I am SO fucking PSYCHED, because “Haunted Tank” will be in full effect come February. Fyeah!

I happen to have “G.I. Combat” issues going back to the mid-70s and this is like a crazy 80s-kid’s dream come true. Wow. Just WOW.

I can’t wait!

W00t, I say, w0000000t!

Wow, I never realized my state of busy could now be directly extrapolated from and quantified by how long it’s been since I’ve reminded folks of their weekly “FreakAngels” fix. But there you have it. 2+ months up to my neck in worky stuffs results in oh-so-behind on much-preferred comicky stuffs.

Catching up on that much “FreakAngels” in one go is tre cool, though, lemme tell ya. I’m not saying you should keep yourself away to enjoy the same experience. Heavens NO. Stay up on it, damn you, err… me. I haven’t reminded you, but here you go:

“FreakAngels” Episode 27
“FreakAngels” Episode 28
“FreakAngels” Episode 29
“FreakAngels” Episode 30
“FreakAngels” Episode 31
“FreakAngels” Episode 32
“FreakAngels” Episode 33
“FreakAngels” Episode 34
“FreakAngels” Episode 35

Yeah!

And to get a similar all-in-wonder collection of episodes experience, don’t forget there’s “FreakAngels Volume 1”!

Man, I am Super-Ginsu Subscription Slicer™ this week. Just killed “Air”.

“Air” is certainly interesting; there’s covert / mystical operatives and countries that only appear via alternate dimension azimuths, etc. etc. But after getting slowly mind-raped by “Lost” TV episodes for three years, I’m just not prepared to mentally invest in this title of too similar ilk.

THWANG!

I think Jonathan Hickman is a great writer.

I think Jonathan Hickman is a shitty writer.

While I’ve enjoyed his titles “Nightly News”, “Pax Romana”, “Red Mass for Mars”, “Transhuman”, and “The Core”, there’s only TWO of those titles I’ve managed to get through. His first, “Nightly News”, whose issues I scooped up in toto at a LCS one fateful day, getting me hooked on the guy, and his latest, “The Core”, which as a Pilot Season effort, only had one issue for me to even buy.

The other titles? I’ve only managed to acquire the first or so issues of any of them.

Why? Because the ongoing issues of Hickman’s OTHER titles just refuse to show up.

Why? Because Hickman apparently can’t write them in a timely manner.

On Jonathan Hickman’s website, last updated in August, he says he’s “super-busy”. Well, fuck-duh. You’ve got 3 titles you’re supposed to be writing buddy, while you were doing Pilot Season shit, giving interviews, and oh… got together with Bendis and started brainstorming ANOTHER title.

Fuck AND this. I said I’d do it, and so I have. I’m no longer buying Jonathan Hickman floppies. While I’m sure the lack of my locked-in $3 per title pre-orders are NOT going to affect the Hickman wave of success, I’m going to save myself a metric shitload of confusion, re-reading, and grief and simply wait for Amazon to carry the trades. Saving dough, to boot.

Hickman subs, “Red Mass for Mars” and “Transhuman”, nixed. KSHUNK!

“Absolute Ronin” just showed up. It’s awesome to have “Ronin” in this format. I was a bit disappointed with the extras in the back…pretty scant. There were pictures of a couple “Ronin” promo posters from the 80s, though—and I actually HAVE one of those, framed even. $66 shipped made it a must have, weak extras be damned.

Similar deals led me to obtaining the first 4 mini-book collections of Terry Moore’s “Strangers in Paradise” last month. A steal at $41 shipped. I have no idea when I’ll get to reading ‘em though, grr.

The first 2 collections of Ben Templesmith’s “Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse” arrived right before I headed out the door for work a couple weeks ago, and I read them back-to-back on a flight, much to the disgust of the two passengers I was crammed between. FAWEsome. Need to find number 3?

I’m halfway through the first “Indiana Jones” Omnibus, and nearly done with the fourth “Buffy” Omnibus, both of which I succumbed to getting at B&N recently. Reading a story or two from each, here and there, when I can.

A couple of days ago, the prestige one-shot “Crecy” by Warren Ellis showed up, and that was an absolute HOOT to read real quick.

And today I’m hoping to get to “The Alcoholic” HC by Jonathan Ames, as well as grinding through the rest of “Superman: Emperor Joker” TPB, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll also be able to catch up on HI floppies!

Back to “work”!

Killed the “Resurrection” subscription. Great premise, solid kick-off, horrible follow-through. Pew! Pew! Pew! Thud.

