Sequart.org Down

Sequart.org has experienced a loss of service due to a server-related issue. Our webhost migrated the site from one server to another, and it turned out that the complex site simply didn't work on the new server. So they shut us down... and will soon be shutting off the old server completely.

We are working nonstop to resolve the situation, but it doesn't look like it's going to more than a few days. We will most likely have to recode the entire site to one degree or another, since it was designed for a server that's being shut down.

We were all very shocked at this news, as we'd been assured that the server migration wouldn't cause many problems. It happened today, suddenly leaving us with only painful options. The most feasible one would seem to be simply moving to a different webhost.

On the upside, when we return, we'll probably be able to see the return of some features that were discontinued on the old server (such as comments and the database section). After all, if we're recoding anyway, we might as well revamp those aspects and make them work in the new environment.

So please bear with us... and rest assured that everything else has been dropped until we resolve this situation. We're dealing with this too, though we didn't want to be, and we're working hard to make sure that it turns out for the best, at least in the long run.

CBR Covers Teenagers from the Future

Comic Book Resources has a great interview with Timothy Callahan about Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes.

The interview covers the whole of Legion history, not just the book, and is well worth reading. Interviewing Tim is CBR's Andy Khouri, who does an excellent job, as always.

The book is a big collection of essays, from scholars, fans, and comics creators alike. It'd edited by Tim (Grant Morrison: The Early Years, available in comic stores now), and it sports a foreword by Matt Fraction, an afterword by Barry Lyga, and a copia of essays on the whole history of Legion.

The book is currently in Previews for November ordering (order code NOV084474). For more information, click here.

We here at Sequart are grateful to the good folks at CBR (where Tim is a reviewer!) for the coverage!

Fox Plans X-Men: First Class Movie

Variety is reporting that Josh Schwartz has been tapped to write and possibly direct a new X-Men film named X-Men: First Class and focused on a younger cast.

Schwartz's record is well-suited to the task, given his creation of Gossip Girl, The OC, and Chuck.

Fox has been considering a film focused on younger X-Men for some time, which would allow most of the cast to be changed. This would avoid their higher salaries and keep costs down, while also avoiding the problem of where to take the characters after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand.

Past rumors focused on such a film featuring a new generation of mutants, not unlike the concept of Marvel's New Mutants, the 1980s X-Men spin-off title. Reportedly, Fox has now turned towards Marvel's current X-Men: First Class for inspiration, hence the working title for the film. That series is set in the past, showing established characters when they were younger and new to the X-Men.

If First Class goes forward, it's likely to hit theaters sometime in 2010.

In the meantime, however, Fox is offering X-Men Origins: Wolverine, set for release in May 2009. The film will feature the return of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and will reportedly introduce Deadpool to the cinematic X-Men universe. Fox is also developing X-Men Origins: Magneto and is reportedly considering a Deadpool movie if his appearance in Wolverine is well-received.

This was cross-posted as news on Sequart.org.

Want more information about the X-Men movies? The definitive book on the matter is Thomas J. McLean's Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen.

Teenagers from the Future in Previews

Sequart Research & Literacy Organization is proud to annouce that Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes is now available for order through comic shops.

The book is listed in November's Previews catalog, which was published at the end of October. You can find it in the books section, which comes just after the comics section. We're proud that the book was chosen as the top "Featured Item" in books. You can see the Previews listing here.

The book, edited by Timothy Callahan (Grant Morrison: The Early Years), sports a foreword by Matt Fraction and an afterword by Barry Lyga. The collection includes the following essays:

"The Perfect Storm: The Death and Resurrection of Lightning Lad," by Richard Bensam
"Liberating the Future: Women in the Early Legion," by John G. Hemry
"The Silver Age Legion: Adventure into the Classics," by Christopher Barbee
"The (Often Arbitrary) Rules of the Legion," by Chris Sims
"Shooter's Marvelesque," by Jeff Barbanell
"The Legion's Super-Science," by James Kakalios
"Bridging the Past and the Present with the Future: The Early Legion and the JLA," by Scipio Garling
"Decades Ahead of Us to Get it Right: Architecture and Utopia," by Sara K. Ellis
"Those Legionnaires Should Just Grow Up!" by Greg Gildersleeve
"Thomas, Altman, Levitz and the 30th Century," by Timothy Callahan
"The Amethyst Connection," by Lanny Rose
"Revisionism, Radical Experimentation, and Dystopia in Giffen's Legion," by Julian Darius
"Pulling Back the Curtain: Gender Identity and Homosexuality in the Legion," by Alan Williams
"Diversity and Evolution in the Reboot Legion," by Matthew Elmslie
"Fashion from the Future, or 'I Swear, Computo Forced Me to Wear This!" by Martin A. Perez
"Generational Theory and the Waid Threeboot," by Matthew Elmslie
"A Universe in Adolescence," by Paul Lytle
"The Racial Politics of the Legion of Super-Heroes," by Jae Bryson

This essay collection, from fans and scholars alike, is as diverse as Legion history. No Legion fan or comics scholar should go without this critical celebration of the Legion.

The 6"x9" softcover book runs 344 pages and carries a $26.95 cover price. The order code is NOV084474.

Legal Disclaimer: the Legion of Super-Heroes and related characters are trademarks of DC Comics. This book is not endorsed or authorized by DC Comics.

