I ranted a bit today. Maybe it was something I ate, I dunno. Anyway, there’s very little in terms of bad feelings about comics that new issues of Morrison’s New X-Men and Bendis’s Daredevil can’t cure. And with said issues tucked neatly into little mylar sleeves and resting comfortably on the back of my bed, atop several collections of Love & Rockets and various Ultimate titles, it’s once more into the funnybook breach for me!

It would appear that with Dirk Deppey gone, Tim O’Neil and Kevin Melrose are the linkblogs to watch. Consider that an official endorsement, just like the one Al Gore gave to Howard Dean! No, wait. Not like that one. Anyway, Tim points out this important Arkansas anti-censorship decision, and Kevin guides us to writer Robert Kirkman’s thoughts on rising from the ashes of Epic.

The third member of the linkblog triumvirate, Graeme McMillan, may well be in a snarkier mood than I was today. His running chronicle of the fans’ reaction to the big leaks coming out of Marvel over the past couple of days is priceless. Click on the above link and start scrolling up.

But wait, there’s more! David Fiore, the comicsphere’s preeminent thinkblogger, is doing the linkblogging bit as well! And doing it quite well, actually, pointing to a lovely tribute to Dirk Deppey’s late Journalista blog by Steven Wintle, among other things. (David’s linkblogging entry also has the bonus feature of taking a few well-deserved potshots at Rolling Stone‘s appallingly facile and glib “critic,” Rob Sheffield. However, it loses points for referring to Courtney love without using the phrase “talentless starfucker.” You win some, you lose some, David!)

At last, the dark underbelly of Reed Richards will be exposed! Which is hard to do, because he can, like, stretch it away from you, so it’s tough to lift his shirt up.

J.W. Hastings finishes his long-delayed Moore vs. Miller critical grudge match by comparing the ABC line and Watchmen to Dark Knights 1&2, and believe me, the resulting fireworks were worth the wait. There are so many good quotes that if I were to start posting them I’d end up reprinting the whole damn piece. J.W.’s not going to settle this issue for anyone except himself–this is just one of those questions people will always be asking, akin to “Jaime or Beto?” or “Lennon/McCartney or Jagger/Richards?”–but for one side, at least, he nails it all down. If you like either creator you owe it to yourself to read this.

J.W. (aka the Forager) also puts together a solid syllabus for a course on “Comic Book Politics.” (For the impetus behind this, click here.) Seems to me that you’ve got a couple of options here: You can go with comics that specifically and primarily tackle political crises–by your Spiegelmans and Satrapis and Saccos–or you can emphasize books that use comic-book conventions (primarily of the superhero type) as fuel for satire or cautionary tale–your Moores and Millers and Morrisons. A blend is probably your best bet, and that’s what J.W. comes up with. I’d take his class.

Dave Intermittent submits his two cents about the Brian Hibbs manga/bookstores column which I wrote about the other day. Dave, too, is skeptical of Hibbs’s analysis; he points out that Hibbs uses static information to assess a dynamic entity. Go take a look.

(I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out that a few errors in my piece on Hibbs’s article have been brought to my attention. For example, there are Pantheon-published books in the Bookscan list on which he based his argument–beats me how I missed ’em. Also, it was weak on my part to accuse Brian of superherocentricity, as visitors to his store could likely tell you. In my defense, I’ll say I did it because he started talking about the impact of seriality on sales, and all of a sudden visions of David Fiore began dancing in my head, and superheroes were all I could think about.)

Shawn Fumo points out that manga is now successful enough in bookstores to warrant endcaps (those displays at the end of the shelf that really stand out). Anecdotally, I’ll back this up–in fact, the Waldenbooks in the local mall has their manga endcap on display right at the entrance to the mall, next to the “bestsellers 20% off” one. Could the rumors be true? Is manga selling well in bookstores? (Link courtesy of the suddenly less intermittent Dave Intermittent, who also questions the oft-heard rumor that George Clooney scrapped a Nick Fury movie deal because he was offended by Garth Ennis’s comic-book version of same. You know those Hollywood types–so controversy-averse!)

