COOL SHIT 10-28-10

GRAVEL #21: I hope this isn’t the last issue, I really do. This is Avatar’s only monthly, and it’s a hell of a fine book. I’ve been a fan of William Gravel since his first appearance in STRANGE KISSES #1, and I’d hate to see the last of him. You see, this reads like a last issue. There are a few loose ends, but a lot of major storylines are tied up and . . . well, Avatar hasn’t been advertising future issues. In this book, Gravel meets his match (kind of) in Bible Jack as the magical fate of London hangs in the balance. If you haven’t read of Gravel’s adventures in the past, you might be too late. If not, buy this book! Save it! Please!

INCOGNITO: BAD INFLUENCES #1: Yes, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have returned with another pulpy superhero/crime adventure! In case you don’t know, Zack is formerly a super-powered villain, but when his twin brother was killed during a job, he was put in a witness protection program. But staying on the straight and narrow didn’t sit well with him. These events were covered in the first series. Now, Zack works for the people who once protected him, and he enjoys taking down villains like Dark Leopold and his Nuclear Nazis and Zhing Fu, the Asian underlord. But when he’s living his cover-life, he’s bored titless . . . until the day an old man tries to ambush and kill him. Why? Read the book.

STRAT’S: WHERE NOSTALGIA ACTUALLY MEANS SOMETHING

Even from outside, Strat’s looks like it was lost in a time warp. One would expect the parking lot to be filled with vintage cars and teenagers with DA haircuts and cigarette packs rolled up in the short sleeve of their white t-shirts. Everything is done up in neon, and golden oldies blare from the speakers outside. Sometimes, you can hear some classic rock, but more often than not, you’re listening to Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and their likes as you approach the front door.



Inside, there is a counter running along the back wall, and all the tables have Formica tops. Around the ceiling hangs a train set, and sometimes, you can see the train circling above everyone’s heads. Along with the train tracks is a series of Illinois license plates, dating back to the ‘Fifties, as well as old advertisements for local car dealerships that have long since gone out of business.


There is a cigarette machine in the corner—for display purposes only—which seems to be filled with packs that might have been cellophane wrapped in 1966. There is a coin slot higher up on the machine, declaring that for a penny, you can get a match. On top of the machine is a collection of old beer cans, some recognizable, others not. Who out there remembers the Falstaff brand? On the wall next to the cans is an astray with a hot tip in the middle, long condemned as a fire hazard.


On the opposite side of the room is an antique Coke machine, again for display purposes only. On top is a crate of old fashioned Coke bottles, and nearby is a Coke cooler which has a door in the side, rather than on the top.


On the walls are pictures of Marilyn Monroe, the Three Stooges, the Beatles, and others, side by side with vintage beer advertisements. The most recent of them declares that Schlitz can be bought here in bottles, and surely enough, this is true.

Sounds like a lot of places around here, doesn’t it? Well, there’s a difference: Strat’s actually was here in the olden times of the ‘Fifties. It looks practically the same now as it did back then. There was no tear down and build up. Hell, there haven’t even been renovations. It’s the same as it ever has been.


The atmosphere isn’t the only draw; the food is damned good, too. The hot dogs might not be the best in town, but they’re still pretty good, and the burger will kick the shit out of any other charburger in the ‘burbs, even Portillo’s. The fries are a bit on the soggy side, though, so you might as well order them with cheese on them. That way, you’ll get a fork to go with it.


On Wednesday nights in the summer, they have a car show in their parking lot, which attracts quite the crowd. Sometimes, they also attract the police, as fights tend to break out often at these shows, but people very rarely come into the restaurant, so you don’t have to worry about long service times or finding a place to sit and enjoy your meal.


Overall, you will have a much better dining experience at Strat’s than you would at any other similarly themed restaurants, both in the aesthetic sense and in the quality of food.

Strat’s

231 E. North Ave
Villa Park, IL 60181

COOL SHIT 10-21-10

KICK-ASS 2 #1:  Issue one just came out, and already I’m wondering if Mark Millar sold the movie rights to it.  The man somehow manages to get movies made of his work before it’s even finished.  Does he have a pact with the devil?  Maybe, but regardless, he’s got a metric shit-ton of talent.  If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need me to tell you that.  Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl are back, and if you only know them from the movie, you need to pick up the books.  They’re infinitely more fucked up, although their hearts are in the same place.  Apparently, Dave Lizewski’s antics as Kick-Ass has garnered a lot of attention, and people are imitating him left and right.  It only makes sense that a group of these imitators would eventually form a Justice League situation, and this seems to be the thrust of the new series.  Aside from this, it’s a sheer pleasure to watch Hit-Girl beat the shit out of Kick-Ass before sending a team of “grown men with severe learning difficulties” after him . . . for training.  The best part, though:  Doctor Gravity’s explanation of his Gravity Pole.  I’d tell you to buy this book, but you probably already have.  (I could probably do without the tagline, though:  “Taste the awesome!”  I’d rather not, thank you.)

