GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #545: ANOTHER GF ABOUT CROSSED, SO YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE FUCKED UP

This horsecock tastes delicious.

 

OK, I've come up with some pretty fucked up ideas before, but this one might be going a bit too far. Just . . . just hear me out.

You know how porn on occasion tries to make a serious movie with a lot of actual fucking in it? Why not do what no one else will dare to do? Why not make a XXX-rated pornographic Crossed movie? Horror movies can never go far enough to truly make a Crossed adaptation that will satisfy the gorehound perverts that read the comics, and porn can go that extra mile.

I don't know if anyone will jerk off to it. I know I'm pretty fucked up, but not even I'll go that far. It will take a very special kind of person to get off while watching sexy beheadings, castrations, stabbings, etc. I suspect only a select few among us would actually view it as such. The rest of us? It could be the most fucked up movie or series ever made. It'll make A Serbian Film look like a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

All right. I see your reluctance. And I get it. I do. But this could be the greatest opportunity porn and horror will ever have. EVER. Could you imagine someone someday topping something like that?

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the beheadings, castrations, stabbings, etc. be real. They can do practical effects or even CGI if need be. I'm not asking for people to die or be mutilated for art. That breaks Lloyd Kaufman's first rule of filmmaking, after all. If Lloyd wouldn't do it, no one should do it.

I'm just asking you to think about the possibilities.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #193: FAMILIAR FACES

This is my third week at my new job. It is also my third week of being a city commuter. I'm sure you're all tired of my commute observations. It seems like most of my new GF's are about this experience. Well . . . OK. Maybe I'm wary of it, too.


But almost all of these GF's come from my observations, and most of my conscious time these days is spent either at my new job or on my commute. So yeah.


For the first time I recognized the overweight guy who swings his one arm waaaaaay too wide when he walked, like he was trying to swat everyone in his path. There's the geeky girl who always seems to be in a daze. There's the guy who looks more than slightly like Garret Dillahunt, who always wears sunglasses even on cloudy days.


And then I realized that I was starting to recognize my fellow commuters. Considering how many people I see every day, especially between Ogilvie and Wacker, that should be impossible. There are so many people on that stretch of road that I would never even consider driving through there at that time. There is no place for motorists in that area in the morning. No, the pedestrian owns that fucking place. If you're in a car you are doomed. I'm sure the suicide rate for cabbies and CTA drivers is pretty high.


Wait a minute. If I'm starting to recognize them, surely they must be recognizing me. Holy shit. What am I to them? The fat guy who sweats even when there's a nice breeze? Or am I thought of as the CROSSED guy because the bag I carry with me at all times is branded that way?


It doesn't matter. Even though we're all just a face in the crowd we are still observed. Therefore we exist. We might not know each others' names, but we are a part of everyone's lives if only on an observational level.


All the more reason to be nice to each other. We share life together. Let's make it through with as little agony as possible.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #11: CROSSED

No, this is not a repeat. Last night's GF was called "Cross," not "Crossed." This time, I'm talking about the Avatar Press series created by Garth Ennis. It's an amazing, depraved book, and I'm glad it keeps getting more and more fucked up. Except . . .


I think I'm getting tired of it. I love the concept, and there are a few writers that I really enjoy on the series. However, I think that more and more, this series is about outdoing whoever wrote the previous arc instead of actually telling a great story. I appreciate people trying to up the ante on fucked up things, but there has to be something more to that going on.


Garth Ennis is obviously my favorite CROSSED writer. David Lapham and Si Spurrier are tied for a close second. The others? Eh, it's hard to separate them. Sometimes they tell great stories, and others, they're just trying to play the gross-out game. I love gross-out games, but like I said, there has to be something more to it. You can't just do it for its own sake.


The new guy is doing it for its own sake. He's showing Crossed children eating their younger siblings and begging regular human beings to fuck them. I'm not against depictions of that, although I would never, personally, do that. I think it's too easy to fuck with a reader by resorting to violence with kids, so I avoid it unless I have a very good reason. I am, however, against it for its own sake.


Don't get me wrong. I'm not on a moral crusade. I'm not telling you to boycott the book. That's silly. I just think that CROSSED shouldn't be doing this kind of thing. I'd much rather prefer stories where actual characters are suffering through real plots, that's all. You can be as fucked up as you want, just so long as there's something actually going on. If I wanted fucked up shit happening just 'cause, and women characters who exist only to show their tits, I'll read something else. Porn, in the case of the latter. Porn is really good at that. The former? I don't tend to think about it.

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 8-22-13

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD:  AFTERMATH #10:  Noooooooo!  Writer David Hine lived up to his threat from last issue.  They took my favorite character and injected him with the zombie serum.  Many of you may remember me saying they should have given Vic his own spin-off, but I guess that’s not happening now . . . .  However, he’s not out of the picture yet.  It seems that this new version of the serum has let him retain some of his intelligence.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I’ll definitely wait it out and see where Hine is going with this.

