Dustin Cabeal 4/17/24 Dustin Cabeal 4/17/24

Review: Karate Prom

By Dustin Cabeal

Having been a fan of Kyle Stark since Sex Castle an original graphic novel published by Image Comics; I have loosely followed about anything Kyle Starks has made. Style and humor are something that resonates with me as a reader and the places Starks takes stories to be original, interesting, and always very humorous. It is hard to find consistent writers in comics that are funny and that produce consistently funny works. That is not to say that they can never do anything other than comedic writing, but finding someone who is willing and does produce consistently funny things is a creative catch. It is something that makes you want to follow that creator more.

Seeing the words “karate” and “prom,” by Kyle Starks instantly filled me with anticipation and joy for this new graphic novel, from First Second. At its core it is shooting for a younger audience. This is not a book that is necessarily reaching out and grabbing 40-year-olds and saying read me you will find infinite amount of humor and relatable references. Instead, it is more of a story/graphic novel for tweens and teenagers. Young readers. That is the prime demographic of First Second.

Dustin Cabeal 4/10/24 Dustin Cabeal 4/10/24

Review: Rat City #1

By Dustin Cabeal

It has been a long while since I have read a Spawn comic book. I find it infinitely interesting that it is still being published monthly, probably as one of the most consistently published monthly books from Image in general but also from a founder of image. That sheer fact alone makes it an anomaly in comic books as every other creator that founded Image or has moved on from the publisher or is almost incapable of producing a monthly comic book. Eric Larsen is possibly the only other person, but even then, the irregularities of the scheduling of Savage Dragon and its spin-offs makes Spawn a standout and now in 2024. It seems Spawn is expanding its universe; it is becoming More than just Spawn and a few miniseries. I have noticed increasingly that I am seeing different titles related to Spawn, but Rat City caught my attention more than the others.

Cybernetic Spawn is not anything new to the Spawn Universe. I think it actually exists in some form in the action figures first and foremost, but it is relatively new to have an ongoing series about a cybernetic-esque Spawn. Rat City is just a catchy, grungy futuristic name. I mean, no one thinks of rats and goes, that's pleasant. Rat City gives you this futuristic Judge Dread-esque, grimy city to deal with which is a perfect fitting for Spawn and a Spawn spin-off book.

Dustin Cabeal 4/3/24 Dustin Cabeal 4/3/24

Review: Crave Vol. 1

By Dustin Cabeal

It has been a long time since I've read a book like Crave. I finished the trade paperback of what I assume will be the first volume in one sitting. There's something to be said about a story that entices you to continue reading and not just due to the dynamic visuals of the overly beautiful people that populate the story. Rather because of the pacing and content of the story itself.

While Crave’s story is not incredibly deep it does have a wonderful pacing to it. On its surface, it is a story about social media. The anxieties presented by knowing too much and what Big Data corporations do with our information and what could be done with that information and the harrowing realities of testing that on the populace. Now, that all sounds very, very deep, but since the story is limited to essentially one day of this world or maybe two at the most It is rather fast paced and doesn't take too much time to stop and think about these deeper ideas that it presents. Instead, that's left to the audience to think about in the aftermath of the story. Which is still interesting. It's still a good way to present that information. Food for thought rather than here is my opinion. You get the sense that the creator, Maria Llovet, is not looking to explicitly, tell you about their opinion on all this.

Dustin Cabeal 9/2/23 Dustin Cabeal 9/2/23

Review: Kali

By Dustin Cabeal

“Kali” is a title I read and sat on for review because it left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Revenge stories aren’t supposed to have a happy ending, which is true of “Kali’s” ending, but they typically have a main character that you care for. Kali the character is never likable. There’s no sympathy for her plight and frankly the story moves too fast for you to feel anything other than violence. While I liked the comic, I found myself drawn to the visuals more than I was the story.

The story beings with Kali on a chain gang, that is instantly cooler because of her. The rest of the soldiers looked worn out and shitty but not Kali. She has a fucking knife sticking out of her shoulder, black leather chaps on her tight ass jeans and a rib cage skeleton shirt. She’s cool as ice as none of the kids say. For some reason, these captured prisoners of war are being interviewed to join the army that captured them. This is where Kali becomes unlikable as she rattles off a slew of exposition that stops being relevant to the story. The second she sees her former gang members. The ones that betrayed and left her for dead. Cue the beautiful violence.

Dustin Cabeal 8/31/23 Dustin Cabeal 8/31/23

Review: Cat Fight #1

By Dustin Cabeal

I wasn’t expecting a lot from “Cat Fight” when I started reading it. Based on the silly name, the extremely busy cover and the sheer number of actual cats illustrated, I began by lowering my expectations. Which was probably the right move considering it ended up impressing me in the end. I will say that the cat gimmick is heavy handed so if you can’t stomach what’s on the cover, then you will not make it through this first issue.

