Unboxing the Marvel Collector Corps Avengers blind box! Plus a quick Avengers: Age of Ultron review!

A few months ago, Marvel announced that they'd be launching a new "blind box" subscription service.  These have become fairly popular over the last year (maybe the most well known is Lootcrate) as collectors and fans apparently like to have random things shipped to them several times a year.  I can relate to this; getting a package in the mail is always exciting and is one of the factors that defines my eBay obsession.  Having Marvel jump on this bandwagon is no surprise as its existing fanbase seems the perfect type of consumer to sign up.

Marvel calls the subscription service the "Marvel Collector Corps", which almost certainly tries to evoke memories of the Merry Marvel Marching Society of years past.  Each kit costs $25 plus about eight dollars in shipping.  Marvel claims that every box is packed with items that would retail for at least $50, and they ship six times a year.  I decided to give it a try, thinking that I could keep what I wanted and sell the rest.  The gamble here is that if I only wanted one or two things from a box, I could conceivably make most if not all of my money back by piecing out the rest; the danger is that I will want to keep everything in every box and lose money and space every other month.

The theme for the first month was the Avengers, which of course made sense because of the Age of Ultron movie that came out at about the same time.  My box came in the mail at the end of April, and it was really a sight to behold, with Captain America's head on the top and "Avengers" printed in bold letters on the side.  The packaging design was a nice bonus on top of the items inside.  Whoever at Marvel and Funko (Marvel's partner in the service) put the box together did a good jab at making even the packaging a collectable item.  The inside of the top lid had comic book panels from various books (featuring Avengers members) printed on it.

The first surprise upon opening the box, and something else that harkened back to the MMMS, was a patch and pin welcoming you to the Collector Corps.  These two items just oozed nostalgia, and they're the little things that collectors will probably be searching for in years to come.

The second lid folded back and revealed the main compartment with four different items.  It was an impressive sight.

The biggest and probably the most desirable item was probably the Hulkbuster Iron Man Funko Pop figure.  This (and each item) was an exclusive to the service and it was without a doubt the centerpiece.  It's a hefty piece, bigger than the average Funko figures from the same line.  It's an impressive figure.

Marvel also launched its "Dorbz" line with this kit.  It's funny that included in this blind box is another blind box, but I guess that's a successful marketing ploy at the moment.  Inside the box is a vinyl figure featuring yet another Age of Ultron character.

Next up was an Avengers shirt.  Apparently every box will include a shirt, and at least this time around, there were a total of four Avengers shirts, randomly inserted, each featuring a different avenger taking on Ultron on what looks like a boxing match promotional poster.  I got Thor.

Lastly was a variant to the first issue of the new Guardians Team-Up series, of course featuring the Avengers.  I'm glad that Marvel didn't forget to include actual comics in this subscription service.

All in all, I thought that the first box was a triumph for the company.  It included so many cool items - presented in a fun, collectible way - that it was hard not to get excited about it.  These boxes are big - bigger than shoe boxes by half, I'd say - and they'll start taking up a lot of room in people's garages before too long.  I signed up for an entire year of the boxes, so I'll be interested to see what June brings and what theme Marvel decides on.

Of course, my big hope is that one day soon there'll be a Fantastic Four-themed box.  Marvel is downplaying the team right now as it tries to reacquire the movie rights, so I don't expect it to happen soon, but eventually...I have to believe that there'll be some FF items arriving at my mailbox.  Now that is a box I'll keep in its entirety.  I might buy two.

Free Comic Book Day and all of the things surrounding that weekend kept me from seeing the Age of Ultron movie when it came out, but I finally got a chance to see it a few days ago.  It was a solid movie worthy of the franchise that has such lofty expectations placed on it.  It wasn't a perfect movie, and I don't think it was as good as the first one - it seemed uneven in places, and I think there was an over-reliance on really long action scenes as opposed to the quieter character moments that made the first movie so wonderful - but it's worth going to see.  It definitely tries to set up the movies that will come after, and seeing how this sequel is bringing in an ungodly amount of money, it's hard to envision a summer without a Marvel tentpole film for many years to come.  Here's hoping the quality remains high and the movies remain enjoyable.

