ChaosMonkey's Abysmal Pit, by Mark Hale

Hello to Comics, Interlude 1: Hello to VIDEO GAME ADS!

2008-12-06T14:15:00.009-05:00

If any one ad got me excited about video games, it was this one for Metal Gear on the NES. I still toiled in the Atari Mines when I got Marvel Tales #215, so the prospect of realistic trucks and HUGE PILES OF WEAPONS seemed so exotic and thrilling that I spent countless minutes poring over this ad, imagining what it would be like to blow up terrorists with a rocket launcher, or rush to cure myself with the mysterious orange antidote. And a remote-control missile? Are you shitting me? I thought controlling a mere tiny motor vehicle would be a mind-blowing experience. And who knew I would ever need to punch through a wall in one hit?

Actually playing the game turned out a lot less exciting than anticipated, and it wouldn't be until years later that realistically blowing shit up would become more visually appealing and involve a lot less lurking and a lot more gratuitous boom-boom.

Hello to Comics, Part 3: Hello to THE TRANSFORMERS!!

2008-12-04T10:47:00.023-05:00

My love for Transformers likely peaked the Christmas I received Starscream, my first Transformers toy. I hated Starscream and his horrible voice. How could I have him in my very house? Anger at my family and their poor choice shortly faded as I changed that plane into a robot for the first time.000I picked Transformers #4—of a four-issue limited series!?—off a spinner rack at the Winn Dixie grocery in December of 1984. Undaunted by the issue number issue, Marvel rewarded me with an issue five a few months later. I likely haven't read this since then, and a quick flip through reveals immediately one of the staples of early 1980s mass media: the spandex-clad dance class.

It seems some guy named Buster has run off to befriend giant talking space robots. His girlfriend Jesse is so distraught by this that she leaves town, too, most likely having received a generous scholarship from a prestigious ballet academy in Italy.

I'm going to hit the highlights on this issue so I can show the incredible cover to issue five.000Jesse has no idea what her native land is in for, as shortly we see Decepticon leader Megatron head out for a stroll, buy a case of Tang, and withstand the firepower of an entire army battalion.

Six pages after dance class we learn the origin of the Dinobots:

So, right, there's that, and then Shockwave, the raygun-based Decepticon (or does he have his OWN agenda?) blasts into the room and kicks ass all over everyone, the end.

Aw, crumbs, a fifth issue just to show off an incredible cover taunting us with the prospect of 22 pages of dead robots? And how does Shockwave spend his ill-gotten free time? Walking through his room full of robots hung up like slabs of beef and catching up on all the tv shows he missed in sleep mode for four million years, like Let's Make a Deal, a cheesy soap opera, and news about the building of an offshore oil rig being built off the coast of Oregon. He deems all this "Very illuminating." And if you ever said to yourself "There's no way a comic book about giant robots could ever open with a splash page of Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, and Alice lurking in the background," well, I've got a fantastic Alan Kupperberg drawing for you:

The rest of the issue is filled with pages and pages of Buster Witwicky talking to an ambulance and hanging out in a hospital room. BORING! Let's see what Optimus Prime is up to, already!

Aw, shit, you guys. There's no way out of this Morrisonian nightmare. Unless...

Damn it, Buster. You'll never save the Autobots if you're passed out on the floor.

Eventually Optimus gets himself a bad head, which he pops off so Jetfire can drop his good head back onto his body, we meet the Dinobots and the Constructicons, and a paralyzed girl in a tinfoil circuit board suit zaps things with electricity. It's just that tame sort of fucked up that keeps a seven-year-old entertained and feeling just a little subversive. The cartoons, in contrast, had many fewer dance school scenes and robots flying apart.

Hello to Comics, Part 2: Hello to THE BIBLE!

2008-10-24T14:12:00.007-04:00

Mulling over my life as a comics reader gave me no clear idea which comic could be called my first. I'm sure I still have my first comic, and "Sheldon Mayer and Joe Kubert Present: THE BIBLE" might well be it. Originally gifted to me by a friend of my mother's, this DC Comics Treasury Edition book saw publication in 1975.

Rather than try to explain it myself, I offer you the introductory text and accompanying headshots from inside the book's front cover:

It says that the creators did a good deal of research for this book, but I can't help but imagine Mayer getting drunk on scotch and yelling about the bible to Kubert over the phone.

The book's first biblical tale is that of Adam and Eve. Being treasury-edition-sized made for literally thousands of acres of naked Eve.

...and our first ancestors eating suggestive fruit. Yes, suggestive of the power of knowledge:

This book also features the first appearance of DC's Cain and Abel, who were revived by Neil Gaiman for his Sandman series.

Included in "The Story of Abraham" is a super-hot lady statue:

We also get a lesson in biblical archaeology, and coverage of "The Tower of Babel" and the story of "Sodom and Gammorah" and crazy old Lot:

I feel lucky to have found this comic again in the midst of moving one summer, buried in the bottom of a box of random books. This is truly the Ten Commandments of comic books, featuring astounding craft that fits the format used:

Oh, whoops. That's more naked Eve.

Hello to Comics, Part 1: Hello to Comics!

2008-10-09T11:46:00.004-04:00

My hometown of New Albany, Indiana, played host to two Winn-Dixie stores in my youth, one in the New Albany Plaza on State Street and one adjacent to the K-Mart on Grantline Road. I anticipated trips to either due to their proximty to stores that sold toys.

That faded after I found the spinner racks. Not that my lust for toys ever vanished completely, as my shelves will attest, but the lust for comics burns over the fire with no flame.

My name is Mark Hale. Using scans of and images from actual comics I purchased in my youth I will document my life as a comic book reader. From the spinner racks to my first comic book shop, from state to state and shop to service.

Some words from John DiBello about the San Diego Comic-Con

2008-08-15T11:45:00.003-04:00

I'm lucky enough to be acquainted with John DiBello, the swell guy who takes Bully the Little Stuffed Bull on all his grand adventures. John noticed some serious things at the San Diego Comic-Con while Bully had his little stuffed head stuffed into some quarter bins. John's asked that folks be made aware of the sexual harassment he witnessed (and that others no doubt witness and experience at cons all across the country). More prominent bloggers than myself have posted this, but every bit helps. I'm not much of a con-goer, but some day when I grow up I'd like to be able to go with my girlfriend and her daughter without feeling like I have to worry about them any more than usual.

John's words are at the link above, and they are also reprinted here with his permission:

Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con while I was having lunch on the balcony of the Convention Center on Sunday July 27: a bunch of guys looking at the digital photos on the camera of another, while he narrated: "These were the Ghostbusters girls. That one, I grabbed her ass, 'cause I wanted to see what her reaction was." This was only one example of several instance of harassment, stalking or assault that I saw at San Diego this time.

1. One of my friends was working at a con booth selling books. She was stalked by a man who came to her booth several times, pestering her to get together for a date that night. One of her co-workers chased him off the final time.

2. On Friday, just before the show closed, this same woman was closing up her tables when a group of four men came to her booth, started taking photographs of her, telling her she was the "prettiest girl at the con." They they entered the booth, started hugging and kissing her and taking photographs of themselves doing so. She was confused and scared, but they left quickly after doing that.

3. Another friend of mine, a woman running her own booth: on Friday a man came to her booth and openly criticized her drawing ability and sense of design. Reports from others in the same section of the floor confirmed he'd targeted several women with the same sort of abuse and criticism.

Quite simply, this behavior has got to stop at Comic-Con. It should never be a sort of place where anyone, man or woman, feels unsafe or attacked either verbally or physically in any shape or form. There are those, sadly, who get off on this sort of behavior and assault, whether it's to professional booth models, cosplayers or costumed women, or women who are just there to work. This is not acceptable behavior under any circumstance, no matter what you look like or how you're dressed, whether you are in a Princess Leia slave girl outfit or business casual for running your booth.

On Saturday, the day after the second event I described above, I pulled out my convention book to investigate what you can do and who you can speak to after such an occurrence. On page two of the book there is a large grey box outlining "Convention Policies," which contain rules against smoking, live animals, wheeled handcarts, recording at video presentations, drawing or aiming your replica weapon, and giving your badge to others. There is nothing about attendee-to-attendee personal behavior.

Page three of the book contains a "Where Is It?" guide to specific Comic-Con events and services. There's no general information room or desk listed, nor is there a contact location for security, so I go to the Guest Relations Desk. I speak to a volunteer manning the desk; she's sympathetic to the situation but who doesn't have a clear answer to my question: "What's Comic-Con's policy and method of dealing with complaints about harassment?" She directs me to the nearest security guard, who is also sympathetic listening to my reports, but short of the women wanting to report the incidents with the names of their harassers, there's little that can be done.

"I understand that," I tell them both, "but what I'm asking is more hypothetical and informational: if there is a set Comic-Con policy on harassment and physical and verbal abuse on Con attendees and exhibitors, and if so, what's the specific procedure by which someone should report it, and specifically where should they go?" But this wasn't a question either could answer.

So, according to published con policy, there is no tolerance for smoking, drawn weapons, personal pages or selling bootleg videos on the floor, and these rules are written down in black and white in the con booklet. There is not a word in the written rules about harassment or the like. I would like to see something like "Comic-Con has zero tolerance for harassment or violence against any of our attendees or exhibitors. Please report instances to a security guard or the Con Office in room XXX."

The first step to preventing such harassment is giving its victims the knowledge that they can safely and swiftly report such instances to someone in authority. Having no published guideline, and indeed being unable to give a clear answer to questions about it, gives harassment and violence one more red-tape loophole to hide behind.

I enjoyed Comic-Con. I'm looking forward to coming back next year. So, in fact, are the two women whose experiences I've retold above. Aside from those instances, they had a good time at the show. But those instances of harassment shouldn't have happened at all, and that they did under no clear-cut instructions about what to do sadly invites the continuation of such behavior, or even worse.

I don't understand why there's no such written policy about what is not tolerated and what to do when this happens. Is there anyone at Comic-Con able to explain this? Does a similar written policy exist in the booklets for other conventions (SF, comics or otherwise) that could be used as a model? Can it be adapted or adapted, and enforced, for Comic-Con? As the leading event of the comics and pop culture world, Comic-Con should work to make everyone who attends feel comfortable and safe.

--John DiBello

Happy Birthday, Chris!

2008-08-12T14:22:00.003-04:00

Best wishes from your friend and your President.

For a Serious America

2008-08-04T13:16:00.004-04:00

Friday Night Fights: Off-Panel but not Forgotten.

2008-06-20T20:38:00.003-04:00

Should I happen to die someday off-panel...

I hope it is Orion who eulogizes me on-panel.

(Ineligible for but in the spirit of FNF

The call is coming from INSIDE YOUR MIND!

2008-06-04T10:55:00.009-04:00

Yesterday I wrapped up reading the first volume of the Jack Kirby Fourth World Omnibus series as well as the first issue of Grant Morrison and JG Jones' "Final Crisis." Were I feeling more eloquent I'd talk about the similar feel the works share, but mostly I wanted to show this panel of Dr. Bedlam letting his fingers do the walking:

Everyone loves Kirby machinery, but there's a simple joy to be had in a panel of a dude with a big pink noggin on a phone, cranking a guy in a green, red, and yellow leotard.

