But How Do You Really Feel?

It’s not all bad news at the New York Comic Con. Some of it is absolutely wretched news. And sometimes there is the odd apocalyptically terrible, awful, no-good news.

And then there is the occasional brain-dead, redneck, dumbfuck, “Hey guys! Lookit THIS!” news that would normally involve mescaline, a healthy infant and a 110-volt blender in a 220-volt socket news:

Announced [yesterday] at New York Comic Con, Image Comics announced [sic] that Rob Liefeld is returning Extreme Studios to active status!

Son of a…

Okay… so this is a… thing that’s happening… tell us about it, Robbie-Boy!

Bastard Son Of A Thousand Comics: The Strange Talent of Luther Strode #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. If you decide not to read it, just go buy the book right fucking now, and we’ll leave it at that.

The Strange Talent of Luther Strode is the story of a high school nerd who buys a “Tired of having sand kicked in your face?” fitness book out of the back of a comic book, develops superpowers after reading it, and uses those powers to get a girl and defeat his jock nemesis in dodgeball and in a high school men’s room fistfight. Truly, writer Justin Jordan is one of us… or would be if he didn’t seem to know that people like us didn’t go into the men’s rooms in high school, because we generally didn’t need cigarettes or black eyes.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s more going on than Geek Rage in this book. We open the book seeing Strode in a flash-forward where he’s masked, ripped and has the ability to stop loads with his chest and beat men down by jerking off some of their parts… which sounds like it would be yet another reason that I personally never went into the high school men’s room if it didn’t look like this:

Jordan teases that there’s some kind of reasoning behind Strode’s newfound powers, and that those powers might make him the target of a mysterious bearded dandy called The Librarian that will lead us to a greater story to take us through this six-issue miniseries, but issue one is all about a high school loser who gets superpowers… which is absolutely smart and compelling storytelling.

Because after all, it’s pretty safe to say that if you’re reading a comic book, you were either a nerd who had a hard time in high school, or you were a jock who suffered a grievous concussion. And if you were the latter, you’re not reading a book as smart as Luther Strode.

And smart it is, because there is a LOT of groundwork laid here, and if you’re not careful, you could miss it.

Right There On The Shelf: The Walking Dead #89 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review may contain spoilers. Such as the fact that zombies have taken over the world. Tread lightly.

There’s been a lot of handwringing in the comics / zombie community (Which is a small community, but they throw great parties… except at the end your dick rots off. And not because of the zombie thing. But I digress.) about how AMC fired The Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont – about a week after he hyped season two at SDCC, no less – and how that and threatened budget cuts meant that the The Walking Dead was doomed.

And as someone who watched that show from the first episode and who bought season one on Blu-Ray the day it came out, allow me to go on record to say: who gives a shit?

Sure, the show is fun, and anything that puts comic stories in front of Joe Blow can only be good for the industry (Ghost Rider movies excepted), but the show was only ever second fiddle to Robert Kirkman’s original comic book. And if you’ve ever seen the show and you haven’t checked out the comic book? Well, that’s stupid. And you’re stupid for not doing it.

Overwhelming Pity

Well, it’s official: Image Comics has announced that they’re going to make their most popular characters, including Spawn, The Savage Dragon and Witchblade, available via an alternative distribution channel. They’re taking the big step away from the comic store and into the arena that most teens are most enthusiastic about and are likely never to stray away from: Pogs!

Whoops! Sorry, flashed back to 1994 there… actually, if you replace “Pogs” with “digital downloads”, you have exactly the same story that broke earlier this week… including the likely longevity and outcome.

Image announced that starting this week they’ll be releasing all of their books, including Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, Invincible, and Those Other Books You Don’t Care About, as day-and-date available downloads from Graphic.ly.

Graphic.ly isn’t a platform with which I’m familiar, so I decided to check it out. And I have to tell you: compared to Comixology, which I tried the other day, Graphic.ly’s digital reader is VASTLY superior in that it allows you to actually be able to read the book. It blows things up to readable sizes and automatically follows from panel to panel to keep each image at maximum size and legibility.

