September '23 Reading Round Up

 

 

That image of the great Cimmerian above is how I feel every time I walk into my LCS to pick up my books. The Big 2/Poo are raining arrows of crappy books on my head, trying their damnedest to tempt me with their flimsy stock and watered down plots. By Crom you shalt not have my hard earned shekels you corporate vultures! 

Lo, behold Marvisney as thy stock dippest below 80. Thou sayest thou wilt pour your ill begotten gold back into your amusement parks yet thy parks offer no amusement! They offer pain, suffering and a hole in the common man's wallet. Dip farther you scourge of beast. Sell thy Marvel properties at once! 

And you, you DC! Decrepit Caca! Where have thy Black Label Books of yore gone? Now it is drivel everywhere I look, have thy coffers gone dry due to your stomach churning cinematic experiences that have cost you everything you own and brought back nothing? Box office? Ha! More like a Pillbox Compartment! Perhaps thy new movie Aqua Douchebag (the lead is a Douche) and the Lost Kingdom is about you! You have lost your kingdom! Sell! Sell! Sell!

Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of my LCS and their comic racks I shall purchase no evil! For I have the comfort of my Conan comic from Titan and a pull list hidden far far away from thy scraggly fingers and shriveled nutsacks!

Anyway, here's what I got into this month. Happy Reading you Geekazoids!

I love me some Rick Remender. I may not jump on all of his series but you’re guaranteed to get a fully developed world with a deeply invested writer and creative team no matter the title. I will say that I feel like the endings of his titles are ever truly satisfactory for some reason. It’s not something I can put my finger on other to say that the endings of ‘Black Science’ and ‘Seven to Eternity’ weren’t truly memorable nor did they pack a serious wow exclamation mark on the series. Maybe that’s just his style. His newest offering is another great hook for a first issue. It’s another world you’ve never seen before with characters you’ve never laid eyes on. I wonder if they have cheap rent there, LA is getting ridiculous.

 

 

 

Black Cloak just finished what Kelly Thompson is saying was now their first arc, meaning there will be another. I enjoyed it to a degree but I gotta say I could not keep up with which Elf was which Elf and who did what and how to who and why and all the things that make up the basics of character relationships. Maybe they need to pull a Monstress and give you a rundown of the cast before each issue but unlike Monstress, you know, don’t put my brain in a vice and squeeze out its desire to follow a coherent plot. Meredith McClaren did some gorgeous work on this book, especially with the architecture and landscapes of this world created from scratch. Yet the faces pretty much all looked the same but with different fashion and odder names so, yeah, clean that up mmkay?

 

Also, did Kelly Thompson just write a story where the big reveal at the end was a nod to what is actually going on in our real world as it pertains to, umm, trafficked children? How the “You want to build a city on the blood of the innocent" is being used to run our world? Hard to say if she intended that to be the case or if it’s just another example of how the truth of what has been going on in our world for centuries is seeping its way into our everyday lives and pop culture. I’m sure Kelly would deny the connection but safe to say I saw it whether she intended it or not. Interested to see where this goes...

 

 

Tom King and Elsa Charretier are crafting a story for the ages. Love Everlasting just seems to get better with every issue. King’s writing was particularly touching for the final installment of the second arc. I’m not sure King is meant for hero books. I think he’s found the perfect genre, whatever genre you want to call this, for his distinct type of style. The germination of this multi timelined mysterious romance could be found in his disastrous Bat/Cat book of a year or so ago. I know he’s taking up the Wonder Whoa-man mantle which still has me a bit skeptical. Maybe he should take Elsa and Clayton with him?

 

 

 

 

Holy crap! Have I read two, count 'em two romance comics this month??? Synder’s Barnstormers is an absolute victory for the Romance genre, of which we need more of in this industry. More smooching you nerds! Less gross twisted fetishy nastiness like ‘Red Room’ or Gene Simmons’ ‘Dominatrix’, yuck. After a slew of middling and confusing three issue Comixology drops this is by far his most engaging and enjoyable. It’s Bonnie and Clyde in the air and it’s a fantastic read. Can’t wait to read the final installment which has already come out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Issue 46 of Monstress began with a cat being tortured by a bunch of other cats on a wacky prison colony wth a bunch of Seaweed lookin’ Gods in outer space. I can’t believe I just typed that sentence. Can we get a GoFundMe together and pay for Marjorie Liu to just end this series soon? I just can’t anymore. I have no idea what the fuck is going on with this comic and why but I’ve paid for 46 issues, actually 48, I’m behind for a reason, and I’ll be damned if I drop it this far into the game. C’mon Marj, end this psycho fest. I seriously check the Monstress solicits for the words ‘Final Arc’ as much as I check for the Disney Stock to drop under 70.

 

 

Oy, I've gotta pack for my flight back to La La Land. Excited to get back! I just heard from my friend that a homeless woman just pooped right in front of her upscale furniture store in Venice the other day. It's about time. San Francisco already has a human feces app for their city, it's high time LA catches up. Man, finding human poop everywhere, how cool is that? It's like catching those Pokemon everywhere except now its Poop-e-Man! I'm gonna find you little shits! Woo hoo!

