This is by the God of Manga, Osama Tezuka. You know what I found out the other day? There was a KING OF MANGA, too.

FUCK YEAH, I love the Japanese, man. See: I’d just stop at calling someone the God of Manga. I wouldn’t add a whole theological hierarchy underneath him.

I want in on this. Who do I have to bribe to get to be the, I don’t know… TOWN WINO OF MANGA? Or the SCOUTMASTER WHO MIGHT BE MOLESTING OUR KIDS OF MANGA? Just something. I’ll take anything. Rich Johnston got an interview after a year; all I ask for is to be the MYSTERY CORPSE EVENTUALLY IDENTIFIED BY DENTAL RECORDS OF MANGA? Is that too much to ask???

BTVS #58 SLAYER INTERRUPTED (PART 3 OF 4) ART CVR $2.99

Oooh, it’s the art cover. I hope it’s something French impressionist. I hope Buffy finally reveals her dissatisfaction with the classical subjects and painting techniques of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. And also, slays vampires. One or the other.

BTVS #58 SLAYER INTERRUPTED (PART 3 OF 4) PHOTO CVR $2.99

Photo cover could mean so MUCH if Dark Horse would just think outside the box. If Dark Horse would just cut to the chase, and put a suitably gynecological photograph of Sarah Michelle Gellar on the cover, all that “no one will buy comic books” crying everyone does would be over. It’d help sales, and sales would help comics, Dark Horse. Think of comics. Close your eyes and think of England. Stupid fucking England. (Yeah, a culture that comes up with the World’s Best “We Hate Fucking Our Men” phrase is one we want to tip-toe around…)

HELLBOY WEIRD TALES #3 $2.99

Uhm, #3 is $3. That’s almost weird, I guess…

ILLEGAL ALIEN TP $10.95

Oh, this is an early comic by James Robinson (STARMAN). Robinson’s a fascinating case study because he went from being a bad comic writer (everything after issue 6 or 7 of STARMAN was dreadful), to being a bad Hollywood screenwriter (LXG, anyone?). What’s next?

Bad Senator Corleone?

Bad Governor Corleone?

I thought that when it was his time that he would be the one to hold the strings… and then to do, you know, something BAD with the strings.

Robinson just makes me sad to think about because he HAD it. For a while, anything that guy touched had it, you know? And then, WHOOSH -- sometime after the first arc of STARMAN, it was gone… kind of sad…

POP GUN WAR TP $13.95

Want this: This is Farel Dalrymple. I went back and forth how I felt about Dalrymple for a long time because I don’t really know that I like too much surrealist stuff, some obvious David Lynch movies aside. But eventually: the guy just draws too well for me to deny. You should look at this if you don’t know the guy’s name, or the guy’s Web site. This will be a nice opportunity to see how much the story makes “sense,” I think… Obviously someone to keep an eye on, at the least.

STAR WARS TALES ART CVR #16 $5.99

See, Dark Horse, this would sell more if it were called STAR WAR TAILS? It could just be photos of Natalie Portman or Carrie Fisher, you know, bending over things. Sofas, tables, etc. I’m FULL of good ideas.

STAR WARS TALES PHOTO CVR #16 $5.99

Something that amused me the other day was Ain’t It Cool News put together a Round Table of hardcore Star Wars geeks to discuss the third film. Which isn’t coming out for another couple years! So, you think to yourself (a) that’s sad, but also (b) they must really like Star Wars.

NO: ALL THEY DID WAS BITCH ABOUT STAR WARS. Literally 90% of the Round Table was these “Fans” talking about how much Lucas had fuckin’ blown it with the new ones. Just HATING on the guy! It was a Round Table of People Who Hate Star Wars and Yet Must Talk About a New Monstrosity TWO OR THREE YEARS IN ADVANCE!!

I just found that funny…

DC COMICS

Thank god they put ACROSS THE UNIVERSE in there because it almost sounded NOT LAME. They really saved it at the last minute. DC’s like a Soccer Goalie. Only instead of soccer balls, lame shit. Which might be redundant. YEAH, YOU HEARD ME, BRITISH -- FUCK YOUR FANCY BOY FOOTBALL. THAT INCLUDES ARSENAL!

ASTRO CITY LOCAL HEROES #3 (Of 5) $2.95

Buying This: I hope Kurt Busiek’s getting better. Such a horrible thing, that mercury poisoning. This book’s heyday, the first Volume, was during such a truly awful time in comics. This comic was -- hell, still stands in such a sharp contrast to so many mainstream books, to things that are so clearly wrong. I wish this book could come out more often, but … hopefully he’s getting better.

BATMAN #616 $2.25

Huh: 50 months away from BATMAN #666. Scary. Evil.

BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #42 $2.75

For people who liked HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS, but wanted less Tony Danza, and more Batman? Do I make a HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS joke every month? 12 months of straight HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS jokes? It feels like that, man…

BIRDS OF PREY SECRET FILES 2003 $4.95

Secret: You like to jerk off. Primate.

CARTOON CARTOONS #19 $2.25

You know: I like this title. It’s such a simple title though. It just juxtaposes the singular and the plural form of the same word, and yet the juxtaposition just sounds right, somehow. By comparison, though: FLASH FLASHES? Hey man, this isn’t Chuck Austen Country…

CATWOMAN #20 $2.50

Secret: You REALLY like to jerk off. Primate.

EMPIRE #0 (Of 6) $4.95

I told you it was coming out this week. I done CALLED that shit. ESP! TURK 182 and now this! ESP! Now I just have to stop Martin Sheen from becoming President… I think this costs more because it’s collecting a few issues. I must admit some curiosity.

FLASH #199 $2.25

I glanced at the last issue of this comic in the store because I wanted to know what they have planned for the big #200 issue. Looks like they have some sort of stunt. What’s the deal? It looks like they’re just killing off a character? I don’t want to tell you how to read your comics, but man, that always pissed me off when I’d read this sort of comic. When some writer’d kill a character just to prove how bad-ass he was and score cheap drama points? Because mainstream creators don’t make up new characters anymore, and most don’t really tell stories about anything, so it just turns things into snuff flicks. I never wanted to read a snuff comic…

But who knows -- hopefully for you, the writer guy has something cool up his sleeve, some twist. I don’t know. Just looked at it in the store; not my money.

GREEN LANTERN #166 $2.25

500 months away from GREEN LANTERN #666? Scary evil JUST GOT OLD! 500 months is, what, 60 years? 60 years from now, Satan’ll be peeing into some adult undergarment. Why didn’t PREVIEWS ADULT preview that?

Worse, I could conceivably be alive in 60 years. I could be rotting away in some Seniors Home when GREEN LANTERN #666 comes out, just lying there thinking “I wish I had a comic column still so I could make fun of this. Also, I wish I could have erections. I’m old and I miss erections.”

Christ, come on, Previews Adult -- warn me about this shit!

HELLBLAZER #185 (MR) $2.75

Scary evil just bought a jacket! It’s a HELLBLAZER! Yikes, that sucked. Should I insult the stupid British more? What are they going to do? Send So Graham Norton after me? Make me listen to the MANIC STREET PREACHERS? Anything but that!

JLA #82 $2.25

I remember when this was a big comic. How does it sell now? Let’s see… on the current TOP 300 list, it’s at #16. I guess that’s not bad. Let’s go back a couple years -- In April of 2001 it was roughly #7 … but with the same number of readers. Huh. So, there’s 9 books that sell at better numbers than they did in 2001? Huh. I guess that’s good, though it’s hard to tell.

LEGION #21 $2.50

Why don’t people like “OF”’s? I like LEGION OF SUPERHEROES more than LEGION, but in order to save the book, they dropped the OF SUPERHEROES. Or another example: I think they’re trying to advertise the LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN as just … THE LEAGUE. As if now everyone will say to themselves, “Oh, those trailers don’t look like total shit anymore!”

People hate the word OF, I guess… do you think they like the word FUCK-OREO? I hope so. I think I’d get royalties!

LOSERS #1 (MR) $2.95

I prefer the term “PRIMATES.” Spread it around.

MUCHA LUCHA #3 (Of 3) $2.25

If you bought a lot of these, would that be MUCHO MUCHA? As in Mucho Deniro? That was the name of Robert Deniro’s twin brother, which he ate in the womb, I think…

OUT THERE #18 $2.95

Oh, god, see, some of these I thought I had covered because I wrote down notes at the bar, off a tentative list. My notes for this one? GET READY FOR HILARITY: “Out there where readers are.”

And there’s a little bit of my vomit right next to it -- adorable.

That was going to be the joke? OUT THERE WHERE READERS ARE was going to be the joke! JESUS! Bars? Turns out bars are maybe not great places for the writing. Suddenly, an explanation for TOKYO STORM WARNING is becoming clear…

PLANETARY BATMAN NIGHT ON EARTH $5.95

Batman finally teams up with Jim Jarmusch to fight crime? Eric Schaeffer is somewhere trying to team up with RED TORNADO, isn’t he? Whatever happened to Schaeffer? It’s someone’s job to make sure he never makes another movie, right?

