I had an idea the other day for a comic book while watching “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” You never get any kind of backstory for the victims in any of these stories, whether it’s sombrero-wearing banditos in spaghetti Westerns or red-shirted security guys in Star Trek. They’re just cannon fodder. But they’ve got friends, loved ones, and stories of their own. Someone somewhere is probably going to cry just as hard for them as we will when our hero gets it.

So I thought it might be interesting to have a comics series where every issue features a different story of someone who gets killed on the last page. Sometimes it may be a gladiator losing in the pits of Rome, sometimes it might be a Hydra henchman getting blasted by Iron Fist, sometimes it might be one of Brainiac’s cyborg assistants getting evacuated into space by Superman because hey, it’s just robots.

Clearly the meds are working today, because the ideas just keep flying!

This just in: “Watchmen” creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have just signed Rob Liefeld to write and illustrate the sequel to their all-time great graphic novel! I was able to obtain a sneak preview of the upcoming cover:

I feel the extra costuming elements really add something to the characters; I know I look forward to seeing what’s in all those pouches, at least. And I got so tired of those Gibbons backgrounds, so full of detail and meaning. Give me good old-fashioned color gradients with lots of random lines hatching across it any day!

I also feel the change in writing duties bodes well, because who wants to spend all that time talking about history and relationships and blah blah blah? I say every page should be a splash page featuring The Watchmen jumping out of a helicopter in order to fight an opposing group of other super-powered characters, like maybe the zombie corpse of Moloch shooting laser beams from his undead eyes!!1!

This definitely is going to rock, I can’t wait to read it.

(I wish I could credit the original creator of the image but I can’t figure out who did it — I found it through one of those random Google searches and it didn’t have a source.)

I just found this neat article on “Instructables.com” giving step-by-step instructions on how to make paper miniatures for your gaming group. I’m impressed with the detail and nice photographs, it’s a well done tutorial. You can also use it with the Marvel Kids hero creator or the Brazilian Her-O-Matic.

If you’re looking for a fun holiday activity involving cyborgs and/or laser-toting elves, you can’t go wrong with this one!

(Image ©Hero-Gear.net.)

If you’ve ever wished your HeroMachine design could come to life in three large-as-life (which in my case is quite large indeed) dimensions, Hero-Gear.net can now make your dreams come true! I love that several of the designs were laid out in HeroMachine first, I feel like I’ve helped make the world a more colorful place.

I wonder if the people ordering these are just having a lark or if they really, you know, think of themselves as actual super heroes? If the latter, one would hope they’d have the sense not to send in their photo and testimonial as that’s pretty much Rule Number One in the “How To Protect Your Secret Identity” manual.

Note that there’s a separate manual for how to keep your secret identity secret if you’re a movie super-hero instead of a comic-book super-hero. It only has one rule in it, though — “Don’t get a girlfriend, because it’s mandatory for every single movie super-hero to reveal their identity to the first hot chick who locks lips with them.”

For no particular reason, here are the comics I currently am reading:

• Fables: The story arc dealing with the war between Fabletown and the Empire just concluded, and damn was it satisfying. Great, distinctive art, wonderful storytelling (both visually and in the script), and a truly diverse, interesting, deep cast of characters.
• Thor: Not actually a favorite any more, I just keep forgetting to tell my comics shop to stop setting it aside for me. It’s gotten awfully dull, Thor just sort of broods all the time. Granted, in the last issue they dropped Asgard on the gods of the Skrulls, which is pretty nifty, but there was sure a lot of exposition getting there.
• Ex Machina: This title started off really strong, but has gotten weaker in the last year. The photo-referenced art is starting to feel stiff and lifeless to me, and the stories aren’t quite as interesting as they used to be. I’ll probably stop collecting this one soon, too.
• Invincible: My favorite super-hero title of the last twenty years. I love, love, love everything about this series, from the fantastic art to the fun stories, it all just works, exactly the way the best super-hero comics of the past did. Great storytelling and engaging characters paired with massive slugfests and crazy villains just rocks my world.
• Dynamo 5: I like the premise (Superman-like character fathers many children by many women, five of them eventually band together to form a team, and each one has just one of their father’s powers), and the first few issues were fun, but it’s starting to lag as well.
• Jack Staff: Consistently great, consistently fun, consistently wonderful. A great, great comic. You will believe comics can be in black and white and not suck.

