I heard she was a frisco dyke.
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The entire squadron of the Factual Opinion team went and watched Watchmen together along with our celebrity special guest, John Hodgman, who purchased his ticket separately and sat multiple rows away from the team. According to the female contingent of TFO, Hodgman has "greasy hair." The film is terrible, but it's terrible in a way that's sort of entertaining unless you really want to get worked up about the fact that this is one of those comic book movies that makes comic books look A) juvenile B) dumb C) boring and D) gay, if you use the word "gay" the way belligerent 14 year old boys use the term to define something that makes them uncomfortable because it's similar to Cirque de Soleil. Is the sex scene really set to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and shot with less class than the works of Shauna O'Brien, Shannon Tweed and Julie K. Smith? Yes! Is any of the old age make-up applied in a fashion that speaks to a blockbuster movie budget? No! Does Ozymandias really speak as if the sides of his lips have been nailed to his tongue? Oh fuck yeah! All in all though, if you go with the right people--like the people who can dissociate their desire to masturbate on Malin Ackerman from their desire to watch actors that can actually act in a way that isn't fundamentally retarded, you can have a pretty good time.
Agents of Atlas # 2
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz, Jana Schirmer, Gabriel Hardman & Elizabeth Dismang Breitweiser
Published by Marvel Comics
Jesus, did Marvel Comics grow the Breitweiser family in the womb? Is nobody in the Breitweiser family allowed to take a job loading containers for export? Anyway, so-the-fuck-what if the Factual crew interviewed the writer of a comic and one of said comic's artists and those interviews get linked within the same column that it gets put into the beaver box. It's not like we get this Agents of Atlas static for free, it belongs to the offices now, Do With As You Will and What For, and if we fucking happened to like the parts that involved the people that we spoke with while not caring a super huge amount for the parts more closely involved with non-interview subjects, than sure, there's probably some cockgobbling argument about professional standards...but hey, poo poo pee pee, there's your professional standards, fuck a duck, fuck it in the butt. Professional standards, people who use the word criticism with a capital letter, anybody who uses the phrase "culture of the line" without laughing--suck, the Sweat, off the ballz. Somebody else will get the protein shot. You can have the salt. Agents of Atlas: Parker story is good. Hardman art is great. Pagulayan art is tolerable. Color and inks on Pagulayan looks terrible. Fix the goddamn coloring and inks on the Pagulayan pages.
The Boys # 28
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by John Higgins & Tony Avina, Ignore the Cover Which Is A Lie
Published by Dynamite Entertainment
Weird how Dave Gibbons had time to take a break from whatever it is he was doing surrounding the Watchmen movie so that he could draw a boring, static cover for The Boys. If the goal was for there to be some kind of sales bump since the issue came out the same week that the movie showed up, it probably would have been a lot more successful if the cover wasn't really fucking sad and pathetic, one of those covers that looks like the ambition/innovation meter got set on the same level as Justine Bateman's career. (It's a shitty cover.) Otherwise, this is the issue where something different finally happens in this little-too-long X-men story, and some shit that's been building finally gets dispensed, and a whole bunch of masturbating golden shower types get killed without Ennis really pulling off the whole "you're supposed to sort of feel sorry for these guys, maybe, whatever, doesn't matter." Could the volume on this comic get turned up again? Sure, some people are still going to call it genius comics that follows "the path" set by Alan Moore, but those are the sorts of people that think twittering about vice-presidential debates qualifies as political journalism. Whatever. Like 45,000 people read The Boys in single issues, right? You gotta assume at least half of those people also consider the Insane Clown Posse "artists."
Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? # 1
Written by Fabian Nicieza
Art by Dustin Nguyen, Guillem March, ChrisCross, Jamie McKelvie, Alex Konat, Mark McKenna & Guillem March
Published by DC Comics
Everything you need to know about this god awful, stupid fucking anthology piece of shit is on the page that has the credits sequence. (Shared by Dustin Nguyen's jesus-he-better-be-making-bank-off-this-shit bookend page.)
