Happy New Year from BeaucoupKevin.com

Thanks to everyone who visits, comments, and links.
I appreciate it more than I say.

Thanks to the publishers for another interesting year,
even if I didn't like a good 3/4 of what was going on.

Thanks to Pappy Van Winkle's 20 Year Reserve,
which will be my date this year as Kristin works at
the fancy-schmancy restaurant that pays her half of
the bills.

San Francisco's Laptop Indie Rock pioneers PantsPantsPants succeeded in re-shooting, scene for scene, and in excruciating detail, the entire opening sequences of season 1 and season 5 of the popular television show "Full House." (Link found via Scotto, who I never give enough props to. 'Sup, Scottobear?)

Because of the excellence of this clip and the music attached, I went to their site and picked up the full-length CD Pop Songs To Make Us Famous. You can also buy it over iTunes if you want to do that, but I'm still a bit old fashioned and want the physical artifact. Scotto's also kind enough to link to the video of Hasselhoff's cover of "Hooked On A Feeling", which is glorious. There's some NSFW ads on the site, so be aware of that if your boss is still lurking around.

Just read Keith Giffen and Andy Kuhn's 10 and while it's obvious that Giff's translating of Battle Royale is a starting point for this, he creates his own nasty, amoral tone poem from the simple yet effective concept of "people being forced to kill each other by an outside force." While I won't say I enjoyed it, exactly, I think that it performed its goal quite admirably.

Dwayne McDuffie's Fantastic Four Special (not the most imaginative name - the interior state it's called My Dinner With Doom, which I like a great deal more) is a well-done little thing about Reed having dinner with Doom (duh) on the day of the Latverian Rapprochement Festival, where they get to hash out a few things. There's a lot of great character moments in this and it's one of the rare post-Simonson stories (the only other one that I can think of is FF: 1 2 3 4) that nails the strange combination of respect, hatred, and pity that Doom and Richards have for one another. (Before anyone starts: yes, I've read the Waid stuff and it just...didn't quite get to the mark for me - no, that's not a pun. There's something missing for me in the whole enterprise, even while it seems to do everything right. It's all visual and no subtext, I guess.)

Daredevil #80 reminded me a bit too much of that Secret War story in The Pulse that featured people shouting and visiting hospitals, but there's some truly well-done stuff in here: Urich having to make a tough decision (why he stays a reporter is beyond me), the return of the Night Nurse, getting to see Black Widow and Elektra engage in a nuclear-level bitch-off, and ninjas, ninjas, ninjas!

Rocketo's fourth issue sees Rocketo Garrison placed in a series of unpleasant situations and managing to make the best of them. A chunky bit of comic, this reminded more than ever of Mielville's The Scar, but I doubt it's intential: giant sea monsters are a long-standing portion of the whole "fantasy" genre. Espinosa's art is a beautiful thing that I can get lost in for days if I'm not careful. I hope the trade that's coming out has sketches and stuff, as the development process behind a lot of them is probably just as interesting as the final product.

Doug Fraser's Mort Grim is a "graphic novella" from AdHouse Books and while it's very pretty and has a nice hook: "Ghost Rider meets The Seventh Seal," I was left pretty cold by the whole effort. Maybe it'll grow on me, but $5 for a 3 minute reading experience (and that was me being slow to admire the art) is a pretty poor entertainment value and I walked away with nothing to cling to, which was sort of depressing, because this is a book that should be up my alley like a nuclear-powered robot Hitler controlled by six squirrel monkeys.

Hey, that Revolution On The Planet Of The Apes wasn't half bad. It slides right into the film continuity quite well, with the main story setting up the eventual Ape Riots that seize the planet like a kitten in Koko's grasp. (Except without the love.) Ty Templeton's plotting is well done and Joe O'Brien's script manages to make the whole thing seem menacing while maintaining the tone of the original material nicely. Oddly enough, the supplemental material may well surpass it in my book: Caesar's Journal has Ty The Guy and Bernie Mireault showing us what's going on in the Lead Monkey Insurgent's mind and For Animal Rights (again with Ty, this time with "Attila,") giving us a snapshot of the political climate that leads to the eventual usurping of homo sapiens.

War drums beat quite heavily in BPRD: The Black Flame with decisions, confrontations, and lovely, lovely Guy Davis art. I can't wait to see how it all ends. I hope it involves giant dead evil worms.

I've got some other things to look at: the new Fables trade, along with that Englehart Captain America And The Falcon collection, and Squarecat Comics along with that mysterious Star Trek trade that does not pick up where the last one left off, instead choosing to start with Volume 2 of the series, which was set after Star Trek V: Shatner's Giant Ego Meets A Tiny Budget.

Marvel's set up a NextWave preview page that features pages of art from the upcoming Ellis/Immonen joint along with the best Superhero Theme Song I've heard since Kochalka's Super F**kers tune.

No, really - there's a theme song for NextWave. Go, listen.

(While I doubt any actual music could live up to the reputation that they've built, part of me wants to hear an Amazing Joy Buzzards record. I've got this fusion of Gorillaz (obviously), The Ramones, Iggy Pop, and Joy Division in my head when I think about the cacophony they'd blast out.)

I've read the new issue of All-Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder and when I reached the panel that both Sterling and Wright laughed at, I found myself cackling for a good minute. I actually think that the basic setup of the All Star Black Canary was not entirely awful, if a bit reminiscent of the Year One Catwoman origin. This may be because I have a thing for nice Irish girls.

Watson and Gane's Paris actually had one of the most erotic things I've seen in a comic on its last page. It sort of snuck up on me, but wow. I'd rank it up there with Maggie being crazy hot all the time in Locas.

What? Stop giving me that look.

I'm not doing the favorite-comics-in-2005 thing because I already spent too much time on the poll, which will see its results debut on January 15. However, there is one award I want to hand out...

Winner 2005 Best Comics Blogger Girlfriend

Kristin Rose of Somerville, Massachusetts

Issued for support above and beyond the call of duty
and the willingness to deal with many, many pounds of
bound paper littering our small apartment and for being
really, really pretty and kissing me a lot.

Linkblogging. It makes the web what it is.

If you want to read an article about Yazoo written by pre-Pet Shop Boys Neil Tennant, you can click here.

Speaking of Vince Clarke, he talks to the Erasure Information Service about their new record and odds and ends on their website.

Dave Lartigue found this excellent blog post with the top 50 music videos of the year. I really love the one for "War Photographer," but that #1 slot, the Aphex Twin one? Creepiest thing ever.

Have a late Christmas card that is bursting with cheer from the Citizens Committee For The Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Why does Santa hate ninjas so much, anyway?

Dave Campbell (whose site you checked before mine) put this site on his Favorites of 2005 list, which is a high honor, indeed. I am not actually going to do any favorites list, because I participated in the Comics Blogger Poll. You people should know what I like.

That's right - Alex in Sexland and Footlicker.

While Campbell's list is full of joy and fun and bears, this guy needs his "best of" rights taken away. His top 10 comics of the year and there's only one non-Marvel-or-DC book: Walking Dead. Heaven forbid he look to the other gillion publishers for non-spandex inspiration.

Ye gods, look at variant covers for Spider-Man comic books. My favorite is the FF one, but I'm sure that the Peter Porker fans "in the house" will be happy.

Again with the late Christmas wishes - a chunky .mov file from the set of Clerks 2, which I hope is a return to form for Smith. By "return to form," I mean "I hope there's more blowjob jokes and less efforts at sucking his own cock or being 'serious.'"

Finally, to complete the internet cliche:

I saw an ad for this book last night in one of the fan-tastic¹ Flash 80-page giants that Chris at The ISB was kind enough to ensure I was able to purchase from his emporium and I am fascinated by the gruesomeness of this image. Sure, the infamous Wolverine-ripping that the Ultimate Hulk is engaged in sure is gross, but at least Wolverine's at his normal size and we know he's going to get better or, hopefully, make with the earthworm action and grown into two pissed-off mutants². The Atom: not only is his wife crazy - he's going to be baked into brownies that will be consumed during an Up In Smoke all-day repeat marathon.

---

¹"Fan-tastic" and all variations thereof are ™ and © Mike Sterling.
²Yes, I know that's not how it works, but let me have my fantasies, ok?

Sam memed me, so I guess I'll do a meme instead of providing original content. This revolves around the concept of "guilty pleasures," which is something I apparently don't understand at all, in case you can't tell by my responses.

Guiltiest Song: I don't have any. I can rationalize my adoration of just about any song, including "Hung Up" by Madonna, which is a fascinating slab of sampledelic pop that's completely unabashed and unashamed.

