Never Forget

Man I Needed TV

I covered a lot of the Marvel and DC relaunches when they started. I haven't really mentioned any of these books lately (and haven't really mentioned much of anything at all here recently for that matter). I've narrowed my Marvel list down to three books (maybe one by the end of the year), but there is one book that I love month after month. Mark Waid is absolutely killing it on Hulk.

Let me tell you how awesome this title is: The new arc is a time travel arc where the timestream is fucked up and the only one strong enough to pull it together is the Hulk. So each issue of this arc puts the Hulk in a different time period. I open this issue up, and the first page introduces three classic Western Marvel characters. I turn the page to see a two-page splash of the Hulk punching a dinosaur in the face. And not just any pussy dinosaur but a T-Rex. If you want anything more from a comicbook than this, you're a dick.

JMS

 I've never really been a fan of Straczynski, but I guess I just never read the right stuff. I never read Midnight Nation or Rising Stars, his early creator owned books. I read a few sparse issues of various corporate superhero books and wasn't that impressed. Recently, he returned to his creator owned Joe's Comics imprint to go back to original content. I mentioned a couple months back that I tried out Ten Grand because of artist Ben Templesmith and really enjoyed it. So I figured, why not try out his new one Sidekick with artist Tom Mandrake. I might like this one even better.

I was a little skeptical on this because it's a superhero book. I've got a stigma. They're overdone and really hold back comic books as an art form. I read some Marvel and DC books, but that's more because I've already accepted those characters. I'm not saying that those are poorly written, (some are) because there are some good ones, but it's nothing new. And I'm not saying that people aren't doing innovative things with an old genre. Joe Casey in particular. Although I wasn't impressed by Sex or The Bounce, Catalyst Comix is pretty good and Butcher Baker, the Righteous Maker and Godland (who's final issue was just solicited) were spectacular.

Anyway, back on track, Sidekick takes place in a world with Superheroes but reads more like a story of a washed up child star. There are some pretty dark and uncomfortable scenes. Check it out.

The Melvins cover

Nov 5th

Enjoy

Boston Weak

I know this happened over a week ago, but I haven't had time and I wasn't going to not put this up.

Also, it's been a while since I've had an excuse to post this abortion. Enjoy:

Horns

One thing I'm realizing about writing reviews for every book that I read is that you all are going to see how narrow my reading list has become. 99% of the books I read are either about monsters or criminals. If werewolf noir was a genre, it would be all I'd ever read.

Anyway, I've never read anything by Joe Hill but have heard nothing but amazing things about Lock and Key. Maybe now that that's finishing up, I'll read it when I'm done with Scalped. I figured I'd start with a non-graphic novel. Horns is really good. The basic premise is that a guy wakes up hungover with a pair of devil horns growing out of his head, and everyone he encounters acts pretty fucked up. It's funny but also dark and uncomfortable. I liked it a lot. Check it out.

So I guess some studio musician who worked with Weird Al died.

This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It

I figured I'd review this book since I've reviewed everything else related to John Dies at the End. But then I thought: maybe I'll just review every book I read. I don't have as much time to read anymore, so it won't be a lot. Why not start a new column and review some novels without graphics? I couldn't come up with a title I liked, so I'll just use the book's title until I come up with something better. Or maybe I won't. Who knows?

I'm going to be vague while discussing plots, because I don't like to know too much going into a book. I even consider people who read the copy on the back to be Philistines. I go into that stuff with comicbooks a bit more, but that's more so I can nitpick. And also, they take about 10 minutes to read. I don't want to spoil something that you may be invested in for a couple weeks.

And I'll also review books I can't finish. Don't tell me it gets better after page 200 or in the next book. No one told me that before I started Game of Thrones or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It wasn't until I mentioned how shitty those books were until people started saying, "Book two is where it gets really good. You have to stick with it." Fuck you because (1) I don't believe that every book I read coincidentally gets so much better after the page I left off, and (2) even if that is the case, there are literally hundreds of books that are great from page one. If I need to suffer through hundreds of pages I don't like to get to something tolerable, it's not worth it. I don't care how many movies they make.

