Lost Killer Puppy

Not really comic related, but it made me laugh, originally posted at Dogatar.

http://dogatar.com/lost-killer-puppy/Do

Comics Shipping for 4/1/09

DARK HORSE COMICS

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #24
Who Wants to be a Superhero: The Defuser

DC COMICS

Authority #9
Bang Tango #3 (of 6)
Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Man Bat #1
Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazan #4
Dead Romeo #1 (of 6)
Flash: Rebirth #1 (of 5)
Greatest Hits #6 (of 6)
Haunted Tank #5 (of 5)
Jonah Hex #42
Justice Society of America #25
Looney Tunes #173
MAD Classics #25
Mighty #3
Preacher #1 – Special Edition
Prototype #1 (of 6)
Scalped #27
Seaguy: The Slaves of Mickey Eye #1 (of 3)
Strange Adventures #2 (of 8 )
Superman and Batman #57
Teen Titans #69
Teen Titans: Annual
Trinity #44

IMAGE COMICS
Astounding Wolfman #14
Cyblade #4
Jersey Gods #3
Killer of Demons #2 (of 3)
Noble Causes #40
Savage Dragon #146

MARVEL COMICS
Agents of Atlas #3
Amazing Spiderman #590
Astonishing Tales #3
Avengers: Invaders #9 (of 12)
Black Panther 2 #3
Cable #13
Captain America Comics, 70th Anniversary Special #1
Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2 (of 5)
Dead of Night Featuring Werewolf by Night #4 (of 4)
Deadpool #9
Destroyer #1 (of 5)
Dr. Doom: Masters of Evil #3 (of 4)
Franklin Richards: April Fools
Invincible Iron Man #12
Marvel Assistant Size Spectacular #1 (of 2)
New Avengers: Reunion #2 (of 4)
Official Index to the Marvel Universe #4
Secret Warriors #3
Universal War One Revelations #1 (of 3)
War of Kings #2
X-Men First Class Finals #3 (of 4)

OTHER PUBLISHERS
Angel Blood and Trenches #2
Army of Darkness #18
Betty #179
Boys #29
Buckaroo Banzai Origins
Cars Rookie #1 (of 4)
Farscape #4
GI Joe #4
GI Joe Movie Prequel #2
Glamourpuss #6
Gravel #10
Irredeemable #1
Knights of the Dinner Table #149
Masquerade #2
Pals N Gals Double Digest #130
Sabrina Vol. 2 #101
Shrapnel #4
Star Trek: Countdown #4
Star Trek: Crew #2
Tales from the Crypt #11
Transformers: Maximum Dinobots #4
Transformers Spotlight: Jazz

Some items of interest this week include part 3 of the Deadpool/Thunderbolts crossover Magnum Opus.   Several DC miniserieses ending this week.  New Avengers: Reunion is out again this week, but frankly I disliked the first so much I probably won’t even look at it.  Otherwise it looks like a slow week for the big 2, they’ve already gotten their big titles out recently, so we’ll have to wait for next week,

Who’s a Winner in Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Comic Awards

Nickelodeon’s has started their own comic awards bit.  The Nickaloedeon Magazine Comic Awards.  The twist in this one?  The awards were all chosen by polling kids.  The catagories were pretty standard, with the exception of “best hair in comics,” and the “grossest thing in comics.”  Something called a Diary of a Wimpy Kid showed up twice, including “best graphic novel” so maybe it’s looking into.  Best hair obviously went to Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.  The Simpsons Comic was voted best comic series, and Snoopy was voted the cutest comic character.  It’s good to see that some classics are still getting recognition among kids.  Otherwise it was pretty uninspiring, with a bit of statistical inaccuracy mixed in.  Some catagories were only availiable for voting via online and cell phone ballots, so the same pool of children did not vote on all the awards.  Nothing majorly wrong with this, per se, but as a math and science person, this is the kind of stuff I notice.