Four five page stories, one two page bookend, five different artists, one writer, and all of it--every single miserable page--is completely and utterly devoid of any of what Charles Dickens might call "compelling." All the art is Platonically acceptable, but it's Platonically acceptable while being completely useless to spend any time with, because it's in the service of a wisp of a story, a Mario Kart banana peel of a plot. There's just no way to enjoy something like this, and the ability to read it requires an intellectual commitment along the likes of staring at color fields for an hour while being asked if you wouldn't prefer just to go buy an ice cream sundae. It drips with the taste of a bunch of fucking wanna-be corporate cogs ordering a bunch of wanna-be-doing-something-else artists to put together something--anything--that will serve as an acceptable chapter in a story that's impossible to be excited by. Here's hoping that the third chapter will be called Gotham Gazette: Just Kidding?
Hellboy: The Wild Hunt # 4
Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Duncan Fegredo, Guy Davis & Dave Stewart
Published by Dark Horse Comics
Finally picking up the rumble after some issues of run-of-the-mill, Wild Hunt is cooking with mentholated petroleum here, making it the perfect time for the comic to take an announced "three month" break. With that bit of Planetary style decision making it would seem they need a sterling send-off, luckily, that's what was provided as the funny little quirk-box elf turns out to be a dirty little liar who has lots of minaturized friends who don't look like leprechauns or action figures, but closely resemble them in size. Duncan Fegredo's art is stellar, and since Mignola's actually given him something to do--that something being "have Hellboy kill lots of things"--it's a triumphant little return to pre-Strange Places form. It's also oddly romantic, which is weird, and hopefully Mignola won't make the mistake of going for some gross ass Beauty and the Beast thing despite the obvious Ron Perlman connection. Also, Guy Davis: is there anybody else this consistently good working right now in these type of comics? He makes the DC squadron of sadness look like a bunch of kids in study hall.
Jersey Gods # 2
Written by Glen Brunswick
Art by Dan McDaid
Published by Image Comics
Script-wise, this ain't that far removed from the Eternals, which means there's probably some website out there explaining why that's intended...doesn't matter. Kirby's Eternals was pretty rock solid when it came to the art stuff, and while the scripting always seemed a little rushed, it's one of those comic runs that you aren't supposed to say anything negative about if you give a shit what headcases think about your tastes, and you're probably supposed to shit on comics that are too similar. Fuck it, Jersey Gods is really nice to look at, it's able to pull off the sort of interpersonal stupidity of emotionally stunted muscle types better than a Superman comic--seriously, you gotta wonder if some comics writers believe that Clark Kent has the power to be a super-boyfriend sometimes, the way the guy behaves--but nah, these God boys are actually kind of dumb in the way they deal with ladies, and it's nice to see that juxtaposed with all this brash Kirby love. A little less on the nose than the similarly homaged Godland, it's grittier, fun shit. These are the sorts of comics that should be beat to shit and left on floors. It'll probably get cancelled in two months, because people will start shitting out of their mouths and buying variant covers of Zombie Barry Allen raping his way through the Blue Lantern Corps. Love is...
Secret Six # 7
Written by Gail Simone
Art by Nicola Scott, Doug Hazlewood, Rodney Ramos & Jason Wright
Published by DC Comics
Part of Gail Simone's charm has to be that what she does operates on such a purely toxic level of goofballery--sure, she's had her misfires and what not, usually when she's tried on the Serious hat--but when she's taking something really silly, like a supervillian that looks like a Jim Lee take on Jabberjaw and having somebody break his nose (snout?) so that he can spend the remainder of the issue having trouble making himself understood, it's hard not find what she does to be a momentary breath of fresh air, especially when it's alongside DC's horrible two-page splash ads of Barry Allan crying lightning. While it still can sometimes read like a joke that only a random few will get, it's a catchy one at that.
Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk # 3
Written by Damon Lindelof
Art by Lenil Francis Yu & Dave McCaig
Published by Marvel Comics
The funny thing about Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk--which this is the first new issue of in something like four years--is that it is such a by-the-numbers supe-hero fight comic, such a seen-it-before, but it's taken this long to put it out. It's obviously not Lenil Francis Yu's fault--the guy can turn in pages of his non-offensive Wolverine fight drawings pretty quickly. No, all the blame rests on the writer, and while his obvious excuse--that his popular television show controls his schedule--certainly makes a kind of sense, you can't really buy it when you apply it to the actual comic scrip he provides, which is just dialog to surround Wolverine fighting the Hulk. There's absolutely nothing that occurs within it that speaks to a story that takes any time whatsoever to come up with. One wants to believe that writing comic books--super-hero comics, that is--is an actual job, a difficult task, something that only a few talented people could do, something far beyond the skill set of the most obnoxious slash fiction (Bones! Blowing Kirk! Semen on the Enterprise!), and yet...this is it? Sure, Lindelof didn't take three years to write this. He threw it together when he had a short weekend. Everybody knows that. And that's sort of the problem, isn't it? That these things, these things that merit so much defense, acclaim and blustered, asinine evaluation from post-graduates who have memorized terms like 'bande dessinée' only to waste it on 700 pages of meager shit crying out that the detractors should stop 'hurting' comics when they could be 'pushing them forward'...look at this, this super-hero comic. This is trash, it can be put together with no discernible plan whatsoever, with no innovation, and the barest hint of skill. It can be written by absolutely anybody, it's devoid of what you'd imagine writing is supposed to be--something that only a writer should do. Ultimate Fuck You I'm Late isn't, sure, the worst thing that Marvel publishes, hell, it's not even the worst of the Ultimate's sewer explosion. But it's meaningless crap, and while it will only wasted a maximum of ten minutes of its reader's lives, it's still, according to the credit page, the end result of the work of at least six grown adults. You're supposed to feel sorry for them, and say "Well, I'm sure they tried pretty hard." If you were talking about Yu and McCaig, you might have a case. But otherwise? Fuck that. Damon Lindelof didn't try to do anything here. You can give him the benefit of the doubt if you want. Just don't pretend that he--or any of the other writers who turn in mediocre garbage like this--is meeting you halfway.
-Tucker Stone, 2009
Did Hodgeman employ the old hole-in-the-bottom-of-the-popcorn-bucket technique during the Comedian's rape/murder scenes?
Posted by: seth hurley | 2009.03.09 at 09:14
You know, every time I think about giving superheroes up, I read shit like this and think, "Man, if this is the penance you have to do, I'm going to continue to rub my dick with copies of All Hail Megatron."
Posted by: Dan Coyle | 2009.03.09 at 10:58
Empty dreams can only disappoint
In a room behind your smile
But don't give up
Don't give up
You can be lucky in love
It gets in your eyes
It's making you cry
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2009.03.09 at 11:08
Is that really a little Rorschach growing out of a gardening pot? Is that a little potted Rorschach plant? 'Cause that's what it looks like to me.
Posted by: Dirk Deppey | 2009.03.09 at 21:45
cha cha cha CHIA!
Posted by: tucker Stone | 2009.03.09 at 22:29
Rorschach Chia pets. Because if you think funny cartoon characters growing tiny plant afros are awesome, wait til you see Ditkovian vigilantes.
Posted by: Sean Witzke | 2009.03.09 at 22:36
Hmm, I might have to give Jersey Gods a try. I'm hesitant about Glen Brunswick after reading the first couple of issues of Killing Girl (who knows, maybe that one got better, but I left along with Frank Espinosa), but this sounds like it might be okay.
Oh, Agents of Atlas. I want to like you (and I do, pretty much), but it's true that your coloring is wacky. Those flashback scenes though? I thought they were done by Tommy Lee Edwards or John Paul Leon; I'm going to have to pay attention to this Gabriel Hardman guy. Really nice stuff.
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2009.03.10 at 11:24