Jonathan Edwards 12/6/17 Jonathan Edwards 12/6/17

Review: DC Holiday Special 2017 #1

By Jonathan Edwards

It’s December, so that means ‘tis the season for holiday specials like this one, and ‘tis the season for starting reviews off with the phrase “’tis the season.” In the wake of Rebirth last year, I was looking forward to DC’s DC Rebirth Holiday Special #1. It seemed like a great way to celebrate the season and the overall success of the relaunch. Unfortunately, if my LCS had gotten any copies (I didn’t ask, but I’m sure they did), they’d sold out of them before I got there. This was also before I started reviewing for Comic Bastards (if only barely), so I didn’t have access to any review copies. Oh well, I told myself, and I figured it maybe wouldn’t have turned out to be that good of a read anyway. In retrospect, that seems like an unnecessarily sour attitude to take during the most wonderful time of the year. And, the best way I can think of to make up for that is to take an optimistic look at DC Holiday Special 2017 #1.

Comic Bastards 11/29/17 Comic Bastards 11/29/17

Group Review: Batman: Creature of the Night #1

By the Comic Bastards

Welcome to the review. If you’re unfamiliar with Comic Bastards’ group review format, then allow me to get you up to speed. Each of the participating writers will give their thoughts, along with their own personal score for the issue. Each score stands on its own so don’t expect an average. Now, here’s a blurb about Batman: Creature of the Night #1.

Young Bruce Wainwright lost his parents in a violent crime…and in the real world; no superheroes exist to save the day. But as grief and rage builds inside Bruce until he feels he can’t keep it inside anymore, something strange starts taking wing in the Gotham night! Perhaps Bruce’s grief isn’t inside him after all?

Dustin Cabeal 11/28/17 Dustin Cabeal 11/28/17

Comic Bastards Podcast - 022

By Dustin Cabeal

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022 - Welcome back to the show, I'm ahead of the releases this week so be forewarned that you could hear details about books you can't read yet. That may or may not save you some cash. I cover a lot this week, from indies to big ass titles so sit back and give it a listen.

Comic Books covered in this episode:

Giantkiller #0
Gung Ho (One-Shot)
Heavy Vinyl (former Hi-Fi Fight Club) #4
Hack/Slash Ressurection #2
Detropia #1
Malefic #1
Batman: Creature of the Night #1

Dustin Cabeal 11/15/17 Dustin Cabeal 11/15/17

Comic Bastards Podcast - 020

By Dustin Cabeal

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020 - Well after some computer problems/cloud issues, I'm back! Episode twenty... feels like I should have been here much sooner. Are you enjoying this weekly podcast with just one dude talking? If so, please let me know or just subscribe to the show via the links below. Before reviews, I do cover one bit of news so hang on to the object in your hand that you're not very likely to drop, but fuck... maybe you will. Thanks for listening!

Books covered in this episode:

Batman: Who Laughs #1
Dark Fang #1
Ninja-K #1
Little Guardians

Press Release 11/10/17 Press Release 11/10/17

Batman: The Telltale Series Comes To Comics... Ouroboros Anyone?

Press Release

The popular video game Batman: The Telltale Series, is adding new plot points to its storyline in a new Digital First comic book miniseries, BATMAN: SINS OF THE FATHER, to be released by DC. The series will bridge the gap between the first and second season of the acclaimed game, developed by Telltale Games and licensed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. TV and comic book writer Christos Gage (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Angel & Faith, TV’s Daredevil) will helm the series, with artist Raffaele Ienco (Fantastic Four, Black Knight) making his debut on his first DC comic book. The story will delve deeper into the narrative, with new details for the current game, Batman: The Enemy Within. The miniseries will be released digitally beginning February 12, with print issues beginning February 21.

