Criminal Macabre? Is that like when you put the moves on Grandma? Because I think that should be criminal. Grandma doesn't want your sicko love, Cal Mcdonald. Grandma wants to bake pie, and give the grandkids a shiny new dime.

SHINY NEW DIME: brought to you by the good people of Grandma.

Why would Dark Horse want to interfere with grandmas? Is Grandma-love the next comic success story like TIMECOP?

I just saw an ad for the new Ewan Mcgregor-Renee Zelwegger movie on my TV. I think the name of the movie is MY GIRLFRIEND WANTS ME TO SUFFER FOR THE POOTY. That sure looks like a great date movie, MY GIRLFRIEND WANTS ME TO SUFFER FOR THE POOTY -- I wonder why that's not coming out during Valentine's Day.

GRENDEL GOD & THE DEVIL #4 (Of 10) (MR) $3.50

KISS ART CVR #10 $2.99

Gene Simmons is that rich -- he just buys Matisses, Van Goghs, a Botticelli, perhaps, and just fucking makes out with them. The paintings aren't the only thing with oil on them, if you get my drift. Yeah, he loves to roger the Old Masters. He's sort of like you and your weird grandma-love, only Old Masters instead of Old Grandma.

You know what's weird? I typed in Old Master into my trusty Google instead of Old Masters? The first thing I found was a Chinese comic character, Old Master Q. Three animated films have been produced in Taiwan apparently. My god, Old Master Q has the most adorable Rogue's Gallery: "Old Master Q, Big Potato, Mr. Chin and Jack."

... BIG POTATO! There's a comic book character in the world somewhere, maybe not America, but somewhere in the world: BIG POTATO. There could be Big Potato merchandise: Big Potato Iron Rice Bowls, Big Potato Gangs of Four, Big Potato Aphrodisiac Tiger-Balls. It could exist. It could be real, and not just some Bloomin' Onion induced fantasia...

What, you Westerners with your fucking capitalist imperialism think that your Mister Potatohead could win in a fight with Big Potato? Mr. Potatohead would be fucking MASHED POTATOS, Whitey. So what if he has a potato for a head -- he's got no BODY. But the Chinese -- that potato is BIG. His name is BIG POTATO. He wouldn't even need kung-fu.

Yankee grandma-fucking imperialist dogs! ... she only wanted to give you a dime, and now her hip is broken thanks to you lonely, pathetic Fanboy Casanovas. Fanboy Casanova's the name of my favorite Ukranian techno-polka college band. Back to the list? Back to the list...

KISS PHOTO CVR #10 $2.99

Gene Simmons likes to make out with Henri Cartier Bresson photographs? Not as funny, somehow. Making out with a painting is somehow funnier to me. I think because I imagine him cutting a little slit in the Mona Lisa's smile and then sticking his tongue through the slit. That image makes me laugh.

Which isn't to take anything away from Cartier-Bresson. If Gene Simmons from KISS were to dress up in a woman's dress and trip on a Cartier-Bresson photograph and if he were to trip on that into, let's say, a cake or through a big piece of glass that guys in jumpsuits just happen to be moving past at that moment or for sloppy seconds onto your grandmother, I'm sure I'd laugh. I don't think I'm an art snob, anyway.

STAR WARS JEDI SHAAK TI $4.99

FUCK YEAH! Buying this That's just what those STAR WARS needed: Shaquille O'Neal. Wouldn't you love to see Shaquille O'Neal have a lightsaber fight with Sam Jackson? At this point those movies are fucked anyway, so might as well -- Jedi versus Kazaam? I'd have to go with Kazaam. Okay, maybe not Yoda, but one of those lame-ass "I swear I don't hate minorities" jedi they had in ATTACK OF THE CLONES -- I think Kazaam could beat the shit out of that Puerto Rican Jedi that Lucas threw into ATTACK OF THE CLONES. Which isn't to take anything away from either Puerto Ricans or Henri Cartier-Bresson in any way. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings here... I'm trying to celebrate Kazaam, not hurt Puerto Rico, which obviously should be our 52nd state, after Guam.

Guam: Where Grandmothers can Feel Safe. Guam.

Speaking of horribly disappointing summer movies, the new MATRIX is out as you're reading this. so: piece of shit? Early buzz is “piece of shit” -- why, there was a damn fine article surveying the negative reactions at this very site last week. I'm pretty sad by that -- I want it to be good. Part of me doesn't believe the negative buzz -- most of the reviews I've seen seem just to be expecting WAY, WAY, WAY too much and then are acting shock when they sat down and realized they were watching a kung-fu movie. Which: Huh? So I'm still hopeful, but... shit, man, you know: I want that movie to be good.

So what does that do to the summer movies? As I'll get into below: X2 was 2 X LAME (i.e. Lame multiplied by the power of 2)(Algebra!). I'm doubting the HULK's going give it to me; Hulk is no DMX. Early word on MATRIX 2 is that it blows. MY GIRLFRIEND WANTS ME TO SUFFER FOR THE POOTY looks like they put all the GOOD suffering in the trailer. SHAOLIN SOCCER's not until August. There are some truly AWFUL movies coming out besides...

So my gut instinct pick for the summer movie of the summer?

BAD BOYS 2.

Yeah, you heard me. FUCK X2 -- I'm picking BAD BOYS 2 as The SUMMER MOVIE OF SUMMER 2003. You got a problem with that? WHATCHU' GOING TO DO? WHATCHU' GOING TO DO WHEN IT'S COMING FOR YOU?

I'm excited because the premise is that the two buddies are also cops, and I haven't really seen that in a movie before. Also: I think something explodes. They kinda hint at something exploding in the trailers, but they don't really give it away...

Also, I really want to see what happened to the characters from the first BAD BOYS now that Will Smith has a colossal ego, and Martin Lawrence had that wacky drug-induced "heat-stroke." My guess? They'll be just as BAD (and by bad, I mean good, which is confusing, I'll admit, but seems to make sense to people who speak jive, and who am I to argue?).

So, yeah, once again, the theme of any comic book column that's truly accurate about what it means to read comics: low expectations rule! LOW EXPECTATIONS! LOW EXPECTATIONS! LOW EXPECTATIONS! USA! USA!

SUPER MANGA BLAST #31 (MR) $5.99

DC COMICS

I've noticed something: Google is one freaky bitch.

So, let's run an experiment this week -- let's type some things in to the ol' Google Search-bar and see what turns up.

For instance, SUPERMAN. Superman is one of the most easily recognizable characters currently in existence. There's him, there's Jesus, and there's Alf: those are the blue-chip characters.

Or at least, that's what comic book people say. "People in the third world know about Superman. All those evil brown people in BLACKHAWK DOWN, who wanted to kill all the marines and drag their bodies through the street? They all could identify SUPERMAN in a police lineup after everyone in the lineup says 'FREEZE, YOU COCKSUCKERS!'"

Which: like, what, are you going to have your helicopter go down in Mogadishu just to find out whether they know who Superman is? I'm not. How do you prove something like that? I've never seen any proof. There hasn't been a movie in years -- how can they identify Superman anyway? Is this what happens when the Christian Right forces funding cuts to those international birth control programs? "We couldn't afford condoms or AIDS education, but here's SUPERMAN VERSUS THE MARTIANS."

Like, FUCK, man, shouldn't these assholes be somehow less happy that starving brown people can identify our superheroes? "I am starving... the warlords took my food... I did not like it when they tried to change Superman's costume to that ugly blue electric idiotic shit or when John Byrne revamped the series... I am so VERY VERY HUNGRY..."

