I picked up my free comics from Free Comic Book Day almost a week late, ’cause I was too busy volunteering at the Comic Book Expo to pick up any goodies. But I grabbed a few on Thursday when I went to pick up my latest comics fix, so what say we take a quick look at ’em now?

 

Hellboy: Free Comic Book Day

We get three short stories here — “The Mole” has Hellboy dealing with a skin condition that can’t be cleared up at the dermatologist. “Out of Reach” is a thoroughly enigmatic story set just after the events of the recent “B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground” series, with Johann Krauss, back in his glass-jar body, up to some possibly ominous shenanigans. “Bishop Olek’s Devil” is set prior to the current “B.P.R.D.: 1946” series, as Dr. Bruttenholm and Dr. Eaton seek out a dangerous spellbook. Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for Matt Groening’s Futurama/Hellboy mashups. They’re awesome.

Verdict: Thumbs up. All the creepy weirdness you love in Hellboy stories, compressed into bite-sized nuggets.

 

Atomic Robo: Free Comic Book Day

I’ve been trying to get my claws on some of the “Atomic Robo” comics for a while, and I always seem to just barely miss ’em before they get sold out. Sucks to be me. But I got this one, which is a nice little introduction to the character. Atomic Robo is the last and greatest creation of Nikolai Tesla — a fully intelligent, action-loving robot who runs his own think tank and goes on action-crammed adventures against devious scientists and the unexplained. In this story, he chases down a mad Russian scientist who plans to destroy the world with a mega-powerful atomic bomb. A short backup feature is from a new comic called “Neozoic” about an alternate earth where dinosaurs have survived to the present day and are currently making things really rough for humanity.

Verdict: Thumbs up. “Atomic Robo” is lots of fun. Who doesn’t love fast-talking robots who fight Soviet mad science? “Neozoic” isn’t nearly as good, but it shows some promise.

 

Maintenance: Free Comic Book Day

This one follows Doug and Manny, a couple of maintenance guys working in a lab with a bunch of more deranged than normal mad scientists. Worse comes to worse, and both of them end up transported back in time where they meet a bunch of cavemen. Cavemen with rocket packs, rayguns, and Segways.

Verdict: Thumbs up again. Very enjoyably goofy.

There are comics shops out there who have some free books leftover from Free Comic Book Day, so look around and see if you can pick any up.

Okay, fact is, I love, love, love Evan Dorkin‘s “Milk and Cheese” comics. Not just because of the horrific violence, not just for the gin-swilling, not just because of the crude and unsubtle commentary on everything irritating about pop culture and modern life. No, I love those little guys’ eyebrows. They’re hilarious.

But the eyebrows aren’t important right now! Because it’s Friday Night Fights! And that means the only thing important right now is nicely overblown butt-whompin’!

But dangit, I just used “Milk and Cheese” last week. Is there any way I could disguise this, so Bahlactus doesn’t think I’m repeating myself? Maybe if we disguise them with some sort of mask…?

Wow, that’s awesome. Only thing that’d make that better would be if Darth Milk and Cheese were beating up on Ewoks. Hey, wait a minute…

Man, I got home really weirdly exhausted last night, so I didn’t have time to write but one review before I had to hit the hay.

 

PS238 #31

Ohh, I loved this one. In the aftermath of the alien invasion and the Las Vegas mini-epic, there are some big changes in store for everyone at PS238. First, their hometown has become Superhero Central — renamed Wonderburg. After the school was ground zero for an alien invasion, just about every superhero team has established a base there. The evil Praetorian Academy has moved in, planted bugs inside the school, and started recruiting former PS238 students. Principal Cranston is under a magical curse that causes other people to read his mind instead of vice versa. Tyler Marlocke is in three places at once — in stasis to keep him from spreading an alien xenovirus, walking around in a clone body (so alien student Prospero will think Tyler’s cured and won’t destroy the planet to stop the virus), and inside the Castle Beyond Space and Time, where he has to decide whether or not humanity gets to keep having superpowers. And the whole thing ends with the most jaw-droppingly shocking cliffhanger I’ve seen in ages.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good gravy, this was good. Just absolutely amazingly good. Clears the board of everything familiar and safe and sets up a new status quo full of way more threats, dangers, and intrigues than before. And there’s still a very strong character-based feel to the storytelling — we get some great bits of characterization from Victor Von Fogg, Angie Sinthousy, special guest star Mr. Extraordinary, Miss Kyle, and especially Tyler. Aaron Williams is doing a fantastic job with this comic — if you aren’t reading it yet, start soon.

