Scarlett Johansson should have gone totally Black Canary

The wife had the E! Channel’s Golden Globes pre-show on last night and I thought I’d comment on obnoxious creep Isaac Mizrahi’s behavior on the red carpet. Due to the recent renewed awareness about the harassment of comic professionals and the resurgence of 90’s Image-style over-the-top objectification of female characters that seems to be exploding out everywhere I think this deserves a mention.

Most media outlets are of the opinion that Mizrahi is a cute, funny and charming guy who rescued an otherwise dull event from boredom. Well, I disagree. He acted liked a pervy jerk, displaying behavior that the homeless guy in the mall engages in hoping that the Police will take him to County Health for three days of cozy beds, detox and hot meals. But since advertising dollars compromises the entertainment and news media you can’t expect them to condemn the representative of a show that is generating large amounts of revenue. If everything this guy did had occurred on the street instead of in front of network cameras he would have been arrested. Particularly awful was the grope-out by Mizrahi of Scarlett Johansson’s breast.

Mizrahi asked about the support of her dress and under the guise of verifying the design of the fabric, cupped a breast, giving it a squeeze. Johansson laughed but seemed uncomfortable and appeared to be looking for a way out of the situation. I thought I’d see a different reaction from Johansson but being under the unblinking eyes of the media most certainly ensured that she remain in the faux persona of a Hollywood Star and not react like a real person would.

And yet, not much negative reaction from the media about it, which is most disappointing and not unexpected. Take a look at these excerpts from around the web…

From Time.com
With former red carpet wild cards Joan and Melissa Rivers playing it straight on the TV Guide Channel and by-the-book-boy-host Ryan Seacrest orchestrating a mostly bland crew on E!, the arrivals left us unmoved. Fortunately Seacrest’s co-host Isaac Mizrahi took some chances, like cupping Scarlett Johansson’s breast, ostensibly to check out her dress’s built-in support. Nice save, Isaac!

Hey, dumbass! A “nice save” is catching a soda before it hits the floor. Honking a breast like it was a circus clown’s old-timey novelty horn isn’t.

From NorthJersey.com
But it was Scarlett Johansson’s dress that couldn’t keep cameras (and hands) off of her in low-cut, rouge Valentino. She was so sexy that E! commentator Isaac Mizrahi copped a feel on camera.

So what they are saying is that “she was asking for it”.

From Times Herald Record
During the red-carpet coverage, Mizrahi stole the show early, bantering with Ryan Seacrest and getting up close and personal with the A-List bodies of the red carpet. He found out that Teri Hatcher wasn’t wearing underwear but Jessica Alba and Keira Knightley were. He asked Eva Longoria about her (ahem) hairstyle and even felt up Scarlett Johansen, chanting, “I touched Scarlett’s boobs, I touched Scarlett’s boobs.”

Dude! Score!

From Post Chronicle
Isaac Mizrahi has got to be one of the luckiest men in the world. Next to Josh Hartnett, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and any other individual who’s been blessed with a moment of pure ecstasy in getting a palm on the ‘Golden Globes’ of Scarlett Johansson.

Clever, those reporters. Musta gone to school fer writing or something.

From the unfortunately-named Seattle Post Intelligencer
It has to be said: Isaac Mizrahi is by far the best red carpet host ever — or, at the very least, in a very long time. Ryan Seacrest’s much-ballyhooed red-carpet debut was fine, but Mizrahi was the real reason to keep watching. The affable fashion designer has the Midas touch with celebs. He’s kind, yet saucy. And, he has that gay best-friend ease about him, plus, he has that fashionista thing going for him, which is why he can get away with looking down Teri Hatcher’s dress, touching her belly and going through her purse (he just grabbed it, handed Hatcher his microphone and rifled through the small clutch). Then he asked Eva Longoria about how she waxes her hoo-ha (Brazilian? Au naturel?) and worried what the purseless (and hence, condomless) Natalie Portman would do if she wanted to hook up with someone.

And it goes on and on and on like that for search-result page after search-result page. Great message, yes?

I would have liked to see, on live television,
Scarlett Johansson go totally Black Canary on Mizrahi’s ass.

