Satan is not in these books, he's in here - in your hearts

It's nearing the end of what has been a surprisingly terrible year for someone who is what I would personally describe as - but then I'd have to in order to get through the day - a "functional" alcoholic, and since everyone else is doing a nice and naughty list of comics I thought I'd try the same. The high points have been webcomics, mostly, so it might be time to invest in some kind of iPad knock-off so I can read them in the bog rather than on my bedroom tv via the PS3 web browser each morning while I have a scratch, but in no particular order (and not particularly comprehensive or even complete):

The Nice List

Bob Byrne's website shit

One of my favorite 2000ad creators of recent years if only Tharg would actually employ him, making a virtue of too much information with a part scatalogical autobiography, part rant about whatever imagined slight popular culture may or may not have inflicted upon him, Spanish-based Irishman Bob Byrne is either thought-provoking or infuriating depending upon your tolerance for contrary opinions voiced through deliberately-loaded terminology and/or 2000ad printing something outside its house style of grizzled and sarky blokes - occasionally with vaginas - going up against panto villains and/or Cthulu.
The best arc for my money - and in the context of Bob's comics, "arc" means "two or more strips that may actually be related" - is 'Just because you can', where he flips between telling you how to use Photoshop and reminiscing about that time he killed someone, and while his webcomic days have entered an abrupt hiatus as real life and the demands of getting his print work out there take precedence - I can relate - the archive is well worth checking out.

Tony Cliff - Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant.

Tony Cliff's gorgeous pages are slightly too large for the website, but his clean lines and organic colouring produce lush settings to compliment the accessible all-ages storytelling and likeable characters. I really dislike those snobs who go on about the prevalence of superhero books on the shelves and bang on about manga or Euro-comics like they possess some sort of inherent intellectual or artistic superiority because they're about child rape, civil wars or boiler-suited ninjas kicking each other in the head, but I will admit that the sheer volume of North American superhero titles trapped in an incestuous continuity circle-wank is oppressive even to someone like me who can actually follow such things, so it's great to see strips like Delilah Dirk out there because they remind you that serialised adventure comics deserve to have a future that doesn't belong exclusively to one particular genre.

Al Ewing and Henry Flint - Zombo 3

The first Zombo outing in 2000ad didn't really click for me. It had the odd entertaining moment and idea, but largely it felt too much like the kind of concept a writer would put out during 2000ad's 1990s phase or in the pages of turgid 90s schlok-paper Toxic, with an unrelatable uber-violent anti-hero protagonist being all unfazed by the ultraviolence around him and as much time as I have for this in ludicrous cartoons, I could go my life without reading another Grudge Father, Officer Downe or Coffin. Still, Zombo did have its moments, but Zombo 2 was much better, like those responsible for Zombo 1 had got it out of their systems and moved on, or, and I heartily think this more likely, those involved knew they'd done that already and had to do something else rather than just recycle the excesses of part 1, which they did by ditching the Death Planet trappings in favor of a reality talent show. Zombo 3 moves on again from that premise to God Knows What, with shouts to everything from Jack Kirby romance comics to Godzilla, though its greatest achievement will remain for me the sheer impossibility of having a stiff-upper lipped English character who's a bit quirky and tea and crumpets-ish that doesn't come off as clingy desperation on the part of the writer. Seriously, that kind of character just gets on my fucking tits something rotten, so it's amazing to see one here that's entertaining rather than annoying.
I shan't go on about Zombo 3 because the greatest joy of it is turning the page to be greeted with newer insanities and tangents trapped in the main plot, but I will say it comes off as the work of creators who aren't trying to prove anything, and for that it should be treasured.

David Willis - Dumbing of Age

It probably wasn't trying to educate me, but Dumbing Of Age accidentally did that on several occasions and for that I shall be thankful. It may or may not work for you depending upon your tolerance for humor derived from familiarity with the many characters who started life in the author's disparate previous works, but for me it was a pleasant surprise to find the short chunks of story easy to digest and follow, with only the odd duff note (date rape, campus superhero) distracting from the otherwise enjoyable mumblecore dramas of kids with first world problems.
A word of warning, though - within minutes of new strips appearing, they seem to be flooded with comments from the same few dozen die-hard fans/friends of the creator. Some people find this kind of thing cloying, but I find it a heartening display of goodwill and community to be encouraged.

Ethan Nicolle and Noah Maas - Bearmageddon

You can basically write your own review of this without me being here. "The Birds, but with bears instead of birds" was something I was always going to read. I went to see Yogi Bear in the cinema because it had a bear in it. In the cinema. I did have two nieces with me, I admit, but I was going regardless.
I like bears.

Grant Morrison and Rags Morales - Action Comics

I am enjoying this so far, but my mental jury is still out on making Superman's embryonic superhero career one of embracing the idea of social justice rather than unqualified altruism, as to my mind Superman is a reactive figure otherwise he isn't really Superman, though Morrison did write some rather fine and clever comics in his time and I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that I'm jumping the gun to criticise so early, as it took me a full year or so to be disappointed with his Batman run.