Last and most definitely not least, Jim Henley writes up a plethora of recent comics releases. Among the books up for review are Farel Dalrymple’s gorgeous and weird Pop Gun War, blogosphere favorite Sleeper, and the frustratingly frustrating Morales & Bachalo Captain America. Cap is a character that continues to vex both Jim and myself–we’re convinced that great things can be done with him, but we’re just not sure how. (For my money, Millar’s Cap is your best bet these days–no, scratch that: Bendis’s version of Millar’s Cap, as appearing now in Ultimate Six, is your best bet, since Bendis lacks Millar’s desire to giggle to his friends, “See, what I did there is I made Captain America an asshole!” Of course, asshole is in the eye of the beholder, as is kickassitude, which I feel the Ultimate Captain America has in spades.) The interesting thing, though, is that while Jim, a dovish libertarian, and I, a bleeding-heart interventionist, are not nuts about the book, J.W. Hastings, who quite comfortably identifies himself as a conservative (I think), really likes the Morales Cap run so far. (Morales lost me in the second issue, when the boilerplate soldiers started talking, as well as when Captain America, who I might remind you is a human weapon who walks around wearing the American flag, expressed reticence about intimidating the enemy.) Diversity of opinion, folks. Ain’t America grand?

A lot of things floating around Ye Olde Comics Internet today just made me kind of sigh, quietly, to myself.

First, we got a look at the cover for the upcoming Joss Whedon/John Cassaday X-Men book, Astonishing X-Men, and whaddya know, but everything New is old again. Yes, it’s revival production of The Pajama Game for Scott, Hank, Emma, Logan, and Jean. (And yes, I said “Jean.” Looks like they’ll be hitting that big red RESET button on Grant Morrison’s run after all.) To paraphrase Yoda, I guess Marvel must unlearn what it has learned. (Caveat: It’s still a lovely cover, and I’m sure it’ll be a fun book, etc etc etc, but this couldn’t feel more like a step backwards if they’d called the book Stepping-Backwards X-Men.)

Second, there’s this Stuart Moore column, which says among other things that people aren’t in showbiz for the money (I’ll just say he must know of a different class of Harvard Lampoon alums than I did), and the following:

If you like Sleeper or Spider-Girl, the best thing to do is to tell people how great it is and why — not to try and trick the company into thinking it can make a fortune off the book if only it would publish the thing in manga-size paperbacks. The company knows whether it

I’m happy to report that the passing of Journalista hasn’t stopped the blogosphere from cranking out some pretty damn strong material over the last few days.

Tim O’Neil gets a Purple Heart for Blogging Bravery: He’s stepped into the void created by Dirk’s absence and churned out a ton of newsworthy links. Tim, my only suggestion is to note the name of the publication you’re linking to when you’re writing up the link, but otherwise, terrific work.

Among the stories Tim links to is the good news that Michigan’s Attorney General has opted to refrain from enforcing the state’s censorious regulation regarding the display of “adult” publications in stores until the case wends its way through the courts. On the bad-news front, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft continues his quest to make sure that no one ever gets randy in this country ever again by bringing an outspoken anti-porn activist into the Justice Department. (And y’know, I was just thinking that what this cash-strapped, militarily engaged, angrily divided country really needs right now is a good old-fashioned culture war!)

Tim (yes, the guy’s on fire) also weighs in with a substantial critique of Milligan & Allred’s X-Statix. I think the series’ high-quality days lasted longer than Tim does–for my money it was great up through and including the point when Guy came to terms with his feelings for and grief over Edie and finally got together with Venus; that’s kind of the end of the story, though, I think–but it’s still worth considering what Tim’s got to say about the book, and whether the aborted Princess Diana storyline would have been any better had Diana actually been in it.

Kevin Melrose also seems intent on working the link-fu. Just click on the fella’s name above and scroll up.