I figure if I want to show the next panel I should explain what's going on. Doctor Bedlam drops something called THE PARANOID PILL into an office building and challenges Mister Miracle to make his way from the top floor, through all the raving paranoid cubicoids, and out through the lobby. Many fantastic Kirby-style freakouts occur, but this fellow on the right is my favorite:

And now it's time for...

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

Doctor Bedlam
Architect of the Chandler Towers Experiment

Dr. Philip Zimbardo
Architect of the Stanford Prison Experiment

U-DECIDE!

The Forever People: Proto-Hipsters

2008-05-01T16:06:00.008-04:00

With the arrival of the fourth and final volume of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus I've decided to delve into the titanic tomes for a taste of the terror and tumult tucked inside and, brother, it's a wallop.

There's manic energy in these stories that I hope would have grabbed me as a youngster in the early 1970s, and a kind of infectious earnestness, right down to the next-issue blurbs, that amuses the hell out of me as (what passes for) an adult. It reads quick, it reads clear, and everyone down to the background characters is excited and exciting.

History rightfully praises The King and The Man's early Marvel work, but reading this and the recently released Devil Dinosaur Omnibus from Marvel makes me want nothing more then Kirby Unleashed and On His Own. (Devil Dinosaur is great, but I'm insanely grateful for the text pages reprinted therein. Reading them makes you believe that Ol' Jack's brain never shut off.)

But I'm here to talk briefly about The Forever People, which, halfway through the first volume, is tied for second with Mister Miracle as my favorite series in these reprints. The aforementioned earnestness is on full display here, with heaping doses of angst, overwrought emotionality, and jive talk that would make Bob Haney proud.

Also, hideous furniture:

I gotta say, Big Bear's love of gaudy old furniture echoes my own. I've had my eyes on a particularly hideous couch at a local library that's been there since childhood and were I built more like Big Bear and less like Ichabod Crane said couch would have been mine long ago.

Mark Moonrider shares not just my name (the "Mark" part of it, anyhow), but an affinity for ugly lamps as well:

And that's pretty much why I'm totally jazzed to have four big books of this stuff on my shelf.

Director's Cut!

2008-04-07T21:39:00.002-04:00

When last we saw the Man of Steel, he had just opened a lead box containing a time capsule... from the future!

(Sort of from All Star Superman #10, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Those guys are so awesome.)

50,000 Bendis Fans Can't Be Wrong

2008-04-06T00:30:00.003-04:00

I dunno, sounds like Doom to me.

Steve Gerber

2008-02-14T11:14:00.001-05:00

I get jealous when I read anything by Steve Gerber.

When I read Sludge #1 way back when, my awareness of who wrote and drew what hadn't quite formed. I just knew that the writers were the big deal in the Ultraverse, or so the advertisements said. So, most of those guys, I followed them elsewhere. This rarely left me disappointed. They were, and are, all great writers, but none of them took me where Gerber took me.

From Sludge's big blue chemical mess of a protagonist and pumpkin-headed scarecrow crimelord I went back in time to read a smattering of Man-Thing and Howard the Duck, finding the same sort of strange heroes and villains.

His stories always had a heart, trite as that may sound, and showed sympathy for and gave a voice to those who were truly weird, truly out of place "in a world they never made," not just those self-centered types who constantly tell people how weird they are. His stories also showed a cynicism and bitterness born out of a desire for a better world and a humor spun from frustration and disappointment. His was a unique voice in all of comics, and it spoke to me through every story.

You can't say enough good things about his Howard the Duck stories, but the story of his that affected me the most was his Foolkiller mini-series. I found it on Ebay a few years ago and after reading it I was left in about as foul, miserable and depressed a mood as I've ever felt. It's truly an amazing story, a fairly hidden gem quite likely available for far less than its true worth.

It's hard to find that type of impression, in the sense of something pressing down on you, in any story from any writer in any medium. But Steve Gerber pressed, and pressed hard.

PSA

2008-01-14T22:15:00.001-05:00

A "Special" Presentation

2007-09-14T10:57:00.000-04:00

Kevin made me do it.

Question of the week:

2007-09-09T23:43:00.000-04:00

"I AM SHOOTING GOOD WISHES AT YOU!"

2007-08-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

When I watched Crank and saw this guy:

... I thought of Chris Sims. Happy birthday, buddy.

Good Grief: More Satan's Boners

2007-07-24T23:35:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Mike.

Friday Night Fights - Round 5!

2007-07-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

Nothing clever to say. Just a picture taken of page from a coverless DC Treasury edition found while sorting things. This image immediately sparked an "I remember this!" flash.

And why wouldn't I remember Superman being hit in the head with hammers by Mr. Mxyztplk and a little girl named Susie?

Click for big, click for Bahlactus.

Friday Night Fights - Uppercut!!! Round 2

2007-06-29T23:59:00.000-04:00

Tom Strong defends his wife's honor (even though she probably doesn't need his help!)

Nazi-punchin' courtesy of Alan Moore, Art Adams, and Al Gordon. From Tom Strong #4 which is, believe it not, the first issue in the series to feature punching in any signifigant amount.

Bah bah bah, dip a dip dip, bahlactus

Friday Night Fights - The "J." stands for...

2007-06-22T23:59:00.000-04:00

From Spidey Super Stories #21, written by Jammin' Jim Salicrup, with art by Whiplash Win Mortimer and Madman Mike Esposito.

Bahlactus has the rundown.

MY BATMANS

2007-05-07T00:08:00.000-04:00

Let me show you them.

Friday Night Fights! - Round 7

2007-04-27T23:36:00.000-04:00

"It's called a set-up...

I'm not sure just what that means, but I suppose it makes sense if you're a superhuman raised in America's breadbasket. If you've not read Rick Veitch's "The One," you really ought to, especially if, like me, you were just a wee squirt fiddling with Transformers and such during the frenzy of the 1980s Cold War paranoia. There was a bit more going on than a half-melted cowboy actor's breathy mumbling on the tv box... and Veitch manages to stir up those barely understandable feelings glimpsed as a not-quite-conscious young'un of that time period. The series also had fantastic covers. And here's the cover for the first printing of the tpb. I cleaned up the scan because the copy I bought on eBay was beat all to hell:

Pretty snazzy, and so is Bahlactus.

Friday Night Fights! - Round Six

2007-04-20T23:46:00.000-04:00

ow :(

The B-Man

Mama Meme-a!

2007-04-16T20:49:00.000-04:00

Thanks to one of the fine folks over at Nintendorks, I saw something called The Mario Quiz Cards: a package of cards quizzing folks not on Mario trivia, but on things that happen in our very own real world. Like this one:

Luigi is clearly shocked! As well he should be. But what else shocks everyone's favorite Player Two? Here are a couple of my ideas:

Now you! (Be sure to click for bigger versions that are a bit easier to work with.)

And for the ambitious among you:

Link it up in the comments!

Friday Night Fights - Round Five

2007-04-14T00:21:00.000-04:00

Victor has a thing or two to learn about raising kids. I'm not really sure this could be considered a fight...! Check Bahlactus for more, as always.

Friday Night Fights! Round Four!

2007-04-06T23:28:00.000-04:00

Took a week off but now I'm back on the B-Lac Attack:

For Sims, even though he is wrong.

Fuwa, I Choose You!

2007-04-05T12:03:00.000-04:00

Look here to place blame. Short details: Fucking with cute images of Beijing Olympic Mascots. Feel free to join in!

Friday Night Fights - Round 2!

2007-03-24T00:11:00.000-04:00

Ahhhhhhh...

COLD COCK!

Check my boy Bahlactus.

Dear Marvel Comics

2007-03-19T00:37:00.000-04:00

Hey, guys, it's been a while. What's up? You seem to be doing okay. Lots of folks are talking about a good number of the comics you publish, which I imagine makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. I mean, if I were selling tons of comics I'm sure it'd cheer me up. And movies! Ghost Rider is definitely on my list to see. And 300 is bound to get more folks into comics stores, which means can only be great for comics in general, right? But I'm just not the Marvel fan I used to be. I don't care about things like Civil War, but I also don't care about Civil War "destroying characters" or "ruining the Marvel Universe" or "touching young children in their bathing suit areas" (I read about that last on on scans_daily). I want good and fun stories, which Marvel is more than capable of producing as evidenced by the MODOK issue of Marvel Adventures: The Avengers or Runaways. The characters will bounce back. They always do. Right now Dwayne McDuffie, writer of Beyond!, probably the best example of mainstream Marvel superheroics in quite some time, is working his ass off on Fantastic Four to bring some semblence of order to what's happened over the last fifty years or so of Civil War. And I hold out hope that someday there'll be a Spider-Man comic worth reading again.

But I'm mostly writing to you, Marvel Comics, to ask you this:

Do you have editors any more? I see the title in the credit boxes and in interviews on comics "news" sites, but I have to wonder when I see things like this from the train wreck New Avengers: The Illuminati #2:

Reed Richards says "Uh"? For real? I've seen the dude have a good time and kick it with the fam, that's no big whoop. I've seen him stammer. But I haven't seen him display Beavis-level sarcasm when dealing with something like the goddamn Infinity Gauntlet. And then there's this bit of wisdom from Captain America in the recent Civil War Colon The Confession Comic Book for Reading:

"The moral compass of us"? Is this The Sentinel of Liberty yelling "YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!" at Iron Man? And, yes, while Iron Man technically is not the boss of Cap, someone at Marvel should be the boss of phrasing, grammar, and dialogue and clean this stuff up a bit. These comics are being pushed very hard, and I assume fellows like Brian Bendis and Mark Millar are being paid handsomely for their work and I doubt your editors are eating ramen in a sinkhole somewhere. Do your job. Please. 'cause if I have to read this crap—and I don't—it should at least sound like the writers didn't crib all their dialogue tics from Friends reruns.

Sincerly,
Mark Hale
Nitpicky Jerkass

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

2007-03-16T23:25:00.000-04:00

For Bahlactus. And also for Benjamin.

My main man Thanos "The Thanos" of Titan puts the bad hand down on that fence-sitting punk The In-Betweener. From The Thanos Quest #1, wherein ol' Purple Puss throws plot to the wind and kicks ass all over the Elders of the Universe, video-game style.

The New Adventures of Kokey

2007-02-28T19:17:00.000-05:00

Presenting the revival of an old funny animal character, made relevant for today's discriminating comics reader.

Up and at Them!

2007-02-27T23:56:00.000-05:00

Blame Chris.

For Kevin

2007-02-24T16:44:00.000-05:00

In the style of this guy here.

Taxicab Repressions

2006-10-20T11:36:00.001-04:00

Two things you need to know about Defenders #90 by writer Ed Hannigan and artists Don Perlin and Pablo Marcos:

The title of the story is "Mind Over Mandrill!" (Emphasis not mine.)

