Don't Call Him Arthur!

The "new" Aquaman, the Sword of Atlantis, is going by the name Joseph Curry now, not Arthur. Any writer that calls him Arthur, and any editor that lets that mistake through, just doesn't have a clue.

From Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #57

Links

Siggy!

I really need to get this book. Maybe I ought to put it on my wishlist.

Rob continues to amaze with his birthday gift, a Craig Hamilton original.

An interview with Tad Williams. Via.

An interview with David Michelinie.

Links

The Comic Treadmill on Aquaman.

May 22nd is National Maritime Day.

Aquaman on the Bubble

Scipio reports that if Aquaman sales don't go up a bit, the book will be canceled as of issue #57. I'll have more information as it comes in, but Scipio is NOT reporting that the book has been canceled, just that it's on the bubble. There might still be hope. Bring the sales up and write letters, and maybe we can save the book and give Tad Williams more time to finish out the current plotline.

Counter-Aquamanifesto - A Nasty Rant

Whine whine whine. That's all I'm hearing from Aquaman fans right now. "Bring back the real Aquaman!" Whine. "I don't like change!" Whine. "Come on, DC, let the writers bring Aquaman back!" Whine.

Are any of you actually reading the book? I mean, really reading it? Has it completely escaped your notice that Orin, the original Aquaman, IS the focus of the book? Oh sure, the surface reading would indicate that Arthur Joseph is Aquaman... but look who MADE him into Aquaman. And look who was guiding him while trying to figure out reality for the whole length of the book so far. And who is the focal point, the only real force, in Atlantis? I'll give you a hint, it's not Artie Joe.

It was clear to me during Busiek's run that, while Arthur Joseph was being groomed to be another weapon for Aquaman, Orin was still the main character of the book. Arthur Joseph is not Aquaman... he's the sword of Atlantis. An extension of Aquaman.

And while Tad is not going in exactly the same direction, he's still holding on to the initial concept. Aquaman is still Aquaman. Arthur Joseph is a Sword, a weapon, and he is not and will never truly be Aquaman (though he will always be AN aquaman).

I know for a fact that Kurt never intended for Arthur Joseph to completely replace Orin. I talked enough with Tad about the subject that I have great confidence in what he's doing as well. I can't understand this utter disrespect for these writers, who are professionals in every way and know exactly what they are doing (with the blessing of the editors, not as the editors' slaves).

C'mon people, LET THE FREAKIN' STORY PLAY OUT!!! STOP WHINING THAT THINGS AREN'T PERFECT NOW! Has it ever occurred to any of you folks that maybe there is a story to be told here, and that if you WAIT UNTIL THE END, maybe you'll get all you want? I know, decompression in storytelling has made waiting for the end of a tale difficult... but good grief, people. You act like you all want to go back to the Silver Age RIGHT NOW. It's not going to happen. The story is going to take some time to tell. If you want Silver Age Aquaman, go buy the Showcase volume and stop whining.

And, frankly, I'm really enjoying this book. Perhaps that's because, unlike the whiners, I fully expect Orin to be Aquaman again eventually. Perhaps my tiny bit of possibly misunderstood inside information has made me immune to the fear. Perhaps it's because I've seen Orin as the focus of the book all along, despite the apparent change in main characters. I don't know, but I really like the book, and for the first time in ages I'm extremely interested in seeing what happens next.

And part of that is because you can't have a good story without conflict, and THIS conflict is finally something more interesting than yet another battle with Black Manta. The conflict of being. The conflict of identity. I'm thrilled with it. And I'm disappointed that so many fans aren't reading the same story I am. And I'm really disappointed that so many fans seem to think that the writers don't know what they are writing. That's the worst insult of all, and the whole reason behind this rant.

Links

Grumpy Old Fan on OYL titles, including Aquaman.

Las Vegas Weekly on Novelists writing Comics.

DC Comics Presents #48 at the Aquaman Shrine. Also: Super Friends Coloring Book, Boxer Shorts.

The good ol' days: Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Have a Whale of a Day.

Mark's Marine Life Series: Baleen.

Haircare with Aquaman week: Day 4, Day 5, and Day 6.

