J. Scott Campbell: Ruining Your Fairy Tales

J. Scott Campbell is making a calendar that will go on any fanboy’s inside bathroom door especially if they watched a Disney movie praying for a Nip Slip.  Fucking disgusting.

In this post, I examine some images from J. Scott Campbell’s 2010 calendar with Fairy Tale princesses as sex objects, and I discuss the complete ridiculousness of ever trying to appear like a decent, fair person when you have this “artwork” on your track record.

Recent Stuff

People who know me may recognize that I don’t always seem there; that there’s some separation between me and reality.  I feel it.  I feel like I’m detached from what’s here on this world and I just live in my head which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Nevertheless, I have something that could be seen as a problem in which I don’t fully feel emotions.  I’m not exactly sure how to explain it because it’s something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time but more heavily recently.

I feel like I know how to react in specific situations and that I respond to stimulus with preprogrammed ways because I’ve watched people and I know how they work on the basic level.  So, I know how to react to them.  This may be through acknowledgement, comforting, anger, sadness, happiness, laughing, etc.  Through my detachment, however, I don’t actually feel these completely.  Sometimes, not at all.  I just do the emotion.

Frankly, I’ve mastered the blank, longing stare.

It’s been troubling me because I feel like I can connect with people on an interest and emotional level, but I can’t fully comprehend the idea of being completely 100%… or even 75% up front with people about who I am.

It sort of feels like I’m running through an AI program from an outside source and I can destinguish myself and my own, personal world from this one.

Granted, I’d like to consider myself a scholar.  So, I feel like living inside my head allows me to gain knowledge and insight.  Part of my problem is that I come up with great, complex, workable ideas, but I can’t fully convey them to others.  The communication (ironically since I’m a communication studies major) of my ideas to others loses something of the original, solid idea.  It’s like fools gold.

Without the stimulus material from the outside, I’d probably just live inside my head most of the time.  And yet, there’s something deeply rooted in me that craves human attention, emotion, bonding, etcetera.  That part of me did not extinguish no matter how hard I tried once upon a time.

So here I am in a narcisistic Catch-22: I prefer living inside my own thoughts, but I crave other people’s attention.

However, I expell so much of my emotional energy on helping those close around me.

I sort of block myself from others by bastardizing my words and saying directly mean things about people or things that typically offend people.  Those few others who stick are the ones that can put up with who I am and accept me and are my friends.

Overall, I’m stuck with the problem right now of not having any friends here at college excluding my sister and Megan.  Sure, I have Kelsey (who I met with today) but that’s a Kennedy memorial flame of a friendship (which we decided to add more fuel to).  I’m just so judgemental of people that it’s hard to let down the barriers.  Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever let down the barriers to myself for anyone.  Anyone.  I don’t even know if I’m in the clear on that one.

Also, I don’t have anyone (so far) that shares my same interest in the scholarship of comic books.  It’s hard to find a non-fat, male, adolescent who likes comic books.  I want to study these things and have intelligent conversations about them with at least one friend without talking about which artist draws a better female bust like your atypical comic shopper. 

So, how do I go about finding friends?  I’m sort of desparate right now.  Fuck, I even thought about posting flyers around with comic book characters and some witty lines on them to catch people’s attention in my same interest area.  For the most part, I don’t have really any release.  I’ve managed for a long time to release my emotions by pondering issues in my head or by enveloping myself into someone else’s story.  That time… is drawing to an end.

Who can share my same sense of adventure and exploration as well as scholarly inquiry? 

Sure, I understand that there’s no perfect friend and I can’t create a clone of myself anytime soon, but I don’t even know how to go about building a friendship anymore.  It’s just something I haven’t done for over a year.

I don’t know where to go from here.  I don’t have that many people to turn to.  I don’t have any master plan.  I just have myself – which, before this time was enough.

How can I feel accomplished anymore without somehow sharing myself with others?

I’m lost and lonely without a real sense of direction to bring myself to some sort of conclusion, and now I’m resorting to stating my feelings on my fuckin’ blog without any heed to grammar. 

I crave for something beyond me, and it just seems like a wall of a plastic-like substance is obstructing my pathway; I can see where to go, but I can’t get past the wall.

Comic Book Sales Estimates for October 2009

I figured I’d just share some insight and opinions on the recent sales estimates released for October.  Keep in mind, these are estimates, but some pretty phenomenal stuff happened for DC in October.

