THE PUNISHER (fifth series) #1
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Comicscape - August 24, 2005

Preface to the Preface

The following is a rant. As such, I expect some readers to agree wholeheartedly, and others to write unkind things about me and my family. For next week, feel free to step in the ring: e-mail me at comicscape@cinescape.com or at kurtamacker@yahoo.com and let me know what you think. I'll run your mail with my responses. Also, I used a number of sources for the history in this article, all of whom are given due credit parenthetically. A full list of works cited can be found at the end of the column (you know, just like in school).

The Comicscape All-Star Hero Tribute Special

I preface this week's COMICSCAPE rant with a short tribute to superheroes. I love my heroes. Costumed crime-fighters stand as an invaluable facet of Americana it's all about mom, apple pie, and heroes. When black and white alternative comics brought me back to the shops in 1997, I swore I'd have no heroes. But, when Garth Ennis started writing THE PUNISHER in 1999, the floodgates swung wide and I drowned. Something clicked, and I fell back in love. I look to superheroes as moral beacons albeit complicated ones in confusing, amoral times. Yep, I love me some heroes. Never doubt my love of spandex, web slingers, capes, and Batarangs.

The Other Shoe Drops

Like movies, I love different kinds of comics. While I certainly prefer the "geek genres" science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the like any well-made film will get my ass in the theater. For instance, while most chick flicks make me want to suffocate myself on my wife's tear-soaked Kleenexes, I'm man enough to admit that I enjoyed BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (note to Al Brown: I know where you keep the children). Everyone prefers certain film genres, yet most don't watch crime dramas or anime exclusively. Yet, when I look at the top 300 books ordered from Diamond in July 2005, I see almost nothing but superheroes until SERENITY at #49. RED SONJA landed at #14, but that's the exception, rather than the rule. After that, THE PUNISHER (not a superhero book) sits at #53, followed by CONAN at #56 with a smattering of everything else below that. Newsflash: the world is round, creationism is wrong, sometimes TV lies, and there are other genres besides superheroes.

Before I rant, I must preface given the sheer crapload of genres you could read, I do a disservice by grouping all non-superhero comics together. But, that stands as part of the fans' and the industry's problem. The sales figures show superheroes dominating everything else en masse, including crime, horror, science fiction, et al. If superheroes only outsold porn comics, I wouldn't write this (I'd give that one to Al).

Here Comes Kurt, the Art-Fascist

Would you honestly have me believe that HOUSE OF M rocks harder than DESOLATION JONES, Y: THE LAST MAN, THE WALKING DEAD, or even a postmodern superhero title like SUPREME POWER? And yet, we, the readers, buy into the months of hype promoting yet another cataclysmic spandex crossover event, while Alex Robinson's brilliant TRICKED comes out with virtually no fanfare. Let's venture beyond heroes and broaden our horizons. Embrace everything the comics medium has to offer.

I know a few of you just opened Outlook to send me hate mail that it's just my opinion, the fans buy what they like, and I should just lay off everyone. Such things rehash the tired clarion call of those that defend mediocre art. Tell a teenager his poetry sucks to hear a similar mantra. First, the obvious: this is my column and I'm paid to state my opinion. Second, when fans read nothing but superheroes, they miss out on amazing, equally compelling work. Even Vertigo's acclaimed long-form titles rarely deal with superheroes, but 100 BULLETS sits at #126 with HELLBLAZER right below it. However, you're right it's my opinion and if you only want to buy superheroes, realize that you shoot yourself in the foot and narrow your perspective. I'm trying to help you, so calm down and listen.

Seduce This! Your History Lesson

It wasn't always this way. In the 1940s and '50s, virtually all children read comic books. While a plethora of genres flourished at the newsstands, superheroes still outsold everything. However, two things helped kill the 1950s comics boom and made it difficult for almost anything other than superheroes to profit pressure on the industry to self-censor and a drastic change in the magazine distribution business in the United States (Evans). Most readers know about the self-censorship and the Comics Code Authority, but I'll briefly recap.

