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Best Comic Books Of 2011: Best Ongoing Comics Of The Year

The very idea of what an ongoing series is evolving all the time, but here are the rules I used for this category: If it’s over 10 issues, and at least 2 of those issues took place in 2010, it’s an ongoing. Now, quantity does count here. The more issues a “good” title releases in the year, the better it’ll fare against a title of similar quality that only put out a few issues. And so titles that are still relatively new like Animal Man, I Vampire, Pigs, or Near Death didn’t make it on the list this year. And titles that I normally love, but that put out less than 3 issues in 2011 like Scarlet, Orc Stain, or Powers don’t make the cut either.

20) Lil Depressed Boy by S. Stephen Struble and Sina Grace (Image)

Lonely Emo hipster finds love. Love goes bad. Smiths are listened to. That’s the basic premise of this fine, emotionally engaging comic. In a year age when only action and superhero comics  seem to make it to the stands, this was a refreshing change of pace. The cautiously optimistic tone, as well as the likeable lead created by Struble, are the two main reasons to keep coming back, despite the pessimistic nature of the title. Hope to see more books like this in 2012.

19) Secret Avengers by Warren Ellis and various artists (Marvel)

No offense to Ed Brubaker or Nick Spencer, but this book didn’t really take off until Warren Ellis took over the writing reigns, and turned it from just another team book into a 25 page action-packed explosion of pages, panels, and colour. Each issue stands completely alone, and doesn’t require you to be able to tell an Avenger from an X-Man.These are superheroes kicking ass, in the simplest possible way. Ellis is telling some pretty generic, yet throughly compelling superhero stories here, and Secret Avengers contains some of the best plotting I’ve seen from him in a while. Extra shout-outs go to the extremely varied group of talented artists that helped Ellis make this work as well as it did.

18) Detective Comics by Scott Snyder, Jock, and Francesco Francavilla (DC)

Snyder has been getting a lot of praise for his work on American Vampire, but it’s his arc here, on this old bloated beast of superhero comics, that made me pay attention to his work. The story stars Dick Grayson, the young protegé who has had to step up to the plate and taken over the mantle of the Batman. This arc is probably the most convincing argument I’ve seen for why Grayson should have been allowed to stay in the cowl, as it manages to be both a pure Batman tale and a pure Dick Grayson tale at the same time. I’m aware that part of the reason I enjoyed this so much may have something to do with the fact that Grant Morrison has been systematically destroying my beloved Batman over the past few years, but I digress. If you miss the Detective in Detective Comics, I’d give this a shot. P.S. Jock and Francesco Francavilla have fairly disparate art styles, but I never felt as if they clashed, and thought that they made great tag-team partners throughout this entire run.

 17)  Jonah Hex/All-Star Western by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, various artists (DC)

I’ll lump these together as a) they’re by the same writers, and b) they’re both vehicles for Jonah Hex, DC’s notorious wild west bounty hunter. Jonah Hex was one of the best comics DC produced before their much vaunted September reboot, and it’s follow-up All-Star Western manages to keep the quality fairly high, though perhaps it’s a little toothless in comparison. Part of the appeal of the original series was the stand-alone adventure nature of the book, and so the switch to a more serial, continuity driven approach wasn’t exactly welcome news. Still, the book remains a solid western adventure read to this day.

16)  Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai (Dark Horse)

200 issues. You heard me. Usagi Yojimbo hit 200 issues this year. You know what other independent creator-owned book hit a milestone like that this year? Can’t think of one? That’s because there are no other currently running creator-owned books that have even come close to the commercial or creative longevity that Usagi has had. Usagi Yojimbo is about the continuing adventures of a masterless samurai (or ronin) in feudal Japan. He’s also a talking rabbit, but that’s never really explained, and kind of besides the point. He rambles through the Japanese countryside, looking for ways to earn a meal or a warm fire. It’s a simple concept, and that simplicity is part of the reason why Sakai has kept the quality so very high for so very long. The impressionist sensibility of Sakai’s pencils help to keep the tone light, yet fairly vibrant.

15)  The Spirit by David Hine and Moritat (DC)

Will Eisner’s Spirit. In comic book circles, those three words are enough to make even the most fervent of fanboys blush. The Spirit was a Sunday strip that was created by Will Eisner in the very late 30’s, and managed to run until 1950 or so. Although the strip’s quality was inconsistent, when it was good it was VERY good, and remains some of the best adventure comic storytelling of all time. The character has had a resurgence since Eisner’s death, with various creators trying their hand at the seminal crime fighter. Darwyn Cooke’s version remains the very best of these,  but I was happy to see just how good David Hines and Moritat’s adaptation had become, at least before DC cancelled it. Hines realized that The Spirit himself is actually the least interesting part of Eisner’s creation, and that the character should always be just a gateway to telling small, entertaining crime stories. Unfortunately very few of the new DC reboot titles have matched this level of quality.

14)  Echo/Rachel Rising by Terry Moore (Abstract Studios)

It’s probably unfair to label these together as the genres involved are quite different. But given that they’re a) both by Terry Moore, b) both have solving a mystery as their main premise, and c) both are character vehicles first, I thought lumping them together would be ok. Echo ended after 30 issues this year, with Rachel starting only a few months later. While Echo was pure sci-fi, and Rachel seems to be plumbing the horror genre, they both should be read by anyone wanting to learn how to set up a convincing, intriguing mystery comic. I wish more people would give Moore’s comics a shot, as he’s doing some really enjoyable genre work these days.

13)  Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man  Vol. 1/Vol. 2 by Brian Bendis & various artists (Marvel)

Spider-Man died this year. Yes, Peter Parker. Deader than a dictator. Big deal, yes? Then why haven’t you heard about this? Because it’s the not the regular Spider-Man that died, it’s the one in the Ultimate Universe. God you’re dumb. And they wonder why no one reads comics anymore. Despite the confusing continuity, the reality is that THE Spider-Man title to buy over the last decade has been Brian Bendis’ work on Ultimate Spider-Man. It’s a simpler, modernized version of the origin of our beloved webcrawler, and Bendis decided to take it up a notch by putting him six feet in the ground. And the best part of it was that it was actually a great story. Actually, I’m going to go as far as to say that it was a capital G GREAT story. And while Parker has remained dead (for now), Bendis has created a more-than-suitable replacement in Miles Morales. This new addition to the Spidey mythos gave the franchise a kick in the pants that it maybe didn’t need, but was definitely welcome.

12)  The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard (Image)

This sacred cow of modern horror comics is still going, and thankfully it’s still going relatively strong. It’s a testament to Kirkman’s skills as a storyteller (and for creating such an open-ended concept in the first place) that this independent comic book has thrived in such a difficult time for the market, and has even spawned a successful TV show. The premise is simple: Zombies have taken over the world. A group of people are trying to survive. Simple it may be, but Kirkman understands that emotional responses in survival situations are anything BUT simple, and constantly invents creative new ways to put his characters under the emotional gun.

11)  The Unwritten by Mike Carey (Vertigo)

Unwritten is the story of Tommy Taylor, the son of a famous fantasy novelist, and the model for his most famous creation. He’s struggling to find his own way in the world, until he finds out that the line between fantasy and reality isn’t as clear as he once thought. In short, this is a story about stories. About how stories affect our lives, our culture, and our history. And as such, it’s about as ambitious as comics can get, and this year saw Carey exploring genres ranging from noir to fantasy, and from superhero to horror. In some ways, I don’t love this series quite as much as I once did now that many of the mysteries are solved and now that it’s morphing into a pure fantasy book, but the imaginative way that Carey and Gross utilize fiction tropes to tell their ambitious epic keeps me coming back for more.

10)  Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory  (Image)

Tony Chu is the star here. He’s a FDA agent in a world where chicken has been outlawed due to a catastrophic epidemic of Bird Flu. He has the unique ability to  get a psychic impression through anything that he’s eaten, which as you would expect means that we get to see Chu eat a variety of disgusting things. My appreciation of this book was strong at first, but then soured as the comic started to get whackier, and more farcical. I’m happy to report that I’m back on the side of praise now, and I think I finally have the measure of what Layman and Guillory are all about. It’s a very thin line between serious cop drama, bizarre sci-fi, and hilarious farce that these guys are trying to draw, but they’re really pulling it off. This year saw them leap a year forward in the narrative for one issue, only to go back to the original timeline  in the next. It was a bold move, and one that could tie the hands of lesser creators. But in the wacky, capable hands of these talents it just seems par for the course.

9) DMZ by Brian Wood, Riccardo Burchielli, and Others (Vertigo)

In the near future, America is at war. Not with North Korea, or Iran, or Syria, but with itself. It’s the near future, and America is years into a brutal civil war, with the island of Manhattan serving as a “neutral” demilitarized zone. That’s the premise of DMZ, and it’s one that’s almost disturbingly familiar. As I’m writing this, one last issue of DMZ  is about to hit the stands, and it’s a bittersweet end. Creatively, it’s always great when books end on a high note. But in this era of pre-packaged superhero mediocrity, it’s a shame any time a book of this quality leaves the marketplace. DMZ wasn’t just a good comic, it was an important comic, one that served as a warning to what we might become if we’re not careful. Watching Brian Wood evolve into one of the mediums great writers over the past decade has been a real joy, and I’m going to go as far as to say that DMZ might be one of the finest war comics the medium has ever seen.

8)  Punisher Max by Jason Aaron & Steve Dillon (Marvel)

Probably the second most intense comic on the stands right now, which isn’t surprising since it’s written by the same guy who writes the first. It mystifies me that this sells as little as it does, as it’s easily among the most consistently well-made comics that Marvel has produced over the past few years. Forget what you think this series is about, as it requires absolutely no previous knowledge of The Punisher, or superheroes at all, to really enjoy it. What it is, is the story of an old man. His family was killed 30 years ago, and he’s spent every second of the decades since trying to kill criminals in a futile attempt at avenging that family’s deaths. And his time is almost up. This series has taught me a lot this year about what  it means to strip a story down to its bare essentials, as I can’t think of a single wasted beat that Aaron’s made since it started. Every single panel, is about setting up what looks to be a blaze of glory for the tragic lead character, and this might be the most emotionally charged comic on my list this year. Steve Dillon is firing on all cylinders here, and is turning in some of the best work of his career.

