If I was better organized, I'd have mentioned this earlier.

I didn't make it to the comic shop Wednesday, but I did have a couple books to read, starting with Ron Randall's Trekker: The Darkstar Zephyr. This just came in this week, and it's his second Kickstartered book; I've really enjoyed them. I also read Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett's Section: Zero, and they were finishing their second Kickstarter campaign last night!

For that matter, I need to pick a pledge for this year's Rifftrax Live! You still have time to get in on that one, and chipping in even a buck gets you ten shorts!

And, as of this morning, there's time to get an action figure or two from Army Alphas. I haven't bit yet, since I got burned on the Prince of Crystal some years back. Look, reckon everyone gets burned on Kickstarter at least once; I'm pretty sure all of these are good!
Read more!

I stacked these on top of my scanner, so no scans today.

Well, they weren't going to fit in my scanner anyway. And, I have yet to start reading any of these. But, Hastings had their used graphic novels for $2.99, and I picked up this little pile. Spider-Man: Am I an Avenger? is probably, oddly, the one I'm most looking forward to reading. I had the 1990's John Byrne/Paul Ryan issues, but haven't read them in a dog's age. Same for some chunks of Avengers: Legion of the Unliving, although it's fun to try and figure out who was or wasn't dead at the time. The 90's Iron Man/War Machine/Force Works crossover Hands of the Mandarin; I know I read the Iron Man issues at the time, maybe picked the Force Works issues out of the quarter bins later, but never read it all in one sitting.

Indestructible Hulk: Gods and Monster is from Mark Waid's all-too-brief Marvel Now run; so this is like three versions ago. (Some of the post-Waid stuff was rough, then the Doc Green stuff, Secret Wars nonsense, and most recently the Amadeus Cho Hulk.) Still, this little hardback has Walt Simonson art for a Thor guest-spot! And Daredevil guest-stars...which I think was reprinted in a DD trade I just bought, but whatever. Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. features the first fall of the spy organization, and perfectly fine Paul Neary art--but goes with a Bill Sienkiewicz cover instead of a Steranko one! I love the Sienkiewicz one, but that almost seems sacrilegious.

Lastly, we have one of Marvel's many, many attempts at making the Inhumans happen: again from the 90's, the Fantastic Four crossover Atlantis Rising. All I know about this one is that there was a "Collector's Preview for the crossover, which even at the time seemed mighty optimistic: FF was not doing well at the time, Namor's book would be cancelled during the crossover with issue #62, and I don't think Fantastic Force has ever sold decent numbers, although Marvel keeps trying. List price was $39.99 for that one, which also seems optimistic.

I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping to boot, although that probably just means I'll buy more stuff between now and then. We'll see...
Read more!

No scans yet, we'll see if I open everything...

Late today, since I went for a walk yesterday afternoon that kind of got away from me. But, I did pick up a batch of Funko's Game of Thrones figures! Man, I could've used those when I was doing Bastards of the Universe strips over at Poe's!

Tomorrow, Lego giveaway thing at Toys R Us for the Youngest; then Sunday I think I'm going to go see Evil Dead: the Musical! Now that I've said that, we'll see what happens. Best laid plans and all that...
Read more!

I'm working late all this week, which isn't helping my mood at all: I'll probably be used to that schedule just in time to go back to going in early. But I've been a little sad lately, anyway.

First up, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Arrow have returned, and I caught the first few episodes of Gotham and the premiere of the Flash. Flash may be my favorite so far; while my girlfriend's worried if Ollie and Felicity get together it'll ruin the show.

Gotham is well made, but would it have been so hard just to do a Batman show? As is, like any prequel, it's a little limited since you know certain characters are going to be alive later; and while I'm watching football I keep seeing the commercial where young Bruce asks Gordon if Gotham can be saved. Gordon either gives a blisteringly naive and optimistic yes, or outright lies to Bruce; I kinda wish he'd admit no, probably not. Since we know Gotham City is still a corrupt cesspool of crime by the time Batman shows up, we know Gordon isn't going to make a lot of headway, so the show could become an exercise in Gordon banging his head against a wall.

(Incidentally, I'm not sure how old Bruce is supposed to be at this point, but it feels like he should've started seriously training by now. It would be pretty easy for him to sell that to this gruff version of Alfred, as not feeling safe and wanting to get back to a secure place.)

