OK, so not "Wednesday or Thursday", but here's the balance of the week... ARCHIE #627: Archie meets Kiss, huh? Can I say that Archie has changed quite a bit since the days of this...

or this one....

The plot in this issue has the Archie Gang hanging out with Sabrina, The Teenage Witch (who has disturbingly off-Archie-Girl-model eyes and nose!), and they decide to cast a spell in order to protect the town from Monsters (this is a Very Legitimate Concern that many of today's teenagers face!). I mean, they literally sit in a circle and cast a spell! Man, I hope for Archie's sake that the Fundies don't get word of this -- I'm a godless liberal from San Francisco, and even I was pretty shocked that the Gang was personally involved in witchcraft. For very poorly motivated reasons, however, Veronica and Reggie instead decide that THEY should be the one to cast the spell, but instead of a "Protection" spell, she reads a "Projection" spell, instead (oh, that Ronnie! How scampish!), leading to Riverdales being infested by Archie-d versions of Universal monsters. Then Kiss shows up to stop the monsters, but you'll have to wait until next issue to see if they do that without inadvertently killed Principal Weatherbee.

Y'know, like how Kevin Keller proved so popular as to spin out from his initial appearance in VERONICA? I'd be oddly pleased if Archie Comics launched an ongoing Kiss comic. I wouldn't buy it (this was pretty AWFUL, and lacking in story logic, even for an Archie comic), but it would still make me laugh.

BOMB QUEEN VII #1: Alternate future story where like a League of Shadowhawks protect the world? And then a gender-bending projection of Bomb Queen's personality takes over some dude? I personally would expect that the usual audience for the pro-camel toe comic is going to seriously dislike this comic. I didn't like it either, but it wasn't for the dramatic drop in the cleavage-on-display ratio -- it's because anything this series had to say was probably said back before the third series concluded. Dramatically EH.

FABLES #111: I haven't read an issue of FABLES in some time (I got really dramatically burned out during that Mary Sue-d War plotline, and this isn't the start of a storyline, so I was fairly lost. But Buckingham can sure draw, can't he? Willingham and Buckingham have to be pretty close to matching Stan & Jack's run on FF, don't they? Despite not being sure what exactly was going on, I still liked this passably: it seemed OK to me, and I was especially pleased to see that it even had a letter's page. Why can't the mainline DC books pull that trick properly?

FUTURAMA COMICS #58: Nice dense issue, with lots of stuff happening. I laughed! low GOOD.

GREEN LANTERN THE ANIMATED SERIES #0: I was fully prepared to hate the cartoon, with it's low-rent CGI animation (I dislike cartoons that inherently look like toy commercials), but Ben and I were both generally amused by the pilot. But it's got a weird-ass setup -- instead of being Hal-specific and doing his rogue gallery on Earth; or being Corps-specific and using all of THAT mythology, instead they decided to essentially do GREEN LANTERN: VOYAGER, sending Hal and Kilowog as the only two lanterns out on the far fringe of the universe away from any support, in a talking ship, while they fight Species 8742 (Or whatever it was called), er, I mean the Red Lantern Corps. Strange premise. This comic is even weirder as it takes that premise, but renders it with a non-CGI look, effectively gutting its value as a tie-in. It was serviceable, but hardly exciting. EH.

LEGION SECRET ORIGIN #2: I don't need to read most of this. It isn't bad, really, but I just don't see the wisdom of having three distinct Legion-based series running at once. The property simply isn't that strong. A low OK

PILOT SEASON THEORY OF EVERYTHING #1: I'm starting to get sick of these, as a reader, because if I like it, there won't be any more; and if I hate it, I just wasted my time. Why do all of the work in building a premise and a world, that there won't be any follow up upon? This one is more in the latter camp, anyway. EH.

SPACEMAN #2: Super terrific work, all around -- Risso draws like a dream. VERY GOOD.

SUPER DINOSAUR #6: Ben loves this book, and I like it solidly, and I have nothing else meaningful to say! Strongly OK.

TINY TITANS #46: I know it's a kid's book, but I boggle when I see that this comics is effectively an inside joke based on this comic:

If you had a newborn the year this was released, that child would be twenty-eight today. Wow, long way to go for a joke! This comic also features the REAL identity of the "Mysterious Purple Lady" from the New52 comics, and, y'know what? I like this explanation Best of All! This is a slight slight comic, but I kinda liked it a lot -- a solid GOOD.

That's it for me for the week. What did YOU think?

-B

So yesterday I did a "kid's" comic, let's go 180 degrees the other way today, and talk about something that's fully for adults.

With like screwing, and everything.

More after the jump, but if you're a prude, you should probably stop reading here.

Erotic comics are a difficult thing, a lot of the time, because you have to rate them both on how well they tell their story (when, that is, they HAVE one), as well as how "hot" it is. That latter is SUPER subjective.

I think most erotic comics really (no pun intended) suck. Especially these days. There were a couple of years were stuff of pretty decent quality was coming out, that was human-driven (instead of purely fuck-driven), where the art was luscious, etc.

But these days, it seems like erotic comics are largely of the "Rebecca" school, or of the hardcore Japanese erotic (epitomized by A-G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY) where all women are stupid sluts who once you warm them up they'll happily be humiliated in any number of subhuman and degrading ways, because all they REALLY are is a cunt (and mouth and ass...)

While (I suppose) there can be a few moments of hot fucking within that framework, that doesn't do a whole lot for me. I've even seen increasing elements of this in artists whom I think are incredibly amazing craftsmen, like, say, Milo Manara.

There's very little erotic comics in my personal collection, in fact, I only have two things in there. One of them is Coleen Coover's SMALL FAVORS, the sweet and funny lesbian sex comic, and the other is my actual subject today: Bill Willingham's IRONWOOD.

I've been a Willingham fan for a long time -- heck, I bought my copy of VILLAINS AND VIGILANTES (to tie it back to the gamer-geek post from a few days ago) because of his art. V&V had a module ("Death Duel with the Destroyers") that leads into Willingham's ELEMENTALS series, and ELEMENTALS pretty much led into IRONWOOD... Yes, role-playing games lead directly to pornography.

What I love about IRONWOOD is that is has (*gasp*) an actual STORY, which, sure, is heavy on the fantasy tropes, (and kinda ends awkwardly) but actually moves forward and does stuff.

Plus there's fucking. Always a bonus.

It's funny, it's pretty hot, it has a plot, and my memory of it is that it also has a diversity of sizes and shapes and things going into other things.

And can I tell you, the boy can draw. I wish he'd draw more these days.

So, yeah, that's my pick today: IRONWOOD, the only Sword-and-Sorcery Porno Comedy.

-B