Thursday, December 30, 2010

Batman, Inc. #2

If you don't get this one, two things - one, bless your sweet innocent heart. Two, Google "Japan" and "tentacles" sometime. If you do get it, then you have to admit that this is exactly where Grant Morrison was going with that scene. And you have to give him props for getting as far as he did with it in a top-tier DC book.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get across the events of the second and third panels, because the mechanics in the comic itself are a little confusing - Bats swings into the window and breaks it, okay, but then the water starts pouring out of it, so where does he go? Does he just bob there until the room empties out completely? Does he let go and ride the wave down?

By the way, I'm very excited for next week's strips, because I finally get to change the year on my little copyright watermark thing. W00t, and so forth.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Chaos War #4

I feel a mostly bland sort of approval of Chaos War so far, so I have nothing to add to this, except to say that I'm very proud of that Earth picture. Oh, and hooray for my first-ever fart joke! What fart joke, you ask? Shame on you for not checking the alt-text.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Uncanny X-Force #3

After reading this issue, I had an odd mental picture of Deadpool and Warren being stuck in that tent for months. Hilarity, I'm sure, would ensue.

Merry Xmas, everybody. See ya next week!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Heimdall Identity

Unapologetically inspired by yesterday's Penny Arcade on the same subject.

I'm basically in the same area as Gabe and Tycho on this - yeah, I guess technically the Norse Gods were all conceived as white characters, but my guiding star in these circumstances is who can best play the character. Norse or not (and this is coming from someone who actually is Norwegian), if Idris Elba and whoever that one Asian dude is do a good job in their roles, then I can't get myself too worked up about their races. I felt the same way about Michael Clark Duncan as the Kingpin, and if I'm honest, the white kids in The Last Airbender.

I'm not an Airbender fan at all, and haven't yet bothered to see the movie, so maybe I'm less qualified to have an opinion - but it's just not something that affects me. I can sympathize intellectually with the people who were pissed about Airbender because there isn't exactly an overabundance of starring roles when you're a young Asian actor in Hollywood, but I can also sympathize with genre fans who want their favorite characters portrayed as faithfully as possible - and that could apply, at least theoretically, to someone upset about Idris Elba or Michael Clark Duncan. Theoretically.

In practice, though? These guys? Totally racist.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Heroes For Hire #1

I almost had the strip end with the guy alone in the warehouse, but I couldn't get over the notion of Dr. Doom pulling the ol' shark-tank-in-an-abandoned-warehouse routine.

Aside from their Authority run, I've never really been overly into Abnett and Lanning's stuff. They seem to be pretty well regarded, but I could give two craps about Marvel's cosmic stuff on the whole, so I never really gave it my attention. Likewise, I have no particular interest in Falcon, Misty Knight (to the point that she made me less interested in Shadowland), Moon Knight (to the point that he makes me less interested in Secret Avengers), and Puppet Master - but I have to say that I really liked the first issue of HFH, and I think I just might keep with it for a bit. I can see this set-up leading to a good, long string of storylines, and I'm genuinely excited to see who'll show up.

And the Global Frequency vibe doesn't hurt either.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

New Avengers #7

Sometimes there's no real point behind these strips - I just think Squirrel Girl being a secret racist would be hilarious.

Anyway - this series is very good at entertaining me while irking me in numerous small ways. I'm still bothered by Wolverine and Spider-Man being on this team at all, and every time Bendis calls it out in some way, it pulls me entirely out of the story. The thing this issue with Spidey not being able to get a paycheck - which actually helped support ASM's current continuity - dredged up not only my issues with him being on two Avengers teams at once, but also the nasty Brand New Day wounds that never seem to close, no matter how much time passes. Peter even unmasked a second time to around 2/3 of the people in the room here - not one of them can take checks on his behalf and just pay him back in cash? As weird as it is to get into Avengers getting paychecks at all, it's hard to accept that no one can think of any way around the identity issue, for the sake of the one guy on the team who needs the money the most.

And as long as they're reminiscing about Dr. Strange sheltering them in his old house - if none of them remember the first time he unmasked at all, how do they think he ended up on the team at that point? What exactly does everything think Spidey was doing during the Civil War?

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Daredevil #512

So Shadowland is over, and while I greatly appreciated this issue's acknowledgement that Daredevil's killing of Bullseye in Shadowland #1 - easily the most defensible murder ever - was in fact Matt acting of his own free will, I'm feeling rather indifferent to this story on the whole. It's an acceptable climax to the last several years of DD storytelling, and it was done well, I suppose, but the forced event-iness of it has kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm curious about the upcoming Black Panther storyline, but I haven't decided yet if I'll read it or just take this opportunity to cut Hell's Kitchen loose from my weekly pile for the time being.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Superman: Earth One

Okay, so I kinda cheated on this one - the book in my hands is drawn to be a flimsy single issue, but in this case I'm technically holding a hardcover. Oh, well.

Earth One was pretty good - not quite as good as all the hype had led me to believe, but I don't regret having bought it. I want to be excited for the Batman one next year, but Geoff Johns can't write his own ticket with me like Straczynski can. And everything Gary Frank does from now on will only ever remind me of how much better Supreme Power was. So we'll see.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Fantastic Four #585

So I've been reading Fantastic Four since Hickman took over, and it's been reasonably interesting, but I'm so iffy on the FF as subject matter that I never officially added it to my pull list until now. I knew that if anyone could sell Reed Richards it's Hickman, but he's been juggling so much stuff in the last year that it's kind of felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop - not in a good suspense way, but in a bad "I officially can't comprehend this anymore" way. Which is kind of what happened with Secret Warriors, to me.

Anyway, while I'm still a little leery about the impending death, I've decided that he's earned enough trust from me that I'm gonna stick with it for the immediate future. And if by some miracle it's Johnny he kills, I might even start buying two copies.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Walking Dead Episode Guide

Now that it's behind me, I don't mind saying - this strip kicked my ass. Half the reason I decided to take last week off was because I'd already spend a couple sessions working on this one and I couldn't bear to look at it anymore.

Anyway, for the actual Walking Dead readers out there, here's how I'd generally like to see things go from here, now that the series' future seems assured for the time being (heavy spoilers, obviously) - I figured Season Two would primarily be Hershel and Tyrese, with the prison discovery happening at the end, but with only one episode left in Season One I'm starting to wonder if they'll even get to the end of the Shane plotline before next season. I can't imagine Darabont could resist more than one more season without the prison, though, so I still say that's how Two ends - they could easily lose Wiltshire Estates if they had to, especially since there's no Allen and Donna. As tempting as it'll probably be to get Michonne in there, she didn't really have much to do until Woodbury, so her arrival is pretty much a crapshoot. Once they get settled into the prison a bit, though, there's nothing pre-Woodbury that screams "season finale", so I don't see how they could end Season Three earlier than them spotting the helicopter and heading off with Michonne.

By this point, though, the aging of the kid who plays Carl will probably have to be addressed, so I wouldn't be surprised if they worked in a big time jump shortly before Woodbury happens - even as much as a year or two. The way it's been paced so far, I could see them doing an entire season of just Rick's time in Woodbury, maybe even delaying the escape until the fourth finale, and then leaving Martinez and the assault for Season Five. I'll be very interested to see what they do about Rick's hand. If a character isn't going to be around for a lot longer, it's not a huge deal to CG off an extremity or shoot around it, but considering how much further the comic has gone, with Rick still alive and kicking, there's no way in hell they'd have the balls to maim him in any way that's overly noticeable. A foot, maybe, or even just a finger. One thing's for sure - whomever plays Michonne will be showing signs of the Governor's abuse for a good long time; maybe even permanent scars like Locke's eye on Lost.