(Did you see that story the other day about the people who were raising money on their own to cover money that religious people convinced President Jackass to cut from the United Nations Population Fund?)

Anyway, where was I... GOOGLE. Right, Google: Superman. So, type in Superman in Google, and let's see if Google, crazy bitch that she is, can turn us up something a little odd on the FIRST PAGE... we're not going to go purposely scrounging for idiots -- just see if idiocy pops up right away. Just as an experiment -- this won't necessarily be funny; it'll be more like Arsenio Hall's Things that Make You Go Hmmm.... Arsenioooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Hall!

And... I found nothing. Okay, wait: I struck out on regular Google. But what about GOOGLE IMAGE?

Okay, there's this guy -- I don't know what this is, exactly, but let's push further. You've seen the strange man dressed in a costume before. That's a given. You demand more. Okay, but still on just the FIRST page Google turns up, not looking past the first page: How about this instead? A New York City singing telegram service in which some singing dork dressed up as Superman serenades you?

Why would you want Superman singing to you? All the time he spends singing to you is time he could spend fighting evildoers or saving grandmas from Gene Simmons? Wouldn't you feel guilty? I guess after thinking about all those starving brown people and how your religious beliefs force them to use Superman comics as makeshift four-color condoms, that you're used to living with guilt.

But not me, man! NOT ME!!!

AMERICAN CENTURY #24 (RES) (MR) $2.75

I really thought this was a great title for a comic book the first time I heard it, but every month since then, more and more, I just expect this comic to be about Bill Moyers, somehow. Which I don't mean in the pejorative, necessarily. If Bill Moyers were somehow to interview a zombie Henri Cartier Bresson in beautiful Puerto Rico, I wouldn't necessarily disapprove? It's just... It's just not what I had in mind, you know?

AQUAMAN #6 $2.50

Okay, Google... Aquaman -- quite possibly the most inevitably lame character in comics history. SURVEY SAYS... Some sort of German electronics company that sells waterproof Camcorders, PDAs, Grosse Taschen(?). I like the company's tagline: SOME LIKE IT WET. This is one dirty, dirty German electronics company. Aquaman is apparently German for Yuppie Shithead Paraphernalia. Which, you know, Green Lantern is German for invading Poland, so it could be worse.

The Fun with Google thing's gotten tiresome already, and I've only done it twice. I think I've had my fill. Wait...

AUTOMATIC KAFKA #9 (MR) $2.95

I have to know what'll happen: okay, we're putting AUTOMATIC KAFKA into the google and we're finding... an AWESOME review. (There's no way this link is working but I'll try to link to the translation). This review is in some foreign language -- okay, French.

What do the French think? They think France should surrender. Wait, no, no, I mean, what does this particular French reviewer (who's linked on the FIRST page of Google links) of AUTOMATIC KAFKA? Someone outside our jaded, small circle of American fandom, with a literally foreign mindset?

Keep in mind that Google Translator funnies the language a little: "For psychopathes and aggregate in philosophy ... And here is all the problem of this series: illegibility" -- skipping ahead, my favorite part is at the end -- "For me, Automatic Kafka, it are finished. Perhaps I will follow the continuation in TPB if dashes masochists begin again to me. On another side, I do not want to die idiotic, therefore if somebody wants to explain me well Automatic Kafka, he is welcome."

... Is there any more beautiful a thing to hear a comic book fan say than "I do not want to die idiotic." Because call me a Big Ol' Softy, but I don't think there is...

The last issue of this had a panel of a dude rimjobbing a horse. No joke. Seriously: dude rimjobbing a horse. Which means one thing: Joe Casey finally delivers. YEAHHHHH! FUCKING BUY THAT MAN A DRINK!!!! BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

(Warning: sometimes i don't really understand what's going on in AUTOMATIC KAFKA or what Ashley Wood's drawing (though I've come to like Ashley Wood quite a bit, psychopathique storytelling or no). So that panel that looked to me like a cowboy rimjobbing a horse could've just as easily been a couple of lesbians double-teaming a robot. It's just that sort of comic book. My apologies to the creators if I misread that panel. Caveat emptor, which is Pig Latin for "I don't know if the horse is getting eaten out.")

So... haha, yeah... if you're in the mood for something different from the usual, and by usual I mean those comics where horse anus remains relatively unmolested by cowboy tongue, then I really gotta recommend this comic.

There’s something likeable about this series, the something likable being the mere fact it got published, or hell, that it got published by a division of Time-AOL. Not so much the characters or the story; I just like it exists, you know, at a time everyone's going the opposite direction towards... well, coherence. (Which isn't to say that it's all like the dude rimjobbing the horse -- its mostly just a regular superhero comic... but you know, a little horse rimjob goes a long way... Once the cowboy's tongue goes in the horse's ass, I give a comic a lot more lee-way than I was giving it a mere panel beforehand). Thus: highest recommendation humanly POSSIBLE.

There's this myth that edgy interesting superhero comics ended in 1986 for some reason, despite later works like most of Grant Morrison's best work, or that first run of Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neal's Marshal Law, or Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredro's great, great ENIGMA. But there were also books like, jesus, Gerard Jones and Cully Hamner's GREEN LANTERN MOSAIC, for starters, or Rick Vietch's King Hell Heroica(this one you might disagree with me on), or what Keith Giffen was trying to do with his Legion, or what was that awful British thing -- New Statesman? Statesmen-something? The flawed almost-successes. The "nice tries, but..." comics. The "I've run out of cute ways of saying they're certainly curious but ultimately were not, for me, great" books. People try to do them every once in a while, and its a fun ride, but the number of times it actually works out... It's tough. I mean, I can't say AUTOMATIC KAFKA was one of the better attempts I've seen, in the few issues I've read recently(I've read the last three or four? I've lost count...)... but you know, its a very peculiar, very particular niche I guess I'm just sort of fond of, crap though it might very well be.

Can you believe this column turned deadly serious when I started talking about the horse getting eaten out? "A horse got eaten out? Oh well, let me put on my Smart Hat so I can pontificate about the history of decadent fantasy microcultures. DUM DUM DUM!" Go figure... Note: The French guy that inspired all this ended up actually buying the next issue of AUTOMATIC KAFKA because there was something porn-y about it apparently -- Google Translator doesn't seem capable of translating his next review very accurately, but its basically some French dude laughing at his porn fetish. You know, politics schmolitics, we're all the same, we're all one people breathing one air, dealing with one porn fetish... We're citizens of the WORLD, goddammit. Why does Mister Potatohead even have to fight Big Potato? That's the question you've been trained not to even ask yourself, man.

(Author’s Note: the DUM DUM DUM above was, of course, a loving reference to Scooby Dum, may he rest in peace.)

This one's getting long, isn't it? I'm overcompensating from last week? Oh fuck, dude, I'm overcompensating. This week is like a little preview of when I'm 40 cruising by college campuses in a convertible and a toupee on, only in comic book column form.

BATGIRL YEAR ONE #6 (Of 9) $2.95
BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #167 $2.50

BATMOBILE REPLICA 1960S ED $195.00

...The economy's in the shitter. The job market's still awful. Whole world's going to hell. So: whoever's buying this has to be rich. It's the only explanation. When you hear about tax cuts for the wealthy -- this is why they need the tax cuts. To buy Batmobile Replicas. Who else is spending that much dough??

