this happened once before
created: Big things popping, little things stopping

–Black Panther DVD

–Gantz was pretty crappy

–Camilla D’Errico draws good

–Here are some good looking Marvel books

–Evangelion 2.0 was pretty okay, but 1.0 is bland (longer post on 2.0 later, maybe?)

---

when i came to your door
consumed: No Effort Week! Gearing up for Black History Month next week, so this is gonna be short.

-Ooooh, man, looks like Rae & Ghost were right, ’cause there’s all types of sharks in the water! Online retailer TFAW is doing a little thing they’re calling Digital Comics Month, where they go around and interview major players in the digital comics landscape, and also Zenescope. Now, I’m not saying that they borrowed my blueprint, but check out their questions, see if they seem at all familiar. I think Jay-Z saw the same thing happen to Kane. They probably should’ve tried a little harder, though, because questions like this:

“TFAW.com: What do you think of the piracy issue that comes along with digital distribution?”

Don’t even make any sense. No one is pirating digital comics. They’re pirating print comics. Gotta do better than that.

-Pedro Tejeda is writing again, after a bunch of bullying from me and Jamaal. I liked his review of the new Ghostface record, but his review of 88-keys’ The Death of Adam is on point. I thought it was an ill concept album, and that’s about where it stopped. Pedro’s point about why we should even believe Adam, and why the narrator is on his side, is pretty good, and sorta made me re-examine what it was about. The result is an album that is both a little shallower than I’d expected and more interesting to think about. Visit that dude so he writes more.

–This video of a housewife doing acid is amazing and probably sold me a copy of The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America.

–The Mindless Ones go drinking with superheroes and the results are fantastic. Someone get Garth Ennis to write the comic adaptation. He’s the best at comics about dudes in bars.

-You guys see that Matt Fraction x Bryan Lee O’Malley conversation in Casanova: Gula 01? Fraction couldn’t be more wrong about Kanye. I’ve gotta stop reading backmatter.

–Cheryl Lynn has a habit of throwing ideas at me on Twitter. She was blue-skying some Kanye + Comics ideas and I basically went and called that bluff.

Top to bottom: “Gold Digger” (art by Jim Calafiore), “New Workout Plan” (art by Jim Lee), “New Workout Plan” (art by Ed Benes)

-I bought Superfly: Deluxe 25th Anniversary Edition and Curtis! (Deluxe Edition) because Curtis Mayfield is that dude.

---

no reply
David: New Mutants 21, Thunderbolts 152
Esther: Action Comics 897
Gavin: Justice League Generation Lost 18, Incorruptible 14, Avengers 9, Captain America 614, Chaos War 5, Deadpool 32, Incredible Hulks 621, Namor The First Mutant 6, New Avengers 8, Punisher In The Blood 3, Secret Avengers 9, Thunderbolts 152, Ultimate Comics Avengers 3 6, Uncanny X-Force 4

It’s been quite a while since my last We Care a Lot article and even longer since I had a Venom article that was about actual Marvel canon. Over a year, in fact. Even longer when it comes to a canon article about Eddie Brock! For forever, I seem to have been sitting on the potential Anti-Venom entry. Why haven’t I written it? Honestly, it comes down to needing a good ending. I’ve been waiting for that perfect ending to finish off the article. And, well, you’ll see how that went…

We all remember the infamous One More Day/Brand New Day status quo change. Devils and Harry Osborn and whatever. The whole thing’s been beaten into the ground to the point that I might as well skip it. The short of it is that I decided I was done with Spider-Man in general and despite all the claims of how great the series has become, I would simply put it at the bottom of my list of great things I should be reading. I wasn’t going to fast on it completely, since I agreed to myself that I would still check out any issue that included one of my favorite characters. In this case, those would be Eddie Brock, Deadpool and Juggernaut. The first one matters the most here, though I suppose Deadpool’s issue plays a role too.

The story New Ways to Die begins eight months after the new status quo of three issues per month. It starts off at Amazing Spider-Man #568 and ends at Amazing Spider-Man #573. It’s got Dan Slott on words and John Romita Jr. on art.

Of all the various plots going around, the two of importance for me are that of the Thunderbolts and Mr. Negative. The Thunderbolts is in its Norman Osborn phase, where the team is made up of Songbird, Moonstone, Swordsman, Bullseye, Penance, Radioactive Man and Mac Gargan as Venom. For one reason or another, Swordsman, Moonstone and Penance get the story off. They’ve been training by attacking motionless dummies for the sake of going after those who are unregistered. Venom goes nuts and starts tearing into all of them. Before Songbird can chastise him for it, they’re given orders to head to New York.

