It’s not bad, not by any stretch. Really, it’s quite entertaining. Michael Cera actually pushes a bit beyond his comfortable familiar box (not a lot, but a bit); all of the performances are clever and fun, the gags all work even if a few are groaners (“bi-furious” still makes me wince), the action is decent, and most of the plot chunks that were removed from the comic (Stills’ coming out, for example) aren’t really necessary to drive the movie.

But – I know it’s a cliche to say “the book was better,” but, well, the books were better. The books form a story about the often painful transition to adulthood; although elements of that are still in the script, it almost seems perfunctory, in a “hey [character], I was totally a douche but now we’re cool right” sense. You kind of wonder if the seemingly inevitable director’s cut will focus on that more.

Also, losing the Honest Ed’s chase battle sequence is heresy.

It’s a deceptively simple question: When exactly did ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, the series, end? To some, of course, the answer is, “It didn’t.” Dark Horse Comics has already announced a Season Nine to come after the conclusion of the comics-only Season Eight, and the same people who wrote for the TV series are clearly enjoying the upsides of writing a Buffy series with an unlimited budget and no worries about actor availability. That’s ‘Buffy’ in some form, definitely.

But to others, ‘Buffy’ ended when the series left television. Seven seasons, two networks, 144 episodes, no writing Emmys. Certainly, the facts argue in favor of that interpretation; ‘Buffy’ Season Seven features the same core cast as Season One, the same basic setting, even the same theme music. But Season One was about a teenage girl who was trying to make it through the metaphorical hell of high school while simultaneously trying to stop demons from the literal mouth of Hell, while Season Seven was about…um, a twenty-two year old woman looking for a career, and a bad guy who couldn’t do anything but make vague menacing threats, and Andrew for some damned reason. They’re set in the same place, they feature the same people, but they don’t feel like the same series when set side by side. Only because we watched the transformation as it slowly occurred does it feel seamless to us.

So when did ‘Buffy’, the show that started in 1997 on the WB, end? Did it finish on the WB as well? It’d be hard to argue that, I think; Buffy as protective big sister/single parent to Dawn, working out of the Magic Box to battle demons alongside super-witch Willow and semi-redeemed vampire Spike, feels less like Season One than Season Seven did. (Not to mention Season Five marks the breaking point where the series ceases to be about people growing up and begins to be about people who have grown up and find their life really sucks and it’s not what they thought it’d be in high school and they’d really rather go back and be teenagers again…actually, Seasons Five through Seven really suck the joy out of re-watching Seasons One through Four. “Oh, aren’t Willow and Oz so cute together?” “Yeah, they go through a painful break-up later on, and then she becomes a lesbian and falls in love with this really sweet girl…who gets shot and killed.” One of the big problems with both ‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel’ was that neither series knew when to stop bumping off supporting characters.)

So it’s Season Four, then. Except…as much as I love Season Four (and I do; I think it’s the last good season, and it’s got some of the best comedy episodes) it’s actually a much bigger break from Season Three than Five is from Four or Six from Five. It’s a change of setting, a big change of supporting cast (gone are Angel, Cordelia, Principal Snyder, Joyce, Jonathan and Oz as regulars, and in comes Riley, Maggie Walsh, Forrest, Graham, Tara, Spike and Anya as regulars) and a change of mission, too. Buffy and her friends aren’t teenagers dealing with teenage problems anymore. They’re grown-ups, learning what it’s like to be out in the wider world.

No, I think that you can safely set aside Seasons One through Three of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ as a seamless whole, an epic story about how we become adults told through a prism of sorcery, horror, kung-fu, and witty quips. All of the themes introduced in the beginning of the series (“high school is hell”, “Buffy’s friends are assets to her Slaying and not liabilities”, “your first love might seem passionate and true and the deepest you’ll ever experience, but they’re not necessarily good for you and passion isn’t enough to sustain a relationship”, “growing up means making decisions for yourself instead of listening to authority figures”, “having true friends that stick with you through thick and thin is better than being powerful”) are wrapped up in dramatic and spectacular fashion in the season finale (the commencement speaker turns into a giant demon snake, Buffy rallies together the entire high school class to defeat it, Angel walks away afterward to let her find someone who can be happy with her, Buffy tells the Watchers to sod off because she doesn’t need a Watcher anymore, and the season ends with everyone together watching the flames and then walking away hand-in-hand.) Heck, the Season Three finale even ends with the suggestion that there’s no need to worry about the Hellmouth anymore: the last line of the episode is, “Why do demons even come here anymore?” What could be more series finale than that?