By 1953, horror and crime comics accounted for around 25% of comic book sales (Selby). Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein didn't invent horror and crime comics with E.C., but they certainly made them famous. They also inadvertently helped bring the national controversy over comics to a head. Dr. Frederic Wertham interviewed juvenile delinquents as a court psychiatrist in New York after fleeing Germany in the 1930s. Wertham had long assumed a connection between popular culture and juvenile crime. Wertham noted that his subjects read comic books (just like every other kid) and he felt sure that "crime comics" helped make children into delinquents. Unfortunately, as Lawrence Watt-Evans states in his article, "The Other Guys, "Dr. Wertham had never entirely gotten the hang of...American English; to him, any book with criminals in it was a crime comic. Superheroes fought criminals; therefore, superhero titles were crime comics. Vampires and werewolves kill people, so they're criminals, so horror comics were crime comics. Westerns involve rustlers and train robbers, so those, too, were crime comics." In 1954, Wertham wrote SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT a sensationalistic attack book that implied homoerotic overtones between Batman and Robin and suggested that Wonder Woman was probably a lesbian. Wertham's book whipped P.T.A.s and church groups into a frenzy and several towns banned comic books and burned piles of them (though a few had already done as much years before) (Evans). Fortunately, there was no E-Bay, so speculators couldn't sell their copies for ten times the cover price.

After Bill Gaines faltered in front of a senate subcommittee in 1954, most of the publishers were ready to give into pressure and self-censor. Unresponsive to Gaines's rallying cry for unity, several publishers formed the Comics Magazine Association of America to monitor their own product. The code banned the words "crime," "horror," "terror," and "weird" from titles and forbade scenes of horror and graphic violence. Several smaller publishers folded. Gaines cleaned up E.C., but he refused to join the association until wholesalers returned his titles before they could reach the newsstands. E.C. complied with the code for one year, until the code administrator, Judge Charles Murphy, barred them from printing a science fiction story featuring a black astronaut. Murphy conceded later, but said the shining perspiration had to be removed from the character's face. Gaines refused, and E.C. stopped trying. Only MAD remained to keep the company afloat (Selby). The E.C. boom is a column unto itself, but those that want to learn more should check out Chip Selby's excellent documentary TALES FROM THE CRYPT: FROM COMIC BOOKS TO TELEVISION.

Most readers know that story. However, circumstances landed another blow of which most remain unaware. As Watt-Evans states, "[At] very nearly the same time that the Code came in there was a major shake-up in the magazine distribution system the American News Company, by far the largest distributor in North America, was liquidated by its stockholders. The...other distributors didn't have the capacity to handle all the magazines being published, and were able to pick and choose...Naturally, they picked the more profitable ones." Naturally, superheroes had always profited the most. Even back then, readers shafted non-superhero comics.

Comix? Far Out, Man. Pass the Bong.

By the early 1960s, artists weaned on E.C. comics started publishing their own comics in university periodicals and through clandestine use of university copy machines. They called these underground titles "comix" to distinguish them from their superhero counterparts. Bearing such titles as THE ADVENTURES OF JESUS and ZAP COMIX, they were circulated through an underground network of head shops that sold drug paraphernalia. As Brian Tucker states in "The Legacy of Underground Comix," "[The] initial flush of comix was stunning, as if some great dike that stifled a forty-year supply of the nation's suppressed thoughts burst under pressure and flooded the pages of innocuous children's books with ejaculating penises, hairy vulvas, carnage, gore, racist caricatures, drug-addled mental states, shameful confessions, exotic sexual couplings, seditious sloganeering and obscenities galore. This torrent of taboos was employed to mock anything or anyone representative of 'the establishment'..." By the end of the 1970s, laws targeting drug paraphernalia shut down many head shops and the network effectively died. However, two notable comix artists continued publishing comics into the 1980s Art Spiegelman and Robert Crumb. I'm quite sure you've heard of both of them (Tucker). Crumb published WEIRDO in 1981, and Spiegelman and his wife Françoise Mouly published RAW in 1980. In the latter, Spiegelman serialized a little story called MAUS. You've probably heard of that, too (Alternative Comics). MAUS won the a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992, and did a great deal to make comics more respectable.

