something wrong, i hold my head
created: What a weird week, man. RIP Dwayne McDuffie. I’m kinda pissed that my BHM11 post about him ended up being sort of a eulogy. It is what it is, though, and I’m thankful for what he gave me. Look for a longer piece on CA tomorrow, I think.

-Me and Uzumeri got together to talk about Uncanny X-Force. Gav pointed out that both of us liked X-Force for different reasons. Me for Fantomex, him for Deadpool.

-I reviewed Summer Wars, Funimation’s new anime disc. Summer Wars is pretty okay–great visuals, aight story. Shoulda been more John Blaze than that.

-Marvel comics, black history, get at me. Part 2 hits on Friday.

---

mj gone, our nigga dead
consumed: I went to a Marvel vs Capcom 3 tournament on Saturday on a whim. I ended up placing fifth, but the first cat I fought was exactly the type of player I’m not down with at all. All types of move spamming, and then when the clock got low, he tried to run away. I had to call this dude out before he manned up and fought me. C’mon, son. What part of the game is that? Oh yeah, the unfun part.

-I talked some about McDuffie on Twitter. Gonna throw those up here because I think I said a few things worth reading:

-Also, seriously, if you’re gonna write about McDuffie this week–Milestone was its own company, not an imprint of DC Comics. Get it right.

-The importance of DC not owning Milestone is this: You need to own your own work. That’s how you make money and leave a legacy that’s yours.

-DC published Milestone. They didn’t own them. McDuffie & Co shopped Milestone around to several publishers, and DC eventually bit.

-The copyright, the honor, and the legacy belong to McDuffie, Davis, Dingle, and Cowan. Milestone was theirs, and they did it for us.

-And Milestone and McDuffie’s career weren’t just about black characters, either. Blood Syndicate had TWO kinds of hispanics on the team.

-You don’t even see that these days. That’s in addition to every other type in Milestone comics. They weren’t black comics. They were comics.

-Yes, it was revolutionary. No, it hasn’t been beaten. They set the bar high, but in the exact right space.

-I definitely felt some kind of way when Batwoman was getting press for being out and a superhero because, HEY! Milestone was there FIRST.

-(a correction because I was wrong on one point:) Milestone was 1993, Alpha Flight [and Northstar coming out] was 1992. Credit where credit’s due, though, despite Byrne being his typical douchebag self. [why did I diss Byrne there? Not sure– a) he’s subhuman b) his big plan for Northstar to get AIDS and die was stupid c) I was just talking yang d) all of the above]

-There are a bunch of McDuffie comics to read on @Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited. I recommend his Fantastic Four.

-John Ridley and Georges Jeanty’s The American Way is on Comixology. You should buy it if you like racism or good comics (or both). First taste is free, the next seven issues are two bones each. I wrote about American Way two years ago, so read this and then read that.

-This Rahm Emanuel Twitter thing is crazy. Great read, wonderful gimmick, profane, funny, interesting… great gimmick Twitter.

–Matt Seneca on George Herriman, and a panel from a strip I dug quite a bit.

-Romina Moranelli is an ill artist. DeviantArt, website.

-I want to do another series of art posts. Pretty Girls is nice, but now it’s like, been there, done that. I’ve got an idea, too. Might call it “Nice With the Pen,” and it’ll be a multi-creator round-up, rather than focused, and I’m not sure how much commentary I want to throw in it. Not a lot, I don’t think, because good art stands on its own. Just a round-up of stuff I saw that week that I liked, whether old or new. Maybe “7 Days, 4 Colors.” Who knows. There’s probably an album title I can jack.

-I liked this review of Daughters of the Dragon that Jonathan Rosselli wrote. Not because he says nice things about me (compliments are tricks!), but because he has some real good reasons for digging that book.

–Sean Witzke runs this piece. Nobody beats the Witz, and here he’s talking about a Moebius book I’ve never read. Time to hit the library, right? This is good stuff.

-Is there a worse nickname than “the Witz?” I apologize.

–Stan Sakai interviews Usagi. Oh my.

-If you write about comics online without even so much as mentioning the people who created the book you’re talking about… you suck, doggie. Stop writing. Retire. Nobody likes you. Grow up. There’s nothing about Batman that’s intrinsically awesome. Somebody made stories that made you like him. At least pretend like you care.

-Creators up, characters down.

