Steve Lieber's IPL Blast from the Past

Continuing on our IPL Birthday theme, here's a very rare Steve Lieber cartoon that appeared in the IPL's one-time newsletter for kids, WebINK, back in 1997:

Happy Birthday, IPL!

On March 17, 1995, the Internet Public Library opened its virtual doors to the world.

In early January of that year, a group of thirty or so graduate students at the University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies gathered in a room and launched their plan to create a public library for the Internet community. Ten short weeks later that dream became a reality, and now ten years later the IPL continues.

I was proud to be one of those thirty students who created the IPL, and after the class I continued to work on the IPL project for seven years, spending the last 3.5 of those years as the Director. During that time I had the privilige to work with scores of talented students on the project. I have now continued on my career away from the IPL, but I look back on those days fondly and continue to be impressed by the work of those who continue what we began a decade ago.

So Happy Birthday, IPL--here's to at least ten more!

Quick Comic Reviews

Street Angel #5
by Jim Rugg & Brian Maruca
In this final (for now) issue of Street Angel, Jesse finds herself teamed up with one-time superhero Afrodisiac, under siege from an army of gun-toting thugs intent on killing them. As our hero's situation grows grim, we learn Afrodisiac's backstory in grey-toned comic panels made to appear as though they are from the 70s and 80s. This issue brims with innovating storytelling, including a dense, frenetic two-page spread near the end where Jesse brutally takes out the thug army. Every issue of Street Angel was different from the others, but it maintained a unique vision throughout and each issue wa a treat. Though the series is done for now, I hope that Street Angel is able to return soon.
Rating: 4 (of 5)


Action Comics #825
by 'J. D. Finn', Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Marc Campos & Oclair Albert
The final oversized issue by the current creative team is full of action, action and more action as Superman vaces off against the twin threats of Gog and Doomsday. Austen (writing as Finn) tries to wrap things up and bring about a conclusion, and considering the mess he made for himself earlier does an okay job, even though it involves some dodgy time travel and even dodgier motivations. It fares a bit better than some of Austen's earlier stories in that he has little time to attempt his ham-fisted character development with the supporting cast, focusing instead on the super-powered characters beating the snot out of each other, all dynamically rendered by the small army of artists.
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)


Blood of the Demon #1
by John Byrne, Will Pfeifer, & Nekros
I had vastly mixed expectations for this book. On the one hand I like Kirby's The Demon as a character, and I generally enjoy Will Pfeifer's work. However, Pfeifer is just scripting over a plot by Byrne, whose recent work has left me cold. Since DCBS had the first issue at 75% off, I decided to go ahead and order it; thankfully it turns out to be a rather good start to a new series, presenting an interesting new status quo for The Demon and his alter ego, Jason Blood, without reconning or making a radical change to the character. Byrne's art is well-served by both inker Nekros and colorist Alex Bleyaert, just as Pfeifer's scripting does well for the plot. It's still too early to tell, but this could turn out to be a good series after all.
Rating: 3 (of 5)


Wolverine: Soultaker #1
by Akira Yoshida & Shin "Jason" Nagasawa
I'm a bit disappointed; I was promised Wolverine fighting ninjas and zombies, but while their was plenty of ninja-ass-kicking, the zombies are nowhere to be found. Aaside from that let down, this admitedly completely unnecesary mini series (how many comics does Wolverine appear in each month?) turns out to be a bit enjoyable. Yoshida takes a standard Wolverine-in-Japan plot and infuses it with a dash of actual Japanese culture, while Nagasawa deftly blends western super-hero and manga styles. The plot is just barely there, enough to set-up the action, but it works on its own level. There just better be zombies soon!
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)


Gotham Central #29
by Greg Rucka, Stefano Gaudiano & Kano
With Promethea officially over, Gotham Central now stands alone as my favorite ongoing title from DC. After the devastating events of last issue resulted in a cop falling prey to an old trap set by Flash foe Dr. Alchemy, Detectives Montoya and Allen travel to Keystone City to see if they can bargain with the incarcerated Alchemy to save the officer's life. Supporting characters from The Flash make an appearance, allowing a compare-and-contrast between the police departments of two cities plagued by very different types of costumed villains. There's genuine drama in Rucka's story: will the detectives be able to save the officer, and in so doing will Montoya regain the respect of the cops in the GCPD? Kano steps in to provide inks over Gaudiano's pencils, smoothing out some of the rougher edges and making for a very attractive book. I still miss Michael Lark, but with Kano tapped to become the new regular artist I think this book will continue to be an excellent marriage of story and art. Now if only sales were better...
Rating: 4 (of 5)

New This Week: March 16, 2005

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:

The Pick of the Week is Dorothy #2 from Illusive Productions. This fumetti-for-the-21st-century is an inventive reimagination of the Oz story. I liked this second issue better than the first.


