Alright my friends, here’s the deal. It’s a goddamn insane week in the world of funny books. The sort of pull-list enormity that threatens to bum rush my wallet and leave it groaning in a corner somewhere. Pleased, but exhausted. And slightly stretched. So instead of my usual jibjab where I blather on and on and on about one or two titles, I’m giving you the rundown on everything I’m going to check out. Each little description will be condensed, but oh my the quantity! And the cute little pictures to go with them! Buckle up, and gaze into the abyss that is my theoretical pull list.

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Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5
The second to last issue of Grant Morrison’s mind-raping exploration of Bruce Wayne throughout the time stream ships tomorrow. It feels like forever since we last saw Brucey tripping the light fantastic through the various eras of Gotham’s history. Morrison has sewn the Batman inextricably into the fabric of the last five-hundred years or whatever of Gotham, as his time-traveling self set up the exact events that will make him don the cowl all those years later.

This issue gives us Batman the noir detective, which makes almost too much sense. Here’s hoping we’re shown more of Wayne as the Bioorganic Archivist at the imminent heat death of the universe that we saw a couple of issues ago. Yup, I don’t know what that means, but I sure fucking like it!

Northlanders #33
Brian Wood’s epic storyline, Metal, continues to lumber on, soaked in blood and social commentary. As our mentally-deficient but admirably violent protagonist Erik continues to purge his land of Christians, it seems that there’s nothing but a bad ending coming for the dudebro. I mean, I’m not a historian, but I’m pretty sure the Christians win. Still though, the clash of cultures quite literally has been righteous to watch. One of my favorite comic books every month, because it mixes two of my favorite things: violence and social philosophy in such a clean manner.

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Casanova #4
Time-space manipulation seems firmly stapled into the collective unconscious of this generation’s creators. And I’m cool with it. The fourth part of the reissuing of Matt Fraction’s first crack at comic books apparates from a different realm onto stands this week. Again, another comic book that I look forward to each and every week. This shit is dense, but rewarding. The sort of work that I have to read only after I’ve beaten down by caffeine-fueled attention deficiency, lest I miss some of the more complicated and/or confusing plot mechanisms.

Incestuously-overtoned James Bond skipping across dimensions? Sold.

As well, Fraction’s musing at the back of every issue are worth the price of admission for me. Last issue showed us an open Fraction spouting off on his past addictions, and the anxiety of learning to write whilst refraining for indulging in some mind-alteration. Since Fraction is a writer that I not only enjoy, but look up to, I appreciate getting a mainline into something resembling his more intimate thoughts.

Harlan Ellison’s Phoenix Without Ashes #3
Make no mistake about it, Harlan Ellison is the man. The gentleman who has literally sculpted science fiction through his life is dying, and the world is about to become a lesser place in some respects. Phoenix Without Ashes is coming out as his life swoons, as he mentioned back in September that he was suffering, and it wasn’t long until he would shed the mortal coil. Dude still rolled up to MadCon, declaring that he was going to go out like a motherfucker.

Spine-tingling respect for a creator who I have never indulged much in directly, but whose works have shaped many creators I have a raging passion for.

I need to get into more Ellison, and Phoenix Without Ashes is my introductory experience. The main character flees the constrictive society he was born into, only to discover the town is secretly housed within some sort of orbiting space station. Last issue’s ending was the sort of pants-shitting that I got at the end of Dark City, where a fleeing character stares into the deep abyss of space.

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Source: Super Punch

Fucking Cylon Terminators. I knew it. I just knew it. They be lurkin’, they be hidin’. It’s only a matter of time, guys.

There was a moment in last night’s episode of Dexter where Boyd was rocking out with his shirt open and his sick ass yokel mustache riding the damp Miami wind when everything became clear to me. The power of Boyd had distilled the universe into a simple message I could comprehend: via the power of some sick facial pubes, and a backwards hat, existence was mine! I could take it!

Seriously though, I loved the fuck out of Boyd. He was such a ridiculous change of pace that I had to tip my cap to him. Dexter had to ruin my torrid dong-sloshing for Boyd though. He had to get all high and mighty. Really, Dexter, Boyd deserved to die? I noticed that Harry said Boyd was your first kill since…”You know.” No really, I don’t.

‘Cause I seem to recall the piece of refuse you bludgeoned to death with an anchor. Doesn’t that guy count, at all?

Dexter seems to get shittier and his shittier in his execution of his executions. The dude has gone from some high proficiency slayer into a wielder of dumb assery. Remember in the first couple of seasons when he pulled off everything with aplomb? Those were the good ole days.

Dexter dude, have to heed the code, yo! Or some piece of shit is going to bring you down.

Like Quinn!

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[This! Is! Mad Men! is a recap of the newest developments of Don Draper and his lovable gang of capitalist sleazeballs. Sometimes it’s liveblogged, sometimes not. In the spirit of the show, the post itself will often be sexist and drunk. Apologies ahead of time.]