7) The Goon by Eric Powell (Dark Horse)

After a two-year sabbatical, Eric Powell took the reigns back in 2011 on the book that made him famous. Not only that, but he went back to his roots. By the time Powell had finished his last run on the book, The Goon had evolved into a long, dramatic horror series full of convoluted plots and strategically built tension. Powell has stepped back from that ledge however, and this year in The Goon was all about what the book was first famous for: Short, yet terrifyingly funny action-packed horror stories, full of scary monsters, dialogue that would make a dead drunken sailor blush, and some of the most beautifully disturbing artwork to be found in comics.  Although I’m looking forward to Powell getting back into the epic business, it’s been great to see him having fun again.

6) Rasl by Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books)

That this brilliant science fiction masterpiece hasn’t gotten more attention from the comic community is a real shame. I would probably rate this higher if it came out a little more often, but I’m definitely not complaining. Like recent issues of Sixth Gun and Sweet Tooth, it seemed as if there was quite a bit of exposition to get through this year in the pages of Rasl. One feels as if Smith had been waiting a long time to bring the true story of Nikola Tesla into the science fiction of RASL, and he did it pretty seamlessly. This is a large, alternate-universe epic Smith is creating here, and the only problem I have with it is that I don’t see how he could possibly wrap it up in the handful of issues left that he has planned.

5)  Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire (Vertigo)

It’s been nice to see Lemire get some mainstream success this year with his superhero writing, but he’s still most effective when he handles the art chores on his own work. So I was a little surprised when Lemire had Matt Kindt partner up with him on a few issues of Sweet Tooth this year. I shouldn’t have been. Kindt is a brilliant storyteller in his own right, and his art is a perfect complement to Lemire’s quirky sensibilities.  Sweet Tooth is a post-apocalyptic road story about a mutant and his shadowy father figure, but recent issues have seen Lemire attempt to fill in some of the holes regarding the world they live in, and how it go to be that way. In that light, Lemire’s decision to use a different artist makes sense, though part of me can’t wait for the main narrative to be revisited. Lemire’s work on Sweet Tooth is some of the best dramatic storytelling on the stands right now.

4) Northlanders by Brian Wood and various artists (Vertigo)

After a rare, and brief dip in quality with the near-terrible Metal, storyline, Brian Wood brought his Viking adventure anthology back on track this year with some pretty incredible writing, namely as seen in his brilliant Icelandic Trilogy. Sadly, this wasn’t enough to save the book, and Northlanders is scheduled for cancellation in a few months, along with Wood’s other book DMZ. This was one of the jewels of the Vertigo line, and one that I recommend often to people who love great storytelling, but haven’t really appreciated the medium of comics before. Wood understands intrinsically what most writers take years to figure out:  Genre is meaningless if you don’t have a great lead whose actions you care about passionately. And so although Wood’s chosen setting of circa 900AD Scandinavia is important, it always takes a back seat to his compelling lead characters, and the action-packed scenarios he throws them in. It’s sad that this book is ending, but at least it’s going out on a high note.

3) Here Comes….Daredevil! by Mark Waid, Marcos Martin, and Paolo Rivera (Marvel)

This book represents everything that is good and great about the medium of comics. It’s a return to the fun, swashbuckling version of Daredevil that usually comes in second place to the more popular, brooding one, but this book is so much more than that. More than any other superhero comic book being published today, this book uses the medium of comics to tell you it’s stories. Now, that just sounds like common sense right? It should be, but the sad truth is that so much of comic book storytelling today is stagnant. It’s become far more about genre than it is about medium. People like zombies? Here’s a screenplay about zombies in Vietnam, with some pictures!  Want to add some edge? Here’s Super-Zombie! Waid’s DD transcends all of that nonsense. It’s a comic about a superhero, but most importantly it’s a comic. It’s bold, It’s bright, and it uses every square inch of every single page to tell you it’s secrets. The art by Marcos Martin and Paolo Rivera are going to be dissected by comic book historians for years to come.

2) The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt (Oni)

I wish more comics were like this one. Not exactly like this one obviously. But it’s the ambition I admire here. Sixth Gun is a western/horror pastiche about.a woman who inherits a magical gun from her father, and finds out pretty quickly that the gun holds some very dark secrets. This is a bold comic book, in that it’s combining several less-than-trendy genres in a time where getting people to buy anything that doesn’t have the word Bat in front of its title is almost impossible. At first I thought there would be a years worth of stories in this concept, tops, but as more issues come and go, it’s obvious that Bunn and Hurt are weaving a complex, epic story here, and it’s one that is bordering on genius.

1) Scalped by Jason Aaron & RM Guera (Vertigo)

If this comic doesn’t constantly give you goosebumps in the tuckus, than I think you’re in the wrong blog. This is “just” a populist crime story about a modern day indian reserve in South Dakota, but it’s one that’s so visceral, so stirring, and so  character-driven that I’m always surprised that it’s never gotten the mainstream attention that lesser Vertigo series seem to garner. This series still kicks me in the pants every time I read an issue. This is powerful crime storytelling at it’s very best, and the fact that it’s ending soon is a little depressing. I’m comforted however by the fact that it seems destined to go out on a high note. I’m hoping that years from now people will be talking about this title in the same way people talk about Criminal, or 100 Bullet, although I think that it’s already proven that it’s their equal. Unfortunately, 2012 is going to be the last for this fantastic neo-noir.

Honourable Mention:

Incorruptible by Mark Waid and Marcio Takara (BOOM), I, Vampire by Joshua Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino (DC), Animal Man by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman (DC), Pigs by Ben McCool, Nate Cosby, and Breno Temura (Image), Near Death by Jay Faerber and Simone Guglielmini (Image), Captain America and Bucky by Ed Brubaker and Francesco Francavilla, (Marvel), Secret Six by Gail Simone and Jim Caliofore (DC), Batgirl by Bryan Miller and Dustin Nguyen (DC), Batgirl by Gail Simone and Ardian Syaf (DC), Batwoman by JH Williams and W. Haden Blackman (DC), Butcher Baker by Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston (Image)

Would have gotten on the list if more issues had comes out: Wasteland by Antony Johnston and various artists (IDW), Scarlet by Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (ICON), Godland by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli (Image), Orc Stain by James Stokoe (Image), Powers by Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming (Icon)

The Great Comic Book Cull Part 58: Marvel Comics – Spider-Woman!

A quick house-keeping thing to announce first: I’m changing the name of my culling project, as it’s fairly obvious by now that I’m not going to finish the project in 2011, or even in 2012 at this rate. Maybe I should change it to the Great Comic Book Cull of the First Half Of The Twenty-First Century.

Yep, hard to see why they keep her around.

Yes, there’s a Spider-Woman. Why? Take a seat, and I’ll tell you her story.

Turns out that Peter Parker had a cousin that was born on his home-planet but was sent to Earth on a dffe…no, wait, that’s somebody else.

Ok. I’ve got it now. So the police commissioner that works hand in hand with Spider-Man has a plucky young daughter who decides to emulat…Nope, that’s still not it.

Ok, I think I’ve got this in the bag. Peter Parker’s cousin was shot and near death when Parker decided to give her a transfus….Still not it?

You mean that she’s not connected to Peter Parker at all? There’s a character with the same name as this guy running around and there’s no connection whatsoever? Oh Marvel. Is there anything that your particular brand of crass opportunism can’t do?

This character has always been a weird one for Marvel, in that she is relatively unused compared to other Marvel characters from the same era. She was created in the late 1970’s essentially to maintain a copyright, and her first original series was a weird little horror/spy/superhero title that didn’t last long. And so she essentially disappeared for the next few decades. She would pop up once in a while, usually in the sack with Wolverine, but she was basically MIA for 20 years.

Until Brian Michael Bendis came along. After becoming Marvel’s top writer, it didn’t take for him to start digging up all of his old favourite characters from when he was a kid, and so voila, we now have Spider-Woman back! Since Bendis took an interest, we’ve seen numerous major stories and series with Jessica Drew as the lead. Unfortunately, it turns out that she may have been better served by letting her stay under the rock she was living under, as other than having one of the hottest costume in superhero history, there doesn’t seem to be too much depth to the character.

Spider-Woman – Origin

This was Bendis’ first attempt at rebuilding the origin of Jessica Drew, and it’s actually a pretty good one. Bendis uses the secret spy-underbelly of the Marvel U as his backdrop here, and weaves a competent tale of weird science, espionage, and super-heroics. It’s basically Bendis’ take on the Island of Dr. Moreau, but instead of a bear/dog/ox hybrid, we get a hot chick in spandex. Plus, it’s got the only mainstream superhero work done to date by the Luna Brothers, and they show here why they’ve become two of the preeminent adventure storytellers in comics right now. Solid read.

Spider-Woman – Agent Of S.W.O.R.D.

So Marvel does the first mini. It’s well-received, and so they announce that they’re going to do a follow-up right afterwards. Only one problem: The Spider-Woman that we knew and loved, wasn’t actually Spider-Woman. It was an alien shape-shifter who was secretly leading an alien invasion of earth! DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNN!

And so this long-awaited series by the creative team behind one of the greatest Daredevil runs of all time was put on hiatus for a few years. And by the time it finally came out, no one cared, least of all the creative team. The problem with achieving greatness is that you’re expected to be able to repeat it, and the much-lauded team of Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev just couldn’t duplicate either the commercial or the critical acclaim they had achieved before.

