March '24 Reading Round Up

 

I get that I've been probably been gushing a little too much about Titan Comics and their Conan offerings but you know what, it's totally fucking warranted. They have been, that, good. Now, I will say that the last run of the Conan the Barbarian title hasn't necessarily been up to snuff (I get into that below). 

However, good googly moogly, after selling out really quickly and being shorted at my LCS I finally got my hands on their 'Savage Sword of Conan' debut and I'm completely floored. Look:

 

Here is why I'm going bonkers over these books, because it's so unbelievably obvious that the publishers and people in charge of this imprint have told their artists and writers this:

'We know you love Conan, and we know you're great. Go do what you do, have a blast doing it, and we'll take it from there. We promise not to muck up your work. Can't wait to see it'.

Is there anything else that an Artist wants to hear other than that? The essence of what's going in these comics is exactly what's been missing in entertainment today: freedom and joy. You won't find a single algorithm or marketing report bothering any of the pages, its just 100% 'Fuck yeah, this is great, we loved doing it for ourselves and for you'. 

So much of what we see in entertainment today is all about these major corporate entities rehashing, rebooting or repurposing something that's already been done. It's all fear. It's all numbers. They're just trying to figure out what people want so they can give it to them rather than figuring our what artists and creators need to make something special. There's too many cooks spoiling the broth. There's too many unimaginative buttoned up fuckwads who should be nowhere near a set or drawing board meddling and trying to make themselves feel and look important so they can justify their unjustifiably large paycheck.

It's no wonder that a Rasmussen Report just came out and showed that only 22% think that movies are better today than they were 10 years. Only 27% think that movies are better than they were 20 years ago! Do I think those numbers would be the same for comic books? I would if people were asked about Marvisney and DC titles. Why is everything worse off now? Because there's too much analyzing, nitpicking, finger poking, proselytizing and pandering going on. 

It's no coincidence either that a legendary character who doesn't give a fuck about anyone and who will slash his way through lies, betrayal and the deception of magic is leading the way in what I hope will be the return to glory for hero books. 

Besides the other monthly reviews, here's what I got into this month: 

Gotta say, I wasn’t completely in love with this Conan tale that spanned the past 4 issues. I mean, it was good, but it wasn’t nearly as awe-inspiringly holy fuck-a-moly amazing as the initial 4 issue run. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m passionate and perfect in the first four months of dating and in the next four months I’m your basic blah guy. Oh no! Am I? You know a good friend of mine just told me that I chew really loudly when I eat. I had no idea! Is this why nobody ever invites me to dinner parties??? Why didn’t anybody ever mention it! Not that I would actually stop chewing loudly, but, it would’ve been nice to know it was that and not me offending everybody all the time or my hippie deodorant running out midway through the appetizer. Or maybe I’m always perfect and the art just didn’t do it for me in issues 4-8. I think Brathwaite is a wonderful artist I just feel that maybe he would be better served in a large format magazine setting rather than a standard comic. He’s got a similar vibe to Lee Bermejo. Bermejo’s recent work on ‘A Vicious Circle’ was like having a psychedelic experience without the CIA laced acid drugs. I just think that his detailed work didn’t play as well as De La Torre’s who just exploded in every panel. Looking forward to him coming back in issue 9. Still, it's better anything Satan's Best Boy Bob Iger has been putting out lately.

 

 

 

A bit of a disappointing second installment of Gone by Jock. Jock’s real name is Mark Simpson. After this $9 large magazine edition of mnyeh I’m calling him Bart Simpson’s bastard brother Mark until further notice. The main character is now 10 years older and has supposedly been trapped in this ship the whole time. She’s now partaking in some revolt of some stow-aways that for some reason the crew can’t find because the ship is so big. So, in present day, our intelligence agencies can use an infrared beam to see anyone’s heat signature in any building anywhere. You’re telling me that an advanced state-of-the-art spaceship left an entire swath of their ship vulnerable with no technology to detect anything? I call BS. No way these stow-aways are able to evade detection which means the whole plot is gone. I also think these 3 issue Magazine formats are making it hard on writers to compact an epic tale into this rather brief run. Can we just extend them to 5 or 6 issues, or make them ongoing? What’s the big deal? If it’s great we’ll shell out the cash no problem, just deliver the goods. I think Selma’s kid Mark drew the shit out of this book but is having a challenging time writing a compelling plot. 

 

 

 

Nothing really major happens in the 2^nd Ulitmate Spidey issue. Clearly Hicksy was using this as a set-up and bridge for what comes next., which is fine. I will say this, if you’re going to place Peter in our modern world where he’s learning how to be Spider-Man for the first time rather than the 60s then you have to acknowledge the fact that there’s no way in hell Peter would be able to practice swinging around New York without there being hundreds of social media videos of him doing so. You can’t play the, oh it’s late at night in the industrial district and the city is sleeping, I’m gonna see if I can get better at landing on buildings. Yeah, bullshit. All the horny gamer nerds downloading porn while streaming on their Twitch account will be up as well as every single Gen Z Tik Tok-er frothing at the mouth for endless content. No way Peter gets exclusive Spidey pix like he did back in the 60s. By the time he shows up to work in the morning the online Daily Bugle would have already paid an influencer for Peter slamming into a wall and fixing his junk while crouching on top of a street lamp. Peter still looks like a spokesman for REI, can't get that out of my head, but I'm definitely down to keep up with Webhead - for now.