Review: Deadpool #8

It’s so refreshing to see Deadpool with his own series again.  I have to admit, for all my love of Thor and the Cap being such amazing heroes, Marvel has some damn great anti-heroes, most certainly including Deadpool, who always sets off with the intention of selling to the highest bidder, and more often than not, tends to come home with no cash at all because much to his dismay, he did something stupid… like the ‘right thing.’

Lead up to the Story

Deadpool has been engaging in shenanigans as usual, been jumped by random b and c list villains, most recently Tiger Shark, out smarted friend and foe alike, and served up enemies to zombies.  Through all of this, he’s found out that both his friend Bob and Tiger Shark were hired to take him out.  The hit was put out by none other than Norman Osborn, or Oscorp.  Basically, if you weren’t paying attention, Norman Osborn is the new Tony Stark and runs the new SHIELD (called HAMMER).  He tricked the world into thinking he was a savior by killing the Scrull queen, using information that Deadpool got for Nick Fury.  All in all, Deadpool is pissed, and this is part 1 of what we can hope is a good old showdown at noon.

Plot Synopsis

Daniel Way has Deadpool begins his assault on Stark Tower.. Osborn Tower?  I don’t know.  He’s assaulting it anyway (this review is starting to sound more and more like a Deadpool comic).  As I said above, this is the first part of the story arc, called Magnum Opus, and is part 1 of 4.  It starts with just a little back story, and goes straight into action really.  Deadpool initially runs into some robotic traps, steals the Iron Man chest piece, throws some bad hair jokes Osborn’s direction, and begins his ascent.  We are then plunged into a classic Deadpool hallucination.  This one is a Jack and the Beanstalk parody, and although it is only a few pages in length, it falls sort of flat.  Not that it is bad, it just seems to be an unnessessary stopping point in the story, a storyline bottle neck of sorts.  As unfortunately for us that it does, things start going worse for Deadpool when he gets into a fight with his inner monologue, or readers.  I can never tell if the white boxes are supposed to be readers, a voice in his head, and if the yellow boxes are him thinking.  No matter what the case, they’re ignoring him, because when he reaches the top, it’s not Osborn who’s waiting for him, it’s the Thunderbolts.

Art Critique

The art is pretty well done, Paco Medina has the Deadpool look down to a T.  Explosions, guns, action scenes, he can do them with great skill.  Basically, everything that you are most likely to encounter in a standard issue of Deadpool.  Sometimes faces are an issue, and can come out disproportional (for example, see the recap page), but this is the exception rather than the rule.  The hallucination, which I mentioned was not my favourite part of the story, really gives Medina a chance to shine, and he takes it.  Everything is much more comic than usual, and I mean that in two ways.  First, it’s absolutely ridiculous, which is awesome, the adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk is right on target.  Secondly, if you look behind the action, you’ll see that the background is actually made up of dots, as the old comics and newspapers were.  The only major criticism that I have is that when Deadpool takes the Iron Man chest piece, it’s not immediately apparent.  I had to look back and check a few times, and maybe this was intentional, but there could have been a larger colour and size difference.  That said however, the third page or so, the full page spread with Deadpool decked out to assault Stark/Osborn tower is pretty fantastic, it’s always great to see how each artist will render Deadpool fully equipped for action.

Is it Worth Buying?

I would say absolutely, this looks to be a good story arc.  We know that Daniel Way can write a good story, and he’s set it up perfectly for a high action comic in the next issue, with a great cliffhanger.  Even to non-deadpool fans, I would recommend picking up the next few issues of Deadpool.  The story is great, the art is great.  Daniel Way has come into his own with his ability to deliver one-liners befitting Deadpool, with just enough humor, and a few thrown in there that probably only make sense to Deadpool himself.  I will be looking forward to the next issue, to see how the merc with a mouth settles the score not only with the Thunderbolts, but also with the voices in his head.

EDIT: Magnum Opus is Deadpool 8-9 and Thunderbolts 130-131.

