Picks for 3/16 and shipping 3/23

It's true, dear god it IS true, I AM the World's Worst Blogger. See, here's the thing: I function really well with a deadline. "You must get this done by such-and-such" works well with my lifestyle. I am goal-oriented, or something.

But the deadline has to be "real". Like, I can writing a TILTING once a month, because, y'know, Newsaram is paying me, and if I don't give it to Brady by the Thursday before it runs, then I'm in deep shit. Not with him, of course, but with myself.

On the other hand, because I'm goal-oriented, I'm also the worlds biggest fucking procrastinator. I usually have 20 plates spinning, so "me time" is precious, and if I DON'T have the deadline, I push it back and back and back until I never get anything done at all.

I was motivated this week, I was GOING to post on Friday, but then Lester sent me all of the ONOMATOPOEIA stuff, and boom! new goal, y'know?

Because my motivation is kinda "beating Jeff Lester". I lose a lot of my steam when Jeff gets his reviews up first, 'cuz, y'know, "what's the point" if he's already handled a title? So, I think I'm going to ask Jeff to hold off on posting (but not writing) his piece unless I've posted yet.... unless I fuck up, and don't post by Sunday or so. Maybe we'll try this for a week, unless it has the same effect on Jeff that it does me.

In Ben news, he's slowed down in his alphabet pretty dramatically -- he still has like 5 letters he hasn't mastered (E, I, T, W, and Y for those playing at home), but he's decided that numbers are cool too, and is busy trying to sort those out. He has about 9 numbers through to 20 (thank you, Sesame Street!)

He also said his first sentence to me. He was playing with a ball, and it got stuck where he couldn't get to it. So, he marched right up to me, pointed to me and demanded, "Up! Baw!", then pointed to the ball. It couldn't not have been more clear. "Get off your ass, old man, and fetch my ball!"

I really only am going to do the picks for last week's comics because, let's face it, it's already Wednesday.

My PICK OF THE WEAK was not the worst comic of last week (HUMAN RACE #1, maybe?), but the one that squandered potential the most: TEEN TITANS #22. Y'know, there was an interesting through-line that could have been actually explored there: if the heroes are brainwashing their foes, and even their allies (like Batman), were they doing the same to their kids as well? That could have been a fascinating and taut psychological concept, and, instead we just get 22 pages of largely incoherant fight scenes. I suppose I can vagually understand how Dr. Light can control Superboy's heat vision, but wtf was up with Wonder Girl's lasso? "Of course I can control LIGHTning, I am Dr. Light!" Uh, what? Plus we get just about the worst reintroduction of all of a new revamped character (Hawk & Dove, who just show up out of the blue, and babble a lot), and that dumb last page where every titan every shows up to fight Dr. Light. Seriously, kids, Dr. Light simply isn't that scary, even if he appeared in IDENTIRAPE CRISIS. This comic was pretty much the reason people say they don't like Super-hero comics,and it was really AWFUL.

Oh, god, speaking of awful, I saw both CATWOMAN and THE PUNISHER this week, as the library finally got copies in (Like I'm going to pay for those films?!?!?), and yikies! CATWOMAN was an abortion -- almost certainly the worst "superhero" movie I've ever seen (and that likely includes the JLA TV pilot with David Ogden Stiers as the Martian Manhunter) featuring stocker-than-stock characters, a wooden, and utterly predicitble script, and horrific acting. It's MST3k-level bad. THE PUNISHER also sucked, but that's mostly because they spend nearly 40 minutes to build up the backstory (why? It's the PUNISHER people want to see, not his happy family life), and, actually, there's hardly any blood at all. Seriously, there's the scene where the mob wipes out Castle's entire family (no, I mean ENTIRE family -- it's a family reunion in Puetro Rico), and the ground is littered with corpses from the submachinegun fire, and my mind was registering nothing except "Why is there no blood? Where is the blood?!"

My PICK OF THE WEEK is probably no surprise: SHAOLIN COWBOY #2. Terrific fucking art by Darrow, and the wonderfully absurd and surreal script makes that the clear, EXCELLENT, winner.

For the BOOK / TP OF THE WEEK, I'll go with STARMAN V10 SONS OF THE FATHER, a great end to a great series, and, even reading it years removed like this, made me shed a tear at a certain point. Great stuff, go buy it.

