Lewis Lovhaug: Linkara, Boffo the Clown

Quotes 

• Linkara : You know, some Elseworld stories have potential, and you ''know'' they have potential on concept alone. Today's comic, though? The story concept for this one is basically "What if Catwoman was Gotham's protector instead of Batman?" I'm sorry, but the concept is weak!

• Linkara : Catwoman, while being a character in her own right, with different motivations and backstory, probably wouldn't be all that different from Batman. The primary difference is that Catwoman is a thief, but if she's supposed to be Gotham's protector instead of Batman, I expect that to be downplayed. It also doesn't work because Batman chose the bat for a reason: the mythology, the symbolism, the fear that a bat invokes. A cat, however...

  [a video clip of a cat playing a silly tune on a piano is shown briefly] 

  Linkara : As a species, we've stopped being afraid of cats when we collectively realized, "Oh, crap! The cats aren't the ones responsible for the Black Death! We should really stop killing them!" Despite popular folklore associating cats with witchcraft or something, the truth is, nobody's really all that afraid of cats. A cat is not some dark, terrible creature of the night that will strike fear in the superstitious criminal mind. I think Catwoman being Gotham's protector, and this is what is conjured up...

  Catwoman : Eehh, I'm the hero Gotham deserves, but not what it needs... 'cause I'm lazy. Heh, heh-heh-heh.

• Linkara : You can take a lame concept and really run with it, right? Do something good with it? Of course you can, so let's get some talented people on...

  [he spots the word "Moench" on the cover of the comic] 

  Linkara : Oh, crap! Yep, time for more fun with Doug Moench. Look, I do try to avoid personal attacks against specific creators in these videos. I really do. I know it may not seem that way, because I'll sometimes call people idiots, but it's more out of a moment of rage and passion. For example, for all the hate I toss at Joe Quesada for "One More Day", the guy actually did make Marvel into a company that was the highest-grossing comic company for years, until DC's relaunch last year. As much as I hate Rob Liefeld's writing and art, I've heard creators talk about how enthusiastic he is about the medium, and, for good and for bad, he did help revolutionize creators' rights and independent comics in the '90s, when he and a bunch of others split off to form Image Comics. And Frank Miller... Hmm... No. No, no, I have nothing nice to say about Frank Miller these days. He's pretty loathsome. Him and Gary Brodsky, the sexist sack of crap. Look, the point is, I have nothing against Doug Moench personally. I don't know the guy. He could be really awesome. But take someone like Fabian Nicieza. With him, I have a pretty good bet that even though he's written some crap, odds are good that he's writing something decent. Doug Moench? Every comic that I've run into of his has made me sigh and shake my head, at best. His stories worship Batman, even to the point where stories that can't even have Batman appear in them STILL SOMEHOW HAVE BATMAN IN THEM! Well, okay, writing isn't everything about a comic. How about the art team?

  [he spots the word "Balent" on the cover] 

  Linkara : Okay, we're screwed.

• Linkara : I brought up Jim Balent before, waaaaay back in the Top 15 Comics I'll Never Review, and in particular, his magnum opus "Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose", responsible for this happy little Internet meme: "Samantha Brown! You have to get out of here! Your vagina is haunted!" He's also the artist responsible for putting Catwoman in a stupid-looking, skintight, purple outfit and making her breasts as big as her head. Let's not even get into the logistics of how we're able to see their exact shape like that. It's unfortunately a common artistic trend among bad artists who don't know how to draw clothes over a woman's chest, instead assuming that women's clothing contains some kind of boob sock that fits over them like that. So as you can imagine, this is not going to be any fun

• Narrator : In the wake of a simple crime with hidden depths, distant light slashes blackness, becoming a bizarre symbol and signal.

  Linkara : The symbol and the signal was also a sigil

  Narrator : Responding to this silent call is the strange, sleek figure sworn to protect all the city's midnights.

  Linkara : [as narrator]  1AM can go straight to Hell, however.