I just imagine some rich guy on a yacht getting drunk of chardonnay and trying to jump into his Batmobile replica to drunk drive away, only crushing the tiny replica with his ass instead -- or no, no, the batmobile replica, let's say for comedy's sake, gets lodged in rich boy's ass somehow, like in one of those delightful stories people so love to tell about how some frat kid went to a doctor or medical practitioner of some sort or another who then embarrassingly discovered that a large big-screen television was inserted into the poor frat kid's ass after he'd passed out at the Spring Formal and that the big screen television is even more embarrassingly somehow been set to the LIFETIME Network, so that now some movie about a date rape victim with breast cancer who overcomes sexual harassment from her stalker boss is being screened somewhere in his rectum, even though noone can figure out how exactly one gets cable television in an ass, per se, jello shots or no. So, yeah, my point is fuck the Batmobile.

It’s the kind of thing they'd find in Saddam Hussein's bunker. You know how they found all those awful fantasy paintings of Saddam giving Bush a noogie and making sweet love to the weed-loving Bush daughters (did you see that quote about how the slutty Bush Daughters love smoking pot with celebrities? Crazy, huh? Chelsea missed out because you know the quality of pot that was available in the Clinton White House had to be ten times what the Bush Daughters can get their hands on, with all those Christian Right types that are running the White House now -- and what do you think Big Oil gets high? Yeah, but I'm pretty sure they like snorting ground up Arab babies... I think I read that in the Guardian the other day... ground up Arab babies? They'll fuck you up gooooooooood apparently, according to this junkie I know over at Exxon... poor Bush daughters... poor slutty, drinky Bush Daughters). I'm surprised they didn't find one of these Batmobiles.

BLOOD AND WATER #3 (Of 5) (MR) $2.95

What's the saying? Blood is thicker than water? So, is this a comic about one person who's real thick and one person who's real thin teaming up? Sort of like BAD BOYS 2?

Or is it about one of those circus-freak couples where there's the fat bearded lady and the really skinny guy?

Ahmmm, no, its about vampires. I wonder if one of the vampires is fat (or "thicker" or whatever you want to call it). There haven't been enough overweight monsters. Why don't fat people ever complain about that? Like, I hear about fat people protesting movies that have fat jokes in them. But I never hear fat people complaining about the lack of fat vampires in vampire movies. Do they complain and I just didn't hear about it? Or do they complain but they have some fried chicken in their mouth so noone can understand what they're saying? Discuss.

Godzilla had big thighs, if it makes you feel better. Ham-hocks.

FABLES #13 (MR) $2.50
GEN 13 #9 $2.95
GOTHAM CENTRAL #7 $2.50
GREEN LANTERN #164 $2.25

HELLBLAZER FREEZES OVER TP (MR) $14.95

It doesn't matter who the audience is supposed to be, how "cutting edge" the comic thinks it is, how talented I'm sure the creators are -- everyone in comics is a fucking SLAVE to fucking puns?

Is it some sort of cynical sales maneuver, like "Trick comic fan into thinking hell has frozen over. They'll think that they're suddenly entitled to many more dates with women out of their league. In their euphoria, they spend $15 on comic about British guy who just smokes a lot and that's all he does and what the fuck is this comic about anyway?" Cynical.

It’s funny to me how I wind up picking at Dark Horse and DC more than anyone else in these lists just because they go first.

HERO #4 $2.50

I wasn't so into this book. It was nice, and I definitely hope it finds its audience. But I went in as a fan of FINALS, which was just ... for me a very different experience. This was nice enough, I don't see why the traditional DC comic fan wouldn't enjoy this a lot, but it's just not where my head's at right now. I want the writer, Will Pfieffer, to get popular though because I like what he did with FINALS and I want DC behind him or more people discovering his earlier book FINALS, but...

FINALS to me is one of those rare character-driven comedies in comics. It was a Vertigo miniseries that Pfieffer did with Jill Thompson about a college where senior finals projects have to be incredibly practical, and wind up invariably violent, as a result.

HUMANS DEFENSE CORPS #1 (Of 6) $2.50
HUNTER AGE OF MAGIC #23 (MR) $2.75
JLA THE OBSIDIAN AGE BOOK ONE TP $12.95
JSA #48 $2.50

MAD MAGAZINE #430 $3.50
MAD XL #21 $4.99

See, there's MAD MAGAZINE but there's also MAD XL, MAD EXTRA-LARGE for fat people. So, if Mad Magazine, why not vampires? Fatass Vampire was the name of my favorite ska metal band in college, incidentally.

MANY WORLDS OF TESLA STRONG $5.95

Buncha great artists on this book. It'll be pretty.

NIGHTWING #81 $2.25
POWER COMPANY #16 $2.75
SCOOBY DOO #72 $2.25

STORMWATCH TEAM ACHILLES #11 (MR) $2.95

Huh, that's weird -- this is out the same week as that HUMAN DEFENSE CORPS comic book? The premises are supposed to be awfully similar -- you'd think they'd at least put it on separate weeks. I don't know how hard it is to schedule when a comic book comes out, but... seems like a funny choice.

SUPER FRIENDS AQUAMAN AND BLACK MANTA DLX FIGURE SET PI
SUPERMAN AND BATMAN GENERATIONS III #5 (Of 12) $2.95

TITANS YOUNG JUSTICE GRADUATION DAY #1 (Of 3) $2.50

Man, I laughed my ass off straight through my high school graduation. The speeches, the awful, awful speeches. You think Batman gives a bad graduation speech in this? I'd buy this if Batman starts talking about how "Now you've grown wings and must fly, fly to adulthood, little butterfly"(our graduation speaker kept going on and on about how we all had to "surf the Third Wave"... it was all very strange... he got high and read Alvin Toffler while he was writing the speech, I guess).

So, yeah: Scan in that panel of Batman saying "fly free little butterfly", and send it to me, and I promise I will pretend to buy this comic but in fact read it in the store to avoid giving DC my money for this lame-ass shit, which money I will later spend on candy and magical beans without any regret or remorse.

TOM STRONGS TERRIFIC TALES #7 $2.95

See: This comic comes out the same day as the comic about Tom Strong's daughter, the Many Worlds of Tesla Strong. Which -- they just doubled the amount Tom Strongs have to spend in a given week, rather than, what's the word, amortize? Is amortize a word? No, wait, I think that's something you do to zombies. Speaking of which, you excited by that 28 DAYS LATER movie? I like zombie movies, but that thing -- I gotta vote no. I gotta vote BAD BOYS 2. The trailer -- it just seems like after zombies come back, noone uses detergent any more. What, did the zombies get the detergent confused with brains?
Something about that movie's just too icky. For starters: everyone's British. SO, what, not only are they the undead, their teeth are awful? Ooooh, scary... And shit, I'd have to imagine if I lived in England long enough and the choice were brains or British food, I'd pick brains, too, so how is that even scary?

No: Bad Boys 2. Whatchu' Gonna Do. Mark my words.

WONDER WOMAN WALL SCROLL $19.95

Hear ye, Hear ye: You're a nerd.

IMAGE

DOMINION #2 $2.95

Oh, this is Keith Giffen. It’s AWFUL. Or -- maybe that's unfair. Maybe its unfair to call it awful. Okay: it wasn't awful, so much as I mostly didn't understand what the hell was going on half the time, and what I did understand, I didn't particularly enjoy. A disappointment -- Giffen's capable of much, much more than this. The premise sounded okay -- alien hoo-hah, Australia, violent shit, etc. I just couldn't follow the execution at all -- I just wasn't into it. Whatever it might have been, it wasn't a first issue.

