June '23 Reading Round Up

 

As my pull list dwindles to close to single digits due to what seems to be an inordinate amount of mind boggling unreadable drivel being offered by the Big 2, I find myself cherishing the few comics that do bring me joy on a monthly basis (or whenever the hell they get one out basis, looking at you Saga).

I've written about how after finishing 'Avengers: War Across Time' that I now yearn for a return to the books of old when plots of books with heroes in tights and shiny metal get-ups were simpler and the execution was flawless. Will Marvisney or DC issue a complete facsimile run of their greatest titles of the 60s and 70s? Highly unlikely, but ya never know. There's still great stuff out there geekazoids! You just have to dig a little harder and assume that you're gonna pick up a bunch of duds in the process; unfortunately the duds may cost close to 10 bux.

Are you reading Love Everlasting? Why not? You like comic books right? Tom King’s brilliant second arc is turning this series into what might be his masterpiece; it’s that good. I did see that he was taking over Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, all his DC Superhero stuff has been really disappointing. I haven’t read Double Dubs in forever. Last time I did was during Azzarello’s and Chiang’s unbelievable genius run. When was that like 12 years ago? Based on this title I might give King a pass for his past and see if he can transfer the glory of this book over to the invisible jet babe.

 

After Bendis’ walloped a homerun with last year’s ‘Pearl’ I’m on board with anything that has his name on it, at least until I’m not. I didn’t know this Murder Inc. was a thing and had dropped a bunch of story stuff several years ago. As far as I can tell the Mob runs most of the US and two immensely attractive Mob tools are summoned to the Vatican by the Pope who looks like Da Brat during the 90s. Sure, why the hell not?

 

 

 

 

I've said this before but it bears repeating, we should all be thankful that we were alive when Saga was releasing single issues. What a treat it is. Saga is more than a comic it's a cultural event. What other comic in history brings so many disparate personalities under one roof that is a letters column. I mean hell, somebody proposed to his girlfriend in a letter in one recent issue and in the latest issue she wrote in and said that she said yes. [In my gruff movie preview voice] In a world where comics suck ballz and eat away at your debit card. Where heroes are written by suckas and ten dollar books hook you in and then get deez nutz all the live long day one comic said, yeah fuck that, one comic rose above the dreck and brought the ruckus to all you Big 2 Mofackus. Not Chana Sag. Not Saggy Aftra. Saga. Sahhhhguhhhhhh.

 

Here's what else I got into this month:

Star Signs #1 - 5.0

 

White Knight: Generation Joker #1 - 6.7 

Avengers: War Across Time #5 - 9.0

 

Clear #3 & The Scott Snyder/Giancarlo Stanton Parallel 

Arcade Kings #1 - 7.1

That's it people, Happy 4th! I will be living through a veritable war zone in LA as people literally plaster the skies for hours with explosives. Anybody have any doggie earmuffs send 'em my way!

ARCADE KINGS #1 - Review

 

The best part of growing up and going to middle school in Northern New Jersey was the pizza, the parks, the proximity to Manhattan and…the arcades. When you’re a teeny tweenie and you don’t have to worry about making it to Hebrew School right after school there was nothing better than rushing to the arcade with a pocket full of quarters or a five spot ready to be turned into a mound of quarters with plenty of time to kill. 

 

There were two arcades on South Orange Avenue right up the street from the middle school. One was in a bike shop called Motorsport where the cool older kids went who cared about yucky girls and lighting up blah blah blah. The one where all the dorks, nerds and weirdos went was called South Orange Amusements (dorkaroonski loserville right?). It was bigger, had better games and nobody cared who you were or what you looked like, as long as you had button mashing and joystick skills you belonged. You would head there with your friends and then split up to your preferred game once you entered its hallowed linoleum tiled palace. The only reason you would run into each other again is if you quickly crapped out of your quarters and then had to harangue your homie while they played their pixelated addiction of choice. 

 

This arcade had everything you could ask for: Pinball, old school, new school you name it. It even had Dragon’s Lair, the holiest of holy video games which looked unbelievably cool but cost double the price of a regular game and was insanely hard to boot. Have you ever played the original version of Dragon’s Lair? It’s bonkers and the only kids that were kicking ass at the game had Richie Rich stacks of quarters next to the machine since you died every 15 seconds. Of course watching the cool kid who would actually own and beat the game was a sight to behold. 

 

My video game of choice was Popeye. Yes Popeye! It was amazing! I think it spoke to the soon to be romantic at heart in my prebuscent peach fuzz mustachioed body. The game was a pretty basic platform game. You had to catch hearts that Olive Oyl was tossing down to you from the top of the screen while Bluto chased after you. If things got close or screwy you could eat a can of spinach and get the strength to wallop Bluto which would send him careening across the screen while you snatched up hearts galore.

 

One of the great crowning achievements of my youth is not me reading from the dusty Torah scroll with no English to help me during my Bar Mitzvah, not walloping a homer in kickball after being picked last for the umpteenth time, not winning my class Spelling Bee BUT beating the high score in Popeye which garnered me a free South Orange Amusements T-Shirt. Boyeee! 

 

 

Anyway, all these memories came back to me when I saw the solicits for Arcade Kings come out. I legitimately became excited to read this book. I assumed it would bring back all the feels from the 80s arcades and take you right back to the time when life was simple when your jean pockets had three dollars worth of quarters; finally got around to reading it and boy was I wrong. I really have no idea what I just read. I can’t even categorize it. Maybe a mish mosh? An eye splattering colossal WTF? I mean, it felt like some cheesy 80s type cartoon. Actually it felt like a modern Cartoon Network show that was trying to vibe like an 80s cartoon. It was bright with bold colors and over the top emotional moments, but it did nothing for me; it felt a bit hollow as if Burnett was caught up more in the 'isn't this cool that we're doing this' rather than investing us in the world and its characters.

