Ah, Search Engine Terms! Welcome back, fuckers! And guys, we have a cause for concern. You see, someone in this world needs buttcheeks. Who is the darkened and unkind god that has given someone life without providing them with some bum bubbles? Seriously!

Yep, someone searched “I need buttcheeks”, and Omega Level came up. Oh yeah, they also typed:

Bayonetta Fuck

Lightning Naked FF13

And!

Measuring Cock

Perhaps someone needs buttcheeks, to measure a cock? It seems the only logical conclusion, and way to measure a cock. Someone out there in Omega Land, help this poor guy or gal out.

Ah, thank goodness it is the end of 2009. What a shitty year! Oh my god! Yeah, it was rough. Naw, it was pretty cool. For a second straight year, my girlfriend didn’t dump me. My sophomore year of sexual intercourse went flowingly. There’s probably a pun there. I graduated from college. Pepsibones Krueger then was like, hey, you graduated college, I’ll do it too. With a 4.0. He’s a braggart and a show-off. I began writing for Mishka Bloglin. God love them, they let me fill them with my waste. And then I was like, hey, Pepsibones, let’s get going on our blog. We need money for caffeine and firearms.

He nodded, and was like, awesome.

There were a shitload of good movies and comic books and video games. All of which I cannot remember well. I think 2009 may go down as the year that my brain decay began to accelerate at warp-drive like speeds. Without researching, and under the acknowledgment that most of what I like is the same pop-medium bullshit that I spend most of my time deriding.

I dug the hell out of the various things across a squad of mediums, and I’m sure I’m going to willfully forget and not name some: The new albums by Dredg, Baroness, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, Lamb of God, Kid Cudi, Jay-Z, MC Esoteric, Every Time I Die, Wale, Mos Def, Devin Townsend, Skeletonwitch, and other shitty pop.

I played the shit out of Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2, a belated playthrough of 2008’s Dead Space, Borderlands, Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, Assassin’s Creed II, New Super Mario Bros. II, Resident Evil 5, another belated playthrough in Fallout 3, and of course too many hours of World of Warcraft.

Doing rough math, and under-estimating by a ton, and not counting dinners and lunches out, I probably consumed a shit load of Diet Mountain Dew. Let’s say I drink six cans of 12 oz a piece daily. This is way understimating. And two 20 oz bottles. 6 x 12 = 72. 2 x 20 = 40. 40 + 72 = 112. 112 x 365 = 40, 880. And again, I’m under appreciating how much I drink. 40,880 ounces of soda. Jesus Christ. And I wonder why I can’t remember…I can’t remember what I can’t…Remember?

Comic books! Alright, just the nerdy, capes and lasers kind! Fuck yes! If you didn’t read Old Man Logan, Captain America: Reborn, Brubaker’s run on Daredevil and Captain America, Millar’s run on Fantastic Four, Diggle’s run on Daredevil, Morrison’s run on Batman and Robin, pretty much anything Geoff Johns wrote, Ellis’ ending of Planetary, and his Ignition City and like, one issue of Doktor Sleepless, Hickman’s Fantastic Four, Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man, and again, a ton of shit I am forgetting, check them out!

I saw a ton of movies, and also missed a ton. A big fuck you! to me for missing: Up, The Hurt Locker, Moon, A Single Man, An Education, Food Inc, and Where the Wild Things Are. I suck, and any attempt at a list of best movies of year by yours truly would be retarded. But these are the movies I enjoyed! First and foremost, Inglourious Basterds. Fave shit I’ve seen. Then there’s Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Crank 2, Gamer – yes, both of those. Retarded, hyperreality mindfucks, okay?! Avatar, I Love You Man, Adventure Land, Zombieland, Drag Me to Hell, Paranormal Activity, Bruno, G.I Joe: Rise of Cobra, no seriously, get drunk and or use your drug of choice and laugh at it with a friend, District 9 and uh, I think that may be it.

That’s a lot of fucking movie money.

Big-Ups to Texas Roadhouse for giving away free peanuts, to everyone who came to my graduation party. A double high-five to the New York Comicon, site of drunken watertower climbing and expensive bottles of wine.

Concerts by people I should remember but can’t like uh, Opeth, Dream Theater, two servings of Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, In Flames, and Queensryche – it was like watching the cool kids from 1986 dry-hump.

I finally finished The Brothers Karamzov, I finally finished the finger-painting of Ronald McDonald I’d been working on, and I’d finally failed, yet again, at actually eating healthy. Peanut Butter sandwiches at 2 am are awesome, but even moreso if you’ve just finished an entire bag of Tostitos and salsa. Don’t judge me.

Here’s to another year of mindrot and skullfuck.

About two weeks ago I received my grades for the final classes I would ever take as an undergraduate student. College, at least until I get sucked into grad school, is officially over. While I believed in my ability to finish, I guess I never really thought I’d see the day when I would. After all, maulings are on the rise.