Ah, “Doktor Sleepless” is grand. On a lark, because it was mentioned HERE at HI, I’ve been reading the back issues—picked up the first eight, including some cover variants a few weeks ago. Warren Ellis is spewing futurelust, mayhem, and weaving all sorts of 21st century tech pop culture into this one.

I mean, when was the last time you read a comic book that mentioned open source software, mesh-networking, group blogs, Sealand, RFIDs, and 3G? While all sorts of folk are getting eviscerated? It’s all part and parcel to the anarchist and futurist skull-hackery that is “Doktor Sleepless”. Highly recommended.

The crazy thing is, I know a guy that could be Doktor Sleepless. I know several. Seriously. Complete with hot female assistant sidekicks, in some cases. Makes this title quite a blast to read.

I’ve been on travel again with a bunch of work to catch up on, but I’ve managed to plow through STACKS of issues and TPBs. More on all this later.

Enough! This japanimewannabe CRAP is getting the sub ax. So bad, it doesn’t even DESERVE waiting for it’s final issue before I beg it’s death. Ugh.

What do you get when you REALLY take an accurate look at the life of someone who decides to be a neighborhood superhero? Absolutely NOTHING, I guess, which equates to an absolute snorefest. “Pilot Season: Twilight Guardian” and Troy Hickman take a BIG chance on the world’s comic book readership, but they’re bound to be disappointed with us and the voting results. In comparison to similar real-world vigilante documentary efforts, most notably “Kick-Ass”, “Twilight Guardian” is certainly going to pale.

To be fair, Troy Hickman COULD be toying with us. Perhaps Troy is introducing us to a brutally geek girl so introverted and incapable of having a relationship that she’s making a desperate case / excuse for her pathetic existence’s loneliness as part and parcel to the life of a crimefighter. She’s not “anti-social”. She’s just too busy performing neighborhood watch duties to have a normal life. Right. And this premise COULD be interesting as a study of a psychotic-comic-book-fan-turned-vigilante via sequential art.

Despite an interesting premise though, following the Twilight Guardian, alter-ego of the aforementioned comic fan in question, simply does NOT work. If this is our heroine, to HELL with her. I just can’t connect, and she’s simply pathetic. She goes from altruistic neighborhood protector to vandal pretty damn quick. Her neighborhood watch, in the guise of crime fighter’s patrol, feels more like a series of peeping Tom ops. Her internal / journal dialogue feels ignorant, stunted, and wholly delusional. I’m just “Wha?” from the get-go. And am I supposed to feel affinity with the Twilight Guardian simply because she has a comic book collection? Perhaps AWE that her collection dwarfs my own? How about shock that she would have let alone actually READ one of her favorite issues from NINETEEN FORTY-THREE?! Who the hell is going to relate to or even root for this character? Don’t tell me. I’d rather NOT know.

And when, if at all, does the Twilight Guardian SLEEP? Going to work all day, coming home, reading a comic, planning her route to patrol her “jurisdiction”, walking around ALL NIGHT, and arriving back home at SUNRISE? Presumably to go back to work? Look, if this is supposed to be what happens in the really real world when a totally mental girl decides to be a real life superhero, then let’s keep it real. I’ve PULLED all nighters after working all day—you do NOT go to work the next day. Certainly not day in and day out. Or maybe you try, but you get fired pretty damn quick for sleeping on the job. “Twilight Guardian” is plagued with similar real-life late-night inconsistencies, too, that simply do NOT help this title out AT ALL.

The art was a bit disappointing, but passable. Since the main character pretty much does nothing but walk around the neighborhood with her hands in her hoody’s pockets, there really isn’t much of a range of character poses or motion. Vehicles, building, etc. feel straight out of “King of the Hill”. People look like bendy dolls. It’s a style, but not one I really care for. Better than a great deal of the action-pose, no-background, mainstream comic fluff we’re subjected to, though. The art for the interspersed “classic” comic panels is pretty decent—I enjoyed it AND it’s accompanying dialogue more than anything.

“Abdullah Oblongata”. heh. Good one. Much too little to win me over, though.

This is the aggravating burn I felt with the inconsistency of the LAST “Pilot Season”. Some things never change. Of three “Pilot Season” efforts I’ve read so far, “Twilight Guardian” definitely ranks last, and honestly, it’s hard to imagine reading another comic as flat-out BORING as this. Perhaps I just didn’t get it. Perhaps this was Troy Hickman warming up. Perhaps this was all just prelude and set-up to something darker, deeper, and / or more daring, but I seriously doubt I’d be willing to chance another $3 on Troy Hickman breaking out of his shell along with convincing “Twilight Guardian” to do so.

