Comics Culture Rat Nest

The online compiling of Louis S Whiteford's writing related to comics, movies and other nerd shit.

[loodacomix]

The Seventeen Best Issues of 2015

17. Island #1 This ambitious new anthology series had a great 2015, and I look forward to where it goes in the future. Issue #1 was my most anticipated comic of the year, and even though the stories inside were often too esoteric for me to grasp, the 8 dollars for 120 pages price point kept me coming back for more. Island is a beautiful package, and a shining beacon of creativity in a crowded market. I might not like every story they print, but I know the creators involved are proud of their comics. Like Island itself, everything inside is a passion project, and that’s something to cheer about. 16. Jason Fischer’s Nightmare This comic, released on Halloween, is still free online for anyone who wants to seek it out. It’s a stream of consciousness rendering of a spooky nightmare Fischer had years ago, and the young artist knows how to keep things moving. Nothing feels tacked on, and the terror expressed by Fischer’s cartoon stand in feels very, very real. Fischer’s avatar drifts through a world of scares. Perpetually hiding or running, it captures the feelings of being in a bad dream you can’t escape. 15. Secret Wars #1 I still haven’t read the rest of Secret Wars, but as the final issue of Hickman’s Avengers, I loved the first chapter. I knew it was coming. I knew this story was going to end with two planets crashing into each other, but I still appreciated the sheer audacity of it all. Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run took superheroes far into the realm of science fiction, creating a denser than dense plots, splitting The Avengers into three to five teams at a time, and dedicating entire issues to Dr Doom talking about fake science. The best part is that in the end, they still all lost. Secret Wars will undoubtedly pull them out of the muck somehow, but until the collected edition comes out, the Marvel universe is over, as far as I’m concerned, and Secret Wars #1 is the perfect end point. 14. The Humans #6 I like a good fight in a comic, and The Humans #6 might have had the best fight of the year with this issue, because it also involved lots of moving vehicles, and plentiful Mad Max references. Also, all the characters are apes. So, sorry to the comics that weren’t pandering exactly to what I’m into, but The Humans scored a lot of points on that meter. Car chases aren’t the easiest action to express on the comics page, but The Humans’ team goes out of their way to make it look good and keep it going for nearly the entire issue. This comic is loaded with some real white-knuckle page flipping, earning its place among the year’s best. 13. Jem and the Holograms #6 Comics criticism has a big problem with generalization. So many comic reviews fail to grasp at deep meaning because they get hung up on awesome stuff, reveling in the glory of robot gorillas or wrestling references, hoping that the reader too finds these things awesome. That said, this is the issue of Jem and the Holograms where The Misfits ride motorcycles shaped liked guitars and I think that’s pretty awesome. It’s hard for me to single out an issue of Jem for inclusion in this list, but it has to be this one, because what I love the most about the comic is how it turns the very outrageous world of pop music into an even more outrageous circus event where bands compete for popularity like they’re protagonists in Shonen manga, and it shows in this issue, as the Holograms and The Misfits stage competing concerts on the same night, drawing concert goes back and forth with competing walls of noise. The writing’s solid, but Sophie Campbell’s art is what really makes this series worth it, with her Bjork-meets-Barbie fashion sense and yes, the motorcycles shaped like guitars. 12. Trap #Lionblood One of the year’s best American Crime Dramas. I like Crime, I like America, and I like stories that tie the two together well. Trap: Lionblood details the drug dealing exploits of the Detroit Lions’ #1 draft picks of 2007 and 2009, Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford respectively. Writer/artist Matt Seneca ties together football and drug dealing so well, you’ll think all athletes are part of multiple games by the end of the issue. Satire or not, Seneca is talking about some real issues here, and I’d recommend the comic to any football fan. 11. Criminal: Special Edition Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips make great comics together, but they don’t usually make great issues. Their stories are ones that read best as a whole. They know how to play the serialized format, but they’re not too concerned with creating singular issues, except for this one. Criminal: Special Edition reads like a comic these guys needed to make, a short, mean piece of work. It’s the perfect breather between the lengthier projects Fatale and The Fade Out. It’s also a gripping and funny prison assassination story. I’m not the sort that needs my comics to be fun, but that’s what they did here, and it works for the shorter format. Our protagonist, Teeg Lawless is eager to get out of the clink and get this hit thing over with, and his sense of urgency drives the comic. This is a book that gets in, gets out, and gets shit done. 10. Ms Marvel #16 I’ve always been more interested in Ms Marvel’s art than its characters or writing, and issue #16 goes a long way justifying my bias. Adrian Alphona draws a world gone mad with so much style and detail, hiding little jokes on every single page. It’s his best work of the