>So, since I’ve been working here at Star Clipper, there’s been one particular title that I’ve wanted to read but haven’t really had the nerve to purchase it. It’s as if it’s too graphic or anything, but… What would people say if they saw me reading it? I mean, I’m fine reading about brutal space wrestlers, brutal murderers, monsters that bring madness, and so on… So why would it be difficult to add on to the list? Well… There really isn’t a reason. So with that, I finally bit the bullet and picked up the first Omnibus(t) of a title called Bomb Queen.
Oh Bomb Queen… Where do I begin? Well, I suppose I should start with the premise. Bomb Queen follows the exploits of the Super Villain known as Bomb Queen. She reigns over the city of New Port City, a place that has designated “Crime Zones” and a complete banning of Super Heroes. They aren’t allowed, and the US Government looks the other way because of the massive revenue the city contributes in taxes and other finances. As a result of the booming criminal element, crime rates have lowered dramatically across the nation as the morally loose, flock to New Port City. This is a city were pedophilia, rape, incest, murder, drug use/sales, and much more can and will take place as a part of daily life. That isn’t to say that its all bad, there are schools and law enforcement and a lot of other vital things to keep a society to running effectively. The majority of these things fall in the “Safe Zones”, where crime is prohibited, something that even the Bomb Queen herself, abides to. Which brings us to the character in question.
Bomb Queen is a sexy, foul-mouthed, no morals, eccentric, lecherous, greedy, but intelligent dictator. Her abilities as a villainess are essentially just being good with explosives. Originally apart of a quartet, The Four Queens, she and her partners defeated the heroes of New Port City and took the place over. Then, 3 of the 4 Queens decided to be become heroes. Guess which Queen remained a villain, then guess which one won. So, what does our remaining Queen decide to do with her life? She becomes a merchant of debauchery, selling herself on the Internet and other medias, this is of course, when she isn’t causing havoc for her sniveling mayor… But I think what stands out the most about her, is her personality and costume. She has no real major aspirations for herself, save for running New Port City. She pretty much is what I’d expected anyone else to become when in her position. A child of excess and consumption, and she’s fine with that. She can be pretty witty as well. And as I said early, she’s a pretty smart woman. But the biggest show of her personality is also her biggest showing of skin. Her costume is absurd. Her pants are way too tight and are cut way too low, her top pretty much a bikini with short sleeves, and she has some sort of gauntlets that hide explosion disks, plus a visor that’s hooked into a supercomputer, not unlike Iron Man’s HUD in his helmet. This costume, if it shows more than just her body, it shows her carefree attitude. She could put some more clothes on, if she cared, but more often than not, by the end of the day, she’s just down to the pants. Thus are the hazards of such a flimsy costume.
So, what made me finally buy the book? I think I just remembered that I’m a grown up, so what’s it matter? It’s not like its some form of extreme pornography, that I’d have to buy a few copies of more tame porn so I can pretend like its a joke or for a friend or something. It’s an extreme comic with great art and a very different premise. On that merit alone, it was a good purchase. Some might balk at it, considering its pretty much crude for crudeness sake, but to me, it’s refreshing, and I hope that Jimmie Robinson, the creator, keeps bringing more to the table with Bomb Queen. Bomb Queen Omnibust Vol 1 contains the first three story arcs of the books. Look out for the sixth series coming in September, where… Well, where Bomb Queen comes face to face with our 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama… Now, Mr. Obama has been in quite a few comics lately, but this is one I’m really very curious about. Image Comics has pushed the envelope pretty far in the past, just the other day, a woman came in the store and was upset to see President Obama holding a gun in self-defense in a different Image Comic property, Youngblood. So, if that made her mad, I can only imagine with she’d think when he crosses paths with Bomb Queen. Until next time…
> It looks like comic books have a viable new market: The iPhone. iVerse Media announced Monday August 17 that sales of their digital comics application for the Apple iPhone have reached one million downloads. Astonishingly, iVerse achieved this massive success in just over nine months of the company going live. On top of that, neither Marvel or DC Comics are available through iVerse. The largest participating partner with iVerse is Image comics. Other comic publishers include Archie Comics, IDW Publishing and Boom Studios.
I couldn’t imaged reading a full comic on an iPhone but it is interesting to see how many new comic readers this might introduce to the industry. I know Star Clipper owner Ben, a huge iPhone advocate, might find this news particularly intriguing. It will likely bring a new generation of readers to comics and graphic novels, but how many will bypass the local comic shop?