Aqua-Links

I've been busy off playing at the Emerald City Comicon, so I haven't been updating the links like I should. This has led to a lot of missing links. Here they are:

The Aquaman Shrine shows off Super Friends Paint By Numbers, 1974 Wonder Bread Card, Ohio Jaycees Pin, Official Adventures of Aquaman LP, Aquaman Thank You Card, and remembers Artie Jr's Birthday.

More Comic Treadmill Aquaman goodness.

The Continuity Blog loves Tad Williams' Aquaman.

Newsarama quotes the Legion of Doom's criticism of Tad Williams... I think they have never met the guy or talked with him, because he's a fanboy and surely does understand his audience, as he's PART OF IT. Still, an interesting critique, if flawed by assumptions on the part of the Legion.

Speaking of, Tad Williams' page now has a limited Aquaman section. Only a solicit there, so far, but might be a place to watch.

Scipio gives us Haircare with Aquaman week: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

The Navy wants Dolphins to patrol Puget Sound, and both The Seattle Times and The Seattle P.I. report on objections to the plan.

Goldfish survive in a Deep Fat Fryer.

CSI Atlantis.

Links

Tad Williams is back from his signing tour, and posted on the DC Message Board a nice note with some good tidbits for people to read. One item of note, Tad mentions that he will be working with Paul Gulacy on the book, which was rumored some time ago but never confirmed.

Rob at the Aquaman Shrine has an interview with Steve Skeates. Just to add to the fun, the next issue of The Aquaman Chronicles, a print fanzine, will be devoted to Steve Skeates.

The Comic Treadmill judges Kurt's run on Aquaman.

Links

More Aquaman Shrine: Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis Ad. Yeah, I think I posted that at some point, too. I like it. I liked the book, too, and can't wait to see it finished.

And The DC Superheroes Super Healthy Cookbook. Oh man, I really want this. I think I had it as a kid, even (though I suspect I only had the pull-out sample that earth 2 chris mentions in the comments). I wonder if it's still in one of my boxes somewhere? Man. I really wish I had one of these. I'm going to have to hunt eBay once I have money again.

The Comic Treadmill continues to cover Aquaman in Adventure Comics.

Sunday Question

Are you looking forward to Aquaman #50?

Tad and Links

If you want to know how the Tad Williams signing went, here's my report over on Bloggity. I did ask one spoiler question, which Tad answered, but I'm not going to report that because most of you won't understand the question, and it'll be answered in issue #51 anyway.

Although we talked about Aquaman, I'm spoiler-shy, so we went into no detail. I did get the impression that Orin will remain the focus of the Aquaman legacy as long as Tad is writing the book. It will take awhile to sort out Aquaman and Orin and Arthur Joseph, so don't expect huge changes right away. Tad is working with the story he was bequeathed, and he's going to do justice to it. Tad also wasn't aware that Orin's back-story was going to be told in WWIII, but he'd already been keeping close to Kurt's original plan, so it wasn't as big a problem as it could have been.

And now, some links:

I may not be the target audience for these incredibly cute little toys, but I'm SOOO getting Aquaman.

Wings has found another Aquaman costume on Flickr. I don't think I've linked to this one before.

Ask Yahoo tackles the eternal question: What are Sea Monkeys?

More Cool Aquaman Art.

Tad Williams On Tour - Your Part

Are you going to see Tad Williams on his book tour? Want to help out Aquaman a little? How about making a few flyers to promote the book? Make your own, or you can use the following image as a flyer. Click on it to get a PDF file you can print out, slice up, and hand out to Tad Williams fans.

If you aren't going to see Tad on the tour, you can still print out a few copies and leave them in your local comic shop. Or library. Or anywhere else you might think folks who will be interested gather.

Tad Williams On Tour

Tad Williams is off promoting his new book, and he's posted a tour schedule on the DC Message Boards. I've confirmed the Seattle signing with the University Bookstore. If you are on his route, make sure to give the signing location a call and make sure he's scheduled as planned.

I should be at the Seattle signing with my Aquaman T-shirt on and maybe something to attempt an Aquaman promotion during the signing among his other fans... we'll have to see if I have the nerve to try something and if I have the imagination to come up with something compelling enough to get a prose reader to dip into the world of comics.

Interview with Tad Williams

Interview with Tad Williams, many thanks to Joe (who gets another shell for the sighting).

Aquaman #50 is Coming

Sightings and Links

Sightings: Lorena again appears in 52 as a member of the Teen Titans. Aquaman is mentioned in Detective Comics.