And so the series ended after only a handful of issues. It gets unjustly criticized in my book though. This isn’t a bad comic, it’s just that it’s “just” a well-executed  little spy/crime tale, and we had been told to expect epic brilliance from this particular team, on this particular concept. Maleev’s artwork is truly stunning here. Despite his lack of interest in the project, I don’t believe his pencils have ever looked better, before or since.

Next up: Squadron Supreme!

The Great Comic Book Cull Of 2010/2011 Part 50: Marvel Comics – Nova, Power Man & Iron Fist, and The Pulse

It’s hard to believe that I’ve done 50 posts about my culling project. It’s been about 9 months so far, and I’m not even half way though. In fact, I really doubt that I’ll be finishing this this year. Although I’m enjoying the reading, I’m having a hard time keeping motivated regarding the writing, especially as I still have several months to go before I can even start writing about my true passions: Independent comics. I’m still muddling through however, and so I present to you yet more writing about gaudily dressed super-clowns:

Nova: Annihilation – Conquest, Knowhere, Secret Invasion, Nova Corps, War Of Kings, Realm Of Kings

Nova was Marvel’s mid-1970s attempt at recreating the ‘average kid gets superpowers’ magic that essentially catapulted the company into superhero success 14 years earlier with Spider-Man. To it’s credit, Marvel didn’t take the easy way out and copy Spider-Man’s origin verbatim. Instead, they took the even easier way out and copied Green Lantern’s origin verbatim: Dying member of an intergalactic police force transfers his power to a hapless earthling. But instead of being a cocky, brash pilot like Hal Jordan, the new Nova is an insecure poindexter like Peter Parker. Original, yes? Umm…no.

Although the character’s first series fizzled after 25 issues, attempts have been made over the years to utilize the character in various comics and plotlines, most notably in the early 90’s teen book The New Warriors. However, no matter how hard the character was pushed, he never really amounted to much. In fact, the character is very similar to Moon Knight, in that his costume is really the only thing he has going for him. When you take that away, all you have is a very poor man’s version of not just one, but two other characters.

Until now. About 4 years ago, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning decided to use the Nova character as a major player in their Annhilation Wave epic, and the character hasn’t been the same since. Abnett & Lanning essentially put this character into the forge, stripped away everything that we knew about him, and rebuilt the character from the ground up. And now what’s left is a confident, extremely powerful hero that can hold his own with pretty much any of Marvel’s A-list villains: Nova. Which brings us to one of the better Marvel titles in recent years, but one that unfortunately requires you to read pretty much everything else Abnett & Lanning have been writing so as to fully understand what’s going on. Not that that’s a bad thing, as they’ve been turning out some great Marvel sci-fi epic storytelling. But  those who are just looking for a simple, straight-forward superhero book that can stand on it’s own two feet might want to look elsewhere.

Power Man & Iron Fist: Essential Vol. 1

When I was a kid, Power Man & Iron Fist might have been my favourite comic book. I waited for every issue like a dog waiting for a porkchop. And since the World Wide Web wasn’t available at the time, the cancellation of this book was a real surprise to me. So why am I getting rid of this? It’s not because of the quality of the book. The title focused on two characters that had been in their own low-selling books: Power Man (better known today as Luke Cage), and Iron Fist, and  as such was essentially a mash-up between Shaw Brothers-style Kung-Fu & Pam Grier-style Blaxploitation. And it was glorious. It had a little bit of everything I love about superhero comic, and because it was one of Marvel’s lowest selling books, seemed to deal with subject matter that other comics weren’t touching at the time. Unfortunately, the only way you can get this series in collected form is in the oversize black & white Essential trade paperbacks, and as I’ve previously noted, they just don’t give colour comics their fair shake. Although I still love this series, I’ll have to do without it until Marvel reissues it in a format that does it’s original source material justice.

The Pulse: Thin Air, Secret War, Fear

The Pulse was Marvel’s attempt at a follow-up to their high-on-acclaim, low-on-sales title Alias, and their hopes were that this would get the high numbers the previous series lacked, as well as continuing to get great reviews. It received neither, though it definitely deserves more credit that it gets.

It’s essentially the story of Jessica Jones, a former superhero-turned-private eye, who has been hired by J. Jonah Jameson to help Ben Urich uncover super-related stories for the Daily Bugle. It’s a sound premise, and one that should have been a good companion piece to Bendis other series about normal people who get pulled into the bizarre realm of super-heroics, Powers. However, Powers only has to stay relevant to itself, and the Pulse quickly got pulled into the bazillion-and-one subplots are running through the Marvel Universe at any one point. And so what should have been a small, character piece about journalism in a super-powered world became exactly what we didn’t need: Just another superhero book. While it’s still very readable, especially for fans of Jessica Jones or Luke Cage, the comic quickly becomes so watered down from it’s original intent that one wonders why they even bothered doing this series in the first place.

Next up: The Punisher!

The Great Comic Book Cull Of 2010/2011 Part 44: Marvel Comics – Ghost Rider, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Great Lakes Avengers, Hercules, Heroes For Hire, and The Hood!

Ghost Rider, Wolverine, & Punisher – Hearts Of Darkness

Sounds like a formula for 1991 success: Put 3 of your most popular characters in a self-contained graphic novel, with Howard Mackie on scripts, and have John Romita, Jr do the art. I can’t say that this would go on my list of favourite stories from any of these characters, but it’s still a more than passable team-up, with art from a John Romita Jr. that’s at the top of his game. I also realized that this is the only Ghost Rider comic. I’ve never found the character particularly interesting. Any suggestions for arcs/runs that are worth my time?

Great Lakes Avengers – Misassembled, X-Mas Special, Summer Fun Spectacular

The Great Lakes Avengers is a little known Marvel concept that’s more of an in-joke than an actual viable super-team. They were originally created by John Byrne in the 90’s, and turn up periodically, mostly as comic relief. The only writer who was actually able to do anything viable with the characters was Dan Slott. Although this batch of mini-series and one-shots aren’t going to crack top 10 lists any time soon, they’re a nice mix of funny, and well, more funny. If you think the idea of a teenager whose power is the ability to talk to squirrels being the most powerful hero in the Marvel Universe is as hilarious as I do, these books are for you.

Guardians Of The Galaxy – Legacy, War Of Kings Vol. 1 & 2, Realm Of Kings

The original Guardians were a 70’s/80’s Marvel team set in the future, that showed up from time to time in Avengers-related time mishaps. Despite a long running series in the early ’90’s, the concept never really took off, and so Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning borrowed the team name for their recent “Marvel Cosmic” comic events, and spun this new team out of those stories. This version is straight forward: A group of Marvel’s B and C level “space” misfit characters (Adam Warlock, space lesbians, a talking Racoon, and a talking Soviet-era Cosmodog) team up to save the universe from intergalactic threats. As they’re known to do.

Although I like (I should say liked, since this was recently cancelled, which is par for the course with superhero books that I actually enjoy) this book, it’s hard for me to recommend it, unless you’ve read the other Marvel Space comics that Abnett & Lanning have been writing. The great thing about the space stories that these two have been writing is that you don’t need to be following most of what’s happening in the Marvel Universe to enjoy them. But you do need to be reading all of THEIR books in order to fully grasp what they’re trying to accomplish. It’s not that their stories are overly complicated, it’s that’s they think they’re overly complicated. Abnett & Lanning spend a lot of time needlessly explaining simple stories. It’s a relatively minor complaint though, and there’s more than enough to recommend this series. It’s character driven, as the best stories are. It’s a diverse cast, and because the writers have gone fishing through the Marvel backwaters for these characters, there isn’t the feeling of “Been There, Done That”, that is often felt in team books these days.

Phyla and Moondragon, in one of the rare moments where one of them isn't dead.

There’s a few subplots that became tiring quite quickly; namely the “will they, won’t they” nature of the relationship between Moondragon and Phyla Vell. Except in their case it was more of a “Will they actually manage to end an issue without one of them being horriblly killed” relationship. In the time that DnA wrote the characters, Moondragon was turned into an actual talking dragon, and then back to a human, then died, and then was brought back to life as a result of Phyla agreeing to become the avatar of death and killing Adam Warlock. But then Phyla was killed herself, except that she wasn’t really dead because one of her colleagues travelled back in time and stopped her before she could actually go through with it. But then she died again 5 minutes later. And then Moondragon became pregnant with a Lovecraftian space-god (Don’t judge, Republicans), and then found out that Phyla wasn’t really dead. But then Phyla brought Thanos back to life, and of course the first thing he did when he woke up was to kill her for real. Which is how she’s managed to stay for about a year, which means she’ll be coming back to life around the time I press “publish” on this post. It’s hard to take major character moments seriously if we’re not given time to digest them properly, and this book often moves a little too quickly for us to really fall in love with the cast.

Still, it’s a fun, space adventure series with a big emphasis on humour that’s better than most of the stuff that Marvel’s putting out these days. I’m also not sure how Paul Pelletier isn’t one of the biggest artists in comics, as his work on this title is some of the finest I’ve seen on a superhero title in the last couple of years.

The Incredible Hercules – WWH: Incredible Herc, Against The World, Secret Invasion, Love and War, Assault On New Olympus, The Mighty Thorcules, Dark Reign, The New Prince Of Power

This has been one of Marvel’s weirder success stories over the past couple of years. Hercules (yes, the god. No, not the one with the hammer. No, not the one on the cross. The super-strong one that gets laid all the time. No, not Charlie Sheen), has been part of the Marvel Universe since the late 1960’s, but has never risen above the role of second stringer. In a universe full of complicated characters, Hercules is painfully two-dimensional, and Marvel has long been content with portraying him as the drunken, fun-seeking lout. Until now.

Both of the two big companies have been quite consistent in their attempts to use their bigger cross-over events to push lesser-known characters as of late, and that’s what Marvel did a couple of years ago with Hercules. They made him a major part of  the major World War Hulk storyline, and went as far as renaming the Hulk’s ongoing series after him, and getting two of Marvel’s hottest up and coming writers to take it over.

