365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)
Showing posts with label CBLDF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBLDF. Show all posts

Sunday, February 16, 2014

T-shirt #332 - CBLDF - Frank Miller - Fight Censorship


T-shirt #332 - CBLDF - Frank Miller - Fight Censorship

This is a weird cheat. Hello from the future. When I originally posted this blog entry on February 16th, 2014, all I had were pictures. See here the shirt from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. In one picture, you can see the matching signed print, by Frank Miller, over my left shoulder. Then another two shots shows the print on my office wall, both close up, and among the other art work hung there.


I created this blog entry during a busy time in my work schedule (teaching classes) and my class schedule (taking classes). And so I just posted the pictures and a note about the incomplete nature of the entry.

However, since then, I have ended the blog year, as I did on March 21, 2014, and though I plan to finish all incomplete entries on the blog and write new ones, this is the first finishing since I closed down the daily transmissions in March.

Since then, I have read and reviewed The Ten Cent Plague and posted the review to my other blog, which, seems to me, to be the perfect content for this blog entry.

ENJOY.

- chris from the future






The Ten Cent Plague book review

I have owned The Ten Cent Plague for six years, having bought it when it was originally published. It's one of those books that I have wanted to read very much, and so it has held a place in various "to read" book stacks for several years. You know the ones. At first, it's in the newly purchased books to read stack. And then it gets shuffled out of the stack of the recently purchased and yet continues to find its place in the entire book case I have devoted to "books I want to read." Not that I have confined all of my unread books to one book case (three shelves), I have several other "to read" areas in my home, which, if you are reading, this blog, then you surely understand as you probably have such devoted places, too.

Okay, smart aleck. Yes, some of you have quite given up your "to read" stacks of actual, physical books printed on paper. But I bet you have a digital book wish list or a "to read" folder on your reading device. Since I consider myself a comic book maven, a serious student and appreciator of the art form, I had to purchase The Ten Cent Plague. I still like actual books on paper, and though I consume a few in digital form, I still prefer the heft of a book, especially a hardcover edition, and the smell and feel of paper. But my reading of actual books, in the old method of scanning words on the page with my eyes, has been substantially reduced. For one thing, my reading time is limited, even though I carve out just as much of it as possible. Comic books, sports writing, game materials, and other assorted interests further reduce my available time to read actual books on actual paper with my actual eyes.

(SIDENOTE: In fact, I am just about to take about three hours for Baseball and reading, one of my favorite activities on a Sunday afternoon.)

And though I try to apply myself to a few nonfiction books per year by "reading reading" them, my term for actual reading in the old fashioned sense, I never manage to get through as many as I wish. But when I see a book on Audible or Amazon as available as an unabridged audio book, it's likely that such a book will rocket closer to the top of my "books to read" stack. I "read" about 90-95% of the books I consume per year in audio form. Or rather, listening to audio books has increased my books read per year by almost ten times. Even so, I have a back log of "books to read" in my audio folder, and like the actual stack, The Ten Cent Plague sat in the virtual stack for quite some time as well.

Whichever kind of reader you are, I am sure you understand how a book can orbit your attention span and your active reading habit for several years, caught in the gravity of your interest but just out of reach of being snared and brought to earth, your reading pulpit. Such is the case with The Ten Cent Plague by David Hadju.

I just finished this one the other day, and I have to give it my highest recommendation. Because of its focus on the content of comics in the late 1940s and 1950s, the cultural war waged against them, and the emergence of Mad Magazine, with deft writing and strong research, David Hadju has written an impeccable and riveting examination of this time period with The Ten Cent Plague. Comparisons to World War Two abound, and though some extra information about what followed this tumultuous time period would have improved the content, overall, this is an excellent book. Most reviews seemed to concur. I checked Amazon, as I usually do, to see the reviews, and I was pleased to see that the five star reviews (33) far out-number the others: four star (19), three (5), two (four), and one (3). As always, there are some idiotic reviews that could send me into a tail spin if I let them. There are idiots who cannot understand how this well-written, well-researched book has so many positive reviews (while even admitting that the book is well written and researched), but I can ignore these, especially if I do no more than glance at them as I did.