Countdown to Wednesday or "This is All Your Fault"

In the 1970s and '80s comic specialty shops and a little company called Diamond Comic Distribution gave the small press an outlet. Like the head shops did for comix before, comic shops gave the small publishers a place where their target audience would shop (American Comic Book). Here, we see the genesis of the comic shop as we know it non-returnable, direct market sales through Diamond; books come out on Wednesday; "comic book guy" behind the counter berating his customers, etc.,

When newsstands were the primary outlet for comic books, the emphasis on superheroes was understandable. Back then, everyone read comic books, not just geeks like us. Any mass media will cater to the widest audience (or, lowest common denominator, depending on how mean you want to be). I wouldn't expect a small newsstand run by a struggling Italian family to stock small press stuff that they've never heard of that probably wouldn't sell. However, we don't have that excuse. Most of us buy our comics at shops run by guys that know comics very well. We're all committed enough that we seek out stores that target us. If you read COMICSCAPE, I doubt you just grab a copy of SPIDER-MAN with your Slurpy at 7-11 just to kill 15 minutes while you wait for the bus. You're a comic book person. That's great I am, too. Comic shops all have a copy of Diamond Previews and can order whatever you want. Take a few minutes and seek out something you've never heard of. Ask your comic shop guys if the know any small press titles that might interest you. Hell, start with a few Vertigo titles in trade paperback just to see what the medium has to offer besides spandex. Try SIN CITY or ELFQUEST, if you haven't already.

You may feel that I'm overreacting after all, they made a movie out of SIN CITY, HELLBLAZER (sort of), and HELLBOY. However, X-MEN and SUPERMAN/BATMAN still outsell those titles by volumes. Ultimately, the industry listens to our wallets not positive reviews, not the Eisners, and not people like me. If the industry crashes again, smaller titles, small presses, and self-publishers will suffer. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN won't be cancelled, but a lot of stuff below that on the sales chart will be. The comics press can sing the praises of an obscure black and white independent book until the Internet cracks in half, but it does no good if you aren't buying. Just wait to get that Gambit miniseries in trade paperback and try something new.

Works Cited

• Alternative Comics (2005, August 17). Wikipedia: The Free Encylcopedia. Retrieved August 20, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_comics.
  
• American Comic Book (2005, August 20). Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved August 20, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_comic_book.
  
• Selby, Chip (Director). (2004). Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television. United States: CS Films.
  
• Tucker, Brian (2003). The legacy of underground comix [Electronic version]. X-Tra 6(2).
  
• Watt-Evans, Lawrence (1997). The other guys [Electronic version]. The Scream Factory 19.
  

SUPER MANGA BLAST #54 (MR) $5.99

DC COMICS

ALBION #3 (OF 6)$2.99

Al: Sing with me: "In good times...and bad times...Albion your side forever more...that's what friends are for!"

Kurt: I have to give it you, Al: this is by far the stupidest joke you've ever written. But, somehow, it's also one of the funniest. Well played, Brown.

AUTHORITY REVOLUTION BOOK 1 TP (MR)$14.99

BATMAN #644$2.50

Al: For those that haven't been following, this is Bill Willingham (FABLES) in a follow-up to WAR CRIMES (crossing over with Andersen Cabrych's DETECTIVE COMICS). It's been interesting. In the conclusion, it's the Dark Psycho vs. both the Black Mask and the Joker (woo! Crazy all 'round!) in a battle that promises to "remove a long-standing character from Batman's life forever", which sounds like "We want you to think someone's gonna die, but they're actually just gonna turn to Scientology". But who knows, I didn't think "Six Feet Under" would actually kill Nate either.

Kurt: I think turning to Scientology's worse than death.

BATMAN JEKYLL AND HYDE #5 (OF 6)$2.99

Batman for the grown-ups. I love these kinds of miniseries.

CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #12$2.25

Al will be there with his crusty bathrobe on.

CATWOMAN WILD RIDE TP$14.99

CITY OF TOMORROW #5 (OF 6)$2.99

For Al, the City of Tomorrow is the state penitentiary.

DAY OF VENGEANCE #5 (OF 6)$2.50

Al: Why Howard Chaykin bothers to make anything that's not porn is beyond me.

Kurt: Dude, you say that about everybody. Not everything's gotta be porn, ya perv.

HELLBLAZER #211 (MR)$2.75

HISTORY OF VIOLENCE NEW TP NEW EDITION$9.99

Al: Did you know this is being made into a movie? Yeah, it totally is. And not just any old movie, either: a David Cronenberg movie starring Aragorn, Maria Bello, William Hurt and Ed Harris. Crazy! Supposed to come out sometime this fall.

Kurt: I just read this and it was fantastic. It will get its own column, too. This is COMICSCAPE, not HEROSCAPE.

JACK CROSS #1$2.50

Al: Is it me or is Warren Ellis friggin everywhere these days? He's like the Jude Law of comics: yeah, he's great, but...relax and watch some TV sometimes, dude. And here we go again with an (ostensibly) ongoing series about some kind of American James Bond. Raise your hand if you think he'll make ironic quips!

