January '24 Reading Round Up

'Twas a busy January for yours truly but I found enough pockets of time to dive into some pretty exciting books including Somna, a fireball of naughty goodness. Could this be the sexiest comic book ever? Holy fuck-a-moley is Somna hot, wowza; more please? Yeesh, hubba to the fuckin' hubba. Look, I’m not into demons and all that but if a demon haunting and turning on some chick living during the Salem Witch Trials is what’s gonna get Tula Lotay all hot in her knickers to draw the panties off of this book then give me that dang demon!

 

They call this Erotic Folk Horror. I’m not sure that’s accurate, I mean, what’s folksy about it? The parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme falling from this chick’s dress as she demon diddles? I’m not scared at all. I’m scared this will end too quickly and I’ll be looking at the solicits when some other supernatural being will be whispering naughty nothings in a female protagonist. Ooh look, Fraction is writing a tale where a Kraken gets a Mermaid all hot and bothered, sweet!

 

All kidding aside there is some masterful art going on this book. Tula Lotay is on a major roll lately with Barnstormers being one of the last books I read of hers that she totally knocked out of the park. Apparently this is a 10 years in the making collab between Cloonan and Lotay. I didn’t know I was waiting for it but I’m glad it’s finally here. What a gorgeous spectacular work these two have created, bravo to them and DSTLRY for blessing the marketplace. Now don’t get corny! Keep that Demon sexy! I

 

Masterpiece - This was pretty good. Nothing wow but good. It’s way better than BMB's ‘Jagger Rose’ offering but not even close to ‘Pearl’ which was an all time great book. Bendis and Maleev are a dynamic duo and while reading this you’re thinking ‘Can’t they just do Daredevil every month for the next 50 years?’ As far as the whole ‘Billionaire is ripped off by a teenage girl’s parents who now are missing so Billionaire now goes after teenage girl’ storyline, it’s aight. Feels a bit dated. Maybe if Bendis made it very clear he was referencing a specific current Billionaire like Bezos, Musk or Gates this would be really cool. As it stands it’s just some anonymous wacko with beaucoup bucks, woop de doo. I’m down to follow along for now.

 

 

Gargoyle of Gotham – I wasn’t really into the first issue of this book, it felt a bit goofy. The Crytoon Dude seemed a bit over the top with his pronounced tears pouring prodigiously from his face as he committed his violent acts. Also, the overall cartoonish look of Grampa’s art didn’t seem in line with the heavy story he was telling. Then I pulled the ‘Noir Edition’ for the second issue. I didn’t know the noir edition was anything special, I simply liked the cover out of the 508,223 covers that a Bat Book usually has and pulled it. Well, turns out the ‘Noir Edition’ meant that it was all in black and white with no color save for red when blood was being spilled. And you know what? It worked great! Maybe the second issue was great anyway but the B&W feel really amped up the story for me. It felt like one of those black and white anime books. Also, the second issue kind of moved the Crytoon Dude aside and focused on these weird new characters which totally has me intrigued. Maybe DC should make all of their titles black and white. Maybe that will make them great - ah who the fuck am I kidding, they’ll still suck. But this? This was dope.

 

Wonder Woman – Tom King is writing the living bejeezus out of this book. He’s writing as if he’s got a gambling or drug addiction and needs DC to keep him on payroll to so he can keep funding his vices. There’s a lot to like about this new Dubz arc and although it still ain’t near the Azzarello/Chiang level it’s waaay better than the years of blecchhh this title has been enduring. Real quickly, DC, look, can you stop with these God Awful back stories that look like they were written and drawn by Freshman at the Kubert School for comics. They’re never fucking good, they’re just extra unnecessary pages that you fluff the comic up with to justify the $5 price tag. Think I’m wrong? Go ahead and release $4 books without them and $5 books with them and watch 95% of the sales go to the $4 book. They’re trash. Please tell me how I can opt out of back story bingo, thanks. I will say I'm a little on edge with how Dubz now has to fight a new rag tag cast of wacky characters in wacky costumes in the next installment. I'm sure some morally corrupted DC editor insisted on dredging up characters reject that had to be used by King; it's like a DC rite of passage. Luckily for us King's drug/gambling habit will force him to produce a genius outcome!

 

The Sacrificers – I have a rule when it comes to comics or any type of entertainment: I can deal with violence and gore if I have to do but if you stoop so low as to maim or violently murder pets or animals then I’m done; I will turn you off or put you down. Rick Remender, who I generally love, crossed that line with his 5^th installment of this book which is clearly an ode to the unspoken adrenochrome crisis that tears this planet apart. In this book one of the character’s minions gruesomely ripped the Princess’s pet in half. Yeah, fuck you dude. Totally uncalled for and a cheap way to elicit empathy towards your female lead. I will begrudgingly finish up this arc since I already have issue 6 but that’s as far as I’m going. C’mon dude, do better than pet murders, mmkay?

