The Stan I knew

Here’s a picture of the Man, i.e., the persona, that I knew well from my initial comics madness years. You could find cartoon versions everywhere as well, whether affectionate as in FOOM or derisive as in the New Gods.

This blog has turned out to be mainly about the births of characters and the deaths of people. A lot of ink’s been spilled about which one Stan was, or which one we should like or loathe or analyze or criticize.

This isn’t the time for that. Maybe in about a year.

 

 

Dark Matter: inspiration and fun

More comics, creativity, and role-playing intersection – it’s a fine day. This is about Abby Baldwin’s own graphic novel Dark Matter, serving as the conceptual jumping-off point for role-playing my alpha version of Champions Now with her dad Robert. Here’s my conversation with Robert about all sorts of concepts and angles on it.

For quick reference on the project, I’ve done my own playtesting with the alpha version, as shown in my videos about the Defiants, and several other groups are giving my feedback (e.g. this post) about doing that too. I’m now moving into Beta testing with several groups at once, and receiving feedback from others too.

The whites, part 2

Here’s my next post about white people. Specifically, the one who isn’t there.

The whites, part 1

Parse race, ethnicity, and color all you want. Meanwhile, I’m gonna talk about whiteness, in what’s turned out to be at least a couple of posts.

Balancing what exactly

I nipped back to the States for GenCon, to learn it’s culturally way too soon for me to set foot back there, but also to have some good times. I did see the full solar eclipse, but alas, gained no super-powers.

The change of illusion

Six li’l issues of The Avengers. Do they really bear the whole weight of the history of Marvel Comics, and perhaps even of fan culture’s creative intestinal torsion? It can’t be that simple, but even at age thirteen-fourteen, I knew something was happening.

Not enough Doom lately

I keep saying that I’m not too interested in the current movies and TV series, but that claim is easily scuttled by the fact that I have kids aged nine and almost-eight. I have seen very little of the live-actions, but when it comes to cartoons, I’m catchin’ up fast.

Context!

I love me a timeline. This one’s built mostly from Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, mainly because I couldn’t help but scribble it out as I went along. In the year since I did that, so many of my posts presume knowledge of the content that it’s simply good sense to get the thing on-line for reference.

Inking is sexy

India ink. How do I love thee, let me count the ways. Better, let me roll about and smear you freely. Swoop you with a brush, boldly line you where no [whoever] has gone before, feather you gently, let you spatter me all over, and spatter you back with white-out or just cake it on solid.

Who I am

This is the fourth and last post for my series on The Amazing Spider-Man #1-100 as a novel.

The big bad

This is one of the follow-up Cosmic Zap posts trailin’ in the wake of September, certainly related to Cosmic villainy, because we’re talking about metaphysical evil here. Especially the kind who favors red, fire, and underground habitation, and has something to do with death and sin and treachery. I know! It’s Set, from the ancient Egyptian pantheon, right? Uh, no …

The Baxter Building bathtub

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness blog, and this is the last one for the series. I’m including this post on a Tuesday because this year brought us a September woefully short on Sundays and Thursdays, and because I wanted to finish the formal series on a more hopeful note. Namely, reading Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four with my kids.