Aquaman #50 was one of the silliest comics titles I've read in awhile, and I thoroughly loved it. I don't know whose idea it was to take the mood of the Aquaman title and put it in reverse, but it was a great move.

The comic is funny and complicated and offbeat in a way that's hard to summarize. It seems like it should be a children's title but it's not. There is a simple freshness to this Aquaman, but it has a gangly, sprawling story that doesn't seem like it's aimed at children or young adults. Could it be? A general audience comic that's fun for all ages? I'll have to keep reading to find out.

I recently watched the First Annual Queerie Awards, recognizing excellence in presenting gay content in comics. This new awards show comes from the people behind the Comic Book Queers podcast. I was delighted to see the Queeries were presented in video instead of audio format, so that I could visually partake in the glitz and the glamour of this very special night.

In the screengrab shown here, presenter Rhoda Nowhere is announcing Batwoman in DC's 52 #11 as the winner in the "Most Gratuitous Inclusion of a Lipstick Lesbian to Generate Sales Among the Straight Male Demographic" category. I don't know if I agree with the judges on that one, but I enjoyed seeing the award presented anyway. In fact, I felt the true star of the evening was Minion, the winsome bug who brought out the statuettes for the winners. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of him or her in the future. And speaking of him or her, I also thought the Queeries included one of the best-named drag king characters ever, Mike Hunt.

I was just getting to ready to rave about how much I love Birds of Prey as written by Gail Simone when I read the news that Simone is leaving the book. Then, almost as quickly, I read that Simone was set to take over Wonder Woman.

I'm going to be really sad to see Simone leave Birds of Prey. I really love the relationships she's created between the different female characters in the book. In particular, I like the back story Simone set up recently between Katrina Armstrong (Spy Smasher) and Oracle. The two women are shown as rivals going back to their college days, where they competed in everything from sports to dormroom debates, as seen in this panel from issue #103. They share the same alpha female energy, but as they mature, they express it in different ways.

There are a lot of alpha females in Birds of Prey, which is part of the reason I like it so much. I've become very fond of that big-boned gal Big Barda lately. I hope they keep her around awhile, and Manhunter, too.

Even though I'll miss reading Simone on Birds of Prey, I think it's great that she's going to be on Wonder Woman. Right now, I actually enjoy reading various comics bloggers' passionate opinions on Wonder Woman more than I like reading the comic book. I hope Simone will be able to turn the title into something I want to read consistently, instead of something I pick up now and then out of curiosity and a desire to want to read it.

Alex in Wonderland asks if the Amazons in Wonder Woman need to update their "Code of the Amazons" based on various developments in the series. I hadn't realized how beautiful their original code was:

So, in their wisdom, the Goddesses did create a race of female warriors, dedicated to the ideals of uniting all people, all sexes, all races, all creeds.

Thanks to a tip from GayGamer.net, I went and applied to be a beta tester for the upcoming online PC game, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. I filled out the application thoroughly, but I have my doubts as to whether middle-aged women are really part of their target demographic. Still, WildCimmerianBulldyke is ready to serve should she be called. I would love to be able to finally live out my transgender fantasies of being built like a Frigidaire and cleaving the skull of anyone who gets in my way. (I'll bet you probably thought it was only male comics fans who had infantile power fantasies.)

I saw this really cool piece of furniture the other day on Neatorama. It was a coffee table in the shape of a speech balloon, shown in a living room setting. But it got even cooler when I clicked through to the originating site, which features a collection of furniture made out of cardboard by Leo Kempf.

Taking inspiration from Frank Gehry's cardboard furniture, Kempf set out to make inexpensive furniture out of cardboard and plywood. His site shows you how he chose the materials, cut the pieces, and put them together. Kempf also provides notes on what didn't work and how he resolved those issues.

The words "precious" and "superhero" don't usually go together in my book, but 3age's line of Marvel toy figures seems to be working that connection pretty hard. I ran across this toy figure of Daredevil yesterday while browsing the new items at Ningyoshi and decided that it was, in fact, even cuter than the plush roasted chicken I had oooohed over just a few minutes earlier.

