It's Amazon! What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Long-time readers of this newsletter will know my opinion when it comes to physical comics versus digital comics: I think that the physicality of a comic is essential to the experience, and that some of the most potent tools in comic book storytelling, like the page turn, the layout, the spread and the splash, only work as well as they do because they are happening in your own hands. Digital comics can reproduce these tools, but the ways in which they do lack the intuitive ease of manipulating a piece of paper. Until technology gets to that point, and to be clear I'm talking about Westworld levels of tablet technology at the very least, the experience of reading digital comics will always be inferior to paper, to me.
I'm not a complete luddite, mind you. Back in the day, when Comixology had great deals, I bought the first five volumes of The Defenders, from the Marvel Masterworks collection. First things first: as I suspected, these comics absolutely rule. Sal Buscema is never not throwing hard, and once Steve Gerber gets involved, things get to a level of buckwild that's yet to be matched even in these strange post-modern times. There's also some great Steve Englehart stuff in there, so if you were curious about where Al Ewing got his entire deal, it's basically a must-read. Point is: I have been reading digital comics on Comixology's app, and, until last week, it was a great time.
So what happened? Well, the same thing that's been happening everywhere else: corporate consolidation forced everything under the same umbrella, and Comixology was no more, replaced by the disastrous Amazon Kindle store. It's a spectacularly useless piece of software, which has made the experience of purchasing, reading, and archiving digital comics so pointlessly worse you'd think it was a conspiracy by some long-lost descendant of Fredric Wertham to at last kill comic books. The pain points are many, and well publicized by now; I don't even know if it's possible to buy this week's new single issue releases if you live outside of the United States. But I ran into a few more issues, that no one else seems to have brought up, and this is what this week's newsletter is about.
THE APP WILL NOT STOP SCREAMING
We all know that the web version of the Kindle reader sucks on ice. I didn't really care, because most of my digital comic reading is done on the phone, either in the metro or at Chipotle. The new version of the iPhone app is a touch too unwieldy, which is bad enough on its own, but why did it have to constantly play loud human screams? It's bad enough if you use headphones, but it's even worse if you don't. Somehow, it overrides the volume controls, and the screams get louder, more piercing, and more anguished. You have to kill the process for the screaming to stop, and people WILL look at you weird if you don't. Who asked for this?
IT WILL NOT STOP BOTHERING ME WITH ADS AND RIDDLES
Look: I get it, Amazon Prime is a great deal. I could be watching Reacher on Amazon Prime Video right now. I'm sure it's a great value for the money if you order everything through Amazon. You don't have to try and sell me on it. I don't want it. Leave me alone. Stop trying to push me towards this service. And please, I beg you, stop asking me riddles every five minutes. They're not even hard riddles or anything, you just interrupt my reading to tell me about some dead goldfish and people getting stabbed with icicles like it's something I haven't seen before. I have! It's just very annoying how you keep throwing riddles in my face.
IT MADE MY PHONE BLEED
Yeah, I can't explain it either. The phone works fine, there's no sign it's been tampered with, the case is still on, it's just that once I put it back in my pocket I realized my hand was covered in blood that was not my own. I keep clear of everyone, on account of the killer airborne virus, I'm not a violent guy, and after rinsing my hand under some water I could not find any cut or puncture. My hand was not bleeding. I think it's the phone. I think the new Comixology app made my phone bleed. Again: the phone is fine, I had it checked out and everything, it's not anything IN the phone. It's just when I use the app the phone is bleeding. I don't know, man. Please sort it out.
HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS: PRESERVING THE OLD WAYS IN THE NAME OF OUR ANCIENT MASTERS
Once and for all, let's kill one of the perennial Comics Twitter discussions: yes, obviously, artists matter more than writers, especially in the field of Corporate Cape Comics. For our demonstration, we will consider the case of Shang-Chi #9. On the comic store shelf, it looks like just another issue of a series that I have really enjoyed as of late. There is a difference, however: where the first five eight issues had art by Dike Ruan and colors by Triona Farrell, this one marks the debut of the team of Marcus To and Sonny Gho. And all of a sudden, in spite of everyone trying their hardest, something special gets lost in the transition, and I have absolutely no interest in continuing with the book anymore. On the simplest of levels, this is fairly easy to explain: there was an energy and a precision to Ruan's art, which made the kung-fu action of the book flow with unparalleled grace and toughness, and To's figure work isn't able to match it. And meanwhile, the colors shift from something gritty and moody to the more commonplace palette of every other superhero comic.