Free Comic Book Day - Reviews and Wrapup

It always takes me a while to decompress after any big event, and while this year's Free Comic Book Day doesn't match up to something like, say, Comic-Con, it was still a pretty big deal for me.  As with a lot of things of a similar nature, I spent a lot of time on the buildup to FCBD 2013, and the event itself flew by in a blur.  There are a lot of things I'll take from Saturday, May 4th, but overall I want to express how grateful I am for getting to be a part of it, because it was without question the most notice I've ever gotten in the field of comics.  I got to work on two books that people around the country (and, heck, the world) actively sought out and read not because I talked them into it at a convention or because they were being nice, but because they wanted to and had a genuine interest.  That's very rewarding and it's something I've worked toward for quite some time.

Beyond this, I was able to travel to Boston to meet comic fans and, specifically, fans of the Tick, all of whom were gracious and friendly.  Not only this, but the staff of New England Comics was generous and accommodating to the point that I felt like blushing on several occasions.  It was all very overwhelming, something difficult to put into words.  I realize that comic book careers, such as they are, can be fleeting.  Even if I fall off the face of the earth tomorrow (a distinct possibility, considering how close I live to the edge of the earth), I'll appreciate the time I got to spend in this alternate reality where what I do for fun actually means something outside of my small understanding of existence.

So what I'm saying is that I had a good time.  But enough of that junk.  Let's see what the world had to say about some of the stuff I did for Free Comic Book Day!

Probably the most positive review I saw of both The Tick and FUBAR came from the website "Geek Hard", which not only reviewed both of them, but reviewed both of them consecutively, as the image above displays.  It seems that the website staff enjoyed both books, and they enjoyed FUBAR enough to dedicate a specific review just to that book.

USA Today had several articles about FCBD, and both books were mentioned by the newspaper giant.  In their overall guide, FUBAR was highlighted as a suggested pick for people who like zombies (which seems obvious, I'll admit), with the author saying, "for something completely different, give FUBAR a spin."  In their list of 10 books to pick up, the Tick made it as the number four recommendation!

The websites "Fruitless Pursuits" and "Paradox Comics Group" also had nice reviews of The Tick, with Fruitless Pursuits saying that the issue was "perhaps the most complete offering overall", and PCG scoring the book a 7/10, saying the book "raises a smile", specifically mentioning the two short backup stories with art by Pietro.

Comic database websites were also quick to be updated with information from the two FCBD offerings, and, surprisingly enough, I genuinely had nothing to do with it.  Comic Vine even has a personal entry for me where before there was nothing (that I know of), and Comic Book DB has a fairly comprehensive list of the books I've worked on, as well as information like...my birthday.  Did I put that in a long time ago and forget about it?  It's...it's possible.  But someone has updated the page, at least, to include several of my more recent books, including some of my lesser-known contributions to books like Hawken and Apes with Uzis.  Perhaps if my OCD gets the best of me, I'll complete the list...for posterity.  Yes, that's it.

Comics superstar (he's also a superstar in other areas of life) Neil Gaiman posted some FUBAR art on his Tumblr page!  Yippie!

"Earth 2 Podcast" did an audio review of some FCBD books, and the Tick was front and center, at about the eight minute mark of the program.  The guy doing the reviews HATED it!  I mean, really despised it.  This is pretty funny, and as strange as it sounds, it's an accomplishment in its own right.  If someone hates your work, at least they care enough to have an opinion about it.  When no one cares one way or another, it's a little worrisome.  But yeah, this guy liked nothing about the book at all.

Twitter was abuzz with reactions to Free Comic Book Day, and the Tick got a few mentions over the infosphere.  I even sent some copies to a few of the folks who couldn't find any for themselves.

One of the funniest things to come from the FCBD weekend was seeing issues of both books pop up on eBay, and especially this, pictured above - someone who stood in line to get an autograph on the 4th put their copy online to sell, assuming that someone would actually like to purchase a book that I both wrote and wrote on.  Furthermore, the person started the bidding at an exorbitant $19.99!  And to top it all off, someone actually bid on the damn thing!  This means that my signature is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 dollars.

Of course, that's absolutely not true, and it's kind of silly that someone decided to spend money on an autographed copy of the Tick FCBD 2013 special.  This book had a healthy print run, and I'm sure that copies of it will be floating around for just about eternity, and they'll be easy to find, to boot.  So if you're reading this post, and you've managed to make it all the way down here, take some good advice from your ol' pal Jeff: don't spend $20 on this book!  I'm sure you can find a cheap copy somewhere, and if you want me to sign it for you, heck, I'll accommodate for no charge.  Promise.

Free Comic Book Day 2013 was a pretty special day for me, and I'm happy to have been a part of it.  It's been very rewarding to read some feedback, and I'm relieved that most of it has been very positive.  There's more to come from both properties, I'm happy to say, so here's to bigger and better things in the not too distant future.  Thanks to everyone who made this a great series of events for me.

