Lifted wholesale from EW.com:

The release of ''Star Wars: Episode III'' is still more than a year away, but in five months, you can get a good idea of how baby-faced Jedi Anakin Skywalker becomes black-masked villain Darth Vader. Lucasfilm announced on Monday that the upcoming DVD set of the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy, due Sept. 21, will offer a whopping 10 hours of extras, including a preview called ''The Return of Darth Vader.'' The preview will feature George Lucas discussing Anakin's seduction by the dark side of the Force, show the new Vader costume that Hayden Christensen will wear in ''Episode III,'' and detail the preparation for the epic lightsaber battle between Christensen's Anakin and Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The DVD box will contain four discs: one disc each for ''Star Wars,'' ''The Empire Strikes Back,'' and ''The Return of the Jedi'' (complete with commentary tracks by Lucas, Carrie Fisher, and others associated with the movies), and a fourth disc of bonuses. They include a two-and-a-half-hour making-of documentary, testimonials by filmmakers influenced by ''Star Wars,'' hundreds of previously unseen production stills, and previews of two upcoming video games. That should last you until next May, no?

Excuse me while I change my pants.

A mere $5, from the folks at T-Shirt Hell.

Buy one.

That is some funny shit. "In the junk" is one of the greatest phrases of all time to slap on the end of a sentence. Try it!

Also good to throw onto the end of a sentence:

"In accordance with prophecy."

Usage: "I will buy a novelty-sized cookie, in accordance with prophecy."

Or, as stolen from Amazing Spider-Man #129,

"This the Jackal swears!"

Usage: "Nose hairs grow like a foot a minute, this the Jackal swears!"

(Image swiped from ChaosMonkey's Abysmal Pit, which is loads of fun to type out.)

Imagine, if you will, four panels on a page, one in each corner, of equal size to the others. In the top left panel we see a distant shot of a complex of ancient Egyptian temples and monuments and gateways, and much smoke is blowing. A man dressed as a Big Bird facsimile is punching a guy in a stovepipe hat in the face.

In the top right panel, we see the entrance to a sacred temple, and a gorilla wearing shoulder armor, goggles, and a utility belt is being helped out by a woman in fox-hunting gear, who has a cybernetic arm.

Bottom left panel: A pirate has his fist reared back to punch his captor, a man dressed like a pharoah by way of the Kiss army. Both look off-panel, stunned, presumably at the gorilla and the woman with the cybernetic arm.

Bottom right panel: Close up on the gorilla and the woman. The gorilla is giving a thumbs up, because hey, why not, right?

And that, right there, is Sky Ape: Waiting For Crime. A zany and (dare I say?) madcap comic book that, at least in this installment, hits about as often as it misses. You get the impression that the writing team behind this concoction were trying just a wee bit too hard to be zany and madcap.

Let's back up: I confess I have not read the first Sky Ape collection, but this is a fairly self-contained volume, and any background information we need can be inferred or is supplied to us (such as the origin of the woman-in-riding-gear-with-cybernetic-arm, Francis.

The breakdown? Skyape is a gorilla-accountant by day, gorilla-with-jetpack by night. He can talk. He has his secret identity. He has his buddy Francis, who he secretly lusts for, and a companion (friend? ally?) and mad scientist Peyton Fenway. The problem? Rather unusual installments are showing up in ancient city structures: a spa in a pyramid, vinyl siding on the pueblos of the Anasazi, baseboard heating in the ancient cities of Peru -- someone is going back in time and installing cheap crap on ancient monuments!

I would not dream of telling you who's doing it, or why. Suffice to say the reasoning and methodology are right on par, sanity-wise, with the Kissy army pharoah.

I'm really on the fence here. A lot of the humor relies on wacky non sequitors and pop culture references, and those don't hold a lot of weight with me unless they're done really, really, really well (and sparingly). Examples:

Maintenance man: You called, sir? We're here to spray for Ted Nugent.

See? Funny. I'll be using that line for ages.

Owen Dangertooth: Sorry we're late, buddy! I was busy wiping my ass on Fred Durst!

Eh, not so much. Don't get me wrong, wiping my ass on Fred Durst is a long-held fantasy of mine, but I doubt that joke will pack any punch in three years' time. Ted Nugent, on the other hand, is immortal.

I guess the final verdict comes down to this: If I had not received this for free, I probably would not have bought it, even though it's only $6.95. Then again, perhaps this just isn't prime Sky Ape territory. My local DM store has a copy of the first TPB, so maybe I'll pick that up, see what it does for me...

Jeff over at Otto's Coffee Shop (and what's that name mean, anyway?) has some good, sharp TV reviews up. I've never heard, nor do I think I'll ever hear, a more accurate description of Al Swearengen from Deadwood's dialogue than this:

I love the way that Swearengen uses words like "fuck" and "cocksucker" the way the rest of us use "the" and "and."

I, too, hope for one day to use those words so fluently. Jeff: might I suggest that Swearengen uses the word "cunt" like we use a less-frequent but fairly common word, such as "hello"?

I'm glad they've set up Swearengen and Tolliver to have a more practical working relationship. I didn't want to see blood on the streets right away for it, because I think both saloon owners are way too smart for that. And I rather like Swearengen (bastard that he is) and would have resented some new guy coming in and just wiping him off the face of the earth five episodes in.

Best new show on television, bar none.

Someone came to this site after searching for "you're still a homo chips ponch" on Google.

Give it a try.

(Got a headlight to put into my car. After that, it's comic book blogging time.)

Taken verbatim from Rich Johnston's "Lying in the Gutters" column, so take it as you will:

Gutterati Nate Southand emails me with a "Sin City" location report from the upcoming Rodriguez/Millar movie.

"A friend of mine worked as an extra on 'Sin City' yesterday, and he had some exciting news.

"They were filming the strip club scene. Apparently, this will be the most faithful adaptation of a comic in history, because their shooting script was xeroxed copies of Sin City. They line up the camera to look like the panel, and they shoot.

"They're filming 'Sin City, That Yellow Bastard' and 'The Big Fat Kill.' The stories will be cut together 'Pulp Fiction' style. An intro starring Josh Hartnett is from 'Booze, Broads, and Bullets.'

"Mickey Rourke as Marv. They used prosthetics to make him true to the comic: square jaw, flat nose, everything.

"Nancy hasn't been cast yet. They used a stand in.

"Frank Miller is on set."

I'm not one for hyperbole (is that one right there?), but you know what? If all this is true, and if it's true that Tarantino might do a segment or two... this could be the comic book movie that finally breaks ground with the critics. Real ground. This could be The One, folks.

So I'm browsing the fancy "high-end" Marvel store, the Official One, and it's 2:30, and I notice two very funny things.

First is this, a little graphic that Reed Richards might have some complaints about:

If you're old enough to read this blog, I don't need to explain the joke.

And then there's this, described thusly:

Marvel Legends 6" Thing

Features more than 30 points of articulation and a wall-mountable display base. Stands 6” tall.

Tragically, there is no picture.

(Shut up. I cracked the hell up when I saw that stuff, and you did too.)

The Diamond list of comics shipping for Wednesday, courtesy of Johnny Bacardi (Latin hedonist!)

And what I'll be getting, because I know you're so very, very curious:

EL ZOMBO #1 (Of 3) $2.99: Full disclosure: I have no idea what this is, but that's a hell of a title.

LONE #6 $2.99: This is a mini-series, right? That's what I always thought.. if I'm incorrect in that, please let me know.

FRACTION #1 $2.50: Been bad about the Focus line. Hard Time is great, but I haven't yet touched anything else, but this one.. sounds good.

WALKING DEAD #6 (MR) $2.95: One of the best titles in comics. You have no reason for not buying this.

CABLE DEADPOOL #2 (RES) $2.99: One last chance to impress me.

RUNAWAYS #14 $2.99: A Title In Trouble. (A-TIT! Tee hee!) BUY IT! It's good loving. Can't go wrong with Vaughan.

GEORGE ROMEROS DAWN OF THE DEAD #1 (MR) $3.99: You know why. Steep price, though.

RICH JOHNSTONS HOLED UP #1 (Of 3) (MR) $3.50: Could be tacky and good, or could be tacky and bad. I'll find out.

I got the comic today, read a bunch of it, ended up at the mall later, and bought 7, 9 & 10, was pissed they didn't have 8, have to go to the comic shop for that.

love the comic, thanks.

That was from the second place guy, the one who broke his ass and let us know about it and won himself a copy of The Losers: Ante Up.

If you haven't bought it yet, what's your excuse?

Don't that just warm your bowels right up?

The Man speaketh:

[L]isten carefully. I support [Rush] Limbaugh's right to be on the radio. I feel it is fully equal to [Howard] Stern's. I find it strange that so many Americans describe themselves as patriotic when their values are anti-democratic and totalitarian. We are all familiar with Voltaire's great cry: ''I may disagree with what you say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.'' Ideas like his helped form the emerging American republic. Today, the Federal Communications Commission operates under an alternative slogan: ''Since a minority that is very important to this administration disagrees with what you say, shut up.''

Very good, if brief, read. I like this part:

Unlike millions of Americans, I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. One reason for that is that I am usually at the movies when he's on the air -- an alternative I urge on his listeners.

Jim Treacher's haiku-review of Kill Bill 2:

In a mobile home
Swordplay is problematic
But keep an eye out

I'd just like to say I liked Volume 2 a lot more than Volume 1. It clicked. It's not as hectic and fast-paced as the first one, but that's fine; we get lots of nice, juicy dialogue to savor, and rock-solid performances from every single member of the cast. The first movie didn't have good performances so much as it had good lines delivered confidently -- but this one is a damned masterpiece.

Interesting interview with Jim Lee over at Broken Frontier. I've come to think Jim Lee is just a really cool guy. Anyone got anything to counter that?

Anyway, there's this:

BF: How would you compare the talents of Brian Azzarello with those of your former collaborator Jeph Loeb? What does either writer bring to the table that your artistic talents can take advantage of?

JL: Both are great writers to work with. Jeph stages things more elaborately, very cinematically. Brian has a lot of the tension come through dialogue, through silent beats. I’m drawing a lot more shots where the camera is cutting back and forth between the characters or holding still on one character while he ‘acts’ out his lines. They both have a flair for the dramatic though and I consider them both not only to be some of the top writers in the field today but also good buds.

Which, well, I can only hope Lee's being diplomatic there. I guess Loeb could be considered a "top writer" because he sells so well, and Azzarello because he writes so well... anyway.

And check out how closely BF gets to asking about the cancellations of two top Wildstorm titles, and then dances right away from it again:

BF: About WildStorm, fans are heavily discussing what the new direction of the WS universe with Coup D’Etat having wrapped up. What factors do you think led to the necessity of a new course?

JL: While the books were very well received and critically acclaimed, we felt we needed some big event to make retailers and fans take notice. We felt if they gave the line a chance, they would stick around because I happen to feel the creative teams on all the Eye Of The Storm books are top notch. I think in years going forward, these will be the superhero books fans will look most fondly back on for doing very different and cutting edge work. Getting some marketing muscle and dollars out there to open the eyes to the rest of the fans was the goal and from the numbers we got, it looks like we succeeded. Now we have to continue delivering the goods and come up with other ways to make people take notice. It’s sad that a lot of the very best comics today are on the verge of cancellation.

Which would be a perfect lead-in, right? You'd think Jim Lee is giving the BF interviewer an opening to ask about the cancellations of WildCATS and Stormwatch, right? I mean, Jim Lee wasn't personally involved in the cancellations, but Wildstorm is his baby, so it would only seem logical...

Here's the next question:

BF: Is there anything you can reveal about what will be done in the next couple of months to make WildStorm bolder and better?

Dickheads.

NEWS THAT IS NOT NEWS: I am a moron, and my reading skills today are apparently faulty. The interview took place before the announcement of the titles' cancellations. Whoops.

Now who's the dickhead.

From EW.com:

Second place, as expected, went to ''The Punisher,'' the comic-book-based thriller starring Thomas Jane, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and John Travolta, with $14 million. That's considerably lower than the $23.2 million debut of ''Hellboy'' two weeks ago. Could audiences be tiring of these comic-book flicks? With ''Spider-Man 2'' less than three months away, don't count on it.

This annoys me. El Castigador rakes in $4 million more than was anticipated, brings in Lion's Gate Films' highest opening weekend gross ever, and they bring in this shit about people "tiring of comic book movies."

Let's get something straight here: Hellboy opened up against nothing. The other releases that week were fucking Home on the Range, Walking Tall, and The Prince and Me. It did not have to open against A QUENTIN TARANTINO MOVIE. It also had twice the marketing behind it that El Castigador did.

Anyway, according to Box Office Guru, the numbers on El Castigador were pretty damn solid:

Opening in second place was another revenge-driven action film, the Lions Gate release The Punisher with an estimated $14M. The Thomas Jane-John Travolta pic averaged a solid $5,285 from 2,649 theaters despite facing competition from Kill Bill.

Ahem. I get defensive. Sorry.

(EW link provided by Fanboy Rampage.)

Gah!

(I'll get to the comics in a minute.)

Doom 3.

Not sure why they're calling it Doom 3, as it appears to be a redo of Doom 1, but I don't care. It's DOOM, baby! The first game I ever bought for the computer was Wolfenstein 3D, complete with the shareware of Doom, Episode I: Knee Deep in the Dead. I remember being genuinely scared by the sound effects of distant zombies.

The pink demons still freak me out, sometimes.

And I, somehow, managed to get a beta of Doom 2 long before anyone I knew could ever get their hands on the game... and I became the coolest kid on the block. And a badass on DWANGO (anyone remember that?)

I just hope they have something in Doom 3 that's as viscerally satisfying as the sound of the double-barreled shotgun blasting nice and loud, and klik-klaking in reload.

(Link thanks to Wil.)

I'm really glad that Nazi saboteur killed the doctor who pumped Steve Rogers full of his super soldier serum.

(Lordy, did that sound homoerotic.)

Because like, the plan was, to make a BUNCH of these guys, right? A bunch of Captain Americas, running around and kicking Nazi ass. While I have no doubt that if that plan had come to fruition, these super soldiers would be kicking Hitler's head around by suppertime, what do we do with these guys afterwards? I mean we can presume they'd all have fancy neato shields, so just popping them two in the head wouldn't work out so well.

It's not like they would all be as noble and heroic as Steve Rogers, right? Even if you just injected one platoon of guys with this serum and gave them indestructible shields, that's 29 guys whose only distinguishing characteristics is that they are between the ages of 18 and 25, male, and weren't good enough for the army to throw onto the front lines as cannon fodder. And they aren't all going to conveniently get frozen in an ice floe, mister.

Can you imagine what would happen if you injected the cast of the latest Survivor with the super soldier serum, and made them super strong, super tough, tactically brilliant and functionally immortal?

Okay, how about the New York Yankees?

The anchors and anchorettes of Fox News? Bill fucking O'Reilly?

If you tell me that doesn't send shivers of fear right down your spine and into your bowels, then you, sir, are a liar.

(That "Avast" key fucking slays me.)

Have you ever giggled like a goddamned fool? You get the giggles so hard, so fiercely, that no matter how hard you try to stop, no matter how many people stare, you just can't quite shake them?

Like when the priest cuts a mean fart during Communion? How about when your faithful dog runs smack-dab into the glass patio door, just trot-trot-trot-kaPOW? Or like that one video that was passed around in everyone's e-mail, the one of the cat clinging to a spinning ceiling fan before it gave up the ghost and flew right into a wall? Or that time when Jeff Daniels decked Lauren Holly in the face with a snowball in Dumb and Dumber? Or when a kid totally kicks some guy in the balls, and that guy makes that pop-eyed "holy jesus!" face right before he falls over?

That's Scurvy Dogs.

This is a pirate comic, and no pirate comic is complete without a colorful crew, so let me see if I can get this straight: You got the Menudo-American guy with the pet vulture (named Pete, of course), you've got the surly Irish guy who knows the difference between sea shanties and maritime tunes, you've got the old geezer who eats everything and has a handful of origin stories for his hook, and you've got the chinese guy who doesn't talk. All these guys do indeed have a pirate ship, wear eye patches and hats with the old Jolly Roger emblazoned right on the front, but these guys operate in the real world. Or, at least, the kind of "real world" that allows for vikings from the future and the King of the Hobo Mafia (he of the bitchin' cape.)

Brilliant.

Just about every funny B&W comic I run across, I end up comparing to The Tick, and I think that in this case the comparison has some validity (if only in form and not content.) Both comics set up their own totally insane world, and both operate flawlessly within the parameters of that world. There's a kind of energy running through these panels, a speed and a sharpness so completely mastered that Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount make all of this look effortless.

(Secret: It's not. Otherwise we'd have more books like this one.)

Enough of that high-falutin' crap. This is a goddamned funny book, and I'm still giggling like a fool. ("The priest! He farted!") And I ask, has there ever been a finer sentence put to print than this one?:

"C'mon, boys, let's show these Portugese lepers why we call them the 'pinatas of the sea.'"

I submit to you that there has not.

Rating: "Right in the middle of Communion!"

(Web page.)

...and you like gaming of every variety possible, from console to tabletop RPG, then be sure to check out the Penny Arcade Expo.

I'd pitch it, but then Gabe and Tycho have already taken care of that:

Whatever your obsession, chances are good that we will have something to interest you - it only starts with rooms for tabletop gaming, and a robust LAN rocking the newest Unreal Tournament or Battlefield games. Linked consoles for Mario Kart, Crimson Skies or Splinter Cell. Want to hear how to break into the industry? Stop by one of our many industry panels. Want to pitch your game ideas to the pros? This is also something we have.

Maybe you'd like to actually get your hands on some of the things they showed at E3. That's something we can hook up. Maybe you would like to hear rock bands perform interpretations of console hits. We have that as well. You might be wondering if there will be a full screening of the Red Vs. Blue DVD. Yes!

In short, there was an event we wanted to go to that did not yet exist. We decided to fix that.

(CW)TB

Not bad. Not bad at all. It's kind of unfortunate that I live in Texas. Which is, you know... half a country away.

Saw El Castigador again, because I figure I should at least donate my $7.50. Tim Bradstreet was there, which was neat, and I got an autographed poster, which was even neater.

Anyway. The movie was much better the second time around. It still has some pacing problems, some score problems, some tone problems. But I realize the first screening was seen under pretty bad conditions: small theater, shitty sound system, guys who would whoop loudly every time a pretty girl came on screen (and with Laura Harring and Rebecca Romijn in the cast, that was pretty often), and so on and so forth. An unpleasant viewing experience for any movie.

If you're on the fence, go see it. There's some cheesiness there I could do without, but it's a viscerally satisfying flick. And Tom Jane is a perfect Frank Castle.

Second-finest column in comics. This one about the whole CrossGen/American Power mess. No finer breakdown of that situation has yet been written.

Look, it really is as simple as Graeme lays it out, folks. This isn't a political issue. And conservative pundits of the comic book world? I can't help but feel you're rushing to this book's defense for no other reason than Chuck Dixon is nominally one of you. There is no way you can defend what is so obviously a complete piece of garbage.

To neocon comic book talking heads: just because Dixon says he's one of you, that doesn't mean you have to rush to his aid. I am a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, but I don't feel the need to defend any and every crackpot left-of-center because other people say he has the same politics I do. I'm not a vegan, I believe in the death penalty in certain circumstances, and I am not a zombie to the party line. Neither should you be.

Chuck Dixon, much as I like some of his work, is not a conservative. He's just fucking crazy.

At least that's how I felt, opening up my box from AiT/PlanetLar. I thought, you know, I'd be getting like a couple issues of Demo (which I'm still very much on the fence about, as a series) and a hardcover or two.

Oh no.

What I got can only be described as "a metric fuckload." Or perhaps "shit-ton." Or maybe even "godDAMN but that is a lot of comics."

So yes, I'm here to tell you I, Ken Lowery, have sold out.

Don't worry, though. If I don't like something, I'll let you know. Freebies are cool, but these free items are not intended as a bribe, and I'm not taking them like one.

Looks like I got some weekend reading to do...

Shane has posted the first part of his multi-part overview of the City of Heroes beta. This stuff gets my dork senses tingling, man.

