The latest installment of Flipped is up at Comic World News. In it, I take an entirely superfluous look at Shonen Jump.

(By the way, has anyone seen a copy of Beckett’s Anime for Girls? Must I break my Wal-Mart boycott to indulge my shojo habit?)

There seem to be a lot of pre-mortems going on. At Howling Curmudgeons, Matt Rossi suggests that indie publishers are poised to dethrone Marvel and DC. It’s interesting reading comparing the allure of creator ownership versus toiling on franchise characters:

“(W)ithout new characters, the Big Two will just keep degenerating, and it makes less sense all the time for a creator to hitch her wagon to these companies in exchange for control over her brainchildren, when instead you can come in, push around the same blocks as every other creator working in the assembly line, pick up your freelance money, and try and build enough of a name and rep to eventually attract readers to your own creations.”

It’s interesting to think about, but I wonder if recent events don’t undermine the argument a bit. Look at the recent cancellations at DC (Bloodhound and Human Target, and the axe hanging over Fallen Angel). When creators do step outside the franchise box to create new characters for the Big Two, sales tend to be dire. Would creator ownership reverse that trend? How many Big Two readers care about who holds the deed? (Not that they shouldn’t care, just that I don’t think it factors into their buying patterns most of the time.)

Is there anything critics can do to reverse the trend? Not in the opinion of Paul O’Brien, who talks about the disconnect between critical acclaim and sales in his latest column at Ninth Art. Once I worked through the guilty recognition some of O’Brien’s comments inspired (“It’s an audience that, for the most part, only talks to itself, and makes little secret of its vague disdain for the mainstream readers. I mean, they read Wizard, for god’s sake!”), I found a lot of good food for thought (as usual):

“Trying something new is acclaimed as a worthwhile end in itself. In one sense, it is. It’s a good thing that people are out there experimenting. Good for them. But the nature of experiments is that a lot of them fail. The mainstream audience isn’t necessarily looking for anything new or different, and doesn’t prize that so highly. And why should they?”

Brian at Comics Should Be Good introduces the concept of nepotistic continuity, “when a writer uses strong continiuty in his or her comics, but only when it is in reference to something (a work or a creation) that THAT writer did in the past.” He cites Chuck Dixon as a perp of note, and I would suggest Fabian Nicieza as another. I never stood a chance of sussing out the big “who is…” mysteries in Thunderbolts, because I’d never read the comics that featured whoever it was that Scourge and Crimson Cowl turned out to be. When I saw that he was launching another “who is…” story in New Thunderbolts, I took it as a perfect jumping off point.

From one perspective, New Avengers is a textbook example of nepotistic continuity. Brian Bendis features Luke Cage (the love interest from Alias/The Pulse), Jessica Drew (who was initially intended to be the protagonist of Alias/The Pulse and appeared in Alias), Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson (who otherwise appear almost exclusively in another of the author’s titles, Daredevil), the Purple Man (the arch-villain of Alias), and Spider-Man (who sounds a lot like the author’s Ultimate version of the character). The difference is you don’t really need to have read any of those titles to understand what little is going on in New Avengers.

Ian Brill at the Brill Building takes a wider look at continuity in super-hero comics:

“It is as if these books have no problem that they are running in circles. Certainly the long-time fans do not care, even if it means that anyone younger (or just anyone unfamiliar with continuity) that shows a little interest in a book feels like they need a guidebook.”

I find myself having less and less patience for these kind of navel-gazing stories, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Are my tastes changing, or are the current practitioners of this style of story just not very good at it?

Fortunately, there is at least one Big Two creator who seems to strike a perfect balance of using franchise characters in fresh and exciting ways to tell fun stories: Dan Slott. At Cognitive Dissonance, Johanna Draper Carlson perfectly summarizes my reaction to Slott’s She-Hulk and Spider-Man/Human Torch.

We’ve got just enough of the white stuff for it to be pretty without killing anyone, which is nice. It’s a three-day weekend, which is also nice, and it’s been an unusually productive one.

As I mentioned, I bathed the stinky dog, ran lots of errands, and stocked up on the materials I’d need to sort and box comics so that we could reclaim closet space. (Another bonus of the snow: the hubby’s spring cleaning imperative will go dormant for a bit longer. Seriously, he goes nuts with the drawers and the closets and the “bringing order to every nook and cranny of the home. His weekend has been spent, in part, creating a tool organization system for the garage. Kill me.)

