A Sensible 'Aircut

Godiva's made something of an impression in the pages of the new Justice League International book, turning into an interesting character with a nice sense of humour.

Strange, then, to see how she was originally, particularly her wonderful or-fentik Bri'ish di-a-log:

That's right - she's using her hair as a pair of wings.

I'd love to say where that's from, but I'm afraid I pilfered it from this apparently long-dead site which I stumbled across while researching my look back at one of the DCU's lesser-known teams . . .

Tune in every Tuesday for the next few weeks as I re-discover twenty year old comics once more, just because a reader suggested I do so.

Terrific Dialogue

With Mister Terrific #1, Eric Wallace dives into the realm of British dialogue as Mr Terrific pops over to this side of the water to catch a bad guy and on the whole it's not bad.

"Wicked" is, perhaps, a little dated but still viable. The "space biker riding three snooker balls" kinda works even though the bloke speaking must have excellent eye-sight to make out the T-spheres but the "Nice bum" comment from the woman would have been better if it read "Nice arse" instead.

Thanks heavens for small mercies they weren't all shouting "Crikey! How terribly spiffing!"

Bleedin' Cat

Been a while since I've poked fun at the American interpretation of the English language as spoken by us Brits but as I'm up to my neck in work getting everything ready to leave ship-shape before I have a week off, I thought I'd throw this one out:

Click to embiggen

Now I know Giffen and Jones played things for laughs (mostly) in Justice League Europe but come on - "Ten thousand Sterling"?

You're havin' a giraffe.

Oi!

Ah, those two little letters thrown together which, over here in the UK, basically mean "Hey!" or "Hey, you!" or "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, scratching hell out of the arm of the sofa?"

Admittedly that last one's more likely to be heard in houses where cats live (mine in particular) but those two little letters form an interjection, something to get someone's attention for whatever reason, and as such should always be accompanied by an exclamation mark.

What they don't do is sit at the start and end of a perfectly normal sentence, unless the speaker has a form of Tourette's.

As the Beefeater apparently does:

That sentence in the middle works a treat - even the use of "guv'nor" is spot on.

But that "Oi." at the start . . . and the "Oi." at the end . . . completely superfluous and yet another wonderful example of British dialogue written by American writers.

Don't worry - I have more to come . . .

An American Writer In Britain?

Being a part-time writer myself, I've met plenty of other writers over the years, mostly novelists but a few screenwriters and comics writers as well. Most of those meetings have been here in the UK and most of the writers British. I've met several America writers as well, though, also over here so it's not unheard of that folks from the other side of the pond come across.

I have to wonder - having recently re-read Millennium - whether Steve Englehart had ever been to Britain in 1988:

That's Birmingham in 1988, apparently, and Celia Windward is about to be tapped to (eventually) become Jet, one of the New Guardians. Two of those captions need a closer look:

In 1988, Britain was ruled by the Conservative Party under their leader Margaret Thatcher. They're definitely to the right of mainstream politics but even being the pinko, liberal, commie, left-winger that I am (slight exaggeration but not much) I wouldn't call them fascists. They gutted the manufacturing industry in Britain during their rule, privatised most if not all of the nationalised services and utilities and brought unemployment to new heights. Sadly, twenty years on, the current Labour Party haven't been a whole lot better. But still . . . fascists?

9am and it's still dark! That's right, folks, Britain doesn't get daylight until at least 3 in the afternoon, and only for ten minutes!!

But it gets worse - days later, Batman, Green Lantern and Mr. Miracle head off to collect Celia so that she can become Jet:

For once I'm going to ignore the dialect spoken by Celia - while it's obviously more Jamaican influenced than Brummie, there's nothing to say that Celia was born and bred in Birmingham - but just look at the weather: middle of the day and most of the street is hidden by fog!

Fog!!

In the middle of the day!!!!!

If it weren't for those captions talking about the lack of daylight, I'd blame Joe Staton for being lazy and not wanting to draw backgrounds. As it is, I'm extending an open invitation to Steve Englehart to come over to the UK and take me to a large city which has fog rolling down the streets up to people's knees.

A Little Research Needed

Back in the late 80's, well before the success of 52, Trinity or *cough* Countdown, DC's experiment with weekly comics wasn't as well received.

Action Comics, the one that launched Superman and could be said to have started the whole superhero thing, took their main character and, between #601 and #642, squeezed him into a two page spread while the remaining pages were filled in an anthology style with stories starring other characters. Oh, and they published it weekly.

Action Comics Weekly was an odd title - it had it's minus points like the time when Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show; or there was the laboriously plotted and dreadfully illustrated Black Canary tale Bitter Fruit; but it also had some plus points.

One of them was the gorgeous Mike Mignola cover of #614 shown on the right but there was also that time when Deadman met D.B. Cooper  (who turned out to be the Devil/an alien astronaut); it had Blackhawk doing what he does best (flying planes and trying to pull anything in a skirt); and had Catwoman frame Holly Robinson's husband for the murder of two security guards which she threw out of a hotel room window to their deaths, all in retaliation for him killing Holly.  That's right - Holly died and Catwoman killed people.