Steven Berg continues his compelling Dark Knight Returns blogging. His two most recent posts focus on Batman’s relationship to his ubervillains–especially the Joker and the ersatz nemesis the Mutant Leader–and how they enable Batman/Bruce Wayne to operate on a transcendental plane of pure justice. Oh, it’s much smarter than I’m making it sound–go check it out.

Steven’s coblogger Rose, meanwhile, goes after the editing, or lack thereof, of Craig Thompson’s Blankets. Personally, I neither noticed nor (therefore) minded any typos or grammatical errors in Thompson’s book, but there is a point to be made here: James Joyce had an editor, but many alternative cartoonists do not.

J.W. Hastings, aka The Forager, looks back on a year of blogging, and tosses in a promise to finally post the essay on Squadron Supreme he promised ages ago. I’m still waiting, J.W.!

J.W. also hands in a slew of tight little comics reviews, including one of the new Marvel Knights Fantastic Four series 4. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know if this is an accurate assessment, but it’s tough to argue with this Forager quote:

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has bought into the myth that what makes the FF special is that they are a family. No: what makes them special is that they are a family who have been granted super powers by cosmic rays and spend their time travelling to other dimensions and defending the world from nasty, God-like aliens.

Testify!

Speaking of killer quotes, submitted for your approval is Chris Puzak‘s lengthy critique of how much sense it makes that, in the Marvel Universe, superpowered mutants are hated and feared, whereas everyone else who can fly or light on fire or throw cars around is a-okay:

But let

The comics blogosphere says goodbye and godspeed to its father:

Bill Sherman

Johnny Bacardi

Big Sunny D

Alan David Doane

Franklin Harris

Jim Henley

Eve Tushnet

John Jakala

David Fiore

Graeme McMillan

Kevin Melrose

Tim O’Neil

Tegan Gjovaag

The Comics Treadmill

Sean T. Collins

Now all we’ve got left is Our Mother. Our nation turns its lonely eyes to NeilAlien….

I spent my Valentine’s Day alone. Actually, I’m spending the whole weekend alone. Amanda is visiting her family in Colorado and I stayed behind to work on things here on the homefront.

What I’m trying to say is that I miss my wife a lot!

Sorry to keep bothering you about this annoying nuclear-proliferation thing, but I thought it should be pointed out that China was involved at the most fundamental levels, too.

So that gives us a nuclear smuggling ring involving Axis of Evil members North Korea, Iraq, and Iran, AofE junior auxilliary members China, Pakistan, Libya, and Syria, “moderate Muslim nations” like Dubai and Malaysia, and amoral companies from Old Europe, created and successfully executed under the “watchful eye” of international institutions like the UN and IAEA. Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but could those bumbling, tragically disaster-prone and wrong-about-everything neocons actually have been, y’know, on to something here? No, you’re right, that’s crazy talk. Back to talking about Vietnam, everyone.

You largely go through groups thinking, well this lot’s alright but it only uses major seventh chords and I want to be in a group that uses ninths and then you get in another group and you’re thinking ahead to a group that uses thirteenths, but this group uses everything that I know about music. That’s great, but on the other hand there’s no one left for me to work with after this one and the logical step is not to be a musician after this one, which is frightening. So hopefully it’ll go for a long time.

There’s a number of groups, fewish number, but a number of groups that are on the precipice in a way, beyond which there’s a blackness, a kind of void, and they’re peering into it hoping that it may go this way, but knowing that it may not go this way at all, it may be completely wrong.

I feel that King Crimson now is one of those groups.

–Bill Bruford, drummer, King Crimson, as quoted in the liner notes to KC’s 1973 album Larks’ Tongues in Aspic

This is not the kind of thing you hear from members of Good Charlotte.

This is awesome. Adults who love one another and are serious about their commitment to living a life together are getting married. Call me crazy, but somehow the threat this poses to Civlization As We Know It escapes me.

Here’s a question: What does it say about our society that loving couples getting married is an act of civil disobedience? I don’t think what it says is very good, that’s for sure. But it speaks extremely well for the bravery and spirit of the couples themselves, who realize their love is important enough for them to seize their right to legally enshrine it.