I went looking for more information on these 3age toys and found some good links at Pidgeon Blog. There's two series of toy figures in the line so far, including this one, featuring a very sweet Silver Surfer, and this one (look at how cute Ghost Rider's flaming head is!) The figures remind me of the Muppet Babies because they seem like infant versions rather than miniatures.

I've been reading the Vertigo title Scalped by Jason Aaron, which has been billed as The Sopranos with Native Americans. I was interested in the fact that the title was about Native Americans, but I decided to buy it once I realized Aaron penned it, because I've also been reading his Vietnam comic The Other Side and have been impressed by it.

The story is extremely violent but also poetic in its depiction of the desolation and desperation that motivates its characters. I've been intrigued by the story's hints at a connection to the events that took place at Wounded Knee in the 70s, but I'm not sure if this will be elaborated on in future issues or if it's simply a reference. The artist has done a particularly fine job with settings, such as the view over a barren highway at night, a lit-up casino in the middle of nowheresville, a meth lab in the back of a taxidermy shop.

In issue #2, my eye was drawn to panel that showed several of the songs available on a jukebox in a pool joint. Just the names of the songs alone told a story. These are the ones I could make out:

• "I Walk Alone" by Los Lobos


• "Custer" by Johnny Cash


• "Nebraska" by Bruce Springsteen


• "Rip this Joint" by the Rolling Stones


• "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by the Sons of the Pioneers


• "Sunday Morning Coming Down" by Kris Kristofferson

There's also songs by Steve Earle and Neil Young, but I can't tell which ones. Two song titles--"Sign Language" and "Born Under A Bad Sign"--are also visible but with no artist attached, so I don't know which version is intended. I want the full playlist! What else is on this jukebox?

I found myself mysteriously drawn to this image of a portal of some kind in Marvel's Runaways #24. When one of the characters, Molly, notices it for the first time, she calls it "some kind of magical drive-thru." It shows up in front of a landmark donut shop in Los Angeles that has a giant donut on it's roof, so it's I guess that makes it a hole that like to hang out with another hole.

I've never seen a portal or a wormhole that leaks the way this one seems to. It must be very moist and wet in there for it to be leaking on the ground like that. Also, can you see how it seems to stain the area around it? It must be very powerful to do that. In fact, very bad things do happen to the Runaways when they go through the hole. Still, there's just something mesmerizing about it.

I had to pick up a copy of Wildstorm's Red Menace series as soon as I saw it on the rack (it's what my FBI agent would expect me to do). It's such a fabulous story! And of course when I say fabulous I don't mean just any fabulous, I mean Commie Pinko Homo Fabulous.

Red Menace is a six-part comic series set during the McCarthy hearings, and although the focus of the title isn't on McCarthy, the story weaves in significant people and events from that era. The plot involves a costumed superhero, the Eagle, whose loyalty to the state is questioned. I'm not sure where all the story threads are headed yet--they include mobsters, Soviet spying, and the mentoring of a younger hero--but so far the comic has tons of retro style and atmosphere and I'm enjoying the ride.

Much of Red Menace is set in Los Angeles, and I really like the way the artist has captured many of the architectural oddities of the city. Whether the story unfolds at the Pantages Theater, in front of a neon-lit nightclub, at the race track or inside a cheesy west coast apartment, the attention to setting gives the title a unique feel.

I've been reading Image's The Nightly News, a six-part comic about an urban revolutionary cult that targets the news media. Written and illustrated by Jonathan Hickman, it's an ambitious work that uses a bold, innovative graphic style to tells its story.

Hickman largely dispenses with the paneled progression of most comics, preferring instead to compose the page as a single layout. Drawing on graphic design techniques, Hickman uses a range of layered graphics to draw the eye across the page. Dense infographics punctuate the story from time to time, offering real-world background on the media industry that serves to deepen the plot.