This was a delightful change of pace for those of us weary of Marvel’s recent doom and gloom. Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente took an uninteresting yet charismatic character, paired him with Amadeus Cho, a multi-faceted but slightly cold character, and let magic take it’s course. This is a 1980’s buddy movie, Marvel style. The two new friends bumble their way through the Marvel Universe comically, but the writers also make sure they give the two enough emotional complexity that by the series conclusion, we feel as we’ve been a journey with two old friends, not two former D-listers that we had forgotten about. This is the way you rebuild lesser known characters.

Heroes For Hire – Civil War, Ahead Of The Curve, World War Hulk

To capitalize on the moderately successful Daughters Of The Dragon series, Marvel decided to dust off their old Heroes For Hire concept a few years ago. This one’s been kicking around the mid-70’s, and it’s one that is most often associated with Luke Cage and Iron Fist. In this version, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing (The aforementioned Daughters), take the lead of this awkwardly grouped band of Marvel D-listers. Although I’ve always liked the concept, I had to force myself to finish rereading this. It’s poorly written, the plotting is all over the place, and the characters are barely likable. Thankfully the new version as written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, more than make up for it, and I’m very much looking forward to collecting this new series in trade.

The Hood – Blood From Stones

It’s difficult to come up with new super characters that people will respond to. Although dozens of characters are added to the Marvel and DC universes every single year, almost none of them ever catch on with the general populace, and most are forgotten by the time the next writer takes over which ever book they were featured in.

And so was the case with the Hood, at least for a while. 9 years ago, Brian Vaughan (of Y The Last Man, Ex Machina, and Runaways fame) wrote this unassuming little mini series about the origin of a super villain. I loved it at the time, and although I had hopes that this would launch a new Marvel icon, the book went woefully unread, and the character was largely forgotten for the next 5 years.

It wasn’t until Brian Michael Bendis dusted off the character and decided to turn him into the new Kingpin of Crime, that anyone really remembered the first series at all. The character endures today, and has become a major player in Marvel’s current continuity. But the new stories haven’t quite matched the original promise shown in this fantastic mini series.

Parker Robbins is a low-level part-time criminal who is juggling a relationship with someone he’s losing interest in, the care of his invalid mother, and figuring out ways to pay for both. On a routine burglary, he accidentally kills a creepy alien/demon, and steals the cape and boots from its body. Voila, superpowers! And so Parker, with the help of his cousin Dave, decides to become a bona fide supervillain. There is success, but it comes at a steep price. Enjoying this will require almost no previous knowledge of Marvel Comics, as  it’s a fairly realistic take on the superhero story, and one that actually humanizes the villains that we so love to hate.

I’m not usually one to convince writers to go back to superhero comics. In fact, I’m usually the one trying to convince superhero writers to try something different. And while I’m more than happy to read anything Brian Vaughan does in the future, I’ll admit that a part of me would love nothing more than to read a monthly Hood series as written by Vaughan. Recommended.

Next up: The Hulk!

The Great Comic Book Cull Of 2010/2011 Part 41: Marvel Comics – Daredevil: The Ed Brubaker/Andy Diggle years

Regarding Daredevil:

“But although I would check in on the book periodically over the years, it never really seemed to grab me, or to be telling stories worth my time.”

Probably the sentence that got me more e-mails and notes than any other I’ve written on this blog. It seems that I didn’t give enough attention to some of the Daredevil writers that contributed to the book between Frank Miller’s run and Brian Bendis’ run. A few people specifically mentioned J.G. Chichester’s run as one worth reading. I do own a few issues from it, but I’ve never given it much attention before, and based on your comments, I’ve started to reread it. I’m about 8 issues in, and quite frankly, I’m a little embarrassed that I’ve neglected it recently. His Last Rites story about the fall of the Kingpin is emotionally powerful, to the extent that I’m not sure the character ever fully recovered from it. I’m going to make it a top priority to collect the rest of his run soon, and I’ll report back when I do.

Daredevil – The Ed Brubaker Years (The Devil, Inside & Out Vol. 1 &2, Hell To Pay Vol. 1 & 2. Cruel & Unusual, Lady Bullseye, Return Of The King)

Any comic fan with a love of superhero comics has been there: You love a comic. The character kicks ass, the writer and the artist are firing on all cylinders, and things are awesome. And then it ends. And you have a choice: You follow the writer or artist to wherever they go next, or you continue to read the book blindly, hoping beyond hope that things will get better, even though you know they never will. In the comic book world, creative teams get pulled off of books all the time. It’s the big publisher’s hope that you won’t really care about that; that you’ll follow the adventures of the Amazing/Incredible/Spectacular Super/Spider/Bat Man/Woman/Mite/Person no matter which hapless half-wit they hire to write the scripts. I’ve long since resigned myself to such publishing silliness, and it’s one of the reason why I rarely dabble in superhero comics anymore.

And so when it was announced that Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev were leaving  Daredevil, I immediately cancelled the title from my pull list. I’ve long lost any attachment to any of these silly costumed buffoons, and only follow the books whose creative teams I respect and enjoy. Great comics are great comics, regardless of the character, and continuing to read a character’s exploits long after they stopped being interesting in a futile hope that you’ll be able to recapture your youth makes no sense to me. And although I was very familiar with both Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark’s work, I didn’t expect anybody to come close to matching what Bendis and Maleev had done on the book.

I was right. But not by much.

First of all, the pass over between Bendis and Brubaker might be the best I’ve ever seen. While Bendis ended his run in the most devastating, logical way possible, Brubaker picks up the reigns seamlessly, and for a few issues it’s hard to figure out where Bendis’ run ends and Brubaker’s run starts. That’s not to say it’s derivative at all, and it’s not long before Brubaker starts to add his own take to the Daredevil mythos.

His first arc is packed full of tension. It starts with Matt Murdock at Ryker’s Island, and it seems as if things can’t get worse. And then the Kingpin shows up. And then the Punisher. Not to mention that although Murdock is in prison, there’s another Daredevil running around Hell’s Kitchen. And then things start to get worse. And worse. And worse. In fact, The Devil, Inside & Out is not only a worthy successor to the neo-noir work of Bendis, it’s pretty much a companion to it.

Unfortunately, it’s the best arc of Brubaker’s run. That’s not to say that the rest of his run was bad. It wasn’t, by a long shot. But he never recaptured the pure visceral intensity of that first story. He still added a lot of interesting concepts to the mythos: Lady Bullseye, the reintroduction of Mr. Fear, and one of the better Kingpin stories in recent memory. But the sum is never as good as it’s parts, and while Brubaker’s run touches greatness, it never fully embraces it like Bendis’ did. It’s completely worth your time and money, and if it hadn’t come right after what most people consider to be one of the best Daredevil runs of all time, I’d probably rate it higher.

Daredevil – The Devil’s Hand

Marvel had been extremely lucky with their Daredevil creative teams, and the question was whether or not lightning could strike thrice. The answer was absolutely not. I’ve been hearing for several years that Andy Diggle is a great writer, and I hope that one day I find that to be true. But so far, the only thing he’s managed to accomplish is to get me to do something I never thought I would do again: Stop reading Daredevil.

He essentially flushed down 8 years of stories by Brian Bendis and Ed Brubaker, and traded them for a half-assed ninja story full of cliches that would have been out of place in the early ’80’s. Is it awful? Nope. But when you’re accustomed to greatness, mediocrity just doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s just been announced that Mark Waid will be taking over the adventures of Daredevil next, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Mark Waid can do with this book.

Next up: Alternate reality mutant mayhem!

The Great Comic Book Cull Of 2010/2011 Part 40: Marvel Comics – Daredevil: The David Mack/Brian Michael Bendis years

I don’t want to belittle the work of the Daredevil creative teams that came after Frank Miller. A lot of talented people worked on the book, and came up with some very creative stories. But although I would check in on the book periodically over the years, it never really seemed to grab me, or to be telling stories worth my time. Anne Nocenti’s run was quite good, but other than that, the book never seemed to do anything but rework the formula that Miller had set up: Kingpin schemes, Daredevil intervenes, the two of them have a tense standoff, and once in a while Elektra or Bullseye would show up.

This continued for a few decades, and the sales kept deteriorating to the point that the book needed a total overhaul. It was cancelled in 1998, and then relaunched a month later under the then new “Marvel Knights” imprint. Joe Quesada ran that line at the time, and he brought in Kevin Smith (Yes, the Kevin Smith of “how does somebody so funny make such terrible movies” fame) to write and revive the character. Quesada handled the art himself. This was successful, and the book has been relatively strong both commercially and creatively ever since.

Daredevil – Guardian Devil

This is the aforementioned Kevin Smith arc. His goal here was to relaunch the character, and to get people interested in Daredevil again. He succeeds for the most part, though I’m sorry to say the series hasn’t aged well. All of Smith’s standbys are here: lots of pseudo-spiritual Christian whining, potty humour, awkward dialogue, gentle misogyny, and an unhealthy attempt to shoehorn as many panels onto a page as possible. The result is a stilted, clumsy, but still somewhat entertaining superhero jaunt, it’s best legacy was that it set the stage for more talented creators to come in and write some of the best Daredevil stories of all time. While much of the story is quite silly in retrospect, Smith did take a giant creative risk in killing Karen Page, who had been a proverbial plot point/albatross around Matt Murdock’s neck for decades. Risky, but the stories that came afterwards wouldn’t have been possible without this gamble, and I think many people would agree that the character has been the better for it.

