Yes, it's true! The new installment of my long-gestating graphic novel Feeder Birds will be presented as part of r_sikoryak 's long-running cartoon-slide-show evening CAROUSEL. If you, like me, are in New York City next week, this will be where you will want to be. In addition to me, there will be actual talented cartoonists present.

WHEN? Thursday, May 28, 2009!
WHERE? The new Dixon Place, that's where! 161 Chrystie Street, btw Rivington and Delancey!
HOW MUCH? $15 smackeroos, that's how much.

See you there!

I've been thinking a lot about Watchmen this week, which I think is a good sign, and paying attention to the online response to it. I've seen everything from "This movie is evil and you are evil if you want to see it" to "It puts me into a state of homosexual panic because it shows the penis of one of the characters" to "My favorite panel was not dramatized in the way I imagined and therefore Hollywood is evil and should be destroyed."

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Well I liked it.

For those familiar with the book, it's all in here, or all the parts that matter anyway. The director understands, and loves, the source material, but he hasn't let it stand in the way of creating a cinematic narrative. A rather dense cinematic narrative at that.

For those unfamiliar with the book (and I maintain that one should never be familiar with a movie's source material to enjoy the movie), as long as you keep in mind that Watchmen is, in essence, a detective story that pauses, often, for some very long digressions, I think you should be fine, but let me know. The people who really, really hate the movie I think get lost in its narrative ellipses, where the detective plot is put on hold for, say, a series of involved flashbacks or for a sub-plot involving a character's sex life. Long digressions like this can make a story feel long, but I was never bored by Watchmen and was frequently thrilled, and even surprised, in spite of having re-read the book recently.

The problem with Watchmen, if it's a problem, is that without the digressions, which are all thematically resonant and serve to deepen the story, if you cut all that stuff out, it's just another superhero detective story. In a sense, the narrative digressions are the real "point" of the story, and the movie (like the book) uses the detective plot to deliver those digressions.

From a marketing standpoint, of course, the movie is a "tough sell" -- it's got multiple protagonists (four by my count), not a single character to "root for," a complicated plot that keeps looking backward to tell us about characters we barely know yet, a "meta" approach to its subject matter (it's a superhero story that worries that having superheroes might not be such a good thing) and takes place in a weird alternate-universe 1985.  All of which makes sense when you read the book (or it did when I first read it in 1986), but again, you tell me.

As for the learned critics who have screwed in their monocles, tucked in their ascots and sniffed in disdain at this rather ambitious piece of popular culture, describing it as trash and its audience as sociopaths, in time they will look like idiots, if they don't already.

If you can't wait until tomorrow to see Watchmen, allow yourself to reminisce with the late-80s animated version of the tale (click on the flashing "Watch this movie" thing). 

Boy, those were the days.  I loved the episode where they tangled with the mummies, although I guess my favorite was the Transformers crossover.

Via, whom else, The Beat.

Michael Kupperman, one of America's greatest cartoonists, has a blog. You should go read it.

I was pleased as punch that What Does The Protagonist Want? was been linked to by the popular Spanish-language comics blog La Carcel de Papel.

I admit I was a little confused when I discovered the reference to me the other day -- it's exceedingly rare that anyone confuses me with an authority on comics, much less someone from the Spanish-speaking world.  I read the piece with great interest, but alas, my Spanish is no better than what I have picked up by watching Dora the Explorer with my daughter.

The piece begins:

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Yesterday I laid out the basic structure of Batman Begins. And while structure, as any screenwriter knows, is the name of the game for a successful screenplay, it is not the only thing that makes Begins such a detailed, well-considered movie.

Assuming the reader is already familiar with the structure, here are some observations I have in chronological order:

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WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT?  Bruce Wayne, orphaned at eight, wants to overcome his fears and honor his father.  This turns out to be rather more complicated than he suspects.

