BATMAN. WHITE KNIGHT: GENERATION JOKER #2 - Review

 

For the record I began reading this comic over a month ago but after I saw the first couple of pages I got so incensed and unruly that I needed to put it down and walk away for a bit. What an absolute fucking debacle the first page was. Are you kidding me? Dude, like, get Murphy back on this, stat! I wanna see Murph throw on some kicks and bust a move over to wherever the hell this Clay McDoobedyboobedy is and knock a sucka out. Knock him out Moiph! I’ve had it! My beloved White Knight now a Pudgy Beige Pawn. For all that is good and holy guacamole in the comic book galaxy can you please wipe away the stankity stank stank that has been smeared on the greatest alternative Bat Universe that has ever been created?

 

Sean, look, clearly this ridiculous attempt to be a White Knight book isn’t your wonderful wife’s fault. I can see it now. You two were tenderly holding each other in bed in the morning chatting about all good things, maybe I should do this, maybe you should do that. You both came up with an idea about a new White Knight story. Murph said ‘I got you Baby’ made a phone call to DC, they were like, ‘Sounds amazing send Katana in!’ She hopped in her whip and coasted over to Burbank, headed upstairs, met with some suits. They were down but then – then, one of them said:

 

Suit: Hey you know who would be great on this? My nephew Clay!

 

Katana: Oh, uh, yeah, he just, umm, Red Hood thing? Uh, I don’t -

 

Suit: Hey, Regina, can you send Clay in here?

 

[Clay walks in, he’s wearing jorts, flip flops, a retro Chewbacca t-shirt one size too short and a red tinted visor]

 

Suit: Clay, Katana has a great idea for a story about Hologaphic Joker’s kids.

 

Clay: Bagga Boogah Bagga Boogah Shmoogah

 

Suit: I know, it’s great, let’s hook you two up and get this story crack-a-lackin'!

 

That’s how an innocent lovely idea birthed from the Egyptian Cotton sheets of Murphy and Collins turned into a rotting turnip of a comic. What did he do? What happened on that first page that sent me in a tailspin?

 

Okay, ready for this, the cliffhanger from the first issue is that Scarface’s kid had the Holographic Joker and his kids surrounded by a bunch of other, I dunno, Actors maybe, with puppets. Here, look:

 

 

Totally a Batman 66 vibe, but, whatever. So the second issue starts and they’ve already escaped the circle! Like they went from being surrounded by psychotic ventriloquists to climbing a ladder! HOW THE FUCK DID THEY GET THERE CLAY MCNUMBNUTS??? Did Katana have a great idea and at the last minute you called the guy you buy your meth from at the printer and told him to delete the panels, just because? Look at this:

 

 

What happened? How did they get from being surrounded by the Mistress of Puppets and some avante garde lower east side actors/puppeteers to climbing a ladder to freedom! This is a joke right? It’s like if James Bond was tied to a table and the buzzsaw was heading for his nuts and the filmmakers then cut to him punching out the baddie with no action sequence of him escaping. It’s like Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia in the trash compactor one moment and then, boom! They’re running down a corridor talking to Alec Guinness’ floating head. Dude!

 

Real quick, I love that there’s like 5 Actors in full black get-ups operating the other puppets. What a casting call that would have been! I would have loved to audition for Creepy Second Rate Villain Accomplice #3. It would’ve been Non Union but you would’ve gotten: Free Meals, Uber reimbursed, IMDB credit, Free black spandex onesie.

 

So the Kids escape, send HoloJoke back into a hard drive and then are beset upon by the Joker’s gang in a cemetery where his tombstone rests. Clay really did that? Yes he did. It’s a Gang in a cemetery! Oh fer goodness sake. We have veered off into total Scooby Doo vibes. Yes. That is exactly what the Jokers Motorcycle Gang would be doing. They’d drive their motorcycles into a cemetery and just hang out there for no reason whatsoever. They wouldn’t be robbing anything or doing flash mobs or selling fentanyl at Coney Island on the cheap, of course not. One bald headed insane clown posse looking nitwit would say:

 

‘Hey, why don’t we take our cycles to the cemetery and weave between the headstones and just sit there with no booze or drugs until Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy show up.’

