Daniel Vlasaty 9/13/17 Daniel Vlasaty 9/13/17

Review: Mech Cadet Yu #2

By Daniel Vlasaty

I really enjoyed the first issue of Mech Cadet Yu when it came out last month. I thought it was a solid opening issue. And I was excited to jump back into this “boy and his giant robot” story. I wanted to see how Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa continued to grow this story that is not entirely unique or original but is still being presented interestingly and engagingly.

Daniel Vlasaty 9/13/17 Daniel Vlasaty 9/13/17

Review: Hard Boiled (Second Edition)

By Daniel Vlasaty

This is the second edition of Hard Boiled. It's written by Frank Miller, drawn by Geof Darrow, and colored by Dave Stewart. It originally came out in 1990, but I didn’t read it back then. Most probably because I was only five years old at the time. This is the first time I've ever read it actually, although I was aware that it was a thing that existed in the world before. Just never got around to reading it. I guess.

Daniel Vlasaty 9/6/17 Daniel Vlasaty 9/6/17

Review: Lazaretto #1

By Daniel Vlasaty

This is the second new #1 issue I am reviewing this week. And this is also the second new series I am jumping into without knowing anything at all about it. I had never even heard of Lazaretto until I saw it pop up on our review list for the week. And I chose to review it based on the cover art alone. Something I have done many times before. And not just with comics, but with movies and books and music. They say never judge a book by its cover. And that’s true in this case too. But the exact opposite of what the saying actually means. Because in the case of Lazaretto, the cover is the best, and possibly only, good thing about this book.

Daniel Vlasaty 9/6/17 Daniel Vlasaty 9/6/17

Review: Gasolina #1

By Daniel Vlasaty

Like with most other new books I went into Gasolina #1 not knowing anything about it. I like doing it this way. I don’t want to know too much about a story before I’m in that story. I don’t read preview pages when they’re released months before a books actual release date for this reason.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/30/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/30/17

Review: Crosswind #3

By Daniel Vlasaty

I don’t have much of an opinion on the genre of body swapping stories. I’ve seen some movies. I’ve read some things. But I’ve just never really given it much thought. I think because it’s too simplistic of a thing. You have two people, and they’re either miserable or bad or mad or sad or whatever, and then something magical or mystical happens that swaps their mind with someone else’s. And then there’s a period of time where they try to figure out what happened. Why they’ve been swapped. Or whatever. And ultimately they’ll learn that in order to switch back they will have to learn a lesson. They’ll learn that maybe they don’t have it so bad. Or maybe it’s not so easy to be someone else. They’ll learn that they’re smart and good and I don’t know. Whatever you get where I’m going with this. Probably. Maybe. Anyway. This is my review of Crosswinds #3. A body swapping, mobster/suburban step-mom romp.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/30/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/30/17

Review: Ringside #11

By Daniel Vlasaty

I just want to be completely honest here and say I don’t like wrestling. I’ve never liked it, not even in the 90s when literally everyone liked it. I never saw the appeal of it. It just seemed so ridiculously dramatic and very clearly fake. But everyone knew it was fake and pretended it wasn’t. Or they didn’t care. I have no fucking idea. It just wasn’t my thing, I guess. And I think this is the reason why I never read a single issue of Ringside before last night. This is a review of issue #11 but I didn’t want to go in completely blind so before reading this new issue, I also read the first 10 issues.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/16/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/16/17

Review: Batman #29

By Daniel Vlasaty

DC, man, you're killing me with all these "wars" and "events" and on and on and on. This is the ever-increasing problem I've been having with superhero comics as of late, especially those from DC. They're all trying to do too much. And in the process, we're losing little bits and pieces of the characters. We're losing the things we love about these characters to – what I'm going to call – the Hollywood movie mentality in comics right now. Big stories with action and energy but not much else. What ever happened to focusing on the smaller things. What ever happened to character development. Not everything has to be END OF THE WORLD motherfucking huge. Not everything has to be earth shattering. But I digress.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/16/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/16/17

Review: Winnebago Graveyard #3

By Daniel Vlasaty

I haven’t liked this book from the beginning, but I keep coming back. I don’t know why. Maybe I hate myself. Or maybe I’m just hoping against hope that Winnebago Graveyard will get better because it’s not all terrible. I like the idea of this book. I like what I think it’s trying to do. But sadly issue #3 doesn’t do anything better than the previous two issues. If anything this might be the worst one yet. Which sucks, because – believe it or not – I don’t actually like giving bad reviews. But anyway, here’s my review of issue #3 of Winnebago Graveyard.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/11/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/11/17