Since I listened to this one, it played on my iPod player in my house off and on for weeks. One time, overhearing the narration concerning some civic action groups motivating against comic books, my wife said "is this for real?" That the crazy, fascist-like activities of the post-World War Two do-gooders, who had recently helped to free the country of the potential tyranny of the Third Reich, would pursue the same blinded, fear-driven crushing of freedom and support of censorship seems completely insane, and yet it happened, even though the story of what happened seems almost fictional today. Chalk this one up in the "how soon we forget" category along with the flu pandemic of 1918 and other horrors.

"I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry," wrote psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, famous for the the 1950s exposé The Seduction of the Innocent, which "indicted comic books as a leading cause of juvenile delinquency" (Hadju pg. 6). "The time has come to legislate these books off the newsstands and out of the candy stores."

Looking back, the comparison between Nazi Germany and comic books seems absurd as it and the whole witch hunt of the comic book industry seemed to my wife when she overheard me listening to David Hadju's The Ten Cent Plague. But these were serious allegations in the post-World War II era of the late 1940s and 1950s as Americans had to step lightly around accusations of Communist infiltration and influence as well as the mounting hysteria over the stalemate of the Cold War. The new Hitler was entirely invisible and far more insidious, and yet Americans wanted the same easy fix. Removing the Nazis and Hitler (as well as the fascist regime of Italy and Japan) from Europe healed the world. But there were threats that were not just camped on the borders, they were invading and attacking. Hitler had swept through Europe, and the Nazis were bombing England, before they were defeated. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and threatened the American Way from the other direction. With these threats eliminated, the protectors of the good, decent, and true spirit of freedom wanted another tangible and invading enemy to stamp out of existence. Like the "Communist Party," comic books became one of those enemies. And though comic books were not as crushed into defeat as the Nazis, the industry shrunk dramatically and one company, EC Comics, basically ceased all production.

The battle became the young versus the old. As television and rock and roll became more prominent and popular, comic books became the first big battle for young people versus their parents with class, money, taste, religious dogma, political agendas, and these new art forms as the battleground and ammunition.

At the height of their original heydays (starting in the post WWII 1940s), comic books led the pack in America as the most popular form of entertainment, selling an astounding 80 to 100 million copies each week. Some 650 titles were released each month, and the industry employed around 1,000 writers, artists, and editors (Hadju, pg. 5).

After the original volleys of superhero books spewed forth from publishers, comic books took a turn, striving to attract older audiences, those who devoured the old pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s and the many dime novels with their lurid covers and "adult" themes. Leading the way in this new wave of comic books was EC, Entertaining Comics, headed by the genius William Gaines.

Soon, the shelves were filled with comics devoted to crime, horror, science fiction, and romance. By the end of 1952, nearly one-third of the comic books on stands were devoted to horror and the "macabre" (Hadju, pg.189). Most others were romance and crime-related as the taste for super hero titles waned. Leading the way, EC published the most extreme material, which is still some of the best comic book work in the history of the genre to this day. But in during the "Happy Days" era of the 1950s, the subject matter proved disturbing to the old school establishment adults who had lived through the Depression-era followed by the Second World War. Focused on horror and crime, EC's comic book were gruesome, featuring severed heads, unremitting killers with no remorse, and plenty of blood. The stories also emphasized sex, displaying women in diaphanous negligées, visible cleavage or tight clothing with art work that focused closely on the bust, and overall realistic drawing of women rendered beautifully. The artwork depicting the women were suitable for pinning up. In addition to romance, there plenty of "jungle girls," such as Matt Baker's Tiger Girl and Jerry Iger's Sheena (Hadju, pgs. 157-58).

Publishers competed for readership with increasingly more shocking and extreme imagery and story lines. Stan Lee, then working for Timely, described the problem best: "the horror craze was a challenge for the average publisher because you had to come up with new ideas for every story... not everybody could do it...book came and went because they petered out. The editors couldn't sustain the interest, so they used a lot of tricks to get the reader's attention" (Lee as quoted in Hadju, pg.190).

At the time, under Lee's stewardship, Timely was the most successful publisher in 1952 with sales half again as great as next competitor Dell and double that of National/DC. Still, publishers scrambled to outdo each other, gain readers, and match EC's success.

If a character had his neck slashed in February, in the March issue a character would be decapitated. In another issue, a human head would be used as a bowling ball, and in another, a woman would roasting her husband's body parts (head, a leg, hands, feet) on a barbecue grill.

