Imprinted Image: Writing on the Light Rail the week of April 20

Are electric trains the greatest mode of transit? All signs point to yes

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my newsletter. If this is your first time here, thank you for joining me. On most Mondays I break down how comics work in a way that gives insight to seasoned wizards and new comics apprentices alike. I call this Divining Comics, because it’s an attempt to understand the magic behind things. Wednesdays are new comic days, and I’ll tell you about some of the new books to hit the stands at your local comic shop. That is the Marvelous Market.

But today is Friday, and this is where I, Spike Stonehand, take off the mask and resume life as mild mannered Stephen. Last week, I started taking public transportation to work when I was able. This was the first time trying out the new routes after my move. After one week, the results are in: I love it. When driving, the route I have to take is one of the more traffic-filled in the city. What is a 20 minute drive on the weekends becomes 35 minutes or more, one-way, during commuter hours. Now, taking the bus and light rail is admittedly longer, just over an hour. But, it’s an hour of my time. When driving, the car controls me. I am subject to the whims of the road and other drivers, forced into a state of constant awareness. When taking public transit, I am a free man. I can read science fiction and comic books, space out on my phone, and write.

To that end, I actually wrote a comic book script! It’s a six-pager, a cosmic horror about a comic book (which may or may not be the one you are reading) that fills the reader with an obsessive need to recreate the comic over and over unto death. I’m not sure if I do or do not want to post it here on the site. But, if you want to read it, send me a message! I would love to get some constructive feedback on the story.

What have I been watching

I watched a couple of movies, Bottoms and Immaculate. I didn’t enjoy either of them enough to dedicate any space on trying to write about them Follow me on Letterboxd to read the two or three sentences I could muster on them.

However, I did watch something I very much enjoyed.

I had previously seen the Tom Cruise Reacher movies, and enjoyed them well enough. I know the book fans were upset at his short stature, but that didn’t particularly bother me that much. Regardless, the movies didn’t stick much with me. I was a bit surprised when my fiancée, who is not particularly a fan of action cinema, expressed interest in watching this show. I, on the other hand, love to watch simulated violence on screen, so I jumped at the opportunity.

This first season was so good, I’m considering jumping in and reading the novels. The main reason I wouldn’t, as a sidebar, is because this first season is an adaption of the first novel, The Killing Floor, and I need to let some time pass. But, as far as first season’s go, this was great. Reacher isn’t a well-defined character by any means, but he’s exactly what you want in a story like this. The character that most comes to mind, despite Reacher’s lack of compunction around killing, is Batman. Strong, stoic, not great at reading emotions, a super genius who understands human psychology, perhaps autistic, a strong and unwavering commitment to his moral code, Reacher is the ultimate male fantasy and identification figure. He’s the male Taylor Swift. If you like mindless action and political thrillers, give this a shot.

A Port of Links

Brian Hibbs goes in deep on last year’s comic sales in the book market. I mean deep. This is truly a great insight into the state of sales outside of the month to month floppies. Scholastic and Dav Pilkey have a stranglehold on the market.

Tom Brevoort, Marvel’s top editor and incoming editor of the X-Men line, wrote about his favorite character resurrections from the Silver Age of comics, before dying and coming back was an everyday occurrence for super heroes

Letterer, writer, and blogger Aditya Bidikar continues his journey through the Krakoa era of X-Men. Part 1 here. This time, he talks about the difficulty of deciding what to read, what is good, and what is important in a shared continuity.

Viz and Marvel are teaming up, offering free trials to the other’s subscription service, as well as publishing digitally the Marvel Manga stories published in Japan the past few years.

The Beat is adding a column that will publish the top ten most popular comics on the GlobalComix service. You get a different glimpse here that you would from direct market sales or from book sales. As the article mentions, neither Marvel nor DC are on GlobalComix.

Sadly, it feels like every week a new legend from comic book history passes away. Jeffry Vergge died after a long battle with lupus. Heidi MacDonald of The Beat wrote a great tribute to Trina Robbins. The Beat also published a tribute to Mark “Doc” Bright. Finally, The Comics Journal has a tribute out to comics historian Robert Beerbohm.

One of the biggest news items of the week: Bleeding Cool leaked that DC is going to be publishing their answer to Marvel’s Ultimate Comics. Named Absolute Comics, this is an attempt at doing the New 52 right, without removing the current comics continuity.

It’s time for discourse! Marvel writer Cody Ziglar revealed on a podcast that Kevin Feige asked the comic book team to turn Ms. Marvel into a mutant for brand synergy. Marvel denied this, but the takes on Twitter were flying.

Here’s a good column from ICV2 on the recent Webtoons contract controversy.

As a follow-up to a previously linked story, DC is pulling the covers that people have speculated were generated artificially via so-called AI. For the record, the artist denies that he used any such technology.

ALA is teaming up with Skybound to get people to sign up for a library card. Get your Transformers swag and legally read some books for free!

David Harper interviewed Zainab Akhtar on Off Panel, discussing the closing of her Shortbox Comics and more.

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Question of the Week

Should I post the comic script I wrote up on the website? Is that something people might be interested in seeing more from me? If you are an aspiring or unknown comic creator, I would love to grow my circle of the community of fans of comics as a medium.

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