Instead of squirming uncomfortably, I think it would have been great if Johansson would have decked him, stopping the merciless beating only when the police arrived to forcibly pull her off of his unconscious, bloodied body. As a career move it would have been nothing but a plus for Johansson to market herself as the Woman Who Won’t Take Any Crap From Idiots. If I were in Johansson’s place, the cops would have had to multi-taser me into dreamland before I stopped hitting Mizrahi, but that’s just me.

Does anyone think Mizrahi would have withdrawn his hand in one piece if he did that to Queen Latifah? Hell, no! Because the Queen doesn’t put up with the disrespect. There isn’t enough plaster within three states to set the number of broken bones Mizrahi would have received if he put the grab on her. Unfortunately for everyone, Scarlett and several other actresses (and actors) let themselves be cheaply used, prostituting themselves out to vacuous pop culture for the low, low price of a sound byte.

If there ever is a movie featuring the Black Canary then it should star Scarlett Johansson. She could win an Oscar if she applied the assault to some method-acting.

Follow Up:
Eva Longoria at the SAG Awards

Super-Mysogyny

Superman v1, #140 (March 1960)

Cripes, Superman! Why don’t you just kick Supergirl in the face each time you meet? It would be kinder.

John Byrne Week: The Revenge

The long-running feud that John Byrne had (and by accounts, still does) with Chris Claremont is well known. While it was presumably over creative differences a large part of the conflict certainly has to do with their respective egos. Byrne long felt that he could do just as well as, if not better than his team-mate while on their X-Men run. From things I read in the 80’s it appears that John and Chris could barely tolerate one another going back even further, even to the Iron Fist title.

Often, it was observed that John needed to put up or shut up, and quit writing checks with his mouth that his ass can’t cash. Well, the funny thing was…John Byrne took that check all the way to the bank and cashed it in full. His work on Fantastic Four and Iron Man is classic and let’s not forget his wildly successful Superman reboot. Not too many people can say those runs were anything but brilliant and so far removed from the scripting disasters that are Blood of the Demon and Doom Patrol it’s like another person wrote them.

One of the things Byrne was known for in the feuding and the fighting was sending little digs at his former partner, Chris Claremont. The most well-known way Byrne did this was through the infamous sight gags regarding Dr. Doom. If Claremont featured Doom in a story, Byrne would soon present a scene where the one, true Doom would admonish and destroy the malfunctioning robot that acted without permission by attacking the X-Men (or wherever else Claremont would use him). Real subtle, eh?

One of the other ways Byrne would strike out at Claremont (and others) showed up in Fantastic Four v1 #240 (March 1982). In the story, the Fantastic Four assist the Inhumans in moving Attilan to the Blue Area of the moon. The foundations of Attilan are shattered by Black Bolt so the city, borne-aloft by anti-gravity generators, can drift into space to settle in its new home.

It’s a fun tale and a dramatic, if cramped, scene eclipsed by text boxes. One box in particular seems directly intended for Claremont.

Take a look.

“We’re not going to insult your intelligence by placing a sound-effect in this panel.”

Now what the heck is that about? Well, let me tell you.

When X-Men v1 #119 (March 1979) was published Marvel, Claremont, Byrne and the rest of the creative team were in top form and X-Men was the hottest selling title in years. However, Byrne was starting to make noise in print letting the fans know about his dissatisfaction with the status quo and his title-partner, Chris Claremont.

Claremont had written into the script of X-Men #119 a sound effect to compliment the explosion of a volcano in the X-Men/Moses Magnum story set in Japan. This really ticked Byrne off and he complained mightily about it and Claremont to any trade magazine that would give him the space. To be fair, I think the f/x was unnecessary and distracts from the art and dramatic moment, but Byrne didn’t have to be such a jerk about it, either. This is probably the first sign I can recall seeing showing the rift between the two creators. It’s naive to think that the members of a creative team gets along all the time but I do expect them to play nice in public.

By the time X-Men #119 rolled around Byrne was clearly chafing at the creative bit and he was anxious to move on to other projects. Still, holding a three year grudge is pretty immature and unprofessional on his part.

It’s ironic that the Fantastic Four scene Byrne used to critique Claremont suffers from poor layout and is cluttered by intrusive text boxes.

I couldn’t find any images of John Byrne looking apologetic but I did find this picture of his head exploding, possibly from his ego inflating beyond the capacity of his skull to hold it in check.

I think the f/x of this explosion is ‘fwoomf!’, which I imagine is very similar to the sound of his foot firmly wedging itself into his own mouth.

Previous Byrne posts
John Byrne Week is coming! Maybe…
The John Byrne no one remembers
FF #253 and the Curling iron From Space
Why secret identities don’t work

PS Magazine January 2006: Countdown to Wednesday!

Wednesday is Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy Day! The long awaited 6-issue special comes out this week and to tie you over until then, here is some of Joe Kuberts’ latest work for the US military’s maintenance comic book PS Magazine.

If I had a time machine I could use it to travel to Wednesday.

Actually good advice. Take it from one who knows, getting your beret ‘just right’ is a lot of work and you hate losing or ruining one.

The expression on this field generator is positively Liefeldian.

Looks like not buying things is turning out to be the army’s forte’.

Very carefully…

Heh.

Is there nothing that the stain of AoA hasn’t touched?

Yeah, you gotta have lubricant.

Original text changed to ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ by me.

I wonder if Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy will feature anthropormophic war machines? That would be cool.

Sgt. Rock vs. Terminator. I’d buy it.

Grocery Store Artifact: January is Stalking Week

– From a local Maryland area advertisement-driven grocery store giveaway woman’s magazine.

I imagine that getting stalked for a week sure can feel like a month. I can sympathize as I once spent a month in Oakland one weekend.

Aquaman’s little known powers

While browsing around the Inter Nets I found this sketch that Neal Adams did of Aquaman that has no context I can figure.
Maybe Neal was demonstrating Aquaman’s little known ability to collect refuse for recycling or win a stuffed toy at a carnival by mentally knocking down milk bottles.

“Official DC Cover Artist” Neal Adams drew literally hundreds of great and classic comic covers through the 1970’s (they had a startling disconnect to the interior content. Not his fault, mind you). Many of the covers featured Aquaman and others that you can find here at the Grand Comic Database.

John Byrne Week starts with the John Byrne no one remembers

Much has been written about John Byrne as a person and given all that I have read about him I have a hard time in disagreeing that what has been said about him is not true. If all the stories about his behavior, ego and attitudes about women and ethnic groups were just from disgruntled or hateful fans I could easily dismiss them, much like I ignore the hurtful and fabricated anecdote about the sexual preferences of another comic professional some internet wit started a few years ago.

Unfortunately, much of the words and actual samples have come from the creator’s mouth or drawing pen, so it is not so easy to dismiss. I am half-convinced that Byrne may be engaging in behavior similar to what multi-genre writer Harlan Ellison was infamous for in the late 70’s comics journals, that of “making a big noise in print.” The opinions of Byrne, like Ellison, seems to be all ego-driven to the point that they stop making rational sense, and they say things just for the controversy or to keep their names out in the public mind. It is like they are both poking a tiger with a stick because they want to see what happens next. The down-side to my awareness of Byrne’s attitudes is that I can’t read anything by him with out that getting in the way of the work a little bit and taking my enjoyment down a few notches. I can’t enjoy a film with Sean Penn in it for much the same reasons. I personally find Penn so distasteful as a person I can’t see past that to his film work.

Much of Byrne’s attitudes that has been written elsewhere and at great length, and by people better at it than I, so I’m not going to go into it much. Nor am I going to defend him. I’ll leave that to the apologists on byrnerobotics.

Instead for this entry, I am going to talk about the John Byrne I once met that people may have forgotten about or never knew existed.

Back in the very early 80’s I met John Byrne at the San Diego ComicCon. At that time the X-Men were the hottest thing going in comics. The feuds between John and other comic professionals were thought of (if known at all) by industry outsiders as not much more than the minor creative differences that happen between peers who have another vision in mind for a piece of work. Back then the SD Con wasn’t such a mob scene and most of the artists would be glad to talk to you (Brunner being the exception) as long as you didn’t get in the way of their doing sketches, which when most pros were getting $200 a page for a book, was considerable income for them. The Byrne that I met was civil, patient with the odd or immature fans and told insightful industry stories and lots of jokes that were funny (and not just because he was surrounded by sycophants doting on his every word). Somewhere along the conversations the subject of Superman came up and you could tell Byrne was very enthused about the concept.