Such content sparked a national campaign against comic books, the biggest loser of which was EC, who was driven virtually out of business except for one publication, Mad Magazine (more on that one in a minute). Like millions were massacred in WWII, comic books suffered a gutting in a cultural war that left hundreds of talented artists scared off or even blacklisted. The national crusade against the "corrupting" influence of comic books led to bonfires of comic books sponsored by churches and schools and eventually a Senate hearing that most abused William Gaines and EC.

Scrambling to stay in business, the comic industry chose to self-regulate and created the Comics Magazine Association of America in 1954, watchdogging its product by promoting "wholesomeness and virtue" (Hadju, p. 319). In the CMAA Code, the police were never to be depicted with "disrespect," no comic book could use the words "horror" or "terror" in its title, and all "lurid, unsavory, or gruesome illustrations" were forbidden. The depiction of the "walking dead, vampires, ghouls, werewolfs, and cannibals" and "words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings" (whatever that means) were forbidden (Hadju pp. 291-292). Many comic book companies turned to "cute" books to survive the backlash against its more popular and adult titles. Harvey came to prominence in this era with Casper the ghost among others and oddly "Hot Stuff," even though the main character was an actual little devil, complete with horns, a tail, and a pitchfork (Hadju, pg. 315)

Between 1954 and 1956, more than half the comic books on the newsstand had disappeared (Hadju, pg. 326). The number of titles dropped from 650 to 250. By the end of 1955, EC discontinued all its comic books, keeping only Mad, which became Mad Magazine, since magazines were not subjected to the same regulations as comic books by the CMAA.  Five other publishers went out of business completely: Star, Sterling, Toby Press, United Features Syndicate, and Eastern Color.



"Everybody was punished," said Carmine Infantino (who died last year as I featured in my T-shirt blog in shirt #20 devoted to the Flash). "It was like the plague. The work dried up, and you had nowhere to go because comic were a dirty word, You couldn't say you were a comics artist, and you had nothing to put in your portfolio. If you said you drew comic books, it was like saying you were a child molester. It was a nightmare, especially for a lot of people who got into comic in the first place because, you know, that was where we could go" (as quoted in Hadju, pg. 326).

And yet, Mad Magazine survived the tumult and even thrived as the few comics that remained held their ground awaiting the resurgence that would start in 1961 with The Fantastic Four. Robert Crumb expressed the power of Mad well: "it was really the coming together of everything that was great in EC and some of the other comics before the Code... Here was a publication making fun of highly respected American institutions in the square, military, post-World War II environment and doing so in a crude, weird way... It countered all the stifling, goody-two-shoes fifties-propaganda totalitarian vision that was put forth in the media, the schools, and everything. A big of its appeal is that it was so strange and esoteric and outside of this mainstream" (as quoted in Hadju pg.333).

Mad debuted before the national crusade decimated the comic industry and stayed on to thrive. The first issue of Mad debuted in August of 1952. From the beginning, Mad was "giddy adolescent fun" (Hadju, pg. 199). However, Mad was not an instant hit. At first, the first four issues, lost money. And then, it all clicked.
"Mad became a forum to mock all of American culture; ... it took aim at adult society with the weaponry of the schoolyard: funny faces, cat-calls, relentless silliness, rudeness, and cruelty" (Hadju, pg. 215). The defining artistic force that helped Mad  out of the red and into the black was Will Elder. He called the element he brought to Mad "chicken fat. Gaines maintained that Elder "defined Mad's approach to humor as pure mayhem. Idiosyncratic, indulgent, digressive, and uneven but uniquely potent in its accretive effect, Elder's work was wholly American art, a rough counterpart to the majestic, overstuffed improvisations of Walt Whitman or Charlie Parker, transferred to the literature of the playground" (Hadju, pg. 217).

EC also produced a companion humor comic to cash in on  the success of Mad like so many other publishers who aped it with their own knock-offs in 1953.