‘Buffy’, as we finally saw it, is a genuinely great piece of television. But the first three seasons are the true ‘Buffy’ because they’re the execution of the central concept, a great idea turned into a magnificent series that ended just like it needed to. After that, it’s just a matter of following the character around while she lives her life, and frankly that’s not the same thing as telling a story. Buffy might keep fighting evil forever, but ‘Buffy’ ended the day she got her diploma.

Two things happened to me recently that dovetailed in an odd way: first, I broke my arm in a bicycle accident; second, I picked up volumes 1-6 of Marvel’s Essential X-Men books for a very reasonable price. The upshot of the first event was that I had to have a metal plate and screws attached to hold the broken bone together, with the result that when I travel by air (as I do fairly often for my job) I now have to budget an extra half-hour or so at the airport to explain that, yes, it’s the metal plate in my arm that’s setting off the metal detector. Because I am a smartass, it immediately occurred to me that if I were a suicide bomber what I really ought to do is get a sympathetic doctor to implant a bomb in my arm in such a way that it looked like an orthopedic plate; then I could have a good laugh with the security people, get on the plane and blow it up at my leisure. (I had a similar thought back when they were hunting Saddam Hussein and there was a story about a guy in southern Iraq who was always being mistaken for him; what Hussein should have done, I thought, was pretend to be that guy — “Yeah, I get that all the time.”)

Which brings us to the X-Men, because I hadn’t realized until I read from Giant-Size X-Men #1 to around issue 200 all in a row just how much the whole “persecuted mutants” business was Claremont’s idea. (And by the way, how hard is it to imagine that back in the day the Defenders got four Giant-Size specials, while the X-Men only got one?) Sure, the original run had the Sentinels, but their creator was portrayed as a basically crazy guy, not a garden-variety bigot; more to the point, there was little sense in the original comics that the average man on the street was anti-mutant. Nor is that the case in the early issues of Claremont’s run: in their very first adventure they’re called to defend Cheyenne Mountain in place of the Avengers (the general in charge remarks that he doesn’t trust them, but he still lets them go to it) and a few issues later a fairly big deal is made out of just how high Professor X’s security clearance is, the upshot of both being that the X-Men are still very much a part of the establishment. (When Cyclops identifies himself to the general his dialogue could just as easily come from Captain America.) For some time after that the X-Men have pretty generic superhero adventures, encountering demons, aliens and leprechauns (don’t ask; for the love of God, don’t ask) until the storyline that forms the basis of the whole rest of Claremont’s run, the justly famous “Days of Future Past.” (As an aside, Claremont clearly just loved to sound profound by putting antonyms together; for a less successful example, see “Lifedeath.”) Though what most people remember from that story is the scenes of various X-Men being killed, the element that matters most thematically is the introduction of the Mutant Registration Act, which was originally going to be introduced in memory of Senator Kelly, a politician the X-Men failed to save from assassination, but which Kelly was able to introduce himself when they saved him thanks to some handy-dandy time travel. From then on anti-mutant sentiment becomes a predominant motif in the book, with both harmless Professor X and cute-as-a-button Kitty Pryde being “mutant-bashed” and practically every non-mutant character uttering some sort of anti-mutant slur. The Mutant Registration Act stands a symbol of that attitude, with support for it standing as a handy identifier for bigots.

Which brings us back to airport security. Because if you think about it for a moment it becomes clear that something like the Mutant Registration Act would be absolutely necessary. Imagine standing in line at the airport and knowing that some of the people around you might be able to project energy beams, or bend metal, or mind-control the pilot; that they might not be fully able to control their powers; and that these people had a documented history of fighting other people like them in public places. Would you feel confident about getting on a plane? (I’ll bet the airlines were Senator Kelly’s biggest contributors.)

