January '24 Reading Round Up

'Twas a busy January for yours truly but I found enough pockets of time to dive into some pretty exciting books including Somna, a fireball of naughty goodness. Could this be the sexiest comic book ever? Holy fuck-a-moley is Somna hot, wowza; more please? Yeesh, hubba to the fuckin' hubba. Look, I’m not into demons and all that but if a demon haunting and turning on some chick living during the Salem Witch Trials is what’s gonna get Tula Lotay all hot in her knickers to draw the panties off of this book then give me that dang demon!

 

They call this Erotic Folk Horror. I’m not sure that’s accurate, I mean, what’s folksy about it? The parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme falling from this chick’s dress as she demon diddles? I’m not scared at all. I’m scared this will end too quickly and I’ll be looking at the solicits when some other supernatural being will be whispering naughty nothings in a female protagonist. Ooh look, Fraction is writing a tale where a Kraken gets a Mermaid all hot and bothered, sweet!

 

All kidding aside there is some masterful art going on this book. Tula Lotay is on a major roll lately with Barnstormers being one of the last books I read of hers that she totally knocked out of the park. Apparently this is a 10 years in the making collab between Cloonan and Lotay. I didn’t know I was waiting for it but I’m glad it’s finally here. What a gorgeous spectacular work these two have created, bravo to them and DSTLRY for blessing the marketplace. Now don’t get corny! Keep that Demon sexy! I

 

Masterpiece - This was pretty good. Nothing wow but good. It’s way better than BMB's ‘Jagger Rose’ offering but not even close to ‘Pearl’ which was an all time great book. Bendis and Maleev are a dynamic duo and while reading this you’re thinking ‘Can’t they just do Daredevil every month for the next 50 years?’ As far as the whole ‘Billionaire is ripped off by a teenage girl’s parents who now are missing so Billionaire now goes after teenage girl’ storyline, it’s aight. Feels a bit dated. Maybe if Bendis made it very clear he was referencing a specific current Billionaire like Bezos, Musk or Gates this would be really cool. As it stands it’s just some anonymous wacko with beaucoup bucks, woop de doo. I’m down to follow along for now.

 

 

Gargoyle of Gotham – I wasn’t really into the first issue of this book, it felt a bit goofy. The Crytoon Dude seemed a bit over the top with his pronounced tears pouring prodigiously from his face as he committed his violent acts. Also, the overall cartoonish look of Grampa’s art didn’t seem in line with the heavy story he was telling. Then I pulled the ‘Noir Edition’ for the second issue. I didn’t know the noir edition was anything special, I simply liked the cover out of the 508,223 covers that a Bat Book usually has and pulled it. Well, turns out the ‘Noir Edition’ meant that it was all in black and white with no color save for red when blood was being spilled. And you know what? It worked great! Maybe the second issue was great anyway but the B&W feel really amped up the story for me. It felt like one of those black and white anime books. Also, the second issue kind of moved the Crytoon Dude aside and focused on these weird new characters which totally has me intrigued. Maybe DC should make all of their titles black and white. Maybe that will make them great - ah who the fuck am I kidding, they’ll still suck. But this? This was dope.

 

Wonder Woman – Tom King is writing the living bejeezus out of this book. He’s writing as if he’s got a gambling or drug addiction and needs DC to keep him on payroll to so he can keep funding his vices. There’s a lot to like about this new Dubz arc and although it still ain’t near the Azzarello/Chiang level it’s waaay better than the years of blecchhh this title has been enduring. Real quickly, DC, look, can you stop with these God Awful back stories that look like they were written and drawn by Freshman at the Kubert School for comics. They’re never fucking good, they’re just extra unnecessary pages that you fluff the comic up with to justify the $5 price tag. Think I’m wrong? Go ahead and release $4 books without them and $5 books with them and watch 95% of the sales go to the $4 book. They’re trash. Please tell me how I can opt out of back story bingo, thanks. I will say I'm a little on edge with how Dubz now has to fight a new rag tag cast of wacky characters in wacky costumes in the next installment. I'm sure some morally corrupted DC editor insisted on dredging up characters reject that had to be used by King; it's like a DC rite of passage. Luckily for us King's drug/gambling habit will force him to produce a genius outcome!

 

The Sacrificers – I have a rule when it comes to comics or any type of entertainment: I can deal with violence and gore if I have to do but if you stoop so low as to maim or violently murder pets or animals then I’m done; I will turn you off or put you down. Rick Remender, who I generally love, crossed that line with his 5^th installment of this book which is clearly an ode to the unspoken adrenochrome crisis that tears this planet apart. In this book one of the character’s minions gruesomely ripped the Princess’s pet in half. Yeah, fuck you dude. Totally uncalled for and a cheap way to elicit empathy towards your female lead. I will begrudgingly finish up this arc since I already have issue 6 but that’s as far as I’m going. C’mon dude, do better than pet murders, mmkay?

 

 

Red Light – So this comic is basically ‘An AI Hooker wants to escape being a Sex Slave’ story. The douchebag dude who ‘owns’ her made her in the image of his dead wife and runs an AI Hooker Brothel that’s armed to the teeth with guards and guns cuz, I dunno, maybe he assumed the Sex Robots would revolt or want to leave eventually? My existential question is this, should I really be rooting for an AI Hooker Sex Slave Chick to escape the evil clutches of the D-Bag Pimp? Like, isn’t it better to have AI Robot Hookers doing the Sex Work and being exploited rather than Humans? Aren’t we better with that? If we replace all sex workers with sex robots and lose zero in quality wouldn’t we want that? So, no more abuse, exploitation and sex trafficking of minors anymore, just, let the robots satisfy the pervs of the world? Should we feel bad for robots being used for nothing but sex? I don’t think so. But what do I know. I’m sure next week The View will have a sex robot on talking about the evil patriarchy and how it’s somehow Donald Trump’s fault that she’s a Sex Robot.

Where the Body Was - I usually don't review Graphic Novels. Actually, I rarely purchase them to be honest, I'm more of a serial monthly type dude. Yet with the comic book industry generally up in flames and hurdling to a slow death I'm forced to look for content to sate my need to enjoy sequential art with my coffee in the morning. Brubaker and Phillips are bonafide titans of the industry and put out nothing but amazing books. Seems like they've forgone the whole 'monthly' comic deal and have just been putting out graphic novels for the past several years. Their 'Reckless' series was fucking awesome. If you haven't checked out those books I highly recommend it. Their recent offering was garnering the usual gush and praise that they usually receive, but, I gotta say, it was...mnyeh. I mean, it wasn't bad it just wasn't OMG amazing. It was, I dunno, just O, no MG. I enjoyed it but, maybe save your pennies for the Reckless stuff. The big reveal wasn't even that big, it was just, kinda there. I will say, the sex scenes in the book were spicy. Are we entering a year where sexy stuff starts coming back? Oh please oh please oh please us.

 

Coming up, I bought my first Spider Man book in almost 15 years! Will it suck? Probably. Will I rip Hickman a new one? 100 percent I will.