My Noah's Ark Problem

Most of my problems with religion can be traced back to when I was a small child and no one would give me a clear answer about Noah's ark. I went to church every week with my family but church isn't set up so that you can get answers. The Catholic mass is all about the priest standing up on the altar and reading you stuff. Then he explains the stuff he just read to you and that is his sermon. At no time can you raise your hand in the air and say, "But last week you told us something totally different". It is all about them telling you stuff and not about you asking.

Since I attended public school I also went to catechism classes. Once a week I would go to the local Catholic school and get instruction in the basics of Catholicism. This is how the public school kids get to make all of the necessary childhood sacraments that the Catholic school kids make. Still no one had an answer about Noah's Ark.

I was a pretty savvy kid story telling wise. I had watched plenty of TV just like everyone else and I was a huge fan of comic books. In my youth it was Marvel Comics in particular that I liked and a big part of Marvel Comics was continuity. All continuity really means is that the stories have to make sense. They have to make sense not only in the context of the issue you are reading immediately but with last issue and an issue from a year before. So if Spider-Man has can stick to a wall in issue fifty he should still be able to stick to a wall in issue fifty two and if he can't there should be an explanation. That's all continuity is. Consistency. So inconsistencies were always noticed by me.

Enter Noah's ark. What is the most basic question on any ten years old's mind about Noah's ark? How did he get all those animals on the boat? You know what I am talking about; two of every animal. That is a big task and knowing how big the world is, even at ten, I knew it was an impossible task. So how did he get all those animals onto the boat?

The one thing I learned growing up in the Catholic church is that it is a very authoritarian structure. No one votes on anything and proclamations are handed down from on high. As a consequence most answers are, "because I said so". This is true for a child more than any other. No grown up wants to discuss theology with a kid and answer messy questions about the nature of God. There are plenty of messy questions about religion in general but, for me, they all start with, "How did Noah get all of those animals onto the boat"?

The most common answer given to my young self was, "God helped him". Now we are back to continuity. If God helped him then why did he have to build the boat in the first place? Why didn't God help Noah by building the boat in a flash with all the animals already on it?. Because building the boat was a test of faith. A test of faith? Tell Noah that there is a flood coming so he should build a giant hammock. Now that would be a test of faith. Why build the boat at all? Couldn't God have just lifted up a hunk of land with Noah and all the animals on it and suspended it safely above the flood water. The hammock could be on that hunk of land too. If God is going to give a hand to Noah by bringing all of the animals onto the ark than why didn't he lend a hand by putting a giant bubble over Noah and the animals to protect them. There are plenty of ways God could have lent a hand that would make a lot more sense to me. Continuity problems. Even as I kid I could see the continuity problems with plenty of stories in the bible and no adult was willing to do any more than pat me on the head and patronize me. That was on the few occasions when there was even a chance to ask questions.

Of course the truth is that Noah's ark is a story that was made up to teach people a lesson. The lesson was that they should be good people and not bad people. No one is going to tell you this truth as a child, at least no one in my parish told me, and it made me look elsewhere for truth. If they were going to BS me about that most obvious made up story in the bible what else were they going to BS me about? No, I never got along well with the authoritarian approach to the truth. And as college semantics teacher told me,"Ask the same obvious questions that your average five year old would ask and you'll just get labeled a troublemaker".

Comics I bought 7/27/06

I went to the old comic shop today and got five comics. Four regulars:

Autumn 5 which is the story of this weird little goth chick witch who lives in this strange small medieval town in the middle of the woods. It is an odd comic but I like it a lot. It is from SLG.

The Savage Dragon 0 which reprints his origin story from the Image Tenth Anniversary hardcover. It's for those of us who didn't to buy that but still want the Dragon story.

Strangers in paradise 83. Only seven issues left in the series. I wonder what Terry Moore is going to do next.

Fear Agent 6. The first few pages of Fear Agent 5 were a cop out Deus Ex Machina but I'll have to forgive them. The rest has been good.

And four my fifth comic something new: Highlander 0. I know it is going to be crap but it a 25¢ comic so oh well.

Hogan's Alley, the magazine I bought last week really shines. It has an eclectic mix of articles on all forms of cartooning and it they all have their merits. I especially liked the article on the history of martial arts ads in comics. Now I know who Count Dante really was. Back issue magazine was also good as it usually is.

