true till death

we have to read these comics | 333 | PDA | SS | IAW | NO BODY | SPUDD | RBK | SINGLE WHITE GRANDPA | WORD! | NEW HUMAN | BAD SON 2099

[bincrawler]

Square-jawed with flowing, blonde, improbably-feathered hair, Kyra (”Mistress of the Jungle”) appears on the front cover of her eponymous 1985 comic in an extreme example of what in the past decade has become known as the “brokeback pose,” whereby her waist is impossibly twisted so that her breasts and ass are visible at the same time. In this case, the pose not only presents Kyra’s secondary sex characteristics to the reader’s gaze, it also depicts coiled energy, her muscles bulging as she prepares to pummel a couple of snarling henchmen. Her pale skin pops against a shadowy background, and the rudimentary coloring gives the cover a primal graphic appeal.

Creators Larry Heller (editor/publisher) and Robin Ator (writer/artist) explain the impetus for Kyra, their contribution to the mid-1980s “black & white boom” in comics publishing, in the introductory essay on the inside covers of this premiere issue. They created their buff, scantily-clad protagonist, they say, out of a desire to see a properly muscular action heroine: “...[T]his jungle girl is no wimp. She looks physically like she can do the things she’s doing. ... Surely the strong active heroine saving the world from imminent destruction needs something more than a fashion-model physique.” Kyra was imagined as the daughter of Kageena, a “jungle queen” who starred in a series of fetish comics created by Eugene Bilbrew in the 1950s and whose loincloth had a tendency to flip up and reveal her ass, as shown in the sample pages that illustrate the introduction. The creators’ invocation of "the woman’s movement of the ‘60s” combined with the role of exploitative source material in the genesis of the character imbues the whole comic with a fascinating, unresolved tension. I wonder if Adam Warren has ever read this stuff, as he treads similar ground (with much more winking self-awareness) in his series Empowered.

As if to prove the authors’ high-mindedness, the comic opens with an epigram attributed to Aristotle about the nature of greed. Alone in the Asian jungle, Kyra comes across and disrupts a scene of occult torture, making a powerful enemy who resolves to find and destroy her. Ator uses a break in the action to develop Kyra’s character while building tension: in a single-page sequence, the panels cut back and forth between assassins’ hunt for Kyra and Kyra using her brawn and brains to help a village build an irrigation system. The action quickly resumes and Kyra overcomes the assassins and a persistent zombie, again using her physical prowess (”I can’t afford to play nice jungle damsel -- I’ve got to hit them as hard and fast as I can!”) and her wits (”How can I de-zombify this thing? Wait! What was it Dad read to me once--?”). Kyra displays a libertarian self-sufficiency (”I suppose I love the forests... In fact, there’s no real government here”) and her proficiency is depicted as chosen and earned.

Apart from Kyra’s bodacious physique and revealing bikini/loincloth outfit (and the brokeback cover illustration), Ator is restrained in depicting her in an overtly sexual way, eschewing pinup poses in favor of exhibiting her athleticism (which, granted, may still be a turn-on for some). The story is strictly PG-13, with one brief scene of subtle nudity. Neither is Kyra sexualized by the other characters, who seem oblivious to her physical attributes other than her muscles and the power they impose. The hordes of henchmen she battles want to fight, not fuck, and the combat is not sexually coded. Her antagonist, Johanna Starling -- a witch and, apparently, a Bangkok-based developer who wants to exploit Kyra’s jungle home for its mineral resources -- displays no envy of Kyra and simply sees her as an obstacle. For her part, Starling gets a single-panel sexy reveal in a lace-up bodice, but remains mostly concealed and is only described as “a tall woman in black and blue.” When the two women face off, the story passes the Bechdel test.

At its best, Ator’s loose, dynamic artwork resembles Steve Ditko (no stranger to fetish comics work) as inked by Frank Stack. There are a few clumsily composed sequences that border on incomprehensibility, but overall the drawing has an appealing energy. As a writer, Ator is above average: the action moves briskly (sometimes too briskly; at one point I wondered if there was a missing page), exposition and panel captions are brief and to the point (as she downs her foes, ”Kyra walks bodies like a paved path”), characters’ decisions and motivations are clear, and Kyra’s plucky, youthful personality is well defined. Ator imbues her with Spider-Mannish charm, for instance having her refer to her supernaturally-powered foe as “Spooky” and quip “Pay attention, cutie!” before she (spoiler alert) defeats her rotting undead attacker with a borrowed pot of stew -- and then can’t believe it worked (”You mean, that’s all it takes...?”). Clearly, Ator’s intention was to make a fun comic, and in this he succeeded.

The backup story “Jungle Justice,” which predates the main story, hews closer to the character’s fetishy origins, with an abundance of crotch shots and the old death-by-thighs trope. It comes across as a bit of unfortunate juvenilia in comparison. And I won’t get into the problematic aspects of the whole “white savior of primitive lands” genre, but the comic does little to subvert that cliche. Thankfully, the work is free of stereotypical racial depictions. (I’ll give a pass to a couple of background villagers in conical “rice paddy” hats.)

Kyra, published out of Norwalk, Connecticut under the “Elsewhere Productions” banner, ran for 5 issues 1985-1987, which were compiled in a 1988 trade paperback which also collected some Kageena material.

RBK

[bincrawler]

Why I picked these comics.