 

 

FIRE AND ICE #1 - Review

 

          Not Intended for Children

 

In my heyday of online dating and yucky apps I figured out something very quickly: It’s a numbers game. You can’t get tripped up, disappointed or invested in anyone’s online profile until you meet up with them. All the back and forth, the emojis, the pics etc. mean jack diddly poo until you’re face to ‘what the hell is that, is that your face?’ with them somewhere out in the wild. So what that means is, as a guy, you have to like a shit ton of profiles with the hopes that one of them will stick. It’s like dispersing your swipe right jizz to the dating app universe, hoping that one of your little squiggly likes impregnates the mind of some unsuspecting rando who can’t wait to waste your time and get your loins all hot and bothered for nothing. 

There is a downside to all of this. See, you will eventually match with some sexy fun interesting girls who may or may not meet up with you. You will also match with a whole slew of girls who you probably wouldn’t want anything to do with if you actually saw them out in the wild but, since it’s a numbers game your like squiggles will probably reel a bunch of these girls in. These ‘Mnyeh, they’re okay, nothing wow’ girls will in all likelihood be more apt to meet up since, well, harsh but, they’re probably not getting asked out a lot in the concrete jungle of the real world. Which means you’re going to be getting dates with these girls. Now, in your mind you’re justifying the meet-up with them by thinking ‘Hey, I gotta put myself out there. I have to start putting this “I wanna go on hot dates” dating energy out there so I can actually get those dates into my life; big fucking mistake.

Sure, ya never know, these Mnyeh girls could turn out to be amazing, you might click and actually start seeing one of them. But in all likelihood it’s going to be an absolute disaster. Why? Because when they show up and you find yourself having a big fat zero on your attraction meter with them, the date is going to go downhill really fast. You’re either going to be polite and suffer through it or you’re gonna appear to be disinterested and upset which is only going to make her feel like shit and now you’re an awful inconsiderate douchebag who just wasted a perfectly lovely human being’s time because you’re working an angle/strategy on a computer program on your phone to somehow nab an Insta model. It’s terrible. It’s even more worse because when you do actually meet up with a ‘hot girl’ and they turn out to be an erratic psychopath who downs $15 espresso martinis like they’re water while she texts her ex DJ Boyfriend who has a Weed/Molly empire on the side, you’re going to want to never leave the house again. I experienced all of this back in the Heyday of my Dating App life. I would say now, I’m in the Nay Day of my Dating App Life but at least I have money for groceries which have risen by 50% under China Joe. 

As I mentioned in my last review, I had extremely high hopes for Titan Comics ‘Conan the Barbarian’. So much so that I couldn’t bear to actually open it up. I was tortured by the idea that if it sucked my comic book life would be finally ruined after a year of reading garbage from the Big Poo. So what did I do? I played the dating numbers game strategy with my comic pull and yanked this Fire & Ice thingamajig. Willingham, hmm, that Fables dude, never got into Fables thing but al least he’s legit and the art looks Frazetta-ish so, what the hell, how bad could it be? If Conan turns out to be a dud that doesn’t put out I’ll have this wacky book at the ready to fill my barbaric warrior story fetish. Well, Conan was amazing! It was like a scintillating perfect date with a babe that laughed at all your jokes, wore your favorite color and kept telling you about all her favorite dishes that she loves to cook. Your goodnight smooch is to die for but on your way back to your car you see you have a text from the ‘Mnyeh, she’s okay why not’ girl, reminding you that she’s looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night. 

That’s what this comic was. My goodness, if you could personify this Fire and Ice comic into a woman it would be a maniacal stripper with a nose ring, two tat sleeves and a flask of absinthe in her spiky purse that has upside down pentagrams all over it.

I think the purpose of this comic was to get you to jerk off all over it. In fact, I think that may be the purpose of all the ‘Dynamite’ books. Maybe the people who established this publisher were getting baked at a bonfire party on the Jersey shore that eventually turned into a circle jerk and somehow the term ‘Dynamite!’ was used when someone actually came. Then they thought, hey why don’t we use that name for our comic books and get every horny comic geek jizzing all over our comics like we just did tonight?

I mean look at their main titles! Their loglines boiled down to the simplest sentences are:

Vampirella - Hey guys, this half naked Vampire chick wants to fuck you.

Bettie Page - Hey guys, this long dead 50s Pin Up model wants to fuck you.

Sheena - Hey guys, this half naked Jungle chick wants to fuck you.

Red Sonya - Hey guys, this half naked red headed Conan type chick wants to fuck you and then kill you because you fucked her.

DYNAMITE!

I mean, this story starts off simple enough. A bearded teacher dude in primitive garb lectures his young students in the jungle about the kingdoms that exist on opposite sides of their land whilst the lithe athletic teen male of the group shows off his climbing prowess. Okay, fine, the art is fantastic, I’m into it. Then, Dynamite! They’re all dead the teen is captured and off we go into Half Naked Chick land! 