Guiltiest TV: If it's not Battlestar Galactica, it's not getting watched until DVD of late. Kristin and I regularly heckle that harridan known as Rachel Ray, but this is because we're petty, horrible people that hate her with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

Guiltiest Food: This is a category I can understand, as there are distinctly horrible foods that I enjoy. Sometimes, I really really crave McNuggets. I don't ever get them, so that's sort of a guilty non-food in the end, I suppose. Now, I have been known the extoll the virtues of a item offered by Wendy's, but it's just plain silly to deny the awesomeness of the Monterey Chicken Sandwich.

Guiltiest Drink: Jack Daniels and Dr. Pepper. I can spend a weekend quite tipsy with a two-liter and a fifth. It goes down just like Frank would have liked.


Guiltiest Crush and Homo-Crush in one fell swoop:

I am not passing this meme on.

Every Monday, Diamond provides a list of products shipping for
the current week, as well as those products expected to
ship the following week, but that list is like, never accurate.

Anyway, this is what they say is shipping this week, December 29, 2005

Please check with your retailer for availability. They probably didn't order anything remotely independent without you placing it on your original order, anyway.

Dark Horse

OCT050025 BPRD THE BLACK FLAME #5 (OF 6) $2.99

Poor Roger. I'm so bummed over that.

DC

AUG050180 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #3 $2.99
SEP058264 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN VARIANT EDITION #3 $2.99

Attention: I really want that variant edition for the cover featuring Crack Addict Black Canary. I know this makes me my own worst enemy, but I don't care. I think it's got something...I mean, something besides syphillis.

OCT050256 JLA CLASSIFIED #15 $2.99

Sterling reports that we see Superman being Super in this. That's good enough for me.

OCT050233 LEX LUTHOR MAN OF STEEL TP $12.99

I liked this, even if I have no clue what was going on in the Batman/Superman fight in issue 3 or 4 or whatever.


Image

OCT051771 TOP COWS BEST OF MICHAEL TURNER TP $24.99

Wow, $25 for three drawings made in high school art classes? Dicks!

Marvel

OCT052038 MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS WOLVERINE VOL 2 TP $12.99

OK, finally, I have a reason to link to this.

OCT051997 THING #2 $2.99

I'm WFTT with this and She Hulk because the slow knife kills comics best, but I am reading it at the shop. This is the Marvel Two In One comic I've had in my head this whole time.

OCT051998 YOUNG AVENGERS SPECIAL #1 $3.99

I'm sure this will end up in a trade, but I'll probably give it a gander anyway - this is a shiny pop superhero comic for just about everyone that doesn't seem to owe too much to the rest of the ouvre, unlike, say Astro City or Invincible.

Other Companies

NOV053056 ADV OF LESBIAN COLLEGE SCHOOL GIRL VOL 1 GN NEW PTG (A) $9.95

In Volume One, our heroine: cuts her hair short, starts wearing large boots, goes vegan, and kicks my ass for touting cheap stereotypes for chuckles.

OCT052735 PARIS #2 (OF 4) $2.95

Andi Watson + Simon Gane = Niiiiiiice and smooth.

OCT053108 REVOLUTION ON THE PLANET OF THE APES #1 (OF 6) $3.98

$4 is a bit much, but I am probably going to pick it up because it's got monkeys and stuff and that's cool.

SEP053093 ROCKETO #4 $2.99

My favorite current title from the strangely-businessing Speakeasy, this moves over to Image real soon now and I hope that Espinoza sees what he wants ouf of their deal versus the sour-ish things I've read about Speakeasy. Oh, and since I'm lazy, read this analysis of Speakeasy's future plans by Chris Butcher. Not only is he sexy, sassy, and smart - him write real smart about stuff.

OCT053199 STAR TREK COMICS CLASSICS VOL 2 DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR TP $19.95

This features the Origin Of Saavik, people. That's exactly what you needed to ensure that your enjoyment of Star Trek II was complete.

JUL053284 WILL EISNERS CONTRACT WITH GOD TRILOGY HC $29.95

This reminds me: the new Eisner biography, A Spirited Life has some interesting anecdotes and manages to make sure we know how much the grand old man of comics did for the medium, but there's this disorganized feel to the whole thing that left me having to flip back and forth a few times, and I'm really not terribly stupid.

Honest.

Anyway, this is the end of this week's fairly short list and as a prize, you get to look at photos of my visit to Vegas. Doesn't that sound nice, Giant Neon Cowboy?



Aw, man. Now I'm all sad.

Cranky, tired, jetlagged, hating red-eye flights with stacks of delays and wondering why I ever book them. To continue the thread from the "bad comics shop" post, here's a visual comparison.


Shitty, dusty, sword-heavy shop with a
horribly-spelled name.


Beautiful, well-lit, easy to navigate
shop with tons of pure awesome.

I'll be doing the list tonight, a little late. I apologize.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope your Life Day is as good to you as mine will be to me.

Oh, and PopJustice has reviewed the new Pet Shop Boys record.

So, let me tell you guys a tale of comics shopping. You see, I've come to Las Vegas to see my pal Josh, his lovely wife Kathleen, and their new-ish daughter, Svea. The thing is, I'm not very much into What Makes Vegas Very Special to a lot of people - my idea of gambling is buying two or three scratch tickets a month as an idiot tax. Anyway, my first full day in the city (after arriving late last night after one of the Worst Flights Ever was spent getting socks, wandering around UNLV's campus, and bumming about. Bumming about with Josh means that we go buy comics - it has meant this since 1989 and it will mean this in 2989 when we are floating heads in jars, a la Futurama.

Anyway, we went to two shops yesterday that represented opposite sides of the comics retail spectrum and boy, do I have some things to say about the first.

The first shop visited was Kool Kollectables, which is located on Sahara in North Las Vegas. This shop could serve as a handy definition of How Not To Run A Comics Shop in many ways. In fact, here's a list of events that show you how crappy it was, presented in chronological order.

1. We walked into a dark comics emporium that was roughly bowling-alley sized. Replica swords and adult trading cards rested in and on top of glass cases that were coated in dirt.
   
2. An older gentleman, presumed to be the owner, looked at my courier bag suspiciously and then asked if I was looking for anything in particular. I said I was looking for some Silver Age books, especially 80 Page Giants from DC and was led to one disorganized box that featured books in various states of disrepair and storage. (For instance, there was a lovely copy of Kirby's first Jimmy Olsen issue without any sort of bag or board. I may not be a condition freak, but that was abysmal by any retail standard.) Only about five of the books in the short box featured any sort of pricing and when I asked what they wanted for the two Giant books that I found, I was told they'd have to look them up.
   
3. Fair enough, I tell him, and I head into the magazine racks that held their inventory, which was roughly alphabetical, chronologically confused (I saw issues of Kamandi shoved on a rack that also featured McFarlane-related KISS comics. I'm informed I need to leave my courier bag up front, and I do so, quite cheerful about the thing - I understand that loss prevention in any retail establishment, especially a shithole comics store, is an important matter.
   
4. Josh and I proceed to shop a bit and I have to say that I did find some things of interest on the dusty, ill-kept racks - random 70s issues of DC Comics Presents and The Brave And The Bold, not priced. I had a stack of ten or so things when I spied the Winick/Dalrymple issues of Caper. Thinking that there were four issues to that first story and wanting to make sure, I opened up the bag that contained the fourth issue and checked.
   
5. This was when Elderly Gentleman Who May Have Owned The Place whipped around the corner and informed me that I couldn't take the comics out the bag, then pointed at a sign (which I'll admit I missed.) I paused at this, considering the irony of my rummaging through Silver Age comics that weren't bagged while recent DC comics were bagged and sealed. I said "I'm 31 years old. I think you can trust me to not rip up your books," in a joking enough manner.
   
6. His reponse was "I don't care how old you are, you can't take a comic from a bag."
   
7. I stared for a moment and then said "I guess you don't care about my spending any money, then."
   
8. He informed me that no, he didn't care if I bought anything. I shoved the books into his hands, told Josh, who had a fair number of books in his hands as well, that we were leaving.
   
9. His business lost at least $100 because I couldn't look inside of the comic that I wanted to buy.

Some comics retailers need to learn something: most customers that walk into your joint are there to spend money. Sure, there's quite a few that may not spend more than $5 or $10, but when someone comes in and immediately asks for the older comics and puts some aside, trusting you to price them fairly, they're what is referred to as "a whale" in this town. He or she is there to put money in your pocket.