And this panel:

Midget Mayhem

2006-10-18T23:22:00.000-04:00

Inspired by this post at the ISB and a comment left therein, I have seen fit to desecrate a fine and noble American institution and... whatever the hell Family Circus is:

This Issue: Batman Gets Bitchslapped By a Nazi Robot In Scotland

2006-10-01T23:19:00.000-04:00

From DC Special #29, by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, and Bob Layton. August-September 1977.

(Sorry, Chris)

2006-09-10T22:33:00.000-04:00

What's Distracting Patricia?

Dave wants to know. I hope I'm not right.

Avengers Annual 21 presents:

2006-09-09T00:21:00.000-04:00

YELLING!

YELLING!

2006-07-17T17:20:00.000-04:00

Another Happy-Making Thing

I doubt most people even know it existed, but I caught the Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot cartoon on Fox Kids whenever I could. It ran for 26 episodes before being mercilessly crushed in a cuddly tide of Pokemon and various other soulless Japanese toy/video game/keychain/dildo commercials. It was a pretty darn good show that featured lots of actual animation and a pile of excellent voice actors, including Pamela Adlon, Stephen Root, Kathy Kinney, and Tom Hanks's brother. Check out the opening, courtesy of everyone's favorite cable access channel, YouTube:

And how 'bout that theme song?

2006-07-12T23:53:00.000-04:00

Things that Make Me Happy:

Mike Parobeck drawing anything, but especially Mike Parobeck drawing Dolphus, whom I gather is a genetically engineered half human/half dolphin.

"Oh, man, you guys! This swimming sure is fun, huh!? Whee, swimming!"

Image from Who's Who in the Impact Universe. Dolphus is a character from The Fly, drawn by Parobeck and written by Len Strazewski, which I'm totally going to read one of these days, for real.

2006-07-06T19:35:00.000-04:00

"Just let me just Deezen by you!"

It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like...

... if you're on the Internet Movie Database...

... someone thinks you're hot.

2006-04-25T12:50:00.000-04:00

Talking Gorilla Theater

Now that a real, true internet connection affords me the opportunity to, shall we say, sample television shows I can't see without cable, I have watched a generous handful of Justice League Unlimited. This iteration of the show is something on an order of magnitude more entertaining than the few dull dull dulldulldull episodes of the series I saw when it was simply "Justice League." I particularly enjoyed the stretch starting with "Question Authority," probably the most entertained I've been by the Justice League since Grant Morrison split the scene.

Mostly, though I wanted to post to ask this: Why is it when I see an episode written by Gail Simone featuring Black Canary and Huntress I think "Oh, man, this is gonna be good!" But when I see an episode written by Geoff Johns featuring Hawkman I think "Christ, dude is fucking obsessed with Hawkman"?

Probably 'cause dude is fucking obsessed with Hawkman. Plus the episode wasn't all that great.

2006-04-19T19:34:00.000-04:00

Tonight on PBS

(particularly for fans of The Cowboy Wally Show)

Shakespeare Behind Bars

A study of 20 male inmates who form the Shakespeare Behind Bars theatre troup, an acting company based in a [Louisville,] Kentucky prison, as they prepare their performance of Shakespeare's final play, "The Tempest".

This is a documentary and not the play itself. Here is a Quicktime trailer. (Crayon-and-paper costumes, sadly, are not on display.)

2006-03-01T09:03:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday, Alan Thicke!

"Man, youse gotta see how stupid it is over there. They've got an animal exhibit, a freak show, and Alan Thicke is the guest of honor; that is the gayest. I gotta get back."

2006-02-19T15:33:00.000-05:00

This issue: Batman Punches an Eagle

Batman and Robin Adventures #4, by Ty Templeton and Rick Burchett.

2006-02-12T22:55:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

Getting in a bit early. Other folks have done more clever valentines around the blogothing, but I think mine's not so shabby.

Credits:

Background image by Dave Johnson, Detective Comics #750.

Foreground image by Mike Parobeck, from Batman Adventures #13.

Text and hilarity by Mark Hale.

2006-01-31T08:22:00.000-05:00

Don't Stop Remembering

One more, since folks seem to A) still be in on this and 2) be in on this more than once. And because I so love the Ultraverse.

The Master List

2006-01-23T12:24:00.000-05:00

Always Remember

Chris made me do this. Dorian started it and lots of folks joined in.

2006-01-09T23:19:00.000-05:00

Lord Naga-Naga Digs This Day

Here to the left for your clickin' and readin' pleasure is a whole page from the aforementioned Suicide Squad issue #30, featuring everyone's favorite snake-themed, chaos-bent terrorist, Kobra. (My friend and Kobra-enthusiast Chris informs me that Kobra is Lord Naga-Naga's supervillain name. How great is that, I ask you?) This issue is the last of a big-ass cross-over called the Janus Directive which skittered through Suicide Squad, Checkmate, Firestorm, and Captain Atom. I only have the Suicide Squad issues, rendering the whole thing confusing and rather useless. But it was all worth it for that one glorious page.

2006-01-09T12:31:00.000-05:00

From the "Things You Say When You're Part of a Secret Government Organization Engaged in a Mission to Destroy a Satellite Run By Kobra Which Will Scramble Brains and Queer Delicate Electronic Devices All Over the World" department:

(A panel from the fine Suicide Squad series, issue 30, by John Ostrander and Kim Yale, art by John K. Snyder III and Karl Kesel.)

2006-01-06T14:02:00.000-05:00

The Book of Daniel-San

I spend way too much time reading entertainment news considering the disdain I have for most celebrities. In my travels the last few days I've seen a lot about the foofarah over NBC's new show The Book of Daniel, in particular a bunch of Christian-types who have their pious panties in a twist over the appearance of Big J. the C. and what they assume from the commercials to be a disrepectful view of their religion. Also fun are the two stations -- including one in my own bass-ackwards land of Indiana, home of The Jacksons and John Dillinger -- refusing to air the show for similar reasons. Anyhow, in today's TV Column at the Washington Post (registration required) I found the following tidbit:

"The limited series stars Aidan Quinn as the Rev. Daniel Webster, whose oldest son is gay and struggling with the loss of his twin brother; whose teenage daughter is selling pot to finance her manga obsession; whose teenage adopted son is something of a skirt chaser; and whose wife is coping with the loss of her child with the help of lunchtime martinis."

I'll be tuning in after all.

2005-12-20T14:03:00.000-05:00

You're WAY off, kid.

Or is he? Here is page from Marvel's 1991 Holiday Special, wherein a young blind boy escapes his kidnappers and is rescued by... Santa Claus? Courtesy of Howard Mackie, John Hebert, and Al Milgrom.

It's actually a very sweet story. Ghsot Rider gives the kid a ride home in his "sleigh," and the sleepy whelp thinks the rumbling of infernal combustion is Santa's hungry reindeer. Awww.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah, everyone.

2005-11-14T08:22:00.000-05:00

Pluggin'

I have gone on an absolute rampage through my collection and put an assload of stuff up on the eBay. A lot of it is worth owning and/or reading. Mention you saw this ad and get a free, uhm... nothing, really. You just get the comics. But they're nice comics!

2005-11-12T14:59:00.000-05:00

"HOLY SHIT, YOU GUYS."
A Photo Essay
By Mark Hale, Age 27

I hoofed it to the K-Mart today to buy this stuff:

You may not know, but SOUR Skittles are vital to mailing items sold on eBay. (Not pictured: new box cutter.)

And then I saw this:

HOLY SHIT, YOU GUYS!

AN "AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN" ACTION FIGURE!

How come nobody told me about this? And why is it only sold in a three pack with Superman (who is the only one lucky enough to possess knees, elbows, and a swivel waist) and Sinestro? I guess it would be too much to hope for it to come with Green Cigarette and Animal Man figures. Ah well. The only thing that would surprise me after this, I think, would be Young Heroes in Love action figures. Or maybe Chase. Or Chronos. Or Major Bummer and Friends. Or Vext. Or...

2005-11-10T00:33:00.000-05:00

I really like the Silver Surfer

... but not this much.

2005-11-08T12:21:00.000-05:00

The Best Corner Box Ever

Only used once, sadly. I seem to recall hearing the CCA got pissy about such things.

2005-11-03T18:41:00.000-05:00

Check out this UPC box from a 1970s issue of Doctor Strange:

Things about this cover:

2005-10-31T21:52:00.000-05:00

It's awesome.

Ron Garney drew a hell of a Silver Surfer, making him alien without resorting to big-eye-egg-head nonsense.

Matt Murdock is blind.

Matt Murdock is an orphan.

Peter Parker is an orphan.

Silver Surfer is a jerk.

2005-09-24T00:22:00.000-04:00

Pinkoman

I finally read Mark Millar’s Elseworld’s mini-series “Red Son.” It’s not bad. I mean, it’s okay, but I’ve been sitting around a lot and it’s come back into my thought processes several times.

The big idea is, I guess, that Superman is good no matter where he lands — usually this is how things pan out in Elseworlds books, so I should be used to it by now. Or people should come up with a better idea. This is, after all, Soviet Russia. I could see Superman going one way or the other, all good or all evil, but the Superman we get here is, considering his placement in this world, a bit wishy-washy. If he landed in Ukraine in 1934, that country had just come out of a huge Soviet government-plotted famine to break the spirit of the people, bring them under stricter Soviet control, and force them into collective farming. This scarcely seems like an environment that would lead a family to instill its government’s ideals into their spacebaby the way the Kents did in the “real” DC Universe. Not to discount educational systems in fascist states, of course, which do fine jobs of indoctrinating children.

And let’s not forget that thuggish tool shed Josef Stalin, responsible as he was for the deaths of millions of his own people, down to those who worked side-by-side with him. It’s hard to imagine a man of his ego not being threatened by someone with Superman’s power, no matter what side the farm boy picked. And the killing was constant, throughout the gulags, in the forests, the farms, and Siberia. Many mentions are made of Superman’s awesome hearing, and if I’m to believe he’s still Superman, willing to help save people no matter what government they reside under, surely he could hear all the screams and would have reacted to them.

I also have trouble with the idea that someone raised on Communist ideals, so close to Stalin, managed to wrangle the entire world without shedding any blood. The threat of Superman vaporizing you must have been enough to keep people in line, not to mention slapping computerized attitude adjusters on folks’ heads if they do.

Perhaps I’m thinking too hard. It’s not all bad. Some of it is actually very good, especially the portrayal of Lex Luthor syooper geenius with his bevy of robots and various Superman-dispensing weapons, and the Russian Batman in his kicky winter gear. But I also feel that, on the whole, it’s overwritten and poorly thought out. And Grant Morrison really should have saved that ending for himself, though he probably has ideas like that while he takes a whiz in the morning.

From the "Taking What I Can Get" Dept.

2005-09-21T11:53:00.000-04:00

I am in the library at school, sitting between classes, trying not to die from the antibiotics that helped me not to die from a sinus infection, wishing I could eat some lunch, slightly dreading the results of Monday's crystallography quiz in Geology, and just generally feeling morose. But at least I have this:

Whoo-hoo.

