Wis[s]e Words

How can you be silenced if you have your own magazine?

Published on May 7, 2025Leave a comment

If you want to write a n article on how toxic fans are silencing comics pros, maybe don’t use Roy “I stole the credits for Wolverine from Len Wein’s barely cold corpse” Thomas:

Roy Thomas, a fan-turned-pro who went on to become an industry legend, cordially declined participating in the comic. “I received quite a bit of toxic hate beginning last April when it was announced that I’d be credited in Deadpool & Wolverine as co-creator of Wolverine,” he wrote to me. “It made me determined…[to avoid] a con where I might find myself in the company of the people who had attacked me.” He’s written an article about the ordeal for an upcoming issue of his own magazine, Alter Ego #194.

This soft-spoken, erudite, 84-year-old man has been bullied into silence. And because of that, the rest of us are missing out on a treasure of stories and knowledge. There aren’t many Bronze Age creators left, every day we lose some of that history.

Criticism isn’t toxic, nor can you silence someone who has his own fanzine. Roy Thomas stole the credit for creating Wolverine from Len Wein, Herb Trimpe and John Romita once all three were safely dead and unable to object. It’s a sad attempt to inflate his own ego from somebody whose career is important enough to not need it. Of course it provoked a storm of criticism, especially when he then wrote an op-ed arguing his name should’ve come first. Just completely maidenless behaviour.

Using this as the sole example in your article about social media driven toxic fandom completely undermines its argument. Anybody who isn’t Roy Thomas can clearly see this is sour grapes on his part, not a genuine example of how toxic fans can behave. It’s a pity none of the other people cited in the article provide any concrete examples; Ann Nocenti comes closest by talking about gamersgate offshoot comicsgate. I’m sure the author meant well, but having Thomas abuse their good intentions this way means it became worthless. There is a discussion to be had about fan entitlement and how that can drive interactions with pros, but this isn’t it.

Inherit the Stars — James P. Hogan

Published on May 3, 2025Leave a comment

Cover of Inherit the Stars

Inherit the Stars
Thomas Waters
188 pages
published in 1977

While idly browsing a certain manga site, I discovered somebody had made a manga out of James Hogan Giants series. That got me interested enough to start reading it, having read the original novels and liking them. As I was reading though it didn’t feel quite right. While it had been a long time since I’ve read them (as I never reviewed any of them on here, it must’ve been twenty-five years ago at least), but it seemed more action orientated and conspiracy minded than I remembered. Which of course led me to reread the original novel that started off the series: Inherit the Stars.

For once the cover on a seventies science fiction novel actually more or less accurately depicts a key scene from the story: the discovery of a dead astronaut clad in a red space suit on the Moon, though in the story he’s found in a cave rather than on the surface. It’s sometime in the twenty-first century and unlike with most Disco Era space exploration novels, we do not have an eternal Cold War going on. The world is a bit utopian even, compared to the actual 21st century so far. The world is rich and at peace, with military budgets slashed as nation states had matured. Profiting from that is the UN Solar System Exploration Program, which explains why there were people on the Moon in the first place able to find that dead astronaut. An astronaut that turns out to be 50,000 years old…

Dark They Were and Golden — Early Gigs and 2x Brett Ewins / Peter Milligan

Published on April 29, 2025Leave a comment

If you’re a fan of Dave Gibbons, you own it to yourself to get a copy of this book.

Cover of Early Gigs, showing a demented Dave Gibbons wielding a pencil

In the introduction Gibbons mentions Dark They Were and Golden Eyed, a legendary science fiction bookstore that was my first association when I saw the name of its publisher, Dark and Golden Books, who as they put it, are dedicated to charting a less travelled course through the history of British comics, finding and celebrating mislaid and forgotten classics for the audience of today in new high-quality editions. (The bookstore I’ve never visited, I just knew it from the ads in the back of sf zines and British comics).

With both Early Gigs and the Brett Ewins / Peter Milligan collection I got at the same time, Dark and Golden Book has succeeded in bringing back in print some very obscure comics, stories that have been mouldering in long forgotten fanzines for literally decades. The Gibbons collection especially is a blast, each story introduced by the man himself, describing the circumstances in which it was made and for what purposes. Leaving through it the occasional preview of what would be the Dave Gibbons you know from Watchmen is already present, but you can also see how much of an influence Wally Wood was on him, as he himself acknowledges. For me this is also a peek at a world I barely know anything about, other than through Bryan Talbot’s Brainstorm collection of a few decades ago, a peek into the early seventies world of the UK underground.

Brett Ewins / Peter Milligan collection too is a treat, containing their first collaboration, “Rooney’s Lay (1980), with their adaptation of Kafka’s “Int he Penal Colony” (1991) more than a decade later. Each of these stories is introduced by Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins sadly having passed away a decade ago. Both volumes are proper comics, as all of Dark and Golden Books projects seem to be, with cardboard covers and decent, thick paper.

College Girls Eating Food – Hibi wa Sugiredo Meshi Umashi — First Impressions

Published on April 17, 2025Leave a comment

Oh I love the food in Ghibli movies too!

