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PREVIEWS: "Daredevil," "Uncanny X-Men," & More Marvel Comics On Sale August 3, 2016
Comic Books
An interesting criticism I've seen levied at Mark Waid's Daredevil is that, while it is good, it is essentially "just" an old school superhero comic book and therefore the praise given to the title is more a matter of it being compared against worse comic books nowadays and that if it were around back in the old days, it wouldn't stand out as much. My issue here is that I think people are either underrated Waid's Daredevil or overrating your average old school superhero comic book when they make that argument. It seems like folks are thinking that books like Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' Batman were the average superhero comic book back in the day when they were very much the exception. So I thought it'd be interesting to compare the last five issues of Daredevil against the equivalent five issues of what were ACTUALLY the "average" superhero comic book titles at Marvel and DC forty years ago. I had some ideas of which books would be considered the "average" from each company, but I didn't want to risk any selection bias on my part, so I instead asked a fellow whose opinion I respect and who is more than well versed in the comics of that era to name the average superhero comic of 1973. That fellow was Mark Waid. Mark's choices were the Superman titles for DC and Daredevil, Fantastic Four and Iron Man foe Marvel. The Waid Daredevil issues I'm looking at are #25-29, the June 2013 issue through the September issues (the last two issues double-shipped). Back in 1973, the cover dates on comics were three months ahead of time instead of two, so I went with the July 1973-November 1973 issues of each of the titles (I had to go to November to make it an even match, numbers-wise, because of Daredevil double-shipping the last month).
Let's begin!
Let's start with Action Comics. We're dealing with issues #425-429.
First off, the art for all of these issues is done by Curt Swan. Now I happen to be a huge Curt Swan fan, but even as a huge Curt Swan fan I have to say that by the 1970s I do not believe that Curt Swan (still doing BOTH Superman titles every month) was at the same level that he was during his heyday of the early 1960s. Swan was far too great of an artist for the work to be BAD but at the same time Swan was not exactly being innovative or dynamic with his storytelling. You were getting steady results and none of the stories were being hurt by the art, but nor were they being particularly HELPED by the art either. 53-year-old Curt Swan drawing two Superman comics a month and seemingly never missing an issue? What more could you really expect?
Anyhow, the first issue is Action Comics #425, written by Cary Bates with art by Swan and Frank Giacoia, "The Last Moa On Earth!".
In it, a hunter happens upon perhaps the world's last living Moa bird. He then accidentally kills it…
The egg hatches a new Moa bird, the last of its species. However, it was exposed to some exotic gases before it was born so that when it was hatched, it had SUPERPOWERS! In addition, it is somehow linked with the hunter's life force. The longer the Moa is on the loose, the sicker the hunter gets…
Superman then fights the super-powered Moa for a few pages before returning it to its habitat (which is all it wanted – when it got back it released its hold on the hunter and he got better).
This was not a very good story, although I guess the sight of Superman fighting a giant bird IS kind of cool.
Next we have Action Comics #426 by Bates, Swan and Murphy Anderson, "Master of the Moon Rocks!"
The conceit of the story is that the Anti-Lunar League has stolen some moon rocks and plan on destroying them.
Yes, that's right. The Anti-Lunar League. But who is manipulating them?!
Yes, that's right. Terra-Man. The dreaded desperado himself.
He and Superman fight and it is pretty uneventful, although I do like this one bit where Superman kicks his boot at Terra-Man.
So far, this has not been a very good run of Action Comics issues. While not bad, this was about as by-the-books as a super-villain encounter as you could get.
Luckily, Bates, Swan and Anderson make up for the previous two issues with a strong issue in #427, "The Man Who Never Lived!"
The issue opens with a trip to the future where a young man awaits his fate as an assassin…
He goes back in time to where a prisoner, Wade Bartox, is being released from prison…
Bartox suddenly transforms into a green monster and battles against Superman. The monster was something that Bartox had drawn as a child. His prison therapist, who was clearly digging him, is now a bit scared of him.
Bartox and Superman battle in outer space where Bartox reveals that he is from the future and that he took control of Bartox's body for a bit…
Superman defeats him and Bartox reverts to his normal self. Did the future man's plan work?
That is some messed up stuff right there. But a really powerful story by Bates.
The next issue, Bates, Swan and Anderson ask "Whatever Happened to Superman?"
A crook is up to no good with a satellite in outer space…
And soon, no one on Earth can see Superman. They believe he has been gone for ten years. No matter what he does, no one can see him. Everything he does gets explained by something else, like if he puts out a fire everyone instead sees a cloud show up out of nowhere and rain on the fire.
Clark Kent needs to get away to investigate, so we see one of the earliest examples of Clark messing with Steve Lombard by pretending to be killed…
It continues, even with OLD stories, so Superman figures it must be Lex Luthor…
Superman seems to doubt himself…
But in reality it was all a plot to make Luthor believe that the device had been used on LUTHOR, as well!
While not as good as the previous issue, this story was a step up from #425 and 426. I always love it when Superman has a convoluted plan involving disguises.
Action Comics #429 was written by Elliot S! Maggin with art by Swan and Bob Oksner. It is a weird one called "The Man Who Wrote Superman's Obituary!"
Superman is in the section of the Daily Planet where all of their background information is kept and he discovers Superman's obituary (newspapers obviously have to prepare obituaries for famous people ahead of time in case they suddenly die) and it not only has all of his secret identity information but it is even written in Kryptonian!
Superman naturally freaks out…
I love Green Lantern's pissy answer.
Superman goes back to his Fortress of Solitude and decides to go write in his giant Super Diary.
His latest adventure is really cheesy…
However, we discover that it was SUPPOSED to be cheesy!
As it turns out, it was all a trap to see if writing in his diary would cause the information to end up in the Daily Planet's files…
Now, on the one hand, I love the sort of meta-fictional element of Superman intentionally telling a cheesy battle against an alien creature. On the other hand, an "electronic fluke" connects Superman's diary to the Daily Planet's file room? And the ending where apparently just some random dude knows Superman's secrets and can speak Kryptonian? That's pretty weird. On the whole, though, I think it was a good story.
On the next page, we take a look at Superman #265-269!
Steve Gerber DD aw yeah
But yes, people tend to overrate old things they grew up and have nostalgia for. EVERYTHING was better back in the old days is an easy often used shorthand, but it wasn't all Claremont/Byrne X-Men and Simonson's Thor. They are the exceptions, because they were exceptional comic books. The average superhero book was just that, the vast majority of them, were just that, average.
Waid/Samnee/Rodriguez deserves to be in that exceptional category. These are great, well-crafted superhero comic books created by Eisner award winning masters of their medium. Let's give props where props are due.
Stiltman's crotch cannon is amazing.
I could be completely wrong on this, but reading that courthouse issue of DD made me think the female cop could be a potential new supporting character/potential new love interest. I have no idea why – a reread might change my mind.
You guys don't go far back enough. DD was drawn by some of the greatest comic artists that ever put ink to pen, to paper: Wally Wood, Gene Colan, Frank Miller, some Jack Kirby and some John Romita Sr, and of course, Bill Everett. I don't think anyone could match that crew. What doesn't help is the modern printing process. In the early days of Dare Devil, computers weren't part of the printing process and the colours were much deeper and richer than they are today.
Waid's Daredevil gets criticized?I can't stand Waid's Daredevil but I hardly ever hear it get criticized.
Waid's Daredevil is spectacular, but I think that your examples of "average" 70s comics serve to show that average comics today are rather worse. Even if a lot of the dialogue is dated in those old issues, just by virtue of having an "anti-lunar league," that one issue of Action is better than any issue of Action or Superman published in the last five years.
Anonymous: I like Waid's DD quite a bit, but I did "criticize" it in the exact same way that Brian mentions. He could have called me out by name – I don't mind.
Ooh, neat feature.
I haven't gotten the chance to read the other things, but it looks like an interesting compare/contrast.
One thing that I like about Waid's work is that he (usually cleverly) works in an intro to who's who and lets new readers in on what's going on. As a new reader that started with Flash 92, this was extremely helpful and definitely made me a fan. It's also possibly why his work is thought of as "old school". Perish the notion that you bring new readers up to speed!
And I was totally going to ask you this some time, but who's the "agent" there with Foggy? I can't quite place that guy.
How did Bullseye hear DD if he's deaf?
I think it's an average comic in today's day.
Schmaltzy cancer sub-plots and leftist-paranoid villains (white supremacists!). The art is nice, but I feel like it's niche is that it took a usually grim-gritty super-hero and turned him into a Silver-Age DC Hero, which is unique today, I guess.
@Travis Pelkie
DD's friend Giant Man.
I have some of those old Superman issues, and they really help me appreciate what Byrne did for Superman.
I also have the FF issue that wraps up the Shaper story. It is 100% awesome.
As for Waid's Daredevil, it and Uncanny Avengers (and Haunted Horror) are my favorite books right now. It is a bit sad that (some of) the criticism amounts to 'Daredevil is written like a comic from when comic's were good, not like they are now, so it's not really that good'
Macc, I know and know of some racists here in the NC foothills, and Slate.com just featured some pictures taken by a photographer that gained access to the KKK. White supremacists are no more out there than Hydra, AIM or Doctor Doom.
Also Daredevil was grim and gritty and street from 81-96, and then again from about 2001-2010.
I've always loved the name, Doctor Spectrum. I often use it as an alias on the internet, as a matter of fact.
The old comics were goofy fun, and overall were better drawn. No offense to the current Daredevil creative teams, but they would have to amp it up a bit to be equal to "average forty year old comics." Man, everything looks a little more dim compared to Curt Swan and a few of the others … I forgot that the Superman books of that era looked that good, even if Swan *did* peak in the 60's.
Macc, I know and know of some racists here in the NC foothills, and Slate.com just featured some pictures taken by a photographer that gained access to the KKK. White supremacists are no more out there than Hydra, AIM or Doctor Doom.
In just the last week, there's been a pretty big court ruling about racial profiling and NYPD's "stop-and-frisk" policy. The stats stink for themselves.