-Quick hits: Mass Effect 2 is nice, I need to get back to Persona 3 Portable, Patapon 2 is fun, Justin Cronin’s The Passage is pretty good thus far (I’m not to the vampires yet), and… that’s all I got. Oh, no–I’ve been reading Rei Hiroe’s Black Lagoon. The anime grated, the manga doesn’t, and I can’t figure out why, but whatever whatever. Volume 6 is out of print, though, which is trouble.

-How awful is Kanye’s “All of the Lights” video? Cripes, remember when Hype could make you wish you were in a rap video? What happened to that toy?

-Remember these? That Kanye no-step and lean is still the only dance I do.

-Lauryn Hill, man.

---

i slapped my girl, she called the feds
David: Power Man & Iron Fist 2
Esther: Action Comics 898 and possibly Detective Comics #874
Gavin: (maybe) Metalocalypse Dethklok 3, Justice League Generation Lost 20, Incorruptible 15, Avengers 10, Captain America 615, Deadpool Team-Up 884, Deadpool 33, Incredible Hulks 623, Iron Man 2.0 1, Namor The First Mutant 7, Power Man And Iron Fist 2, Punisher In The Blood 4, Secret Avengers 10

super magic black origin freshly out of dopeness
created: How come people keep saying that Heroes for Hire is a bite of Birds of Prey? The gimmick is completely different, the cast rotates instead of having a core of girl power… I don’t get it, honest I don’t. But whatever whatever, here’s some stuff what I wrote:

–some breakdowns of some mutants from some movie at Moviefone

–a quick look at Marvel’s Heroes for Hire

---

definitely out of dopeness, sketch another opus
consumed: How funky is Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid? It got snubbed hard at the Grammys, but that’s life, I figure. Short post today, ’cause things are blowing up.

-via Angie Wang comes a fascinating game. Here’s what she said about it when she linked it: “An affecting wordless game where your anthropomorphizing tendencies towards inanimate objects will reward you” and here’s the link: http://www.the-end-of-us.com. I liked this a lot. Play the game all the way through (it’s as long as a song) before scrolling down to read about it.

–This Jeff Yang piece about how multiracialism is redefining Asian identity is pretty interesting. I wonder if there’s a parallel in the evolution of black racial identity? Like, at some point, your great great great grandparents are straight up African or Haitian or whatever American, and then by it gets down to you, you’re just sorta… black american. That doesn’t mean that you’re not Nigerian or Somalian or whatever, but that you have more to pull from than just one mother culture. Does that make sense? It’s not a diluting so much as it is an evolution and adaptation. I haven’t given this the time to percolate that it deserves, but Yang’s piece brought up a lot of really interesting questions I need to answer for myself.

-It also made me think about fusion cuisine, which I generally think of as being wack but is almost definitely something that you’ll see more of when you hit the family reunion bbq and there’s all types of sushi and collards in casserole dishes and fish, hot dogs, burgers, and hog maws on the grill.

-There’d still be just kool-aid and lemonade in the jugs, though. Everybody loves kool-aid and lemonade.

-Guess who’s hungry right now.

-I’m feeling like Ghostface in “Shakey Dog”. “Fried plantains and rice, big round onions on a T-bone steak, my stomach growling, yo, I want some.”

-More colored commentary, this time courtesy of C-Rayz Walz and The Angel & The Preacher:

-via Ron Wimberly comes a gang of super dope James Bond novel covers. Diamonds Are Forever is great and Octopussy is creepy. It’s slightly nsfw on the sidebar (pulp covers got pretty rowdy), but you can’t see nothing so tell your boss to get deez nutz if he tries to say something.

-JM Ken Niimura, artist of the undeniably dope I Kill Giants, has a webcomic called 514H. I dig it–a little funny, good panels, nice colors. What’s up with not having an RSS feed, though?

-More Jog on Ditko.

-I dig this belt from The Hundreds, but only in black. They’ve got a store in SF. I might pop by and see about picking it up. I went from having regular belts as kids, with loops and holes you had to punch out, to woven belts in high school, and now all I rock are these types. I thought they were called golf belts, but whatever.

–Joáo Lemos is an ill artist. He did the only story I dug in that Wolverine 1000 joint Marvel put out, a collabo with Sarah Cross. I hope this guy gets more and more high profile work.

