Hextra Credit

Tiny Titans #17

There’s a lot of stuff happening this issue. First, Raven shows off her new book of magic spells by summoning Mr. Mxyzptlk. The gang then repeatedly steals his hat, calls him an elf, and after he disappears, re-summons him over and over, just to wart him. Later, Beast Boy, Robin, and Cyborg match wits with a cow that has stolen Batman’s cape and cowl — and of course, they actually call it the “Battle for the Cow.” Robin later celebrates his birthday as his friends get him a whole bunch of new costumes, ranging from his Earth-2 uniforms, a couple of Tim Drake’s costumes, a couple different Nightwing uniforms (one with a detachable ponytail) and even the Carrie Kelly Robin costume from “The Dark Knight Returns.” And finally, Cyborg gets excluded from a sidekick picnic because he’s not a sidekick.

Verdict: Yet another thumbs up. I still think this is DC’s most consistently fun all-ages comic. As always, it’s full of cute cartooning, funny plots and dialogue, the goofiest sound effects around, and unexpectedly bizarre moments. It’s a great comic for kids of all ages, and it’s also fun for grownups who enjoy a nice fat dose of silliness.

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Sketching out your Week

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It’s been a while since I plugged any of the Lubbock Sketch Club’s weekly activities, so let’s get that out of the way right now…

Every Saturday evening is Sketch Night. Basically, a bunch of folks show up Saturdays from 7-10 p.m. at the Freebird’s restaurant at 4930 S. Loop 289 with paper and pencils. They draw stuff, critique each other, visit, drink sodas, and generally hang out and enjoy exercising their artistic muscles. Anyone is welcome — just come out, shake some hands, make some sketches, and get to know the folks in the club.

The other regular weekly event is the Figure Drawing Group, which meets every Wednesday from 6:30-9 p.m. at the Lubbock Municipal Garden and Arts Center at 44th Street and University. Ya can’t be an artist without learning how to draw the human body, and that’s what the Figure Drawing Group is there for. Giggly dorks should stay home — there are live models, some weeks clothed, some unclothed, and this is for serious artists who are working to improve their artistic skills. E-mail Robert Garza for more info.

The Lubbock Sketch Club is always looking for new members — get in touch with them today, make some new friends, and learn how to become a better artist.

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Iran So Far Away

I’ve been avoiding opening my big mouth about the recent contested Iranian election — I know so little about the situation over there, and I don’t want to be just another loudmouthed American shouter who thinks he’s an expert just because he’s read some blogs. I know there are a lot of folks out there who think Twittering about the Iranian election is their contribution to Iranian freedom, which honestly strikes me as colossally self-inflating: “I twittered about the election and re-colored my blog green in solidarity! That makes me a freedom-fighter even though I’m in no danger of being shot by Iranian soldiers!” Ya get right down to it, there ain’t a single thing any Americans can do to influence this, no matter how much we might wish we could — it’s ultimately all down to the Iranian people.

Oh, okay, I’ve got two observations about the Iranian election.

  • First, you remember Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate who officially lost the election but probably got it stolen from him, right? Not many people seem to realize that he was actually a member of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s government right after the revolution. So, yeah, almost certainly a better guy than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but no pure driven angel either.
  • Second, sorry to say it, but Ahmadinejad is a hard word to say. You think if we can trick him into saying his name backwards, he’ll disappear into the Fifth Dimension for 90 days?

Okay, seriously, some of y’all may remember last year when I reviewed Marjane Satrapi’s brilliant graphic novel “Persepolis” — Satrapi was in the news just a few days ago after presenting a document she thinks proves the election was fraudulent.

“Ahmadinejad received only 12 percent of the vote, not 65 percent,” said Satrapi, according to Adnkronos. She and Makhmalbaf presented the document, which they claimed came directly from the Iranian electoral commission, to the Green Party MPs in the European parliament.

Satrapi and Makhmalbaf believe that the democratic process in Iran was derailed when election results were ignored and replaced with fraudulent results naming Ahmadinejad as the winner with more than 65 percent of the vote.

Satrapi, who was born in Iran to Marxist parents, discussed her personal and family histories in the country in “Persepolis” and has gone on to compose two more graphic novels “Embroideries” and “Chicken with Plums,” the latter of which she and director Vincent Paronnaud are seeking to adapt into a live-action film.

Also, let me throw in one more plug for “Persepolis” — there’s obviously no info about this most recent election, but Satrapi’s graphic novel is definitely a great way to learn more about the Iranian people and see some of the ways that the last three decades of history have influenced them and their culture. I visited some of the local bookstores this weekend, and they look like they stocked up with a lot of extra copies of “Persepolis” — I reckon they think folks might be interested in an accessible and entertaining introduction to the Iranian people. Go out and pick up a copy today.

