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!

WONDER WOMAN #2 - Review

 

After a promising first date with Double Dubz main title I’m back for more. Whether it’s punishment or a handy in my La-Z-Boy remains to be seen, maybe it’s both! I would love to get into a serious relationship with WW but man, she’s been a tornado of confusing story arcs that have made my eyes bleed for a long long time. Now the King is back on a DC book and issue one was probably the best start to a new Dubz arc that I’ve seen in over a decade. Problem is, I’ve seen this from Tom King before on a hero book. A title starts off like gangbusters and then it slowly devolves into mulch. Given his recent work on the spectacular ‘Love Everlasting’ title which has gotten through two scintillating arcs without a single hitch, I’m willing to give him a little more leeway. It’s kinda like after you break up with someone you see them doing all these amazing things on their socials, like detoxing, doing yoga, rescuing an animal, wearing a sports jersey, having a garage sale for all the things she stole from you while she was at your house; aww she’s being entrepreneurial.

 

So for second dates I’m a big fan of an activity assuming you did the standard meet for a drink/coffee for the first. This can manifest as a hike or cycling somewhere together. One of my favorite down low second date ideas that I don’t feel many people use quite often is a bowling date. Bowling dates are awesome! You see her bend over, she sees you bend over, grrr. There are high fives and silly dance moves in clown shoes; it’s the best. If your date can’t let loose, have fun, be silly, banter or be competitive with you then I feel it’s clear that it’s going to end badly regardless of how much of a babe she is. Well, that’s what happened in this second issue from King. I took Dubz bowling in her sexy AF golden dubz outfit and she pretty much just pouted on the plastic seats, insisted that she bowl barefoot and didn’t high five me once after I hit a ridiculously hard spare. Oh, and she just threw the ball at the pins, no dude likes a show off ladies.

 

 

 

First off, I would like to say that I think King writes his fucking ass of for this issue. His dialogue, narration, structure and descriptives are through the roof. I particularly love this line that Dubz says:

 

 

Secondly, it’s abundantly clear that Tommy loves him some timelines. Seems like every book he’s on has multiple or concurrent timelines running in them; maybe we should call him ‘The Timeline King’. This issue is no exception as he juxtaposes his present day story with Dubz as a kid challenging an Amazon in Themyscira twice her size during the Amazon trials or games. This time around it works wonderfully as both stories really play off of each other and color in the moments between Dubz as a kid and as woman. So for now, The Timeline King has got it poppin’, let’s hope he doesn’t drop 3 more timelines in issue 3, ya never know.

Speaking of Themyscira, I looked up the spelling just to get it right and saw a question on the search results that asked “How do they reproduce in Themyscira?” Here was the answer:

 

To reproduce and keep the Amazon race alive, the Themyscirans raid ships on the high seas and copulate with men. At the end of the mating, they take their lives and throw their corpses into the sea rather than marry them. Triumphant, the Amazons return to Paradise Island, and wait.

 

Is this right??? Holy shit! I didn’t know this! How is any of this okay? A bunch of psychotic Six Foot Black Widow Savage Babes jumping on a ship and banging a bunch of dudes and then killing them??? They toss their dead bodies overboard? And the world of superheroes is okay with this? Like, wouldn’t the word get out,

 

‘Yo here come those pycho chicks in the shiny armor and the swords, do not let them onboard and everybody think of banging Kathy Bates and Jill Biden! Get those dicks into turtle mode boys!’

 

Can’t they just order some baby juice online with a bunch of turkey basters? Oy. Anyway. So this issue, while immensely enjoyable, does fly off the rails a bit. First, Dubz is just by herself in the valley of some desert waiting to take on the US Army for what I assume is their face off over whether Amazons should be rounded up and kicked out of the country. There’s some dude in a suit who’s smoking a cigar who is running the Army operation that is sending Steve Trevor back and forth between he and Dubz before the attack starts. Why is it that all comic book army douchebags have to smoke cigars? Nick Fury, General Thunderbolt Ross etc. Is that really a thing? Has anybody ever met a General or Army Dude that smokes a stogie while on the battlefield? Seems a bit contrived. I feel like Generals would be more apt to be cokeheads than stogie suckers. I mean what seems more realistic, dudes like Thunderbolt Ross or J. Johah Jameson smoking Cubanos before continuing their obsession over finding and killing the Hulk or Spidey or the two of them doing a shit ton of rails off their desk before turning into the lunatics that they are?