 

 

Make no mistake the art by Burnett was fantastic but it felt more like it should be hanging in an art gallery than it did sitting in my lap in a sequential art book that desperately needed a compelling story. From what I got, McMax, some legendary Fighter has a son named Joe who now roams around with a wonky Dragon Fruit Helmet on helping kids in arcades beat bullies who dare to challenge them. At some point some hyper toddler with a controller that controls an enormous robot challenges Joe to a Robot fight and mayhem ensues. We later find out that Joe has a brother and that his aging and now sickly Dad is actually McMax and he wants him home for what appears to be ill-intentioned reasons. 

 

Mnyeh. 

 

 

I guess I was expecting more arcade shenanigans and Karate Kid type drama rather than a family on the rocks with a now psycho dad drama. Hey, it's not awful by any means but for $8 you gotsta come wit da ruffneck bidness Burnett! The story flew bye with oversized panels and the glorified artistic style. Right now I'm looking at a book that has Joust/Dig Dug/Galaga potential. You're gonna need to ratchet this up to a Dragon's Lair/TMNT 4 Players-At-Once level or I'm dropping this faster than quarters from my Wrangler jeans went into Popeye at 3:22pm on a Tuesday.

Rating: 7.1

Verdict: A couple more quarters left before I'm out

CLEAR #3 - Review (The Giancarlo Stanton Parallel)

 

 

I’ve figured out something about Scott Snyder: He’s Giancarlo Stanton of the New York Yankees. Well, not exactly Giancarlo, he’s not created from his DNA or vice versa. No, Scott Snyder is the Giancarlo Stanton of the Comic Book industry. I mean, it’s a perfect match if you look at it.

 

Snyder burst onto the scene in 2010 at the same time that Stanton was a rookie. Snyder’s hit smash ‘American Vampire’ garnered him a bunch of awards, a Homerun if you will, while Stanton’s first two seasons solidified him as a titanic bat in the Marlins lineup.

 

In 2012 Snyder’s ‘Court of Owls’ Batman run was in full swing as was Stanton’s swing. Court of Owls, in my opinion, will go down as one of the greatest Batman storylines every written by anyone in the history of the character; yes it was that good and solidified Snyder as a veritable star. Stanton on the other hand, notched his first All Star appearance in 2012 and in 2014 came in second in the NL MVP vote to Clayton Kershaw, a Pitcher. I’m of the mind that pitchers already have an MVP award, it’s called the Cy Young – but whatever. Also, in 2014, Snyder put out ‘Wytches’ another monster hit that to this day is the best Horror comic I’ve ever read. News has it that Amazon Prime is making Wytches into an animated series, huh? Deep exhale.

 

In 2017 Snyder created the 'Dark Knights: Metal' mega oogah boogah crossover crossdressing event that probably involved every book in the DC Universe and probably somehow found its way into some Walking Dead comics over at Image as well. Snyder was: The Man. In 2017 Stanton crushed a whopping 59 homeruns and received his overdue MVP trophy. You might say that for both of these dudes, 2017 was the peak of their superpowers.

 

 

In 2018 and beyond Snyder kept writing more Batman Metal books that cost a whole lot due to the heroic duo of Snyder and Capullo creating it along with the fancy shmancy metallic glossy covers that all the books had. I don’t know about you but the entire ‘Metal’ run was, mnyeh. Nothing to write home or online about. I could just see DC Suits standing all over Snyder at his laptop as he wrote the series telling him to keep putting in obscure DC Character after obscure DC Character because DC is obsessed with bringing back moronic loser characters from the 60s that should stay in the 60s. I’m looking at you Mr. Mxyzptlk and Martian Manhunter!

 

In 2018 Stanton was traded along with his ginormous contract to the greatest sports organization in the history of the planet: The New. York. Yankees. Boyeeee. He had a really good first year and then injuries ruined the next two years with the team. I would say the Snyder ‘Metal’ run also injured my brain, my wallet and my view of Snyder as one of the best to ever do it.

 

In 2021, Stanton came back and, well, he had a really solid season but it was by no means earth shattering and it definitely wasn't a 30 million bucks a season good. In 2021 Synder signs an 8 Title contract with Comixology Originals. He’s three titles in and so far the books have been middling at best. ‘We Have Demons’ was a cool concept but it was an absolute mess of a plot and just devolved into gore and run of the mill ‘I love you and miss you daddy’ sniffly stuff.

 

‘Night of the Ghoul’ was also a huge disappointment. I broke that down here and then I made a case as to how Snyder was actually writing about how he refused to be initiated into the elite during an occult ritual under the Getty Center; that's here. Apparently it’s now in development as a feature film over at 20^th Century. Shouldn’t 20^th Century have changed it’s name to 21^st century by now? So now we have ‘Clear’ which actually homered in its first issue but grounded into a double play to end the second issue. As I’ve stated before with these three issue drops it’s almost impossible not to pick up the third issue if you’ve already picked up the first two; you feel silly. As has been the case with the first two titles, the debut issues were good enough and intriguing to motivate you to get the second issue which tanked in both instances. So what, you’re just gonna stop reading? Don’t you wanna see how the story ends? Sigh. I mean, not really. It’s just five bucks, then you’ll have all of the issues. Sigh, fine, it’s Scott Snyder, right?

 

See what I did there? I went for issue 3 of a series simply based off rep alone. That’s what’s going on with Stanton right now. He’s all rep no production. But you still will watch him when he’s at the plate because, jeez, look how big he is, look at those swings, if he gets a hold of one he could hit it to Myanmar! But he won’t. He’ll strike out in big spots with the game on the line and you’ll curse his name but next week he’ll be up in the 9^th in a tied game with the crowd roaring and you’ll get your hopes up all over again. Snyder's series have become Stanton in the 9th with 2 out and runners in scoring position down one - you wince, pray and assume the worst.

