Literary Sketches

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Guest Post: Batgirl! The Secret Origin

Brian:  In polite disagreement with the Powers That Beat at DC, Cassandra Cain is far and away the best Batgirl ever (though BQMiller’s Steph book was a lot of fun).  Behold:

dcwomenkickingass:

My guest poster today is former DC Comics’ editor and writer Scott Peterson. Scott was at DC Comics from 1991-1998, and WildStorm from 2006-2010. Scott offered to tell the little known story of how DC came to introduce a new Batgirl into the DCU — Cassandra Cain. HIs post on the secret origin of how a second Batgirl came to be follows.

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Filed under Batgirl Cassandra Cain comics

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THOR!  (Huh! Good god, y’all!)  What is he good for? Absolutely lightnin’! [Brian: His references are OLD.  Adam:  His art is not.] Second of four designs for the summer superhero movies.  This is what Thor should’ve looked like, ‘stead of those boring-ass posters they really used … (Is it just me, or is there an Oeming flavor to this one?) —Brian

THOR!  (Huh! Good god, y’all!)  What is he good for? Absolutely lightnin’!

[Brian: His references are OLD.  Adam:  His art is not.]

Second of four designs for the summer superhero movies.  This is what Thor should’ve looked like, ‘stead of those boring-ass posters they really used …

(Is it just me, or is there an Oeming flavor to this one?)

—Brian

479 notes

Since I’m deviating from theme, I will say that there are only two poems I can recite from memory that don’t start with “Little Miss Muffett …”  One of them is Yeats.  Typed now without looking it up, so the line breaks and punctuation are probably off: POLITICS How can I, with that girl standing there, my attention fix on Roman, or Russian, or Spanish politics? But there’s a traveled man that knows what he talks about, And there’s a politician that has read and thought  and maybe what they say is true of war and war’s alarms but oh that I were young again and held her in my arms. [The older I get, the more things like this resonate with me, from such epic flights as these to the simplicity of Bruce Springsteen’s Girls in Their Summer Clothes.  And, because I feel guilty, here’s the poem rendered properly.] mariposima: f***yeahhistorycrushes: John Singer Sargent’s gorgeous 1908 portrait of poet William Butler Yeats.  Love that lock-of-hair-in-the-eye emo thing he’s got going.  Hubba!

Since I’m deviating from theme, I will say that there are only two poems I can recite from memory that don’t start with “Little Miss Muffett …”  One of them is Yeats.  Typed now without looking it up, so the line breaks and punctuation are probably off:

POLITICS

How can I, with that girl standing there,

my attention fix on Roman, or Russian, or Spanish politics?

But there’s a traveled man that knows what he talks about,

And there’s a politician that has read and thought 

and maybe what they say is true

of war and war’s alarms

but oh that I were young again

and held her in my arms.

[The older I get, the more things like this resonate with me, from such epic flights as these to the simplicity of Bruce Springsteen’s Girls in Their Summer Clothes.  And, because I feel guilty, here’s the poem rendered properly.]

mariposima:

f***yeahhistorycrushes:

John Singer Sargent’s gorgeous 1908 portrait of poet William Butler Yeats.  Love that lock-of-hair-in-the-eye emo thing he’s got going.  Hubba!

208 notes

Brian interrupts the comics-oriented fun to say that he worships at the altar of Louise Brooks and had never seen this slightly goofy, yet enchanting, photo before … I don’t want to make the “I was into her before she was cool” noise, but I will say that ten or so years ago, it was harder to find Brooks stuff. Her “Lulu in Hollywood” was out of print (so I got a library-binding hardcover off eBay — great book, easier to find now) and she was harder to track down.  But I live in Oakland, and the pre-eminent (and virtually only) Louise Brooks site on the web was run by a guy named Thomas who worked at The Booksmith on Haight in SF, and I was able to go down there and buy postcards and whatnot … He wasn’t in the day I hit the store, but it was a cool moment of Internet connection, to have mutual fandom draw me to a physical location, y’know? But ignore me and go watch the Criterion DVD of Pandora’s Box.  It’s everything you wish movies today would be. mothgirlwings: Louise Brooks and an admirer - (1930)

Brian interrupts the comics-oriented fun to say that he worships at the altar of Louise Brooks and had never seen this slightly goofy, yet enchanting, photo before …