FF 78: I saw a reprint of that FF 78 when I was a kid in the mid 70s. I think it was one of my first opportunities to grasp abstraction. I remember staring at the black dots making up the figures and the slash of black down Ben Grimms face... Even the symbolic floating giant heads were a departure from logic. I remember going "no no no this is wrong!" and then realizing at some point I was actually denying I liked it. Even as a six year old, I was aware how perfect it was and knew that the fact that I couldn't stop staring at it meant something. I always remember this comic.

1980s John Byrne Fantastic Four with Galactus on the cover: This stands in for all the comics I wanted to read but didn't. In the early 80s I saw this same FF galactus cover in a store. I bought it along with two other comics but my parents ripped it up before I could read it. All the comics I wasn't allowed to read in those years were like this irresistible object. The pull towards comics, the idea of comics, symbolically as a goal in the distance, made them more desirable the further I got from them. This is still in play today. I guess they're like my fetish object. A lot of people ask me why my parents wouldn't let me read comics. I think, since comics were all I was interested in, it was an attempt at "conversion therapy" on their part. Either that or I was just a bad kid in general who was on constant restrictions. Whatever, I ended up just more gay for comics as a result. I still haven't read this comic.

Raw 8: My dad bought Raw 8 in 1986 when I was living with him in this weird apartment he had when he and my stepmom separated, and I had a job at Rax Roast Beef which is just like Arby’s but only exists in a couple of states so you might not have heard of it. My room was the large utility closet, but even though it was called a closet, it was really obvious the place was designed so single parents could cram an extra person in. Well, they got back together in early 88 anyways. My dad mostly got Raw cause he thought Art Spiegleman was legit because he'd done this important book about the holocaust. Not sure what he thought of all the formal experimentation, but I remember really being interested in this issue of Raw and also wanting to love it more than I did. My favorite story in there was the Kim Dietch/Simon Dietch story about Waldo overdosing, and I always think of that Dietch story about junkies and cats sticking cat turds in dime bags that was drawn like no one else. At first I kind of turned my nose up at that story, but I was wrong, it's the fucking best. I honestly think that Deitch story was TOO unpretentious for me at the time. Similarly to the Kirby cover for FF 78, it took me a while to stop denying it, as it broke too many rules, was too dumb. Maybe it was after I got into more punk and less new wave, I understood how much character this story had. (My second favorite artist in the book was Jerry Moriarity.) So this story was important to me. The rest of the work in the book doesn't stick with me the same way, and that reaction remains pretty consistent to this day. I like what I like.

AGONY: The appearance of Maus on the scene meant that all the other books with the Raw imprint were also getting more distribution. That's how I ended up getting a copy of Agony by Mark Beyer when I was 17. This book represented a real departure from the comics I had mostly known, it represented liberation and also set a new bench mark for writing and detailed inking that I despaired at ever matching. I immediately did some more primitive comics which no longer exist, but the point is that I got excited enough to try them. The thing with copying Mark Beyer is at first you think this is fucking easy then you notice how insanely intricate his inking really is. It can make you give up if you're not careful. I love Mark Beyer and I think I was exposed to him at a vital point, when everything was still coming together for me. IAW

[bincrawler]

With Phantacea #3 from 1978, it seems like there are almost as many creators as there are characters. Apparently someone named Jim McPherson was behind the whole thing, creating an incredibly byzantine alternate history of the world that only seems to grow more, rather than less, complex as you read the issue. Set up like a flipbook, Phantacea #3 offers two covers and four black & white stories. The first half, what you get to if you start reading with the cover that contains the title, issue number and price, begins with a greeting from McPherson and a three page introduction where he throws so many names and details at the reader in such a breathless rush of world-building it’s as admirable as it is frustrating. Apparently it all started 7000 years ago on the planet Weir when Cabalarkon created Sedon, the first Deva, an immortal being. A lot of bad shit went down and Sedon murdered the whole Planetary Council of Weir to save the life (or life force, I guess) of his not-really dad Cabalarkon before deciding he wanted to procreate. Sedon “managed to produce” (and this part is not illustrated, at least not in Phantacea #3, which is a bummer) three sons and three daughters, all of which are Devas for some reason. A lot of incest goes on (seriously, although again it’s not shown) and eventually the Devas create ANOTHER lesser race, the Azuras, go to war, get kicked out of Weir, end up on Earth, and continue the fighting. And sex, I suppose. All of this is mixed liberally with whatever happens to be going on with Earth at the time, which seems to include fascists during World War II, some organization called A.M.E.R.I.C.A. that operates out of Greece, superheroes that may or may not have something to do with Devas (the third eye seems to connect them somehow) and a space wizard named Kadmon Helios, also known as Sophos the Wise, also known as Wizard of the Warped Waves, also known as the Lightray Lunatic, also known as the Hologram Houdini (honestly) who shows up in a space ship playing a guitar. There are so many concepts thrown at you so quickly and with so little explanation or exposition that it’s hard to have any idea what is going on. Weirdly, even in this first story, the longest of the bunch, there appear to be two different artists. Maybe more. It was really hard to tell.

