Category Mark Mitchell

Aug 12 2018

Eternity Girl 6: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner and Mark Mitchell

Eternity Girl 6

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Through our research, we discovered a disturbing statistic: 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide due to lack of societal acceptance. The national average is 4.6%. We were not willing to take that risk. For Ryland’s well-being, we were advised to allow him to transition as soon as possible.

The Whittington Family: Ryland’s Story

Drew: I first encountered this video as part of a training session for my job at a summer camp. It’s style, mostly still photos and text, doesn’t suggest a particularly moving experience, but the focus on Ryland as an individual helps pull the statistics in the excerpt above down to the human level. That is, anyone’s half-baked opinions about gender are rendered irrelevant in light of this kid’s very real risk of suicide if not accepted for who they are. Indeed, it’s a case that skirts the issue of gender almost entirely, finding the rate of attempted suicide in the trans community to be a much more pressing issue. These are issues that affect both Dani and Caroline but how they navigate their own choices (and their reactions to each other’s choices) lends further nuance to those dry statistics. Continue reading →

Jul 25 2018

Contemporary Fears in the Near Future of Analog 4

by Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Science fiction stories are often set in the future, but they reflect the contemporary anxieties of the societies in which they’re created. The Los Angeles of Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner was heavily inspired by the modern landscape of Tokyo — it’s bustle and aesthetics cranked way up to sinister levels. As Sarah Emerson notes in a 2017 piece for Motherboard regarding cultural fetishization in the franchise, Blade Runner was a product of its time; in the 1980’s the West was still feeling the effects of an economic downturn just as Japan’s economy began to kick into high gear. Couple that with already high fear of cultural invasion thanks to the ever-present Cold War, and the futuristic dystopia of Blade Runner where, as Emerson writes, “communities are ghettoized beneath Asian-branded skyscrapers” comes into focus.

Unlike Blade Runner, which consciously or unconsciously stoked audiences’ fears for mere atmosphere, Gerry Duggan and David O’Sullivan use Analog to actively exercise their fears about the present. That’s exercise — not exorcise. The internet run amok, neo-Nazis, greed and corruption in the systems meant to protect us, Duggan and O’Sullivan are writing a noir story of the meanest kind, where the rot in society is too deep to be cured and the best one can hope for is making it out alive. There are no solutions to be found in Analog. Jack McGinnis managed to shut down the internet and it wasn’t enough to make things right.

But like any good noir, just because Analog is bleak it doesn’t mean it’s joyless. As someone who spends most of their time tied up with anxiety about the state of the world, I’ve found there’s catharsis in Analog’s pessimism. Have a few thoughtless internet billionaires seemingly fucked everything up for the rest of us? Hell yes they have! Doesn’t it suck how the world continues to get hotter and hotter? Absolutely! Can you believe that we have to regularly talk about white supremecists — like on an almost day to day basis? No, I can’t! Reading an issue of Analog is like going to Angry Liberal Church on a regular basis and I love it. Amen!

For a complete list of what we’re reading, head on over to our Pull List page. Whenever possible, buy your comics from your local mom and pop comic bookstore. If you want to rock digital copies, head on over to Comixology and download issues there. There’s no need to pirate, right?

Jul 6 2018

Catwoman 1: Discussion

by Spencer Irwin and Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Spencer: I’ve only recently become familiar with Joëlle Jones, but it was immediately apparent from her work that she not only cares about fashion, but that she has a real talent for bringing it out on the page. It should be no surprise, then, that fashion — at least in a sense — seems to be one of the underlying themes of Jones’ Catwoman 1. I don’t necessarily mean fashion as in runways and models, although Jones’ take on Selina Kyle could certainly put Tyra Banks to shame — I mean fashion as in the idea of clothing, costumes, and disguises, what they mean to the public, and what they mean to the individuals wearing them. Continue reading →

Jun 27 2018

James Bond The Body 6: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner & Mark Mitchell

James Bond The Body 6

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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You are driving a bus with 12 passengers on it. At the first stop, half of the passengers get off and nine more get on. At the second stop, a third of the passengers get off and two more get on. At the third stop, one quarter of the passengers get off and seven more get on. What color are the bus driver’s eyes?

