PS238 #38

The kids from PS238 are competing against the kids from the wildly evil Praetorian Academy in a soccer match. So the Wonderburg sports complex has installed forcefields to protect the crowd from high-velocity soccer balls and soundwave cancellation systems to cut down on the sonic booms. The Praetorians jump to an early lead, thanks to the former Captain Clarinet and to the Praetorians’ willingness to cheat. But Tyler Marlocke, the Flea, and Cecil Holmes have discovered an invisible ship observing the game, and they sneak aboard to investigate. But can they escape the clutches of the Headmaster and keep a dimensional rift from eating the soccer field?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great work with the plot advancing along with the soccer game, which is a lot of fun all on its own. Bernard Brenner, PS238’s pint-sized Hulk analogue, has a lot of fun cheering on his team. And Cecil is, as always, great to read — he’s really developing into one of this series’ best characters. If you’re not reading this comic, you should start reading it as quickly as you can.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #9

This issue focuses on the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange, along with his assistant, Jason Wong, and his teacher, the Ancient One. Strange and Wong are enjoying an afternoon at the Guggenheim Museum when they’re suddenly attacked by a spell-slinging squirrel. A squirrel? Turns out its actually Dormammu, Ruler of the Dark Dimension, temporarily forced to assume the form of a lowly rodent. When he finally claims his full power, he has some odd ways of going about conquering the world. He turns all the vehicles in the world into red convertibles, except for the ones parked close to a mailbox. And he eats a hot dog. What’s going on? Turns out the last time the Ancient One defeated Dormammu, he got him to sign a binding contract forcing him to follow all kinds of silly rules. Can Dr. Strange, Wong, the Ancient One, and Daredevil’s pal Foggy Nelson find the right loophole to banish Dormammu again?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is pretty amazingly silly stuff. So of course, I approve wholeheartedly.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let us gather together and gaze in wonder at the Dumbest Thing Ever:

In some universe, the name “Syfy” is less geeky than the name “Sci Fi.” Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel, is betting it’s this one.

To that end, the 16-year-old network — owned by NBC Universal — plans to announce that Syfy is its new name March 16 at its upfront presentation to advertisers in New York.

“What we love about this is we hopefully get the best of both worlds,” Mr. Howe said. “We’ll get the heritage and the track record of success, and we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.”

…

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.

Mr. Brooks said that when people who say they don’t like science fiction enjoy a film like “Star Wars,” they don’t think it’s science fiction; they think it’s a good movie.

“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi,” Mr. Brooks said. “It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”

Wow.

Consider me gobsmacked.

Well, the unwritten story in this article is that NBC’s lawyers probably realized there was no way to trademark “Sci Fi” — but they could trademark a goofy spelling like “Syfy.” So there actually is a legitimate business reason for the change.

But it’s too bad they didn’t just say that. “Hey, folks, we’re changing the name of our network to something we can trademark.” They might get a little razzing about it, but not all that much.

Instead, what they went with was just pointlessly insulting: “Yeah, we’re going to take our core audience, the science fiction, fantasy, and horror geeks, and just tell ’em to take a flying leap. We’re gonna try to get an all-new core audience, one that’s cool and hip and young and sexxxay, if we can convince them to watch old ‘Star Trek’ reruns, wrestling, horror-themed reality shows, and painfully bad movies like ‘Mansquito’ and ‘SS Doomtrooper.’ ”

So five points for having a legitimate reason to change your name, but several thousand points off for telling your friends in the D&D Club that you’re deserting them to try to con a spot at the jocks’ table in the cafeteria.

The Sci Fi Channel has been a pretty sad joke for a while — a few huge successes like “Battlestar Galactica” and “Farscape” balanced against management so cheap they’d broadcast reruns of “Law and Order: SVU” — but I never really imagined they’d end up going hostile on the audiences who supported them over the years. I don’t know if the Secret Masters of Fandom have enough power or a long enough attention span to convince the world’s geeks to boycott the network, but I wouldn’t shed no tears if they did.

Anyway, what’s the over-under for when “Syfy” switches over to an “All Wrestling, All the Time” format? I’m betting on 18 months or less…

Hey, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Hope you remembered to wear green today, or you’re gonna get a pinch. I reckon some folks, however, are pretty reliably safe from pinches no matter what…

Green Lantern and Green Arrow

The Green Goblin

The Green Lama

The Green Hornet

The Hulk

She-Hulk

The Martian Manhunter

Beast Boy

Jade

Brainiac

Brainiac-5

The Spectre

Poison Ivy

The Enchantress

Ambush Bug

Swamp Thing

Man-Thing

The Savage Dragon

Fin Fang Foom

Banshee, ’cause the Irish lads are assumed to be Irish enough to avoid pinches

As for me, I very rarely wear green on St. Paddy’s Day. Partly to buck tradition, and partly because — Hey, ladies! Free pinch!

For no reason other than I’m feelin’ down in the dumps and don’t want to do any serious writing, Hero Sandwich now presents: The Hulk makes rude and insulting comments about the intelligence of fish.

