Long Box Extraction: Nextwave

One thing I wanted to start doing "little" blogs on when I got really set on talking more about comics in my free time were sort of "catch ups" on some of those series that are in full swing but you don't really here much about. Y'know, the WASTELANDS and FEAR AGENTS and so on's out there. Recently though I was redoing my collection, putting away about three long boxes of issues I had sitting out of line with the rest of the stuff in my bedroom that is a testament to the joke that is my sex life, and as I was putting integrating all these new books in with the old, I couldn't help but be compelled to start pulling out all these wonderful titles I haven't read in ages, or never got back to once they finished. It took me about an hour and a half to get all this junk settled, but once I was done I had a full longer of material in there of what I just mentioned, old runs I just haven't read in forever, some series that had ended not too long ago and I never had a chance to go over them again in a sitting or however many, or titles like I mentioned above that are going on right now and I want to re-season the old brainmeat with. ..


...Basically that was a giant expository ramble for me to say "I'm going to be rereading a bunch of shit in my comic book collection and talking about them." I don't know why I feel the urge to drag people along with my gibberish, I just do.


So, as you can see, the first set of issues of the near 300 I pulled to go back over was Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen's NEXTWAVE, a book that I absolutely adored when it was out and did something like four reviews on for the AICN site. There are titles I've been reading for the entire three+ years I've been doing reviews for there I haven't even reviewed for the quatro, let alone something that was only a dozen on the nose. I couldn't help but be a whore for the book though; it was unbelievably under-read and since I had that fabled "Power of the Press" I just had to speak up on its behalf. It was such a wonderful ride in the sense that it made your brain wonder just what the fuck was going on but at the same time your nuts (or female equivalent) hurt from laughing so hard at the said shenanigans. And going on near two years after it's unfortunate end, it's still damn near as funny.


Admittedly, I do think the overall tone of the book has worn a little bit. I think the rise of technology and social networking and sites like this one and the fact that several times a day ever since I've pretty much had Mr. Ellis talking in my ear with his Tweets and Mailing Lists and lord knows what fucking else he's wired into on my computer and phone, have kind of dulled his more extravagantly bugfuck crazy sense of humor on my tastes. Don't get me wrong, that British bastard still knows how to get me to burst out with those out of place HA!'s when I'm at work and a Twitter about god knows what comes to me via text, but the "My Robot brain needs beer" line and stuff like that has kind of worn a little thin.


Cable talking about "Techno-Organic Prolapse" and calling Boom Boom "X-Bait" though? Fucking amazing.


I still loved pretty much everything about the book though. The cast he assembled from pre-existing characters and his own creations in The Captain and Dirk fucking Anger (and you know a character is awesome when you feel obligated to insert the f-bomb as his middle name). The random emergence of other established Marvel characters for the gags was always impeccable too. From Fin Fang Foom trying to put people in his pants to the Celestials calling Machine Man @#$% to goddamn Forbush Man and his special, uh, Forbush powers? - it was all perfect. For someone who probably couldn't tell you more than five books the company produces, Ellis sure knew how to use some of these characters and creatures for a big gag. And I could go extolling praise for Dirk Anger alone, but anyone who read the book knows pretty much how much of The Man he was...


And the book looked gorgeous too. It damn well better have since apparently it's the combination of Immonen's pay grade and the inexcusably low sales of the book that caused it to go into hiatus I guess, but at this point I don't ever see it coming back. Without either one of these two on it, there's no point, and I didn't mean to sound like I was pointing a finger at Immonen, I was cracking wise there, but I still can't help but wonder what the fuck was going on that this thing couldn't even generate the 15K or whatever in sales to keep going. That's a different tangent though, and as I was saying, this thing looked amazing. It really had to be Immonen and his more "cartoony" and somewhat angular and highly detailed style that did this. It had just the best timing in the comic book sense to pull off all these bits while at the same time just looking breathtaking because of all the elements that composed each panel, and especially the splashes and two page spreads. All around just an amazing book to look at.


I love this book so much, I'm still crushed there hasn't been an over-sized collection of it all in one volume. It's something I'd gladly shell out the cash for and carry around with me, and the art has to look astounding with being blown up the extra couple inches. I love this so much so that I've been thinking of PM bombing Jen Grunwald via the Bendis Board with various nude photos of myself until she finally caves and pushes the project through for fear of losing her eyesight, be we all know that's more a call for a restraining order and maybe even a weekend in a holding cell than anything. There's got to be a better way to organize a rally for this though, I just am not much of a thinker past trying to scare people with my pasty manflesh. Still though, it got me that D I needed instead of the F in Business Law II in order to get my degree in college. You just never know...