 

Who is this Clay MickShaNaNaDammaLammaDingleberryDong anyway? His Twatter/X bio says he’s a “barstool intellectual w/a masters degree in small talk”. I’ll pay $20 for any Hacker who can get in there and change it to a masters degree in poor plot development, dumb AF cliffhanger follow ups and owning his McSchnookieDookie nickname. I’ll Venmo you, no questions asked. Here, this is him:

 

Look, Clay, I’m sure you’re actually a wonderful guy and that you love comics, I’m sure you do. But, Dude, you’re killing me. At the back of this issue there’s bit where each writer is asked what inspired this story for them. Katana regales us with a lovely answer of how road trips have been an intricate part of her and Sean’s life, how they’ve bonded and become closer because of them. She then says that she and Sean were watching ‘Onward’ a film about  two brothers who "embark on a magical quest to spend one more day with their late father". Wow, that sounds a lot like what’s going on in this series doesn’t it? The Joker Kids, wanting to know their dad, embark on a trip through his Gotham haunts. Solid AF Premise.

 

What does Clay answer as his inspiration to this series? Guess.

 

Thelma & Louise.

 

 

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking of as well! The film about a couple of friends who are on the run from the law because one of them shot and killed a guy who was trying to rape one of them is an identical match to a fictional villain's kids wanting to get to know their father in an alternative universe of that fictional villain. I suppose the kiddies and HoloJoker ride their Batmobile off a bridge in Gotham in the final issue, is that what happens? Oy to the Vey.

Welp, I'm down to zero Bat Books on my pull, again. Seems impossible what with 1,532 Bat Titles on the solicits but that's where I've ended up. What the hell is going on with Black Label??? Last year they were pumping out genius book after genius book now it's a slow trickle. Generation Joker doesn't even feel like Black Label at all, it's more like a Walmart label, the kind of thing you'd find in the magazine section there that was made specifically for parents to buy for their kids when they didn't want to splurge on a $50 video game, 'Here, take this cheap comic book instead and I'll get you some chicken nuggets after we check out'.

Gotta go. I'm gonna walk up over to Wilshire Blvd and wait until I see Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis ride by in a convertible so I can toss this in their back seat.

Rating: 3.1

Verdict: Drop

The Hunger and the Dusk #1 - Review

 

I’m all for a good fantasy epic. Can’t think of any recently in the Comic Book Universe that blew me away out of my La-Z-Boy. Saga doesn’t count. Saga is its own genre. It’s not even a comic book, Saga is a cultural tattoo that won’t ever be laser removed. All Hail Saga. If someone ever asks you if you’re MAGA don't get upset, just tell them that you’re Saga and then walk away, that’ll short their circuitry for a bit. There’s also the Monstress fantasy epic, which is also a whole maddening universe unto itself that I’m unable to peel my eyes away from despite it veering off into wackadoodleville the past year. The penultimate LOTR-esque fantasy epic (and by that I mean one that utilizes the basic DNA of the whole Elven, Dwarven, Wizard construct) has got to be Elf Quest from back in the 80s and 90s. That book ruled the fantasy epic roost for quite some time. It’s recent reboot offering? Not so much. But those Epic/Marvel comics from back in the day are pure gold.

 

When I saw this Hungry Elon Musk book on the solicits I thought, seems promising. Then all the review geeks seriously geeked the fuck out over this book, gushing and fawning over Willow and Co. Dude. I mean, I really don’t understand the oohing and ahhing that everyone has been doing over this series so far. I mean, it’s good, it’s not holy guacamole good. For IDW (I Don’t Want) it’s definitely a win. The art and colors are absolutely fantastic. The story? Mnyeh. That’s Jewish for: Mnyeh. Say it out loud and inflect up at the end. Now you feel what I feel about this book.

 

The first major gripe of this comic has to be the Orcs. So, the whole premise is that Humans and their mortal enemies ‘The Orcs’ have to join forces to fight against this new blur of an enemy. I’m already a little skittish about this premise after Kirkman’s ‘Void Rival’ Sci-Fi/Hasbro debacle that utilized a similar trope. Anyway, look, these Orcs don’t look like Orcs to me at all. These are Burly/Tribal Elves at best. It’s way easier to root for husky elves and humans teaming up than the uggams we’re used to seeing. This is an Orc okay:

 

 

 

This is an Orc:

 

 

I don’t know what the hell this is:

 

That’s Michael B Jordan painted green with a couple of Woolly Mammoth teeth in his mouth.

 

Okay, and this, is the female lead of this book. This is not an Orc:

 

 

 

Seriously? I’m pretty sure this chick just me asked if I wanted Oat or Almond Milk in my Latte last week when I was meeting someone over in Echo Park/Hipsterville. Cutie! Oh, it gets worse.

