SOMNA #3 - Review

 

Somna is the sexiest comic book ever created in the history of the universe. Period. I wrote an entire review of how absolutely gorgeous and steamy this book was – and then my computer crashed. Now, given the fact that the sexy bits of this book revolve around a hot Salem Witchy type chick and a Demon, I have to wonder if God struck down my review since it’s blasphemy to proclaim a comic as the sexiest ever if it involves banging and diddling to a Demon. I figure God has waaay more things in the world to strike down as blasphemous these days so the next suspect up is probably that the CCP hacked my computer and shut it down mid-review, the same way they hacked that boat a few weeks back and crashed it into a bridge.

 

Clearly they’re looking to take down not only our country’s infrastructure but our deeply immoral behavior and perverse proclivities. So in a way, I’m honored that such a small fry like myself caught the attention of such a Big Potato. I do find it ironic that a political mechanism that ultimately is run by Satan himself is upset about a Demon Diddling comic book. Maybe he doesn’t like the competition? At any rate, I’m doubling down on my proclamation: Tula Lotay set these pages on fire with her divinely profane art and you will be hard pressed to find anything as deliciously racy in a comic book as the work she did on Somna.The juxtaposition of two distinct artistic styles that she used was absolutely mesmerizing. It’s not easy to pull something like that off and she rendered the whole device right down to its birthday suit.

 

Not to be outdone, Becky Cloonan penned a masterful tale about an enchanting young woman in the Salem Witch era who’s married to the main ‘Witch Hunter’ of her town. She’s visited by a Demon in her dreams; dreams that become erotically charged as she descends into a world of pleasure and truth where the lies of her townsfolk are revealed. It was a truly compelling read. I will say this though, I think it ended a bit abruptly and I was really disappointed the Female Lead ended up the way she did. I’m also not completely sure as to what the final panel is meant to imply. I don’t want to give it away but I’m not sure I could even if I wanted to.

 

Despite the slight slip at the very very end, I really hope these two find ways to continue to work with each other for many many more projects. Apparently this has been in the works for years. I wish I was a fly on the wall in one of their initial pitch meetings. Actually, I’ve never seen a fly on the wall in any important situation, have you? Maybe we need to change this phrase to ‘I wish I was an interdimensional wraith in the corner’, that sounds a lot more believable.

 

The name of the Comic Exec has been redacted due to pending litigation.

 

Comic Exec: So there’s Demon Sex?

 

Becky: Well, it’s not just – I mean, it’s an Erotic Folk Horror, a treatise on -

 

Tula: Sex with the Demon doesn’t happen until the 3^rd issue

 

Comic Exec: So there’s Demon Sex

 

Becky: Well, there’s Demon Arousal and –

 

Comic Exec: Diddling?

 

Becky: Yes, I suppose you could say –

 

Tula: The Demon Diddling is tasteful and it’s not the Demon who’s Diddling.

 

Comic Exec: Who’s diddling?

 

Becky: Ingrid our female lead.

 

Comic Exec: To the Demon?

 

Tula: Yes, but that’s because she’s being ignored by her Puritanical husband who’s too busy finding excuses to condemn innocent dissatisfied women –

 

Comic Exec: Wait, are you saying that if you ignore your wife a Demon will bang her?

 

Becky: It takes place in her dreams, it’s implied that it could be –

 

Tula: My ex ignored me and I ended up having an affair with an Anarchist/Atheist who hated dogs and played Enya all day long. I suppose you could say he was a Demon.

 

Becky: Tula! [beat] It’s a story of persecution and desire, the Demon is really symbolic of –

 

Tula: Look, here’s some pages that I’ve been working on. As you can see there’s two distinct visual landscapes that

 

The Comic Book Suit Grabs them. Shuffles through them really quickly and rises

 

Comic Exec: Excuse me for a second

 

He exits

 

Becky: Tula what the fuck?

 

Tula: What?

 

Becky: I thought we agreed we would focus on the themes and emotional undercurrents of -

 

Tula: Fuck these pervs.

 

Becky: This is our last domestic publisher!

 

Tula: You mean our last Perv. Fuck these guys.