 

 

Red Light – So this comic is basically ‘An AI Hooker wants to escape being a Sex Slave’ story. The douchebag dude who ‘owns’ her made her in the image of his dead wife and runs an AI Hooker Brothel that’s armed to the teeth with guards and guns cuz, I dunno, maybe he assumed the Sex Robots would revolt or want to leave eventually? My existential question is this, should I really be rooting for an AI Hooker Sex Slave Chick to escape the evil clutches of the D-Bag Pimp? Like, isn’t it better to have AI Robot Hookers doing the Sex Work and being exploited rather than Humans? Aren’t we better with that? If we replace all sex workers with sex robots and lose zero in quality wouldn’t we want that? So, no more abuse, exploitation and sex trafficking of minors anymore, just, let the robots satisfy the pervs of the world? Should we feel bad for robots being used for nothing but sex? I don’t think so. But what do I know. I’m sure next week The View will have a sex robot on talking about the evil patriarchy and how it’s somehow Donald Trump’s fault that she’s a Sex Robot.

Where the Body Was - I usually don't review Graphic Novels. Actually, I rarely purchase them to be honest, I'm more of a serial monthly type dude. Yet with the comic book industry generally up in flames and hurdling to a slow death I'm forced to look for content to sate my need to enjoy sequential art with my coffee in the morning. Brubaker and Phillips are bonafide titans of the industry and put out nothing but amazing books. Seems like they've forgone the whole 'monthly' comic deal and have just been putting out graphic novels for the past several years. Their 'Reckless' series was fucking awesome. If you haven't checked out those books I highly recommend it. Their recent offering was garnering the usual gush and praise that they usually receive, but, I gotta say, it was...mnyeh. I mean, it wasn't bad it just wasn't OMG amazing. It was, I dunno, just O, no MG. I enjoyed it but, maybe save your pennies for the Reckless stuff. The big reveal wasn't even that big, it was just, kinda there. I will say, the sex scenes in the book were spicy. Are we entering a year where sexy stuff starts coming back? Oh please oh please oh please us.

 

Coming up, I bought my first Spider Man book in almost 15 years! Will it suck? Probably. Will I rip Hickman a new one? 100 percent I will.

CRAVE #1 - Review

 

Some would say there has been a concerted effort by the World Elites over the past several decades to depopulate the planet. They’ve introduced the Climate Scam and made people think they are in fact a virus, promoted abortions worldwide, poisoned the food supply, introduced hormone blocking chemicals into any and every product they could get their hands on, made porn accessible to anyone so that it’s easier to stay at home and get off rather than forage out and into the world for love and satisfaction. Fertility, birth rates and sperm counts are at an all time low everywhere you look. All of those are valid arguments to indicate there’s been an agenda to systematically eliminate humans. But the biggest tool used by the elites to prevent humans from meeting, copulating and creating children and families is:

Dating Apps.

 

Dating apps are a scourge on the planet. One could argue they have done more to disintegrate and antagonize male/female relationships than any other technological and chemical advance in the history of the Universe. Yeah, sure, blah, blah, people have met their soulmates and found love and great connections on these apps. But it’s probably the same percentage of people that win lotteries or win actual prizes from those scratch off games.

 

Humanity, if AI lets us stick around, will look back upon this period of Dating Apps many many years from now and wonder how men and women weren’t using ice picks and machetes on each other in the streets due to the inordinate amount of frustration and angst that dating apps gave them.

 

I think a great business idea would be to open a space where people could post the pictures of all the profiles that made them feel useless, used, ugly and unworthy so that they and other people could walk in and scream and throw rotten produce at it. It would be like an art gallery for ‘unemployed fake ass busta douchebags’ and ‘stank ass skeezy dick teasing hos’ that everyone has fallen prey to on these fucking apps from Hades. I think the High Ranking Demons came to the Pope or Satan or both one day and said that the world still believed in God and Love and they hatched a plan together to create dating apps so that people would not only stop believing in God and Love but question whether it ever existed in the first place.

 

I’ve tried every single fucking dating app. If my soul was a dick then it would be great because they have all sucked my soul dry. I wish I could get back all the time I’ve spent on these illusions. If you said ‘You can have a chance at every beautiful in woman the world on your phone’ or I’ll let you loose naked and covered in dung on a Victoria’s Secret party in the hills for 15 minutes I would’ve taken the naked dung offer. What. A fucking scam. It is the illusion of choice. Nothing but greener grass wherever you look and it’s ruined male female relationships or any type of preferred gender relationship for a long time. 

 

 

Why? The main reason is this: Why bother talking to that cute guy/girl on line at the supermarket or sitting with their friends at the bar when there are a hundred of them on your phone? Why bother dealing with the ups and downs of what it takes to get to know somebody you really like when you can just hit the reset button every day and find someone new on your phone? What dating apps have done is they have removed us from our lives and shoved our faces and our desires into our phones. So what happens is we miss life that’s happening all around us at all times. We forgo taking a chance or making a move that’s steeped in fear and possible rejection for the easier option of a swipe.

 

 

Now? Nobody talks to anybody anywhere. I used to talk to girls everywhere out in the world. Now? Nothing. You can just feel it. People are weirded out when a complete stranger starts chatting them up. Sure, there are exceptions but in one of the largest cities in the world (Los Angeles) we just move amongst each other in silence or in packs; there is close to zero interaction and it’s pathetically depressing.

