Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak

My kids are probably among the last whose family gets a daily newspaper with substantial, if somewhat dated, funny pages. (As I learned by reading his Twitter feed today, the 14-year-old gets a particular kick out of the absurdity of Mark Trail.) And of course, having access to their dad’s comic book collection, they’re familiar with a lot of superhero history as well. In fact, if there’s one area of classic literature that we’ve slacked off on, it’s … classic literature. OK, I’ve read them Kafka’s cool story about a guy who turns into a giant cockroach, but given my homeschooling policy of skipping all the stuff that most students forget as soon as they’re out of high school, we’ve managed to avoid some staples like The Scarlet Letter and Crime and Punishment.

Well, it looks I’ve inadvertently hit upon a solution. I had never heard of the artist and writer R. Sikoryak before I came across his collection Masterpiece Comics in a college bookstore. But it seemed like something GeekTeen John would enjoy, so I asked Montreal-based publisher Drawn & Quarterly for a copy. Apparently, I was right.

Here’s the GeekTeen’s review:
It seems like a parent’s dream: a comic book based on classic plays and books. This dream has become a reality with the new book Masterpiece Comics. Masterpiece Comics is a collection of comics by R. Sikoryak that is a mixture of classic comics like Blondie and Little Lulu and classic literature like Macbeth and Crime and Punishment. The mix actually works very well; both mediums manage to compliment each other without losing anything in the process.

From Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak

The stories in the book are very varied and diverse. Some of the stories include “Mephistofield” a Garfield version of the old German legend of Faust, and Superman becomes Albert Camus’ character in the 1942 novel The Stranger.

I thought the book was very good. The art is almost identical to the comics they’re parodying. I liked how Sikoryak made the comic characters fit the classic characters they represent. The only problem I found with this book is that I didn’t know some of novels and comics, but that didn’t really deter my enjoyment of the book.

Masterpiece Comics is good for teens and up. There is some nudity [Mom's Note: Think Blondie and Dagwood in the Garden of Eden] so it’s not for young kids. You also might want to have your kids read the novels before or after reading this book to understand it more. At the very least, this book will inspire your kids to start reading the classics.

As always, the first episode is free, so if you didn’t check out Robot 13 the first time around, here’s your chance to try it for yourself. You can watch the trailer on YouTube or in the embedded player below:

Download Robot 13 from the iTunes store.

Cover to Birds of Prey #1, Second Series

Happy Comic Release Day!

I picked Birds of Prey this week for two reasons. The first is that the canceled series is being relaunched this spring with Gail Simone as writer and Ed Benes as artist, a team also responsible for the comic’s definitive run.

The second is that this book is the one that brought me back to comics.  I’d lost track after a cross-country move and the birth of my twins. When I finally had a chance to venture into a comic shop, I found several issues of BoP and was hooked. It’s also the comic guaranteed to interest my kids. I’ve given the trades to all four of them and all pronounced it wonderful and mourned with me when the title was canceled.

For most of its publication history, the comic has been written by only two writers, Chuck Dixon and, later, Gail Simone. Dixon’s run pulled me in and Simone’s writing took it to another level and kept me reading even after my favorite character, Black Canary, was pulled off to another book.

Summary:

The core Birds of Prey team is Black Canary, Oracle and Huntress. All three of them were somewhat forgotten characters given new life in the series.

Oracle is Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, confined to a wheelchair after being shot by the Joker. Not letting that stop her, Babs sets herself up as the information specialist in the DC Universe. Black Canary is one of the oldest DC characters and one of the few not created as an adjunct to a male character. But that hasn’t stopped writers from shoving her to the background in lieu of her lover, Green Arrow.  Helena Bertinelli aka Huntress is a character that was created to replace the popular alternate Earth Huntress who was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. She’s generally been treated as a third, fourth or even fifth wheel in the Batman books.

All three band together as an espionage team that operates underneath the superhero radar. During Dixon’s run, lots of forgotten DC characters showed up. Simone’s run specialized in giving panel time to forgotten female heroines, especially Zinda, Lady Blackhawk, who became the team’s pilot.