 

I don’t often have a really good chance to throw some shout-outs to other comics bloggers. But over the past few weeks, Snell at “Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep” has really been knocking ’em out of the park. For instance:

• He completely crushes the pitiful spectacle of DC’s “Countdown”;
• And then, just for fun, he crushes it again;
• He reveals the hidden secret of Marvel’s “Civil War”;
• He points out the big problems with superhero resurrections;
• He comes up with the perfect villain for the new “Indiana Jones” movie;
• And finally, he’s got Stan Lee flipping you off!

So go read his stuff. He’s got good writing, excellent analysis, lots of funny observations, and he was the first comics blogger outside of Bahlactus’s “Friday Night Fights” to link to me. 🙂

There are some times — I like to call them “weekdays” and “weekends” — when I worry that humanity has gone crazy enough to really, really need a straitjacket and padded cell.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes (Florida), Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue. You can’t take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,'” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’ ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Tampa Bay’s 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn’t just the wizardry and that Picular had other performance issues, including “not following lesson plans” and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.

When middle school students, parents, and administrators can no longer tell the difference between really simple sleight-of-hand magic tricks and eldritch Gandolfian Magic-missile-flinging sorcery, we need to rethink our current concept of education.

And really, doesn’t that “not following lesson plans” and “letting kids play on unapproved computers” sound like the administration suddenly realized how stupid they looked and had to dig up something they could use for cover? Bah, humans, you must all be smote with fire, I swear.

Please, Florida, write this down somewhere: The Eye of Agamotto is not real. The Helmet of Fate is fictional. Harry Potter doesn’t really exist. And making a toothpick disappear doesn’t mean you’ve obtained unearthly powers from Satan.

 

Blue Beetle #26

In this very special issue of “Blue Beetle,” Jaime attends a family reunion with his girlfriend, Traci Thirteen, discovers that his grandmother knows his secret identity, and fights the Parasite after the villain has absorbed the powers of all the members of the Posse, El Paso’s magic-powered street gang. So what’s so special about this? Well, nearly the entire story is in Spanish.

Aww, now you kids don’t panic. If you can’t read Spanish (I can’t), there’s the original English script in the back to help you out. You won’t miss out on a bit of the story or dialogue.

In fact, the script ends up pointing up some errors in the comic — there’s a scene where Traci appears to be in two different places at the same time — very jarring in the comic. But the script reveals that one of those appearances is actually her astral form. A clumsy error, but not a deal-breaker. Another error? While the story is in Spanish, it’s not actually the Spanish you’d hear in El Paso or Mexico — it’s Spanish from Spain, because the translator is Sergio Aragones, who’s from Spain. So if you know Spanish, it may come off sounding a lot less than conversational.

So how is it? Despite the errors, it’s pretty good. The visual storytelling by guest penciller Mike Norton is excellent, for us non-Spanish-speakers. And guest writer Jai Nitz has a wonderful grasp on Jaime and his supporting cast. There’s plenty of humor, most of it character-driven. For instance, this panel, after Jaime sasses his mom and grandmom:

 

Translation: “No sass!”

Verdict: Thumbs up. By now, y’all should know I’m in favor of anything that (A) helps bring in new, non-traditional comic book readers and (B) makes comics look like something other than a bunch of white guys in tights, and this story works at doing both of those. I particularly hope this helps bring in some new readers, both Hispanic and otherwise, because this comic is still one of the best DC is producing, and it still needs more readers! If you’re interested in jumping on this bandwagon, this is a great place to do it.

 

Birds of Prey #117

In the city of Platinum Flats, Oracle, Manhunter, and Misfit tangle with a crew of magical meta-crooks, including a lizard man, a guy who shoots bullets out of his third eye, a telepath, and a nerdy cyber-mage. Manhunter and Misfit get captured, but everyone makes it out okay, barely. With this new magical gang of magicians supplying mystical weaponry to the underworld, Barbara decides to move the team out of Metropolis and to Platinum Flats.

Verdict: Thumbs up. These new villains are pretty cool, and Misfit gets another bunch of awesome moments. We even get a few pages with Lady Blackhawk and her world’s-greatest dimples.

 

The Spirit #16

When an actor gets murdered on the set of a movie, the Spirit goes undercover as a stuntman so he can listen to set gossip and try to discover the killer.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A better mix of humor and mystery than the last issue had.

Thanks to having the blog shut down for a week and then spending most of last week promoting the Comic Book Expo, I’ve fallen way, waaaay behind on my comics reviews, so I’m gonna try to get as many of these out of the way as I can.