 

 

So I was intrigued when I saw a comic about a dating app. Oh, you might ask, what’s the worst dating app/site of them all? Sorry, they all sucked in unique and interesting ways. I would say the most debilitating aspect of them all is that so many times I never knew if I was talking to a real person, a real girl or a bot.  Is this hot babe a dude posing as a girl, or maybe it’s a 400 pound bedridden meth addict in the middle of nowhere. That’s why I use the Raya app because at least they vet everyone on there and you can confirm they’re real with their Insta account. Although with AI these days, who fucking knows. Still, even with thousands of real people on the we screen for real interesting people app, nobody talks to anyone or messages back. It’s a thing.

 

 

Okay, so back to this comic. It fucking sucks, just like a dating app. I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like a bad CW Show if a CW Show was spam ads on your Insta feed. There’s an app called crave that gives you everything you want when it comes to whoever is on the app. It’s set in a college environment so it’s a controlled location and supposedly once you tell the app what you want it delivers it to you. Oh go fuck yourself. I’m insulted by how cavalier it just assumes acquiescence. A lot of the hooking up has to do with ‘Oh you want so and so, they’re here go get them’. So one scenario has a meek little loser ending up in an elevator with this hot chick. Now the hot chick doesn’t know anything about the meek little loser but we’re to assume that meek little loser hooks up. Yeah, no.

 

I mean, what the hell do I know? It is college and given how horny you are in college maybe this app works, especially these days with kids so sexualized. Back when I was in college we had ‘Let’s talk about Sex’ by Salt n Pepa and ‘Red Light Special’ by TLC as naughty songs. The most risqué video was the frikkin’ ‘Thong Song’. Now they got WAP. Like basically, they should just come out with a song now that says shove your stuff in my crotch and suck suck suck; call it ‘Suck Suck Suck’. Instead of the ‘Thong Song’ I’m wating for the song called ‘Cervix’. It’ll be five minutes of someone wailing in Autotune ‘Hit my Cervix Harder!’ Regardless, this is a comic and I need a, you know, a story, which would be nice. There’s some flimsy plot about a normal looking dude who has a blah normal looking uppity girlfriend that he ditches for this other hot blonde chick who ignores him but who is probably on the app doing naughty things and gee, I wonder, will he end up doing naughty things with her? Yaaaaawwwn.

 

Yes the hot blonde that grips this normal dude who has zero likability is the chick on the cover with the nipple tape. I would say as a rule of thumb if you see nipple tape at a chick’s place, run. Is there a preferred nipple tape brand or do they just get by with 3M or Scotch tape. I wonder if that’s like a convo in nipple tape circles. Maybe when you see a bunch of scantily clad hotties arguing in a club it’s not about men or where to shop it’s about the pros and cons of using duct tape as nipple tape versus caution tape.

 

Oh, that’s another thing, the roommate of the lead boring loser leaves for the weekend or something and before he goes he leaves a post-it note on a desktop monitor to warn his roomie to not use the Crave app. Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think college kids even know what a ‘post it’ is other than to mean put that reel up of you puking on so and so on your Insta account? And really? A desktop monitor in a college dorm??? Oh yeah, I’m sure college kids are all about old school 15” desktop iMacs, or are they Commodore 64s on their desks? How ridiculous, I’m gonna write a comic about a dating app and use a post-it note on a desktop monitor as a plot device. I suppose in the next issue our lead loser gets a message on his answering machine that he doesn’t get in time and he’s also unable to receive pings on his Motorola two-way pager. Oy vey.

 

Another major gripe that I have is I’m totally taken out of the story by this Maria Lovett person putting her name on a chunk of the panels. What is this shit? Is this a thing now? The dude who did Scott Snyder’s ‘Night of the Ghoul’ did this, some Franky Franachancavilla dude. Is this like comic book artist tagging? I get yanked out of the story when I’m reading it and I see a name on the art, like it just pops my imagination bubble. Look at this:

 

 

Those little circles in the corner, which are all over the comic, have her name in it and the year although the year is 2022 which tells me, hmm, what does it tell me, it tells me that there should still be zero references to post-it notes and fucking desktop monitors!!!

 

I will leave you with this. Here’s the thing with dating apps. I’ve met my share of girls off of the apps. Maybe one or two at most looked like their pictures and of them all maybe only one or two did I feel like I had an actual vibe with. Everybody else was a major disappointment or when we met it felt awkward and wonky despite our dozens of messages that we had sent each other. The reason being is that nothing beats vibe. Nothing beats the feeling you get when you see someone in person for the first time and it’s far more of a surer thing to get that vibe from meeting someone out in the world than it is to connect with them on the illusion that they’re projecting on the app. Period. Yes, I hear from many that this is the organic way of meeting somebody these days and to that I say, go fuck yourself. 

 

 

The tag line of this comic is ‘Tell us what you Crave – We’ll make it happen’. Okay, I crave that all dating apps would go poof and we’d get back to the joy of finding someone in our day to day lives again.

 

Crave? Swipe left.

 

Rating: 5.5

Verdict: Drop

THE BEST COMIC BOOKS OF 2023

 

                  THE BEST COMIC BOOKS OF 2023

Is the Comic Book Industry falling apart? Well, I think you can swap out ‘Comic Book Industry’ and put almost any business model, institution or political party before the words ‘falling apart’ and it would be an apt statement for this past year or two. Yet this year, more than any other, has been in my view one of the roughest years of comic books that I can remember. It just felt waaaay off. I mean, I hear how LCS retailers are constantly complaining about the publishers. I see how stores are closing all over the country. I hear the Comic Book Pundits (am I one? Mmm, not really) decrying the ills and missteps of the industry itself. Fans seem to whining and moaning left and right, what the fuck is going on?