If there's a negative to Hadju's book, and I hesitate to give it one, it's that the take ends abruptly with the death of EC (except for Mad Magazine), and Hadju spends very little text on what happens next. The follow-up to the success that Mad Magazine has is cursory and filtered through an interview with Robert Crumb, which is all well and good as a start but fails to do justice to the place of Mad Magazine as a cultural paradigm shift and defining force. Likewise, Hadju devotes very little text to the recovery of comics in the 1960s. Granted, neither of these follow-ups convey the story he wished to tell, but more epilogue follow up and some well-reported facts would have capped off The Ten Cent Plague in a better way.
Nevertheless, I give The Ten Cent Plague five stars without hesitation. It is an excellent book, and even well narrated as an audio edition.

As a final note on the cultural war against comics in the 1950s, there an ironic connection that can be made between the war on comic books and an immensely popular science fiction novel. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 came out in 1955 showing a frightening future in which books were outlawed and large bonfires were set ablaze to destroy the illegal "thought-crime" texts. Three types of publications were so beneath contempt by this future government as to escape the fires: trade journals, pornography, and comic books (Hadju, pg. 303-304). Coincidence or Bradbury's parting shot after years of working in comic books, providing stories for adaptations by EC Comics? Whatever the case, the bonfires of comic books in the 1950s now seems like fiction, as my wife asked while over-hearing this book: "did that really happen?"

MY OTHER BLOG WORK ON THIS AND RELATED SUBJECTS

I have a few blog posts over on my t-shirt blog about censorship as listed here:

T-shirt #63: Comics Code Authority

T-shirt #159: Save smut! CBLDF shirt one

T-shirt #254 - Fight Censorship: Chester Brown

T-shirt #332 - CBLDF - Frank Miller - Fight Censorship (this one is incomplete)

Maybe I should also post this text there back in the past. :-)

I devoted a single post to EC Comics on the t-shirt blog (though more to come):

T-shirt #156: EC Comics

I also wrote about  Mad Magazine twice on my t-shirt blog:

T-shirt #92 - Mad Magazine (first Weekly Comics List post!)

T-shirt #264 - Alfred E. Neuman Faces

To conclude, a cover gallery of some EC gems, some Matt Baker art (romance and Phantom Lady), and assorted others, including a bunch of Mad Magazine covers not featured on my t-shirt blog.

COVER GALLERY

 























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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1407.06 - 11:39

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 33 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1402.16 - 20:15
updated - 1402.17 - 19:42
final publication - 1407.08 - 10:21

Saturday, November 30, 2013

T-shirt #254 - Fight Censorship - Chester Brown

T-shirt #254 - Fight Censorship - Chester Brown

Another Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) shirt. This one by Chester Brown. I wrote about the CBLDF last in T-shirt #159: Save Smut!. I like the CBLDF shirts. I own several, and I am contemplating buying more (or asking for more as gifts).

Though I did not specifically mention the CBLDF in T-shirt #63: The Comics Code Authority, I added it to my CBLDF category because the learned that the shirt was produced by the CBLDF.

I also explored some of the issues related to banned comics in T-shirt #156: EC Comics.

I find it interesting that when I posed for a picture with my Save Smut shirt, I grabbed Chester Brown's most recent book Paying For It, which is a great graphic novel and treatise for legalization of sex work (namely prostitution).

I have always been a big fan of Chester Brown and have read everything he has produced, including collecting all the back issues of his comic book, Yummy Fur. Though many people point to Ed the Happy Clown as Brown's best work, I am most found of The Playboy, which I recommend highly. However, I do think that Paying For It, given the depth of his research and the exploration of the subject matter may be his best work now. I am going to reprint here what I wrote about Paying For It in the previous post and about the CBLDF in general. I am still sort of in holiday vacation mode. Though I do have some comic book round up and some comments on this week's comics to share. I promise more new content on CBLDF with the next CBLDF shirt (I currently have two more in the closet). But I do think there is value in presenting material I already wrote again. I know there are a few of you dear readers who have read everything (which blows my mind, thank you), but I know others are hit and miss. So maybe, you missed this other content. Here it is again.

Chester Brown's book Paying For It is an excellent graphic novel on Brown's experience as a "john," a customer of sex workers. It's a beautiful and compelling book with review quotes from Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Robert Crumb (who wrote the introduction), Sasha, and Tracy Quan. It has an extensive afterword and appendix filled with notes, essays, and various content on issues related to sex work and legality. I give this book one of my highest recommendations. It is surely a book that would (and has) come under fire and needs the CBLDF to defend it. More on Chester Brown in a future blog.