In honor of the new football season, an NFL Superpro review

There's nothing quite like a new NFL season, with hope for every team (except the Browns) and the promise of another Super Bowl season for the SIX! TIME! CHAMPION! Pittsburgh Steelers.  Today's drubbing was of the Seattle Seahawks, losers of Super Bowl XL.  Let's look at a picture of that, shall we?

Great.

A few weeks ago I landed a copy of NFL Superpro: Super Bowl Special (not to be confused with NFL Superpro: Preseason Genocide) and, since I apparently had nothing else to read in my entire house, I sat down with the book.  The title (and concept, I suppose) is much maligned, often cited as the worst comic book series of all time.  After reading the first issue of this book, I feel confident in saying that the designation is unwarranted, though not by all that much.  The book comes off as a pretty standard early 1990s-era worthless comic.

Perhaps the reason that this series is so poorly reviewed is because that even in the realm of comic book absurdity, NFL Superpro comes off as unnecessarily goofy and unbelievable.  For instance, Superpro fights his enemies with form tackling and signature football moves, such as the punter's kick:

For another, he talks in an endless string of football metaphors, on one page telling crooks that they "missed the first-down marker by the length of a chain", followed almost immediately by the even more forced (if that can be believed) "this little play from scrimmage didn't gain me much yardage"!  Oh boy.

The story follows Phil Grayfield, a former number one pick in the entire draft.  As the story goes, Grayfield was injured two seasons in a row before the Eagles cut him (and then he found a magic NFL suit or something...it's not important).  The number one player in the draft!  Cut after two seasons!  Out of all the many ridiculous things to take place in this book, that is the one I balked at the most.  I mean, the Steelers kept second-round pick Limas Sweed around for four years before getting rid of him, and he showed nothing on the field, was injured often and couldn't even land as the fifth receiver in this year's camp.  My point is, if Sweed stuck around as long as he did, there is no way a team would cut the overall first pick after only two years!

If there is anything noble to taken from the production of this book, it's the blatant anti-steroid message it has (taken, of course, to its logical comic book extreme), especially at a time when steroids and other performance enhancing drugs were much more prevalent in the league.  Perhaps today it'd focus on human growth hormone or feature Peyton Manning traveling to NFL Europe to get some stem cell treatments.

In all, NFL Superpro isn't the worst book I've ever read, unfortunately.  It's patently predictable and it stretches believability to the point where most of what takes place is just stupid, even in a universe with, say, Spider-Man in it.  It's obvious that the book was meant to serve as an NFL outreach to kids and a promotion for its teams - it was weird seeing real team logos cut and pasted on to uniforms, though they stuck with NFC teams the entire issue, and that robbed me of my chance of seeing Bubby Brister or Gary Anderson in comic book form for even a panel.

There's a rumor that writer Fabian Nicieza took on the writing chores for this special and the subsequent 12-issue series in an attempt to land season tickets to his favorite NFL team.  While that's almost the definition of selling out, I admit that I probably would do the same thing.  So, you know, if you're listening, NFL...I have a great treatment for NFL Superpro: Lessons of the Lockout.  Actually I don't, but judging from the first go-round, I bet I could whip one up in ten minutes that would go over just fine.

EDIT: I just realized that I successfully predicted the Steelers' 2008 Super Bowl victory in this post.  Just because I predict a Super Bowl victory for Pittsburgh every year takes nothing away from this fact.

FUBAR: FDArrrgh! Part 2: "Presidential Counsel" with Leonardo Pietro

The second volume of FUBAR, a preview edition of which appeared at the Baltimore Comic-Con, is all set to show up in the October edition of Previews for a December release.  FUBAR head honcho Jeff McComsey has put online the final page of the volume for all to see, so I thought I'd post it here as well.

This single page is the second installment of the "FDArrrgh" continuing story, with art by the great Leonardo Pietro.  I had a great time revisiting this mini world that was at one point just a one-off joke in "Yalta!" (you can read that here).  The third installment is on the way, too...but for now I hope you enjoy this bastardization of a an incredibly weighty historic decision.  Here's a little easter egg for this strip: the background characters are all members of Harry Truman's cabinet at the time: Secretary of State James Byrnes, Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal.