Anyway, four TV shows based on comics, that's great. None of them have a comic I'm interested in reading right now. That seems like a problem. I think Marvel's working on another S.H.I.E.L.D. book, and I've read a couple of Scott Snyder's Batman, but it hasn't completely won me over. Still, the comics seem like an afterthought anymore, don't they?

Another example: Bleeding Cool had a post with Chris Claremont explaining how the X-Offices can't create new characters right now, because the movie rights would go to Fox instead of Marvel/Disney. This is also why Marvel is allegedly dropping all support for the Fantastic Four, with Fantastic Fourever: rumor has it certain execs don't want to do anything to support a movie from a rival company, but the X-books and Spider-Man are too successful to cut out. FF isn't. I was wondering if Wolverine's death wasn't somehow related to that: I read Wolverine #12 the other day and wasn't really impressed.

Still, I was more disappointed with Chris Claremont's Nightcrawler #7, with plot by Marguerite Bennett. Kurt mourns the death of Wolverine, which would be fine; except we all know damn well Wolvie's coming back, probably sooner rather than later. This isn't the writers' fault, they're kind of in a corner: if Kurt laughs off Logan's death (especially since Kurt himself returned from the dead recently) it's a little too meta and it undermines any drama the Wolverine writers may have been able to wring out of it. You could take the angle of Kurt not believing it, or being convinced that Logan would return, and no one else believing him: DC did something to that effect with Red Robin after Darkseid "killed" Batman. Or, you can take the hit, and do an issue of Nightcrawler explaining how awesome Wolverine was. It does give artist Todd Nauck an opportunity for a greatest hits tour of X-history; he ought to get a pretty penny for some of those pages!

So, I kinda feel like, I don't know: too much of seeing how the sausage is made, I'd guess. Still, we'll look for something more optimistic tomorrow.
Read more!

More like TRADE-tradewaiting, at this point.

I read Ed Brubaker's Captain America for a long time, from his first issue up to around issue #600...which isn't as long as that sounds, thanks to the vagaries of Marvel's numbering. I think I fell off partially from cost-cutting, but I don't remember the book being particularly satisfying in single issues--not an uncommon problem for Marvel at the time. Which makes me wonder why books "written for the trade" bother me when Marvel does it, but Hellboy and B.P.R.D. have been like that for ever and I'm fine with it: maybe because Marvel used to come in readable chunks and was moving away from that, while the Mignola books had almost always been trade-written. Anyway, today we'll take a gander at a Cap trade that still manages to feel like an issue written for a bigger trade: From my post-Black Friday pickup at Hastings, Captain America: Prisoner of War. Written by Ed Brubaker, with art by Mike Deodato, Jackson Guice, and more.

After "the Trial of Captain America," Bucky was found guilty of murders committed while he was the brainwashed Soviet assassin Winter Soldier, and was thrown into a Russian gulag. Due to a deal with the State Department, Bucky can't simply break out, or he would be a criminal in America as well; and he's forced into prison fights with former Soviet heroes and operatives like Ursa Major and the Titanium Man. But his captors have a bigger plan in mind...

Meanwhile, the recently returned original Cap was in Commander Rogers mode, trying to do Nick Fury's job; and wondering how to get Bucky out without causing an international incident. Nick Fury makes a brief appearance, to help out and to needle Steve a bit about picking up the shield again. Everyone, the readers included, knows Steve is going to be Captain America again at some point, but he seems surprisingly reluctant to do so. And the Black Widow revisits her home turf and "goes rogue" (to give Steve deniability) to break Bucky out, but he's way ahead of her.

I bought this for about the price of a single issue, but somehow, it feels like a single issue! Too much is unresolved, or rather set up for later books: the larger plan of Bucky's captors, and whether or not Steve would be Cap again. The latter is teased for Fear Itself, I think the former wrapped up in Winter Soldier: the Longest Winter. Still, there's some nice back-up stories at the end of this one, including a Howard Chaykin one; so reckon this was worth the three bucks then.

(No scans today--out of the office!)
Read more!

It's all fun and games, until I run someone over.

From a link at CNN, Road Signs Warn of Zombies: "cameras caught many drivers slowing down to read the signs as they approached. Some read, 'Zombies ahead! Run for your lives!'"