I already featured one CBLDF T-shirt without realizing it. T-shirt #63: Comics Code Authority was produced by the CBLDF.

I already explored some of these issues with banned comics and censorship, especially as related to EC Comics in T-shirt #156 as well as T-shirt #63: Comics Code Authority.

If I have not made my position clear yet, I am very opposed to censorship in any form. Censorship is a slippery slope. Though being unequivocally against it may put me in shark-infested waters when it comes to some materials involving children or small animals, in general, I would rather uphold a strong anti-censorship stance to uphold the rights of everyone because there are far more products that others find objectionable--and are happy to censor or burn-- that I do not.


Check out these stories on CBLDF

Obscenity Case Files: Is a book store owner responsible for all the content in her shop?

New Zealand Library refuses to carry Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls.

On the recent ban in Japan of the mangaBarefoot Gen

And, another thing, I like smut.

RESOURCES

CBLDF SITE

HISTORY OF COMICS AND CENSORSHIP (part of CBLDF) - Part One
(There are six parts in all and this is great reading!!)

EVERYTHING NEIL GAIMAN HAS POSTED ON CBLDF

Digital Commons Case Study on CBLDF



SOME COMIC BOOK ROUNDUP

I have been reading a lot of comic books lately. Big surprise. One book that fell into back log was Wolverine. I had SEVEN issues of the comic piled up in my back log, which I finally plowed through a week ago. Marvel has been going a bit "berserk" with its Wolverine products with three books devoted to the most popular of the mutants. I had been picking up issues of The Savage Wolverine, when they featured Frank Cho art and swiftly dropped the book when Cho left the book. I bought issues of Wolverine and the X-Men during the Battle for the Atom story as I mentioned in T-shirt #218 and T-shirt #229, in which I reviewed the last issue of the massive crossover.






Since Wolverine did not crossover with the Battle for the Atom story, and since artist Alan Davis stepped away from the comic for three issues, I let the title stack up in my back log. When I read all the issues, I found renewed interest in the storyline, in which Wolverine is fighting a mind-controlling virus from the microverse that manages to take away his mutant healing power. Suddenly mortal, Wolvie is in a world of hurt, quite literally. Alan Davis has always been one of my favorite artists and Mark Farmer's inks make Davis' pencils more beautiful, if that's possible. Paul Cornell's writing is deft and smart. Suddenly, this book has jumped high on my radar and hit near the top of the list next time the book comes out.



The New 52! Teen Titans comic book has been a dreadful disgrace. As I have reported on many occasions, I am a huge Teen Titans fan from way back. But this book is awful. Though not quite as awful as recent issues of Superman (because no comic could be as bad as that one), the comic has been a confusing mess. I am not even sure I understand what is going on, and the relationships and subplots have been handled with all the writing skill of a sledge hammer being used for cracking an egg. UGH. Stay away. Though I will keep buying the damn book because it's the Titans, and I am an insane geek.

The All New X-Men #018: It's time for them to go home. At first, I liked the idea of bringing the original X-Men back to the current landscape from the past. But their story has outlived its usefulness. Now it seems like its hanging on to provide Marvel with one more X book in its glut of the industry and to be able to keep the original characters alive and well in the current landscape despite the jeopardy it is causing to the history of the characters and those comic book stories.

Granted, the comic is still well written by Bendis, who, as I have said, is in such a renaissance for his career that I think he is doing his best work ever, and lovingly drawn by Stuart Immomen, but the stories are losing their punch. Though having the originals confront Magneto, who when the originals last met him he was trying to kill them, is worth exploring, other stories like the Cukoos harassing Jean Grey seem rather pointless. And then, in the recent issue, #018, they give the originals new costumes, which sort of violates the whole idea of having the old costumes around as a means of keeping trademarked images alive and current.
I like Immomen (and Bendis) too much to stop buying it and reading it. But send them home already. Enough is enough. This is like the HOUSE GUESTS THAT WOULD NOT LEAVE.

Send these annoying teenagers packing.

'Nuff said.


I would not say I am a big fan of the Luna brothers. I like Ultra enough to teach it in my last semester as a Media and the Sexes instructor. But I had mixed feelings about Girls, which I may or may not explore sometime in the blog.

