Final Fantasy XIII is making the rounds in the San Francisco area in the form of a swank ass tour bus this week. As if it isn’t bad enough that I’m buried in snow and gray skies here on the Left Coast, people in the land of Terminator Governing and medicinal marijuana are getting the chance to play an English demo of FFXIII. I’m god damn jealous.

The whole thing seems like a wet dream of mine come to life. Except in my dream, Snow and Lightning are like, GET IN, GET IN. So I hop into the bus, and then Snow is like “Oh hey, check out this couch” and Lightning is like “I uh, have to go update my Facebook status” and as I watch her walk off into some other compartment, Snow slowly and sensually takes off his ballin’ bandana and jacket and asks me to rub salve on his enormous pecs.

It’s sort of like that. But only you get to play Final Fantasy XIII in English two months early. Just a little cocktease, but better than nothing.

[Remember That Time On LOST is a daily post running the entire month up until the season premiere of LOST on February 2nd. I’m going to just pick something awesome, noteworthy, or ludicrous about LOST when I wake up that morning, and hopefully get you geeks talking about it with me.]

LOST started off pretty fucking creepy. I mean, before it plummeted into mundanity for the majority of the first season, they kicked the shit off with thunder. The initial crash is still one of my favorite scenes ever. Watching people walk around, completely rocked, the perpetually firing engine in the distance? C’mon, that shit is fantastic. The running around, the screaming, stupid Shannon sitting there useless as always, Jin firing off Korean you can’t translate, but probably something like “Beautiful Slave, despite the crash I require food, I shot dudes for your Dad, now I hunger!” And then there is the most iconic moment for me, which is when the dude gets sucked into said engine. Priceless.

But that creepy vibe swept through the entire two parts of the Pilot. From the initial scene, to Smokey eating the crap out of the pilot Seth Norris, to the creepy distress call that the gang pick up from the Battered Piece of Human Bark We’ve Come to Call Rousseau, the entire Pilot gave you a case of the skincrawlies! The fucking skinscrawlies!

Nothing was creepier to me than the crackling broadcast that the Cool Kids came across when they finally get the plane’s transceiver working. As Sayid turned that radio on expecting milk, cookies and a rescue party, the dude realizes that there’s another transmission being broadcast from somewhere on the Island. The intrigue! And, in case you didn’t know, it’s common knowledge that there are few things creepier than crackling recordings in foreign languages. There’s something about the foreign nature of the tongue, combined with the poor quality of the transmission that casts a foreboding feeling.

It wasn’t like I expected the receiver to actually get them help. I mean, even the daftest of douchebags had to realize they weren’t going to be saved any time soon. But I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to work at all. So when the transmission began broadcasting, I did what any asshole did. I leaned in a little closer towards the TV screen, as if that would give me the ability to hear the transmission better, and translate it.

Note: I don’t speak any French.

Thankfully for the people of the Island, and for the viewers at home, Little Ms. Hot Stuff Shannon can speak French. Of course they have to cajole her into speaking it. She’s all, no, no, I couldn’t, I can’t! And then the next thing you know she’s a fucking advertisement for the success of Rosetta Stone or some shit. Inbetween crying for no good or acceptable reason, Shannon begins to let the rest of the people around her just how fucked and doomed they are. At least it’s coming from an attractive person. If Hurley was vomit-burping up the translation stinking of Hot Pockets, I personally would have taken it a lot worse.

I’m alone now. Uhm … On the island alone. Please, someone come. The others, they’re … they’re dead. I-it killed them. I-it killed them all.

Not bad, Shannon. Not bad at all, considering it was coming through shitty reception in the middle of nowhere. I find your faux-humility to be egotistical! And preening! Fuck you!

In what could only happen in a television show, Sayid finishes doing some rough math in his head at exactly the same moment that the translated bit of gloom is beginning to register with everyone. Judging from the frequency of how often it replays and this and that and blah blah blah…FOR REASONS, he can figure this out: Hey guys! Guess the fuck what! Think all that garbled French translated into English sounds shitty? Well, it’s been running for sixteen years!

In response to this, Charlie says what everyone at home is thinking:

Guys…where are we?