This is a street-level comic,  fast-paced, loaded with wonderful dialogue, memorable villains and some of the best panels of hand-to-hand fighting in the DC Universe.

What Kids Will Like About It:

This comic makes my kids smile. The characters face serious problems and threats but they’re not angsty about it. They tackle it head on and with a sometimes dark sense of humor. If your kids watched the Batman: Brave and the Bold episode that featured Black Canary and the Justice Society, the Black Canary in this book is very close to that portrayal.

Also, my twins love the new teen character, Misfit, created by Simone, and Misfit’s exuberant battle cry of “Dark Vengeance!”

What Parents Will Like About It:

I love that it’s one of the few mainstream superhero comics that features female friendships. The main trio might fight and bicker but they’re not just a team, they’re family.

I should mention for the men that the artwork has always been top notch, from Butch Guice to Ed Benes to Nicola Scott. There are times when it gets a little too cheesecakey for my taste but not, I suspect, for most of the adult male readers.

Best Panel:

So hard to choose from a run over one hundred plus issues, so I pulled one of my favorite covers instead:

Birds of Prey #5, First Series

Extras in the Trade:

Alas, I haven’t found much extra in the trades of the series offered by DC. However, I did want to list the trades that include my favorite stories:

Birds of Prey: Old Friends, New Enemies. Collects the first six issues of the original series.

Nightwing: The Hunt for Oracle. When he was writing both Nightwing and Birds of Prey, Dixon wrote a great crossover which resulted in Black Canary and Oracle’s first face-to-face meeting. I think it should be in a Birds of Prey trade but, alas, it’s in the Nightwing collection.

Birds of Prey: Sensei & Student. Black Canary takes center stage as she vows to upgrade her skills and avenge the loss of her mentor. It features the enigmatic female assassin Shiva.

There are seven trade volumes of Simone’s Birds of Prey run. I’d recommend them all.

About the Creators:

Chuck Dixon at one point was writing three Batman-related comics in the 1990s and writing them all well: Nightwing, Birds of Prey, and Robin. He also created Stephanie Brown aka Spoiler who had a short career as Robin and after a death that didn’t take, is currently starring in the new Batgirl series as the title character.

Gail Simone was offered work writing comics after being spotted as the writer of the You’ll All Be Sorry parody column on ComicBookResources.com. You can find her in either the Wonder Woman or You’ll All Be Sorry forums on the same site. I wrote a column earlier this year about her work on Wonder Woman.

Erfworld: The Battle for Gobwin Knob

Okay, I know, “Geekiest Comic Ever” is a big claim to make, considering there are other comics like “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.” But I had to get your attention somehow, right? And Erfworld is incredibly geeky in a fantastic way. (As opposed to geeky in a sci-fi way.) Here’s the plot: in the magical realm of Erfworld, the Overlord Stanley the Plaid has basically killed off all his warlords in battle due to poor strategy. His spell-caster Wanda suggests they buy a spell which will summon the perfect warlord from anywhere in the universe, a military genius who will save them from certain defeat. So they cast the spell and who should appear but Parson, an overweight strategy gamer from Columbus, Ohio.

Parson reminds me a little of the character Eli Wallace on SGU. Here’s a man-child who is obsessed with spaceships and science fiction, and he finds himself on a starship hurtling through space. Yes, it’s a bit worrying and, yes, they could all die. But he’s on a frikkin’ spaceship! Parson is a bit like that, only with a gaming obsession: he finds himself inside a world similar to his strategy games. And while it takes him a while to accept that it’s actually happening to him, he quickly warms to the task and starts plotting strategy. (And this even after he realizes that Stanley the Plaid is, to put it bluntly, the bad guy. Parson doesn’t mind.)

Riding a "dwagon" to Gobwin Knob.

The comic was originally published online under a Creative Commons license, and you can still read Book One: The Battle for Gobwin Knob online. (I will warn you: when I first went to check out Erfworld to see what it was about, I wound up reading the entirety of Book One in one sitting, staying up until about 2 a.m.) There are all sorts of tongue-in-cheek allusions: from Charlie’s Angels to the Eyebooks, magic books which the characters use to communicate with each other via a system which is, well, instant messaging, complete with a “Quack” noise when a new message is received.

