RED LIGHT #1 - Review

 

I went to college at NYU many many moons ago. I was in the acting program and one summer we took a production that we had created within our program to an international theater festival in Amsterdam. Yes, all the clichés and expectations one would think of having a bunch of randy actors let loose in Amsterdam in the 90s were true. However, yours truly was and still is not at all interested in the drinky, druggy, smoky stuff. So while many were indulging in the pure hedonistic release one would expect of an artist in their early 20s, I was the lone teetotaler. The ‘no, thank you, I’m good’ weirdo. I hit the museums, wandered the cobbled streets, searched for good loose leaf tea and avoided the temptations.

 

Of course it became patently obvious to my collegiate colleagues that I wasn’t joining in with their debauchery. I had to do something for goodness sake. It’s Amsterdam! So after a few days it was somehow decided by the group that I had to be convinced to go to the Red Light District and hook up with a hooker. I was the Prince guy. Dude, we’re literally in Erotic City! Go bang a ho, it’s legal! Now, at this point I was still a virgin so I wasn’t too keen on having my first ever be some pay for play European chick behind a fucking window. Yet the clamoring from behind the smoky haze of hashish didn’t stop so one night I relented and went by myself to the Red Light District.

 

 

To my surprise it was packed. I found it bizarre that an area dedicated to sex and chicks shaking their stuff behind neon windows was somewhat of a tourist attraction. Now, having lived in New York for so long I was used to streetwalkers, nudie film houses and xxx shops but this was different. It was cleaner and, I dunno, a Rite Aid for Pussy? So, I sighed and went shopping for ass. Yeah, it was not as glamorous and exciting as I thought it would be. I mean, the fantasy is that drop dead gorgeous girls are wiggling and smiling in their booths, beckoning for you to come inside and have the time of your life but that wasn’t the case it all. It felt like everyone was bored out of their minds just sitting there. This was way before iPhones, so there wasn’t anything that they could do while waiting for a customer other than just hang out. I mean, sure, some were working it but for the most part, well, I kinda felt bad for these women.

 

I ultimately decided I had had enough and was making my way back to the hotel when I came upon a side street and there was a lone window at the corner. I approached it and, holy bejeezus, this woman was unbelievably beautiful. She looked like a Victoria Secret model. I started huffing and puffing, I was going to blow that window down. I sheepishly approached, she noticed me, sized me up, wiggled her fingers hi while delicately smiling at me and then went back to staring at the floor. I noticed a placard on the edge of the window and took a looksee…it was a menu. A sex menu. Like, if you wanna do this it’s this much, if you wanna do this it’s this much etc.

 

Now look, I’m Jewish, okay. Once you start quoting me prices Jewnomics are officially in full effect. So it went from a possible sexy life changing encounter to wondering if I just wanted an appetizer, a steak or the tiramisu. Now instead of flirting I'm calculating time, space, dickstance and if you can haggle with a hooker. And well, that was that, I walked away. I mean, if I had gone inside I totally would have been trying my best to get the best bang for my buck! This is why I’ve never been with a hooker because I know her intention is to get me to finish as quickly as possible while mine would be to squeeze every drop out of the hour, if it was an hour.

 

Like, if I was about to blow ten minutes in then I’m running to the bathroom and calming down and I bet she’d be running after me to try and get me to finish. I’m not cumming until 59 minutes and 59 seconds baby! Get away from me! I’m thinking of maggots and mold and my 8^th grade Math Teacher Mrs. Panacelli, get thee gone!

 

Anyway, this comic. Well, obviously I was intrigued by the Red Light and thongy tushy cover. So the premises is this: there’s a brothel made up of AI Hookers and one AI Hooker is the darling of the dude who created the brothel. Of course she’s the best one and ‘feels’ more than the others do. Sure, whatever. The hookers are pretty much abused to the point that clients are breaking their body parts (only to be fixed like a mechanical vehicle later) and they’re not allowed to leave. So, pretty much just like anywhere else. The guy who put this whole operation together apparently had his wife die recently so his reaction was to create an AI Hooker chick who looks just like her. Once a week he invites his AI Hooker Wife upstairs to dine at a fancy table and then to get banged with a view of the city.

