WHAT'S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE #11 - Review

Oh fer goodness sake. Really? Like, are you kidding me. Seriously? Like, what the fuck guys? RoseyBoss, c’mon what the hell is going on with you dudes and this comic? Are you intentionally trying to torpedo this book? It started off so very very well, for a protracted amount of time, like a good six plus issues and then…what? You didn’t expect to have to write more so you ran off to Tulum with a sack of drugs while other Comic Book people did backstories for you for 3-4 months? Did you even come back from your ‘shroom escapade? Did AI write this issue for you? That’s a totally legit question. People, I think we need to start realizing and accepting the fact that AI is slowly encroaching into the world of creativity. It is going to get harder and harder to differentiate AI visual art, literature, music or any story for that matter versus Organic Earthling stuff. So, are we at ‘What’s the Furthest Place from Human Thought’ with issue eleven?

 

If Roseypants and T-Boss actually did write this book, I mean, do we need to go back to Creative Writing and Narrative 101 with you guys? Like, has everyone gotten so lost in the ideas and overarching themes and ‘wouldn’t this be cool if we did this’ type of approach that they forgot how to craft a fucking story? There was a story here, a good one, I have no idea where the fuck it went.

 

So, let’s recap.  You wrote a riveting interesting story for 6 issues, you had vinyl variants, you had a cast of hipster losers in a vinyl shop living in this peculiar post apocalyptic yadda yadda world. Then you stopped. You had other people write and draw back stories for several issues. Which is totally fucking nuts, nobody writes 4 backstories in a row but whatever. One of them was actually fascinating and clued me into the mechanisms of your world. Okay, great. I’m into it again. The last issue was kind of a like a back issue since you showed us the path that a character took who was introduced in issue one and who we haven’t seen since issue one.

 

You finally come back and, what, where the hell are we? What’s going on right now? Why am I in a forest with this punk character whose Mohawk is always perfectly coifed and shaved on the sides? What happened to him again? He’s been sliced open, how again? Guys, you realize that the last time we were in the actual present time story it was around last Thanksgiving? Who do you guys think you are? The Cosby Show in its heyday? The Milton Berle Show? You think it’s 1955 and you’re the only show in town? So we’ll be waiting with baited breath for your return as we pore over your back issues that you clearly think are sitting right next to us, feathered out one by one on our couch? I don’t remember what the fuck is going on here!!! You used to have a character list on the inside of the cover, where did that go? Maybe give us a blurb, a ‘hey a quick little recap’. Give me the option of hitting ‘Skip’ on the previous episode recap at least. This is 2023 guys! Everybody’s got 50 stories they’re following at one time not to mention all the mind numbing neatly manicured pix and vids they take in from people who they think are their friends but who will refuse to ever see them in person.

 

I’m not reading one comic a month I’m reading 20! Well, more like 12 since Marvisney refuses to put out readable content on paper that doesn’t wilt in your hands like a liquefied banana peel.

 

Look, I don’t wanna be this asshole comic book review guy. I’m not sitting here with my vintage Spidey shirt on that barely covers my hairy paunch while I’m sipping on flat Mountain Dew with a bunch of pork rind crumbs on my collar. Dragon Ball Z is not playing in the background of my bachelor apartment in Korea Town. A bunch of 53 terabyte flash drives of porn are not laying strewn around my floor. I’m not that angry at the world guy. I’m the antithesis of that guy! I want you to be great. I want to read amazing comics. I want Marvel to be sold to someone who knows how to steer the ship of a great comic book universe. I’ve dropped 40 plus bux on this book RoseyBossmearound! Four. Oh. I’m invested mmkay? So. Stop. Fucking. Around. Write. The Fucking. Story!!!

 

Nooo, we don’t get story this issue, we get wild crazy half naked people in a forest with animal heads on their heads and a chick who goes ‘Clk Clk Clk’ instead of spitting out actual dialogue. You can’t do these self contained disparate seemingly disconnected issues if you intend to continue to put out a monthly. If it’s a trade, fine, this could work, so then write the damn trade and leave my desire for a drip drip once a month serial sequential art fix alone! Leave it alone!

 

Were you guys lying naked on your backs on a stone floor in a hotel in Havana doing ‘pot shroom brownie enemas’ and as the fudgy hallucinogenic traveled up your bungholes you thought:

 

Dude, remember when we were in camp and we fantasized about Trish the Arts and Craft chick pinning us down in our tents and taking our virginity?

 

Dude, no way, I totally do. We should make that into a comic book.

 

Dude, what if she looked like a Gopher Goddess?

 

Dude, I always pictured her as a Gopher Goddess.