About the Publisher: Sequart Research & Literacy Organization is a non-profit devoted to the study and promotion of comic books as a legitimate art.

We here at Sequart are proud to be listed in Previews and available through comics shops. We really want this book to be a success through comic stores, in particular, so it would mean a lot to us if you would support this effort. Essentially, we're asking you to vote with your dollars for our unique brand of well-written, accessible comics scholarship. And you get a really great book.

But please don't count on your store to order copies -- most stores won't. The best thing you can do is to order copies in advance by telling your store that you want them to get a copy for you. That's the only way to make sure you get a copy of this second edition in your store. Because we're buried in the catalogue, it might help to give your local retailer the book's order code, which is NOV084474.

If you believe in our mission or even just like more quality books on comics, spread the word. Blog about the book, even if it's just to point out this interesting item. Tell others. Whatever you do, get your store to order copies.

And thank you so much for making this and our other books like it a success! It means the world to us that we have such loyal, outgoing fans, and it's always inspiring us to do better.

Grant Morrison: The Early Years in Comic Stores Today!

The second edition of Grant Morrison: The Early Years has arrived in your local comic book store!
This is the second edition, currently available only through comic book stores. In addition to a revised text, this new edition includes a newly-added essay on Grant's first story for 2000 AD, published even before his work on Zenith.
We here at Sequart are proud to be available through comics shops. We wish to thank Diamond Comics Distributors and our loyal fans, who have made this effort such a success by preordering.
If your store doesn't have a copy, let them know that the book is available for reorder. It might help to give your local retailer the book's order code, which is JUL084473.
In the months to come, the book will remain available to comic book stores, as we're proud to announce that it will be listed as part of Diamond's STAR system.
Please support our organization and your local comic book store by purchasing a copy. Our fans have proven extremely loyal in preordering the book, and we can't thank you enough! Now, we need to support those comic book stores and pave the way for subsequent volumes to be a success as well.
Again, thanks to everyone who's helped by promoting and preordering this title. It's been very heartwarming to us, and it's been really inspiring as we look to subsequent titles.

Those Watchmen Gaming Modules

Timothy Callahan has published a very important look at the gaming modules for Watchmen, which (while not today considered canonical) remain the only expansion of the Watchmen universe.

It's important stuff, and just the kind of writing that makes you glad that there's a record of this stuff for future generations.

Coverage of Mutant Cinema

I just want to give a shout out to some of the coverage of Sequart's Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen.

The book's writer, Tom McLean, wrote up something for his blog over at Variety, entitled "Bags and Boards."

ComicsList.com covered the release. As did the blog "Coke and Comics." So did Comic Geek Speak, over at thecomicsforums.com.

If you note other sites that have done so, please note them in the comments to this thread.

Elliot S! Maggin's Superman

Timothy Callahan has a great review of Elliot S! Maggin's Superman output over at Comic Book Resources.

Maggin was central to the development of the modern Superman, infusing the character with a new sense of morality and making him confront real-life issues in a way that's still germaine today. In many ways, Superman stories still haven't quite caught up with the best of his work.

Maggin also brought intelligence to Superman in a way that few writers have. His stories relied on many of the same cliches, like super-hero fight scenes and some convenient plot devices. But Superman arguably became more of a three-dimensional character in Maggin's stories than he had ever been before.

Take a few moments to read Tim's essay. It's certainly worth revisiting Elliot S! Maggin.

Teenagers from the Future Now Available!

Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes, in which I've got a rather long essay, is now available from Sequart Research & Literacy Organization.
The book, edited by Timothy Callahan (Grant Morrison: The Early Years), sports a foreword by Matt Fraction and an afterword by Barry Lyga. The collection includes the following essays:

"The Perfect Storm: The Death and Resurrection of Lightning Lad," by Richard Bensam
"Liberating the Future: Women in the Early Legion," by John G. Hemry
"The Silver Age Legion: Adventure into the Classics," by Christopher Barbee
"The (Often Arbitrary) Rules of the Legion," by Chris Sims
"Shooter's Marvelesque," by Jeff Barbanell
"The Legion's Super-Science," by James Kakalios
"Bridging the Past and the Present with the Future: The Early Legion and the JLA," by Scipio Garling
"Decades Ahead of Us to Get it Right: Architecture and Utopia," by Sara K. Ellis
"Those Legionnaires Should Just Grow Up!" by Greg Gildersleeve
"Thomas, Altman, Levitz and the 30th Century," by Timothy Callahan
"The Amethyst Connection," by Lanny Rose
"Revisionism, Radical Experimentation, and Dystopia in Giffen's Legion," by Julian Darius (that's me)
"Pulling Back the Curtain: Gender Identity and Homosexuality in the Legion," by Alan Williams
"Diversity and Evolution in the Reboot Legion," by Matthew Elmslie
"Fashion from the Future, or 'I Swear, Computo Forced Me to Wear This!" by Martin A. Perez
"Generational Theory and the Waid Threeboot," by Matthew Elmslie
"A Universe in Adolescence," by Paul Lytle
"The Racial Politics of the Legion of Super-Heroes," by Jae Bryson

This essay collection, from fans and scholars alike, is as diverse as Legion history. No Legion fan or comics scholar should go without this critical celebration of the Legion.
Legal Disclaimer: the Legion of Super-Heroes and related characters are trademarks of DC Comics. This book is not endorsed or authorized by DC Comics.
About the Publisher: Sequart Research & Literacy Organization is a non-profit devoted to the study and promotion of comic books as a legitimate art. This is the organization's third book, following Timothy Callahan's Grant Morrison: The Early Years (solicited in July's Previews) and Tom McLean's Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen.
The book is available through retailers such as Amazon.com.