What it is

Sometimes I forget I have talent. I'm an artist. I paint, I draw, I take photographs, and I even shoot a little video. Plus I know my way around a computer and the image editing programs that come with the territory. Sometimes I forget that a lot of my friends have talent. I went to art school years ago and still have many friends who went there with me. For years I worked in the offices of Marvel Comics doing production work and made many friend there. The majority of them are creative and have talent for drawing, writing and generally being interesting. I am so used to being around creative talented people that I take talent for granted and can even forget it is there. Then I check out My Space for a few minutes. Great Ceasar's ghost! All the bad photos. The millions of digital cameras out there have not improved the general public's photography skills. I mean B-A-D, bad, bad, bad photos. Shot badly, cropped badly, lit badly and edited badly. I find it hard to believe that the only photo a person has of himself is a tiny cropped head from a group shot photo. With red eye. And grainy. Why post that thing? Just be anonymous. We can barely tell that you are human anyway.

Anonymous I can understand. That is when someone is way too cool for a website. They want to look around but wouldn't be caught dead during the looking. So they become Optimus Prime, Darth Vader, or Mariah Carey. Wait, maybe that really is Mariah Carey. It must be. And surely she'll want to talk to me. I just know we'll be best friends. Seriously she just has to get to know me. I'm a charmer.

I'm a little too old for this MySpace thing anyway. A bunch of my under thirty friends are on it but it is devoid of almost all of my over thirty (and over forty now sheesh we're growing old) friends. I not sure what to do on MySpace anyway (besides posting a blog). I know people meet other people on the site but typing to a stranger? Somehow that is just foreign to me. I don't know if it's because I don't like strangers or I don't like typing. At least not typing for instantaneous communication. I type slow and writing is much different than speaking anyway. I'm a talker.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, this Saturday morning I tried cycling before breakfast. Holy shit that's hard (that deserved a curse word). I prefer to cycle in the morning but usually a good couple of hours after breakfast (too close to breakfast and "sick to my stomach" sets in). I've seen cyclists on the road at horribly early hours and I can only assume that, due to the early hour, they hadn't eaten yet so I gave it a try. I normally wake up fast but it is a whole different ball game waking and cycling. My normal ride takes about 45 minutes and in the beginning it was tough to concentrate and make the ol' legs work in a coordinated fashion. I felt low on energy but that seemed to pass as I gained focus. By the end of the ride I felt alright and finished strong but I don't feel the need to go that early again.

I checked out Clerks 2 this weekend and dug it. If you don't like raunchy humor then stay away but if donkey show jokes are your thing head on in. Good stuff.

Comics I Bought July 20, 2006

A really slow week for me. I bought no comics. I could have picked up the new issue of Conan but I'm tired of them releasing trades cheaper that I pick up the issues for. So now I'll just pick up the trades of Conan.

I did pick up two magazines about comics: Back Issue 17 - The Super-Girls issue and Hogan's Alley 14. I've picked up Back Issue before and it is usually good but this is the first issue of Hogan's Alley I've bought. It calls itself "the magazine of cartoon arts" and covers comic strips and animation. I'll give it a read.

Last weeks Scarlet Traces: The Great Game 1 gets a positive review. It is a story that takes place in an alternate world where Martians have invaded and the British have driven them off. The year is 1945 and the rest of the world is growing tired of Britain keeping the war going (on Mars), reaping the benefits of Martian technology and speaking for the whole Earth. I'll be picking up the final three issues.

The Escapists was also good. It is a story of a guy reviving a forgotten comic book character. I'll pick up the rest of the series.

If you read my last entry you know that I won't be picking up the next issue of Rokkin.

Origin Stories

As far as I know origin stories are unique to comic books. There could be an argument that the gods and heros of old had origin stories but in the modern entertainment world comics, comic book derived movies, TV shows, and books are the main home of the origin story. Usually super-heros have special powers and skills. Their origin is the tale of how they acquired those abilities so a new comic book series will normally start with an origin story.

The problem I have with origin stories is that they are generally pretty boring. There is little variety to them. They are all transformation stories. A guy was one thing, something happens and now he is another. That is the overriding theme to every origin story. They do break down into a few flavors after that. There is 1) guy doesn't have powers, guy has accident, guy now has powers. 2) someone or thing kills someone guy loves, guy goes out and trains or gets powers, guy kicks ass. 3) guy gets snatched or recruited by someone (good or evil), guy gets experimented on or put through a process, guy gets powers. Not a lot of variety.