In other comics:

Amaze Ink has a third Dr. Radium collection.

Archie has a new issue of Sabrina (#65).

Dark Horse has the first Conan collection (in both hardcover & paperback) and the trade collection of Peter David & Pop Mhan's SpyBoy: Final Exam.

DC has a trade collection of Paul Pope's 100%; the tenth Starman collection, Sins of the Father; and new issues of Adventures of Superman (#638), Birds of Prey (#80), Ex Machina (#9), Human Target (#20), JLA (#112), Lucifer (#60), Manhunter (#8), Plastic Man (#15) (is this now bimonthly?), and The Question (#5).

Image has new issues of Invincible (#21), Noble Causes (#8), and the final issue of Ultra (#8).

Marvel has new issues of Black Panther (#2), Captain America (#4), Incredible Hulk (#79), Ultimate Spider-Man (#74), and Ultimates 2 (#4).

Oni has the long-named Hopeless Savages B-Sides All Flashback Special One Shot.

Top Shelf has the second volume of Owly.

Vertical has the fifth volume of Tezuka's Buddha.


And finally, I count no less than eight different editions of Brian Pulido's Lady Death Swimsuit 2005. You people who buy stuff like this, you do realize that on the Internet you can find pictures of real women in bathingsuits, right?

Bookstores Are Afraid of The Manga, Too

Reading all the press about how manga is selling like gangbusters at bookstores, you might get the impression that bookstores are falling all over themselves to stock manga.

Not necesarilly true; it would seem that many bookstores are approaching manga (and other graphic novels) with the same wary trepidation as many comic book stores (but for perhaps different reasons), as evident from this post by UCDavis Bookstore's Paul Takushi, which reads in part:

I must admit that I resisted at first. I heard stories from other booksellers about how the books get trashed and picked-over but not actually bought, how GN readers are notorious shoplifters, and how GN readers like to hide books in other sections so they can "reserve" it for themselves while they read it inside of the store.

Well, the section does get picked over, but not exactly trashed. That's a good thing because it means that people ARE looking at the books. The sales continue to increase while I fine tune the selection and the word gets out that we stock them. Since we created the section, no books have ever been stolen.

The reasons may be different, but the root cause is the same, in that some are reticent to go outside of their 'comfort zone' in merchandise: floppies for comic stores, 'normal' books for booksellers. But when there's an audience with dollars to spend, commerce will find a way. Those stores that recognize this emerging market, and cater to it, will undoubtedly find it profitable.

Reviews: Badass High School Manga

Worst, vol. 1
by Hiroshi Takahashi
$12.95 Digital Manga Publishing

Cromartie High School
by Eiji Nonaka
$10.95 ADV Manga

High school in Japan must be a pretty rough place! Based on what one reads in certain manga, high school boys are not concerned so much with the three R's as they are with proving who is the toughest badass around.

In Hiroshi Takahashi's Worst, Suzuran High School is considered to be one of the toughest schools for boys; not because of the academic rigor, but rather the brutal way in which the social pecking order is established. At the begining of every year, the upper classmen force the incoming first-year class to face off in hand-to-hand combat in order to prove who is the toughest badass (and by extension who will rule the class).

Into this situation comes Hana Tsukishima, a bald-headed country bumpkin who is innocent and freidnly, but whose mastery of martial arts can make quick work of any badass wannabe. He shares a boarding house with four other first-years, run by a suspected Yakuza (and his cross-dressing brother).

Having already laid waste to a bunch of bullies before the school year starts, Hana starts to make friends in school, but gets caught up in the excitement of the Freshmen's Battle. He enters, vowing that if he wins the contest, no one in the freshman class at Suzuran will be allowed to rule.

Takahashi's art is attractive, and he delineates his characters well, especially their out-of-the-early-eighties hair styles. The larger-than-normal size of the book really gives the art room to breathe.

Presumably Japanese high schools really aren't like this, as situations are obviously manufactured and exagerated for satiric effect. By taking typical social situations of rank and dominance and presenting them as contests of physical conflict, manga such as Worst are able to explore in an exciting and explicit way the unseen battles of male society. Known as 'Yankee' manga, these stories of young men and thugs as battling badasses seem to be rather popular with the young males at which they are aimed.

