The Evolution of Geoff Johns

As I sat in the audience of small folding chairs lined up in the downstairs of Jim Hanley’s Universe, waiting for Geoff Johns to come out for a panel, my mind wandered back to when I first interviewed Geoff:

It was the late ‘90s and I was interviewing folks for www.richmondcomix.com (my first “gig” as a journalist/interviewer, it paid nothing but a few free comics, high long distance bills and cutting my teeth and getting my feet wet in the comics industry), I got a hold of Geoff to talk about his new book, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E.. Back then, he was an assistant for director Richard Donner, and would come home after a long day at work to write Stars. I got in touch with him a few times after, for pieces for Comics Buyer’s Guide on Hawkman, JSA, and at some point, I remember chatting with him about his new run on The Flash.

Now, here’s where I come clean: while I really liked Geoff personally (as personally as you can get in interviewing someone), his earlier work was kind of lukewarm to me. Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. was great in the character department, but I felt that his pacing lacked a bit. Then, when he teamed up on JSA with David Goyer, it’s apparent that he learned some tricks from his co-writer because, pretty soon, Geoff became a much better writer, with a great sense of pacing tied in with strong character moments.

And then, Green Lantern happened.

And Geoff went up there (in my eyes) with Mark Waid and James Robinson. A couple of months ago, I sat down and read through the entire run of Geoff’s Green Lantern. At the risk of fanboying out, he’s not only made GL an important character (with the type of terrifying threats that justify the need for a Green Lantern Corps), but he’s also made me actually give a damn about Hal Jordan. You have to realize that, back in the dark days of the ‘90s, Hal was always a character we were told was important and that we should like, but were never given a reason to like. His glory days were behind him by about a decade. Geoff has brought Hal down a few notches (thanks to his time as the villainous Parallax, cleverly written off as the virus-like yellow impurity of the GL rings), so that he’s forced to build himself back up. Hal is an important character because he’s earned his importance once more.

Then, Geoff hopped on Action Comics, and has restored Superman to an accessible and iconic level, distilling him down to the best facets of the character from the past seventy years. I have one more Action hardcover to get, and then my collection of his run will (for the moment) be complete.

His Flash: Rebirth, bringing Barry Allen back into the fold, hasn’t impressed me as much, however. While it’s a really well done comic, Barry seems a bit too self-absorbed and out of character for me. But, I’m sure that Geoff and artist Ethan van Sciver are going somewhere with it, and that it’ll all make sense in the end.

But, back to sitting there, and getting Geoff to sign a copy of Flash for my pal, Patrick, and walking out of Hanley’s on a rainy evening, I felt like I’d gotten my ass kicked through no one’s fault but my own. Johns has gotten an amount of really lucky breaks, sure, but he’s worked his ass off in the past decade at DC. I look at how far he’s come in that decade, and realize that there’s no excuse for my not having gotten my shit together and really pushed to write comics again. Sure, I’ve done loads of history and journalism projects (from The Blue Beetle: His Many Lives from 1939 to Today to www.nycgraphicnovelists.com) to show for, but I haven’t really put myself out as a writer in a few years.

So, thanks to my own guilt and self-criticism, I’m finally going to make the leap this year.

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The Arrival to NYC and the unfairness of Clearwire

The past few months, to say the least, have been a wild ride.

Firstly, Circuit City went bankrupt and then into liquidation, leaving me amongst the throngs of jobless in the country, a victim of everything from a recession to a company that had made quite a few corporate missteps in its past, missteps that couldn't be recovered by a well-meaning CEO and his board.

So, with the remaining paychecks coming in, I've finally made it up to NYC. Well, not fully, but I'm close enough for now.

The past few weeks have also put me in touch with a few comics legends for Graphic NYC: Joe Simon, Jules Fieffer, and the ever pleasant Walt Simonson.

Sticking it out in a studio spot in Gowanus, Brooklyn, around a bevy of established creators that shame me into popping back onto the laptop to write comic scripts again, I know things are going to be nothing short of swell.

And then, there's Clearwire, the wireless internet service that, if you're around, I completely advise against subscribing to.

This is the gimmick with Clearwire: they have a wireless modem that you merely plug in and pick up a signal with. All it takes is a two-year contract, where they automatically draft your $33 a month from your bank account. The signal, from my old apartment in Richmond, was pretty good and the connection was admittedly strong.

But here's the kicker: In moving to New York/New Jersey, where I can not receive any Clearwire service, they stick strong to not letting me out of my contract. Unless, of course, I pay $200 to be let go.

