DSTLRY 'DEVIL'S CUT' - Review

 

 

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

 

DSTLRY SITE 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

Doogies do Comics Right!

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

Rating: 7.0

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

 

 

HEXAGON BRIDGE #1 - Review

Multi-Dimensional Dimensions in our Art is getting Demented. They’re everywhere now. This dimension is right here and that dimension is right over us and this one is through that door and that one is in her pink butthole and if you really wanna find this one hit the El Chato Taco Truck around 2am on a Tuesday and wear fuscia. On on hand, when done right with restraint, having a multi dimensional world where characters are popping in and out of is exciting. I would say the ‘Upside Down’ in Stranger Things is a great example of using an alternative dimension in an amazing way. When done haphazardly and with no constraints it can turn anything into a full out shit show. I’m looking at you Big 2/Big Poo.

 

Marvel used to be the home of the wacky cosmic way out-there comic books where characters like Dr. Strange, Thor and his merry band of Gods dressed in Skandinavian wear and the FF would consistently travel to alternative dimensions with aplomb and gusto. The recent ‘Defenders’ comic written by Al Ewing last year harkened back to that time with a retro tale that traversed the multiverse. Ironically it was entitled ‘Defenders: There are No Rules’; yet it worked because it felt like you were being taken far away from the center in a logical way, not jumping to and fro will nilly, if that makes any sense.

 

When comics turn to poop is when they use the Multi-Dimensional gimmick/device so liberally that reality loses form and any and everything can happen at once. Rules fly out the window and poor writing and plot developments are easily glossed over by:

 

‘Ooh, look we’re somewhere else now’ or

 

‘Ooh, look who are you and where did you come from’ or even worse

 

‘Yeah that story actually didn’t happen here, it happened somewhere else, in another dimension’

 

The Big Poo (DC and Marvisney) have essentially ruined the Multi-Dimensional Device by having so many fucking dimensions with so many alternative versions of characters and planets that you can’t take any of them seriously. I always bristle when I see the character list of a comic on League of Comic Geeks and I see the characters have the denomination of ‘Prime Earth’ or ‘Alterniverse’ or the worst is ‘Earth 613’ really, 613 Earths or timelines where all your poopy stories can find a way to fix themselves after you’ve fallen asleep at the plot wheel? Yeah, fuck off.

 

I can just see that meeting at one of  the Big Poo when the idea of the Multiverse was put forth:

 

Marvisney Demonic Exec: So we can have all these versions of our best characters just pop in whenever we want?

 

Marvisney Demonic Minion: Yup, just call it a different earth.

 

Marvisney Demonic Exec: What about plot continuity?

 

Marvisney Demonic Minion: No need for it, just say you're on a different timeline/dimension.

 

[Several Big Poo execs spontaneously combust]

 

Multi-Dimensionality has also overwhelmed our world as well. I don’t know about you but I constantly hear about us ‘ascending to the fifth dimension’ and that ‘alternative timelines are being averted’ by, oh I dunno, a couple chubbsters in a yoga studio chanting and holding their fingers in a wild configuration while sitting on a pile of cooked mung beans.

 

The ‘Mandela Effect’ also speaks to multiple timelines. That whole thing drives me crazy and also hurts my head to think about. Look, it’s never been the Berenstain Bears it’s always been the Berenstein Bears, always! Where the hell is this ‘Stain’ coming from? Are you kidding me? And it’s Jif! Not Jiffy! Do people actually live in a world where it was Jiffy?

 

One theory I have is, and it is a waaaay out there retro Marvel cosmic theory, is that the wack jobs colliding atoms at CERN in Switzerland with that Hadron Collider actually fucked up and the only way to fix it was to hijack our timeline and sew it onto another timeline because the original timeline had us all exploding into nothingness. So here we are now super imposed onto this other timeline where weird shit happened and we’re arguing with alternative versions of ourselves or friends about whether it was Looney Toons or Looney Tunes, it was Tunes for God sakes!

 

Despite all these timelines and multiple dimensions, I still can’t get a date. Can we have a Mandela Effect where I’m dating and then someone can argue, no way, that guy never gets a fucking date! That would be nice. Somewhere on Earth 2,229,287 I’m dating a super amazing babe, I have a career and courtside Knicks tickets, comic books cost 35 cents and this blog is at the top of your news feed on your phone. Actually scratch that, that would mean I’d have to be writing for it every day, yeah, I’m too busy looking after my little princess.

