Nerd news

I hope we'll have no more complaints about this:

NY COMIC-CON ANNOUNCES EXPANDED VENUE FOR 2007

Organizers note that the upstairs location can accommodate twice as many exhibitors and many of the aisles will also be twice as wide which will afford easy access for the many attendees. The lobby, which also houses the registration area, will be five times bigger than the lobby in ’06 and there will be twice as many registration counters. There will also be longer show hours, two entrances to the show floor, and separate registration lines for pre-registration and on-site ticket purchases. In addition, exhibitor and professional badges will be mailed in advance this year eliminating an estimated 8,000 badge “pick ups” in the registration area just before the show.

So I've got karaoke this weekend and a convention next February. I'll try to fill in the nine months between the two as best I can.

We broke them, I tell you

About five years ago, many thousands of television viewers told the Sci-Fi Channel, "No, don't cancel Farscape! Farscape is the best thing you have! If you cancel it, you're going down a bad road! Who knows where it will lead?" But they didn't listen to the fans, and Farscape was cancelled.

And now Bonnie Hammer, president of Sci-Fi Channel then as now, is trying to rationalize the Sci-Fi Channel airing WWE wrestling shows.

That's in addition to the channel already showing the soap opera Passions (!) and reruns of Law and Order: SVU (!!!).

We tried to warn them, but they didn't listen. Now they're broken. Cartoon Network, you're next.

Blast from the past

I'm sorry, but other than a surprisingly decent Superboy, these guys look terrible. I assume they were trying to capture some of that rakish Teen Titans quasi-anime mojo but instead they took a left turn and veered off into Ugly Town.

For that matter, you have to wonder how the cartoon will get away with featuring Superboy so prominently, in the wake of the recent court ruling that the television series Smallville may infringe on the copyright held by his creator's wife and daughter...and that show doesn't even refer to the character as "Superboy." So wouldn't the same concerns over possible copyright infringement apply here? DC only just got finished getting rid of the two remaining characters they had named Superboy, and the current Legion comic now features Supergirl.

Personally, I don't understand why the different divisions at Warner can't coordinate their activities a little better: either have a "Legion of Super-Heroes" cartoon without a Superboy or Supergirl...or, better still, make the cartoon "Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes" for greater consonance and cross-promotional possibilities with the print version, not to mention a girl-positive lead character.

(And if you say a teenage girl cannot be the lead action hero in a cartoon series that appeals to boys, I shall have to ask you to step outside.)

Ah well. As a reward for putting up with my fevered rantings, here's something nice to look at, courtesy of Robby Reed at Dial B for Blog:

Atom heart mother

I wasn't planning to write anything special for Mother's Day, but this post by Ragnell inspired me to make a quasi-political statement about my mom.

My mother turned seventy-one nearly a month ago. The most recent comic book she read was the latest issue of All-Star Superman. She liked Watchmen a lot. (I've told her League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is much superior among Alan Moore's work...but adult-onset diabetes has messed with her vision and she needs to get new corrective lenses before she's ready to tackle any more text-intensive Moore comics.) She was a fan of The Tick before I'd ever even heard of it. Sure, these days I recommend comics to her that I think she'd enjoy...but I didn't introduce her to comics. She was reading them back in the Forties, and was a big fan of Captain Marvel. When DC first revived the character in the Seventies, I read the copies she bought, not the other way around.

I should add that she bought them so my dad could read them too. Before he became a surgeon, he had wanted to be a cartoonist, and avidly read comic books and comic strips. In subsequent years he did all the illustrations for his own medical papers. Neither parent discouraged me from reading comics, any more than they discouraged me from reading their collection of Kurt Vonnegut novels when I was nine years old, or any other books I wanted to read. Both parents borrowed my comics.

So, that's my mom: geneticist, cell biologist, medical school teacher, left-wing political activist, science fiction geek, fan of Farscape and Doctor Who and Deep Space Nine, Usenet addict...and superhero comic reader. Erik Larsen will just have to deal with it.

On self publishing

I haven't had a lot of time for blogging lately, but somehow I had the time to get involved with this discussion thread at digitalwebbing.com, a combination sounding board/workshop/support group for aspiring comics creators. If you're one of those people who thinks you'd like to work in comics someday -- statistics show that 99% of comic book readers want to become comic book professionals, and I can vouch for that figure personally because I just made it up -- you could do a hell of a lot worse than checking out this site. I only wish it had existed twenty years ago...but back then I wouldn't have been able to process and accept the information it offers.

Anyway, this particular discussion thread led me to make some lengthy comments, and I'd like to repost them here for the benefit of anyone in the wider audience who might be interested. What follows is an edited jumble of comments from the thread; if you'd like to read the whole thing in context, follow the above link.

The thread is about seeking tips and advice on the best way for aspiring comics creators to approach editors and publishers at conventions. The non-comics person may need to be told here that unlike prose writers or Hollywood screenwriters, creative talent in comics do not have agents representing them. Being the lowest of the low end in periodical publications, comics operate on the basis of creators making pitches directly to editors...and most publishers have become -- or are in the process of becoming -- closed, invitation-only clubs. You don't even get to pitch to Marvel or DC; they invite you to pitch, and then only on the basis of a proven track record or an existing social relationship.

This is why comic conventions have become so vitally important for aspiring writers and artists, and why they've become such fraught experiences for editors. It's one of the few ways potential creators can possibly develop a face-to-face social relationship with prospective editors. But feel for the poor editor who has to deal with one hundred earnest young people who each have a 22 page comic book script they each want him to read and make thoughtful comments upon right there on the spot! (I hope you didn't have anything else planned for that weekend.)

The original poster on the thread cited a literary agent who determines whether or not a writer has something to offer simply by reading the first paragraph. Surely comic book editors can do the same? Well, sure, I understand that perspective. It's the American Idol effect: people's innate capacity for self-delusion can be truly staggering, and it doesn't take more than a couple of flat notes for Simon Cowell to work out who might be a promising contender and who has no business even singing in the shower. We can leave out anyone who writes in crayon, or has major spelling or grammatical errors on the first page, or doesn't know how to format a readable script and it doesn't change the fundamental point I'm about to make.

Here's the thing about writing: loads of people can write a killer paragraph. Especially if they're novices with no deadlines to meet and with years and years to hone and refine that killer paragraph. Only a small percentage of the people who are talented with words have the tenacity and determination to write every day, even when no inspiration strikes, to keep going in the face of every setback and discoragement...to actually be steadily working writers.