year. His mobs of panicked citizens look so silly as they flee to nowhere in particular, only adding to the hopelessness of their plight. It took Ms Marvel four issues to face down the apocalypse, but with art this invested in mood, it easily could’ve done it in one. 9. The Eltingville Club #2 The year long wait for the final installment of Evan Dorkin’s chronicle of the world’s worst nerds was worth it, as he pulls out all the stops to draw the most excessively detailed, meticulously lettered comic of the year. The story is a particularly upsetting look at how the Eltingville characters have grown or regressed since they last met a decade ago, and surprise, surprise, most of them are not in a good place. There’re comics on this list with graphic mutilation, excessive violence and gruesome sex, but nothing more upsetting than what these hateful, hateful nerds have to say about women. Luckily, the comic is not on their side, but it’s still a bittersweet comeuppance, kinda like life itself. We can lock as many Eltingville Clubs as we want inside the Ghostbusters car, but it’s not going to make them go away. The Eltingville Club lives in a cruel world, but it sure looks neat. 8. Tonya Perhaps the year’s most depressing comic, Katie Skelly’s 13 page short about former Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding is still brutally effective, despite its short length. Tonya the comic is obsessed with failure, inadequacy and the loneliness that comes when failure and inadequacy dominate a life. It’s the sort of comic to read in a bad mood, to put yourself in a worse mood, to force yourself into a different mood. Emotional storytelling at its best. 7. Blubber Good god, Gilberto. With Johnny Ryan devoting his time to a Nickelodeon kids show, I knew I had to get my shocks elsewhere this year. I didn’t expect to find them here. I knew Gilbert Hernandez could get a little more out there than his more human Love and Rockets work, but Blubber is something else, a sort of mating habits of animals special with Dr Seuss characters, and very, very graphic. It’s hilarious. It’s disgusting. There’s a bird that propels itself with farts. Blubber is a comic book monstrosity for the ages, if gross humor is your thing. If not, stay the hell away from Blubber. It’ll mess you up. 6. Jupiter’s Legacy #5 This comic features solid writing, a very solid fight scene, and one of my favorite Frank Quitely panels ever drawn. We’re talking career defining shots here. Mark Millar has done a lot to the comics medium with the way he brought the widescreen/storyboard approach to the forefront of graphic storytelling, and this one issue of Jupiter’s Legacy contains some of the best comic panels shaped like movie stills I’ve ever seen. It’s simple stuff, but it’s done so, so very well. It’s going to be at least a year till the next issue of Jupiter’s Legacy hits shelves, but this issue makes it worth it. 5. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 Erica Henderson was on a roll in 2015, with two of the best new series in the mainstream realm under her belt. The first, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is probably the best new thing Marvel’s published in years, reinvigorating a character dying for a shot at stardom with wit, whimsy and a sense of inventiveness proving that superheroes still have stories to be told. 4. Jughead #1 We never really needed a rebooted, rebranded All New Archie-verse, but Jughead #1 is everything needed to justify the update. Chip Zdarsky and Erica Henderson might have the All Star Superman of Archie on their hands here, with a story that makes no attempt to reinvent Jughead, instead choosing to play him to perfection. It’s clear the creators care about the character, and it’s clear they know what makes him so funny, because this comic is hilarious. It’s the most perfect comic I read this year. 3. Frontier #7 It was a good year for horror when a story about a haunted trance song isn’t the best one I read. “Sexcoven,” Jillian Tamaki’s contribution to Youth in Decline’s ongoing showcase title, Frontier, is that trance comic, and it’s great. A hypnotic six hour song creates an entire subculture around itself. Kids get high to SexCoven. They fuck to it. They study it. They live it. They try to understand what it is or get lost in the hypnotic flood. That all this is conveyed with Frontier’s mere 32 pages only adds to the comic’s eerie nature. Smart and inventive, this issue is not to be missed 2. Scab County This horrifying comic by Carlos Gonzales came out of nowhere to rip me apart with its’ deceptively great art. I picked this comic up on the audacity of it’s design. At first glance, it’s a very ugly book, with a crude stapling of stacked paper and a cover that looks like it was drawn in MS Paint, but inside lies the best horror comic of the year. This story of a wagoneering father and son is a nightmare in the old west, and the shocks come out of nowhere and then they keep coming. Not for the faint of heart, this gruesome comic is the next level in terror! 1. Island #3 Island began it’s run as 2015’s most intriguing new title and it ended the year as it’s best series. Issue #3 is the one where everything clicked together, with stories long and short, from a range of talent, each a distinct comic with distinct emotions. It’s rare to get an issue of an anthology where everything hits home, and it’s even rarer to see an issue so good, it sets the precedent for the whole series. With its mass of pages and space, Island is a comic to be reckoned with, an ambitious experiment, and my favorite series of 2015. Here’s to a long and healthy 2016.

