BATMAN ALIENS II #1 (Of 3) $5.95

No way -- Batman's fought the Aliens at least fifty damn times now. That's all Dark Horse published in 1994 -- comics about Batman fighting the Aliens. Who are they fooling with the "II?" Is that supposed to be an eleven?

Batman and Aliens should just tongue-kiss and get it over with. It's like MOONLIGHTING now -- they fight, they fight but we all know that Batman a.k.a. David Addison just wants to get into the Aliens a.k.a. Cybil Shepherd's pants... the sexual tension there is palpable.

BATMAN FAMILY #8 BLACKOUT (Of 8) $2.95

I hope the holidays were kind to the Batman family, but we all know they probably weren't. Uncle Batman probably got drunk on egg-nog and tried to molest his neice. Grandpa Batman maybe dressed up as Santa, but drunkenkly stumbled face-first down the chimney. There's a lot of alcoholism and depression that bubbles to the surface during the holidays for the Batman family, that's so much more tragic than anything that whiny bitch Matilda Dixon had to go through.

BATMAN GOTHAM ADVENTURES #57 $2.25
CATWOMAN #14 $2.50
DEXTERS LABORATORY #33 $2.25
FIGHT FOR TOMORROW #4 (Of 6) (MR) $2.50
FILTH #7 (Of 13) (MR) $2.95
FLASH #193 $2.25

GLOBAL FREQUENCY #3 (Of 12) $2.95

I'm fascinated by this book.

The central concept of the series is one of the best ideas in comics in YEARS, if not a DECADE -- a "rescue" team made up of 1001 sleeper agents connected only by cell phones. The idea takes into account current trends in technology, in the culture -- there's a book, SMART MOBS, that only recently has come out, which makes communications-technology-driven social change a sort of "hot topic." The idea stands to inherit from the best of British spy television, while being completely exciting and new. It takes advantage of the immense SPEED of comics compared to movies or television or books -- the fact that a comic can make entertainment of a cultural change faster than any other media can dare!

Readers respond to the idea -- I've seen them in the store hear that one line pitch from people, and pick up the book. Critics seem to have responded to the idea. It's seriously as good an idea for a comic book as I've heard in years.

Only one problem: the comic book itself is AWFUL.

Rather than explore this terrific idea, the first issue of this comic was about ... some guy who teleports bombs with his brain? The second issue was about some fucking robot-man straight out of a 1986 Dark Horse Presents comic book? Rather than talk about the real-world idea that I know I respond to, it's just another BALONEY comic. It's a superhero comic in bad clothes.

It's not a particularly good superhero comic either. The first issue was exposition-heavy -- three pages of some noone talking about the fake "science" of a guy who teleports shit with his brains. Who cares about science if it’s FAKE? And the issue ends with this overwrought "Somebody needs to save the world" speech from a Cliche Handbook, from 1960's DOOM PATROL comics. "Somebody needs to save the world. Somebody needs to help people. Somebody needs to do my laundry. Somebody needs to squeeze the Charmin. Somebody needs to wipe my ass after I shit. Somebody..."

Just the main character stating the THEME of the book flat-out, which... it'd be like if in STAR WARS, if Luke were to stop and say, "Believing in Quasi-Religious-Belief-Systems sure did help me to blow up that evil TECHNOLOGY." Or if in CITIZEN KANE, if Citizen were to say, "Fuck, I wish I still had the sled which represents my lost childhood/innocence/the vagina of William Randolph Hearst's mistress." Or if in the DEBBIE DOES DALLAS movies, if Debbie were to say, "Man, Dallas sure loves to fuck me."

The second issue -- a little better, but essentially an issue of 1987-era DARK HORSE PRESENTS. An exposition-heavy action comic not about cell phones or communications-technology driven social change, but about... killing a robot-man? What -- if I may ask -- what the FUCK happened to the fucking cell phones??? Why is this comic about everything except what I want to read about, what it's supposedly about???

