Your Killers Come As Your Friends

I swear to God, I intended to write and publish a review of one of this week’s new comics today.

I had good intentions. I made sure to leave early to get to my local comic store, where they know me by name and generally ask me to not show up at unexpected times, when customers who aren’t used to me might be there, because the owner was planning to close early for the American Thanksgiving holiday. So I arrived about 20 minutes before closing, made my selections and brought them to the counter when the owner said, “Rob,” (because it’s my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that they can always supply that name to the police), “You’re my last customer before the holiday, and we both walk to and from here. How would you like to help me kill this bottle of Crown Royal?”

To be fair, it was only a pint bottle, but that is still more scotch than I normally polish off before dinnertime on a weeknight. And it has played hell with my analytical abilities vis a vis sequential visual entertainment, and made me totally forget that I promised to help with preparations for the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office Thanksgiving Feast.

tl;dr: Drank at my local comic store, where they know my by name and just bought themselves a quart of Crown Royal from me for Christmas, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But you gotta admit that that’s a good take of books to read while waiting for pie and pretending to pay attention to drunk Uncle Pete’s political proclamations and assertion of his rights as a sovereign citizen or whatever damn thing he read in a chain email he got from crazy Cousin Earl. There’s the concluding two issues of Jonathan Hickman’s Infinity crossover (and I’m gonna let you insert your own “finally,” here), a new issue of The Goon, a bunch of DC Zero Year and Forever Evil crossovers, a new Powers: Bureau, and a ton of other new stuff!

But before we can talk about any of them, the room needs to stop spinning enough so we can read them. So until that time…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Seeing Double: Live Tweeting The Day of The Doctor

We all know that there is exactly one event happening in geek fandom today… actually wait: let me check my news feed just in case Frank Miller’s been caught tazing a pack of hippies in Time Square… oh, look at that! Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are moving to New York from Boston. I had no idea they were even still here in Boston, but then again, I doubt they drink in the same shitholes we frequent. Actually they might, but considering our favorite bars specialize in the installation and maintenance of alcoholic blackouts, I would never remember anyway.

But other than that, the only event happening today is the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of The Doctor, which is simulcasting on your local BBC affiliate at 2:50 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. What time is that in your area? What am I, a Time Lord? Do your own damn math.

To commemorate the experience, most of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Staff will be assembling at the Home Office in about an hour, upon which we will be heading out to one of the aforementioned shitholes to drink lunch (and watch futilely for Gaiman, now that we know he lives here) before returning to the Big Screen to watch the show. And we will be Live Tweeting the experience via our Twitter feed.

So while we will be assembling those tweets into an actual post for posterity either later today or tomorrow (pending blood alcohol content), we hope you’ll tune into our feed and watch along with us. And by the way, the over / under time for the Tweet reading, “Are there four Doctors on the screen, or is the whiskey getting on top of me?” is 3:25 p.m.

In Your Comicz, Steelin Your Sooperdoodz

You might have noticed that our posts this week have been a little more… shall we say, anemic, than some other weeks. I am not proud of this, but you have a point. You see, in the couple of years that we have been writing about comics, we have settled into a routine: a couple of comic book reviews a week, a few news pieces, and then on Wednesday, we get our new books, arrange them into a photogenic tableau, and announce the end of our broadcast day.

However, as we mentioned the other day, we have a new occupant in the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, and, well, our routines are all shot to shit.

Case in point…

But regardless of the theiving efforts of this master criminal, it is Wednesday, and those are new comics. And there is a pretty solid take there: we have the first issue of Jimmy Palmiotti’s and Amanda Conner’s Harley Quinn, the latest issue of Matt Fraction’s and Chip Zdarsky’s Sex Criminals, the latest issue of the surprisingly entertaining Afterlife With Archie, new issues of Marvel’s Infinity and Cataclysm crossovers, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But you know the drill… actually, there’s a new drill. Up until now, the drill was that before we could talk about them, we needed time to read them. The new drill is pretty much the same, only now there is catnip involved.

So until the cat is high and we have time to read them…

See you tomorrow, suckers!

A Strange Visitor…

I’m afraid we’ve got nothing for you today, because – funny story – as we were on our way out yesterday evening to go someplace to drink dinner, a little black cat with no collar or tags approached us on the sidewalk, meowing and looking for attention. We gave him a pat and went on our way… only to have the little guy follow us to the end of the block, where a barking dog stopped him in his tracks.

