Sharp, pointy teeth

Ben has 4 teeth. They are sharp. Very very sharp. Ben likes biting on things... especially flesh. We call him Nosferatu, sometimes. Ben also likes french kissing. He'll launch himself at you with his open mouth, trying to stick his tongue in your mouth, or failing that, biting your lips off.

Babies are vicious, vicious things. BEWARE!

Let's see if I can clean out the ol in box, and give a clean palate for next week.

ROSETTA V2: Anthologies, as noted absurdly many times, are tricky things. Most are uneven (at best), but you can fault them little for trying, at least. I was more than halfway through this one before I found a piece I liked, but then it was like "Wow, this makes it alllll worth it!" -- Rosetta stacked the deck with three superb pieces in a row: Tobias Schalhen's (Probably spelling that wrong -- going from a handwritten note) excellent formalistic experiment of relating a conversation between two lovers who haven't seen each other in a long time against a set of disparate illustrations, Matt Madden's even better circling-viewpoints experiment of a woman who finds out her boss was once a porn star, and Jason Lute's piece. Concentrated comics goodness, and almost completely worth the price of admission just for those three. It's only like 10% of the book, however, so for the whole package, let's go with OK. Those three pieces, however, were Excellent.

LUBA #8: I've told you I don't "get" the Hernandez brothers, right? Superb storytellers, wonderful draughtsman, but there works never "speaks" to me. I have a little tiny amount of "indy cred", but they're my big weakness. I can tell this is Good or better work, but I don't care for it. Deal.

LAST TRAIN TO DEADSVILLE #3: There are days I think that Steve Niles is writing way too much, and diluting any real "brand loyalty" he may have created from 30 Days of Night. Hard to blame him, really -- he's been doing comics longer than I've been selling them, and he finally has a hit. If I were him, I'd probably strike while the iron was hot, as well. Thing is, it's usually better to pick one thing and do it perfect than to do 47 things "half-assed" -- this is why I run a comic book shop and not a comic book/anime/game/whatever store. I think Cal McDonald is Niles' best creation -- enough genre accoutrements to make it familiar, but a wide enough breadth of ideas fit very neatly into it's format. "Monster Investigator" is a great high concept. I think I'd rather see a monthly Cal comic than the 38 mini-series a month Niles produces. YMMV. Good.

WITCHES #4: You have to admire Marvel's stones for releasing this concurrent with Vertigo's Witching, and Identity Disk concurrent with Identity Crisis. Not thier brains, really, because this is go-nowhere, and be-dull-while-getting-there material, but thier stones sure. Eh

THE WITCHING #2: While meanwhile, I've found this an uneven start. The protagonist witch girl is too absurdly overpowered to be relateable -- but that's because she lives in our world. I have no problem with absurdly overpowered Lucifer or Morpheous as protagonists becase they're primarily concerned with thier own realms, y'know? There's a few great images in here, but I think this is merely OK.

CONAN #6: Wow that was a grim and very Howardian story -- the middle third lagged a bit, but this was a great wrap up. Very Good.

JLA: ANOTHER NAIL #3: Alan Davis does his own version of Crisis on Infinite Earths, and my is it good. I'm definately up for "JLA: A Third Nail", or maybe "JLA: The Hammer", depending. Hell, if Davis is doing it, I'm all about "JLA: Caulking Gun". Excellent.

NEW FRONTIER #5: I can understand you not being into superhero comics -- you have to read a lot to find the good ones. And I can understand you being a bit nervous about the $6.95 cover price (which is pretty absurd, yes), but, seriously man, this is the shit. I just feel a great soaring sense of wonder and hope as I read this book. Darwyn Cooke hit an enormous home run here, and you should absolutely be reading this. Excellent, and the Pick of the Week!

X-STATIX #25: Much like Kinetic #4 before it, I was really upset at myself for not having a blog when X-Statix #24 came out. Iron Man and Mr. Sensative having a nude grass fight? OMFG! Not only was it outrageous, it was outrageously funny, and a nearly perfect 21st century desconstruction of super-team battles. Six months too early to be a "Avengers Disassembled" tie in (with the extra sales), and then the book gets cancelled, and everything has to be wrapped up way too quickly, and the book ends on a fairly sour note. Ah well. Farewell to experimentation, mutant line, farewell! Good.

Bah, well I have a few more books to write up, but screw it -- that's enough typing on this week. Nothing particularly good in my remaining pack, anyway.

I'll be back tomorrow (I think) with the TP/Book list for the week....

-B