The Dissector

The Dissector Special #08: Autopsy Awards 2009 Winners.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)


Thank you all for voting; here are your choices (and mine, hey, I voted first!) for the Autopsy Awards 2009:
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Best Writing Dissection:

Without a doubt, and by a landslide (73% of votes), the winner is:

W01-"RED LIGHTNING!" (The Dissector #108, 01/21/09)

COMMENT: This was a bit surprising; since James Robinson is a good writer, and this is not just sloppy science, but sloppy comic book reading comprehension.

TITLE: Superman V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 683.

CULPRIT: James Robinson (writer).

DISSECTION: Black Lightning uses his powers against a Kryptonian by surrounding him with lightning and then... CHANGING THE LIGHTNING'S COLOR TO RED, THEREFORE RENDERING THE KRYPTONIAN POWERLES??!?!?!?! WHAT THE FUCK?!?! Robinson, Kryptonians are powerless under RED SUNLIGHT, not RED ELECTRICITY!!! Black Lightning has ELECTRIC POWERS not SOLAR POWERS!!!

Robinson also has Starfire absorbing the yellow solar radiation from the Kryptonians to leave them powerless. This, while a stretch of her powers (she never had such control, her solar energy absorption is usually just passive), it's not absurd like what he does with Black Lightning's powers.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. No less.
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Best Art Dissection:

Not as comfortable a win (37% of the votes):

A04-"IN-TER-NA-TIO-NAL." (The Dissector #141, 11/27/09)

COMMENT: The level of ignorance involved in this dissection is simply disheartening.

TITLE: War Machine V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 11.

CULPRIT: Wellinton Alves (penciller).

DISSECTION: This is even worse, because if you want to justify the previous dissection, you can always claim "things are different in the Marvel Universe!". In this case, however, there is no excuse. Jim Rhodes stands before a single judge (something that never happens in the ICC as far as I was able to ascertain) in an ICC courtroom (that looks nothing like the real ones)... and there's a US flag to the side of the judge and a US seal behind her.

Why? Why the hell would you do that Alves? INTERNATIONAL. CRIMINAL. COURT. INTERNATIONAL!!!

INTER-FUCKING-NATIONAL!!!

I can understand an American, with the (no offense meant to my American readers) general sense of being the center of the world US citizens have, starting with the fact that they call themselves "Americans", as if they were the only residents of the American continent. But a Brazilian artist? Please Wellinton, use the internet, do some research... Typing three worlds and clicking on three links I found this 360º photographic virtual tour of one of the ICC. And even if you didn't HAVE an internet connection, why in the name of Khan Noonien Singh would you think of putting US symbols in the INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT??!??!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Of course, there are eye color mistakes and other stuff.
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Best Coloring Dissection:

There wasn't a lot going on in this category:

C04-"DISSECTION MACHINE!" (The Dissector #138, 11/06/09)

COMMENT: The problem here was that the woman is James Rhodes' mother; and she's a black woman... not in the picture.

TITLE: War Machine V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Jay David Ramos & Michael Bartolo (colorists).

DISSECTION: Come on, this one is very simple:


DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, Norman's eyes. And please, bring Leonardo Manco back to this book...
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Best Lettering Dissection:

Another majority (50%):

L04-"RŒD TORNADŒ" (The Dissector #132, 09/14/09)

COMMENT: Just sloppy.

TITLE: Red Tornado V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 01 of 6.

CULPRIT: Sal Cipriano (letterer).

DISSECTION: Okay, this book is only slightly less exciting than the Magog book; but at least it's a mini. The Magog book can only be explained by Keith Giffen wanting to write him and DC letting him... What's the dissection here? Well, Penciller José Luís is credited with an accent in his last name on the cover (while other books have credited without it; the Brazilian spelling has an accent while the Spanish spelling doesn't, and I don't know if he's Brazilian or Hispanic). I can't really confirm a dissection there, and I'm inclined to believe he's Brazilian or even Portuguese...

However, look at what Sal Cipriano did inside of the book:


Man... that's not only wrong, it's not even POSSIBLE. You can't have a dot on the "i" AND an accent. If it wasn't for Simon Bowland's sheer volume of work...

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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Best Other Dissection:

This category was kind of slow, too:

O03-"EXAGGERATION, MUCH?" (The Dissector #142, 12/04/09)

COMMENT: Just an example of not paying attention.

TITLE: Avengers: The Initiative (Marvel).

ISSUE: 30.

CULPRIT: Christos N. Gage (writer) and/or Rachel Pinnelas (assistant editor) & Bill Roseman (editor).