I keep meaning to read Waid's Daredevil, and this only makes me want to read it more. Also, now I want to read Gerber's DD and those Pasko issues of Iron Man.
Pasko wrote Superman; Friedrich wrote those Iron Man issues.
I think Waid's Daredevil is a really good comic, that stands out all the more today because it has a Bronze Age kind of feel to it. It's not trying too hard to be "adult" or "serious." Plus, most issues of this comic book that stars a guy with superpowers and wears a costume actually involve him using his superpowers and wearing his costume – often to fight other superpowered people in costumes, even! (I really hated the trend that was so prevalent of Marvel in the early 2000s of trying to take everything superhero-y or comic book-y out of their superhero comics. But I digress.)
If these issues came out 30 years ago they wouldn't necessarily seem out of place, but they would still be praised as being better than most stuff out there at the time. I think it sticks out all the more now because of the tone of the book compared to most other Big 2 books. But it's still an exceptionally well written and drawn book. I'm not going to get into whether comics in general are better now or were better back in the day. Nostalgia colors my opinion of the older stuff too much to be really subjective about it.
@ Kindu
My mistake, I meant Tuska lol
"Try the red one." is one of those few comic book moments that made me gasp out loud. (Actually, it was probably more of a curse than a gasp.) Such and awesome moment. The next issue with the psychological torture of DD was amazing, too.
And I have to admit I laughed out loud thinking about Tony Stark saying "You ate a whole block of cheese?"
I'm glad that you started this whole thing off by pointing out the logical fallacy in those criticisms; it's the same logic that people who criticize modern music use. They say, "90% of what's coming out today is garbage and back in the 70s they had Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads, Elton John, etc…" Those only stand out because everyone has been kind enough to let "Disco Duck" and "Fly Robin Fly" out of the public memory.
Waid's Daredevil is a quality book, no way around it. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but month-in-month-out there are hardly any mainstream titles that consistently that innovative (in terms of art) and well-composed (in terms of writing).
You're comparing the wrong comics. Yep, we know Daredevil is awesome and head and shoulders above most of today's comics, and it's definitely better than cheesy comics of the 70s. How about compare the average comics from today to the average 70s comic? Those Superman comics may be highly cheesy, but they tell fun stories that blow the crap out of most of today's Marvel and DC line.
One thing that doesn't get mentioned about the Steve Gerber run of Daredevil is how catastrophically it treated Black Widow. (Important to me because she's my favorite character, insert angry emoticon here.) While Natasha comes off okay in the early parts of the run, explored here, it went downhill for her as Gerber tried more and more to write her out of things. Female guest stars like Moondragon and Shanna took up Natasha's place in the book (which was actually titled DD & Black Widow at the time.)
She was written out for a few issues thanks to homelessness and an inability to get a job/fend for herself. (When Natasha's previously introduced financial independence was meant to make her a feminist role-model, per the Bronze Age fascination w/ "women's lib", there's something unfortunate in suddenly having her reduced to living out of her car to get her out of her own comic for a while.) Then, of course, Natasha was dealt with in another arc by being brainwashed, married off to, and possibly raped by the Mandrill. Again, though she was co-headlining the book, Natasha's struggles here are sort of a footnote to the wider story, the sexual threat of the evil monkey-villain is something for Matt to cope with more than Natasha (even as Natasha is conquered by him).
The Mandrill's origin is also introduced and while I think it was probably well-meaning, it's pretty unforgivably racist. Mandrill is revealed to be a black man driven to hate by racial tension in America, but the fact that his powers mutate him into a monkey and are basically used solely for sexual coercion— and his secret origin is basically being radioactive and black— it's just really, really awful. (I don't know why Marvel continues to use this character, in all honesty.)
Anyway, there's definitely enjoyable parts of the Gerber run from the non-obsessed-Black-Widow fan perspective, and even some nice stuff with Black Widow that I enjoy. (The tension over lethality being one!!) Still, I think the loveable kookiness of Gerber's DD run in particular is exaggerated by nostalgic memory, thanks to a lot of his other, better works. Certainly the writers on DD immediately after him, Claremont and Tony Isabella, pointed out just how diminished Natasha had become under Gerber. I realize this is a bit of a tangent, and a long one at that, but I think any time we explore the nostalgia for the bygone days of comics, which I have a lot of fondness for even as a newer reader in my 20s, it's also worth saying something about the treatment of women and race and how that's evolved in the decades since. I'd like to believe that Marvel of today would think twice before publishing a story where the titular heroine is so casually "married off" to an evil rapist monkey, but, maybe not. (They did reprint that story in the Women of Marvel omnibus, after all.)
Waid sure did a great job picking rather crappy comics to compare his DD run to.
But he has not written anything in DD as awesome as Superman defeating an evil cowboy by kicking his boot at him!
That has to be one of the greatest thing I've ever seen!
That said, while it's been on and off in my enjoyment of Waid's DD run overall, the Ikari story arc is probably my favorite comic of the year so far.
I'll agree with what Brian (the Brian in the comments section) said. I haven't read Waid's DD yet, but I really want to, and plan to soon. However, just from what I've seen of it, I think it's fairly safe to say that it's an exceptional comic by today's standards, no? It's regarded as one of the best, if not the best, superhero comic book being published today. It seems to be similar in *tone* to "average" comics from 1973, or 1983, or points in-between and thereabouts.
The "average" comic book when I was a kid in the early '90s (I'm 28), the ones I'm supposed to feel nostalgic for, sucked. I didn't like them then,I don't like them now. Again, "average."I couldn't stand most of the Image titles that were big then, but liked "The Maxx" a lot when Rob Liefeld was really, really popular. I'm mostly nostalgic for the comics I read as a kid that were published before I was born, or before I was old enough to read them. I don't see saying "Waid's 'Daredevil' would be an average comic book in the bronze age" is a criticism of *that* book, but of the shitty era of superhero comics we've been in for so long now. It's a lament, saying this book that stands out as excellent and exceptional today would've fit right in not *that* long ago. The "good old days" certainly includes the early '80s, and I'll be goddamned if the early '80s is old, with a bit of perspective. But, whatever, "The Wire" is the greatest television show of all time, and who the fuck is Frank Pembleton?
I can't speak to the 70s books. A bit before my time. If you compared them to the 80s comics and some 90s then I can offer comment!
Anyway, I really think Waid's DD is average. There is obvious effort and you see some intelligent scripting from time to time. However, that's about it. DD is a bit limited in his abilities so he is that 'street' level superhero. A lot of Waid's DD feels like stuff by Miller and others in the 80's. The ideas and feel are not totally fresh or groundbreaking. I've read some of Waid's DD but hardly worth buying.
Also, I agree with many here, you don't hear too much about Waid's DD. It's pretty meh. Some bloggers may like it (well, the ones here but I can't help but feel they might have some motivation to provide positive reviews for Marvel books or Marvel may 'cut them off' so to speak). To me, this version of DD is kinda dull and uninteresting.
Yes, Waids DD is indeed overrated. Its still a good book and I look forward to it every time, but it is not the industry defining book as most people make it out to be. To be honest, compared to Bendis' DD run it is pretty much a step down in quality.
I don't think Bullseye heard DD i think he has become adept at reading lips over the years. He was left with vision right? Can't remember
One point that I think you miss is that most of the "would just have been an average comic back in the day" claims are actually comparisons based on style rather than quality.
I do agree though that it wouldn't have stood out (as much) in the 80s when there were (almost objectively) far more quality books on the shelves. But against the 70s, which was a relatively lame period for superhero titles? Sure.
Someone's research of New Zealand was…well, lets just say 'lacking'.
i have been re-reading a lot of Waid's comics recently, and will sell all of em.
It's his preachy narrative i cant stand. (Kingdom Come) Also his portrayal of women and kids as untouchable angels is really annoying. (Fantastic Four, Flash)
and Superman sucked in the 70ies. (even the hyped "Sandman Saga" reads not good today)
I think the only time I ever found Superman readable was when Marv Wolfman was writing him back just before Crisis on Infinite Earth. The revamped Lex Luthor and Brainiac, the Lord Satanus saga etc. Before that, and based on these examples the comic was pretty woeful.
Anyone who thinks Superman fighting a super powered Moa, and the Lunar League, is better than any Superman comic written in the last 5 or 10yrs needs to either have their head examined or should be passing around whatever they're smoking. Those 70s Superman comics are crap.
It's weird that you say Curt Swan's art isn't at its best because it feels like he's fuckin' killin' it in these issues.
I've been reading much of the runs mentioned on this website in chronological order. Stan Lee's Marvel contributions especially early on, Stan Lee Spider-Man, FF, and Dr. Strange, Steranko's Nick Fury, Thomas's Avengers, Englehart's Captain America, Avengers, and Dr. Strange, Gerber's Defenders. Now I am on Claremont's X-Men and Iron Fist.
Stan Lee had good ideas but he was NOT a good writer. Same for Thomas. Gerber's Defenders and Steranko's Nick Fury were fun. Engelhart's Captain America and Avengers was enjoyable but was all over-the-place which made the storylines very clunky.
Reading Claremont and Byrne's stuff really makes me appreciate comics. One thing in particular that I have seen was their hinting at things in the storylines for plot buildup without taking us away from the current story. The quality of comics those guys made were miles ahead of anything from before. It has really made me excited for the next runs in the reading list!
The Mandrill's origin is also introduced and while I think it was probably well-meaning, it's pretty unforgivably racist. Mandrill is revealed to be a black man driven to hate by racial tension in America, but the fact that his powers mutate him into a monkey and are basically used solely for sexual coercion— and his secret origin is basically being radioactive and black— it's just really, really awful. (I don't know why Marvel continues to use this character, in all honesty.)
Reread the origin a little ore carefully: the Mandrill is ethnically white, actually; it's Nekra, the chalk-skinned hate-monger, who is ethnicaly African-American. Gerber is playing with stereotype inversion here.
It's weird that you say Curt Swan's art isn't at its best because it feels like he's fuckin' killin' it in these issues.
That's how great Swan's best was. I agree that this stuff is good, but when you see his earlier work it is even better.
