If you read comics blogs at all (I do not quite qualify this here site as a “comics blog” because it is so, so much more than that, he said modestly) you know that this upcoming weekend is the San Diego Comic Convention, nerdvana for the masses, and that every comics blogger who is any sort of comics blogger goes to San Diego, and yadda yadda yadda. Naturally, a bunch of people have asked me if I am going to San Diego.

The answer is as it always is: “of course not.” There are myriad reasons for this. Some of them apply specifically to the SDCC (like, for starters, it is in San Diego, which is far the fuck away). Some of them generically apply to everything (like, for example, that I am one broke-ass member of the blogging persuasion). But there are also a bunch of things that are specific to comics conventions that make me not want to go to them.

1.) I don’t like the fan-pro interaction at cons. This might sound weird, but bear with me.

A couple of years ago, I am in Dangerous Dan’s, a somewhat notorious burger joint, when Jim Cuddy from Blue Rodeo walks in. (One of the benefits of living in Toronto: lots of Canadian celebrity run-ins.) I, being a huge Blue Rodeo fan, am torn between my wish to talk to him and my respecting his privacy. Finally, when it becomes apparent that he, like me, is just standing around waiting for a takeout burger, I finally apologize for bothering him in the same breath as I ask him a question about Five Days In July. (This is a technique which requires some mastery, but once you combine self-effacing delivery with probing questioning, you can go far with it.) And, because he is Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo and therefore awesome, we talk for about five minutes about the album until our burgers show up.

I mention this because that, to me, is how ideally fan/pro interactions should be: on a mostly equal basis. (People dis the internet for sorta-anonymity allowing one to act like a fuckwad, but the things I read online when pros interact with fans are almost always more interesting than what you hear “in real life” at cons.) I like talking with professionals I admire, but the atmosphere of conventions - where, all too often, professionals (who nonetheless try to be polite about it, don’t get me wrong) exude an air of “this time is part of the job” - just makes me feel uncomfortable. Never mind that unless you aggressively invade private space (like I did in the above example, let’s be honest) you’re not really going to get to ask much anyway; most of the time you get your one question at a panel or your thirty seconds during a signing and that’s that. And invading private space at a con is considered bad manners because the pros need their Alone Time to get the smell of fans off them.

2.) I don’t buy single issues. Well, nothing except old back issues of Legion of Super-Heroes, anyway, and at this point the internet has turned collecting into sort of a beginner level challenge.

(There’s a great old Doonesbury strip where Jimmy Thudpucker, the super-rich rock star, tells his wife he has taken up stamp collecting - then calls a stamp dealer, asks for a complete run of Monaco stamps, hangs up the phone and says “well, that was fun. I guess I’ll do Morocco next.” The internet, and eBay in particular, have essentially turned us all into Jimmy Thudpucker.)

Let’s be honest: cons offer two main attractions, namely the opportunity to schmooze and the opportunity to shop. If you don’t buy single issues, though, there isn’t much point to shopping at a convention, because it’s mostly available at retail or via the intertubes. (Especially for me, because I live in a city with fucking great comics stores, where I can get practically anything I’ve ever heard of - and a ton of stuff I haven’t - at a decent price.) And it’s hard to find enough good deals at any convention to justify the pricetag of entry if you aren’t into singles.

3.) I don’t buy tschotkes either. Hey, no question, cons are great for silly novelty crap. I just don’t, you know, want any of it. I have no need for a stuffed plush Ambush Bug that glows in the dark, or a neon beer sign that says “BAMF Lite,” or anything with Spawn on it. (You could offer me a free car with the Spawn logo on it and I would probably turn it down.) And artists signing things? I have never in my life given a shit about something being signed because I long ago realized that an autograph didn’t really mean a damn thing to me. So…

4.) The smell. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST PEOPLE. Seriously, what is it about nerd cons that make people stop showering?

5.) You’re not going to learn anything really illuminating at the panels. Every panel I have ever attended can be boiled down into one of three categories:

9:00: You’re a Retard And You Think You Have A Future In Comics So Here Are Some Really Basic Baby Steps You’ll Probably Ignore Anyway
9:45: Hey, Remember That Old Comic We Did? Want To Hear Some Rambling, Only Intermittently Entertaining Stories About It?
10:30: Big Comics Company Wants You To Hear About Its Exciting Upcoming Projects! Guaranteed To Be As Exciting As Any Marketing Initiative Has Ever Been!

This isn’t the fault of the participants, who are almost always polite and typically want to give the best possible performance they can. But comic creators aren’t stand-up comedians or even good lecturers, for the most part. And the material is inevitably only marginally informative; it’s the nature of the beast. (I mean, consider how useful a Learning Annex class is, then knock it down to about one-twentieth its helpfulness value and you’re about at the level of a con panel.)

6.) There are better places to hang out with friends you don’t see often. Like a titty bar, for example. (You sneer, but come on: the average titty bar is probably more respectful of women than the average comic convention. Plus they’ll have beer, and usually also Buffalo wings.) Or a sporting event. (Baseball is great for this sort of thing, because you can watch the game and still have a decent conversation through the whole thing and nobody thinks that’s weird. Plus, again: beer.) Or a casino. (Which at least offers the illusion of profiting off meeting with your friends. Also, the beer is free!)

7.) People dressed up in superhero costumes are inherently creepy. I am not wrong about this.