DC Universe #0

This is the one everyone was talking about last week. Superman hangs out with the Legion of Super-Heroes in the distant future, Batman hangs out with the Joker, a bunch of bad guys want Wonder Woman dead, the Green Lanterns are unaware that the Black Lanterns are coming for them, a minor villain called Libra is trying pretty weakly to get a bunch of villains to join the Cult of the Crime Bible, and Barry Allen comes back to life.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s an ad for “Final Crisis,” and it’s not even a particularly well-done ad. And was anyone here really jonesing for Barry Allen to come back? I wish DC would quit being stupid and quit screwing their comics up for no good reason.

Justice League of America #20

A nice little done-in-one story about Wonder Woman and the Flash taking on the Queen Bee.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Seems like the Queen Bee should be more of a regular threat — I thought comics thrived on things like hyper-evolved space bees, right? Still, fun stuff, some good speed tricks from the Flash, and a nice Silver-Age feel to the story.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #2

The Tangent Universe’s Green Lantern gets her magic lantern back, restoring her youth, and the Tangent version of the Flash, along with the regular DCU Flash and Green Lantern come along for the ride. The Tangent GL summons the spirit of the Tangent version of the Joker, who was a superhero, to fill in the gaps of the Tangent Superman’s ruthless rise to dictatorial power.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but just barely. The characters are pretty interesting, but I’m having trouble accepting this as a story that needs 12 issues to tell. They could make it a heck of a lot shorter by cutting out those useless history lessons that take up about a third of the pagecount.

Teen Titans #58

We focus on Miss Martian, trying to make a life for herself and ignore the voice of her evil future-self, who has taken up residence in her head. On top of that, she’s also being stalked by the Terror Titans’ Disruptor, and Kid Devil is still being horribly tortured to try to get him to turn evil.

Verdict: Thumbs up, I think. I don’t much like the idea of Evil Miss Martian, but the story is well-done and does a good job of continually raising the stakes.

The Flash #239

The new supervillain Spin managed to use Keystone City’s fears about the Flash’s money problems to turn him, temporarily, into a superspeedy thief. Now everyone’s more afraid of Flash than ever. He also manages to mind-control Jay Garrick into attacking Wally. Oh, and Wally has gotten a legitimate job at last — watching videotapes at super-speed? Weird…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Spin is still a pretty dumb villain, but the scheme is getting better, bit by bit. Still, next time they want to use a supervillain with fear and mind-control powers, why don’t they just raid Batman’s rogues gallery for Scarecrow and Mad Hatter?

She-Hulk #28

She-Hulk gets arrested again after causing a ruckus at a football stadium while trying to apprehend the guy who knocked down an apartment building a few issues ago.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Dangit, this storyline completely vanished several months ago, then it’s back and running hard like we’re supposed to remember it again? Guys, please stop jumping randomly from one storyline to another.

Oookay, that’s enough for now. Another review-burst tomorrow…

Well, the first annual Lubbock Comic Book Expo is over, and I think it’s safe to say that this event exceeded our expectations. No, it didn’t just exceed — it completely blew our expectations out of the water. I really don’t think I’m engaging in any hyperbole here. I was really floored by how wonderfully things went, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone.

Before it started, I thought to myself that I’d be really happy if we had an attendence of 300 people over the course of the whole day.

We had way more than that. Final attendence numbers? 777. Yeah, just like the jackpot in Vegas, baby. Lemme put that in bold and italics: The Lubbock Comic Book Expo was attended by 777 people. That may not seem like a lot, compared to huge conventions like San Diego or the Wizard World cons, but this was the Expo’s very first year of operation. And there were only a few months of preparation before the event.

We had kids. We had teens. We had college students. We had young adults. We had middle-aged adults. We even had a few folks who were in their 70s, if not older. We had people of all races and all cultural backgrounds. We had people who showed up looking perplexed. We had families show up, leave, and then come back with more people. We had entire families who showed up in costume.

We had people lined up to get in and pay their entrance fee. The exhibitor room was jam-packed almost the entire time. We had some sketch tables set up so kids (and a bunch of grownups, too) could sit down and draw pictures, and they were incredibly busy almost the entire time.

Heck, I’m rattling on a bit. Let’s take a quick break and look at some pictures, all taken by Jennifer Adkins. (And if you want to see even more photos from the Expo, just click here.