 

I'm not sure what happened next, the blonde teen kid is taken to a Witch babe and there's another Elvira lookin' queen babe on her knees and then whoosh, we're off to two bikini babes in a jungle land.

Then the Skin Ads come pouring in one after the other in this order:

It’s like that’s the real story. Ad 1 is saying ‘Take your pud out’. Ad 2 is saying ‘I said take your pud out’. Ad 3 is saying ‘Thanks for taking your pud out, now let me bang you and skewer you’.

I mean, there's these two pages where a pair of bikini babes are in the jungle and, it’s ridiculous. Like, you're not even reading the text bubbles, it's just naughty pose after naughty pose. I’m going to narrate how these pages would be scripted if the Dynamite Cum Comic Pervs wrote this story.

 

Fire & Ice: Naughty Babes in the Jungle 

 

 

Honestly, I think Dynamite should sell officially licensed tweezers for their books so you can use the tweezers to turn the pages which would free up your hand to do its Dynamite business. Look, I’m all for sexiness. I’m all for hot and heavy comics with real steamy relationships that stand firmly on a riveting plot. This just feels gratuitous, It feels like they don’t trust their plot enough so they saturate your eyeballs with tits and ass so you’ll forget about it. It’s a shame, I really love the art and I’m sure Bill Dubz can spin a tale, but this crazy Stripper book just feels too goofy for me. 

Like, why go through the trouble of banging the book whose mommy and daddy didn’t like her when I can romance a Conan book that clearly grew up in a loving household and never felt the need to get tats to rebel against her parents. Do you like girls with tats? I don’t. Freud says that tattoos are the external representation of internal trauma. I think there’s something to that. Like, you have so much pain inside of you that you have to represent it somehow on your physical body. That, or you just love the constant pain that comes with a needle jabbing you over and over as if it’s making you feel something that you personally aren’t capable of feeling due to your emotions being repressed. Either way, it screams ‘I have issues’ whenever I see a Woman who has a shit ton of tats. 

As for this comic, mmm, well, maybe if Image got a hold of this we’d have something interesting, but as it stands I just can’t walk around with my dick in one hand and this comic in the other. My doggie wants to go outside and pee and sunbathe way too often during the day so hanging around on my stoop trying to figure out if I want a Vampire, Jungle Chick or Red Headed Warrior in my fantasy while my junk is hanging out is probably not going to endear me to my neighbors too much.

I mean, I could probably hide behind and nut into the huge potted plant that’s in front of my building while I yell ‘Dynamite!’ but how am I going to feel afterwards? Like, what if my doggie gives me a weird look from her sunbathing spot, what am I supposed to say? Blonde Jungle chicks make me so hot I had to take this comic outside with me? I’m pretty sure that would have to qualify as one of the lowest points of my adult existence. Before you know it there I am, getting a tattoo of a pair of dynamite sticks exploding right on my butt.

 

 

Rating: 5.3

Verdict: Keep your Pud in and Drop

 

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 - Review

 

I drive a 1979 Camaro. It’s my only vehicle. I used to own a fancy shmancy Lexus but I got into an accident last summer that completely totaled the vehicle; the front of it looked like an accordion. It was a miracle I walked away from the car all but unscathed. My Camaro is my dream car. There’s a whole story about how I found it ten years ago, which I’ll save for another day but it was completely non-operational when I got it. The breaks didn’t work, it didn’t start, it took years until it did. After my accident I had two options, get a new or used car or, hmm, what if I just get my Camaro fixed up again? The car market is awful, my credit sucks, why not drive my dream car full time? So I did just that. It’s been a bumpy ride for sure. There were many months that the car stalled doing basic turns or by just idling at a traffic light but recently I had some work done on it; work that I thought was inconsequential. Well, turns out the work was the fountain of youth because now it runs like a dream.

 

When I drive this car, well, I feel like a man. I feel human. I feel like, yeah, this is what it’s supposed to feel like when you drive a car. Now, it still needs a lot of work and doesn’t have a horn or a radio or air conditioning etc. BUT it feels amazing. It’s also the safest car I’ve ever driven. I mean, this thing is pretty much Detroit Bad Ass Steel and Iron, it’s a fucking tank. If one of these new cheap fiberglass cars rams into me I might get a dent but their plastic microchipped car is going to fall apart. The cars on the road now are computers on wheels that do everything for you. Press a button and off you go. The EVs are even more ridiculous. First of all, the notion that you’re saving the planet with them is a complete scam, and, it feels like you’re driving a Roomba with a radio and four seats. You can have them. Give me a pair of keys that I have to stick in an ignition to start my car, where the engine hums like a gentle giant. That’s a car.

 

I say all this because it feels like humans are moving in two different directions right now. Some are diving headfirst into technology: AR, VR, AI, the whole megillah. Their lives are governed by devices from morning until night, if they can even differentiate between that anymore. Then there’s the rest of humanity who are retreating away from the Machine and returning to a simpler way of life. They’re buying vinyl records, gardening, getting a landline again, finding their way back to nature and the way things used to be. 