The X-Men series is often described as being a metaphor for the oppression of minorities, but when looked at it this way it becomes clear that the metaphor doesn’t stand up: if superhuman mutants really existed society would have a legitimate reason to fear or at least be wary of them, something that has never been true of any oppressed minority.

But if the metaphor that’s supposed to be at the heart of the series doesn’t work, why has the comic been so successful? Because the X-Men don’t represent oppressed minorities, they represent oppressed teenagers. (This may also explain why comic books about characters who are actually part of oppressed minorities generally fail to sell.) Nobody feels more persecuted than teenagers, especially the nerdy, white, middle-class teenagers who have traditionally been the main audience for comics. In the hyper-dramatic world of the teenager, breaking up with your girlfriend (or, more likely, being turned down for a date) has the same emotional impact as your fiancee being disintegrated on the Moon, and being hunted by giant robots is exactly equivalent to being told to buy something or get out.

Chris Hayward wrote a lengthy post on the G20 protests and, in his opinion, why they work and are necessary. It’s well worth reading, even if there are important parts of it where I think he’s completely wrong. (His extensive summary of police abuses is not one of those parts.) Go read it and come back; I’ll be sitting here eating salt and vinegar Crispers.

…okay. (I didn’t need to eat them anyway. They are fattening.) So, here we go:

“Does protesting really accomplish anything?”…

I think it does. One of the best – and most current – examples I can offer to back up my conviction are the accomplishments of the Gay liberation movement, in its broadest sense.

He goes on to offer a pretty good argument of how protesting – and specifically Pride marching – helped energize and legitimize the gay rights movement. And he’s totally correct about how protesting helped the gay rights movement. But as I’ve argued before, the difference between the gay rights movement (or the black rights movement, or the feminist movement, or really any civil rights movement in general) and G20 protesting is dead simple: every one of those movements have had fairly clear, easy to explain goals that were widely agreed upon by those involved. You can sum up most of them in a single sentence: “we just want to be treated the same as white men, and have the same rights and privileges afforded to white men.”

Hayward, later in his essay, starts writing about what reasons exist to protest the G20. Here is a summary:

– the misbehaviour and/or rapacious policies of the IMF
– the effects of 20th-century neocolonialism
– the responsibility of much of the political/financial elites for the financial meltdown and their ensuing lack of punishment/responsibility
– the move towards budget austerity
– failure to agree upon an international banking transaction tax
– job losses
– indigenous sovereignty
– human rights abuses
– abuse of police authority
– environmental damages of the tar sands
– etc.

All of this combined is not a protest message. This is a political philosophy, and it’s not a particularly simple one either.1 That it’s not simple frankly isn’t much of a plus from a communication standpoint. Hayward’s summary of the issues involved is about as concise as you can manage and it would still be multiple pages, and frankly Hayward is a lot better at making his point than ninety-nine point nine nine nine a lot more nines percent of protesters because his summation of issues is coherent while being able to deal with complexity.

Multiple pages in a book is too much for a protest. Again, harkening back to the aforementioned civil rights movements: I would suggest that the reason they were successful, more than anything else, was their simplicity. The message was easily communicated, which is key because protests generate a lot of attention but only for a very brief time. Protests are by their very nature not good at nuance, and the G20 protesters’ message is, when it’s coherent, extremely nuanced. Hayward himself admits that the protests are “unfocused,” but he seems to think this is to the good:

The world economy is affecting people in diverse ways. And our response to that is diverse. A meeting of the people who are steering the global economy is an opportunity to say “These are all the ways that you are hurting people. Cut it out.”

Look, it’s wonderful and affirming and all that the movement celebrates diversity, but there’s a difference between upholding the principles of IDIC2 and effective communication. Why does the left so desperately need to avoid the principles of advertising that have been demonstrated to work, time and again? (Moral rectitude is not a worthwhile response to that question; I don’t care if you think Company X’s ads are soul-destroying, because the techniques they use to communicate their position work and they can work for the left just as easily as they work for the corporate First World.)

