In which the Batman Issue is tackled.

(Courtesy of TV In Japan)

100 Bullets #92
At this point, I should be well and truly immune to Brian Azzarello's dialogue-from-one-scene-paralleling-another trick, but this issue has him making a virtuoso performance of that very thing. At this point, I'm enjoying this more for the on-page techniques being employed than any of the story elements. It's almost like pulling out a four-or-five minute section of a really good jazz improv and going "Yeah, that's the stuff."

Doktor Sleepless #7
There's a fairly clever riff on the film adaptation of V For Vendetta that serves as a metaphor for the series as a whole very nicely: yes, we've done this all before, but sometimes things are worth doing again, differently. The old ways don't work like they should; the new ways may not work, but we're trying. Sleepless may owe a lot to its predecessor Transmetropolitan, but it's poking at different concerns that are more relevant to the moment. I don't know if it's just because I'm getting used to it or Ivan Rodriguez's art is improving, but I'm starting to enjoy his slightly-stiff, documentarian way to laying out and telling Ellis's script.

Jack Staff #17
With The Butler, Paul Grist may have finally gotten his stab at the Eisner award for Most British Character Ever. I love how deceptively slight single issues of Jack Staff can be with; little perfectly-formed slices of pop entertainment that are at first glance a bit of candyfloss until you get a look at the larger picture being formed. Grist is creating a complete British comics universe from whole cloth and while he certainly owes a bit to Jack Kirby and Frank Hampson, there's a lot to be said for the man's ability to synthesize and recombine the past into something that's very individual.

Local #12
Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly's series about one woman's self-discovery shouldn't be the sort of comic I like. It's frequently self-indulgent and a bit too self-aware for my tastes; very little is resolved within an individual installment; and, let's face it, off-schedule comics piss me off an awful lot, particularly when it's a limited series. That said, Wood and Kelly manage to zero in with the final issue, creating a thematic and narrative finale that hits every point it needs to while giving things just enough room to breathe. This is going to be a satisfying read when it's all collected and another example in my ever-expanding "Let's just get rid of the Graphic Novel section and shelve these books in the appropriate prose section" argument.

Madman Atomic Comics #9
Hey, kids! Beautiful visuals marred by sophomoric psychobabble! Check it out! (Do not check it out. This was my last issue for a reason.)

Young Liars #4
Where 100 Bullets takes the dark, studious approach to telling a crime story, Lapham's story is so over the top, so cartoonish, that it's occasionally hard to believe he's getting by with it, especially at Vertigo, home of DMZ and Very Serious Sandman-Related Crossovers. Then one remembers that Army of Love is out there, doing to the war what this title does to Tarantino and his ilk, and it all makes a bit more sense. Lapham's dense, funny scripting and ability to cram eight panels onto a page effortlessly makes this one of the more rewarding monthly reads out there and serves as an example of serial comics storytelling that rewards on both an individual and collective basis.

Just three links, but they're all amazing:

• Laura Hudson's first comic reads better than Chuck Dixon's five-hundredth, which, if he's not reached it yet, certainly won't be for DC.
  
• Birdie loves Top Chef as much as I do, but can draw a lot, lot, lot better. (You may need to refresh. His webhost is based on Hoth and they hired a Wampa as the sysadmin.)
  
• Mike Rosenszweig knows how horrible it can be to hang out with me and my camera. He also is a little mean to Birdie, but in a good way.

Grab your copy of the big book and follow along! Again, I'm skipping Marvel and DC as you all have seen, analyzed, and dismissed those quite thoroughly already, I'm sure. Sims hit on most of the highlights, anyway, especially that Morrison Final Crisis: Superman thing.

Dark Horse
The Art Of Tony Millionaire (Page 26)
This is a large-trim, 200 page look at one of those artists that I just can't get over. John Hodgman compares Millionaire to Herriman in a pull-quote featured in the solicitation, but I honestly think I like Millionaire's work more, as his art surprises me almost every time versus the gorgeous but repetitive art in Krazy Kat.

Empowered Volume 4 (Page 30)
I was talking to a Vegas pal of mine and he told me that the odds of the previous volumes being in stock at Diamond when this ships are 14:1. You really can bet on anything there. (More Adam Warren smarter-than-they-should-be sexual, superheroic shenanigans? Ys, pls.)