Dude Charlie, guess what. It’s been six years, and absolutely no one fucking knows. None of us. Maybe you’re on a crashed Battlestar Galactica. Maybe you’re on Atlantis. We have no idea.

The distress call is clutch, because it lets everyone know that they’re not just a bunch of unlucky assholes caught on a bad flight. They’re stuck on some Island with a monster, and there are other people out there. Being murdered for reasons unknown. All of a sudden the trees in the distance look just a bit more haunting. Who the fuck knows what or who is out there.

There appears to be some serious shit going on, and your biggest problem is that you’re a Whore On The Run From The Law or you can’t find your shitty acoustic guitar. There’s a mad French woman ready to ventilate your body with bullets.

As well, it also lets them know that they can expect help to come sometime between never and you’re fucked. If this sneaky french women was marooned here sixteen years ago and the message is on repeat, then you guys are going to be there for a while too. It’s time to start partitioning out your heroin, Charlie. You’re going to have to go on to some sort of Jenny Craig diet for addicts, where you only spend so many points a day.

You fucks are LOST.

[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

As a fan of the comic book medium, it goes without saying that I have an appreciation for Alan Moore. Yes, these days Moore is recognized just as much for being a snake-worshipping lunatic as he is for being (one of) the most innovative comics writers of all time. And that’s depressing, but certainly a result of his own actions; maybe if the guy actually came out of his Northampton hideaway every now then we wouldn’t just write him off as a nutjob.

But the most important fact to remember is that when he wants to, Alan Moore  can write with the best of `em  Yeah, I’m a Watchmen zealot (file it under Best Fictional Work…Of All-Time) but I also really enjoy his work on Swamp Thing. Moore manages to take a goofy-ass plant-man and turn him into a truly horrifying creature, a green embodiment of the macabre that lives in a bog, contemplates existence, and fucks shit up from time to time.

I have no doubt in my mind that it is my admiration for Alan Moore and his  mad sensibilities that have led me to choose the Neonomicon Hornbook as this week’s pick of the litter. Some background: Neonomicon is planned as a sequel to his 2003 series The Courtyard. Apparently, both of these series are rooted in the mythos of HP Lovecraft, thereby generating instant fan-interest. To be honest, I’ve never read any Lovecraft or The Courtyard but I figured that I’d try to jump into Moore’s newest work anyways.

Luckily, the Neonomicon Hornbook seems to be a great spot to hop aboard; the comic is a preview of the upcoming series, consisting of the first nine finished pages of the series and an excerpt from Moore’s script. With a two-dollar price tag, the issue is a bargain, offering enough finished product to tantalize the reader and supplementing this with a hefty chunk of the author’s script. As per usual, even a single panel of Moore’s directions to the artist reads as an insane, yet superbly detailed, set of instructions. Mayhaps it’s the aspiring writer in me, but I’d suggest that Moore’s writing alone justifies the two-hundred cent investment.

As far as an actual plot is concerned, the Neonomicon Hornbook doesn’t give reveal much at all. What the reader can take away from this first-look is that Lamper and Brears, two federal agents (one a saucy white woman and the other a strong black male), are investigating some sort of copycat serial killer. They feel compelled to interview the original serial killer, former federal agent Aldo Sax — now incarcerated, Sax has a swastika carved into his forehead and only speaks in gibberish.

This seems like the standard crime story/mystery fare, nothing not covered years ago in The Silence of the Lambs. Except, it’s Alan Moore so you know something fucked up is going on. Oh, and I neglected to mention — the first page is a splash of some ethereal, potentially amniotic fluid with the captions;

It’s the end, and the beginning.

He’s beneath the waters now, but soon, in only a few months, he will come forth.

And until then he sleeps.

And dreams.

Kooky.

From what I can tell, artist Jacen Burrows is going to do a fine job. I’m not sure his art will be pulling in Eisners or anything, but is solid through and through. I guess I’d chalk him up as being yet another one of those “standard, reliable Avatar Press artists.” Certainly not a bad thing to be.

It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s relatively satisfying. And it won’t leave you with a painful cold sore. Snag the Neonomicon Hornbook.