Look, let’s take one issue from that list above. I’m going to pick the banking transaction tax, because it was both an issue under consideration at the Toronto G20 and also an unambiguously simple and good idea. Now let’s pretend that, rather than the usual disorganized chaotic mess that we saw, they (somehow) managed to get everybody on one page, chanting “TAX THE BANKS! TAX THE BANKS!” over and over again. It’s simple. It demonstrates popular support on one side of an important issue, which would have given those leaders who were pushing for the international transaction tax – and bear in mind that included the USA, France and Japan, which is why before the summit most observers figured the transaction tax had a 50/50 chance of passing – additional ammunition. Would that have been enough to get the G20 to agree to the tax? Maybe, maybe not. Would it have given the tax a better chance of success? I think that’s unarguable.

Anyway, I know I’m jumping all over Hayward’s article like a rabbit on crack, but I need to leave alone that hobbyhorse and switch to a different one: elsewhere, Hayward is writing about violent protest.

I believe that the advocates of property destruction are responding to a sense that the peaceful forms of protest are simply not working. And I have to say, having attended a hundred or so demonstrations myself, I agree. It certainly feels to me like governments are quite happy to ignore the demands of demonstrations, knowing that, in general, people will get together for a few hours, make some speeches, chant, follow an escorted and permitted route, and then go home. It’s routine and ritualized. It appears to me that protest of any kind works when it is an implicit threat to misbehave; not just a moral appeal that says “please do the right thing,” but an appeal that says “listen to us, or we will stop co-operating.”

Now, I don’t disagree with any of this paragraph, actually. It’s all correct: peaceful protest isn’t working (although I don’t entirely agree with Hayward as to the reasons why, I suspect), and part of the reasons protest can work is because of that threat of disobedience.

The problem I have here is that Hayward seems to think that the protesters are capable of making that threat. They aren’t. This is one of the reasons a lot of the public is willing to simply dismiss protesters as cranks (at best) or criminals (at worst): there simply isn’t any threatening capacity. If 20,000 people had been involved in the riots, then possibly there would have been a scenario comparable to the race riots of 1967-68 or the DNC riot in Chicago in 1968. But, as many people on all sides of the political equation pointed out, only about one or two thousand rioters actually stuck around once the goon squad started smashing things, and most of those one or two thousand weren’t willing to do anything more than stand around and chant slogans. This is not threatening. This is not even close to threatening. The reason protesters can be so easily vilified as criminals is because, when you’ve got a couple hundred people smashing things for no real reason, most people can very easily make the mental jump to “criminals.”

And while I agree that protests can be routine, there simply isn’t any justifiable reason for the sort of violence that happened at the G20. Yes, I get that things like Starbucks and RBC and the like were targeted, but so what? Damaging their property accomplishes literally nothing. “Yeah, you totally dealt out some pain on that imaginary corporate entity!” If a protester smashes RBC’s window, that’s not going to affect RBC’s bottom line; it’s not even going to going to hurt their public image. All you’re doing when you smash up a Starbucks is causing economic pain to a franchise owner: somebody who’s usually the definition of “small businessman.” How does that help your cause? Answer: it doesn’t.

The unfortunate truth is that any significant protest movement is going to need an economic component to it, akin to the black “strikes” on busses and white-owned businesses in the Sixties, or the mid-70s clustering of gay neighborhoods around gay-owned businesses which in turn gave them economic self-sufficiency and an instant business lobby in local government (which, while unglamourous, drives social change faster than just about anything). The G20 protest movement doesn’t have this, and honestly I’m not sure that in this era it’s even possible for them to have one, although I’d love to be proven wrong.

Oh, and one more thing:

(I was way more scared when the [Toronto Blue] Jays [baseball team] won the World Series and people were throwing bottles out of their apartment windows, than I have ever been in a political riot).

Dude. I was at both World Series street celebrations, right at Yonge and Dundas, and if you’re going to suggest that sports riots cause more damage than political ones (an argument that actually has some heft to it), don’t ruin your point by telling us how scared you were of what were easily the most peaceful and civic-minded sports victory celebrations in sporting history. The Toronto celebrations were so non-violent that for literally years afterward they were pointed to as aberrations against a growingly dangerous norm.