Whoa.

If you’ve followed the comics blogosphere at all (and presumably you have, or you wouldn’t be here), you’ve seen first-hand how influential, invigorating and inspiring the work of Dirk Deppey has been to those of us following in his footsteps. (Or toiling in his shadow. Or picking at his leftovers. Hey, whatever works.) I’ve said repeatedly that it took Dirk’s relentless and comprehensive blogging to give the comicsphere a focal point, and enable it to reach the level it’s at today. I’ve got no idea what things will be like without a daily visit to Journalista to tie the whole enterprise together, but I’m sure we’ll be the poorer for his absence. Free speech issues here and abroad; editorial cartoon kerfuffles; mainstream-media successes and disasters; manga and its discontents; the bookstores and the direct market; legends and up-and-comers; the Big Five and the SPX set; brilliant and thought-provoking reporting and op-ed pieces; the desire, and the talent, to give comics the journalism it deserves–such was the beat of Dirk Deppey, blogger. He’ll be missed.

The only consolation is that now the most prestigious comics magazine in the country will be in his eminently capable hands.

But for that to happen, Milo George had to be fired, and that’s a bad thing. Milo and I have had our differences over the past few years: As a young upstart making my bones on the Journal’s message board, I found his rhetoric unnecessarily confrontational, occasionally dismissive, and sometimes downright abusive–which was a shame, since it reflected public perception of the magazine all too well. But in time I got to know Milo pretty well. As he explained his decisions and policies to me, I grew to like and respect him and his work more and more. I should have known this might be the case, though, considering I enjoyed the hell out of every issue I bought during his reign. Even where I still disagreed with his approach or vision for the magazine, I appreciated his passion for the medium and his desire to produce the best magazine possible despite an array of uncontrollable and adverse conditions. He tended to be on the right side of Comics Journal conflicts, and I think that the issues produced during his tenure will serve as a testament to this for a long time to come.

I hope that Dirk will be able to build on Milo’s successes, and that he’ll be given the freedom to change what needs changing (and there’s still quite a bit of that). I’ve got a lot of confidence that he will, of course–he’s one of us.

Good luck, fellas!

Now that Dirk is gone, who’s around to respond to articles like this?

In Brian Hibbs’s latest column, the reknowned and respected retailer attempts to debunk the optimistic appraisal of comics’ success in bookstores, and of the power and potential of manga. Without even going in-depth into Hibbs’s numbers, I found quite a few points that simply don’t stand up to scrutiny.

1) The Bookscan sales-stat list from which Hibbs derives much of his argument doesn’t have a single book from Pantheon on it. Not even Persepolis, for pete’s sake, which I can’t imagine did worse than, say, Death of Superman that week. To me this throws the entire number-crunching enterprise into question, not to mention Hibbs’s specific point about artcomix not doing well in bookstores–a point which most artcomix publishers would be happy to refute.

2) I have never, ever, ever before heard a businessman say “the secret to success is ignoring the desires of teenage consumers,” yet this is what Hibbs is telling us. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. I suppose teenagers are “fickle,” but tweenagers and teenagers are also the people responsible for rock and roll, hip hop, blockbuster movies, and the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon. And we’re supposed to say “Hey, let’s not put all our eggs in this basket”? What basket are we supposed to put them in–the dwindling, ageing, insular, 20-30-40-50something superhero audience?

3) Hibbs haphazardly conflates manga format with manga stylistic tropes. For a while, he starts acting like the pro-manga people in the biz want to see big-eyed Superman comics, which simply isn’t true–Marvel’s ill-fated attempts to duplicate manga style seem to have put paid to that notion. Moreover, I don’t think citing ElfQuest stats is an ironclad barometer of what manga-formatted American comics can sell. What if those really good, perenially strong-selling American books Hibbs touts as proof that manga/bookstores aren’t where it’s at–Sandman, Ultimate Spider-Man, Love & Rockets, Transmetropolitan, Bone, and so forth–were put in manga format and sold in bookstores? I doubt sales would decrease, that’s for sure. And naturally Hibbs doesn’t mention the true advantages of manga format–looks more like a book, you get more story for your buck, kids are already used to buying comics that way. This has nothing to do with Asian fetishism–it just makes good market sense. (This mish-mash argument also gave rise, I think, to Hibbs’s dodge of the issue in saying “well, why don’t we ape Calvin & Hobbes instead?”)