Funny, but if I had been driving through there, I guarantee you I would have completely freaked out, and quite probably run someone down while screaming "Die, you inhuman monster!"

Little known fact about me: I love zombie movies, and am at a constant level of cat-like alertness for zombie attack. (And only zombie attack, sadly, any other crisis I'm as unprepared as anyone else. Zombies I've got, though.)

So please, think twice before panicking extreme zombie-phobes like myself, won't you? And, it probably says something about our times that "zombies" are the boogieman du jour; considering we used to be afraid of alien or communist invasion... Read more!

On the Spirit, LXG, and the latter incarnations of the Crow:

(No scans for this one yet, but I reserve the right to come back to it as I find them, 'kay?)

So, I haven't seen the Spirit. Like a lot of people. Over at Doomkopf they hated it. Actually, that's being kind: my keyboard doesn't have that Transmetropolitan skull-and-crossbones key. Over at his Permanent Damage column, Steven Grant takes the rather more charitable view that Frank Miller has had more hit movies than you probably have, and this was his first try on his own. Well, maybe; and there does seem to be a lot of the ol' schadenfreude, if not outright gloating, over the Spirit's seeming failure. I say seeming because I don't know, maybe it'll find it's audience on DVD or repeated cable showings or something.

And on cable right as I type this: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. With "DVD extras" during the commercials. Reportedly, the filming was so horrible and he clashed with the director so fiercely, that it as much as drove Sean Connery into retirement. I've seen quotes from Connery, to the effect of that the notion of making another movie isn't worth the probability of killing a director. (What's the director commentary like on that one? "Ooh, Sean was pissed this morning! I said, 'Hey, save your murderous rage for the screen, tiger!' He glared at me! Directing is awesome!")

I wasn't expecting to see Connery in the "extras," but he just appeared for a moment in a segment about the car. Of course, the swarmy hosts also pointed out that "LXG" was written by the same guy that wrote V for Vendetta and From Hell. They don't mention Alan Moore by name, and why should they? Then you have to get into a whole thing about him not be involved with the movies, not wanting or even watching them. (Or so they say.)

I really liked V for Vendetta, and have yet to finish the book. (I keep getting individual issues, it wasn't always a trade!) And while it's probably not high on anyone's lists, "LXG" probably isn't the worst superhero movie ever. (The guys at Doomkopf were working on that as well, but I wanted to finish this thought before I read that!) And while there are several I haven't seen--you know, let's start there. I've never seen Catwoman, and I have that one--the Oldest swears its good, but I think at one point he may have actually thought cats could bring him back to life, too. Steel, Superman IV, Supergirl: for some reason, I don't think I've seen a combined five minutes of them.

But, I've seen a lot of terrible ones as well. Every version of the Crow after the Brandon Lee one: terrible, or worse. And even the first one gets away with a lot: I remember a Film Threat article that instead of a review, ran it as a seance with Bruce Lee: "The only thing that movie has going for it is Brandon's death. And the sad thing is, it'll probably work." "Shut up dad, don't queer my deal." And the TV version still puts my teeth on edge: a cleaned-up version of the first movie, dragged out episode after episode, as an early test music delivery system like Smallville or Gilmore Girls. (I'm being harsh, since those shows obviously brought something else to the table, which is why they lasted longer than...however many miserable episodes the Crow ran. Seriously, that show made Night Man look like it sweated artistic integrity.)

And I'm almost positive I saw the Spirit TV movie in 1987. Now, it was a comic book movie at a time where there was just about nothing. (I know I watched the short-lived Sable series as well.) But it didn't do much for me; not so much because of the quality (or lack of) of the movie itself, but because I had only a vague idea of who the Spirit was. Were Spirit comics available on newstands in my lifetime? I'm thinking not. Maybe the Warren reprints, but I couldn't find Vampirella back then, so I doubt the Spirit would have been easily found.

To this day, I've read barely a handful of Spirit stories, and only a few of those by Will Eisner. And I didn't really care for them: the Spirit seemed like a coat hanger that more interesting characters and plots hung off of, and not like an interesting character himself. Plus, he got beat up a lot, what's up with that? It never seemed like, "the Spirit gets beat to hell but never gives up and struggles through and wins in the end." It just seemed like, "the Spirit got beat up, and looks it." Or maybe, "Crap, that chick suckerpunched the Spirit! Sucker!" I'm probably wrong, but it doesn't seem like I'm going to be jumping up and down for the DVD either.