The sound effects are absurd and hilarious: from the “Fer-Durrrp!” of the bugles to random words reinterpreted as onomatopoeia: “Golem!” for the appearance of, well, Golems, and “Decrypt!” as the sound of somebody being raised from the dead. The names of things are cutesy: “dwagons” and “gwiffins,” and they all look cute, too, even the giant vicious teddy bears. But then, in the midst of all the adorable stuff a warlord gets an arrow through his head, or a giant marshmallow peep gets bitten in half by a dwagon. The artwork is a good match for the writing, with its own mixture of bitter and sweet.

Android users, scan this barcode for the Erfworld app

It’s hard to describe the breadth of geekiness contained in Erfworld; I’m not even a strategy gamer but it sucked me in. And now, thanks to Robot Comics, it’s available as an app for the iPhone, iPod touch, or Android phone. The first episode is available for free, and later episodes will be available for $.99 each, released one per month. (Book One will be broken into 13 episodes, and the first two are available now.)

And for those of you who have already read Erfworld Book One, Book Two is now well underway on the website.

Wired: The best sort of humor: one that satirizes and embraces its subject matter at the same time. Robot Comics’ app has an easy-to-use interface and allows you to read Erfworld on the go.

Tired: You may not want to wait a month per episode once you start reading.

Calvin and Hobbes: you can't read just one.

Like many others of my generation, I grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes in the newspaper, and it quickly became one of my favorites. In hindsight, I was much more like Susie (bit of a nerd, teacher’s pet, overachiever) than Calvin, but I loved his imagination and thought he was tremendously funny. And, of course, to me his parents were ridiculous caricatures. I thought the dad, especially, with all his talk of “building character” was just a big goofball. Even three years ago, when I read through the entire ten-year run in about four months, I still related more to Calvin than his parents.

Well, now I’m the dad of a  six-year-old daughter who is discovering the joys of Calvin and Hobbes for herself. We have a few of the books which she’s already read countless times, and when we got her another one for Christmas she read it straight through five or six times, squealing with delight. (One of her favorites is the strip where Calvin and Hobbes run the toilet paper into the toilet and flush it repeatedly. I’m hoping she doesn’t try it herself.)

Going back and reading them, I’m discovering the real brilliance of Bill Watterson: I’m finding that I’m actually relating to the adults. They really aren’t two-dimensional characters; on the contrary, a lot of their reactions to Calvin’s shenanigans seem quite familiar. Personally, I think I’m turning into Calvin’s dad: aside from a slight superficial physical resemblance (I have short dark hair and wear glasses), I’ve also become a cyclist in the past few years. His frequent rants about crazy car drivers could be coming out of my own mouth. I make my own kids do stuff in the name of character-building. And honestly, how would you react if your kid hammered nails into the coffee table?

I do like to tease my daughters about things, occasionally to the point of extreme irritation, and I love explaining how things work (although usually truthfully). And that occasional sarcastic streak which shows through usually during Calvin’s poll reports is something I share, too. My attitude towards camping, however, is closer to Calvin’s than his dad’s.

There are a number of comic strips that I used to enjoy when I was younger—I’m ashamed to admit Garfield probably tops the list—but have since outgrown. And there are those that I really didn’t get at all until much later (Zippy the Pinhead, for instance). But Calvin and Hobbes is one of those that has consistently kept me laughing, and I love hearing my own daughter giggling over my old books.

Next time, maybe I’ll explain how reading Doonesbury as a teenager turned me into the only liberal in my family.

Related links:

Jenny Williams recently wrote an excellent review of Looking for Calvin and Hobbes.

Someday I’ll get myself a copy of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

Read Calvin and Hobbes online at GoComics.com.

This means Harry Potter gets in because all the movies belong to the 21st century. But Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel started in the 20th century, so we excluded them. No worries, Joss Whedon, Dr. Horrible made the cut.

Websites were trickier, given how much frequently they update their content, so we did not enforce start dates on them.