[Remember That Time On LOST is a daily post running the entire month up until the season premiere of LOST on February 2nd. I’m going to just pick something awesome, noteworthy, or ludicrous about LOST when I wake up that morning, and hopefully get you geeks talking about it with me.]

It seems like a million years ago, but there was a time on LOST when Sayid spent the entire episode torturing the living shit out of Sawyer. And we’re not talking noogies, guys. We’re talking all sorts of weird shit that ultimately ended up with him stabbing Sawyer and being like, whoops, I just hit a fucking artery or something. Yeah dude, you did. And unless that greasy hair of yours can gift you magical powers of flight, you’re going to have to sit here and feel like a dick about it. Or, do what you did, and go and try and map the entire Island.

Either way, we know you’re sulking with understandable guilt. Dick.

It seemed like a weird way for the writers to go with Sayid. It was still early in the show, but they seemed to build him up initially under the irony that he was a veteran of the first Iraq war, who fought for the other side. Totally clever thing to do, right? Absolutely! I can just hear the writers pitching it to each other:

And uh, and uh! There’s a guy who bangs his own sister! Yeah! Awesome! And how about, how about there’s this guy who fought in the Iraq War except…except…it’s the first Iraq war! AND, AND, he fought FOR IRAQ.

But I won’t lie, I dug the little twist. What can I say? I’m a sucker for little twists.

But wait, then why is he torturing Sawyer?

If the whole twist is that Sayid is unique because he brings a human face to the other side of a war, why is he ganking Sawyer? That doesn’t make any sense to me. This is before Sayid was all special and destined and shit, mind you. Perhaps I shouldn’t even be wondering all of this junk, but it seems a curious character direction. They go through the sake of introducing Sayid as this nuanced guy who is supposed to provoke the viewer into questioning their idea of the other sides of war, and then they just have that guy fly off the hinge and torture some dude? Over an inhaler?

GUYS? HOW MANY EPISODES UNTIL THE SEASON FINALE? YEAH! WHERE WE BLOW UP THE HATCH? NO…NO, OF COURSE WE’RE NOT GOING TO SHOW WHAT’S IN THERE! DUH! SEVENTEEN EPISODES? HOLY SHIT! UH…HAVE THE TORTURER GUY TORTURE SOMEONE.

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe I’m missing something. I miss a lot of things. Sayid goes from being an interesting character to being a violent caricature of an Iraqi. Brilliant.

But Ian, there was a girl’s life on the line!

Yeah, maybe…I guess.

And then there’s Sawyer. The dude uses the inhaler he doesn’t have as a means to get a kiss from Kate. This is after he lets Sayid torture him for a bit. Why! Why the fuck is all of this going on? I can’t really figure out why any of this is going on in the episode. Part of me wants to be like, well, they were just showing how quickly society crumbles when they’re on an Island for some assort. You know, Lord of the Flies. I mean, they’ve been hanging out eating mangoes for like five days and now they’re torturing people over inhalers. How quickly we fall apart without rules and structure. Are you yawning? Yeah, me too.

And that’s while Jack is hanging out and letting Sawyer get the crap tortured out of him. And we all know why. He wants in with That Chick With The Square Jaw. He’s all, yeah, torture the crap out of him Sayid! GO FOR HIS PENIS. THE PENIS. Or at least he should have. If anyone wants to torture me, go for the penis. I’ll spill on all sorts of embarrassing things.

The entire episode is really odd. We have a dude torturing someone, demolishing his interesting character. We have a spoon-fed 24-esque plot of by any means necessary, we have Jack just going along it with because he wants some pussy, and we have some guy going through torture because he’s uh, tortured in the past or something.

And the best part? No one talks about it now! It’s like, a whoopsie-daisy or something. Water under the bridge! If someone tortured me and then stabbed me in a fucking artery, I wouldn’t be playing bridge with them a couple months later. No way, we would not be taking trips to Taco Bell late-night anytime soon. And I’d definitely be like, guys, stay away from that guy, if you take the last Dharma chocolate chip cookie, he’s going to fucking stab you.

But no one says anything!

Must be the hair.

