Breasticles, Testicles, Wallet and Watch!

This is the story of Stanley DeMcMacsonianovskivich, an average bloke working a dead end job and looking for a way out. After years and years of typing the same form letter he finally has enough. Stanley comes up with the brilliant idea that you should work at what you love. He thinks about this long and hard and comes to the realization that he loves breasts. All kinds of them. Small ones, large ones, limp ones, firm ones and even old ones. This is supposed to be the big punch line in the book I think. Ha ha so funny.

Stanley decides to open his own business of custom bras. This is another of those moments in the book where I think I am suppose to give out one of those huge belly laughs....well I didn't. His business takes off and women come from all around to have this fat lumpy bloke squeeze, tug and measure their breasts. The sad thing about this comic is that is the main story line and we are all supposed to be laughing by this point, watching him help these poor women out with their sad stories about how their breasts are too big, or too small or whatever. IT'S NOT FUNNY!

Stanley makes tons of money throughout the next few years, hiring more employees and expanding into a new building. This is where the big climax is. When you hear how lame this is, you might want to shoot yourself, but let me assure you it's not as bad hearing about it, as it is READING THE FUCKING THING!

When the 1960's come around women start to burn their bras, HOLY SHIT! How funny is that? NOT AT ALL REALLY! Well women stop buying his bras and he goes out of business. He ends up down at the bar drinking himself blind for a few months and then he decides to kill himself, which was a thought I had after reading this comic, and he succeeds.

Here is the giant super funny ending we have all been waiting for. He kills himself and somehow ends up in heaven but I can look past that I guess. I looked past all the parts that were supposed to make me laugh so what's new? Anyways he arrives in heaven and all these bare breasted angels are sitting around having an argument over not being able to get a good breast massage up in heaven. Stanley smiles and tells the angels that he could help them out and we are lead to believe that he is going to spend the rest of eternity massaging beautiful angel breasts. WHOA SO FUCKING FUNNY! I nearly pissed myself from laughing so hard.

So what kind of funny book is this? Well I can tell you, it's a terribly UNFUNNY funny book. There are actually no laugh out loud moments in the whole thing. I should have guessed from the guy who brought us all Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys, both of those comedy gold. Robert Goodin is an okay writer, but he's NOT funny at all in this book. The drawings are fucking terrible and the jokes are worse than those brought out in "Marvel Apes". Tek Jansen is fucking Eddie Murphy compared to this book.

This was the biggest waste of $4 I have had this year. I even liked "Cable" #1 better than this piece of feces. Don't waste your money, time or sanity on this book. If you want something really funny go out and get yourself a copy of "Harry Johnson" if you want a few laugh out loud moments in a comedy Comic Book. This was a pile of shit plain and simple.

What's more is that this guy can really draw women and their breasts...and it's funny as hell.

After reading this 32 page story I found there were two other stories in the back of the book. Both of them very unfunny, but still a shit ton funnier than "The Man Who Loved Breasts". I won't bore you with the details and the titles of these stories, because honestly I have tried to purge my mind of this whole book. One of them had a quaint idea it tried to pull off for five or so pages which should have been two tops. A man goes into a Sperm bank (already funnier than TMWLB) and has to jack himself off in the booth but when offered a magazine to use for inspiration, he has a strange fetish for looking at amputee porn. Now I found this actually pretty funny, at least the idea of it, well that's because mentally I am 12, but it's poorly executed. First thing is the GUY behind the counter at the Sperm Bank should have been a women and if I were writing it, she would have been missing a leg or something, that would have made for a much more interesting read in my mind, and a hell of a lot funnier.

The second story is about a kid cartoonist who somehow travels back in time and is brought before the King to try and prove he's really from the future. The kid tells the King about all the advancements in the future and the King is impressed. He offers the kid a chance to stay out of the dungeons by telling him about these advancements. The King asks him about gunpowder, medicine and various other things and the cartoonist/writer can't tell him how any of them work, so he's thrown into the dungeon anyways. This story isn't funny at all either, but at least it has a more original story line than the main story. I guess he's trying to say that cartoonist are fucking stupid idiots that know nothing of the world around them. I can see why he thinks that way, Robert Goodin is fucking clueless as to what is funny that's for sure.