VERTIGO RESURRECTED #1:  There isn’t a whole lot I could say about this issue.  Most of it contains reprints from older Vertigo books, and honestly, I’ve reviewed them before, waaaay back when I was in college.  The main purpose of this book is to finally release the HELLBLAZER story that got Warren Ellis fired from the book:  “Shoot.”  It was originally scheduled to be released around the same time that Columbine happened.  Vertigo wanted to pull it, Ellis didn’t want to, so he was let go.  Honestly, the story isn’t much at first.  I can easily see why it was postponed (the first page depicts a teenager shooting another teenager in the face, after all), but the first half of the story is about the protagonist pondering about why someone would do something like this while listening to recorded footage of the Jonestown massacre.  Nothing big in the realm of storytelling.  However, the moment when John Constantine shows up in the protagonist’s office becomes a game changer.  I won’t say how it changes (that would be criminal), but it is very, very shocking and intelligent stuff.  The last panel is so chilling, I don’t have the words for it.  This is what art should be, and Vertigo pussied out ten years ago.  And they’re on the cutting edge of storytelling, in my opinion.  Not as much as Avatar, perhaps, but they’re definitely risk takers.  It says a lot that they didn’t run this tale.  It’s a potent story, just make sure you stay with it.

REUNION

"Jack!  Long time, no see!"

"Jesus, Christian.  Is that you?  Damn, you got thin."

"Yeah.  Have a seat.  I'll buy you a drink."

"Thanks."

"Hey, barkeep!  Two Millers!  Or is that too low class for you, Jack?"

"That's fine."

"Good.  I hate that snobbish shit you drink."

"Heh.  It's good to see this place still looks the same after all these years.  Warms the heart."

"Yeah.  So, how'd you get so thin?"

"Ah, you know.  I had to, if I wanted to lure the rich bitches."

"You still killing rich women?  I figured you would've outgrown that by now."

"It's where the fun is."

"It's way too much work.  You have to spend a whole bunch of time getting on her good side, seducing her and everything.  You should kill prostitutes and the homeless, like me."

"Christian, that is soooooo '96.  Besides, it's too easy to kill those who are less fortunate.  It takes skill to kill rich bitches."

"No, it takes time.  When I want to kill, I want to kill.  I don't want to waste time taking some rich bitch out to dinner in a fancy restaurant."

"It's called the Thrill of the Hunt, not that you'd know anything about that."

"Don't talk to me about the Thrill of the Hunt.  I like to taunt the police.  You know, write 'em letters, send 'em body parts, that type of thing.  Once, I sent them half a kidney and told 'em I'd eaten the other half."

"Please, you ripped that off from the Ripper.  Bor-ing!"

"I didn't rip anything off.  It's called an homage, okay?"

"Whatever you say.  Bartender!  Two more!"

"Don't you ever get tired of being, what do you call it?  Advent gardie?"

"Avant garde, and no, being on the cutting edge is the only smart place to be."

"Okay, let's talk about cutting edge.  Jack the Ripper killed whores.  That put him on the map."

"It's not because he killed whores.  It's how he killed them.  Very nice work, I might add, but I would love to see what would have happened if he had gone after high society ladies.  Scotland Yard would have had leeches on his nuts within an hour of the first kill."

"The whole idea of being a serial killer is release, not creativity.  And in order to find release, you have to avoid getting caught.  Why risk the rich bitches when you can kill someone no one cares about?"

"I think you're wrong.  Serial killing is about having fun, and it's just as creative as any other art form.  You have to be smart if you want to come up with things that shock people in these stalwart times.  That means you have to do things no one else has done before.  That's why Ed Gein is still popular today.  Do you realize how many people have ripped him off?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure you'll recall that Ed Gein got caught."

"So?"

"So, he didn't get to do much killing after that, did he?"

"I repeat, so?  He got caught.  His name has gone down in history.  Don't you want to be famous?"

"No.  I want to kill people.  It relaxes me, and just for a few minutes, I can forget about all the bad shit that made me who I am today."

"I don't know about you, but I made myself this way.  I wasn't raped or abused when I was a kid.  In fact, my life has been pretty pleasant."

"Then why do you kill people?"

"Because I like to."

"I guess I'll never understand you."

"I don't either, sometimes.  But hey, if the police3 ever catch up with me, maybe they'll get some shrinks to write books about me, trying to figure me out.  Think I could get . . . what's his name?  Vincent Bugliosi.  Think I could get him to write about me?"

"Who?"

"Never mind.  I have a date to meet.  I guess I'll see you around, huh?"

