GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #314: JAMES MARSTERS (AKA SPIKE FROM BUFFY AND ANGEL) AND WHY I NO LONGER GO TO COMICS CONVENTIONS

 All right, I kinda-sorta promised to talk about this during last night's GF column. I want to state first and foremost that what I'm about to say is in no way a bad reflection upon James Marsters. I like the guy, and I love seeing him in stuff, even when he was briefly in the remake of House on Haunted Hill as the cameraman who freaked out in the elevator that one time. Also, I'm not sober, but like I theorized last night, I'm sober enough. So there's that.

OK, so when I first started going to comic book conventions, they were still about comic books. I went to them specifically to meet the writers and illustrators of my favorite comics. And I did that. And I have so many comics signed by them. I wanted to get Steve Dillon for my copy of Preacher #1 (signed by Garth Ennis), but the only year he came to town, I got horribly sick and couldn't go. Fast forward a couple of years, and he died.

But even that first year, I saw pop culture icons. You know the staples. Lou Ferrigno. Peter Mayhew. Jeremy Bulloch. Etc. and so on. You could meet them for ten or fifteen bucks and get their autographs on glossy photos. Very affordable, no?

But there was a shift. I can't put my finger on when, why or how, but it happened. Soon you could meet even bigger stars for forty to fifty bucks, and the staples raised their prices to twenty. The next thing you know, Bruce Campbell and William Shatner and the likes started charging a hundred bucks for a "VIP experience."

Again, I have to say that I'm not picking on these guys. I love them and their great projects (even Splatt Attack, Mr. Shatner, sorry). But the VIP experience is bullshit. You shake hands, get a picture, and that's it. Done. Get out of the way for the next sucker who payed a shit-ton to meet a celebrity.

I'm a weird guy when it comes to writers and such. I don't get stage fright (which makes me part of the 1% of writers who don't because most of us are dedicated introverts). I don't get nervous when I meet celebrities. They're just people who have been in movies and TV, which is a job but more high profile. The only time I got kind of nervous was when I met Joe R. Lansdale when he was on his book tour for The Thicket. My hands got cold. It's an odd thing, I know. When I get nervous, my hands get cold no matter how hot and sweaty the rest of me might be. But he quickly set me at ease, and we had a nice conversation as he signed my books. (It helped that as he signed my copy of A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre, I pointed out that my story follows his in that anthology edited by Shane McKenzie, and he said that he remembered me and enjoyed my contribution.)

Side note: The worst time my hands got cold was when I was on trial for DUI, and after more than a year of court dates they finally decided that this was the day I'd be found guilty or not guilty. They delayed the case until after lunch, and my hands were so cold I was out of my mind. When I went to the bathroom, the heat of my urine actually warmed my hands and made me feel much better. I was found not guilty.

I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off track. In case you can't tell, I don't do comics conventions anymore because they're not about comic books. They're about pop culture. You want to meet Mark Millar? Good luck, chum. But here's some guy who played an Ewok once, and he's charging $90 for the pleasure of breathing the same air for five seconds.

That's an over simplification, but it is more or less true.

The moment came home to me when I was standing in line to meet James Marsters. I'm unabashedly a fan of Buffy and Angel. I love that shit. Marsters played the best character on both shows, Spike, the punk vampire who started out as deliciously evil but slowly became an amazing hero. (And I really loved the fact that in the early years, he wore a red shirt under his black trenchcoat, very much like Dracula's cape, which was black on the outside but red on the inside.)

This wasn't a moment of decision for me. This was just the moment when I recognized that there was a shift happening that I didn't like.

In front of me were these two young girls, twenty years of age, tops. They were talking with each other excitedly because they were about to meet Spike, whom they both loved a great deal. They both obviously had a crush on him and couldn't wait to merely say hi to him. They didn't even have something for him to sign. They stood there holding only their purses.

They were next. Someone else was up there talking with Marsters. The two girls were then approached by someone who probably represented the convention instead of Marsters. He broke the news to them that they would have to pay $40 for the privilege to meet James Marsters. They panicked and started asking this guy under what circumstances they could meet him. There were no others. They were absolutely heartbroken, and they walked away with tears in their eyes.