I had the polar opposite experience at Alternate Reality Comics, located conveniently close to the UNLV campus. I walked in and was greeted by a brightly lit-well organized shop that may have been light on back issues, but was heavy on the black and white indie filth that I love and made it a snap to find everything from The Essential Ant-Man to the Identity Crisis hardcover with special sections set aside for creators like Ellis and Moore with a great Manga selection. Original art from titles as varied as Preacher and Optic Nerve took up some wallspace and even the inevitable DC Direct figures were pegged neatly.

The owner, Ralph Mathieu, has been nominated for the Eisner award for his retail operation and a few minutes speaking with him showed me why. He's lively, funny, and even offered me a 10% discount on my purchase because of my "discerning taste," which makes him rank quite highly in my book. While his shop (like the similar Comicopia in Boston) may not have a huge back issue stock, that's the sort of thing I can get from eBay (or contact my boy Chris and ask him if I can get the hookup.) Money that could have been spent at Kool Kollectibles went to his operation and I couldn't have been happier to give him that cash.

Heading out to Vegas tomorrow evening.
Sporadic posting until Tuesday the 27th.

(No, I'm not going to gamble...much.)

File Under: It's too early for this nerditry...

Lartigue: So hey I have an important question
Lartigue: Bruce Banner runs into the test area and boom the gamma bomb goes off and he's all OH NOS GAMMA RADIATION
Lartigue: What if, and stay with me here, what if, at that very moment, he bit Peter Parker?
Lartigue: Would Parker gain the proportionate strength and speed of a slightly older science geek?
Lartigue: "Radiation coursing through my veins! I feel like I know a little more about science than before!"
Lartigue: Bugle Headline: SUPER-SCIENTIST DR. PARKER: THREAT OR MENACE?

To match the earlier entry...
Originally uploaded by BeaucoupKevin.

...and make certain people weep into their pillow.

Fuck, man. I gotta do the fucking list.

Fine, but I don't have to like it, do I? No.

The best of the best or
the worst of the worst from
comics due to arrive at your
local shop on Wednesday,
December 21, 2005

Previews

NOV050002 MARVEL PREVIEWS JANUARY 2006 PI
NOV050005 PREVIEWS ADULT VOL XVI #1 PI
NOV050001 PREVIEWS VOL XVI #1 PI
NOV050003 PREVIEWS VOL XVI CONSUMER ORDER FORM #1 PI

This reminds me that I need to get my Diamond order in from this past month's volume. Eek!

Dark Horse

OCT050035 GOON #15 $2.99

I love The Goon and his crazy mixed up world, but I only get the trades. I am a bad human being and I should be chastised for killing comics slowly instead of just stabbing them in an alley.

SEP050049 STAR WARS X-WING ROGUE LEADER #3 (OF 3) $2.99

Eh. It's not good, it's not bad. I'm just enough of a Wedge afficianado to read this.

Yes, I know that makes me rank just below Red Bee fetishists.

DC Comics

OCT050243 CRISIS ON MULTIPLE EARTHS THE TEAM UPS VOL 1 TP $14.99

This will make the plane ride out to Vegas much more enjoyable. Oh, yeah - forgot to tell you people. I'm going to Vegas to see Josh and Kathleen and Svea. May not be writing much while I'm out there (Dec 22-26.) Sorry, but that's how I roll, playas.

OCT050239 INFINITE CRISIS #3 (OF 7) $3.99

Blah blah blah. You all can debate its merits. I'm just waiting for the One Year Later titles I care about to start, like Red Tornado: Superstar DJ and Sugar And Spike Go Vertigo-Go..

OCT050265 PLASTIC MAN VOL 2 RUBBER BANDITS TP $14.99

BEGIN HERESY: I'm not that impressed with this particular title from Kyle Baker, a cartoonish I have repeatedly expressed my love for. It just seems like a fit that sounds much better than it is, at least in my mind.

OCT050267 SEVEN SOLDIERS BULLETEER #2 (OF 4) $2.99

Hells yeah!

OCT050324 SWAMP THING SPONTANEOUS GENERATION TP (MR) $19.99

Some of that Rick Veitch madness I'm sure I'll enjoy. I liked the first collection of his work on Mike Sterling's Favorite Comics Character (1969-2005) quite a lot and I hold a tiny bit of hope that DC will bury the axe and let that final Jesus story actually run in one of these trades.

Image

AUG051640 SPAWN COLLECTION VOL 1 TP $19.95

In 1999, a secret group of comic shop owners and managers gathered together in a musty basement in Fremont, California to discuss the McFarlane situation. For years, his Spawn paperback program had ensured that they couldn't get rid of their back issues no matter how deeply they discounted. Opting to take matters into their own hands, they hired a hitman who broke into McFarlane's compound and took a photograph of himself holding two of the infamous Sosa/McGwire baseballs while the family slept.

This photo was sent to McFarlane with a note that said "No paperbacks for five years. We have to get rid of all this crap."

To be safe, McFarlane kept to their plan for an additional year for good measure. To some, this story may sound familiar.

Marvel

OCT052025 ULTIMATE GALACTUS BOOK 2 SECRET TP $12.99

Uh, wow. That's it for me.

Other Companies

AUG052917 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY #16 (RES) (MR) $15.95

Again with the "wow" at the scarcity of stuff care about - I actually went through the list forwards and background to see if I missed anything and, uh...I don't think I did. Of course, I'm really looking forward to seeing Ware's latest thing because, hell, as much as I rant and rave about how people act like he's the only person making worthwhile comics, I am fascinated by his work and the externally cold storytelling that reveals more about humanity than any amount of wailing and gnashing from other storytellers.

The only other thing on the list I am really hyped about is:

NOV054121 GODZILLA FINAL WARS WS DVD PI

...which I am waiting for Netflix to send to me. Go Go Godzillllaaaaaa!

Finally, my pal Kitty has a new issue of her ongoing mini Geraniums And Bacon out and you should buy it. I just got mine in the mail today (which is silly, as she lives like ten blocks from me, but if I get her to hand it over in person, she's going to want me to buy her a beer or a cider or something and then it gets ugly because she's all like "Let's play Quarters!" and then we're getting kicked out of The Abbey and being told that we're banned for life.)

One of the first photos...
Originally uploaded by BeaucoupKevin.

...from my new Digital Rebel.

Merry Christmas to me, bitches.

Whilst doing my morning crawl, I saw that Heidi MacDonald has managed to find proof that Saturday Night Live can occasionally deliver something that's not just yet another tired "Debbie Downer" sketch.

Click here to see the video for "The Chronic Of Narnia," wherein the simple joys of life (particularly that of a New Yorker) are given full play.

This whole "talk positively about comics that I like" thing sure has been wearing on my nerves lately. Seriously, I've not gotten my snark well and truly on in a while and what better time than the holiday season to unleash some holy wrath upon unsuspecting creators? The endorphin boost will surely help me through the dreary weather, you know? This time, two consummate industry professionals, Peter David and George Perez, are the subjects of my ire with the trite, nasty 1994 miniseries Sachs and Violens.

First of all, I want to put it on the table: I fully respect these two creators. Peter David's solid run on The Incredible Hulk, along with several other enjoyable projects (I've always had a soft spot for his Trek work) has made sure that while I may not be his target audience, I think he's earned his place at the Comics Dinner table. George Perez is, of course, George Perez, master of detail and storytelling. Comics of the 70s, 80s, and 90s would surely lose a good deal of their glory without his work at the forefront.

That said, they've both made missteps along the way - David's recent return to the green goliath featured a useless House Of M tie-in and he seemed to write as if he were ill at ease with the whole write-for-the-trade editorial mandate and I fail to be as impressed with his creator-owned Fallen Angel as he seems to be. George Perez was responsible for a science fiction horror comic about menstrual blood gone bad called Crimson Plague that lasted a mercifully brief two issues before being put out of the readers' collective misery.

Sachs and Violens features a model and a photographer who battle evil with whips and bullets. (Guess who uses what!) After discovering that her friend Wendy has been murdered on a set of a snuff movie, Juanita Jean (J.J.) Sachs vows revenge and her own personal Bruce Weber, Ernie "Violens" Schultz (somebody explain to me how he got that nickname because I don't recall any sort of comment in the text besides "That's what they called me in Vietnam") ends up tagging along to save her from both herself and the bad, bad mens what want to hurt her real bad. Once their initial adventure is over, they find themselves roaming the country for the rest of this 4-issue miniseries.