Maybe you can dress up a superhero comic in leather jacket, or have them pretend to be science fiction, and no one will notice. That seems to be all the New Comics people want to amount to -- great concepts with same ol' baloney execution. The characters are PLANETARY-lite: making a character "mysterious" seems awfully similar to underwritten to me, anyway. I suppose you can say its an encapsulation of the writer's prior themes, same as the FILTH is with Morrison -- I would assert, however, that a boring, repetitive similarity in characters isn't nearly as much an issue in the FILTH.

The way this comic throws away this GREAT idea on half-assed cliches, the way people respond to the comic anyway is just fascinating to me, though. It’s such a great concept that I completely understand why people dig the comic -- maybe with an idea that good you don't need good writing. Maybe no one reads a comic for good writing.

I know I can't count out any of the creators of the comic -- if you can come up with an idea that good, you're someone to watch. Comics have a lot of people who execute GREAT on shitty ideas, wasting their time, god knows...

I might pick up this issue -- the second issue was SUPPOSED to be the third issue, and the third issue was SUPPOSED to be the second issue. They got flip-flopped for some reason. Maybe this'll be what I needed the second issue to be. Moreover, the artist is Steve Dillon, who I'd say is horribly underrated despite his work on PREACHER. Dillon might excel at selling this comic in a way the other artists were incapable of...

GOTHAM CENTRAL #2 $2.50

I'll probably pick up this first arc, though... I do wish the comic book were a little more COMIC. A little more visual in some way. Still, Michael Lark's so good, that he can sell me on the understated stuff...

That's why Baru's ROAD TO AMERICA was one of my favorite graphic novels this year, too thin as it probably was. It's a gorgeous book from DRAWN AND QUARTERLY. If an American had done a comic about French-Algerian history, it'd be "ugly"... like "History is ugly, and so is my comic book."

Nick Hornby, the writer of HIGH FIDELITY and ABOUT A BOY, has a cover story on the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW this last Sunday about graphic novels. And he does a reasonable job reviewing all the serious types like Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, etc. -- I wish people like him would skip the part where they're defensive about reading comics, and just treat it like anything else, but his actual opinions are pretty well argued...

Anyway, he noted the art in ROAD TO AMERICA, how refreshing the European style was in the midst of all the American books.

The Europeans can do a gorgeous comic for grown-ups. But if it’s a comic for a grown-up by Americans, then it has to be BORING to look at. And some people do boring amazingly -- Seth's boring is better and more interesting than most people's exciting, any day. Nonetheless, I've never quite understood that.

GOTHAM GIRLS #5 (Of 5) $2.25
HELLBLAZER #179 (MR) $2.75
J SCOTT CAMPBELL DANGER GIRL SKETCHBOOK NEW PRTG $6.95
JLA #76 $2.25
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN VOL II #4 (OF 6) $3.50

I'm not just dreading this movie, at this point. I'm dreading ADS for this movie. Remember ads for that Sean Connery movie the AVENGERS? Those made me feel bad. I'd sit there thinking, "Sean Connery shouldn't be spending his last years like this." My gut says that'll be what this movie is going to turn into. I don't know -- I got a bad feeling about this one...

LEGION #15 $2.50
OUT THERE #15 $2.95

POWER COMPANY #11 $2.75

This is funny to me -- did you see the story about Firestorm?

POWER COMPANY wants to generate publicity, so they put up an online poll: Who do you want to see join the POWER COMPANY team? And the fans vote for...

THE HAUNTED TANK.

But instead of putting the HAUNTED TANK into the comic -- they say "Ha-Ha, we're going to put Firestorm into the team instead! We don't care! Wee!"

The funny part: They told the people voting that they'd already decided who would be the new member of the team. The poll was JUST FOR GIGGLES. And people voted anyway!

Who voted for this thing? And who the hell votes for the HAUNTED TANK? I know that Bush is President, but I still thought votes were supposed to matter, somehow. Who's running the DC polls -- Scalia?

