Atomic Robo and the Knights of the Golden Circle #1

After the events of the last storyline, Atomic Robo has been stranded in the American West in 1872. He’s trying to keep a low profile and avoid upsetting the timestream. But of course, this is a Western, and keeping a low profile never works for the hero, does it? He rescues an old man shot by outlaws and carts him off to Alamosa, Colorado to find a doctor — too bad the only doctor in town is a dentist named Doc Holliday. But the outlaws have chased them down to the local saloon, and they’re threatening to kill everyone in town. And why does everyone think Robo is actually a guy named Ironhide — who died years ago?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Atomic Robo in the Old West? With Doc Holliday? Shut up and take my money!

Southern Bastards #1

We got Earl Tubb, an old man come back to his old home town in Craw County, Alabama. His father was the heroic and ass-kicking sheriff decades ago who carried a baseball bat signed by Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Elvis Presley to beat down the thugs who attacked him. But Bertrand Tubb has been dead for years, a tree is growing out of his grave, and Earl is trying to clean out the old homestead so he can get out of Alabama once and for all. But it isn’t long before Earl runs afoul of the local redneck crime cartel, and things are just gonna get worse for him from here on out.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’ve lived in the South and the Southwest my whole life, but I’ve never been in the Deep South, or even East Texas. But I recognize these characters, and I feel sorry for them at the same time as I hate ’em at the same time as I love ’em. Stupid Southern cultural genetics. Anyway, this is a great slice of deep-fried Southern noir by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour, and I’m really, genuinely looking forward to more of this. Pick it up while it’s still in the stores, guys.

Silver Surfer #2

The Surfer heads out to battle the Queen of Nevers, a being more than powerful enough to destroy him. Instead, he discovers that the Queen is the wronged party here — her heart has been stolen away to keep the glorious Impericon powered. The Surfer resolves to retrieve her heart, but he must be able to sneak back into the Impericon, so he has to disguise himself and hide his cosmic powers deep inside him. Meanwhile, Dawn Greenwood, captured and held captive with a bunch of other aliens in the Motivator Cubes, leads a daring breakout. Can she and the other prisoners escape the planet and save the Silver Surfer at the same time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fantastic art, and a story that combines the high cosmic adventure you’d expect from a Silver Surfer comic with a more down-to-earth human story. This strikes me as something that’s really going to be amazing.

Today’s Cool Links:

• This skit, taken directly from court transcripts, is absolutely glorious.
• I still say the best Satanic monument in Oklahoma would feature statues of the governor, legislators, and preachers who help make that state so hellish. But this one isn’t bad.
• This is perfect for everyone who likes hip hop, data, and vocabulary.

Free Comic Book Day was Saturday, and it was a heck of a lot of fun. I got to go to both of Denton’s comic book stores, stood in a surprisingly long line for one of them, bought some extra comics and games — some for me, some to give as gifts — and even got to see the very end of the Cinco de Mayo parade.

What were the comics I picked up? Let’s run down the list.

Mouse Guard, Labyrinth and Other Stories: A Free Comic Book Day Hardcover Anthology

Archaia published their second free hardcover in three years for FCBD, and that attention to quality alone got them to the top of the charts for me. Besides Mouse Guard and Labyrinth, the other stories include Ruse, Farscape, Bolivar, and Will O’ The Wisp. Far and away, my favorite story was Mouse Guard, which is always pretty amazing but always seems to pull out all the stops for the FCBD books. Hope you were able to pick this one up, ’cause you sure ain’t gettin’ mine.

Atomic Robo/Bodie Troll/Haunted Free Comic Book Day 2014

Robo and the Action Scientists of Tesladyne travel to Centralia, Pennsylvania to hunt for the Yonkers Devil, while Bodie Troll embarks on a quest for a magical land of yummy food, all on the promise that he’ll get something really awful to eat, and some ghosts chase people in “Haunted.” For once, the Atomic Robo story wasn’t the best of the batch — the Bodie Troll tale was charming and funny and wonderfully cartoony.

Shigeru Mizuki’s Showa: A History of Japan

Funny and insightful autobiographical comics by a man drafted into the Japanese Army during World War II. Our hero starts out thinking army life is pretty easy and sweet, up until everyone in the army decides they should beat him up all the time. Plus we get a look into Japanese society during the war and the mad overconfidence that led their leaders to really believe they could conquer the whole world. This is a genuinely awesome comic — we don’t often see nonfiction comics like this on Free Comic Book Day.

Rocket Raccoon

A fairly cute story about Rocket Raccoon and his funny-animal friends trying to rescue a princess, followed up by an all-ages adventure of Spider-Man, White Tiger, and Nova going into space to rescue Power Man and Iron Fist from a bunch of little green men and… a dentist? Fun reading for kids of all ages.