DISSECTION: The intro blurb says "... after Stamford, Connecticut was destroyed..."; but Stamford was not destroyed, a school and surrounding houses in Stamford were destroyed.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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Best Quote Of The Year:

Another evenly voted category, and this quote won over the Tarot and KODT ones by a vote. It was just too good, even though I voted for the Atomic Robo quote:

Q06-"We are your gods! And not docile Morgan Freeman God, we're talking full-force, 110% Jack Kirby Gods! With armor and Omega Beams and chess pieces made to look like my enemies!" Wannabe warlocks at a convention, Angel #27. (The Dissector #143, 12/12/09)
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Best Moment Of The Year:

This was just too creepy and shocking:

M02-From Blackest Night #1: This was a very shocking, and creepy moment. (The Dissector #125, 07/29/09)

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Best Cover Of The Year:

By a small margin (the Flash: Rebirth cover was the runner-up, and I voted for that one), Blackest Night does it again:

T04-The below cover for Green Lantern Corps V2 #41 was way too creepy to not be the Cover Of The Week. Patrick Gleason's pencils capture the mandatory spookiness of an undead child; who's at the same time very smug (that smug lil' bastard face makes me think of my son's; who's smarter than most people and knows it). The inks are by Rebecca Buchman; and the colors by Randy Mayor and/or Gabe ElTaeb. (The Dissector #136, 10/23/09)

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Now, for the special awards, those based solely on numbers, or on "special" merit.
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Company With Most Dissections: This time around, it was Marvel (653 dissections), by less than 30 dissections more than DC (629). Very far in quantity was Dynamite (271), but if you consider the amount of Dynamite books I read (Zorro; The Boys, Buck Rogers, and a couple more) and compare them to the dozens of Marvel and DC books I read; then the comparative percentage is much higher. In fact, let me calculate that...

Let's see... In 2009 I read 121 Marvel books (titles, not issues), 100 DC books, and 7, read it, seven, Dynamite books. That makes Marvel a 5.4 ratio, DC a 6.3 ratio, and Dynamite a 38.7 ratio. So Marvel wins the "Company With Most Dissections" award, and Dynamite wins...
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Company With Most Dissections Per Titles Ratio: Of course, with a dissection ratio six or seven times higher than the big two, Dynamite won an award I just came up with. Zorro is your undoing, Dynamite. Oh, and in case you are wondering, Studio Robota, the parent company for The Dissector got fourth place in amount of dissections, with 81 hits; that is, an 8.1 ratio.
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Book With Most Dissections: Second year in a row, Zorro (Dynamite) with 209 dissections (120 more than last year). Runner-ups were The Dissector (Studio Robota) with 81, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (Dynamite) with 68 (in only a handful of issues), and of course, X-Men Forever V2 (Marvel) closely behind with 63.
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Most Dissected Writer: Matt Wagner wins this again for Zorro (with some Madame Xanadu hits) with 95 dissections (32 more than last year), with myself, MaGnUs (The Dissector) with 81, Chuck Dixon (The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly; GI Joe) with 80, and Chris Claremont (X-Men Forever, GeNext), with only 15 (strange, right?).
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Most Dissected Artist: Ivan Reis (Blackest Night) with 35 (mostly getting Hal Jordan's badge wrong), second place goes, as last year, to Freddie Williams II (Final Crisis Aftermath: Run, JSA All-Stars) with 34, third to Mauro Cascioli (JL: Cry For Justice) with 31 (mostly Hal badges too), and fourth Sean Galloway (Wednesday Comics, Teen Titans story) with 25.
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Most Dissected Colorist: Dave McCaig (Wednesday Comics, Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge, others) with 15, second place to our friend Jeromy Cox (X-Factor, Amazing Spider-Man) with 14, and third place for Pete Pantazis (Trinity, JLA) with 12. No repeats from last year.
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Most Dissected Letterer: Once again, Simon Bowland (Zorro, and others) with 170 dissections (more than three times his count from last year), with second place going to Tom Orzechowski (X-Men Forever, others) with 27, and third to prolific Joe Caramagna (a gazillion books) with 18.
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Most Dissected "Other": Old "friend" of the column Anthony Flamini (Marvel handbooks) with 12, second place shared by editors Lauren Sankovitch (Doctor Voodoo and others) and Stephen Wacker (Spider books) with 5, and third place for Tom Brennan (Spider books) with 3.
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Single Issue With Most Dissections: Zorro #15 (IDW), with 36 dissections. With this, Zorro and IDW also share the "Golden Bonesaw Award" for catastrophic underachievement.
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Cyclone Fashion Award To The Most Mutable Costume: Actually, it goes to Norman Osborn's eyes, for changing contacts all the time (basically EVERY Marvel book).
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May Cervantes Smite You By Strangling You With His Moustache Award: All the bloody accented letters, Ñs, cedilles, etc, that letterers keep making smaller than the rest of the letters in the word.
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Most Annoying Book That Is Still Good To Read Award: Zorro, because as I always say, it's still a great book... if I can hear myself think over the sound of my teeth gritting.
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Creator That I'm Sorry I Have To Dissect Award: Shared by colorist Christina "CeeCee" Strain and letterer (and now writer) Joe Caramagna, for being so awesome that it hurts to dissect them when they slip up. They don't screw up, like Jeromy Cox or Matt Wagner, they slip up.
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Coal-Fueled Diesel Trainwreck Issue Award: Legion Of Super-Heroes #50 *draws breath* IT FUCKING SUCKED! DC Comics cancels the book, fucks up Jim Shooter's storyline (by ending the storyline in a hurry, getting an editor to wreck it), and releases a book with a creative team that doesn't match what was promised. "Justin Thyme" writes the book, possibly because Shooter wanted nothing to do with this travesty, and Francis Manapul is pulled out of the project to work on something else, turning the art chores over Ramon Bachs, who ought to have his hands chopped off... or perhaps, it's already happened, the way he draws...

