July '24 Reading Round Up - AI COMICS!

 

Here. We. Go. This past week Colin Kaepernick of all people came out and announced that he’s launching an AI Start-Up called ‘Lumi’ that will create AI Generated Fucking Comic Books.  Now you don’t have to sit down to draw or write a comic book you can take a knee like Colin and suck on AI’s Shlong while it makes you into a regular Jack Kirbynick. I don’t know how we got from ‘You’re not good enough to even get a roster spot on the piss poor quarterback starved Las Vegas Raiders’ to ‘Hey, has AI ruined comic books yet? Get Colin in here!’

 

 

Of course there’s all the standard jargon mumbo jumbo bullshit that makes you think that it’s going to give some disadvantaged kid with a dream who scribble his comic book ideas down with crack pipes dipped in ink: “Lumi’s mission is to democratize storytelling by providing tools for creators”, yeah yeah blah blah. Just be honest and say, "Are you a fat talentless shlub who is finding new ways to be lazy? Wanna tell the AI followers of yours that you’re creating an AI comic book for them? Well here’s Lumi".

 

Lumi? Seriously? Sounds like a cheap as fuck lamp company. Like I just bought some crappy $10 book light from Amazon that doesn’t work, I bet it’s a subsidiary of Lumi. Lumi is the name of some Vegan Café that opens in Silverlake and closes in 3 months due to shitty Yelp reviews. Lumi is the name of that Goth chick you matched with who has way too many tats but a super cute face that ropes you in until she literally ties you up with ropes in her Subaru and puts a ballgag in your mouth. Look, there’s nothing to be done about this app, it was an inevitability. If it wasn’t Colin Kaepernick it would’ve been Ryan Fitzpatrick or Andrew Luck or some other former retired QB. We’re already seeing AI Covers being unknowingly plastered on books by ignorant publishers. I’m sure the Big Poo are looking into how they can leverage AI comics and replace their entire creative team. At this point it would probably be an improvement.

 

Yes, I know, the distance between AI generated Caca and organically produced Human art is an enormous chasm right now. But every day they inch closer and closer together. There’s this notion that ‘Democratizing’ anything will make it better. We’ve done that to music, video content and films. I’m quite sure it hasn’t made anything better. It’s made it so you really have to wade through a swamp of poop to find the diamonds. I’m all for getting rid of the gatekeepers in Entertainment who climb out of Satan’s Bunghole every morning to say no to good people with good ideas. But somebody’s gotta stand on that wall and say ‘Yeah, this sucks, people shouldn’t be exposed to this junk’. Lumi: The Comic Book Version of Unsolicited Dick Pix.

 

Here's what I got into recently:

 

 

I’m trying to figure out why this book ended up on a down note for me. It’s everything I was looking for. An old school/first days of the Bat set in the 30s; a dark gritty backdrop of a book in prestige format. And yo, don’t get me wrong, the first two drops were great, well, maybe not unbelievably great. Like, the end of the first issue was a red flag; the cliffhanger was way over the top. The cliffhanger of the second was also a bit, hmmm, out of character (Bats holding a gun in his hand), although I can let that slide due to it being set in his origin story. If I had to guess, I think the vernacular just got too outta hand for me. I mentioned this before, but every line of dialogue seemed to have some sort of old timey word pulled from a 1930s lexicon of slang and phrases of the day. I mean, it got a bit ridiculous which pulled me out of the story. 

 

You know what this book was like? It’s like going on a date with a babe who you’re completely thrilled about. You’re talking about her to your friends, you’re checking out her socials and loving every bit of it. You’re looking at Astro compatability (yes you fucking are, admit it) and your signs check all the boxes. You meet up, she looks amazing…and then she starts talking. And, well, there’s something about her voice that feels like bread knife on the back of your skull. You can’t be sure but it feels like with every word that zings out of her mouth your sinuses hurt more. She’s also putting you to sleep, there’s a distinct droning that activates your melatonin and before you know it you’re drowsy at 7pm. Yeah, somebody poured her into her dress but her sound is a car alarm that doesn’t quit at 2am. Most male animals would just think, ah, well, I’ll bang her and be done with it. But you know better. You know that the noises she’ll make while in the throes of passion will ruin sex for you for at least 5 years. Your friends will ask you ‘What happened???’ You’ll want to say she sounded like a donkey being run through a wood chipper but all that will come out will be ‘I dunno, something was off’. And your friends will look at you with a gleam in their eye while thinking ‘Wow, he’s not all about looks, he really cares about vibe and what’s going on in the inside of a woman’. But you’ll know. You’ll know. First Knight was hot. But it hurt my sinuses. 8.7