 

And granted, the panels of the Gopher Chipmunk Squirrel Head chick ripping off her boob wrapping to hop naked on the Mohawk dude in the tent is good stuff by me. Who wouldn’t want a chick who goes Clk Clk Clk with perky boobies to bust into your serene boring night of camping out to wildly ravish you. But that’s all you got here, okay? Wild survivalist forest dude meets prehistoric-vibe half naked clan and falls for Barbara Bach in a Squirrel head. I’m going to believe she looks like Barbara Bach from the Ringo Starr ‘Caveman’ movie if that’s alright by you. Knowing you sickos if the gopher head fell off we’d see Elizabeth Warren and her clk clk would turn into ‘Me Cherokee, Apache, Sioux Sioux and the Banshees’ which would kill my morning wood for a month.

I see what you were trying to do with the ending. It wasn't a slam dunk that connected this issue to the main narrative. It was more of a half court shot that hit the top of the backboard. Maybe for the next several issues you should recreate the Napster site and have us download MP3s of the songs these hipster losers love for free. That would be a good gimmick. Make it so that they only download at 14.4kpbs so we can revisit the good ol days when we would sit for hours and stare at those percentage bars slooooowly increase as we waited for that bootleg Led Zeppelin gig from the Playboy Mansion where they conjured a demon into John Denver.

Cuz that's what you guys have now, a gimmick. I'm sticking around. I believe in this wacky book despite it pooping on my eyes for the past 5 months. Put the shroom brownies down, remove the enema tube and let's get back to knocking out a conclusion/climax to whatever the hell this is. In the meantime, if you could point me in the direction for the inspiration to your Gopher Babe I'd appreciate it. Lemme guess, she's on OkCupid. Sunavabitch. I hate that damn dating site. She's probably also on AdultFriendFinder also if you look hard enough. Yeah, not worth it. I did a little China CCP Search for Gopher Babe and found an insta site that had this pic on it:

Is this where you guys got this character from? Do you know the Black Cloak Comic chicks who are doing the Mermaid thing right now? Can we expect a hybrid book from all of you, 'Gophermaids?' I'd read that and buy all the variants in a heartbeat.

Rating: 5.7

Verdict: Grumble...pull, dammit.

DAREDEVIL #8 - Review & Break-Up

You can’t date two Actresses at a time. Doesn’t work. They will find out and ruin your life. It may not be immediate but they will find you and haunt your existence until you feel immeasurable pain, suffering and you develop an incurable case of paranoia. You will start seeing them appear in random places. Did whatshername just pick up somebody in an Uber across the street? Is whatshername peeking around the corner of the hummus refrigerator at Whole Foods at me? I could’ve sworn I just saw whatshername looking at me from underneath a desk at the DMV office. You will come to find out that all of those appearances were real and while you find her slicing your tires in a parking garage the first thing you’ll ask is ‘Who do you know at the DMV and can you waive my late fees?’.

 

So knowing that, what you definitely can’t do is date two Famous Actresses at the same time. Duh. So if you’re dating Aubrey Plaza you sure as hell better not be seeing Chloe Grace Moretitz at the same time, either on the down low or half-assedly. One or both will end your career and it will feel like every time you go out or walk around LA people will look at you like you’re Harvey Weinstein walking around in a speedo while squeezing imaginary asses. This is what Chip Zdarsky has been doing for the past year or so. He’s dating two Titans of the comic industry and it clearly has backfired on him. Batman was a shit show from day one and now Daredevil, good ol’ reliable Daredevil, can’t fail Daredevil, the one constant yee haw that emitted from the Marvisney bunghole of death has turned into its own crime scene of plot, story and character arcs. I can hear most of you disagreeing with me. You’re wrong. You’re being blinded by Marco Checchetto’s staggeringly beautiful art. But just like a 10 who you might be dating, you can’t condone behavior that rips your heart out and makes your pee miss the toilet due to the shakes and anxiety you feel because of her.

 

The fact that Double D is so popular now feels the same way that an Actress who you’re dating all of a sudden becomes popular. Now she’s at all the fancy parties and premieres. She’s not playing darts with you at a dive bar on a Tuesday night. She’s not snuggling up with you on a Saturday afternoon asking you to explain why the Knicks choke during the playoffs. She’s hobknobbing with the HootsieTootsies of La La Land. She doesn’t have time to taste your Matcha Olive Oil Coffee Cake. She’s getting hotter and sexier with all the ooh la la Beverly Hills treatments and Energy Work that’s being done on her by the Ayahuasca Hippies and Shamans in Topanga Canyon…but she’s losing her soul. She can’t even introduce you as who you are anymore. She says ‘This is my boyfriend, he’s a – Creative’ She can’t say that you’re in an Improv Group or that you’re still working your material out in open mics, ewww, gross. You don't recognize her anymore. I don't recognize DD anymore. He looks like a bearded hipster grump from Silverlake who sits on a toilet for hours while scrolling through survival meal kit websites.