My Batman Begins Book

I've just completed a draft of a book for Sequart Research & Literacy Organization.

In 2005, I authored Batman Begins and the Comics, the first book published by Sequart. I managed to write it between the movie's theatrical release and its DVD release, getting it out there before the DVD hit stores.

It sold okay for a first effort, and we started working on our next books, including another from me, Tim Callahan's Grant Morrison: The Early Years, and Tom McLean's Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen. Everything took way longer than expected, going through several drafts. During that time, I started and stopped several books. Along the way, Sequart became a non-profit and got a new logo. The spectacular Kevin Colden stepped in to do all our covers. We've learned a lot about making books. The new, spiffy book line now has three books available, and the first one is coming to comic book stores in about a month.

But there was that old, embarrassing Batman Begins and the Comics out there... with our old name and logo... with that crappy photo cover... with our old, cramped interior formatting and no images... and with typos because we rushed it to press. Sitting next to our new books, it just looked stupid.

Well, I've now finally completed a full revision, with expanded contents, interior illustrations, and our nice new formatting. It was a lot more work than I expected, though the original version was in a lot better shape than I had worried.

It's also got a new, tentative title: Improving the Foundations: Batman Begins from Comics to Screen.

I formally submitted it to Sequart today.

There's still a lot of work to go. The editing process can take months and feel endless, and we're short of good editors right now. The cover's not completed. So we have no idea when it will be out.

But it feels good to finish a book, even if it's only a new draft of an old one. I think that it's a good book. I'm proud of it, and I'm proud that our organization's very first book is going to take its place along our nice new ones. It's been a long road, but a rewarding one.

Impoved foundations indeed.

Tim Callahan Slams DC Universe: Last Will and Testament

Tim Callahan, not known for particularly harsh reviews, has delivered a stunning slam of DC Universe: Last Will and Testament, written by Brad Meltzer.

In fact, it's nothing less than a list of 10 "relentlessly stupid things" about the one-shot, with "Stupid." after each.

Wow. This is not someone you want to piss off. Which, judging by this review, is accomplished by making him feel as if you're insulting his readerly intelligence.

I haven't read the issue myself, so I'm keeping mum. But the review has to be read to be believed.

On the more positive side, Tim has praised Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1 over at CBR. And discussed it in depth over at Sequart.org. Well worth reading, especially to sort out all your questions about Morrison's Superman and how the version in that issue fits into both his Final Crisis and his All Star Superman.

On the Anthology Format

Tim Callahan's recent "When Worlds Collide" column has me thinking about anthologies.

We all know they don't sell. Just consider the great anthologies that have been cancelled or just plain aren't around anymore. Vertigo used to produce great anthology mini-series, like Gangland, that were filled with good stuff, not to mention the ongoing Flinch. Then there was DC's Solo, a brilliant idea: let major artists just produce 56 pages or so of whatever they want, using DC characters or not. I loved it, but it wasn't long for this world.

Comics anthologies just seem doomed from the start. Which, naturally, doesn't help sales: people generally don't buy a book that looks destined for extinction.

I have to confess that I'm guilty too: I don't read many anthologies. Even a bad Green Lantern story is satisfying if you know it's going to be a green lantern story, written by Geoff Johns no less.

But the anthology situation has me wondering: why is this the case, when anthologies used to be the dominant format of all comics? And when so much comics-changing stuff came out of anthologies.

On the historical argument, don't forget that Action Comics and Detective Comics are so named because they were anthologies of stories in those genres. World's Finest Comics started the same way. Virtually all comics were anthologies in those days, even ones with a particular hero in the title. Just look at one of those old Batman issues with weird comedy strips inserted into them and several stories every issue.

It was really the shortening of comics that killed off the anthology format. Comics companies wanted to keep cover prices at ten cents (yes, they were worried about the cost rising above 1/30 of what they are now), so page counts kept declining. Meanwhile, stories kept expanding as "full-length epics" and the like took off.

Comics in the 1940s were typically 64 pages or more. Stories were typically six or eight pages. Obviously, anthologies made sense. Not so in the 1960s, as comics had settled to their 32-page pamphlet format, with most containing a single story or a main story and a back-up.

But that's only part of the historical perspective. The other part is how important anthologies are in comics history. Even ignoring the 1930s and 1940s, when most comics were anthologies, anthology comics have played a major role in comics history.

Just think of E.C.'s many anthologies and how, appearing in the 1950s, they seem so far ahead of their time. Genre stories, sure, but not just super-heroes: well-told sci-fi and horror stories, stuff like we wouldn't see again, in any major way, until the 1980s.

What about Art Spiegelman's Raw? The home of comics that pushed the medium, took up the banner of the undergrounds, and actually was a home to a whole cadre of creators who took the potential of comics seriously.