Qty Rank	Index	Price	Pub	Title	#	R	Est Sales	Prev Issue	Prev Issue Est Sales	Delta	Delta %	WL
1	192.03	$3.99	DC	Blackest Night	4		137,054	3	140,680	-3,626	-2.58%	1
2	142.25	$2.99	DC	Batman and Robin	5		101,522	4	106,844	-5,322	-4.98%	0
3	141.88	$2.99	DC	Green Lantern	47		101,264	46	103,588	-2,324	-2.24%	0
4	121.46	$2.99	DC	Blackest Night Batman	3		86,687	2	91,373	-4,686	-5.13%	0
5	113.92	$2.99	DC	Green Lantern Corps	41		81,309	40	83,049	-1,740	-2.10%	0
6	109.57	$2.99	DC	Blackest Night Superman	3		78,199	2	78,707	-508	-0.65%	0
7	107.31	$3.99	MAR	New Avengers	58		76,592	57	85,534	-8,942	-10.45%	0
8	105.86	$3.99	MAR	Dark Avengers	10		75,554	9	79,669	-4,115	-5.17%	0
9	103.48	$2.99	MAR	Uncanny X Men	516		73,854	515	73,530	324	0.44%	0
10	100.85	$2.99	MAR	Amazing Spider Man	608		71,975	607	62,523	9,452	15.12%	0
11	100.00	$2.99	DC	Batman	691		71,371	690	76,943	-5,572	-7.24%	0
12	98.45	$2.99	DC	Batman	692		70,263	691	71,371	-1,108	-1.55%	0
13	93.89	$2.99	MAR	Astonishing X Men	31		67,008	30	64,582	2,426	3.76%	0
14	89.14	$2.99	DC	Blackest Night Titans	3		63,617	2	64,038	-421	-0.66%	0
15	87.80	$3.99	MAR	Ultimate Comics Avengers	3		62,663	2	68,545	-5,882	-8.58%	2
16	85.64	$2.99	MAR	Amazing Spider Man	609		61,125	608	71,975	-10,850	-15.07%	1
17	85.41	$2.99	DC	Justice League of America	38		60,961	37	55,436	5,525	9.97%	0
18	84.10	$2.99	MAR	Dark Wolverine	79		60,026	78	60,656	-630	-1.04%	0
19	82.04	$3.99	DC	Detective Comics	858		58,550	857	57,020	1,530	2.68%	0
20	81.77	$3.99	MAR	Web of Spider Man	1		58,363					1

 

Alright, so there’s our top 20.  Things to note:

1.) DC, for two months in a row, has claimed the majority of the top 10 comics (and top 20) by one comic.  However, for October, DC claimed the first 6 highest selling titles for the month.

2.) 6/11 DC comics in the top 20 are Blackest Night (event) related.

3.) 3 Books which are not miniseries have 10 issues or less and reached the top 20.  All of which are Marvel.

4.) The $3.99 price tag (a dollar shift upwards) seems to be failing Marvel as many of those titles with the price tag saw a reduction of readers between the months. 

I find this stuff pretty interesting.  Obviously, in terms of sales, DCs doing something correct with Blackest Night and it’s really working for them.  Now, in terms of content, (in my opinion) only about 5 of those DC comics in the top 20 are okay or better.

In my opinion, out of the comics I did read (12/20), I thought only about 3 of them were great (Blackest Night, Detective Comics, and Green Lantern).  To be honest as some of you may know, I don’t really read as much Marvel as DC and am only loosely following their stories.

Some other things to note:

1.) The nearest non-Big 2 company to breakthrough into the top 300 was Dark Horse with Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 at spot #28.  Image follows shortly with spot #29 with Haunt #1.

2.) Invincible Iron Man #19 (in my opinion, the best Marvel comic coming out right now) only sold 47,138 copies at spot #33.

3.) The next nearest non-Big 2 issue was Archie #602 at spot #72.  A full 44 slots away from the previous non-Big 2 publisher.

4.) I estimated that about 1/3 of the books in the top 300 are from non-Big 2 publishers.  Most of these issues are at spots #150 or below (151-300)

5.) Unfortunately, no Mirage comics appear on the list meaning that their issues of TMNT had to sell less than 2,711 copies.

Cement Trimming: A Short Story

I just wrote this in a spur of the moment.  So, it hasn’t been edited.  No one’s read it yet and I figured I’d just post it on here to allow some other stuff on the blog to fester.  This is all true and very cynical. 

            I’m the type of person that always looks like they’re trying to get somewhere; hunched back with briskly flowing legs instead of a slight arch in a straight back moving at a jaunt.  People pass and I wish that they could know me in some sort of self-satisfying way.  Would I take the opportunity to know them?  No, not worth it.

            I walk past another person and find myself believing that motion is just up to the beholder of how important their time is.  I move through the streets like vomit coming out of the mouth of a newborn baby.  Looking down at the ground I see how the leaves have decayed onto the sidewalk leaving an imprint of dead life.  I’ll most likely end up a summarized piece of cement excavated to investigate the size of my shoe and the fine detail of the soles; no thought behind the wearer – just the worn. 