Mister X Archives (Page 37)
Yeah, I'm pretty much going to have to get Dean Motter's saga of an architect who fights the effects of psycheture in the city he designed, especially if it corrects the print issues from those incomplete iComics reprints from a couple of years ago. Yes, it's $80, but there's ways around that, my friend. Ways.

Hellboy Stuff (Pages 41-43)
I'm a little sad how much I enjoyed the recent Lobster Johnson trade paperback versus the parent title's contemporary materials. Maybe it's just tired of watching a giant red guy with a stone hand punch his way out of situations. (I understand that if I'm tired of that, then I'm tired of live. C'est la vie.)

Image
Guerillas #1 (Pages 142-145)
Seriously, nine issues about commando chimps in Vietnam? Really? Damn.

The Pro (Page 150)
You know, I think I may have to pick this up as I seem to have lost my original copy from a few years ago. My Garth Ennis Hooker Superheroine Comics section is missing its centerpiece.

Hawaiian Dick: Screaming Black Thunder (Page 153)
They have to know exactly what they're doing there, don't they? Don't they?

Ultra: Seven Days (Page 156)
Another book I may have to get just to replace one that appears to have gone missing. You know, the Luna Brothers could have walked away from comics after this and I would have been happy. How they went from a female-positive superheroine series that looked at the psychological and sociological impacts of a world where commoditization of the empowered is the norm to "Invasion Of The Naked Flesh-Eating Egg Girls" is one of those enigmas that will baffle me for a long, long time.

Top Cow
Wanted (Movie Edition Trade Paperback) (Page 177)
"Hey, check out this thing that's completely unlike that Angelina Jolie thing with the same name!"

Hey, if you have iTunes, you can download the first episode of The Middeman for free for a limited time. Make sure you look out for Les's cameo early on! (No, he's not the tentacle monster.)

My Verdict? Very faithful to the original Middleman series in all the right ways. The leads are razor-sharp, the story zips right along, and there's only a very few moments of clumsiness that should be shaken down quickly enough. It certainly doesn't hurt that original series creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach wrote the pilot and serves as an executive producer.

So, yeah, I don't think this is at all appropriate.

PART ONE:
Enter The Shark (OR: Pretty Girls Make Graves)

Frank Silva had been working his beat for a long time. Longer than he cared to admit; forty-one long years. He'd taken over the position of harbormaster from his father, Albus Silva, who'd taken over the position of harbormaster from his father, Baracus Silva. The Silva family had, in defiance of the town charter, maintained control over the harbor, and for good reason. They knew there was more to Amity Island's waters than anyone wanted to admit. They knew that there had to be someone willing to help those who protected the island and its people. Harbormaster was not a position to be taken lightly, and Frank and his forefathers took it very seriously indeed.

Frank had just put the telephone down in its cradle (you know, where the phone handset goes) after calling his wife Minerva and letting her know he'd arrived safely and was down to his usual breakfast of Rice Krispies in that rickety shack he called an office for 9 hours a day when a clamor from outside rose up. Sheriff Martin Brody stormed in, slammed the door behind him, and dropped himself into the chair opposite Frank's desk. Frank eyed him and he stabbed a spoonful of the cereal into his mouth.

"Well, Frank, aren't you going to ask?" Brody asked Frank. Frank swallowed the cereal.

Frank paused. Looked at Brody. Brody was a lean, handsome, man, but not too handsome. He looked like one of your dad's fishing buddies.

"OK, Sheriff Brody. Tell me what's going on."

"Christine Worthington. We just found her body washed up on the beach. Shark attack. Vicious one."

Frank nodded and said "Pretty girl. Saw her messing around with that Cassidy boy on the ferry."

Frank stood up and went to the cupboard and pulled out a box of Twining's tea. "Would you like a cuppa, Sherriff? Always helps me think. That and my pipe." Frank held up his pipe.

"No, thanks, Frank. I just...I had to get away from those people out there for a couple minutes. I have to get the beach closed signs out there. We can't have a panic on our hands."

"The mayor's not going to like that, Sherriff"

"The mayor's not very fond of me anyway, Frank"

Frank watched Brody leave and sipped his English Breakfast tea.
TO BE CONTINUED...

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JAWS/QUINT: THE BEGINNING

The boat with the men slides towards the bottom. My brothers pull more of the humans down. I arch my back so my fin brush's Quint's leg one last time.

He knows. I know. It can never be. For now.