Batman Begins presents a radically new vision (for the movies, anyway -- this stuff had been around the comics and the animated series for many years beforehand) of the Batman story, grounds it in a startling new sense of reality, presents not just a caped crusader and a wacky new villain but a whole wealth of good guys and bad guys, all following their stars in increasingly complex and interconnected ways, all of it bound together with the one fantastic conceit of a young billionaire who dresses up like a bat.  It strongly reminds me of the Casino Royale re-boot, which brought the James Bond character to a new level of immediacy while retaining enough of the series' fantastic hallmarks to still qualify as escapism.  There is still enough silliness in Batman Begins to make it a recognizable "superhero movie" (grand, outsized villains with colorful personalities and an ambitious scheme to destroy an entire city, spectacular action sequences that teeter at the brink of believability, production design that borders upon science-fiction) but it's presented with a sober, straightfaced earnestness that's nothing less than shocking after the garish camp of Batman & Robin.  The Dark Knight would successfully develop all of Begins's good ideas into an even more complex, startling vision of modern urban justice.

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Contrary to its reputation as a garish, headache-inducing day-glo nightmare, Batman & Robin is, in fact, a sensitive, heartfelt examination of power, frailty, family, humanity's custody of the earth, the ties that bind and the mysterious ways of the human heart.

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You state [fantasy's place as an exclusively adolescent genre] as if it's a universal, but that attitude is a pretty new development in literary culture. -- swan_tower

This discussion touches on a whole host of issues like middlebrow vs. high brow; entertainment vs. art; fantastic genres vs. realistic genres vs. non-genre dramas. -- curt_holman

That Homer's fucked. -- iainjcoleman

Ms. Tower correctly points out that "fantasy" as a genre was not always exclusively for the young. I would have done better to add "these days" to my description of the role of fantasy in our common storytelling world.

Some have asked me to define "adolescent" stories as opposed to "adult" stories. I would say that an adolescent story is designed to appeal to a primarily adolescent mindset -- that is, the mind of an adolescent. The concerns of the adolescent are different from the concerns of the adult, and there's not much you or I can do about that. The adolescent mind is still asking questions, taking its measure of the world and seeking its place within it. (Kurt Vonnegut was often accused of being "sophomoric," which he said was entirely intentional -- he knew that if he really wanted to change the way people think, he had to do it while they were still young -- the people with real power don't read novels.) There is no qualitative difference between a story designed to appeal to children, a story designed to appeal to adolescents or a story designed to appeal to adults. Each can be well executed or poorly executed, transcendent or trashy, innovative or rote. "Children's movies" includes both Bambi and Ernest Goes to Camp, and the realm of the adolescent movie, as I've said, spans almost our entire release schedule.

As for Homer, two things:

1. Yeah, Homer wrote adolescent power fantasies. Sorry. They are very good, and they have lasted a long time, and they bring great storytelling talent to bear on their narratives, but they are still, primarily and essentially, adolescent power fantasies.
2. That said, the fact that we're still talking about Homer thousands of years later indicates that there is hope for the superhero genre. There's no reason why, given time and development, Superman will not take his place in the mythological pantheon next to Odysseus and Achilles, to say nothing of Arthur or Heracles, or Cinderella or Peter Pan.  All are fantastic stories that plumb the depths of what it means to be human, the only thing separating them is time.  There is no reason why, a thousand years from now, people will not study superhero stories in serious college courses or create serious, adult dramas from what will then be considered classics.  Superman, Batman and the rest, it seems to me, share a lot of things with those older characters, including being constantly reinvented as the society that imagined them shifts in its needs. 

Superman belongs to no one, or rather he belongs to everyone, and always has -- that's one of the interesting thing about comics.  The creator of a superhero may have something specific to say, but it's the audience who actually decides who the hero is, and they decide by buying one comic and leaving another on the shelf.  I was surprised to learn that when Superman first appeared, Siegel and Shuster hadn't actually figured out his origin story or basic character outline.  They tried out this, that and the other personality trait, letting the readers respond and thus re-shape the material.  The audience would love one kind of story and shrug at another, so the material was tailored to meet the audience's expectations.  In seeking only to keep their aborning creation in print, they -- through a kind of Darwinian process -- created a strong, resonant hero that became the first, the original and, even today, the most influential character in his genre.