There's an essay in the back of the first issue wherein Peter David pontificates a bit on the nature of sex and violence in our culture and how he wants to use this series to address it. What's suspiciously missing is his saying "Yeah, I read that Sin City book that came out and thought to myself 'Self, you should break off a piece of that action' so that is what I'm doing." All the trademarks of Miller's black and white epics are here: skimpy outfits, large men with guns, villains that represent the very darkest in human nature, but it seems strangely diluted and cuted up for no particular reason. It's almost as if some Lifetime director had gotten their hands on Rodriguez's screenplay for the Sin City movie after significant rewrites by the same sort of people that befouled Catwoman after Rogers was off the project.

Maybe Peter David doesn't have a genuinely nasty streak in him like Miller does - the scripts for these four issues keeps reminding us that Violens was in Vietnam and my gosh, bad things happened there and it may not explain everything, but surely you can understand why he might blow the head off a guy with an axe who's going to murder his partner, right? There's no need to wallow in the reason why the man's so handy with a gun - he just is. I'm always annoyed when subtext becomes hamfisted text, constantly rearing its ugly head instead of trusting the reader to discover that there's more to a character than presented. Not that Miller necessarily hints at greater depths in Sin City, but there's the opportunity for interpretation for a dedicated reader who wants think that that it's about more than just ninja hookers with machine guns.

There's a scene that sticks out like a sore thumb: early on, Schultz is looking for JJ and is touring various sex shops, hoping to pick up a lead and keep her from committing a truly grievous crime. After some salty discussion of snuff film distributors, whips and chains, and the like it comes to light that the woman Ernie is speaking to is his own mother. Oh-ho! Golly, wasn't that unexpected? What a knee-slapper! It's a very diluted shock that doesn't so much shock the reader as distract them as they plow through the dull, overexplained story.

Scenes like that, along with characters like Rugmuncher The Evil Lesbian (which pissed me off as much as if he'd created a character named Darkie the Magic Negro) and Gerry The Gerrymander (a too-obvious Barney knock whose name drove me to distraction. He might as well been a clown called Richard The Redistrictor,) reduce any sort of impact that the series could have. There's seriously disturbing stuff being discussed here too: snuff films, child labor, Mardi Gras (where there's a panel dedicated to two dudes kissing, oh my god that is so fucking edgy) all get their chance but the entire enterprise feels like the sort of "dirty" fiction I wrote in tenth grade and kept in a secret notebook. Clich�s abound, characterization and quirks replace actual character and no matter how over-the-top Sachs and Violens is supposed to be, chunks of this¹ are hard to swallow.

Oh, and don't think I'm going to let George Perez get off unscathed. First of all, JJ looks like Wonder Woman throughout the book and her Catwoman Light costume reeks of 1984 heavy metal video - you remember the kind, back when women straddled hoods and stood in formation far away from the performance, trying to look like they weren't just waiting for their next fix. Pages are packed far too tightly, never letting the reader breathe for a moment or savor any of the action besides the occasional splash page. The coloring is pure 1994 Photoshop madness as well - too many shading effects render what were probably some perfectly agreeable character shots completely into garish, ugly garbage.

In fact, the only person to escape this without any scorn at all is letterer John Workman. Outside of doing his usual consummate job, I hear he crawls into critic's beds at night and slits their throats. John Workman: you da man!

So, why did I read the whole miniseries? I'd heard people that I trusted praise this book, saying that it was an underrated gem in the crapheap that was the mid-90s comics explosion. I thought that industry stalwarts like Peter David and George Perez could provide a worthwhile, if not exactly great diversion for a mere four issues. I read it because it was free to me and I've come to realize something: that's never an excuse. Maybe I'm glad I didn't fall for this series - it's mean that I had to go and pick up Fallen Angel and see what's happened to them in the decade since they debuted, and that's a step I'm not willing to take.

---

¹The line "Hey, Rugmuncher! Munch this!" just before the character gets their head blown off made me long for Loeb's brilliant Commando screenplay.

Courtesy of Jim, who reads this crap so I don't have to, here's a link to Joey Quesada hyping up the "ZOMG Marvel Characters In Giant Misunderstanding, Not Getting Along!!" shocker miniseries Civil War.

I love that their big initiative for next year is so DCU 2004-2005. With their doing the whole "everything you've known is wrong" thing so quickly after DC has handled the events, it seems like Quesada and crew are not even hiding the fact that the main line is creatively bankrupt and exists almost entirely to serve as a marketing extension for the toys-and-films group.

Also:
I think this means that it's Tom Spurgeon's birthday. Happy Birthday, Tom! You're an incredibly erudite influence who has inspired me to make with the better writing stuff. Thank you!

Found on Gamefly and in dire need of an explanation:

Reviews as you like them - poppin' fresh!

Grounded #4 leads things off this week and while I really adored the first issue of Sable and Azacota's superheroes-do-exist miniseries, this is a case of diminishing returns. After a great hook, each issue seems to make the book into something that's less and less interesting to me. Sable's certainly got some chops when it comes to dialogue and character, but the story itself is creeping along at a positively lethargic pace. Also, this is the third case of a letter column actively bothering me in the last month; the nastily sarcastic tone taken by Sable¹ when answering letters seems completely inappropriate for a new-ish writer while the letters themselves are pretty dire, offering nothing in the way of insight, just praise or damnation.

The Punisher: Silent Night reads like a depressingly straight Punisher story with a bit of holiday decoration like a lone strand of garland draped over a sniper's rifle. I'm not asking for Frank Castle Recites The Bible On The School's Stage While Daredevil And Wolverine Look On, but outside of the Santa disguise and orphans being ordered to make snowmen to exacting specifications, there's nothing to differentiate this from any other Ennisian tale. Great cover by Deodato, mind, and I really liked Villarrubia's color work on the inside, but that's only worth maybe a fifth of its $4 asking price, and Diggle and Hotz fail to come up with the rest.

100 Bullets #67. Boy, this is a pretty comic. It's worth noting that month after month, Risso does some of the best work in comics and I think it's taken for granted by many. I was kicked out of my own lethargic appreciation for his work by the opening pages of this issue - he manages to capture a Day Of The Dead celebration much more effectively than even a camera could achieve.

It's not just the drawing that sells the book. 100 Bullets is, of course, writer Brian Azzarello's best achievement. While his work with other titles varies wildly in quality, the spiky jazz flavor of his narration and deft use of violence lets this title ebb and flow almost perfectly - even the long solos that occur sometimes (see the story collected in the Samurai paperback) reward the reader in the end.

Sorry I went off there - I always seem to just sort of gloss over 1 00 Bullets each month and it's unfair, to say the least.

The Amazing Joy Buzzards? The third issue of its second volume does indeed feature much less in the way of Yeti Sex, and for that I am a very thankful man. Smith and Hipp are joined by Mark Englert, Khary Randolph, and Sean Galloway to tell three downright fascinating tales of El Campeon, their Mexican wrestling totem guy. Thanks to pinups and a lone ad that tells the reader that there's going to be a crossover with Tales From The Bully Pulpit, this may well be the most satisfying read all week; it's a proper slab of comics action.

Local has a sophomore issue that makes me question the smartness of our protagonist, who by all rights should be the featured victim in Law And Order: Holy Shit Minnesota Is Cold. Still, lovely art by Ryan "Ryan" Kelly and a clever enough script by Brian "Brian" Wood save the day. I've just been rereading Demo thanks to last week's trade paperback release and while it and Local share a structural similarity, the thematic differences are downright massive.

Gee, do you think Wood's other release from this week, DMZ #2 has something to say about Iraq with its tale of combat medicine and a collapsed infrastructure? Maybe? Sure, it's not subtle or nuanced, but there's something to be said for using a sledgehammer instead of a knife.

Jim Mahfood's One Page Filler Man novel takes its admittedly thin premise and stretches it to the breaking point before carrying on with insanity for what many would consider far, far too long. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Mahfood nutter, so I'm quite happy with page after page of non-sequiturs, ghost bums, Billy Ocean, and ice cream, but the uninitiated may find themselves retreating to the familiar environs of their Aquaman's Wet And Wild Holiday Special or whatever pretty quickly.

Zombie Tales: Death Valley takes the Not Another Teen Movie approach to the whole smelly undead thing and does it pretty well. Andrew Cosby's story is ably assisted by Joanna Stokes's knowing winks and asides in the dialogue, but the art by Rhoald Marcellus sometimes suddenly jumps from professionally polished and dynamic to oddly amateurish with no apparent rhyme or reason. It's almost as if the pages were drawn out of order and deadline pressure ensures some of them were of lesser quality. Still, there's a good foundation here for a series that already strikes me as superior to the lethargic The Walking Dead, where I have to see the grotesquely underrated Charlie Adlard make yet another dramatic moment with zombies shuffling about look better than it deserves.