 

That’s what I did with this final issue of ‘Clear’, got my hopes up and, well, it actually came out alright! I’m going to spoil one of the plot points here so if you’re planning on reading it you might wanna scroll down. First, I think that entire subject matter surrounding augmented realities and the need/addiction for humanity these days to perceive something other than what their life or the truth is through the lens of an altered perception is ripe for all sorts of creative projects. I’m deeply interested in this as a whole. In this book we get ‘veils’ which provides the user with their own filter to see the world with.

 

Something that Snyder incorporates into this futuristic world are WRKS, robots that perform all the menial tasks of this futuristic reality. Well, turns out the robots aren't robots after all. Once you take away all the veils and filters and actually see reality for what it is you'll find out that the WRKS aren't robots at all but naked muted people...with scowls on their faces. There's something about them working off their debt or being promised a nice place in Alaska or something. I hate to say it but I wasn't thrown off or disgusted by this plot twist. 

 

See, I live in Los Angeles we have actual WRKS here right now. They're called valets, baristas, Uber drivers, Whole Foods counter people. They're not naked (which is a good thing) and they do smile but they're generally treated like robots and their big promise or dangling carrot is the hope that one day they'll be bonked into the water on the newest season of 'Wipeout'. I think all politicians should be forced to be a contestant on 'Wipeout' before being allowed to hold office and if their approval rating dips below 40 they have to go on the show again slathered in coconut oil. Anyway, the ending was definitely solid, nothing to complain about. There was a nice little diatribe about how if regular folks were shown the truth they still would deny it and want to rush back to their veils, spot on that.

 

Look, this wasn’t a Homerun that’s for sure. I'd say it was a ground rule double, a deep shot to left that bounced fair and into the stands. Despite all of the misery and disappointment I'll keep rooting for Stanton and buying Snyder books because there's got to be some thunderous moonshots left in both of them. Synder's got another 3 issue series dropping soon called 'Barnstormers: a Ballad about Love and Murder'. Fuck. I'm all over that. Dammit. Well, I think my entire Stanton Parralel was spot on, I mean, look what I just found.

 

 

That's Snyder and his kids at last night's Yankee game. I swear I had no idea he was a Yankee fan until I googled the name of the Barnstormers comic which I had forgotten. Dammit Scott, you're amazing, just, I dunno...crack one out of the park for me like old times would ya? Oh and crack Zdarsky on the head and take over Batman again, mmkay? Thanks.

 

Rating: 8.7

Verdict: Cuz it's 1, 2, 3 issues for Snyder in the Ol' Comic Gaaaaaaame.

AVENGERS WAR ACROSS TIME #5 - Review & Facsimile Request

 

Fun Fun Fun, that’s what ‘Avengers: War Across Time’ was. At some point the Big 2, DC & Marvel, lost the element of fun in their books. Everything became sooo serious or so commodified as they had to tie into something other than the book itself, a movie, a game, another book etc. I would say a bunch of DC Black Label books last year nailed the fun factor, especially Catwoman: Lonely City. My goodness that series was amazing. I’m not sure what’s going on with Black Label this year, seems like the spigot got twisted off and the steady stream of inventive forward thinking fun books got shelved for other mnyeh take it or leave it stuff.

 

Paul Levitz and Co. truly captured the essence of fun that made Marvel books so great in this limited series. It felt like you had snagged a tattered comic that had a price tag of 12 cents in the upper right hand corner from a musty comic shop located in a closet in Brooklyn. The characters were bright technicolor over the top heroic heroes with corny one liners and a knack for being able to say ‘stick together’ and ‘let’s get him’ in a myriad of different ways. There was a ridiculous myopic power hungry intergalactic villain in a shiny purplish metallic outfit snorting up universes and worlds like a maniacal coke addict from the 80s. What more could you ask for? Crumbling buildings. Streets collapsing into underground kingdoms populated by Lava Men. Laws of Physics, Time & Space suspended completely with an utter disregard for consequences of future issues and future storylines; the stakes were high AF. 

 

Why was this approach abandoned completely? It seems like hero comics of the past few decades have been wired to find ways to prove to us that these heroes are actually real and exist in our world rather than allowing us to find ways to escape into theirs for a brief moment. I bet some Marketing Schmuck wandered into DC & Marvel’s offices in the 2000s and gave them the ‘relatable’ PowerPoint presentation. You know the one where suits and creatives are convinced that entertainment has to exist in a way where the audience has to relate to everything that’s going on with what you’re doing.

 

So, the Hulk needs therapy, Iron Man needs AA, Cap needs an enema, Batman needs a reiki massage, Supes needs a hug from Daddy blah blah blah. Just reading this series, I mean, the way the world is these days I don’t want my heroes dealing with modern day nonsense, just beat some wack job with a time machine up and kiss a babe at the end for goodness sake. A book like this is something you look forward to, you know you can just sit back and relax into the world because of the very fact that it’s not yours. I will say that the ending did seem a bit rushed though as the Avengers, who were sent through a time portal by a shaken Kang looking for a pause in their battle on his world, saw future iterations of themselves only to end up back in 60s New York. Feels like Levitz had more story to tell but I’m guessing the cell in the dungeon he was being kept in under Disney Land needed to be cleared out for some new Pop Star so they needed him to wrap up the comic.

 

I have an idea for Marvisney. I just read Iron Man #1 (1968) one of the facsimile issues they just put out; it was stupendous. Fun Fun Fun. Look, Marvisney, your current books are mostly poop and cogs in your machine; fine, you do you. Instead of just randomly popping out facsimile issues here and there why don’t you release facsimile issue RUNS of all your great books: Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Iron Man etc. How fun would that be? As fans, we’d get to read the comic books in sequence as if we were living when these spectacular titles were released for the first time. Release these facsimiles monthly. Reprint the first 100 issues of each. Maybe find a way to make the art feel not so overly bright and matted; gussy up the quality a bit. Make a big deal of it, charge I dunno, $5 a book, maybe add some extras in the back like original art or whatever. You telling me these things wouldn’t sell out faster than a CabbagePatch Kid in 1983?