Pepsibones and I are into truly weird shit. Like, odd shit that makes us feel like we’re taking the mind-altering substances we either cannot procure, or are too sissy to take. So when my friend Patrick passed along a new project he and his friend Bryan are working on, taking old VHS tapes from their library and editing them and making them generally more uncomfortable and amazing than they already are, I was like, fucking awesome. There’s a great one involving the New Kids On the Block, and a dope pizza guy with a mullet.

And then there’s the one I’m posting here.

It’s a mash-up of a Gucci Mane mixtape and the 90s German sci-i film “Bodo.” So if you’re in the market for hip-hop, or odd german sci-fi flicks on VHS, you’re in luck. It features beats, and some chick smoking and almost making out with a pre-pubescent. Why aren’t you already watching?

I showed it to my friend Brandon, who commented:

this has got to be one of the more fucked up things i’ve ever seen, which gives it that much more love

that roboto is a fucking pervert too, so i like him the best

that monkey just made me shit my pants

Well said, Brandon.

It’s weird shit, and strangely hypnotic. There’s something really creepy and odd about VHS in general, isn’t there? I mean, nothing seems dirtier and more erotic than old-school porn on a fuzzy VHS.   Check out the rest right here.

Have you seen that advertisement for Uncharted 2 where the guy is like, hey my girlfriend keeps mistaking this game for an action movie! The best way to describe Bayonetta is that it is absolutely not that sort of game. It is a post-modern, hyper-violent, super-fuck. Any loved one who stumbls across you playing Bayonetta probably think you’re watching some hallucinogenic pornography. And that’s why   Bayonetta is one of the best games I’ve played in years.

It’s apologetically insane.

I began sweating Bayonetta when I heard the premise: It’s Devil May Cry starring a gorgeous woman with glasses and a British accent. And along the way it began to be the most-hyped nerdboner explosion in the fanboy community I’ve ever seen. Emphasis on nerdboner. Because the game ejaculates sexuality, and doesn’t give a fuck if you like it or not. Cutscenes in the game find amazing ways to feature Bayonetta sucking on lollipops, flashing her ass, or zooming in on her crotch. I’ve never seen a game where the camera’s most prominent position is stuck onto a character’s leather-covered ass.

And can we talk for a moment about how Bayonetta’s crotch has got to smell with all that flipping and shooting and killing while wearing a leather bodysuit? I don’t care, I’d still hit it.

The entire game is an exercise in hyper-conscious absurdism. Bayonetta is over the top, but more importantly, Bayonetta knows that its over the top. To the point where Bayonetta drops high-fives to other games by its creator, Hideki Kamiya, from Resident Evil to Devil May Cry to Viewtiful Joe. Classic phrases from those games like “Flock off, feather face!” and “Whadya buyin?” are strewn about so the game doesn’t just jerk off your genitals but also your nerd organs too. The game smashes down the fourth wall while rubbing itself.

The storyline doesn’t matter, or at least I hope it doesn’t, because I don’t remember a lick of it. And I don’t think you’re supposed to, since the game seems quite conscious of why all the fanboys and fangirls with engorged junk-pieces are playing it: for the gameplay and absurd sexuality.

For example:

There’s a moment towards the end of the game when Bayonetta, some weird intrepid reporter named Luka, and I think what is Bayonetta’s past eight year-old self complete with librarian fuck-me glasses are riding in a helicopter towards some sort of epic confrontation. As Bayonetta vomits on and on about whatever sort of epic story is going on, Luka begins to stare at Bayonetta’s cleavage. Bayonetta’s recently rain soaked, and as she speaks, her huge, backbreaking tits are glistening. A perfectly formed droplet stops right where her nipple would be, and when Bayonetta says something like “Are you fucking listening, Luka?!”, the nipple-droplet falls off and both the player and Luka realize they didn’t give a shit about the storyline.

‘Cause it doesn’t matter, and the game knows it.

But let’s face it, all that absurdity and sexuality is fucking useless without tight gameplay. And after playing the demo back in the early winter, I was concerned this game was just going to be a Devil May Cry-clone with stunning cleavage. I kept the dark secret to myself, hoping I was fucking wrong. Thankfully, I was.