I like Planetary some, and I’m glad it’s back, but have any of these crossovers been any good? I don’t remember that being the case. It’s John Cassaday though, so should be pretty.

STORMWATCH TEAM ACHILLES VOL 1 TP (MR) $14.95

This is by Micah Wright, one of the Slapfight Gladiators mentioned hereinabove. An editor at Marvel, apparently, said the following to him: “There's just no room at Marvel right now for B-grade creators.” Which is funny just on a pure OUCHIE level, but also on a So Completely Obviously Not True level, too. I wish I could’ve been in the room not so much for the AIM pitch (I’m not sure who wants to read about AIM exactly), as that ETERNALS pitch.

“There’s no room at Marvel right now for B-grade-“
“Blowjobs.”
“SOLD!”

SUPERMAN #194 $2.25

It’s nice in these days of increasing vulgarity for comics -- blowjobs and Sunrise Adams crime/porn comics and FLASH FLASHES and So Graham Norton -- that we can all depend on the people who make SUPERMAN comics to make them as boring as humanly possible. Dentists rub this comic across poor people’s teeths, if they can’t afford the novocaine? Well done, DC.

SWEATSHOP #3 $2.95

Want this(It takes me 12 months to realize I should’ve done Want This all along. It’s more honest while still being enthusiastic). Peter Bagge. Albert Brooks. Seattle. Time Capsule. Posies. It’s everything I’ve ever written about Peter Bagge condensed into a handy bite-shaped nougat. You must’ve just been pulling your hair out by the end, huh? ”WHY DON’T YOU JUST SWALLOW HIS CUM, ALREADY? YOU LIKE HIS FUNNYBOOKS, WE GET IT???”

To which I say: let’s not give Chuck Austen any ideas. Because he put blowjobs in his comics once, which makes him BLOWJOB KING OF MANGA! God, I’m a five-year-old…

TERRA OBSCURA #1 (Of 6) $2.95

Me-a Not-a Buy-a… this is some AMERICA’S BEST COMIC thing, but not by Alan Moore, right? I picked up the last issue of PROMETHEA on a whim -- it was good. It seems like the navel-gazing about the magic is over, finally. That stuff was very smart, but it was killing me, man. But the new one -- it’s got all these great silent passages. If it is, in fact, Alan Moore’s mainstream swan song, I don’t think anyone would have good reason to miss that.

THUNDERCATS DOGS OF WAR #1 (Of 5) $2.95

Was the human-like CAT thing not enough? They’re bringing in DOGS, too? I hope the DOGS of WAR urinate everywhere on Thundera. I hope they’re not housebroken. Push the envelope, I say…

UNDERCOVER GENIE TP (MR) $14.95

Oh, WANT THIS! This is a “greatest hits” album from Kyle Baker (WHY I HATE SATURN, COWBOY WALLY). Baker and Bagge in the same week! This is a good week, actually. Anything by Kyle Baker’s worth a look from me -- some of his books I like more than others, but for me, they’ve all been exciting in one way or another.

WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 #11 (MR) $2.95

The nice thing about the column ending is I can try an issue of WILDCATS sometime. Because if I were to do it now, after all the shit I’ve talked about the Joe Casey (joecaseyjoecaseyjoecasey) (it’s been a lot of shit, hasn’t it?) (yes; yes, it has; thank you for the column, Joe Casey, I guess)… it’d seem like a stunt. Like, “Oh, I’m low on material -- I know: I’ll buy an issue of some Joe Casey comic.”(Which usually would work).

But now, I can give this a shot and if I hate it, I can just hate it, you know?

Everyone says this is the book where he justifies his existence… I’d tried a few issues before, back in the earlier volume; hadn’t been that impressed, but who knows? Sometimes you pick up a bad issue, and you get the wrong idea…

If this is CODEFLESH bad, though, heads will roll… Jesus, CODEFLESH, dude… CODEFLESH!

WONDER WOMAN #193 $2.25

It’s funny how comics set in the “Future” for DC -- they always have Wonder Woman fuck Superman. That’s all anyone wants to see. The big Jim Lee BATMAN everyone’s so excited about? I guess people just feel the same way about Catwoman and Batman. Like, comic fans, they just say to themselves: Female character? When’s she going to fuck _____?

Instead of Hoo’d Win, do you think they ever play When’d Fuck? Hulk and Thor: When’d fuck? I’m guessing after a bottle of Chianti and a long talk about their fathers.

Did you see that thing where they’re making an IRON MAN movie, or trying to anyway, but the IRON MAN movie? It’s going to be about FATHER ISSUES.

I like how Marvel wants to make movies, but they don’t want to make fun ones. Fun? Naaaah -- let’s have FATHER issues. Oh god…

IMAGE

For people who’ve been asking what’s next for me: bunker sounds nice.

CASEFILES SAM & TWITCH #1 (MR) $2.50

Want this: Interesting creator team on this comic. Mark Andreyko co-wrote TORSO with Brian Michael Bendis. And this is drawn by Scott Morse, who’s done a number of works. It should be a really interesting collaboration. I hope whatever the hell happened with Bendis doesn’t repeat.

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE VOL 2 SANTALUCIA CVR #4 $2.95

Well, it’s got a SANTALUCIA COVER, so how can I possibly fucking resist that? It’s like they rubbed cocaine all over a model’s tits. It’s a SANTALUCIA cover! WOW!

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE VOL 2 VALLEJO BELL CVR #4 $5.95

Oh… oh no… COMPETING FOR MY AFFECTION!! WHAT DO I DO? Can you -- can you be in love with two people at the same time?

This is how Mormonism started, isn’t it? With HE-MAN comics?

MYTHSTALKERS #3 $2.95

They stalk Myths? What, like the girl who’s going to like you for the “Real you?” Don’t stalk her! She likes me for the “Real me!” LEAVE HER ALONE, IMAGE!!

REX MUNDI #4 $2.95

You never see guys named Rex anymore. There’s Rex Reed. There’s… according to the Internet Movie Database, there used to be REX THE DOG. They actually have ANIMAL ACTORS in that database! I don’t know how many times I’ve been watching a movie, and said to myself, “Where have I seen that cockatoo before? Didn’t that cockatoo peck one of the Kulkins to death in MY GIRL 3?”

Rex the Dog? According to IMDB, he mostly played HIMSELF. He got typecast. He was never allowed to stretch as an actor. Fame -- ain’t it a bitch?

Yeah: A.J. Benza jokes. I couldn’t be more proud.

TOP COW BOOK OF REVELATIONS 2003 $3.99

REVELATION: They’re untalented and litigious. WOOHOO! A madman will rise in the East, and after the madman rises, he’ll want WITCHBLADE comics, so...

VOLTRON DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE #2 (Of 5) $2.95

Can you believe a character that was only on at 7 a.m. has that many fans? Did everyone just wake up early? I never saw it later in the day than 7.

WITCHBLADE #66 $2.99

Only 600 months until… Scary Crappy? What is going on this week? The 13th volume, multiple numbers of the beast, a madman rising in the East, Demi Moore(star of the SEVENTH SIGN, no less) having a come-back, Turk 182 -- you do understand that my quitting TITLE BOUT is nothing less than the END OF THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD, BEYOTCH!!! (Would I quit with the “beyotch?”)

MARVEL

What ultimately fascinates about the Princess Di story: We have a controversy about Marvel capitalizing off a tragedy with the Royal Family, and yet, Marvel in a sense is comic’s equivalent to the Royal Family at this moment in time:

Once, they might have had some glorious times, but those days are obviously long past. They might have some money, but … respect? From some they inspire hatred, and some fanatical obsession, and yet … the most minor bit of news for some inexplicable reason holds people in some unexplainable thrall.

All that’s missing is the inbreedi -- All that’s missing is, uh, important stuff.

AGENT X #12 $2.99

So, Agent X must have been around for 12 months, too. Me and AGENT X both had the same lifespan of a harvester ant.

AVENGERS #68 $2.25

In WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE IN A RAIN OF HELLFIRE BECAUSE I’M QUITTING TITLE BOUT news, guess what the first result the Goog gives you for “#68 Numerological Significance.”

THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST website!!!

Dude: “The Roman emperor Nero (lived 37-68 AD, ruled 54-68 AD) persecuted the first Christians. He accused them of starting a fire which destroyed half of the city of Rome in 64 AD (Tacitus, Annals 15.44).”

Also, in ASCII, #68 is the letter D… which could stand for a lot of words, like, I don’t know… DOOM, DEATH, DINGY (the sound of our bullshit alarm), DEMI MOORE (star of the SEVENTH SIGN), and… oh yes…. DI, PRINCESS OF WALES!!!

I never should have quit the comic book column; I’ve triggered the Apocalypse, apparently.

BLACK PANTHER #61 $2.99

Hey look it’s a black guy! It’s basically the one black character in comics. That must be fun for the black kids. Oh, wait, I’m being unfair: they have the CREW now, too, so… shit, where’s our IMAGE AWARD?