1. Libertarianism, for example, is simple, which is one of the reasons it’s so frequently attractive to people. It’s often wrong about many things, of course, but it’s effective at spreading itself. [↩]
2. NEEEEEEEERRRRRD [↩]

Aw Shucks and All-Star Lauren: Bollywood. Judges’ tonguebath, as usual; this did not earn it. Not a terrible routine, certainly, but Kent’s dancing was not “finalist” quality here: his arms, especially in the second half of it, looked awkward – particularly in comparison to Lauren, who hit her moves precisely. Also, dork-face, as usual. His legwork was excellent, though, so all due consideration for that. Even so: not quite good enough for a finalist.

Lauren and All-Star Twitch: hip-hop. I really wish this routine had done more with the podiums: that was clever choreo while they were behind it. Anyway, this was basically the same as Lauren’s last hip-hop routine with Twitch: not as good as Twitch, because who is, but very strong and certainly above par for someone with not a lot of experience in the genre. (Of course at this point the show quite obviously only gives hip-hop routines to finalists who can actually dance it, so no surprise that Lauren got it.)

Robert and All-Star Mark: jazz. A rare misfire for Tasty doing jazz (as opposed to the routine misfire that is Tasty doing Broadway). This just felt very boring and basic to me: no feeling of an overall routine, lacking the feel of anything more than steps following steps. Robert danced it quite well, though. So good for him.

Robert and Lauren: contemporary. When I talk about “finalist quality,” this is the sort of thing I mean. Lovely.

Aw Shucks and Lauren: jazz. Oh my god that is the worst thing I think Mandy Moore has ever choreo’d for this show, and she has had more than a few clunkers. Even the Kent-screaming audience were completely unimpressed: that is how bad this was. Nigel actually called out Mandy Moore for sucking, which I did not think was humanly possible.

Aw Shucks and All-Star Allison: contemporary. Perfectly good contemporary routine. I didn’t lurve it as much as the judges – I think Stacey Tookey has done better – but it was a good routine and Kent danced it quite well, with the only exception being his goggle-eyes; he managed to get rid of the Aw Shucks mouth for this, and most of the expression, but was wide-eyed throughout, which detracted a bit for me. But only a bit, because he did dance this well.

Robert and All-Star Kathryn: Broadway. Boy, they sure are stretching Robert tonight, huh? Snark aside, he absolutely nailed this: his performance was flawless, much like everything else tonight. Simply put: Robert is peaking at the right moment. He has a very small chance to win, which previously I would not have given him.

Lauren and All-Star Pasha: cha cha. Very good performance from Lauren here, although she visibly missed handholds at least twice and Pasha had to overreach to compensate. Other than that, though, this was a very good piece of work from Lauren. Not quite as good as Kathryn last year doing her ballroom routines with Ryan (despite Nigel’s claims otherwise), but very good indeed, and the only time this entire season that Pasha has actually had a partner working on par with him.

Robert and Kent: malevos. This was achingly bad; it looked like stuntmen doing a bad job of work, not a dance. Neither Robert nor Kent looked comfortable, not even a little bit, and even with choreo that gave them the chance to lean on their classically trained backgrounds they still looked bad. Ugh. Kent’s had such a bad night; previously I thought he had this in the bag, but I think he’s actually performed poorly enough tonight that Lauren can snag it.

Final order should be: 1.) Lauren 2.) Robert 3.) Kent
Final order will be: 1.) Lauren 2.) Kent 3.) Robert

(Now bring on the Canadians already!)

Torontoist asked me to write about Rob Ford being Rob Ford, so I did.

A device that threatens to warp our very fabric of reality! Whatever can we do?

Clearly, all that is needed is a right proper canine headbutt from Rex the motherfucking Wonder Dog.

A bit late, but my weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Neil Reynolds is probably the Globe and Mail’s premier hack columnist: your bog-standard anti-Keynesian upper class white guy with a knack for pretentious phrasing oft combined with folksy imagery. The Globe generally doesn’t have a lot of gratituously pointless writers on its staff, so presumably Reynolds fulfills a quota; either that or he couldn’t get a job with Sun Media.