 

So my first question is, if we’re talking about AI Robot Hookers, why the secrecy? Like, is AI Pussy just as illegal as Human Pussy? Like, shouldn’t it be viewed the same way a Video Game Arcade is viewed? Instead of let’s go play Donkey Kong let’s go bang Honey Wong 3.0. I get that the whole argument of whether or not AI has a soul or can develop one is a thing but I’d definitely lean on the side of ‘a program/algorithm is a program/algorithm’. It just feels like this brothel is some underground illicit operation which doesn’t make sense to me if we’re just talking booty machines. I mean, that's a really interesting question. If AI Robot Hookers are walking the streets can you arrest them for prostitution?

 

Second, so, you’re telling me that a guy loses his wife and what he decides to do is recreate her as a robot hooker so he can make money off her while taking a crack at her once a week? Yeesh, was he in love with his wife? That’s one seriously fucked up way of showing it: “Baby, if I ever lose you I’m gonna have someone Frankenstein your ass, literally, and have the world tap it’. I mean look at this guy:

 

 

Serious Douchebag-aroonski. Here's the thing. A guy like this is not going to put all this energy into creating a Robot Cooch Empire. He can 'I'm a Wealthy Asshole' himself into any pair of panties that he wants. You know who would create a Cooch Empire, a nerdy, skinny, loser POS who hates humanity and hasn't been laid in ages. I'm thinking somebody like that cringy fuckwad from the World Economic Forum that hates humans and wants to feed the world bugs: Yuval Harari.

Yeah, this dude. This dude is the kind of dude that makes an AI Hooker Brothel. He should be the D Bag that sends for the AI Hooker once a week to dine and bang.

 

Interestingly enough, in the back matter the writer gives quite the vulnerable explanation of her experiences with men and what her approach was to this comic. She confesses that her choice of men is so bad that her therapist told her to run in the opposite direction whenever she feels something for a dude. This is her. What a cutie:

 

 

So in some way, our Hooker chick is our writer. Look here cute Asian babe, I am totally rooting for you to escape this Douchebag Paradise and find your way to a coffee date with a nerdy nice guy like me. If Ms AI Hooker can do that I will crown you comic book of the millennium! Like, it’s a 4 issue series, so if in issue 4 she’s in sweats on a couch rooting for a skinny guy’s fantasy football team while her AI program is figuring out what sandwich to make for him next then that would be a story for the ages! That would get the AI Hooker industry off to a rip roaring start ‘No, no, they’re not AI Pussy Robots, they’re AI GFE Babes who are awesome cooks and like vanilla sex’. I think that’s gotta be the selling point for the Tucchus Machines.

 

Mnyeh, this was okay. Priscilla Petraites art was pretty damn good and definitely elevated the story. Usually AWA, Scout or Boom comics have really cheesy art, but then again now all Marvisney and most DC books have cheesy art so clearly the lines have blurred. I'll come along for the ride Cute Asian Writer Babe if only to say:

 

'Hey is the new AI Hooker vs The Douchebag comic out this week?'

 

 

Rating: 7.1

Verdict: Pull

 

RED ZONE #1 - Review

 

I’ve been flailing about the comic book solicitations like a thirsty dater who just paid for a premium membership in a second rate dating app; I’m just wanting something, anything to be worth my time. I’m looking at you OkCupid. Yeesh, what a disaster that site is. You’re just scrolling through trolls and old maids until you find a couple of cuties that match but never respond. Just like any other app you either delete or decide that you’re going to take your dating life by the horns and upgrade your membership, woo hoo! You convince yourself, hey you gotta spend money to make money which means you gotta spend money to date honeys! That, my friends, is a maxim that one should neverrrr believe in.

 

See, once you upgrade now you’ve got skin in the game so you have to find dates to justify your investment. It doesn’t matter if it’s only 20 or 30 bux, who in their right mind would pay for something and not get anything??? Even a sociopathic degenerate gambler gets the thrill of that moment when they could win all their losses back. You don’t even get that on a derelict dating app, you get an hourglass where the sand is sifting through to the bottom at ten times the speed of normal. Eventually you will match and you will chat with someone who seems cool enough and after oodles and noodles of your time plying and prying this ‘ehhh, she’s okay, she seems cute’ kinda girl you’ll meet up with her only to wonder ‘Wait, when the hell were these pictures of her taken that she’s got on her profile ,1992???’. At that point you’ll look at the menu and pray to the Dating Gods that she does not choose the 36oz Egyptian tomb aged steak with duck confit and roe from a salmon that could play chess.

