COOL SHIT 4-3-14

CROSSED: BADLANDS #51: To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the patient zero story of this series. I much prefer not knowing how the plague started. Yet, it IS written by Garth Ennis, and it’s winning me over. It’s so strange to see the Crossed running around without the cross and still remaining somewhat lucid in their rape-y violence. It’s also becoming very apparent that the whole thing will be kicked off by some fuck-up from a bureaucrat, which titillates me to no end.

G.I. JOE SPECIAL MISSIONS #13: I’m practically checked out of IDW’s G.I. Joe books, ever since they ended THE COBRA FILES. Still, this issue features a guest appearance from Putin hisownfuckingself. I’m waiting for the day the real Putin kicks the shit out of a reporter on live TV. He’s probably too cold for something like that, but he does have a pumped up masculine image of himself, so . . .

CALIBAN #1: A double dose of Ennis! This one’s weird because Avatar doesn’t often do SF (hey, it’s been a while since they regularly published STARGATE SG-1), and neither does Ennis. Here we have an interesting concept: what happens when two spaceships, both in their own subspace, cross paths. It doesn’t turn out well for the crew of the Caliban, in particular the poor bastard pictured above. It’s going to be interesting to see where the story goes from here.

TRILLIUM #8: Did I miss a memo or something? I could have sworn this was a regular monthly series, and here we are at the last issue. I did some poking around, and it would seem that it was always meant to be eight issues, but I have my suspicions that it wasn’t. If it was canceled, shame on Vertigo. This is one of the best books they have going right now. Still, it came to an amazing, mind-bending ending. The last few pages contain some of the best work I’ve seen from Jeff Lemire. All told, this couldn’t have been a more perfect ending. I’m very satisfied. I’m going to miss this book.

COOL SHIT 3-6-14

TRILLIUM #7: Another mind-bending issue from Jeff Lemire. Wow, there are a lot of great visuals in this one, and a lot happens. However, the thing that truly makes this issue cool is the reveal that the Atabithian language can actually be translated by readers. It’s pretty easy to figure out what they’re saying when you have some context, but when there aren’t any words in English around their odd squiggly language, it becomes nearly impossible. In the back of this issue, Lemire gives us the means of translating it all. How cool is that?

VELVET #4: Dammit. Burke left us for another job. He was a pretty cool character. But in this issue, we gain a new, interesting character in the form of Roman, who used to be a Russian spy until a job went bad, and he started freelancing rather than go to a gulag. Velvet goes to the king of all masquerade parties in order to track him down. You don’t get more exotic than that, and of course there’s plenty of two-fisted spy action to go with it. Velvet and Roman are old enemies, but they seem to have a lot of respect for each other and enjoy being in each others presence. Great weird stuff from Ed Brubaker.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE #3: Finally! We get the story of who is really wearing Trevor Richmond’s body, and it’s a doosy. While the real Trevor gave up all of his wealth to get into a new body in order to evade the authorities, a man who is dying of a very painful disease is given Trevor’s body—and life—to live in until the time of his death . . . for free. The poor bastard, who was a stock boy at a Wal-Mart-ish store, is living Trevor’s life as Trevor should have. But now Trevor wants his old life back . . . This tale of identity is really getting heated up. Very obviously, the real Trevor is a piece of shit, and no one could possibly root for him, but he’s a resourceful piece of shit. Looks like this one will be wrapped up with next issue.

STARLIGHT #1: This book has a special place in my heart because it tackles one of my favorite subjects. Take an old fashioned pulp hero and take a look at him in his old age. I wrote a story on the subject called “Fade Away,” which was published in THE REALM BEYOND (buy it here!). My story was about a pulp hero who, as an old man, encounters the bones of one of the monsters he vanquished at the Field Museum. Mark Millar’s new book is about a pulp hero, but no one knows he was a pulp hero. (Or he’s got a screw loose. It’s hard to tell.) Once upon a time, he got sucked into a wormhole and found himself in another world, where he saves the people from a tyrant. Then, he comes back home and lives the life of a regular guy. Now he’s an old man who just lost his wife to breast cancer. The only family he has left are his sons, and they’ve got their own lives to live. He’s trying to make the most of his old age, but then a reminder of his past comes back to haunt him. Is he going to end up back in a pulp adventure? I don’t know, but I’m fucking excited to see where this goes. Some of these layouts are amazing, juxtaposing his adventurous youth with his mundane life as an old man. Great stuff from Goran Parlov, who also worked with Garth Ennis on his PUNISHER Max series and one of the greatest war miniseries ever written, FURY: MY WAR GONE BY.

C2E2 2013: THE VERTIGO PANEL

This was one of the stranger panels I went to, and all the credit/blame goes to Brian Azzarello.  Shawn McManus, Andrew Pepoy, and Will Dennis were also present for this flabbergasting clusterfuck.  Azzarello had something scathing to say about everybody and everything.  He was so surly, I wondered if maybe he’d had a few too many before taking to the stage.

