RECOMMENDED: Poopsheet

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A moment's silence, please...

...Monkey Woman has left the building. :(

RECOMMENDED: Artistic License

SURE, he spells it "license" and not "licence", but I'll forgive my North American friend, Patrick Fillion, because he's sooooo fucking talented. Check out his new blog at http://artisticlicenseblog.blogspot.com/ - his illo of The Scarlet Witch is killer.

Marvel: The Lost Generation

CALL me perverse, but I like the idea of "false" continuities in comic-book history.
For example, I'm a huge fan of The 1950s Avengers (as featured in the classic What If...? #9 in the late 70s), recently revived in the Agents Of Atlas miniseries (review to come soon).
Now, I've got a hankering to read the Marvel: The Lost Generation maxiseries by Roger Stern and John Byrne. The series looked at the superheroes who existed between WW2 and the coming of the Fantastic Four (who, in current Marvel continuity, only came into existence in the early 1990s). That's nearly 50 years - what heroes constantly saved the world during that period? Stern explored (and, thankfully, Byrne didn't do any of the writing).
Anyway, I know the maxiseries was flawed (I've read the online reviews), but I'm still keen to read it.
It appears MTLG was never released as a graphic novel, so if anyone can dig up some (or all) of the original issues from its 2000-01 run, I'll gladly take them off your hands. :)

Look! It's Michael Chugg...

...working furiously on his next big tour.

Go, Mister 3-for-3, go!

Mister "3 for 3"...

LAST Wednesday, AW and I attended the media launch in Sydney for the Aussie version of the hit Brit stage show, War Of The Worlds, based on Jeff Wayne's concept album from the late 70s.
Of course we were gonna be there - Adam and I are both old enough to fondly remember the old double-LP which featured the voices of Richard Burton, Justin Hayward, Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott, David Essex and Julie Covington among others. It really was quite good, but I never realised the cult status the album has achieved over the past few decades.
Who knew Wayne had turned his rock opera into a blockbuster multimedia production that toured the UK to much acclaim last year? Not me.
Anyway, we went to the launch and discovered that Australian Idol's series one runner-up Shannon Noll - he of the "flavour-savour" goatee - will take on the late Lynott's role as Pastor Nathaniel. That'll guarantee a full house when the tour hits Oz later this year, I guess.
Richard Burton's role as the narrator will be played by...Richard Burton. He's been "brought back to life" using state-of-the-art computer animation which, sadly, makes him look a lot like the old Clutch Cargo cartoon (y'know the one...where the animated art barely moved except for some human lips superimposed on the bottom of the characters' faces. It looked cheesy as hell).
Also, there's a 30-foot Martian war machine on stage that looks scarily like a leftover prop from This Is Spinal Tap (remember the band's doomed "Stonehenge" concert?). Anyhow, I'm sure the event will be awesome...although I'll be fucked if I'll pay $160 for a ticket to see it.
But what's kinda funny is War Of The Worlds is being brought here by Aussie promoter Michael Chugg, the same man who recently gave us the Nine Inch Nails abortion...er, I mean, "tour".
When he spoke at the launch, Chugg - a very fat toad of a man - was bragging about War Of The Worlds and his other two big tours of the moment, NIN and Gwen Stefani. He kept bragging how he was "three for three" when it came to successful tours.
Well, Mikey, you fat fuck, thanks to Trent Reznor's little tanty - and the fact War Of The Worlds hasn't ACTUALLY made it to our shores yet - you're really only batting "one for two". You Hawaiian shirt-wearing cunt!
Um...anyway, to those of you attending War Of The Worlds...ENJOY THE SHOW. :D

Look! It's Clutch Cargo! No...wait, it's the disembodied head of Richard Burton...about to be attacked by a leftover prop from Spinal Tap's "Stonehenge!"

Two books wot I have read lately...

Freezer Burn (1999) by Joe R. Lansdale: I love Lansdale's quirky horror stories (The Drive-In, The Drive-In 2, Bubba Ho-Tep), but this one kinda let me down at the end. It's a breezy read of a novella - equal parts outlandish violence, groin-swelling sex scenes and general weirdness. But the ending kinda left me cold and confused, which is not the way I want to feel after a rollicking ride of a story. Anyway, if you're still interested, Freezer Burn tells the story of Bill, a low-rent crim with a dead mother in his house and no career prospects. After a fireworks stand robbery goes bad, Bill winds up hiding out in a small-time freak show and life starts to pick up for him, especially when he begins bonking the show boss's wife Gidget. Joe loves describing femme fatale Gidget's body in great detail - it's fun (and horny) to read. Like I said, the ending's a bit of a letdown, but the book's still pretty good. I got it for $7 at Angus & Robertson, so it's not like I feel ripped off or anything.