 

There’s just no way around it anymore. It’s time to break up Daredevil. We’ve been together for, gosh, how many years now? 15 straight? Maybe more? On and off for 25? Aww, remember those Marvel Knights days, sigh, you were such a brilliant beast. Ooh, remember when Kevvy Smithy (when he hadn’t lost all sense of reality like his recent Dark Horse Poop Fest) was writing the hot pants off of you along with the Mack of all Macks, David Mackaroonski back in the late 90s? Oh Double D, I’m not really a Double D kinda guy, more like a C kinda guy, we’ve been through a lot. It’s ironic that as Satan has turned the Marvel brand into a bonfire of balderdash the one hero who wasn’t tarnished by his brimstone breath was Daredevil. Perhaps that was by design. It began with such a flourish of genius. Chip, the new Comic Scribe Darling, was clicking on all cylinders but something happened along the way. Did DC pilfer half of his brain with their Bats offer to sabotage his work at Beelzebub’s Workshop? Did he just get too big for his britches?

 

I feel like Daredevil was always a secondary character who minded his own business and his own neighborhood and stayed the hell away from all the drama that the high profile tights crowd got themselves into. That all changed with the ridiculously unbelievably amazing Netflix Daredevil TV Show which I would say piggybacked on the jaw dropping wow run that Mark Waid began back in the early 2010s. Now DD is prime time and a supposed tent pole of Marvisney and it’s no bueno. I kinda feel like it all went downhill after the Devil’s Reign mega event of last year. Clearly I had zero interest in reading it since all mega events are just mega cash grabs intended to pump up sagging sales of weaker titles that you’d never read in a million years. But after Chip came back after the story schmooze fest DD started to tank. Look, the ‘Island of the Hand in the Fist of your Evil Anus’ storyline was a great idea but something has been way off from the get with this book since the first issue after the mega event. Maybe Chip rebelled against Satan and resisted the Mega Event? Maybe they took Chip out, cloned him and it’s the Chip Clone who’s been writing DD the past 6 months? I’m trying to figure out how it’s possible to ruin an infallible title other than the fact that the stink that began in Bats has seeped over into Double D and it’s just not possible to write two ENORMOUS HERO stories at the same time.

 

Come to think of it, I’m wondering how Chip became the go-to for the Tights Crowd anyway? Like, when you were taking in his art in Sex Criminals (one of the greatest comics of all time hands down) and there was an oversized cum shot that looked like an Anime Chick on a mushroom cloud did you think ‘Dude, this Anime Cum Shot artist should write the main Batman Title and Daredevil!’ 

 

 

 

Yes, that white thing above is a Jizz creation. Maybe Matt Fraction, wherever the hell he is right now, needs to tell the dominatrix that’s got a heel in his nostril to take five as he texts his ‘Chum’

 

Hey man, we need to get back to Brimping (banging a clump of hair) and Time Shattering Orgasms again.

 

I wanted to stick with Double D but this book, despite Marco’s eye popping art, has just continually descended into an unreadable mess. I let Issue #7 sit there for a long time so I could cool off and dive back into what I hoped would be a serious ramp up to the long awaited ‘Battle Issue’ but issue 7 was putrid on so many levels. Why? Two bit crooks stealing the spotlight? The entire DD crew leaves the biggest battle island of the comic book universe to deal with a bunch of people being evicted from an apartment building??? Stilt man, STILT MAN, saves a litle girl? Some purple carnage looking ghost rider chick being trained by Elektra to channel her anger? And then finally, the Punisher and his evil clan kidnap the two-bit crook’s kid which ends up being the ultimate trigger to finally begin the battle that we’ve been waiting for since last summer. This is the trigger???? They kidnap a kid? It’s not that they’re the most evil death cult on the planet? It’s not that they taken out all the world leaders and replaced them with puppets that turn to sand when you hit them? It’s not that Elektra’s on the run because of her supposedly murdering a President? It’s not because of a Book of Prophecy that Stick carries around with him like he’s about to go on a crusade with Dr Strange in a wormhole to Medieval Europe where he plans to blindly bang the text into thousands of ancient coochies? Nooooo, the last straw was ‘Aww how could you take this cute lil’ blonde kid Frank?’ REALLY?

 

If this really is the most influential Death Clan on the planet and Double D is Satan’s tentpole don’t you think that the Avengers would actually get involved instead of a bunch of criminal misfits? Don’t you think they’d be a little more proactive than sitting around a surveillance monitor saying (for what feels like the third time) we need to take Daredevil out? Fisk wants to be major of New York?? Well that needs to be covered in 75 comic books. An evil legendary death cult has a Dragon and has pulled the levers on all the power brokers on the world’s political stage, that’s a job for Hank Dastardly from Queens and Geno Muttley from Yonkers??? That’s allz I can standz and I can’t standz no more!