PROMETHEA #24 (Note Price) $2.95

RESISTANCE #4 $2.95

Oh, I've read a few issues of this. I realized the other day I didn't have a good sense of what this EYE OF THE STORM line is like, outside of the fairly awful POINT BLANK comic (great art, usually decent writer, but what a freakishly awful ending on that thing -- shockingly bad ending).

So I picked the first couple issues of this comic up: good art, good action especially -- well-staged action sequences; the problem is the dialogue. Writers in comics who can't write dialogue great tend to write a lot MORE of it than the ones who can.

The concept is some science fiction thing about people not being allowed to have unplanned children -- it's got a sort of nonsense-y LOGAN'S RUN riff for the premise. But the story moves ahead at a good pace -- it's more concerned with having a good time, which is fine by me.

I'll probably keep reading this, to keep the diet well-balanced -- it's a reasonably decent lo-cal "fun" book. I'd hate to wake up one Christmas morning, and find out that I'm that comics snob guy who can only stand to read EIGHTBALL or whatever. Seems like a joyless existence to me, anyway.

THUNDERCATS #5 (Of 5) $2.95
TITANS #48 $2.75
WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 #5 (MR) $2.95
WONDER WOMAN #187 (RES) $2.25

IMAGE

Congratulations to Jim McLauchlin, who is the new Editor-in-Chief of TOP COW.

Though -- I'm looking at the press release making the announcement, and it's mentioning all of Top Cow's merchandise, including... puppets? Top Cow makes puppets? There's a WITCHBLADE puppet somewhere out there? I've never seen a puppet with fake tits before, but that just sounds unwholesome.

AGENCY 1-6 SET $14.99
ATHENA INC AGENTS ROSTER #1 $5.95
FATHOM KILLIANS TIDE 1-4 SET $9.99
FELON 1-4 SET $9.99
GI JOE VOL 2 RECKONINGS TP $12.95

GOLDFISH THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY HC $49.95

10 years? WOW. Can that be right? Wait -- I was a junior in college when I read my first Bendis comic. I started reading them at the last two issues of GOLDFISH, and that was only, what, 6 or 7 years ago. So... huh, either my memory must be awfully screwed up, or I just wasn't aware of how long it took to put that comic out. Tenth Anniversary? Happy anniversary. Man, that was a good day, finding books THAT good from virtually out of nowhere (well, the CSN reviews didn't hurt)...

PARADIGM #4 $3.50

And here we have the only people trying to follow up on that vibe. Which... it's not a book I'm too into, to be honest. I don't want to slam it because it's a deserving comic, I suppose, but...

There's just SO much text on these pages. The amount of dialogue in the last issue was PUNISHING. And it's strange to talk about after talking about Bendis, because God knows there's plenty of dialogue there, but... I just look at a page of Paradigm and I feel exhausted. I feel physically exhausted when I see how much text they want me to read. Just because you CAN write a lot of dialogue...

That and there's something funny about this comic and women that I can't put a finger on. Just... just something funny. But the creators are ambitious and it's not BAD. It's a deserving comic.

TOM JUDGE END OF DAYS #1 $3.99
UNIVERSE 1-8 SET $18.99

MARVEL

Oh, hey, Speaking of "Who the fuck is this guy?" news, Title Bout's favorite crybaby, Robert Weinberg, is cryin' again! He's the guy complaining that he's not allowed to write CABLE anymore by slamming the current work being done on SOLDIER X: "It's work like this that's digging the grave for comics."

Let me just start off by saying I'm coming purely from the perspective of one of the people who think that SOLDIER X is a great book for which there sadly hasn't been an audience. I'm a big fan of GRAVES, I guess. It's an off-beat book. I can understand why it wouldn't appeal to the traditional fans of CABLE -- Marvel wanted to try something different, I guess, something I'd argue is more sophisticated. It didn't work. It's too bad.

But this guy... the guy's going into sales-numbers, yelling about how many copies he sold and yelling about how his comics get nominated for award. So, if you're like me, you might get to wondering -- "If this guy sells so many award-nominated comics, why isn't he being hired by Marvel? They like selling lots of award-nominated comics."