THE LAST ZOMBIE:  THE END #3:  The shit has hit the fan.  Dr. Ian Scott’s secret is out.  Everyone knows he’s slowly becoming one of the undead.  Now Planters and company have to figure out what they’re going to do with him.  In the meantime, Frankie turns out to be just like her other incarnations.  For those who don’t know, she’s appeared several times in writer Brian Keene’s novels, usually alternate universe versions of her.  Very few of them turn out to have good luck.  They’ve also made a odd choice with the new artist, Ben Dunn.  In fact, looking through this issue kind of reminds me in moments of my webcomic with Robert Tannahill, THE COCAINE! BROS.  When the guys finally make their escape from Chicago, two of them finally get to deal with Harrow.  As they descend upon him, I get a definite Tucker/Hunter feeling from them.

G.I. JOE:  THE COBRA FILES #5:  Finally, we get a look into Clockspring’s past.  He’s easily one of the creepiest members of the Joe team, and not the cool kind of creepy, like Freddy Krueger.  No, this is creepy like the guy who follows you home at midnight.  Still, it’s great to see him finally fleshed out.  We now see what makes him tick.  When I was at C2E2, writer Mike Costa promised a lot of emotional damage coming in the near future.  I think this might be the calm before the storm.  Writers don’t always deliver on such promises, but Costa usually does.  It makes my ballsack shrivel just thinking about it.  I think things are about to get fucked the fuck up.

CROSSED:  BADLANDS #35:  If there was any doubt that Amanda has finally lost it completely, it should be gone by now.  Lorre really got into her head pretty badly, and now she’s murdering regular people, pretending that the Crossed got to them.  So, you know, she had to mutilate the bodies and cut their dicks off, and all that stuff.  How much farther can writer David Lapham push her?  I guess we’ll find out next issue, when this story arc concludes.  (Oh yeah, and Candy has gotten pretty weird, as I’m sure you can tell from the sample above.  That’s the prelude to the strangest face-fuck in comics history.)

KICK-ASS 3 #2:  This is a low-key story for Kick-Ass himself.  No, the star of this one is Rocco Genovese, the most recent member of this scumbag mobster family to enter into play.  He is infinitely scarier than any of his brethren.  I can’t wait to see more of this guy in action.  This is also quite the issue for the Motherfucker’s mother, who toys with the idea of taking her son out of the world to atone for bringing him into it.  Things get mighty strange by the last page.  (OK, Kick-Ass does one thing that’s really cool in this issue.  Check out his BATMAN YEAR ONE plan to see what I mean.)

COOL SHIT (and SHIT SHIT) 7-25-13

JUDGE DREDD #9:  The world of Dredd is pretty crazy sometimes, but this is the craziest to come from the new IDW series.  Dredd wanders out into the Cursed Earth, looking for a hovercraft that “could save Mega-City One.”  Instead, he finds a family of mutie hillbillies running an amusement park with some of the most ghastly rides ever.  My favorite is the Kamikaze Matterhorn.  One of these guys has the ability to touch someone and make them apathetic, which is what he does to Dredd, and now Dredd has to face off against all these freaks and even worse, the Mirrored Madhouse.  (And no, it’s not what you think it is.  It’s far more insidious.)

FERALS #16:  This time out, we take a break from Dale Chesnutt to explore the life of Major General Richard W. Arthur.  It’s a fascinating look at someone who was born Feral, but he never knew it.  Even now, he seems to be in denial.  Even after he finds himself in a life and death battle with another Feral.  And to top it all off, he’s kind of an important guy in the government . . . .

CROSSED:  BADLANDS #33:  It’s good to see David Lapham back on the series.  I wasn’t too impressed with Christos Gage’s story.  Now, we return to Amanda, Lorre’s old victim/survivor.  She’s still living in her fantasy world with her two companions, but now that’s about to be fucked.  It would seem that a group of religious Crossed have moved in on her territory . . . .  I miss Raulo Caceres on this book, though.  Miguel Ruiz isn’t bad, but Caceres is a fucking genius.

RED TEAM #4:  Whoops.  It seems that for all the planning that the Red Team goes through, they dropped the ball on this one.  Thinking to take out a Bernie Madoff type (except this guy was found not guilty), they off him without thinking that maybe the reason the guy got off in court was because he’d made a deal with the prosecution to turn weasel on his friends.  Now all of those guys are going to walk free.  Like I said, whoops.  This leads to a few changes in policy, but it’s not enough to keep certain members of the team for losing it in a questionable bar bathroom with a date rapist . . . .

And now for some SHIT SHIT!  That’s right, 3 books really disgusted me this week.  Let’s start with . . . .

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #22:  Ah yes.  Behold that cover.  Then take a look around inside to see that our boy John Constantine is hanging out with the big superheroes this issue.  Sure, he had a run in with Flash lately, but now he’s rubbing elbows with the likes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.  And yes, he’s a bit snarky, but for the most part, he doesn’t give them any crap.  Since when does Constantine not give the capes a hard time?!  Oh right.  I’m sorry, I keep thinking this is MY Constantine, not the pisswarm version in the New 52.  This leads us directly to . . . .

