If you know anything about comics, you know how important this landmark series by Alan Moore is -- and how rarely discussed, in any depth. Check it out.
Over at Martian Lit, the fourth chapter of my The Many Lives of Yelena Moulin is also up, illustrated with original art by the great Doug Smock. This chapter has a huge twist in it -- two, actually. How huge? PRETTY GODDAMN HUGE.
If you haven't been following this biweekly experiment in serialized, illustrated, wild, sci-fi fiction, you owe it to yourself to start from the beginning. If you don't like it, there's something wrong with you. Seriously, go read Twilight or something. But then, if you weren't smart, why would you be here to begin with?
Did you know I have three books available on Kindle for 99 cents each? Yep, that's how desperate I am! Years of my life, for the price of a telephone call!
If you like comics and comics movies, there's Improving the Foundations: Batman Begins from Comics to Screen. Terrorism and dead kids more your style? Then there's Watching People Burn, the real-life story of the worst school massacre in U.S. history that you didn't know about. Systematic oppression like slavery more your speed? Then check out The Slave Factory, literary historical fiction in 12 short and beautiful chapters.
Then if you do all that, go buy yourself a flagon of ale. You deserve a break today.
2 comments:
I'm sure Siegel and Schuster would be appalled at the statement "Superman is a fascist fantasy." Is the idea of a Superman righting wrongs by sheer might attractive to fascists? Sure. Superman's character and mythology are rich enough to support multiple interpretations, though. BTW, great work on the Miracleman chapters. I was fortunate enough to read the battle against an insane Kid Miracleman when the trade was still in print, so I didn't especially regret the series being out of print...until you showed me how good it was from the very start. And it's all your fault!
Thank you so much for your comment! I really appreciate it.
Yeah, I was being provocative with that title. I really just used the idea as an example of how MIRACLEMAN interrogates what the super-hero means.
And I agree that, even if this idea of a powerful messianic figure "saving" us is fascistic, that same figure can also be used for good. Obviously, it's more than simply the appeal of such power. The earliest Superman stories certainly did so, as you correctly point out. But we have to be watchful, lest the righteous super-hero encourage a kind of passivity, as if the powerful are always good and victorious because they're ordained by Heaven.
Especially today, that's something that really worries me.
Again, many, many thanks for your comment! (I love those trades too!)
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