Daredevil – The David Mack Years (Parts Of A Whole, Echo – Vision Quest)

Imagine you’re Marvel EIC Joe Quesada. You’ve just wrapped up the most successful Daredevil storyline in decades. What do you do next? Do you A) try to get your celebrity writer to stay and do more? Do you B ) get a writer of equal popularity to attempt to keep the sales up? , or do you C) Get a writer that almost no one is mainstream comics had heard of, and have him introduce new characters that no one initially cared about? Joe went with C, and I’m grateful. After Matt Murdock’s life fell apart in Guardian Devil, David Mack and Joe Quesada try to rebuild the character in Parts Of A Whole, and attempted to breathe new life into his supporting cast by introducing Maya Lopez, also known as Echo. Echo is a character that I still think has a lot of money in the bank, and is just waiting for the right creative team to come along and turn her into a star. This is a much subtler story after the bombast and hyperbole of Kevin Smith’s run, but it’s a welcome change, and it’s one that stands up very well.

Parts of A Whole should be mandatory reading for comic writers that want to learn how to introduce an interesting character into an existing franchise. Echo doesn’t contradict anything in the Daredevil mythos, she enhances it, especially in the case of the Kingpin character. Her story fits so well with his character and history that we’re surprised she hasn’t been there since the beginning. I also need to mention the art of Joe Quesada. He’s never been one of my favourite artists, but I think he reached his career high with this arc. In fact, this is one of those arcs where the script and art go together so seamlessly that it’s difficult to believe that the same person didn’t do both. A few years later, Mack would come back to the character he created and handle both the writing and art on the Vision Quest arc. This is a stunningly beautiful piece, but one that emphasizes style and character development over plot and action, and as such might not be for everyone, especially those that need their comics to have lots of punching and grunting. But it’s one that shows quite aptly how much can achieved in this medium from a creative standpoint. Mack uses an inventive multi-media mix of collage, pencils, and painting to tell his tale of Maya Lopez’ quest to find herself in a truly original, and captivating way. It’s one of the mysteries of modern comics that David Mack isn’t more widely known than he is.

Daredevil – The Brian Michael Bendis Years (Wake Up, Underboss, Out, Lowlife, Hardcore, The Widow, Golden Age, Decalogue, The Murdock Papers)

David Mack’s initial run on Daredevil was successful, but he brought in his buddy Brian Michael Bendis to write his next arc, Wake Up. It’s hard to remember at time when Bendis wasn’t a mega-superstar that seems to write every single Marvel comic on the stands that he is today, but at this moment in time he was just a talented up-and-comer more known for his independent work. Although he was starting to get some traction on Ultimate Spider-Man, it was this run on Daredevil that solidified his reputation. So much so, that I would say that this run one of the best continuous runs on a superhero comic of all time, not to mention the fact that it’s arguably one of the best Daredevil runs ever. Am I overselling this? Not even a little bit.

His run gets off to a slow star, with Wake Up, a small quiet story about a boy whose father is a super-villain. It’s an inconsequential arc from a continuity perspective, but it’s a devastating one in regards to its emotional impact. This story just sticks with you. And although Daredevil barely even shows up in the pages of this story, the critical reaction to it was so positive that Joe Quesada decided to eventually make Bendis the permanent writer on the book.

His first story as regular writer on Daredevil is also his last story, as it’s a continuous epic  that would last over 50 issues, and that deals with one central question: What would happen if the world found out that Matt Murdock was Daredevil? The idea had been skirted around before, with Daredevil, as well as other characters, but the idea of an A-list heroe’s secret identity being so incontrovertibly compromised had never really been explored, at least not to any real depth. And any time it had been done, the story would usually end with everything going back to normal, with the general populace believing that the whole thing had been a hoax.

Not so with Bendis’ story. DD’s identity being discovered is just the TIP of Bendis’ storytelling iceberg, and Bendis (along with the extraordinary art of Alex Maleev), uses that one simple plot point to launch one of the most ambitious stories Marvel had ever published.

While Frank Miller’s run was groundbreaking, and truly influential, I have to invoke heresy and say that Bendis’ is the superior story from a cohesive standpoint. There’s a beginning (Matt’s identity being discovered), a middle (Murdock beating Kingpin decisively and making himself the Kingpin of New York), and end (Matt finally brought to justice for his “crimes”, and ending up in prison), which are so perfectly paced that I almost believe that Bendis wrote the entire 55 issue run in one drug-induced bender. It’s one of the very few comic stories of this length where I believe that the writer knew every single plot point right from the beginning, and stuck to that framework, no matter what. From a writing perspective, this thing is flawlessly executed. Bendis knows when to apply pressure, when to apply the brakes, and when to go full steam ahead and kick his characters in the ass. And while he used many of the same tropes that Frank Miller did (Kingpin, Black Widow, Elektra, Ben Urich, Bullseye, REALLY bad things happen to Daredevil on an almost hourly basis etc.), he uses them in ways that hadn’t been explored before (A perfect example is Bendis’ Kingpin. Bendis writes him as weaker, less influential, and arguably much more interesting than previously written).

As the story winded down, I remember wondering exactly how Brian Bendis was going to get Matt Murdock out of the emotional quagmire he had thrown him into, and I worried that the writer would pull the same type of trick that comic writers had been using for decades to get characters out of potentially sticky situations (usually involving time travel, alternate realties, or a combination of the two). But Bendis never takes the easy way out, and takes the character to his logical, soul crushing fate. The ending, while difficult to read for those of us emotionally invested in Bendis’ re-imagining of the character, is the perfect one for this story.

I should have mentioned Alex Maleev before this, but I’ll try to make up for it. At the beginning of this run, Maleev was the quirky artist who was best known for his work on Batman. By the end of it, he was arguably one of the most important (though that view wouldn’t be shared by everyone) stylists in American comics. He literally got better with every arc, a habit which still continued to this day, as shown by his recent work on Spider-Woman and Scarlet.

If you love real and true character development, try this book. If you love bad-ass martial arts action, try this book. If you love crime stories, with a healthy dose of noir, try this book. If you love beautiful, evocative art, try this book. If you love to be challenged by the comics that you read, try this book.

KEEP, with my highest recommendation.

Next up: Daredevil – The Ed Brubaker and Andy Diggle years!

The Great Comic Book Cull Of 2010/2011 Part 34: Still. More. Avengers. Sigh…

I’m about as sick of talking about the Avengers as Charlie Sheen is of being sane. But an unanticipated result of Brian Bendis’ commercial success on Avengers was the spin-off book. Or I should say spin-off books. Lots and lots of books. I should say that although this period had a lot of spin-offs, for the most part they felt like natural, organic parts to the larger story that Marvel was telling at the time. I happen to like this period (Civil War/Secret Invasion/Dark Reign) of Marvel’s history, as I felt that it flowed together quite well, and that everything served a larger purpose.

Breasts. Evil, evil breasts.

Mighty Avengers – The Ultron Initiative, Venom Bomb, Secret Invasion Book 1 and 2

This was also written by Bendis, and was a direct result of the events that took place in Marvel’s Civil War cross over. At this point in the storyline, this team was the “official” Avengers team, and basically filled the more “traditional” Avengers role: They only took care of planetary threats, were sanctioned by the government, etc. This book was a little bigger, a little more epic than the New Avengers book. It also attempted to break some new stars, specifically Ms. Marvel and Ares. I think it succeeded with the latter, but maybe not as much with the former. This book started with a bang. The Ultron arc is awesome, in the truest sense of the word. It’s a big-time, world is about to end, Avengers story, and with incredible art by Frank “I can create better breasts than God” Cho, and it stands up well as one of the better self-contained Avengers stories of the past few years. The Venom story is also good, but gets a little bogged down with some of the subplots of what’s happening with the other Avengers team. After that, the book becomes just another Brian Bendis Avengers book, and it loses a lot of the scope and wide-screen adventure that the first two arcs had. All in all it’s a good superhero book, and the first arc in particular is a barn burner.

Eeeevil. So very evil.

Dark Avengers – Assemble, Molecule Man, Siege

If Mighty Avengers was a response to Civil War, then Dark Avengers was a response to the Secret Invasion storyline. Quickly then: The supervillain formerly known as the Green Goblin has somehow become in charge of America’s security. As such, he leads a new team that he calls “Avengers”. In actuality, the new team is composed of criminals, posing as popular heroes (Moonstone as Ms. Marvel, Bullseye as Hawkeye, Venom as Spider-Man), as well as Ares and the Sentry, and of course Norman himself. I would have thought that the fans would have been up in arms over this, but for the most part people embraced this, and so did I. I don’t think this would have worked so well without the years of set up that Bendis had prepared us with beforehand, but by the time this storyline came out it felt as a very organic part to the epic that Bendis was crafting. Even though the team is composed of nothing but villains, Bendis still makes you care about them, if by care you mean ” I REALLY can’t wait until someone comes along and kicks their ass”. By this point Mike Deodato had evolved into one of the better superhero artists on the market, and his work here is exemplary.

Because training child soldiers is always a good idea.

Avengers: The Initiative – Basic Training, Killed In Action, Secret Invasion, Disassembled

Yep, another spinoff, this one coming out of Civil War. So now every hero has to “register” with the government, and The Initiative the government’s way of training all these new heroes. This was writer Dan Slott’s first big book, and he did a nice job with it. He put familiar faces like Tigra, Hank Pym, and Justice in as the trainers, and then threw a combination of new and old (but still not well-known) characters in as the students. When I started rereading this, I think I thought I would be getting rid of these. But I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoy this book, mostly for its engaging character development. Slott is pulling out all the stops in trying to get us to love these new characters, and for the most part it works. Unfortunately, the book is not without its problems. Like his previous work on She-Hulk, the book did start to get bogged down with sub-plots. Because so much was happening in the Marvel Universe at the time, it feels as if this book was being pulled in too many directions at times. That being said, it’s still an enjoyable read, if not entirely essential.

Young Avengers – Sidekicks, Family Matters

This book started not long after the original New Avengers title started, and shares the bleak “Our heroes are gone, what will we do” vibe that Bendis’ book did for a time. The premise is that a group of young heroes with costumes and code names reminiscent to Avengers of the past is patrolling the city, and Jessica Jones (formerly of Alias fame) is trying to get to the bottom of it. And so are Captain America and Iron Man.