Talent has very little to do with the capacity to do that work. In fact, talent can be an imediment -- if it means that writing comes so easily to you that you never had to learn how to work at it when it doesn't come easily.

The catch is, only the people who are capable of sticking it out and getting the work done regularly and consistently are worth an agent's or editor's time. They've got deadlines to meet and books that have to be delivered and (at least in the prose world) advances that have to be justified. So many people come along and seem promising and talented yet who fold under pressure or flake out and don't deliver the finished work. In books, that means not only this book, but the next one and the one after that. In comics, that means not only the script you've finished, but next month's script and the month after that. These people are investing in your future output and they have to take a gamble on your ability to perform...and they still get burned time and time again.

This is why self-publication has become a big feature of the comics landscape and will only become bigger in the future, especially for the aspiring newcomer.

An aspiring writer handing an editor a finished, printed comic book at least says "I'm determined enough to make it in this business that I did all the extra work besides writing necessary to make it happen, I pulled it together and could coordinate with at least one other person -- the artist; possibly more than one if there was an inker and letterer -- and I nagged them about deadlines and kept after them and still made them want to work with me. And here's the proof right in your hands." This goes a long way to showing an editor that you're someone who can and will do the work of being a writer.

It also helps show them that what you want to do is make comics, not "be a comics author" or whatever. The person who does comics because he or she has to -- who does the work for the sake of doing it and getting it seen by others -- is a MUCH better gamble for a publisher than someone who's only interested in doing it if certain conditions are met. A finished printed comic says "I did whatever it took for people to see this story, because I had to. If you don't publish me, people are still going to see my stuff."

If I were an editor, that's who I'd want to work with.

But there are so many aspiring writers and artists! There are more working writers out there, already published, than the industry can support as it is. And why bother when even the most successful comics writers could probably be making better money, working under better conditions, writing copy at an ad agency?

If you compare writing comics to writing copy at an ad agency, then yes, the supply outstrips the demand for the former, and the latter is far more lucrative. But you could say the exact same thing about being a painter and painting signs. There are far more painters in the world today than are needed, strictly speaking in terms of the number of paintings that anyone can look at in a lifetime. The guaranteed income of a regularly working sign painter may be much more useful in supporting a family than that of a starving painter in a garret. Novelists? No one can get through the smallest fraction of novels published each year. Musicians? It's even worse. We can say the same about film and television.

So, in ANY field of art, a person had better be doing it for sheer love of doing it. In that sense, there's no more reason to discourage someone from creating comics than there is to discourage people from writing novels, painting paintings, making music. They're all equally "fruitless" in terms of strict supply and demand.

But art doesn't work in terms of supply and demand, either. Good art creates its audience. An artist is not filling an existing demand for something that doesn't exist; the artist gives the audience something they didn't know they wanted until they saw it.

(My thanks to comics fan extraordinaire Tim Bateman for that turn of phrase.)

If there were no Grant Morrison (one of my favorites, but you can substitute your favorite writer or artist here) my comic book purchases wouldn't simply transfer to someone else. I buy a new Morrison book if I see it; if there isn't one, that's one less comic book I buy. And this is the reason why editors are looking for new creators at all: not because they have an opening on their schedule, but because they hope to find another Grant Morrison who will create a new audience they otherwise wouldn't have.

Note also that Grant's first published comics work was in 1977. It can take a while for a career to happen. I don't think anyone would argue that Grant should have given up much sooner?

We are competing, in the Darwinian sense of so many new comics wanting to catch the eyeballs of a potential audience. Breaking through that is hard. Doing something that justifies getting this attention is hard too. But a Grant Morrison or a Brian Bendis or whoever is not our competitor. They created an audience. We have to create one too. My goal is not to take away one of Grant's readers, but to work and struggle and pray for that day when someone tells me "I bought two comics today -- yours and his."

The butter in my pocket is melting

In the movie An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore uses a clip from Futurama to illustrate global warming.

That man is my President.

Links of note

I've been busy lately doing preliminary research for a new writing project. That's always the best part, when I can indulge myself learning a ton of stuff about the history of railroads, diagnostic indicators of cerebral hemorrhage, trees native to Pennsylvania, and the Ramayana...and saying to myself "I'm not goofing off, it's research." Then comes the other good part, which is staring off into space and letting it all swirl around in my head...and saying to myself "I'm not goofing off, I'm developing a story." And then comes the part about typing it all out, cursing myself for having no talent, waking up at 4 AM and deciding to quit writing...the usual. But at times like these, the blogging gets shortchanged. It's unavoidable. It doesn't mean I don't love you.

Now, if you're anything like me...first of all, please seek help immediately. Even though I make it sound fun and glamorous and exciting, it will only end in tears. But I digress. If you're anything like me, you've spent the last few days reading endless commentary and analysis of Steven Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday. It's become an obsession with me. I was jazzed to see the real thing live on television, but the aftershocks have become overwhelming. All the commentary after the fact can be summed up in this simple formula: If he was talking about you, you didn't think it was funny.

Fortunately, one person has provided a comprehensive, sensible, and well-informed analysis of the event and subsequent reactions to same on his blog. And no, I don't mean Johnny Triangles. I refer to stand-up comedian, physicist, screenwriter, and comic book author John Rogers, who writes about Colbert's performance here and here. Anything I could say on the topic has already been said in those two posts and in the comments section for each.

Besides, anyone who knows why the words "Vaughn Meader" were once the funniest joke ever told has my respect.

Have you got any ice cream without so much spam in it?

Vermonty Python is described as "coffee liqueur ice cream with a chocolate cookie crumb swirl & fudge cows." This doesn't sound very appealing to me; worse, it sounds as if someone just thought up the name and decided to slap it on the next random combination of flavors that came along, rather than trying to devise a variety of flavor that would be appropriate for the name.

Surely with "Vermonty" in the name, the obvious choice would be a maple syrup flavor. It would be perfect for that special someone who became a barber to overcome his crippling fear of hair, when all he really wanted to be was...a lumberjack! Or a strawberry tart flavor, without so much rat in it. Maybe three rats...rather a lot, really. No, the perfect flavor to go with this theme would be ice cream mixed with chocolate-dipped crunchy frogs!

