HERE'S SOME THINGS THAT I WROTE

Hi! It's been a while and I've been plenty busy. If you didn't yet heed my advice and check out www.trashmutant.com  for plenty of quality content from me and other fantastic people, here's a list of the articles I made in the recent months. Enjoy!

Comics articles & reviews:
- "Penguin: Pain and Prejudice"
- "Hawkeye" #1-4, 1983
- The 3 Great Grant/Breyfogle Batman Villains
- A brief look at IDW's "Ghostbusters"
- DC's new "Dial H" series is an oddity worth checking out
- "Major Eazy: Heart of Iron"
- "Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison" #1-3

Music articles:
- The Camu Tao catalogue
- B.Dolan's "Which Side Are You On?"

Book reviews:
- "Time's Last Gift" by Philip Jose Farmer
- "Sherlock Holmes: Army of Dr. Moreau" by Guy Adams

Interviews:
- the Los Angeles painter LUKE CHUEH
- the legendary "Batman" (and much more...) artist NORM BREYFOGLE
- "Boardwalk Empire"'s Agent Sebso and "Robot Chicken" writer ERIK WEINER
- the musician GREGORY PEPPER of "GREGORY PEPPER AND HIS PROBLEMS" fame

...and some more stuff that you're probably gonna have to check out for yourself! Also, if you're an artist, there's a pretty great art contest going on at Trash Mutant, check it out HERE.

See ya there, at least until the next WOLVERINE AUDITION!

HOW I BECAME A TRASH MUTANT - AN ANNOUNCEMENT

I'm sure everybody's been wondering why I don't post! Losing sleep over it and checking the site each and every day. That's exactly the situation, right?

Anyway, the fact is I DO post, but not here. Right after my April post, me and my good friend from the Put It In Your Eye blog decided to join forces and create something good together, so we thought and thought and finally came up with all sorts of ideas. I spend a lot of time in April building a new blog/magazine type of site and it's been recently launched (on May 12th). The site is called TRASH MUTANT (click!) and we're pretty damn proud of it. Since it's launch we were joined by a third writer, The Rajun Cajun (another old buddy) and we're all constantly writing and updating the site. Please check it out, you will find 2 new articles by me right there on the site and plenty of cool stuff that I hope you will like. So remember, check out TrashMutant.com! You won't be disappointed.

Go to www.TrashMutant.com !

While a lot of my writing will automatically go on Trash Mutant, this site will continue to exist. For all the stuff that's more personal (for instance, my leg has been aching for over a month now!), stupid, and beautiful and universally acclaimed like the Wolverine Auditions feature! So fear not! This site still exists and there's a new, pretty and fuckin awesome site to boot. More ME on the internet! Follow both!

Excelsior!

The April Comeback

Hello! April Fool's seems like a good day to return to this blog with some sort of update for my handful of, no doubt dedicated, readers! Even though it's April 1st, I don't really have a prank hidden anywhere here, unless of course you consider me not posting for nearly 2 months a practical joke. 

In which case: Ha ha! April Fool's!

On with the schedule, but first let's get the pleasantries out of the way: what have you been up to? How's life treating you? Good? Ok! Since my last post I kept relatively busy doing some odd jobs around the internet and I'm now on the lookout for a fulltime job or a few more of the odd ones. That's all fine and dandy but not interesting at all! Let's instead put the crap I did into some categories here.

READ:
A lot of books but not really a lot of comics. The ones I read and enjoyed the most though, were two great Batman mini series by Matt Wagner: "Batman and the Monster Men" and "Batman and the Mad Monk" and if YOU didn't read them, but like good things, than I highly recommend those. Just look at those beautiful covers! Both the art and writing were top notch and Wagner remains one of my favorite people to ever work on Batman.

Read this and the other one and thank me later.

WATCHED:
I watched a lot of things but let's focus on the one I saw in the cinema, namely the one I saw most recently... So I went to see the "John Carter" movie. While that wasn't my idea (I was dragged there by my girlfriend who insisted on seeing it for the various creatures, especially the one shown below) I kind of liked the movie for the pure, dumb, pulpy fun of it. It was definitely watchable and the visuals reminded me a lot of Star Wars, and there's nothing wrong with that!

Apparently the main draw of this movie.

WENT TO:

Berlin! For 4 days. We caught a great Mayer Hawthorne show there (photo not included here, but I'm real visible on the one on his site - spot me and get a no-prize), and while that was reason no. 1 for going, we also had some other fun. This trip marked my return to the Berlin Zoo after 15 years or so, and I enjoyed that as well (though not as much as I did in my early teens, but that should go without saying). I won't even mention the amounts of wursts and currywursts and brotwursts that I ate there cause there was enough of them to make you sick even thinking about it. They sure were tasty, though and some were sold by men wearing wurst-making jetpack/backpack things. Good job, Germans!

 What's the wurst that could happen? (I'm so sorry for this joke)

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

I'm really really looking forward to tomorrow, cause that's when I'll get to see the premiere episode of Game of Thrones season 2! Woohoo! I seriously can't wait for this and have some high hopes. If it inspires me in any way I might do a write up of it here later on. Since I'll be seeing it a day after the US viewers, please don't spoil the episode for me (I did read all the books, but still...no spoilers!).

War is coming. Thank God!

And that's all for today! See ya next time!

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but I figured I'd cash in on the pre-Avengers movie hype somehow. 

You're welcome!

WOLVERINE AUDITIONS #3

Using the amazing computer technology of the 21st century we're be able to rewrite history and take a look at what could have been, in this fantastic new feature called WOLVERINE AUDITIONS!

Today: It's Christopher Walken Wolverine!