Overall, the big winner appears to be: Pixar!

Pixar appears to have nowhere to go but up.

There was also a heavy dose of Star Wars among the geek kids’ favorites. Not the prequel movies, but various videogames and the Clone Wars cartoon, which had the nice effect of bonding old-school Star Wars geek parents with their kids in many geek homes. And, under comics, we noticed that many independent creators made the list for producing some awesome books and strips that appeal to all ages, including Owly, Girl Genius and Bone, none of which originally came from the big publishers.

Note: Game consoles were put together with the toys, while the accompanying videogames went under, well, videogames.

And now, onto the lists:

Best Movies

Best Books

Best Toys & Videogames

Best Websites

Best Television

Best Comic Books

Best Music

Cover Image from captaincanuck.com

Eddy Smet was a professor at UWO’s Huron college for 30 years as well as owning the Comic Book Collector, a London, Ontario comic store.  Smet has been actively hoarding classics for over 40 years and the donated collection, which approaches 10,000 items, was recently appraised at roughly $100,000 (Canadian) -or roughly $94,000 US- making it the largest and most valuable collection of this nature ever donated to a Canadian university.  According to the Western News, UWO will be receiving Alan Moore’s complete Watchmen and Swamp Thing, along with the first 14 issues of Canadian icon Captain Canuck, among thousands of other treasures.  Congratulations to my alma mater, UWO (sounds like I should have waited a decade or two and pursued a degree in pop culture instead) and kudos to Eddy Smet for his generosity.

Cover Image from captaincanuck.com

Eddy Smet was a professor at UWO’s Huron college for 30 years as well as owning the Comic Book Collector, a London, Ontario comic store.  Smet has been actively hoarding classics for over 40 years and the donated collection, which approaches 10,000 items, was recently appraised at roughly $100,000 (Canadian) -or roughly $94,000 US- making it the largest and most valuable collection of this nature ever donated to a Canadian university.  According to the Western News, UWO will be receiving Alan Moore’s complete Watchmen and Swamp Thing, along with the first 14 issues of Canadian icon Captain Canuck, among thousands of other treasures.  Congratulations to my alma mater, UWO (sounds like I should have waited a decade or two and pursued a degree in pop culture instead) and kudos to Eddy Smet for his generosity.

It still amazes me when cool stuff like this happens to us, but I’m not one to look a gift-muskrat in the mouth. Starting Monday, Dec. 21, GeekDad will be happy (nay, ecstatic!) to start presenting the thrice-weekly geeky comic joy that is Dork Tower, by John Kovalic.

If you know of Dork Tower, then you’re already squee-ing in excitement right alongside us. If you don’t know what Dork Tower is, then either you’re about to add a new layer of happiness to the Photoshop composite of your life, or you’re slowly beginning to realize you didn’t click through to the Monkey Bites blog.

From the official Dork Tower website:

DORK TOWER is for anybody who’s ever been burned being an early adapter; who have more Twitter tweets than actual Twitter followers; who’s ever gone to a Star Trek convention; who’s ever played Dungeons and Dragons; who suspects Anime is more than just a passing fad; and who’s been fragged by a Gravity Hammer in Halo III – or anyone who KNOWS one of these people. But it’s REALLY for people who know what the hip social networking du jour site is; who has bookmarked thinkgeek.com; who’s memorized every lyric to Jonathan Coulton’s ouvre; who’s cataloged which Classic Trek episodes involved the Prime Directive; and who knows the names of six people and a cat that make regular appearances in Wil Wheaton’s blog. And, of course, it’s for people who know that HAN SHOT FIRST!

DORK TOWER the multi-award-winning story of Matt, Igor, Ken, Carson the Muskrat (yes, he’s a muskrat) and Gilly, the Perky Goth. They’re trapped in a world they never made… but are nevertheless striving to create a realistic yet playable simulation thereof!