CONSTANTINE #5:  JLD continues right into this issue with Constantine hanging out with Shazam.  Why would he do that?  Well, remember when I said, back when DC brought John Constantine back to the DCU, that they were going to turn him into a superhero?  I was speaking metaphorically.  I guess I was wrong.  In this issue, they turn him—quite literally—into a superhero.  I can’t believe it, either, but look at that picture above.  Do you think I made that up?  I can’t tell you how much this disgusts me.  And then there’s this happy horseshit:

ALL STAR WESTERN #22:  Yep, this asshole is Dr. Arkham’s great-great-grandson.  As much as I despised the idea of bringing Hex to his future—our present—at the very least, it got him away from having a sidekick.  That was worth a lot to me.  And now, even that is undone.  Yeah, this new Dr. Arkham is Hex’s new sidekick.  Oh, and by the way, it looks like they’ve given up on finding a backup story for each issue, but instead of taking pages out and letting us keep an extra dollar, they thought this story was so good that we needed more of it.  Fuck.  (One more thing:  it’s hinted that Hex will be hanging out with Batman in the next issue.  After what’s been going on with Constantine, that shouldn’t surprise me one bit.)

C2E2 2013 PANELS: AVATAR PRESS

Big surprise:  the trend continues, and Avatar Press panels remain very small affairs.  There couldn’t have been more than 20 people in the room, including me.  Here’s the big disappointment:  Mike Wolfer couldn’t make it.  He was too busy working on Max Brooks’s new book, EXTINCTION PARADE.

That left us with one of Avatar’s executives, Jim Kuhoric, the creative director.  That’s right, a one-man panel.  Remember my first year, when they had Wolfer, Jacen Burrows, Brian Pulido, and William Christensen?  How awesome was that?  And now we just get Kuhoric?

Let me be clear, I liked the guy.  He was very nice.  But he tended to be a bit monotone, unless someone asked him a question which amused him.  Not a good way to get across your plans for the next year.

Regardless of his delivery, he did bring us lots and lots of news.  Oh yeah, I mentioned that Max Brooks has a new book with them, right?  EXTINCTION PARADE, which is going to be out on June 19, a day before the WORLD WAR Z movie is released.  Its Brooks’s take on zombies vs. vampires, but it’s not as cheap as it sounds.  He’s working with a lot of social commentary, according to Kuhoric, so it should be pretty interesting.  It’s based on a short story Brooks wrote, and it’s going to be 11 issues long.

Kuhoric talked about UBER from Kieron Gillen.  For those who don’t know, it’s about what would happen if Germany came up with actual supermen before the end of the war, and how that changes the outcome.  Kuhoric says that it doesn’t just automatically show Germany winning the war, but just how that CHANGES the war and the nature of reality.  Personally, I didn’t care for UBER, but we’ll see where it goes.

Speaking of Gillen, he’s also got another book coming out from Avatar called THE HEAT, but Kuhoric didn’t talk much about it.

Remember when Avatar worked with George R.R. Martin a while ago?  Well, he’s got a new book coming out from them called SKIN TRADE, based on the novella he wrote a while ago.  Many of you probably don’t remember, but it was published in NIGHT VISIONS 5, otherwise known as THE SKIN TRADE with short stories by Stephen King and Dan Simmons, as well.  It’s an amazing volume, even though I’m of the opinion that Martin’s piece is the weakest of the bunch.  Kuhoric also suggested that Martin might cover superheroes after this one.

Finally!  Two years ago, they announced a follow up to Christos Gage’s ABSOLUTION, which would be called ABSOLUTION:  RUBICON.  Well, that kind of dropped off the face of the earth.  Good news!  It’s coming soon!  And in one throwaway remark, Kuhoric mentioned something about Gage working on CROSSED, so it would seem that he’s the next writer on the BADLANDS series.

Looking for more Alan Moore news?  It looks like he’s teamed up with Jacen Burrows on another Lovecraft project, this one called PROVIDENCE.  It’s being advertised as a follow-up to NEONOMICON.

Here is a bit of unexpected news:  Boundless, the imprint Avatar publishes LADY DEATH and WAR GODDESS under, has been put on hiatus.  I suppose it’s not performing as well as they’d like, and they’re reevaluating everything.  It will return soon with new LADY DEATH and a few other titles that Kuhoric couldn’t discuss at this time.

They also announced that they would soon have issues available from Comixology, if that’s your thing.

And then there’s CROSSED, but you already know about the webisodes coming soon from Garth Ennis, and the new webcomic, not to mention the one they actually have going on right now.  Actually, this segment turned into Garth Ennis news, rather than CROSSED news.  He’ll have a new SF book coming out from them soon that is supposed to be ALIEN-ish.  There’s also a war story, which I suspect is the submarine story he mentioned at a Dynamite panel two years ago.  And there’s another book, too, something that is along the lines of Evan Dorkin’s BEASTS OF BURDEN.  I don’t know if I like the sounds of that last one, but he handled the talking rabbit in THE CHRONICLES OF WORMWOOD pretty well, so . . . .

By this point, we’d reached the Q&A session, and most of the questions were about how people could submit work to Avatar.  But there were some interesting questions.  One person asked about the two incomplete Warren Ellis series.  Kuhoric jokingly said that Ellis still owes them scripts, but they would really like to continue working with him.  Someone else asked him if they ever received hate mail due to the extreme nature of their work.  They very rarely get such correspondence, and Kuhoric thinks it’s mainly because people who pick up an Avatar book know what they’re going to get.

And then there were my questions.  I asked him who he would want to work on CROSSED, if he had the choice.  He said there were a few writers and artists he couldn’t talk about at this point, but he’d really like to see what Tim Seeley would do on the book.  I also mentioned that the most extreme thing I’d ever seen outside of Avatar was Howard Chaykin’s work on his BLACK KISS titles.  Since BLACK KISS 2 came out late last year, I asked if Avatar tried to get the title.  They did.  They would love to work with Chaykin, considering how Harlan Ellison-esque he is.  The man speaks his mind without fear, which means he’d be a perfect fit for Avatar.

