Some of you longtime readers might remember that a couple years ago, me and some guys experimented with iRiffs, a part of the Rifftrax site where any idiot with time and a microphone can record his own Mystery Science Theater 3000 garbage and put it online. Our first couple attempts were plagued with sound issues, mostly on my part, but we moved onto a project I practically begged the others for: Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins. Journey Begins was an animated movie released to hype up the theatrical release of Mortal Kombat. Anyone who has ever seen it can tell you that it’s ripe with ridiculousness and begs to be made fun of. So we did just that.

We recorded our lines and everything, but things fell to the wayside and a lot of it was forgotten about. Considering Nick Zachariasen, also known as ManiacClown, had little to do after Ultimate Edit finished up and the new Mortal Kombat game was on the horizon, it made sense to get back to work on it. He worked his ass off on it and here it is. It’s me, Nick and James Howard, who rules the roost with his delivery. My quality has gone from outright terrible to plain crappy, so that’s a slight step up.

Rather than show you a preview and ask you to purchase it, I thought it would be better to just give you the whole shebang, synced up and ready to go. So here you go. The entire iRiff of Journey Begins for free. Enjoy.

There is an iRiff page for the mp3 file, so if you feel the need to pay a dollar for it, I won’t hold it against you.

(The last couple seconds repeat a few times. No idea what that’s about)

If you’re not up to speed, read the first part of James Howard’s review here! Unless you want to experience it Star Wars style. That’s cool too!

So Wojytla heads back and joins the official Polish delegation to Rome for Pope John XXIII’s Ecumenical Council, where he makes a speech before the assembly and spends his time soaking up the scene.

Africa, you know I love you, but stop listening to the fucking Vatican already. And don’t think for a second that the pair are placed next to one another here to imply a sense of colourblind kinship and equality before the Lord; one being a white bishop and one being a black bishop, they’re actually positioned there to spend the evening completely ruining my knights’ mobility.

Wojtyla is officially promoted to Archbishop of Cracow and gains all the perks of the position: new business cards, free jello, and a much, much larger hat.

Most people would look at this picture and take most interest in the apparent radioactive properties of the new headwear, but I’m more intrigued by the stubby sausage-like hand sneaking in behind the new Archbishop to swipe his old hat before the new one comes down. What if he wanted to stack them, like Duplo? Is that not allowed?

Read the rest of this entry �

Good evening, gentle readers! My name is James Howard; I like history, and I like comic books, and I am here to talk to you today about both things at the same time.

Marvel Comics Presents The Life of Pope John Paul II, 1982 one-shot. Written by Steven Grant, drawn by John Tartaglione, beheld with bewilderment by millions.

This is true: I bought this comic for two dollars, no tax, from the fire sale of a closing Winnipeg comic book store a few years back. I took it home, I read it, and I framed it. Framed it. Because I am a major-league dork.

I’m not much for religion, and it’s not an earth-shatteringly great comic (as we’ll get to in a second), but who didn’t have a soft spot for ol’ Pope John Paul II? Dude was like the Catholicism Sara Lee. Passersby and visitors don’t just look at this cover — they stare at it for a few seconds, fishlike and uncomprehending, because honestly what the hell is this.

And given the information you can gleam about it from one glance — comic book, iconic historical figure, single issue — the comic is actually a lot more subdued and grounded than one would originally expect. There’s nothing in here that approaches the funnybook wackiness of Superman punching Muhammad Ali, or Spider-Man using the Socratic Method to foil an exact body double of Barack Obama, or… whatever this was. If they made a comic about the Pope today it would probably be thirty-two pages of Hugh Jackman Wolverine riding a motorcycle through a gunfight in a church in the past, so I guess I’ll take my down-to-earth portrayals where I can get them.

Read the rest of this entry �

Let me tell you about James Howard. He’s a stand up gentlemen and one of my oldest internet friends. If I was Jigsaw, he’d be Loony Bin Jim, only instead of being held up in an asylum where a disgusting fat man steals his applesauce, he’s in Canada where… I’m sorry, I completely lost track of where I was going with this.

James is currently writing a blog called Gone East to Western. At first I was curious as to why we didn’t have a link to it until now, but then I realized, oh yeah, he only started updating it recently. Maybe he’s busy writing that guest article I commissioned him to do like two years ago.

Anyway, he did a recent update about a library mural that he’s forced to see day in and day out. Despite the butt-ugly painting that suggest that different cultures (which includes people without legs, judging from the people in the center) can enjoy library services together, the mural is ripe of things that would get your ass kicked out of any self-respecting library.

Give it a read. It’s funny stuff.