It’s a Trick, Get an Axe
Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #2
Ya know, I’m not sure I can even describe the plot here. Axe Cop and his allies save the dinosaurs from aliens, the evil Psychic Brothers have basically taken over Earth and attack Uni-Smart World, Sockarang meets his supposedly-dead mother, and there’s time travel galore. I mean, the plot doesn’t matter as much as the impossibly awesome details of the story. How do the bad guys beat Uni-Smart World, where everyone has a magic wish-granting unicorn horn? They put magic traffic cones over the horns. What do the Psychic Brothers use to attack our heroes? Truckchucks, which are nunchucks made out of semi trucks. How do you defeat good Vikings? With a world full of evil baseball players. What was so special about the year Zero Thousand and Zero? I’ll save that little surprise for you to read yourself.
Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s really hard to believe how jaw-droppingly bizarre and awesome this story is. You know it was written by a six-year-old kid, right? Six years old!
iZombie #12
Aww, Mike Allred has the issue off, so we’ll have to suffer through some random fill-in artist who — what’s that? Gilbert Hernandez? Co-creator of “Love and Rockets“? Well, that’ll at least be interesting. And it is pretty cool — like reading a L&R/iZombie crossover issue. Our focus is on hip 1960s ghost Ellie just prior to meeting Gwen for the first time — she hangs out in the cemetery with all the other ghosts, and they tell stories to each other and argue. Ellie reflects on what her own life was like, giving us a nice origin story for her.
Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun story — several fun stories, in fact — and wonderful artwork.
Love and Capes: Ever After #3
We’ve got three storylines running through this issue — Abby and Mark fixing up their new home, and later attending Abby’s class reunion, and Darkblade and Amazonia going through relationship stress over his continuing friendship with Abby’s sister Charlotte.
Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing particularly fancy this time, just solid cartooning, funny jokes, and good dialogue, characterization, and interpersonal relationship design.
Today’s Cool Links:
- Shane and Chris Houghton, the guys responsible for the “Reed Gunther” all-ages Western comics, are about to get a run in Image Comics, with color and everything. They’re running a contest to promote it — get a Wanted poster promoting the comic posted in your favorite comic book store, and you could win a page of Reed Gunther artwork.
- The Village Voice has a nice article about the sad state of the comics/cartooning industries. And some good news that they’re going to pay the cartoonists who contributed art for the magazine, which they originally weren’t going to do.
- Mashing up “Inception” and “My Little Pony” = WIN.
- Mashing up Godzilla and Busta Rhymes = ALSO WIN.
- Okay, fine, I’m a complete sucker for high-concept weirdo movie trailers in which comedians play past and future versions of the Beastie Boys.