Flip the book around to the much more visually appealing second cover, which promises something called The Damnation Brigade, and things get better and worse. This side contains three different stories, all of which continue to embroider the story of the Devas and their war on Earth, all from different perspective. Again, names and characters come flying off the page like pasta from Tommy LaSorda’s throat… Vayu Maelstrom, Antaeor Thanatos, Cerebrus, Demon Land (a character, not a place) and on and on. The art improves somewhat, and the occasionally shocking violence (an arrow flies straight into the third eye of Maelstrom) looks just tiny tantalizing bit like Gil Kane in his Gullivar Jones days from Creatures on the Loose. There’s something more visceral and immediate to this brief tale that lifted the book considerably. It’s followed by a short interlude that involves a fat Viking, a diminutive sorceress and another evil magician who spend a lot of time insulting each other, building alliances against one another, and talking about beer. This part would not at all have been out of place in the back of the Dungeon Master’s Guide or a Dragon Magazine from 1982, and I mean that as a compliment.

By far, the jewel in this unwieldy crown is the piece sandwiched in the middle, sporting some impressive Aircel-looking pencil art by someone named Ian Bateson who seems to dislike panels, loves bare breasted women with snakes for hair and shades his pencil work like a motherfucker. Again, the narrative is nearly incomprehensible (is this taking place before, after, or at the same time as the other stories?) but the art is pretty gorgeous. It’s a forerunner of Berserk and Prison Pit and you know what that means.

Does anyone recommend anything anymore? Is there even a point to that? I don’t know, and I don’t think I care. This magazine fucked with my head in ways both good and bad for a half hour. I find myself going back to that Ian Bateson story now and again to look at those sexy penciled warriors, and I found it for a buck at a flea market. So there you have it. I’m sure you can find some way to work this into your newest campaign, and maybe McPherson would take that as the praise that it should be. SPUDD

[bincrawler]

My friend Eamon gave me a slew of comics the other week, slowly sifting through this stuff. This article comes from The Comics Journal #148 published February 1992. It brought to mind a conversation I was having last night with Cundo, he was talking about a spot in the 90s in California called the "anti-mall." Basically a mall that catered to the tastes of the budding punk/ska scene, a place where you could find the good hair dye, a tower records specializing in imported music, an urban outfitters ect. Essentially a mall playfully under the guise of an alternative.

In a way, Image could be seen as radical shift in the mainstream comics world, but at the same time is a repackaging of the same shit. What difference did Image bring to the table? Within the boundaries of capitalism, is it possible for there to be an alternative in the mainstream comics world? What would that even look like? A room full of different white men? How does the alternative/art comics scene mimic the big two? How is it different? If one appears more approachable/sincere do you feel better when you feed it money? or does it feel better to purchase from one hidden behind the authority of a publisher?

What is the difference between the Ghost World movie and the X-men movie?

How is selling a product different from someone else selling a product? Is one form of capitalism better than another? Is the new boss better than the old boss?

Here I am asking questions relevant in 1992, and it's so easy to ask questions.

-No Body

[bincrawler]

NEW YORK CITY OUTLAWS #2 written by Robert Huszar art by Ken Landgraf

so before i get into the comic itself i want to try to piece together what we know about the printed existence of this comic. the year is 1984, the publisher outlaw comics is one guy named steve kapelonis, who also is credited as the creator of new york outlaws. the publishing house is located at Eva's restaurant on 11 w. 8th st. new york city. robert huszar wrote the words and ken landgraf drew it. the band is called battalion and claim to be be new yorks #1 heavy metal band, call charlie at 982-3538 (i dont know what for). so in my fantasy, steve runs his mom's (eva's) restaurant that does good enough for him to get his 2 metalhead friends, who also happen to work as dishwashers in eva's restaurant, to write and draw his dumb idea of a comic that he will publish partly with his mom's money and partly with money from his friend charlie's cousin's band, battalion, only if he can get a back ad and comic featuring the band. lets just say thats exactly how this comic was made.

ANYWAYS, this thing is ridiculous and good low brow action exploitation vhs type shit you've come to expect when crawling through bins! This is the type of comic you like in the same way you like movies like 1990: The Bronx Warriors. There's examples of stuff i like on every single one of the 48 pages of art in this.  so many poorly drawn hands and poses in a 'whatever, its still fucking cool' type of way that i admire. a ton of great gulacy-type layouts and intense paced action sequences. even the cover is awesome, it looks like a ghana movie poster! a technical effect that they truly did perfect within this comic is the massive use of zip-tones with its limited one color printing. I've been working on a one color comic this week and trying to use as many tricks as they got within these pages, they got gradient tones, gray tones, pinkish red tones, solid red, pink and gray  tones on top of each other, gray tones on top of solid red, entire image made of gray tone with no black lines, entire image made of solid red with no black lines. thats 8 different ways they use the one color to its fullest use, pre-photoshop at that! PDA

[bincrawler]

I'm back,I haven't reviewed nothing since the thing about Richy Vegas I wrote and now i'm back and i'm writing about movies.

This movie pirate channel my friend Chad told me about  is great, and this website has a lot in common with old comics bins, there's a lot of old movies I've never heard of before, like Slayground with Peter Coyote, and old ones I hadn't seen in ten years like American Gigolo. 

But the one   I want to talk about is The WarLover. Its based on a novel, so its got a depth to it  that screenplays sometimes can get away with not having. Stars Steve Mcqueen as Buzz Rickson and Its about a guy who loves war and has let his extreme definitions  of masculinity disfigure him  to crazy extents where everyone loves and hates and fears him and pities him  and contemplates the nature of what it is to go through life taking only what you want and giving nothing because thats what he does. But  what if ultimately what you *want* is either your own way or self annihilation? (thats what you call a classic win win!)"Ricksons a good example of the fine line that separate a hero and a psychopath,"the camp doctor says at one point.

