Posts Tagged comic books
The fine folks at the 11 O’Clock Comics podcast have given Weapon Brown probably the most glorious thumbs up I have ever received. Listen to the whole thing, but the important chunk, about Yours Truly, begins at 1:03:05.

As we wrap up this year of our OMG 2018, I would like to say “thank you” to everyone who has enjoyed the slow roll-out of PEEK! the Second in webstrip form, and to remind you that… IT WASN’T FREE! You’ve gotta buy it now, suckers!
In all seriousness though, DO buy it, or I will crawl down your chimneys on Christmas Eve and rob you of every last can of Who hash. But if you want the most bang for your buck, purchase PEEK! the Second it as part of the Weapon Brown Christmas Pack! So much Death Ray goodness and goodies that I can barely describe it all (except on the store page, where I go into lavish detail, and which you should have already clicked over to. You really don’t like Who hash, do you?)
PEEK! the Second will be in comic shops very soon (Dec 12 at the latest), as will the Weapon Brown graphic novel, which is being reintroduced back into its native habitat after nearly being driven to extinction by ravenous customers!
I will soon have news about Weapon Brown: Aftershock, Kobayashi Maru and Deep Fried for you as well. In the meantime, embrace your Christmas spirit and spend! SPENNNNND!
I have just been informed that I conducted an interview with Mike and Chris of Fortress of Comic News. I don’t know what drugs I was on when I did this (apparently, it was the kind that makes you say “um” a lot), but I think I did pretty well for a guy who probably thought he was talking to a couple of zucchini.
I’ve almost sweat all this fascist junk out of my system. Just read my final expose on Vox Day’s shitty Alt-Hero project and then, I swear, I will settle into a normal punchclock life!
I hit the road last weekend for Erie, Pensylvania to attend the Erie Library Comic-Con, only to find out that I had been tricked! I was led to believe that the convention was being held in Eyrie, PA, and I was greatly disappointed to find that the show’s location, Basement Transmissions, had no moon door through which I could make little men fly! (I did toss a few children out of a window, but it just wasn’t the same).
The deception was double, in fact, as I soon realized I had been lured from the safe harbors of my home in Snowflakia, New York to hawk my wares in dreaded…Trump Country!
I made the best of a bad situation, but as usual, bodily injury was never more than a few costumed jerks away!
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All dressed up and no place to go! But at least, for the first time in my life, I was color coordinated.

This little girl was so adorable! But then we got into a heated discussion about whether or not genre movies really needed more “strong female role models” or if that is just an excuse for liberal pandering, and to be quite honest, she turned into a straight-up bee-yotch.

I’m sorry! The “Boba Fat” joke was way out of line! (BTW, how’d you escape the sarlacc? Did’ja got stuck halfway down it’s throat??)

This dame puts the “leg” in “Legolas”! Oh… wait. You’re Link, aren’t you? Fuck. Just get out of my shot.

Wow! Half Logan, half Deathstroke! That makes you the most badass killer of all time! So… you gonna buy something or what?

“I sold my beard to buy you a hair pick! But… you sold your afro to buy me a bottle of beard oil?? OH THE IRONY!!”

