give 'em elle

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. I've gotten a lot of questions over the months since I started this column, and since I don't even do a question every single week, I know I'll never get to all of them. So this week I decided to take several in one go, for more of a grab bag feel. But don't worry, I'm sure I'll be back to giving one long hot (or cold) take by next week.

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. This week I'm thinking about queer subtext. Okay, full disclosure, I am literally always thinking about queer subtext. When I was in grad school, I taught a film class about queer subtext and how to find it. So that's where I'm coming from. But I'm especially thinking about it in comics.

The intersection of comics and wrestling has often led to iffy results, despite a huge overlap of fans. But recently, with work like SuperPro K.O., Headlocked, and Ringside, wrestling comics have been looking a lot more promising. So it’s unsurprising that WWE is trying to get back in the game with a new line of comics from Boom Studios. So what books would I like to see from the WWE line? I’m not going to concern myself with who Boom would actually be able to hire. I’m throwing the door wide open and basing my picks entirely on who would make the best possible wrestling comics, and which comics I’d like to see them make.

Over the weekend, I saw Ghostbusters. I loved it, but I’m not here to review it. Obviously one of the things that everyone has talked about is the female cast. There’s been a lot of backlash against it, and a lot of people defending the choice, and a plenty saying it shouldn’t matter. But honestly, I think it does matter, and I’m all in favor of it. In fact, I want to see more women-dominated reboots of previously male-dominated properties. Here’s the thing: We need more movies with woman-led casts, and that makes a movie like this even more exciting, but there’s more to it than that. Changing up the cast automatically gives the movie a freshness it wouldn’t have had with men.

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. This week, like a lot of us, I’m thinking about spoilers and how they related to comics. I don’t have any big answers, or any axes to grind, but as usual I do have some thoughts.

I love music, and I often find myself thinking about how it relates to comics; which characters would listen to which artists, and so forth. But what's the best way to get around the medium's limitations when it comes to stories about music and musicians? It's a question that's especially relevant to some of my favorite recent titles. The classic way to visualize music in comics is just to put the lyrics in a word balloon with some musical notes scattered around to convey singing. I’m going to be honest; I hate this approach, and in this day and age, I’m sure I’m not the only one. I find it impossible to read the lyrics as a song instead of a tuneless poem. There are better ways, as seen in books like Jem And The Holograms and Black Canary.

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. This week I wanted to talk about superhero costumes. I solicited questions on the subject on Twitter, but a lot of what I got were variations on the same basic question: "What's wrong with superhero costume designs these days?" So I'm going to attempt to delve into that. First, a caveat. I’m going to focus on male superhero costumes in this column. Obviously I have a lot of feelings about women’s superhero costumes as well, but they’re a whole different set of feelings about a whole different set of problems. So I’m going to cover the men for now, and return to talk about the women another time. It’s very rare that you’ll catch me focusing on men over women, but in this case there’s a lot to say, and I feel like it hasn’t been covered as thoroughly.

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. This week I’ve been thinking about comics as products of the time they were published. If a work like Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol can feel like a comic from the future even ten years after it came out, why does it feel dated today?

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. This is Mutant Week at ComicsAlliance, to mark the release of the movie X-Men: Apocalypse and our upcoming countdown of the top 100 X-Men, and if you know me, you probably know that I spend a lot of my time thinking about the X-Men. In fact, I solicited X-Men questions on twitter, and I got several about what I think an X-Men book should focus on, how I would revamp an ancillary X-book, or what I would do if put in charge of the X-Men line. So I’ve decided to be a little self-indulgent, and explore where I would take the X-Men line if it were up to me. I think this is worthwhile not because it will ever happen (it won’t), but because it’s a way to get right to the heart of what I think is important about the X-Men. So let’s do this: Let’s fantasy book the X-Men.

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a new weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. This week I’ve been thinking about the comic adaptations of the past, long before the current superhero boom. There have been superheroes on our screens almost as long as there have been superheroes in our comics, and some of them stand head and shoulders above the crowd. But what were the very best superhero adaptations even before the Christopher Reeve Superman movies?