Re-reading them recently, though, I did come across something that made me chuckle. I've picked up the woeful attempts of American writers to come up with believable British dialogue before in the Cor Blimey Guv'nor posts and while this isn't speech, it's the same sort of thing:

That's Speedy and Nightwing rushing to save the life of an ambassador who's attending a rally for the Labour party. That's Labour party.

See, over here, we spell that L-A-B-O-U-R.

Don't even get me started on using the Union Flag as a symbol of Labour . . .

It's Like Another Language

Trust me, even in grim, rainy, credit-crunch hit Britain where I live, not a single bloke, not one would ever ask this of a girl:

God, I didn't use the word "snog" to a girl even when I was a teenager, let alone old enough to take a girl right to the edge of a cliff! Hardly surprising what happens next:

That'll teach him.

This terrible display of courtship comes from Vol 2 of Tangent Comics.

Not The Dog's Bollocks

I decided to forgo a Cocktail post this week, despite the large number of candidates: Justice Society Of America #14 would easily have won out if only for the best next issue box ever ("Next: Someone gets beat up. Bad."); Booster Gold #8 saw not only the return of Wild Dog and Pantha but promised the return of Justice League International as well; having missed The Punisher #55 last month, I got that and #56 this week; Green Lantern Corps #23 put the pieces in place for what's shaping up to be a really good story; and even Countdown To Final Crisis #3 provided me with a laugh (see the previous post).

Green Arrow And Black Canary #7, however, is what I want to talk about, and not necessarily in a good way.

Judd Winick's writing has been critiqued all over the net this week, primarily because of Titans #1 which I didn't bother picking up. I'm not a huge fan of Winick's but I've tended to cut him some slack over the years. I knew next to nothing by him when he took over Green Lantern back in 2000 but by the time he swapped over on to Green Arrow in 2003 he hadn't exactly endeared me to him. However, I stuck with him primarily for the characters - these are comics I've been reading for God knows how many years - even through the interminable Trials Of Shazam which finally ended a week or two ago with the most obvious reveal of where Zeus had been hiding all along.

Though it may seem like sacrilege to some, I was never into the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans and despite picking up the Titans East Special a couple of months back, thought this was the perfect time not to pick up another Judd Winick comic. Having read several reviews of Titans #1, particularly Newsarama's, I'm kinda glad.

As I've mentioned before, the glorious artwork of Cliff Chiang is one of the main reasons I'm still reading Green Arrow And Black Canary and with the negative reviews of Titans ringing in my ears and Mike Norton taking over on art, it was with some trepidation that I opened #7 (though if that is Norton's work he's doing a damn fine impression of Chiang.) I was pleasantly surprised, then, to read the first five or six pages with Green Lantern gently taking the mick out of Green Arrow just like the long time friends they are. This was banter and dialogue worth reading and I found myself thinking that Winick's not bad every once in a while and that maybe I should have picked up Titans after all.

And then the story moved to London and yet another American take on English dialogue.

Mia's exuberance and cry of "Pip, pip! Cheerio! Bob's your uncle!" are perfectly understandable as is her demand for "fish and chips and whatever the hell bangers and mash are," (for the record, they're sausages and mashed potatoes, usually served in our house with baked beans but they can be dished up with gravy and another vegetable) so I've no problem with that.

No, it's the "Cor blimey, guv'nor!" words coming from the charming villain of the piece, Dodger, that set my teeth on edge.

To Mia: "Geez, luv, isn't it a bit early for a bird like you to be bellying up?" What? Who refers to a woman as "a bird like you" direct to the woman's face? "Bellying up?" What the hell does that mean?

"Lemme buy ya a round." Close, but no cigar. You don't buy an individual person "a round" you buy "a round" of drinks for several people. If there's a bunch of friends in a pub, the general rule is that each person takes it in turn to buy a round for everyone else rather than everyone buying their own drinks.

"Watchin' like they're gonna nick your coat off the rack." It's completely redundant to say "off the rack." I don't think I've ever been in a pub which has a coat rack, and certainly not one in London - neither have I been in a pub in London that had so few customers, either. The place is the capital city of England and is packed with people but team Arrow appears to have found the only country pub in the city.

"Keep your gob shut or it'll be six inches lower." Judd, trust me - no-one has used the term "gob" for "mouth" since about 1988.

Oh and it goes on, as well, more than I can stand.

I really wanted to enjoy the rest of this issue after the excellent first few pages, but it just headed downhill once more. I like the characters and I want to know what happens to Connor but I can't help wishing someone other than Winick would take over as writer.

Quiet, You Blithering Boob!

Ah, the American depiction of Britain . . .

Back in 1983, in the pages of Justice League Of America #210, the bad guys came a'calling to the shores of dear old Blighty bringing with them threats of death and destruction and some truly, truly terrible dialogue.