 

The lead Female Orc’s nickname is Tara. Tara. I think I just swiped right on Tara. She likes checking out new restaurants, is into Zero 7, is looking for a relationship and is down for a hike or a coffee to see if things click. Oh, and also, she’ll chop your stuff off is she feels threatened. Tara! I dated a Tara once many many moons ago. She was from Texas, cute Blonde. When we got into our first fight I’m pretty sure she was running around her apartment looking for her firearm so I bolted. Yeah, Tara’s are no joke – as Humans. Tara’s as Orcs are, umm, silly? Here’s what the Chief Orc Dude looks like:

 

 

Nice, handsome, Native American vibe, right? Look, you may think I’m blowing this out of proportion but if the entire premise is based off of two sworn mortal enemies who hate each other joining forces and one looks like they’ve just returned from Burning Man, then, yeah, not so good.

 

Next, don’t wanna spoil this too much, but let’s just say the enemy that is the reason the Humans and Orcs join forces to begin with is quite the formidable opponent in the beginning of the book. It easily obliterates everyone at the top of the issue by appearing as nothing but a blur. One moment a group of Orcs is riding on horses the next they’re dead and the horses heads are rolling down the hill. But then when it comes to our ‘heroes’ they appear and we see what they look like. Now they’re like “Look at us, we’re about to hurt you”. I was almost expecting a James Bond villain speech. Umm Willow, bubbele, either they’re blurs or they’re not, pick one. There’s even a moment where one is about to behead Tara and pauses long enough so that our Human hero can save her with his shield. Oy vey.

 

I skipped ahead and looked at the solicits for the next couple of issues and it looks like our Human falls for the Orc, saw that coming a mile away. We can love anyone, no matter their looks, no matter their background, no matter if they make shitty cappuccinos and have way too many cats. Next we’ll have to have Orcs fairly represented in all of our entertainment. I can’t wait to see Orcs complaining on ‘The View’ how they’re being discriminated against and have only been cast in one Marvel and Star Wars movie so far. Then you’re gonna see White Dude/Orc couples in every commercial on TV and BestBuy is going to update their hiring manual to say ‘Hire Orcs only’. Even as I type this someone is chomping at the bit to comment and call me Orcphobic. Fun times!

 

Recap, the comic is perfectly fine, a good but not great fantasy book. I was leaning towards pulling the next few issues but after coming back from my Little Princess walk around the neighborhood I’ve had a change of heart. I was going to pull the next issues based on looks alone but we all know what happens when all you focus on is looks, don’t we? No? Well, you end up swiping right on Tara the Orc who meets you for a hike and drags you off into the brush and chops your hands off after you tell her you think her 9 inch nose rings seem a little over the top. Wow, look at that, Target has already cast Orcs in their back to school fashion commercials. Wait, those aren’t Orcs, those are fucking Elves!

 

Rating: 7.3

Verdict: Drop

BARNSTORMERS #1 - Review

 

And I’m back for another three issue Scott Snyder Droperoonkski! I just can’t seem to stay away from his premises, they all look and sound great. The execution? Welllll...First there was ‘The Night of the Ghoul’ which I reviewed. It started out with a solid bang and then petered off into complete nonsensical swill on a page. This was my take on the 3rd issue Ghoul #3 which only made sense as an allegorical reveal of how Snyder escaped the clutches of the Big 2. Then there was ‘Clear’ which also started off with a bang bang for the first issue. The second issue was a nice helping of poo but the final issue came with that boom bap and brought it on home for the equivalent of an enjoyable satisfying handy as I finished it in my La-Z-Boy. I reviewed that here and came to the conclusion that Snyder's career paralleled Yankee slugger Giancarlo Stanton's

 

So to recap: That’s 1 of 3 solid issues for Ghoul and 2 of 3 solid issues for Clear. Can we, for all that is good and holy in the comic book universe, puhhhleeaaaaze get 3 solid issues here Synder? I’m optimistic. Maybe Dark Horse took a look at all these offerings of these Synder Triplets and released them in order of wack to bad ass which would mean that ‘Barnstormers’ was about to bring some serious sequential art ruckus for all us geeky comicfockas. You’ve got a romance book with a babe in a plane set in the roaring 20s drawn by Hip Hop Hooray Ho Tula Lotay Yo and this has the makings of a B52 Book Bombah.

 

Speaking of Dark Horse, has anyone noticed that they’ve been bumped from the major publisher sections of Previews World and relegated to all the Indie Books? They used to get their own section where all of their solicits were in one place. Now they’re just part of the soup that includes the likes of ‘Scout’ and ‘Artists and Writers’ and the questionably pornerific manga anime titles from ‘Oni Press’. It’s like they’re the AFC Richmond Greyhounds who just got booted from the Premier League. It’s like they’ve been sent down to the minors. It’s like they’ve shown up to the cool Comic Book After Party in the Hills and were told to wait on line like the rest of the rabble while IDW and Boom suckas waltz right on in.