Whoa, that's a sudden left turn into Anti-Kirkman territory for me. Sorry about that.

Bound books purchased this week include the $30 (ow) Omega The Unknown trade along with the Spirit collection which looks to live up to its name pretty handily. I'm sure I'll get around to talking about them eventually.

---

¹To be fair, Sable basically admits he's an asshole at the beginning of the letters page, but that doesn't really ameliorate anything.

No explanation.
Originally uploaded by BeaucoupKevin.

I completely managed to skip over The Best of The Spirit in this week's rundown of the Diamond shipping list - I'm such a complete ass for doing that. For $14.95, readers get 192 pages of quality work from Will Eisner and his studiomates covering the career of one of those characters I never can get enough of, even if I avoid the overpriced Archive editions like the plague. (I got the first four before I realized I could pick up a crack habit and get less damage on my wallet.)

I discovered The Spirit in the late 90s, at a convention. I'd heard of the character, yes, and even seen a panel or two, but it wasn't until I came across somebody practically giving away those glorious Warren black and white reprints that I had the chance to sit down and get a taste of what everyone else had been fawning over. I became an instant convert, eventually collecting big chunks of the Warren and Kitchen Sink reprints and eagerly devouring pretty much everything Eisner did that I could get my mitts on.

Anyway, if you consider yourself any sort of "comics fan" and you don't have much (if any) Eisner, this is the first hit - it's cheap, it'll get you really high, and you'll be able to get more without any visits to dirty restrooms or picking glass and grit out of your knees after a night in an alley. Yes, there's some racially-slanted, cringe-inducing moments with Ebony, but unfortunately that's something that often comes part and parcel thanks to the "historical context" category.

There - I posted about it and feel better. Denny Colt, what do you think?

That's cold, Denny Colt. That's cold.

So what, you may ask yourself, could possibly be better than the warmth and joy you receive from regular holiday wishes? The answer is right there, my friends.

Gunther is the embodiment of what a modern man is and how he should treat the ladies. Gunther is going to spread his gospel of Champagne, Glamour, Sex, and RESPECT all over the world, using the entertainment industry as his tool of choice. He wants to wish you a great holiday with a seasonal version of his first international smash hit, "Ding Dong Song."

You can view the video for his Christmas song, as well as other fine songs made by man here. They're all .wmv files, though, so Mac users not willing to install a Microsoft product may be out of luck.

(Found via Metafilter.com.)

To continue with the whole "strangely enjoyable internet website" news theme, there's this snarky celebrity "news" blog all done with a Robotech theme, written by someone using the nom de plume of Jack McKinney. That's the greatest, nerdiest thing ever.

Right-click to download the special mixed-by-Kevin 36-minute wintertime sleepytime mp3 (192kbps, 41.8mb) for your iPod or other digital music device. Pianos, strings, soft bleeps, and ethereal voices all come together and help you relax and prepare yourself for restful slumber. Look, it's this or "Wilderness Thunder Volume 8" from that display at the local Target store, so stop giving me that look.

Tracklisting? Oh, we've got one for you.

1. "An Arc Of Doves" // Eno and Budd
   
2. "Indigo" // Monolake
   
3. "One Day" (Endorphin Mix) // Bjork
   
4. "The Rocking Chair" (Highly Strung by The English String Orchestra) // Andrea Parker
   
5. "Enjoy The Silence" (Beaucoup String Edit) // Depeche Mode
   
6. "Avalon" // Sigur Rós
   
7. "Cherry-Coloured Funk" (Remix) // Cocteau Twins

Ian interviews Ellis about the success of Fell.

Why a detective story? Do you consider many of the TV detective shows an influence?

I wanted to write something accessible. Anyone who's sat in front of a TV at any time over the last 50 years has a certain comfort level with the detective form as a visual narrative that provides a complete story. I don't want people to be frightened of the fact that it's a comic, you know? If you've ever sat through an episode of Law & Order: Child Rape Cavalcade, then you've got all the equipment to comprehend an episode of Fell. It's why I built it on the nine-panel grid�it looks like three newspaper strips stacked one atop the other, it's among the easiest comics forms for a newcomer to the art to understand.

Thanks, Publishers Weekly and your comic email newsletter that people can sign up to receive for free!

Extra pluggage concerning Ellis and PW - a panel from NextWave #1 that they were kind enough to show us:

Other people would use their pisser of a mood
to slack off on regular blog pieces, but
not Kevin J. Church, ladies and gentlemen!

I've scoured this week's Diamond shipping list
so you don't have to and if I happen to be
really nasty and cruel, so be it.

Dark Horse

JUL050029 FRANK MILLER SIN CITY LIBRARY I HC (NOTE PRICE) $150.00

Apparently, "Note Price" is French for "Grab Your Ankles, Fanboy." I love how this is Volume One, indicating that you're going to have to learn to control that gag reflex in a few short months.

AUG050020 NEXUS ARCHIVES VOL 1 HC $49.95

Speaking of oral sex, this is Dark Horse begging for a blowjob in an alley when it could, in fact, probably get one with a minor bit of effort if it just walked into the bar and chatted up someone with some reasonable prices and paperbacks. Now, don't get me wrong. I like - nay, I love Nexus, but this is as stupidly overpriced as the New Teen Titans Archives that DC came out with a couple years ago.

SEP050064 SIN CITY ENVIRONMENT MAGNET SET $19.99

Great, now I can use my magnetic poetry kit to compose voiceovers on the fridge.


DC Comics

OCT050315 100 BULLETS #67 (MR) $2.75

Yadda yadda I should wait for the trade blah blah blah.

OCT050299 AUTHORITY THE MAGNIFICENT KEVIN #5 (OF 5) (MR) $2.99

I howled with laughter at the shop's preview copy. There's so much wrongness here that it just feels right.

Image

OCT051725 AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS VOL 2 #3 $2.99

I only hope that this has 100% less Yeti Sex than the previous issue.

OCT051704 BAD PLANET #1 (OF 6) $2.99

It's written by the guy that played the Punisher. I think that's the main selling point, which doesn't indicate any real strength of concept.

OCT051707 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ONE PAGE FILLER MAN GN $11.99

Mahfood! That's good enough for me, you know?

SEP051696 GROUNDED #4 (OF 6) $2.99

Please, let this pay off. Please.

SEP051697 HAWAIIAN DICK THE LAST RESORT #3 (OF 4) (RES) $2.99

I refuse to believe that this comic is actually coming out. I will not be made a fool again by you, Diamond Shipping List. Not now, not ever.

Marvel

OCT052033 GLA MISASSEMBLED TP $14.99

Everyone loved this! I thought it was just OK - killing off the one character I found really, really interesting in the second issue (I think) put me off the whole series quite quickly.

OCT052029 GRAVITY BIG CITY SUPER HERO DIGEST $7.99

I liked this better when it was called "Invincible."

It should be mentioned that I don't think Invincible is that good.

OCT052039 OMEGA THE UNKNOWN CLASSIC TP $29.99

Awww yeah. That's more like it. I've only got a couple of issues of this, but they are so freakin' bizarre that I have to find out more.

OCT051958 PUNISHER SILENT NIGHT $3.99

Christmas + Frank Castle = Chris filling his pants with baby paste.

AUG051911 SECRET WAR BOOK FIVE (OF 5) $3.99

See my comments about Hawaiian Dick.


Comics By Other Companies

OCT053136 LOCAL #2 (OF 12) (MR) $2.99

I have nothing clever to say about this. It's good comics.

SEP052982 SMOKE VOL 1 TP $24.99

If you, like my friend Ryan, are a dapper, handsome fellow (or lady, really) that enjoys The Winter Men, then you'll probably enjoy this also-very-smart and also-very-well-drawn thriller set in the near future. Hey, Ryan, you should get this.

AUG052811 ZOMBIE TALES DEATH VALLEY #1 $6.99

Sterling liked it. Ross Richie's company makes comics that entertain me. That's good enough reason to see my devouring this like the titular characters around a pile of fresh-hewn brains.

So, this arrived for me today from Johnny Ryan. Isn't it a thing of beauty? He's selling a ton of pieces over at Comic Art Collective - just click here to check out the other, completely rude works that you can purchase to liven up your dull suburban existence.