 

Which finally finally finally brings me to this comic. We’re way in the future and a Mommy and a Daddy are off to find their way into this alternative dimension yet they get lost or captured and the kid in our dimension gets weepy about it. Obviously we have to find Mommy and Daddy now and let's bring our robot along. That's pretty much the premise in a pinch.

 

First off, the title sounds like a Norwegian Fusion Band from the 70s. Like this band would open up for Tangerine Dream. Second, and this is a big Second, the believability of this book went out the fucking window when they listed the year as 4040. Really? 4040? This looks like something that could happen in 2040. You telling me that we live in the same futuristic world in 2040 as we would in 4040. I mean, if you're coming with that 4040 Boom Bap you better have 4040 designs and a whole slew of that imaginative 4040 advancements in technology. How depressing. This is what we have to look forward to 2,000 years from now? C'mon homie, drop the hyperbolic year and just stick to something tangible. 4040 my ass.

 

Despite the absurd year the art is wonderful and I really enjoyed the landscapes of the parallel dimension even though I would’ve liked to have seen a buxom Morgana in a skin tight body suit somewhere in them. Apparently this dude Richard Blake, won a contest or something and I dunno, yadda yadda, up and coming comic book dude yadda yadda. This is him:

 

 

I mean, he’s the dude at a party where you’re like ‘Please do not start talking to me’. He’s drinking an IPA or a Chardonnay and he’s got docksiders on with no socks. His breath reeks of coffee and he wears too much musky cologne. Plus I'm pretty certain they photoshopped his invasive nose hairs out of this picture. At this party, Richard's girlfriend is flitting about and being super flirty with everyone. You can’t tell if she’s cute or not because she’s wearing a dumpy sweater and unflattering Capri pants, but you can picture these two banging each other and she's definitely a lot of fun in the sack. You figure she probably cooks a mean breakfast in the morning and that's when you realize Richard Blake has been talking your ear off for 10 minutes in a row while you've been fantasizing about his girl.

 

Yup, that's what I was thinking after I finished this issue. It went by really fast. This is one of those Image ‘Spaghetti Books’ where they’re just throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks. It sticks, a bit. There’s a piece of the pasta that’s elongated out from the wall, dangling aimlessly, just waiting for you to peel it off. I’m intrigued enough to see if it falls or not. Or maybe what I’ll do is rip it clean off the wall which will cause a schism between two parallel worlds! I’ll walk through the spaghetti fissure and track down my Earth 2,229,287 self in the bathroom at Madison Square Garden. I’ll strangle him to death and then make my way to courtside where my gorgeous lady friend awaits me dressed in a purple Knicks get-up. Problem is, I’ll be sitting next to Richard Blake. He’s sipping his IPA and interrupting me throughout the game as he tells me about exciting second arc that’s selling like hotcakes. I’m about to leave this annoying dimension until Richie tells me he’s buying Marvisney and DC with his Hexagon profits and hiring a consortium of comic geeks as editors. That’s when I fly out of my seat to go find the me that I murdered in this dimension. I need to dispose of him quickly so I won’t have to answer any questions. Then I can stay here, read great Marvel books, watch my Knicks courtside and hit on Richard Blake’s frumpy girlfriend who insists she’s polyamorous. 

 

Somewhere right now in multiple dimensions Richard Blake is sipping on ethically sourced mold free coffee ($42 a bag, whole bean) and listening to Chet Baker as he writes his Hexagon opus. With Richie, he's the same in every dimension, nothing changes except his frumpy girlfriend's wardrobe. I respect your consistency Mr. Blake. I'll read your opus so that I can critique it when we bump into each other at that party on Earth 5,432. In that dimension we get into a fight over your Frumpy but with me critiquing your work you're too busy brooding in a corner over your Zima to notice me hustling Frumpy into the bathroom with me.

Rating: 7.9

Verdict: Pull

 

September '23 Reading Round Up

 

 

That image of the great Cimmerian above is how I feel every time I walk into my LCS to pick up my books. The Big 2/Poo are raining arrows of crappy books on my head, trying their damnedest to tempt me with their flimsy stock and watered down plots. By Crom you shalt not have my hard earned shekels you corporate vultures! 