If this happened now, it would be a different story. I was a lot younger back then, so it never occurred to me to sacrifice my own want to meet Marsters. That's my failing, and I'm sick thinking about it. But if it happened now, now that I actually have money (taking into consideration, in this imaginary quandary that the 'rona doesn't exist), I would have absolutely given them the forty bucks to meet their hero.

But even in my ignorance, seeing them walk away broke my heart a bit, too.

I want to be absolutely clear at this point. James Marsters had no idea this was happening. He was talking with a fan at that moment and signing an autograph for her. He couldn't possibly know about this. He is not the bad guy. So I don't want to hear any comments to the contrary. You will be summarily ignored if you come at me with that shit.

I met Marsters, and he was very amiable, very personable. My favorite season of Buffy is the second, which is why I brought the DVD cover of that one for him to sign, and he started telling me some behind the scene stuff that maybe I shouldn't talk about here. It was a fun meeting, and he was genuinely exciting to meet. Some of these guys look like they were dragged to the con by their shirttails, but he was very happy to be there and meet fans. I almost guarantee that he would have forgotten the forty bucks for these two poor kids.

But that's when I started getting the idea that comics conventions were fucked. The next year was when they started doing the VIP bullshit. I almost checked out entirely, but I have a lot of wonderful (and perverted, possibly criminal) friends in Artists Alley. The last two or three years, I went to cons only so I could hang out with them.

But I stopped. Going to these things made me feel uncomfortable and out of place. So fuck it. I checked out. My AA (NOT ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS YOU ASS!) friends are still my friends outside of the show, so fuck it.

You know what I really miss? Dan Con. That was still about the comics, and many of my AA friends attended. I got to interview John Everson once there, which was pretty cool  He lives in Naperville, which is a hop-skip-jump from me in Elmhurst. But Dan Con is a thing of the past.

You want to know what's fucked? Near the end of my time at these cons, DC gave up. One of the (arguably) two biggest comics companies just stopped going there. They didn't even attend as Warner Bros. They were gone. And then Marvel stopped showing up as a company that makes comics. They were just there for the MCU.

Not that I cared in the long run. But that's a bad sign, don't you think?

So yeah. I'm done with that shit. Call me when the comics take center stage again.

EVERYONE'S GOT ONE #21: THE FINAL WORD ON BEFORE WATCHMEN

[SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO POST THIS.  IT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED RIGHT AFTER THE SERIES ENDED.  C2E2 COVERAGE GOT IN THE WAY OF THAT, SO I’M PROBABLY TOO LATE TO THIS PARTY.]

When I first heard that DC was going to do BEFORE WATCHMEN, I think my reaction was the same as everyone else’s:  WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?  WATCHMEN is perfect on its own.  Why would you cheapen it with a marketing ploy like that?

But of course, I was curious.  I had to find out what it was really like.  It boggled my mind that there were so many different titles dedicated to this.  It seemed like overkill to me, and it just reeked of sales desperation.

Now that the whole thing is over, I can say that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  DC put some of their best writers on this project, from Brian Azzarello to Darwyn Cooke to Len Wein to J. Michael Straczynski.  If they absolutely had to do this project, at least they did it as well as they could.  Sure, it was nothing more than a scheme to make more money off a prestigious title, but at least they didn’t half-ass it.  They really wanted to make this the best they could.

That doesn’t mean it was good.  But it was better than expected.

The 

worst had to be NITE OWL.  Let’s face it, Dan Dreiberg isn’t an interesting guy in his prime.  He only becomes interesting when he’s a fat has-been who has a difficult time getting it up when he’s not in the suit.  As a superhero in his prime, he’s completely bland.  He did not need his own book, especially since it had very little to do with the direction the others were taking.

Truthfully, I didn’t care for “The Curse of the Crimson Corsair” feature at the back of almost every book.  It seems to only exist to fill in for the “Tales of the Black Freighter.”  There is very little creativity there.  It looked pretty neat, but there was very little substance there.