Here's a quote from Marvel's former head of marketing stuff, Bill Rosemann, from an old article at Comic Book Resources: "As a person involved in Marvel's promotional efforts, I must respond to a public accusation that assaults not only my reputation, but that of the entire Direct Sales team as well as that of [some editors are named]."

SURPRISE: The guy got in trouble for being a CRYBABY. Crybaby was crying, it seems, that his comics were never promoted enough. In response, Rosemann lists some SIXTEEN different things Marvel did to promote his comic book. What did he do? CRYBABY KEPT ON CRYIN'!

Rosemann: "I'm truly sorry that Bob feels we haven't supported his work. I enjoyed his run on the title and wanted it to succeed. For a company that produces nearly 50 titles a month, I believe we took strong steps to spotlight this single title."

There appears to have been some funny business about the timing of how Marvel announced he was off the book, and some peculiarities over the fact that the book was saved by fans of the Weinberg run but then handed over to Chaykin for the somewhat underwhelming Chaykin-Tischman run -- all of which seems of little note. The sales on the book certainly did dry up -- the new approach Marvel tried didn't work. Reviews for Weinberg's run, however, from what I can turn up in the brief time I spent on this by google, are unkind -- I saw at least one 4/10 from one reviewer.

Hmmm, still -- maybe Marvel just doesn't want to work with some crybaby? I had to work with a crybaby once who made my job unpleasant. I was happy when they left. I don't know why that's the reputation you'd want in comics, but...

What I find interesting is crybaby isn't even blaming the guy he was replaced by. Howard Chaykin and his work on AMERICAN FLAGG is rightfully legendary -- if anyone had a chance to work with them, I can see why they'd jump at it. Chaykin gave way to Dave Tischman working alone, who then got too busy, left the book, so they went to the great Darko Macan, where I got interested based on Macan's top-notch work on GRENDEL.

Weinberg's not even complaining about the guy who replaced him, but his replacement's replacement! And he's complaining about a team that's ALREADY been taken off the comic! A comic, I might add, the GUY KEEPS BUYING like some freakish creepy obsessive stalker ex-boyfriend. What POSSIBLE agenda does this guy have? Is yelling all this shit going to get him a job from the very people he's complaining about? Who is this going to help?

And no one has a RIGHT to write a CABLE comic -- the guy had a gig, the guy lost a gig -- maybe it was a shame he lost a gig. Maybe it was a shame -- a lot of people lost their jobs because Marvel wanted to try something different. And Marvel owned the character. Crybaby didn't have any ENTITLEMENT to the job. He didn't OWN Cable. That's what working for Marvel means. That's what having editors means...

I mean, Jesus Christ, would somebody check this guy's diaper already?

AGENT X #6 $2.25
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #48 $2.25
AVENGERS #62 $2.25
CALL OF DUTY VOL 1 TP $14.99
CAPTAIN AMERICA #7 (RES) $2.99
FANTASTIC FOUR #64 $2.25
GI JOE VOL 5 TP $24.99
IRON MAN #63 $2.25
MARVILLE #4 $2.25
PARADISE X #8 (Of 13) $2.99
SPIDER-MAN GET KRAVEN #6 (Of 7) $2.25
SPIDER-MAN TANGLED WEB #21 $3.50
ULTIMATE DAREDEVIL & ELEKTRA #3 (Of 4) $2.25

ULTIMATE WAR #2 (Of 4) $2.25

I didn't really like the first issue of this. Nothing much happened, and the art was frequently confusing. It's nice to see people like Mark Millar, though. Back when he was doing SWAMP THING, my favorite work of his, no one would take a chance on the guy's comics. Thanks to Ellis pushing him for the AUTHORITY, he's at least getting some attention. I'm just not as fond of his Marvel work. There's something less kind about it. The same for Morrison. They're a lot less sentimental about the Marvel Characters, and I think that sentiment added a charm to their DC work.