*achem*

Well, that's enough masturbation for the time being. Obviously, I'm very thrilled with the show so far, and I'm dying to see all the ways they'll prove my speculation wrong.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Invisible Mansion #3 - A Very Invisible Thanksgiving

You know, I do believe I could do an ongoing webstrip of nothing but Invisible Mansion jokes. I'd have to sacrifice the last shreds of my self-respect, probably, but still.

Coming next week: more Walking Dead, probably. Happy Holidays, folks!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Invisible Mansion #2

My show finally ended its 7-week run last Saturday, so while I technically have more time for this now, I have to admit I'm still a little burned out. I want to avoid skipping a day at all costs, though, so expect another Invisible Mansion strip on Thursday. It is, quite literally, the least I can do.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Green Lantern

Look, I'm very forgiving with CG most of the time, and I appreciate that the costume should look a little unreal if it's generated by the ring. The early photos made me nervous, and I was really hoping it would work better in motion, but I'm sorry - it looks silly. It doesn't look otherworldly, it looks like Ryan Reynolds has Play-Doh on his face. It definitely moves well, and it's pretty impressive from a motion-capture standpoint. But it's just not working. And that's not my DC bias talking - I have similar misgivings about the Thor costumes.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

I Am Iron Man

I should clarify - a lot of these strips are excerpts from, or inspired by, actual conversations. I'm thinking - and bear with me, since there are only two of them so far - that all the "I swear to God this happened" strips will specifically be stories from my job. Generally they'll be off-topic annoying-customer things, but in the case of this particular overheard exchange, there's a nice little crossover element.

One thing that amuses me about this strip is the fact that the Iron Man figure is from photo reference, which means it's far, far more detailed than the actual characters. Take a look at the photo I used, by the way - how fucking creepy is it that the toy comes with Robert Downey Jr's head on a stick?

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Healing Factor

Another mostly-real conversation. Not much to elaborate upon beyond that, except to say that I really would love for them to introduce this concept, if only to make the guy a little less perfect. I dunno, maybe it's a little too late in the game to spring something like that on the character. Ultimate Wolverine, perhaps.

What's that? Oh, right - dead.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Scarlet #3

Just when I've finally reached the point where I'd rather stab myself in the eyes than buy another Avengers series, Bendis comes roaring back out of the gate with a new creator-owned series - and with Maleev, no less.

I'm not crazy about the bimonthly schedule, mostly because it appears inextricably linked with the schedule for Powers, which has a proven track record of coming out whenever it feels like it. But the story so far is compelling enough that I'm willing to deal with whatever delays come up, and keeping up with what's going on should be a lot easier than in Powers - which at this point has ten pounds of continuity in a five-pound sack.

Bendis' letters columns have always been great, but Scarlet's is already shaping up to be something special itself, thanks to the charged political nature of the story. I have friends who genuinely believe that a civilian uprising of this nature will (or at least needs to) happen someday in the United States, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Bendis elaborates upon what I see as a fundamentally wrongheaded and doomed premise.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Hiding Dead

The first issue of The Walking Dead I picked up was #31. I very clearly remember the issue, and my own complete confusion as to what was going on - some lady with a sword was being forced to fight chained-up zombies in an arena by a guy with an eyepatch. Strange as it was, it was interesting enough that I went back and picked up the first trade. It took long enough to catch up that the next single issue I bought was #36 - but I haven't missed an issue since.

Between the source material, Frank Darabont, Bear McCreary, and the excellent casting, I was primed very early on for the Walking Dead TV series to be something very special. That said, though, direct adaptations are always really difficult for me, because I can't stop myself from watching them in pure analysis mode - why did they leave out that panel? Is that character going to act the same way? Are they going to use that one great line? Why did they move that one moment to a different scene? Even when I can look back on something as being a very well-done adaptation of beloved source material - Scott Pilgrim, for example - there's always some part of the experience that feels hollow in retrospect, because it's impossible to let myself just watch.

I did, in fact, analyze every second of the premiere this way. Even still, I was absolutely amazed to find myself being moved a great deal by the character moments. What Darabont did with Morgan and Duane especially, by dealing with the mother, took their story to a whole new level and not only made me care about the TV characters as an entity unto themselves, but actually made the comic's Morgan and Duane more interesting and three-dimensional in retrospect. It was positively thrilling to hear that the premiere had such great ratings, because it alone earned this series another several seasons in my eyes - I was already dying to see Tyreese, Michonne, the Governor, Axel, and so on, but to see them not only in flesh and blood, but taken as far beyond the comic as Morgan was? I don't even have words.

Oh, and Glenn? We haven't even technically seen him yet, and he already kicks all kinds of ass.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Ultimate Enemy

My ultimate enemy? Statistics.

So basically, ever since the reveal last month, I wanted to do a strip about how I totally called the Reed Richards thing. Of course, I didn't really call it, of course, insofar as I'd said nothing to anyone prior to the reveal; I'd just seen it coming for the previous issue or two, which for me is light years in advance.

Anyway, I settled on another ripoff - ah, homage - to xkcd in the form of a Google-results chart. The comic seen here isn't so much the embodiment of my results as it is a dramatization of the research process. Figuring out a way to search specifically for fan predictions and guesses based on key words and/or phrases was hurdle number one; hurdle number two was that, even to the extent such information was findable, a lot of it was on message boards, where there's nothing stopping several guesses from appearing on a single page and thus obscuring their true frequencies.

Number three was the realization that no matter how many characters I thought to search for, a true results chart would involve a big useless "other" chunk - in fact, the figures included in the comic only represent about half of the 9000 or so total search results for the phrases "ultimate enemy" and "bad guy" on their own. Last but not least was the fact that "ultimate enemy" can and will be used in contexts wholly unrelated to the series in question, or even to comics at all.

All in all, the pie chart is nothing so much as a monument to my failure. You're welcome, internet.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Inflatable Dice

Said dice are a real thing, and this strip is derived from a real exchange, only I was actually talking to the guy who runs the comic store in question. Anyway, I think he mostly had it around for his own use. Or he liked to throw it at people.

Somehow I think I always wanted to reference the old Charles Atlas ads in a strip, but didn't realize it until it happened.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Batman and Robin #15

All actual lines from the issue.

I mentioned once before that I was a follower of Grant Morrison's X-run; that was back before I knew much about specific creators and their proclivities, but suffice it to day I stuck around from his first issue to his last. So while I'm not much of a DC expert, I do know a thing or two about Morrison. And just like New X-Men devolved into utter incomprehensibility, so seems to be the case now with his Bat titles.

But it's amazing how even at times like these, the man writes entertaining comics. I never have the slightest clue what Pyg is talking about - I'm sure it's referring to something, but it could be completely out of Morrison's ass for all I can tell. But he's still an interesting villain, if only in the sense of "here, let's have Batman deal with a guy who makes the Joker look rational." Speaking of which, Joker's interactions with Damian in particular have been great to read in the last few issues, and are probably what kept me from giving up on the title completely.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Definition of Insanity

We have two vacuum cleaners at work, and they're both crap. I do this pretty much every night - but as a matter of sheer principle, I never just throw stuff out once I've picked it up.