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More Like Revenge of the Suckular Six, Amirite?

If you’ve ever seen the musical Bye Bye Birdie, whether on stage or on screen, you’ll be familiar with the moral dilemma Peter Parker finds himself in when he’s no trading punches with The Sinister Six in this lackluster five part saga. You’ll also be familiar with the level of sophistication Erik Larsen brought to his character’s relationships in 1992. Mary Jane’s burgeoning acting career has gained some steam, and she’s in talks to star in the latest Arnold Shwartzenhammer production! One big problem though; the production company wants her to do a nude scene! Mary Jane is comfortable with the idea, but thinks it’d be nice of her to tell Peter. Peter is not cool with this at all, and even though he knows he’s hurting both of them with his petty behavior, desperately tries to convince MJ to drop out of the project. Forget her career, or their floundering economic stability as a couple, it’s all about Peter’s pride to be the only guy who gets to see his wife naked. These are his exact sentiments. He doesn’t want to “share” her. Gross. In the end, Peter tells MJ that it’s her choice, and she should do what she feels is best, but he’s laying it on pretty thick, his guilt-tripping not being too far removed from the way Dr. Octopus blackmails other super-villains into joining the Sinister Six. All of this romantic turmoil is happening at a rate of one page an issue in between poorly staged battles crammed with guest stars from every comic that needed a sales boost that quarter. It’s got The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Deathlok, Sleepwalker, Ghost Rider, and Solo, the Punisher knockoff who only kills terrorists. Why does Spidey need all the extra help? Because The Sinister Six stole a bunch of death ray weaponry from another dimension (or something) so they all fight with guns instead of superpowers, except Mysterio, whose abilities amount to Larsen drawing one scene and then making the heroes say "Mysterio tricked us! That last scene didn't really happen!" Reformed-for-this-story The Sandman eventually saves the day in one of this comic's few decent displays of superpowers in action. In the end, Mary Jane drops out of the movie, citing the common “they only wanted me for my tits anyway” excuse, but the comic never bothers to show us that. We just have to take her at her highly pressured word. Peter Parker is a lousy husband, and Erik Larsen is a lousy cartoonist. I’m a guy who fantasizes about owning all the Spider-Man comics, and shit like this makes me want to burn my whole collection in effigy.

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Here’s a short list of things Adrian Alphona takes the time to draw in this issue of Ms Marvel. A gang of pigeons, a man pouring a drink on a child’s head, a jogging sports fan, and a fully equipped hot dog stand. The stand alone features a consistent brand identity, mustard, two types of …

Get on Adrian Alphona's level, rest of the comic industry.

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When describing The Humans, one is tempted to employ lots of negative words as positive words. It’s sick. It’s mean. It’s trashy. It’s stupid. It’s the way The Humans would want it. In the Humans world, humans (the species) are some sort of slave race living like pigs while simians of all shapes and sizes …

I reviewed the latest issue of The Humans for Infinite Comix this week. If you're into monkeys, bikers, or genreal shit that is radical, I'd check it out.

