Blood, Hex and Violence

Every once in awhile you get a comic that comes along and shocks you to the core. Not because it’s necessarily terrifying, but because it re-invents the wheel. Hexed is a comic by Michael Alan Nelson’s, BOOM! Studios in house horror savant who writes among many other things, Fall of Cthulhu.

courtesy BOOM!

Hexed is a comic about Lucifer, a female occult thief. This may seem like an overused gimmick, and to be truthful, there have been a lot of female protagonist occult thrillers on the market recently due to the success of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake books. But this series redefines that genre not just in the way the conflict is set up, but in how Nelson uses unique devices to progress that conflict.

There are a lot of really cool throw away ideas in here, like a portal into a person or demons captured in toys, that are unique and fresh interpretations of this sort of story. While first issue critiques are always sketchy because you can’t judge an entire novel from its first chapter, Hexed makes you want to keep reading the other issues, which is more than I can say for other series.

Michael Alan Nelson said in the press release for Hexed, “I think a great story needs more than flashy gimmicks and a couple of neat concepts. You absolutely must have a compelling story and fleshed-out characters before you can start throwing labyrinthine plots into the mix. I look for chilling conflicts, then find ways to make them as unsettling and riveting as possible.” I see exactly what he means.

Hexed takes this almost tired genre, turns it on its head in new and creative ways, and sets up an inventive premise with the promise for more occult nonsensery that could disturb and/or fascinate you. A great indie must read.

On tonight’s LA Ink, and its subsequent reruns, Hannah heads out to the BOOM! Studios offices for super hero inspiration with Mark Waid, EiC of BOOM! and writer of several DC and Marvel comics.

courtesy BOOM!

Sadly, I missed the episode, but my DVR didn’t! I think its cool when the mainstream, like TV, gives credibility to comics. The movies help, but they deal with comics only so much as the family acknowledges the adopted child at a reunion. Yeah, comics are cool, media says, but only cool when we’ve changed it and made it our own bastardization.

What is also cool about this “crossover” is the combination of two misunderstood and ignored art forms - tattoo artists are just as talented as comic artists, dealing with beauty and transposing a persons’ desire onto page and skin. What’s sad is these under appreciated art forms may not realize how popular culture pats them on the head and sends them away with a lollipop. Comics are starting to get there, I don’t know about tattoos, but as long as comics always have to be talked about in special episodes or segments, they probably aren’t there yet.

Life’s A Lich And Then You Die (And Respawn)

The new WoW parch came out yesterday, in anticipation for the Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for the massively popular MMORPG. There have been a few bumps along the way, and as my first patch experience, I think I handled it pretty well… kind of.

courtesy Blizzard

The realms (servers) all went down for a few hours, and there was a new patch to install. That was to be expected, but what I didn’t expect were all the fun little glitches. For instance, once the game went back up, with a brand new log in screen and load screens, the characters were inaccessible. This scared me, and concerned, I asked some of my friends what was going on - they told me that sometimes during updates whole servers are deleted. After my heart attack subsided, they told me they were joking, that this was my first patch experience and that these things take time. Read the rest of this entry »

Would I sound like a weirdo if I said Marvel Zombies 3 was more succulent than the flesh of a scared teenager? Probably. That’s why I’m saying Marvel Zombies 3 is as good as the original and defiantly better than the sequel, instead.

The main story focuses on the invasion of the Marvel Zombies from their universe to the mainstream Marvel Universe (616). This is a cool premise because the zombie characters can meet their non-zombie counterparts, basically because again, that battle would be really cool. I mean, honestly, this series is about fanboy crazy fun, not serious or emotional brooding found in many comics today. There is no point to this series other than plain fun (which the sequel kind of forgot), which means the writer has license to do whatever will make the fan happy.

This first issue is a fun start to the series, introducing an awesome super hero team just so they can get eaten, and also throwing in random and bizarre aspects of recent and past Marvel history - like S.W.O.R.D., Project Lightning Storm, and the Nexus of Realities. Morbius hasn’t made a cameo in awhile, and after learning about Iron Man’s past story arcs, I find it neat that Jocasta is back. I love Warren Ellis’ version of Machine Man, but Marvel Editorial seems to frown on other writers portraying the robot similar to Futurama’s Bender, so maybe the fun character we expect won’t show, but that’s not a big deal. Seeing zombie Deadpool makes up for everything this issue could have possibly lacked!

This is the perfect series for someone who wants comics to be funny. Check this out, even if you haven’t read the other volumes.

America’s Best Comics Returns!!!

Yes! This is it! I’ve been waiting 4 years for this! Top Ten: Beyond the Farthest Precinct was a travesty, a book too bizarre and random, undercutting the serious human issues Moore presented in his original series.

This new series, the second season, is what Farthest Precinct should have been. The characters are set up; old, new and underused alike to get set loose in a brilliant maze of story that all converges at one glorious end.

America’s Best Comics are the best modern comics readers can find, and naysayers need to read Top Ten to prove them wrong. Everything a super hero book should be - bizarre, epic, emotional - Top Ten is. Zander Cannon and Gene Ha know what they’re doing, and we should listen when they speak.

courtesy DC Comics