It’s no secret that Mad Men is filled with flawed characters. From the very first episode, this show has taken the viewers through the ups and downs of some of Madison Avenue’s most promising advertisers. While these trials and tribulations are entertaining in and of themselves, it is more interesting to search for the motivations. What is the impetus that makes [name a character] behave this way? Why are these individuals so incapable of veering away from self destruction?

Tonight, I think Blowing Smoke might have delivered an answer: addiction.

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It goes without saying that OL is unabashedly in favor of superheroes. Both Caffeine Powered and I spend a frightening amount of time reading, writing, and talking about caped justice. But can you blame us? The prototypical superhero is damn full of qualities that most of us wish we could possess – a set of unusual skills/powers, a secret identity, an amazing wardrobe, independent wealth, talented friends, and a sick house.

Even the lamest superhero is cool.

Which brings me to my current point. While there are thousands and thousands of superheroes in existence, the same names are brought to forefront time and again. Who hasn’t heard of Superman or Wolverine? Answer: Nobody.   This isn’t a case of the cream rising to the top, but of *certain* companies being able toss more cash at the marketing of their heroes. Since Marvel and DC have a stranglehold on the comics industry, they have better chances of ensuring that their new characters (i.e. products) become recognizable (i.e. purchasable).

So what does this mean? It means that I am going to guide you through five of the Best Worst Superheroes – characters that were never given the recognition they deserve.

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Jesus Christ, fucking aliens are real! How do I know? How don’t I know, broseph. Take in point the recent unveiling that NASA had photoshopped Saturn’s moons. What are they hiding? The god damn V fleet and its lumbrous, methodical march towards us, to eliminate us and rape us with their fucking reptile cocks and vaginas!

io9:

A conspiracy theorist noticed that an image in NASA’s Astronomy Picture Of The Day had noticeable Photoshop brushstrokes in it, when you turned up the contrast. Is there a mysterious object hiding near Saturn’s moons?

A YouTube user named DominatorPS3 turned up the contrast on the image, and discovered brush strokes. You can just about see a “rainbow aura” around the object that’s been blacked out.

DominatorPS3 said: “More solid proof of NASA/ government cover-ups. And this is recent. You can do this yourself!!” Dominator PS3’s tell-all YouTube video has been taken down, allegedly because he received death threats. But he’s put up a follow-up video, which you can watch here

The truth is fucking out there, yo! Good job to Lies Assassin DominatorPS3 for their exposing of the Truth Killers over at NASA! With a name like DominatorPS3, you pretty much know this person is fucking legit. Who wouldn’t believe this person? A fascist pig from NASA, Emily Lakdawalla, tried to explain their covering up of Eradication Army X:

io9 via planetary.org:

Cassini takes color pictures by snapping three sequential photos through red, green, and blue filters. In the time that separated the three frames, Dione moved, so if I did a simple color composite I would be able to make Titan look right, but not Dione; or Dione look right, but not Titan. So I aligned Dione, cut it out, and then aligned Titan, and then had to account for the missing bits of shadow where the bits of Dione had been in two of the three channels.

As if I was going to believe that shit! Nice try Emily, if that’s even your fucking name! For all I know, you’re probably an alien plant, working from within the government. Pfft. You may trick the proles, but I ain’t falling for that shit. Neither are the legions of Veracity Warriors that I roll with!

To arms!

Rafael Grampa is a gahdamn stud. While he hasn’t had too many releases in the States, the shit that has dropped has been spectacular, astonishing, amazing, sensational, fantastic, and uncanny (hrm…I can’t think of any DC titles with modifiers).

This trend looks to continue with Strange Tales 2. Grampá describes his contribution to the anthology in the following terms:

Here is two of the eight page story that I did for the Marvel’s anthology STRANGE TALES II. It is the main story of VOL. II and I have to say that I’m really proud of it. I did the script, art and colors — a tentative for a new vision for the palette of the 80′s comics. It is a “mutant wrestler” story (could be cool if it was a genre, huh?), very violent and “sweet” at the same time.

[Furrywater]

Strange Tales 2 hits stores 10/13/2010.

Source: ~duster132 via Gamefreaks

College Humor brings an amazing representation of the Jersey Shore as an old school RPG. Fucking amazing. Jersey Shore is the future, Final Fantasy IV is the past. When the two worlds collide, time and space ripple momentarily, before embracing the awesomeness that is the contradiction.

Hit the jump to check out the video, skank.

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We all know the print medium is dying. We all know that comic book sales have been sagging lately. Grandma titties sagging. What can the two brutes on the block do to attempt to stimulate the market? Well, they’ve wised the fuck up and rolled back prices on their comics from $3.99 to $2.99 on a lot of their shit.

Good.

With digital sales of Ultimate Thor #1 almost fucking matching the print copies, they need to do something to put more of us, the great unwashed, back into comic book stores. Slashing prices is a start, though I think ultimately it won’t be enough. The leaf is dying, the bits and bytes reigning supreme more and more. But hey, it makes me happy.