After a week of Warren sitting on the pot for vaca, we get Episode 26.

“It’s a cheeky little vintage.”

I got my “FreakAngels” t-shirt a couple weeks back. It’s comfy. Same with my “No Hero” tee. I was a 30-something Avatar Press whore for two days straight! Hrm. Sounds like a 50’s screenplay.

Also, I forgot to mention Episode 25, so read THAT first, then the charming, drunken, and drugged-up Ellis ramblings of an interlude, THEN Episode 26.

I was on a no-tech vacation for a week, followed by catching up on work, and now I’ve got STACKS of comic books to read. Latest floppies, 4 or 5 trades, and arrived-while-away back issues and auctions. Yeah! This rainy weekend should be FAWEsome!

Oh man, I’ve got to catch up on the forum, too! Wonder what I missed…

“Robotika” is a self-described “far future” tale that features killer sci-fi samurai, cybernetic gunslinger action, and goal-driven RPG-like group adventure, in violent, ironic tales, peppered with fantastical creatures and bad guys. Niko is a non-speaking, pain-sensor deprived swordsman and a major badass. CG is a bald, weapon-wielding beauty, and a badass. Bronski is a one-normal-eye one-cyber-eye pistol-packing cowboy, and a badass. Lets hear it for badasses, including the writer and artist, Alex Sheikman.

Sheikman has put significant thought into his “Robotika” world here, and for the added benefit of the reader, he takes great care to dampen the shock of “Robotika”’s in-your-face wonder, way-obvious abnormalities, and not-so-implied massiveness. Sheikman pulls this kindness off through sufficient back story, serene and fluid imagery, goal-based stories, and colorful, unique, characters you can quickly start rooting for. Much appreciated. Dialogue is a bit inconsistent; it feels forced and awkward in some places, yet natural and spot-on in others. Niko doesn’t speak, and doesn’t need to, so no complaints there. And there’s an obvious excuse for CG’s poor verbal timing. Pop-up antagonists, however, really throw things off with their dialogue. The gunslinger Bronski is Sheikman’s dialogue ace, though. Yay for Bronski! And as mentioned, you really do root for the three yojimbos. Sheikman does a wonderful job of introducing the heroes, challenging them individually and as a group, and keeping the reader interested AS they gel. Niko’s moments of introspection, either externally coerced, during virtual training, or during meditation, are placed well throughout by Sheikman; giving us a way to connect to a character we’d otherwise think of as just a talented killer.

“Robotika” is artsy! A welcome detour from simple sequential storytelling. Alex Sheikman has a solid command of anatomy, motion, and fight kinetics. Niko’s silly shoes fall off at the beginning of a brawl, just like I thought they would. heh. Throughout “Robotika”, I was always eager for a fight scene to pop up—they were SO good. Zooms, symmetry, and symbolism are used extensively in “Robotika”, but in a thoughtful manner. While there’s a lot of posing throughout “Robotika”, it’s not gratuitous or unnatural. Instead, the placement of characters, in sword-swinging flight or in pensive pause, is for significant effect. There’s not much fore-shortening, as Sheikman opts for near-vs-far proximity placement of characters to create depth extremes, but I didn’t mind that. Sheikman’s style and attention to detail trumps tradition. For many an example of attention to detail, Sheikman does not appear at all afraid to draw HANDS, in all manner of poses and grips, which I TOTALLY appreciate… and immediately envy. While the rare scenery or establishing shot feels a bit cobbled together, I truly enjoyed those frames as well. A bit of a personal nag here, Sheikman leaves a great deal of space unused, and it appears as if that’s intentional, as if to tease the viewer into begging for more. Grr, I say. But what we are blessed with, contrasting those open spaces, is just wonderful.

Sheikman’s wonderful art is also rather unique, in my opinion. I can’t really put his art in a cubby of classification or artist comparison. I’ve seen bits of commentary with comparisons to Tony Harris, and I think those moments in Sheikman’s art are fleeting at best. If this hadn’t come out before “The Dark Tower”, I’d swear Sheikman was heavily influenced by Jae Lee’s recent work. Now I’m wondering if Lee soaked up some Sheikman. “Robotika” art feels very RPG-ish, and that’s very consistent with the writing, and that’s quite alright by me. Enough with the comparison, inspection, and disassembly—”Robotika”, all on its own, is just really damned good, and so is Alex Sheikman.

While you can get newer “Robotika” via “Robotika: For A Few Rubles More”, the collection of the initial “Robotika” isn’t available at HI, so I’ve linked the cover image below with Amazon. Buy, buy, buy.