 

Well, I can only speak from the experience of a dude who has been buying comics for over 40 years. What I would say is, mmm, it’s not that it’s falling apart it’s that it’s been reassigned. In other words, comics are means to other ends especially when you’re talking about the Big Poo (the Big 2). For these corporate death stars, comics feed into its inordinate amount of IP offerings that are charted on X & Y Axis graphs and all kinds of business degree mumbo jumbo bullshit that have basically ruined comic books. Sure, the independents are going strong. Wait, no, scratch that, Image is still going strong while other independents thrash and claw for a limited audience with either rehashed characters or gruesome over the top silly horror/sexy books. Dark Horse got bought out by a gaming company and their titles have also sunk to new lows of blecchh. Even Image, as wonderful as they are, didn’t knock a lot out of the park this year.

 

Here’s the bottom line for me: I bought 150 comic books this year. That’s the lowest amount of comics I’ve purchased since I started keeping track of it about 15 years ago. Back in the heyday of 2016-2018 I was buying over 300 comics a year. So what happened? Well, Marvel got bought out by Satan aka Disney and their comics became all but unreadable. 

 

I seriously root for Disney’s stock to crater every day with the hopes that, I dunno, they sell Marvel cuz they need the cash or don’t care anymore? DC? I dunno either, last year was the year of their amazing run of Black Label titles, this year? Pure poop. I don’t think anyone knows what the fuck to do or how to do it over in DC and it shows. Their recent Aqua Turd movie is dead in the water as was most of the garbage they put out this year. So when you have the Two Pillars of the Industry mired in caca it fucks things up for everyone else. One would think “oh there’s now a void to fill because Marvel & DC are churning out titles that look like the pink goo that they make McNuggets with” but it’s actually the opposite. Hate on them as much as you want but Marvel & DC are comic books. If they’re going strong everybody is going strong because that means butts in the Comic Book shops which means more sales of the independent offerings.

 

Here’s another reason why I bought less books: y’all raised the prices a bit too much. See, back in the day I could jump on a book for 5-6 issues, grab a mini-series for 4 issues, try out a series and spend about $15, woop dee doo. Now, every story arc/mini series is like $25-30, hmm, yeah fuck that! If issue one sucks, buh to the bye homie. Now I’ll check out the solicits for future issues to see what’s going on with the plot before I decide to pick something up whereas before I wouldn’t care, I’d just add it to my pull and read the whole series, because, well, I love comics. But I’m not trying to spend over $100 a month on comics right now especially since most of them are so disappointing. So with the quality of books in the toilet and the prices up it makes for a very nasty combination.

 

Mark Millar, who I’m not a big fan of but who I deeply respect as guy who loves comics, had this to say on what he thinks should be the fix for the industry

 

Mark Millar's Comic Book Plan

 

I wouldn’t know if this would work or not but it’s clear to me that something has to change. Somebody has to come in and clean fucking house at the Big 2 like Javier Milei is doing in Argentina. I need a Comic Book Geek of the People to go in the same way that Javier did and get rid of all the Editors and Ideological Fuckwits that have ruined Hero Books.

 

Yo Marvel and DC Dipshit Editors? AFUERA!

 

There’s a guy who makes amazing videos about the Comic Book Industry. I would say he is the true voice of reason for Comic Book Geeks like myself and it’s clear that he loves comics as much as anyone. I remember watching a video of his where he said that the Big 2 were more interested in the Variant Cover market than they were in actually making good comics. So, that makes a whole lot of sense to me. People are buying up covers at astronomical prices regardless of what’s inside so the more you poop out and the more you create artificial scarcity for them the more shekels you will make. That’s all well and good for your corporate hooker and blow budget but, yeah, sucks for us. If that is what’s really going on then we may not see the end of this downturn for a while until they cut back on these variants. You can check out this dude’s channel here:

 

Thinking Critical 

 

Anyway, as for the ‘Best of the Year’ it was a slog to say the least. Last year I chose a dozen books that were absolutely amazing along with some honorable mentions. This year? I couldn’t even find 10 titles that blew me out of the water. Not even 10 for goodness sake. I went over every week of my pulls and, man, I pulled a lot of stuff that ended up sucking ass. To be clear, this list isn’t of comics that were good, or decent or really good. This is a list of Greatness. This is a list of books that after I put them down I went ‘That was fucking awesome’ If I didn’t feel like that then it’s not on this list. So yeah, not that many to choose from but these did the trick, here ya go…

 

 

8. Deep Cuts - A series of stories that travel through the history of Jazz? Sign me the fuck up! Kyle Higgins and Joe Clark along with some bad ass artists deliver some wonderfully poignant and historically accurate tales that span the early decades of Jazz. I really wish this was an ongoing series rather than a standard ‘Six issues and we’re done’ affair. That’s something that would be exciting to dive into every month. I really loved the sheet music that they included in the back matter and the homage to Blue Note. This was Image's Golden Offering of the Year by far. For some reason they dropped three issues and then stopped in July but it looks like they’re picking up again in January. 