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Jurassic Dog Park

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #2

The Pet Avengers — namely, the Inhumans’ teleporting dog Lockjaw, a new version of Frog Thor, the Falcon’s falcon Redwing, Speedball’s cat Hairball, Kitty Pryde’s dragon Lockheed, and Aunt May’s dog Ms. Lion — visit the Savage Land and get a new member: Ka-Zar’s sabretoothed tiger Zabu. They all travel to the distant past to retrieve one of the Infinity Gems — and they tangle with none other than the great Devil Dinosaur to get it. Can they all get the gem, avoid Devil Dinosaur, and return to the present? Or are they going to have to leave some team members behind?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is a great deal of fun, with great characterization. And hey, Devil Dinosaur! Everyone loves Devil Dinosaur!

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #5

This is the first issue of this series without Mike Kunkel running the show — his stuff is wonderful, but he works slow, which makes it hard to keep a monthly series coming out every month. So this time, the art is provided by Byron Vaughns, with script by Art Baltazar and Franco, creators of the “Tiny Titans” and “Patrick the Wolf Boy” series.

After Captain Marvel saves a school bus, Billy Batson finds that his alter ego has gotten a little old-hat — WHIZ-TV needs new footage for their newscasts. Luckily (or unluckily), the imprisoned Dr. Sivana picks that moment to unleash his giant robot, Mr. Atom, on the city. Can Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel shut Mr. Atom down without getting themselves — or the city — blown up in the process?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Baltazar and Franco’s story and script aren’t nearly as complex or wordy as Kunkel’s usually were, but it does make an interesting change. And Vaughns’ artwork is close enough to Kunkel’s usual style to keep everyone happy. So seriously, why hasn’t this comic been turned into a cartoon yet? There’s not much doubt it’d make an awesome cartoon…

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Fiction/Reality

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The Unwritten #2

Tom Taylor is the son of the vanished Wilson Taylor, who wrote the highly popular Tommy Taylor novels, about a boy wizard’s adventures. Usedta be, everyone thought Wilson Taylor just used his son’s name as a laugh — but now, a lot of people think Tom is the real Tommy Taylor. Tom isn’t happy about this — he liked being able to make money on his close relationship to the novels, but having a lot of crazies who think he’s a messiah isn’t a lot of fun. So he sets out to find out if he’s really Wilson Taylor’s son or if he’s the son of Romanian parents who gave him to Wilson Taylor to use as a prop.

But Tom is definitely down the rabbit hole now. He’s being stalked by a hitman who has the ability to reduce anything to liquified words. He questions his father’s ex-mistress, who gives him a short and very unnerving lesson in magic and the nature of truth and the universe. And a trip to his old family home in Switzerland reveals some very unpleasant memories and an unusual tattoo he’s gotten on his hand. Is Tom Taylor being victimized by a powerful conspiracy? Or is he really a grown-up boy wizard from a fictional universe?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is developing into an excellent mystery. Tom, with his funny obsession with literary geography, makes an entertaining sleuth, even if he keeps missing the really interesting clues that happen after he’s done questioning someone. The Harry Potter-esque story that goes on in the background of the story is also a lot of fun. And yes, I’m very glad I’m reading this one — it promises a lot of good stuff down the road.

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The Secrets of Calvinism

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I’ve talked plenty of times before about how much I love Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip, but as much as I love it, there’s not much doubt that Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” was the best strip ever. In its short ten-year run, it set standards for art, creativity, and humor that haven’t yet been matched by anyone — and may never be matched, considering the sorry state of newspaper comic strips nowadays. Watterson’s strip was so popular that he was allowed uncommon leeway in how “Calvin and Hobbes” was displayed on the page, and no strip since then has been able to command that level of popularity. It’s hard to imagine that any strip ever will…

Anyway, just a short post today, mainly to direct your attention to this excellent page covering some of Bill Watterson’s rarest creations — editorial cartoons, T-shirts, cartoons of himself, a few Calvin strips that have never been reprinted, and much more. Go check it out.

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Friday Night Fights: Monkey Mayhem!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the weekend! As always, we prefer to kick things off with a little gratuitous buttstompage in the form of… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight, we get our fisticuffs from August 1999’s The Flash #151 by Joe Casey, Duncan Rouleau, and Aaron Sowd, as Kid Flash gets slapped around by Montague, one of the intelligent apes from Gorilla City:

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And for our musical accompaniment tonight, we’ll head for the bright, shining lights of Broadway!

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The Golden Age of Beating up Nazis

Marvel’s having its 70th birthday, so it seems like all their comics are including references to their characters from World War II…

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #37

It’s 1954, and Miss America and Golden Girl have discovered that Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, and Toro have all gone missing. When the Whizzer (Heh.) disappears before their eyes, they follow him through a time portal to find themselves in the modern day, where the villainous Puppet Master is controlling the Golden Age heroes with plans to send them back to the past to take over the world for him. Wolverine, Spider-Man, and the modern-day Captain America show up to help out, but they’ve got their hands full with just the Whizzer (Heh.) — how are they going to handle it when the Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, and Toro show up?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Dario Brizuela provides a different art style than we’ve usually seen on this comic, but it works out quite well. And Paul Tobin’s dialogue is plenty of fun, especially the way Wolverine keeps making fun of the Whizzer’s name.