No, he hadn’t been drinking, but he is a smart man.  He’s aware that Vertigo is on the very brink of shutting down.  Let’s face it, they got Constantine out of there because they didn’t want to lose him.  The only strong title they have are the FABLES related ones (I don’t count AMERICAN VAMPIRE because it’s on hiatus).  Azzarello earned a name for himself doing things like JONNY DOUBLE and 100 BULLETS, in addition to a bunch of short work for FLINCH and STRANGE ADVENTURES.  So . . . he doesn’t want Vertigo to go away.

Everyone on this panel was being wishy-washy about their own work, but Azzarello tried pumping them up.  In fact, it seemed like he was channeling Bull Murray from SCROOGED.  He wanted you to be deathly afraid of missing any of these issues.

Anyway, on to the announcements.  BROTHER LONO is not necessarily a sequel to 100 BULLETS, but it is a spin-off.  Someone, I forget who, said that this was their Laverne and Shirley.  Apparently, Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso hashed this mini-series out in a taxi in Spain.  It looks like Lono is a religious man now, trying to atone for his life of crime.  Of course, it can’t work out very well for him.  It is an Azzarello book, after all.

Dennis mentioned that Azzarello and he were supposed to go over the final corrections the previous night in the bar, but they’d gotten drunk instead.  As a result, they started going over the corrections then and there.  Like, right in front of us.  At the fucking panel.

While they did that, the announcements continued.  They showed us the cover to FAIREST #17, but they said the cover of #15 was top secret.  They mentioned that they were starting an arc about a new character soon, but that’s all they had to say.  [NOTE:  We now know that the reason they couldn’t show the cover to 15 was because they were bringing Prince Charming back.]

FABLES #131 was next, but they talked more about Pepoy than the book.  Apparently, Pepoy had known writer Bill Willingham since the respective ages of 14 and early 20’s.  Pepoy brought his own table and set up next to Willingham at a previous Chicago con, and this led to his first Vertigo work.  Willingham brought him up to the big leagues.  Also, Pepoy has a weird fixation with the band, Men Without Hats.  He took a lot of shit for it.

THE WAKE is a book from Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy that will be released sometime in May.  It’s a horror book, but they didn’t say much else. [NOTE:  I have since read the first issue, and I still can’t tell you what it’s about.  I think we’ll finally get let in on the plot in issue 2.]

Around this point, someone mentioned a book that was on the New York Times bestseller list, and Azzarello lost his shit yet again.  “Listen, everyone is on the fucking New York Times bestseller list.  It’s overrated.  Do you people actually care about the New York Times bestseller list?”  He has a point.  Just because something is a bestseller doesn’t mean it’s good.

Anyway, speaking of Scott Snyder, AMERICAN VAMPIRE is a long way off from resuming.  In the meantime, he has a mini-series about Travis, the vampire hunter with the wooden fangs, called THE LONG ROAD TO HELL.  Fuck yeah!  He’s one of my favorite characters, aside from Skinner Sweet, of course.

Jeff Lemire has TRILLIUM coming soon.  It’s touted as the Last Love Story Ever Told.  It takes place in two different eras with two people, one from each, who fall in love with each other.  They called it THE NOTEBOOK with ray guns.  That sounds pretty cool.  Azzarello, tired of the wishy-washy marketing job done by the others, broke in yet again with, “Has Lemire written anything that sucks?  No?  Then it’s going to be a great book!”

The last announcement was COLLIDER, a new book from Simon Oliver, who did THE EXTERMINATORS (which I might feature on Forgotten Comic Books someday, even though it wasn’t that long ago).

They opened up for questions, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stick around or not, because I wanted to make the John Scalzi signing.  Eh, fuck it.  What the hell?  I got in line to ask a question.

You all probably have an idea of what I asked.  It’s the question I always ask when I have Vertigo people around.  Or when I have Garth Ennis around.  I’d ask if Steve Dillon were around, but I’ve never met the guy.  But while I was waiting in line, someone in front of me asked what work the panelists were really enjoying these days.  Pepoy said that he liked a lot of stuff coming out of Artists Alley, and he mentioned Kevin Bandt in particular.  Holy shit!  I know Kevin Bandt!  When I got home, I couldn’t rush to Facebook fast enough to tell him about Pepoy’s shout-out.

Then, it was my turn.  Yes, I asked about the final, unpublished PREACHER story, the one about the Sex Investigators.  Vertigo refused to do it because of the content.  I demanded answers.  Dennis said that it probably wasn’t going to happen, but then Azzarello blasted my balls off.  “NO!  The book’s not going to happen!  Why would you ask that stupid question?”

Dennis said that he was trying to let me down easy.  I slinked off, notifying everyone that I was going to weep myself to sleep that night.  I guess I will never get a better response to that question, so I’m going to have to retire it.  When Azzarello, who looks—coincidentally, I’m sure—a lot like the God of War in WONDER WOMAN, says something like that, I’m pretty sure it’s the truth.

So there you have it.  The biggest scoop I will ever get at one of these panels.  The last PREACHER story is never going to happen.  What a grim and sad ending to a strange and savage panel.