Recommended Remembrance Day Reading
By Dan BrownIf you ask me, Remembrance Day should be a statutory holiday – I believe this country ought to grind to a halt out of respect for those who gave their lives so the rest of us could live in peace.And in no way do I think reading a comic or graphic novel can come anywhere close to recreating the brutality of combat. So I mean no disrespect by offering these ideas for Remembrance Day reading. Please consider these suggestions a starting point, and nothing more.Two Generals: Created by Southwestern Ontario’s own Scott Chantler, this moving book gives a grunt’s-eye-view of the D-Day landings. It’s based on Chantler’s own family history and his crisp lines don’t diminish the horrors of war. Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics: Not only did Jack Kirby draw many war comics, but he was also an actual U.S. soldier who landed at Normandy (in a subsequent wave). I recommend Tom Scioli’s biography because it helped me visualize Kirby’s contribution to the war effort. All Quiet on the Western Front: Wayne Vansant’s graphic adaptation of the classic Erich Maria Remarque novel pulls no punches with its detailed account of trench warfare and forays into No Man’s Land as told from the German side. Vansant is himself a veteran of the Vietnam War.The Canadian Whites: These were the wartime comics that flourished in Canada during the Second World War due to restrictions the government put on imports. Hard to believe, but our dominion had a thriving homegrown comic industry in those years. I would suggest you start with Nelvana of the Northern Lights, a collection about a female goddess who fought Nazis and also beat Wonder Woman to market.Berlin: This expansive volume by Jason Lutes depicts what was going on in the German city between the wars. The cast combines historical figures like Hitler with fictional characters and was years in the making. It opened my eyes.They Called Us Enemy: Inspired by the true story of Star Trek actor George Takei’s family, this tale of the homefront describes how Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during the Second World War. This, after their possessions were confiscated and their businesses liquidated. There are echoes of this experience in the short comic Junban by Toronto creator Jillian Tamaki. It first appeared in the New Yorker and describes her grandfather’s parallel experience in British Columbia.Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos: Long before he was an agent of SHIELD, Fury – the comic one, not the one played by Samuel L. Jackson – was fighting Nazis in the pages of Marvel Comics. Any introductory collection will do, and yes, I know these comics were meant more as entertainment for boys than a serious record of how World War Two unfolded. Captain America’s earliest adventures are likewise worth a read – Cap was punching Hitler in the face before the U.S. had even been drawn into the war.Sgt. Rock: A DC anthology like Archives Volume One will give you the idea. The highlight here is Joe Kubert’s gorgeous art, which was also featured in another World War Two title from DC, the Unknown Soldier.Please consider these recommendations in the spirit they're offered. Every one of us has to begin learning about war somewhere, and for me it was in the pages of comics like these.Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Scary Halloween Graphic Novels
By Dan BrownIn time for Halloween, here’s a rundown of graphic novels that range from unsettling to creepy to scary to horrifying. Read them at your peril, boys and girls!Vision: The Complete Collection: Imagine you live in suburbia and your new neighbours turn out to be emotionless androids. Literally. This Tom King-written story ends with the Vision taking on pretty much the entire Marvel universe.Monsters Volume 1 and 2: These omnibuses, dubbed “monsterbuses,” collect classic tales by Jack Kirby from the 1950s and 1960s, when evil creatures came with names like Fin Fang Foom. Find out what the world was like before superheroes! Before Marvel was even Marvel!The Simon and Kirby Library: Horror!: See some utterly creep characters the King came up with before he switched to inventing the Marvel universe pretty much on his own. In addition to EC’s many gruesome titles, this is the kind of comic that got denounced by U.S. politicians for causing juvenile delinquency!Any EC collection: From the publisher that brought you the Crypt Keeper! It doesn’t matter which EC horror anthology you read (they have titles like Tales From the Crypt and Crypt of Terror), they are all great examples of EC’s thoughtful suspense and horror!Monsters: Originally envisioned as a story about the Hulk, this thick tome from Conan the Barbarian artist Barry Windsor Smith is as gorgeous as it is horrifying! A military experiment goes wrong and unsuspecting civilians pay the price! Nicely marries horror with a touch of magic realism.Something is Killing the Children Book One: You can file this series under the heading of “the title is the premise.” Something evil has been leaving a trail of lifeless tots in its wake in the sleepy small town of Archer’s Peak. Will a heroine rise to stop the slaughter of innocents? Written by James Tynion IV.Wild’s End: Your basic alien invasion story set between the wars. The twist: The characters who populate the British countryside are anthropomorphized animals. The alien invaders look kind of like Victorian-era street lamps and remind me a bit of Triffids. This ain’t no Watership