Who's up for creating an all-blogger mega-team when this hits the market? C'mon, don't be shy!

(Dibs on the Natural-Scrapper-Medieval Weaponry combination!)

Rating at a glance for El Castigador -- 3 out of 5. The rest of the reviews I've seen are wildly across the board. Some loved it, some felt more could have been done with the material, others felt it fell far short of its potential. I can see validity in each argument.

(Though I think it is worth pointing out that Rolling Stone review. RS is a flaming pile of shit, but Peter Travers generally has it together.)

I'm not going to make this a fancy movie review. It's 3am, and I'm tired, and my bed is like a foot and a half away. If this review seems disjointed, and like it's hopping all over the place, then there's your reason. Back off.

The Punisher is a movie with problems, though one that nonetheless manages to entertain. We have a movie attempting to walk that fine line between gruesomeness and humor -- the one that Ennis and Dillon walk so effortlessly -- and, perhaps about half of the time, missteps and miscalculates. But when it's on... wow.

I'm not going to bother you with a story. Frank Castle's family dies, he hunts down the people responsible and in the process makes the transformation into the Punisher. All the bad people die, and Castle does not. We know this about Punisher stories. That's all window dressing. The how's and the why's -- the visceral fun of how the baddies die, and the slightly deeper implications of why Castle is doing what he's doing -- are the important parts.

It's the origin I have trouble with. This isn't me picking it apart as some kind of namby-pamby fanboy, oh no. This is me, a longtime reader (first time caller!), tapping my fingers on the armrests, watching that slow transition from the death of Castle's family to his first kill, silently chanting get on with it. It's impatience, pretty much; I know all of the details of the transformation, and I don't need to see yet another rendition. Will this stretch of screentime bore or interest non-comic book fans? I haven't the foggiest idea.

And then enters the Russian, and I could feel the audience (or was it just me, projecting?) get snapped right back into the movie in a vital way. The fight scene with Senor Russian is long, brutal, humorous, wince-inducing, and almost punch-for-stab lifted directly from the "Welcome Back, Frank" source material. After this scene, the movie picks up speed: we watch as Castle methodically sets his traps and offs his prey, one by one, dismantling an entire criminal empire in a few deft, crafty, and rather brutal strokes. From the Russian on, this movie reaches its rather bloody plateau.

And there really are some moments of sick genius. Keep an eye out for a take on Chuck Dixon's classic blowtorch interrogation scene.

The direction is uneven, as is the pacing of the story. We have brief outbursts of violence as a few would-be assassins make their move on Castle during the first half of the movie, punctuating long stretches of not much else. The brutality and violence are unglamorized (at least until, again, the Russian), especially the origin segment wherein three generations of Castle get murdered, but I suppose this is appropriate. To sex up the murder of men, women, and children would cross the line into the perverse.

I have issues with a few trappings of this movie, specifically the two designed to set the tone as a kind of 70's revenge movie or revenge western. Don't get me wrong: I don't mind those two styles of movie at all. I think we're rather lacking in them both, lately. But...

The opening title cards, I have no idea what the hell's going on there, or who thought those were a good idea. I had rather uncomfortable flashbacks to the opening titles for the Dolph Lundgren, and it's.. just.. well.. cheesy. There's no other word for it.

Second major complaint is the score. It's obtrusive. Majorly obtrusive. The movie's score is composed by Carlo Siliotto, who's an old understudy of Ennio Morricone and will not let you forget it. Once again, when we reach the Russian scene and points beyond, the loftiness of the trumpets begins to make a bit more sense -- but Jesus jumped up on a pogostick, man. You remember that old AMC slogan? Sometimes, SILENCE IS GOLDEN.

Anyway. Will you have a good time? Probably, so long as you're not expecting a brain workout. That's not me saying "it's dumb" -- though some critics will undoubtedly tell you it is -- just me saying it's a straightforward story, beginning to end.

And good god, does it get brutal. Two-word review: "Nasty fun."

Keep an eye out for Thomas Jane's upcoming Stander. If this movie doesn't make him a star, Stander will at least earn him some chops among the critics' circles.

(And, Xe, in case you needed more reasons to like Frank Castle, he manages to slip in a diss on the Skankees. Kind of funny, considering his comic book counterpart is a born and raised New Yorker.)

Fun post about City of Heroes on the front page of 8-Bit Theater. If you are interested in this game as much as I am, then by god, take a read.

This paragraph alone (about other cockholes, as my roommate put it, not being able to interfere in your missions) shall spawn me a new slogan for Ringwood Ragefuck:

When we're in the middle of something like roleplaying, which boils down to typing the likes of "QUERY: SO MUCH BLOOD, BUT WHERE IS HUMAN LOVE?" to make each other laugh, we don't need Vegetorz_SayenXZ storming onto the scene.

Holy jesus.

ADDENDUM: Larry Young sent me an email noting that the CITY OF HEROES comic, available soon from your local retailer through Diamond Comics, sports artwork by Brandon McKinney, he of SWITCHBLADE HONEY and PLANET OF THE CAPES. If there isn't a second volume of SH or POTC, blame the allure of that fat cash The Divine Mister B rakes in from Corporate Video Games.

I did not, repeat did not C&P that directly from an e-mail sent to me by Larry. Nosir. No way. Huh uh.

My integrity has not been compromised.

(Because I have no integrity.)

There's a discussion going on over at Fanboy Rampage about a comment made by Andy Diggle, writer of The Losers and Swamp Thing. His money quote goes something like this:

"The X-Men back in spandex. Doom Patrol goes 70s. Wildcats 3.0 cancelled. What fucking century is this... ? I need a drink."

The usual responses are coming from all around. Those that concede with what Diggle's said want to blame either the DM and readers (as if they were one entity), or the publishers (in this case, the Big Two, DC and Marvel, also treated as if they were one entity.)

And once again we see the basic flaw in thinking that many, many, many otherwise intelligent critics and comic fans wear on their sleeve when this discussion (or one like it) comes up. Everything's in black and white. It's either this or it's that. You're either a Marvel or DC fan, you either love nothing but superheroes or hate superheroes with the searing heat of a thousand white-hot suns.

As we know from real life, one side or another in every artistic medium cannot bear the full blame. Black and white mentality never solves anything. The issue is always, always, always much stickier than that.

The arguments go something like this:

It's the Big Two's fault: "The Lords and Masters of Marvel and DC hate all creativity and would skin their money directly from the backs of Ethiopian orphans if it were possible. Innovation is the enemy. They all sit in smokey boardrooms and talk about how they can fuck over the youth of American in new and interesting ways. Their stagnation is the death knell of the industry. Blah blah Quesada blah blah sellout blah blah corporate blah blah Barnes & Noble blah blah capes blah blah man-panties."

Problems with this argument: Yes, it's quite true that a lot of Marvel's and DC's current policies seem to indicate they're backtracking. There's a potential revolution on their hands that they're not going for. But you know what?

Revolutions cost money. Revolutions are risky and quite dangerous to public image and to the wallet. Publishing risky books in high quantities, advertising for them as you would a new Superman/Batman crossover, all that shit equals a lot of money spent that simply won't be made back for a long, long time. Trends emerge slowly and catch on with the mainstream audience years after their heralds are first published.

The Big Two are in the rather precarious position of being the yardstick by which the entire industry is measured and gauged. Both are monoliths in comparison to places like Image or Dark Horse or Oni, but are absolute peons when you compre them to Simon & Schuster or Paramount Pictures. The money scales are so vastly different, and the industry so much smaller, that Marvel and DC simply cannot afford to publish tons of risk titles.

Everyone likes to bitch and gripe about how bankrupt the industry is, how it's always on the very precipice of utter failure, and then turn around and bitch at Marvel for putting out five Spider-Man titles instead of a bunch of watered-down Chasing Amy-esque semi-autobiographical wankfests written by self-important nobodies (lord knows I've bitched about it.) And they fail to see the connection. Marvel and DC do not have a lot of money. In order to get a lot of money that can be spent on aforementioned wankfests, they must first generate disposable profit. How is this accomplished?

By releasing twenty (yes, twenty) Spider-Man books in the month of May, for starters.

Do you understand, now? Do you get it? These are corporations that must, at all times, turn a profit. Comics sell little enough as it is. These companies do not have the room to release title after title of untested, unreliable material. No corporation in the world works that way; why do we expect the Big Two to operate differently? If one of them did operate that way, they'd sink in about two years. Can you imagine what the comic book world would be like if Marvel or DC tanked?

A fucking warzone, that's what. Love them or hate them, the Big Two are essential to the survival of the craft.

It's the DM's and comic book readers' fault: "How dare you insult our superheroes? Look, if it's really their fault, why don't you just quit bitching and stop buying the superhero books? Obviously that's the solution to the problem: If you disagree with me, just don't talk about it. Since Avengers/JLA sells so well, this must obviously be what the people want. Blah blah fanboys blah blah juvenile blah blah manga blah blah Wildstorm blah blah if fans want something new they can look elsewhere." Interestingly, this argument is supported by mindless fanboys and kneejerk all-superheroes-suck cynics alike, if for different reasons.

Problems with this argument: Look, it really isn't as simple as all that. Do you know why Fables doesn't sell 100,000 issues a month? It's not because "the dumbass fanboys" (or "the people," if you happen to be one of those "dumbass fanboys") just really prefer to see a dude in tights kicking another dude in tights's ass.

There's a fuckton of other factors to consider, some of which have been touched on in recent columns all over the internet. (My preferred flavor is the one that stated that most people go to comic books for superheroes because their other needs, in drama and horror and sci-fi and so on, are adequately met in other media, such as novels and movies.) And we also, inevitably, come back to finances.

Fables, a fine comic, does not sell 100,000 copies a month because it does not and cannot command that kind of audience. I don't care if you give it the hugest marketing push in the world (which costs money), gave away free 8-page samples of it on the street (money again), or forced every single DM to carry a stack of them each time it came out, no matter the size of the store (dinero). Despite all those hypotheticals, it's still trapped in a DM store, which is a specialty shop. Despite all those hypotheticals, it still sits next to Ultimate Man-Thing (or whatever) on the shelves, and people are going to go with what's familiar, because going out on a limb costs them money, just as it costs the publisher money to push a risk. They would prefer to spend their money on a product they know will satisfy them, then take risks every single week.

(A quick aside: I don't want to hear any shit about how comics is the only place where the audience seems to go for the same characters over and over again and never wants anything new. The assumption is that only lameass fanboys go to their entertainment for a pleasing sense of comfort and, to some degree, sameness.

To you types, I invoke John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Meg Ryan, Michael Bay, Bruce Willis, Dave Barry, Top 40 radio, the romantic comedy formula, and a host of other people, story structures, and repetitive media we see churning out pretty much the same product year after year after year. And people buy or otherwise patronize them. Why? Because people know what they like and they seek it out. Not everyone is an entertainment adventurer looking for new thrills every single time they go to the theater or bookstore. And I'm not going to be the kind of cultural fascist that suggests everyone should be. I don't have that right, and neither do you.)

And there are those comic shops that simply cannot afford to cater to the smaller print stuff out of vanity. Do you know why? Because it doesn't pay the fucking rent, end of story. Tower Records has filed Chapter 11, largely because they sell a lot of specialized product (such as as their large selection of zines and indie publications) that cannot pay for the floorspace they take up.

We are a cottage industry, ladies and gents. We don't yet have the room to publish a bunch of vanity and experimental titles in truly significant numbers. Those titles come through, bit by bit, in Oni and Avatar and Vertigo and AiT/PlanetLar, and for now that's about as much as the industry can handle. You want things to change? Get active about it.

The "everything's fine" argument: "It's always been this way. Why do you care about the X-Men going back to spandex? I see no obvious greater significance of that. This is what people want. Why are you bitching? This is how it's always been and always will be. You're just whining."

Problems with this argument: Thanks, guys. Your apathy is duly noted. Next time, if you have nothing to contribute, just don't talk. You don't have to voice an opinion on everything, especially if your opinion is to not have one.

Do you get me now? That this isn't one side's fault or the other, that pat answers will solve nothing? Change is affected when it is made benficial for both sides of an argument.

Example from the movie industry: I was watching Last House on the Left the other night, specifically to listen to the director's commentary. The experience was enlightening. Prominently mentioned was the fact that this film was budgeted by a collective of independent movie theater owners who wanted to produce cheapie films for their teenage audiences. This was a fairly common practice in that where and when, and seemed to work out pretty well for a young writer/director named Wes Craven.

Do you understand the implications? Business owners interested in profit funded young, untested filmmakers to make a movie because it was something that benefitted the both of them. The owners got their dirt cheap product and made money off of it, and the filmmakers got a jumpstart on their careers. You can scoff all you want at the importance of Wes Craven and the slasher/shock genre of movies (and they are important to the history of film, whether you acknowledge it or not), but you will find no greater instruction of how change in an artistic medium can be effected.

Whew. That's all for now.

I'll be seeing that at midnight tonight, and goddamn if I'm not excited. Trying to keep myself objective, though; I've heard wildly different takes on the movie, from awful to awesome. If for some reason it sucks, I'll be honest about it.

And I'll let ya know, as soon as I get back.

As you probably know, Steven Grant has a new Permanent Damage up.

The thing in this column most people have focused on is the Marvel Icon business. Which is interesting. But as the wise Franklin Harris pointed out, no one really knows enough yet to speculate anything meaningful; an opinion columnist can only lay out a spectrum of possibilities and their thoughts on each. Intriguing, but basically a mental exercise that has no real bearing on anything. Until we get more concrete facts, everyone's just pulling their pud and remarking on how clever they are about it. Grant, at least, recognizes this.

I'm not interested in that part of the column, anyway.

His "episodes from a freelance life" is much more interesting, as it gives a little peek into editorial policy that, while not revelatory, is still interesting to read. This part, particularly, struck me:

Here's something that's turned into a social taboo, particularly since Columbine: kids. Particularly evil kids, or harm coming to kids, even evil ones. Which is too bad, especially since our concept of "kid" has reverted as far as the late teens and even, for some, early 20s. (That there are those who wish to treat all of us as children is a separate issue.) I don't believe there's no such thing as a bad kid. I believe bad kids are usually the result of bad parenting, which isn't quite as transparent an observation as it sounds, but it's more complicated than I care to get into, so let's leave it at that. I've seen kids do lots of bad things; that kids can be flat out evil strikes me as fit fodder for fiction. (Check out J.G. Ballard's RUNNING WILD.) "Kids as villains" also strikes me as a thorny problem for almost any hero, and one that confronts our justice system as well. How do you deal with juvenile offenders? Should they be treated as adults for severe crimes? Is "zero tolerance" a fair approach? Given the understanding of technology that many kids (teen and pre-teen) far exceeds that of their elders, it doesn't strike me as far-fetched that, in a more technological world, young people would increasingly take not necessarily legal advantage of technology for a variety of reasons that wouldn't necessarily mirror adult concerns. Which makes them interesting to write about.

This might make me sound like a tool (as if I haven't already, in many many posts), but this reminds me of the Punisher one-shot where Mister Castle travels to Belfast to deal with some drug runners and murderous psychoes. He spies a couple of kids torching a car with a molotov cocktail and ponders to himself: "I wonder, sometimes. When it comes to what I do. How young is too young, exactly?"

I sure as shit wouldn't mind a story exploring that particular morality, as told by Ennis or Grant. The latter doesn't work much these days and the former gets too easily dismissed because of the oddball nature of his stories, but I don't think there's anyone else in comics who deals so comfortably with the darkest of morality plays.

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Thanks to Shane for the link. He's given a toy for everyone to play with today, it seems.)

So there's this 24 Hour Comics day thing. Basic idea is you lock yourself into a comic book shop and come up with a comic book in a nonstop marathon of 24 hours. You write it out, you draw it, and you produce a comic book in that span of time. No one helps you. It's you alone.

A lot of people have snarked on it. A lot of people have said it makes no difference, that it's a stupid idea, yadda yadda. Crippling the idea before it even gets out of the gate. Bloggers, like me, pretty much make a hobby out of criticizing the fuck out of something until it's dead in the water.

Thanks to a friend of mine, Joe, I'll be taking a different tack. He decided to sign up, stretch his creative wings a little, and have some fun with it.

So I am too.

Now, I can't draw. No way. Not a chance. The book will look like warmed-over ass, at best. But I can write. I can do dialogue. I can do characters. Also, I like having a good time. There's no goddamn way in the world I'll "win" or whatever, since more than likely I'll be up against Scott Kurtz and possibly someone from Viper (seems like I'm name-dropping Viper a lot lately, doesn't it?). But I don't care, and neither does Joe. We're going to spend 24 hours in a comic shop, trying our hand at the hobby we love. We're not cartoonists, not by any stretch, but we're going to have a kickass time.

Maybe you should try it too, eh? Maybe every blogger should. Money-where-your-mouth-is time, folks.

Find a location near you and sign up. Hell, if I can find a place to host the images, I'll even scan mine and post it for all of you to mock.

Sound good? Let me know.

What I bought:

Reload/Mek TPB flipbook - Most people seemed to have not-so-nice things to say about this. I'll judge for myself how these series are.

Chosen #2 - Say whatever the hell you want about Mark Millar, this looks to be a thoughtful, insightful series. Yeah, I'm willing to back that up.

1602 #8 - Just as the series is getting really interesting, it comes to a close. Ah well. Fun while it lasted, and pretty pretty art.

Dead@17: Blood of Saints #1 - My boys at Viper are back!

Deep Sleeper #1 and #2 - Enough people have been talking about this title that it was no longer acceptable for me to not check it out. So here I am. Being trendy.

Bite Club #1 - Gotta go with Johnny Bacardi (Latin hedonist!) on this one; worst title ever. Still, vampire mafioso? That can be fun, fun, fun!

More reading, less talking. See ya later on, when I'm done.

Anyone got $1200 they can spare?

Because, you know, this:

You would totally be my friend for at least a week.

And he forwards me this:

Beautiful Killer artist Phil Noto posted an update to his yahoo group:

I'm starting on the new miniseries for Black Bull called The New West. Jimmy Palmiotti is writing it and it'll be debuting at the Wizard Chicago con. They're going to start hyping it at the Philly show. I'm also working on something big and secret that I can't share just yet, but it's going to be super-cool.

And what I told him: Cool. His art was the only thing worth a damn in Beautiful Killer. Just wish I knew more. If any of you do... POST IT!

(Real winner-losers can be found here.)

This particular letter takes a little bit to pick up steam. There's some crap in here about getting a degree to be a band director, which is pretty fucking loserly, but it's not going to get you any comics (or even get you marked for murder when the revolution comes.) I skipped past all that and got to the meat of it.

The Guy Who Gets Hit By Things:

Reason #2: I've been hit hard in life. I've been hit by lightning, once thank god, a motorboat while I was in a canoe, and by a car while I was blindfolded. Why, you ask? Because I just have a bad luck life, I guess.

Lightning, wow. I was in boy scouts, I was 12. I tried to save a tent that blew over in a thunderstorm and when I was racing over to save it, BAM there it goes and now I was blind for 5 minutes and deaf for 2 hours. That's great. It sucked a whole lot, and you don't get to remember a lot, but just be glad you haven't been struck (if you have, damn man I feel ya, I do.)

And then there's that time at a church camp I was hit by a motorboat. Wielded by a LIFEGUARD. Keyword: Life. Guard. And she was driving so fast her bow was up and couldn't see us in time. She struck our canoe full force and I was underwater, attatched to the canoe, and I had to unstrap my harness and swim over and get my friend out to make sure we were ok. Can you believe it, a lifeguard in a lake almost killing us? Well I can.

And well, at that same camp I had to do a blindfold test to test my faith in other Christians, and well, I let go of my friend in front of me up a hill because he kept leading me into rocks, and I ended up almost roadkill because I let go and walked into a street. Not knowing of course you were near A STREET kind of sucks when you're blindfolded at church camp, but I hope they changed the route now for this faith-building adventure. Damn, I can't believe that.

The Son of Man has a sick sense of humor.

I still think the lifeguard part is the funniest. That's something out of a Farrelly brothers movie, pre-Say It Isn't So.