I don’t want to make the “I was into her before she was cool” noise, but I will say that ten or so years ago, it was harder to find Brooks stuff. Her “Lulu in Hollywood” was out of print (so I got a library-binding hardcover off eBay — great book, easier to find now) and she was harder to track down.  But I live in Oakland, and the pre-eminent (and virtually only) Louise Brooks site on the web was run by a guy named Thomas who worked at The Booksmith on Haight in SF, and I was able to go down there and buy postcards and whatnot … He wasn’t in the day I hit the store, but it was a cool moment of Internet connection, to have mutual fandom draw me to a physical location, y’know?

But ignore me and go watch the Criterion DVD of Pandora’s Box.  It’s everything you wish movies today would be.

mothgirlwings:

Louise Brooks and an admirer - (1930)

(via mariposima)

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jillthompson: Some of my work from the Manga style Death: At Death’s Door. I think it’s probably still available somewhere, your Local COmic Book Shop, Amazon, a comic convention. Pick it up if you haven’t seen it before. I’m proud of it. It was hard work to do that manga style for 191 pages. But well worth it, at least in my opinion! Jill Thompson.  We are fans.

jillthompson:

Some of my work from the Manga style Death: At Death’s Door. I think it’s probably still available somewhere, your Local COmic Book Shop, Amazon, a comic convention. Pick it up if you haven’t seen it before. I’m proud of it. It was hard work to do that manga style for 191 pages. But well worth it, at least in my opinion!

Jill Thompson.  We are fans.

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Suck — Every Damned Day.

A couple of years ago, Matt Fraction (Casanova, Iron Man) posted on a Warren Ellis message board some great advice for creative folk, phrased particularly for writers:

———————

What would be your one practical piece of advice for getting shit done?

write everyday. if you want the job of being a writer, do it every day. even a little: treat it like a job, not a hobby. i wish i’d done that sooner.

Any tips you might like to share?

get it done. bash your head until it’s done. it sucks, it’s awful, it’s the hardest thing ever. but just let yourself suck; give yourself the gift of sucking, promise you’ll do better next time, and remember it’s always easier to rewrite than to write.

———————

(A bit more on our blog, or scroll for the original post on Warren Ellis’ Whitechapel Forum.)

For Adam, who’s been storyboarding for Warner Brothers and others since the mid-nineties, it’s been easier to find artistic satisfaction.  Good days, bad days, but days in which you’re making a living at the thing you’re passionate about.  For me, it’s been a case of excuses, lack of confidence/ambition/vision, and a retreat into the boring workaday world on the fringes of journalism.

If there’s one thing I learned at San Diego this year … it’s don’t trust publishers who whisper financial sweet nothings in your ear.  If there were two things, the second would’ve been from walking around the Small Press/Indie aisles with Adam, who engages every damned artist on the row:  I ache to MAKE SOMETHING.  I see all these guys, these dudes with their Xeric Grants, or Pixar day jobs, or undistinguished passion for a story or an art form, and I came out thinking, “Jesus Christ, how did I get this far into adulthood without making ANYTHING?”

So now I’m … making an effort.  And still admiring the hell out of the people who’ve been out there doing it while I’ve been collecting the safer paycheck, however small.  I don’t want my epitaph to be, “Hey, he always paid his rent on time.”  With what Adam and I have cooking, I’m convinced I’ll do a bit better than that.  It feels good to finally be ready to get into the game.  

— Brian

Filed under Comic-Con

Notes

Ahhh … Summer superhero movies … we love you!  Except when we don’t!  Observe a forgiving, kind-hearted Warner Brothers storyboard artist and a random journalist pick at the latest in spandex cinema.  Basically, Cap and X-Men had enough magic to power us past the flaws … Thor was a very mixed bag with a charming lead … and Green Lantern was technically a movie. Full scorecard @LiterarySketches.com.

Ahhh … Summer superhero movies … we love you!  Except when we don’t!  Observe a forgiving, kind-hearted Warner Brothers storyboard artist and a random journalist pick at the latest in spandex cinema.  Basically, Cap and X-Men had enough magic to power us past the flaws … Thor was a very mixed bag with a charming lead … and Green Lantern was technically a movie.

Full scorecard @LiterarySketches.com.