Kevin Wolf’s Pangaea is back with the second collection The Mongoose Phalanx. Winner of RFT Best of St. Louis – Best Comic Book award in 2008, this second collection of humor strips far surpasses the first. This time around Mr. Wolf has mastered his crudely drawn first attempt and presented Pangaea as a well crafted and well executed machine, pumping out story after story. It is in the writing where Wolf finds his strength, and The Mongoose Phalanx manages to captures a childlike whimsy and melancholy inspired by the likes of Bill Watterson and Charles Schlutz.
Follow the ever expanding Pangaea cast as they embark on stranger and stranger adventures. The inseparable trio of Henry Koala, Kyle Gator, and Zephyr Monkey are found playing jet fighter, crushing over girls, and basking in 80s nostalgia as they battle sentient computer Skynet. Boss Bird and Ivan Bird expanded the bagel shop (with disastrous results), and Phoebe dishes out the dating advice (also with disastrous results). Underlying it all though is a deep sense of longing of a world passing the characters by. Yet, through their friendships and misadventures there is still hope, and the very mature themes of confusion and depression are won over by heartwarming naivety. Like any great comic, Pangaea can find its home on the book shelves of both children and adults.
The Mongoose Phalanx also includes a guest artist section a la Family Circus. Including many of Wolf’s closest friends writing and illustrating guest strips, this section proves Pangaea’s rudimentary style is for everyone, and further reinforces that anyone can make comics. More so, it proves that if you work hard enough on the comic, like Wolf has, you can make great comics!
So… I was walking around the store when I came across a book that caught my eye… sorta. You see, the cover didn’t really stand out to me. It just had a few folks standing around by an interstate sign. One of the characters was some sort of gothy Suicide Girl, so I kinda dismissed it. It wasn’t until I noticed the lone tentacle, wrapping its way around the female, that I took another look at the cover. And upon closer inspection, I realized that the mountain range in the background wasn’t a mountain, it was a monster. Some sort of Lovecraftian Creature was the entire mountain, so, me being a fan of the Lovecraft Mythos, I took a gander inside. The book’s title? North 40.
The book begins with two friends opening a package that contains a fiendishly old book that features a raised “alien” skull with tentacles for the cover. They crack open the book and speak some nonsense, as if the were in a trance, and unleash a madness upon the town. Folks start turning into monsters, the ground starts eating people, the dead begin to rise… It’s fun for the whole family. But aside from that, there’s really not a lot else to say about it. It has great art, and the book is loaded with dialogue. It’s literately just a story about a small southern town being decimated by an ancient “evil” and the perils of the survivors, including the two who unleashed the beast in the first place. And that’s just the first issue. The second issue jumps right into the story and follows the surviving characters from the first issue on their new situation. Some characters find themselves imbued with special abilities, and others find themselves in a place where there’s simply no hope. I’d liken it to the Walking Dead, but replace the zombies of that story with Lovecraft nasties. However, that’s a really early observation, which is based solely on the idea of there being a small cast of characters in which we learn a great deal about. And that’s about all the comparison I want to give on this book. It’s not a copy-cat by any means, but you know how it goes. You gotta be able to compare it to something else in order paint a more clear picture… However, that can lead to disastrous results…
So yeah, that’s it. No giant blog from me today. North 40, story by Aaron Williams, cover and art by Fiona Staples… I suppose I should point out that its a limited series. I believe its run will be 6 issues, with plans for an extended run if the book sales well. I think issue 3 will be due around the time of this post, so if you’ve missed out, don’t fret. It’ll probably end up with a trade. But don’t quote me on that. But If you find that you’ve been lacking a monsters in your life, give North 40 a shot. Until next time.
> I read the first issue of the Marvels Project, and I gotta say that it’s good stuff. Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, the team that reinvigorated Captain America is re-exploring the dawn of the Marvel universe in a more contemporary voice, and within the confines of brink-of-war America in 1939. We find out that the creation of the original android Human Torch was less than accidental, and the race for a secret weapon wasn’t restricted to bombs and missiles, the race was on to create a super-human.
Probably the coolest reveal in the first issue is Franklin Roosevelt receiving a briefing on the progress of the development of the Human Torch. Instead of keeping the information classified, FDR allows the knowledge of the Torches existence to be leaked by the media as Americas enemies appear to be closer to developing a super-human. This is a cool pre-cold war nuclear arms race metaphor, and a great way to make the early Marvel universe relevant to the modern incarnation. Surely the Super-soldier program will play a central role in the series, and it will be interesting to see the behind-the-scenes machinations that take place leading to the birth of Captain America.
the Marvels Project is a celebration of Marvel/ Atlas/ Timely comics existence that was also accompanied by a reprinting of the first issue of Marvel Comics released in 1939 that debuted the Human Torch, Namor, and Ka-Zar, along with the genre adventure stories of the day. At the time, these characters weren’t as prominent or popular as the heroes being produced over at the Distinguished Competition, but their impact would be appreciated for years to come. the Marvels Project is a great re imagining of the creation myth that is the Marvel Universe.