Lo, behold Marvisney as thy stock dippest below 80. Thou sayest thou wilt pour your ill begotten gold back into your amusement parks yet thy parks offer no amusement! They offer pain, suffering and a hole in the common man's wallet. Dip farther you scourge of beast. Sell thy Marvel properties at once! 

And you, you DC! Decrepit Caca! Where have thy Black Label Books of yore gone? Now it is drivel everywhere I look, have thy coffers gone dry due to your stomach churning cinematic experiences that have cost you everything you own and brought back nothing? Box office? Ha! More like a Pillbox Compartment! Perhaps thy new movie Aqua Douchebag (the lead is a Douche) and the Lost Kingdom is about you! You have lost your kingdom! Sell! Sell! Sell!

Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of my LCS and their comic racks I shall purchase no evil! For I have the comfort of my Conan comic from Titan and a pull list hidden far far away from thy scraggly fingers and shriveled nutsacks!

Anyway, here's what I got into this month. Happy Reading you Geekazoids!

I love me some Rick Remender. I may not jump on all of his series but you’re guaranteed to get a fully developed world with a deeply invested writer and creative team no matter the title. I will say that I feel like the endings of his titles are ever truly satisfactory for some reason. It’s not something I can put my finger on other to say that the endings of ‘Black Science’ and ‘Seven to Eternity’ weren’t truly memorable nor did they pack a serious wow exclamation mark on the series. Maybe that’s just his style. His newest offering is another great hook for a first issue. It’s another world you’ve never seen before with characters you’ve never laid eyes on. I wonder if they have cheap rent there, LA is getting ridiculous.

 

 

 

Black Cloak just finished what Kelly Thompson is saying was now their first arc, meaning there will be another. I enjoyed it to a degree but I gotta say I could not keep up with which Elf was which Elf and who did what and how to who and why and all the things that make up the basics of character relationships. Maybe they need to pull a Monstress and give you a rundown of the cast before each issue but unlike Monstress, you know, don’t put my brain in a vice and squeeze out its desire to follow a coherent plot. Meredith McClaren did some gorgeous work on this book, especially with the architecture and landscapes of this world created from scratch. Yet the faces pretty much all looked the same but with different fashion and odder names so, yeah, clean that up mmkay?

 

Also, did Kelly Thompson just write a story where the big reveal at the end was a nod to what is actually going on in our real world as it pertains to, umm, trafficked children? How the “You want to build a city on the blood of the innocent" is being used to run our world? Hard to say if she intended that to be the case or if it’s just another example of how the truth of what has been going on in our world for centuries is seeping its way into our everyday lives and pop culture. I’m sure Kelly would deny the connection but safe to say I saw it whether she intended it or not. Interested to see where this goes...

 

 

Tom King and Elsa Charretier are crafting a story for the ages. Love Everlasting just seems to get better with every issue. King’s writing was particularly touching for the final installment of the second arc. I’m not sure King is meant for hero books. I think he’s found the perfect genre, whatever genre you want to call this, for his distinct type of style. The germination of this multi timelined mysterious romance could be found in his disastrous Bat/Cat book of a year or so ago. I know he’s taking up the Wonder Whoa-man mantle which still has me a bit skeptical. Maybe he should take Elsa and Clayton with him?

 

 

 

 

Holy crap! Have I read two, count 'em two romance comics this month??? Synder’s Barnstormers is an absolute victory for the Romance genre, of which we need more of in this industry. More smooching you nerds! Less gross twisted fetishy nastiness like ‘Red Room’ or Gene Simmons’ ‘Dominatrix’, yuck. After a slew of middling and confusing three issue Comixology drops this is by far his most engaging and enjoyable. It’s Bonnie and Clyde in the air and it’s a fantastic read. Can’t wait to read the final installment which has already come out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Issue 46 of Monstress began with a cat being tortured by a bunch of other cats on a wacky prison colony wth a bunch of Seaweed lookin’ Gods in outer space. I can’t believe I just typed that sentence. Can we get a GoFundMe together and pay for Marjorie Liu to just end this series soon? I just can’t anymore. I have no idea what the fuck is going on with this comic and why but I’ve paid for 46 issues, actually 48, I’m behind for a reason, and I’ll be damned if I drop it this far into the game. C’mon Marj, end this psycho fest. I seriously check the Monstress solicits for the words ‘Final Arc’ as much as I check for the Disney Stock to drop under 70.