Anyway, on to my review of This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It, the sequel to John Dies at the End. I'm going to say that if you liked JD@TE you should like this. The horror and humor are similar. The structure's a bit different as Wong probably knew this would end up as a novel going into it. JD@TE debuted as a short online story that got several additions due to its popularity. Eventually it got published in book form. Because of the way it was written, it was naturally a lot more episodic. This one's more of a cohesive story line. The first one was probably a little more terrifying and exciting because everything was new, not only for the reader but the characters as well. Even so, I still loved this book and hope for more stories of Dave and John.

Against My Better Judgement

I gave this book the benefit of the doubt mainly because I was excited for the movie which somehow got amazing reviews which I don't really understand. I guess because all comicbook movies always get amazing reviews. I don't know. I can't really call it a bad movie. I liked it more than most comicbook movies, but I generally don't like comicbook movies. I do love the original Iron Man. Perhaps I should really do an Against My Better Judgement column on Iron Man 3 alone, but I couldn't call it a waste of time or money. It was a movie. and I'll leave it at that.

I was also intrigued by this Stark Seven story arc that Marvel's been promoting. I felt maybe because the movie was coming out last week that Marvel might try to release some A material to coincide.

Buying this went against my better judgement for several reasons. Most obviously, there's a baby on the cover. While this is obviously a metaphor and not in the comic. I should have also viewed the diaper as a metaphor on what this issue was filled with. I'm being unfair to make a poo joke. Much like the movie, I really can't call this comic good or bad. 

Another reason I shouldn't have picked this up is because I decided I didn't like this book eight issues ago. I've since cut my Marvel list down to three, so I figured I'd give it another chance. Where this issue seems to start The Secret Origin of Tony Stark, the entire issue is really more of a segue than a prologue. Stark walks around space cities and talks to Death's Head and robots which is kind of cool, but ultimately feels like decompressed filler.

The last few pages start a film reel of Howard Stark explaining some sordid secret history, but there's not a not a lot to get me hooked and pick up the next issue. They really needed to tease a little more for me to at least get interested. For example, instead of ending the issue with Stark saying into the camera, "It's time for you to know the truth. Son, you may need to have a drink." Maybe end the issue with something that leaves the audience a little more confused or horrified. Something like, "Let me tell you about the time I raped Galactus." I don't know. There's a reason a don't write for Marvel.

What you should get instead is Ten Grand by J Michael Straczynski and Ben Templesmith, published by Image. I haven't really ever been too impressed by Straczynski, but I also haven't read a lot of his work. I picked this up because of Templesmith's art, and it turned out to be a really cool book. Without giving too much of the story, it's part horror and part noir. I loved it. You should really check it out.

 

Hopefully it wasn't these guys...

Jersey

Against my Better Judgement

This is an idea for a new column that I mentioned yesterday. I buy a lot of comics. Many times I'll leave the comic shop with more titles than I originally intended on buying. Sometimes I end up picking up something great, and that makes everything totally worth it. Many times I buy a lot of crap books. This column is going to focus on the latter. And instead of just being a Negative Nancy, I'll offer up some suggestions. So here are some comicbooks that I bought against my better judgement:

Since most of those Marvel books I've recently reviewed can fit under this category, I'll start with Thanos Rising.

I gave this the benefit of the doubt because of Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi, and I'm a huge fan of space operas.

This went against my better judgement because this is a retconning of Thanos's origin, and just like the other space opera characters that I love, Marvel is focusing on Thanos as a sad teenager. Although this has a much stronger script than Nova or Guardians of the Galaxy, I don't want to see the badass characters that I love as sad teenagers. And Marvel knows this. Look at the cover over to your left. It features a badass adult Thanos with what I assume to be alien blood all over his face and not some crying teenager.

What you should buy instead is Stormwatch 19. This is the first issue written by Jim Starlin, who is the reason that we all love Thanos in the first place. No interior art, but Starlin is also providing covers. This issue features a brand new Stormwatch team which has the Weird on its roster.

Harbinger Wars 1

I gave this the benefit of the doubt because I've enjoyed the Valiant relaunch so far, and because Harbinger has been one of my favorite new Valiant titles. I was really hoping that this was good and that I didn't have to give it up. 

This went against my better judgement because Bloodshot is the only new Valiant book that I really didn't like, and crossovers are always a mess. I'm either supposed to buy three books instead of one for four months or buy one book and not really get the whole story. Companies always say the stories are self-contained, but have you ever known that to be true? And even when the stories start off well, I'm always tired of them by the end.