 

The flannel shirt is what makes it. Squint your eyes a little bit. Just imagine him saying he's the best there is at what he does... I think Christopher Walken as Wolverine is a concept that speaks for itself.

Click HERE to experience the whole Wolverine Auditions saga thus far!

Back Issues - Brian Azzarello's "JOKER"

I just read Brian Azzarello's and Lee Bermejo's "Joker" graphic novel from 2008. I was recently reading a lot of Batman books (mostly older ones) and thought I'd pick it up even though the Bat villains I'm most interested in aren't the frequently overused ones. God knows that when this came out I was sick to my stomach of all the idiots putting "why so serious?" as their status on social media and suddenly being obsessed with the Joker. But the reviews of "Joker" were mostly positive so I read it. And I can't say this is a very good comicbook. In case you haven't read this book (congratulations!), this post is full of SPOILERS.

Don't read this or my review will be all for nothing.

The story is narrated by a low-level mob thug called Johnny Frost, who first meets the Joker when he volunteers to pick him up from Arkham Asylum. We find out that Joker was released because he was apparently cured from his insanity. All of the major players of Gotham's criminal underworld (we have the Penguin here being a complete joke, Two-Face and a thugged out Killer Croc) wonder how exactly Joker managed that (as we soon find out he's far from sane) but don't hold your breath waiting for an answer because it's never explained. The narrator, Frost, is far from an interesting character. He never made it big in the criminal world, been to jail several times and his wife filed a divorce suit. He now sees his chance in being Joker's driver/sidekick. He's an admirer at first but later finds out working for the Joker is actually pretty terrible.

This is from the back cover. I don't know the why either. That's why I read this stupid thing: to find out.

As for the Joker himself, Azzarello obviously tried to base him on Heath Ledger's portrayal. The physical similarities are there but that's it, because the Joker in this book isn't nearly as interesting as the one in "The Dark Knight". Like a lot of writers that go for the gore and shock elements of Batman's archvillain, Azzarello completely neglects that fact that Joker should also be funny and although there are some attempts at dark humour here, well... they're not very humorous. One page is dedicated to showing the Joker is apparently also a rapist which isn't funny, good or fitting. And definitely isn't classy. It's a vaguely Ledger-inspired Joker that isn't as good as the movie version and is piss-poor compared to the character's portrayals in better comicbooks. This Joker isn't brilliant, he doesn't "wow" the reader with his actions in regaining power in Gotham's underworld. His plans are straight forward and unimpressive and the only thing that's actually sorta intriguing (and that's the part where Joker whispers something in Two-Face's ear about a way he could easily destroy him) is another plot thread that goes unexplained. And it's a major plot thread at that because it makes Two-Face so afraid he has to call Batman so Azzarello could wrap this whole mess up.

"No". Rapey Joker, our narrator, and his freshly-raped wife. For all you 14 year old adults out there.

This is the sort of comicbook DC markets as a graphic novel for "adult readers" so all the 15 year old's go buy it and eat up the cheap shock tactics while actual adults shake their heads. It's not good storytelling, because there's not much of a story at all. The art is alright, but who gives a shit. There are major plot elements that are never explained and the pseudo dark narrative of the uninteresting Frost character fails to cover it all up. The cover of this thing looked good but don't buy this trash.

Also, if I wanted to go for all the nerd points in this post and be a prick, I'd note that Killer Croc's skin is too thick for piercing.

The Completely Unexpected Skyrim Hiatus

Hi! How was your Christmas/Holidays? I know it seems like I disappeared completely in the last weeks, but there's a (really poor) reason for that. Two reasons, actually. First off, I take my non-religious Christmas break extremely serious. Second: Skyrim. Yes, I got it as a present from my girlfriend and I'm totally sucked into it. It's kinda tragic, really.

They not ready! They not ready for the Facebuster!

So even though I'm reading a lot of comics and planning new content, I'm mostly sucked into this game now. I'm not very far into the game, but that's in part due to an accident/bug that happened to my previous saves and having to start over. The game is really cool, though and I have to give props to my good buddy Ross (CLICK!); for recommending this thing to me. So for the next few days, I'll be running around Skyrim as the daring orcish hero, Facebuster, with my trusty overly-sarcastic-about-carrying-all-my-stuff sidekick Lydia, but I'm still alive and new blog content will follow, promise!

HERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE EVERY DAY

ORCA ACTION! From Thorgal #33 "The Swordship" ("Le bateau-sabre"). Art by G. Rosiński.

That's right, it's a killer whale eating vikings. Q: How cool is that? A: It's very, very cool. From this year's "Thorgal" #33 ("The Swordship") by Grzegorz Rosiński and Yves Sente. It's one of the things I got for my birthday, yesterday. If you're a Thorgal fan, than this album marks the return to form for "Thorgal". It was definitely the best issue in a while, with just the right mix of good plot, great art and fantastic action. Plus, it has a whole lot of orca action in it. I highly recommend it.

Both of the new "Thorgal" books I got.

In other Thorgal-related news, I also got the first album in the new "Louve" series (based in the world of Thorgal and telling the story of his daughter). The album is called "Raïssa" and it's by a French fellow known simply as Yann (script) and a Russian artist Roman Surzhenko. This is the first thing I've read by either of those men. While it didn't blow me away, it was good for a first issue and the Surzhenko's art is quite good and fits well with the established Thorgal aesthetics. Sadly, this one didn't have any orcas in there.

So here's another orca panel from "The Swordship" (pardon the shitty quality - it got me so excited that I didn't even straighten the comic out to make a photograph)!

"iiiAAARRHHH, that's so fuckin' AWESOME!!!"