Traditional

Drew: Misdirection is a simple consequence of our limited attention. We can only focus on so many details at once, so if we’re misled about which of those details are important, we can easily miss what’s actually important. This old brain teaser illustrates the point perfectly, introducing the fact that we are driving the bus as an inconsequential detail before distracting us with a bunch of numerical information that seems like it is probably the point of the puzzle. Only, the solution to the puzzle requires that we divided our focus in the opposite way, remembering the one detail that seemed irrelevant to what we assumed was a math problem. James Bond: The Body 6 does something similar, laying out a detailed explanation of the case Bond spent the previous five issues skirting the edges of while the actual action plays out in the background. It’s a clever trick, disguising action as exposition, allowing Aleš Kot and Luca Casalanguida to play out their final reveal and villain showdown simultaneously, skipping the falling action right to the moment Bond can reflect on his role in everything. Continue reading →

Jun 7 2018

Echos of Grief Reverberate in Isola 3

By Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

We don’t know exactly what transpired between Rook and Queen Olwyn that led them to their current paths, but Isola 3 continues to deepen their connection even as the two are further separated by physical distance. Continue reading →

Jun 4 2018

Blackwood 1: Discussion

by Mark Mitchell and Ryan Mogge

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Mark: It’s pretty insane that we choose which college we’re going to attend based on almost zero context. Sure, you can take a campus tour, read about the experiences of alumni, and maybe even shadow a current student for a day or two, but in the end choosing a college — any college — is an immense leap of faith. This seems to be doubly true of attending Blackwood College, the eponymous school of the occult in Evan Dorkin and Veronica Fish’s Blackwood 1, as none of the students we meet in this premiere issue seem to have much understanding of what they’ve signed up for. Continue reading →

May 29 2018

Doctor Aphra 20: Discussion

by Patrick Ehlers and Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Darth Vader: You are overly fond of talking.
Doctor Aphra: I’m nervous.

-Darth Vader 3

Patrick: Chelli Lona Aphra is a motormouth. She’ll unleash a torrent of words when she’s confident, when she’s nervous, when she’s got something to hide, and when she’s got something to say. It makes it tough to get a read on her, but after 20 issues of her own series and a bunch of appearances in Darth Vader, the reader has the benefit of familiarity. By this point in our journey with her, we sorta know Doctor Aphra. The Imperial chumps trying to probe her for information, on the other hand, don’t stand a chance of untangling the truth. Writer Si Spurrier leverages dramatic irony, both in the form of the reader’s past experiences with Aphra and by contrasting his words with Kev Walker’s art, to dig deeper into the character of Doctor Aphra. Continue reading →

May 21 2018

Delayed Gratification in Avengers 2

by Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Avengers 2 finds writer Jason Aaron and artist Ed McGuinness still trying to explain just what their Avengers book is going to be. Like the premiere issue, Avengers 2 is incredibly chatty, stuffed to the gills with narration, banter, quips, and inner-monologue that try to help explain the presence (and absence) of various Avengers. There’s a delayed gratification aspect at play, and seeing the entire team finally all together (whenever that happens) will no doubt be cathartic, but spending so much ink explaining why this team-up book doesn’t yet have a team is a sometimes frustrating choice. Continue reading →

May 17 2018

Heroes We Can All Relate To in Green Lanterns 47

By Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

I really misjudged Green Lanterns 45. In my write up of that issue I figured Tim Seeley’s story to be primarily interested in teasing out the mystery surrounding the indentity of the murderers who killed Jessica Cruz’s friends, but in truth, the larger “Ghosts of the Past” arc has much more on its mind.

Continue reading →

May 11 2018

Plot, Without Thematics to Match, in New Super-Man and the Justice League of China 23

by Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

It’s taken me twenty-three issues, but I am finally coming to terms with the kind of book New Super-Man is, versus the book I want it to be. What it is is a plot-driven book that smooths over its rough patches with sheer momentum and the clever mash-up of Chinese folklore with DC mythos. What it is not is interested in meditating on the themes it employs to drive its plot. Continue reading →