The other history of the DC universe, II.

The other history of the DC universe, vol. 2

II - 1970 - 1989: Karen Beecher-Duncan & Mal Duncan. 

- John Ridley, et al

The second volume of this fascinating series takes us on a journey through the history of the infamous Teen Titans, through the eyes of two minor… or rather, supposedly minor characters, who in many ways have been representative of the virtues and flaws of the group as a concept and as a comic. 

Bumblebee and Guardian (or Hornblower… of just plain Mal Duncan) illustrate exactly how much damage being regarded as a Token can do to a person, in both a literal and a figurative sense, as well as showing exactly how dysfunctional the Titans characters are and have been for decades. 

This volume takes a much more humorous approach than the first, driven by the couple’s differing points of view and often contrasting recollections of past events. But the humor is used with a satirical intent: Exaggerating the flaws in order to shine a stronger light on the social critique. 

In the first volume, the contrast between real-life events and superhero anecdotes was often jarring. This second volume makes them more organic, though sometimes at the cost of making the narration feel somewhat smug (“Mal fought the Angel of Death and got Gabriel’s magic shofar? I’m sorry, that’s crazy talk. Even in a world where you’ve got to deal with insanity like Mr. ESPer and Antithesis… you talk about fighting Azrael and getting a magic horn you’re either crazy, or you’re desperate to impress people”. “Who designs a super-suit so she can attack her boyfriend in front of her friends just to make a point about their behavior?”). But that smugness ultimately serves to highlight the main point: That even in narrations that illustrate our wildest dreams, too many people are left behind, if not outright discarded. 

A strong second installment, with equally gorgeous art. More than worth a look. 

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The other history of the DC universe, I.

The other history of the DC Universe, vol. 1. 

I - 1972 - 1995: Jefferson Pierce. 

- John Ridley, et. al. 

The history of the extended DC Universe as told through the eyes of minority, and often neglected, characters. Herein, Black Lightning. From his rise through the turbulent 70’s and the dawn of heroes to his quest for revenge in the guise of justice and the ultimate toll it has on his family. Yet his tale is not just that of a man or even a super-man —it’s the tale of those who had to fight tooth and nail for everything in a willfully blind nation…

One of the most interesting comics in decades, a provocative book that confronts deeply ingrained prejudices and oversights both editorial and cultural. Merely shifting the point of view often asks us to interrogate the way we read certain stories and the assumptions we carry with us. 

Setting the story in the actual DC comics is something of a double-edged sword. It serves to directly confront iconic characters (“Superman’s weakness wasn’t just irradiated rocks from his home planet. What made him human was a desperate need to be liked and admired”), but it sometimes feels jarring (juxtaposing real-life events with the over-the-top shenanigans typical of the sub-genre). Quite a few readers seem to have missed the point, obsessing more over the story’s exact continuity or the sneering at certain characters' ideologies (there is a very “How dare you!” tone to a lot of fan comments. Not at all surprising, to be honest).  More interesting are those who do get the point: To reconsider the way we’ve viewed certain tales for years and years. 

As such, even narrators are confronted with their own prejudices —Pierce is both a hard-working teacher and a man often unaware of his own biases (“When you can’t see yourself in others it’s just bigotry by another name”). Of particular interest is a subplot of a student that Pierce believes is helping with ‘though love’ —years later Pierce’s daughter will discover that the only thing he managed to do is make a gay student feel constantly harassed. Pierce, too, is forced to re-evaluate his own stances every so often. 

A very recommended comic, worth of several careful re-reads. The amount of details both explicit and subtle packed into each page is notable. Consider the simple secret message in a newspaper or the homaging of several famous comic covers and panels. A strong start to a fascinating five-volume mini-series. 

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The Education of a Comics Artist.

 

- The Education of a Comics Artist. Edited by Michael Dooley & Steven Heller. 

An anthology of essays, interviews, and selected comic book pages about comic books, from more than sixty contributors. Arranged as a series of lectures, covers topics as varied as editorial cartoons, political comic strips, alternative Comix, European and Asian comics, comics’ relationship to other arts such as graffiti, graphical design, and illustration. And many, many more!!