2005-08-23T14:27:00.000-04:00

Too confounded and infected to feel like writing about comics so far this week. But I hve just put all kinds of crazy crap up for auction on the eBay. Heck, buy your kid sibling that batch of old(!) Simpsons comics. He or she will thank you! Or maybe your mom likes X-Men antagonist Apocalypse. Show her you care by purchasing his origin miniseries! All these things and more at Mark's eBay auctions! Who are you to resist?

2005-08-19T21:46:00.000-04:00

Comics I Shouldn't Own: Fatale #1

Writer: Jim Hooters and friends Artist: JG-string Jones

Good god, look at the boobies on this woman. She's got titties till Tuesday on a Wednesday afternoon. They're gargantuan. They are, in fact, so big that her leather hatler top has slots on its sides to relieve the pressure. It's insane. Of course, we're also supposed to believe it's a statement on women in comics and the world and objectification and she's stronger and smarter than we can imagine and all sorts of stuff from the foreward by Jim Shooter that I couldn't manage to read.

It can't possibly be anything that'd justify this shot:

Fatale is a woman of ample proportions with the Rogue-like ability to sap "power" from other people -- you know, because she's so self-reliant and awesome -- so she can do things like fight off guys while her elbows are tied behind her back.

This being the 1990s, "they" are a group called the Brotherhood, some sort of organization, I assume "secret," bent on kidnapping and/or tying up and/or ripping the clothes off of Fatale. (I swear, if I ever write a comic, there's going to be a secret organization bent on seeing the heroine naked.) They attempt this outside an Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino seemingly at about five in the morning, what with the scarcity of witnesses and all. These guys really know when to attack a girl — except this being a Jim Shooter comic we know that it happens at exactly 9:17 on September 8, 1995. Her boyfriend Bill, ex-Brotherhood member (of course) helps her out of the oppressive steel cable. They go back to her hotel room where before making with the sex Fatale struts around in her underthings — now, hold on: she's wearing a strapless bra. With those zeppelins? I've heard actual women with real breasts complain about those things; no way a woman with DDD bazongas would even think about owning one outside of a comic book.

Anyhow, after hanging out on the balcony for a while the following morning, a helicopter drops a rope ladder — did I mention this is an Atlantic City hotel? — and Fatale is spirited away to scenic Toms River, NJ, where she meets up with her "teammate" Duke who calls her a fatass, grabs her by the wrists and hair, drags her across the floor, throws her into the furniture, and very nearly spanks her. Why he'd stop short after all that is beyond me. Sick of the abuse, Fatale decides on a shopping trip to Milan, except, being a fickle woman, she instead ends up in Central Park with Bill. After some blathering about their relationship she kisses him to find out if he's really on her side — yes, she has all of Rogue's powers — which knocks him out for a couple hours. Bill walks off in a huff when Fatale says she doesn't want to be his steady girl, and then Snake Eyes shows up with a bunch of his friends and buries his face in Fatale's crotch.

I don't think I'd be remiss in saying this comic is a landmark for women's issues in both the medium and the genre. Did I mention two of the friends who helped Big Jim write this were women? Did I mention the "Broadway" in "Broadway Comics" is the Broadway Entertainment that owns Saturday Night Live? I have to wonder what it was like for Shooter to work on comics with what looked like a big "V" on the cover, but it didn't last more than a year so it was probably not an issue. I also have to wonder what the hell people are thinking when they say a comic like this has anything to do with strong, independent women. But I also wonder what punching and kicking people has to do with being strong and independent, so there you go.

2005-08-18T14:41:00.000-04:00

Meme Machine Go

More stuff to blame on Kevin.

1. Ten years ago:

When I was seventeen... just coming off what was, emotionally, to that point, the worst summer of my life... heading into my senior year of high school, a severely fun and theraputic fuck-off handful of months where I blew off everything but playing in the jazz combo, working as the manager of the school's student center, my Japanese language classes, and reading comics.

2. Five years ago:

A little over a year into my second try at the college thing. Rock shows and drinking and goofing around with some folks I knew from my first try at college who had moved into the area (the college friends my seventh grade English teacher warned me I'd have for the rest of my life).

3. One year ago:

Disney World with Amelie. Hot, sweaty, rainy, surreal, just as Uncle Walt imagined it.

4. Yesterday:

Doctor's appointment. Ear infection. Sleeping pills. Ear drops and antibiotics. Therapy referral. Finished reading Sleeper, finally.

5. Today:

A severe case of the crankies, as the sleeping pills didn't do all that much to help. I scalded my hand making tea and part of my breakfast fell on the floor.

6. Tomorrow:

A post about Fatale.

7. Five snacks I enjoy:

Pringles, Hershey's with almonds, plantain chips, orange slices, Funyuns.

8. Five bands I know the lyrics of most of their songs:

Beatles, Flaming Lips, Pixies, Cake. Dead Milkmen

9. Five things I would do with $100,000,000:

Can you get an island for 100 mil? I'd have the largest graphic novel/tpb collection in the world, buy the continued affection of all my friends, take my family on a trip, make sure my nephew gets everything he needs, and have a big farm where all my friends and family could live.

10. Five locations I'd like to run away to:

Tokyo, London, Paris, the part of California that's not a desert, a Carribean Island.

11. Five Bad Habits:

This assumes I have GOOD habits.

12. Five things I like doing:

Lazy Sundays watching bad movies on tv, hugging cats, reading comics, drinkin' beers, napping.

13. Five TV shows I like:

Futurama, Simpsons, Scrubs, King of the Hill, The Amazing Raze.

14. Famous People I'd like to meet, living or dead:

Stan Lee, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Matt Groening, Wayne Coyne.

15. Biggest joys at the moment:

Not going outside into the oppressive humidity. Sitting and reading through a whole comic without being distracted by something.

16. Favorite toys:

My big ol' Unicron is pretty goddamn snazzy. I can't afford the "grown up" tech-type toys I want. Can I count my comics collection?

Edited to add: Feel free to try this on your own weblog, but I'm not forcing anybody. And also edited to actually answer all the points.

2005-08-15T22:59:00.000-04:00

I showed Kevin this image (from this site):

And then he sang to me:

Kevin: DID YOU EVER KNOW CHAOSMONKEY WAS MY HERO
Kevin: YOU'RE EVERYTHING BEAUCOUPKEVIN WISHES HE COULD BE
Kevin: AND YOU'RE GONNA POST THIS IN YOUR WEBLOG
Kevin: BECAUSE YOU ARE THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS.

It's nice to brighten someone's day.

2005-08-12T21:10:00.000-04:00

This Blog, This Monster!

The Abysmal Pit isn't a personal weblog, as such, and it isn't about to become one. I will merely say the regretable sporadic posting/lack of updates borne of personal issues and the proverbial getting together of one's shit (i.e. mine) will hopefully soon come to an end. Not that the issues and shit-gathering are gone or completed. Far from it. For instance, I'm starting back to college again in a couple of weeks. After all these years of on-again-off-again schooling I am disgustingly close to my degree, which I hope to have within the year — 12 months, that is, not 2005 — because getting a degree before I'm 29 is one better than getting a degree before I'm 30.

And I've got some comics I'd like to talk about, like all the Quasar issues I just bought on eBay:

This random issue of Doctor Strange I lured from the depths of the Aybsmal Pit:

And, uh... *cough* this:

Maybe I'll even squeeze in some time to go to classes.

2005-07-27T17:32:00.000-04:00

Our supplier's mistake is YOUR GAIN!

I accidentally got a copy of The Escapist #5 from my fine pusherman Steven Huber at Galaxy Comics -- it didn't cost me anything, I'm not particularly interested in it, and I wanted to give it to someone who will love it and squeeze it and call it George. So the first person who e-mails his or her shipping address to chaosmonkey (AT) helpmejebus (DOT) com gets it. For nothing. Because I am feeling kind and generous and I made a few bucks on my eBay auctions this week.

2005-07-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

Ultracovers!

Kevin isn't the only guy allowed to look at old covers around here. Let's check out some of the covers I've been gracious enough to upload to the Grand Comics Database:

Do not incur my Giant Size Wrath! Okay, so, it's not Giant-Size Man-Thing, but I have to work with what I got.

Underneath all the logo-clutter and such is a really nice cover by a fellow named Dean Zachary. Yeah, even with the Jedi-braids. Steve Englehart busted his ass to make the Marvel buyout work, but he never quite made it.

I can't tell if this cover depicts a fight or if it's a poster advertising a lesbian frotteurism convention.

I know what you're thinking: "Blood Storm"? Hey, it's Steve Gerber writing and the guy's face is painted like a Jack O'Lantern, so you know it's worthwhile.

Prime's head blowed up real good. Yup. Real good.

This guy reminds me of a Japanese Transformer toy called Takotank — "tako" being Japanese for "octopus." Today's first lesson: Don't go to Tako Beru when you're in Japan.

This is one of a few really great Solitaire covers by Scott Kolins. I don't recall much about the series, but flipping through it today I got a bit of a Diabolik vibe. And the interiors are by some guy named Jeff Parker. (Look closely and you'll notice Mr. Solitaire has a bit of rebar jammed in his windpipe. Good times!)

Today's second lesson: When designing a superheroine's costume, remember that she's a woman first and a superheroine second, and sometimes a lady gets knocked up. Even if she's a lady possessed by the spirit of a 1,300-year-old warrior dude.

2005-07-07T18:27:00.000-04:00

How could they forget Warstrike?

The last few weeks here at Casa Del Mono have been spent caring for my cat Jasmine, who had a tumor removed from her belly in June. She's doing fine, scarring up well, and acting like her normal, bitchy self. It's stressful 'cause she's got one of those little cat brains that can't understand why you're doing all this seemingly awful stuff to them. I'm pretty sure she'll forget this ever happened. At least I hope she will. That cone collar is humiliating even for me. Amelie thinks the scar will make her appear tough to the other cats.

I saw every episode of Dancing with the Stars. Every one. And the ending disappointed me. I'm going to blame it on the flu-like illness I have.

Speaking of television, how goddamned ghoulish are these tv series "R U The Girl" and "Rock Star: INXS"? It might not be so bad if, you know, they weren't using a tv show to replace dead folks. But they are. The worst is the commercial where T-Dog and Chilby say something like "We could never replace Leftover." A commercial for a show where, yeah, they're trying to replace her. No sense of irony, these people. And will the person picked have to change her name to something starting with L?

I've spent my day drinking water and scanning covers for the Grand Comics Database. Ultraverse covers. My nerdity knows no bounds. My cat Jasmine? She's named after a character from John Byrne's Next Men. Toldja. No bounds.

2005-06-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

We're all DOOMED!

I saw the guy who plays Dr. Doom in the FF movie on Dave last night. I don't know anything about this movie except it doesn't look very good and it seems to be one of those movies where the lights are dimmed to near darkness to cover up shitty special effects. And, in the grand Hollywood tradition of Missing the Point, Victor von Doom goes on the flight into space with Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben. Huh? And he gets superpowers? What? I know it's just superhero comic psychology and all, but Doom just being a regular crazy motherfucker in a tin can with no powers except those he makes for himself provides a fairly decent contrast between him and Reed. But what do I know? I'm not in Hollywood.