Dork Tower has, in its decade of life, existed as a standalone comic book, a featured comic in Dragon, Scrye and Games magazines, and one of the earliest regular webcomics online. Its creator, John Kovalic, is also the illustrator and co-creator of world-renown games Munchkin and Apples to Apples. But perhaps his greatest creation is his new daughter, whose existence has transformed him from a simple, Bruce Banner–like comics and game illustrator, into a hulking green(bay) GeekDad. Which is where we come in.

So please, let’s all extend John a warm (but slightly clammy) welcome to the GeekDad community, and thank him profusely for sharing Dork Tower with us, so we can help share it with the world!

This week, I’m looking at a series that is part of the reason I fell in love with comics:

The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.

copyright DC Comics

I collected this on first run starting in 1980, though I lost track of it when DC decided to shift the new stories to a deluxe Baxter edition only for comic shops. (A move that sometimes gets pointed to as a key one in the eventual disappearance of comics on newstands and in spinner racks.)

Summary:

Long-time DC sidekicks Robin, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl are joined by Beast Boy, a member of the lesser-known Doom Patrol, and three new characters: Starfire, a powerhouse alien princess, Cyborg, the son of a scientist who saved his life with mechanical grafts to his body, and Raven, a mysterious witch who is the catalyst for forming the team.

At the time, I suspect no one at DC expected much of the book. There had been a short Teen Titans series a few years back by Bob Rozakis that petered out.

This new version, though, quickly became a runaway hit and not just because of its wonderful action and pacing.  The group became a teen version of a family, complete with squabbles, romances, and betrayals. It’s impossible not to care about the Titans because they care so much about each other.

And along with the new heroes came formidable new villains: Deathstroke the Terminator, Brother Blood and Trigon, among others.

That the artwork featured comics legend George Perez at the top of his game was the icing on the cake.

There are four beautiful hardcover archive editions of New Teen Titans. Though they carry a retail tag of $49.95, I was mostly able to find them for $35 and below with some careful use of search engines.

There are also some trade paperback editions available, such as The New Teen Titans: Judas Contract, which collects the most famous arc by Wolfman/Perez but I much prefer the archive editions, especially since they occupy my kids longer.

What Kids Will Like About it:

Basically, it’s pure superhero fun and they’ll like it for the great action, the artwork, and how the team works together.

My younger son was already familiar with the team from the Teen Titans show on Cartoon Network, which draws heavily from this series. Though some of the plots are re-arranged, and the artwork is different from the manga-style cartoon, the characters are all essentially the same so if your kids enjoy the show, they’ll like this too.

I handed the first archive edition to my tech genius son this weekend to keep him out of trouble and it was such a hit that I had to grab it out of his backpack yesterday morning. Every time he brings books he likes to school, he gets distracted from his schoolwork and it causes trouble with his teachers. I figured a comic he likes that much is worth a post, especially at the time of year when parents are looking for gifts.

Will I Like It:

I re-read the first two archive editions when I bought them for my oldest son a few years back and was pleasantly surprised at how well they hold up. The stories are tightly plotted and suspenseful, the characters three-dimensional, and it’s fun as an adult to watch the characters grow and change, especially as Dick Grayson morphs into Nightwing.

I also liked that there’s a strong moral undercurrent to the series. Killing is out. These heroes make mistakes but they are still heroes.

And there’s a whole new appreciation for Perez’ artwork when you’re a bit older. He has a fondness for poolside scenes with bathing suits, both for the male and female members of the team.  Yet, somehow, it never looks cheesy. But very, very pretty.

Best Panel:

I just spent half and hour thumbing through Volume One and it was very hard to decide on just one panel. The whole series is full of such great art and great covers. But I’ll go with my favorite panel:

Starfire the alien princess takes a shortcut in learning the English language by kissing a very surprised, then pleased, Robin. I’m a romantic at heart, apparently.

Extras in the Archive Editions:

Volume One has issues #1-#8 of the original series but it also includes the first appearance of the team from DC Comics Presents #26, and full page pinups of each Titan by Perez.

About the Creators:

Marv Wolfman and George Perez also collaborated on Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. The maxi-series merged all the DC universes into one world and set the tone for DC stories for years to come. (And that’s a story I would also recommend. Despite it’s complexity, my kids read it as a stand alone and loved it.)