Stupid Comics website

[HipsterDad]

Fantomah was a work by Fletcher Hanks, and you can learn more about his bizarre life and art here: http://www.fletcherhanks.com . I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS, which reprints fifteen Hanks stories, was published by Fantagraphics earlier this summer.

[dave merrill]

Originally Posted by J'onn J'onzz

Edit: What's up with Fantomah? That comic looks horrible. Why are the gorillas all marching in single file with their arms in that weird position? Wild gorillas aren't soldiers.

I get the feeling that Hanks had some decent photo reference for the gorillas and just used the same photo over and over. It gives the strip a weird cut and paste feel. Karasik's new Hanks book I WILL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS has some biographical information that seems to indicate Hanks was a lot better with nature scenes than he was with people. He was also an abusive alcoholic, which in my mind only cements him further into the halls of Cartoonist Greatness. If you're not drinking and beating your kids, you're just not working hard enough!

[Mark Wallace]

Originally Posted by Scott Shaw!

Seriously, ODDBALL COMICS has already covered a lot of this material

Do you know how many Britney Spears websites there are?

Some of us are happy to find a new and worthy comics site.

[Mark Wallace]

Originally Posted by adam_warlock_2099

The Bee Queen was pretty funny. Although her appeal as a woman was better in her costume, then as a bee/human hybrid.

I shame myself by not knowing who Bee Queen was. But hope to redeem myself by getting some comics that she is in.

Atcherly, if you want to seek out back issues, Lana Lang was Insect Queen. Her ring let her morph into any insect/human hybrid.

As I recall it, she even teamed up with Elastic Lad, once. Make sure you switch off any higher brain functions, before reading that one.

[Mark Wallace]

Originally Posted by Scott Shaw!

"Fascinating"? "Hilarious"? "Highly knowledgeable"? Puh-lease. Don't expect gracious applause from me, Aaron and Dan.

Considering the length of time I've been doing ODDBALL COMICS, the amount of time I put into preparing my column and live show, and the various projects I'm working on (a DVD, a coffee table book, etc.) to exploit the work I've done, I'd say I have every right to criticize someone else's half-assed, snarky, unfunny attempts to rip off a concept and point of view that I created over thirty-five years ago.

Shame. I quite enjoyed your site.

[adam_warlock_2099]

Originally Posted by Mark Wallace

Atcherly, if you want to seek out back issues, Lana Lang was Insect Queen. Her ring let her morph into any insect/human hybrid.

As I recall it, she even teamed up with Elastic Lad, once. Make sure you switch off any higher brain functions, before reading that one.

Thanks for the heads up on where to find some comics that she was in. And we all needs some comics sometimes that are just fun, or at least I do.

[Scott Shaw!]

Originally Posted by dave merrill

Thanks for the link, Tim.

Sorry to burst your bubble, Scott- excuse me, "Scott!" - but both of us at Mister Kitty were alive and well and reading comics in 1975. Strangely enough, I don't recall getting the memo appointing you the only person allowed to make fun of comics on The Internets. It's a big world, there's plenty of crazy comic books out there, and there are unlimited amounts of bored people goofing off on the internet who want to read about them. There's room for us all.

I am, however, very pleased that the creator of the pedantic and tiresome "Oddball Comics" disapproves of what we do and how we do it. We must be on the right track.

Fuck, goddamn, etc.

---Dave

Speaking of being on "the right track"...

-- At SDCCI '07, I recently did my ODDBALL COMICS show to a SRO audience of over 1,000 people who were kept laughing throughout the performance.

-- I've been doing variations on my ODDBALL COMICS show at conventions all over the country, spanning four decades.

-- I've been writing my ODDBALL COMICS column for the Internet for over seven years, first here at Comic Book Resources (where it won a "Corey Award" for "Best Column") and now on its own website.

-- Kitchen Sink published a boxed set of my ODDBALL COMICS trading cards, which was one of the finalists for an Eisner Award for "Best Comics-Related Product".

-- Avalanche Press published my ODDBALL COMICS calendar.

-- COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE magazine ran reprints of my ODDBALL COMICS column for over a year.

-- Last year, my live ODDBALL COMICS show had a very successful eight-week run at Hollywood's ACME Comedy Theater.

-- GEEK MONTHLY magazine is now running an abbreviated version of my ODDBALL COMICS column.

"Pedantic and tiresome"? Looks like a lot of people would disagree with you, Dave.