Also, Alex McKinley wrote a review of FUBAR's first volume here: http://smartalexsays.blogspot.com/2011/08/tpb-tuesday-fubar-european-theater-of.html

Will Eisner's "The Contract With God Trilogy"

I'm slowly checking off items from my list of "graphic novels I'm ashamed to not have read yet", and my latest mark is from Will Eisner, the creator of the very term "graphic novel" and the book for which it was coined, A Contract With God.  A hardcover collection of all the loosely connected stories that center around life on Dropsie Avenue came out a few years ago, just after Eisner's death; he had written a new introduction and produced several new pieces of art for the collection.

Needless to say, the collection lives up to the significant amount of praise it has gotten over the years; I expected it to be a seminal piece and that's exactly what it was.  After all, Eisner is thought of as one of the great storytellers of the medium, and A Contract With God might be his most highly acclaimed and recognizable work (although The Spirit certainly has its share of fans).

I was surprised, though, that the Contract With God story was as short as it was; as popular as it is, and the fact that the collection takes its name from this entry, led me to believe that it would take up a significant portion of the book.  This doesn't detract away from the emotional impact of it, though, and it was all the more touching and tragic after reading about its real-life corollaries (Eisner, like the main character of the story, lost a daughter).  This entry comes off much like a morality play or one of Aesop's fables...just without the animal intermediaries.  It hits on all the right notes.

The rest of the book, which doesn't get nearly as much attention, is just as brilliant, if in different ways.  A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue cover some brutally honest material as Eisner creates a 100-year timeline for the fictitious neighborhood in the Bronx, from settlement in the 1870s, to the Great Depression, to wars and civil unrest.  As readers, we see time and characters move quickly by as history (frustratingly in many cases) repeats itself over and over again.  It's stark social commentary that we will, hopefully, learn from someday.

Quite obviously, this book is a worthwhile read.  It holds up and is as relevant now as it was when it was published, and its contents give us a perspective into life in the early-to-mid-20th century that few can duplicate.  It's poignant, funny, painful and above all true to itself.

instant reactions, nine years later

I remember picking up DC Comics' "9-11: Artists Respond" paperback soon after it was published in early 2002 (the turnaround time, looking back, was pretty amazing).  It featured short stories portraying many creators' reactions to the New York terrorist attacks, some of which were told using DC's popular super heroes.  One such story stands out in my mind, though it's been almost nine years since I read it, where Superman laments that he's just a fictional character and thus can't do anything to stop the suffering in the real world.

Regardless of the story, what really sticks with me was how raw the book was from an emotional standpoint.  Whereas comics, especially from the likes of Marvel and DC, usually have a very "safe", calculated message to portray ("don't do drugs, kids!"), a lot of the stories included in DC's 9-11 book were the comic book equivalent of an instantaneous reaction.  Not all of it was hopeful and positive, either - you could feel the anger, the despair that others felt by reading their stories.

DC's paperback was listed as volume two, and while there was a big ad for the first volume on the back cover of the book, I never took the time to seek it out.  A few months ago, though, I found it on sale at nearby Fanboy Comics for only five bucks, so I jumped at the chance to pick it up.

I'm sure that one of the reasons I bought the DC version, complete with Superman and Krypto on the cover, each in awe over "real life" heroes such as doctors, police officers, etc., and not the first volume was the fact that I wasn't nearly as willing to read independent comics in 2002 as I am today.  That's not saying the majority of the comics I buy aren't Marvel and DC, but my reading stack's much more diverse now than it's ever been before.  Volume one was published jointly by Dark Horse, Chaos!, and Image, and featured mostly independent creators, many of them still not familiar to me.

I just finished reading this particular volume, and I'm as astounded as I was in 2002 when I read the second volume of short stories - not just by the impeccable quality, but again by the raw, unfettered emotion that obviously stemmed from witnessing such a horrific event.  Reading these stories took me back to that unseasonably warm fall day in September, and there were a few times that I had to put the book down and clear the lump in my throat before continuing.

It's difficult to reconcile that so much time has passed since the event, and it's distressing to realize how cynicism and distrustfulness have taken over so much of our social and political landscape; it's disheartening to realize how we've pushed the immediate aftermath, one of such good will and hope, to the back of our minds once more.  I was in college in 2001, and now I teach college; most of my students this past semester were all of nine years old on the date in question.  How long before the students I'm teaching, legally capable of making major decisions such as joining the military, have no recollection of the 9-11 attacks?  As I said, it's all hard to reconcile.