I have, however, tried pounding the vacuum against the floor a few times.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Amazing Spider-Man #645

Interesting side note: the scenario I describe is actually impossible, unless you're watching a rerun of the Seinfeld finale - it first aired in June '97, while OK Computer came out in July and Titanic in December.

Another interesting side note: I suddenly feel really old.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Tracie Thoms

I used to think I was the only one sitting at the nexus point of Tracie Thoms fandom and Walking Dead fandom, then I started searching for images of both on Google, and now it's clear I'm very much not alone. I guess that's a good thing, but it feels feel oddly...unsettling, as though at some level I wanted to be the only one who saw how perfect it would be. Though I did come across someone suggesting Danny Trejo for the Governor, which I have to admit makes a certain amount of sense.

Anyway, feel free to repost either version of today's comic anywhere you see fit in support of the cause.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Green Arrow #4

I'm living proof that relaunching long-running series can boost sales; I'm somewhat into Green Arrow as a character, but 90% of the time his books don't seem very accessible, and his post-Darkest Night relaunch was enough to get me poking around again (that, and more spectacular covers). I still don't have much of an idea what's going on with the business/political stuff, and what the White Lantern thingy has to do with anything, but like Batman, all it takes is the right context for me to enjoy the character. And Green Arrow in the woods is just plain cool.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Ego the Living Planet, con't

This happened almost word-for-word the night I posted the previous strip. No matter how much something I've read perplexes me, my roommate always has a nugget of goodness from DC that can make anything else seem downright logical.

Amusing side note: due to an initial typo, Blogger's URL for this post is "Ego Living Plane". I totally want to see a character that's an airplane. We've had a bunch of talking cars, but never a plane. WTF?

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

1 Month 2 Live #3

Another fun fact: Ego's Wikipedia page is almost 1600 words long, and is quite maddening when read all at once.

So I do videography and technical design for a Pittsburgh-area multimedia performance group called The Pillow Project. Our latest full-length performance begins a six-week run this weekend, and between that and my day job, my schedule is going to be a little wonky for a while. Under no circumstances do I intend to pause the strip at any point, but don't be surprised if they become a bit more extemporaneous for a little while. With luck they'll all at least remain on topic.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Fantastic Four #584

To make up for Tuesday's strip coming from a two-week-old issue, today I have for you my first-ever preemptive strip! #584 doesn't come out for almost a month, but the cover alone tells us enough about what's coming.

I've never paid a huge amount of attention to the FF, but even I know that this is nowhere near the first time they've "cured" Thing. Hickman's run has been great on the whole, and I can't wait to see where he's going with this (and the million other balls he's juggling), but part of me feels iffy on anyone figuring out how to help Ben other than Reed. Ben's condition leads to a major intrinsic problem with the FF in my opinion - Reed is smart enough to invent magic clothing, flying cars, transdimensional bridges, and so on, but he can never successfully cure Ben, because then the team loses a member and a main source of pathos. But if he never cures Ben, that either makes him a lousy friend, or not really that smart after all. I've got nothing against Thing as a character, but I'm kind of hoping the transformation actually sticks for a while and him leaving the team is the real reason this story arc is called "Three".

And as genius as Hickman is, what's really funny is that Bendis' interpretation of Thing's form over in Ultimate Mystery actually feels much cooler to me. And allows for him to stay on the team sans rocks.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

New Mutants # 17

Despite my previous Second Coming-fueled flirtation with the series, I've actually had very little interest in the current New Mutants on the whole - the characters' heyday was before my time, and I'm far more of a fanboy for the Generation X cast as far as such things go. That said, I have to give it credit for repeatedly drawing me in - I read the first issue or two, then stopped caring. I read the Second Coming issues because they were the Second Coming issues, then stopped caring. And then something happened that almost never happens for me - the art drew me in.

I usually follow writers over pretty much everything else - even over characters a lot of the time. But the combination of a few absolutely gorgeous covers and interior art by Leonard Kirk was enough that I had to at least give the current storyline a shot. And what a surprise - they're in hell! I suppose an argument might be made that the "limbo" form of hell we're seeing here is different from the hell of Mephisto so recently featured in Thor - but is multiple concurrent versions of hell really any better?

In any event, the story has been pretty compelling so far despite my having little history with the characters and no knowledge whatsoever of the villains' backstory - I only realized they originated in Inferno after reading something online about it. Even this issue's Dani/Sam kiss was very enjoyable despite my having very little prior interest in the characters. I'll definitely follow the rest of this story arc at the very least - beyond that, it'll probably depend on when and if Kirk partners up with Paul Cornell again. Now that's good stuff.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Break Room Seating

So I have this really funny strip I'm working on about New Mutants #17. Unfortunately, there are like forty-six people on that team and the strip requires more drawing than I can manage on this particular evening. Therefore, for now you get more work etiquette. How better to celebrate the fiftieth comic of a series called "Half-Assed Commitment" than with filler? See ya next week!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Bed Bugs

Don't believe me about the whole fixation thing? Let me put it this way: I actually do have bed bugs.

The exterminators are scheduled to come three times in all, each visit one week apart. They've come twice so far, and each time there's a good few days where we don't see any or get any new bites. But by the end of the week, they start showing up again. We don't exactly have much confidence that it'll magically stop after the third time, but the landlord is paying for it, so we'll deal with whatever it takes, I guess. Keeping all your clothes in garbage bags is a big pain in the ass, though, and all our furniture is in a big pile in the living room so they can access the walls. Very lame, but it could be worse - at least we're not trying to run a Victoria's Secret.

Side note - I've decided to convert my mostly dormant Twitter account into an official HAC Twitter page. I'm trying to get a better sense of how many distinct readers are following me with any sense of regularity, so if you're a fan, or a committed detractor, head on over and jump on board, and you'll get official notices whenever a new strip goes up. Yay!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Amazing Spider-Man #641

Probably subconsciously inspired by this, I have to admit.

So in retrospect - I still don't understand anything about the mindwipe. This issue actually made it worse in a way - as much of a copout as "it's magic" was for the initial explanation, it's still a lot more cut-and-dried than all this shit about digigenetic viruses (anamnesis is at the very least an actual word, whereas Googling "digigenetic" produces exactly six results, the first two being discussions of this comic) being channeled through the Extremis (which I don't really understand either, and I've read that story twice now).

But really? It's a comic book. If ever you can get away with a bullshit magic/technobabble explanation, it's here. But what still bothers me is that we got the technobabble in lieu of actually making me believe Tony, Reed, or frankly even Doc Strange, would have actually gone along with all this. When Peter went to Tony for help the first time, Tony's big heartfelt gesture (as this very story reminded us) was to not arrest him right there. But the implication here is that a day or two later, five minutes with Strange (whom he was also trying to arrest at the time) is all it takes to change his mind.

The motivation stuff is what really gets me, but getting back to the technobabble, would it have killed Quesada to toss in some kind of handwave regarding the web shooters? I guess they can be chalked up to the chaos aspect, but it was so transparently a marketing decision that to let it just sit there unaddressed is kind of insulting. I disagreed with Quesada philosophically on the need to end the marriage, but I can at least respect his argument editorially; it seems disingenuous, though, to make such a huge change to the story and then use it as an excuse to excise any random little plot threads that you don't care for. Especially one that even the big-budget movie franchise, that most cautious of enterprises, was willing to embrace.