 

Issue 8 was just a big waste of Marco’s class on how to draw the shit out of a dragon and a battle between good and evil. I honestly could not follow Chip, or clone Chip’s, text. I reread the issue a couple of times and the entire thing is a huge letdown to me. It just felt so, I dunno, canned? It felt like AI wrote it. Like if you went to ChatDOUBLED and asked it to write the penultimate battle issue in this run this is what it would spit out. Maybe that’s it, maybe they uploaded Chip’s consciousness to an AI mainframe and AI has been writing this series. Ya know, I wouldn’t be surprised if AI was writing all of Marvisney’s titles at this point. If Stegron is making an appearance in your long awaited issues I think it’s time you tweak the programming guys. Honestly, I can’t put my finger on it. I can’t tell you in a succinct clearly defined line of reasoning why Marvel has descended into such a dung heap of drivel; but it has. Everything just feels off. And believe me, I look at all their solicits and new series and go under the hood with all of them; something is wrong with the Kingdom of Comic Books.

 

Can we honestly blame Disney? What is Disney? A corporate international entertainment conglomerate who wants to sell sell sell sell, nothing wrong with that. However it can’t be denied that since the Marvel takeover it’s been a steady decline on my pull list of marvel titles. What used to be a consistent drop of genius from the Marvel brand has dried up. Is it the talent? The editorial staff? The corporate overlords? I can’t say. The last brilliant offerings that I can think of offhand from Marvel was Ta Nehisi Coates ‘Black Panther Run’, Fraction’s ‘Hawkeye Run’, Kaare Andrews ‘Iron Fist Run’, all the ‘Moon Knight’ runs with Bendis, Maleev, Ellis, Wood and Lemire and of course, everrrrything Daredevil since the Knicks were last in the Championship back in 1999. As also stated in my Best Comic Books of 2022 I was into their initial Defenders run and their six issues of King Conan was the best Conan story in years...which of course they cancelled...dumb asses.

Now? Nuthin’ and it’s not okay. Just like in sports we need teams like the Yankees and the Lakers to be good; it’s good for the league. So we need Marvel and DC to not only be good but great. It’s not enough for Image to carry the torch and be a creative power publishing house; throwing spaghetti ideas at the market every month. We need the Big 2 to be the King 2. DC has been holding up its end with last year’s Black Label titles but other than that it be slim pickins.

 

There was a great article written several months ago by Brandon Schatz and Danica LeBlanc about the state of the comic book industry. Definitely worth a read:

 

The Indirect Market is Gonna Suck but it Doesn't Have To

 

A lot of great points and insights. I'll respectfully disagree with the notion that raising all comics to $4.99 a pop is going to send readers away. I obviously can't speak for everyone, but Yo! If a comic is worth it I'll drop the funds. You think I had any problem  dropping 8 bones a pop for CatWoman Lonely City or WonderWoman: Historia? Nope and Nope. I've said this before, I think Marvisney needs their own Black Labelish thang. If they came out with a Bendis Maleev Daredevil Reunion in Prestige format for $10 a pop I'd be all over it! I'm not gonna trip over 5 measly ducats if it means something special.

I think we’re at the point that when comic books just become a cog in the machine that is an entertainment factory we have a problem. They can’t just be a slave class to your over arching multimedia empire, they must exist on their own and interact in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with the empire; that’s not happening now. If what the article above says is true then perhaps the expiration of a bunch of licenses for many Marvel Characters could force Satan to renegotiate or relinquish these properties. It’s probably a long shot at best. The fact that Disney is selling off a bunch of its streaming titles is probably a good thing.

 

If you ask me, we need an Elon Musk moment. Not Elon but someone who truly loves and believes in comic books as an art form and vows to support and sustain the industry in and of itself. I think we’re at the point where we have to hope that Disney and AT&T (or whomever owns DC) somehow sells the rights. We need a billionaire comic book collector, is that even a thing, to come in and make them an offer they can’t refuse. Maybe even do some Mafioso strong arming, maybe even get a Fed or two involved, I dunno. Otherwise we may be looking at the slow burn of a dying direct to Local Comic Shop industry. We may be looking at, God forbid, an all digital or Trade market. Independent publishers will probably continue comics in some physical form but those will be the exception, a novelty, not the norm. We need the Big 2 to demand the sustainability and creative freedom that the world of comic books should be. I feel like suits fear that kids and eventual new consumers of content will only want stuff that is convenient and easily consumable. If it's not on a phone nobody will want it. I reject that notion. There is something about holding a book in your hands that will never be replaced. There is something about turning a page that can't be replicated. You can either celebrate that with the new generation or give into the fear that they wouldn't want that. Books will always be special. Comic Book issues will always be special. Digital will neverrrr replace both.

 

As for Daredevil, buh bye. I’m sure I’ll hop back on when you christen a new team with a new number one in September or whenever. But, and this extremely important my fellow comic geeks and daters out there, know this: “YOU CAN’T DATE POTENTIAL”. Capische? You can’t buy a title because you hope that it will get better based solely on the brand. You can’t date a babe based on your hope that she lives up to her inner Zen delightful Yoga Hottie while she continually steals your debit card so she can take all her besties out for sushi at Katsuya. Ya gotta cut the cord. I’m cutting it.