 

Becky: I’m not doing a Goddamn Web Comic! Why did you give him those pages?

 

Tula: Because they’re fucking great and so is your story.

 

Becky: Uggh, where is this loser?

 

The Comic Suit's assistant pokes her head in

 

Assistant: Hi.

 

Becky: Hello.

 

Assistant: Hi. Yeah, umm, [Name redacted] is indisposed at the moment.

 

Tula: Where did he go?

 

Assistant: He’s in his private bathroom and, well –

 

Becky: Great, c’mon Tula let’s go.

 

Tula: Becky, you don’t know –

 

Becky: This always happens after you give them pages,  I thought – uggh.

 

They make their way to the elevator

 

Tula: How was I supposed to know that every Comic Book publisher had a ‘Fuck a Demon’ fetish?

 

Becky: After seven in a row I thought it’d be obvious.

 

Tula: Well, I figure Marvel and DC would but they weren’t going to pick this up anyway.

 

Becky: They’re all fucking perverts Tula! They all go to the bathroom and jerk off! Every time!

 

Tula: They are sexy pages, I don’t blame them.

 

Becky: Do you want our book to be picked up or do you want to provide fat bearded men in their 40s with masturbatory material?

 

They get in the elevator

 

Tula: Well, that is our audience, isn’t it?

 

The doors close

 

 

You know this is exactly how one of their pitch meetings went, you know I’m right! Can anyone in the comic book industry even come close to what these two majestic titans have created here? Will anyone even try? I’d like to think there’s a huge audience for romance, erotica and relationship type books. I feel like the Capes and Cowls genre is running on fumes a bit after Marvisney & DeeCeeYaLater oversaturated our eyeballs and cheapened their brands the past several years.

 

Penthouse Comics is ripe for providing this type of content but so far their first offering shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence as this comic. They should be putting out stuff like Somna except they literally sleep walked through their first book in years and charged us $10 to boot(y).

 

Man, I’m bummed this is over. I’ve asked this before but it bears repeating: Why the fuck are these prestige comics always over after 3 issues??!? Is there a law on the books? Was it stuffed into one of those ridiculous omnibuses on Capital Hill recently? Send Ukraine another 60 Billion and cap prestige comics at 3 issues? Is it because of the Trades? You don’t wanna charge people more than $25 for your story or something? Dude, start an ongoing prestige series! What the fuck. These prestige format stories have been the best thing going the past few years. Is it Marvisney’s fault? They haven’t dabbled in this format yet, are they upset about it? They’d rather charge $8 for cheap poop and 30 variants instead of actually putting out an amazing book?

 

I shouldn’t even mention Marvisney in the same post as Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay’s masterpiece. Bravo Ladies. You raised the bar and then some. Perhaps some of the Neanderthals out there will take up your gauntlet and meet you there only to inspire you to soar higher than before.

 

Rating: 9.8

Verdict: Wow.

 

GONE #1 - Review

 

Welcome to Comic Book Inflation everyone! Where Organic Non-GMO Non-Big 2-Garbage is gonna cost you an arm and a left nut. You want those cheap half dozen comic eggs that make you feel yucky after 6 issues then you'll pay your plebian 4 bux a book. But if you want grass fed stories made by comic farms that don't pump their creators full of anti-buy-otics then you're gonna haveta fork over at least 8 buckaroos or more. Enter DSTLRY and it looks like they’re putting their comics on the shelf at Erewhon which is the fancy over-the-top gourmet luxury grocery store here in LA where you can’t leave the store without dropping at least $20 or more and acknowledging that your chakras are out of wack..

 

I think we’ve slowly been nudged by the comic book industry into the land of ‘Plus Books’ even though they’re not telling us directly that this is what’s been going on. I mean, look at the landscape of comic books these days. For the most part, buying four dollar books is like eating a box of cereal called ‘Frosted Crunchy Stuff’ which is the fake yet cheaper version of Frosted Flakes. I don’t want to lump Image into this conversation because they’re still pumping out consistent greatness from their factory but they too have ventured into the land of pricy books.