I mean, I almost want this just because, you know, I liked so much of Giffen's shit growing up. Hell, I'm the guy still waiting for that last issue of Punx to come out, you know? (Jesus, Punx... apropos of nothing, can you believe noone's collected CODENAME STRIKEFORCE yet? You'd think someone would collect that... Stop me before I wax euphoric for Larry Stroman's Tribe...)

MUTANT EARTH VOL 1 TRAKK TP $16.95

How do you pronounce that second K? I'd hate to mispronounce this comic when I'm begging my comic retailer for it. He'd laugh and slap me in the face with a pack of YU-GI-OH cards. So, what, TRAKK... I can't imagine any pronunciation that doesn't involve liberating and thereupon launching a small pocket of phlegm into the air. This sounds like it should be the name of a "ranger" in some bad Stan Lee Media cartoon that never was...

POWERS #31 (MR) $2.95

Buying this. Yeah, POWERS, man -- everyone talks about Bendis and Mamet, or Bendis and Homicide, or Bendis and Khrushchev, but you know who hasn't come up lately? William Castle. William Castle is this famous old B-movie director (and I mean this in a nice way, which come to think of it, maybe not so much)... but yeah, Castle is famous, inter alia, for once rigging movie theatre seats to jolt movie watchers at scary points. That's sort of how it's gotten with me and these books -- I'm just waiting for Bendis to pull whatever shit he's about to pull next. Shit, I'm just waiting for Bendis to do a comic called GOTCHA, BITCH! It's sort of hard to talk about because... like... yeah, that's what comics are SUPPOSED to be like, right? I don't know. I don't really get the impression that happens in other books. Like, people tell me that they were pretending that Batman was going to kill the Joker in that Jim Lee Batman comic everyone's so excited about. That's it? That’s really got people excited?

If comic fans are that gullible, I just want to publish a comic called PYRAMID SCHEME. Man, you and I? We should come up with a way to swindle comic book fans. Oh wait, they already have those: comic books. Never mind.

... I'm watching my local news, and there's a story about AMERICAN IDOL. For some reason, the newscaster is on Fairfax, which is, what, they're reporting about AMERICAN IDOL from Little Ethiopia? Is that to tap into all the Third World-hating Superman fans out there? Good eats in Little Ethiopia... Anyway, they're talking about AMERICAN IDOL, and then they cut to QUENTIN TARANTINO talking about who he voted for, in that way he talks, and then they show him talking to Simon... huh...

ROTOGIN JUNKBOTZ KORIM CVR #1 (Of 8) $2.95
ROTOGIN JUNKBOTZ LEE CVR #1 (Of 8) $2.95

Oh, yeah, ROTOGIN JUNKBOTZ -- I was so taken with how completely fucked up this title was that I actually went the full 9 and picked it up. i was hoping it'd be about alcoholic robots drinking gin. "My servos aren't the ones with a problem; y'all's servos are the ones with a problem." Drunken gin-guzzling alkie robots, getting wasted and accidentally killing small Japanese children. I had high hopes.

So I picked up the one before #1, which is, what, I picked up issue #Negative-Eight? I think it had an i-coefficient. Do you remember i, which was, what, the square root of negative one? Why did they have those again? Why did you need a square root to negative one? I remember that being pretty useful, but man, I can't remember why.

Local news is talking about guys who got ripped off trying to buy Russian brides. The guys aren't just willing to be on television and admitting that they're cruising the internet for commie-poon, but they're COMPLAINING that they got ripped off. ONE GUY IS ABOUT TO CRY! ABOUT TO CRY! Oh man, there's a site dedicated to Russian dating fraud -- hold on, this is better than alcoholic robots. i didn't think it was possible, but incredibly enough, its better than alcoholic robots. Like, it never occurs to these people that it's their fault for being pathetic. God, I need to start a Russian bridge scam. I'd pose Russian girls next to 1960s Batmobile replicas and watch the money pour in. Our motto would be "They don't speak English; they only speak geek."

There's a lot of anti-nerd rage this week, isn't there? What's that about? At least I'm off that whole grandma shtick -- that was pretty weak. Shit, man, when I get desperate, I pull out the grandma jokes. I'm not alone in that. You think I’m alone? Look at Chris Rock. One of the funniest and most successful stand-up comics of the last ten years. What ONE thing do you remember about the ads for his last movie? You remember the grannies rapping Nelly's "Hot in Here." And hell, I don't meant that necessarily in the pejorative. Do you remember that movie the WEDDING SINGER? What do you remember? Chances are you remember that granny rapping Sugarhill Gang. And that was a successful movie that you're likely to have seen, even. Comedically speaking, I think my one great crime this week is I didn't have the grandma rapping. But that'd have taken hours, while I try to find the appropriate song. Grandma rapping Aesop Rock just wouldn't be funny; Granny rapping DMX's "X Gonna Give It To You" would be confusing because then you'd keep waiting for X to give it to you and then you'd start resenting the Grandma, and I don't want you resenting the Grandma. Ice Cube? I thought about Ice Cube. You think I didn't think of that?

Now you're just patronizing me...

Anywho, where was I? Right, alcoholic robots: you know what's interesting to me about this comic? How good even non-Big Two comics look now. If comics twenty years ago had colors like this, they'd have been the most prestigious book in all of comics. Now we just take it for granted. Hell, we dismiss it. Even when its coming from outside the big comic companies. It's not gorgeous, but think about the advancement the technology's made...

You know, its a comic about underground fight clubs where the fights are between robots. At one point they mis-spell "restless" as "wrestles" -- As in "Hope you guys aren't getting wrestles in those suits-" but if you're reading this comic, why would you care? Robots fight. If you want to see a robot fight, this comic should have one, I guess. It's not really my kind of book, no, not really, but... It's nothing I'm snobby about. I always imagine when I'm looking at a book like this, that a person outside of comics, with no interest in them, if they imagined comics, they'd probably imagines comics are FILLED with books like this, and not ten X-spin-off books, or young kids endlessly trying to recreate MOON KNIGHT...

SAVAGE DRAGON #107 $3.95
SPAWN #125 $2.50
TOMB RAIDER #30 $4.99

FUUUUUUUUUCK. All through this list I keep trying to work in this thing where I go What alienates me about comic book fans, even more than their obsession with Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer," is their ... and whatever. Then when we got here, halfway through the list, I'd do something like WE'RE HALFWAY THERE! A reference to the aforementioned awful Bon Jovi song. Perhaps I'd even include more lyrics. Perhaps. But I couldn't think of anything alienating that I really agreed with, and there was nowhere to work it in. And now look at me: sitting here, halfway through this goddamn list, humming fucking LIVING ON A PRAYER to myself now thanks to you fuckers. FUCK. FUUUUUCK. FUCK.

And seriously, if you pay $5 goddamn dollars for a fucking TOMB RAIDER comic book, you are too fucking stupid to breed, and should be chemically fucking castrated, you goddamn morons. And not because it's a video game. If there was a GRAND THEFT AUTO comic book, fuck it, I'd buy it. I take it as a sign of comics's shitiness that no one's managed to land that license. But because you are a FUCKING MORON. Wait, no, that argument's circular, isn't it? You are a moron because you are a fucking moron? That’s no sort of argument.