The Naughty List

Christos Gage (and Various) - Avengers Academy

In its favor, Christos Gage's Avengers Academy is a throwback to the 1990s era of teen superhero comics, but on the other hand, Christos Gage's Avengers Academy is a throwback to the 1990s era of teen superhero comics.
As much as I enjoyed seeing Avengers Academy hit the shelves with its roster of badly-monikered nobodies, it is not actually a good title, though I let it wash over me when I was on the lavvy trying to squeeze out breakfast without much chagrin and while for the most part it's been entertaining seeing Gage play out the usual trope inversion that has become a staple of trashy teen dramas, with the introduction of a character I have not only actually heard of but have no small amount of residual affection for I'veactually decided to drop the book, as Julie power/Lightspeed (ex of Marvel's mid-80s oddity Power Pack) has been retooled from an articulate and sympathetic POV character into a hot bisexual in a cutoff top who delivers soapbox monologues in So-Cal speak about how raping children is wrong and how she doesn't want to be reduced to a label because of her sexual preferences even though the writer of the book is giving interviews about how he's standing up for all the hot bisexual minors of the world by having one in his comic book.
Basically, one of comics' few interesting or non-sexualised female characters (she was both, maddeningly) has been "improved" by making her neither. I dropped Red Hood and the Outlaws without a second thought after the first issue thanks to the portrayal of one of the female characters in that, but it's disappointing that Avengers Academy has to let me down this late in the day for much the same reason, though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the worst thing about the book - that would be the addition of X23 as a cast member. I won't lie, that would have made me drop the book as well.

Tom Waltz and Xermanico - Duke Nukem: Glorious Bastard

There's this bit in the latest Duke Nukem game where you take a poo and then pick the poop up and throw it around the room and it unlocks a trophy/achievement titled "Turd Burglar" on your profile. And for some reason I was surprised when a comic book based on this game did not turn out to be the new Watchmen.
That I did not like this comic is not the creators' fault. I accept that now.

Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld - Hawk and Dove

You know how they say "bad pizza is still pizza" so it's technically still good so you still throw it down you even though it sucks and there's better pizza out there? that pretty much sums up the experience of enjoying Hawk And Dove - I love it for its sheer badness and I can't help myself. It will likely clog my arteries and kill me but I love every grimace-drenched page of it for its lack of pretense and the dedication to bombastic stupidity that makes it read like a parody. It's still in the 'naughty' part of this list, of course, because it'd be mad to put it anywhere else, but I was drawing a page tonight and spent something like a half hour just redrawing a character's mouth because I couldn't get the same three expressions (all varying degree of a toothy grimace) out of my head and wanted to make sure that I didn't fall into the same trap. Basically, this comic pushed me to be a better artist.






In case I don't post again this year, please have a Merry Christmas and a great new year. When next we cross paths, I hope to find both parties in better sorts and higher spirits.
Season's best to you all!

I know it's unfashionable in today's socialist dystopia, but I still regard unemployment as a badge of failure

Watching: Deep Space Nine, after realising that I hadn't seen the original first season since the early 2000s. The pilot episode was a fantastic bit of set-up that defined the Roddenberry mantra of hope for the future a lot better than TNG did, as it has a main character who's essentially without hope after losing his soulmate and moves on from this partially by realising he has a series to run, but mainly because his son figures so prominently in his space-trip with Aliens From Outside Time that it sinks in that your life is not always just about you. There's some teething trouble in episodes like Storyteller which is a bit poop, but otherwise, there's some attempt to do something with the typical Trek monoculture* by making Bajor's surplus of religious fanatics with access to space-fertiliser and lasers a problem in the long run for Commander Sisko's plans to drag the fuckers into civilised society again whether they want it or not, and I like that he's essentially a guy who doesn't want to be where he is and it occasionally gets to him to the point he becomes a bully.
Apart from the pilot, though, there's about two actually decent episodes in this first season and they're both right at the end, which is a bit of a poor average for anything but still better than TNG managed.
Also watched some Castle episodes... not sure about this show. Kind of liked it before, but not so much now, though Nathan Fillion has begun to fill out a bit and I think it really suits him as a guy who's supposed to be a cool dad and a writerly type rather than just an identikit scrawny get.




*Trek and TNG usually had monocultures as a weekly feature of stories because Enterprise or Voyager or whatever are basically America and the monocultures represent various countries in Space Age form, the tales each week being about the clash of modern American sensibilities and values with older cultures, though I just liked that Captain Kirk shot anything he couldn't fuck and things worked out okay - that's my America. Not this TNG shit where psychiatrists in boiler suits travel the galaxy espousing socialism. In my day we called that Communism. And we knew it was bad.