Teen Titans Go! FCBD Special Edition

Someone’s been stealing Cyborg’s food out of the fridge. Can Robin figure out the culprit? Will Cyborg’s traps foil the thief? And will the team survive a round of mini-golf when the wagers get higher and higher? I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the Titans — this one has cute storytelling, and it’s far less bloodthirsty, gory, and cynical than DC’s other FCBD comic.

Hello Kitty and Friends

A collection of short Hello Kitty stories by numerous different creators, including Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani of “Tiny Titans” fame, plus a few bonus pages from the Bravest Warriors series. The whole thing was pretty cute, as you’d expect from Hello Kitty — should be a winner for anyone who loves her brand of kawaii.

Okay, it’s Friday, and we’re all tired of working, and good gravy train, do we ever need the weekend bad. Let’s get things rolling with a little comic book ultraviolence and… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

With Free Comic Book Day coming up tomorrow, I was hoping to find something for tonight’s battle with a comic shop theme. I was hoping to find something from Evan Dorkin’s Eltingville Club series, but I wasn’t able to find where that particular comic was hiding, but luckily, I found something even more violent. From 1994’s Milk and Cheese #666 by Evan Dorkin, here’s the Dairy Products Gone Bad vs. pretty much everyone!

Y’all don’t forget to stop by your local comic shop tomorrow and pick up your free comics — and please go ahead and buy a few comics, too. Let’s make it easier for our comic shops to keep operating in the future…

I have had a heck of a rough week, and the only thing that’s made the whole thing bearable is knowing that Saturday is coming, and Saturday is Free Comic Book Day.

I know we’re all excited about getting some free comics, but let’s take a moment for a Public Service Announcement.

First and foremost, not all the comics in the store are free. You won’t be able to go into a comic shop, grab their copy of Action Comics #1 and get it without paying. You won’t be able to load up on graphic novels or every comic in the store for absolutely no money. The publishers put out their own special promotional comics, and those are the only ones that are free. Sometimes, those free comics are really good. Sometimes, they’re not so good. Sometimes, they’re really kinda useless. Sometimes, they end up being one of the best comics of the entire year. It’s kinda the luck of the draw, baby — but they are free, so that’s a nice little benefit, no matter what.

You’ll probably only get one or two of those free comics, too — there are only limited supplies of the free stuff on hand. So you don’t want to wait very late to visit your local shop. Show up when they unlock the doors in the morning, and you’ll have your pick of whatever you want. Show up at quitting time, and there may be nothing at all left.

And finally, please remember that, although the comics are free for you, the stores themselves have to pay for them. That’s right — the publishers make the retailers pay money to get the comics that they then give to you for free. That means that Free Comic Book Day is a money-loser for a lot of stores. They do it because they want potential new customers to come in and see how great comics are. So please, do what you can to let your friendly neighborhood comic shop make a little money this Saturday — when you pick up your free comics, buy a few regular comics, too. Single issues, graphic novels, toys, statues, accessories — buy ’em for yourself, buy ’em for a friend, buy ’em for the sake of a future birthday gift.

Your comic shop is being nice enough to give you some comics for free. Return the favor and buy some regular comics from them.

Everyone have a happy Free Comic Book Day tomorrow!

Lazarus #8

The Lift is coming, in which the Waste — poor, unskilled, and considered worthless by the all-powerful and impossibly wealthy Families — are given the opportunity to show they can be useful enough to be declared Serfs, with greater security and benefits. The Barret family are traveling to Denver, hoping to be selected, but they’ve already lost their daughter to bandits. While they travel with the other pilgrims on their way to Colorado, Forever Carlyle is tracking down a band of terrorists called the Free. They’ve managed to build a bomb, and they plan to use it in Denver, unless Forever can somehow stop them in time.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice slow build on the tension, combined with excellent characterization of Forever and the Barrets. We can be pretty sure that they’ll all come to clash somehow, and that it won’t be pretty for anyone, but I’m still looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

The Witcher #2

Geralt the Witcher and Jakob the hunter are exploring a seemingly empty mansion in a haunted forest. Of course, it’s far from empty — there are some monsters and a whole room full of corpses. Jakob decides to try to find his late wife, who’s become a vampire, while Geralt encounters a friendly succubus named Vara. What’s her story? What’s wrong with the house? What’s buried in the basement?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Best thing about this, so far, is characterization and dialogue. Yeah, there’s some monster-fighting, but it’s the most fun listening to these people talk to each other.

Today’s reviews feature a couple comics starring people who have their own special versions of evil twins.