Storyline - 1.5 I give it an extra .5 because I have to admit the title made me pick it up.

Artwork - 1, It's terrible looking. They should have gotten someone who understands the female body to draw all these breasts. A little color would have worked too.

Michael

Let's Play: "Where's My Dignity?"

Folks, it's time for America's favorite new game show: Wheres My Dignity??? Three legendary comic creators saw their signature creations come to a recent close and marshalled a "comeback" this year.

It's quite clear that all three are embarrassing themselves and soiling their legacy with these new atrocities. The only question that remains is: which former icon has flushed their reputation the worst and left muttering to themselves "where's my dignity"?

Let's take a closer look at our contestants: Terry Moore, Jeff Smith, and Dave Sim.




Contestant # 1: Terry Moore

Claim to Fame: Strangers in Paradise

This comic book "chick flick" broke all the rules and found a die-hard audience without capes, powers, swords, or sorcery. Moore essentially made a soap opera into a comic book franchise that ran from 1993 - 2007. He inexplicably found a way to make readers care about a character named Katchoo. (Bless you) Very impressive

The New Book: Echo, Abstract Studios

Why It Sucks:

Echo tells the story of Julie, a photographer caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The government is testing an experimental flying suit, and when a test flight goes wrong, Julie ends up bonding to a piece of the shrapnel.

So now a shadowy group is after her symbiotic artifact and trying to kill her in the progress. Not bad, huh? Yeah. That's a pretty good story. Except I liked it better the first time I read it... when it was called Witchblade.

Uninspired genre tripe for 50 cents more per issue. No thanks. And while Witchblade had artists like Michael Turner and Mike Choi going for it, Echo features simplistic and sloppy backgrounds that appear rushed and amateur.



Contestant # 2: Jeff Smith


Claim to Fame: Bone

Bone came from out of nowhere and quickly became the biggest self-published juggernaut since TMNT. Multiple Eisner awards and many years of critical acclaim followed smith as he published this fantasy-comedy 1991-2004.

The New Book: Rasl, Cartoon Books

Why It Sucks:

Smith's cartoony style does not lend itself to this sci-fi adventure chronicling the adventures of a time-travelling art thief.

The concept isn't bad, but you're certainly not getting much bang for your buck. Smith specializes in splash pages and 4-panel jobs that don't move the story along quickly enough. This book desperately needs some exposition and dialogue - it reads in about three minutes.

Dull, droll, and did I mention it comes out once every fortyear? I think I'll take a pass.



Contestant # 3: Dave Sim

Claim to Fame: Cerebus

Let's face it: Dave Sim is the man. Certifiable and a raging misogynist? Shoor. But the fact of the matter is that the guy put self-publishing on the map, and put out 300 high-quality issues of Cerebus on time every time. He never sold out, and took a cue from Sinatra and did it his way.

The New Book: Glamourpuss

Why It Sucks:

How doesn't this suck? Dave. Buddy. The desire to draw photo-realistic teenage girls is good cause for seeking professional help. It is NOT a good reason to sucker thousands of loyal followers into spending $4.00 massaging your massive ego and indulging your Lolita complex.

Again, sir: DO seek help. Do NOT continue to publish this nonsense, which is in no way meaningful, entertaining, or healthy. That is all.

The Verdict

So who has the most cause for shame? The easy choice would be Sim, seeing as how he has gone quite starkers. But then, we always knew he was insane, so has he really fallen the farthest? I leave that decision up to you, dear reader.

One thing is for certain, though. The mighty have indeed fallen...

-Ryan

Old Man Logan

This eight issue story arc (starting with Wolverine #66) from Mark Miller is set 50 plus years in the future. The Heros have fallen and the United States we are used to is divided up into more and more unpleasant areas. Logan lives in California with his wife and two children. His farm, which I think is a Pig Farm, is not making enough money to pay the rent to his landlords. He refuses to sell his children's toys to pay for rent and when the Banners come a knockin' he gets knocked around like a red headed step child.

At this point in the story arc, Logan refuses to fight, something I hope we find out in later issues. The Banners, descendants from The Hulk, are an inbreed band of bully's who push Logan around but yet he refuses to fight. Down on his luck, Logan gets a visit from his old friend Hawkeye. He has a job for him, running drugs to New Babylon. We get the idea New Babylon is basically Washington D.C. by looking at the convenient map we get in each issue.