 

 

 

Here’s why I’m dropping this book after 2 issues even though it’s only a 4 issue mini-series. Yes, I love Sean Murphy. His art is wonderfully detailed and a joy to look at. Yet my main gripe of ‘A mentally delusional dude who thinks he’s Zorro is not going to survive a battle with the Cartel’ still holds true. Maybe if this was a comedy like the Three Amigos it could work. Who wouldn’t wanna see Martin, Short and Chase tripping over skulls and body parts in a shipping container? Yet with the tone Murphy has this premise feels too wonky. Case in point: The Cartel is now after the wacko in the Zorro costume. His sister convinces him to get in the car so they can flee. They come upon a police road block. The police work for the cartel. The delusional wacko in the Zorro outfit triumphantly gets out of the the car and the police fire machine guns at him. But – they miss. Umm, no they don’t. They do not miss. They murder him and the cartel cuts up his Zorro body into pieces and staples them on tress all over the wacky Zorro village. I just don’t buy it. Oh, and there’s a little cute fox who’s jumping off of Jeeps and biting police dudes with guns in the neck. So now it’s like a violent Disney movie. Oy vey. Maybe if Murph just wrote an actual Zorro story it would’ve been a banger but the whole ‘Zorro in modern times takes on the Cartel’ gets a big D slash from my finger as in drrrrrrrop!

 

 

 

This is what I was afraid of. When King cast second rate loser villains as the foil to Dubz, it was bound to end up as a wonky corny goofus doofus fest. I’ve never heard of any of these putzes: Silver Swan, Grail, Giganta, Cerce, who are these day player suckas that have no business on the same page as Dubz. This is why DC gets deez nutz so often, because their Rogues Gallery is usually a Bozo Gallery. It’s probably not Tom King’s fault. He probably had a great idea as to who or what Wonder Woman would fight now that the penultimate battle was at hand. Unfortunately he was called to DC’s offices where they told him about the next batch of Wack AF loser villains that some dipshit newly minted interns just came up with. It’s a shame because this was turning into a great great initial run by King and he really set up the ominous omnipresent vibe of ‘The Sovereign’ perfectly. It devolved into a goofus doofus fest with one of the moments being Dubz having the Giant Chick drop half of the Washington Monument on top of her. I’d like to drop the Washington Monument on almost all of the Politicians in Washington so maybe she could used for something like that in the near future. I will say this, Daniel Sampere drew his ass off for the fight between Dubz and Grail. It may be my favorite artistically imagined hero fight of the past 10-20 years. You really felt like you were right in the middle of these two WWF Babes pounding the ish outta each other. That’s another reason why you can’t drop this title at this point, Sampere has been drawing up a storm. Next time King is ordered to add in cheezy AF low grade DC characters into his story he should respond like this:

 

 

 

 

Looks like King is putting off the finale to this run for an issue as he inserts some sort of Supes/Dubz story in the interim. Maybe it’s his way of distancing his great story from the Wack AF DC Villains he was forced to use. Maybe it's in his contract. Maybe Azzarello and Chiang will kidnap the DC Editorial staff and write Dubz again - and maybe I'll stop dreaming.

 

 

After ingesting several caca comic books in a row the magnificent Rare Flavours was a necessary salve for the ills of the current industry. My goodness, what a pocket of brilliance this comic is. It’s books like this that make you refuse to suffer through trash comics. Why continue reading a series that’s obviously not worth your time or money when comics like this can be made? I hope this creative team keeps creating and blessing the racks with their magnificent stories and gorgeous artwork for years to come. Every comic should taste like this book. Bravo. Get it.

 

 

 

 

 

After a long hiatus Deep Cuts, the wonderful Jazz Vignette series, returned with a thud for its fourth installment last month, yet, wow, holy moly, did they crush it for their fifth issue. This has to be the crown jewel of the entire series and whether you’ve been reading this book or not I highly highly recommend you pick this one up. I did not see a story like this coming but what a doozy of a tale. It centers around a drunky, druggie, gay-y, grumpy music critic named Hudson Lowell who lives in La La Land. He’s forced to write a column on a avant garde free-jazz artist named Adler Burns. What follows is a hilarious poignant tale of self-discovery, debauchery and redemption AND who the fuck is Juni Ba?!?!? When I saw Ba I thought ‘Wait, is the Gabriel Ba doing the art for this? Holy Shit! What happened to Gabriel Ba? When I saw it was Juni I immediately assumed it was one of the Ba’s, but it isn’t. Maybe just having Ba as your last name confers upon you magical powers which makes your art unfuckingbelievable. The art in this book is beyond, an absolute triumph. More Juni Ba and any Ba for that matter.

 

 

 

 

There’s also a composition by Mai Sugimoto at the back of the book, who I never heard of. I checked her out and she’s also fantastic. Fuck, what an amazing comic. Get this too!

Right before I went to post this I saw that Marvisney cast the unbelievably talented Julie Garner as - the Silver Surfer? Dude. Oh wait, it's his sister or something? Shambalalakunamatata or something. Some rando character that the stoned Marvel bunch came up with in the 60s and 70s while doing lots of acid. Oy vey. The Disney stock price is way up now at 118. They're not selling Marvel. Expect more pain. Expect more duds. Oh well.

Lots of exciting books coming out this month. Happy Reading!