Johanna liked it pretty ok:

[...]the goal here isn't high art but a high-octane thrill ride. And it’s a success. Cover Girl is a buddy action movie with a gender twist mixed with romantic comedy. The overall message is that every problem, no matter how small, can be solved by pulling a gun and wise-cracking.

Pal RJ tagged me for this meme on his blog:

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to."

Since I'm not much of a LiveJournaller and more of a "blogger," I figure I should do this here. No jazz right now; I've not been much of a mood for it, instead listening to lots and lots of DJ mixes and dance records on shuffle.

"Desire" by Gus Gus
Sort of like if Orbital and the Gus Gus that recorded "Believe" back in 1997 (!!! - OMG OLD NOW) hung out over one weekend, made an album that got destroyed somehow, and this one track emerged from the sessions. Here it is on the YouTube, with kinda crappy sound.

"The Greatest Dancer" by Robert Hood
Robert Hood's frenetic Fabric 30 mix peaks with this track by the man himself. Nothing like sped-up disco samples with an 808 kick to make sure I'm going to do that embarrassing chair-dancing thing in public.

"Sensual Seduction" by Hot Chip
Snoop Dogg's best song since he and Dre first parted ways gets a piss-take in the studio cover by the only band that makes 1981 Depeche Mode look like the Misfits. It's out there in the wild, so a little bit of Google can help you find what you're looking for.

"Dead Eyes Open" by Severed Heads
The best Australian experimental/industrial synthpop duo's best track that's not "Twister" has been cropping up a lot lately for some reason, and I can't figure out why. I love that left-right pinging arpeggio underpinning and the hoovering noises that hit around the two-minute mark before the chopped-up vocal samples kick in. Rumor has it they're getting a deluxe back-catalog release in the near future thanks to a breakup, so maybe we'll get more of their stuff on these fair shores.

"A Beautiful Day" by The Orb
I paid real money to import the album this track is from late last year, and now you all can pick it up next week for cheap. While very little the Orb's done in the 21st century (with the exception of Okie Dokie It's The Orb on Kompakt,) has been worth very much, this certainly is: growling bassline, beautiful synth chords, appropriate squeaky noises, and then a choir of angelic voices. Slightly over-the-top sunset music for the Ibiza crowd and the sort of thing I love more than I really should.

"Cottonwool" (Fila Brazilia Mix) by Lamb
Every year since 1998, I've had a spate of a month or two where I've been absolutely obsessed with this record. The drum-and-bass rhythms, the sloppy melodic line, Louise Rhode's innocent-yet-seductive voice rising up at just the perfect moment to bring you in further? Hot damn, what a great record this is.

"The Creator" by Aisha
Funny that I should mention The Orb, since the center sample of their "Blue Room" is extracted from this song. A Mad Professor production from back in "the day," this is one of the few reggae vocal songs I want to hear on a regular basis. (I'm a dub guy; what can I say?) Summer's here, so I guess we should all drink our Red Stripe and nod to this sort of record at barbecues across the land!

Special Bonus Track: "Charlotte" by Booka Shade
The best track on their new album. Total hands-in-the-air, summertime electro-house. Seek it out.

If you want to do this meme, do this meme. I'm not assigning anything!

It's time for staff picks, so get to pickin'!

Not very many from the inside of the show, actually, as that place is not conducive to those of us who prefer not to use flashes. You can look at them here.

I don't want to complain too much about the Puck, as it's clearly a location that the people associated with MoCCA love (and rightly so - it's a fantastic building with no shortage of history) but between inadequate air conditioning for the number of people moving in and out and the supreme silliness of having to take an elevator up to the seventh story for the additional creators, it may be time for a venue change. Maybe they can just book wherever the Golden Apple show normally holds its simultaneous events and work to confuse the people showing up for Denise Crosby's autograph (and photo for an additional $20.)

A new installment of Smorgasbord, my semi-regular column devoted to restaurants in The City has been up for a few days, but I didn't have my laptop, etc, etc, etc. Go read it and find out about the best fried green tomatoes in town, along with frozen custard and substandard Italian!