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In what should have been a slight week has been saved thanks to David, Was Taters and new contributors Neil Curry and VersasoVantare. Veraso came to bat with all sorts of panels from 2000AD, so good for him.

I should note that if you ever do read Deadpool MAX, try to imagine Cable as talking like Leslie Nielson. In fact, do that for all versions of Cable. I mean, I liked the guy from the cartoon too, but he lacks the comedic touch. Look…

“Who are you and how did you get in here?”

“The Wild Man of Borneo… and I’m a locksmith.”

See? That doesn’t even make sense!

Avengers Academy #8
Christos Gage and Mike McKone

Batman #706
Tony S. Daniel

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get olga
created: We’re talking good comics strictly here.

-You should be reading Peter Milligan, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Simon Bisley, and Stefano Landini’s Hellblazer. Here, let me help you out–read this and then pick up Hellblazer 275 to see John get married.

–B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs Hardcover Collection Volume 1 is a long title for a good book, and it’s got my first pull quote on the back, too. It’s credited to ComicsAlliance, but it’s my words. Go on ahead and buy that. You won’t regret it. Here’s the piece they quoted from.

kurylenko
consumed: When did I start liking video games again?

-More blogs from friends! 4l! reader Taters has a couple you should check out. In Continuity is her general comics blog, while UnMasquerade is a tumblr devoted to heroes unmasking.

-I started playing Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. Tactics is my second favorite FF (after 7), but it’s the one I’ve played the most. I’ve probably put 300 hours into that stupid game since 1998, and I can tell that I’m already hooked on the PSP joint. It’s just exactly what I want out of a game–a little different each time, plenty to explore (in terms of abilities), and pretty much a puzzle game. What combinations work best? How much can I dominate out of sheer skill before I get TG Cid and roll over everything in the game?

-It’s funny, but I never beat a Final Fantasy after 7. No, that’s not true. I think I beat Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I came close with 9, and I played a lot of 10, but man, that story got super dumb toward the end. I played probably an hour of 12 before I got bored, I worked on 13 and wasn’t impressed so I just skipped it… I enjoyed my six or eight months playing FFXI more than most of the other Final Fantasy games, and I quit that game because it was work and I’d been bamboozled into thinking it was fun.

-All I play now is Rock Band, FFT, Persona 3, and NBA 2k11. Weird, isn’t it? I was completely different just a few years ago.

-I don’t usually buy singles, but I made an exception for Wiz Khalifa’s Black And Yellow. He’s put out a couple of ill mixtapes (Kush & Orange Juice and How Fly specifically), and since I don’t go to shows, the least I could do is kick him a dollar for a hot song.

-Killer Mike is one of the most interesting rappers out right now. He’s clearly studied Tupac, Ice Cube, Scarface, UGK, and a bunch of other cats who mixed their thug raps with real life issues and black empowerment. He keeps it honest, is what I’m saying, and I think that’s why I regularly bump his whole catalog. He drops an ill black power track every once and a while, too. There was that “Bad Day/Worst Day” remix with Ice Cube, and it’s semi-sequel “Pressure”, which also featured Cube. It’s just coincidence that these two feature Cube, but maybe not. They’re the ones that stick in my mind the most, cause Mike holds his own up against a rap legend. I mean, “Pressure” goes SO hard, man, from the beat to the lyrics to that Malcolm X excerpt at the beginning. The video is pretty crazy. His latest joint is called “Burn”, and yes, you guessed it: he goes all the way in from the first line on. He also puts the whole Johannes Mehserle situation on blast.

-It isn’t as strident, but “Grandma’s House” is fantastic, too. “My life dope?” “straight cocaine.”

-Gonna be nearly silent running next week here on 4l!. Light posting at best, linkbloggy type stuff, and comic excerpts. It’s so I can bang your head all throughout February without stressing myself out and Ustreaming a murder/suicide. I’ma show you how to do this, son.

tell her i’m very single
David: Hellblazer 275
Esther: Maybe Superman/Batman 80, but probably just Tiny Titans 36
Gavin: Green Lantern Corps 56, Deadpool MAX 4, Avengers Academy 8, Darkwing Duck 8

Huh huh. Week 69.

Very DC-centric week this time around, mainly because Was Taters contributed more panels than even me. Not that she’s only into the DC stuff. For instance, she also reads Thor: The Mighty Avenger and that’s Marve–DAMN IT, that’s canceled, isn’t it. Anyway, thanks to her as well as David Brothers and the man known only as luis.