Without giving away any spoilers we can see the similarities with the movie "Unforgiven" from Clint Eastwood. The two old warriors on a long journey to save their farm. Even the roll of Hawkeye is played by Morgan Freeman in the movie. With his ability to shoot long distances except for the fact that Hawkeye is now blind. Oops did I give something away? Well you'll have to read it yourself. I saw all the similarities right away but that didn't detract me from lapping this story line up.

It's time to do "The Dark Knight" except with Wolverine and as far as I am concerned it's a no brainer to pick up. It's hip to do everthing dark now and in the long run I might look back at this and realize it was one of the first of MANY comics to go dark in the upcoming months and or years.

Overall this is one of the best story arcs to come out this year. It's by far the best story arc from Marvel. The only thing in my mind that is coming close to this is Pax Romana, from Hickman. We need more Pax Romana! Another great storyline for the year, which has been running for a few years now is "The Walking Dead". Pick up these if you haven't already but I know if you like Wolverine and Mark Miller you are going to love "Old Man Logan."

Story - 5 (It's something new and interesting with a dark and twisted path we are being lead on. Even though it might resemble "The Unforgiven", I still love the idea.

Artwork - 4.5 (The look of this comic is nearly flawless. The only problem I see with it is the darkness in ALL the pages. Then McGiven might be going for this with such a bleak outlook on the world after the Heroes fell, but it gets a little dark at times.)

Michael

Damn Dirty Apes

Well, we now know the name of the next goddamn comics travesty…and it is Marvel Apes, hitting stands September 3.

Seriously? This is what the world needs right now?

Let's talk about the origins of this crime against humanity for a bit. Some inbred jackhole yelled the idea out across a sweat-saturated auditorium during a San Diego panel last year and Joe Quesada decided it was graphic gold.

Q. I need you to hear me. You are on a bad run, my friend. You need to take a step back and let the writers do your writing. (See: One More Day, Spider-Man)

But this isn't really about a D-Bag who made a bad joke that went too far. Clearly recognizing that the Zombie run is on its last fumes, (thank Christ for small favors), Marvel is attempting to assassinate the Golden Goose once again with this simian abomination.

I'm probably being too reactionary on this, but I felt like throwing up when I first read the story.

And to be fair, it is possible to salvage this piece of 4-color sewage. Most importantly, they need to acknowledge in the books themselves that this is a bad idea. It might work as satire. In the hands of somebody with more sophistication than Karl Kessel.

This could also work if they pull a Grant Morrissonian makeover and force us to feel something surprising for the Gibbon. If we can crawl inside this guy’s head and recognize something unique or greater than we thought, it can work as a character piece.

Finally, if they were to somehow play it straight and turn this bout of silliness into something that feels like a real threat, that would work. Recent history is really working against that, though. Who could feel anything now that we’ve experienced crisis after crisis after crisis after crisis….we're just too numb right now.

.

Get ready for this to suck giant pelican balls.

Oh, the variant excrement is already hitting us in full stride. My guess is that the Cable # 6 ape variant takes a little climb on September 4. Suckers.

Betting On The New Bat

I know we're headed toward Batman overdose here, but this is too good not to mention and the window may be short on this one.

I'm talking about events coming out of the extra excellent Batman: RIP. If you have any interest in Batman as a character and you're not reading this: GET ON IT.

I've been largely dissapointed with Grant Morrison's Batman run up to this point, but he's bringing it all together on RIP. Nobody knows for sure what R-I-P actually stands for, or what will happen to Bruce and the mantle of the Bat.

I won't ruin any more of the actual plot points. (I did some spoiling on the podcast about a month ago) I can say this - the story is taking Batman completely off the rails and taking the reader with him.

Everything is in question right now - and it's more fun than 99% of what's on the rack. There are precious few books that I genuinely can't wait to arrive so I can go home and devour them. Batman is one of those books right now.

Morrison is positively giddy about the clues he's left about Batman's fate and assures us of two things:
1) The ending of RIP is going to blow you away
2) You're going to slap yourself when you go back and look at all the clues he left you

DC has done a better than average job of keeping a lid on the specifics regarding Bruce Wayne and Batman at the end of RIP. What does seem probable is that Gotham is going to have somebody else wearing the mask.