"Yeah.  Have a good time on your date."

"You betcha.  See you, Christian."

"See ya', Jack."

FRED’S PLACE: FOR THOSE WHO NEED SOMETHING TO PAD OUT THE BOOZE (a restaurant review)

The newest thing about Fred’s Place is the sign outside. Maybe they thought it would class the joint up a bit, but all it did was make Lake Street a little more incongruous. Anyone seeing the sparkling new sign would expect something at least a little bit fancier than the truck stop that they’re going to get. They would at least expect a restaurant the quality of a McDonald’s . . . .



But no. Fred’s Place is the ultimate greasy spoon. Everything inside is a dim yellow, reminiscent of an aged 8-mm film. Nicotine stains the walls, even though it is not legal to smoke inside. Flies buzz at the lights. The counter and booths may have been new in 1973, and they have the cracks and sweat-circles to prove it. The floor doesn’t look like it has seen a mop in a decade, and then it was only to shoot the shit.


It is very easy to see a TWILIGHT ZONE-era Jack Klugman sitting in the corner booth, wearing a wife-beater, cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth as he looks over the horse race results in the paper. If Portillo’s is a place where the best of nostalgia is reflected in its surfaces, then Fred’s Place is the dark underside, the part of history no one wants to remember, the part that everyone glosses over.


Anything that you order is so greasy that it eats through the plate on which it sits, and the plates are NOT paper. Anything you dare to eat will move through you faster than any White Castle Slider or Taco Bell burrito. You’ll be in the parking lot, on your way to your car, when the grease-ball burger you just ate will start pecking at your rectum. You had better drive fast to get home, because you certainly don’t want to use the toilet in this place. The less said about this, the better. In fact, it is highly recommended that you not eat in this place while sober.


If Fred’s Place has all of this against it, then why is it still in business? It has two things going FOR it, and these are so overwhelming that it’s worth overlooking the grime. Firstly, Fred’s is a truck stop, so it is open 24 hours a day (except Sundays). This leads to the second point: it’s the perfect place for drunks. After a hard night’s drinking at bars that are now closed, you can always rely on Fred’s Place being open. Their greasy food is the perfect consumable for such a drunken excursion. It’ll help sober you up a bit for your drive home, and it will help battle your hangover before it even begins. If you need something to pad out the monumental amount of booze you’ve just had, then Fred’s Place is the perfect restaurant for you.


Just don’t go there if you haven’t been drinking.

 
Fred’s Place
544 W. Lake St.
Elmhurst, IL 60126

TALES OF DENTISTRY CHAPTER FIVE

Let me give you an idea of what my dental practices are. In the morning, after eating breakfast, I use a Sonic toothbrush on my teeth, gums, and tongue. This was recommended by Dentist Two to get my gums to spring back from my case of gingivitis. It actually worked, too. My mouth was starting to look much healthier, even if my teeth are a bit on the discolored side. Speaking of which, Dentist Two’s hygienist told me to use Sensodyne Pronamel because the enamel of my teeth has faded considerably. I am apparently at risk of having my teeth chip and crack because of this. So when I use the Sonic toothbrush, I put Pronamel on it. Then, I use a proxy brush (also with Pronamel on it) to go between my teeth, rather than floss. Lastly, I use the mini brush and the special mouthwash I was given a couple of chapters ago to keep the cap on my implant clean. And then, just before I go to bed, I do it all over again.



Three months of this, and thousands of dollars. But it will all be worth it.


I went in to Dentist Two to have the abutment put in. It was a very quick procedure. In fact, calling it a procedure seems a bit pretentious. I sat down, and she unscrewed the cap. She then snapped a plastic piece into place, and that was it. My abutment was in.

When I looked in the mirror, what I saw looked like a filed down, miniature tooth with a flat top. Weird, but better than the metal knob. I was then told that I could have the crown put on whenever I wanted. I said I had a cleaning scheduled with Dentist One in about a month, and she said that was fine.

On my way out, I was presented with the bill. “Four-twenty-five,” I was told.


I pulled out a five. That seemed reasonable for a piece of plastic.


“Sorry, hon. I meant four hundred and twenty-five.”


“Oh.” Well, I couldn’t pay that. In fact, all I could offer was the five. I now have yet another bill, this time for $420. Which would be cool, if I smoked weed.


I decided not to wait for the cleaning. I wanted this done as soon as possible. I contacted Dentist One and was told that I could come in for the molding at the end of the week. From there, it would take two weeks to make the crown, and then everything would finally be done.


It’s a good thing I didn’t wait the month, then. I wanted to be done as soon as possible.


I went in for the molding. It sounded simple enough, but it was actually kind of gross. Dentist One popped out the $425 abutment and put this half-tray with goo on it in my mouth.


“This will take five minutes to set,” he said, and he held the tray in place.