 

I say all of this in a comic book review because, well, I think we’ve lost our way when it comes to our comic book heroes. They’ve become hollow digital automatons in stories that veer far far away from the essence of who these characters were.  Sure there’s good stories out there, every now and then. But the Big 2 in general have become the Big Poo. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but their comics have become all but unreadable. They feel cheap. They feel like they’re trying to do to much. They feel like they’re just a cog in a machine. The art feels computerized. The stories feel like they’ve been pumped out by an algorithm. There’s something deeply unsatisfying when you finish a series; it feels like you just got taken advantage of. Like you open a comic book and there’s some invisible claw that grabs your junk. I mean, if the publisher was called ‘Grab Your Junk Comics’ okay, fine, I’m asking for it, but a regular old Moon Knight or Batman or Spidey or Hulk shouldn’t make you feel like you just got roofied. Maybe the MeToo movement is going to be replaced by the Big Poo movement. A harsh reaction to DC and Marvisney violated out comic book private parts.

 

I say all of this in a Conan review because, well, this book had hope. They dropped several pages of the prelude of this comic in a Free Comic Book Day book and it looked and felt unbelievable. It looked and felt like what a Conan comic should look like. It was like an Organic, Non-GMO, locally sourced comic free of fillers and micro chips. The hearts of Conan fans and possibly comic book purists must have skipped a beat upon laying eyes on the pages in the FCBD release. It was not hurdling towards some ridiculous reimagining of the character, it was not tied into an upcoming plus network’s TV line-up, it did not have the stank of an unimaginative suit sitting in an office with their minions supping at their anus for paychecks and validation. No, this felt real.

 

That being said, it took me forever to get to it! I know, the second issue is already out! What took me so long! Look, I was nervous! This comic had to be amazing. It had no margin for error, it could not disappoint. It felt like the fate of the comic book universe hinged upon its pages. The Conan license was snatched from the evil clutches of Marvisney by a small independent publisher who vowed to honor the character in a way that harkened back to its origins. Who knew what Titan Publishing had to do to get this out of Marvisney’s clutches? Did they have to venture with torches and machetes in hand to the catacombs under Disney Land? Did they have to confront a naked and frothing at the mouth Bob Iger and C.B. Cebulski in their fetish gear and riding crops? Did they tie the both of them in their Thor and Darth Vader sex swings and force to them to sign over the rights to Conan??? I bet. I bet it was even worse than what I just described.

 

So this comic had to deliver the goods. Because if it didn’t then it was all for naught. So this comic sat next to me for weeks. I anxiously wringed my hands and whined every time I laid eyes on it. If this was a dud what did I have to look forward to? Another mind boggling Monstress comic??? Ooh look, a new Black Label Batman book, some Gargoyle thing that was getting lambasted by reviewers. Awesome, can’t wait to be let down by that. Ooh, a new Daredevil #1 for the 85th time in the past 5 years. A new #1 with a seven fucking dollar price tag! Yeah, I’m sure that’s going to over deliver and wow me, right? A new Wonder Woman came out this week, I’m weeping just thinking about opening it. Sure, Tom King is literally murdering it on ‘Love Everlasting’ one of the best of the year, but, I dunno, he goes to work for DC and they somehow render his books into mush. It’s like they want his comics at DC to give you migraines; they must have a Big Pharma clause wrapped up in his contract.

 

Oh Conan, please be amazing. Please make me love you. Please make me remember what it’s like to actually read a great ‘Hero’ comic book again. It’s been too long. I feel like I’ve treated this Conan comic the way I treat a girl that I match with who is way out of my league. Like, I wait forever to actually message her, because the message has to be perfect. It has to be perfect so that when she doesn’t respond and unmatches with me I know that I gave her the best message she’s ever had. Yeah, my dating life is pathetic, but this comic, this comic messaged me back. This comic made me fall back in love with comics again.

 

It was so wonderful that I have to show you exactly what I’m talking about in an unprecedented personal video that I’m making exclusively for this blog. Something I’ve never done before. Here is the link:

 

 Conan #1 Video Review!

 

 

 

As for the story? They've got the makings of an amazing Conan adventure. I will say the 'Zombie' element that they've introduced feels a bit mnyeh. Like, they could have saved the Zombie story for a second or third arc but I trust this creative team to knock it out of the park and turn it into something special.

 

A Bitchin' Camaro, a real Conan Comic and Marvisney stock falling by the day. Life is Good.

 

 

Rating: 9.8

Verdict: Pull! Praise Crom!

DAREDEVIL #14 - Review

 

You always want to check in on your ex after you have a break up. You don’t want to actually talk or text with them, you just want to peek around the corner and see how they’re doing now that you’re no longer together. Deep down you probably want to make sure they’re okay, but not too okay. You want to see that they’re a bit sad but not too sad. You don’t want to see them strung out and hookin’ on Hollywood Blvd after your break-up which would clearly be laid at your feet as your fault. Even if you countered and said ‘I always knew she had a bit of dat street ho in her’ it wouldn’t matter, you’d be the asshole.