 

Hey, it’s a justified demotion. Dark Horse originals have been downright putrid as of late. Seems like once they got sold to Embracer, the Swedish Video Game Conglomerate, their titles and story lines got cheaper than an Ikea coffee table made from balsa wood and hope. Embracer basically bought it to make all their IPs into TV Shows and movies and what they’ve delivered so far has been outright bunk; I’m looking at you Umbrella Acada-blecchhh. The worst part of the whole deal was that the word ‘mine’ was used extensively in the press release. Embracer couldn’t wait to ‘mine’ their creations. Stick a finger in my comic geek throat and hurl. This is the epitome of why comic books have sucked so bad in recent memory, they’re not being written for comic books they’re being written for TV. They’re not story boards you assholes, they’re comic books. Anyway, Dark Horse was smart enough to snatch up the Comixology Snyder Triumvirate and release them under their imprint to at least reclaim some of the respectability that they once had.

 

As for Barnstormers, first things first, Tula Lotay’s art is simply gorgeous. Each page is an art gallery, a master class in sequential story telling. Buying up all three of these issues is worth it for her triumph alone. Does Snyder keep up? For the most part, yes. A woweee holy moly babe who’s the daughter of a farmer is forced to marry some douchebag so her dad’s farm won’t get taken over. When the struggling red baron air devil dude ruins her wedding to said douchebag she sees it as a sign and takes off with him to escape her fate.

 

How psyched would I be if this girl showed up outside of my gym and told me I had no choice but to ride into the wide blue yonder with her in my Camaro:

 

Of course, I’d have to ask to her pitch in for gas money. I mean, it’s close to 6 bux a gallon out here in Commiefornia. I’d probably just drive out to Woodland Hills and tell her we made it to Death Valley where nobody would ever dare to look for her. Then I’d take her out for dinner at the prepared foods section at Whole Foods, ya know, really splurge on her, give her my rendition of my fave Shakespearean monologue. We'd be making out on our walk past TGIFriday's in no time.

 

There’s a bunch of interesting plot devices, including the lead pilot having hallucinations or psychotic episodes of a motorized robot with glowing eyes following him. Overall, Snyder drops another solid well structured set-up issue and cliffhanger and has his audience hooked for more. That’s 3 for 3 in first issues of these comixology originals if you’re not counting. If you’re an upcoming comic book writer perhaps taking a look at the first issues of these Snyder three-issue drops will clue you in as to how to grab an audience.

 

The one gripe I have with the book is, well, the females use the word ‘Fuck’ a lot. Like, was that even a thing back then? I thought if you said ‘Goddamn’ it was like using the c-word back then. I feel like girls said stuff like ‘My Stars’ or ‘Tarnation’ or ‘Gee willikers’ or ‘Take a Hike, Bub’. In Barnstormers, not so much. When our pilot asks a sexy redhead operator to help promote his plane stunts in the next town she says:

 

You want to win me over? How about some fucking quiet?

 

That sounds like every girl I match with on the dating apps. They don’t want me sending me them an initial text, they want me to just say nothing for six months to a year, yeah that’s it. These girls are tired of all this message noise! Oy vey.

 

Anyway, I mean, I can see any redhead dropping f-bombs but for some chick from the 1920s, seems a little out of sorts. The lead runaway bride babe also drops f-bombs every other text bubble. Seems like Snyder is either trying to make this edgy or  Embracer sent Dark Horse a message saying they want their IPs to have more F-Bombs because their AI Content Algos are telling them the target 18-34 demo needs to see or hear F-Bombs every 28.7 words in a game or show.

 

Buy this fucking comic you fucking geeks, fuck!

 

Aaaand I just got an e-mail from Embracer, they like my fucking writing style, do I have any IPs? Well Swedish Comic Book Publisher Destroyer, I got this video game concept where a horny dater virtually enters the messaging part of the app and wanders around for the duration of the game fighting indifference and the void.

 

I call it  ___________________.                                 

 

Let the bidding begin.

 

Rating: 9.1

Verdict: Pull

ANTARCTICA #1 - Review

 

If you had asked me several years ago what I thought about the ‘Flat Earth’ theory I would have smirked and said ‘C’mon dude’ I’m not a wacko. I viewed the flat earth question as a trap. A way to avoid listening to everything else I was talking about in regards to how the world worked because if I thought the earth was flat then clearly nothing coming out of my mouth should be taken as fact. Fast forward five years later and…hmm. I’m not saying I agree with the theory but what I am saying is I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that we are in fact living on a flat earth.