Down!H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness Volumes 1 and 2: This manga adaptation of Lovecraft’s story about a doomed Antarctic expedition is made even more unworldly by the fact it’s a manga. Japanese creator Gou Tanabe takes his time to recount this encounter between humankind and the previous alien inhabitants of this planet.The Nobody: This Jeff Lemire joint, which made nary a splash when it came out in 2009, asks the question, What if the Invisible Man came to Essex County? Yes, I know Lemire never specifically says the story takes place in Southwestern Ontario, but it’s easy to imagine it does.Snotgirl Volume One: Green Hair Don’t Care: Written by Londoner Bryan Lee O’Malley (yes, he does stuff other than Scott Pilgrim!) this is a psychological drama featuring an influencer named Lottie Person. The fun comes from trying to guess how much of her adventures are really happening and how much of the action is in Lottie’s head. Vampirella Archives Volume One: My favourite version of Vampirella is the one featured in these stories from 1970s Warren Publishing magazines that were drawn by Jose Gonzalez. Giving the character a science-fiction twist – in this continuity, vampires are from the planet Drakulon – infused her stories with that X factor I was looking for as a kid.Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands: What does Kate Beaton’s account of her time in the oil patch have to do with Halloween? If you’ve ever wondered how an entirely male society would work, Ducks explores that theme in horrifying detail. Ducks is all the scarier for the fact it really happened. The old standbys: There’s also the Walking Dead for zombie fans, 30 Days of Night for vampire enthusiasts, and Hellboy books like Conqueror Worm for fans of the paranormal.Your suggestions: What are YOU reading this spooky season? I want to hear it in the comment box below!Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Colin Kaepernick Not Making Friends with AI Comics Venture
By Dan BrownYou may know Colin Kaepernick as the NFL quarterback who struck a blow for civil rights.But now the former football player wants to revolutionize the comic industry. And that’s not a good thing.Sports fans are familiar with Kaepernick because eight years ago he took a knee during the American national anthem at a San Francisco 49ers game to protest police brutality and racial injustice. More kneeling ensued, as well as much controversy.He came to the attention of comics fans this summer when he announced the founding of his artificial-intelligence company, Lumi, which aims to “free creators and democratize storytelling.”Sounds great, right? The unsaid part is that he wants to replace work done by comic artists and writers with images and words generated by an AI. This has not endeared him to the comics community.It probably didn’t help his cause when he made his intentions known in a press release that sounds like it was generated by a robot.With $4 million in funding behind it, Lumi is a “groundbreaking platform that empowers creators by providing them with the tools needed to independently create, publish and merchandise their stories both digitally and physically.”How will this be done? By putting the human creators who would have otherwise created these stories out of work.I haven’t done a survey of people in the field, but I’m not currently aware of any comic creators who were looking for this kind of shortcut. “By leveraging advanced AI tools, Lumi enhances the creative process, allowing creators to focus on bringing their stories to life, while the platform handles all of the logistics,” the statement adds. The company boasts this will make every creator into a Walt Disney. But whatever you think of Disney’s labour practices, he at least employed actual human animators.It seems Kaepernick has himself run up against “gatekeeping” in the comic industry.“Currently, a few large corporations dominate the narrative landscape, limiting the diversity of stories told. Lumi aims to open the funnel, enabling anyone to access storytelling superpowers, ultimately fostering a more inclusive and equitable world.”The reality, of course, is that the internet has made the barrier to entry ridiculously low. For better or worse, all you need to be a comic creator in 2024 is a computer and an idea. And anyone who has been paying attention to the graphic-novel market over the last dozen years also knows there are now graphic novels and comics for almost every taste. Besides, AI art and writing is just . . . weird.Granted, I haven’t seen the finished product of a comic produced with the help of Lumi. Who knows, it might be better at drawing than all the other AIs out there.But even if it’s the best AI art ever invented, it still can’t match the creativity of the human mind. You could argue that it’s the flaws, the human element, that make comics attractive to human readers in the first place. Someone like John Porcellino is not a master illustrator, but his simple images are the perfect vehicle for making the emotional points he wants to make. The results are comics that verge on the poetic.Nor am I against the use of technology in the making of comics. If it makes drawing or writing easier for a human, go for it, but the comic creators I love don’t give up those functions entirely to a machine.“Creators today face significant challenges, including exploitation and lack of independence,” the statement claims. “Lumi addresses these issues by providing an end-to-end solution for storytelling leading to more financial stability, creative control, and ownership of their work.”Yup, sounds like the comic biz to me!Oh, and at the risk of belabouring the point – there was and will only ever be one Walt Disney!Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
