Double Entendre: Invincible #88 Review

In the latest issue of Invincible, our all-American boy hero is attacked by a raging one-eyed monster and gets a load sprayed in his face causing him to be infected with a deadly virus. I am not kidding. Superhero comics, everybody!

Invincible is a strange book for me to review because unlike any miniseries or most standard superhero comics, there is no jumping-on point. It’s an excellent comic book that does really interesting and unexpected things with standard superhero tropes – and has since the very first issue – but while this book has arcs, it is very much a long-form superhero novel, and it assumes that you’ve been reading from the first chapter. So even if I recommend this issue – and I will – it’s pointless, because if you haven’t read it from the beginning, it’ll be three years and about twelve trade paperbacks before you get here.

And, in fact, this book is an even worse place than usual for new readers to get started because it’s a mid arc story. The one-eyed monster in question is named Allen, and he is threatening to release a virus into Earth’s atmosphere to kill a race of superpowered aliens living secretly among us, all of whom can be identified by their universal big, Johnny Wadd Holmes 70s gay porno moustaches. I recognize that this sounds ridiculous, but it’s better than it sounds… frankly, it pretty much has to be.

Kimota! (Don’t Sue Me!): Gaiman / McFarlane Lawsuit Reportedly Settled

It is (almost) official: the long-running lawsuit between Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane over the rights to Spawn characters Angela, Medieval Spawn, and Cogliostro that Gaiman wrote into Spawn back in the early 90s is over. I don’t know what’s harder to believe: that this mess has been going on for just about ten years… or that there was once a time when someone thought that Spawn characters had value.

The long, twisted and complete tale is available elsewhere at more reputable Web sites, but in a very incomplete, semi-biased and opinion-laden nutshell written mostly from booze-addled memory: in the early 90s, McFarlane was probably the hottest artist in comics, so he decided that he would take a shot at doing the stories as well. But there was a problem: at the time, he shouldn’t have been allowed to write anything longer than his own name. Seriously: have you read Spider-Man #1? Constant drum sound effects of DOOM, DOOM, DOOM; it reads like it’s being told from the point of view of a twitching boner.

The Dame Wore Tentacles: Fatale #1 Review

I am probably not the best person in the world to review Ed Brubaker’s and Sean Phillips’s Fatale, because I’ve spent the past several months, on my wretched morning commute, plowing through old crime and detective novels. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Richard Stark; basically anything with a meaty crime in the middle of it that isn’t a comic book, if only so I dont have to attract a conversation with a comic book fan on a city bus. Have you seen us? We can be… awkward. But I digress.

The point is that someone like me would be the prime audience for Fatale, which if distilled down to its elevator pitch would be: “Philip Marlowe vs. the Cult of Cthulhu and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, provided Brigid’s powers of seduction were somehow supernatural in nature as opposed to the half-decent set of jugs that women need to seduce dudes in real life, by which I mean it’s okay if she only has one.”

So in short, I generally liked this book a lot… but someone like me is supposed to.

Dave Dorman Gets Upset Because Of Boobies. It Must Be Opposite Day On The Internet.

1/10/12 Update – Dave Dorman has taken down the post and comments linked to in this article. For now, you can see the cached page with the quote and comments in question here.

Dave Dorman, an artist known for his work on Star Wars and Heavy Metal, took to his blog today to decry the artwork of Fiona Staples published in USA Today to promote her upcoming comic book Saga, which will be written by Brian K. Vaughan. Saga will follow the story of two soldiers from opposite sides of an intergalactic war who fall in love, start a family, and then get pursued by bounty hunters (among other threats).

Here’s the artwork in question:

His beef? After the jump.