Of course, even before the Spirit came out, people were already starting to piss and moan about Frank Miller's next potential movie, a version of Buck Rogers. Like a lot of people, the first thing that came to mind was Lance Blastoff and Tales to Offend. I've read a lot of Miller, and that one's funny once, but not one I'd care to revisit. It's easy to jump to the conclusion that Miller would bring all his excesses to the goddamn Buck Rogers: a tough-yet-slutty Major Derring, a foul-mouthed "comic relief" Twiki that wouldn't be funny, a future that was repressed and seedy and looked kind of fake. Eh, it's tiring just to imagine that. Maybe Miller would go that route. Maybe he'd play it completely straight. Who knows? Hell, who knows if he's gonna get to do it anyway; but it seems unfair to burn it down before he's even started it. Well, unless he casts a Twiki, in which case yeah, burn away. I liked the TV show as a kid, but Twiki was born there and should be left there.

(I did have a thought that all those space opera spaceships, with their seemingly simplistic controls and shiny chrome finishes, were actually extraordinarily complicated and computerized; "idiot proof" fighters created by highly intelligent scientists, in order to ensure that any idiot could fly a rocket into a space battle. Because if any idiot can do it, well, the scientists wouldn't have to. "OK, the button that says 'UP'? Push that first. That one there fires the 'lasers.' Good luck!")

If Miller doesn't get to do Buck Rogers? I was walking the dog, and thinking about how Frank's going to pooch it; and I realized who should get to do the movie: Howard motherlovin' Chaykin. Take your Chaykin-hero, Reuben Flagg, Blackhawk, what have you; throw in some skirts that are slightly less tawdry than what Miller would bring, add a bunch of pointy-looking spaceships, bam! Chaykin could do it. If he got the greenlight. And had, um, any interest at all in working in Hollywood; Chaykin could very well have better/less aggravating things to do. And I don't think I've quite articulated why he'd be a good choice, but it's only a late-night rant brought about by a bunch of things wandering into my field of vision over the course of an evening.

(It's late for me, I have to be up at four! New post Tuesday, though!) Read more!

Happy Halloween! I don't know if there's Halloween karma, but if so, I'm hoping to score big, since along with candy and some small toys, I'm also giving out a pile of comics, including a well-read copy of Thor #362. (Oh, I've got another, trust me.)

My Youngest is a cowboy this year, since he's a fan of Woody from Toy Story; and my Oldest picked up a bleeding Scream mask. Yes, I'd prefer he dressed up as a superhero too, but his mom got the costumes this year. I'm wearing a short-sleeve blue Star Trek shirt, ala Dr. McCoy--this is barely a costume, I'm pretty sure it's in my regular rotation, but I have my phaser, communicator, and tricorder. Nerd! (I get more like Bones every year: I'm cranky, even my good advice is always ignored, and I only get some about once every 20-some episodes...)

I hope to be back online at home in the next couple of weeks, which will mean new posts again, and possibly some pictures from today. Here's hoping, and have fun! Read more!

The other day, I rewatched Quatermass II, the classic Hammer sci-fi horror film and the second of the Quatermass trilogy. I'm not sure if I've seen the first one, but I have this and Quatermass and the Pit on VHS, and liked them both quite a bit. Really short summary? Cranky Brit rocket scientist fends off alien invasions. Three separate times, three separate aliens.

Since I'm a big fan of interconnected universes and legacies, or if you've read anything like Ellis' Planetary or Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; it's pretty easy to imagine a line from Quatermass fighting alien invasions in the fifties, Mulder and Scully of the X-Files doing the same in the nineties, and perhaps even the cast of Fringe for this decade. (It would never, ever, happen; but wouldn't a Fringe/Millennium crossover be awesome?...for me and like three other people...) Science-heroes, fighting government interference and cover ups, public skepticism, and alien mind control over most of the 20th century? Hell, yes, I'd watch that!

Unfortunately, even as I imagined a decrepit and bitter Quatermass, old and forgotten and probably blacklisted, classified, and buried by the government; I looked him up on wikipedia and saw there was a fourth serial, ominously titled the Quatermass Conclusion. Yeah, looks like poor Quatermass wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to meet Olivia Dunham or Fox Mulder. There was a remake of the first one a few years back, though...


