The Factual Opinion

Comics Of The Weak: Harding Never Betrayed Taft, But He Might Have Eaten His Golden Retriever

Avengers #14
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

Most of the time, The Avengers most reminds me of what would happen if you put the mind and voice of that old WB cartoon frog inside Gina Gershon's hot carcass, because the only thing that would prevent me from rubbing one out while looking at the Lady Bound would be the hard-on I wouldn't get because she were barking out "Hello My Baby" in that frog's fucking donkey voice, but this issue comes pretty close to being acceptable and pump-worthy, as it frontloads that horrible reality-show-confessional style comics that Bendis is stone cold addicted to in the first few pages, giving almost the rest of the comic over to the Thing beating the Red Hulk so badly you'll start wondering if this fight started in a silver Lamborghini, and if that isn't what John Romita Jr. super-hero comics are supposed to have in them, then you must be Chuck Dixon and Marvel still has decent Punisher comics left to publish. Still, I'd warn you against saving any Conclusive Sex Explosions for the final page, as Bendis rears up and ruins the fight's conclusion by plugging in shit about what makes that gimpy old butler cry. So close!

Graveyard of Empires #1
Written by Mark Sable
Art by Paul Azaceta & Matt Wilson
Published by Image Comics

While this story is so rife with the possibility of horrible failure that rooting for it is the equivalent of hoping the tumor has enough sentient thought that it can be your new dad, the first issue is all kinds of gutter sleaze awesome. Gone are the days of two years ago where Electronic Arts aped all of their scenes from Generation Kill and other stark, "realistic" war tales, this is the new school, where Mark Sable presents an Afghanistan as a place crossed somewhere between Vietnam and the trenches of WW1. It's gross, it's stupid, and by the end, it definitely fucking has zombies, so go on and get ready for the magic that this comic can bringzles. (Also keep your eye out for a scene where a local Muslim calls a whiteboy American on his ignorance: you're definitely reading some smart comics here!)

Batman #711
Written by Tony Daniel
Art by Steve Scott, Ryan Winn & Ian Hannin
Published by DC Comics

Oh Tony Daniel, if they didn't let Ivan Brandon and some C-level fill in artist kill Two-Face in those Streets of Gotham back-up stories (you remember, the ones that were longer than the main story), they're not going to let you and some D-level fill in artist put 'em down either. They call it a pecking order for a reason, and making up a new female sidekick every issue isn't going to change that. That being said, good show on this one:

Puking isn't a new thing, but coloring it so that it looks like this is a henchman who delights in the ingestion of human shit? That's freakier than a birthday party at Justiniano's. Which makes me think: doesn't adding all these female sorta-villainous sidekick kids to the DC Comics universe start a dead-girls-countdown-clock? Feminists best get their tumblrs at the ready.

Deadpool Max #9
Written by David Lapham
Art by Shawn Crystal & John Rauch
Published by Marvel Comics

Maybe Baker didn't show up because of the script, or maybe the script is the way it is because Baker wasn't going to show up, but this one didn't really land. Mostly, you just read it and wonder what it is that the fat prostitute does that makes the prostitute-using portion of the population move their business over to her in proportions so large that the remaining prostitutes feel the need to bring violent solutions to bear. Cuz it's a boring story, you see. And while Shawn Crystal doesn't do anything wrong--and in the case of drawing some puckered birdbite cellulite lines, he does one gross thing extraordinarily right--he's too far removed from Baker's specific 'Pool style set for this issue not to seem completely out of place.

