Digitally Speaking...#8 "Elric, Adam West, Worlds of Aspen"

FCBD 2011 Elric: Balance Lost (Boom!)
Elric is one of those quasi-classic characters floating around, who certainly has a considerable following, but mostly on the basis of how creator Michael Moorcock has lent him out over the years, to the point where the character sometimes seems to be ubiquitous.  The question is, does Elric even warrant this kind of treatment?

My judgment at this point is that the character is little better than C.J. Henderson's Lai Wan, who I first discovered in a short-lived Moonstone comics adaptation.  Henderson is an almost-entirely self-generated publishing figure, and Lai Wan is not even his major creation, nor has he ever written a book based completely around her.  The comic is based on a series of short stories.  I read the first issue on a whim, and found little merit in it, although Henderson is clearly devoted to his creation, viewing her in almost a mythic fashion, one that is not really warranted by the material.

The same can be said for Elric.  The only reason I know about Moorcock or Elric at all is because both periodically pop up on my radar, usually in association with each other but almost never with any definitive work between them.  Elric is just a character that has been relentlessly promoted over the years (originally created in 1961), and has appeared in a number of books and scores of adaptation revivals.

This comic is the latest.  I hope it's not representative of the overall Elric material, because it's pretty terrible.  I realize I don't write in the most traditional sense myself, but I think I can tell the difference between dialogue and declarative statements.  Every shred of dialogue in this comic is a declarative statement.  This is not storytelling.  To go by this comic, Elric doesn't have a story at all, but a general character description.

Another painful layer of the comic is that it's written by Chris Roberson, who at one point was one of DC's heirs apparent, until he and the company came to disagreement over the issue of creator rights, which was incredibly odd for a creator who hadn't really done anything at that point, and now writes characters who are all but in the public domain.  It's an especially poor reflection on his talents one way or another, and beggars the question of a major company even wanting to work with him again, regardless of his views.

FCBD 2011 Misadventures of Adam West #1 (Bluewater)
This comic, on the other hand, is another of those polar opposites I keep finding in my comiXology collection, featuring a character very much the cult variety of Elric, but whose complicated march to a 2011 Free Comic Book Day entry ends up looking very different.

That cult character is of course Adam West, who starred in Batman on TV from 1966-68 (including one theatrical release).  The actor never really did anything else, and seemed fairly fine with it, having once become an icon (which is sometimes, if rarely, good enough for actors), although he's had a tough time with the portrayal of his Caped Crusader on film ever since.  He campaigned to appear in Tim Burton's 1989 film, which would certainly have been a jarring inclusion in a famously Gothic production.  West's interpretation of the character has been reduced to being considered not just comic but campy, what's otherwise known as throwing a wink to the audience, letting everyone know that the material is not exactly being taken seriously.

This comic, however, casts a different light on the series.  What if West's version, if being a little silly, really was a legitimate take on the character, a more innocent perspective, family friendly in a way only cartoons have been in recent decades?  What if West's Batman, even if only his his own mind, is a more heroic version of the famous superhero?

One of the clever things the comic does is sort of mold West into a Georges Reeves figure, a martyr that emerged in the excellent film Hollywoodland, except it replaces Reeves' reluctance to be Superman with West's eagerness to continue the spirit of his Batman.

It's a classic Bluewater comic book, certainly, and I'm not saying this because I've got two Bluewater biographies under my belt (with a third hopefully on the way by the end of the year).  I've read basically a handful of Bluewater comics.  I don't go out of my way to read them.  One celebrity biography comic is basically like any other celebrity biography comic, and because the vast majority of the company's publishing schedule is made up of them, it's hard to gage what else it has to offer.  I first saw this as a goofy extension of those efforts, without having read it.  It's not even the only one of its kind.  But then, Bluewater comics have been adapted into major motion pictures (Wrath of the Titans).  Bluewater is basically one of the lower rung spinoffs from Image (where other Bluewater comics like The 10th Muse and Legend of Isis came from), and like pretty much any comic book company ever has latched onto known properties in order to establish its brand.

The approach to Misadventures, then, is pretty clever.  It uses the biography template to launch West's further exploits (he is not the writer, by the way).  I don't know if further issues have touched on the fact that West has very cleverly subverted his reputation on Family Guy over the years, or if that's even possible, given the conceit seems to switch to a magical youthful regeneration by the end of this debut, which would lead one to assume that perhaps further issues feature less melancholy and more '60s-style Batman adventures.

As for the whole cult of Adam West I originally referenced, there are of course now DC's own Batman '66 comics, plus the recent news that the '60s series is finally being released on DVD (even George Reeves didn't have to wait that long!), and West's own improbable continuing cultural relevance (via Family Guy), now offered in these comics themselves.

Was he actually on to something?  Very probable, indeed...

FCBD: Worlds of Aspen 2013 (Aspen)
Aspen is another Image spinoff, the baby of the late Michael Turner, responsible for some of the most gorgeous pinup comic book art of the past twenty years.  His legacy is also dominated by his style, however, despite the fact that he didn't just create a style but at least one long-lasting character (Fathom).  His is the lithe version of the Babe Comics otherwise known as the Bad Girl Comics, or in other words Turner was best known for drawing beautiful women with very little clothing on them.  The lead story in this sampler is a perfect example of why this needs to be reconsidered as the dominant form of his legacy.  There seems to be a pretty good story in there, but it's buried under the dominant images of the two lead women in bikinis.  The fact that they're in bikinis is not itself distracting, but the fact that the artist is trying his hardest to evoke Turner is.

And apparently Aspen publishes a lot of stuff that doesn't rely so heavily on the Turner template.  You'd hardly know it.  Both Bluewater and Aspen could use to not so heavily promote only one version of themselves, or they will always be marginalized in the community.  Aspen doesn't do itself many more favors by reducing the rest of the looks at its offerings to barely-anything, with the biggest example being a two-page spread with prose imposed on a single image, and prose not particularly well-displayed on it.

These are decisions that will need to be corrected.  Whereas a creator like Chris Roberson, having once taken a principled stand, seems incapable of doing himself any favors, and a guy like Adam West just sort of stumbles into them, Aspen might fall into an Elric fate, well-known but obscure (via a creator, whether it's Michael Moorcock or Michael Turner), or it could move on to something greater.

The decisions are entirely in the air.  The subjects of this particular Digitally Speaking... are all in transition.  Their fates could be great, or they could sink into obscurity the more history has its say on them.