 

Here’s the deal, if you want ad free, top shelf creators dropping deeply engaging books on high quality card stock or prestige format you’re going to pay almost double what a normal comic is going for these days. My response to this is, sure! It’s obvious you’re saving the goody good stuff for these formats so why should I continually bang my head on a wall by reading the cheap shit, it’s literally not good for my health just like it’s unhealthy to buy cheap chemically laden garbage groceries at the normal people grocery store where everyone is just contributing to their inevitable cancer diagnosis. Sure there’s good, maybe great cheap comics out there (looking at you Conan by Titan) but you’re going to have to comb through the solicits with a fine tooth comb to find them.

 

DSTLRY is a new imprint with the best creators in the biz that is promising the best monetary deal for those said creators so they can deliver us the best comic book content in the universe. Fine by me. They recently dropped an anthology book to celebrate their new imprint which included half baked stories from the great comic booky minds who had signed on to be a part of this imprint. The anthology was pretty much a wild mess save for one or two really good micro-stories. People were gushing about it, the ads on my socials were going bonkers about how it was going to break new ground and deliver ‘Oh my effin’ God never seen before’ content. It would be content that would get me to either spontaneously combust or content that would inspire me to wrap the book around my dick and walk outside naked with it. Yet if you want to get that Cock Sleeve content you’re going to have to pay $9 a book. That’s the deal. DSTLRY has officially called out the cheap books as just that, cheap. What started as a Black Label revolution last year from DC has now been taken up by these folks.

 

Jock, you’re first up to bat homie. I love me some Jock. His Bats Black Label drop from last year, ‘One Dark Knight’, was without question one of the best bat books of the year. The dude just puts out quality time after time after time. You could not have picked a better lead off hitter to start your line of comics; my man is like Rickey Henderson. The story is simple enough although I am completely exhausted over having to read another dystopian world book again. Seriously people, can we write a non-dystopian world book? Like, a world where everything actually turns out great and it’s a story of the putz who didn’t turn out great, something, anything other than a dreary techno world where the regular people crawl on their hands and knees in rags and crusted snot to scrounge for food and their dignity. In this world we have a kid (who I thought was a boy until way late in the story where it clearly is a girl) who is stealing food from space ships in the fancy elitist part of the city to bring back to her Hunger Game slovenly ghetto shit hole of a neighborhood.

 

Obviously this hits close to home because Los Angeles is slowly turning into the slovenly ghetto shit hole that Jock says is centuries ahead of us. Soon, perhaps by December, children of the next generation will be scurrying out from the shanty towns of Downtown LA with schemes in their minds to rob the Great Erewhon of their $43 Raw Goat Cheese and $150 sashimi sampler. These ruddy faced pigpen rugrats will have the proper tools to break the case that holds the $850 an ounce Manuka Honey so they can victoriously return back to their pisspot dwellings while sipping on market price reishi tonics.

 

 

For this story, the rugrats are joined by some older counter revolutionary scruff bags to steal the food off of a ship. The ship takes off before they can leave and what was supposed to be a basic food run turns into a sabotage mission that our lead rugrat gets wrapped up into. Jock really takes advantage of the prestige format to show off his penchant for making gorgeous splash pages. The enormity of the ship is really conveyed by the art; it’s a beautiful issue. That said, it's not a groundbreaking story by any stretch of the imagination despite the marketing telling you otherwise but there's enough substantive plot to bring you back; she's got model looks and actually reads books.

 

Look, here’s the thing, I would’ve bought this comic no matter what. I didn’t need all the bells and whistles by DSTLRY to tell me to do so. This could’ve been released by any publisher under the cover of night, anonymously tucked away on a solicit and I would’ve found it and purchased it. I didn’t need the countdown on the website. I didn’t need the yawn fest of an anthology to hype me up for it. I didn’t need the onslaught of targeted social media ads telling me of this ‘Cosmic Event’. I certainly don’t need your $100 variant covers and $300 plastic mascot. I don’t need your limited runs or digital cut offs. I could care fucking less of your alcoholic inspired imprint name. Dude, just put out good shit, period. All this hoopla from DSTLRY is completely unnecessary if you ask me. They’ve got the best in the business. You don’t need anything else. If you were hyping up a bunch of unknowns that would be one thing. Like, if you just grabbed a bunch of amateurs from an open mic and said ‘Here’s the best comics in the world, you’ll laugh until you pee and shit youself’ then the marketing would be warranted. But if you put together a show with Dave Chapelle, Louis C.K. and Bill Burr, do ya think that people would pay to see it? Or would you have to call it a cosmic event and have an Asian artist make a $300 plastic stand-up comedy mascot for the show to sell tickets?