The Manhattan Projects #20

Albert Einstein is back in town and having a few maybe not-so-friendly drinks with his alternate-universe twin Albrecht Einstein. Albrecht trapped Albert in another dimension and took over his own life in the Manhattan Projects, and Albert had to fight his way across multiple horrible universes to make his way back home. Albert has always been more intelligent than Albrecht, and he’s now a heck of a barbarian warrior — is he going to be willing to forgive what his doppelganger did to him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to see Albert back in the series, and it’ll be interesting to see the two Einsteins hanging out.

Daredevil #2

So there’s this blind lawyer who has super-sensory powers that let him be a superhero, and his name’s Matt Murdock. Oh, but wait, San Francisco actually has another blind lawyer who has super-sensory powers that let him be a superhero — Max Coleridge, otherwise known as the Shroud. Unsurprisingly, they don’t get along well — the Shroud is a great deal more hardcore and sociopathic than Matt is, and he’s been keeping a bunch of mid-level mobsters captive at his slum hideout so he can pump them for information. Can Matt convince the Shroud to let the men go? Only if he helps take out San Francisco’s biggest crimelord…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art and writing. It’s fun to have these two characters who are so bizarrely similar and so uniquely different at the same time. And the cliffhanger at the end is an excellent twist. Meanwhile, what the heck really happened to Foggy Nelson?!

Today’s Cool Links:

• Hats off, my friends — it’s the tenth anniversary of the late, much lamented “City of Heroes.”
• If you loved MST3K — and all of us loved MST3K — you’ll love this long oral history of the show.
• Once again, Marvel is doing a better job of portraying superheroes than DC is, both in the comics and on the silver screen.
• It doesn’t get much better than a donkey in a San Antonio mall.

You ever had a week so weird and lengthy and stressful that it basically infects everything around it, including the weekends? I’ve had a lot of those lately. Doesn’t mean I’m not still looking forward to the weekends — just means they’re not as relaxing or stress-free as they should be. Doesn’t mean we’re still not gonna kick things off with some Friday Night Fights, though. ‘Cause I definitely need me some weird, weird violence this week.

And we’re going with one of the weirdest comics ever today — Winter 1941’s Big 3 #2, one of the first stories of Stardust the Super-Wizard by Fletcher Hanks. Stardust — he of the impossible musculature and bizarre powers and possibly drug-infused brains — meets up with a villain called De Structo, who has attempted to menace the entire world, just for the sake of random, rotten evil.

Congratulations, Stardust has just given us all some kind of horrible, hallucinatory brain fever. Let’s hope we can sleep through the weekend and it’ll all go away…

Evil Empire #2

So how did the future fascist America come about? We rewind 25 years to the present day, where presidential candidate Kenneth Laramy has just used his eulogy at his wife’s funeral to confess to her murder and to declare that it should be legal to kill anyone who you think really deserves it. While controversial and rebellious rapper Reese Greenwood starts a romance with Sam Duggins, the other presidential candidate, Laramy is quickly convicted and jailed, but he uses his trial to preach his psychotic gospel of absolute, unrestrained freedom and if-it-feels-good-do-it bloodshed — and as a result, a wave of violence sweeps the nation. And even worse, the police and prison guards are largely on Laramy’s side, and they allow him to leave prison so he can continue to encourage people to embrace violence and anarchy.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was plenty doubtful last issue that the creators would be able to build a believable history that brought about a serious fascist dictatorship. But everything about Laramy’s pro-violence platform feels somewhat ripped from the headlines. We do actually have pro-sedition militia loons who want to kill lots of people, and they’re being egged on by big media pundits, partly for the ratings, partly because they know they’ll never get punished for inciting riots, murders and terrorist attacks. We got Florida, which basically legalized murder. We got Georgia, which wants people to carry guns in bars, schools, churches, and airports. We got legislators and billionaires waging illogical wars on homeless people, on the poor, on women and minorities, on solar energy, of all things, on the very concepts of human empathy and compassion.

We can turn on the TV and see sociopaths hosting news shows and appearing as honored guests, doing everything they can to encourage more sociopathy, more violence, more racism. About the only thing keeping the comic book from looking too much like real life is the spectacular lack of charisma or forethought going on among the political and media leaders on the rightward side of the aisle. In the real world, thank goodness, the percentage of psychotics in the population is much, much lower.

