Amidst a general sense of post-gym stank and a pile of funny books among my computer desk rubble, I bring to thee this week’s edition of Variant Covers. This week is a welcome respite to my wallet-rapery, the line looking a little thin, but I welcome it. After knuckling down and crushing most of my backlog since you’ve last been corrupted by my interwebs babbling, I’m finally caught up on the various titles I read. As always, these are the comics that caught my eyes, and as us fanboys are bound by various eccentricities and allegiances, I suspect your pull-list may be vastly different. I welcome it, and hope you drop your comic purchases in the comment box.

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Thor: The Mighty Avenger #3
Roger Langridge and Christopher Samnee are putting together something special on this rather unassuming title. I caught wind of it a couple of months ago, and was finally able to put the first two issues in my grimy paws last week. It’s legit, yo. As Marvel is understandably ramping up the amount of Thor titles on the market in lieu of his movie droppin’ next year, it’s awesome to see they’re filling these titles with writers and artists that are talented as funk.

Langridge is telling the origin story of our Strapping Young Lad of Thunder with an elegant simplicity. You walk through the still-new realm of Midgard with Thor, as he comes to grips with the notion that he has been banished by Poppa Odin. And god dammit, the way it is told is simply fun. Not enough comics can just grab you and take you on (what is thus far) a light-hearted romp. I don’t want to call it a simple tale, since it is written in a way that can convey some really deep mythology and strife in a way that’s accessible and enjoyable like woah. We have enough angst and existential brooding in our comics, and fuck if i don’t enjoy it. But this comic is a nice reprieve from the rain that drizzles on so many comic book characters’ miserable existences.

Not to be forgotten are Samnee’s pencils which echo the simple attractiveness of the plot. I haven’t been aquainted with Samnee before, but I’ve already fallen in love with his crisp, cartoony drawings, and his clean use of panels.

Langridge and Samnee are telling an extremely enjoyable tale with a clarity in plot and visuals that is far too exceptional in the shit I read.

Dig on it.

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You have to hand it to the fucking Japanese. They’re like a land of Roman Polanskis. Their latest amazing exercise in quasi-perverosity is a Droid app that uses the thought of humping barely-legal anime chicks to get you fit.

Kotaku:

Android app “Issho ni Training” (Training Together) features a 16-year-old anime lady named Hinako in skimpy clothes exercising. The app encourages folks to work out in tandem with the anime lady and even tracks their progress through an array of sit-ups, push-ups and squats.

It’s fucking remarkable, yo. It’s really eerie though, too. You set up your cell-phone on top of a giant pillow that looks like Hinako and you hump. And hump. Yeah man, it’s blowing my fucking mind. When something strikes me as creepy, you know something is up.

Hit the jump for a fucking video of this creepiness in motion. You’ll be changed.

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God damn do I love Space Epics and Lee Adama. The thought of getting Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama) in a new Space Epic is enough to cause head-dizzying fanboy arousal. Well, Drinkwater, you better get prepared, because your dreams are about to come true.

io9 via BBC America:

With Earth no longer habitable, a group of courageous pioneers have traveled to another planet to begin again. They’ve built the town of Forthaven on Carpathia and have the unique opportunity of creating a new and better future on another planet. Led by President Tate (Liam Cunningham via Clash Of The Titans) and his core team of Stella (Hermione Norris, MI-5), Cass (Daniel Mays, Atonement) and Fleur (Amy Manson, Being Human), they’re determined to run the civilization in a democratic way, but some tough decisions in the past may prove divisive.

As the series begins, it’s a moment of incredible anticipation. Forthaven has lost all contact with Earth but the arrival of the last known transporter, with Julius Berger (Eric Mabius of Ugly Betty) on board, signals fresh hopes and dreams. But why does President Tate seem anxious about the imminent arrival of Berger and will the transporter land safely with Stella’s husband and daughter, who she heartbreakingly left behind?

Meanwhile those appointed Expeditionaries, Mitchell (Jamie Bamber, Battlestar Galactica) and Jack (Ashley Walters, Hustle), have a mission to explore the new planet and bring back vital information to the settlement. Will they find other life out there, or do they truly have the planet to themselves?

The settlers are a diverse group of individuals who left their old lives behind in extraordinary circumstances. They’ve been promised a second chance but are far away from home, friends, family and their pasts. Passionate about their jobs, confident of their ideals and optimistic about the future, they work hard to preserve what they’ve built on the planet they now call home.

Carpathia offers the possibility of redemption as the new inhabitants try to avoid the mistakes made on Earth. Inevitably they cannot escape the human pitfalls of love, greed, lust, loss, corruption and a longing for those they’ve left behind. As they continue to work and live together, they come to realize this is no ordinary planet. Is there a bigger purpose at work? Is the peace of Forthaven more fragile than they think?

