MONDAY LINKS TEAM UP

-Some GameFAQS for the upcoming Doctor Who for the Wii: Be sure to level up your witty retorts skill. It will come in handy later. Study up on your physics for Level 3 'Actually Plotting a Course Through Time.' Don't forget the red jelly babies fill up health and the blue jelly babies put enemies to sleep! The faster you wave the Wiimote on the Daleks level the faster the Doctor will decide whether it's moral to eradicate an entire race of evil beings or not.-j

-So that Spiderman broadway musical/abortion is apparently gonna happen again or something. They realize Howard Stern already beat them to it, right?-b

-Comics to get this coming Wednesday: Joe the Barbarian #3, Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1 (art by Cable's Olivetti and written by Pak & Van Lente!), Siege #3 (fuck the "director's cut" of #1 though), and Groo: Hogs of the Horder #4!-b

-For the three people in the world that enjoyed my indulgent Doctor Who week, and/or are interested in this whole "Hypnagogic pop" thing. A very awesome and very makes-you-feel-gross video for James Ferraro's "Headlines (Access Holywood)" from Last American Hero, which you can order here.

-Also noticed the BOOM! reissue of Don Rosa's The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck is out on Tuesday in hardcover at 25 bucks with "Volume 2" out next week. I was in a Barnes & Noble tonight and saw it already on the shelves so yeah, maybe you can get it early.-b

-Hard-to-find comics Brandon was able to get his hands on this week and read: The Bodyssey by Richard Corben and The One Trick Rip-Off by Paul Pope.

First up, The Bodyssey. Basically, this is Corben in the mid-80s, probably at the height of his powers, devoting all his immense talents towards a joke fantasy comic. It's like if Yngwie Malmsteen followed up Rising Force with songs about farts or something, but it was still just as technically awesome and perfect as the other stuff. Corben just flat-out is the heir to sword-and-sorcery comics, but it's almost like he doesn't care or more perversely, loves using his talents towards a big joke. So the characters comment on how dumb the story is and like, the main character Pilgor fights these weird ball sack monsters called Scrotals and a guy bounces a woman's boobbs around and goes "Look I'm a juggler" and there's lot of perfectly-drawn dicks flopping around.

Paul Pope's early stuff is legendary because it's OOP and remains OOP but it deserves the almost myth behind it because this shit is really, really good. Post-Heavy Liquid I'd say Pope's writing gets weird--his art's always great--but in these early stories they're these wonderful genre tales full of big sincere romance and cool action and a very Hemingway-like sense of "the world's fucked". And I don't just say that because Pope cites Hemingway in the intro to this book, Escapo feels that way too. One Trick Rip-Off doesn't have an ending-type ending, it just kinda floats away, and there's way more time spent on Indian food and end-of-the-world romance than crime, but that's how it should be.-b

-Pretty much everyone who cares about comics was annoyed at this "The 10 Most Important Gay Moments in Comic Book History" because it didn't include stuff like Dykes to Watch Out For or Howard Cruse's boring books but you know, the list was "important" moments and shit that happens in a big stupid mainstream superhero book is always gonna be more important than the stuff the happens in a book whose audience is already gay or gay-friendly. Sorry. Also the site is called "Ranker" and so, it makes dumb lists so we argue about it. In the blogging "industry" we cynically call posts like Ranker's "DIGG bait". Even though no one uses Digg anymore.-b


This is really great!-b