The story follows a thief as he’s lifting a very expensive ruby and being chased by some Italian police. He is in Venice after all. He then jets straight over to a fancy dinner party to hand off the jewel. We’re given the information that the fencer is his ex-girlfriend, the cops chasing him were not actually Italian or cops and that he comes from a rich family that’s he’s been kicked out of. It’s a lot of exposition and there was very little reason to inform the audience of the fake Italian cops. It seems likely that they’ll return to the story in some capacity or another, but otherwise it was just there to show that our main criminal character is smart. Not getting caught at all also shows us that they’re smart. A slew of cat themed thieves from DC and Marvel how shown us that much.

Dustin Cabeal 8/30/23 Dustin Cabeal 8/30/23

Review: The Ribbon Queen #1 and 2

By Dustin Cabeal

One can only imagine what the toxic side of the comic fanbase describes this Garth Ennis story as when complaining that “he’s lost a step” or some such crap. I’m sure “woke” and “broke” are thrown around, but I have no personal interest in tracking down what people are saying about comics and stories. I’m here to put out my thoughts on the lure and see what I can reel back in. That and otherwise, I would spend this entire review fighting against some opinion I saw somewhere instead of reviewing the comic.

The Ribbon Queen is a socially aware story. It’s not unusual for Garth Ennis to write a story like this; it’s just that so many people have been lost in his ultra-violent stories that they forget the underlying connection to the world events at the time of the stories' release. It’s something that he’s done throughout his entire career, be it with mixed results of course. No one nails it 100% of the time. In the case of The Ribbon Queen, a great deal of time is spent including these real-world events and subjects that have populated the news, social media, and society at large for the past several years. The main problem being that it’s not attempting to answer or solve any of these problems/subjects; it’s just stating them and using them to dive into fantasy horror.

Dustin Cabeal 8/28/23 Dustin Cabeal 8/28/23

Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighter #1

By Dustin Cabeal

I fucking hate hero versus hero titles. The one and only time that it was enjoyable was DC vs Marvel (flip it, I don’t care), and even then, it was a mess of shit. That’s what made it charming – seeing the rage of the fanbases and concessions that each company had to make to keep certain characters powerful and protected. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same dumb storyline of one or both sides of heroes being mistaken as villains and fighting each other, meanwhile the actual villains are agreeable, cordial, and already working with each other. I’ve lost track of how many of these franchises versus franchises IDW has made, but they're just to sell covers. Go ahead, ask how many covers they have for this first issue.

Thirty-one.

They cutely put “Collect them all” at the back of the issue before showing you thirty-one covers. Kudos to all the artists who got paid for the covers – get that money – but to the poor soul who felt they needed all the covers and spent God knows how many hundreds of dollars to get all the store exclusives… I wish you wouldn’t have. That purchase behavior is irresponsible and damaging to the industry as they focus on sales of covers rather than telling a story worth reading.

Dustin Cabeal 8/3/23 Dustin Cabeal 8/3/23

Review: Cyborg #1

By Dustin Cabeal

You might be wondering why I'm reviewing a three-month-old comic... maybe four months, I can never tell. Well, recently, Xbox gave away a subscription to the poorly named DC Infinite, and I decided to see what DC was up to. First and foremost, there is nothing "infinite" about the app. If you want to read new books, you'll need the Ultra upgrade, which allows you to read the digital version a month after its release. So, why am I reading the first issue of a comic that's likely already on its fourth issue? That's why, that's why.

Cyborg #1 follows a familiar formula for first-issue superhero comics starring long-established supporting characters now focused on as main characters. Don't get me wrong; I like Cyborg, and I understand that he's someone's favorite superhero, and that's great. Every character is someone's favorite, but not every character is meant to be a main character. It's something that's often forgotten in comics. Editors, I assume, or even corporate overlords, decide to highlight a character and try to "make them a star," I can imagine some suit saying. Will it work? I kind of doubt it with this iteration of Cyborg. He's a great supporting character, but when you move a supporting character to the main role, you open the question of "who supports the supporting character?"

Dustin Cabeal 7/11/22 Dustin Cabeal 7/11/22

Review: Deal Breaker #1

By Dustin Cabeal

Sometimes when a creator has a high concept, they focus too much on the concept and leave their characters severely lacking. That seems to be the case with Deal Breaker a story that has a main character that is forgettable, but also not very believable given their setting.

The gist of the story is easy to sum up, a man makes a wish with a coin in the fountain and gets a better life. Suddenly he’s not at a dead-end job being a security guard at a high school working with a pedophile. He has a successful career, a beautiful wife and two kids. He receives a random message saying it’s time to pay his debt which he promptly ignores because who answers messages from unknown callers? The next day his family disappears from existence one after the other until we arrive at the stereotypical scene of the husband filing a missing person’s report for his three missing family members.