SILK SPECTRE was all right.  Again, it didn’t tie in with the direction of the others, but it was kind of cool as a stand-alone.  You already know my thoughts on the DOLLAR BILL one-shot.  MINUTEMEN was actually a cool concept, filling in some details that were left out of the original WATCHMEN.  OZYMANDIAS was a bit plain for my likes, although the layouts knocked me the fuck out.

However, DR. MANHATTAN was pretty interesting.  At first, I thought they were going to use this book to change the original WATCHMEN story, which I would have been furious about.  Luckily, it didn’t go that way.  Like with OZYMANDIAS, the layouts were pretty impressive.

The big surprise was how disappointing RORSCHACH was for me.  It was cool to see Rorschach in action, but it was almost a throwaway story.  It didn’t bring anything new to the table.  It tried to explain a bit why he is the way he is, but the thing is, we already have enough information to determine that.

On the other hand, MOLOCH brought a lot of cool shit to the table.  It is easily my second favorite.  We don’t get a lot of him in the original WATCHMEN, so it’s good to get his back story.

My favorite?  COMEDIAN, of course.  There was so much going on with this book that after a while, it might even be easy to see him as the main character of the WATCHMEN universe, even though he dies in the first few pages of Alan Moore’s graphic novel.  Azzarello brought the most to the table with this one.

All in all, I think it was worth my money.  Not much more than that, though.  There is one big concern, though.  You know how sometimes, people get into an argument over how a newcomer should watch STAR WARS?  Some people are of the opinion that you should watch the original trilogy first before the newer one.  Others say you should watch it in order.

With WATCHMEN, there is no way you should read BEFORE WATCHMEN first.  I hope no one gets the impression that they should start with BEFORE.  There are waaaaaay too many spoilers in BEFORE for something like that.  These books were intended to be read after one reads WATCHMEN.

Here’s the thing:  WATCHMEN is perfectly contained within itself.  We don’t need a BEFORE WATCHMEN because Moore already gave us that in the flashbacks.  BEFORE WATCHMEN relied far too heavily on material that originated in WATCHMEN.  A lot of shit was repeated.  Ultimately, this was an exercise in futility.  But it was just good enough in the end to open my wallet.

Is it shameless in its exploitation of the original book?  Yes.  But at least you get some kind of return on that.  Should BEFORE WATCHMEN exist?  Probably not.  The only motive the company had was to make more money.  The writers and artists did their best to give it artistic merit, and they came really close to succeeding.

What do you think?  Let me know in the comments below.

C2E2 2013 INTERVIEW: JOHN McCREA

I must have told the story about a thousand times.  When I was in my senior year of high school, my friend, CJ, got me back into comics by lending me three books:  EVIL ERNIE, PREACHER, and HITMAN.  From that moment, my life changed.  John McCrea illustrated HITMAN back in the day, and it was great to meet him.  Some of you will recall when I wrote about meeting him last year, but this year was waaaaaay better.  Not just because I got to hang out with him for quite a while, and not just because he drew one of the awesomest sketches any artist has ever done for me, but because I also got to interview him.  I stopped by on Friday and asked if I could do an interview with him, and he asked me to come back on Sunday, when things were a bit quieter.  (It should also be mentioned that when I stopped by that first time, he was working on a sketch of Tommy Monaghan for a fan.  While he was doing this, his phone rang, and he talked with someone who was either his wife or his child.  The whole time he talked, he didn’t stop working.  He produced this amazing sketch.  It was the finest example of multitasking I’d ever seen.)

I came back on Sunday, and he was working on a sketch of Wolverine for another fan (who was absent at the time).  He asked if I minded whether or not he worked while I interviewed him, and I said I was completely OK with that.  However, after we’d been talking a little bit, he stopped working on the sketch.  It seemed like he was having a lot of fun with the interview, which I consider to be one of my finer moments (if I don’t say so myself; more on that in my C2E2 wrap-up).  Here is what he had to say . . . .

