There is two feet of snow outside. The mayor’s telling businesses to not open tomorrow. Matt at Comicopia’s offering a 20% discount to anyone who dares to make it to his shop today.
I guess it’s time to watch Return Of The King finally. I have no excuse.
File Under: Yes, I We Really Do Talk Like This.
BeaucoupKevin: Fucking Cup O’ Joe column.
Josh: Ooh, link. let me see.
BeaucoupKevin: He should just write HI I AM A BIG ASSFUCK MONKEY CLOWN THAT IS THE SUCK AND I NEED BILL JEMAS BACK.
BeaucoupKevin: Let me see if it’s online.
BeaucoupKevin: Bah, the site only has December’s.
BeaucoupKevin: It’s blah blah blah ELEKTRA.
Josh: In the latest Marvels, then? Haven’t been to the shop, alas.
BeaucoupKevin: Yeah.
Josh: “ELEKTRA AM THE ONLIEST SUPERMOVIE WHAT MAKE ME CHANGE MY SHORTS FOR THE SPAFFING.”
BeaucoupKevin: …
Josh: ‘Cause he can’t write, see, and… I’ll get me coat.
BeaucoupKevin: I want a column dedicated to WHY DAREDEVIL: FATHER SUCKED AND WHY I AM EIGHTEEN YEARS LATE WITH THE SECOND ISSUE.
Josh: Those are two seemingly incompatible topics. Because if it sucks, who cares if it’s late?
BeaucoupKevin: I remember the days when Marvel would finish their sucky suck suck series.
BeaucoupKevin: Think about how we would have been if we’d never known how, say, SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE ended.
BeaucoupKevin: What if SECRET WARS II was left hanging at its penultimate issue?
Josh: “The Beyonder has run out of Jheri Curl activator? What am happenings next?????”
BeaucoupKevin: Even when Jack Kirby was high on gas fumes and doing stuff like DEVIL DINOSAUR, the stuff came out on time. Hell, knowing Jack, it came out BEFORE it was supposed to. Give me Sal Buscema drawing over a Roy Thomas script, telling me about the adventures of, I dunno, Union Jack in the Vampire Crypt Of Clown Delights over this sort of…delayed doses of lame artistry.
BeaucoupKevin: Give me my pulp back.
BeaucoupKevin: Maybe that’s why I’m gravitating towards all the crime books mentioned.
Josh: Car Wash of DOOOOOOOM!
BeaucoupKevin: LUKE CAGE SAYS: SWEET CHRISTMAS! MY CADILLAC SURE IS CLEAN!
The Bushes don’t worship Satan. Honest.
Vulcans are the designated drivers of the universe.
Thanks, Ren.
You know, on a combination of NyQuil and its mirror universe counterpart, DayQuil, one can see the future. In this future, I have an immune system that doesn’t buckle like a belt when confronted with viruses that are metastized through the confines of an airplane’s cabin. Every freaking time I fly, I get something, be it a wee case of the sniffles or the “Jim…why did you leave me…on Genesis” flu I just enjoyed.
I have purchased no new comics in the last two weeks. I suppose I’ll bop down to the shop tomorrow and pick my haul.
Marvel’s April solicitations are also up.
Um. So, of the regular books, there’s:
Ultimates and Daredevil.
Way to go, guys. I am tempted by Milligan on X-Men but the preview I saw inspired nothing resembling what I’d want to see from him on the book. I suspect there’s a tight editorial leash in place.
So, I’m getting the latest Daredevil trade, collecting what I’ve already purchased. It’s nice to see that all of Bendis’s books are kept in print, if not anyone else’s.
Maybe that Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko book. I have most of the works reprinted in there except for that issue of Daredevil, but I am not the Ditko fan I want to be, for the most part.
She Hulk Volume 2: Superhuman Law – yeah, I pretty much have to after my earlier praises.
Of some interest is the Fantastic Four / Spider-Man Classic trade. While I have low hopes for the movie after seeing the trailer, I actually like quite a few of these stories and don’t own most of them, so that’ll be a snip at $15.
I’d probably get Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes if it wasn’t a $25 hardcover. I’ll wait for the trade unless it’s one of the obscene oversized books.
Wow, Marvel. Way to make DC look good.
So, let’s see. I’m not pissed off like Ian was during his epic rant a couple months ago, but here’s a go at things I want and one thing I suspect I’ll want to burn.
DCU Want List:
Batman: Year One Deluxe Edition, which collects stuff I have twice over but has a new Mazzucchelli cover and script pages, some sketches, etc.