I like Waid's DD quite a bit, but I did "criticize" it in the exact same way that Brian mentions. He could have called me out by name – I don't mind.
It is a more common criticism than just you. It wouldn't be much fun if it was just one guy saying it!
Also, I agree with many here, you don't hear too much about Waid's DD. It's pretty meh. Some bloggers may like it (well, the ones here but I can't help but feel they might have some motivation to provide positive reviews for Marvel books or Marvel may 'cut them off' so to speak). To me, this version of DD is kinda dull and uninteresting.
True, it's not like it won the Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series or anything like that. Or the Eisner Award for Best Writer. Or the Eisner Award for Best Penciler. Most likely just some bloggers like it, but even then only because they feel like they have to.
This has been said before, but having read a few of the DD trades my take on it is the same as Kim Thompson's take on American Flagg back in the day. Namely, it attains a level of mediocrity that all comics should aspire to. By this I mean that it's a consistently well crafted genre comic. If it were really at the middle of the bell curve, with 50% of comics being worse and 50% being better, we'd be really well off. The sad fact of the matter is that it's actually better drawn and better written (and given the synergy between Waid and Samnee the distinction between writing and drawing seems sort of beside the point) than at least 75% of the comics out there, and it ranks higher if you only compare it to non-big-two superhero stuff.
So to paraphrase Tucker Stone paraphrasing Kim Thompson, we need more good crap like Waid and Samnee's Daredevil.
I think what people may be stuck on is that Waid's take on DD is a return to his swashbuckling, crimefighting roots and gets away from the Frank Miller approach – gritty, grim and brutal. Frankly, it's a move that was long overdue. As good as Miller's take was back in the day, it's been done and done and overdone for the last two decades.
That being said, I think that Waid has crafted a very witty, entertaining book. The fact that he has taken such a u-turn in the approach to DD while not ignoring what came before is kind of amazing. The stories are outstanding and the artwork has really been very complimentary to this approach.
Waid's DD is not that different from Miller's. It might seem that way comparatively speaking because it's the first run in 30 years to even make an attempt to be even slightly different. Everyone else has just been rewriting Miller's style (and in some cases even his actual stories).
Can someone compare the Waid/Samnee run to the Kesel/Nord run?
I could swear a lot of the same sentiment I am seeing right now was espoused 17 years ago when that run began.
It's giving me crazy deja vu.
Screw the naysayers, this book deserves to be Eisner material based on these samples alone. Waid has more plot twists up his sleeve than a pretzel factory.
That one panel where Benson smirks at Matt just as the elevator doors close sent a freaking CHILL up my spine! I honestly did NOT see that one coming.
That one panel where Benson smirks at Matt just as the elevator doors close sent a freaking CHILL up my spine! I honestly did NOT see that one coming.
Right? So unbelievably awesome.
@Macc,Mean Gene.I couldn't agree more.Personally,I look forward to the day Waid leaves Daredevil.I actually think Karl Kessel and Joe Kelly told better swashbuckling stories of DD than Mark Waid.
Brian Cronin absolutely obliterates the premise that DD by Waid is no better that an average comic of the 70's. That premise can no longer be stated with a straight face.
Waid doesn't turn DD into a silver age DC hero, he brings them back to center. He says so in this interview… http://pineconecomicsclub.com/2013/02/pccc-2-skipping-the-super-bowl-with-mark-waid/
Comics would be better if other writers took a page out of Waid's book. Also, the art is fantastic… http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1EnKT4A0fGY/UEdAz0_-rHI/AAAAAAAAOAk/BY9G8lCZuDw/s1600/Daredevil+vol_3+_1+(Marvel,+2011)+by+Mark+Waid+and+Marcos+Martin.jpg
Sorry, I am a HUGE Waid Fan!!!
I had to come here to find the 20 people on the planet who don't like Daredevil. And also a whole host of people who prove that DC is definitely doing the right thing in attempting to cater to 40-50+ men. That Curt Swan art is pretty damned good, but to pretend that Daredevil–one of the best books on the stands in terms of art–is weird. Oh well. Opinions are a funny thing.
I think Daredevil's a fantastic book, and one of the best ones published by DC or Marvel.
more detail and trying to do movie camera angles does NOT equal better art.
Swan on the early 60ies Superman is much more compelling and very much superior to these examples.
Like others have said, I really need to start reading Daredevil!
Samnee's art work alone would be worth it. The next best thing to having Toth or Mazzuchelli around.
@Rob Lamberti – Those are all really classic artist (even if Colan and Kirby are the only two I happen to really like), but Samnee is clearly as talented as most of those guys, and maybe even more so than a few of them.
I also think the color work on the Daredevil samples above is quite nice, rich color that sets the mood and doesn't give everything a needless gradient effect. When used properly computer coloring can be good – esp. when compared to the rather crappy color we got in the early 70's with all the clumsy color separations out of register and sometimes the black plate shifted so much that the inking ends up looking horribly blurred.
I've never been able to figure out what it is about that period of Daredevil comics, but either the coloring or the inking, or both always makes the art look gritty and grainy – not a good thing.
Those Superman stories look rather painful (story wise). The basic high concept appeal of Superman fighting a space cowboy or an Anti-Lunar League seems fun, but the execution often leaves something to be desired.
I know I'm probably in the minority, but I've always found Swan's art to be incredibly pedestrian. It serves as a good watermark/baseline for a Superman comic, but while extremely competent, it just always seemed to be lacking a certain spark.
As I mentioned in a thread earlier this week, those FF issue look much exponentially better in the Essentials collection. The black and white art really helps you appreciate the inking and not be distracted by the coloring. Even when Buscema seemed to be running out of steam on the title, he still managed to do some remarkable work.
I wonder if the man who shot the Moa ran into a young scout and an old man with a floating house.
But Greg Burgas says "Comics were better in the Seventies":
I'd argue that several of these '70s runs were below average, not average. How does Waid's Daredevil stack up to the best books of the '70s: Avengers, the all-new X-Men, Conan, Tomb of Dracula, Howard the Duck, etc.?
Rob: I've gotten a lot more '70s comics since then, and I've been thinking about doing another one of those posts. Maybe I need to get on that!
I think your demonstration failed. While Superman wasn't good Gerber is great and more memorable. Buscema's art on FF is better than Samnee's.
Maybe your example failed because Marvel was killing the competition back then in a way they never managed to equal since.
Those five issues of Gerber's Daredevil were nowhere near as good as the five issues of Waid's Daredevil I picked. Maybe his other issues were better, but not those five issues. The Ramrod issue was actively bad.
Buscema's art was good, true. So is Samnee's. The story on Daredevil is world's better than those five issues of FF, though.
Two things: Didn't Denny O' Neil already do a story about Matt Murdock facing as an adult the main bully who tormented him throughout his childhood?
Also, I remember Danny Fingeroth did a story in Web of Spider-Man revealing that Peter wasn't as innocent in his beatings as he thought he was. Flash Thompson basically tells him that he was arrogant and that he refused to hang out with the other kids and brought it on himself. In that story, as well as in this story, I don't really buy it. It's a cute twist on an origin, but I feel it's totally unnecessary and contradicts too much of what we've already seen.
Also, old Superman comics are terrible except to hardcore olf-school Superman fans. I don't think they're a good example of the average old school comic because even in the era they were released they were terrible compared to their contemporaries. There's a reason DC declined so much, and it's comics like that. Even for their time they were corny.
I like Waid's DD, although I'm not crazy about the idea of DD violating "bro code" and banging the Black Cat without making sure Spidey was okay with it. I thought that was a major dick move and was suprised no one made a big deal about that.
It boggles my mind that there are people who don't think Chris Samnee is brilliant. Of course, it also boggles my mind that there are people who think that Elliot S! Maggin isn't a genius…
I know those old 70s comics were crazy, but holy shit, Superman has a third eye in the middle of his forehead! And he's not even possessed by Pandora's box.
JBean, **EVERY** writer claims they are bringing the character back to center. That's what new writers are supposed to do: return to the core ideals of the character and pick the ones that make them interesting in a way that's different than before without discarding what's come before.
As for the comparison, asking Waid what he thinks are average runs for comparison is like asking Brian Cronin for other comics-based sites to compare to. It doesn't necessarily make for strong comparison, especially when everyone knows Superman was in a rut of the ridiculous.
A more apt comparison for Waid's "return to centre" would be average "return to center" Batman comics (given that he dropped the campiness of the late sixties), or "return to center" powered Wonder Woman (who was powerless prior to the TV show), etc.
I'm not saying Waid's are better or worse — though I do agree with the comparison to Bendis' take, which was more thrilling as a character-based and focused on Matt as lawyer — but I think the averages don't match up.
However, whatever your preference, the one thing each of those comics Brian and Mark Waid use as demonstrations reveals is that comics in the 70s were (a) written to be someone's first issue, (b) accepted the ridiculous much easier and (c) were aimed at fun in a way that modern comics just forget.
(And, for the record, I love those Superman issues not only because Curt Swan's art is energetic but because the hero isn't simply about finding a way to outhit the enemy like today's comics all seem to do… he was thinking of active ways to find the culprit and make them face their own villainy.)
The thing is, Waid's Daredevil actually is much more reminiscent of the writer that came shortly AFTER Steve Gerber– Marv Wolfman. Wolfman had a really good run there, especially when Bob Brown and Klaus Janson were doing the art. Those were the stories that introduced Heather Glenn, Bullseye, D.A. Tower…. he had the same kind of long-term plot structure as Waid uses, he did the same kind of small crossovers, all of it. That's why it feels old-school to me.
That's not a criticism. I think Waid's Daredevil is terrific and deserves all the praise it gets, but the 'centrist' position between the Gerber examples above and the modern noir take Frank Miller brought was first done by Marv Wolfman. if Waid's channeling any 'classic' DD run, it's that one. It should be showing up pretty much in its entirety in the next DD Essential volume, I think.