I’m certainly going to need the help of any interested readers for next week because I have an entire three comics I plan on picking up (Green Lantern Corps, Avengers Academy and Deadpool MAX). So if there’s something you’ve been reading that you want represented, by all means. Now on with the chlorophyll.

Batgirl #17
Bryan Q. Miller and Pere Perez

Batman and Robin #19
Paul Cornell and Scott McDaniel

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my mind warps and bends
created: Slow week!

-I took a look at ComiXology’s sales charts and Diamond’s sales charts, add in a bit of educated guesswork, and come up with something interesting about digital comics.

floats the wind
consumed:

-New blog from a friend! Sol, the lady behind the Greg Land gif that brought the internet to its knees, has launched Walking the Comic Book Runway, a fun examination of fashion in comics. This is something I talk about with her all the time, so it’s cool to see her putting these thoughts out there. There’s a few posts right now, but I’m sure if you visit and conversate a bit, she’ll keep on pushing. Go on, do that. She knows her stuff.

-Y’all heard Ye and Jay’s “HAM?” Yeah, it’s straight. The beat is Final Fantasy hot, but Kanye sounds sleepy and Jay needs to stop talking about Beanie Sigel without actually saying dude’s name. As is, though, I liked it better when it was Pill’s “Trap Goin’ Ham,” incredibly ignorant video and all.

-More P I Double: “OK Denn” and “Real Mutherfuckin’ Gs”, “Run Up to Me” with Freddie Gibbs, and one of my favorite songs from 2010, Yelawolf’s “I Wish” remix with Pill and CyHi da Prynce. Every verse on that remix is hot.

-Yelawolf: Woke up in the morning with a fucking pen and a pistol/ I put one to the paper, I put one in my fist/ Stuck up a shop with the pen then I shot up my notebook/ I’m reading bullet holes, I wish a fucker would

-CyHi: I been fly, my momma gave birth to me on a plane/ Nigga, so I guess you could say I’m airborne/ I’m running my city getting my mayor on/ Stay on my grizzly, you know I bear arms

-Pill: Born into poverty, heart torn, obviously/ Dad gone, so we trying to figure out how to eat/ Older brother hustling, momma working overtime/ Now I’m standing in the kitchen whipping baking soda time

-All three of these cats know that when you’re wrapping up a verse, you need to go in or else nobody’s gonna remember you. You can’t just peter out and fade, you gotta hit harder than the rest of your verse or keep rhyming til the beat’s gone, no matter what you’re saying.

-More Yela: “Pop the Trunk” goes so hard, man. It just bleeds menace, from the beat to the lyrics. That bridge at the end is nice, too. “I Just Wanna Party” with Gucci Mane is pretty okay, too. I don’t even really get down with Gucci like that, but he gets it going here. Look for Big Boi roundabout 2:45, too. And who can forget a hot song off one of the hottest albums of the year, Big Boi’s “You Ain’t No DJ”?

-“Yeah, I’m pale, but I’ll impale you with an Impala”

-Also, I bought Weezy’s “6 Foot 7 Foot” with Cory Gunz. Gunz can spit to an absurd degree, and it’s nice to hear Mixtape Weezy again. This song bangs, and Weezy’s punchlines are back to being next level. “Real Gs move in silence like lasagna”? “You niggas are gelatin, peanuts to an elephant/ I got through that sentence like a subject and a predicate”? Ayo.

-Gunner is the only dude who can use “pause” because he’s so rapidfire. It’s like “breath!” “Wayne, these niggas out they mind/ I done told these fuck niggas, so many times/ that I keep these bucks steady on my mind/ tuck these, I fuck these on your mind, pause”

-Dang, I guess the South still got something to say.

-Peer pressure works! Jamaal Thomas over at FBB is rounding up his top ten floppies of 2010. Go, read.

-Here’s an index of all of Spurgeon’s holiday interviews. There’s 20, and they’re great.

–Part 2 of Joe Q’s exit interview is up at CBR. Quesada really did a lot for Marvel, and I think for the comics industry overall. He stumbled, obviously, but if you compare Marvel now to Marvel then… gimme Marvel now any day of the week.

–Sean Murphy is great, but you knew that already.

–Periscope Studio is also full of great artists, and this week they’re drawing the Thunderbolts.

-This NY Times profile of Radical talks a lot about how they’re selling comics to Hollywood, and the only creator they bother to mention is Nick Simmons. How do I feel about that? I think this image says it all, and also shows that you should never run an auto-retweet script on Twitter.

-I buckled under and bought a Kindle. Looking forward to reading real books and newspapers again.