[loodacomix]

Elektra Assasinates Marvel Comics

This is one series that deserves a panel-by-panel dissection, but here's the short version. I wrote about probably less than half the stuff that makes this comic incredible. http://www.comicsthegathering.com/blogs/louis-whiteford/6716/elektra-assassinates-marvel-comics

[loodacomix]

Reviews for the past couple weeks.

http://infinitecomix.com/low-6-fishes-depth/ http://infinitecomix.com/bitch-planet-3-review/ http://infinitecomix.com/review-tooth-claw-4-gnaws-bone/ http://www.comicsthegathering.com/review/louis-whiteford/6469/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-43 Bitch Planet was the best comic of the bunch, but I had the most fun writing about Low. I'm already bored with Tooth and Claw, and TMNT keeps chugsging along. It's my current "Never bad, but rarely great" comic

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Jupiter's Legacy #5: As Good as They Get

I think this is the best review-review I've written in a while.

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[Review] Tooth and Claw #3

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[Review] Bitch Planet #2

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Comix Dungeon Gets Greasy With Oily Comics - Infinite Comix

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Marvel Movies and Spider-Man and Happy Meals and One Million Screaming Nerds Who Can’t Keep Their Mouths Shut (Myself Included.)

I did my typical bitchy nerd thing and wrote about the Spider-Man nonsense for these guys. I'm usually pretty clunkly with my titles, but I think this one worked out. "Marvel Movies and Spider-Man and Happy Meals and One Million Screaming Nerds Who Can’t Keep Their Mouths Shut (Myself Included.)"

[loodacomix]

I'm going to start using this to link to all my other writing. I'll also write about more things than just comics here. 

[loodacomix]

World's Finest 195 and 196: Write Your way Outta This One

Legend has it that the illustrators at silver-age DC often drew the cover of an issue first, forcing writers to work their way around whatever tantalizing concepts the artists dreamt up. This technique was most famously put to use in The Flash 123 when Jay Garrick and Barry Allen met for the first time and the multiverse was formed.  One suspects the practice spanned most of DC’s titles, especially after looking though the World’s Finest catalog. This Superman/Batman teamup book is loaded with the outrageous, and a lot of it’s not that bad. These were creative teams who knew how to work a story out of a ridiculous cover, unlike say, Lois Lane, which has burnt me with its idiocy every single time I fall for its hooks. World’s Finest is batting at least a .50.

I started with World’s Finest #195 because any child of 1970 would have too. How could somebody resist the urge to buy this comic? Look at this goddamn cover!

Any punk, brat or moppet would be instantly glamoured into buying this. The cover raises so many important questions, and the faces of Jimmy and Robin are so fraught with peril. They might die at the drop of a hat. Why have Superman and Batman turned evil? Why is Batman suddenly pro-killing, or pro-gun for that matter? Also, Robin and Jimmy are digging some grade-A graves for themselves. Is this a comment on their discipline or what?

Our story begins, as old superhero comics often do, with a flash-forward cliffhanger splash page, Superman clocking Batman a fast one against an empty orange background while Jimmy Olsen and Robin stare at the duel, dumbfounded. In an abrupt transition, the very next page takes us to another cliffhanger.

Superman is infiltrating the mob. An old crook dressed as Batman is opening a briefcase. Inside the case is a kryptonite wreath, rendering Superman powerless as another gangster removes his disguise. So forget the evil Superman problem, how and when did Superman get here?

Supes begins narrating about an issue’s worth of plot points, and a quick google search tells me that yes indeed “Dig Now, Die Later” is the conclusion to a two parter about Superman and Batman infiltrating the mob. The important point is that Batman has also disguised himself as a gangster, and now he’s so deep into character he forgot that he’s really Batman. (Disguise based amnesia – a suspiciously common problem in the Silver Age.) It takes three pages to get back to Superman’s kryptonite welcome wreath. It’s a convoluted mess, and so far it’s only a catch-up.