In other news, while picking up Halloween candy, I was forced to buy a box of Frosted Mini Wheats, a bowl of which is currently pummelling my internal organs. Definitely a rude surprise when there's Boo Berry on the shelves. Why did I buy this nightmare of fibrous bricks? To get my Oldest son the Guitar Hero prize inside. There was an ad during Heroes last night for some KFC mountain of a meal, with a similar GH tie-in; but I'd have to say that campaign seems aimed more at the correct demographic. Maybe this is part of a nutrition-outreach program. Or a cruel bait-and-switch.

Worst of all? I didn't even get the cool guitar shaped game, I got some boxy, allegedly amp-shaped thingus. I may have to tell that kid he's on his own to find another one, though...


Oh, and I forgot: I'll totally be out on Wednesday, taking my dog Sam from apartment to apartment as we look for a new home and I try to make him look smaller somehow. Wish us luck! Read more!

So, I'm in the middle of trying to find a new place, where I can keep my dog Sam; or as I now call him, the fifty-pound homewrecker. If he was a yippy little dog (like Sugarpie) he probably would sail under the radar; but since Sam's a bigger dog, some places won't allow him and I'm sweating it a little. Well, sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, before I end up living in a storage garage...

I just wanted to leave a couple quick notes before I was out for the weekend. First up: does anyone know what happened to Mighty God King? It's come up as suspended the last couple days, and I enjoy his site quite a bit, even if my understanding of Canadian politics is limited to my grandma complaining about Quebec circa 1992.

And yesterday, to calm myself down after a week of stalls and starts, I read all my Doom Patrol comics, an almost complete run of the John Arcudi/Tan Eng Huat version. It's funny, I've read the Kupperberg/Lightle-Larson and the John Byrne versions, but I'm not sure I've read an actual issue of the Grant Morrison Patrol. (Just the occasional blogpost about it!) I wanted to remind myself to post some art from that: Huat's art is interesting, not typical DC superhero fare; and the late Seth Fisher also did two issues in a very fun style.

I also re-read the first "I Can't Believe it's not the Justice League" mini, and there are a couple references to the Doom Patrol snuck in: specifically, Elongated Man had made an appearance as part of a corporate-sponsored version of the Patrol, with Dr. Light, Metamorpho, and old school Patroller Beast Boy. Good issue: Robotman can't figure how Metamorpho could be leading a rival Patrol, since last he heard, Rex was dead. Before Cliff can ask Rex how he can be there, Rex asks Cliff how he can be there, since last Rex heard, Cliff and the rest of the Doom Patrol was killed. Cliff thinks about it, and disappears. Kind of a downer, but pretty cool. (Don't worry, he comes back...kinda.)

Let's go out mentioning some happier posts: SallyP shelled out for the 13-inch Green Lantern and even now basks in his glory, and Poe's got the Movie Masters Batpod, which I saw today and am tempted as all hell, even if Deadpool and Nightcrawler would just steal it... Read more!

So, we're down to this...

Good news and bad news: I finished twenty-one pages over the weekend. (Twenty are in the six-panel grid.) Between that, and a good six or so pages I set up before, I've got a good backlog going, and an epic Nightcrawler and Deadpool story that I probably need to come up with an end for...

The bad news is, my internet's still down at home, so a good month's worth of posts is trapped. At this rate, we are this far away from running a clip show...

Before we sink that low, let's take another favorite-yet-easy-yet-occasionally terrifying blogger standard, and look at the recent keyword activity! I use Statcounter and love it, and while it's occasionally disenheartening to see I got more hits for John McCain as Green Lantern than just about anything I might have put some work into, it's worth it to be able to see what people are looking for that brought them to me. Like the word "Happenstance," or how to use it in a sentence. Um, yay?

Yet, now that I've brought it up, there doesn't appear to be any terrible, mind-scarring searches this time. They're somewhat odd, and probably not what the searcher was looking for--I don't know what "Drax Hall Pirate Ghost" refers to at all, nor how it would end up with me. "Sexy Avenger Tigra's feet Pictures," is close; but I swear someone once found here with "Superboy Kryptonite Cock Punishment," and I hope to God there's some Silver Age story with Jor-El launching a chicken into orbit in another rocket test, then it lands on earth 20 years later...trust me, that's better than imagining the alternative.