But wait! There's more! Same guy:

I'll tell ya something else too. I am still technically virgin though I attempted INTERCOURSE. I dunno how it works, but one time, after I graduated high school, my friends attempted to get me laid with a cute girl. She didn't tell me her age and I was 18. We fucked like rabbits but I never came and she didn't either. Miracles of the first time I guess, but we were both close the whole time. Well, after a while we realized both of us couldn't satisfy the other, so we ended it. Did I mention that we did the act in a senior citizen mormon people's house while they WERE ON VACATION?!?! Isn't that great, even though we didn't technically ever reach our limits, we did it in a house that reveres Joseph Smith. I don't have anything against mormons, but it was just what we had availible! Besides, I guess old people quilts feel good when you're doing it. Haha, but anyways.

-Josh Geary

"I guess old people quilts feel good when you're doing it." Holy SHIT, I think my spleen just ruptured from laughter.

Anyway, when I get to that part about the "house that reveres Joseph Smith," I imagine this anthropomorphic house with a white shirt and black tie praying to Smith like he were Mecca. While people fuck to zero fruition, inside of him.

ON OLD PEOPLE QUILTS.

(Real winner-losers can be found here.)

This pretty much speaks for itself:

I haven't heard of these comics before (sorry!) but I'm more than willing to share my terrible terrible shame! The potential of winning a prize for it is only a bonus!

To fully appreciate the abject my abject loserdom you have to picture the dorm room that I lived in last year. My stolen microfridge contained only an opened can of sprite and globs of dirt (no one knew how it got there, but I certainly wasn't going to clean it up). I had what I assume would be considered as nice hardwood floors by people without my unusual condition. You see, I shed enough body hair to put most breeds of small dogs to shame. Coupled with my chronic aversion to cleaning supplies this made for quite a spectacular site to behold. One would open the door and the slight rush of air would send actual tumbleweeds of pubes happily bounding across the floor. I would always snootily maintain to my friends that it was simply accumulated body hair from my manly physique and hoped no one would give the offending "pube-bunnies" the even cursory inspection required that would reveal their true greasy brillo pad-esque nature.

I nearly got away with my deception too, as everyone living on my floor was eager to believe anything but the most outrageous lie regarding the origins of the grime on my floor or for why I needed to buy a new printer after my old one clogged with 'dust'. However this was forever spoiled during one particularly hurried masturbation session (my roommate had learned early in the semester to knock before coming in, but I still preferred to streamline my methods rather than deal with the akward silences aftering yelling 'just a minute!' and bumbling around trying to close the cascade of porn pop-ups, each for a darker taboo than the last, that would inevitable spawn when I tried to navigate away from incriminating web sites). Several droplets of man-brine escaped the loving non-judgmental embrace of kleenex...and landed right on my class syllabus for a tough required course I was taking.

I didn't know anyone in the class and was too shy to ask the professor for another one so I would know what the assigned reading was, so being the frugal person (read: disgusting bastard) that I am, I simply used some scissors to cut out several squares where the syllabus was most-damaged. Now, I'm pretty proud of myself. I got to ejaculate and my syllabus is still mostly readable (except for the readings due for week 3, but its not like I need a GREAT grade for the class). So all in all, not a bad day! However, in my hubris I left the syllabus on my desk where a group of my friends discovered it, looked from the damp spots on it to me to and then to my ever-present tissue boxes strategically placed near my computer and somehow connected all the dots. Bastards.

While I think I've become a little more controlled in my habits since then (by not leaving important documents within the embarrassingly small striking distance of my sperm) I'll always hold the title of "biggest loser in the world" in the eyes of my friends.

That's my true story! Thanks for taking the time to revel in my shame!

-Adam Eisenhut

Holy shit does that guy suck.

But I've been learning all kinds of valuable new expressions ever since I started this giveaway, phrases such as:

"I drank like a country music star."

And "pube-bunnies."

And, of course, "I got fanny fucked by four feet of floor."

Thanks, guys.

I don't know if I believe this entry or not. I don't really care, it's a pretty entertaining story. If nothing else, the guy would have spent a lot of time making shit up to win some comic books, so, more power to him.

I present to you the first of the Best of the Rest in the GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY. These are the people who get all the humiliation of a prize winner, but without any actual prize to claim for it. Tee hee!

(The real winner-losers can be found here.)

Here goes:

It happened during the middle of exams... I was still living in Waterloo at the time and received a phone call from my parents in Brampton.

They told me that FedEx had a package here for me.

I gave them my standard response of "sign for it, open it, and tell me what it is."

But for some odd reason the package was being delivered with express instructions that only I could sign for it.

My name, my address, etc was listed on it.

I wasn't expecting a package so I asked where it was from. It turns out the package was coming from a Nelson Kelley in Belize City, Belize.

Not only was I not expecting a package from there..... I don't even know who Nelson Kelley is, or where Belize is.

I asked what the customs documents said it was under the assumption that they usually have to indicate the contents, but apparently it was blank.

I then made sure that it wouldn't cost me any money to accept the package since I don't even know what it is.

When I asked whether they could deliver the package to me in waterloo, I was told that yes, they could, but there would be an extra $10 charge.

Since I didn't even know what the package was, I thought it would be more interesting to let the suspense build and asked if they could hold it until I get back in 3 weeks time, which apparently they could and would do.

In the meantime, my dad was apologizing to the FedEx guy for this taking so long -- but I'm not really sure how quickly you can deal with a package directed to only go to you when you're not expecting it and not in the same city.

Anyways, the FedEx guy leaves a number he can be reached at to deliver the package when I get home and drives away.

10 minutes later the excitement begins.

The police show up at my parents door with a search warrant.

Apparently the package contained $40,000 worth of cocaine... evidently shipped using my credit card. Street value of aforementioned cocaine in Canada: $500,000

The police searched my room, taking everything apart and looking through every random piece of paper.

Meanwhile, my parents phone me back to tell me what was in the package.

As you might guess I was rather surprised by the contents.

My parents asked me, "were you expecting half a million dollars worth of cocaine to be delivered?" to which I could easily answer "uh...... no? As in very much no? As in...... what the heck is going on?"

It also turned out that the FedEx man was not actually a FedEx man but instead an undercover police officer. The entire thing was a sting operation meant to catch me collecting my cocaine and then counting it or whatever people do once receiving a lot of it.

Had I been at home I would have been arrested.

The police had discovered that the package contains cocaine at the border and then taken the package from FedEx saying, "don't worry.... we'll handle this one."

While the police were still searching my room, my sister got home and my parents explained the situation to her.

Not too surprisingly, she didn't believe them. Especially considering one of my cousins had recently married a police officer. As such, she thought it was his car and that they were playing a joke.

To "help" with the joke, she shouted out "don't worry...... I'll lie for David!"

The police upstairs searching my room heard this and decided that it might be in their best interests to speak to my sister.

In the meantime, the police ask to speak to me over the phone. Apparently they want me to come in for questioning, but since I'm in the middle of exams I can't really leave waterloo.

The police ask me some simple questions......

Police: "Is this your cocaine."
Me: "No."
Police: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Quite sure."
Police: "Do you know anyone else who would have ordered a whole bloody lot of
cocaine and delivered it to your house?"
Me: "Well...... there's always Bob, and he said that..... I mean.... no."

Never joke with the police.

Fortunately I actually just said no to that last question instead of the line above.

After speaking to me and searching my room and such, the police began to doubt the fact that I had indeed ordered the cocaine.

Even if I were stupid enough to order a lot of it, I certainly wouldn't be so stupid as to pay for it with my credit card and have it delivered to my house under my name.

I always would have thought that cocaine would be a cash business really......

I mean, I don't see them as going, "just swipe your card please...... ok...... now sign here....... thank you......... ok, and here's your cocaine."

I also checked my credit card bill online and noticed that yes, there was not a $40,000 purchase listed at a store called Cocaine 'R Us or equivalent retailer.

Not that my credit limit would have covered it anyways.... but better safe than sorry.

Anyways, over the weeks that followed I found out more information, and apparently had I been willing to pay the $10, they would have come to Waterloo and arrested me there.

My being too cheap to pay $10, my not having drugs or drug-related paraphenelia in my room, and my sounding confident over the phone with them together convinced them of my innocence. One would think that someone would be willing to pay $10 to receive their $500,000 worth of cocaine.

Apparently the cocaine had been delivered in a large picture frame where by removing the back the cocaine could be accessed.

Anyways, a few weeks later still I received two bills from FedEx. Firstly a bill for $230 or so for shipping the cocaine.

And secondly, a bill for $21 for customs on the cocaine. Personally I would have thought that the customs fee would be slightly higher for a product of that value.... but who knows these days.

I'm still contesting the charges to my credit card with the credit card company.

And I think that about covers my story.

Isn't that about the craziest story you've ever heard?

My mom actually received two odd phone calls earlier that day. Both said they were from FedEx.

One said, "Have you received a package? One may have been wrongfully delivered to your address, and if so we can come and pick it up."

The other said, "Sorry, we were unable to change your shipping address."

-David Held

More to come.

"I'm sorry, that's just creepy."
- Warren Ellis, in e-mail, about THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY

Y'all are some sad motherfuckers.

I got tales of heartbreak. Heartache. Big Dates With The Hot Girl ditched so you could play 12 hours of D&D or Unreal Tournament. Heard tales of self-inflicted ball-bashing. Women telling me Samus Aran is their personal hero. Guys who weren't hip enough to hang out with the Magic: The Gathering kids. Guys whose ex-girlfriends went lesbian, with each other. Women who lust for Grima Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Guys not picking up on it when women are giving them The Signal (a lot of those; conclusion = women are too fucking obtuse). Women who know all the lyrics to Jesus Christ Superstar. Guys who have set themselves on fire multiple times, presumably on accident. DDR aficionados. People who, in a drunken stupor, have either 1) pissed on their keyboards, 2) picked fights with bouncers, and/or 3) decorated themselves in christmas lights and danced nude at parties.

I haven't been talked to by this many virgins since I was in the Boy Scouts.

Amongst all this muck and mire, a few really unfortunate souls have risen to the top. Five men and.. actually just men, worthy of being called The Biggest Losers in the Universe. And mind you, these aren't your run-of-the-mill dorks who can't get laid or hold down their liquor; these are people Fate personally picked out for humiliation.

The ones Lady Luck strapped down to the floor, squatted over, and squeezed out a link right onto their foreheads.

These are The Losers.

In FIFTH PLACE, Winner of Sword of Dracula #1 and #2:

You want a tale of humilation? Those always involve the fairer sex!

So be it!

Her name was Laura. She was, without a doubt, built to perfection. A pretty face too with great eyebrows and piercing green eyes. I did my best to hit upon her, but she was quick to bring up the "boyfriend.' Her boyfriend was meeting her here or there and she was too busy, thanks all the same.

A year later, I'm at a party and as fate would have it, so is Laura. No boyfriend, real or imaginary is in sight. I'm trying to be cool, but maybe all those beers I've had are somehow blunting my efforts to impress. Still, I'm able to postion myself stragetically across from her in a chair. I'm slowly involving myself into the conversation she's having with some other woman on the couch. I catch her eye. I smile.

I then suddenly, without warning, vomit into my lap. I guess I had had more to drink than I thought. Two guys appear on either side of me and drag me out of the room with amazing speed. I'm able to catch the look of horror and disgust on Laura's face before I'm bum rushed out of the party. So, I finally make an impression upon her, that of a drunken, vomiting loser. And I never see her again, which come to think of it, is probably for the best.

-Grant Schreiber

Grant, a word of advice: Girls don't really like it when you hit upon them. At least not any kind of girl you don't pay first.

But hey, who here hasn't vomited into their lap in front of a charming person of the opposite sex?

Me, for one.

In FOURTH PLACE, Winner of The Monolith #1, #2, #3:

There are really so many things that could prove one to be an irreparable loser, and I've done most of them, but one particular occurance really sticks out in my mind. A couple months ago, I'm sitting at my computer (as I am for most of every day), and one of my cats (yes, plural, in a studio apartment) walks over to me. She jumps up onto the side of the chair, climbs into my lap, and sits on my forearm. She rubs her ass down my arm for a second, then springs off. I look, and see a streak of brown shit on my arm.

Apparently, at least for one brief moment, my own pet felt I was valueless enough to use as toilet paper.

-James Yarrison

Short but to the point. The man's cat wipes his ass on his bare skin. I'll probably be giggling about that on my death bed. That cat completely kicks ass.

His owner? Total loser.

In THIRD PLACE, Winner of The Losers: Ante Up:

Q: What’s more pathetic than those inbred hill-jacks that reveal their idiotic behavior to millions of people on nationally syndicated talk-shows, for the simple sake of appearing on TV?

Uh.

In March of 2003, sweaty-palmed and blinking under hot studio lights, I found myself telling my wife and approximately 20 million viewers, “I really don’t know what I was thinking, I, uh… I peed on the cat at our Christmas get-together, hon…”

Wait, wait, fuck. I should back this up a little.

My name’s Jeremy Bear. My wife and I live in Los Angeles County, so we thought it might be a splendid idea to snag tickets to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno when my dad and sister came to town. I suppose that was my first mistake.

Leno tickets are no easy feat. One must stand in line for ages outside NBC in Burbank, even if your tickets are already in-hand. So, hours before the taping, the four of us were bored to tears, waiting for the NBC interns to give us the go-ahead to file into the studio. Eventually, some of the interns passed out pencils and index cards to the folks in the line. Printed neatly on the cards were two questions:

"What’s something you’ve never confessed to anyone?

Would you be willing to reveal it to Jay on Friday’s taping?"

Apparently, Tonight Show writers are always fishing for comedy bits. I was bored, you understand. Very, very bored. So I wrote:

I’ve never confessed to my wife that, at Christmastime, I accidentally peed on one of our cats. I’m not sure if she’ll forgive me, but maybe Jay can smooth things out.

It was a complete lie, and not a particularly creative one. But, you know. Bored.

Soon, the index cards were collected and, before I knew it, I found myself repeating the lie to the writing staff of the Tonight Show, ad-libbing details all the way. They called Jay on the cell, told him the story. They snapped their cell phones shut and said to me, "okay. Great. Jay wants to have you on. You've got a good story. Can you do it?"

"I, uh. Yeah. Sure. So, I'm going to make this big confession on the air?"

"That's right."

"Like on the phone?"

"No, like on-camera. It's a bit, you know, and Jay'll have a lot of fun with your story."

"Oh. Wow. Yeah, that's cool, I suppose. Will my wife come?"

"Does she know about your confession?"

"No."

"Yeah. Bring her. We'll have her on-camera to get her reactions."

"Okay."

"Terrific. We'll send a car to Long Beach to pick you up on Friday at 1:30. They'll take you to the studio and you'll wait in the Green Room. Also, if you like, bring a couple of friends and we'll get them seats. When the time comes, Jay'll pull you out of the audience and that's it."

"Friday."

"Friday."

"And the show airs...?"

"On Friday."

"Friday."

Q: What’s more pathetic than those inbred hill-jacks that reveal their idiotic behavior to millions of people on nationally syndicated talk-shows, for the simple sake of appearing on TV?

A: Educated professionals that lie about idiotic behavior that never happened in order to humiliate themselves in front of millions of people on late-night TV.

On the limo ride to Burbank the following Friday, I downed several rum-and-Cokes because

1) they were free, what the hell, and

2) I wasn’t about to face Jay Leno with a falsified story completely sober, thank you.

My families had their VCRs set (although I still hadn’t revealed what I was going to say to anyone but the Tonight Show writers…). The in-laws neglected to tell any friends and relatives that their little girl and her husband were going to be on television, for fear that I’d embarrass the family name.

So, when the time came, the cameras rolled and Jay pulled me out of the audience. He asked if I had anything to confess and I admitted, yes, at Christmastime we were having a little get-together and we’d locked the cats in the bathroom to keep them out of the way. At one point in the evening, I needed to relieve myself. When a friend of mine knocked on the bathroom door, I turned to answer and, in so doing, pissed directly on the head of our oldest cat.

No, this story didn’t exactly make TV history. I don’t expect to see it on any ‘Best Of’ montages or ‘Jay Leno’s Finest Moments’ DVDs.

But, hey, I can’t be expected to revolutionize late-night TV while waiting in line in Burbank, can I? Oddly enough, I heard from a lot of old high school friends and acquaintances that I hadn’t thought about in years in the following few days. “Did I just see you on Jay Leno? Dude, what’s wrong with you?”

Anyhow, you want a loser? My literal Claim to Fame is “I’m the guy who pissed on his pet”… and it never even happened.

Where’s my pride? My dignity?

Nowhere to be found, sir. Nowhere.

For a transcript of the encounter with Jay, I recorded the debacle on my own blog:

http://www.jeremybear.com/blogger/archive/2003_03_30_index.html

And just for shits, here’s me and my wife with Jay, taken after the taping:

http://www.jeremybear.com/images/blogger/with_Jay_Leno.jpg

Sincerely,
Jeremy Bear, Loser

The funny thing is, I was going to accept this entry even though it seemed like bullshit. The sheer audacity of the lie was enough to convince me to include it. But then... he includes his blog entry and picture. That's that little extra effort that gets you greatness.

Or a total lack of dignity, I guess. C'mon man, Leno? That guy's about as fresh as the panties my grandmother was buried in.

In SECOND PLACE, Winner of The Losers: Ante Up:

So the other day I'm at work, I work in the kitchen of a nursing home, Dietary Aid is what they call the position. Anyway I just got done washing off some carts and I was on my way back to the dishroom to scrape more pureed Welsh fucking Rarebit down the garbage disposal when I lost my footing.

I stood there, suspended in time and space, with one foot in the air, and one foot slipping forward, it was like a bad Karate Kid Crane motion mixed with the slow-mo camera swirl of a Matrix movie, I can only imagine the look of distinctly knowing what is about to happen to me. Obviously I fell.

The problem being, I didn't just fall. I felt directly on my ass. I don't mean I hit my ass as I was falling. I mean that at the precise moment that my 280lbs. ass pinged off the floor I could feel my insides force their way down, as four feet of floor shoved it's way directly into my anus.

I screamed something, I *still* don't know what I said. At this moment my MOTHER comes to check on me. That's right I work with my mom. Anyways here I am, laying on the floor, in a puddle, on my stomach, motionless, with both hands clasped over my ruined ass. A few minutes later I got up, and my mother asked me if I was okay. My response? "I now know what Prison Rape feels like."

When pressed for further explanation I was quoted as saying : "I've just been fanny fucked by four feet of floor"

All the great fun ensued, like not being able to stand up, or sit down, or bend over, without commenting about the immense pain in my ass. I had to fill out an accident report about HOW I fell, WHAT hurts and all sorts of other bullshit. I walked into work the next morning (bow legged I'll admit) and the *ENTIRE* kitchen staff was commenting on how I was walking and asked me how my ASS felt. NOBODY THAT WAS ON HAD SEEN ME DO IT, word of my ass spread far and wide in those vacant hours that the kitchen fell silent.

My ass is *mostly* better, my tail bone is still bruised to hell, and I can't pick anything from off of the floor, but the worst part is that when I take a shit now it doesn't come out cylindrical, it looks likes I shit out whole Denny's Chicken Strips, my SHIT is CHICKEN STRIP shaped.

son-of-a-bitch if that doesn't suck.

-Will Carpenter

Still hungry? That's what I thought. Bet you'll never eat another chicken strip again without thinking it came out of THAT GUY'S ass. Think about it. How warm and tender it is, pliable to the touch...

I'll take seconds.

Incidentally, "I just got fanny fucked by four feet of floor" has now replaced "I'm Rick James, bitch" as the new catch phrase to be overused to death in the span of one month. It's also a handy tool to teach schoolchildren about alliteration.

And now, the moment no one's been waiting for. The tale of the SINGLE BIGGEST LOSER IN THE UNIVERSE. The one guy that God gets a big, huge, gutbusting laugh at every time He thinks about him. The man I officially designate, for all time, as Fate's Clown:

In FIRST PLACE, Winner of The Losers: Ante Up, as well as issues #7, #8, #9, and #10:

Hi,

I just want to briefly say that I'm the unluckiest loser ever. I won't detail my entire life, but a specific anecdote from the last few years immediately comes to mind: the night my car exploded.

I'm told by a engineer friend of mine that cars don't actually explode. Sometimes, he says, they burst into flame and burn prettily, and sometimes they combust rather rapidly, but they do not explode.