As comprehensive a guide as one could hope, allowing for a truly wild variety of voices and ideologies. Personal highlights include Paul Krassner and Robert Fiore separately reflecting on censorship and pushing the envelope in comics; Heidi MacDonald giving us a guide to navigate Comic Conventions from the business side; Bill Griffith and Nicole Hollander sharing trivia about their respective groundbreaking comic strips (“Zippy the pinhead” and “Sylvia”); Trina Robbins analyzing the rise of romance comics and their subtle influence on later independent comics. And much more!!

Not only educative, but quite thought-provoking. Definitely recommended. 

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(Poem)

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 There will come soft rains

 

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, 

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night, 

And wild plum trees in tremulous white, 

Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; 

And no one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done. 

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly; 

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, 

Would scarcely know that we were gone. 

— Sara Teasdale. 1912.

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Film Diary.

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Movies I’ve seen as of March 2021 (that did not get a longer review for one or another reason), with my comments on them.

 

IN ENGLISH: 

- To all the boys I’ve ever loved. (2018. Dir. Susan Johnson. Based on the book by Jenny Han).

Fairly charming romance (with bits of comedy) about and for teenagers. Certainly a better YA romance than other popular but shall we say Problematic movies like “Twilight” and “The kissing booth”. 

- The Poison Rose. (2019. Dirs. George Gallo & Francesco Cinquemani. Based on the book by Richard Salvatore).

Fairly underrated Noir story with all the traditional ingredients and trappings of the genre. 

- A Family Man. (2016. Dir. Mark Williams). 

The textbook definition of “Glurge”: A story that intends to be inspiring and uplifting and instead is such a melodramatic, preachy, moralistic mess it becomes unintentionally hilarious. Really not recommended. 

- Official Secrets. (UK. 2019. Dir. Gavin Hood. Based on “The spy who tried to stop a war”, by Marcia & Thomas Mitchell). 

Surprisingly good drama about a real-life case, helped by a smart script and effective direction. Okay performances. 

- Inside Job. (2010. Dir. Charles Ferguson)

Good documentary about the late 2000’s financial crisis and the massive corruption that lead to it. Worth a look. 

- The Dig. (UK. 2021. Dir. Simon Stone. Based on the book by John Preston).  

Good drama loosely based on a real-life archaeological dig. More interesting for the subtext than the main story, which is rather suitable for a tale about digging. 

- The last face. (2016. Dir. Sean Penn)

Take the above definition of “Glurge” and then add a level of misery exploitation that would make Mel Gibson proud. Then you get this borderline vomit-inducing disaster of a movie. So yeah, not recommended. 

- I care a lot. (2020. Dir. J Blakeson). 

A prestige movie that can’t quite decide if it’s a black comedy, a thriller, or a parody of both. Entertaing most of the way thanks to good performances, but on the whole surprisingly underwhelming. 

OTHER LANGUAGES:

- El desconocido. (Spain. 2015. Dir. Dani de la Torre)

Tense thriller with the well-worn premise of a man in  a car who must keep driving or else. Predictable, but effective and entertaining. 

- Was wir wollten. (Austria. 2020. Dir. Ulrike Kofler. Based on a short story by Peter Stamm) 

Fairly subtle drama that is helped by a uniquely European perspective: This is probably the only tale about a childless couple that ends with the message “Actually, THANK GOD we can’t have children, they just screw everything up!!”. So yeah, recommended if only for that. 

- El agente topo. (Chile. 2020. Dir. Maite Alberdi)

Peculiar yet undeniably delightful mix of documentary and mystery drama —or rather, a film that seems to be a meta-comedy only to become a ponderous drama. Powerful and thought-provoking. 

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TV diary.

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Assorted tv shows (and one game) I recently finished or am currently watching, and my thoughts on them: 

As of March 2021, finished: 

LIVE-ACTION

- Riverdale. 4 seasons. 

- The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. 3 seasons. 

Riverdale is still going strong for me, unafraid to be silly and bonkers despite the ‘teen dramedy’ trappings. Sabrina, meanwhile, I found underwhelming all in all. There was stuff to like, but man alive: This show is what happens when you take your dark adaptation way too seriously. 

- Tiny Pretty Things. 

- Crime Scene: The vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.