Sigh. So, clip show tomorrow? Terrific. Read more!

The medium of action figures can be a harsh mistress...

Like everyone else, I wanted to be a comic book artist as a kid. However, I quickly realized my anatomy was, at best, sub-Liefeldian...which probably still could've got me a job in the 90's, but even so, I had to let that dream go. Still, that is very much why I love making the toy comics, as between the software and the toys, it's not too difficult to get a recognizable, and hopefully readable, end result.

That said, even putting aside my lack of Photoshop, etc; there are limits to what you can do with action figures instead of a pencil: even if I suddenly had a brilliant idea for, say, Optimus Prime and the Autobots fighting an army of Daleks in space, there is no friggin' way I could pull it off. Especially since I don't have any Daleks...and now you now why all my strips are dialog-based snark. (Pete over at Fanwank will sometimes drop effects that make me bite my fist in envy, yet claims they 're relatively easy. Maybe.)

So, every once in a while I'll have an idea that might not be bad, but is definitely impractical for the format. Or, at least, for my format: someone might be able to pull my halfbaked ideas off, but that would be more of a Lucasfilm-level production, like Toyfare's animated strips; whereas I'm at the Dark Shadows level. (Forget knocking the toys over, you have no idea how often I knock the sets over.)

Sometimes, an idea will be stalled because I don't have a figure for a character, or worse, because I have a figure that isn't poseable enough for what I want to do. The Total Justice toys I used in my first strip are basically only movable enough to wave their arms around, but it bugs me more that I didn't have a Superman figure in that scale. Worse, even with multiple Supermen from DC Direct, the Superman animated series, JLA, the new DC Universe one from Mattel; I don't think I have a single Supes toy without clenched fists. Maybe I just can't find one when I need it. Maybe DC doesn't want Superman to be seen handling...anything, I guess.

The point of all this buildup is all for a script for a short, aborted strip. I didn't even have a Doc Samson figure at this point, but while I still like the joke, it was beyond my means to produce. But, since I still can't upload anything, why the hell not? I rewrote it with enough description that maybe you can see what I was going for, and if anyone has ambition and a ton of Mego or Famous Covers figures, perhaps you could prove it can be done and show me up as a quitter. Enjoy!


(Peter, in full Spider-Man costume, is lying on the psychiatrist's couch, hands folded on his chest. Doc Samson is in the background, sitting with his legs slightly crossed and taking notes. Samson is dressed conservatively, probably a sweater, which would be comforting if he wasn't a hugely muscled man with a horrible looking green ponytail.)
PETER: I had that dream again.
SAMSON: (sighs, drops pencil on pad.) Which one, Peter?

(flashback, go to a slightly old school Ditko or Frenz look. Shot of Peter from the inside of his school locker. Flash Thompson, Liz, and other high school students can be seen in the background pointing and laughing. Peter has glasses, a shocked, embarrassed look, and is buck naked. Obviously, shadows or a locker door or something is blocking Peter's junk.)
PETER: The one where I have a big test that I didn't study for, and I'm completely unprepared, and I forgot my clothes.

(Samson is clearly trying to look sympathetic, but is having a hard time with it.)
SAMSON: Hmm. I can understand the underlying anxiety, but I thought you were a very good student. What test would you be unprepared for?
PETER: I dunno. Wood shop? Or home ec. Left alone, I eat a lot of things that start with "cup of." Aunt M--I mean, my "mom," is right to worry about me not eating.

(Still Flashback: Spider-man, still naked except for his mask and web-shooters, leaping at a very skeeved-out looking Doc Ock. One of Ock's tentacles should be blocking Spidey's naughty bits, and at least one should have a protective position, like it doesn't want to see that either.)
PETER: Anyway, then Doc Ock shows up and starts tearing up the place, and I have to go stop him...
SAMSON: Still...
PETER: Yeah. Don't ask where I was keeping my mask and webshooters. I don't wanna know.

(Samson, closing his notebook and standing up.)
SAMSON: Well, I think that's enough for today. I'll see you next week.

