Hype and Random Notes

Right-o. Let's see what we've got this gloomy Saturday morning.

In the hype department, we've got two new books out, "Death Nouveau Episode 2: Baroque Western" and "SDF: Pulp #4". DNE 2 is a comic book/CD combo that's a surreal sci-fi/western/horror story tale of revenge. We're really proud of it. SDF:P 4 is your typical issue of Pulp, in that it's crazy and jam packed with so much crazy craziness that there's no more room for further crazy. You can check em out at http://www.torcpress.com/store.html.

For some reason, Myspace won't upload the cover of SDF: P 4. Not sure what's up with that.

Fall is intruding on Summer much quicker than usual. I've actually been wearing my flannel to work in the morning, and I'm wearing a hooded sweatshirt as I type this. I've also experienced a mild version of season change sickness already, as I've been having headaches, mild nausea, and my tongue tastes like sandpaper. Not surprisingly, the allergies have gone berzerk as well. If the damn weather would pick a temperature and stabilize I'll be fine.

Never got around to yammering about it, but I've caught both "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" and "Machete" recently. Both have a lot of great Novelty value (and I do so love novelty). Pilgrim is ambitious, riotous, funny, weird, and quite a lot of fun. Easily the most underrated film of the year. My only complaint about the movie was that I really didn't think Ramona Flowers was worth all the effort. "Machete" was cool. It was at its best when it was just Machete violently butchering his way through hordes of faceless thugs, and it kinda gets bogged down in the whole Immigration thing. I've always liked the Iconic nature of the heroes in a Rodriguez film. This one's got all sorts of those kinda characters, from the shotgun toting Padre to the murderous Nun (played somewhat ironically by Lindsay Lohan no less) to the One Eyed Revolutionary She-Devil, they're like superheroes or action figures or characters out of bizarre novel. I dig that.

Comix Reviews:

"Baltimore: the Plague Ships" #2: We get some background on the mysterious Lord Baltimore, there's some stuff set in an alternate WWI (nice change of pace from the usual WWII stuff), and there's some cool stuff with Vampires that look like Giant Vampire Bats. This series is a-okay so far.

"B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth-New World" #2: Kind of a filler issue. Kate has sleep deprivation, Johann and Panya bicker, and Abe hangs out in the woods with the long lost Daimyo. It's funny, just the other day I was wondering what happened to that guy. Stuff will happen next issue.

"Hellboy: The Storm" #3: Hellboy decides to ignore his destiny...again. He runs afoul of one of the Devils (I can't remember which one is which) and gives the Babba Yagga a receipt. Also, the worst thing that could possibly happen happens. I love Hellboy.

"Meta 4" #2: Hey, it's the new Ted McKeever series. But I missed issue 1. Damnit. Anyway, it's McKeever, so it's odd and makes little sense. There's a gun toting aviator chick, an amnesiac astronaut, and a buff, bald, female tattoo artist who can't talk. So, yeah. I'm in.

"Batman" #702: Basically this is a flashback to Batman's trial by death during "Final Crisis". Not much new, but the prose is cool, and the concept that Darkseid's bullet is the "Primordial Bullet" is pure Morrison.

"Batman & Robin" #14: Everything goes straight to Hell. The Joker turns the tables on Robin, Black Mask unveils his master plan, Batman is betrayed, and Professor Pyg gets really, really, really freaky. Kinda hard to follow, but still pretty darn awesome. I can't wait for this series to wrap up so I can re-read the whole thing.

"THB: Comics from Mars" #2: This is a comic that Paul Pope released as an exclusive at the Baltimore Comicon. The publisher, AdHouse Books, was selling leftover copies on their website. If you're a die hard Pope fan like I am, then you might wanna get over to AdHouse's website before they sell out. Anyway, this book is a lovely little bit of novelty featuring an auto-bio story, a bizarre space story, an odd take on Tom and Jerry, some random stuff, and, most importantly, an installment of Pope's surreal superhero story, the Masked Karimba. Glad I ordered it. Trying to fight the urge to steal liberally from this book, which is what happens every time I read a Paul Pope anything. The dude is just too good.

"One Piece" Chapters 561-564: The War between the Whitebeard Pirates and the Navy continues. Luffy has the bad luck of having to fight Hawkeye Mihawk, the World's Greatest Swordsman. Luffy finds a rather ridiculous method of not getting cut up. Meanwhile, Whitebeard is betrayed in the worst possible way, and the Navy springs their trap. The only thing that sucks about this comic is that I've gotta wait another month before the next installment. Kahhhhhnnnn!!!!!

New TV starts soon. Looking forward to "Boardwalk Empire" and the return of Steve Buschemi.

I should start working on stuff.