I've been hoping someone here would come up with an answer/explanation to a question I've been asking myself about Waid's DD. I'm a latecomer to the title – just read the first six issues this past week and while I really enjoyed them, I found them kind of 'light' storywise and I've been trying to figure out why. I don't mean I want a big life changing event for the hero every issue. I don't want strum and drang. It just felt like there could have been more to the stories and there wasn't. Or was I the only one who had that reaction? I also felt the same about the first six issues of the latest Gambit series – if you like the character (which many people don't), it was an entertaining mash-up of "It Takes a Thief" and fantasy/sf elements, but, again, it felt light storywise. Both books were, to me, like getting really nice salads, but nothing else. Whereas, I read the SUPERMAN: THE ADVENTURES OF NIGHTWING AND FLAMEBIRD and BOTTLE CITY OF KANDOR collections and felt like I got the whole meal – and no one is going to argue either of those collections is equal to what Waid's doing – even though they're highly entertaining.
So, anyone have an idea as to what the difference is?
Terra-Man: Almost as bad as Serifan
Brian, you are always the lawyer. You make such a compelling case, I'm going to read Waid's run.
As for the comparison, asking Waid what he thinks are average runs for comparison is like asking Brian Cronin for other comics-based sites to compare to. It doesn't necessarily make for strong comparison, especially when everyone knows Superman was in a rut of the ridiculous.
Try reading other DC superhero titles from 1973. They're pretty darn bad. The Kirby stuff and Batman/Detective were better than Superman and everything else was worse. The Superman titles were very much the "average" superhero title for DC Comics in 1973 (if anything, they likely were closer to above-average than anything). Flash, also written at the time by Cary Bates, would be the next closest other title in my mind (and I've read those issues, too, and they also do not compare favorably to Waid/Samnee's DD).
Absolutely agree with Brian about the main point.
Just wanted to note how much I like the Bronze Age Barbara Gordon who has managed to keep her identity secret from Batman instead of being another of his child-soldiers, and who's a plausible date for an older Clark Kent rather than being bonded-for-life to a much younger Dick Grayson.
T. I remember that Spider-Man story–I agree, it's a twist, but not a good one. It doesn't fit anything in the way Flash was portrayed in high-school and makes light of Flash's bullying.
Guess I'll have to see if the library has some DD In trade.
Brian is still repeating that nonsense about Rogue being racist when there's nothing to actually support it? Seriously?
Also, old Superman comics are terrible except to hardcore old-school Superman fans. I don't think they're a good example of the average old school comic because even in the era they were released they were terrible compared to their contemporaries. There's a reason DC declined so much, and it's comics like that. Even for their time they were corny.
You know, I see this criticism a lot, and it really doesn't hold water. The craft involved in these stories is first-rate. As others have said, even fatigued-journeyman Curt Swan art is head and shoulders above what other guys were doing– you really want to see BAD Superman art, you should check out Alex Saviuk as inked by Vince Colletta, just as a point of comparison. Likewise, Cary Bates and Elliott Maggin were doing really nice work on a lot of these stories– lighter, fun stuff, gimmick stories built around a puzzle or anomaly of some kind. Some worked and some fell flat but really, when fans complain about this stuff it always sounds to me like complaining that the Nancy Drew mysteries are too childish. We are not the target audience for these Superman stories. For more than half of his comics existence, or let's say the newsstand-era of his comics existence, Superman stories existed as an entry point for kids into superhero comics. Most of us that came of age in the early 1970s followed a pretty similar arc– TV cartoons to DC superhero comics to Marvel comics to following individual creators. It was like stair-steps. The DC books were mostly done by talent who were used to catering to bright ten-year-olds. That's why they feel 'corny.' Maggin and Bates put some snap into the dialogue and added a veneer of sophistication, but criticizing them for what amounts to not doing Marvel-style epics is silly when that's clearly not what they were tasked with. You can look at the early Marvel books and see the same struggle, but in the opposite direction– Stan thought he was writing comics for kids at first too, and it was only when he realized he had a college audience that he started to raise his game.
Sure, Superman stories are aimed at us older fans now, and these are certainly going to suffer in comparison on that basis. But when I was eight years old these were AWESOME. They only started to look corny as I aged out of them.
i tried an issue of DD (Matt and several orphans were trapped in snow) and i liked it a lot, typical Waid storytelling. Haha.
what would you guys prefer? fabian nicieza and scott lobdell, I had to endure their stories for the xmen when i was collecting the titles in the 90's. it was only sheer love for the characters that made me buy the books.
Waid's Daredevil is average now
"I thought you would leave the plebian puns to the likes of Daredevil"
Shows how much DD's character has changed over the years
What comics are considered the best in this time period? O'Neill/Adams Batman? I think if you'd restricted this to Marvel books and chosen a period based on a classic the standard would be somewhat better. Maybe the average Marvel comic contemporary to The Dark.Phoenix Saga. I'd discount DC because I think it's harder to make a comparison with pre crisis comics, as Greg Hatcher said the majority were written for a different audience.
That said I do think Waid' s Daredevil would come out above average, it's a very good run.
Waid' & Co's DD has been my favorite Big 2 super-hero comic of recent years. It doesn't have a lot of competition (Gillen's Journey Into Mystery & Aaron's Wolverine & the X-Men come closest), but I genuinely enjoy the comic to a degree that other titles don't match. Waid's character work and the stories' twists make the series a standout. The art has been fantastic as well; Samnee's staging and talent for both action and expressive figures fit the book perfectly.
Most mid-'70s Big 2 super-hero comics are pap. The good stuff stemmed from talented artists using styles than were innovative or uncommon (Neal Adams, BWS, Berni Wrightson), writers breaking away from the norm and including their own idiosyncrasies in the comics (Steve Gerber, Steve Englehart), and creators using elements of other genres (Denny O'Neil). The good stuff was very much the exception. It's a testament to their talent to say Waid & Samnee stand with the best super-hero storytellers of that era.
I'd say Curt Swan hit his peak in the early '70s, not the '60s. You know, when he began working with Murphy Anderson on the "Kryptonite Nevermore" story. For a few years I would've ranked them as a top 5 artistic team–a step behind Adams/Giordano and Buscema/Sinnott.
This could be the subject of another posting, debate, or poll: "What year did Curt Swan hit his peak?"
A look at comics 40 years ago:
But I'm not sure why Brian choose 1973 as the point of comparison. Many Marvel comics were in a lull then. They improved a few years later.
But I'm not sure why Brian choose 1973 as the point of comparison.
Because it's a solid 40 years ago?
Those Iron Man issues; "there MUST have been a better way". Characters like that are so annoying.
You know, I see this criticism a lot, and it really doesn't hold water. The craft involved in these stories is first-rate. As others have said, even fatigued-journeyman Curt Swan art is head and shoulders above what other guys were doing– you really want to see BAD Superman art, you should check out Alex Saviuk as inked by Vince Colletta, just as a point of comparison.
I just want to make clear, I'm not bashing the art. Swan did lack a certain amount of dynamism, but he was a very good artist. One of the best.
Likewise, Cary Bates and Elliott Maggin were doing really nice work on a lot of these stories– lighter, fun stuff, gimmick stories built around a puzzle or anomaly of some kind.
This is where I disagree.
Some worked and some fell flat but really, when fans complain about this stuff it always sounds to me like complaining that the Nancy Drew mysteries are too childish.
I actually hate those types of complaints as well, so I want to make clear, I'm not bashing these Superman stories for being childish. Many of my favorite superhero stories of all time are extremely childish. I actually prefer superhero stores more when they go in the childish direction than the extremely adult direction.
We are not the target audience for these Superman stories.
I totally get and appreciate that. But even when I WAS the target audience for these stories, I found them excruciatingly awful and extremely corny when I read them.
For more than half of his comics existence, or let's say the newsstand-era of his comics existence, Superman stories existed as an entry point for kids into superhero comics.
Again I get that. To put it into perspective, I am a big fan of pre-Weisinger Superman. To me Weisinger is when Superman really went into a downward spiral creatively and never recovered fully. Pre-Weisinger Superman was as childish if not more childish than Weisinger and Schwartz-era Superman and I can enjoy them immensely to this day. The same goes for Golden Age Batman. I even like those Jack Schiff edited Batman stories that everyone claims to hate nowadays where Batman turned into gorillas and they were always dealing with aliens in broad daylight. I also enjoy Bob Haney's Teen Titans a LOT more than Wolfman/Perez's Teen Titans, despite the formber being blatantly targeted at children while the latter is undeniably going for a more adult, Marvel-like approach.
I don't dislike those Superman comics because they're childish and I am not the target audience. I dislike them because I think they are terrible and corny for ANY age, even the target audience of 10-year old children. I agree with Arnold Drake, when he complained to the bosses at DC about Weisinger's Superman, saying they were "aimed at terribly complicated, involved, cerebral five year olds, of which there are only 3 in the whole country." I feel the post-Weisinger Superman before Byrne took over was aimed at those same kids but slightly older.
Most of us that came of age in the early 1970s followed a pretty similar arc– TV cartoons to DC superhero comics to Marvel comics to following individual creators. It was like stair-steps. The DC books were mostly done by talent who were used to catering to bright ten-year-olds. That's why they feel 'corny.' Maggin and Bates put some snap into the dialogue and added a veneer of sophistication, but criticizing them for what amounts to not doing Marvel-style epics is silly when that's clearly not what they were tasked with. You can look at the early Marvel books and see the same struggle, but in the opposite direction– Stan thought he was writing comics for kids at first too, and it was only when he realized he had a college audience that he started to raise his game.
Again, I'm not saying they have to be grand sweeping mature epics. I enjoy plenty of DC done-in-ones that were aimed at children throughout its history. I also enjoy the early Marvels when it was much more childish and less sophisticated, before they hit their creative stride and started aiming at older audiences. My problem with this era of DC especially the Superman line has nothing to do with the target age of the audience.
Sure, Superman stories are aimed at us older fans now, and these are certainly going to suffer in comparison on that basis. But when I was eight years old these were AWESOME. They only started to look corny as I aged out of them.
It was different for me. The Schwartz era Superman of the 80s along with some of the Weisinger digests were some of my first comic books, and I found them corny even as a kid.
[…] cool characters that rarely get written into good comics, while over at CBR there's a great takedown of nostalgic and negative comparisons, centred around Waid's Daredevil. Old ain't always better, folks, so check out the New […]
Yeah, I agree with T.