But that's just the surface level, and I think that there is something deeper happening, that has to do with Gene Luen Yang's script. It's a shift in focus, away from the interesting ambiguities that arise from Shang-Chi, ostensibly a hero, trying to steer the Five Weapons Society away from the supervillainous ways it followed under his father. The first eight issues of Shang-Chi are exciting, in part, because they are about our hero being forced to ride the line, to make choices that make some of his allies, whether that's the Avengers or his Society family, doubt him. But there's none of that drama in this week's offering. It's straight-forward superhero action, with monsters that get punched in the face, and not much else besides the beginning of this arc's through line, about family and sticking together, or some such that I cannot bring myself to care about.
It's not a bad comic, nothing made with such talent could be entirely bad, but it has become inessential, and that is about the worst thing a $3.99 comic could be.
Aquamen #1 is as fine a blockbuster debut issue as there has ever been. The stakes are clearly defined, the big name characters get big introductions, there are widescreen spreads aplenty filled with all the doctor-recommended action and danger, and yes, it has a very large sea serpent. It's quality entertainment, from a creative team that has shown promise, and the capacity to deliver. It's bright, it's colorful, and it's also a very punchy thriller with hints of large international conspiracies and intrigue. I had a great time! I'm probably reading this series for as long as DC is going to put it out! It's a great comic!
And yet.
And yet, I can't help but think about the comic that it's not. I can't help but think about the two series that precede it, Aquaman: The Becoming and Black Manta, and I can't help but think about how much more interesting they were. They had the superhero comic bells and whistles, to be sure, but they were about something more. In Aquaman: The Becoming, Brandon Thomas asked big questions about the forging of one's identity in the face of long-standing historical injustices. Black Manta, in turn, was about the aftermath of failed revolutions and reconnecting with one's diaspora. Those are some big meaty ideas! You can go deep with these themes and still feel like you're scratching the surface. These are things that would be groundbreaking in any comic, and doubly so in Aquaman! There's not a single trace of these in Aquamen. It is content being a blockbuster introduction to Arthur Curry, Aquaman, and Jackson Hyde, Aquaman. There's no doubt in my mind that this comic will be more, because it would be a total waste of time for everybody involved if it wasn't. This is what keeps me going, ultimately. Because right now, there's not much there, except for a great entertaining comic.
I can't talk about how good Ghost Rider #1 is without first talking trash about some other books, so let's get that out of the way right quick. The last few Ghost Rider relaunches have sold themselves as weird over-the-top action books, which makes sense: you see the flaming skeleton man who rides a cool bike and fights with chains, you put him up against weird fucked-up demons and you let your imagination run wild. But it's an approach that can very rapidly hit the point of diminishing returns, as demonstrated by basically every single Ghost Rider comic released in the past decade, as well as Jason Aaron's Avengers run. Constant escalation can only take you so far, especially when you don't have anything else. The good news is, Ben Percy and Cory Smith are not interested in making that kind of book. Sure, there are fucked up demons, and sure, there is chain-based violence, but at the core of it, this is not an action book. It's a horror book, and a great one at that.
Placing itself firmly in the vein of The Immortal Hulk, this oversized first issue is largely devoted to a simple setpiece evoking Clive Barker by way of Richard Corben. It's about the fucked up id monsters in search of pleasure and pain that hide beneath the veneer of Americana, and a man, Johnny Blaze, who's desperate to escape them. It's delivered with all the gruesome body horror, sudden rises in tension, and terrible visuals that you can fit in a corporate comic you can sell to the teens. The approach is old school, but it is also completely killer. Build the tension up slowly, then release everything in a burst of fire and blood. Add in some inspired new characters, a couple of hints to something bigger, and you have something that's beautiful and horrible in all the right ways. I picked this book up on a whim and it's been incredibly rewarding. Go into your local shop! Do that!
Hey gang! Weird week to write about cartoon nonsense, but it is literally all I can do. If this has entertained or interested you in any way, all I ask is that you tell people about what we're doing here, and subscribe if you haven't already. I'm going to keep this nonsense up, we will see one another next time, and hopefully this will provide a reprieve from everything that is going on right now. Love you all, and the name of the newsletter is HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS.