Sideburns #0: "Our Vacation"

That's right! That's a "#0" next to today's Sideburns. Remember when they used to do that all the damn time in comic books of the '90s? As a kid growing up on the tail end of the speculator boom, the very concept of a "zero-th issue" held a certain fascination, but in my old age (mid-twenties) I just find myself hemming and hawing on where to actually file them in my longboxes. (Hey, remember when Wizard used to do "#1/2" issues? Do they still do that? And there was that "Flashback" month Marvel did in the '90s that were all labeled "-1". Theoretically, it would go -1, 0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3... But I digress.)

But when DC did it as part of the Zero Hour crossover, it made a kind of sense. (Also: Flash #0 was an awesome comic and introduced me to the Novikov self-consistency principle, which is still my preferred fictional model of time travel.) The #0 issues were origin issues, which brings us to our comic today.



This could be considered the first Sideburns comic I drew, and it dates back to the far-flung days of summer 2007. You can see the style hasn't changed that much, although the "me" avatar has a round head instead of a square head, and neither of them have a body, just a kind of weird bust/pedestal.

The story behind this comic: That summer, I went with my future wife and her parents to visit her brother at the University of Virginia down in Charlottesville. We stayed at his apartment instead of a hotel, so we brought our own shampoos and soaps and stuff. Or, rather, my wife brought shampoos, and I figured I'd save packing space and just use hers. We spent two nights or so there, and then drove back to Wisconsin.

On the drive back, the following conversation took place:

JUSTIN: So your shampoo is really weird.
ALISON: What do you mean?
J: It leaves a weird oily residue. My hair's all greasy.
A: Well, I use it and my hair's not greasy. Which bottle did you use?
J: The one marked "L."
A: (pause) Why would you use that one? What did you think the "L" stood for?
J: Your last name.
A: Why would I put my initial on a shampoo bottle?
J: 'Cos... I don't know. Maybe so you'd know it was yours. Like in... in your old dorm room or something?
A: The "L" doesn't stand for my last name.
J: What does it stand for, then?
A: "Lotion." Oh my God, you've been washing your hair with hand lotion for three days.
J: Seriously? Jeez.
A: How could you not notice?
J: I did notice! That's why we're having this conversation...

If you mistake hand lotion for shampoo, your hair will look exactly like my drawing above.

BONUS: So that drawing's been hanging up on our fridge ever since, and when I went to scan it in, I discovered a drawing on the other side of it that I had totally forgotten about:



I would like to say it was a result of driving through wine country, but truth be told I do not actually need any encouragement to draw something like this.

A holiday hiatus

"Lo-fi webcomics by Justin Zyduck. Every Monday." But not this Monday. Partially because of all the holiday hullabaloo (amid, mind you, something like eighty feet of snow), and partially because this comic by somebody who is not me sums it all up pretty well anyway.

And next Monday? Still won't be the regularly scheduled Sideburns, but there will be something. See you then, and happy holidays to you and yours.

Sideburns #8: "The Customer is Always Right"

Lo-fi webcomics by Justin Zyduck. Every Monday.

Dude, They Totally Stole My Idea: Vol. 1

I’m a guy who has always wanted to write for DC and Marvel. I know as a writer trying to get an indie book picked up by a publisher, I should be singing the praises of original concepts. Honestly, if The Adventures of Wyatt Earp in 2999 got published and I could parlay that into a career writing my own stuff, but the Big Two wanted nothing to do with me, that would be totally cool. But the only reason I care about comics as an art form today is because I was introduced to it through superheroes as a kid, and I still read a modest number of superhero books every month.

As a lad, my ultimate goal in life was to one day write all my favorite superheroes. Around, oh, 1998 or so (when I would have been 14), I wrote a whole bunch of ideas down in a notebook. There’s a page for Fantastic Four, a page for the Hulk, one for Superman, and so on.

Some of these ideas are, of course, kind of dumb when you look back on them after ten years (there is a grim ‘n’ gritty Jay Garrick Flash idea floating around in there, of all things, and a highly unoriginal “Captain America’s life is systematically destroyed by a mysterious mastermind who turns out to be Bucky, but not really” story), but some of them I still think have the seeds of some pretty decent stories in them.

Some of them were so good, in fact, that DC and Marvel stole them from me. And by “stole,” I mean, of course, “had a somewhat similar idea completely independently from me, and it’s not like that idea was so radically original that ten other people could not have thought of it before.”

But dude, they totally stole my idea!

Here are some examples:

The Marvel Universe’s “Fifty-State Initiative”: The idea was that the government requests the Avengers spread themselves out across the United States and each take a major city, like the DC heroes do (for some reason, the notes are quite clear that Hawkeye takes Dallas and Darkhawk (?!) takes Seattle). Eventually, each Avenger was to become the centerpiece of a new team with all-new superheroes. There would have been one for each state, just like they’re doing in the real Marvel books, except the leaders would have met for council sessions presided over by Captain America in Washington, DC. It was going to be called Avengers Network, I guess because it would be a network of superheroes, and because “network” was a pretty cutting-edge phrase in the late ‘90s.

Peter Parker becomes a teacher at his old high school: J. Michael Straczynski used this just a few years later in his Amazing Spider-Man run. I originally thought it would have been a nice “full circle” kind of thing, with Peter going from nerdy high schooler to semi-cool science teacher, but when I saw it in practice I ended up missing the Daily Bugle too much.

Superman Beyond: I had a story that involved Superman teaming up with alternate versions of himself, just like the Final Crisis tie-in, but instead of trying to save the Multiverse, they were trying to save Hypertime (this was late ‘90s, remember, and that was supposed to be the Next Big Thing) from the Composite Superman (shut up shut up shut up the Composite Superman is totally rad you just don’t know).

Superman “2” from All-Star Superman: I have been drawing this exact same symbol in school notebooks since the sixth grade. The only two explanations are that Grant Morrison invaded my thoughts as a pre-teen, or that he and I are psychic soul mates and we would totally be best friends forever if he only got to know me. One of the two.

The ending to Fantastic Four: True Story: I haven’t read this, but I read a review of it (scroll down a bit), and the ending is exactly the same as the ending to the comic proposal Josh and I were working on before Wyatt.

“Old Man Logan”: I’m kind of leery of Mark Millar these days, but Josh assures me this is kind of cool, so I’ll guess I’ll pick it up when it’s out in trade. Like Millar’s story, my story was one in which the superheroes are all dead, and the supervillains have divided the earth up into territories. Except instead of Wolverine (who was dead, naturally) as protagonist, the main character was the Wizard from the Frightful Four, of all people. The story was based on the ‘80s crossover Acts of Vengeance, and posited that the villains’ plan of “Hey, let’s all switch archenemies” actually worked.

• Kingpin took over North America and became President Wilson Fisk, sharing power with the Red Skull. But the Skull betrayed and murdered Fisk and installed his own puppet president. He keeps order through his secret police force, the Sinister Sixty-Four, made up of mostly Spider-Man villains and B-list Avengers foes, led by the Green Goblin.
• The Wizard gathered up all the mad scientists and turned South America into a haven for science without limits. Basically, it was like giving Warren Ellis his own continent. The Mad Thinker and Doctor Octopus were his lieutenants.
• Doctor Doom got Europe and ran things pretty well as long as you pledged unwavering allegiance to him.
• Mandarin takes control of Asia. Not real clever, I guess.
• The villains gave Australia to Apocalypse as kind of an island preserve for his “survival of the fittest” experiments (Apocalypse was a huge deal when I was a kid, so I had to find something for him to do).
• Magneto got Africa, I suppose to keep up the whole mutant/race metaphor.
• Dissidents got put in Antarctica, where they probably froze or were eaten by a dinosaur in the Savage Land.
• Loki was just cool ruling Asgard.

This was all background for the main story in which a cosmic Galactus-type threatens to destroy the earth. The point was that supervillains never stop to think that if they killed all the superheroes, there would be no one to save the world from this sort of crisis, because supervillains do a pretty terrible job of working together as it turns out.

So what was the point of this post? Sighing over missed opportunities? Venting some bitterness? Not a chance. Hey, Marvel and DC: A bunch of ideas I had ten years ago have come to pass (sort of). Ergo, the ideas that I have today will be wildly successful in 2018. Hire me now and be ahead of the curve!

Said the Pilgrim to the Duke Page 2

Said the Pilgrim to the Duke Page 2... still needs some work on the backgrounds and needs to be toned and colored but once thats all done up we'll do the lettering and the uploading and the sharing on the interweb and then end it with jazz hands. Its really just the first page of the fight scene so you can imagine what the story is. So this isn't really a spoiler. Back to the drawing board.

Sideburns #6: "Iron Mensch"

Lo-fi webcomics by Justin Zyduck. Every Monday.

Superheroes and their music: DC (Part 2)

Green Lantern Alan Scott: Alan’s a stern old geezer and always was. All business—he was an engineer who somehow came to own a radio station (is that right?). It’s all classical for him. Everything else is noise. I hear Ayn Rand was into Rachmaninoff…

Green Lantern Hal Jordan: I’d say Bob Seger and some Credence. Bruce Springsteen, though like Hawkman, he hates when politics and popular music mix (is it generally accepted that Hal Jordan is a card-carrying Republican?). But remember: Hal was a traveling salesman and a truck driver for a number of years. I bet you don’t spend that much time on the road without getting acquainted with country music on your AM radio.

Green Lantern John Stewart: Don’t ask me why, but I strongly feel that he digs 80s electronica, and still plays the original CDs. Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, Brian Eno, Depeche Mode—hell, Devo.

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner: Kyle just goes to Pitchfork and buys whatever they recommend off iTunes so as to seem hip. Also, he will buy pretty much any CD at a coffee shop if there’s a cute barista working the counters. This is how he ended up with three copies of Corinne Bailey Rae’s album—and then he gave them away as Christmas gifts.

Nightwing: Dick Grayson has really broad tastes, I’d imagine. Part of this goes with what I said the other day in Wally West’s entry—the notion that the Teen Titans would hang around and talk about music all day. Dick just keeps up with things better than Wally. He likes obscure artists—it’s part of that detective mentality to root out what nobody else knows about. However, I am reminded of this panel from 1997’s Flash Plus Nightwing one-shot:



So we know Dick Grayson listens to White Zombie. Or at least, as somebody with very broad horizons, he is trying it out. He may like bands nobody’s ever heard of, but he won’t shun the popular stuff. I suspect he is a huge Foo Fighters fan, in fact.

Robin II: Remember how I said Wally West was probably a little into the Electric Light Orchestra? Well, Wally hangs out with Dick Grayson, and Dick hangs out with Tim Drake, and they all probably hang out together sometimes. Seeing as how Tim hangs out with a lot of adult superheroes (superheroes over the age of 18, not … well, never mind), he probably gets into older music than your average teenager. Makes him seem a little more mature, I guess is what he’s thinking. Anyway, Tim got a little taste of ELO from Wally and now he has every album. The early to middle-period stuff in particular is big and grandiose; since Tim began his career as essentially a Batman fanboy, “big and grandiose” is something we know he’s into.

Batgirl I: Barbara Gordon takes strong, kind of authoritative stances on certain musicians—Fiona Apple is a tremendous songwriter, Rufus Wainwright is egregiously underrated, Alanis Morrisette is awful. She also likes bands that are kind of funny and upbeat; she shared a deep love of They Might Be Giants with Ted Kord (the late Blue Beetle), and she liked Barenaked Ladies when they were popular. She’s very focused on lyrics—you can just strum three chords over and over as long as you’ve got something insightful or interesting to say.

Batman: Bruce Wayne doesn’t listen to music on his own time. I’m not a subscriber to the dark, tortured, brooding borderline psychopath version of Batman, but I can’t even really see the well-adjusted avenger from those 70s Steve Englehart/Marshall Rodgers comics sitting around grooving on his hi-fi. Bruce is certainly cultured—that’s part of his playboy persona—and knows, even appreciates, opera and Russian composers. But recreational music is something I imagine he never really had time for. Obsessive loner or consummate professional—with either interpretation you prefer, Bruce wouldn’t have much time for it. Musical tastes are generally formulated and solidified in your youth, but Bruce Wayne committed his life to his mission (or war, if you prefer) from an early age. I guess it’s another piece in the tragedy of Batman—the music doesn’t move him.

Next week: Image superheroes! What does Spawn have on his iPod? Is Grifter into vinyl?

...

Kidding.

Well, these last two weeks' worth of posts were very interesting, and by that I mean "aggresively nerdy." I just hope somebody dug these, or else on my deathbed one day I am going to demand whatever amount of time I spent on this back.

Superheroes and their music: DC (Part 1)

As promised, we follow up on last week’s examinations of the musical tastes of Marvel superheroes with the DC Universe. Like last time, these are scientifically accurate down to three decimal points and are based on in-story “canon” (the only word a geek needs to know), gut feelings, and “I think it would be great if…”

Assigning the DC heroes their favorite bands and musical styles isn’t as easy as doing the same for Marvel, I found. This may be partially because while Marvel’s schtick early on was to give their superheroes distinct personalities, DC heroes tend to be more conceptually based (and what some people—and we can debate the appropriateness of this—call “iconic”). Also, DC tends to revamp and reboot far more often.