2005-06-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

Ooh, culture

Late the other night, when I should have been sleeping, I caught a production of Swan Lake performed by the American Ballet Theatre on the PBS series Great Performances. I'm not a fan of ballet — it's one of those deals where I appreciate the skill and dedication and blah blah blah, I'm just not into it — but I have a soft spot for Tchaikovsky's music, so I watched. And it wasn't so bad. Mostly, though, you all need to watch because the fellow who plays the eee-ville von Rothbath in his human form looks disturbingly like General Zod from the Superman movies. And believe me, I scoured the net looking for an image but came up empty. So, check your local listings. He features prominently in Act III which is, personally, my favorite act.

2005-06-13T15:19:00.000-04:00

"Pulse-pounding"? Not exactly.

I'm behind on my comics reading and used some recent stress as an excuse to get caught up with some relaxing picto-literature. Joe Casey and Giuseppe Camuncoli's The Intimates seems a bit sparse despite its density, if that makes any sense, but it's a good read for a fan of the teenage-jerks-with-superpowers genre like me. Like a lot of Casey's work, it benefits from being read in large chunks. That's how I tend to read comics, anyhow. That's how I read... The Pulse issues 2-8.

The "Into Thin Air" story wasn't bad, just not nearly as interesting as it should have been considering the subject matter -- Norman Osborn killing random folks at his company, then choking to death a Daily Bugle reporter who's on his trail -- or, well, worth five issues considering how terrifically underwritten it is. I have to say Jessice Jones's position as a consultant on the superhero beat is pretty much a bust. And is Ben Urich the only reporter in the MU who has dirt on anybody, ever?

But really I want to say something about issues six through eight, the "Secret War" crossover issues, or as I like to call them, "Satan." Seriously, you guys read this stuff? I refused to buy the Secret War mini-series on the grounds it sounded like crap and cost too much. (I know we're tumbling headlong into House of M, but did Secret War ever wrap up?) I figured I'd keep reading The Pulse because the concept of the series intrigued me; I had no idea until I read these issues not a fucking thing is done with that concept. This, though... it's easy to see why it's called "Secret War" because nobody knows a goddamn thing about what's going on. We've got two and a half issues of people running around in a fog, making phone calls, trying to get a hold of someone who might know what's going on, leaving messages, listening to messages, making more calls, running around. There's an interminible amount of NOTHING going on in these issues, and the recap pages help not at all. The events of issue seven add only one sentence to the recap page of issue 8: Jessica Jones passed out. Nothing is said about what Nick Fury is up to until the middle of issue 8, when we're given the sole interesting conversation in the whole 66 pages as Jessica is offered a job with Hydra. Boy, she sure is popular. And did I mention the phone calls? Forty-some-odd pages of people on the phone! Even the explosions manage not to excite, because no one knows why they're happening. These are the worst crossover issues since Infinity War. At least some of those had a purple guy with an afro.

2005-06-01T15:15:00.000-04:00

Bits and pieces

Hey, look, I finally got around to doing the bloggerly thing and linked to some folks. If you link to me and you aren't there, let me know. If for some reason you don't want to be linked here, let me know and I'll take you off.

I also finally finished reading Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four run. I have a vague recollection of the big deal made of his "New Fantastic Four" issues when I first started reading comics regularly in the early 1990s, no doubt because the issues featured Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, and Ghost Rider, all hot properties at the time. Never heard anything about the contents, however, which happen to be fucking awesome and drawn by Art Adams. And Art Adams drawing Skrulls and the Mole Man's monsters is, I'm convinced, the best thing to happen to the Fantastic Four since Lee and Kirby parted ways. If you only read three issues of Simonson's run, make it these three. The rest is incredible, too. There's some great Dr. Doom stuff in 350 and 352. Not a whole hell of a lot as far as things like character development go, but really, when is developing a property like this ever actually worthwhile? I don't want that from the Fantastic Four. I want monsters and Skrulls. And time-travel battles against Doom. And islands disappearing into the time stream. And Galactus destroying the universe 30 years in the future. And the Time Variance Authority. That's what I want. Thanks for giving it to me, Walt.

Jesus Christmas, the Brubaker/Gulacy issues of Catwoman make my brain hurt. I love Brubaker's work, especially the first two years of Catwoman with Cameron Stewart and Darwyn Cooke. After that, even if the writing hadn't been bad (which it got to be) the art... oy. Gulacy's bizarre anatomy — Selina's fighteningly long neck, for example — far outstripped the jarring shift in the art's tone in my opinion. Getting all tied up in War Games didn't help matters; reading the plot made it sound almost interesting, but not interesting enough to stretch through some 30-odd comics. That's the deal with most crossovers, so I should totally be used to it by now. The Catwoman issues happened to be the only ones I read, and they also happened to be boring pieces of shit. And the issues written by Scott Morse were no improvement. I eagerly await the arrival of Will Pfeifer and Pete Woods. And I'll probably have to buy Captain America if I want some Brubaker.

You know what's good? Kyle Baker's Plastic Man. I got the first smelly, plasticky collection, and it's a big pile of bouncey, stupid, cornball fun, which my life has been sorely lacking. It's worth it alone for the scene where Batman recounts his origin. And I'm very much looking forward to Baker's Nat Turner. I had a friend in junior high and the only thing he learned from history class was "Nat Turner, a former slave, killed 57 white people." I'm not sure but there could be more to the story than that.

Peter David and Mike Wieringo on Spider-Man gets me worked up about Spidey for the first time since I-don't-know-when. And excited about a Marvel book since... well, since Bill Jemas left, probably. (Excited about a Marvel book that wasn't an Essentials reprint, anyhow.)

2005-05-25T15:52:00.000-04:00

Sometimes...

Sometimes, when I slice cheese for a sandwich, I worry about splitting a cheese atom and blowing my hand off.

2005-05-23T21:12:00.000-04:00

I know my blogging's been shit lately. I'm just not quite up to it. Maybe later. If you want to make me feel better, to encourage me, you can try buying stuff from me. Who knows, it could be your bid that gives me the confidence to read "Sonic Disruptors" or Jim Shooter's "Fatale." It's win-win, people. You get a handful of "Marvel Two-In-One," and I spout off about the "Battle Royale" comics. And Supreme will stop crying.

America needs your help!

2005-05-12T16:36:00.000-04:00

Comics I Shouldn't Own:
Supreme v. 2, #1

Creator/Writer/Inker:
Rob Liefeld
Penciler/Writer/Color Design:
Brian Murray

Todd MacFarlane's Spawn was, for all its faults, and for its time, a slick, well-produced comic. Supreme was also a comic.

*sigh*

Rob Liefeld. I've touched on his "creations" before, but perhaps the best element of his Image/Awesome/Extreme work is the "who's that guy supposed to be?" game. Not much of a game, true. Supreme's... inspiration is fairly clear. The fun part with the other guys, though — you ever take your GI Joes apart and reassemble them to make new guys? I don't think Rob's creations even took that much effort; most of 'em seem like repaints.

The Youngblood Button is pushed to summon the team. (Not pictured: Strikeforce Morituri Switch, Sonic Disruptors Knob.)

Supreme's different, though. See, he's old, and Superman, he's not old, nuh-uh. And everyone knows who Superman is, but the guys in Youngblood don't recognize Supreme at all, except the ones who do. That's deep and interesting, not to mention compelling, because we don't find out why that is in this issue. And if serial fiction has taught us anything, the best way to keep people coming back for more is to not tell them a goddamn thing.

He is Supreme. Also, lensflare.

It's also a classic example of What's Wrong With Comics. Some guy shows up, a bunch of guys confront him, we're not told who any of them are or given any background info, no indication of who these government guys tracking Supreme's arrival are, nothing. Youngblood takes him in, I guess. One of them says "whoa there, guy, sorry for whuppin' up on ya, but can we take you in for scans, please?" I mean, at some point the government guys are scanning him and everything is "off the charts" or off the hook" or "in the heezy for sheezy," or something. And one science lackey says something that may account for Rob's erratic art, at least as far as Supreme is concerned: "His height, weight, and mass seem to be in a constant state of multi-level fluxuation." That's right, "fluxuation." I hereby proclaim all interpanel changes of character designs and anatomy in the art of Rob Liefeld to be known from this day forward as "fluxuation."

They're your one-way ticket to midnight.

At the end, Supreme bolts away, and a mysterious guy (something like the third mysterious guy in the book) mysteriously reveals a mysterious team called "Heavy Mettle." One is the Hulk with a triceratops head, one is Mer-Man, another is Luke Cage with a tiny, tiny hammer, and the last is a generic fellow I like to call Leroy. And then Supreme cries. All that fluxuation must cause severe body pains.

*sniffle*

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH: Alan Moore's work on Supreme, which I've not read yet, anyhow. A look inside the cover of this comic shows that it was published during Image's partnership with Malibu. Considering how early in the days of Image Supreme volume 2 came out, I have to wonder what happened to volume 1. Supreme's tears might tell us all we need to know. Abandoning projects makes them cry, Rob.

2005-05-02T14:09:00.000-04:00

Things and such

I caught Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Friday night — first time I’ve caught a movie opening night in I-can’t-say-how-long. It’s a good movie. Not great, but good, definitely watchable, buoyed a great deal by the performances. Sam Rockwell as Zaphod definitely brought up the average; I’d forgotten what a tool Zaphod is, and he definitely brought that out. It felt to me a whole lot like Sam Rockwell as Jeff Bridges as The Dude as Zaphod. Nothing much wrong with that. (Lots of folks are going to say “He’s George W. Bush!” — and kind of, he is. Rereading the book last night you notice Zaphod’s tendency to be in the right place at the right time despite any apparent short-comings.)

It’s nice to see the Henson Creature Shop still getting work, what with George Lucas abandoning the real world for CGI. The other effects were just as great, the presentation of the Guide itself incredible and hilarious, and the very simple representation of the Heart of Gold’s Improbability Drive cracked me up. I also want a toasting knife very badly.

The ending stinks, though. Compared to all the shit they went through to get to that point, having the Vogons shooting at them again seems terrifically ho-hum. And Marvin saves the day at the end of the book, so shut up about that, already. And if you’re going to have a plot about some guy wanting some gun, please consider resolving it at some point. I would have sworn the movie had another half hour to go when it stopped.

I’ve seen more than one person on the internerd complain about the Vogon ships, more specifically, how no one says anything about them being like bricks. Look, that’s descriptive narrative. Motion pictures have these pictures, see, that make a lot of that stuff redundant. It’s what kept the Lord of the Rings movies from being any more than 10 hours long. If you think someone in a movie needs to, and can, say something like “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't,” you’re a dumbass. No matter how clever and hilarious that is, it really has no place in a movie.

But yeah. Good movie, some great performances, and well done, unobtrusive effects. I like it. And a lot of folks seemed to have seen it over the weekend. It always shocks me just how many nerds and geeks there are.

Check out this mushroom house Amelie made.

Consider me jealous. She’s really good at this stuff — not that you’d know from asking her about it, but she is. And I’m terrifically proud of her, especially for dealing with a less-than-stellar professor and still managing to do as well as she did. Also, mushrooms are awesome.