Stan Lee always kept his origin stories short. Here are some page lengths for you: Fantastic Four 13 pages, Hulk 6 pages (though part of a 24 page story), Spider-Man 11 pages, Thor 11 pages, Doctor Strange 8 pages, Iron Man 13 pages, X-Men 23 pages, and Daredevil 23 pages. Stan usually got the origins over with quickly and went on to the adventures. Even his full issue (23 page) origin stories were part of an adventure. I think he knew that origin stories were boring. The interesting things start after the guy gets his powers. The reason people read super-hero stories is because of the super powers. A super-hero without his powers is boring. There are some very good comics about everyday people with no super powers. I read more of them than I do super-hero stories. So if you are going to give me a super-hero story there better be adventure, fights and special powers and skills in them. Super-heros can't compete on a human interest level will Palookaville, Love and Rockets, Age of Bronze, Stray Bullets, Berlin, Eightball, Hate, Finder or any comics that do the human interest thing full time.

I bring this topic up because of one of the comics I bought this week: Rokkin 1 by Andy Hartnell, Nick Bradshaw, and Jim Charalampidis. It is not a bad comic, the art is nice and the script okay. The problem is the plot. Since it says "1st Barbaric Issue" on the cover I assume it is a Conan the Barbarian type of comic but I couldn't tell by reading it. Conan has no origin. He just came out of the hills as a young man to make his way in the world and have adventures. Not Rokkin. He has an origin. I think it falls under category 2) someone or thing kills someone guy loves, guy goes out and trains or gets powers, guy kicks ass. I'm not sure because the origin story isn't even over yet and there is no adventure going on. Welcome to 21st century comics.

Longer origin stories have been a trend for a while. When Marvel relaunched Spider-Man as Ultimate Spider-Man they turned Stan and Steve's 11 page story into six whole issues. A lot of people like all of the extra "detail" in these long origin stories but I find them dull. I want an adventure. That's what I tuned in for. I don't like the predictable and origin stories are the most predictable of all stories.

In Rokkin 1 page one we have Rokkin bound in chains and falling into deep water (the ocean?) introducing us to his origin by way of narration. This is followed by a very pretty but pointless (story wise) two page splash. Then we have 12 pages of Rokkin (he's a butcher) living his idyllic life before he loses his loved one. To be fair he and a few other guys did fight a monster for a couple of page but it seemed unrelated to the story. In the last six pages we see his life ruined by some evil invading army that kills his wife and enslaves him. End of issue. A comic killed by an origin story.

I hate to pick on Rokkin for a trend that it is merely a follower of. It is just the latest example I have found. Six issues from now Rokkin might be a really good book. The people who make it are certainly talented but I'll never buy issue two because this boring origin story will keep me away.

Even people who liked the six issue Ultimate Spider-Man origin story liked it because it was Spidey. He's a character they already knew and liked. I doubt many people are going to sit still for a long origin story about a new character. Comic book companies should take a lesson from Stan Lee and keep the origins short. Some new books might have a better chance of success that way.

Comics I bought July 13, 2006

Just one of my regulars was out this week: The Walking Dead 29.

I also bought three first issues: The Escapists from Dark Horse , a dollar comic. I have been meaning to try an issue of the Escapist but they are always $5.95 per. A bit to pricey. A dollar is better.

Scarlet Traces: The Great Game 1. Also from Dark Horse it looks like some sort of WW2 sci-fi story.

And finally the first barbaric issue of Rokkin from Wildstorm. He's Rokkin dude! Rokkin! I'll let you know how they are.

Last weeks first issue of Battler Britton was good. It was a WW2 book about fighter pilots. The Yanks have just entered the war and the have to get along with the Brits and try to be an effective fighting force. At least in the first issue. According to the editorial this was a long running comic in England years ago and this is a revival. Give it a look.

The promo book Hack Slash that I bought last week made no impression on me. I don't even remember what it was about and not even a week has gone by since I read it. I can't recommend it. But it was only a quarter.

Some short ones

I just thought I'd do some quick reviews of things I've seen and read lately.

Invincible Ultimate Collection 1: I just picked this up and it contains the first 13 issue of Invincible from Image comics. I had read a couple of these issues but no where near all of them so this is my first in depth foray into the world of Invincible. I must say that I liked it. It is a super-hero book about a high school kid who gets super-powers. The art is nice and the plots and scripts are good. There is fighting going on but the book is mostly about the kid and his friends and family around him. High super-hero drama ensues. Recommended.