Atomic Robo is a Tesla-designed Earth-saving badass robot. “Atomic Robo” is a Red 5 Comics-designed badass comic book title. Learn it, live it, love it.

Brian Clevinger spins heart-warming, humorous, and mission-impossible tales for Atomic Robo, the sarcastic and lovable, albeit physically heartless, main character who saves the world on behalf of a grateful nation. What? Not for dough? Well of course not, what would a robot spend his hero dough on anyway? Clevinger proffers “Helsingard” whom I assume will be a recurring arch-villain / nemesis. Helsingard is a brain-with-no-body “B.P.R.D”-ish antagonist, but definitely distinct, thanks to Clevinger-born, salty, intimate, non-stop, hero-vs-villain banter that tastes of history we are not yet privy to. The lines throughout are not memorable, but only because there are SO MANY that crack you up. They are carelessly quipped by the characters, and at such a rate that, while you may be immediately endeared and giggling to Robo and his supporting cast, you’re doomed to replace each dialogue moment with the next FRAME’s drop-dead funny line. Clevinger jumps back and forth in Robo’s history of adventures, taking breaks from the intimated hunt-for-Helsingard grind to bring us period tales of WWII dogfights or Mars landings. Clevinger has brilliantly succeeded in writing fresh and extreme adventure comic book tales with a wonderful hero who has impenetrable verbal wit to go along with his indestructible metal hide. I just cannot wait to read the the Atomic Robo stories scattered across “history” that Brian Clevinger will eventually bless us with.

Scott Wegener draws your socks off. The art, at first glance, is cartoon simple with obvious Mignola flavor. Pay a bit more attention, and you realize that Wegener did too. His “cartoony” ends up being not too far from “realistic”. Weapons are weapons. Physics are respected. Robo looks and feels like a robot. The expression picked up from Robo’s eyes, however, is spot on with emotes. Action sequences can be naturally followed. The framing and angle of scenes is very well matched to, if not singularly defining in some cases, mood. Wegener, on more than one occasion, totally nails “irony of the situation”. Or, “you gotta be shitting me”. Completely absent of dialogue even. Wegener’s detail is just enough throughout—this guy is a master at line conservation. While I would normally prefer significantly more blacks for lighting contrast / effect, Wegener appears to intentionally hold his blacks in reserve, so that when he whips them out, it REALLY means something. His not-so-heavy style goes well with the light nature of Clevinger’s dialogue anyway. Hrm. I’m now a fan.

Ronda Pattison, with her thoughtful and themed coloring, does a wonderful job at adding just enough depth to Wegener’s art. “Atomic Robo” owes much of its visual liveliness to her. Jeff Powell’s lettering is clean and solid, and does a splendid job of distinguishing Robo’s speech, radio chatter, and HUGE sounds. Nice touch, and a great rounding out of the team.

So yeah, this was GREAT! The “Atomic Robo Vol 1” TPB collects issues 1-6 of the wildly popular, and for good reason, “Atomic Robo”. You’ll be challenged to find individual first printing issues of this killer title. Save yourself dough and eBay frustration and just get this collected volume NOW.

The mission-to-Mars was my favorite tale of the bunch in this book, BTW.

Atomic Robo: “I know it seems like a small thing, but I’m gonna need more than FIVE MAGAZINES to entertain myself for a TWO YEAR ROUND TRIP.”

I can’t tell if Robert Downey Jr. is serious or just fucking with people, but he pseudo-rants regarding the “Dark Knight” movie, “This is so high brow and so fucking smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie,” and quips, “Fuck DC comics.”

Check out ”’Iron Man’ drops F-bomb on DC Comics”.

The original interview, in full context, is actually a h00t.

heh. Given that, I’m going to chalk it up to Downey Jr. just fucking with people. Good one, “Iron Man”. Maybe we can see him and Christian Bale throw down on a red carpet in L.A. sometime.

When I picked up and watched the new “Justice League: The New Frontier” movie on Blu-ray, I wasn’t sure the DC heroes reboot into the 50s thing would work. It did. I floved it. While it had quaint post-WWII American settings, the character interaction and story-telling were mature, almost adult. I think there’s a bit of profanity in that cartoon movie even.

So now there’s a comic, “Justice League: The New Frontier”, which I haven’t read, but I picked up the recently released “Justice League: The New Frontier Special” #1. Three stories, still in the 50s, centering on key DC characters, including: Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Robin, Kid Flash, and Black Canary. The writing is exclusively by wow-he’s-really-good Darwyn Cooke, natch. The stories are great. Simple and bubble gum in immediate presentation, but comfortably enjoyable in punchline. You feel GOOD when you read this. Not enlightened or challenged. Just GOOD. And that’s just FINE with me.

