$3 Diorama: Skirmish in the Sand

On the back rack of the thrift store I frequent are plastic bags of random toys thrown together as set for (usually) $2.99. As an art project, I plan to pick up a bag now and again and try to incorporate all the contents into one meaningful diorama. 

Blade and an FBI agent, with the support of Army Rangers, 

engage with well-armed skeletal aliens

Ka mea nona ka moʻolelo

Just about seven years ago, I was vacationing in Hawai'i and made this blog post back on what I believe was then still called The Last Shortbox. My more recent trip to Maui got me once again thinking about Hawai'ian superheroes - or more precisely, mainstream superheroes in Hawai'i.

Through Google, I found a PSA that appeared in DC Comics right after statehood (see here) but this is the earliest image I could find that has a major costumed character in the Aloha State - the Batplane flying across the islands. Unfortunately, I don't have anything more than the image: the panel appears on the DC Wikia page and in several aviation-oriented galleries of Batplanes, but I have no idea what Batman and Robin were doing in Hawaii. (They must have brought the Batplane over on a boat or in a bigger plane, right?)

Speaking of Wikia, both the DC and Marvel crowdsource databases have entries on Hawai'i - and neither one is very informative. The Marvel page has some details about WW2 era adventures around Pearl Harbor and name-checks Captain America, Sub-Mariner, and Nick Fury; the only other reference is a note that the Black Widow spend some time in a hospital on an unspecified island.

The DC page doesn't have much more to offer. There are some almanac facts and a lot of references to people and places from the Superboy series. It doesn't explain or even mention that Batman visited there. The links page, though - "Appearances of Hawaii" - contains some promise. The first link, Detective #29 seems a little too early for the Batplane story have appeared there, and the summary doesn't help clarify at all. Wonder Woman #15 from 2008 is listed, and counts Hawai'i among the locations of the story, as does Aquaman #5 from 1995. There are a couple of issues of Wildcats and Green Arrow in the mix, and even a Comedian from the new 'Before Watchmen' series. It does seem that a lot of DC characters have made trips to Hawai'i.

My search did turn up one great Hawai'i sequence with a well-known DC Character: from Swanderful, a tumblr dedicated to the art of Curt Swan (and the tumblrator's perceived homoerotic content therein), comes this episode of Superman himself intercepting a space whatsis that is heading toward Honolulu. My guess is that this page is emblematic of most such visits to Hawai'i: some background images and few local geographic references layered over whatever crisis or combat comes next in the plot. Although to be fair, I guess that's not an uncommon treatment of any real-world locale in the DC Universe, or in the Marvel Universe outside of New York.

The main island hero, of course, remains Superboy, who was based in Hawai'i for issues 1 through 48 of his series, from 1994 to 1998. I tried searching the awful, awful DC Comics site to see if this series had been collected in a TPB; as far as I know, it hasn't. I'd like to give these issues a look-see, but I am torn: the Hawai'i connection intrigues me and it would be interesting to find out how this new Superboy (about whom I know next-to-nothing) went from the faux-punk, leather-jacket, earringed, little wiry dude from the Death of Superman to the squared-away, tight-tee-shirt, buff-bro Teen Titan he appears to have evolved into. However, from what I read on Wikipedia and such, his continuity seems way too confusing for a poor ol' Bronze Ager like myself to follow.

Anyway,  the Superboy series apparently did showcase what sounds like some predictable Hawai'i/DCU features: KONA Broadcasting, S.T.A.R. Labs Honolulu, Kulani Prison (to provide escaping super-villains, naturally), and the Silicon Dragon gang in the (real) Mamala Bay neighborhood. And readers did get to meet some Hawai'ian supporting characters - or at least characters who were from Hawai'i - Tana Moon, a KONA reporter, and Sam Makoa, a federal agent.