In other news, buy my stuff. There’s a nice chunk of stupid ol’ Marvel Two-In-One in there. (I kept the earlier issues ‘cause it’s Steve Gerber. Sorry.)

2005-04-23T13:53:00.000-04:00

Grant Morrison Is Fucking with Me

Finally, after nearly ten years, I got my hands on a copy of The Invisibles #25 of volume one, the great Mr. Six/Division X story "And a Half Dozen of the Other" by Morrison and Mark Buckingham. It's nice to finally read creepy little Mr. Quimper's first appearance, and always good to see more of ol' Mr. Six. But that doesn't really get into how Grant Morrison is fucking with me.

Firstly is the panel to the right. Had I not gotten this issue at a time when an Amityville Horror remake is in theaters, I doubt I would have recalled it well enough to get the joke. Secondly, I read the issue last night while listening to Woody's Roadhouse (a fine radio program celebrating its fifth year this very night; click the link and tune in at midnight EST). And playing on either side of the following panel were the songs "Alligator Wine" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins and "Kickapoo Joy Juice" by the Rivingtons.

And while I was preparing that image just now, Cream's "Strange Brew" came on the radio. Auuugh. Not to mention Mr. Prince Charles's recent remarriage justaposed with ex-Princess Diana's... alien encounter. Damn you, Morrison.

2005-04-18T14:39:00.000-04:00

Look at me, I'm Gary Larson*

*Mark is not actually Gary Larson. Or any sort of artist, for that matter.

2005-04-06T16:07:00.001-04:00

Some other things

Saturday, 46 days before "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" opens on May 19, the trilogy's enthusiasts began their vigil outside Grauman's Chinese Theater.
Problem is 20th Century Fox doesn't plan to open the film at the Chinese, opting instead for the ArcLight a few blocks east. [LINK]

I guess that all the other stupid movies premiered there and it's just not morally proper if this one doesn't open there, too. IT'S A SLAP IN THE FACE! You know, a slap in the face on top of the last two shitty movies and all the cuddlebears in Return of the Jedi. I just wish for a split second these nerds would realize that Lucas isn't making these movies for them and couldn't possibly care less what they think or want. Just for a second. But they're gonna eat it up, anyhow, which, as a reader of superhero comics, all sounds distressingly fucking familiar.

Prince Charles postponed his wedding because the pope died. Henry VIII must be spinning in his grave. If there's any room in there. 'cause he's fat. Or he was. Now he's just dust, but man, that's gotta be a lot of dust. Not that I give half a dry fart about any of this. It's just amusing, is all. Catholicism's still as wacky as it's ever been, almost as wacky as "regular" christians who attempt to denounce it as satanic. Speaking of...

A couple weeks ago I saw this fellow on tv I'd seen a couple times before, a Louisville preacher/pastor fellow named Chuck Salvo.

CHUCK SALVO.

So help me Bog the man's name is CHUCK SALVO. A couple weeks before that I saw him heal a woman with rheumatoid arthritis. He said something like "Demon of rheumatoid arthritis, I rebuke you!" Then he shoved this poor old lady to the ground.

CHUCK SALVO.

I didn't even know there was a demon of rheumatoid arthritis, but if the woman's twitching and flopping gave any indication, CHUCK SALVO knocked it right the fuck out of her.

So this particular week CHUCK SALVO has the stage filled with good christian girls in black blouses and tasteful khaki pants raising their hands to and dancing for Jesus. In the midst of this, CHUCK SALVO is preaching and he name-drops Marilyn Manson. Do people still take Manson seriously? 'cause CHUCK SALVO said something about all those kids out there fornicating and listening to Marilyn Manson and then coming to church and raising their hands to Jesus. And I don't understand the hand-raising thing; the girls in khaki pants were doing it, the folks in the audience were doing it and everyone on the Jesus CD commercials does it, too. CHUCK SALVO touched one girl and she looked close to vomiting, so filled was she with the love of CHUCK SALVO, or possibly Jesus, one hand on her stomach and one limply raised to the ceiling, or possibly Heaven.

Then CHUCK SALVO told everyone to get down on their knees and ask for CHUCK SALVATION, and told everyone at home to get on their knees, too, and I almost did, 'cause CHUCK SALVO, man.

CHUCK SALVO.

It's crazier than anything I've seen on the Trinity Broadcast Network - with the possible exception of Jack and Rexella (REXELLA!) van Impe - and it's right here in my own backyard, confusing and fascinating all at once. Praise Bog. Ah-mens.

2005-04-01T13:53:00.000-05:00

Mark Presents: Spider-Man Presents: Marvel Universe Series 1 cards

Don't have much time for scanning today, so I thought I'd get this one out of the way while I've got a spare moment.

2005-04-01T13:40:00.000-05:00

Today's the day!

Hopefully this will mean more respect for comics in general and comics-to-film adaptations in particular.

Good luck, Main Man!

2005-03-31T19:22:00.000-05:00

Mark Presents: Spider-Man Presents: Marvel Universe Series 1 cards

This one's for Scott over at Polite Dissent. DOOM!

2005-03-30T15:20:00.000-05:00

Conquering the world through poetry, and also guns and bombs

Joining other such luminaries in my mini-comics collection as, uhm... that one Shadowhawk "ashcan" I just found in my closet... is Rob Osborne's "Go Forth and Conquer," a mini-comic spin-off or precursor or something to Osborne's "1000 Steps to World Domination," which is what I really wanted when I entered his "World Conquest Poetry" contest. Hey, these things are expensive, you know, and I'm not swimming in liquid assets here.

Instead I only got an honorable mention, which is cool enough, because anyone with a weblog is probably some kind of an attention whore, anyhow. I was honorably mentioned thanks to my world-famous epic "If I Had a Giant Robot Gorilla Suit..." The poem itself is nearly two years old, having been written when the phrase "giant robot gorilla suit" entered my head, refused to leave, and wormed its way out as a poem. Why a poem? because I can't draw and I was too lazy to write a script or a book, that's why. Then about a year later, in a characteristic bout of laziness, I submitted it as my first poetic piece in creative writing class. You can read about that submission, and the poem itself right here.

Or over at Rob's Weblog, Rob and the mini-comic "Go Forth and Conquer" I won for my honorable mention being the reason for writing this entry.

"Go Forth and Conquer" appeals to the "Bill & Ted" fan in me, using, as it does, historical figures in absurd situations. Well, one situation: standing around, talking about conquering the world and/or killing as many people as possible, moderated by an eyepatch-wearing Abraham Lincoln. Even with so few pages it spins out of control rather quickly, as you'd expect with such strong personalities as Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonapart, and Lord Zingo. But, as with most good comics, we learn as we laugh: Atilla's mouth waters at the thought of war. Genghis enjoys tossing the ol' pigskin around. Napoleon, much to my horror, has a hairy belly. Zingo... well, that would be telling. And ol' Honest Abe can fuckin' throw down if the situation calls for it.

It's funny. Really funny, and if its job is to make me buy more of this guy's comics, its on the payroll. I enjoyed the art, which is important as most comics think it's enough to just have witty dialogue (but there's plenty of that). The smarm of Napoleon drips off the page, repetition — a staple of humorous comics — is used to great effect, and the style overall has a bit of Keith Giffen-ness to it that appeals to my very living soul, such as it is.

So visit Rob's site and give him some money. I'm going to. Real soon. Honest.

2005-03-30T14:18:00.000-05:00

Catblogging II

This is my cat Pinto.

He's looking out the window.

2005-03-29T20:00:00.000-05:00

Mark Presents: Spider-Man Presents: Marvel Universe Series 1 cards

Here's the first of those Spider-Man Presents cards I promised a little while ago.

The next one is better. Honest. It'll be here in a couple days.

2005-03-23T17:04:00.000-05:00

Catblogging

This is my cat Samuel.

He's yawning.

2005-03-20T17:10:00.000-05:00

Cards (Or: Mark has too much fun with the scanner)

If you want to really hate comics, don't go to the Newsarama forums or the Bendis Board; don't even read actual comics. Take a trip back in time and spend an afternoon sorting through a shoebox full of trading cards.

I'd show you some of the several hundred Comic Images X-Men cards which lurked in the box, but I already fed them to the shredder, so awful were they. Has anyone ever made shittier cards than Comic Images? I've seen old-ass tobacco cards on Antiques Roadshow with better production values. And yet somehow I ended up with billions of the wretched little pieces of cardboard. I probably shredded about 200 Comic Images X-Men and Wolverine cards that I don't even remember buying. I've even got some Spider-Man cards, full sets, that I bought as sets for probably about 10-15 bucks per set. That's crazy.

And they're called "trading cards," right? Except I didn't know any one other person who collected the damn things, so I had to buy pack upon pack to get full sets, instead of having the sense — and I use that term quite loosely — to wait for the shops to put the sets together for me and just buy those. Remember that first X-Men series from Skybox, drawn by Jim Lee? I do, 'cause I bought probably a thousand packs trying to get a set, including those fucking gold holograms. I did end up with a full set, which now resides in a binder, soaking up the chemicals in the cheap plastic pages, and, going through the extras today, after 13 years, I don't even have a complete second set. I am also now crazier than a syphilitic schizophreniac.

And Marvel Universe Series 3. Good lord help me please, I bought a whole damn box of those. And I sorted through the extras of those, too, and in addition to a nowhere-near-complete second set of the 200-card series, I have billions and billions of "Atlantis Attacks," "Evolutionary War," and "I Married a Skrull" cards. Is this what's exciting to kids collecting this stuff? Spider-Man's Wedding? So I Married a Skrull? Look, man, I read those Alicia-is-a-Skrull issues of the Fantastic Four. BO-RING. Seeing five grillion cardboard reproductions of that kind of excitement is enough to send me into a syphilitic rage.

I also found in the Shoebox o' Doom a stack of Marvel Universe Series 4 cards, just a handful of packs' worth, and no full set is in my possession. They must've known just who was buying these cards, because most are part of themed nine-panel grids, perfect for stuffing them into a binder and never looking at them again. This, however, is much better than the Series 3 gimmick of a connected 100-card background of dorky computer generated spacey stuff.

Oh, man, now I'll never know who else was in Force Works!

I also, somewhat shamefully, have full set of MU Series 1 and 2. There's something fun in the Series 1 set which might be the last fun thing Marvel Comics ever did. (Except for Skrull Kill Krew. That was awesome.) I'll be showing those here soon in order to violate copyright and perhaps alleviate the pain of Avengers Disassembled and Spidey's Super Statutory Rape Stories.

But yeah, if any of you want a shit-ton of Marvel Universe Series 3 and X-Men Series 1 (JIM LEE!) cards, get in touch. A couple bucks shipping and you could have that Luke Cage shrine you always wanted.

LOOK OUT, SHE-HULK!

2005-03-18T15:00:00.000-05:00

With the begging and the pleading and the buy my stuff

Hello, friendly friends. This is me coming to plug the things I have on eBay. Not many things, not all cheap things, but things nonetheless. I know, I'm asking you to spend $130 on Alpha Flight? I sold fewer issues of Birds of Prey for more than that, so I figure it's not so bad. Also, the pity: I'm attempting to move out of here and be with my lovely and hilarious girlfriend. C'mon, help us pay our first month's rent in a new apartment. You know you want to. Look at how cute we are!