 

Guys, you don’t have to do anything other than reprint, publish and ship and - boom, another revenue stream. Yes, I understand that all these comics have been reprinted in compendiums and addendums and oversized oogly boogly fancy tomes that get gifted to comic geeks over the holidays. But this is different. This is giving retro fans the feel of actually reading the original books as if they were being printed for the first time. Release 3 or 4 main titles, 100 issues each. What’s that? Two grand for 100 issues of each of them from each comic geek? That not good enough for you? Hell, DC, why don’t you join the fun, do it for Detective Comics and Action Comics. Why. Wouldn’t. You???

 

I’ll tell you why. I think I read a reason for why this hasn’t and won’t happen, because the Big 2 don’t want the competition from their own brand. In other words, if these reprints outsell their current titles then it makes their current titles look really really bad. I get it. That’s a bad look. But here’s the deal, maybe, just maybe that would be a sign for your current books to change course and incorporate some of the old into the new as they move forward into future stories. I mean c'mon, most of what the entertainment industry does these days is recycle the same stuff over and over or pop out sequels, how is this any different?

 

I dunno, seems like a slam dunk to me. AND. Make it so those coupons and ads in the back of the comics are real! C’mon. I never had the pennies and bucks when I was a kid but I am dying to send away for some Sea Monkeys, a book from Charles Atlas on how to get muscles, and 10,000 plastic army men in a bag.  

 

I also might be up for a paperboy route. I've always wanted to chase after John Cusack and wail 'TWO DOLLARS'!

Rating: 9.0

Verdict: Pull

BATMAN, WHITE KNIGHT: GENERATION JOKER #1 - Review

 

We’re back in Spinoff-ville with the White Knight multi-quasi-verse. It was thought that the last issue of ‘Murphy the Great’s’ White Knight run was the last of its kind until we found out in the final pages that it was not. Clearly DC freaked the fuck out realizing that their best Bat Title of the past several years was about to go bye bye so they doubled down and now we’ve got Murph working on White Knighting Double Dubs and the JLA while his pudgy mop topped apprentice and his wife babe drop this ‘Joker’s Kids’ series.

 

Admittedly I was bit nonplussed about the shift to keep going. Emotionally I was geared up for a final/this is it issue of what has been a stellar game changing run of an Alt-Bat-Uni only to find out – it’s not. It was kind of like what happens at the end of summer camp when you’re a kid. You’re saying goodbye to everyone, you’re crying and hugging people you never hugged. Confessions are made, smiles are received from kids who never talked to you or about you except when they were plotting to wrap you up in toilet paper and hang you from the entrance to the swimming pool. So imagine instead of waiting for everyone’s parents to show up to take them back to their regular lives the Camp Counselors went ‘Psyche! We’re going to stay here through September! You don’t have to say goodbye!’ Umm, awkward. I just cried on the shoulder of my D&D pal, not sure I can look him in the eye and roll a twenty sided die around him again.

 

I’m not trying to be a complete dick here but I’m completely bummed that this Clay McShmookle dude is back writing anything at all in this Universe. His White Knight Red Hood two issue thingy was a complete and utter disaster as I detailed here. I just get the vibe that his uncle or dad is a bigwig and knows someone high up in the DC power structure who got this shmo jobs; standard Hollywood stuff, whatever, but if you’re gonna hype up a new return then I dunno, keep McShmookle on a backstory or something. Here’s a question, why wasn’t Murphy’s wife Katana Collins just given full rein to write this book instead of having to work with Kid Nepotism? I’d be psyched about that! Murph lolling in bed with his girl throwing out Joker Kid ideas, sign me up. I did a little digging on Katana Collins, turns out she writes steamy hot BDSM novels. Here’s a vid of the Comic Book Deity himself reading one of her tomes:

 

 

Dude. Umm. In my Paris Hilton voice ‘That’s hawwt’. Why isn’t Katana writing that way for this book or any White Knight book? It’s Black Label right? Put her on a White Knight Cat-Chick book where she and Harley have to find a doofus named Clay, hang him naked upside down and paddle his bum until he commits to the writing program at UCLA.

 

This issue felt like a ‘Batman The Animated Series’ story or almost a Batman ’66 story. It had this level of camp and schmaltz that Murphy’s books did not. I get it, the Joker Kids get to know their Dad as he takes them through the places and memories of his past; decent enough premise. What we end up getting is standard old school 1940s Batman stuff where a villain has somehow funded an entire sting operation in multiple locales to torment the Bat; except here it’s the holographic Joker and his actual offspring. I won’t spoil who it is but it’s a kid of one of the villains that the Joker killed in this Bat Universe.

 

This kid of this villain not only was able to find out or predict the behavior of an encrypted AI belonging to a multi-billionaire but was also able to rent out this ‘Pop Up Revenge Warehouse Area’ for what? A month? In New York/Gotham? The production values are pretty high, there’s all kinds of cues and triggers that Jokey and the Kids go through, wouldn’t there be a stage Manager or several Villain PAs with headsets on milling about behind the scenes? Of course there would be, but there isn’t, because, you know, cheesy Batman 66 type stuff.

 

I would also like to submit my gripe on Batman not being available for this series because he’s busy working on a FBI gig so he could clear a debt that he has with them. Really? You think Bats would ever do an FBI gig? No frikkin’ way! Like, what are they going to have him do? Help run a color revolution/overthrow a duly elected government in the Middle East so we can get all of their oil and precious minerals. Help capture and eventually render useless alternative health practitioners that keep finding cheap natural cures to cancer? Produce half of Hollywood’s movies for a year or two? Also, what's with casting Elektra as the FBI Liaison chick? Has there ever been an FBI agent this drop dead gorgeous? Aren't we in 'Get my hot Latina client on Law & Order SVU or you're not coming to Pentagrams & Red Robe Tuesdays anymore' land?