I felt the cold goo ooze around my teeth and into the empty spot. At first, it was just uncomfortable, and then I tasted it as it rubbed up against my tongue. Awful. But the worst part was trying to swallow.


I’ve got a bad gag reflex, and it reared its ugly head that day. I started gagging with the thing in my mouth. I tried not to, but my throat just started convulsing. Dentist One tried his best to help, but he couldn’t take the tray out now. We had to stay the course.


“Just lean forward. Don’t swallow. I don’t care if you drool all over the place.”


I took this advice and started breathing heavily through my nose. Saliva ran like a river out of my mouth, down his gloved hand, and down to the bib around my neck. I felt gross and foolish.


But finally, it was over. He yanked the mold out of my mouth and prepared the next one. “Don’t worry, this one sets after only a minute.” It was still bad, but it could have been worse. I didn’t gag on this one, but I was building up to it. If it was in any longer, I probably would have puked all over Dentist One.


After this was done, he held up a bunch of sample crowns against my other teeth, and it took me a moment to realize he was trying to match up the color. As soon as he’d settled on one, he let me out of the chair and said, “We’ll set you up for two weeks, and then this thing will be over.”


We decided that I’d just come in earlier on my cleaning day. We’d put the crown in, and then we’d get my teeth cleaned. And that would be all she wrote.


Between that day and the day of the crown, I received notification from my insurance. This crown alone was going to cost me $1,600. I didn’t think it would be that much. Fuck. And I didn’t expect the insurance to cover any of it, but still.


Let this be a lesson, kids: don’t lose your teeth.


I noticed a paragraph on the letter, though, that gave me some hope. Dentist One’s office didn’t submit all the paperwork. It was possible that some of this would be soaked up by the insurance, if everything was filed properly.


When I went in to get the crown placed in, I mentioned this to the assistant. She said that she’d noticed the discrepancy, and that everything had been sent in per the insurance company’s instructions. Guess what: it’s possible that they’ll pay a good percentage of this. At the time of this writing, I don’t know if this is true. Maybe I’ll write an epilogue some day and let you know.


They led me back to the dentist’s chair, and I was given a cursory examination. When Dentist One determined that everything was good, he showed me the crown, which he’d filled with some kind of liquid. Concrete, I think. He then slid it into place and gave me a cotton ball to bite on.


“There’s a clock up there,” he said, pointing. “Bite down as hard as you can for an entire minute. Then, bite firmly for another minute.”


How, exactly, does one quantify the difference between biting firmly and biting as hard as one can? Just to be sure, I pushed my jaw up against the rest of my head as hard as possible for an entire minute. Only then did I rely on my ordinary biting strength.


Soon, it was all over. The cotton ball was removed, and I was escorted over to the opposite side of the building for my cleaning. It wasn’t until I got back out to my car that I got a look at my new tooth.


It’s passable. If no one is trying to find it, it will look just like any other tooth. However, if given more than a cursory examination, it’s pretty obvious. There is a short distance between it and my gum-line, which doesn’t compare with the rest of my teeth at all. There is a plastic quality to it, and the lack of a filling distinguishes it from the rest of my molars. However, the dentist managed to match the color to the rest of my teeth EXACTLY.


Having gone so long without a tooth there, it feels strange in my mouth, especially if I’m chewing. It’s so much smoother than the rest of my teeth, it feels like I have a marble stuck in my mouth when I’m eating.


But I’d much rather have this alien feeling—a feeling that will probably go away with time—in my mouth than to have a space between my teeth, a space where food constantly gets caught.


I can’t even tell you how many thousands of dollars I spent on this implant (because I don’t yet have the final numbers), but it’s worth every penny.


Still and all, take care of your teeth, folks. As Doc Holliday said in WYATT EARP, “They’re the only set you’ll have.”

COOL SHIT 10-14-10

G.I. JOE: ORIGINS #20: David Lapham is writing G.I. JOE?! He kicks off his run with a very interesting idea: that Cobra has its fingers in charity organizations. Only 1% of the International Humanitarian Aid Foundation knows who they really work for. But what stake does Cobra have in this? RECRUITING. You see, Dr. Lester Horvath has come up with a test in order to determine one’s “worth as a human being.” Dr. Horvath is an interesting character because despite the fact that he came up with this test and knows exactly what can come of it, he knows he’s “only a four.” He yearns to meet an eight, and Cobra is about to let that happen. Lapham’s intelligent violence is spread all over these pages. I said it before about Max Brooks’ G.I. JOE books, and I’ll say it about Lapham’s: if you grew up on stories about Duke, Snake Eyes, Stalker, and the rest, you should really check in with the new books. The sensibilities have grown up with you. Although they’re fairly clean, these books are not aimed at kids.