Wait a sec... those are Golden Lion Tamarins. But I'm sure you get the point.

2005-03-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

Some more things

I ran away from Death Cab for Cutie on the public radio station to find Pearl Jam on the "classic" "rock" station. I never liked Pearl Jam. Still don't, and I still balk at "alternative" stations who play them and Nirvana like it still fucking matters. But the public radio station is playing Prince now, so I'm okay. Oh, wait, now it's Carbon Leaf. Fuck. I'm waiting for these soulless sacks of whiny vaginas to hit it big any minute now. Any band with the... something... to write lines like "I've fallen apart / since the ambush on your heart" and "this is the goal: / to get into your soul" are putrid enough to take the world by storm, I don't doubt. The music industry needs to stop giving recording contracts to the guys who play guitars at lunch time in high school.

I read the hilarious and informative interview with JM DeMatteis and Kieth Giffen, two of my favorite writer guys, at All the Rage, and something occured to me:

The Defenders is pretty much Dr. Strange hangin' out with naked dudes. And I'm probably still gonna buy it.

Flipping around on tv last night before going to bed I stumbled across "Entertainers with Byron Allen." You ever seen this suck-up in action? It's intolerable, and, what's worse and weirdly enough, the show always seems to be about two or more months out of date. Is it actually a daily show that for some reason is only shown here once a week? It's all press-junket style interviews, anyhow. Fluffy and toothless, just the way People Magazine readers demand. It just irks me, is all.

2005-03-12T15:00:00.000-05:00

Flight Plan

Digging through my Alpha Flight collection — which will probably soon end up on eBay, because I've gone from "Yeah, I've got pretty much all of Alpha Flight volume one" to "Oh my god, I've got pretty much all of Alpha Flight volume one" — I came across this Flight-related subscription ad in the back of one issue. The series stayed popular for a while, and probably gained many subscribers due to this uncharacteristically honest ad. Take a look:

Click for Sasquatch size!

2005-03-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

Some things

Watched Blind Justice. Well, really I talked on the phoned with Amelie and we made fun of Blind Justice. It's really not terribly good at all. And it's the biggest comicbook rip-off since The Matrix. Okay, maybe not that big, but it's close, and the lieutenent's name is Fisk. Fisk! Someone's winking at me REAL hard, here. I can sense it with my blind guy powers.

Speaking of Amelie: "I heard a supermarket version of [Losing My Religion], and it made me laugh. I imagined the angel buying tater tots with the old guy. That made me happy."

Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four continues to be slowly ingested by me. Maaan. It's all "time bubble" this, and "Johnny possessed by a blue chick" that, and "hooking Thor's hammer up to Iron Man's repulsor rays to escape the pull of a black hole" the other. Then a Celestial shows up! And I haven't even gotten to the much-touted battle through time between Reed and Doom.

I'm not sure why they aren't releasing the bits from Tom Strong's Terrific Tales as smaller 96-page collections — "Because they get more money from the $25 hardcovers, dumbass." — oh yeah. But am I the only one who loves the crap out of Steve Moore and Alan Weiss's "Young Tom Strong" stories? They're light and fun, most concerning themselves with How Young Tom Strong Got His Freak On, which is what half of the Alan Moore growed-up Tom Strong stories turned into, anyhow. And Weiss's art (with various inkers) is wonderful, clear, and expressive. The Tom Strong stuff by Alan Moore in the front of the book is usually a fun one-off about Tom Strong, the Jonni Future stuff is only mostly so-so, but I think folks who passed on this because its an anthology would be well-served by actual collections of the individual stories. Particularly these Steve Moore and Alan Weiss tales of everyone's favorite Science Hero.

2005-02-27T12:20:00.000-05:00

You people, I swear.

I poke around the referrer log for this weblog on occasion to see what brings folks here; usually it's a link from from pal Mike, who flooded me with visitors when he linked me a couple weeks ago, or the Comic Weblog Updates Machine. And then there are search engine hits...

... like the fellow who came here via Google and the search string 'she-hulk cage fuck'. Which I guess makes sense in a "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" sort of way. Maybe the guy was looking for Heroes for Hire #17?

Not a terrible series, probably not John Ostrander's best work, though still enjoyable, goofy superstuff... but definitely no black-on-green therein. Just a bit of date-us interruptus courtesy of the Absorbing Man and Titania.

Also confusing is the fellow who came here via Yahoo! and the search string 'hoochies'. Through a link on something like the 36th page of results. Now that's persistent. And, ever helpful, Yahoo! suggests "Also try: ghetto hoochies, black hoochies". Thanks, Yahoo! I think I'll pass.

2005-02-26T18:02:00.000-05:00

Overhaul'd!

Well, maybe not exactly "overhauled," but a new template, a bit cleaner, a bit nicer, I think. Added a picture to my profile — beware my new digital camera!

Maybe I'll get around to one of those "content" posts this week. Maybe I'll stop feeling dog-ass tired from being sick. Urgh.

Oh yeah, those "Acts of Vengeance" Fantastic Four issues by Walt Simonson? Fuckin' aces. The FF spends most of their time arguing with Congress against a super-power registration act and getting attacked by lame-os like Porcupine, The Beetle, and Whirlwind. Certainly a lot better than any of the AoV issues I've read about before. I'm sort of shocked Simonson got to treat it like the joke it was. I'm also suprised that several pages of Reed Richards and the FF debating a Congressional committee read so well as it did.

2005-02-21T13:00:00.000-05:00

Just another freak

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that the only person who could take out Hunter S. Thompson is Hunter S. Thompson. Let's not kid ourselves: those of us who followed the man and his work wondered how it was going to happen.

The Good Doctor is one of the vague reasons I ocassionally attempt to write. I found his stuff sometime in college, probably, becoming slightly pissed to find out the man had grown up across the river in Louisville and I had never heard of him. It seems he did his best to beat a hasty retreat at the earliest opportunity, though, and he certainly made no friends in the Bluegrass state after that by belittling their beloved Kentucky Derby.

It's that attitude that drew me in. Something I'd been looking for in others my whole life and never quite managed to find. Someone who looked at the world and thought "something ain't quite right here," and then vocalized it long and loud. Someone who'd tell us we're being fed a line of bullshit by those who profess to know better. And someone who fed bullshit right back. Dr. Thompson was one of the first to show me opinions can, in fact and despite what I'd been taught, be wrong, and most people's are. He also managed to make reading about sports a lot less of a chore than it normally is, but I suspect that had more to do with his gambling habit than anything else.

And that's about all I can muster in my illness-induced haze. Adios, Dr. Thompson.

2005-02-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

Buyer's remorse? Nyet!

Been feeling a bit down lately, got a flu-like illness coming on, so I've been trying to soothe myself with eBay. Today I managed to snag Walt Simonson's entire Fantastic Four run.

Poking around the Grand Comics Database to check covers and see just what I'm getting myself in for, I ran across this synopsis for issue 344:

The FF battle an alternate reality cyborg Josef Stalin.

I mean, holy shit, right? If this isn't the FANTASTIC MOTHERFUCKING FOUR, I'll eat Rob Liefeld's Captain America #1.

Gotta get those Simonson Thor collections...

2005-02-14T12:24:00.000-05:00

My cousin Johnny watched me one day while Mom and Grandma were out, and my sister was god-knows-where, as was her fashion. I was probably eight or nine.

He sat on the couch, leaning forward, the knees of his lanky legs thrust almost up to his face.

"Hey, Johnny," I said. "Mom told me you got kicked by a horse."

"Yeah, man, check this out." And he lifts his shirt to show me the shockingly not-faint impressions of horseshoe prints on his chest. It's not often you get to see a thing like that.

I didn't see Johnny much, but that's how I remember him. Always smiling, an easy-going guy, one of the many family members I've had who never talked down to me or treated me like a little kid — though I still get reminders that I was the baby of the family for so long.

Johnny killed himself this past Friday, after a long fight with drugs and depression. He was 39, oldest son of my uncle's wife, and a hell of a guy.

That's part of why this hurts so badly. So many of us loved Johnny so much, and would have moved mountains and rivers to help him, but we couldn't. It'd been years since I saw him, but if he'd have called me or my mom or sister out of the blue, we would have dropped everything. I know how awful depression can be. I know how alone you can feel. I know this stuff, it's in my head, but it's just hard to understand.

Yesterday was his funeral. I'd gone all my life without going to one, and at 27 it was still very difficult. I was there a couple of hours before I could go see Johnny, say goodbye, and apologize for having to see him like this after not seeing him for so long. "It's no way to see a guy," I told him. Another one of our weird rituals as social animals, I guess. And it makes me feel naive and stupid. There's Johnny, right there, the guy we loved so much, and there's not a fucking thing we can do about it.

I can't pretend to know what happens when we die. I can barely pretend we're much more than bags of meat and chemicals cursed with these brains of ours. But my aunt told us that in his note Johnny said he can't get hurt anymore. She said he's safer now than he's been in years, and I'm going to hope for the rest of my life that it's true.

Rock on, Johnny. We love you.

Dug-up Comics: Fantastic Four vs. The X-Men 1-4

2005-02-07T13:20:00.000-05:00

Writer: The 'Mont
Pencils: Jon Bogdanove
Inks: Terry Austin
Letters: Tom Orzechowski

So, imagine someone says to you "Hey, internet guy or gal... c'mon a-my House of Ideas and write a story about the Fantastic Four fighting the X-Men. How's that sound?" Cherry gig, right? (I think the kids still say "cherry" and "gig". "The kids." What am I, Milton Berle?)

I mean, here you have two of the great iconic teams of superhero comics: One the loving family ready to do whatever it takes to save the world or each other, and the other a team of outcasts thrown together by genetic circumstance and a desire to bang redheads. (What? C'mon, try to act like you don't know Cyclops, Wolverine, and Charles Xavier all hunger for a slice o' Jean Grey's fire pie.)

Now imagine it's 1987, you're Chris Claremont, and you don't know the internet from an innertube. Now imagine you're a pretty twirly princess. Okay, that's good. Go back to the Claremont thing. You can keep the dress if you want. Imagine that, and you'd give us this story that's sort of about family, but mostly about a wispy, naked Kitty Pryde (oh, god, the search engine hits) and a crying Franklin Richards.

It seems like every random X-Men issue I pick up, either something horrible and senses-shattering(!) is happening or something horrible and senses-shattering(!) just happened and everyone's talking about it. Let's see... Uncanny X-Men 137? Yup, fighting on the moon, Jean dies. And there's one I've got somewhere wherein the X-Men are living in Australia and everyone thinks they're dead. And for whatever reason I read the first appearances of Jubilee and Gambit and, well, y'know. Jubilee. And Gambit. Tragic.

Drink it in, nerds.

