On the left, an image from a current Marvel comic, relating to their latest cross-over story, Siege.
On the right, the cover for a DVD of a performance of The Wall which took place in Berlin, with a logo dating back to when the concert took place in 1990.
Hmm.
I rather hope it’s a pre-established icon or image which is being re-used here, so do let me know if you know better.
… though I doubt they’ll be the last.
For the record, I have no objection to Brad Meltzer’s work – I really enjoyed The Tenth Justice – it’s the derivative book design I have a beef with. Though judging from his comics work, Brad and I clearly differ in our fondness for Red Tornado. Ah well, tis but a small matter.
It’s almost impossible to conclude somebody didn’t giggle when they suggested the title of this comic to the folks at Marvel.
Probably a good job that search engines didn’t exist at the time. How many innocent comic readers* would have been made to look like a filthmaniac by their Internet History?
*Possibly a contradiction in terms, mind you. I’ve been to enough shops and conventions to know. Oh by jiminy yes.
… you may, like me, have been wondering who did the rather clever depictions of comedians as superheroes.
Wonder no more: Jon Haward did some of them, and jolly well too, I think you’ll agree.
More images, in the form of screengrabs, here.
You have to be careful if you’re marketing a product overseas; we’ve all seen articles about funny-named foodstuffs from overseas which have names like Krappi, Bumm and Peroneum.
Take, for example, this current advert for a fine fragrance:
Leaving the whole Catwoman similarities thing, I’d say the name’s a bit of a misfire for international use; in the USA and many other countries, the Name Ricci Ricci will make many people think of the Harvey comics character portrayed on the big screen by Macauley Culkin…
…which at least has the cachet of wealth, if not necessarily glamour, but in the UK people are probably more likely to hear “Ricci Ricci” and think of –
– Rik Mayall as Richard Richard from Bottom.
And whilst I’m no marketing guru, I’d guess that kind of association is probably not what sells fancy perfume.
Forget the language used, what’s actually most offensive about this cover is Archie’s ability to walk on water.
You wouldn’t get that kind of talk from that nice Carpenter chap with the Mexican name. Shocking.
Obviously, it’s fun for the papers to pretend that the youth of today invented disaffection and nonchalance (a stance which appears to forget the popularity of, say, Brando in The Wild One), and of course it means you can fill column inches with Why Oh Why Oh Why Are The Youth Of Today Impregnating Each Other And Causing House Prices To Collapse? and the like.
However, the shoulder-shrugging lack of interest which young people are often accused of displaying can be traced back many years – to my father’s generation, if not before that; here, for example, is Tommy Walls, a character who appeared in many issues of the classic comic Eagle, including its first edition in 1950:
Like so many of the young people on my television set in modern shows such as Police Camera Action Stop Or I’ll Shoot in HD, Master Walls appears to be showing a lack of respec’ for the official standing next to him, and he doesn’t seem in the least bothered that another member of his gang of street toughs is being put into a police van in the background.
Young people thenadays, eh? Tch.
If you’re not familiar with the webcomic XKCD, I heartily recommend it.
Or, as it’s Sunday afternoon, you might prefer to walk around the world instead.
Spotted at a London Underground station this morning, one of the new posters for Habitat, featuring Helena Christiansen.
The version of the image here is, obviously, much smaller than the one I saw on the wall of the tube station, so you probably won’t be able to make out the detail, but on the huge version it was amusing to note that the penultimate book on the table next to her (the slim brown-spined one on top of the larger white tome) appears to be a graphic novel – or, as many of us would call them, ‘a comic with cardboard covers’.
Specifically, it seemed to be The Little Man by Chester Brown, a collection of his strips from 1980-1995.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it oddly reassuring to think that, at the end of a day’s modelling, Helena likes to sit on a sofa and read about a man sitting round in his pants and listening to the radio and picking his nose.
In a way, it probably provides cosmic balance for all the men who sit round in their pants and look at pictures of models in magazines.
Whoever we are, it seems that we’re interested in the lives of others. As Sartre almost put it, “L’interest? C’est les autres”.
As comic creators go, I have slightly mixed feelings about Chris Ware; I’ve read his Jimmy Corrigan book a couple of times now, and whilst there’s no question at all about Ware’s talent, I have to say that the slightly formal and mannered nature of the art rather defused the emotional weight of the work for me. Rather like having a song of heartbreak sung in a voice so pure and on-note that it loses the human element.
That said, he’s got a terrific eye for design (and indeed general innovation) in print, as is amply demonstrated by his work for the latest issue of the New Yorker magazine – here’s the cover:
Inside, there’s a four-page strip by Ware too, which you can read by clicking here. Worth the clickage involved, if only to see that not all comics are men in capes punching each other through walls.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.
Originally found on Graham Linehan’s blog. Graham knows his comics, as anyone who’s ever seen The IT Crowd will know.
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