WOLVERINE #184 $2.25
X-STATIX #6 $2.25
X-TREME X-MEN VOL 2 INVASION TP $19.99
X-TREME X-MEN X-POSE #2 (Of 2) $2.99

Speaking of X-POSEs, the RAWHIDE KID hooplah just refuses to die down. I seriously didn't think everyone would go so CRAZY about this, but man, people sure hate the gay people, I guess. They took some character no one cared about. Anyone who says they cared about this character is either lying or is some no-life fuck who shouldn't be taken seriously anyway. They took this character, and they're doing a series with some gay innuendo in it. And people have gone NUTS. They've had to defend it on CROSSFIRE and CNN and god knows where else. And now Chuck Dixon of MEDIOCRE fame has piped in with angry accusations, and Joe Quesada's angrily denied Dixon's angry accusations, and... yes, ironically, the controversy over the comic about the gay cowboy has turned into a dick-measuring contest.

Chuck Dixon of MEDIOCRE fame pipes in: "I don't want Judd Winnick or Grant Morrison or the nimrod who wrote this RAWHIDE KID comic informing my kids about the many facets and lifestyle choices out there in the world. I'd like to be the one to talk to them about it when they're older and I feel the time is right." Which... come on, even Chuck Dixon's kids would rather have Grant Morrison talk to them about lifestyle choices. Let's have some faith that Chuck Dixon's kids are at least a LITTLE bit fabulous.

It's all so Unbelievable. But, you know, people sure hate the gay people. I mean, they haven't even said if Rawhide Kid's the husband or the wife yet. The pitcher or the receiver, if you will. Shouldn't that make a difference, somehow?

This sure has turned into an angry Title Bout week. Where's the spirit of giving? Where's the holiday cheer?

COMICS

Haha -- Absolutely buying this. This is Matt Fraction and Andy Kuhn's comic about a, uh, kung-fu gorilla person thing, or I guess it's an annotation of a comic about a kung-fu gorilla person thing (was he a P.I. too? I don't remember).

Ahm, yeah, I don't really know how to describe this one. I really like the underlying comics collected here, and this seems to have reinvented those comics, so I've been looking forward to seeing what this is exactly. It’s a hard one to explain though -- ahm, it’s an action-comedy thing. It’s funny.

This comic was so good that the other half was Joe Casey's CODEFLESH, which was this horrific ... horrific THING. Just the most awful, unreadable comic, that CODEFLESH. And I bought these anyway, so…

ARCHARDS AGENTS #1 $2.95
BASTARD #13 EMPRESS (MR) $3.95
BATTLE ROYALE MANGA #5 $10.99
BATTLE ROYALE MANGA #6 $10.99
BETTY & VERONICA #183 $2.19
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #135 $2.39
BETTY & VERONICA SPECTACULAR #58 $2.19
BIG FUNNIES #7 (A) $4.99
BONE #50 $2.95
CERES CELESTIAL LEGEND PART 4 #3 (Of 4) $3.50

COURTNEY CRUMRIN & THE COVEN OF MYSTICS #1 (Of 4) $2.95

Is this a new mini-series? This is one of my least favorite characters in comics -- it’s a completely unlikable, sociopathic character in the middle of this little kid’s comic. I don’t really understand it at all.

COWBOY BEBOP THE AFTER NEWTYPE 100% COLLECTION (O/A) $28.95
CYBERTRONIAN TRANSFORMERS INDEX $29.95
DARKMINDS MACROPOLIS #4 $2.95
DEAD END HC (MR) $13.95
DF BATMAN 9.6 CGC GRADED #608 PI
DF BATMAN LEE CGC GRADED 9.8 #608 SGN PI
DF THUNDERCATS ADAMS CVR REMARKED #1 $69.99
EDGE #9 $7.95

EL MUCHO GRANDE #1 $5.95

This is a good title. I like this -- there should be a comic book in the world called EL MUCHO GRANDE. We shouldn’t live in a world where there isn’t a comic book called EL MUCHO GRANDE. Good for them.