The art is well done, by Darwyn Cooke, David Bullock, and J. Bone. Dave Stewart colors all of it well, too. If you like old-school square Dick Tracy-ish chins, cartoonish figures, and silhouettes, you’ll absolutely love this. I did. Even if you don’t, I think you’ll find the art certainly doesn’t detract from the writing, and at the very least, based on the era, feels appropriate. My one complaint was that the layouts seemed a bit rushed or sub-optimal in some places. As if they may have started off as cartoon / film storyboards and were just never fully cultivated to sequential page-by-page comic book visual storytelling; perhaps shoehorned. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all still great stuff. Enough so, I’m looking to get “New Frontier” back issues now.

The first story is Batman vs Superman, and it is easily the best Batman vs Superman throw-down since 1986 and Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight Returns” #4. But perhaps, not AS good. Hmm. I’ll have to re-read each and compare. Anyway, Superman gets the order from POTUS to take Batman down, and Batman basically says, “Bring it, bitch.” I REALLY like watching Batman outwit and beat the crap out of other DC heroes and this battle did not disappoint. Well, perhaps at it’s very end. But it was a beat-down I’m going to be grinning about for quite some time. Superman was really friggin’ SCARED. Hahahaha. That fight alone was worth the price of admission for “Justice League: The New Frontier Special” #1, IMO. The rest is a very welcomed bonus.

Holy shit. “This is FreakAngels territory.” Fyeah! A little late with the mention, but here’s episode 23, from last Friday.

THIS Friday’s episode, 24, is not as violent—how could it be? Extra points, however, for “I can has vodka.” And it’s the end of book one.

ZOMFG I’m not alone. whew. Chris Sims, with his “Invincible Super Blog”, goes above and beyond, totally cracking me UP, with:

Anita Blake vs Dracula!
Anita Blake vs Batman!
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #3
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #4
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #5
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #6
Annotated Anita Blake: The First Death #1
Annotated Anita Blake: The First Death #2
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #7
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #8
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #9 & #10
Annotated Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #11 & #12

Read. It. ALL. If only I could have found it sooner.

Even “Penny Arcade” gives fair warning:

I really hope Laurell K. Hamilton, the author of the “Guilty Pleasures” novel adapted here, got paid. As a New York Times-bestselling author, perhaps a massive amount of money will help her sleep soundly, despite knowing Marvel produced this pile of crap with her name on it. Who knows? Maybe Laurell writes total shite, as well. That would at least be an excuse for six issues of “Anita Blake Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures” horribly written by Stacie Ritchie and collected in this TPB.

Anita Blake is a survivor of a vampire attack who has some mystical ability to raise the dead and lends investigatory and ass-kicking skills to the police. Sounds like a great start. But who would have thought that a character dubbed “Vampire Hunter” would be penned so emotionally weak and insecure? Embarrassing. The character interaction, and basically the entire story, consists of Anita Blake and supporting characters either eying each other seductively or issuing veiled threats to one another. Bitch-slaps occasionally thrown in for effect. Ritchie introduces and tosses the supporting characters with such abandon that I wonder what the point of introducing them was in the first place. By the end of this collected book, I basically don’t care if every character were to die. Including the main one. That’s not normal.

The art doesn’t help me enjoy this either. Brett Booth apparently can’t draw anything other than sullen emos and goths striking booby and ab showoff poses. Thank Imaginary Friends Studio for giving this tome of awkward and unvarying pin-ups an ounce of depth through digital coloring. The number of straight-on same-level face shots is LEGION. The number of fore-shortened poses is very very FEW. The number of wide-angle city-scapes or establishing shots is ZERO. Depth, perspective, and shading are simply not drawn. Damn, can I get A cross-hatch? Just ONE? If this is what passes for “hot” these days in comic-dom, I’ve got one word for it: Liefeld.

I gave it a shot, but “Anita Blake Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures Vol 1” left ME feeling guilty that I wasted $15 on such obvious comic book cheesecake. Thankfully I waited for the paperback instead of plunking down for the HC. And at least I can create a mental filter now that ensures I don’t buy anything more written by Stacie Ritchie or drawn by Brett Booth. Money in the BANK!

Whitechapel folks are gearing up and going full auto this week. Casualties are sure to follow. Yikes.

And hey! You can now buy the “FreakAngels” t-shirt. Finally. Goto Comic Calvacade’s store and search “freakangels”.