And woe betide the Ben & Jerry's customer who orders a pint of Vermonty Python and complains about the dirty spoon...

Okay, that's enough. I invite anyone who's interested to post their own Python-derived jokes on this theme in the comments section. I have serious misgivings about one of the most precious things from my childhood being turned into a string of licensing opportunities and mass marketed to the point of inanity, but that's just me.

Local news

I can't believe this cretin got off, you should pardon the expression, with a mere two years probation.

More than once, this jerk (hmm, another bad choice of words on my part) has said things similar to the quote provided in the above article: "she may like me and want to go home with me...it's her call." He made similar comments in an article published in New York magazine. To me, that spells future stalker and/or sex offender. Loads of rapists say things afterwards like "I could tell she was enjoying it" or other filth from the depths of their self-delusion.

And when he gets arrested for doing something even worse -- like stalking or assaulting someone -- you just know what the authorities will say:

"No one could possibly have foreseen that his levees would burst."

Up against the WSJ

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the nascent trend of paid product placement in comic books.

The whole idea seems dubious to me on more than one level. Leaving aside my hippy-dippy crunchy granola sentiments about the ubiquity of paid advertising and endorsement deals and the implicit message they carry that everyone and everything can be bought and owned and even our fantasies can be colonized by corporations...as I say, leaving aside that whole train of thought, it raises a lot of questions for me on a purely pragmatic and materialistic level. Does it make a lot of sense for corporate advertisers to move into comics now...when the audience size for comics is in decline?

Given that the diminishing market is moving towards trade paperbacks and graphic novels -- which don't carry ad pages -- one can see the logic of advertisers wanting to get their content into the story pages instead, which will end up in those collections. But in the best case scenario, those stealth ads and product placements will stay on the shelves for years -- do these companies really wants years- or decades-old products still being advertised? I suppose the answer is the same as with outdated product placement in movies and tv shows on DVD: the corporations don't really care if their advertising detritus hangs around for the rest of time.

And what about the money? It won't go towards offsetting production costs or lowering the cover prices of new comics. Does any of it make its way into the pockets of the writers and artists? If so, are they getting the same amount that a professional copywriter or illustrator would get at an ad agency for doing the same work, or is this a way for an advertiser to save some moolah?

And then there's this quote:

DC's Mr. McKillips says Pontiac will not have direct editorial oversight of the comic and its main character. "We're not seeking their approval on everything, and they trust us," he says. A Pontiac spokesman says the company is not involved in the creative process.

"They trust us." We're tame. We certainly won't do anything to threaten this cozy relationship, so they don't need to constantly look over our shoulders. You won't see any stories that implicitly question the corporate behavior of Dodge or Pontiac in refusing to strengthen emission standards, or embrace alternative technologies, or outsourcing their manufacturing facilities. Or any stories that skewer Nike for the corrosive social effects of fetishizing sportswear, or their sweatshops in Indonesia or Mexico or East Asia. (Oops, I said I wouldn't go all sandal-wearing and tree-hugging on you. My bad.) Well, there wouldn't have been that kind of story in those comics anyway, so no harm done...

I suppose this new trend won't really make any difference...which is kind of sad, don't you think?

But look, one good thing: there's a quote in the article from someone we know! I don't disapprove of the article itself...and I note with much approval that when it came time to get quotes from the fan perspective, both fans the author chose to quote were women. Holy stereotype shattering, Batman!

Is it First Comic Week already?

Following the lead of Vincent Murphy at Spandex Justice (though he got the idea from someplace else) here's my own act of personal archaeology...

The earliest DC comic I can remember reading was Justice League of America issue #60.



I suspect my early exposure to this comic may have made me a sexual pervert. Certainly, the cover imagery is powerful in terms of the developing libido of the prepubescent male mind. Adult men reduced in size, with a domineering woman towering over them and controlling them -- talk about sublimated maternal imagery! But the Queen Bee is a bad mommy, and sees other women as a threat to her supremacy: see how she orders her "drones" to attack Batgirl, who for all we know might be immune to the Queen Bee's control simply because of her gender.

Oy. I'm lucky this comic didn't make me gay.

(On the other hand, the art -- including the cover -- was by Mike Sekowsky, who drew the most absolutely gorgeous women ever seen in comics to this day. I would totally do the Queen Bee.)

I haven't read this comic since it was new, and I'd have to guess at the whys and wherefores of the plot. I certainly have no idea what weirdness it may have deposited in my subconscious. But I must have liked something about it, because I went on from there to seek out more comic books as single-mindedly as any drone bee seeking pollen...

Mind you, I didn't actually choose that comic or buy it myself; I expect one of my parents bought it for me as a gift. Before then, I would only have known these superheroes from Saturday morning cartoons. But both my parents had read comics as children themselves, and apparently saw no harm in introducing me to the medium; certainly none of the standard prejudice that comic books would keep me from reading "real" books existed in our household. But the earliest comic book I can remember actually picking out from a rack and asking if I could have it is Superboy #147.



Seen through adult eyes, it's a staid cover -- I've even heard it described as boring, which offends me irrationally -- but I remember how it looked at the time. The Neal Adams embellishments over a layout by Curt Swan, especially the shading on the bustlike heads along the sides, seemed positively photorealistic compared to anything I'd seen before in a comic book. When I saw this cover again for the first time after several decades, I was surprised to see that it hadn't actually been a painted cover as I mistaken recalled it must have been, and that it was actually fairly ordinary in production values. At the time, it seemed to me singularly moody and elegaic -- I thought perhaps a character had died (perhaps even Superboy himself?) and the oddly lit faces were paying tribute to a fallen hero.

And then the banners the other figures were carrying -- well, they promised several stories in this issue, and that meant this comic had to be worthwhile...even if it was priced at the exorbitant sum of 25 cents, far more than the usual comic book.

Everybody's doing it

Aguirre-Sacasa: Playwright's Path Is via Comic Books

The New York Times offers a profile of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, playwright and scripter of Sensational Spider-Man, Nightcrawler, and Marvel Knights 4. The article is a lot more accurate than the vast majority of comics-related features in contemporary newspapers, and worth reading. (The above link is registration-free thanks to the magic of RSS feeds.) One of the quotes that caught my eye:

"One of my comics is read by more people — around 70,000 — than will see my entire run at Manhattan Theater Club," Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa said. "That puts things in perspective."