And that's where Batman: Prodigal comes in. I think we've been waiting for Dick Grayson to step into this role for a good long time. And I think we're finally going to get it.

He's been groomed for the job since he was the Boy Wonder, and he's more than proven himself as Nightwing. If Batman is gone or is in any way unable to continue - Grayson's the man.

This scenario has played out before as an arc called "Prodigal" that ran through all of the Batman books and Robin back in 1994. Here's the checklist:

Batman #512-514
Batman: Shadow of the Bat # 32-34
Detective Comics # 679-681
Robin # 11-13

And the floppies are dirt cheap right now and a decent investment at this point. But if Nightwing does step in as the Batman, I really like the trade paperback. (ISBN 1563893347) Prodigal is not a cheap book right now - it's been a solid seller at $40+ for years.

But taking over as Batman pushes that solid gainer toward the $100 level. And I think it's better than a coin flip chance that it happens. Worst case scenario is that you have one of the most dependable easy sells in the out of print market.

But I think you have to move now before the rumor mill really starts churning.

-Ryan

Watchmen: The Movie

The big star of this year's SDCC was absolutely the upcoming Watchmen film directed by Zach Snyder. If you saw The Dark Knight (which is most of America by now) you saw the trailer, and it sure does look purdy.

I must admit I was impressed with the teaser myself, particularly the way Dr. Manhattan was rendered. It looks great, the source material has an impeccable pedigree, and I trust Snyder to do the right thing on the whole. It's appropriate to be excited about the possibilities of The Watchmen, coming to a screen near you 3/6/2009.

But before we dump a a premature load, let's assess the bigger picture. In particular, let's remind ourselves of that old axiom from the wizened crazy bastard himself: Alan Moore. Alan has been very up front about his writing methods, and from an early stage he purposefully designed his work to be essentially unfilmable.

This is not a secret, it's been a source of debate for years. Attack of the Show covered ComicCon again this year, God bless them, and the first words out of Kevin Pereira's mouth when Snyder appeared for an interview was:

"I thought this was unfilmable? Sure looks like you got some footage to me!" I'm paraphrashing here. And the line was delivered with a good dollop of smugness. Snyder, to his credit, played along but with a good deal more respect.

I think the prevailing opinion at this point is that "The Unfilmable Watchmen" is a pretentious bit of nonsense propagated by an eccentric creator in love with his own genius. That opinion is incorrect. Let me explain.

First of all, what does it mean for a comic book to be "unfilmable"? I think we can at least agree that every medium has its own strengths and weaknesses. The novel, for instance, does really well with showing us the inner thoughts of characters. We're able to crawl inside people's minds and really see what they're experiencing emotionally and what silently motivates them. An author can describe this in great detail and it reads as satisfying. When it's done well, of course.

That sort of interior access is actually quite annoying on film. If you don't believe me, take a poll on how "Blade Runner" fans feel about the original cut of the film with the Harrison Ford voice-over. They HATE it. Inner thoughts and feelings don't translate on film very well, because it's visual. Filming a character thinking is essentially filming somebody doing nothing. And that's not very exciting.

On the flip side, film does things that text novels don't do quite as well. Oh, some hold to the idea that our imagination can produce more powerful imagery than anything you can put on film. Fine, I guess. In reality, film has a significant advantage of text when it comes to our favorite past times: sex and violence.



Would you rather see Uwe Boll's footage of Angelina Jolie's boobs or read William Shakespeare's description of them? Case closed.

The comic book medium has it's own set of unique strengths and weakenesses as well. It's a kind of novel/film hybrid. You get a good dose of visuals, although more stylized than a camera generally produces. You also get some text and at least the possibility of interior access. (although thought balloons have gone out of vogue)

I think comics greatest strenghths are A) The intellectual work the reader creates between panels to fill in the narrative. And B) The "static" nature of the visuals that can simulate dynamic motion, but simultaneously allows the reader to stop and study at their leisure. A movie basically demands that you follow along linearly at the director's pace. A comic book allows much greater user control and selective concentration.