DC: New Frontier Volume 2. Because, you know, the best comics story DC put out in the last year needed to be split into two overpriced volumes instead of one well-valued tome.
Seven Soldiers: Zatanna and Klarion The Witch Boy. Grant Morrison blah blah blah yadda yadda love his comics more than I love pie.
Not even a more-lifeless-than-usual Alex Ross cover and a pretty lame post-Man of Steel story can keep me away from the Superman Vs The Flash trade. Race, you magnificent spandex bastards.
DCU Burnination:
The Omac Project #1 shits all over Kirby. Thanks, guys. Rucka, god bless him, is not insane enough to make the mad ideas that Kirby had work for himself. It’s connected to DCU Countdown, that nebulous storyline that will “forever change” the “DC Universe” in ways that we “can not imagine.” YAWN
The only good thing that will come from this is that maybe we’ll see an OMAC trade out of it.
Vertigo Want List:
Expect to see Vertigo: First Taste in my next contest as it’s a fine value.
Mnemovore is a title that Christopher Butcher has told me to buy. I trust him and so should you, citizen.
The Bite Club trade paperback is a fine deal as well, with some great art by David Hahn and Howard Chaykin writing a sprawling Vampirism-heavy Godfather story.
Buy two copies of Human Target #21 as it’s the title’s last issue and an upward bounce would make them think they were twats for cancelling the line’s best ongoing title. Rumor has it that Milligan’s known for a while, though, and we will get a proper conclusion to this one.
Wildstorm:
If you’ve not, you should read Garth Ennis’s The Authority: Kev stories. They’re quite the riot and have some nice art by Glenn Fabry.
Um. Blah blah the fairly-impressive-in-ideas Ocean wraps up yadda yadda yadda.
Wow, that was brief. Probably says something, doesn’t it?
File Under: Hey, is it The Onion?
Sarah and I have decided to go to New York to see Erasure. I love Erasure and she loves the flamboyant gay men, so it will be a nice thing to do together, especially since she’s always bugging me about music stuff and I never actually follow up on any of it. See also: I’m just insecure enough to need a chick at this gig and Kristin loathes Vince and Andy.
A friend of mine attempted to help me get a break on the pricing enforced by TicketMaster due to his vague connection to their company. Turns out that he can’t because of some sort of strife between organizations. This leaves me to order tickets on the internets from them. Check out the brutality:
Tickets (Erasure)
FULL PRICE TICKET
US $40.00 x 2
Total Convenience Charge(s)
US $8.20 x 2
Order Processing Charge(s)
US $4.35
Standard Mail
No Charge
TOTAL CHARGES
US $100.75
Fuck you, TicketMaster. Fuck you in the fucking ear with a barbed-wire dildo. The word “usury” comes to mind. “Convenience fees” and “order processing charges” equalling a quarter of my product costs? What sort of alternative do I have? It’s not a “convenience” if it’s a monopolistic grip that disallows me other purchasing alternatives outside of the venue which is, I might add, in New York City. Order Processing Charges? That’s the sort of bullshit you see on late-night informercial scams offering you free advice on no-money down real estate. I understand that TicketMaster is in business to make money and I understand that they do have a costly infrastructure in place, but this is egregious, to use the most polite term possible. Why should I have to pay for them to “process my order?” Netflix doesn’t charge me “convenience fees” when I add new movies to my queue and I daresay their database is at least as robust.
I’m sure I’ll have a fabulous time with Sarah and the boys in the band will be spot-on, but this reminds me why I don’t like going to large shows anymore.
Too cranky to blog properly today, so here’s proof that DC was Freak Central during the Silver Age.
Portland Trip, A Very Short Report:
Finally, I present to you the only photo from the trip, taken by Doug’s cameraphone:
Sage advice, that.
Off to Portland, Oregon tomorrow morning bright and early to visit Doug, his lovely wife, and their evil cats. Be back on Tuesday. If there’s a comics blogger emergency, some of you should know how to reach me.
20 facts about voting in the United States.
You know, in case you’re not angry enough.
Those Fine Folks At Ferret PressTM are giving away a copy of the first trade collection for their much-ballyhooed Strangehaven series. You really should enter, even if it’s more competition for me.
Howard Dean is running for chairman of the DNC.
About goddamn time.
I realized that I went and mentioned Larry Young’s Proof Of Concept without telling you that you should spend your $13 on it.
You should spend your $13 on it, even if I think it’s a bit of a failure.