Superman saves himself with some handy Super-ventriloquism, (again, you wouldn’t believe how often this power gets used) as he tricks the mobsters into thinking Krypto the superdog is coming to his rescue. With the room momentarily evacuated, Superman blows the lid shut on the case full of kryptonite, gathers his strength and decides to keep infiltrating the gang by pretending the green K gave him amnesia. Batman, still believing himself to be the mob boss, tasks Superman with the mission of assassinating Jimmy Olsen, while he murders Robin the Boy Wonder. By the time we get to the scene on the cover, Superman’s come up with an even more convoluted counter-measure to save the kids and jog Batman’s memory.

Superman’s rescue plan involves a pair of wax dummies in Jimmy and Robin’s images, conveniently kept in the sub basement of Don Lukaz’ mafia headquarters. Lukaz has a whole hall dedicated to models of his enemies. A black sheath has recently draped over Bruce Wayne’s statue because Superman faked his assassination to get in with the mob in the first place. It’s cute that he has statues of his living enemies. Whenever this shit shows up in superhero comics now, it’s always morbid reminders of dead good guys. The Avengers had a dead teammate statue garden for a while, and in Geoff Johns’ Teen Titans, the front hall to their headquarters was built around a memorial to all of their dead members. It was a pretty long hallway.

If that’s not enough, the statues aren’t the only collector’s items Lukaz keeps around. He’s also got a secret room where he keeps his “loyalty insurance,” proof of his flunkies’ crimes that he hangs on to for blackmailing in case they ever turn on him. Never mind that having a collection of murder weapons is a pretty big obstruction of justice in and of itself. Maybe he played a lot of Clue as a child.

Anyway, Batman regains his memory when Robin tells him to give Batman a message.  “Tell him I loved him. He was like a parent to me.” It’s one of the better moments of the comic. The art in World’s Finest is often really stiff and the action scenes are painfully flat, but the facial expressions impress. These old DC artists are face masters. I’ve always given Kevin Maguire lots of credit for adding detail and expressiveness to comic book faces, but these guys got a lot done with minimal line work. Robin pleading for his life is some beautiful stuff.

Unfortunately, that’s about it for good comic book storytelling, because now with Batman back on the side of The Angels, the real Don Lukaz returns and the book gets back to the one beat per panel approach, and Lukaz regales us with another flashback, for those who need it all spelled out. Stowed away in the fortress of solitude, Lukaz made his break when he tipped over one of Superman’s helper robots and caused a malfunction. From there, it was a simple step to request the robot return him to Metropolis with a voice command. Lukaz is now at the dump, gang in tow, ready to shoot the shit out of Jimmy and Robin until Superman gets another one of his bright ideas, and offers to do in Robin and Jimmy himself. Again, with the fake amnesia.

Instead of, I don’t know, super-punching Lukaz and getting the whole thing over with, Superman switches out Robin and Jimmy with their wax doubles from before, blasts them with heat vision, and presents Lukaz with two new souvenirs, the hearts of Robin and Jimmy. Batman cries but Superman tells him it’s okay and they fly to the Metropolis Museum because the hearts are fake too and they’ve got radio transmitters hidden inside and now they’re in Don Lukaz’s secret trophy room and they find it and call the cops and break up the mob and laugh at a joke the end jesus christ.

Maybe Superman followed through because he already wasted so much time on a ridiculous plan.

Issue 196 is about a train, but it doesn’t wreck. It stays on the rails, the story itself, that is, the train inside the story does go off the rails. It’s loaded with Kryptonite, so Superman can’t get too close to it. Obviously, saboteurs are going to want something to do with a train loaded with kryptonite, so it’s up to Batman and Robin to fight their way through the train and capture all the hijackers.

The train is a great narrative device. It grounds any story and creates lots and lots of limitations, but never enough to make it dull, like those movies that all take place in A room, or under A rock, or on A chairlift. A Train has a wealth of great material – Strangers on a Train, The Lady Vanishes, shit, even Snowpiercer was pretty good.* In this story the problem is “so what if Superman’s faster than a locomotive? He can’t go on the locomotive, and that’s the one place he’s needed.”

Curt Swan’s art is a lot better than the six-panel grid crap Ross Andru gave us last issue. Swan illustrates each scene with aplomb. There’s more than one perspective, the action is fluid, and the tension is real. You simply can’t stage a Superman comic like a Doonsebury strip.