Men Of Tomorrow (2004) by Gerard Jones: Thanks to AW for this little beauty - a wonderful 40th birthday present. This fascinating, well-written history of comics lays bare its origins in all its sleazy, Noo Yawk-Jewish-Mafia-drenched glory. Sure, fanboys may rave about the comicbook creators like Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster (Superman), Bob Kane (Batman), Will Eisner (The Spirit) and Stan Lee & Jack Kirby (X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, etc), but the real people driving the industry from its start in the 1930s were sharp, ruthless businessmen like Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz. Sure, they shafted a lot of writers and artists (especially Siegel & Schuster) along the way, but Jones isn't completely unsympathetic to the men at DC who "stole" Superman away from its creators.
He explains how Harry and Jack were merely products of their upbringing - childhood poverty and the overwhelming desire to break free from it drove them to do things that seem pretty fucking scummy now. Comics were a business - pure and simple - and that's how they dealt with it.
Jones also isn't afraid to paint previously untouchable heroes like Siegel in a less-than-flattering light. Frankly, Siegel (and Schuster) did pretty well with DC until Jerry's paranoia and strident demands pushed his bosses to their breaking points. And Siegel wasn't the "naive innocent" he later painted himself out to be to the comic geeks who lobbied on his behalf in the 1970s when he fought for more money and recognition from the company that had profited so handsomely from his creation.
Basically, in the end, what Jones is trying to say is that there's no real black and white - Harry and Jack weren't out-and-out bad guys, Siegel & Schuster weren't total good guys. Like everything else in this world, it's all shades of grey.
Men Of Tomorrow is a tremendous book - all comic book fanboys should read it and become a tad more enlightened in the process.

NIN no-shows

I'M PRETTY bummed this week - Nine Inch Nails played Sydney on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Well...at least, they were supposed to.

Friends who went to Wednesday's gig said Trent chucked a tantrum during the show about the lighting, sound, etc at the venue, The Big Top at Luna Park (an amusement park). Despite that fact, they claimed it was an awesome gig - very angry. How angry was to be revealed the next day.

Suddenly, on Thursday afternoon, it was announced that night's NIN gig had been "postponed". I had a ticket for that show. :(

The next day - Friday's gig had been "postponed" as well.

In fact, they've been postponed to mid-September.

Of course, whether Trent will even be there in September is unknown. While I would've enjoyed seeing NIN live, I'm gonna get a refund on my ticket, 'cos I don't know what the hell I'll be doing four months from now.

Like I said, bummer.

Fuck you, Trent, you tanty-throwing baby.

Excelsior!

SURE, I know who won the damn show - and it's only A YEAR LATE reaching Australian TV screens - but Helen and I watched the first episode of Who Wants To Be A Superhero? tonight (recorded a few days earlier on DVD) and...WE LIKED IT.

I'm genuinely surprised to be writing that. I didn't think I would, but the show is cheesy yet kinda moving.

Stan Lee is fun to watch, even if he seems to be using a ton of DC superhero references as opposed to Marvel ones. That seems odd.

As for the contestants, Iron Enforcer is a dick, Fat Momma is cool, Major Victory deserves to win 'cos he "gets" what the concept's about........and.......and........

I LOVE YOU, MONKEY WOMAN!!!!

BOOK REVIEW: It Rhymes With Lust

IT RHYMES WITH LUST by Drake Waller
Dark Horse, ISBN: 1-59307-728-9

THIS pioneering graphic novel – known as a “picture novel” when it was first published in 1950 – is a seedy-but-fun read featuring treacherous dames, cynical newshounds, gun-toting killers, corrupt politicians and even a kind-hearted cabbie. When evil Rust Masson inherits her late husband’s fortune and takes control of Copper City, it’s up to her ex-lover and the town’s newest newspaper editor Hal Weber – along with Rust’s courageous step-daughter Audrey – to bring her down. But can Hal overcome his desire for both Rust and the booze? Drake Waller was in fact two comic book writers – Arnold Drake (who created The Doom Patrol for DC) and Leslie Waller. The function art is by Matt Baker and Ray Osrin. Grab a bottle of bourbon, sink back in a leather chair, tip your fedora back and wallow in the closest thing comics can get to genuine film noir.

It was Free Comic Book Day on Saturday

YEP, it was Free Comic Book Day and I managed to pick up a mere TWO free mags this year (and only ONE of them was hard-copy). Last year, when I was in Melbourne with Helen for the Logies, I scored a free comic at Minotaur and a whole friggin' goodies bag at another store. But not this year, I'm afraid.


