011 by Susie

Okay this post was inspired by an interview with Karen Berger, in which she mentioned that Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon are Brazilian and identical twins, and my brain went straight to “I must find a picture of them!”  And I did, and they are very cute.  And it occurred to me that it would be fun to make a post of the most sexy comics creators.  I decided to limit it to males, just because I find objectifying men far more amusing and novel, than doing the same to women.  Especially when it comes to the comics industry.  So keeping in mind that “sexy” is very subjective, I thought I would list the ones I think are the most physically attractive, and then open the floor to you guys to list your own.

Disclaimer: All of these guys are infinitely talented, and are worthy of admiration regardless of their appearance.  And frankly comics creator is a title that is just sort of inherently sexy to me.  But I’m being superficial today, so this post’s deepness level is skin.

First up the aforementioned twins Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.

Look at them!  They are such cute little hipster boys!  This could be an indie label album cover.  Oh and their credits include doing the writing and art for Umbrella Academy, and Daytrippers, among others.

Keeping with the theme of up and coming brother teams, Jonathan and Joshua Luna.

How hot are they?  Points for being able to work the camera.  They are responsible for the Sword, Girls, and Ultra.

How about David Mack?

I’ve met him twice at conventions, and was utterly charmed by him both times.  He totally recognized me the second time, even though two years had passed, and our first encounter had to be pretty similar to hundreds he had had with fans at conventions.  (I’m not implying anything here.  I just mean that I walked up to his table.  Told him his art was cool, and that I liked it.)  During that first meeting, I had not read any Kabuki though I had heard of it, and had really liked his Daredevil work.  He was incredibly gracious, and gave me the first trade and the, at that time, most recent hardcover collection for half price, and just flat out gave both me and my sister all the uncollected issues for free, as well as two limited prints of his Kabuki work, also for free.  And he signed it all!  It was just such a classy move, that of course the next time we saw him at a convention we bought every new item he had for sale, and we had already bought all the intervening Kabuki volumes.  (By the way Kabuki is amazing!)  Anyway that might have bought him a place on this list, but it was unnecessary because he is undeniably cute.

And this is the only other person on this list that I have spoken to, Neil Gaiman.

The conversation went like this:

Neil: Hello.

Me: Hi.  (blushes and hands over books)

Neil:  What is your name?

Me:  Susan (he writes personalized signature in my books, while I stammer incoherently)

Me: Thank you! (he smiles pleasantly, before turning to the next blushing, stammering person in line.)

Imagine how many times that has happened to him.  He probably has the highest ratio of  swooning to nonswooning fans in comicdom.  It could be because he is a super-genius-writer-guy, or that he is quite nice to look at, but I blame the voice.  He has the best story reading voice ever.  Just listen to one of his self narrated audiobooks for the proof.

Next we have Read Comics favorite Brian K. Vaughan.

Got to like a guy who can work a shaved head, raised eyebrow combo.  He is the writer behind Y: the Last Man, Runaways, and Ex Machina.

As I was compiling this list I was lamenting the fact that none of these guys had any calendar worthy beefcake photos that I could put up.  You would think they didn’t take their sex symbol status seriously.  (That was a whole lot of unplanned alliteration, sorry.)

But thank god for Grant Morrison!  Always planning ahead.  Here is a young Grant (almost demurely compared to later shots) showing off his bum in tight white pants.

Warning next pic may be NOT SAFE for WORK!  For real, I am not kidding.  Don’t let your boss catch you looking.  In fact I’m going to hide it under the jump.

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My longest post ever!: or My thoughts on Buffy Season Eight.

February 17th, 2011 by Susie

Buffy season 8 came to an end last month, with issue 40.  I have some thoughts on both the final issue, and the series as a whole.  I plan on going into detail about the plot, so anyone who has not read the whole thing, and is wary of spoilers, should not read beyond the jump.