Consider the following passage:

But people adapt to changes in climate. In the Dirty Thirties, people delivered blocks of ice to the poor, slept in basements, wore wet headbands under their hats, went to air-conditioned movies – and took it easy.

This is really a masterpiece of twaddle. In the Thirties, see, there were hot summers! But people of the time (who, by virtue of being older and more self-reliant than the current spoiled generation, were better people) “adapted” by sleeping in basements and wearing wet headbands beneath their hats. If this were a “of times gone past” sort of column, this hokum would be forgivable if not laudable. But it’s not: this is the basis for Reynolds’ entire column, wherein he explains that global warming isn’t a big deal because the changes are very small and anyways we’ll just adapt to it. We will, as our forefathers before us, sleep in the basement and therefore global warming is really not a bother at all!

This sort of fatalistic non-denial denialism is nothing new for Reynolds: just a month past he was ponderously repeating the words of Robert Laughlin, a physicist with no actual climatology background, who informed us all that despite what we might believe, climate change will not destroy the Earth. Having managed to dispense of that straw man while glossing over the minor problem of mass extinctions and the not-really-comforting thought that just because we can’t blow up the planet with global warming doesn’t mean we can’t render ourselves extinct, Reynolds sat back, content being the Wise Man of Letters. Before that, he was explaining that Europe may experience some truly harsh winters in the coming years with a tiny little “not that this has anything to do with global warming but maybeeeee people will stop believing in it!” so as to appear reasonable. Reynolds doesn’t bother with low-class denials of basic scientific evidence; he’s too well-bred for such things. Instead, he goes for the “it’s really not a problem” form of denialism – denialism because it, like the more traditional form, exists to stand against the idea that, gosh, maybe we should do something about carbon emissions.

(Also, not particularly related to the subject matter at hand, but do consider this gem, wherein Reynolds discusses a 19th-century geologist’s study on coal supplies as if it was in any way relevant to anything whatsoever, as evidence of his ability to suggest that the inconsequential or irrelevant are in fact deeply consequential and relevant.)

Of course, the problem with this entire line of argument is that slight changes in temperature can do things much more bothersome than force you to sleep in the basement. For example, they can result in half of Russia being on fire. Or mass flooding rendering more than two million Pakistanis homeless.1

Now of course these instances aren’t necessarily climate-change related; there’s no way to definitively prove that one way or the other, and to do so would just be engaging in the reverse of “look how hard it just snowed so there’s no global warming” arguments that are definitively stupid. But what is true is that increases in temperatures make dangerous weather of this sort more likely to occur, just as a mass decrease in temperature might make glaciers marching across Europe more likely.2 Dangerous weather of this sort isn’t “adaptable.” It’s just expensive, and generally then requires federal expenditures to make life livable again for the affected populace, which of course is something Reynolds traditionally dislikes so you’d think he’d be on the “spend a little now to save a ton later” bandwagon, but shockingly this is not the case.

1. It is probably a good thing that they didn’t read Reynolds’ column beforehand, or they might have drowned in their basements. [↩]
2. Not that we have to worry about glaciers, what with them melting at record rates. [↩]

Attacking Mister Rogers? Seriously. Mister Rogers, for crissake.

It’s rare that I would quote a Youtube comment as eloquent, but:

Even 4chan doesn’t talk shit about Mr. Rogers. That’s how low Fox news has become.

The movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance” popped into my head this morning. (And you think you have problems…) Thinking about it reminded me about how back when it came out, there was a big debate ovSer the movie’s use of the “magical negro” stereotype. I remember agreeing with the people who pointed this out, but not without some reservations…after all, I pointed out, if George Lucas had cast Sidney Poitier as Obi-Wan Kenobi instead of Sir Alec Guinness, would he have automatically become a magical negro even though the script hadn’t changed?