There’s no denying the game’s connection to Devil May Cry. But the game is Devil May Cry done to the zillionth degree. Fuck Devil May Cry 4, consider this the next-generation installment. Kamiya, who left Capcom to form Platinum Games carries over a lot of what made Devil May Cry awesome: the kinetic action, the ridiculous air-juggling, and retools it a bit. Snagging some shiz from his other franchise, Viewtiful Joe, Bayonetta gives you bullet-time. In Viewtiful Joe it was called Slow Viewtiful. But now you’re going to call it Witch Time. Apparently witches are in the Matrix, or at least hang out with Barry Allen.

The first couple of chapters you just fuck around and learn the combat system. You’re taught how to climax, and let’s face it, every boy should be taught how to make a chick climax. At the end of every boss battle, you have to mash two buttons together, which apparently is how you make someone climax, by mashing buttons, and then Bayonetta strips and eats things with her hair. Yeah, I have no god damn idea. Again, welcome to Bayonetta.

As the game progresses, the scope of the battles get larger and crazier, and so does the difficulty. It starts off manageable, and gets more and more difficult until the final battle had me ready to wing a controller off the wall again like I was thirteen and playing my friend Joe in X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Who the fuck just crouches and fierce punches?! SON OF A BITCH.

Unlike Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe which were both severe pains in the fucking ass, this game rocks a continuous auto-save option. So when you die, you don’t get thrown back to the beginning of the level. Instead, you’re just tea-bagged by the game at the end of the entire Chapter. That’s when you’re awarded a statue, from Stone to Platinum. And let me tell you, all those deaths you rocked? They’re shitting on you in the form of a stone statue. As if to say, you passed, but you fucking suck.

The true epicness of the game is nailed in the final battle. Turn away if you’re spoilerphobic. For it is in that fight, when you get to climax on the face of God and throw her into the sun. The game’s battles go from running along streets, to sword fights on missiles zooming through the air, to fighting the one responsible for all creation. Obviously, God is a massive stone chick with wings and enormous stone boobs. She’s insanely huge, can barely be contained on screen, and is complete with the thirty-five forms that final bosses have in every Japanese game ever.

After finishing her off, you of course, have to climax! all over her. And then? Then you throw her into the sun. Problem solved.

Bayonetta isn’t for everyone. It’s odd, it’s super-erotic, probably a bit heretical, and it isn’t the easiest game. It is a niche game, but for those within the niche, it is the greatest thing ever. You know, those who are fans of cleavage, self-aware action sequences, enormous boss battles, and chicks with glasses. If you’ve ever played Devil May Cry, or jerked off to latex porn, or done both at the same time, you’ve just found your new favorite game.

Like me.

Holy fucking shit, He has returned. After restoring my faith during the summer, the messiah that is Pepsi Throwback is once again gracing mere mortals with His presence.

For those of you who have been living under a rock (or, more appropriately, not watching the NFL Playoffs and the accompanying ads), Pepsi has made the no-brainer decision to release another limited edition batch of the Throwback. The beverage harkens back to the glory years of America, when you’d ask Michael Jackson what soda pop to drink. Oh yeah,  and back then Pepsi was made with sugar instead of the high fructose corn syrup they use on us future-dwellers. Sure, high fructose corn syrup might be cheaper to make but it isn’t nearly as tasty. So Uncle Sam can take his corn-subsidies and shove `em!

What’s that? You’re going to take a better-tasting beverage and toss it inside a sick-ass retro-can? Count me in.

I guess my only complaint is I now have no clue what to do with the can of Pepsi Throwback I saved from the original batch. Do I hold onto it indefinitely, waiting until I’m on my deathbed to crack it open? Or should I just pound it now and replace it with one of the new, better-designed cans of Throwback? Time will tell.

Go to the store now. Stock up. After the apocalypse hits, Pepsi Throwback is going to replace gold (with Mountain Dew Throwback functioning as silver).

In the post-apocalyptic market, this will buy enough gasoline to get my dune buggy to the burnt remains of Las Vegas and back again.

[Remember That Time On LOST is a daily post running the entire month up until the season premiere of LOST on February 2nd. I’m going to just pick something awesome, noteworthy, or ludicrous about LOST when I wake up that morning, and hopefully get you geeks talking about it with me.]