BORN #1 (Of 4) (MR) $3.50

They forgot the I and the G… What is this? Is this like that Matt Damon movie? Matt Damon’s in comics, too? First, Sunrise Adams, now Matt Damon -- man, they’ll let anyone in. Somebody should hook those two crazy kids up…

FANTASTIC FOUR #70 $2.25

Which book was this again? Sounds familiar…

HULK NIGHTMERICA #1 (Of 6) $2.99

It sounds like a bank. HULK GO BANKING! HULK DEPOSIT FAT CHECKS! HULK CAUSE STOCKS TO PLUMMET! Marvel’s stock went into free-fall after it was the #1 movie for the weekend? What would have happened if it was #2? Stock brokers would have lit Tobey Maguire on fire, I think…

INCREDIBLE HULK #56 $2.25

Yeah, two-plus hours of Hulk’s father issues. Where do I sign up for that? Like, people tell me they like the HULK, but I’m just dreading it anyway. I just keep thinking Dr. Phil will show up at some point, and him and Hulk will arm-wrestle, maybe drink a bottle of chianti, Hulk will tell him how Thor didn’t like the “Real Me” …

INHUMANS #2 $2.50

This would be a good name for a SUNRISE ADAMS comic about a bunch of porn dudes who like to be IN… HUMANS?

MYSTIQUE #3 $2.99

It sounds like a perfume. Marvel has to get into the fragrance business.

NAMOR #3 $2.25

Maybe this could be a cologne? NAMOR COLOGNE. NAMOR COLOGNE: Smell like Comics. It smells of a sweet aroma somewhere between the sea and chemical castration.

PETER PARKER SPIDER-MAN #57 $2.25

Oh, good, I thought they meant PETER PARKER: POODLE FUCKER. I always get those two guys mixed up, man… Thanks for the helping hand, Marvel.

RAWHIDE KID TP $12.99

You’d think I’d have liked this comic, or you know, that I would have looked at it at least. Because basically: Marvel looked at Rawhide Kid, and said to themselves: “Huh-huh: his hide’s raw from hot dude-dude action.”

That’s what I’ve been doing for 12 months in a row now! Ron Zimmerman should have been my ambassador of kwan, man. So many comics… so many regrets.

RUNAWAYS #3 $2.50

The comic that says: “Blowjobs are a nice start, but what about whores and hobos? They’re heroes too, aren’t they?” Whores, hoboes, blowjobs, and firemen -- Marvel’s on a roll, aren’t they?

SOLDIER X #12 $2.99

Wasn’t this supposed to have been cancelled? It keeps coming out. They fired the good people, but then kept the shitty character? Wh… what?

SPIDER-MAN LEGENDS VOL 2 TODD MCFARLANE BOOK II TP $19.99

See, that’s what was missing this week: Todd McFarlane. You can’t really get to 11 on the Crazy Amp without Todd McFarlane… Shit, man, it was my last week, Todd. The crazy amp -- it is only at 10…

STARTLING STORIES THING NIGHT FALLS ON YANCY ST #2 (Of 4) $3.50

THING NIGHT sounds like some movie about prom kids getting slashed to death by some evil clown, who’s really their transvestite gym teacher. What happened to those movies? It seemed like there was one a month in THEATRES when I was growing up…

WAR MACHINE 2.0 #2 (Of 3) (MR) $2.99

Doesn’t Chuck Austen write this? See: he may not write IRON MAN, but he writes an IRON MAN spin-off! How do you think he decided which book got the blowjobs? Do you think he played Spin the Blowjob Bottle, or ... Wheel Of Blowjob?

Seriously: I just flipped through fast, but that ETERNALS comic was basically wall-to-wall blowjobs. What was that about? I don’t really have a JOKE about it, per se, so much as just: bafflement, basically. Is bafflement a word? I’m baffled about whether bafflement is a word? Space-time collapsed? Bummer.

WOLVERINE DOOP #2 (Of 2) (RES) $2.99

Princess Di fans might want to pick this up to get a headstart on acting twatty; another good reason is I’ve never been a big Darwyn Cooke fan, but his work here seems better than usual somehow. His work on this book, I actually do like. Something that was holding me back before seems to have been fixed. I’m not sure what. I think someone said it might have been the inking, but I have no idea… Before: didn’t care for the guy. Here: love it. Go figure.

X-TREME X-MEN #27 $2.99

God, 12 months I’ve spent staring at this shitty title. 12 MONTHS! There are marriages that don’t last that long. It’s like a Pepsi Commercial where Grandpas drink Pepsi then act like idiots, and pretend that they don’t care about the no-erections-anymore thing. That’s what this title reminds me of each and every time. Awful, awful title. Maybe the book’s good. Good art, I suppose. I don’t know. Just on a title level… it’s just a bad name for a comic…

WIZARD

I wasn’t into this. I’m not sure I even ever read it. I just got the first issue for the Phil Noto art, but I just couldn’t get past the first few pages… I don’t even remember why.

INCREDIBLE HULK ACE ED #1 $13.99

The ACE edition? For Nerd Fighter Pilots? Huh? MAVERICK, GOOSE, ICEMAN, COMIC NERD… it’d be hard to pick which one is the most blatantly homoerotic, wouldn’t it? I’d still have to bet on Val Kilmer’s ICEMAN. You lose again, comic fans! First he makes a bad Batman movie, now he steals your glory once again.

KIIIIILLMMMMMMEEEEERRRRRR!

MUPPETS SUPER HERO SCOOTER TOYFARE EXCLUSIVE FIGURE PI

Do kids know the Muppets? I never see the Muppets on television anymore. I think this figure might be for some sad, lonely women. That’s who’s into the MUPPETS, right? Sad lonely women? No shame: MUPPETS were very funny. But they’re the people I really hear talking about them still: sad, lonely women.

WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE SPIDER-MAN X-MEN CVR #143 $4.99

Why not just have a GIANT LOSER cover and save money on ink? See, on my original drunken notes from the bar, this joke was originally, “Why not just have a MASTURBATING LOSER cover and cut out the middle man?” The editing process- another look Behind the Scenes of TITLE BOUT for you…

WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE SUPREME POWER CVR #143 $4.99

Is this some sort of TENACIOUS D joke?

COMICS

Wha…wha… That’s only 111 months from.. wait… wha…

Was misspelling everything in sight not bad enough, comics? It’s an omen for the stupid people. In case all the other signs and omens weren’t enough, it’s an omen for stupid people, too? RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Speaking of misspelling: that’s been the real tragedy of this column, watching me butcher the English language. See: because I’m actually a professional writer. All lawyers? Lawyers are essentially professional writers. And unlike all these whiny comic fucks, or all the complain-y fiction writers- we don’t’ have namby-pamby critics. Oh no, some twerpy Indian kid was mean to my comic book in a comic column on Moviepoopshoot. Fucking pussy. WE HAVE JUDGES.

Look at the words. Critic might criticize. Oooh. JUDGE might FUCKING JUDGE!!

Big difference. And yet this column- oh man, the butchery. THE HORROR! So, sorry for all the typos and grammatical terrors I’ve inflicted over the last 12 months. I write fast and I write a lot, so it happens, but…

ALRAUNE #1-5 PACK (A) $17.00

Christ, I’m out of jokes… What do you want? How about… Pack? OH YEAH, PACK THIS COMIC IN YOUR ASS, PROBABLY WELL-MEANING PEOPLE WHO MADE THIS COMIC I’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Pack it in your ass!

No good? Last week- -we’ll both have to live with it…

AMERICANA TP $14.99

What happened to all those guys who used to bite the heads off chickens? Do they all have square jobs now? Like, do you think there’s some accountant out there who used to have a lucrative career biting off chicken-heads before vaudeville dried up, or whatever? I think I read that’s where Marvel’s finding its new writers now… They’re in SHOW BUSINESS.

AMERIMANGA VOL 5 $7.99

God, I hate that term. AMERIMANGA just means Wannabe to me. The Best “Amerimanga” guy’s just going to be a wannabe, isn’t he? Come up with a new term…

ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #72 $2.19

So, the Off-Broadway Playwright who’s taking over the FF was notorious for a play in which he made the ARCHIE GANG all gay or something. You know, Archie, Jughead, Veronica, Betty. Which … a strange detail to the story. I would go so far as to say a STUPID detail. Who wants to see a play like that? It sounds, I don’t know… obvious. But I probably should mention that wrinkle.

The best part about that story, the part I genuinely enjoyed, was that the story broke on Comicon Pulse, and the message board had these guest appearances pre-emptively laughing at the morons that were about to respond. It was like a celebrity roast was going on in real time simultaneous to the primate round table.

The second response to the news story was good ol’ Augie cheering (exact quote): “Let the fun begin!” (I’d have preferred “LET THE GAMES BEGIN” to give it that Rome decaying feel, but…). The guest-stars -- Tom Spurgeon yelling something I didn’t understand (he’s all smart), and the COMING ATTRACTIONS guy and Mark Waid and.. and … it was star-studded. And then, you know, primates complaining that they already psychically knew that THING would wind up in a Manwich with Giant Man.

