I wouldn't give this artist the time of day

To Gosh! Where, along with my usual stack of overly violent superhero books, I picked up a few cheap all ages comics from the back issue bins for my two-year-old to rip to pieces. He likes his colourful pressies, particularly his copy of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #51, and naturally I'm happy that he's enjoying learning some early life lessons through the age-old educational medium of costumed vigilantism.

My missus seems OK with him looking at these toned down tales too. She does have a slight issue with the full page ad for X-Men Forever in the middle of the Spidey book which features a pretty scary looking drawing of Sabretooth. Her main gripe though, is with the opening splash...

It's not Paste Pot Pete's spooge gun that raises her hackles, it's the clocks. She gets that this is The Daily Bugle and that they've got a bunch of clocks showing different time zones pinned to the wall. What she doesn't understand is how it can be five past four in one city, ten to two in another and twenty to five in a third.

Excellent, my son's first proper comic and there's a whopping great mistake on the first page! Get used to it kid!

ADD: While I'm on the subject of introducing kids to comics, here's a pic posted by a proud father on a comics message board...

"Daddy, why is the man sticking his tongue in the rotting cadaver's mouth?"

The Weekly Shop Holiday Special #1

Let me start by sending out a big shout to the unnamed civil servant who invented Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. I have no idea who this person is, but they obviously understand that to fight an effective war on terror you need a cool acronym.

Of course with "blind in one eye" Gordon Brown now in charge of the organisation, I don't see why they didn't just go ahead and call it SHIELD. But any acronym is better than none and whilst COBRA would be a better name for the baddies, I still feel having a counter terrorist force named after a snake will strike fear into the dark hearts of al Qaeda, the IRA and HYDRA.

Al Qaeda could even rename themselves Mohammed Orders Nightmarish Goings On Overseas Sometimes Executions. I can see Osama sitting in his cave stroking his cat, watching videos like this before MONGOOSE strike.



No doubt I'll get to see more terror on the streets of foggy London Town when I return. For now my threat level remains at moderate as I continue to laze around at my mum's house in America's midwest getting fat and reading comics.It's not all sitting about though, oh no. Why only two days ago I managed to stop eating for an hour to make the trip to a real live comic shop.

The nearest one to me is Comic Carnival, a relatively unimpressive little place located in a grubby strip mall somewhere off a busy highway just outside Indianapolis. The lank haired staff were non-plussed by my requests for EC archives and Fantastic Four omnibuses, but they did take a couple of minutes out from their Heroclix themed chat to point me in the direction of a couple of cheap volumes of golden age Marvel reprints.

I picked those up along with the latest volume of Twisted Toyfare Theatre(Genius as always) and my usual stash of weekly books which excitingly enough included Criminal #8, an issue which appears to feature Michael Jackson on the cover (Smooth Criminal, geddit?)

Yah. Anyway. Top stuff. Highly recommended, but then you knew that already.

On the spandex front I picked up Green Lantern Sinestro Corps which is a thoroughly silly but entertaining romp. It's slightly spoiled by the fact that you need to be reading 20 other comics and have a solid grounding in Green Lantern history to fully understand what's going on, but if you can live with that you'll be rewarded with lots of pretty pictures of alien green lanterns fighting alien Sinestro Lanterns. For the majority of people over the age of 10 that won't be reason enough to enjoy this comic, for me it works. If the regular Green Lantern series is going to feature more of this kind of thing then I'll probably start buying it again.

I missed the X-Men First Class mini series, but heard good things about it so picked up issue #1 of the new ongoing run. It's a good read although I'm beginning to wonder if Jeff Parker ever gets the urge to write a sick, gore splattered fuckfest of a comic just by way of a break from the all ages friendly groove that he seems to have settled into.

I bought two of his comics this week, keeping the X-Men issue and handing my five year old step nephew the latest issue of Marvel Adventures: Avengers. He's familiar with most of the characters in the book and enjoyed it, although he was slightly upset by the scene where Wolverine kicks Bruce Banner in order to make him angry enough to turn into the Hulk and smash some bad guys. Obviously I didn't let the nipper loose on the latest issue of The Boys. He wouldn't have liked it anyway, not enough fighting in this issue. No doubt that will come next week.

I passed on the latest issue of Amazons Attack, but for some reason decided to pick up Death Dealer. Sadly the joke has now worn thin and I didn't even make it past page four. Rotten stuff which has gone past the "so bad it's funny stage" and is now just so bad it's boring. Shame, I'd like a good sword and sorcery funnybook to read.

The Weekly Shop #11

I've noticed that there's a bit of a backlash going on among the movers and shakers in the comics blogosphere against the current craze for all things zombie. Personally I'm not sure why everybody is getting their knickers in such a twist. Sure the latest installment of Marvel Zombies wasn't that great, and no, I personally wouldn't want to put either of these on my mantelpiece...



But if someone else wants to then I say cool, it's no weirder than surrounding yourself with statues of gollum or Captain America is it?. As for the comics...bring me more! Especially if they're as good as Black Gas.