[WARNING:  Here there be HITMAN spoilers.  If you haven’t read the series, you might want to do so before reading this interview.]

JOHN BRUNI:  First of all, HITMAN was one of my all-time favorites—

JOHN McCREA:  Thank you.

JB:  Do you ever miss it?



JM:  Of course.  I think I worked on that book for seven years of my life pretty much solidly.  I did a few other things here and there, but it was seven years of Tommy and Natt, and they all sort of seemed like friends.  When the book ended, it was like—well, you’ve seen the ending.  It’s a real tearjerker.  When I read the script, I had a little tear in my eye.  Just saying bye to Tommy and his friends, it was a relief in one way.  It was a slog, physically producing that much work, but to say goodbye to Tommy and Natt was quite a tearful experience.  I do miss them, but at the same time, it was the right end.  They had to go.  Garth [Ennis] and I were adamant that [UNCLEAR, BUT HE SAYS SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF “THEY HAD TO DIE], otherwise it would ruin the whole thing anyway.  People ask us if there’s a chance with the New 52 of bringing them back.  No.

JB:  It was one of the greatest endings in comics ever.

JM:  Part of it’s the fact that it’s finite.  You have the whole story, and it’s not just rolling on and on forever.  They lived by the gun, they had to die by the gun.  It was the right ending.  It improves the story, I think.

JB:  Very Butch and Sundance.

JM:  Oh God yes.  I think Garth wrote that in the script.  It was Natt who said it, wasn’t it?

JB:  Yeah.  Why do you think the book didn’t hit it off with a wider audience?



JM:  Garth and I always intended for it to be finished around about . . . originally we hoped for seventy issues.  There were a few other stories we wanted to tell, one of them being the JLA/HITMAN story, which we eventually did.  DC told us at a certain point that the sales are okay.  Probably pretty good by today’s standards, but for the time they were okay.  They were going to cancel it.  We had a choice between finishing it at 60 and finishing it properly the way we wanted to, chopping out the non-essential stories, or we might make it [to 70] or we might not.  We didn’t want to risk that, so we just finished it.

JB:  That sounds like the smart way to go.

JM:  Well, DC were honest and decent about it.  They let us know, so . . . it could have been a disaster.  It has a good, solid fan base, it just wasn’t big enough to continue the series.

JB:  There is still one character from the book lurking around the DCU somewhere.  Will there ever be a Bueno Excellente one-shot?  [Come on, you all knew I was going to ask it.]

JM:  We’re all hoping for that.  He was one of the most deranged human beings I ever got to draw.  Him, and possibly Six-Pac is still around.  I think a mini-series would be a pretty sweet thing.  An untold story, four issues.  If only people had realized how wonderful a superhero team [Section Eight] were, like the JLA.  We could have had action figures.  A little wind-up guy, or maybe a Dog Welder with detachable dogs.  What I would do for that!

JB:  You and Garth Ennis do a lot of work together.  How did you guys meet up?



JM:  We went to school together.  We’re from Belfast, and he was in my brother’s year at school.  He knew I was into comics, and after I finished school, one of the first things I did was run a comics shop.  I started one of the only comics shops in Belfast, and Garth used to come in and buy his comics.  One day, he just said we should do a book, and that turned into TROUBLED SOULS about the Troubles in Northern Ireland.  It was very successful, and that was that.

JB:  TROUBLED SOULS also has Dougie and Ivor from DICKS.

JM:  That’s true.  That is true.  They were incidental characters in TROUBLED SOULS.  We kinda-sorta made fun of them.  Garth in particular is not enamored of TROUBLED SOULS, so he kind of wanted to piss all over it.  He used Dougie and Ivor as a way to do that.  We’re working on a new book in the series now.  Garth’s written it all, finished it about two years ago, and I’ve been slowly grinding my way through it.  I’m on issue four at the moment.  Two more to go.

JB:  Some of the covers are pretty crazy.  Is there anything you wouldn’t put on the cover of DICKS?

JM:  I haven’t run into it yet.  There might be.  There are a few things, but I don’t want to even answer for fear of getting arrested.  So far, not yet.