Then I asked if there was anything Avatar wouldn’t put in their books.  He didn’t think so.  They’d never turned down something in the past for being too extreme.  This led to a question about the CROSSED videogame I’d heard about two years ago.  Yes, they still wanted to do it, but there is nothing going on in regards to it at this time.  Kuhoric thinks videogame companies are afraid of something like this, and fair enough.  If there was an outcry over GRAND THEFT AUTO 3, CROSSED might crack the world in two.  At one point, Kuhoric glanced around the room, looking for children.  When he found none, he said, “What would the weapons be for a game like that?  Would you be able to kill people with a horse cock?”

Yes.  Once again, horse cock has been mentioned at an Avatar panel, and I couldn’t be happier.

Which reminds me, you better fucking believe that I asked about the new DICKS books.  Finally, it can be said:  DICKS 3 is happening.  A few issues are even finished, but at this time, it’s not on the schedule.

And that’s it.  So yeah, we have a lot to look forward to from Avatar Press.  If you’re not onboard with them yet, what the fuck are you doing reading this?  Get on CROSSED, CALIGULA, DICKS, FERALS, DAN THE UNHARMABLE, and everything else that they publish.  Do so immediately.  They’re doing some of the best work in the industry at this time.

P.S.  Every time I see William Christensen, I try to get an interview with him.  Sadly, he was not there this year.  Not that I expected to finally score the interview, but I would have liked to at least try.  The guy has an amazing eye for talent, and something tells me his sensibilities run in the exact same direction as mine.  I think such an interview would have been a showstopper.

COOL SHIT 1-17-13

G.I. JOE #21:  In today’s issue of G.I. JOE, the role of Hawk will be played by Bruce Willis.  Seriously, this one could have been an ‘Eighties action movie.  Hawk has retired and is living out in the woods when he is suddenly beset by the forces of Cobra, intent on kidnapping him and extracting intelligence from him.  They don’t count on him remembering his training, and they certainly didn’t expect him to be living with Timber, Snake-Eyes’s wolf.  One man against a team of terrorists?  Yeah, that’s some John McClane shit right there.  Oh yeah, and apparently Cobra has iPads with the Cobra insignia on it instead of the usual Apple.  That definitely makes sense.  The only problem is, the cover shows Flint, not Hawk.  Or maybe it’s the movie version of Hawk as portrayed by Dennis Quaid, but that makes no sense, as the worlds aren’t connected.  Am I nitpicking here?  Yeah.  Fuck it.  On to the next one . . . .

STITCHED #11:  Let’s face it, when Garth Ennis stopped writing this book and Mike Wolfer took over, things haven’t been going so well.  Not that Wolfer is a bad writer (although he is a much better artist than he is a writer), but he just didn’t have the same quality as Ennis did.  However, in this issue, we finally find out what caused the Stitched to exist, and it’s a pretty interesting tale.  Hint:  ancient, black devil cum is responsible in some way.  That’s definitely something Ennis would have done.  Hats off, Mr. Wolfer.

CROSSED:  BADLANDS #21:  Speaking of books Ennis used to write . . . .  Unlike Wolfer, David Lapham is an intense motherfucker and constantly tries to one-up Ennis.  Sometimes he succeeds.  This is one of those instances.  Remember Amanda from the “Psychopath” storyline?  The one with Lorre?  Well, she’s back, and it seems that her encounter with Lorre messed her the fuck up.  She’s batshit crazy now, seeing Lorre in every stranger she meets.  And yes, she’s willing to kill all of the suspected Lorres in the world.  Now she might have gone completely off the deep end, though, especially now that Danger Montana is in her life.  He looks suspiciously of a guy who is very familiar with lost arks, temples of doom, last crusades, and crystal skulls.  In fact, he claims that those movies are based on his life.  Even stranger than that is the company he keeps.  In my opinion, there’s no way that this is actually happening.  Amanda is probably already dead, and this is a goofy afterlife or something.  Then again, Lapham is a rabid beast.  He could do anything, so I’m definitely along on this ride.

AND NOW FOR A SPECIAL EDITION OF . . .

SHIT SHIT

Remember a while ago when I brought you news of IDW’s newest bullshit crossover?  And you all called me crazy, that it had to be a hoax, that no one would ever go ahead with such an awful idea?  Behold!  IDW has revealed the proof!  This month will be consumed by their MARS ATTACKS crossover!  Now, MARS ATTACKS is pretty cool, but the other series they’re going to cross it over with?  Uh . . . it’s so bad, it’s sickening.

Shit, I know I’m kind of late with this one.  It just slipped under my radar.  Apparently, three of these books are already out.  First up:  Popeye.  Yes, Popeye.  The guy with the giant forearms and the spinach habit.  Second up?  KISS.  Yeah, no kidding.  The aliens actually go up against fucking KISS.  This week, it was Ghostbusters, but that was just to be expected.  The one that’s going to hurt the most for me is next week’s, which involves the Transformers.  The final one is supposed to be something called Zombies vs. Robots, so I don’t really give much of a fuck.  As if this wasn’t bad enough, they have incentive covers for comic shops.  Though they’re not really actual storylines, the fact that someone thought this shit up disgusts me.  One of them features Opus, from Bloom County.  Or Outland, if you’re too young to remember that.  Or how about a Judge Dredd crossover?  Maybe you’d like to try out Chew and Madman, or how about Spike, from the Buffy universe?  Or . . . fuck it.  I can’t go on.