 

If they just called their imprint ‘Pricy Good Shit’ it would have been more honest. Maybe they should just save all of their marketing money for their creators which could in theory knock off a couple bucks from the cover price. Bottom line, this is a really really good comic and worth the price tag. This is what a comic book should be: engaging, compelling, deftly written and beautifully drawn. Unfortunately, we’re at a point in the comic book game where it’s become like buying organic produce. If you want a pesticide drenched pink lady picked from a tree that’s glowing from radiation, then by all means buy your $4 comic. But if you want an apple that actually tastes like an apple and not a gummy bear from a factory in Seoul, an apple that won’t make you infertile and bleat like a donkey every five minutes then you’re gonna haveta pay at least $8 for one. 

 

Maybe this is the world that Jock is really predicting for us. A world where you’ll scuttle along the pavements avoiding the AI sensors to find the LCS that has actual comics written and drawn by actual humans. A world where the elite will board a spaceship and eat real meat, have real sex and read real comic books. A world where I'll be sitting in my VR rocking chair telling kids in my VR connected world of an astonishing time where I only paid $8 for a real comic book. They'll flood my senses with WTF emojis and call me a lunatic. They'll tell me that there's no such thing as real comic books anymore. They've all been destroyed except for one that floats in the same vacuum sealed container that Bob Iger's head floats in and that's guarded by heavy AI artillery. I'll ask who runs the facility and the security that guards this floating head and real comic book? They'll answer 'The DSTLRY Corp'.

 

 

Rating: 8.4

Verdict: Pull

DSTLRY 'DEVIL'S CUT' - Review

 

 

What in the actual fuck did I just pay $10 for?!? Ten Buckeroos. Gone. Hey that’s the name of the first actual series from the new imprint DSTLRY. Gone. Coming out this month. It psychologically prepares you to see your comic book budget get gone. Buh bye. Oh that new series is gonna cost you Nine Buckeroos also. And guess what? I will happily pay it! It looks spectacular. DSTLRY’s new website is also all sleek and kinda wow as well. You can check it out here:

 

DSTLRY SITE 

 

They’ve got countdowns for their new books. You could keep your eyes glued to that or you could, you know, just pull the damn thing knowing that your LCS will have if stuffed in a box for you so you don’t have to worry. You can also pay $300 bucks for some tiny little Devil Panda Demon that some Asian chick made that’s supposed to be the Publisher’s mascot. I mean, yeah, that's definitely putting a lot of cashish in a creator's bank account. Does this thing sing 'Purple Rain' or talk to my doggie while I'm gone or will it get me access to some Hollywood Demon party?

 

 

You can also pay $100 for all sorts of different fancy shmancy covers of their Big D on the Devil Book. A Big Old D on the Cover. Yeah, I’m sure that’s purely coincidental. 

 

Chip Mosher: “I’m gonna give the comic world my D!”

 

Who’s Chip Mosher? Who’s David Steinberger? Are they agents? Are they crypto weirdos? No they’re Doogie Howser wannabes who are Alen/Twins and apparently they love love love comic book creators:

 

 

Here’s a link to an article on their whole approach to this new imprint.

 

Doogies do Comics Right!

 

As far as their approach to giving comic book creators lotsa love it looks like that means charging an arm and a leg and a left nut while limiting the amount of copies and chances you have to give your body parts to get said copy. So you’re gonna only sell a limited amount of hard copies and digital copies and that’s it? That’s your angle? So artificial scarcity? Sounds like Big Oil to me. So if for some reason I’m unable to get it then that’s it, that’s what you think? So you don’t think any of the free illegal comic book sites online aren’t going to post every single page of your comic for everyone who wasn’t able to get their hands on it? So they’ll blast the readers with a gazillion ads and make buckets of cash because you think only printing a few of your 9-10 buckeroo books is going to change the comic book game? Dude. Anybody can get anything anywhere any time for free. It’s sad. It’s just the way it is. So, what you have to do is you have to give people the incentive to want to pay for your art because they want to support you. Scarcity doesn’t mean shit you Whiskey Wankers. Now, I will support you 100% because the people you have on board are incredibly talented and put the best shit out there. But get out of their way and leave the gimmicks for Penn & Teller.