Anyway so Dubz in so many words says in her thought narration that she knows exactly how this will go based on her training. First it will be the aerial attack (bombs) then the cavalry (tanks) and then the infantry (soldiers). So they send a barrage of missiles that hit her point blank and explode all around her…and she walks out of the cloud as if she was pelted with some soft serve ice-cream. Now, at that point, if you’re the fucking US Army, wouldn’t you be like ‘Umm, we just rained a shit ton of missiles on this chick and she deleted them like they were fake dating profiles’ wouldn’t you go back to the drawing board??? You wouldn’t say ‘Okay let’s send in some tanks and if for some reason they don’t work let’s send in some soldiers to fight her at point blank range’. WTF??!!? How stupid must you be if you think tanks and soldier dudes can outdo a barrage of missiles???

 

So the Tanks come and all of a sudden Dubz turns into the Incredible Hulk:

 

 

 

Seriously? Was she always this strong? I mean, I haven’t read Dubz titles like I’ve read Bats titles but I don’t remember ever seeing her whip objects as big as tanks around like she’s from Krypton. Is she invincible? I get the Warrior Bad Ass vibe but making her impervious to missiles while tossing tanks around like I do with doggie plush toys for my little princess seems a bit over the top.

 

That said, King leaves us with a solid cliffhanger/plot development at the end of the issue, so, I dunno. I mean, the 2nd Dubz Date was decent. She looks  great. She told some amusing anecdotes. Maybe she lied a bit but, you know, that happens when you're trying to impress someone. Clearly there's a bunch of red flags here but it's not like she's going to steal my little fur baby and take off to an undisclosed location in Palm Springs or set fire to my piano. I'll give it a day or two and text her a cutesy message, maybe send her a meme. 

 

I'm down for another date but we are far far far away from entering into a relationship. But who am I kidding? It's not like I got options these days. Dubz is the only babe on my phone giving me any attention. It's like that Eddie Murphy joke, when you haven't had sex in like forever and you finally get some it's like getting a Saltine cracker after not eating for several days.

 

 

Wonder Woman #2 in 2023. The best Saltine Cracker on the Stands.

Rating: 7.7

Verdict: Pull

GONE #1 - Review

 

Welcome to Comic Book Inflation everyone! Where Organic Non-GMO Non-Big 2-Garbage is gonna cost you an arm and a left nut. You want those cheap half dozen comic eggs that make you feel yucky after 6 issues then you'll pay your plebian 4 bux a book. But if you want grass fed stories made by comic farms that don't pump their creators full of anti-buy-otics then you're gonna haveta fork over at least 8 buckaroos or more. Enter DSTLRY and it looks like they’re putting their comics on the shelf at Erewhon which is the fancy over-the-top gourmet luxury grocery store here in LA where you can’t leave the store without dropping at least $20 or more and acknowledging that your chakras are out of wack..

 

I think we’ve slowly been nudged by the comic book industry into the land of ‘Plus Books’ even though they’re not telling us directly that this is what’s been going on. I mean, look at the landscape of comic books these days. For the most part, buying four dollar books is like eating a box of cereal called ‘Frosted Crunchy Stuff’ which is the fake yet cheaper version of Frosted Flakes. I don’t want to lump Image into this conversation because they’re still pumping out consistent greatness from their factory but they too have ventured into the land of pricy books.

 

Here’s the deal, if you want ad free, top shelf creators dropping deeply engaging books on high quality card stock or prestige format you’re going to pay almost double what a normal comic is going for these days. My response to this is, sure! It’s obvious you’re saving the goody good stuff for these formats so why should I continually bang my head on a wall by reading the cheap shit, it’s literally not good for my health just like it’s unhealthy to buy cheap chemically laden garbage groceries at the normal people grocery store where everyone is just contributing to their inevitable cancer diagnosis. Sure there’s good, maybe great cheap comics out there (looking at you Conan by Titan) but you’re going to have to comb through the solicits with a fine tooth comb to find them.

 

DSTLRY is a new imprint with the best creators in the biz that is promising the best monetary deal for those said creators so they can deliver us the best comic book content in the universe. Fine by me. They recently dropped an anthology book to celebrate their new imprint which included half baked stories from the great comic booky minds who had signed on to be a part of this imprint. The anthology was pretty much a wild mess save for one or two really good micro-stories. People were gushing about it, the ads on my socials were going bonkers about how it was going to break new ground and deliver ‘Oh my effin’ God never seen before’ content. It would be content that would get me to either spontaneously combust or content that would inspire me to wrap the book around my dick and walk outside naked with it. Yet if you want to get that Cock Sleeve content you’re going to have to pay $9 a book. That’s the deal. DSTLRY has officially called out the cheap books as just that, cheap. What started as a Black Label revolution last year from DC has now been taken up by these folks.