THE TRANSFORMERS #12: Guess what else has grown up with you? Oh yeah. It’s kind of weird reading a book about giant robots arguing foreign policy, but there’s a lot here to sink your teeth into. And believe it or not, they finally found a useful task for Cosmos. As things escalate to an international incident (see how I worked the title of the story arc into this?), Bumblebee gives one of the most emotional speeches an Autobot has ever had to give, even moreso than Optimus Prime himself. In fact, no other Autobot could give this speech. And then there’s the surprise at the end. I won’t say what happens other than a major Transformer gets killed. It comes at the perfect moment, to be honest. I know, I know, no one ever stays dead in the TRANSFORMERS universe, but the sheer power of the timing makes this one of the most memorable moments in the story’s history.

TALES OF DENTISTRY CHAPTER FOUR

The mouthwash sucked at first. The taste wasn’t as bad as I was told it would be, but when it touched the empty spot where my tooth used to be, the pain nearly floored me. It was intense, no matter how easy I tried to be with it. It was as if someone had jabbed a needle into the empty trench in my mouth.



But after a while, it stopped hurting. The worst part about the long wait was keeping the trench clean after meals. Crumbs and stuff sometimes managed to get in there, and the only way to keep it clean was to use a syringe Dentist Three gave me to blast warm water in there. It worked, but after EVERY meal? That shit just got tedious, especially at work. I’d retire to the bathroom after lunch so I could clean out the cleft in my gums. People would then ask me questions. Even back at my desk, people would see the syringe and ask me all about it. It was a pain, and my junkie jokes got old fast.


But finally, there came the day when I would get my implant. First, I had to get the CT scan, to make sure this thing was going to work out. Best part: I had to pay for the whole thing at that moment. Yeah, about $200 for the scan, in advance. You’re starting to get the idea of how much this is costing me, right?


I sat down, and the scan went around my head, or at least it tried to. My shoulders were too high, and it kept brushing up against them. I tried my best to keep my head straight, but they had to do it again. There was no way to adjust it, either.


When it was done, the technician said, “Do you have a cold?”


“No,” I said.


“You’re going to have one soon.”


Sure enough, the next day I was sniffling.


I should mention that the people who did the scan were not affiliated with any of the dentists I’d seen by that point. However, they were in the same building as Dentist Two, who is the person who needs to see the scan results. I scheduled this thing a couple of weeks in advance of the implant appointment, to make sure there was plenty of time.


Just to make sure everything was going to go smoothly, one week before the appointment, I called Dentist Two to make sure they had the results. Guess what: they didn’t, and when they called the scan company about the issue, they claimed to have sent it off. Yeah, it got lost in the mail.


The mail. They are not only in the same FUCKING building, the scan company is on the floor below Dentist Two, almost directly below. All it would have taken was for someone to walk it up.


Well, things worked out anyway. Dentist Two got the scan just in time, and she said she thought everything was going to go well. It was time to get ready and get shot up with Novocain.


This time, when they put the blood pressure cuff on me, I scored well below the threshold. They congratulated me on this, and they decided that before, I was just too stressed out by having a tooth pulled. There was no real problem here.


They injected me and went to work drilling me. I tried to watch TV, but having so many tools shoved in my mouth was kind of distracting. In the background, some radio station played Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good.” How fitting.


At one point, Dentist Two had to fit an extremely long, thick drill into my mouth, so I had to open up as widely as I could. There was barely enough room to fit it in. If not for the missing tooth, it wouldn’t have made it.


Now, they numbed me as much as they could, and for the most part, the procedure was painless. However, keep in mind that they were drilling all the way down into my jawbone. Yep, I felt it a bit. Every once in a while, they had to reload me on the Novocain, but it never reached down far enough to be completely painless.


Finally, it was time to put the implant in. Actually, it looked kind of like a wood screw. They experimented with different sizes until they realized that it would go in a little bit low on me (because of the crown lengthening). But then, after looking at my x-rays again, they saw that I bite with my back teeth (so much so that my front teeth don’t come together), so this tooth was not going to come into consideration when it came to chewing.


Now that this was determined, they started screwing the implant into me. I felt it getting tighter and tighter until I heard a click in my head.


“Wow, did you hear that?” Dentist Two asked. I couldn’t speak because I had a giant screwdriver in my mouth, so she continued: “That’s good news. Honestly, I didn’t know for sure if this implant was going to take hold. You lost a lot of bone, so much that I wondered if you actually got the bone graft. But that click means that this is going to stay in place. This is going to work.”


Well, that was good news . . . wait a minute! This she wasn’t certain?!


I let it go. Things were going to work out, so why quibble?


She snapped a cap over the implant and told me to use some of the mouthwash stuff she’d prescribed for me before to keep the cap clean. She also gave me a miniature brush to use to this end. If I didn’t use this, then it would get discolored and nasty and food might slip in under it.


