Friday, February 29, 2008

Mama mia!


Pardon, in advance, the extreme strangeness of this post.... Last night, I dreamt, quite vividly, that my mother had unbeknownst to me, been signed to write a comic book about a racecar driver/superhero, and that she had modestly begun to do so, with great success, without mentioning it to me.

That's pretty odd. Even for a dream.

But all day, it's made me wonder: what kind of comic book would my mother write? My mother has a rather dry wit and likes dogs, so I imagine her character would have a Rex the Wonder equivalent as a sidekick to utter Wildean canine commentary on the action. Any, it all makes me want to ask you two questions:
  1. If you could pick a comic book for your mother to write, which one would it be?
  2. If your mother created her own comic book, what would it be like?

17 comments:

  1. I'll take this opportunity to delurk.
    Really love the blog.
    This post has good timing as it's Mother's day in the UK and Ireland this weekend.
    I really can't see my mother writing any comic. So I'm not much help there.

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  2. My mom would be the first person to admit that literary endeavors are not where her true talents lie, so:

    1. Anything published by Marvel, since I would never read it and therefore couldn't be appalled by what she did to it.

    2. Whatever it was it would consist of half a panel, since that's about how long she would take before she gave up on the whole thing and decided to watch curling instead.

    And for the record, I do dearly love my mother, but if there's anyone on this planet more unprepared to work in comics, I have yet to meet them*.


    *It should be noted that I have never met Rob Liefeld.

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  3. Mom always kind of put up with my comic book habit, with a mix of mild entertainment as a kid, and mild worry as an adult. Anyway, on with the challenge.

    1)Mom, when she wants, has a great sense of humor, she feels kinship with female characters, and likes a good detective/procedural storyline from time to time. This makes me believe she would be great doing Birds of Prey or maybe even Manhunter ( she could even be persuaded to keep the gay supporting cast there, because she's always been supportive ).

    2) Unfortunately, as many moms, she has a whiny streak, so no matter how good her plots could be, she would probably end up writing a more Marvel type of book, something angst-y, a la 70´s Xmen.

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  4. This is a unique and surprisingly interesting question.

    1. She really like(d/s) stuff like X-Files and Lost, so I bet she'd love the concept of Ralph and Sue Dibny: Adorable Married Ghost Detectives Who Are Also Ghosts Themselves.

    2. Given the fact that she's over the age of fifty and has looooves sitcoms whatever she created would probably be more akin to Archie. (But, you know, a less edgy version.) Now that I think about it, she talked about how when she was young her parents would buy her old Harvey comics like Little Huey and such for long road trips... hmm.

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  5. My mother is unqualifiably nuts and literal-minded to the point of irritation at times, so I'd pick her to write Sub-Mariner. She'd enjoy having Namor lord it over everyone and wreck people's stuff in the name of making everything better... somehow.

    If she created a comic book, it would probably be about the kings and queens of England and their sex lives, and it would be more prolix and verbose than a particularly crowded Chris Claremont crowd scene where everyone's saying long speeches while posing.

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  6. Gotham Central. She worked in and around the Philly police department for a couple decades, so she's got the personalities down, and she's whip-smart enough to come up with some cracking cases.

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  7. Sadly, if my mom were to write a comic I know exactly which it would be: the X-Men, probably something specifically involving Wolverine and the Beast.

    I prefer not to think about why exactly this would be so, but trust me, it is.

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  8. This is easy. My mumsie is already a writer, so it would be romance comics all the way! Preferably with Johnny Romita Sr. as the artist.

    *sigh*

    They'd be just so dreamy.

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  9. Mum writing a comic?!?

    she thinks I waste cash buying them!!!

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  10. 1. Ambush Bug. I am serious.

    2. Much like Ambush Bug, only a little more coherent.

    I had an interesting childhood.

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  11. 1.) I'd give my mother Aquaman to write. She LOVES Aquaman and gets disappointed every time she looks at the comics and sees him changed from his Silver Age glory.

    2.) Again, I think she'd write something akin to Aquaman but with a rescue dog sidekick (knowing her, a black Lab).

    Seriously, my mom loves Aquaman, and she actually demanded to know why his series was cancelled again. I just can't bring myself to explain it to her.

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  12. my mom would write superman cause that is her favorite character

    and she's a scifi geek so her comic would be probably be like a twilight zone type of comic about knitting.

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  13. Allan said: 2. Whatever it was it would consist of half a panel, since that's about how long she would take before she gave up on the whole thing and decided to watch curling instead.

    Replace "curling" with "the Game Show Network" and that would be my mother's experience exactly. And her half a panel would probably consist of cigarettes and Jim Beam.

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  14. A Jack Chick tract that was more polite and more persistant.

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  15. 1)While my mom may have gotten me started with comics such as Groo and Archie, I think she'd really be able to add character and nonsuper supporting cast to Superman. But for the love of Pete, I can't imagine her writing it solo.

    2) She's already got a comic book planned, oddly enough. Spider B!tch (no relation to any Marvel characters), and the stories she already has planned would blow your little minds.

    Man, it feels odd being the one with the 'cool mom'...

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