(Image courtesy of Timeshredder, who is Canadian and looks like Lex Luthor)

Let’s make it short and sweet: If it’s Friday, and it’s night(ish), and I’m posting a panel with a fight in it, it must be time for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle comes from November 1993’s Blood Syndicate #8 by Ivan Velez, Jr., ChrisCross, and Shepherd Hendrix, as Fade backhands Boogieman.

Ya know, the Syndicate are the only major Milestone Media characters who haven’t yet been revived by DC. Here’s hoping that changes soon, ’cause they were always my faves of all the Milestone crew.

The Age of the Sentry #6

This is a near picture-perfect send-up of the old “imaginary stories” in the Silver Age “Superman” comics — from the Sentry getting his secret identity revealed to the team-up of his greatest enemies to guest appearances from almost everyone imaginable to a couple of deaths and resurrections to an unusual amount of head-trippy weirdness that may or may not be in continuity. The entire story is so wild and weird, I’m not sure any actual discussion of the plot would make a lick of sense — which isn’t a bad thing in this case, it just means you’ve really got to get on board and enjoy the ride in person, instead of having me describe it to you.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Grand, whacked-out fun. Not sure if this is the last issue or if it’s going to continue — I hope it keeps going for a while, because Jeff Parker is really bringing the awesome home with this one.

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #4

There seems to be a Kryptonite-powered cat kidnapping everyone at Supergirl’s school. The only students left are Supergirl, her popular Bizarro clone Belinda Zee, and her best friend, Lena Thorul, who is also Lex Luthor’s little sister. And when Supergirl accidentally reveals her secret identity, both Belinda and Lena hate her. Can they all work together to save their classmates?

Verdict: Another thumbs up. I love the artwork, I love the jokes, I love just about everything about this comic. It’s irritating that it only has another two issues left before the series is over — it’s certainly deserving of being a regular ongoing series.

Even I am sometimes amazed by some of the awful comics they’ll make. Case in point:

That, my friends, is one great big bushel of crazy. And not the good crazy, either.

(You can read about this nightmare-inducing thing in more detail here.)

Time for another entry in our semi-regular series on current and former Lubbockites who’ve worked in comics, cartooning, and animation. We’ve already taken a look at Dirk West and Alex Ross — time to look at someone from the field of animated cartoons: Jim Smith.

Not a name you’re probably real familiar with, right? Born James Carl Jobb in Lubbock in 1954, Jim Smith is an animator and musician. After working for years on a variety of different cartoons, he worked on Ralph Bakshi’s acclaimed “Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures” with his long-time working partner John Kricfalusi — better known to cartoon fans as John K.

Smith later briefly worked on “Tiny Toon Adventures,” and then along with Kricfalusi, Bob Camp, and Lynne Naylor, he founded an animation studio called Spümcø. He also co-created “Ren & Stimpy” and “The Ripping Friends.” Spumco’s brand of subversive, gross-out humor strongly influenced lots of different cartoons, including “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy,” “Cow and Chicken,” “Drawn Together,” and many, many more.

As I’ve already mentioned, Smith is also a musician. In the “Ren and Stimpy” theme at the beginning of the show, Smith is the guy playing the hot licks on the guitar.

As soon as I saw this cover, I knew I’d have to post it, just for frequent commenter Swampy, who I know loves both the Hulk and catastrophically crude flatulence jokes.

Yes indeed, Hulk can’t fight gas, just as he can’t fight his love of convenience store burritos. And Darkhawk Nighthawk looks like he bore the full brunt of that backblast…

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #4

Hellboy and his Irish friend, Alice, follow a faerie while HB tries to figure out what’s gone wrong with him lately. He remembers getting killed pretty decisively a while back and somehow coming back to life. He remembers killing the giants he was pursuing by embracing his demonic nature. But he doesn’t have long to reflect on things — the little goblin has lead them into a trap. Alice is shot with poisonous elfshot. Is there any way to save her?

Meanwhile, the followup story is another tale from Russian folklore, this time about a man captured by Baba Yaga. Can he outwit the evil witch before she eats him for breakfast?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Hellboy story is advancing nicely, with some introspection for Hellboy that we don’t see very often. And I’m really digging these stories from Russian folklore — they’re both funny and scary in the way that only the best fairy tales are. Any time Mike Mignola wants to write a book about folk tales and folklore, I think I’d buy it.

Madame Xanadu #8

Nimue, in her Victorian-era guise as the fortuneteller Madame Xanadu, remains on the trail of Jack the Ripper, but despite her magical alarms, she is no closer to capturing the murderer than the police are. The only person who seems to have a clue is the Phantom Stranger — and his only interest in the matter is to make sure the killings continue! He claims that the murders must go on to save the future, but Nimue only sees an emotionless monster helping to clear the way for a mass murderer.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Matt Wagner’s writing is a joy to read, and Amy Reeder Hadley‘s artwork is some of the most beautiful stuff you’re going to find in a mainstream comic book. Go pick it up.