When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw what looked like a metal knob in my mouth where the tooth had once been. It looked tiny, and I wondered how they’d get a crown on that thing.


She told me to come back in three months, at which point she’d put the abutment on. Then, I’d be free to get my crown. At long last.


I was presented with my bill and sent on my way.


Tune in next time for the stunning conclusion. And remember to brush twice a day, floss, and all that jazz. You don’t want this to happen to you.

COOL SHIT 10-7-10

UNKNOWN SOLDIER #24: I have always been a fan of the Unknown Soldier, from his WEIRD WAR TALES origins all the way up to Garth Ennis’ Vertigo mini-series. And I love what I originally thought was a re-imagining, but now I know better: it’s a continuation. Writer Joshua Dysart’s vision was a brand new man behind the Invisible Man bandages, but now he’s brought the original back into the mix. For those who aren’t familiar with the character, we get a recap of all that has come before, and Dysart even drops a bombshell into our laps. It would be criminal to give it away, but anyone who read Ennis’ take on the old soldier can probably figure it out. There have been rumors that DC might torpedo Vertigo. Since the character has such a rich DC past, I don’t think they would get rid of this book, but the subject matter will never be quite as mature as it is now.

LIBERTY ANNUAL 2010: This is the annual anthology from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a cause I hold dear (hell, I’d better; at $4.99, the book is a bit pricey). Sorry to say that most of its contents suck, and some suck really bad, but the gems are worth it. We have a Conan the Barbarian story from Darick Robertson. It’s paint-by-numbers storytelling, but such a grand map never fails to entertain. Conan’s just such a conqueror and destroyer that it’s fun to watch him in action. Sorry guys, but Conan could kick seven shades of shit out of Chuck Norris and the Dos Equiis guy. At the same time. With both hands tied behind his back. One problem: Robertson’s illustration doesn’t make Conan look tough enough. His stoic humor doesn’t come through. To see what I mean, check out Joe R. Lansdale and Timothy Truman’s Conan series, SONGS OF THE DEAD.


My favorite part of this book, though, is the RETURN OF EVAN DORKIN’S MILK AND CHEESE! For anyone unfamiliar with this duo, I shake my finger in shame at you! Did you even live in the ‘Nineties? You fool! For those of you in the know, my friends, you don’t need me to explain these “dairy products gone bad.” For the rest of you—you scum—a sentient carton of milk and wedge of cheese live out their violent whims, wreaking havoc everywhere they go. It is not uncommon for their comic strips to be covered in blood and pithy banter. Here, they slaughter a convention’s worth of costumed nerds, knock a guy’s eyes out, decapitate several people, and kick an unsuspecting baby. But their brand of bloodshed this time comes with a message: that comic book readers must defend their own right to read whatever they want. Because, in the words of Milk, “Poor defenseless little comic book industry! No Superman will fly down and save you! No Wonder Woman will deflect the bullets aimed at you! No Aquaman will do whatever it is that idiot does!”


And then there is a small THE BOYS story from Garth Ennis and Rob Steen. Let me be clear: the art fucking blows, and the story is kind of silly, but it serves its purpose in defending the freedom of comics creators. Finally, we know how The Legend got fired from Victory Comics: with a story about two major female superheroes being driven mad and attacking each other with their breasts. BUBBA DUBBA DUBBA DUBBA! And speaking of THE BOYS . . . .

THE BOYS #47: If any of you have the guts to tell me that Garth Ennis sucks as a writer, fuck you. Fuck you with a seven-foot barbed dildo. After I’ve violated your holiest of orifices (and rubbed salt in the anal fissures), I will point you to this issue of THE BOYS. It’s not all goofy violence and obscenity, folks; the man’s got great emotional chops. This issue is just fucking heart-rending. I’ll be honest, I almost teared up. My eyes got a bit wet, and my vision went blurry. The tear didn’t get shed, because it’s really, really hard to get me to cry, but Ennis has come the closest any writer can get. But then, if you’ve been a fan for as long as I have, this shouldn’t surprise you. PREACHER and HITMAN also brought me close to the brink, and when John Constantine hit rock bottom in Ennis’ run on HELLBLAZER, he almost got me again. My only problem with this issue was that Russ Braun, who is usually a good artist (not great, but good) has somehow made every character except for Annie look like pompous assholes. Butcher and Queen Maeve literally look down their noses in every panel they’re in. I wish Robertson would come back . . . .


WARNING! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!


