Joker Review

The Problem with Batman comics, is this: If you read them, and your friends don't, and they're watching say "Batman: Begins", or the more popular sequel "The Dark Knight", then they're like "Man Batman is so cool!!!" This is a problem because then you're like "I know! Maybe you should read some of his comics!" and then when you go to recommend them, all of the current, or at least moderately so, books are about him fighting Darksied, or him coming back to life and traveling through time, or not him at all but instead his old sidekick who went off and did his own thing for a while and is now Batman along with Bruce's son Damian as his Robin... Do you see? No one who watches The Dark Knight, and has that Comic Nerd Adrenaline pumping wants to read any of that shit! I mean while all of those can be good stories at the right time, they're just not the same feel as Christopher Nolan's new take on the character. Brian Azzarello's "Joker" is the answer to that problem.

This book came out around the same time as the movie, so I'm sorry if I'm using it as a frame of reference a lot, but this book is basically a spiritual successor to that film. This was not made to retell the same story, it wasn't to cash in on the films success, it was a project that ran parallel and ended up being a really similar look into a really similar world. There are no cheesy origin stories here where they try and modernize these characters, instead they assume you know who they are, and by now who doesn't know Batman's rogues gallery? This book is a gritty realistic look into the world of the Joker that could almost literally be a sequel to these major motion pictures. 

Now enough with the comparisons, on to the actual book! First off, I feel like I need to mention how amazing the art is through this whole book. From start to finish my breath was damn near taken away. Lee Bermejo, who I haven't seen a lot of his other works, is fantastic here. Everything looks real, and touchable. The way he draws all these characters it looks like something you'd see downtown one night, and piss your pants because it's so dark gritty. Mad props sir! The story starts as the Joker is being released from Arkham on the pretense that somehow he convinced the doctors there that he is no longer insane, and that he is successfully rehabilitated. The whole story is told from the Joker's point of view, and follows him on his quest to get back what is rightfully his. When he was put away all the other super criminals and gangsters in Gotham split up his territory, and he wants it back. So he proceeds to coerce, kill, and terrorize anyone in his path. He is also followed by his right hand man throughout the book a character named Johnny Frost, frequently referred to as Johnny Johnny by the Joker, who also narrates the story. This character is used to ground the story, it makes us feel a sense of connection. Because he's not insane, he's not a super villain, and he's certainly not powerful, but he wants it all. He wants to be Batman's next big villain, so he follows the Joker around and acts as his secretary almost in hopes to raise his credibility. Throughout the book there are almost guest appearances by other Batman villains. Killer Croc is a big black guy who eats human flesh, Penguin is a rich gangster, Riddler is a super genius arms dealer of sorts, and Two Face plays a couple of different angles throughout the story, no pun intended. All of these characters are grounded and could exist in a real world. One of the only misgivings of the book is actually that we don't get to see each of these characters long enough. Joker is the main character, Johnny's kind of just there narrating, Croc is the Joker's muscle throughout the book, and Two Face opposes him on a couple of occasions, but Riddler and Penguin are almost bit characters that you see for maybe a couple of pages apiece. Maybe it's because Riddler is one of my favorite Batman villains, but I just wish they would have had more room to breathe. And other than that my only other problem with the book was that it was a tad bit Anti- Climactic. *Venturing into Spoiler country...* 

*Here are the spoilers if you don't want to read them then stop and skip this paragraph!* So the book slowly builds around Jokers terrible crimes, one after another, until he finally does enough to bring the Batman knocking on his door. There is one confrontation between these two, that's not even all that long, and then batman just knocks him out and that's the end. Now up until this point Batman hadn't even shown up, but if you look closely at the art you can see him just watching the Joker waiting for him to seriously fuck up, and the Joker knows this. He addresses Batman at several points and none of the other characters know what's happening. My only beef with this is that I tend to take the Joker as a bit smarter than that and I just wish that such a fantastic book had a more epic climax. The ending still worked fine given the poetry of the dialogue. Plus, given the grounded realism of the rest of the comic, it kind of made sense. 

So if you want a fantastic look into the day to day life of the Joker, check this book out. If someone you know likes The Dark Knight, and who doesn't really, get them this book! Or if you are a Batman fan in general, pick this up. Hell even if you haven't read a Batman story in a while, this one will show you how dark one can be. I'm serious, it's that good, one of my favorite super hero reads in a while!If you would like to take my advice, you can Search Amazon.com for joker or click the box below!