Then there's Taboo, the brilliant anthology that included early chapters of From Hell and Lost Girls, along with work by the likes of Rick Veitch. Classic stuff.

And that's just U.S. comics. Think about British comics, where the anthology is a lot stronger. Think about everything that came out of 2000 AD -- a weekly anthology that started in the 1970s and is still going. You're talking about the home of a lot more than Judge Dredd and other stories set in his post-apocalyptic world. This is where Alan Moore and Grant Morrison did his "Future Shocks," where the former would later write stories like Skizz and the later would write his Zenith, a major story in the history of the super-hero.

Not to mention other British anthologies, like Crisis, an anthology aimed at more mature audiences which brought us Garth Ennis's True Faith and Smith's New Statesmen.

Or Warrior. You know, home of both V for Vendetta and Miracleman.

Then there are Japanese and French anthologies, where many of the major works in those countries were first serialized.

The point is that anthologies used to be popular -- in fact, they used to be dominant. And they've produced a heck of a lot of important stories in comics history. So why aren't they more successful.

I've already alluded to the fact that we like to know which characters are in a comic. We like to pick and choose. In other words, we might like Grant Morrison's Batman stories but not Paul Dini's -- so we read Batman but not Detective Comics. And we might not care for the Robin, Catwoman, or Nightwing stories -- so we don't read those titles.

Part of the problem is also length. Vertigo's ongoing anthology, Flinch, was the usual 32-page format -- with three or so stories per issue. Tomorrow Stories and Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, from America's Best Comics, had a similar format. In terms of the quality of their content, these were top-notch titles that deserved to be hits. But they weren't.

Isn't part of the problem length? Part of the appeal of the anthology format is that you get more for your money: several stories for the same cost. But, if you're paying $3 an issue, that's $1 per story if the stories are only seven or eight pages. What about an anthology that was 100 pages? Or 200? You'd get a per-page price reduction. Would that make a difference? Don't graphic novels and collections sell well?

It's hard to tell how such a format would work. CrossGen tried this before it went under: it created two monthly trade paperback anthologies to reprint its comics before they were collected under their own covers. Readers thus got a discount, and the publisher soon drove the cost down further by reducing the dimensions of these two monthly anthologies. While a brilliant experiment with format, they didn't succeed.

But it's not as if that was a controlled experiment. For one thing, readers of monthly comics want to get the material first -- after all, they can usually wait for the trade. So why wait for the anthology reprints? After all, if you only liked a few series, it made economic more sense to buy them monthly than the anthologies. You'd get less for your buck, but . Second, CrossGen also experimented with online comics -- another brilliant experiment with format, but one that might also have cut into the anthology's sales.

I've always hated the proliferation of monthly titles. What I've long wanted is for anthologies not unlike CrossGen's. I mean, why are there like ten X-Men titles and Batman titles? I don't see why characters like Robin and Nightwing have their own book. Those are back-ups. Why can't we see a monthly Batman comic that ran 100-200 pages, with Batman stories up front and various back-ups? Why should I buy 10 comics when I can buy one anthology that can go on my shelf instead of being bagged and boarded and filed away into a box?

I admit, there's a downside: you wouldn't be able to select just the few stories you want. This would have to be balanced by saving money. If you buy only three Batman titles a month, that's $9. A big monthly anthology book would have to cost not much more than that: say, $12. But, in exchange for those extra $3, you'd get over 100 pages: not just the contents of those three issues (roughly 66 pages) but maybe three other comics worth of stories. That's $1 per issue. And you can put it all on your shelf.

The other problem is that it would be harder to tell which stories were the popular ones. DC wouldn't have sales figures for each individual title any more. And that means that unpopular series might continue, annoying readers.

On the other hand, the internet provides enough information about which series are popular. A monthly vote on dccomics.com could provide more information. You could even use this as a marketing plot, announcing that one of your five or six series will come to an end at the end of one year, then use online votes to determine which one gets the axe. And, while unpopular series might continue, this could give life to allow artsy series or ones that are excellent but might not sell.

The anthology format would also allow stories to run various lengths. As a writer myself, I've always hated the artificial page counts of monthly comics. If you haven't written or illustrated comics yourself, you don't entirely understand this.

There are so many times that a story just naturally comes out to a different length. If it's 20 pages, you have to expand some sequences or add a subplot scene to reach that magic number of 22. If the story comes to 24 pages, you have to cut, abbreviating some sequences and often cramming too much on a page. If the story comes out to 44 pages, you can divide it into two issues. If it comes out to, say, 55 pages, you're in trouble if you're supposed to be writing a monthly comic. Yeah, you can "decompress" it into three issues with artificial chapter breaks, but it's not the same thing. Nine times out of ten, the story suffers. It's like when they edit movies for TV to run two hours with advertising.

Then there's the possibility of shorter stories. One of the reasons I love Miracleman so much is that almost every one of those early, serialized chapters is in a different style. You get about eight pages that advance the story, but Alan Moore would have almost every eight pages switch things up: jump forward or backward in time, for example, or be narrated by someone unexpected. Shorter chapters just seem to encourage this kind of experimentation: it's harder to switch things up every single chapter when you've also got to produce 22 pages a month.