8.) The increasing prevalence of cynical media types trying to exploit your fannish interests in order to promote their product. You know the drill. Patronizing appearance by a Hollywood celebrity or six, all insisting that they love comics and that they were big nerds in high school, and how their favorite superhero when they were growing up was the Green Wolverine. (Memo to all nerds: even when Jessica Alba was seventeen, she still wouldn’t have talked to you.) Four-minute glimpse of a trailer that’s going to be on the internet a day later (and with better image quality) that you can’t hear anyway because the assholes in front feel the need to scream “WHOOOOO IRON MAN” or whatever. Someone very rich in a very nice suit explaining how they want to be “good to the fans,” then leaving before they touch him or something. Come on: don’t you just want to punch all of these people in the face repeatedly? And then the security guards act like it’s your fault.

So, to sum up: no cons for me. At least not until I am rich and famous, at which point I will cynically exploit them and all of you in order to advance my own social standing. But I’ll be genuine about it, so you’ll all be grateful for me keeping it real.

(DISCLAIMER: One thing I do like about cons is the opportunity for sketches, which are about the only thing cons offer on a timely and reasonable basis that you can’t easily get elsewhere. And I love single-character dedicated sketchbooks where the owner has sketches of the same character by different artists over and over again, like Kevin Church’s J. Jonah Jameson sketchbook, and I think that’s awesome. If I ever had the time to go to cons, I would totally start a Brainiac Five sketchbook.)

Shorter Climbing Out Of The Dark:

Alleging something and saying something are two very different things, and this proves that the Globe and Mail is a dirty Commie rag.

Shorter Matthew Siscoe:

Since Al-Qaeda is Sunni and Saddam Hussein was Sunni, it therefore stands to reason that a small, disorganized and mostly loathed band of religious fanatics can achieve exactly the same result as a Western-backed secular strongman starting out from a position of centralized government power.

Shorter Halls of Macadamia:

There was a violent incident in the city yesterday, so this obviously disproves any “statistical evidence” of “dropping crime rates.”

Shorter Right on Course:

An Australian computer programmer with no expertise in climatology said there’s no such thing as global warming in a newspaper devoutly supporting denial of global warming theory, and this gives us cause to re-evaluate carbon taxation.

Shorter Celestial Junk:

A progressive is anybody I don’t like.

“Shorter” concept invented by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all internet traditions.

Jesus Christ are purity balls creepy.

Finally, there’s enough information available to make an informed decision on the US Presidential election! Or, at least, there will be soon. IDW is publishing Presidential Comics, a flip-book biography of Barack Obama and John McCain, in October. The Obama side is written by Jeff Mariotte, who will presumably not indulge his tendency to have his protagonist fight vampires, and drawn by Tom Morgan. John McCain’s bio, meanwhile, features Stephen Thompson on pencils and Andy Helfer on the script. J Scott Campbell is responsible for both covers.

A few thoughts:

I’m going to go ahead and guess, based on the fact that he drew John McCain as the chubby Joker, while Barack Obama looks like he could have been an IO Agent with a heart of gold in a mid-90’s issue of Gen 13, that J Scott Campbell prefers the Democratic nominee. If Campbell’s McCain popped up in the pages of Danger Girl, you can be pretty sure that he’d be leering over Silicon Valerie’s tank top and secretly trying to have the girls all killed.

If they weren’t being published as a two-fer, by what margin do you think the Obama issue would outsell the John McCain book? I’m guessing it’d be at least 3-1 from Diamond, which means Obama can probably rest easy among the crucial people who do the orders for comic book stores demographic. This is kinda funny, too, because McCain’s is the one which’ll have all the action and airplanes and stuff.

Will it be a single conservative blogger looking for a fresh angle, or a big-name Michelle Malkin-type who cries foul at the fact that McCain looks like Mister Rictus from Wanted while the interior art for the Obama book is from an ex-Captain America artist? The answer to this depends on how very slow the news day is when someone visits the IDW site.

How awesome would it be if this is a big hit and IDW starts putting out books like this for minor-party candidates? Who would you want to draw the cover for the Ralph Nader and Bob Barr biographies? Also, if they did one about Ron Paul, would his fans buy multiple copies each in an attempt to prove that he’s more popular than either Obama or McCain based on his Diamond sales figures?

(cross-posted to dansolomon.com)

(Seriously, I have like the worst cold ever, I’ve been all ugh for like two days now and the only thing I have in the hopper is this. I usually wait three or four weeks to post a new one of these because I like to space them out but I want to get some content up before I keel over and die of the coughing, so here we go.)

One of the things I’ve said before that I love about the Legion is the variety of setting, all these weird planets (and, to be fair, normal planets) that can have drastically different ways about How Things Work. Coluans literally worship the concept of scientific research, Titanians don’t have a justice system like anybody else because they don’t need one because they already know if you’re innocent or not, Naltorians invented the concept of “pre-crime” ages ago, Tromians aren’t afraid of death because they believe in change as a spiritual systemic concept, the Khund have a belief system somewhere in between modern-day anarchic Satanism and Klingon warrior ritualism, et cetera. All of these societies recognizable to a standard (IE, “our”) perspective, but nonetheless different and with ramifications upon the non-cognizant intruder. (Or, as I once called it, the “Wesley Crusher Gets In Trouble On The Eden Planet” syndrome.)