The worlds of theater and comics have some interesting similarities. Both were wildly popular and significant mass media at one time...and both are now reduced to a niche market of "true believers" and cater to this insider audience, while the general public is being priced out by ever-increasing cost of entry. I can personally remember a time when a comic book that sold a mere 200,000 copies would be considered an abject failure and cancelled immediately; these days, 70,000 is a success story. And of course, both theater and comics as mass entertainment have been succeeded by other media competing for space in the consumer's wallet. It won't be too long before the idea of going to see a movie in an actual cinema seems as exotic and unlikely to the majority of the public as going to a play does now to that same group.

And too, both comics and theater are now produced by people who are driven by their irrational, passionate love for the medium rather than by people looking to reach the widest audience or hoping to make big bucks. I say this as an observation, not a value judgement: I'm not trying to say whether this is a good or bad thing.

There's also a whole other trend related to this of the major comics publishers seeking out and lauding writers from other fields -- novelists, playwrights, television producers and film directors -- as their new major stars. There are definitely good and bad aspects to that trend. It lends a little second-hand glamour to the tawdry industry of comics publishing (but it's always a bad sign when you have to borrow your glamour from somewhere else). It offers the chance of creative cross-pollination with more literary values and techniques enlivening the comics narrative form (but in practice these outsiders write very derivative and retro comics, referring to obscure stories they remember from their childhood and trying to write like the full-time comics writers they idolized; meanwhile the only literary innovation in comics comes from full-timers like Alan Moore or Grant Morrison). It brings professional writers accustomed to having their creator rights respected over to shake up the plantation mentality of Marvel and DC (but then they surrender their rights because massa is willing to let them write actual comic books at last! -- see the whole flap over Omega the Unknown for a particularly grisly example).

From another angle, this quote tickled me:

As it happens, Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa's family history is not without its own heroes and archvillains. His great-grandfather Juan Bautista Sacasa played a pivotal role in the Nicaraguan civil war in the 1920's and 30's and was kicked out of the presidency when Anastasio Somoza García (his nephew) seized power. Now Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa's father, Francisco Aguirre-Sacasa, is running for president of Nicaragua in the November election.

There's something cool about the son of a Presidential candidate pursuing his dream of writing comic books rather than working on his father's campaign or getting involved in politics, don't you think? If only our current President had stayed with his dream of managing or owning baseball teams instead of going to work for his daddy, he'd be a much happier man today.

Up and away

Last week, the always entertaining and occasionally reliable and unbiased comic book gossip columnist Rich Johnston wrote in his weekly column for Comic Book Resources about a talk given by Alan Moore at the Tate Museum in London, relating to an exhibit on Henry Fuseli, William Blake and the Romantic movement entitled Gothic Nightmares. Johnston's report included the following:

Moore stated that he suspected he'd been asked to do a talk over the superficial similarities some people see between Blake's work and that often featured in comic books. Any other similarities Moore dismissed citing Blake's artistic intent and life experiences, placing all comic book creators below him. Moore would only allow two comic creators to be compared to Blake, Jack Kirby and Al Schroeder. The former, for his simple bold romantic religious strokes in both art, theme and story, and the latter for his eventual belief that Superman existed in a very real sense.

Moore's comparison of Jack Kirby to William Blake is a well-deserved compliment, one feels, to both men and does a lot to confirm my generally high opinion of Moore's artistic judgement. But the other name in that equation caught my eye. I knew the name Al Schroeder from my early days in comics fandom as another member of the amorphous mob of comics fans through which I circulated. I don't know that I ever met him, but I know he was active in fandom at the same time I was just beginning to discover that scene...and he wasn't the person Moore was talking about.

I dropped Johnston a line pointing out that Moore must in fact have been referring to Alvin Schwartz, one of the classic Superman writers and more recently author of the exceptional memoir An Unlikely Prophet: Revelations on the Path Without Form which explores Tibetan mysticism by means of (imaginary?) conversations between Schwartz and a tulpa in the form of Superman himself. The book was dedicated to an old friend of mine, the late Richard H. Morrissey, and I'd like to think he'd have been pleased that I was writing in his memory to make sure his pal Alvin Schwartz got the appropriate credit.

Anyway, the column was amended within a couple of hours; I don't know if it was my message or a note from someone else that prompted Johnston to make the correction...but it felt better to see Schwartz given his due.

In this week's edition of Johnston's column, I see the following:

Alvin Schwartz, known most for his Superman work in the 1940s, got in touch by e-mail. Seems the book that Moore cited, "An Unlikely Prophet" is getting a reprint shortly and Schwartz has written a sequel for publication later in the year. Schwartz asked me to put him in touch with Moore, which I've done. Who knows what the two will cook up together?

"An Unlikely Prophet" is an essential text for anyone interested in the history of American comics, the principles behind fiction and many of the themes Alan Moore has been exploring of late. Consider it "Kavalier & Clay" meets the Superboy from Earth Prime.

So it's possible, though I grant by no means definite, that my note to Rich Johnston played a role in getting Alan Moore in touch with a legendary comics writer who Moore has compared to William Blake. Whether it was me or someone else writing in with the same correction, the moral is clear either way: obsessively reading blogs and online columns and writing in with pedantic corrections of obscure errors can make good things happen and increase the sum total of goodness in the world. And I feel very good indeed about that.

Neither moon nor partridge

A commenter by appointment to this blog asks: "Countdown with Keith Olbermann, isn't that a sports show, or something?" Let this humble blog be the place where readers may doff their Clueless Hats and become enlightened...

If you think for a moment I'd watch a sports show, you doesn't know me very well. Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC isn't a sports show. Admittedly there are sports-related stories on the show from time to time, because Olbermann isn't merely a former sportscaster by profession: he loves sports the way I love comics. But this show is almost entirely about national politics and major issues of the day. As I said in the previous post, Countdown is funnier and more pointed in its political commentary than The Daily Show, and well worth watching whatever one's political and/or philosophical bent.

Even when Olbermann covers sports-related stories on Countdown, the stories aren't about games or scores or trades...but rather about the political and social issues that underlie controversies in the sports world. He's had a few too many stories about Barry Bonds and steroid abuse lately for my personal taste...but those stories haven't been about Bonds' career as a left fielder. They've been examinations of how a bureaucracy responds slowly to a scandal, how economic pressure to compete might lead someone to break the rules, how a rulebreaker might misuse the legal system to silence his critics through lawsuits...universal issues that are fascinating even if Bonds himself is of less than no interest to me. But don't be misled by my digression here; I'd guess all sports coverage makes up only 10% of Countdown, which is otherwise oriented towards world news and politics, plus mockery of the tabloid celebrity stories that have all the other cable news shows fascinated.