As we poured a few drinks down our head at the local bar, we figured the guy was friendly enough to belong to someone on the block, and would have gone home by the time we returned to the Home Office. Yeah, that’s what we figured. Right up until the moment when we got home and the little fella was waiting under our front stoop, meowing like crazy. And it would have seemed rude not to invite this little guy in.

So, long story short: there are no veterinarian’s offices open on Sundays to see if this guy’s chipped by an original owner… although considering he seems to be rocking a swinging pair of bing cherries behind him, I doubt anyone bothered to chip him. But still, tomorrow I’ll get him checked over just to be sure and will put a post on our local Animal Control Department’s Facebook page to see if anyone’s missing him. But in the meantime, he needs cat food and a box to crap in – you know, things I haven’t had lying around the house since I graduated college and started drawing a salary. So things are a little busier than originally anticipated here.

So yeah: The Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office has, at least for the moment, a house mascot.

And considering I’ve never owned an animal larger than a crab louse, “for the moment” is the key phrase in that sentence.

Another Series To Follow

And with that, we are staring down the barrel of another Wednesday of failure. Between heavy commitments in the morning and at the day jobs for Amanda and myself, we barely had time to accomplish the stuff that pays the bills, let alone write that last-minute review of last week’s Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #28 (Short answer: it was good). Combine that with the fact that we live in Boston, and not only are the Red Sox are back at Fenway hoping to wrap up the World Series tonight, but President Obama is in town to distract us from the problems with the health care Web site (of course, he came to the wrong place: we’ve had one for years, so we’re good, yo), and we were barely able to get the cars through the crippling traffic in time to get to my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that the closing time on the door isn’t just a fucking suggestion.

And combine all those factors with the fact that the World Series has been going on for a week now, meaning that we have spent five of those days grappling with the terminal exhaustion that only comes on the back side of three-plus hour games, and we’re lucky either one of us can write our own names, let alone any kind of in-depth comic book news or reviews. I mean Jesus, DC Comics just announced that they’re moving their entire operation from New York to Burbank, California, and the best analysis I’ve been able to muster up is, “Um, that’s wicked far away.”

And alas, the Red Sox game starts in just a few minutes, which means my only comic book related thoughts will be my suspicion that David Ortiz might have superpowers. However, the big takeaway from this tale of missed deadlines is that we made it to the comic store, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But even with the distractions of October baseball at Fenway Park, that’s a good haul of comics. We have a bunch of DC Comics annuals, the first issue of Andy Kubert’s Damian: Son of Batman (But I watched him die!), the Point One introduction to the Ultimate Universe (ending?) crossover Cataclysm, and, most anticipated – the new issue of Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples! Plus there’s a bunch of other cool stuff!

But before we can talk about any of them, we need to watch the Sox win the World Series (please God, I need to sleep!). So until then…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Cut The Green Wire With Yellow Stripes? Or The Yellow Wire With Green Stripes?

We are in the process of performing a series of pretty significant Web site upgrades today, which will take a while to complete. So if you see anything weird happening, please be patient; we’re working on it.

We will return to our regularly scheduled programming as soon as possible.

Good Times Never Seemed So Good

My sincere apologies, since I haven’t resorted to one of these kinds of posts for a while on a Wednesday night, but as you may or may not know, Crisis On Infinite Midlives is based in Boston. And the Boston Red Sox will be taking the field at Fenway Park in literally minutes to play in game one of the World Series. And being native Bostonians, and because being a comic book geek does not necessarily preclude being a baseball fan, that means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But there’s quite a take to dig into and review in the coming days – you know, provided that the inevitably late-running ballgames and the inevitable extra beers that that will mean don’t land us in the hospital by the end of the week.

We’ve got the first issue of former Captain America creators Ed Brubaker’s and Steve Epting’s spy comic Velvet, a new issue of Matt Fraction’s Sex Criminals and Satellite Sam, a metric buttload of new chapters of Marvel’s Infinity crossover and DC’s Forever Evil event, plus a ton of other cool stuff!

But you know how this works: before we can review them, we need time to read them… and with the first pitch imminent, that won’t be until later. So until the Sox take game one…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Every New Beginning…

There is always a surprise when I walk into my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me why I am constantly surprised that it isn’t Naked Day.

Some weeks my stack of pulls is small, yet full of awesome stuff. Other weeks, they hand me a six-inch stack of books that are nothing but middle issues of decompressed stories that mean a week of marking time until something cool happens. And on an infinite timeline, they will hand me only a wordy mess with incomprehensible art, and on that day you will read a 1,500-word review of something called Order of Restraint and its backup feature Remain 300 Feet Away.