JB:  Garth Ennis has a reputation for going a bit too far, like with CROSSED.  Would you ever want to work on the book?

JM:  I read one issue of CROSSED, and that was just about enough for me.  It was too much for me.  When I read a comic, I like to enjoy myself, not be harrowed to the marrow.  It was too harrowing for me.

JB:  Have you ever thought to yourself that you might be going too far with DICKS?

JM:  Oh God no.  Never.  When I first started doing these books, William [Christensen, editor-in-chief of Avatar Press] kept saying, “No, no, no, you haven’t got the idea.  Not enough.  Not enough.  You’ve got to make it worse.”  Now, I think I’m at the level I think he’s happy with.

JB:  If you had to be Dougie or Ivor, which one would it be?

JM:  My God, what a choice!  Uh . . . probably Ivor.  He’s just happy in his own self-absorbed moronic way.  Dougie’s just miserable because he’s relatively intelligent and can see the terrible travesty which is his life.  So yeah, I think it’d be Ivor.

JB:  Can you talk about what’s in store for us with DICKS 3?

JM:  Satan and the Dong are both back.  They’ve teamed up, and they’re trying to destroy the world.  It’s up to Dougie and Ivor to travel through time, collecting the icons of bigotry that the Dong are using to destroy the world.  They have to go back in time to gather these objects in order to stop the Dong.  Much hilarity ensues.  At one point, Dougie and Ivor get to meet Garth and myself.  They end up in our studio . . . by, uh, complete coincidence, and even more hilarity ensues.

JB:  So they get to meet their gods?

JM:  Exactly!  Not just meet them, they do quite a lot more.

JB:  That sounds very cool.  What else do you have coming up besides the new DICKS?

JM:  I’m working on MARS ATTACKS for IDW.  I’ve finished the ten issues, which was supposed to be continuing, but they decided to can it and do mini-series instead.  I’ll be doing MARS ATTACKS/JUDGE DREDD, a four issue mini-series which is written by Al Ewing, who writes JENNIFER BLOOD as well.  It’s fantastic.  It should be out in the not-to-distant future.  I’m working on something called PROGENITOR, which is written by Phil Hester for David Lloyd’s new online comic called ACES WEEKLY.  So, I’m busy.

JB:  Speaking of IDW, they have a lot of franchises from the ‘Eighties.  Is there any one of those that you’d like to work on?



JM:  I wouldn’t mind doing the Turtles.  I like the Turtles.  I’m not really a TRANSFORMERS guy.

JB:  What about G.I. JOE?

JM:  When I was breaking into comics, I did two stories for ACTION FORCE, which is the British name for G.I. Joe.  I did a Snake-Eyes five-pager, and I did a Storm Shadow five-pager.  I enjoyed those.  I like the ninja guys.  I would love to do Snake-Eyes.

JB:  Thank you very much for your time.

JM:  It’s been a pleasure.  Cheers.

At about that point, he realized that he’d forgotten about his previous sketch, which he put the final touches on before starting the sketch for me.  I requested Tommy Monaghan and Natt from HITMAN sitting at Noonan’s bar, just having a drink, and the request seemed to surprise McCrea, but he was happy to do it.  I hung out with him, just talking while he drew.  I told him about how even my mother enjoyed reading HITMAN almost as much as I did.  We talked about other things Mom liked to read, which comprised of a lot of Garth Ennis’s work.  It was one of the few things that brought me and her together, especially near the end of her life.

While we hung out, talking about this and that (he mentioned that he was persona non grata over at DC, except for the short he did for GHOSTS), I can’t tell you how many fans came up and saw what he was doing for me.  Each and every single one of them said, “That is the coolest sketch ever.”  One of them said, “I wish I’d thought of that.”  I talked with a lot of fellow fans while McCrea worked, and I discovered that I’m not alone in thinking that some of the best parts of HITMAN were the quiet moments at the bar, when Tommy and Natt were just shooting the shit, maybe talking about THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.  Why?  Well, it’s because that’s what I do with my friends.  I hang out in bars and just talk the night away.  I felt a real connection with Tommy and the boys in those moments.