Superboy also got his own Hawai'ian nemesis: Silversword, the superpowered identity of Arnold Kaua, a museum curator who accidentally bonded with some "animetal" that gave him silvery shape-shifting super powers. I find this character (the bit that I know of him without seeing the comics themselves) a bit problematic, especially as he is apparently presented as an overzealous defender of Hawai'ian culture (a lot of DC villains are overzealous would-be good guys, aren't they?). First of all, a silversword is indeed a rare Hawai'ian plant, but its name is a Western construct. To native Hawai'ians, it is āhinahina or "very gray" - neither silver nor swords having any place in traditional Hawai'ian culture. So while the character design for Silversword is meant to call to mind King Kamehameha, his very silveriness and the fact that uses his animetal powers to create European-style weaponry instead of spears or shark-tooth clubs weaken the character concept for me. I might have gone with some living koa super-wood instead of alien animetal for Kaua to bond with.

Man, I do hope there is actually a TPB of this Superboy series so I can fill in all my imaginings. I'd even struggle through the tangled continuity.

Wandering away from mainstream superheroes for just a little bit, it seems that lots of comic folks do like to vacation in Hawai'i, usually creating the opportunity for a cover that features aloha shirts, bathing suits, or both.

Of course, we should look at homegrown Hawai'ian characters as well - and there are some. But that's a post for another time. Aloha.

Re-search: the Eastern Western

Chambara or chanbara describes a genre of Japanese cinema: specifically, what most of us would likely call "Samurai movies." The name literally refers to "sword-fighting" movies; someone saying that they like chambara would be in many ways like an American saying they liked Westerns.

I didn't know this term until I stumbled across this delightful re-envisioning of the Justice League by illustrator Alex Mitchell:

(Here's the original deviantart page and full-meal-deal on Project Rooftop)

Like other good cross-genre interpretations, the designs seek to find the key, core elements of each character and manifest them through different tropes. "A child of dragons, raised by peasants" is perhaps the most economical re-imagining of Superman to 17th century Japan: it captures his alienness, his power, and his grounding in the common man. I'll let you explore the materials yourself, and you really should; both the concepts and executions are consistently wonderful.

One illustration in particular caught my eye: that of the chambara Wonder Woman. There was some dim echo in my brain as I looked at the image, and I couldn't let it go. My google-fu was strong enough to eventually track down the source of the tickle:

I don't know where I would have run into the image on the right: 19th century Japanese woodblock artists are not usually on my radar, and this is Ishi-jo, wife of Oboshi Yoshio, one of the "47 loyal ronin," an 1848 print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the series Seichi Gishin Den. (Thanks, wikipedia.) The resemblance is certainly striking.

I don't know that Mitchell used this image a reference; it's likely that he did, since Ishi-jo was an onna-bugeisha, a sort-of female samurai from the upper class, a description which certainly fits the character of Lady Incredible. Whether or not this particular image was the source, Mitchell's re-creation of its sensibility, or rather his blending of that sensibility with a Western comic-book aesthetic, is extraordinary.

I just love this whole work, exquisitely detailed in idea and image, and it deserves a wide audience.

$3 diorama: Seize the Witch!

On the back rack of the thrift store I frequent are plastic bags of random toys thrown together as set for (usually) $2.99. As an art project, I plan to pick up a bag now and again and try to incorporate all the contents into one meaningful diorama. This is the first attempt.

Magneto and a weaponless Lara Croft capture a strangely-proportioned witch. 

The Oeuvre

Way back in the stone age days of blogging - I'm talking spring of 2005 here - I decided to try my hand at a comic strip. It was going to be one of those slice-of-life observation strips of the kind done so well by Karen Ellis in her Planet Karen comics. (And you could spend a few hours very well reading her entire series.) Of course, since my cartooning skills are, shall we say, underdeveloped at best, I used an online program called Strip Generator from out of, I think, Slovenia. It looks like that site has turned into a thriving little community of creators, but when I stumbled upon it, it was a little no-English-spoken web backwater with fairly rudimentary cut-and-paste tools. Still, the work looked lots better than I could have done freehand, so I made some characters based on myself and my cronies and started distilling some social exchanges down to two-panel gags.

I only lasted about a half-dozen entries before something broke the spell/distracted me/discouraged me/whatever. Recently, I came across the original jpegs of the strips while looking through some old files, so, lucky followers, here's the He is a Thark Achive Edition of The League of Public Domain:

(click to embiggen)

There you have it. Perhaps it's just as well that this is all of it.