Anyway, the story's over now, and BND as a whole is drawing to a close (whatever that means), so let this be my last word on the subject.

Probably.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Dark Wolverine #90

It's not a horrible costume, really - I appreciate the way they sort of kept the pattern of Wolverine's mask without giving him the flare things (what the hell are those supposed to be, anyway?). The rest of it just seems like Evil Ninja Variant #7, though of course they couldn't resist the urge to work some kind of "X" in there.

I kid, sure, but on the whole I kind of enjoy Daken as a character. His specific plans with regard to dominating the world (their terminology, not mine) are just maddeningly vague; especially now that Romulus has been dealt with. Issue #90 was alright, but all he really does is prattle on about how sheeplike everyone else is - the same thing he's been doing since the series started focusing on him (including through most of Siege). And again, I don't think that costume is helping him any. It sort of works from a design perspective, but when I really think about the character, he's more of a Luke Cage type - street clothes all the way. That's all he really wore prior to Dark Avengers, and he only started wearing the brown-and-yellow then to piss off daddy. But he doesn't go around calling himself Dark Wolverine, so there's no reason to build a visual identity off that - he's Daken, and that's what he'd want people to know and fear him as.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Swear to God

Not a series, necessarily, but I've done true-story strips a couple times before and I though I'd start linking them in some sense - especially the off-topic ones.

So Daredevil's becoming possessed by some kind of ancient Hand demon thing. Not exactly astonishing, but I do like that it fleshes out the Hand's motivation in wanting DD to take over in the first place. My question now is, has this always been the purpose of the Hand's existence, and they've just sucked at it for hundreds of years? Or did Snakeroot just decide recently that they wanted to help their overlord destroy humanity? Or the universe, or whatever it is?

Oh, and I love to think about all the cynics who were expecting Bullseye's death to be overwritten as soon as the story was over, when in reality it won't even make it that long. The murder (if you choose to classify it as such) was the last sympathetic thing DD did, and I would've been okay with it sticking for a while, but the notion of an even eviler Hand-resurrected Bullseye running around is kind of fun. Still don't know how I'll feel about the Daredevil line overall once this is over, though.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Thor #613

Hey, two hell strips in two weeks.

I have mixed feelings about Thor at the moment. The Gillen run was great for a while, but this Disir storyline hasn't really been pulling me in - and bringing hell into it, which is starting to get kind of overdone as a fantasy setting for such a literal interpretation of what Christians actually believe, hasn't helped.

The Straczynski issues were strong all on their own, and I like Kieron Gillen on the whole, but I'm starting to think the only thing that kept me interested in Thor this long was its relevance to Siege. I was 90% ready to drop it until I started seeing bits and pieces from the upcoming Fraction/Ferry run. Between redeeming the X-books and being consistently awesome on Invincible Iron Man for a couple years now, Matt Fraction's got a lot of cred with me right now, and while I'd rather see Pasqual Ferry sticking with the Ender comics, the preview pages from #615 are nudging me toward, maybe not "excited", but at least "anxious". We'll see.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Brand New Day

"Although some people seem to recall that Spidey unmasked himself during Civil War, no one quite remembers whose face was under the mask."

- Spider-Man: The New Status Quo, ASM #546


Like I said last week, I remain open to the possibility that the final issue of One Moment in Time, apparently coming out next week (when exactly did three-times-a-month go out the window?), will actually answer all my lingering BND continuity questions successfully enough that I can put them behind me, I want to take what time we have remaining to wallow in all the golden oldies one last time. I can buy that all the physical evidence of Peter's unmasking could be erased, or obscured, or whatever, and I can buy that people could be made to forget that particular event. But the mental gymnastics required to make certain key individuals forget the entire escapade are such that I simply can't imagine how they'd work out without the persons involved going insane.

Though I'd love to see some actual dramatic weight given to Jonah realizing that he once knew Spider-Man's identity, and now can't seem to remember it, and the ensuing consternation, his mental state is actually pretty easy to work out compared to some of the others'. Just off the top of my head: Does Aunt May remember getting shot? If so, why does she think it happened? If not, is there a scar? Or lasting damage? We know now that Back in Black did still happen almost entirely as we knew it, and someone May's age would have to be experiencing some kind of aftershocks from that much trauma. But moving on: where does she remember living during the Civil War? Does she remember dating Jarvis? Does Jarvis remember dating May, or that she even exists? In one issue of Invincible Iron Man (prior to Stark Disassembled, I should add), Tony actually tried to offer Spidey a job - not remembering who he is is one thing, but how could his memories of the war have been intact at all, absent that information? At least one MVP clone is ostensibly still running around (I think) in the Iron Spider suit - where does Tony think that came from? How come when Peter unmasks for the FF, they seem to remember everything, but when he unmasks for the New Avengers, it's like they're finding out for the first time (though it did make for a spectacular Jessica Jones moment)? Could Mephisto really be bothered to scrub out all this in excruciating detail, in a way that wouldn't leave these people insane?

*achem*

Well. You get the idea. I realize now how the Lost finale haters must have felt.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Superman #702

Having established my love for J. Michael Straczynski in the wake of his Amazing run - the fallout might be a better word - it follows that if anyone could drag me kicking and screaming into a Superman story, it'd be him. The whole Wonder Woman debacle hasn't really enticed me, but I'm very interested in Grounded as a Superman premise. Using the character in big, flashy cosmic scenarios never really does anything for me - he works best against the backdrop of regular people.

There's very little about him as a concept that's original or compelling, but as a device through which humanity as a whole, or even other heroes within the DCU, can be examined, he can extract a lot of very interesting material, and I respect anyone who chooses to go that route with him rather than the more traditional fare. It's unfortunate, though, that it takes someone of JMS' clout to get away with a story like Grounded - to say nothing of giving Wonder Woman pants. I may not be in the majority, but I think down-to-Earth Superman stories should be the rule, not the exception.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

One More Day

As the hardcore-est of hardcore fans of JMS' run on Amazing Spider-Man, I can go on and on about how much One More Day pissed me off until the end of time. I've tried to keep up with the title since then, and even though I have to admit much of it has been pretty good, OMD hangs like a thick fog over everything that's been going on - the more closely one looks, the less it all holds together. Maybe it's not so much like a fog as it's like...something that doesn't make any sense and hurts my soul.

Anyway, I've managed to not get into it here until now, but now that the series is finally going back to attempt a little spackle over the now two-year-old cracks (potholes, really), all the rage has come flooding back. As much as the marriage aspect bothers me, all my most serious questions have revolved around the manner in which his unmasking was forgotten, so I'm willing to delay final judgment on the ordeal until this week's (I think it's this week - Marvel's catalog doesn't care to comment) #641 at last explains how it happened. I'm very amenable to retconning when done well, and it's still conceivable that they'll thread the needle and come up with something that I buy - but even if so, there's no excuse for letting it hang this long.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Unfortunate Mutant Power Manifestations - Part V of V

End of UMPM series blah blah blah very proud blah blah hope you enjoyed blah blah blah. But on to more important business...