 

Jock, you’re first up to bat homie. I love me some Jock. His Bats Black Label drop from last year, ‘One Dark Knight’, was without question one of the best bat books of the year. The dude just puts out quality time after time after time. You could not have picked a better lead off hitter to start your line of comics; my man is like Rickey Henderson. The story is simple enough although I am completely exhausted over having to read another dystopian world book again. Seriously people, can we write a non-dystopian world book? Like, a world where everything actually turns out great and it’s a story of the putz who didn’t turn out great, something, anything other than a dreary techno world where the regular people crawl on their hands and knees in rags and crusted snot to scrounge for food and their dignity. In this world we have a kid (who I thought was a boy until way late in the story where it clearly is a girl) who is stealing food from space ships in the fancy elitist part of the city to bring back to her Hunger Game slovenly ghetto shit hole of a neighborhood.

 

Obviously this hits close to home because Los Angeles is slowly turning into the slovenly ghetto shit hole that Jock says is centuries ahead of us. Soon, perhaps by December, children of the next generation will be scurrying out from the shanty towns of Downtown LA with schemes in their minds to rob the Great Erewhon of their $43 Raw Goat Cheese and $150 sashimi sampler. These ruddy faced pigpen rugrats will have the proper tools to break the case that holds the $850 an ounce Manuka Honey so they can victoriously return back to their pisspot dwellings while sipping on market price reishi tonics.

 

 

For this story, the rugrats are joined by some older counter revolutionary scruff bags to steal the food off of a ship. The ship takes off before they can leave and what was supposed to be a basic food run turns into a sabotage mission that our lead rugrat gets wrapped up into. Jock really takes advantage of the prestige format to show off his penchant for making gorgeous splash pages. The enormity of the ship is really conveyed by the art; it’s a beautiful issue. That said, it's not a groundbreaking story by any stretch of the imagination despite the marketing telling you otherwise but there's enough substantive plot to bring you back; she's got model looks and actually reads books.

 

Look, here’s the thing, I would’ve bought this comic no matter what. I didn’t need all the bells and whistles by DSTLRY to tell me to do so. This could’ve been released by any publisher under the cover of night, anonymously tucked away on a solicit and I would’ve found it and purchased it. I didn’t need the countdown on the website. I didn’t need the yawn fest of an anthology to hype me up for it. I didn’t need the onslaught of targeted social media ads telling me of this ‘Cosmic Event’. I certainly don’t need your $100 variant covers and $300 plastic mascot. I don’t need your limited runs or digital cut offs. I could care fucking less of your alcoholic inspired imprint name. Dude, just put out good shit, period. All this hoopla from DSTLRY is completely unnecessary if you ask me. They’ve got the best in the business. You don’t need anything else. If you were hyping up a bunch of unknowns that would be one thing. Like, if you just grabbed a bunch of amateurs from an open mic and said ‘Here’s the best comics in the world, you’ll laugh until you pee and shit youself’ then the marketing would be warranted. But if you put together a show with Dave Chapelle, Louis C.K. and Bill Burr, do ya think that people would pay to see it? Or would you have to call it a cosmic event and have an Asian artist make a $300 plastic stand-up comedy mascot for the show to sell tickets?

 

If they just called their imprint ‘Pricy Good Shit’ it would have been more honest. Maybe they should just save all of their marketing money for their creators which could in theory knock off a couple bucks from the cover price. Bottom line, this is a really really good comic and worth the price tag. This is what a comic book should be: engaging, compelling, deftly written and beautifully drawn. Unfortunately, we’re at a point in the comic book game where it’s become like buying organic produce. If you want a pesticide drenched pink lady picked from a tree that’s glowing from radiation, then by all means buy your $4 comic. But if you want an apple that actually tastes like an apple and not a gummy bear from a factory in Seoul, an apple that won’t make you infertile and bleat like a donkey every five minutes then you’re gonna haveta pay at least $8 for one. 

 

Maybe this is the world that Jock is really predicting for us. A world where you’ll scuttle along the pavements avoiding the AI sensors to find the LCS that has actual comics written and drawn by actual humans. A world where the elite will board a spaceship and eat real meat, have real sex and read real comic books. A world where I'll be sitting in my VR rocking chair telling kids in my VR connected world of an astonishing time where I only paid $8 for a real comic book. They'll flood my senses with WTF emojis and call me a lunatic. They'll tell me that there's no such thing as real comic books anymore. They've all been destroyed except for one that floats in the same vacuum sealed container that Bob Iger's head floats in and that's guarded by heavy AI artillery. I'll ask who runs the facility and the security that guards this floating head and real comic book? They'll answer 'The DSTLRY Corp'.

 

 

Rating: 8.4

Verdict: Pull