Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1

Written by Eric Powell & Tracy Marsh
Art by Phil Hester

Godzilla is back!  Just the way you love him!  This shit rules.  Feast your eyes on that tri-fold cover, DUDE!! My only gripe is that it seems like there's a lot more comic than there is.  It has super spaced out paneling and a bunch of non-comic pages at the end.  Bring it on, gimme more! 

4 smashed buildings out of 5 Japanese cities.

Pale Horse

written by - Michael Alan Nelson
pictures by - Christian Dibari (cool first name!)

Cole is a man who has always attempted to do right but has always been wronged.When his wife is murdered Cole is not having it any more.With years of experience as the most shit pants inducing bounty hunter in the south and young son in the saddle with him,Cole blasts a hole through the South and is not taking anyone alive.
This was an awesome straight ahead western.Cole is an ex-slave and former Union soldier who throws around money and bullets like a bachelor at a strip club in his possessed bid for revenge.And he doesn't take quietly to racial epithets! Some loudmouth wants to insult his recently deceased Sioux wife? Cole shoots his teeth out!In the badassery tradition of "Unforgiven" and "Lone wolf and Cub", Cole is unrelenting walking death.....with a secret past!
The dialouge here is very terse and bubbling with tension....Cole is dynamite waiting to get lit.
The art has a roughness to it that enhances the gritty realism of the book,and the color is great.The backgrounds are done with this cool dirty water color wash,so they look very vibrant without being distracting.
If you like your westerns in the style of......well if you like westerns at all give this a look.If you dig westerns like Unforgiven,Open Range,and the Searchers;then prepared to be surprised,entertained,and thrilled.and you can it read it outside and not be inside watching a western on the television!

4 out of 4 extremities removed with a high caliber revolver

Bad Dog #4

Written by Joe Kelly
Art by Diego Greco

Joe Kelly is in my top three favorite writers of fuckwords. Serious: this guy can swear and make characters swear like nobody's business. There are other cool things happening (werewolf, vampires, milk cartons), I guess, so read this now.

This issue also marks the beginning of a new story arc, so it's a great jumping on point for new readers. And the first issues are probably available at a comic store near you...

4 out of 5 Talking Severed Heads

Let Me In - Crossroads

W - Marc Andreyko
A - Patric Reynolds

It won't matter if you've seen the movie or not.  But if you do, see the original and just 'deal' with the subtitles.  This is all I have to say about the pros/cons of original vs remake.  That argument never needs to be had again.  Even as a prequel (nevermind that the movie came out months ago and we're still waiting on the last issue of the comic), it's a gritty read that's fuzzy on the details of what you're jumping into.  The art does the writing great justice with it's rough style and muted colors.  It sets the mood.  The storytelling is calm and non-suspenseful.  There's plenty of murder going on, but somehow it doesn't have me on edge.  It's like getting a glimpse of their every day life, and when done all the time even the most horrible of things seems normal.  I'm pretty indecisive on this one.  With one more issue to go, I'm hesitant to bring the hammer down with a final rating.  What if some crazy ass shit happens in the last issue that totally blows my mind banana?!

For now, I impart 2.5 out of 5 unlucky hitchhikers

If anything changes with the final issue, I will certainly let you know.   

Yo Gabba Gabba! Comic Book Time!

Written and illustrated by so many cool emeffers it's unbelievable!






















If you don't love Yo Gabba Gabba, it's definitely you and not them. This is a collection of 24 different strips by a gaggle of awesome comic people like Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, Mike Allred, J. Torres and Kali Fontecchio. The list goes on and on. This book is an all ages funfest! They're goofy! They're silly! They learn things all the time! It has awesome lessons on manners and reminders of things like sharing and brushing your teeth! What's not to love?!

I'll leave you with this little ditty and a rating of 5 out of 5 boomboxes.

The New York Five #1

W - Brian Wood
A - Ryan Kelly

I enjoy Brian Wood's slice-of-hip/young-life writing style as much as the next guy. It's easy to digest and it's fun to live vicariously through the panels of each tale. I did not read the New York Four (which was released in one volume under the short lived Minx imprint), but they summarize it for you at the beginning of issue 1, to get you up to speed. Cheers to that! You get an introduction to each character with brief background detail, profile style with likes, dislikes, mood at the time, and where they might have procured that awesome pair of boots they have on. They're a diverse group of gals that live in New York and attend NYU, while sharing an eensy, weensy apartment. Like the layers of an onion (holy cliche, Liz), you peel back their stories with each turn of the page. It's presented in a way that by the end of the series all the segments that you've seen will tie together into the grand narrative.