To everyone who stumbled upon my cozy li'l webstrip in the last day or two - welcome, and please tip your server! I sensed something was up today, but I didn't realize just how crazy it had gotten until I dug through my stats a little bit and realized that Edgar Wright* himself had come across Tuesday's strip and tweeted it. Tweeted, right? Twatted? Twote? If anyone wants to share how they came upon the site this week, I'd love to hear it - leave a comment below and let me know you're out there. I hope you're not all expecting me to deal extensively with indie books now, because mostly I just use this place to bitch about the X-Men.

*OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU HAVE MY BABIES YES I KNOW YOU'RE A MAN BUT SO AM I AND SOMEONE HAS TO PUT IN THE TIME AND FRANKLY I JUST DON'T THINK MY CONSTITUTION IS UP TO THE TASK OH AND SHAUN OF THE DEAD IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Scott Pilgrim Apprehended

As much as I'd love for Scott Pilgrim to have made a bajillion dollars this weekend, I have to say I'm neither surprised or terribly bothered that it didn't. Even as a fan of the books who's been wetting his pants with excitement for a good year now, the commercials really did feel like they were struggling to get the idea across, and I personally know a few people, even in the target demo, who never really got a handle on it - yesterday I mentioned to a 22-year old, male geek friend that I was "seeing Scott Pilgrim tomorrow", and his reply was "who's that?".

Bottom line: I went tonight, I loved it, and everybody's careers will move along just fine. It's not like they're gonna kick Edgar Wright off Ant-Man or cancel O'Malley's next book because the Box Office was disappointing. If anything, the movie might become a big cult hit on DVD. I'm sure I'll be pestering friends into seeing it for years to come.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Shadowland #2

So this issue went a long way toward ameliorating my feelings about #1. Luke is still being a little obtuse, but hearing Danny say all the things I've been thinking - it was Bullseye, he provoked him, most heroes have taken a life or two, it was Bullseye - made me feel less like this story is happening in a vacuum. But then he goes all "GET THEM!!" at the end, which is ridiculous from a purely pragmatic standpoint at the very least, and I'm back not knowing what to think.

There's certainly some kind of mental influence at work, but how Diggle handles it will be very important so as not to throw away all the character development Matt Murdock's gone through in the last several years. Especially if the story results in his death or retirement, given the hints of a different Daredevil altogether coming soon.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Secret Avengers #3

It's Brubaker, it's Deodato, it's Beast and Black Widow and Irredeemable Ant-Man - but I'm just not feeling it. Becoming weary of Bendis is one thing, but if I can't even maintain an interest in Secret Avengers, clearly I'm just all avenged out for the moment. Maybe I'll be more into the second arc, because a lot of my ambivalence seems to revolve around the fact that this is the last team I want to see dicking around on Mars.

I don't know much about Moon Knight, but the idea that he's featuring in this at the same time as the big down-n-dirty, "street-level" grit-fest that is Shadowland just seems ridiculous. I guess it makes sense for Nova, but again - who the hell is Nova and why should I care? Shouldn't he be off fighting Thanos with Rocket Raccoon, or whatever Abnett and Lanning are up to these days? I appreciate that Marvel's had this whole little space thing going on the side for the last few years, but I think that stuff works better the less it has to do with people like Captain America and Nick Fury and Black Widow. Let the space people deal with space and keep the Earthbound characters out of it. That was my rule for Ninja Turtles as a kid and X-Men as a teenager, and it's never steered me wrong.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Unfortunate Mutant Power Manifestations - Part II of V

Still don't really have internet access, but things are starting to resemble order again - enough so that I actually got today's strip done a couple hours early.

I think the UMPM series pretty much speaks for itself, so instead, a brief comment on the latest Avengers books - for Christ's sake, get Spider-Man and Wolverine the fuck off of these teams. I told myself it made sense for several years, when there was always some major thing going on like the SHRA or the Skrull Invasion, but for either character to be hanging out at Avengers HQ - let alone two of them simultaneously! - waiting for Kang the Conqueror or Dormammu or whomever to show up is completely ridiculous. Brand New Day is actually becoming the more tolerable context for Spider-Man in 616, and I can't have that.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Invisible Mansion

Two things:

1) I moved over the weekend, and between the time commitment and the lack of steady internet access, I didn't have a lot of stripping opportunities. Ah, strip-creating opportunities, that is.

2) C'mon - Invisible Mansion? That's funny shit.

UMPM Part II on Thursday - that's a promise.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Unfortunate Mutant Power Manifestations - Part I of V

In honor of Second Coming and the five new mutants - the "Five Lights" - whom we'll soon be meeting, this officially begins my first regular series of strips revolving around one topic. I still want to leave room to talk about other stuff as it comes up, so UMPM will be running every Thursday, while Tuesdays will remain devoted to...whatever else strikes me.

As a postscript to Second Coming and my earlier comments on it, I'm happy to say that I'm sufficiently impressed with Matt Fraction's work (which I'm choosing to credit almost completely with the success of Second Coming) and the new Heroic Age status quo that I'm going to start following Uncanny X-Men regularly again - for the first time in around 120 issues. They've made so much hay about this vampire business that I hadn't even realized there might be something else coming that keeps the Hope plot moving. My optimism is still of the cautious variety, and I may change my mind before too long, but for now I can't wait to see what's next.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Shadowland #1

So yeah, I guess we can forget what I said last month about Daredevil not wanting to kill people.

I'm not sure what to make of Shadowland yet. I've been reading DD since the Bendis run, and yeah, on the one hand this seems like a natural climax to the last several years of the series the same way Siege was a natural climax to the last several years of Avengers stories. But again, there's still a weird gulf between DD in last month's #507 and DD in Shadowland. I have trouble buying that he's suddenly that much further down the dark path than he was in Japan. There's a chance, of course, that he's being influenced by some magical Hand whatever now, but that would be way too easy...and kind of a cop-out from having to deal with the more realistic...let's say, grittening of the character that's been going on for a while. Like Tony Stark losing his memories of the entire SHRA period.

And speaking of the dark path, now that Elektra is getting involved in the story, the huge freaking deal that's going to be made over Bullseye's murder just makes that much less sense - she's killed dozens and dozens of people, but that's okay because gosh darn it, she tries to do good, but DD kills freaking Bullseye, after being directly provoked, and he simply must be stopped? And that firm moral judgment is being made by the guys who put Wolverine on multiple Avengers teams at the same time?

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Why I Don't Read DC #1

If you've read at least a handful of my strips by now, you've probably noticed I almost never touch on DC stuff. I find Batman and Green Arrow fundamentally interesting characters, and I try to keep up with them somewhat, but the universe as a whole turns me off almost entirely.

Luckily I have Mike - the aforementioned roommate - to keep me apprised of the important goings-on, whether I want to be or not. Needless to say, most of our conversations are of the "you'll never guess what they're doing now" variety. So much so that I'm pre-emptively calling this strip #1 of what will become the "Why I Don't Read DC" series, because that's how certain I am that there will be more of this.