Well, what about Rimbor? For years it’s been more or less a generic “bad seed” planet. It has gangs! And crime! And… well, that’s mostly it. Ultra Boy is known to have a rough background because he’s from Rimbor, but what does that mean in larger context?

The thing that interests me is that Rimbor, even in Mark Waid’s reboot where the United Planets was essentially a going-stale utopia, was a crime-ridden scum planet. That has potential, because the fact that Rimbor was gangland central even in a utopically-designed collective implies to me that the United Planets knew exactly what Rimbor was and purposefully tolerated it.

Consider, firstly, the concept of Rimbor as galactic equivalent of Australia. In the early days of quantum warp travel, humanity stupidly decided - not for the first time - that the solution to all societal woes was to get rid of “the bad elements,” and that the humane way to do this was to exile them to a nice lush planet somewhere out of the way. Unlike Australia, they actually got the “lush” part right this time: Rimbor was a resource-rich world, teeming with life, almost an Earth 2.0. And thus they dumped all the criminals they could manage and all those people who weren’t actually bad or anything but made the mistake of being the wrong person and the wrong time on Rimbor, and considered the matter done.

Unfortunately, the most powerful gangs had scientists in them, and the gangleaders quickly realized that they had all the means to get off Rimbor if they could manage it. Major gangleaders coalesced power around themselves, all attracting followers with the intent of getting the hell off Rimbor. Generations passed, and what happened on Rimbor became fairly unique; political power became neither hereditary nor democratic, but remained strictly a matter of personal charisma. Mistabigs and jonniroyales arose as the new leadership, each attempting to make his leadership permanent beyond their own lifespan, each failing. In an era where personal communication was instantaneous and widespread, and on a planet where destructive power was essentially impossible to coalesce on a permanent basis, progress only happened in incremental spurts.

But it happened, and four hundred years after Rimbor was colonized, they recontacted the United Planets (now utopic as planned, albeit with several false starts). The UP was somewhat horrified at the chaotic morass that was Rimbor (”one large jumpergang of a planet,” said one councillor), but wiser minds realized that, even in a utopia, there would be malcontents and rebels. So the Rimborian Compromise was introduced into UP law; a lengthy document that can be summed up in one sentence.

“On Rimbor, laws are technically optional.”

On Rimbor, enlistment in the Public Service was entirely a matter of choice (and one not often made); it bred hordes of free thinkers, philosophers, and artists alongside the criminal class which dictated day-to-day affairs planetside. (Most times the free thinkers and artists were criminals themselves. Way of the world, don’t you know.) Corporations flocked to Rimbor to maximize their profit potential by having a corporate base where law could be reformed at will, working in cooperation with the mistabigs; Silverale, 3B, S.O.D.E.R. and OmniNewsTimeNet all call Rimbor their home now. The UP’s best soldiers come from Rimbor, because having to know how to win a knife-fight from the age of six tends to make you tougher than average.

Rimbor is large and chaotic and dirty, but it’s also the third richest planet in the United Planets (after Lexor and Earth). Teachers throughout the UP tell their pupils about the dangers of “lawless Rimbor,” which has a dual purpose - both to revile the greater portion of their classes and to keep an eye on those attracted to the idea of it. The Crime Planet is the back alley of the United Planets, but not by accident; when you need to find something in a hurry and you don’t care how you get it, Rimbor is always there, and someone can probably help you for the right price. But be sure to watch your back: the only lasting rules on Rimbor are the rules of the street. Don’t trust anybody; keep your secrets close; don’t trust anybody; fight on your own terms; and don’t trust anybody.

I’m sure all of this tells you a little bit about the character of Ultra Boy, of course. But that was kind of the point.

NEXT TIME: A Legion member with Issues ™.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Step 1:

Step 2:

Things That Are Good About Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog:

- Neil Patrick Harris. The fact that Doogie has become a nerd phenomenon and a legitimate comic lead really just tickles me endless, but you can’t say it’s anything but deserved; NPH has screen presence coming out the ass, the acting chops to back it up and the willingness to look ridiculous that only the greats have. He elevates a slight storyline every time he’s on screen (which is most of it) and carries his character perfectly.

- “With My Freeze Ray.” It’s the best song in the entire thing, really the only one that’s two steps above generic-level filk. Luckily, it’s also the leadoff song so it helps snag the viewer early, which is important.

- Now we all know: you don’t need millions and millions of dollars to make a commercially viable sci-fi mini-feature! You just need to know lots of people with technical expertise willing to work very cheaply!

Things That Are So-So About Dr. Horrible And His Sing-Along Blog:

- Most of the rest of the songs. They aren’t very catchy, sometimes get musically confusing (all the crossover vocals - yes, we get it, it’s a musical, but crossover vocals are a gimmick best used sparingly) and don’t even always work for comic value. (Usually, but not always.) It doesn’t help that out of the entire cast, NPH is the only one who can really deliver a good dramatic vocal performance.

- Captain Hammer in general. I was totally stoked to see Dr. Horrible because it’s about a supervillain, and from that angle it works, because Dr. Horrible is a wonderfully mixed-up character with both admirable and deplorable qualities. The problem is that Captain Hammer is a one-note “stupid dickhead in position of authority” trope, which just gets in the way of Dr. Horrible’s complexity; surely Dr. Horrible must be in the right if he opposes Captain Hammer, and that ruins a lot of the character’s ambiguity. It doesn’t help that Nathan Fillion (an actor I normally like) hams it up like mad, mugging his way through the story (a decision, I am sure, that was directorial).

Things That Suck About Dr. Horrible And His Sing-Along Blog:

- The ending. Dear god, the ending. This is not a criticism that a silly story can’t have a serious ending, but come on - this is third-grade-level irony, the sort of thing that makes the rotting corpse of O. Henry sit up in his grave and mumble “oh, that just will not do” through disintegrating lips. It’s a shameless, unmerited plea for gravitas, and worse it’s handled in Whedon’s trademark manner for this sort of thing (I am mostly trying to avoid specific spoilers here) so not only does it come off as cheesy but also unoriginal. Prior to the last five minutes of Dr. Horrible I was thinking “well, it’s good enough for what it is.” Afterwards, that changed to “I wish that had been good enough for what it was.”

…Tata Motors developed the world’s first commercially mass-produced car run off compressed air.

There are many reasons to see The Dark Knight, many of which have been repeated elsewhere many times over, but I will merely say this: any movie starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman which trusts one of its most powerful and emotional moments to Tiny Lister, and makes it work perfectly, is a movie that is a cut above.

To the fine folks of Muslims Against Sharia (located in the well-known Islamic enclave of Omaha, Nebraska - not that I am questioning their Islamic credentials, because god knows if there’s one thing moderate Muslims like doing, it’s defending Michael Savage). They’ve seen fit to issue a drive-by comment, reprimanding all of us who might believe that Omar Khadr be given such trivialities as “due process” and “an actual trial.”

And yes, it is a shame that Sgt. Christopher Speer was killed in Afghanistan. I mean, sure, the “eyewitness” accounts of Omar Khadr killing Sgt. Speer with a grenade might have been tampered with and were uncertain in the first place, but we know that Khadr’s father was definitively a bad person and most of his family aren’t pleasant either, so it’s obvious that he too is a bad person. It’s genetics, you see.

So welcome, Muslims (Definitely Not White Conservatives, Actual Muslims) Against Sharia! We hope you have a lot of fun here.

ME: So apparently the trailer for Watchmen will run in front of The Dark Knight.
FLAPJACKS: Because they are both comic book movies. I get that!
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe they could run a trailer for the new Terminator in front of it as well, because they both have Christian Bale in the movie. And then maybe a trailer for Traveling because they both have Aaron Eckhart in it. And then - no, wait, Heath Ledger is dead, that one doesn’t work.
ME: It’s also available online.
FLAPJACKS: So we should watch it then.
ME: Aren’t we going to go see it this weekend? On a big screen?
FLAPJACKS: That would mean, like, waiting and shit.
ME: A cogent point.
FLAPJACKS: So let’s watch it now.
ME: All right.
We start watching the trailer.
ME: “In 2009, everything will change.”
FLAPJACKS: Previously, in 2008, the first thirty seconds of the trailer are watching the hairs on Billy Crudup’s arms stand up.
ME: Owlship looks cool.
FLAPJACKS: Yes. Hey, when did Silk Spectre plunge through a burning building and land with great agility on her feet in the comic book?
ME: I believe that did not happen.
FLAPJACKS: Oh.
ME: Adaptation!
FLAPJACKS: Originality!
ME: …wow, the “fling the Comedian through the window” scene seems… familiar.
FLAPJACKS: “THIS! IS! WAAAATCHMEN!”
ME: I thought we’d declared that joke dead.
FLAPJACKS: It’s relevant, because he also made 300. So it can be used this time.
ME: Can’t you come up with something better?
FLAPJACKS: “THIS! IS! AN OVERLY PRECIOUS SOULESS PASTIIIIIICHE!”
ME: Never mind.
FLAPJACKS: Ozymandias looks… what is it, when something is exactly the opposite of “intimidating”?
ME: Not intimidating?
FLAPJACKS: More than that.
ME: I just think he looks like a little kid playing dressup.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe that’s sharp, purposeful cultural commentary.
ME: It is a brief look at Rorshach! Does his mask go oogy with the moving blots? Rewind it! I want to see if his mask goes oogy.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t think it goes oogy.
ME: Crap.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe it’ll go oogy later.
ME: Okay, fair is fair: Dr. Manhattan looks exactly as creepy as he should look.
FLAPJACKS: I concur.
ME: …I think Vietnam is entirely greenscreened.
FLAPJACKS: I think your mom is entirely greenscreened.
ME: Shut up.
FLAPJACKS: Oh, quit whining. We’re supposed to be surprised that there’s greenscreening in a Zach Snyder movie? Did you even see 300? I think that title actually referred to the number of animators they had rendering CGI cliff faces.
ME: The Comedian also looks badass.
FLAPJACKS: Well, if you can’t make the Comedian look badass, you shouldn’t even bother making the movie in the first place. Making the Comedian look badass is easy. Making Nite Owl look badass, on the other hand, is hard.
ME: Nite Owl looks like a cheap Batman ripoff.
FLAPJACKS: Cultural commentary! He’s playing with our preconceptions! And stuff.
ME: Hey, can you see Dr. Manhattan’s dick in the trailer?
FLAPJACKS: …okay, why do you care?
ME: Look, we get an extended shot of full-frontal Manhattan in this trailer, I want to know if Zach Snyder is out to pervert the minds of nerd America.
FLAPJACKS: He could make it worse?
ME: Rewind, I wanna see.
FLAPJACKS: …I think they made his groinal area glow so brightly you cannot make out individual parts.
ME: Zach Snyder, you wuss.
FLAPJACKS: Well, I don’t think Billy Crudup wants to… well, maybe he does want to expose himself to teenagers. How would I know?
ME: “The most celebrated graphic novel of all time.” Wait, nobody told me this was Maus.
FLAPJACKS: That’s not fair and you know it. Come on, it’s Watchmen. It’s entirely fair to give it those props.
ME: All right, I guess - NO! NOT CGI PADDY HAT SOLDIER!
FLAPJACKS: He had four CGI kids and a fifth one being rendered!
ME: What will we tell his wife?
FLAPJACKS: Something in binary. Do you speak binary?
ME: Fuck no.
FLAPJACKS: Well, let’s not tell her anything then.
ME: Agreed.
FLAPJACKS: Okay, there is Rorshach’s mask going oogy for you. Are you satisfied?
ME: On that level, at least.
FLAPJACKS: And there’s the Mars jewel ship.
ME: Pretty cool.
FLAPJACKS: So, how do we rate this trailer?
ME: In terms of being a good trailer, A. In terms of making me think the movie will not be dogshit… I dunno, B minus.
FLAPJACKS: I’m closer to B plus.
ME: Yeah, but you like all that stylized compu-fighty stuff Snyder does.
FLAPJACKS: We will have to agree to disagree. Except about Nite Owl looking lame. We agree there.
ME: But do you think it was on purpose?
FLAPJACKS: …probably not.
ME: A ha.

L’il C: s’rprisingly d’cent j’dge.

Courtney and Joshua: hip hop and rumba. The hip-hop was solid (Dave Scott! Finally a good hip-hop choreographer who doesn’t have to blend in lyrical form! About goddamned time); a charming mini-plotline, entertainingly danced. The judges more or less got it right: Joshua nailed it and Courtney didn’t but was entertaining enough that her weaker form didn’t harm the piece. The rumba was Perfectly Acceptable Top Ten Dancing; not as sultry as Courtney’s previous rumba with Gev by half, but more complex and with better tricks. Solid work all around from both.

Courtney’s solo: Extremely good, almost surprisingly so.

Joshua’s solo: Slightly underwhelming; the same big tricks he’s pulled every time we’ve seen him do a solo (the spinning leap kick, the backflip, the pec-pop), and just not as exciting and well-thought-out a routine as Twitch or Gev’s (the ones to compare him against). It won’t hurt Joshua because he is deservedly popular, but… yeah.

Kherington and Mark: country two-step and jazz. I strongly think that if Mark was still paired with Chelsie he would have ripped the two-step; he was actually holding his own throughout the piece quite well, but Kherington didn’t give him much to work with, missing several connects (only one of which the judges bothered to really point out, because it was so glaringly obvious). The jazz piece was boring, but the judges got it completely wrong: it was boring because it was a boring-ass routine, long and dull and with nothing really interesting in it, and there just isn’t a lot Mark or Kherington could do about that no matter how well they danced it (which they did quite decently). This new symptom of it’s-never-the-choreographer’s-fault is really annoying. (Granted, given that scuttlebutt is that Wade Robson is refusing to choreo for the show now after Nigel trashed his “two foxes” routine in last season’s finale, but the problem to Nigel being undiplomatic is not to go hard in the other direction.)

Kherington’s solo: Bland.

Mark’s solo: Entertainingly quirky and enjoyable, but lacked a big stunty bit to make the crowd go “oooooh.” Problematic for him.

Katee and Will: Broadway and pas de deux. God, if this show could be any harder in the tank for Will I’m not sure how they’d manage it. First off, they pair him with Katee (easily the best of the female dancers). Secondly, their first routine is Broadway, which is like a free pass on this show: just dial the ham up to eleven and a half, do whatever relatively basic steps are assigned to you (they’re almost never particularly complex routines), and get a tonguebath from the judges. (Which is what they did and what they got, for a routine that was frankly boring as shit.) Finally, they get a pas de deux choreo’d by Desmond frigging Richardson, which is a huge coup for the show. (I am secure enough in my sexuality to enjoy modern dance. Shut up.) Yes, that last definitely had a high difficulty factor, but there was very little chance he’d screw it up if partnered with Katee. CONCLUSION: Show in tank for Debbie Allen’s boy.

Katee’s solo: I remember thinking it was good when I watched it, but ten minutes later I could not say one thing about it.

Will’s solo: Okayish, but nowhere near as good as his fantastic solo from last week’s elimination show (seriously, that solo was insane). This one was merely solid.

Comfort and Twitch: waltz and hip-hop. Twitch was pretty weak in the waltz, which doesn’t exactly square with his earlier, quite good waltz with Kherington, and I think I’m chalking that one up to a likely partner switch halfway through the week when Jessica was pulled out for medical reasons and he had to start fresh with Comfort. Comfort was also very bad in the waltz, big shock there. The waltz was easily the worst routine of the entire night. However, the hip-hop routine? Wasn’t just the best of the night, but also probably the best hip-hop routine this show has seen since Allison and Ivan killed it late in season two. (On par with that one and juuust behind Destini and Jamile’s superlative hip-hop in season one.) Seriously, just fantastic on every possible level, and unique and original. Dave Scott rules.