Daken Dark Wolverine #10
Written by Rob Williams
Art by Matteo Buffagni, Riley Rosmo & Chris Peter
Published by Marvel Comics

The main reason why people got impressed enough with Final Crisis Revelations to give it a GLAAD award wasn't because it was a good representation of homosexual characters or relationships or tolerance or anything else, but simply because it made it okay for gay super-heroes to stand alongside straight super-heroes in a really shitty event tie-in comic book with horrible art. It was genius on Greg Rucka's part, to so boldly say "Gay people can be just as fucking boring and useless as straight people, and they can look as shitty too, see just check this comic out the bad guy has a tattoo on his face", and that comic will forever stand in as some kind of Rosa Parks of the art form. After all, if it wasn't for that little stereotype shatterer, we wouldn't be were we are now, with Daken (the Dark Wolverine), who is apparently going to fuck dudes and be addicted to pills for the next few issues of however long his soon-to-be-canceled title has left. Hawt? In the same way those old Life Or Meth posters were, sure.

Flashpoint Wonder Woman and The Furies #1
Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art by Scott Clark & Dave Beatty
Published by DC Comics

There's probably no better example of why Marvel wins so many of those DC Versus Marvel story throwdown arguments that all of us would be better off not having than the way that DC handles alternate reality stories, case in point this fairy tale right here: even though the Flashpoint series has already established that Wonder Woman and The Aquaman are responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people (and in an even better twist, Dr. Aquaman is also responsible for the destruction of lots of famous art, like the kind with oils and marble), this issue makes it abundantly clear that it isn't really their fault, because somebody just tricked them into making some mistakes on their wedding day, and so you can rest assured that the end of this particular little Flashpoint odyssey will feature some moment where they realize they've been tricked, and they'll help accelerate whatever foregone conclusion is already set up so that this comic can end with their historical legacies of being boring old moral busybodies intact. Compare that to Marvel, where fucked up shit can totally happen in alternate realities above and beyond things like "What if Batman's hair was red", and you'll see the difference pretty clearly. Marvel understands that alt realities are just that, places to have Cyclops slice infants in twain while Steve Rogers does blow off of Luke Cage's power glove, whereas DC thinks "well, Wonder Woman still has to be basically a good person, because because because, so let's blame this whole millions-and-millions-and-millions dead thing on some misunderstanding involving her bitch sister." 

-Tucker Stone, 2011

 

My Wife: Has A Different Kind Of Fury For Hellboy

Hellboy is too good for comic books.

Hellboy: The Fury #1
Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Duncan Fegredo & Dave Stewart
Published by Dark Horse Comics 

Yeah, I said it. So what do I possibly mean by that? Well. I just find this comic too good to be limited to the standard comic book form. I can see the appeal of "waiting for the trade" when I read Hellboy.  

First of all, it's just so cinematic, and even though I hate using that word (because it is both overused and relatively useless for capturing the totality of Hellboy's visual achievements which roughly described might be that there is not only amazing storytelling through pictures in these books, but amazing storytelling delivered with a constant, stunning beauty even when the a picture is of something violent, or something simple, or just something that in standard life doesn't require, demand or attract attention), I LOVE the art in this - looking at it makes me want to, like, dive into it like its water, it is that inviting, and so I resort to the word "cinematic", which to my mind calls up thoughts of total immersion, which I think best describes what happens inside a Hellboy story. 

And the story - oh the story! - is of course fascinating, and one that I want much more of, which is where my "too good for comic books" line comes from. I feel like I got just a taste of what's about to happen. It felt too short. It felt almost like a tease. So much happens in this comic's various plot threads, and so many questions arise that as I came to the end of this issue I thought - that's it? (Actually, I thought: "that's IT? If so, that is NOT okay, because you CANNOT STOP NOW".)

What's funny about that is, when this was handed to me and I felt the book, it's weight in my hand, and I thought of the daily schedule I was under, the way the days were starting so early and then going so late and I thought, "Oh God - I love Hellboy and all - but how long is this going to take me to read?"

Now I just want to know what happens next. And I kind of want Duncan Fegredo to come and decorate our apartment. Just put murals and artwork all over our walls. I'd never leave, but my shut-in status would be one of great visual pleasure.