The ‘flatties’ have made some compelling arguments over the past few years and have presented a lot of damning evidence that goes contrary to our rounded minds. I just saw a video on Chinagram where somebody approached the cockpit of a plane where the pilot was standing and asked him point blank ‘Hey you’ve flown around the world and back do you think the world is flat’ and without hesitation the pilot answered ‘I absolutely know the earth is flat’ and then asked the questioner ‘Wait, are you filming?’. Combine all the flatties theories with the fact, the fact, that NASA is a complete sinkhole for money and that they have been lying and fabricating all kinds of nonsense to the general public for years and I would give the percentage of us living on a game board to be about 70% bubble butt to 30% n’assatall (no ass at all). 

I say all this because a lot of the flatties always point to Antartica as the gatekeeper to the secrets of our world. A place where you can enter a hole at the top of the earth to descend into a middle earth if you will where a whole race of wild beings live. A race that is probably hostile because their coffee sucks and they can’t get Hulu to watch the first two seasons of ‘The Bear’. There’s also the notion that upon traipsing to Antarctica that you will encounter an ice wall and when you sail beyond it you will find the outer wall to our planet that encircles our game board. Add in the fact that you also see nut job politicians and world bureaucrats like Herman Munster aka John Kerry flying down there for God knows what and it’s obvious that something shady is happening down there. Here's a recent video of some guy who actually had access to everything down there. This is probably the tip of the literal iceberg:

Perhaps the all the editors of DC’s Black Label were abducted and sent down there after they put out too many amazing comics last year, can’t have the peasants enjoying themselves too much.

It was with this thought in mind, hey maybe this book is going to get into all of this nutty round or flat butt stuff, that I picked up this issue. I hoped and pined for something gritty and substantive. I imagine if Brian Wood hadn’t been black listed by the Comic Book industry this would be right up his alley and the series would be freakin’ fantastic but unfortunately he tried kissing too many girls in comic book office bathrooms or something and that makes him unfit to provide the general public with great content. Well, I just put down this book, reading these pages was like reading this naked from the waist down with an ice block placed under  my balls, which is something I am very much NOT into.  Yeesh. 

The creator of this book is some dude named Simon Birks, a wily Brit who’s got Indie vibe all over him. Either that or he's about to be cast in another 70s Musician Biopic as the hip Music Engineer who looks at the main character laying down vocals in the vocal booth and says 'Crikey, this bloke can sing!'. Can’t say if any of the 50 books he’s successfully funded on kickstarter or any of the books on his imprint Blue Fox are any good, haven’t read any of them. I will say that Image in their bio of him on his site mentioned none of them but rather included a blurb that Michael Palin once called one of his films ‘silly’. That could be either a negative or a positive given the delivery of that word. Now, if the inflection on the last syllable went up then that’s a good thing. Just hear that in your mind, silly with the tone rising at the end. However, if the inflection went down on the second syllable, hear that one, then it sounds pretty bad right? Maybe Palin wanted to say garbage but decided to be nice and say silly. Here’s Simon boring some Pixie Chick who looks like the Kryptonian villain Ursa in Superman II. Clearly she was hoping to get Chip Zdarsky instead of a roadie for Spinal Tap for her interview:

Anyway, there is one thing that stands out from this book. The lead character Hannah is by far the absolute hottest homeless chick in the history of the planet. She may in fact eclipse the one and only Halle Berry who played a homeless chick in the film ‘New Jack City’. I remember once doing a comedy show with a comedian who had a bit about that. He said ‘Man, y’all see Halle Berry as a homeless girl. I kept saying to myself, wow, why is this girl homeless, she could be Halle Berry’ lol!!! I mean look at this girl, you telling me a chick like this would ever be homeless? 

 

 

 

She looks like a trust fund baby who buys designer hipster clothes and then takes an Uber Black to a grungy Silverlake venue to listen to a messy band so she can appear cool. Like, she approachesthe bar and giddily says ‘I’ll have a sir-veysa beer’ which she’s practiced saying on her Uber Black ride over. C’mon Birks!