The graphics and story are both interesting, but I wish Hickman and given more visibility to text within the layout. His technique of using boxes rather than balloons allows the text to wrap around figures and move across the page in interesting ways, but the type in The Nightly News is so small at times that I found it both difficult and annoying to read.

I like The Nightly News, however, in part because it does seem like the artist is experimenting. I can imagine myself buying more of Hickman's work in the future to see how he continues to refine and develop his storytelling style.

I mentioned previously here that I wasn't happy with the direction that Dynamite Entertainment was taking their Xena: Warrior Princess comic series in, and that I hadn't picked it up. But I noticed their was a different writer on Xena Annual #1, so I took a chance and tossed it in my stack.

There are three variant covers for the annual, and I chose Cover A by Croatian artist Stepjan Sejic. I felt his cover made Xena look too young but the art had an interesting manga influence and I liked the strong composition.

The story was unusual in that it brought a space alien into contact with Xena and Gabrielle. It's also set after Season Six, in a time period where Xena has apparently returned from the dead. Xena's death is alluded to briefly in the panel shown above, when Xena is knocked out and Gabrielle says, "If you're dead again, I'm going to be really pissed."

There were a few nicely handled bits of subtext that showed the writer had a good grasp of the show and its audience. However, I was sad to read that there might have been more subtext if only the publishers had allowed it. In an interview, writer Keith Champagne commented:

This is the first licensed property that I've written so, of course, one has to anticipate notes from the licensor. There was nothing particularly heavy thrown at me in terms of revisions; they basically asked me to dial down some of the chemistry between Xena and Gabrielle.

I read about an interesting post-9/11 art project called The Real Story of the Superheroes on we-make-money-not-art.

The photographer, Dulce Pinzon, was born in Mexico but currently resides in the U.S. In a collection of 12 striking photos, Pinzon depicts the lives of Mexican immigrant workers living in New York. Each is wearing a superhero costume as they go about their usual work routine.

The photo shown here, called "Aquaman," depicts a young man, Juventino Rosas, cleaning fish. Along with the name and place of origin of each individual, Pinzon has included the amount each person sends home--superheroically--to family in Mexico each week.

I was curious to read the story behind the headline, "Bring back the ambivalently sexualized She-Hulk," when I saw it linked at When Fangirls Attack. Written by Charlie Anders, a transsexual woman, the article identifies a shift in writing in the most recent incarnation of Marvel's She-Hulk comic book:

Over time, Slott has downplayed the issue of people desiring She-Hulk for her huge, imposing body. I can’t think of too many instances, since the first couple of issues, where we saw men throwing themselves at her when she was in green giant mode.

I know this is very late, but I wanted to write about it anyway. I picked up the comic DCU Infinite Holiday Special not out of any desire to celebrate the holidays, but because I knew it contained a Batwoman story.

The issue was actually much better than I expected it to be--I was expecting something much more saccharine from a holiday-themed book. But the writers had introduced a good bit of variety as well as humor into the storylines, and I wound up feeling full of good cheer despite myself.

As I came to the story featuring Batwoman, I called out to the Cute-Little-Red-Headed Girlfriend, who was busy surfing the net:

Me: Hey, guess what? It looks like Batwoman is Jewish.

CLRHG (unimpressed): She's a Superhero. They're all Jewish.

Me: Not like that. In this comic, her family is celebrating Hannukah. It's part of the story.

CLRHG: Is she Ashkenazi?

Me: It doesn't say. But her family's from Poland.

CLRHG: Probably Ashkenazi then. So the Commissioner was Jewish then?

Me: You're thinking of Batgirl. This is Batwoman.

CLRHG: It's confusing.

Me: I know.

Then I read 52 issue #33, which includes the panels I've shown here. In this scene, Renee Montoya and the uncostumed Batwoman are snuggled up on the couch at Christmas. But they're at Batwoman's place, so there's a menorah in the background.