Yay. Ordered. Now I won’t have to greasy-thumb through my second printing floppies.

I finally got around to reading Ben Templesmith’s “Singularity 7”, albeit in TPB format.

The story is pretty decent. It’s sci-fi horror. Nanobots decimate Earth. Some folks survive. Barely. Regardless, the outlook’s grim for them and the luckier few who “evolve” as nanobot-enhanced badassen. Earth’s remaining humans are being systematically hunted by evil cleanup crews and it’s time to go on offense, or die. Or both. Sword-swinging and automatic weapon-wielding with that aforementioned sci-fi horror twist ensues.

Dialogue is gung-ho, out-of-place, and totally quip-a-rific. Lines like: “I am a bomb. I have to explode now.” Scary. Serene. Matter of fact. Lazy, but fun.

Ben Templesmith’s art is Templesmith, no doubt. And that’s simply how it has to be described. Templesmith has his own category. His own rating. His own level. It so surpasses Sienkiewicz it’s not funny. No, really. And Sienkiewicz is stellar. This 30-something kid with crazy lines via Wacom digital tablet, plus sick washes, kicks MAJOR ass. There are very few people who violate the comic book medium with impunity like this; disposing of proper notions with glee, that somehow results in your fervent gratitude for being allowed to witness “the new”. Paul Pope quickly comes to mind. Fuck yeah. Ben Templesmith is one of those people, too.

In the midst of slinging sloppy fight-scene mechanics that I become strangely infatuated with, he pauses to scribble above our posing heroes: “[ standard group shot ]”

This thing reads FAST. Like, done-in-an-hour kinda fast. Longer if you linger on the art, which I did on the second and third readings. Yeah. You’ll do that, too.

Uh… ok. I was NOT expecting the curveball of #2. Magical / alien bugs being hand-fed sliced fruit by a dude and his pet zombies? WTF?

This just went from somewhat interesting crime noir w/ a zombie twist to “Arachnophobia” for retards. DAMmit. Not. HAPPY!

“Have I got to wind this fooking thing all fooking day or what?” It’s back on. HERE.

During the early 80s I used to bike to a nearby convenience store every other Saturday or so and pick up a “SGT Rock” or “GI Combat” or “Blackhawk” comic. And some Bazooka Joe bubble gum, too. Not quite as fast as the gum lost its flavor, I eventually lost all of those war comics I read. Grrr.

This week I ran across some back issues of “Blackhawk” being sold crazy cheap and something in me just snapped. Can’t explain it. Maybe it’s a combo of Dad recently asking about modern-age SGT Rock, some recent HI mentions of my own, and too much Sirius channel 8 during commutes. Nostalgia? I dunno.

Anyway, I went on a bit of a war comic shopping spree, picking up uh… “several” late-70s / early-80s “Our Army at War”, “GI Combat”, and “Blackhawk” back issues. I can’t wait for them to show up!

Daynah championed Opera awhile back. She’s got better-than-mine taste in comics (or she’s just pickier), she writes clearly with intelligence, she’s witty, and has a sense of humor. I read her arguments for Opera over Firefox and contemplated that perhaps she might be ahead of the curve on browser selection. So I gave Opera a chance. I hung up Firefox and downloaded the not-so-big O, vowing to use it instead of Firefox for a WEEK.

Uh… wow. What a week (or so) of evaluating Opera on OS X. If I had to describe it in one word? Disappointing.

Here’s the running log:

7/11 – Started my weeklong trial of Opera. Latest version has been installed on my Macbook Air running OS X 10.5.2. Seems decent enough. Browse browse browse. Crashed right before 9 PM. heh. Happens to the best of ‘em.

7/12 – Several strange layout bugs at heavyink.com. Notified and sent screenshots to the HI folks. The speed dial thing is neat. So is the real-time status counter of page elements loading. Fyeah.

7/13 – No crashes today, but www.me.com results in http://www.me.com/unsupported_browser/en/. So Apple no likey Opera for MobileMe. A browser that doesn’t work with my $99 / year investment? Ouch. Another thing. I like speed dial, but I want a hot key for jumping to it and NOT opening up a new tab. Where’s the magic button or key-combo to go “back” to speed dial in a pre-existing tab? Seems silly to have such a nifty bookmark function that REQUIRES opening a new tab.

7/14 – Video doesn’t load at various places on CNN. Seems to work fine in Firefox 3 though. Random session timeouts with reservation system at amtrak.com. Works fine with Firefox 3, natch.