I was going to run a scan of the sketch he did at the end of this piece, but I think I’ll save it for my wrap-up.  It is seriously that good.  Stay tuned!

C2E2 2013: THE NEW 52 PANEL

All right, this was the panel I was least interested in.  I don’t care much for DC (just like I don’t care much for Marvel).  I only read their books when it’s a character I love (which is rare), or if a book is written by a writer I respect.  Not surprisingly, it was the most overcrowded panel I attended at the con.  Standing room only.

You know why I went there.  I have only 2 DC interests, and believe you me, these days they are waning.  I didn’t even know who most of the panelists were.  I recognized Peter Tomasi, Bob Harras, and Doug Mahnke, but I had to resort to the internet to identify the others as Bobbie Chase, Charles Soule, Sterling Gates, Kyle Higgins, Aaron Kuder, and Patrick Gleason.

(Before I go any further, I should mention a pretty decent thing the DC folks are doing:  We Can Be Heroes.  It’s an Indiegogo charity to fight hunger.  They’ve raised more than 2 million so far.  You can get some pretty cool stuff, like exclusives, special editions, extras, all sorts of stuff.  If you buy these things, DC matches your donation.  Not bad, eh?)

Anyway, I didn’t really care much about what their topics, for the most part.  They say there are no plans for a new Robin just yet, but then they hinted that there might be a new Robin soon.  You know, the usual Big Two bullshit.  In the meantime, they’re portraying Batman going through the five stages of grief, and at the same time, it looks like Nightwing has moved to Chicago.  That got a cheer out of the room.  It would seem that the guy who killed Dick Grayson’s parents is still alive and living under an assumed name.  Nightwing is in Chicago hunting him down.  The villain sounds like a SAW ripoff.  That could be cool, but ultimately, it’s not a thing for me.  Oh yeah, and the new Batwing is the son of Lucius Fox.  They also talked about SUPERMAN UNCHAINED, which is coming out the Wedneday just before the new Superman movie is released.  Scott Snyder is writing that one, but hell.  It’s Superman.  I can’t bring myself to care.

The stuff I was there for:  John Constantine and Jonah Hex, of course.  It would seem that the DC writers have been planning something called the Trinity War in the Justice League books from the start of the New 52, and that includes JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK, for some reason.  It involves Pandora and the Phantom Stranger.  I kind of like the Phantom Stranger, but he does not need his own book.  Am I the only one saying that?  Guys like him can’t have their own books.  They need to be enigmatic, showing up in other people’s books from time to time.  If you give him his own book, he loses all of that shit.  Besides, constant exposure to him will eventually wear thin.

ANYWAY . . . the new SWAMP THING writer has a few plans for John Constantine outside of the Trinity War.  He goes to a small town in Scotland that has grown something called a Whiskey Tree (and I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like I might be reading that issue of SWAMP THING).

And then there’s ALL-STAR WESTERN.  You know how recently I was gleeful that we were finally getting Hex back to his western roots?  And then he teamed up with Booster fucking Gold?  Well, I’m about to get even more disappointed with the series.  Coming soon, Hex will be TIME TRAVELING TO MODERN TIMES.  Oh yeah, and while he’s in the 21^st Century, he’ll be GOING BACK TO GOTHAM CITY.  Motherfucker!  Are you shitting me?  Do you remember the last time Hex time traveled?  We got stuck with fucking HEX.  How well did that work out?  It was canceled after 18 issues (which was 18 too many, if you ask me).  I can only assume that we’ll be losing this book pretty soon.

One of the last things they talked about was a free guide that will be coming out at the end of the month in comic book stores everywhere.  It’s a list of all the DC graphic novels and the suggested order you should read them in.

I didn’t have the stomach to stick around for the Q&A session, I was that disgusted.  At least they gave me a copy of BATMAN #701 for free.  It was actually a pretty good read, but since it was written by Grant Morrison, I wasn’t that surprised.