Every time he says this in public, he looks over at me with a worried expression, knowing that I could out him right then and there. My car did explode. Like the wrath of God Almighty. Like the Hindenburg after a chili burrito.

One cold rainy night in November of 1999, I was just getting home from a hard night of delivering pizzas, a decent job monetarily but somewhat degrading. After all, it involves you going to people's houses and admitting that you are in the food service business, and then relying on their personal generosity to pad your wallet. Living off of tips is kind of like being a Bombay beggar, but with less cultural respect.

It was about three in the morning when I got home, having stayed late to help close the store for no
extra pay (as each employee was required to do at least once a week). My apartment building is the
typical sort of place reserved for college students: six apartments, all facing the street, in a three-story building. A staircase linked the three floors, and wooden balconies linked the two apartments on each floor. I got the best parking spot in the apartment building lot that night - the closest one to my ground-floor door. I took my small victory and stumbled into the living room.

My roommate was still up, a fairly typical problem for him, as he was (like me) something of an insomniac. We traded brief greetings, and I went to my room to get ready for bed. My typical sleeping garb includes a T-shirt and a pair of shorts - no shoes, I will note, as that becomes important in a few moments.

I laid down and was just starting to get comfortable, as my roommate comes pounding on my door. "Jeremy," he says with some urgency, "your car is on fire!"

"Sure, Mark," I respond with dull apathy. "Sure it is." I don't really have time to play games at three - almost four - in the morning, I decide, and turn over to ignore his bullshit.

"No, Jeremy," he continues, more urgent. "Your CAR is on FIRE!"

Finally deciding that if the joke is this good, I better get up for it, I pull myself out of bed and open my door. Flickering orange light plays across my face, cast from the outside window, and I realize that this may actually be more serious than first I thought.

I pushed my way past Mark to the front door, casting it open. In a brief second, I went from the cool air of my apartment to the blazing insides of an inferno. Mark's shout sounded like "SHIT!" but I was a bit busy freaking out in the meantime. I grabbed the phone, intent on calling the fire department, when Mark urged that we get outside and warn our neighbors.

I agreed and ran out past the blaze with him, realizing only distantly that though I had our cordless phone in hand, I was still quite barefoot. In the rain. In November. Dialing 911, I observed Mark efficiently waking our neighbors, their varying degree of crankiness or gratitutde clearly visible. At almost four in the morning, there's not a lot of room for duplicity in motive.

I began to analyze the situation as the operator assured me that firefighters would soon save us all. My car was a fiery inferno, gouts of flame and searing heat coming from under the hood - THROUGH the hood, really - and from beneath the car.

It got worse.

In front of my car was a grand old oak tree that my landlord once explained to me had been planted there when he bought his first piece of property. It was on fire too. The bark blackened and the leaves died as I looked on, numb. Holy shit, I thought, what have I done now?

It got worse still.

Down the line from my car in the apartment lot were many other cars. The lot was pretty full that night, which was why I had considered myself lucky to get the best spot. My friend Matt, who lived next door, was parked in the spot next to mine. His car was on fire - the bumper, the tires, the door lining, and, as I watched, the interior. In his trunk, I remembered, were about one hundred pounds of illegal Tennessee fireworks - rockets, quarter-sticks, the whole works. My mental processes kicked up a notch from "holy shit" to "dear sweet fuck". At least this was the lowest tier of Hell.

Hell opened up to reveal more terrors.

The next car past Matt's belonged to a girl who lived on the third floor. I never knew her name, but she had always been pleasant to me if we passed one another in the parking lot or on the stairs. Just as Mark got her out of her apartment and onto the stairs, her car caught fire too, the front bumper and tires burning merrily. Looking back the other direction, I could see that the paneling of my apartment building was melting, warping, and running from the intense heat.

I was screwed. Not to mention cold.

Mark finished his evacuation, and I was left in the parking lot, barefoot and holding a phone, surrounded by neighbors who, at this point, surely knew exactly whose car was driving them from their homes at four in the morning. As I mentally bemoaned my fate, Mark leaned over the balcony railing, I can only assume to survey the damage from above.

A firm and emphatic WHOOMPH noise came from my car as it jumped a foot off of the ground, taking a large dollop of melted asphalt with it. A column of flame shot up into the sky, like a beacon to the gods, informing them of the beginning of Ragnarok. It rose higher than the roof of the building, directly past Mark, who jumped backwards and fell on his ass rather than be consumed in the immolation.

Mark caught up to the rest of us in the lot, minus his eyebrows and nightly growth of beard, somewhat red-faced and ashy. He looked at me with significantly less resentment than I would have had in his situation and said, "Only you, Jeremy. Only you."

The only blessing of the whole goddamn thing was that Matt's fireworks did not detonate, and he got a better car out of the insurance money. So did the girl whose name I never knew. My insurance agency's report quickly drowned my hopes of the same. The fire marshal's investigation decided that no hand of man, act of sabotage, natural disaster, or (as some wits suggested later) meteorite had destroyed my car. The two reports agreed: ACT OF GOD. An act of God destroyed my car - the category which means that no one could be held responsible for the devastation, and thus they need pay me ABSOLUTELY NO REPARATIONS WHATSOEVER. Only to be expected, I suppose.

My engineer friend informed me the next day that he was awake when this had all been occurring, on his way home from a job monitoring a late-night campus computer lab. He told me that he had wondering where the bright flash came from, and went on to theorize that perhaps there was a bomb in my car, since - as he knew - cars DO NOT EXPLODE.

And that's why, among other reasons, I'm the biggest loser ever.

Sincerely,
Jeremy Puckett

Says it right there, folks. ACT OF GOD. God hates Jeremy Puckett. Look, I tend to think this guy is shooting me straight, but if you want to call him a liar, that's your own business. I don't care if he's a liar or not. That stuff is fucking funny. I think I'll doctor that story to make it about me, so I can tell it at parties.

Not a bad little lineup, is it? Makes you feel a hell of a lot better about your lot in life, right? I swear, putting on this giveaway was the greatest boost my ego could have ever gotten. Whenever I can only satisfy seven gorgeous international supermodels because I've had a long day, I'll just think of Jeremy Puckett's exploding car, Will Carpenter's broken ass, and Grant Schreiber's Stan Marsh-like vomiting to make me feel that much better.

Stay tuned, as throughout the day I'll be posting the Best of the Rest, wherein the runners-up get the usual round of humiliation by having their nastiness posted for an audience of hundreds, except without winning any actual prizes. Suckers!

(Once again, many, many, many thanks to Shane, Johnny, and Kevin for their corroboration and help. Extra special super-duper thanks to Brian Clevinger at 8-Bit Theater and Anne at I'm Blue for their linkage. Mega thanks to Graeme, Rick, Mike, Laura, and John for their linkage. Thanks, guys, one and all. I appreciate the hell out of it, and I'm sure Andy Diggle and Jock do, as well. You're saints.

Anyone else that I've forgotten to thank, it's because my brain is tired and hates me. But I love you, yes I do. Who's a good boy? Who is it!)

If you didn't win, hey, that's not so bad. That means you aren't as big a loser as you thought. You're more sort of a mediocre loser. God, why can't you ever achieve?

Buy The Losers: Ante Up from your local comic book shop, or Amazon. It's only 10 goddamn dollars, people. That's the cost of a movie ticket with a little extra garnish, and you will be at least as entertained by this book as you will any movie out in the theatre right now. Best part? You can reread it for free! No shit!

Anyway, take heart: This contest soared. Next month another one will be hosted, with equally fabulous prizes. Stay tuned and keep coming back.

Now get outta here, ya bunch of losers.

I've received a shitload of messages about Marvel Icon in the last 24 hours, mostly of the "have you seen this" or "so when do you do something for them" flavours. Let me see if I can head off more email at the pass here.

Some history, first. Marvel were in fact the first major Western company to offer a paid creator-ownership deal. This was the Epic initiative, beginning with EPIC ILLUSTRATED magazine and becoming the Epic Comics line. Epic Comics were the brass ring, giving Marvel's most popular and gifted creators space to make and own their own stories. It took DC several years to follow suit, breaking ground with Frank Miller's RONIN. Epic was, in my personal opinion, mismanaged with the best of intentions, and was shut down in the mid-Nineties. By this time, DC had a template creator-ownership deal in place. It wasn't actually as good as the Epic deal, but other options were going away fast if you wanted to actually get paid for work you owned yourself.

The regime at Marvel went through its now famous major change, and Marvel became a work-for-hire company. Then, last year, Bill Jemas came up with the Epic revival -- making it a label for creator-owned work by new and unknown creators. Now, the Epic name had been pretty tarnished by its last several years of publication, and Jemas and Quesada had made great strides by not really giving much of a shit about what had come before them. But, to me, this was badly misconceived. Epic had meant something. This seemed more like an effort to get their fan-base on-side. More to the point, under the current management, Marvel had avoided creator-ownership. And they had a good reason. They're a publicly-traded company whose only real asset is their creative library. All their revenue stems from monetising that library. And let's not forget that these people were bankrupt. Putting money against something they couldn't sell or merchandise could quite rightly be seen as questionable. And, sure enough, word got out that the "creator-ownership" deals were creator-participation, giving the creators a slice of profits in return for total control -- or, as later transpired, not creator-owned at all. Which turned the fanbase against them. It was a huge bloody mess, and you can't help but wonder if it was one of the factors that saw Jemas moved out of publishing into a space where he couldn't break anything. The Epic II initiative was shut down as soon as he left. And the Epic name was rendered worthless.

Which brings us to yesterday, and the announcement of Marvel Icon.

Marvel Icon is a new creator-ownership imprint through which Bendis and Oeming's POWERS and Mack's KABUKI will be published. According to Bendis, it's a full creator-ownership deal, which suggests a basis upon the original Epic contracts. It would seem to me that Marvel cannot enjoy revenue from other-media exploitation of the properties, as development of both have, I believe, been in hand for some time. Further, the previous publisher of both books, Image, will be allowed to continue selling trade paperback collections.

Image has gone through its own ructions. The Image partners are quite fond of voting each other out of office and working to usurp each other's powers. And so it was that Jim Valentino was removed from control of Image Central, the "front office" of the umbrella label that had been producing books on a difficult but admirable "get nothing/give nothing" basic. This worked roughly as follows: you produce the whole book, Image publishes it for a small fee taken out of the back end. They take no rights and pay you no advances. This is how POWERS and KABUKI were produced.

Valentino was replaced by Erik Larsen, whom, some might suggest, does not enjoy the same love as Valentino. He's a committed creator, but is prickly and abrasive, the author of the once-infamous "Name Withheld" open letter that to many proclaimed that comics writers were worthless. In his press release commenting on the Bendis-Oeming-Mack defection, he tries very hard to be a statesman, but can't resist a crack to the effect that Mack hasn't produced a KABUKI book in ages.

It's interesting to contrast that with Mack's own public commentary that people who'd met him at conventions in recent times will be aware that he had a complete photocopy of the next KABUKI book on his table. The inference being that he was choosing not to publish it yet.

Marvel has long been known to offer select creators what is termed an "exclusive work-for-hire" contract, where the creator can produce company-owned work only for Marvel, but can produce creator-owned work elsewhere. This is how Bendis could continue to produce POWERS for Image while tied to Marvel. It would only make sense for Marvel to want to publish everything that Bendis, one of the medium's best and most popular writers, produces. It would also make sense to continue to reward Bendis for his success and personal loyalty. And while Marvel may not be in line to share revenue from a POWERS film, you can see the uses in being the only publisher of new POWERS material if the film goes ahead.

Bendis, Oeming and Mack are tight -- to the point where they refer to themselves as MOB. Oeming is brilliant and prolific, and Mack is an ambitious and excellent artist -- and they both double-time as writers. For Marvel. KABUKI is an acclaimed and popular work that I believe has also attracted movie interest. There is value in publishing both of these works above and beyond their intrinsic quality. If I were Joe Quesada and new publisher Dan Buckley, I'd believe I had a very strong case to take to the board in regard to relaxing the policy against creator-owned work at Marvel. Not least of which would be locking up three of the most important people in American comics.

Does this have broader repercussions?

Image has taken a reputation hit, despite everyone involved going to ethical pains to insist there's no bad will. There isn't a direct financial hit, as the Image deal sees all money outside of the admin fee go directly to the creators anyway. But, intended or not, BOM leaving Image in the wake of Valentino's ouster does not look good.

Retailers have to order certain volumes of work from publishers to attain better discount levels. Stores
that were ordering lots of POWERS may possibly find themselves unable to make discount plateaus. It's conceivable that some may shave back Image orders, but that's pure speculation.

Icon is plainly intended as a boutique label, and, as suggested above, indications are strong that presence on the label will be at the very least a reward for Marvel's most valuable players, ideally with extant and popular creator-owned works. I can't imagine it'll be anything but invitation-only. As was the original Epic line. I don't see Vertigo experiencing a sudden brain-drain.

Nor, as some have suggested, does it make Vertigo look bad. To perceive Vertigo as "DC's creator-owned line" is an error. It's DC's adult-oriented fiction line. And it doesn't, save in very rare cases, publish superhero fiction. On a book-for-book basis, yes, Icon will likely outsell Vertigo. But POWERS outsold most Vertigo books when it was at Image. Vertigo, it cannot be doubted, has
its problems, but Icon won't spotlight any of them.

Some retailers have told me that Marvel are continuing to have problems keeping books in print; that new POWERS and KABUKI collections from Marvel might prove less available than the earlier Image collections. If that is a problem,I can't imagine it won't be solved -- allowing properties to go out of print triggers publishing-rights reversion clauses in most contracts, for one thing. For another, it'd just be dumb, and all three creators will be very aware of the revenue stream from permanent collections.

So what's the upshot? BOM are being taken care of, and Marvel have done something smart for themselves. That's the whole thing.

So quit emailing me.

Selah.

-- W

Interesting take on exactly how and why Quesada and Buckley are maneuvering like they are. I believe it's the first non-cynical take on anything Quesada has done, ever, anywhere on the internet, that wasn't posted on Quesada's own board.

And while I did admire the chutzpah behind the Epic II maneuver, I can only hope that ICON is invitation-only. Can you imagine the kind of quality books that could come out, if the best and brightest writers in the industry were given a shot at a big-time chance for something they created themselves? Maybe I sound like a starry-eyed optimist here, but you'll agree that that's a pretty rare case, so maybe I have reason for it.

I can't see how this would be anything but a positive step forward in the industry. Make all the snide little comments you want about a major corporation getting their hands on Powers, et al, but this is precisely how change is affected. New movements, new styles, new techniques and new approaches -- filthering their way up from the small time titles to the big leagues. Trickle-up economics, I guess you could call it. That is how revolutions work. I don't know that we'll see another Ronin leading to another DKR, because comics are a much different beast now than they were 20 years ago. But I do see a fertile new territory for acknowledged masters to work their magic -- names like Neil Gaiman and Ellis come to mind -- as well as, if this thing takes off like it probably will, a boost for the ready-for-primetime Robert Kirkman and indie sensations like Brian Wood.

(Yes, I am aware Kirkman'll be writing Cap, but he's a fill-in. Shut up.)

I want good things to come of this. I sincerely believe Quesada and Buckley want good things to come of this. I'm feeling a little sad for Erik Larsen, who's basically been handed a shit sandwich, and if guys like Kirkman do indeed get more and more Marvel work, that can only put paid to speculation that Image is on its way down.

And who can fill their gap? That's not a rhetorical question, by the way; I'm asking you, because I don't really know.

Anyway. I'm rather eager to see what the first ICON titles will be, beyond Powers and Kabuki and the oft-mentioned Romita Jr. title Shades of Gray.

(I could not think of a clever title.)

If, for whatever reason, you want a fun and irreverent summary of the Punisher's career from his inception in 1994 to the present day, you could do a lot worse than this humorous timeline that lays out, almost issue-by-issue, Big Frank's genocidal spree.

On The Punisher: Year One:

The new Punisher movie reportedly took a huge chunk out of this four-part mini-series, so keep an eye out. It's foreseeable that this book might be rewritten sometime in the future, but for now, we'll accept this as the origin of The Punisher. Told in four issues, this is actually more like a "Month One," but why be assholes about it?

The Punisher: Ghosts of Innocents:

So, here's some crap. Written by Jim Starlin, it's basically like this: Frank hanglides into a drug deal, uzis a'blazin, and chases the main thug, Snake, onto a school bus. The two are fighting when he knocks the thug's gunhand in the direction of the driver. The gun sprays bullets into the driver, who crashes into a train at a railroad crossing. Talk about "OOPS!" All aboard are killed, save for The Punisher and the thug! Ha ha! Now, The Punisher sees the ghosts of the children! Stop! Stop it, I can't take it! I'm laughing too hard!

Batman/Punisher: Deadly Knights:

This is The Punisher vs. the real Batman, as opposed to that blonde poser in the techno armor crap or whatever. This, in a sense, is also the real Punisher, as opposed to Denny O'Neal's old-school asshat who wouldn't know tough if he tried eating burnt steak without teeth. No, this is written by Chuck "Knows How It's Done" Dixon, who's written tons of great tales for both The Punisher and Batman. The art is provided by John Romita, Jr. and Klaus Janson, who've both done some time with The Punisher.

Welcome Back, Frank:

Previous to this collection, The Punisher had become a supernatural demon-killer with magical guns, working for angels…I'll let that sit with you for a minute…Ok, so Ennis gets that out of the way in the first issue, getting back to basics, both in plot and character.

[...]

Frank is back. No demons. No angels. No Micro. Just Frank and his guns. Right off the bat, you can't believe this is a Marvel comic, let alone a popular one. Heads turned around backwards? Morgue gunfights? The list of violent acts gets longer and longer as we go, and I love Ennis, Dillon, and Marvel for it. What'll probably surprise you most is the level of cruelty. This is one mean-ass comic book.

In this issue, The Punisher kills a lot of people. Get ready, cause that's going to be the basic summary for every issue. In this issue, we also meet Frank's neighbors. Joan is a mouse of a woman, afraid of her own shadow. Spacker Dave is a good kid with a face full of metal. Mr. Bumpo is a fat dude who has heart bypasses every other month. All in all, good people.

In his thanks and acknowledgements:

(Special Shout-Out to ThePunisher.com, a great, great site that gives me all the Punishment I need…Man, I am a BADASS with the puns…the Puns! Oh, God, USA Today, here I come!)

Goddammit I love the Punisher.

So the other day I go into a comics shop to buy a TPB of The Losers: Ante Up for the GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY, and then spot a Superman title sitting on the counter.

I ask the clerk, as he rings up my bill: "When does Azzarello's run on Superman start?"

I get a blank stare.

So I ask again: "You know, Brian Azzarello...? 100 Bullets?"

Clerk: "Oh, right. It's just that most people ask about the Jim Lee run."

Me: "Their loss."

Anyway. There's an interview with Azzarello over at CBR, explaining how and why he wants to take on the Man of Steel (aside from a contract thing), and what he hopes to accomplish:

"I'm having a good time with Superman and I think when we're done with this series there will be lasting repercussions in the DCU. Not just with Superman, but there will be some things we're pulling into this that people are probably going to say, 'Oh, wow, cool!' I'm staying away from the Superman family, but the whole DC Universe I'm not really staying away from."

Briefly mentioned is Azzarello's upcoming mini, Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, which I am looking forward to like a motherfucker. When asked if he thought Luthor would affect the other Supes titles:

"No, but it may have an affect on readers and how [readers] look at Superman. I hope so. This is a book from Luthor's point of view. Do you really think Luthor thinks he's evil? Every villain is the hero of his own story."

I'm there.

(Via Thought Balloons.)

I could talk at great length about this ICON thing. I could dig up every relevant link, explaining, theorizing, and damning this move of Powers and Kabuki to Marvel's new ICON imprint, what they declare to be their "first true creator-owned" imprint.

But Graeme's already done all that. I'd feel pretty fucking redundant going on about it myself. And I have other things to do right now, anyway.

So go read all of today's posts on Fanboy (ICON) Rampage today. DO IT!

Here, have a creepy lifelike doll to act out your sexual fantasies on! Only slight vaginal tears to it, but luckily, no breast tears (Whew!).