7/15 – Strange navigation behavior. “Back” and “Refresh” intermittently and frustratingly don’t function. Not sure what that’s about. Today, I also needed to change proxy settings, manually. Ugh. There’s no “Use this proxy for all protocols” checkbox akin to Firefox proxy config pane. Have to enter the manual proxy settings each time for the protocol I was using HTTP, HTTPS, FTP. ANNOYing.

7/16 – Opera is just unusable with Campfire, www.campfirenow.com. Scrolling is all borked up. Gah. Layout is funky. Also, simply entering a URL and hitting enter, https://mail.google.com results in the activity wheel, as if it’s working, but it’s not. Open a new tab, enter the URL, and it works immediately. Just weird. Firefox 3 works just dandy with Campfire, BTW.

7/17 – Redirect links from eBay to Paypal do not work. Which means “paying all” invoices with a click doesn’t work. Using Firefox works, though.

7/18 – Last straw. Again. Let’s say I’ve finished reading a random webpage on a random website. I want to now go to Gmail. Securely. Manually entering https://mail.google.com in the URL window and hitting enter results in nothing. Requires going to just www.google.com, THEN manually entering https://mail.google.com to get Gmail to work, or explicitly opening up a new tab. That’s fucking too weird AND annoying.

Opera has some slickness, such as speed dial and the element loading real-time counter, I’ll give it that. Memory and CPU footprint are low. The baby browser has totally grown up to tweener status! However, in my opinion, it’s just NOT competition for Firefox. At all. While I don’t think Firefox is perfect, I have nowhere NEAR as much disappointment with it vs Opera.

Finally, I don’t give a fuck HOW standards compliant a web browser is, if it can’t handle rendering pages from the most standards NON-compliant environment in existence, i.e. THE Internet, then that browser is dead to me. Dead, I say! Dirt nap for Opera.

Your mileage may vary. Feel free to try it out.

Darn it.

In other news, someone in the HI forums mentioned that if you Google “laurie dreamlandcomics” you get a link to the HI shitstorm that Laurie of Dreamlandcomics started. The result of which apparently ended up being Laurie with shit all over her face. So much so, that if you now just Google “dreamlandcomics”, sans Laurie, the third link you get, and right after Dreamlandcomics’ links, is the HI aforementioned poopy splatter forum thread: “Laurie of Dreamlandcomics vs HeavyInk”.

BTW, as a geek, you know you’ve found an online comic book store to call home when the owners have whois-fu.

Yeah! A bit of the ultra-violence right HERE. Wow. This just picked up steam.

I receive the first issue of “Red Mass for Mars”, and immediately, a wave of dread passes over me. I haven’t even opened to page one yet. Fuck.

As soon as I start reading, I wholly understand my panic attack. Jonathan Hickman. He throws himself into the writing, and reading it, while a true unadulterated blast, takes exertion. I submit to you: “Transhuman”. Am I really up for this?

Lest you say I poopoo the Hickman: reading that requires exertion is a “Good Thing” (TM), IMO. And I submit to you: “Red Mass for Mars”

Ryan Bodenheim’s art on “Red Mass” is a solid companion here. Bodenheims’s art feels like Frank Quitely (see “All-Star Superman”), but not as good and with shortcuts.

Actual story? I’m a sucker for Earth-apocalypto shit, and “Red Mass for Mars” fits the bill. Hickman does a SOLID job of conveying how truly screwed Earth is. That’s AFTER Earth’s burnt up, experienced super-bugs, terrorist nukes, AND gray goo. Apparently, it’s gonna get WORSE.

“Humor relief” consists of a two-page spread announcing the blatant murder and worse of the British royal family. This is the fuckin’ weird, initial, and symbolic reprisal for failure to obey a psycho superhuman international edict that the world shall instantly switch to English as the written and spoken global language; brilliantly concluded with said psycho mumbling: “Book burning and data elimination to ensue immediately. This message is not to be translated… except for the hand stuff for the deafs.”

The deafs. heh. Hickman slays.

Here ya go:

Rock.

A couple short boxes of X titles were given to me. Someone getting rid of their collection… whatever THAT is about. heh. I’m grinding through the boxes of freebies, and I pull out a run of “New X-Men: Academy X”, issues #1-#8. Never read it before…

RUN, don’t walk, from this title, and more importantly, Nunzio DeFilippis’ and Christina Weir’s writing.

Maybe they’re a pro-writer duo with some sort of high school sweetheart past and too much exposure to “90210” and … gah. I don’t actually know how someone could be influenced to write such crap. Fuck guessing.

