Introducing: The HYBC Standard Comics Newsletter Template!
As you may have surmised from the fact I don't do this as often as I used to, the practice of writing a newsletter discussing the latest news and trends in the comics industry and reviewing the week's most noteworthy new releases is challenging, taxing, and very often a soul-rending exercise that leaves one feeling like they're just a raw wound, flaying itself open to show the world the truth in the blood that pours from it. It needn't be that way, however, as I discovered this week, looking at how the comic book industry was responding to the many issues and crises arising in the production of any given periodical. Fair compensation, lack of diversity, the vagaries of the market, heck, even paper shortages? All those problems have been solved in one fell swoop, through a miracle only the ever clever American ingenuity and entrepreneurship could have devised: standardization. The process of making comics was not close enough to the process of manufacturing goods; but now, thanks to the STANDARD COMICS SCRIPT (© Christina “Steenz” Stewart and Camilla Zhang, May 2022), it is! How great! How inspiring! At last, comic book scripts have a standard; an easy to follow process to ease the labor of comics' many works, so they can maximize their own value. Don't you love it? It doesn't matter. This is the standard now.
In that spirit, and as a way to participate in the betterment of the comic book industry through the betterment of those most essential workers of comics that are the newsletter-based industry critics, I will now provide you, FREE OF CHARGE, the very same tools. It's the template I've used to write every single installment of HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS. It is, for my money, so good that it should become a standard of its own. For over a year, I've been a very successful industry mover/shaker, and with the release of this standard template, I give everyone else the opportunity to reach similar success. You're welcome.
OVERLY COMPLEX TITLE, BASED ON A TOO OBSCURE POP CULTURE REFERENCE
First paragraph, treating something you've seen talked about amongst an incredibly tiny subset of Comics Twitter like it has any sort of importance to the greater comic book industry. You should take it as a given that everyone has heard of the story you're talking about. Nothing in this introduction should tell your reader what really happened or why it would matter to anyone. Commit to the bit early, to ensure the only person having a good time is you.
Second paragraph. The bit proper. This is where you put the one joke you thought of in advance, and improvise based on that. Be indulgent and self-referential, until you realize that your premise wasn't funny enough to sustain a 500-odd words comedy piece about comic book news. Veer into the absurd to make up the rest. Realize that you aren't really talking about any other newsletter but yours. This is about here, this is about now. This is the abyss and it's terrifying. You have no idea what you're doing, are you? You're compensating, right now, by describing your exact thought process. I see you. I see you and I hate you. I am you. Are you afraid? Why? It's Tuesday night. For once, you're good. You're 50 words over. Finish it.
Third paragraph. Wrap your too-stupid-by-half bit up with an earnest comment. Or don't. Templates are fairly useless to our current moment in understanding the work of making comics. You're trying to give ideas above its station to a script template that is mostly redundant because it already existed elsewhere. An umbrella is nice, but it's useless during an earthquake, you know?
And then you conclude with a dumb little slogan before going into the reviews.
HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS: SUBSTANDARD SUBSISTENCE (SUBSCRIBE!)
Do you ever sit back and wonder what the deal is with Harley Quinn, really? We think we know her, we think we love her, but what's that all about? If you have any interest at all in these questions, there is a comic out there for you, and it is called Catwoman #43. It may seem slight based on the cover, a fun little roller derby distraction after a story arc that played it heavy on the noir aesthetics and looked at some pretty ugly truths of the way men are treating women in all stratas of society, but it has a lot of fun stuff in there that is interesting to unpack, both on Harley Quinn and on what this current run of Catwoman is about. Let's start on the former, because it's the big headline: this is a Catwoman comic about Harley Quinn, and it uses that outside perspective to lay a fairly persuasive case out. Some of the observations are immediately obvious: yes, Harley is cute, doubly so under Bengal's joyfully energetic pencil, and triply so as Jordie Bellaire switches up her palette to something warmer and gentler, escaping the city's harsh neons to work in softer pastels. Others land in known territory: there is still something aspirational in a woman bouncing around from whim to whim, doing whatever she feels like and being as emotional as she wants to.