What you should buy instead is Hulk 6. Walt fucking Simonson drawing the Hulk pounding on Frost Giants with Mjolnir. 'Nuff said.

Resumed Development

I had actually planned to start a new column tonight, but  then this was announced earlier today so I figured it's more important. I'll hopefully get to said new column next week. Or never. Who knows? It's another comicbook thread that I'm titling Against My Better Judgement.

Anyway, Arrested Development's long awaited 15 episode fourth season will debut on Netflix, May 26th, 12:01 am. Just so you don't have to rush to your calendar: That's Saturday night/Sunday morning Memorial Day weekend.

As excited as I am, I'm still pretty skeptical. The show ended eight years ago. It may be hard to catch lightning in a bottle after all this time. But more importantly, it had a great ending. There's no question that it was cancelled way before it's time, but a lot of shows don't even get a final episode. Here's the weird part: The creators are only doing this one season on Netflix in order to get some attention to shop around a movie.  If that doesn't get off the ground, we'll have a show that had an ending that is now incomplete. It'll be like the anit-Firefly.

I'm hoping that it is good and lives up to expectations. Even after everything I said, I am pretty excited about this. I'm going to start re-watching the series tonight. It's been a long time, and I've been meaning to go back for a while now.

American Psycho with Huey Lewis and Weird Al from Huey Lewis      

This may be the funniest thing to ever be on television...

Pity the Puck

A couple nights back, I was privileged enough to see an unfinished cut of Bill Plympton's new feature Cheatin'. I mentioned it here a couple months back. You can check out some stuff in the Kickstarter video if you'd like. All of the principle animation is finished. A lot of the colors and detail weren't completed, and the accompanying score is temporary. Plympton said that the film should be finished by June.

Anyway, if you get a chance to see this, I urge you to. The animation that was colored was absolutely gorgeous (and it was also cool to see a lot of it in black and white). It's a really sweet story told in a totally unique narrative.

If you're at all familiar with Plympton's animation style, you know that it can be strange and experimental. I've only seen shorts previously and was concerned that a feature might be too much. Not the case at all. I was not bored once throughout the 90 minute film containing no real dialogue. Honestly, I can't wait to see it again when it's finished.

This is the only time I ever copy and paste the same post year after year. But this is important and some of you may be new to my blog and haven't seen it before.

Alright. It's marathon time at WFMU. For those of you who have not heard, WFMU is the coolest radio station in the world. It's completely free form and completely listener sponsored . Seriously, if there's another station that plays both The Melvins and Tom Jones, I'd like know about it. If you've never listened, check it out:

http://www.wfmu.org/

A Night at the Space Opera

I think this is going to be the last of my Marvel Now review column. There are a few more new titles coming out, but I'm getting tired of reading them. They did motivate me to keep reviews coming, so I'll try to keep up with that. I'll try to mention less corporate type books in the upcoming months. That's mostly the stuff I really enjoy anyway.

On to these two books. I'll preface by stating I'm a huge fan of space operas and loved these two books when they were relaunched eight years ago. Keith Giffen brought back some pretty obscure 70s characters and Abnett and Lanning later perfected them. I bought most of all those cosmic titles until they were cancelled a couple years ago. Now that the movies were announced, Marvel has brought them back to the forefront. I was interested when these books were first announced but was skeptical about the creative teams.

After reading, these books aren't that bad but still are thoroughly disappointing. And they're kind of the same book. I will right now simultaneously describe the plot of both books: Some douchey teenager with father issues (in Nova he's a drunk loser, in Guardians he's absent) discovers that their his father really was the space adventurer that he (or in Starlord's case, his mother) claimed to be. The kid gets injured in a fight and ends up in a hospital. Rocket Raccoon also obligatorily shows up in a couple panels.

Since both of these books take place 95% on earth, it really isn't much of a space opera. With the upcoming films, Marvel really seems to be trying to push these as Avengers books. They're even putting Iron Man on the Guardians. Which is cool. They're a business. It's not art. They need to attract young kids. I'm not going to argue the fact that Marvel and DC books are for kids anymore than I'll argue that Star Wars is for kids. And if they weren't for kids, then why did we love them so much when we were kids? I wasn't watching Midnight Cowboy every day when I was six.