McQueen walks through the movie in a performance that's got the relaxed naturalism  thing down. He acts like Captain Kirk with greater psychological depth and looks like Brody from Homeland, (like, exactly,) and says stuff like "I'll never  leave, I'll be here til the last bomb is dropped, and maybe i'll drop it."  His whole aura is ambiguous hazy fog, and he moves slow, like he was in a dream. He's clearly an insane narcissist and clearly is meant to hold a sort of Manson like magnetism over his audience.

The movies shot well, fulll of beautiful photography and artificial sound stages, has the same sterile nightmare quality of  "Man who Shot Liberty Vallance."  The fakeness is also a great feature when they get into a dogfight with the Nazis and the burning ships falling into the mountains below  are obviously miniature toys. Actually the toy airplanes look a lot like something they'd do on SNL as a joke. its still better to my eye than whatever they're doing in the Hobbit or whatever is out now.

Depictions of modern sexuality are largely featured in the movie, meaning you get that the soldiers and the local English women are fucking, its heavily suggestive for a movie made in 1962, with the soldiers all exploring the dark sides of their sexuality and  enjoying relationships with women who date Americans partially to make the best of limited options,  the same way that the factory workers in an Officer and a gentleman go out with with the guys in Richard Gere's officer school. the sexual politics are  a reflection of their times, so they don't go to any great length to illustrate who these women were before the war and what they wanted out of life, but it at least portrays the suggestion that people who have had their home bombed  wanted something different and are just doing the best they can. 

The movie goes back and forth between focusing in  a romance subplot, but always returns to Steve Mcqueen's character, He's the WarLover, the walking contradiction at the center. 

But that's the two halves of the movie, half of it is about War and the other half is about love.  Romance takes many forms in it, one part is the type of  romnticism that the film's characters use to relate  to the imperiled  world around  them. As Shirley Anne Field's character  Daphne  says to  Robert Wagner, "You're such an American; a Romantic." 

Daphne , though she's dating Robert Wagner, acknowledges in a candid moment she's attracted to Buzz  but don't worry, that doesn't mean shit because she knows better, he's no good. Why? Well the movie takes pains to explain Buzz is a scumbag, making him virtually kick dogs so you know he's a shit.The truth is he embodies the type of cold hearted excellence  that makes half of America, with its AynnRand-ian fixations, forgive him anything. It's like Harvey Pekar once said, the only thing America won't forgive is a loser, thats why John Gotti was a hero until he went to jail, until then people loved him like they love Jesse James. The other half of America thinks  the legend of the self possessed white warrior is at best  ridiculous and at worst is everything thats wrong with the world today. Its a divided world. 

And I'm divided,  I don't know how  I feel about the movie. I definitely think its better than a lot of other old movies and love the parts that are dripping with venomous punk nihilism.

But then again, Punk nihilism is just another Romantic idea. Its a veneer of romance on top of something else.  Look, here at BinCrawler, we will never hesitate to share our jumbled thoughts with you, no matter how conflicted they are, and that's the BinCrawler guarantee. I've been thinking about Romanticism a lot lately. I don't think I can look at the world free from a  romantic veneer, I started when I  was a kid and I've never really stopped. i started living through super heroes when I was a kid and continued through Punk rock heroes.  I still do it today and I'm not young. Unless Im put in a concentration camp or something,  I'll probably never stop viewing  the world, with all it's ugliness and beauty  as something that I can only understand by thinking about a Husker Du song or something. Romanticism is bullshit but i need it, it's like a drug that makes things ok.

The scene that first really lets you understand Mcqueen's essential romanticism occurs about forty minutes in when a bombing attack strikes while he's at a tavern. and he stays behind to drink while everyone else hides in a bunker, dragging along a petrified officer to keep him company. The tavern keeper leaves the place unlocked because none would be insane enough to drink when death is falling from the sky. Mcqueen strolls  outside and looks up into the bomb filled sky and yells, " when you build a bomb big enough to destroy Rickson, come back and blow up the WORLD!" You can see at that moment,  underneath the ambiguous haze he customarily wears around his face there is a sort of excitement and defiance. It's a big showy performance only this time the only real audience is himself. He really believes his bullshit. After all how can you be a war lover if your hearts not full of  the type of Romanticism that suppresses a greater horror. IAW

[bincrawler]

Ania is Swahili for protect and defend. They put out a line of afro-centric comics in the early 90's like Purge, Zwanna son of Zulu and Ebony Warrior.  The story is fairly basic, it's about a successful black writer, James "Komal" Jackson, who moves back to his hometown only to discover it's been overrun by crime!

"Something must be done! The streets are getting worse, Dad."   "What more can you do? You volunteer at the community center. You teach remedial math, science and reading. You even reach to the kids more than I do." "You can't fight the symptoms Dad, you have to fight the disease." A Hero is born.  But check out the artwork! The perspective on a lot of these pages is totally crazy. Steven X routhier really went all-out. The fight sequences are more like dream sequences. He does a great job constructing this strange world that Ebony Warrior inhabits full of storm clouds and dutch angles and hard streets. There is also this back-up story about this super-soldier, weapon-x type dude named Turner.That's where the drawing of the dude busting out of the tank is from. That's from a different artist (Mishindo I.). This comic is full of early-90's-boom awesomeness.  