 

You also don’t want to see her flying around in a private jet and sipping champagne with some Saudi Prince as they look at their pics from their recent vacay at Sardinia. No, that would suck. She would always talk about starting a fashion line while you were together, but I mean, you don’t want her clothes being modeled on the cat walk at Milan just months after you stopped seeing each other. You don’t want her raking in millions while you’re wondering if she’s ever going to pay you back for when you took care of her new transmission back in the day. I think the actual state of being you want your ex to be in is miserable, numb yet functional; at least for like 6 months.

 

As many of you who follow this word drop know, I broke up with Daredevil 6  months ago. I couldn’t take it anymore. My final DD headache was reviewed here (link to review). I had enough with this meandering gloop of a story on an island with second rate losers and a WTF Elektra/Daredevil marriage. Oy, the whining and the moaning of everyone in this comic got to be too much even for this seasoned pro on whining and carping. Of course, I couldn’t really stay away. I had to, you know, I had to make sure it still sucked. Like, I couldn’t just let it take off and turn into a Bendis-Maleev type run! I couldn’t have Zdarsky flying around on Kendall Jenner’s jet eating sushi off her navel while sales of this fecuchte book went through the roof! Suffer Zdarsky! Suffer you reductive ninny! You’ve ruined two of my favorite comics! Bats and DD! What’s next??? Oh no you don’t, don’t you even think of driving over to the valley and having lunch with BKV to talk about writing a few ‘special issues’ during Saga’s inevitable break that must be coming like, tomorrow. STAY AWAY FROM BRIAN AND FIONA CHIP!

 

So, you know, I had to, you know, rifle through some Double D pages when I hit my LCS to grab my books. Yeah, I know, it was quite creepy. I’d show up in a trench coat, cheap sunglasses, a visor (a fedora was way too hot) and some latex gloves. I realize now it was a silly get up since my dog was still with me and I go everywhere with her; clearly it was me. 

 

There I was in the back of the shop, like a pervert in an Adult Video Palace in Times Square in the 80s, glancing left and right to make sure nobody saw me as I snatched a copy of the latest Daredevil and rifled through it’s grimy pages. I might as well have been looking at some smut, like the Tucchus Escapades of some Anal Queen, but no, I was reading Zdarsky porn. I grunted and wheezed, spit bubbles formed and popped in front of my face:

 

‘What the fuck is Daredevil doing, he’s going to hell? He’s got to go hell? Wait, Elektra killed him? Where’s the fucking? She would obviously fuck him and then kill him! Chip, you’re ruining Elektra! She’s not the Bride in Kill Bill, Chip!!!’

 

Slowly, slowly the issues got better until there he was, Daredevil in that White Suit, marching into hell to save his friends. It was pretty good. It wasn’t mind blowingly amazing as some made it out to be. It wasn’t a Saudi Prince on a Jet with an International Fashion Line good. It was a Douchebag with a weed habit from Calabasas in an Uber Black with a trending Insta page good.

 

As I wiped the froth from my mouth with the back of my hand and stuffed Issue #13 back into the comic book rack after it defiled my eyes and soiled my comic book life, I got to thinking:

 

Hey, wait a minute, this is just like Scott Snyder in ‘Night of the Ghoul’ where that story was an allegory for his discovery on how the industry really worked while writing for Batman. This comic isn’t supposed to be taken literally! This is an allegory for what Chip has had to endure in order to free himself from the clutches of Marvisney! It makes so much sense now. Clearly the Beast is just a representation of the deep dark evil that everyone who works at Marvisney prays to on a daily basis. Look at this fucking thing:

 

That’s who’s commanding the human dillweeds in Burbank to pump out more Star Wars junk and to run the MCU into the ground until it’s a pile of steaming dung.

 

So when Daredevil was traveling into hell to free his friends that was Chip! He somehow escaped from the dungeons under Disney Land and found his way to catacombs under Iger’s house where his original creative team was! Him rescuing them and filming the entire episode was the blackmail material that he used to stop this book from being written by AI Chip! It all makes sooo much sense!

 

You wanna know how I know that the real Chip is back on this book. Look at Foggy, look at how he’s drawn in this issue:

 

Who does that actually look like to you? It’s Ron DeSantis! Tell me that isn’t a spitting image of Ron DeSancti-fuckin-monious! With red hair! Totally RDS! That’s a classic Zdarksy 'Sex Criminals' move. This is him telling Marco to draw Foggy this way so that those who know the truth can see his victory. DeSchmuckis is symbolic of the fight he had to take to the heart of Disney since DeSchmuckis is also fighting Disney. Chip probably knew that Satan would absolutely haaaaate this, which is why he made Marco draw it.

 

This issue wasn’t spectacular, but it had soul. You could feel it. Soul, it’s what has been intentionally scrapped from all of Marvisney’s comics, yet Zdarsky somehow put on his Hero Boxer Briefs and scored a victory over the real beast of the Entertainment Industry. There was a whole lotta love poured into the final issue of this DD Zdarsky run. It’s heartwarming to see that he finally got to finish this the way he would have wanted the whole series to go. Beyond the Mega Event, beyond the Island with Loser Characters and Garbage Plot Points, beyond the clutches of true evil.