Allow me to elaborate:

I currently don't have a job that will allow me to fork out $200 for something I can't get.

Clearwire doesn't serve the area I'm moving to.

They can still deduct $33 a month from my bank account.

I don't receive any service from Clearwire here.

They won't let me out of their iron-clad contract that, apparently, comes this side shy of including my first-born.

I can understand contracts in business, but something I'm also really steadfast on is good customer service. Part of that entails having a bit of compassion for your customers, particularly when you are no longer able to provide a service. Sure, they may be able to legally do this (I checked with the FCC, and have still issued a complaint), but they should also consider that good customer service can only result in great publicity.

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It's been a cold week, the type of cold that my toes can't shake, no matter how many pairs of socks I put on.

It has also been a mixed week, a series of ups and downs, pros and cons, each heaped one day to another.

On the downside of things, Circuit City, where I work as a copywriter, failed to find a buyer and is now undergoing liquidation. Basically, it means that I'll have a job for just a little bit longer, but it's pretty much all over for what is a great company run by great people who were truly doing their damnedest to fix it up from the formerly great company run by real jack asses. It's all pretty ironic for me: this is the first job I've ever had that I really enjoyed the people I worked with, and saw myself staying at for as long as I needed to. Fate has made the decision for me to go on a different path.

I'm going to move to New York, as soon as I find a job.

Grad school didn't pan out at VCU, thanks in no small part to issues with financial aid. I've been excited about returning to VCU's campus full time, but it doesn't seem it's in the cards for me.

www.nycgraphicnovelists.com has already garnered an insane amount of both praise and plugs, already getting me some mainstream media notice. The iron's hot right now, so it would be foolish for me to not strike.

Another downer: Final Crisis #6 came out, with the final fate of Batman. It was, sadly, the high point of the whole comic, seeing Batman go out like a total badass. Low points include Mr. Tawky Tawny eviscerating Kalibak, and Superman just having to carry Batman's corpse in a "yes, see, he's really dead, folks" gratuitious splash.

An upside: Geoff Johns' first Smallville episode, featuring the Legion of Superheroes, premiered. I had several geekgasms for the entire hour, with everything from the uber-cool Persuader (he's a dead ringer for the comics version), the Legion flight rings, and the incredible job the Smallville team has done bringing Doomsday to life...I've only been able to catch the season premiere and this one episode, but it's enough to tell me that fans finally have the Superman show they've deserved for decades. If they're smart, we'll either see a ninth season with Welling in the suit, or they'll spin it off into a new Superman movie. After the train wreck that was Superman Returns, I honestly feel like a Smallville movie will be the only way an audience could accept a new Superman so soon after the Routh version.

On another note, I think I have the honor of being one of the first people to interview Geoff, back when he was doing a short-lived comic called Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. I've always been happy to follow his successes in the comics field, and this episode of Smallville is up there with his work on Green Lantern and Action Comics. 

That new Superman movie? Let this man write it, Warners.

A mixed upside: Bush's televised farewell speech, giving new meaning to the term Idiot Box.

Another upside: Mr. Barack Obama is going to be our President in a matter of days. Despite being jobless, I can't refrain from the feelings of hope the man has given me for this country. 

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The crazy New Year...

Man, what a crazy ride.

Tuesday marked the launch of the super-cool kinda top secret project I’ve been working on with photographer and pal Seth Kushner. www.nycgraphicnovelists.com showcases the work we’ve been doing on the Graphic NYC book, the same book we’ve been trying to find the right publisher for. So far, we have a healthy handful of my essays completed for the book, and I’m going up to interview two more subjects this weekend (one contemporary, one legendary) in NYC. After that, there’ll only be about 42 to go.

We’ve already gotten a lot of love for the project. Heidi McDonald gave us a shout out on her blog The Beat, while Whitney Matheson of USA Today was kind enough to give Seth’s photography props. Also, Comic Book Resources (one of my daily news visits) mentioned us in this blog.

This all proves one thing to me: The $10 I spent on the domain name two weeks ago has already paid for itself.

For the first time in a long time, I’m on a project that I’ve put heart and soul into, with a partner who’s as into seeing this happen just as much as I am. Seth does more than just take the pictures: he’s been pounding the pavement, getting us an agent, doing the graphics work on the newly launched site, and also being the nexus for me to catch up with the interview subjects on my too-few and too-hectic trips up to the Big Apple.

While I’m hunched over the keyboard on long evenings after getting off of work, he’s busting his ass while I’m sitting in my cubicle with earplugs lodged in my ear canals, writing about home audio.

So, hats off to Seth Kushner!