[bincrawler]

BERNI WRIGHTSON INKING STEVE DITKO!?! ARE YOU FUCKIN KIDDIN ME?! no i’m not. this is the real deal. its more real right now than it was 2 minutes a go prior to you having this information. and whats up with bernie wrightson? dude went by berni then changed it to bernie but his f1rst name is bernard. anyway, he’s one of the greatest ink slingers ever. my first exposure to him was captain stern and then SWAMP THING!!!!!!!!!! oh shit! have you seen his recent frankenstein jam? it kills!recently bernie had a stroke so please keep him in yer prayers. sounds like he’s on the mend. MORLOCK 2001 MIDNIGHT MEN is the 3rd and final issue. like many of the atlas comics by the time they got to the 2nd or 3rd issue they’d gut what came before i’m guessin cuz sales were shit. MORLOCK is a straight lift from farenheit 451 and orwell’s 1984… except the morlock is a plant man birthed from a pussy shaped plant pod. he spilled out onto the floor fully clothed in 2 tone baby blue spandex and white anime hair. and when morlock gets emotional he turns into a giant tree monster (ent?). rumor has it richard prince was a big atlas fan and later employeed their “appropriation” aesthetic five years later with “his” photos cowboys. morlock 3 starts with the dude who will become midnight man burned alive in his illegal library. he manages to live but is burned all over. he spots morlock and realizes the resistance has a chance. quickly his hopes are dashed and he ends the comic shoot morlock in the head and suicide bombing the resistance hq.

BATMAN HIDDEN TREASURES #1 is a fucking tradgedy. FOR YEARS i’d heard about dc sitting on a berny rightson batman comic inked by kevin nowlan! what the fuck! why wasn’t that published right away?! why’d it take 13 years? probably because it sucks. each page is a single image. its a weak piece of illustrated bat bullshit with some ok images and a few stunners. the single images aren’t even all splash pages. there’s one double splash… and lots of ads… theres a cool wrightsun painting and a reprint of swamp thing #7 with shitty computer colors. fuck this shit.

LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE 80 PAGE GIANT #1 as a story penciled by ditko and inked by kevin nowlan!!!! i first heard about this on nowlan’s excellent blog (yes kevin nowlan is a blogger!) where he claimed he failed, which i found FOUND hard to believe. 

well… yeah, he failed but he's still a badass and the results are super interesting. what i love LOVE about nowlan inking others is you can always ALWAYS tell if he respects the penciller. if he respects the penciller he does a killer job deliniating their voice with ink. butt if he doesn’t respect a penciller he totally TOTALLY over powers them and makes the comic way fucking better. nowlan inking ditko is a really weird pairing and total anomoly. you can tell nowlan respects ditko but can’t help over power him. thiss came out in 1998 so this is dikto totally stripped down. his comics being a language of bw textures acting as specific vocabulary. trying to translate that, especially for a dude like nowlan had to be weird. there’s one panel where nowlan inked every fucking leaf of a hedge!?! so weird. i imagine the hedge was ditko hatch and nowlan didn’t know what to do. in some frames there’s a really cool ditko nowlan mind meld but in a lot of it its bizarre which works for the story if you don’t read the words. without reading the words its a really trippy dreamy sea voyage spectre comic pencilled by ditko inked by nowlan. snuff sed. 333

[bincrawler]

captain america 402403404405407

its been a few days and i don’t remember much from the cap wolf SAGA but i do remember that i loved it. loved it! wolf man captain america for ever!! mark gruenwald is a genre. the more i read of his stuff the more i appreciate. dude danced on a razors edge of shit. he totally celebrated comics and their raw power and also made fun of them without being an asshole. totall woozy winks. lots of subtle buns i mean puns. the story kicks off with a search for john jameson. i say let him rot. demolition man is all fuckd up and him and cap burn sum energy in the gym bench pressin. star of the show is moonhunter. dude has barbed wire for hair. imagine rick james with red eyes and barb wire hair. he’s the wolf keeper. cap wants dr. strange to help but has to settle for doctor druid who is straight outta atlas comics. wolverine and cable show up but who cares. its fists in the air when cap turns wolf. never snuff snead of that for me. the finale is INSANE. the celestial lord of the wolves shows up and… shit goes down. BUTTT the real star of the show is the diamondback back up stories. trully fucked up. those i remember. i always remember fucked up comics the most… cross bones has kidnapped diamondback and kept her in a hole in the ground where he tortures her for her own good allah v for vendetta… its a really gross empowerment exercise dare i say ritual…? feel queesy about it but the christians have a sayin “the bath to grace is suffering” and i know thats been true in my life but why? neurological pathways engraved by our warmongering animal style ancestors? was listening to a dude ona  podcast talking about how its more rewarding for us to make a big deal of negative things, puff them up so theyre worse and worse. we dont know how to be happy. diamondback rises up. i found it creepy and uplifting and i hate lars van triers movies. thwip! 333

[bincrawler]