Or, if you want to be even creepier, you can get the schoolgirl model for much less.

Such features as:

"[Add] penis and turn it into a shemale"

"Interactive sensory response system that can make the doll moan and stuff"

"Hip gyration system tested to work under 500 lbs that can make her hips gyrate on under a standard pattern which can be modified by needs and prefferences"

...and more can be yours, all for $1,000 and your eternal soul!

Act now!

(Thanks again, Wil. You fucking pervert.)

And also get off on miniature cars... in which case, why haven't you entered the GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY yet?... check out Crash Bonsai. It's fucking crazy.

(Thanks to Wil for finding it. I guess.)

So I'm perusing Brian Churilla's site, because he's the guy putting pictures to Kevin Melrose's words in that Digital Webbing Presents #17. And it's pretty good stuff.

And then this happens:

And I am awed.

...and Star Wars, and are a gigantic dork, read Shane's comedic opus, The Starpranos.

It helps if you know some of the dialogue from the Sopranos like the back of your hand. I haven't laughed that hard in awhile.

In no particular order:

Supreme Power #9 -- Shane had it right. Wow. Except, every single issue of this book makes me say "wow." Why wow this time? Because Hyperion is one scary motherfucker, that's why. All the same, I gotta ask: when the hell are they going to bring in Power Princess, already? I want Straczysnki writing Superman once Azzarello's done. Frank's art is pretty, perhaps just the right kind of superhero styling for this book, even if a lot of the characters look perpetually bug-eyed.

Rating: Wow!

Rob Zombie's Spookshow International #6 -- Rob Zombie ain't no dabbling celebrity type. This man lives and breathes comics. He has a 20 year old Howard the Duck tattoo on his forearm (I've seen it.) Having said that, this book fluctuates from fucking hysterical to just "all right." This one's somewhere in between there, and I must say I'm rather sad to see artist Kieron Gwyer go. I do kinda miss the stories that were reminiscent of old EC Comics that permeated the first few issues, but que sera.

Anyway. You want some good laughs and some weirdass hijinks (and not a little bit of skin)? Then this is your book. I realize I'm probaby the only person in the "comics blogoscope" or whatever that reads this book (or admits to it), but c'mon. Don't be a snob. It's fun!

Rating: Good for a laugh.

BPRD: Plague of Frogs #2 -- Mike Mignola is incapable of writing an uninteresting story. Guy Davis is incapable of drawing out an uninteresting panel. Put that together and you have a pretty tight little mini-series, though it does not rank among either of their best. I did always wonder about those frogs in Seed of Destruction... and hey, what's this comment about Hellboy "not being around" anymore in the BPRD? Can someone fill me in?

Rating: Froggy!

The Monolith #3 -- A very solid series that has yet to blossom into the full-on kickassness awaiting it just around the next bend. There's little hiccups here and there -- The Monolith as a character is quite interesting, though that bit about having a little shard of someone else's soul inside, mournfully looking out, is kind of tired. The heroines avoid killing someone so they don't "sink down to his level" (and it will never be too soon before writers in all mediums stop using THAT old chestnut), but the guy ends up getting killed anyway, to satisfy the audience. Boy, has Winslade grown from his Goddess days or what? That guy's art is a treat.

Rating: So.. close...

Hard Time #3 -- I don't know what it is about prison stories that are so fascinating. Is it because the morality is so shady to begin with, the idea of identifying with any character is morally risky and thus exciting? Is it that every waking, breathing, living moment may be the one you make that move that gets you beaten to a pulp or killed? The constant reminder in this book that "no one is your friend or ever will be" is starting to feel a bit forced ("okay, we GET it already!"), but damn if the characters just don't get more and more vivid with each issue. The washed-out coloration, while muchly bitched about, is exactly perfect for this book. Not exactly a wide palette of colors in Shawshank Redemption either, right? And that movie seemed to work out okay for everyone.

I recommend you get in now, because before long it'll be impossible to just leap in to the series. Plus, it needs sales.

Rating: BUY IT!

Engine Head #1 -- Ted McKeever is also incapable of drawing an uninteresting panel. Joe Kelly is a writer who is in complete control of his form, and, somewhere along the way, learned to write very well nuanced dialogue for characters we barely know, instantly drawing us into interesting (and odd) situations. That being said, I don't really know what the hell happened at the end here, but what I know about the DCU (aside from Batman's part of it) could be squeezed into a termite's scrotum. So. I'll be checking out the next issue.

Rating: Eenteresting.

Batman: Death and the Maidens #8 -- Buying it just because I've spent this much damn money on it so far, I should at least see how it ends. That bit with Bruce talking to his dead parents had potential that got a bit squandered, and the rest just got dull and dragged on and on.. eyelids.. getting.. heavy...

And then something actually happened in this issue. Something of mild importance. Will it actually stick? Only one more issue to go.

Rating: Just when I thought I was out...

30 Days of Night: Return to Barrow #1 -- They're milking the crap out of this, aren't they? Got to say, though, this one's at least on par with Dark Days and better than 30 Days of Night from the first issue alone. Niles' dialogue has never sounded more natural, and Templesmith's art has really hit its stride: not too abstract, but never approaching "dull," either. And such a pretty, pretty cover, too.

Rating: ...they pull me back in.

Swamp Thing #2 -- Remember that thing I said about knowing nothing about the DCU? Yeah, here too. Doesn't matter, I know just enough about the Swamp Thing and Tefé Holland and the Green to enjoy this, and even with a sparse handful of panels, John Constantine still comes off as vividly as he ever has. Diggle is a star on the rise, and this title, along with The Losers, will be his public crucible. Breccia's people are just plain oddly proportioned, but for this book, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Rating: I have no clever thing to put here. It's good.

Y The Last Man #21 -- Coming off the last arc, "Safe Word," just about anything would seem a bit less. "Safe Word" is without a doubt the best arc in the entire series, right on par with the first six issues, and far outshining the fairly worthless astronaut stuff. This arc, "Widow's Pass," looks like it's going to be pretty straightforward fare, though Vaughan has a gift for turning the obvious into the totally unknown with a few quick strokes of narrative. But I've got to ask: What the hell is up with Dr. Mann?

I confess I completely missed that Goran Parlov was guest pencilling in place of Pia Guerra until I saw the front cover and the names listed. I could not, to tell you the truth, tell the difference.

Rating: Still one of the best series going, but I'm a bit skeptical about the next two issues.

Wolverine: The End #3 -- BOOOORing!

Elektra #35 -- I stuck around because this is the last issue, and I came this far, so why not? We get pretty much what you'd expect: Elektra standing at her grave (designed by Frank Miller), reminiscing about events in her past (written by Frank Miller), and Matt Murdock shows up at the end to do nothing of importance. Kind of lackluster, and the art from Jon Proctor is actively terrible. This book was depressing to me, but not because it was "the end of an era." No, this book was depressing because it showed that nothing interesting or unique has been done with this character since the mid-fucking-1980's. A crime.

Rating: Eh. For the completist only.

Punisher: The End -- You ever read one of those comic books where you go through it at lightning speed, totally absorbed, and then set it down? And then five minutes later, you look back at it again, take in the cover image, reminisce about what took place inside... and then find yourself doing that over and over again for the next half hour or so? That's what this book did to me. This character, as written by Ennis, makes more sense to me than any single other character in the Marvel Universe, or perhaps in all of comicdom. Wow. Yes, the book is unrelentingly grim. Yes, Richard Corben's people have always looked vaguely grotesque. But it all adds up to an inevitable conclusion. I wouldn't dream of telling you how this book ends, though; instead, I'll just say Frank Castle's story ends in the only way it possibly could. Bravo, Corben. Take a bow, Ennis.

Rating: ...Jesus.

...in the interests of promoting friends and allies and whatever, I believe it bears mentioning that Kevin Melrose of Thought Balloons has a story coming out in Digital Webbing Presents #17.

I am unfamiliar with the series, or with Melrose's writings, but I shall be less unfamiliar when this is done.

BUY IT!!!

In the same vein: Graeme McMillan of Fanboy Rampage may (possibly) be illustrating a story in the first Variance Press Anthology.

BUY IT TOO!!!

Best. Column. In Comics.

It doesn't hurt that he gives a little shout-out to the GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY. Seriously, man. That guy wrote one of the best Punisher stories of all time and he's linking to ME.

Glee!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban trailer online.

What the hell else do I need to say? Gary Oldman, aka Dracula, aka Lee Harvey Oswald, aka Sid Fucking Vicious as Sirius Black? I am there.

Mr. Stabby. That is all.

(GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY. Enter now.)

There's a lovely web comic you should know about. It's updated every Tuesday and Friday, it's written by the entertaining and vivacious Annie Carlson, and it's called I'm Blue.

If you love Jesus, or you just like laughing because you, like me, are a total dork, then this is the strip for you.

I'm Blue.

(Do not forget THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY. Prizes include an entire run of The Losers, and posters signed by writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock. Just DROP ME AN E-MAIL with a funny or embarassing anecdote explaining why you are, in fact, the biggest loser in the universe, and you might win free comics. Easy as shit, right? Right.)

Anyone who's come to this blog for any stretch of time knows that I'm a western fan. They also know that I'm a pretty big supporter of Viper Comics, because Viper happens to be local to me, and their boy Josh Howard put out a pretty nice little mini-series with Dead@17.

Now it looks like they'll be putting out a western called Daisy Kutter, a "tribute to the best westerns of yesteryear. Add to that the scifi fantasy inspired by Miyazaki and Moebius, the highoctane fun of Cowboy Bebop and Lupin the 3rd, roll it into a package of even more nods to the greatest comics ever made[.]"

Hm. Sounds pretty interesting. Then again, this ad copy does almost scream "look what we're taking ideas from!" So... we'll just have till August to see, won't we?

Get your DM shop to order it.

(THE BIG LOSERS GIVEAWAY! Win an entire run of The Losers, and a Losers poster autographed by writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock! Enter now or die. Choose wisely.)

You know what's amusing?

XXX 2 is being filmed... and Vin Diesel is nowhere in sight.

Ha!

Haha!

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

That's wonderful.

(THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY. Win free comics and autographed posters. DO IT NOW!)

(That's "Box Office," doofus.)

The good-but-not-great Hellboy's opening weekend numbers are in, and tallied up nicely over at Box Office Guru:

The studio poured millions into its marketing campaign hoping to launch a new super hero franchise. Exit polls showed that 60% of the audience was male and 52% was 25 and older.

Backed with positive reviews, the $66M effects-driven film certainly did not have an easy road reaching the male audience this weekend. The simultaneous opening of Walking Tall and Saturday night's NCAA college basketball semifinal matches proved to be formidable distractions for the target crowd. However, Hellboy did help keep the red hot box office moving forward becoming the fifth film of the past six weeks to open with more than $20M.

Not bad, not bad at all. I had not even realized (because I do not care) that Hellboy very much had to compete with the NCAA "matches," but it's certainly a valid fact to bring up when discussing that Hellboy is, indeed, ready for franchise prime time.

It's funny, you know. The legitimate press seemed to like Hellboy a lot more than comic book fanboy types did. Hell, even perpetual fuck-up Owen Gleiberman liked it.

Maybe that's a fair lesson for the tightass fanboys among us and in us: loosen the fuck up, already.

(THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY! Enter now for an entire run of The Losers, as well as posters autographed by writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock. What the hell are you waiting for?!)

Also: THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY. Win free comic books and an autographed poster. DO IT!!!

Entertaining interview with Gail Simone over at Sequential Tart.

Then again, when is anything with Simone ever not entertaining as hell?

Her origin story:

Simone: What happened was, I wrote some interview parodies of comics figures, just to amuse friends. Those got circulated as spam (not by me), and from that, Jonah Weiland at comicbookresources.com asked me to do a weekly humor column, which I agreed to do, reluctantly, figuring no one would read it and I'd stop after twelve weeks.

But this strange thing kept happening, where I was getting this effusive and supportive mail from pros and retailers and editors, and kept getting offered jobs writing comics. That still seemed pretty ridiculous to me, until Scott Shaw suggested I pitch some stories for Bongo Comics, and my love of the Simpsons took over. So I really owe a lot to Scott and Bongo. From there, Joe Quesada called me for Night Nurse (which imploded) and Deadpool (which semi-imploded).

I bring this up because people ask me how to break in all the time, and I really don't know if the traditional route of harassing editors at cons is the way to go anymore. The column showed I could write a lot of material each week, keep a deadline and write in a variety of styles. So it worked out to be a fine audition tape, and I think that it's something that could happen again with the right person.

Also: Enter THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY for an entire run of The Losers and a poster autographed by Andy Diggle and Jock. I cannot believe I am actually giving those away.

I must be fucking crazy.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"We're going to do 'The Watchmen,' '' says producer Lloyd Levin. "It's about a group of superheroes who reunite to figure out who is trying to kill them off."

No. No no no no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!

You just laid out a high concept, Levin. Watchmen defies high concept. It is immune to high concept. I cannot imagine how thoroughly the book will be savaged to squeeze it into a two-hour movie. Watchmen, on film, could only be reasonably serviced by, I don't know, a 10-part series of 3 hours apiece.

Maybe.

And how does one go from Hellboy's success to thinking, "Hey! You know what's a great follow-up to our enjoyable but completely fluffy occult action romp? Watchmen!"

That's like deciding that, since you enjoyed The Berenstein Bears Go to School so much, you think you'll try out a little bit of that Finnegans Wake action.

(In other news, you should tell me what a big loser you are, to win a full run of The Losers and an autographed poster.)

Jimmy Palmiotti talks to Newsarama about the upcoming Punisher video game, including how his collaboration with Ennis worked and what we can expect from the game.

Palmiotti: Yeah, it’s a mix that hopefully will make both audiences very happy and at times freaked out. The level of some of the violence, as it stands right now, is pretty extreme, which makes sense for the Punisher. The thing we both tried to do is stay true the character. Frank Castle is an unrelenting killing machine, and he makes no excuses about his actions.

The basis for the story is a bit of a set up mixed with the who and why of Frank Castle and how he got to where he is at this stage. We cover things that tie to not only his family getting killed, but the players behind it and also, the really fun stuff for us, Frank’s neighbors and friends like Spacker Dave, Joan and Soap. The story unfolds as the game play moves on and you get to see a lot of familiar faces along the way, especially if you ever followed the comic book.

Sounds pretty good. I'm still going to reserve judgement until I have the actual game in my hands, but they're starting off about as well as they possibly can.

In other news, why haven't you entered the GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY yet? Don't you want an entire run of The Losers, along with a poster autographed by writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock?

So we've got some entries for the big contest.

But mostly we just have people checking out the contest and not entering. So you know what? I've added some incentive.

SEND ME A BLURB about why YOU are the biggest loser in the universe, and you could WIN the fabulous prizes detailed here. Note a new addition, as donated by ANDY DIGGLE HIMSELF:

FIRST PRIZE receives a copy of The Losers: Ante Up, the TPB collecting the first six issues, AS WELL AS The Losers #7, #8, #9, and #10, all lovingly bagged and boarded. That's right. THE ENTIRE RUN OF THE LOSERS UP TO THE PRESENT DATE. Also included: A LOSERS POSTER AUTOGRAPHED BY WRITER ANDY DIGGLE AND ARTIST JOCK!

SECOND AND THIRD PRIZE is a copy of The Losers: Ante Up, so you can get yourself a taste of what this fantabulous title has to offer, and (if you're sane) wander on over to your favorite piece of Direct Market to pick up the rest of the titles. Also included: A LOSERS POSTER AUTOGRAPHED BY WRITER ANDY DIGGLE AND ARTIST JOCK!

FOURTH PRIZE will recieve the first two issues of another underappreciated gem, DC's The Monolith. That particular title is only two issues in, which, for those of you doing the math, means you'll be brought right up to date JUST FOR TELLING ME WHAT A LOSER YOU ARE! They're even bagged and boarded. Also included: A LOSERS POSTER AUTOGRAPHED BY WRITER ANDY DIGGLE AND ARTIST JOCK!

FIFTH PRIZE will receive the first two issues of yet another underappreciated title, Image's Sword of Dracula. That one's only three issues in, so you'd be damn near up to speed, wouldn't you? And GUESS WHAT! These are also bagged and boarded. Also included: A LOSERS POSTER AUTOGRAPHED BY WRITER ANDY DIGGLE AND ARTIST JOCK!

So what the hell are you waiting for? DROP ME AN E-MAIL and enter! (put "Losers" somewhere in the subject line).

CLOSED!
CHECK BACK MONDAY FOR RESULTS!

The time has come. Enough hints, enough innuendo.

THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY has now begun.

Here's the deal: the DC Vertigo book The Losers, as written by Andy Diggle and illustrated by Jock, is an absolutely fantastic title that sells abysmal numbers, even for a Vertigo title. Not enough people read the book, and if it were to fall under the cancellation knife, I would become so distraught that I'd be forced to massacre entire tax brackets.

And we can't have that. Hence, THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY is born.

Here's the deal: I, as well as Shane, Johnny, and Kevin, would very much like to get more people into this fantastic book. But screaming about it on our blogs is not going to be enough, is it? So the next step is logical: GIVE THE BOOK AWAY FOR FREE.

Which we'll be doing. Except just giving the books away is no fun, is it? No fun for the readers at home (you). So we've made a little contest of it.

HERE'S WHAT WE WANT:

Between now and 12AM CST, Saturday, April 10th, I want YOU (the reader at home) to send in a brief but colorful blurb telling me why YOU are the biggest loser in the universe. It shouldn't be hard. You read comic books and blogs. You're already halfway there, buddy.

That's right. I want you to humiliate yourself for our sick pleasure. You heard me. Give me anecdotes, give me general summaries of the worthlessness of your existence, give me graphic descriptions of that time your mother-in-law walked in on you shaving the dog, nude. (You're nude, not the dog.) Get as creative as you like, but DON'T JUST MAKE SHIT UP -- we have very potent bullshit detectors/anti-personnel mines. And we know you value your ability to walk upright.

But you won't be doing this for nothing, oh no. There will be prizes. Because this is THE GREAT LOSERS GIVEAWAY, remember? And just what are those prizes, you wonder?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

FIRST PRIZE receives a copy of The Losers: Ante Up, the TPB collecting the first six issues, AS WELL AS The Losers #7, #8, #9, and #10, all lovingly bagged and boarded. That's right. THE ENTIRE RUN OF THE LOSERS UP TO THE PRESENT DATE. Hey, you think you're excited? FEEL THESE NIPPLES!

SECOND AND THIRD PRIZE is a copy of The Losers: Ante Up, so you can get yourself a taste of what this fantabulous title has to offer, and (if you're sane) wander on over to your favorite piece of Direct Market to pick up the rest of the titles. That would be super.

FOURTH PRIZE will recieve the first two issues of another underappreciated gem, DC's The Monolith. That particular title is only two issues in, which, for those of you doing the math, means you'll be brought right up to date JUST FOR TELLING ME WHAT A LOSER YOU ARE! They're even bagged and boarded. Excuse me while I change my pants.

FIFTH PRIZE will receive the first two issues of yet another underappreciated title, Image's Sword of Dracula. That one's only three issues in, so you'd be damn near up to speed, wouldn't you? And GUESS WHAT! These are also bagged and boarded. Wow. Do I rock or what?

There's only THREE RULES for this contest, kiddies:

1) Losers virgins only, please. The idea of this giveaway is to snare NEW fans, whose lily-white genitalia have not yet experienced the pleasure.

2) Only one entry per person. Keep in the spirit of giving here, folks. Don't make me start breakin' kneecaps.

3) Be funny. If you win, your shit's going to be posted, so that the world may laugh at you. Make it worth our while.

So there you have it. DROP ME AN E-MAIL (and be sure to put "LOSERS" somewhere in the subject line) and tell me why you are the biggest loser in the universe, and you may snag yourself some steamy, throbbing prizes.

You have your orders. MOVE, soldier!

ADDENDUM: I have enough "I'm still a virgin and I'm 27" e-mails to last a lifetime. I do not want lists of suicide attempts. What I'm looking for here is comedy -- the sort of embarassing incident that was bad at the time but good for a laugh later on. Tell me your wackiest stories. Embellish, if you have to (every good storyteller does.) Just no more depression festivals, please.