A further digression about the value of sports reporters, if I may? Sports reporters are often better than any other kind of reporter. This is because entering that field requires some basic qualifications. The sports reporter needs to have a thorough knowledge of sports facts and figures to get in the door -- their stock in trade is verifiable factual information, not just ill-considered opinion or speculation or recycling of White House press releases, and they're held accountable for geting their facts wrong. These skills are what all reporters should have but very few are obliged to learn. These skills serve sports reporters especially well if they move on to other fields besides sports coverage; Bob Costas is another fine example. My interest in professional sports can only be measured in negative numbers, but my respect for former professional sports reporters is very high indeed.

Yes, yes, this is all very well and good, you say, but we're still waiting for you to make the case for Olbermann. Why should we trust you when you won't even tell us what RAB means?

You make an excellent point, imaginary voice. I personally find Keith Olbermann witty, insightful, and erudite...but today's discriminating bloggers demand proof. Whether or not you enjoy a particular television talking head is mostly a question of personal taste. I know people who enjoy watching Jon Stewart but don't care for his politics -- and by the same token, others who agree with the politics but find his style and delivery annoying. The best way to decide if you might like Olbermann is to see him for yourself.

Here are some clips of Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, and here's Keith as a guest on The Colbert Report. This selection of clips is a bit heavy on the Bill O'Reilly content, because the fans love the celebrity feuds and O'Reilly has made Olbermann his personal nemesis. However, a particular favorite clip of mine is Keith Olbermann putting Laura Ingraham in her place for her odious comments about the supposed cowardice of reporters in Iraq. And here are links to some of his essays on various topics including the war on terror, Scooter Libby, and the untrustworthiness of Lance Armstrong.

Oh yeah, because that's another thing sports reporters have to do that other television reporters don't -- they have to be able to write their own words. And if an anti-sports guy like me can enjoy someone writing about sports, you'd best believe that's some good writing.

After morning a be to got there's

This is the conclusion of my accidental Isaac Hayes trilogy of posts. Special bonus points to anyone who anyone who posts the best explanation of the above title...

Maybe three months ago, Gregg and Evan Spiridellis of JibJab were being interviewed on television -- I'm pretty sure the show must have been Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, which is often funnier and more pointed in its political commentary than The Daily Show -- about their latest Flash animation poking gentle fun at the travails of President Bush in the preceding year. This was the one set to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne" and "Turkey in the Straw" about which you probably received 900 e-mails in December, all saying "Hilarious!!! You gotta see this!!!"

Personally, I don't find their stuff especially entertaining; I find it bland and toothless, creating the illusion of humor without any point of view. Apparently not everyone feels this way: on this news show, the Spiridellis brothers were talking about the volume of outraged messages they'd received from both ends of the political spectrum. They said the Right was angry with them for attacking the President, and the Left was angry at them for portaying him sympathetically. One of the boys said this proved the maxim that "If both sides are angry at you, you're doing something right."

To which I immediately thought: Wrong. When you're doing this sort of thing right, people of opposing views each think you agree with them.

Case in point: South Park. We all know people who are stone cold liberals and want to see the smirking pretender Bush impeached, and who love South Park for its skepticism of authority and its willingness to attack sexism, racism, and homophobia. We all know rock hard conservatives who love the show for its attacks on political correctness and stand in favor of traditional values. The mere fact of a book titled South Park Conservatives : The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias makes it clear two opposing philosophies have claimed the show as their own. But in reality, those opposing teams are imaginary constructs of a culture which tries to break every question down to "you're either with us or against us" -- real individuals can have a variety of opinions that fit anywhere along a wide continuum, or even a multidimensional grid, and can even hold contradictory views on the same question. Simply by being honest and reflecting such an individual viewpoint, South Park became a Rorschach blot onto which people could project their own assumptions and biases, and accept the show as agreeing with them.

And so we come to the latest episode, in which the character of Chef is given his momentous farewell. With an estimated 3.5 million viewers tuning in for the season premiere, I hardly need to recap what happened, do I? But it may be interesting to look at the viewer comments on show's official website forums and many other online venues. Responses range from "Man, they really tore Isaac Hayes a new one" and "I hope I never get Matt and Trey as pissed off at me as they were at him" to "the farewell speech was beautiful" and "I was in tears by the end." I think we have here another example of people projecting their own take on an issue -- in this case, the sudden defection of Isaac Hayes from the show -- onto a story that was nuanced, subtle, and even self-contradictory, accurately reflecting the mixed emotions surrounding this topic.

There were moments when the writing was exceptionally vicious towards Hayes -- but never without humor; I hope everyone caught the brilliant visual quote from a famous Simpsons moment when Chef tumbles down the cliff -- and moments when the episode displayed naked heartbreak at the loss of a loved one. And this was an accurate depiction of the wildly swinging pendulum of emotions you feel when you lose a friend or lover or family member to a cult. One moment you rage at that person for being so incredibly stupid and self-destructive and selfish -- "you couldn't have done this if I meant anything to you!" -- and the next moment you're in tears, the anger vanished, mourning a loss that in some ways is worse than a death. If the loved one had simply died, that would be an ending and a closure...but instead you live with the knowledge that he or she is still out there, or someone claiming to be him or her is there, and it feels like an ongoing betrayal that just won't stop.

That's the reality this episode captures, and those who take it only as gleeful bashing of a former cast member or only as a love letter to Hayes are each, one feels, missing part of the picture.

I could quibble with a couple of things. Part of the show's stock in trade is their rapid turnaround time -- producing a finished episode in less than a week -- enabling the content to be timely and topical. In this case, though, they might have done better to wait, if only to give writer Trey Parker as well as partner Matt Stone a chance to reflect and put their feelings in perspective. But then, if they were slow and cautious, South Park wouldn't be South Park.

My other quibble is that a prime tool of the cult mentality is dissociation, the disconnect between the recruit's past life and his or her new life with the cult. Whether or not Hayes truly quit the show of his own volition -- whatever personal volition may mean in circumstances like these! -- the show closing the door on the possibility of his return is, if only on a symbolic level, right in line with the message of a Church that tells its followers "Your old friends outside us aren't really your friends, they've turned their back on you, you only belong with us." The closing memorial to Chef in this episode stands against that message...but the point may be too subtle. And being too subtle always runs that risk of opposing sides each claiming your message as being their own.