Comfort’s solo: The same as every other solo she’s done: wondering why she’s supposedly the best female hip-hop dancer on this show ever if she never dances a good solo.

Twitch’s solo: Very strong with several fun, unique tricks; not quite as good as his “conductor” solo from last week (which was simply brilliant), but very close.

Chelsie and Gev: contemporary and jive. The contemporary was a fun, neat little piece from Sonya Tayeh (who, I think, likes to work spaz-outs into her routines regularly, although that is based on very little evidence), and both of them did a really good job with it (Gev just seems to be really, really strong at partnering well). The jive was insanely difficult - Jean-Marc Genereux just seemed to say “okay, fuck it” this week and gave them a seriously professional-level jive, faster than any jive or swing routine I’ve ever seen on this show. That they even managed to finish it is an accomplishment; that they did it with style and elan an amazement. Gev was straining a bit but managed to mostly cover it, Chelsie rocked the house. Great work, and between the two routines I think Gev saved himself from the probable elimination.

Chelsie’s solo: A very, very boring ballroom solo. I know ballroom solos are tricky because, hey, partner dancing transferred to solo form, not easy. But come on - this was just tedious.

Gev’s solo: Easily the best of the night: an imaginative break routine with a couple of killer tricks (including his “remove the shirt midspin” one).

GOING HOME: Mark for the boys (he picked the wrong week to have a bad night) and Comfort for the girls (although there is an outside chance of Kherington going instead).

Regular readers will know full well that I have no love for Stephen Harper, considering him a feckless, short-sighted and generally mean-spirited individual. His stance on the repatriation of Omar Khadr does nothing to change this opinion.

Let us recap: Omar Khadr was arrested as a child soldier in the Afghanistan war when he was fifteen. International commitments signed by both Canada and the United States recognize that individuals below the age of eighteen cannot be legally considered “soldiers,” and even if you ignore the optional protocol that was signed in 2002 (and is thus a binding commitment on both countries) Khadr would still be toeing the line of the 15-year-old age limit for child soldiers. But he’s still in Guantanamo.

His lawyers have shown that evidence against him - specifically the evidence responsible for his charge of killing a soldier with a grenade - has been altered after the fact. The Pentagon itself has accidentally released conflicting evidence. But he’s still in Guantanamo.

We know that Khadr has been subjected to extended sleep deprivation. Extended sleep deprivation is torture - it deliberately and systematically breaks down a person’s mental health, forcing them into a state akin to psychosis. But he’s still in Guantanamo.

And Stephen Harper’s defense for allowing this to continue? “The previous government took a whole range, all of the information into account when they made the decision on how to proceed with the Khadr case several years ago.” Yes, Stephen Harper’s argument is that the Liberals didn’t do anything when they were in office. By this logic, of course, no elected official can ever do anything about a situation that began before they took office. It’s idiotic and cowardly, which coming from Stephen Harper should prove no surprise.

But one more point:

“Harper added that Canada: “frankly, has no real alternative” to the U.S. legal process. “

This is a lie. Plainly and simply, it is a lie. We know this because Omar Khadr is the sole remaining prisoner in Guantanamo who is a citizen of a Western country. The Brits and the Aussies have already removed their citizens and dealt with them as they see fit. Canada has “no real alternative” because its Prime Minister doesn’t want there to be an alternative.

A Moroccan-born Muslim woman, married to a French man, living in the east of Paris, with three French children, lost her appeal for citizenship on the grounds that she has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes. And, I mean, she does wear a burqa, and the balance of gender roles in her home sounds like it’s fucked-up. But if France is going to start declaring that it’s unFrench to act in opposition to the principle of equality of the sexes, there are an awful lot of citizenships they’ll need to revoke.

You could start with pretty much every major political figure who endorsed Nicolas Sarkozy over Segolene Royal in 2007 because she was too inexperienced, despite having almost the exact same resume- three ministerial posts, having served as a deputy to the National Assembly, and a former head of a regional government. That includes members of her own party who endorsed the male candidate over her. It’d definitely include the fellow Socialist senator who chose to endorse a right-wing dude because, while Royale may be pretty, the presidential election is not a beauty contest. And there’s no question that you’d have to deport the UMP minister who explained that her best chance of winning would come if her looks could help hide the fact that she’s a bitch.

You might have to start plucking random French citizens and inquiring why only 18% of the parliament is made up of women- behind such noted stalwarts of the principle of equality of the sexes as the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan. You could inquire as to why 60% of the unemployed in France are women, and 75% of part-time workers. Why, there are all sorts of things that might need to be cleared up if upholding the principle of equality of the sexes is now one of the major determinants in defining Frenchness.

Over and over again, people assert that they haven’t got a problem with Muslims at all, no, that’s not it- it’s just that they’re so unenlightened toward women! It’s a classic attempt to do some rhetorical judo- instead of saying we just don’t want those people here and looking like bigots, instead they get to play the grand feminists. And if they’re so concerned about women’s rights that they’ll, you know, deny them citizenship for wearing a burqa, then surely we can forgive them if they haven’t quite overcome the whole problem with equal pay, dismissing female politicians as unserious, keeping them at under 20% of business executives (or should it be "exec-cute-ives"?), dropping those power words like bitch whenever threatened, and so on… At least they’re paying lip service to invented obstacles toward an equal society, after all.