Reasons to Dislike the Watchmen

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I noticed the first time I saw watchmen (the second time I went during work/school hours, and it was empty, something Scott Kurtz might have preferred), quite a few people got up and left.  I’ve been mulling over in my mind not just the obvious “I didn’t like the attempted rape scene,” because any two-bit pundit can do that, but delving deeper into the reasons why some were so appalled by the film that they chose to leave.  So dedicated am I to providing absolute top quality blogging that I have done the unfathomable, I have come up with reasons to dislike the watchmen…

All verbosity and showmanship aside, the question of why people were so affronted or bored by The Watchmen that they decided that they would burn the $10.75 they spent, rather than sit through the rest of the movie is a topic worth addressing.  I mean, c’mon, less people walked out of Batman and Robin than the Watchmen from what I saw!  The first, and most obvious reason that people may have been offended is simply that we as a population are pretty desensitized to seeing breasts, or even full frontal nudity on women.  This movie had penises, and lots of them at that however, none were real though, I don’t think so anyway, most looked CGI or prosthetic.  Pretty immediately you are exposed to Dr. Manhattan, who lives and works in the nude, and let’s be honest, nude men are not all that photogenic.

Moving swiftly and gracefully away from male nudity (or at least, I am, you may linger if you so choose), we move onto the fact that the Watchmen deals with a whole host of generally uncomfortable, or generally avoided topics, such as child murder, more realistic violence, and rape.  Herein lies the true core of why many viewers were shocked by the Watchmen.  The movie-going population has become used to the idea of a superhero movie, we are getting inundated with them recently, and most are fun action movies with some corny one-liners that are really typical of 80’s-90’s authors.  This was an Alan Moore comic turned movie, and a faithful one at that, not V for Vendetta.  This was written as a progressive “in your face” novel.  We are used to bones breaking in movies, but they’re always in a jacket, or the skin doesn’t break.  I’ve got news for you, that’s not how it works.  I have heard many complaints about the scene between the Comedian and Jupiter, about how it was too much, or not appropriate for the movies.  My response to this has been to remind them that this is a rated R movie, and for good reason.  If you’re going to see a movie, and you’re unsure about it, the best course of action is to look a little bit into the subject material first.  A few chapters into Watchmen, and you’ll soon find that it’s not your average superhero flick.

Another general quality of the modern super hero movie is that feeling inside you that in the end, the good guy won.  Today’s culture does not seem to appreciate the old style of film noir.  And the Watchmen goes even one step further beyond that, the Watchmen is ambiguous, it’s not even a cliffhanger.  Nobody has any idea if Rorschach’s journal does get published, or if anyone believes a word of it, it IS Rorschach after all.  Even beyond this notion lies the uncertainty about if the ‘villain’ was evil or not, or even if Rorschach was ‘good.’  Make no mistake, this is intentional, beyond the plot, subplot, and everything else, it is by firm believe that Alam Moore wrote the Watchmen to make his readers question what they saw, to make them think and reach beyond their comfort zone, something we should all try to do from time to time.  In this he was successful.

There is a line in the book, as well as the film, in which a news reporter states that “God exists, and he is American,” he then goes on to say that if this makes you a little uncomfortable, then you should not worry “it only means that you are still sane.”  The same can be applied to the Watchmen.  If the scenes of graphic violence, attempted rape, and child murder made you even slightly uncomfortable, you should know that it’s ok, it means you are still rational.

No Comics?!??!????!!!

I’m not sure if I can remember the last time this happened.  I went to my local comic shop, and asked them to deliver unto me the contents of my box.  However, my box was empty.  Surely you jest!  I protested, but alas, it turns out that zero comics that I read were released this week.  I was particularly surprised by this, because last week only the New Avengers was in my box.  I can feel that the remaining three wednesdays could be particularly heavy in terms of comic reading, and that’s just fine by me.  So instead, I’ve spent the last week, and presumably this week, reading trades (and studying for the GRE’s).  I’ve finished (finally) Watchmen, and am working on Ronin and Green Lantern: Wanted: Hal Jordan.  What comics did you get this week?  Is there anything particularly good that I should pick up?