There are dozens of stories and pinups in this collection, and each of them tells a unique story.  Most of them, I'd imagine, would look much different if DC or Dark Horse or Image were to put the book together today - I think it would lose some of the immediacy that makes it great.  Frank Miller's "I'm sick of flags, I'm sick of God" might be the angriest comic I've ever read, and it's all of three panels.  Dave Cooper's "9/12" puts the shock of the events into perspective.  Anthony Johnston and Mike Norton's "Sunday Mourning" is heartbreaking.  Marc Rosenthal's "If", when looked at through the lens of 2010, makes me think of what could have been.

It may seem counterproductive to bemoan the September, 2001 attacks nearly nine years after the fact.  The world has, in many cases, moved on and new tragedies have arisen to take our attentions.  Reading this book, however, brought the immediacy of all the emotions I felt as I wandered around campus (hopelessness, fear, despair, uncertainty) flooding back.  In an few more years, when we all have just a little more perspective, these two comic book collections would be tremendous as texts in a history or English class that focused on the subject.  If someone wanted to recreate or remember the atmosphere of the days just following September 11th, all they'd have to do is read a few stories from these collections.  It's brilliant, chilling material that deserves to be recognized for it's significance.

Jeff vs. Jeff: this time, it's personal

One of my favorite things about attending the Pittsburgh Comicon this past April was getting to meet fellow creator and fellow Jeff McSomething, Jeff McComsey, much beleaguered on this blog for nothing else than having a name very similar to my own.  I even intimated that Jeff and I might fight at the show, and as you can see by the picture at top, not only did things come to blows, but we apparently decided to battle it out in the style of 1910 prizefighters.  Great form, McClelland.

In any case, Jeff McComsey turned out to be a man of great talent with a predilection for drawing historical figures as zombies, both of which I can admire.  At the show I picked up a few of his books, "American Terror" and the mini comic "Sgt. Killroy", pictured below:

Both were very enjoyable reads: McComsey's fluid style lends itself to the futuristic noir-ishness of "American Terror" and the classic feel of "Sgt. Killroy"; to me, it felt like a mix between Sgt. Rock and the Evil Dead movies...both works of art in their own right.  Jeff was even kind enough to do some sketches for me, including one of the WWII-era Japanese Emperor Hirohito:

The flag in the background is a nice touch, though I might be more a fan of the militaristic "Rising Sun" variety.

Jeff's working on a new book featuring Sgt. Killroy and other WWII-era zombified tales in "FUBAR", which sounds like tons of fun.  I'll post a page from his blog below.  You can find out more about FUBAR (the acronym which first originated in WWII times, as a matter of fact), American Terror and other McComseyisms at the following sites: http://mccomseycomix.wordpress.com/ and http://zombiefubar.wordpress.com/.  Check 'em out!

Killing the Killing Joke

I'm a huge fan of anything Alan Moore writes (I know, that's like saying you're a fan of the Beatles...it's kind of obvious), and even though I have DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore and it includes the 1988 Batman classic The Killing Joke, I was still enough of a sucker to make sure I got the 20th anniversary "deluxe" edition soon after it came out.  I finally got around to unwrapping the plastic cover and checking it out.  Artist and collaborator Brian Bolland completely recolored the story and there are a few extras included, but this story is, for the most part, The Killing Joke repackaged.

I will agree with popular sentiment (and Moore himself) that this isn't my favorite/the best story by Alan Moore, and it's probably not even the best Batman story I've ever read - though I couldn't tell you what is - but it's hard to argue that this story hasn't had its affect on Batman's supporting cast and perhaps the Joker's persona as a lunatic.  I will say that what continues to stand out to me regarding this story isn't contained in the fictional Batman/Joker tale - it's how much Brian Bolland always mentions how he dislikes the book.  It's like he can't stand it!

I'm not sure why this rubs me the wrong way as it does.  Certainly the man is welcome to his opinion, and as the visual talent behind the story, I'd say that his thoughts on the subject are worth more than mine, anyway.  But if the guy has had so many problems with the story, why does he keep coming back to write about it?  Every time I've heard him speak on the subject, he always talks about how the story was his idea - he asked Moore to write a Batman story featuring the Joker - but the end result wasn't really to his liking.  He'll mention the Batman/Joker laughing scene at the end (a funny joke, but admittedly a strange ending) doesn't sit well with him.  But I've never heard the man offer up his own thoughts on how he would have taken on the story.  The nature of collaboration - even collaboration with Alan "TerriBeard" Moore - is such that there are some disappointments along the way.

Brian Bolland is one of the best cover artists in the business, even more than 30 years in, but he's probably best known for The Killing Joke.  I hope that I don't have something I'm so disappointed in define my career, because from reading everything Bolland writes on the subject, it must be pretty awful.

Recommended reading

I just finished reading Kyle Baker's Nat Turner collection, a recently collected trade paperback retelling the title character's violent slave revolt in the antebellum South.  My silent admiration for the book was recently overshadowed by the shocking news that the North Carolina state board of education is considering dropping all reference to the Civil War - all history before 1877, in fact - from their state mandated history curriculum.  As I've only recently learned of this proposal, and I haven't read enough to understand if they're instead suggesting something more reasonable, like splitting American history into two sections - one until 1876, the other 1877 to present, for example - I'll try to withhold specific judgment other than to say that there's a reason that the quote "those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" has stuck around all these years.

I'm from the Pittsburgh area, but for the past few years I've been living in North Carolina, and I've seen more than a few examples of people who don't realize what an atrocity slavery was (not that I even have a great perspective on it) in American history.  There are those who fail to realize just what was sacrificed for slaves to gain the limited amounts of freedom they were given in the aftermath of the Civil War, and there are those who don't understand how damaging, demeaning and degrading - both physically and emotionally - the act of slavery inherently is and was.  To those people, I would like to recommend a copy of Kyle Baker's masterpiece, all about the life of and, of course, revolt devised by Nat Turner.

Years ago I read The Fires of Jubilee, so I was familiar with Turner and his story, but Baker so deftly illustrates (both literally and figuratively) the period surrounding slavery that Turner showed me sides of himself that I never knew, and perhaps never wanted to know, existed.  This story is brutal, violent, and historically accurate in the most terrifying ways.

Nat Turner is such a compelling figure, and one so difficult to understand.  It would be irresponsible to condemn him for what he did - gathering a militia and slaughtering white slave owners, their wives and their children - but it's also difficult to look at him as a "hero", for those same acts were as depraved and as gruesome as those acted upon him and those around him for his entire (brief) life.

I can't say that I am as well versed in history as I should be, or as any number of others are, but I can easily understand how socially significant Nat Turner was to the anti-slavery movement.  Turner has been, for the most part, written out of the history books, surely because his story is so excessively violent.  Just because history may not be as sanitary as we'd like to believe, though, does not mean that we should not learn it and try to learn from it - and Baker shoves Turner and his story back in front of us, no matter how unpleasant it all may be.  His choice to present the story with minimal text was a stroke of genius.  The solemn image of the layout of a slave ship at the book's end was equally as powerful.

This book sells for around ten dollars.  Do yourself a favor and buy it.

Yetisburg

As I was browsing through Evil Genius Comics a few weeks back, the card game seen pictured above caught my eye.  Since I was promoting a book that prominently features a Yeti at the time, I stopped and picked this product up to make sure that I wasn't going insane and was actually seeing two Yetis dressed up in Civil War gear.

"Yetisburg", as it is called, proves that things that rhyme with "-eti" are supremely marketable (you hear that, Hollywood?!).  However, the setting and background of this game do seem to be a little inconsiderate.  I'm not one who thinks that everything past is sacred, mind you, but taking the most bloody struggle in U.S. history and reenacting it with rather absurd mythical characters...well, I suppose that worse things have been done, but still.

The product description is below.  If there's anyone who has actually played this, I'd be interested in hearing how the game holds up.  I'm not much into most card games myself, but hey, put a Yeti in it and maybe I'll take notice.

Four Score and Seven Yetis Ago…

On the bloody fields of Pennsylvania in 1863, two great armies collided to decide the fate of a nation. The South rose, and the North responded with fervent mettle.

At the forefront of the battle stood the mighty Yetis, white-furred giants imported from the wilds of Canada to shred the opposing front lines. The great generals strode through the battle lines, engineering the destruction of the opposing forces while powerful mastodons hurled bombs into the fray.

Yetisburg is a fast-paced, two-player card game where the South is pitted against the North in brutal battle.

Yetisburg contains: 

Two decks of 55 cards each  

60 tokens 

Initiative marker 

One rule booklet

Yetisburg—This War's Anything but Civil.

Comic News Insider reviews Teddy and the Yeti!

Comic News Insider, the long running comic book and pop culture review show, took the time to do some independent comic reviews a few days ago, and Teddy and the Yeti #1 made their list!  It's always satisfying to know that people are actually reading the book, but it's equally satisfying to know that, hundreds of years into the future, an electronic broadcast mentioning me will be saved somewhere as a morbid reminder of my dead, rotting corpse.  But maybe that's just the self-serving part of me speaking.