We grew up together: swimming pools, locker rooms, penis fights - it just happens.

Watching: Hawaii Five 0, which featured a nice moment for uber-butch Dano - a character whose whole deal is that he's a guy who came to a city he hates and doesn't understand because he misses the daughter he views as the only good thing he's done with his life - when he pretty much cries in front of his equally butch partner while they watch the birth scene in Enemy Mine, and later when he mentions in passing the reason for his hating Hawaii is because the elderly dog he lost to his wife during their divorce died during the quarantine process. I wonder if there's a long game character arc in play right up until two cast members of Heroes act like they should know each other and then the cops hop on MX bikes to scramble into the jungle "looking for clues" because it's not like jungles are big places or anything. Anyway, they find a parachute and some motorbike tracks nearby and conclude that someone parachuted to the exact spot in a jungle where they'd stashed a bike earlier, and you know what? That's cool, Hawaii Five 0 - this is why I come here, and not to be ambushed by genuinely charming character moments.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 - so that was a Harry Potter film, was it? I sat through the other six thanks to having enough younger relatives to not have much choice in the matter, but this was a joyless film. Made a billion bucks, all the same, so I don't much suppose my thoughts about it matter much, but I thought it was very slow and wondered why the Harry/Hermione naked make-out scene was in there. Seemed a bit... pointless, narratively, and that whole "we need to find the seven Dragonballs" thing from the last film runs into this one, but then gets sidelined in favor of "we need to find these other three Dragonballs as well, and also the Dragonball sword of +15 armor negation" But there's a billion reasons why I am wrong about this film, so let's just move on.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: part 2 - in which my maths might be a bit rusty, because Harry destroys four of the seven previously-mentioned magic McGuffins and then announces "we have to kill the snake - it's the last McGuffin!" But hey, whatever. It was all a bit alienating, to be honest, and no-one and nothing ever really clicked as human and relatable on its own terms but then this is the eighth film in the series so I don't suppose it had to be accessible, or so runs the logic even though Son Of Godzilla was the eighth in that series and still managed to be accessible to noobs and yes, I do hold the Godzilla franchise as a yardstick for quality in this instance, the only question is why I don't do so more often. Godzilla would totally save this film from being boring, but as it is, it's basically a tv show's season finale with deaths of no-marks all over the shop and the sets getting a bit singed to show that The Game Has Changed, and as usual Hollywood types have to go messing with the original plot from the book by changing characters around and even tacking-on a terrible ending set in the future. Awful, but I suppose the kids that grew up with the films/books liked it for the sense of closure it brought to... something or other. It kind of just finishes, to be honest. Eh.

I bet you think that shirt's about paleontology, but I'm pretty sure it's about enjoying boners

Watching: Grimm - I'm all for simplicity in laying out your premise from the off, being personally of the mind that what scuppered Paul Tobin's Spider-Girl comic book series was the inherently complex backstory of the character who it was introducing in issue one: a teenager who got a magic tattoo that gave her armor and spider-themed powers that she initially used to carve out a career as a superhero called Arana, then she became a Spider-themed superhero called Spider-Girl even though she'd lost her spider-themed powers by this stage yet was still a member of a team of young superheroes, one of whom - a girl who was Captain America's sidekick on a duplicate Earth created by the son of two of the members of the Fantastic Four when he had God-like powers which he used to create a world in which to hide his parents and their superhero friends from a huge Forbidden Planet monster made by the leader of the X-Men - was her best friend. This had to be explained to the reader in issue one, and there was another Spider-Girl series written by Tom DeFalco which featured a main character whose origin reads "she is Peter Parker's daughter" - can you guess which of these two characters had a book that ran for over a hundred issues?
Sometimes simplicity is your friend when it comes to setting out your stock, but sometimes you get shows like V, where someone was told "it's a show about aliens called V" and somewhere along the line somebody on staff decided "that must mean the aliens are called the Vs" and despite watching sci-fi for pretty much all my life and loving a show where a dwarf plays a silver dildo that follows Gil Gerard around a galaxy composed of polystyrene corridors, my reaction to this is "that is just fucking stupid."
I had a similar response to Grimm, where someone was told "that Fables thing sure does sell a lot of books, so go make us a series where fairy tales are real - you could maybe call it Grimm, after the Brothers Grimm" and somebody decided "there are these people called the Grimms and they hunt monsters derived from fairytales" and again I'm left thinking "seriously, he hangs around with nobody but women and he's never tapped Wilma? I mean, look how she dresses, and he even has a little rainbow armband, for God's sake. How am I the only one thinking this?" Oh, and also "this Grimm show is fucking stupid" but the latter doesn't distract me as much as the former. Don't get me wrong, it's not that it's dumb that I object to, it's that there seems to be an assumption on the part of the production staff that the viewer is. Based on episode 1, I am not a fan.

sometimes when I think about coming home to you, I start crying in my car