This mini-series is no exception. Seems that in some issue of the regular X-Men series (this was back in the days when there was actually something you could call "the regular series") the X-Crew got their asses whupped by the Marauders. I think I saw the Marauders in an issue of OHOTMU once. All I remember is a generic-looking guy in grey with big elephant feet and some long-haired guy in a body stocking. Not only did these retreads beat up the X-Men, but, OH NOES! Kitty Pryde got her ass kicked so hard she's gone intangible and translucent! She's a living ghost! She dresses in purple and rides a white horse! Wait, no, she hangs out in one of those giant test tubes that all fictional scientists have. And — wait for it! — the only one who can save her is the greatest fictional scientist of all: REED RICHARDS! THE GUY FROM THE FANTASTIC FOUR WHO HAVE THEIR NAME ON THE COVER!

But it actually starts with Franklin having a bad dream about a book. The book, the little Aryan boy's dream tells him, will tear apart his family! It's a bad book! Very bad! What is it? It's alleged to be Reed Richard's diary, containing musings on mutation and Charles Xavier — because it's an X-Men cross-over, natch — and the effects cosmic rays might have on him, his best friend, his girlfriend, and her brother. What...? Reed did this all on PURPOSE!? Well, no, he didn't, but that's what this faux-diary says, and since there wouldn't be any tension otherwise, Ben, Sue and Johnny take it at its word. There also wouldn't be any tension if Reed had faith enough in his big brain to use the molecular recohesivator he just happened to be working on... which can save Kitty Pryde's life!

Sue Storm, like many women, chose to get back at her husband by blasting off her clothes with an invisible forcefield and appearing naked on the internet.

Besides She-Hulk taking Sue's place for the mission to save Ms. Pryde (after the obligatory fight-'n'-team-up with Magneto, which is preceeded by Jennifer studying for a mock trial of, who else, Magento), something should be said about this iteration of the X-Men: It sucks. Magneto in all his puffy purple-shirted glory, Dazzler, Longshot, Havok, Mullet-Rogue, Dazzler, Wolverine, Storm, Dazzler, Brit-Psylocke, and Dazzler. There's a brief shot of Nightcrawler and Colossus laid up in an infirmary, and... the guy who can teleport, the guy made of metal, and the intangible girl all got their clocks cleaned? And we're stuck with Dazzler? Miss Turns-Light-into-Sound? Somehow, I'm okay with eyebeams and telekinesis, but I always get hung up on this one. And somehow, when Doctor Doom comes along with a similar molecular recombobulator to save Kitty when Richards won't, Dazzler is the only one who says "Hey, guys, I fought Doom and he's a meanie. This is bad." Surely she's not the only one here who's fought Doom. And surely he would have put on some sunglasses and strangled her to death.

And that covers something like the first half of the mini-series. The rest is a bit more tedious. You ever write a paper for school as you read whatever's been assigned? Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. Let's see... X-Men fight some Doomsentries, Franklin astral-projects himself and hangs out with Kitty (which is kinda creepy), Ben drinks some coffee and saves some kid, Johnny hangs out with Alicia and she gives him some noble speech about loving his heart even though he burnt Storm up, and the rest of the FF decide that even if Reed is a dick, he's their dick and they'll hang out with him no matter what, and Doom makes with the sinister posing while healing Storm's burnt arm. Although Johnny Human Torch only grazed her upper arm, the whole thing ends up covered in burns. Doesn't matter, though, because in the MU a painful, potentially debilitating injury like a burn can be healed in a snap with the help of your local megalomaniac. No burn too big or too small!

Suck it, Wolverine.

And issue four... blah blah blah, think think think. I'm not one of those folks who minds thought balloons, but I swear there's something like 5,000 words worth of the damn things in these four issues, most of them focused on Reed's tortured, whiny, self-pitying internal monologue. If he'd stop thinking for five seconds and, I dunno, say out loud how that's not his journal and, y'know, they just saw Dr. Doom and it's probably something he did, this would've been a whole lot shorter. But consider this is coming from a reviewer who's never had an internal monologue much longer than "butt itches... ah, scratch... hungry... yay, Pringles." We do, however, get the best Thing/Wolverine fight ever where the ol' Canucklehead goes down like Guy Gardner. It's marred a bit by Rogue spouting the old 'hit 'em hard and fast" crap beforehand. Did Claremont have a rubber stamp for some of this stuff?

The rest is just Doom and Reed babbling about pseudo-science and the X-Men throwing their powers around. Oh, and Franklin pouting and showing that he's stupid enough to stand between his father and Doctor Doom. And we're supposed to believe a kid making puppy eyes will make Doom turn away? I call "Doombot" on that one.

It takes Sue nearly four issues to realize Doom planted that diary. Kitty's still a foggy broad in a tube, but she's been "stabalized" and will coalesce gradually. If I had spent a buck fifty an issue on this back in 1987 I'd've been pissed. The paper's nice, though, and has held up well. And Jon Bogdanove draws a pretty cool She-Hulk, whatever the hell she's doing in this story.

My upraised middle finger is the focused totality of my disdain for X-Men comics not written by Grant Morrison. Skip this unless you find it in a dime bin or maybe laying on the sidewalk somewhere.

BONUS "CRYING FRANKLIN RICHARDS" GALLERY

2005-01-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

No one's home, kupo!

There's a recurring element to action/RPG videogames that's always disturbed me, and I'm not quite sure why. It's bothered me ever since I played — and sucked at — Dragon Warrior as a kid. I ventured farther than perhaps I should have at such a low level, mostly because I never made it to a high level, very glad to see a town in the distance. I stroll in, look around for an inn to keep myself from dying, and a goddamn werewolf jumps on me. "Oh, man," I probably thought. "That's just not right. I should be safe here!" And ever since then, abandoned towns have given me the willies.

Final Fantasy III — second only to Chrono Trigger in the Best RPG's Mark Has Ever Played List — took the "abandoned town" concept a bit further when batshit insane Lieutenant Kefka became Batshit Insane All-Powerful Kefka, charred the entire planet, and scattered all the game's characters across the globe. I still hate Kefka to this day. (Final Fantasy V, unreleased in the US except on a Playstation compilation, had its own Creepy Town Stuck in Time, complete with unmoving, unresponsive townspeople. It's even creepier when you go through a dimensional warp and find them all alive and well and moving around.)

Going into the future in Chrono Trigger only creeped me out a bit. The complete desolation of it all left me sort of numb to the whole thing. Plus there were robots. Well, one robot, anyhow, who didn't try to kill you. The rest was rats and mutants.

Some of the worst I've seen was in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Link travels into the future to find Hyrule fairly destroyed, the worst of it centered on the castle and its immediate surroundings. Hanging out in the town square with those screaming, grabby, lanky guys was not my idea of fun. Neither was, as young Link, climbing down into a well to find an dungeon covered in slime and blood. What the hell, Nintendo?

Most recently I've picked up Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, which hews a bit closer to Secret of Mana than to the earlier Final Fantasy games I'm used to. There's a town in this game which, much like in Dragon Warrior, I was unaware lay in ruins before entering. It's dark, covered in massive cobwebs, and absolutely crawling with monsters. Little goblin guys and skeleton guys, floating Bombs that explode when ya kill 'em, and GINORMOUS worm-things with big flailing antenna. The creatures complement the run-down houses nicely. And all because the lazy townsfolk couldn't keep their crystal greased up. Tsk.

All of this so I can say: I want to play Resident Evil 4, but I'm a huge wimpy wuss and I'm a-scairt. That whole thing looks like an abandoned town. But I hear blowing zombies' heads off has never been more fun. Or scary.

I guess I'm just gonna be a big sissy and play Harvest Moon for a while. Nice cow... gooood cow...

2005-01-19T20:00:00.000-05:00

Probably needs more Haney

Oh, man, did anyone else see this? It's ACTION-PACKED! It's MORE THRILLING ACTION IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER! I'm RUNNING OUT OF WAYS to EXPRESS EXCITEMENT! It's Young Avengers, and this time, it's, uhm... well, it's eight pages of people talking. Not only that, it's eight pages of Jessica Jones talking. Doesn't she talk enough in her own book, which I've had piling up the last -- how long has The Pulse been going? A year? But on flip-through looks like a lot of talking? "Who the FUCK are the Young Avengers?" J. Jonah Jamesson asks on the first page, which is... a picture of the team on the front of a newspaper. Not exactly exploding onto the scene, is it?

Okay, fine, I didn't actually read this whole preview. But only 'cause I'm not gonna read the actual book.

Have fun, completist nerds.

ChaosMonkey's Abysmal Pit, by Mark Hale

Hello to Comics, Interlude 1: Hello to VIDEO GAME ADS!

Hello to Comics, Part 3: Hello to THE TRANSFORMERS!!

Hello to Comics, Part 2: Hello to THE BIBLE!

Hello to Comics, Part 1: Hello to Comics!

Some words from John DiBello about the San Diego Comic-Con

Happy Birthday, Chris!

For a Serious America

Friday Night Fights: Off-Panel but not Forgotten.

The call is coming from INSIDE YOUR MIND!

The Forever People: Proto-Hipsters

Director's Cut!

50,000 Bendis Fans Can't Be Wrong

Steve Gerber

PSA

A "Special" Presentation

Question of the week:

"I AM SHOOTING GOOD WISHES AT YOU!"

Good Grief: More Satan's Boners

Friday Night Fights - Round 5!

Friday Night Fights - Uppercut!!! Round 2

Friday Night Fights - The "J." stands for...

MY BATMANS

Friday Night Fights! - Round 7

Friday Night Fights! - Round Six

Mama Meme-a!

Friday Night Fights - Round Five

Friday Night Fights! Round Four!

Fuwa, I Choose You!

Friday Night Fights - Round 2!

Dear Marvel Comics

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

The New Adventures of Kokey

Up and at Them!

For Kevin

Taxicab Repressions

Midget Mayhem

This Issue: Batman Gets Bitchslapped By a Nazi Robot In Scotland

What's Distracting Patricia?

Avengers Annual 21 presents:

YELLING!

Another Happy-Making Thing

Things that Make Me Happy:

"Just let me just Deezen by you!"

Talking Gorilla Theater

Tonight on PBS

Happy Birthday, Alan Thicke!

This issue: Batman Punches an Eagle

Happy Valentine's Day!

Don't Stop Remembering

Always Remember

Lord Naga-Naga Digs This Day

The Book of Daniel-San

You're WAY off, kid.

Pluggin'

I really like the Silver Surfer

The Best Corner Box Ever

Things about this cover:

Pinkoman

From the "Taking What I Can Get" Dept.

Comics I Shouldn't Own: Fatale #1

Meme Machine Go

This Blog, This Monster!

Our supplier's mistake is YOUR GAIN!

Ultracovers!

How could they forget Warstrike?

We're all DOOMED!

Ooh, culture

"Pulse-pounding"? Not exactly.

Bits and pieces

Sometimes...

Comics I Shouldn't Own:Supreme v. 2, #1

Things and such

Grant Morrison Is Fucking with Me

Look at me, I'm Gary Larson*

Some other things

Mark Presents: Spider-Man Presents: Marvel Universe Series 1 cards

Today's the day!

Mark Presents: Spider-Man Presents: Marvel Universe Series 1 cards

Conquering the world through poetry, and also guns and bombs

Comics I Shouldn't Own:
Supreme v. 2, #1