Fair use notwithstanding, I suppose I should credit Shawn Davis and Jamie Grant, whose decent art from Green Lantern #55 I used in lieu of my own for the first panel. It's very important to me that, simplistic as the "drawing" style may be, the strips don't come across as lazy - but I meant it when I said that I just couldn't make that funnier. I guess that could be seen as a compliment.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Star Wars: Legacy #49

Anyone who knows me would tell you how surprising it is that I managed to make it this long without doing a strip about a Star Wars comic. SW is an even bigger obsession for me than the Marvel U, and I read pretty much everything that comes out. There's been an enormous controversy recently over Legacy being cancelled as of issue #50, and while I've said my piece (and more) on the matter in other areas, I really wanted to do something with the series while I still could. Luckily, there's no shortage of weird in it to wring some funny out of. If you don't read the series, now would be a good time to start looking at the trades, but be warned - this isn't as far from the truth as you'd like to think.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Google Earth

First in-strip F-word! Yay!!

I have a long and storied history with internet mapping. A long, long time ago, MapQuest, who was pretty much the only game in town at the time, became the first site to give you the option of seeing satellite views of something. I've always been a huge nerd for aerial photography, so I thought this was pretty much the greatest thing ever, and I immediately went about assembling a ginormous patchwork-quilt poster of Manhattan from dozens of MapQuest's tiny little photo bits (the entire view at this point was maybe a 300px-wide square). Said poster come out to around 3' by 5', and is hanging on the wall behind me as I type this.

Fast-forward several years; Google Maps made it much fancier and more useful, but satellite photography was still pretty much it. Enter Street View. The day I discovered that quickly became a maelstrom of nostalgia as I first zoomed around to famous places I'd visited, then the homes of family members, and finally all my old apartments going back to college - I even looked up the alley where I got mugged once.

And it was on there!

So surely Street View was as good as it could get, right? I flirted briefly with Google Earth when it was first released as its own application, but in those days it wasn't nearly fleshed out enough to really get its point across. Recently, though, they've integrated it with Google Maps, which has triggered yet another wave of obsessive zooming - except this time I'm literally flying over and around three-dimensional buildings!!

As far as things have come in ten years or so, Google Earth still feels like it's only just getting started. Huge swaths of Pittsburgh, for example, have barely been touched by the modelers, and even my own not-inconsiderable internet speeds can take a bit to really give you a fully-realized major metropolitan area.

But imagine what we'll be able to do with this in another ten years?

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The Big Bang Theory

Totally true story.

For a while, I was able to safely ignore The Big Bang Theory. I was aware of it, but it kept enough distance from my Venn Diagram that I didn't really have an opinion of it. After a while, I heard that Sara Gilbert had a recurring role as Johnny Galecki's love interest, and having grown up on Roseanne and the fantastic Darlene/David storyline, I had to give it a shot, at least for novelty's sake.

After suffering through the entirety of Sara Gilbert's first episode, the sullying of Darlene/David's good name was maybe in the top five things that annoyed me about it. My impression of the show is that it's essentially a geek minstrel show - the mainstream public having a laugh at what they think are the ways of a certain group of people, without really knowing anything about them, and said group largely allowing it, if not eating it up themselves.

Nevertheless, I was still able to basically ignore it for a while, though signs of its increasing success were and are prevalent. But alas, in the last couple months, my roommate has finally taken to it, and thanks to seemingly the entire fucking series being scattered throughout YouTube in 3-10 minute chunks, I've been enduring daily barrages of it from the other side of my wall. To paraphrase my favorite movie (featuring Sara Gilbert, I might add), I didn't like the show before, but I fucking hate it now.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Incredible Hulk #610

Skaar's a good kid, really. He just wants to be loved.

It's to my eternal shame that I haven't done an Amadeus Cho strip yet - Incredible Hercules had one of my favorite running plotlines over the last couple years, and Cho is easily my favorite new Marvel hero since the Runaways. I tried to follow Pak and/or Van Lente (are they different people?) over to Incredible Hulk when that started back up, and I was very interested in the idea of Banner training Skaar to take out the Hulk when he came back, but once Betty and MODOK and Red Hulk and Leader and all that nonsense started getting involved, I just couldn't take it anymore. The last thing I remember is all the other heroes Hulking out, and luckily, I don't seem to have missed much between there and here. Hopefully we can get back to the good stuff now that the ol' green meanie is back.

Oh, and if I don't get a comprehensive and thoroughly believable explanation for why Thunderbolt Ross' mustache disappears when he transforms, I will be mailing Marvel an animal corpse of some kind.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Age of Heroes #2

My roommate was a big fan of the original Young Avengers series, and was categorically opposed to their Dark Reign mini because it largely ignored them in favor of a new set of Young Avengers - now called, apparently, the Young Masters. I had no such compunctions, and I actually found some of the newbies pretty interesting, especially the superhero-as-modern-artist Coat of Arms.

Even if it doesn't seem to be leading into any new story in particular, I was glad for the two pages they got in Heroic Age: Age of Heroes: Heroes of the Heroic Age Heroically Aging #2: Age Harder. It suggests that Marvel's not done with the group just yet, and it's a nice refresher for those of us who didn't pay a huge amount of attention to them initially - I for one had forgotten all about this whole "Invisible Mansion" business.

I love that there's both an Infinite Mansion and an Invisible Mansion operating in this universe at the same time. They should get their own team-up book.

Monday, June 21, 2010

X-Men: Second Coming

Okay, maybe I'm not about to quit it cold turkey, but this whole impending X-Men vampire thing is severely underwhelming in light of Second Coming being hands-down the most well-executed, exciting, engrossing major crossover I've read in maybe ever.

Even as someone who's been largely cool with the handling of the Avengers' whole Disassembled-Civil War-Siege story arc, I'm really starting to wish they'd do more crossovers in the format of Second Coming. The Marvel solicits for September came out the other day, and there are like forty-six different Shadowland tie-ins, some featuring - not involving, featuring - characters I'm barely even aware of. I've been reading Daredevil forever and I'm excited to see how far they're going to go, but how much tighter would it be if it bounced around between DD, ASM, and Thunderbolts for a few months instead of being one major miniseries and a crapload of tangential stuff?

Back in the 90s, they would start and finish something like Age of Apocalypse or Onslaught with a big, crazy one-shot, but the story itself had a distinct place in the arcs of the ongoing series; I don't know why they don't do that anymore. Obviously there's more money to be made in doing a major storyline entirely in several limited titles, and I can't exactly say I'm surprised that they'd go that route...so maybe what should really surprise me is the fact that Second Coming isn't being done that way. Which just makes me appreciate it all the more.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Astonishing X-Men - Xenogenesis #2

...you know, I think this one speaks for itself. Amusing behind-the-scenes note: while contemplating ways to make Emma Frost visually distinct beyond just her blonde hair, I briefly considered the logistics of giving a stick figure giant breasts. Needless to say, I decided against it.

Also needless to say, this whole "Ghost Box radiation" thing would be a lot more interesting if I could remember the ending of the original Ghost Box story. Did it end? The last I remember, they were going to see Forge. Maybe I missed an issue, but it's hard to tell when it comes out as intermittently as Astonishing.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Daredevil #507

On pain of making a second reference to Power Rangers - isn't this whole thing where Hand ninja disappear when you kill them just an edgier version of those generic bad guys that you kick in the chest and they vanish? In both cases, it's really just a sanitized, feel-good way of killing an enemy. Daredevil, or the Power Rangers, don't seem to be murdering people, because there are no messy corpses lying around (though there are bound to be some leftovers), but the truth is that the heroes are violently ending these beings' existence.