FRIDAY NIGHT WRASSLIN N’ COMIX STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN PREVIEW BOOK written by steven grant art by james fry Im writing this post on my phone cuz fuck this dumb thing. This is a long interview with the writer and editor with kayfabe answers to get the book over with 6 pages uninked an unlettered art. This comic literally starts off with a waitress about to get raped in her diner in broad daylight on a busy street when stone cold drives through the wall in his monster truck to save her. FUCK COLLATERAL DAMAGE. ATTITUDE ERA. of course steve beats them all up and later has dinner with the waitress an her dad in what i can only guess is setting up the plot from road house. Also some dudes dressed as characters from the video game double dragons attacks 316 when hes grocery shopping. Nowhere in this comic does stone cold give the finger or gives the stunner. Its published by chaos comics in the 90s, but not the outrageous art on steroids, just regular art on steroids, they probably found this artist in a contest from wizard. This comic blows but, yaknow, WRASSLIN’. PDA

[bincrawler]

yo this comic is TOO SWEET

HAWD TALES #1 by T. Limbs aka Devin Flynn

if your like any of us here at bin collector you probably hate cops, the best part of this is all the cops are stupid assholes unlike most comics where cops are token gun-waving heroes who fight for justice. actually, everyone in this comic is a stupid asshole, that's probably the real reason i love this comic, i love stupidity as a comedic effect, michael scott and homer simpson is who i try to be. shit it even says stupid on the cover. im not trying to get smart to describe something stupid, if you like to laugh at jokes taking place in the hood and all the characters being degenerates of some sort you'll laugh hard at this. its a few short stories narrated by ghoulish thugs ala old ec comics but more like that 90s movie tales from the hood. i found this comic on a stack of 'to read' comics in my studio, i was completely confused for awhile before i remembered where i got it, i thought it was some crazy comic i found at a thrift store, but then i remembered dave nuss (most positive energy comic dude out there) gave it to me at CAB and i realized i was looking through a stack of comics i got at CAB but never looked through until the other day. so i guess revival house press put this out, but theres literally no information about the publishing aside from a barcode and price, but you can BUY IT at rhp's webstore now for 5 bucks. the art is a great to look at, really raw scribbly line with heavy black strokes throughout. t. limbs is probably a really cool dude too. its great to find amazing comics you didnt know you owned. PDA

[bincrawler]

The Agency Doesn't Pay us to Think. Back in 1993, Jae lee was doing some brutal art. From a recent interview on Comic Book Resources: "When I first started at Marvel in 1990, it was a period of bombastic images where anything goes. All logic went out the window. The comics practically screamed out at you with their insane storylines and hyper artwork. My work during that period was definitely a product of the times. It was an energetic, frenetic time.

"Throwing all logic out the window" and "anything goes" describes perfectly the kind of comics I wanna read. Youngblood: Strikefile is a visually groundbreaking work of action comics. Jae Lee's artwork is dark, electric, paranoid; frantic but focused. No one splatters ink quite like him. His heavy use of silhouettes and flat background's is in bold contrast to his use of heavily detailed- but not realistic- figures. This stuff is experimental! I'm sure Jae Lee was criticized by fandom for his "lack" of backround detail (I know he is today); but in this story, the setting is not nearly as important as the characters. Any more backround detail and it would overwhelm the compositions; And after all, It's all about the bulging veins and muzzle flashes, baby! The story was written by Rob Liefeld.  SS

[bincrawler]

Richy Vegas Comics #6

The Villianess Veronica Ortega

by Richy Vegas

reviewed by IAW

"At Least I Got to See Vegas"