With the newest offering, Alex + Ada, one Luna brother is out and replaced, ostensibly, by Jonathan Luna's girlfriend, Sarah Vaughn. Okay, fine. The story involves a future world in which robots have become common place in servile and manual labor jobs but can also be purchased as companions as Alex's boozy old tart of a mother explains "Who knew an android might be the best lover I ever had."
My reaction: Eeeeewwwww. And: "Oh relax. He's kind and attentive and says all the right things."
Hmmmm.
At the end of the comic, Alex arrives home from his birthday party, alone and single, mourning the loss of his last girlfriend, to discover that his mother bought him an android, a beautiful woman named "Ada."

Again Jonathan Luna is playing with male fantasies in much the same way as he did in Ultra and especially with the beautiful, naked clone women of Girls, and though this is more sophisticated and less exploitative than Girls (most any story would be), it's still quite a bit the stuff of fan boy masturbation. Stay tuned. I will keep reading and keep reporting.

JOE'S COMICS

I like JMS also known as Joe Straczynski. I liked his Spider-Man, I liked his Thor, I liked his Superman stuff. I adored Babylon Five.

So far, I am not thrilled with his Joe's Comics line.

Granted, I have Ten Grand in my back log, which may be the best of the bunch. Sidekick has art by Tom Mandrake, which is a plus, but the story is a bit dodgy and has more Femme Fatale type manipulation, which will get most fan boy's rocks off. Tom Mandrake, who draws in Gene Colan vein (one of my favorites as I have made a category all his own) almost makes the experience worth it. Almost. I have seen JMS do better writing. Likewise Protectors Inc. is also ho-hum. I added this comic to my stack of comics to recap and just glancing at the cover, I cannot think of one thing I remember of it. Gordon Purcell art looks nice. Purcell is swiping Dan Jurgens, which he does well enough. I flip through the comic and I only have the vaguest sense of having read it. Not too engaged.


Lastly, Batman #25. I wrote about the previous issue in T-shirt #217.

GOOD STUFF!!

I love the Zero Year thing. DC was very smart to start New 52 a few years in and fill in back story with zero issues and Zero Year tie-ins as well as books like Action Comics, which originally explored the early years of Superman's career. Batman #25 continues the early years of Batman's career, after the Joker's origin, detailing the first Riddler story, an early version of the Bat mobile (seen below), the inspiration for the Bat Signal (by Jim Gordon), and a great final twist, which I will not reveal here (though it deals with Lucius Fox). You have to read the comic.

Batman continues to be among the best DC titles.






WEEKLY COMICS LIST

Because The Walking Dead is coming out every two weeks, issue 117 lands the same week as Aquaman, and I have to make the tough choice. The Walking Dead continues to win the top spot in my stacks. Kick Ass drops from its previous spot because of the two aforementioned books (it was second back in T-shirt #225). Likewise, following from the previous posted link for 225, Superior Spider-Man stays highly ranked because the story is strong. I liked the end of Infinity well enough but it's hardly the best idea for a crossover in Marvel history. It was all right, but I am glad it's over. The whole thing left me a bit underwhelmed. Likewise, with New Avengers, I think Hickman is trying to do too much and not doing anything well enough.

And that's all I have read so far. More later. Tomorrow's a big reading day.

COMICS FOR 1311.27

The Walking Dead #117
Aquaman #25
Kick-Ass 3 #5
The Superior Spider-Man #022
Infinity part six of six
New Avengers #12
The Flash #25
Hawkeye #014
Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril #5 of 6
Saga #16
Black Science #1
Uncanny Avengers #014
FF #014
Nova #010 (supposedly #100)
All New X-Men #019
Heist #003
Avengers Arena #018
Cataclysm: Ultimate X-Men #001
Catwoman #25
Sidekick #4
Teen Titans #25
Superman #25

BACKLOG

Uncanny X-Force #014
Sandman Overture Special Edition #1 
Buck Rogers #2
Buck Rogers #3
Indestructible Hulk #016
Codename Action #2




SPECIAL PURCHASES

Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne (volume one)




Nowhere Men volume one




Stark Industries R&D T-shirt (Preview of a future shirt!!)



COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR: 111 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1311.30 - 13:49