Hey Juliet! I like Juliet, a lot. Why, do you ask? Well, let me tell you. For starters, she’s a brilliant doctor who can speak Latin. She can handle a gun, she’s good with cars and she is headstrong. Also, she’s not a promiscuous whore like Julius Peppers With Freckles. And yes, if you really must insist: her cleavage is one of the reasons I pray to Odin every night and gave thanks for high-definition television. She is the belle of the Island, and yet everyone can’t seem to get over their dick-lust for Ole Linebacker Shoulders.

My fascination for Juliet really took off when you realize she’s some special uber-doctor recruited to mend the broken ovaries of lovely ladies on the Island. I mean, up until that point, she was just some beautiful doctor. Full of blond thunder and cavernous cleavage. But then she was recruited by the sexiest man ever, Richard Alpert, for a specific task. Make the shiznit in the ladies’ downlow on the Island start firing again. And also? This changed everything. For starters, it is the first time I can recall seeing the Others in a position of weakness.

For the longest time, they were just really creepy guys wearing beards and trying to kidnap Turniphead. They had an imposing presence. I always got the distinct impression that you didn’t fuck with these people: they were part of some traveling drama theater, complete with fake mustaches, and their equivalent of a guard dog was a ravenous Smoke Monster of doom. They had all the answers!

Except.

Except the the undercarriages of the ladies of the Others rotted at mind-blowingly fast rates. Like, really fast. Juliet checks out some wicked womb and ascertains that the woman is in her 70s. Wrong! Try 26! That’s some accelerated decrepitude. Like, Blade Runner quality rot.

It was interesting, because all of a sudden the Others didn’t seem so invincible. I mean, if they couldn’t reproduce, then what! Sure, they could keep bringing people from off the Island, but is that the answer? Wait, do they bring people from off the Island? Or is that Jacob? Or is Jacob really working with the Others? Or is that a trick?

Wait, fuck. God dammit, got myself into one of those LOST spirals. Did I mention that we don’t know anything about the show? Yeah, I think I did.

Anyways.

So the situation is really dire, you know? And Ben deploys the Right Hand of Awesome to the mainland for some recruiting. You know, the Mayor of Gotham. That’s right, Richard Alpert. He tantalizes Juliet with the possibility of working on the aforementioned rotting womb and uteral lining. Doctors are weird. If you asked me to stare at a rotting womb, I’d tell you to get the fuck out of my face. And then probably ask for the Youtube Link, but still.

The possibility gets Juliet’s own uteral regions quivering with excitement. Unfortunately, Juliet tells Alpy Pooh that she can’t because her ex-husband wouldn’t let her. I don’t know the deal with her ex-hubby, other than he is a complete douche, and also happens to be the head of the research facility where she works. What an asshole.

Alpert is all like, what would it take to get your beautiful eyes scanning the rotting wombs of our women? And Juliet comments she could totally do it if her husband was taken care of, like:

If he were hit by a bus, how ’bout that, that would work.

And you’re like, haha! So cheeky, Juliet. I knew you were beautiful and intelligent, but your wit! Oh, acerbic and dark! Marry me! I’ll print your picture out and keep it my boxer briefs! That’s right, I wear boxer briefs! You think that’s sexy? Yeah, me too. It hugs my bum, but it also shows off my gorgeous quadriceps. Oh Juliet!

And then the next day? That unappreciative dickbag that was her ex-husband but now is a pile of mush on the pavement gets mowed down by a bus. While bitching out Juliet, no less. Karmic karate kick a-go-go, baby!

I mean, Alpert and Ben really wanted Juliet. To the point of using some sort of voodoo to smash a bus into her meddling ex-husband. That’s true ultimate power. And also, it speaks to either their desperation or their coldness. Ultimately you find out that Juliet is taken to the Island, which turns out to be a little different than a remote facility. Because instead of doing research at a facility she’s stuck on an Island with deities and pissed off balls of smoke and hobbits. Talk about getting screwed on a deal.

It’s an interesting moment, because they realize the Others, or whoever the fuck the ragtag gang being led by Ben truly are, are not omnipotent. Or even really cool. As Ben lies in the hands of Jack who has to salvage his rotting spine – ironic that such a little shit has a broken spine – we’re shown the recruiting of Juliet to save the vaginas of the fairer sex populating the Island.