 

Mirka’s visuals for the book are actually pretty good considering she’s used to doing anthropomorphic piggie and wolfie porn. I think what she might want to consider is her linework when it comes to character’s eyes; they’re all huge. It has this Anime/Manga feel to it rather than the skulking gritty noirish vibe that White Knight is accustomed to. Clearly Clay creamed his pants when he found out that ‘Ms. Piggy’s Got a Wet Poon Blanket’ was going to do the art on this book. You know he’s one of those pervs that has those $500 Anime statues of half naked chicks in skimpy outfits all over his apartment. Like one of these things.

 

 

I dunno man. Six issues of this? Six. Yeesh. I dunno if I can stick around for six of issues of Clay and pseudo Murphy land. I mean, my pull is really low these days and I’ve got every single White Knight issue that’s ever been popped out. Ughh. Six issues. I wish it was a tight 3 like Scott Snyder likes to do. I could definitely do 3. But 6? It’s like going on a mediocre date with the sister of a babe that you really really like. The babe’s name is Alejandra, oof, drool. The sister’s name is Malin or something with Mal in it like Malia or Mallory. I mean, Mallory, she’s cute, but she’s got this pigpen cloud around her. She shuffles along and bites her nails, doesn’t like to laugh. Alejandra? Alejandra shorts out your circuits. She’s the kind of woman you shower extra long for where you actually scrub your entire body down rather than just the Big 3 (crotch, pits, butt). So this series is Malin. You’re telling me I have to date Malin for 6 months until I get a shot at Alejandra again? Oof. Rough. I’ll go on a hike with her for our second date and hmm, farmer’s market thingy for our third date but if I start making whiny Jew noises after our third date I’m cutting her off. 

 

Maybe I just need to get Katana's naughty BDSM novel and read it after I finish each issue in this series but that could lead to a ridiculous habit of reading erotica with my morning coffee. Next thing you know I'll be buying $500 Sexy Batgirl statues at 10am every other day.

Rating: 6.7

Verdict: Pull

 

 

STAR SIGNS #1 - Review

 

 

Ooh a comic about Astrology, sign me up! Well, it’s not actually about astrology. That would be a great book though: Hero’s obsessed with their astro readings every day become the pure embodiment of all the stereotypical characteristics of their chosen sign. So the dude who has a Scorpio logo on his chest turns into a throbbing knob that bangs his enemies from the front and stabs them with his tail from the back. Oh please, you know that’s what you think about Scorpios. I’m a Scorpio. The minute I tell someone I’m a Scorpio they go ‘Ohhhhh, I see’ and I can tell they’re thinking ‘I better watch out, he might try and make me laugh then bang me while I’m laughing’. Yes, that’s exactly what I do. Joke. You laugh. Dick in mouth. Back to one. In a flash. It’s imperceptible. You’ll need to have a CCTV to slow down the action to catch me. We get taught this at Scorpio School after we turn 18. We then graduate and have a Bang-Mitzvah where we read over the Kama Sutra and wail the text in an orgasmic melody. Whatever.

 

The premise is that the star constellations where all the zodiacs reside have somehow collapsed, shattered or disappeared. This occurrence was known ahead of time by some White Privileged Canadians who are clearly racist, transphobic and broke a dozen windows at the Capital on J6. I know this because there’s zero diversity in the group, it’s appalling. That all changes when we get to Brooklyn and meet our lead chick. She’s Lebanese (thank God) and she probably beat the shit out of Sarah Michelle Gellar before getting home so she could smoke pot with her roomie Tyler – wait is he? Hmm, he must be a plus, must be. Anyway, she’s cool and hip, obvi, and she’s a sympathetic figure because, duh. I care because I have to get my CEI up

 

So she’s a caterer. After smoking a doobie (not cool to say that, I know, but that’s what I say, I don’t smoke anything but if I did I would use the term doobie) she rushes to work. She’s late. Her Boss is clearly a White Supremacist because she didn’t crawl on her knees to her and kiss her feet while draped in a Lebanese flag. While making food our lead gets stressed and then, boom, time stops. So what does she do? She uses the time with everybody frozen in the entire space to catch up on all the food she has to make.

 

Umm, what?

 

So let me get this straight. You’re a caterer. You’re late for your job. When you get there your boss piles more work on top of you and doubles the amount of food you have to make. It stresses you out to the point where your head shakes and then…boom! You’ve stopped time, as in time stops and everyone freezes except you. I’m going to assume this isn’t a regular occurrence for some rando caterer from Brooklyn. So again, time stops, the world is frozen and this chick’s reaction is to get to work while everyone is frozen so she could make up time on all the work she has to do??? Are you fucking kidding me?!? TIME JUST STOPPED. Your reaction is ‘Cool now I can cook up some croquettes in peace’ ????

 

You’re not gonna walk around and touch people? I would say that would be the first thing you would do, you would touch people to make sure they can’t move. The second thing you would do is consider whether it’s okay for you to touch their boobs or butts. I would definitely be touching butts. Like a nice ‘wax on wax off’ on some and maybe a little scrunch here and there. Hey, I’m being honest, you probably would too and if not you’d be like ‘hmm I could touch this person’s butt and get away with it’. Next, you would give people the finger and make faces at them. You’d get really close to their face and just spout gibberish. Then you’d run around everyone and slap everyone’s butts like you’re playing butt tag. Then you’d unleash a real nasty fart in the center of the room and waft it in everyone’s noses so that the first thing they smell when time picks up again is butt. It’d be a double butt whammy. They’d go ‘Hmm, why do I smell butt all of a sudden and why does my butt hurt?’. These are things a completely normal person would do if confronted by TIME ACTUALLY STOPPING!

 

But no, this chick makes some more pigs in a blanket and gets working on her lavash game before the laws of physics and time kick back in. I call complete and utter BS. Then at the end the Canadian chick busts through the door of her apartment knocking poor hipster Tyler the Plus out (serves him right for having a great childhood and liking vanilla yogurt) and reveals to us that our lead is a Taurus. Oy vey. So, the zodiac is gone and let me guess it incarnated in people around the world. This smells eerily similar to that Mark Millar ‘Ambassadors’ trash that just came out where the creepy Korean AI chick gave various normies around the world super powers.