Yesterday was spent cooking, cooking, and more cooking. While I was in the kitchen for a long time, it didn’t actually seem to yield that much. I made a couple of quiches (because we are secure enough in our masculinity not to deny ourselves France’s answer to the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit), a cheesecake of absolutely ridiculous proportions (anyone want some? it’s chocolate chip, and it has its own area code), and did various piddly kitchen stuff in prep for future meals. Yes, it was nesting day.

I just finished the last of the comic boxing, and that’s really something I should do more often so it isn’t such a total ordeal. (The cats were tremendously helpful, as anyone with feline cohabitants can probably tell you.) Early on, I unearthed my Amelia Rules trades, and I’d planned to review them today. I may still, but the large martini I’m currently drinking is telling me otherwise. (The review I wrote in this state would probably a weepy “I love theshe guysh” kind of deal. I’ll spare you that. You’re welcome.)

The bright side of the whole comics tidying process is that it gives me a sense of how many comics I own that I’ll probably never read again because I didn’t like them that much in the first place. Bonus bright side: I’m in the opinion minority on a lot of them, so there might be a chunk of change to be made. The slightly dark side: I’ll probably be annoying blog visitors with intermittent E-Bay auction announcements. But, hell, if it gets the Batman “Hush” run and pretty much anything by Mark Millar the hell out of my house while letting me cover the cost of a few volumes of Maison Ikkoku, you’ll just have to suffer. Yes, gin makes me mercenary.

Hmm… that drink didn’t last very long. Better go see about a refill.

First things first: I hate team sports. Childhood experiments with baseball and soccer were a mixture of boredom and anxiety, and I got out of them as soon as I could. As a result, I never expected to have any interest in sports manga.

With that background, I was surprised by how much I liked the preview of Daisuke Higuchi’s soccer manga, Whistle!, in a recent issue of Shonen Jump. Great characters managed to overcome my disinterest in the subject matter, and I put the title on my “to try” list. I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone, because Whistle! is a real charmer.

Shô Kazamatsuri has transferred from the prestigious, private Musashinomori School to Josui Junior High. An avid soccer player, Shô was confined to the bench at Musashinomori because of his size. Driven by a desire to actually play the game, he makes the surprising switch to the lesser school in hopes of being a real member of the team.

Unfortunately, the Josui team’s coach makes incorrect assumptions about Shô. Eager for a more competitive team, Coach Katori mistakenly praises Shô to the skies as a Musashinomori star come to change Josui’s fortunes. She pressures Shô into a scratch game at his first practice, and he’s trounced. Things get worse when one of his team-mates, Tatsuya, reveals that Shô never made it off the third team at his old school.

Shô never meant to be dishonest, but he got swept up in circumstances and couldn’t find an opportunity to correct the misconception. He’s humiliated by his lack of skill and Tatsuya’s revelation. Coach Katori feels terrible about her role in the events, but Shô runs off before she can make things right.

Not to worry, as Shô has determination to spare. After the initial sting of embarrassment wears off, he commits himself to being a worthy member of the team. He undertakes an exhausting training regime, impressing Tatsuya with his passion for the game. When Tatsuya comes to admire Shô’s approach – hard work and clever strategy to minimize his disadvantages – it leads to a shake-up in the team’s status quo. Tatsuya, one of the team’s best players, takes a group of alternates under his wing to challenge the complacent seniors.

That illustrates the premise at the center of Whistle! Heart and discipline, Higuchi argues, are just as valuable in a player’s arsenal as skill and physical strength. It’s not a wildly original premise by any means, but Higuchi conveys it with wonderful energy and sincerity. The cast of underdogs is uniformly appealing, and Shô in particular is a marvel.

He’s just a great kid: optimistic, decent, and willing to work hard to achieve his dreams. It’s easy to believe he’d be an inspiration to his team-mates. He wants to play soccer because he loves it, and that love has an infectious quality that transfers to the people around him (and to readers). Tatsuya is a fine foil for Shô. He’s a great player and a natural leader, but he’s got a blunt manner that puts people off. At the same time, it gives him the freedom to shake up the status quo, which drives the events of the first volume.