So. MoCCA Fest 2008. I got to see a lot of the usual suspects: Ed Cunard, Jog, Chris Mautner, Tim Leong, Laura Hudson, Marcos Perez, Justin Fox, Neilalien Gina FirstSecond, etc, etc, along with Birdie and Mike R and other friends and associates from hither and yon while missing out on some of my favorite people: John and Miranda (and Bully), Joe Rice, Alex Cox, etc, etc. The latter was partially my fault (I was so wiped out that I crashed out on Saturday night, unable to get up in time to go to the Chinatown Karaoke Explosion that has become a bit of a tradition) and partially that of inadequate air conditioning at the Puck and a New York City determined to punish everyone for daring to even consider stepping outside.

Next year, I promise, I will rage and rage and not go quietly into that indie comics night, people. Or I'll at least save my pennies so I can stay on Friday night, making Saturday a bit less of a hectic day.

Anyway, here's the important stuff - what I bought!

• My Life in a Jugular Vein: Three More Years of Snakepit Comics and Snakepit 2007 by Ben Snakepit.   This is probably the only "And then I..." autobiocomic that I find worth a damn, mostly because the creator's life is fairly interesting when he's not working at the video store, getting high with his friends, going to parties, or eating burritos.


• Bookhunter by Shiga.  Reviewed by pal Renee over on her blog I should link to sometime.  She liked it, so I'm giving it a shot.


• Earth Minds Are Weak #10: The Sauce of Contention and I Dreamed of You and Mr. Eybyaninch by Justin Fox.  The first is the latest installment of Fox's ongoing surreal series of dramas, this time centering around an improperly-made meatball sub.  The latter is...it's just really fucking weird.  I like it that way.


• I Love Love (Too Bad I Hate You) by Hilary Florido.  Teeth-achingly cute and viciously funny.  Florido's doing a western book for :01FirstSecond for next year and after meeting her and reading this, I'm pretty sure it should be worth some time. 
  
  


• Welcome to the Dahl House: Alienation, Incarceration and Inebriation in the New American Rome by Ken Dahl.  Wow.  Never has agitprop been so laugh out loud funny.  When not ranting through his own damn self, Dahl busts out Gordon Smalls, a sort of Buddy Bradley who went to seed.  The two-part "How To Steal The Food You Deserve" / "How To Get Arrested" set of skillshares from Smalls had me laughing aloud on the bus, looking like a damn fool.


• Minis 2000-2002 by Becky Cloonan.  There's a bit in one of the one-page "Social Unrest" comics where Cloonan's fingerprint just appears in the middle of the page and it's unsure if it's deliberate or an accident that made it through the various incarnations.  It's there, and it's soon joined by others scattered throughout the book, as Cloonan is a big fan of heavy, deep blacks and those require much ink and patience.  It's obvious that she's very short on the latter - she just wants to dive in and get on with it, and drying wastes valuable comics-making time.  That's just one of about ten thousand things I loved about this collection.  (She also made the best stuck-at-work comic ever with "$7.50 An Hour," in which our mouse-clicking heroine compares her life to that of the samurai, and comes out losing.  Hilarious.)


• Inbound.  It's a collection from the people behind the Boston Comics Roundtable, and you have to support your hometown, motherfuckers.


• Chiggers by Hope Larson.  I'm pretty sure we're going to hear alllllllllll about this in a few months.


• Harvest Is When I Need You The Most.  A very strong collection of Star Wars stories, beautifully designed.  You should get your own. 


• The Blot by Tom Neely.  Everybody was singing its praises a little while back and a few flipped pages told me I rather needed it. Between him and the Sparkplug Gang, I spent $100 in less than 10 minutes.  Comics, you bastard.


• Asiaddict by Mats!?.  I am a sucker for a good travelogue comic and since there are so very few good travelogue comics, this "far-out trip across the Bizarre, Lurid and Mundane tourist Minefields of Buddhisneyland" was one of those "no-brainers" the kids are always talking about.  Dense, colorful, and well worth the $15 cover price.


• Mine Tonight by Alixopulos. A noir story about a gun for hire who finds himself caught up in the 2004 presidential election, with a bit of autobiography thrown in.  Yes, that sounds like something I'd like.


• Reich 1-4 by Elijah Brubaker.  The first issues of a massive biography of Wilhelm Reich ?  Why the hell not?  (It looked downright beautiful with high-contrast art and that style of big-head cartooning that I find myself a little in love with.)


• Lunar by Vasilis Lolos.  Becky Cloonan was selling this sci-fi minicomic by her partner and all you really need to get me to do to buy your comic blind is to be Vasilis Lolos doing a science-fiction comic.  It's a terrific example of what comics can do that prose or film can't when it comes to presenting the surreal and haunting.  I finished it and started flipping back and forth, taking this apparently-simple little story apart and finding a lot more there than you'd think.  If you see it, get it.