I was first hipped to the work of Juni Ba in the delightful ‘Deep Cuts’ mini series that consisted of 6 different jazz vignettes. His installment was absolutely fantastic. It actually blew the other installments away it was that good. Looks like the industry is catching on to his immense talent and the jobs are coming in. I was also immensely psyched to see this in the solicits but, I dunno. It’s definitely got a  fairy-tale/stylized Netflix anime series vibe to it which is cool but, I’m not sure it fully works. One thing he did accomplish was to clarify all of the Robin characters. Juni’s succinctly summed up each of them well enough where I could at least pass a Robin quiz whereas before I would definitely fail. Let’s be honest: Tim Drake and Jason Todd are weak as fuck names for Robin. As far as I see it, it’s Dick Grayson and then bubkes. Damien is straight outta ‘The Omen’ and I’d rather see Bats all verklempt around Thalia than deal with a spitfire kid.

 

This feels like a YA title. There’s an ‘aww shucks, air this at 3pm for the after school crowd kinda’ energy about it. My sense of this series is that DC peeped Juni’s unbelievable work in “Deep Cuts” and put him on a project they had in mind. I think Juni’s story is solid if not unspectacular but the art is for sure bananas. I don’t think Juni is really a capes and tights guy and hopefully he’s got a plethora of projects in his noodle that he’s psyched to unleash upon the world. 7.9

 

 

 

 

 

Now this what I’m talkin’ bout. Dude. Yay. I mean, for goodness sake, it’s a Spidey Comic. I just wanna read Spidey fighting shit, slinging some webs and his verbal zingers. After two BS issues of backstory bingo, one that was a complete utter dinner party bore and one that was interesting yet could’ve been boiled down to a few pages, the real creative team of this book is back and delivering the goods. I read it. It was fun. I enjoyed the escapism. Nobody was interjecting their personal bullshit it was all pure superhero in tights goodness done by two dudes at the top of their game. Can it all be so simple? Yes it can. Time to clone Hicksy and Marco and put them on every single Marvisney book until a new fresh crop of writers and artists are ready to come in and return this brand back to what made it great in the first place. 9.1

 

 

 

 

 

I somehow missed this when it came out several months ago, weird. I would have definitely grabbed it so I’m wondering how this slipped through my fingers. Perhaps it’s the Universe saving me $9, I thought. With my pulls being so low these days I had my LCS grab one for me and well, all I gotsta say is sometimes you gotta trust that the Universe has your back. My goodness this was gross, yuck. Yuck. Brian Azz, this is Yuck. You get the azz. I’m all for Westerns but this was a gory yuckfest about some steely eyed d-bag criminal who gets out of a Mexican jail and goes on his revenge spree. This includes finding his wife, who has since married a Reverend, and killing her husband. There’s lots of images of dead dogs who have been shot and a brutally intense image of a mother of a murdered family that the D-Bag and his fellow D-Bags come upon, who’s clearly been tied up, bound and, well, you get the idea, bleccch. The last straw was when one of the Wife’s three kids has a piece of his ear bitten off by one of the D-Bag’s henchman simply because the ears looked too big. Eff you B Azz, jeez. Go to therapy and work out your anger issues and Venmo me $9. Consider this DSTLRY’s first major dud. 4.5

 

I honestly can’t with this book anymore. I’ve grown weary of opening these gorgeous pages drawn by Sana Takeda. Yes, they’re gorgeous. I’ve been dating this gorgeous comic for almost 10 years now and there’s no other way to say it but she’s gone completely fucking bonkers. She just babbles incessantly about the same shit, just on a different day. I don’t see how Marj Liu can expect anyone to pick this book up after a month or so of having read the previous issue and not squint their eyes, rub their forehead and go ‘what the fuck is going on here???’. The longest relationship I’ve been in has been a little over 3 years so I don’t know how to break up with someone I’ve been with for 9 plus years. Maybe I need to take this book to comic book therapy and hash things out, is there such a thing? Can someone make it and book me for an appointment? I feel like Monstress is one of the casualties of the Mandela Effect. Maybe we’re in the alternative Universe where Monstress is a shit show and in the previous Universe it was spelled Monsstress or maybe Monstresses and it was fucking awesome. Somehow I feel in the Multiverse every Monstress version is hurting people’s brains. Monstress is a multiversal multidimensional punch to your pull list no matter where you exist. I feel like the only ones, besides myself, who are reading this book at this point are those who dress up like cats and pee in litter box that's been placed in the bathroom for them. 6.0