Not to mention that this would allow a little more focus on quality. Look towards French comics for the example here: an artist producing one 48-page album per year is considered fully productive. Artists labor over pages, redrawing until they get it right. U.S. artists frequently complain about having to turn in pages on time that they wish they could redraw. In the old days, Marvel artists were actually told to turn in sub-standard work, focusing on quantity and not quality, letting inkers fix up awkward illustrations. Works like Watchmen and The Killing Joke succeed, in part, because they took so long to produce. It took Bolland two years to illustrate The Killing Joke. A lot of great artists can't do a monthly book anyway -- because it's 22 pages. But an 8-page monthly chapter would let people like Jim Lee, Travis Charest, Dave McKean, and maybe even Brian Bolland actually do monthly work -- at the level of quality they demand. Look at "Batman R.I.P." -- a story with historic importance, but one where the artist has complained that he wishes he could take more time to redraw and get it right. This is a storyline without fill-in artists, which is admirable, but one that shouldn't have to suffer (given its importance) from art produced too rapidly.

Let's say that we don't want to cancel either Batman or Detective Comics, given their pedigree. You could make Batman an anthology with a Grant Morrison story, generally 20 pages or so but of varying length, up front. After this could run other Batman stories, like all the stuff appearing in the character's various mini-series. Then you could have an artsy story, like the old "Black and White" back-ups. On the other hand, Detective Comics could open with a Paul Dini story, again allowed to run various lengths, followed by all the other "detectives" in Batman's world: a Robin story, a Nightwing story, and either a Catwoman story or something else. A graphic novel could even run as a fill-in issue, a complete "novel-length" story instead of some junk designed to keep the book on a monthly schedule. Particularly with the Batman franchise, the material is already there.

I honestly can't even keep track of all the Wolverine one-shots and mini-series. Why can't Wolverine: Origins and all that other material just be wrapped into the monthly Wolverine? Better yet, Marvel combines this with renumbering the title to reflect the issues in the prior ongoing, and suddenly you've got a nice monthly anthology with a pedigree.

Why do I have to buy what feels like a dozen books a month to follow an X-Men crossover? Couldn't that just be combined into a single monthly book?

I'd be interested to see crossover mini-series published simultaneously in big anthology books. You could have an issue of Final Crisis or Civil War or whatever in the front, followed by all of the crossover stories for that month. Instead of tracking down and buying all of the crossover issues, at $3 a pop, with stories of varying quality and connection to the main story, you could buy the anthology and get everything. Instead of ten crossover issues at $3, plus the main title at $4, you could get the anthology for maybe $23. If the publisher wanted to boost the book, it would make sure that it appeared in a logical order, containing material that had not seen print in the separate titles. Fans who want to buy everything would get a break, and the companies would see strong sales on $23 books.

That kind of promotion would be key, because big anthologies (outside of artsy productions) survive or fail by their cover prices. Know what the highest-selling monthly comic book is in the U.S.? Viz Media's Shonen Jump, that big manga book you see even in 7-11. It's filled with manga, including the popular Naruto and, formerly, Dragonball Z. It sells something like 300,000 copies monthly, here in the states, and it sells to kids -- you know, the audience U.S. comics are losing like crazy. And it's got a hilariously low cover price. Of course, it's black-and-white, but still...

Having major, appealing features is also important. I don't buy a lot of anthologies, but I've bought anthologies for single stories before just like I used to buy CDs for a single track. Put an eight-page Alan Moore story in there and watch how it sells. I'd buy every chapter of Planetary even if it were stuck in a $20 WildStorm anthology.

And consider this, as we renumber titles to reflect their true histories and start to actually honor more than just #1 issues: all this shift would really mean is returning to the way comics originally were. Comics sold in the millions in the 1940s. Maybe part of the reason was that readers got so much for their money: 56-page issues with multiple stories. All I'm talking about is taking a page from the days of super-heroes' origins -- and their heyday in terms of sales.

Now, I know what you're going to say: they won't sell. They're anthologies. Their very format screams "doomed."

Fine, but I'm telling you now that this attitude won't last. The reason is simple: it's graphic novels and trade paperbacks that sell today. A lot of series, including almost all at Vertigo and several at Image, are almost losing money in the monthly format but are big successes in trade paperback. The monthly issues are almost a loss leader, at this point.

Not to mention that digital comics are obviously the future. I used to hate reading on the computer if I could avoid it. Now, if I buy a novel, I scan it and read it on the screen. Sure, there's nothing like holding that comic in your sweaty little hands. It's just cool to feel the pages of the issue you've been hotly anticipating. But monthly comics aren't only threatened by book versions but also by digital comics. The monthly comic is a medium besieged on all sides.

Sure, monthly sales have picked up in recent years, and I don't think serialized comics will ever go away. But they're selling more and more copies to what is largely the same, aging audience. They're insular. And they're horribly expensive. It doesn't take many $3 titles to add up to a big hit to the wallet. And prices are only going to rise: inflation means creators need more money to live, paper costs have risen dramatically over the years, and transportation costs are linked to gas prices. All of which ignores that comics are competing for our precious dollars with new and involving media, like video games and the internet.

The long-term truth is that the most popular and most artsy monthly comics may survive in their current forms. The top-sellers simply have little need to change, nor do those with niche audiences willing to pay higher prices for that quaint, old format. But isn't it time to nudge the monthly comic towards those popular trade paperbacks by increasing the page count? Won't market forces lead, in the wake of increased cover prices and greater competition for our dollars, to longer issues that cost less per page? Isn't it time to rethink the anthology format?