4 out of 5 hipster jokes

Deadpool Max Must-Have

Writer - David Lapham
Artist - Kyle Baker

This is a collected edition of issues #1-3.

Alright.  I can admit that I have a soft spot for Deadpool.  He's just so dumb, and driven by primal instincts for stuff like boobs and crumpets.  I'm not well versed in the Deadpool universe, but if I'm looking for something easy to read, it's a good choice!  This story arc is about a guy named Bob, an agent.  He tracks down and enlists Wade Wilson back into service.  Little does Bob know, Deadpool has his own agenda...to take down The Great Hydra.  Uncomfortable situations and hilarity ensue as Bob gets tangled up with Deadpool's distorted plans to kill each member of the Twelve Headed Serpent.  David Lapham is a great writer and has a flair for the wacky.  Kyle Baker is not an artist I would expect to see penciling such gratuitous nastiness, but he does a great job!  Will I stay tuned to see what happens next?  I sure will! 

3.5 out of 5 snarky one liners

Jennifer Blood

sucks


written by Garth Ennis......who is phoning it in
art by some guy who is better than bad

Victorian Undead

Written by Ian Edington
Art by Davide Fabbri
collection of issues #1-6 $17.99
Disclaimer: this is not really a review,and more like a report of my initial impression

The tagline of this book and its subtitle is: Sherlock Holmes vs. the Undead!...
well score one for the DC marketing department because that is the book right there! A strange (is there any other kind?)comet passes over London and years later bizarre repercussions are felt! what are they you ponder?uhm.....well its zombies and uh...Sherlock Holmes his partner in un-crime Dr. Watson are gonna figgur it out!this comic is cool.seriously.The Holmes/Watson friendship is very balanced in between very chivalrous teasing and devout loyalty and respect.These guys are real friends and have been "in the $#!+" together for a some time.While on the trail dark secrets from London and Holmes personal past are dredged from underground (literally!bwah!).No stuffed shirt costume drama here folks! Gore and bludgeoning are intact! Holmes lops the undeads heads off with a kukri dagger!tanks roam the streets,turning zombies into goo!Biological tampering! underworld crime!
While battling the scourge of rising dead,Holmes and Watson have this exchange:
Watson: There's no bloody stopping them!
Holmes: Aim for the head,that seems to have the desired effect!
(then removes a zombies head with the aforementioned awesome dagger)
like,fer real.that just happened.and it was awesome.check it out!
....also if ya dig this,investigate into Holmes and Watson versus Mr.Hyde in the VICTORIAN UNDEAD SPECIAL and Dracula in the currently running mini series VICTORIAN UNDEAD II: HOLMES VS DRACULA!
3.5 turn of the century revolver cylinders blasting away out of 5

Uncanny X-Force: "Must Have" Issue

Written by Rick Remender
Art by Jerome Opena

A little confusing at first, since Uncanny X-Force picks up where many years of Marvel comics have left off (specifically X-Force and the X-Men: Second Coming event), but the good things that my co-bloggers had to say about this title kept me reading this single collection of the series' first three issues. And it was totally worth it.

Apocalypse, one of the perennial shit-heads of the Marvel universe, has somehow inhabited the body of a young boy. Wassup with that? Will the X-Force kick his teeth, as they are so good at doing? Or will they save his dumb little ass? And meanwhile, every member of the team is so damned tortured...

On a side note, this is also the least annoying I've ever found Deadpool (Uncanny X-Force Team member) in any comic, ever. He is actually funny here, thanks to Remender.

Also, you should probably check out Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's 2001 take on the X-Force (later X-Statix). It is hilarious and good.

4 out of 5 Unstoppable Ends of the World

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1

Written By Ethan Nicolle (age 6)
Art by Malachai Nicolle (age 30)

"Frustrated, Axe Cop lay down and took his daily two-minute nap. He dreamed about a T-Rex...that was crying..."

Holy......shit. This comic is...oh, man. Read it. Read it now.
Axe Cop and Dinosaur Soldier vs. EVERYBODY.

Faint bullets for Real Cops.
Wexter, the flying tyrannosaurus that breathes fire and has machine guns for arms.
Mr. Cup, who used to be a great warrior.

This was a web-comic that's now a print comic but...I don't care. Fucking read this NOW.

Five Jillion Everything Sticks out of Five Good Guy Machines.