In order to arrive at the bigger idea, we have to look at Catwoman as a whole; when you pull back, you start seeing the big ideas that have been animating the past five issues. It is about women, and, more specifically, it is about intimacy between women. It is about the places and the spaces that women share, whether by choice, necessity or imposition. It is about the gentlemen's clubs; it is about the roller derby rinks; it is about the cars and the hotel rooms in which solidarity, friendships, and mayhaps a little bit more happen. It is a book about girls, friends, and girlfriends. That's where Harley Quinn fits in, it's the aspirational figure you can't help but fall in love with. Maybe not in that way, but maybe in that way. It presents moments of interesting physicality between its two main characters, which you can read magnitudes into because this is a comic that also acknowledges the many romantic entanglements they have found themselves in. (Which is all to say, hey, remember that time Catwoman was bisexual? Because me and this comic sure as hell do.)
Also, in addition to the interesting femininity stuff, and the gay stuff, and the society stuff, this is also a comic about cool car stunts! It has action and gags! It's a really fun time and I think it's cool that you can make and sell a comic about all that shit! I'm a bisexual man, I'm not really qualified to go beyond that!
Looking at the schedule, I realized that if I don't tell you about Banner of War this week, I will not have time to tell you about it later, and gang: we need to talk about Banner of War. It is maybe the dumbest thing Donny Cates has ever written, and for once, that works in its favor. Supposedly, it's a celebration of the 60th anniversaries of both Thor and Hulk, picking up on threads Cates has put in both books. Really, it's a tribute to the concept of the two beating the shit out of one another, which, I am told, is something they've done pretty dang often. Take Hulk/Thor: Banner of War Alpha, released last week. Does it have anything resembling setup, or character motivation? No. Not really. Instead, it has Martin Coccolo drawing Hulk and Thor going at it in as many contexts and as many settings as a 30-page special will allow. The first page literally has Uatu the Watcher in the stands eating popcorn. It is that kind of comic, loudly, proudly, and joyfully.
Here's where it gets baffling: the second chapter, in this week's Thor #25, dials all of that back. It's not even about Thor! Instead, it's got all the vital context that explains what the hell is actually going on in Hulk! And it mostly acts as setup for the other Classic Hulk Fight, which wouldn't sting that bad if that wasn't deliberately a rematch from the very first issue of Hulk! It's not even bad, but I can't for the life of me think of why you would turn away from a winning formula so immediately. I don't even think Thor is mad at Hulk anymore! And don't get me started on the fact that this is an oversized issue that comes with two stories that I will, depending on how charitable I feel at any given moment, call either "stories that weren't good enough for #750" or "money I'm not getting back"! This is a weird package, and I don't know what to make of it. Please bring back the god-tier punching.
And finally for this week, I wanted it brought to your attention that there is a new comic from DC's relaunch of Milestone. It's called Duo #1, and it's a total reimagining of Xombi, down to the name, which trades the classic's horror vibes for a neat high-concept sci-fi premise, about what would happen if the person you loved the most in the world suddenly was in your head and hearing everything that goes on in there. It is a Greg Pak and Khoi Pham comic, which means it's executed at an incredibly high level. The issue is perfectly paced, it has an immediate clarity that makes it easy for anyone to pick up, and it expertly deals with its big ideas in ways that will entice you to come back for more. There's a whole lot more to say about it, of course. It's a Milestone comic, just as committed as the others to showcase superhero action at a high level of craft, from a perspective that often goes ignored in mainstream comics. I must remind you here that I am French, middle-class, and white. I am absolutely 100% not qualified to tell you what that perspective is like. All I can tell you is that it's a good comic, I'm glad it exists, and I lament the fact that there is so little critical writing on it from that same perspective. If you do have links I've missed, please do hit me up.
Hey! We've done another one of those! Next: The State of the X-Men Address! In the mean time, if you like the week late satire and the half-baked ramblings about my own inadequacies as a critic, please get the word out! Please tell your friends about this! Please subscribe if you haven't already! I think the next few weeks are going to be interesting enough to return to a weekly rhythm, but the comics industry can always surprise and challenge me! Ah well, it's fun to try! It's fun to do this! I love it! You love it! And that's why until next time, you HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!