I couldn’t let this one go without talking about what twisted my heart so badly. (I don’t usually do spoilers, as I consider my job here to sell these books, so I offer my apologies. You may leave if you wish. Be back next week, though.) You see, Butcher recently tricked Huey into watching footage of his beloved Annie sucking the dicks of several superheroes in order to get into the Seven. He brought it even further by telling Huey that she’d probably been playing him the whole time, that she was a whore, and she was laughing behind his back at him. Maybe Butcher believes it, but one way or the other, it’s a total prick thing to do. It poisons the way Huey feels about Annie, and when he starts to tear up himself, Butcher does something my step-father did to me when I was a kid: he points his finger at Huey and says, “Stop it. You’ll feel a fucksight better if you don’t start cryin’ in front of another bloke.”


Then, Huey confronts Annie in the park in a knockdown, drag-out condemnation. He hurls all sorts of accusations and ugly statements at her, calling her a bitch, a cunt, and a whore, and teary-eyed, he tells her that he never wants to see her again. But you see, we know Annie. She isn’t any of those things. She was just in a bad situation. Huey doesn’t understand because Butcher poisoned his mind. Has this irreparably destroyed one of comicdom’s greatest new romances?


The thing that got to me the most: “The strange thing was, he knew she was right. Without being sure exactly why, he knew he was making the wrong choice. But he dredged up what he needed to keep going. To put one leaden foot in front of the other.”


Powerful stuff.

JOHN BARTH IS A BIG WHINER

[NOTE:  THIS WAS AN ENTRY INTO A QPBC FLASH FICTION CONTEST.  I WAS IN COLLEGE AT THE TIME, SO I WAS EXPOSED TO A BUNCH OF POST-MODERN BULLSHIT.  SOME OF YOU WILL GET THE JOKE, OTHERS WILL THINK I'M STUPID.  MAYBE BOTH.  BUT I GOT A CHUCKLE OUT OF IT.  SHIT, THIS INTRODUCTION IS LONGER THAN THE STORY.  I'LL SHUT UP NOW.]


The Quality Paperback Book Club says to write a story 55 words long.  Very difficult.  What should I do?  Stream of consciousness?  No.  I could go metafiction, but I don't want to be pretentious.  That's something John Barth would do, and he's a big whiner.  I'm too good for that.


Shit!  Piss!  Fuck!

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY ON FX

Where were you when the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor? What were you doing when JFK was assassinated? Where were you when the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11? These questions are unimportant. What you should be asking yourself is, where were you when Mac banged Dennis’ mom?



IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA begins its sixth season on FX Network at 9:00 pm central time. If you’re not there every Thursday, you are probably a moral, upstanding citizen. In other words, boring.


Mac, Dennis, Charlie, Dee, and Frank are the most immoral, vile, lower-than-whale-shit, back-stabbing, filthy, insane, obnoxious, exploitative, insincere, and untruthful characters you’re likely to run across on any television show in history, and that includes THE SOPRANOS and FAMILY GUY. Yet, because of these overwhelming flaws, they are very delightful to watch. It’s fun to see them hatch these incredibly empty-headed, enterprising schemes, and to stare in disbelieve as everything falls apart because of their shortsightedness, their infighting, and their ADD, to say nothing of the fact that all of them are certifiable sociopaths.


It’s almost Machiavellian, except without exception, their plans end in misery and them getting their come-uppance. Still, no matter how spectacularly awry their plans go for themselves, it seems that those around them suffer exponentially more. Take poor Rickety-Cricket, for example. When he first appears on the show, he is a priest, happy in his vocation. With his last appearance, he has devolved so far that he’s homeless, insane, and missing every other tooth in his head, all because of the gang.


A few people escape this formula.  The McPoyles, for example, manage to escape the gang's black-hole of disaster, but only because they are more disgusting than Mac and company.  There is also a lawyer who seems to always benefit from their failures.  But that's about it, really.


No, this isn’t a masturbation fest for those wishing misery on others. That would be too easy. To truly enjoy this show, you must have a heart. You must feel pain every time the gang comes up with a new scheme, or you’ll never be able to give yourself the inevitable face-palm.


And it’s okay to chuckle. You’ll feel guilty about it later, but it’s good for you. Tune in, get the DVD’s, and enjoy.


IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA
FX Network
9:00 pm central, every Thursday

TALES OF DENTISTRY CHAPTER THREE

Why wouldn’t I be nervous? I was going to have a tooth pulled, and if that’s not enough to make one jittery, I don’t know what is. I settled into Dentist Two’s chair as best I could, and I tried to be calm. I could feel my heart jack-hammering away, and I knew I was good at hiding it whenever I was nervous, but there was no hiding from the blood pressure cuff.



She slid it on and checked the results. Naturally, they were off the chart. She asked if I was on medication to ease this, and I said I wasn’t. My problem was, I don’t know, I WAS GETTING A TOOTH PULLED! She explained the process in an attempt to get me to relax. She said they weren’t just going to yank it out, but they were going to wiggle it back and forth until it was nice and loose. Then, they’d pull it.