Higuchi doesn’t skimp on the supporting cast, either. Shô lives with his older brother, Kō, who works as a male escort. He’s amusingly sleazy, but he’s also unfailingly supportive of Shô’s dreams. The brothers have a great relationship that’s touching, funny, and believable. Coach Katori isn’t fleshed out quite as well yet, but she has a delightful scene with Kō that hints at a lot of spark and charm. During Shô’s private practice, he befriends a crusty old stall chef, Oyassan. Even this taciturn codger sees something special in Shô and does his best to help him.

The illustrations are filled with energy and detail. Higuchi supports character development with a real facility for facial expressions. Scenes of practice and competition are exciting and always clear, even to a soccer ignoramus like me. The visuals really balance humanity and action well, which is just what a title like this needs.

The best feature of this story is that you don’t need to know anything about soccer to enjoy it. Heck, you don’t even need to like soccer to enjoy it. The enthusiasm and determination of the characters and the believable scale of events make for an almost ridiculously engrossing story. Is it formulaic? Well, sure, it’s a “root for the underdog” manga. But even a formulaic story can soar when it’s told with this much craft and care.

Okay, I’ve gone to the comic shop. I’ve bought the long boxes. You’d think the least the comics could do is to sort themselves neatly and hop in. After all I’ve spent on them, this is the thanks I get.

I expended all of my productive energy early and gave the dog a bath. (The other one went to the groomer this week, so she was spared.) Usually, this makes him kind of gloomy and reserved, like he’s spending the day figuring out what he did to merit this kind of torture. Today it had the effect of making him a total spaz. He’s barked at everything that moves, and I’m ready to give him another bath just to try and bum him out.

So, in short, I blame my dog for the fact that the comics are still unsorted and unboxed. Bad dog! Bad!

I took rude advantage of the write-in feature over at the Wizard Fan Awards. Will it make any difference? No, but I’ve thrown my vote away before.

Favorite Writer: Gail Simone (Birds of Prey). Her scripts are consistently entertaining and thought-provoking, and she always meets the “bang for your buck” standard.

Favorite Penciler: Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life). This is some wonderfully expressive, imaginative work, hilarious one moment, sweetly romantic the next.

Favorite Inker: Darwyn Cooke (New Frontier). Okay, so this is a consolation prize. Cooke was a very close second to O’Malley (with Cameron Stewart an almost-as-close third), so I slid him into this category. Hey, Cooke inked New Frontier. It counts, all right?

Favorite Painter: Pass. Painted comics just don’t work for me, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s the fact that painted comics tend to carry the ponderous burden of Importance.

Favorite Colorist: Laura Martin (Astonishing X-Men). Wow! A vote I didn’t have to write in!

Favorite Letterer: Studio Foglio (Girl Genius). Okay, I can’t precisely remember who got credited with the lettering, but this book showcases consistently appealing, imaginative lettering work.

Favorite Editor: James Lucas Jones (Oni). He’s got a terrific track record of taking risks and promoting quality material.

Favorite Male Hero: Adam Strange (DC). That wouldn’t have been my answer last year, but after the first chunk of Andy Diggle’s mini-series, the fin-headed geek has moved right up the list.

Favorite Female Hero: A tough call, as there are actually worthy candidates on the list. I love Dan Slott’s take on She-Hulk, and I think Simone is doing great things with Black Canary, but I’m going to have to write in DC’s Huntress. She’s a much more interesting character to me, and I think Simone is crafting something really special with her.

Favorite Villain: Okay, that’s just insulting to put the Scarlet Witch on there. Bitch crazy, not evil. Think I’ll leave this one blank.

Favorite Supporting Character: Awesome Andy (She-Hulk). Every office needs an Awesome Andy.

Favorite Ongoing Series: Fallen Angel (DC). There are plenty of titles that could take this slot if they came out more regularly (Street Angel, Amelia Rules, etc.). But in terms of consistently published titles, this one takes the prize. Meaty, interesting stories filled with colorful characters give this book the edge. Of course it’s on the block.