4) Hibbs constructs everything as an either/or proposition, when no one is saying “we must abandon the DM for the bookstores right now!” or “we must abandon western-style comics for manga right now!” Even the late, great Dirk Deppey repeatedly said that he wants the DM to succeed, because if it crashes, the whole of the American medium crashes. I mean, duh. Bookstores and manga may be part of the salvation equation, but we’re talking about methodical expansion into these markets, not abandonment of the existing model altogether. Hibbs is arguing with a straw man.

5) Speaking of straw men, who besides the PR people at DC and Marvel actually go around saying that movie successes increase comics sales?

6) Hibbs also ignores the biggest point, I think: Comics have been a sizeable sales phenomenon in bookstores for only three or four years, whereas the DM has been around for decades now. I think it’s safe to say that in terms of non-superhero comics in the DM as it’s currently run, we’ve hit the ceiling years ago. There is a potential for growth of other genres and types in the bookstores that the DM simply cannot match, and as evidence we can cite years and years and years of DM behavior towards artcomix, manga, eurocomics, and non-superhero genre comics. No one is saying bookstores are a sure thing, but it seems safe to say that as it stands now, the DM is an un-sure thing for anything but the spandex set. Also, no one is saying bookstore sales dwarf that of the DM in terms of American comics–quite the opposite in fact. Of course American comics sell better in the Direct Market right now–decades of existence have taught comics fans that this is the only place to go to find them. But that’s right now, and most publishers and creators who aren’t the Big Two aren’t happy with their DM sales. Bookstores have only seriously been selling comics for a few years, and already they’re on a comparable footing on many titles. The point is that there’s room for expansion there, and there quite simply is none in the DM as it stands right now.

7) When Hibbs coyly starts doing the whole “is it a fad? too early to tell” thing, he ignores that unlike other comics-industry boom/busts, this one is content driven, not speculation driven. No alternate covers, no series that come out with one or two single issues and then disappear, no one scrambling to buy the first issue of the next Spawn or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles–these are people (teenagers! kids! female teenagers and kids!!!) buying comics in order to read them. Yes, I suppose that could still be a fad–there’s an unmistakeable element of Japanophilia that strikes me as being faddish–but when kids are actually reading the books, instead of just looking at them and filing them away, these “fads” tend to last. Look at the fantasy boom in young adult literature in recent years. His Dark Materials, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and of course Harry Potter have essentially reinvigorated the entire book industry and created a generation of readers. It’s shocking to me that a leading retailer in comics is telling us that it may well be in our own interest to ignore a comparable surge in legitimate interest in this art form.

8) As for the anecdotal evidence Hibbs cites that says manga sales are akin to periodical sales, well, this hardly merits a response (beyond “oh yeah? Well, I have anecdotal evidence that says they’re NOT! So there!”). But it strikes me as being an unmistakeable product of supeherocentricity. I suppose the logic is this: Since many manga series end at some point, after that ending no one’s interested in buying the books anymore. On the other hand, superhero series go on and on and on forever, meaning that there’s always a new audience getting into new issues of the series and tracking down old collections. But what real relationship is there between the ongoing Daredevil series, say, and the Frank Miller/Bill Sienkewicz collections focused on that character? Do current issues of Superman fuel purchases of John Byrne’s Man of Steel? Moreover, Maus and From Hell and Watchmen have been “over” as series for years and years now, yet people are still buying them. Hell, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and The Lord of the Rings have been “over” for years, and people are still buying them. Ditto Cheers, Monty Python, The Family Guy, Buffy, etc., and yet people are still buying their DVD collections. The point is, manga is a periodical only in terms of its publishing schedule. The information contained in manga does not rely on timeliness for its impact–it’s storytelling, like any other comic. As long as people are able to take a look at the book and say “hmm, that looks interesting,” people will buy that book. I’m sure sales are better when the books first come out–for this we should stop the presses? This is true for nearly everything at this point in this front-loaded entertainment-industry world. Anecdotal evidence from comics retailers about their audience–not exactly indicative of the rest of the world, in case you hadn’t gathered–is insufficent to write off an entire nation’s comics output as, basically, a temporary sales blip, or a flash in the pan.