SHIT SHIT 6-23-11

BRIGHTEST DAY AFTERMATH:  THE SEARCH FOR SWAMP THING #1:  I hate what DC is doing.  I hate it, hate it, hate it.  John Constantine has found his niche in the Vertigo world.  Why do you have to drag him into your stupid summer mega-epic crossover?  Yes, I know, JC started out in the DCU, but those were different times.  Alan Moore was writing SWAMP THING back then, remember?  DC horror books were pretty fucking edgy in those days.  You could do things back then that you just can't get away with now.  So what we're stuck with is a defanged Constantine.  What better way to kill off interest in him?  How about get him to go to Gotham so he can find Batman, so they can hunt down the missing Swamp Thing.  Because Batman's the greatest detective ever, right?  He can find anyone, even if he's hiding out in the Green.  Jesus, why am I reading this crap?  Jonathan Vankin doesn't know how to write this character.  I'm certain he just read ABOUT Constantine.  There's no balls to this book.  Imagine Woody Allen playing Darth Vader.  That's how this feels.  But at least Vankin did his homework.  He knows that Swamp Thing actually is NOT Alec Holland (which escapes a lot of people), and he knows that Constantine had a fling with Zatana.  So the facts are in place.  The attitude?  Nowhere in sight.  Fuck this book.

SHIT SHIT 1-13-11

Sorry folks, but nothing interesting came out this week. In fact, it was such a small week, I’m surprised. I can actually afford tonight’s outing at Shark City. Weird.



However, since it’s the new year, I thought I would take this opportunity to mention a few things that are bothering me about the world of comics these days. Grab a helmet and buckle in. I’m kind of angry.


DC, you are my first target. Don’t worry, it’s not about the content of your books. It’s always been bad with very few exceptions. (All right, I’m still pissed off that HITMAN got canceled. It was the best book you put out since the original JONAH HEX. Fuckers.) No, my gripe is with the presentation of your new books. It’s a nice design, and it jumps off the racks, so I guess it does its job. Maybe it’s a bit plain, but that’s just my opinion. The problem, though, is the lack of identification of those who worked on the title. Where are the writer and artist’s names? I will always buy JONAH HEX, even if you send him to the future again. However, the only time I’ll read, say, BATMAN or SUPERMAN is if they are written by people I admire. I followed BATMAN when Ed Brubaker helmed the title. I read Brian Azzarello’s SUPERMAN. I would never have read GREEN ARROW if not for Kevin Smith. When their runs ended, I stopped reading. So if Garth Ennis starts writing TEEN TITANS (for whatever ungodly reason), it will benefit your company to put his name on the cover. I, for one, will buy it.


Next up: alternate takes on the G.I. JOE and/or TRANSFORMERS universe. The main story lines for these books are good enough for me. The occasional mini-series is awesome. But I don’t give a fuck about what’s going on in a parallel universe to these characters. 100% of the time, it’s lame. It’s worse than lame. I hear you say, “If you don’t like them so much, don’t read them.” Fair enough. However, there is always the danger of the alternate world crossing over with the main storyline, and nothing would piss me off more. The TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED books are horrible, by the way. I tried them, and they made me want to jab a heated sewing needle into my asshole. And while we’re at it, can we kill the TRANSFORMERS MOVIE line of books? And if G.I. JOE NOIR comes back for more issues, I will take hostages.

To a lesser extent, I hope the resurrection of the original G.I. JOE Marvel series doesn’t last long. The idea is cool. Get Larry Hama to continue the series that captivated me when I was a kid. But the new Joe books kick the shit out of this relic from the past. In fact, the book kind of comes off as naïve. Let the old continuity die. It soldiered its way through many years in the ‘Eighties and ‘Nineties; it has earned its rest.

One more thing: Nice Stargate, TRANSFORMERS PRIME. Who are you going to rip off next?


Here’s some praise: thank you, Vertigo, for seeing the wisdom in dumping JACK OF FABLES. It was an awesome book for a long time, but the last year or so has sucked a donkey dick. This is a smart move. That is all.