 

 

7. barnstormers - Dark Horse has been reprinting all of Scott Snyder’s Comixology’s Originals Digital Series into 3 issue Drops for the past year or so. One was atrocious (We Have Demons) one was mediocre (Night of the Ghoul) one was really good (Clear) but this one was downright awesome. I’d say the main reason besides an out of the box story of a death defying pilot and his forbidden love on the run is Tula Lotay’s spectacularly beautiful art that graced each and every panel. Bonnie & Clyde take to the air! What an absolute joy to read. Snyder’s got another one that just started, ‘Canary’ and so far it’s also a great first issue. Go Scott Go!

 

 

 

 

 

6. The Avengers: War Across Time - The best thing Marvisney put out all year by far was a Retro Series. What a fucking blast it was to read a story that hit on all the right notes from the Golden Era of Comics! They dusted off some dude named Paul Levitz who was probably busy noshing on a pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Deli and made him pop out a paean to what made hero books great: bright colors, silliness, goofy and sexy dialogue, gravitas, time machines and buildings and streets that were always being destroyed or spewing lava men. I’ve been saying for years that Marvisney should just publish monthly facsimile issues of their great titles like Spidey & FF & The Avengers on a monthly basis so it could give us the feeling that we’re reading them as if we were living back in the 60s when they first came out. But that would be too much fun, so, that won't work these days.

 

 

 

 

5. Love Everlasting - The second arc of what very well might be Tom King’s masterpiece of a series upped the ante and the wow factor on what already was a perfectly executed story of Joan Peterson and the multiple timelines of deadly love that follows and torments her through all of her lives in all of the different eras that she has lived in. Written in the style of a dimestore comic book romance this mind trip of a book just kept getting better and better from issue to issue. It’s one of those rare books that you really get excited about when you see a new issue pop up on the solicits. Elsa Charretier is officially an Art Super Star and I will follow her work wherever she goes. I will also say that so far King's first few issues on Wonder Woman are quite good, the best Dubz story I’ve read in ages! Tom King comin’ wit da ruffneck bidness in the two three boyeee.

4. Batman: City of Madness - It was a really tough year for my homie Bats. I just could not get into anything that he was in. All the books were just blah or refried plot beans. Sean Murphy ended his beyond brilliant White Knight run on a ‘ehh, that was cool but not great’ note then handed it off to his wonderful wife and a putz who wrote a series about the Joker’s kids which I couldn’t stomach. I suffered month after month begging the Comic Book Universe to deliver me a majestic Bat Book and it finally answered my prayers at the very end of the year with Christian Ward’s eye popping beast of a book. My goodness, give this man an ongoing series for the next five years! In a year of cheap fake meat Bat burger stories this was the Wagyu patty with the Goldleaf Bun story that beat the bejeezus out of them all. Hopefully this is the beginning of a new run of great Black Label titles.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Rare Flavours - The creative team behind one of the best comics of the decade ’The Many Deaths of Laila Starr’ returned with another magical tale that invoked the earthly representation of another Hindu deity. This time around it’s a Raksha or demon that fancies itself as a type of cannibalistic Anthony Bourdain. Each issue just feels like an event as you’re transported away from your life and immersed into a fully realized elevated world of monstrous beauty. I feel like these two had a conversation that went something like 'Should we tell the Demon Bourdain story now or should we wait?' as if they were waiting for the perfect moment to unleash this gem of a story on humanity.  Ram V and Filipe Andrade have that uncanny artistic synergy that doesn’t come along very often in comics. Catch them while you can. 

2. A Vicious Circle - Only one issue of this mind blowing three issue series was released this year, over six months after its first issue which was released in December of 2022 but oh what a fucking issue it is. The art in this comic is absolutely astonishing. Lee Bermejo puts on a clinic on how to turn a comic book into art gallery material. I suppose with the amount of assumed work and attention to detail that went into each of the first two issues it’s understandable why it takes them so long to release them. Mattson Tomlin’s exhilarating time jumping story of mortal enemies does more than enough to keep up with Bermejo’s legendary work. A book like this puts publishers and creators on notice. This is how it’s done. This is how you make a statement to the world on why comic books matter. Despite it being limited to only three issues this is a time traveling book for the ages.

1. Conan The Barbarian - By Crom you did it! You wrested the Conan license away from the evil clutches of Marvisney and showed the entire planet how to make a Hero Book. True, this Cimmerian isn’t like the heroes of neon tights and inter-galactic superpowers but make no mistake, this Barbarian slashed his way through those mangy curs to the top of the heap of the comic book world this year. Oh, what a joy to experience the true unbridled love that the creators of this comic most certainly have for this character and for them to have the courage to present him in all of his glory. In a pathetic world where nitwits, meager mealy mouthed toads and spindly cowards froth at the mouth with their idiotic claims of toxic masculinity, Titan Comics had the balls to say ‘Yeah, fuck that, here’s Conan’. 