Halle Berry is offered by a Hozier looking Coffee Shop Manager to use his shop’s bathroom to clean up. Maybe instead of offering his bathroom he could have called the local modeling agency and said ‘Hey I think one of your girls is sleeping on the street’. Hozier then tells Halle that if she goes to a trade show and learns a skill for a job that he’ll let her sleep in his shop. OR he could, I dunno, ask her out instead and, I dunno, be dating Halle Berry. Look, since all the diversity stuff here in Hollywood, Blonde Actresses are littered all over the city. There’s no use for them anymore. They take up about 20% of the homeless population out here. They just sit on the street, live streaming from their tents which are covered in their headshots. The local shelters have accommodated them with free plant based meals and recycled yoga mats, it’s been really a group effort to keep the Blondes surviving in town. You might ask, well Issac, why not ask out one of the Blonde homeless actress chicks out if they're so hot? Hmmmm? Because I'd be considered a White Supremacist and Racist, duh. I'm not falling for that trap, c'mon.

So Halle goes to this trade show, is disinterested in all the possible jobs except the one where she can learn how to be a mechanic. Now, here’s where Birks-enstock loses all credibility as a writer. Halle learns how to become a mechanic and then, get this, gets offered a job as an engineer on the top secret base her recently deceased dad was working on in Antarctica.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Seriously? 

 

Like, hey Halle, okay, here, this is a spark plug, this is how you change a car's oil, this is what a transmission does, to

Hey, forget MIT and years of training on advanced dark ops equipment with technology that hasn't been released to the public yet, come work on our Ice Base!

 

Halle, upon arrival, is then asked to fix an antenna or some sort, she goes outside and says 'Oh, duh, here, press this button, beep bop boop, all fixeroonied!' lmaooo. She's also walking outside in sub-zero temps for the first time with half her face exposed while wearing a cutesy little snow bunny outfit from REI.

Oh, and Coffee Dude gets an aneurysm, her home town probably got swallowed up in a sink hole, dude, this entire issue was completely useless. This has to be one of the silliest set-up issues in comic book history. Birksy, you could've started this issue at the last page when she just beep bop booped the antenna fix and then meets the cliffhanger chick, story starts.

This comic should have been called 'Halle Brrrrr-erry'. What a waste. Maybe they should track down the dude in the video above who knows all the secrets of Antarctica and have him write a comic book. It'll probably be awful, but at least it'll be true. Oy vey. What's next 'Mars-Nana' where Lizzo goes to Mars to plant banana trees for her dancer's poons and then hosts a music festival for the local aliens and Elvis Presley? I hear Lemire is working on that, sign me up!

Rating: 3.7

Verdict: Drop

KNIGHT TERRORS: BATMAN - Review #1

Oy. Vey. Night Terrors. The DC Night TerrorsI They’re everywhere! It’s scaaaary. Comic geeks everywhere are having trouble sleeping now, cuz, well, night terrors! Dude. Like, who thought this was a good idea? A corny AF Lobo looking dude is looking for something in the nightmares of every single DC Hero that has an ongoing title. Did they run this past Gaiman? I mean, at this point if you’re hitting up the whole nightmare and dream oeuvre you’ve got to at least text Sir Gaiman the Great, don’t you? I can’t see him signing off on this drivel. This is amateur hour single A baseball type nightmare stuff. Like, if I found myself on the 405 freeway at 4pm on a Friday out here with a lane shut off due to a mash-up and I had a choice between staying on the freeway or having this putz torment my dreams for a week or so I’d happily take this Road Warrior extra. 

For goodness sake can someone write a fucking amazing Batman comic! Maybe I should start a new blog and call it Bat-herapy and use it to vent all my angst, frustrations and stink eyes over the Bat Comic Universe. Look at this guy, this is the villain:

I mean, I have homeless people wandering around outside my Whole Foods that are more of a threat to my existence than this wahoo would ever be. So you just jacked up a guy with steroids, gave him a purple mohawk, got some cheap $12.99  eye make-up from a ‘Spirit of Halloween’ store, walked him into the DC offices and everyone freaked out and said 'That's our Mega Event Guy!'. This doesn’t look like some mega event bad guy this looks like a meth-curious North Hollywood barista who wanders into Bar Sinister in Hollywood on a Tuesday night and nurses a White Russian in the corner while making creepy eyes.

The only reason I bought this book to begin with was the fact that Guillem March was doing the art. One of the best, and most memorable books, of the past several years was March’s ‘Karmen’ which was about a girl who takes her life over a heartbreak and an Angel that helps her through her choices. Most of the time the spirit of this girl was flying around naked in the sky over this Spanish town. 

I will forever think fondly of this book and to this day I still look up in the sky every now and then hoping that I’ll see some random heartbroken naked chick flying over my head. When I do see her I’ll beckon her to join me for a naked coffee date. I’ll then give her a button down Yankee jersey to wear and a purple thong and we will walk hand in hand all over La La Land and the unhoused will serenade us with farts and belches that sound like the song ‘Strangers in the Night’.