I also ordered the two Comic Book Holocaust volumes, which I found to be a screaming riot, but I also really like BASEketball, so my taste may well be questionable by the likes of "smart people" such as you, the valued reader.

From Marvel Zombies #1.
Do you think this A stands for Zombie?

Eric Faustus does funny comic things, including the parody Chick tract, Love That Dracula, which made me laugh out loud quite a few times.


Also worth a click are The Life Of Euripides and his retelling of Pride and Prejudice.

Found this guy via Scans_Daily on LiveJournal - an inconsistent but occasionally very worthy community.

File Under: I've Been Saying This For Ages...

Ricky Gervais: Who are your fans?

Chris Martin: Ah, man, it's tricky. I don't think we'd be anywhere if Radiohead didn't exist. I think we're like why Diet Coke was big. Because some people couldn't handle Coke. That's how I see Coldplay.

From this month's issue of Q.

Ellis posts cover of NextWave #3.
Kevin thinks it's real pretty.

Crappy Local News Station Writes About Sex-Tastic Manga, Ignores Convenient Rating Placed On Cover And Possibility That Parent Might Have Looked At That

One of the comics found by Problem Solver Nancy Alvarez featured parents who swap spouses.

"That's swinging and this is a girl no older than my daughter," parent Travis White said.

Ah, Florida. I did send the following email to their News Director:

As a regular reader of comics and, on occasion, Japanese manga, I was appalled by the recent story of the local library sending children home with comics like PEACHY GIRL. Not with the event itself, but the shockingly bad reporting.

All Tokyopop titles feature a prominent age recommendation and the Peach Girl volumes featured are rated as Teen (Recommended for 13+). None of the volumes released feature explicit sex scenes and the material described in your piece was handled much more sensitively than any prime-time drama in this country.

I should say I'm shocked, but I'm not - ratings obviously matter more to your team than actually reporting the full story - those extra fifteen to thirty seconds can really cut into your other segments.

I've got a few moments, so let's run down this week's comics that I purchased with my hard-earned cash (he said, as if he just stepped out of the salt mines for long enough to tiredly bang this out on a manual typewriter with a stuck N key.) We're doing this in random order because I'm lazy, mmmkay?

Caveman Robot may suffer a bit with its almost-too-high concept: titular character fights an evil Abraham Lincoln fetishist that just happens to be a gorilla (Ape Lincoln, natch,) but everything seems to be put together just well enough so I didn't mind it one bit. Interestingly, this first issue was a mere two point five Yanqui Dollars and is in full color with no ads. I enjoyed this well enough to order my own handmade Caveman Robot doll and a double comic featuring the character from the site.

Rocky: The Big Payback is the first English-language collection of Martin Kellerman's Swedish strip that feats a very angry, cynical dog making his way in the world. There's quite a lot of misogyny and autobiography being worked through in the chapters that I've read so far, but it's more Buddy Bradley than Archie Bunker¹ The art's quite charming and easier for me to look at than, say, Fritz The Cat.

The Surrogates. I've not read the third issue yet but unless the creative team has been replaced by lobotomized bears, I think it'll be just fine.

Showcase Presents: The Justice League Of America. Gloriously, splendidly stupid superhero comics. Exactly what I want when I want that sort of thing.

Image Holiday Special 2005. Quite a lot of "meh" in here from Kurtz, Larsen, and Valentino, but that Amazing Joy Buzzards story is like a syringe of adreneline to the eye and almost justifies the $10 price tag by itself.

Jonah Hex #2. Golly, it's nice to know that Palmiotti and Gray have enjoyed Deadwood enough to make sure Ian McShane's character gets a print doppelganger. Maybe if I lived in a pop-culture vacuum I could forgive this sort of thing, but I don't, so I can't. Luke Ross, please stop using such heavy photoreferencing on the title character. It's starting to turn into Man With No Name slash fiction.

Speaking of photoreferencing, Greg Scott's art on Case Files: Sam And Twitch may be the best match yet with Mark Andreyko's scripting, but I really didn't need John Goodman and William H Macy showing up,. even if that's some mighty fine casting.

I finally read Books Of Doom #1 and it was just fine. I'm going to wait for the trade for the rest of this series, but Brubaker seems to do his job well enough and Raimondi's arting is a thing to behold on quite a few of the pages.

Optic Nerve #10 finally arrived in my box. While I may question the need to actually talk about myths and truths concerning the size of the Average Asian Male Member, this is Tomine doing what he does best - exploring the uncomfortable realities of day-to-day life. His art is, as always, clean and he consistently makes sure that even banal conversations are punchy without having to show off any tricks. Of note: a detailed synopsis of the first issue of the current three-part series (this is the second, of course) appears on the inside cover, making it so that people who just keep hearing that Optic Nerve is like, ohmigod, awesome from the popular press can pick up this issue and hit the ground running.

Shame about the overly emo letter column, though. It made SexyCyberGrrl6969's appearance in Fell's look downright restrained.

Demo hits the trade paperback format this week and if you didn't read the issues, now you can catch up on the series that did come close to cracking the internet in half. I loved it, others thought it was shallow. They probably know more about X-Men continuity than me, though.

The Ultimates V2 #9. Well, Josh called it in a conversation months ago and I said "Oh, that's just too obvious..."

Fucker was right. At least it's really pretty and the scenes of Massive Destruction were horrifying enough to make me pause, which has not happened in a while.

Mister Miracle #2. OK, like, the character (as Scott Free, even if I like Shiloh well enough) and concept is right up there in my Top Five. Morrison's urban horror taken on the whole thing was the sort of sudden shift in direction that would have made Kirby happy. Too bad his enjoyable script is just completely ruined by Billy Dallas Payton's art, which lacks completely in the fluid lines and zing that Pasqual Ferry brought to the project. Heaing that yet another artist is going to get his hands on this project just makes me sad, as it could have been my favorite.

Penny Arcade 25 Cent. It's a quarter and serves as a great teaser for the upcoming paperback. Get it and toss it in the bathroom magazine pile. Hell, get ten and toss it into your friends' bathroom as well.

Rock N Roll snuck up on me like a ninja with soft-soled shoes. Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, together with Bruno D'Angelo and Kako, give the reader a wordless modern fable that's just plain beautiful to look at. It's from Image and I doubt many shops ordered it, but it's well worth seeking out.

Gotham Central made me gasp a bit and I may have choked a tiny amount. If Corrigan isn't stuck in a wig and dress and turned into Dr Light's special lady friend, then I won't feel justice has been properly meted out to the fucker. Rucka's managed to make sure that I stick around until the end, and Kano's art is just a pretty, pretty thing.

Down. Chris made all the salient points I would have in his "Week In Ink" rundown². I find the cover art carrying a date of 2001 much more amusing than I should.

Essential Spider-Woman. This is the definition of Pub Comics - books that are better after a couple of pints, when you can just enjoy the dumbness of the whole thing.

---

¹I thought of that before noticing the pull quote on the back from Mr Bagge himself, damn it.
²He even uses my description of the series, so you know it's quality.

Linkblogging Designed To Make You Scream:

• Ultraviolent Sailor Moon CG art. No Caffeine? This'll shock you awake long enough to go hang yourself, which is the only surefire way of getting this image out of your head.
  
• The guys at RatherGood.com have a band called 7 Seconds Of Love. This is the bafflingly cute video for the addictive song "Ninja."
  
• What would the South Park kids look like in real life? This wallpaper, using art from a recent episode shows you. (Tom Peyer linked to this last week, which led me to that this morning - thanks, Tom Peyer!)
  
• Brian Wood talks about technique and shows off pages from DMZ #4 on his LiveJournal.
  
• Dickhead on Xanga posts Patton Oswalt bits as his own - Oswalt fans assault him verbally. Kevin still hates the name "Xanga" and all it represents.
  
• I'm sure many of you saw this on Ellis's site, but I think the phrase "World's First Musical Sandwich!" bears repeating. Perhaps as the death-chant of a civilization rapidly tilting towards the cosmic windmill. The phrase "One idea already under consideration is working with record companies to launch songs by new artists on the market by way of the musical sandwich," has convinced me that we get whatever we deserve.
  
• Rob wants to remind you: Don't Stop Believin'.
  
• Finally, there's this guy, who collects Hulk sketchcards. Evan Dorkin, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, and Tim Sale are just a few of the people that have taken the time to draw the jade giant for him.

So, I finally saw that Fantastic Four movie, thanks to Netflix. Here's a short list of what did and didn't work for me. We'll start with the positive, because that's the sort of guy I am, looking on the bright side of life and all that.