If we want to compare those Superman stories with anything done by Marvel Comics, we should compare them to Marvel Team-Up or something like that. MTU was also done-in-one, gimmicky, and contrived as hell. But even as a 10-year old I'd notice the difference.
MTU was dynamic and cool, while those Superman stories gave off an "old fart vibe". They were not really kid-friendly, but an old-fashioned 45-year old's idea of what kid-friendly is. I agree that they have a nostagic vibe too, and I can read them now with a smile on my face. But at the time of publication they seemed like granny's comics.
Crisis on Infinite Earths did happen for a very good reason. DC Comics bleed off readers for the best part of the 1970s. Including young kids.
Because it's a solid 40 years ago?
Why not 30 years ago? Why not 25? Are those not old? I bet if you were comparing it to the mid-80's or so it wouldn't look as laughably far off. Particularly if you did like Marvel stories and not "Superman battles a Moa" type stories that are regularly mocked here. Heck, 50 years ago would have been really old, and probably would have been a fairer comparison, because Marvel was producing some good stuff then.
This is not to say that I don't think Waid's DD isn't above average to excellent for now or then. Just that the evidence for a point I agree with is so skewed that it's hard to take it seriously. (And really…is Mark Waid the only comic historian still out there? C'mon.)
As for the sidebar on the "Peter deserved it" in high school retcon, I don't know if it really says that, or if it's just the justification you'd expect from a bully like Flash Thompson. Do bullies ever think they're just jerks doing bad things, or do they blame the victim? Now, because Peter is the character who may be most into self-flagellation it may come off like Flash is right. The story may have needed someone like MJ to go "that's a load of crap" or Liz Allen to say "no, we were just insecure" and for that reason the story may fail, but I'm not sure it was trying to change comic history.
While usually bullies are full of it when they accuse the victim, I reckon that Flash may have a point. There are some Spider-Man stories where people at school try to be nice to Peter, and for some misunderstanding related to Spider-Man, Peter appears to give them the cold treatment. Specifically, I remember the last Ditko issues with Peter entering college. Peter repeatedly looks like a jerk because people don't know he is worried about Aunt May dying.
I think the distinctions are less clear than are suggesting.
First, Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin were not the same guy. They had the same assignment, but they differed in terms of talent. Given more freedom, Maggin was able to produce some pretty beloved novelizations. Bates, in contrast, produced the Trial of the Flash. I'd suggest that Bates was well-suited to being a Bronze Age DC creator and Maggin had another level.
Second, Mort Weisinger was not hardly a complete disaster. His comics could not have been more commercially successful. they were as personal (in their way) as any indie comic and they introduced a lot of beloved elements to the Superman mythos. Weisinger was a weird dude and his his quirks rubbed off on Superman as surely as William Marston's attached themselves to Wonder Woman. However, I am not someone that considers quirks to be a bad thing. The decline of Superman titles began when Julie Schwartz took over and felt obligated to apologize for his old friend.
Third, Curt Swan was amazing. That was especially true in combination with Murphy Anderson. However, penciling two titles per month year-after-year did him no favors. His figures became overly stiff and his monsters got to looking awfully generic. He was taking almost as much off the table as he was putting on it by the mid-70s. Part of what was so amazing about "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" was seeing Swan working near the peak of his powers one last time.
First, Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin were not the same guy. They had the same assignment, but they differed in terms of talent. Given more freedom, Maggin was able to produce some pretty beloved novelizations. Bates, in contrast, produced the Trial of the Flash. I'd suggest that Bates was well-suited to being a Bronze Age DC creator and Maggin had another level.
I didn't like either of their writing, honestly, but I could tolerate Bates more. Even though I didn't dig his writing when doing the Schwartz house style of Superman, it was still way better than the writing under the Weisinger house style. And his Trial of the Flash I respect for its sheer ambition, even if the execution wasn't always there.
Maggin though, I really couldn't stand. He really ramped up the Space Jesus aspect of Superman that I totally can't stand, and that often turns up in movie adaptations now. And his stories were so worshipful in-story of Superman, a tendency that a lot of lesser writers after him played up in later decades, not only with Superman but now with the whole DCU. Now we have the religious iconography expanded to Wonder Woman and Batman, as the three of them are often called The Trinity now. And we get so many stories of "A-list" heroes being worshipped and lionized even by other superheroes. It's annoying to read stories about heroes that read more like hagiographies than compelling epics, and I feel Maggin was a big part of setting that awful tone not just for Superman but much of the rest of DC.
Second, Mort Weisinger was not hardly a complete disaster. His comics could not have been more commercially successful.
Sure they were as commercially successful as they could have been. That's the problem. The 90s were as commercially as successful as they could have been too for the comic industry. And look what happened after. What the 90s were to X-Men and Image specifically and comic industry as a whole, Weisinger was to the Superman line. Weisinger was just gimmick after gimmick after gimmick, and sure he pumped up the Superman franchise short-term to stratospheric heights, much like Harras did for the X-line in the 90s, but those same gimmicks also ruined much of the brand for many people and created a lot of the not-so-fondly-remembered trappings and tropes that keep many people away from the franchise now.
He diluted the mythos with Supergirl, Krypto, Super-pets, and a ton of other gimmicks. The things he added to Superman, while fondly remembered because they are so ingrained, were pretty dispensible. Recurring girlfriends with L.L? We could live without that. Legion of Super-Heroes? It's a cool concept, but it doesn't have to be in the Superman mythos. In fact, I think it would have worked far better as a standalone concept than as part of Superman's mythos. All the colors of kryptonite? Pass.
Sure there were occasional great stories of Weisinger, but rather than credit him for those, instead I view them as flukes. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Instead I imagine how much more frequently there would have been great Superman stories if Weisinger wasn't there.
Every time now that there's a Superman adaptation or a mainstream news article about Superman, there's always this question about how to make Superman relevant for new generatiosn, because he's too corny, too stiff, too powerful, etc. But the guy Seigel and Shuster introduced was anything but a stiff, corny, godlike boy scout. Every supposed problem that Superman has with relating with modern audiences comes from Weisinger. All the timeless aspects of Superman that still connect with modern audiences are from Siegel and Shuster.
The decline of Superman titles began when Julie Schwartz took over and felt obligated to apologize for his old friend.
Maybe the COMMERCIAL decline began under Schwartz, but the seeds were sown under Weisinger's creative direction to me. He was a very short term thinker who maximized the short-term at the expense of the long-term.
While usually bullies are full of it when they accuse the victim, I reckon that Flash may have a point. There are some Spider-Man stories where people at school try to be nice to Peter, and for some misunderstanding related to Spider-Man, Peter appears to give them the cold treatment. Specifically, I remember the last Ditko issues with Peter entering college. Peter repeatedly looks like a jerk because people don't know he is worried about Aunt May dying.
This is true, but think back to the first Spider-Man story in Amazing Fantasy #15. What Flash claimed simply wasn't true. Peter is standing alone longing for friendship and company in the very first panel, looking at the other kids longingly. He tries to ask a girl out, she laughs in his face. Flash Thompson passes by and knocks over his books. Peter then approaches the car full of kids and invites them to a science exhibit with him, the one that gave him his powers. They laugh in his face and peel off in their car, leaving him to cry by himself and attend on his own.
So the idea that Peter was arrogant and aloof and superior and didn't want to be friends with them, which caused them in turn to be mean to him simply wasn't true. He started out very much wanting to be friends and made overt, concrete gestures to do so, and was constantly rebuffed and humiliated for his efforts. He did become more arrogant and aloof and confrontational as the series progressed and his confidence increased thanks to being Spider-Man, and there were incidents like what happened when he started college, but that was after years of unwarranted mistreatment by his peers. Sure it probably didn't HELP matters, but it sure didn't CAUSE the original mistreatment.
That's what bothered me about the Fingeroth story so much. Flash gave that excuse and it was treated as so valid in-story. Pete didn't even put up a defense, and it was presented in a way that the reader was obviously supposed to see it as having merit, yet from the first Spider-Man story there was evidence against such an interpretation.
T makes some fair points about Weisinger; though I think it's a matter of taste more than objective fact. But, again–
He was a very short term thinker who maximized the short-term at the expense of the long-term.
…that was the industry he was in. So did every other editor in the business, including Stan Lee. The idea of actual FANS that stuck around for years, that kept track of the stories, was a completely foreign notion. The idea was that the readership turned over every four years. That was why you reiterated basic things, used captions like "Clark (Superman) Kent," recycled old scripts, et al. Weisinger and Schwartz didn't change as fast as the industry did, they really had no clue how to cope with the changes Marvel brought to superheroes in the 1960s. But neither did anyone else. So they tried to graft it on to characters that style was never meant for and it ends up looking like a clown nose on a marble bust. I love the Kirby JIMMY OLSEN but even as I kid I thought it was kind of a weird culture clash. The other Fourth World stuff looked a lot better because it was pure, it didn't have a wad of Superman continuity pasted in to it and editors telling Kirby he was doing it all wrong. (Another great example of this is Kirby being ordered to use Deadman.) They clearly had no idea how to utilize Jack Kirby's talent, which at that time was almost synonymous with Marvel-style superheroics.
That's the history of pop culture. Look at any big innovation and you'll see a bunch of lame imitations getting it completely wrong for a year or five after. Star Wars and the boom of lame-ass space dogfight films that came after. Secret Wars and Crisis and the line-wide crossover– Eclipse even tried one at one point for God's sake. Watchmen and Dark Knight and the grim-n-gritty'ing of the entire DCU. The wave of 'put a new guy in the suit' stories that plagued superhero comics in the late 80s, early 90s after Rhodey as Iron Man. Etc.
Not to go on and on. But my point is that several of these things you are grumping about are natural processes, a consequence of the slow wave of change that was overtaking the industry as superheroes changed from a kid's genre to a hobbyist's specialty. It's a bit like shaking your fist at the weather.
Greg – You make very good points, but I do believe even within the context of the industry Weisinger was especially bad with his shortsightedness. Take for example this parody of Superman done by Roy Thomas in the 60s:
Also, Roy worked for Weisinger firsthand so he should definitely know.