 

You know, single men and women ten to twenty years from now are going to look back on all those who did the dating app thing and they’re going to think of the dating app trend in the same way that we look at doctors who thought putting leeches on a sick person to suck out the bad blood was a good idea.

 

So, as my pull list dwindles and dwindles due to the considerable plop plop of drivel that the comic book industry seems to be mired in, I’m just sending likes to new offerings that I may not necessarily have sent in previous years as a means to and end of hopefully finding a hidden gem. I’m not a big fan of Cullen Bunn. His name sounds like a name that the French were going to give to a pastry until they decided not to:

 

‘Let’s call this thees Le Cullen Bunn’

 

‘Mais non, c’est ordinaire. We shall call eet, Le Croissant!’

 

‘Ahhh, Le Croissant, oui! C’est magnifique!

 

And the Cullen Bunn was never to be heard of again until a descendant of this aborted pastry starting dropping middling horror series for brain addled comic book fans. Bad Bunny Bunn also had a run on Marvel’s recent ‘Conan the Barbarian’ catastrophe that rankles me to no end. I don’t get the fascination with this guy but hey, lots of people are fascinated by ordinary these days. SI saw that he was tasked to write this Indie Russian Spy type tale and I was intrigued. I’m always down for a good spy thingamajig and since I’m flailing for adds to my pulls I gave this a shot. Well, oy vey. Oy to the emm oh eff oh vey.

 

I’m going to take apart this story right now so if you want to read this comic don’t keep reading. In other words, spoiler alert although I would say these pages have already been spoiled. First, the art by Mike Deodato Jr. was fantastic, let’s just get that out of the way. Mike, you’re amazing, per usual. Okay, so some old Russian Teacher Dude at a College is approached by some young blonde Army Dude who swiftly convinces him to join their ‘extraction team’ to get his former Russian flame babe out of Russia on an extraction mission. He meets the team and they’re all straight out of a Call of Duty game. They go to Russia, all the special op bad ass dudes post up all around this restaurant where Teacher Dude’s Russian Babe is waiting at a table. They meet and she goes ‘Oh, you’re not just taking me you’re taking my hot daughter as well’. Hot daughter in a skimpy dress and six inch heels walks up like she’s meeting her new sugar daddy, there’s zero tension or stakes for what supposedly is a dangerous mission.

 

All of a sudden all hell breaks loose! The Russians! The Evil Russians! They blow everything up! Oh those dastardly Russians! Rat a Tat Tat Tat! Oh no! They killed the Call of Doody Dudes! All of them! In like one fell swoop, well, that was easy. Old Momma Russia Flame pulls out a Gat (I wish people would keep using this slang term that was popularized by Old School Hip Hoppers back in the day, it’s my fave) she pulls out the Jammy (I love that one too, c’mon, a Jammy??? Wuttttt!) pulls out the Jammy and lets it fly. Now scruffy old Rusky Teach and his Hot Babe in Heels are on the run.

 

Yeesh, ya think Cruller Bunns watched Indiana Jones before writing this. Should we change the title of this to Indiana Jonesanovich and the Babushka? Are you frikkin kidding me with this Honey Buns??? So let me get this straight. You got a special ops bad ass group of Army dudes who have to extract some old Russian chick. Rather than contacting her themselves and meeting her in a, oh I dunno, a garage, an apartment, a Dunkin Donutsky, they drag some old dude with them ‘cause she requests it and they meet in a nice restaurant. They couldn’t meet in a garage, apartment or at a Dunkin Donutsky and get a Cruller Bunn together??? Not only that, her hot daughter wants out too, so she dresses like she’s auditioning for Moscow’s Housewives or The Bachelorusky for her extraction. Let me guess, while she was deciding which outfit showed her tits off better she was on TikTok telling the CCP and her millions of fans about her Hawt X-Tract.