The Good:

1. Despite dodgy makeup effects, Chiklis really pulled off his part quite nicely - the voice was maybe a touch too high, but in so many ways, this was my Ben Grimm.
   
2. Jessica Alba = Comely Young Lass. Shame that she can't act.
   
3. Chris Evans as Johnny Storm was pitch-perfect - his openly embracing his powers, the sequence with the heat-seeking missle, the practical jokes played on The Thing - he seemed to be having the most fun of everyone in the production.
   
4. It gets to the point quickly - at the 9 minute mark, the Fantastic Four are in place to receive the cosmic radiation that will give them their powers. Compare that to 30 minutes of Mopey Bruce Banner and it's not a bad fit.
   
5. Ignore the fact that powered-up Doom was quite stupid (that'll go in "The Bad") and enjoy the final battle, where we get to see how each of the Fantastic Four's talents can complement each other. I especially enjoyed the bit with the fire hydrant and Reed turning himself into a Slip N Slide of sorts.

The Bad:

1. Reed and Sue were a pair of very dead fish on the screen. There's more genuine affection between Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba in the bonus materials on the DVD than what made it to the screen. Tim Story really should have kept the planetarium sequence that got chopped - it lets the viewer get a non-forced peek into their relationship.
   
2. The origin is far too clunky when you add Doom to the equation. I came up with an alternate version that kept all the original relationships intact while avoiding the cliche business stuff that made Doom seem more like Trump Gone Worse than, you know, a convincing supervillain. Basically, Reed's been told to fuck right off by NASA and he remembers a guy he went to school with - Victor Von Something, from Latveria. Sure, Victor managed to blow himself up in an experiment, but Reed (ever the optimist) thinks that maybe he can give him a call in his homeland now that he's prime minister or whatever. You see, Latveria's doing those Dodgy, Using-Old-Soviet-Rockets Space Tourist flights and one thing leads to another, badda bing badda boom, you can probably mash everything up yourselves at this point.
   
3. Motocross stuff + extreme music makes my head hurt.
   
4. The opening sequence and score reminded me far too much of the Spider-Man films. The FF are about the new, y'know?
   
5. Finally, so much of the emotional content of the movie seemed to rely on the audience having prior relationships with these characters. Seeing Reed propose to Sue at the end probably felt really forced to the non-initiated. Reed and Sue's romance is one of the great ones in comics - on screen, it took second fiddle to Johnny and Ben's shenanigans.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Benjamin Birdie's Kevin Analog is quite possibly the most me-friendly comics concept since the cancellation of the dearly-missed Angelina Jolie's Jumping Jacks Funnies.

Featuring a downtrodden, midwestern twentysomething with the ability to convert analog sound waves into pure power, the first issue reminded me a lot of a common love that Birdie and I share - Arrested Development. Imagine that utterly deadpan yet riotously funny template applied to, say, Spider-Man and you've got an idea of this working-class hero's day-to-day life. Much like the wall-crawlers constant struggles to balance his spandex and personal lives, Kevin's need for new and exciting mixtape transitions to use in the empowerment against the dark forces causes strife with his girlfriend. Hell, if his arch nemesis turns out to be who the answering machine seems to indicate it is, I daresay that this comic may well turn the whole superhero genre on its head - just think of something like Superman Versus The Hulk in a factory dedicated to making sparks, flame, and gunpowder.

Birdie's visual storytelling matches his scripting perfectly. Oh, I'm sure some people are going to say the art's a bit spare, but as the book is set in Minnesota, it's not like there's a lot of need when it comes to backgrounds and the like, OK?

Anyway - you can read a preview and buy the first issue here, and check out other works such as The Kings Of Pop at his website: benjaminbirdie.com.

Disclaimer: Birdie has been a witty correspondent email and included two items that could be considered bribes in my order. I may have a man-crush on him.

Warren Ellis talks about upcoming Marvel work at a press conference covered by Arune @ Comic Book Resources.

Ellis's new project has a working title of "Newuniversal," and it involves, as you might imagine, the New Universe."I'm going to be doing many terrible things with the old New Universe books - clean stuff, as if the books had never been published before, so I won't be beholden to any of the older work," said Ellis, who will essentially be rebooting the universe. The month before the release of "Newuniversal," Marvel Comics will release five one-shots, "The Untold Tales Of The New Universe," including "Starbrand," "Nightmask," "Justice," "DP7," and the remaining properties, such as "Kickers, Inc," "Merc" and "Spitfire," will be featured in backups in "New Avengers" and "Amazing Fantasy." In "Newuniversal," it will function as a huge ensemble story, with all the characters' stories being told in one series.

The sci-fi nature of the New Universe appealed to Ellis, as does the fact that the universe has been untouched for so long. He'll be using old characters and old names, mixing it with some of his own ideas. To those who are skeptical of the series, Ellis compared the failure of New Universe to that of "Battlestar Galactica," with the potential being there to remake it into something critically and commercially successful.

Huh.

Offered without any comment.

Me: OK, I'm going go to nuke my lunch and eat it. Bye!
Kristin: If you were Johnny Storm you would not need a microwave!

Yesterday's Otter Prime strip is now up at Monkey Day Comics, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Monkeyday.com, dedicated to bringing a recognized Monkey Day to our holiday calendar.

More later.

A couple of weeks ago, Ed went off on Liberality For All despite having not read it. He actually did a great job, which is not at all rare for him, but I think somebody should address the actual quality of the comic.

I can do that in one sentence.

"Liberality For All proved there's a reason that most of the creators I like are bedwetting liberals - they can create believable fiction that doesn't involve 2,000 dead US soldiers."

To be fair, I could say that the "show, don't tell" principle is kicked in the teeth and the supposed "humor" and "satirical" elements fall flat on their face thanks to a complete lack of subtlety. I could also mention that one of the supposed heroes, G Gordon Liddy (with a robot arm, riding a motorcycle, which comes out much less cool than it should somehow) will be 91 in 2021 and the very-spry seeming Sean Hannity is going to have 60 candles on his cake, but I won't. I especially won't even discuss the art, which makes the post-Image-departure Marvel books of the mid-90s look as if they sprang from the head of Zeus with its utter flatness and improbable anatomy.

If there's supposed to be a camp value to the entire effort, I can't find it and Mackay's persona has been consistently aggressive against those who thought his comic was crap, saying that they don't "get it" and that they're too sensitive. Um - I guess this mean's he's serious about this being "good satire." He's not making American Flagg! here, despite his apparent delusions concerning quality, proving that, much like Newt Gingrich and Liddy, the best fiction that the neoconservative movement can come up with usually gets a live performance in Congress.

Again with the links. Click if you want to see the X3 teaser trailer. Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart class this up nicely, but it still feels like the commercial for that X-Men Legends 2 video game.

Now, for the list.

When comics come to your shop
on Wedneday, December 7, there's going
to be many choices. Here are some that
I think are worth a second glance.

Dark Horse

OCT050013 PENNY ARCADE 1X 25 CENTS $0.25

Hey, it's a quarter and it's probably got more than a few funny bits in it. Quarter comics are totally punk rock. I'm sure Spurgeon or someone will write something interesting about an online comic generating "real media" dollars, so I will let them do that. Me, I'm just going to think about the Fruit Fucker. The rest is easy.

DC Comics

OCT050214 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN #1 SPECIAL EDITION #1 $3.99

OK, so I looked at the preview copy. It's kinda neat, seeing how Miller tells Jim Lee how to go for a full-on ass shot one moment and then starts talking about Vicki Vale's ass.

OCT050225 GOTHAM CENTRAL #38 $2.50

I feel like it's been only two weeks since the last issue. Huh.

OCT050250 HARD TIME SEASON TWO #1 $2.50

Stop calling comics runs "Seasons," goddammit.

MAY050320 HI HI PUFFY AMIYUMI MAQUETTE SET $125.00

Hi, Hi, Japanese Pedophile!

OCT050258 JLA CLASSIFIED COLD STEEL #1 (OF 2) $5.99

I won't spend $6 on this, but I will look at it in the store, by god. Giant Fuckoff Robot JLA Go!

OCT050260 JONAH HEX #2 $2.99

I liked the first issue well enough to pick this up, but I am not feeling the desperate need like DC wants me to.

MAY050318 KINGDOM COME SPECTRE GREEN LANTERN NORMAN MCCAY STATUE $89.99

I can finally own a tiny statue of Alex Ross's dad!

Fuck yeah!