From Phantom Zone in Parramatta I got Who Wants To Be A Superhero?, a TV tie-in from Dark Horse. I suppose I was interested to read it as the reality TV series debuts on Foxtel's Sci-Fi in a couple of weeks. Sadly, I already know who wins the bloody show 'cos the winner's prize got their own comic written by Marvel icon Stan Lee. And I read it so...um, no need to watch the series anymore, eh? Yep, a guy called Feedback won, but I'm sure the series will still be worth watching. However, as for the comic itself, you're not missing anything. Lee's script is mediocre bordering on crummy and Will Conrad's art is perfunctory. Very ordinary superhero shenanigans, I'm afraid.


Much cooler was this offering from TwoMorrows Publishing: Jack Kirby Collector #47. Sure, it's a PDF, but hey! It was free and a very quick download from the company's web site at http://www.twomorrows.com/. I'm still amazed that Kirby produced enough rare/unseen work that it can lead to 48 issues (to date), but I guess that's what happens when you're a prolific artist who started work back in the late 1930s.
As part of Free Comic Book Day, TwoMorrows was offering several of their titles for download on the weekend. If you hurry, they might still be available - they won't be there for much longer, I imagine.

REVIEW: Deadlands: The Rising

Hey! It's some Insane Clown Posse fans...no, wait, they look way too intelligent. They MUST be zombies wearing shitty make-up

I WON'T say Deadlands: The Rising is the worst zombie film I've ever seen...

...

Oh okay...I'll SAY it - Deadlands: The Rising is the worst fucking zombie film I've ever seen!
I can't think of too many things worse than sitting through this badly filmed, badly scripted, badly acted, badly scored, amateurish, lame-arse shite...except maybe having a lump of wood driven up my anus!

I can almost forgive the crappy special FX - hey, it's a no-budget film, I expected that.
And the fact it's been shot seemingly on someone's mobile phone in the middle of the night is only slightly annoying - thankfully, most of the "actors" are wearing white T-shirts, so at least I can see them in the darkness.
And, sure, Deadlands is only 55 minutes long, which means it barely qualifies as a movie. But hey, that's cool...it means there's no time for unnecessary plot or dialogue. Just a solid hour of zombie mayhem and gore, right? That's all a horror fan wants anyway, right?
Wrong.
Sadly, what we have here is one of the sloooooooowest, most boring horror films I've ever seen. There's no suspense, there are no shocks, there are no jump-in-your-seat moments. There's nothing...except a really fat chick as the lead heroine.

Quick plot recap: Mysterious explosions rock US cities including Baltimore. Soon, a bunch of people are fighting for their lives against zombies created by some unexplained biological terror weapon. I'm not sure exactly - nothing is ever explained. And it takes 30 fucking minutes before we get to our first zombie kill - that's more than half-way through the bloody film!
Our heroes - two rednecks, one redneck's very fat wife, their fathead kid and the wife's gun nut brother - do very little of interest as they rather easily escape the zombie hordes (consisting of half a dozen friends of the director wearing pancake make-up and tomato sauce) and hole up in the wilderness, hoping to survive the undead holocaust.

SPOILER (BUT I DON'T FUCKING CARE) ALERT: Everyone dies at the end.

Of course, I had to guess that - the final scene is so vague, sudden...some might even be rude enough to say, UTTERLY FUCKED. Several zombies shamble towards our heroes' house and.......cue end credits. What the fuck?! What the hell just happened?

Redneck hero No. 1 hears a noise in his house as scary music plays in the background. Will a zombie jump out from behind him and attack our hero? Will he...FUCK! It turns out to be his stupid dog. And then the dipshit LEAVES his dog behind to diewith the offhand comment, "I'll come back for you, boy." (He doesn't, by the way)

Surprisingly, there is one thing to be recommended on Deadlands: The Rising and it can be found in the extras. For some reason, a short British film called I Am Zombie Man has been included and it's not too shabby considering it cost about 50 cents to produce. But it contains more humour, verve and imagination in 10 minutes than Deadlands showed in just under an hour. See if you can find this little gem on www.youtube.com and don't waste your money on buying Deadlands: The Rising to get it. However, it you really really must be a completist and get a copy of Deadlands, then head to http://www.tempevideo.com/, who specialise in low-budget and no-budget horror films...most of which are way way better than fucking Deadlands: The Rising.

Zombie Man plays air guitar

Two "older" women I'd like to pork...

...the seemingly ageless Jennifer Tilly (champion actress and champion poker player)...

...and German supermodel (and host of Project Runway) Heidi Klum. Yummy mummy... mmmmm!

Another six-word novel

Tick...tock...tick...tock...tick......................................BOOM!

Not bad for a chick in her 80s, eh?

AT LEAST Bettie's doing a lot better than the chick on her left.

This shot appeared in the most recent issue of Playboy.

Scan courtesy of Dr Mike Lano. Thanks, Mike.

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The "Mucha Lucha" crew...all grown up (by Jesse Justice)

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