 

And yes, it wasn’t just their approach, Jim Zub’s writing and Roberto De La Torre’s art was as perfect a match for Conan as you could ask for. What an absolute triumph. If you’ve never read a Conan story before you could actually pick up the first arc of this book and know exactly what it’s like to read one of the best from the past as it feels just as authentic as any of Robert E. Howard’s offerings. Perhaps this is the future of comic books. Is it possible for a group of hyper excited artists and writers to somehow get the licenses from all of our favorite heroes and start them over for us? Can we join Conan on his pirate ship with Belit and do a hostile takeover of the Hulk, Spidey and Iron Man? Can we have Scott Snyder and Christian Ward storm DC's offices with guns blazing and take Batman from them? 

 

Is this the way? Will there need to be a Comic Book Civil War? Drastic times call for drastic measures. Titan's 'Conan' reminded me how amazing it is to read a heroic tale. Yes, all genres can be found in comics but it's the heroes that really shine the most. It's the heroes that we can't find in our world, lifting buildings, shooting lasers out of their eyes, flying above us, it's these heroes that we find next to the staples of the pages of our favorite childhood titles that inspire us the most. And yes, we're adults and we have jobs and responsibilities now that go beyond these tales. Yet these tales remind us of what can be, not only in the world but within ourselves. They reminds us that life is a magical journey where anything can happen at any moment. The improbable victories over evil that we read in the pages of strong iconic heroes can somehow give us what we need to overcome the obstacles that we face in our lives.

And so as we turn the page on another year I see hope for a return to this glorified experience of reading comics that sit in our hands, not in our computers. I'm not sure how it will happen but I know it's possible. 

“There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage,” - Conan

 

Happy New Year - Issac

RED LIGHT #1 - Review

 

I went to college at NYU many many moons ago. I was in the acting program and one summer we took a production that we had created within our program to an international theater festival in Amsterdam. Yes, all the clichés and expectations one would think of having a bunch of randy actors let loose in Amsterdam in the 90s were true. However, yours truly was and still is not at all interested in the drinky, druggy, smoky stuff. So while many were indulging in the pure hedonistic release one would expect of an artist in their early 20s, I was the lone teetotaler. The ‘no, thank you, I’m good’ weirdo. I hit the museums, wandered the cobbled streets, searched for good loose leaf tea and avoided the temptations.

 

Of course it became patently obvious to my collegiate colleagues that I wasn’t joining in with their debauchery. I had to do something for goodness sake. It’s Amsterdam! So after a few days it was somehow decided by the group that I had to be convinced to go to the Red Light District and hook up with a hooker. I was the Prince guy. Dude, we’re literally in Erotic City! Go bang a ho, it’s legal! Now, at this point I was still a virgin so I wasn’t too keen on having my first ever be some pay for play European chick behind a fucking window. Yet the clamoring from behind the smoky haze of hashish didn’t stop so one night I relented and went by myself to the Red Light District.

 

 

To my surprise it was packed. I found it bizarre that an area dedicated to sex and chicks shaking their stuff behind neon windows was somewhat of a tourist attraction. Now, having lived in New York for so long I was used to streetwalkers, nudie film houses and xxx shops but this was different. It was cleaner and, I dunno, a Rite Aid for Pussy? So, I sighed and went shopping for ass. Yeah, it was not as glamorous and exciting as I thought it would be. I mean, the fantasy is that drop dead gorgeous girls are wiggling and smiling in their booths, beckoning for you to come inside and have the time of your life but that wasn’t the case it all. It felt like everyone was bored out of their minds just sitting there. This was way before iPhones, so there wasn’t anything that they could do while waiting for a customer other than just hang out. I mean, sure, some were working it but for the most part, well, I kinda felt bad for these women.

 

I ultimately decided I had had enough and was making my way back to the hotel when I came upon a side street and there was a lone window at the corner. I approached it and, holy bejeezus, this woman was unbelievably beautiful. She looked like a Victoria Secret model. I started huffing and puffing, I was going to blow that window down. I sheepishly approached, she noticed me, sized me up, wiggled her fingers hi while delicately smiling at me and then went back to staring at the floor. I noticed a placard on the edge of the window and took a looksee…it was a menu. A sex menu. Like, if you wanna do this it’s this much, if you wanna do this it’s this much etc.

 

Now look, I’m Jewish, okay. Once you start quoting me prices Jewnomics are officially in full effect. So it went from a possible sexy life changing encounter to wondering if I just wanted an appetizer, a steak or the tiramisu. Now instead of flirting I'm calculating time, space, dickstance and if you can haggle with a hooker. And well, that was that, I walked away. I mean, if I had gone inside I totally would have been trying my best to get the best bang for my buck! This is why I’ve never been with a hooker because I know her intention is to get me to finish as quickly as possible while mine would be to squeeze every drop out of the hour, if it was an hour.

 

Like, if I was about to blow ten minutes in then I’m running to the bathroom and calming down and I bet she’d be running after me to try and get me to finish. I’m not cumming until 59 minutes and 59 seconds baby! Get away from me! I’m thinking of maggots and mold and my 8^th grade Math Teacher Mrs. Panacelli, get thee gone!

 

Anyway, this comic. Well, obviously I was intrigued by the Red Light and thongy tushy cover. So the premises is this: there’s a brothel made up of AI Hookers and one AI Hooker is the darling of the dude who created the brothel. Of course she’s the best one and ‘feels’ more than the others do. Sure, whatever. The hookers are pretty much abused to the point that clients are breaking their body parts (only to be fixed like a mechanical vehicle later) and they’re not allowed to leave. So, pretty much just like anywhere else. The guy who put this whole operation together apparently had his wife die recently so his reaction was to create an AI Hooker chick who looks just like her. Once a week he invites his AI Hooker Wife upstairs to dine at a fancy table and then to get banged with a view of the city.