The villain of the issue is better too. While Don Lukaz’s eccentricities were plot devices to move Superman forward, this guy, K. C. Jones, has a personality that drove him to the story. Note the distinction. Even though they were both created for the purpose of the stories they appear in, K. C. Jones is the stronger character because he shows up after the stakes have been set and he’s got plans of his own. Superman, Batman, and Robin react way more than they enact in this comic. It gives Jones a stronger, smarter presence. He measures and counter-measures. He’s the type of evil genius that wouldn’t be out of a place in a Denzel Washington and/or Tony Scott movie. Plus, he’s got costumed goons instead of gangster flunkies. Costumed goons are always better.

So, what have we learned? If a Silver Age DC comic looks too good to be true, it probably is, but if it looks just good enough, if the situation isn’t impossible, it could be okay. (Or in this case, great.)

One of these days, I’ll read some Silver Age Supergirl, whose covers have convinced me that it’s a book entirely about teaching children that women are meant to feel humiliated.

 *Snowpiercer Endorsement – There was still a lot of stupid shit in Snowpiercer, but it wasn’t the type of dumb stuff I had come to expect from modern movies. It was still a CG train, but it was way better than say, Guardians of the Galaxy because it was grounded in some sense of reality. It wasn’t a bunch of fantasy computer shit bouncing off each other. 

[loodacomix]

New reviews coming very soon! Though first I gotta eat some breakfast.

[comicsalliance]

BIZARRO BACK ISSUES: WAIT, WHAT’S VAMPIRELLA’S DEAL AGAIN? (1997)

By Chris Sims

Of all the spooky characters that I throw the spotlight on at Halloween, there’s one that I’ve never really written too much about: Vampirella. That seems like a pretty big oversight, too. I mean, I once wrote about the Tomb of Dracula anime for Halloween, you’d think I could muster up a few words for one of the most recognizable horror characters of the ’70s, right?

Well, the fact is, Vampirella’s not actually that scary. I mean, despite her name, she’s not actually a vampire. She’s an alien from planet Drakulon, a planet where water has the same composition as blood. Or at least, I think that’s how it worked, until 1997, when it was revealed that Drakulon was the product of memory implants and she was actually the daughter of Lilith, mother of all vampires, who sent her to destroy a 2,000 year-old conspiracy organized like a vampire Catholic Church (complete with a Vampire Pope) with the help of a time-traveling nun. Hoo boy. This is going to get complicated.

Okay, so: Back in the late ’90s, Harris Comics tried to capitalize on the “Bad Girl” trend by relaunching Vampirella in a new series of scantily clad adventures. The thing is, Harris decided to go about this by getting some of the biggest creative teams in comics to do it — people who were either already well-established heavy hitters, like Kurt Busiek, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, or the up-and-comers who would pretty much spend the next decade redefining comics, like Warren Ellis.

These creators banged out a line of miniseries that would throw Vampirella into blood-soaked superheroics, and having read through ‘em, I’m pretty sure they were allowed to just do whatever they wanted. And the end result is ONE THOUSAND PERCENT BANANAS, especially when Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Amanda Conner, Steven Grant and Louis Small Jr. got in there.

Just for context, this was happening at the same time that Morrison and Howard Porter were relaunching JLA at DC, back when he and Millar were pals and writing buddies. It’s easy to see that collaboration here, too, since there are distinct bits of each writer’s personal style that come through, but man oh man, this thing could not be more of a Mark Millar comic, at least in the dialogue. It’s like reading Kick Ass with vampires, only slightly less embarrassing.