Fun fact: when I Googled "Homer" to find an appropriate image for this thread discussing this whole adult/adolescent fantasy debate, I had to wade through three pages of Homer Simpson until I found a picture of the Greek bard.  I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

voiceofisaac writes:

"So, if most superhero comic books are adolescent power fantasies, what about them would need to be changed in order to make them a more adult fantasy? Or are all power fantasies adolescent by definition?"

ted_slaughter ripostes:
"First, 'adolescent'? Are you saying it's adolescent to desire power, or that comics are inherently jejune? Because I beg to differ, on both counts.

Ted and Isaac cut to the core of the issue here. This is, in a way, the whole ball game.

First, let me make something clear: there is nothing wrong, shameful or second-rate about adolescent fantasies. Adolescent fantasies drive the entire movie business and have for more than a generation. "Grown-up" drama was once where all the money was spent in Hollywood, now it's the opposite: all the money is spent on adolescent fantasies, while adult drama must squeeze itself in where it can. Adolescent fantasies thus call the shots in this world of professionals -- movies based on superhero comics, fantasy novels, children's books and pop-culture flotsam attract the biggest names, the highest salaries and our brightest talents. No offense to the wonderful movies nominated for Best Picture this year, but the three movies I went to see more than once in the theaters, Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda and The Dark Knight, are not on the list. The question here is not "are superhero movies any good?" but "can superhero movies ever be anything but adolescent fantasies?"

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Batman Forever does something that Batman and Batman Returns were unable to do: it makes Batman a proper protagonist, with goals and desires of his own. Not merely reacting to events, Bruce/Batman is after something in Forever. His various allies and antagonists, seductions and betrayals are all thematically consistent and relevant to his struggle. This does not mean that the finished movie is without flaws.

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Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is in interesting entry in the world of long-form cinematic Batman stories for a few different reasons.  First, it manages to do what the Burton movies were unable to -- make Bruce/Batman the protagonist of his own story.  Second, it's primarily a detective story as opposed to an action story.  Third, at least half of the story is told in flashback, a parallel-action setup ambitious for a movie thought of as primarily for kids.  Lastly, the story it tells is rather emotional and internal -- Bruce/Batman broods a lot in this movie, even by his own standards.  The action sequences feel perfunctory and tacked-on.  The two that come to mind -- a truck chase and the explosive finale -- are poorly motivated and don't advance the plot in any meaningful way.

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Like Batman, Batman Returns presents three protagonists, almost the same protagonists as the previous movie -- a deformed freak of a gangster (this time the Penguin), a blonde who's crazy about bats (Catwoman subbing for Vicki Vale), and Batman himself. In addition to its three protagonists, it offers an antagonist from outside the traditional Batman world -- a ringer, if you will, in the form of businessman Max Shreck.

It would be great to report that Batman Returns takes all of these worthwhile, interesting characters and weaves them into a single, unified story, but it does not. Instead, it presents two separate stories, each compelling in its own right, and kind of sutures them together like the irregular chunks of vinyl of Catwoman's bodysuit. As this is an unusually complicated narrative with three separate, competing plot strands which actually take place in utterly different genres, let's separate out each character's storyline and examine them one at a time.

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So: to review, here is the overall structure to Batman:

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Batman has an interesting agenda: the screenplay wants to keep its title character mysterious and elusive for as long as possible.  Both Batman and Bruce Wayne are presented as cold, remote and unreachable.  "Why won't you let me in?" asks Vicki Vale, as well she might.  Bruce Wayne takes a long time to emerge as a protagonist in Batman, and Batman takes even longer.  For the longest time, Bruce/Batman is pursued, tangled with and drawn out, with the effect being to turn him into a kind of mythological figure, or even a fetish object.

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(For those interested, my earlier thoughts on Batman can be found here.)