Superman Returns: I can't believe people are liking this. The Superman being super scenes are well done but everything else is a mess of clichés and coincidences. We have: a) the villain of the piece explaining his plan to one of the heros before he puts the plan into effect. Of course this ruins the plan eventually. Why did he open his mouth in the first place? Because clichés are east to write. b) The villain having the hero in his power and wanting to kill him but not actually killing him. I thought after Austin Powers made fun of this by having Seth Green say to Doctor Evil, "Dad, I'll go get my gun and shot him in the head and he'll be dead" that maybe this cliché would go away but it hasn't. If the villain is willing to kill a billion people (literally that was his plan) why isn't he willing to kill the couple that stand in his way? These questions are getting rhetorical. c) The whole Superman being away for five years didn't work for me because, coincidentally, the day he gets back Lois need to be saved from certain death and Lex Luthor's plan goes into effect. If he stays in space for one more week Lois would be dead and Luthor would rule the world. How's that for good timing? And how about this? A two and a half hour super-hero movie with no fight scenes! Superman fights no one! People say it is hard to write Superman because he is so powerful that no one really challenges him. So how did the writers solve this problem? By having him fight no one! Not a good solution. Not recommended. Stay away.

In Her Shoes: A movie about two sisters trying to get along. From that description it's hard to believe that this movie is twice the movie that Superman is but it's true. A movie about a straight laced sister and a wild one trying to make their way in life if much more entertaining than that hackneyed Man of Steel movie. This movie is also less of a chick flick than Superman and there are just as many fight scenes. Recommended.

The iSight: Boy that iSight is a cool thing. It's the Mac web cam. It's more expensive than your average web cam but it is of the highest quality. It has a firewire connection, which to me, is better than a USB one and a good lens. I'm not into internet chat because I don't like to type. I find it much more fun to talk. I just had three of my buddies on line all talking over the internet. And we could see each other. With four people on the conference the video quality isn't near what it is with just two but is sure was cool. Recommended.

Girls Volume 2 Emergence by The Luna Brothers: The second trade in the series. It reprints issues 7-12 of the Image series. Girls is the story of a town that has been invaded by aliens. At least I think that they are aliens. That hasn't been revealed yet. It is mostly about the townspeople and how they try to figure out what is going on and what they should do. To say more would be to ruin some surprises. If any of those alien invasion shows that premiered last season on TV were as interesting as this series then they wouldn't have been cancelled. Recommended.

The World Cup: I have watched more soccer this year than I have in the past. It can be an exciting sport but it has some flaws. Yes, the ties. This year Italy won the cup over France on penalty kicks because of a tie. Penalty kicks? To use a basketball analogy it's as if the NBA championship was won by the team that made the most free throws after they played the game. What is the point of playing the game if the outcome is going to be decided afterwards by another game with completely different rules? It is hard to overcome the fact that it is very difficult to score in soccer. The only solution I see to this problem is in substitution. All sports have rules about substitution but soccer's are really wacky. You only get three subs a game and once a person goes out he can never come back in. That is crazy. Especially when teams are playing into two overtimes. In basketball if you want to rest Shaq for a few minutes in the third quarter, so he will be fresher in the fourth, you do. Not in soccer. As a consequence there were some really tired athletes playing some really poor soccer in overtime. Give 'em a break and keep them fresh for the whole game and maybe then someone will score so things won't have to be decided on penalty kicks. C'mon, "penalty" is right in the name. It should be a clue that it is a bad way to decide a game. Recommended with modifications.

Blade The TV Series: Okay, I really only watched this out of one eye while I was doing some painting. It never really commanded my attention and was a little too dark and moody for me. I just don't care about grim sour pusses hunting vampires. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't my cup of tea so you'll have to decide on this yourself.

My last review is short. Season three of Deadwood kicks ass. Must see TV.

Comics I bought July 6, 2006

Slow, slow week at the comic shop. Only one of my regulars was out and that is Jonah Hex 9.

I picked up a first issue from Wildstorm along with it: Battler Britton 1 by Garth Ennis and Colin Wilson. It looks like a historical WW2 story.

I also picked up two 25¢ promo books: Hack Slash from DDP and Dark Horse 20 Years. The Dark Horse book is a collection of pin-ups.

That's it for this week.

Comic book fan

If you read my last entry then you know what comic books I bought last week. You can see that I purchased Brave New World 1 from DC Comics. Like most comic book fans I started reading comics in my childhood which means that I grew up on super-hero stories. Colorful costumes, super powers and all sorts of wacky and cool names make up the world of the super-hero. I still love comics but I have generally left the world of super-heros behind. Despite the fact that super-hero comics are written for an older audience than when I was a child I still find them lacking in variety and originality. I'm not into escapist fantasy so it has to be really good escapist fantasy for me to like it.