An Interview with Tad Williams

The Pirana, another water-based superhero created by Aquaman writer Otto Binder (rhymes with tinder).

Aquaman to appear on Batman Cartoon.

"The Batman, which is nominated for a 2006-2007 Daytime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Special Class Animation Program category, will focus its new season on the introduction of Batman's Justice League peers. Expect amped-up action and heightened stakes as Superman, Aquaman, The Flash and several others work in concert with Batman -- and even more of his amazing technological wonders -- to defend Gotham from a seemingly never-ending roster of super villains."

Chronicles, Previews, and Tad Williams

I want to point out The Comics Treadmill's recent post that mentions John Schwirian's fantastic fanzine, The Aquaman Chronicles. Again, I have very little to do with John's efforts, except that I promote him and provided some webspace for an on-line advertisement. I urge any Aquaman fan to check out the fanzine for something more than my single point of view.

There is a preview of three pages of Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #50 at Newsarama (scroll down).

In addition, I contacted Tad Williams and asked a couple of questions. To "is there anything you would like me to post as a greeting," Tad responded with Hello! and added that he's looking forward to having some Aquaman stuff published so folks will discuss it.

I also asked which of his books he would suggest for new readers who might want to try his stuff before Aquaman hits the stands. It is a difficult question, so I'll quote Tad's answer:

It's always hard to suggest books, because the stuff that most people know best (and probably think is most representative of me) are my two multi-volume series, OTHERLAND and the MEMORY, SORROW, AND THORN books, but they take a VERY long time to read. I suppose those who don't want to make such a commitment might want to try WAR OF THE FLOWERS, which is complete in one volume. They could also look at my new collection of short works, RITE, which will give them an idea how I work with other people's characters, like Gaiman's Sandman and Mike Moorcock's Elric.

Linkdump

Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers. I'll be posting the Ripples later this evening if I don't fall asleep from the turkey meal.

Wizard interviews Kurt Busiek and Tad Williams on Aquaman. Thanks to Lucid for the links.

Justin Hartley interview:

Obviously a lot of the stuff was underwater. We would go out into the ocean. Everybody had wet suits on. I didn't realize how cold it gets without a wet suit. The water can be 72 degrees and after about ten minutes you're freezing. I would go down without a tank, without a wet suit, just wearing swim trunks and board shorts, and I would swim from one diver to another diver and share their air. I was down in the ocean for 20 minutes at a time without an air tank, breathing off of other people's tanks. I'm not afraid of water, but I had never done that before. When you're acting you don't want to have that fear in your mind because then you can't concentrate on your work.

Aquaman #45 is OUT TODAY!!

My shop doesn't open for another 3 1/2 hours, so to keep me occupied until then, here are some links:

Tad Williams' Website. Tad Williams on Wikipedia. Tad Williams Bibliography. Tad Williams talks Aquaman.

AquaChicken. AquaChicken vs Doctor Octopus.

Originally found in 2000, archaeologists are finally getting a good look at a Roman shipwreck. Too bad Aquaman wasn't around to help excavate it and protect it from those pirate scuba divers.

Aquaman goes green! Ok, it's not Aquaman, it's Adrian Grenier, who played Vince on Entourage, who played Aquaman in the fictional movie on Entourage, but a link is a link, and this one looked fun.

Tadpole Williams

Apparently Aquaman has a new writer... Scipio broke the news yesterday on Big Monkey Comics with an interview with the new writer Tad Williams.

I admit I didn't believe it at first. Only once Newsarama chimed in with an explanation from Kurt Busiek did I realize this was more than one of Scipio's jokes.

My reaction is nothing like Doug's reaction, but not because I'm terribly upset. Tad Williams is a very good writer, and it's clear from the Newsarama article that he's chatted with Kurt, so we won't be losing Kurt's ideas so much as gaining Tad's perspective.

No, my issue is that I really like Kurt and enjoyed having him on the book, and I wish he'd been able to get more issues done before the change. A two year run would've been satisfying. Ten issues isn't enough.

Anyway, moving on, Shawn McManus will be taking over the artwork (which pretty much leaves Paul Gulacy out in the cold). I know nothing at all about Shawn McManus, so if anyone has a handy link, please pass it along. Update: www.shawnmcmanus.net.

Update: Tad Williams talks to Newsarama.