The Marvel Universe: An appreciation
By Dan Brown Did you ever have one of those posters showing all the Marvel superhero characters gathered together in one place? Over the decades, successive generations of Marvel artists have depicted that crowded scene – row after row of colourful do-gooders, a cast of literally thousands, standing at the ready to fight evil.. Whether this heroes’ gallery was drawn by Jack Kirby, John Byrne or Michael Golden or someone else, my jaw hits the floor every time I see it. I am in awe of the creative energy it must have required to come up with backstories and costumes for all of them. So what I want to do this week is take a moment to praise the folks at Marvel for doing such a good job of churning out one interesting character after another since 1939. This will come as no surprise to regular readers who know I was raised on Marvel Comics in the 1970s. (And don’t worry, DC fans, I’ll do a tribute to that company’s stable when I figure out the right way to do it.) When it comes to being prolific, no other comic publisher has the track record Marvel does. What a riot of invention! What a unique assemblage of talent! What a big bang of creativity that set and kept the Marvel Universe in motion! The Marvel Universe is what results when the right talented people get together and are allowed the freedom to let their minds wander. It’s an example of what no less an authority than Willy Wonka calls “pure imagination.” Jack Kirby and Stan Lee – who launched such comics as the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and the Uncanny X-Men – were undeniably the creators among creators at Marvel. I don’t want to get too much into the weeds on the question of which man possessed the real vision, so let’s just state for our purposes here today that Kirby and Lee combined are among the greatest and most prolific American originators of characters, in the same league as Walt Disney, Jim Henson, Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain. It’s true the different creative teams at Marvel were motivated by economic necessity. They never met a trend they didn’t try to plunder, like the disco craze. No sooner, it seemed, had Studio 54 opened than Marvel came up with the mutant Dazzler – who has all the powers of a disco ball! When kung fu movies likewise hit it big, Marvel answered with Shang-Chi and Iron Fist. Sometimes the plundering was done for the right reasons, as when characters like Black Panther and Power Man were devised to give black readers heroes of their own. Although some fans have by now grown weary of the offerings from Marvel’s movie division, the studio hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface of the vast library of characters it owns. No one would call the comic-book Agatha Harkness a major Marvel character, but there’s currently an entire series streaming right now devoted to her solo adventures. A series about Wonder Man – another B-list character – is set to debut next year. As someone who appreciates and values imagination, I can’t help but be deeply impressed by how productive Marvel has been over the decades, creating a surplus of diverse characters who have now become recognized around the world. And yes, the chumminess of the Marvel Bullpen was likely an illusion created by Lee to help infuse the Marvel brand with an air of fun, but at the end of the day we are still left with what all of those artists, writers, colourists, letterers and editors wrought: An entirely original group of compelling heroes. There’s literally a character for everyone. I stand in awe. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Let’s Stop This Comic Trend While We Still Can
By Dan BrownIt started, as far as I can tell, with Watchmen back in 1986.And it ends now, if I have anything to say about it..What am I on about?I’m not even sure what the correct term is. Some call it “back matter,” others say “supplemental material.”I’m referring to the several pages of prose that appeared in every issue of the landmark DC series back in the day. The same material was reproduced when all 12 Watchmen issues were collected into one volume and sold as a graphic novel.In Watchmen, it took the form of faux newspaper articles or documents or book excerpts that shed light on the rest of the story and the characters in it. Alan Moore came up with the stuff when DC was unable to sell ads in the individual issues of what was then an experiment in more mature storytelling.I don’t honestly know how many other comics have used the same device. I have noticed that at least one other series – the alien-invasion tale Wild’s End by Dan Abnett and I.N.J. Culbard – features the same kind of afterword section. I recently read the collected Wild’s End for L.A. Mood’s graphic-novel group, it was one of the books we covered this summer. And each chapter ends with supplementary material.In individual Wild’s End issues, which started appearing in 2015, the back matter takes up as many as five pages. The goal appears to be the same as with Watchmen — to give readers pertinent information in a way that adds context and shading to the story told in comic panels in the front of the book.Maybe you’ve read comics with the same device. I know there is a vast