The story itself was not one of Gerry Conway's best: The Atom discovers Earth is running out of Element X which will cause untold disaster across the planet as fires won't light, rain won't fall, and the world will, as you can see from the cover, die screaming. Ready to take advantage of all this are a band of aliens called the Treasurers who, being the scheming capitalists that they are, offer to replenish the supply of Element X for a small fee.

And what better way of announcing your arrival than by crashing a bloody great space ship into Big Ben, years before Dr Who did it?

Actually, the Treasurers seem spoiled for choice as there appear to be not one but two Big Bens in that picture.

As dreadful as the story is, I couldn't help but laugh at the even worse dialogue that Conway places in the mouths of the Londoners.

First, for some reason only known to Conway, he has the character of Andy Capp appear in an issue of Justice League! Andy Capp! and not once, but twice as he's on the next page as well, accompanied by his long suffering wife Flo.

The bowler hatted gent - because everyone in London wears a bowler - comes out with "This is hardly cricket!" and then mentions that "the Yanks" have "dropped one on the moon" This is 1983! Fourteen years after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon! Surely the surprise of that event must have worn off by now?!

Once the ship opens its doors and the Treasurers come out, someone in the crowd exclaims that they're riding "some sort of flashlight beam!"

Gerry, they're called torches over here, not flashlights, okay?

Somehow the bank clerk overheard the conversation in the street asking the Treasurers "if you aren't Yanks - then who are you?" proving that 1980's Londoners, in the grip of Yuppie fever, may not have had worthy dialogue but they could hear like nothing else!

As if building to some sort of cliche crescendo, Conway's next lines just get better and better. First another clerk warns the first that it "Won't do to lose the old stiff, upper lip, what?"

But that's not the best - this second clerk is hushed with the immortal line, "Quiet, you blithering boob!"

Marvelous, simply marvelous. I intend to use the phrase as often as I possible can from now on.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #9

A tough decision this week for the cocktail, partly because I only picked up a handful of comics. Infinity Inc was never in the running, however; the third issue has simply made me realise that the title's not working for me so I'll be dropping it. Both Midnighter - Keith Giffen continues to impress with his dialogue even though the plot seems a bit haphazard - and the Red Rain issue of The Search For Ray Palmer - if only for the Kelley Jones artwork - were close contenders but, as I did for the very first cocktail, I've gone for The Atom.

Once again, Gail Simone has written a fast moving, tightly plotted adventure, free of the confines of the Search for Ray Palmer crossover from previous issues, that can deal with the characters she so obviously enjoys.

It's probably no coincidence with Simone taking over the writing of Wonder Woman that Diana turns up in Ivy Town this issue, intent on using Giganta - whose alter ego of Doris Zeul teaches at the same university as Ryan (The Atom) Choi - as bait for something bigger. Complications arise, though, when it turns out that Ryan and Doris, as was hinted at in previous issues, are almost beginning a relationship.

Their first date isn't just complicated by the arrival of Wonder Woman, however, as a new villain - or possibly villains - arrive to throw a spanner in the works. A man arrives at the class of Ryan's friend Panda and uses mind control to implant the suggestion that Panda should kill Ryan the next time he sees him; either the same villain in a woman's body - as shown on the right, he/she seems to have the ability to swap brains/bodies - or a related one tells Giganta that Ryan's selling her out to Wonder Woman. While the results of the latter incident are played out almost instantly, it seems likely that Panda's troubles will be picked up in future issues.

Giganta and Wonder Woman have a long history which invariably involves violence - at their date, Doris complains about the way calves are kept before being killed for veal. Ryan, despite his obvious attraction to her, can't help but mention how many times she has tried to kill Wonder Woman.

The date doesn't end well, partly due to the villain mentioned above informing Doris that Ryan is going to turn her over to Wonder Woman. While he had originally agreed to wear a wire, Ryan's principles had come to the fore and he had decided not to betray Doris's trust. Unaware of this, and prompted by the mysterious villain, Doris becomes Giganta and ransacks the restaurant.

Wonder Woman launches an attack and despite the Atom's attempts to calm things down, Wonder Woman ends up knocking Giganta down, forcing the Atom to come between the two women and stand up to the Amazonian princess who seems intent on hitting her foe even when unconcious.

While Wonder Woman compliments the Atom on his bravery, Giganta mysteriously disappears and unknown to either of the heroes, Ivy Town is about to be quarantined by the Department of Metahuman Affairs.

Simone writes an excellent Atom; his interactions with both Giganta and Wonder Woman work a treat. She doesn't forget the alien Head, either, with a throwaway line from him as he stares at Wonder Woman and says "Head have feel oddly aroused by non-head appendages!"

What she doesn't write well, though, is the obviously British male villain that confronts Panda. While it starts off well - using the term "mate" as opposed to "friend" or "pal" and referring to the Atom's nemesis Dwarfstar as a "git" - she loses all credibility with the line "Off snoggin' with the birds, weren't he?"

Trust me, Gail: no-one in Britain speaks like that.

Despite that, this is still a damn fine comic.