Of course I get very stressed out about the fact that I might finally notice her while driving around LA and I’m sure I’ll get into a fender bender over her. When the cops show up and ask me my side of the story I’ll have to admit to them that I was chasing down a naked babe in the sky over the 101 and then I’ll be staring at padded walls in no time. I’d like to think that the readers of this blog will come to my rescue and explain to the employees of my loony bin that I am in fact not a wack job, that the naked babe in the sky was real. I can count on you guys for that, right?

Anyway, back to this shit show. So this Night Terrors event, umm, is DC hard up for cash? Like, if you bought up every comic that they have listed for this Night Terrors nightmare of a story line you’d be out around $250, that’s not counting any ridiculously expensive Jae Lee variant covers that you know you’ll be tempted to dip into now and then. Not only that, this ‘event’ only spans two months! Who the hell has $125 a month right now to drop on a bunch of mediocre comics with a Bar Sinister Bozo as the villain? This is how Mitch McConnell reacted when he heard that the new DC Mega Event with the Noho Fetanyl Addict would cost him $250 bucks the next two months:

How out of touch can DC be? Who is Ravager and Angel Breaker??? Those are two issues you’d have to buy to snatch up every Night Blah Blah book. I mean, did they anticipate the Hollywood Writer’s strike and are just pulling rejected story lines out of their hard drives from years ago just to keep up with releasing content? I’m pretty sure the Writer’s strike does not extend into the comic book world but maybe there’s a client comic scribe strike? Maybe they see the Big 2 threatening to replace them with AI also.

I wouldn’t be surprised if all the writers currently writing for DC and Marvisney aren’t even the writers anymore but are in fact the AI facsimile version of these writers. Like, they go into a meeting with a DC/Marvisney suit, the suit says hold on and exits the room, the writer is then scanned with advanced quantum technology and a chip is shot into their brain. All they feel is a tiny little scratch so they think nothing of it. 

So in the instance of this comic, Josh Williamson came into the meeting, the suit said ‘Hey waddya think of our new Mega Event Bar Sinister Meth Addict Villain from Tarzana?’ Josh would scoff and try not to insult the suit. He’d say ‘Uhh, interesting’. At that point the suit would leave and, boom, AI Josh gets extracted and they don’t need him anymore.

Oh wait, it’s Knight Terrors! Ha. That’s even worse. I mean, if they put this in medieval times maybe it’d come to life a bit more. Actually, I can see this taking place during a Renaissance Fair with a bunch of out of work actors in tunics and actresses in raggedy dresses from their roles as woeful women in a Chekhov/Strindberg festival from 1997. The Meth Actor Villain could be that actor guy who had a little bit too much trauma in their childhood and in lieu of going to therapy his parents sent him to auditions. Let me tell you, that actor guy is absolutely frightening. That guy is a fuse ready to blow and an assault on the object of their affection waiting to happen.

Now I'm totally freaked out. Because hordes of these psychos are now homeless and roaming LA due to the ungodly amount of money it costs to actually rent a place here. You geeks want some terrors to haunt your dreams? Head over to Venice, CA around 1am on a weeknight, that'll do you right. I bet you that's where my flying naked dream girl is taking flight. Why? Because nobody will bother her out there, they'll just assume they inhaled too much of the cheap psychedelics floating around in the air and chalk it up to a contact hallucination. 

Save your $250 people. Hell, save your $5. Donate that $5 instead to the 'Get Mitch McConnell a Case of Pepto Fund' and call it a day.

Rating: 4.4

Verdict: Drop. Zzzzzzzzzzz

July '23 Reading Round Up

The Bear. Wow. Have you watched it? Have you inhaled it like me? It was a bit of a slow burn as far as wow factor. The first several episodes stressed me the fuck out. I was worrying for hours after each episode ‘Shit, where are all the invoices, fire the mortadella capadella barbarella, fire all of them, where’s Jimmy? Richie shut the fuck up, Cousin, Cousin COUSIN!’ and my doggie would look at me like I was crazier than my regular crazy. Then I’d tell her to fire all the chickens and put some duct tape over our oven just in case. Once it hit its stride in the 1st season the second season became gold, episode after gold episode, like, must watch/TV for the ages type shit. You love everybody, you care about everything and every detail of this restaurant. You root for everyone and you cry in places you never thought you would. That is art my friends. That is all we can truly ask for, something that moves us and makes us pine for more. 

If you’re not watching ‘The Bear’ and you actually like good TV then I cannot recommend it more highly, it is a transcendent series and the best thing I’ve seen all year. 