 

So my first question is, if we’re talking about AI Robot Hookers, why the secrecy? Like, is AI Pussy just as illegal as Human Pussy? Like, shouldn’t it be viewed the same way a Video Game Arcade is viewed? Instead of let’s go play Donkey Kong let’s go bang Honey Wong 3.0. I get that the whole argument of whether or not AI has a soul or can develop one is a thing but I’d definitely lean on the side of ‘a program/algorithm is a program/algorithm’. It just feels like this brothel is some underground illicit operation which doesn’t make sense to me if we’re just talking booty machines. I mean, that's a really interesting question. If AI Robot Hookers are walking the streets can you arrest them for prostitution?

 

Second, so, you’re telling me that a guy loses his wife and what he decides to do is recreate her as a robot hooker so he can make money off her while taking a crack at her once a week? Yeesh, was he in love with his wife? That’s one seriously fucked up way of showing it: “Baby, if I ever lose you I’m gonna have someone Frankenstein your ass, literally, and have the world tap it’. I mean look at this guy:

 

 

Serious Douchebag-aroonski. Here's the thing. A guy like this is not going to put all this energy into creating a Robot Cooch Empire. He can 'I'm a Wealthy Asshole' himself into any pair of panties that he wants. You know who would create a Cooch Empire, a nerdy, skinny, loser POS who hates humanity and hasn't been laid in ages. I'm thinking somebody like that cringy fuckwad from the World Economic Forum that hates humans and wants to feed the world bugs: Yuval Harari.

Yeah, this dude. This dude is the kind of dude that makes an AI Hooker Brothel. He should be the D Bag that sends for the AI Hooker once a week to dine and bang.

 

Interestingly enough, in the back matter the writer gives quite the vulnerable explanation of her experiences with men and what her approach was to this comic. She confesses that her choice of men is so bad that her therapist told her to run in the opposite direction whenever she feels something for a dude. This is her. What a cutie:

 

 

So in some way, our Hooker chick is our writer. Look here cute Asian babe, I am totally rooting for you to escape this Douchebag Paradise and find your way to a coffee date with a nerdy nice guy like me. If Ms AI Hooker can do that I will crown you comic book of the millennium! Like, it’s a 4 issue series, so if in issue 4 she’s in sweats on a couch rooting for a skinny guy’s fantasy football team while her AI program is figuring out what sandwich to make for him next then that would be a story for the ages! That would get the AI Hooker industry off to a rip roaring start ‘No, no, they’re not AI Pussy Robots, they’re AI GFE Babes who are awesome cooks and like vanilla sex’. I think that’s gotta be the selling point for the Tucchus Machines.

 

Mnyeh, this was okay. Priscilla Petraites art was pretty damn good and definitely elevated the story. Usually AWA, Scout or Boom comics have really cheesy art, but then again now all Marvisney and most DC books have cheesy art so clearly the lines have blurred. I'll come along for the ride Cute Asian Writer Babe if only to say:

 

'Hey is the new AI Hooker vs The Douchebag comic out this week?'

 

 

Rating: 7.1

Verdict: Pull

 

November '23 Reading Round Up

 

This was it. The last chance for a Black Label book to reclaim the glory it found in 2022. It was Charlie’s final chocolate bar to find the golden ticket in, ‘Batman: City of Madness’. My goodness this year has been dumpster fire for the Big Poo (Marvel and DC). Marvel has become unreadable and DC has been a hit and miss of mediocrity and failed potential. Last year DC’s Black Label was King of the Roost with short form mini series that just exploded off of the page. The stories were phenomenal and the art was breathtaking. I don’t know what happened from last year to this one, perhaps budget cuts? Hubris? Too many cooks spoiling the comic book broth? Whatever the case was it was clear there was serious drop off in quality despite the prices being the same or higher. Sounds like my Groceries!

 

All the elements were there: Christian Ward, an absolute art beast and titan of the industry doing a Court of Owls story. Ward is like one of those people in those house renovation or restaurant renovation shows where a bad ass comes in and turns everything upside down and gets you crying by how good it is by the end of the episode. This HAD to be amazing. If it wasn’t my faith would be shaken to the core. Hero movies are officially garbage and now you’re telling me that no matter who works on a hero comic it will be garbage too? Oy vey.

 

Well, it wasn’t trash. God Bless you Christian Ward. This book fucking rocks.

 

I have to wonder though, am I gushing over how amazing this book is because it is actually amazing or has it been so long since a Bat Book blew me out of the water that now that one has come along after all this time that is halfway decent that I’m overlooking any flaws just so can I be happy in my Bat Place again?

 

I just met somebody actually and we’re getting to know each other. I’m officially crazy about this girl but I have to wonder, is it because she’s truly amazing or is it because I’ve been wandering through the muck and death of the dating world for so long that when somebody normal and beautiful comes along I melt into a puddle.