 

Disney stock is at 94 today. Whaddya think it needs to tank to? 50? 40? When do they sell Marvel off? Because one day they will, they’ll grow weary of destroying these characters and stories, a new shiny toy will come along. Maybe Satan just needs to own the licenses for all these properties and they can leave the creative stuff to other actual Humans who are willing to pony up to have at them.

 

Maybe Matt Fraction is somewhere negotiating with a Billionaire to take over the comic books industry right now. I guess we’re just gonna have to wait for him to tire from being paddled by an Amazon in a full body rubber suit for our comic geek dreams to fully come true. Until then? I'm gonna pray that MiracleMan gets better and that the wonderfully fun retro series 'Avengers War Across Time' written by an industry relic they rolled out of Katz's Deli inspires more retro series. Maybe Chip giving up Double D means new comics with exciting new magical cum shots and a Batman title that will mercifully be handed off to a real Batman writer. 

 

Anime Cum Wonder Babe - A new Maxi Pad 12 issue series by Chip Zdarsky

 

We can only hope.

 

Rating: 5.0 (Marco Rocks)

Verdict: Block

Disney Stock: 94.22  

BATMAN: BEYOND THE WHITE KNIGHT #8 - Review

 

Uggh, I’ve been holding off on reading this one since it’s the final White Knight book. I mean, it is DC so they’ll probably bring it back at some point. One underachieving exec at an Editor’s meeting years from now will say ‘Hey, why don’t we do another White Knight story’ and everyone will go bananas for the idea, call the meeting over and jump in piles of cocaine while underage hookers and Drag performers are shipped in from Echo Park for entertainment. But that might not happen until, oh I dunno, December. But for now we have to assume this is the last one for a while and my goodness what a majestic run this has been.

 

Granted, nothing has been as great as that first series but all the subsequent runs have been good enough to stay atop all the other Batman offerings in that timeframe. Make no mistake, this has been the crown jewel of the Batman universe since it’s inception; nothing has come close. So, once I close the cover of this issue and toss it on my ‘yeah I read that pile’ I won’t have any active Bat Books on my pull and I don’t see anything coming down the pike either to change that. Of course DC could release 25 new Bat Titles next week, so ya never know with Bats.

 

I do feel that they missed the boat with this series a bit by not making it into a Prestige Large Sized format. What, Sean Murphy ain’t prestigious enough for you DC? Dude has got accolades! His art is also extremely detail oriented so a larger size would really bring his world to life. I say that because the opening offensive by the Bat Team in this issue gets kinda lost with all the small details in the panels. Honestly, it was a bit confusing to follow what was going on. I knew that shit was being blown up and that the Batmobile turned from speedboat into a car which was cool.

 

I’m waiting for the moment when Batman makes an appearance somehow in the Chicken Devils series where his Batmobile turns into a Bat Food Truck. Waddya think Bats would sell from his Bat Truck? Batties Jamaican Patties? Swing BATter BATter (pancake/crepe truck)? Bats Batty Burgers? You know if campy 1966 Adam West Batman was still doing it to death he’d roll up in a Bat Food Truck for realz.

 

So the opening was a bit all over the place for me. Also, this Gan chick, who I’m not a fan of, is now all of a sudden a former Special Ops Bad Ass from Afghanistan and is shooting arrows like Erroll Flynn in tights? Wasn’t she like a bumbling nitwit when she was being trained by the Red Hood in the mini series of this Universe? I could be wrong but I remember her as being shy and not very agile. The whole Gan Robin thing irks me, not sure why, just feels pushed in by a frothing at the mouth editor to get a diversity point rather than an organic development of the story.

 

What has set Murphy’s Batverse apart from all of the others is the emotional core that he’s found with the relationships of all of his characters. He’s infused love, regret, envy and deep flaws within this cast which has taken us as readers on a real rollercoaster ride. The one thing you learn first about screenwriting or writing of any kind is that ‘Story’ is all about your characters. If you just have a plot and two dimensional mannequins nobody’s gonna give a shit. I mean, they may for a second but then they’ll forget everything about your plot except the explosions and shocks. This is exactly how the dating scene in LA goes, you don’t remember names or job titles just property damage, ego damage and social media ruin; it’s fun out here!

 

Eventually the Bat Team gets their act together, the attack on the Bad Guys is moving along and then we get this moment: Bats, who has been running around without his mask since getting out of jail, puts his cowl back on:

 

 

I mean, cmon, Murph just gets it. If you’re a Bat Fan and you didn’t think or emit some sort of ‘Fuck Yeah’ when you saw this then you’re not a Bat Fan you’re a depressed comic geek and you need to get outside and get some sun, maybe take a break from those Ramen packets for a week or two.