So now that I've rambled on far too long about different mediums, what's the point? The point is that Alan Moore is a really smart guy, and he's dedicated his career to producing work that can either only be produced in comic form, or is rendered best in comic book form. And Watchmen is a part of the latter end of that equation.

Watchmen the comic book has a plot, and that plot can certainly be filmed. The question I would pose is: "Does Watchmen's greatness derive from its plot?" I think most students of the material would agree with me when I say that the answer to that question is an emphatic "no".

I'm not suggesting that Watchmen contains a shoddy plot. It works just fine. There is some legitimate drama in the "who killed the Comedian" mystery, and Ozymandias' scheme is epic, bizarre, and a lot of fun. But that's honestly not where the real juice is.



I think the most obvious example of why you can't film The Watchmen is issue # 5: "Fearful Symmetry". It's a virtuoso performance that can really only be appreciated in comic book form. To be brief the issue contains a series of visual and thematic mirror images. If you look at it front-to-back, you can watch the parrallels clearly. Greater minds than mine have annotated the issue extensively. There are hundreds of mirrors in play in varying complexity.

The magic is this, though: If you just sit down and read it straight through, it doesn't read clunky. All of those machinations produce a fluid narrative. It really is a remarkable achievement in storytelling.

And now I ask you: is Zach Snyder going to film fearful symmetry? How would you recognize it? When would you know to start looking for mirrors, and how would you know when the pair appeared in cinematic form? Would you know to attach significance to William Blake's "The Tyger" during that section of the film? (Moore pulled "fearful symmetry" from the poem as a thematic aid)

You can film a plot, but you can't film The Watchmen. And really, in 2008, why would you want to film a contemporary answer to 1980's Reaganite and Thatcherian politics? I guess it works as a period piece if you can remember what it was like in the 80s and want to revisit it.

It's a different world now. The themes and concerns of 1986 do not resonate in 2008. So what do you do? Change the themes and concerns like they did to V for Vendetta? I guess. But then, is that V? Will The Watchmen really be The Watchmen? I don't see how.

Don't mistake this analysis as a condemnation of the film. I'm not saying they shouldn't have made it. I'm not even saying that I'm not excited to see it. I find Rorschach to be one of the most compelling characters in comics history, and I can't wait to see Jackie Earle Haley's performance of that character. I think it will be rewarding to see that.

But at the same time, will the audience register that Rorschach is a post-modern take on the Golden age Question from Charlton? That's where the juice is. Will they recognize what a departure this nut job is from that innocent time and feel the pangs of what that "innocent" character would probably resemble in "real life"?

Of course not. We're in the post Watchmen, post Dark Knight (Miller, not Nolan) era. We expect our heroes to be psychopaths now. It's a bit of irony that because Watchmen created a different way of looking at comics, a modern audience can't really absorb the impact of it through this movie. It's become passe. You can film a plot, but you cannot film The Watchmen.

I'm not concerned that Watchmen the movie is going to be a travesty. I think it will be highly entertaining. My concern is that here we are in the Golden Age of comic book cinema, and now comes the most legendary of graphic novels. And I think that audiences are going to get to the end of the movie and say "this is the greatest example of the medium"?

Toward the end of the AOTS interview, Zach Snyder said "If the best I can do is make a 3 hour commercial for the comic, I'm happy with that." I hope that it does at least that, but most everything that made the book such an achievement will not be evident on the screen.

- Ryan

Review: The Goddamn Batman

Review: All-Star Batman & Robin HC

I think the lion's share of comics fans were in synch with me when I salivated over this announced All Star Batman & Robin title. Frank goddamn Miller. Jim goddamn Lee. How could this not be the single greatest book published in the last 20 years?

I think I was also in synch with an equally lionesque share of comics fans when I got done reading AS Batman # 1 and couldn't speak for an hour. "I'm the goddamn Batman?" What. The. Fuck.

I set that book down and didn't purchase another. I would occasionally read scattered reviews, and if you know me you know I was tracking order numbers. AS Batman maintained a consistent 100,000+ and I wondered to myself who was still buying the damn thing.

When the hardcover edition hit the stands, curiosity got the better of me and I had to check it out. I'm glad I did.

The HC edition presents the first 8 issues without commercial interruption in all of their over-the-top, irreverent beauty. That's right, I said beauty.