-The Kindle purchase is part of a hard push toward going mostly digital this year. Down the line will be an iPad for comics (once Dark Horse’s store launches and hopefully after Marvel pulls its digital head from its digital butt and fixes). I did some testing, though, and I can already go almost all VOD. I watched the Buckeyes game last week on ESPN3, which was mostly delightful. I use Netflix and Hulu to watch random movies and TV. And now, I can use iTunes to buy stuff I want to keep. I bought Archer and FLCL (iTunes link, but the first ep is free). Between Amazon and iTunes, I should be able to buy most of the stuff I want to keep and rewatch.

-My only issue is the price. It’ll tend to run slightly more than the Blu-rays after the Amazon discount, but less than the MSRP. At the same time… I have instant access forever with no physical media to worry about. This’ll force me to only buy things I really, really want, which is probably a good thing in the long run. I’m doing a lot of thinking about what I think is fair.

–Archer is incredible, though. “Karate? The Dane Cook of martial arts?”

–Judging by the box art and this blog post about their reasoning, Catherine is cruising directly to all of the Game of the Year awards. Gonna be crazy, and probably a story that ends with a good, wholesome message. “Don’t cheat on your girlfriend or else you’ll be damned forever and turned into a sheep dude by sheep cultists.” Here’s a subtitled trailer and a gameplay heavy trailer.

-The Persona games have done a generally good/weird/interesting job of playing with sex and sexuality. A game where the focal point is “You cheated on your girlfriend and now your life is ruined” should be pretty good. It’s sure to be unsettling in probably a Silent Hill sorta way.

-Shoji Meguro did the Persona 4 soundtrack, I’m pretty sure. Curious to see what he comes up with for Catherine.

-Also, whoa, Vincent is in Persona 3 Portable? Cool.

-How messed up is it to cheat on your girlfriend Katherine with a Catherine? What is that, some kind of screwy fetish? Bad luck?

count to ten
David: Heroes for Hire 2
Esther: Batman 17, Batman and Robin 19, Birds of Prey 8, Knight and Squire 4
Gavin: Batman And Robin 19, Booster Gold 40, Justice League Generation Lost 17, Knight & Squire 4, Secret Six 29, Chaos War Dead Avengers 3, Deadpool 31, Heroes For Hire 2, Incredible Hulks 620

A very lonely edition of ThWiP. Only ten panels in total. One from Was Taters. One from Space Jawa. Nothing from David. And Esther had that cease-and-desist order made about me asking for panels passed months ago, so that’s a no-go. Man, that judge was a dick.

Speaking of dicks, here’s Eric O’Grady Ant-Man, everybody!

Ant-Man & Wasp #3
Tim Seeley

Avengers Prime #5
Brian Michael Bendis and Alan Davis

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Last Wednesday brought us the end of Avengers Prime by Brian Michael Bendis and Alan Davis, which really should have been called Avengers: Ah, I Can’t Stay Mad at You. Steve Rogers, Iron Man and Thor accidentally get sucked into one of Thor’s locales. There, they all have their separate moments of being badass, deal with Enchantress and Hela and a subplot involves Rogers hooking up with a blue elf lady. That might be a little scummy, since that means he’s cheating on Sharon, but I’m pretty sure the “what happens in Vegas” rule applies to most of the nine realms. The point of the miniseries is to put the three guys in a situation that reminds them that they’re buddies and thick as thieves.

But still, the ending rang pretty familiar to me…

Odin’s will be done.

the song is not the same when we’re
created: I sent off 2010 and welcomed 2011 in style. Quality over quantity, right?

-AOL jawns: Comics for movie buffs, Digital December mop-up with a retailer and Archie

-Tom Spurgeon at Comics Reporter interviewed me and whoo, look at the size of that thing. I go in on a lot of subjects–fashion in comics, race and why Iron Man 2.0 is a vote of no-confidence for black folks and comics, the importance of art and story, what news stories journos should cover… click through, read it, tell me what you thought. The response on Twitter and Spurgeon’s intro was super flattering, so now I’m wondering where all the haters at.

all played out, played out, all played out
consumed:

-As I type, I’m watching Ohio State beast Arkansas (as of the first half) on ESPN3. This is the future. I’d pay money for this service if it carried full seasons for the Buckeyes, Hawks, or Falcons.

-How come every sports broadcast ever has a blonde lady down on courtside/sideline? That’s definitely a trend, right? Holly Rowe on ESPN, Doris Burke on NBA 2k11. It’s always two dudes in the booth and one lady on the field.