In addition to double-majoring in Literature & Secondary Education, the last four (and a half) years saw me doing all sorts of wacky shit:

I wrote a novella.

I traveled around the country with my best friends.

I went to Orlando with Mrs. Krueger. Twice.

I worked at a coffee shop, afterschool program, emergency room, restaurant, day camp, resource center and a video store.

I scripted a comic book, found an artist to illustrate it, and then lost touch with the artist…twice.

I tried my hand at teaching and have realized that I enjoy it as a “for now” job, but hope to parlay my skills into the collegiate setting.

I finally started a blog with my brother.

Without reservation, I can state that I have changed more during my college years than any other period in my life. And knowing this, I planned my personal graduation celebration accordingly. For nearly two years, I’ve purposely refrained from watching my favorite movie of all time. As an avid-believer in the value of delayed gratification, I knew that waiting until I finished college to watch this flick would help recapture some of the magic that made me fall in love with it in the first place.

So tonight, I’m watching the theatrical cut of Star Wars and sipping on Sam Adams Utopias.

God damn, this feels good.

Omega Level has been a safe haven for fucked up people who like Bayonetta and want to see her analized for awhile now. Glancing at the Search Engine Terms today, I was horrified/engladened (my word) to see that people are 1) Typing Bayonetta Scat into a search engine, and also that our site is turning up.

Also, props to a dude who is curious about Thunderock. I don’t even know where I typed that, but I apologize anyways.

For the past month or so, Caffeine Powered has been presenting Variant Covers, a weekly feature that previews some of the more notable comic releases of the upcoming Wednesday. Starting this week, I am going to begin offering Images & Words, a complementary post that essentially tells you about my favorite comic of the week.

So to clarify:

Variant Covers — Caffeine Powered tells you which comics to look for.

Images & Words — Pepsibones rants about his favorite release of the week.

Get ready for some magic! (“Illusions, Michael, illusions…”)

Just as Caffeine Powered told you on Tuesday, some big titles have dropped this week. Jonathan Hickman continues his excellent run on Fantastic Four by starting a new arc that centers on Franklin Richards; Geoff Johns and Ed Benes remind us that Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner aren’t the only worthy ring-bearers of the DCU in   Green Lantern #49; and one-shot Captain America — Who Will Wield the Shield is less of a cash-grab and more of a genuine exploration of the new relationship between Steve Rogers and James Buchanan.

While I don’t feel as though I’ve wasted any cash this week (which is a rare thing in the life of a comic nerd), one collection of images and words stands a step all of the aforementioned titles: Detective Comics #860.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up, Detective Comics has been helmed by Batwoman since Bruce Wayne bit the dust. Long story short — Batwoman is Kate Kane, a Jewish lesbian with special ops training, a father with connections in the military, and an insanely rich stepmother who ostensibly funds the vigilantism without even knowing it. Yeah, I know that the description makes the character simultaneously seem like a bit of a stretch as well as a disingenuous attempt to insert diversity into comic books. To be honest I don’t have any investment in the idea or concept of Batwoman, but the collaboration between Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III  has kept  me coming back for more.

Story wise, Greg Rucka has been using Detective Comics to present the compelling mysteries and tales of crime for which he has come to be known. This latest issue, the third part of an arc titled Go, features flashbacks in which the reader sees Kate Kane trying to cut her teeth in the crime-fighting biz. In the process, Kate has to deal with ex-girlfriend/DCU fan-favorite Renee Montoya and eventually come to accept the assistance of her father. The narrative then takes us to present day, in which Kate is trying to deal with the fact that her long-lost twin may actually be a villain named Alice.

Again, as I type this shit out, I realize how terrible and played-out it seems. Maybe it is. But even if you find nothing worthwhile about the story itself, you’d have to be a fool to not recognize the beauty that is J.H. Williams III’s paneled page.

At the very least, any comics reader should respect the way in which Williams structures his panels. On some pages, such as during flashbacks, Williams sticks to the familiar, rectangular panel layouts we’ve all come to know and love. However, the artist really shines when he takes a path less traveled; for example, the panels often compose smaller segments of a Bat-symbol that spreads across the entire page. Something so simple as putting the story within subdivisions of a larger visual whole really pays off.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that Dave Stewart is the colorist for Detective Comics. He’s  the man — if you ever get the chance, check out his phenomenal work on Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier.

Detective Comics #860 isn’t a classic single issue and a year from now I’ll probably be completely incapable of telling you what it’s about. But as far this week is concerned, it is an exemplary combination of images and words, visual narrative and solid storytelling. If you cash in your Slurpee cup filled with spare change and it totals four bucks, go splurge on Detective Comics.