After I pick the car up from the shop (new brake pads, struts, shocks, and rotors – yikes!), it’s off to Nostalgia Plus to get my weekly comics fix. I definitely need to pop in today, as the final part of Marvel Zombies 3 comes out.

I’ll admit, I’m burnt out on zombies, really. Couldn’t care less about them. I’m more of a vampire guy, really. But, Marvel Zombies 3 caused me to do something I rarely do with a monthly comic book, and that’s geek out like a middle schooler. Fred Van Lente’s script is eerie, spooky, and damned creepy. There are more than just a few moments that have caused my lunch to threaten a return visit.

That’s hard to do.

When the hardcover comes out in a few months, remember who wrote the sexy cover copy, all right?

The NY Con is early next month, and I’m scrambling to get a few odds and ends together for it, and also get caught up on work before starting my Grad School classes next week. If you haven’t been yet, it’s the best con out there. Period. Check it out.

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Of CHiPs and the future

There's something about '70s TV that they don't get anymore. At least, I was reminded of this when I opened up the most unexpected Christmas present this year: season one of CHiPs, the show that made a heartthrob out of Erik Estrada and made cops cool.

But first, a little personal background. I was born in '77, so I caught the tail end of the great '70s shows like The Incredible Hulk (more on that later), Welcome Back, Kotter, and CHiPs. I still, to this day, have very little in common with my older brothers except for a love of two things, CHiPs and Dukes of Hazzard, both shows we watched religiously as kids. 

Know how, often times, we go back and watch our favorite shows, hoping to relive the same fascination we had as kids, and it falls flat? That's not the case with CHiPs; it gets better with time, a lot of the humor that was lost on my four year-old mind now hitting me like a ten car pile-up in the San Fernando Valley. Ponch's  antics a helluva lot funnier to me now that I no longer think of girls as icky things.

Sure, there's goofiness and the obligatory car blow-ups, but that was lessened in the first season. Even though you knew that Baker would survive having his front wheel loosened by a pack of hoodlums, it still keeps you on the edge of your seat. Good, fun, stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously unless it needs to.

Oh, and The Incredible Hulk? I've slowly been working through season four, and the final scene where the aimless David Banner defeatedly walks away to his next adventure, sad piano theme playing, still brings tears to my eyes.

In the narcissist department, I think 2009 is going to be a big year for me. Why? A few reasons: 

God willing, Watchmen is coming out to theatres and will hopefully prove to the unitiated that superheroes are smart (even moreso than the excellent The Dark Knight did).

Digital comics are finally going to have their day. With Marvel's amping up original digital content. And, with the cover prices of monthlies going up, I see it being very soon that many monthly customers will switch to online counterparts, waiting until a published hardcover comes out. This is something I've been anxious to see finally happen. 

Neil Gaiman is writing the "final" Batman tale. This is something I'm very, very excited about. Toting it as a booken to Alan Moore's final Superman tale in the '80s is hyperbolic, but I'm sure Gaiman can live up to it.

Coraline comes out in theaters. The scariest, and best, of Neil's novels is coming to life ala stop-motion. I enjoyed the preview for this more than all of The Spirit.

Something big is happening with Graphic NYC. Watch this space, and Seth's blog. We have something big popping soon.

My next book, From Four Color to Silver Screen, is out by this summer. Relieved to finally have the final draft turned in, I'm finding myself geared up to do the panel at San Diego and hold my first full-color book in my hands.

I met an amazing girl who happens to read comics. Nuff' said.

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I'm back

            Having two jobs can kick your ass, I should know.

            Just last week, I finally finished the polished draft of From Four Color to Silver Screen: The First Movie Superheroes, weighing in at a massive fifteen chapters. And it nearly killed me.

            The biggest hazard with juggling a full-time job with a writing career is that you often times find your arms getting really tired after a while. Add the normal happenings of life in general, as well as an unexpected business trip, and working to get another book project off of the ground, and taking in a kitten found underneath your sister’s friend’s car hood on a cold winter day, and playing Sheriff while aforementioned kitten tries to move in on older cat’s turf, and having to deal with the holidays, on top of the stress of seeing several of your friends laid off because of the recession…

            And you can understand how it can wear one out.

            But, at the end of the day, I have that warm fuzzy feeling inside, balanced with a euphoric anticipation at this new book coming out from a new (to me) publisher, and I’m reminded of why I started writing in the first place. Right now, we’re looking at a May to June release date on this full color book, with a stiff cover stock, coming out from Hermes Press. I am beyond looking forward to holding a copy in my mitts.