Buffy the TV show meant a lot to me.  I connected to it from the moment it came on the air, and for the entire seven years it was on the air, I looked forward to every new episode.  I think I only missed seeing two episodes the night they aired, that whole time.  It is the reason I follow every project Joss Whedon works on with great interest.  Somewhere around season two, I became an unabashed fangirl, and haven’t looked back since.  And it’s fair to say my own writing has been heavily influenced by it.  In that I think a hero (or even more so, a heroine) should not be infallible, that they can make mistakes and fall down, and still remain a hero.

So when it was announced that Joss would be resuming the series as a comic, I was thrilled.  I could not wait for my friends to return, and find out what he had in store for them next.  The first twenty issues or so were pretty spectacular, beautiful art, and brilliantly written.  Having Joss write many, and oversee the rest, assured that the tone of the show carried over to the comics, and that the characters felt true to how they had been previously portrayed.  Those issues did a really good job bringing the audience up to speed with what the Scooby gang had been doing since the end of the series.  And also establishing new characters to root for, such as Renee and Satsu.

Spoilers from here on.  You have been warned, don’t whine to me if you read something you don’t want to.

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Wonder Woman series going ahead, and it sounds like a disaster!

February 3rd, 2011 by Susie

A couple of months ago, I posted that David “Ally Mcbeal” Kelley was developing a Wonder Woman series for television, and that I was very open that I did not think Kelley was the right person for the job.  Initially, all the networks passed on the script claiming that it would be too expensive to produce.  But NBC changed executives, and the new regime decided to order the pilot.

Well blogger/TV critic Jace Lacob, has had a look at the script, and it is worse than I had imagined.  You can see his summary here, but it does not bode well at all.  Some things that stick out for me as not just inconsistent to the character, but really bad writing in general are: that Diana is given three identities.  One is Wonder Woman, crime fighter.  Another is as Diana Themyscira, the CEO of an international corporation, who collects transforming aircraft (the hell?).  And finally  as Diana Prince, a mousy assistant.  I don’t get this conceit at all.  It is traditional for super-hero’s to have a super-hero identity, and a separate civilian identity (in fact in the comics she does sort of have three, wonder woman, Diana Prince, and the Princess of the Amazons.  But the princess/wonder woman identities are publicly acknowledged as the same).  But why have two civilian identities?  with two separate residences?  Especially when at least one of the identities, the CEO, sounds to be very recognizable as a public figure.  What is the point of the third identity?  This just makes the character sound a bit psycho.

Anaother red flag, that this is not a Wonder Woman I want to watch is this that as the CEO, she has  in her employ a gaggle of “nerds” whose function seems to be to make sexual inneundo about her.  For example when she instructs them to bone up on something, one replies the he would, “Bone you up right now, boss.”  That she tolerates this is makes her not just unbelievable as Wonder Woman, but as a successful business woman, as well.

Lacob says it best here, about what sounds likely to be one of the worst scenes to ever be filmed;

In the script’s most painful sequence, Diana is subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and forced to give testimony about the events in Hollywood. She ends up filibustering about everything under the sun for several pages: the politics of the LAPD (name checking ex-police chiefs Daryl Gates and William Bratton), the economy, stimulus funds, pharmaceutical companies, Roger Clemens, the FDA and the FCC, and how networks will air commercials about erectile dysfunction but not for condoms. It’s clearly meant to be a showcase scene for the actress playing Diana, a calculated bid at awards and social relevance. Congratulations, David E. Kelley, the transformation of Wonder Woman from superhero to personal mouthpiece is now complete. Adding further insult to injury: real-life California Senator Dianne Feinstein is described as giving Diana a thumbs-up.

Pages of rambling about anything that crosses Kelley’s mind, is the big triumphant moment?  In a show about a super-hero?  What?

And apparently the episode ends with her weeping over her romantic woes!  DO NOT WANT!

Yeah it sounds horrible, and I do not get what NBC was thinking.  Are Harry’s Law, and the Cape doing that well?

Anyway here are the original concept sketches for Wonder Woman, way back in the forties.

Yes, she is wearing a bustier, but she was a warrior damnit!

And just because I think it’s awesome, here is Project Runway’s Chris March as Wonder Woman.