• Tear-Stained Makeup #7 by Marcos Perez.  The best issue yet of Marcos's ongoing soap opera.  There's some sexing in this one, too, so you can get your jollies off there if you're like that.


• Watching Days Become Years 2-4 by Jeff Levine.  I picked up the first issue at SDCC 2006 and fell in love.  It took two years, but I bought the rest of Jeff Levine's essay comics that touch on about a dozen different things just perfectly.


• Caveman In Space and Tales of Unusual Circumstance by Joey Weiser.  A tiny bit reminiscent of Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeir, but without that slight bit of too-cuteness that leaves me only able to read a very few pages.  The latter is a collection of minis done by the (too) young creator and the best parts are where he pokes at known conventions to create the funny.


• March Hare 8 by Josh Cotter.  Every day in March, Josh Cotter drew something.  It's a sketchbook that doubles as a virtuoso performance as he leaps between the familiar Skyscrapers of the Midwest style to life sketches, abstract doodlings, and graphical improvisations.  It's enough to make you hate one man's talent and firmly places him as the guy who's right next to Chris Ware in the "So, so much more than you think" section at Whole Foods.


• King-Cat Comics & Stories #66 by John Porcellino.  It's a little-known rule of indie comics hipsterdom:  if you see a John Porcellino mini-comic, you have to buy it.


• AAAA Action Team by Pat Lewis.  I'm a huge fan of Pat Lewis's work and the guy himself, so it's no surprise that I am telling you to get this comic book about a world-saving team of regular people who were chosen to save the world...because they were first in the phone book.  (Terrific, funny concept and I hate him so much for coming up with it first.)


• Phase 7 #012 and #013.  Alec Longstreth makes comics I like.  The end.


• Mila and the Prince of Space by Evan G. Palmer.  He's the intern at the O'Malley-Larson comics compound and it's very easy to see why they brought him on board.  This honestly feels like work from someone with a few more years under their belt.  I love his never-ending lines and facial expressions that tell the story better than chunks of exposition ever could.


• Geraniums and Bacon #5 by Cathy Leamy.  I put this last because she's one of my better friends and I don't want to make it look like I'm showing any kind of bias.  (Though, you know, if I weren't bias-ing, I'd not have put it last and said something about that, would I?)  Anyway.  Cathy's stuff always inspires me and serves as a perfect example of what I like when it comes to autobiographical/real-life comics: talk about something interesting.  Her piece on the Filene's Basement Bridal Dress Run wouldn't be out of place in something like the New York Times Magazine, and she manages to make bra-shopping into something that's interesting for factors beyond Oh, Hey!  Boobies!

In addition to all this, I also finally bought the Dinosaur Comics and Jellaby books.  No, I have no idea why I waited for so long. There's also a copy of Alex Robinson's new graphic novel that I'll be reviewing for Comic Book Resources, along with Adhouse's Superior Showcase #3

Did you go? What did you get? Who did you see? Tell me all about it!

How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, man, practice.

(I'm back from MoCCA. Will comment tomorrow about it. Great time, great people, etc.)

Email me if you're gonna be there and we've not made vague plans to say hello to each other. I got the fancy Gmail on my phone.

lp asked me to curate an edition of "Hey Mr YouTube DJ" over on the SXSW music blog, so I did that very thing. I revised this like eight times and still want to pick at it, so look forward to an unofficial additional five over on this site sometime.

Can't Touch This.

Guys have their fantasy epics, so let the women have their own.

Director Sam Raimi told reporters yesterday that he's waiting to see the script for Spider-Man 4 before making the commitment to helm the picture.

"Right now James Vanderbilt is writing the script, and he's working on it, and I'm excited to read it," Raimi said in a group interview in Century City, "I think it's going to be done in a few months. I'm hoping it's as great as our discussions were about it and hoping it feels right for me, because I love Spider-Man, and I'm hoping I'm well-enough rested to, like, really embrace it and hoping that Sony wants me at that time to direct it."

"It's highly unusual for a director to want to see a script before taking the reins of a two-hundred million dollar effort," added Sony studio chairwoman Amy Pascal. "We're willing to accommodate Mr. Raimi's eccentricities and demands this time as the franchise has earned us what the accountants refer to as 'an ass-load' of money."