            Glancing back, my senses seem to me overwhelmingly acute.  Or, at least, my sight and hearing are just watching my back while my smell spends time preoccupied with taking notes on how the queenly castrated cold causes water to freeze – defrost – freeze – until your nose spills of fluids akin to an oil tanker leaking.  I try not to stare when I look behind me because then the driver might think that I’m a social delinquent.  I care about what the person in the car thinks.  I glimpse to the side where a clean wall of stone lies with moss treading up the hills like Alexander the Great and his troops marching to some summit.  My shadow falls across the conqueror as I walk forward and the car passes from behind.  The shadow begins long as the car is further behind me and decreases in size as the vehicle narrows the gap.  Vertigo.  I move but it doesn’t seem as if my shadow accomplishes anything except – maybe – when it vanishes away.

            I close in on the elementary school with the group of adults practicing christmas carols in the auditorium cafeteria hybrid.  The school systems don’t actually go through the whole process of separating the two at the elementary level because they figure that the parents are already tolerating a rehashed play for toddlers where they fake their pride.  So ,they can also be uncomfortable sitting on plastic chairs leaving skid marks atop tile.  Earlier, I noticed the janitor walking gloomily through his halls.  My gay Aunt used to be a janitor.  She loved the retarded kids.

            “…and we’re lookin’ at each other and her head comes up right next to mine.  I’m totally staring at her right in the face like it’s a joke or something but then she fuckin’ headbutts me.”

            A dog snarls.

            “You’d think that bitch would know to back away when my veins are flowin’ with Jack, but no, she done and comes up and headbutts me again!  Fuck!  It’s like…”

            Late thirty year olds sitting out on their porch listening to their outdated early 90s music pretending that they belonged to something bigger than themselves as they wear their middle-income work clothes and drink beer in the freezing cold.  A cedar tree grows in their front yard and it sways lightly in irony.

            My hands are tightly shoved in my pockets of my antique store security jacket as I contemplate the purpose of stories: imagining, I am great at something I have never really tried before.  I am rather selfish.  Striding in final defiance across the last street to my apartment where I can feel like I’m better than everyone else and live inside my head and through other stories: lonely. 

            At last, I slow down.  The clouds begin to trickle the perspiration of the earth.  It’s as if my leaving of the outside world is untimely, and it will miss me.  My right hand tremors like the coming of a storm before the key hole where a microscope can see every scratch that has been caused by simply trying to enter peacefully into a sequestered space.  I lurch forward.

Blackest Night #5: Review

Once you read this issue, it makes a bit more sense as to why those heroes are on the cover.  Sure, this comic basically confirms the rumors of a White Lantern, but it makes sure that you’ll have fun getting to there.

Green Lantern #48: Review

Warning: Read this comic before Blackest Night #5… not #6 like it warns.

Neverthless, with the overall success so far of Geoff Johns Blackest Night event, I’m really starting to wonder why more people don’t read comics (despite needing a decent understanding of comic lore to understand a bit of the event).

 

My Jim Lawson Commission

I got in the mail yesterday my commission from Jim Lawson.  I asked him after the interview for this stellar drawing.  It only cost $60, and the money was more than worth it for this beautiful piece that is now my favorite in my collection.  To be just a super creep, I attached the stickers that Lawson wrote my address and his address on to the print on the back for when it’s framed.

I forgot to turn my camera’s resolution up, so some of these pictures are (crisply) blurry.

Some Show and Tell!

Doesn’t that look fantastic!  I was so happy when I took this out of the cardboard that I just stared at it for a good ten minutes despite having guests over that I hadn’t seen for a year!

Close up on Leo.

 

Lawson did such a kickass job on this commission that I’m really considering another one.  Maybe I’ll convince my sister to buy me one since she owes me a couple presents for various things.

Oh, I also got a print by Albert Rothstein off of eBay in the mail yesterday.  I ordered a bunch of artwork off of eBay in addition to this that I’ll soon be getting in the mail, and I ordered a Michael Dooney Leonardo Sketch!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Full Color Reprint #1

Out last week was the full color reprint of the original first issue of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  I take a look at the book and ask, is the color reprint worth it?

Tales of the TMNT #64: Review

We’re drawing nearer and nearer towards the end of the Tales series as issue 70 quickly comes up.  Nevertheless, Jim Lawson and Tristan Jones deliver a good comic involving Chinese mysticism and a round about of villains.

An Interview with Jim Lawson

Presenting my second interview of the week with Mr. Jim Lawson.  His style has become synonymous with the Ninja Turtles for the nearly 25 years he’s worked at Mirage.  Lawson has drawn more Ninja Turtles comics than anyone else in the business, and he was quite gracious to let me interview him.

Interviewing Jim Lawson has been a grand opportunity for me, and I’m very thankful to share his insights and knowledge about the Turtles.  In the interview, we discuss the recent purchase of TMNT by Nickelodeon, his future plans (with dinosaurs!), Paleo, most likely the last TMNT comic to come out (at least for a long time) Tales #70, and R.E.M.!

This whole experience has been fun connecting with the Mirage crew, and I hope that further opportunities will come to them as they face the future.