audience out there of comic enthusiasts who don’t even bother to read these pages, which are akin to the bonus material you get with a DVD.In the ideal case, these back pages would flesh out certain aspects of a given story, supplying readers with an even deeper reading experience. That’s fine, but what I fear is these prose epilogues will become the norm.I’m not opposed in every instance to non-comics material in my comics. I grew up reading Marvel Comics in the 1970s and at least two pages in every issue of, say, the Uncanny X-Men, were devoted to a letters column and Bullpen Bulletins. I loved that stuff, it was fun. Those pages made me feel like I was a part of the Marvel community at a time when there was no global communication device like the internet (you can imagine how crushed I felt to learn Stan Lee had made up reader letters in some early Marvel issues). But enough already.This is a pet peeve of mine I’m hoping comes to an end before other creators take it up and it becomes a full-on trend.For starters, five pages out of an individual issue is just a huge chunk of space. I know the justification is that certain aspects of a story are better told in text, but if you’re like me, you don’t like chocolate in your peanut butter. Prose already has a showcase, they’re called books.Taking five pages away from a powerful creative team is too much of a sacrifice. With five extra pages an issue, a creator like Jack Kirby could have launched whole new universes full of interesting characters, concepts and locations.And, frankly, those prose pages never have the same impact as the rest of a chapter or a specific single issue. Reading them feels like homework, frankly. At least it does to me.Also, they just reek of literary pretense. Comics don’t have to be more like books. They are a perfectly legit artform without text passages, so let’s nip this incipient trend in the bud.Creators, the work you do with drawings and word balloons is perfectly fine on its own. You don’t need a prose section at the back of your latest comic to give you credibility, comics are perfect the way they have always been presented.Disagree? I’d love to hear why in the comment box below!Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Comic Fans, You Don’t Have to be Extremists
By Dan BrownI have an observation about pop culture that also applies to comics fandom. I want to share it with you.It’s OK to stand in the middle of the road.I don’t mean that literally. What I mean is, when you’re thinking about your feelings for comics, books, movies, TV shows, or anything else, you don’t have to be an extremist.You don’t, in other words, have to love something or hate it.The world, and the human imagination, are vast enough to accommodate more than two possible feelings.So when you watch this summer’s Star Wars series The Acolyte, you don’t have to immediately go to your socials and post, “I loved every minute of it!” Nor do you have to state, “I hate all Star Wars properties produced under the Disney banner!”It is perfectly OK to say, “I liked maybe two of the episodes of Acolyte, but the rest of the eight-part series didn’t move me.”Get the idea? When you’re talking with a friend about Taylor Swift, you don’t have to boast, “She is the best/worst!” It is perfectly acceptable to say, “I guess she’s OK.” She doesn’t have to be at the top or the bottom on the list of your favourite musicians.It’s OK to sort-of like a franchise or a property or an actor or a superhero or a comic title.In no way is it wrong to have mixed feelings. Being “Meh” is a totally acceptable way to feel.I’m not one of those columnists who blames the internet for all of society’s ills, but I do think when people go online they get the impression everyone else is a partisan of one stripe or another.If all that’s required of people is to love or to hate, then it’s easier to sell them stuff, whether that be a political ideology or a new product.And perhaps in the comic world the presence of “completists” – those who have to have every issue of a certain series, or every book by a certain author, no matter how good or bad – makes everyday fans feel they can only belong at one end of the spectrum or another.If you recall the 1989 Spike Lee movie Do the Right Thing, there’s a character named Radio Raheem who has a gold plate over his left fingers spelling out “HATE” and another on his right hand spelling out “LOVE” That was his way of viewing the world.Don’t be like Radio Raheem. (This would be the right time to note: I enjoy some Spike Lee joints, but not all of them. I guess you could call me a middling fan of his work.)Likewise, you don’t have to love a comic deeply or loathe it with all your soul.Riding the fence gets a bad rap, but the full range of emotions is available for your use, and I’m giving you permission right now to even have contradictory feelings sometimes. Because that’s what most of life is when you’re an adult: Neither black nor white, but beautiful shades of grey.I hear so much about how so many things in our modern times are “divisive.” That new Beyonce song is divisive . . . The new Toronto Blue Jays uniforms are divisive . . .Disney’s latest live-action remake of a cartoon classic is divisive . . .Well, things would be a whole lot less divisive if we embraced the entire rich tapestry of human emotions, not just the extremes at either end.Even this column is subject to this principle.If you kind-of like what I had to say, I’m fine with that!Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