Cat Wyatt 11/8/17 Cat Wyatt 11/8/17

Review: Dark Nights: Batman Lost #1

By Cat Wyatt

Batman: Lost is a Dark Nights: Metal tie-in, and being that it is issue #1 it has the luxury of starting where it wants to. In this case that is showing us Bruce Wayne at the ripe old age of 78, settling down to read a story to his granddaughter. Seeing Bruce act so parental should probably set off some sort of alarm bells for any Batman fan, for surely something deeper is going on here.

Benjamin Snyder 11/1/17 Benjamin Snyder 11/1/17

Review: The Shadow/Batman #2

By Ben Snyder

Picking up exactly where the last issue left off The Shadow/Batman #2 is another enthralling entry into the second crossover of two of the most iconic and historic characters in all of comics. While certainly not perfect in all regards, Steve Orlando and Giovanni Timpano do more than enough to justify the existence of this comic.

Dustin Cabeal 10/25/17 Dustin Cabeal 10/25/17

Review: Batman: The Merciless #1

By Dustin Cabeal

I finally figured out what’s familiar and ultimately not very good about Dark Nights Metal, and all of these tie-ins that have become redundant and predictable. Remember Marvel’s Original Sin? Remember that shit? Where they just started handing out hammers to the Marvel U, both villains and heroes and basically everyone was a Thor? There were a billion tie-ins were each jabroni takes a one-shot to get their hammer and then, “Tune in for the main title to see them use it!”

Dustin Cabeal 10/25/17 Dustin Cabeal 10/25/17

Comic Bastards Podcast - 017

By Dustin Cabeal

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017 - After a week off filled with pain and suffering I'm back to bring the pain and suffering... is there a correlation there? Fuck me, probably. Anyway, thanks for listening and here's what's covered on this week's episode of the Comic Bastards Podcast!

Maestros #1
Kid Lobotamy #1
DC House of Horror #1
Batman: The Merciless #1
The Ruff and Reddy Show #1
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call #1
Jughead: The Hunger #1
Nightwing: New World Order #3

Justin McCarty 10/4/17 Justin McCarty 10/4/17

Review: The Shadow/Batman #1

By Justin McCarty

Here is the newest Shadow Batman team up. It promises to give us the best of Batman and The Shadow as they have to deal with a decades-old conspiracy. There has been a steady run of Batman Shadow books lately, and that's for a good reason, they feed into each other. The Shadow inspired Batman, and it’s clear as Batman became popular, the mythos fed back into The Shadow stories. As long as we keep making great Batman Shadow comics, the loop will continue.

Justin McCarty 9/27/17 Justin McCarty 9/27/17

Review: Batman: The Murder Machine #1

By Justin McCarty

The latest Dark Knights Metal tie-in is out! Barbatos’ next evil Batman to come through the door is The Murder Machine, the Batman/Cyborg mashup. As the Metal event continues to play out, we get a few more details about the evil Batmen and Barbatos’ plans. This issue, the evil Batman must go through Cyborg to get what he wants. Which isn’t totally made clear to us. It involves Dr. Stone and STAR Labs, maybe Cyborg himself has something the evil Batmen want.

Press Release 9/21/17 Press Release 9/21/17

TCM Launches New 'Batman in Noir Alley' Comic Book, 360 Experience and Digital Episodes

Press Release

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is expanding the shadowy world of its popular franchise Noir Alley with new immersive brand extensions including a comic book and a 360-degree experience featuring original digital episodes. TCM has partnered with DC Entertainment for a free comic book entitled Batman in Noir Alley starring DC’s iconic Super Hero, Batman, and TCM’s Noir Alley host Eddie Muller. Additionally, TCM will offer fans the opportunity to dive deeper into to the mysterious world of film noir with a new 360-degree experience for desktop and virtual reality devices with an accompanying seven episode digital feature launching in October.