I might not understand giving away an entire comic book collection, but giving away this title makes complete sense. Particularly if meant as some sort of prank. Or torture.

I now SO want the last 2 hours of my life back. Can I sue Marvel for ‘em?

Latest “FreakAngels”, episode 19, HERE!

There’s a forum thingy associated with “FreakAngels” called “Whitechapel” HERE. Flock all ye Ellis fans. I’ll pass for now.

But I did see there’s a “FreakAngels” t-shirt, yay.

Purchase details are non-existent thus far, so no yay.

Fyeah, I wear comic book tees in RL.

“Trinity” is the D.C. weekly pseudo-follow-on from “Countdown”. Or it feels that weak, i.e. it appears that D.C. lulled folks in to the weekly comic gag with “52”, kept the commitment somewhat with “Countdown”, and now? Well, “Trinity” just falls flat. I generally like Kurt Busiek’s writing, but gah, this all feels sloppy and detached. Group dream trama? Really? Since when would Batman even HINT that he sleeps, let alone dreams? I feel cheated. Particularly now that D.C. expects me to pay $2.99 a WEEK for this half-ass blah.

Bye-bye “Trinity”.

The bright light from the recent adds is “Dead, She Said”. I generally toss in and try out some new stuff monthly, and “Dead, She Said” just got the nod. It has a film-noir “Criminal” feel and some foul-mouthed PI / detective action a la “Fell”. Short premise, a private investigator wakes up from what he thinks was a rough drunken night out, realizes he’s dead, and goes on an investigative tear through the dirty city to solve his own murder. Some of the writing misses the mark, or feels a bit strained, but the idea and art more than make up for it right now.

Hello “Dead, She Said”.

I’ve stumbled upon a cool web comic that Warren Ellis has been writing. It’s called “FreakAngels”.

“FreakAngels” appears to be set in some sort of post-apocalyptic U.K., there’s magic or telepathy or SOMEthing going about, and all the characters appear to be vulgar youths.

The art is nifty, but relaxed, eg. the buildings are drawn freehand no rulers yay. No one looks superhero out-of-the-ordinary—so it feels somewhat realistic. Well, until people get mind-blasted and shit.

To top it off, “FreakAngels” is free, and despite its impending release in TPB, Ellis maintains the comic will remain free on the web in perpetuity.

Check it out HERE.

It sounds like the tragic title of a superhero story-arc, and that’s pretty much what it is.

I’ve posted a note on the forum mentioning Turner’s passing HERE.

Michael Turner was a phenomenally gifted artist. I never really cared too much for his title “Fathom” and it’s oceanic alien life spinoff stuffs, but damn, Turner could draw. I truly enjoyed his take on D.C. heroes. He was particularly badass at presenting the female form. Raise your hand if you ever bought a “Swimsuit Issue” of comic book hotties, simply because Turner was one of the artists.

Honestly, Wonder Woman never looked as hot as when Michael Turner drew her.

Now Michael Turner is gone, and I will miss him and the versions of heroes he would have drawn.

Cancer truly sucks. Fight it.

HI makes the fourth online comic retailer I’ve used for subscriptions in 8+ years.

When you move subscriptions from one online retailer to the next, there’s a quaint dance of calculations you must perform. What titles will I move? Which issue of what title did I get last? Do I have issues of titles on order? On the way?

You pause / cancel from one retailer, you start with another. Delicately.

Basically, you’re trying to not MISS any issues AND not get any EXTRAS. Like I said, through employing four retailers, I’ve performed this dance three times.

Now I’ve fucked it up three times. Gah.

Time to give away some extras and find some laggers. sigh

I had read good things about this in CBG and yup, it’s rocking out.

Three issues in, and it already feels “X-Files” or “Starman”-ish from a .gov conspiracy / manhunt standpoint, respectively, but with a touch of “X-O”, and a bunch of female baggage thrown in.

Recommended. Definitely over “Resurrection”, which has just stunk it up for the last two issues.

Hrm. A day or so here and I’m geeking out. Yay HI.

As a Rails fan / student, this site is a study for me.

There are some data bugs, absent ideal features, etc. but generally, everything’s pretty damn cool.

Here’s the crazy thing, this social aspect / potential of HI has me hooked, and I haven’t received one comic book yet.

Trying out Heavy Ink. I’m the noobiest noob.

This site is damn awesome, and I’ve been debating making it my comic supplier since the Boing Boing mention awhile back.

There’s never a “convenient” time to move your subscriptions over from another place, so I just pulled the trigger.

Starting with 30 or so of my regular titles. Let’s see how it goes!