A proper argument, according to some ancient Greek or another, follows a certain classical structure, like... "All Tomb Raider comic books fans are fucking morons. You are a Tomb Raider comic book fan. Therefore, quid pro quo, you are a FUCKING MORON." That argument would have been okay. But what I was saying was, what, "People who read TOMB RAIDER comic books are fucking morons. Fucking morons read TOMB RAIDER comic books. Therefore, fucking morons are fucking morons." ... Well, yeah.

I'm sorry? You wish this week were over, don't you? Well, take my hand. In fact, we're halfway there. Oh ho? Yes, we're living on a prayer.

Didn't work? I wanted it to work so badly.

Ad on TV for that Jim Carrey-is-God movie. Rental.

MARVEL

I'm looking forward to Marvel's comic about the need for sustainable agriculture, STAR 69? Chuck Austen will SUSTAIN you, bitch. HE WILL SUSTAIN YOU WITH HIS LOVE.

I don't mean that to besmirch Austen. I'm sure he's cool, or uncool, whichever. There's always that guy that's the Go-To Guy, that you wonder about, but the company needs X books out, and they just keep going to the Go-To Guy. Austen's just the Go-To Guy right now. I feel bad for them, usually -- seems like they get eaten up quickly. But hell, Austen was around a long time back, right, so he probably knows what's going on. Still -- you know... I hear other folks have something against the guy. I don't. Don't care. Don't read his comics. There are so many people in comics worth looking at -- I don't get people who complain about mainstream guys. Like, Tom Mandrake's drawing this week's PUNISHER. And if you asked me, do I like Tom Mandrake, I'd say yes, based on his work on SPECTRE or whatever, his work with John Ostrander. I don't read the PUNISHER, but... I got nothing against Tom Mandrake. So if one guy starts sucking, just shift over to someone who hasn't started sucking yet. Why is that so hard to people? I mean, I don't even comprehend it. You know what alienates me most about comic book fans, even beyond their obsession with Bon Jovi's "LIVING ON A PRA...

It's too late. See, now I have it, but it’s too fucking late, and what good does it do any of us, but fill us with regret about what could have been.

Fate's a fickle bitch, old friend. Fate's a fickle bitch.

BLACK PANTHER #59 $2.99

CALL #2 $2.25

Oh, man, where do I sign up for that, with a title as compelling as CALL? Are titles just VERBS now? FUCK, dude -- did they run out of good nouns? DIAL is the comic sensation of 2004 -- you've heard it here first.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #13 $2.99

Though really, don't give Jae Lee over to your B-team. Like, no matter how good that I'm SURE Chuck Austen is, if you're at the same company as Grant Morrison and whoever, Bendis, Garth Ennis, Greg Rucka, whoever, then shit, there's no SHAME to being on the B-Team. But Jae Lee's an A-Team artist. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you
can hire the A-Team. But if you do hire them, and you love it when a plan comes together, and somehow you get Murdock onto a plane, which believe me is a BITCH, and ... and if you see Dirk Benedict...
I'm sure I've mentioned endlessly how growing up with Dirk Benedict playing both FACE MAN on the A-TEAM and STARBUCK on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, how formative that was -- I mean, those were the two "cool guys" on both shows, both played by the same guy. Will Benedict someday be placed next to Lee Marvin or Lee Van Cleef or Bruce Lee or someone else named Lee? Lee Majors, if you will? No, never, ever never, because those guys were all fucking awesome, and he's just the guy who played fucking Face Man.

But nonetheless, I really feel that some appreciation of Dirk Benedict really needs to take place on a cosmic level for all of us someday. In conclusion: why is Jae Lee drawing bad CAPTAIN AMERICA comic books again? I don't get that. He should be awesome-ing, not drawing HYDRA, or whatever the fuck...

See, now this week is all long because I was compensating, and now, what, what the fuck? You know what I'm looking forward to is seeing how Chris Ryall and Scott Tipton, my editors, how they condense all this into one tasty sentence. The teaser sentence. Anytime you click on MOVIEPOOPSHOOT, you'll see the link for TITLE BOUT, and there's always that sentence, which I never want to write, like "This week -- oh that Title Bout's a dirty girl." It's sort of this weird pleasure I take every week in throwing all this crazy shit at them, and seeing them groping at condensing it all...

DOMINO #1 $2.50

Buying this. Brian Stelfreeze is drawing it. Brian Stelfreeze is fucking great. He doesn't draw stuff often for comics, comic pages, so its usually worth checking out.

Oh wow, Keanu on Charlie Rose trying to explain the MATRIX. Oh, this is going to be funny. Keanu... explain life to me, Keanu.

HUMAN TORCH #2 $2.50
INCREDIBLE HULK #54 $2.25
IRON MAN #68 $2.99
MARVEL UNIVERSE THE END #5 (Of 6) $2.99

NEW X-MEN VOL 4 RIOT AT XAVIERS TP $11.99

This was good. This was as good as Morrison's been. He's been hit or miss for me on this book -- this isn't my favorite Grant Morrison work, but this arc was pretty purely good.

Okay, and we're turning off Charlie Rose. FUCK, noone wants to see any of that movie until they're in the theatres. We KNOW it'll look cool. Just don't show us anything so we can be blown away, you assholes. Okay... Man, they're really BAD at promoting movies. They're just BAD at it. You think they'd know how. But now I'm going in expecting the worst, I've seen too much of it, the whole plot's sitting in Time Magazine... Like, how was that a hard movie to PROMOTE? If they did that bad of a job promoting A SEQUEL TO THE MATRIX, how do they ever manage to promote little movies? How do they tie their shoes in the morning. How is that a hard sell, you know?

PUNISHER #26 $2.99
X-MEN UNLIMITED #46 $2.50

Does this have an Adam Warren-Rick Mays story in it? I'm no Gen13 fan by any means, but if you tuned in for the last couple issues, Adam Warren knew the book was getting cancelled, and he just went for broke with Rick Mays. It was really pretty so I picked it up on a whim, and they just did something fun there... I wish Adam Warren were a bigger name in comics. He seems more fun-oriented than some people. He works in the pop culture references better than a lot of people...

WIZARD

TOYFARE MATRIX CVR #71 $4.99

See, it doesn't need to be on every magazine cover. Just tell me where it's playing and I'll go. Oh, and they do all this shit promoting this movie -- it's playing in, like, two theatres on opening week in Los Angeles. Well done.

BAD BOYS 2: I'm not even joking.

COMICS
ALIEN NINE BOOK 1 GN $15.95
AMERICAS GREATEST COMICS #5 $6.95
ANGRY YOUTH COMIX #1 (O/A) (MR) $2.95
ANGRY YOUTH COMIX #2 (O/A) (MR) $2.95
ANGRY YOUTH COMIX #3 (O/A) (MR) $2.95

ART NOUVEAU AND THE EROTIC (A) PI

Hmmm, classy or not classy? I'm not sure...

ARTESIA AFIELD LTD ED #1 (O/A) (MR) $5.95
ARTESIA LTD ED #1 (O/A) (MR) $5.95
BANZAI GIRL #4 (Of 4) $2.95

BATMAN & ME THE SAGA CONTINUES PI

I'm trying to get through this list a little quickly this week, to get it to my editors earlier than usual, and... and then I hit something like this. Which... I feel like you deserve pages about it. Long, hilarious pages.

I mean...