–People recreating old photos. I think this is good staging + Photoshop? Regardless, this is a fantastic project. I don’t think I can even pick a favorite, though the ones that span like thirty years are pretty awesome.

-The Grammys were a joke when it came to rap. They picked the laziest, safest rap albums to award. Eminem’s Recovery winning over The Roots’s How I Got Over is jokes.

-ANYway, there’s also Record of the Year awards, which prompted this:

-Four out of five songs nominated for Record of the Year were rap joints. Em and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie” (straight), Bobby Ray and Bruno Mars’s “Nothin’ On You” (good), Cee-Lo’s “Fuck You” (aight, but y’all ran that one into the ground instantly), and Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’s “Empire State of Mind” (one of Jay’s best, I guess). The fifth song is Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now.” Now, silly me, I figured we’d get a rap win.

-Four rappers. One country group named after nostalgia for back when nigras knew their place won.

-Really though? That’s pretty doggone suspect.

-The next Damon Albarn Appreciation Society post might be a little mean. A preview:

-Speaking of mean… Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver’s SHIELD would be an ill comic if it were about something other than how unbelievably awesome white dudes have been throughout history. I mean, dang, can’t I at least get an Arab mathematician or Chinese dude as an actual character? Only white guys did anything of substance over the past however many thousand years and next few hundred years? I feel like I’m asking for one rib over here.

---

knock off your set, BROOKLYN we keep ’em open
David: Hellblazer 276, Thunderbolts 153
Esther: Yes: Superman/Batman 81, Tiny Titans 37
Perhaps, if Damian is really funny: Supergirl 61
Possibly, if it looks decent: Young Justice 1, although it’s stupid that they made Robin Dick and not Tim. Tim’s been around for twenty-two years! That’s at least twice as long as the show’s target audience has been alive. Come on, people!
Gavin: Booster Gold 41, Green Lantern Corps 57, Green Lantern 62, Darkwing Duck 9, Amazing Spider-Man 654.1, Avengers Academy 9, Deadpool MAX 5, Hulk 30, S.H.I.E.L.D. 6, Thunderbolts 153, Uncanny X-Force 5

ready to give up so i seek the old earth
created: I’ve seen a few posts over the past couple weeks about the role of criticism and negative reviews online. I dunno–I feel like the only thing that matters is the work. Criticism, reviews, all of that stuff is just toppings. Eat it or don’t, find pleasure or pain in it, but you shouldn’t really try to place rules on it or minimize it. You don’t like it, but somebody else does, and honestly, somebody really needs to be there to say that Grimm Fairy Tales Inferno looks and reads terribly (it does, I checked). Long story short, I hate reading posts that are about posts. And look what I just did! Onward:

–You should’ve read Zeb Wells’s run on New Mutants. It’s cool, though: you can pick up New Mutants, Vol. 1: Return of Legion for cheap. I’m not too fond of John Rauch’s color work on the series (everything seems sort of washed out/overbright, like Pete Pantazis over Ed Benes on JLA a couple years back), but the rest of it’s solid.

–There are five different ways to buy Marvel digital comics. There should be, at most, two. I think the strongest strategy, once they get it straightened out, will be Marvel DCU + Marvel Comics on Chrome. Not perfect, but a good step.

---

who explained working hard may help you maintain
consumed: iTunes is doing this thing where it only plays several albums I’ve heard in a row, and then something I haven’t listened to in months. I dunno how to feel about that, but it was nice to hear that Johnson & Jonson again. Blu & Mainframe are ill. Here’s “Disco DYNAMITE”:

-That breakdown at 1:50 is the sort of thing I listen to rap for. In comics, it’s like if the CMY dropped out of the CMYK, the lettering went translucent, and the panel borders faded away. (Also the girl at 2:05.)

-An interesting thing about that album is that they did it under fake names for their fake names. Blu, Mainframe, and their guests took on a Johnson alias (Don, Magic, Jack). There’s no real rhyme or reason to it. They shout out their real fake names during the album, they shout out their fake fake names… it’s just an interesting gimmick. It’s meaningless, maybe, but the sort of thing I dig. I think it’d be interesting to take established personas and flip them for a new project. “I act like a dick, so hence the name Johnson.”

–“Hold On John” is nice, too. That boy Blu has range. He needs to drop an album yesterday. I’d put ten on it, first day. I’ll end up getting his Amnesia EP next week, too.