 

 

Oy, I've gotta pack for my flight back to La La Land. Excited to get back! I just heard from my friend that a homeless woman just pooped right in front of her upscale furniture store in Venice the other day. It's about time. San Francisco already has a human feces app for their city, it's high time LA catches up. Man, finding human poop everywhere, how cool is that? It's like catching those Pokemon everywhere except now its Poop-e-Man! I'm gonna find you little shits! Woo hoo!

 

 

FIRE AND ICE #1 - Review

 

          Not Intended for Children

 

In my heyday of online dating and yucky apps I figured out something very quickly: It’s a numbers game. You can’t get tripped up, disappointed or invested in anyone’s online profile until you meet up with them. All the back and forth, the emojis, the pics etc. mean jack diddly poo until you’re face to ‘what the hell is that, is that your face?’ with them somewhere out in the wild. So what that means is, as a guy, you have to like a shit ton of profiles with the hopes that one of them will stick. It’s like dispersing your swipe right jizz to the dating app universe, hoping that one of your little squiggly likes impregnates the mind of some unsuspecting rando who can’t wait to waste your time and get your loins all hot and bothered for nothing. 

There is a downside to all of this. See, you will eventually match with some sexy fun interesting girls who may or may not meet up with you. You will also match with a whole slew of girls who you probably wouldn’t want anything to do with if you actually saw them out in the wild but, since it’s a numbers game your like squiggles will probably reel a bunch of these girls in. These ‘Mnyeh, they’re okay, nothing wow’ girls will in all likelihood be more apt to meet up since, well, harsh but, they’re probably not getting asked out a lot in the concrete jungle of the real world. Which means you’re going to be getting dates with these girls. Now, in your mind you’re justifying the meet-up with them by thinking ‘Hey, I gotta put myself out there. I have to start putting this “I wanna go on hot dates” dating energy out there so I can actually get those dates into my life; big fucking mistake.

Sure, ya never know, these Mnyeh girls could turn out to be amazing, you might click and actually start seeing one of them. But in all likelihood it’s going to be an absolute disaster. Why? Because when they show up and you find yourself having a big fat zero on your attraction meter with them, the date is going to go downhill really fast. You’re either going to be polite and suffer through it or you’re gonna appear to be disinterested and upset which is only going to make her feel like shit and now you’re an awful inconsiderate douchebag who just wasted a perfectly lovely human being’s time because you’re working an angle/strategy on a computer program on your phone to somehow nab an Insta model. It’s terrible. It’s even more worse because when you do actually meet up with a ‘hot girl’ and they turn out to be an erratic psychopath who downs $15 espresso martinis like they’re water while she texts her ex DJ Boyfriend who has a Weed/Molly empire on the side, you’re going to want to never leave the house again. I experienced all of this back in the Heyday of my Dating App life. I would say now, I’m in the Nay Day of my Dating App Life but at least I have money for groceries which have risen by 50% under China Joe. 

As I mentioned in my last review, I had extremely high hopes for Titan Comics ‘Conan the Barbarian’. So much so that I couldn’t bear to actually open it up. I was tortured by the idea that if it sucked my comic book life would be finally ruined after a year of reading garbage from the Big Poo. So what did I do? I played the dating numbers game strategy with my comic pull and yanked this Fire & Ice thingamajig. Willingham, hmm, that Fables dude, never got into Fables thing but al least he’s legit and the art looks Frazetta-ish so, what the hell, how bad could it be? If Conan turns out to be a dud that doesn’t put out I’ll have this wacky book at the ready to fill my barbaric warrior story fetish. Well, Conan was amazing! It was like a scintillating perfect date with a babe that laughed at all your jokes, wore your favorite color and kept telling you about all her favorite dishes that she loves to cook. Your goodnight smooch is to die for but on your way back to your car you see you have a text from the ‘Mnyeh, she’s okay why not’ girl, reminding you that she’s looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night. 

That’s what this comic was. My goodness, if you could personify this Fire and Ice comic into a woman it would be a maniacal stripper with a nose ring, two tat sleeves and a flask of absinthe in her spiky purse that has upside down pentagrams all over it.

I think the purpose of this comic was to get you to jerk off all over it. In fact, I think that may be the purpose of all the ‘Dynamite’ books. Maybe the people who established this publisher were getting baked at a bonfire party on the Jersey shore that eventually turned into a circle jerk and somehow the term ‘Dynamite!’ was used when someone actually came. Then they thought, hey why don’t we use that name for our comic books and get every horny comic geek jizzing all over our comics like we just did tonight?