Laugh all you want. Believe me, I share the same distaste for anthologies that you do. What leads me to these conclusions is the logic of the market. Eventually, I think, market forces will finally break that distaste for anthologies, and the comics anthology will be reborn with new vigor. I don't know when this will happen: I've been anticipating this for years and it hasn't happened yet, outside of a few hints in that direction.

After all, what's Marvel done with its Spider-Man titles but combining them into a single book? It's just that, in imitation of 52, Marvel's chosen to publish that single title thrice monthly instead of in a single, nice, 80-page monthly book.

But, whatever the detractors say, I think anthologies have a bright future -- and will probably some day return as the dominant form of mainstream comics.

Cross-published over at Sequart.org.

Preacher TV Series a No-Go

The live-action HBO series adapting Preacher is apparently dead.

Well, to be more specific, HBO offered to redevelop the series and its writer refused.

From Newsarama:

Mark Steven Johnson, who wrote the pilot and was set to serve as an executive
producer, tells Comics Continuum that the new head of the cable network thought the series “was just too dark and too violent and too controversial.”

“It was a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word,” says Johnson, who directed Daredevil and Ghost Rider. “They offered me the chance to redevelop it but I refused. I’ve learned my lesson on that front and I won’t do it again. So I’m afraid it’s dead at HBO.”

Johnson might just be guessing at the reasons for HBO's decision, but it's surprising that he thinks HBO thought the series was "too violent and too controversial." Isn't this HBO's turf?

Well, sort of. Because there's also the issue of religion. See, Preacher generally mocks Christianity -- and the Christian right might have been offended. Far more than they were by the violence of The Sopranos or Rome.

Then again, HBO might not have liked the script. Enough to demand a re-thinking rather than a rewrite.

Adapting Preacher to live-action isn't dead, however:

Plans for the one-hour TV series, announced in November 2006, were welcome news for fans who had been disappointed when a previous attempt to adapt Preacher as a feature film was abandoned.

Johnson says there are efforts to give a movie another try: “I’ve heard someone is in the process of getting the rights to turn it into a feature film. I hope that happens. But I hope it happens as a series of movies as one movie couldn’t do it justice.”

One only hopes that we don't wish Watchmen got the HBO treatment instead of a feature film after seeing the Watchmen movie in a few months...

Sadly, no comics property has gotten a faithful TV adaptation. Yes, they have gotten both live-action and animated series over the years. But none have been real adaptations, in the style of TV mini-series. With all the buzz over comics properties in the movie theaters, and Heroes doing so well for NBC, you'd think that TV would be the next step -- and, in the process, adapt a bunch of comic book properties that might not otherwise get a chance. And with cable TV, including violence and solid production values is no longer the problem it once was.

Preacher looked like it was going to crack that particular egg, which could have been far more important, in the long run, than simply seeing the series in another medium. It's hard to imagine that the series wouldn't have been a success, in part because of the same controversial material that Mark Steven Johnson cites as a reason for the series's demise.

Cross-posted as part of "Sequential Culture" over at Sequart.org.

Comic-Related Happenings of Late

Sunday was a busy day over at Sequart.org, with three new items:

Timothy Callahan has a very interesting chat about narrative tricks and realism in
Watchmen.

Geoffrey Clay writes about the choice to make the X-Men white, given how they were supposedly an allegory for racism. It reminds me of my own article, "X-Men is
Not an Allegory of Racial Tolerance," albeit with different conclusions.

And Rob Clough interviews Katie Skelly about her compelling series Night Nurse.

Over at his own blog, Timothy Callahan has a nice piece about Mike Baron having produced his best work, including his run on Flash, while under the influence of cocaine...

Then there are the major news stories of the day:

Marvel has announced that the long-delayed sequel to Marvels, subtitled Eye of the Camera, will run six issues beginning this December.

And, if you haven't heard, Warner Bros. has made it official: the next Superman film, now slated for 2011, will reboot the franchise.

Mutant Cinema Now Available

Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen is now available from Sequart Research & Literacy Organization.

The book, written by Thomas J. McLean, is the second book from Sequart Research & Literacy Organization, which previously scored a big hit with Timothy Callahan's Grant Morrison: The Early Years. Like its predecessor, Mutant Cinema sports a cover by award-winning artist Kevin Colden.

Since X-Men first wowed movie audiences, the film and its sequels have become among the most popular and successful comic book adaptations in Hollywood history. Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen is the definitive unauthorized study of the popular movie saga, tracing its origins, history, and impact from the very first issue of the comic book through the final moments of X-Men: The Last Stand – and beyond.

Within its pages, readers will learn about:
• The history of X-Men comic books;
• Previous adaptations, including early cartoon appearances, the successful 1990s animated series, and initial attempts to bring them to the big screen;
• The development process for each film, including behind-the-scenes stories, interviews with the screenwriters, and details on omitted scenes and storylines;
• Detailed scene-by-scene examinations of each film and the comic book stories that infuse every aspect of the movies;
• Critical and fan reception of each film, plus box office performance;
• What the future may hold for the franchise; and
• Tips on some essential X-Men reading.