>In the present world of Spider-Man, the contentiousness that follows the One More Day/ Brand New Day story seems to be receding a little. Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s marriage, which had lasted for quite some time was collectively mind-wiped from the memory of everyone in the Marvel Universe thanks to a deal that Peter had made with the devil (Mephisto) to save the life of Aunt May, who Jon and I sometimes refer to as “crusty old Aunt May” since this old lady has been on deaths door since 1963. To save crusty old Aunt May, Peter agreed to have Mephisto reset their lives to where Peter and MJ were never married, and also dispose of the public knowledge that Pete was Spider-Man.
Fans have been a little ticked off with the dissolving of the marriage of Marvels favorite married couple, and I can’t say that I blame them too much. Years of character development for Peter Parker had been thrown out of the window to put him back to where he started. Not to say that Spider-Man has been all bad, in fact, there have been quite a few stories that I’ve really dug recently like the American Son storyline that finds Norman Osborn trying to recruit his own son Harry into his Avengers team. This leads Spidey to infiltrate Avengers tower posing as Venom in order to find a way to remove Norman from power, and to prevent his best friend from becoming a tool of his father, who has become the most powerful man in the world.
In issue 600, Mary Jane comes back into the picture, and leads one to wonder how much longer Marvel is going to drag the dead horse that is Brand New Day until they do what we all know is inevitable: Get Pete and MJ married again… that is have it to where this deal with the devil is erased to allow Spidey to further grow as a character. I have a feeling that all this Dark Reign business is possibly leading towards something like this. After all, who better to usurp Norman Osborn, the former Green Goblin, then Spidey. What will the results be? Guess we’ll have to stay tuned in the meantime.
>Everyone by now knows about Twilight, a successful book series and recent movie franchise. It is quite popular with teen girls with one of the lead characters being a sullen, angst-ridden teen vampire named Edward who woos high school student Bella. I’ve seen the mania generated by Twilight in my previous job at a certain chain bookstore franchise where a prom-themed midnight release party was thrown for the last book. To say the least, I’m not a fan. When it comes to vampire action, give me the chosen one. Give me the slayer! Give me Buffy!
Youtube mash ups of movies, TV shows, video games and music are nothing new, and are either very well done, or make you bemoan the fact that you wasted any time viewing them. I ran across an example that pits my least favorite series about vampires against my favorite series about slaying vamps, and I gotta say, it’s pretty good. The timing of video and audio editing is praise-worthy and it made me chuckle quite a bit, and made me want to applaud towards the end.
Now that’s what I’m talking about! It’s somewhat cathartic to see Buffy give glittery, emo, glam-vamp Edward the brush-off and them stake him real good after he becomes a weirdo stalker type. It makes me wonder if there’s a double meaning to the fact that the big bad in the Buffy: Season 8 comics is named Twilight.
Crossover tie-in issues are rarely worth reading in comparison to the main comic event. So it is always a pleasant surprise when tie-in issues are at least of the same calibre as the primary story. However, when a tie-in is essential reading like Blackest Night – Batman, it is somewhat of a conundrum for comic readers. On one hand, it is nice to feel like reading a crossover issue is worth your time and money, and more importantly, has actual relevance to the overall plot of Blackest Night. On the other hand, if Blackest Night – Batman is so essential to the plot, it’s hard not to ask yourself why this material didn’t make it into the main book in the first place.
Blackest Night – Batman centers around the new Batman and Robin, Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne, and their awkward new working relationship while investigating the robbery of Bruce Wayne’s grave. Yet, the primary focus of the issue is on Deadman, a hero spirit, and his attempt to stop the resurrection of his alter ego Boston Brand’s dead body into becoming a Black Lantern. Deadman, who can possess any sentient being, goes straight to Batman for help. The plot soon unravels to the three heroes that the dead are rising. This is a pretty simple story for a first issue. So why is it so important to Blackest Night?
In the current issue of Blackest Night, writer Geoff Johns dedicates one page of the comic to the Deadman’s struggle with Boston Brand’s Black Lantern transition. The story never returns to this plot thread and it gives the second issue a disjointed narrative, much like the one I’ve often complained about with Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis. Though overall Blackest Night #2 is a good issue, the deadman element seems almost inconsequential without Blackest Night – Batman.