Is this is a short review that tells you how much I like this book without telling you a thing about it? Ha ha! What a tease I am, huh? Well....I don't want to deprive you of an amazing experience. You're just going to have to read this one for yourself.  

And maybe I'll give up a little more of the plot after issue two.

-Nina Stone, 2011

Comics Of The Weak: I'm Saving All My Optimism For The Bedroom, Thank You Very Much

Deadpool Max #8
Written by David Lapham
Art by Kyle Baker
Published by Marvel Comics

Part of this issue felt like it was already told once before (in the "Cable" issue), but since that installment was sort of a disappointment (which isn't totally fair, as the anticipation for CableMax was so keyed up that the actual comic couldn't help but be merely acceptable), it's okay to go at it again, this time with a heavier focus on the non-Deadpool side of things. And in point of fact, non-Deadpool is exactly what this issue is--our titular lead only shows up as plot contrivance when the story demands his presence, and his appearance doesn't alter our narrator's rambling monologue theater in the slightest, its just shoehorned right in--and yet that's perfectly okay, even if it means Baker spends less time drawing him in an issue where Baker is pretty much delivering some all-time-so-far best stuff. (Specifically, we're looking at dude-from-Avatar's Cable face, Agent Bob's pre-Deadpool handlee, the blink-so-you-can-think-bout-it Sluggo, and all of those fingerprint tread backgrounds.)

"Dit Dit Dit-Dah Dah Dah Dit Dit"
From Casanova Gula #4
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Gabriel Ba & Cris Peter
Published by Marvel Comics

This is the first (maybe?) new Casanova shingle put on the career roof at Fraction Manor since the whole "exhausted your goodwill" thing started, but garsh-be-damned, it's pretty fucking good stuff. In part, that's because Casanova (the character) isn't it, and he'd begun to be a bit of an anvil hanging over the stories surrounding him, which is a simple, concise way of saying that the devil-may-care as nothing-matters-but-styling 'tudes only works in the broad strokes of those first blush meetings, and it will always give way and be shown up for the empty headedness it actually represents upon the long stare. (This is why the coolest guy in the last chapter of Gula is the disgruntled, embarrassed father and not the petulant lead, and make no mistake: the winner in a Casanova comic is always whoever ends up looking the coolest.) The new story--a short excursion on a pleasure cruise, since "pleasure" in comics definitely means sitting like the L character from Death Note in an Arne Jacobson rip-off while wearing the leftover Jean-Paul Gaultier bandage costume from the Fifth Element and plinking out Bowie on a guitar cuz that's what you do after a killfest holocaust--just works, playing its back-up-so-it-don't-have-to-matter status all the way to the hilt. It's part that it's Ba on the com, smoothing Fraction's tumblrbrain into cogency, but it's also that it only has one piece of information to truly deliver--the introduction of a character--and can thus get back to the business of being comics immediately after doing so.

Ultimate Spider-Man #159
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley, Andy Lanning & Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics

Although everyone will have a moment from Ultimate Death of Spider-Man that they call the seminal, where-were-you-when moment, and most of those people will refer to the moment when a crying (!) Punisher got taken away from a scene of a crime screeching "Punish MEEEEEEE", as this was the moment when Mark Millar must have officially decided that yes, even he could be way too old for this shit, you can bet that there is someone out there in the big blue and wide yonder who will point to the moment here, where Peter Parker retorted "but......cute" to his Aunt's "You crazy boy" remark, which occurred after Aunt May had put three rounds into Electro's chesticals. Make a note of who that person is, and tell your local pharmacist. That way this person's meds can be upped, because they're a sex crime away from ruining a lot of ice cream socials.