My computer melted down the other day. It’s okay now. I’ll be back shortly.

Do Josh Marshall and his big-media counterparts have any idea what a bunch of petty buffoons they look like pecking away at the “Bush in the National Guard” story day after day after tedious day? Hint: As much of a bunch of petty buffoons as the people now going after John Kerry for being “inconsistent” about Vietnam, or for being in a photograph with Jane Fonda, or whatever.

There are several offensive things about the way both sides are now gleefully rehashing Vietnam, the most offensive being that we are currently at war, for Christ’s sake. That’s an order of magnitude more important than endlessly battling over the fact that–shock! horror!–two guys may have behaved in a way that would indicate they were less than enthusiastic about the Vietnam War 35 years ago.

It’s also offensive that people are still behaving as though there was a right and a wrong side to that war and the culture war it engendered. Look, it was a difficult time. I wasn’t even there and I could tell you that. Provided you weren’t giving aid and comfort to the enemy, or conversely deliberately mowing down civilians, I pass no judgements on your conduct way back then. Everyone did what they felt they had to do. If in your heart you felt it was your duty to go and to fight, good. If in your heart you felt it was your duty to protest, good. If in your heart you felt you didn’t really want to do either, good. If you used your connections to get you out of the issue entirely, good. If you told the draft board you were physically unfit and spent the next few years skiing, good. If you went to fight and won a ton of medals and then came home and told people the whole thing was a disaster, good. If you went to college in England and thanked your local government in writing for getting you out of the draft, good. If you went and fought and came home and thought you were doing something good for America and the world, good.

Obviously, in a perfect world, the people and armed forces of the United States would have enthusiastically supported a popular democratic resistance to a Communist invasion and guerilla insurgency, and defeated it, and Vietnam wouldn’t have to have suffered under Communism for decades. But neither the people nor the military were supporting the war, and the regime we were fighting on behalf of was not democratic, and the Vietnamese people (in the main) supported the Communists, and in response we blew the hell not just out of North and South Vietnam but every other country on that peninsula. In the present time, ignoring the horrible fate of that country following the Communist victory is a mistake. But so is recharacterizing the War as some sort of noble struggle for truth, justice, and the American way, all of which were in incredibly short supply during the length of the conflict. The war was not fought in such a way that it was a clear-cut battle between totalitarianism (them) and freedom (us)–it was more like a battle between improbably popular but self-evidently murderous and eventually disastrous totalitarianism (them) and well-intentioned but mendacious and horribly executed and eventually deliberately destructive rule by force (us). The fact is that as far as everyday people are concerned, I can understand nearly any viewpoint espoused or tactic taken by American citizens during that time, with only a very few exceptions. It was complex, extremely complex. And more importantly, it’s now over. Let it be over.

And what makes this even more offensive is that the Left has suddenly “discovered” its admiration for military service and begun making hay out of draft-dodging accusations. The hypocrisy is simply breathtaking, considering how they (rightly) defended former President Clinton and former fruntrunner Dean by saying that such accusations were stupid, pointless, divisive, and wrong. (For evidence, look at how stupid the Republicans look for calling Kerry a pinko due to his anti-war activities pre- and post- his tour of duty.) In fact, this is the kind of thing that has led me to refer to the Left as “they” rather than “we,” which not three years ago I would have said, and proudly.

