The Daily Davis

That’s it, Dash. You tell them.

I need to use this thing more frequently. So, here we go.

In the realm of my comics, there is progress, I’ve penciled a few pages and am heavily into the inks on one of them. That page having been revised once. No pressure to finish it right away affords me chances to really play with the style, format, and shots. I think the results will be pleasing. Before I release the story however, I’ll have to overhaul the website a bit, but that’ll be a blast.

Educationally, my finals are next week. It’s the standard song and dance, the major advantage here is that the next semester does not start until late January, so that gives me a lot of time to work.

In other news, I’ve been using Google Wave. It’s very fun. If anyone is looking for an invite, just drop me a line, and I’ll see what I can do.

Comics are a tricky beast for me. If you look at the current incarnation of Cosmic Dash, you’ll see the format is continually changing. Of course, some of these changes, from hand-drawn to squarish dialogue balloons are, in my opinion, improvements.

On the other hand, the dimensions and shape of the pages has been alternating, recently I switched to a standard-sized comic book page, featuring three rows of panels per page. However with this latest page I am working on, I seem to be switching back to two rows of panels per update, only with different dimensions.

I believe my problem is that I am unsure of where my comic will ultimately go. Will I just be doing a webcomic? Do I want to see this in print one day? More importantly, if I do intend to do Cosmic Dash in print, wouldn’t it be a smarter move to redraw the pages? These are questions I keep asking myself as I work.

I am indeed pleased with, and enjoying, doing this comic, as something about it is clicking for me this time. But it’s all just so experimental, even now. I’ve not quite found what works for me, and I doubt I will anytime soon. We’ll have to see what happens. The minute I start updating multiple times a week is when I’ve found my groove. Until then, I can only endure my barrage of conflicting creative impulses.

As a writer, I find that a good villain can make or break a project. I thought that this might prove for a fun topic to write about, so here is a small, unordered list of villains, and why I think they are particularly effective. I think I’ll probably do this as a series rather than one long article.

So who is first?

Lex Luthor (DCAU)

Lex Luthor is a classic, iconic villain in the DC canon, but by far the best version of him (along with many other DC properties) was his DC Animated Universe form.

First off, Clancy Brown needs to be given credit for his amazing, villainous voice, as animated Luthor would not have worked as well without it.

But, what about the character? On the surface, Luthor look like a jerk, sure, but ultimately not very dangerous. By the time you’ve reached this conclusion, however, he’s bought your company you work for has shoved you in a basement somewhere doing a really unfortunate job.

The DCAU version of Luthor was a blend of the Machiavellian philosophy and mad science, and it worked beautifully. He ran his businesses with a ruthless quality, and used those massive profits to fund secret projects and his various schemes. He also proved to be popular with the public, eventually almost winning the White House and constantly jumping in and out of the public’s favor.

Arrogant, capable, and intelligent, Luthor was probably one of the only truly great Superman villains, alongside Braniac, to make my list of favorite villains. He is not physically powerful, but in the DC canon he has what is referred to as a “12th level intellect”, and amongst all of those who have been described as such, he is probably, still, the smartest, or at least the most clever when it comes to taking advantage of his abilities.

Ultimately, Luthor shows that perhaps to be a great villain, you don’t need to have bigger guns or stronger punches, but rather the intelligence to manipulate the world around you and get others to do that work for you.

You can read more on Lex Luthor here.