 

Clearly, Warner Bros. is still using Chip AI to write the Batman comic. Maybe that’s where he’s going next. Maybe he’s picking Matt Fraction up in the Dumb & Dumber 'Shaggin Wagon'!

 

Together they’re gonna stop time in the DC Offices and poop on everybody’s desk before smashing the main frame that generates the Chip AI. Maybe they’ll turn on an enormous Spooge Generator while time is stopped in the DC offices and when time starts up again everyone working on the Bat Books will get a facial; aww man, classic Chip & Matt.

 

I’m sure the new creative team for this title is already undergoing electric shock therapy and sleep deprivation that’s being given to them by a naked and manic Bob Iger in his bunker in the Mojave Desert. Maybe he’ll let them pump out a good issue or two before he turns on the AI for them. Whatever he does, let him, we know that Chip got the best of that son of a bitch and that’s all that matters.

 

So I am getting back together with Daredevil? Nah. I mean, we knocked boots, fo sho, a little ex comic sex, no doubt. But it’s still being run by a bunch of soulless psychopaths. I’ll take the next first issue out to dinner, make nice nice with it. My goodness, the next #1 issue of this series is 7 fucking dollars! Well, you know what they say, make-up sex is always gonna cost you.

Rating: 8.4

Verdict: Zdarsky triumphs over Evil

MURDER BY MAIL #1 - Review

When I was growing up there were these books called ‘Choose Your Own Adventures’, I absolutely loved them, gobbled them up. It was a simple premise: At certain points, during whatever story you were reading, you would get to a juncture where you were given a choice. Usually the question would center around the main character and be directional or action based, go this way or that way or do this or do that. Depending on what you chose to do it would give you a page number and you would flip ahead, or sometimes back, to that page number to continue the story. This would eventually take you to the ending which was different every time depending on what choices you made. This was one of those old school books.

 

Apparently a new publisher called ‘Chooseco’ are currently releasing these types of books. I hope they’re popular with kids. Thinking back on it now, it was quite an existential experience to have and learn as a kid even if you didn’t think you were learning anything. It basically taught you that different choices have different outcomes and create different circumstances that will ultimately lead you to different endings. One would think this concept would work wonderfully in today’s entertainment environment. I know there was the whole Black Mirror: Bandersnatch thing which was, mnyeh, nothing great. It was actually a maddening experience that I didn’t necessarily enjoy. I remember the ending being blah and that it was hard to actually get to a good ending based on what choices you made.

.

Netflix also just released ‘Choose Love’ a week ago, a rom-com movie where you make decisions along the way for the lead cutesy girl as to who she should end up with. I haven’t seen it yet but it looks, well, yeah looks goofy. It’s not getting good reviews at all. There’s a scene in the trailer where she comes upon an old flame and they’re sitting at a bench and you’re given an option to either A. Kiss him or B. Not kiss him. Clearly they’re not trying to be realistic other options should pop up like:

 

C. Start scrolling your Insta and answer DMs to appear disinterested while also being honest about your screen addiction

 

D. Go to kiss him then punch him in the face for trying to cause drama with your man. Then call him a scoundrel or racist, or both.

 

E. Tell him that he should meet up with your bestie who’s got an amazing personality. When he asks what she looks like you can: 

 

1. Lie and say she’s hot

2. Say she’s body positive

3. Kiss him, make a noise and say ‘Wrong Answer Nazi!’, then leave.

 

F. Start making sounds like Beaker does from the Muppets and bounce away from him.

 

 

 

I mean c’mon! Give us some realistic choices here! If they were smart they would make a Mystery or Adventure ‘Choose your own Adventure’, those pair very well with the genre. Imagine enjoying a Goonies type movie and making choices for each and every pivotal moment. I suppose that’s too obvious for the suits.

 

Anyway, I thought that this comic was going to be some sort of choose your own adventure comic. It claimed that it was a “groundbreaking new series offers readers a unique and immersive storytelling experience”. Yeah, not so much. It was aight, immersive and interactive? Not even close. Okay, so if immersive and interactive is like ‘Here put on this fat red tomato body suit on and these VR goggles. Oh by the way, actors are going be making attempts to thwack at your knees and ankles for an hour straight’ that is immersive and interactive. This is like sitting down to a desk and looking and reading some stuff about a murder. Groundbreaking? Dude.

 

Could we expect anything more from Source Point Press? This may be the first book I’ve ever bought by this publisher. If you go to their website, seems like all they do is print horror, pulp or wackadoodly doo comics, not really my steelo. As I keep saying, I’m flailing around as I pull books these days. I’m just looking for something, anything, to blow me away. Doesn’t matter where it comes from, just, like, do some cool shit, ya know?