(Peter, shaking Samson's hand with a skeptical expression.)
PETER: Yeah. Hey, isn't this usually where you say, "We've made a lot of progress today?"
SAMSON: Ha-ha. Yes, usually. Read more!

Probably not how to fix the comic industry, but it couldn't hurt.

From What The--?! #14, "Tangles" Written by Bill Wray, art by Rurik Tyler, gently poking fun at Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man #1.


This got me thinking about ol' Todd, something I don't usually do, and it suddenly hit me: Todd McFarlane is the Michael Jackson of comics...without any icky connotations that may bring. Consider: Started small on books like Infinity, Inc., worked his way up to popularity on Amazing Spider-Man, then Spider-Man #1 was his Thriller, a massive hit, never to be completely repeated. This would make Spawn #1 Bad: also a huge hit, but not as huge. And then...long stretches of no output, legal troubles, and making most of their money and headlines in other ventures. (Again, McFarlane's legal troubles are much less distasteful than Michael's.)

And then we've got this panel from Aaron Lopresti, just because it makes me smile.

I have no idea how long this post has been in the draft file...July 7, 2007. Huh. Well, still on no-internet mode, so it'll do. Have a good weekend! Read more!

Didn't this blog used to be about comics?

Well, kinda. It's summertime, the weather is getting nicer, and it's perfect weather to sit in the backyard, put your feet in the kiddie pool, and read a metric assload of comics. But said reading hasn't been translating into blog posts, sadly.

Partly, it's due to my recent selections: I re-read Warren Ellis' Scars, which is a gut-punchingly brutal crime horror (but with no supernatural elements) story, and all twelve issues of Nextwave. Nextwave is fast-paced, funny, and too good for this world; while I think Scars doesn't have so much as a single lighter moment, or even black humored laugh, in the whole series. Incidentally, while I don't have the direct link handy, I saw the trade for Scars is being reissued, and I recommend it if you're a fan of harder-edged crime fiction: keep in mind, it's hardly Law and Order, and is much more violent and bleaker than Fell.

And while I'm a big Ellis fan, I'm not buying No Hero until Black Summer is over. The trade'll be here before the last issue. (I'm exaggerating...maybe.) Ellis is also seemingly taking a page from Mike Mignola's book, and letting other creators play with his creations a bit, like Gravel and Wolfskin. Briefly, Gravel is like 'What if John Constantine was a British special forces agent?' The character may have even started life as a Hellblazer story that DC canned and Ellis reworked, if I recall correctly; although I don't know how much of the initial idea ended up in Gravel.

And Wolfskin, well, if Conan is heavy metal, Wolfskin's death metal. With mushrooms! The first limited series has a plot that's A Fistful of Dollars (or Yojimbo, or Red Harvest...) with a couple smutty twists, and the hero kills everybody--both groups of bad guys, and a good portion of the surrounding countryside--in a berzerker rage in the end. Man, I need to flip through that again before the new one comes out...I think, and this is based off my increasingly shoddy memory, that the rage itself isn't completely shown, just the aftermath: the Wolfskin comes to, bleeding, not sure where he is, and he's apparently turned a farming village into a crater full of corpses.

I may be making both of these sound derivative, and that's not true: they are genre works, and are told using a lot of genre traditions, but they are told well. Ellis might decide to tell, say, a Shadow or Doc Savage styled story (the Apparat single Simon Spector, a one-shot of pulpy goodness); but he's going to put his spin on it.

No scans today, but I should mention: I really like the Jacen Burrows/Avatar house style.


Does lemonade with ice, stirred, have a distinctive sound? Or is it just that people drink coffee out of different cups, and don't stir other iced drinks like pop? An odd thought, but somebody's stirring a glass over here.

On toys: I haven't got to the comic shop yet, and I was thinking about picking up the DC Direct Jonah Hex figure. The comic shop is also just about the only game in town for the DC Universe figures, and I still need Harley and an electric Superman--I'd prefer blue, but the Grodd arm is the main thing if I get him, so either or.

I'm positive I wanted Harley for a strip, but I can't remember what or why now. In fact, last week I finished one that she could've guested in, but I still think I had something else in mind. I need to keep better notes.

Worse, I had an idea for a one panel joke, that would involve buying two other figures. At least. And one of those would just be for the accessory. There's no way I could spring for it. Aw, but it'd be good! Read more!