Favorite Mini-Series: My Faith in Frankie (Vertigo). I forgot to put this title on my Year in Fun list, and it really should have been up near the top. Totally charming. (And yes, I do love Adam Strange, Madrox, and We3, but they aren’t finished yet, so I can’t say anything definitive. Maybe next year.)

Favorite Publisher: Viz. Can I say Viz? Hell, who’s going to stop me?

Favorite Breakout Talent: Dan Slott (She-Hulk). Maybe he’s just a breakout talent to me, but he did a lot to make the year in comics for me, and he wasn’t on my radar before.

Comics Greatest Moment 2004: Awesome Andy chooses the right path during the Big House break-out in She-Hulk. An incredibly funny, endearing montage of Andy comparing his highly regarded work at the law firm with his unappreciated servitude to a jerkwad super-villain. (Second place goes to a totally unexpected musical number in the middle of Scott Pilgrim.)

Favorite Television Series: If “Blind Date” had aired last year on Justice League Unlimited, that show would have probably gotten the nod. (When the hell does that episode air?) As it is, I’ll go with Teen Titans, if only for the introduction of Bumblebee. Love. Her.

Geez, that was a lot longer than I’d intended. Sorry!

Two more titles jumped off the reserve list this week.

The Pulse #7 continues to stumble around the fringes of the Secret War mini-series. Secret War (which I would also cut from my list if its chronic lateness didn’t render such a gesture meaningless) barely has enough content to sustain itself, let alone a protracted crossover. There’s a revelation in this issue about how media outlets deal with SHIELD that strains credibility until it snaps right in half. (My inner journalist bristles at the irresponsibility of that tacit agreement, too.) Sad to see such a promising series toss itself off a cliff.

Ultimates #2.2 finally convinces me not to waste any more time or money with this smug exercise. I can hardly recall another title so convinced of how cool it is. Other readers find the craft of the comic able to overcome the essential unlikability of its characters. I come down on the other side of that equation, which probably means I “don’t get it.” I think I can live with the shame.

Highlights from yesterday’s trip to the comic shop:

• Much geeky rhapsodizing about the Project Pegasus storyline from Marvel Two-In-One, which led to invented nostalgia of Marvel’s much-loved but non-existent League of Minority Goliaths.
• Much geeky quibbling over whether there was a Spider-Man/Human Torch series back in the day or if it just seemed like there was because Johnny was always the guest-star in Marvel Team-Up.
• Much commiseration over the fact that we would have to put up with John Byrne to enjoy Gail Simone on their upcoming Action run. (Gail has a very loyal following in my corner of the Mountain State, which is reassuring.)
• Delayed arrival of the third volume of Case Closed, compensating for the absence of the fourth volume of Imadoki!
• Doom Patrol-related schadenfreude, leading to agreement that no book written by John Byrne should outsell a book written by Greg Rucka, even if that book is Wonder Woman. (I actually like Rucka’s WW a lot, but I feel I should accurately represent the tone of the discourse.)
• Purchase of what may possibly be the best worst comic ever. We had guests last night, so I didn’t have time to do more than skim it, but it was written by Howard Mackie. And it features a scene of a scrappy asthmatic arming himself with a Dustbuster. (Much as I love this comic, I may have to send it to Dr. Scott for study.)
• Mysterious arrival of a number of military officers wanting to hold a video game promotion in the store, which I took as my cue to leave.

I might not make it to the shop today, what with errands and house guests, but if I do, here’s what will put a spring in my step on the way to the cash register:

• From Atomeka, the team behind DC’s Formerly Known as the Justice Leage delivers Hero Squared. Preview reviews can be found at The Comic Treadmill, Pop Culture Gadabout, and Johnny Bacardi (and lots of other places that didn’t show up on the first page of the Google search results, thus not making my laziness cut-off).
• I bought the single issues, but I’d recommend the Birds of Prey: Sensei and Student trade to anyone who’s been meaning to try this terrific title. Black Canary fans should note that it’s a strong story arc for Dinah (and her mom). But really, the nifty writing by Gail Simone should be lure enough, shouldn’t it?
• It’s a Dan Slott-stravaganza over at Marvel with She-Hulk 11 and Spider-Man/Human Torch 1. Still on the fence about She-Hulk? Perhaps Dave at Yet Another Comics Blog can persuade you with his review of the first trade, Single Green Female.
• I’m undecided on the second volume of Love Fights from Oni. I thought the first was okay, but it didn’t exactly set my world on fire. We’ll see what lurks on the manga shelves.
• Speaking of manga, Viz offers the fourth volume of Imadoki! Do I really need to go over the whole Yu Watase thing again? Because I will if you weren’t listening the first three hundred times.