MORE

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Tales to Offend

People just won’t shut up about how different today’s comic landscape is, y’know? How you can get away with stuff that nobody could’ve in the past! Censorship is over! Etc. Are they wrong? Maybe. Maybe a little shortsighted. Sure, censorship isn’t the specter it once was, looming overhead with government committees and comics codes, and video games have drawn away most of the flak comics used to get. People still make a stink about it on the internet, but let’s be real, that shit makes as much of a dent as The Eisners. Comics fandom is still mostly a mean filthy boys club where guns are for shooting and women are for leering at. It’s not a healthy image. Publishers aplenty are making strides to move away from it. Marvel is promoting the hell out of titles like Capain and Ms. Witchblade wears clothes on most of her covers now. Sex Criminals. There’s still a debate to be had on the legitimacy of empowering mainstream comics in the face of that David-Finch-doesn’t-want-Wonder-Woman-to-be-a-feminist-thing, and the continued career of Greg Land. Though as a whole, there seems to be a slightly greater degree of self awareness. You gotta at least pretend to care.

Basically, the time has come and gone that people will still fuck with Frank Miller. Maybe the trashier guys, the ones making Crossed and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but Image? Nah. Dark Horse? Nah. Whoever’s in charge of printing the yearly promo comic for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund? No fuckin way. They’d probably get Brian Michael Bendis or Robert Kirkman to write some limp, positive thing about the indomitable spirit of the will or something. Maybe if they’re really with it, it’ll be a Jess Fink porno comic next year, but probably not. Don’t get your hopes up.

Where the hell was I going with this? Right. Frank Miller. Tales to Offend. CBLDF.

Tales to Offend is a promotional comic Miller did for the CBLDF in the mid 90s, and as a piece of propaganda, it’s actually quite ineffective. These tales DO offend, but never in amusing ways. This thing is about as provocative as a shitty comedian whose entire set consists of rape jokes. He’s only impressing himself by waving that privilege around.

Miller will home in on something awful-slavery, incest, and just make the whole story about that, never really trying to elevate the humor. The Sin City incest story is probably the worst of the bunch. The two Lance Blastoff jams are saved by more dynamic artwork, particularly the one where Lance Blastoff fights a tyrannosaurus and teaches a vegetarian feminist to eat fried meat. The joke about Lance feeling superior for killing an animal with his high-tech laser gun is pretty sharp. The joke about ladies finding out what they really need isn’t. Frank Miller’s usually got at least half a tongue planted firmly in cheek, so for him to do “satirically” offensive stories just doesn’t work at this level.

Not to say this comic’s a total failure. From a distance, Tales to Offend looks great. The cover layout riffs on EC horror. The ethically challenged Lance Blastoff is a Flash Gordon analogue that fits perfectly with Miller’s all-American-machismo aesthetic. He wants you to litter, something that always makes me laugh for how pointlessly mean it is.

The back cover features an awesome pro-smoking PSA. It’s not a half-bad package. As a bunch of standalone jokes, it’s great. As stories, they’re pretty nauseating. As usual, Millar gives the reader more than they asked for, but this time, he got my order wrong too.  Those kids on the back cover threw me off. I was expecting something more like one of those issues of The Goon with The Goon’s child gang. Frank Miller writing children might be even more horrifying than this, but we’ll probably never know. The public just never clamored hard enough for Tales to Offend #2.

[loodacomix]

**$$** Back Issues from Hell Special Report **$$**

Look, an ad that’s been cut out.  I didn’t think anybody ever actually bought that chintzy shit, but I guess somebody must’ve, or they would’ve stopped running the ads.  In all the old comics I’ve read, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these mail-order forms cut out.  I’ve seen panels cut out for presumable art projects, but this is my first missing order from.  What a mystery.  It makes you wonder A) what the kid got, and B) how disappointed with it he was.  What the hell is this thing, anyway?  It looks like glorified paper airplane.  It doesn’t look as fun as those balsa wood planes with the rubber band propellers.   Just looks like a glider.  If this thing’s supposed to be Superman, it should be able to get some altitude, y’know? Looks like a Batman model was available too.  I saw an ad in a Marvel comic for one of these with Spider-Man printed on it, which makes no sense at all.  Is it a web plane?  That would be dumb.  Y’know when they draw Spider-Man floating around with a web parachute, what’s up with that?  His webbing always seems so gooey, how can it keep its shape?  Or when he stuffs his costume full of webbing and hides in his undies while the bad guy pounces on the web dummy?  That’s really got to mess up his costume.  Rips all over the place.  Have they ever done a story where somebody develops a nasty skin condition from Spider-Man’s webs?