This is probably #348 on the “They made a comic based on this?” list. Somewhere between Pirates of Dark Water and Married with Children. Not saying it’s an undeserved concept. A Vigilante 8 comic sounds pretty good on paper. The reality of Chaos Comics’ output, unfortunately, leaves a lot to be desired.

For those of you who have no idea what Vigilante 8 is, it’s a two-game series from the late-90’s, as part of the all-too-skinny car combat videogame subgenre. You choose one of several cars and drive around different locales, with the mission of not finishing a race, but instead, blowing up every opposing car with rockets, mines and the like. While it never quite received the popularity of Twisted Metal, I personally have always enjoyed the Vigilante 8 series.

The story takes place in the 70’s, during a major oil crisis. The multi-national corporation OMAR (Oil Monopoly Alliance Regime) is out to take out an oil monopoly on the entire world, but the US government won’t back down. As a way to take it to the stubborn Americans, OMAR hires terrorist and explosives expert Sid Burn to blow up several US oil refineries. With his gang, the Coyotes, Burn has an easy enough time beating the law. That’s when the trucker Convoy – who is basically Sam Elliot – starts a group of citizens bent on striking back, calling themselves the Vigilantes. Also, thanks to the discovery of a crashed alien spacecraft, the government has been able to construct some rather advanced weaponry. During a raid by the Coyotes, said weaponry landed in the hands of both the Vigilantes and the Coyotes, increasing the explosive level of their battles.

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Before I do anything else–

Have you guys heard the new DJ Jazzy Jeff record? It is sick. Every single track is dope.

Anyway, I am in SF right now. Got a place, did some time at my job, and did a bunch of things San Franciscans do. I drank Chai Tea Latte at a Starbucks (it is good), rode the bus, and played phone tag with Comcast for two hours plus. On Friday, I get the honor of doing it again, this time in person with a four hour window for installation. Hurray.

Anyway, I live roughly a mile from Isotope Comics, so guess what my new comics shop is! Sending in the pull list later tonight, most likely.

Ed Brubaker signing there this Saturday at 8 til midnight. I’ll be there with the copy of Coward I bought last week!

Speaking of buying comics, and because I am a little short on content right now, here’s what I picked up at the Isotope. Haven’t read any of it yet, though.

All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder 5
The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
Shot Callerz by Gary Phillips and Brett Weldele
Static Shock Trial By Fire by like six dudes with long names
The Annotated Mantooth by Fraction, Kuhn, and Fisher
Kyle Baker: Cartoonist
Nat Turner v2

Reviews coming soon as I work through my 4l backlog.

edit: I am maybe six pages into All-Star Bats and this is easily the best issue yet. I don’t see how people don’t like this comic!

I’m sitting in an airport in Phoenix, AZ right now, waiting on a plane that hits in an hour. After that, I’m off to San Francisco to get the keys to my new apartment, see about buying a bed, maybe a TV, and all those other things. I also need to see about getting the internet turned on, which means I need to either choose Verizon or Comcast.

So, yeah, a Brothers might be a little silent for the next few days.

This came to me in a vision.

Thanks to the readers who checked out and even linked the Spider-Man 3: Deleted Scenes dealy. That gave us our highest traffic ever. We had almost five visitors in one day! Wow!

My homey David Uzumeri has a very good (and plausible!) look at who wrote what for 52. A brief excerpt:

I’ve been hiding this in my back pocket for a while, since I didn’t want to jinx DC putting up more of Keith Giffen’s breakdowns. One of the most hotly-debated topics in the creation of 52 was very simple: Who wrote what? The writers, and DC, have been very cagey about providing answers… but it turns out they were there all along.

So, I’ve been looking at Keith Giffen’s breakdowns on 52thecomic.com, and I noticed that different scenes have different font and numbering styles on the cues (like “13 BOOSTER:” as opposed to just “BOOSTER:” in a different font) in different scenes. So I took a look at it, and it seemed kind of obvious that the different writers use different cues.

Geoff Johns: Times New Roman, “1. CHARACTER”
Greg Rucka: Times New Roman, “1 CHARACTER”
Grant Morrison: Arial, “CHARACTER”
Mark Waid: Courier? (a typerwriteresque font), “1 CHARACTER”

This is what I came up with. The final tally:

You’ll have to visit Funnybook Babylon for the final tally, I’m afraid. I can’t ruin all their fun.

I guess this’ll fuel your “I knew Grant Morrison/Geoff Johns wrote all those parts I didn’t like!” arguments, huh?

Pardon the short post, but a Brothers is packing up boxes like mad. After I’m done, I’ll definitely have something interesting/nerdy/horrible for you, though.

Tangent: I just got hit with a summary of what’s been going on in New X-Men recently and it easily sounds like Marvel’s worst book. They went from nice, kid-friendly but still quality stories to all but three of the original team being killed, kids being tortured, and all this crap?

Plus, Prodigy is dead and I am not happy!

Via Ragnell–

I’m not 100% clear on the difference between a blog carnival and a linkblog (a carnival is more discerning, I guess?), but here’s one that sounds interesting.