-Blu, Blur, what’s the difference I ask you?

-I sat down with the Catherine demo and was STUNNED to find that it isn’t even really an RPG. It’s a puzzle platformer/dating sim/texting game. It isn’t exactly like Intelligent Qube, which I loved, but it’s similar enough that I’m honestly thinking about importing a game for the first time since whatever that last Fire Pro Wrestling was on PS2. Essentially, you have to scale a maze. You can push and pull blocks left/right/forward/backward or create new blocks. You have to navigate to the top of the stage to escape whatever’s chasing you. I like it. I like it a lot. Importing is probably a bit much (Play-Asia is talking about 90 bucks shipped), so I’m just gonna have to deal until E3 and hopefully an announcement for a US release. There’s a ton of English text in the game, though, so fingers crossed, minna-san.

–Matt Seneca wrote about Grant Morrison and Jim Lee’s Wildcats. I don’t know if I agree with all the specifics of his post, but I do agree that it’s by far the most interesting book Morrison and Lee have done in the past ten years. I tried to wrap my head around it in ’09. I like seeing how we have the same or opposite opinions on certain things. We both had the same reaction to the psychedelic superhero sex.

-I wonder if that scene was supposed to be a Steranko thing, with the pulling in of various styles and influences to make comics that run counter to what you think they should be? Maybe so, maybe no. I’d kill to see Lee on a book where he can cut loose, though. I’ve got high hopes for Dark Knight: Boy Wonder with Frank Miller. Guaranteed to be hands down the most interesting Batman book all year, and probably the most entertaining.

-Speak of the devil, and you will see the weird way everyone draws his radar–Tim Callahan and Ryan Lindsay on Frank Miller’s Daredevil. Next week is Ann Nocenti. To say that I’m on pins and needles would be an understatement. Callahan is good at his job. The Aphrodite/Athena thing–I never picked up on that, and I’ve read all these comics back to front and back again.

-Big KRIT is ill, and he’s got a four song EP with live instruments and an R&B band out now. It costs four bucks. I bought it.

–Aw, sugar, you just gone and wrote the dumbest thing in your whole life.

-MTVGeek interviewed Gareb Shamus. Spurgeon suggested skipping it, and I agree. It’s full of garbage marketing speak and shamelessness. But first, read this excerpt:

“And when it comes to ex-employees, you’ve got to understand that they’re ex-employees: they’re people who have just lost their jobs. And it’s very unfortunate, but unfortunately you’ve got to take what they say with a grain of salt. You’ve got to understand where it’s coming from. It doesn’t diminish their contribution to what we’ve done, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t appreciate their hard work – but when you look at the landscape of comic books today, a lot of these people wouldn’t even be working in this business if it wasn’t for Wizard giving them their first start.

So, when you look at a lot of the people saying those things about us, if it wasn’t for us transplanting them from where they existed – from jobs that weren’t even in comic books, where they were in school and looking for their first opportunity – they might not even be in comics now. So in a sense, I’m really happy – we’ve been able to influence so many different outlets out there, and we gave a lot of people out there a chance to be involved in this industry.”

“Don’t listen to these people. We fired them, and they wouldn’t be anything without us, so how dare they say word one?” Scum.

–Jared Lewis shows off his thirty characters. See what procrastinating gets you? I’d been meaning to email him for weeks (seriously, since November) about this project to get some commentary-type interview going, but he went and did it himself before I could get off my lazy butt. Click through, check it out.

-Jared and Sean are talking Art Adams and Sean’s ’80s hair fetish over at Supervillain, too. Worth reading.

-Also worth reading: Mike Mignola talking about buildings.

–Sequential Tart catches up with Faith Erin Hicks. I like her work, but haven’t read enough of it. Something else I need to fix this year. And hey, look at that–Zombies Calling is four bucks and The War at Ellsmere is five on ComiXology. I’m down with those prices.