 

Look here Pullen Ho Doughnuts, if you wanted a half naked chick running around Russia with an old Lolita Express Teacher and gun just cut to the chase and have them running from the restaurant; lose all the exposition. Clearly that was your pitch: Russian Club Chick from the 90s and Indiana Jonesanovich. Gee, lemme guess, Indianov is great with guns and has a few tricks up his sleeves and down his pants and he makes it out alive while killing all the evil Russians, eff you dude and your lame plot.

 

Lemme guess, you and Axel Axelrod Foley the EIC of AWA have the Ukrainian Flag in your profile pic and jerk off to Zelensky like he’s a Farrah Fawcett poster from 1977. Axel Foley in his little spiel at the end of the comic even goes so far to compare Putin to Drago from the Rocky IV movie. Oh fer goodness sake. Is that it, you watch the lametsream news and believe all the BS that spews from the pathological liars that call themselves newscasters and now you’re all ‘Russia is Evil and Sucks?’ I know that the war over there is waaaay more complicated and more nuanced than the pathetically reductive lens of  good vs evil. Anyone with a brain who understands history and who objectively considers the myriad of implications and levers that have caused this conflict understands how complex this situation is. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that Culler Bunn and Ahmed Foley don’t know jack about jack. So you can keep your canned plot and myopic simplistic world view off my golden pull list that only allows intelligent beautiful geniuses on it.

 

This comic is not in the Red Zone. It’s sitting on a tee at the 35 yard line and it should just be kicked off into the stands rather than into the endzone. Blecchh. What a waste. Man, all this talk of pastries has me hungry. I’m gonna go grab a Russian Bear Claw from the KGB-odega up the street.

 

Rating: 4.4

Verdict: Drop

NEW THINK 3.0 - Review

 

It’s a Jewish New Year! It’s a New Moon! It’s a new day to read a newish comic series asking you to think anew. It’s New Think 3.0! From a somewhat new comic book publisher. So, nu? Is it good? Nu is Yiddish for ‘okay, well’ in case ya didn’t know. In other Yiddish news I finally got a match on my exclusive dating app with some shiksa who will probably never respond to my mundane message. Nothing new there!

 

The previous issues of this anthology series had a cautionary commentary on the vacuum suck that is our phones followed by a cutesy fable on the need to speak your truth even if putzy monarchs force you to live in a glass house and give up your privacy. As I was zipping back home from Brooklyn on a flight back to La La Land the cover depicting a digitized Marilyn Monroe in her iconic white dress over the steam grate pose positioned now over a cell phone seemed the perfect accompaniment.

 

Before I could get into it the cute passenger in the seat next to me for whatever reason took an interest in me and ended up chatting me the entire flight home. Turns out she’s a member of a Chinese Girl Group that sings 90s R&B style songs, they’re good! Anyway, out of all the things we talked about one of them was about me needing to get a TikTok account so I can begin to connect with Gen Z. According to her Gen Z would looooove me and would help blow up my upcoming one man show. I was intrigued. Actually was about to get tikky with it but since Insta is always listening to you even on airplane mode the next day I got this video right at the top of my feed:

 

 

How dare you consider a competitor Issac! Here have some more reels with girls wiggling their wigglies in your face. I swear I looked at one (maybe two...or three) wiggly reel and now every chance Insta gets it has wiggly girls on my feed. That’s all they are. Girls in bikinis reach to press record and then just jiggle their stuff. Is this a thing? What is the purpose of these girls? How does this make anyone money? Is it just to look inside my mouth as I gape? Are you getting dental data? Or do you want to see if you can make me walk into a street sign?

 

Yes this is a comic book review. Okay, look, this issue wasn’t really a story; it was a commentary.  A commentary on the pervasive intrusive all encompassing hold a phone can have over your life. Written in the first person of said generic phone it wound its way through the myriad of ways it wove its web around your existence and nudged you along to its grand design. Problem is, you got the sentiment within a few pages, but it kept going and going and going alllll the way until the end. It was quite similar to the first issue of this ‘series’. Got it. Phones be creeping and brain tweaking but for goodness sake give me a plot. A Protagonist. Some semblance of a story. Had Greg Hurwitz built off of this concept with a few pages of the evil phone intent and given us a narrative, some obstacles, anything to make us feel someone or something was out there fighting the fight then maybe this could have been a powerful book.