Showing Nova and Starlord as kids reminds me of Patton Oswalt's Star Wars routine (which I was coincidentally listening to a couple days ago). I don't care what the characters I love were like as kids. I just want to see them flying around with the helmets and shooting things.

More John

I've plugged the book. I've plugged the movie. So now I'll mention the score. I figured I'd give you guys a heads up since there are only 3000 of these pressed. You can pick one up here: http://www.lalalandrecords.com/JDATE.html.

Anyway, mine showed up yesterday, and it's great. It was composed by Brian Tyler who also did Bubba Ho-Tep and Six String Samurai. This one's a lot more diverse and ambient than Bubba, but definitely shows a similar style. Check it out.

If you have not yet heard, Delocated is ending with an hour long series finale on March 7th.

A Less New World

 I think the reason I'm getting sick writing about these is because I'm getting sick of reading them. Marvel definitely put the quality books out in the first couple months of their relaunch.

Secret Avengers is another book that wasn't particularly bad or good. It should be titled SHIELD, but I can't really complain about that because the last SHIELD book (which was excellent; fans of Manhattan Projects should read it; if you're not reading MP, you all should be) did so poorly that the last two issues were solicited but were never released.

This is Marvel's covert ops team that reflects the popular characters in the movies. As you can see on the cover, the Hulk is teased, but doesn't appear in this issue.

The opening scene was a pretty cool intro. The art is also pretty solid. I like Marvel's transition bringing in the Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury into their main universe.

I think my biggest problem is having a gritty book where the two main characters are pussies about killing people. If you look at the cover again, you will notice that their main "super powers" are a gun and a bow and arrow. What do they do with them? Shoot terrorists in the kneecaps? Hawkeye is essentially a Heather.

Avengers Arena continues to be fun and interesting. I don't care that it's Battle Royale and that it exists because The Hungry Games is popular with the kids. This is in my opinion Marvel's second best title (behind Cap).

Artist Dave Johnson posted this video this morning with the caption The morning banana shame. It gave me many laughs.

A Less New World

Marvel's relaunch has been going on for a few months, and I think I'm starting to get a little fatigued. Yet I'm sticking with these reviews since there are really only a few more left. I'm so close. But I don't know. I might stop. Here's another one that I don't have much to say about. It's not great. It's not bad. It's a comicbook. That's all I got.

1. Warhead (Venom; Guest: Scott Kelly of Neurosis)

2. Best Friend (Queen; Guest: Caleb Benjamin of Tweak Bird)

3. Black Betty (Original artist unknown)

4.  Set It On Fire (The Scientists; Guest: Mark Arm)

5.  Station To Station (David Bowie; Guest: JG Thirlwell)

6.  Attitude (The Kinks: Guest: Clem Burke of Blondie)

7.  Female Trouble (Divine a.k.a. John Waters)

8.  Carpe Diem (The Fugs)

9.  Timothy Leary Lives (Pop-O-Pies)

10.  In Every Dream Home A Heartache (Roxy Music; Guests: Jello Biafra and Kevin Rutmanis)

11. Romance (Tales of Terror)

12. Art School (The Jam; Guest: Tom Hazelmeyer)

13.  Heathen Earth (Throbbing Gristle)

John Dies at the End

One of my first posts when I started this blog was about this novel. The film is finally finished, and I got to see it last week. It's really good. A pretty flawless translation. It's been five years since I read the book so I don't remember a lot of the book's plot clearly, but there is a lot of imagery and a lot of scenes that stuck with me. The film looks the way I saw the book in my head.

I also got to meet Don Coscarelli after the movie. I got a little dorky and told him how much I love Bubba Ho-Tep which is one of my all-time favorite movies. But really, anyone who knows me knows that I love to go on about movies that I like to anyone who will listen. So it felt cool to do that with someone who actually wants to hear it.

Anyway, if you've read the book, you know there's a lot of stuff in it. Apparently, there's a lot of scenes and monologues  that were shot but didn't make the 100 minute movie. These  scenes will be on the DVD coming out in a couple months. It also seems that Bubba Nosferatu is unlikely at least for the time being, although Coscarelli would still love to make the film.

John Dies at the End is on a very limited theatrical run now and also On Demand (I think. At least it was for a while). Definitely check it out. The book's sequel has recently been printed as This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It. I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet, so I can't vouch for it but I'll go out on a limb and say it's probably good.