If not you can continue to live your life never knowing the awesomeness that is this book...

Thanks for reading!

Jimmy Jimmy

Wanted Review

I know... another Mark Millar book, so sue me. I had been putting this book on the back burner for a while because while I am a huge Millar fan, I've also seen the film. And while saying that the film was terrible might be an overstatement, so is saying it was great. It was really mediocre at best. So a recently made acquaintance urged me to read this book because for a long while it had been his absolute favorite. I'm going to do a synopsis on the way, as spoiler free as I can muster, and give my opinions as we go!

Alright, so this book opens and some dude is narrating his shitty life. His girlfriend's cheating on him with his best friend. His boss is really racist and talks shit to him because she's black and he's white. He gets shit talked to him all the time by these same guys that bully him and stuff. It's all really boring stuff. It's only spiced up by some older guy getting shot and murdered. Shortly later we, the readers, find out that Wesley, the main character, is the only son of this older gentleman who belongs to a league of Super Villains. The main plot point here is that Wesley has to undergo this Super Villain training program in order to inherit all his dads millions of dollars, meanwhile in search of his dad's killer. And since all the heroes were killed off years ago, that the main villain in this story... wait for it... is a super villain. I mean, you know, a really mean super villain who's more dastardly than the rest...

Alright, so my biggest problem with this book is that I really didn't have anyone to relate to. This guy Wesley has absolutely no balls. The reason his life sucks is because he just can't get up and make it better, and I guess the idea here is that he's pushed into such a drastic world change, that he'll have to grow some, but i just don't buy that. I mean if this guy actually had it in him to do these things i feel like he would have done them from the get go. You wife cheats on you, leave her. Your job sucks, quit. Dude's talk shit to you, fuck them up. It's just a really simple equation. This guy is in his mid to late twenties, there's no excuse why his life is so miserable. He has no responsibilities to anyone, yet is still hung up on being everyone's bitch... But, getting past that, even once he's a super villain I just couldn't relate. The way these people operate is like real villains. They do shit with no rhyme or reason. There are scenes where he'll just kill a dozen people and then not even feel remotely bad about it. They rape and murder with no remorse, and I just don't see how a reader is supposed to sympathize with a character that's so psychologically disturbed. If there were another character, maybe Wesley's younger brother who was in a slightly better position in life, and wasn't as cool with being a mass murderer, then I think I could have related to this story so much better. But instead I'm merely watching one fucked up deed fallow the previous until the end. Also if I wanted to be nit picky then I could say that the end was bit anti-climactic, in that there was one really big fight scene in one chapter that is kind of the climax, and the whole last issue is nothing but epilogue, and not awesome epilogue at that... But if I had to pick out one thing that irked me the most, it's probably some of the narration on the last few pages. Now, having read a lot of Mark Millar's work, and having seen him in some interviews and such, I know he tends to be a cocky bastard, saying that in the nicest way of course. But when the last line in your own book, *Kind of a Spoiler I guess* "this book is nothing but a distraction from your terrible lives, and the sad thing is that you're going to put it down and go and buy something else when you're done with it." that's a little messed up. Because to me it feels as though the writer is saying that to the audience since it is breaking the 4th wall a bit. Now I doubt Millar would actually do that, because more readers is always better than less readers, and since I've read a lot of the other stuff I know that's just his kind of flare. Because when you put "This is the best comic ever" on the front of Kick-Ass, it's funny, but here it sounds rude. Now I don't take it personally, and I will continue to read his work, but all I'm saying is that if I had read this before his other books, I might have thought differently and been a bit pissed off...

Now all that being said, it's not a terrible book. It's got a whole lot of awesome fight scenes, a few funny jokes here and there, and it is a really different analog to a lot of mainstream comics. It just wasn't my favorite of his works, and I found it unrelatable at times. Maybe I'm biased because I saw the movie first, because at the time I didn't like it, but honestly now I think I'll like it better. Because for all the comic readers who bitch about stuff being changed in these movies, there's no way they could have done this as a film. They did the best they could adapting it and making it likable to a wide audience, and I probably would have liked the book more if it had done the same thing. But if you're into that kind of thing, if you think Super Villains fucking people up for six issues is cool, and you think characters like "Shit Head" the guy made of shit, are funny, then this book might totally be for you... If you want to check out this book you can Search Amazon.com for Wanted there or you can click the box below. 