Review: Violent Love #7

By Daniel Vlasaty

Up until very recently I had never read a single issue of Violent Love. Before I read this issue, issue #7, I binged the first trade and also issue #6. It was a book I was aware before that, but for some reason I never went to it. I think it maybe had something to do with the "romance" part of it, but I don’t know. I'm not big on romance comics. But I was definitely drawn into the Bonnie and Clyde vibe of it after I got into it. Even though, still, the romance part is very minimal. I can feel it building between the two character, between Daisy and Rock, but I just don't get the feeling that it's ever going to be a huge piece of the story. If I had to guess on their great romance, I would say that I can see it being like an M-80 (or something), all build-up, followed by a quick and loud and hard explosion, and then that's it. I don't know. Maybe. We will have to wait and see while this story continues to unfold. This is a review of issue #7 of Violent Love by Frank J. Barbiere and Victor Santos.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/9/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/9/17

Review: The Unsound #3

By Daniel Vlasaty

I didn’t really like the first issue of The Unsound. It just came off as boring and unoriginal and it didn’t hit the spots in my brain I think it was supposed to hit. I don’t know. I told myself I was going to be done with the book, that I had too much other stuff to read. I’ve told myself this a lot over the years. That if I’m not one hundred percent into a book that I should cut it out of my life. That there are plenty other books out there that I actually do like that I should spend my time reading.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/3/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/3/17

Review: The Other Side

By Daniel Vlasaty

I’ve seen enough movies and read enough books to understand that war is not a pretty thing. I never had to actually go to war to figure that out. War is hell, as they say. It is scary and messy and fucked up. It’s honestly something that I don’t think a movie or a book or a comic can accurately capture. Again, I’ve never been to war and am only making assumptions here. But think about it. How can something like fighting in a war ever really be condensed down into a few hours on the screen or a few hundred pages in a book? We’re only shown the “juicy” parts – juicy for us, fucking hell for the people involved in the – the action and the suspense and the intrigue. We’re not really ever shown the inner turmoil or the toll it takes on the person. Maybe we are in a way that we can see, but not in a way that we can feel or anything like that. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that this book is fucked up. The Other Side by Jason Aaron and Cameron Stewart is a fucked up look at an already pretty fucked up piece of history.

Daniel Vlasaty 8/2/17 Daniel Vlasaty 8/2/17

Review: Mech Cadet Yu #1

By Daniel Vlasaty

I’ve never been super big into giant robots. I don’t remember liking Transformers growing up, and don’t even get me started on the recent movies. I liked Pacific Rim fine but it wasn’t anything that changed my life. I don’t know. I don’t have anything particularly against the giant robot/Mecha genre. My interests just usually fall elsewhere I guess. So what you’re probably wondering, then, is why I chose to review Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa’s Mech Cadet Yu. And I don’t have an answer for that. I’d have to guess it was because of Miyazawa’s cover of the Mech holding a small boy in its giant hand in what appears to be an American desert. Anyway, here’s my review.

Daniel Vlasaty 7/26/17 Daniel Vlasaty 7/26/17

Review: Shirtless Bear-Fighter #2

By Daniel Vlasaty

If you’re like me (and just about most other people in the whole goddamn world) then you love big dumb action movies. I know I do. They’re my favorite. Especially if they’re from the 80s or early 90s. That’s when they were the best. So much bad hair and ridiculous dialogue. They were corny and exciting and not completely original – but that didn’t matter because you knew the good guy was going to save the day and get the girl, and they were usually good for some solid laughs, and over-the-top deaths, and a shit-ton of explosions. You know, the good stuff. This is how I feel about Shirtless Bear-Fighter. Watching him fly his bear plane to fight some bearrorists rampaging through the city. This is the vibe I get every time Burke gets that faraway look in his eyes and dips into the ever-changing story of his past. It’s like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie from a bygone era, just with evil sentient bears, a half-pig hillbilly warlock, an evil toilet paper company, and a man that hates bears so much he’s made a promise to himself and the memory of his fallen love to punch every motherfucking bear he sees.

Daniel Vlasaty 7/26/17 Daniel Vlasaty 7/26/17

Review: The Street Angel Gang

By Daniel Vlasaty

In case you didn’t know: Jesse Sanchez, AKA Street Angel, is a lot of things. She’s a thirteen-year-old orphan. She’s been called the world’s best homeless skateboarder. She’s also a master of kung-fu and other fighting styles. She’s been known to hate school, but loves food and will pretty much eat anything and everything. I had never heard of Jesse Sanchez or Street Angel or even Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg until the Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special hardcover was release recently from Image Comics. That book was silly and ridiculous and everything I love about comic books. I went out and searched for more of their work, found some older Street Angel collections, read some of the original web comic stories, loved it all. And I was super excited to see that the crew of Maruca and Rugg had another Street Angel book coming out. This is a review of that book. The book is called The Street Angel Gang, and it’s about Street Angel maybe or maybe not trying to join a gang.