 

Look, I know, I’ve been boasting about how I’m willing to pay up for prestige books like since they usually deliver the goods unlike what most $4 books are delivering these days, yet I am bewildered as to why this $10 ADD Fest was put out as the first book from the new creator owned imprint that is going to reinvent the industry.

 

Before I continue I would like to say that everything in this ‘Anthology’ looks amazingly beautiful and it’s clear these writers and artists are at the top of the Comic Book game now. It’s just a glorified ‘We are the World’ video. Each creator gets a line to sing and then it’s on to the next one except there’s no chorus and there’s no sham charity run by a complete idiot save for the lining of the pockets of the best in the biz; which I don’t really have a problem doing, just, you know, give me a coherent happy ending story for my hard earned ten bonez.

 

Anthologies absolutely suck. It’s like going to a Strip Club and seeing comic book creators come out and spin their stories around the pole for a few pages to Def Leppard and then disappear. They pour their sugar on you for a blip and then they’re gone. None of the stories are satisfying. They’re all big teases, “Hey, that’s awesome, wait, don’t stop, is there a champagne room???”. I have an immense amount of respect for Will Dennis and all the creators that joined in this ADD Give us the Big D anthology but I don’t get the point of it. Is it to show how cool you are and how many bad ass comic book peeps you know? Did they just reach out to all of them and go:

 

 ‘Hey send me whatever three or four pages you have of a story or comic that you never got off the ground and I’ll put them in a $10 book and give you a chunk of the proceeds’

 

Ten bucks is like the far reaches of comic book pricing. Once you go past 10 you’re in graphic novel land so you better come wit dat boom bap if you’ve got the sack to charge ten. What it also does is it makes you go ‘Wow, they do have the sack to charge ten, it must be amazing’. You know what this reminds me of. It reminds of that gluten-free coffee cake mix I got from Whole Foods last month. I always peruse the ‘Cake and Muffin’ mixes in the baking aisle. I’ve tried a bunch of them, most of them are okay, some are yuck. After you make one you always are reminded that baking your own stuff is always far superior to the store bought crap. Yet one day I walked by and there on the shelf right at my eye line was a new brand. It looked sexy. It looked delicious. It wasn’t on a dating app. I was sold. But, oy, it was pricy. The coffee cake mix was $13. I thought, wow, if they have the chutzpah to charge thirteen then that coffee cake must be a party in the mouth. It turned out to be awful. I threw it out, it was barely edible. The difference here is that this book is yummy AF but it changes flavors so much you have no idea what it is that you’re eating.

 

I’m sure that when we all saw this list of writers and artists that were joining this publisher we all got ridiculously excited. Yet this book feels like an old school ‘Battle of the Network Stars’ from back in the day. You’re like, ooh, Wonder Woman is going to be in a swimming race! Then you watch Wonder Woman in a normal old swimsuit do an average job at swimming, then it’s over really quickly and then another star is doing something that’s over quickly and it’s never satisfying. My goodness Linda Carter was so unbelievably beautiful:

 

 

The stories in this Anthology of the Big Erect D were over so quickly I had to flip backwards and forwards to make sure I didn’t miss a page. Like, seriously, three pages and then done. Are any of these going to be continued at all? You got my Comic Book Johnson all up and excited and I have no idea where to go next to fulfill it’s comic booky needs. Here’s what I thought as I read every inch of this Big D:

 

Wow this is great I wonder what – hey what the fuck, it’s over? What’s this, ooh, wow, cool visuals, who’s this chick, she seems – wait, that’s it? Oh man I am dying to know what – huh. Oh. Next one already?

 

I’m going to go through all these lightning quick stories so you don’t have to. Better that you save up your shekels for the AI created mascot of your face on a Demon Armadillo for $700 next month.