I’m just sick of schadenfreude trumping integrity and ethics in politics. Any kind of attack is unfair, until attacking the other side in that manner will score you some points, at which point anything goes. Whether it’s Vietnam, or affairs, or the way opponents of the Drug War fell all over themselves saying Rush Limbaugh should have the book thrown at him, we’re embarrassing ourselves, and we’ve got bigger things to worry about.

Enough, enough, enough.

I realize we’re all incredibly busy pursuing the important issues–for example, the shocking news that a certain National Guardsman may not have been so enthusiastic during his Vietnam-era term of service–but I thought I might want to take a moment and point out this whole pesky nuclear proliferation thing.

You see, when we invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein–which of course we shouldn’t have done; after all, there are a lot of “bad guys” in the world, and where are the weapons?–we convinced Moammar Gaddafi that pursuing nuclear weapons wasn’t in his best interest. So he announced to the world he had been doing so and invited us to inspect the dismantling of his programs. Which led us to discover that Pakistan had been conducting a nuclear arms bazaar for several years now. They sold nuclear technology and plans to Libya, North Korea, and Iran, and attempted to do so with Iraq (whaddya know!), Syria, and probably other countries. Companies from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, South Africa, Japan, Germany, and Italy were involved at one stage or another. Pakistani President Musharraf has denied that any terrorist groups were similarly approached or involved, even while he pardoned Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who did all the peddling. Reports suggest that U.S. forces have secretly secured all Pakistani nuclear technology and sites–that is, the ones that are still in Pakistan.

Anyway, I know it’s really, really important to make fun of the blundering neocons, and to hold the administration personally responsible for believing the outlandish notion that maybe Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, so carry on with that, but I thought the fact that an international nuclear-weapon proliferation conspiracy has been discovered because of our intervention in Iraq might bear mentioning.

I know, I know. Where are my priorities?

Why have so many people who might reasonably have been expected to support President Bush in the next election suddenly wavered, and even turned against him altogether?

Partially, this is because the Democrats have rejected their rejectionists and selected John Kerry as Bush’s opponent. Kerry, whatever his faults, gives the appearance of being a candidate you can take seriously on national security and foreign policy issues (Bush’s big strong points), which is more than you could say for Howard Dean. (Whether or not Kerry actually can be taken seriously may well be a whole ‘nother story, but still.) Another factor is the relentless “where are the WMDs?” questioning, which of course ignores the forest for the trees, but still (rightly) puts a big chink in the President’s foreign-policy armor.

But the real culprit, I think, was the disastrous State of the Union address. The amazing thing about the upcoming election is that I think it would have been relatively easy for Bush to actually secure the vote of myself and others like me, and he blew it in a big way. The SOTU was a tipping point for liberal hawks–the point at which we realized that for all our hawkishness, we’re still liberals, and the President is not. Ditto for libertarian hawks. Ditto for fiscally conservative hawks. The SOTU essentially caused a lot of Bush’s ersatz supporters to pit one aspect of their political personality against the other, which was the LAST thing he should have wanted to do with it. Because the fact is, we’ve all spent a lifetime being the first half of our respective “_____ hawk” equations, and for the most part have only been the second half since Sept. 11, 2001. The first half has a big advantage in that regard.

But does the second half outweigh everything else? That’s the question that a lot of people are asking themselves right now.

The Dark Knight Returns continues its turn in the blogosphere spotlight. Here’s Dave Intermittent arguing that in DKR (and in the Sin City books), Frank Miller boils his characters down to their essence and then blows that essence up to gigantic proportions. (Sounds about right; and it’s always nice to find another unabashed Miller fan.)

And here’s Steven Berg (again), talking about how only those characters who refuse to judge Batman are allowed to judge Batman, and how Batman’s rogues gallery serve as catalysts for narrative crises in the novel. I’d like to see him flesh these ideas out a bit more (what are the differences between the crises that Two-Face, the Mutant Leader, the Joker, and Superman engender?), but I’m intrigued thus far.

Remember how I just said that the Bush Administration is pitting liberal hawks’ liberalism against their hawkishness?