Granted, they do make a show of DD trying not to kill any Hand when he can help it, but that compunction is quickly tossed aside when things get rough. If DD threw a hunk of ice at a Hell's Kitchen mugger's forehead and impaled him, it'd be a huge freakin' deal - Spidey and Luke Cage would be hunting him down that night. But magical exploding ninjas? Whatever.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Tuna Fish

It happens, folks - freakish confluence of many real-world responsibilities and not many interesting new comics this past week. Avengers Academy is out this week, so you can probably look forward to something at Reptil's expense next time.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Invincible #72

From what I understand, readers of Invincible have been positively clamoring for the return of his yellow costume. I mean, if you looked up "clamoring" in the dictionary you'd see a picture of an Invincible reader with an angry sign. Me, I haven't minded.

But what I wonder, now that the yellow is back, is whether Kirkman really intended to do it all along, or if he caved to fan pressure. The latter would be perfectly understandable, especially with something as trivial as a costume design, but it would make the scene with Art in Invincible Returns look kind of disingenuous, wouldn't it? Mark going on about how angry and violent he's become, just as an in-universe excuse for the design switch, rather than as an indication of where the character is actually headed? That was only two months ago, and things certainly don't seem poised to become any less violent anytime soon.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Thunderbolts #144

Okay, so maybe I went for the easy laugh, but people are way too cavalier about this whole jumping-out-of-the-plane business. We're constantly hearing about missiles from US craft that miss their targets even with trained operators, guidance systems, and so on, but any supe who can theoretically withstand the strain of jumping out of a plane seems to also come with the magical ability to hit his exact target every time.

And even if I felt generous enough to grant Luke Cage the impeccable aim - he flings his little duffel bag out by itself rather than just holding onto it for five seconds! Okay, he's got those armband things or whatever, but how does the bag get through the shield? And how does Ghost's helmet not end up in a billion pieces, and/or embedded in some con's skull?

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Movin' On Up

It's true, boys and girls! After toiling in obscurity for almost 9 weeks, Half-Assed Commitment is now located at www.half-assed.com, which I cannot believe I got. Even the comic itself doesn't know what to make of it. Yes, it's a brave new world for HAC and its readers, and I'm sure both of you are very excited.

Back to our regularly scheduled Half-Assery in two days!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Avengers #1

After getting more and more sucked in to all the Avengers business going on over the last several years, I made a resolution to keep buying only one post-Siege Avengers book. I'd assumed the main title would be it, but after reading the first issue, it's just...not doing much for me. I love Bendis, and I love Romita - though someone made the very fair point that they might not play to each other's strengths ideally - but this doesn't seem like a tentpost Avengers story.

I think a lot of it is just that Kang is an incredibly fucking stupid character. I was only vaguely familiar with him before now, mostly through his connection to Young Avengers, but everything about his vibe in this issue screams "antique" - his design, his attitude, his motives. "Time terrorist" is a concept that might make for a really awesome Mark Millar Ultimates reimagining, but here in 616 they're shackled to a cheesy relic of the 60s (or 70s, or whenever) that I just can't take seriously.

Secret Avengers and Thunderbolts start this week, and I'm already leaning towards one of them being my main Avangers series, but I think Bendis has earned at least another issue or two.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Aftermath

Not trying to make any statements here, obviously - I was just thinking about how much of a cliché the whole "heroes rebuild the battle site" scene is, yet to the best of my knowledge, 9/11 was the only time it's been done at the site of an actual disaster.

It's easier for DC to ignore huge real-life events, because their Earth has so much of a fantastical element to it, but Marvel's whole thing is that it's supposed to be the real world - they certainly made a huge deal out of sticking Obama in ASM last year. Tthough I do recall Thor briefly exploring Katrina, Marvel seems more interested in its own mythology than it needs to be, when there's so much going on in the real world that they could pull their inspiration from. In doing so, they would set themselves even further apart from typical superhero comics.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Today is regarded in various circles as Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. This is in response to a South Park-fueled controversy from a month or so back. More details, if you require them, can be found here.

Detractors of this notion have been saying that it will only encourage Islamophobia, and has no artistic or political merit. If the posts and images on the Facebook group that's unofficially spearheading the movement (which I am deliberately not linking to) are any indication, the former is disgustingly true. The latter, however, I respectfully disagree with.

First of all, the usual Free Speech argument applies - nobody wants to suppress what people say when it's resonable and popular. The First Amendment exists almost exclusively to protect assholes. If American citizens can make pissy and threatening statements about Trey Parker and Matt Stone and be protected, then to try to stop non-Muslims from offending the most archaic of Muslim sensibilities is absurd - it's like being opposed to Everybody Don't Behead Your Errant Wife Day.

What's more interesting to me, though, is the way things like this probe the semantics of what is fundamentally a silly and ill-thought-out rule. South Park did a great job of this - everybody talks about the bear suit, but when you actually watch the episode, you realize that at no point do they actually show Mohammed at all. He was never in the bear suit, and when he is present within the narrative, he's censored. So South Park managed to offend people and earn severe censoring not by breaking the no-depictions rule, but merely by addressing it. By poking it with a stick to see what would happen.

That's kind of what I was going for in my own version - if the object of the image is only potentially Mohammed, is it still sinful? Is it only sinful if the depiction looks like Mohammed, or can a mere stick figure cross the line? Is it worse because I put a turban on him? What if I drew a plain stick figure on a piece of paper, decided to myself, "that's Mohammed", then left it on a bus? Would a Muslim who came upon the paper later on know to be offended?

I'm not interested in offending Muslims - if some of them want to believe that this strip is sinful, I don't mind. I'm just curious about the fine print.

Back to comics next week, I promise.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Siege #4

You know, you never expect to have to draw something like a zombie Captain America attacking the President, but when you find yourself doing it, it just seems so right.

I love the way Siege ended, but isn't everybody being just a little cavalier about putting a guy in charge who's just shown up after being dead for a year? The other heroes trusting him is one thing - half of them have been there - but the government has no problem investing this much authority in a guy just because Bucky Barnes tells them he's the real Steve Rogers? And doing it within 24 hours, no less? The US government can't flush a toilet in 24 hours.

One thing that I am a little unclear on is Loki's sudden change of heart. Last I checked he'd wanted all this to happen, even as far along as the crashing of the city. What I'm assuming happened is that he wanted the fight to be serious enough that the Asgardians would leave Earth, but he never thought they might actually lose until the Void showed up - and that was a step too far. It's a likely scenario, I guess, but they could've made it a little clearer in lieu of all the "mischief" blather.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine #1

This is Interrupted-Narration Week, apparently.

While I would never suggest that Jason Aaron plus Adam Kubert doesn't equal "yes please", I almost didn't check this one out - Spidey/Wolverine team-ups work best on a once-in-a-blue-moon basis, and sticking them both in the New Avengers was bad enough. But a whole new ongoing, just for them? Oy. Luckily I was a little hard up for material this week, and I decided to check it out purely for the sake of strip mining. (rim shot) And sure enough, as much as this thing has "Doesn't Need to Exist" written all over it, everything else that's written all over it is really freakin' cool. Though it is funny to see another "heroes in the stone age" story just as The Return of Bruce Wayne is kicking off. Especially after the easy comparison between Batman's stuck-in-time story and Captain America's.

Which reminds me - my first DC reference! Only took 6 weeks!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

New Ultimates 2

So Jeph Loeb is kind of ruining the Ultimate universe for me.