I mean look at their main titles! Their loglines boiled down to the simplest sentences are:

Vampirella - Hey guys, this half naked Vampire chick wants to fuck you.

Bettie Page - Hey guys, this long dead 50s Pin Up model wants to fuck you.

Sheena - Hey guys, this half naked Jungle chick wants to fuck you.

Red Sonya - Hey guys, this half naked red headed Conan type chick wants to fuck you and then kill you because you fucked her.

DYNAMITE!

I mean, this story starts off simple enough. A bearded teacher dude in primitive garb lectures his young students in the jungle about the kingdoms that exist on opposite sides of their land whilst the lithe athletic teen male of the group shows off his climbing prowess. Okay, fine, the art is fantastic, I’m into it. Then, Dynamite! They’re all dead the teen is captured and off we go into Half Naked Chick land! 

 

I'm not sure what happened next, the blonde teen kid is taken to a Witch babe and there's another Elvira lookin' queen babe on her knees and then whoosh, we're off to two bikini babes in a jungle land.

Then the Skin Ads come pouring in one after the other in this order:

It’s like that’s the real story. Ad 1 is saying ‘Take your pud out’. Ad 2 is saying ‘I said take your pud out’. Ad 3 is saying ‘Thanks for taking your pud out, now let me bang you and skewer you’.

I mean, there's these two pages where a pair of bikini babes are in the jungle and, it’s ridiculous. Like, you're not even reading the text bubbles, it's just naughty pose after naughty pose. I’m going to narrate how these pages would be scripted if the Dynamite Cum Comic Pervs wrote this story.

 

Fire & Ice: Naughty Babes in the Jungle 

 

 

Honestly, I think Dynamite should sell officially licensed tweezers for their books so you can use the tweezers to turn the pages which would free up your hand to do its Dynamite business. Look, I’m all for sexiness. I’m all for hot and heavy comics with real steamy relationships that stand firmly on a riveting plot. This just feels gratuitous, It feels like they don’t trust their plot enough so they saturate your eyeballs with tits and ass so you’ll forget about it. It’s a shame, I really love the art and I’m sure Bill Dubz can spin a tale, but this crazy Stripper book just feels too goofy for me. 

Like, why go through the trouble of banging the book whose mommy and daddy didn’t like her when I can romance a Conan book that clearly grew up in a loving household and never felt the need to get tats to rebel against her parents. Do you like girls with tats? I don’t. Freud says that tattoos are the external representation of internal trauma. I think there’s something to that. Like, you have so much pain inside of you that you have to represent it somehow on your physical body. That, or you just love the constant pain that comes with a needle jabbing you over and over as if it’s making you feel something that you personally aren’t capable of feeling due to your emotions being repressed. Either way, it screams ‘I have issues’ whenever I see a Woman who has a shit ton of tats. 

As for this comic, mmm, well, maybe if Image got a hold of this we’d have something interesting, but as it stands I just can’t walk around with my dick in one hand and this comic in the other. My doggie wants to go outside and pee and sunbathe way too often during the day so hanging around on my stoop trying to figure out if I want a Vampire, Jungle Chick or Red Headed Warrior in my fantasy while my junk is hanging out is probably not going to endear me to my neighbors too much.

I mean, I could probably hide behind and nut into the huge potted plant that’s in front of my building while I yell ‘Dynamite!’ but how am I going to feel afterwards? Like, what if my doggie gives me a weird look from her sunbathing spot, what am I supposed to say? Blonde Jungle chicks make me so hot I had to take this comic outside with me? I’m pretty sure that would have to qualify as one of the lowest points of my adult existence. Before you know it there I am, getting a tattoo of a pair of dynamite sticks exploding right on my butt.

 

 

Rating: 5.3

Verdict: Keep your Pud in and Drop

 

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 - Review

 

I drive a 1979 Camaro. It’s my only vehicle. I used to own a fancy shmancy Lexus but I got into an accident last summer that completely totaled the vehicle; the front of it looked like an accordion. It was a miracle I walked away from the car all but unscathed. My Camaro is my dream car. There’s a whole story about how I found it ten years ago, which I’ll save for another day but it was completely non-operational when I got it. The breaks didn’t work, it didn’t start, it took years until it did. After my accident I had two options, get a new or used car or, hmm, what if I just get my Camaro fixed up again? The car market is awful, my credit sucks, why not drive my dream car full time? So I did just that. It’s been a bumpy ride for sure. There were many months that the car stalled doing basic turns or by just idling at a traffic light but recently I had some work done on it; work that I thought was inconsequential. Well, turns out the work was the fountain of youth because now it runs like a dream.