This did not ease my mind. Nor did it ease my heart. While my blood pressure came down considerably, it was still not in the range she felt comfortable with.


We tried a few more times before she finally said, “Would you prefer it if you were unconscious when getting this tooth pulled?”


Unconscious? You bet! I nodded. “That would definitely help.”


“Well, we don’t do that here, but I know of another dentist who would be able to help you out with this. He would also take care of the other implant preparations. Would that be better for you?”


I would have preferred to do it that day, since I was running out of time off from work. But there was no way I’d be able to take a tooth-pulling while I was awake. She recommended another dentist, and I thought that was that.


Whoops! Actually, that wasn’t it. This guy who could have been Dentist Three was located too far north, and I wasn’t driving at the time due to a few legal issues. I needed someone closer to Elmhurst.


Lo! and behold! Dentist Three was found five minutes away from home. They said they could fit me in for a consultation, and best of all, my grandfather was familiar with them.


If you’ve been following my non-fiction work for a while, you know that my grandfather knows EVERYONE in Elmhurst. There is no escape from his acquaintance. As it turned out, this other dentist had done some work on my grandfather, specifically the pulling of several teeth. In fact, he’d known this guy for so many years that we eventually got a 10% discount from the guy.


But as it turns out, Dentist Three is actually that guy’s son. Dentist Three is a young guy, and he apparently remembers shopping for a suit when he was a kid . . . at the clothing store my grandfather used to work at.


Dentist Three took a look at my mouth, and then he explained what would happen. As soon as the tooth is pulled, they need to put a bone graft into the remaining socket. If they don’t do this, I will lose bone tissue in my jaw, so much that an implant would be impossible. The bone graft slowly becomes a part of me, and when it’s solid, they can drill an implant into my jaw. This takes about three to four months.


By the way, you may be wondering where one would get a bone graft. As it turns out, it comes from donors. As in, people who are dead. Yep, I was gonna’ get dead fella’ bone in my mouth.


He then told me that before the implant goes in, I’d need a CT scan to make sure that there was enough bone there to do the job. Three months after the implant, I would get an abutment installed, upon which my new crown will go. Good times.


Can you pull the tooth today?


Well, since I was going to get put under, no. I had to fast and everything in preparation for that. After I got the tooth pulled, I’d be given antibiotics, pain killers, and mouthwash.


“Will I be able to drink booze?” I asked.


“What? Of course. I would never recommend the procedure if it meant quitting drinking.”


I think I came to the right place.


“Just don’t drink while on the antibiotics, or they may not work. And if you take the pain-killers, avoid alcohol. That’s bad news. After that, well, don’t drink to your heart’s content, but you know what I mean.”


I found this agreeable.


The next week, I went in, ready to rock and roll. They started prepping me to go under, and they got me ready for the needle. Dentist Three looked at my arm and said, “Jesus, that’s a big vein. If I miss this, I need to go back to medical school.”


It was surprising how fast everything went. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, it was over. I had this vague memory of coming out of it for a moment, but they turned up the general anesthesia and put me to sleep again. That was it. It felt like five seconds had passed, and the next thing I knew, Dentist Three was telling me to bite down on a bunch of gauze.


I was led to the recovery room, which was really just a closet with a couch in it. I lay down, and after a while, Dentist Three came back with my meds. Antibiotics twice a day, Vicodin as needed. (Sadly, I learned the next day that I am immune to Vicodin.) After a day, I could use the mouthwash stuff every morning and night. There were stitches in my mouth once again, but this time, they were there to hold a plastic platelet thing down over the hole in my gums. This was going to keep the bone graft in until the gums were closed enough to keep it in. Best of all: the stitches would dissolve and fall out on their own. When the platelet comes out, just throw it away. Come back in a few weeks.


Groovy, right? Well, after a few days, the platelet was feeling pretty loose, and I kept feeling like I had grit on my tongue. I started getting the paranoid feeling that the bone graft was splintering and slipping out. I called Dentist Three, but he told me that it sounded like the stitches were coming out, which was natural. A bit early, but natural.


When I went back in to see him, he said, “Wow, that is pretty loose. I’m just going to cut it out of there.” He snipped it away and pulled out the stitches before giving me a quick examination. “It looks good. Just keep up with the treatment, and you should be fine.”  He also gave me a syringe, so I can flush food out of the trench in my gums after every meal.


The bill for his services: more than $1,100, and that’s with the discount. Dentist Two gave me a credit for the crown lengthening, since I wound up losing the tooth, but I still owed her about the same amount for whenever the implant would go in. I was never billed for Dentist One’s root canal, so I can only assume that he wasn’t going to charge me for it. Still, that’s a lot of fuckin’ money, and none of it was going to be covered by my insurance.


Tune in next time for the implant . . . .