My F̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶ Luvah pushed this book at me the other day, she told me she discovered it at the 2014 MoCCA fest in NYC and told me it's maybe the best thing she got that year and maybe her best discovery of a new talent ever. This is 72 pages of painstakingly crafted, heartbreakingly honest, ballpoint drawings on paper plates (!). Each page works on its individual merits as a stand alone piece but there is a strong narrative thrust that runs thru the entirety of the book, making the story unbelievably engaging. His mastery over his own chosen medium and his unique selection of how to present his work are both admirable. This guy definitely goes it alone on every level, setting up camp where no one else has thought to go .When I read this book I felt caught between looking at the craftsmanship, following the story with interest ...and considering the whole piece as "high concept" art. Whether by design or instinct, this is something that manages to upend expectations of what a comic is. Though the artist is trained (according to his website he went to SVA in the early 1990s, but I'm wondering if he might have studied painting), I get the feeling he's self taught and is winging it, as much as Norman Pettingill (see Norman Pettingill Backwoods Humorist) was, or any of the other people who learned comics outside of the system. I mean, we're all pretty much outside the system, those of us dedicated to independent cartooning, but this artist is the living embodiment of the term. His website also describes his history of being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. So, I'm getting the impression this is someone who has learned how to function on his own terms, both in art and outside it. This story, issue six, is written by someone not really equipped to understand how people relate to each other. Whatever else it is, (therapy, a journal, an emotional map…) it creates a unique comic reading experience.The book provides a unique study in memory and makes you feel like you're caught up in the epistemology of its author… the way he understands the world and his emotions… space to contemplate how we experience… Yes, you think, isn't our mind's experience like a Richy Vegas page? Always existing in the moment, but also looking towards the past and bracing for the future?At first you may want to skim—reading the big narrative blocks and Ignoring the tiny scrolling text ribbons sometimes squirreling around the circular compositions— "They can't be essential, right? I'm not gonna wade through these intricate compositions…”, but, after seven pages, I was hooked into the story, and found myself not only reading the scrolls but turning the entire book around in my hands, careful not to miss anything, literally revolving every page like the wheel of a car. That is another strength of this book, it's remarkably absorbing, so much that I happily become a physical participant, willingly spinning every page in a circle before turning the page like a kid following instructions from Pee Wee Herman to stop passively watching and to start participating with what I'm looking at.The book is a straightforward narrative about a single year, 1985, when the author had recently recovered from a nervous breakdown. The story here centers mostly on his infatuation with a young woman, Veronica, who has befriended him. He asks her out on dates repeatedly, always holding onto hope that their relationship will evolve, His attention flirting along the borders between confused longing and something worse. It feels like a full blown pathology is on the edge of emerging as he struggles with his anger and disappointment. At times he accuses her of stringing him along, and she acknowledges this but encourages him to look at his own role in his self deception. To his credit, he seems to not shy away from the ugliest sides of himself, and the impression of a burnt out connection between two people haunts this book, with the solo narrator doing his best to pick up the pieces in the lonely years to come. Veronica is often drawn on the other end of a phone, sometimes as a fragmented figure, fading into a bodiless hazy aura as she drifts away from him emotionally. His persona hovers in a similarly bodiless way, as you can feel the gap between then and now, an emptiness and how these memories have plagued him, and what the person of today is like and how that person echoes the narrator of today. It feels like this book gains the reader a privileged access into the intimate workings of this artist's heart. This comic is beautiful, despite being presented in a format (spiral bound) that resembles an office report bound up at Stapes, instead of a more traditional comic. I'd love to see these printing rough edges polished, and the book to be printed with square bound spines. I also think that instead of his linework on the comics covers, he should use some of the paintings—which remind me of Jerry Moriarty (maybe he was an instructor of his at SVA?). I've seen them on his CD jackets (he releases music too, with titles like "Mans inhumanity to me" and "The world's least important songwriter, Richy Vegas”). Play to your strengths! I also think the title of the book, “Villainess Veronica Ortega”, doesn't quite encompass the sense of ambiguity he builds into it. It’s a joke, but a joke that betrays his worst instinct and makes the book sound smaller than it deserves.Katie told me the gentleman who sold her the work, the real Richy, offered it to her for three dollars. "No one else is buying these… take it," he said. There's always a bigger independent artist out there. but there's also plenty of artists toiling away making near perfect work in obscurity. I forget how totally withering it can be to set up a booth at a festival and be ignored, or to feel like a persona non grata. I forget how numbing that can be. I sold almost zero books at MoCCA for three years straight, from 2008–2010. I'm sure there are people who have done that for ten or fifteen years straight, and keep coming back.Usually the cream rises to the top, through hard work and persistence. How many other artists of Mr. Vegas’s calibre are out there going it alone, on the fringes of the comics community or outside it altogether, not receiving recognition, sales, love or reviews? In these moments your greatest desire is to simply create interaction with an audience. Just being heard and seen is not the end game but it’s a huge part of it. If you’re good, maybe you'll never be forgotten. I don't know, but I ordered four more books today. all priced at either three or six dollars,buy his work here! http://www.richyvegas.com

[bincrawler]

BESSY IS A BITCH

i had a collie as my childhood dog, her name was beauty, she ended up being extremely overweight. i was actually the one that discovered she was incredibly sick and told my mom we had to take her to the vet, they found out she was riddled with cancerous lumps in her for a long time already, i think they let us say our goodbyes quickly but i remember they had to put her down so fast they killed her in the back of our family van and i had to see the nurses remove her dead body from the parking lot. pretty fucked up now that i think back on it.

its always weird to discover stuff that i had absolutely no idea existed and i find out they exist and have a huge history. I got this German comic called Bessy from a comic barter, never heard of it before. Bessy is a German Lassie knock off, except way cooler. Lassie was a farm dog from the 50s who helped save kids from burning barns, Bessy is a wild west dog that gets into adventures with it's owner, who may possibly be homeless, as far as this issue is concerned the kid lives off of his horse and in tents.

 I can tell you this is issue 491 and according to comics.org there is close to 1800 issues of Bessy! Who's the baddest bitch now Lassie? excuse my bitch jokes, they're just to easy. Bessy seems to me to be along the lines of gold key comics as in they don't credit their artists and its just a studio putting them out. i cant even find the publication year at all, im guessing from the look of the kids in the ads its late 70's early 80's. according to german wiki run through google translate the art chores are like this:

The series was designed by the studio of the Belgian comic artist Willy Vandersteen. In addition Vandersteen, who developed the concept in 1952 the employees in his studio artist Karel Verschuere played a significant role in shaping the comics, so that both common under the pseudonym Wirel (Willy and Karel) published. they were supported among others by Frank Sels. the color throughout subscribed adventure bitch Bessy and her Herrchens Andy Cayoon were drawn realistic. Between 1965 (from No. 2) and 1979 drew Klaus Dill the covers.

anyways, Bessy seems pretty melodramatic and boring, glad i cant understand the words, but every page has about 10 panels each with narration and exposition filled word bubbles. tons of panels of just people talking. and isnt it weird a bunch of german people are writing about native americans and a homeless teenager and his dog in wild west times united states? i guess its just as weird as when white people in america writing about native americans though. anyways, bessy is more badass because her owner actually kills! and bessy bites! the story seems to be Andy (Bessy's owner) is just chilling out drawing buffalo along a river when all of a sudden 2 waring tribes break out into battle right in front of him! he get involved and actually pulls his pistol out and shoots some guy off his horse. the story relies heavily on exposition because i can't seem to put the pieces together of whats going on. an old guy is sick in a tent, bessy keeps jumping up attacking seemingly random dudes, it ends after the funeral bessy knocks one of the natives down while the rest of them gang up and kick and yell at him, the last panel is andy and bessy riding off in the distance. probably some sort of moral is involved. the cover is translated as "The Rider of Fright" and "Can the Friends Expose the Conspirators?".