I wish I could tell you how excited I am about this show. Like, really excited. I’ve been yearning for Space-Core bullshit for a while since BSG ended, and I’m hoping this show can provide solace towards the gaping, bleeding hole that was left in my heart. Or, at the very least, Jamie Bamber looking all gruff and awesome and hopefully speaking in his British accent.

Over at Boing Boing, they have the dopest article I’ve read in a long time. Insanely crazy/awesome dude Jake Adelstein is a Jewish-American reporter who spent twelve years as a crime beat reporter in Japan, and then parlayed that experience into what I understand is an excellent book. More recently, Adelstein got three yakuza to sit down and voice their impressions on Sega’s Yakuza 3. There’s hilarity and insight within.

Boing Boing:

Excerpt #1:

K: It’s like going back in time. Koma Theater is there, the pink salons, the Pronto Coffee shops, the Shinjuku Batting center, the love hotels.
S: You got your salaryman in there, the delinquent school girl and her sugar daddy, Chinese people, and even those Nigerian touts. What’s with all the fucking gaijin (foreigners) in the area anyway? It used to be just Japanese, Koreans and Chinese.
M: Don’t say gaijin. Say Gaikokujin. It’s more polite. Jake’s a gaijin.
S: Yeah, I forget sometimes. What’s with all the fucking gaikokujin in Kabukicho anyway?

Excerpt #2:

K: Kiryu is fighting all the time. He’s gotta be a fucking idiot. No yakuza is going to run around getting into fistfights like that. Especially not an executive type. He’ll wind up in jail or in the hospital or dead, maybe even whacked by his own people for being a troublemaker. These days, he’d probably get kicked out before even going to jail. Guys like that start gang wars and nobody wants that now. When a yakuza gets into a fight, it’s serious business.

Those are two clips from the entire article, which is surreal and engaging as I hope the two excerpts were. Get over to Boing Boing and check out the full-piece. Pull together an attention span that can persist for more than ninety seconds, and you’ll be rewarded. I promise.

Motherfucking Wayne Newton is going to be in Fallout: New Vegas. It wasn’t like I needed another reason to be excited for the next Wasteland Party Romp, but with the reveal of the voice acting, god dammit I have it.

Kotaku:

Newton is in the game as the disembodied voice of a radio DJ long dead. Which is a bit of a shame. You’d think that were an atomic apocalypse to strike, the only things that would survive in Las Vegas would be cockroaches and Wayne Newton. And maybe Cher,

Other actors signed to lend their vocal talents to the game include Kris Kristofferson, Felicia Day, Ron Perlman, Michael “Worf” Dorn and…Matthew Perry.

Good god damn! Wayne Newton and every nerd’s dream girl Felicia Day in the same voice acting class?

[Search Engine Terms come from an app in the Word Press dashboard. It tells you the terms that people are using in google to lead to your site. Most of ours are ultra depraved and horrible. And amusing to sick people like me.]

I remember in my senior year of high school when I was killing twelve-packs of regular Pepsi and going to Wendy’s every day, my breasts began growing. I was so confused, as my man-titties began to unfurl themselves and fill my t-shirts with he-mammaries. And I remember then, that I wished I could read a comic book about them, to explain why I was becoming a fat fuck.

Source: Most Smartest

Last night, Lane Price and Don Draper teamed up for what had to be the funniest eight minutes of Mad Men, ever.

You know what! I had some niceties written out at the beginning of this opening, but Lord Electricity butt-fucked me without consent! Not a slow one, not a kind one, a vicious butt-drubbing. There was some sort of power outage and when I returned to the Electronic Tubing Ways, everything was deleted! Deleted! I have been felled by Lord Electricity!

What the fuck would I do without Lord Electricity? I resent how I must supplicate to him, offering him all my souls and orifices. For I need him, Lord Electricity, and the power he gives us, allowing me to employ various gadgets and happenings. My lord giveth, my lord can taketh awya.

Monday Morning Commute. Every Monday I’m going to detail the various things I’m either currently or will be watching, reading, playing, and listening to in the next seven days. It’s Monday. You’ve got a long week of school, work, or compulsive masturbation to get through. Tell me what you’re diggin’ on to get through the drudgery.

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Source: Retro Star Wars

God damn, even though he’s a whiny puke and Aryan posterchild, Lukey goes far beyond the savior of the galaxy. It’s also a sexy dreamboat of barely-pubescent wunder.

Source: Super Punch

What is the perfect compliment to some outrageously sweet Star Wars sneakers? Why, only this Adidas wookie-themed jacket. In a move that is sure to piss off PETA, the jacket is crafted with the finest of wookie furs cultivated from the pillaging of Kashyyyk during the Clone Wars. My response? Who gives a shit, these things are fly, no matter how much blood was spilled to make them.

Hit the jump for more pictures of this nerd-porn jacket.

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