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The highlight of this first episode, an extended sequence of cooking and eating a sauced katsudon, where most of the rest of it was setup for the rest of the series. We follow our protagonist Mako, a first year college student who moved from the boonies into the big city as she tries and fails to find a restaurant she’s comfortable eating at. By chance she runs into her long lost childhood friend Shinon at college, who is trying to start a Food Culture Research Club but so far only has three members when she needs four. Mako, being shy, declines her offer to become a member. That night, as she hesitates to enter the restaurant she wanted to try yesterday as well, one of the girls who was with Shinon calls out to her; she turns out to be the daughter of the owner. It’s her who cooks Mako her katsudon. Ultimately this is what gives Mako the push to become a member of Shinon’s club. But while Mako looks forward to all sorts of cooking experiments, Shinon just wants to lazy around in their new club room?

Mako standing in front of a busy restaurant, thinking it would be hard to walk into it alone

I can so relate to Mako’s struggles here. Working in Utrecht every Thursday, I always plan to eat in some nice little restaurant in town and most times I fail to do so. It’s too busy, it’s too far from the station, not sure if you a reservation etc. It can be hard to walk into a restaurant on your own when everybody else is with friends. Especially if you’re a shy eighteen year old in her first year at college, where there’s nobody you known.

This looks to be a classic slice of moe P. A. Works anime, where Mako no doubt will make friends with the members of her new club and slowly overcomes her shyness. It’s been a while since we’ve had such an earnest series and I look forward to the rest of it.

Spring 2025 Quick Hits: the Manga Adaptations — First Impressions

Published on April 13, 2025Leave a comment

Witch Watch
Nico is floating away on the wind as she turned herself into paper while Morihito watches helplessly
Do you like Weekly Shonen Jump action comedies with a bit of manzai flavouring? Where the heroine has to be continually saved from her own ineptness by the protagonist? Then Witch Watch is the series for you. Just in the first ten minutes of episode one Nico the witch managed to crash through the window of Morihito, a descendant of ogres and her new bodyguard, destroy his favourite coffee mug to repair the damage she caused and turn herself into paper only to float away on a breeze coming through an open window. This sort of comedy can be painfully tedious but was handled well here, the quality of animation helping a lot in selling it. With Nico very much fancying Moi-kun as she calls Morihito and he knowing that there’s a very real threat to her life, there’s also enough substance to feed the comedy on. The original manga is by Shinohara Kenta, best known for Sket Dance; I can see some similarities in the sense of humour at work here.

Ninja to Koroshiya no Futarigurashi
Satoko is looking dea as a satisfied Konoha gives thanks for her finished meal. Despite her starving earlier, she gave Satoko none of it.
She’s a ninja better suited for cleaning than murder, she’s an assassin who needs somebody to clean up her murder sites (not to mention her living room). Together they fight cri^w^w start living together in a mutually beneficial relationship. Satoko, the ninja, needed somebody to hide and feed her after she accidentally fled her hidden ninja village. Konoha, the assassin, needs somebody to help her manage the aftermath of her assassinations, if she wants to climb the assassin rank list (currently: #210). After a meet cute in which she kicks the starving Satoko and ruthlessly dispatches two other ninjas aiming to kill Satoko, she takes her in as her live-in housekeeper. The screenshot above shows off their relationship perfectly: cool, sadistic Konoha and butt of the joke, kind, naive Satoko. I was impressed both by the show’s cold opening, aping 1970s action anime in 4:3 format even and by the ruthless efficiency in which it introduces and then immediately has Konoha murder new characters. Based on a manga by “Hundredburger”.

Kowloon Generic Romance
Hajime, a tall, slightly oafish looking fellow and Reiko, short haired and wearing glasses as well as a typical office lady outfit are eating lunch together.
This gave me strong Patlabor vibes; partially because of the character designs, partially because of the dude’s slight ineptness and partially because it seems to be an adult workplace romance set in a zeerusty future. Reiko and Hajime are co-workers at a small real estate agency in Kowloon Walled City, a Hong Kong neighbourhood that was demolished in 1989. Reiko likes Hajime but he’s indifferent and a bit of an arse. Things aren’t quite what they seem as they work on modern computers and there’s a Death Star like space station hanging in the sky. Because of little things like no longer needing glasses one morning Reiko gets the sense something is wrong and Hajime may know more about what’s going on. Kowloon as setting is very much another character here. The manga is by Mayuzuki Jun, who also was the mangaka for Koi wa Ameagari no Yō ni, about a one-sided love a high school girl has for her forty something year old boss at her parttime job. Some fot he smae melancholy sensibilities are on display here.

Zatsu Tabi: That’s Journey
Chiak on the left, clad in a light brown coat and beret so you know she's a mangaka, enjoying a regional speciality while around her other tourists do touristy things

Suzugamori Chika is a rookie mangaka who just won a newcomers prize but is now struggling with inspiration. On advice of her editor to go out more to experience live rather than stay cooped up making manga, she places a poll on her social media where she should travel: up, down, left or right of Tokyo. As “up” wins the poll, she travels to Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima, north of Tokyo. Here she wanders around town, samples the local specialities and checks into a luxury hotel/onsen for the night before the next day foolishly deciding to climb the stairs to a famous local shrine. this very much another tourist ad thinly disguised as an anime, with lots of pretty scenery but little plot. I like it though because it is all very pretty even if a bit soporific. Hopefully extending the cast in the next few episodes will enliven it all a bit. The manga is by another Kenta, Ishizaka this time.