 

So lemme guess, if I keep buying the books in this series I’ll find out who else got the power of their zodiac sign, right? Oy to the vey to the ismir. Here, why don’t I knock that out for everyone so you don’t have to drop another 20 bones or so on Caption Zodiac and the Canadimaniacs.

 

Taurus – Lebanese doobie smoking caterer stops time and also causes every one to the fold their arms and say ‘No I won’t’ in a five-mile radius.

 

Aries – Turns a Wacko Babe from Florida into a literal wrecking ball.

 

Gemini – Turns an artsy chick from Michigan into twins and she makes everyone in the world love her and hate her at the same time. Boyfriend gets endless threesomes but brutal couples therapy sessions with all 3 present.

 

Cancer – Turns an Armenian Dude from Glendale into a sobbing mess. Wherever he goes people break down and bawl uncontrollably. He still drives a white Mercedes though.

 

Leo – Turns a hottie from Diamond Bar into a music producer who breaks the lap tops of complete strangers. My ex was a Leo. So, yeah, not a super power but whatever, next!

 

Virgo – Turns a chubby loner from Vermont into an enormous broom and he sweeps and dusts the entire Northeastern corridor til it’s sparkly clean.

 

Libra – Jersey math nerd can’t decide if she wants to be a hero or not, this goes on for, well, the rest of her life, duh.

 

Sagittarius – Country chick from Nashville, nobody ever finds out what her super power is because she always leaves before anyone can ask.

 

Capricorn – Dude from Norway. Financial whiz. When he walks past business they go under and he buys them for pennies on the dollar. Makes a mean tuna sandwich.

 

Aquarius – A nerdy dude from Wisconsin, literally turns into an old school calculator.

 

Pisces  - A doofus from Vegas turns into a bottle of Jack Daniels.

 

I already did Scorpio, so, there ya go! What a team!

 

Look.

 

This book feels cheap, silly and cartoonish. It feels like something you’d watch during afternoon cartoons in the 90s. Like it would come after Animaniacs and Captain Planet. They would hope you’d keep watching ‘Star Signs’ because you’re so deep in your couch and your sugar crash that you wouldn’t be able to get up or find the remote, so you’d keep watching this goofy show. I mean, I can hear the chintzy background music while reading this book: the oboes, the dissonant piano chords, the flutes.

 

There's a premise here, something to do with the Astro Signs and the energy they impart. It definitely has the makings for a great book or show. Unfortunately you're not going to find that here in this comic so toss it on the floor, let a Scorpio hump it, a Cancer cry over it and a Pisces pour some malt liquor over it and burn it into ashes. Then go stream some Pinky & The Brain. Or better yet start a Meetup to track The Brain down so we can all ask him how to get Disney to sell Marvel.

Rating: 5.0

Verdict: Drop

May '23 Reading Round Up

 

Anybody get any of those Free Comics on Free Comic Book Day? I usually pass on everything, figure it’s just gonna be a middling preview of something with a ton of ads. But I did notice this Titan Publishing Conan thingy and I was intrigued to see if they were gonna come wit da ruffneck bidness since they now own the Conan license. People. Conan Fans. Praise Crom. It may have only been a few pages but it’s beyond obvious that Conan is finally back in the hands of a bunch of creators who absolutely honor and love this character.

 

Even though it’s only a few pages they give me all the feels of those classic Marvel Conan books from the 70s. I think I remember Jim Zub writing some Conan stuff from the recent Conan Marvel debacle. Clearly you can’t fault any writer or artist when it comes to Marvisney, who knows what torturous evil they’re subjected to as they’re hung upside down in a dungeon underneath Disney Land between issues. Anyway, Robert De La Torre looks like he’s mastered the gritty dusty old school Conan vibe and Jose Villarrubia's colors are pure perfection. I can’t frikkin’ wait for this series to begin, woo hoo!

Phantom Road is turning into a wonderful Twilight Zone-ish type of story and there’s nobody else I can think of that I would want as my comic book Rod Serling than the one and only Jeff Lemire.

 

Avengers War Across Time is about to wrap up and for the love of all that is good and holy Marvisney, please keep putting out these retro stories, it’s what the world needs right now! You had a formula, the formula worked, it spawned a Universe like no other, for goodness sake stop messing with the formula! Stop trying to make New Coke or Green Tea Coke or whatever, get back to your roots and stay there. Hey, Disney stock is under 90 last I checked! Where do you think it needs to drop to for them to freak out, dump Marvel and sell it to a conglomerate of multi billionaire comic geeks? 70? 65? Dump those shares people!

 

 

I have no idea what the hell happened in the second issue of Dead Romans, the story officially became unreadable. I have no idea who’s marching on who, who wants to kill who, where the hell we are, what the hell people want and why the hell they want it. It feels like I’m watching a bad Sunday Political Talk Show where all the lights are off. An absolute fail after a promising first issue with amazing art, this book is at best kindling and at worst last second poopy bags for my little princess.

 

 

 

Hitomi was an under the radar book that just wrapped its fifth and final issue recently. HS Tak wove a fanciful engaging tale of a young female samurai in training and her lust for revenge over the murder of her family. Isabella Mazzanti’s lush sweeping palette gave the book a real feel as if you were watching ancient Japanese paintings in a museum come to life. While I’m sure this won’t win any awards or garner immense accolades it was definitely an enjoyable read and a breath of fresh air from the standard comic book fare of the day; definitely recommend it.