Batman and Robin #24
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Greg Tocchini
Published by DC Comics

Part of the reason it's impossible to have any conversation of actual, adult substance about that whole DC relaunch/reboot/remix is that you can only have it on their public relations and hype born terms--which don't do anything to explain how DC plans to deal with revenue, or what sort of numbers they'll be looking for in terms of sales upon which to claim success, or if they even have a method in place for seeing what sell-thru numbers look like, as all digital sales ultimately are sell-thru numbers and thus have to be analyzed differently than physical pre-sales, but that's to be expected: comics are small, the number of people who are bored and choose to satisfy their boredom with this information is even smaller, and of course, the persecution complexes that come up whenever you say "What about the money" has no real comparison in terms of hyperbolism, even when you compare it to the amount of freaking out that occurs when you say "raise your hands if you've ever read an actual book that wasn't primarily intended for teenagers" or "and how many of you regularly skip showers" and the tempestuous favorite "you aren't an artist, and mashing up your childhood obsessions into story paste doesn't make you a creator, neither", so yeah, the conversations end up settling down on the landscape "I give a shit about the new Blue Beetle, but I don't give a shit about the new Superboy", as if there's some way to actually navigate future comics solicits (none of which are apparently set in enough stone that straight-up-getting-fucking-fired still can't be used as an existential threat), but hey, fractions are fun for people whose educational focus ignored all math classes in pursuit of a minor in Torchwood Studies, so sure, let's say 11 out of 52 per, with a dollar down on the barrelhead. What? But if you really want to get down to it, here's a comic about conversating with the DC reboot: Batman and Robin #24. Does anybody want it to continue? No, of course not. There was a weird anti-marketing marketing gimmick where DC pretended that the book was getting a new creative team when it was really getting a revolving squad, and now it's settled on a guy you sort of remember reading something you think you liked by, but mostly he's responsible for stuff that isn't really your speed, and the artist is somebody you think you've seen before but don't really care for either, and they've delivered a comic that doesn't even bother riffing on its bog standard story but just presents the bog as being it, like if somebody invited you over to their house to show you pictures of their trip to the Pyramids and then, when you arrived, just said "here you go" and handed you a first generation iPhone and then stared at you silently while you looked at them until some personally determined point where they finally say "that's enough for now" and shows you the door, no offer of snacks or wife-swapping, nothing at all. That's what you're in for, because yeah: Marvel still has all the writers you want to read, and if you haven't figured it out by now, Geoff Johns doesn't like Grant Morrison comics, and there's no blue days coming. There's just more like this coming, and you aren't going to like it any more than you did the first time. Now you just won't have to worry about where you're going to store it.

The New Avengers #13
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mike Deodato
Published by Marvel Comics

This is some silly ass shit, but it's not silly enough where I could actually be saying I'm enjoying it, just that I think it's silly. Lookie look:

I just don't believe that anybody would ever go into an interrogation room with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. I don't know why that's a sticking point for me, but it is. I can buy that the Thing is a gigantic orange rock monster with the capability of forcing those orange rocks into the orange rock equivalent of a human frowny face to express the sadness he feels because he was making a joke and that joke-making prevented him from saving this dumb Mockingbird character from getting the nasty mortal wound that has taken up the plot of the last however many issues of New Avengers (that also happened in this comic), but no, I cannot buy that this Hawkeye dude brought a bow into interrogation room six.

-Tucker Stone, 2011

No Pictures: Philip Roth Is A Perfect Beach Read If You're Going To A Beach That's Totally Old And Horny

The Humbling
By Philip Roth, 2009

File this one next to Portnoy's Complaint and Sabbath's Theater, as its part of Phil's "randy dudes" series. Oh sure, there's parts of it where Roth aims towards writing about something other than the time a depressed old man got his withered old fuck on, a tale about what it might mean when one loses mastery over ones art after a lifetime spent earning it, but Roth's primary commitment this time around is clearly decided, whether or not he wanted it to be: "to bang or not to bang, oh a threesome? Fuck yeah i'm totally in. As with the other book's in this portion of Roth's catalog, there's a curiosity factor--is that how the author himself picks up the extra bed partners? Slumming on drunk shopgirls in the antique hunting part of town?--but mostly you just slide through the whole experience. This dude can still write, it's just that you wish he had something to write about.