You got some shit hanging off your lip

A Whole Nother New World

On the rare occasion that I don't have a lot to say, I'm going to keep this week's Marvel reviews short. I found both new titles decent enough that I enjoyed, but nowhere near interesting enough to buy anther issue. Uncanny X-Force is a pretty standard X-Men book. It picks up right where the last series left (It seems to anyway. I didn't finish it out.). It's definitely the stronger of the two X-Force titles.













Young Avengers had pretty decent character development and some good art. I might have liked this a lot more if I were a little younger. It's a pretty good teen drama. Not enough really gets going enough to really spark my interest.

Deadpool is getting cartoonier. Very violent and funny. It culminates with a boxing match with zombie Lincoln and sets up a space battle with zombie Reagan next issue. My only issue is with Marvel's scheduling. They can learn a lot from DC about keeping a strict monthly schedule. The first three issues were released every other week, and this one took a month and a half to come out. That's awful. Unfortunately Tony Moore is not drawing the next arc, but hopefully that will give them time to catch up.

A Whole Nother New World

This was kind of cool, but ultimately disappointing. The art was good. It was pulpy. There were babes and dinosaurs. It was actually a lot more violent than you would expect from a Wolverine title from the past few decades. It's nice to see Wolverine take off his training bra and be a killer again.

The plot was a little thin, but that could build. I think its biggest detraction is that Wolverine is in his silly costume. It really just didn't fit the tone of the story and pulled me out a lot. I guess we're just long past a time where we can have a superhero running around being badass in a leather jacket. Or even naked with wires sticking out of him. Remember the Barry Windsor Smith Weapon X?

This is the best Marvel Now book. Crazy sci-fi action. Since John Romita Jr can keep a monthly schedule, I can't imagine the quality dropping.


















Although I've been enjoying Hulk quite a bit, I found this a little disappointing. It's pretty cool that Waid has been doing self-contained issues, all the while slowly building subplots, but this issue retreaded a lot that the first two issues already established. That being said, it was still a lot of fun and I am looking forward to see where these subplots are leading to.

I'm also very excited that Walt Simonson is coming aboard in April (and will be drawing Thor again).

Also noteworthy, I mentioned a couple months back that even though the Hulk is my all-time favorite character from my childhood, it's been now over nine years since I've liked the series enough to bu more than three consecutive issues. I will surpass that next month. I think I had a seven year run at that point, so that will be much tougher to break.

Play this:

http://www.google.com/logos/2013/zamboni.html

So I got this a couple days ago. I wasn't too impressed with it at first, but it's really growing on me after a few listens. It's a little more straight forward than I was expecting for a Tomahawk album, but after the last album, maybe that's a good thing. Reminds me a bit of King for a Day which always kind of reminded me Jesus Lizard now that I think of it. Check it out. Spin will be streaming the album next Tues. I'll get a full review up on Target Audience sometime in the next week.

A Whole Nother New World

Between the new job, Wii U, and general holiday stuff, I've gotten a little behind with things. Luckily there hasn't been too much to get behind on. I'll catch up with three Marvel reviews right here:

I've never read a comic by Dennis Hopeless before, and one week about a month ago I got two. The first one I read was Cable and X-Force. This was a total suckfest. Thin story. Bad dialog. Just awful. Which brings me to the next comic...

...which I absolutely loved. I had pretty low expectations after Cable. This is obviously something that came about because The Hunger Games is so popular. As the cover suggests, it's a pretty close ripoff Battle Royale. There's nothing new about this comic, but it's really well done and compelling. Good characters and dialog. Honestly there are only two characters out of the sixteen that I even recognize, and I got a little teary-eyed at the end. This is the reason why I try to pick up as many number ones as I can. Because sometimes there's a book I have no interest in that becomes one of my favorites.

They seem pretty committed to the Battle Royale format. These are fairly obscure lower tier characters, so I can see that actually happening. I'm interested to see how far this can be taken as an ongoing series.

Denis Hopeless and Battle Pug's Mike Norton are releasing their new comic The Answer! through dark horse later this month. I'll have to check that out.

I just mentioned a comic brought about by the popularity of Hunger Games. Here's one that was put out because of the popularity of Twilight. From the cover, you might think this is a badass monster comic. But it's actually mopey teenager stuff. Skip it.