That’s pretty much it for me. I’ll pick up one or two singles or small runs if I read something good about them online (usually via Chris’ Invincible Super-Blog), but really it’s Jack Staff, Fables, and Invincible that keep me going to the comics store nowadays.

I’d love to hear what you’re reading in the comments, maybe I’ll trip on something new and great.

This cover is awesome because the comic book issue it fronts for does not feature anyone on a motorcycle, nor a tank, nor an M-16, nor David Hasselhoff. It is misleading in every possible way, and that = awesome.

Plus, it has a story titled “Bombertrussel” which as anyone who speaks Finnodeutschish knows, means “exploding pastries”. And I’m always up for some bombalicious pastry.

When it comes to fictional technology, you’re better off if you dress an idea up in a cool-sounding name and leave out the details than if you explain the daylights out of it. You need look no further than the unmitigated abortion that was “Star Wars Episode I”, when the “Force” went from awesome-because-undefined to staggeringly-boring-mitochlorians to see what I’m talking about.

Usually the same principle works when applied to super-hero comics. The artist just slaps some doohickey onto a costume because it looks neat and is fun to draw, and it works. Then, years later some pencil-necked geek from the Corporate Hackery Redesign Department feels obligated to explain why Black Bolt has a tuning fork on his head when, let’s be honest, Jack Kirby was just feeling frisky the day he drew the outfit the first time.

But occasionally an artist forgets this less-is-more approach and we get something like this panel here, from the “!mpact W!nter Spec!al” number 1 (and yes, those exclamation points are part of the actual title):

First, the sinister villain operating the controls frankly looks ridiculous. I can’t ever remember thinking that a bowler hat, long leather trenchcoat, and knee pads might look good, particularly when said coat has a purple lining.

But ignoring the fashion faux-pas, let’s take a look at the machine our evil genius has assembled. The action takes place in his fancy new spaceship, built so he could travel to other planets and take them over. He doesn’t know where any of these planets are, he doesn’t know if there are people on them even if he were to find them, and he doesn’t have any way to travel fast enough to get there before he’s long-dead, but nothing can stand in the way of a Big Idea coupled with bad facial hair.

Regardless, he’s chosen to make the craft launch via a single large red button which, apparently, you must pound with both fists to activate. (Or maybe that’s another button there under his left fist, and he has to smash them in a pattern like that old “Track and Field” arcade game. mash-mash-mash-mash-mash-JUMP!!) Then, just in case he forgot that the big red button means “Go”, he’s crafted a large yellow sign saying “Engine Launch Procedure”. Hey man, I feel you; it’s launch time, you’re stressed, the last thing you want to do is to lose track of the machine that starts the ship.

But what I think I like the most is the actual launch procedure in question, which consists of big lights counting down from 3-2-1-GO. I’m not sure what all he had to cram into the electric-shaver-grill-inspired launch machine there, because that’s about as simple a process as I can imagine. Oh sure, maybe he could dumb it down for today’s audiences to just 2-1-GO, or even a simple GO!, but this guy clearly has standards.

He’s certainly got a consistent design ethos, however. Take a look at one of the other parts of the ship we see a few panels later:

The Jaguar is right, that IS terrible; I’m no CIA expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure that part of keeping “secret” doors secret is to not put up a giant panel labeled “Secret Door”.

(Images ©1991, Archie Comics Publications, Inc. from “Impact Christmas Special” No. 1. Published by DC Comics, Inc. William Messner-Loebs, writer; Sandra Chiang, penciller; Mike Chen, inker; Helen Vesik, letterer; Rick Taylor, colorist.)

This is apropos of nothing, but while looking for a broccoli salad recipe on my hard drive I came across this one-page bit of writing I did at some point and I figured I might as well share it. I’ll hide it after the jump since it has nothing to do with anything else I write about on this blog.

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