I don’t remember the last CD I bought. I remember the first I bought, but not the last. At some point, over the five years I actually owned a car (two, actually), I’m sure I bought a lot of CDs and CDRs for burning mixes. At some point, though, I picked up an iPod and a car kit, which began the slow, inevitable slide toward going digital only for music.

I buy mp3s now, usually off Amazon. I think I bought one CD last year for an artist who didn’t have a digital release, but that basically meant I got the CD on sale for ten bucks and then downloaded the bootleg for the iPod. I’d be lying if I said all of my music was legal, but I think that a significant portion of it is. Either way, I’ve got almost 70 gigs of music, enough for 36 and a half days of songs, and the fact that my iPod only holds 30 gigs pains me every day.

I acquired an iPod Touch last year, in addition to my 5G. At first I bit the bullet and dealt with the 16 gigs of space, but a few weeks ago, I went back to using the 5G for music purposes. I really only break out the Touch to watch videos or listen to podcasts. I’d used Stanza for ebooks on the Touch, and I really dug the interface and speed. It’s very easy on the eyes. I read all of Candide and another novel on it over the course of an eleven hour plane ride. I found it very easy to get into, and being able to have music playing in the background was a boon, too.
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When we’re talking about the current zombie craze, do we start with 28 Days Later, which proved that the zombie movies still have some juice in them?  Or do we start with Shaun Of The Dead, which really opened up the genre, encouraging more creativity in the field of living-deadology?  Maybe we start with Diablo Cody, princess of pop-indie, who is producing Breathers: A Zombies Lament.

Well, in this case we say ‘screw them,’ because we’re into comics and, by god, no other medium is going to steal our thunder.  BOOM! Studios has a Zombie Tales ongoing that packs a bunch of zombie stories into a floppy with an exceedingly gory cover.  At WonderCon, I got a chance to speak with Ian Brill, a writer who has published several stories in Zombie Tales, and whose latest story will be published in Zombie Tales #12, coming out tomorrow.

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A few days ago, Leigh Walton, marketing coordinator of Top Shelf and writer of Picture Poetry, hit me on the instant messaging machine. “Have you been following ‘Tikboom’ on Top Shelf 2.0?” he asked. I hadn’t, and while we talked, I caught up on Tikboom.

It turns out that Tikboom basically rules, and you can see the proof here. It’s a light-hearted story starring three little creatures (Cake, Turtle, and something that almost definitely isn’t a banana). They’re pretty pissed at global warming, like all good creatures, and set out on a quest to stop it. What follows is a tale involving ice cream, a nuclear bomb, and an octopus. It has this very care-free feel to it that I enjoy, and the art is equal parts cute and expressive. I’m also extremely fond of the hand-lettered sound effects. That kind of thing shows both careful attention to craft and a willingness to use all of the comics page as art. I wish more people employed letters-as-art– John Workman is definitely one of the major reasons why I love Walt Simonson’s Thor and Orion as much as I do.

The comic is cute and funny in a way that isn’t cloying. In fact, the humor comes off pretty deadpan to me sometimes. Characters say funny things, but the humor isn’t punctuated with a guy pulling an oh-so-wacky-whooooooaoaooaaoaaaa-Jim Carrey face or anything. It’s just funny. It doesn’t need parlor tricks to make you laugh. The bit where the turtle is talking to the cop in chapter three and slipping, falling, and explaining that the giant missile is not a car, it is a missile, is solid gold to me. It’s just good, straightforward humor. Show your friends.

I’d be remiss and a jerk if I didn’t point out Top Shelf 2.0 as a whole, too. It’s updated Monday through Friday with something new for you to read. It’s also basically the best company-run digital comics portal out. Marvel, DC, and Top Cow all have digital comics portals, and all three leave something to be desired. I’ve tried to read Shadowline books where the scrollbars disappear, Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited is an unwieldy beast, and Zuda is slow.

Top Shelf gets it right. All you need to put comics on the web is a jpeg and a couple of arrows. TS2.0’s interface is simple. There’s a breadcrumbs header, which lists the site, the creator, and the title of the comic. You can click on them to go back a level. There’s a drop down box flanked on either side by two arrows. The arrows let you go forward and back, and the box has the pages listed. And beside that is another drop down, this time for related comics. Here you can find comics by the same creator or in the same series.

We’re all on high speed here, but that’s no reason not to keep it this simple. I’ve grown pretty fond of reading webcomics on my phone, and TS2.0 is basically the only comics company who’s doing it right. I realize that Marvel/DC need to serve ads or track views or whatever, but I honestly don’t even want to use MDCU. It’s clunky and ugly and awkward. If they had a TS2.0-style front-end, I’d be way more interested and way more likely to use it. As-is… eh, I’m okay without it. There are plenty of webcomics out there that actually want me to read them.

JPG. Couple of arrows. Keep it simple. TS2.0 gets it right.

from marvel’s black panther: little green men. words by reggie hudlin, art by cafu

(it isn’t daily, but it is weekly. a different moment every monday morning at nine PST for the foreseeable future, an amazon link so you can read it, and minimal commentary from me. just a little something to brighten up your monday mornings, and i’ll never suggest a scene or series that i don’t genuinely enjoy. if you’ve got requests, be it for a character or a specific scene, you know the e-mail.)