 

 

 

 

 

Greatness in serialized Comics requires consistency, a none too easy task especially in this day and age of hiatuses, variant cover madness and the subservience to the trade market. Yet every now and then something comes along that defies genre and the shortcomings of the industry to deliver a timeless story that will stay with you long after you add it to your long box. Rare Flavours was just that. The title encapsulated the book itself: a rare feat and a taste of something truly special. Every single offering of this six issue course was an enchanting delight, deftly written and wonderfully drawn by two masters of their craft. Rare Flavours transcended their logline and elevator pitch. It was this ephemeral paragon of storytelling, myth and family that will stay with their audience long after the embers that cooked up this beauty of a book die out. 10.0

 

 

 

 

There's a story in here where Conan turns into a Werewolf and has to fight a town that has already turned into Werewolves. GTFOH. Dude. As Stan Lee used to say: Nuff said. 9.4

That's all I got. I'm off to work on a new AI start-up called 'Homie'. It will democratize comic book blogs for everyone by providing the tools necessary to write and post blogs to the masses as if they were written by a Cholo from LA.

 

Happy Reading!

  

WHITE BOAT #1 - Review

  

 

Oy, another trio of Snyder comics. Does Scott Snyder know how to write series anymore that last more than 3 issues? I think the way the whole Batman comic ended still has him traumatized. I see him shaking naked on a leather couch mumbling ‘Mr Bloom Mr Bloom Mr Bloom’ as a therapist rolls his eyes and doodles on a notepad. 

 

 

 

 

Snyder is teaming up again with Francesco Francavilla, the artist who loves to put his initials on all of his drawings like some deranged graffiti artist from the 70s. Seriously, I don’t get it, how is it okay to put your insignia on pages that are inside of the book??? The cover, I get, but the inside pages? Are you that fucking insecure that you have to validate your work over and over. Is that what artists from Italy do these days? They just wander around the streets scribbling their insignia on everyone and everything. Like does he have to take his dates from behind so he can scribble on their ass?

 

Look he does it again right here:

 

What a psychopath. Look, I think he’s a fantastic artist, his work is gorgeous, but my goodness this annoys me. All the solicits are ringing the bell about the fact that these two worked on the Night of the Ghoul which was a middling mnyeh bouillabaisse of nothing special. But, this is DSTLRY and they have been absolutely destroying the comic book world with their releases. Thing is, they’re only doing 3 issue Prestige Formats with Superstar Creators. That’s all well and good but at some point you’re going to have to drop an ongoing series that lasts a year or so. Then we’ll see if you really got the goods. Right now you’re a ‘3 Date Dinner Date Babe that Goes Bye Bye’, a chick who shows up for your appetizers and main course but never gives you your just desserts.

 

As I’ve said before, 3 issue Prestige drops are a landmine for a comic book geek. As long as the 1^st issue is somewhat serviceable and enjoyable you’ll more than likely pony up for the second book. The second book is where they get you because no matter whether it sucks scraggy balls or is the best thing since ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ you’ll feel stupid if you just drop the book before grabbing the final issue. Why? Because you’ve already dropped close to $20 on two comics so you might as well find out how it ends and finish the story; do you ever leave or stop watching a 3 hour movie at the 2 hour mark? It’s genius marketing. 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s like going out on a few dates with a babe who looks amazing but is throwing red flags at you left and right: high pitched cackle, hints about doing lots of benders, talks about switch blades a bit too much. But she laughs at all your jokes and even though she bawled in the tiramisu on your second date because it reminded her of a professor who took her virginity and ruined her mind in college for some reason, you think she has ‘potential’ for being a good egg. Of course date 3 is when she shows up blitzed out of her mind and tackles the burlesque dancers on stage at the show you took her to and then takes off with your car to Albuquerque to do drugs with the guy who tattooed a noose on the inside of both of her ears.