Time for Chef Aid II

The story of Isaac Hayes leaving South Park gets even weirder. From the article:

Isaac Hayes did not quit "South Park." My sources say that someone quit it for him.

I can tell you that Hayes is in no position to have quit anything. Contrary to news reports, the great writer, singer and musician suffered a stroke on Jan. 17. At the time it was said that he was hospitalized and suffering from exhaustion.

It’s also absolutely ridiculous to think that Hayes, who loved playing Chef on "South Park," would suddenly turn against the show because they were poking fun at Scientology.

Last November, when the “Trapped in a Closet” episode of the comedy aired, I saw Hayes and spent time with him in Memphis for the annual Blues Ball.

If he hated the show so much, I doubt he would have performed his trademark hit song from the show, “Chocolate Salty Balls.” He tossed the song into the middle of one of his less salacious hits and got the whole audience in the Memphis Pyramid to sing along.

And...

Friends in Memphis tell me that Hayes did not issue any statements on his own about South Park. They are mystified.

“Isaac’s been concentrating on his recuperation for the last two and a half, three months,” a close friend told me.

Hayes did not suffer paralysis, but the mild stroke may have affected his speech and his memory. He’s been having home therapy since it happened.

That certainly begs the question of who issued the statement that Hayes was quitting "South Park" now because it mocked Scientology four months ago. If it wasn’t Hayes, then who would have done such a thing?

Who indeed.

Bounty hunters followup

After feedback on my previous post via e-mail and from the Jack Kirby mailing list, I'd like to clarify a couple of points on my objection to using the name and legacy of Jack Kirby.

First, I have no problem with people paying tribute to Kirby in their work. I didn't see anything wrong with Alan Moore or Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird creating characters in their own comics that were meant to be Kirby himself. (Click on those links: that second one is an absolute gem.) Joe Casey and Tom Scioli have had huge success with a series called GØDLAND, a tribute that works best for fans who recognize the allusions they're making to vintage Kirby comics. What Grant Morrison just did with the Kirby characters Klarion the Witchboy, Mister Miracle, and the Guardian in his Seven Soldiers series was quite lovely. And then there are the artists who can "do Kirby" and visually quote from his work in the process of doing their own thing. To me, these are all ways of saying "That guy was a giant! People like us who came later owe him a huge debt!"

(By way of full disclosure: I've also written the script for a Kirby tribute comic...and it occurred to me that I might be setting myself up for a "Hypocrite of the Decade" award somewhere down the line if it seemed like I was condemning the very thing I was doing myself.)

On the other hand, to have "Jack Kirby's" in the title of a new book by other people gives the impression that it represents his work or carries his informed blessing. If Jack's name wasn't in the title or on the cover, this objection wouldn't apply: it would simply be a comic by Lisa Kirby and Mike Thibodeaux, with a line on the credits page reading "based on an idea by Jack Kirby" and that would be entirely appropriate.

An excellent point was made on the Kirby mailing list regarding the "Kirbyverse" comics from Topps, a line of comics based on concepts and character sketches by Kirby. The actual comics all had Kirby's name on the covers but were largely or entirely the work of other people. And of course there were other times Jack had no problem with other people taking over characters he created -- we're talking about the guy who alone or in collaboration with others invented Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, and several thousands of others. But the arrangement with Topps came at a very specific time in Kirby's life: a time when he was locked in a legal struggle with Marvel Comics over creative credit for his work and the ownership of his original artwork. There was an immediate pressing reason to raise his name recognition as a creator of characters at that particular moment. For me, the bottom line is that Jack decided the Topps arrangement was appropriate then, that one time, and was available to personally approve of having his name on the finished product. That isn't the case now, and there are a different set of concerns today.

Jack Kirby didn't need to think in terms of what his legacy would be years after his death; he was concerned with providing for his family. Now that he's gone, the family's concern should be preserving his legacy in the decades to come. They can do this through the Kirby Museum and by working with publishers to make sure Kirby's actual work is always available to those who want to read it. The Kirby Estate doesn't need to quickly elevate Kirby's name recognition in the short term. If anything, it needs to do the opposite of this, and be more protective and conservative about his reputation and keeping the use of his name away from things he did not participate in. In short, the family needs to take a long-range view. It's not a question of "does the Kirby family have the legal right to make any deal they want?" -- obviously they do -- but my personal feeling that this isn't in the best interests of the Kirby family or in the best interests of preserving Kirby's reputation.

I hope this clears up any potential misunderstanding...and I want to emphasize again that I mean no personal insult to anyone involved in this project. If my best friend in the world were working on this project, I would say the same thing.

Bounty hunters

Here's a news item from Wizard World:

"Before Stephen King, there was another King."

"With these enigmatic words, Joe Quesada began another highly-anticipated Cup O' Joe Panel. Referring to last year's announcement that Stephen King would bring his 'Dark Tower' series to Marvel as a comic in 2007, Joe was talking about a king at Marvel: Jack Kirby.

"For specifics, Joe brought up Jack's daughter Lisa. She explained that, while going through her late father's sketches, she stumbled upon some that she didn't recognize from any of his published work. Thus, 'Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters' was born. The first of this six-issue limited series will be out in July, in time for the San Diego Comic Con. Tom Breevort remarked, 'it's good to have a Kirby back at Marvel.' Quesada agreed. The series is a creator-owned property and will be published through Marvel's Icon imprint.

"Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters features characters and concepts created by the late Jack Kirby, which have been expanded upon by his daughter Lisa Kirby and Mike Thibodeaux. It's a very personal story for Lisa, metaphorically dealing with her relationship with her father against a cosmic backdrop of fantastic characters and wild vistas. It also features appearances by other Kirby-owned characters such as Captain Victory."

You know what? No. This isn't a good thing. I know a lot of people will get on my case for saying this -- "How can you possibly know what Jack would have wanted? These are his family and friends, where does someone who never knew him get off claiming to know his wishes better than they do?" -- but nonetheless, I still feel totally confident in saying Jack would not have wanted this.

Marvel reprinting his actual work? Yes. Marvel doing right by his family? Absolutely yes. People trading on his name and some unpublished sketches to sell work that isn't his? Not so much.