There are reasons not to like the book, but they are mainly reasons of bottled expectations and unrealistic demands. I think we were expecting something familiar with a little Sin City twist. Shame on us. We demanded that Miller produce the same old same old with a such a polish that it would still knock our cotton footwear off. Absurd.

What we got was the Goddamn Batman. And after reading the first eight issues straight through, I'm very pleased to meet him.

To me, this book has many layers, but I'm most interested in two of them - the character study Miller is creating, and the meta-commentary on comics he's planted. Let me explain.

Batman: The Character Study
I think the idea of Batman as slightly off his nut is well-trodden ground in "water cooler" talk, but it rarely gets played out in the floppies. At least not seriously. Yes, we recognize and the characters recognize that Bruce Wayne is obsessed with his mission to a level that is likely not healthy. But at the end of the day, we never question whether or not Batman is a hero.

In AS Batman, everybody questions this openly, and the answer is not traditional. Batman is bent. We get to see a good deal of Batman's internal dialogue from Miller, particularly as regards Robin. And what we see is slightly disturbing. Whatever else we might say about the story as it unfolds, the book has brass balls.

Meta Commentary
It isn't just Batman that's off, which brings me to the meta level. What Frank Miller is doing in this book is showing us how absurd most superhero storytelling is by stripping off the glossy sheen and showing us some "reality" within the fictional backdrop.

Look, this isn't unprecedented. (See Watchmen, 1986) But it is unusual, and it is entertaining. So Batman is bent. Batman is bent to the point where Robin is isolated in the Batcave and meant to eat rats to toughen him up. The Justice League is at odds with each other and not terribly competent.

This is not a world where the good guys know just what to do and say. The cops are corrupt, Green Lantern is a moron, Superman has no stones, and Wonder Woman is an ultra-aggressive bitch, and Black Canary picks pockets when she's done stomping thugs.

How about this meta gem from issue # 5:

"I leave the Batmobile parked in a back alley of Giordano and Adams. That's taking a chance--some loser with ideas might spot it and get himself electrocuted trying to steal it."

In case you didn't catch it, that's Miller giving everyone who's handled the character since the Neal Adams/Dick Giordano days (including himself?) a big fat middle finger.

What's fun about reading this title is that it is completely over-the-top fun and action while simultaneously demonstrating what a horrible farce that whole situation is.

Another positive is that this is the strongest I've ever seen the character Robin. Dick Grayson is not window dressing - he's a prodigy that Batman is in awe of. It takes Robin about six seconds to relieve Hal Jordan of his ring and deal some near lethal damage.

On the downside, Miller has gotten very in love with his short, staccato sentence structure. And he repeats EVERYTHING. Every character exhibits the phenomenon. It's irritating and unnecessary.

My final judgement is that All-Star Batman is certainly worth having in your collection if you're a comics fan at all. Maybe this isn't the Rolls Royce we foolishly clamored for in our hearts. But whatever she is...she definitely goes. Unbuckle your seat belt and enjoy the rest on its own terms.





Birds of Prey out on DVD as of Tuesday, July 15!



Once upon a time the WB put out a Birds of Prey series I would assume is loosely based on the DC comic that Gail Simone used to kick so much ass on. I say assume because I never watched the show - it was off the air before I ever knew it existed!

Ashley Scott plays the Huntress, in this mythos the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. Dina Meyer is Oracle/Barbara Gordon. Dinah Lance appears to be a psychic and not the Black Canary, played by Rachel Skarsten.

Not sure why this tanked after only 13 episodes, but I've already plunked down the cash and ordered it to find out...



It's Dark Knight Time!!!

As I type this, it's just after midnight on July 18, and I imagine a handful of fortunate nerds are seeing the first screenings of The Dark Knight locally.

I don't usually do openings, as the press of humanity is bad for my mental balance. And my mental balance is precarious enough as it is. Needless to say I will be taking this film in before long. Definitely at the IMAX in St. Michael. Oh yeah.

In a summer over-saturated with comic goodness, I still find myself anticipating this movie at an obscene level. Hard to imagine something that could top Iron Man - but this one just might do it.

Anybody out there seen the film or the Birds of Prey series? I'd love to read your comments. Otherwise, see you when we upload the next show!


Ryan