Oh, And My Entire Lower Jaw Is Held In Place By A Flimsy Metal Wire

I'm not sure how I got here either, so hey: we're in agreement, probably for the last time. Tucker Stone's the name, writing about random stuff at The Factual Opinion is the hobby, it turns into a profession at comiXology, and if you like to hold it in your grubby paws, grab a copy of Comic Foundry. If comics aren't your bag, and you want to brush up on your Italian, keep an eye out for upcoming issues of MUSE magazine. (I know!) Otherwise sister, the game plan is simple: I plan to write purely about sexism in comics, or maybe sex in comics, or maybe just some sex I had on top of a pile of comics--whatever the Hibbster says is most popular. Just in case you were wondering, I'll clear up a couple of your concerns: I'm not qualified to be here, my head is kept firmly up my rear end, I'm not as funny as Abhay, not as smart as Wolksie or the Jogster, and yes, most of the time I get finished with a comic and go "Huh, so it had pictures and words in it. They all like this?" But don't worry! Kissing is still your friend, and the Savage Won't Go Changing, until I get fired, which will be RADICAL.

Under the breaker: oh mama, hit the breaker! Hit it with your fist!

The best way to deal with reviewers in my estimation is never to base your decision to read them off whether or not they are smart writers, or funny writers, or interesting writers--"That's a Waste Of Time Right There", as my dad used to say about my existence. No, the best way is to read enough of their stuff to figure out if they are writing reviews that directly agree with your own personal taste. Reviews, and we all know this, are for backrubs and handclaps. When I peruse a review, my main question is always this: Do they have a Hal Jordan toy?

No?!

Then fuck THEM, what kind of "critic" doesn't have a Hal Jordan toy? With that, here's a breakdown of the Savage Critics scale of review, and how I plan to use it. It's provided for you, the Savage Critic fan, to determine whether you want to use your hacking computer skillz to edit the random "Tucker" posts out of your RSS feed. (And I know you know how to do that, cookie puss!)

If it's EXCELLENT, that means it's on the scale of that Gary Panter slipcase that Picturebox put out, which I finally got. I'll still probably burn it, because that's what I do with all my comics eventually, but Hey! Until then! Excellent!

If it's VERY GOOD, that means it could be a super-hero comic with plenty of punching and funny jokes, not jacked up in the coloring process and, because Hey, This Matters To Me, it's got the same art team from the beginning to the miserable end. (Which means all those comics that involve 4 inkers and "replacement" pages don't have a shot. Standards!) The only reason it doesn't hit EXCELLENT is because, and this is petty, but I like conclusions, and I need conclusions, and I don't really enjoy things as fully unless, you know, they have conclusions. Non super-hero comics can be VERY GOOD as well, obviously, but only if they aren't about white people complaining about something, because, and yes, this is petty too, I hate white people.

If it's GOOD, then you must be talking about Junior Bonner, which could have been VERY GOOD if Steve McQueen had been the one on the bulldozer, and if the script had more cursing. Still trumps The Getaway though, which is merely OKAY, because no, you're wrong, Ali McGraw is a terrible actress. (And yes, I told that to her face when she came to my Dynasty fan-fiction forum, held annually at the Tuskagee Holiday Inn. I told her to her dirty Lady Ashley Mitchell face. "You're awful," I said, "and I would know!")

If it's OKAY, then it's probably Optic Nerve. Adrian Tomine is kind of boring, right? Right? Get it? Because he's so boring. No, seriously. Dude makes boring comics. Except for that "Pink Frosting", which is my favorite curbing story that isn't the one that some guy told me about on my first day in high school, right before he punched me in the stomach. TJ! I miss you baby boy. Ever get your grill fixed? But yeah, OKAY will be pretty much reserved for comics that don't have any serious problems from a technical standpoint, but end up not being something I really enjoy because I don't have good enough taste to know what's good for me and am more than willing to chug a can of Pringles just to prove I can.

If it's EH, then it's probably Kingdom Come, because serious comics about Captain Marvel always make me want to cut little strips of skin off my leg to use as a bow on a Christmas present I give to homeless people. In March. Actually, just about everything Alex Ross does is pretty much EH in my book, but sometimes he can find somebody to include words that bring it down to good old fashioned AWFUL.

If it's AWFUL, it could be some "trying to hard" comics, which is pretty much a category that's totally PWNED by that old issue of Detective Comics where Robin yells at everybody for smoking the Floronic Man's magic marijuana concoction. He uses the phrase "Why would you want to 'mess up' your mind? Why would you do that?" To which no one responds "You're the one who fights crime in a red and green unitard, you stupid jerkoff." Most of the time, EH and AWFUL are where a lot of the comics I read live, because even the worst of the bunch can usually still be somewhat readable, and because I only buy comics that I don't like, because I'm a failure at life.

Is that how you use the word PWNED? I hate that word.

If I'm going to rate something CRAP--and I'll probably forget this eventually--it will be something that is made by people who shouldn't be working in comics, simply because what they make is completely incompetent work--sadly, this means most of the Big Two super-hero comics won't end up here, because they can at least draw things like hands and eyeballs that look like some kinda hands and eyeballs, even if it's on the low side of the Platonic "hands and balls" scale. Serial incompetence, is what I'm saying. For instance, the only Marvel thing I've read recently that would go in the CRAP column would be one of those Anita Blake comics, because that was the first time in a while that I'd read something that was actively unreadable, and not in the exaggerated "let's be mean" sense. I mean it was a comic that I was incapable of reading, that my body and mind actively screamed "Stop doing this, this is hurting you" by the middle of the book. (I asked my wife to review it.)

So there we go! Tried to keep it brief, but hey: that's why you aren't supposed to click "Read More" if you don't want to Read More. I'd love to promise you that this is going to be fun, because it totally is, but it's only going to be fun for me.