It Came From The Past – Revisiting Jamie Delano’s Outlaw Nation

Back in 2000, Jamie Delano, wrote a nineteen issue series for Vertigo called Outlaw Nation with co-creator Goran Sudžuka. In 2006, Image and Desperado Publishing released a 456 page bound edition of the collected issues, printed in black and white. The series is inspired by the idea of “Johnsons”, not a cock euphemism here but, rather:

Derived from a 19th century slang term for hobos and petty thieves, “Johnsons” were characterised by Jack Black in his 1926 autobiography as a society of “yegs” – outlaws and small-time crooks – who were nonetheless honorable in their dealings with one another and always ready to help out those in trouble. Black’s concept of the Johnson Family was inspirational to William S. Burroughs, who developed his own inimitable version in The Place of Dead Roads . . . to Burroughs, a person is either a “Johnson” or a “shit”. – Delano, from the introduction of Outlaw Nation, Collected Edition

“Shits” are lawmakers, “busybodies who persecute those engaged in victimless crime”. The “Johnsons” would see that put to an end.

Delano takes this idea and creates a vast collection of characters in an extended Johnson Family, outlaws and anti-heroes carved from every conceivable American cultural icon from the past 100 years and then some – Old Time Western Law Man, Hippie Chick (Now Older And Wiser), Biker, Saloon Owner, Lost War Veteran and more. They’re all here and all seemingly related.

In a week in which Marvel continues to drag out Fear Itself: The Phantom Menance The Fearless, in which I finally was subjected to saw the Green Lantern movie, and, in which the newly rebooted DC Universe has decided that it’s already so bored with itself that it needs to begin crossovers among its books to try and keep its readers interested and buying them, it’s safe to say that this five year old graphic novel was far more interesting than anything else that was in my pull pile or other viewing this week.

More, with spoilers, after the jump.

Uncomfortable Examination: Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review may contain spoilers. Hey, it’s not my fault that all the best, most quotable lines give away the plot. Blame the writer. Clearly he’s an asshole.

Don’t mock my faith!

Your god has no junk.

Yeah, Image is gonna get some angry letters about this one, Angry, poorly spelled letters with threats of “deevine retrobyushun.” Because for good or ill, writer Brandon Seifert makes some broad generalizations about the nature of deities – at least in the world of Witch Doctor – of the kind that some lead people to make “God Hates Fags” placards, and other people to begin to suspect, or at least hope, that Seifert is right.

My point is that, if you have the right mean and sick sense of humor, Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation is a comic well worth picking up, particularly if you missed the original miniseries and don’t want to risk fifteen clams on the recent trade without getting a taste first. Not sure if you have the right sense of humor? Okay: what was the last thing to go through Princess Diana’s mind? The steering column! Didja smile at that? Then you should buy this book. If you didn’t? Not only is this the wrong comic for you, it’s the wrong comics Web site.

The Bird Is The Word

It is Wednesday evening, and as you regular readers of Crisis On Infinite Midlives know…

…New Comics Day means that this is the end of our broadcast day.

Still and all, that’s a damn good take for the Wednesday before a long American holiday weekend! There’s a new Kick-Ass by Mark Millar, a new Warren Ellis Secret Avengers, a book from Image’s Pilot Season, a new Justice League Dark (Which had better have some fucking Shade: The Changing Man in it! You hear me, Milligan!?), and a new Hawkman, which I only bought to support an American Thanksgiving “We have a bird” joke!

Speaking of Thanksgiving, due to the holiday weekend, posting for the next four days may be a bit more sporadic than usual. But please stick with us; we will do our best to post new news items and reviews… but to do that, we need tonight to start reading the new books.

See you somewhere during or after the tryptophan coma, suckers!

Step Into The Ring – Review Of Heart #1

Blair Butler is 33 years old. In her time on this planet, she has managed to graduate from college, find some success in stand-up comedy, become head writer of a television show, and, eventually, find her way in front of the camera as the star of her own segment on G4’s Attack Of The Show called Fresh Ink. Oh, and if that’s not an already impressive list of accomplishments, this past week, Butler published her first comic book, Heart #1, with art by Kevin Mellon. She used it, she told Comic Book Resources, as an opportunity to bring together her love of comic books with her love of mixed martial arts fighting:

Most of my co-workers love the NFL, but MMA is my sporting poison. I talk about Anderson Silva and GSP [Georges St-Pierre] the way other folks talk about the Packers or the Bears, I’m like the Paul Aufiero of MMA — he’s the football-obsessed parking lot attendant in ‘Big Fan.’ And there’s sort of an interesting analogy to be made to superhero comics and mixed martial arts, if Batman or The Punisher were real, they’d likely be training MMA to get in proper crime-fighting shape. The Huntress would be subduing muggers with a rear naked choke or a spinning backfist.