Daniel Vlasaty 7/19/17 Daniel Vlasaty 7/19/17

Review: Grrl Scouts: Magic Socks #3

By Daniel Vlasaty

Man, this book is weird. And I mean that in the best possible way. Jim Mahfood has created an amazing world of action and excessive drug use and revenge and ancient prophecies and secret organizations and internet obsession. Grrl Scouts: Magic Socks #3 is balls-to-the-wall weird/wacky/crazy but this issue kind of feels like a needed step back from a story that’s been going over 100 MPH since it started. For some reason this book gives me hard 90’s nostalgia. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the way the Freak City is portrayed as big and mean and dirty and covered in graffiti like I always thought the “big city” would be when I was growing up. Or maybe it’s because there were quite a few montage scenes in this issue and I automatically associate movies with montage scenes to my childhood hood. Again, I don’t know why my brain works the way it does.

Daniel Vlasaty 7/19/17 Daniel Vlasaty 7/19/17

Review: Winnebago Graveyard #2

By Daniel Vlasaty

Winnebago Graveyard is the story about a family on the run from a satanic cult. This comic hits all the check marks for a trashy horror story like something I remember staying up late to watch on HBO and Showtime when I was a kid. There’s a creepy, deserted town. A cop who’s most likely complicit in what’s going on in his town. There’s a family lost and abandoned, after their RV was stolen along with all their possessions. Plus, the “father” in this family is really a step-father and he’s trying to connect with his new wife’s son, but it doesn’t seem to be going so good. This is a trashy horror nerds wet dream. Except it really isn’t because I think it misses most of those marks.

Daniel Vlasaty 7/14/17 Daniel Vlasaty 7/14/17

Review: Calexit #1

By Daniel Vlasaty

I’m going to do my best to keep my personal politics out of this review. But I feel like whatever side of the political fence you fall on (although I have a feeling most people reading Calexit are going to be more left-leaning) we can all agree that shit’s pretty fucked up in the good ol’ U. S. of A. We have a lot of people having gut reactions mainly out of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the future. My daughter was born not long after the election, and there are times when I’m worried about what the state of this country will be when she comes of age. What will this country be like when our kids are adults? But I digress. Calexit is a book that takes the idea of something that’s been discussed at least as long as I’ve been politically active and aware – California seceding from the country – and runs with it.

Daniel Vlasaty 7/12/17 Daniel Vlasaty 7/12/17

Review: Regression #3

By Daniel Vlasaty

I’ve been a horror fan for almost as long as I can remember. It started when I was eight or nine when my mom introduced me to horror movies like Rosemary’s Baby and Poltergeist and The Return of the Living Dead. I remember we used to go to the video store every Friday on our way home and we’d both pick out one horror movie and we’d watch them over the weekend and see who picked the better one. Some of them were good, some of them were bad. Most of them were probably movies an eight or nine-year-old kid should not be watching but whatever. Lately, though, I think I’ve gotten kind of bored with the genre. I haven’t really been excited about anything horror related (movies/books/comics) in a long time. Cullen Bunn and Danny Luckert’s Regression is a book that is breaking through that slump. I’m not going to go so far as to say that it’s rekindled my love for the genre, but it’s a solid, creepy-crawly offering in a genre oversaturated with crap, in my opinion.

Daniel Vlasaty 7/6/17 Daniel Vlasaty 7/6/17

Review: Rock Candy Mountain #4

By Daniel Vlasaty

I know what you’re thinking. Here’s me giving Kyle Starks a verbal blowjob in the form of another glowing review for a book I clearly love that is super fucking awesome and blah blah blah. Okay. Well here it is. I guess. I don’t know. But Rock Candy Mountain #4 is out and it’s the last issue in the first story arc. And, yes, I’ll just come out and say it. It’s great, like the rest of the issues. And here is my review of it.

Daniel Vlasaty 6/28/17 Daniel Vlasaty 6/28/17

Review: Redneck #3

By Daniel Vlasaty

Donny Cates is legit everywhere right now. Dude’s on fire. Much like the wheelchair on the cover of Redneck #3. Much like most of this issue, everything explosive and basking in the glow of flames as the town burns the Bowman compound. Shit gets pretty intense pretty goddamn quickly in this issue. The violence is over the top and maybe a little excessive (which is something I’m all onboard with) but it’s never used to replace a lacking story. I think some writers try too hard to be like Hollywood blockbuster movies. Think about it, think about those movies for a second. Most of the time they have a pretty weak or generic or clichéd story and they make up for that with special effects and blood and explosions. In my opinion, having a ton of shit blow up and just balls-to-the-wall violence will never make up for a shitty story. What I mean is Cates knows what he’s doing here. He knows the story he’s telling and he’s using the violence as a tool, as a way to move the story forward, not just as violence for the sake of violence.