I love how they all pretend all they care about is “gay tokenism” (that’s the phrase they all keep using) while they’re complaining that writers are going to “gay” their favorite superheroes, JUST because this guy was hired!! It’s so convincing.

ARTBABE PRESENTS LA PERDIDA #2 (Of 4) (O/A) $4.95

This is good. This is Jessica Abel’s series about an American who moves to Mexico. It’s definitely a superior alternative book. I enjoy that sort of American expatriate stuff, even though this pretty wisely doesn’t indulge in any fantasies about what that’s like that something like, I don’t know, Whit Stillman’s BARCELONA did, say. (Just a purely random example…)

BATTLE ROYALE MANGA #8 (A) $10.99

This is a manga based on a great Japanese movie about Japanese schoolkids being forced to kill one another by the Japanese government. It was very controversial in Japan, and hasn’t really been distributed in the U.S. because no one wants to deal with any “controversy” it might cause here. But the movie’s really fucking good -- I don’t know anyone who’s seen it that didn’t like it. You’d think someone would have the guts to at least get it into video stores… If I can rent Miike’s DEAD OR ALIVE (which I finally did last weekend), I should be able to rent this. This is comparatively innocuous.

BETTY #127 $2.19

Okay, so, let’s make the Gay Archie play guy feel at home somehow? He’s in a new medium. The FANTASTIC FOUR crowd with the torches and the angry mewling and what have you might make him feel unwelcome. So… let’s gay up the ARCHIE GANG ourselves, to make things more comfy for him. And to give me another four cheap jokes.

BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #116 $3.59

They discover strap-ons?

BETTY & VERONICA SUMMER FUN #5 (O/A) $2.25

Uh, they discover massive strap-ons?

BETTY & VERONICA SUMMER FUN #6 (O/A) $2.29

Uh, they discover mammoth strap-ons? (I never used the word mammoth enough in this column).

BETTY & VERONICA SUMMER FUN SPECIAL #3 (O/A) $2.00

They discover special strap-ons? Special how?

BETTY & VERONICA SUMMER FUN SPECIAL #4 (O/A) $2.00

What did they do -- take a plaster cast of Archie’s dick?

Funny? No, but I needed to do four goddamn Archie jokes, and I couldn’t think what to do, so… Desperate? A little.

BLACK TIDE CVR A MILLER #6 $2.95

BLACK TIDE sounds like it’ll be some awesome surfer movie for urban audiences. Is surfing getting big again or is it all just wet teenage girls on MTV? I haven’t done enough research, but I’m guessing the latter. Couldn’t we just skip to reality shows about barely-post-pubescent girls showering? They could compete for shampoo, let’s say. Anytime I turn on the MTV, anymore, it’s wet girls surfing around.

BLACK TIDE CVR B MURPHY #6 $2.95

Huh -- one’s a MILLER cover, and the other’s a MURPHY cover. The connection? Frank MILLER wrote Robocop 2, the lead character of which’s name? Murphy.

Is ROBOCOP 2 a sign of the apocalypse? Actually: it was pretty much that bad, yeah.

BLOWJOB #6 (A) $3.50

Oh, man… 12 months. Week after week. And one thing was always there for me. You, BLOWJOB COMICS. You were always there. BLANKETS didn’t come out in my last month. LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS is out next week, I think.

But you, you were there in my week of need, BLOWJOB…

I love you, BLOWJOB.

You thought I’d do the Chuck Austen joke. You didn’t think I’d go sincere. I’m all heart!!

BRATH #5 $2.95

You know what really is amazing about CrossGen? They have this amazing program where they hire people and make them employees, instead of just using freelancers. But that’s not the amazing part. The amazing part is PEOPLE GIVE UP HEALTH INSURANCE and quit anyway. People quit working for them anyway. They say, “Health insurance or not working for CrossGen anymore/possibly dying from not being able to afford medical treatment?”

And they choose NOT WORKING FOR CROSSGEN ANYMORE!!!

Yeah: even after 12 months, I just never warmed up to CrossGen. I really don’t understand that whole thing. Maybe I’m missing out…

CASTLE IN THE SKY VOL 1 TP $9.95

Hmm. Pie’s in the sky. So, Pie’s in the Castle? Pie growing ever more distant… wait, I’ve done this joke already! I know I have. It hasn’t been 12 months -- it was, like, 1 month of jokes that I just repeated for 12. I should’ve kept a joke index somehow. That’d have been healthy -- not just doing comic book jokes in a comic book column? But keeping a comic book joke index so I could cross-reference new jokes to see if I’d done them before?

Title Bout? TOO SANE. That’s the conclusion I come to? Too sane??? We’ve all learned all the wrong lessons…

CAVEWOMAN HE SAID SHE SAID ONE SHOT (RES) $3.50

There a movie called HE SAID SHE SAID starring … KEVIN BACON! This comic is only one degree away from Kevin Bacon! But that’s got to be cheating…

CAVEWOMAN HE SAID SHE SAID ONE SHOT SP ED (RES) PI

At this point, my notes from the bar grew distraught. The note here was simply “RETARDED!” Oh, I think because it’s the Special Edition. So, what, I was saying that this is CAVEWOMAN for Retarded people? How is this not redundant?

Kevin Bacon shakes his thing in all his movies now -- see, he knows how to woo the prehistoric women, Chuck Austen. Learn from the Bacon. Become the Bacon.

You’re just thinking about bacon now, aren’t you? This joke I KNOW I’ve done for 12 months in a row. And you know why? BECAUSE IT’S TRUE -- YOU’RE ACTUALLY THINKING ABOUT SIZZLING, SIZZLING BACON. YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE AND I KNOW IT’S TRUE AND YOU KNOW I KNOW AND I KNOW YOU KNOW I KNOW!!!

We’ve spent a year together: I know where you live, motherfucker.

CHALAND ANTHOLOGY VOL 2 HC $24.95

My note from the bar for this one was simply “Motherfuckers! What the fuck?” I think because there is NO joke for CHALAND. This is where I hit the wall. That was always my favorite part of looking at TITLE BOUTs after I’d done them- ”Oh, look: that’s where I hit the wall.” After that point, the column was sort of like when you smush an insect, but it’s still alive, and wriggling around, and you watch, trying to figure out if you’re watching it writhe in pain or just having a death spasm, but then you just hit it again because you think some non-existent God will somehow “forgive” you killing one of his creatures if you show mercy seconds later with a coup de grace…

I made that metaphor in my rumpus room over the last 12 months, and Felicia tops me with her oh-so-special naval analogies… DAMN YOUSE, INSIDER!

Oh, I have some inside information: you’re a dork.

CHOBITS ANIME COMIC #6 $13.99

It’s for people who like cartoons but need them to be slower? 24 frames per second’s too fast?

CHOBITS ANIME COMIC #7 $13.99

Déjà vu… Look: how many CHOBITS jokes do you expect me to come up with in a single week? CHOBITS got its quota already. Move along...

COUNTER OPS #2 (Of 5) $3.95

Exciting? Exciting title? It’s actually one of those 1980’s revival comics: they’re bringing back ALICE. Alice, Flo, all of them finally return for some COUNTER OPS on the Counters of Mel’s Diner… (Was it Mel’s? Did I remember that off the top of my head? Scary? Kiss my grits?)

CUTIE HONEY LEGEND OF AN ANGEL MANGA #5 (MR) $11.99

If you type CUTIE HONEY into the Goog, you find something I wouldn’t quite describe as being appropriate on the first page of the image search.

CYBLADE SHI #1 HABERLIN S&N ED $29.99

$30 for a CYBLADE and SHI crossover? Who remembers these characters anymore? Who knew to begin with?

DEVILS REIGN CHAPTER 4 BALLISTIC WOLVERINE BENITEZ S&N ED (N PI

BALLISTIC…. WOLVERINE….. BENITEZ!!!

DICKS & DEEDEES HC (MR) $18.95

This is a Hernandez Bros. hardcover. I’m not that far into the L&R trades to be excited about this, but it’s really quite a collection. Did they collect Gilbert’s thing for Vertigo yet?

DISPERSION TP #2 $12.99

Great. What could be more exciting than… dispersion? That’s waking me up. Dispersion’s going to rock… and then disperse! So environmentally friendly!

DRAGONBALL PERFECT ED MANGA #2 $18.99

In my perfect edition, Goku would lick my balls. What would happen in your perfect edition?

EIKEN MANGA #8 (A) $7.99

God, I hate this title. There’s nothing here. And I NEVER want the “Hey I have no joke” joke. Because you know it’s not funny, and I know you know it’s not funny, but then I have to pretend, and…ughhh…

ERIC STANTON PACK (A) $6.00

Didn’t Eric Stoltz play him in a movie? I know this name. Who is this? Some bondage artist? No, wasn’t- hold on… no idea. Name’s familiar though. Maybe I’m thinking of Andrew Stanton?