WHO IS BRUCE WAYNE? Bruce Wayne is tall, handsome, wealthy and dumb as a post. He lives with his ward, Dick Grayson, who is shorter, not quite as good looking, and also dumb as a post. Wayne refers to himself as a "capitalist" for the benefit of a woman he believes to be a Russian journalist, but as far as the narrative is concerned, Wayne is born rich, a playboy, and does nothing with his life but bear the name of the Wayne Foundation -- a wealthy, carefree philanthropist. There is no mention anywhere of the murder of Bruce's parents when he was eight years old, no mention of any demons or psychological issues that might compel a man to dress up like a bat to go out and fight crime. Like a lot of things in Batman, Bruce Wayne dresses up like a bat to go out and fight crime because the plot demands it.

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I was dreading The Spirit. I didn't like the posters that showed up six months ago, the ones with the smutty writing on the women's faces, and I didn't like the look of the trailer. It looked weird, unpolished and campy. When some reviews showed up that called it, literally, one of the worst movies ever made, I felt a sigh of relief, thinking "Well, now I don't have to see it, that's a load off."  Ah, but then my big superhero project came along, and how was I going to not see the new superhero movie?

Christmas day rolled around, and I found myself in a town with nothing to do and, well, I like to go see a movie on Christmas, it's kind of a tradition 'round my place. I should have been working on a treatment I have due, but it was Christmas, and who wants to work on Christmas?

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In my ongoing attempts to dominate all media, I am proud to announce that I have succeeded in landing a gag in world-class cartoonist Tony Millionaire's Maakies.

How, the reader may ask, does one accomplish this feat?

It probably helps if you know Tony, whom I met through a number of acquaintances, including r_sikoryak  and Snake n Bacon creator Michael Kupperman (if you don't know Snake n Bacon, you will -- it, along with the Maakies-derived Drinky Crow Show, is set to become yet another [adult swim] show starring the voice of urbaniak ).

I was nodding acquaintances for years with Tony before I discovered his "for kids" comic book Sock Monkey. At the time I was riding high off my kids' movie success Antz and all anyone in Hollywood wanted to know from me was what kind of kids' movie I wanted to write next. If you're unfamiliar with it, I advise you to get thee hence to your nearest Sock Monkey collection -- the stories are sweet, tender, funny, weird, scary and painfully well-rendered. I immediately saw the commercial potential of a Sock Monkey movie, saw it as a kind of 19th-century Toy Story, contacted Tony and put together a full treatment. Tony and I and an enthusiastic young Canadian director toured all the studios and gave the pitch our best efforts, but Hollywood somehow did not "get" Sock Monkey and we all went our separate ways.

Since then, every now and then I will get an email from Tony saying something like "Quick! My strip is due in six hours and I need an idea!" Not a natural gag writer, I will respond to these emails with some meticulously worked-out concept that sounds great to me but is completely wrong for Maakies. The other day I woke up to find another one of these emails in the inbox and this time took a different tack: I simply thought of the most horrible, saddest, most pathetic examples of bodily harm that could befall a creature, and then tried to think of a gag to work around it. Prolapsed intestines, self-inflicted gunshot wounds, vehicular manslaughter, crablice -- and the idea above.

After seeing The Dark Knight, I had one burning question (sorry): were the depictions of Two-Face's injuries anatomically accurate?

To answer this question, I turned to anatomist, choreographer and Bentfootes creator Kriota Willberg.  Kriota is the only person I know who has actually dissected a real live -- er, I mean, real dead -- human body.  This is what she had to say:


There you have it. Subtracting the pain and shock that would naturally occur in such an instance (or, as my wife put it, "you'd go insane" -- to which I reply "well..."), The Harvey/Two-Face look is perfectly plausible (and, I'm sure, somewhere in this world there is someone, right now, surgically adapting their face to look more like Harvey Dent). Now, just imagine the final act of The Dark Knight with Aaron Eckhart not only looking like Two-Face but sounding like him too. With the uncontrolled saliva constantly roping off of his open jaw cavity. He'd have to wear a bib. I wonder if the Dark Knight folk considered addressing these issues, or if that would have made the movie a little too horrifying.