It's not just that it's BATMAN AND ME. It's the SAGA CONTINUES. This couldn't be funnier unless it was called, what, BATMAN AND ME: THE LOVE THAT WOULD NOT DIE. Or... BATMAN AND ME: STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.

Maybe it’s like ROGER AND ME, only instead of Michael Moore trying to see the head of that car company, it's some nerd trying to get into DC's offices to see Batman. Security guards outside trying to convince him, "No, no, Batman's not here today. Have you checked the Batcave?"

I should go for pages, but ... we must hurry... But just between you and me, my editors are getting this week's late anyway, so.. laugh at them with me. LAUGH AT THEM. LAUGH AT MY EDITORS!!!!! [Ed. Note: You’re all dicks, all of you who laughed.]

BETTY & VERONICA #188 $2.19
BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #115 $3.59
BIG O PART 4 #3 (Of 4) $3.50
BONE #49 (O/A) $2.95
BRIAN PULIDO LADY DEATH #4 MEDIEVAL TALE $2.95

CAPTAIN AMERICA SGN #12 $19.99

You never see a comic in sign language. How do you think deaf people feel? You never think about them, do you? You just think about yourself.

Man, have I ever seen a deaf dude in a comic book? Would word balloons come off their hands? You know, how word balloons usually point to their mouths -- do word balloons for deaf people point to their hands?

Weird... I think Marvel's got a comic about deaf people coming out called POUND SIGN. Chuck Austen will POUND YOU WITH HIS LOVE. But see I don't even mean that in an anti-Chuck-Austen way, so legally speaking, I'm bulletproof. HA! DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY, MOTHERFUCKER!!!

CHIAROSCURO #7 (MR) $2.75
CONFESSIONS OF A CEREAL EATER GN (STAR04660) $17.95
CONFESSIONS OF A CEREAL EATER VOL 2 GN $9.95
CRACKED GUIDE TO MOVIES TP (STAR13388) PI

CRUX VOL 3 TP STRANGERS IN ATLANTIS $15.95

Have you heard all that shit about Frank Sinatra's valet? Frank's valet has written a tell-all about how Frank needed special underwear made for his enormous penis, and how JFK used to snort cocaine and gossip about which famous actors like to have sex with black ladies, and how Frank always slept with a prostitute before a recording session, and... yeah. This comic is sort of like that tell-all, only it takes place in a whimsical fantasy world, and is overcolored, and knowing Crossgen probably wants to be Harry Potter so much it'd blow Harry from HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS if it'd help and if Harry from HARRY AND THE HENDERSON's didn't have such hairy balls. Thank you, CrossGen.

Seriously: have you ever tried to read one of those comics? Because I tried to once. And now look at me. I'm a shade of my former self. What sustains me now? Nothing. Its as if... Its as if I were living on a prayer.

OHHHHH WE'RE HALFWAY THERRREE...

Damn you, Jon Bon Jovi. Go back to acting! Do you think they get a lot of hecklers yelling that at their concerts now? I hope so...

CUTE WENDY COLLECTION OF PERFECTION GN $12.95

Haha -- oh man, that's great. It's like if Don King were to name a comic book... Well done. Well done. Stop a moment, stop and fucking appreciate what these people have done. Tell me that's not well done -- I double-fucking dare you. Sincerely: Well done.

DF FLASH SGN #197 $10.00
DF TRANSFORMERS #1 FIVE STAR PACK $34.95
DFE TRANSFORMERS GEN ONE VOL 2 #1 ALT CVR $6.99
DIGIMON VOL 2 GN (Of 12) $9.99
DRAGON ARMS #6 $3.50
ELVIRA #121 $2.50
ERICA SAKURAZAWAS BETWEEN THE SHEETS GN (MR) $9.99
FAKE VOL 1 GN (Of 7) (MR) $9.99
FEMZINE #3 (MR) $9.95
FINDER FOOTNOTES #9 DREAM SEQUENCE PT 2 $12.00

FROLLO HC (A) $16.95

This is the Koreatown version of FRODO from the LORD OF THE RINGS. You buy FRODO at VONS and FROLLO at JONS, or... wherever... It's the cheap knock-off. You get it? You get the joke but it's not funny? It was funny in COMING TO AMERICA though, wasn't it? Yes, it was. SO was Arsenio. Does that make you go HMMM? You thought I forgot about Arsenio, didn't you? I didn't forget about Arsenio. Arsenio forgot about me. Sad? Sad, grown man wishing he were validated by the attention of Eddie Murphy ex-sidekicks? No, and here's why: One time, Joe Piscopo totally hit on me, and I kicked that Piscopo to the FUCKING CURB. Did it really happen? No. But in my heart, did it happen? Yes. Do you wish this paragraph were over? No? Really? Do you wish I'd start talking about Masterpiece Theatre's adaptation of Zadie Smith's WHITE TEETH? I thought it was okay, give or take some choices here and there. I liked Om Puri, who was the only person they could've cast for that part, and I liked the music (though I have that fucking Showaddyaddy song stuck in my head, goddammit).

FUSE #6 $2.99
GATEKEEPERS VOL 2 GN (Of 7) $9.99

GENE FUSION #3 $2.95

Buying this. Should I make the obvious Gene Simmons joke? No? Why am I still asking questions, and then pretending you're answering them? I don't know either. What do you want for lunch? Gross.

GOLD DIGGER SWIMSUIT SPECIAL 2003 $4.50
GRANDMOTHERS HIVE SC PI
GTO VOL 11 GN (Of 25) $9.99

HARD THROB COLL TP (A) $19.95

This is just fucking disgusting. This is just unpleasant to even think about. Well done?

Great, now Jada Pinkett-Smith is on Letterman to promote the MATRIX. Which -- thank you, Wachowskis. Because when I see Will Smith(star of BAD BOYS 2) on my television, I really felt bad that his family didn't have enough giant egos in it. It's nice to see they're remedying that...

Now, Charlie Rose is talking to the guy who wrote the Newsweek article(not the TIME, NEWSWEEK),I think(and for some reason, Kurt Andersen is there??? huh?). Christ, the NEWSWEEK reporter is some geeky kid. This "Reporter" has pimples still. The people in charge of promoting this major movie was given to this acne-scarred kid to promote it? Crazy. It's just crazy. Was that crazy liar guy from the NEW YORK TIMES busy? (Man, people are overreacting to that story -- why does no one remember who Mike Barnicle is? Reporters lie ALL THE TIME... The story's just sexy because of the race issue, I guess...It's sad...) (HAHA -- now they're speculating about how the movies will end. Just go read the INVISIBLES -- that's what the Wachowskis did, after all...) (Don't you love watching my TV? I do)

HEROBEAR AND THE KID VOL 1 INHERITANCE TP $19.95
HOUSEWIVES AT PLAY #7 (O/A) (A) (Note Price) $3.50
ILLUSTRATED KAMA SUTRA VOL 2 (STAR02926) (A) PI
IN A METAL WEB GN (A) $11.95
JAGUAR GOD ILLUSTRATIONS (O/A) (MR) $3.95
JANES WORLD #5 $2.95

KARE KANO VOL 3 GN (OF 13) (RES) $9.99

I haven't read the manga, but the anime for this series is by GAINAX. GAINAX is famous for two series, NEON GENESIS EVANGELION which is this sort of ... it's a giant robot cartoon for manic depressive Japanese kids with father issues. The other series is better, though. That's FLCL, which is really indescribable -- let's just use the buzzy catchphrase of "the first cartoon for the 21st century." Man, I sounded like such a tool typing that. God, I sound like some quote whore. But that's seriously what it is -- it's the most next-level shit you can get your hands on right now. It's one step past that next level.