Ghosted #9

Jackson Winters is in huge trouble. He’s successfully rescued Nina Blood Crow from the Brotherhood of the Closed Book, but now they’re both trapped in a jungle haunted by hundreds of dead, angry animals. And the only people who can rescue them are, unfortunately, the Brotherhood of the Closed Book. And even worse, the Brotherhood is working with Nina’s mother, Wenona Blood Crow, an organized crime kingpin who helped get Nina possessed by the vengeful spirit of the Skadegamutc. Plus we also get a flashback of Jackson’s last big casino heist and why it went so disastrously, terrifyingly wrong.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a gloriously creepy, bloody story, and it was spectacular fun to read. If y’all love good horror comics, you should be reading this series.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Don’t ever get Greg Rucka mad at you, especially if you’re a Fake Geek Guy, ’cause he will murderize you with words.
• How science fiction has shaped and is shaping the future.
• Y’all elect me president, and I’ll guarantee all this anti-Net Neutrality crap is going to get reversed hard.

Alabaster: Pale Horse by Caitlin R. Kiernan

Hopefully, you enjoyed Dark Horse’s “Alabaster: Wolves” miniseries that came out two years ago. I figured I’d never get a chance to read Caitlin R. Kiernan’s original short stories about Dancy Flammarion, the weird Southern monster-hunting possibly-crazy albino girl who starred in the series. But as it turned out, Dark Horse decided to collect Kiernan’s previous tales in this nice softcover.

So we get a series of six stories, most of them fairly well connected to each other, covering the weirdness and terror of Dancy’s life from her childhood to her monster-stalking young adulthood. She meets up with were-creatures, vampires, angels, demons, and things that are so much worse. And for the most part, she’s very, very lucky. Things are just not very easy for Dancy Flammarion. She’s an albino walking around in the hot Georgia sun, every monster in the state knows who she is and wants revenge on her because she keeps killing monsters — even though everything she meets tends to be a lot tougher than she is.

Dancy’s the star, but a very strong supporting character is the Deep South atmosphere. It’s blazingly hot everywhere, even in the shade. Almost every location is run-down and filthy and corrupted and falling apart, aside from the occasional vampire-infested mansion. Everyone’s a monster, especially the people. In fact, just about the only really decent people are animals who Dancy may be hallucinating.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I really was kinda overjoyed when I saw this in the local shop. I’d never dreamed there was a chance I’d get to see all the Dancy Flammarion stories all in one place, and I loved the comic series so much, this one was kinda a zero-hesitation buy.

Dancy’s an outstanding character — quite clearly insane, except for the fact that she keeps fighting monsters and talking to dogs and angels. Unless those are just normal people she’s killing. She comes across as low-grade white trash, broken inside, wandering aimlessly and miserably around the South, getting screamed at by the voices inside her head. But she’s got a weirdly hyper-moral core of her personality — she doesn’t seem to particularly hate monsters — in fact, she generally acts like she’d just as soon leave them alone, especially because they keep trying to kill her.

But she keeps going, partly because her angel keeps screaming at her, partly because she’s on a holy crusade. Dancy’s a doomed character — you just can’t imagine any way she could ever get out of this life or find happiness or even survive much past the next year or so. But it’s absolutely clear that she’d keep right on going, no matter what, because she can’t imagine life without her crusade.

And one more point to recommend this one — it ends with a fantastically creepy afterword from Kiernan recounting a moment of her life along a Georgia highway that helped inspire the horrors of the Dancy stories. Don’t skip the afterword. It’s very good and very spooky.

If you like wonderfully visceral, grim, dirty horror with a sweet Southern twang, starring an amazingly, awesomely weird female protagonist, you’ll definitely want to pick this up.

A Voice in the Dark #6

Zoey has decided that she really wants to kill someone again, and she’s settled on manipulative sorority queen Mandy Jenkins as the target, because she’d tried to expel her friend Ash and considered charging Zoey with assault. So Zoey has to start spying on Mandy, trying to discover a time when she’d be by herself for long enough to get the murder done. Unfortunately, Mandy is very rarely alone — and worse, Zoey doesn’t know the layout of her house, so she doesn’t know the best way in and out. She hits on the idea to disguise herself for Halloween and attend Mandy’s party to scope out the entrances and exits. She meets a mysterious friend in a hockey mask — and discovers a very good reason to add Mandy’s boyfriend to her hit list.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a bit of a tense story, with some great dialogue and some seriously no-fun situations. If you’ve got problems with depictions of an attempted rape, you may want to pass on this one.

American Vampire: Second Cycle #2

Calvin Poole offers Pearl a position in the Vassals of the Morning Star, warning her that serious crises are on the horizon. And he’s right — the Gray Trader, an impossibly powerful and evil vampire. It’s coming for Pearl’s neighbors, it’s coming for Calvin, and it’s coming for Pearl and her young charges, too.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The first serious look we get of the Gray Trader, after a fairly long period of buildup — and it definitely does not disappoint. It’s monstrous and creepy at the same time, which is a very nice trick.