Why A Carnival?
Because Lt. Uhura should have had more lines. (ST: TOS)
Because Kevin Sorbo was jealous of Keith Hamilton Cobb and wrote him out. (Andromeda)
Because among other butchery, the SciFi Channel made Ged white. (EarthSea)
Because Forrest was a plot point and Graham was an extra. (Btvs)
Because Ronon Dex is not a savagely sexual wild man. (SGA)
Because Aiden Ford deserved better. (SGA)
Because Goliath showed up only to get killed. (Marvel: CW)
Because Vixen should have been more than the other woman. (JLU)
Because Carl Lumbly should be remembered for MANTIS.
Because Milestone Media deserved more love.
Because there should be more shows like Afro Saumrai
Because there should be more heroines like Jade and Juniper Lee.
Because Bianca Lawson tried out for the role of Cordelia Chase instead of Kendra. (BtVS)
Because Pete Ross drowned in a sea of nothingness (Smallville)
Because it can feel isolating among other journalers and bloggers.
Because it could encourage other People of Color to speak up more.
Because there are illustrators of color who don’t get to put faces like theirs on the front of a SF book.

Can you think of more reasons? I’m sure you can.

PoC SF Carnival: We Exist. And We Are Not Invisible

People of Colour SciFi Carnival. Go take a look and submit something if you so choose. It launches mid-June.

(can anyone tell me what a fen is? i’m thinking swamps and marshes and that can’t be right.)

Time for something a little different. A few weeks ago, I talked about the World Championship Wrestling comic, discussing a horrifying clash between comics and wrestling. Of course, I’m not done. I have to cover WWF Battlemania, after all. Plus I have a guest article on the way covering a comic that’s very concept causes my brain to explode.

Mixing comics and wrestling isn’t always a bad thing, though. I’d like to talk to you about CHIKARA, an independent wrestling federation that lives out of Pennsylvania. I had heard of it a while ago, but only recently have I given it a look. A couple weeks ago, I was invited to tag along to their show Rey De Voladores and I was basically blown away. It’s got everything I want in wrestling. The wrestling talent is there, giving us innovative and exciting match-ups. It’s got enough story to get by without making it more important than the actual matches. Even when the match is lopsided and the winner is blatant, they don’t make it a one-sided match that lasts two minutes. The match-ups aren’t entirely stuck on good vs. evil. Two heels can fight without having to worry about the crowd not knowing who to cheer for. Two tag partners can compete against each other without some forced storyline about them breaking up.

Most importantly is the fun factor. A lot of these guys are just weird. There’s a guy named the Hydra, who wears a monster mask, but is so skinny that he has to draw a six-pack onto himself with a sharpie in a desperate attempt to make himself seem menacing. There’s Chuck Taylor, once a smiling good guy, now driven mad by success and ego as he physically threatens children and the elderly on a regular basis. He also has a random love for dolphins and has the theme from Pete and Pete as his entrance music. There’s Player Uno, the 8-Bit Luchador, who usually wears tights that resemble overalls, as well as a lucha mask and a cap. During some matches, he’ll even kick a turtle shell into his opponents.

Others I’ll get to later.

The point of this article is the DVDs. Since CHIKARA doesn’t have a TV deal, they mostly get by with their DVD sales. This is actually what got my initial attention, as many of the DVD covers are based on classic comic book covers. The homage covers are done by Marco de Alfonso (possibly spelled wrong) and he does an amazing job.

Let’s have a look.

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I mentioned this in another post as being a scene I enjoyed seeing recreated in Spider-Man 3. I’ve got it below the cut.

Art’s by Sal Buscema, words by JM DeMatteis. It’s a great scene and wonderful capstone. Spoilers abound, obviously.

For comparison’s sake, here’s the scene from the movie, paraphrased.
Harry leapt in front of Peter and ended up being stabbed through the chest. Pardon the chatlog.
Peter: Hey pal, how you doin’?
Harry: Been better.
Peter: Get you through this.
Harry: No.
Peter: I should never have hurt you. Said those things.
Harry: None of that matters, Peter. You’re my friend.
Peter clasps his hand.
Peter: Best friend.
And Harry dies.

There it is. No commentary needed, I figure? Be a little careful with your comments and spoilers, since the movie is fresh out. If you want to talk spoilers, toss them between <spoiler>spoiler tags</spoiler> and it should hide them properly. Make sure you mention what you’re spoiling, too!

I owe you guys a post. I was writing it on Sunday, but some paying work dropped into my lap, and with a move set for next Monday, you can understand how important that is right now. Soon.

I was thinking about this newfangled Supergirl DC has running around. Amazons Attack, raised by Amazons, so on and so forth.

We’ve already got an Amazonian Supergirl. DKSA Kara Zor-El is better than DCU Kara Zor-El. She could take her in a fight, easy. Then we’d have a good Supergirl! I could make an entire post out of that. Oh, how I wish I had a feature that let me pit two comics characters against each other in a fight…

Anyway, I took today to rest and recuperate after my hilariously stressful week searching for an apartment in San Francisco. (I found one, by the way! Just got to get the lease and deposit out of the way.) I got a bit of writing done started and I’ll have some long-awaited (sup kanda) reviews for you tomorrow. Mighty Skullboy Army, the Autobiography of Malcolm X graphic novel, and Last of the Independents.

Yes, I am like four years late on that last one.

Stay tuned, true believer.