Sub-Mariner Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1

We get three different stories about Marvel’s Golden Age bad boy. The first one, written by Roy Thomas his ownself and beautifully illustrated by Mitch Breitweiser, focuses on Namor being tempted to join up with the Germans. The second is a somewhat pulpy story about Namor fighting Nazis with the aid of a female American pilot and a giant squid. But the third is the real prize — Bill Everett’s very first “Sub-Mariner” story from 1939’s Marvel Comics #1, starring a particularly rotten version of Namor killing divers and wrecking a recovery ship.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Three excellent stories — ain’t nothing to complain about.

Miss America Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1

Well, while the character on the cover is blonde, the Miss America in the lead story is very definitely brunette. And she wears glasses. Even in her superhero costume. Definitely makes for a unique look. Most of the action involves Miss America undercover at an American shipyard snooping out some Nazi saboteurs. After that, there are two classic stories starring the Whizzer (Heh.) and a short feature called “Let’s Play Detective.”

Verdict: Thumbs down. I enjoyed the first story alright, but for a character as obscure as Miss America, we should’ve gotten a little background on her — something other than “She’s strong, she flies, she wears glasses, she’s engaged to the Whizzer.” But what killed the fun on this one was the backup stories — they just weren’t interesting or exciting.

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The Horror of it All

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The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft #2

Two ruffians have ended up dead, horribly mutilated by… something, and the only evidence points to wallflower weird-tales writer H.P. Lovecraft, who, luckily, has an alibi — he was at home asleep, and the dead guys had his watch because they stole it from them the previous day. But Lovecraft knows something is wrong — he hears ominous voices and sees evil visions when he looks at an ancient book in the university library, and he knows that his resentment of the muggers is what caused them to be killed. And right on schedule, his romantic rival for the heart of his ex-girlfriend shows up, bullies him, gloats at him, and kicks him out of the library. And just like before, Lovecraft goes to sleep, has horrific dreams, and wakes up knowing that his nightmares are literally coming true. So Lovecraft — who really is in no way a man of action — heads over to his rival’s house to try to save him from the otherdimensional horrors trying to eat him. Can Lovecraft save his rival? And even if he can, will he be able to stop the cthulhoid monstrosities from eating the rest of the city?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The impressionistic art style is working very well for the story, and the monster designs have been unexpectedly good. I do hope they can keep this going for the rest of the miniseries, because it’s been a great deal of fun so far.

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B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #3

In a story set before the current storyarc, Liz Sherman, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense’s pyrokinetic badass, has been struck by a strange malaise after leading a series of successful but very, very destructive raids against the frogs, the amphibious toad-like monsters who have been the most prominent baddies through nearly all of Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy” comics. Is her sickness a matter of burnout? A disease caused by the frogs? Or something worse?

Verdict: Thumbs up. We don’t get to see Liz setting fires and kicking ass nearly enough, so this is plenty of fun, while also serving as a prequel to more current “B.P.R.D.” storylines.

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Where Walks the Cyber Bear!

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Buck Rogers #1

I wasn’t actually planning on picking this one up, but I flipped through it and found one specific thing that guaranteed I’d be bringing it home.

This is essentially a new, rebooted origin for Buck Rogers, the swashbuckling sci-fi pulp hero who got his start back in the late ’20s. Much of the story is fairly familiar — hot-headed pilot Buck Rogers is accidentally put into suspended animation aboard his experimental spaceship and wakes up several hundred years in the future. Not knowing where (or when) he is, he crashlands his ship in a convenient stretch of forest and is rescued by Colonel Wilma Deering. Unfortunately, they’re both stuck in a hunting zone used by an organization called the Pack, and they both get attacked by one of the Pack hunters…

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Let that soak in — a cybernetically enhanced grizzly bear with a raygun.

Yes, welcome to your shiny, futuristic new home in Awesometown.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yes, yes, the cyber-bear is fun, but as for the rest of the story… I’m cautiously optimistic. So far, the writing is solid and the art is solid. Can they keep this going, with or without awesome cyber-bears? Let’s hope so.

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Secret Six #10

The Six get hired by someone claiming to be their old benefactor, Mockingbird, to escort a large and dangerous-looking box to a jungle compound. It quickly becomes clear (to the readers, particularly, if not the team itself) that the folks who just hired them are particularly cruel slavers, willing to execute any number of their workers just to punish a single rebellious slave. Of course, the Six aren’t really very nice people — they’re doing the job so they can get paid, not because they want to work with fine, upstanding citizens. But do the slavers have some unpleasant plans for the Six themselves? On top of that, Scandal Savage and Bane continue to grow closer, and the extremely weird romance between Deadshot and Jeanette keeps getting weirder.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Our main villains’ ruthlessness is demonstrated very brutally in the first four pages of the comic, and again, more unexpectedly, in the last two. These are definitely rotten customers, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that a few of them get entertainingly killed before the end of the storyarc. Also, excellent dialogue and characterization for Bane, Scandal, Deadshot, and Jeanette.

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