CNI broadcasts once a week (more or less every Tuesday); if you go here, you can see a list of episodes - Teddy and the Yeti is part of episode #238.  Or, you can simply go here for the direct link, and here for the mp3 download of the show.  If you click on the "podcasts" tab on iTunes, you can find it there as well.

The reviews of the book can be found right around the 31 minute and 30 second mark of the show, and, honestly, they are a bit mixed.  It seems that the hosts' biggest concerns with the book deal with the flashback scenes and how they relate to the overall flow of the story.  I can certainly accept this criticism; I was going for an in media res approach to things, and I suppose that works for some better than others. Hosts Joe and Jimmy also spend a good deal of time talking about how much they like the title of the book.  This may seem surface-level to some, but MAN! I love the title, too, so it's all right.  Everyone loves a good rhyme, and when your title includes the word "Yeti" in that rhyme, only good things can follow.

I enjoyed listening to this show and the review a lot - to have someone discuss your work is a humbling experience.  Obviously, I wish the review would have been more positive, but that's what you set yourself up for if you put work out into the public arena.  And there were some good things said, too.  Maybe I'll send them a copy of the fast-approaching issue #2 and see if they mention the book again!

What I'm reading right now

There are few unequivocal truths in the universe, but here are two of them:

1) I will never be as good a writer as Alan Moore

2) I will never have a beard as scary as Alan Moore's

I hesitate not in the slightest at either one of these statements.  In all seriousness, I think of Alan Moore as the greatest comic book writer in the medium's history.  I am an absolute captive to Neil Gaiman's writing, and it can't be denied what Will Eisner has done for the industry, but Moore is the writer who, for me, sits at the top of the field.  I think he has the body of work to back up such a claim, as well, with Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell on his resume.  So when DC Comics (through their Vertigo imprint) released the first volume of Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing collection, I bought it right away, and it has not disappointed.

The Swamp Thing might best be remembered for the live action television series that lasted three seasons in the early 1990s, but the book with Moore at the helm is the definitive take on the character.  I mean, think about it - the character is called "The Swamp Thing".  Literally, "the thing from the swamp."  A guy gets blown to hell and lands in a swamp...and becomes a super hero.  With all due respect to Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, creators of the character, what?!  This is the origin tale?  Not that there aren't tons of unbelievable creation stories out there (nearly every Marvel character from the 1960s should have died of radiation poisoning), but this one just seems silly.  Moore took that concept and made it work.  Swamp Thing wasn't Alec Holland, it was just "a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland."

Horror comics usually are simply filled with gore or just have some ironic twist to them; Swamp Thing is genuinely frightening.  Super hero books are sometimes vapid and shallow; Swamp Thing is layered and meaningful.  Comics from the 1980s are often lackluster; Swamp Thing is fulfilling.  From Moore's first issue, you can tell that he has a plan, and he sticks to it throughout.  Supporting characters add meaning to the overall story.  Guest stars, including the Demon and the Justice League, are used appropriately and respectfully.  But through it all, you know that this is the Swamp Thing's book, even when he/it doesn't appear much in some issues.  All in all, it's a breathtaking piece of work.

If you couldn't tell, I am in love with this book.  I can't recommend it highly enough.

Requiem for Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four

From a fan's perspective, it's comforting to know that some books will NEVER be cancelled - as long as there's a DC Comics, there'll be Action Comics, and as long as the courts stay on their side, it'll star Superman more often than not.  As long as there's a Marvel Comics, there'll be Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four titles - their flagship books.  While this may lead to a lull in creativity or a stagnation of character traits, the part of me that views these creations as old friends (in a very loose sense) can find solace in knowing that month after month, I can still pick up these titles if I so choose.  If I'd quit collecting comics for 20 years, chances are I could walk into a future comic shop (or perhaps I'd just think my way inside) and grab the latest issue of Fantastic Four.  I'd probably have a pretty good idea about what was going on, too.  This doesn't always extend to satellite books, though.

A few months ago, Fantastic Four Giant Size Adventures came out as a one-shot issue.  I was a little curious as to why Marvel would put out this book when Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four was an ongoing title, though I soon surmised that this was because MA:FF had been cancelled.  This is a shame because the book was consistently solid, and more often than a few times it was the best Fantastic Four book on the shelves.