This is not always a good thing. Because after literally 15 seconds of poking around to see what kind of books Image would be keeping company with, well, I found:

MISTER MOTHERFUCKING T.

Better Late Than Never: Witch Doctor #2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: It turns out that this “new release” is actually a second printing of a book that was initially released in July. Normally I would put the review aside and start on something more recent, but it’s almost beer o’clock. So fuck it.

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Witch Doctor is what House M.D. would be if the diagnoses were supernatural and House were allowed to skip the medical pretense and just physically abuse his patients. If that makes Witch Doctor sound to you like a derivative knockoff with an originality problem, that’s because it is and it does.

If it also makes Witch Doctor sound to your like it’s fucking full of awesome with a dark, cynical and filthy sense of humor? That’s because it is, and it does, AND you are a dirty, dirty misanthrope. Which only means you are in the right place, both with your choice in comics Web sites, and in choosing to read Witch Doctor.

Witch Doctor is the story of Dr. Vincent Morrow, an M.D. whos been chucked out of the medical community and who now treats supernatural infections, and before you pick up the phone, your herpes doesn’t count. Just because you don’t remember banging that skank doesn’t mean you got it by magic.

The Big Lie: Bullshit

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. But if you were alive on September 11, 2001 and / or you know what the Truther Movement is, you already know how the fucking thing ends.

I’ve started this review about seven times with a variety of screeching hate frenzies about Rick Veitch, who is a creator I have always deeply respected. I have all his 1980’s Swamp Thing stuff. Brat Pack disturbed the hell out of me when I was 19 – in a good way. And Veitch’s live birth issue of Miracleman was one of two comics I went on eBay to get my hands on, after hunting fruitlessly through about a dozen comic stores, because I couldn’t wait any longer to read it.

And while, on the anniversary of September 11, it would be satisfying to blast The Big Lie – Veitch’s new book from Image Comics – for it’s weird politics and Truther point of view, this is a comics Web site – one of the only comics Web sites that is comfortable using the word “cumguzzler”, but a comics site nonetheless. Which means that I feel I need to review the book on its own merits.

Which is a dicey proposition; after all, this IS a comic that distinctly and pointedly implies that the Bush Administration ginned up the September 11th attacks in order to justify attacking Iraq. To review such a book ON September 11th merely on the merits of the story and the art could be uncomfortable on a good day and incendiary on a bad one… with September 11th itself most decidedly being a BAD ONE.

Thankfully, that won’t be an issue here, because this book sucks.

I Live Through Angel and Faith #1

Emo Angel is emo.

I’ve noticed, in the short history that this site has been live, that my posts have been DCnU centric. That’s a shame, because there’s certainly a wealth of other comic book business that is managing to make it out into the world, despite the sucking vacuum of the New 52. Did you know, for example, that a comic book store is launching in Toronto that is intended to be specifically for kids? This is exciting, because I often find myself standing in the middle of a comic store in downtown Toronto pissed that they won’t let me do keg stands because of all the teeming, unwashed masses of children that cling to my ankles like so many fleas. Now I can be surly in public in Toronto in peace.

What? Your comic store doesn’t let you do keg stands? You need a better comic store.

Did you know that Image Comics plans on releasing “Morning Glories” #12, “Screamland” #4 and “Spawn” #211 for sale September 7, 2011? Yes! New Spawn! The one thing in my life that is 1992, every day, all the time.

And, meanwhile, Dark Horse released Angel & Faith #1 last week. Part of the “Season 9” arc of the Buffyverse, “Angel & Faith”, written by Christos Gage with art from Rebekah Isaacs, finds Faith in possession of Rupert Giles’s mysterious journal of mystery. This is because Angel killed Giles at the end of Season 8. BUT! It’s not his fault, you see – he was under the influence of Twilight and, as we all know, Twilight ruins everything.