(Once more, many thanks to Shane, Johnny, and Kevin. Give them some love, people. They're saints in sinner's clothing. Or is it the other way around?)

It's been a little bit since I've updated. Apologies all around, I found something resembling a "life" this weekend.

Stay tuned tomorrow for The Great Big Losers Giveaway.

In the meantime, entertain yourself with a free showing of The Passion of the Christ.

Here:

Dear smarmy-ass hybrid/VW/matchbox car drivers,

You might think you're holier than thou because that tuna can you drive gets 1000 miles per gallon and saves children in Somalia, but I'd rather set the ocean ablaze with the gasoline exhaust from my badass Jeep than be caught dead in one of those ugly ass cars. I didn't know conserving gasoline and energy meant style had to be conserved, too, because those cars look like the down syndrome models. Seriously.

Cost of my Jeep? $1400. Cost of a hybrid car? $19,000 starting price. And those beloved VW's cost a fortune to buy and to fix (well over $20,000). Some of us don't have thousands upon thousands of dollars (of daddy's money) to blow on brand new cars just so we can be smug hippies. So maybe all of you superior motherfuckers might not mind lending me $17,600 so I can get a fuel efficient system put into my Jeep? No? Then move your retard car out of my way and shut the fuck up already.

There's nothing I can add to that. That's perfect.

This post on the front page of Penny Arcade:

When you have a friend who actually took Comics As Literature in college it does something in their minds, their minds you understand, it upsets that delicate machinery so that they become like as unto a combination salesman/missionary/mercenary. They've got something you really need, they have a passion that either extends beyond or projects from the border of the known, but they're also hard bitten and they will hurt you if you don't start reading Powers by Brian Michael Bendis. He's been pushing Hellboy forever, even before it was alphabetically valid to do so. If you are as I am, you read the comics your friends tell you to, this is a comic a friend should have told you about already.

Wow. That pretty much nails it entirely, doesn't it?

And then this, as a summary of the movie:

Let me see if I cannot tantalize you with a synopsis of the movie. It concerns the collusion of Nazi Clockwork Assassins and Russian Wizards in an effort to puncture space and draw in sleeping, ancient Gods while the paranormal wing of the FBI, assisted by a demon child, does their best to thwart this procedure. It's essentially pornography for nerds and it opens today.

Tycho also provides a good single-shot sampling of the Hellboy experience, linking to a scan of the one-shot "The Corpse." It's on Playboy's site, so be careful where you click there from.

Winchester Mystery House.

That bit about the "spirits of rifle victims" telling the Winchester widow to keep building is total BS, but it's a nice story.

I would do anything. ANYTHING. To visit that place. I've been dreaming about it for over 10 years now.

I mean LOOK AT THIS THING! That's the stuff orgasms are made of!

(Thanks to Kristal for indirectly finding me that link. She hates it when I spell her name that way, by the way. Tee hee!)

Hard to pass up.

(Thanks, Wil.)

It's pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.

Local critic says it's better than the two X-Men movie combined, which I guess can be true based on your opinion of that franchise. I think they're not even close, but there you have it.

A lot of the reviews I've been reading lately, from comicdom's finest, have been saying the same thing: Hellboy has a lot of glitz, but is dragged down by a lack of plot.

To me, this is like complaining that the acting in a Star Wars movie is touch wooden. Newsflash: WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF STAR WARS. Hellboy (the comic) is, at its heart, a monster movie crossed with a pulp action movie crossed with H.P. Lovecraft. Tell me, have any of those three sources ever been renowned for their ability to weave complex stories and intricate characterizations? No? Then why the fuck are you surprised the movie plays out much the same way?

(And yeah, I've read a lot of Lovecraft. Do not, FOR AN INSTANT, dare to tell me that all of his stories are not all essentially the same. You do not necessarily have to be complicated to be intriguing.)

It's a bug hunt. So was Aliens, and that esteemed piece of cinema was one of the finest movies made in the last 30 years.

Anyway. The reason people see a Guillermo Del Toro is because Del Toro never half-asses his movie. No, his heart and passion are right up there on the fucking screen, and every set, every costume, every make-up job, every show-stopping new monstrous creation comes right from his imagination. The man never paints by numbers, and for that alone, he must be admired. We do not have enough directors left who have such a desire to try something new in each of their movies.

Ron Perlman is good for this role. Selma Blair is servicable. Doug Jones, as Abe Sapien, is the scene-stealer both in dialogue delivery and in make-up. He's convincing. You buy him instantly, without hesitation, because he's so incredibly lifelike. Yes, he speaks in gaspy exclamations -- "Behind this door.. ancient evil.. awaits!" But dammit, what do you expect from a movie like this?

Ace has the score on Rasputin, though. Karl Roden utterly fails to bring a presence and menace to a character that absolutely requires both. And that right there may be the ultimate failing of this movie: no real villainous presence beyond the (admittedly impressive) hellhounds and Nazi blade-wielding automaton.

Should you see it in the theatre? If you're already anticipating it, then yeah, more power to you. You'll have a good time. Will you feel cheated if you spend like $10 for it? Maybe a little. See it matinee-style, if you can.

And that, faithful readers, is my I'm-very-tired minimalist review of Hellboy.

About retreads:

Whether you consider it necrophilia or laziness or unabashed fanboyosity, comics can’t survive on a diet of infinitely re-warmed leftovers. Sure, they might have started out as filet mignon, but enough trips through the microwave and they’re going to be tougher than the beef jerky that you found under the seat of your car that you had lost three summers ago. It isn’t enough that we get new creative blood in the mix (which, thankfully, we seem to get fairly regularly).

We need new characters, new worlds, new visions. Reinventions are fine and dandy (I liked League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as much as the next guy, but The Invisibles, even with its flaws, is a far more satisfying and provocative work) but if you live by them, you’ll be stuck in some kind of endless loop.

Read it.

Look, people are assholes to each other all the time without much prompting. We lie, we cheat, we steal (sing it!), we harass and we dupe, sometimes for our own gain, sometimes for mere selfish pleasure.

Do we need a day to celebrate that?

I'm looking at you, Shane and Jim!

J'accuse!

Over at ComixFan, a bunch of writers tally up their top 10 lists of most meaningful deaths in comics. The lists are all right.

You got some good ones on there, from Preacher and The Authority and so on, but who has the balls to slip this in between Wolverine being crucified on an X and Angel losing his wings in Mutant Massacre?

#3: A game of cat and Maus

If you haven't read it, you're missing out. If you have read it, you refuse to consider it a comic or graphic novel, because it's so much better that it puts every other illustrated material to absolute shame. This is the world of Maus- where the cats are the Nazis and the mice are the Jews. The story extends so much past that, though. This is an uncensored look at the Spiegelmans, one of which was forced to live through the concentration camps in Germany and see so many of his family and friends die. What makes this story so much different than the other things in this list is that the people in this novel WERE ACTUALLY KILLED. Everything that you read here is an example of the real life animalistic brutality that occurred in Germany in the late 30's and early 40's. We're a better society for having this story. Show it to your parents and grandparents.

Um... inappropriate and insulting to slip this in between a bunch of shit like Superman dying and being reborn? Possibly.

It's good to know he considers the death of Robin 2 more profound.

Steven Grant's back, and while he may not have any beef with blogs, he certainly has no use for sounding like one. This week's it's responses to reader mail, with some hefty (and interesting) conversations about comic distribution and Diamond.

Read.

Fuckton of reviews later. Thursday afternoons are bad for me.

I find this article via Neil Gaiman, which is ironic, since I go to the CST page a lot on my own and completely missed this.

It's Richard Roeper, the very intelligent and entertaining companion to The Man on the Ebert & Roeper show, and as gifted a columnist as The Man himself.

And what's got him up in a bind right now? The current FCC environment, thanks to people who had coronaries because Janet Jackson's nipple was visible for a couple of seconds. To us norms, the world kept on turning after that fateful eyeblink of time. But not to the freaks. They've turned this country into a Bizarro Democracy.

Now that the FCC has the power to levy fines of up to A HALF MILLION DOLLARS for a single indecency infraction, adult-oriented hosts are engaging in self-censorship, lest they be hit with career-ending fines. Already the FCC has proposed a $247,000 fine for ''Elliot in the Morning,'' a Washington, D.C., jock, for his ''graphic and explicit'' comments about porn star Ron Jeremy.

Jeez. You can plead guilty to a variety of felonies in this country and you might be able to avoid jail time by doing community service and paying fines -- but the fines are nowhere near as huge as the suggested financial penalties for talking about sex on the radio.

What's happening to us?

Punk-O-Matic song composer. A hell of a lot more fun than it has any right to be. You don't actually have to like punk to enjoy this toy.

(Via Little Fluffy.)

Also, check out Wil's car page. He insists, because he feels it necessary that we mortals view our conquering tyrant, whom we will all serve one day as food, furniture, or both.

So I saw a standup for it in a movie theatre lobby a couple weeks ago.

Someone told me about a trailer for it a few days ago.

Now I finally see it online. It's called Dodgeball.

Should be funny, at least in a marginal way... I'd pay cash money to watch Vince Vaughn eat Shells & Cheese, though. Still sorta reminds me (a LOT) of BASEketball.

(Reviews for a fuckton of comics tomorrow.)

Army of Darkness #1 in July.

Well, I'll buy the first one, anyway. See how it goes. Don't have a lot of high hopes for it, though.

So I'm reading my comics stash for the day, which is why I've been silent. Right now I'm slogging through the fanboy masturbation festival that is Avengers/JLA, wherein a blue guy that looks like a child molester from 1978 named Krona is trying to merge two universes, or whatever.

The dialogue is of course interchangable and useless, and the people who come off most colorful are Batman (for not speaking) and Thor (for talking like the King James Bible.) The melodrama is composed entirely of cardboard emotions. Batman reminds us he doesn't like guns -- in case we forgot! -- and we get some of the same tired shit about Giant Man being a wifebeater. Blah blah blah.

None of that matters. It's an excuse for Busiek and Perez to trot out every hero, villain, and costume permutation of the above for 4 oversized issues.

Me, I don't go for that easy humor about "pervert suits" and how everything's just sort of a big fetish. But I can't ignore some of the homoerotic overtones in this book. Example (emphasis mine):

Green Arrow: Sorry, Hawkeye -- you were even better at bein' a pain in the butt than me, and that's sayin' something --

GA: -- but I'll make every one of your shafts count.

GA: Every one.

(Next Panel.)

Captain America: Don't let up!

Cap: You've got 'em in disarray -- Keep pushing! Break through their lines -- then take 'em from behind!

Cap: Keep pushing! Keep PUSHING!

There's stuff like that all over this book. This is either madness or genius, or perhaps both.

Per this very interesting little discussion about Dave Sim's total fucking nuthood, I find this link, a transcript of a discussion between Alan Moore and Dave Sim.

One of them has a scary grasp of sanity. The other is a whack job. No prizes for figuring out which is which.

Comics are had.

Meanwhile, Shane dug up this picture of the new Batmobile for Batman Begins. It does look an awful lot like a tank, doesn't it?

Proof that I am not, in fact, the dorkiest person alive. Not by far.

I will admit that I find Dr. Doom an intriguing villain. I do not, however, buy into that stuff about how Lee and Kirby had all kinds of symbolism worked out for most of their creations. I'll buy the basic stuff -- the Hulk as an expression of irrepresible rage, for instance -- but, quite frankly, I don't think either Lee or Kirby gave much of a rat's ass beyond creating their high concept. Most of this stuff is applied long after, by theorists with a lot of time on their hands.

Like that guy.

Anyway: Comics now. Blogging later.

Shane's definitive list of zombie comic books.

It's so wonderful I could weep.

A new Gone & Forgotten is up! (You'll want to be clicking in the dialogue balloon.)

This time, he talks about Wonder Woman:

I suppose I should get this out of the way first: I hate Wonder Woman and I'm sorry she has the vote! I've sort of documented my reasons in other forae, but chief among what I think of as Wonder Woman's many faults as a character is that she just seems sort of sloppily applied.

She's a mythical amazon, but she ends up fighting giant communist eggs and amorous space gorillas, or something called Mouse Man which was apparently a dude in a yellow mouse costume complete with fuzzy ears and nose. She's a character from Greek legend who wears an American ensemble. And, you know, whenever they ran out of story ideas, they just swiped whatever just happened in Superman last month.

Sniff. I'm.. I'm so.. so HAPPY.

(Be sure to read the G&F Archives for some good laughs. The stuff about the Superpets had me laughing so hard I was fucking crying.)

This post is why I love Near Mint Heroes.

And, secretly, Shane.

This sounds pretty fantastic, actually. It had me at "horror anthology."

Can you tell I'm a horror fan?

(Thanks to Broken Frontier's J.P. Dorigo for pointing it out in his Komic Sutra column.)

Seen it twice over now, on Fanboy Rampage and Warren Ellis's mailing list, but it still bears more repeating.

Jamie Rich is mad about the state of the industry. He's mad about the dominance of the Big Two and what they choose to do with that dominance. Don't dismiss the column offhand (like I did, at first) just because it's got some gripey things to say about the JLA.

Oh...what’s that? I can feel the rumbling now. I am a superhero hater. I obviously don’t get it. I hate the direct market. I don’t understand.

No, you’re wrong, I do understand. I understand that there are a lot of people in this industry--fans, retailers, creators, publishers--who see the full potential for the industry, for the art, and who want more. It’s like the old Smiths song--these comics say nothing to me about my life. And when you consider the return of He-Man, the X-Men putting back on their colorful costumes, or Claremont and Byrne doing JLA to be a progressive move, I’d counter that it’s you who don’t get it. This is why the real world writes comics off as trash, because that’s all we expect from ourselves.

Right on. And this, on the tail of hearing some grumblings (under "Marvel Legends") about Marvel bringing back artists and writers recognizable "if you're over thirty"...

Smell that? That was the sweet, sweet promise of the late 90's being cashed in on more of the same old shit.

Ever since I saw Dawn of the Dead on opening night, I've been on something of a zombie kick. Broke out my copies of Return of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, and Lucio Fulci's Zombie (or Zombi 2, for the purists) and watched all three in a row.

Reread all 5 issues of The Walking Dead.

Rediscovered a roleplaying game I'd bought but never played called All Flesh Must Be Eaten, went through the (highly enjoyable) sourcebook, had fun constructing my own zombie apocalypse and reading about the various "deadworld" ideas presented in the book.

Went to their website, read all the fiction.

Found out about Homepage of the Dead, a tribute to the Romero trilogy. The page is seriously lacking in up-to-date information, but had some great stuff, like the original Day of the Dead script available, plus the revelation that George Romero was initially meant to write and direct the Resident Evil movie, until Constantine Films ditched him and went with Paul Anderson.

Now, two nights in a row, I've had dreams about zombie apocalypses.

This is probably not healthy.

So Janet Jackson made a much-ballyhooed appearance on Letterman.

Letterman, acting like a douche, kept badgering her about the Super Bowl stuff even though Jackson made it crystal clear she had no intent on talking about it. After being asked enough times, she let slip an "Oh, Jesus," which CBS deemed offensive enough to bleep.

Jackson stated, very sanely, that there were more important things going on in the world. Letterman joked that she didn't really mean that.

And Jackson's to blame for all of this? Good lord, CBS. Where'd your balls go? Did you ever have any?

So there's this Humanoids thing coming out with John Cassaday providing the art.

The summary is thus:

December, 1942.

The global conflict has reached a fever pitch. The Nazis are at the height of their power, but the Allies have had their first victories in Stalingrad and in the Pacific. Never has the war’s outcome been so much in doubt.

Unknown to the Allies, the Nazi’s have a secret weapon, a 10 year-old girl whose gifts could force them to their knees.

Hmm. More, from Humanoids editor Paul Benjamin:

“This is not your ordinary war story. As is clearly alluded to in John’s magnificently designed preview image, there’s a bit of a supernatural twist to things that will make this the war story to remember."

Oh. So it's a WW2 story with a supernatural edge to it. Yeah, that's not an ordinary war story at all -- it's second only to the straight war story without any elements. I certainly can't think of any other war stories out right now that have supernatural elements to them...

Maybe that's just catty, but c'mon. Taking WW2 and putting in a supernatural element is old hat for comic books. You never see a lot of that being done with, say, the Korean War or Vietnam, do you? What the hell is it about WW2, anyway? Hmm...

The Comics Waiting Room has a few reviews up for some books that might have slipped under your radar. (Certainly slipped under mine.) Have a look.

In other news: There is no other news. There's some stuff about Mary Jane and TokyoPop and so on, but aside from a mildly growing interest in the MJ title, I really just don't care all that much.

So!

Why don't you check out some informative comments about pacing in comic books by artist Steve Leiber? Originally posted in the Fanboy Rampage comments section, Shane from Near Mint Heroes was kind enough to post it seperately to make it easy to get at. It's informative. Read it.

DO IT.

NOW!

UPDATE: Steve Lieber went ahead and posted the text on the Mercury Studios blog, too. He even complimented me, sort of!

(See, beneath all the faux cynicism I really am just an insecure fanboy.)

Xe, in a search for pictures of Jennifer Grey, came across a site called Jewrassic Park (hosted by TotallyJewish.com.) It's basically an exhibit of one-hit wonder stars of TV and the silver screen that have long since faded into obscurity.

Why do I care?

Because I had no idea that Supergirl was Jewish. That is so fabulous I could fucking weep.

(Yes, I am perfectly aware of the religious affiliation of Superman's creators. However, Supergirl is the absolute embodiment of Aryan good looks. Anyway.. if I have to explain the joke to you, you'll never understand.)

From Thought Balloons, a link to the Greatest Mindfuck of All Time.

Jim Davis does not draw Garfield.

Some other guy does.

I need to go suck on my fucking thumb for awhile.

Cowboy Bebop game.

I rather love the series. I am not a fan of anime in general, but I really loved the hell out of that series. The movie was... dull, slow, and scored by uninspired music, which is completely unlike the actual TV show. Here's hoping the game -- if it ever sees the light of day -- is more the TV show and less the movie.

(Kudos to Wil for finding this.)

What I'll probably end up buying come Wednesday, though only a few titles are guaranteed. Some of these I am ashamed to admit.

(From the Diamond list, thanks to Johnny for the heads-up.)

DC Comics
AVENGERS JLA #4 (Of 4) $5.95
BATMAN #625 $2.25
LIGHT BRIGADE #2 (Of 4) (MR) $5.95
MIDNIGHT MASS HERE THERE BE MONSTERS #3 (Of 6) (MR) $2.95
PLANETARY #19 $2.95

Marvel Comics
PULSE #2 $2.99
THE PUNISHER #4 (MR) $2.99
WOLVERINE PUNISHER #1 (Of 5) $2.99

Miscellany
Not a damn thing.

I'm sure there'll be others that reach out to me, but with JLA/Avengers and Light Brigade costing so much, those'll probably just go into my stash box until such a time as I am filthy bloody rich.

Losers giveaway soon. Stay tuned.

GAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

I don't particularly care that it's Drea De Matteo joining this spinoff show from Friends. Whatever, it's her career, she can flush it if she wants to.

The fact that there will be a spinoff to Friends is what gets me. And not two days after EW was postulating the doom of the sitcom because three comedies were coming to an end -- as if the combined weight of Friends, Sex and the City, and Frasier dying out was enough to tank every night on primetime TV. Puh-LEEZ.

If anything, the fact that this spinoff (Joey it's called, in accordance with network programmers' famed creativity) proves that TV will do anything it can to maintain their status quo. Anything. Fuck daring and different. Fuck the 50 quirky pitches they get every single day for something new and daring and different. Fill up that precious primetime spot with a goddamn spinoff from a show that got stale goddamn five years ago.

ARGGH!!!!!

I mean why be daring, right? Why try anything new? Why explore new genres and try out new things? That kind of thing certainly hasn't worked out for, say, HBO.

Except... they seem to clear out the Emmy awards year after year, don't they? They kick the collective networks' ass year after year, in all the same categories?

Hmm.

I wonder if there's something to that.