This is a very good teen superhero book. It’s more superhero than teen, but it’s still quite good, and easily the equal (if not better) than DC’s recent Teen Titans books. The question is this: Why would trained, experienced combat fighters like Iron Man and Captain America let untrained children dress up and fight crime. The answer: They wouldn’t. Which of course leads to conflict, which is something that teen superhero books often lack. What is forgotten is that no matter how powerful these people are, they’re still kids, and should act like them. I don’t mean have scenes with them making out with each other, or playing X-Box all the time. YA avoids these clichés (thankfully), but it does show them acting the way teens do: erratically, but trying to do the right thing. Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung did a beautiful job with this series, and it’s nice to see that they’re currently in the middle of another one with the same characters.


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The sense of entitlement.

NOTE: It appears that some people are using this entry as a support of the bizarre conservative belief that poor people have a “sense of entitlement” to the means by which to live and that this is somehow bad. Obviously we are all entitled to the right to live, and to say otherwise is asinine. Stop linking to this entry, right-wing assholes.

People sometimes get a feeling of entitlement, which makes them hard to deal with. It does often lead them to try to control others, generally through psychological manipulation. The two concepts are closely related. When two hostile people stand on unequal footing, violence can be used, but when they are roughly equal in an ordered society, the best they can do is try to manipulate each other.

People are led to have a sense of entitlement because they falsely believe they are owed something based on the social roles that they have taken for themselves. Because someone has accepted the role of being someone’s friend, boy/girlfriend, husband or wife, they feel entitled to get favours from the other person. Because someone has accepted the role of being a parent, they feel entitled to being respected by their children. Because someone has accepted the role of being a consumer, they feel entitled to be served as they desire. In short, they want to play the game without having the power to get what they want, so they will try to manipulate you to get it.

The feeling of entitlement is predicated on the acceptance of social roles, of false selves. People who reject these roles must also reject the feeling of entitlement, and all the false beliefs that come from it. No one owes you anything, except what they willfully promised you. you do not owe anyone anything, except what you willfully promised them.

The issue of manipulation is interesting in and of itself. Here is what the humanistic psychology site has to say about the issue (my translation from the original French):

How are we manipulated?

Two partners are needed for manipulation to be successful: the one who manipulates and the one who gives in to manipulated. Why do we give in? We give in because the manipulator strikes in us a “sensitive chord.” We can say that he makes a chord vibrate which we do not wish to feel vibrating. So we do what he wants in order to cease the vibration. This sensitive chord is generally an unpleasant emotion, an undesirable self-image, an unwanted consequence.

What is the role of giving in to manipulation?

We give in to prevent from living through something that we judge worse than the manipulation itself.

* It’s easier for me to give in to my child’s screaming than bear through his tantrum, so I give him what he wants.

* It’s less intolerable for me to claim that I didn’t really believe what I said (even if I’m lying in saying that) than to bear through his sulking.

* It’s impossible for me to stay mad when he’s charming me like that. It makes me feel odious and I can’t bear it. I let myself be seduced to solve the dilemma.

* It hurts me to see her so pitiful and I know she’ll never do anything to improve her situation. I take it upon myself to solve her problem even if I very well know that she only doesn’t do it herself because she’s a coward.

All the other control mindsets we’ve seen relied on aberrations in the victim’s mind in order to operate (“noble revenge” on the belief in “good guys” and “bad guys,” the superiority complex on total belief in one’s faction, “following orders” on the belief in hierarchies), and the same is true here as well (although in this case we are no longer in the area which would be called “politics”). Because the two people involved are on an equal footing and are operating solely in the area of communication and psychological effect, any act of manipulation implies something like consent on the part of the victim, because of some weakness or aberration in our minds that is incompatible with our values.

Look at our examples. In all cases, we are confronted, as the victim, to feelings that oppose what brings us well-being (parenting as we envision it, honest communication, being valued, having happy autonomous friends). His sulking when faced with an uncomfortable truth makes me feel unwanted, his charms make me feel like my attitude is odious, her pitiful state hurts me.

The question then becomes: why do I feel that way? Here the answers seem to diverge somewhat. For instance, I wouldn’t say that the last example is really a case of manipulation: the fact that someone is too lazy or overwhelmed to solve their problems doesn’t necessarily mean that they are consciously manipulating me to do it for them. And it’s perfectly legitimate for me to want to help someone else, even if they might be able to do it themselves. I also won’t keep using the first example, since it involves parenting and is therefore ambiguous at best (for instance, depending on how young the child is, we may not say that they are consciously manipulating their parents, but merely conditioned by the parent’s reactions over time).

At any rate, the second and third examples are clear examples of manipulation, so let’s answer for those. Why do I feel like his sulking is intolerable? Why do I feel odious for being mad? Because I believe I am at fault, in the first case for not saying what he wants, in the second case for remaining mad. The main error, it seems to me, consist in assuming that one must conform to other people’s expectations, rather than having a relation of equals. The manipulator does this by overwhelming me with either discontent (aggressively getting me to back down) or dishonest love (trying to forcibly drag me back to a positive attitude).

The examples also show the dishonest involved on the part of the victim. Just as in cognitive dissonance, I have to lie to myself in order to make myself accept a new situation. In the second example, I literally lie in order to accept the “I will sulk until you give in” situation. In the third example, I dishonestly force myself to “be seduced” in order to accept the “he’s seducing me while I feel mad” situation. The contradiction between my values and the manipulation is resolved, in these cases by giving in. A more healthy person would, of course, resolve the situation by pointing out the manipulation and refusing to give into it.

These examples pertain to manipulation at a personal level, but they also apply to manipulation at a more public level, such as politics. An individual with a healthy psyche and unconditioned to obedience should be able to see through political manipulation, but most people are unable to do so.

Either way, giving in to manipulation is pointless, because the only consequence will be that the “giving in” will become a reflex, then an automatism (in the same way that obedience does, as I discussed in my entry on the obedience circuit). It is an unwinnable situation. Breaking out of the game of manipulation is done, not by being a better manipulator (with all the corruption that this entails), but rather by exposing it and dashing it as violently as one can. Only then can one be set free from it.

21 thoughts on “The sense of entitlement.

  1. David Gendron July 24, 2009 at 15:05
  2. David Gendron July 24, 2009 at 15:07

    “3:45pm – Box with Alliance of the Libertarian Left literature was brought inside and set on a table behind the counter.”

  3. Anthony September 15, 2011 at 15:46

    Not only is self-entitlement closely related to the notion of manipulation, but so is deception in many cases, if not every case. With that aside, manipulation assumes two primary forms: non-physical manipulation or implied threats, and physical manipulation or physical threats. As the latter usually involves less deception. For example, when somebody, whomever that may be, is physically manipulating you like an instance of rape, their intentions are confronted with clarity. On the other hand, the manipulation by and through the medium of the monetary system, or dollar standard, is much more deceptive, its intentions become a lot cloudier and harder to conceive. I would conclude that adequate intelligence is necessary to counter-balance any potential deception related to manipulation. What do you think?

    • Anthony September 15, 2011 at 15:56

      I forgot, physical manipulation is, usually, less deceptive and much more effective; in most cases, however, not every single case.

    • Francois Tremblay September 16, 2011 at 00:12

      Yes, that’s correct.

      • Anthony September 16, 2011 at 00:28

        Man…manipulation is so well orchestrated these days too, especially non-physical manipulation, that the majority aren’t even aware of just how they are being manipulated. The majority doesn’t even acknowledge it. It’s so sad. I wish I could do more about it, but you can only lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink. It’s not only sad, but disappointing how too large number of people are so unintelligent these days. What’s going on? I’m still curious as to why you consider Free-Market Anarchy, actually, Anarchy….

        • Francois Tremblay September 16, 2011 at 00:30

          By free market, what do you mean exactly? I think the term is kinda vaguely used most of the time.

  4. Anthony September 16, 2011 at 00:34

    Let me see if I can find it in my history. You mentioned it somewhere else on your blog, and I commented there too. Better yet, instead of digging through my history, you could respond to that comment. You were talking also about how there should be organizations to judge and or regulate the people in a world of Anarchy.

    • Francois Tremblay September 16, 2011 at 00:36

      Yes, of course. I don’t want to have to spend all my time judging or regulating the people around me. Not to mention having to gain the competence to do so…

  5. Anthony September 16, 2011 at 00:39

    Read my other comment, I’m just wondering how you could consider that Anarchism?

    • Francois Tremblay September 16, 2011 at 00:43

      As long as it’s not hierarchical, it’s Anarchist. I don’t know why you have such a problem with it.

  6. Anthony September 16, 2011 at 00:50

    I don’t have a problem with it, but clearly, it’s not Anarchism. Whatever, wherever, and whenever somebody has any sort of authority over another, you can’t call it Anarchism…

    • Francois Tremblay September 16, 2011 at 00:57

      Who said this had anything to do with authority? You’re the one who introduced that concept.

  7. Anthony September 16, 2011 at 01:05

    Geezus…just read the other post where I commented, then read my comment and respond. I’m not going to have a debate over what you said and what you didn’t. That would be weetodded.

    • Francois Tremblay September 16, 2011 at 01:48

      Well then show me this other post. I don’t know which one it is.

  8. Anthony September 16, 2011 at 17:45

    Don’t you get notification? Look for new comments under your account..

  9. Anthony September 16, 2011 at 18:55

    Dude, you and your blog and your fixed state of mind is a waste of time. And thanks for essentially saving me some of that precious stuff called time. ;D

    • Francois Tremblay September 16, 2011 at 18:59

      And thank you for fucking wasting my time, moron. You have presented no argument, no evidence, nothing. All you do is insult my state of mind. Get the fuck out of here.