some of the only interesting art, in this otherwise bland comic, is the native american burial where they immolate the body. they do weird choices in the art, i guess to switch up the backgrounds, every once in awhile a panels background is just a colored rectangle instead of the inside of a teepee or the forest trees. another thing thats forced into the layouts is ads the size of panels. a fully laid out page then the next panel is an advertisement for stamps! what a sneaky way to basically force people to read ads. the back cover also has kid fan art, always cool. PDA

[bincrawler]

WCW comics #2 written by Mike Lackey and art by Ron Wilson

TIME TO GET PUMPED! ITS FRIDAY NIGHT WRASSLIN' N COMIX!

Much like WCW in the early 90's this comic is booked shitty and was looking dated immediately. I'm feeling very conflicted with this Ron Wilson art, part of me thinks it sucks and i should just write if off as 90's glut trash by an artist on his decline in marvel from a adapted comic based after a wrestling promotion, but the other part of me thinks most of these pages are great and make even a Lex Luger match seem fast-paced and exciting.  other pages are complete afternoon filler, like the page i show of lex cutting a promo, you can tell its the 90s because having a panel of just gritted teeth is acceptable. everything about the piledriver in the last pic looks awkward, you cant tell what limbs belong to who and a little miniature version of the move is happening on his chest. the comic starts with a recap as to why ron simmons hates the heel-champion luger followed by a short segment featuring the steiners, then a match which luger has to face 3 opponets in a row to defend his championship, z-man, the stinger and ron simmons followed by a run in by el gigante. the bulk of the match is from the cover, fighting simmons, these wrestling sequences are all great and ron wilson is keeping the pace fast and tons of cross-hatched faces blankly staring at you throughout. wrestling comics are weird for me, i like wrestling and i like comics, but most the times the results arent a dream made in heaven. i'll crawl through the bin and dig up other wrestling comics to show you soon enough, but in the meantime you can buy screwjob, an anthology of the best wrestling comics today. PDA

[bincrawler]

rich buckler's name, like this blog, is ubiquitous when it comes to shit comics (but damn, dude can paint! look him up). but for a brief time buckler's shit comics were awesome. especially his dethlok stuff. why this brief period of weird, folksy, kill comics? was it the times? drugs? passion over paycheck? can i have a bite of your sandwich? in dethlok buckler would do really goofy stuff like appropriate... or "swipe", if you prefer... dali's famous crucifiction painting. trading         swopping out christ for dethlok. sincerely doing this. ha ha. and the dethlok writing was really feverish and earnest. definitly from hunger. and his layouts were re-don-rickles-ous! 30 panels per page. muybridge moments. great stuff. was it accidentally great? who cares but its too bad he left it behind to be more pro? or make more bank? demon hunter's costume looks uninspired to the point of greatness. he has a 3rd eye emblem on his mask and ankh symbols on his shins just like moon knights early blinged out costume. moon knight 1st appeared in 8/75 and demon hunter hit a month later... coincidence? good lord! what the fuck am i doing?! who gives a shit about their costumes?! i just read about a guy close to my age that was in a coma for 12 years and for the majority of it he understood everything that was going on around him, including his mom saying “i hope you die”. his mind was completely aware but he couldn't move his body and like all bodies, it was prison. they would park him in front of the tv and make him watch barney the purple dionsaur. he hated barney. at the end of the article there was a link to an article about early signs of lung cancer and other awful, fear inducing garbage. the older i get the more creedence i give to the concept that you are what you focus on. my fave part of this comic is demon hunters cape. it doesn't look like most duper hero's capes. it can grab stuff and looks frozen in space. wonder if toddy lifted the cape thing for spawn? my copy of this is falling apart. the previous owner stamped their name by bucklers and they spotted black around the skulls eyes. now its dark. 333

[bincrawler]

fear is the best comic book title. fear after love is the motivating factor in my life. wish the comic was more exciting. looking at the cover again i’m nonplused by the phallic monster. there’s some ok kirby. can’t believe im pairing kirby with ok. 3rd image down is one of the stranger kirby layouts i’ve seen. ditko’s stuff is always super readable. bleh. i love the dead of night cover! john severin is so great. i got this for the cover. has an early 80s horror movie vibe. git that kop! most of the stories in this rag suck. true duds. the satan story has a few cool, swipeable tuska panels. the gem is only a rose with art by john forte. i always think of forte’s stuff as really tense. jaw clenching. art in this feels especially stiff and wooden. the story is really brutal bleak too. i needed a massage after reading this. lady thinks her husband is cheating. she cases him and finds him delivering flowers to various women. she anonymously sends the women boxes of poisoned candy. they die. one night the husband comes home with flowers and candy for her, finally, and she finds out he wasn’t playing grab-ass but moonlighting as a florist delivery man. and she dies from her own poisoned candy cuz one of the women returned the candy and the husband brought it home and gave it to his hateful wife. gulp! 333