Mike Badilla 10/12/16 Mike Badilla 10/12/16

Review: Fight Club 2: Library Edition HC

By Mike Badilla

Fight Club: You've probably seen the movie, you've possibly read the book, you can definitely quote that line about what not to talk about. Here is the sequel to that story. The original was obviously well received and is a cult classic, so making a part 2 in a comic book format is odd. However, if you've read or watched anything from Chuck Palahniuk, you know that's the kind of thing you should come to expect from him and his work: odd, violent, funny, philosophical, odd. Whatever happened to everyone's favorite nobody with the split personality and his kooky love life? Find out here.

Dustin Cabeal 10/12/16 Dustin Cabeal 10/12/16

Review: Doom Patrol #2

By Dustin Cabeal

Everything I want from Young Animal continues to be on full display here in Doom Patrol #2. I’m not going to pretend that I actually know what’s going on in this story or where it’s going. I will say that it’s still interesting, weird and full of fantastic art. Granted, I’m a first-time reader of Doom Patrol, so my love for it comes from a long time reader of comics that’s enjoying a weird and strange story. And before someone says it in the comments, I will never read the old Doom Patrol material or for that matter any of the material that Young Animal is based on. Frankly, I don’t read old comics often, and I rarely bother with beloved/hyped to the point of no return titles. Judge me if you want, but I just don’t find the same enjoyment in reading something that the majority of the reader base hasn’t already jazzed all over… verbally. Verbal jizz. It’s a thing.

Mike Badilla 10/12/16 Mike Badilla 10/12/16

Review: Peepland #1

By Mike Badilla

Anytime I see a book description selling itself as "noir," I'm instantly more interested. Probably one of my favorite genres. That's not to say, however, that there isn't a metric ton of garbage out there labeled in this way. This book, in my opinion, is far from garbage. Dirty? Yes. Trash? No. Let's start from the very beginning; I love the cover. It looks exactly like those pulp noir novels, even down to the classic looking "Hard Case Crime" banner at the top. This looks like a book that would have been on a spinner rack 40 or so years ago, which hooked me instantly. Not only the classic look but the art on the cover is fantastic and makes you feel like you're right there in grimy [enter your favorite grimy city] on a rainy night in the shady part of town. Let's get to the story.

Chris Tresson 10/12/16 Chris Tresson 10/12/16

Review: The Lost Boys #1

By Chris Tresson

The Lost Boys is one of my all-time favorite movies. I absolutely love it. Imagine my surprise, if you will, when I find out that Vertigo were putting out a comic book set in the movie universe. I had to give this one a go, just to see how they’d handled it. The story opens in Santa Carla and we’re given a little backstory about what happened in the movie. We meet the Frog brothers and Sam and Michael again. They’re all getting on with their lives. Michael’s working in a nursing home and Sam works in the local comic shop now. The Frog brothers are being the Frog brothers still, now receiving trained from Sam and Michael’s Grandpa. There’s loads of chit chat in this and then we get to Grandpa Emerson and his Santa Carla Hunter’s Society having a meeting, which is soon interrupted by some vampires… I’ll leave it there. No spoilers from me, bro.

Mike Badilla 10/12/16 Mike Badilla 10/12/16

Review: Wonder Woman #8

By Mike Badilla

Last we left off, WW just did some adventuring in a cave saving some kids from being sacrificed to some weird ol' ancient God, all the while being accompanied by some cheetah woman that was once a regular ol' woman. Not that women are regular, they're all amazing and beautiful creatures and deserve respect. This issue starts in a mansion, with a man angrily explaining to his child's teacher that she is not to be teaching his daughter about Greek mythology, as it is imaginary and imaginations are not good for children's growth or whatever. The woman tries to explain that his daughter is super smart and cool, but that dad doesn't even care. No way, mythology. We are then flashbacked* to a time many years ago when Mrs. Cavendish, the teacher, is just a wee little girl, or maybe a teen, doing as all teen girls do; running around with a cardboard sword and shield and doing some hardcore LARPing action, when she is suddenly called away to have some time with his lordship, who has beckoned her.

Robert Larson 10/12/16 Robert Larson 10/12/16

Review: Black Science #25

By Robert Larson

I wasn’t entirely happy with the direction Black Science took last issue, in part because the never-ending series of misfortunes was starting to wear thin. Yes, it’s been fun to watch Remender take the screws to his characters, especially given that most of them deserve at least some of the misfortune they’re force-fed, but it can start to feel predictable. And yet, this issue makes me want to step back from that a little bit, if for no other reason than Remender really commits to the monkey-wrench he threw last time. I can at least appreciate a writer making meaningful consequences stick.