Illmatic
By Matthew Gasteier, 2009

Yeah, what? Maybe it's just being spoiled by Wikipedia or free articles from Seymour Hersh, but this book felt like it should've been published as a fanzine, and I don't mean like Cometbus or any fanzine that anyone refers to as "interesting". This was just baby's first Nas book. The 33 1/3 series is so much more impressive when you don't read any of them.

Under The Dome
By Stephen King, 2009

The thing that Stephen King has most in common with Jackson Pollack is that a lot of people respond negatively to their work by saying "anybody could do that", and while they're usually wrong, Under The Dome probably comes closest to them being right as anything I've ever read by the guy. (His worst book is probably still Dreamcatcher, yet Dreamcatcher is so fucking strange and, by the end, essentially unreadable, and that novelty guarantees it some kind of special title.) Under The Dome is still compulsive in the way these sorts of world-building fantasy-ish books are, even when you can tell 15 pages out that the survival prospects aren't looking good for the wise old cop who serves as sanity's local linchpin, but it's only King's oddball mix of hokum and faux-Americana touches that keep this book from reading like the million and one slush pile books that the world's hopefuls continue to produce.

You Don't Love Me Yet
By Jonathan Lethem, 2007

I know a lot of people who have read and loved Motherless Brooklyn, a few who have read and loved Fortress of Solitude, a couple who dug Chronic City, but I've never met anyone who finished You Don't Love Me Yet, and now I know why: this one was a total misfire. Like reading the lyric sheets to a Matthew Sweet album while a father of two teenage girls tells you about all the times when they sing Mates of State songs, this is a book best left forgotten.

Fences and Windows
By Naomi Klein, 2002

This book is probably a good indication of the future of print, in that it's a collection of undercooked essays and poorly thought out jeremiads (trust me, I can smell these kinds of things) previously published somewhere else. There's some attempt to make the work look less date-stamped than it is, as well as a lazy jab towards making its Frankenstein-ian qualities resemble a cogent narrative, but you're never going to forget that you're reading something that probably worked better somewhere else, before.

Homebody/Kabul
By Tony Kushner, 2002

Kind of weird timing to dig this one out again, and probably a mistake to do so, as it hasn't aged well. Reading plays probably isn't high up on many people's list of a relaxing pastime; at least, it isn't mine, and there's probably no weaker section in a bookstore than the one dedicated to theater. (With the obvious exception of dance, which often combines the sensitivity of the artist with the intensely athletic physique that invariably escapes those most likely to call themselves "creative".) And make no mistake: I probably still read plays primarily because an attractive young woman once approached me and said "you must be very serious" because I was reading a bunch of Christopher Durang plays. (The irony that Durang's plays are almost completely unserious does not escape me, but as the only reason for mentioning this whimsical anecdote is to imply that I was picked up for sex with a stranger, which I was, which is why the idea in my head of "read plays, people will fuck you" has stayed in my brain, despite the obvious fact that this young lady was definitely uninterested in plays or whether I was "serious", and for some reason interested in me, or at least what I represented, which in that little town could've been any number of things, although I'm most likely to lean towards "not fat" as that was the biggest problem being faced at that time in rural Northeast Georgia, which was where I went to college and did most of my playreading, although it is of course possible (while unlikely) that she knew Durang's work and assumed that anyone reading the collected short works of a known New York homosexual playwright would certainly be amenable to what pop culture refers to as a one-night stand, which this of course was, although I believe we parted on excellent terms as there was never any mention or pretense towards getting one another's number, and while I obviously no longer regret not having done so as I am happily married to a woman I quite prefer in all the categories available to muster judgments in, I will not deny that I don't often question how I managed to play a situation as cool as I admittedly did, as I can point to no other time when I so easily handled myself, with the obvious exception of how I broke up with my high school girlfriend, which is a story that I will save for a later time, possibly after I read an Arthur Miller play, who I still like even if everyone else doesn't.

