Holiday Madness

By Unkiedev

I was watching the Flintstones the other day and noticed that Fred reads a newspaper that is two solid slabs of rocks with carvings etched into them. These rocks are held together via a crude rope.

Now, if the journalists of the stone age INSTEAD tattooed the news onto the wings of small pterodactyls, and then lashed those pterodactyls together via the same crude rope I BET you could get a few more pages in the same spatial constraints as those gigantic stone newspapers. PLUS the pterodactyls are far more recyclable, as you can get eggs out of them when they grow up, or just let them fly away out the window.

AND THEN I thought “I am a raving madman for having these thoughts. I need to go have myself committed.”

MAD ABOUT COMICS

So I am writing from the psyche ward of an undisclosed private brain rehabilitation sanitarium. They are very nice to me and they let me write my columns in crayon with my feet.

DC’s Blackest Night is still going strong, and this week’s Green Lantern Corps #34 sees bemusing 80’s Green Lantern Guy Gardner lose what little cool he had as he blows his stack so high he becomes a Red Lantern. I think I know where DC is going with this: He’ll regain his will, but learn to wield BOTH the red and green power rings JUST in time to decorate Oa in festive, holiday colors for Christmas

And over in Superman/Batman #67 Bizarro and Man-Bat hafta’ stop Black Lantern Solomon Grundy from destroying all monsters! The Bizarro/Man-Bat logo alone makes this comic an instant classic!

Marvel’s bringing the monsters with Hulk #18. Wasn’t it great seeing Brock Sampson kick ass again in this week’s episode of the Venture Brothers? WELL, Hulk #18 has Doc Samson back to kick even MORE ass! Also this week is X-Force #22 and any week that gives us a new issue of the coolest mutant book Marvel is currently publishing is a good one … even if I am in a straight jacket in a moldy old mad-house.

SIGH

I did promise to continue my run down of fun graphic novels that read well on any shelf for your holiday gift giving needs, but between the electro shock therapy, the downers and my group sessions I may only have time to plug two this week:

MAUS: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman (W/A), Pantheon books

One of the defining moments in comics recent past was when Art Spiegelman won a special Pulitzer in 1992 for his graphic novel Maus. Maus is the incredibly sensitive and harrowing tale of a cartoonist working on a book of his father’s stories of surviving the holocaust in order to better understand the events, his father and himself.

Every individual should read this book once in their life, but it is a bit of an emotional downer. If you get someone Maus, also get them:

The Tick: Complete Edlund, Ben Edlund (W/A), NEC Press

Before he was a show runner for Firefly, Angel and Supernatural Ben Edlund was a hilarious art student in Massachusetts drawing a comic that launched an empire. The Complete Edlund is every scrap of Tick material Edlund ever produced, the original 12 issues, his drawing for promotions, interviews, etc. HANDS DOWN and without question it is one of the funniest comics OF ALL TIME.

So first you can make your friends miserable, and then you can cheer them up! Is there anything comic books can’t do?