Justin McCarty 9/20/17 Justin McCarty 9/20/17

Review: Batman: The Red Death #1

By Justin McCarty

The premise for this comic is pretty simple: Earth-52 Batman (Dark Knight Returns Batman) is fed up with his lack of progress with his war on crime. He has lost everyone he’s loved, and he’s had no success. He literally believes if he had the speed force he’d be able to do better. Batman spends the first half of the book fighting Flash for it. He rigs the cosmic treadmill to the Batmobile; his plan is to drive so fast he catches up to the speed force? It’s a superhero comic; I’ll let it go. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying he sort of gets what he wants. He and Flash merge, and Batman Red Death is born. This is an exceptionally dark take on Batman. He kills all the bad guys in his universe, then, after getting a little motivation from the Batman Who Laughs, he decides to take on Earth-0, where he goes full on evil.

Dustin Cabeal 9/20/17 Dustin Cabeal 9/20/17

Comic Bastards Podcast - 013

By Dustin Cabeal

Please click here to listen to the show!

013 - I'm prepared this week! At least more than last week. This time around on the ole Comic Bastards Podcast it's all first issues! There are so many first issues that I couldn't remember them all or be bothered to cover them. Thanks for listening and please subscribe on iTunes or Google Play with the links below!

Dustin Cabeal 8/23/17 Dustin Cabeal 8/23/17

Review: Batman is Trustworthy

By Dustin Cabeal

Having read the previous two books in the Capstone/DC kids books, I decided to give it one more shot because I really would love a kids Batman book that I could share with my son. The same problem persists in Batman is Trustworthy as it did in Be A Star, Wonder Woman and Bedtime for Batman. The message isn’t subtle and the equivalent of me just telling my child to do something while showing them a picture of Batman and saying the word “Batman” over and over.

Dustin Cabeal 8/22/17 Dustin Cabeal 8/22/17

Comic Bastards Podcast - 009

By Dustin Cabeal

Click on the headline or here to listen to the episode

009 - Get ready for something different! This is not the return of the usual Comic Bastards Podcast that you may have been waiting for. Instead, it's something different. It's just me, Dustin, and I'm going to review some books... quickly. Okay, not that quick it turns out, but I will run through about seven or eight titles in what I hope will be a weekly show that I put together. Be sure to check out the video as well... it's me staring at the camera and doodling on the screen... enjoy?

Dustin Cabeal 8/21/17 Dustin Cabeal 8/21/17

IndieGoGo: Shadow Draw – First Impressions

By Dustin Cabeal

It has been a long time since I talked about or posted a project that’s either on or coming to a crowd-funded platform. I’ll be honest with you all since I get asked all the time why I stopped (and likely the reason I’m cursed at in private) covering crowd funded projects, and the reason is that there’s just too damn many. I am one dude and to be quite honest the bulk of the requests I was given had no info and nothing for me to see and write about. It’s extremely difficult to help someone when you don’t know anything about their project other than the surface level stuff. It was difficult writing articles worth reading about projects I could hardly talk about. Soon enough, I was getting numerous requests for IndieGoGo/Kickstarter coverage, and it got to the point that I had to decide if I was covering comics or crowd funded projects. I choose comics.

Comic Bastards 8/16/17 Comic Bastards 8/16/17

Duel Review: Dark Nights: Metal #1

By Dustin and Daniel

Welcome to our first duel review in a long ass time. A duel review is similar to a group review, but with only two people. I’ll be honest I never know which duel/dual to use… pick the one you like better. Anyway, Daniel and Dustin will give their thoughts on Dark Nights: Metal #1 along with their individual scores! It’s like two reviews… get it?

Synopsis: All the “Meta’s” are “Metal’s” and Batman is from an evil bat tribe.

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.

Press Release 8/15/17 Press Release 8/15/17

Life Imitates Comic Book Art in Batman: Creature of the Night

Press Release

Every Batman fan has dreamed of becoming the Dark Knight—putting on the cowl, firing up the Batmobile and heading out to take on the Joker. However, we’d imagine that very few of them have dreamed about being Bruce Wayne as a child. While having your own Batcave and hanging with the Justice League would be fun, the important tragedy it took for Bruce Wayne to get there is often overlooked.