-I wanted Nobuo Nakagawa’s Jigoku this weekend. A friend gave me the Criterion months ago and I finally made time. Watching subbed movies is tough for me–I’m used to being able to multitask and write while I watch movies and stuff, and you can’t do that when you have to read. I usually do it on the weekends or between projects. Anyway, trailer:

-It was probably very edgy for its time, but in nowadays, it’s actually kind of boring, up to and until the point the setting shifts to Hell. I mean, honestly. Anyway, I was talking to my friend while and after watching it, which I don’t usually do (death to liveblogs, enjoy things while they happen instead of trying to document them), and here’s a few lines from our conversation:

dub> “stand in a circle in front of this video of fire”
dub> japanese hell is awful
dub> i do like how ironic all the punishments are
dub> it’s like how the Spectre comic used to be
Esco> the best thing is that there is no message other than “Hell sucks, don’t go there”
dub> haha yeah
dub> “if you witness an accident… say something about it”
dub> “unless a dude who is clearly the devil kills your wife first”
dub> man is it just me or is this guy innocent of everything?
dub> “You are guilty of getting depressed when your fiancee died! TO HELL WITH YOU!”

-The thing about the Eight Hells is that apparently people just yell at you in between being dismembered and set on fire or chasing babies. Sometimes the yelling is just your name, and other times, it’s people shouting revelations about the past at you. And that’s the story of why there’s a surprise almost retroactive incest toward the end when a guy finds out one of his love interests is secretly his sister. Not even half-sister. Just straight up sister. His mom was like “I’m not sayin I’m number one–uh, I’m sorry, I LIED.”

–This Black History tumblr is probably my favorite website.

-I ventured back into the badlands of TCJ.com to read a two part Geoff Johns interview with Nathan Wilson. Part One and Part Two. He says a lot of things I thought were pretty interesting, whether in terms of how he approaches comics, the difference in approaches between him and Grant Morrison, or even competition in comics writing.

-Gonna karaoke this weekend. Looking forward to it.

---

to learn to overcome the heartaches and pain
David: ha ha ha
Esther: For sure: Batgirl 18, Batman and Robin 20, Birds of Prey 9, Knight and Squire 5
Possible: The Brave and the Bold 4, Red Robin 20
Gavin: Batman And Robin 20, Justice League Generation Lost 19, Knight & Squire 5, Carnage 3, (maybe) Casanova Gula 2, Deadpool Team-Up 885, Heroes For Hire 3, Incredible Hulks 622, New Avengers 9,Power Man And Iron Fist 1, Punisher MAX 10, Secret Warriors 24, (maybe), Ultimate Comics Avengers vs New Ultimates 1, Ultimate Comics Captain America 2

two men stand, one’s gotta go
created: In the truck with the windows down–why is he playing Beanie Sigel?

–Black History Month piece. Long story short: Black History matters. Knocking it out in 350 words or less this month.

–Cat Shit One looks great. Weird that they didn’t call it Apocalypse Meow, but I figure that name is both basically unknown and out of date, since CSO isn’t in Vietnam.

---

one falls down to the ground
consumed: I broke a tooth! Not even a cool chip on the front teeth that gives me roguish charm, just a straight up broken tooth that no one will see until it gets infected and kills me in my sleep. Did y’all know there are dentists that are closed Fridays? Anyway, in and out this week, cause I got so much trouble on my mind. Next week will be back to biz as usual.

–The Realist is genuinely amazing.

–Jeff Parker and Erika Moen’s Bucko is off to a good start.

–Kyle Baker interview

–Jog talking Ditko is great. Ditko’s a guy I love for Amazing Spider-Man more than anything else. I need to branch out into his other work sometime soon.

–This Archaia book Cyclops, by Matz & Luc Jacamon, caught my eye. Anyone read it? Or The Killer? They sound ill, but you know, floppies these days. I’d rather cop trades or digitally, but that brings an entirely different set of problems (space, mainly).

–Money Making Jam Boys mixtape! Black Thought, Dice Raw, Truck North, Sugar Tongue Slim, and PORN? I’m there.

-For everyone interested in Catherine, and I hope that’s everyone here, the demo is live on the Japanese PSN on PS3. This is a good tutorial to get your free account made. I downloaded it on Sunday (I think?), but haven’t found time to play it yet, ugh. This weekend fa sho.

–Persona 3 Portable is on sale on PSN right now. Twenny bucks. Looks like P3P slipped out of stock (out of print?) on Amazon, too, so get on that if you haven’t.

-Shaky Kane and David Hine’s Bulletproof Coffin is finally complete on Comixology. Two bucks each? I think? Click.

-I like this post about Egypt.

-I really enjoyed this look at Memphis Bleek’s career. At the same time, I dunno if I’m gonna download the mixtape.