ENOMOTO NARIKO PLUS NOBI NOBITA #2 (A) (Note Price) $26.99

Of course, I can hear your accusations from here: why do I compliment the Hispanic while not giving any love to the Asian? It’s a little racist, you say?

No, and here’s why: EONOMTO NARIKO has to throw in that “PLUS” which I’m pretty sure isn’t a Japanese word. PLUS is them trying to “assimilate” to our Western ways. ENOMOTO NARIKO is the banana of ethnic comics -- yellow on the outside, but white on the inside. But EL MUCHO GRANDE -- they’re staying strong to their roots. They know where they came from, and are “keepin’ it real.” So… nice try, fucko…

FANTASTIC STORIES #3 $2.95
FANTASTIC STORIES SP ED #3 PI
FINDER #29 (MR) $2.95

GET CARTER LAST DRAGON SCOUT #1 (O/A) $3.50
GET CARTER LAST DRAGON SCOUT #2 $2.95

This title is a combination of GET CARTER, the LAST DRAGON, and the LAST BOY SCOUT? Why not just call this comic BAD MOVIE? Well, okay, to be honest, I liked those last two movies, but still… GET CARTER was so horrendously bad you can forget you liked any movie EVER. You just want to stop watching movies altogether, it was so bad.

GETTER ROBOT ARK MANGA #1 $18.99
GOLD DIGGER #38 $3.50
HEAVY METAL L GAIM UNDER THE SUNZ MANGA #1 $19.99
INITIAL D MANGA #1 $10.99
INQUISITOR #1 (MR) $3.95
INU YASHA ANIME COMIC #16 $16.99
J BOY MANGA #1 $10.99
JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #91 $3.59
KAZAN 7 VOL GN SET (Note Price) $61.25
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #74 $3.99
KODT BUNDLE OF TROUBLE VOL 8 NEW PTG $11.99
LUMAKICK #1 (MR) $4.95
MAGE KNIGHT STOLEN DESTINY #3 (Of 5) $3.50

MENAGE A TROIS #1 (A) $3.50

Oooh, classy -- the title’s in FRENCH. It’s FRENCH for “three-way fuck-comic.” See, if this comic were called “THREE-WAY FUCK-COMIC,” you’d feel dirty. But MENAGA A TROIS -- why, you must have to wear a monocle while you read this comic -- it’s THAT classy!

MERIDIAN #31 $2.95
MONTHLY COMIC DRAGON NOV 2002 $12.50
MONTHLY MAGAZINE Z DEC 2002 $9.99
MR MAGOO CHRISTMAS CAROL COMIC & DVD $22.98
NADESICO THE MOVIE GEKINADE ZENBU NEWTYPE 100% COLL (O/A) $27.95

OPPOSITE FORCES #2 $2.95

Oh, I know this comic -- I picked up the first issue in San Diego. It’s another comic by an animator -- I guess I get all those. Its about a nerdy, overweight guy and his next-door neighbor who is a pretty lawyer… somehow they both get superpowers or something, only they’re forced to hang out together to use them? It’s a cute, harmless little book -- somewhere between a kid’s superhero comic and a romantic comedy. I think Augie had a review of this comic in a recent PIPELINE.

ORIENT SEXPRESS #4 (A) $3.50

An ORIENT SEXPRESS doesn’t sound like a train. It sounds like some Chinese torture device, involving a vice and giant metal plates. Like the scene in CASINO where Joe Pesci has the guy’s head in the vice and he’s crushing it? Only… the guy’s OTHER head. A SEXPRESS sounds PAINFUL to me, anyway…

PATH #10 $2.95
PERFECT TWIN MANGA #1 (MR) $11.99
PSYCHIC ACADEMY ORA BANSHO #8 $9.99

QUEEN & COUNTRY DECLASSIFIED #2 (Of 3) (MR) $2.95

Huh -- it’s funny that I felt GOTHAM CENTRAL’s visuals were too restrained, while I’ve never really had that complaint with this comic. This has scene after scene taking place in some dull British office, but it’s as compelling a suspense comic as any. I’m probably not giving GOTHAM CENTRAL enough credit…