 

I think this had a lot of potential but it just turned into a run of the mill murder type thing. The writing was kind of pedestrian, it almost felt like a YA book; like some cheesy Nancy Drew type ish. I will say that the layouts and way that it was all presented was very well done even if the text and story line wasn’t so riveting. There were phone call transcripts, interviews, pictures, a map etc. Whoever was in charge of the layouts and design they did a fantastic job. They made a big point at the beginning of the book to tell you as the reader to only look at pages that had ‘Action’ at the top in green before doing anything else because it would ruin the ending. The problem with it was that all of the pages were action pages until the very end so it didn’t matter whether you listened to them or not. If you read the book linearly, and there’d be no reason not to otherwise, you’d end up at the end where it tells you to stop and solve the mystery before you turn the page for the reveal.’

 

Ho hum.

 

They could have done waaaay more with this comic. They could have included links or set up a website with videos such as surveillance/interview footage. They could have linked this to fake social media accounts or had you use some sort of Google Earth facsimile to zero in on where this took place. There’s just so many ways to get creative about an interactive mystery these days, that would have been groundbreaking. How the fuck is it groundbreaking to include all these images and transcripts and ask us to solve the murder mystery? I can’t imagine anyone putting this book down and calling or texting someone ‘Dude I just read this ground-fucking-breaking mystery!’. Look, I get it, when you’re one of the smaller publishing guys you gotta hype your stuff up a bit more. OR, hear me out, or you could actually make it groundbreaking and truly interactive.

 

Apparently you can sign up for text messages where they send you hints and clues about the upcoming mysteries; that’s kinda cool. What they’re doing is they’re making each subsequent issue another murder mystery to solve that connects to every issue as part of a horror-verse. That’s all well and good but first of all, I don’t feel like I just roleplayed a detective I just read about one doing what they do. Secondly, no matter what I though the answer was to the mystery it wasn’t going to change anything once I turned to the reveal. Like, I dunno, put some choose your own adventure type jammy into the mix. Third, the reveal felt really far fetched. Like, I could see how this could be the answer to the mystery but in no way, after going back over everything, was it clear that the murderer was who they said it was.

 

Look, this was really great idea but as with everything it all comes down to the execution. Maybe Image can pick up the mantle of doing an immersive book and knock one out of the park. There’s a lot of imaginative intersections you can have with a comic book, the internet, social media and the real world. It’s just gonna take a real bad ass to make those connections. The dude behind this? Not really a bad ass.

 

I’ve got a new Choose Your Own Adventure story. It’s called ‘The Mystery of the Local Comic Book Shop’. Here’s an excerpt:

 

After walking your little doggie around the block and avoiding the tempting but over priced coffee shop that drains your wallet on the regular you waltz into your favorite local comic book shop. You unhook your doggie’s leash so she can happily roam and sniff the declining book sales as you peruse the racks for that gem of a story that your life has been missing. As you look at the comics for sale you can either:

 

A.  Grab all the Marvisney books, place them all over the floor and hope your doggie pees all over them even though she never pees inside and emptied the tank already.

 

B.    Snatch all the Bat Books from the racks, hold them up to sky and wail ‘Why Must Thou Suck So Bad!!!’

 

C.     Blindly grab all the Image Books off the rack and assume that one or more of them will provide you a satisfactory comic experience.

 

D.    Squint your eyes at all the publishers not named DC, Marvisney and Image and growl ‘What the fuck are these garbage pages?’

 

E.     All of the Above.

 

Once you complete your task you exit the comic book store. This time you fail to avoid the over priced coffee shop and proceed to spend $40 on a bag of organic coffee beans, a vegan donut and a cinnamon bun the size of your head.

 

 

Rating: 5.7

Verdict: Drop

A VICIOUS CIRCLE #2 - Review

 

A Vicious Circle is back! It took them a whopping 8 months to come out with the second installment but my goodness, it so majestically beautiful in its prestige format; definitely worth the wait. Lee Bermejo must be an Alien who decided to go incognito upon arriving here. He milled about humanity but for some reason he ended up a comic book artist and now his Alien Art Techniques have made it onto the page. Thankfully Mattson Tomlin is keeping up with this generational intergalactic talent by weaving a super cool and highly engaging sci-fi tale for the ages.

 

This issue was more of a back story issue rather than a plot forward issue but who cares, it could be about doing the laundry and Bermejo could keep you riveted for hours with his line work. I think this is a 3 issue series, shame, this needs to be like, I dunno, 12 or something. Pull a Saga and stretch it out for ten years or so. By then we will have been invaded or disclosure will be in full effect and they can get an Alien Editorial team to take over the slow of brain Boom dudes who are probably unsure of how to release the best thing to hit the stands in over a year.

 

I fully blame the Boom! suits for taking 8 months to release issue #2 not the creative team. I just don’t think they’re used to having such an unbelievable book on their roster. I can imagine that when the first issue came out the Head of the Company lost his shit and made a big scene about it. Probably went something like this:

 

 

The Head CEO Big Whig of Boom! Comics bursts into a Boom! Conference Room where a couple of lackeys sit along with the resident Wise Ass who got the job because he knows someone who knows someone.