 

 

 

Chicken Devils, the second arc of one of my Top series of 2022 has kind of fallen off a cliff. I don’t think the plot development of our Hot Chicken Vigilante now working with dirty vigilante cops is a good one. That, and his confession to his family about everrrrything has diffused almost all of the tension of the story and now it’s just a whiny cranky family and creepy gross cops murdering gang members in cold blood; no bueno. It’s a shame, I’ll probably grab the last two issues of the arc with the hopes that Buccellato drops in a gem of a final twist but right now it’s a soggy bland bird of a book.

 

 

Finally, Kroma wrapped up it’s final issue in it’s 4 issue mini-series and it was pretty frikkin’ good! It gave off this whole Ralph Bakshi vibe and the plot twist that Defelici introduced to the world he created really clicked and moved the story to a satisfying conclusion. Imagine that, a satisfying conclusion to a comic book series. I feel like I just got a comic book handy, ah, it’s been a while. Also, looks like Lorenzo and Robert Kirkman are putting out a book in June called ‘Void Rivals'. Based on this series and the fact that it's Kirkman I would have to say that’s a definite pull.

 

 

That’s all I got. Lot’s of intriguing new series dropping this month, happy reading you Geeklings!

 

SOMETHING EPIC #1 - Review

 

It’s my 100^th Post! Woo Hoo! Rejoice! Rejoice! I started this about 10 months ago and thought that I would maybe do it for a month or two but man, I somehow keep spitting out the reviews amidst everything else going on in my life so I suppose I’m here to stay – until I’m not.

 

I’ve noticed a few things along the way. It’s way harder to write a glowing complimentary review than it is to completely rip apart a God Awful comic book. Interesting huh? I think that’s why you see so many people who do reviews engage in negative feedback, it’s way easier to do. Being critical of something is a knee jerk reaction, it hits you hard and all you have to do is respond to your aesthetic triggers and drop several pages of vitriol. Maybe that’s why maddening books like ‘What’s the Furthest Place From Here’ or anything that Marvisney has been pooping out the past year are so easy to tear to pieces; there’s so much bleccchh to cover you’ll never run out of options for jokes or digs.

 

But to laud something? To declare something great, that takes some doing. You really have to ask yourself, hmm, why is this great? Why did this have such a profound impact on me? What is it about this that gave me that emotional lift that I always look for? Once you take the time to figure all of that out without having to drop bank on some wackadoodle doc on a therapy couch to tap into your subconscious needs, you’re then left to figuring out how to write adulatory text that doesn’t use the words awesome and great every other sentence.

 

Look, when I do Stand-Up I don’t go out there and tell everyone about the amazing date I just had and how we connected on a deep level and giggled over our idiosyncrasies, tee hee. I would get the light in a minute flat and never be invited back to that venue. No! People wanna hear about the Psycho Goth I met through AdultFriendfinder that met me at a Starbucks in a full see through get up, a top hat and furry boots and croaked like a frog when she laughed. They wanna hear how she had a dozen switchblades in her pocket book and threw them at telephone poles with startling accuracy while asking me if I would go see her band Vile PooBrain in Costa Mesa that Sunday night. Ya know, I’ve always wondered if I sought out these psychos for material rather than seeking out normal well balanced women. I’m sure there was always a part of me deep down that wondered ‘Man, this chick probably will give me 20 minutes of material’. In the finale of ‘Mrs. Maisel’ (one of the greatest TV Shows ever created in the history of the Universe and Multiverse) she speaks about how her dates have basically become fodder for her act during her big break on the Gordon Ford show; there’s definitely a lot of truth to that sentiment.

 

At any rate, I’ve enjoyed the burn to the ground reviews as much as the lift up to the heavens reviews and for my 100^th offering I present to you a comic that shall also be glorified and lifted to the comic book heavens with pages that sing and glisten in luxurious gold. I give to you: Something Epic! I think if this title was released by Marvisney or a publisher like Boom! I would’ve poo poo’d it but when it’s Image you have to give them the benefit of the doubt that this book is in fact epic: and it is.

 

There’s a ‘10 page’ rule for screenwriters. If you can’t hook someone with your script in the first 10 pages then your script is probably going to suck. Right off the bat you can tell that Szymon Kudranski is at the top of his game; the writing is elevated and inspired. It’s not expositional either, it’s a treatise on imagination and how it finds its way to exist in our physical world. The premise: Daniel is a kid who can see the world of imagination, not just what is but what has been. In other words, he also sees the thought creations and ideas of that which didn’t make it into the physical realm. He is like Cole Sear of the Sixth Sense but instead of seeing dead people he sees forgotten characters and after thoughts. There’s a whole B Story of his Mother’s struggle a s a single Mom to make ends meet and take care of Daniel through compromising circumstances which only adds to sympathetic nature of our lead.  Then there's art, dark, evocative, a concerted attention to every detail. I daresay this is a passion project of Szymon, something he's been working on for a while and of course it would be given the platform to breathe by the magnanimous publisher called Image.

 

Something Epic feels unconventional, it feels as if it’s seeking to push the boundaries of what the medium of comic books can offer. The fact that they use the back cover as the real estate for the final panel of the issue is evidence of this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a final panel placed on a back cover before. I’m going to assume that Daniel meets others like him as he finds a way to either harness this gift or seeks a device to bridge the two worlds. I've not heard of this Kudranski guy before but my goodness as both the writer and artist of this perfectly woven start to his series, he's immediately become someone to watch. Wherever this book may go I’m 100% on board. This may be the Epic book that 2023 has been waiting for and Lord knows we've been waiting a looooong time.

 

Yeah yeah, boring, why don’t you rip apart Daredevil or Dark Horse’s recent crapola? Make us laugh funny boy! Get off the stage!

 

Wait wait, did I tell you about the time my date made me take her to a Gay Rave???