Not only do his characters look hideous, but they also change designs inside the same issue. Actually, I've seen stuff by him before, and it wasn't bad... so this means that he either drew this issue in 15 minutes, while drunk; or that he paid his ten year old nephew to draw it for him. How does DC top this? By saying goodbye with a "We greatly appreciate the support of our loyal readers!" Yeah, that's why you fucked them over with this comic. Thanks!
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Bloody Stumps With Blunt Crayolas Award: Shared by Javier Aranda (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ghosts), and Ramon Bachs (Legion Of Super-Heroes).

Javier brought us these pearls:

(...) Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ghosts #1 (...) the art by Javier Aranda is simply atrocious. Look below, and even overlooking the large amount of errors (later in the column), I cannot help wondering why, with all the good, and even mediocre artists that probably charge cheap, must art chores be given to people with blunt crayons tied to bloody stumps?


See what I mean? What the hell is wrong with Troi's hair? Why does Picard's head keep changing shapes? Why does Beverly Crusher look like a crash test dummy with a wig? Why do people in general look like characters from a crappy fan comic? *sigh*

Also, I just noticed while searching for Aranda's crap, that back in The Dissector #87 (09/16/08), he did this:


That's the ugliest Superman I've seen in a while...

Ramon Bachs, on the other hand, did that Legion issue from the previous award, and one of the art dissections nominees (the Gazelle one).
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Worst Character Depiction Although You Obviously Have Talent Award: Steven Sanders (S.W.O.R.D.), for doing this to Beast:


Uhm... WHAT??!?!?!? He looks like one of the multiple versions of Star Wars' Bothans.
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Breakout Book Of The Year: Spin Angels (Marvel/Soleil). Wish I'd thought of this category before... ah well, retroactive award for 2007 is for Atomic Robo, and I'll get back to you on 2008.
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Best Character Of The Year: Spider-Man. The Spidey Brain Trust (as the weekly book's writer team calls itself) has managed to make an engaging comic book, while never writing Peter out of character. They remember he's basically a genius, they remember his self-doubt, and his jokes are still bad, but funny.
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Worst Character Of The Year: Magog. Horrible legacy from the nineties, go away!
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Best Event Of The Year: Blackest Night. Well handled, cool visuals, and you don't have to read every single book tie-in to follow it. I particularly liked the fact that "Green Lantern light + Other Color Lantern light" is not the only way to stop the Black Lanterns, allowing writers to get creative (despite a couple of screw ups).
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Worst Event Of The Year: Necrosha. Unnecessary, bland, and came out around the same time as Blackest Night, making it look as a copy (even though I'm sure it wasn't).
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Best Publisher Of The Year: Hands down, DC Comics, with Blackest Night and tons of Legion goodness.
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Worst Publisher Of The Year: Sadly, Dynamite Comics, despite their many good books (Zorro, Boys, etc). Their insensitivity to Spanish readers and utter inability to have their editors correct Matt Wagner on the atrocities he commits on Zorro drove me to write them a complaint, and I'm sure I'm not the only Spanish speaker who has... yet they've done nothing.
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Funniest Book Of The Year: Shared by Comic Book Comics (Evil Twin) for its sheer hilariousness, and Power Girl V2 (DC) for combining fun with great action and sexy, yet not sexist art.
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Best Creator Of The Year: Geoff Johns, for his Green Lantern, Flash, and Legion stuff.
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Worst Creator Of The Year: Javier Aranda. How do editors hire you?
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Worst Book Of The Year: Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape. Hulk V3 actually had one more count as Worst Book Of The Week, but Hulk's sin is being bland and unoriginal. Escape was not only unnecessary (as all the Aftermath minis), a bad The Prisoner rip off, and had hideous art.
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Best Book Of The Year: Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel), Best Book Of The Week twelve weeks in the year (being a weekly book), and a consistently good read.
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That's it for this year; I'll be on the outlook for more nominees, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!