OCT050268 SEVEN SOLDIERS MISTER MIRACLE #2 (OF 4) $2.99

Is this Billy Dallas Payton or that other guy who's not whatshisname?

OCT050255 SHOWCASE PRESENTS JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA VOL 1 TP $16.99

Oh, dear. There goes next weekend.

Yes, I know that makes me very sad.

OCT050328 VIMANARAMA TP (MR) $12.99

Probably one of those "much better in trade" Morrison books, as you can finally make the easy connections between mad ideas.

Image

JUN051774 CASEFILES SAM & TWITCH #20 (RES) (MR) $2.50

This better mean I don't have to see Jack or Shit by EJ Su, aka That Artist That Is Ruining This Comic For Me.

OCT051769 DOWN #2 (OF 4) $2.99

This isn't Ellis Prime, but it's still got enough to keep me interested.

SEP058243 FELL 2ND PRTG #1 (PP #693) $1.99
SEP058244 FELL 2ND PRTG #2 (PP #693) $1.99

Now this is Ellis That I Really Enjoy. Hopefully, your local shop ordered a few more!

AUG051661 WALKING DEAD SCRIPT BOOK #1 (MR) $3.99

I really hope there's page after page of...

PAGE 10
PANEL 1
DRAW SOME ZOMBIES.
ZOMBIE 1: RARRR!
ZOMBIE 2: RARRR! RAR! RARRARR!
ZOMBIE 1: RAR?

PANEL 2
DRAW SOME MORE ZOMBIES.
ZOMBIE 3: RARRR!
ZOMBIE 1 (O/C): RAR! RAR?!?

Marvel

OCT052041 ESSENTIAL SPIDER-WOMAN VOL 1 TP $16.99

"Essential" is, again, stretched quite a bit, but I am getting this because 70s Marvel is a special, happy place for me. A fucked-up special, happy place.

OCT051977 MARVEL ZOMBIES #1 (OF 5) $2.99

I dunno if I am actually buying this or not. It's five issues, which seems a bit excessive, but it is Sean Phillips drawing the whole shebang.

OCT052030 MEGA MORPHS DIGEST $7.99

Greatest comic ever! It's got a Lobotomized Hulk with a Giant Fuckoff Robot wreaking havoc! Yes, it's a tie-in to a toy line, but Sean McKeever seems to take it just about as seriously as it deserves.

SEP051900 ULTIMATES 2 #9 $2.99

I think this was solicited for June of 1984, or maybe it just feels that late.

Other Companies

SEP052979 ANGEL OLD FRIENDS #1 (OF 5) $3.99

Peter David does the Buffyverse. I don't care, but many people might.

CORRECTION FROM DAVID IN COMMENTS FOLLOWS:
Angel Old Friends is by Jeff Marriote, not Peter David. So even those people don't care.

OCT053193 CAVEMAN ROBOT #1 $2.50

One of those books I'm tempted to buy just on name alone.

OCT052690 DEMO COLLECTION TP $19.95
SEP052941 DILDO #10 (A) $3.95

If Uncle Larry hadn't posted that "Snark is for douchebags," on The Engine, I would go for the easy alliterative joke that mocks these two items for being so close to each other on the Diamond Shipping List. But he did, so I won't.

(I kid. Larry's company has made many, many comics I thought were tops, even if I understand why many people find his Stan Lee-hopped-up-on-meth hucksterism grating and transfer that irritation to his company.)

OCT052723 EMO BOY #4 $2.95

That biocomic about Ryan in New York's teenage years has another issue. That's excellent, unlike Emo Boy's poetry.

SEP052984 MAZE AGENCY #1 (OF 4) $3.99

???

Surely, this isn't drawn by Adam Huges.

OCT052955 OPTIC NERVE #10 (MR) $3.95

Cue Josh making jokes about my glasses.

SEP053204 SURROGATES #3 (OF 5) $2.95

Another comic coming out earlier than I expected. Maybe issue 2 was late or something. Either way, I'm getting it and if your shop has the first two issues and this one, you should pick this up.

And that's it for this week. I'm going to spend about $80, it looks like, so I hope my Pick Six numbers come through.

Linkblogging is lazy, but let's do it anyway, OK?

Firstly, Joe Casey talks to Spurgeon, spews truth:

"Someone once compared the comic book medium to jazz or poetry. Both are fairly niche art forms now, but I don't think anyone believes that jazz music or poetry is going away anytime soon. If that's our lot in ife, then so be it. Let's just accept it and concentrate more on content -- making good comics -- rather than testing the glass ceiling of the Direct Market with the latest gimmicks (be it variant covers, shock value deaths or outside media writers). I mean, is that really something to be proud of? "I sold a shitload of (insert name of inherently meaningless product here)." Okay, great. Congratulations. Eight track players and pet rocks sold by the truckloads once, too."

Secondly, Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin turns two! I'm not going to wax poetic about Sterling, but I'll say this - he's one of the reasons I'm a dedicated comics blogger now. I came across his site and went "Eureka! He likes comics and that's all he writes about and he sucks and I don't so I will defeat him in blog combat!"

That may be sarcasm there, kids. Happy Anniversary, Sterling!

Thirdly, Dorian gives you a special presentation from The Brave And The Bold.

Fourthly:
there is no fourth item.

Fifth:
Chris reads an issue of Tarot so you don't have to. He's a real giver, that boy.

Sixth:
That's a fucking huge robin right there.



Seventh:
The list will be up later tonight. I've not even peeked at what's shipping.

Eighthly:
Something like 9 years on, the Fila Brazillia mix of "Cotton Wool" by Lamb can still send tiny little tingles up my spine.

Courtesy of a crappy Flash-based gallery at USAToday.com, here's The Beast (Kelsey Grammar) and The Angel (Ben Foster from Six Feet Under from the Ratner-helmed X3.


[EDITORIAL COMMENTS ABOUT FAUXTEUR RATNER DELETED. NEED MORE CAFFEINE.]

Item 1:
In this short New York Times piece about Damon Lindelof of Lost writing a Marvel book, Dan Buckley (Marvel's publisher) says:

"TV guys fit well with the way we do storytelling because they think visually, they write episodically, they know how to write cliffhangers and they understand how to build characterization running through 6 to 12 issues, which is the same thing that happens during a TV season."

I'll provide a handy translation for those of you at home:

"They can pad this shit out for the trade paperback market like nobody's business.

Item 2:
Stephen King's Dark Tower project for Marvel (them again!) has been pushed back from April of 2006 to February of 2007. At least they were wise enough to go ahead and make sure everything was put into place first, unlike, say the Bendis Secret War book, which now exists as a reason to not hire artist Gabriele Dell�Otto if you expect your comic to come out on anything resembling a reasonable schedule.

The not-quite-underappreciated American Comics Group published quite a few books, but my favorite title of theirs that I've come across is Romantic Adventures, which started in 1949. It became My Romantic Adventures for no apparent reason in 1956 and changed its name back and forth for no apparent reason until they stopped publishing it in 1964, when the company's death-spiral set in. (Herbie and Unknown Worlds were the only really "successful" comics that ACG put out in the 60s and those lasted until '67, when the company breathed its last.)

Anyway, Genius Covers Sunday is dedicated to a half-dozen or so of my favorite covers of this series. I hope you don't think I'm too girly for posting these.


What the hell is that judge talking about?


Near...far...wherever you are...


Dude just wants to avoid a tip.
Duh.


And that seat doesn't look that comfortable, does it, Rod?


Carny girl,
You are my world!
Got flippers, no feet --
You're my favorite freak!


This is just a really nice composition, innit? Kinda
funny, but it doesn't whack you over the head.

SPECIAL GCS ROMANTIC ADVENTURES BONUS REMIX

I've had nothing for this site for the last two days.
That means it's time to break out my secret weapon.

As a preface, it should be known that in my universe there's three stages of Carrie Fisher and the Star Wars mythos.

There's Too Young To Be That Hot Carrie But Oh My God She Is Carrie, then there's Coked Out Carrie, and finally we have Earth Mother Guru-Worshipping, Ewok-Hugging Carrie.

Coked-Out Carris is my absolute favorite. Yes, Harrison Ford had to feed her lines. Yes, her behavior on set was, apparently, just shy of being atrocious. However, very little gives me a stupid thrill than candid set photos from The Empire Strikes Back featuring her.

God, I love Coked-Out Carrie.






Yes, I've seen the Chewbacca tit-grab one.
No, I don't need to see it again.
Yes, that is the second mentioning of breast-gropery that I've posted in a row.

I'm sorry.