I don't mean this as an attack on Marvel -- one benefit of having worked in the Marvel offices myself is the knowledge that it's just a company, not a monolithic conscious entity capable of good or bad intentions. Even during Jack's legal struggle with earlier management, there were individual people at Marvel who loved Jack and were committed to doing whatever they could to support him. And I really don't want this to come across as an insult to Tom Brevoort, who's a really good guy of exceptional taste and has been involved with pretty much every good thing Marvel has published in many years.

And Lisa Kirby? Honestly, believe it or not, I have nothing but sympathy for her position. During my childhood, my dad was the doctor in a small town; I grew up with him being a local "celebrity" and constantly had people telling me what an amazing person he was, how he was a saint and how fortunate I was to have him as my father. Well, yes, sure, I totally agree -- but when a guy is your father and you know his failings and weaknesses and all the times you've argued with him over stupid things, it's mind-bendingly weird to cope with people who are his fans and idolize him. And I can well imagine how offended I'd be if some obnoxious prick came along and claimed to know better than I do what my father would have wanted.

(My dad later ran several hospitals and travelled all over the world as a medical expert in his field. He hated being away from home even overnight, and would fly cross-country twice in a day rather than be put up one night in the most expensive hotel suite in another city. But I did get a major kick out of him becoming world famous...)

But if someone set up a medical practice claiming to be his heir -- even if I were to declare myself a doctor because I happened to be his son, and then put his name on the shingle -- that would still be wrong. My dad was an amazing doctor (I'm biased, yes, but it's still true) but he got that way through a combination of individual gifts AND decades of hard work. He wasn't just born into it, and I didn't get it through his seed or even by being around him for forty years.

I really, really, really want the Kirby family to have a place of honor and respect. He loved his family and worked hard to provide for them and they were at the center of his art. Bless them for that. But they would all do well to become more sensible conservators of his legacy. Things like the Kirby Museum and supporting more reprinting of his work are absolutely right: things that will keep his name and work in front of the public so that future generations will see the stuff from which all later comics derive. But when work by other people is put out with the "Jack Kirby" name slapped on it, it has the tragic effect of diluting his reputation rather than enhancing it. If new readers are unimpressed by it, this will be their negative impression of "Jack Kirby" and it will only put them off seeking out the real thing.

By way of another analogy: for many years, I thought I hated blues music. I couldn't understand this, because I always loved African-American musical styles, but the blues I'd heard left me cold. When I was an adult, I heard Lightning Hopkins and Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker for the first time and immediately fell in love. Only then did I understand what I'd been thinking of as "blues music" was the watered-down copies by the Rolling Stones (great at their own stuff, but lousy blues musicians) or the Yardbirds or Eric Clapton -- in other words, overly mannered and stylized copies by later imitators. Bad imitations and improper branding could have kept me away from the real thing my whole life, and that would have been a horrible shame.

Please, guys, please...think about the consequences of this sort of thing. I want the Kirby legacy to be strong as much as anyone in the world does. Keep the work he actually did, and finished, and signed off on, and approved out there in front of the public. But don't dilute it with grave rubbings and counterfeit work, or you'll end up without that legacy.

Well, crap

I had just about convinced myself this wouldn't happen. What was I thinking?

Hayes could simply have said he was leaving the show, with no explanation, or used the old chestnut that it was for unstated "personal reasons." Everyone would have known the reason, but it would have been far less insulting to people who've done right by him for many years. Instead, his spokesman is quoted in the Reuters article as saying "there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs and others begins" -- in other words, claiming that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the ones being intolerant and bigoted. But Hayes didn't quit the show when they did far worse to the sacred cows of Christianity or Judaism or Islam or Mormonism. So it's okay to bash everyone else's religions, but his own is something different. I can't think of a clearer demonstration of bigotry and rank hypocrisy.

I can't even begin to convey how utterly depressing this is. Isaac Hayes was such a huge figure in my childhood, the absolute icon of cool. I mean, come on, the opening credits of Shaft with his theme music! His appearances on The Rockford Files, the coolest detective show ever! His amazing, influential albums! Sure, I was miffed when I learned he was a believer in a religion that I have a lot of trouble tolerating (mind you, South Park pointed out that "tolerance" doesn't mean approving of something but rather putting up with it...through gritted teeth if necessary) but his continued participation in the show did a lot to ease my qualms. I was raised to believe a sense of humor is a mark of sanity, above all...and if Hayes could take all the tastelessness and caustic wit of South Park with good humor, maybe that proved Scientology didn't necessarily turn its followers into mindless drones. Maybe, in spite of its egregiously silly teachings, it wasn't that much worse than any other religion. Well, now we have solid proof the exact opposite is the case.

I've lost a childhood idol today, and I'm genuinely upset by that.

Update: a friend has brought to my attention the following quote from the Isaac Hayes interview at the Onion AV Club on January 4th, 2006:

AVC: There's some pretty harsh satire on South Park. They don't really care who they offend.

IH: But that's their thing! They're success was built on that cutting-edge stuff. I've had to defend them a lot of times. One time on BET Tonight I defended them because Tavis Smiley, the host on that show, was coming at me. It was a call-in show, too, so people were calling in. I told them not to take this stuff seriously. If you do, you'll get in trouble. Just enjoy it. Remember your high-school yearbook? You look at those pictures now, you laugh, right? That's what South Park is. You got to laugh at it. Because we cursed, but we just didn't dare let the principals, the teachers, or the preachers hear it. And we didn't turn out bad, okay? Just look at it that way. Also, usually there's some kind of moral message at the end for the kids, by the Chef.

AVC: They did just do an episode that made fun of your religion, Scientology. Did that bother you?

IH: Well, I talked to Matt and Trey about that. They didn't let me know until it was done. I said, "Guys, you have it all wrong. We're not like that. I know that's your thing, but get your information correct, because somebody might believe that shit, you know?" But I understand what they're doing. I told them to take a couple of Scientology courses, and understand what we do. [Laughs.]

I've seen a number of fans suggesting that Hayes' action was forced on him by Church bigwigs and that they were responsible for his recent statement. The above quote makes that seem entirely likely. But if so, until he stands up for himself, my feelings are the same.

Steals from the poor and gives to the rich?