Confused? Watch the first part of the Overdrift saga.

"There was a software program that I used for many years, WordPerfect, which is what I learned on and what I loved, but it didn't paginate for you. So you had to pay attention to what was falling where, and it was very important to me to never have speeches break on pages. I would obsess, God, I need to get rid of one line to make this fit. And no matter how many times I'd pass through the script, I would always be able to find something to get rid of on any individual page. The fact that there was always something to get rid of on every page was a lesson. Every now and then I'd come to a page and go, There isn't one thing that I can get rid of to buy a line, it's so strong. I'll stare at a page for fifteen minutes, Can I get rid of this? Can I get rid of that? I've been doing that for twenty-five years."

iFanboy appears to be trying to make up for having the worst name in the world and has a new webcomic from the guys behind the quite-good AiT graphic novel Continuity. "Watch to see if a lovesick gastrointestinal hitman can find romance in the big city? Or will love shit him out?" It looks lovely and made me smile in its first installment, so maybe you want to check out The Gastrometrist, too?

(One minor problem: there's no way to subscribe to the comic or be notified when it updates without subscribing to the whole iFanboy feed. I don't need to subscribe to the whole iFanboy feed. I don't want to subscribe to the whole iFanboy feed. You can't make me subscribe to the whole iFanboy feed!)

(NSFW) Two Japanese men have broken a long-standing record by masturbating for over eight hours. Norihiro Taneichi and Masanobu Sato of Tokyo competed at this year's Masturbate-a-Thon in San Francisco with Sato taking the grand prize after hitting the eight hour, forty minute mark. Sato credited the Tenga New Adult Concept line of onanistic aids and repeated readings of The Comics Journal for improving his masturbatory skill.

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Newsarama has redesigned its front page with the first significant change in over four years. Comic Book Resources, Something Awful, and 1Up will be welcoming their newest identical sibling with a brunch at Denny's.

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Warner Brothers has hired a screenwriter for the big-screen adaptation of Warren Ellis's Ocean. The 2004 Wildstorm miniseries concerns the discovery of unusual alien technology beneath the ice of Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. There's been no word yet if it's Arthur C Clarke or Stanley Kubrick they're exhuming for the gig.

The Boys #19
Ennis and Robertson put on their best shoes and show how it's done. There's some secret origin action, a conversation I've been wanting to see happen, and, yes, a man convered in his own filth. I don't even know why I talk about this book anymore. I should just copy and paste the phrase "It's better than it has any right to be and you should be paying attention to this."

Criminal, Volume 2 #3
Like The Boys, I'm sort of lost as to what to say at this point. (I also see why Sims cherry-picks what he reviews from his list.) Anyway, this series continues to be a stripped-down homage that manages to best what it's paying tribute to with Sean Phillips never looking better, to say nothing of Ed Brubaker's apparently bottomless well of writing talent.

Duostar Racers #1
This is going to be gorgeous in the inevitable massive hardcover version, isn't it?Other people would likely complain about a barely-comprehensible comic about street racing that only had a few word balloons and seemed to exist mostly to show off Ashley Wood's love of heavy lines and blacks, but I'm too big a fan at this point to be rational.

Manhunter #31
Seamlessly picking up from the previous 30 issues (and three trade paperbacks,) this dense issue serves as a great example of how to do serial comics well. There's a superhero vs supervillain battle, the first acts of an A-Story and a B-Story as well as a number of thematic strands that are laid in place. With Michael Gaydos on board, density appears to be the order of the day, with pages averaging between six or seven panels and a few well-handled information dumps, including the recap pages at the beginning. I'm probably just going to switch back to reading the series in trade paperback (and being told how I'm killing the book for doing this,) but it's nice to know that this is still the most interesting, best-written 10PM drama featuring superheroes out there.

Midnighter #20
The final issue of a series that stayed on my pull list far longer than it should have, and a nasty little beast it is at that. In fact, I'm sort of surprised they didn't slap a FOR MATURE READERS warning above the UPC, as this features some of the most graphic dismemberment I've seen since Preacher wrapped up, but I imagine that Wildstorm can get by with just about anything it wants to at this point, with their numbers hovering somewhere between those for the Johnson County Feed And Seed Catalog and Dog And Cousin Fucking Quarterly.

Local man's arm in sling yet he still talks about the comic books!!