Thanks for reading!
Jamesisasupervillain

Family Comics and Cards, Winter Park FL

So It's been a minute since I've reviewed a store so I thought I'd go with a "Gem". So Some friends of mine and I make trips about twice a month to some comic shops because there are none in our area. A lot of times we head through Orlando and hit a couple of the same spots, our favorites. Just yesterday we decided we'd try out some new places. Some of them I'll hold off till later to tell you about so that I can get a better feel of them, but for this one I think I've got a good enough idea for now. So as we're cruisin', we know which places we're going to, but I hit up some reviews on the good old iphone. So out of Google, Yahoo, and Yelp all of the reviews seemed pretty positive, except one. There was one on google, a three of five star review, that was still reassuring that this was a good shop, but mentioned that it was a bit messy. My buddy reassured me "Dude, that guy probably just got them on a wrong day or something. It'll be fine."

So this place is in a great neighborhood. I mean the location is great! There are all kinds of antique shops, clothing stores, small privately owned diners. I was starting to get my hopes up. There's no sign from the road where this place is, but thanks to the GPS on my phone we eventually found it. It's upstairs almost right above a nice little deli. As we walk up there is no hours sign in the window and absolutely no advertisements that'd tell you this was a comic shop other than an old timey sign above the door displaying the name. Through the front windows you can see boxes strewn about and books just stacked up. As we walked in the door there's a small couch on the right that maybe two, three max, people could sit on, and a small hallway leading in from the doorway. Now when I say "hallway" I want you to understand that it's not a literal hallway, it's just that there is so much stuff on the right and left sides of this opening that it created a hallway. I mean there was just so much stuff... and not really in a good way. My friends were looking for specific back issues, one of Wolverine, and the other was looking for The Walking Dead. He took the two of them into a back room off to the right. One of my friends pretty much had to shimmy down between stuff to get to that room it's so cluttered. The back room was apparently organized much nicer, I stayed in the front room, but there was still a total lack of room. One friend had to lean against boxes of stuff, while the other two practically climbed over him to get to the rest of the selection. While I was in the front room I could have taken any damn thing I pleased. I obviously didn't, and I know a lot of people wouldn't, but who's to say that not everyone will. I feel bad for this guy and his store, because what happens the one day he gets a pair of assholes who take him in the back room and while the other takes as much shit as he can carry... I just think it's a little ridiculous when clutter actually affects how you do business. While I was in the front room I did have a look around, and he does have a really nice selection. There were a lot of Trades, Graphic Novels, and Hardbacks that I don't see at a lot of other stores, and my friends did find what they were looking for, but it just doesn't seem worth it to me if you can't get to anything yourself. It's one thing to kind of not be able to find something in a store, once you've looked, and asking someone to help, and an entirely different thing that you would be unable to browse at all and had to ask him to go get it for you. I just don't understand what all the clutter was... As he was cashing them out he checked in a price guide, because he didn't have them marked, and he actually gave them a pretty good deal on their books.

So I guess in summary, my associates told me that if you're a "Collector" then it was a pretty sweet store, because they did have a lot of stuff at a good price. Since I'm not a "Collector", and I usually just buy the TPBs, or a few Hardbacks if I really like the Series, I guess that having a large stock isn't that impressive to me. I mean yeah if you've got a few issues that're worth a lot of money, that's one thing, but to have so much that isn't really worth more than a couple of bucks apiece... it just seems a little silly. I guess what I'm saying is that presentation and customer service is a big thing to sacrifice for having a wide selection. The actual space itself was really nice and could be cleaned up to be a nice store. I mean if you have to rent a storage space and store all your other shit in there for an online store or something. Just get it out of the way so people can hang out and shop... Please don't take this as me tearing down the store and talking shit, because I'm not. If the owner ever cleans up his store and sends me an invitation back, then I'd be more than happy to go there and spend my money, but until then, there are just to many stores with a better experience... If you want to check this store out for yourself, you can visit them here:

View Larger Map

And As always, Thanks!
James

Johnny The Homicidal Maniac Review

Alright... so I went into this book planning on not liking it, and even trying at times. And despite those intentions, it still managed to win me over. Good job Mister Vasquez. Wouldn't it be funny if I just ended there?