And I don’t mean to pick on the French. I like them! But you’ll see this attitude throughout the Western world. You’ll see it in new London mayor Boris Johnson, decrying the way women are treated in Afghanistan on one hand, while his chief of staff defends the fact that he fired the five top-ranked women in city hall on the grounds that women just aren’t as qualified. You’ll see it in every American preacher who weeps for women’s rights in the Muslim world but thinks that their American counterparts are baby factories. And if it bums you out and you’re hoping to find a place to get away from it, don’t count on the pony rides and free health care of France as a safe haven.

(cross-posted to dansolomon.com)

I am not joking. Spider-Man: The Musical. It’s coming to Broadway.

If that’s not crazy already, get this: it’s being directed by Julie Taymor (The Lion King, Across the Universe, Titus) and scored by Bono and The Edge (U2, being self-righteous douchebags).

Producers are holding an open casting call for the roles of Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and a mysterious “Principal Woman”. The Principal Woman should be “female, 25-35 years old [with] amazing rock vocals. Think Sinead O’Connor with a Middle Eastern/Bulgarian/Greek twist. Foreign, world music types are great, foreign accents are great.”

Okay, Spidey fans: with this description in mind, who is the female villain in the Spider-Man musical? Discuss.

I will admit that I nearly opened with a joke about being given the keys to the Impala, but I figured, best just use that one the once.

I don’t remember how I first encountered Supernatural; I’m sure it was an online discussion somewhere, but I don’t remember the specific pointer like I remember The Shakespeare Code. In fact, the first thing I remember about Supernatural is its Wikipedia page, which notes that its creator, Eric Kripke, cites Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and American Gods as influences.

That was really all I needed. I’ll state a caveat here in the interest of full disclosure: Neil Gaiman is the only person on Earth who has ever sent me into total fanboy catatonia. I had been 23 just a month when my best buddy trekked up to Jersey City from regions farther south so we could see Gaiman open for The Magnetic Fields at the Bottom Line in Greenwich Village. I had been corresponding (roughly) with Neil for nearly a year by then on The Well, but still I couldn’t bring myself to say hello (it took an introduction from Claudia Gonson of the Fields to actual render me speechful).

I had, by then, read everything Gaiman had written except Sandman, and I was totally looking forward to American Gods (the copy on my bookshelf, just a few feet away, was the first one signed on the American Gods tour, and it was signed at the Borders WTC. It has, of course, become somewhat of a talisman in my life).

I wanted to love American Gods, but I’ll admit, back then, I didn’t; my visceral reaction was that it read very much like exactly the debut novel it was–a writer learning how to write a novel as he did so. While it has grown on me in the years since, I still think Coraline and Anansi Boys are better, novel-wise, than American Gods was (Anansi Boys is, I believe, one of the greatest novels ever: very nearly fully achieved and perfect for what it is. It seems like it understands, in a way some few books do, what it means to be, and quite successfully achieves it).

My point is that I’d been reading Gaiman for a few years by then, and that he’s one of two novelists I continue to both read and enjoy (the same I cannot say for either King, Koontz, Carroll, or Pratchett [the other novelist is Rowling]). Which was why, when I saw that citation of influences, I just had to check out Supernatural.

Supernatural: two slightly dysfunctional but also very cool brothers drive around in a vintage Chevy Impala while listening to Asia and hunting things that go bump in the night.

And if that’s not very nearly a perfect logline, I don’t know what is.

Over three (so far) seasons, Supernatural has followed the brothers Winchester, Sam and Dean, as they drive back and forth across the country hunting . . . well, just about everything for which a season does not exist. Vampires? Check. Werewolves? Check. Djinn, changelings, and killer clowns (though not from outer space)? Check, double check, and wait, let me confirm–yep, check all over again.

And I think it’s way better than it has any right to be. I mean, one of the brothers is best known for a recurring role in the Gilmore Girls while the other has the sort of suitably pouty lips directors hire make-up people to moisten every ten minutes, but hell if it ain’t Tiger Beat heartthrobs battling evil, and boyhow does it work.

Don’t get me wrong; there are a couple of things about the series that, ultimately, unfortunately, fall flat, the single biggest being that the series seems to have an undue amount of trouble letting characters stay dead. Perhaps this is a reaction on my end, in that both television shows I’m currently most into (Supernatural and Doctor Who) don’t seem to want to let anyone actually die. And, of course, there is some wriggle room in Supernatural; when you’re dealing so much with things that go bump in the night, you are, story-wise, generally allowing that things do bump in the night, and the things that bump in said night probably used to be alive in some way, which means that there is acknowledgement of the afterlife. Especially when you’re dealing with demons and Faustian bargains and a bunch of characters who care about people they love more than they care about themselves.

When people keep dying but keep not exactly staying dead, it reduces tension for the viewer. It makes suspense and danger (not to mention: death) not mean nearly so much. You stop worrying when a character seems about to die, because you think, well, no biggie, they can just bargain that out of the way.

In most cases, the stakes are at least changed (and sometimes raised), but still, I feel the creators stumbled a bit with all the dead-not-dead stuff.