This week, the take is interesting, in that it is filled with bittersweet endings. Most importantly to me is the penultimate issue of Locke & Key, but there is also the final issue Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 9, as well as Matt Fraction’s final issue of Fantastic Four. And, lest we forget, this is also DC’s Villain’s Month, which means that this is the month where we see Lobo lose his testicles.

But if there are new comics, that means it is Wednesday. And while I have prided myself, for the past few weeks, on getting an early review up on Wednesday, I find that there is so much going on in Locke & Key: Alpha #1 that there isn’t a hope in hell of my getting it finished before tomorrow (short answer: it is awesome). And the combination of those two facts means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And actually, there are a ton of good new books this week. As week two of Villain’s Month, we have books featuring General Zod, Reverse Flash, Riddler, and several others villains who will probably not be emasculated. There is also a new Captain America, a couple of new crossover chapters of Marvel’s Infinity event, a new Deadpool, and a bunch of other cool stuff! *

But you know the drill: before we can review them, we need time to read them. So while that happens…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

* Stuff including a new trade paperback collection of Jim Steranko’s entire run on Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Some of these stories I haven’t read since they were reprinted in the 70s, and I can’t wait to dive back into them. Yeah, it’s 35 clams, but these are legendary stories with groundbreaking art. Consider picking it up on your trip to your local comic store, and give ’em a big, “Happy Naked Day!” from me!  **

** Please don’t give them my real name.

A Limited Series Named Infinity, And Other Logical Conundrums

Well, here we are: at the start of Jonathan Hickman’s crossover event that he’s been teasing since his first issue of Avengers several months ago. And sure enough, a quick glance shows that it includes Ex Nihilo and Captain Universe and Thanos… and the claim that there are no Avengers to be found anyplace. Meaning that either we are due for a miniseries where The Avengers swoop back to save Earth in the nick of time, or else we are in for a miniseries where Damage Control makes enough money to buy blowjobs from Bill Gates, in between scenes of Thanos’s plans for world domination being threatened by the danger that can only be posed by Squirrel Girl swinging a tire iron.

We will address Infinity #1 tomorrow, but the fact that we have it in hand means that it is Wednesday. And Wednesday means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And even if Infinity wasn’t in the stack, we still have a very, very decent take here. There’s a new issue of East of West (also by Hickman), a new Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, another issue of The Walking Dead where a planet full of zombies and survivors can’t seem to kill Negan, another chapter in Scott Snyder’s and Greg Capullo’s Batman: Zero Year, and a bunch of other awesome-looking stuff!

But you know how this works: before we can talk about any of them, we need time to read them. So while we embark upon that endeavor…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Not Offal

Remember last May, when Amanda issued a mea culpa that she had missed the month-old news that guts-‘n-taint cook Chris Cosentino –

Rob, he is a chef, who cooks offal. -Amanda

Amanda, he cooks testicles. Which means I agree on “offal” so far as it is pronounced, but I think you got the spelling wrong. -Rob

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah – we reported back in May, 2012 that Cosentino was gonna do a Wolverine one-shot. It is now that last day of July, 2013. That book has finally come out. You know, like Anthony Bourdain’s Get Jiro! graphic novel from last year! Except this is a simple standard comic book, and nobody from Marvel invited Cosentino to the San Diego Comic-Con this year, despite living in the same state!

My point is that, two weeks separated from SDCC and just before the Boston Comic Con, we have a comic book that spent roughly a third as much time in editorial as it took Michaelangelo to paint the fucking Sistine Chapel. Except I think in the long run, it will turn out that the only person who took a picture of this comic book will have been me.

Let’s just say that Amanda will be the one reviewing this book… but the fact that there is a new book means that there is a new comic, and new comics means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But off-week or not, there’s still some pretty cool stuff there, huh? There’s a new issue of Scott Snyder’s The Wake, the final issue of Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated, a new issue of Injustice: Gods Among Us by writer Tom Taylor and Justice League International artist Kevin Maguire, a new issue of Kieron Gillen’s Uber, and a bunch of other cool stuff! And there is also Cosentino’s Wolverine!

But you know how this works: before we can talk about them, we need some time to read them. So while that happens (and while Amanda presumably reads about Wolverine being The Best There Is At What He Does, And What He Does Is Shank And Apply Heat To Horse Nipples)…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!