There aren't many bleaker or more unrelentingly violent comics out there than Black Gas, a zombie book that showcases the darkest parts of Warren Ellis's twisted imagination. I've been following it since the beginning and believe me it's nasty.

Issue #2 of volume #2 plumbs new depths of grim despair. It contains crazed zombie joyriders, collapsing buildings, a gory twist in the tail and the greatest line EVER to appear in a zombie comic...

Mmmm. Nice image.

With suitably dark artwork and colouring by Max Fiumara and Andrew Dalhouse complementing Ellis's warped story perfectly, this is a really good horror comic which I'll be sad to see come to an end next issue.

It's not my favourite read of the week though. That honour goes to the zombie-free Brian Bendis book Ultimate Spider-Man #109.

Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men are both failing to impress at the moment and The Ultimates was rendered nigh on unreadable by its constant delays, so Ultimate Spider-Man has been the only thing keeping the Ultimate Universe from disappearing off my radar. Its still the Ultimate flagship and I think issue #109 might be my favourite issue of the entire run.

The Ultimate Knights arc has been building beautifully and really starts to pay off this issue with a great spin on Kingpin that, in the best traditions of Ultimate Spidey, alludes to classic Marvel tales of yesteryear while still seeming fresh.

Bagley's art is slicker than ever and any sadness about him leaving the book after the next issue is tempered by the knowledge that a) he's going out on a high and b) he's being replaced by the genius that is Stuart Immonen. Marvellous.

Marvel Adventures continues to push the right buttons, I realise that I'm always banging on about how good Jeff Parker's scripts are, but respect also has to go out to the rest of the team on the book, in particular penciller Leonard Kirk who draws a mean superhero comic. When push comes to shove though it's Parker's gags which keep me coming back for more. Highlight of this issue? This line from The Puppet Master...

Issue two of Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer continues to clobber readers over the head with every fantasy cliche out there. Strangely amidst all the Conanesque sword and sorcery, several of the leading protagonists have started to talk like 21st century gamers, peppering their speeches with phrases like...

Uhhm, yeah dude. Radical.

Also on my list this week. Ultimates #13 (which will go in the to read pile), Outsiders #47, Checkmate #14, Batman #665 (which really wasn't very good) and 2000AD prog#1537 which is saved from being a very bad issue by a poignant little Nikolai Dante story. Detonator X is also half decent, but the Judge Dredd offering is pretty darn poor, Twisted Tales reads like a filler from a 1980's issue of House of Mystery and Sinister Dexter is just not my cup of tea. Sorry.

The Weekly Shop #7

Over at Jeff Parker's website Mr Parker reveals that he had to cut stuff from the latest issue of Marvel Adventures: The Avengers.

I can't see that anyone would really have been offended if they'd left that scene in. No kid under the age of 10 is going to get the risque references to sex and STD's in the book anyway, but the adults will and that's what makes this comic so good.

Better than good in fact...brilliant. Honestly I think Marvel Adventures is the comics equivalent of Doctor Who or Shrek, namely a top quality piece of entertainment which will make kids happy while still tipping enough of a wink to adults to keep them coming back for more. It's rapidly turning into one of my favourite monthlies and is one of the very few that makes me laugh out loud.

There's not too many laughs to be had in issue #1 of Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer, well not intentional ones anyway. If this clip makes you chuckle though you'll find FF's DD pee your pants funny...



God I love that clip.

As a fan of this kind of thing I'm clearly not going to pass up the chance to buy a comic based on a piece of 1970's fantasy art. And as comics based on pieces of 1970's fantasy art go FF's DD is pretty awesome.

Yes By Crom, this is a comic that cranks up the cheese levels to 11.

Whether its the kid who survives the slaughter of his entire village by hiding in the cellar...


Or the star-crossed lovers from different social classes...

Mum's gone to Icevald
(I realise only people in Britain will get that caption)

this book is an A-Z of fantasy cliches. But once you come to terms with that its really, really good and packed with hilarious panels like this...

Ha-Ha!

And of course it does have that AWESOME Frazetta pic on the cover.


I'm definitely on board for the duration.

Which is good because I need another comic to buy as I managed to successfully drop Ultimate X-Men this week. Woo-hoo! It takes iron will to drop a comic I'm not enjoying but I did it. High-Fives!

I Still got my dose of the Ultimate universe with Ultimate Spidey #108, an issue in which Moon Knight schizs out and dresses as Ronin to beat up Spidey for the Kingpin - kerchinng! Easy sell.

ALSO COMING HOME WITH ME THIS WEEK: 2000AD, Judge Dredd Megazine, Nightly News #5, Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four #1 (More Jeff Parker magic), Marvel Essentials X-Men Volume 1 (This was in the damaged stock bin at Gosh and cost me £1. Yes £1 for the first 24 issues of The X-Men) and issues #827-#831 of Detective comics (because I enjoyed the trade so much that I can't be bothered waiting for the next one to show up).