Comic Books
“X-Men”
Why is this smart, handsome mutant movie so good? Director Bryan Singer says it's because he took the superhero story seriously.
“X-Men”
Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Famke Janssen, Bruce Davison, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romjin-Stamos
20th Century Fox; widescreen (2.35:1)
Extras: Deleted scenes (can be viewed separately or programmed into the movie, excerpts from “Charlie Rose” interview with Bryan Singer, gallery of production sketches, storyboards for two computer-animated scenes, Hugh Jackman screen test, theatrical trailer and TV spots
Bryan Singer’s gorgeous version of the Marvel Comics saga of good mutants and bad mutants is, at center, about caring for people you love no matter what the cost. In one scene, good mutant Rogue (Anna Paquin) is trying to rouse Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) from a nightmare. Believing he’s under attack, he awakens and stabs her. One of Rogue’s characteristics is that she is so empathetic that contact with her skin can suck the life force out of others. One touch from her can kill a human or even a mutant. Wolverine, on the other hand, possesses the power of almost immediate healing. So Wolverine allows Rogue to touch him, thus healing her and nearly killing him. The scene divides you — you don’t want to see anything happen to either of these characters, and their special powers have been brought into conflict in the most basic way.
At its best, “X-Men” invests comic-book conceits with loony, operatic grandeur. Its central metaphor — that mutants stand in for humans who feel like outsiders — is a simple, ingenious idea. Like all adolescents, the outsiders here are torn between the desire for acceptance and the thirst for revenge.
How did Singer pull it off? In the excerpts from the “Charlie Rose” interview that’s one of the DVD extras, Singer says he simply vowed to take the material seriously, not to camp it up or make fun of it. That’s why the movie enfolds you in its superhero universe. “X-Men” comes pretty close to the way we transform comic books in our imagination — from bare-bones stories spread across panels to something dark, handsome and huge. All members of the cast (even revered scenery chewers Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen) do honor to their roles, treating them as characters and not freaks, some by the simplest means. With Rebecca Romjin-Stamos as the shape-changing Mystique, it’s a matter of physical grace and malevolent, preternatural calm. (Her nudity is less eye-catching than the fishlike scales that taper over her blue skin.)
The handsomely packaged DVD — a shiny silver gatefold sleeve slides out of the cover — features a gallery of character and scene sketches and two computer-animated storyboards prepared for two of the film’s more complex sequences. But the real goodies are the deleted scenes that can be viewed separately or programmed into the movie at the point they were originally intended to be seen. Some are dispensable, but the scene of Rogue’s first day at Dr. Charles Xavier’s “Mutant High” (a shorter version of which appears in the finished movie) makes you wish that you could see more of the kids showing off their various talents. The other plum is film of Jackman’s screen test with Paquin — in the scene where Wolverine first makes Rogue’s acquaintance. Singer must have turned cartwheels when he saw it. Even here, working with each other for the first time, Jackman and Paquin demonstrate the connection that’s the heart of the movie. For all the mutant powers on display in “X-Men,” the screen test reminds you that two simpatico actors are still the rarest and most precious movie magic.
Charles Taylor is a columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger. More Charles Taylor.
That’s not the original Hulk!
Even in books dedicated to his work, famed comic artist Jack Kirby's drawings never appear on the cover
(Credit: Dean White)
Jack Kirby is widely recognized as one of the most important comic creators of the 20th century. Co-creator of Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-Men, and creator of Darkseid, The Demon, OMAC and myriad others, he still can’t get no respect.
Early in 1992 my phone rang. At the time I was an art director at a book publisher in Manhattan, and it was some time before I learned the art of being taken to lunch. On the other end was a book agent. “Do you want to go to lunch?” “No thanks,” I replied. “Then I guess you don’t want to meet Jack Kirby?” Less then an hour later I walked into the lobby of the hotel where the Kirbys were staying. I was the first to arrive, and walked over and introduced myself to Jack and Roz. The raison d’être for the meeting was that Jack and Ray Wyman were shopping around “The Art of Jack Kirby.” I will save the details of that meeting for another time, but suffice it to say Jack regaled me with war stories over lunch, and I met one of the greatest influences on my early life. Unfortunately I could not convince my publisher how important I believed the book to be. Sadly, almost exactly two years later I learned Jack had passed.
Continue Reading CloseSteven Brower is a graphic designer, writer and educator and the former Creative Director/ Art Director of Print. He is the author/designer of books on Louis Armstrong, Mort Meskin, Woody Guthrie and the history of mass-market paperbacks. He is Director of the “Get Your Masters with the Masters” low residency MFA program for educators and working professionals at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa. @stevenianbrower More Steven Brower.
Comic books’ undercover hero: Tibet
An exhibition at New York's Rubin Museum showcases the Asian country's surprising prominence in comic culture SLIDE SHOW
From the cover of "Green Lama."(Credit: Rubin Museum of Art) Which Himalayan country has had guest-starring gigs in some of the century’s most popular comics? If you guessed Tibet — a safe choice based on this interview’s headline — you’re spot on.
A new exhibition at New York City’s Rubin Museum (an institution wholly dedicated to the art of the Himalayas) will show you “the most complete collection of comics related to Tibet ever assembled.” A number of them may already be familiar to you; as curator Martin Brauen explained to me this week, popular comic figures like Donald Duck, Lara Croft and Tintin all make appearances. All the comics — from the obscure and frivolous to the overtly political — capture Tibet as it has been perceived by artists and readers at different points over the course of past several decades.
Continue Reading CloseEmma Mustich is a Salon contributor. Follow her on Twitter: @emustich. More Emma Mustich.
Tales from the other Comic Con
Unlike its San Diego cousin, the Long Beach version is still all about cartoons and graphic novels