Paul Pope is not only an amazing comics-creator, but a true inspiration and one of my personal heroes. I admire Pope because of his ability to swoop into the world of comic books to deliver amazing stories  & fresh perspectives, and then stage an exit before falling victim to the pitfalls of the medium. I don’t know much about the technical aspects of illustration, but I know that every single panel of Pope’s work I’ve ever seen feels authentic/genuine/as though the man is incapable of phoning it in.

Although he’s  spun some of great  yarns about franchise-characters  , he understands that they fulfill a certain role. In an interview to address his exhibition at the Art Directors Club in New York City, Pope offered the following:

“They periodically kill off Superman or Captain America or Batman, then according to [formula], they resurrect them again. I don’t follow continuity comics unless a really amazing cartoonist is drawing the story, an Eduardo Risso or a Frank Quietly or a John Cassaday or a Steve Rude. I think superheroes represent themes rather than function as true characters in any literary sense. Because in real life and in literature, people and characters make choices and have a destiny, and must necessarily change–maybe for the better or the worse– but they are substantively different from the person they were at the beginning of the story. The superheroes don’t change, the guardians of the franchise don’t want to change them, and the audience probably doesn’t want it either.”

So although I enjoy the hell out of Batman Year 100 (which, roughly speaking, reads to me as a cross between the Batman mythos and a Bladerunner-styled technofuture), Pope’s original works are the creations to which I am most drawn. For an amazing testament to the power of sequential art, I strongly recommend 100%. Despite being a bit of a cynic, this book makes me believe in the value of love and art and trying to make the most out of a life that often seems utterly insignificant. And while this all sounds great in theory, Pope’s execution is nothing short of perfection.

As a student of narrative, there’s been many a night in which I’ve asked myself, “What’s the fucking point of this stuff? Why should I even bother concerning myself with the past? What can fiction do for the world?” The best answer I’ve ever received comes on the eighteenth page of Pulphope, Pope’s collection of art and essays:

“When I need my own mirror of men and angels, I too turn to hear the voices of the dead. Without even having faith in mystics, I too turn to take my cue from dead mystics. When I need voices, I turn to Emerson and Thoreau. Their Transcendentalism rings a bit hollow to me (I am no Platonist), but their words still ring clear and true. I turn to the dour civics of Confucius and the clear-eyed cynicism of Machiavelli. The life-embrace of Epicurus. I turn to the dreamtime of Jung and the pastorality of Tolkein. And to others. These poets and philosophers are the whispering dead I hear, pointing the way to the road which leads out of this inferno. These are the dead on the roof with me, these are my Virgils. They point their parchment fingers toward the arc of the heavens, helping make sense of a meaningless rising moon and a mute and dumb setting sun.”

Today, the mailman dropped off a limited edition Paul Pope print from the folks at Nakatomi Inc. The one-sheet is a tribute to Guido Crepax, an Italian comics artist of yesteryear whose work is (apparently) marked by sexually-charged female figures. The 13×19 variant features babes, motorcycles, and a shootout; in other words, it’s dope.

I couldn’t be happier with this print. Beautiful in its own right, I’m going to hang it with the added satisfaction of knowing that I possess a limited edition poster created by comic books’ most inspirational, if not underappreciated, artists.

I don’t have much hope — but I have Pulphope.

Last week it was suggested to me:

I think once a week you should post an obscure picture from FFXIII and we try to guess what the fuck is going on.

Well, here we fucking go! I dig this picture, because I dig Snow. I dig Snow in the way that I dig people I want to make love to. That is…I want to make love to him. Now, I know he’s not real. And I know it will never happen. But I know that this also makes me much like Kierkegaard’s Knight of Infinite Resignation. And frankly, anything I can do to make myself much like anything involving my existential heroes, I’ll undertake.

So I continue on my path, knowing that I will never make love to Snow. But I will never relinquish said dreams, for I will continue to envision a day when polygon and man can come together, united in their love.

Oh wait, I’m supposed to guess what’s going on?

I’m not really sure. But if I had to guess, Snow and Lightning are about to kick some fucking ass. You can tell Lightning is serious, because her arms are crossed. Which means that she’s silent and brooding and she wants to elbow drop someone. Meanwhile, Snow is pretending he’s Zell, or Dash, and he’s ready to unleash some fucking monk fury on an unsuspecting ass.

Who is he fighting?

Clearly Santa Claus.

I don’t know what I’ve started with my Bayonetta madness. But now people are finding us through “i wanna bury my face in bayonetta’s ass”. Is this an pinnacle, a nadir, or both?

So, I was Google Image Searching today under the term “Midol”. You see, I was being mature and wanted to insult a friend on a forum because I was teasing that he didn’t dig shit. So I implied he had his period! Get it?! I’m so witty. And then I found this advertisement. It’s amazing. Just bask in it. Drink that shit in. Not the placenta though. Run from that. Quickly.

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