I told you so.  That’s all I’m trying to say.

COOL SHIT 3-29-12

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #25: This issue marks the end of my absolute favorite AV story arc thus far. We find out why, exactly, Travis is hunting down Skinner Sweet, as he and Sweet battle for what seems like a final time. Travis really, really thinks of everything. The only thing that can hurt Sweet is gold, and Travis had taken the time to mix gold powder into his coffee that morning. You know, on the off chance that Sweet would try to drink his blood. There is really no lengths to which Travis won’t go to get this guy. We still don’t know how Sweet survived WWII, but we do know something interesting and new about him. Believe it or not, it’s enough to turn Travis away from him. I hope the next story arc doesn’t let me down. Still, I don’t know how Snyder will be able to top this.

COBRA COMMAND: COBRA #11: The next mini-series reaches its end, and it’s kind of cool. Nothing too big happens . . . except the one scene that earns this book a place in Cool Shit. The Baroness is confronted by Ronin, a super-secret Joe. The latter seems to have the upper hand on the former, but it looks like the Baroness bites a cyanide pill in order to kill herself to evade being interrogated. Unfortunately for Ronin, she is actually swallowing the cure for the gas the Baroness has just unleashed. Ronin is about to die . . . except she is clever. Since the Baroness had the only capsule, Ronin forces her mouth on the Baroness’s, swallowing as much of the cure as she can. How awesome is that? This is not your father’s GI Joe.

THE LAST ZOMBIE: NEVERLAND #2: Once again, we get an all right issue except for one thing: our heroes are cutting their way through a cornfield when they discover they’re surrounded by guns . . . being held by children. That’s right, a bunch of kids have been living together in the middle of nowhere, defending themselves with automatic rifles, by their own admission killing people to survive. Now, they’re aiming guns at Ian Scott and his fellow military friends. How awesome is that? In addition, my copy has a double cover. There was probably a mix up, which resulted in me getting two identical covers on my book. That’ll be worth a lot of money in the future, right? Like an error baseball card, right? Right?!

CROSSED: BADLANDS #2: Garth Ennis gets far uglier than David Lapham could ever imagine. Lapham relied on horrible physical images to get his CROSSED material across. Sure, there was a lot of psychological stuff to it, but Ennis brings it to a whole new level. The narrator is your basic Everyman, but in his very quiet kind of way, he proves himself to be a complete bastard. We learn that he’s got a history of running away from big groups, but now we know that he’s not afraid to abandon a pregnant woman in order to preserve his own life. He’s ballsy enough to suggest to the group that everyone leave her alone to give birth, in order to save themselves from an incoming group of Crossed. If she lives, she can rejoin them later. The rest of the group certainly have their reservations about this plan (as would any good person), but one must wonder: if it came down to a survival situation just like this, how many readers would do the right thing? How many more would join the protagonist in fleeing? It’s some really nasty material (and I’m still digging the shit out of the character who claims to be Prince Harry; he’s such a bastard that one character is convinced he’s not lying because anyone in the royal family must be a fuck). Sad to say, there’s only one more Ennis issue of this book. Good news: Jamie Delano is picking up after this.

Also, it's worth noting that the narrator mentions the last group he was a part of, which was ruled by a triumverate of alpha males who constantly argued.  One of them makes a racist comment to another, and the narrator stops and thinks, really?  We're still doing this?  And I couldn't help but think, of course.  The rules of society have been canceled.  People are not afraid to let their real selves out.  Let's face it, most people don't use the dreaded n-word because society tells them it's not the proper thing to do.  However, just because society says no doesn't mean that the racist urge disappears.  That's why there are so many closet racists in the suburbs, for example.  If the rules no longer apply, then they have no reason to keep their ugliness inside.  So yes, Ennis, they are doing this, even in the middle of the Crossed apocalypse.  Especially then.

COOL SHIT 3-15-12

CROSSED: BADLANDS #1: Garth Ennis returns to the book he launched for Avatar. Once again, we have a new band of survivors, a new group of people to get to know before Ennis ruthlessly murders them. This time out, he runs into a problem he created for Lapham and Spurrier on their series: he has to one-up everything that has come before. Ennis is up to the task; in the most horrifying scene, he has a Crossed driving a car and throwing a living baby at someone. The baby splatters all over the place, and since Jacen Burrows has also returned to illustrate, we get to see the gory results. Good times ahead, folks. Good times.

G.I. JOE: INFESTATION #1: Fuck me. This kind of surprised me. Something good is actually coming from IDW’s stupid INFESTATION cross-over. Cobra finds a Mythos relic and they’re trying to figure out how to use it to kill people. The best part: watching Interrogator go among his patients, insane Cobra soldiers who are no longer fit to serve. Good stuff.