The Dramatic Imagination
By Robert Edmond Jones, 1941

I don't have a book I read every year, the way Anthony Lane reads Day of the Jackal. But if I did, it might be this one. The subject material interests me less and less as time goes by, but the way the guy's mind moves, the way he's able to mix class and homespun idealism into a sort of weird manifesto for artistic creation and a well-mannered approach to living never seems precious or affected. There's so much value to be found when an artist just describes why they do what they do and why they love it.

The Looking Glass War
By John Le Carre, 1965

This is one boring slog of a spy novel, one that takes forever to get to its one, final, brutally simple satirical point. It was actually planned this way, so one has to acknowledge and give credit to it for that. Le Carre wanted to say goodbye to his marriage, his past, and he wanted to say fuck you to the people he used to work for, and so he did so, successfully, in this book. Here's the thing: he's so successful at achieving his goals that you'll have to exert some real effort to ride it all the way to the non-shattering and totally unsurprising conclusion, which is also delivered in an on-purpose unsatisfying fashion. Interested?

-Tucker Stone, 2011

 

My Wife: Is Not Toeing The Party Line On The Whole Deforge Thing

Okay. I’m in a bit of a spot. This comic book was handed to me with a genuine, “I think you’re gonna love this,” recommendation. And it wasn't just a genuine recommendation, there was an earnest hopefulness in the recommenders eyes. He loves this comic book. A lot. Which makes it so difficult for me to say, honestly, that I just didn’t enjoy it.

Lose #3
By Michael DeForge
Published by Koyama Press

I can see how if you are a person who reads comic books  - and has been reading them for years - this would be dreamy for you. It's clearly different than the usual mainstream thing. It's clever in its storytelling. And the art clearly has its own distinct style. I get it.

But the thing is, I haven’t been reading comic books for years. And so, when I read these things rather than comparing comic book to comic book I often am just comparing it to other things I read. Which is broad, to say the least. I mean, that’s why when they are bad, they are SO bad - because in comparison to BOOKS, even bad books, bad comic books often suffer drastically in comparison. (I think that's probably a bolder, harsher statement than I might necessarily intend it to be, but I'm not totally confident I can explain what I mean by it right now.)

In the case of Lose, I just felt a little at a loss. The longest “bit” in this anthology(?) is the story "Dog 2070".  And...well, I just didn’t understand why they were dogs? There was, at no time, any sort of doggish jokes, or some giant metaphor that was obvious enough for me to grasp ahold of. So I just kept thinking about that--why are they dogs? Is there some common people-as-dogs thing going on in comics I don't know about? Does he just dislike drawing people? And I don’t know if its because I’m trying to be a recovering narcissist and so found myself cringing with identification at some of Stephen's (the lead dog) behavior, or that I just finished reading what I found to be a very nuanced novel, rife with brilliant characterizations of flawed humanity and yet still heavy with a very honest sense of ennui, but the whole oops this dog just has no sense of how his self-centered behavior seems to other dogs just didn’t do it for me. It wasn’t over the top funny, it was just uncomfortable cringe humor. Maybe in a different mood, though, I would have been laughing out loud.

And then, I didn’t understand the format of this comic. There were these short stories taking up one, two and three page segments, and then "Dog 2070" which was, like, 20 pages. Was "Dog 2070" ever published alone, by itself? I just found it odd to have one 20 page story, and no other story that was anywhere near as long.

"Vanishing Gal" was just not my thing. It's kinda trippy. It requires one to stop and look at it, a lot. But that whole sort of thing just kind of, um....honestly? It repels me. I had to flip through it really quick. I'm impressed that a comic can pull that sort of emotional response out of me, but I can't really go beyond being impressed as some kind of intellectual acknowledgement.