Working with continuing characters has its pros and cons. The main pro is that people love to buy what they are familiar with. This keeps super-hero comic book companies in business. It far outweighs any con when you want to sell comics. If there is a book that people are familiar with next to one they are unfamiliar with my guess is that four people out of five will pick up the familiar book. It is the way people are. If you find something they like give them more of it. Even after they stop liking it they will remember once having liked it and want to rekindle that feeling. A powerful market force.

Another pro is that if people are reading a comic about a character they already know then an author can do more elaborate things with that character. The reader doesn't have to filled in on the basics of the character. Certain past events don't have to be rehashed and motivations are already established. The offense gets the ball on the fifty instead of the twenty to use a football analogy. Unfortunately I think this also leads to a con. Super-hero comics can be very esoteric. In a lot of cases if you don't know the history of the character you can't understand the story. A lot of writers use the reader's familiarity with a character as a sloppy storytelling short cut and confusion ensues. This makes it very hard to garner any new readers. A balance must be struck. And it often isn't.

Balance is important in another aspect of continuing characters. People don't want change and at the same time they want something new. Fans like it when something dramatic happens to the character but not something that changes things too much. When the balance isn't struck slow change creeps in, often unintended, until characters become unrecognizable. Then they are revamped and relaunched. This is why fans come and go. My X-Men of the late 70s aren't your X-Men from the early 90s. Too much has changed.

Brave New World 1 is part of "Infinite Crisis" DC's continuity shattering crossover event. Marvel Comics also has a continuity shattering crossover event of it's own going on right now called "Civil War". I don't really care about either of them since I don't read any of their super-hero books regularly but I particularly question Marvel's event. They guys who run Marvel Comics went on record a few years ago saying how they don't care about continuity. They just care about good stories. Continuity was to be damed if it was making their comics too esoteric and getting in the way of good tales being told. I found that position a bit extreme but this is how they wanted to solve their problem with esotericism.

I also found it odd that the concept of continuity in a story telling universe, born from Marvel Comics, had gone mainstream with shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and movies like The Matrix and then Marvel decided to abandon it. Huh? Everybody else finally comes around to Marvel's way of thinking so they jettison it? I am baffled. You can see why I am disinterested in a company's continuity shattering crossover event when they have publicly stated that they don't care about continuity in their story telling universe. DC at least cares about continuity and the things that happen will affect their comics in the future. Marvel writers can ignore whatever they want. If chapter ten can ignore what happened in chapter two why did I bother reading chapter two? Why would I bother reading chapter eleven? That's why I don't bother with Civil War.

All that being said her is a quick review of DC's Brave New World. The stories are all prequels of new comic series that take place after their continuity shattering crossover event.

Martian Manhunter: Everything he knew about himself was wrong and now he has to start over. Blah blah blah blah blah. Who cares? Not me. Every character has its fans but I don't know many who care about MM.

Omac: Nothing like the old Kirby series. Some kid being chased by robots. I have no idea what is going on except Superman shows up and is too much of a Mary to kick their robots asses. Just throw them into the sun and be done with it. Superman indeed.

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters: Are barely even in their own prequel. It is just some guy hitch hiking. And the government is gonna kick some super-hero ass with their own super-heros. Just like a hundred other comics of the last ten years.

Creeper: I haven't read too much Creeper over the years but I always liked Ditko's version. I liked the hook that he was a reasonable guy acting crazy as the Creeper. An interesting concept. Every version I have read since then has had the Creeper as actually crazy. Boring. There are a thousand crazy characters and a thousand "trying to keep his crazy side under control" characters. This version of the Creeper is the "trying to keep his crazy side under control" character. Wake me when it's over.

Atom: Looks like we have a "Team Atom" now as he has some science type people helping him. A new guy is the Atom too so he needs the help. It was an okay story but they made the mistake of having the Atom fight other microscopic guys. What is the point of having a tiny character fight other tiny characters? It becomes like any other super-hero story except the furniture is really big. That has always bugged me.

Captain Marvel: The whole Marvel family have lost their powers and the powers have gone into Captain Marvel making him stronger. Ten pages to tell a one sentence of story. Welcome to modern super-hero comics.

Brave New World 1. Is it worth a dollar? Close call but no.