 

Okay, let’s get a little blogger egotism out of the way. That’s me up there. I gave a presentation on “Lubbock’s Comics Connections,” about people from Lubbock who’ve worked in comics, cartooning, and animation. You’d expect that to be about three or four people, wouldn’t you? We found about a dozen. And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see another few names added to that list next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Mark my words, Lubbock is on the verge of becoming a genuine comics hub.

More pix, more pix…

 

 

 

 

The above picture is from the “Iron Artist” event — a bunch of guest artists had to draw a comics page suggested by members of the audience. In this case, they were told to draw a llama buying a Slurpee… IN SPAAAAACE!

 

This picture really summed up a lot of the Expo for me — a family comes out, the kids dress in Superman and Supergirl costumes, everyone gets some free comics for Free Comic Book Day, and everyone has fun. I saw so many people who just looked like they were having so much fun — attendees, volunteers, artists, vendors. So many folks who came out to indulge their love of comics and general geekery, and who ended up having a blast.

And I got surprised by so many things. There was a little kid who was free-hand drawing Transformers and DC Comics logos — his dad said he was in awe of the kid’s talent, and he was really happy to hear that Lubbock had a resource like the Sketch Club to help encourage artists. There was an elderly couple who really seemed to enjoy just standing in our entry hallway looking at all the DC and Marvel posters we’d hung up. I don’t know how many times I’d pegged someone as a disinterested attendee — fratsters killing time on the weekend, harried parents, seemingly-bored girlfriends — who came out of the exhibitor room clutching sacks filled with old “X-Men” comics.

Now that it’s all over, I’m exhausted, my feet are in absolute agony, I think my back is gonna tie itself in knots by morning, and I got all the way through the day without having enough time to go through the dealer room and pick out a comic or two for myself — and after all that, I still feel absolutely inspired by what went on there. Is it possible that Lubbock is a far more comics-friendly city than we’ve ever suspected? I can’t tell you for sure, but I can tell you that 777 people came down to the Science Spectrum this weekend and had one heck of a good time. That’s gotta count for something.

Awright, it’s Friday Night Fights time again! But my head’s still stuck in Lubbock Comic Book Expo mode! Can this dilemma be resolved? Possibly with homicidal cartoon dairy products visiting a comic book convention?

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Milk and Cheese! I knew I could count on you!

And one more fast reminder — see you guys tomorrow morning at 10 at the Science Spectrum for the Comic Book Expo! Woo!

You ready for the Comic Book Expo? I said ARE YOU READY FOR THE LUBBOCK COMIC BOOK EXPO?!

Well, get ready. It starts tomorrow, and you don’t wanna miss out.

First, some quick links: the Expo’s official website, and the article from the A-J’s GO! entertainment section. Read and learn, kids.

Ooh, and a schedule! Youse mugs need a schedule. Here’s what I got — last time I checked, it was up-to-date and accurate.

Noon to 1 p.m.: Texas Tech’s 3D Lab has three 20-minute presentations to showcase the latest in 3D animation technology and resources.

1-1:30 p.m.: Rob Weiner — the guy responsible for putting together the awesome collection of graphic novels at Lubbock’s Mahon Library — has a special presentation on “Why Comics Are Cool.”

1:30-2 p.m.: A presentation on “Lubbock’s Comic Connections” — famous, or at least semi-famous, artists from West Texas. Who’s the presenter? Dude, it’s ME. Hecklers will be dealt with harshly — I’m bringing my All-Purpose Metal Beat-Down Stick.

2-2:30 p.m.: A presentation on how the comics rating system works. It’s called “Seduction of the Innocent” — No, it’s not kinky! Getcher minds outta the gutter, ya pervs. Anyway, I dunno who the presenter is.

2:30-3 p.m.: A Q&A session by Will Terrell, Big Bad Founder of the Lubbock Sketch Club, and Robert Mora, High Lord Mucketymuck at Star Comics, on the future of comics in Lubbock, and their vision for the comics-reading/drawing community.

3-4 p.m.: The Costume Contest! Dressing up in costumes will occur!!!

4-5 p.m.: Iron Artist! Will Terrell, Brian Morante, Beau Hufford, and Bill Williams will engage in a mighty battle of drawing stuff! First place gets a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is BEAR ATTACK!

5-6 p.m.: Metropolis Radio LIVE! No kidding! You will cower before the awesome power of PURE RADIO.

7-10 p.m.: After-show Sketch Night at Freebirds World Burrito, 4930 S. Loop 289. Drawings will be drawn, burritos will be snarfed.

We’re ready to rock this Expo good and loud. Y’all come on down and say howdy, tomorrow, 10 a.m., at the Science Spectrum!