FATHOM VOL 1 TP TURNER S&N ED $29.99

Hmm, yeah, FATHOM that I still don’t give a fuck. Nice try, Turner.

FEMFORCE #119 $6.95

You think this is about a team of women that went around raping guys? Me neither. You’d think girls raping guys would be a bigger thing in comics. You’d think some guys would get off on that. Not me. But you know… you, basically. Me? I think that’s grotesque. But I’m guessing you’d like that sort of thing. Just a hunch.

FRANK HC $39.95

Want this: This is Jim Woodring. Everyone says this is classic stuff. I’ve read some Woodring, but not enough. Not enough to talk about it clearly.

GHOST ON THE STAIR GN (O/A) $7.95

Ghost on the Treadmill, Ghost on the Abdominizer… Remember back when being dead meant you could let yourself go?

GOLD DIGGER COLOR SERIES VOL 2 TP $15.95

Color? Gold Diggin’s paying off, finally…I remember when it was black and white, stripping at the senior’s home. And all the seniors yelling about how they wish they still had their comic columns and they wish they could still get erections.

GUNDAM A ANTHOLOGY MANGA MAY 2003 $12.99

GUNDAM is for Japanese kids who want something as crazy and imaginative as giant robots, but want the most BORING giant robots possible. Have you ever seen one of these GUNDAMs? INCREDIBLY BORING. They want something inherently crazy to be boring. I guess Japanese fans and American fans aren’t so different after all.

GUNDAM ECOLE DU CIEL MANGA #1 $10.99

ECOLE? GUNDAM has Mad Cow disease? Do they feed GUNDAM the mashed up flesh of old Japanese robots? Is that what happened to ULTRAMAN?

HEAD #4 (A) $3.50

HERMAN’S HEAD without HERMAN? That would involve decapitation, wouldn’t it?

That should be the reunion movie -- someone’s decapitated HERMAN, and all the people in his HEAD slowly die of lack of oxygen one by one, starting with, let’s say, Hank Azaria…

FOOLED YOU: Hank Azaria wasn’t one of the characters in Herman’s Head. He was the best friend. MORON!!

You’re such a cretin.

INSIDE VINEYLAND TP (MR) $5.95

I didn’t like Pynchon’s VINELAND as much as I’d hoped. I think I mentioned reading that once in this column. Oh, parts were good, chunks, passages -- it was hardly a waste, but all together, it just lacked something. That and it had NINJA in it?

JASON & THE ARGOBOTS VOL 1 BIRTHQUAKE TP $11.95

How many times have comics used BIRTHQUAKE? Doesn’t that sound familiar? Let’s check the Goog: It was the name for one of Valiant Comics’s many post-Jim Shooter relaunches!

I want all these déjà vu gone. I want to forget it all. Is there any way to burn the brain cells that all this comic trivia’s in? Huffing gasoline? SOLD!

JUDGE DREDD COMPLETE AMERICA GN $18.95

Judge Dredd completely overlooked Guam.

KATALYNA #1 $2.95

Isn’t that some place in San Diego?

KATALYNA SP ED #1 (Of 2) PI

Oh, no, it’s a comic about ho-y looking ugly girls with guns. I’m sorry, San Diego. I feel like I should apologize to San Diego.

KRAZY & IGNATZ 1929-30 MICE BRICK LOVELY NIGHT $14.95

LOVELY NIGHT? That’s it? The last batch of titles for these books were such great titles. Sort of a disappointing title. Maybe I’m not remembering things clearly…

LA BLUE GIRL MANGA ED BOOK 3 LUSTY POLTERGEIST GN (A) $16.95

Check out what a GOOGLE Search for POLTERGEIST turns up: “In the scientific world, Poltergeists are generally portrayed as malevolent, disruptive, mischievous, and unusually noisy and unwelcome entities.” Yeah, I don’t’ know how many times I’ve been reading JAMA or NATURE or the New England Journal of Medicine, thinking “Man, these guys are so racists towards poltergeist. It’s probably because scientists are so repressed, and poltergeist, as La Blue Girl attests, are so LUSTY! Just like Charo!”

Gabe Kaplan, Alice, Herman’s Head, Charo, and Valiant Comics… and yet, I still feel the Valiant Comics reference was somehow the most pathetic. Interesting…

LAGOON ENGINE MANGA #1 $7.99

A manga about Japanese people using Brooke Shields to power a boat? I’d buy it.

LOVE & ROCKETS VOL 2 #1-6 PACK (MR) $18.95

Not to take money away from FANTAGRAPHICS, who I’m all for you spending your money on, as you might recall, but… why wouldn’t you wait for the trade? There’ll be a trade soon enough. I guess these packs are for stores to unpack? I’ve never understood it. 12 months later, and I still don’t understand 90% of the stuff on this list… I’ve learned nothing!

LOVE HINA INFINITY $17.99

Oh yeah, well I love hina infinity plus one, beyotch! Wait, infinity plus one is just infinity, so that means we both love hina equally? …I refuse to accept that.

LUFTWAFFE 1946 #10 $5.95

Huh, look at that: 1946… so 1+9 = 10, and 46, so 4+6 = 10, and this is issue #10, so in conclusion: I LOVE HINA MORE, YOU JEALOUS FUCK. I WILL NOT LET IT GO!!!

Everything’s satanic this week. What the fuck???

LUPIN THE 3RD MANGA #1 (O/A) $15.95

ETERNALS fans might like this. A lot of rapin’ in this comic. Not girl on guy rapin’, so much as guy on girl, but… it’s very light heartedly done. It’s 1960’s era Japanese stuff descended very much from James Bond and a sort of swinging hero of that time- more Matt Helm than Bond, really… LUPIN later starred in one of my favorite Miyazaki cartoons.

MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH MANGA #1 $9.99

Do you think the guy from the DOORS ever sees this manga and wishes that it was MAGIC KNIGHT RAY-MANZAREK? Me neither.

MAMOTTE SHUGOGETTEN RETROUVAILLES MANGA #1 $10.99

Ironically, that’s Dutch for “ALL COCKSUCKERS CRAVE MONKEY CUM.” But it’s manga, so the storytelling’s really just better than American storytelling, and teenage girls love the …

MARK OF CHARON #4 (Of 5) $2.95

The mark of a guy who sits on a boat all day? He’s a guy who sits in a boat. Look: how about for $1.95 I’ll get Gopher from LOVE BOAT to kick you in the ass? Me and gopher will undercut all competition…

MERIDIAN #37 $2.95

I know what you’re asking: What if TITLE BOUT were written in Boise, Idaho? Well, MERIDIAN MAGAZINE has the answer: ”Chris Dresen of Boise, Idaho, writes: ‘Shortly after joining the church, our family was talking about the three degrees of glory at family home evening. My father asked who could name all three and my younger brother blurted: That’s easy: Telestial, Terrestrial, and Cholesterol!‘ Come laugh with us.”

Could someone tell Satan to hurry up that apocalypse because … I’m getting a little impatient…

Come… come laugh with us…

MISTY GIRL EXTREME COLL VOL 1 TP (A) $16.95

How is a collection of something called MISTY GIRL possibly EXTREME? Please, it went paragliding once at Young Christians camp. It once played SPIN THE BOTTLE with a boy while the other kids were singing KUMBAYA. Telestial, Terrestrial, and Cholesterol! LAUGH WITH US, HEATHEN!

MONSTER CLUB #5 $3.50

Oh, I read the first issue of this a while ago. Nice little book. Harmless -- nice enough art. Like, there’s a team of people, and they fight monsters? Or something like that. Some monster book. You couldn’t guess that if I weren’t here, you see. How will you guess what MONSTER CLUB’s about without me? You’d think it was about a really big sandwich.

You’re thinking about sandwiches aren’t you? I’m going through hell, and you’re thinking about salami or playing hide the salami with Flo from ALICE or thinking about whatever you think about while I’m trogging through hell.

MONSTER CLUB #6 $3.50

Shouldn’t one of these be labeled Offered Again? Or did they put out two- you care? Yeah, never mind.

MONSTER CLUB VOL 1 TP $19.95

Good for them, that’s nice, but seriously: leave me alone, MONSTER CLUB. I’ve had enough. You? You go away now. YOU GO AWAY FOREVER!! HAHAHA- last Title Bout, beyotch! (I will say Beyotch until you want to die…)

MONTHLY MAGAZINE Z JUN 2003 $9.99

Why isn’t this in the Magazine section? It’s like Diamond hates me. I’ve sworn since the beginning of Title Bout that Diamond hates me. Look: proof! PROOF AT LAST!!!

MYTH OF 8 OPUS GN DOOMED BATTALION $16.95

Oh, close, but I was looking for 9 OPUS. Not 8, 9… Nice try, though. What is this? Is this some sort of Kirby-esque thing? I think this is supposed to be good, but I can’t recall much about it. Goog? Yeah, this is for Kirby fans, I guess.