–This bit about the future of bandes dessinées in the US was neat. My only request for the future of BD over here is “more please.”

–Jack Davis Flickr motherlode.

-I’ve been playing Final Fantasy Tactics and NBA 2k11 exclusively. Gotta get back to P3P in a couple weeks and see about writing a little bit.

-When Sean Witzke talks about movies, you just need to sit and listen.

-I’ve been bumping Yelawolf’s Trunk Muzik 0-60 all morning. It’s good. I wish the “I Wish” remix was on it, but hey, it’s still ill. And I know I talked about that joint a couple weeks ago, but it sticks with me.

-“Au contraire mon frere one pure pain giver/ Don’t ingest this, it might cause corrosion of the liver”

---

one walks down to the road
David: Rap music and britpop i guess
Esther: Whatever comics people read when they go on vacation!
Gavin: Azrael 17, Secret Six 30, Time Masters Vanishing Point 6, Invincible 77, Irredeemable 22, Daken Dark Wolverine 5, Deadpool & Cable 26, Hulk 29, Ozma Of Oz 4, She-Hulks 4, Ultimate Comics Thor 4

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

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

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

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

girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls
created: Not a whole lot, but I’m pretty happy with what we’ve got.

-We’re in the home stretch of Digital December. Two more pieces this week and done. To catch up, peep my interview with Fantagraphics about their run up to digital publishing. You can also check out seven things you want to see in digital comics, where I pull reax from Twitter and talk about them. Finally, I look at spin and call it out in terms of ownership and digital books. Non-digital–here are ten Marvel books to read in 03/11.

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and I’m too tired to care about it. can’t you see this in my face, my face
consumed: Still on comics hiatus while I’m on vacation, which is somehow simultaneously grind time (bang bang bang). I got through a few things, though.

-I’ve been burning through Akira Toriyama’s Dr. Slump. I knocked out the first four volumes over the course of four days. Good bedtime reading, and so densely packed with jokes that each page is great. There’s a chapter early with a joke that revolves around Arale being a robot without a vagina, and Senbei is like “I didn’t put one on because I haven’t seen one before! All the magazines are censored!” Weird reading a comic for kids that’s like, “Dirty magazines? Yeah, our main dude reads them constantly and is a huge pervert. Also this chapter is about vaginas.”

-Sort of makes, “Hey kids! Comics!” look stupid in hindsight, don’t it? I vote we all stop saying that.

-I read Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy’s Shang-Chi: The Hellfire Apocalypse. I’m trying to wrap my head around Gulacy still. His art style doesn’t quite appeal to me, but I like the way he does fight scenes. He can dip into the T&A well a little too much, but his camera angles and staging are good. More on this guy later, I’m sure, as I figure out who he is and how he came to be.

-This is what happens when we allow moe to run wild:

-Speaking of moe:

-I’ve been listening to a lot of The Beatles this past weekend. Just on a whim, really. I’m not very familiar with their catalog, so I asked around to see where I should start. That ended up meaning listening to Revolver about ten times from what, Thursday to Monday? Then I switched to Rubber Soul. I like a lot of it. Deeper thoughts as I continue my trip through their library. A post of its own.

-“Eleanor Rigby” is fantastic, though. I had no idea that that’s where Bobby Ray got the chorus from “Lonely People” from, but that’s another song I dug. I bet this pissed off however many Beatles fans listen to southern rap when it came out, huh? Video’s mildly nsfw, I guess, though everything is blurred out.

-Marty over at TFO didn’t like it much, I don’t think, and apparently I did know that it was a flip of “Eleanor Rigby,” because I’m in the comments down there. I just didn’t know that it was “Eleanor Rigby” from The Beatles, is all, I guess.

-More Marty: His review of Das Racist’s Shut Up, Dude and Sit Down, Man is great. I liked Shut Up way more than Sit Down, but this is the kind of review that makes me want to go back and bump them back to back to back to back. He pulls out what works about the music, provides context for the albums, works in the sociopolitical context, too… this guy is good. Das Racist is good, too.

-The Deborah Solomon interview he mentions is here. She’s completely out of her depth. This is the best bit, though:

Like most musicians, you dislike the process of categorizing your work. That said, how would you categorize your work?
Suri: It’s a realist painting of a collage. Vazquez: I would say we are proto-postworld pop.

Ha. Is that capitalized?
Vazquez: It’s all capitalized! Suri: All caps everything!