The strength of Blackest Night – Batman makes up for the awkward allusions to the Deadman plot in Blackest Night. The artwork in the Batman tie-in carries over well from the main title. Pencilled by Ardian Syaf, the issue has the same dark and ominous look that illustrator Ivan Reis has created in Blackest Night. Writer Peter J. Tomasi has done an excellent job of playing on classic Batman lore as well, threatening the rise of the two previous Robin’s dead parents Jack and Janet Drake and John and Mary Grayson . These types of mind games are essential to any classic Batman tale and is fitting for a creepy Blackest Night sub-story.
Should more of this have been in the main Blackest Night event? Probably, but DC was smart and realized this Batman yarn held enough weight to carry its own mini-series. Plus, I would bet Bruce Wayne will have a greater presence somewhere in the upcoming issues and it will be exciting to see how that will play out.
>If you’ve ever engaged in conversation with my partner in crime in store management Jon, then you are aware of what a big bronze age Ghost Rider fan he is. Well, I have to admit that his enthusiasm for all things Johnny Blaze have rubbed off on yours truly. I found some super cheap old back issues of the original GR series from the 70’s at a used bookstore in Springfield Ill, and it set me on the path to fandom. I then bought the Essential Ghost Rider here at the store and I gotta say, Jon, you’re right, this stuff is awesome!
Pop culture had developed an interest in the occult in the 1970’s, and Marvel managed to jump on the bandwagon by creating characters like Daimon Hellstrom, aka the Son of Satan, Blade the Vampire hunter in the pages of Tomb of Dracula, and a voodoo-centric character named Brother Voodoo. Of all these characters, Ghost Rider has proven to have the most staying power as evidenced by the launch of a new Ghost Rider series in 1990 and the current ongoing series written by the incomparable Jason Aaron of Scalped fame. As for the original run in the 70’s, the issue that really did it for me was issue 35 in which Blaze is challenged to a race by Death incarnate. If GR were to lose, innocent people would die, and ultimately so would Johnny Blaze. How awesome is that? Very awesome.
So to Jon I say, gosh darn you! gosh darn you to heck for getting me addicted to some awesome 70’s demon-possessed action! If you had told me before I started working here that I’d be a fan of a stunt cyclist who’s skull is always on fire, I’d say you were crazy. Now I have even more stuff I have to read, as if I weren’t backed up on reading as it were.
Its been talked about since the comic began in 2003, and now it looks like The Walking Dead will finally become an ongoing television series for cable channel AMC. According to the the hollywood reporter, AMC bought the rights to Robert Kirkman’s zombie survivor tale in an attempt to further diversify their programming. The channel has had hits with recent dramas “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” and the popularity of their annual horror themed Fearfest showcase was a key factor in bringing in The Walking Dead to the network. The show will be directed and written by “Green Mile” director Frank Darabout. No casting choices or air dates have been announced since the series is still in the early stages of pre-production.
Though the series announcement is exciting news, it does concern me that The Walking Dead wasn’t picked up by a more gritty pay-per-view channel like HBO or Showtime. Anyone familiar with Kirkman’s zombie apocalypse knows how excruciatingly brutal The Walking Dead is to read, and part of its appeal is undeniably its shock value. Whether or not AMC will be able to make that element of Walking Dead successful in the television series remains to be seen, but I would have only expected HBO to pull off the devastating and disturbing drama.
As for casting, I would bet AMC will go with no name actors and actress in order to focus the primary budget on special effects and gore. However, if I had my choice for casting lead character Rick Grimes, I would cast the Dark Knights’ Aaron Eckhart for the role. He fits the look of Rick and he tends to pick roles as a conflicted and uncertain hero, which is the qualification needed to portray the definitive Walking Dead survivor.
The most encouraging aspect of the Walking Dead series is that it will be made into an ongoing television show instead of one feature film. Since comics are inherently episodic stories it just makes sense to make them serialized shows. The Walking Dead in particular derives its distinct drama not from the zombie element but from the human conflict in the presence of fending for basic survival. Had the rights for The Walking Dead been acquired for a single film it would be near impossible to recreate the human condition crucial to its comic counterpart. No Walking Dead fan is looking for just another sub-par zombie film, as we know it’s so much more than simply walking dead on film.
One of my favorite bookstores in St. Louis. Star Clipper offers not only the best selection of comic books and graphic novels in the city, but also a cornucopia of art, design and pop-culture related books and magazines. 