So I find out there's some comic book retailers bitching about Marvel's deal with Source Interlink, which will put their monthlies on the racks at places like Barnes & Noble. I'll go ahead and lift the money quote from Fanboy Rampage, cuz I'm gonna lift everything else from there too:

Marvel's decision to sell to Interlink to rack comics at major book store chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders is another signal that Marvel has absolutely no interest in supporting the current specialty market model, and has in fact SOLD US OUT in their continuing effort to boost their sales, and more importantly to executives, their STOCK PRICE. I find it ridiculous that we as an industry decided to move Free Comic Book Day to time with the release of Spider-Man 2, a Marvel movie, when Marvel is willing to take the bread and butter of comic book stores away and pass it off to the corporate chains.

There are so many things wrong with that statement that I could go in a million different directions of criticism. Turns out, I don't have to. All the commentors pretty much got it nailed. Special Achievement in Awesome awards go to Augie, Shane, and Bill.

Also, special mention goes to Kevin Melrose, who makes a rather brilliant little argument himself at Thought Balloons, in the comments.

Second best comics column on the internet has a new edition up.

The best, of course, is Steven Grant's Permanent Damage.

That is all.

Article about the Punisher over at Broken Frontier.

Okay, it's not so much an "article" as it is a glossy description of what the Punisher's been doing since Garth Ennis took him over. Honestly, I'm not sure what the point of this piece was; only thing it does is give a very general description of what the Max line is like. If that gets a few more people to pick it up, then I guess mission accomplished...

And then there are the parts of the article that are just plain false. I don't fault the writer for that. I fault general misconception that most people seem to be holding.

The series started off quite strong, but Garth’s disdain for super heroes started to take over. The book went from sly satire to all out parody, with over the top gross out humor and violence that didn’t serve the character, well, at all.

Sure, sly satire is always present in Ennis's works. And sometimes it ain't so sly. But I'm kind of wondering if this guy's just thinking of the "Confederacy of Dunces" arc that closed out the Marvel Knights imprint, a necessary step for Ennis to sever Frank's ties with the dudes in tights so he could get on with the more serious MAX imprint?

I certainly see no superhero parody in "Streets of Laredo," an interesting blend of Western and Texas justice. Or "Brotherhood," a 3-parter examining corruption and heroism in the thin blue line. Or how about issue #19, "Of Mice and Men," detailing Frank's last encounter with Joan the Mouse, and perhaps my single favorite issue of Ennis's entire Punisher run? It's funny, brutal, poignant, and provides real closure... all in 22 pages. When was the last time you found a writer and artist distill their greatest talents into a single issue?

And nary a cape in sight. I could pull out quite a few more examples, but you're starting to get the idea, right?

The writer is quite right in two respects, though: Born is a masterpiece, and the MAX imprint has been a grand slam every single issue. Lewis Larosa's artwork has been perfectly moody and grim, and Dean White's colors have complimented everything in somber tones. Larosa is, sadly, rather unappreciated. I'll be sad to see him go.

And really, does the Punisher belong anywhere else but on the MAX line?

Anyway: Buy the Born hardcover. Get into the MAX series; it's only three issues in. You want to see Frank Castle as the uncompromising war machine we know him to be, and perhaps get little peeks under the hood to see what makes him tick... this is your book.

Interesting, if fluffy.

I kinda like the part where it says Pleece knew "absolutely zilch" about the Focus line. That more or less sums up what everyone knows about the Focus line. DC took out some ads, sure, but if this is the line intent to be some kind of halfway house between the DCU and Vertigo books, you think they'd push the titles a bit more aggressively.

I confess, I have not yet read Kinetic. But I have been following Hard Time, which I think is pretty good, if not fabulous. But then I seem to be in the minority in thinking Hard Time was worth any kind of time or money at all. What gives, folks? What're your gripes?

(Also, Ms. Contino? No one says "4-1-1," ever. Never ever. Especially in print. Please stop writing quasi-hip and just fucking write.)

You have the crossovers that just sound great anyway.

In this case, it's because it's Sam Fucking Kieth handling the duties. It sounds bloody interesting anyway, doesn't it? This isn't "Batman marries a werewolf!"

Which actually sounds like a Silver Age book.

This is just dumb.

Crossovers, ideally, should only happen when the two characters (or teams) have some kind of similar resonance with each other, or with the audience. Some basic similarities, some contrasts from which the central conflict arises (apart from that tired "misunderstanding" BS), and overall some kind of point to their interaction. A greater overarching need for the characters in question to come into contact and come out of it changed.

What the fuck do Wolverine and Witchblade have in common? Besides, you know, pointy things, and the ability to sell comics? That's as stupid an idea as combining Wolverine and Batman.

Except...

Bit by bit, Nintendo makes the case for me buying a Gameboy SP Advance Ultra Mega Whatever-the-fuck a little stronger.

That's very pretty, right there. But I gotta ask: with comic books eating up $20-$50 a week from me, can I really afford to blow $100 on a Gameboy and then $20+ per game for it? That's another thing -- I can't believe they've got the balls to charge $20 per classic game. You know on friggin' PS2's they sell bundle packs of those games, on one CD, for $20 total. And do I really need another distraction and siphoner of disposable income?

Still. The siren call is stronger...

(Thanks to Xe for putting another nail in the coffin that is my wallet.)

Aside from Penny Arcade and 8-Bit Theater, I really don't visit many online comic strips. Most of them are a complete and total waste of time, uninspired trash that never updates on schedule, if at all.

Such as mine.

But then I got a little daring. Checked out the TCW rankings to see what was out there. And came across three great-tasting strips that taste great together. Or... something like that. (Plus a bonus strip link at th end, because you're my special friend.)

Elf Only Inn -- This might be kind of a niche one. Bunch of people's avatars in an online role-playing room, basically screwing around and being funny. Every stereotype is nailed dead-on: the Dragonball Z guy who can't spell and that no one pays attention to, the snotty room moderator whose whole purpose for existence is ruining everyone's fun, the chick who's a "~vampyre~ (half)," the demon guy who walks in and starts eating NPCs to prove he's awesome, etc, etc. You need to start at the beginning to get the full effect. Updates M/W/F, pretty consistently.

Least I Could Do -- Here's a novel concept: comic strip characters with sex lives! It's not gratuitous or all that immature or anything, at least in so much as a comic strip can be "mature," but it's pretty funny. You would do well to start at the first strip on this one and work your way forward. It gets funnier and funnier as it goes along. Updates Monday through Saturday.

A Modest Destiny -- You definitely need to start at the beginning with this one. The first chapter is a fantasy story, lambasting all the usual fantasy clichés in a fairly original way, with utterly charming sprite art. The story actually gets kind of involving. Then you get the second chapter, which is a space opera(ish) story totally unrelated to the first, that's not quite as entertaining but is more consistently humorous. Also gets better as it goes along, like so many strips. Updates 7 days a week.

Lore Brand Comics -- I've been reading Lore since I first discovered the Brunching Shuttlecocks about 5 years ago. You can read them in pretty much any order, as all the strips are self-contained little zingers that have no real "continuity" to them. Highly recommended. Updates about every Wednesday.

You're WELCOME!

I don't really know much about this.

The teaser there doesn't really say all that much.

The art is interesting but fairly nondescript.

So why am I so bloody intrigued?

Elektra movie thingy, blah blah blah, Comics Continuum.

So. Typhoid Mary. Yeah, she's a Daredevil villain, not so much an Elektra villain. Elektra really doesn't have villains, unless you count the people who kill her.

Jennifer Garner... as far as I'm concerned, she is to Elektra what a lightning bug is to a lightning bolt. Perhaps no actress in the world could capture Elektra's deadliness and allure, but regardless, Garner ain't her. Whoever they put in the role as Typhoid Mary.. could make or break that movie.

Gene Siskel had a very basic litmus test for the quality of a movie. He would ask a simple question, which I shall now paraphrase:

"Is this movie more or less interesting than a documentary of these same actors having lunch together?"

Looks like Jim Jarmusch is going straight for the "lunch together" part. Though the addition of Jack and Meg White seems to be a grab for coolness, this should still be pretty entertaining. I'll see just about anything with Cate Blanchett (The Greatest Actress Of Our Time) in it.

So I'm watching the old Adam West Batman movie for the first time since I was twelve. I thought I should post one of the Riddler's great riddles. Because.. it's great.

Q: What sits in a tree, weighs six ounces, and is very dangerous???

Robin: A sparrow with a machine gun.

Gordon: Of course!

...Wow.

Also: Lee Meriwether is hot.

He's got his reviews for the week up, and I quote this from his review of The Losers (whom he names best comic of the week, for he is sane and wise):

Diggle deftly weaves in a lot of great character interaction. [...] It can't be an easy thing to come up with such a complicated storyline [...] with sharp dialogue and even humor in places, [...] and not have it devolve into a jumbled mess. If it was, then more people would be doing it. Artist Jock is doing a great job of giving us what we need to maximise the depth of Diggle's script, with his jagged, heavily black-spotted ink style and random perspective shots- and the cover for this issue is modestly brilliant.

Yeah, I was kind of infatuated with that cover, too.

Why the FUCK aren't you buying this book yet?

..the remakes will walk the earth.

From Bloody Disgusting, this.

Remakes of House of Wax, The Changeling, and, for the thirty thousandth time, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I dunno. I get wary around remakes, though I don't go into kneejerk-hatred mode like a lot of people do. The Dawn of the Dead remake was a pleasant surprise, I have to say. Still... is a House of Wax remake really necessary?

(I'd talk more about comics, but there ain't much to talk about right now. Someone, make an assassination attempt on Joe Quesada!)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I'll take 88 of them.

Here.

You gotta love any article that starts off with the sentence "R-rated films about Jesus and zombies have dominated the charts for over a month now."

I want to begrudge Scooby-Doo 2 for taking some cash, but I see that this movie, unlike its predecessor, is entirely marketed as a family film. Likely for children who have never heard of Scooby Doo, on top of that. If it's dumb family fare.. well, there's not enough of that on the screen right now.

So I'm only mildly irked.

Also, look at the very bottom. Compare what movies are out right now in comparison to the caliber of movies that were out this time last year: Bringing Down the House, Head of State, The Core, and Basic. Jesus, I'm breaking out in hives just thinking about it.

On EW, a few TV show writers discuss the potential impending doom of sitcoms as Friends and Frasier (thank god on both counts), as well as an uncertain future for Everybody Loves Raymond.

This question and its answers, and most importantly who they come from, are quite instructive:

Is the theory true that viewers want something new, or does mediocrity succeed for a reason?

Cindy Chupack (Sex and the City): Nobody sets out to make a mediocre show. You're trying to make the best of what the show is.

(Fitting. Sex and the City was never, ever a brilliant show, but with what it had it could reach a certain kind of genius.)

Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond): But mediocrity is insidious. It gets in even if you think you're doing something good, and you can lose your focus and suddenly you're on one of those shows that you didn't want to be on.

(A little bit of admittance that the show you work on is maybe kinda sorta a piece of shit?)

Chuck Lorre (Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men): It's the nature of turning out that many shows in a short amount of time. You're constantly battling against the burnout.

(Not battling hard enough, apparently. If there's a half dozen writers on your show, and they're good, intelligent professionals, or just people who like to have fun, there's really no excuse for show-wide burnout. I can name a few shows right now that haven't lost a single bit of their sparkle.)

Diane English (Murphy Brown): But there are executives who do value mediocrity because it feels safe, middle-of-the-road... They value that sort of broad sweep of ''We're not going to offend too much.'' They eliminate the highs, the lows. The risk takers suffer and have to fight to keep their unique voice. I found it very interesting that [''Significant Others'']...premiered on Bravo rather than on NBC. It's almost like the network was testing it on the smaller venue... because it's different.

(And the writer of one of contemporary TV's most intelligent sitcoms (sounds almost like an oxymoron) just flat-out comes clean about it. The networks are staffed by cowards.)

Superman. Batman. Countless other "men" that have the word "man" right after their descriptor. What I don't get is...

Why does Spider-Man have a hyphen in his name? Don't give me shit about how he's an amalgam of the two, or whatever. Do you have to be bitten by a radioactive bug to earn the hyphen?

(I know spiders aren't bugs. Shut the fuck up.)

I could even deal with it if he was just Spider Man, no hyphen...

WHY, God! Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!

1) Can anyone tell me more about this? It sounds fantastic. And I love Mike Judge.

2) I only started re-collecting comics maybe a year and a half ago. I only started getting into buying several titles a week about 9 months ago. Since then, I've got two longboxes, one mostly filled and one mostly not. They're alphabetically sorted; the mostly-filled box is A - L, and the mostly not filled one is M - Z. I wonder, is that a universal trend? Granted, I bought about 20 issues of Hitman in one go, but I have about ten zillion issues of The Punisher, so... is this serious discrepancy more common than just me, or is it nothing more than 50/50 odds?

(Part of it probably has to do with the fact that I never buy anything with "X" or "Ultimate" in the title, I just read my roommate's.)

Could be interesting.

I still get a hell of a shock every time I see a JRjr. drawing that features a male protagonist that isn't a huge, hulking Frank Castle-alike.

The contents:

I am available for domination and foot sessions in all states and locations below. Private sessions will be during the day, at either a dungeon or in my hotel room. If you are interested, email me.

I will be appearing at Frank's Chicken House in Manville, New Jersey March 29 through April 3rd. This is a great club!

No, Shane. I will not give you her e-mail address. You can just SHOW UP at Frank's Chicken House, all right?

I hear it's a great club.

Everyone else is talking about it, and it's interesting anyway.

Marc-Oliver Frisch talks about DC's sales numbers in 2004.

The Losers, Birds of Prey and The Monolith aren't where they should be, numbers-wise. Are you responsible?

And this bit, after looking at the numbers for Thundercats and Lobo Unbound:

Eighties nostalgia is dead. These numbers started out well, but the drops should have gotten smaller by now.

Thank God.

Anyway. It's kind of interesting to see what sales numbers DC supports that Marvel would never, ever prop up. I can't decide if this is bad business sense or simple bravery from DC. I amgreatful that a lot of these titles, that'd be cancelled in a heartbeat over at the House of Whatever, are allowed to run their course. Bless ya, DC, for being the conservative, stable place that you are.

Andy Smith sets off the first legal exchange with CrossGen Entertainment's circus of fuckheads.

It was only a matter of time, I guess.

Money quote:

To date, there are still over 50 comic creators owed money by CGE (according to inside information the dollar amount owed has topped $300,000), many endured insult on top of fiscal injury after CGE released the art these very people created in their monthly books. Engaging in the contracting of artwork, reproduction of work for sale at a profit, while never paying those who created it and allegedly issuing threats of litigation against any who attempted to speak out against this behavior, makes the business of corporate comics as practiced by CrossGen look rather unethical and immoral.

Too bad, I kinda like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and El Cazador.

Okay, wow.

Two MORE actors onto the already heavy list of juggernaut talent for Batman Begins: Rutger Hauer and Tom Wilkinson (splendid in Eternal Sunshine, by the way.) Either this movie's going to be 5 hours long, or we have way too many names and faces in this bad boy.

Or it's just that everyone wants in on a badass Batman flick. I can see that, too.

I live in the wrong town!

Outgoing MPAA prez Jack Valenti speaks at a Q&A! Gates of Heaven! Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored! People I Know! The General!

Fuck!

(I promise I'll get to comics in a minute.)

Tony Millionaire:

I find it interesting that fuck you.

Oh yeah. That one's going in the arsenal.

And this time I don't mean it in a patronizing sense.

Check out Jim Treacher ripping on critics at Salon and Slate for not talking about Dawn of the Dead.

He's right, ya know. It may be a (gasp) horror film, but it has more energy, innovation, and zeal for good-fun filmmaking that's lacking from, well, the latest Lars von Trier plate of inconsequence.

Critics: here's something. If a director releases movie after movie that is appreciated by no one but critics, it isn't an important piece of work. It can have all the subtext and meaningful pauses in dialogue under the fucking sun, but if no one's watching it, it is not important.

Somewhere down the line we forget that part of what makes art art is its place and evaluation among the masses. Art is not for an elitist club of wine-sippers and limp-wristed sissies. I know, I know; the idea is that the general masses just aren't smart enough for Wim Wenders' insufferably stupid End of Violence, right? As The Man says in regards to middle America's ability to grasp "important" film: People are not dumb unless you treat them as dumb.

IFC aficionados? Sundance Channel snobs? If you endlessly chase your obscurities into the sunset and leave everyone else behind, it's no longer art. It's niche. It becomes no more "superior" to the mainstream than building model trains.

We are allowed to enjoy ourselves at the theatre, you know.

Via Near Mint Heroes, I find that there's a preview up of the new art for The Walking Dead. It's here.

And Shane at NMH warns thusly:

The only thing I dislike about seeing the work is that it looks like the preview they show is a pretty major scene in the book. So even though I kinda figured it was coming, it kinda spoiled that plot point for me. View at your own risk.

Man, am I lazy today or what?

Anyway. Some of the people at Newsarama are talking like an artist shift is going to get them off the book, because they like Tony Moore so much. That's real sweet, guys, but Moore walking appears to be out of Robert Kirkman's control, and I don't see the point in penalizing him and yourself by ceasing to buy a book you enjoy so much. It's only 50% art, guys. The other half is writing, which is the reason any comic book exists, so let's have a little stick-to-itiveness, all right?

Looks pretty good.

Rodney Bingenheimer himself. Goofy name, goofy haircut, rock legend. The presence of David Bowie and Mick Jagger in this trailer is quite enough to get me there, even though apparently they allowed Gwen Stefani to speak (which makes Jesus sad.)

Keep an eye out.

As promised, the Only Opinion That Matters:

Wanted #3 -- Moving along at a nice pace, and more entertaining with every issue. I'm not sure why everyone gets their Depends in a bunch over this, lobbing all kinds of insults about how "immature" it is, and so on and so forth. I'm not sure these folks realize that the main character is, in fact, incredibly immature. And we are viewing the story through his eyes. Brush up on those critical thinking skills, folks. This is supposed to be a fun hobby, and by god if this isn't one of the most fun books out there.

Birds of Prey #65 -- Speaking of fun. This is the only series in the world that could make me give a rat's ass about Black Canary. BC's way too straitlaced of a hero, and Oracle pretty much defines "stick in the mud," so when are we finally going to see Huntress having an equal share in the stories? Right now she's still supporting. All the same. Simone shows a growing confidence handling action stories along with her trademark dialogue, and I'm intrigued with where this story could go, if not outright fascinated.

Cable & Deadpool #1 -- Eh. You know. It's not bad. Deadpool isn't half as funny as any of the characters in Agent X (speaking of Gail Simone) in this incarnation, but I suppose it could go somewhere. And did I totally miss the reason why Cable was in that same pharmaceutical facility, or is that just going to be explained later? Anyway. Always good to see Deadpool in action.

Hellboy: The Corpse -- Talk about coming late to the game. I realize this is an old classic, yadda yadda, but as previously stated I am something of an ignorant dullard when it comes to Hellboy. There's little I could say about the comic or Mignola that hasn't already been said over and over again since 1996, so I'll just say this man handles occult weirdness with such dry, deft wit and respect that I can't help but be hooked. A dark ruby wine, or however Alan Moore put it...

Freaks of the Heartland #2 -- The first two issues could have been covered in one issue. I'm waiting to be truly impressed, Steve Niles. The only reason I'm going to keep goign with this series is because Greg Ruth's art is so gorgeous I feel like I could fall right into it. The art, so far, is the only thing that has set the mood for this mini so effectively.

Lone #5 -- Still one of the weirdest books out there, and still the most innovative. I think what we see here is a creative team truly in love with their story, characters, and setting, but not so beholden to them that they don't keep generating new concepts and ideas. Where the hell else have you seen a biker gang of glowing green skeletons rob a train, or a poker game involving a gorilla with bionic laser vision? Just typing that out gives me a grin.

Patient Zero #1 -- I have no idea what the hell happened here, and I'm not going to stick around to find out. The art I previously found purdy is, in fact, just murky and undefined. The writer's essay about his inspiration for the series is enlightening and interesting, but his execution is, shall we say, flawed. Sorry.