On the other hand, as someone who has worked with a number of top Canadian entertainers (I produced and directed two animated SatAM TV series "starring" Martin Short and John Candy, THE COMPLETELY MENTAL MISADENTURES OF ED GRIMLEY and CAMP CANDY, as well as storyboarding a MacKENZIE BROTHERS Internet cartoon, all of which also featured voiceover performances of most of the legendary cast of SCTV), I think that I'm somewhat qualified to congratulate "Stupid Comics" for disproving that often-held theory that Canada's chief export is comedic talent.

Aloha,

Scott!

P.S.: I dunno about everyone else here, but I love old comics, and tend to refer to 'em as Oddball, weird, strange, goofy, nutty, etc....but NEVER "stupid". I enjoy, collect and even >gasp!< respect 'em too much to ever stoop to that grade-school slur. -- SS!

[Roquefort Raider]

I enjoyed the site.

I also learned that I should really try and read more Golden age comics.

[HipsterDad]

Well, thank you for providing the link to Oddball Comics so we can see what you've alleged the Stupid Comics folks have been ripping off.

Yours is a site full of 3000-6000 word essays regarding the historical background to your selections, biographical minutiae and resumes for the creators of each title, verbatim transcripts of gigantic chunks of the dialogue, detailed recounting of the advertisements within the title, and notes about the letters pages.

Stupid Comics provides six or seven panels and some one-liners.

The apparent intent of Stupid Comics is to make its audience laugh, which it seems to do pretty well. The intent of your own site is apparently to provide encyclopedia entries for every comic book released prior to 1985, which may very well have its place, but it isn't funny. (Perhaps at SDCC '08, you could try actually reading one of those monstrous essays to your audience, and see whether the actual content of your web site goes over as well before a live crowd as you believe the slide show does.)

Sorry, Scott!, but I'm just not seeing how they're ripping you off. But since a principal point of your objection is that they call their site "stupid" as opposed to a Shaw!-approved adjective like "nutty," I suggest you're being, well, a little pedantic, frankly.

[Shaindle]

Scott, this thread was started to discuss the Stupid Comics page at the website my husband and I run-- Mister Kitty dot org. "Oddball Comics" has no bearing on our website, was not an influence (see the aforementioned Superdickery and Seanbaby for our actual inspirations) and so listing your Oddball Comics CV is completely irrelevant. This thread was created to discuss something other than Oddball Comics-- if that's verboten, you should put something in the TOS people agree to when they make an account here. Resorting to ad hominem attacks on total strangers when a website you didn't work on is mentioned doesn't really work too well, as we can see. So just make it an official forum rule and be done with it.

Originally Posted by Scott Shaw!

Looks like a lot of people would disagree with you, Dave.

If you haven't noticed, a lot of people are disagreeing with you, too. What do you suppose that means?

I think that I'm somewhat qualified to congratulate "Stupid Comics" for disproving that often-held theory that Canada's chief export is comedic talent.

Cheap shots about nationality? Classy AND professional. Also, Dave is American. Just FYI.

[dave merrill]

You know, as charmed as I am to be given a list of Great Accomplishments, it's a struggle to figure out how this is supposed to either (a) convince me that I've been mistaken all along and actually enjoy Scott!'s column, or (b) move me to repent and testify my sins in daring to make fun of comic books when somebody else somewhere had done so previously.

If my opinion of "Oddball Comics" is of importance to anyone but myself, well, that's news to me. I'm sure millions of people read and enjoy it every week. More power to 'em and to you, Scott!, I never fail to laugh when I think of "Cowsills At The Earth's Core", and I mean that sincerely. If you or anybody else finds "Stupid Comics" unfunny, insulting, demeaning, disrespectful, juvenile, repellent, cancerous, vile, or loathesome, then, by all means, don't read it, and it will cease to impact your life completely.

By the way, it was cute of you to work Canada in there, Scott!, and rest assured the thought is appreciated, but I'm originally from the States, actually.

Remember kids, that's www.misterkitty.org!

[Sir Tim Drake]

All right, enough already. This is supposed to be a civil and friendly forum, and I'm sorry that my innocent decision to post a link to an interesting site has resulted in all this acrimony (although I am, of course, glad that it resulted in several new posters showing up).

I'm going to leave this thread open, but any further posts about Oddball Comics will be deleted and may result in the thread being closed. Feel free to discuss Oddball Comics vs. Stupid Comics if you like, but please find another forum in which to do it.

Now let's move on.

[T GUy]

Would it be tactless to introduce this into the conversation?

[Ed Cunard]

I like this new site. Thank you for pointing it out.

[MDG]

Originally Posted by T GUy

Would it be tactless to introduce this into the conversation?

Only if you call attention to the "Links" section.

MDG