Which, in turn, reminded me of “women in refrigerators”. The list is well-known by now among comics fans, as are some of the excuses different writers have come up with for its existence. But the fact is, the most common one (“Hey, it’s not like men have it easy either!”) is actually sorta kinda true…Steve Trevor bit the big one a couple of times, the Vision was gruesomely dismembered and revived as a pale imitation of himself in order to put a little conflict into the Scarlet Witch’s story arc, the first couple of guys who even thought about dating Ms Marvel bit it, and let’s not even get into the whole Terry Long thing. (Husband and son both bit it there…)

But that’s the thing: Only an idiot would actually try to use these as arguments against the prevalence of racism and sexism in popular culture. Even though you can say, legitimately, that the “magical negro” is simply a mentor archetype that happens to be black, and even though you can say, legitimately, that a “woman in (a) refrigerator” is simply a supporting character that gets bumped off in order to provide a little drama for the main character who happens to be female, we can all recognize that there’s still something skeezy about it all. (Well, most of us can. I know all the enlightened, wise readers here can.) So what is it? Why is it not okay?

The answer is that there are so few other roles for these characters to take that the supporting roles become disproportionate representations of the characters in popular culture. Or, to put that a little less fancy, it’s not that there are lots of black “wise mentor” characters, it’s that there are so few black heroes getting mentored. It’s not that there are so many women in comics who die, it’s that there are so few who get to go off and avenge the deaths. These things are symptoms of a far deeper, more fundamental problem in pop culture, namely a dearth of protagonists who aren’t white guys. Nobody thinks to cast a black guy in the Luke Skywalker role; he’s relegated to the Obi-Wan (or more accurately, Mace Windu) part. We’ve reached a plateau in bringing diversity into our cult fiction, where characters outside the white male “standard” are included, but almost never in a leading role. Until that changes, you’ll continue to see the same stereotypes. Because they’re not stereotypes, they’re archetypes….but they’re the only archetypes women and minorities are allowed to inhabit.

…so here is something I consider amusing.

EDIT TO ADD: Oh be quiet you people with your “where is the thingy”

BEST WRITER: Jason Aaron, “SCALPED”, Vertigo/DC Comics. I thought Blackest Night was a joyless, boring slog and Irredeemable isn’t much better. (Of course, at least Geoff Johns isn’t complaining about superheroes being dark and joyless while writing a dark, joyless superhero book, so he’s still ahead of Waid right now.) Diary of a Wimpy Kid isn’t my thing, although I think it’s decent work. That leaves The Walking Dead as Aaron’s sole competition for Best Writer, and although Robert Kirkman does good, steady work that cumulatively knocks your socks off over a pace of years, over any single year it’s just a good, solid comic. Aaron gets my nod, although it’s as much for Ghost Rider as it is for Scalped. Should have been nominated: Fred van Lente.

BEST ARTIST: JH Williams III, “DETECTIVE COMICS”, DC Comics. It’s hard to pick between Frank Quitely and Williams, but Batman and Robin, while a beautiful comic, isn’t even in the top ten things Quitely’s done in the last decade. What Williams did in his Batwoman arcs on Detective was simply staggering in so many ways: beautiful, original, workmanlike… you need more adjectives. Should have been nominated: Steve Dillon.

BEST CARTOONIST: David Mazzucchelli, “ASTERIOS POLYP”, Pantheon. I never get the point of this category, which exists seemingly only to make sure that Seth doesn’t have to compete with Jim Lee. Anyway, Mazzucchelli’s got this one in a walk, and that comes in an exceptional year: George Sprott is my favorite thing Seth’s ever done, Darwyn Cooke on Parker is Darwyn Cooke being Darwyn Cooke, and Roger Langridge’s Muppet Show comics are things of pure joy. But they don’t stand up against Asterios Polyp. Should have been nominated: Art Baltazar.

BEST LETTERER: David Mazzucchelli, “ASTERIOS POLYP”, Pantheon. Everybody else nominated does really great stuff, but I always judge this by the Todd Klein rule, which is “does the lettering transcend mere workmanship to become art in and of itself,” and only Mazzucchelli qualifies for me; his work on Polyp was just goddamned graceful. There’s no other word for it. Should have been nominated: Did Todd Klein do anything this year?

BEST INKER: Klaus Janson, “AMAZING SPIDER-MAN”, Marvel Comics. Klaus Janson will always get my vote whenever he gets nominated. His inks are brutal, awesome violence.