Here's mine:

Cast:HEATHER: She's not on duty, but she's visiting...

KEVIN: ...who appreciates the company.

CUSTOMER: A petite, red-headed woman in her mid-twenties.

Setting

Behind the counter at the local comics shop.

Scene Two

The CUSTOMER walks up to the counter, where Kevin and Heather are punching each other in the arm.

CUSTOMER:Hi!


KEVIN:Ow. Hi! Ow.


CUSTOMER: Do you want to--?


KEVIN: (WINCING AS HEATHER CONTINUES HITTING HIM) No, that's fine. What can I do for you?


CUSTOMER:I was wondering if there were any red-headed superheroines.


KEVIN:(ASIDE, TO HEATHER) You can stop now.(BEAT)
(TO CUSTOMER) Well,there's Jean Grey. And Batgirl.


HEATHER:And Red Sonja.


KEVIN:Red Sonja is not a superheroine.


HEATHER:Well, what is she, then?


KEVIN:A She-Devil With A Sword. (BEAT)
Duh.

HEATHER:(NARROWING EYES) Hate you so much.


KEVIN:(TO CUSTOMER) Let's check out the wall while my associate fumes.

~~FIN~~

Confidential To MoCCA's Marketing People: You may want to make sure that there's a broad selection of downloadable, press-friendly images for web and print distribution. I had to take a screenshot of the downloadable PDF poster and resize it to make the above image. Very few people are as patient as me when it comes to dicking around with images for their blog.

You want the staff picks? here are the staff picks!

• I'm a little in love with Aziz Ansari. He's funny, delights in the same inane shit as me, and loves fine food as much as myself. I'm sure this will pass and I'll find myself waking up next to Rob Huebel. (Sorry, Paul. I require a full, lustrous head of hair.)
  
  
  
• The new Booka Shade album is fairly addictive. The first few tracks are more laid back and then WHAM! Dance madness ensues. There's quite a lot of singing on this record, which is something they've not had in the past, but it works fairly nicely in that Georgio Moroder technodisco way. The highlight of The Sun And The Neon Light has to be"Charlotte," which I'll likely include in the next muxtape update.
  
  
  
• I read the first collection for Spider-Man: Brand New Day and really enjoyed the format - three-issue, rat-a-tat stories with new villains and some of the 70s-style soap operatics that I enjoy so much. I can see why Quesada and Brevoort wanted to make this move, but there's very little about these stories (other than the Jackpot "mystery") that required Peter Parker to hire the services of Mephisto: Supernatural Divorce Attorney.
  
  
• From the conversations I've had with them (and their bitching about Whedon not writing more issues of Buffy,) I don't think a lot of Joss Whedon devotees understand that he wasn't the only writer on the various series he's created.

Here's my review of Ultimate Origins #1 at Comic Book Resources.

Go check out new Get Off The Internet contributor CM's first piece.

DJ Coffman has had to put Hero By Night on hiatus because Platinum Studios pays for shit. Coffman won the honor of a deal with Platinum as part of the publisher's much-ballhooed "Give Us Your Property And Get Fucked Over In Public" contest, also known as the Comic Book Challenge. Holy shades of Tokyopop's Pilot Program, Batman!

Aaron's not very bright, is he? No, he is not.

Cast:HEATHER: A part-time employee at the local comics shop, who alternates Sunday shifts with...

KEVIN: ...who, like Heather, does the shifts for fun, which means there's something wrong with the two of them.

Setting

Behind the counter at the local comics shop.

Scene One

KEVIN, looking at a random comic as Heather chats with an UNNAMED EXTRA.

HEATHER:--and then there's Stan Lee, who--


KEVIN:(STRAIGHTENING UP AND INTERRUPTING) Hang on. I just realized something.


HEATHER:Oh, no.


KEVIN:Hitler was the Stan Lee of fascism.

(BEAT)

HEATHER:I worry about you.


KEVIN:And Russell Simmons is the Stan Lee of hip-hop!


HEATHER:Please be quiet now.


~~FIN~~

USA Only. Sorry, rest-of-world. Talk to NBC.

Teacher lets Morningside students vote out classmate, 5

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class.

[...]

Barton said after the vote, Portillo asked Alex how he felt.

"He said, 'I feel sad,' " Barton said.

Alex left the classroom and spent the rest of the day in the nurse's office, she said.

Thank you, Wendy Portillo, for ruining my fucking morning.