 

Rating: 9.7

Verdict: Epic Pull

WHAT'S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE #12 - Review

 

Ah, another issue drop of ‘What’s the Furthest Place from the Main Plot Narrative’ yippee! This comic is like a hot babe who you had one amazing date with but who you haven’t seen in months. You can’t figure out why she’s not interested in you even though you’re quite sure you both enjoyed yourselves immensely while bowling and making out between gutter balls. Yet she’s distant and barely responds to your DMs on Insta. You want to give up on her but then you see her post something and all your blood rushes to your crotch and then commands your brain to think up an excuse as to why you would be reaching out to her; it’s pure madness. That is what this comic book is like: It was great and now it’s in wackadoodleville but you keep coming back to it because it hooked you so well when it was going great.

 

WTFPFH was brilliant for the first six issues but now we’re still in a forest with some ancillary characters and I have no fucking idea what this story is about anymore. Actually wait, we’re back in the forest but now we’re in another backstory on another timeline. You know, I really think these two dudes wanted a Netflix series and instead somehow got roped into writing a comic book instead. Like, this was their dream pilot project but while getting lit at a grungy hipster loft party where everyone was dressed as furries somebody convinced them that using your comic book as a storyboard to pitch your TV project is all the rage now. This actually would work way better as a Netflix Series than a comic. It reminds of this current hot show called ‘Beef’, have you seen it? It’s actually really good but it goes so far off the rails from episode to episode, it’s insane. It’s like they’re trying to figure out ways from episode to episode to just blow up the entire plot; but it somehow works! That’s what Boss and Rosiecheeks I feel are trying to do but in Comic Book land it just comes off as a sequential art shit show.

 

I’ve stated this before but it bears repeating in order to understand why this comic book has flown off the rails into the clouds and off into another dimension. It has left the main story bloodied and butchered on the train tracks in its wake but there’s a logical explanation. I’m gonna call Boss and Rosenberg BossBurger for convenience sake. Let’s recap:

 

1.     BossBurger, two Hipster Flat White drinking He/Her/Them/Don’t Forget Us did a micro dose one night that turned into a macro dose. They came up with this wild dystopian future/Lord of the Flies type story that was fantastic.

 

2.     After developing the pilot for years they allowed a pseudo hottie at a hipster loft party to convince to turn it into a comic that would eventually turn into the Netflix series they wanted. They brought the concept to Image and although there was no Oatly available at their initial meeting BossBurger forgave Image and let them publish their new opus.

 

3.     The first six issues were a groundbreaking wild success. Several of the initial variant issues had 45 records which exploded the heads of the many hipster vinyl aficionados who latched onto the series. This caused them to halt the Vinyl Variants due to a major drop off in sales due to a chunk of their audience spontaneously combusting – but they kept chugging along

 

4.     Due to the success Image called BossBurger after the 5^th issue and said they wanted to continue the story after issue 6. Both Tyler and Boss answered the phone during one of their annual Ayuhuasca trips and completely freaked out. First, they never intended for this story to go longer than 6 issues and secondly, due to them tripping balls Robert Kirkman’s voice sounded like the character Sho Nuff from the 1985 Martial Arts Film ‘The Last Dragon’ BossBurger were mortally afraid of this character and had nightmares as kids from the “guy who looked like a Black Gene Simmons”, according to them. This caused them to flee to Tulum with their insignificant others.

 

 

 

5.     Image, at a loss as to what to do since they already paid for 6 more issues ended up hiring a bunch of different artists and lured Matt Fraction out of a Canadian Sex Dungeon to write back-up stories as a Ghost Writer for 4 issues, this continued until issue 10 at which point they had to wrap Fraction up and ship him back to Montreal after Image’s offices turned into what looked like an S&M Convention. Kirkman was also tired of telling Fraction that he did not want to dye his pubes and back hair cherry red like Fraction’s girlfriend super cute ultra talented girlfriend Kelly.

 

6.     Eventually BossBurger returned from Tulum. They were broke from spending all their money on hallucinogenics and from investing all their earnings in Silicon Valley Bank stock since one of their dealers was a shareholder of the bank and promised them untold riches. They crawled in their tattered rags to Image’s office and begged them to let them complete the story. It took them a few hours to wade through the rows of Sex Swings but eventually they made their way to Kirkman’s office and groveled in his lap

 

7.     Back in their Silverlake hovel, BossBurger had no idea what their comic book was about anymore so after tripping balls on cheap Hashish that they procured at a creepy pot and pan store in Chinatown they tapped into their childhood fantasies about banging chicks with animal heads on in the woods.

 

And now here we are at Backstory #6 of the initial 12 issues at some wacky young/old folks home that we already visited before sometime back when there were vinyl variants and a cast list inside the front cover. Here’s the thing, it’s not that any of these issues are bad per se it’s just that they’re so all over the place there’s zero continuity from month to month. Bossburger needs to be sat down at a UCLA Writing Class and be whipped with a switch until they realize the importance of maintaining a consistent timeline and not to lose your readers by incorporating a dozen over the course of your initial story arcs.

 

The final panel reveals the face of the enormously tall ‘Parental Figures’ of this series who have been popping in and out of the story dressed in puritanical long black dresses and washcloths that cover their entire head. Let’s just say Picasso would have enjoyed the reveal. As for me, I just rolled my eyes. Looks like next issue is the only issue left until they release another trade and there’s nothing scheduled as far as I can see after that.

 

I suppose Bossburger have probably defaulted on their Silverlake Hovel due to the exorbitant rental prices that plague the LA Market. I’m sure they’re gonna take time off as they move to Austin or Nashville or Florida or maybe they’ll go backpacking in Chile, who knows, whatever they need to do to continue to avoid figuring out where the hell their main narrative went. It doesn’t matter though, I’ll keep coming back every month because I’m a sucker for a hot story idea even if it continues to emotionally abuse me and ignore my blog posts begging for it to come back home to a grounded tale.

 

Just be careful Bossburger, ya never know when Matt Fraction will step away from his addiction to brimping and take over your comic book when you’re too busy shrooming to notice. Happens all the time.

 

Rating: 5.7

Verdict: Pull. Yes pull it! Don’t ask why just pull it! Arrrggghhhh!