 

As it stands it’s just a treatise. It’s a diatribe at a Poetry Slam. Yes it gets a bunch of snaps and mm hmmms from the crowd but I’m not sitting next to a boho babe with ripped jeans, natty hair, a nose-ring and a butterfly tat who will reject me due to being too square. I’m sitting next to my doggie in my Lay-Z-Boy flipping through these pages begging for a story. Didn’t get one. Can’t go on. Love me some good indie tales but my new thinking on letting go of what doesn’t work in my life includes this series. Yeah, I think not.

 

I didn't even get me some Marilyn although I'm sure her great granddaughter is jiggling somewhere on my insta feed if I stop and [BONK] Wow. Street signs are much more sturdier than they look.

 

Rating: 5.5

Verdict: Drop

NEW THINK 2.0 - Review

 

I’m a big fan of the little guy. I root for the Underdog (except in baseball, Go Yanks!). I love a good independent small time anything busting through that big boy ceiling. So one would think I would just be inhaling all of the offerings from the smaller comic book imprints: AWA, Scout, Vault, Valiant etc. Yeah, not so much.

 

Don’t get me wrong I look at ALL of their solicitations and pull stuff here and there. You have to make an effort to even find the solicits as they’re usually buried on the bottom of previews world or league of comic geeks. Maybe that’s because more often than not they’re, well, they’re mnyeh: the art, the writing, just the overall feel. There’s definitely a major and minor leagues when it comes to the world of Comic Books. Some of the smaller imprints rely on scantily clad big boobied & bootied women on their cover to get sales. Can’t say how many times I’ve looked at a Vampirella cover with the tittie-ular character twisted in a pose revealing all of her comic booky parts and said “hmm, how bad can this be?” Then I’ll flip through it at comic book shop and go ‘Ummm, huh?’. How about those Black Witch of the Tarot or Cave Chick books? It’s like Cinemax back in the day, you weren’t watching their films at 1am for the themes and narratives. Maybe if I’m 13 I’m walking to the counter with my hands shaking hoping the cashier will let me buy a naked cavewoman chick comic, but I’m not 13. Thank God. Having a Bar Mitzvah these days would be a nightmare: allergies, everybody offended about every little thing, girls wearing hot pants and twerking during the Hava Nagila while all the boys spontaneously combust.

 

Buying comics from small publishers can feel like going out on a date with someone you’re not really attracted to. But you do it sometimes and justify it by saying ‘hey I gotta get out there and be dating, you never know she might be awesome, I’m keeping the energy flowing’. Then you drop her off feeling greasy with a face that looks like you’re standing over a trash heap and you vow to never do it again; but you do.

 

Without question the small guys have put out quality books over the years but you have to rifle through them to find the golden nuggets. I liked the premise of this ‘New Think’ series and gave it a shot. The first issue was nothing really special although it succeeded in making me look at my phone again and go ‘Stop owning me you filthy rectangle! I don’t need you! I am claiming my power and my time ba – wait, I forgot to post that meme about Liz Cheney, ohh it’s so good’.

 

The second issue was also a simple exercise that utilized the imaginary world of The Land of Stories to weave a tale about the power of telling your story no matter what, even if the evil king sends his witches, soldiers and minions to silence your words. While that may be all well and good in a medieval world where the butter churner isn’t posting reels of his hot daughter churning the butter in a halter top to generate butter sales, I’m not sure the moral of the story and overall sentiment will really have any impact whatsoever in today’s world.

 

“They understood that forgiveness and empathy were more important than judgment or gossip”

 

Yeah, I don’t think if I get a collective stink eye from an offended audience at one of my comedy shows and the boot from the booker that me referring them to this indie comic is going to do the trick:

 

‘Sir, we all have our stories to tell and tell them we shall’

 

'Yeah, whatever Issac, I’m not validating your parking, get out.'

 

It’s a quick read, and yeah, it’ll make you think for a bit. Whether it’ll make you think ‘New Think’ I’m not so sure. They teased the upcoming issue with a cover that shows a holographic projection of Marilyn Monroe over a phone in her iconic ‘Dress over the steam grate’ pose. I could take it or leave it but hey, let’s do a solid for the little guys and let them know we’re rooting for them.

 

RATING: 7.0

VERDICT: Pull because you care