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION MANGA #8 $10.99

I think the FLCL manga is coming out soon. I don’t see quite how that anime translates into manga, but I’m curious. I’ve heard the EVANGELION manga offers a different take on the story, but I’m not as keen in that case.

PATH #16 $2.95

This is allegedly the best CrossGen title, and what’s it named after? It’s name after the part of the woods that it’s safe to walk on. You don’t want to go to the exciting, scary part where you have to explore and discover new things. No… you want the part other people cleared out for you to stay safe on. CrossGen? A little too honest.

POSE FILE CD ROM ED #1 $29.95

This is for the person who says “I want to be an artist, but I also want to compulsively masturbate.” The Japanese like the pose books more than Americans, it seems.

PROJECT TELSTAR GN $16.95

Want this: Oh, this is an anthology, I think. It has this amazing cover. I think it’s of alternative creators, but I’m not sure entirely. I just remember the early press having been favorable. It’s from Adhouse Books, apparently -- quite the track record, these guys: PULPATOON PILGRIMAGE, Scott Morse book, Scott Mills book… This is worth a look, at the VERY least.

RAIDER FROM THE SHADOWS GN $14.95

If Indiana Jones was a rapist? Wait, what if girls were to rape Indiana Jones, instead. I might be onto something. I’d pitch to EPIC but then -- I fear Marvel’s carpet now. That Micah Wright-Joe Quesada thing’s biggest victim was Marvel’s carpeting. It sounds GERM-y, doesn’t it? Poor carpet…

RAIJIN COMICS #28 (MR) $4.95

All the reviewers -- even the more mainstream ones -- seem to be going nuts for a serial in this called MOUFLON or MOU-something. I guess I’m waiting for that to come in trade. The other serials don’t interest me so much. They’re good, especially SLAM DUNK, but …

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD GN $3.95

Yeah, but what if you were to put hot lasagna onto the dish. Wouldn’t the cold revenge ruin the hot lasagna? Would that be the lasagna’s revenge? Doesn’t it depend on what goes on the dish? Maybe if you put ice cream it’d work out, but ice cream and revenge doesn’t sound like they’d go together. Titus Andronicus never made anybody into ice cream, I don’t think…

RUSE #21 $2.95

Haha, you think you’re buying a Mark Waid comic, but then you’re reading someone else entirely? That sounds familiar! Ha!

It’s more than a RUSE now. It’s an OPENING GAMBIT! It’s like Giuoco Piano!

I’ll open with “Trick you into thinking you’re reading a Mark Waid comic” then follow that with “Trick you into thinking the comic’s safe for kids” and close with “Bishop to Queen 7.”

HOLY FUCKING SHIT…

I just saw a TV commercial for the HULK? You know how they’re selling that movie now? Because as you may have heard -- lots of people? Lots of people didn’t like the movie. I haven’t seen it; don’t care.

They have a $200 million budget to make back. They’ve made $60 so far but word of mouth is bad.

Hollywood must do something. They spring into action. They launch a new ad campaign. What does it say?

“EVERYBODY’S ARGUING ABOUT IT!”

They said that in the commercial! It was, like, white lettering on a black background. That’s how they’re SELLING A MOVIE!

They’re basically admitting that some people saw the movie and … they FUCKING HATED IT. Dude: Where do I buy my ticket for THAT action?

They’re turning going into the movies into a game of roulette? That’s their ad strategy? Maybe you’ll get a movie you’ll like… or maybe you’ll spend 2 hours wishing you’d rented JUST MARRIED!! MWAHAHAHA!

Kenny Rogers said you got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them. I’m guessing Kenny would say it’s all over for the Hulk…

SEX SQUAD #1 (A) $3.75

I wonder who’d win in a fight -- SEX SQUAD or FEMME FORCE? Or, I’m sorry, When’d Fuck? Whichever you prefer.

SHONEN ACE MAGAZINE JUN 2003 $8.99

Uhmmmmm… I like SHONEN JUMP, I guess. I could say that. I do like that JUMP.

SKUMM DEAN NUCKOLS CVR #2 (Of 4) $2.95

“SCUM” was too pleasant, so they made it SKUMM.

SKUMM GREG HORN CVR #2 (Of 4) $2.95

“SKUMM” was too pleasant, so they hired Greg Horn.

SOJOURN TRAVELER VOL 1 TP FROM THE ASHES $9.95

Uhm, remember that joke I had last week about Firestorm cumming ash? That was awesome, wasn’t it? Come on, give me a break, dude, I can see the end of the list from here.

SONICS FRIENDLY NEMESIS KNUCKLES #1 (O/A) $1.50

Oh, thank god this is offered again. I can call off my manhunt for copies of SONICS FRIENDLY NEMESIS KNUCKLES finally. It was consuming my LIFE, man. I’d released bloodhounds, but they kept eating the lesser-known MARIO BROTHERS instead- Stephen, Billy, Adam, etc.

SONICS FRIENDLY NEMESIS KNUCKLES #2 (O/A) $1.50

It sounds like SONIC is ashamed of self-gratification, so he refers to his “knuckles” as his friendly nemesis, you know? Because he wants to keep from sinning? Telestial, Terrestrial, and Cholesterol? Come laugh with us, but also come cry with us. I think what’s kept you coming back to TITLE BOUT week after week? The cryin’.

SONICS FRIENDLY NEMESIS KNUCKLES #3 (O/A) $1.50

The Sega system doesn’t even exist anymore, and we still have comics about their characters? Huh?

STREAK OF CHALK (STAR02917) (MR) $16.95

I can’t think of that many comics in chalk. I’m sure Peter Kuper’s done it, right? Chalk or pastels? It’s VERY late, but none come to mind. I was looking at the FINDING NEMO book recently -- a few of those guys used that stuff a lot. It looked good, and I couldn’t think of many comics I’d seen it in… But, you know, you’re doing a good job trying to imitate Jim Lee, comic artists, so I mean no disrespect…

T3 RISE OF THE MACHINES OFFICIAL MAGAZINE #2 $9.95

I don’t think I ever saw #1 on this list. Did I miss #1 last time? I don’t think I did.

TANGENTS (STAR04674) (MR) $16.95

So: I did the eyebrow thing. I went ahead. I kept telling myself that Title Bout’s coming to an end and I needed a big spectacular finale, and I thought finally ridding myself of some eyebrow hair would be that finale, right?

Because more than a column about comics, this has really been a comic about my freakish obsession with my body hair.

So I went to a “beauty parlor” and had the ol’ eyebrows taken care of.

Here’s the thing no one bothered to warn me about: THE INTENSE FUCKING PAIN.

OH MY SWEET JESUS, it hurt. IT HURT SO BAD!! First, there’s the Waxing, where the hair’s ripped from your skull. That’s unpleasant, in part because the person doing it seems INTENT on putting wax on top of my EYELID. I’m convinced she’ll rip my eyelid off.

But the waxing fades into memory quickly because it’s followed by the TWEEZING. Tweezing’s like being stung. Repeatedly. In the SKULL! BY BEES! BY MAN-EATING BEES!

Just YELPING every five seconds. And all the while I’m screaming in pain in a Beauty Parlor so at some level I’m conscious of the fact I’m screaming while I’m surrounded by girls.

It was like a nightmare, basically?

Immediately after it was over, it was just -- I thought I looked a bit like the Joker. But what I realized was I was so used to having overgrown, horror-show eyebrows, that I was just not used to seeing NORMAL on my face. Like, normal looked UGLY and WRONG to me. Which is … sort of weird.

I think I like how it looks now, which -- now I have to decide whether I’m more shallow or more of a pain-averse crybaby? That’s a tough call.

TERMINATOR 3 BEFORE THE RISE #1 (MR) $5.95

Want this: This is 48-pages from Becketts; it’s a separate story and not an adaptation of the movie. It’s by Jeff Amano, Ivan Brandon, Goran Parlov, Salgood Sam, & Paul Mounts. I’m not much of a movie spin-off man, usually, though there are early Dark Horse books I’d make a exception for, easy (Jim Woodring’s ALIENS work with Killian Plunkett was entertaining, if not as challenging as Woodring’s own work). But Brandon(GENE FUSION) has written a number of pieces for our site, and the art teams they’ve assembled for these TERMINATOR books are almost entirely promising new artists from independent comics who I like (Mike Hawthorne, whose work I like a lot, is involved with another book).

THE ADVENTURES OF CHI XUE GN $9.95

How do you pronounce that last word? This is apparently a comic about Chi Xue. Who’s that? THE DESTROYER OF EVIL, apparently. That’s her nickname.

See: that’s why Asians are kicking American comic ass. Batman? He just fights criminals because they’re a cowardly lot. Why not have Batman destroy evil? Because Americans have somehow become pussified, man. Batman’s too busy drinking chianti with the Hulk and crying about his father issues to destroy any evil…

The comics about the sad childhoods are nice, but where the FUCK is the violence??? I’ve never been anything but dead serious on this point: I quite happily allege that comics being shitty would be at least tolerable if they were at least incredibly fucking violent, in exchange. At least give me that much!