[variant covers is a comic books column every tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world of hyper-exposition and immortality]

Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Music Box #2

Don’t worry guys, the comic book industry is saved from the precipice of doom. You see, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Music Box comes out this week, and Jesus Christ, I can’t wait. As I scanned across a barren release list – as usual, your recommendations welcome, I’m comic-curious – I saw this gem. Beckoning to me from across the wasteland. Ian it said. Hold me. Buy me. Love me. I am Jennifer Love Hewtti’s Vaginal…er, Music Box, and I’m here to pleasure your geek senses.

Alright fuck that, what the hell is going on?

The Music Box brings us a unique and amazing story every issue, from time-traveling to chicks kissing guys judging from this cover. I read up on some interviews with Love Hewitt regarding the comic, and this is what I distilled from them: Blah blah, yadda yadda, my name is carrying the title while I still go out with David Spade or whoever.

Not only is the most absurd comic book I’ve seen this side of Tyrese’s Mayhem! comic book, but it also features a relic from my comic book past: Scott Lobdell. Nerds like me grew up on a steady diet of X-Men comic books, and the dude manning the helm was Mr. Lobdell. While I did due diligence and gobbled up the glorious years by Claremont, it was Lobdell who was responsible for the new issues coming out every month. And now? Now the dude is writing a comic that was vomited out of the empty shell of Hewitt’s skull.

How my heroes have fallen. Sure, when I went back and looked at Lobdell’s run on X-Men it was filled with hyper-exposition, countless hanging plot lines, and general blah, but I have a nostalgic love for the guy. He gave me Onslaught, the Age of Apocalypse, and is a big part of the reason I even fell in love with the funny book. I love you Scotty, come back to us.

Action Comics #885

I don’t have any clue what is going on with Action Comics at the moment, but reading through the promo, it says that Nightwing is in the title. What the fuck is going on here? Are we going to get to the point where there’s two Bruce Waynes, Nightwing as Batman, and Nightwing as Nightwing? Or something? I have no fucking clue what’s going on. Dil-Hole is stepping into Superman’s shoes while he is being prosecuted for killing someone, Nightwing is running around while Dick Grayson is Batman and uh, stuff?

Brightest Day

Not coming out tomorrow, but worth mentioning in the comic book world is BRIGHTEST DAY. DC is unveiling their next step in Operation: Fuck Your Wallet. Following up Blackest Night is a biweekly, 26-issue title written by Geoff Johns.   With a gag-worthy tagline, “After the Blackest Night, comes the Brightest Day!”, DC seems ready to drag their universe into something decidedly less depressing. I’m down with that. Listen man, we got enough shit going down in the real world – like Jennifer Love Hewitt writing comics and Conan O’Brien getting axed. Let’s get some happy fluffy bullshit going on in the DC universe.

However, anything that comes out weekly, or biweekly really fucks your wallet in the ass. And I haven’t been a fan of all of   DC’s other attempts at an enormous weekly comic, be it Trinity, or 52, or Money Grab or whatever they’re called. Wednesday Comics was decent, but it was more of an experiment than the aforementioned 52 and gang.

Die Hard Year One #4

Friends, your prayers have been answered. How many times during Live Free or Die Hard did you say to yourself, “Fuck, I really wish I could get the story behind the formative years of the American Hero John McClane!” Well, now you can! Straight off the alps of Awesomeness and into your pull list is Die Hard Year One! And this week issue #4 sees the epic conclusion to the first arc! John McClane is stuck on a luxury boat that has been targeted by ecoterrorists! Oh. Snap. Not 1980’s ecoterrorists! I bet they’re dumping a shit load of those old school styrofoam McDonald’s packaging into the ocean! They must be stopped! If there’s one thing that John McClane hates more than having to hop harrier jets, it fascists that don’t respect the environment!

They’re so fucked!

Via Kotaku:

As seen outside the subway station one stop past Kotaku’s NYC office

Amidst the smell of piss and homeless person, awesome emerges in the form of Mass Effect 2 wall ads.