 

As the pages winded down and Bats and the unfrikkinbelievable holographic Jack Napier/Joker character worked their way to their inevitable conclusion I began to feel appreciative and nostalgic for how great this run has been and how there’s nothing like sitting down to a great Bat Story…until…I read the last page…and

 

NO

 

FUKCIN

 

WAY

 

You’re kidding me. You’re continuing the White Knight story??? WHAT? With who? WHAT? Mirka Andolfo is doing a Joker Daughter/Daddy story??? Mirka Andolfo of ‘Unnatural’ fame? The chick who draws Pig Porn??? I mean she’s really good but, my goodness, her anthropomorphic books are seriously naughty. Like, I had to stop myself and think for a second as I bought a variant cover from her Unnatural Series which was a cover of her main pig character on the cover half nekkid with her big pig tits and pig ass hanging out.

 

 

 

‘Umm is this Kosher?’ I could feel Rabbi Shapiro from my Bar Mitzvah days looking over my shoulder, glaring at me with his scraggly nose and beady eyes, sorry Rebbe, I’d never date Pig Babe but, I mean, I might like her on a dating app but no way she’d like me back. I’d need a bunch of tats, a drug habit and a complete lack of empathy; probably a few guns in my night stand too.

 

Ha, and now they got Murph taking on Supes and Double Dub Babe in a Whitey Knighty Knight way as well??? And JLA? Wow. They couldn’t even wait a few months. I bet Murphy was picking up his last check from DC and they called him into their Bigwig Editor’s meeting. He walked in and they all had these big grins on their faces. Unbeknownst to Murph all the editors were scratching each other’s eyes out before he walked in because all the Bat Books they currently had on the stands sucked, and the crown jewel of their Alt Uni was about to walk and start his Zorro Book.

 

DC: Seanie Love, have a seat.

 

Murph: Hey guys, yeah, I gotta go, Zorro beckons. Thanks for the opportunity, had a blast.

 

Murphy turns to go

 

DC: Superman and Wonder Woman! Anything you want! Draw Plastic Man! Mr Mxyzptlk! They’re all yours! White Knight them all!

 

Murph: Wait, what? You want me –

 

DC: (bawling on their knees) Please don’t go, please, we – we’re nothing, we –

 

Murph: But I can’t right now, I have a Zorro -

 

DC: It’s okay we got Mirka doing the next one, Joker’s Daughter and Jack –

 

Murph: The Naughty Pig Chick? Is drawing Joker?

 

DC: Her contract clearly stipulates no Pig Tits, we swear.

 

Murph: Okay. Hmm. Chippy Z’s Batman run sucks saggy donkey scrotum. Say it.

 

DC: What?

 

Murph: Chippy Z’s Batman run sucks saggy donkey scrotum. Say it.

 

DC: Zdarsky? Well, the numbers are down but he’s doing a swell –

 

Murph: Chippy Z’s Batman run sucks saggy donkey scrotum. Say it or I walk.

 

DC: -

 

The editors huddle over the pile of coke in the middle of their boardroom table, they snort and bicker for several moments.

 

DC: Chippy Z’s Batman run sucks saggy donkey scrotum.

 

Murph: Louder.

 

DC: Chippy Z’s Batman run sucks saggy donkey scrotum.

 

Murph: Wonder Woman here I come. No pun intended.

 

The DC Editors erupt in jubilant cheers as they all swiftly make a conference call to their fave escort service in Echo Park

 

DC: WE WANT ALL DEM VEGAN TAT HOES! Murph’s doing Supe & Dub!

 

Well, I guess I’m happy. I mean, that White Knight JLA Verse is going to be amazing. I guess I feel a little cheated. It’s like it’s the last day of Jew kid summer camp and you’re weepy and hugging all your tiny Jew friends that you’ll probably never see again and all of sudden the Camp Director goes ‘Psych! We’re adding another month! Schools across the country aren’t starting until October this year!’ It’s cool, but weird, ya know.

 

Whatever happens, let’s just be clear, this was a genius alt Bat Verse and if he can do to JLA what he did to Bats we may need him to take over DC…and yes Chippy Z’s Bat run does suck on animal genitalia. Hey Andolfo, don’t get any ideas mmkay?

 

Rating: 9.2

Verdict: 60% chance a naughty pig babe makes it into Mirka’s run.

 

 

 

 

ALL NIGHT & EVERY DAY - Review

 

And the winner of the award for Sexiest Cover of the past several years goes to…this cover! Mwwrawarrr. Yet like most sexy covers in La La Land once you peel it open you realize it’s a whole different ballgame:

 

Mmm, who’s that scintillating brunette in the black dress?

 

Several hours later you’re on the phone with your bestie:

 

‘Dude, this Daddy Issue Chick won’t leave my house and she’s drinking all my expensive almond milk!’