Right, "full" reviews of THIS weeks books in just a couple of days, here's what's shipping...

100 BULLETS #59 2000 AD #1427 2000 AD #1428 30 DAYS OF NIGHT BLOODSUCKERSTALES #6 ALAN MOORES HYPOTHETICAL LIZARD WRAPAROUND CVR #2 (OF 4) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #518 ARANA HEART OF THE SPIDER #3 ARCHIE & FRIENDS #90 ARCHIE DIGEST #215 ARMY OF DARKNESS SHOP TIL YOUDROP DEAD #2 AUTHORITY REVOLUTION #6 (OF 12) BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #63 BOOKS OF MAGICK LIFE DURING WARTIME #9 BRIAN PULIDOS MEDIEVAL LADY DEATH #1 CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #7 CHOLLY & FLYTRAP #2 (OF 4) CONAN #14 DAREDEVIL #71 ED THE HAPPY CLOWN #1 (OF 9) EXCALIBUR #11 EXPATRIATE #1 FILLER BUNNY #3 FREAKSHOW #4 FUTURAMA SIMPSONS CROSSOVER CRISIS PART 2 #2 (OF 2) GARTH ENNIS 303 WRAPAROUND CVR #4 (OF 6) HAWKMAN #38 HELLBLAZER #206 JLA CLASSIFIED #5 KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #101 LEGEND #2 (OF 4) LITTLE SCROWLIE #9 LIVEWIRES #2 (OF 6) METAL GEAR SOLID #7 NEW AVENGERS #4 NEW INVADERS #8 NEW WEST #1 NEW X-MEN #11 NIGHTWING #106 OFFICIAL HANDBOOK MARVEL UNIVERSE X-MEN AGE APOCALYPSE 2005 PHANTOM #5 PIGTALE #2 ROBIN #136 ROGUE #9 RUNAWAYS #2 (OF 12) RUNAWAYS LTD ED VARIANT #1 (OF 12) SEVEN SOLDIERS GUARDIAN #1 (OF 4) SLEEPER SEASON TWO #10 (OF 12) SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #147 SOULFIRE #4 SPAWN #144 SPELLBINDERS #1 (OF 6) SPIDER MAN HUMAN TORCH #3 (OF5) STAR WARS OBSESSION #4 (OF 5) STAR WARS REPUBLIC #74 TALES OF BLOODY MARY #1 (OF 8) THE BALLAD OF SLEEPING BEAUTY #8 THE INCREDIBLES #4 (OF 4) TRIGGER #4 UDON CANNON BUSTERS CVR A #1 UNCLE SCROOGE #340 WALT DISNEYS COMICS & STORIES #655 WOLVERINE SOULTAKER #2 (OF 5) X-MEN #168 X-MEN AGE OF APOCALYPSE #4 (OF 6)

Books / Mags / Stuff 2000 AD EXTREME ED #8 ANITA BOMBA BY CROMWELL AND GRATIEN HC VOL 4 AVENGERS ASSEMBLE VOL 2 HC AZPIRI DEMONWINDS HC BATTLE ROYALE VOL 12 GN (OF 13) BODY BY TAYLOR GIRLS & OTHER MUSINGS TP COMICS BUYERS GUIDE MAY05 #1604 ESSENTIAL ARSENIC LULLABY VOL1 TP FRAGILE TP FRANKENSTEIN NOW AND FOREVER GN GIANT ROBOT #36 HELLSING VOL 6 TP JAMES BOND CASINO ROYALE TP JUDGE DREDD DREDD VS DEATH TP OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PG VOL 35 IRON MAN SC PREVIEWS VOL XV #4 QUEEN & COUNTRY VOL 7 OPERATION SADDLEBAGS TP REVENGE OF COUNT SKARBEK GN RG VEDA VOL 1 GN SCREEN POWER OFF JACKIE CHAN MAG VOL 6 #4 SFX #128 SIGLO FREEDOM TP SUGAR BUZZ VOL 1 YOUR TICKET TO HAPPINESS TP SWORD OF THE DARK ONES VOL 1 TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #132 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VOL 12 SUPERSTARS TP WAKE VOL 6 & 7 WIZARD BEST OF BASIC TRAININGDLX TP WOLVERINE CLASSIC VOL 1 TP