ANGEL AND FAITH #7: So Drusilla is sane for the first time in centuries, and she wants to help Angel forget about all the evil things he’s done in his life, to make him a better person. Angel rebels against the idea, as would any intelligent human being. Who wants to take away things that make one human? Faith’s father has also showed up, and he seems to have good intentions, as he’s been sober for six months. Yet . . . it looks like he has other intentions. Things are getting very interesting here.

LOCKE AND KEY: CLOCKWORKS #5: Now we finally know what turned Dodge into the monster we first met at the bottom of the well. Well, not the whole story, but we know that Rendell used the Head Key on him and removed all memories of the Door. Dodge turns into a complete dick, so much so it hurts. Poor Ellie’s heart is absolutely destroyed because of it. To top things off, Joe Hill throws in another surprise: Rendell’s ghostly mother is hanging out in the well house. Weird. 8 ISSUES TO GO.

COOL SHIT 1-19-12

COBRA COMMAND: COBRA #9: All in all, it’s kind of an ordinary issue, but near the middle, we get our first glimpse of how ruthless and evil the new Cobra Commander is. Holy shit, is he a bastard! He’s such a fuck that he scares Major Bludd, and that’s no small thing. I think things are going to get ugly really fast in this new phase of the G.I. Joe universe.

FABLES #113: Truth be told, I’ve been getting kind of bored with this book of late. Ever since they put the Adversary behind them, it’s been going down hill. There were a few cool moments, but for the most part, I think this one’s losing me a little. Yet this issue gives us something different and cool. Willingham gives us four stories of the good ol’ days, none of them related to events now . . . well, except the second one. The reason the Adversary couldn’t attack Fabletown in the past? We find out in this issue. It’s a very cool idea (with an appropriate mundane ending). The only lame one in the bunch, though, is the fourth story, which is pretty stupid. The two stories about the turtle are cool, but it’s that second tale that really kicks ass.

HELLBLAZER #287: All right, so John Constantine goes to hell. Again. So what? A good question. On this tour of hell, everyone’s favorite blue-collar mage sees a few familiar faces. Remember when Constantine used to be tormented by the ghosts of his dead friends? We get to see a return to those good ol’ days with this one. Best part: THE RETURN OF THE FIRST OF THE FALLEN! Yes! Unsurprisingly, Ennis’s run on this book is my favorite, and it’s good to see a few characters from back then again.

CROSSED: PSYCHOPATH #7: Welp, it looks like another Crossed story arc comes to an end. Harold finally reveals himself to his victim for what he really is, and things get really fucking ugly. David Lapham is a nasty bastard, and no one makes it out of this issue whole. And what Amanda does to save herself from Harold? It looks like it belongs in a SAW movie. No shit.



And if this bounty of Cool Shit isn’t enough to make me happy, check out this advertisement from the back of the latest CROSSED. To quote a great man, “I have an erection.”

THE FINE ART OF DOLPHIN FUCKING: A review of CROSSED: WISH YOU WERE HERE

Well, FREAKANGELS is gone. It was great, having a free installment every (more or less) Friday, but now the story is over. Good news: Avatar is going to have another free weekly webcomic to take its place. Even better news: It’s going to be a new CROSSED book!



Simon Spurrier has taken the reins from David Lapham, and Javier Barreno is taking over the artwork. The ashcan preview starts out strong with one of the Crossed “zombies” fucking a dolphin in the blowhole. Yessir, when it comes to raising the level of depravity of something, you can always count on CROSSED. The best thing is, with each new writer, they know they have to top whatever came before. Since Lapham, who also writes CALIGULA, is a pretty hardcore bastard, Spurrier had to think long and hard about what he could do.


But he’s also kind of scaling the epic nature of the series back a little. Usually, each book is about a group of survivors trying to make their way through the horrible new Crossed-infested world to some destination which may or may not be worth it. Here, our group of survivors has found a relatively secure place, and they’re trying to make a go of it.


We see everything through the eyes of Shaky, who used to be a writer back in the old days. He wanted to start out his journal with something poetic and deep, but then he saw the guy fucking the dolphin and knew he had to go with shock. What else is there in the world of the Crossed? And a happy ending? Even Shaky knows better than that.


If you’re lucky enough to find Avatar at a con, pick up the ashcan preview. Otherwise, get ready for October, when the book goes weekly at www.crossedcomic.com!


CROSSED: WISH YOU WERE HERE
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Javier Barreno
Publisher: Avatar
12 pages
$1.99

COOL SHIT 6-16-11

THAT HELLBOUND TRAIN #1: Holy shit! The Lansdale brothers have teamed up to adapt another iconic Robert Bloch story to the comic book medium! Last time, they tackled “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” with varying degrees of success. This one is all winner, though, especially since they have a much better artist this time. Dave Wachter’s stuff just rocks right off the page. And the train itself? Fucking shit, man. It’s creepy as, um, hell. You gotta’ see it to believe it.

CROSSED: PSYCHOPATH #3: As if the previous issues haven’t been grotesque enough, our favorite psychopath, Lorre, finally gets down to killing people in his group. He splits them up, and while everyone is hiding from the Crossed he has lured into following them, he gets down to getting nasty. Jesus, what he does to one of the characters is downright awful. As always, David Lapham does an over the top job, and Raulo Caceres, an artist with balls of steel, does a disgustingly filthy job. If you’re not reading this book, you’re missing a lot. And you probably have a soul, but whatevs.