And now, on to a little therapeutic snark:

• Publisher attempts to meet customer demand. Film at 11. In any market other than comics, would this be considered laudable as opposed to just barely meeting the standards of economic common sense?
• The V casts a critical eye at the preview of Uncanny X-Men 455. The verdict? “It should come with an old sports sock affixed to the cover.”
• Speaking of PopCultureShock, it’s back to normal. For a brief while, it was showing previews of interesting titles by people like Bryan Lee O’Malley. Today, naked jungle babes. I wonder if that had anything to do with the site crashing?

Okay, so I promised to cut back on the snark this year, but you can’t expect me to go cold turkey.

I’ve always been a morning person. It’s a behavior that seems to get more and more pronounced with age, and I wake up ridiculously early. While I wouldn’t mind a normal sleep cycle, and while I think genetic engineering should be used to identify and eliminate the infomercial host gene, low-grade insomnia has allowed me to reconnect with one of my favorite series.

The N shows an hour of Daria at an ungodly hour of the morning. Daria originally aired on MTV. Since the show was intelligent and genuinely funny, MTV didn’t seem to have any idea what to do with it. It isn’t like they had any comparable programming to pair it with, since part of the pleasure of Daria was its jaundiced view of youth culture. Honestly, can shows like TRL and Daria peacefully coexist on one network? Probably not for long.

But it did run a respectable five seasons with two movies (Is It Fall Yet? and the series-capping Is It College Yet?). It was one of the rare television series that managed to hold onto its initial promise, and the quality of the writing rarely dipped. One could even argue that the whole run of the series could be viewed as a sort of televised novel, with incremental character development, credible and rewarding milestones, and a beginning, middle, and end. (It starts with Daria’s first day of school at Lanwdale High. It ends with her graduation.)

And Daria is a terrific character, despite her unsavory past with Beavis and Butthead. She’s a conscientious objector in the popularity wars, too smart and caustic and observant to take high school seriously. She’s an outcast who views her status as such as an inevitability rather than any kind of badge of honor. It beats the alternative (embodied by her aggressively shallow sister, Quinn), but it’s nothing she’s particularly proud of. And she does manage to make one good friend, fellow outcast and budding artist Jane Lane. (They meet in self-esteem class.)

One of the first episodes I saw on MTV was “The Misery Chick.” A Lanwdale alum dies unexpectedly during a return visit to campus. Shortly before his death, the jock hero manages to alienate, insult, or revolt everyone he comes across, and the repercussions of his passing are a lot more interesting than you might expect. Daria’s stock skyrockets. As daft cheerleader Brittany puts it, “I mean, you’re used to being all gloomy and depressed and thinking about bad stuff… So I thought that maybe you can give me some tips.” Jane puts it a bit more directly, characterizing the group think as follows: “When they say, ‘You’re always unhappy Daria,’ what they mean is, ‘You think Daria. I can tell because you don’t smile. Now this guy died and it makes me think and that hurts my little head and makes me stop smiling. So, tell me how you cope with thinking all the time, Daria, until I can get back to my normal vegetable state.'”

And the character arcs, while gradual, are really rewarding. Daria inches a bit out of her shell of irony and detachment. Quinn’s shallowness reveals itself to be at least partly a facade. (The sisters’ relationship is one of the highlights of the series, especially in later seasons.) Their parents, Jake and Helen, evolve as individuals and a couple. The cast is large and varied, and everyone gets nice moments. There’s a surprising amount of fiber for an animated series.

This is one of the few series I would actually buy on DVD, so naturally MTV hasn’t released it yet. They’ve made the two movies available, but not the regular season episodes. And while it’s nice that The N is airing this terrific show, it is kind of grating to see some of the edits they’ve made, either for content or for timing. (Seriously, it’s not that salty that you’d need to edit it in the first place, unless you were made paranoid by a draconian moral authority that… oh, wait. Never mind.)