Rogue gets called out for being racist because she is Southern, and everyone knows all white people from the South are racist. Racism, bad. Stereotypes based on where someone is from? Not only fine, but totally logical.
Well, I read this entire article and didn't get any insight that I couldn't have gotten by just reading those comics myself. Did I miss something?
[…] Would Mark Waid's Daredevil Just be an Average Superhero Comic Book Back in the Old Days? (goodcomics.comicbookresources.com) […]
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Mark Waid's Daredevil is very 'of its time'. It hasn't aged well, even in the year and a half or so that it's been on this Earth, and the farther removed we become from those early Mark Waid issues… the worse it looks.
Conversely, I can go back and re-read those Kevin Smith / Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev / David Mack / Joe Quesada runs… they haven't aged a day.
Mark Waid is a hack. The stories he has told in the pages of Daredevil simply do not stand on their own. They weren't stories that needed to be told. They weren't even stories that he was inspired to tell. They were an exercise in style over substance – which I'll hasten to note is the EXACT thing people (rightly) accused Andy Diggle of! In the same way that Diggle's run was 'grimdark for the sake of being grimdark'… Mark Waid's run is pseudo-retro hipster pretense… for the sake of pseudo-retro hipster pretense. It appeals to a contrarian subset of comic readers exclusively… and absolutely nobody else.
I really cannot wait for this man to leave my favorite superhero book alone. After collecting literally every issue of Daredevil from the first issue to the present… I haven't purchased a single issue since Waid's involvement, and patently refuse to purchase any until he leaves. Bringing in Karl Kesel – whose run is probably the SECOND worst in DD history – is not going to ameliorate that situation.
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STEUBENVILLE - As the clock continues to tick down to the start of the third-annual Stars and Stripes Concert and Festival, organizers say they are confident the weather will be perfect Sunday.
The Stars and Stripes committee met Monday morning to review details for the annual event that will begin with opening ceremonies at noon Sunday at the Harding Practice Field. Hollywood City Center is title sponsor of the event.
"Everything is under control. Bob Evans Restaurant has agreed to supply lunch for the 20 people associated with the concert entertainment. We will be borrowing dishes from Scaffidi's Restaurant for that lunch. And then Scaffidi's will supply the dinner," reported Deanne Conrad of the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce.
Conrad's report preceded the review of a lengthy list of details gathered by committee Co-Chair Tricia Damewood-Maple.
"Everyone laughs about my lists, but I am very detailed oriented. We have come a long way since our first concert and festival. Last year I sat here and made a major list of every single item we could think of. All this planning has gotten a lot easier," laughed Damewood-Maple.
But her list was surpassed by chamber President Sue Hershey's list of supplies needed on the day of the concert and festival.
"Duct tape. Can't have an event without duct tape, string, twine, pliers, cell phone chargers, pens, markers, hammers," Hershey read.
The festival committee will hold a final review session Thursday afternoon.
"We are definitely more organized this year. We do have this under control and the planning is much less intense because we are better prepared," remarked committee Co-Chair John Cucarese.
"I am actually excited about the weather forecast for Sunday. The weather folks are calling for highs in the upper 70s with just a small chance of a shower. It is going to be a beautiful day for the Family Fun Zone and the beer corral in the Kroger parking lot as well as the custom car show. By the time the entertainment starts in Harding Stadium, it will will be a very pleasant evening," declared Damewood-Maple.
The Joseph Sisters of Wheeling will take the stage at Harding Stadium at 5:30 p.m. They will be followed by the Todd Jones Band at 6:45 p.m. and headliner Phil Vassar at 8:30 p.m.
Advance tickets for the concert will be available through Saturday at Kwik King stores in Steubenville, Wintersville, Toronto, Follansbee and Weirton. Tickets also are available at Peoples National Bank branches in Adena, Dillonvale and Mount Pleasant; the customer service center at the Fort Steuben Mall; the visitors center at Historic Fort Steuben; at the chamber office at 630 Market St., Steubenville; or online at jeffersoncountychamber.com.
General admission tickets for the concert are $15 and reserved seat tickets are $20 if purchased in advance. On the day of the concert, the general admission tickets will cost $20 and reserved seat tickets will be $25.
"We will be accepting credit cards and debit cards at the ticket windows at Harding Stadium on Sunday," Hershey said.
The concert will be followed by the city's annual fireworks display at approximately 10 p.m.
"The really cool closing will be the start of the fireworks, sponsored by the City of Steubenville and the Steubenville City Schools, just as the final note of the last Phil Vassar song is played. It will be like a Pittsburgh Pirates game where the fireworks start right after the final out of the game," commented Cucarese.
Organizers pointed out that while there will be an admission charge the concert, there will be no charge to enter the Family Fun Zone.
"I feel very good that the chamber of commerce, the city and the city schools along with our sponsors have come together to make this Stars and Stripes Concert and Festival even bigger and better," noted Damewood-Maple.
"It is never easy to pull off a concert of this size with the entertainers we are bringing in, but we are doing it and I believe we will have another major success. I have never seen such diverse organizations work so well together," she added.
"Everyone on this committee has their own business, but we are able to take the time to start meeting and planning for the Stars and Stripes Concert and Festival months in advance. We are able to continue to take time away from our businesses to meet to discuss the event details and finally to put in a lot of hours this weekend putting up the stage and tents and then making sure everything proceeds according to the plans on Sunday. This is really about doing something spectacular for the community," Cucarese stated.
"This event keeps people in our own community that day and draws out-of-town visitors to Steubenville. We make our community a little better by providing first-class entertainment and fun events," said Damewood-Maple.
"If you take a family of four to a similar concert in Pittsburgh you could expect to pay $500 for the tickets, gas, parking and food. The gas is next to nothing, the parking is free, the food and concert tickets are very affordable," cited Cucarese.
"And then, when all the entertainment is finished, you can sit back in your seats and watch one of the best fireworks shows in the area right above your heads," Cucarese said.
(Gossett can be contacted at email@example.com)


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Let $p(n,m)$ be the number of partitions of an integer $n$ into integers $\le m$, we have a well-known asymptotic expression:
For a fixed $m$ and $n\to\infty$, $$p(n,m)=\frac{n^{m-1}}{m!(m-1)!} (1+O(1/n)) $$
My question is: why the error $O(1/n)$ is independent of $m$? Or how can it be extended for $m$ growing slowly with $n$? Please help me to find the answer or the references. Thanks.


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(CBS/AP) SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday proposed more than $8 billion in cuts to close a widening California budget deficit but also said public schools will receive more money if voters approve his tax-hike initiative in November.
The governor wants public employees to take a 5 percent pay cut and also seeks cuts to health care and social services.
Brown released his revised spending plan Monday for the fiscal year starting July 1, saying the state faces a $15.7 billion deficit. That is roughly 17 percent of its $91 billion general fund, California's main checkbook for day-to-day operations.
It also is far higher than the $9.2 billion gap Brown anticipated in January.
The Democratic governor said the size of the deficit makes it virtually impossible to balance the budget with spending cuts alone, so his budget balances the cuts with the revenue he anticipates if voters approve his proposal to increase the statewide sales tax by a quarter cent and boost income taxes on those who make more than $250,000 a year. Both tax increases would be temporary.
Brown's budget proposes $8.3 billion in cuts, $5.9 billion from the tax increases and $2.5 billion in a variety of other solutions.
He said the tax increases are essential to maintain fiscal stability in the state and avoiding even deeper spending cuts — mostly to schools- if they fail.
"It's taken more than a decade to get into this mess; we're not going to get out of it in a year. But we're making real progress," he told reporters in releasing his revised budget.
If voters reject his tax initiative, Brown is proposing an automatic cut of $5.5 billion to K-12 schools and $250 million each to the California State University and University of California systems.
By comparison, public schools would see a 16 percent increase in funding if voters pass Brown's initiative.
On Saturday Brown released a YouTube video, taking his appeal to voters to back his call for temporary tax hikes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, as well as an increase in the state's sales tax.
His Saturday budget message and campaign pitch were the same: Raise taxes or endure crippling cuts to schools, colleges and public safety.
"Please join me in getting our state back on track and investing in our common future," said Brown, a Democrat.


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Are there any excellent sites out there that evaluate a website's loading speed at different levels of Internet connection?
I have used this site in the past but the information is out of date and I am not sure about its accuracy any longer - http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze
I understand there might be a way of controlling the speed of your own connection but I'd rather stay away from the technical aspect of my own workstation.
Finally, are there any good sites that capture global statistics on the most popular connection speeds?


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8 Things You Won't Believe Plants Do When No One's Looking
Plants don't get a lot of respect, because frankly, they don't do shit. They just kind of sit there waiting to be eaten, right? They can't move or think or make their plans against us.
Actually, that's just what they want you to think. It turns out that plants are capable of some pretty sophisticated, even downright nefarious schemes. For instance ...
#8. Eucalyptus Trees Napalm Their Enemies
For most trees, fire is kind of a bad thing. Nothing burns better than a nice dry hunk of wood, and a tree is in no position to stop, drop and roll when you light a bonfire under it. The Australian eucalyptus tree takes advantage of this weakness in the same way as Schwarzenegger takes advantage of his enemies' vulnerability to bullets.
Koalas are endangered because eucalyptus has an anger-management problem.
Just like animals, plants compete with each other for space and territory, though most have only a limited ability to retaliate against some asshole fern setting up camp on their lawn. But when it comes to protecting their territory, eucalyptus trees have a scorched earth policy -- they not only are immune to forest fires, but also actively encourage them.
You see, the eucalyptus itself is designed specifically to be the only tree standing after a fiery apocalypse -- they have stems hidden deep inside their trunks, ready to spring out once the smoke clears. So it basically spends its life throwing around gasoline, waiting for a spark.
"I love the smell of us in the morning."