I thought the "Ant Comic" was cute, relatively speaking. I think that’s what I was expecting out of "Dog 2070". Some sort of acknowledgment of their dog reality - some slight nod to the “dog eat dog” world. Or his wife being a “bitch.” You know, puns. But I guess that’s my thing, not Michael Deforge’s. Right? I know my husband hates puns.

So, anyhow....I don’t mean to say that this is a bad comic. It's not, and I never felt that it was when I was reading it. But did I “love” it? No. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t--I would have liked to, if only so that I could share in the obvious joy that I saw in the face of the person who handed it to me. It's more about my personal taste that I didn’t like it. It's a very clever and creative comic, and DeForge has a definite sense of humor that works really well with this medium. I think his art work is clean, engaging and interesting. I’m honestly disappointed that I didn’t like it more.

I do wish more improv comics where murdered on stage, though. I choose to take that story as a political statement, one that I'm firmly behind. Improv comedy is where humanity gave up its final shred of dignity. Reality television, Kim Jong Il, all that stuff that son of a bitch did to those kids out in Texas...that all comes out of fucking improv. I hate that shit.

-Nina Stone, 2011, although she might have had help on that last paragraph

Comics Of The Weak: Even Your Mother Hates You In That Cardigan

Uncanny X-Force #11
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Mark Brooks, Andrew Currie & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

The best part of Uncanny X-Force #10 was when Dean White didn't give Paul Mounts the cheat code to fix Billy Tan's art, forcing Marvel to bring yet another speedballing fill-in artist from whatever country CB Cebulski (the eatin' wheelbarrow) most recently discovered he has high speed internet access to, but "Look How Fast They Fucked Up This Comic" stopped being an interesting game about 5 issues ago, although you're allowed to use the defense that "5 issues ago" was sometime last week and not, as one might wrongly assume, the month of February. (In keeping with the inexplicable dopiness that may just have cancerized my admittedly prurient interest in this particular endeavor, the artist you liked on this comic will be returning in just a few more issues, which means they probably would've only needed one fill-in artist if they hadn't decided to ramp up the delivery of this comic to its current 3-times-a-month schedule.) In this issue, not a lot of people die, but some of Deadpool's jokes are funny. And in a mean twist of fate, an alternative version of Nightcrawler shows up and reminds you that you don't miss him at all.

Criminal The Last Of The Innocent #1
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips & Val Staples
Published by Marvel Comics

The last installment of Criminal read like an audition script for a run on writing Rescue Me, but that doesn't mean that Criminal is necessarily bad-for-life. And yeah, as Sean Witzke pointed out, it is exciting when somebody who never does the Warren Ellis self-promotional spiel uncharacteristically drops a "I think I pulled it off, you guys". On the basis of the first issue, is it earned?

...maybe?

While it seems ungenerous to describe a comic as "decompressed" when said comic features the introduction of an entire cast as well as the death and funeral of one, the uncovering of a secret affair between another, as well as all of the basic facts it takes to fill in a reader on an entire youthful past, Innocent just doesn't read as densely packed as say, this week's issue of Hellboy. That doesn't mean it's a piece of shit or anything, just that it was more successful at stoking interest by things outside of its merits as a comic--specifically, that there's an interview and an essay out there where the guy seems fucking excited, and that's worth paying attention to. This is an artform is populated mostly with people whose ability to market themselves and their output is inversely proportional to that work's value or interest, and that's a truism so across the board accurate that it might be worth someone's time examining if it's somehow intrinsic to comics themselves. When somebody who doesn't run their mouth--about gutbuckets full of food, why you should treat greedy, dishonest slobs with respect or how turned on they get by molestation victims with self-image problems--starts acting sincere, it's behavior worth rewarding. Maybe it won't always be with praise, and it certainly shouldn't be with blind worship. But with attention?

Definitely.