HELLBLAZER #280: Ah-ha! Now we’re finally getting back to that missing scene from issue 275. You might remember from my review of that one, I complained about how the pivotal scene of the story wasn’t depicted. Here, we get what we were missing, and now we know the full extent of what Constantine’s double has done to Gemma. This is most definitely her story. It’s been a while since we’ve seen her in action, and it’s good to finally get inside her head. And hey! Check out that cover! Look familiar? If not, then you’re not a longtime Hellblazer fan. Look up issue 93 and compare. I just wish they’d stop pimping the shit out of the Green Lantern movie on their Vertigo books. It looks cheap.

COOL SHIT 5-26-11

STRANGE ADVENTURES #1: I’m not going to say a lot about this anthology because I’m actually going to review it next week for the Napalm Assault. However, there was one story in here I felt I couldn’t review from an objective viewpoint. “All the Pretty Ponies” written by Lauren Beukes and illustrated by Inaki Miranda treads over the same territory as a story I wrote a while ago called “Slummin’ It” (which was published in the first issue of TABARD INN). In my story, rich assholes liked to experience life through the eyes of the homeless. If they pay enough money, they can feel what it’s like to get killed. Well, in this story, Beukes expresses the same idea. A group of the rich and beautiful gather together so they can plug their consciousness into a couple of poverty-stricken people. They call it “going slumming,” and when a rich woman plugs into a kidnapped pregnant woman, she feels cravings and excitedly hopes it’s meth. There is a twist, however, that separates it from my story, in which SPOILER ALERT it is showed that the government keeps a bunch of poor people hooked up to dream machines, in which they imagine that they’re rich and beautiful people. So who is plugging into whom? An answer, by the way, that we never get. END OF SPOILERS. I’m not saying that Beukes ripped me off. My story is based on an old idea (with my own twist, of course). But I thought it would be dishonest of me to review it based on the closeness, so I thought I’d bring it up here. Buy this book, by the way.

CROSSED 3D: Holy shit, William Christensen finally delivered on this book. Granted, he swore it’d be out by April, but what the hell? Better late than never. I have mixed feelings about this book. There are a lot of parallels between CROSSED and zombie books, and it’s totally justified. However, there have been a lot of army versus zombie stuff lately, and this is one of those stories. A group of soldiers go on a rescue mission to Manhattan to bring a doctor back to the people who need her, and shit happens. A lot of shit happens. But nothing very remarkable. There is one very interesting thing that happens, though: a character who accidentally reveals himself to be a racist eventually turns into one of the Crossed, and what is the first thing he does? Starts relentlessly calling out racial epithets. This implies that the Crossed do whatever was in their minds when they were human beings. Which is a frightening thought, when you give it some consideration. Ennis and Lapham are essentially saying that these horrible and vile things are inside all of us, and the only thing that keeps us in check is conscience. The last thing I want to talk about is the 3D effects. A lot of it gets lost because the details are too small for 3D to effectively display, and because a lot of the speech balloons are small, it’s hard to read. It also doesn’t help that whenever the Crossed speak, their words appear in red . . . which doesn’t show up very well in a 3D book. There’s no need for this gimmickry. This book would have been good without it. Still, when it gets the effects right, they’re pretty cool. Some of the bigger panels reveal this very nicely, especially if something huge is going on in the background. It’s good stuff. Not great, but definitely worth the nine bucks it costs. And the 3D glasses are pretty cool; if you wear them, the design makes you look like one of the Crossed.

COOL SHIT 5-12-11

CROSSED: PSYCHOPATH #2: How is it that David Lapham can keep topping himself for grotesqueness in this book? Watching his psychopath, Lorre, work on this group of Crossed survivors is an amazing thing, and shocking. As he relates his relationship with Lori, who was in all probability not a willing participant, one can’t help but feel greasy with shame. And when he relates killing Crossed children in ruthless ways? I wonder if Garth Ennis chose his own successor on this one . . . .

COBRA CIVIL WAR: G.I. JOE #1: All right! The search for the new Cobra Commander is under way! And can it be any cooler? The candidates are few, but the possibilities are endless! All they have to do is score the most G.I. Joe kills, the higher the profile, the better the results. Only a sadistic bastard would come up with this concept, and I’m glad it was Chuck Dixon! There’s only one problem: he kind of pusses out when it comes to killing longtime Joes. So far, the bodycount comprises of only the new guys, soldiers we’ve never heard of before. How about killing off a more important Joe? You already killed Cobra Commander. Why not go balls out?

THE AVATAR PANEL AT C2E2 2011

Well, this year they had a bigger room, but there still weren’t enough people in there. William Christiansen and Jacen Burrows presided over the panel this time around. Mike Wolfer was supposed to be there, too, but he’d lost his voice and was not able to attend.

The first bit of news was the release of the first issue of CALIGULA (I will have a review of this up before this C2E2 orgasm is done). David Lapham is “thrilling,” according to Christiansen, so he will be working for Avatar for quite a while. Garth Ennis loves his CROSSED stuff, which is a hell of a good sign.

Ah, CROSSED. It has been, according to Christiansen, an “insane success for us.” This has undoubtedly led to CROSSED going monthly! That’s right, when the “Psychopath” story arc is done, the monthly will begin with a new CROSSED tale from Ennis and Burrows. After that . . . JAMIE DELANO TAKES OVER! That’s right, the original HELLBLAZER writer will be taking the reins!