  10. […] my entry on the sense of entitlement, I explain that entitlement happens when a person believes ey is owned something due to eir social […]

  11. […] do I believe his freaking out was specifically caused by male biology. I think it was caused by his sense of entitlement, which is not biological. If I was asked to change seats on an airplane for the sake of children […]

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Sweet Nectar Notebook

The Wire-O spiral binding allows it to lay perfectly flat for optimal comfort and ease when writing, drawing, or journaling. Inside, a double sided, flexible cardstock pocket makes the perfect home for loose-leaf notes, letters, and other small keepsakes.

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Learning…With The Beatles

John, Paul, George and Ringo were musically self-taught but received detailed instruction in the arts of popular music, were completely ignored yet extravagantly supported, were outright copyists and extraordinarily original. They brought everything they had learnt to The Beatles and kept on learning.

They re-invented authentic pop music after “the day the music died” (Feb 3rd 1959) and went on to create a new template, what Rolling Stone called the “self-contained band“, which has dominated popular music ever since with little variation. Even in 2007, the digital age, when Radiohead elected to make In Rainbows freely available to download it was as an album; an art work still in the shadow of Sgt Pepper. Arguably Radiohead were trying to solve a business problem that The Beatles had failed to solve with Apple.

Analysing the break up of the Beatles in his book You Never Give Me Your Money, Peter Doggett writes that “together and alone, at odds and at one, the Beatles somehow managed to create and preserve music that is as enduring as their myth, perfectly encapsulating their own time and enriching every time to come”. My stories have been about encapsulating that time, the sixties, and now I want to propose a fresh understanding of that musical creativity to enrich our time.

The way the Beatles developed and grew both defined and liberated the decade for those who, like me, lived through it and grew up within its sashaying lineaments. They provided the ambient hooks of its soundtrack and were its standard bearers, surfacing a range of artistic, cultural, philosophical and political issues for us to engage with. Unlike the Rolling Stones, say, they made the sixties comprehensible for all, creating a fresh national sense of identity in the UK that helped us to both survive a decade-long Blitz of social change, and read the signs of the times; not least as they often wrote them.

I don’t think they were preternaturally talented, let alone gods descending upon us, which some American writing about the Beatles can seem to imply, nor do I think it tragic that they split up. They emerged at just the right time, lasted as long as they needed to and then split up at The End; sounding perfect forever.

I do think they were gifted, made the most of their abilities, learnt their craft together and, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in Outliers, emerged historically at just the time when they could. I am less interested in who was the most talented Beatle, rather more in how their history exemplifies Brian Eno’s observation that ‘perhaps every group of musicians should have written above them “This group is a musical instrument; treat it as such“.’ I think it is as such a group, a wonderfully creative group, that we can learn from them.

This blog has presented a set of stories about the Beatles impact during the sixties, well on me, in order to reflect upon and exemplify a process described in the Open Context Model of Learning. This model proposes that learning develops along a Continuum, which begins with a pedagogic approach, develops andragogic processes and then inculcates a heutagogic ability to play with form, a practical creativity. This “PAH Continuum” is also how I would describe lifelong learning and should, I believe, underpin all education.

We could describe “PAH” another way, by saying learning about how to be in the world develops best through a process which begins first with understanding a subject, then grows by learning how to negotiate the support of “more able partners” in advancing that understanding, and then ultimately flourishes in a creativity that is capable of playing with the form of that discipline beyond the original subject boundaries.

So in these posts I intend to use this model to look at how The Beatles themselves learnt to be creative, so that their creativity might enrich and develop our understanding of how we learn.

In writing these posts, and in listening to the Beatles work as a whole, somewhat more analytically than I did as a fan at the time, I found a number of ways of categorising their work but here I will focus on the “PAH Continuum”. I will identify a “Pedagogic” phase when they are engaging with and learning the given structures of their chosen subject, popular music, followed by an “Andragogic” phase when they are negotiating with their peers to better reflect their own musical interests and needs, finally moving into a “Heutagogic” phase when they re-invent and transform their chosen discipline.

From this perspective I will argue that they achieve Pedagogic Excellence with Hard Days Night, Andragogic Excellence with Rubber Soul and Heutagogic Excellence with… well that is a hard one as it is about redefining the form of the discipline under review. Obviously with Sgt Pepper, possibly with Revolver, arguably with Abbey Road; let’s see. I’ll get to that next week, but we need to conjure up The Beatles if we are going to analyse them.

The pre-history of the Musical Instrument known as The Beatles.

So first things first! We need to identify how, as Eno defines it, the Musical Instrument known as The Beatles came into being, Something in the way they create is very definitely greater than the sum of their parts.

In the most spectacularly ironic way for a gaggle of relatively unsuccessful schoolboys The Beatles served a demanding, hard and potentially unrewarding, apprenticeship. And kept at it for years. In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell identifies the 5 years that the Beatles spent from 1957-62 as that apprenticeship, during which they built up their craft skills, but it was more than that. It was also the Learning Journey from which “The Beatles” emerged. They weren’t just learning the craft of playing their instruments they were also involved in the practice of becoming a group; untypically for that time Lennon and McCartney were also playing with the craft of songwriting.

Additionally they drew on a wide palette of influences both musically and creatively. Elvis for John, Little Richard for Paul, Carl Perkins for George, each reflecting differing ethnic sensibilities, as well as Motown and black American pop as well as, crucially, the one already existing “self-contained unit” Buddy Holly and the Crickets. And Paul also loved British Music Hall and John also loved the humour of the Goons; and, and, and…

Their time spent playing 6 hour sessions day after day for months on end in the outlier location of Hamburg meant they had to draw on all these influences and throw everything they knew into the crucible of their development just to survive. This unusual creative palette was far wider than, say, Cliff Richard, the biggest English Pop Star before the Beatles who, on the BBC’s Pop Britannia in 2005, said about his influences, “I wanted to be Elvis, literally to be him” The Beatles emergence however was about becoming Beatles. The Beatles ultimately transcended their qualities as individuals and developed a collaborative creativity that enabled them to move past their contemporaries seemingly without effort.

So who were The Beatles?

Pete Best wasn’t a “Beatle” but Stuart Sutcliffe was. Philip Norman in John Lennon; The Life thoroughly tracks their long development and growth. The cornerstone of which was the serendipitous meeting of the slightly drunk Lennon with the somewhat prim McCartney at Woolton Fete in 1957. Their shared love for various pop records, and their attempts to learn and play them with their guitars, resulted in a painfully slow process of learning by rote, demonstrating a patience rarely deployed on school work. As their ambition grew they recruited Harrison, who’s ability to play the instrumental Raunchy repeated Paul’s own rite of passage of playing 20 Flight Rock by Eddie Cochran; both moments neatly captured in the film Nowhere Boy. Sutcliffe was part of the Beatles “gang” and had creative cool but little musical ability, somewhat like Eno himself in the early Roxy Music. A key Beatles strength during their career was their collective decision making and this took time to evolve. Best however kept to himself and, despite his sex appeal, ultimately had insufficient musical skills to cut it professionally with The Beatles.

Presciently pre-figuring the Beatles later massive cross-over appeal the Hamburg exi’s, art students and their first middle-class fans, spotted the Beatles difference and included Astrid Kirchherr, who photographed them in black and white, gave them a look and the Beatle cut, and Klaus Voorman, who would create the Revolver sleeve and become part of the Plastic Ono Band. What Hamburg had done for them was help them learn how construct a live show and look like a cool band.  Bob Spitz in The Beatles Biography identifies their return from Hamburg at the end of 1960 as the moment when the Beatles conquered Liverpool through the quality and excitement of their subsequent live performances; 1! 2!! 3!!! 4!!!!

As well as the exi’s Brian Epstein spotted something different in the Beatles and said they would become bigger than Elvis. Unlike Larry Parnes, then the most successful manager of Pop Stars, who signed British male singers to groom for stardom so that he could make money, Epstein untypically believed in the Beatles and their abilities. He was their first More Able Partner and, unlike Colonel Parker the manager of Elvis who signed contracts designed to maximise earning potential, Epstein wanted to help The Beatles realise their creative potential.  As Lennon used to say to Epstein, “you take care of business Brian, we’ll take care of the music”. Brian Epstein becoming their manager, which happened almost a year after they gained the status as Merseyside’s best band, was the single most important factor in the Beatles getting a recording contract.

Ideal manager for The Beatles though he was at the time Epstein advised them to record a typical demo tape, with a mix of show tunes and standards, which would fail to make them stand out from other hopefuls when he arranged auditions with record companies. Nonetheless the many-headed beast needed to make The Beatles work was almost complete, and Epstein did work on their stage presentation and look, knowing they had the musical smarts to work as a live band, which was how their Merseyside following was first built.

The two most important things the Beatles did when auditioning for George Martin at EMI was to insist that they had songs worth recording and to stay true to their own authentic, provincial character. The first almost cost them the gig, but the second became the way forward. George Martin actually signed them for their presence and personality.  The link between them was Peter Sellers from the Goons, whom Martin had produced, and whose creative humour became an early shared bond between them. In “The Beatles in the Studio” (BBC 2009) George Martin said that their method of recording in the early days was to attempt to write hit singles. This was the discipline of their chosen subject; writing hit singles. From their recordings they either produced a hit single or, if it wasn’t good enough, a B-side or an album track. John and Paul also discussed the process of writing “work-songs”, essentially filler written in two hours to the “Repeat 1” formula, when album deadlines were looming, and they also recorded cover versions. But their “pedagogic” strategy was to write, and record hit singles; albums were a by product at that time.

We can present those early meetings of the Beatles and George Martin from a more traditional teacher – learner perspective. George Martin presented them with a possible hit single, How Do You Do It, eventually a Number One for Gerry and The Pacemakers, “at the start I was like a master with his pupils.” However they fluffed the homework he had set them, deliberately recording a half-hearted version, which you can hear on Anthology. They presented Martin with four songs they had written themselves, of which, initially, Martin thought only Love Me Do had any potential. He worked on the songs with them; “At the beginning my specialty was the introduction and the endings, and any instrumental passages in the middle.”  Fortunately their own slender homework was worth correcting; and they learnt quickly. As a teacher Martin was patient and knowledgeable, and he was the master of his own domain, the creative classroom of Abbey Road.