 

CEO: What the hell is this?

 

Lackey #1: What’s what?

 

CEO: This!

 

He tosses a copy of ‘A Vicious Circle #1’ on the table.

 

CEO: Is this thing ours?

 

Lackey #1: Yeah, big hit.

 

CEO: Look at these pages, they’re amazing, this is fucking real art!

 

Lackey #2: Is that a problem boss?

 

CEO: Well, yeah makes all our other books look like shit.

 

Huey: Because they are shit

 

CEO: Shut the fuck up Huey. Who is this Bermejo guy, how much are we paying him?

 

Lackey #1: Not much.

 

CEO: Not much? We got Picasso on the cheap?

 

Lackey #2: He hasn’t worked since the Bat cock scandal, so he took what we gave him.

 

CEO: Bat cock scandal?

 

Lackey #1: You don’t know about the bat cock?

 

CEO: What bat cock?

 

Lackey #2: He drew Batman’s cock.

 

CEO: What? Where? How?

 

Lackey #2: In a bat book, Black Label’s first book several years ago, forget the name.

 

CEO: Waddya mean he drew his – what? Like Disney draws subliminal dicks on everything?

 

Lackey #1: No you could see it.

 

Huey: I’ve heard if you melt a pair of Mickey Mouse Ears it turns into a puddle that looks like a dick.

 

Boom! Comics Receptionist pops her head in.

 

Receptionist: Shut the fuck up Huey.

 

CEO: Wait, was it hard, the bat dick?

 

Lackey #1: No, flaccid.

 

Lackey #2: It was kinda like a silhouette

 

CEO: A flaccid silhouette bat cock, hmph.

 

Lackey #1: You missed all this?

 

CEO: How did this guy not get cancelled?

 

Lackey #2: Books were selling like hotcakes.

 

Lackey #1: They were going for $150 on eBay

 

CEO: $150. Fuck me. Did anyone get canned?

 

Lackey #1: DC suits did, this Bermejo guy walked but became untouchable.

 

Huey: Fucking Brian Wood gets cancelled for feeling up average looking comic book chick employees and this Bermejo guy goes scott free for drawing a legendary hero’s dick for the first time ever, makes no sense.

 

Lackey #2: Maybe those average comic book chicks wanted to see the Bat Dizzle

 

Lackey #1: Maybe that was part of the Wood settlement, cancel Wood and draw the B-Peen.

 

CEO: Jeez 150 a book. [beat] Do we have any cocks we can draw?

 

Lackey #1: You want us to draw cocks?

 

CEO: How about Keanu’s on that Brzrkr book?

 

Lackey #2: You think people wanna see Keanu’s cock? He’s like 80 years old.

 

Huey: I give that no more than 40 bucks on eBay.

 

CEO: How about Power Rangers, can we throw some silhouette flaccid cocks on them?

 

Lackey #1: Mmm, hard to do with those suits.

 

Huey: What about Buffy?

 

CEO: Huey you are a sicko perv.

 

Huey: No, listen, no cocks, we –

 

Lackey #1: Ohhh, you mean –

 

Huey: Yup, the Buffy Toe.

 

Lackey #2: Buffy’s Puffy.

 

CEO: Buffy’s Puffy, hmm, okay, run some numbers and take a look at next month’s panels I don’t want anything too obvious.

 

Lackey #1: A ‘Camel Silhouette’

 

Lackey #2: A ‘Camel Flip Flop’

 

Lackey #1: A ‘Camel Pinky Toe’

 

CEO: Just make it delicate and - whoa! What the fuck? This Bermejo book costs 10 bucks?

 

Lackey #2: We ran that by you

 

CEO: I thought you were joking.

 

Lackey #1: It’s selling.

 

CEO: Without any cocks? This is going to make all our other series look – don’t say it Huey.

 

An IT Nerd Guy pops his head in.

 

IT Nerd: Shut the fuck up Huey!

 

CEO: Get this Bermejo guy in here, have him draw Buffy’s cee-toe, if anyone figures it out or calls us out on it we blame this Bermejo pervert and fire him, make a big scene, capische?

 

Lackey #1: Got it.

 

CEO: Implicate Wood too if you can, say he was involved somehow.

 

Lackey #2: Done.

 

Huey: DC, what a bunch of fucking losers. Everyone wants to see Wonder Woman’s tits not Batman’s cock. What were they thinking?

 

Lackey #1: Facts.

 

Lackey #2: I just texted Bermejo and he’s down for the Buffy Puffy.

 

CEO: Nice.

 

Huey: Did you know that if you go to Disney Land and shine a black light on any Disney Princess the outline of a cock going into their mouth will appear on their face?

 

Lackey #1: Oh, that’s actually true, I tried that a few months ago.

 

CEO: Enough with the cocks gentleman, I wanna see the Buff Puff going for 300 on eBay. Now get to work!

 

 

I know it’s been rough out there in Comic Book Land lately but this is a bona fide smash. Highly highly recommended for fans of any genre.

 

Rating: 9.6

Verdict: Pull