Robert Larson 10/12/16 Robert Larson 10/12/16

Review: Warlords of Appalachia #1

By Robert Larson

It feels like there’s been a real explosion in the number of comics dealing with a second civil war (DMZ), secessionist movements (Briggs Land), or American military occupations (We Stand on Guard). This latest one breaks a bit of new ground by dealing with the aftermath of the first two and the midst of the third, this time in the state of Kentucky. It throws out some interesting ideas, though the narrative structure left some things in the air that could be secret for now, or just inconsistencies. I want to like it, but I’ll need another issue.

Chris Tresson 10/12/16 Chris Tresson 10/12/16

Review: James Bond: Hammerhead #1

By Chris Tresson

I don’t know what it is about Bond for me… It may be my British-ness or the fact I grew up watching the films on an almost weekly basis, but I always find myself coming back to him. I haven’t actually watched the last few 007 movies but I have been reading the comics and I’ve been finding them more entertaining than any of the movies I had watched recently (I think Casino Royale was the last I watched), so it’s good to see more comics coming out. Anyways, I’ll stop talking nonsense now. Here’s my review of James Bond: Hammerhead, published this week by Dynamite Entertainment.

Dustin Cabeal 10/12/16 Dustin Cabeal 10/12/16

Review: Reborn #1

By Dustin Cabeal

After Huck, I came back into the fold on Mark Millar. Before that, I had read and dropped off a lot of Millar titles after the first or second issue. I’ve learned that you have to give him two issues before you heap praise on him, with Huck being the exception.Reborn is vintage Millar. It’s high concept and easy, to sum up. The afterlife is real, but we’re all reborn in different bodies and fighting some fantasy adventure world of good and evil. Like I said, high concept. The charm of the issue comes from the methodical build up that leads to the reveal I just mentioned. We follow a woman’s life as it’s approaching its end and Millar carefully reveals to us each of the characters she’s lost and will once again be united with. It works because Millar is a talented writer and if he would just get over his need to have some kind of ultraviolence, then this issue would have been damn good. His dialogue, in particular, is the closest to the masterful work he did on Huck. I know I’ve brought up Huck way too much, but it is his masterpiece.

Robert Larson 10/12/16 Robert Larson 10/12/16

Review: Southern Cross #8

By Robert Larson

Southern Cross doesn’t let up with the second issue of this arc, which is usually where a series slows down for a little bit. But given the crisis that’s unfolding on Romulus, taking things slowly wouldn’t really make all that much sense. Everything was so close to crisis as is, and the disappearance of the Southern Cross and the murder of Carter has make it all fall apart. In the middle of this, Hazel is trying to make sense of it all without getting killed, knowing full well that a murderer is targeting her.

Patrick Larose 10/9/16 Patrick Larose 10/9/16

Review: Green Valley #1

By Patrick Larose

Green Valley #1 is everything I hate about reviewing single-issue series. This isn’t even really the fault of the comic itself but instead all the hype and marketing around it. When Green Valley was first announced there was this intense secrecy about it. Every interview following its announcement showed four knights facing off a barbarian horde. They’re friends, this is a fantasy comic it should be straight-forward but the writer, Max Landis, made sure to preface every interview with an “I can’t tell you anything about it without spoiling it.” The tagline itself invites us to question everything that happens in this comic: Kill a wizard, and slay his dragons. But there’s no such thing as wizards, dragons don’t exist.

Dustin Cabeal 10/7/16 Dustin Cabeal 10/7/16

Review: Monster of the Week #1

By Dustin Cabeal

For the longest time on the site, we supported Kickstarters and crowdsourced comics in general. After a long while, I noticed that we stopped moving the needle on these projects. There were too many, and our audience either became numb to them or worse, stopped caring about them. Either way, we dropped Kickstarters from the site unless we could review the material. Of course, all this feeds into Monster of the Week which is heading to Kickstarter. The book is finished which is always the best way to bring your comic to Kickstarter, and so the creators sent it my way to check out. I’ll tell you right now: this is the type of book we were always looking to support and help out.

Robert Larson 10/7/16 Robert Larson 10/7/16

Review: The Walking Dead #159

By Robert Larson

This is an oddly lifeless issue of The Walking Dead (har har). The battle between the Whisperers and Rick’s people ends in a kind of stalemate, which makes most of the fighting filler for what comes next. Paradoxically, the most interesting moments occur off the battlefield, as there’s a hidden threat in the Kingdom that might derail some of Rick’s plans. But that can’t change the fact that this is a thoroughly middling issue, some filler on the way to something else. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers in this review.