The Losers #10 -- Usual praise. Diggle and Jock have an energy about them that comes through in every frame, in dialogue or in action sequences. What's a refreshing breath of air is the Aisha character -- she's a "hardcore chick," but not in the usual comic book sense that she shoots guys while her tits keep popping out of her halter. No. She's a soldier. A soldier more aware of the world she moves in than anyone else in the Losers, with the exception of their leader.

And I think, in order to promote The Losers more, I will run some kind of.. giveaway, or contest. Stay tuned.

Okay, this. From EW.

A release date for Spider-Man 3.

Okay.. guys.. I realize the first movie did very well and all? And that the sequel will doubtless also do well? Though you are fucking NAIVE if you think it'll match the previous movie's success..

But the second movie isn't even OUT YET and you're announcing plans for the third. Even worse, the final line in the article is this:

''Spider-Man 4,'' however, still has no release date.

Okay, this is beyond cockiness. This is beyond hubris. This is WAY beyond putting the cart in front of the horses.

This is Tower of Babel-style arrogance. I mean, sure, you can assume the sky is only going to get sunnier forever and ever, that each new movie will bring in the Big Bux and greater critical acclaim and this can just go on forever and ever, huh? No need to be a little more conservative with your funding dollar, no need to maybe weather the second movie before moving on to the third.

Yeah. Ask the Batman people how that sort of thing works out.

You are going to glut the market, goddammit. Every single B-level comic character you hand a movie to, you harden the audience that much more. You're shooting yourselves in the fucking foot and you're LAUGHING while you do it.

Morons. I'm going to go break something important to me.

Thursday, like Wednesday, is one of those annoying days where I kind of have a lot to do in the afternoon that takes me away from blogging greatness.

Give it a few hours, and you'll be hearing about what I thought of yesterday's comics, plus the usual Wonderlicious(tm) Excitement that I bring to the table EVERY DAMN DAY OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE.

See ya then, pardner.

Glee!

I think I'm going to go ahead and devote my life and soul to Ennis. Just get it over with, ya know?

The Least Harm Principle Suggests that Humans Should Eat Beef, Lamb, Dairy, not a Vegan Diet.

HA! The LHP suggested by vegan vaginas can actually be used to prove that a diet based on beef, lamb, and pork actually SAVES MORE ANIMAL LIVES than a vegan diet.

Hee hee!

(No disrespect, ADD. You're not a pussy, just perhaps misguided. I read Fast Food Nation too, but I still loves me some cheeseburgers.)

(Or is that "here, here"?)

Tycho from Penny Arcade in defense of Kevin Smith, over the flak Smith's received for Jersey Girl, mostly from people who haven't seen the movie:

Apparently Kevin Smith has sold out though, claims the chorus, for producing a film which does not refer to oral sex. The movie may be bad for any number of reasons, I honestly don't know - like many other people I have not seen it. I don't know that I ever need to. However, I'm not sure what selling out has to do with anything. I have a feeling that Kevin Smith pretty much does whatever the fuck Kevin Smith wants to do. Maybe you haven't seen Jay And Silent Fucking Bob Strike Back, where he and his friends just kind of fucked around while the cameras rolled. Oh yeah, he's a part of the fucking machine.

I have a feeling he's getting older and that he would like to make a different kind of movie than he has typically done. Yet it falls upon people who don't know the man to determine his secret heart via their infallible methods of detection and find him wanting.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Get your thumbs out of your asses, people.

I'm not going to bother copying and pasting, so just check out this quote from Larsen as cited at Fanboy Rampage.

Some harsh realities in there, but they ARE realities. If a comic book has poor numbers, the publisher has every right to shitcan it and move on. You want a book to avoid cancellation? BUY IT. Spread the word. Evangelize. Don't gripe at the publisher for watching their own ass; they have to make a profit somehow.

That being said:

BUY THE LOSERS, DAMMIT!

New Permanent Damage up over at CBR, by Steven Grant (naturally.)

The most succinct and comprehensive analysis of the Marvel/DC problem I've seen to date.

Money quote, though, comes from a letter Grant received:

So yeah, I have a hard time getting into DC. But the thing is, Marvel really has the stink of desperation around it these days – you can't help but notice it. I've been trying to pinpoint when this started, and I've got two guesses. The first is the petering-out of Tsunami and the complete implosion of Epic. These showed that Marvel knew it needed to do something new and different but had no idea how to actually go about it. They reinforced the notion that Marvel needs to pillage Vertigo, Wildstorm, Image, and Oni for new up-and-coming talent (your Vaughans and Watsons and McKeevers) and have no viable venue to grow such talent themselves. Moreover, they showed that, the Ultimate line to the contrary, Marvel really has no knack for creating successful new line-sized initiatives.

[...]

The second factor in Marvel losing its buzz is WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE syndrome, which started when they put Bendis on ULTIMATE X-MEN. Simply put, as good as Brian Bendis is, putting him on yet another book does not say "We really know what we're doing!" to the fans. A company as big and old as Marvel should have a better plan for reviving its fortunes than switching Bendis from book to book to book for one or two arcs at a time. Regardless of whether there's an actual drop in quality in his writing, and I doubt that there is, it just doesn't seem as special anymore when they announce that he's taking over a book, because they've done it so goddamn many times. In essence, "Brian Bendis takes over!" is no longer big news from Marvel – it's expected news. This goes double when he doesn't really do anything spectacularly different from his norm when he's handed a book – ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR reads pretty much exactly the way you'd think it would read after reading the first arc of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. (Think back on how differently USM, UXM, and ULTIMATES opened, for contrast.) (I think it's also a problem that, to many, it looks like he's watering himself down to please the suits – changing ALIAS to THE PULSE, for example.)

Bam. That's everything right there. The comforting/disillusioning thing about the internet is that there's always someone out there who can voice your opinion better than you ever could.

In no particular order.

(As if you cared.)

Birds of Prey #65 - What can I say? It's a blast. The comic costs $2.50 and the entertainment is precisely that value, which is not an insult. I want to see Gail Simone on more titles, please. Also: could we maybe go back to the bodysuit costume for the Huntress? She looks like a stripper on Superhero Night at a titty bar in 1977.

Thanks.

Hellboy: The Corpse - I really know just about jack shit about Hellboy, which makes me a Bad Comic Book Fan. So I got this. Plus, it's 25 cents. You could only go wrong with this if touching the pages gave you syphillis.

And you can cure syphillis.

Freaks of the Heartland #2 - This better go somewhere fast. The artwork is absolutely gorgeous. I'd even go so far as to say it's "sumptuous," which is not a word you often see outside of jacket quotes for romance novels.

Wanted #3 - I like it. In fact, I like it quite a lot. It's a lot of fun. If everyone would just get their sticks out of their asses once in awhile and enjoy a good, nasty, brutal, funny ride, they might have a good time with this book too.

The Losers #10 - Viva la Losers revolucion! If you're not buying this book, would you please blow your fucking head off? You have no reason to be alive. Seriously, this is one of the most fun (funnest?) books in print, and its sales numbers are as shitty as frozen diarrhea dipped in a septic tank.

Which is pretty shitty. BUY THE BOOK!

(Props to Shane and Johnny for being part of the revolution.)

Lone #5 - I would make love to this book if I could. Given time, I'll find a way.

Patient Zero #1 - Total impulse buy. Sounded vaguely familiar. The art is purdy.

Cable & Deadpool #1 - Shut up. I hear you laughing, but SHUT UP! Cable is my secret shame; the spectre of my naive youth come back to haunt me. When I was a young, dumb kid (as opposed to an old, dumb kid) I, like any other comic book fan at age 11, created my own comic book universe. So enamored was I with Cable's look and persona (yeah yeah, stay with me, here) that approximately 150% of all my creations looked and operated just as he did.

What I didn't buy: Demo #5 - I'll let you in on a little secret. Demo is very, sorely, completely overrated. The writing is strictly competent, a mishmash of teenage angst wrapped up in arthouse pretensions. The art is pretty but utterly static; nowhere is the reader convinced that they are watching a story in motion; rather, the reader is very aware that they are looking at a series of stills. I dunno, I figure people are just hypnotized by the fact that a book came out of nowhere that's not a total piece of shit.

I'll tell you how it all goes.

From ADD, this.

Tony Moore won't be doing Walking Dead anymore.

Ouch.

Here.

No time to commentate on things right now.

Playing hookey. Must go buy new comics. Entertainment later.

Kinda swinging from his nuts a little, yeah. But this is worth bringing up, from that thread over at Millarworld:

Q: Assuming you would be interested in such a job, if you ahd the choice between the Editor in chief jobs at DC and Marvel, who would you choose? What would your top goal be in this postion?

A: God, that's a huge question.

I think I'd choose Marvel. I have huge respect for DC, but they move so slowly that any EIC-like position up there would be horribly frustrating. I'm amazed that my friends there in senior editor and VP Creative positions haven't begun serial killing.

I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that in the first year or so of Quesada/Jemas, they were doing exactly what needed to be done for that company. At almost any other time in the previous ten or fifteen years, Bob Harras would have been an ideal EIC -- but he's naturally cautious and he doesn't like conflict, and Marvel at that point needed to kick down some walls and break some noses. Which Quesada/Jemas did. It was necessary, to revive the company.

And now Marvel is revived, no doubt about it. So the question of Where Marvel Should Go next is kind of interesting. If I were Marvel EIC...

You know what? There are the superheroes people are interested in -- that are being optioned for film and the like -- and the ones people have really never been that interested in. And Marvel has to make money. So I've got to tell you -- if FANTASTIC FOUR is in active movie development, I don't want to see FANTASTIC FOUR, HAWKEYE and THE INVADERS on the rack. I want to see FANTASTIC FOUR, ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR and IT'S THE FUCKING FANTASTIC FOUR, STUPID on the racks. (No disrespect to whomever's doing the other books, of course, I just pulled those titles out of my arse as I bang this out while waiting on an email from my agent.) If I'm the Marvel EIC, then my first responsibility is to make money for the company. I'm an employee. That's what I do. I don't do all these extraneous books with characters known only to the hardcore fans. I'm not going to greenlight RUNAWAYS or VENOM. I'm sure they're fine books. Brian Vaughan can write. But no-one's heard of them. I want a GHOST RIDER book, because everyone knows Nic Cage wants to do GHOST RIDER, and it's going to be about a guy on a bike with his head on fire who runs people over. And then lights them on fire. And then goes into a bar and drinks it and does Lisa Marie Presley over the pool table and then lights the place on fire and goes out and gets back on his bike and looks for more people to run over. This is what they want. Damn straight.

You can't publish things just because, you know, you've always published them. You don't keep a tumour in your head because, well, you've had it for years. THOR. No-one cares about THOR. No-one's ever cared about THOR. I wrote THOR. I wrote Thor in bed with a blonde woman wearing nothing but thighboots and opera gloves drawn by Mike Deodato. And still no-one cared about THOR. No-one's cared about THOR since Walt Simonson did the book. And what was the first thing Walt did? Got rid of Thor and replaced him with a horse from space. And the sales quadrupled.

A horse from space.

A successful company's reaction to moving a lot of books is to launch a bunch more. But I personally feel that that works against the initial success. Things degrade. Throwing a lot of stuff at the wall to see what sticks is fine -- but after a while, people only see what's being flung at the wall, not what's sticking. I say keep it manageable and guard the quality of what you've got. The company-owned characters are Marvel's assets, and they must be made to earn money, yes. But if you're running a car rental firm, then you're not going to put the three-wheeler from 1973 on the forecourt. You want to show off the cars that look like they'll run. Which is how you end up with three SPIDER-MAN books and no works at all that feature Angar The Screamer.

And then I'd relaunch the Epic line. The recent attempt was doomed from the start. Relaunch it under the original Shooter/Goodwin plan: the best by the best. No more than four books in any one month. The absolute best people in the medium. Creator-owned original work. And when we're doing the deal? We throw ten grand on top. That's for a one-year option on the film rights. That's the deal. We have Marvel Films. We will automatically purchase a one-year film option on your project, without attaching any other rights. If we can't get it going after a year, it reverts back to you, or we offer to buy a second year. That's "offer" -- not compulsory.

People forget that back in the 80s, Marvel was the radical company. Epic changed everything. If Shooter hadn't suffered some Jemasesque passing of his mental sell-by date, Frank Miller might have placed RONIN at Epic, thereby staying with Marvel. And although RONIN wasn't a worldchanging commercial success, it was an essential stepping stone to THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS...

I'm losing the thread. More whisky.

Everyone, I would like you to meet my wife.

Miss Jolie-Lowery, world. World, Miss Jolie-Lowery.

Hey, what're you laughing about?

SHUT UP! YOU DON'T KNOW OUR LOVE!

It's a very simple question, really.

"What did cows evolve from?"

And yet, when I saw it, I realized two things instantly:

1) I'd just plain never thought of that before.

2) I have no fucking clue what the answer is.

Anyway. Informative read, on some trivia that you'll never, ever, ever have any use for ever. But it's still cool.

Now this sounds pretty interesting.

Also, hey. Uh. Someone? Let's talk about something other than Ultimates being cancelled. I totally scooped your asses by several hours, so we need to move on to the Next Big Thing already.

< /ego >

It took a bit to get to this in Neil Gaiman's blog, but I only check there about once a week, so forgive me.

Dasani: BUSTED!

Sooner or later this sort of thing will reach America. Sooner or later most folks will realize that since bottled water is not regulated by the same wing of the government as tap water, it actually has fewer regulations on safety and content than tap water. Sooner or later, folks will find out that this case of Dasani just being tap water refiltered is exactly what 75% of all bottled water is. Some of them even have "municipal water" right there on the fucking ingredient label, people.

Sooner or later, people will realize that bottled water tastes so "different" from what comes out of their tap because it's from some other city's tap water.

And that time can't come soon enough. We've been swindled for far too long as it is.

Turns out, the sun's going to rise tomorrow!

Plus this!

Jesus FUCKING Christ.

That is all.

From EW.com:

Long live ''The Dead.'' Performing better than expected, ''Dawn of the Dead'' turned what was supposed to be a close weekend into a zombie rout, grossing $27.3 million, according to studio estimates.

Most projections were in the low-20 millions, but young male fans turned out in larger numbers than anticipated for the horror remake. Surprisingly strong reviews (including a straight A from EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum) likely brought in a few more curious moviegoers as well.

It's in my heart to make a comment about that "surprisingly strong reviews" bit, to get all defensive for my favored genre and favored subgenre, but you know what?

The numbers speak for themselves. Go see the movie.

Power Dude.

So Bendis and Hitch are taking over Avengers, and it's a big deal for a few reasons that I thought were obvious, but apparently are not.

I'm looking at you, Broken Frontier.

First, we have this column by Jose Clemente. He states that he has a bit of a problem with this relaunch, but that his problem has nothing to do with the direction of the title. Issues such as story rehashing, tired concepts on a tired title, making Bendis the official fix-it man when his abandoning of UFF indicates he's pretty much at critical mass, that Marvel will be launching a new Avengers title on top of this one and Ultimates, even though Captain America hits the danger zone and no one seems to know what to do with Cap or with the Avengers themselves. Clemente doesn't care about that stuff.

He's bothered that they're re-starting the numbering at #1.

Wow. Talk about missing the forest for .. not even a tree, but for a little bit of undergrowth.

Graeme's a bit more on top of things. In the latest "Amuse, Confuse, or Irritate" he expresses a bit of.. melancholy? Disinterest? In the Bendis/Finch Avengers announcement. And I quote:

Now, I have to admit, as much as I may want to try and get excited about this, I can’t. It’s nothing against Bendis or Finch (although Finch draws a bit too much like Mark Silvestri for my liking. Lots of lines and very wide faces! Aiee!), just that… I don’t know. I think I’m becoming immune to Marvel’s announcements, because either we know about them so far in advance thanks to rumours (Hello Joss!), or because – as in this case – it’s just not surprising that Marvel go to Bendis to try and get some heat back on a title.

That's getting warmer.

What we have here is a big, glowing, neon sign blinking at us, and it reads "Marvel's Creative Malaise Now Officially Infects All Major Titles."

Bendis is the fixit writer for Marvel. Finch is the fixit artist for high-profile spandex people. Marvel is desperately trying to invigorate tired titles with uninspired relaunches and "event" writer/artist pairings, meanwhile announcing more books that plumb the depths of increasingly less-fertile territory. Why. The FUCK. Are they launching a brand-new Avengers title when they can't even figure out how to handle their two existing ones?

These are all very important, very serious issues that will have a greater impact on the industry as a whole in years to come.

But no. We're upset about the numbering.

From the Punisher movie panel at WizardWorld LA, from Gale Anne Hurd, producer of the movie, about filming a "real" movie as opposed to CGI-fests like Hulk:

"When I started, you did it for real. In my heart of hearts, to be able to do the action and have actors like Tom Jane and Kevin Nash, and to be able to it for real, is far more exciting.

"Because at the end of the day, you get to see dailies. And you know right there and then, it's working. When you're working in visiual effects, it takes months later. Because you're shooting everything and there's nothing in dailies. You don't see The Hulk in dailies. You don't see the Water Snake from The Abyss."

That actually explains quite a lot about Hulk and Attack of the Clones, doesn't it?

(Article from Press Release Central, aka Comics Continuum.)

Something that matters happened, just not a lot of people are talking about it.

James Marsden did a Q&A at WizardWorld LA (why do I feel like I got the really short end of the stick with the Dallas one?), and talked briefly about the Preacher adaptation that's been wallowing in limbo for about two years now.

"Marsden commented briefly on the Garth Ennis adaptation, "Preacher." "Almost two years ago I got a phone call from my agent, offering it. I was like, 'What is Preacher?' They were very vague. So I ask some of my friends, and they're like 'They offered you Jesse Custer? Preacher? Wow!' I got a couple of the graphic novels and I was captivated, it was some of the best writing that I'd ever read. I just found it an amazing piece of literature. Right now it's in development hell. When you have an independantly financed film, it's getting harder to get them made. We're gonna try to go this summer. I kind of wanted to wait another year so I could get more wrinkles and get even more weathered. If there was ever a role that I wanted to do some method acting, this would be it. My wife read every single one of the issues in two days, she was in love with 'em."

Article's here, at CBR. Also some stuff in there about a Transformers movie, if you're into that sort of thing.

At first I thought this was a horribly bad idea. Not out of fanboy defensiveness, but because Preacher is so damn dense it'd be hard to compact all of the story elements that matter into 2 hours or less. For some reason, this quote warms my cold heart.

Hat's off, Marsden. Even if you look about 15 years too young to be boffing that particular Jean Grey.

So this is all we have to talk about?

The Invaders?

Joe Quesadilla being ineffectively snarky about DC?

Captain Marvel is being cancelled?

Goddamned Identity Disc, which not only has the world's stupidest title, but also sounds incredibly lame?

Jesus. Wake me up when something that matters happens.

Okay, so I saw Dawn of the Dead this weekend. Great movie, absolutely recommended, full of all the best things that the greater zombie movies have: terror, drama, human conflict, humor, and gore. In that order.

The title song for the movie, which plays while we see clips of the entire world going to Hell, is set to Johnny Cash's "When the Man Comes Around." That song wormed its way into my brain in such a way that now, fully three days later, I'm still playing it on WinAmp nonstop.

Goddammit, Cash. You're dead. STOP!

So I'm reading this interview (subscription required, I'm sure) with Sarah Polley on Entertainment Weekly's website, about how and why she chose to take the lead female role in the remake of Dawn of the Dead (which, incidentally, rocks your lame ass):

EW: The genre has changed since the ''Scream'' trilogy turned it on its ear. Were you nervous about making a straightforward horror film?

Sarah Polley: I think it takes a lot more nerve to not be in on the joke. When I saw the movie with an audience, people were shocked. We're so used to this ironic tongue-in-cheek that we think we're all way too sophisticated to actually be scared. That era has had its day, but people want to experience real things in theaters again. And it's really great to make a movie that isn't making fun of itself the whole time. And it's funnier, actually.

Wow. She said what needed to be said in one strong, well-worded paragraph. All those sardonic, gee-aren't-we-witty movies that no-talent fucktard Kevin Williamson thrust down our throats have gone the way of the dodo. And good fucking heavens. All you cop-out bitches who like to make fun of the horror movies that entertain you can get the hell out.