RADISKULL AND DEVIL DOLL #1 (O/A) $2.95
RAIJIN COMICS #4 (MR) $4.95

REAL BOUT HIGH SCHOOL MANGA #2 $11.99
REAL BOUT HIGH SCHOOL MANGA #3 $11.99
REAL BOUT HIGH SCHOOL MANGA #4 $11.99

You know, the bouts in this manga probably aren’t “real.” I hate to spoil it for you. Santa’s fake, the Bout’s aren’t Real, and the Sexpress leads to horrifically disfigured penises. Merry Christmas.

REAL MANGA #1 $11.99
RGA MAGAZINE #4 (MR) $9.90
RUSE #15 $2.95
SANDWALK ADVENTURES #5 $2.95
SHONEN ACE MAGAZINE DEC 2002 $8.99
SILENT MOBIUS PART 12 HELL #1 (Of 5) $2.95
SIMPSONS COMICS #77 $2.50
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #118 $2.19
STAR WESTERN #10 $5.95
SUMMER LOVE #1 $5.95
TALES OF FORBIDDEN WORLDS #1 $5.95
TALL TAILS THIEVES QUEST #11 $3.50
TOTT HC (MR) $49.95
TRANSFORMERS ARMADA #6 $2.95
TWILIGHT X VOL 1 AFTER WAR S/N ED TP $49.95
VAGABOND VOL 4 TP $12.95
VAMPIRELLA LEGENDARY TALES SET $9.95
WARRIOR NUN AREALA #13 $3.50
WEEKLY JUMP 10-21-02 $4.99
WEEKLY JUMP 10-28-02 $4.99
WEEKLY JUMP 11-11-02 $4.99
WEEKLY JUMP 11-25-02 $4.99
WEEKLY SHONEN MAG 10-18-02 $4.99
WEEKLY SHONEN MAG 11-01-02 $4.99
WEEKLY SHONEN MAG 11-08-02 $4.99
WEEKLY SHONEN MAG 11-15-02 $4.99
XIN LEGEND OF THE MONKEY KING #1 ROYAL BLUE ED $59.95

CONCLUSIONS

This is the part where the GHOSTS OF COMICS FUTURE is supposed to show me in my own grave. And I learn the meaning of Christmas and say “God bless us everyone?”

No, and here’s why: in the grave? Lots of SOLDIER X comics. Why do you think I like that book so much?

See, the best thing about Christmas is Dickens’s the CHRISTMAS CAROL (or Bill Murray’s SCROOGED, which I’m awfully fond of). Which is essentially a horror story.

Easter’s a nice, religious holiday -- there’s no stories about Easter ghosts terrorizing people. The Easter Bunny doesn’t put the fear of the Spirit of Easter into innocent misers. You just sit around and eat chocolate; look for eggs. That’s a holiday.

Why aren’t eggs more important during Christmas? I like eggs. I’d like Christmas if it were more egg-centric, dammnit.

Though what was going on in that show MORK AND MINDY? It was an emotionless alien race who’d infiltrate other alien societies, find well-meaning females like Pam Dawber who they’d trick into helping them, and what… destroy the societies from the inside? What was Mork’s master plan anyway? I mean, Mork’s spaceship, as you’ll recall was a giant egg. Why? What military purpose do you think the egg-shape served the ORKS? Maybe Robin Williams knows something about eggs he’s not telling us. Him or Jesus or the Easter Bunny -- maybe all three acting in conspiracy. Someone’s not talking here... Diabolical, really.

NEXT WEEK: Next week the year will actually be over, so more of a “Best of/Worst of” of the year, I guess. If I can remember anything. Did I read comics this year? I think I was too busy trying to think of SHE-HULK puns to remember to read any…

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