 

What I thought was going to be a sizzling steamy book of smooching and romance turned out to be some type of horror thingamajig. WTF? This is a horror book??? All Night. Every Day??? That’s like putting two Rabbis on a cover and then you open it up and it’s a story about Piglet’s new adventures. It’s like putting the Kardashians on the cover and opening it up to find a discourse on quantum mechanics. It’s like putting a Marvel Character on the cover and then you open it up and find out it’s a story that’s actually engaging. We have a serious disconnect here people!

 

If you saw this title on an R&B Music Chart wouldn’t you assume it’s about knocking dem boots (let’s bring that saying back mmkay). Oy, Aftershock, I’m shocked! Real quick, is it me or do the liquor bottles on the cover look as big as this dude’s leg. Like, either the perspective is out of whack or the party that they’re at has 3 gallon beer bottles.  

 

Sooo this comic is not about the stamina you’ll need between the sheets with a Red Head? Where’s Neil Gaiman? He thinks all Redheads are slutty nymphos. Maybe he bankrolled this project and insisted on the slutty redhead cover.

 

Shock: But it’s a horror book Neil.

 

Neil: But she’s a redhead. She’s randy, she’s ready to go. People need to be reminded.

 

Shock: It’s supposed to be a dangerous party where –

 

Neil: All Redheads know where the 4 foot Bottles of Cognac are. You know how dangerous a 4 foot bottle of Cognac is? She’s a randy naughty bird who’s deeply horrifying. Look at her!

 

 

Aftershock is calling it their ‘Aftershock One Shock’; since it’s a one-shot. Get it? Shot. Shock. Doy doy doy doy. Give the marketing guy a handy in the men’s room for his stroke of genius. Get it? Handy. Stroke of Genius? Doy Doy Doy. I can work at Aftershock’s marketing department. Looks like these guys have an office in Sherman Oaks. Maybe their new horror line is being inspired by the psycho homeless apocalypse that is now spilling over into Sherman Oaks from Studio City. Before you know it it’s going to be a human fecal museum on Ventura Blvd. Sherman Oaks was like the last stop in the valley on the way to ‘Dude it’s way too fucking hot to live here’ now it’s on it’s way to being Downtown LA North.

 

So the premise of this book is that the Randy Redhead had her boyfriend/fiancé skip out on her wedding; like he didn’t show up and disappeared. She hasn’t seen him since. R.R and her pretentious unlikable fuckwit friends decide to go to a party. The party turns out to be some Twilight Zone alternate dimension thing where people have been partying here for decades and haven’t been able to leave. You mean like, Hotel California? This is your horror book? Dude. Almost all the parties in LA feel like people have been partying at it for decades, especially the ones in the fancy houses. I literally get lost in Mansion parties or at houses in the Hills for hours. Every room is just another room of attractive uninterested plastic people that make you feel like you need to go to the gym or to a sweat lodge to purge the toxins that you inhaled from their exhales.

 

Anyway, so Red finds her dude, they bang near a bunch of skyscrapers that look like liquor bottles. They then decide to escape and every room they end up in is creepier and more debaucherous than the next one. They eventually end up in a room with Nazis! 

 

 

Well, that’s where they go wrong here. You may find deviant sick perverted dimwits in every party in La La Land but you won’t find Nazis. Nazis are never invited to fancy parties. You might find a few Nazis in a Van Nuys or Encino party, maybe one or two will be lurking in a Glendale party but in general they’re too busy torturing local politicians to be bothered with hitting on all the Michaelas and Amandas of the world.

Finally the couple ends up in a room where there’s some old guy with antlers on his head and a bunch of half naked muscular dudes with Cow Skulls on their heads. Things don’t end well for the wedding skipping boyfriend. 

 

This wacko with the antlers is like the Grand Architect of the party that never ends. Dude. There's like a dozen old wackos with antlers on their heads wandering around Mann's Chinese Theater and Venice Beach right now as I type this. It's a thing. I see about 10-20 posts on Next Door a week about some wacko Antler Guy stealing mail, wandering around naked in backyards, pooping on luxury vehicles; it's a thing.

So that’s your Horror? Dude who gets cold feet ends up in an endless party where he gets tortured by men with cow skulls on their heads? Really? What about women who skip out on weddings? My ex-fiance gave me back my engagement ring, twice! So should she end up at one of these places? I would hope not. You know what would be truly terrifying, especially here in LA? If your curse was that every time you showed up to a party everyone left. How about that? That would be waaaay worse. 

 

You want to curse me and my not responding to you as a match on my dating app after I scrutinized your Insta page and realized you had way too many tats and pictures of you in face diapers for my liking? The most horrifying curse for me would be having to always wait three lights for only two cars in front of me to take a left turn in the left turn lane. How about that AfterShockaLocka? Let’s call it ‘All Left Lanes. Every Yellow Light’ Put that out from your Poop Castle in Shoaks. That story will send half the people in LA to a therapy session in minutes!