TOMB RAIDER JOURNEYS #1 DUEL ORIGINAL SKETCH ED $59.99

$60? I ran out of jokes about this shit after one week. It’s been 12 months in mute horror. How did I get 12 months out of mute horror? $60? Mute horror.

TRANSFORMERS GENERATION ONE VOL 2 #3 (Of 6) $2.95

Good thing its Generation One because by GENERATION FIVE, they were all hooked on smack and wearing blue jeans and listening to rock and roll. They’d totally assimilated. Robo-bananas -- robot on the outside, white in the inside, man…but … well, white robot on the inside, but still…

TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS EYE OFFICIAL GUIDE #3 (Of 8) $5.25

I got an unofficial guide from this shop in Koreatown. It was okay, but every so often, the guy would rub the camcorder against his lap. Anytime Optimus Prime would let Wheelie loose, the guy with the camcorder would do likewise, if you get my drift…

TRANSFORMERS PX HC GN NEW ORDER $24.95

Hardcover? Hardcover Transformers? I don’t know -- do they have anything leather-bound? Someday I want to propose marriage to some special lady out there -- do they have a TRANSFORMERS diamond encrusted edition? Ring, scheming -- that’d be the gift to keep giving…

TWO OVER TEN #4 (Of 5) $2.95

Twelve? That’s just twelve. You think you’re getting some comic about TWOs and TENs, and then you just get TWELVEs. Classic bait-and-switch.

UNCLE SCROOGE #319 $6.95

Was he Dewey’s uncle on their mom’s side of the dad’s side anyway? Did they ever establish that?

VAMPEROTICA WHEN DARKNESS FALLS BOXED SET (MR) $15.00

See, how is the TOMB RAIDER comic $60 while a BOXED SET is $15? Is the box made out of toilet paper? Is it an origami box?

WALT DISNEYS COMICS & STORIES #634 $6.95

And where were Huey Duey and Loouie’s parents anyway? Why weren’t they looking after their triplets? Deadbeat ducks?

WARRIOR NUN AREALA #18 $3.50

Ben Dunn sold his interest in the company? I never really knew who that company was besides Dunn, so… It’s a little confusing to me, honestly.

WEASEL CURR PRTG #6 (MR) (PU#564) $16.95

Why does it give the PU#? WARRIOR NUN AREALA doesn’t give a PU# and I’ve said PU plenty of times when I saw that comic on the shelves…

ZERO SUM ANTHOLOGY MANGA MAY 2003 $11.99

God, all these pages later , and zero sum sounds about right…

THE INTERMINEABLE THANK YOU SECTION

I am so sorry. I hate these parts, too, they suck the pipe, I know it, you know it, but … it’s been a long year, and I have people to thank. If it makes you feel better, I was writing this long section when I got an e-mail from my editor pointing out “WHO GIVES A FUCK WHO YOU WANT TO THANK? WHO READS YOUR STUPID-ASS COLUMN FOR THAT SHIT?” So, here’s the fast-version:

Rich Johnston of LYING IN THE GUTTERS.(Happy Anniversary!) and Dirk Deppey of The Comics Journal’s Journalista for being the two indispensable reads in comics; Augie DeBleick, Randy Lander, and Don McPherson for being great sports -- butts of a LOT of jokes; all the other columnists out there; a lot of you independent creators who got shit on for no reason; some folks on a particular forum who I’d guess would rather go nameless, for the constructive criticism, which I enjoyed if disregarded; the people who were there before it was a column; Brian Michael Bendis for the home for those years; Jeff Wells, D.K. Holm, ESPECIALLY Paul Tonks(!), Matt Singer, and … I can’t list you all, but all of the people who’ve associated with this site over the last 12 months; Ming, who designed this thing, designed my logo (I can’t describe the giggle that got from me the first time I saw it), designed this whole site in miraculous amount of time, and did just an amazing job --what a great looking site this is; the other two comic columnists on this site(we lost a couple along the way), Scott Tiptonand Chris Allen, two of the best there is; the owner of the site for so many reasons; Scott Tipton AGAIN, along with Chris Ryall, for also trying to edit these monstrosities every week; and Chris Ryall AGAIN, for recommending that I not make an ass of myself with a long, teary thank you section.

And, of course, thank you to everyone who comped me… wait, nevermind: NOBODY COMPED ME! Jesus, that’s the only reason anyone does a comic book column to begin with! That’s the alpha and omega of reasons! AWW, YOU FUCKERS!!!

Short Bus Comics in the 2004, y’all! They care, at least. Big up’s, Short Bus…

STUFF I NEVER GOT TO DO

The backwards Title Bout. I wanted to do a TITLE BOUT entirely backwards. Type it forward, but run it backwards. And then end with “wasn’t Memento overrated?” Which, no, it wasn’t, but the same guys’s INSOMNIA totally was.

And I wanted to do an interview with X. We never found out what that horrid little BROTHERHOOD stunt was about, did we? I wanted to do an interview with him, or just pretend to be him more likely. But it wouldn’t have been funny -- it’d have been obviously fake. What was that about?

And I wanted to do a whole week on this wonderful Cory Doctorow article from 1997 about MORTAL KOMBAT, where he talk to MORTAL KOMBAT executives on the eve of the release of the box office disaster MORTAL KOMBAT 2; consider this quote from one executive: “"There's a huge Mortal Kombat bible, that we use with our various filmmakers and participants and entertainers. When you create a science-fiction universe, you have to stick to the rules of your universe. We make sure that in all incarnations of this universe that all the rules are stuck to. I can't tell you how many corporate meetings I've been in where I'm sitting across from some toy guy, where I have to stand up and say, 'Sorry, Shao Kahn doesn't do that.'"

I’m convinced that was the Future of Comics you just read.

AS FOR ME…

Mostly, just chilling out and lawyerin’. For the hardcore comic fan, I'm going to be directing what little free time I have to something completely different, which is my complete and utter dissatisfaction with Web comic design.

People used to think the internet might impact comics; most people seem to have given up.

I think there were a number of problems that need to be solved that quite simply, no one’s bothered to. I think Web comics’s failure reveals a massive failure of the imagination and the analytical skills of today’s comic audience and comic creators. The people who are smart enough to address the problems of would-be Web creators, to channel their creativity properly, the smartest among us just seem too busy coming up with fantastically stupid ideas like Infinite Canvasses(i.e. Scott McCloud thinks the problem is comics aren't hard enough to read???) or Micropayments (i.e. Scott McCloud's not getting any of my fucking money) or whatever the fuck Superfast was supposed to be (i.e. how did you take that fucking seriously??).

So, I have my own theories about design and economics and all that shit, so I’m going to give that a shot. The only part I don’t have figured out is the content, and I’m not eager in that part of it, but tired of waiting for someone else to do it…

Yeah: I'm going from comic column to Web comic theory? My god, I've gone from nerd to super-nerd. First was NERD HARD and second was NERD HARD 2: NERD HARDER, so NERD HARD WITH A VENGEANCE would be, what, me doing a blog about how my pitch for EPIC is going, basically? You'll shoot me, before that, yes? Yes.

SHOUT OUTS

There were two books I was CONVINCED were coming out in June that were going to make this last month a pleasure cruise. It was going to be so easy to write positively about comics with those two books coming out.

Well, predictably, neither came out, but I want to mention them both anyway and encourage you to be on the look-out for them.

First is Matt Fraction and Kieron Dwyer’s LAST OF THE INDEPENDANTS, from ASTRONAUTS IN TROUBLE, coming out next week (I think). Supposedly inspired by this charming old Walter Mattheau action movie CHARLIE VARRICK, it’s printed lengthwise, it looks gorgeous, and it seems bound to be the kind of fun I’ve been looking for all summer.

Second is Craig Thompson’s BLANKETS, which I really thought was a June book. Thompson’s GOODBYE CHUNKY RICE is an all-time favorite book, and his next work moves away from the stylized characters of that work to what I always felt was Thompson’s strong suit -- drawing people. A 600-page coming-of-age romance comic from TOP SHELF COMIX, it seems a given at this point with just about everybody that BLANKETS will be the best comic of the year.

There are so many books I’m not going to be here for; I guess I’m going to feel sad not to have a chance to yell about and scream about and possibly even compliment books like Toby Cypress’s HATESTREET; Kikuo Johnson’s NIGHTFISHER; Peter Siegel’s KILLING DEMONS; Ivan Brandon, Miles Gunter and Andy Macdonald’s NYC MECH; Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Jose Garibaldi’s MARIA’S WEDDING; Brian O’Malley’s LOST AT SEA; Bengal’s CATWOMAN; that Dave Gibbons book, the ORIGINALS?; anything PISTOLWHIP; Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s BATMAN; Brian Azzarello and Joe Kubert’s SGT. ROCK; Steven Grant’s BADLANDS II; the second series of Moore and Griffin’s HAWAIIN DICK; this one book called SACRED CIRCLES from Birch Bark Comics- I like the art(I think you can only get it in Ottawa or some shit); TEENAGERS FROM MARS; INFINITE KUNG FU; Paul Pope’s anything; Santa Inoue’s manga comics when someone finally gets their head out of their ass and translates that shit; the finale of Jeff Smith’s BONE and his Captain Marvel book; Jim Ottovani’s next great science comic; Lawrence Marvit’s anything; and Brian Michael Bendis’s VIRGIN.