Kevin Eastman
These days, the so-called San Diego “Comic” Con’s main attraction is sugary TV and movie confectionery. But if you enjoy graphic novels and cartoons – and, well, scary stuff – you may have attended the recent Comic & Horror Con at Long Beach, Calif.’s Convention Center.
Continue Reading CloseAssassinating Russia’s ultimate archvillain
A compelling new graphic novel reimagines the killing of the mysterious Grigori Rasputin
“Murder is the emperor of political action,” says an eager conspirator in the graphic novel “Petrograd.” In this case the murder is the notorious assassination of Grigori Rasputin, and the political action is a conspiracy orchestrated by agents of the British Secret Service at the height of World War I. Author Philip Gelatt and artist Tyler Crook demythologize the killing of Rasputin — a figure so buried in legend that this task borders on the herculean — largely by substituting a not wholly implausible counter-historical fiction.
Continue Reading CloseInside “Maus”
25 years later, Art Spiegelman gives us a behind-the-scenes look at his seminal Holocaust graphic novel
Among those of a certain age, is there a soul who doesn’t remember how brilliantly “Maus” lit up the night when it burst upon the scene in 1986? A deeply serious comic strip of the Holocaust before the category of graphic novel was common coin, with Jews depicted as timorous mice and Nazis as bestial cats, “Maus” was scandalous in concept, jaw-dropping in execution, and, beneath its transgressive exterior, humbling in its rigorous yet gentle understanding of the victims of one of the seismic events of the 20th century.
Continue Reading CloseDaniel Asa Rose is the author, most recently, of "Larry's Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China With My Black-Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant ... and Save His Life" – named one of the top books of the year by Publishers Weekly. More Daniel Asa Rose.
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L.A. graphic designer Kenny Keil loves to parody superhero comics. And horror, crime and romance comics. And just about every other comics genre and trope from the 1940s onward. His primary conceit is to turn the medium’s typical hyperbolic bombast on its head. For instance, he promotes “Tales to Suffice,” a trade paperback collection of his self-published comic book series of “mind-blowing adequacy,” as “Quite possibly too much comic!”





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Libraries usually loan books, but at this convention Long Beach Public Library’s Youth Services Officer Francisco Vargas and Manager Darla Wegner were giving away shelves of them for free. Attendees could help themselves to everything from a David Sedaris paperback to a “Pirates of the Caribbean” pop-up. My kind of neighborhood outreach!


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