Mutant Cinema is the essential guide to the films for both die-hard fans and newcomers to the series. Comic book fans will enjoy discovering connections to the comics that they didn't know about, as well as information from the Hollywood side of things. Fans of the movies will find the whole world of X-Men comics opened up for them in an approachable style.

Legal Disclaimer: X-Men and related characters are trademarks of Marvel Comics. This book is not endorsed by either Marvel Comics or 20th-Century Fox.

About the Publisher: Sequart Research & Literacy Organization is a non-profit devoted to the study and promotion of comic books as a legitimate art.

About this Series: Despite the enormous success of comic book movies, only a fraction of those movie-goers have explored the original comic books in any depth. Just as with novels adapted into movies, these original comic books are often better than their movie translations, and the differences illuminate both versions. Studying these comics is not only essential to understanding these movies but also helps readers appreciate of the unique medium of comic books.

The book can be found through retailers such as Amazon.com.

How I Learned to Love the Legion

This is a few days old, but Timothy Callahan opens his most recent column, "When Worlds Collide" over at CBR, with a reference to me!

The context is a column on the Legion of Super-Heroes, which is the subject of Tim's new book through Sequart, entitled Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes. It's a hefty tome, edited by Tim with a foreword by Matt Fraction and an afterword by Barry Lyga, as well as essays by me, Tim, and a plethora of others. It covers everything you'd ever want to know about the Legion, and it's now available through retailers.

Anyway, Tim opens his column by recounting a conversation we had in February 2007 at the New York Comic-Con. Tim had wrapped up Grant Morrison: The Early Years and we were talking with Sequart's Editor-in-Chief, Mike Phillips, about what Tim wanted to do next. Tim, as he recounts, mentioned the Legion of Super-Heroes among his possible ideas.

I did indeed reply, "Really?"

The reason why, however, isn't important to the point Tim's making, and so he rightly doesn't address it. For some reason, I wasn't the point of his column on the Legion! He does give me credit for supporting the book and even contributing to it, which is damned awesome.

But let me set the record straight. There were two reasons why I replied that way.

The first is that I couldn't imagine Tim loving the Legion and writing a serious book about it. The Legion is just so campy, so silly, so seemingly opposite of the postmodern stuff that Tim showed how much he loved in Grant Morrison: The Early Years. I couldn't get the Legion, with its brightly-colored teenagers with flight rings, into the same "arteur" world as a book about Grant Morrison.

Along these lines, the Legion didn't immediately strike me as a likely subject for an analytical book. I mean, you write those things about Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, not the Legion. It's a little like an analytical book about Donald Duck comics: sure, they're important and worthwhile, but I wouldn't know where to begin a book like that.

Now, this doesn't mean that the Legion is trash or not appropriate for scholarly inquiry. Far from it. I wouldn't have founded Sequart if I didn't believe that comics were worthwhile works of art, due the respect of analysis. And it's not like I thought the Legion was too "lowly": I would find a book about bubblegum wrappers through history fascinating. It's just that, as a gut reaction, the Legion as subject surprised me -- especially from Tim.

But there's another reason why I was surprised: I love the Legion.

When I was a kid, the Flash was my #1 hero. Sure, I loved Batman and Superman. I loved G.I. Joe and Transformers. But there was something about the Flash, with his limited powers, that spurred my imagination. Here was a guy who ran fast, basically, but really could do anything: move faster than any punch, lift people into the air with wind, and travel through time and the whole multiverse. I bought everything Flash was in, and I started picking up the back issues.

I kept shopping around for another series that I loved as much as the Flash, and I never found it. I remember loving several characters and runs over the years, but there was no series that I loved enough to want to collect every single issue ever published.

And then came the Legion. I'd read the Legion before, but it was really the Giffen run that blew my mind. It was like no other monthly super-hero comic out there.

Suddenly, I just had to have every single Legion story ever published. Of the other eras, I fell in love with the oldest stories the most: from the guest appearances in Superman's titles through the end of the Adventure Comics run. They were just so zany, so filled with ideas and imagination -- much like Giffen's issues, though no one else seemed to be able to get past the fact that the tone was so different, those old stories so stupidly bright and Giffen's stories so stupidly dark.

The Legion was a late discovery, to be sure. By then, I was already getting into DC's mature readers titles: Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, The Sandman, Doom Patrol, and Shade, the Changing Man. I bought all those issues too, which was far easier than tracking down all the old Legion issues. But the Legion was the only other super-hero franchise that I loved (outside of Doom Patrol, I guess, but I didn't think of that as super-heroes).

If you asked me, the Legion was right up there with the Flash: odd little super-hero franchises that I just loved.

And it stayed that way, even as I ate up everything Vertigo published and dove headlong into black-and-white independent comics, then manga, then French comics...

I did eventually grow out of my completist worship for any title or character. Graphic novels will do that to you, as will realizing that you've been reading a title for 100 issues and that you don't like any of them -- what you liked was the writer who left 100 issues ago.

Anyway, the Legion was my childhood #2.

So part of my "Really?" was that I couldn't believe that Tim had any interest in the Legion too. Yeah, I couldn't imagine a book about the Legion. It was a gut reaction, and Tim convinced me. But part of my response was remembering how much I loved the Legion, a guilty pleasure I didn't know any other comics analyst shared.

Turned out that I was wrong: a lot of people who write about comics felt similarly.