 

When I drive this car, well, I feel like a man. I feel human. I feel like, yeah, this is what it’s supposed to feel like when you drive a car. Now, it still needs a lot of work and doesn’t have a horn or a radio or air conditioning etc. BUT it feels amazing. It’s also the safest car I’ve ever driven. I mean, this thing is pretty much Detroit Bad Ass Steel and Iron, it’s a fucking tank. If one of these new cheap fiberglass cars rams into me I might get a dent but their plastic microchipped car is going to fall apart. The cars on the road now are computers on wheels that do everything for you. Press a button and off you go. The EVs are even more ridiculous. First of all, the notion that you’re saving the planet with them is a complete scam, and, it feels like you’re driving a Roomba with a radio and four seats. You can have them. Give me a pair of keys that I have to stick in an ignition to start my car, where the engine hums like a gentle giant. That’s a car.

 

I say all this because it feels like humans are moving in two different directions right now. Some are diving headfirst into technology: AR, VR, AI, the whole megillah. Their lives are governed by devices from morning until night, if they can even differentiate between that anymore. Then there’s the rest of humanity who are retreating away from the Machine and returning to a simpler way of life. They’re buying vinyl records, gardening, getting a landline again, finding their way back to nature and the way things used to be. 

 

I say all of this in a comic book review because, well, I think we’ve lost our way when it comes to our comic book heroes. They’ve become hollow digital automatons in stories that veer far far away from the essence of who these characters were.  Sure there’s good stories out there, every now and then. But the Big 2 in general have become the Big Poo. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but their comics have become all but unreadable. They feel cheap. They feel like they’re trying to do to much. They feel like they’re just a cog in a machine. The art feels computerized. The stories feel like they’ve been pumped out by an algorithm. There’s something deeply unsatisfying when you finish a series; it feels like you just got taken advantage of. Like you open a comic book and there’s some invisible claw that grabs your junk. I mean, if the publisher was called ‘Grab Your Junk Comics’ okay, fine, I’m asking for it, but a regular old Moon Knight or Batman or Spidey or Hulk shouldn’t make you feel like you just got roofied. Maybe the MeToo movement is going to be replaced by the Big Poo movement. A harsh reaction to DC and Marvisney violated out comic book private parts.

 

I say all of this in a Conan review because, well, this book had hope. They dropped several pages of the prelude of this comic in a Free Comic Book Day book and it looked and felt unbelievable. It looked and felt like what a Conan comic should look like. It was like an Organic, Non-GMO, locally sourced comic free of fillers and micro chips. The hearts of Conan fans and possibly comic book purists must have skipped a beat upon laying eyes on the pages in the FCBD release. It was not hurdling towards some ridiculous reimagining of the character, it was not tied into an upcoming plus network’s TV line-up, it did not have the stank of an unimaginative suit sitting in an office with their minions supping at their anus for paychecks and validation. No, this felt real.

 

That being said, it took me forever to get to it! I know, the second issue is already out! What took me so long! Look, I was nervous! This comic had to be amazing. It had no margin for error, it could not disappoint. It felt like the fate of the comic book universe hinged upon its pages. The Conan license was snatched from the evil clutches of Marvisney by a small independent publisher who vowed to honor the character in a way that harkened back to its origins. Who knew what Titan Publishing had to do to get this out of Marvisney’s clutches? Did they have to venture with torches and machetes in hand to the catacombs under Disney Land? Did they have to confront a naked and frothing at the mouth Bob Iger and C.B. Cebulski in their fetish gear and riding crops? Did they tie the both of them in their Thor and Darth Vader sex swings and force to them to sign over the rights to Conan??? I bet. I bet it was even worse than what I just described.