Well, I’m 39. I like comic books, occasionally workout to Rachel Hunter’s Cardio Kickboxing Workout and this past Saturday I made the world safe from a bottle of Ketel One by turning it into pee.

So there. I am neither writing comic books nor subduing muggers with my terrifying spinning backfist.

Pardon me while I crack open another bottle of self-esteem. Ok, now let me tell you about the comic book.

Warning before entering the Internet octagon – soul searching, temp work and spoilers after the jump.

A Shotgun and a Wedding Dress: The Strange Talent of Luther Strode #2 Review

On Friday night, Amanda and I were having a conversation about decompressed storytelling versus old-fashioned serialized storytelling in comics. Because that’s how we roll here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office: a little wine, a few lit candles, and deep conversations about the esoterica of comics writing… okay, actually more often it’s shotgunning Buds, arson and screeching, “This book sucks, Lobdell! And that’s why we’re burning down your house!” but we’re trying to expand our horizons.

Anyway, the agreement we came to is that the problem with decompressed “writing for the trade” is that writers are all-too-willing to make the story beats in each individual issue subtle and slowly-unfolding, to the point where in some of those issues almost nothing seems to happen. Whereas serialized storytelling understands that, yes, there may be a larger story that the individual comics issue is serving, but that the issue should be a story in and of itself, with enough of an arc and satisfying action to be worth owning on its own.

And we wholeheartedly agreed that when it comes to regular comics, we vastly prefer serialized storytelling… And further, we agreed that we should leave poor Scott Lobdell alone… at least while Rob Liefeld’s walking around a home that isn’t primarily comprised of cinders and regret.

The one exception to all rules that we agreed existed was the self-contained miniseries. In the spirit of the old “Lady, you knew I was a snake when you picked me up” parable, a miniseries almost by nature must be told in a decompressed manner, because on its face each issue is part of a larger story. It is what it is, and whether you like decompressed storytelling or not, you know what you’re getting with an issue marked, say, “2 of 6”. And then, because we were feeling generous, we gave Liefeld an exception of his own. Mostly because we found we were out of kerosene. But I’m digressing again, which is stupid because there actually is a point to all this yammering.

That point is that The Strange Talent of Luther Strode #2, despite being part of a self-contained miniseries, meets all the needs of a good serialized story, and a damn good one at that.

The Dame Said Ph’nglui Mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh Wgah’nagl Fhtagn: Brubaker and Phillips Announce Fatale

At Friday’s Creator-Owned Comics panel at the New York Comic Con, hosted by Robert Kirkman, who is arguably the poster boy for creator-owned books what with his walking away from Marvel at the height of his popularity and his 427 bazillion dollars of Walking Dead TV money, announced that Image Comics will be producing Fatale, a supernatural crime book by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, the creative team behind Criminal, Sleeper and Incognito.

Tell us about the book, Ed!

“I’ve been wanting for a while to do something with a more supernatural element to it… ‘Fatale’ mixes what [Sean and I] do and all the ways we’ve poked fun at the noir genre. If ‘Incognito’ was us doing ‘What if Doc Savage, Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler had all existed in the same universe?’ then this is a weird combo of James M. Cain and Lovecraft…

The story involves all these characters that spin around a woman who may or may not be the living incarnation of the femme fatale. Parts of the story are told from her point of view.

I’m gonna let you insert your own Cthuhlu / tentacle porn joke here. Because I am one classy motherfucker.