Author: Ray Cornwall

Check out the Batman villain masks in this ultra-swinging Gnarls Barkley song.

(Regular posting resumes soon, I promise.)

(from a comment I made on Newsarama):

For the past two months, I’ve been suffering from an unknown malady in my spine, hip, and thigh that has made it painful for me to walk or lay in bed. The condition has gotten so bad that I now have to work from home 5 days a week. I now have a handicapped sticker on my car just so I don’t have to walk far from the car to a doctor’s office (my wife drives). I’ve never drank a beer or smoked a joint, but I have bottles of oxycodone, Vicodin, and morphine to ease the pain. (They rarely work.)

My doctors haven’t been able to nail down the cause of the pain. The guesses have ranged from a herniated disc to cancer to a hernia (one was found, but on the other leg) to degenerative disc disorder (Hi, Speedba–er, Penance!). Nothing’s fit the bill, which means I have to get lots of tests done.

I had two today. The first test was an EMG. This test looks for permanent nerve damage. Electrodes were glued to my body, and I was hit with an assortment of needle probes and shocks from a device akin to a taser. Felt like one, anyway.

The second test involved being injected with radioactive dye and getting strapped to a table for an hour, immobilized, while a camera scans my bones. One of the reasons I can’t sleep is that I can’t keep my leg in one position for more than a few minutes before it starts to hurt. When my leg was unstrapped after an hour, I screamed.

I came home bruised and aching. I really thought my day couldn’t get any more painful.

Then I heard the sound of Marvel editors…rapping.

…

I took more morphine.

(Seriously, Joe, that was a very funny song. Thanks for cheering me up a bit. And as much as I wanted to throttle Paul Jenkins for bringing up spinal injuries in CW: FL, this week’s Marvels took my mind off the pain for a little while. Thanks.)
Sincerely,
Ray Cornwall, whyilovecomics.com

—-
This is why I’ve been quiet, everyone.

(Warning: this article is written under the influence of Vicodin. I see the orthopedist on Friday for the worsening problems in my back and leg. I’m cranky.)

The New York Comic Con is trying very hard to do a better job than last year’s debacle, where they accidentally oversold the show to the public and the fire department shut the show down for a long period of time on Saturday. So far, they’ve done a good job. Not only was I given a refund for my ticket, but I’ve also been given a box of swag and a free Saturday ticket for the 2007 show. I do believe they’re trying to make things better.

But this press release didn’t help. They’ve announced over 140 artists will attend the show…but the list is a bit male-centric. I counted nearly 100 names in the press release, but only four were female (Alison Bechdel, June Brigman, Colleen Doran, and Ramona Fradon). None of the artists listed as making a special appearance are women, and there are no women in the Guests of Honor (not even Bechdel, whose Fun House book has been given every honor under the sun this year).

This year, we’ve seen more comics aimed at audiences outside the traditional young male demographic. Why not invite artists who also are outside that demographic to what might be the biggest show on the East Coast? There are more women making comics than ever before. Let’s get their name in lights (and press releases), too.

Christopher Butcher has the best take on the full-frontal Spider-Man in this week’s Spider-Man: Reign #1 issue. (I’m still waiting for the obligatory "Spider-Nuts" theme song parody.)

The big issue for Marvel isn’t the dangly bits shown in the picture. It’s the lack of quality control at the House of Ideas. How many errors has Marvel let slip this year? Whether it’s showing Spidey’s unmasking in Thunderbolts before Civil War, the inability to determine if it’s the Superpowers Registration Act or the Superheroes Registration Act, Tony Stark saying one thing in Civil War about the permanence of the prison in the Negative Zone and the complete opposite in Amazing Spider-Man, it’s obvious that the editors are slipping up. Heck, they’ve admitted that Astonishing X-Men fell off its schedule not because of the creators involved, but because of the editors!

Back in the 70s and 80s, Jim Shooter was known as the guy who got the trains to run on time at Marvel. I suspect Quesada still thinks fondly of the days when the company was on the verge of collapse, and he and then-President Bill Jemas were willing to try anything to keep the company running. But those days are over. Now, Marvel needs to get the trains running again.