Take Superman, for example. He requires two separate entries:

Pre-Crisis Superman: The Man of Steel you see in Silver Age comics, Superman: The Movie, and All-Star Superman. This is admittedly my favorite version of Superman: the pseudo-messiah “sun god” sent to Earth and raised as a human, who upon reaching adulthood re-embraces his alien heritage, while never forgetting what it’s like to be a common man (via the Clark Kent persona). This is a Superman in love with humanity, as well as being a scientist’s son. He experiences as much music as he can to learn the workings of the human heart through it. There is therefore a certain intellectual remove, and he is less interested in specific bands, genres, etc. than is he is with capital-M Music. This Superman also appreciates the great works of Kryptonian culture (whatever that would sound like—thought-controlled violins, harps played via holographic interface, Phantom Zone pan-flute) and music from other alien civilizations. What a rad guy.

Post-Crisis Superman: If Superman is, on some level, a metaphor for the immigrant experience (in addition to being a colorful trademark found on children’s lunch boxes), John Byrne’s rebooted version is the ultimate assimilationist. He spurns Kryptonian culture where his pre-Crisis equivalent embraced it (though in his defense, Byrne turned Krypton into a cold, rather unlovable society). The post-1986 version thinks of himself as Clark Kent—a mild-mannered, but urbane and self-confident reporter—first, and as an alien second. So what would a Kansas farmboy who grows up to be a sophisticated Metropolitan like? I suppose Pa instilled a love of classic country and a little bit of bluegrass in him; maybe some classic rock—John Mellencamp and the like. Out on the town in Metropolis, however, I see him going to small-venue shows by classic rock artists, usually solo acts (Peter Gabriel, latter-day Elvis Costello, maybe the guys from Steely Dan if they still tour).

Let's do this "Goofus and Gallant" style:

Pre-Crisis Superman is reverent of popular culture.


Post-Crisis Superman does not appreciate your taste in music.

Lois Lane: Who do you think introduced post-Crisis Clark to all those classy classic rock artists? But her favorite band? Creedence Clearwater Revival; perfect for an army brat with a healthy disrespect for unquestioning authority.

Wonder Woman: This is a tricky one, too. What does a goddess listen to? I’m going to cop out and say “world music” here.

Green Arrow: Okay, this is pretty easy. Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Neil Young, John Lennon (“What about Paul McCartney?” you ask. “Paul?” comes the reply; “That hack?!”), Phil Ochs. Rock ‘n’ Roll, belligerent and/or political. Of course, with the sliding timescale, this would probably include at least some early punk, but … I don’t know, maybe it’s the way Ollie’s been portrayed as sort of an ageing radical, but I really can’t imagine him enjoying much musically after about 1976. Maybe the Clash and Sex Pistols, but anything more than that he’d just say “Well, I appreciate what you kids are tryin’ to do, but you should learn to play your instruments better.”

Hawkman: Some sort of austere Thanagarian chamber music? Or is he a human man now? See why this is so hard with DC continuity? Anyway, I’m sure Carter Hall, as a conservative foil to ultra-liberal Green Arrow, likes classic rock, but he just hates it when artists get too political. “We pay you to play music,” he says, “not push your agenda!”

Aquaman: I went out to lunch with my brother, and he said it would be real funny if Aquaman buys those “Sounds of the Oceans” kind of new age CDs you can get at Target with whale calls and ocean sounds. He listens to the dolphin clicking and is all like, “These lyrics are idiotic!” Haw haw.

Martian Manhunter: See the pre-Crisis Superman entry, except J’Onn listens to Earth music less out of affection and curiosity, and more to further his ability to blend seamlessly into our culture(s).

Flash I: Jay Garrick was a college student in 1940. He’d take his best gal Joan dancing and really cut a rug before the evening wound down with some Perry Como-kinda pop ballads.

Flash II: Barry Allen was huge into swing. He was briefly fashionable during the 90s revival craze, but he had no clue whatsoever. He thought everybody was just coming around to his taste in music. Now that he's alive again, he's going to be very disappointed.

Flash III: I’m a big Wally West fan; Mark Waid’s Flash run of the '90s is what got me into DC Comics in my early teens. The thing about Wally is he’s a full-time superhero and has been since he was a kid. The Teen Titans were probably passing whatever music was cool back then around, so Wally probably still looks back on that pretty fondly as a reminder of simpler times. He doesn’t pay attention to trends as an adult because, well, there’s a crisis in the 64th century, and it’s not going to stop itself; Wally has no idea what’s been going on in popular music for about ten years. Also, Waid wrote him as '90s cynical, but with a romantic edge. I imagine he quietly likes Peter Frampton and Electric Light Orchestra. Geoff Johns wrote him a little Midwestern conservative, so we’ll throw in some John Mellencamp.

Part 2 will have to wait till after the Thanksgiving holiday. So come back here Friday for the Green Lanterns of Earth and the Batman Family.