Kurt: Warren Ellis has clearly dedicated himself to creating a balance with all of the crap out there. The man's a machine, much like Al's girlfriend, the mangina.

JSA CLASSIFIED #2$2.50

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #9$2.99

MAD ABOUT THE FIFTIES TP NEW EDITION$12.99

Al: Specially targeted toward the coveted "50-and-up-and-still-reading-comic-books" demographic.

Kurt: Some call that "not selling out."

NIGHTWING #109$2.50

OTHERWORLD #6 (OF 12) (MR)$2.99

ROBIN #141$2.50

SUPERMAN THE MAN OF STEEL VOL 4 TP$19.99

SWAMP THING VOL 2 LOVE AND DEATH TP$19.95

Al: Admit it: That ALBION joke was hilarious.

Kurt: Though I hate to give you credit for anything unless I'm standing in the witness box, I'll give you that freaking funny stuff. Now, savor it, because you won't hear that very often in central lockup, chicken-hawk.

TOM STRONG #34$2.99

TRANSMETROPOLITAN VOL 1 BACK ON THE STREET TP$7.95

IMAGE

EXPATRIATE #3$2.95

Al: The (stop me if you think you've heard this one before) story of a mysterious dude on the run from the CIA and embroiled in a sinister conspiracy. Trashy but fun, like Kurt's sister. Not be quite good enough to excuse its chronic lateness though.

Kurt: Mom never told you, did she, Al? She gave you up at birth to that band of rail-hopping vagrants. That means we're brothers. Guess what else that means? Is that dueling banjos I hear in the background?

MARVEL

ARANA VOL 2 IN THE BEGINNING DIGEST TP$7.99

Al: This character will become interesting in fifteen years when the hottest writer of 2020 decides it would be hilarious to start bringing back obscure turn-of-the-century heroes for some new incarnation of the DEFENDERS. Weirdly, by then we'll all feel nostalgic about her, despite the fact that none of us are paying any attention at all right now.

Kurt: Kind of like Moonknight and Brother Voodoo?

BLACK PANTHER #7$2.99

Al: And is anyone kinda annoyed by the Storm/Black Panther relationship in HOUSE OF M? It's like someone had a brainstorm and yelled, "Holy crap! These guys are both African! They should totally get married!" Yeah, me and Karl Rove are both American, but I don't need to get all married about it.

Kurt: I'd just like to announce that Al Brown's statement is categorically untrue. A White House source revealed to me that Brown and Mr. Rove have been married for quite some time now. Congratulations, Mrs. Rove.

DAREDEVIL #76$2.99

Al: Wilson Fisk is back in Bendis and Maleev's final DAREDEVIL arc. Say what you will about Bendis' ubiquitosity (hell yeah, that's a word - shut up), but this has been a great run. I'll miss him.

Kurt: Yeah, I'm going to miss Bendis's run on this series. It's really been his strongest work for Marvel.

DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER #3 (OF 6) (MR)$2.99

Al: Hopefully they'll give the job to David Latham, who's been doing a spectacular job with this boring-ass premise.

Kurt: Ed Brubaker already got it. Yeah, this mini rocks.

FANTASTIC FOUR #530$2.99

After that movie, this series has no place to go but up. Seriously.

HULK DESTRUCTION #2 (OF 4) (MR)$2.99

All right, is the Hulk ever not destroying anything? I don't really expect to see something like HULK: CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIQUE.

MACHINE TEEN #4 (OF 5)$2.99

Whereas LIVEWIRES was one of the coolest new series to come out in recent years, MACHINE TEEN has been thoroughly forgettable. Don't bother.

MARVEL HEROES FLIP MAGAZINE #3$3.99

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #17$2.99

MARVEL SELECT FLIP MAGAZINE #3$3.99

MEGA MORPHS #2 (OF 4)$2.99

NEW X-MEN #17$2.99

Al thought this was called NUDE X-MEN and he got all excited. Poor little guy.

NIGHTCRAWLER #9$2.99

SPELLBINDERS #6 (OF 6)$2.99

See listing for MACHINE TEEN.

ULTIMATE X-MEN ANNUAL #1$3.99

Al: Ultimate Juggernaut returns. Unfortunately, so does Ultimate Gambit.

Kurt: You know what the ultimate Gambit would be? The dead one.

WOLVERINE #31 (MR)$2.50

Al always gets two copies: one to read and the other to...you know.