-Buckeyes won, Pryor got MVP.

–Dark Horse Presents coming back is pretty cool. I missed out on it the first time around, but I liked the Myspace stuff they put up.

-Seneca update: he posted his top 10 list, get at it. He also liked Silent War.

-I figured out Black History Month 2011. I’m going to keep it under wraps, but what I’m thinking will probably be more work for me, but less time spent thinking and fighting on the page.

-You want to enjoy life? Every payday, take twenty or thirty bucks and buy yourself a fat steak. Cook it yourself on the stovetop or grill, seasoned as you like, and maybe some broccoli or corn on the cob or something to go with it. Then sit down with it and a nice movie and tune everything out while you eat.

-Bonus round: make it a point to carve something you don’t like entirely out of your life.

-This is what I do: open a billion windows on Wikipedia by accident. This week’s haul: Mass extinction, Doomsday event, wormwood star, Chang’e, Giewont, Year Without A Summer, Pararaton, Eschatology, and False Vacuum. I’ve liked been interested in eschatology ever since I was a kid, probably pre-teen even, and I usually find myself lost and reading about it once a month. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Tough to wrap your head around. It’s too big.

–I like DrawThisDress.

-I’m a little behind on Persona 3. I just met Ken, the kid, but he hasn’t joined up yet. The story hasn’t quite coalesced just yet, though it’s flirting in that direction. I know that the Kirijo group did something, but that’s about as far as it goes. It’s interesting, though. I should probably play it more often than a few hours a week before bed.

-I watched Gurren Lagann, thanks to Netflix. It was good, maybe a solid B if I had to put a figure to it. The most interesting parts were the mecha bits and the way the spiral played out thematically and literally (in terms of story structure). I’m glad I didn’t buy it, because I don’t know that I’d ever watch it again. I liked it, but I didn’t like it. There were some good set pieces, and the structure was fascinating, but sometimes it got all Gainaxed out. Dropping a slow paced flashback episode into the middle of the sprint to the ending was a crap choice, too.

-I’m looking forward to that FLCL blu-ray, though. Fooly Cooly was dope pretty much throughout, and when I rewatched it a couple years ago, I got even more of the jokes. It’s just thoroughly on point.

-Been thinking a lot about space vs entertainment lately. I own a lot of books I’m not in love with that are just taking up space. I purged a lot of DVDs a while back, too. My new rule is that if I don’t see myself enjoying it more than once, I don’t buy it on physical media. The only exception right now are floppies, but since I can just trash those and I don’t buy that many anyway, it’s not a huge deal.

–DC Universe Online looks interesting, but I played Final Fantasy XI for like six months before I realized I was paying to do boring jobs. I’m wary, but I might cop it if I get too curious/find people to play with. My biggest problem with MMOs is that grinding blows and partying up with strangers tends to blow. The time sink/addiction thing isn’t really a problem for me at all. Discipline, right?

-Did y’all hear that some professor felt so guilty about having to say “nigger” when reading Huck Finn that he’s producing a volume with “nigger” replaced by “slave?” What a big fat crybaby, man. Get over it.

-If you’re down to buy four dollar digital comics, do us all a favor and stop buying digital comics. Don’t encourage that nonsense.

-Brief, because I got these Best of 2010 posts to do.

talktometalktometalktometalktome
David: ain’t nothing
Esther: Secret Six 29
Gavin: Azrael #16, Ant-Man and Wasp #3, Avengers Prime #5, Ozma of Oz #3, She-Hulks #3, Ultimate Captain America #1, Irredeemable #21, WWE Heroes: Undertaker #2

Hey, folks. First off, check out this awesome interview the 4L monarch David Brothers has done at the Comics Reporter. It’ll take you about three days to read, but it’s a good one.

So while I have the usual suspects in David, Space Jawa (is there any other kind of Jawa?) and Was Taters (is there any other kind of Taters?), I also got one from aggressively horny ducks (are there any… um…). He sent it to David, who found it buried in his spam because it came from a guy named aggressively horny ducks. That’ll happen. Why I obviously have What If #200 taken care of, our foul and fowl reader sent in his own panel because, “I don’t care a lot about continuity but this is just foolish.”

True enough, though if any panel from that issue raises my eyebrow, it’s the one of Namor punching Bullseye while saying — not yelling — “Imperious $#%^.” Imperious what? Imperious cock? Imperious fuck? Did he drop the n-bomb? What?

Sadly, to everyone’s dismay I’m sure, I totally misplaced my copy of Carnage #2. Still, we must carry on.

Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #4
Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #4
Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews

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