 

So this comic had to deliver the goods. Because if it didn’t then it was all for naught. So this comic sat next to me for weeks. I anxiously wringed my hands and whined every time I laid eyes on it. If this was a dud what did I have to look forward to? Another mind boggling Monstress comic??? Ooh look, a new Black Label Batman book, some Gargoyle thing that was getting lambasted by reviewers. Awesome, can’t wait to be let down by that. Ooh, a new Daredevil #1 for the 85th time in the past 5 years. A new #1 with a seven fucking dollar price tag! Yeah, I’m sure that’s going to over deliver and wow me, right? A new Wonder Woman came out this week, I’m weeping just thinking about opening it. Sure, Tom King is literally murdering it on ‘Love Everlasting’ one of the best of the year, but, I dunno, he goes to work for DC and they somehow render his books into mush. It’s like they want his comics at DC to give you migraines; they must have a Big Pharma clause wrapped up in his contract.

 

Oh Conan, please be amazing. Please make me love you. Please make me remember what it’s like to actually read a great ‘Hero’ comic book again. It’s been too long. I feel like I’ve treated this Conan comic the way I treat a girl that I match with who is way out of my league. Like, I wait forever to actually message her, because the message has to be perfect. It has to be perfect so that when she doesn’t respond and unmatches with me I know that I gave her the best message she’s ever had. Yeah, my dating life is pathetic, but this comic, this comic messaged me back. This comic made me fall back in love with comics again.

 

It was so wonderful that I have to show you exactly what I’m talking about in an unprecedented personal video that I’m making exclusively for this blog. Something I’ve never done before. Here is the link:

 

 Conan #1 Video Review!

 

 

 

As for the story? They've got the makings of an amazing Conan adventure. I will say the 'Zombie' element that they've introduced feels a bit mnyeh. Like, they could have saved the Zombie story for a second or third arc but I trust this creative team to knock it out of the park and turn it into something special.

 

A Bitchin' Camaro, a real Conan Comic and Marvisney stock falling by the day. Life is Good.

 

 

Rating: 9.8

Verdict: Pull! Praise Crom!

DAREDEVIL #14 - Review

 

You always want to check in on your ex after you have a break up. You don’t want to actually talk or text with them, you just want to peek around the corner and see how they’re doing now that you’re no longer together. Deep down you probably want to make sure they’re okay, but not too okay. You want to see that they’re a bit sad but not too sad. You don’t want to see them strung out and hookin’ on Hollywood Blvd after your break-up which would clearly be laid at your feet as your fault. Even if you countered and said ‘I always knew she had a bit of dat street ho in her’ it wouldn’t matter, you’d be the asshole.

 

You also don’t want to see her flying around in a private jet and sipping champagne with some Saudi Prince as they look at their pics from their recent vacay at Sardinia. No, that would suck. She would always talk about starting a fashion line while you were together, but I mean, you don’t want her clothes being modeled on the cat walk at Milan just months after you stopped seeing each other. You don’t want her raking in millions while you’re wondering if she’s ever going to pay you back for when you took care of her new transmission back in the day. I think the actual state of being you want your ex to be in is miserable, numb yet functional; at least for like 6 months.

 

As many of you who follow this word drop know, I broke up with Daredevil 6  months ago. I couldn’t take it anymore. My final DD headache was reviewed here (link to review). I had enough with this meandering gloop of a story on an island with second rate losers and a WTF Elektra/Daredevil marriage. Oy, the whining and the moaning of everyone in this comic got to be too much even for this seasoned pro on whining and carping. Of course, I couldn’t really stay away. I had to, you know, I had to make sure it still sucked. Like, I couldn’t just let it take off and turn into a Bendis-Maleev type run! I couldn’t have Zdarsky flying around on Kendall Jenner’s jet eating sushi off her navel while sales of this fecuchte book went through the roof! Suffer Zdarsky! Suffer you reductive ninny! You’ve ruined two of my favorite comics! Bats and DD! What’s next??? Oh no you don’t, don’t you even think of driving over to the valley and having lunch with BKV to talk about writing a few ‘special issues’ during Saga’s inevitable break that must be coming like, tomorrow. STAY AWAY FROM BRIAN AND FIONA CHIP!

 

So, you know, I had to, you know, rifle through some Double D pages when I hit my LCS to grab my books. Yeah, I know, it was quite creepy. I’d show up in a trench coat, cheap sunglasses, a visor (a fedora was way too hot) and some latex gloves. I realize now it was a silly get up since my dog was still with me and I go everywhere with her; clearly it was me. 

