Heroes and Villains

Villain of the Week: Whoever’s in charge of getting all the really cool French books translated into English, because dammit, you’re not fast enough. The 2006 Angouleme Prize winners were just announced and where are my English translations of Le Vol du Corbeau, Blacksad: Ame Rouge, and Sillage? I need them yesterday, guys. Jeez!

Hero: DC for giving Neal Adams more to do than just variant covers. Rich Johnston is reporting that Neal’s going to replace Jim Lee once Jim’s finished his run on All Star Batman and Robin. I didn’t even know there was more All-Star Batman after the Miller/Lee stuff, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway, Neal Adams sequentials equals cause for rejoicing.

Hero: Marvel for making X-Men books to be excited about. This is sort of cheating because I (facetiously) labeled Marvel villainous last week for exactly the same story (hiring Ed Brubaker to write Uncanny X-Men), but the addition of Mike Carey to the X-Men titles and the subtraction of Chris Claremont from them makes the franchise interesting again.

Villain: Dynamite Entertainment for taking a really cool idea and squandering it. Making a Xena comic now that the show is cancelled and your creators don’t have to worry about contradicting future episodes of the show: awesome. Having that comic take place in a time period where Joxer is dead and Gabby’s turned Xena into a peace-loving hippie: awful. Why couldn’t they set the comic during the infinitely more fun second or third seasons of the show?

Hero: Bookazine book wholesalers for getting comics into still more bookstores. The New Jersey-based company has hired a comics expert to head a new program called Popazine, which not only helps independent bookstores know which graphic novels are good to stock, but also gives Direct Market comics shops a graphic novel alternative to Diamond.

Hero: DC for hiring Paul Dini to write Detective Comics. DC has promised to make Detective Comics more mystery-oriented in the past, but hiring Dini goes a long way towards building trust that they really mean it this time. Hiring Identity Crisis artist Rags Morales to pretty up Dini’s stories doesn’t hurt either.

Villain: DC for mucking up DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore. Whether it was intentionally spiteful towards Moore or just a big, freakin’ screw-up, leaving out important text pieces, captions, and extra material that had been printed in previous editions is a huge black eye for DC.

Hero: Sam Raimi for getting a Priest movie going. Priest was my first… well, I thought it was manga at the time, but I’ve since learned that South Korean manwha is a different animal. At any rate, reading it was a pleasant experience and got me interested in reading more Eastern comics. The movie’s being directed by the guy who remade The Amityville Horror, so who knows if it’ll be any good, but since I didn’t know anyone else had ever read Priest, it’s just cool that it’s getting some attention.

Hero: Steve Rude for going for it. The Dude has weighed the facts and the opinions and has decided to self-publish Nexus and The Moth. First, a four-issue Nexus mini-series, then a four-issue Moth mini-series, then an anthology, then a trade paperback that will – I assume – collect everything thus far. I haven’t even read that much of either of these characters, but you gotta admire Rude for researching and thinking hard about this decision before leaping into it. The fact that he’s making the leap is exciting news.

Villain: The Daily Northwestern’s Alex Brown for just not getting it. In an interview with the assistant stage manager of Northwestern University’s theatrical adaptation of Jeff Smith’s Bone, Brown asks, “So if this is a comic book, who are the superheroes?”