So, yeah. NEXTWAVE good. Will definitely buy three copies of it if it ever comes back in hopes it'll never leave again. Next up out of the box is Ennis and McCrea's HITMAN, but that may take a while. Hopefully in the meantime I can continue with the "State of" blogs I want to make a thing, but I felt more like talking about this instead. All in due time though, all in due time, and this little book here might even be a part of one of the points I want to make in the next segment, which will probably be about Marvel. We'll see though.


And now, my beer is drained (yay Octoberfest!) and I need to be up in six. I'm out. Cheers...

The State of Things (Part 1)...

I've been lazy. Lord fuck have I been lazy. Burnt out, tired, worn down, a shell of my former self - all also pertinent terms for what I've been, but mostly I've just been fucking lazy. No reviews in two weeks, no blog in three, and I've barely made it to the gym a handful of times in 18 days now. So little done from the guy who typically works forty-five hours a week, spends ten in the gym, cranks out three pages or so of "written word" (if you can call it that) and crams in a novel or two, dozens of comics, and even some electronic delights instead of sleep. I'm not going to get into where's and why-fores for all this (you could blame some of it on my shiny new Samsung TV I imagine, but then I'd have to cut you. It's like a child to me) it's just time to change all of this back to how it should be, which means it's time to sit down and talk comics.

So apparently Robert Kirkman wants change in the comic book industry. Good for him because I do too. And yes, I know this news is old hat by now, and everyone has weighed in everything and then some on the subject matter and yelled and hollered back and for at each other. And everyone has come up with their own solutions to "Save the comic book industry!" and on and on and on. And I'm here to say: You ain't saving shit. You're not saving anything, I'm not saving anything, the heads of every last publisher and distributor can sit down and brainstorm their fucking tits off - nothing is coming of it.

How the industry is going about itself as it tries to decide what it wants to be is almost never really going to be able to properly deal with what ever perceived problems it has in itself because, quite frankly, I don't even think we know yet. Is it too small a reader base? Is it practices and decisions made by the bigger companies of the industry? Is it that there's not enough quality coming from, or attention being paid to, the smaller publishers and Indie guys? Is it just the fact that people as a whole in our society just really don't read as much anymore?

I haven't a fucking clue. I have an opinion, and I have some observations I tend to make, and to be perfectly honest I actually tend to have a mad on at my fellow comic book readers, and on occasion lay a lot of blame as far as some issues I personally have with the comic book industry on them and their buying habits. I really do, unfair as it may be, but it's not unlike how some of your more "knowledgeable" or "discerning" movie goers will cite problems with Hollywood and the vast movie going public. Elitest? Yes. Snobby? Sure. A little close to home? Probably. I just happen to think people are too willing to settle on their comics, or too afraid to branch out, or that we as fans (yes we, I'm not going to sit back and point fingers at everyone else, I'm as much a problem as anyone in this matter. I'm not that big of an asshole, I just play one on TV) are a bit on the fickle side, or have a tendency to turn on our comics like a White House aide come scandal time.

So I'm going to talk about comics. Really what I want to do is more or less highlight parts of the industry. I want to break down the publishers and talk about what they're doing, what they're printing, and really what, if any, of it is worth a damn or dollar. The "Big Two", the "Biggish Two" and whatever Indies I delve in (which, sadly, isn't as much as it should be though I honestly do try). I wanna talk pull lists, cover price, ads, Previews, distro, and the people that read them... pretty much the full nine yards. Given that I couldn't be bothered to type anything up for almost a month I figure I'm either due for a long string of these things, or I'll never do a damn one of these again now that I've puffed up my chest and acted all full of resolve. Fuck you though, I've got a pretty new Flat Panel TV. And item of that type is like fucking crack to me. I won't rest until I've fidgeted with every setting, replayed every last video game I own, and redone every last piece of wiring I have. Before you know it, I'll be huddled up with a pint of HagenDaas watching repeats of Gilmore Girls in HD. Oh god HD...

Also, it's starting to enter election time, and if anyone knows me they know it's best to put me on Suicide Watch as this fucking mindless Dog and Pony show and travesty to the term "Society" progresses forward. I might have to hook up a Bourbon IV just to numb myself to it all. Or take the HST approach to dealing with the banality to come.

I'll try to be back in a couple days with something hopefully worth reading. For now though, time to go into "Ohhhh... pretty!" mode as I start cramming random Blu-Rays into the PS3 to see what all this tech I bankrupted my unborn child's future for can do. Please, someone call me off work tomorrow will you? I'm out of "New $2400 TV" vacation days...

Cheers...