But after that, their President went to jail for tax evasion or something, and they sort of had a "What Now?" syndrome. The series they've followed with -- a dreary "maid" show called MAHOROMATIC, a sort of energetic comedy parody show called ABENOBASHI MAGICAL SHOPPING DISTRICT, some sort of dirty hamster show (??? haven't seen that one) -- they've been noticeably restrained, adrift almost(ABENOBASHI is fitfully interesting)(mostly for this one particular scene in one of the last episodes parodying Hollywood where one of the Japanese characters speaks Hollywood English -- if you ever wanted to hear a Japanese voice actor say the f-word 50 times in a cartoon, then that's the show for you).

Anyway, the one show they really seemed to have figured out was their adaptation of this, a very popular romance manga of all things. They turned it into more of a comedy so the manga artist got upset, apparently, and they stopped making them -- something like that. But seeing GAINAX do a romantic comedy -- I've only seen the first couple episodes, but seeing what a company known for their "cutting edge" material does with that sort of thing ... it's actually pretty interesting, in a way. Most of the rest isn't worth watching at all, but ... the first episode of this is kind of worth a look.

Oh man, I'm late again... shit, man, I didn't want to be late this week... oh well...

LAQUE NOIR (O/A) (A) $3.95
LOVE & ROCKETS VOL 9 FLIES ON THE CEILING SC (STAR $16.95
LOVE HINA VOL 10 GN (Of 14) $9.99
MAN OF MANY FACES VOL 1 GN (Of 2) $9.99
MARS VOL 10 GN (Of 15) $9.99
MIDNIGHT MOVER #2 (Of 4) (MR) $2.99
MIRACLE GIRLS VOL 9 PKT TP (Of 9) $9.99
MISTY GIRL EXTREME SPECIAL (O/A) (A) $3.50
MONKEY VS ROBOT AND CRYSTAL OF POWER GN $14.95
NEGATION #18 $2.95
NIGHT IN A MOORISH HAREM VOL 1 (STAR02535) (A) $11.95
NIGHT IN A MOORISH HAREM VOL 3 (A) $9.95
NOTES TO DRAW FROM VOL 1 TP $15.95

PAUL HAS A SUMMER JOB GN (RES) $16.95

Everyone, including our own Chris Allen, is calling this the first great graphic novel of 2003. It’s some sort of summer camp comic? I don't think they mean that in the way I hope for i.e. that it resembles Meatballs or better, that Michael J. Fox-girl from Facts of Life tv summer camp movie, but... I hear it’s quite good.

If Dirk Benedict were in that Michael J. Fox summer camp tv movie, I'd never rest until I owned a copy. That's just something you have to understand about me to understand this column. The Rosetta Stone of this column, if you will. Where IS Dirk Benedict anyway? Let's see what IMDB says: He was recently the host of STEEL STOMACHS and played a role in some sort of ZORK .. thing. So: best of luck to him.

POGO VOL 2 (STAR04572) $9.95
POISON ELVES #73 $2.95

PORTAJOHNNY SC (MR) $14.95

Is this about one of those shit-boxes they have at sporting events? Only its a talking one called Johnny? So he's a PORTAJOHNNY? I hope so. That sounds like the best Hanna-Barbera cartoon never made. If Hanna Barbera ever made a German Schizer Video...

PSYCHO HUNTER 3 COMIC SET PLUS PRINT (MR) $9.95
RAIJIN COMICS #22 (MR) $4.95
REALITY CHECK VOL 2 GN (Of 2) $9.99
REBIRTH VOL 2 GN (Of 11) $9.99
REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA VOL 3 TP TO SPROUT $9.95
ROBOTECH MASTERS #1 SKETCHED ED $34.99

SCOOTER GIRL #1 (Of 6) $2.99

Hmmm, possibly buying this, possibly not buying this. I'm not a big BLUE MONDAY fan anymore -- I liked the first miniseries, but she lost me hard on that second miniseries. But the creator of that series, Chynna Chugston-Major, supposedly stretching herself here, trying something different, and she's talented, I think -- on the other hand, this might be too girly for me, I might not be the audience for this, but ... I got a feeling this could be something. I feel like I should start talking about THE KNACK AND HOW TO GET IT, for some reason, but ... I'm not sure what that reason is, and I have nothing to say about that movie, so... let's not talk about that? Okay. What should we talk about instead? How about BAD BOYS 2? I hear it'll be BAD... BAD like a BAD BOY!

SCRYED VOL 2 GN (Of 5) $9.99

SEXUAL POSITIONS OF THE KAMA SUTRA #2 (A) $3.50

It's crazy -- the #1 song on a lot of hip-hop stations is Jay Z rapping over PUNJABI MC. I keep turning on my hip-hop station, hoping that DMX will give it to me, and it's Indian music blasting out. Next step: comic books. SEXUAL POSITIONS OF THE KAMA SUTRA is SPIDERMAN for the Next Generation.

The Indian Takeover: Grab your ankles and get ready to eat some ginger. That's the motto I made up for it. You like it? Yeah...

SHI SEMPO PREVIEW ADRIAN CVR $5.95
SHI SEMPO PREVIEW RYP CVR $5.95
SHI SEMPO PREVIEW TUCCI CVR $1.99
SHI SEMPO PREVIEW WRAPAROUND CVR $5.95

Sempo sounds like the name for a monkey, doesn't it?

SIGIL #36 KEY ISSUE PI
SILKEN GHOST #1 (Of 5) $2.95

SKAGGY THE LOST #3 (Of 4) (MR) $3.50

Didn't I just say something about this series last week? I have an issue -- I haven't read it. It's on my To-Read pile. I think I said that last week. It's about Vikings fighting Aztecs. It's got good art, though. There's something about the art that's worth a look. I kind of want to pick this whole series up -- there's something about it. But have I read it? No. You know -- sometimes you can just tell a series might be good by the look of it. I just get that feeling.

SKULL MAN VOL 6 GN (Of 7) $9.99
SOJOURN #23 $2.95
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #123 $2.19

SPEED ABATER GN $13.95

Speed Racer becomes a teenager... the Mach-4 gets stolen... so he just hangs out in his bathroom. He is now... the SPEED ABATER!

Go, Speed Abater! Go Speed Abater! Go Speed Abater, GOOOOOO!

Speed Racer had a monkey in it, so maybe Speed Abater has a monkey in it. I wonder if it's Sempo... Sempo's your friend.

SPIRIT OF THE AMAZON #1 (RES) (MR) $2.95

STRUM & DRANG GREAT MOMENTS IN ROCK & ROLL TP $6.95

Avril Lavigne, huh?

SUPER TABOO EXTREME #1-5 PACK (A) $17.50
THE CALL #1 SIGNED ED PI
THRESHOLD DEMONSLAYER CVR #50 (MR) (Note Price) $8.95
THRESHOLD HELLINA ADULT CVR #50 (A) (Note Price) $9.00
THRESHOLD HELLINA CVR #50 (MR) (Note Price) $8.95
THRESHOLD PANDORA CVR #50 (MR) (Note Price) $8.95
THRESHOLD PANDORA NUDE CVR #50 (MR) (Note Price) $9.00
TRANSFORMERS ARMADA #11 $2.95

VISITATIONS GN $8.95

Oh, this is that Scott Morse book. Yeah, this is the best thing Scott Morse ever did (this or VOLCANIC REVOLVER), but it came out at a bad time or something for Image. Something happened and it went ignored, for some reason. Oni's putting it out again, giving people another chance now that he's a bigger name. It's kind of a quiet, religious book -- I'm not religious, but its well-told. If you've never seen this, this is worth a look.