-“ALL CAPS EVERYTHING.” I think Jay-Z once said, “I might type in all caps for a year straight, I might bring back Cazal shades.” Look it up.

–Here’s Witzke on the Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach:

Gorillaz is a 21st century project as it is larger than just songs on wax, and how much work/knowledge the audience brings to their time with it. If you are a Jamie Hewllet fan, who’s been reading all his comics for years, Gorillaz is a completely different experience if you’ve never heard of the him before this. There is a matrix of “if, then” questions that determine what you can and will take away from Gorillaz as a project, most of them are deliberate on Albarn and Hewlett’s part, some of them aren’t (consider – this is the first Gorillaz project without any overt George Romero zombie or Exorcist references – did you know that? Do you care? Do I?).

Basically, you should be reading that.

-Listen to these while you do so. “Rhinestone Eyes” (dig those Jamie Hewlett storyboards) and “Welcome to the World of Plastic Beach” with tha Doggfather. (“Helicopters fly over the beach/ Same time everyday, same routine/ Clear target in the summer when skies are blue.”

I love his letters (BOOM!) and how he draws De La and the other guests of Plastic Beach.

-Some idle thoughts on Plastic Beach: Murdoc is the villain of the Gorillaz. That much is true. Noodle and Russ are pretty self-sufficient. Russ has his mental issues, but he knows better than to trust Murdoc farther than he can throw him. Noodle, though, is 100% in control, with Demon Days being her Jean Grey in New X-Men moment. 2D, however, just kinda follows along. He’s been stuck with Murdoc for years, and at this point, Murdoc’s kidnapped him and taken him to Plastic Beach. That makes 2D the damsel in distress, doesn’t it?

-2D and the clown mask–is it a coping mechanism? Intentional dissociation? Transference? There’s an interview someplace where he talks about wearing the clown mask in the “Stylo” video and how it got shot up. Did I imagine that? Maybe it was on the iTunes Sessions EP. He’s terrified of Cyborg Noodle, though. Does that make his participation in “Doncamatic” a cry for help? “Talk to me talk to me talk to me” while wearing an outfit that Murdoc clearly picked out for him.

-Jack Sullivan agrees with me. “If you invert the island it’s like he’s trapped in a tower, and the whale is like a dragon, so pretty much yeah.”

-What’s “Doncamatic” mean? Nonsense word?

-What’s it mean that Murdoc made such an extremely pop-sounding album that’s actually kind of sad and foreboding once you get past the sound?

-Here’s Gorillaz covering The xx’s “Crystalised.” You can see Daley in this one. Also “Doncamatic” and “On Melancholy Hill”. “Empire Ants” on Letterman.

-I should stop. There’s a ton of official live Gorillaz on Youtube, and turning youtubes to mp3s is easy and I should stop now before it’s 3am.

-The time between me writing that “I should stop” bit and actually stopping watching youtube: enough time to save like eight or nine fresh new live Gorillaz tracks, including the entire Letterman sessions.

-I have a problem.

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i got my head checked by a jumbo jet. it wasn’t easy, but nothing is, no
David: New Mutants 20
Esther: Action Comics 896, Tiny Titans 35 Possible: The Dark Knight 1, Detective Comics 872
Gavin: Green Lantern 61, Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine 4, Avengers 8, Captain America 613, Carnage 2, Daken: Dark Wolverine 4, Deadpool Team-Up 886, Hulk 28, Secret Warriors 23, Ultimate Comics Avengers 3 5, (maybe) Ultimate Comics Thor 3, What If 200

black is something to laugh about. black is something to cry about.
created: It’s Digital December at ComicsAlliance, and we’re gawn in. So far, I’ve got interviews up with Boom!, IDW, and Dark Horse. On Thursday, DC Comics hits. On Friday, ???. Next week… something more. 2010 is the year that CA put the boot to your favorite comics news site.

It’s also music countdown at the Factual Opinion, so I’m pitching in to help out Marty Brown and my Joe Casey Fan Club brothers Sean Witzke and Tucker Stone figure out what was good this year. You can check the entire category here, and check out the first of my contributions on the top 50-31 songs list. More to come, of course, including a bit of writing that I ended up being really happy with. That’s rare for me, so stay tuned.