Yes, this is a comic book blog but we still wish for the same things in our comic books: something that moves us, something that makes our eyes pop when we see the next issue come up on the monthly solicits, something that we think about for hours after we put it down. Have there been any books like that so far this year? I feel like last year was chock full of wow, month after month, this year? I’m dropping issues like insta is dropping followers from me on the daily for telling everybody the truth about every and anything. I’m dropping issues like the DOJ is dropping charges against Prince Crackhead. I'm dropping issues like the 'unhoused who don't have homes' be dropping poop all over Cali. What happened to all the Black Label goodies? Where’s Matt Fraction when you need him??? Dude, Fraction needs to come on the scene like Galactus with a strap-on and anal beads dangling from his butt and just put out a series to shut the world up.

I am ridiculously excited for the Conan book that drops this week, fingers crossed and Jewish starred. I just pulled a bunch of first issues that I picked up last week. A couple new ones this week, I'm tryin' people, jeez! 

Maybe I'm cranky cuz another Comic Con has come and gone, another year that I wasn't there. Another year where I see randos and friends of mine who haven't bought a comic in decades taking selfies at Comic Con like they were hanging out in front of a Carl's Jr. Seriously, there should be a written test, no multiple choice, in front of the Comic Con where you are asked all sorts of ridiculously hard comic book trivia. If you answer 85% or more you get to buy a ticket and go in. Or better yet, I should be able to walk up to the doors and show them my 'ComicsPriceGuide' account where it clearly displays the fact that I own over 5,000 comic books, 'Oh you're a comic geek, right this way nerdus dorkaroonus'.

Sigh. Anyway, this is what I got into this past month:

Deep cuts is a wonderful series. Each book is a vignette that pulls you in and keeps your attention. The second issue revolved around the story of a Broadway type gal looking for that big hit that sends her to the stars and back. There's even a page of sheet music in the back that supposedly is her tune. I was all set to actually figure it out and drop an audio track here for you guys of what the song sounds like but I'm too busy banging my head on the keys of my piano figuring out Beethoven's Fur Elise, so, yeah, no ragtime type ish to give you.  

I was little confused as to why the chick on the cover looks like Rosario Dawson but the chick in the book that the story was written about is some alabaster skinned blonde with curly hair. Umm, like, what, we can't even have Blondes on comic book covers now? Man, it is tough being a blonde chick these days. 

 

Phantom Road. I mean, this has TV show written all over it. Actually, everythingLemire touches has TV show written all over it. Why isn't there a direct line from Lemire's room in his house where he draws all this stuff, to Image, to my TV for 6-8 episodes every couple of months. There's nothing unbelievable about this series but he's just so fucking good at hooking you that you have to find out where it goes, and most of the time it's worth it. Maybe I need to put that on my Dating App Profile: Must rock dates and relationships like Jeff Lemire rocks comic book concepts. That would at least get the girls who don't reply to me at all to delete me from their like list which would prove to me they were either alive or that it was AI teaching me a lesson about making bad dating profiles.I dunno AI, why not just get me into comic con so I can meet my Lemire babe? Fuckin AI, useless.

Something Epic's second installment was, hmm, I dunno, Something Really Good, but not epic. Can’t really put my finger on why other than the fact that the lengthy exposition seemed to drift more into standard idioms and extensive soliloquy rather than getting deeper into the story. Also, felt like this issue got even drearier and darker than the first one which is understandable given the health reveal of the Mom. There was an interesting intersection between the world of imagination and that of reality but other than that it seemed more of a set-up for what’s to come which is fine by me, after that stellar first issue this series has enough capital to keep me around for several months. C'mon Epic, I'm betting on you like I'm betting on a Porsche when I pull up to a light and have to choose between it and another car. Douchebags love to peel out when it turns green. 

Do people still say peel out? Well, I do.

I had high hopes for this book, really high hopes. But it devolved into some cheesy Cartoon Network/Adult Swim hooey that's big on colors and bold lines but slim on a captivating story. Yeah, I'm not paying 30 bux more to find out if I’m gonna end up feeling upset or deeply troubled about having continued to have purchased these 8 dollar issues. It's pretty to look at. However, when you live in LA for as long as I have you realize pretty to look at today very likely means trouble and a door slam in your grill tomorrow. I mean, look at the cover. If that punch in the grill isn't a portent of things to come then I don't know portents. That's one major fucking portent. Yeah, drop this issue like Kendall Jenner drops toxic cosmetic lines.

 Do people still say grill? Like, all up in yo grill?

Well I do.