Font-tastic Inspiration

The battle for Comic Sans rages on and it is interesting to see where the inspiration for the font came from:

Mr. Connare says he pulled out the two comic books he had in his office, "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen," and got to work, inspired by the lettering and using his mouse to draw on a computer screen. Within a week, he had designed his legacy.

How sweet!

The Forensic Astrophysics of Superman

Built on Facts

Your Awwwww of the Day

From Yahoo News:

A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened eight-year-old from a balcony, police said Tuesday.

Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities on Monday when an autistic pupil, scared of attending his first day at school, sat out on the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant told AFP.

Despite teachers' efforts to beckon the boy inside, he refused to budge until his mother mentioned her son's love of superheroes, prompting fireman Sonchai Yoosabai to take a novel approach to the problem.

The rescuer dashed back to his fire station and made a quick change into a Spider-Man costume before returning to the boy, he said.

"I told him Spider-Man is here to rescue you, no monsters are going to attack you and I told him to walk slowly towards me as running could be dangerous," Somchai told local television.

The young boy immediately stood up and walked into his rescuer's arms, police said.

Somchai said he keeps the Spider-Man costume and an outfit of Japanese television character Ultraman at the station in order to liven up school fire drills.

Very Good Sentences

"There are obviously many things that do not kill or use guns and who are not Batman, ranging from other comic book characters, like Detective Chimp, to people, like Gandhi, to inanimate objects, like my stapler."

-Jason Southworth, "Batman's Identity Crisis and Wittgenstein's Family Resemblance, Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul, 2008

Comic Book Characters Revert to the Mean

Brian Cronin says that comic book characters tend to revert to the mean. By this, he means:

This is one of the more obvious theories, but my pal Dan Larkin said I should write it up, so here it is! In serialized comics, given enough time, comics will eventually regress to the mean. The “mean” in this instance is defined as what the average comic book writer has identified as the classic take on that particular character.

This doesn’t mean that characters don’t grow as characters, just that their circumstances/status quos tend to eventually regress to the mean.

You can have Julia Carpenter have an extended run as Spider Woman. You can even have a brand new character like Mattie Franklin get her own book as Spider Woman. Eventually, though, Spider Woman will be Jessica Drew once again, as Jessica Drew as Spider Woman is the “mean.

While I agree that character mythologies tend to stay the same with comic book characters (which is a pretty obvious argument indeed), I don't think that characters necessarily revert to the mean. Primarily because I think there isn't a mean. A few things:
1) Cronin has to be careful with his definition of "mean." He says that it's what the "average comic book writer has identified as the classic take on that particular character." I think the problem here is the phrase "classic take." Bill Finger's take on Batman is a classic take, yet Frank Miller's 1986 take on Batman is also now considered both classic and seminal. Yet, they are very different takes. An "average" writer today can subscribe to either one, neither of which is an incorrect take.
2) I think the fact that there are such different takes on a character makes his argument a big weaker. The fact that many people identify with a darker, grittier Batman while simultaneously acknowledging a lighter, less insane one is evidence that characters change and can be interpreted in different ways. The key is that the core mythology has to remain intact. Cronin even acknowledges that characters change. He even acknowledges that they change dramatically (Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing). So, I'm left a little uncertain as to what he's looking for. Either the character changes (which we just proved happens) or the core mythology of the character changes, which would essentially imply that it would not be the same character. You can't do this as a writer. This is why I too suspect that Captain America will be back and that Bruce Wayne will eventually return as Batman following Morrison's RIP arc. But this doesn't have to do with "reverting" to the mean--it has to do with telling the story of the same character.

Any thoughts?