And we're not exaggerating -- eucalyptus contains a kind of oil that is so flammable that the trees can actually explode when they catch fire, like someone uttering a one-liner before flicking a cigar into a gas station. The leaf litter from eucalyptus trees is so full of toxic napalm that bugs and fungus don't break it down -- it just dries out and covers the ground like a super-flammable carpet. If that weren't enough, the trees produce a bluish-gray cloud of evaporated gas that can go up like a fireball with one lightning bolt or thoughtlessly discarded cigarette butt.
An ill-advised plantation of eucalyptus has been blamed for the 1991 firestorm in California that destroyed 3,000 homes, and it's no wonder -- eucalyptus is like that pyromaniac kid you knew in school who never left home without his matches. You know exactly who to blame when shit starts burning down in your neighborhood.
Eucalyptus: Nature's leafy arsonist.
#7. Plants That Command Insects
Think about this the next time you take the shears to that dinosaur-shaped hedge in your backyard: science is discovering that some plants have the ability to summon and command insects like some lesser known X-Men character.
The other kids tend to give Bugneto a wide berth on the playground.
Take the common tomato, for example. If a caterpillar is chewing on it, experiments show that the humble tomato can throw up a chemical smoke signal that summons an army of parasitic wasps to come fight them off. Tobacco, too, calls for help from nearby predators to fend off the caterpillars of certain hawkmoths, leaf bugs and other pests. And just to be clear, it doesn't just randomly send out a chemical dog whistle for whatever carnivorous bug happens to be in the neighborhood -- it actually summons specific predators according to whatever kind of pest it's trying to deal with. Whatever is attacking it, it can summon that particular pest's predator.
Wait. How is that even possible? These are freaking plants, they don't even have the rudimentary brains of insects. How do they even know that they're being eaten, much less differentiate between who's eating them?
"Yeah, that's right, bitch. Pollinate my gooey sweetness.
Scientists believe that plants can sense the digestive substances that the invading insects have in their oral secretions. Different bug drool sets off different chemical alarms, which call out to specific species of vicious wasps or mites or nematodes, whatever the job requires.
But it's not just about violence. Plants can also manipulate insects for sweet, sweet loving. Orchids in particular have had 85 million years to decipher the chemical signals that insects employ for communication, and they use these scents to basically trick them into becoming couriers for their plant-sperm. For example, many orchids can produce the scent of a female bug in heat. The purpose is to lure the male in and coat him in pollen. However, some orchids, like the Australian tongue orchid, recreate the scent so well that the male bugs end up humping the flower to completion.
So ... that plan sort of backfired, we guess.
#6. The Javan Cucumber Masters the Mechanics of Flight
Sure, lots of plants use some kind of system for spreading their seeds far and wide using the wind, because it doesn't make sense for a tree to have to share the same patch of ground with multiple generations of offspring. So, the seeds will have some aerodynamic shape that lets them float through the air for a while. You've seen them. But all of them will still fall straight down if there's no wind.
Well, the Javan cucumber has crossed that hurdle.
Above: The Javan cucumber, as well as a rotten apple and Cthulhu's poop.
The seeds of the Javan cucumber have wings. Not wing-like protrusions that kind of help catch the wind. Not oddly shaped petals that just happen to provide lift. They've developed actual wings that can fly up to 100 meters with absolutely no wind, and much farther if there's a breeze.
The seed moves through the air in the same way as a butterfly flies, utilizing air currents, stalls, dips and glides to carry itself for miles. Just a reminder: It is just a seed.
BBC Earth News
And a distant cousin to the Batarang.
In fact, these seeds fly so well that they were the templates for some of the world's first airplanes. Igo Etrich, an Austrian, and one of the pioneers of aviation, based his glider designs on the shape of this family of seeds. Mankind's baby steps along the path of air travel were aided by a plant with wings.
"Plant-based technology."
#5. Plants that Communicate and Cooperate
As we mentioned, plants typically don't like to share their neighborhood with freeloaders. But when it comes to family, some plants will really stick up for their bros. When the common jewelweed is placed in a pot with an unrelated plant, the two will grow as quickly as possible, each trying to wrestle as many nutrients and minerals as possible away from the other. But when siblings are stuck together, they actually rein in their normal root development.
And they called us crazy for believing in the Plant Mafia.
It's not just that they don't murder each other -- they actually grow less than they normally would. Some plants can recognize their relatives and care enough about them to share food.
If it wasn't bad enough that plants are capable of telling their friends from their enemies, they can apparently collaborate with each other, too. When a willow tree is being eaten by caterpillars, it produces chemicals that the bugs have trouble digesting. But then nearby trees that haven't even been touched will also start producing that chemical. It's been discovered that once a willow gets chewed on, it releases pheromones into the air that other willows in the area can detect so that they can ramp up their own defenses.
"Five-O, Five-O!"
But that's not all. Plants can also signal each other when it's time to bloom. If they throw up their blossoms randomly, herbivores can pick them off one by one, but if they coordinate, they can overwhelm the leaf munchers with sheer volume.
But perhaps even more amazingly, or terrifyingly, tobacco plants can communicate with totally different species. To test this, scientists tortured sagebrush plants and found that nearby tobacco plants started producing their own chemical defenses. If there's anything more terrifying than a horror movie becoming reality, it's the idea that the movie might be The Happening.
Now that's a twist.


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Judge issues order
to keep club closed
STEUBENVILLE - Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Bruzzese Jr. signed a permanent injunction Tuesday that prevents Derek Smith from occupying or using a building he owns on South Street as a social club until he gets a city permit.
The city filed for the injunction to stop Smith from operating a business in the building known as Club 106.
The injunction request was first heard in October, but Bruzzese gave Smith more time to obtain the necessary permits from the city. His attorney, Gary Stern, has argued the city is thwarting Smith's attempts to get the permits.
City Police reported there have been several incidents of shots fired around the club.
Smith did get a zoning variance to cover the issue of parking. Smith has yet to file the paperwork for the city to inspect the building to make sure it complies with zoning laws for the use as a social club. Once that is done, Smith can apply for an occupancy permit.
Bruzzese ruled that Smith can't use or occupy the building as a social club or any other enterprise until he receives the occupancy permit.
Project Linus Make a Blanket Day event set
TORONTO - The Main Street Gallery, 212 Main St., will host Project Linus for National Make a Blanket Day, set from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at the gallery. Those attending may work on a current project or turn in new, handmade blankets for local children in need. For information, call Alicia Joynson at (740) 219-9433 or the gallery at (740) 537-3451.
Property dispute
hearing set
NEW CUMBERLAND - A hearing has been scheduled for a property dispute between Hancock County commissioners and attorney Lawrence Manypenny.
The hearing is set for 10 a.m. Feb. 20 in Courtroom 1 of Hancock County Circuit Court.
Commissioners filed a motion for an injunction against Manypenny last week after caution tape, pylons and signs appeared on the strip of land, adjacent to the Hancock County Magistrate Court, that Manypenny claims ownership of. His law office is next door to the court building.
Manypenny wants compensation for the county's use of the land. Commissioners appeal to a 30-year-old arrangement that has ensured public access to the court.
The case has been assigned to 1st Judicial Circuit Court Judge James P. Mazzone.
Alumni dinner set
at EGCC
STEUBENVILLE -Eastern Gateway Community College's Alumni Association is inviting the 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979 graduates to a get-together on Feb. 21 in Steubenville.
An informal dinner will be held at 6 p.m. at a local restaurant for graduates to meet with former classmates, to renew friendships and to share fun and interesting stories.
To participate, graduates should call the college's career services office at (800) 68-COLLEGE, extensions 113 or 110.
Man falls through ice saving dog
ST. CLAIRSVILLE - A man trying to save his dog that fell through a pond's icy surface also needed rescued Monday morning.
The accident occurred at 9:35 a.m. on a small pond off Hammond Road behind Belmont College, said Cumberland Trail Fire District Assistant Chief Mark Sommers. The man and his wife, whose names Sommers declined to give because of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act laws, were walking their canine around the pond when the dog took off chasing some geese.
''The dog got out, but he had to be helped out. He was in the water for 10 minutes. ... He was having signs of hypothermia, but there were no other injuries that were apparent,'' Sommers said.
An off-duty paramedic and a Richland Township police officer were the first at the scene and gave the man directions on how to get closer to the shore.
''He probably had to break the ice with his hands and then he swam toward the shore. He had to be helped out of the water because his legs were numb,'' Sommers said.
The man, who Sommers estimated to be in his 50s or 60s, was taken to East Ohio Regional Hospital for treatment. Sommers said if the man had been in the frigid water for any longer, the rescue would have been more difficult. He would have been too numb to even use a rope, and he would have been disoriented.
Registration set for city schools
STEUBENVILLE - City school officials have announced preschool and kindergarten registration for the 2013-14 school year will start Feb. 25.
According to Melinda Young, registration will be held daily from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. at Pugliese West Elementary, East Garfield Elementary and Wells Academy.
The registration will continue from Feb. 25 through March 1.
Children do not need to be present and individual screening appointments will be scheduled for later dates.
According to Young, eligibility requirements include children entering kindergarten must be 5 years old on or before Aug.1. Children entering preschool must be at least 3 years old by Aug. 1.
At the time of registration parents are requested to bring the child's legal birth certificate, Social Security number and immunization records.
Each child must have state minimum immunization requirements.
Incomplete immunizations should be taken care of through a family physician or through the Steubenville Health Department.
Information about the preschool and kindergarten registration is available by contacting Young at (740) 283-3767.


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Do *YOU* need the aPen A3 Android .apk file?
If you do - I have one that will sideload to an Android tablet. PM me - if you can figure out how! - with your email addy and I'll shoot it to you.
14 Answers answer
I'm good, but thanks for your generosity. :)
I guess if I don't know what it is, I don't need it. Thanks anyways.
@aphroat Excuse me for being a mom, but I saw your post requesting the .apk file, and I'm assuming this is the one you got from @baqui63 ? In which case, this (and the other thread) would be a good place to publicly acknowledge gratitude.
Lol. Thanks, mom.
But I think the apk @aphroat is offering is actually the one that the A3 tech support got to her (though I did slave half the night rooting my phone to get her the non-working one... just kidding... I would have been up anyway doing something less constructive, plus now my G2 is rooted and that's been on my to-do list for months).