I had been thinking about writing a review of the Watchmen movie, but if you’re anything like me, you’re sick of reading reviews. Everyone hits the same notes, pretty much. The guy playing Rorschach was great. The lady playing the first Silk Spectre was not so great. The music wasn’t incorporated very well. The sex scene went on way too long. After that, it’s just the writer’s opinion on how well it did in relation to the original material. Was it too close to the material to be good? Too far away to be good? Was it just right?

So rather than doing a full review (I liked the movie enough to see it twice. There.), I made this.

Anyway. Right now I’m in a creative tug-of-war between articles. I’ve been working on the next We Care a Lot and a review of the SNK vs. Capcom Chaos comics. It’s kind of led to a case of writer’s block, so right now I’m in the middle of working on an update for the Contents page. You know it’s been about a year to the day since I last updated that? That was when Hoatzin was still writing.

Hoatzin, what happened to you? Are you injured? Talk to meeeee!

DC Comics is bringing back Milestone Comics this year, or rather the characters from it. They got a fairly high profile reintroduction in JLA, which is getting a hardcover in October, and there are a series of trades coming out soon collecting issues of the old series. I’m not exactly clear on whether or not they will be collecting the full runs, but the trades are coming. Static Shock has already been announced, for example. I’m a little skeptical about it collecting what’s basically the beginning and the end of the series, but you know what? Both are really good stories, so that’s fine.

No, my problem is this. I’m starting a new weekly series tomorrow morning, and I’m prepping posts ahead of time. I wanted to see what trades were coming out for Milestone, as I’m only going to be showing off stuff you can actually buy in a store or on Amazon, so I popped over to dccomics.com to see what trades where coming.

Milestone Media is a fairly well-regarded institution. Its comics are fondly remembered, they broke a ton of industry talent, created a few fascinating breakthroughs in coloring, and DC obviously thought well enough of them to bring them back into the fold after a lengthy absence.

I’m not exactly asking for dccomics.com/milestone, though that is a great idea and should probably happen. But, if you’re doing this big relaunch of a specific property, why can’t I use the search to see what’s coming? I ended up searching by series and found two Static trades (Trial By Fire is out of print and Rebirth of Cool comes out in June) and one trade of Icon, which is out of print.

Some kind of microsite or something pointing the way to what Milestone is, what’s coming, and what’s come before would be nice. Even just the word “Milestone” in the descriptions would work, so that I could find these series via search.

C’mon, DC Comics. This is easy. Even better, holler at this guy, jazz it up some, turn it into dccomics.com/milestone, and throw him a few hundred bucks. The work is already done.

Why is the Faces of Evil series, which is a group of unconnected stories, share the same title, while the Battle For The Cowl series, which has a clear narrative running through it, be published under a bunch of different titles?

Gotham Gazette, Battle For The Cowl, Azrael, Commissioner Gordon, Oracle: The Cure – I’ll have to rifle through at least three of my longboxes to read it.

It’s enough to drive me to waiting for trades.

Oh, who am I kidding?  Like there’s a chance in hell that I’m not going to pick up a series about Barbara Gordon.

In the latest issues of Green Arrow, Ollie has a bushier mustache, a longer, curlier beard, and a darker attitude.  None of these new directions please me, but I’m a die-hard Ollie fan, so I forbear.

Ollie’s got a companion on his new, dark path.  It’s a girl who has a crush on him, and is proving her love by murdering his enemies.  She’s new enough that no one knows about her, so suspicion is falling on Ollie.  After a long talk with Dinah, he looks down in shame, and confesses, “Those men in the morgue.  My enemies.  Men who have sought to harm for money or revenge or to quiet the demons that sing to them.  They’ve caused so much damage, not just physically.  Emotionally . . . mentally . . . to this city.  To you.  To our family.  And I can’t help it.  I’m glad they’re dead.”

Dinah’s reaction is  a anguished look.

My reaction – well I had two.  The first reaction was that I have read every issue of Green Arrow since Ollie popped back to life, and quite a few before it, and if a guy named ‘Sling Shot’ caused physical, emotional, OR mental damage, I missed it.  The second reaction was, “Of course you’re glad they’re dead.”

Because, really Ollie?  Really?  You are still the Green Arrow, right?  You didn’t change your name to IsSorryBadPeopleAreDeadman when I wasn’t looking, did you?  GrievesForHisEnemies Avenger?  General Empathy?

Of course you’re glad they’re dead.  I know of people, people I have never met, people who have never done me any harm, that I would be happy to see dead.  I would never kill them.  I would never encourage anyone to kill them.  I would want their murderers, assuming they were murdered and didn’t just choke on their own bile, caught and punished.  But the fact that they were dead would put a spring in my step, and I won’t lie about that.  Call me Captain Schadenfreude if you like.

I would think that a man who has killed a few people himself wouldn’t sweat over understandable feelings of relief that cold-blooded killers wouldn’t be hunting him and his family anymore.  Anyone?

I’m putting this entry, shallow as it is, under a cut in case any of you don’t want to be even mildly spoiled for Battle For The Cowl. Read the rest of this entry »

Article by Fletcher “Syrg” Arnett.

It actually took me seeing the variant for this one to understand what the hell was going on with the regular cover. Apparently our pinup girl is holding one of Wolverine’s claws for some reason, completely independent of his arm.

Anyhow. The recap page is skippable, at this point they’re so bare-bones from trying to sum up things and keep the illusion of a coherent plot that it’s not worth it. All it gives us that we didn’t know is, “Yes you are really about to read a comic where Wolverine evolved from an otter.”

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