 

1. Spectregraph. Tynion/Ward - I dunno, some dude goes to steal something and his ghost comes and kills him or some dude hammers the thief's head. Looks great, Ward is a beast. Not a fan of Tynion. He gets the NBA 'over-rated' chant.

2. Shepherd. Bernadrin/Kristantina - Some futuristic tale about colonists in pods going somewhere in a space ship who need a robot/AI/human chick to protect them from space thieves. Mnyeh, it was aite. But quick!

3. 8 Rules etc. Charretier/Cowles - Woo hoo! The amazing team behind Tom King's spectacular 'Love Everlasting' is doing their thing. Some blonde super spy babe kills a bunch of people on an island in a bikini. Elsa draws a wonderful pair of boobies at the end. Now it feels like I paid $10 for comic boobies like I'm some Oni Anime Jungle Chick Comic pervy Dynamite Red Sonya drooler. I think this gets its own comic soon. Yay. Did I mention Elsa drawing boobies?

4. What's Mine is Hearse. Phillips/Jones - Umm. A sexy Asian chick bangs the corpse of a handsome dead dude and then either kills or gets rid of the guy driving the hearse so she can drive off while laughing like a complete wacko. Ohhh-keedokee. Art is ridiculously gorgeous though aaaannnnd I feel unclean.

5. A Blessed Day. Andolfo - An actual Demon manages and runs a huge Pop Star and a record label. Ho hum. I run into Demon Managers at Trader Joe's all the time. This gets made into a series later this year, may or may not pass. Andolfo drew the recent White Knight debacle written by Mop Top Loser kid so still got that icky taste on my comic book mouth.

6. The Stowaway. Jock - Kid steals food off a helicarrier. Jock is great. Super short like the others. Really looking forward to forking over $9 for Gone.

7. Deleted Scene #2. Azzarello. Risso - Three pages of a Western scene over a campfire where, I dunno what the hell this is about, Azzarello! Get Chiang and take over Wonder Woman again for goodness sake!

8. White Boat. Snyder. Francavilla - The same team that did the underwhelming super silly 'Night of the Ghoul'. Interesting tale about a ghost boat or whatever. Snyder! Get Capullo and take over Batman again for goodness sake!

9. What Happens Next. McElvie - By this point my brain was spinning and I hit a wall. Some futuristic AI soul in a cloud avatar love story, I dunno. I'm gonna need another gluten free twinkie to wake up and be alert for the final two stories. Did I really pay $10 for this?

10. Waiting to Die. Ram V. Garbett - Another boobie shot, nice. A couple has sex and then one goes outside to watch a solar flare that will kill everyone. Oh, a weiner shot also. So that's 2 Pairs of Boobies, a Big D on the cover, a tiny D and a corpse banger for those who aren't keeping score.

11. What Blighted Flame Burns in Thee. Cloonan. Lotay - They saved the best for last. They gave this unbelievably talented duo 11 pages to tell their tale about a man who saves a woman from being executed for being accused of being a witch. The art is breathtaking. They did the right thing by leaving this until the end because now I want more more more. I think this duo gets a comic soon also. Somna in December? They have a clock on their website you can watch for 40 days if you want.

 

Here's the big D-eal Doogie Dudes: Just put out great stuff. Hard stop. You don't need toys or $100 variants or artificial scarcity. You've obviously assembled a who's who of genius comic creators so just let them do their thing and you'll sell a bunch of books. I'm down. Just leave the gimmicks to the Big 2. Their gimmick is pretending to be a comic book publisher while actually being a cog in a TV/Film machine. 

 

Speaking of which, I've got this throbbing comic book stiffy from reading this anthology that gave me zero happy endings. Let me see here, ooh, the new Daredevil #1, oh yeah, that's a major turn off and wait, ooh, let me find that White Knight Jokers kids book, ahh, yeah, that's Janet Reno and Elizabeth Warren in fetish gear bad. Yeah, I'm down to a shriveled turtle, DSTLRY, you may carry on.

 

 

Rating: 7.0

Verdict: Pay through the nose to get their Actual Series coming out soon.