Doppleganger
By Tom Neely
Published by I Will Destroy You

Oh, and then there was the time Popeye decided (or was forced) to go all Multiple Man on himself (super-hero comparisons allowed, check the back cover author's photo before getting your bridge is over britches busted) so that he could battle it out to determine the validity of pure stoicism (I am what I am) and the attractions of a brutal, action Zen (that love/hate duality popularized in knuckle tattoo history). Being a Tom Neely enterprise, there's a pretty strong pleasure warranty, but you can be the judge:

So what if that's too much mindless punching for the comics historian cabal? There's a reason those dinkless wet naps can't please a lady. For the breast of us, Neely's our President tonight.

The Walking Dead #85
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Charlie Adlard
Published by Image Comics
For Some Reason The Cover Reminds Me Of This 

"I think it might be good to have more community events. I know there's lots of people here I can't even name. I'd like to know everyone." -Glenn, the Asian Guy, and isn't it weird how you still have to call him the Asian guy, even after 85 issues? You'd think you wouldn't have to, that something beyond that would have come up by now as a signifier but really: name a trait that Glenn has that isn't A) Being Asian B) Being good at scavenging or C) Being named Glenn. Maybe, thanks to his remark quoted above, we can add D) Being the most ridiculously gigantic tool anyone has ever had the displeasure of spending one's time with. Seriously, you just fended off hundreds of zombies because the fence fell over and your contribution to the aftermath meeting is "I think we should have more cookouts so I can find out if the old guy used to like baseball". 

Maybe the better one is the "no, look. I'm not sorry I cheated on you. Fuck off." (Not the exact words, but still kind of awesome if you see the breakup conversation as a character saying "look, Robert Kirkman writes all my dialog, so if you think I'm going to give you a good reason why I fucked somebody else, or why I won't be fucking you anymore, or basically, you know, anything to prevent you from eventually freaking out and taking some kind of revenge on me when this whole does-the-kid-survive-without-a-brain drama peters out, then you're out-yer-motherfucking-mind." Then it's pretty cool.)

Green Lantern Corps #60
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Tyler Kirkman & Batt
Published by DC Comics

It seems unlikely in the extreme that the major (major? sure, whatever.) death scene in this comic could've been devised in any way by Tony Bedard, who will forever be remembered as the guy DC fucked out of a tenth issue even though he was writing a ten-issue mini-series focusing on ten separate characters, all of whom together made up a super-hero team actually called The Great Ten. After all, the entire existence of a 2011 Green Lantern spin-off comic (of which exist currently in an inexplicable abundance) is attributable solely to one man, a man you may know from a headshot that hasn't been updated in something like five years, despite the fact that he's been promoted to Grand Wizard Theodore or whatever they call corporate creative positions over at Playmobile Sex Army (DC Comics). But yeah, look at this comic, and what name do you see? Bedard, all up and down it like a Duke power forward. To which we have to say: let the victor take the spoils!

See, the last year or two has seen any number of this generations Big Two creators spitting all kinds of static about Alan Moore and his lack of permanent gratitude towards DC Comics, ranging from "stop being mean to me" to "why won't that asshole read this crazy comic/movie/tv pitch I got about British vampires that solve crimes in Williamsburg when they aren't reading Phonogram" culminating in the title-winning "Fuck That Foreign Bearded Wizard" courtesy of American comic's own Bearded Redneck, a gentile line of attack brought to you by Comic Book Resources (who are still, after an entire decade, using the tagline "Not as much of a sewer as fucking Newsarama" as their sole means of advertisement) and their crack team of pieces of shit, but nobody yet has had the cajones that Bedard plops onto the roman helmet of readers everywhere as he does here, actually going to far as to present the full-on murder of what might have been Alan's most inoffensively well-regarded piece of super-hero innovations, which was Mogo, a planet that helped people. "Words are cool", said Bedard. "But they ain't as cool as killing somebody's motherfucking children."

-Tucker Stone, 2011