Bella does Comics #14: JL8

You start doing a webcomic; you find yourself reading more and more webcomics. I find myself chuckling to The Reset Button and On The Grind. I’m a big fan of BOUNCE and Evil Inc. But my favorite webcomic of them all, which I discovered a couple years before I started my own, is JL8 by Yale Stewart, a charming weekly peek into the elementary school lives of characters based on DC Comics’ Justice League.

A hyperactive Barry (Flash), a moody Bruce (Batman), taking-it-all-in-new-kid-in-school J’onn J’onzz and a regal princess trying to just be one of the girls named Diana. Clark, Hal, Mean ol’ Lex – they are all here and it is adorable. It’s nostalgic. It’s current. It’s hilarious. It’s touching. It’s teaches lessons. It makes no sense. It’s original and a homage. It’s what all-ages comic book should be. It’s reads like an animated show; think Muppet Babies style and class for the superhero fan.

Which brings me to Bella and Diana fighting over ‘the voice of animated Batman’ in their ears. Why aren’t they arguing over ‘the voice of Wonder Woman’ in their ears? DC Animated released a critically acclaimed and well received Wonder Woman film in 2009 with Keri Russell doing an excellent job in the title role (and you should check her in The Americans; some of the best acting on television today).  Lucy Lawless, Xena herself, voiced Diana in Justice League: The New Frontier and can’t nobody say ISH about the Lawless One. Michelle Monaghan and Rosario Dawson portrayed Wonder Woman in Justice League: War and Justice League: Throne of Atlantis respectively. But veteran voice actor Susan Eisenberg brought a certain gravitas to Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. You can hear the confidence growing in the performance as the character grows more comfortable with her teammates and her surroundings in the consecutive series. She’s probably the voice in your head when you read the books, thanks also to her work in Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and Justice League: Doom. She deserves her propers, without a doubt.

The animation division of Warner Bros/DC Comics is locked into a New 52 worldview these days but there’s a Wonder Woman there too. There’s a Black Canary there, as well. A Power Girl, a Batgirl. Vixen has resurfaced in their television live action universe (with more life in web-animated form in her bones than either Canary on Arrow so can we get a switch, please?) and Diana is arguably more deserving of feature film exposure at this point. We’re eagerly and anxiously and nervously awaiting her debut in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as the precursor to her starring role in 2017’s Wonder Woman.

But a cartoon Princess leading her own series would be cool too. If we can have a New Batman toon every other year, can’t we get TWO wonders?

— Len ‘Cruze’ Webb

Bella does Comics #13: BLACKSAD

I don’t know if writer- artist team Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido had this in mind when they created the detective noir BLACKSAD but the title character of this beautiful with a capital B graphic novel series of anthropomorphic crime tales is one sexy cat.

He’s cat. And he’s sexy. If Idris Elba was animated, he would be Blacksad. I almost wish that Idris’ Luther was more like Blacksad because then I would love the show instead of just like it.

Luther is a good show. The whole tortured cop thing, intense inner turmoil burning its way to the surface –Idris has it down. It’s beautifully shot. Alice is a villain worthy of scorn and praise.

Blacksad is The Maltese Falcon. To Have and Have Not. The Third Man. Bullitt. Body Heat. It’s pure Sin City without the pandering. Its 100 Bullets without the stereotypes. Its Scalped without the gratuity. Its the best of old school Walt Disney animation without the camera. Its Pixar’s first adapted work of fiction if they’re smart and want to venture outside their lane. It’s everything Adult Swim should be.

It is the closest to a perfect depiction of a comic creator’s vision I have ever seen.

Bella does Comics #12 – CURTIS

I don’t know if Curtis has ever seen boobs. I’m pretty sure he’d like to see boobs, especially Michelle’s. I could see Ray Billingsley drawing cute boobs. Matter of fact, I’d like to see Ray Billingsley draw some boobs. Probably never happen though; he’s too classy for that.

But giving up a chance to see boobs for a Get-Out-of-Hell card…I don’t know. I’m not sure there is a hell…or a heaven. And the card doesn’t say Get-Out-of-Hell FREE card which means there’s probably some cost involved for activation of the card. So already things seem dubious.

Then suppose the boobs in question belong to Shanola Hampton. Or Naturi Naughton. Or Regina King. Or Nia Long.

Nia.

Long.

Excuse me while I clean the drool off my keyboard.

Bella does Comics #11: BLOOM COUNTY

I loved Bloom County. The whimsical, nonconstructive unapologetic 4-paneled bite out of the 80s myopic ass was great. I lapped it up. This was my Doonesbury. This was a pen & ink world as written by Steven Bochco, directed by James Brooks as viewed thru the eyes, hands and mind of creator Berkeley Breathed. Two of the characters – Opus the penguin, Bill the cat – have made indelible marks in comic strip history. Oliver Wendell Jones was an African American genius with a head bigger than his hairline and an authentic Michael Jackson glove. Milo, Binkley, Steve Dallas, Hodge-Podge — I loved every person Breathed moved into the boarding house on the hill.

But I could have read a strip starring Cutter John forever. Cutter John was a wheelchair-bound Trekkie crippled by his stint in Vietnam but emboldened by each breath that wakes him up in the morning. He indulged the random silliness of the anthropomorphic residents of the County, captained his two-wheel ‘Enterprise’ to adventures in galaxies imagined in pure Kirk fashion (and bagged every eligible adult female that got off the bus in town). He was everything that the womanizing arrogant conservative Steve Dallas was not, without being a helpless milquetoast. He was cool.

Cutter John was featured less and less in the strip as Opus’ star rose and the stories, and the backdrop to an extent, took on a more surreal fantastical bent. The milieu of Bloom County moved faster than a manual wheelchair could go. I don’t know if he was a presence in the Outland spinoff; I didn’t read it. Not my cup of tea.

My comic sensibilities were holding the handles of Cutter’s chair trying to steer him into Calvin & Hobbes. I would have melted if he rolled up, looked pass the yellow headed kid and said “Hey Hobbes!” Then Cutter and Hobbes would go off to show Calvin how flying down a hill is done.

Goggles down. Phasers set to ‘Flirt.’