WARREN ELLIS SCARS #5 (Of 6) (MR) $3.50
WARREN ELLIS SCARS WRAPAROUND #5 (Of 6) (MR) $3.95

CONCLUSION

Well, my editors are asleep, with thoughts of sugar plums dancing in their head. Is that how that song goes? What song is that? Oh, okay, okay, it's not a song, it's the NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. And I think its visions of sugar plums. What -- is that right? Visions of sugar plums? Visions sound like something Native Americans have after smoking peyote. Who smokes peyote on the night before Christmas? You know what you give them for Christmas? More peyote, probably. If you were giving someone peyote for Christmas, do you put it in a box under the tree, or do you stuff their stocking with it? Well, probably neither -- you probably should be trying to help them get off the drugs instead? I recommend taking them to BAD BOYS 2. I'm sure at some point during the film, the BAD BOYS might stop a Columbian druglord of some variety, and that'll teach the drug users of the world how it's therefore wrong to do drugs.

Every summer, I think "Michael Bay's not going to get me." And every summer, he gets me. It's like WILE E. COYOTE and the ROAD RUNNER, if the ROAD RUNNER liked movies about cops who are also buddies. Which was Chuck Jones's original vision for those cartoons, until he smoked some peyote one Christmas Day, and suddenly, he said "FUCK THE BUDDY COP THING! LET'S HAVE THEM FIGHT A BIG POTATO!" But then there was a copyright suit, and one thing lead to the other, and ... what matters in the end isn't the peyote, and it's not litigious Chinamen, and it isn't Scooby Dum (may he rest in peace) and it isn't even Lee Majors: what matters in the end is that the cartoons got made the way they were ultimately supposed to be made.

God, that's beautiful, i'nnit?

Every day can be Christmas, if you think about it. All we'd need is lots of Chuck Jones's peyote. God bless us every one.

MY X2 REVIEW

Spoilers... oh, you're so delicate...

I missed Ebert & Roeper's review of X2 but I saw their review for DADDY DAY CARE? Roeper started screaming about how at one point in the movie, a Michael Jackson song came on? Apparently, Roeper thought this was offensive because the movie is about little kids and Roeper felt the movie's use of a Michael Jackson song was, what, the filmmakers suggesting that all the little kids in the movie should be fucked by pedophiles. They cut to Ebert as he was having one of his now-weekly "WHY DID I CHOOSE THIS FUCKING IDIOT" moments. If you watch that Ebert show, there's always a moment during every show now where Roger stares towards the heavens and screams "GENNNEEEEEEEEEEE!" This story has nothing to do with the fact X2 is a fucking slow, badly paced, slow, meandering mess of a movie with almost nothing interesting at stake, ten too many characters, and only about two to maybe three good action scenes in it. I just wanted to make fun of Roeper. Giddyup!!!

So, yeah, X2: why do you people keep cumming over these mediocre-fests? I don't get it, man.

I mean, I was ready for some ACTION, and the movie starts with that awesome Nightcrawler scene, so I was ready. I was ready for Freddy. And then the TALKING STARTED. Two hours later, I think the talking ended, but I don't -- I'm sure they just ended the talking after two hours because they realized that there'd be a third film so that really, they potentially had four hours of talking and why rush the talking? NO RUSH FOR THE TALKING, apparently.

SO MUCH TALKING.

I liked the Nightcrawler scene, I liked any of Mystique's scenes, and Ian Mckellan's fucking great... but the rest is ... I could go on for a WHILE, but I basically didn't like anything else.

But this isn't a movie review column -- this is a column about alcoholic robots. So let's talk about alcoholic robots:

What I really found fascinating about X2, and I guess most people have picked up on this -- the Journalista blog has had excellent discussion/citing of talk about this -- were all those homosexuality themes! Can you believe they got all that into a big summer movie?

The climax of the movie (if it had one) (I think it might have had twelve, I'm not sure)... But I think the climax is when Magneto managed to convince Pyro to come out of the closet. (I think that's one reason, inter alia, that I liked Ian McKellan so much -- Magneto's gay now. I love that. He's completely made that character his own.)

But let's go through a few things I remember real quickly:

The bad guy at the end of the movie, the guy in the wheelchair with the contact lens (oooh, special effects) -- when he's inside the mind of Professior X, what does he turn into? What’s his TRUE self? A little girl!

There's, of course, the scene where Mystique is trying to tempt Wolverine by appearing as different women. Wolverine doesn't look tempted at all, until Mystique looks like the great Brian Cox, at which point, what, didn't he start crying or something?

Or the classic example for Wolverine: The next step in evolution the weapon x program, i.e. what will the ultimate man become when technology advances? A GIRL. And its only when Wolverine fills the girl with the same metal that's in his body, i.e. metal cum, that she dies and he's victorious. But then at the end of the fight, after he's ejaculated into the woman essentially, he realizes he's made a HORRIBLE MISTAKE by ejaculating into a woman... and when she's full of metal cum, she realizes that, what, this wasn't the lifestyle she was meant for and this look of regret fills her face...

There's the scene where Cyclops yells for Rogue to "Work it, girl." What -- why was that there? Or the scene where Wolverine almost attacks a PUSSYcat, and the PUSSYcat licks his claws (i.e. the PUSSYcat is essentially a "Fag hag" that realizes it need not fear being penetrated by the closet-case Wolverine).

But absolutely, the climax of the movie is Pyro coming out of the closet. Because what's the only alternative for him that the movie presents? The impotent relationship between Iceman and Rogue, where if the boy fucks the girl, he DIES. What boy? The boy who's made out of ICE, i.e. who's COLD to his emotions. (Or the girl who conveniently sacrifices herself so that the two guys can be together, I SUPPOSE)

I'm certain there's more. I liked that aspect of the movie. On a literal movie, god that thing was a bore, dude. So much talking. The Nightcrawler and Mystique action scenes were so much fun and so kinetic that I have to say I enjoyed those immensely, but the rest... nah... I'm jaded cause I grew up on it, so I'm a bit bored by it inherently, but...

But the gay themes -- it's interesting. It's just interesting seeing that in a big summer movie. I think its nice, in a way. I mean, you could make the argument that essentially all buddy cop movies, that the buddy cops want to be more than buddies. I mean, they're not just BOYS, after all -- they're BAD BOYS... 2. But this movie was just unapologetic with it. SO I liked it for that.

I liked the SHAPE OF THINGS more, which I saw a couple days later based on the high recommendations of Jeff Wells and D.K. Holms (so glad he's doing a second column), but I can't recommend that unless you enjoy that Neal Labute weird Mormon "Everyone must suffer for drinking caffeine" thing he does. It's very much a play, but I thought it was playing with some pretty interesting ideas...

So, that concludes my X2 review and this week's ENDLESS fucking TITLE BOUT: Not much fun, but I liked the homosexuality. Oh, by that, I mean X2. Not this week's Title Bout. Or... I don't know: you tell me.

Coy? Coy.

Okay... that's enough...

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