REVIEW: "The Experts" and "The Sentinels"

The Experts' Ninja Witch and Free Mary

The Experts #1&2 (Near Mint Press)
The Sentinels Vol.1-4 (Drumfish Productions)

SUPERHEROES will never die – not while there’s a movie million or two to be made. But if you’re getting bored with the same old smash’n’bash epics from Marvel and DC, then check out what’s cookin’ with the smaller companies.

First up, there’s The Experts, which is a wacked-out look at caped crusaders. Issue one sees the formation of a new team of heroes with such speccy names as Naked Man, the Emerald Yeti and Mr Elaztik. I also dug a back-up yarn about Trent, a teenager desperate to protect his secret identity as Superboy wannabe Incredo-Lad…despite the fact EVERYONE in his town already knows.

Issue two follows two team members – Ninja Witch and Free Mary – as they undertake their first mission with disastrous results.

Kenn Minter’s stories are pretty funny and Clarence Pruitt’s art has a nice 60s retro feel to it. You can order the mags directly from expertscomic.blogspot.com.

For more serious super-action, I’d recommend The Sentinels, a graphic novel series about a group of second-generation heroes trying to live up to the legacy of their dead parents, who were killed years earlier while saving the world.

But Harlette, Templar, Crusher and friends are gonna have a hard time of it with a hell-spawned demon, horny aliens and a sinister mastermind attempting to destroy them…and that’s all in the first novel!

While there’s plenty of biffo in The Sentinels, creators Rich Bernatovech and Luciano Vecchio also devote a lot of space to examining the relationships between various team members. By the fourth book, I cared about a lot of the characters, which makes it tough as not all of them survive to the very end.

It’s not perfect by any means, but give these fellas credit for trying to do something a bit different than your typical Spider-Man yarn. The graphic novels can be bought at www.sentinelsonline.com.

The Sentinels' Harlette

REVIEW: Kiwifruit KitKat

AS MY wife Helen said, "The Japanese clearly have no fear of green-coloured chocolate." We enjoyed Green Tea KitKat, and we looooooooooooooooooved Kiwifruit KitKat...delicate flavour and soooooooo tasty. So who gives a fug if it's green?
Ya gotta love these Asian limited-edition chocolate bars. :P

Thanks to Gianni Simone from Japan for sending this choccy delight our way.

Life's pretty straight without...

I DO love my Twisties - Cheese Twisties have been a favourite of mine for decades (Chicken Twisties not so much). So when I recently spotted new "Tangy Cheese" Twisties in a petrol station in Burra in South Australia's mid-north, I had to buy me a pack.

NOTE: Most overseas people won't know what I'm talking about, but trust me...these yummy corn'n'rice snacks are beloved down-under, as well as in Malta, Singapore, Malaysia and Fiji (according to Wikipedia). And they're DELICIOUS!
Twisties are produced by Aussie company Smith's (who are now owned by Frito-Lay and PepsiCo...yaaaaay for corporate conglomerates).

Anyway, the limited-edition "Tangy Cheese" Twisties - which tasted damn fine, in my opinion - claim on the packaging it "turns your tongue blue". I can attest to that fact today - kinda disgusting really...but the kids will love it, I guess.

Hmmmm...I seem to recall there used to be another junk snack around many years ago that turned your tongue blue when you ate them, but I don't think they were Twisties. Can anyone enlighten me?

Here's another fascinating Twisties-related fact: didja know there were bacon-flavoured Twisties available in the early 70s? They were gone in less than a year (and, I suspect, never sold in South Australia when I was growing up as I don't remember them and I was a Twisties fiend).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Glenn Smith

HELEN and I recently commissioned Aussie artist extraordinaire Glenno to do a painting for us. We wanted a version of the famous "dogs playing poker" painting, but featuring our four dogs: Pugwash (deceased), Bongo (deceased), Missy and Indy.

Well, Glenno did an AMAZING job on the painting - the pic now holds pride of place on the wall next to our home bar. It is an awesome piece of art.

If you want to see some more examples of Glenno's brilliant work, then head to his official web site Glenno Art at http://users.bigpond.net.au/necrotard/home.html.

But steer clear of the site if you're a clown, OK?