 

There I was in the back of the shop, like a pervert in an Adult Video Palace in Times Square in the 80s, glancing left and right to make sure nobody saw me as I snatched a copy of the latest Daredevil and rifled through it’s grimy pages. I might as well have been looking at some smut, like the Tucchus Escapades of some Anal Queen, but no, I was reading Zdarsky porn. I grunted and wheezed, spit bubbles formed and popped in front of my face:

 

‘What the fuck is Daredevil doing, he’s going to hell? He’s got to go hell? Wait, Elektra killed him? Where’s the fucking? She would obviously fuck him and then kill him! Chip, you’re ruining Elektra! She’s not the Bride in Kill Bill, Chip!!!’

 

Slowly, slowly the issues got better until there he was, Daredevil in that White Suit, marching into hell to save his friends. It was pretty good. It wasn’t mind blowingly amazing as some made it out to be. It wasn’t a Saudi Prince on a Jet with an International Fashion Line good. It was a Douchebag with a weed habit from Calabasas in an Uber Black with a trending Insta page good.

 

As I wiped the froth from my mouth with the back of my hand and stuffed Issue #13 back into the comic book rack after it defiled my eyes and soiled my comic book life, I got to thinking:

 

Hey, wait a minute, this is just like Scott Snyder in ‘Night of the Ghoul’ where that story was an allegory for his discovery on how the industry really worked while writing for Batman. This comic isn’t supposed to be taken literally! This is an allegory for what Chip has had to endure in order to free himself from the clutches of Marvisney! It makes so much sense now. Clearly the Beast is just a representation of the deep dark evil that everyone who works at Marvisney prays to on a daily basis. Look at this fucking thing:

 

That’s who’s commanding the human dillweeds in Burbank to pump out more Star Wars junk and to run the MCU into the ground until it’s a pile of steaming dung.

 

So when Daredevil was traveling into hell to free his friends that was Chip! He somehow escaped from the dungeons under Disney Land and found his way to catacombs under Iger’s house where his original creative team was! Him rescuing them and filming the entire episode was the blackmail material that he used to stop this book from being written by AI Chip! It all makes sooo much sense!

 

You wanna know how I know that the real Chip is back on this book. Look at Foggy, look at how he’s drawn in this issue:

 

Who does that actually look like to you? It’s Ron DeSantis! Tell me that isn’t a spitting image of Ron DeSancti-fuckin-monious! With red hair! Totally RDS! That’s a classic Zdarksy 'Sex Criminals' move. This is him telling Marco to draw Foggy this way so that those who know the truth can see his victory. DeSchmuckis is symbolic of the fight he had to take to the heart of Disney since DeSchmuckis is also fighting Disney. Chip probably knew that Satan would absolutely haaaaate this, which is why he made Marco draw it.

 

This issue wasn’t spectacular, but it had soul. You could feel it. Soul, it’s what has been intentionally scrapped from all of Marvisney’s comics, yet Zdarsky somehow put on his Hero Boxer Briefs and scored a victory over the real beast of the Entertainment Industry. There was a whole lotta love poured into the final issue of this DD Zdarsky run. It’s heartwarming to see that he finally got to finish this the way he would have wanted the whole series to go. Beyond the Mega Event, beyond the Island with Loser Characters and Garbage Plot Points, beyond the clutches of true evil.

 

Clearly, Warner Bros. is still using Chip AI to write the Batman comic. Maybe that’s where he’s going next. Maybe he’s picking Matt Fraction up in the Dumb & Dumber 'Shaggin Wagon'!

 

Together they’re gonna stop time in the DC Offices and poop on everybody’s desk before smashing the main frame that generates the Chip AI. Maybe they’ll turn on an enormous Spooge Generator while time is stopped in the DC offices and when time starts up again everyone working on the Bat Books will get a facial; aww man, classic Chip & Matt.

 

I’m sure the new creative team for this title is already undergoing electric shock therapy and sleep deprivation that’s being given to them by a naked and manic Bob Iger in his bunker in the Mojave Desert. Maybe he’ll let them pump out a good issue or two before he turns on the AI for them. Whatever he does, let him, we know that Chip got the best of that son of a bitch and that’s all that matters.

 

So I am getting back together with Daredevil? Nah. I mean, we knocked boots, fo sho, a little ex comic sex, no doubt. But it’s still being run by a bunch of soulless psychopaths. I’ll take the next first issue out to dinner, make nice nice with it. My goodness, the next #1 issue of this series is 7 fucking dollars! Well, you know what they say, make-up sex is always gonna cost you.

Rating: 8.4

Verdict: Zdarsky triumphs over Evil