What emerged from the auditioning process and their early studio work was that The Beatles had found their musical More Able Partner; George Martin. They had just enough subject discipline to survive the audition on their playing ability, and in so doing found someone who could scaffold and develop their writing and recording abilities. Martin also rejected Pete Best as someone not good enough to be a recording artist, as the version of Love Me Do recorded with him testifies. Martin enabled The Beatles to put the last piece of the jigsaw into place; John, Paul, George and Ringo, as they were known by their entry date into the gang of four who changed lives forever.

Crucially George Martin also sent them away to rework their demo of Please Please Me and they came back with one minute and ten seconds of their first number one single. Martin put the hooks up front and the signature sound of the Beatles in 1963 was complete. This sound features an urgent rising intro which hooks you in to the song which then has clear, simple lyrics built around I, Me, You and a harmonica re-inforcing the melody. It was their first template for hit singles. As a listener at the time it switched my focus away from the story presented in the lyrics and onto the optimistic excitement generated by the sound. With their vocal harmonies responding to the underlying drive of the music it created a top-heavy “trebly” sound that worked incredibly well on the music distribution system of choice in the early sixties, the tinny transistor radio, where potential record buyers scoured the airwaves waiting to be hooked by possible future purchases.

Albums were not the focus of record buyers in 1963 and Please Please Me was designed by Martin to simply mirror their stage show; big opening, big finish, a mix of tunes in between and all recorded in one day long session of ten hours. It was a fan souvenir not an art work; that was yet to come. The second album With The Beatles repeated the formula, but with more time for recording and an arty sleeve. It felt like an event at the time, which it was, but with hindsight it is remarkably similar to the first album.

Pedagogical Excellence – Hard Days Night

So what marks Hard Days Night out as the apotheosis of this early Beatles style? Firstly the Beatles, actually Lennon and McCartney, wrote all the songs, they had moved well beyond copying homework; essaying hit singles from their own template. They had also developed a range of templates they could call on, as well as hit singles they also had; the harmonica-driven sing-along (I Should Have Known Better), ballads by John (If I Fell) and ballads by Paul (And I Love Her), they had George’s track (I’m Happy Just to Dance With You) and Ringo’s track (missing), they had drumming-driven club-ravers (Tell Me Why) and mid-tempo Country-pickers (I’ll Cry Instead). As well as the song templates they also had good musicianship, sharp ears and a remarkable ability to arrange songs quickly, yet distinctively. Back from their triumph in America they impressed Geoff Emerick, their engineer, by “how much more professional they had gotten.”

So a bunch of skills and a lot of craft to call on; what else? Well their working process was remarkably discursive and focussed on problem solving. Allied to that you had the mutual drivers of competition between John and Paul to be the songwriter of the next hit single and the collaborative processes initiated and supported by George Martin in the studio. Lennon and McCartney would share their first draft of songs with each other and then develop them mutually; Lennon sharpening the lyrics, Paul sweetening the melodies. During recording George would work in a middle eight and Ringo added his light-handed rhythmic backbeat. Lennon, who never did homework at school, wrote Hard Days Night overnight when they lacked a title song, appropriating the phrase from Ringo when Richard Lester, the director, selected Hard Days Night as the title at the last minute.

Brian Epstein, their other more More Able Partner, was fastidious in planning their schedules, meeting their needs  and taking care of them and their requirements. Epstein freed them up to focus on making music and Martin enabled them to make their musical reach greater than their fan-like grasp. And how did this sound at the time? Well like the best pop music ever heard and suddenly we had a frame of reference to make sense of the world as it changed around us.

Hard Days Night was a single, an album and a film; all of which were innovative in varying ways, and all hugely successful. Hard Days Night was box-office second in 1964 only to the iconic Bond film Goldfinger, in which Connery explicitly mocks The Beatles music. They also worked closely with Lester, a jazz musician who, for his work on Hard Days Night, was dubbed the “Father of the Music Video” by MTV. I Should Have Known Better from the film exemplifies this.

So why did things change after this multi-media triumph? Well they had cracked America and Lennon had published In His Own Write just before Hard Days Night. As a published author, who illustrated his own book, he gained a different kind of artistic attention. Most importantly whilst Hard Days Night represented a unique triple whammy of success The Beatles weren’t interested in repeating it. And as an album Hard Days Night was an accidental creation. Great review of it here though.

Tune it next week to find out how you continue to develop creatively once you have already become Royalty at the Toppermost of Poppermost. Could it be the Fifth Beatles?

  1. Bakuvia said,

    October 18, 2009 at 4:03 pm

    Really enjoyed this post, Fred… it flows really well and your language use is really nice … made me want to read on and “read more”. You should turn it into an academic paper! That would be a refreshing turn of events. 🙂

  2. fred6368 said,

    October 18, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    Hi Wilma,
    this was going to be an academic paper but I found the modes of writing difficult to reconcile. Decided to write the posts first and then try and write the academic paper.after that! Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

  3. tomdegan said,

    October 19, 2009 at 5:38 pm

    Great piece of writing, Fred! Here’s a little ditty I cooked up in 2007 on the fortieth anniversary of the release of the Sgt. Pepper album:

    Tom Degan

  4. Dr Jenn said,

    October 20, 2009 at 4:44 am

    Picked you up from your post at Doc’s blog. What a really good read. I was born in 1971 so the Beatles to me were just feel good music. Upon listening to most of the albums on the remastered set in Doc’s collection, I find that I know most of the songs. This really surprised me because at any given moment I can only think of a few that I know well enough to sing along with. But when you hear them all… you know most of them. I also enjoyed the link to Tom’s post on Sgt Peppers… The one album I have actually gone out and bought in past years to which I expected to know the most songs on… LOL… I always to the album cover to heart as face value and now I have sat down and looked it over well and wow. Yes indeedy, I also know quite a few faces there!

  5. Russ said,

    October 21, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    Really enjoyed this. Its beautifully written and left me wanting to read more. I’m particularly interested in the way you are using the PAH continuum here. Your analysis ‘particularizes’ many of the these ideas and even leads one to start thinking about the way the framework might be enriched and developed. As an analysis of the pedagogic / androgogic phase this is excellent. A few thoughts / comments

    I liked the way you identified the importance of multiple influences, role models, the more able partners (ie. Epstein and Martin). This really helps to suggest how the Beatles emerged as a creative force out of a particular sociocultural mix. However, their commitment to the music rather than money or stardom seems to set them apart from the other bands during this early developmental phase. The fact that, unlike Cliff, they weren’t trying to be anyone but the Beatles seems highly significant in this respect. It seems they had a strong projective identity as a band. Further, the comparison between Epstein (interested in helping them realize their creative potential) and Colonel Parker (interested in securing lucrative contracts for Elvis) is really interesting in this respect. I see this as a from of relational agency. They select a manager who reflects and in a sense reinforces their sense of who they are and who they want to become. Finally the fact that they followed the advice of Martin and ditched the good looking Pete Best because he lacked musical talent powerful suggests their artistic integrity. In general, it seems that when one starts to move from a pedagogy phase of development to a androgogic / heutragogic phase these ethical commitments may become even more conspicuous. I’m particularly interested in how they might inspire individuals or groups to make what Engestrom refers to as ‘expansive transformations’ that might involve both creative destruction (i.e. ditching Pete Best, refusing to perform live etc) and horizontal developments (moving to Hamburg, doing drugs, getting into transcendental meditation etc) in order to transcend contradictions inhibiting and move forward as a creative force.

    really looking forward to see how you develop the Heutrogogic phrase.

  6. fred6368 said,

    October 22, 2009 at 3:05 pm

    Ger Tillekens from the Dutch Soundscapes web site comments;
    “I read your piece on the Beatles and found it very interesting, well-documented and to the point. One thing I’m wondering about, though, is how the star status the Beatles were aspiring to, fits in with the idea of an egalitarian learning community?”
    Very good question Ger! I will answer that in a week or two, but I think the context of being working-class lads at the centre of cultural life in Britiain was more important then than it seems now.
    http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/ (select Beatles Studies from the dossier menu on the right)

  7. October 26, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    […] the K claimed this title, and it is an enduring debate with many contenders for the fifth element. Last week we argued that the Beatles critically benefitted from More Able Partners who solved problems for them, like […]

  8. Rich Mauro said,

    November 2, 2009 at 6:21 am

    Fred, I’m obviously a week behind in commenting on your excellent post; sort of like I was several years behind in “learning with the Beatles.” I was nine when they broke in the US and through the sixties pretty much only knew the singles my sisters played. By high school in the early seventies, it was on to other groups. So, it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that I purposely “went back” to buy all the albums (and read about them) to try to get a sense of the depth of their art.

    While I have become aware of many of the events of their formative years and their early success, your post ties those events together, along with their developing relationships and methodologies, into a structure and analysis that, at least to me, gives the whole process a meaning I never appreciated before. I’m particularly fascinated to learn more about the nature of the creative process through all this.

  9. fred6368 said,

    November 2, 2009 at 8:57 am

    Hi Rich,
    thanks. I don’t think I have fully cracked analysing their creativity, although I have started on it in All You Need is Heutagogy. When you really analyse them, even with various frameworks and concepts to help you make sense of it, you still end up wondering how come, even though you get a sense of what drove their creativity, they still produced so much work, of such a high quality, which was also so original!

  10. Oleg said,

    December 16, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    it’s great

    • fred6368 said,

      December 16, 2009 at 3:41 pm

      Thanks Oleg! No Beefheart, but what do you think of 1968 – A Bite of The Apple?

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