From JSA#20

Not much time I'm afraid. It's one of those days where I try to do a post during my son's afternoon nap. So, briefly...I'm working my way through Geoff Johns' run on JSA at the moment. It's a lengthy old haul which goes right back to the late 90s. Good, traditional superhero stuff, full of folks in silly costumes saying ridiculous things like this...

A metahuman meltdown that could take out the entire solar system? Silly, silly, silly.

Anyway, like I say nice, fun, "disengage your brain" style superhero comics. I was pretty lost in it all last night, until I flipped the page and hit this image...

Seeing The World Trade Centre really does take you outside of the story, especially in this context with the approaching tornado, The skeleton of The Spectre and the cracked tower. The rock formations are all part of some encroaching alternate reality.

I'm reading the series in trade, but this panel is from JSA #20, March 2001. I'm guessing it's one of the last instances, (if not the last), that the Twin Towers were featured in comics pre-9/11.

Announcements

I'm enjoying Warren Ellis' writing. Not his comics stuff, the stuff without pictures. He's written three very entertaining columns for Wired magazine, a couple of odd pieces for Bleeding Cool and, of course, a whole slew of shorter bits and bobs on his own website. I always thought of him as a bit of a gloomy, scary man, but when you get into his words there's a lot of fun to be had. The latest Wired column where he touches on the applications of Twitter is a blast.

Re Twitter: I still don't feel at home with it. I think I could happily ditch it altogether but for the fact that I enjoy reading the tweets of William Gibson and Viz Top Tips. I imagined that William Gibson would spend his days injecting nanodrugs and being sucked off by robots, but no, apparently he devotes his time to tweeting links to cool stuff. Viz Top Tips just does what you'd expect it to do.

As for the rest, I still prefer Fakebook. Yeah, there's the added vampire/pirate/top five bumph which is all a bit wank, but when it comes down to it I like looking at holiday snaps of people I went to junior school with. I'm odd like that.

Hoping to get down to the comic shop tomorrow. Here's my list...

Skipping the new Anna Mercury stuff as part of my drive to cut down on single issues, yet still picking up Miss America Comics one shot. Makes little sense I know. Items of particular interest on this week's list include Sherlock Holmes #2 and Rebels #5 (STARRO!).

Elsewhere, friend of LLC, Mr Wheatley continues his assault on Television Centre with some new stuff on the BBC's comedy webpage. I like the brick sketch very much.

The mighty Lord Hurk has been hard at work on a new web comic and, as ever, the results are stunning.

Just so you know

Got royally wankered last night. Feel really fucking ill today.

Two to read

Read a mountain of comics yesterday. Mediocrity abounded. Two nice single issues though: Batman and Robin #1 and Chew #1.

By now I'm sure you've read a gazillion reviews of Batman and Robin so I won't blather on for too long about it. Suffice to say that it's a really nice Batman comic. Being a Grant Morrison joint I was expecting to have to don my thinking cap and fire up the ol' Wikipedia, but no this was as straightforward a start to a story as you can get. I didn't read any of The Battle for the Cowl muck, but I can see that Dick Grayson is now Batman and that Damian wassisname (Bruce Wayne's son or summink) has taken his place as Robin. There's a nice little dynamic going on between the two of them with Robin the more serious of the two. Anyway, it works well. There were some good character defining moments such as Damian's treatment of Alfred as a menial rather than, you know...ALFRED! The new villains were suitably wacky - loved Mr Toad (POOP! POOP!) And, of course, Frank Quietly's art is always a delight. Smashing stuff.

Chew isn't a superhero book as such, but the lead character does have the most original and possibly yuckiest superpower I've seen in a comic for yonks. Written by John Layman and drawn by Rob Guillory, this is a cop book with a difference. You know that psychic cop in Heroes? Fat Fellah, bad actor? Well Tony Chu, (the lead in Chew), is a bit like him, except that he does his psychic detective work by chomping on human flesh. Urggh! Yeah, he gets glimpses of stuff from the food he eats. Thus he doesn't like eating burgers because he sees cows being slaughtered, but he does like chewing off serial killer's faces because he gets a full MO and a list of their victims by doing so. Yup chums, it's a gross idea - but it works! Not least because Layman garnishes his story with a sprinkling of dry, black humour. He's also chosen an artist who has added to the lighthearted feel of what could have been a very dark book with a cartoony (sorry I hate that word, but it's the only one that fits) style. It's a really enjoyable package and I recommend it to you.

Cap's Black!

This isn't strictly true. I mean nothing's been confirmed yet, but I'm convinced that Captain America is about to go black. Issue #600 (yeah that numbering is fucked up) has been timed to coincide with some sort of big Marvel press release. I'm guessing that this is the announcement of the long awaited Captain America movie AND, if rumours are to be believed, the news that Will Smith will play the lead role in that film. So all makes sense eh?

Either The Falcon or The Patriot from The Young Avengers will take over from Bucky. I'm totally convinced of this. So convinced that I told boss man at the new shop that this was going to happen. His thoughts obviously turned to Obama variant covers (you could see the £ signs flashing in his eyes) and he was instantly on the blower to Diamond ordering more copies (I shit you not).

Things are actually running pretty smoothly with the new shop now. They have got their head round my pull-list and I'm getting all of my titles. The latest issue of Irredeemable didn't show up yesterday, but they'll have it for me next week so I'm cool with that. Friendly bunch of people working there and I'm still only a tube journey away from Gosh and all my manga and Indie needs.

EDIT: Kyle Baker's blog has me 110% certain that Cap's going to be black SEE FOR YOURSELVES! More info on Isaiah Bradley HERE

Picture Stories from The Bible

Robert Crumb's desk with pages from his Book of Genesis project...

Click for super-sized Biblical radness

The pages look fantastic, but I'm really posting this because I love the photo. Magic.

Early morning rant of an exhausted bloater

Call me a maudlin old man if you will, but I'm telling you: "Fings was better in the olden days!"

Tis true!

Come, feast your bleary eyes on this selection of magical stuff 'n' that torn from a single page of an olden days comic...

THE WONDER TOUCH!!!!!!!!!!1

FREE SECRETS!!!!!!!!!!1

LINCOLN ARM WRESTLING WITH AN INJUN!!!!!!!!!!1

Scans from The Brave and The Bold #148 which was published in 1979 and sports this cover...

..despite the fact that it came out in March!

Man, they just didn't give a fuck did they?