Veterans Day

The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."


Both Joe Kubert and Kurt Vonnegut were veterans.

Rebel without a Cos(play)

Nu,  I attended GeekGirl Con recently and have been seeing Halloween displays pop up in stores already, and so my thoughts naturally turned to masquerade, costumes, and cosplay. In pursuit of artistic integrity, I wrestle with certain issues when it comes to fancy dress, especially in the realm of superhero and other comics characters, based in what I look like.

First, here's a relatively superheroic shot (and I didn't pose for this with this blog post in mind: that's just how I stand naturally).

Okay, it's certainly not an eight-heads-high heroic figure, but enough to not embarrass myself in costume -- if I eschew the lean-mean or hypertrophic characters and go for someone stockier. In my younger days I could go for a pre-blue-fur Beast, or maybe a Kirby-stye Thing if I could figure out how to do the rocks.

Okay, but all right, Mr. Demille, I'm ready for my close-up:

Here's where it gets dicier. I usually wear glasses, but I can lose them for the costume, since I only need them to, like, see and stuff. I keep my head shaved; I could grow back a tonsure or Picard-fringe, but at this point, that's all you're going to get. And I wear a doorknocker beard that I probably wouldn't shave for casual cosplay.

So, within those restrictions, what are my best character choices for a costume? I mean it's not just the bald part - that's a fairly low bar, what with Lex Luthor and J'onn J'onzz and so on. It's the bald and bearded requirement that gives us trouble.

My RPG buddies all agree on the Loremaster character from the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. I have to admit that I see a  resemblance in the face and even the expression. I could grow my beard out or get extensions, and I could even wear my glasses. But I think most people would just think I was a crappy Dumbledore; I would have to spend the whole time explaining the difference between Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, and I am not sure I want to go there.

Perhaps more widely known is Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon. With a little Grecian Formula and perhaps some wax, we could be good to go with this. But I really want to go heroic, not villainous, and I'd like to avoid the whole racial stereotyping issue as well (although I guess later incarnations of Ming made him a lot less "Asiatic" and more generically alien). And if possible, I'd like to go with a comic book character.

My recent choice for profile pictures and avatars and such has been Vulko, the science adviser/prime minister/whatever to Aquaman and/or Atlantis (depending on which version of continuity currently holds sway in the DC multiverse). Once again, I think the resemblance is there; but Vulko is really not recognizable to anyone. Although cosplaying the sidekick to a superhero whose name has become the very definition of lame might be the height of po-mo irony, I'm not sure explaining that over and over would be much fun.

All right, here's a bona fide hero: Green Arrow. Specifically, the old Green Arrow from The Dark Knight Returns. The character is popular enough, even getting his own TV show now. Of course, DKR Oliver Queen just looks like an old one-armed hippie carrying a bow and arrow, and only the hardest-core comics fans will even get it.







Okay, let's quit fooling around: right now, the biggest name in the superhero arena with the general public is, of course, The Avengers. That's where we have to go: if you pick an Avenger, you can't go wrong, right? Now, if only there was a stocky, balding, bearded Avenger...

Oh, wait - there is! Doctor Druid!

Dr. Druid began his career in 1961 as Dr. Droom, and in those early days of Marvel Comics, when creatures like Fin Fang Foom and his ilk were around every corner, he was a run-of-the mill monster-hunter. Eventually, he realized that Dr. Droom was a stupid name and changed it Dr. Druid, which is slightly less (or maybe actually a little more) stupid. In the seventies, he started showing up as a guest character in The Hulk and Ghost Rider (Hey, they both had movies, too! And sequels!) and joining the mainstream superhero jamboree. He hit the big time and became an Avenger in 1987. He went on to a long career as B- or C-list hero, and then all kinds of Epic Events® started happening, and he stopped calling himself Doctor Druid and became just Druid, because apparently that's purer and spookier or whatever and who cares because he was killed. Until he comes back. Because that's the way continuity works these days.

I'm sorry, where was I? Oh yes - my costume. Dr. Druid FTW!

Of course, I'll still have to explain myself to everyone.