Much of my praise goes out to writer Paul Tobin, who took this book - aimed at a younger audience as are all the titles under the Marvel Adventures banner - and told good, self contained stories without dumbing down the characters to make them more accessible.  Though every story had to be finished in 22-or-so pages, the characters still retained their spark, the essence of who they were and what made them such likable fictional characters.

It was obvious, at least in my opinion, that Tobin's favorite character in the book (perhaps in the entire Marvel Universe) was the Thing, which was right up my alley.  Often the books would read as "Marvel Adventures Thing and his pals the Fantastic Four", and don't let anyone tell you that was a bad thing - having Ben Grimm get all the best lines and the most scenes gave me a pretty good idea of how I'D write the book if I had the chance.

The last issue of the series, #48, ranks right up there with some of my favorite Fantastic Four stories of all time.  Galactus transports the team to the end of time, where the world-eater awaits the end of the current universe and the beginning of the next - an event that he and only he will survive.  As he prepares for the inevitable, Galactus employs the FF to fend off various iterations of contemporary super villains, as they could disrupt his plans.

As the team holds off the desperate schemes of the villains and returns to their own time, they are confused as to why a being as powerful as Galactus would have needed their help in the first place.  Reed Richards realizes that this was Galactus's way of saying goodbye, of getting to see the closest thing he's had to friends one last time before the end.  Mr. Fantastic looks Galactus straight in the eyes, shakes his hand, and says, "I'll miss you, too."

It's stuff like that that most writers miss, and it's stuff like that that I appreciate the most.

(Very) Strange Tales

I think that Marvel's new indy-style anthology, Strange Tales (this has got to be at least the fourth time they've used the title) is something the bigger companies should emulate more often - lesser-known but nonetheless talented creators working on out-of-continuity stories featuring big-name characters. While it does seem like Marvel threw this compilation together from stories they just had lying around the office (The Incorrigible Hulk feature was supposed to see print in, I think, 2003), I still applaud the effort, which can produce such gems as Jacob Chabot's entry, "Lookin' Good, Mr. Grimm!"

Chabot is probably best known for his creator-owned The Mighty Skullboy Army, which I'm a huge fan of - Dark Horse published a digest sized collection after it appeared in their Strip Search publication (which, ahem, I was also a part of), though right now he's providing the artwork for Marvel's X-Babies miniseries. Yeah...X-Babies. I never quite got the point behind the concept, but I'll vouch for the artwork, at least.

In any case, one panel of the Fantastic Four send up caught my attention. As everyone knows, because I am so tremendously famous and wealthy as a result of it, I have an online webseries called Franks and Beans that is so hilarious you just might die after watching it. Or something. Anyway, one of the earlier episodes is titled "Mustache", which features me growing a mustache and saying the phrase "Hey, mustache buddy!" That's...basically the joke for the episode. It's also close to the phrase in this Strange Tales issue, but you can tell that they are quite distinctive as Chabot spells his phrase "moustache". Which, now that I think about it, might be even funnier.

Et Tu, Ultimate Vision?

As I've mentioned more times than necessary now, there was a big 'ol comic book sale at the local comic shop here in Wilmington recently.  Boxes upon boxes had books priced at 25 cents each, so needless to say I bought more than a few that I otherwise wouldn't, with some good surprises in the mix.

I had picked up some of the Ultimate Galactus books when they were released - Ultimate Extinction and Ultimate Nightmare, I think they were called - but I never did pick up the sequel series, Ultimate Vision.  When I saw all five books (plus the zero issue) in a row, I snagged 'em without hesitation.

I will say that the story is, overall, worth the time to read it.  It's a satisfying continuation of the story, though there are a few annoying inconsistencies throughout.  Even so, it's a good book.

But, all right.  The question you're asking once you've seen the picture posted at top is, "why does the Ultimate Vision have giant robot boobs?"  And you are right to question this.  I mean, I understand that the main audience for comic books is male, and I, like many other men, like boobs and women in general.  But there has to be a line drawn somewhere, and I think that this is it.

The main character of the book is A ROBOT.  Yes, I get that this robot has been given a fairly human figure.  And seeing as that figure is feminine, it makes sense that it might have some semblance of robot breasts, functional or not.  But why the double Ds?  Not only does this robot have robot boobs, but they are too big to possibly fit into any sort of robot bra contraption.

I wish they had some purpose other than to get people to buy the book.  I wish little propellors came out of them and gave the Ultimate Vision the power to fly or something.  Anything better than a robot pinup.  That's just weird.