Taking a satirical piss on badass high school manga though is Cromartie High School from Eiji Nonaka. A funny spoof on 'Yankee' comics, CHS finds Takashi Kamiyama accidentally enrolling at the titular school, a school for deliquents renowned thorughout Tokyo as the home to the biggest badasses around. While not a badass himself, Takashi finds himself the unofficial leader of a group of badass misfits, his quick mind and relative social adjustment being recognized by the other students as leadership material.

Among the students who find themselves in Takashi's group are Freddie, a mute, hairy-chested wrestler-type old(er) guy; Shinichi Mechazawa, a barrel-shaped robot who doesn't seem to understand that he's not a human; and Gorilla, a, well, gorilla. The other characters' quirks may be less outrageous, but still manage to play on stereotypes, such as Yutaka, the large bald Yakuza-wannabe badass who falls easy prey to motion sickness; and Takeshi Hokuto, the child of privilige who finds that his dad's government connection won't be of help at Cromartie, so he invesnts a secret conspiracy in the upper reaches of society which he claims that he is on a secret mission to overthrow.

The typical episode of Cromartie High School finds the students facing a standard high school badass situation (e.g. face off to decide who is the toughest badass), but they either end up getting sidetracked or fall to a piece of logic from Takashi that circumvents the conflict all together. It's made all the more funny by the completely straight way in which all the characters approach their situations, as if every insane thing they do or encounter is perfectly logical. In CHS, the characters play straight men to the absurdity of the plot.

As funny as Nonaka's comic is--and it often is quite humorous--his art is, well, limited. Not to say that it's bad--his figures seem to have walked out of a Ryoichi Ikegami story--but it's a lot of talking heads, usually in 2/3 profile, and there's very little attention paid to background, scene setting, or anything beyond basic storytelling. In that way it has more in common with a comic strip than a full-fledged comic book, but it works given the nature of the material. Still, CHS might work better as a satire if it more closely resembled the material of which it is making fun.

Both Worst and Cromartie High School make good starts in their initial volumes, and their differnt approaches compliment each other as a reading experience.

(A review copy of Worst was provided by the publisher.)

Rating (for both): 3 (of 5)

Spider-Girl Contest, Part Four: The Winners

This is it, part four of our run-down of entires to the Spider-Girl contest, where we will announce the Grand Prize Winner! (See part one, part two & part three for the previous entries.)

There's no particular reason why these were chosen as the winner and runner-up, just that they both seemed right to me as I liked both the actresses chosen and the reasons given.


Our runner-up is David Welsh, whose choice is Joan of Arcadia co-star Becky Wahlstrom. David writes:

She's smart as a box of whips, has a compelling physicality and puckish sense of humor, and shows a mastery of the kind of subtext that would suit a character with a secret identity. Also, I would like for her to become a very big star, snapping wispy starlets in half as she makes her ascent.

For second place, David wins our (previously unannounced) second-place prize, a copy of the first Spider-Girl digest! Congratulations David!




And now the moment you've all been waiting for: our Grand Prize winner!

First place goes to Nik Dirga, whose choice is actress Zooey Deschanel. Nik writes:

Not exactly a household name, she's been in Almost Famous, Elf, All The Real Girls and this summer's Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy adaptation. I think she projects a keen intelligence and slight but not overpowering cynicism, qualities also present in Spider-Girl. She's optimistic but not naive -- check out her performance in the Will Ferrell comedy Elf, as the Christmas-hatin' crank who (of course) develops true holiday cheer by the end, even chiming in on a Christmas carol or two. Now, that whole Grinch-becomes-grinner thing is pretty clichéd, but damn if Zooey didn't sell me on it in that little turn. Or take her performance in Almost Famous as William Miller's jaded sister, another excellent turn that takes a small role and gives it a little more complexity. I think the best comic adaptations are those where the actors/actress give a subtle oomph to their portrayals -- see Maguire's Spider-Man, Jackman's Wolverine, McKellen's Magneto -- not quite winking at the audience, but the reverse -- making the most extraordinary ideas and actions believable through the humanism of their performances.

As our Grand Prize winner, Nik gets copies of the first two Spider-Girl digests, containing the first twelve issues of the comic. Congratulations Nik!



That wraps things up for us. Thanks to everyone who entered, and a special thanks to Johanna Draper Carlson, who provided one of the prizes. This was a lot of fun, and hopefully I'll run another contest in the not-too-distant future.