I ended up writing a chapter in Tim's book. It should be no surprise that it's about Giffen's run. In that essay, I try to explain just what I saw all those years ago -- just what was so radical about what Giffen was doing. Stuff no one seems to know about, at least in the history of "deconstructivist" or "revisionist" super-hero comics.

I thought it was important to write. I slaved over it. I ran late. I worked for it, far more than I'm used to doing when I write, just trying to conceptualize all of what was there, lying implicit in Giffen's issues.

And, in the end, Keith Giffen got a review copy and wrote us an amazing cover blurb. "I never knew I was so interesting!" he said.

I was flattered because his work was so important, an all-but-ignored gem in the evolution of super-hero comics.

"Really?" you ask.

Just read the book.

This post originally appeared here. Teenagers from the Future is now available through retailers like Amazon.com.

An Open Response to Noah Berlatsky

When the first edition of Grant Morrison: The Early Years was published, Noah Berlatsky did a review of it in The Comics Journal. The review was negative, and it's never fun to read negative reviews, but we respected his opinion. Also, it was one of many reviews, most of which were overwhelmingly positive.

Anyway, Noah's reposted the review recently on his blog, apparently because we're issuing the second edition. Which is cool. This time around, probably due to the ease of posting online, Mike Phillips (Sequart's Editor-in-Chief) and Tim Callahan (the book's author) have weighed in. So I thought I'd do so too, for the record. Particularly because we all remember that review and have thought about it since.

Here's my complete response to Noah's review, which is about as long as the review itself. I don't mind giving Noah a link here, despite his opinions: like I say in the response, I respect his opinion.

First, thanks for reading the book and for your enthusiasm for the material, if not its analysis. You’re welcome to your opinion, irrelevant of the quibbles I’m about to offer.
If you think the book is light, too plot-focused, or don’t like its focus on themes, fine. I think there’s a lot of synthesis and that the book is a lot more than lists of themes, but I do take your point. There’s a wide gap between fanboy gushing and unreadable academic nonsense – and, as an academic, I’ve read and produced myself a lot of such obfuscating nonsense. A lot of books on comics are way lighter than this one, and a lot are way too snooty with little real understanding behind them (often with jargon mystifying what are really simple observations). Sequart strives to occupy a middle ground between these two: to be approachable but also to analyze and open up comic book texts in non-mystifying ways. If you disagree with this agenda, then the book’s not for you. If you just think that Callahan hasn’t met that bar, you’re entitled to
your opinion.
I would point out, as far as fanboy gushing goes, that Callahan readily points out that he likes the works and wants to explain why they’re important. Callahan knows his manga and underground stuff -- I’ve talked with him, so I know. It’s just that he has a high opinion of the works covered, and you’re free to disagree with that or to want the book to be something other than it is. For my sake, I can’t imagine anything more awkward than a book about Morrison’s early super-hero work that is filled with French theory or can only explain its points through references to Eightball –- how insular would that be?
Callahan’s admitted that he goofed on attributing a couple quotations, and we’ve corrected that for the second edition, which is apparently the occasion for reposting this review. No complaint there, and thanks for taking the time to review us, positively or negatively. Thanks also for catching the goof! But I’d just like to point out that it’s been fixed – and both the author and the publisher considered it important to do that.
Sorry there’s no index. Yes, there are some proofreading errors. I am legitimately sorry for that. But, for the record, that doesn’t mean that smart people who read and write professionally didn’t proofread the book literally dozens of times. Again, we’ve caught many errors for the second edition. Many times, when people point out errors, they’re actually the result of a different style manual –- I don’t know if this is (at least partially) the case here. And, for the record, I haven’t read a book or magazine (including every issue of The Comics Journal) in 20 years that hasn’t had errors, and a lot of books (including academic ones) don’t have an index. Whether or not we had more errors than others, we can only apologize and spend countless hours fixing what we can find. Which we do.
Maybe this is just because I got my academic training when comics was an unacceptable artistic medium, but I usually prefer to be glad that other analytical works are out there about comics, even when I don’t like their approach. Hey, The Comics Journal attacked the name of our organization because it sounded like a bodily function… which, since our name is short for “sequential art,” would mean that “art” sounds like a bodily function -- certainly a great irony, and one that’s personally given me many laughs. But I’m glad it’s out there, and I’m glad you’re out there too.
For what it’s worth, Sequart’s serious about its mission, and a lot of others are glad that it’s out there. You might not like that mission, or you might want books about comics to be something other than what we publish. Again, that’s your prerogative. We can simply agree to disagree about whether or not Grant Morrison: The Early Years will cause people to run screaming from considering super-hero comics as serious art.
I’m sorry that you didn’t like the book, but I thank you for your time and consideration.

Grant Morrison: The Early Years in Previews

You may know this by now, but Sequart has its first listing in Previews: a second edition for Grant Morrison: The Early Years.

The second edition has a new appendix on Grant's very first story for 2000 AD, entitled "Hotel Harry Felix!" The whole book has been re-edited, and the couple of factual errors that readers have found have been fixed.

Also, the book's got a new cover design by Kevin Colden, which we're very proud of.

It should be available for order through your local comics shop. Don't expect your store to order it automatically -- you may have to tell them you want it for them to order it.

Thanks for everyone's support!