CONCLUSION

Let’s conclude by talking about comics, I guess. Nothing here’s going to be too funny, just some good ol’ fashioned Talkin’ Bout Comics… Sort of an end on a quiet note, I think, would be for the best. So, okay:

I don’t know why I’m the guy writing a comic column for the last 12 months.

I’m hardly the most knowledgeable guy re: history. I don’t really care about the business side. And I never felt any responsibility to be even a little kind to the people in comics who work so hard for so little, who so clearly love them. I don’t read as many of them as I felt I should, and I’m behind on what little reading I did volunteer for. And my knowledge of the classics is suspect.

I am, in sum, the last person who should write a column about comics.

More importantly: I don’t really understand where they’re going, you know? And I’ve lost any vision on where they SHOULD go.

Probably I just need a recharge. I need to try something else. Find some book that really speaks to me. Look harder. All those people complaining about FANTASTIC FOUR just haven’t had their recharge. They’ve just realized that they hit bottom years ago. They stopped looking for the recharge, you know? They stopped WANTING for their enthusiasm to be renewed. And I really don’t understand that. That list above? That’s what I want from those books.

As for comic retailers, I’ve gotten pretty sure comic shops’s days are numbered, but good luck to the retailers. Who knows? Good luck.

As for, you know, the state of comic criticism, who knows, because it seems a given that blogs are going to have some sort of impact. But let me just say what it was like when I started (and exempting the Comics Journal -- just talking about online comic criticism a year ago): comic critics didn’t criticize comics. I never saw negative TRANSMETROPOLITAN reviews. I never saw negative CHANNEL ZERO reviews. I never saw negative SANDMAN reviews. I never saw negative PREACHER reviews. I never saw negative WATCHMEN reviews. I never saw negative AKIRA reviews.

Frank Miller was doing the worst work of his career before DK2, with the later SIN CITY books, but because he was Frank Miller, he got a pass. Critics were still talking about how “oh, comics were bad” but all they’d point to was some mainstream retard fan straw man, like “Oh this comic is good because its not some Batman comic. It is not What They Want” or whatever the fuck.

Some of those works I mention above, you might say, don’t deserve negative reviews. They’re good, you might say. But when you say everything’s good, then NOTHING’s good. It’s just Crap Plus One.

I HATED trying to be a comic critic. I never felt comfortable talking about art; I never felt comfortable talking about the global comics scene; and I had a very hard time explaining WHY something was good when I thought it was good. It was never my strong suit, I don’t think. So maybe I should shut the fuck up on this one, but…

But: I love the beginning and middle of TRANSMETROPOLITAN; I couldn’t stand the ending. I like CHANNEL ZERO; I loathe the rest. I like the art on the KINDLY ONES, but not the story. I loved 100%, but really disliked ONE TRICK RIP-OFF. I liked SOME of PREACHER, but it was never my favorite book. WATCHMEN’s good, but SUPREME is awful. AKIRA… uhm… well, actually, I like AKIRA’s a whole fucking lot, but… well, it peaks at BOOK 4, I’ll at least say.

Why should I believe you when you don’t care enough to really hate a book now and then, no matter who wrote it or how important they’re supposed to be or how good their mammoth splooge is supposed to taste? (You know, I think that’s the first time I used the word “splooge”)

But I think things are improving. And if I may, I think Chris Allen’s the best guy online, and I wanted to throw the shout out…

As for the mainstream books, a good enough number have enough creativity and I’d happily defend them; there are swaths with SOME degree of competence, I suppose, even if I’m not a fan; and of course, the large bushels of crap, as always. I don’t blame superheroes or power fantasies for comics’s woes. I never have. To my mind, a normal comics would be FILLED with superheroes.

New ones by the score would come out every year, all wanting to be that one that could make it big and become a cartoon, become a video game, become a … whatever. The future to me seems to me to be art stretching across multiple platforms. When a kid buys Spider-Man bedsheets, say, they’re not buying the Spider-Man from comics; they’re buying the Spider-Man from movies; no, they’re buying just the idea of Spider-Man, which now exists independent of platform. I’d think mainstream comics would want to become the birthplace of those concepts. I don’t think they’re on the way there at all, though.

Instead, what, Mark Millar talks that much trash and all he throws out is some D- Aunt May comic? Artists drawing page after page of superheroes having conversations instead of anything visual or pleasing to the eyes? SPAWN and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES were the only two characters in the 1980s and 1990s I can think of off the top of my head to become phenomena. One per decade? Everything’s dependant on a half-dozen characters from the 1940’s and 1960’s. Everything’s channeled through arthritic “universes”…

And if anything did get big, it’d be destroyed because it’s all based on a system where artists are encouraged to be perfectionists who draw as slowly as possible. Which -- I enjoy how pretty the comics are as a result, but I think there are business consequences. Manga guys churn out the art because their comics form the base of a pyramid of entertainment. I think that’s significant.

Something’s broken.

As for indie comics -- by which I’m trying feebly to describe the nebulous place between mainstream books and full-on alternative commix -- there are hopeful signs, I suppose. These are the kinds of books I get the most excited about, which I hope you’ve noticed as we’ve gone along. And it’s encouraging that the number of people I get excited about seems to be going up every month. There are some promising creators for the future out there.

At the same time… I see this argument get raised now and then. I saw it on Monday, actually, and it goes something like this: In other media, like movies or books, superheroes would be WEIRD, and something like BORING COMIC THAT’S LIKE FRIENDS would be mainstream. And the argument is correct, in a way, I suppose…

But who wants a comics that’s as good as the mediocre stuff you can get on television or movies for free? Who’s looking for normal? If you pick up a comic, I would allege that you’re looking for something else: I would say something weird. Yet I see comic story after comic story on good ol’ Newsarama mentioning some indie comic and then saying something like “Hey, the kids love the BORING COP SHOWS, so this is like that, except these cops can see GHOSTS so really, you get the best of cops and horror, and” …

I don’t want SAVING PRIVATE RYAN; I want THREE KINGS. I don’t want Raymond Chandler (and I like Chandler); I want the BIG LEBOWSKI. I don’t want DIE ANOTHER DAY; I want CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND. I don’t want DAWSON’S CREEK; I want DONNIE DARKO. And I want BAD BOYS 2, but that’s because they ride together and they die together, which is maybe too much to ask from comics… And oh god, I want PIXAR. And I want you to quit mixing cops with horror, for the love of FUCK!

You know, I got to ranting about a lot of people this year, man, a couple of whom I didn’t see coming 12 months ago. And the thing that infuriates me was … if you want this sort of comic, there’s only SO MANY people you can turn to so we’re sort of stuck with each other. And I want the latter, and I feel like I get tricked into thinking I’m getting the latter -- the cool, the new, the cutting edge -- and so often I’d get the former. The same old comic baloney. And even then, not particularly well done baloney…

The mere fact you’re NOT a superhero comic doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t care about your contract. I get paid to think about copyright.

I want something weird and unique and individual and idiosyncratic, yet accessible and honest and true. Maybe I want everything. And maybe some people are doing that, or trying to anyway. And maybe I’m hopeful.

But I’m not sure.

As for the hardcore alternative comic… things seem to be going well, don’t they? Bookstores are opening up. So many great works are getting to the point where they can be collected, and found by the audience they should have had all along. It’s hard for me to complain about this state of affairs…

But if I had to… it’s all going towards memoirs, isn’t it? Am I nuts or has there suddenly been a focus towards the memoir? It’s hard to talk about because the great companies all have such wide ranges of material. There are some GREAT companies behind these books. But…

What’s wrong with memoirs? I’m not sure. It seems like… with all the blogs, with a guy like me who has no reason to have his own comic column let alone one this FUCKING LONG ranting his ass off every week, with all the reality shows and what have you, there is some sort of … decadence or … something at work there. A shift away from community or…

It’s not a great complaint because you have a guy like Joe Sacco who can talk about his own life as a window into the social and the global. And I’m not sure which work specifically I didn’t like, or won’t like, or what. Just something I’ve been noticing lately, and I’m not sure what to make of it, you know?

And finally, as for Ice Cube, who knows what he’ll do next? Will he continue to direct, or has BARBERSHOP suddenly bought him new credibility as a leading man? Will he be Denzel or will he be Richard Corben’s Den? Who knows? What will he dominate next? My guess? The world of professional tennis. I think Ice Cube, pro tennis player, is just the logical next step in what’s obviously one of the most well executed schemes for global domination I’ve ever seen. Shit, man, ICE CUBE VERSUS WIMBELDON would be the best movie EVER.

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