Even still, I remain impressed by the adventures of the brothers Winchester. Most of the episodes are self-contained, which is a hallmark of the shows I love (e.g., Doctor Who and House, MD), with development over arcs contributing to but not overwhelming the self-contained nature of each episode (or two-parter). I’ve always been the sort who avoids anything in multiple parts each of which can’t be enjoyed on its own, mainly because I’ve always felt like I’m being strung along (part of the reason I’ve always enjoyed TPBs to single-issue comics. Fuck single issues. Fuck waiting a week (or worse) to find out what’s going to happen next [the Harry Potter series is the notable exception, but then again, reading Harry Potter is a bit like watching a season DVD all in a go]).

Which is the other nit I pick with Supernatural; apparently, renewal goes to the creators’ heads, as each season pretty much ends on a cliffhanger of some sort. There’s a way to pique interest to keep people watching (or reading) and there’s a way simply to infuriate them.

But Kripke and McG (who exec produces) manage to avoid trouble by consistently putting together terrific, clever episodes. Some of my favorite bits: the names the Winchesters use to pose as detectives (Landis and Dante, Page and Plant, Bachman and Turner); the way Dean Winchester is written; uber-hot chicks in just about every episode; and layers. I’ve watched straight through Season 3, and all the characters seem so fully realized; the highest compliment I can pay, I think, is that you believe these characters had lives before you started watching, and you believe they had lives after the screen goes dark. I tend to think that in addition to the cited influences, Stephen King’s canon casts a long shadow across, at least in terms of character dynamics and interactions, as well as humor and story (and that’s one of the single highest compliments I would pay. Say what you will about Stephen King’s writing [hey, I like it], but you can’t claim he’s not a great storyteller).

I worry about next season; three seemed a bit uneven, though I wonder if that was mainly because it was truncated due to the writers’ strike (a lot like House, MD).

(and yes, I’m still Will Entrekin, and I still have a blog over here, where I’ll be crossposting this one)

From the email inbox:

Hey - I love reading your I Should Write The Legion things, but writing is only half of a comic. So my question is - who would be your ideal artist(s) for the Legion when you get to write them?

Firstly, I feel it’s important to emphasize that, although I appreciate the vote of confidence with the “when” rather than the much-more-deserved-and-appropriate “if,” that the odds of me ever writing comics period are small. There are two ways to break into writing comics for the “majors”: either be very successful at writing other media or be reasonably successful at writing comics on an independent basis. Given the arc of my career both as a writer and in everything else, I simply don’t have the time to pursue the second and the first, while certainly possible, remains unlikely.

I say this not to disparage myself, because I am awesome of course, but to remind anybody watching that “I Should Write The Legion” exists, as it always has, for two reasons: for me to refine my storytelling and pitching process (because every post is, in essence, a practice pitch to an attentive audience - which, it should be noted, is different from pitching to, say, an editor), and for me to enthuse about how awesome the Legion of Super-Heroes is.

I would like to stress this to onlookers: if you want to write comics, for the love of Christ do not follow my example.

That having been said, to answer the question:

1.) with a bullet: Takeshi Miyazawa. If I had any authority at DC I would be offering Miyazawa fucking gobs of money to come draw Teen Titans or Legion or Supergirl or Robin or anything with teenaged heroes in it; I can’t think of any comic artist working today who so excellently marries the manga artistic style with the Western superhero style. Other artists might be able to likewise draw the shit out of the Legion, but I can’t think of anybody else whose art in and of itself carries with it the potential to expand the reading audience just by its very nature. (Plus, Miyazawa is just fucking amazing and I would love to see him draw Brainiac Five.)

2.) Adrian Alphona. Is he even doing anything right now? Regardless, I love his designs and his detailed-yet-distorted artistic style. AND he can keep to a monthly schedule, which earns big points in my book.

3.) Michael Ryan. The fact that I have listed three artists in a row who are notable for working on Runaways is not an accident; Marvel have done a ridiculously good job giving that book excellent artists who are capable of drawing teenaged superheroes without having them appear too adult or too infantile. Ryan’s backgrounds are crazy good.

4.) Skottie Young. I just love his stuff. I know this is not a universally shared opinion, but so what - it’s my list, nyah nyah nyah. I think he would draw a wicked awesome Shadow Lass. And a wicked awesome Blok. And a super-double-plus wicked awesome Validus. And the lightning effects for Lightning Lad! Just imagine what Skottie Young would do with THAT shit!

5.) David Baldeon. Apparently currently the artist on Robin, which I don’t read regularly, but he also filled in on an issue of Blue Beetle a while back and I really loved his clean character work and design sense. Reminds me of a more stylized Chris Batista in a way.

So that’s my top five. There are plenty of others I could rattle off: Amanda Conner, Freddie Williams III, Peter Snejberg, Chris Sprouse, even Mike Krahulik. And Francis Manapul is excellent, and his only downside is that it’s only a matter of time before he’s transferred to a higher-profile title. But it’s all moot, anyway, so in the end I vote for whichever one that will give me money and power and women.

Look. I know it’s not your fault that DC’s direct-to-DVD movies have been largely mediocre thus far, but come on:

Wonder Woman should not have a face that looks kind of like a horse.

I mean, it is Wonder Woman, she’s supposed to be an athletic paragon of female beauty and stuff. She should not look like a horse. Really, you could put together a list of what not to do when drawing Wonder Woman, and right at the top there would be “make her look like a horse.”

And if you have to make her look like a horse, couldn’t she at least look like a really nice horse, rather than… this?

I’m just saying. Nobody wants to buy Wonder Horseface.