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black is serious. black is a feeling.
consumed:
–Charlie Huston wrote a short story, The Impossibility of a Diaphanous History Machine, on the Mulholland Books site. I like Huston’s work. He writes dialogue like people talk, where punctuation may not mean what it traditionally means, and I dig that a lot. This story is about bombs, and I like the gag about mental ones.

-Here’s a piece he wrote about children, poverty, and fuel for stories. I generally don’t like people writing about writing. I think that you should just shut up and do it, because “This is how I write” is one of those things that’s just awfully boring, but this is practically a statement of intent. It’s hype. A voice coming out of a dark alley that says, “I have a gun.” Needless to say, I’m hyped for this new book. Drops in 2012, though.

–Huston’s website is here. Get familiar.

–Matt Seneca goes in on a Wonder Woman piece by Bill Sienkiewicz. It’s from an aborted series written by Frank Miller and drawn by Sienkiewicz called Wonder Woman: Bondage. I would trade every issue of Wonder Woman and JLA published over the last five years to see this series. That creative team is one of the best in comics. Every time they get together, somebody needs to sit up and take notice.

-I liked this comic by Sloane, especially the way the grid explodes toward the end.

-Ron Wimberly posted a dope story, too.

-Did y’all hear that they killed Brother Voodoo?

-I read Felipe Smith’s Peepo Choo 3 on my lunch break today. That series is three books long and I dug them a lot. They can be mean and gross, hysterically so on both fronts, but man, they click along pretty well. Last volume had a great action scene, while this one ended up having a lot of heart. Morimoto Mazza Fakkin’ Rokkustaa is one of the best new characters of 2010, too. More on this later, once I sort my thoughts out on it. I kinda laughed at the end. I don’t need more, I think the wrap is fine, but I’d read more.

-Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! 9 was fantastic, as expected. Juralumin got one of the hands down best scenes in the book, Yotsuba has some great physical comedy with an exercise ball, and Azuma nails some really nice things over the course of the book. The dinnertime conversation which was very adult, the Yanda/Yotsuba relationship… good stuff. The translation still bugs the life out of me, though. Do I really need to know what the Japanese onomatopoeia for rolling is? And do I need to see it untranslated every single time? Just write “roll roll roll” and we’ll get it.

-The translation really and truly sandbags the book. Stop explaining and just show us. They did well with a dinner scene that would have been tough to translate without notes, but for every one of those, there’s a “Fuuka-onee-chan” to wade through.

-New music: on pause. Been listening to old stuff and have been too busy to buy new joints. Gotta get a lot of stuff did before the Christmas break, and that means doing a couple weeks of work in a few days. Gross.

-But while we’re on the music tip–one of my favorite lines this year is from Evidence, on Copywrite’s Three Story Building. At the end of his verse, he goes, “Started to rap, told my mama I’d be Common/ She thought I meant normal/ I said, “Let’s be honest.” Something about that stuck with me, it’s just ill from top to bottom.

-Copywrite is responsible for another line that I think about a lot. It’s from “Fuck Soundcheck,” off his T.H.E. High Exhaulted tape from forever ago. “I don’t blame you for being wack. I blame your fans for being dumb enough to feel you.”

-I’m not saying that I believe that it’s a fair statement or anything that you should say in polite company. But it’s probably true.

-You hear that Steel might be dying next year in this Doomsday event? I should probably care more, but I could care less, instead. Sorry, John Henry.

-New issues of Chew, Bulletproof Coffin, and Atlas hit ComiXology today. Be nice to catch up on the first two and to ditch a few floppies of the last one.

-I keep trying to think through why I’m uncomfortable with “fun” being a crap descriptor of a comic. I’m trying to purge it from my vocabulary because it’s become vague and meaningless. I think Tucker came closest to how I feel with his review of Batman & Robin 17, a book I thought was mediocre at best. Something else I need to think through, clearly.

---

black is us, the beautiful people.
David: Amazing Spider-Man 650, Thunderbolts 151
Esther: Batman and Robin 18, Birds of Prey 7
Gavin: Batman And Robin 18, Green Lantern 60, Green Lantern Emerald Warriors 5, Green Lantern Plastic Man Weapon Mass Deception 1, Time Masters Vanishing Point 5, Avengers Academy 7, Chaos War 4, Chaos War Thor 2, Strange Tales 2 3, Thunderbolts 151, What If Spider-Man, Darkwing Duck 7