            I learned many things, good and bad, while working for TwoMorrows and writing and editing my first two books there. Getting that type of hands-on experience with everything from pitch to writing to editing to working with a designer to polishing up the final edits (not to mention getting the cover art put together) was invaluable to me. I ran into some limitations while there, sure, but the experience taught me to think in a broader scale while writing; rather than just focusing on getting the research and writing down, I now find myself visualizing the entire package as I go.

            Dan Herman, my publisher, is uber-excited about this one and promises to pull out all of the stops for it. Expect for us to have a few things going by San Diego, and expect me to throw a few more projects their way in the near future.

 

            The force is strong in Taylor.

            My niece is an irresistible chick magnet, guys. Every time I stand outside in public while holding her, she grabs the attention of any female within a 100-foot radius. So, when you find out your brother or sister’s about to reproduce, single guys, take advantage of your single status and the kid’s cuteness. Sure, babies just lay around, poop, sleep, and act like a comatose narcoleptic for the first month. But when they hit the second month and start smiling uncontrollably and making cute baby noises, it’s time to crack out the stroller and go for a walk.

            I love being an uncle, obviously. Having her around has taught me a lot about the immense responsibility being a father entails. I was reminded of this while holding her with my left arm a few weeks ago (she had a stomachache) and proofing my manuscript with my right hand. It has been a firm reminder that I have way more to do with my life and career before I can even think about kid-folks.

            Let’s talk about my new book project, the kind-of Top Secret one I’ve been working on four about eight months.

            Graphic NYC is a photo and essay book that New York photographer Seth Kushner invited me on to. Basically, Seth is taking (or has taken) portraits of approximately fifty New York cartoonists, and I am interviewing each of them and writing a critical essay about each of them.

            It has worked out beautifully, as this gives me a chance to take concepts and approaches from my aborted Comics Introspective series, but with better photography and in a better, non-censored format. If I have an artist that draws boobies, then dammit, we’ll be able to show boobies; if they say “shit” we can publish “shit” instead of the not-fooling-anyone “sh*t”.

            I can’t say much more about it, other than Seth and I hope to go a very long ways with our team-up. We’re both of the minds that we owe it to society to get comics in the hands of everyone, and to portray the cartoonists as personalities and real people rather than mysterious figures chained to drawing boards. It’s going to take a progressive and liberal publisher for us to do it through, and I’m jazzed at the possibilities already in front of us.

            More to come but, in the meantime, check Seth’s blog out at sethkushner.blogspot.com.

Which reminds me...

I love New York. And now I have another reason to love it even more...

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So it seems...

I have become one of those horribly undisciplined fairweather bloggers: Its been about a month since my last entry, but hopefully I have a fair enough reason or two.

Two weeks ago, my niece was born; it was an experience that started with a call at 4:30 in the morning that my sister Meagan was going in for a c-section later that morning, a quick shower and shave, a 90 minute car ride back to Farmville, Virginia...and seven hours later, we had a beautiful and healthy baby girl laying in a nursery: Taylor Marie.

Standing on the other side of the frosted glass, minutes after hearing her first cries coming out of my cell phone (she was born where my mother works, and Mom was outside the O.R. with her phone), looking at this tiny, tiny person that was just half an hour ago inside my sister (and had been for about nine months)...

It was one of those moments that made me instantly review my priorities in my life, with this new kid being top on the list of "work, creative growth, relationship with cat, meeting the love of my life, buying all the Cure's CDs, writing the next great American novel..."

The baby's home now, Meagan's dog Amy standing loyal guard on Taylor, ever-presently curled up at the foot of her crib and always sniffing whomever holds Taylor next. Her black hair has now lightened to the same dark brown that I have, and her large blue eyes open every once in a while, her hands and feet move about as she's still trying to figure out the environment around her (and probably wrap her brain around her general existence...something I'm still struggling with 31 years later).

Taylor's going to be one of those kids who looks at the world in her own unique way, with no one understanding her and, because of that, she's going to be brilliant. Maybe that's just a hope of mine, but I have a slight feeling that my life has become about something so much more because I'm now her uncle.

And, yes, I'm already spoiling her: she now has her first sock monkey, and I'm most of the way through reading and recording each chapter of Alice in Wonderland for her to hear. You can never start them too early...

*I just finished applying for Grad School at VCU, a move that will put off moving to New York by at least another few years (and keep me closer to the baby, incidentally). My thesis pitch? Adapting Ray Bradbury through different mediums, including comic books and radio. The hope is that I'll be admitted, and can focus on becoming more of a "popular culture historian" than just "comic book". We'll see...

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