 

 

 

 

 

As for this book, it’s aight, pronounced ahh-ight. Some dude’s brother dies on a boat as a kid and he stays in the boat town being a drunk unmotivated putz until he’s invited to a fancy expensive AF boat where all the secrets of his life resides. I think Scott Snyder must have read ‘The Lion, Witch & The Wardrobe’ a million times when he was a kid because a lot of his stories involve the expansion of a small space into an enormous space. He did it for the Ghoul and Wytches books where an aperture expands into this oversized underground labyrinth. Here it’s something similar where a hatch on the floor of the boat opens up into an extensive museum that feels like it’s 10 times the size of the actual boat. I don’t know how you justify that. I can see it being on land, like, oh, we dug this hole for centuries and created a new world or I dunno, used one of those machines that they use to make underground cities all over the world in no time. But on the sea? What is this, an iceberg boat where it’s actually in the shape of a gigantic iceberg but you only see the top which looks like a yacht? I call BS.

 

 

Also, there’s a huge ‘Don’t go in there!’ movie theater moment. You know what I’m talking about? When you’re at a cheap movie theater where the audience is a little more raucous and you have patrons yelling at the movie screen? This happens the most in horror flicks where dumbass characters are continually berated by the audience to not go into dark empty houses, to open doors that obviously go nowhere good. This happens here when the guy showing our lead around, a guy who looks like Lurch from the Addams Family on Meth, opens up the hatch for him to explore. There’s a ladder that descends into the dark and he’s told to go down by himself and check things out. C’mon Scottie Sny Sny, I would’ve respected this a bit more if he was shoved down there but for him to just be the goofus doofus du jour and willingly descend into this chaos, I call BS. Of course the lead is now stuck there for weeks or days or who the fuck knows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man, the more I write about this book the more annoyed I get. DSTLRY has a decent book here but if you asked me would I rather drop $30 for Tynion and Ward’s ‘Spectregraph’ book which is also in the middle of their 3 issue run or this one I’d say ‘Spectregraph’ in a second; that first issue was phe-fucking-nomenal. Yes, I’m intrigued by this premise of Lurch on a Boat that's as big as Atlantis, I can look beyond the shortcomings of the plot and Franco’s tramp stamp on all of the art but it’s no slam dunkeroo.

 

 

Can we just do a solid for Scott and find a way to get him back the main Batman title. I think he’s made for Batman. Dude should write that shit all day every day. Ever since his Mr Bloom story line in Bats ended unceremoniously where DC appeared to fuck with his exit from the title he hasn’t been the same since. I mean, he’s a great writer so he’s gonna pop out some dope shit regardless of whether the premise is on point or not. Barnstormers was one of my favorite titles of 2023. Yet it seems his career since then has been one ‘Andre 3000 Playing the Flute’ moment one after the other. I mean, we LOVE Andre and the flute and, yeah, it’s, umm, it’s pretty and umm, enjoyable. Ok, fuck it, Andre get your Hey Yaaa back on and Scott get your Bats Yaaaa back on and let the Putz, the Boat and the Meth Lurch be your flute experiment.

RATING: 7.2

VERDICT: Mmm, nah I'm good, saving $18, drop.

June '24 Reading Round Up

 

 

I pulled a piddly 9 comics in June. Nine. Nine times. I pulled Niiiiine Times. Yes, Rooney’s ‘Nine Times’ from Ferris Bueller is ringing in my head. 

 

 

That’s the first time in over 15 years (the two months of global shutdown notwithstanding) since I’ve been keeping track of my pulls that I went a month where I pulled in the single digits. I wish the country’s inflation problem was like my comic pulls; the price of good organic hummus wouldn’t make me cry anymore. Why just 9? I suppose I’m at the point where I see shit come down the pike and say to myself ‘Yeah, I ain’t falling for the banana in the tailpipe again’. I can tell when something that looks good is going to suck. Let me clarify: I can tell when a comic that looks good is going to suck, a woman…not so much. I can also tell when a comic that seems like it can be okay is not worth my dillies. 