I think not. So, basically the book is about a guy named Johnny, or "Nny" for short, and he kills people. A whole lot of people, and the book is basically just about his adventures in homicide. The whole thing is done throughout a series of short stories that range from one page, to a couple of pages. If this sounds like a cool concept, then brace yourself, because there are parts in this that are damn near pointless other than to satisfy that basic plot. While there is story development here, most of it is nonexistent except in issues 4, 5, and 6. Other than that it's just self referential jokes that take place also during the later half of the book. I don't have a problem with that, other than the fact that there is almost two full issues where he does nothing but kills people over and over again, and then a final issue that's almost nothing but epilogue. It just seems like a bit of a disjointed way to tell a story to me. Early on there were a couple of jokes I actually liked a lot that really surprised me, and I remember thinking to myself, alright maybe I will like this a bit. See, there is a few things that plagued me throughout this book that I noticed almost from the get go. Almost every single panel of this book has these thick black zig-zag lines. There are a few that don't do it, particularly the Happy Noodle Boy sections, and on occasion there will be a super thick black border to the whole page that he puts little notes in, and that didn't bug me, but the edges to every other panel I found to be a little bit over kill. That and the font. I know that seems like a small complaint, but sometimes it's just so goddamned hard to read. It looks as though he penned in all of the dialogue himself, which I understand having to do in a pinch, but his words are crammed together a lot of times, and there were a couple of times I'd have to read a box a couple of times just to figure out what a couple of words were. If you have read a few comics, you'll know what I'm talking about, if not then you will probably think this is a small gripe, but it can make a difference if it's overdone, and here it is. But like I said i was willing to let this go when the few jokes in the beginning actually made me laugh, and then the pages turn sideways... so when reading the book I had to rotate it 90°. I was really aggravated about it at first, but it doesn't happen often, maybe just another time or two in the whole book. So while at first it really bugged me, I don't really mind it now. Then there were a couple of jokes that fell flat for around the next issue and a half for me personally. Now all of that being said, I did really like this, but I didn't notice it until around two thirds of the way into the book. There was a point all of a sudden that I realized that I cared about what happened to this character and that I really related to him despite my ability to not massacre gallons of people. There are a lot of funny jokes here, you just have to wade through a few that aren't in order to get to them. The man's got a great sense of humor, especially about himself and all of the people who might read this. And I feel like i might be doing an injustice if i didn't mention the art. Because while at first I wasn't a fan of it, by the end of the book it had grown on be a whole lot.  I get why it's done that way, and it totally fits for this story, and in fact works it quite well. If it were my book, i would have ordered some of the short stories a bit differently. Getting rid of some of the earlier jokes that fell flat, and replacing them with the ones that didn't really fit into the story in the second half. Then shortening the epilogue to a few pages in the sixth issue. But it's not my book and maybe Vasquez feels the same way...

My total opinion of this book is that it is a fantastic comic for people who don't read them. If you've never read a comic before, and you really want to see how far away from capes and powers a story can get, totally pick this up because it is as far away from it as I think a story can get. On the other hand, if you're a comic buff, don't expect much out of this book other than some funny jokes here and there, some torture porn, and a not too bad story that at times can be a little bit of a pain to read. Because if you actually give the damn thing a chance, or maybe if you plan on not giving it one, like I did, it will probably win you over by the end of it. If you know someone who is a scene kid, or is/was a goth kid, or even if you know someone who was an outcast of hung out with a clique of outcasts in highschool, this book is probably perfect for them. (Not meant to be an insult to the book or its readers!) I personally plan on buying this book because it won me over so much more than I expected it to, and mostly I'm excited to read his later works, because I've seen a few episodes of Zim, and I've flipped through some of the later books, and I like the look and feel of them. This is a great job for his first work, and I'm crossing my fingers to see what he does after this and in the future to come. If you want to check out this book for yourself you can Search Amazon.com for JTHM there or you can click on the box below. 

Thanks again guys and dolls!