Also, Christiansen’s “personal albatross,” the CROSSED 3-D book is done except for the 3-D effects themselves. This has been going on for a long time, but he swears that it will be out soon, and “I’m not lying this time.”

I asked him about where the CROSSED movie stands, and he says that while Kevin Spacey’s production company still has it under option, he doesn’t think it will happen. I also asked him that if they still planned to have the horsecock character in it, and Burrows said that he saw the screenplay. The character is still there, but modified. Still, he doesn’t think Horsecock will disappoint hardcore fans. At this point, Christiansen joked about giving Horsecock a spin-off series. “You know I’d do it!” All things considered, he probably would, and I’d probably buy it.

On to Boundless news. Someone asked why they’d launched Boundless, and Christiansen said it was because Lady Death didn’t seem to fit with their other titles, so why not start a sister company? The next title, coming soon, is WAR GODDESS, written by Mike Wolfer. It will be kind of like the classic ‘Nineties bad girl books, but slightly less ridiculous. Pandora, Widow, Hellina, and the rest will be in the book (in fact, War Goddess herself is Pandora), but they don’t want to flood out their fan base. They want to keep Boundless small. “Slow and steady wins the race,” Christiansen said. There will be no silly, forced cross-overs, not like with, say, the JLA for example.


Someone said they had a question about Warren Ellis’ books. “No, you don’t,” Christiansen said, as if he knew what was coming. Sure enough, he was right. The audience member wanted to know what the deal was with Ellis’ late books, like DOCTOR SLEEPLESS. A fair question, and something I’d like to know, as well. What’s the hold up? “I have no fucking idea,” Christiansen said. The covers are done, but he simply doesn’t have scripts from Ellis. “He just never fuckin’ wrote ‘em.” There is a bunch of other new Ellis stuff waiting in the wings, but Christiansen says he wants to finish up old business before bringing out anything new.

Speaking of Ellis, there is a new GRAVEL project! Sadly, Ellis won’t have a hand in it, but writing duties will be taken over by Mike Wolfer, who was with the book since the very beginning. (Hm. It seems like Wolfer is writing just about everything for them these days . . . .) This new monthly will be more about the combat magician side of Gravel. There will be a lot of kick-ass military stuff, and 18 issues have already been plotted out. Christiansen also said that Legendary still had the series under option. We’ll see if that movie ever happens . . . .


Did I mention that they have a new LIVING DEAD series coming out? DEATH VALLEY #1 is already on the market. It’s the only license they seem to have held on to. (Remember when they had the rights to Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface? Or how about STARGATE SG-1?)


Christiansen also said that they’d be putting out more webcomics, like FREAKANGELS, in the future. He didn’t clarify, but he said that either “I’m retarded or a genius.” There can’t be a lot of money in it, but it certainly gets a lot of attention. I’m sure the FREAKANGELS merch goes pretty quickly, too.

The NEONOMICON trade will be released later this year. Burrows listened to a lot of Lovecraft stories on CD while working on this one. Alan Moore, who is notoriously difficult to please, is very happy with the artwork. Even though he’s very strict with his scripts, he let Burrows play fast and loose with the Deep One. They also confessed that this sequel was never planned, that when they did THE COURTYARD, they never considered returning to this world.


THE CHRONICLES OF WORMWOOD #6 is almost here . . . AND IT’S SUPER-SIZED! Not much else was said about this one, but it was enough to give me a woody.


Lastly, someone asked about variant covers. Avatar is well-known for having an insane amount of variants, but without them, Avatar wouldn’t be here. Christiansen said that the collectors are the ones who really keep them in business. It’s surprising how much of a difference they make. Burrows added that, as an artist, one can do a lot more with a variant cover that one usually couldn’t get away with on a straight-forward cover. Good to know. I’d been wondering about this, too.


To conclude, Christiansen said that they’re doing well, it’s just that they need to overcome a lot of lateness problems. Too true. But in this market, better late than never. You know I’ll be out there buying ‘em.

COOL SHIT 9-30-10

Jesus. Another crap week here at Cool Shit. Once again, there is only one book who made the cut, and sad to say, it was just barely. Maybe I’m depressed with the news that DC might be shutting down Vertigo by December. I don’t know. But, here we go with the one good book of the week:



CROSSED: FAMILY VALUES #4: Yeah, I miss Garth Ennis on this series. The new writer, David Lapham, is really good with most things (crime, obviously), but pseudo-zombie apocalypses? Not so much. Ennis can take humanity and make it real, but Lapham sometimes makes it sound too hokey. Still, they share the ability to be extreme. As per usual, the kinda-sorta zombies are ultra-violent, and their words are really ugly, but Lapham falls into the trap so many writers these days are familiar with: the real monsters of this book are the people. Yes, the villains here are ordinary people with guns who want to steal horses from our heroes. Things get nasty, and the main bad guy (a fella’ who looks a bit too much like Alan Moore) sounds exactly like one of the Crossed, especially when he says things like, “I’ll fuck that little girl’s brains through her teeth while the rest of ‘em [pregnant women] bleed out!” It’s a good read (not great), and the art, while sometimes silly, is good enough (I miss Jacen Burrows, too), but ultimately worth the price of admission.