@baqui63: My apologies to @aphroat for doubting her manners then. I just like seeing seeing those who come to the rescue (or even just make the attempt) get the acknowledgement they deserve.
BTW I like your new avatar. I was wondering at the symbolism of a grey square when I saw it on white, but now that I see it (don't see it) on grey, it makes more sense.
Thanks. What I'd actually like is a transparent avatar but for now I'm just happy that Gravatar finally is letting me upload my own images to it. (At first it woould not and I went with their default geometric pattern for years).
@gionot: I guess the profuse thanks via email and the mention here aren't adequate.
Hey, we're cool.
For the record everyone, @aphroat did thank me via email. And now I see she mentioned me in the post on woot's flip side... A post, I might add, that I feel should be elevated to Quality status adn not because it mentions me. (Hey, @agingdragqueen or @thunderthighs, can one of you help with that please?)
@baqui63: done. And now, I'm going to sleep. Good night.
Thank you. (Hopefully, this email notification doesn't wake you up.)
@aphroat: Shucks!
@aphroat: My apologies again! I assumed that you had thanked @baqui63 via email, and I didn't know about the mention on tech woot because I wasn't following that thread. Many of us here on ATC only visit the other side in regards to our personal purchases, so if something comes up on this side, it is nice to see the resolution (and gratitude) here too.
I'm glad you got your problem worked out and then offered to share it with the community. I imagine a lot of people wouldn't have been so persistent. Your tolerance for waiting on hold certainly surpasses mine!
I would love to get the .apk file if you can still send it.
@krifghtmds: If you can figure out how to PM your email address to me I'll be glad to send it along.


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Gems are a sort of Bounty you can get in Uncharted for defeating enemies, but I didn't get all of them in my first play through. I absolutely most get all of the gems.
Do just random enemies drop Gems/bounties, or do I need to get them from specific enemies? What does "scarce" and "rare" mean for Gems, the chance they'll drop from enemies?


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The ordinary Grassmannian of k-planes in n-space is a coset space for $GL_n$. It is $GL_n$ mod a maximal parabolic. Here there is a nice basis given by Schubert varieties, which can be indexed by Young diagrams that fit in an (k)x(n-k) box. The structure constants for the cup product are then given by Littlewood-Richardson numbers.
My question: is there a similarly nice picture for Grassmannians of arbitrary simple groups. Here the ordinary Grassmannian is replaced by $G/P$ where $G$ is a simple group and $P$ is a maximal parabolic. There are still Schubert varieties in this case, but I don't know how to say anything about the cup product.


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Boat Reflection Framed Print by Lupen Grainne
- Overview
This boat, named Le Fortune, was photographed in a harbor of small fishing boats in Nice, France. Lupen Grainne beautifully conveys the brilliant blue Mediterranean waters with the light shining on it, and the tiny boat's finely crafted shape.
- 13" wide x 11" high
- 20" wide x 16" high
- 42" wide x 28" high
- Alder wood frame.
- Black or white painted finish; or espresso stained finish.
- Beveled white mat is archival quality and acid-free.
- Available in Wood Gallery Frame or Ridged Distressed Frame profiles.
- Available with or without a mat.
- Internet Only.
- Dimensions & Care
- Inkjet-printed image on 270-gram paper.
- Backed with D-rings for wall mounting.
- 13" x 11" is also backed with an easel for tabletop display.
- 13" x 11" has a glass front.
- 20" x 16" has a glass front.
- 42" x 28" has a Plexiglas front.
- Print Size With Mat: 8.75" wide x 6.75" high
- Print Size Without Mat: 11.75" wide x 9.75" high
- Print Size With Mat: 15.75" wide x 11.75" high
- Print Size Without Mat: 18.75" wide x 14.75" high
- Print Size With Mat: 36.75" wide x 22.75" high
- Print Size Without Mat: 40.75" wide x 26.75" high
Overall Size: 13" wide x 11" high
Overall Size: 20" wide x 16" high
Overall Size: 42" wide x 28" high
- Clean glass with standard glass cleaner.
- Clean Plexiglas with a soft damp cloth.
- Wipe frame with a soft dry cloth.
- Shipping & Return Info
Please allow approximately 4 weeks for delivery.
This is a general shipping item. This item will ship directly from the manufacturer and is not eligible for rush shipping.
View our Shipping Information
Return Policy
At Pottery Barn, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction is our priority. We carefully inspect your order prior to shipment. Upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage; we will arrange for a prompt replacement. If, within 7 days for Quick Ship upholstery and 30 days for all other products, you are dissatisfied for any reason, you may return your purchase for a refund of the merchandise value.
We cannot accept returns on monogrammed, personalized, made to order items, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. We also cannot accept returns of final-sale items which are identified by a price which ends in .99.
For returns of items purchased from your Pottery Barn registry, we will gladly provide a refund or exchange for the merchandise within 90 days of your event or within 90 days of purchase, whichever date is later.
You may return merchandise through the mail for a refund or replacement. For detailed procedures for returning items through the mail, please contact Customer Service at 1.888.779.5176, 7 days a week, 5:00am - 9:00pm (PT).
- About the Artist
Self-taught photographer Lupen Grainne was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and now makes her home in Sonoma County, California. Her breathtaking and luminous photographs are inspired by her world travels, and her home where she grows flowers and vegetables. Using photography to convey certain stories, moods and feelings, her work has a dreamy quality that's irresistible. Nature's diversity and the beauty of everyday objects are endless inspirations.


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Given a note duration (whole, half, quarter, etc.), a tempo (in beats per minute), and a time signature, how long does that note last in milliseconds?
You can solve this by picking a simple, specific example and then generalizing it as necessary. Let's start with a simple case, where the tempo is such that there are 120 quarter notes per minute. The frequency of quarter notes is then $$ \frac{\text{120 quarter notes}}{\text{1 minute}} \cdot \frac{\text{1 minute}}{\text{60 seconds}} \cdot \frac{\text{1 second}}{\text{1000 milliseconds}} = \frac{\text{0.002 quarter notes}}{\text{millisecond}} . $$ This is the number of quarter notes that occur each millisecond. For a more useful number, we can invert this fraction to see that the number of milliseconds taken by one quarter note is $$ \frac{1}{\frac{\text{0.002 quarter notes}}{\text{millisecond}}} = \frac{\text{1 millisecond}}{\text{0.002 quarter notes}} = \frac{\text{500 milliseconds}}{\text{1 quarter note}} . $$ You can do fancier things involving other notes, tempos, key signatures, etc. by first finding out how many of your note occur in one minute (120 quarter notes in this example), and then following this same process.
protected by Qmechanic♦ Apr 28 '13 at 23:18
Thank you for your interest in this question.
Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).
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TierraCast Antique Copper Spiral Bead
Whether you're looking for an eye-catching element in an earring or a way to add detail to a bracelet, this TierraCast antique copper spiral bead is an excellent choice. The bead has a coin-shaped appearance with a hole travelling from one side to the other. An indented spiral design enhanced by an antique finish adorns both sides. You can use several of these beads with Swarovski crystal bicones to create a fun jewelry set. Feel free to browse for other
copper-plated pewter beads
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text:
I am taking a photograph course and the instructor, who repairs cameras, says it is extremely important to turn off the Image Stabilization on the lens before you remove it from the camera. He says turning it off "locks" things in place and prevents damage. Is this true? I have googled it and can't find any reference to this. I have a Canon 20D and Canon lenses. Thanks!
the only time the IS elements are "moving" is during the focus process (when you have your finger on the shutter button and a couple seconds after) otherwise everything is locked in place. If this weren't true then moving the lens and camera with IS turned on would have the potential to damage the elements of the lens and that would defeat the purpose of the IS in the first place.
Your instructor is wrong.
[Edit] from the EF 100-400 F4.5-56L IS USM manual (page E-9):
This is incorrect. Modern image stabilization is achieved through a lens element that is moved via electromagnets. Since electromagnets need to be powered in order to work, removing the lens (and the power source) will effectively lock the element in place rendering any movement impossible anyway.
Having said that, there are a number of really 'old school' lenses that potentially would be damaged if the image stabilization was not turned off first because they used gyroscopic stabilization methods instead of electromagnetic ones and the 'off' button literally locked physical elements of the lenses in place. Not locking the elements meant that they just 'rattled around free' in the lens housing. You don't have one of these lenses, however... They wouldn't fit on your Canon 20D (or any other modern camera)!
Not trying to judge, but this may be a case of an instructor not bothering to learn about new technology advances and carrying forward bad advice because "that's the way it used to be," which sadly happens quite a bit...
Modern lenses are designed to be "idiot proof," else they generate too many returns and warranty repairs. It's a bad idea, but I have seen (and even done, on occasion) lens changes while the camera is on with no ill effects. Image stabilization doesn't need to be turned off on modern lenses (unless specifically stated in the documentation).
Panasonic released a Micro 4/3 macro lens last year that even rattles when not on the camera. Panasonic sent a notice saying not to worry, this is normal.


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Back in the summer, the Oregon State Legislature agreed to a plan that would allow students to attend public universities and community colleges for free. In return, the student agrees to pay a small percent of his or her income after graduation.
Continue reading "Oregon Considers Offering Free Tuition. You Can Pay Them Back Later."


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Nike Air Pegasus+ 28 Men's Running Shoes
Buy Online & Pick Up In-Store
The Nike LIVESTRONG Air Pegasus+ 28 Men's Running Shoes are legendary. The running shoes feature a heel Nike Zoom Air encapsulated in the soft foam midsole. The shoes are designed for runners with medium to high arches so that the soft footbed lowers the impact on the heels and the balls of the feet. The most updated feature is the midfoot Flywire that ensures a lockdown fit and dynamic support. Since 2004, Nike has helped the Lance Armstrong Foundation raise over $80,000,000 to fight cancer. Join us and support the 28 million people living with cancer today.
- The Nike Air Pegasus+ 28 is lightweight, responsive training shoe with plenty of cushioning for your run.
- Nike Flywire