That's a bit of an overstatement, of course, in that I'll still eagerly devour any Ultimate book with "Bendis" or "Millar" on the cover, but after sticking it out through the entirety of the line, I've finally come to the point where I can't come up with a justification for buying an Ultimate title - that goes for Ultimate X, too.

I started to suspect this in Ultimates 3, I was made certain by Ultimatum, and now, I'm convinced the problem is here to say - Loeb just does not understand how this universe works. It's like the Ultimate line is a joke that he wants desperately to be in on, but he just doesn't get it, so he just gets the best artists he can find and tries to fake the writing by making all the characters vulgar, horny assholes. But unlike the vulgar, horny assholes written by Bendis and Millar, they're hollow; all the style and no substance. New Ultimates is Poochie to Ultimates' Itchy & Scratchy.

Oh, and he's obsessed with narration.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

New Avengers #64

Bendis, I love ya, but...four pages of "Whitney!" "Bobbi!" "Whitney!" "Bobbi!"...a little much. Oh, and - intentional, or hilarious coincidence?

This strip marks HAC's entry into the double digits, and perhaps slightly more important-sounding, its one-month anniversary! Yay! Here's to many more...months! I guess.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Amazing Spider-Man #629

So this ASM story is the first time I've read Captain Universe, or the Enigma Force, or the Uni-Power, or what the fuck ever, first-hand. And while I like anything that deals with Juggernaut's good side, between him and the whiny Asian guy, it seems like the Enigma Force could stand to make some better decisions.

This issue also bugged me because, while it's awesome to see a call-back to that great Spidey/Juggernaut story from way back when, Juggs says it took him a month to dig out of the concrete, and by sheer coincidence I just read an old issue of X-Men about a week ago where he tells Xavier it was six months. That's the torture of being a continuity nut - you live for the moments when a new story happens to tie into an old favorite, but the more it happens, the easier it is to get something wrong.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #9

I'm absolutely wild about this whole superhero-boarding-home concept Bendis is working with in the new volume of USM. It may be in opposition to his usual philosophy of treating secret identities in a realistic fashion, but it's adhering wonderfully to a much more important philosophy - the Ultimate line isn't your daddy's Marvel Universe.

I forget what number the first volume ended with, but for Bendis to be, I dunno, somewhere in the area of 130 issues into USM, and still coming up with situations that are nothing like what we've seen from Spider-Man in the past, is nothing short of astounding. In fact, that the premise does strain believability makes it even more interesting. The more hard to believe it is that people wouldn't know Peter is Spider-Man, the more Bendis can't help but drop hints that lots of people do know. Kong figured it out the second he started paying attention, pretty much everyone at SHIELD knows, I'm fairly certain that the school principal knows, and it's almost universally understood that at the very least, Spider-Man lives in that neighborhood and goes to/works at that school. It's very refreshing after the shitty way they handled his unmasking in 616, and I hope it keeps up.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Dark Wolverine #85

I know what I said last week about giving up on the X-titles, but the Romulus/Daken arc that Daniel Way's been running for the last few years, primarily in Wolverine Origins, is another sideline that I've been enjoying - enough to keep up with it, at least. While it's had its slow moments, and its redundancies, Way earned a lot of credit from me with his two awesome Bullseye miniseries a while back, and I've got to give it to him for keeping a storyline this long coherent and interesting.

No matter how well he's written, though, Wolverine the character grates on me after a while, and between this and his role in New Avengers, I'm glad that Origins is close to wrapping up. Maybe then I'll start buying Way's Deadpool again.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

New Mutants #12

Like a lot of people, the X-titles were what first got me into reading comics. I finally gave up on them after Grant Morrison lost his mind, and Chuck Austen...well, was allowed to touch them at all. I try to keep an eye on them, though, and Cable and Hope's adventures in the future over the last year or two were the first extended X-storyline in several years that I liked enough to really keep up with.

The downside to enjoying that arc, of course, is that now I feel compelled to read Second Coming, which brings Hope back into the main X-universe (I enjoy adding "X" to words), where things are as ridiculous as ever.

I had a shred of hope that Swierczynski might find an interesting hook to follow post-SC, but apparently #25 is the last issue of the Cable ongoing, so I guess I'll be back to an X-less universe soon enough.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Shield #1

Nightly News and Pax Romana are two of the best comics I've read in the last few years, and while I was very excited to see what Jonathan Hickman would do with the Marvel sandbox at his disposal, he hasn't quite thrilled me yet. Fantastic Four has had its moments, but I have an inherent lack of enthusiasm for the characters - which can hardly be blamed on him, but there it is. Secret Warriors started strong, and still isn't bad, but for some reason, I just can't get into it like I'd expected.

I'm hoping that doesn't happen with Shield, because the first issue was awesome. I was already familiar with the amazing Dustin Weaver thanks to my extensive Star Wars habit, and seeing him tackle so many ancient Earthly landscapes was a treat - though I do miss him on the SW line.

The only thing that seemed weird was the use of Imhotep as the founder of the historical Shield (as opposed to SHIELD) - not that I pretend to know much about actual Egyptian history, but unlike the Renaissance men, the pharaohs have always been portrayed in popular media as dictator assholes. His scene seemed like a one-off, but I'd love to see more light shed on that period in Shield history. Though I can't help but wonder which other historical bad guys I'll be forced to take a second look at.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Joss Whedon's Avengers

So, the day before I put this strip together, it was announced that Joss Whedon, or J-Whed, as I've suddenly decided to call him, was close to locking in as director of the Avengers movie. Being moderately familiar with his style, and his Kevin-Smith-like penchant for using the same stable of actors, I figured it would be fun if he filled the team with his ass-kicking women of yesteryear. Well, the day after I put this strip together, it came out that he's attempting a rewrite of not only Avengers, but the preceding Captain America movie as well. I'm curious how Joe Johnston feels about that.

The real news, of course - only two weeks in, and HAC is already predicting the future! And here I thought developing clairvoyance took at least a couple months.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Marvel Zombies 5 #1

While it's still a shadow of what it was during Kirkman's time, Marvel Zombies seems to be recovering from the mostly forgettable Volumes 3 and 4 and focusing on all the really good stuff. As much as I loved Nextwave's take on Machine Man, MZ 3 went above and beyond when they incorporated that depiction into 616 in a way that actually made sense, and was compelling emotionally instead of being just pure zaniness. I'm excited to see where he goes from here.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Amazing Spider-Man #627

This may only be the second strip, but I think it's going to be a while before I beat this one in terms of obscure references. If you were reading Marvel back in the early '90s, you might well remember the first big tease of the Onslaught event. If not, I think this cover speaks for itself.

Onslaught is interesting to look back on after the last several years of events - instead of one big miniseries telling the real story and the ongoings serving as backup, it involved only a couple huge one-shots to set up and conclude the story, and the whole rest of it carried across the relevant ongoing series. And it went on like that all summer.

The X-titles are still doing almost the same thing with their Messiah Complex and Second Coming events, so obviously this sort of structure hasn't been entirely forgotten; I wonder why the big Marvel events (and DC events, from what I've seen) never get done that way anymore.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Siege #2-3

One of my favorite running jokes during the Bendis Avengers era has revolved around Sentry throwing things into the sun (best one: a door to the Infinite Avengers Mansion), while being annoyed at people thinking that's all he does. Well, after killing Ares, it's safe to say that he has a new thing to be known for - but where does he go from there?