 

 

With The Big Poo releasing drivel, decent books at least 5 or 6 bux a pop, really great prestige books around $9 a pop, and with new drops almost always being a limited series it’s been easier to give books that I normally might pull or continue to pull the Heisman. That said, at the halfway point of 2024 I’ve still pulled a little more than I did at this point last year yet last year was my lowest annual pull in 15 years as well. I would say it’s been a better year so far for the quality of comics that have come out versus last year. Image has kinda sucked but DSTLRY, Titan and Tom King may very well save the comic book industry if they keep on their current trajectory. Looking through July and August I don’t see much other than what I’m grabbing now. With that segue, here’s what I’ve been grabbing:

 

 

 

Christian Ward is not allowed to do any comics that are not in Prestige format ever again. I have gotten so used to seeing his amazing art plastered across enormous oversized pages that mushing it back into a standard comic size would be blasphemy. It seems like the Industry agrees with me as I feel like all of his recent books have been Super Sized. As expected, his work on this book is nothing short of absolutely fucking gorgeous. As for Tynion, I’m not really a huge fan. I know a lot of geeks geek out on his work and he’s regarded as one of the best by the publishers but he just doesn’t do it for me. The last two projects of his that I checked out was ‘Nice House on the Lake’ which started off wonderfully and by the midway point it had devolved into a wack CW Show inspired piece of poop. Same thing happened with ‘Department of Truth’. It started off with a bang/slap on the ass and spiraled into a whimpering fetal position of a book. The premise of Spectregraph is immensely strong and they’ve set it up perfectly. It remains to be seen if Tynion can handle maintaining the story arc. We know that Ward is going bring the ruffneck bizness to the art. Maybe that’ll jolt Tynion into actually finishing what he started. Otherwise, this is another solid release by DSTLRY which is fast becoming the Jewel of the Industry for the non Tights & Capes titles. 9.5

 

 

 

This 3 Issue Jock-O-Rama series ended with a resounding thud and put a stink on the first ever initial release from DSTLRY. Since this offering they have been slaying the marketplace with their spectacular books so they haven’t looked back. As I’ve said before these 3 issue Prestige Format releases that cost a grip are hard for the consumer to navigate through. As long as the premise and presentation of the initial issue grabs you, you’ll be on board for Issue 2, where it seems like more often than not that it goes off the rails; which it did in this series. Then you’re left wondering, well, I’ve already dropped $16-18 and there’s only one issue left, might as well get it, maybe it will have a great ending. In this case it didn’t. In this case it turned into a bumbling disconnected plot of Mommy & Daddy issues, Zombies, intergalactic politics and general poop on a page dialogue. They’re in a ship. They’re in a different ship. They want to come back to this ship. Nobody’s on the ship. We’re running from this ship. The other ship is running from something else. Now he’s on the ship. Zombies everywhere. Boom Bam. Zombies. Ships. Space. There, I just saved you $9, no need to get this now. Man, finishing a Sucky 3 Issue Prestige really punches you in the stomach. Mark Simpson, AKA Jock, really dropped the ball on this one. Shame. His ‘One Dark Knight’ was one of the best of 2022 so naturally one would assume he would knock this out of the park too. Nope. Your $27 be Gone. And Nelson is going Ha Ha to you like your name was Bart Simpson. 5.6

 

 

 

If someone rushed into my home and said ‘Quick, the Zombie Apocalypse is here, they’re minutes away and they’re mangling everyone in their path. You only have time to take your Dog and 3 comic books with you’, I’d say ‘Well, is that like, 3 comics I’d have to read over and over or could I keep pulling them?’. They’d say ‘What?’ I’d say, ‘Like, could I keep pulling the issues so I could continue following the story while I flee the Zombies’ They’d say ‘Well, of course your LCS is being relocated to within a safe enclosed fortress so they’ll still be able to distribute media to its customers’. I’d then rush over to my rack and take Conan the Barbarian first without question. I’d probably take Love Everlasting next and debate whether I should take Helen of Wyndhorn or fucking Saga. There’d be nothing worse if BKV still took 6 month hiatuses during a Zombie Apocalypse. Dude. You’re in a barbed wire enclosed fortress with Fiona, y’all should be pumping out Saga bi-weekly my guy. Anyway, this Conan comic is the fucking best. 9.8

 

 

 

After I stirred up all this Hullabaloo on LOCG (League of Comic Geeks) by proclaiming Ultimate Spidey 4 a Boring AF comic since it was nothing more than a dinner conversation, I had a stink eye prepped for this issue as the solicit told me it was going to be another one of those Backstory Bingos that publishers/creators use to deal with Artist hiatuses. I’m okay with a Backstory Bingo/Tangential Issue or Episode for a secondary character, but it has to be memorable AF - clearly my feeling of this book requires multiple AFs. I always use the recent example of the episode in the final season of Ted Lasso that was dedicated solely to Beard. He leaves Ted and goes on this wild and wacky adventure throughout London; it was fantastic and in a way I remember that episode more than I do the others of that season. So it can be done, but man, you better come wit dat ruffneck bidness if you’re going to do it. Did Hickman bring a ‘Beard’ issue to the table? Not really. It was a solid and interesting Backstory Bingo and Hickman’s such a fucking great writer he can make anything intriguing. Yet at the end of the page count, it’s still a Backstory Bingo Bonanza that could have been dripped in with subsequent issues that moved the story forward. 