Patrick Larose 10/7/16 Patrick Larose 10/7/16

Review: Justice League #6

By Patrick Larose

Dear Justice League #6,

It’s been quite the trip, huh?

When I found you, it was my first week writing at Comic Bastards. I was at a pretty bad place in my life then. I wasn’t happy or secure in my day job, I was feeling creatively exhausted and drained. I’d been living in Philadelphia for a year and felt as if I hadn’t moved a step from when I came.

Wilson Taylor 10/6/16 Wilson Taylor 10/6/16

Review: Croak #2

By Wilson Taylor

I've actually been kind of dreading this review. Out of nowhere the Croak #1 review became my most viewed review on Comic Bastards and perhaps technically my most well-known piece of super-obscure writing. The moment I realized it was getting attention, I began internally begging writer Corey Sousa to knock the rest of the issues out of the park because what I had praised in Croak #1 was its promise of intrigue and I had specifically noted that it was building a particularly fragile house of cards. So how does #2 stand up?

Robert Larson 10/6/16 Robert Larson 10/6/16

Review: Autumnlands #13

By Robert Larson

In keeping with the revelations from the last issue, we learn a lot from Autumnlands #13, enough to change our perception of this world. Last issue was about the creators of the Autumnlands, who were really nothing more than irresponsible party boys who used the planet as a kind of pleasure resort. The frat bros made a mess, and now somebody’s been sent to clean it up. But for the residents of the Autumnlands, particularly Dusty and Aelbert, a clean-up crew is not going to be a good thing.

Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16 Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16

Review: Evil Ernie: GodEater #3

By Kaleb Herbert

God-Eater is quite the fitting name for the grotesque, gigantic creature that was trapped on Earth and is now free. Through the artwork of Worley and Razek the reader can really get a sense of how immense the God-Eater truly is and how SOL Ernie is in terms of facing off against this monstrosity. Besides the big reveal of exactly who the God Eater creature is this was a rather slow, dreadfully uneventful, somewhat disappointing issue in comparison to how the first two issues went. The first two issues had great character build-up, a solid pacing in terms of events taking place, and this issue just lacked any kind of real motivation to progress the story. From what Jordan and Davidsen delivered previously, maybe there was just a high expectation for them to keep following up with better and better material. Perhaps this slower issue will lead into greater things which is expected from what the past issues have delivered.

Robert Larson 10/5/16 Robert Larson 10/5/16

Review: Red One #4

By Robert Larson

I’ve figured out Red One’s schtick. Imagine a hard-core pornographic film that had no sex in it: some initiating dialogue, a premise, but ultimately no payoff. That’s basically this book. It works at a literal level, because Vera keeps talking about sex but never actually having any (though we’re treated to a porno fluffer sequence that ranks up there with the most pointless moments in all of print media); it also works because we keep having this conflict between her and the Carpenter teased, but now the arc is over, and we wait another year for it to be finished. All promise and no payoff.

Justin Wood 10/5/16 Justin Wood 10/5/16

Review: The Shaolin Cowboy: Shemp Buffet

By Justin Wood

This may be one of the hardest books to review I've ever come across. In fact, I'd argue nothing I've read can compare to this. Shaolin Cowboy: Shemp Buffet, collecting the Dark Horse era of Geoff Darrow's cult classic miniseries in hardcover, is evidence of an epic undertaking with over 120 pages of Darrow's immediately recognizable hyper-detailed linge claire style, meticulous from beginning to end. It's also an epic undertaking to read from cover to cover, a true endurance test. I can't quite tell how to classify this book. It's either a fascinating piece of experimental art or an insufferable oddity that only exists as evidence to Darrow's inexhaustible patience of drawing the exact same thing for months on end. Or maybe it's both.

Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16 Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16

Review: The Great Divide #2

By Kaleb Hebert

Fisher might just be on to something here. It has been a long time since a post-apocalypse style story has peaked my interest like this. The concept of a simple skin on skin touch killing a person and that person becomes part of you is frightening. Who would want to live in a world where any form of bare touching could kill those you love. Though death essentially lurks around every corner, there are still things people can do for fun in this new world, so it isn't all down in the dumps. There are still strippers, and even prostitutes, but this is a highly regulated profession since any skin on skin contact would lead to death for one person.