My friend John H, among others, wrote this morning to remind me that the New York Times article by Dave Itzkoff on Alan Moore and V For Vendetta is now available online. I've been mulling over this article for a couple of days -- indeed, the ongoing dispute between Moore and DC is something I've thought about a lot over the past few years. Here are some incoherent ramblings on that topic...

Richard Feynman, one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century and one of my personal heroes -- you may remember him from the investigation of the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster -- had a sideline in exposing phony mediums and psychics. One of the odd aspects of paranormal studies is that a great many scientists and learned people have been taken in by the most transparently blatant hoaxes and cons involving seances and spiritualists. Feynman attended such demonstrations and took delight in spotting and exposing the tricks that were being used to perpetrate the fraud. He reasoned -- and I paraphrase his own words very roughly here, for which I apologize -- that great thinkers and educated men were fooled precisely because they went into such situations with the attitude "I am a highly educated fellow with many degrees and professional accomplishments to my name, therefore I am not easily fooled and it would take a great deal to trick me." By contrast, Feynman described his own attitude as "I'm as gullible and easily tricked as anyone. If I see something that disagrees with scientific principles, there's a very good chance I'm being fooled. Let me watch closely and see if I can figure out how it's being done." Armed with this concept, Feynman was indeed able to spot the trickery being used by so-called psychics when so many other scientists had been completely taken in by their own conceit.

If it's not immediately clear what this has to do with Alan Moore, let me describe some things I know about him personally. I can't say I was ever a close friend or acquaintance...but I had two or three fairly long conversations with him back in the mid-Eighties, when Moore attended conventions and comics marketplaces, the days when Swamp Thing was still relatively new and Watchmen was still being dreamed up. He was an approachable person then, and although his self-presentation was already very theatrical and posed, he was pretty open about who he was and where he was coming from.

One important thing about Alan Moore is...well, he might like you to think of him as a hard-nosed bastard like John Constantine or a mystic sage like Doctor Strange, but his self-image is much more like his characters Tom Strong or Ozymandias from Watchmen. The smartest guy in the room? Maybe...if that room is as big as the world. His fundamental concept of the world is "I'm cleverer than you, and that entitles me to respect and deference." I'm sorry if that sounds harsh; the truth is, I liked him a lot and saw no reason to disagree with his self-estimation. I don't think arrogance is, in and of itself, necessarily a bad thing. He is pretty damned clever and he's only being realistic in admitting it. But sometimes he's too damn clever for his own good.

(Not an exaggeration: he once recounted an argument he'd had with an angry editor, and concluded by saying "I'm cleverer than [that editor], that person can't speak to me like that!")

One thing about Moore's writing is the amount of calculation and careful planning. His stories are worked out in tiny detail like clockwork -- any other writer who studies his work is driven to despair by the intricacy of his design. But that's his fiction. That's not Alan Moore the person. Moore in real life is entirely as he presents himself, without artifice. His theatrical pronouncements are fairly transparent as attention-getting ploys go. I'd almost go so far as to call him naive in his lack of duplicity and calculation.

(One of my vivid memories is of Moore at a UK Comic Art Convention during the Eagle Awards ceremony: he took a seat in the very back row of the convention hall, knowing full well that he'd be receiving several awards. Sitting at the back gave him the opportunity to make a big show of continually having to stride to the front of the room, accept his award, and go back to the rear. By the fourth or fifth award, he was theatrically panting and puffing to show his exertion at all the walking back and forth. Yeah, it was hilarious and we all laughed. But it was also a way of wringing just a little bit more attention out of the moment...)

His attitude coming into any kind of negotiation or business dealing is "I can easily see in rational terms that you being as good as your word and honoring your committment to me will be to our mutual benefit. There is no rational reason for you to want to cheat me, therefore I trust you." Of course other people are not like that! So he gets burned by deals that less "clever" people would take in their stride. And there we have the Feynman principle in action: the poor guy who's convinced of his own wisdom and inability to be fooled gets taken in by a contract that says "all rights to this property revert to you, provided we let it go out of print...which of course we never will, because we're a business and publishing this makes us money." Countless writers who are less "clever" would take something like that for granted.

Even worse, when someone like Steve Bissette deals with Moore in what seems to be total good faith and a business arrangement falls through without malice on anyone's part, Moore can only imagine that the publisher was acting with criminal ineptitude. Because why would a business deal ever go bad if someone wasn't being a villain? (Moore had his own go at starting a comics company, which published two or three comics in toto before vanishing; apparently this didn't teach him anything about the difficulties of running a healthy business.)

Anyone who's seen the unspeakable cinematic monstrosity claiming to be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will understand that Moore is absolutely right in fearing the harm a bad film can do to his professional reputation. I could weep when I think of all the people I've tried to persuade to read the graphic novels who have said "That piece of garbage? I saw that!" But you know, Moore's own protege Neil Gaiman has taken a different path: becoming engaged with the filmmaking process, not alienating the people he works with, and producing some really interesting work for film and television as a result; work that has only enhanced Gaiman's profile. Moore's good friend Frank Miller didn't get bent out of shape by Daredevil or Elektra -- neither of them as entirely unwatchable as LXG but not wonderful either -- and got involved with the process that produced the Sin City film. Mike Mignola got a pretty damn good Hellboy film made that drove people towards reading his work rather than driving them away. Through his unwillingness to dirty his hands with people who are beneath him -- and if they weren't beneath him, why would they be in the film business? -- Moore guaranteed a self-fulfilling prophecy of worthless films that will continue to be made and continue to tarnish his future reputation as a writer.

Moore has a lot to complain about with DC's treatment of him; they've helped make him the single best known comic book writer in the world. Even now they try to avoid offending him further in their public statements -- see Paul Levitz' diplomatic quotes in the Times article -- which is remarkable when you consider the plantation mentality which still controls mainstream comics. But when you're the "cleverest person in the world" it's possible to see yourself as the one true crusader for principle and justice, surrounded on all sides by philistines and conmen who are personally beneath you.

The weird part is...that's actually mostly true! The comic book industry is full of petty criminals and some of the most vile and odious characters you'll find anywhere. As is Hollywood. I'm personally gratified when I read Moore talking about making some executive's head explode by turning down money -- every time he balks at cooperating with another film travesty, they assume it's only a ploy to get more cash, and can't understand why increasing the pay doesn't work. But where he may be doing the right thing, I'm not convinced he's doing it for the right reasons.