“BUSH TO DEFINE MARRIAGE: President to endorse constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.”

“Lawmakers who want to appear to be tough on broadcast smut aired on TV and radio also are likely to push for amendments to Upton’s bill. There is talk of amendments that would bring cable programming into the broadcast indecency rubric…” (talk which FCC chairman Michael Powell just echoed during his address to the Senate hearing committee.)

Had enough yet?

On both Imus this morning and his own show this evening, I listened to Chris Matthews hold forth on how The American People want an actual soldier for a wartime president.

In other news, I am currently reading about four-term president and wheelchair jockey Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who I believe may have won a couple of re-elections during a large conflict of some kind.

(or: Light of my life, clogger of my inbox.)

Today I got spam from one “Dolores Hays.” Okay, so they misspelled the last name, but still, what is up with all this literary-themed junk email lately?

Look out, ol’ Johnny is back! Johnny Bacardi has declared an end to his self-imposed exile from the blogosphere and returns to form with a series of posts on the Justin-Janet fiasco, the Beatles, some movies he’s seen recently, and oh yeah, comics galore. Start at the link above and scroll up. Welcome back, Johnny–you’re one of my favorites!

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Brown conquers the comics blogosphere! (I’m fond of exclamation points today!) His self-parody minicomic Be a Man gets rave reviews from Bill Sherman, Big Sunny D, and even J.B. neophyte Dirk Deppey. Having had more than my fill of minimalist autobio cartoonists, it took me a good long time to give Brown’s work a shot. But boy, was I ever glad I finally did. Brown comes across as a sensitive artist type who’ll be the best boyfriend ever if you let him–but, get this, he actually seems genuine! It’s not just a pose he’s adopted to pull birds, which is the sense I get from other cartoonists working in this genre. Moreover, he doesn’t have that cloying, cutesy self-involvement that mars the work of some of his compatriots. Though I haven’t yet read the book, I imagine that Be a Man, like his other gag-strip minis, is evidence of that. Brown enthusiastically mocks his own sad-sack schtick, something that those who take their Sensitive Artiste personae way too seriously are unable to do.

(I also think that the enthusiasm with which Be a Man has been greeted should serve as an example to altcomix publishers that yes, it is worth releasing your Serious Artists’ goofy stuff. Fantagraphics in particular may want to rethink their publishing strategy for not-so-funny-animal artist Jason, whose hilarious gag comics may offset the tragedy fatigue his serious comics might engender in their readers….)

Speaking of hilarious, check out David Fiore‘s simulated interview with Craig Thompson. Hysterical, Dave, but shouldn’t you have thrown the word “antinomian” in there somewhere?

And speaking of Fiore, Eve Tushnet cops to a DFCR (David Fiore Comprehension Rate) of about 50%. She also links to more Watchmenblogging, this time a piece focusing on the formal rigorousness of the novel, by Commonplace Book.

Kevin Melrose reports (courtesy of subscription site Variety) that X-Men director Bryan Singer will be co-writing Ultimate X-Men at some point soon. I’m glad. Singer is good people, and my experience with him and other people on the X-film production team has me convinced that they really do care about the characters and the concept. They ought to be a good fit with Ultimate, the most high-octane of the X-books.

Finally, I just want to say that my handy new copy of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s newsletter, Busted! (the Fall 2003 issue, out just in time for Valetine’s Day), has all sorts of valuable information on the fight for the First Amendment. The Child Online Protection Act, the Jesus Castillo case, Tony Twist v. Todd McFarlane, Fox News v. Al Franken, the Winters Brothers v. DC Comics, John Ashcroft v. fucking–it’s all there. Wait. What’s that you say? You’re not already a member? Well, why not?

(They publish a list of members, you know. So I know which of you aren’t on there. Punks.)

Big announcement for ADDTF today–my brand-new RSS feed is up and running! I don’t have an RSS reader myself, but I’m supposed to give you high-tech types this link, and I guess you can do the rest. (The link is now in the blogroll over to your left, too.)

Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat: Now in syndication!