No Comics Today!

I know I mentioned it yesterday, but I wouldn’t want any of my readers to miss it and end up at their local comic book store only to find there are no comics today.  For example, I have to drive half an hour to the closest comic store.  Just so we’re clear, because of Thanksgiving, comic delivery day is Thursday, December the 4th.

November Wrap Up

Here’s a wrap up of November 2008, in case you missed any of it.  First off, November heralded my return to Your Comic Relief.  Beginning with a discussion of Least I Could Do, a very popular webcomic which is now updating a whopping seven times a week!  There was of course also the weekly lolcat posting, personally I thought this was the best.

There were two big features in November.  The first was my Top 6 list of Marvel titles for to be thankful for this thanksgiving.  Featuring Captain America best marvel title of the year.  Coming in second on the list was Iron Man, who has recently published its last issue of the series.  I am seriously ticked about this, Iron Man was a fantastic publication, and with rubbish like Hulk out there, it’s unbelievable.  By the way, the offer for anyone interested to write a post about the top 6 DC titles is still on the table.  If you are interested, leave a comment or write me an email at yourcomicreliefblog[at]gmail[dot]com.

Also big this past month was my indoctrination into the Green Lantern Corps.  Under the sage advice of many follow comic readers and bloggers, I have now read my first Green Lantern trade, and will be picking up more in the future!

Dine and Ditchers owned by Facebook

Not strictly about comics.  Not about comics at all, but it is pretty funny.  So, some kids went to a resteraunt, and ordered loads of food, wine, etcetera.  Then went out for a smoke, and never came back.  End of story?  The resteraunt manager finds them on facebook, forces them to pay, and they get fired from their resteraunt job (at a different establishment of course).

That’s all for today, heading down to Virginia for the day/night to visit a friend.

Review: Green Lantern: Rebirth

Before beginning, I would like to offer up thanks to Crackerbob, Chris, and kcgadiyar who came to my aid in my hour of need.  This was written by Geoff Johns, drawn by Ethan Van Sciver, and inked by Prentis Rollins.  I picked up the Green Lantern: Rebirth trade today at the advisement of the above mentioned commenters, and I think I liked it.  I say I think because I had no idea what was going on for the first few pages…. issues… ok, I was clueless for the entire first half but I think I worked it out in the end.  There’s a guy with a ring, except there are lots of guys that could have a ring if the guy dies (there used to be lots of them), but if the guy isn’t really dead or his body might be in the sun but then again it’s in a coffin in the Justice League maybe-secret (I’m not sure but it’s pretty big so maybe not) hideout.  So if there are guys cause the first guy died but then he comes back they can still hangout with their rings…. and stuff.

In all seriousness, I liked it.  Even though I was totally clueless for the first half, it was good.  The story was good once it got rolling, Green Arrow was cool, Batman was kinda a dick.  The idea of the Green Lantern, and the Corps has always interested me, the whole space odessy thing, with all the different lanterns.  It has a Star Wars-esque sort of feel for me, and I really love Star Wars.  I think the main problem for me following the book was they they often refer to each other by their real names, which I am not familiar with yet, but also because there were multiple parallel story lines going on which were all connected, but not in the ways I understood.  Once I went back and re-read them after finishing the book, it was much more lucid.

The Art was very top notch.  Everything was so detailed and sharp.  As I read a comic I often like to stop and appreciate the work the artist has put into each panel; notice which non-dialogue characters they chose to show in the background, and from what angle they visualized the situation.  Van Sciver absolutely delivered in giving me something to look at and be entertained by.  He managed to strike that difficult to obtain balance between having a busy background that distracts from the action/plot, and having a boring background, which really makes a comic seem bland and something you just want to speed through.

I can see that Green Lantern will definately be something I will be picking up in the future.