At some point YA thrillers became all the rage and now are sort of giving the last death rattles. The first quickly degenerates into a soap opera that desperately wants to be a mystery and the second is the kind of rage-bait exploitainment docu-series that are increasingly becoming Netflix’s bread and butter. 

- Warrior Nun. 1 season.

- The Umbrella Academy. 2 seasons. 

And with these I conclude that live-action superhero shows are just not for me, not at present. Both adapted from the kind of Indie Superhero comic that swears up and down it’s not Superhero, or not just that —they mostly deliver what they promised and if that is what you are looking for then by all means give them a try. The first is a religious-themed story with a teensy bit of variety thrown in and the second is essentially a super-dysfunctional  super-family run through the winger. 

No, the issue is simply that right now this genre is just… not working for me. Be it Marvel, be it DC, be whatever, right now the genre feels to me like it only works in movies or in animated shows. Oh, well. 

Still kinda interested in the upcoming live action Powerpuff Girls one, if only to see exactly what they try to do. 

Sure, it will most likely be a fiasco like the live-action Winx thing, but who knows!

ANIMATED

- DC Superhero Girls (Netflix).

- Legend of Korra, Volumes 1-2. 

Animated superhero shows, however, are still working for me, to different degrees. DC Superhero Girls (the Lauren Faust version —there is a previous one that I have not seen) is possibly the best of the DC-derived cartoons of the last six or so years —mainly for not being afraid to take risks but also remembering to be, you know, FUN. 

Korra meanwhile is one of those cult shows that have not aged as well as the fans wish to believe, but it is still quite charming and worth a look. Plus, like the original Avatar, it gets better and better as it advances. 

And currently watching: 

ALL-AGES ANIMATION

- Tropical Rouge PreCure. 

- Ducktales, season 3. 

One just starting and one just ending. The first is the latest entry in the long-running magical girl franchise —for younger viewers, and so far much better than the last entry, “Healin’ Good”. Ducktales meanwhile was one of the best remakes of the 2010’s, very much worth a look. 

GENERAL ANIMATION

- Magical Girl Site. 

An adaptation that actually improves the original. Unfortunately the original manga really does not hold up and in hindsight was just —pretty bad. But the resulting anime is still a fairly exciting affair, and more or less the last hurrah for Dark Magical Girl series. Starting with Madoka Magica and its myriad imitators (Daybreak Illusion. Magical Girl Raising Project. To a slightly different degree Yuki Yuuna is a Hero and its prequels and sequels. Also stories adjacent to other sub-genres such as  Kill la kill and the Wixoss franchise), and fittingly ended with a Madoka Magica spin-off, Magia Record. Nowadays the interest seems to be towards more experimental affairs, such as Wonder Egg Priority (what a title). 

Anyway, Site is a fairly entertaining affair that while difficult to stomach at times and eye-rolling at others, nevertheless has enough thrilling action and intriguing ideas to keep one interested. 

- Onyx Equinox. 

Terrific Mesoamerican-themed fantasy series that’s best described as a MUCH gorier Avatar / Legend of Korra. It’s a kind of cartoon I wish I had seen as a teenager. 

- My next life as a villainess. 

Intriguing take on both Romance VNs and related tropes and genres —what happens when an unlucky protagonists reincarnates not as the generic protagonist, but as the villain? Entertaining all the way. 

- Housamo: Tokyo Afterschool Summoners. Chapters 1-6, plus 4 Events.

Gay furry app game that I’ve had a very strange relationship with over the years —from curiosity to repulsion, to renewed interest to, at current, genuine appreciation for it. 

The writing is uneven as hell but goddamn it has its moments. 

LIVE-ACTION

- Pose, season 2. 

Simply one of the best tv shows and indeed one of the best Queer / LGBT shows you’ll ever see. Also the perfect antidote to the currently-ending wave of 80’s nostalgia, being a show that slams you into the uglier side of the decade and then makes you find the genuine beauty behind it. Not to be missed. 

- The Sinner, season 3. 

Okay, so this is the thriller drama that I basically put on when I need to kill about an hour. So… it does the job, I guess? 

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Novel.

 Been writing a novel for a while, if you'd like to check it out: 

Such terrible hatred, in Spanish and English. 

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