That Pain Down There? The Price of Your Comic

On our last show we talked about Rich Johnston's research into the price of comic books as compared to the rate of U.S. inflation. He took the going rate for a copy of Amazing Spider-Man for the past 30 years and demonstrates conclusively that our current funnybooks are a LOT more pricey than they used to be.

Has the quality improved? Sure, I'll say dramatically. I'd say the two most significant changes are in the quality of the paper and the coloring. And while paper costs have risen, the cost of technology goes down as it's integrated. I think looking at the chart it's probably reasonable to be charging $2.00 for a comic book. We're looking at paying DOUBLE that.

Click here to look at the chart under the heading "How Bucking Much?"

- Ryan

Who's Who?

Here are some interesting photos our good friend Nick suggested we put up here for a laugh. I worked some photoshop magic (very little actually) and here we go. First we have Nick and Rob Reiner and then we see Ryan with Orson Wells.



Michael

Ryan eating Twinkies!

This is how healthy we eat just before the show. As you can see Ryan sort of enjoys the twinkies a little more than he actually should.

Michael

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

So read the sign outside of hell when good ol' Dante approached, and it should also be plastered in bold print on the cover of the must read comic book of 2008: Crossed.

Let's break it down nice and simple: Crossed is the most brutal and horrifying book I've ever had in my mitts. Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows have created a world gone mad, and utterly chilling in it's proximity to the world we already live in.

Ennis isn't re-inventing the wheel here. Walking Dead has already trodden this ground, and I would think the film 28 Days Later is an even closer cousin. Where Crossed sets itself apart is in the unflinching nature of its execution. This is Walking Dead with the governor off. This is 28 Days Later with more pathos. And it hurts to read. It's that good.

Crossed tells the story of a global level apocalypse. Significant portions of the population have mysteriously transformed into "The Crossed"; enraged, homicidal barely-humans who seek nothing other than the maim and torture of everything they once were.

They are called The Crossed because of the tell-tale "criss-cross" scarring that appears on the faces of the infected. While issue # 1 makes no explicit polemic against religion, it isn't hard to see it there. Crossed turns the entire planet into Denmark after Muhammed was depicted in an editorial cartoon. The zealots are out for blood, and they mean to have it.

The dialogue feels spot-on and the characters act as we would expect them to; depressed, angry, paranoid. The group is searching for hope, searching for answers. One character (who looks amusingly similar to John Byrne now that I think about it) hypothesizes that salt is a kind of kryptonite for The Crossed. The discussion the group engages in on that subject feels real, the emotions feel pure. That hypothesis gets tested in the first issue- read it to find out if John Byrne was right.

Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight raised similar issues about the state of mankind and the viability of nihilism. Nolan answered the challenge with hope. The Joker was wrong. Crossed appears to be heading in a different direction. Abandon hope all ye who enter here - but for God's sake don't miss it.

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