 

I think that’s where we’ve arrived when it comes to comic books these days. We’re left swiping through series just looking for that transcendent book that reminds why we love the medium so much in the first place. I think our culture of art in general, art across all mediums, has been in serious decline for quite some time now. Perhaps that’s intentional, perhaps they want to make it where we’re so used to junk that now they only have to put something out that’s halfway decent for us to lose our minds. I wouldn’t doubt it. At any rate, Batman: City of Madness was an absolute joy to read. The art was predictably ‘Christian Ward Wow’ and the call back to Snyder’s All Time Great ‘Court of Owls’ storyline was done just right. We can all breathe a sigh of relief, well at least I can, there is hope for Bats and Black Label. Marvisney? Oy, I dunno, that’s gonna take a major detox. Seriously I think the entire company needs to have Jack Nicholson’s Joker show up to their offices and say his classic line ‘This Town needs an Enema’ and then literally give everyone in the building an enema because Marvisney if completely full of shite.

 

 

Anyway, here’s what I also got into this past month:

 

Hey! This got really good! I kinda trashed the first issue a bit as it meandered and felt half baked and basic. I also laid into the writer, Richard Blake, because, well, it was fun to do. Yet the second issue really upped the ante as the main character and her AI Robot Detective Buddy worked out the kinks in a virtual world before embarking on their quest to find her parents. Again, it doesn’t feel like for a second that this takes place in the 31^st century but the overall feel and look of the book is really intriguing and I’m looking forward to what comes next.

 

 

 

Superlatives. Exclamatory praise. Ebullient page turning. More superlatives. A contented exhale of ahhh followed by a gaping maw of ‘wow that was awesome’. The first Conan story came to a close after four issues. I can’t find a single thing wrong with this book. It’s impenetrable. It’s impervious to criticism. It’s what this industry desperately needs. It’s the pinnacle of what any Conan fan could possibly ask for in a comic. Turns out they’re also coming out with a new batch of ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ comics which may make me spontaneously combust while whinging Crom take me!

 

 

 

 

 

Boy this started out sooo frikkin’ good and it ended up so mind bogglingly bad. I was over the moon for Kudranski’s treatise on what creativity means and how it manifests in our lives as seen through the life of a special kid who’s imagination is so real he can see it before it exists in our reality. Halfway through this first arc the kid became an adult and then he got transported to the land of imagination and well, it got goofy as fuck. There was the predictable sabotage by his repressed anger which manifested as a nightmare that took down this amorphous world that never felt grounded or real. Seems like Kudranksi infused a bunch of psychological stuff into the plot, from inner child work to shadow work and trauma work. It kinda devolved into a cheezy 80s horror movie. Like something you’d rent at a Blockbuster when all the other good movies were already gone. They say it’s coming back next March but I won’t be coming back with it.

 

 

Is there a way I can subscribe to Jeff Lemire? Like, just sign me up for whatever the hell he’s working on. Just drop it in my mailbox whenever it’s done. I’ll take scribbles on napkins or voice memos or even a crumpled up idea from his trash can. It’s not that Fishflies is the greatest comic ever or that this story is going to change the world. But everything Lemire does is so uniquely his and presents worlds you’ve never seen before in a way that draws you in to the point where you have to see it to completion. I wish Lemire could give me dating app and texting tips. Is there a Lemire Pick Up Method? Can he write one? Please? The Lemire Wingman Camp?

 

 

 

Yeah. Sorry Murph. I love ya but oof, this is rough. I really wanted to love this but, yeah, I just can’t. Looking forward to White Knight Wonder Whoababe and Justce League of Knightly Comic Geeks. Not much else to say here other than, well, sometimes the greatest of the greats put out poop. Lord knows I’ve done it and will continue to do it in my art. It happens. You just have to keep squeezing ‘em out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is kind of a spoiler. I’ve only gotten through issue three of ‘The Sacrificers’ but, umm, well, is Rick Remender writing about Adrenochrome? He's introduced this royal elitist class of deities, an oddly drawn mishmash with elemental attributes of fire, water and air. There's this ominous character who collects children from the peasants of the countryside. He shackles them and takes them up this mountain where they're tricked. They think they've been blessed with an abundant feast in a paradise. After living it up they're taken to a salon to be cleaned up but rather than being given a haircut a long needle penetrates their brains and their essence is sucked from them. 

 

A bluish liquid is then vacuumed from their corpses and it is immediately filled up in the chalices of the elite in their party in the clouds. One of the victims gets scared and due to their state not being one of joy their liquid turns brown and has to be discarded. Adrenochrome is extracted at the highest state of fear so this is the opposite of that but, hmm. Remender are you making a comment about this? Is this a sneaky way of waking people up to this horrific crime that has been perpetrated upon humanity for many many moons?  If it is then I applaud you for bravery. If it isn't and you just though this up then, yeesh, this is some dark subject matter. Maybe you should've called this 'Black Science' instead.

That's all I got! Lots of interesting new titles I just grabbed from my LCS and many of them are sexy erotic ones, grrrr, hopefully they won't suck. Please don't suck! Unless you're doing a promotion with a blow-up doll or a pussy mold I'm tired of buying books that suck! 

Also, later this month I'll be posting my 'Best Comics of 2023' article. It's been a rough ride but some definitely fit the bill. Happy Reading!