For those of you who haven’t read the reviews by guys like Mike Sterling and Dorian Wright, this is a clever way for Larry to stroke his own ego1 a bit while letting newcomers (some of whom, I understand, were picked by some sort of thing at CBR that I paid no attention to at all) take a whack at that comic book thing. The framework, drawn by Kieron Dwyer in a gorgeous style I’ve not seen from him before, is Larry on the phone with his powerful Comic Book Lawyer, pitching ideas for comics. We get short bursts of pure concept2, which is what Young does best. Unfortunately, this means we never see a complete story in this collection of rough ideas and I could probably argue that his Astronauts In Trouble work also suffers from the same lack of story. He knows how to set things up brilliantly, but I fear that’s all he can do. This is why I’m convinced that he’s a much better editor and publisher than writer.
I like Larry Young quite a lot. The comic book business needs Larry much more than we need Rob “What Are Ankles?” Liefeld or Mark “Hey, How’s My Ego Looking?” Millar. We need people willing to put out things like the fuck-off action of Couscous Express and The Couriers as well as more reflective works like the properly-acclaimed DEMO. I just wish that someone would ask him “…and then?” and try to help him better hammer down his own stories.
Buy this book. I think it’s a failure worth investing in because it will give Larry yanqui dollars for more books like Matt Fraction’s The Last Of The Independents and Tales From Fish Camp by Danielle Henderson. Support people doing things that won’t make you want to give up reading comics.
1I think he’d agree with this. It’s a vanity project, but it’s not like The Clown Who Laughed or that tragic 5th season of Perfect Strangers, where Bronson Pinchot’s hubris dragged the series down into political commentary that was aimed above the target audience.
2The individual stories have been better covered by others – I wanted to talk about the book.
I’d read and heard a lot of people I trusted say they liked Dan Slott’s take on She Hulk. I’ll be honest – I don’t really have a firm connection to the Jade Giantess, so I didn’t have a firm opinion on “how” she should be written. Byrne wrote her character well in several Fantastic Four stories in the 80s. You know, before he was a raving ass saying “Hispanic and Latino women with blond hair look like hookers to me, no matter how clean or “cute” they are.”1 I also vaguely remember Roger Stern writing a few Avengers stories that expanded her character beyond the normal “Oh my god, I am mad and now I am big and green and savage!”
But really, it’s been 10 years since I gave any sort of thought to Jennifer Walters, but buzz had been good. Last week was a quiet pause in my usual never-ending parade of comics, with Larry Young’s Proof Of Concept being the other blip on my radar, so I picked this up. Wizard2 named the title their Book Of The Month, which is normally an “Avoid At All Costs” sign, but my relationship with my LCS is more than good3 and if I decide I don’t like something, I can probably get a credit on it for other fine things from their establishment.
Anyway. I like the first trade, Single Green Female, quite a lot. It’s a funny, often hilarious look at what it means to be a second-rate hero who happens to do the Lawyer Thing. In a single day, she loses her bedroom at Avengers Mansion, gets fired from the DA’s office, and her European Supermodel Boyfriend is out the door, declaring himself “bored.” All looks dark for our heroine until she’s hired by a firm specializing in superhero law.
You read that right – superhero law. It’s a ton of fun, watching Jen deal with The Mad Thinker’s Awesome Android, Spider-Man suing The Daily Bugle, and a more-touching-than-it-should-be tale of one man getting superpowers when he doesn’t need them. Slott gets what makes comics fun with his irreverent, if totally in-continuity looks at the inherent silliness of the Marvel Universe. This title is certainly better and more in-character than She-Hulk’s appearance in Bendis’s Avengers4 and manages to keep me somewhat interested in a comics line that’s fading from my radar with disconcerting rapidity. The art chores are shared between two teams and it’s certainly competent, cartoony work that neither distinguishes or embarasses itself too much, but it’s Slott’s writing you should be reading this book for.
Recommended if you like the silly and the funny and the womens that are big and green. I know there’s one or two of you out there.
1Any mention of John Byrne in this blog will include references to the fact that he thinks Jessica Alba looks like a dirty, dirty whore, the kind that his fucktard ass couldn’t touch with a 40-foot-pole and $100,000 in small bills.
2They’re the fucking guide to comics, so don’t mess with them or question their goddamn judgement. Don’t apply critical thinking to anything, while you’re at it, and trust in the marketing departments of DC and Marvel to tell you what to read.
3*jingles keys* Call me a Comicazi Irregular 3rd Class.
4Did anyone like this? Really? I mean, I love his Daredevil and The Pulse fills some sort of void in my life, but Disassembled wanted to be an event and failed on almost every level.
Doug’s having a contest that I’m not eligible to participate in. You, however, can win a fine prize worth tens of dollars, so politically-minded people would be well advised to look at what he’s offering up.