And I’m sure YOUR parents wish they hadn’t scrimped and saved to pay for your college tuition, since you are obviously destined for a career at Delta Sonic! Hey, how much for a touchless wash, dork??
Free Comic Book Day: apart from 4/20 and my birthday, the most important annual event in our country! This year I spent it at Level Up Entertainment in Mays Landing, New Jersey. I was wined, dined and even given a jar of cake. But as usually happens with my guest appearances, although I brought home many memories, I brought home even more bruises.
Such adventures! And if that weren’t enough, here’s  an interview with me done at the Flower City Comic-Con last month! (My bit starts at 6:50.)
Come see me this Saturday at Rochester, New York’s beautiful Comics Etc. comic shop, where I and I alone and some other people will be signing comics, talking about comics, maybe even cooing over that new Civil War trailer… the things you would expect!
It’s from noon until five, so send the kids to grandma’s house and come. Do you hear me? Ditch the goddamn kids!
And hey, look! An interview with me! I think the interviewer is John Waters!
I’d like to thank all the geeks, freaks and Greeks who came to see me at the Buffalo Comicon this past Sunday. My sales were great, my patter was snappy and my iPad successfully phished the Social Security numbers of everyone who paid with a credit card. That’s what I call a helluva show!
As usual, however, I managed to make my fair share of enemies. I don’t know how I keep getting on these peoples’ bad sides. I guess when you ask a cosplayer “So, does that anti-gay wedding cake law in Indiana apply to you queermos too?”, you may rub a nerve!
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“Oh, hello Oscar Award! Shouldn’t you be on Richard Linklater’s mantle? You would be if your recognized talent, you shiny fraud! OWWW!” |
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From left to right: The Masked Muscovite, Super Don’t-Give-No-Fucks Man, Strongbad and Gotye. |
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“Wait, let me guess: Michaelangelo. No? Lemonjello? Portabello? (Look, I don’t know which one of you mutant turnips fights with hotdogs, but either way your movie sucked.”) |
And that’s a wrap (mmm… I could go for a wrap right now!). Hey, be sure to visit Sweet Jenny’s/1811 Comics, the best candy shop/comic store ever to give me more free chocolate dipped pretzels than I could ever eat! I actually shared some!Â
Mark Hughes, a contributor to Forbes, has taken Watchmen author Alan Moore to task for DC Comic’s tactless plan to create a series of prequel stories for The Watchmen. This, naturally, chaps the ass of the Watchmen creator, as have all attempts by the companies that own the rights to his work to capitalize on them in the manner of, well, capitalists.
Moore has by and large been in the right to reject all affiliation with the horrible movies that have emerged from his mostly excellent work. The big screen adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stands out as the definitive butchering, but V for Vendetta and The Watchmen are also, in their ways, junk (though V for Vendetta, while fully forgettable as movie fare, has supplied movements like Occupy and Anonymous with the iconic Guy Fawkes mask, resurrected from history and now the most consumable symbol of rebellion since the Che T-shirt). Still, a contract is a contract, and as Babylon 5 creator Michael Straczynski (a writer slated to pen one of the “Before Watchmen” books) points out, Moore has had 25 years to author his own add-on material to the Watchmen mythos, and has chosen not to. If DC wants to build on the story and reduce the seminal tome that is The Watchmen to just another ever-unfolding series of arcs like Batman or Superman, passed from one author to another, well, Alan signed on the dotted line despite just that possibility.
Hughes and Straczynski are right on the letter of the law, but both veer into the rather more cynical territory of nyah-nyahing at Moore, since several of Moore’s most recent hits involve recuperating public domain creations like Mina Harker, Allen Quartermain, Peter Pan, Dorothy of Oz and others for stories that would have scandalized their original authors. Who, then, is Moore to wag a finger towards anyone?
This criticism boils down to calling Moore a shameless hypocrite, Â when what he is doing is rubbing raw an otherwise numb nerve of what artists in previous eras have called integrity.
I am not saying that creators like Straczynski possess none of that rarefied stuff. It is simply that, when confronted by those that have more of it, they  retreat to that safe domain of the signed contract and call the complaining author, who is not after all alleging a legal wrong, of being a crybaby. “You can’t claim ownership of what you don’t own! Now shut your gob while I tell the real story of what happened between the Comedian and the Vietnamese baby-mama he plugged! God knows the public has waited 25 years to have those two-pages turned into a six-issue epic!”
Regardless of what can be done with The Watchmen, the question is whether it should. Critics are right to point out that Moore cannot  claim sacrosanct status for his own creations, especially when DC is not acting in bad faith. Of course Alan Moore knows that The Watchmen is out of his control. His appeal is not to Time Warner’s legal department, but the reading public. If DC Comics can’t leave well enough alone, can you at least?
Moore’s argument, again, is rooted in his integrity. He has not sollicited any of the build-ons to his work, movies or otherwise, and has staunchly refused Hollywood’s financial enticements. He has said that The Watchmen was a comic that couldn’t be filmed, and the results speak for themselves. Not garbage, but not approaching a worthy adaptation either. The trailer for The Watchmen eclipsed the finished feature in atmosphere, and is all the big screen really needed.
Not every film made of Moore’s stories have been awful– From Hell is a strong standout– but the question remains: how many inferior knockoffs must the public sit still for?
The best argument against Moore’s piety would probably be Moore’s own behavior. The original premise of The Watchmen was to tell that story using existing characters acquired by DC from the defunct Charleston comic book company. Are Michael Straczynski, Darwyn Cook, and Brian Azzarello planning anything in Before Watchmen that is more sacrilegious than that? And does the fact that Moore has put his own spin on existing fictional works only after their authors have slipped this mortal coil amount to a real moral high ground?
In the end, the world is thus. I enjoyed Donnie Darko immensely, and have resisted every temptation to see it’s sequel, S. Darko. Would it suck? I hope never to know. Reflect on the meaning of that word: suck. From what does something suck? Like any parasite, from that which is superior to it. Before Watchmen may not be bad comic books, but they will not be superior to their host. This is because, like all things that attach themselves to something great, they will simply suck.