 

Ray Fawkes, the Writer, said in an interview that this isn’t just a comic, “It’s an Escape Manual”. An escape from what Ray? An LA Party? If you wanna escape an LA Party all you have to do is say ‘I’m looking for representation’ you’ll find your way outside on the curb quicker than you can say ‘Thirsty’.

 

I appreciate the fact that the creators of this book were trying to incorporate a complicated love relationship gone bad into a vortex of an endless party disaster. It’s not a wholly bad idea it’s just that I didn’t give two shites about any of these characters. So the dude is an asshole but is the chick that much better? Like why does she get out alive and he doesn’t? Maybe he had a good reason to not marry this girl?

 

Neil: Well of course he had a reason! She’s a randy Redhead! She’s an insufferable insatiable ninny who will haunt your afterlife! MiracleMan won’t even bang a RedHead, he knows better!

 

Okay Neil, we get it. No more One Shockadelicas for me. You want to shock the world Aftershock? Walk outside of your offices on Ventura Blvd and start filming. Don’t stop until you’ve walked all the way into Studio City and then lift up both of your shoes to see how much poop you’ve picked up. Now that will shock the world.

 

Rating: 6.1

Verdict: Knockin’ Dem Boots is still a sexy phrase

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

PHANTOM ROAD #1 - Review

 

Hmm, well, okay, that was interesting… and quick! Seems like I got through the issue in less than 5 minutes. That’s all you need if you’re Jeff Lemire. That’s probably written on his ‘Comic Book Titan of the Industry’ laminated business card: Give me five minutes and I’ll sell you a 5-6 issue mini-series like I’m a Michelin Star Rated Taco Truck on the Santa Monica Pier.

 

I bet you Jeff Lemire just pops out comic book premises like he’s coming up with random wacky recipes on a Food Network Chef Competition Show. He could be sitting in traffic as the third car in the left lane waiting to make a left turn in LA Rush Hour traffic and he could come up with two alien abduction story lines, an Incan Murder Mystery set in an underground city and a tearjerker about a dog who can fly that finds his long lost owner on an island and then defeats the Chinese Communist Party with his owner by using their laser eyes…and still make the left turn even though he was third.

 

That’s when you know you’re a real driver and someone who doesn’t take shit in your life, when you’re third and you still insist on making that left. You can tell a lot about someone on how they take left turns. If a woman is third and takes a left turn and she’s third, you got a winner. If a woman is fourth and still takes a left turn get out of the car and run the moment you come to a complete stop. Also, if a woman is second and doesn’t take the light when it’s clear that she could have made it get out of the car right then and there and use the crosswalk to escape from her mind boggling life decisions that are waiting to haunt you and your blooming relationship of fire and brimstone.

 

Anyway, Jeff you’ve hooked me again you bastard! With something so simple and so easily laid out; it’s a master class in the simplicity of a plot device grabbing a reader’s attention. Yeah, anyone could have come up with this plot device, it’s not like he’s reinventing literature with it. But it’s the execution and the way it makes you furrow your brow and go ‘hmm, what the hell is that, that was weird, hmm’ as you think about it at random moments of your day.

 

Like you’ll be on a date and your eyes will wander and the babbling insecure actress in front of you with the three pounds of make-up that attempts to cover up her pockmarked skin will ask ‘Hey, where did you just go?’ If you’re interested in her you’ll say ‘Ah, your story of being robbed at the WeHo Whole Foods by a naked homeless person in the prepared foods aisle made me think of a time in my life when I felt helpless and violated’. If you’re not interested in her you’ll say ‘Yeah, this new Jeff Lemire book has me fucking hooked and spooked, like for realzy’.

 

I’m not even going to reveal the premise of the basic mechanics of the plot and the world he’s created here. All I will say is that there’s this thing, some object, in the middle of a highway that you’re going to spend your disposable income on in order to find out what it is. If you purchase this comic you’re going to be at the mercy of Jeffy M for as long as he wants to drain you of 4 bux a month. It’s not like you’ll be able to cancel halfway like you’re cancelling a Peacock TV subscription (my goodness I don’t remember signing up for $5 a month with them and my goodness they make it unbelievable hard to navigate to the page where you can cancel your phantom subscription), no, this book will automatically be added to your pull list as if AI had taken over your local comic book shop; which it probably has at this point.

 

Look, this isn’t a world breaker or a game changer of the industry type of comic. It’s a drop from a dude who’s on a roll unlike any other writer in the Comic Book Universe right now. So don’t even question why, just get it and let Jizzle LeMizzle do whatever the hell he wants to do with the part of your comic book brain until he’s had enough and the ideas that he came up with while waiting for ten minutes outside of his hot yoga class with his gaia yoga mat in hand  make it onto your pull list.

 

Rating: 7.9

Verdict: Pull