James the Hypothetical Maniac

Sky Doll Review

Alright, so I'm going to do a quick synopsis and then kind of break down what I think of it. So, this book is basically about this character named Noa, and her misadventures. She is what they call in this book a "Sky Doll" which is basically an android designed for prostitution, and a bunch of other jobs that no one wants to do. I guess some deity that these people worship said it's okay to have sex with them and that there's no sin involved because they're not people. So this chick hooks up with these space emissaries of that deity and kind of gets sucked into their mission. As the mission progresses you kind of get to know these characters a bit, but the story telling is so ambiguous it's not very much. Roy is the nice one who gets a crush on the main character and tends to be the more understanding. Jahu is the other emissary and he's a total dick. I think he's supposed to be remotely likable, but I can't see how. The way everything goes down, he tries very hard to go above and beyond asshole, and into the territory of someone who should just be killed off. He's like a racist, drug addict, murderer and still there are parts where they want you to like him... And then there's the android, Noa. She's like the "There's got to be more out there..." kind of character, but very quickly they start alluding that there might be more to her than what's skin deep. 

My biggest problem with the book, and in all actuality what will probably lure in more people than the actual story, is that the sexual innuendo is so heavy. I mean... at times its not even insinuated, but more so beat over your head. I mean there are tits all over this comic. There is almost boob on almost every page, but a lot of the time they go a step further and don't even bother to cover them up, and worse so because the characters aren't really people. They look more like anthropomorphic animals, so when there's sex and boobs throughout the book on people with whiskers and cat ears, it's a little creepy. The worst part is that, other than these sex doll robot people, the main characters that show their boobs off the most are the two religious figures. These two sisters were apparently head of this religion at one time until it split in two, and almost every scene with either of them in it, there is next to nothing done to cover up their goods. This is mostly in the first half of the book, but some of the themes here are so heavy and important, that having tits on every page, and people fucking left and right, takes away from the message they're trying to convey. My other biggest problem is that there is almost no action. And I'm not the kind of guy who needs explosions every ten minutes to keep him entertained, but the dialogue in this book isn't that amazing to the point where I feel like I can go without anything happening. With scenes this dry I would have liked a few more gunfights and shit like that... 

Now on to the stuff I did like! The themes of racism in this book are apparent from almost the beginning. Noa is a chick who's mostly robot so everyone else thinks she's a thing, and her struggle to be a person and have emotions is really great. There's this part about half way through where they go to this city that you have to peacefully meditate to get into. There's some good dialogue where she wonders if she can even do it because she has no soul to put at ease. I won't ruin it, but what happens is a little funny and they tie it together well too. I like the character Roy, I found him pretty easy to relate to, because it wouldn't matter to me if the lady of my life was a robot or not, I'm still going to dig on her. Also, the art from start to finish is really great. The artist does a fantastic job displaying everything and making it all look very nice, and every panel is very full and detailed. It's just a shame that he, or the writer, felt the need to over display sex everywhere. Also, a much tinier thing i noticed, but a lot of the text and word bubbles are towards the edges of the panels instead of being right next to the character that's speaking. So a lot of times it lets the art breathe a a little more I think, but there was a time or two that I had trouble telling who was talking and in what order because of it... 

All in all this is a really strange story with some kind of heavy themes. I can't say it's a really good story, but it did keep my attention. There was no part in the story where i was wondering why i was reading it. I liked a lot of the themes and symbolism, but the sexual nature of the book threw me off. I can dig stuff that's supposed to be sexual, most of the time not my thing, but the way this was done I just didn't see why it was so prevalent. And in closing I'm not really sure what the book is about. I mean I read the whole thing, but the narrative was a little sloppy and there was no clear cut objective to the book. I got the feeling that this is just an opening of a door into a much larger world, but the way the story is told and book ended, it seems to be a story in itself, it just doesn't feel that way. There are some weird scenes that happen that i'm not quite sure where they fit into the mythology, but maybe i'm just dumb. So I guess my recommendation goes: If you're smarter than me and you think  you can figure what the fuck is going on, if you want something really different from a lot of stories out there, or if you're just want to see a lot of softcore scenes with tits and sex but don't feel like watching porn, then go check out this book. Otherwise you may want to stay away. If you do want to check it out you can head to Amazon.com right below, or ask your local comic shop to get it for you!

Thanks again!

James