 

If you ask me, Hickman could have taken the 2 months off that he used for Issue 4 & 5 of this book and, oh, I dunno, FINISHED THE BLACK MONDAY MURDERS!!! Hicksy! WTF?!?! That book is still hanging in the ether! Finish that shit! It was amazing! And while you’re at it FINISH THE DYING AND THE DEAD!!!! WTF is wrong with you??? I feel like a nerdy chick who just got picked up, banged and dumped by Brian Wood at a Comic Con. Get to work on those Dammit! Yeesh. Man, Issue 6 of this book better be the Shizzznit or I’m dropping this like a booger on a plane seat. 6.6

 

 

 

 

I am really loving this Dubz run. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Best Dubz run since the New 52 dropped out of the sky and Azzarello and Chiang absolutely destroyed this book with their combined genius. I do have a bone to pick here though. So at the end of last issue Dubz heroically overcomes her captor’s ‘Rope of Lies’ or whatever and is able to slough off her restraints and reach his neck with her hands. Next thing we see is that she’s in a prison cell in the dark with no windows. Umm, how did we get here? This is the same Dubz from a previous issue that was taking on the entire U.S. Army and was throwing tanks around like I throw doggie toys around my home. This is the same Dubz who took the blow of half of the Washington Monument being throttled on top of her, and yet, she couldn’t subdue a bunch of soldiers in a room, nor escape a guarded cell for months??? She had to eat a rat? Really? Then lost her mind and befriended another rat? 

 

Of course she ate the male rat and befriended the female rat who was its mate. I bet the male rat was a bumbling husband who had a gut and drank beer and had no respect from his rat wife but since she was so noble and had a heart she found it in herself to love the animal with no brains cuz that’s what females do when it comes to husbands since all husbands are Al Bundyesque idiots. You think I wouldn’t pick up on that King? C’mon dude. I’ll forgive you for the fact that you felt the need for some Steve McQueen ‘Papillon’ shit but let’s get back to main narrative. From the cliffhanger I can tell you’re ready to do so, so, bring the ruckus and dat roughneck Dubz bizness. 7.7

 

 

 

The Next Great book out of Image may have finally dropped after a long run of mediocrity and mnyeh from the Publisher that once could do no wrong. With Falling in Love On the Path to Hell Duggan & Co. have concocted a premise so bonkers and yet somehow so perfect that there’s almost no way you won’t be coming back for seconds. Sometimes reckless passion executed with acute simplicity is all you need to deliver something great. When creators go ‘Hey, what if we did this?’ and then laugh and get wildly excited about it at the same time it provides the breeding ground for creating a piece that people will never forget it. No need for me to break down their premise or explain the elements. Just go grab the first issue of this if you can and remind yourself why you love comic books so much. 9.1

 

 

 

 

Umm, this Masterpiece issue was kinda crappy and a general eye roll/flip ahead. Not sure why other than it felt like Bendis was trying to be too cool with the dialogue and character development. Maybe the premise of this book was wack from the get go. A billionaire who supposedly murdered a husband and wife who were thieves that stole from him is now after their kid because, she’s their kid. I think it’s a commentary on how the super rich are so narcissistic that whatever they want is justified, even if it means killing a kid. The kid's assembling a team with an array of cool spy type abilities was really neato, but maybe this premise needed to stay in the oven for a bit longer. It feels soft in the middle. Just one issue to go which feels a little wonky since there seems to be a lot of unresolved shit to tie up after these 5 issues. This was fun for a bit but it’s nowhere near as amazing as ‘Pearl’, Bendis’ last must read book. Still, give me a Bendis/Maleev half baked premise over The Big Poo’s $3.99 jam packed advertisements any day of the week. 7.0

 

 

Great Comics come and go pretty fast. If you don't stop reading caca Tie-In Events from Marvel and DC you might miss them - Pherris Schmuckler

 

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.