One of the things he mentioned he was very excited about seeing was Superman drawn by John Buscema in the upcoming second Superman & Spider-Man DC/Marvel crossover book to be published in 1981. Byrne was apparently very impressed by Buscema, and to understand that appreciation all you have to do is look at his long run on Conan and you can see why he and others felt that way. Byrne talked for quite a while about how great Buscema was and what he had done for the industry. I almost think now that it was John Buscema working outside the standard corporate template that got Byrne thinking about what he himself could do for the Man of Steel.

Much is made about exclusive contracts today but one has to remember that way back when, writers and artists pretty much worked at either one house or the other and did so for very long runs. In fact, comic conventions were almost the only place you could get a sketch with your favorite artists’ interpretation of a character. An artist usually stayed with his stable of characters and rarely moved out of that area, with the exception of guest-stars in a title. The old Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One was a good book to catch back then because each month often featured different stars by varying writers and artists.

To most fans and other pros, John Buscema had never professionally drawn Superman, so it was actually a fan event to get a chance to see his take on the character.

Marvel Treasury Edition #28 (1981)

Look at that. Great stuff!

He had done work and character sketches but in the pre-internet days they were not widely seen by anyone. Buscema has been described as an “effortless draftsman”. Not that art is easy, he just made it look that way because he was so skilled. I recall one apocryphal (but probably based in fact) tale where another artist mentioned he was having problem with the layout of a panel. He needed a dramatic pose for a scene where the character was shirtless, hunched over, 3/4 turned at the waist and was being looked down at from above. Buscema just whipped out a reference sketch getting the perspective, lighting and realistic anatomy perfectly, leaving his fellow artist in awe.

I thought it important to remind readers that right when he was one of the main creative forces in comics, John Byrne deferred to and gave a lot of respect to the skills of John Buscema. I think it was an honest admiration for a peer also. It probably isn’t something we are likely to see much of given the way he acts these days, but that is the John Byrne that I try to remember.

Previous Byrne posts
John Byrne Week is coming! Maybe…
FF #253 and the Curling iron From Space
Why secret identities don’t work

Grocery Store Artifact: Bad Product Art

I think the package art on the ‘scratch & sniff’ adhesive label included on a room deodorant refill pack works less as a fragrant sales gimmick and looks very much more like a warning about what will happen if you go to sleep with an itchy ass.

DC Comics and the REAL "One Year Later"

Check out DC Comics editor Mort Weisinger’s humiliating smackdown of a reply to the continuity-related query of reader John Beach originally published in Adventure Comics #264.

From Adventure Comics #264 (September 1959)

I see the early beginnings of creator-contempt for fanboys having it’s origins in the response to this letter.

Then exactly one year later in issue #276 of the same title, Mort has apparently recognized the almost inevitable evolution to the style of comic story-telling and (rightly or wrongly) caves to the expectations and demands of the readership. In his response he reverses his stance of a non-coherent DCU in his acknowledgement of the differences in the versions of Atlantis depicted in both the Aquaman and Superman stories. Quite the about-face. Unlike previously, Mort doesn’t let in even a hint of condescension show in this reply. Perhaps he realized insulting your target consumer base is a poor business practice.

From Adventure Comics #276 (September 1960)

While Marvel is remembered today for its small community of heroes and detailed continuity of the 1960’s & 1970’s, at this point in comics history it was DC that had a far more extensive and built-in history of it’s characters. The proto-Marvel of the late-1950’s was mainly producing anthology titles that contained stand-alone or one-shot stories. DC needed to apply only a small amount of tweaking to create a shared reality while Marvel almost unintentionally ‘grew’ a universe from the ground up.

If only we had known what the future would bring…

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These

Adventure Comics #211 (April 1955)
“Superboy’s Most Amazing Dream!”

You know…I’ve also had dreams that start out exactly like that!