BEST COLORIST: Steve Hamaker, “BONE: CROWN OF HORNS”, Graphix. I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it must be to colorize Bone, a work so intrinsically black and white that colors applied inartfully would only serve to destroy the overall integrity of the work. Hamaker does it so brilliantly that you could almost forget that the black-and-white version ever existed. Laura Martin’s gorgeous recoloring work on The Rocketeer is a close second and I had to decide this one over time.

BEST COVER ARTIST: Frank Quitely, “BATMAN AND ROBIN”, DC Comics. Another duel to the death between Quitely and JH Williams III, but this round Quitely walks away with the prize; his covers on Batman and Robin manage to both feel like traditional superhero covers and new-wave Morrisonia at the same time. A narrow victory, though, considering how great Williams’ covers were on Detective.

BEST NEW TALENT: Not voting; I haven’t read any of them except Chew and Power Out, and the former doesn’t impress me as much as it does other people (cute idea, but I’m far from sold thus far), and the latter is promising but in progress. So no vote.

BEST NEW SERIES: “BATMAN AND ROBIN”, DC Comics. Even with Grant Morrison more and more getting away from writing stories and getting more involved with long metaplots which don’t seem to go anywhere – and I know people can argue about this for hours at a time so let’s not start another round – this is still the most vital comic on the stands; it’s just got juice to it, you know? The two Vertigo entries are also both really strong and I had to think about it before passing them over. Also, I have no idea why Irredeemable keeps getting all these nominations because it’s not very good. Should have been nominated: The Muppet Show.

BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES: “THE WALKING DEAD”, Image Comics. Remember what I said before about how Kirkman’s real strength is simple tenacity? That’s why I vote for him here. Should have been nominated: Incredible Hercules.

BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC PUBLICATION FOR YOUNGER READERS: “THE MUPPET SHOW COMIC BOOK”, BOOM! Studios. I am biased. Sue me.

BEST ANTHOLOGY: “FLIGHT # 6”, Villard. I love the Flight collections, each and every one. They’re gorgeous comics and I always find new things to like in every collection, which is why they always get my vote.

BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC ALBUM: “GEORGE SPROTT (1894-1975)”, by Seth, Drawn and Quarterly. After losing out to Asterios Polyp in previous categories, why do I give the nod to Seth now? Because Polyp has a horrible, horrible ending. It’s just that simple: the ending is so annoying it cuts the enjoyment value of the book in half. Seth does not do that to you with George Sprott. So he gets my vote.

BEST SYNDICATED STRIP OR PANEL: “PEARLS BEFORE SWINE”, by Stephan Pastis, United Feature Syndicate. Every year it seems like this is just a list of comics people don’t actively despise, and the list gets shorter every year as the Comics Curmudgeon has ever more targets. Pearls is my favorite; it wins.

BEST DOMESTIC REPRINT PROJECT: “THE ROCKETEER: THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES”, by Dave Stevens; edited by Scott Dunbier, IDW. Gorgeously recolored as previously mentioned, but now all the Rocketeer stuff is in one book. The only way this could be any better is if it had a slip pocket on the inside cover to hold the DVD of the (deeply enjoyable) movie.

BEST ONLINE COMICS WORK: “HARK! A VAGRANT”, by Kate Beaton, http://harkavagrant.com. Nothing else even comes close. Sadly, Scott Kurtz is campaigning to win the award on the basis that, I dunno, it’s his turn or something. Go vote for Kate Beaton instead! She can actually write a punchline!

SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR IN COMICS: Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, “BEASTS OF BURDEN”, Dark Horse Books. Not so much because it’s hilarious (it’s fun, but Muppet Show is funnier), but because I can’t not vote for Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson working together at least once.

BEST SINGLE ISSUE OR STORY: “JONAH HEX #50”, written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, artwork by Darwyn Cooke, DC Comics. Putting this lovely single issue up against the likes of book-length projects like George Sprott, Asterios Polyp and Parker just seems criminally unfair; a single issue isn’t a full book and shouldn’t be judged on the same merit, just as a short story shouldn’t compete against a novel. This gets my vote out of rebellion. And because it was a really great comic.